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chelseeebe · 10 months ago

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still into you

after abruptly leaving hawkins (and you) seven years ago, eddie munson, ex-boyfriend turned rockstar, makes a grand return. how will things pan out when your lives couldn’t be further apart?

this has been in the drafts for god knows how long and you can definitely tell where my writing started to improve as i came back to it.. hope y’all enjoy anyway! this is so long good lord. also includes a bit of bestfriendism with stevie!

18+. mdni. smut. mentions of alcohol. eddie is a dickhead. no use of y/n!

read part two here.

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‘you know he’s coming back next weekend?’ steve mutters, nodding towards you as you rip the sellotape from the brown box, beginning to stack the cans of soup.

‘is he? oh my god oh my god,’ feigning excitement with a straight face.

you’d already known he was coming back, you’d received the invitation just like everybody else. except, you’d swiftly put the gimmicky piece of paper into the trash and got on with your day. confused why everyone else seemed to be losing their goddamn minds over it.

he huffs quietly, helping you with the heavy tins, ‘are you gonna go?’ steve didn’t actually work in melvalds but came in on his breaks purely to chat and distract you from your work.

‘am i gonna go? hmm, let me think.. no.’

‘he wants to see you.. you should come,’ prodding his elbow into your side, collapsing the box into a flat piece of cardboard.

‘you spoke to him?’ ears perking up. you didn’t care if he’d mentioned you. no, really.

‘yeah.. he called a few weeks ago, y’know when the invitations got sent out,’ picking up the next box to start filling the shelf.

‘oh! it’s nice to know he called you and just hilarious to know i never got a phone call,’ getting frankly quite sick of hearing about eddie fucking munson and his grand return.

once upon a time, eddie had actually been your boyfriend. must’ve been 7 or so years ago by this point.. anyway, that was before he’d got his big break and decided that he was going to completely forget about hawkins.. and about you. you’d still been together after his first tiny tour, excitedly waiting for him to come home when he just.. never did.

he’d had the decency to at least call and tell you that he was breaking up with you.. we’re just in different places right now.. it’s not you.. i don’t want you to ruin your life waiting for me..

it was essentially a whole bunch of bullshit, because the very next month he was spotted with some bottle blonde model looking suspiciously close at some club he’d have absolutely hated the year prior. it was like a punch to the gut, flicking through the pages of the trashy magazine just knowing that you hadn’t been enough for this new lifestyle of his.

from then on, you’d decided to disengage with any and everything about him. turning the tv off when corroded coffin came on one of the morning talk shows, leaving the room at parties when one of his song’s inevitably came on and just completely blanking out of the conversation when his name was brought up. it was easier that way, saved your feelings and the awkward glances you’d get.

at some point things had become slightly more complicated and you’re not sure how exactly it had happened but you had wound up pregnant. and by jason carver no less. maybe it was your shared disdain for eddie that had brought you together. who knows?

but it had happened and now you had to deal with it. and although jason may come in a close second to world’s biggest assholes.. you had gained a beautiful daughter from it all and had become quite content with your single mom life.

people had come and gone, robin jetting off to some fancy college in california.. jonathan and nancy ending up in new york at some hot-shot newspaper.. the kids you’d sort of gathered had all gone off to various colleges, becoming adults themselves. all except for steve.

steve had stayed in hawkins like you, begrudgingly following his father’s footsteps, getting a job at his accounting firm. it was good money and kept his dad happy so he couldn’t fault it really. he’d even got his own place just down the street from your house and at some point you’d just accepted that he was probably your only friend in hawkins.

it had brought the two of you undeniably closer and maybe you’d even call him your best friend now. well, except for right now as he was beginning to piss you off with all this fussing over eddie.

‘you have to come.. it’s not just for him, everyone is going.. it’s a reunion,’ steve continues to pester you despite your efforts to shut him down.

‘steve, i’m not going and that’s that.’

he sighs, staring at you with a blank expression, ‘okay, well.. i’ll tell him it’s a maybe,’ checking his watch before frowning, ‘shit, i’m late.. i’ll see you later,’ throwing the empty cardboard to the floor before dashing off down the aisle, giving you an exaggerated wave as he disappears.

you just knew that he was not going to drop this until you agreed to go. but he could kick and scream as much as he liked, you had absolutely zero desire to go this flimsy reunion and even less desire to see eddie in the flesh.

it’s another dull week of stacking shelves and managing a team of absolute morons and before you know it, it’s the day before that fucking reunion and steve is still as incessant as ever that you must go.

‘my mom can look after ella.. please just come,’ he sounded like he was a second away from getting on his knees to actually beg you to go.

you’d started to just ignore him now, getting on with whatever you were doing, choosing to give him the silent treatment. he hated that.

‘you’re so annoying,’ he scoffs, still helping you unbox the bags of chips, ‘will you just come for five minutes.. you don’t even have to talk to eddie, it’s the first time we’ll all be together again.. puh-leaseee,’ breaking into a weird sort of sing-song tone.

you exhale through your nose, visibly frustrated by the man, ‘i’m going to ban you in a minute,’ raising your eyebrows, taking the same tone you used when ella was being a brat.

‘no you won’t,’ furrowing his brows, ‘what if i promise to stand in between you the whole night? i’ll beat him with a stick if he even tries to talk to you,’ completely serious with what he just said.

you chortle, covering your mouth as one of the elderly customers walks past, slightly bewildered by the noise that just escaped your mouth, ‘couldn’t you just beat him with a stick anyway?’

‘ehh.. not really, he is paying for the whole thing,’ straightening the bags of air he’d just placed on the shelf, ‘i mean, i could if you really want me to.’

you roll your eyes, of course he was. he’d rented the fanciest restaurant just outside of town for your gaggle of pals. any chance to flaunt the fact that he’d made it out of this hell hole and left the rest of you in the dirt.

‘i have a child, steve, i can’t just go out and leave her at home.. some of us aren’t free like you are,’ turning to face him with a stern hand on your hip.

‘i just told you my mom’ll look after her.. she hasn’t seen her in so long and.. and you can stay at mine and i’ll take you to her first thing in the morning,’ his eyes are round, glimmering in the harsh overhead lights.

‘i don’t have anything to wear,’ shrugging, you really didn’t. becoming a mother isn’t quite so glamorous and a lot of clothes you’d once fit into had become a little tight.

‘when d’you finish?’

narrowing your eyes at him, ‘two..’

‘great.. okay well, i’ll take a half-day and we can go shopping.. on me,’ wiggling his eyebrows at you. the thing about steve is that he believes that most problems can be solved by throwing money at it.

he wasn’t wrong, of course.

because you reluctantly agree to go shopping with him on the condition that you weren’t definitely going to this thing. you were just going to try on dresses. that was it.

you get a cab to the restaurant, there was no way in hell you were doing this sober nor did you want to subject steve to being sober for your sake. palms clammy as you clamber out of the vehicle, immediately regretting your decision.

no one would care if you didn’t go, right? you could quite easily just get back into the taxi and go home without forcing yourself to endure the night.

steve’s one step ahead of you, grabbing your hand so you can’t run away. throwing him an awful glare but you weren’t really mad, just annoyed that he’d succeeded in persuading you to come.

‘c’mon.. it won’t be so bad once you’re in there,’ smoothing down his fresh shirt as he begins to walk up the winding path, dragging you along behind him.

he’s wrong. it’s so much worse inside. the place was huge, extravagantly decorated and full of people you’d once regarded as your best friends, all too busy in their own conversations to notice you and steve walk in.

it wasn’t like you hadn’t heard from them, it had just been through occasional letters and christmas cards rather than seeing them face to face. robin would call sometimes, fill you in on whatever she had been up to and beg to speak to ella who absolutely loved it. you were sure they were on the same wavelength.

you look to steve with wary eyes, digging your fingertips into his hand, ‘we could just leave right now.. no one would even know,’ tugging gently on his arm.

‘hey,’ he whispers, ‘it’s okay.. look, robin’s coming over, we’ll say hi and see how you feel,’ using his spare hand to wave at the bubbly girl, dropping your hand to give her a hug.

‘oh my god,’ she rushes, ‘how are you? you look so good.. and i don’t mean you,’ pulling away from steve to throw her arms around you, her gentle hands rubbing on your back.

‘hah, it’s nice to see you too,’ steve rolls his eyes, grabbing two of the champagne flutes being ferried around by fancy waiters.

she pulls back, ‘i didn’t think you were coming.. how are you doing? how’s ella?’ the words falling out of her mouth at super speed, it was as if her mouth moved before her brain did.

‘i wasn’t gonna but i wanted to see you guys,’ you nod, taking the glass from steve’s outstretched hand and taking a lengthy sip, ‘i’m okay.. ella’s okay.. you’ll have to come and see her before you leave.’

‘i will i will! i literally landed like two hours ago and had to rush but i’m back until friday,’ her hands flying around as she spoke, ‘come and say hello..’ her arm intertwines with yours as she leans in closer to your ear, ‘he’s staring y’know..’

your eyes roll back on their own, not even wanting to search the room for him, ‘i’m not speaking to him so he can stare all he likes,’ straightening up as you approach the group robin had left.

nancy’s talking to max about something in incredible detail but is quite to stop when you approach, mouth in a small ‘o’ as she hugs you, ‘you came? i thought we were gonna miss you,’ grinning wide when she pulls back.

you give an overdramatic sigh, ‘of course i had to come.. you’d all miss me too much,’ waving to the rest of the group.

there are a lot of small pleasantries swapped, asking about their journey’s here and how they’d been.. standard small talk. but then el asks to see a picture of ella, ecstatic that their names were so similar. you’d come prepared, pulling the creased picture out of your bag.

they all gush and coo over her, it was a picture you’d snapped from her first day of kindergarten, cheesing with her pigtails and pink hair bobbles. passing it around the gathered group, still steadily sipping on the bitter champagne.

‘who’s that?’ eddie asks, you hadn’t noticed him sidle over to the crowd, stood peering over lucas’ shoulder at the photograph.

your eyes meet his, seeing his face for the first time in what felt like centuries. he looked older, obviously, still sporting the same long curls except now it actually looked as if it’d been styled. he’s in a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up, forearms now littered with tattoos and a nice looking watch. your heart just about stops beating when you realise you’ll now have to explain exactly who that is.

‘uh.. that’s ella,’ you nod, not quite meeting his eyes, ‘..my daughter,’ taking the photo from lucas’ hand, the atmosphere had quite suddenly shifted and people begin to scatter, starting their own conversations so they don’t have to bare witness to this one.

‘oh.. oh, right.. well, congratulations then,’ the shadow of a smile on his lips, could he feel how fucking awkward this was?

‘thank you,’ giving him a half nod, startled as steve’s hand brushes the small of your back. he’d seen that you were in conversation and had left dustin to fulfil his security guard promise.

‘it’s nice that you two found each other.. you have a beautiful daughter,’ still not fully committed to smiling but he was getting there.

your face contorts, immediately looking to steve before letting out a god awful cackle, ‘oh no.. she’s not steve’s,’ covering your mouth before another taunting laugh comes out.

steve is trying to stifle his grin but fails, reaching his hand out to shake eddie’s hand, ‘ah man, no ella’s not mine but she is beautiful, isn’t she? how are you?’

you’re eternally grateful that he he’s managed to sway the conversation and you aren’t forced to explain why or how you’d had a child with jason fucking carver. turning back to robin as you hear steve ramble on about work and corroded coffin’s new album, something you had absolutely no care about.

‘shall we get another drink?’ robin asks, eyeing the open bar and your empty glass.

‘please.’

the rest of the night is going.. relatively well. it’s kinda unsettling to watch the younger kids drink legally, getting more boisterous and loud as the night progresses. it’s nice, if not a little sad just thinking about how you weren’t really able to enjoy yourself at their age because you had a newborn.

you must’ve been deep in thought as you don’t even notice eddie creep up to the empty table, standing awkwardly besides your chair, ‘can we talk?’

your eyes shoot up to meet his, baffled by his presence, ‘what could we possibly have to talk about?’

he exhales through his nose, ‘uh.. a lot? we don’t have to do it here.. i have a room upstairs or.. outside?’

‘no,’ gripping onto your glass of wine, desperately trying to grab the attention of someone behind eddie to come and save you, ‘i don’t want to speak to you.’

he’s exasperated, clutching onto his beer with strained white knuckles. how were you ever supposed to move past this when you wouldn’t even give him the opportunity to explain himself. but that was exactly it. you didn’t care about any of the silly excuses you’re sure he’d conjured up, he did what he did and that was that.

‘i’m trying here..’ sounding exasperated, ‘how ‘bout dinner? sometime this week, on me,’ his voice is deeper now, raspier. you figure as a result of constant partying and chain smoking while on tour.

‘i have a child and a job.. i don’t have time for dinner with you on top of that,’ swallowing the rest of the sweet white wine, putting the empty glass back on the table with a forceful slam.

you make brief eye contact with will who was passing behind eddie and decide to take the opportunity to pounce, standing from your chair and rushing over the second he nears your table.

‘will.. hey,’ speeding to catch him up, mouthing a small save me, clinging to his arm as you move away from eddie who was stood deflated at the table.

will thankfully catches your drift, steering you towards the bar, ‘you okay? i was just about to leave..’ placing his empty glass onto the bar with a soft sigh.

‘what? no.. if i can’t go then you’re not allowed either,’ talking sternly to the boy even though he now towered above you and just about everybody else in here.

he screws up his face, looking over to the dance floor, ‘it’s just..’ sighing once again, ‘awful, isn’t it?’ following his gaze to an intoxicated mike performing an elaborate air guitar routine in the middle of the floor.

it wasn’t exactly the same, but you could empathise with the difficult situation and that foul feeling in your stomach that you were sure he could feel too. you could imagine that it wasn’t easy to see the man you’d once, or perhaps still loved after so long. in fact, you didn’t really need to imagine at all.

deciding it was better to change the subject, distract him from the unraveling scene on the dance floor, ‘d’you smoke?’

he looks around quickly, watching out for a listening jonathan, you assume before he nods quickly, ‘but no one can know,’ a hint of a smile creeping onto his face.

you return the devilish grin before hooking your arm in his, pulling him towards the door where you could get the hell away from annoying men and their long black hair.

it’s gone three by the time you get back to steve’s, genuinely having to coax him from the party and into the cab you’d shared with a belligerent dustin, making sure he had got home safely.

‘i wasn’t too mean, was i?’ snuggled up in steve’s blankets, facing each other in the low light of his room.

‘nooo, no you were on fire,’ he laughs, he was still tipsy and slightly reeking of booze as he lay next to you.

‘really? you’re sure?’ he was definitely just drunk and blabbing on but you’d take it.

‘yes.. it was perfect,’ he hiccups, interrupting his sentence, ‘buuut.. and i’m not the only one who said this so don’t kill me..’ kissing the back of his teeth, ‘you’re not gonna like what i have to say.’

‘what? what is it?’ prodding his shoulder with a quick jab. knowing eddie, he’d probably gone round the party whispering some bullshit about the two of you.

‘well..’ holding his hands in the air, ‘there’s still chemistry there.. y’know i could see it,’ raising his eyebrows, hands collapsing onto the blanket.

‘right, i’m going to sleep.. you’re drunk and just saying stupid shit now,’ rolling your eyes as you settle into the soft pillow, closing your eyes so you no longer had to entertain his idiotic nonsense.

he chortles, hiccuping mid-laugh which makes a horrid choking noise, ‘i’m not that drunk.. robin said it too,’ the lamp clicks off, darkening the room, ‘and dustin..’

‘go to sleep steve,’ unamused and tired.

‘okay okay.. goodnight,’ he calls, you can hear the smile in his voice as he turns to face the other way, taking that as your opportunity to rest your head on his back, nuzzling into the soft cotton t-shirt.

monday is particularly awful and you’re reminded exactly why you don’t drink often. two days on and you’re still exhausted, half-heartedly filling the shelves and just trying to make it to two o’clock.

in your tired state, one of the bottles of shampoo you were putting out, falls out of your hand and rolls off somewhere down the aisle. you sigh, a deep, fed-up, exhaustive sigh and get up to go and fetch it when the bottle appears before your face, a tattooed, ring-filled hand latched onto it.

‘carver? really?’ eddie frowns, watching you from above, eyebrows furrowed together.

you place the bottle onto it’s rightful spot on the shelf and choose to ignore him. if he’d come all the way down here just to piss you off about your poor life choices then he could get fucked.

‘when’d that happen?’

blanking him again as you continue to put stuff onto the shelves. this was the easiest way to guarantee that you weren’t going to get yourself fired for being rude to him.

‘you gonna ignore me? i just wanna know,’ still poking and prodding, he clearly wasn’t very good at picking up on context clues.

nothing.

‘fuck, can you just talk to me for five minutes?’ your silence was driving him crazy, aggravating him to no end.

‘i’m at work, so no,’ hurriedly trying to finish the stock you had so you had an excuse to rush out the back and away from him.

he was fortunate that it was a quiet monday, the store full of mostly older ladies who had no idea who he was. you sorta hoped that he’d get mobbed and would have to hurry off and leave you alone.

‘why jason? out of literally everyone else in this shithole you choose jason?’ screwing his face up in disgust.

you slam the box cutter down with a loud clatter, causing a few turned heads and raised eyebrows. fuck ‘em. if you had done what you’d really wanted to do, you’d be locked up forever.

‘i don’t know if you remember this but my boyfriend of like, two years ran away and never came home so yeah.. that kinda fucked with me a little and lucky for me, jason carver was there and also hated my ex’s guts.. so it was perfect, you know?’ staring flatly at him, you were not dealing with his shit today.

eddie scoffs, ‘so you had a kid with him? and now.. what? you play happy families just to spite me? is that it?’

‘yes eddie, i had a whole child just to piss you off.’

he gawps back at you, clearly also did not possess the ability to sense sarcasm.

‘no,’ scowling at him, ‘it was an accident and now he’s.. i dunno, coaching basketball at some school in ohio or some shit.. why don’t you go and bother him?’

‘so you’re not together?’

you can only roll your eyes in response, in sheer disbelief that he’d made such a fuss because he couldn’t just outright ask if you were single.

un-fucking-believable.

you’ve had just about enough of this conversation, pulling your little trolley back towards the swing doors that lead to the warehouse. at least he wasn’t allowed in there.

‘wait! wait..’ he grabs onto the other side of the trolley, stopping you from walking off, ‘have dinner with me tonight or.. tomorrow?’ eyes big and pleading.

‘now why would i do that?’

‘because i want to explain myself.. i need to.’

one of the younger shoppers notices who he is and begins trying to talk to him, coming over to where you two stood rather excitedly. eddie is kind enough to smile and give her a few polite words, eyes still latched onto yours despite the ecstatic woman beside him.

‘okay,’ honestly just wanting to get away from all this commotion, ‘tomorrow.’

his scowl subsides, replaced by a gleaming grin, ‘six o’clock.. pino’s, i’ll sort it, okay?’ already starting to walk away from the crazy woman.

‘right,’ you nod, pulling your trolley away and into the back warehouse, leaning against the concrete wall. the whole exchange was tiring, knocking whatever tiny bit of energy out of you.

were you actually gonna go?

absolutely fucking not.

by the time six rolls around the next night, you really had forgotten all about it. rushing to get ella her dinner after swimming lessons, already worrying about paying for yet another field trip she’d sprung on you earlier. you’d begun to wonder if they even taught in the classrooms anymore with the amount of permission slips she brought home.

she’s finally settled into bed, after much protesting and a lot of coaxing. you’re just about to finally relax on the couch when someone hammers on your front door. and if you weren’t already pissed off with ella’s whining, you were most definitely about to be with whichever mindless prick was banging on your door.

‘what do you want?’ you hiss, jerking the door open to reveal a pathetic looking eddie on the other side, face forlorn and dejected.

he’s in that white shirt again. it makes you sick to your stomach to admit that it really does look good on him. his arms now more defined, the cotton sticking to his muscles, briefly showcasing the new tattoos underneath. maybe he’d actually got off of his ass and did something other than smoke weed all day.

‘oh so you are alive, d’you forget about something?’ he’s snarling now, having conjured up some elaborate excuse in his head as to why you hadn’t showed, only to find you at home, seemingly with no care in the world.

‘oops,’ the corners of your mouth twitching into a smile, you hadn’t even actually meant to stand him up, you were just gonna call his hotel and cancel but the thought had just completely slipped your mind.

and even if it shouldn’t, it really did feel good. knowing he was the one sat waiting for you for once.

‘oops? i sat there for an hour waiting for you and then spent the last hour trying to convince dustin to give me your fucking address.. and all you can say is oops?’

you shrug, ‘feels pretty shitty to be forgotten about, doesn’t it?’ tilting your head, watching as his face falls. he’d been got.

‘okay.. okay, i get it, and i’m sorry.. there’s not a day that goes by that i don’t feel like shit for how i treated you,’ his head dips low, looking particularly sorry for himself.

and for a second you do too. not that he deserved it. quickly having to remind yourself exactly what he had done to you, which was not at all helped by the fact that he now had everything he’d ever wanted in life.

and you couldn’t fault your life. truly. but fuck did it sting sometimes, to know that your life had stagnated, stuck in the same shitty town you’d grown up in while he was on the other side of the country, more money than sense and a hoard of doting fans that would do absolutely anything he’d ask of them.

‘good,’ you bark, going to slam the door shut only for it to bang against his black boot wedged in the door, ‘if you don’t move your foot i’ll- i’ll call the police.’

‘no you won’t,’ his hand reaches out to grab onto the other side of the handle, he could’ve easily pushed his way in if he’d really wanted, ‘let’s talk.. like adults,’ begging you now, ‘please.’

you huff, this would end with you either letting him in or being forced to wake ella after you bashed his head into the doorframe. it was easier to just accept the first option and you’d find some bullshit to get him to leave later on.

opening the door wider to let him in, keeping your eyes square on the ground as he walks through, peering around at your home. probably comparing it to his mansion in the hollywood hills the pretentious fuck.

‘nice..’ he nods, leaning in to look at the photo of you and ella a few christmas’ ago, she was tiny then, sporting a miniature santa hat.

‘yeah well, she’s asleep upstairs so.. make it quick,’ you frown, closing the door behind him, watching as his eyes take in the cluttered room, smile fading when he catches sight of the singular picture you have up of jason and ella.

‘i can’t believe you chose to fuck jason of all people.. i mean, i’ve made some shitty decisions in my life but..’ he stops himself from going any further when he sees your face, if looks could kill, he’d be long gone by now.

‘did you come here for a reason? or are you here to talk about my life decisions.. because i really don’t want to hear it from you,’ crossing your arms over your chest, wanting him out of your house.

‘no.. no, shit- i’m sorry,’ he shuffles on his feet, banging his head, ‘i wanna talk.. properly.’

you roll your hand to motion for him to continue, ‘go on..’

he inhales, chewing on the inside of his cheek, trying to psyche himself up to actually say what he wanted to say. it wasn’t that he didn’t know what to say, he just couldn’t string it together to make sense.

‘i’m sorry for the way i treated you.. it wasn’t right and i know that now,’ his hand coming to rub the back of his clammy next, why was your house so fucking hot?

‘okay.. apology accepted, was that everything?’ you say flatly, glancing up the stairs to make sure ella wasn’t awake and out of her room.

his face falls, ‘can you just.. just let me explain,’ his adam apple bobbing as he swallows, ‘why don’t you sit down..’ motioning towards your ratty couch.

you relent your stern stature, hesitantly going to sit on the couch, trying to ensure that he couldn’t possibly sit next to you by sprawling your legs out onto the empty cushion. so he takes the seat furthest away, running his hands down his tight jeans. designer, no less.. the only person you knew stupid enough to spend thousands on designer jeans just to tear holes in them.

‘when i ended things with you, i wasn’t.. well, it was me, but i had my manager screaming in my ear that it’d never work and he could hook me up with some fuckin’ model.. it’d help the band.. so that’s what i did,’ and for once, he looked genuinely remorseful, fiddling with the loose threads on his expensive jeans.

‘so you sold out? that’s your excuse?’

his head shoots up, mouth hung open with absolute disgust all over his face, ‘i am not a sell out.’

which is incredibly refutable, you’d heard a snippet of one of their recent songs on the radio at work and it had sounded exactly like the commercial shit he used to rag on when you were together. not a touch on the corroded coffin you sat and watched practice for hours on end.

‘oh? so you didn’t break up with me to further your career? you just wanted to fuck hot models? which one is it ‘cause i’m a little confused here,’ completely losing it, springing up from your slouched position.

‘okay, yeah.. yeah i did, i broke up with you because i wanted to fuckin’ make something of my life.. and look at where i am and look at-,’

‘-don’t you dare finish that sentence,’ you snap, gritting your teeth together as you near his face, positively shaking with rage.

‘what’re you gonna do? you gonna hit me? do it,’ his chin tilted to match your elevated position, eyes glued to yours.

‘i should.’

his lips twitch into a smirk, ‘you won’t.’

and before your brain has the time to really process your next movements, he balls his fist into your t-shirt, causing your chest to collide into his as his lips smash into yours, knocking the air out of your lungs.

scrambling to find his shoulders for balance, sliding one hand onto his stubbly cheek. it’s all teeth and tongues, he’s ravenous and unrelenting, letting go of his grip on your shirt to place his hands on your hips, ‘move,’ mumbling against your lips as he attempts to manoeuvre you onto his lap while twisting around.

he slides down the couch, keeping a solid hold of your body as you find the right position. your legs are either side of his waist, sliding into the gap between his body and the couch sitting right on his crotch. wasting absolutely zero time in connecting your lips against, honestly not wanting to run the risk of him opening his mouth and ruining this.

his large hands find solace on your ass, creeping up to remove the oversized shirt you’d thrown on. you place your hand above his, restricting him from moving any further. it’s not that you were embarrassed- okay, maybe you were a little. but your body had changed since becoming a mom and eddie had become accustomed to gorgeous models and perfect women that he’d certainly not want to see your boring, frumpy mom body.

he groans in protest, trying again to lift the shirt further only for your fingernails to dig into his hand, ‘no,’ speaking into the filthy kiss.

eddie pulls away from the kiss, fingers coming to gently brush the hair from your face, ‘you can’t be serious? i’ve seen it all before,’ he grumbles, fingers itching to try lift it again.

‘not like this you haven’t.. i just.. want it on, okay?’

‘no- why won’t you let me take this off?’ fingers curling around the hem, already trying his luck with getting it up again.

you sigh, meeting his blown out eyes with your glossy ones, ‘i don’t even know what i’m doing.. fuck,’ attempting to climb off of his lap while the spare hand he has on your ass clamps you down, keeping you pressed to him.

‘hey.. hey, keep it on.. i don’t care,’ already trying to chase your lips, ‘i’m just saying, you don’t need to,’ the denim covering his growing erection starting to rub against your throbbing clit, the sparse material of your pajama shorts were not leaving much to the imagination.

‘jesus christ, just take it off,’ giving up in your protest, it was useless against eddie’s persistence.

you press your lips to his the second your shirt is off, there was no time to judge your body if he couldn’t see it. pulling at his jacket to get it off, the metal buttons digging into your now bare skin.

‘i didn’t.. i didn’t mean.. what i said..’ babbling through the kiss as he shimmies out of the jacket, landing on the floor with a soft thud.

‘shut up,’ you whine, running your hand along the length of his chest until you reach the hem of his black shirt, gripping your fingers around the fabric and lifting it slightly, exposing his midriff, the soft trail of hair ascending the skin.

his head jerks backwards, allowing you to tug the shirt off, finally allowing his eyes to wander to your chest. ‘holy shit,’ he remarks like he’d never seen a pair of tits before. it’s futile for him to pretend that he hadn’t seen some amazing boobs in his time so you scoff, rolling your eyes.

working your hand at his belt buckle, fiddling with the metal until it pops undone. he’s hard already and it makes you groan, brushing your hand over the raised denim. this week seriously must’ve been difficult if he was getting hard so easily over you.

it doesn’t ever occur to you how much of a mistake this was. and even if it did, you didn’t have much time to ponder on it as his hands are grabbing at your breasts, palming them as his lips suck at your jaw and down onto your neck softly. guaranteed to leave a lovely violet mark that the old ladies at work would certainly gasp at.

he’s helping you with his jeans, one hand gripping onto your waist to keep you steady as he lifts his hips from the couch and the other hurriedly yanking them down just enough to reveal his boxers. that’s the next port of call, fingers grabbing at the thin black cotton, pulling them down his thighs as his cock springs into action.

eddie’s lips are still on your neck while you mindlessly wrap your hand around his cock, pumping your fist as you shuffle upwards. his breath hitches in his throat, still peppering sloppy kisses to the sensitive skin.

‘oh god,’ he whines into your collarbone, feeling his eyelashes flutter against your jaw. for a man who had been painted as womaniser in the media, he sure was still just as pathetic as he used to be underneath you.

you’re a little annoyed that it’s you who’s taking control right now. after so many years of disrespect from his end, you think he at least owed it to you to take charge.

your hand grabs onto his shoulder, pulling his face from your neck, ‘be quiet, okay?’ sitting taller to position yourself comfortably, the harsh fabric of the couch grazing your knees.

he nods, sliding his hand up your waist and back to your hip, taking in the sight of you. you wouldn’t ever admit it aloud, but truthfully, you really did miss him sometimes. missed the way his pretty pink lips looked after being glued to yours or the way he gazed at you doing the most mundane tasks.

you cant your hips, sinking down onto his length slowly, biting down onto your bottom lip as his cock fills you to the hilt. his eyelids flicker, fingernails digging into your doughy hips. it’s been a little while since you’d done this so you have to take a second to become accustomed to the slight stretch. it’s good, in the most masochistic way.

your hands cling onto his shoulders, watching his slack jaw, tiny breaths escaping from his mouth as you attempt to move. painstakingly slow at first, knees beginning to shake as you try to remember what you should even be doing. your cheeks flushing, feeling so incredibly embarrassed. the man was fucking models and then you’re here, pitifully trying to ride him. it’s awful, you know it’s awful.

his arm comes to snake around your waist, taking matters into his own hands and flipping the two of you around, your back suddenly pressed into the couch. holy shit. you appreciate the initiative, wrapping your legs around his waist, readjusting your grip on his shoulders.

‘need you a little faster than that darling,’ large hands digging into the couch either side of your head. you’d feel utterly mortified if you weren’t thoroughly enjoying the sight of him looming over you, his hair falling beautifully into your face.

eddie starts slow at first, moving his hips slowly, obviously well versed. your mouth opens but no noise escapes, well aware that you weren’t the only ones in your house. instead you pant softly, desperate for his lips to grace yours again.

it’s not long before he’s quickening his pace, unable to contain himself when you feel so perfect around him. ‘i missed you- fuck, i’ve missed you so much,’ he groans, keeping his voice low despite wanting to start screaming.

you don’t reply, too fucked-out to even think about words. eyes drooping as his cock nudges against the soft spongy spot no one other than him had been able to reach.

the couch creaks beneath you, the old thing unable to keep up with his rutting hips, the top of your head knocking into the arm rest every time his hips collided with yours. your living room had never bore witness to such filth and as quiet as you were trying to be, the sounds are indistinguishable.

having to bite down onto your lip when his thumb meets your clit, legs tightening around his waist with every soft circle he draws around the sensitive bud. eddie was never bad in bed but holy shit, maybe money had done something right for him.

he sits up, soft sighs falling out of his lips as his hand disconnects from your clit, sliding toward your knee and positioning your leg onto his shoulder. your nails press into his forearm, willing yourself to stay quiet even now he’s seemingly trying to kill you.

and through it all, he’s smirking. relishing the way you’re writhing around, trying not to cum when he nudges against that sweet, spongy spot this position allowed.

his thumb finds your clit again, ‘holy shit sweetheart.. you gonna cum?’ grunting softly with every thrust.

you’re positively wrecked beneath him, face pressed into the couch cushion as your stomach flips. panting into the fabric, incoherent ramblings of eddie’s name and a bunch of curse words fill the room.

‘cum for me baby.. shit,’ struggling to keep his own pace as you tighten around him, leg trembling around his neck as your orgasm takes over. pleasure overtaking your limbs as your hips buck instinctively, thankfully muffled by the couch.

‘oh my god,’ you breathe, struggling to see straight when your eyes eventually reopen, gazing up at eddie above, certain he’s about to draw blood from his teeth digging in to his lip.

‘where.. where shall i- shit,’ he squeezes out, feeling his hips begin to stutter, eyes rolling to the back of his head. he’s just about quick enough to pull out, thick ropes of cum paint your thighs. narrowly avoiding the couch.

if you had the energy to get annoyed, you would’ve snapped, but in all honesty, your brain was still reeling and anger was the last thing you felt.

eddie reaches over, ever the gentleman and grabs his shirt to clean his mess. didn’t matter to him obviously, he had more than enough money to buy another.

and there it is. the bitterness filling your body again the second he’s no longer on top of you, or inside of you rather. you attempt to bite it down.

‘you wanna talk now?’ he asks, pulling his boxers back up to a more respectable position.

‘i’m tired eddie,’ and you are, on a school night like tonight you’d have been fast asleep by now.

he sighs, shoulders slumping over. even after you’d just had the most mind-altering sex, you couldn’t speak to him. ‘please,’ pleading with you almost, desperate for one more chance.

maybe it’s the exhaustion or maybe the dopamine still pumping through your brain but you concede, pulling your shirt back over your head before motioning for him to speak.

‘i don’t have any excuses, i’m just-,’ he sighs, turning on the couch to face you fully, ‘i’m sorry for hurting you, i was wrong and i know that,’ his eyes are dipped, peering at you from underneath his spindly lashes, ‘why d’you think i’ve avoided this place for so long?’

‘i don’t know? because you’re a pussy? because you’re too scared to face me?’ letting the words rattle off your tongue without much thought.

‘because i’m embarrassed,’ he corrects, without much offence, ‘because i’m ashamed and feel like i owe you more than some dick and a shitty apology.. i just didn’t know how i could ever make it up to you,’ half-moon eyes glossy in the low light.

your heart thumps in your chest, blood echoing through your ears. eddie munson, world renowned rockstar was sat on your couch, apologising for something you should’ve forgotten about a long time ago.

the years of hatred and avoidance come tumbling down in a millisecond. all you’d ever wanted was to hear him say sorry. to admit that he’d fucked you over for a life of fame and now you had it, you weren’t exactly sure what to even do with it.

‘okay.. now what? are you gonna make it up to me? because i want to believe you eddie, i do.. but you can’t just traipse in here and expect me to forgive you like that,’ the tears roll over, sliding down your warm cheeks.

he nods, grabbing onto your hands in a last ditch gesture to show his sincerity, ‘i’m going to.. i-i want to,’ he’s still nodding, bringing his face closer to yours, ‘tell me how, i’ll do anything,’ adam’s apple bobbing with every word.

‘stay here,’ your eyes are trained on him, ignoring the blurred vision, ‘not forever, just for now,’ lips pursed, ready to be broken once more.

you half-expect him to come out with some sorry excuse, tell you he had to get back to his hotel so he couldn’t possible stay here.

but he doesn’t.

eddie takes your hand, tugging it gently and with words you don’t register, babbles something about bed. so you follow him, allowing him to guide you to your room and slide in between the sheets next to you.

everything is so gentle, soft and pure. something you hadn’t felt in a long time.

‘hey.. sweetheart,’ eddie’s hand gently shakes your arm, whispering into your ear, ‘you awake?’

you squint in the dim light, feeling his hand descend onto your waist, chest pressed against your back, ‘i am now,’ you grumble, it was early.. early even by ella’s standards.

‘i gotta go.. you got work today?’ he asks, making no effort to actually get up and leave your bed though.

you nod into the pillow, rubbing your sleep heavy eyes. in your sleep hazed state, you shuffle, moving backwards against him.

‘okay.. shit- don’t do that,’ strained as you shift against him, unknowingly brushing against his cock, ‘i’ll be back.. after you..’ he’s losing it a little now, ‘after you finish..’ lips pressed to your ear.

you were moving deliberately now, just ever-so-slightly rocking your hips back and forth, you could feel him growing against your ass.

‘i can’t..’ he groans, grip tightening on your hip,

‘please,’ you breathe, reaching backwards to find his mop of curls, taking a fistful for leverage as his own hip’s thrust into your backside, his low growls only spurring you on.

you had been on your own for so long now, could he really blame you?

eddie doesn’t leave for another hour, creeping out of your house with his head low and a shit eating grin plastered on his face.

the key turns in your door as you’re loading the dishwasher. you’d given steve a spare for emergencies but it seemed to get used for anything but.

he slinks into the kitchen where you stand with your back to him, ‘hey,’ already knowing who it was.

‘well hello,’ announcing his presence, something about his tone of voice already seemed off, he sounded short, annoyed almost, ‘how have you been?’

‘i’m good..’ you spin to face him, puzzled by his strange demeanour, ‘how are you?’

he’s holding onto something behind his back but you can’t quite catch a glimpse, ‘actually.. i’m a little pissed off,’ you can tell he’s not completely serious by the hint of a smile on his face.

‘hmm? why’s that?’

he looks around the room expectedly, ‘oh i don’t know.. you don’t have anything to tell me, do you?’ shaking his head, still gripping onto this mystery object.

‘no..’ narrowing your eyes, determining whether he knew what you thought he knew.

he did, he one hundred percent did. holy fuck. he’d figured you out already. eddie had opened his big, stupid mouth and told dustin, who would’ve told steve and god knows who else. fucking moron.

‘no? soo..’ his pulls the magazine from behind his back, flipping it to the page he’d already saved, ‘this isn’t real then?’ shoving the glossy pages into your face, ‘because to me.. this looks an awful lot like eddie.. at this very house,’ he jabs his finger at the pixelated image, ‘and this little blob here.. that’s you, no?’

you’re utterly gobsmacked. mouth hung open in pure shock. because that most definitely was eddie.. and your house.. and you. you hadn’t seen anyone with a camera, hell, you hadn’t seen anyone on the street at all.

‘and correct me if i’m wrong, but is this not our friend eddie leaving your house the next morning?’ showing the next image of him leaving your house the day after, hair unruly and messed up, holding his denim jacket in his arms as he climbs into his car.

your mouth moves but no words come out, croaking as you struggle to meet steve’s eyes. completely speechless, there was no feasible excuse. you had been caught with your pants down. literally.

‘i can explain,’ waving your hands around while steve stands smug against the kitchen counter. ‘..no i can’t,’ shoulders slumped as you blink at your best friend, no you really couldn’t. suppose you could’ve come up with some lie about a look-a-like you’d been seeing but that would’ve made you look particularly strange.

‘were you ever gonna tell me?’ he’s almost hurt that you hadn’t ran to him to tell him immediately. this was true best friend gossip and you’d kept him from it.

‘i was! steve.. i don’t even know what happened- he came over to apologise and then we were arguing and then.. then we had sex and it’s not my fault..’ you’re trying, and failing, to contain your smile, flashing your cheeky grin to your best friend in the hopes he would let this slide.

‘i can’t believe you didn’t tell me!’ jutting his bottom lip out, ‘so, you’re getting back together?’ his eyes sceptical yet sparkling with a sense of hope. you’re grateful that all he seems to care about is the fact you lied. or actually, withheld the truth as you preferred it.

‘no.. well.. no, we had dinner together yesterday and he might’ve stayed over but no..’ shaking your head, ‘he’s leaving again soon and we both know what happened last time..’ you shrug, leaning back against the counter, ‘i guess i don’t hate him now, that’s good isn’t it?’

steve looks perplexed, ‘wait wait wait.. so you’re just.. screwing around? and then he leaves again, that’s it? what’s the point?’ taking a seat at the small kitchen table, fully engrossed in the conversation.

‘i dunno.. i guess that’s it?’ you hadn’t really thought about the fact that he’d be leaving again, in fact, you hadn’t really had time to think much at all about what was happening.

you’d just sort of acknowledged that at some point he’d go back to california and you’d stay here and whatever was happening would.. end? it wasn’t as if you were going to be super upset about it like you once were. lots of people fuck their ex’s.. this was fine.

because that’s what this is, right?

just sex with an ex?

‘that’s it?’ steve reiterates, looking completely flabbergasted that the woman who once left the room whenever eddie munson’s name was mentioned was now being so casual about this.

‘yeah,’ you shrug, not wanting to make a massive deal out of it though you could always rely on steve to be over dramatic on your behalf.

‘no,’ he straightens up in the chair, ‘all of this can’t be for nothing,’ sounding utterly exasperated, ‘you two obviously belong together so why don’t you go for it? i could see you living it up out in la.. big house, big car-,’

you cut him off before he can divulge into his delusions any further, ‘i think you’re getting ahead of yourself steve,’ shaking your head at his ludicrous attitude.

you’d be lying if you said you hadn’t thought about it once or twice but it seemed silly to start imagining this crazy life together after all these years. he’d barely just made it into your good graces again, you were hardly going to run off to california with him. it was utter delusion.

‘okay okay..’ he scoffs, ‘but i still think you need to talk to him. i don’t want you getting hurt again, okay? just make sure that you’re both on the same page,’ nodding as he stands from his seat and begins to rummage through your cupboards for something to eat.

he was probably right and you knew it deep down. you weren’t keen on being the one to bring the conversation up, not after that first night. after you had sobbed in his arms in bed, letting him soothe you to sleep with a bunch of probable empty promises.

when eddie lets himself into your house a few hours later, steve’s eyebrows fly up his forehead but he doesn’t say a word. instead, he nods at the man, keeping his opinions to himself.

the pair of you resemble an old married couple, except you’re the grumpy old man with your wife cuddled into your side. your wife being steve that is.

‘oh.. is this uh, something that happens often?’ eddie asks, settling into the empty chair across from you. slightly miffed that steve was nestled into your side.

‘yup,’ you nod, smiling at him your chin resting on steve’s head. he hadn’t a reason to be jealous, you’d really rather poke your eyeballs out with a fork than do anything remotely sexual with steve.

‘right.. yeah okay,’ eddie says, looking perplexed but sitting back in the chair. if he was going to stick around then this would have to be something that he got used to. because you sure as hell weren’t going to stop being so close with steve for the guy that broke your heart at eighteen.

‘you want a drink?’ you ask, realising that you should probably be a good host even if it was only eddie.

‘yeah sure.’

you untangle yourself from steve and trundle off into the kitchen. steve takes this as the perfect opportunity to grill eddie on his intentions, sitting up straight and making sure that you were really gone before beginning his interrogation.

‘so.. you two?’

eddie shrugs, not wanting to get into it with steve after such a long day.

steve sighs, leaning toward eddie, ‘i’m gonna say this once.. but if you hurt her again, i will kill you,’ staring the other man down. contempt in his eyes. he was dead serious too.

‘i’m not- i’m not gonna hurt her,’ eddie sits up, praying that you’d hurry back with this damn drink.

‘i mean it eddie,’ raising his eyebrows, ‘you didn’t see how she was after you left.. i’m not going through that again, i’m not letting her go through that again.’

‘steve-,’ eddie blinks, stopping himself as you re-enter the room. hoping that you hadn’t heard their conversation, he’d only just got you to stop hating him. he wasn’t prepared to go back to that like, ever.

‘what’re you talking about?’ placing the bottle of beer in front of eddie and collapsing back into your spot on the couch.

‘football,’ steve answers quickly, groaning as he pushes himself off of the sofa, ‘i’m gonna head home, got work in the morning but i’ll see you tomorrow,’ he smiles, winking at you from above.

‘okay,’ you utter, sounding more like a question than a statement, watching carefully as he gathers his things without so much as a glance at eddie. you can only imagine what was actually said but that was truly none of your business.

you’d just grill eddie later to make sure steve hasn’t been too much of an asshole.

‘byee,’ you call out behind him, already eyeing a sheepish eddie. this’d probably be it. you’d known it was coming at some point, you just weren’t sure of when.

if steve’s sudden departure was anything to go off, you were probably right.

the door clicks shut and you turn your attention to eddie who was still sat on the solemn chair. oh god. maybe you had got a little used to having him around again and now to know that it’d all be coming to an abrupt end once again.. yeah you felt a tad shit.

‘what’d you say?’ you ask outright, it made zero sense to beat around the bush.

‘me?’ he looks almost offended, ‘i didn’t say shit.. didn’t get the chance to,’ but he’s smiling ever so slightly and your heart relaxes.

christ you were so stupid. letting him back into your life just to let him walk away a second time. perhaps you’d done something horrific in a past life to deserve this same fate twice.

‘so what did he say?’ you press, unsure of if your even wanted the answer.

eddie sighs before coming to collapse on the couch next to you, ‘it wasn’t important.. look, i wanna be honest with you,’ his hand comes to grab yours and you freeze, bracing yourself for what was inevitably going to come next. ‘you mean a lot to me and.. and i don’t want you to think that i don’t care or that i’m just leaving you again,’ his eyes are focussed on yours, full of what you hope is sincerity.

you don’t reply, instead you nod slightly and urge him to continue. this was it. the kicker.

‘i’ve gotta go back to la next week,’ his grip tightens around your hand, ‘but i’m coming back as soon as i can, okay?’ he’s serious too and you’d like to believe him but if the past was anything to go by, you weren’t eager.

you nod silently. fuck this. once again, you were sat before eddie munson, listening to his plans to jet off to la. it felt like the cruelest case of deja-vu. if anything, you want to kick yourself for even allowing him to wiggle his way back into your heart. most people know better after the first time.

‘it’s three weeks.. maybe a month, but i’m coming back, i promise,’ he pleads, hanging his head low. he knows there’s absolutely nothing he could say to you that would make you believe him but he had to try.

you hum, frowning just a little before finally replying, ‘i’ve heard that before,’ not meaning to sound as snarky as you did, but it was true.

‘i’m serious, i’m not.. not gonna lose you again, i’ve learnt my lesson,’ his eyes are big and pleading and you’re thrown right back to being eighteen, listening to him convince you how going to la would be the best decision.

‘so.. what? you’re gonna come back to hawkins just to see me? i don’t-,’ you sigh, as much as you wanted to believe him, it just wasn’t plausible in your mind, ‘i just don’t understand, are we together or are you just coming back to fuck? you don’t have to, you know? i’ve made peace with it all and i’m fine.. you don’t have to lie to me anymore.’

if anyone was going to fuck this up, it would be you. that’s for certain.

‘what the fuck?’ he exclaims, genuinely flabbergasted, ‘this is me telling you that i’m serious about this.. about you,’ he takes your hand into his properly, scooting around to face you fully, ‘i love being here with you, and ella and there is nothing out in la worth more than this,’ you think he might just start crying, or you might. or perhaps both of you.

you sniff, not wanting to speak in fear of bursting into hysterics. it was all just so confusing and weird. you’d grown accustomed to eddie being on the other side of the country and now suddenly he was back in your life with what seemed like a a declaration of love. it was just too much to handle. and maybe you blame yourself a little, for not truly thinking about the implications of fucking your ex that had abandoned you years prior. but now it all just seemed to be hurtling in the most intense direction.

you were the one that had told him to stay after all. because really, you could’ve kicked him out, refused to ever even acknowledge him again. but you hadn’t.

‘are you telling me the truth?’ is all that you manage to squeak out. baring resemblance to a small child.

you really must’ve looked pathetic, eyes brimming with tears, bottom lip quivering as you hold in the implosion of emotions. it’s always scary being vulnerable with someone, let alone someone that once meant so much to you.

he still did. as much as you’re absolutely petrified to admit it, he’d weaselled his way back into your heart and now here you are, a mess of emotions and perplexing feelings that are too complicated to handle.

‘i promise you,’ he sighs, clearly fed up of your whining, ‘i’m coming back this time.’

and maybe you’re stupid. maybe you’re still hung up on some high school relationship that ended long ago but you can’t help it, you nod.

idiotically believing him because what else can you do after letting him into your home and your heart again.

#eddie munson #eddie munson smut #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson fanfic #eddie munson angst #eddie munson x y/n #eddie munson fluff #eddie munson stranger things #eddie munson x female reader

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vicsnook · 3 months ago

Text

Out of Oklahoma | Tyler Owens x Reader

word count: 3326

warnings: Tornadoes, Loss, Implied smut

notes: Hey y’all 🤠 I am back with some more content! When I tell y’all I was sat at that theater. Even my boyfriend was thirsting over Glen (specifically in the rain scene, iykyk). Anyways, hope y’all enjoy this one and please don’t forget to like and reblog 🫶🏼.

I crawl out of the hotel bed at 5, hitting the snooze button on the way to the bathroom. My reflection looks back at me less than thrilled for what’s to come today.

Apparently the world hates me because there is no coffee to brew when I check the kitchenette, so now my day’s gone from bad to worse. I check my phone and sure enough I have a million messages from my dumba-sweet brother Boone about how he can’t wait for me to meet his friends.

I'm not ready for that. But nevertheless I carry on and make my way to the airport to board a flight to take me home, to Oklahoma. It’s fine, I think to myself. It’s all going to be okay. But I know it’s a lie. Still I get on the plane and pretend I’m going somewhere tropical instead of the one place I swore I wouldn’t return to.

The wheels touch down roughly on the strip, startling me awake. Here goes nothing. The airport is packed but thankfully all I have is my carry on which holds what little I left to California with six months ago. So much for making a life for myself.

The old Ram is parked just outside the doors and I know I can’t put this off any longer. After what happened last year, I want to turn around and get the hell out of dodge but I can’t avoid him forever. Not when my family needs me, well what’s left of it. “Well, well, well, look at what the cat drug in.”

I sigh and look up, locking eyes with the one person I didn’t want to see ever again. Tyler Owens. My ex-fiancée.

“Tyler. Nice to see you didn’t get blown away by a Tornado,” I force out with the fakest smile I can muster. God knows I’d love to wipe that stupid smirk off his face, amongst other things, I shake my head dismissing the stupid thought.

“Y/N, good to see you haven’t lost your sense of humor. That all your luggage?” he asks, grabbing my carry on from me and placing it in the bed of the truck before I can even answer. “Yep,” I mumble, getting into the truck.

“So, where’s Boone?” I ask, trying to ease the tension.

Tyler glances over at me and I feel my stomach do a stupid flip. Stop it!

“He’s at your Nana’s house dealing with some of the insurance people. I’m really sorry about what happened, Y/N.” he says. “We tried to warn them.”

“I know,” I say. “It’s not your fault, Tyler. You didn’t know it would turn and hit them directly.” I start to reach for his arm to comfort him but pull it back, the gesture feeling inappropriate after all that happened between us.

He nods and continues to drive on. Him and Boone blame themselves but I know there’s nothing they could’ve done. I just wish they’d see it that way.

The ruins of the home we grew up in come into view and my heart shatters all over again. The anger bubbling in my stomach as I see all the tornado took from us. Why!? Why us!? I want to scream at the sky as I walk up to my brother who I can tell is barely holding it together.

“Hey Boonie,” I whisper, hugging his back. His breathing shakes as he turns and pulls me into a hug, nearly suffocating me. “I tried sissy, I really did but they’re gone.” he says, “I was too late.”

I hold him as he finally breaks down and I try whispering reassurances in his ear but I know he’s not listening. My eyes make contact with Tyler’s as he heads towards the rubble and begins to sort things out.

“It’s not your fault, Boonie.” I say, holding his face so he looks at me. “There’s nothing you could’ve done.”

He nods quietly, pulling me in for another hug as the guilt consumes me for having left him behind. I should’ve never gone to California.

I follow Tyler to the entrance of the dingy motel on the edge of town, still holding on to Boone’s hand. “Thank you for coming, Y/N.” Boone says, handing me the key to my room. “Always,” I respond. Squeezing his hand one last time as he turns to go to his room.

“Where’s the rest of your crew? I haven’t seen them.” I ask Tyler as we head up the stairs since our rooms are on the second floor. “They’re helping some people downtown that got hit too. They asked me to give you their condolences.” He answers, stopping in front of my door.

“Um, thanks and thank you for all you’ve been doing for Boone. I hate that I couldn’t get here sooner.” I say. “California wasn’t all I thought it’d be.”

“Tried to tell ya.”

“I know. I'm sorry, Tyler.”

He moves a step forward and drops his mouth beside my ear, the distance between us almost non-existent. “Nothing to be sorry about, darling.” He drawls, pulling back, then turning around and walking into his room, leaving me in the hallway.

This man will be the death of me.

The weeks go by slowly as we deal with the insurance but somewhere along the way we finally get Nana’s ashes back. Boone and I take them out to the river, spreading them at the one place she loved most.

“So how are things between Kate and Tyler?” I ask Boone as we head back to the motel from the pizza parlor.

My stomach clenches, waiting for his answer.

He looks at me and grins. “Why you want to know Sissy? Any interest in getting back in that saddle?”

“Ew! No! I was just curious, Boone.” I say, glaring at him while he laughs.

“They never really were anything serious. She ran off to New York City the second she got her research. Oklahoma held too many painful memories for her or something.”

I nod. Pulling into the motel parking lot that we now call home. That is until the money from the insurance comes through and we can get to rebuilding Nana’s place.

“There’s the man of the hour.” Says Boone pointing at Tyler who’s getting out of his truck. The white shirt clinging to his chiseled chest because of the rain.

He really does look good in a cowboy hat. I think, quickly shaking my head trying to erase the thought. “Close your mouth Sissy, you’re gonna get drool all over yourself.” Boone teases and I playfully smack him, tearing my eyes off Tyler.

“You know Sissy, I don’t get it.”

“Get what?” I ask, turning off the ignition.

“How y’all girls run away from that man. I mean I ain’t blind and I may be biased because he’s my best friend but his personality doesn’t suck either.” I sigh, knowing he’s not wrong.

“It’s complicated.” I finally say, and get out of the car. Heading for my room before Boone can add anything else.

“Where are we going?” I ask again for the millionth time. Letting Tyler and Boone blindfold me was starting to seem like a mistake the longer we were in the truck.

It also didn’t help that Tyler was playing the cd I burned for him back in high school.

“Almost there, Sissy.” Boone assures me, as the truck left the paved road and headed down a dirt road. Please Lord don’t let this be another one of Boone’s pranks.

Tyler helps me out the truck and leads me down a rocky path. My nerves increasing by the second and wondering where my brother had ran off to.

“Tada!” yells Boone, the bandana falling off my eyes as Tyler pulls off the knot.

“I know it ain't much Sissy but I couldn’t let you keep living in that Motel much longer.” Boone says, grabbing my hand and pulling me towards the tiny home that now sits behind where Nana’s new house will be. “So, you hate it?”

“No! Thank you so much!” I yell, pulling him into a hug. “You really didn’t have to do this Boonie.” Tears stream down my face as my brother squeezes me. Thank you God for such a good brother.

“I can’t take all the credit, it was Tyler’s idea after all.” Boone whispers to me. I nod, pulling away and wiping the tears off my cheeks.

Lord knows if things were different I’d be running to Tyler and giving him a big ol’ kiss right now. But they aren’t. I remind myself so I settled for just saying “Thank you, Ty.”

“Not a problem.” He says, turning to follow my brother to my now little home.

“Please work, come on!” I yell at the shower. My little home was nothing but perfect, well except for the water which always seemed to go out at the most inconvenient times.

I try calling Boone but I’m greeted by his voicemail which only leaves one other person to call. Sighing I pull up his contact and dial. Ignoring the contact picture that I never bothered to change.

“Hello?”

“Hey, um sorry to bother but I can’t reach Boone and my water went out again while I was washing my hair,” I say, already regretting calling him.

“I’ll be there in a minute.” He replies, hanging up before I can say anything else. I pull on a bathrobe and tidy up before he gets here. I wince when I see my hair in the mirror, suds still in it but oh well. Tyler’s seen me how the lord made me so I doubt a little bit of suds will make me ugly.

I’m pulled out of my thoughts by his knocking and I think as I open the door that maybe I should’ve thrown some clothes on. “Hey,” I say, stepping aside as he makes his way to the water heater closet to check there first.

The minutes pass and the silence is eating me alive. The temptation to say that I was wrong for ending things the way I did consumes me. So much so that I don’t realize he’s talking to me until he comes to stand in front of me.

“Earth to Y/N? It’s fixed. You shouldn’t have any more issues.”

“Thanks Ty. I don’t know what I’d have done without you.” I reply, his eyes meeting mine.

“Live your life without fear of me dying everyday because of what I do,” he says, it's clear to me then that the wound is still very much open.

He starts to head for the door but I’m quick to get up and grab his arm, stopping him dead in his tracks. “Ty, I’m sorry. I was wrong, okay? All I did was trade tornadoes for earthquakes. Happiness for misery. I was wrong and I shouldn’t have left the way I did.” I say, my eyes searching for his.

“You left me, Y/N. You packed your bags and left without saying a word, leaving all of us behind. So, no, sorry doesn’t cut it here. I’m sorry about your Nana but you made your mistakes. Live with them.” He replies, the anger in his eyes sending chills down my spine. I swallow the lump in my throat long enough for him to walk out and slam the door on his way out. What the fuck did I do and how can I even fix it?

** 6 months later **

Nana’s house is finished. It looks similar to the one the tornado tore from the ground but me and Boone know it couldn’t be more different.

We bring in what we could salvage slowly and try to make it look as closely as possible to the original one. Lastly, placing a picture of Nana, Boone, and I, that Lily recovered from the wreckage on the mantel.

“Close enough,” Boone whispers, sitting on the couches that Dani and Dexter got us.

“Yeah, I just wish she was still here.” I reply, sitting across from him. “You going chasing again today?”

“Yeah, but I promise we’re being safe sissy. We don’t do that driving into tornadoes and shooting off fireworks anymore after Nana,” He answers, sadness filling his features.

“Just be safe,” I mutter, taking a seat next to him and letting him pull me into a hug. “Always.”

“For what it’s worth, he’s not really mad at you. He’s mad at himself for not realizing sooner how far gone you were until it was too late.”

A sigh escapes me as he gets up, giving me a faint smile before walking out the door. Off to chase the very thing that took the last bit of family we had.

The rain came in buckets. All day it’d been so pretty but as soon as I stepped outside the grocery store, I saw how much the sky had changed. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up as lightning struck.

Rushing to my car, I threw the groceries in the back seat but before I could throw the car in reverse I heard it.

The tornado sirens.

I threw open the car door and started sprinting back into the grocery store but a cry for help stopped me before I could make it in. Lord please protect them. I prayed quickly.

Debris was already flying all around me when I turned to look for the source of the pleas and then I spotted her. A girl who looked no more than 15 was on the ground in the parking lot, her leg in a cast and her crutches nowhere to be seen. “Please help me!”

I ran towards her. My body going into overdrive as the wind threatened to push me over too. “Please don’t let me die,” she begged as I threw her arm around me and hurried back for the door.

The wind picked up even more and the rain turned into hail as I trekked through the lot trying to make it back inside. The short distance seemed infinite.

I felt it before I could even turn. It was there. The loud roar filled my ears as I pulled the girl in front of me and with the last of my strength I had, I pushed her to where the door was.

Then my feet left the ground as the tornado sucked me in and I felt the world go black.

“Bo-one?” I rasp, my throat on fire and my entire body feeling like it’d been run over. The events leading up to this moment slowly coming back to me as I struggle to open my eyes.

“Hey, he’s just outside talking to the doctor, let me get him,” replies Tyler softly. My eyes adjust to the harsh hospital lights as he steps out the door and taps Boone on the shoulder.

My head pounds as I take in my surroundings. Scratches cover up both my arms. If I looked into a mirror right now I’d probably collapse.

“Sissy! Thank God you’re okay!” Hollers Boone as he comes to my bedside, careful not to hurt me when pulling me to him. “I thought I lost you.”

His tears wetting my hospital gown as I hug him back as best I could. “I’m okay, Boonie.” I whisper in his ear as he sobs.

“Is the girl okay?” I ask, worry filling me up at the thought that she didn’t make it.

“Yes, she made it inside just in time, Sissy. You saved her life.” Boone says, taking my head in his hands and pressing our foreheads together like we did when we were kids.

I close my eyes, nodding and thanking God that we were all okay.

“I need to go sign some paperwork but if you’re feeling up to it, we can take you home today. You got lucky,” Boone tells me while getting up from my hospital bed.

“I’d love nothing more than my bed.” I reply, shooting him a smile as he steps out.

I turn to Tyler who’s been quietly standing in the corner this whole time and I notice his swollen eyes. My heart squeezing at the thought of having worried him and Boone.

“Hey,” I mutter, and his eyes finally meet mine.

“Guess Boone isn’t the only tornado chaser in the family huh,” he jokes, still standing in the corner.

“Guess not,” I reply, chuckling but my throat is so dry that it turns into a cough and he’s rushing to my bedside with a glass of water in hand.

“Thank you,” I manage to say as I chug the water. Instant relief filling my throat. “So, can you fill me in on what happened after I got sucked into the tornado?”

“Uh, well witness accounts are that you pushed the girl inside and then got sucked in. Me and Boone had been chasing the tornado and pulled into the lot as it dissipated.” He stops, taking a seat on the bed and grabbing my hand. “The people in the supermarket started pouring out and screaming that you got sucked in, of course at the time we didn’t know it’d been you. Nevertheless we all started searching and found you passed out on top of a tarp in the baseball field.”

“Oh wow, that’s quite the distance. Saved myself some gas for sure,” I joke, but he doesn’t laugh. “Y/N, you could’ve died. You got out with scratches and a story but you could’ve died,” he says, a somber look on his face.

“Hey, I’m okay. I didn’t die. Nana protected me,” I tell him, tipping his face so his eyes meet mine. “I got a second chance to start over and,” but he cuts me off.

“I love you,” he says, then his lips crash into mine. The kiss knocks the air out of my lungs but as he pulls away, I recover and pull him back to my lips.

When he finally draws back, his eyes are teary but there is no sadness in them anymore. “I’m sorry for walking out on you, if you had died, I don’t know how I could live with myself, knowing how I left things,” he says, his words piercing my heart.

“Hey,” I say softly, “I’m here and I’m okay. I know there’s a lot we need to talk about but I can promise you this, I’m not leaving Oklahoma. Ever.”

“Promise?”

“Promise,” I whisper, leaning in to meet his lips.

But before we can finish our moment with a kiss Boone is bursting through the door.

** One month later **

“Ty! Dinner’s ready!” I holler, and I hear the sound of the shower turning off. Making my way to the living room I stop and pick up my Nana’s picture, thank you for saving me. I think to myself and put it back down.

“Ty! Come on!” I yell, quietly sneaking up the stairs to our room. Glad that Boone’s off with Lily at the fair.

“Coming!” I hear him yell from the bathroom. The towel is wrapped around his waist and drops of water make their way down his abs. Man, I’d sure love to be that towel. I think to myself as I watch from the door crack but am greeted with a smirk when I make my way up to his face.

“Hey darlin’, coming to see the view?” he asks cheekily, turning to me. Busted.

“Well you’re the one who says “if you feel it, chase it,” and I sure am feeling a lot of things right now,” I reply, letting my eyes trail down his chest.

“Oh, yeah?” he replies, coming closer. “Well you better start running.”

I giggle and turn to run but don’t even make it out the room before he’s tackling me to the bed. Dinner is gonna be real cold when we’re done here.

#twisters #tyler owens #glen powell #tyler owens x reader

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boldlyvoid · 11 months ago

Text

Neighbourhood Beauty

Spencer Reid x Fem Reader

Summary: Penelope is hosting Christmas at her apartment this year, she invites everyone... Including her new neighbour, who is exactly Spencer's type.

Warnings: flirting, love at first sight, kissing, making out, teasing, drunk bau friends, food mentions, Baker!Reader

Word Count: 2.2k

She was sad the whole journey home from work knowing that Christmas was tomorrow and she was going to be alone. As she gets into her apartment complex, she runs into her neighbour at the mailbox. She’s got 3 packages in her hands while trying to figure out how to carry the last two, “do you want help?”

“Oh, please?” She sounds so relieved. “What a blessing it is to see you today.”

She smiles for the first time in a few hours, “Oh, anytime Penelope. Are these all gifts?” She asks as she takes the two packages in her hands. She’ll come down for her own mail later. Nothing interesting should be in there.

Penelope nods, leading them towards the elevators. “I’m having a big holiday gathering tomorrow— wait, do you have plans, are you going home to see family?”

“No,” she admits, sadly. “I couldn’t get a plane ticket, I tried but they’re so insanely expensive lately.”

“Yeah, I know,” Penny sighs. “I haven’t gone out to see my brothers in years, they’re in California.”

“It sucks… but you have lots of friends here, right? I’m sure they’re coming over tomorrow?” She asks, mostly so she can feel some sort of comfort if she isn’t doing anything tomorrow either.

“I’m having Christmas here for the first time,” she shares. “Dinner starts at 6:30 but we’re having a little bit of everything for lunch around 2, if you want to stop by at any time?”

“Oh no, I couldn’t—

“You can, and you will!” Penelope insists. “You don’t need to worry about gifts or bringing any food, just show up. I hate the thought of you being alone next door.”

“Okay, I’ll come,” she gives in with a smile. “But I’m bringing a baked good… have you ever been to my bakery?”

“You own the bakery?” She’s so flabbergasted. “I thought you just worked there?”

She smiles, “I do… we do okay but I’m by no means rich enough to buy a plane ticket home.”

“Well, maybe that’s a good thing cause now I can eat whatever you bring tomorrow!”

—

She spends the whole night baking. She makes molasses cookies with powdered sugar on them in shakes of little Christmas trees and she makes chocolate croissants. One of which she brings to Penelope around 10 am so that she can have a nice breakfast before the party starts.

She showers, picks a cute outfit and by 3pm she’s anxiously waiting by the door trying to hype herself up to go over. She only knows Penelope. They’ve lived beside each other for 3 years now. She’s seen her friends coming and going and heard them talking in the halls but she’s never talked to them. But if they like Penelope, they’ve gotta like her too.

So she bucks up and heads over.

She knocks and within seconds, a handsome man is throwing the door open. “You don’t have to— oh, hi?”

“Hi… Penelope invited me? I’m her neighbour… Y/N,” she awkwardly introduces herself.

He’s at a loss for words— and breath, for a moment and then shakes himself out of it. “Spencer… Reid. Doctor… Doctor Spencer Reid.”

It makes her laugh, easing the anxiety out of her system. “Can I come in, Doctor Spencer Reid?”

“Yeah, yes, come in,” he steps out of the way and extends his arm into the room for her to follow. He closes the door after she’s inside and smiles. “How do you know Penelope?”

“I live next door.”

“Really?” He can’t believe it. “How long?”

“3 years now…”

“And you’ve never come over?” He looks offended.

She smiles, “Why, sad you haven’t known me longer?” She manages to tease him. She’s not always good at reading people but something about how he’s acting makes her think he likes her.

He blushes but nods, “Well, welcome. It’s nice to finally meet you.”

“You too,” she looks him up and down. He’s very handsome. And a doctor… “how do you know Penelope?”

“We’ve worked together since I was 22…”

“And you’re now…?”

“42,” he presses his lips together, awkwardly. “Old…”

“No, no you’re not, I would’ve guessed 35 at the most,” she teases, stepping into his space, she places her hand on his arm. “You’re a very handsome 42.”

“Are you doing anything for New Years?” He asks, removing all his fear and looking at her with hopeful eyes.

She shakes her head, “no… I might be working but I can leave early, or you can come see me there?”

“Where do you work?”

“I own the bakery on 16th Avenue,” she smiles. “Penelope buys in donuts and things from me all the time, actually, I brought over baked goods this morning, they’re in the kitchen somewhere.”

“Did you make those croissants?” He lights right up.

She nods, “maybe I can teach you how to make some?”

“I’d really like th—

“Y/N!” Penelope comes running from the kitchen and wraps her arms around her, “When did you get here?”

“Just now,” she laughs. “Spencer’s been keeping me company.”

“Ahh,” she pulls away with a smile. “Well, come eat, there’s lots of snacks in here.”

She leads them into the kitchen where her other friends are around the table. “The ones with kids will be around later, they’re still putting batteries and things in their kid's gifts. But this is Rossi and Emily and Tara.”

She reaches out to shake everyone's hand, realizing only now that she never shook Spencer's, but he doesn’t mind, he stays close to her. They sit side by side, he passes her things from the table that she wants to put on her plate and he gets up to get her a drink and everyone makes conversation while also watching him dote on her. It’s been 20 minutes but there’s something there… no man has shown her this level of interest or flattery before and not to quote Lana Del Rey but, when you know you know.

They’re friendly as ever when there are people around them and they flirt like mad when they’re alone. She already has a date with him, but he’s just too cute and that shade of red he turns is starting to become her favourite colour.

“You seriously used all the ice?” Penelope chastises Emily, who pretends she doesn’t know what she’s talking about. “Go get some more, we have guests coming who don’t drink alcohol they need ice for their sodas!”

“I am far too drunk to walk down the street,” she counters and points to Dave.

“Not me,” Dave touches his nose, he doesn’t volunteer to do anything and Tara does the same thing, she’s just as drunk as Emily.

Spencer goes to get his coat with a sigh, “I’ve got it.”

“I’ll come too,” she rushes to the door with him, putting on whatever coat fits her so that she can follow him down to the street for some extra alone time with him.

She reaches for his hand on the street, “So, what’s it like at the FBI?”

He holds her hand gladly, “it's… okay. I just teach now. Fieldwork put me in the hospital too many times and I like being alive.”

“I’m glad you’re still here,” she bumps shoulders with him.

His smile is beautiful. “So, about that date?”

“We could do anything you want,” she assures. “But my offer still stands.”

“I think I’d like a baking lesson,” he nudges her back. “It's the one thing I’m not good at.”

“So what are you good at?”

“Rambling, falling over, getting shot,” he teases but she swats his arm, leaning into him with a laugh. “Okay, but seriously, I have a Ph.D. in Chemistry, Engineering and Math.”

“Well luckily for you, baking is just science and a bit of math,” she teases. “You’ll catch on quickly, smarty pants.”

He pulls her in, chest to chest, standing beside an empty store with all their lights off. He cups her face, “what’s sweeter? Your chocolate croissants or your kiss?”

She can’t help but laugh, “you’ll have to tell me…”

He pulls her in for a kiss and sparks fly behind her eyes. As if every atom in her being is on fire, she melts into him. Kissing him deeply, she holds his sides and the hand he has on her cheek goes into her hair as they begin to make out on the snow-covered street.

She pulls back first, smiling softly, “so?”

“You, it’s definitely you,” he teases. “But the croissants are a very close second.”

She laughs, “Well, keep up the compliments and there will be lots more kisses and sweet treats coming your way.”

“You’re the most beautiful woman in the neighbourhood,” he teases, leaning in for another kiss but she stops him.

“Just the neighbourhood?”

“The whole world,” he corrects, which is the right answer. She lets him lean in closer, stealing another kiss.

She kisses him again and again, trying to pull back but he kisses her a third time, making her laugh. “We need to get that ice, we’re going to be late for dinner.”

“do you want to hang out after dinner?” He asks, “I can walk you home?”

“And stay for more kisses?”

“Or croissants,” he shrugs. Happy with either.

—

They’re pretty normal for the rest of the party, she meets the rest of his friends and all their kids. And they’re some cute kids. The youngest is his friend Matt's 2-year-old, she sits at the grown-up table with them and eats one of the chocolate croissants with the biggest smile on her face. Y/N can’t help but think about how much her own kids might like her baking one day… and Spencer sees the way she looks at the baby too.

His friends are so lively, the the party goes on until well after midnight. The friends with kids head out early, Emily and Tara get a cab home, Dave is passed out on her couch and Spencer isn’t going to leave until she does. And she’s helping Penelope clean up.

“You don’t have to stay,” Penelope assures her, drying off dishes while Spencer washes them. She’s been putting things in Tupperware containers and organizing the fridge.

“I want to help, as a thank you,” she smiles at her. “This has been a lovely night.”

“And not just because I introduced you to your new boyfriend?” She teases and Spencer drops a plate.

She laughs, walking over to place her hand on Spencers arm, “I mean, meeting Spencer is the best present you could’ve given me.”

Penelope swoons, “Okay that’s it, love birds. Get out of my kitchen, go home, go canoodle and get to know each other. I knew this was going to happen.”

“Why didn’t you tell me in advance?” Spencer whines as he dries off his hands. “I would’ve worn something nicer?”

“You look cute,” she teases.

“See, that’s why,” Penelope points at her. “I knew she’d like you for you, she’s a baker and you love everything I buy from her bakery and she’s so kind and you need someone to love you the way I know you love people back. This is perfect.”

She wraps her arm around his waist and leans into his space, “thank you penny, we’re going to go now.”

“Thank you,” Spencer agrees, following her out of the kitchen and towards the door.

Once they’re in the hallway, he asks, “Did you really mean that?”

She nods, “of course?”

He lunges for her, kissing her with her back pressed up against her apartment door. She reaches for the doorknob, twisting it open so that she can bring them inside and push him up against the closed door instead this time. He moans into her mouth at the feeling of his back colliding with the door and her hands are immediately roaming his shirt.

He’s such a good kisser, he is gentle and soft, and he isn’t overly eager and controlling. He lets her explore and slow it down as she presses in closer to him and his hands wander to her hips.

“Couch?” She pants against his lips, wanting to lay down with him.

“Show me?” He agrees, following her into her apartment and to the living space.

She pushes him down against the couch and climbs on top of him. He wraps his arms around her, cradling her body like she’s the most delicate thing in the world. He kisses her just as soft and she moves her kiss to his cheek and his jaw up towards his ear, “you’re so handsome,” she whispers.

“Thank you,” he gasps. “You’re absolutely stunning, I don’t know how I got so lucky.”

She smirks against him, kissing down his neck, “You deserve good things, Spence.”

“You’re too good to me,” he teases, hand slipping down to her ass. “How far are we taking this?”

She hums, “I’m good just talking and kissing all night?”

“All night?”

She nods as she pulls back to look at him. “I kinda don’t want to let you go. I’m afraid you’re too good to be real.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” he assures. “I’m yours as long as you want me.”

General Taglist

@ncsls0515 @stevesmunsons @reidsbookclub @sweetyyhippyy @manuosorioh @mrs-dr-reid @k-k0129 @squishyturtle @katsukis1wife @buckleyhans @mrs-ssa-hotch @ssavanessa22

#Spencer reid #Spencer reid smut #Spencer reid fanfiction #Spencer reid fanfic #Spencer reid imagine #Spencer reid x reader #Spencer reid x y/n #Spencer reid x you #Spencer reid self insert #Spencer reid request #criminal minds smut #criminal minds imagine

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vngelicc · 1 year ago

Text

⊹₊ ⋆ “she hotter than july in california, tan skin, eyes on it, stretched legs like the roads in malibu,”

TAGS — sleazy baby daddy!jk woop woop, birthday sex, cunnilingus, fingering, messy blow jobs, face fucking, making out, drug use (weed), oc is a cunty mama, this is in the past when they were dating, unprotected sex, creampies, possessive jk + oc, dirty talk to the max, both r high during sex, jk calling his gf “mama”, slight(?) degradation, oc throws it BACK, don’t play w her that’s her man, me thinks they made jiho here by accident, it gets cute at one point LMAO

WORD COUNT — 3.3 k

You leaned against Jungkook with your back pressed close to his chest, throwing your arms up-over your head to wrap around Jungkook’s neck. Jungkook leaned in with a hum, leaving small wet kisses along the nape of your neck. His hands wandered all over your body—your thighs, waist, hips—he managed to snake his hands over your tits and give each mound a gentle squeeze.

The music blared loudly in the background and through the thick clouds of smoke your lips found his cheek as you pressed a sweet kiss, leaving behind a brown glossy lipstick stamp on his once unblemished cheek. Jungkook chuckled quietly under his breath and tugged you closer on his lap, “What is it baby? You leavin’ your mark on me? Want all those other girls to see who I belong to?” He teases softly.

“I don’t need to do all that,” you shrug cutely and turn around in his lap to look him in his eyes, “ ‘s just a reminder for these bitches who wanna act funny.” You gently tap his lip with your finger, “Happy birthday baby.” You say softly after a few moments of eye-fucking him with a coy smile on your face.

“Mmm–happy birthday to me,” he groans out when he feels your plush ass roll back on his cock, he can feel it stirring under the confinements of his boxers/jeans, “fuck, ‘s not fair how you got an ass like this sitting away in your jeans baby.” He smacks your ass hard with both hands, gripping it afterwards with tight squeezes.

You hum in response and lay yourself on his chest, head tucked under his chin as you play with his big hands over your tummy. The moment is interrupted by Jimin who saunters over with Namjoon and Hoseok, “Aww birthday boy getting his cake early?” He smirks deviously as he takes a seat across from you and Jungkook, the others following suit.

“What do you want?” Jungkook sighs as he looks at his three friends, “y/n already don’t like your stupid ass, you wanna make her hate you even more?” He rolls his eyes in annoyance, ignoring Jimin’s fake little whines.

“y/n you hate me?” He immediately asks while setting the rolling tray over the coffee table, “You hate little ole me?” He grins, licking his lips.

You stare back at him unamused, giving him one look up and down before replying, “Yes, but hate is a strong word. More like.. I tolerate you,” your eyes drop down to the rolling tray, “give it to me, you’re gonna fuck it up and none of us are gonna have a good high.” You reach down to take the stuff away.

Jimin holds his hands up in surrender, “You do you then, I’m not gonna stop you.” He sits back lazily.

“Oh shit how come no one told me y/n can roll a fat blunt?” Hoseok laughs, “Man fuck you Jimin, I’m never smoking with your ass ever again.” He hits the other on the shoulder. Meanwhile Namjoon sits there watching in pure awe while you work diligently. Jungkook merely sits there with a proud look as he strokes over your hip gently with a lazy grin.

“Look at Jungkook, sittin’ all stupid over there,” Jimin snickers, “bet you really wanna make her your baby mama now.”

“Course she’s my baby mama, look at her,” Jungkook says, almost offended that Jimin would think otherwise, “fuck getting married first I wanna give her my kids, gonna make her my baby mama before I wife her up.” He grins as the others laugh, he feels your hand smack his arm gently, “Huh? What is it baby?”

“Pass me the wraps,” you mumble, “c’mon,” you glare. Jungkook reaches for the wrapping paper with a quiet “yes ma’am”. You finish rolling the blunt and hand it off, “Light it,” you nod at Namjoon. The five of you smoked the blunt until there was nothing left, Hoseok said something about how Yoongi had grown this new batch of bud himself, you don’t really remember because no less than thirty minutes later it’s hitting you.

Jungkook was relaxed, idly running his hand over your thigh while he listened to Jimin ramble about something. Through your haze you noticed the song playing in the background, it definitely had you wanting to dance. You sway a little in Jungkook’s lap, quietly singing under your breath as you hum along to the smooth beat.

“She hotter than July in California,” You mumble while nodding your head to the beat.

Jungkook noticed how into the song you were, and if he was being honest he liked it too. “Let’s go baby,” he whispers in your ear and pats your ass, “up you go mama.” He helps you stand and leads you away from his protesting friends. Through the grinding couples you guys find a spot, Jungkook licks his lips as he eyes the way your hips sway.

You turn to look at him with a devious smile, one he returns enthusiastically as he gently lifts your arm and has you giving him a small spin. He whistles low and smacks your ass hard, “C’mere mama,” he brings you back, “right here baby,” he whispers hotly in your ear as he has you pressed against him with your ass right over his crotch.

“Here?” You purr softly whilst pushing back on him, hips swaying smoothly from side to side. Jungkook growls quietly and buries his face in your neck, his hands grip your hips tightly guiding them as you sway sensually to the music playing in the background.

“Right there baby, there you go.” He purrs back, “My slutty baby, you showin’ out for me? Gonna let everyone in the room know you’re mine?” Jungkook leaves hot kisses up your neck, biting teasingly at the sensitive skin there.

You reach behind to grip his fluffy hair, throwing your head back on his shoulder as you lick your lips slowly with a grin, “I’m letting everyone know what’s mine is mine, cause a few of ‘em wanna act funny thinking it’s cute.”

Jungkook groans when you slowly lean forward, bending over as your ass sits perfectly over his now hard cock. “Shit baby,” he watches you with dark eyes, loving the way your ass rolls over him as you throw it back for him to see. He runs his hands over both sides of your ass, gripping it tightly as it shakes against the palms of his hands. “C’mere.” He all but growls as he yanks you into his arms.

You turn to slot your lips against his, arms coming up to wrap around his neck as you sigh into the kiss. He pats the back of your thighs, signaling you to jump as he hoists you up into his arms. A few people catcall the two of you, the room fills with whistles as his stupid friends yell “get it Jeon” and some other shit you don’t really give a fuck about.

His lips move against yours with urgency, whenever you try to pull away he drags you back in with a low whine. There’s wet smacking noises that fill the space between the two of you. Jungkook is relentless, the pot in his system sends him into a frenzy, leaving him a horny mess. You’re not faring different either with how your clit buzzes in excitement, throbbing between your now slicked up folds.

“Hey Kook, say cheese!” Jimin yells.

You break from the kiss and stick your tongue out with a devious smirk, his friends release a chorus of “oohs” from the freaky sight. Jungkook laughs as he lets you do as you please, barely looking at the camera as Jimin snaps a photo of you two. “Fuck you Min.” He snorts and begins walking away. He kicks a random door open and carries you in quickly, tossing you like a ragdoll on to the bed.

“You have no idea how bad I want you baby,” he locks the door and hurriedly slips his shirt off, tossing it into a random corner, “do you even know what you do to me when you strut around with those tight little jeans and tank top baby? It’s like you do it on purpose, you want me to lose it.” He climbs over you on the bed with a low groan.

You chuckle quietly and wound your arms around his neck, “I got something else for you baby, ‘s underneath,” you wiggle teasingly while letting the straps of your top slip off your shoulders.

Jungkook licks his lips excitedly and starts undressing you, he shoves your jeans out of the way and tosses your top somewhere with his shirt. “Fucking hell.” He hisses when he sees what you got on under. You lay there spread out for him in all your glory, a coy smile on your face as you push your arms together so your tits press together sinfully.

“You like it?” You purr.

“I fucking love it.” He growls back and leans down to smash his lips against yours, “Gonna fuck you so hard till you’re making a mess all over my cock, gonna have that pussy dripping by the time I’m done with you.” He whispers harshly in between kisses.

You moan softly, mumbling in between kisses as your hands travel from his shoulders to the back of his neck. “Kook…mm..wanna suck your cock,” you softly say as you look up with hazy eyes, “want you to fuck my face baby, gonna make it nice and wet for you,” you purr softly.

His pupils are dilated with desire pooling in his eyes, he doesn’t reply verbally and pushes you back as he climbs over you, “Yeah? You gonna suck my cock like the good little slut you are? Gonna let me use that little throat of yours?” He thumbs at the waistband of his boxers, pushing them down slightly to tease you. “Answer me baby.”

“Yes,” you breathe out, “want it so bad baby.” You bite down on your lip while looking him in the eye. Jungkook unbuttons his jeans and lets them fall open as he pulls his cock out from his boxers. The head leaks drops of cum which falls on to your tits, he strokes over his shaft with a low hiss as he guides the weeping head to your lips.

“Open for me baby.” He whispers, watching closely as your lips envelop his throbbing cock, the sides of your mouth hugging his shaft just nicely as he feeds you inch for inch.

Your tongue lies flat on the underside of his shaft poking at his sensitive throbbing veins, tears spring in your eyes when he hits the back of your throat. You will yourself not to gag as quiet little moans slip past, sending vibrations all over his cock. Jungkook cusses under his breath, he stays perfectly still with a hand fisting your hair tightly, using it as leverage.

“Doing so good for me,” he slurs out, “you’re gonna make me cum if you keep moaning like that.”

Slowly he slides his cock out until the tip remains, giving you a couple of seconds to regain your senses before he’s pushing back in. Jungkook moans under his breath and begins rolling his hips against your face, his head is thrown back as he closes his eyes and tries to focus on the feeling of your hot tight throat around his cock. “Just like that baby, keep going,” he blissfully smiles, hips kicking upwards more forcefully with each thrust.

You gag loudly, spit trails down your chin and the sides of your mouth as you fight to keep your gag reflex under control. Jungkook mindlessly humps your face and his balls are pressed snug against your chin. He grinds his hips in slow circles, his groans are louder as he pulls your head back and lets his cock slip out of your mouth with a quiet ‘pop’.

“So fuckin’ messy,” he pants, “wanna eat your pussy out mamas, don’t wanna cum like this..” He jerks his cock in his hand, slapping the head repeatedly on your swollen glossy lips, “Yeahhh…just like that baby, open up wide, gonna make you slobber on it.” He lazily grins.

You swirl your tongue around the weeping head and moan at the tangy taste of his pre-cum. You want more so you lift your head to get his cock back in your mouth but he stops you, “Let me have it baby, just wanna make you feel good..” He sighs in bliss as he climbs off of you, going down until he nestles between your soft thighs.

Your pussy’s a mess by now, you completely soaked through the lace panties you wore for tonight. Jungkook wastes no time in peeling them off of you, moaning low when he sees dribbles of slick sticking to your plump folds and creating a small string connected to your panties.

“Relax for me,” his hot breath fans over your pussy, “gonna have my birthday present.” He grins before going down, hot tongue laving over your drenched pussy.

“Ohh,” you slur out with your head thrown back, “ ‘s good right there..” You twist your hand in Jungkook’s hair and grip it tightly between your fingers. Low slurping and smacking noises fill the otherwise quiet room as Jungkook eats you like you’re his last meal.

You throw your arm above your head to grip the pillows lying around the bed. His tongue glides over your throbbing clit in figure of eights, flicking back and forth in quick motions that has your back arching off the bed. Jungkook is relentless, he’s got two fingers knuckle deep in your throbbing little pussy. Your poor cunt drools all over his digits, coating them in creamy slick which runs down your ass and onto the blankets underneath.

“Jungkook..” Your head thrashes from side to side as you mewl in pleasure, Jungkook grunts and covers your entire pussy with his hot mouth. Small breathless “uh’s” leave your lips, you tighten your hold on his unruly curls and press his face closer between your thighs. “Right there,” you breath out shakily.

He pumps his fingers deeper and curls them upward to find that special little spot inside of you. Jungkook pulls back from your cunt as he pants hotly, “That’s it baby, cum for me,” he groans low, eyes flickering from your pussy to you. You look so pretty like this in the throes of pleasure, head thrown back and lips parted in a small ‘o’.

“Jungkook..!” Your hips buck against his fingers and your pussy clenches tight, spasming under his touch as a flood of wetness slowly seeps out of you.

You make a real mess this time judging by the slick noises your pussy makes as Jungkook slowly pulls his fingers out of you. Your cunt throbs uncontrollably from your intense orgasm as you lay there trying to recover with a pounding heartbeat.

Jungkook climbs up and over you, hovering low as his necklace dangles in your face. “Hi mamas.” He greets with a soft grin. He leans down to press small chaste kisses over your pillowy lips.

You wrap your hand around the back of his neck and bring him down for more kisses, “Hi,” you greet softly with a tiny smile. His cock twitches from where it’s pressed right against your thigh, you reach down to grip it and stroke him slowly, “Gonna fuck me now or what?” You say in a sultry tone.

“Yeah,” he breathes out, “slip me in your little pussy baby.” He hovers over you with his hands on either side of your head, “Go on.” He licks his lips. You eagerly spread your thighs farther apart and slowly guide him to your messy pussy.

He pushes past your wet sticky folds, a loud squelch fills the room when his cockhead breaches your slicked up hole. “Kook,” you moan softly as you press him in, “fuck..fuck me,” you whisper and let his cock go in favor of wrapping your arms around his neck.

Jungkook bites down on his lip as he kicks his hips forward, sinking into your tight pussy in one go. He stuffs his fat cock in and stills for a moment, “Oh shit baby,” he moans out. You can feel his cock throb harshly for a few seconds, so you decide to tease him a little by rhythmically squeezing around him. “Fuck don’t do that baby,” he hisses out as he grips your hip tightly.

“Then fuck me like you promised.” You whisper, “Take what’s yours.” You purr softly as you hook your thighs around his waist, ankles locking behind his back as you hold on to him.

Jungkook slowly pulls out until the tip remains, and after a few seconds he slams back inside in a series of rough thrusts. His hips smack hard into yours, balls colliding with your ass as they wetly slap against your cheeks. You throw your head back with a loud cry leaving you. Your poor body is jostled around, threatening to slide up the bed from the force of his thrusts.

“Fuck,” you whimper through gritted teeth, “just like that baby, keep going,” you plead softly as you take the rough fucking.

Jungkook doesn’t reply, in fact he’s full on moaning while fucks your pussy like a madman. His cock strikes deep against your g-spot, the head occasionally pokes your cervix but it’s nothing too serious because he finds a way to get his cock back on your g-spot. You watch as his necklace swings back and forth in your face, his whimpers and quiet groans slowly becoming louder than the sounds of your wet pussy and his balls slapping against your taint.

“Jungkook..!” You desperately cling to his shoulders and hug his body close to yours, “Right there—don’t stop baby, please,” you whine amidst his moaning.

“Not gonna stop baby,” he slurs out, “gettin’ so close, gonna make it so messy baby.” He leans down to hide his face in your neck, hugging you tight while he grinds his cock deep in figures of eights.

A long moan leaves you from the change of angle, you rake your nails down his back from the intense pleasure he’s giving you. You’re getting so close again with the way your pussy throbs and clenches tight. Jungkook doesn’t sound like he’s far behind either with the way he grinds into you faster and faster.

“Mm..!” You throw your head back and grit your teeth, “C-Coming..!” Jungkook reaches down swiftly to rub his thumb over your clit rapidly, a loud cry of surprise leaves you as your thighs quake, “Jungkook!” You sob out as your cunt throbs. A wave of heat hits you all over as you’re left shaking in the aftermath of your second orgasm.

Jungkook shows mercy by stopping his torture on your throbbing clit, but he chases after his own pleasure with a series of hard thrusts. His moans rise in volume until he shouts with pleasure when his own orgasm hits him, he grinds in deep and slow to ensure every last drop of his cum stays in your ruined pussy.

“Oh fuck..” He pants out as he comes to a stop, “Shit..” He swallows harshly and looks down between you two to admire the way your cunt looks so shiny covered in slick etc. “You okay baby?” He smacks his lips tiredly. When you nod back at him he cups your face gently, “Stay here, ‘m gonna go get some water and see if Jimin will let us crash here.” He kisses your forehead.

“Love you.” You softly reply and curl up into a tiny ball when he gets off of you.

“Love you too mamas.” He replies back as he re-dresses and heads out, “Best birthday gift ever.” He grins lazily while walking out after locking the door behind him.

TAGLIST: @fragmentof-indifference @jungkooksseuphoria @kooliv @angelarin @jjeonjjk7 @lilliankoo @pb-n-juju @ellesalazar @saweetspoiled @laylasbunbunny @prettyprincejk @cherrysainttt @hyunjinswifeee @joongraduatewithonor @hellbornsworld @leire-mia @m1sss1mp @lissful @winkii @lifeless-firefly @exactlygreatcoffee @taestoess @ayalies @floweryjeons @softtcurse @lilspinachwrld @tearyjjeon @littleobsessedkitty @lovelovelovebts @angeljmnie @rerefundslocals @bangtans-mama @thvhoe @maddkitt @tvse @ohjeon @teteswtnr @jkslovey12 @kelsyx33 @milfpo1ice @sluttydidi @ztyur @beomgyuult @shescharlie @sweet-sourhotcoco @lalita-7 @hazzzelsdimension @p34rluv @kook-net @bonita0-0 @vmapy @dahliadaenerys @frieschan

#bts #bts fanfction #bts fanfic #bts smut #jungkook x reader #jeon jungkook #jungkook smut #bts jungkook

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sierrale8ne · 14 days ago

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40 DAYS AND 40 NIGHTS CHAPTER SIX

thought i’d be lying if i said ‘i didn’t want you to myself.’ when you look me in my eyes and, tell me that it’s mine, i…

pairing wnba!paige bueckers x singer!oc

taglist @thaatdigitaldiary @ohbueckers @xxloveralways14 @patscorner @wbbgetsmewetter @rosemariiaa @tndaqlifwy @makethemhoesmad @authentic-girl03

warnings infidelity, some sexual content

kalena speakss 🪽! this is easily my favorite chapter so far (for reasons that will become obvious towards the end) don’t expect another back to back update bc it’s not happening 😭 maybe thursday or friday at the earliest, i still have priorities!

June 2025 — Crypto.com Arena, Los Angeles, California

“Paige, your shot wasn’t falling tonight like we are used to seeing from you. What was different tonight for you than either nights?”

It’s this that I’m not quite yet used to. The post lost pressers. It was different in college, where the team had way more wins for every one loss, but right now we’re at .500 and each time a loss follows a win and they ask me the same variation of the same question I get irritated.

But I’m media trained, which means I just answer the question no matter how dumb I feel it is. The real answer is that I played like shit tonight, forcing shots and getting into my head. Instead, I’m forced to say:

“We’re playing a team that has the reigning defensive player of the year and was just in the finals. It was gonna be a dog fight, for us to get settled against a defense like that, and they simply out performed us.” I look down at the stat sheet in front of me, I had 5 turnovers to my 4 assists, and I fucking hate turning the ball over.

“Kayla McBride is a dog, she guarded me well tonight, forced me into some bad shots and got a few turnovers from me. But I gotta take all that and learn from it, it’s still too early in the season to stress out over things that are fixable.”

I'm the only one sitting at the podium tonight, Rickea and Dearica doing theirs together and Zia who had just gone before me. I knew what the gist of the questions would be, turnovers, defense, and the most gruesome: injuries.

“We saw you roll your ankle pretty bad tonight. Even though you finished the game, can you tell us a bit about the seriousness of it?” It’s a different reporter now, one that I recognize from our win the other night.

I shake my head. My ankle was fine up until he just mentioned it. Now, it stung bad. I had some extra tape around it, it was only sore, while I was sitting but walking and running full speed on the court made that shit hurt like no other.

“It’s not serious.” I reply honestly. “We got two days off before the next game at home so I’m not worried. I’m gonna treat it like any other tweak and just follow what the trainers got for me, and hopefully we have a better night against Minnesota on Friday.”

It seems like that is a sufficient answer for the rest of the reporters in the room when I hear that wonderful “no more questions.” I stand up gingerly from my seat. They don’t miss my slight limp, but after a few steps the pain shakes off and it just feels uncomfortable.

When I get back to the locker room it’s damn near empty except for Cameron and Rae. I give them both curt nods before heading over to my locker.

They don’t speak to me, which I’m silently grateful for because I might snap at them unintentionally. Losing is one thing, playing like dog shit is another, but my ankle really put the nail in the coffin.

I attempt to clean up my locker a bit, making life a little bit easier for the ladies who’re gonna come in and clean up when we leave. I throw my jersey and shorts in the growing pile of towels and warm ups and all other gear before reaching for my phone in the bag.

just saw the injury on tv, pray it’s not too bad ❤️‍🩹

That’s the second most recent text in my phone, from about an hour ago from Maraye. It just briefly brings a smile to my face that I can’t even fight. It’s crazy to me that even when I’m at my grumpiest she finds a way to make me forget about it all.

I scroll through the rest of my notifications before tapping on her contact. I see that she texted me multiple times tonight throughout different parts of the game.

don’t fuck up my parlay tonight. jk good luck fav! 7:09pm

OKAY BLOCKKK GET UP THEN 7:20pm

omg the cross over??? don’t do her like that p 😮‍💨 8:03pm

I laugh fights through my lips, she told me in Atlanta she would start live texting me during games, I didn’t think she was serious. Nevertheless, I find it adorable. Maraye, throughout the busyness that is her schedule, turned on my game and watched the whole thing, keeping me posted on all her thoughts throughout the night.

I’m so beyond saving.

My thumb scrolls back down to the bottom of the thread. I can’t deny the way my heartbeat quickens in my chest at the choice of heart emoji. It’s not quite a red heart, but it’s enough to let me know she cares. I can’t believe that I’m sitting here like I’m in high school again, psycho analyzing her texts and gushing over them until my face is red.

“You headin’ out?” I look up and Cam is getting ready to leave. She’s going to be fully cleared to play this week, probably not playing with us until right before All-star. I’m excited for her, and I can tell that she is too because it’s practically beaming off of her.

I nod. “Yeah, inna minute. I’ll catch you in the morning.” Cameron takes that answer and walks out alongside Rae. I grab my back shortly after them, getting up and leaving the locker room. The arena is quiet, so is the parking garage as I make my way out there. The chirp of my car alerts me to it. I drop my bag in the trunk before sitting down in my seat.

The cushion practically eats me alive, I haven’t been this physically exhausted in months.

Then I’m reminded that Maraye and I’d thread is still open on my phone. When I glance at the time I realize it’s not that late, I know that if I go home, I’ll just fall into the rabbit hole of watching film all night.

Instead I reach for the phone heavy in my sweatpants pocket. My thumbs begin typing away before sending Maraye a text back.

Nah it’s not all that bad

You busy? Or can I slide?

I make sure my phone is connected to the speakers. When He’s Not There by Kehlani plays through the car while I get settled. Following that, I place my phone on its spot on the center console. It isn’t until Maraye’s name flashes on my carplay screen that I finally pull out of the parking garage.

yes please, come see meee

—

Paige sits comfortably to my left on my couch. Her leg propped on my coffee table with a bag of ice resting on her swollen ankle.

It’s her first time at my apartment, but even then she navigates the place like she’s been here countless of times. It feels so similar to our friendship, just comfortable.

Her arm is draped over my shoulder as I nestle into her side. When she first came over, I sat on the other side of the couch, so far away from her you would think we were fighting. And then she started talking, pulling me closer with her words until I sat right next to her. My body is leaning into her warmth.

An NBA finals game plays on the TV. Knicks versus the Thunder, it’s in the last few minutes of overtime, a high intensity game that Paige swore she couldn’t miss a second of.

“He’s so fine.” I chirp jokingly, Shai Gilgeous Alexander is on the screen, about to shoot game tying free throws.

Paige pulls her arm off of me, looking down at me incredulously before reaching for my remote. She lowers the volume on the TV, reducing Mike Breen’s commentating to a whisper.

“Who, Shai?”

“Yeah. You don’t think so?” I ask, looking up at her with a grin.

“I’m like a raging homosexual, but if you like it I love it?”

I laugh at that, pushing her hair away from my view. It cascades down her shoulders in soft bright strands that tickle my face.

“You can never just laugh at my jokes.”

“Your jokes aren’t funny.” Paige says. The face she makes reacts to her own statement like it’s obvious, when we both know I could make her laugh until she cried if I wanted to. “And Shai isn’t your type.”

I move from my spot next to her, jumping up and turning my attention to her face, while hers are stuck to the game. The way she is seated briefly makes me forget my train of thought. Her legs are spread comfortably and she leans back on the couch with her arms against the back of the couch. She looks like a fuckboy, and in any other scenario I would make fun of her for it, but the TV glow shines on her face just right and her cologne in my nose nearly makes me go blind.

I cross my arms over my chest. “What’s my type then, Paige?”

A commercial cuts on and Paige finally draws her eyes away from the screen. “What, Julian’s lightskin ass wasn’t the giveaway?” She laughs at her own joke, it’s stupid, but I love that laugh. So uniquely her. “Or y’want me to say you like six foot blonde girls.”

I roll my eyes, and when my vision clears up again, Paige is grinning at me.

“C’mon it was funny!”

“I don’t like women, idiot.”

“You like me.”

“I do not. I don’t even know why I let you hang out around me.” My body turns and my back hits the couch with a soft thud. Just to annoy her I sit further away from her body.

“Yeah okay, ma. You keep tellin’ yourself that.” Paige’s voice is low, a deep and raspy tone that I have never heard from her before. With Julian that had always been a given— he’s a man with a deep voice, that’s obvious. But when I hear it from Paige, I don’t know. It’s different.

My body just barely reacts to the pet name, but it’s there. The glob of saliva that pushes down my dry throat. And my legs just slightly press together. Paige reaches for the pocket of my striped shorts, tugging me back to my original spot in the curve of her body.

“You’ve really never done anything with a girl before?”

“Paige—”

“No, not to be annoying. I’m just wondering.” She shrugs. Her hand reaches over to flick the bag of ice off her ankle and brings her leg down to my carpet. She looks down at me slowly, a lick of her lips and scan of my face lets me know she’s listening, waiting for my response.

I return her gaze. “Yes, I’ve really never done anything with a girl before.”

“Why? We’re much better. Better than whatever Julian is doing for you, I can tell you that much.” Paige’s voice is smug, teasing almost. I don’t know if she’s trying to rile me up between my legs or in my heart so I defend Julian. Either way it’s working, my heartbeat quickening in my chest.

“You seem sure about that.”

She nods. “I am. I think you forget how often you complain to me about that guy.” She says with a laugh.

The game in front of us is dying down, a three point lead for the Knicks with 40 seconds left in overtime, Oklahoma just now calling a timeout. I know she’s into the game, way more than me, but still she looks at me with an intensity that makes it feel like we’re the only two things in the world.

“Doesn’t mean a girl could do it better.”

Her eyes darted from my eyes to my lips, I’m expecting them to move. To look back at my eyes or even at the TV but she doesn’t. Just me.

“Y’believe that?” Paige asks me.

“Uh huh.”

I’m going to lose. Whatever is going on with Paige and I, what has been going on for the last few weeks. The banter, the tension, the constant touching, it’s all a fight. Her and I are going back and forth like a fucking tennis match and she’s about to win. She’s about to make me lose whatever is left of my composure and grab the collar of her Hopkins High School t-shirt and kiss her until there’s no more breath in my lungs.

“Yeah? Ion know, can’t knock it till you try it.” She says, leaning into me for all of 5 milliseconds before sitting back in her seat and looking at the screen. The volume raises on my TV the cheers and commentary bouncing off the walls of my home.

Paige has left me frozen. Stuck there, in the exact position that she left me in. My eyes staring into the side of her perfect skin, burning holes there if I had the capability. I need her. My thighs are damn near glued together to keep me from dripping down my couch.

I adjust my position some, sitting uncomfortably on my heels but with the way Paige is manspreading, it gives me just enough to be an inch taller than her. She looks at me, eyes trailing from my thighs past my covered stomach and chest, suddenly I’m hyper aware of how close my tits are from falling out of my Skims top.

“There some’ you wanna tell me, angel?” She asks. I hate the way that nickname makes me feel. She’s the only one that calls me that, the only one who makes me feel so small with just a single word. “Or you jus’ gonna keep lookin’ at me?”

The words just barely die in the air before I’m leaning into her, pressing my lips to hers.

It starts off soft, so soft. Her body hesitates, like she knows better than to kiss me back but she does so anyway, tilting her head further and deepening the kiss. Paige hums against me, her arms still pressed against the back of the couch as if she has to avoid touching me. As if the second her hands touch my body then it’s game over.

She bites my bottom lip, making me moan against her. I further into the kiss, cupping her cheek and then it really is game over. Paige reaches for my hips, lifting my body onto her lap and settling my thighs on the outside of hers.

Her tongue is entering my mouth, warm and tasting like candy. They’re clashing, messy and sticky and so damn hot. Now that I’ve gotten a taste of her I’m not sure I want to give it up.

Paige roams my body with fervor. Trailing just a bit further to grab at my ass, kneading it in her large and veiny hands. I pull back from her breathlessly. Her hair is messy, lips so swollen and pink. It leaves me soaked as a response.

“This is doin’ so much damage. Y’know that?” She asks. Her hand travel back up my body to the back of my neck. I know it’s wrong, but still I let her pull me back into her.

“Mmm, Ion wanna— stop.” I speak against her lips, letting her kiss me as she pleases. Grope me as she pleases. Talk to me as nasty as she wants to. I miss it, the feeling of being so vulgar with another person. Paige is on a different level and I want so much more. More of her, more than anyone has ever given me but for whatever reason I know that she can.

My phone starts ringing. I try to pull back to answer it but she pulls me right back, navigating my mouth with her tongue.

“Don’t.” She mumbles.

“I gotta.” I tell her pulling back with such force that I’m almost falling off the couch. I need to. Because if I don’t stop, I’m gonna let her see me in my most vulnerable state and even I know how wrong that would be.

I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand, swiping to answer the call before I can even see who it is.

“Hello?” My voice is wheezy, and I’m huffing and puffing into the speaker.

“Hey, baby. You home?”

It’s Julian. Of course it is. Of course God would let this man call me in the middle of making out with Paige just to make me feel guilty. Like the asshole I so obviously am right now.

“N— yeah. Yeah, but I’m busy. Sorry.” I stutter. “Paige is over right now.” I tell him honestly. But still, my breath hitches at my mention of her name. She rubs my thighs while I speak, looking at me like I’m a piece of meat.

Her hand travels to her mouth, holding up one finger to her lips with a snide glare. I reach to slap her hand away, barely listening to what Julian says to me on the other line.

Blah blah blah I miss you blah blah blah needa start hanging out with me blah blah less Paige. It’s gibberish. And I don't care.

“Yeah, okay. Goodnight Ju.” I tell him, bothered by his continued talking and wanting to occupy myself with something else. Namely, the pink lips in front of me that look so fucking pretty and the gorgeous face just inches away from mine.

I toss my phone on the couch after Julian responds and hangs up.

“You fuckin’ like me.”

“And don’t.” Just when I’m about to hop off of her lap, the TV blares loudly.

“Bang! Bang! Shai Gilgeous-Alexander takes us into double overtime!” Mike Breen’s cheers echo into my ears. Paige looks past me, obviously upset that she missed the shot.

“Damn. He’s good and fine?”

“Dont get fucked up, Raye.”

#sierrale8ne #kalena’s works ୧ ‧₊˚ 🍵 ⋅#paige bueckers #paige bueckers smut #paige bueckers x oc #uconn wbb #la sparks #lesbian #my fic #40 days and 40 nights

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justmeinadaze · 3 months ago

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Yin and Yang Part 3 (Steddie X You)

Warnings: Older Daddy Eddie (Late 30s)/ Older Dom Mr. Harrington (Late 30s) & Younger Fem Sub Y/N (mid 20s), SMUT, reader becomes a bit of brat in this one, Spanking, slight degrading, LOTS of dirty talk, hair pulling, I think that's it. FLUFF, Eddie and the reader have a long established relationship and they love each other, they love Steve to but...

ANGST, Reader feels neglected with how busy both boys are but especially Eddie. Tries to make them jealous, Jealous Steddie 😈,There's a moment where Eddie talks about his mom and his grief (brief), Steve has some insecurities with intimacy and being in a relationship (written from the fears of yours truly *bows* LOOK I HAVE TRAUMA OK?!), Cliffhanger ending (because I can :) ).

Enjoy reading it because I had fun writing the smut part lol

Word Count: 5771

Last Chapter here/ Donate or Tip Here

For the past few weeks, Eddie had been incredibly busy.

There was a new band that had been signed to his label and he was doing everything he could to push them in front of all the important eyes he could. When you went to visit him, most of the time he was in a meeting or on the phone. What really bothered you was when he brought all that home and spent hours in his office grumbling at people on the other end.

Steve had been on the go a lot as well. It had been a few months since you first met him and you found yourself missing him as much as you missed Eddie. You would constantly scroll through his social media and watch interviews he did on YouTube hoping to just get a glimpse of what he was up to. Did he miss you as much as you missed him? Probably not with how many women he was constantly seen with.

Even with your boyfriend, you felt like he wasn’t giving you enough attention and it made you feel underappreciated.

“That’s ridiculous, Mack, are you kidding? These ladies are incredibly popular right now and they are worth way more than the price you’re offering.”

It was late in the evening and Eddie had barely touched his food before his phone rang and he excused himself to take the call. You missed him so much and you hated feeling so alone. After changing into your white silk nightie you knew he loved, you tip toed into his office as he leaned back into his chair and ran his fingers through his hair in frustration.

He barely even moved when you slid onto his lap and wrapped one of your arms around the back of his neck while your other palm rubbed his chest.

“I’m not someone you fucking haggle with. Either you give me the price we’re offering or you don’t and you have no band. It is what it is.” Hanging up his phone, he tossed it loudly onto his desk as he released a heavy sigh. “Jesus, I’m fucking done with event managers and producers.”

“I’m sorry, Daddy. I know how hard you work. Can I make you feel better?”

“Oh, sweetheart, not tonight. I still have one more call to make and then I just want to take a long warm shower and go to bed.”

“Please, baby.”, you coo as you kiss his cheek.

You both exhale in frustration as his phone starts to aggressively vibrate. As he reaches over to answer, your own palm shoots out to cover his.

“Please, Eddie.”, you plead as your eyes bore into his.

“I have to take this, Y/N. It will be real quick and—”

He doesn’t even get to finish as you push yourself off his lap and head towards your bed to fall asleep alone.

***

A knock on the front door startles you both while you were (silently) getting ready for the launch party of Eddie’s new band that he finally signed to biggest venue in California.

“Are you expecting anyone?”

After shaking your head, he saunters over to the door and slowly opens it before a force of a man pushes through making Eddie beam with delight.

“Harrington! What are you doing here, man?”

“Like I’d miss one of your launches, dude. Where’s your gorgeous girlfriend?” Both men were taken aback when they heard your heels click along the floor before you practically jumped in Steve’s open arms. “Whoa! There she is. Everything alright?”

You didn’t say anything as you squeezed your arms tightly around him and inhaled the cologne that clung to his neck.

“Baby, let him breathe.”

“I’m sorry. I…we just missed you.”

A small smile flickers across his lips when you release him from your hold before he leans down and tenderly kisses your cheek.

“I missed you both to and you both look delicious like always.”, he grins. “Come on, let’s have some fun tonight.”

####################

You weren’t having any fun as you pouted in the back of the club hosting the party with your arms crossed as you watched both men before you. Eddie, who didn’t really enjoy this kind of evening events, mingled with some of the men and continued to gesture towards the group he signed as they let loose on stage, completely ignoring you to the point that he barely even noticed when your arm detached from his to go on the hunt for Steve.

The businessman himself, was giggling and openly flirting with a couple of women at a nearby table and you couldn’t help the bile that gurgled in your throat when you noticed one of their hands was resting on his upper thigh.

Neither of them were paying attention and it pissed you off. As you thought about ways to attain what you desperately craved an opportunity suddenly presented itself.

“Hey pretty girl. I’m Xavier and I couldn’t help but notice you over here by yourself. May I buy you a drink and keep you company?”

With a mischievous smirk, you nodded and allowed this young man to take your hand as he guided you to the bar. As he began to talk to you about something you couldn’t care less about, you wondered how long it would take for them to notice. Eddie wasn’t exactly the jealous type but he was incredibly protective especially when it came to parties with a lot of people. He had an idea of how the industry was and wanted to make sure you were always safe.

You had also never really given him a reason to be jealous because you were always so infatuated with him, you never even wanted to look anywhere else. With Steve, it was different and he was so much like Eddie with a few contrasts that together would make them a force to be reconned with.

“Y/N.”, the businessman cooed you name with a sarcastic edge. “Who’s your friend?”

“Hi, um, I’m Xavier.”, he introduces again, raising his hand for Steve to shake.

His gorgeous eyes look down at it with disgust before clicking his tongue and meeting his gaze.

“Yeah, I would get your palm off her thigh, X.” Your own eyes quickly look that way to find the other man’s hand was indeed resting where the end of your dress and skin meet. You hadn’t even noticed.

“What’s it to you, Mr. Harrington?”

When Steve chuckles, a giddy adrenaline sends chills through your body straight down to your core.

“Is this really the game you want to play, honey?”, he asks you as he absently gestures to the man across from you.

“Excuse me but it sounds like you’re threatening this young woman, Steven.”, the man tries to defend.

“That’s because I am, Xavier.”, he replies in an equally matched tone without breaking his eye contact from yours. “See, this young woman is Eddie’s girl and since he’s my best friend I have a responsibility to keep an eye on her.”

“And yet she was standing by herself near the wall all alone.”

Pain briefly flashes through Steve’s eyes; at you being alone or the fact that he didn’t notice, you weren’t sure. Sighing and shaking his head, he turns without saying another word and walks away leaving you in disbelief.

That’s all? He’s not going to do anything?

The heartbreak you felt was aggressively overwhelmed with anger as you got up from your chair and stomped towards your boyfriend.

“EDWARD MUNSON! I need to talk to you NOW!”

His wide shocked eyes met yours as all conversation around him immediately ceased before regaining his composure to politely smile your way.

“Baby, I’m in the middle of a conversation right now. Can it wait a moment?”

“No, it can’t but if you want to keep ignoring me and talking to these assholes you can!” The sound of Steve choking on his beverage as he laughed at your words behind Eddie’s shoulder caught your attention. “Shut up, Harrington! You’re just as much of an asshole as the rest of them!”

A couple of the men beside him snicker as your boyfriend’s angry eyes remain locked on you as his head tilts to the side. He’s never seen you behave this way and to be honest he found it fascinating even as he was seething.

“Uh oh, Eddie. Sounds like someone’s girlfriend needs a tampon.”

For a moment, you think he’s going to ignore the rude comment as he continues to glare your way as his chest rises and falls in heavy fury filled breaths.

“You know what, Kevin, one of our bands is playing at one of your venues next week right? I’m going to pull them and go with my second choice.”

“Now wait a minute, Ed—”

“NO, YOU WAIT A FUCKING MINUTE!”, he abruptly yells the man’s way, making you jump. “Even though she’s being a brat, that’s still the woman I love so you will show her fucking respect! Am I being understood?!”

“Yeah, man. Yeah, we understand.”

Glancing behind him at Steve again, you notice him bite his bottom lip as his glassy eyes constantly rake over Eddie as he defends you.

“Nothing hotter than watching Eddie get tightly wound.”

When he first told you that, you didn’t exactly have a frame of reference but seeing it now as the man you loved oozed and asserted his dominance was driving you crazy.

Taking a hold of your hand, Eddie practically tugs you towards the exit with Steve in tow. Behind you, you hear one of the girls he had been talking to ask where he was going but the businessman ignored her question as he grabs the hand she had placed on his bicep and moves it to the side.

“You want my attention, little girl, you got it.”, Eddie growled making your knees weak.

##############

You couldn’t help but drag your feet a little bit as your boyfriend powerwalked into your shared apartment and made a beeline towards the bourbon.

“Move.”, Steve commanded firmly as he lightly pushed you forward till you were in the middle of the wide-open living room. “Stay.”

“I’m not a fucking dog.”, you sassed under your breath right as he turned to leave.

Smirking, he swiveled slowly back around to face you before roughly tangling his fingers in your hair and pulling your head back till your chin was jutting out in the air as your defiant eyes met his.

“Stop acting like a bitch and I’ll stop treating you like one.”, he replied calm and cooly as if he were whispering sweet nothings against your lips. “Now…stay.”

This time he backed away from you, raising his eyebrow as if to challenge you to speak again which you don’t take.

“Are you alright?”, Steve asks genuinely as Eddie knocks back what’s in his glass and pours another.

“She’s never done that before. She’s never been a brat like that.”

“Hm.”, he hums as they both shift their gazes your way. “Maybe, it’s been too long since Daddy’s shown little girl her place.”

When worry paints Eddie’s features, his friend tenderly pushes his long hair out of the way so he can see his face. The action made your head tilt as you continued to study their personal dynamic. They seemed to care about each other very much but lately you often wondered why they never pushed past that best friend boundary.

“Does it bother you? That she’s not as innocent as you believed her to be?” Without hesitation, the man shook his head making Steve toss a lighthearted smile your way as if to tell you everything was ok. “Eddie, she’s a big girl. She knows her limits and she knows your safe word. She been practically begging for your attention to the point that she caused a scene in front of those douchebags. Give baby girl what she’s asking for.”

“I don’t want to hurt her. I…I don’t know how to be like you, Steve.”

You couldn’t hear what they were saying but you could see the conflict in your boyfriend’s eyes. You wanted to assure him you were fine and that you trusted him. You wouldn’t be here if you didn’t.

“It’s ok, Eddie, baby.”

“Did either of us say you could speak, little girl?!”, Steve boomed making you yelp as you immediately silenced yourself. Like a devil on his shoulder, the businessman whispered in Eddie’s ear as he removed his suit friend’s suit jacket and tossed it to the side. “You see that? Really look at her, Eddie. She’s still that innocent, pretty girl you love to take care of. But sometimes…” While he spoke, Steve’s large palm gradually glided down Eddie’s chest, below his waist, and to the prominent bulge in his slacks. “…sometimes good girls need to be put in their place and reminded why they call you Daddy.”

Eddie’s eyes briefly met his friend’s before reaching out to forcibly crash his lips to his. The way Steve grinned and chuckled when they pulled away had a needy whine escape your chest as the ache between your legs grew.

“Can you show me?”

“Yeah, baby, I can show you.”

After taking off his own jacket and rolling up his sleeves, he grabbed the long-haired man’s arm and maneuvered him till he was directly in front of you taking up all your personal space as his nose hovered just above yours.

“Don’t take your eyes off his, Y/N.”

“Yes, Mr. Harrington.”

“Did you buy her this dress?”

“I buy all her dresses.”, Eddie answers flatly.

“Is this a favorite, Edward?”

His irises leave yours, slowly trailing down your body and back up to your face before shaking his head. As soon as he gets the go ahead, Steve rips your dress in two in his massive hands causing you to groan in pleasure as he aggressively yanks it off your frame.

“Put your fucking hands down.”, he growls, reaching over to push at your arms when your automatically raise them to cover your breasts. As the businessman placed himself behind you, you could feel his gaze burning into your skin the same way Eddie’s was and you fully fell into that headspace making you feel small under their towering figures boxing you in.

“Has your Daddy ever spanked you before?”

“No, Sir.”, your murmured in a tiny voice that had your boyfriend’s chest heave as he exhaled.

“Huh. Never been a bad girl or has he just been letting you get away with everything this whole time?”

“I-I-I’m a good girl, Mr. Harrington.”

“Mhmm. I’m going to spank you 10 times and when I’m done you’re going to thank me. Do you understand? Until then all I want to hear is ‘Yes, Sir’ or ‘No, Sir’ when I ask you something.”

“Yes, S-S-Sir.”

You squeaked when his palm abruptly connected with your behind.

“Louder, Y/N. I want to fucking hear you or I start over. Now, I said, do you understand?”, Steve grumbled through clenched teeth in your ear.

“Yes, Sir.”, you answered more prominently, satisfying him enough to take a step back and balance a hand on your shoulder.

Your eyes remained glued to Eddie as his best friend spanked your ass a few times allowing some time in between before every slap. As you searched his features, you could tell your boyfriend was enjoying this. The way his mouth twitched into a small smirk every time a light moan left your lips and his now large dent trying to push through his pants told you he wanted nothing more than to fuck you till you were screaming his name.

Steve seemed to have more control, his tone never wavering as he began throwing questions your way.

“So you’re a good girl, huh. I may be mistaken but good girls respect their Daddies.”

“I do respect—Mmph!”

“That didn’t sound like a yes or no Sir to me.”, Steve scolded as he hit you again. “So you shouting at him in front of people he works with is respect?”

*SPANK*

“N-No, Sir.”

“Letting another man touch your leg is respect?”

At that particular question, a fire lit in Eddie’s eyes making you tremble as you were spanked a bit harder than before.

“No, Sir.”

“You let someone touch you?”, your boyfriend asked in a gruff tone you had never heard from him before.

“I didn’t know his hand was—”

“Oh, bullshit. So you didn’t willingly sit at a bar with that guy thinking it would make Eddie jealous so you could get his attention?”

“Yes, Sir, but—”

“But what, Y/N? Huh?” Eddie’s fingers tangle in your hair and pull just like his friend had. “But what?!”

“You and Mr. Harrington were ignoring me!”, you cry as Steve’s hand comes down harder.

“We’re busy men, Y/N, and you know that.”

“Busy flirting! Steve had girls touching him and—”

The man him leaned forward and your pussy clenched as both their breaths warmed your face.

“Who am I in here, little girl? Do you need to be reminded every fucking time or are you just doing this to piss me off?” The sound of his palm hitting your skin reverberated loudly though the room. “Your Daddy may have let you get away with that shit but I won’t.”

“I’m sorry, Sir.”

“Little slut got fucking jealous because other girls were flirting with me.” *SPANK* “But instead of coming to talk to me you pouted and behaved like a spoiled brat trying to get my attention.” *SPANK* “And what’s your excuse with him, huh? Eddie would never hurt you like that.”

“D-D-Daddy didn’t notice w-w-when I was alone.”

Steve didn’t understand it but he heard it in your tone and saw it in his best friend’s eyes as they widened for a moment. Your words meant something to you both.

“One more, Y/N. You…you did really well. You took your punishment like a good girl.”

Your eyes remained focused on Eddie as the other man held your bicep and reared back delivering you one final slap on your behind.

“Good. Good girl. What color are we at, honey?”

“Green, Sir. Thank you.”, you murmured as you softly began to cry. “You’ve been so busy these past few weeks, Daddy. You leave me alone a lot and when you are here you’re on the phone. Sometimes, when I get sad, I watch interviews with Mr. Harrington like you do but that just make me sadder be-because I miss him to. I miss you both.”

Eddie’s entire demeanor softened as he listened to you speak before shifting into that dominate energy you recognized immediately and hadn’t seen in so long.

“Baby…”, he cooed. “Come here.”

You didn’t even hesitate as you jumped into his arms and wrapped your limbs around him. Holding you tightly, he carried you to the couch and gently laid you on your back.

“I’m so sorry, baby. I didn’t mean to make you feel that way. You tried to get my attention and talk to me so many times but I just brushed you off. Can I make it up to you, princess? Can Daddy make you feel good?”

“Please, Daddy, I need you.”

Reaching between your bodies, Eddie unbuckled his belt and pushed down his pants enough to free his cock before gradually guiding it into your core.

“Fuck me, baby girl. You really—fuck—liked being spanked, didn’t you?”

“Yes, Daddy.”

“So fucking wet…just making a mess all over Daddy. God, you feel so good.”

As he slowly thrust into you, Steve kneeled beside you both and tenderly pet your head.

“I missed you to, Y/N. I think about you both all the time.”, he whispers as you open your eyes to meet his and Eddie does the same to glance down at his friend stroking his own cock. “You can always call me, honey. Whenever you want, day or night, I’ll answer.”

Taking a hold of his collar, you yanked his lips to yours causing him to smile into your kisses as your boyfriend pushed up onto his palms and rolled his hips roughly into you.

“Can I—mmm—Can I see you kiss again?”, you whimpered as his grin grew.

Eddie was so focused on your warm pussy squeezing him that he didn’t even turn his head when Steve ran his nose along his cheek forcing him to grab his jaw to bring his mouth to his.

Their mouths casually opened as the businessman welcomed his friend’s tongue and Eddie couldn’t contain the groan that left as his whole body collapsed onto yours with his head falling beside yours. Your fingers threaded through his hair as you held him, listening to his repetitive grunts in your ear as his cock pounded into that sensitive spot inside you.

“Just like that… Please, Daddy. I’m gonna cum. Cum with me, baby, please.”

Winking down at you, Steve sucked on his fingers and you watched with half-lidded eyes as he slid them between Eddie’s ass cheeks.

“Jesus Christ!” When your boyfriend tried to lift his head, you held him to your neck as his pace quickened and he shuttered against you as you felt him paint your insides with his release. As your cunt continued to milk him, you trembled and moaned his name as you came with him.

“God, you both are so fucking hot.”

Eddie tilted up, grazing the tip of his nose along yours while gently placing pecks on your lips.

“Can I have him to, Daddy?”

“Of course, baby girl. If you think you can handle him right now.”, he answers in a gravelly, exhausted, pleasure filled tone that has you beaming.

“Honey, you should take a break.”

“I can handle it, Mr. Harrington. I swear. Please…”, you beg. “I missed the way you feel inside me.”

“Fuck me.”

Eddie chuckled at Steve’s earnestness as he backed out of the way so his friend could pull you to the floor and place you onto all fours in front of him. You whimpered as his soft lips kissed down your spine and he dragged the tip of his cock through your dripping folds.

As he carefully began to press into your entrance, your upper half fell flat against the wood underneath you.

“That’s it, pretty girl, you’re—fuuuuuuck—doing good. Just breathe.” Steve’s palms kneaded into the meat of your ass as he watched himself gradually disappearing inside of you. “God, I’ll never get over how tight t-this pussy is.”, he groaned before his hand came down to spank you making him laugh through his teeth. “You see, Ed, behind every innocent little girl is a freak who l-loves to be told to behave. Right, baby?”

“Oh, oh my… Yes, Sir.”

The businessman exhales heavily as he thrusts into you much easier than the last time. There was still that small bit of resistance as he stretched you open but your boyfriend helped open your pussy up for him and for that he was grateful.

Gripping your hips, he adjusted you so he could push deeper inside, making you groan as he found a steady rhythm.

You vaguely heard it through your fog of pleasure, the sound of lips smacking. Craning your neck, you watched as Eddie passionately kissed his friend as his palm caressed his hairy chest up to the base of his neck.

A low growl rumbled from him as Steve pressed his body flat against yours, rolling his waist as his breath warmed your ear.

“This is what you wanted, isn’t it, little girl? When you called me an asshole.”

“I’m—mmm—I’m so sorry for…for being disrespectful, Sir.”

“This is your warning, Y/N. I’m not like your Daddy. If—mmph—if you ever behave like that again I’ll do more than just bring y-you home and spank you. Do you understand?” While he spoke, he had stopping moving eliciting a small whine from you as you tried to push back against him. Utilizing his knees, he pushed you down flat against the floor, pushing both your legs together and placing his hand roughly on the back of your neck. “I said, do you understand?”

In this new position, Steve’s cock somehow felt deeper inside of you as it pressed buttons you didn’t even know you had and your eyes rolled back.

“Hey.”, Eddie barked sternly as your eyes met his from where he was still laying on the couch. “Answer Mr. Harrington’s question or else you won’t get to cum again.”

“N-No, Daddy. Please. Yes, I understand.”

Smirking, he gradually began to pump into you again with reckless abandon as you both whimpered at the feeling. Fulling encasing you in his embrace, Steve’s sweaty forehead landed on your shoulder as his palm appeared by your side near your cheek.

Without even thinking about it, you intertwined your fingers with his and his glassy eyes opened to what you were doing. It had been so long since Steve had been in a committed relationship and partners were often coming and going from his place or hotel at will.

A lot of the time, they submitted the way he liked and after the ecstasy filled evening ended they left him or he left them. People would be surprised how lonely he actually was and how much he occasionally craved comfortable intimacy. Someone to hold, take care of, or wake up to the next morning.

Eddie gave that to him when they were together and not just in a sexual manner. Steve felt like he could be himself with his friend, actually let go, and have some fun without fear that he was using him for his money or status. He would never admit it out loud but he constantly looked for him in other partners but had yet to find anyone… except you.

No. He told himself long ago that he would never cross that romantic boundary for fear of losing the only true friend he had and now that you were in both their lives he didn’t want to lose you either. Steve would do anything he had to, to make sure he never went back to feeling like he did growing up with his father; worthless and empty.

Without you two, he knew that would be the outcome.

Your grip tightened around his hand and his eyes squeezed shut as your pussy quivered around him. As you came, his rhythm faltered as he roughly pounded his release into you.

Steve panted as he carefully pulled out of you and sat up to lean his back against the couch. When you tried to curl your body around his, he pressed his palm against your chest to stop you making his heart break when your bottom lip started to quiver.

“D-Did I…did I do something wrong, Sir?”

Eddie blinked as his protective mode promptly kicked in but as he began to lower himself down to the floor to defend you, your hand reached for Steve’s as you rose to your feet.

“Come on, baby. Daddy says aftercare is extremely important and we have a shower with a waterfall setting! It feels so good. Come on. Up, up.”, you reply in a playfully light tone as his amused eyes watch you before doing as you say.

Your boyfriend slowly trailed behind keeping an eye on you while watching you work your magic. There had been times when he felt low or out of control and you took care of him till his smile returned.

“Eddie? Everything alright?”, you coo as you place the bag you were holding down and climbed into his lap behind his desk. You knew he wasn’t working because even at home he would wear jeans or slacks to remain in that mindset. Right now, he was in his boxers and one of the comfy t-shirts you bought him with one of his favorite bands across the front. His intense eyes were focused on the computer screen in front of him where multiple pictures were spread out along the desktop. “Your mom was a gorgeous woman.”

Eddie sighs a shaky breath, taking the hand you had resting on his chest, and bringing it to his lips.

“I like this photo here with you two laying in the grass outside. How old were you?”

“Um…4, I think.”

“Do you remember it?”

“I remember her laugh. The older you get the more memories fade but, for some reason, I’ve never forgotten her laugh.”

“I bet it was beautiful like yours.”

“Pfft.”, Eddie snorts. “My laugh is anything but.”

“Agree to disagree, baby. Then again, my laugh is perfect—”

“Oh, perfect, huh? Sweetheart, you give meaning to the term ‘guffaw’.” That big toothy grin you fell in love with spreads across his face as you prove his point by giggling loudly at his joke. “I love you, baby.”

“I love you to.”, you softly smile as he squeezes you against him. “I brought some burgers and beer. I was thinking we could watch a spooky movie or something.”

“Jesus, you’re perfect.”

“Feels good right?”, you beam up at Steve as he dips his head under the water and closes his eyes. Eddie steps in behind you and dutifully begins to clean you as you run your hands along his friend’s arms and down his chest before his eyes abruptly snap open at the sound of your hiss. “Ow, Daddy.”

“I know, princess. I know.”

Lightly grabbing your bicep, Steve turns you just enough to see Eddie trying to carefully clean between your legs but on his decent down your body grazed your sore, red behind.

“If you have some aloe moisturizing lotion that will help the marks and, of course, and ice pack.”

“I don’t need ice. It was just the rough rag against my tender skin.” The businessman nods in understanding as his gaze starts to drift before your hands cup his cheeks forcing him to focus on you. “What’s running through your mind, Mr. Harrington? Is it me? Is it cause I called you an asshole?”

Steve smiles, showing you some of his teeth as he shakes his head.

“I’m sorry I did that.”

As he leans forward, he gently kisses your forehead.

“I forgive you.”

Once everyone is clean, you hand him your moisturizer and his grin grows as he rubs it along your ass.

“Did you like it, the spanking? It wasn’t too hard or anything, right?”

“No, Sir, not too hard. I liked it a lot.”

“May I ask you something, honey?” He continues when you nod. “What made you try this with Eddie? Why didn’t you try the submissive thing with any of your other partners?

You can’t help but giggle when your boyfriend growls low in his throat at the mention of “other partners.”

“Honestly…I don’t know. I trust him and I feel safe with him. Eddie’s shown me so many amazing things and when he suggested this…I trusted him.” As you wrap your arms around him, he pulls your head tightly to his chest and kisses the top. “I trust you to, Steve. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t.”

It takes him a couple of moments before he finally releases you so you three could climb into bed. While Steve fell asleep with your back to his chest, Eddie’s fingers gently caressed your face.

“I really am sorry for neglecting you. I just got so caught up in this new band that I had tunnel vision.”, he whispered.

“I know, baby. I forgive you. I’m sorry I didn’t voice my concerns like I should have. I swear I didn’t realize that guy had his hand on my knee. I was lost in thought thinking about you.” You see him nod in the darkness and you capture his hand to hold it in yours. “He likes us, Eddie…Steve. He likes us a lot but is holding back.”

The man in front of you sighs as he scoots his body a bit closer to yours.

“Yeah, I know.”

“Do you like him?”

“I love him and I love you but it’s a bit more complicated than that, sweetheart.”

“How so?”

“Steve’s been hurt a lot. Not just by relationships but friends and family as well. He was my best friend first before we shifted into the sexual realm. If he loses me and now you…he feels like he’ll have no one.”

“But we would never hurt him like that.”

“I know. Trust me, I know but this is the way he wants it so I respect that. You know I’m usually straight forward with my feelings? Yeah he may come of that way and plays the role well but truthfully he hides them under the sarcasm and cocky attitude.” After rolling onto his back, he slides closer to you so you can rest your head on his chest. “How do you feel about that? You, me, and Steve being in a relationship.”

“I kind of feel like we already are but then I feel him pull back…”

“Yeah…Maybe when he wakes up we can all talk about it… Get everything out on the table.”

“What if he pushes us away?”

“I’m kinda used to that by now when it comes to him but I don’t want it to hurt you, baby girl. Do you think you could still do our dynamic here with both of us if he didn’t want anything romantic?”

You nodded without any hesitation.

“Metal.” Eddie smiles when you giggle and tilts your head to kiss your lips. “Get some sleep, baby. I love you.”

“I love you to, Eddie.” Intertwining Steve’s fingers with yours, you bring the back of his hand to your mouth for a soft kiss. “I love you to, Steve.”, you whisper even though you knew he was sleeping.

You both didn’t see but the businessman’s eyes flutter open.

He didn’t sleep a wink as his mind raced over his insecurities and fears. Occasionally, his thoughts would get lost as he watched Eddie’s chest rise and fall as he breathed. Pressing his nose into your hair, he would inhale your smell and absorb the warmth that was you as he imagined what a relationship with you both would be like.

Steve saw himself genuinely happy for the first time in a long time and that scared him.

That morning when you woke up, you rolled over to snuggle your face in his chest only to be met with a pillow and an empty bed where the man had been laying.

################

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chronically-ghosted · 9 months ago

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go west, to the southern plains, go west to breathe (lover, share your road - part i) series masterlist | AO3 Link | prologue | part ii

chapter rating: T

word count: ~21K

chapter summary: at the end of the line, you make a business proposition to Joel Miller. He brings you and Ellie home to the last sanctuary left in this world in exchange for your skills. What you find there and what you find out about Joel Miller is not what you expect.

chapter warnings/tags: depictions of going hungry and poverty, sexual harassment, period accurate sexism, depictions of a sick child, reader depicted as skinny but due to lack of food not her natural body type (and this will change), allusions to domestic abuse, hurt/comfort, pining, the beginnings of a praise kink, let the idiots in love begin

a/n: shout out to the ever incredible @jennaispun for beta-ing the prologue and this first part!

“After a long walk in hell, I found you. You made hell feel like home, you made the flames feel warm. It’s true, you haven’t saved me but you were the closest thing to heaven.” — Maram Rimawi

part i:

Beneath the soot-gray fingertips of your gloves, the dust of the high plains sits coarse and heavy on the tattered, yellowing strip of paper. You hold it down flat as a brutish wind snakes up the empty dirt road through the center of Dalhart, grabbing hold of the brown dust that clings to everything — and tugs. Underneath your pale blue dress, with the hemline torn and the collar in need of stitching, your heart pounds as you read the small, almost guilty, advert:

Help wanted. Can pay.

Contact Joel Miller.

The promise of actual money should have had every able-bodied American scrambling to answer the advert, but by its place near the bottom of the announcement board outside of the country store, buried beneath slashed prices for milk and eggs and headlines out of Washington – it seems certain to be relegated into obscurity.

For all you know, this could be months, even years, old. Miller, whoever he was, could be long dead, or gone with the rest of the exodus to California. Or he could have gone the way of your “Uncle” Robert – a huckster, discovered too late; one of many who prey upon the desperation that sticks to the country like the acrid smell of smoke. Your hand shakes as you pluck the yellow card from the wooden plank. There is no contact number, no address. Another trick? Dust stings the corners of your eyes when you pinch them close, your breathing quickening, your pulse sharp in the sleeve of your ratty glove.

Oh, God, what are you going to do? What if this is nothing, just like Robert’s promise? What if there’s nothing here for you? What if –

A small hand on your forearm centers your spiraling thoughts. From beneath a faded blue baseball cap, two brown eyes peer up at you, firm and reassuring.

“You okay?” She keeps her voice low, just like you asked.

“Yeah, El–Ellie, I’m fine.” You squeeze her too-thin hand, your stomach toiling with guilt and its own emptiness. “Just figuring out what to do next.”

“Is finding and murdering this asshole Robert still off the table?”

You frown, your niece’s quick temper more from your dead sister than you. “It is. Now, I’m going inside to ask about this advert. Maybe this Miller still has a job or two open.”

Ellie’s eyes fall to the slip of paper in your hand, her aggressive scowl tightening into something that too closely resembles fear. She knows what’s at stake just as much as you do and you hate that that knowledge ages her youthful face.

“You stay close and don’t let anyone get a good look at you, okay?”

Ellie nods, already familiar with the routine, and scoops up your luggage case, her tattered satchel hanging off her other shoulder. She had been wearing pants long before reaching Dalhart, but it soothed you to think the eyes of cruel men passed right over her, their interest rarely in young boys.

A bell above the door tinkles when you open it, but by the dull, muted sound, it most likely has a few dents. Behind you, the afternoon heat follows you in, the sunlight illuminating the floating dust mites in the air. The door whines as it closes, brightening the inside of the store, where the mites settle back into the silver layer that sits over cans of tomatoes and peaches, linens, boxes of gum and cigarettes. Nearly everything sits untouched and unmoved, old dust settling between cracks and grooves, patrons not having enough money to buy something and the owner not having enough to change out stock. Struck still, frozen in a single, long exhale. The slow, creaking death of the economic system has reached Dalhart too. You shudder, suddenly cold as if in a mausoleum.

The further away from Boston the train took you, the further back in time you felt. Here, you are reminded of the old general stores of cowboys and pioneers. But maybe, that is exactly where you are: out of time.

A man in long white sleeves, coiffed hair, and perfectly round glasses, looks up from the wilted newspaper spread out over the counter.

“Can I help you?” His accent hails from the east, North Carolina most likely. However, his manners are not reflective of that famous southern hospitality. He looks at you like you’re a bad dream and it unsteadies you.

“Y-yes. I, uh, I’m hoping that you know a-a Miller. Joel Miller? I have his advert and I’m, um, I’m looking for work.”

The man’s thin eyebrow jumps mockingly. Aren’t we all, sister? But eventually, he shakes his head.

“Look, I don’t know what you’re doing all the way out here, but this ain’t no place for a young lady out on her own, job or no job. Where’s your husband?”

“Dead.” Your voice doesn’t waver, but then again, why would it?

The clerk’s eyes soften, if only slightly. “I see. But I’m sorry to say, there is no job here for you.”

Your mouth instantly dries out. “What do you mean? Where’s Mr. Miller?”

“He’s a mean ol’ sunuvbitch, livin' God knows where. Comes in twice a month for supplies and he’s back out into the prairie.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t see why that’s a problem –,”

“He ain’t fit for civilized life, ma’am.” The clerk drops his nose, eying you seriously over the rim of his black glasses. “Whatever he’s offering, you don’t want no part of it.”

“I think we’ll be the judges of that.” Beside you, Ellie drops your suitcase and it loudly clatters to the ground. “Thanks for the tip though.”

The clerk’s eyes widen – this is terrible behavior even for a boy – his mouth unfurling to give a nasty tongue-lashing, when you interject, your voice thick with pleading.

“I would just like to meet the man. Please, sir.” The clerk, like most men without scruples, can barely resist the sound of a woman begging. Those uncanny blue eyes find you again. “Has he come in recently?”

You can feel Ellie’s wicked sneer behind you, the clerk’s gaze switching between the unlikely pair in his shop. Finally, he shrugs. Who gives a fuck if one more woman goes missing?

“He’s due for a resupply.”

“How soon?” Your palm sweats under your gloves.

He narrows his eyes, evidently annoyed that a woman would reject his warnings. “Soon. We have a parlor in the back if you’d like to wait for him. But you have to buy something,” he adds vehemently.

You nod, unsteady on shaking knees as you walk towards the door in the back of the store.

“Thank you, sir. You have been so kind. We very much appreciate it.”

Any chance that the clerk finds you sincere is lost when Ellie wraps her knuckles on the counter as she passes.

“Buh-bye, dude.”

The parlor is small, dark, damp, and smells faintly of kerosene and leather. A woman, most likely the wife of the clerk you just annoyed, glares from behind a counter as you and Ellie walk in.

“Lunch.” Not a question.

Ellie looks up at you, eyes wide, fearful. You hadn’t let her see what is left in your purse, but she knows it’s low.

With your stomach in knots, you wouldn’t be able to eat anyway. You pluck out a dollar, bringing your total down to three dollars, and giving it to your niece.

“Order whatever you want.”

The beating heart of the blazing Texas sun edges downward across the open sky, falling, until it drops completely behind the harrowingly flat horizon. Purple erupts in its wake, the last pump of blood of a dying muscle, and nearly instantly, the temperature drops. You watch the explosive coronary of the sky from a table at the back of the parlor, your own pulse doubling the later it gets. You squeeze your hand between your thighs to keep your fingers from drumming uneasily on the table. But for once, Ellie doesn’t pick up on your nerves.

A dollar went farther out here and, as a result, Ellie is allowed her first big meal in months. Twice now, she’s nearly forgone the silverware to shove food directly into her mouth with her fingers, had it not been for your glares to remind her to slow down.

“This is slow,” she grumbles as she licks her bowl of mashed potatoes clean. Of course, half of what she ordered sits waiting for you, but you know she needs this meal more than you do – even if your rumbling stomach disagrees. You’d already had lunch at the train station; one more missed meal won’t kill you and less for you means more for Ellie.

Suddenly becoming a parent to a very opinionated fourteen-year-old girl was not something you had anticipated, and most times you figured you were doing it all wrong. The least you could do is give her everything you could.

“You think he’ll show?”

You tear your eyes away from the parlor door, blinking back into your body out of your cloud of thoughts. Ellie’s little hands grip the bowl, a white smear sitting on her bottom lip, her eyes dark as they watch you.

You grin as her pink tongue swipes up to lick her mouth clean. How easy you forget she’s only fourteen, with her loud mouth and provoking eyes. “Eat your food, Ellie.”

The words have barely left your mouth when the door to the parlor bursts open. Two men, clearly drunk and smelling of it, stumble in. This is the part where you wish you too could believably dress up like a man. Your pulse thrums in your neck like a heightened prey animal.

One pushes the other’s shoulder, smirking, and grunting something. His friend, also in a cowboy hat but half his size, nods and makes an unsteady line for one of the tables, while the other does his best to get to the bar.

The man at the table has light green eyes, overly thick eyebrows, and a flat mouth, loose with drink. He flops into a wooden chair and you watch as the Texas Rangers badge on his chest flashes in the firelight behind him. Your stomach tightens.

He stretches out, feet crossed over his ankles, limp hands crossed over his denim jacket, hollering at his friend and the woman working, who looks equally displeased to see them as she did you and Ellie.

Smirking, his eyes slide from the wooden bar top, over the back wall, and right onto you.

You watch as his gaze blurs for a moment, a film of beastial hunger smothering the color of his eyes. You can feel your pulse in your ankles now.

“Well, now, what do we have here?” The lilt in his voice calls out two unspoken words: fresh meat. Distressingly steady, he climbs to his feet, his hat tilted obnoxiously on his forehead. “Where did you come from, you pretty little thing?”

He saunters over, his thumbs stuck in his belt, the gun at his side snug in its holster. The grin on his face is hideous. You’d smack it off if you weren’t suddenly overcome by a debilitating fear. A look like that on a man is never, ever a good thing.

“Whatcha got there, Lee?” his buddy calls out from the bar, beard drenched in beer foam.

“I dunno quite yet, Knapp,” he says over his shoulder, his livid green eyes never leaving your face. He nearly folds in half to press his spider-like hands on the surface of your table, coming inches from your face. His breath smells like corn whiskey and cheap tobacco. “Guess I’ll have to find out. What’s your name, pretty thing?”

“Or she could not tell you her name and instead, you could fuck off.” Ellie’s scowl wrenches her mouth open, her knuckles white around her spoon. There’s a part of you that fully acknowledges and accepts that if given the signal, she’d scoop the fucker’s eyes out with the silverware right here. “We’re eating here, or are you too busy smelling like a fucking whiskey barrel to notice?”

As with most adults when Ellie decides to show her teeth, Lee stares stunned before the self-righteous anger sets in. Your heart stops for a moment when you think he’s going for his holster, but instead, he uses the flat of his hand to swat her hat off her head.

“Shut up, you little fucker, where’d you learn your fucking ma–,”

Ellie’s long hair tumbles down her shoulders, the baseball cap on the floor behind her.

Lee is stunned into silence once again. The parlor goes deathly silent.

It’s Knapp who sets off the explosive spark again. “Holy fuck, you’re a little girl.”

Ellie snatches up her hat, cheeks flaming red, but Lee’s hand grabs her wrist.

“A kinda cute one at that,” Lee sneers. He twists her arm and she yelps. Knapp at the bar laughs, his paunch shaking as beer sloshes over the side of his glass. The woman is cleaning something with a rag, turned away from the scene, her shoulders hunched to her ears. You’re on your feet, your hand on her purse. “What are you thinking, hm? Dressing this sweet little girl up like a boy?”

The trigger clicks and Lee and everyone else in the parlor freezes. The edge of your lash line is wet, fear rolling through you like fog on the bay. Your hand is steady, miraculously, but your voice isn’t.

“L-l-let–,” your voice cracks and you try again. You only have one gun drawn on Lee and you pray to whatever god is listening that Knapp doesn’t remember his. “Let her go.”

This small pistol is your last line of defense against those who would take everything from you. You couldn’t keep your sister safe, your husband didn’t want to be saved, but you’d die before you’d let anyone come within an inch of Ellie. You pawned off your wedding ring long before you ever considered selling this weight in your hand. You couldn’t physically win a fight but you’d be damned if you weren’t going to take someone out with you.

There’s more than one reason you never let Ellie look into your purse. You won’t make eye contact with her now.

Lee’s eyes harden into black flints in his head. “Yeah? You’re shaking like a leaf. You ain’t gonna do shit about it.”

He twists harder, forcing Ellie to her knees, his mouth smearing into a sickening sneer, Ellie’s cries loud – “get off me, you fucker!”

All you have to do is miss. Once.

Your arm shifts right and you fire. You meant to hit the floor, but instead the leg of a chair at a nearby table shatters, wood and smoke sparking into the air. Lee and Ellie jump, their struggle broken, but Ellie’s quicker, smarter. Hunched to avoid debris, they are nearly eye to eye and Ellie doesn’t hesitate; she jerks her head back and then launches her forehead forward – square into his flat nose.

The crunch is sickening and it turns your already empty stomach. Lee shrieks, releasing Ellie, his hands flying to his misshapen nose to staunch the river of blood pouring from his nostrils.

“You bitch!” he whines, voice wet and gummy as blood trickles down his throat, eyes watering. You hear a roar of anger as Knapp stands, no longer finding any of this funny.

“Get behind me, Ellie.” You snap, eyes on Knapp as he lumbers forward. She hesitates, looking like she’d like nothing more than to kick Lee up the balls, but obeys the closer Knapp comes. She slots behind you, eyes sharp on the squealing man on the floor.

“She broke my fucking nose, man,” he cries, face already purpling.

“Yeah, and don’t you forget it, you fucker!” She snarls over your shoulder. One hand holds your elbow, and the other brandishes her mother’s knife that had been at the bottom of her satchel seconds ago. Fuck.

Ellie Williams is not, and never has been, nor will be, one to deescalate a situation. Knapp responds in kind. His drunk fingers fumble with his holster, his face contorted with rage.

“Shootin’ at an officer of the law – you’re gonna hang for this, you thieving little c–,”

“Knapp.”

A fifth voice – low, deep, a mammalian bark that grinds the chaos of the room to a halt. The large man stalls, his engine snagged by the rough grain of that voice. On the floor, Lee lets out one quiet whimper as he cracks open a pulsating black eye.

In the glow of the firelight, you watch as beads of sweat swell on Knapp’s big forehead beneath his wide-brimmed hat. His wide eyes flash between you and the man who just walked in.

“M-Miller, the fuck you want?”

Your heart seizes in your chest. Miller.

Joel Miller.

You never thought your saving grace would come in the shape of a hulking, dark-eyed man.

A well-worn handkerchief around his neck, crusted over with dust, his broad shoulders stretch a denim work shirt, the unbuttoned collar loose and just as dirty. Worked-over hands, dry and brown as the earth, curl into fists at his side. Tight jaw, flared nose, eyes black, his presence expands in the cramped room, a leviathan cresting dark waves to command the roaring void.

“Back off, both of you.”

Knapp sneers, desperately tugging at some misguided sense of bravery, with sweat running hot and fast and smelly down the sides of his rubbery face. “Y-yeah, or what?”

“You fuckin’ know what.”

Knapp visibly swallows and lowers his pistol, hands trembling. Lee whines from the floor, his eyes open as wide as the swelling will allow, abject terror on his face as he stares up at Miller. Neither of them move.

A guard dog satisfied by the corralled sheep, Joel’s heavy gaze roves from the two men, across the room, to you.

His expression doesn’t change.

The weight shifts across the stiff planes of his shoulders, and he turns, leaving as quickly as he appeared. Beneath his thick boots, the wooden floor creaks and it rouses you. Your mouth is so dry you can feel the skin of your lips split apart.

“Mr. Miller, w-wait.”

He doesn’t.

With a single glance to the men still frozen in terror, you follow him through the now-dark and empty store. The cold desert air cracks hard against your overheated cheeks when you burst through the door, into the black night. The moonlight illuminates the threads of silver hair in his beard that the dark parlor hid. His fingers work slowly, unhurriedly, as he tightens the leather buckle beneath the wide girth of his off-white horse. It lifts its head as you stumble out onto the dusty road, its round eyes watching you with more interest than its rider. White ears twitch forward, a snort from the long snout, and Joel rubs the soft place between two giant nostrils without looking up.

“J-Joel – Mr. Miller, please, I need your help.”

“Already got it.” His shoulders flex and roll as he loads up another loose sack onto the rump of the horse, then tightens the securing belt. It snorts again and shifts on its hooves, its long tail flicking back and forth.

You shake your head, swallowing the hot rush of embarrassment. The wind licks at your ankles and you fight back a shiver, bringing a hand to your shoulder to warm the goosebumps. “No, sorry, I mean – I’m here to help you. I saw your advertisement and I was wondering if the position was still open.”

The buckle quiets. The dirt at his feet crunches as he faces you.

There are no trees in Dalhart, Texas. There are barely any clouds, no coverage. Overhead, the few buildings not yet folded up in the wake of the financial collapse throw shadows over his angular face, but you can still feel the trace of his gaze over you. A curious search, the investigation of scent.

Then he shakes his head.

“No.”

Your entire chest tightens. “Has the position been filled?”

“No.”

“Then why–,”

“I don’t need you.” He lifts up the third and final sack and you feel your hope being carried away with it. “Need a farm hand. You’re not the type.”

“N-n-no, I’ve worked on a farm. I-I’ve only planted seeds but I’m a quick learner and I–,”

“No.”

“Sir – please, I’ll do anything–,”

“Then go home.” He unties the reins from the wooden post and clicks to the horse. Its big eyes watch you as he turns them for the road. “There’s nothing here for you.”

You absolutely will not cry in front of this gruff stranger. Panic icing down your spine, you follow him on weak knees. In the wake leftover from the wheat boom, Dalhart is quiet as soon as the sun goes down. Empty of people, of light, of any sort of guiding hand, you try to appeal to the last human you’ve found at the end of the world.

“Mr. Miller, there must be something you need. I’m a hard worker, smart, you won’t have to train me at all. Please. I’ve been a housekeeper, a seamstress – a nurse. I —,”

The horse huffs when Joel pulls tight on the reins.

In the moonlight, all of his hair looks gray. Your heart plunges in your throat. You can feel your stomach trying to digest your spine.

“Done any work with kids?” He asks, after a moment.

His brisk question is not what you expected. You can barely hear him over the pounding in your heart.

“Y-yes. I’ve treated children before. A-and I was a teacher, briefly. I’m very good with children, actually.”

The scarred hand at his side tightens, flexes open and closed, the tips of his thumb and forefinger twitching over the other. Over his shoulder, you think his head tilts a centimeter towards you.

“You know what? Fuck this.”

Out of the shadows of the county store, Ellie tears down the steps, her face pink and her hair stuffed back up her ball cap. She loops her small hands around your forearm and tugs, her eyes like chips of bark, glaring hatefully at the man in the middle of the street. Faint dust churns beneath her faded sneakers.

“She’s fucking begging you and you don’t give a fuck, you old shithead!” She tugs again. In the flash of the moonlight, a glassy film has settled over her eyes. “C’mon, we don’t need him. We – don’t need – him.”

“Ellie, please!” You grab her by the shoulders, a soft hand in a swirling tempest, and she settles, her mouth twisted up in anger and embarrassment. She hates that you have to beg anyone. “Please.” Shielding her from him, you squeeze her shoulders. “I know, Ellie. I know. But I have to keep you safe.”

Ellie finally turns that hot glare at you, eyes damp. Petulant when terrified, your sister was the exact same way.

Fuck, Anna, it should have been me.

“She yours?”

Joel rests his weight on his left knee, fingers loose around the reins. He’s lowered the mask around his mouth. You snap your head up, your voice thankfully steady. “She’s my niece. She . . . I’m responsible for her.”

Below your palms, Ellie stiffens.

Fifteen feet from you, Joel nods, the muscle in his jaw tight. The horse huffs and he glares at it like it just yelled at him too.

“I’m not in the habit of pickin’ up strays,” he says as if that means a lot.

Hope springs in your chest and it snags the air in your lungs. “We’re not. I-I mean, we’ll work hard. Please, give us just one chance.”

“And you expect me to take on the both of you.” It isn’t a question, but his eyebrow arcs all the same. “That’s two mouths I gotta feed, ‘steada one.”

“She can have mine.” In the silence, you think you can hear the faint choir of crickets. You remember the tarantulas and centipedes that lived inside the walls of your husband’s prairie dugout, and your stomach twists. “Ellie can have whatever you give us.”

She makes a brief cry of protest, but you squeeze her shoulders. The sharp flair of his nostrils smooths and the corners of his eyes pinches, tilting his eyebrows up. He’s still glowering, but somehow, his expression has suddenly opened, just a crack.

And then he nods.

“Stay here a night. I’ll be back in the morning with the wagon.”

And that’s it. You have a job.

You’re so elated it takes a minute for his words to sink in. He turns back down the road, the horse's hooves clipping on the dry ground. You follow after him, hand outstretched.

“Oh, no, w-we can walk, it’s no trouble. Let me just get our things and–,”

“Too far to walk. And there’s things out in the dark more dangerous than those fuckin’ rangers.” He nods to the country store, eerily quiet. It sits, ugly, like a brown old frog. “There’s a hotel just up the road. It’s not much, but it’ll do for one night.”

“But, sir, we really can’t stay. I don’t – there’s no –,”

You stumble to a stop when those merciless dark eyes root you to the ground. The leather reins squeak when he tightens his fist around them. Again, you are under the impression of a dog sniffing out your scent for any deception, any treason. He takes you in, all of you in – your ratty gloves, your torn hemline, your tattered collar – and by some miracle, he doesn’t say anything. Instead, the groove above his nose softens.

Wordlessly, he reaches into his back pocket and takes out five dollars from a brown leather wallet. He offers it to you between two fingers.

Take it, his eyes command.

You do, with a shaking hand. You hate charity, you hate that you’re at his mercy –

But Ellie has a bed for the night. Inside, warm. Where, hours ago, she didn’t. You smother your pride and nod, gaze at the scar on his cheek that you only now notice at an arm’s length away.

“One night,” he says. “For you and the kid.”

You nod again because that’s all you really can do, his pity clutched in your fist and held against your heart.

Ellie scowls as he swings up onto the horse and readjusts his mask.

“What a guy,” she murmurs to you, her eyes still narrowed. Joel clicks his teeth, and the horse trots off into the dark, a lone man riding out into the featureless night.

Evidently still feeling slighted, Ellie sticks her tongue out at the denim back.

“Better keep that tongue in your mouth, kid,” he hollers before digging his heels into the horse’s flanks. “Liable to be chopped off like a copperhead.”

Ellie’s mouth snaps shut.

The money Joel gave you is more than enough to cover a room and another plate of food. You even spurge your own money on some small candy for Ellie, determined to give Joel back every cent left over and then some, once you’ve proven you can earn your keep.

For you and the kid.

You shake your head, lost in your own thoughts, the gnawing hunger in your belly satiated, as you pull back the covers to the twin bed. The metal frame squeaks as you climb in, your night dress thin and ragged as the rest of your clothes.

“C’mon, Ellie, time for bed.” When she doesn’t move, you stop rearranging the pillows and look at her. In her own white nightie (because she’d outgrown all her other pajamas), she sits in front of the roaring fire, her chin on her knees, and her arms wrapped around her shins.

She’s quiet - either a good sign, or a terrible one.

“Ellie, sweetie, we’ve gotta get some sleep. It’s gonna be a long day tomorrow.”

You watch as her narrow back expands and falls in one slow breath, her skin bright in the firelight.

She nods mutely and climbs into the space beside you. She rolls onto her side, away from you, her hands tucked up under her head, her knees curled up beneath her.

This is where Anna would know what to say. How to soothe this girl with so much awareness in a world that is raw to even those willfully ignorant. You can’t bullshit Ellie the way you can some kids. She knows too much. Seen too much.

You settle down next to her in the shadow of her shoulder. Your fingers hover, locked between the yawning gap of touching her and not touching her, when she finally speaks.

“Is this really going to work?” Her voice is quiet, soft, dust-covered and buried. “Is Joel really gonna . . . are we safe?”

You cannot bullshit Ellie Williams.

“I don’t know. I’d like to think so. I know you don’t like him, but I think we can trust him.”

She’s quiet again, only this time because there’s something she doesn’t want to say.

“Not like Uncle Robert – or Robert, if that’s even his real name. I’d never met the man in person, but I wanted – so badly – to believe . . .” You swallow, your own shame boiling your skin. “I think we’re safe with Joel Miller.”

The god’s honest truth.

She hears it in your voice.

Ellie tips back to look you in the eyes. She’s lost so much weight recently. “Yeah?”

You tuck a strand of her hair behind her ear, the ghost of your thumb across her cheek. She allows the show of affection. “Yeah, El. I do.”

You want to say: you can trust me. I’ll always take care of you.

But you know it would only come out hollow.

Neither of you would think it was honest.

She pulls away from your grasp, her eyes almost golden in the firelight. She nods and stares at the burning wood.

“Okay.”

“So . . . is your car, like, broken or something?”

You elbow Ellie and she sits up from hanging over the edge of the wagon. She frowns at you – what? – and you both glance at Joel at the front of the wagon. If the question annoys him any more than he perpetually already is, he doesn’t show it.

“Don’t have one.” He says to the back of the horse. The wagon rocks and sways over the clods of dust and stone in the road. “Never did.”

“Uh, why?”

“Cars break down in the dust storms. Short out. They end up being more trouble than they’re worth.”

Again, that half-centimeter turn, his tone implying what his eyes can’t, faced away from you. Ellie narrows her eyes at the back of his head. She wrenches her mouth open, fire in her eyes, but she catches you glaring, and her mouth snaps shut. Pouting, she chucks a lone pebble off the back of the wagon.

The sky is strikingly blue, bright as a livewire, the air warm and crackling with the early summer heat. Away from Dalhart, away from the collection of dust on every surface, dripping through every crack, you find the clarity and distance of the southern plains to be . . . unexpected. So careless and abrasive one minute, but then, in moments like these, it became hard to believe that nature could ever be so cruel as to make the earth rise up and swallow it all whole.

You swing your legs off the wooden edge, the sunshine warm on your knees. It’s no use trying to hide how badly your socks need darning, so you lean back and stretch your legs as far as you can, your face tilted towards the sky, the still air peaceful. This morning, you’d put on your yellow plaid dress, torn cotton lace around the sleeves that stop at your elbows. You tucked your hair up and pinned your straw hat to your head. It was a reflex, to present your most beautiful self to a man, even one you barely knew. By the way Ellie had rolled her eyes, she felt no such compulsion.

Demure, your mother always told you, you’re not very pretty, you’re not very bright, the least you can be is demure.

The wagon shudders, clicks, over the empty road and you open your eyes. Ellie is turned away from you, eyes out to the fields on either side of you. You don’t understand what she’s looking at, until you realize that’s exactly it: there is nothing to look at. On the other side of those loopy barbed-wire fences through cock-eyed posts, there are miles and miles of nothing but churned-over dirt. A lazy wind spins over a patch of emptiness, tossing clods and sand into the air, an aimless sadness as tangible as the dust itself. Phone lines stand, corroded and chipped, along the side of the road like tangible manifestations of a deadly infection.

“There’s no crops here either.” Ellie says, voicing loudly what you only thought. You can’t see her face but she sounds as stunned as you are. “What happened?”

You watch over her shoulder, eyes level with the earth bleached of all material, all life. With the drought, your husband’s field shriveled up in months, the cracked ground peeling away from the sodhouse in some places. You still have nightmares about waking up with grit between your teeth, choking and coughing up bloody chunks of mud.

This is desolation on an epidemic scale.

“Ask different people ‘n they’ll tell you different things.” Joel says in his slow drawl, the crackle of the earth soft beneath the wooden wheels. “No one really knows. But nothing like this happened when the buffalo grass was here, ‘steada wheat.”

“Wait, you were here before Dalhart?” Ellie twists on the wagon, leaning over the lip where Joel sits and drives the horse.

“My family was. Here before anything. My grandpa befriended the Comanche Indians and –,”

“You got to hang out with Indians?” Ellie nearly hurls herself over the edge of the wagon to try and look him in the eye. “What are they like – did they teach you how to shoot a bow and arrow – can they really ride horses like that –,”

“Ellie!” You want to grab her by her collar and yank her back into the wagon. “Not so many questions.”

The noise Joel makes is somewhere between a grunt and the word no.

“It’s fine –, “ he looks down at Ellie, still curled around the back of the seat, her eyes wide with a giant smile on her face. His ever present scowl doesn’t seem any deeper, nor does it deter her. Joel turns away again and in the sunlight, his hair is gooey, caramel brown. You stare at the dirt road while listening, the back of your neck hot. “They’re good people. Didn’t deserve what happened to them – to any of ‘em. But they taught my grandpa and grandma how to take just what they need, nothing more. But then everybody needed grain, offered money for cheap, easy labor. They poured in here, into the prairie, and in years, it became this. Folks blame the drought, but it’s more’n that.”

Ellie’s inordinately quiet. She knows exactly what your husband did to you, to your family, and now, maybe to the entire land.

“‘Next year’ people, they claim,” Joel continues, his voice deepening with anger, “‘next year’, things’ll be better. ‘Next year’ the rains’ll come. ‘Next year’ the wheat’ll return.” He shakes his head, boots creaking against the toeboard. “Anyone who thinks that is lyin’ to themselves. Anyone’s who’s been here, seen what’s here, for us it’s been –,”

“The end of the world.”

The silence that follows your words stretches long, an anchor dropped off the end of the wagon and rattling around the wheels. You swing your legs, fingers curling around a tear in your hemline. It wasn’t the first time you’d heard those words to describe the state of things. That’s what your husband called it and you believed him.

Evidently, Joel agrees. His wide shoulders taught, the denim blue faded beneath the boundless sky, he nods.

“Griiim,” Ellie mutters as she curls up and drops her chin on her knees.

You’ve been watching a single cloud chase the sun from the floor of the wagon when Ellie, silent for all of about fifteen minutes, lifts her head from her hands draped over the edge. Her eyes go wide, her ears pink from the sun, and says:

“Whoa.”

The horse huffs as you sit up, a soft wind snagging the loose hairs on the back of your neck, and your mouth drops.

Grass.

Fields of it.

The air is fresh, warm, and filled with the scent of living, breathing earth. Tipped with lush purple seeds shaped like paintbrushes, a sea of stalks bend and ripple in the cooling breeze, undulating like waves on solid ground. The wind is soft here, teasing, rolling through the tall grass, carrying the scent of growth and green in the air. You’re suddenly aware of how dry your mouth is, cracked and padded with dust.

“We left it be.” Joel offers simply, voice too gruff to surely be filled with pride. “It’s endured and survived, and so have we.”

Further back, you can see where the line of his property ends – a harsh division of paradise and purgatory – and marked to the north by a dip in the ground and even over the crunch of the wheels over the ground, you hear it: water.

A river. An oasis in a wasteland.

Ahead of the white tufts of hair on the horse, the road curves, disappearing into the sea of grass, but letting your graze drift up, you see an a-frame home, white like a lighthouse at the edge of a storm. The instant the home comes into view, Joel clicks his tongue, urging the horse faster – eager.

He leads the horse up through the road, through the grass, and on the other side, by the river, two cows chew up the green, oblivious. Beyond them, tucked behind the house is a barn. Low to the ground but wide, hunched like a fighter with a heavy center of gravity, it looks ready to endure and survive. As this entire secret world had.

Joel tugs the horse to a stop, the wagon rattles as it slows, by the wide porch of the a-frame. It sits also low to the ground, wider with a dark roof, held together with something black and smeared. You’re so distracted by the unique qualities of this house in the middle of paradise that you miss it when the door creaks open until you’re staring down the barrel of a shotgun.

“Who are you?” The voice behind the gun is deep, even if the barrels shake slightly. In the dark of the doorframe, you can’t quite see their face, only their short stature.

You see Ellie’s hand twitch towards her knife, which she now carries in her sock since the night of the county store.

However, Joel is less concerned. In fact, the boulders of his shoulders loosen, ease to simple muscle and blood. He makes a noise that on anyone else, it might be considered a laugh, a chuckle, but he isn’t even capable of smiling –

He slings down from the seat and pats the horse.

“Easy there, Annie Oakley, it’s just me.”

The shadow in the doorway stiffens.

“Dad?”

The shotgun lowered, the shadow staggers into the light. Brown eyes, just like his, scrunched against the blinding sunlight, a girl with the most beautiful head of curls blinks at Joel, her thin hand held up to shield her face.

“Hey there, baby girl.”

In a single leap, she jumps down from the porch but all too quickly, the smile slips from Joel’s face.

“Hang on, not too fast–,”

She stumbles towards him as best as the metal braces around her knees, down to her ankles, will allow, defiant and smiling, despite the beads of sweat that have swelled over her forehead. Joel surges forward, faster than you thought possible, and reaches for her, nearly on one knee.

“Slow down, please, Sarah.”

“Dad, I’m fine,” she huffs before tossing her arms around his neck. “I’m fine. Just – missed you, is all.”

You can’t see his face, but he straightens up still holding her. With one hand he flattens those curls to her cheek, and kisses the other.

“Enough to forget all the things I taught you about gun safety? You just tossed that thing aside,” he scolds fondly. She rolls her eyes as he sets her down.

“Okay, but if you didn’t know it was me, you would’a been totally scared, right?”

She watches as he chuckles, a deep, warm sound, but her own smile flatlines when she spies Ellie climbing down from the wagon. You ease off the edge, your lower half sore from the ride.

The girl, Sarah, narrows her eyes.

“Who are you?” She positions her body slightly in front of Joel’s. “And why are you dressed like a boy?”

Joel’s soft scolding – “Sarah” – is lost beneath Ellie’s scoff. She adjusts her satchel.

“Why are you dressed like Raggedy Ann?”

Her father’s massive hands clench down on her shoulders, Sarah’s scowl evident that she’s about half a second away from launching herself at Ellie, leg braces be damned.

“Now, let’s slow down here.” Joel’s deep baritone is light, but just as firm as his grip. If you knew him better, you’d think he is about to laugh, the lines around his eyes thick, while his mouth stays flat. “We got off on the wrong foot. Sarah, this is Ellie and her aunt. They’re going to be staying with us for a while to help out with your schooling.”

Those curls go flying, her frown now pinched in worry. Another girl caught between a child and adult – for the sake of their single parent, you notice, your chest tight.

“I thought you needed a farm hand. You were going to teach me.”

“You know you already read better than I do.”

“Dad–,”

“Miss here is also a nurse.”

“Oh. Oh.” She glances down at the metal braces as if she’d forgotten they were there. The skin on her knees is chaffed, rubbed pink. “She can . . . help me?”

Twin pairs of brown eyes settle on you, one hesitantly curious, the other aggressively determined.

You can, right?

Ellie’s staring at the braces, her gaze distant, heavy. She’d seen this before, but everything back then moved too fast. Back then, there was no time for braces.

Braces only help a small percentage of polio patients. The lucky ones.

You nod, your heart hammering under your chest bone. “Yes – yes, sir. I think with Ms. Kenny’s therapy, we might be able to alleviate some pain.”

Those eyes, exactly like and so unlike her father’s, widen.

“Really?”

You introduce yourself with your first name, pressing the crease in your glove between your nail and your thumb with your other hand.

“I’d like to try, Sarah.”

You suddenly understand that Sarah is Joel Miller’s most guarded secret, out here in paradise, paradise as the most beautiful prison in the world. He continues to stare at you from under thick eyebrows after Sarah moves away from him. Ellie, caught off-guard by her forward movement, takes a significant step back.

“I, um, got some marbles out back,” Sarah starts, thumbing over her shoulder, and every other word sounding like an apology. “If you wanna play.”

Ellie jerks forward, her eyes round with excitement, but stops. She looks at you.

“Can I?”

Soft when eager, just like her mother. So unlike you. You nod.

“Stay close, okay?”

You and Joel watch as Ellie and Sarah toddle around to the back of the house, Ellie quietly narrating every thought she has as she keeps pace with Sarah.

Those look actually really cool, you know?

Yeah?

Totally. Have you read Amazing Stories? You look like you could be part of the Space Family Robinson.

Who are they?

Oh, you’ve never read those!? Okay, so they’re a family who live in space and they go on these awesome adventures together to different planets and . . .

The farther they go, the faster Joel turns back to stone. His gaze lingers just a hint longer before those dark eyes pin you to the ground.

“You said you can clean? Cook?”

You nod quickly. “Yes, sir.” Guard dog Joel. Stocky pitbull, teeth long and wet Joel.

He tilts his chin towards the house.

“Kitchen’s in the back. I gotta clean up the wagon and the horse, then gonna tend the field. I’ll be back in a few hours, but Sarah knows where to find me if y’need somethin'.”

You nod again, but he misses it, turning away to unbuckle the horse. You slide your trunk and Ellie’s satchel off the end of the wagon and head into the shadow of the house.

The white clapdoor snaps shut behind you, followed by the softer snik of the screen clicking into its frame. Slipping the bobby pins out of your hair to release your hat, you take in the Miller home.

The air is cool. Dust motes float in the sunlight streaming in from the second floor over a staircase with wooden wainscoting leading away from the open front room. With a brief glance up, you can see the faded white walls of the upper hallway, some not-yet-seen window drawing in bolts of morning light that pierce the air in bullet holes. It’s quiet and it smells warm, like lace kept in the back of a drawer near a wall that faces the heat outside.

A blue two-seater couch faces a squat fireplace, with a Queen Anne table sandwiched between the two. Behind you, a large grandfather clock ticks and waits, a server waiting in the shadows with a watchful eye to report back to its master on the going-ons of the house. With only a cedar hutch, a few daguerreotypes, a smattering of books, the room is sparsely decorated, but kept clean and organized. You could see Sarah, a focused look in her eyes, sitting on the steps of the stairs and making Joel move and rearrange furniture over and over again until the room felt right.

Through a white arched doorway, you find yourself in the kitchen. The light sparks more brightly here, the sky a stark blue through the four square window over the kitchen table and above the sink, reflective of the sun. You realize then the house runs north to south at an angle, where there are limited windows in the walls on the east and west sides, thereby limiting direct sun exposure and, more importantly, heat. Both the kitchen and the front rooms had been built out of the line of the sun, making cooking and cleaning and living bearable without a painful glare.

A thoughtful and patient consideration.

Someone had attempted to add some levity with brown and blue plaid wallpaper around the cove of the dinner table, all the way to the other side of the room around the kitchen counters and stove. But unfortunately for everyone else, the wallpaper is hideous, only tampered by the off-white counters and cupboards.

The cupboards have glass doors, blurring ceramic cups and plates on the tops of the shelves.

It reminds you of the small apartment Anna and you lived in back in Boston, when it was just the two of you. It wasn’t much, but it felt sturdy, secure. Safe.

A door to the right of the stove has a latch, and you lift it and poke your head inside. A chilly darkness greets you, along with the scent of wet, deep earth. A basement? No. Not this close to the kitchen. Curiosity pulling you forward, you descend the sturdy wooden stairs, into the sunken darkness. You count ten until a draft licks your ankles. You keep going, one squeak of wood after another until - you touch soil. The heady scents of pine bark and peat moss soothe the air from where your feet press into the ground, fertility thick like mushrooms in the gut of a lichen-drenched tree. But it’s dark, too dark to make out much, barely your own hand in front of your face. With your fingers outstretched, as if you’ll bump into a gas lamp conveniently on the ground, you shuffle forward and almost immediately a cold chain tickles your face. You grab out of instinct and pull.

Nearly blinded by the light that erupts from an exposed bulb directly in front of your left eye, you stagger back, wincing, your footsteps muffled by the earthen floor. You blink through the tears as the secret at the end of the stairs finally reveals itself.

A pantry. A cellar.

At least twenty feet deep and ten feet high, with rows and rows, stacks and stacks, wood shelves cover nearly the entire length of the underground room. In between the rows, large barrels sit, quiet and sturdy, with bottles of vinegar and olive oil sitting on their rims.

You realize two things within seconds of each other.

This house has electricity. It stands above the ground, proud, independent, full of heat and light. So unlike your husband’s dark hole in the ground.

and

there is so much food.

Pickling jars. Seed pouches. Culled wheat. Cans of fruit and vegetables and eggs. Olives with squash and pumpkins. Crates of potatoes and half bottles of wine and syrup. Onions and carrots and spices and garlic.

A feast. Meals for days and days and days. The bounties of earth stored, safe beneath the ground, like a secret.

It’s more food than you’ve seen in years.

A hunger like you can’t remember having roars in your stomach out of nowhere and everything pitches to the right. The edges of your vision blurs, your shoulder knocking into stone wall, and breathing becomes a nearly impossible task. You turn, nearly stumbling up the dozen steps that have turned into a thousand.

The tacky memories that stick to the crevices of your dreams yawn awake, bringing with them dry mud in your mouth and thick salt to your eyes. Mud, dirt, dust – everywhere. In that stinking hut in the ground, the dust replaced your molecules, your atoms, until you too might blow away, until you are cracked and empty and dry. The static from the dust storm memories shoots down both of your arms and you sway on your feet. Your heart suddenly pounding so achingly fast, you have to drop your forehead against the flat surface of the closed door to keep the room from spinning.

You had forgotten what safety looked like.

You had forgotten what living could be.

You know the ringing sound of that gunshot is just in your head, it’s not real, but you shudder all the same, your hands curling into claws under your chin, your nails tearing up the white paint.

You’re here, not there. You are safe. Ellie is safe. That house and him have been entombed together under piles of dirt, with the bugs and the rot and the stench from the weak stove. Rivers of sweat rolling down the back of your neck, you beg yourself to stop shaking. You feel like cheap terracotta pottery – made from dirt, left too long to bake in the sun and made brittle; one good tap and you’ll shatter.

You breathe in and taste wet salt. Breathe out and cry – cry from the fear and the dread and the relief and the hope. God, that hope tastes worse than all the dirt in the Panhandle of Texas.

You cry and cry and cry until you don’t feel so brittle anymore.

Sunlight has struck copper, heavy, tangy in the mouth, when the back door opens and the house is instantly filled with the sound of girls’ rabid conversation. You step back from the stove, cheeks warm and arm sore from continuously stirring the rice and vegetable soup. It’s not as thick as your mother once made, but without milk, it would be nearly impossible to improve. You smile at the girls as they tumble in, more dust mite than human, whispering about some secret.

“Having fun?” You ask with a grin on your face as Ellie helps Sarah take off her shoes, already attentive to what a girl with her health concerns might need.

There’s an overlap of chatter as Ellie and Sarah both answer you and then, answer each other.

“Well, good,” you say, turning back to the stove, making sure the bottom of the soup doesn’t burn, “but whatever you got up to, it’s all over your faces so please wash up before dinner.”

“It smells real good, miss,” Sarah says as she hobbles over to the sink and starts rinsing off her arms and cheeks, while Ellie takes off her own shoes. “What is it?”

“Something my mom used to make when the cupboards were bare.”

Sarah stills, the water rushing over her soft skin. Those inquisitive eyes are just as captivating, just as forceful as her father’s, but for entirely different reasons. She tugs the words out of you by the sheer, needling strength of her gaze.

“I mean – I found the cellar, the house is incredibly well stocked, but I didn’t see any preserved meat or dairy and I didn’t – I didn’t think your dad would want me poking around out back.”

Immediately Sarah softens and rolls her eyes. “Dad’s all bark and no bite,” she huffs. “We’ve got stored beef and cheese in an ice chest downstairs. I’ll show you around tomorrow.”

You smile and those brown eyes go warm in the coppery light. “Thanks, Sarah.”

“Bunch up, I gotta wash my hands too.” Ellie none-to-gently bumps Sarah with her shoulder to get to the sink but before you can scold her, Sarah swings back, using her precarious momentum, and pushes Ellie back. They both giggle. Something that’s been cramped far too long in your chest loosens.

“So, Sarah, tell me where you are with your schooling. Do you have books, diagrams?”

She thinks for a minute as she opens a drawer that leaves her back to you and takes out two, then four thin cloth placemats. She hobbles back to the table to carefully spread them out.

“I was up to seventh grade before the school shut down. That was about two years ago, so Dad’s been trying to make sure I don’t forget anything. He got me a Midsummer Night’s Dream by Shakespeare a while ago and made me read it out loud to him. He has me work on my letters every day – including cursive.” She adds, with a bright spot of joy cranking her mouth open. You imagine someone like Sarah would have beautiful penmanship. “He shows me around the yard, asking me to identify plants and animals, especially anything that might be poisonous. I don’t think he really understands it but he explains what happens when you add water to a seed and keep it in damp earth. Oh, and he has me help balance the books for the farm – what we made, what we sold, how much we have left, stuff like that.”

You smile at her over your shoulder as Ellie hands her bowls. “Accounting.”

“Huh?”

Ellie rolls her eyes. “It’s so boring, don’t worry about it,” she whispers conspiratorially.

“What your dad is teaching you is called accounting,” you say a bit firmly, eyes tracking your niece as she shows no shame. “It’s a very special skill to have, especially if you work on a farm or in a business. Do you like it?”

She nods rapidly, those cork-screw curls bouncing around her thin face. “Yeah! I do! I’m much faster than Dad when it comes to figuring out the sums and dollar value.”

In the front hall, the clap door creaks open then slams shut, heavy footfalls proceeding the man that makes them.

“Does that happen a lot?” you ask softly as Sarah sidles up next to you to peer into the pot.

“Where I know more than my dad?” Sarah smirks up at you, all devious youth. “More often than you think.”

A mini sun bursts from the ceiling as Joel flicks on the light switch and is almost immediately tackled by Sarah. The copper sun on the horizon finally, in the distracted moment, slips down and drags the night behind it. It’s purple twilight outside when Joel lifts his head from the embrace around Sarah’s shoulders to stare at the two strangers in his kitchen.

“Dinner’s almost ready,” you say brightly and you can almost picture your mother in the same exact position in front of the stove, stirring soup until her cheeks were pink, her hand resting low on her back, her tummy round and full in her second attempt to keep her husband’s rage diverted from her. It’s a boy, she promised.

The memory makes you so violently ill out of nowhere, you lose your appetite. But you persevere; you carry on and load up the bowls Sarah stacked for you. Ellie saves you from having to dislodge the prickly knot in your throat when she snags a bowl and eagerly yells, “get it while it’s hot!”

The arrangements from the stove to the table are a bit of a blur, the slick anxious weight from earlier today curling around your lungs again as you remember shadows in chairs like these, but so different from the flesh-and-blood bodies that occupy them now.

You’re dazed, a little light-headed, but not so much to miss the glance between Joel and Ellie. A junkyard puppy skirting the territory of an older watchdog, a bone in each of their mouths and dragged to opposite corners of the battlefield. Satisfied with the lines of demarcated territory that had been drawn, they call a temporary truce by eating in complete silence, until Sarah groans.

“Oh my god, this is better than it smells!” she hums, her mouth full of potatoes.

“Just wait till she adds chicken,” Ellie grumbles, mouth cupped open to keep from spilling. You watch her, a faint smile on your face, and the slippery feeling fades. When cleaning up, she missed a spot on her left nostril and you fight the urge to clean it with your thumb.

“There’s more.”

Your gaze snaps to Joel hunched over his bowl. The spoon that Ellie and Sarah have to both clutch in their fists to eat barely swings between his massive fingers.

Joel’s dark eyes trace down your nose, your chin, your neck, to where your hands lay flat on the table in front of you. Your own bowl and spoon sit on the counter behind you. You worry you might have upset him, with the way he’s frowning.

“There’s more,” he repeats, same tone.

“I'm sorry?”

He puts his spoon down and clears his throat, then nods to the pot on the stove. Ellie watches him out of the corner of her eye.

“I saw how much you made. If you’re hungry, you should eat.”

As though speaking a language only you could hear, he looks at Ellie the same time you do.

She frowns. “What? Is there something on my face?”

Sarah begins to giggle, nodding, when Joel starts again.

“You should eat. There’s enough.”

It’s like his eyes can see through your blue veins and clammy skin, to your yellow bones and clawing stomach. You choke on the mudball that’s been hovering in your throat for months and nod.

“Alright.”

You don’t know if you’re actually hungry – you can’t really remember the taste of warm food – or if you’re doing it just to appease him, but something about the heat of the bowl and solid spoon in your hand, it rouses you from this sinking you find yourself in. Your bones feel like jelly.

“How’re the fields, Dad?” Sarah asks with her big eyes, seemingly unaware of the layered exchange between you and her father, or kind enough not to address it.

He responds to her, his voice deep in the cavern of his chest. It’s an easy way he speaks to her, heavy with the seriousness she’s earned to be talked to like an adult, but gentle enough that for all his low grumbling, it comes out as a thick murmur. You find yourself listening to their conversation, their interactions, as soothing as music turned low from a well-tuned radio. Ellie is even roped in when Sarah tells Joel all about the Space Family Robinson and Ellie’s knife. “It’s really cool, Dad,” she says preemptively. “She knows how to use it and she’s really safe.”

“Well, if it’s really cool . . .” he fills his mouth with potatoes, tamping down the ghost of a grin on his lips around the spoon.

Ellie shuffles in her seat, her own hesitant smile glittering in her eyes, and with only minor prompting, she holds no prisoners when gleefully telling Sarah that she’s got the story of finding a mess of wriggling worms out by the back of the barn all wrong.

“Just keep ‘em outta my side of the bed, alright?” You grin at her, spooning another dribble of soup into your mouth. You’ve realized too much, too fast can just as easily twist your stomach so you focus on cradling a digestible amount of food – broth, potato, carrots – in the well of your spoon.

But the landscape beyond the silver lip has stilled. Both girls are happily slurping up the last bits of their meals, throwing quips back and forth, but Joel’s shoulders have locked up again, the bones of his wrists flat, a static alertness that you’re sure would travel all the way down to his ankles if he was standing up right. You aren’t sure if Sarah has picked up on the subtle change in his breathing – from the deep well of his lungs to shortened and shallow – but somehow you have.

You’re staring at him far too long.

Those thick eyebrows pitch down again. Beneath the loose button that pins your dress closed over your chest, you feel a swell of heat and you wish you were like Ellie, capable of making an easy joke – what, is there something on my face? The heat bubbles almost uncomfortably under his weighted gaze.

“I hate bugs,” you blurt out, desperate to give him what he wants, if only you knew. The girls glance at your sudden outburst. “I don’t like worms especially. I don’t mind straw beds, as long as they’re clean – I mean, I–I hope they are, the straw beds, not the worms.”

Another eternal second of being pinned down by Joel’s frown, this one decidedly less hostile, before understanding breaks open the harsh lines of his mouth and around his eyes. His eyes go wide for less than breath, then he drops his gaze to the bowl. His shoulders shift, muscle redistributing weight as he settles his thick forearm closer to the edge of the table.

Oh, that relief of muscle says.

“You’re not sleeping in the barn.” Joel says, head tucked down. At that, Ellie slows her ravenous eating and frowns at him.

“Then where are we sleeping?”

Joel lifts his head, a new, special emotion just for her tugging on his mouth: exasperation. “My room. You two in there and I’m takin’ the couch.”

Shame and embarrassment drip down over your skull, between your ears, like a cold, runny egg.

“No, we couldn’t possibly–,”

He shakes his head, eyes still on the split potato chunk at the bottom of the bowl. His hand flexes briefly and you think of it around the bridle of the horse.

“It’s not up for discussion.”

Beside him, Sarah frowns at him and you’d wonder how many times in her life he’s ever said that to her – if you could think properly over the roaring of blood in your ears.

“Joel,” you say, something syrupy under your tongue molding the words Mr. Miller into a tone you’d use for an old friend. “I can’t ask you to–,”

Hand flexes. The seat of the chair squeaks.

“You’re not askin’, I’m tellin’.” You’re still vastly underprepared for when those eyes - those deep, dark eyes - suddenly snap on you, as if your very presence commands his entire attention. You notice the dirt underneath his nails and around the knot of his wrist on the table. He’s filthy.

Quietly, with the surety of a dog slipping its snout between its paws, he cuts the last chunk of potato in half with the curve of his spoon. “The new mattresses’ll be here next week. We’ll make do ‘till then.”

The slurp of soup between his lips seems to signal the end of the conversation, but you can’t quite mash together your kaleidoscope-spinning impressions of the man across the table from you.

“Thank you . . . Joel.”

He nods, back teeth breaking apart the soft mush of the potato. He swallows and glances back up at you.

“It’s good,” he says, briefly holding his spoon aloft. “You did good.”

His words burst the choking bubble in your chest and warmth drips down your spine, splashing in the cradle of your hips. Hunger rises, but it’s a different kind of hunger. A growl of neglect. One you sometimes wondered if it was even possible for you to ever even feel.

Even while you were married to your husband.

You put your spoon down to keep your hand from shaking. The soup won’t feed this new churning hunger and, frankly, you don’t know what will.

You did good, he praised, parsed out like torn bread tossed across a black lake.

It makes you warm in places food never could.

The immediate next morning, you meet the sun early, eagerly. Eager to wake and rise and become so useful, you are intricately tied to this house; if you are removed, a vital piece of the land, the prairie is torn up along with you. Ellie sleeps softly next to you, curled up in the same position she was in the hotel bed, tucked in so tightly as if to take up the least amount of space possible. She sleeps, unbothered, blissful, and again you fight the urge to brush the hair that covers her sleeping eyes. You settle for tugging the beautiful quilt, with its stunning blue and red and green patches, up to her shoulders.

As you tie your dress up, your suitcase partially open and on the ground, movement from outside in the dawning pink catches your eye. A brisk shadow, those thick shoulders proceeding a taught waist are unmistakable as they move towards the barn. You stand, transfixed for a moment as broad hands slide open the barn doors, you hear a faint creak, and he disappears inside. The capability of those hands; the surety, where every action is deliberate and intentional – it makes something arc up your throat. A warm piercing that bursts through bone and muscle alike. Trembling fingers tug at the wilting lace around the cuffs of your dress, imagination stretching out into the dark morning, inspired by curious and impossible ideas of those hands.

Something – most likely Sarah next door – squeaks the floorboard and those tendrils of thought snap back as if someone had slammed a lid shut. You glance at the clock and make a mental note to wake up earlier tomorrow, to beat him to the kitchen.

You are also desperately eager to get out of the room where you can practically smell Joel on the walls. It’s simple, just like the rest of the house, but amongst the hand-drawn sketches of himself and birds (likely gifts from Sarah), the half-spent candles and well-read books, you find him in everything. You wonder, briefly, if the indentations made on the cotton mattress are from him or you – the scent of his hair in the pillow from sweat or soap.

The encroaching feeling that you don’t belong here in this house nearly swallows you whole as you dress in a room you definitely don’t belong in.

Joel remains a distant figure, a familiar shadow across the lightning horizon, long after you finish the eggs and toast. You consider perusing the pantry for blueberries or something similar, when Sarah comes down. Fresh-faced, dressed with the care most people reserve for church, she stumbles in, her braces clacking as she finds a seat at the table.

You notice a brief flash of pain across her face when you bring over a plate of food. She unconsciously rubs a circle with her thumb on her left knee as she picks up her fork.

“Pain today?” You ask, eyes on her knee, even though it’s obvious.

She nods, strained. “Just a little bit. But it’s nothing. I’m sure it’ll go away when it warms up outside.”

You doubt that is remotely true, but you let her hold the comforting lie. She doesn’t seem like the type to swallow pity with ease, and neither was Anna. You put on that detached but focused "nurse's" mask, your lips a straight line and brow furrowed, your voice slipping on something more commanding too.

“Let me see.”

Sarah blinks at you briefly, evidently surprised by your shift in demeanor but eventually, she obeys. She drops her fork and slides the chair back, the chair legs squeaking against the rough wooden floor.

You crouch in front of her, gathering up her ankle first and testing its mobility.

“When were you diagnosed?” you ask, as soft as you are firm.

“Never, technically.” She watches you and occasionally winces. You wonder how long she’s grown stiff like this. “The doc had left over braces that Dad bought before the guy skipped town.”

“So then how did you know it was polio?”

By her sudden stillness, you know this is the first time that word has been uttered under this roof in a long time. You lower her ankle, rising gaze meeting hers. Her mouth is pulled tight. You can practically read the familiar headlines as they scroll across her mind.

New Polio Cases by the Thousands

Polio Claims Life of Infant

Polio Outbreak: Thirteen Dead

“Not every case is serious,” you say, gently, using the word serious in place of fatal. You don’t want to scare her unnecessarily. But by her wide eyes, you know the word sits in her chest all the same.

“I know. And I know it can be made worse by moving too much. That’s why Dad’s always on me about resting and going slow.”

You return to your examination. Her skin is rubbed raw in some places by the braces. You remind yourself to ask Joel for some old sheets to make better padding.

“That’s not always true,” you say, shifting to her other leg. “Even though she was sore after, Anna often said she felt the stiffness go away after walking around the neighborhood block.”

Curious, Sarah tilts her head, those lovely curls swaying like leaves in a breeze. “Who’s Anna?”

Your skin around your eyes tightens – how could you be so careless with such a secret – when you hear feet thundering down the stairs and a second later, Ellie swings around the lip of the doorway.

“Is that toast?” She asks, eyes wide and hopeful. “If you got bacon, I’m gonna start kissing faces.”

You and Sarah exchange a small grin before you stand up right and Sarah returns to her own meal.

“No bacon today, but who knows what else is stored in the pantry?”

“Oh, fuck yeah,” Ellie exclaims as she slides into a chair, her own plate pilled far too for a girl her size. “Treasure hunt.”

You see the tips of Sarah’s ears go briefly pink at Ellie’s language but the muffled smile on her face hints at awe, impressed – so you let that one slide. A stream of light through the half-shut curtain tugs your thoughts outside, to the man literally toiling in the fields.

“Does your dad want me to bring him some food?” You ask, standing from the chair and glancing out the window. You can’t see him any more and for some reason that makes your chest go tight.

Sarah shook her bouncy curls. “No. He’ll come in and get it when he’s hungry.”

You didn’t like the idea that you weren’t going to be directly feeding the man who employed you literally to cook for him and his daughter.

“Does he like coffee?”

Sarah arches an eyebrow at you. “Yeah, he loves it. But I’ve tried for years to make it the way he likes and he always drinks it, but I think a little piece of him dies inside every time he does.”

“Then you must be a great cook too,” Ellie smirks up at her. In response, Sarah smiles impishly around a mouthful of eggs.

You hold that little bit of information about Joel - something you knew that he didn’t know you knew - close, like a dollar bill in your pocket. You drum your fingers, searching for memories of how Anna used to shoe-string coffee when you couldn’t afford a maker in Boston.

“Did you eat?”

Ellie’s voice tears your gaze from the window. Her plate is only halfway empty. Her fingers uneasily move the fork around.

“Yeah,” you answer truthfully. In fact, you are rather ashamed by how much you took, sitting at the table in the purple dark, before you remembered that you had to feed three other people. “I’m good, Ellie. Thanks.”

She nods, returning to her plate and shoveling two bites into her mouth without slowing down.

“What’s first today?” Sarah asks, her eyes bright. “I can show you my sums. We have a chalkboard in the barn.”

You smile at her eagerness to show off while Ellie dejectedly pokes at her remaining floppy eggs. She had never been one for school, another thing you found hard to relate to about her. Fortunately for her, Anna nor you ever had the time to be as diligent about her education as Joel had been for Sarah. And unfortunately for her, you intend to fix that as quickly as possible.

“I’d love to see them, Sarah, but would you mind showing me around the cellar first? Maybe there is bacon hiding down there somewhere.”

You don’t miss the small smile that creeps across Ellie’s face.

“Junk or keep?”

Sarah looks up from the tip of her stick dragging nonsense through the barn’s dirt floor, her chin flat in her palm, elbow on her knee. She frowns at Ellie holding up . . . something that might have been a tractor part at one time.

“I don’t even know what that is, so – junk?”

Ellie shrugs, tosses the piece back and forth in her hands, and then chucks it like a ball to the opposite end of the barn. It collides loudly with the wall and Flora, the white and black cow, lifts her head at the noise from her stable and lets out a low groan.

The entire barn smells of hay and animal but in a way that is warm, almost comforting. The two cows lazily munch from their troughs in their stalls, occasionally eyeing you as you carry items back and forth. It’s fortifying in a way only working outside and with your hands can offer.

You turn to her disapprovingly but she’s already back, elbow-deep, in the pile you had designated hers to sort. Sarah, to whom you suggested rest this morning, goes back to boredly drawing circles in the dirt. Even though she clearly hates the idea of being idle, you are surprised she takes your medical advice without any fight.

If you had successfully completed your duties as cook, now it was time to take on your other task as teacher. Sarah had a few textbooks, but mostly outdated and only one copy. You know trying to find a full library in times like these is laughably impossible, but there is nothing wrong with hoping for a blackboard. You’d made one before when the school district you tempted at didn’t approve new funding, and you feel confident you could do it again. Trouble is, you have nowhere to put it, much less set up a laughably impossible classroom for two students.

Until Sarah casually mentioned the unfortunate pile of junk in the back of her father’s barn, “taking up at least half the space in there.”

She wasn’t wrong.

“Yuck – is your dad a hoarder?” Ellie asks with slight disgust as she pulls up a stack of newspapers held together by twine. “Why does he even have this stuff?”

Sarah grins, delighted by Ellie’s prickly teasing. “This place actually used to be pretty organized. This was his space for a long time – where he went to think, or figured out what crops we needed for the next year.”

Her smile crumbles. “But, uh, then I got sick and now he doesn’t come out here unless it's for work.”

Ellie pinches the soft of her cheek with her teeth, nodding, her eyes downcast.

“So . . . junk?”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

The stack of newspapers comes up to her knees and Ellie struggles, off-balanced, to carry it across the hay-covered floor.

You reach for it and she gives it to you gratefully. You take it with a smile; you never know what she’s going to appreciate or just see it regretfully as charity or pity.

“I think your dad is losing it,” Ellie says as she wipes sweat from her brow, shaking her head far too seriously. “Losin’ it, big time.”

Sarah giggles.

You drop the stack of papers in the corner, but when you let go, the string snaps and the papers spill everywhere. With a sigh, you kneel down and gather them back together, but not before a few headlines catch your eye.

Your heart twists.

Paralysis Takes Three Children

Join the Mothers’ March on Polio

QUARANTINE: POLIOMYELITIS

Why would Joel keep these? Everyone knew how devastating polio could be to children, even infants. Why would he –

Roughly dispersed throughout the article, sentences and phrases were underlined in blue pen. Sentences containing, “iron lung”, “bedrest”, “antibiotic” –

No cure.

Warmth spread out across your chest. Joel was looking for a way to treat his daughter, the only way he could in a town without a doctor: outside information. Something about this makes the space beneath your chest bone hurt so badly, you get a little nauseous.

Now you consider conserving these papers as if they are important historical documents. Behind you, where Ellie and Sarah are lobbying jokes back and forth, you see more stacks of neatly contained newspapers. He looked everywhere and found nothing.

You reshuffle the stack that fell, when you spot something else that hardens the warm feeling in your chest and makes it brittle.

Mob Over Breadline Kills FIVE

Experts Say There is No Way Out of This Depression

Mother of Drowned Children Claims She Did “What Was Best”

The rough floor hurts your knees. Eyes closed, you try to ignore the flood of images of what you witnessed in Boston, how desperate and cruel people became in Oklahoma. With each memory, your heartbeat pounds harder.

Red. Blood. Pink. Skin. White. Bone.

The riots got to be so terrible, but people were just hungry.

Ellie calling your name jerks you out of the sinking muck of memories.

“What? What is it?”

She eyes you with distant concern then glances at Sarah. “She wanted to know where you learned all this stuff.”

“About cooking, and teaching, and nursing,” Sarah clarifies. “I think I’ve read every book in our house probably four times and I still feel like I don’t know anything.”

“You probably know more than you think,” you offer as you scoop up the uncomfortable newspapers, easily switching tracks of thought to mute the swell of horrors from the rotting box in your mind. You leave them in the corner for Joel to do what he wishes with them and stand, dusting your dress off. “What do you call the process by which plants get energy from the sun?”

Sarah’s eyes brighten immediately. Where her body fails her, her mind is as sharp as a tack.

“Photosynthesis!”

“Good,” you nod, smiling. “And what’s the primary source of energy in animal cells?”

“The mitochondria!”

“Very good.”

Ellie sighs angrily from her pile and puts her hands on her hips. “I think I’m gonna make like mitosis and split, if we keep talking about all this boring stuff.”

Scorned for her love of learning a second time and already in a bad mood from the pain this morning, Sarah frowns.

“What’s your problem? Why do you act like school sucks? You had your mom teaching you –,”

“She’s not my mom!” Ellie snaps back, her knuckles white around a rusted bucket. “She’s just my aunt!”

“Yeah, well, I have an uncle I never even get to see!” Sarah stands up as smoothly as she can, but her knees and ankles are pink again. Her calves shake. “You’re lucky!”

Ellie’s teeth clench in the back of her jaw, lip curling.

You remember distinctly more than once having to pick Ellie up from school early because she’d been caught fighting and you take a step in her direction, even if Sarah could no doubt land a few solid ones in.

“And you’re–,”

“Ellie.” You know how rough Ellie can be. You remember the tone to take with unruly students, even if you don’t mean an ounce of it. “Don’t. Just let it g–,”

“Why do you always take her side?” That ire whips around to you. Loyalty, that was another trait her mother favored. Ellie’s shoulders roll forward, her fists clenched. “Why do you let her talk like she knows anything about us? About Mom?”

“I’m not taking a side, Ellie,” you say firmly, your chin tilted down to her. One day she’s going to be taller than you, you know it. “Both of you, this is enough.”

That was the wrong thing to say. Ellie tosses the broken bucket in her hand to the ground and storms towards the barn doors.

“You just like her because she’s a fucking dork like you,” she growls under her breath before shoving open the large square door.

It swings shut, the metal clattering against the wood. The brief stream of light filtering in is shortly swallowed up into the shadows again.

“I’m sorry,” Sarah says almost immediately, her brown eyes swiveling on you. Her skin is tinged a little lighter and there’s sweat along her hairline. With a fleeting flash of worry, you wonder if she’s in more pain than she lets on. “I didn’t mean it . . . I mean, I think she is lucky to have – but . . . I shouldn’t have said that.”

She drops your gaze and you think those dark eyes might be softer, wetter than usual. She plucks at the hem of her dress, her mouth twisted to the side.

Where Ellie explodes outwards, Sarah implodes inwards. You never could understand Ellie’s inclination to destroy everything around her.

You hand her a broom, with a smile on your face.

“Do you want to tell me about your uncle?”

She takes it slowly from you, eyebrows furrowed down. This is a look you are familiar with, even when it comes to Ellie. She is stuck between answering like a kid, getting it all off her chest to be free of the emotional burden, and swallowing it all to please the adults in her life.

You’ve also found Ellie tends to open up when she doesn’t have to look you in the eye. Sarah’s own gaze is stuck to the floor as she vaguely sweeps at the hay.

“We don’t talk about Uncle Tommy a lot,” she mumbles.

You focus on untangling an old bridle. “Oh? Why?”

“Dad’s still pissed at him for moving out to California. Said he left what’s really important for a bullshit dream.” Her eyes pop up, wide and shocked. “Sorry, that’s what he said.”

Despite your limited time with him, you can easily see how Joel Miller might take something like that personally, but you just store that away too, another breadcrumb leading the way.

“Why California?”

“It’s–,”

The barn door opens again and Joel’s shadow breaks through the almost painful white light. Behind him, Everett (the horse) snorts and huffs, pulling along the giant creaking plow, the air suddenly pungent with the smell of warm dirt, leather, and animal sweat. Joel murmurs something to the frothing snout and wipes his own forehead with the back of his arm, smearing sweat and dirt across his browline. He stops when he sees you two staring.

By Sarah’s wide eyes, it’s clear Uncle Tommy is a subject that is not often brought up in this house either. Joel frowns, but just as he opens his mouth, you interject – you know how to deflate a potentially angry man.

“We were just cleaning up the back of the barn,” you say, careful not to use words like junk or scrap heap. “I’m hoping to use the space as a school, for Sarah and Ellie.”

His gaze settles on you, like the dust at his feet.

“Mhmm.” His tone scrapes something low in your stomach.

“I’m sorry – I should have asked – I didn’t think –,”

“No, it’s –,” he shakes his head. His eyes catch Everett’s foamy nose and he pats it, noting the long sweaty forelock. “Smart. Next spring, we’ll come up with something better, but there’s no time now, with the harvest comin’.”

You nod, peeling off what you were going to say from the back of your teeth with your tongue. Joel casually drags his fingers through Everett’s forelock before stepping back to unhook the plow’s leather buckles. It’s when he shifts towards Sarah, looking to her, that he grimaces.

He put his weight on his right knee and it immediately caused him pain.

“We could help,” you offer, eyes on his knee, his thick fingers rubbing into the muscle just above his knee cap. "Ellie loves being out in the sun and I can teach her how to plant–,”

“‘M fine,” he mutters gruffly, straightening up and wiping his hands on the cloth around his neck. “Sarah, go inside for a bit. There’s something she n’ I gotta discuss.”

His tone indicates this is not the time for eye rolling but she does it anyway.

“I’ve said for years that you need help, Dad. She’s just offering to–,”

“Sarah, inside. Please.”

Sarah scowls and drops the broom against one of the stalls. She hobbles out of the barn, first scrunching her nose up at Joel’s obvious smell, then muttering something about having to go look for the hell spawn. You finger the scrap metal in your hands, a fluttery nervousness growing in your stomach the closer Sarah gets to the door. With one more disapproving shake of her thick curls, she shuts the door behind her.

Everett nickers and paws the ground, eager to be returned to bed after a long morning of work. Light streams in gold from the slanted windows above the loft, separating the front stalls from the back of the barn where you stand, fidgeting. There’s no escaping the hot animal smell now, and it’s your turn to be intercepted by Joel.

Another apology is nearly out of your mouth when he speaks first.

“Do you know how to shoot a gun?” He asks, his mouth set into a firm line. In the half-darkness of the barn, you can’t quite make out his eyes.

You swallow against the encroaching dryness in your throat. “I-I have a gun. Keep it in my purse, o-only for emergencies and I–,”

“That’s not what I asked.” He shakes his head, tone soft, almost gentle. He glances past you to the stacks of newspapers you had moved into the corner, the ones about violence and pestilence. He rubs his fingers between the bridle and Everett’s thick hair. “Found a hole in the barbed wire fence today.”

You frown, the tension of his voice indicating a severity you are utterly unprepared for. “What does that mean?”

“Someone tried to cut through.”

A white hot panic lurches up your spine out of nowhere. Fueled by fear, you see the outline of your husband shambling across the propertyline and you go cold.

“W-why would someone do that? What are they after?”

His hand stills as every muscle in his body briefly tenses. Eyes dark beneath a tight brow, the tightness in his jaw is an answer and a threat all at once. He looks almost offended by your question.

You know exactly what they would take.

All you can do is nod.

Everett nudges Joel’s shoulder, impatient to get out of the harness, for that bath he so very much deserves. As though you had disappeared, Joel unbuckles the restraints, taking a brush to the gray coat as he goes. Maybe you’d misread that last signal and he thought he told you to fuck off.

You move towards the back door when his voice, timbre deep and low, stops you again.

“I’m gonna to teach you to shoot.” He announces to the lathered withers of the horse. “But you keep that gun on you, at all times, especially when you’re out with the girls. You got that?”

He pauses just as he slides the hitch off the horse's back, his arms covered in dirt as dark as the leather. It’s minute, the shift in his weight, but you suddenly realize he wants verbal confirmation.

“Y-yes. Yes. I’ll take it with me.”

The minutia shifts again, a lessening of tension across his broad shoulder, his thick back. He nods.

“Good.”

The aching need for him to say more, for that good to turn into you did good or good job – or good girl – it sparks so fast and hot inside of you, you think you’ll choke. Instead, you leave through the door on unsteady legs, jaw locked tightly shut.

You find comfort in the monotony of sewing.

Anna always scolded you for it, that you were “giving into women’s work.”

How are they ever going to take us seriously when you actually like doing this dainty shit?

But where Anna seemingly delighted in her mile-a-minute thoughts, you need an outlet – some way to settle, to ground yourself in the here and now. Furthermore, you could sew anywhere – on the train, on the bus, in a foreign house in the middle of nowhere where you were, again, dependent on the kindness of a complete stranger –

It isn’t sewing specifically that you enjoy. If there was another activity where your mind could detach itself from your body, you would have liked it too. Here, in this space of blank concentration, you separate further from yourself with every stitch you pull together. Here, you are not a sister, a housewife, or an aunt. Not a nurse or a teacher or a failed fieldhand.

Not scared of living or scared of your husband or scared that you’ll fail your sister over and over and over again –

For a handful of minutes, you are not scared and you are the closest thing to yourself you can possibly be. You think, as a child that might have been the closest you’d actually been to understanding your own wants and dreams and desires, but now it is through this act of repetition, of delicate guiding, do you find yourself remembering what it was like to exist unafraid, as thoughtless as a child.

You sit on the edge of Joel’s bed, eased into something vaguely like relaxation by the needle and thread in your hand. You’d found some old pillows in the barn earlier today and surprisingly the stuffing was still intact. After watching Sarah struggle today, you knew you couldn’t spend another second watching the poor girl hobble around on painful braces.

It’s twilight, the sun gone beneath a blanket of scarlet and indigo, everyone fed and full – the girls almost instantly forgetting their first fight in favor of a discussion about their most effective marble-flicking techniques – and you already have at least one leather-bound pad that is twice as thick as her old one. You grin, excited to share your creation to her. You wonder what Joel will say.

Through the wall over your shoulder, in Sarah’s room, you can hear the low murmur of their voices, as quick and fast as two co-conspirators. You can’t quite make out what they’re saying, but the words don’t matter. It is the high joy in Sarah’s voice, or the creaky laughter from Joel. They could be speaking in a completely incomprehensible language but the sentiment is unmistakable: you make me happy and I love you.

I love you.

The needle and thread stills in your lap.

You glance out the window, to a much smaller shadow in front of the barn as it cuts and darts in the blurry half-light. The silver tip of Anna’s knife winks in the glint of the light from the windows as Ellie slashes and digs in the open air. Alone.

In the late hours, in the hours when the veil between life and death felt so especially fragile, Anna made you promise that you'd look out for Ellie, to raise her as your own. To finally give her a childhood like the two of you never had.

You had done that. You raised her. She’s alive and healthy and fierce.

But would she find your sentiment about her unmistakable? Do you know hers as intimately as you knew your sister’s?

Do you make her happy when both of you are constantly reminded of the ghost between you?

Sarah’s chatter echoes throughout the dark house, disembodied and entirely untethered.

It’s one week into this new, adjusted life in a house you haven’t yet found a home in when the unthinkable happens.

A loud, wet cry startles you awake and immediately your hand flies towards Ellie, panic like ice in your jaw. Your palm touches her shoulder, but she’s already sitting up, eyes towards the door. She glances at you and from your stumble out of a dreamless sleep, you realize it wasn’t Ellie who made that noise.

It comes again, as sharp as a bone crack, and you both scramble out of bed.

Sarah.

Up against the far wall, in the corner where her bed tucks up into the corner, Joel holds her like a lion clutches to prey.

Giant, fat teardrops pour down the sides of her ashen cheeks, those bright eyes clamped shut, her mouth twisted in agony and she claws at her father’s forearm across her shoulders. His other hand is going white from her fingers crushing his in a bone-cracking grip. His voice is soft, firm, and fast in her ear, comforting and scared as hell, as she whimpers.

Every muscle from her thighs down is stretched taut. Every muscle unwillingly tightened, flexed, the chemicals in her brain battling the commands of the bacteria. The pain, as described in medical journals, is crippling.

Ellie glances at you out of the corner of your eye. Muscle spasms.

“Sarah, darling, how long has this been going on?” She’s trembling from the pain and exhaustion. You wrap your robe around you before kneeling down to inspect her — and you feel Joel’s glare nearly singe the skin from your face.

“Don’t touch her,” he snarls and pulls her closer. Sarah whines and buries her face in his shoulder, trying to stifle her sobbing to keep from shaking and causing more spasms. “She’s–,”

“I can help her, Joel.” Your training became a bulwark – strong, immobile – in moments like these. Maybe it was all an act but that first rush of hope that you could ease pain, soothe what hurts, made you feel like you were made of gold. You let that unbreakable shine pierce Joel’s gaze. “But you need to listen to me.”

Sarah squeaks and you watch his resolve instantly break. Shakely, he nods.

“Ellie,” you instruct over your shoulder. “Go start boiling water. There’s a pail out on the porch.”

She is out the door before you finish your sentence. She knows exactly what you need.

Help on the way, you turn back to Sarah, her feet twisted in grotesque contortions.

“How long has this been going on?”

“About ten minutes,” Joel grumbles. She squeezes his hand so hard you hear his knuckle pop. She sobs, open mouth, and he presses his cheek to her. He murmurs softly, “I’m sorry, I know, I’m sorry.”

“Is this the longest fit she’s had?”

Joel reluctantly nods.

“Sarah,” you say and gently touch her knee. She peels her eyes open, cheeks stained with tears, eyes wet with fear. “We need to loosen your muscles, okay? That’s what’s causing you pain right now. So, we’re going to use heat and pressure to do that.”

She nods, gaze solidifying with your every word, every word a new step out of the path of pain. Joel smooths her curls off her sweaty forehead, his own wide-eyed stare never leaving your face. You roll up your sleeves and curl up your hair off the back of your neck just as Ellie stumbles back into the room. She’s got at least five towels around her neck, and she’s red-faced and straining from keeping the pail of boiling water from spilling or burning her. She eases it down next to you and hands you a towel. Both of you each take a side and immediately tear the one in half.

Before you wore gloves, some sort of protection, but now there is no time. You hear Ellie inhale sharply, recognizing what you’re about to do a second before you do it.

You dip the towel into the steaming water, let it soak, and pull it out. You grit your teeth against the immediate burn on your palms, the trail of fire over your knuckles and wrists, as you squeeze out the dripping water, Sarah’s soft cries in your ears enough to push past your own pain.

Half-way between an inhale and an exhale, you think you hear your name.

Ellie already has another dry towel loose around one of Sarah’s legs. She glances at you, her brows knitted together.

Ready? She asks without words.

You drape the hot towel around her leg and Sarah yelps. She thrashes in her father’s arms as you wrap the towel tighter and tighter. Expecting Joel’s inevitable bark, a hard shove against your shoulder, get away from my daughter – but it never comes.

As soon as you tighten the towel as firmly as it can safely go, Ellie slides in next to you and begins to massage the muscles in her calves, her feet, her toes.

Sarah whimpers again, but the sound isn’t as sharp, pain-choked. Joel holds her tighter, as if her torso is also knotted and could be relieved with warmth.

On an inhale, you pick up the other half of the towel, drench it in boiling water, and wring it out with your bare hands. A silent prayer for lotion is fleeting as it drifts through the dense focus of your mind. You squeeze out the dripping water and wrap Sarah’s other leg, prepped again by Ellie. She watches you as you tug and tuck the steaming towel, her own focus as sharp as a tack, mirroring your motions as you knead and massage the muscles.

After a few minutes of faint whining, a couple of sobs, the room slips into an exhausted silence. Her breathing slow on his chest, Joel draws back her damp curls and finds her face relaxed, asleep. His mouth parts and the skin around his eyes goes slack.

Relief.

With a shudder, Joel knocks his forehead against hers, his thumb on her chin as if to feel her breathing. You look away, the moment so tender it shouldn’t be witnessed.

You realize then how badly your palms ache.

The towels have lost their immediate heat, so you unwind them. Ellie’s small hands overlap yours as she helps. For some reason, you can’t bring yourself to look her in the eyes. The both of you fall back into roles most comfortable to you.

The wet towels gone, you wrap her legs more tightly this time, slightly past the edge of comfort. You ease her back, flat into the bed, and some small part of you is aware Joel is letting you guide her. He slips out from behind her when you tuck her in, tight with another blanket around her legs. She could be exhausted for days after this.

“We’ll need to keep heat on her legs every thirty minutes, fifteen if we can manage,” you say as you fold up the damp towels. Joel hasn’t moved. Stares down at Sarah’s small body. “I’d like to keep a warming pan here, to have hot water on hand if she wakes up in pain again. When she comes out of it, she needs water and food. Have her eat it slowly, small bites at first.”

You remember a doctor at the hospital where you trained as a nurse give advice to a newer doctor: medical mysteries and illnesses are one thing. Nervous parents are something else.

You call his name and he doesn’t move.

You step forward, touch his forearm, and he blinks at you. He feels so remarkably solid.

“Joel. She’s safe.”

“Do you want me to go get more towels?” Ellie’s gathered the damp towels off the floor, her chest wet. She stares at Sarah’s bed frame.

“Get breakfast first. Then I might need your help later.” She nods, turns to go, but hesitates. Her mouth is pinched tight, eyes wide, looking for something to ground her, to calm the vortex that the adrenaline in her veins widens with each beat of her heart. She looks so . . . childlike.

She looks so much like Anna.

The momentary fortified strength shatters and you're afraid again. What do you say to comfort her? What would Anna say? Good job, I'm proud of you, thank you -

But then she turns away, carrying the dripping towels, and you lose your chance to parent.

Joel has curled himself into the rocking chair by her bed, so close his knee touches her mattress. He holds her thin hand in the cup of his two massive palms. His heel taps loosely, quietly against her rug, every possible outcome of this morning striking him in the chest with each drop of his foot. His face is a blurred, dark shadow, hanging between his shoulders.

To describe Joel in this moment, nervous seems quaint.

In silence, you gather up the tepid pale of water and exit the room, closing the door after you.

The rest of the day passes in haze, tendrils of sleep still between the cracks in your brain left there by the harsh break into consciousness.

You have Ellie feed the animals, and you start a load of laundry. The ratio of dry towels to wet is rapidly becoming unbalanced and you know after the initial attack is over, pressure is more important than heat. Sarah has barely moved all day but she is responsive and drinks water when she comes out of her deep sleep. You’ve made soup again – a heavy meal that doesn’t require much managing and can be easily re-served – and it gives you time to think. Sarah mentioned the doctor skipping town, that he had all but dropped everything and ran. You wondered what else might be in the doctor’s old shop. Morphine seemed too valuable to have been ignored in any ransacking, but often doctors kept a secret supply, unbeknownst to even most nurses for special cases or when supply was low. You think about that and stir the pot as the sun crawls across the sky.

With your head bent over the pot, something moves in the field outside and you watch with surprise as Ellie leads one of the cows, Fauna, out of the barn. Through the rippled glass, you watch her talking to the cow, her face scrunched up in concentration, and shockingly, Fauna appears interested, her big ears flicking back and forth. But Ellie leads her only a little bit from the barn, in the grass but visible from the house. She drops to her knees and takes out a wooden stake and a hammer — nevermind where she found those – and then ties Fauna’s lead rope to top of the stake sticking out of the ground.

Ellie wags her finger, her back to the window, her stance very serious. You smile to yourself and to Anna as she marches back inside and shortly returns with Flora, the other cow, to do the same. She gives them both a stern talking to, as evident by her hands on her hips, before turning back to the house. You glance down, knowing she wouldn’t appreciate it if you saw her babysitting the cows. It was what Joel did every morning – let the cows out to graze – but she did it in her own Ellie way: on a smaller scale and perhaps with a little more gentleness.

See, Anna, she’s all grown up.

By nightfall, both of you are exhausted. You don’t know how Joel manages to run this place by himself, especially with a sick child, but after one day, you’re ready to curl up into bed and never leave. Ellie looks like she’s about to face-plant into her soup, her eyes half-shut. You smile, stretching, before gently shaking her shoulder.

“Go to bed, Ellie. You’re exhausted.”

She blinks harshly, indignant and scowly, as you take both your bowls to the sink. “‘M fine. Just a lil’ –,” she yawns deeply, “sleepy.”

“You’re right. My mistake.”

“Besides, we got coffee coming, don’t we?”

On the counter, your make-shift coffee press gurgles, the cap steaming from the bubbling water over the grounds you found in the cellar. You eye her over your shoulder.

“You don’t even like coffee.”

“Yeah but you’re staying up, right? You and Joel?”

Neither of you had seen Joel leave Sarah’s room all day. Ellie eyes the ceiling as if she can see right through it.

“I’m taking him some food and a cup of coffee,” you say as you finish drying the plates. There’s a rigidness to your hands as you delicately lay the plates flat, unconsciously careful to keep them from making a sound as they touch. “But at St. Joseph’s, some of the nurses would offer to keep vigil, to give the parents a chance to rest.”

You know in your heart he won’t take it. You just hope he finds your coffee inoffensive.

But Ellie doesn’t respond. She sits still, staring at the ceiling.

“Ellie, she’s going to be okay.”

Those bright eyes fall on you. “You can’t know that.”

In your hands, you wind the damp towel between your fingers. They’re pink and still ache but the rough linen is a welcome distraction from the churning acid in your stomach.

“This isn’t going to be like last time,” you say, your hips against the counter. “Sarah’s infection is nowhere near her lungs. And she’s been responding to treatment.”

Ellie drops her gaze, her bottom lip curled between her teeth.

“Don’t say that unless you mean it. Unless you can swear to me.”

One of life’s simple truths: parents lie.

You recognize there is a part of her that wants you to look her in the eyes and lie. She’d be angry, eventually, if your lies were exposed, but in that moment, as she sits in an unfamiliar house, at an unfamiliar table, with you and this wretched ailment the only things she knows to be constant – she wants a comfort you can’t give her. You are not capable of parental truth.

“I can’t promise anything.”

She inhales, breathes shaky, and exhales, the spoon in her hand trembling. “I know.”

Hands full of a white, chipped food tray, you knock twice carefully with one hand like you had been trained to before opening the door. The lamplight has been turned on, but the room, blanketed in darkness and shadows, looks the same. Sarah sleeps deeply, if not well, her hand curled by her face against the pillow, her heavy storm of curls cradling her head gently. Joel watches her, as still and silent as the moon. His foot has settled, but now he breathes so slow he might not be breathing at all.

Of all the terrible things you had seen during your time as a nurse, witnessing someone like this is always the hardest. Feeling helpless is a sentiment you are all too familiar with and the thought of someone just sitting there and watching you with your grief makes your skin itch.

“Joel.” A formality, because those trapped in a cyclone of worry require a slow approach, easing a startled animal. “I brought you something to eat.”

Speaking, it lets him acclimate to your voice.

You set the white tray on Sarah’s dresser, a piece of furniture meticulously crafted. Like Joel’s room, there are books everywhere, but more animal drawings, some directly on the walls. Sarah’s brilliant personality expanded here, in the blues and pinks, not capable of being contained in a single body.

A body that seems so small and fragile in that little brass bed, while her father looms impossibly large.

“Joel.” Again, soft, but this time you put a hand on his bicep. Never near the neck, an older nurse warned you, that area is sensitive. His denim shirt is soft beneath your fingers, nearly bleached white from the sun and worn smooth from dust and dirt and wind. You think you smell churned earth and hot leather in the instant it takes you to kneel down beside him, your grip sliding from his shoulder to his forearm. With the other hand, you tip a steaming cup into his open palm.

“Sarah told me you liked coffee.”

Slowly, as though he had blinked and reality disintegrated and reformed around him, Joel’s gaze slides from Sarah’s waxy face, to yours, and then the hand on his forearm. The back of your scalp prickles, the bulwark of courtesy shaking, before you remember you’d done this hundreds of times, to people of all ages, men and women. He seems to understand this – a professional gesture – and he takes the mug from you. With an almost perplexed expression, he stares into the nearly black liquid, his jaw tight.

And then he drinks, without saying a word.

You think you might have heard a low rumble from him, a pleased groan as heavy as the plow in the barn outside, but the floorboards creak when you stand up, so you might have been imagining things.

“This tastes good,” he says bluntly, voice weather-beaten. You smile into the bowl of soup as you wave a hand over the steam to cool it down to something bearable. “How?”

Despite his monosyllabic responses, you take this as a good sign. Something tells you that you’ve made exceptional progress by getting him to talk at all.

“I got pretty good at making cowboy coffee, as my sister used to call it, before we moved to Oklahoma. You already had the beans in the cellar,” you say, shrugging as you bring the soup over to him. He eyes it warily, as if this is not the appropriate time to eat, as if his own suffering would make Sarah’s lessen.

You’d only ever seen that instinct in a handful of parents while in the hospital and it made something wide and warm press up against your chest bone.

So you don’t give him a choice. You push the soup into his hands with enough speed that he has to take the bowl or drop it entirely. He, like most people with common sense, takes the bowl. He has a second to frown at you before you turn away to Sarah.

“And I suspect they were hidden down there on purpose?” You ask as you take out another blanket from the basket beside her bed and flutter it over her legs. You remember stories about the women working with Elizabeth Kenny filling quilts with rocks or beans, anything with weight, and putting them over the affected limbs of polio patients. The compress soothed the ache.

Sarah snores gently in her sleep as her father behind you laughs, a soft rush of air from his nose, his mouth preoccupied with a half-grin.

“I try not to hurt her feelings,” he admits quietly. You hear the clatter of metal on porcelain as you fold and refold the blankets to carry more weight. “That girl is a lot of things, but good at making coffee isn’t one of ‘em.” He slurs around the soup in his mouth.

It’s hard to believe she’s only a year older than Ellie. They have both lost things, indescribable things at too-young an age. But where Ellie carries it in the grip of her hand around her knife, Sarah takes it on the chin.

Polio, a disease of freezing agony.

You wonder how much of Sarah’s inner world she keeps to herself.

Like with Ellie, you fight the urge to brush a lovely curl away from her cheek.

“You have a special girl here, Joel.”

You feel his gaze on the back of your neck and you drop your gaze from her pristine face, remembering it’s not your place to look at her like that. Not like how you want to look at her.

Not like how you might want to look at him.

Joel shifts on his feet, leaning forward to put the now empty bowl on the ground.

“I know.” By the strength of his tone, he admits to knowing that you see the bright light about Sarah like he does and so he lets you look. Your heart stutters at this silent transference and you grab blindly for that mask of noble duty.

“How has her breathing been?” You sit down next to her and pick up her wrist, feeling for that steady pulse. You relax slightly when it’s easy to find. The beat of it is a little faster than you would like, but it hasn’t woken her up.

“Good.” A disgruntled groan from the chair as he adjusts behind you. His voice is rich like molasses, dripping warmth down the knots in your spine. “Woke up here n’ there, like you said. Gave her food. Got her water. But she just went right back to sleep.”

“But she ate and drank?”

He nods out of the corner of your eye. You check the mobility of her joints and they seem to be back to their natural looseness. Whether she’ll feel strong enough to walk is another matter entirely, but it’s not good to worry him unnecessarily.

“That’s good, Joel. That’s really good.”

You smile at him and finally, finally, the corners of his eyes soften, his brows pluck up, and he breathes deep. The tension leaves his body the way steam leaves a lake in the hours before dawn, the cup of coffee resting on his thigh. His gaze falls from your face to hers, shrouded in shadow.

“She’s never slept this long after an attack,” he says quietly. “Always restless, pain flaring up. We once stayed up a whole day and night when it got bad.”

He shakes his head, clears his throat a bit as if the words in his mouth leave behind a mucky, sour taste.

“Thank you. For treating her properly.”

For doing what I couldn’t.

It’s true. But no amount of reassuring – I’ve just had training, you did the best you could – would dissipate that repugnant scent of guilt lingering in the air. You are forced to let it linger, unable to say a single damn thing that would mean anything to him.

As he finishes the last dregs of coffee, Joel unwinds his long legs from beneath the seat and his knees crack. Stiff joints after a long day of stillness, but immediately his fingers fly to that same spot he touched in the barn in that afternoon, his mouth tight from the unexpected flash of pain.

Immediately you kneel down, worried at the slight hiss he made, fingers inches from his thigh when he straightens.

“You don’t have to–,” he shifts as if he can pull away from your touch and stay seated. “It’s not that bad –,”

You frown at him. “Can the person here who has had actual medical training determine that?”

Something light flickers over his eyes, so fast it might not have been real, smoothing the lines around his mouth. Joel nods, glancing to the floor.

“Yes, ma’am.”

That single word almost splits your skull in half like lightning.

You are immediately grateful for the heavy shadows in the room. Your palms, smarting all day, are now blistering with heat. Mouth shut tight, you don’t trust whatever sits behind your lips, so you begin your inspection of his muscles. Thumbs down, you feel along the lines that lead down to his knee.

Hard, firm, you notice. Made solid by work and toil. A few of the bricklayers and farmers you’d attended to had muscles like these. Despite the rough denim and how unsettling it is to be this close to him, it’s easy to lose yourself in the methodology of the human body. You’ve learned to read sinew and bone and scar tissue like a map and you come to find that the topography of Joel Miller is mountainous.

“So, mhm, where’d you learn to make coffee?”

You thought the stiffness in his thigh was due to lingering pain, but when you look at him and his guarded expression, chin tilted into his chest, fingers tight around the bottom of the seat, you realize he is uncomfortable. He is made uncomfortable . . . by you. Something sharp pokes through a slot between your ribs and you sit up straighter, trying to make your touch even more clinical if possible. But what he says next, you aren’t sure if it’s genuine or genuinely meant to hurt.

“Your husband?”

You shake your head. “My sister, actually. Ellie’s mom. We’d trade night shifts when she was a baby. One of us would come home from our second job, and the other would leave for their first. Anna said she’d never have survived those first years without coffee.”

You can hear the question he wants to ask buzzing in his head, your thumb rubbing therapeutic circles around the inflamed area. But instead he asks:

“And you . . . you like coffee?”

You shrug. “I don’t think I ever slowed down enough to ever taste it in the first place.”

With Joel Miller, silence means a thousand things. It’s not the way he looks at you, but the way he looks into you.

“Anna always said we’d be fine, that two unmarried women with a baby could make it in the city. But I wasn’t so convinced. There wasn’t much time for something like enjoying the taste of coffee because I was always busy taking every job I could get.”

“Like treating sick kids.” He says it like he just found a piece of you off the ground and added it to a sprawling puzzle. He politely stares over your shoulder.

You swallow, throat tight. “Actually, um, Anna had it - polio - too. I took the job as a nurse to learn how to treat her from home.”

Those heavy eyes swing into you full force and you can feel your stomach roll and collapse against your spine.

“Every case is different, Joel. What I did for Sarah, it wouldn’t have helped someone like Anna.”

“But she died?” A third unwelcome presence.

“Yes. She went fast. There was nothing anyone could do to save her.”

There was nothing you could do to save her.

Your thumbs are starting to ache, but you don’t want to leave just yet. You want to sit and listen to his voice, even if it’s pitched in anger towards you.

But it’s not. His next words come out soft, if not a little bit disbelieving.

“Where did you come from?” Joel asks. “You said the city, Oklahoma. How’d you end up in fuckin’ Dalhart, Texas?”

You use your elbow on the thicker muscle up his thigh and he tries very hard not to wince.

“We grew up in Boston. City girls all our lives. We had big plans of catching the bus line and going all over the country, just the two of us, but then Anna got pregnant and overnight, everything changed.”

He nods, knowingly. You add that to your own Joel Miller mosaic.

“I met the man I’d marry while I worked as a maid in a motel. He was a banker, or so he told me, and he wanted to whisk me away. We were three months behind on our rent, so I told him yes, I'd marry him after knowing him for a week — as long as I got to bring Anna and Ellie with me. All he talked about was money, so I thought he had it. What he did have was enough to get us to Oklahoma, buy some farm equipment for the wheat boom, and then lose it all in a handful of years.”

“And then we lost Anna. We lost my husband. I went back to trying to find a job in town with no jobs.” You pull your hands back, the deep tissue of his thigh flushed with blood from your therapy, and having nothing more to do, little more to say, you drop them into your lap. “Just after we missed the payment for the equipment for the second month, I got a letter from a man claiming to be my long lost Uncle Robert. I hadn’t eaten in three days and Ellie just got tagged by the police for shoplifting. I sent him a letter back and he said if I sent him our last twenty dollars he’d get us set up in Dalhart where he had a successful car dealership. I did and he didn’t and if you hadn’t picked us up, I don’t know what we would have done.”

You sit with the hot truth of it and he sits with the both of you. It’s silent in a way that only a house in the middle of nowhere can be. Sarah stirs in her sleep, her legs rustling the sheets, but doesn’t wake up.

“You don’t have to do that here, you know.” He straightens his legs, just as quietly as the rest of the house. He crosses his arms over his chest and you think about the muscle just under his forearm, thick and immobile as sea-drenched rope. “Not eat . . . for Ellie’s sake. There’s enough for you and her. Always.”

You think of the cellar with its soft dirt, cool air, the endless rows of stored fruits and vegetables and meat, buried like a still-beating heart beneath the dust-whipped house in a paradise on the prairie.

“But I understand the inclination.” With you on the ground before him and Joel leaning forward, elbows on his knees, his broad back arching under the stripe of white moonlight, he looks at you.

Really looks at you.

Like recognizing like.

A passing in a distorted mirror that might be me but it’s not but I think I know you all the same there is a thing just like me out in the world and it sees me.

Slowly, hesitantly, as if he’s afraid you’ll bite, he reaches forward and takes your wrist from your lap. The calluses on his thumb brush roughly against the knot of bone as he twists your palm upward. Pink, too pink, a stinging color, even in the low lamplight. Joel works his jaw back and forth, staring at your palm with weary concern, as if it told him things he didn’t want to know.

His gaze lifts and your fingers curl instinctively in. He’s trying to make you look and you don’t want to. He sees your sacrifice and you don’t want it called that, there’s certain nobility in sacrifice, in a sort of suffering for other people, but it’s not sacrifice if you go willingly and despite you not wanting to look, not wanting to put a name to it, not wanting to take up any space at all, he looks at you like he, a man as broad and wide and powerful as he, is grateful.

For you.

Every bulwark inside of you, every foundation that you had built yourself because you never had the chance to grow hearty roots somewhere permanent, rumbles. Shakes, beneath a single solitary, rolling earthquake. A landslide of earth behind the strength in his eyes.

“For her, for Sarah, I’d do the same,” he says.

For her. For the children in your lives.

Do you even like coffee? All you know is how to make it. What would you do with it if you did? If you liked coffee? If you loved it.

If there was someone outside yourself and Ellie to make you coffee simply because you wanted it. Because you were in a circle of people for whom people would do things for. For her. For you.

The heart of Joel is like coffee: dark but warm.

Your wrist slips between his fingers, finding refuge again in your lap.

“I know.”

You wonder what it would be like to be within Joel’s circle of people for whom he does things. To be given coffee, just because you want it.

You bet it’s warm.

You stand up, collect the empty, used things, and wish him a good night.

A noise and sunlight startles you awake. Your eyes tear open, hand flat on an open pool of sunlight in the center of the mattress, head twisted and knees bent up by your chest. In your sleep, your body twisted itself into a Gordian knot, unable to escape the dreams about the cellar ground turning into coffee beans, and the cramped bloodflow leaves you disoriented until you can roll onto your back and remember where you are. The smells that surround you.

You hear the noise again and you think of Ellie and in that instance where complete consciousness returns to you, the weight of her is gone. Literally.

Ellie is not in the bed beside you.

The room’s brightness is suddenly too bright, the clear, electric blue sky too blue – it’s too beautiful and it lulled you into a sense of comfort. Stupid, so stupid. You ignore the warm floorboards against your bare feet, the faint birdsong from outside, as you rush towards the source of the sound, towards Sarah’s bedroom – oh god, I was wrong it’s too late it took her in the night and I –

The sound you do not recognize, the sound you could not comprehend while buried in dreams and memories, is the sound of laughter. Loud, full laughter.

The brass bed creaks as Ellie uses the mattress to fling herself into the air. On the other end, just as determined to reach the ceiling, is Sarah. Hands outstretched and reaching, her legs bend and flex and propel her up and up. Every time she gets within a handful’s reach of the ceiling, Ellie’s laughing, cheering her on, and then it’s her turn, Sarah giggling as Ellie’s face scrunches up as she reaches out towards the blue sky on the other side of the roof.

“Oh, hey!” Ellie says, pink-faced and causal, half-way out of breath. Sarah spins, mid-way through a jump, her eyes bright, sweat peaking on her brow line. “Sarah bet – I couldn’t touch – the ceiling — so we’re taking turns – loser has to shovel – the barn!”

You watch, dumb-struck, as the bet continues, the girls laughing and criticizing each other and offering techniques as they work in tandem to fling the other one higher. Sarah is flush with vitality, with life, with a dewy glow reserved for spring mornings when the earth stretches awake after the death of winter.

And Ellie . . . she looks her age.

The earth has shifted beneath your feet, while you were sleeping, and a seedling has been planted, the dawn of something new, something fresh and utterly unexpected. You can feel it in your bones. Hear it in their laughter.

“Not a bad thing to wake up to.”

Joel, arms crossed, eyes soft, leans up against the door frame, blue striped pajamas low on his hips, a thread-bare white undershirt cupping his biceps. He eyes you from toe to head and stops when he meets your eyes. You wonder how long he’d been standing there – if he too woke to noises he couldn’t explain, rushed in here, and found something miraculous.

The smile crinkles his eyes as it unfurls across his face.

“I haven’t heard her laugh like that in a while,” he says quietly, head tilted towards the bed, as if there could be any other meaning. “I owe you one.”

You could say the same thing about Ellie.

There’s the line, the boundary of the circle to the place of being warm. He’s not cleared the way for you, not invited you across, but he’s shown it to you. You can see it, feel it, and know what it takes to get there.

Your smile blooms. The girls’ laughter rings throughout the house and into the sunlight.

But, outside of paradise, away from the river and the white a-frame house, from the horse and the cattle and the long strands of prairie grass, where there is not enough to eat and the earth is in its death rattle, the wind blows. It swallows up dust, and dirt, and fine sand, gluttonous. It swirls and pulses, agitated and restless and seeking violence. Spinning with the power to blind with a single whip of dust, it spins up over the earth in its death rattle, where there is not enough to eat, towards the prairie grass. Towards the horse and the cattle. Towards the river and the a-frame.

Towards paradise with the promise of total ruin.

END OF PART I

series masterlist | AO3 Link | prologue | part ii

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greynatomy · 1 year ago

Text

protective

arsenal x reader

some family dynamics with reader and the team

———

You signed your first professional football contract when you were seventeen with Arsenal. Ever since then, your teammates became very protective of you. You were assigned to live with Lia, who instantly took you under her wing.

At the time, Lia and Caitlin had been together and became your team parents. They would make sure you’ve packed everything you needed for away games, packed you lunches, whatever parents did and you very much enjoyed the attention. Even when you went on loan for a season all the way to California for Angel City, they made sure to get Christen’s phone number to make sure you were bing taken care of.

What you hated though, was how protective they were of you and that protectiveness passed onto the rest of your Arsenal teammates and when you were called up to the Lionesses, Leah and Beth’s protectiveness passed onto the rest of your national teammates.

Fast forward four years later, you’re now twenty-one, still living with Lia, minus Caitlin. You loved to call yourself a child of divorce, the ex-couple finding it amusing.

Right now, you and Lia were walking into Emirates Stadium to get ready for the match. You walk over to your cubby right next to you other mom.

“Hey, babes. Did you take a nap?” Caitlin pulls you into a hug, kissing the side of your head. You only nod, still feeling the sleepiness.

You get ready in your game kit, putting your warm up shirt over. Grabbing your hairbrush and some hair ties, you walk over to where Steph is, sitting on the ground between her legs, where she starts doing your hair, no questions asked, on of the perks of being the team baby.

Running onto the pitch, you start to warm up, partnering with Kyra. Couple minutes in, the fans started cheering, louder than any cheer you’ve heard just during warmups.

“Hey, isn’t that the girl you’re always watching?”

“What? Like I’m some stalker?” Your eyes wide, not sure what Lia meant when she walked up to you.

“No, like movies and that show she did. What was it? Wednesday or something?”

You look up to where she’s pointing on the big screen, seeing none other than Jenna Ortega. Your eyes instantly lights up, not knowing she would be at your match, or even in England.

Before your teammates knew it, you were up in the stands giving her a big hug.

“That doesn’t look like a very platonic hug, doesn’t it?” Katie asks Caitlin.

With her brows furrowed, she walks over to her ex-girlfriend asking if she’s seeing the same thing.

“She needs a good talking to.”

“Her or the girl?”

“We’ll talk to our kid and make Leah talk to the girl.”

“Ah. Good thinking.”

Walking towards where you were on the stands, they both call you over, saying it’s time to go back through the tunnel.

“Well, those are my mums. I’ll see you after the game so don’t go anywhere.”

You give Jenna a crooked grin. She lifts a hand up to cup your cheek, giving it a little pinch.

“You’re too cute. I’ll be sure to stay here.”

“Okay. See you later!”

Giving her a quick hug, you run off to Caitlin and Lia, them wrapping an arm each around you.

“Who was that?”

“Yeah, when’d you get a girlfriend?”

Your eyes go wide and purposefully ignore the questions, running away from them.

———

The match starts with Arsenal’s possession. Everything’s been all back and forth so far.

Meanwhile, Leah makes her way to the stands where your very popular guest is sitting.

“Mind if I sit here?” Leah asks, pointing at the empty seat next to the brunette.

“No, go ahead.”

Getting comfortable, the two watch the match, not really acknowledging each other. Leah, the great speaker that she is, is having a hard time to give the apparent girlfriend of her little cub the ‘talk’.

“How rude of me. I’ve not introduced myself. I’m Leah.”

“Jenna.” She shakes Leah’s hand that was held out to her.

“It’s very nice to meet you Jenna.”

“You as well.”

“Okay. Now, I saw that you know our baby gunner over there.”

“Y/N?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh, yeah. We’re close.”

“How close would you say is close?”

“I’m not comfortable sharing things about my private life.”

“Uh, how do I put this, I have been given a job by her mums to basically find out more about you.”

“You know her moms?”

“Well team mums. I’m like the big sister, so I guess I’m trying to give you the ‘talk’ which is not going so well right now.”

“Oh! I’m sorry, I thought you were a fan.”

“It’s all good. The whole team is just very protective of Y/N. We’ve known her since she was seventeen and filled in familial roles for her.”

The two were chatting it up, Leah getting to know the actress and paying attention to the match going on. Disappointment ran through both Leah and Jenna when the opposition scored in the twenty-fifth minute.

After that, everything’s been going back and forth, not much else happening. The Arsenal fans were losing hope once the ninetieth minute came. However, on the ninety-second minute, you stole the ball from your opponent, dribbling around her. Everyone was on the edge of their seat. You kicked the ball through their legs and shot a banger right passed the keeper’s gloves, equalizing the match.

You ran towards where Jenna was seated, seeing Leah next to her, but not thinking much of it, and sent a kiss her way, making her blush. Leah pretends to grab it and put it into her pocket making you laugh as you celebrate with the team.

Just two minutes after that, you sent a pass to Alessia, who makes it into the back of the net, giving you the lead. You run up to her and jump into her arms, screaming. The final whistle blows not long after, sending the fans cheering.

Leah as Jenna to follow her as she was going to the pitch, wanting to celebrate with her teammates. You, on the other hand, went to where Jenna was seated, not seeing her anymore, when hands cover your eyes.

“I can’t see!”

“You’re so cute.” You recognize the voice making your turn to face her.

“Jenna! I thought you left!” You wrap your arms around her waist, hers around your neck, standing up straight, her legs lifting off the ground because of your much taller form.

“I told you I wouldn’t.” You let her go, but keep your hands on her waist.

“Babes, you’re needed for an interview.” You tune to your right to see Lia and Caitlin.

“Ugh.” You throw your head back, not wanting to do an interview.

“Off you go. Don’t want to keep anyone waiting.”

“Wait for me again?” You ask Jenna, getting a nod in response.

Once you leave, Caitlin and Lia step closer to Jenna.

“Hi, I’m Lia, this is Caitlin. What are your intentions with Y/N?”

“Well, when she’s done, I intend to take her to this restaurant she’s been wanting to try, but not without me, so I’ve reserved a seat for us there. And for the future, the same thing I’ve been doing which is to be patient and love her all the same, even more.”

“Woah, you’re good.” Caitlin didn’t expect that response.

“Yeah, I’ve tried to give her the talk, very likable person she is.”

“Hey, guys! What are we talking about?” You join back with them after your interview.

“Your girlfriend.”

“Girlfriend? I-uh-d-don’t have a-a—”

“They figured it out.” Jenna interrupts your stuttered response.

“Fine. I have a girlfriend. It’s so cool right!” You give everyone your famous bright smile.

Caitlin and Lia wrap an arm each around you, walking towards the tunnel.

“We still have to give you the talk thought.”

“What? No, please don’t!”

#woso x reader #greynatomy #woso #woso imagines #woso imagine #arsenal #gooner #gunner #jenna ortega #jenna ortega x reader

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aheathen-conceivably · 4 months ago

Text

🎶 I ain't looking for a lie to believe, my own'll do me fine 🎶

Strangerville’s saloon was in full swing. Men who were worried about feeding their families or women scared their men may never come home from California finally had a place to drown their worries or lose them in the high of a shared laugh. Where illegality and excess had amplified the spirit of drink a decade before, now palpable relief and struggle had taken its place.

In between pouring a never ending stream of whiskey and beer, Josephine watched the woman across the bar. She had thought that outselling her would be easy. She had been dismissive, gruff, and even downright rude; and if there was one thing that Jo had learned in New Orleans, it was that she could sell anything with a suggestive glance better than the disdain she often really felt.

Only this woman made no effort to hide the ribs and insults she seemed to lay out like easy jokes. She would swoop down to tables, seemingly calling each and every patron by name, laughing roughly and loudly before bringing them one beer after another. Part of it infuriated Josephine, but another part wouldn’t let her tear her eyes away from her every move.

She seemed comfortable running the place entirely alone, throwing Josephine a wink in between customers as though to say: I’m going to win, city girl. And there’s nothing you can do to stop me.

At the end of the night with the last drink served and the final stumbling patron seen to the door, Josephine and the woman sat at the bar, tallying their earnings. As Jo reached the end of her stack and set it on the counter, the woman was still counting. She finished with painfully slow fanfare and put the pile neatly beside Josephine’s. It was clearly and discernibly higher. “Well looks like we have a clear winner here, and we know what that means, don’t we?”

Then she smiled in the same dismissive way that she had earlier that day, and moved her gaze to the stack of ones Jo had set down, “Not too shabby for a first night though. Most people in this town don’t trust a new face but you did better than I expected. And I’ll admit, the extra help was nice. A decade of sitting at home did nothing to temper these drunks, and I could use you around most nights.”

Jo straightened her spine and covered her eyes. Suddenly the job seemed like pity, the money nothing but a tether to a place she hated and people who had betrayed her. It wasn’t hers, and it certainly didn’t give her the sense of self or freedom she had expected to find. All the stacks told her was that she had lost. Lost to some tall and stocky woman at her own game in someone’s else’s bar in some fucking desert town she couldn’t even give a damn what the name was.

Her head swam and she started to separate from herself, to forget where she was or who she was. If she could feel her legs she would have stood to run, run to the edge of this town into the desert, away from this place and these people and all of these feelings…

“Jesus Christ, are you okay?” The words had come like static from a radio, from a voice she didn’t recognize or really care to please.

“What? I – I just,” Josephine stubbed out her cigarette straight on the bar as she gathered herself and turned to stand. Only she couldn’t, because she still couldn’t feel her legs or sense where she was, even as her pride and anger started to flood back to her flushed face. “I was just thinking on your offer. I’m afraid I can’t take it.”

The woman laughed, the sound shaking off the remaining clouds around Josephine’s head. “That sore of a loser, huh? Well that pride’ll earn their respect a lot faster than your pretty grins. Come back tomorrow night, we’ll go again. I’ll teach you a few names, see if we can tip the scales.”

Josephine looked up at her. By that point she could have moved to stand, walked back across town with her head held high and the secret of her loss hidden carefully away from the man waiting for her at home. Only there was no pity in the woman’s face, only a wry if good natured sense of superiority that Jo was more than familiar with from her own mirror; and up this close it was hard to deny that even with its hardened lines, there was a beauty to the woman’s face, so much so that Jo wanted to reach out to the hand extended to her even more.

As she did so the woman let her hand stay in Jo’s a moment longer than she expected. “Welcome aboard Miss Duplanchier. Now's as good a time as any to introduce myself. I’m Valcita. Valcita Grove. But you can call me Val.”

Then Jo realized that she was right. Her face was beautiful, the same way that the shadowless desert was beautiful in the full heat of the midday sun. Her heart beat faster as she imagined running into it again, not in fear this time, but in freedom, smiling as her world went up in flames behind her.

#1934 #the darlingtons #sims 4 historical #ts4 historical #ts4 decades challenge #sims 4 decades challenge #sims 4 legacy #ts4 legacy #sims 4 story #1930s #Valcita Grove #Josephine Duplanchier #ts4 story

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shotmrmiller · 1 year ago

Text

The start of a journey

A small drabble of a thought that had me awake at an unreasonable hour because how cute is HE PLEASE GOD.

Dadtobe!simon who when you told him you were pregnant, he sat quietly on the sofa without saying much. You were so worried he didn’t want the baby due to his history with his family— but in reality, he was so shocked. How can he deserve such a precious gift from life when all he does for a living is take them? He sees your eyes watery with unshed tears and quickly grabs your hands to reassure you that this may have not been planned but it is a gift unworthy of a bad man such as he and he already loves you both.

Dadtobe!simon is the one who looks up what foods help alleviate nausea so when you’re heaving over your toilet, he’s already in the kitchen getting some cold apple juice and saltines just in case you could stomach them this time.

Dadtobe!simon is pressed that you’re choosing to have a home water birth with a midwife instead of the hospital because “What if you need immediate medical attention? We’d have to get you to a hospital and that’s time wasted.”

“ The baby and I will be okay. The midwife will be keeping an eye on my vitals and if anything went south, they’d be getting us to a hospital before I really needed to be in one. Besides, I want an unmedicated labor in the comfort of my own home.”

“Alright, love. But if anything looks even slightly wrong, I’m getting you out o’ here. Clear?” “Crystal, sir.”

“Cheeky.”

Dadtobe!simon personally bought an at-home fetal doppler to hear the baby’s heartbeat whenever he couldn’t make it to the monthly OB appointments. He helps you lie down on the sofa, hips propped up on a pillow, and he’d get the doppler gel from the warmer because he CANNOT have you uncomfortable so long he can help it. Skin goosepimpling with the warm gel, he starts rubbing it on your lower stomach with the probe and puts light pressure— doing circular motions to try and find the distinct, rhythmic thumps of the baby’s heart. He catches it, a fast beating, _strong_ heartbeat, and ups the volume.

“There ya are, my little sprog.”

Dadtobe!simon gets up from the warm cocoon of the bed and out into the cold, rainy streets because the Missus is craving butter pickle spears and marinara sauce and he is a humble servant to your wants and needs. Butter pickles though, seriously?

Dadtobe!simon who has had all of the Sprog’s necessities ready to go from the beginning. The cot and moses basket, assembled. Nappies, baby bottles, and dummies are all bought and stored away. If the baby can use it, it’s in the house put together and clean. Ruthlessly efficient.

Dadtobe!simon doesn’t let you pick up anything heavier than a jug of milk because “You don’t need to be doin’ any heavy liftin’, it’s what you got me here for, love.” And you aren’t above _not_ being extra pampered because you’ve always hated putting the groceries up anyway.

Dadtobe!simon usually sleeps spooning you but now you’ve got the maternity pillow swaddling your front, a pillow in between your thighs and another underneath your hips and supporting your lower back because your heavy stomach puts so much pressure on your body, but your mountain of pillows helps you rest as best you can. Simon can almost physically see the aches alleviate when you lie down so he doesn’t complain about the lack of cuddles nor how he’s been essentially shoved into a space the size of a twin bed on your California king.

Dadtobe!simon who squeezes the heel, kneads the instep, and presses the pads of his thumbs into the balls of your swollen feet— you’re carrying extra weight after all, and as you’re groaning in relief you start crying because look at how large you’ve gotten. You not having puffy, achy ankles is a miracle and how can he still love you looking like this? He grabs both of your feet and peppers kisses from the toes to the ankle you seem to hate because how can he not love you. Especially like this. Your body is sacrificing comfort to bring his little babe into the world for him to meet. All the changes you seem to hate— the stretch marks, the extra weight, the not-so-tight skin— to him it’s perfection. You’re perfect. He’s never really lived before you and now he can’t imagine living without you. The both of you.

Adieu.

#call of duty #call of duty modern warfare #simon ghost riley x reader #simon riley #simon ghost riley #simon riley x reader #simon ghost x reader #simon riley x you #cod #ghost cod #cod mw2 #cod mwii #geol ill carry all of his babies #dad!simon #dad!ghost #drabble

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weemssapphic · 1 year ago

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I see you opened your requests hehehe. This little idea popped into my head and i can’t get it out. So it’s larissa x reader and r is the new principal since everyone thought larissa died but tn tn tnnnn she’s alive and she comes back to nevermore but only as a professor since they already hired r which doesn’t sit right with larissa and she automatically doesn’t like r. So they bicker all the time until they just hate fuck one day (how it came to that point is totally up to you) and pleaseeee i need them to fuck the shit out of eachother. Then when it’s done r admits that she would much rather just be a professor, that being principal is too much for her and she’ll back down from the position.

Anywaysss that’s it and make it as long as you want if you decide to write it :) (love all of your work btw)

A/N: I AM SO SORRY FOR HOW LONG THIS TOOK (*hides in shame*). I do hope this makes up for it, I found it very fun to write and, though it took a different turn than I'd originally planned, I am happy with how it turned out! And thank you so much 🤍

like a candle flame

Larissa Weems x f!reader

Words: ~ 7.5k | ao3 link in title

Content/warnings: angst, lots of bickering and arguments, enemies to lovers (sorta), unhealthy relationship / power dynamic, coma, mentions of ptsd/anxiety??, nsfw (smut): hate sex, rough sex, vaginal fingering, cunnilingus, marking

Principal of Nevermore Academy: it certainly had a nice ring to it.

The past years all led up to this: after finishing university and getting your masters in education, you’d scored a teaching position at a school for outcasts in California. Being an outcast yourself, you were grateful for the opportunity that had opened up - teaching was a passion of yours, certainly, but teaching outcasts, kids like you, that was a dream come true. Eventually, you took over assistant principal duties at the school and you had to admit you liked the change of pace, being involved in the administrative side of things for once.

During your time in California, you’d set your eye on Nevermore Academy - another prestigious school for outcasts, the first school of its kind. And when you’d heard of an opening for a new principal? You just had to apply. The position was posted at rather short notice - apparently, there had been an incident involving the previous principal, who’d been in a coma for weeks and hadn’t shown any signs of recovering. They needed to find someone to fill in for the new school year - fast - and, as though it were fate, your application was immediately accepted.

The school year at Nevermore had been going on for a few weeks now and your new office was finally starting to feel like your own. You’d made a few changes in decoration - some of the prior principal’s decor was a bit odd for your taste. But you were settling in well, getting to know your duties and connecting with your staff and students.

You were just catching up on some emails as the door to your office flew open, rattling in its hinges and causing you to jump, your heart racing.

“Jesus, you scared me! Haven’t you heard of knocking?” You fixed your gaze on the woman who had so unceremoniously barged into your office and was now taking long strides towards your desk. She was a stunning woman - tall, with long legs; dressed to the nines; her hair nearly white and perfectly coiffed to accentuate her cheekbones; her eyes deep blue and sparkling with a deep fury.

“I don’t have to knock to enter my own office,” the woman hissed, her tone venomous.

Your brows knit together in confusion and you squinted at her, your mind going a mile a minute. Now that you thought of it, she did look vaguely familiar… Who the fuck- oh. Oh.

“You’re the former principal, aren’t you? I thought you were in a coma?” You figured the polite thing to do would be to ask how she’s doing, show some sign of concern, but she looked perfectly fine to you - and she didn’t seem in the mood to engage in small-talk, anyway - so you bit your tongue.

The woman’s eyes flashed dangerously, her upper lip twitching as she tilted her head. “Principal Weems. Headmistress of Nevermore Academy. Now if you’d be so kind as to get out of my chair…”

You stood slowly, placing your hands on your desk and leaning forward. While you didn’t quite match her height, you’d be damned if you let yourself be intimidated - you’d worked too hard for this position, wished for it too much, you wouldn’t let her take it from you, no matter who she thought she was.

“I’ve been appointed principal of Nevermore. This is now my office. If you have an issue with that, I’d like to kindly refer you directly to the school board.” You paused, raising an eyebrow and sorting some papers on your desk. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have meetings to prepare for.”

Principal Weems glowered down at you and you glared up at her, neither one of you seeming to want to back down. Her eyes flicked between your own, blazing with fury and passion in equal measure. Abruptly and without another word, she turned on her heel and stormed out of your office, slamming the door behind her.

Your eyes followed her every move as you stared after her, your heart thundering in your chest. The nerve of that woman. This was definitely not something you’d planned for - you hoped she wouldn’t cause too much trouble with the school board.

~~~

As expected, you received a call from the school board the next day - it seemed that the former principal had caused a bit of an uproar after she’d left your office. The head of the school board informed you that Ms. Weems, formerly Principal Weems, would be appointed to Nevermore as a history teacher. You figured the decision was made due to her connection with the school, but also to keep the peace. Even based on your short interaction from the previous day, you could guess the kind of hell she’d raised after leaving your office.

Given that her former quarters, which had been locked up for the time being, were attached to your new office, Ms. Weems would be appointed new quarters in the teacher’s hall as well until the end of the school year. What this meant, however, was that she would have to come by your office to pick some of her things up from her old quarters - which you were not looking forward to.

It was nearing 5 pm on a Friday - you still had a pile of administrative paperwork waiting to be completed, but you couldn’t concentrate for the life of you. You’d already cut your lunch break short to deal with the shenanigans of some students, and with the weekend so close your motivation to read through the documents the mayor had sent you was at an all time low. Slipping your phone from your pocket, you decided a break - just a short distraction, really - was in order, and started to scroll through your socials.

The door to your office creaked open - you figured it was a student who needed something and raised your head to reprimand them for forgetting to knock, only to be met with the sight of Ms. Weems. Larissa, as you’d read in her file. A beautiful name for an admittedly beautiful woman - too bad she seemed intent on loathing you. She stopped in the doorway, her lips curling into a disapproving frown.

“Hard at work, I see,” she sneered, closing the door behind her and giving you a once over, her eyes full of disdain as they lingered on the cell phone in your hands.

“I hardly see how this is any of your business,” you replied, your voice hard as you scowled back at her. Two could play at this game. “And if I may be so blunt, it’s rather rude not to knock before you enter someone else’s office. Particularly when that person is your superior.”

The blonde’s features hardened even further, her expression changing from disdainful to downright icy.

“Do not underestimate my connections in this town, Ms. Y/L/N. It would be a shame to see you lose your new position so suddenly.” Her voice was condescending, sickeningly sweet with a razor sharp edge to it - you tightened your grip on your phone, your knuckles turning white as you felt your heart begin to pound viciously.

“Is that a threat, Ms. Weems? And, while we’re on the subject of my position, I would prefer if you would address me as Principal Y/L/N from now on.”

“Not a threat. A promise.”

With that, she swept past your desk with an elegant yet powerful stride, swiftly unlocking the door to her former quarters and disappearing inside.

After what seemed like ages, Larissa emerged with two massive suitcases. You tried to ignore her and concentrate on your work, but it seemed she was deliberately being as noisy as possible, and that made it increasingly difficult to focus on anything else.

“You know what?” You stood from your desk, shutting your laptop and grabbing your phone and keys. “I’m going to head out to get some dinner. You just figure this” you gestured vaguely towards her quarters as you crossed the office “out.”

“Chivalrous,” Larissa remarked sarcastically as your hand rested on the doorknob - you turned and raised an eyebrow.

“You’ve been nothing but rude to me since the second we met. You want help? Call your friends or connections or something.” With that, you disappeared into the corridor, slamming the poor door behind you and missing the way Larissa’s face fell.

~~~

By the time you got back to your office late that night to lock up (and you’d taken your sweet time, not in the mood for any more altercations), Larissa was gone.

You barely slept that night - you were restless, tossing and turning constantly. You hated arguing with people - particularly your colleagues, which Larissa now was. Tomorrow was to be her first full day back at Nevermore, and it left you feeling unsettled and anxious.

Against all odds, the following morning was a quiet one. You’d half expected Larissa to barge into your office before lunchtime to scream at you about something, but no such outburst occurred. You’d gotten ahead of yourself, however - late that afternoon, the door to your office burst open, the tall blonde once again stalking towards your desk.

“Still having problems with the concept of knocking, I see,” you hissed, clenching your teeth.

Larissa glowered down at you, completely disregarding your statement - save for the subtle twitch of her upper lip.

“You really should adjust your tone when speaking with your staff, Principal Y/L/N.” She spat the word 'principal' at you as if it were laced with venom. “One might otherwise get the impression that you don’t respect them.” The right corner of Larissa’s lips curled up slightly into a condescending smile, and you felt a raging heat begin to boil in the pit of your stomach.

“It’s clear you don’t respect me, Ms. Weems,” you replied as coolly as you could. “But we both know that insulting me, no matter how much joy it may bring you, is not the reason you barged into my office. So. Why are you really here?”

“The planning of this year’s Rave’N.”

You raised an eyebrow, leaning back in your chair and clasping your hands together on your lap as you waited for Larissa to continue.

“As you may know, Nevermore Academy has been built on a centuries old history of tradition. I have spent my career upholding those traditions that make up the very heart of this school, to uplift our students, our faculty, and our community.”

You ran your tongue along your upper teeth - you already knew where she was going with this, and you had to fight the urge to groan and roll your eyes.

“So imagine my surprise, and dare I say disappointment, when I found out that our new dearly beloved principal was planning on canceling the Rave’N. An activity that our students greatly look forward to and that is essential to this school’s extra-curricular framework…” Larissa trailed off, her own eyebrow quirked in challenge as icy blue eyes flashed dangerously.

Taking a moment to collect yourself, you let out a long sigh - God, this woman was irritating. “Ms. Weems, I have absolutely no intention of canceling the Rave’N. I am, however - as you may have heard - postponing it until the spring. I’m not certain where you got your information, but you may want to check your sources before you go around rashly pointing fingers at people.”

Larissa folded her arms defensively across her chest, her cheeks slowly turning red in hue. “The Rave’N has been held on the same weekend every year for nearly 200 years. What made you decide to break tradition?”

“It’s my humble opinion, Ms. Weems, that it isn’t working well at all. The Rave’N, the way it has traditionally been held, has consistently taken place a few short weeks before end of semester exams, squeezed unceremoniously between other events that are far more important for the Academy. The Poe Cup, for one - which is steeped in history, as you may rightfully agree, and which encourages healthy competition amongst our students. And, of course, Parent’s Weekend, which is essential for nurturing our wider outcast-community and involving our dear parents and alumni. The Rave’N, in contrast, is a frivolous school dance which, whilst certainly entertaining, wastes precious time that students could spend studying for their exams.”

Larissa looked like she was damn close to exploding on the spot. Her nostrils flared as she stared you down, her expression nothing short of disdain and utter disgust. When she spoke, red lips curled around brilliantly white teeth, which flashed dangerously in the light of the setting sun from the window behind you.

“I will not have you ruining this school, a place I have devoted my entire existence to, whilst you waltz in here and decide that it isn’t up to your arbitrary standards. Just because you don’t have the experience required to run a school and juggle multiple events at once, does not mean that they have been poorly planned. Rather, I believe this situation reflects your own shortcomings as an administrator.”

“Fine.” You grit your teeth - you’d have fired the woman on the spot if she hadn’t weaseled her way in through the school board. “You want to have your precious Rave’N this fall? You plan it then. I, however, want no part in it.”

Larissa let out a snort. “It’s nothing I can’t manage. And not to worry, I’ll leave you out of it.” With that, she turned and stalked back to the door, her hips swaying in an irritatingly tantalizing way - it made you furious.

“Oh, and Ms. Weems? If you barge into my office to insult me one more time, I will not hesitate to take this up with the school board.”

Larissa’s shoulders tensed and her hand paused on the door handle - then she yanked the door open and, once again, slammed it behind her.

Ridiculous.

~~~

Although Larissa had since refrained from bursting into your office unannounced for a verbal sparring match, the bickering continued full-force. You’d hoped it would get better as time went on, but the opposite proved to be true.

Thoughts of Larissa had begun to plague you wherever you went. You couldn’t avoid her - she was everywhere. She argued with you during every staff meeting, made a point to pass you in the hall every chance she got, chose a seat directly within your line of vision during lunchtime - taunting you wherever you went. You’d started to hide in your office during breaks simply to find some reprieve.

You’d even lie awake in bed at night, unable to get the infuriating blonde out of your head. The worst part was, it wasn’t just your anger and anxiety over the arguments and the disrespect that kept you from sleeping - it was the fact that, despite it all, you couldn’t get over the strange pull that you felt towards this woman, even as you’d begun to hide from her like a coward.

She was driving you utterly mad, in every sense of the word. When she argued with you, baring her teeth, her face contorted with rage, you wanted to slap her. Then, and it took you a few sleepless nights to admit it to yourself, you wanted to kiss her - you wanted to consume her, to smudge her lipstick and litter her body in purple marks, to push her up against a wall and fuck the rage out of her. You wanted to see the arrogant, furious, domineering Larissa Weems turn into a needy little slut, utterly at your mercy and begging you to cum, to please, please, let me cum-

You groaned in frustration, slipping a hand under the covers and into your underwear. Your cunt was absolutely drenched and you couldn’t take it anymore, rubbing hard and fast circles around your clit as you felt both shame and pleasure overwhelm you. Your imagination was your best friend as you pictured Larissa: her face flushed, her lipstick smeared down her chin, her milky thighs trembling and clenching around your hand as she rode your fingers - sinful moans being ripped from her throat because of you.

Your orgasm washed over you as you reached your peak - it came and went, and you pulled your fingers from your underwear and wiped them on the sheets. Embarrassment and regret welled up inside of you as you laid there alone in the darkness of your quarters, unable to stop your thoughts from drifting towards a certain former principal and what she might be doing in her quarters.

Sleeping, probably, you thought bitterly.

~~~

Each week proved to be more trying than the last, and you found yourself, more nights than not, lying awake until ungodly hours thinking about Larissa - touching yourself because of Larissa. The harder she made your life, the more you seemed to be consumed by her - and then, the next hurdle was thrown your way.

Part of your duty as principal was, of course, conducting performance evaluations of your staff. Since you were new at Nevermore and unfamiliar with the staff members, you’d had to pop into parts of their classes to observe and get a feel for their teaching - and most of the teachers welcomed this with open arms.

Larissa Weems was not like most of the teachers, though. Given how often she’d shown up in your office unannounced, you’d had no qualms about randomly popping into her last class of the day, closing the door gently behind you and taking a seat in the back row.

Larissa stopped teaching immediately, her proud, tender smile slipping from her face when she saw your face among the sea of students. “Can I help you, Principal Y/L/N?” Her voice quavered slightly, and the students turned around curiously, their eyes darting between you and Larissa.

“Don’t mind me, Ms. Weems,” you said with a forced smile. “I’m just observing for today. Just pretend I’m not even here.” You gave her a wink which had her lip twitching and her nostrils flaring - the tension between the two of you did not go unnoticed by the students, who were eerily quiet as Larissa resumed her lesson.

Before you’d made your presence known, Larissa had been smiling so warmly at her students - it was obvious how much she cared for them, and the energy in her classroom had felt inviting and kind. The shift in energy when you’d sat down was alarming - Larissa had turned into an ice queen almost instantly. You could tell she felt uncomfortable and tense, and her teaching was robotic and distracted. Her students didn’t seem to be very engaged either - it seemed that her mood had rubbed off on them, and a feeling of unease blanketed the room.

When the lesson was over, Larissa immediately turned to her desk to pack her things, her students filing out of the room in silence.

“Ms. Weems, I’d like to see you in my office in twenty minutes, please. I have something I’d like to discuss with you.” You didn’t wait for a reply before slipping out of the classroom and hurrying to your office.

~~~

Exactly twenty minutes later, a low knock sounded on your door - you were almost pleasantly surprised, but then Larissa barged in anyway, without waiting for you to respond, and you felt a twinge of annoyance bubble up inside of you.

“You wanted to see me.” Larissa grit her teeth as she stalked up to your desk.

“I did. Please, have a seat.”

Larissa ignored your offer and you let out a heavy sigh. “I must say, I was really disappointed this afternoon. The energy in your classroom was bordering on hostile and you made all of us feel very uncomfortable. I wouldn’t say that’s exactly conducive to learning and-”

“What were you even doing in my classroom?” Larissa hissed.

“I have been getting to know our faculty and their teaching methods better. It has worked quite well with your peers, however this afternoon was… eye-opening for me. What disappointed me the most, Ms. Weems, was that I caught a glimpse of you teaching as I entered the room, and it was… lovely. You care about your students, you really do, and I believe you to be a capable and nurturing teacher - your student’s grades prove as much.” You stood and rounded your desk, coming to stand in front of Larissa. “But the way your demeanor shifted when I joined your class… The way you refuse to work with me - it cannot continue like this.”

Larissa took a step forward, into your personal space. You could practically feel the white-hot anger radiating off of her in waves - it completely engulfed you. “You humiliated me in front of an entire class of my students and I-”

“Oh, shut up, Larissa!”

The blonde looked visibly shocked at the sudden use of her first name, the way it rolled off your tongue. Her pupils widened and her cheeks flushed - it was as if a switch had flipped inside of her as her eyes began to narrow and her lips curled into a sneer, electricity crackling between your bodies.

“Make me.”

That was it - the last straw. The heat you felt coursing through your veins was too much to bear, and without a single thought of consequences, you crashed your lips into Larissa’s, your hands immediately resting on her hips and tugging her closer.

The blonde let out a wanton moan as your tongue wasted no time in swiping at her lips, begging for entry - which she granted you without hesitation. Her tongue immediately met your own, licking into your mouth with a desperate sort of passion as she pushed her body flush against yours. Her left hand fisted at the collar of your shirt, pulling you closer and closer as her right hand threaded itself tightly through your hair, holding you in place.

The tension surrounding the both of you was growing thicker by the second, a hot coil winding itself tightly in your abdomen and lighting your entire body aflame. With a step forward, you had Larissa pinned between you and the edge of your desk. A little push was all she needed to topple back onto it, pulling you with her.

Larissa’s hands shot out to catch herself before her back hit the wood, and your lips disconnected for a moment. Her hot breath was heavy against your face and you looked up to see Larissa’s gaze fixed intently on your own, her eyes heavy-lidded and her pupils dilated so that there was barely a sliver of blue visible.

Her lipstick was smudged, smeared across her chin, just like in your fantasies, and for a moment you froze, like a deer caught in headlights.

You, the prey, and Larissa, the predator.

A wicked smile formed on her lips as she realized your predicament.

“Thought you could just fuck the attitude out of me, did you?” she purred, baring her teeth. You swallowed thickly, your eyes glued to her kiss-swollen lips, your heart pounding so fast you thought it might burst.

Even leaning back with her ass resting on your desk, she still towered over you. Her height had never intimidated you before but for a moment it gave you pause - you felt so very small. That moment was enough for Larissa to realize she had the upper hand, enough for her to slide her palm over the outside of your thigh, enough for her nimble fingers to tug the fabric of your skirt upwards until it was resting snugly above your hips, your panties on display for her.

“How naive of you,” she murmured as her fingers came to rest on your abdomen - you shivered at the touch - before slipping into the waistband of your underwear. You felt your cheeks burn as Larissa slid two fingers between your folds - you were so wet for her already, and the thought embarrassed you.

Larissa hummed quietly as she began to tease your slit, taking her time exploring your sex and gathering your juices on the pads of her fingers. When she finally soothed her fingers over your clit, you let out a strangled gasp, your hands coming to rest on her shoulders and squeezing tightly as your eyes fluttered shut.

Your clit was so sensitive, like every casual brush of her fingers could send you over the edge - but they didn’t. Just when you thought you might cum, her fingers left the little bundle of nerves and slid down your slit, towards your entrance.

She slipped the tip of her finger in, just to the first knuckle, before retracting and circling your entrance with a featherlight touch. Your nails dug into Larissa’s shoulders as you bucked your hips into her hand, whimpering desperately.

“So needy already and I’ve barely touched you,” Larissa tutted. “Tell me, have you pictured this before? Have you craved it?” Condescension dripped from her lips but you couldn’t find it in you to care - in fact, if anything, you felt the coil in your belly tighten and you ground your hips harder into her hand.

“Y-yes,” you whimpered. There was no point in lying to Larissa, not with how wet you were - and you would do just about anything to cum right now.

Without warning, Larissa plunged her finger into your hole, chuckling at the moan that clawed its way from deep within you. After a few pumps of her finger, she added a second digit and began to match the thrusts of your hips as she fucked you.

She curled her fingers upwards, going deeper this time and causing you to thrust forward so violently you nearly slid to the floor. Her reflexes were quick and she steadied you with her free arm, a smirk growing on her face.

Whatever power trip she was on, you didn’t care to stop her as her lips crashed into yours, her tongue all but forcing its entry into your mouth and asserting dominance. You felt entirely at her mercy as you felt yourself teeter on the edge of pleasure, your mind going fuzzy as Larissa’s fingers hit all the right spots inside you. What finally sent you over the edge was the way her thumb brushed over your clit at just the right moment, her fingers stroking your walls.

You clenched around her as you came, the coil in your belly snapping. Your moans were swallowed by the blonde, who seemed unable to keep her lips off your own, kissing and licking and gently nipping.

Your hands slid from Larissa’s shoulders to her waist, steadying yourself as you pulled back from the kiss. Larissa slipped her hand out of your underwear, her fingers glistening with your arousal - she brought them to her mouth and made a show of placing them on her tongue, licking and sucking and letting out a satisfied hum.

She watched you watch her, a smug grin growing on her face as your own cheeks flushed at the vulgar noises she was making. It was almost too much to bear, and you felt your frustration return with full force as Larissa pushed herself off the desk, holding her head high and smoothing the wrinkles in her dress. You would be damned if you let Larissa fuck you and then go on disrespecting you and making you feel awful about yourself.

“You thought we were done here?” You squared your shoulders and glared at Larissa in challenge - she quirked an eyebrow, looking slightly taken aback. “After all that, you would deny me the opportunity to return the favor?”

Larissa’s breathing quickened and you smirked as you leaned in to kiss her jaw. Your lips trailed lower, down the side of her neck, and she tilted her head back to give you better access as your teeth found her pulse point. You could feel her pulse hammering away as your lips latched onto her neck, sucking until her skin had been marked deep red.

Your hands found her hips and you moved down her body until your face was level with her thighs. You could feel Larissa’s gaze upon you as you slid her dress upwards to reveal her underwear - her knuckles turning white as she gripped the edge of the desk. There was a wet spot at the center of her underwear and you leant in, slowly dragging your tongue over the fabric and drawing a breathy groan from Larissa’s chest.

“And here you had me thinking I was the only one who was so wet right now,” you teased, your tongue finding Larissa’s clit through her underwear and giving it a gentle kitten lick, causing her to buck her pelvis into your mouth.

“So impatient…” You glanced up at Larissa’s face to see her cheeks flushed and her chest heaving as she glowered down at you. She made no move to stop you, however - quite the contrary, as she began to roll her hips against your tongue.

As much as you wanted to go on teasing her forever, you also felt a desperate urge to get a taste of the woman before you, so you hooked your fingers under the waistband of her underwear and pulled it down her long legs. You hooked her thighs over your shoulders, unable to stop yourself from moaning as you watched Larissa’s glistening folds spread for you.

You began to place wet, open-mouthed kisses to the insides of Larissa’s thighs, alternating between each leg and reveling in the way her thighs began to tremble beneath your lips. Smirking, you bit her thigh - right next to the entrance to her pussy. Larissa hissed and yanked your head back by the hair, her eyes flashing violently. Behind the aggression, there was a pool of unfettered desire already unspooling. Larissa was coming apart at the seams before your very eyes, and you could tell by her anger that it was unsettling to her.

The very thought emboldened you. “Well if it isn’t the former principal of Nevermore, turned into a needy little slut for me.”

Your words had the desired effect - Larissa mewled and bucked her hips towards your mouth. You took the opportunity to dive right in, the scent of her arousal filling your nostrils and making you feel dizzy with want as your tongue dragged its way up her slit. She tasted absolutely divine and you let out a satisfied hum that vibrated against her pussy and drew a deep moan from her chest.

Larissa’s fingers wound themselves even tighter in your hair as your tongue began to draw lazy circles around her clit, smearing your saliva and her arousal around the sensitive bud. You began to alternate between licking and sucking, wrapping your lips around her clit and flicking your tongue over it - experimenting with different paces and amounts of pressure to find out which drew the most sinful moans from the blonde’s lips, which made her thighs begin to tremble around your head.

You found it easy to lose yourself in Larissa - in her taste, her scent, the noises she was making, the way her pussy felt against your tongue and the way her hand felt against your head. You lapped hungrily at her cunt, your own desire burning hot within you as you felt Larissa barrel closer and closer to the edge - if the shaking of her legs and the volume of her groans was anything to go by.

Glancing up to catch a glimpse of her face, you dipped your tongue into her entrance, feeling her walls clench. A fire seemed to burn in her eyes as she came undone. You could tell how badly she wanted you by the way her lips parted as she gazed down at you, the way her tongue grazed her lower lip, the way the exposed part of her chest was red with anticipation. Her head lolled slowly back and her eyes fluttered shut, and you continued to lick and suck through her orgasm.

Larissa let go of your hair and slumped back onto the desk, her breathing labored. You let out a satisfied hum as you licked the arousal off the insides of her thighs, then gently unhooked her legs from your shoulders and stood, leaning over the desk and smirking down at her.

She lay back against the desk, staring at the ceiling. When you came into her line of vision, she tilted her head towards you and met your gaze, a strange expression on her face.

“I need to leave,” she whispered hoarsely, her eyes wide and glassy.

You opened your mouth to speak but before you could get a word out, Larissa had pushed herself up and pushed past you, pulling her dress down with one hand as she stooped down to grab her underwear with the other hand. She balled it into her fist, hiding it from view as she hurried to the door.

“Lari-” Slam.

Larissa was gone, leaving you to slump down in the armchair across from your desk, your chest heaving and your mind racing.

~~~

After a night of tossing and turning, you woke to an email from Larissa in your inbox.

Ms. Y/L/N,

Unfortunately, I am feeling a bit under the weather today, and am unable to teach my afternoon classes. Please do be so kind as to find a suitable replacement.

Regards,

L. Weems

Something wasn’t sitting right with you. Your stomach churned as you read the email over and over again, and it didn’t stop as you brushed your teeth, nor as you got dressed, nor as you settled at your desk with a cup of coffee.

You couldn’t get the previous day out of your head, and two things stuck out in your mind most of all:

Firstly, the little glimpse of Larissa that you’d caught when you’d first entered her classroom. The warmth, the genuine smile directed at her students, the encouraging tone to her voice. It was a side of Larissa that you hadn’t been privy to at all, and it made your heart ache - making you wish, even if just for a moment, that she could someday afford you that same warmth, that that brilliant smile of hers could be directed at you.

And secondly, the way those few moments made you realize how much you missed teaching. You’d always felt that your greatest purpose in life was to guide young outcasts and help them achieve their own goals, just as your teachers had done for you. And right now, as principal, you weren’t doing much of that at all. Maybe Larissa was right - maybe you weren’t cut out for the administrative side of things. The constant push and pull, the political bullshit, making all these decisions for the good of the school and being left so very unsure of yourself, with so little time to dedicate to the students you loved so much.

Your mind was replaying your last interaction with Larissa - the look in her eyes, how she’d left in such a hurry. Something was definitely off, and you wouldn’t rest until you’d sorted it out.

Shutting your laptop and abandoning your coffee, you grabbed your keys and made your way to the teacher’s quarters.

~~~

“Ms. Weems?” you called out, rapping your knuckles against the door to her quarters.

Silence.

“Ms. Weems?”

…

“Larissa?” you tried, knocking again.

This time, a soft shuffling could be heard, followed by the click of a lock, before the door opened just a crack, revealing one side of Larissa’s face, cast in shadow - it seemed she had the curtains drawn, and you suddenly felt guilty in case you’d woken her.

“Didn’t you receive my email, Ms. Y/L/N?” There was no hard edge to Larissa’s voice - she simply sounded exhausted.

“I, uh… I did, yes. I’m sorry if I woke you. I just wanted to check in and see if there’s anything I could do for you.” And talk, you added in your head. “Could I please come in?”

Larissa stared at you for a moment. Then a moment more. Then, she opened the door just a crack more and allowed you to step inside her quarters.

The curtains were indeed drawn, though the second that Larissa closed the door behind you, she hurried to the window and opened them to let in some light. She looked pristine as ever - not a hair out of place, makeup done to perfection, clothing free of wrinkles. She didn’t look ill at all. The only indication that she may have been curled up in bed was the untidy way her sheets were made up, as if she’d pulled them up and fluffed them in a haste.

Larissa’s eyes followed your gaze to her bed and she quickly took a step to the side, blocking it partially from view.

“Have you come to inspect how I keep my quarters now, as well?” she asked, an iciness seeping back into her tone. “I didn’t realize that was any of your concern as principal, Ms. Y/L/N.”

You shook your head lightly, finding yourself suddenly at a loss for words. “I… no. No, it’s not. That’s actually not why I’m here. Could you… um, could you please call me Y/N?”

Larissa scoffed and crossed her arms across her chest. “Alright. Y/N. Why are you here then?”

Your teeth sank into your lower lip as your mind whirred with all the things you wanted to say, all the things you wanted to know.

“What happened yesterday?” you whispered finally.

“You were there, were you not?” Larissa said with an incredulous snort. “Or would you like a quick recap?”

“No, I mean… I mean when you left.”

“I wasn’t feeling well.”

“You look fine to me,” you challenged with a raised eyebrow.

Larissa’s face hardened. “Your lack of empathy is absolutely astounding, Y/N.”

“Well considering the fact that you never actually opened up to me, it’s no-”

“Opened up to you?” Larissa scoffed. “I didn’t realize we were friends. Why should I speak with you about personal matters that don’t concern you?”

You opened your mouth - then promptly closed it again. Larissa was right, of course. You weren’t friends, and what she was or wasn’t going through was, of course, none of your business. That somehow didn’t stop you from wanting to know, though. As infuriating as the woman had proven to be since you’d met, you couldn’t help but desperately wish for things to be different than they were.

“You’re right. You don’t have to tell me anything. I just… I came by to tell you that I’m giving up my position. I’m going to call the school board this afternoon to quit, and I’m telling them that they should hire you back instead.”

The words left your mouth in a rush, and you felt so much lighter the second they did. Larissa’s lips parted, her eyes wide as she tried to process the information. You waited but she didn’t say anything, and so you turned to leave.

Just before you reached the door, Larissa found her voice. It was low and shaky, barely audible - but her quarters were so quiet you’d have heard a pin drop.

“I heard everything.”

Your brows knit together in confusion and you turned to see Larissa perch herself at the edge of her bed, her gaze trained on the floor in front of her.

“I don’t understand,” you whispered. “What did you hear?”

“It took ages for them to find me. When I woke up, I knew I was in the hospital because of the noises around me. Only I wasn’t awake, not really.” Larissa’s voice sounded bitter and subdued, her fingers twitched from where she was playing with them in her lap. “I heard people speaking to me. Then about me. And about Nevermore. And I couldn’t… I couldn’t say or do anything. I could only listen.”

Your heart was thumping erratically in your chest and you took a tentative step towards Larissa. “Who was speaking? Your friends, when they visited you?”

Larissa let out a shaky sigh, her eyelids fluttering shut. “Tell me, Y/N, how much time have you had to maintain your friendships since starting your position?”

The question confused you, and you drank in Larissa’s tense body language, her pained expression. Then you realized what she meant - her friends, if she even had any, hadn’t seemed to visit her at all, and a wave of guilt washed over you, so intense that you took a seat next to Larissa on the bed.

She opened her eyes and peered over at you, seeming to take your silence as a form of acknowledgment. “Some students visited in the first days - Miss Addams and Miss Sinclair, mostly, Miss Barclay once or twice. Later it was school administrators - trying to figure out what to do with me, I suppose, whether or not to…” Larissa trailed off into silence, letting out a shuddering breath as her eyes darted about the room.

Without thinking, you leant in and pressed your lips to Larissa’s cheek - you felt her tense up and pulled back as quickly as you could, your own cheeks turning scarlet.

“I-I’m so sorry,” you stuttered, scrambling to your feet.

A hand curled around your wrist, stilling you in your movements. “Don’t be,” Larissa whispered.

“Do you want me to go?” you asked anxiously.

Larissa looked up at you with wide, watery eyes. “Could you stay? Just for a few minutes. Please.”

You nodded, sitting back down next to Larissa and resting your hand face up on her lap - an offering which she accepted, placing her hand in your own and interlacing your fingers.

“Thank you,” she murmured, her voice shaky.

You gave Larissa’s hand a gentle squeeze, and the two of you sat in silence for what felt like hours, your hands intertwined. Strangely, you felt more at peace in that moment than you had since starting at Nevermore, and Larissa seemed to be getting more comfortable as well, even resting her cheek on your shoulder at one point.

The moment you left her quarters that afternoon, you pulled your phone out of your pocket to call the school board.

~~~

It was with a heavy heart that you hauled your suitcase onto your bed and unzipped it. Leaving Nevermore would be bittersweet for you - as much as you would miss the school you’d been dying to work at your entire life, you knew you were doing the right thing - for yourself, for Larissa, and for Nevermore.

You opened your wardrobe and began placing your clothes into your open suitcase when you heard a knock on the door to your quarters.

“It’s open,” you called out, and the door creaked as it swung open to reveal Larissa. “Hi,” you said with a shy smile, which Larissa returned hesitantly.

“I’ve just received a call from the school board and gotten everything sorted out. Thank you. You have no idea how much this means to me.”

You smiled softly at the principal. “I think I have some idea.”

Larissa’s cheeks turned pink and she looked away, her eyes darting around your room before landing on the mess on your bed. “Do you want to leave?” she asked, her voice soft and curious.

You chuckled nervously and gave her a light shrug. “I don’t know if I would say I want to leave, but I don’t see what choice I have without a job here. Unless you’re renting out rooms…?”

Larissa chuckled. “Actually, a position has opened up for a new history teacher,” she said. “I’ve taken the liberty of looking into your employment history and I think you’d be a great asset to our staff.”

Your eyes widened. “Really? You would hire me?”

“Yes,” Larissa said firmly. “I would. If you’d like to stay, that is…”

“Yes!” you all but shouted. “Sorry… yes. I would love to, that would be amazing. Thank you, Larissa.”

Larissa nodded, smiling softly. Your eyes fell to the large suitcase that was standing just behind Larissa, and you cocked your head to the side in question.

“The school board has agreed to allow me to take over my old quarters,” Larissa supplied as her gaze followed your own.

“Ah. I see.”

You fidgeted in place and Larissa watched you curiously for a moment. When she realized you weren’t going to say anything else, she gave you a curt nod and placed a hand on the handle of her suitcase. “I’ll leave you to it, then,” she said softly. “Perhaps we can set up a meeting this week to get you acquainted with your new position.”

You nodded, your stomach doing a little somersault as your heartbeat began to pick up just a tad. Larissa took a step back into the hallway and started to pull the door closed behind her.

“Larissa, wait.”

The blonde froze in her movements, her brow furrowing as her gaze shot up to meet your own. You swallowed thickly.

“Do you want help? Moving all your stuff back?”

You held your breath as Larissa stared. Then, her face lit up with a bright, beautiful smile, red lips curling up at the edges and sparkling blue eyes crinkling at the outer corners.

“I would love that.”

#larissa weems x reader #larissa weems #larissa x reader #principal weems x reader #principal weems

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