#play therapy near me

[thriveplaytherapy]

The Importance of Play Therapy for Children's Emotional Well-Being

As parents and caregivers, watching a child struggle with emotional, behavioral, or social challenges can be heart-wrenching. Thankfully, there are therapeutic interventions designed specifically for children that can help them express their feelings and develop healthy coping mechanisms. One such approach is play therapy, a proven method that allows children to process their emotions through play. If you're searching for play therapy near me, look no further than Thrive Play Therapy—a trusted name in child development and emotional support.

What is Play Therapy?

Play therapy is a form of counseling or psychotherapy that uses play as a way for children to communicate and explore their emotions. Unlike adults, who can easily articulate their feelings through words, children often express themselves through toys, games, and activities. Play therapy provides a safe, nurturing environment where children can use play to process complex emotions such as anger, sadness, anxiety, or confusion.

How Does Play Therapy Work?

The therapist guides the session but allows the child to take the lead in selecting toys and activities. This form of therapy is designed to give children the freedom to express themselves in ways they may not yet understand or communicate verbally. Through play, they learn to cope with their emotions and develop problem-solving skills.

Sessions often involve:

Creative activities: Drawing, painting, and sculpting help children express feelings that are too difficult to verbalize.

Role-playing: Dolls, puppets, or figurines may be used to act out situations that help the child deal with real-life experiences.

Games: Structured games can help teach social skills, patience, and emotional regulation.

At Thrive Play Therapy, our licensed therapists use these tools and more to ensure that each child receives individualized care tailored to their unique emotional and developmental needs.

Who Can Benefit from Play Therapy?

Play therapy is most often used for children between the ages of 3 and 12. However, older children and even adults can benefit from play-based interventions in some cases. The therapy is effective for a variety of emotional and behavioral issues, including:

Anxiety: Children experiencing fears, phobias, or generalized anxiety can use play therapy to express and process their worries in a safe space.

Behavioral Issues: For children who struggle with disruptive behaviors, play therapy can help them understand the emotional triggers behind their actions.

Trauma: Children who have experienced traumatic events such as abuse, divorce, or the loss of a loved one often find it difficult to express their feelings. Play therapy helps them navigate their emotions and begin the healing process.

Social Struggles: For children who have difficulty interacting with peers, play therapy can be a way to practice social skills in a low-pressure environment.

If you're wondering, "Where can I find play therapy near me?" Thrive Play Therapy provides accessible and compassionate care for children experiencing these and other challenges.

Benefits of Play Therapy

The advantages of play therapy are numerous, and the results can be life-changing for both the child and their family. Some of the key benefits include:

Emotional Expression: Play therapy provides a safe space for children to express emotions they might not fully understand or feel comfortable discussing openly.

Improved Behavior: By learning to understand and manage their emotions, children often see improvements in behavior at home, school, and in social settings.

Coping Mechanisms: Play therapy helps children develop healthy coping strategies that they can carry into adulthood.

Strengthened Relationships: Children learn communication skills that improve relationships with peers, teachers, and family members.

Why Choose Thrive Play Therapy?

At Thrive Play Therapy, we understand the unique emotional needs of children. Our licensed therapists are experienced in working with children of all ages and backgrounds. We tailor our approach to each individual child, creating a safe, supportive, and nurturing environment for them to explore their emotions and grow.

Local Convenience: If you're looking for play therapy near me, our conveniently located facilities ensure that your child gets the care they need without the hassle of long commutes.

Expertise and Compassion: Our therapists are trained to work with children dealing with a range of emotional, behavioral, and social challenges.

Flexible Sessions: We offer both in-person and virtual sessions to accommodate the needs of busy families.

Conclusion

Finding the right therapeutic support for your child can be a daunting task, but play therapy offers a gentle, effective approach to helping children navigate emotional challenges. If you're in search of play therapy near me, look no further than Thrive Play Therapy. We are committed to helping children thrive by providing compassionate, expert care tailored to their unique needs.

[bread-of-death]

Chat I think I need a psychiatrist

[wayfinderships]

Good night gamers! Apologies for not posting much today, I was busy with assignments so I couldn't do much-agksnfkdkf Im just

Also maybe I'll make a crush into an official f/o but you didn't hear that from me-

[match-your-steps]

i think the vast majority of my problems could be solved with a therapist and a chiropractor actually

[lesflaya]

“People don’t actually speak that way in real life” ok well maybe i love the theatre maybe I love the DRAMA

[robbybirdy]

Baking with ingredients I don't care for

The other day (it could have been a few days ago or a month ago, who knows) my sister gave me some Matcha tea powder. I baked with it the other day and... it wasn't my favorite. It was probably very expensive, and everything. However, I have never cared much for green tea. I am more of a black tea girl. I only remember getting black tea as a child when we went to the local Chinese restaurant. And 9 times out of 10 I would burn my tongue on the tea, but I couldn't help myself, I loved the taste of it so much. But I have never liked the taste of green tea, because it tastes like grass to me.

For my Genshin-inspired baking recipes, I will eventually have to make two recipes using matcha powder. Yelan doesn't like sweets at all and only likes tea, and my new character (that I got C1 of), Wriothesly, only talks about tea. So I will find some recipes for these two characters, and hopefully, I find something that I like. And even if I don't I know that my sister will be happy that I am making green tea-flavored things.

Also on a side note, October has been a crazy month and I haven't been able to post as much as I would have liked. While I have played the Sims 3, I have been in a building rut. I have built numerous houses for Blaire and Bucky, but at the end of the building session, I ended up deleting it all. Thankfully, I am happy with what I am in the process of building now, so look forward to the pictures. I will also play around with Road to Fame because I honestly loved the story of that one as well. I hope everyone has a great day.

[paradisiac]

i'm not dead 🤙🏻

[i-like-loserz]

bunny love

synopsis: hongjoong comes back to find you fast asleep

pairing: dom!hongjoong x reader

warnings: SMUT (18+), idol au, somnophilia, tit play, cockwarming, sleepy time, daddy kink, emotionally unavailable!hongjoong, owner! hongjoong, pet!reader, bunny hybrid!reader, rough-handling, ooc hongjoong! :3

word count: 2k

note: happy new years! i find this guy really cute but also i want him to lose it and pin me down -- that's all ૮ . . ྀིა⁩

masterlist

Your face is exhaustedly smashed into the pillow, the plushness of your cheek squishing against your eye. Hongjoong watches as your back rises with soft breaths, your body completely surrendering to a deep sleep. 

Your tiny frilly sleep shorts stick to your body like second skin, stretching nicely over your ass as your right leg is hooked over another pillow.

Your cute little cottontail is pushed through a small hole in the fabric, fluffy as can be, begging for him to tug on it until you're whining out for him.

Lower, he can see the shape of your soft cunt under the pink shorts, clinging to every dip and mound, for his eyes only. 

Hongjoong decided at the last minute to fly you overseas, sparing no expense, merely because he missed you. He wanted to come home to his sweet bunny instead of his temporary call girls, craving the one thing that only you can give him.

Unconditional love.

A man like him shouldn’t be so easily swayed by his emotions, much less the most trivial of them all: Love. He never had time for them anyway, and even if he did it made things far too complicated for everyone involved.

But after another successful comeback working tirelessly as a the group's leader, you were plopped into his lap as a kind of “therapy pet” by a notoriously morally-dubious investor. Within a couple of weeks, he started to see the appeal of such emotions.

Or at least, the appeal of receiving them. 

At first, he resisted your affections, only asking for you when he wanted a warm cunt to bury himself in. Otherwise, you’d sit in your tiny room, doing pretty much anything to pass the time as he actively ignores your existence in the mansion. 

He assumed you’d be a temporary doll for him to play with before you’d attempt to escape, something to chase during his limited off-time, but he never anticipated just how easily you'd fall for him.

It annoyed him how pleasant you were, never complaining or whining, always staying out of sight until you were needed. It was like you were made for him.

No matter how much he’d taunt, tease, and ignore you, you’d only respond to him with unwavering devotion, seemingly unaffected as your eyes continued to regard him with pure adoration whenever he was near. 

Of course, at the end of the day, his ego didn’t mind the constant attention, so he decided to keep you around–at least, for a little bit– if only for the sake of sating his loneliness (though he'd never admit that). Hongjoong’s arm's length attitude started strong, but he was quickly humbled once he made the mistake of letting you in.

He refuses to admit it, but he has formed an attachment to you. He doesn’t understand why he’d want anyone around, much less a needy pet, but he finds himself craving your presence throughout the day, thinking of you as he works in the studio or is on stage in front of thousands of adoring fans.

After a few months, it was quickly decided that you go wherever he goes, serving as his little therapy bunny, ready to be everything he needs. All your energy was drained from the twelve-hour flight he had you on, only managing to get an hour of sleep the whole trip.

A breathy whine pushes through your throat as you shift on the bed, blinding grabbing at the blanket to pull it over your body. Hongjoong watches with an amused smile, having dragged it off of you just a few minutes early to get an eyeful of your body. He gently pushes you to lay on your back before pulling the duvet down once more.

He bites his lip when he sees how your nipples instantly start to pebble through your cropped shirt as his cool hands glide against your exposed stomach, absorbing your natural heat.

Your droopy bunny ears twitch in excitement from the bare stimulation of his touch, but you remain asleep. Your body is always so responsive for him, even when your mind is unconscious. 

Your tiny hands wrap over his wrist, instinctively pulling him closer as you’re slowly nudged awake. He ignores your grabby hands, brushing them off easily as he lifts your shirt, exposing your bare tits to the cool room. Your body arches ever so subtly at the feeling, an eager action that isn’t lost on Hongjoong.

He drifts the pads of his fingers up your skin, trailing goosebumps as he ascends, eyes focused on your perky mounds. He watches you let out a soft whimper as he circles a bud, unconsciously lifting into his touch as pleasure tingles up your spine.

He goes further, flicking and pinching at your sensitive nipples, drinking in every involuntary gasp and groan you let out. One particularly harsh pinch causes you to flinch and open your sleepy eyes.

Hongjoong watches you blink slowly, eyes bleary as they try to focus on what’s in front of them.

“Hm?” You hum drowsily, voice raspy from sleep. 

He splays his palm over your chest, softly squeezing you in his hand as he greets you.

“Hi, bunny. Miss me?” 

“Daddy…” 

He coos, eyes boring into yours as his hand absentmindedly gropes at your other tit. “That’s right princess. You have a good flight?”

“Mhm.”  You nod adorably slow, chest heaving with excited breaths.

His movements start to slow, his hand now petting short comforting strokes against your skin. His tongue swipes over his bottom lip as he takes in the dreamy look in your eyes, still fogged over from your nap.

His actions stop altogether as he considers your reclined form under him.

“You sleepy, baby?”

You shake your head adamantly, pushing yourself up to show your attentiveness. Your eyes suddenly brighten with energy. 

“N-no. I’m up.”

Your avid actions are met with a warm chuckle and a hand that shoves at your chest to push you back against the mattress.

“Relax bunny, we don’t gotta do anything tonight. I just finished a round of interviews with the boys and you had a long flight.”

A small disappointed pout pulls at your lips as you grip a pillow on your lap. Hongjoong raises an eyebrow, not one to accept bratty behavior, no matter how soft he’s become for you.

“Hey, none of that. Scoot over, honey, let me in.” 

You barely push yourself to the center of the bed, preferring to be right against his body when you sleep. 

You patiently lay on your side as you watch Hongjoong undress, pulling off a ridiculously expensive silk shirt before throwing it carelessly to the ground, happy to be out of the fancy fabric after a long day of charming interviewers. 

You squeeze your thighs together as you drink in his exposed torso: perfectly smooth and defined. You remember the nights you would trace each freckle, touch featherlight so as to not wake him up.

The shirt is followed by his dark slacks and shoes, joining the discarded fabric in a pile for someone else to clean up tomorrow.  

He pushes the ungodly amount of pillows you were sleeping with on the floor before slipping in, shivering as his body acclimates to the residual heat you left on his side. He shifts around the bed before propping himself onto his right side, facing his body toward yours. 

“Turn around.” Hongjoong calmly murmurs regarding your closeness, eyes half-lidded either from exhaustion or desire. You flip over obediently, staring at the gray wall in anticipation as you wait for his next instruction.  

He doesn’t speak as reaches over you, letting out a relaxed sigh as he wraps his arms around your waist. As Hongjoong pulls you closer to nestle his hips against yours, you can feel the warmth of his hard cock insistently push against your ass through your shorts. You let out a soft moean, arching your back to press yourself more firmly against him. 

His face rests above your shoulder as he holds you, lips brushing gently at the edge of your fluffy ear. 

“Daddy just wants a hug, sweetheart. You think you could give me one?” You melt as he addresses you with a soft voice. You wrap your arms over his, giving him an affectionate squeeze. 

“Of course-” Your sentence stutters to a stop as he suddenly starts to tug at your shorts, fingers hooking at the waistband before pulling them down your thighs.

You try to turn toward him, confused by his sudden actions, but his hold keeps you still and defenseless against his hands.

“Wait, wh-”

He promptly muffles your confusion with a hand over your lips as he pushes at the fabric until it’s around your knees, effectively binding your legs together. His hand drops from your face as he reaches down to pull himself out of his boxers, already hard and throbbing for your cunt.

“Dadd-”

“Just a little taste, bunny.”

He rubs the tip of his cock through your sopping folds, effectively coating himself in your slick as lewd sounds hungrily escape between your bodies.

You feel him experimentally push the head in before backing out, teasing your hungry cunt as you try to suck him back in.

“Mm, look at this greedy pussy, all wet, just begging for my cock.” 

“Please, daddy, I can take it!”

He pushes in slowly, softly shushing your whimpers as you struggle to stretch around him, your legs still forcefully bound together, making you tighter than ever. 

“F-fuck.”

He lets out a groan as he bottoms out, forehead pushing against your shoulder as he struggles to hold his hips back from fucking into you.

Just a taste, he reminded himself. He can go a night without a fucking you into the mattress. 

Your body feels restless as his cock deliciously throbs inside you, prodding right against your cervix. You’re ravenous for his usual mouthwatering thrusts, anticipating a hard fuck that’ll put you to your sleep. But it never comes.

You let out a pathetic whine when he continues to remain completely still behind you, refusing to rut into you like he usually does. You try to squirm against his arms in an attempt to fuck yourself on his cock, hips wiggling in pure desperation for any type of relief.

A short drag of his cock inside your cunt causes you to squeeze around him, instant shivers running up your spine. Before you can get too far, Hongjoong tightens his hold on your body, tsking lowly as you try to resist him.

“I already told you, bunny, we aren’t doing anything tonight.” He positions his body so he can effectively mold himself along your back. “You’re just gonna keep me warm tonight, okay?”

You secretly wear a pout as you solemnly nod, unhappily listening as his breaths begin to calm down and steady behind you.

A handful of minutes go by and he falls asleep, unbothered by your frustrated form as he relaxes against you, contently stuffed in your warmth.

Unfortunately, his calm silence doesn’t help you one bit. You’re so frustrated that you can probably cum from simply clenching around him. 

Your sensitive clit pulses as you lean back into his touch still worked up from the tit massage he gave you earlier.

Couldn’t he have gotten you off before sleeping? 

You hold a breath as you experimentally tighten around him, waiting for a scolding voice or movement to stop you, but nothing happens.

You close your eyes as you clench again, finally relaxed enough to take in how full you feel. Your cunt flutters in excitement as you mold around his thickness, each squeeze pushing you toward the edge. 

Unbeknownst to you, Hongjoong feels everything. He has to hold back a groan as wakes up to you pulsing around him, slick smearing over his lower stomach. 

You gasp as he suddenly thrusts harshly against your cervix, still thinking he was asleep behind you.  

His fingers painfully dig into your skin as he growls, “Stop fucking around.” He holds himself deep inside of you, ignoring your whimpers at the pressure. “Go to sleep, or I’m leaving.” You give up, eyes wet from losing your orgasm.

You squeeze your eyes shut to force yourself to sleep, desperately trying to block out the sensation of being filled. 

[s-4pphics]

the party. II (sevika + vi + abby)

SYNOPSIS: reddit: a place for thought-dumping and being horny WORD COUNT: 6.5K WARNINGS: sevika, vi, and abby play rugby(kinda minor plot tbh), oc is a crazy redditor and wears skirts, STALKING, 90% SMUT MDNI(dubcon + VOYEURISM!! + degradation + munching + mult orgasms + dirty talk + scissoring + fingering) recreational drug use/drinking, some cringe A/N: fuck it everybody finna be in this.... heyyyy guys another collab w lottie bc duh ART BY LOTTIE LOT I LOVE U DEAR @trackinglessons … also callback to scumbag!abby missing her bad a lil taglist :) @marvelwomenarehot0 @falrydyke @alittlextrahoney @professionalgirlk1ss4r

—

r/AskReddit

u/artkiller       3mi

are college parties always this wild??

[f21] omg hey guys i’ve been MIA… 

ngl i’ve been getting my shit rocked for the past 12 hours i see why ppl go on my strange addiction as therapy… i need to be publically humiliated so i can stop thinking ab sex. thats real conversion therapy…. anywho im outside the frat rn and uh it look lit n whatever but some dude jumped outta window from the 3rd floor n he might be dead idk i don’t have my glasses on lol he’s just laying there fr unbreathing …. he’s cute tho #FAKEGAY the line to frats r so long im literally freezing n im not near the entrance pneumonia incoming 

—

r/AskReddit

u/artkiller       14mi

finally inside…. i feel like im sneaking out for the first time😭😭 why do i feel so guilty like wtf is this a byproduct of being loved conditionally by family or sum idk whatever WE TURNING UPPPP 

—

r/AskReddit

u/artkiller       3mi

my girl walkedd up behind m e 2 kiss my che eeek and my other gi dl spanked me in front of every1…… i need to be spay

Quite familiar, squeezing hands land on your hips and your phone hits the sticky fucking floor and some bitch with stiletto pumps steps on your gahtdamn phone who the fuck wears —

“Where ya been?” The scent of Crown Royal nearly sends you into a frenzy — alfuckingmost, but your phone screen is still glowing bright and orange with your half-assed cry for help Vi is right fucking behind you

“Uhhh… oh y’know, explorin’, whatevs.” You try to kick your phone closer, but you just end up slipping on whatever substance dirties the floors. Your girlfriend catches you, though, as always — hollers, okay? Need some water? 

And instantly, you’re horny. You needa nut. You politely decline the drink. 

“Come smoke with us...” She proposes. 

The bodies that surround you seem to move in slow-mo. Us who? 90% of the soccer, football, and swimming teams are here getting gyrated on but, oh, wait… 

Sevika’s not in here… Or is Don Julio obscuring your vision? Is Don Julio a real person? A commander of the Crusades; A possible descendant of Julius Caesar. Hm…

Vi’s still waiting on your response. You use her expectancy as an excuse to bend over and grab your phone and you’re instantly disgusted. Your case clings to your fingers like glue. Instead of vomiting up all the poisonous liquids in your system, you accept it as a sign from the universe. Stop putting your fucking phone down! You clench your device in your hands. Shoulda brought a fucking purse. 

“YEAH!” You turn to scream to Vi… right when the fake ass DJ decides to skip to the next song. A large number of people glance at you in confusion. At least no one told you to shut the fuck up! 

Vi’s not embarrassed in the slightest. She laughs, in fact. She’s so endeared by you. Times like this are when you start feeling a little guilty for all the bullshit you’ve done. Just a smidge though. Still gotta get your rocks off! 

“Yeah?” She cheeses against your shoulder. 

“Yup!” 

… What are you agreeing to, again? Vi’s a love witch: she forces your train of thought into obscurity with her beauty. Don Julio should not be tampered with any longer! Electricity travels up your arm when her hand circles around yours to guide you out and onto the patio, through the glass door and yeah, they’re blazing out here. It’s loud as fuck. 

“SEV!” 

You follow the sonic of Vi’s shout and your legs forget their function when you see your location. 

Oh fuck. Wow. Okay fuck fuck holy fucking shit! 

Very large tall big bulky muscular women overtake your view. The whole fucking rugby team is out here puff-puff-passing; Nothing but tatted arms and girthy biceps made for hunting teeth and legs legs legs everywhere. Did Don Julio slice your throat in the name of justice or whatever the fuck your high school history teacher tried to lie to you about and sent you to heaven? Dyke heaven? 

28 eyes lock onto your cowering form, directly behind an unsuspecting Vi who waves, very lighthearted, very demure: meanwhile, war rages within you. The war of hormones and fertility and whore-ism—

“Hiiiiii—“

Vi’s so cute with her pink cheeks and slowly fading black streaked hair. Her pink is coming through, for sure! You should ask her if it’s natural. Seems to be so, truly, look at her roots! Barely even fried… 

Anything to distract you from the questioning looks being thrown your way from very attractive women. All 14 of them await your introduction and you’re really wishing Don Julio never spared your soul— 

“Who’s that?” 

A girl with freckles — lazily kicked back with a heavily tatted arm and beanie points at you, unsmiling. No one’s smiling, actually. You shrivel up and die right there. You’re only a shell now. Soulless. Your spirit’s flying around in search of a new muscular thigh to ride on. You’re forced to hold in a dreamy sigh at the memory: on your bed, both your thighs locked around Sevika’s one while Vi guided your hips from behind. 

“Don’t be rude! This is—“

Your eyes find Sevika’s while Vi fills in for you. Tinted red and trapped in delirium, but still Sev; her pupils scale all the way down your bare legs. Why does she look so good right now? Fuck your life! 

There’s a big ass bong in her heavily ringed hands. What’s up with her and compression shirts? It’s December for fucks sake! Is she not cold? You sure hope not because she looks mighty fucking good holy fuck— 

Find a distraction so you don’t hyperfixate on the invitation she’s so clearly throwing your way! Her lap is calling again, oh God, find something else quick quick quick! 

“—And this is Abby!” 

Oh. 

Distraction detected. Abby… Abigail Anderson! A complete and utter virginity-obsessed train wreck, but a hot one! Campus raves about her like they’re paid to do so; Everyone still gossips about what she did to that soccer player a few semesters back: took her virginity and ghosted her… and the streak continued until one of her bed posts smashed that same soccer player for revenge. Messy, messy. Sick work on everyone’s part. You love it!

Abby woulda really liked you if she’d got to you sooner. Vi and Sev touched you first. You’re probably all used up in her eyes. She’s gross for thinking like that. 

… Is it bad to say you’re kinda digging that? Just a tad! She looks so sweet and cozy where she sits on the lounge chair in a damn pink cashmere sweater! Who wears sweaters to a fucking rager! 

Abby stares at your legs with the same intensity as Sevika, “Nice to meet yo—“

“I’M A LESBIAN!” You shout. 

And the crowd goes silent. Bullet to the brain. Fuck Don Juilio! Sevika smiles, though. Abby laughs a little. “We all are, baby! Welcome to the winning team!” 

“HOOPLAH!” You exclaim, much louder this time. 

“… YEAH!” “WOO?” A few of their teammates whom you need so desperately attempt to support. Confused laughter explodes all around, and for the first time in your life, it’s not at you, but with you… you think! Just like that, their entire team relaxes in your presence… Don’t they? 

You love lesbianism! 

—

r/AskReddit

u/artkiller       22s

um… hey yall. one of my huzz keeps looking at me like she wants to get me pregnant but im sitting next to her friend… idk i think they’re friends they keep giving each other dirty looks… my hu keeps glaring at her whenever she touches or talks to me directly…. or am i tripping idk chile i might be contact high. maybe it’s bc she’s blonde idk i think ppl hate blondes irl 

anyway my sunshine is so cute when she’s drunk she’s like a big teddy bear…. i think. not gonna talk her punching some guy in the face earlier men deserve it. #MISANDRY

—

Vi’s eyes are on Sevika, but Sevika’s eyes are on Abby who has gotten very close to you on that couch, and her gaze is not inviting. 

No one would describe Sev as possessive. She’s the complete opposite; very free-spirited, go-with-the-wind-of-her-vape kinda energy. Hooking up with people that don’t dangle off her hip is one of her favorite pass-times. She’s okay with you being around, tagging along due to her phone never being blown with messages asking if she’s coming to pick you up for the party, or demanding to see her again, or begging for flowers, and she was thankful. You showed up to the party alone, got drunk alone, danced alone until both her and Vi searched to ensure you made it safely. You’re charming… in a weird way. 

Sevika finds it alarming how comfortable she’s become around you. She’ll admit it’s outta character — she’s not a people person, only clinging to those who’ve read and understood her deeply, and even then, it took ages to open up. She can’t help it, your eccentricity hoards space by force — you have your own little nerdy way of life but she likes that. Thinks it’s hot how little you care about being perceived… In some cases. There are moments where she can’t pinpoint where your mind wanders, and one of them is right fucking now. 

You’re pretty chill for the most part, but she knows her teammate isn’t, so why the fuck are the two so damn close? 

Abby’s naturally overbearing — your polar opposite, but you’re snuggled up like two peas in a pod: she’s all in your space, complimenting you, caressing your shoulder with care and ease because you’re allowing her to. Sevika’s track record isn’t the best — terrible, she’ll admit, but Abby’s could override the entire team’s history combined. She’s manipulative like that; lures people in with the scent of cherry blossoms and a smile that shines like crystals before devouring, staining her fangs in their blood. 

The two of them drifted apart some time ago, but it seems they’re the only ones aware of their covert friction. They challenge each other in silence on the field, in front of their team, even in front of Violet; Coach pinned it as petty jealousy of one another initially, but they’d both rather be shot dead than admit that. 

The scene plays out in front of a spectating but frazzled Vi. She adores both of her friends and loathes their disdain for each other, but when you put two domineering personalities together… this is what you get, she supposes. Their falling out was never grasped by her; one second they’re fine, the next they’re not, like an old, married couple. Sevika and Abby are usually able to keep their secret animosity under wraps so their coach refrains from questioning, but Coach isn’t here. Just bud and liquor and you. How could someone with so little understanding of human nature have this much control? She’s got no option but to respect it — what power you have. 

Abby’s eyes move in an instigating triangle; from you, to Vi, to disgustingly smug at Sevika, then back to you. What the hell is she playing at? Vi catches Sevika’s gaze for a blip, and Vi, with a silent plea, shakes her head no. 

Please don’t start. Please don’t just leave them be, she’s fine—

But her eyes shut in defeat when Sevika rises from her lone spot, jaw cinched tight when she approaches the two of you.  

“HEY-O, Amazonian lesbo!” You sing-song between chattering teeth and jumpy legs. Sevika can’t stop the smile that puffs her cheeks. Poor thing, you must be freezing. 

“Captain.” Abby greets with an arched brow and a tilt of her head while she pets the back of your neck. Incredibly mocking, and Sevika’s instantly annoyed. 

“‘Sup.” She greets short and stiff before redirecting back onto you, “Cold, babe?” 

“I’m freezing!” Sevika extends a hand, and you accept her warmth graciously, already being pulled from your seat, “Where the fucks the food!” 

“No food, hon. Vi has Ritz. Go eat.” 

“More like… Vi has the shitz!” You expel through wheezed laughter. Abby snorts from behind. 

“HEY WHAT THE FUCK NO I DON’T— “

You laugh all the way over to Vi, leaving Abby and Sevika to mentally strangle each other in silence. Abby kicks her feet on the small table in front of her, arms extended on the back of the couch. 

“She yours?” The blonde jerks her head in your direction, shoveling crackers down your throat while Vi rubs your back and observes them with caution. Abby sends her the toothiest grin. “Never seen you so in love. It's cute.” 

“I’m not fucking in love, I just met her,” Sevika attempts causality, shoulders raising in nonchalance with her hands shoved in her pockets. 

“So what’s the fuckin’ issue, babe?” 

Sevika hisses, “You as usual. Leave her the fuck alone.” 

“Or what." Abby smiles, and Sevika’s tempted to beat her face in, but she refrains; Vi will hate her til further notice. She throws her one last threatening glance before leaving Abby to obnoxiously laugh alone. When Sevika reaches you, she removes her jacket and wraps you in it. 

She bites down a laugh when you shove your nose in the sleeve and sniff. She guides you inside, Vi trailing close behind. 

—

“You seriously took a shit at a party?” You mock while you untie your shoes. 

“Shut the fuck up, no I didn’t,” Vi shuts — and locks oooolala — some random pedestrian’s bedroom door before leaning back against it with folded arms. The walk upstairs was hectic; if Sevika wasn’t there to lead you all the way up the stairs, you woulda been trampled. The later it gets, the wilder the party becomes and to be honest, it’s scary down there. Too many people throwing up and trying to crowd surf!

“Rate your first party, babe. You look like you had fun.” 

You fall onto the large, unmade mattress. You really hope cum doesn’t stick to your dress because don’t people fuck at parties? Or was that another movie myth? “I did… But I couldn’t find anywhere to pee and I think somebody was grilling hotdogs on the pool table—“

Your rambling diverts your attention, and Vi’s glad for it. Sevika’s seething from where she sits on the rolling chair across the room, pins Vi where she stands with scalding pupils. Sevika’s infuriating to deal with when she’s like this; faded and bothersome and jealous. 

“—Yeah, I dunno, very fun though, despite the death.” You conclude, and their staring contest breaks for a second. 

“THE WHAT—“ “HUH—“

“Yeah, crazy, I dunno if the cops were called or what but… yeah… OH, and I made a new friend!” 

Vi stiffens when Sevika grills lowly, “Oh, did ya? Who?” 

“Abby Anderson! Who'da thunk, right! She’s so nice and—“

“Abby, huh?” Sevika interrupts, eyes locked on an excited you. Vi silently begs you to shut up. 

You nod with enthusiasm, “Yeah! Y’know those rumors or whatever don’t do her justice, she’s funny as fuck! Not mean at all!”

Sevika scoffs silently. Pulls her vape out her sports bra. Hits it with an attitude unbeknownst to you. You’re really trying not to salivate. “That’s not your friend… you know that, right?” 

You glance at Vi in confusion, but she stares at the floor with a tapping foot, “What do you mean?” 

She finally sighs. Here we fucking go. 

“Exactly what I said.” 

“… m’really fucking confused, right now. Why don’t you think we’re friends —“

“Because you’re not.” Sevika finally snaps, and you wince. She watches you stammer with blades for eyes. Is she really mad at you right now? “She’s not your fucking friend. You’re getting too fuckin’ comfortable.”

“I dunno if we’re friends either, if we bein’ real,” She gestures between the two of you, and your entire rib cage shatters from the pulses in your chest. Water builds in your ducts. “We’re… what d’ya mean we’re not friends?” Your throat dries around tears that may or may not flow depending on her answer. 

She huffs, “I don’t think friends do what we do, baby. That’d be pretty fucked up, wouldn’t it?” 

She’s playing with you. She has to be! You’ve grown so close in the past… 14 hours! Your sheets are proof of your inseparable bond! Sevika likes you just as much as you love Vi! She does she does they both do!

“I— I’m…”

“You’re what.”

“Sev, ease up, c’mon…” Vi interjects quietly, stares in displeasure. Defends you like a knight, and your tears finally fall. From overstimulation, from sadness, from gratitude? You don’t know but it’s too much. You wipe your face and salt soaks your wrist. 

Sevika finally looks at you, still upset, “Stop crying.” 

“I’m not crying, my eyes are peeing.”

“Jesus fucking—

Vi huffs pitifully before ushering to stand in between your legs and thumb to at your wet cheeks, every glide from her rings freezing your tears in place. Every cell in your body is prepared to confess their devotion to her. 

“Relax,” She hushes before her tone drops to a whisper, “She’s being fucking stupid right now, ignore her.”

“Shut up.” 

Vi ignores Sevika and pecks your nose before both your cheeks, and your heart explodes into some warm, gooey substance. Feels like slime. Pink, glittery slime. She plants two extra smooches on your forehead and chin just to be safe, and your smile stretches for miles in result. A fat one gets smacked onto your lips before they rest by your ear. The sludge in your chest instantly burns red hot and thin. 

“Let’s cheer her up.” She whispers so lowly you can hardly hear. 

“What’re we gonna do?” You say louder and Sevika snickers at your failed secrecy. Maybe she’s not upset anymore? 

“Think you can take dick?” She purrs on your throat. 

“Like… like, whatchu mean? Take a dick where—“

“The fuck are y’all talkin’ about?” Sevika husks around one last puff before laying her robotic spliff on the desk. 

Vi’s head whips to face Sevika, “I’m settin’ us up. Say thank you, Violet.”

“Fuck you, Violet.” Sevika sasses.

“You might if ya fuckin’ behave.” 

“Can I watch?” You snort ecstatically. 

2 pairs of blank stares are thrown your way. You cough awkwardly, “Uh, so about this dick thing—“

Vi rubs the bridge of your tickling nose with a comforting finger, “I wanna see how much you can take if you’re down.”

“I can take a lot mentally, so I’m sure the same translates physically.” 

“Yeah, okay.” Sevika wisps snarkily. 

… That hurt a little. All you dream about is taking strap! What happened to following your dreams? How could they ever question your aspirations? You look past Vi, right at Sevika.

You want her to like you again! You like being liked! If this is what it takes, then so be it! You’re never drinking again after tonight, so you might as well use your courage for good! You don’t even know what you’re saying but Sevika’s just as surprised as Vi… Maybe it’s working? You can’t really tell. 

“You can obliterate my, uh… um… my vagina walls as an apology… or something like that. Sorry for talking to Abby. I promise I didn’t think anything of it. I—ACHOO— sorry… I’ll take your dick, Sev. In my throat if ya wanna, or whatever. Coochie…” You shrug in suggestion, “Uhh, yeah. Do you accept my apology?”

Silence sets in the small space before Sevika explodes into laughter. Vi laughs so hard she falls face first on the bed, and you do stare at her ass. She’s wearing cargos! You sneeze again. 

Sevika wipes her eye, “Can I get that in writing?” 

“Write in this pussy… and whatnot?” 

“Make sure to say whatnot when you cum on me.” 

“Oh wow, okay, sure.” Whatever gets her going!

“Take that dress off. ‘S got Abby germs.” 

You smile… and sneeze. 

—

Life is great. Wow. Bless up for sure. You and Vi’s cooters are inches apart. You’re naked, she’s naked, and Sevika isn’t but she’s watching very closely from where she kneels at the edge of the bed and your thighs tremble from anxiety!

Your girlfriend’s fucking perfect; so scarred and strong and tatted and built. When you shakily peeled her tank off, almost-healed teeth marks rested in between her tits and trailed all the way down to her hip bones. Ouchie… You wanna do that to her!

Sex in porn can only train so much before you’re forced to get out and smash on your own. You’re a pro watcher, but in real life… You’re slacking, let’s say that, but neither Sev or Vi have made you feel bad about your clumsiness. You haven’t had the privilege to touch either of them due to their determination to teach; experiment on you for their own research, study you, but you hope to change that soon. Vi touches you like you’re married, and you wanna do the same; you don’t think she’s in love with you yet but she also could be. Her hands would be nowhere near the porn industry. They’re too delicate, not demanding or crude or evil — you’ve seen some crazy shit on the web, good heavens. Forever traumatized. 

Her hands are tender where they stroke your chest. She can probably feel your heart beating in her palms. Right through your titty meat, how embarrassing. 

Then she starts giggling like an angel call the fucking ambulance before you go into cardiac. 

“You seeing ghosts?” She coos. 

“Nope, just God.”

“I didn’t even do anything.” 

“Don’t have to. I’m dead already. Thanks, uhh, internet.” 

“Oh yeah? You’re dead?” 

“… Yup.” Your voice drops a heavy amount when she takes your limp hands in hers. She extends them up her torso until they rest over her breasts, pressing your hands down so you can squeeze. Aneurysm incoming it’s hitting in your brain—

“How’s that feel, Casper?” 

“… Oh, gee wiz!” You squeal. 

Vi cackles with her head thrown back, “You’re so fucking cute, I’m gonna bite you!” You laugh with her even though you’re on the brink of death for the 40th time tonight — someone save you, you’re begging! 

“I like how your hands feel.” 

“I like how your tits feel.” 

“Yeah?” 

“Yup.” 

“Yup,” She snickers and leans down so your titties smash together, “Gimme a kiss.” 

Your lips pucker playfully, and she pecks them. Licks them a little and you grin. “I can’t wait to stretch you out,” Her voice melts in your ears and you shudder beneath her, “Gotta make sure you’re ready.” 

“Be honest,” you whisper, embarrassed, “Is it gonna hurt?” 

“You want it to?” 

Your eyes meet the wall, “… No comment…”

Sevika chuckles while Vi comforts, “You’ll be fine, baby. We gotchu, okay? We’ll take it easy and go from there.” 

“A-Are we about to scissor?” 

“Uh huh, you excited?” 

“Yes,” you groan. 

Sevika caresses your sweaty forehead and your heart soars so high that it splatters on the ceiling like a gunshot wound, “You wet enough? Need some head first?” 

“M’okay… wanna feel…” 

“Then ask her nicely,” Sevika nods towards a smirking Vi. Her head tilts, awaiting, and you’re instantly reminded of Abby. She did that whenever she patiently waited for your response to her curiosity. Thank God Sevika can't read minds. 

“Violet…”

“Yes, baby?” 

“Can I… can you, uh…”

What would a pornstar say what would a pornstar say 

“Want me to fuck you til you cum?” She hums on your cheek and your heart thrashes in your chest. 

“Yeah… want that.”

“Then ask me.”

“Violet…”

You feel her smile, “Yes, baby?”

“Can you fuck me until I cum, please?” 

She plants a doting kiss on your cheek before separating from you to sit on the mattress with her knees pointed towards the ceiling, “Course I can. Sit up, babe.” 

You follow like a klutz but you’re here and her pussy glistens right there and so does yours. It takes you a second to replicate her guidance, but you’re eventually comfortable; the two of you resting back on your palms, your legs spread far enough for Vi to sit comfortably in between, one leg crossed over yours. Your cooters are nearly high-fiving! You can see her clit jump! 

“Gonna go slow, okay? Just do what I do,” She whispers, and you nod. You’re trying really hard not to stare at her pussy but it’s right fucking there in all its glory! It’s right there! Will she let you eat it one day? Will Sevika—

Your brain screams bloody murder when Vi closes the space between your nethers. 

—

Sevika prides herself in being patient. 

When something is foreign to her, she waits. Regardless of how dire or stressful a situation becomes, she’s often able to resolve it with stealth. She takes her time to plan and organize because it holds her hectic life together, and if that’s lost, so is she. It’s in her nature to be observant. It gets her answers, solves the riddles that wrack in her mind with ease all because she watched and waited. 

That attribute could be the reason she allows you to remain a mystery. You waltzed into her life by accident and now she’s stuck wondering what it is you want from her, her best friend; a relationship? A dirty secret? It hasn’t been that long. You're still a stranger, after all. Call it an obsession; she still has trouble wrapping her head around what allures her to you. It’s a desire she has trouble describing. You're really, really weird, but somehow that makes you one of the most attractive people she’s ever met in her life. 

You being on the brink of your second orgasm while her best friend practically rides you isn’t what entrances Sevika. There’s something about your character; you’re so blunt and comfortable and trusting. She would never allow herself to be as unguarded with a stranger as you are. There’s something something something that she’s determined to pull from you, prick from your brain. 

Why are you really here?

Please, baby, oh fuck, yes —

Vi begs when she takes and you beg her to take and Sevika thinks you’re a match made in heaven. She watches the two of you close up, dangerously personal. How your urges force your bodies against each other; you push when Vi pulls and pulls when she pushes. Both your thighs are soaked with each other and Sevika would kill to be in between them. 

Structure. You and Vi are combative in your own right and Sevika mediates your tension. It’s perfect. You fit in between them so well, slid between them like butter. Why would anyone come in and jeopardize that?

Her spirit slams back into her body when a soft hand curls around her wrist; there’s barely any pressure, a bit insecure, and she knows you’re nervous. Your eyes are on her, the pleading in them almost louder than your exclamations of satisfaction. Are you still mad at me? 

For talking to Abby. Sevika should say yes — the ruthless part of her wants to so you’ll work harder, but she swallows it. The stare she gives you is hard, and your hand squeezes tighter on her. Sevika being mad makes you wetter, she can see it with every glisten between your legs. You look like you’re boutta cum again. 

Fucking Abby… Always prepared to wreck something that’s perfectly made for her. 

You were so quick to take both of them… Would that have been the case for Abby, too?

Okay, Sevie? 

She immediately softens at Vi’s breathless inquiry, and she nods. Keep going. 

Vi arches a brow with a suggestive smile. 

We’re gonna cum for you, baby. Talk us through it? 

Those eyes… Vi’s greatest weapon. How could Sevika ever deny her?

She never will, so she moves. Stands from the floor to climb in behind Vi because she’ll always be first and she’s mad at you; a vengeful hand encloses around her best friend’s throat while she whispers the filthiest shit in her ear. Calls her a slut before kissing her like she loves her. Tells her to fuck you harder. Show her who she belongs to. 

Sevika’s tongue gets loose when she finds your gaze. You’re a fucking mess; the glitter on your lids melt down your fluttery eyes like tears. Your pupils are so apologetic and blown and searching for acceptance but she ignores you, and she thinks you might cry but she wants you to. 

You want Abby so fucking bad? She’s right downstairs. Why would you waste your time up here? Obviously we don’t give you enough. 

Sevika only says it because Vi’s distracted by her own euphoria, eyes dislodged in her skull with drool rolling down her cheek from how good you’re fucking on her, but Sevika takes care of it with her tongue. She should be watching Vi, but she watches you, cautiously eyeing the two of them like a frilled rabbit. She’ll rip you to shreds if you give her the chance. Any sign of weakness and you’re hers to tear apart, just like that. Limb from limb. She craves you. 

Can’t take it, baby, ‘s so sensitive, Vi whimpers up at Sevika with her nails in your thigh, and Sevika kisses her forehead to soothe. Tells her it’s fine. Tells her to scoot over because she’s got you. 

Vi doesn’t go too far. Slides in right next to you, actually. Your legs shake and your fingers curl around the mussed blanket. Sevika crawls to you, and you flinch when her hands latch onto your thighs. Your eyes are the same, but frantic. Please, don’t hate me, please please please. Your little sneeze is the icing on the cake. 

Her grin is sinister. Excitement radiates off you. 

Vi kisses your cheek and slides a sneaky hand down your torso, past your tummy and hips, touches right where you need it most, and your jaw slacks when she spreads you open for Sevika. Vi nudges your cheek with her nose, gets you to face her so she can kiss you, all dazed out and sloppy. 

Such a good distraction. 

A thick finger breeches your walls without warning, and you squeal into Vi’s mouth while she rubs your clit to pacify. Sevika has learned you pretty well, she thinks; knows exactly where to press to get your thighs clamping down on her wrist. She moans when your tightness chokes her; so slippery and aching and desperate on the inside. It matches your exterior perfectly. Your pussy’s begging her to give it to you. Nice and hard. 

So she slides another one in; Vi can barely kiss you because you’re so loud so she tongues at your throat. Sevika knows you’re close; she can feel it, how hard you attempt to drain her, riding that edge. 

Gonna take this dick like a good slut when we get home? She purrs. 

Yes, Sevie, yes yes yes!

Sevika gathers spit in your mouth and it splashes all over cheeks and nose and mouth. She scoffs a laugh when your fingers lace through her slobber to greedily shove in your mouth, Atta girl, get me nice ‘n wet, feels real good, huh? Show me how much you love when I’m inside you. 

More thoughtless bouts of pleasure are forced from you before Vi presses an aiding hand on your tummy. Sevika’s entire forearm is drenched in your scent, body knotted up tight as you thrash and cry and scratch all over Vi until red streaks down the side of her. She licks your tears from your cheek while your head hangs off the edge of the mattress and all Sevika can think about is making you keep your promise; taking her deep in your throat, hot and snug while you choke and slobber all over her. 

They’re so hypnotized by you, the door opening hardly shakes them. 

“Well, well, well!” 

Everything stops… Well, except you, you’re still cumming… and Sevika’s still fucking you… and Vi hasn’t moved either. Maybe nothing stopped.

“Got all your dogs on a leash, don’tcha Cap?” Abby whistles from the door that was very much so locked. Abby’s seemingly unbothered by you on the brink of a second orgasm, your hand attempting to push Sevika’s body off yours, but Vi holds your wrist down. 

“Hiii. How’d ya get in?” Vi questions while she shushes you, and Abby dangles a key off her middle finger. “Ellie sent me to get a bong replacement!”

“You live here now?” Sevika demands in annoyance. Fucks into you deeper. Smirks when you start wailing when she hits that spongy spot. 

“I don’t. Ellie does. She just lets me in when she’s feelin’ lonely… You guys, too, evidently,” She gives you the filthiest stare, “Hey, dollface! Havin’ fun? I could hear you all the way down the hall!” 

“Oh, God, Sevie, ‘m cumming again!” 

“Yeah, ‘m sure you are,” Abby rasps and Vi giggles, “So, what, is she the team’s new communal pussy or somethin’?” 

Vi tuts, “No… we’re just showing her how to do it herself.” 

Abby squints skeptically, “… Riiight, right…” 

Vi doesn’t catch the look Abby throws at you, but Sevika does, and she almost chucks one of your shoes at her face. A hyena preying on the injured. She can hear the devilish cogs turning in the blonde’s head. 

“Don’t be like that, Abby, c’mon… friends in need?” 

Abby smiles, “In need alright—“

“A-Abb — Y?”

Abby takes that as an invitation to come a little closer. Too close for Sevika, but you don’t seem to mind, “Yeah, honey, I’m here. Big meanie Sev’s doin’ ya in right?” 

“Fuck yes—“

She hums scoffingly, “Uh huuuh, looks like it, make her proud—“

“Can you get the fuck out!” Sevika shouts, and you and Vi flinch. She sends Sevika a harsh glare. 

“Jesus, calm the fuck down! Look,” Abby points at your fucked-out expression, “She likes it. Gamer freaks love this typa shit. She probably manifests having orgies in her diary.” 

Sevika sighs in irritation and she pulls out before sitting back on her heels, silently taking in how your slick glues to her fingers, and you almost start sobbing but Vi comforts you. Kisses you quiet while she holds you close, whispers encouragement in your ear while you whimper. Abby takes the chance to ease in close to Sevika, right beside her, eyes gawking at her dripping fingers. 

“Look, Cap, ‘m not the one to judge, but,” She shrugs, whispers right in her ear, “to put it light, she’s a desperate fucking loser, and what I’ve learned is that they love any bit of attention they can get. Makes ‘em feel good. You shoulda seen her earlier. She was almost in my lap ‘n all I had to say was she looked nice.” 

Sevika scoffs, but she finally meets the eyes of her conniving teammate. She’s plotting; It’s in her smile. Abby nudges Sev’s arm with her own, “C’mon, let her have this. She’ll be a fucking vet in her little Discord servers. Make her a star.” 

“You fucking disgust me.” Sevika says vehemently. 

“Doesn’t look like it, Captain.” Abby scales down Sevika’s body and back up until she meets her eyes again. She’s wound up so tight and Abby’s drinking it all in. “C’mon, for old times sake.”

Abby nearly gets strangled right there. Old times sake: chasing girls together, fucking them together, whatever else they did that she wishes she could forget, but it’s her history just as much as it’s Abby’s. When Sevika denies her an answer, she snorts in annoyance before moving to sit on the edge of the bed, thigh right beside your head. 

“Hey, baby, can ya look at me?” You take direction like a dream when you’re fucked out, eyes teary and face warm to the touch. Abby’s convinced you’d do anything to get on her good side at that point. 

“Can you take some more? I think you can take some more,” Before she can even finish, you’re consenting, “Yeah, I know you can, such a sweet girl.” 

Vi shudders with you, eyes glossy where they watch her, and Abby smirks down at her, “You are, too, as always.” The blonde gets her blushing. 

She looks over to Sevika with a hand shielding her mouth. She whispers with a finger sneakily pointed at Vi, “I think your girl wants me, Cap. Still gonna kick me out?”

Sevika is prepared to say yes, but she catches Vi with her lip jutted, silently begging to let Abby stay while you tremble next to her. She exhales so hard it sounds like a snarl. Abby smiles. 

“Do some shit I don’t like and I’ll fuck you up,” Sevika threatens, and Abby rolls her eyes. Sevika should know that she’s the last person to try and intimidate. She loves that; she’ll simply have to up her riskiness. Her finger blindly points at Ellie’s messy dresser. “There's some crazy shit in there, Sevie...” 

Sevika sighs before standing tall to head to Ellie’s drawers. Her laundry isn’t even folded, just slung on top of the cheap wood, “‘m sure you’d know, fuckin’ dirtball.” 

“Don’t flirt with me.” Abby’s heat wafts onto Sevika and she knows she’s behind her. Before Sevika can reach for a drawer handle, her wrist gets submerged in cherry blossom and red fingernail polish. 

Her tongue loosens to cuss her teammate out, but Abby whispers before she can try, “Can’t leave evidence… Ellie’ll get mad at me…” 

Sevika’s frozen; pink lips enclose around her fingers that drip and soak and smell of you. Abby swirls her tongue around the length of them, sucks them clean for her. “She taste good?” Sevika hums, and Abby sucks greedily in approval. 

A tight moan rings from the bed and their eyes hunt for you and Vi. Abby gives Sevika one last kiss on the tips of her fingers. Vi’s on top of you with her hand gripped tight on your neck while she orders you where to touch. Your hand labors between her legs, sloshing deep in her wetness while she curses in your mouth. 

Abby’s sly; takes the leap while Sevika’s distracted to drop to her knees in front of her, fingers already latching onto the fabric of her leggings. She hisses when a braun hand tugs at her hair, redirecting her gaze upwards. 

Sevika’s breathes unsteadily. “You lock the door?” 

The blonde sinks her teeth into her bottom lip. Sevika’s grip tightens when Abby’s head shakes in denial. 

[cottonlemonade]

Fake Dating Your Ex

word count: 2852 || avg. reading time: 12 mins.

pairing: University AU pining ex!Kenma x chubby!Reader

genre: fluff + angst

warnings: bullying

request: For a midnight snack I’ll get a 15 and 24 and go back to sleep with kenma please || fluffy-angsty, fake dating + jealousy, ex Kenma

“Question.”

“No.”

“You don’t even know what I’m gonna ask yet.”

“Fine. What?”

“How would you, as a person… as a…. as a human person”, you shook your head for a moment but then decided to roll with it, “feel about accompanying another human person to an event?”

Your ex finally looked up from the console in his hands with profound confusion written all over his face.

“What?”

Bracing yourself you tried again, spelling it out this time, “Would you please come with me to my high school reunion?”

You expected him to frown, sure, but instead of the immediate shot down he asked, “Why?”

Not a No. Okay!

Pulling up a chair from the adjacent lunch table to sit down across from him, you used your hands in a nowhere near helpful fashion to explain, “I got invited and originally I said No because why would I want to go but then this girl who used to bully me-“

“Momoka.”, he added.

“Yes.”, you said in surprise, “Her. Anyway, she messaged me and asked if it’s because we broke up.”

“How would one correlate to the other?”

“Because while we were dating I may or may not have bragged pretty excessively about you.”

“Uh-huh.”

“And you were all over my social media for two years and well, now you’re not, so she was asking if we split up.”

“We did.”

You tried not to click your tongue, thinking any sass would lower the likelihood of him agreeing to play along. “I know, but I don’t want her to know. So I may or may not have kinda sorta said that we are doing better than ever and just because you gained so much more popularity that we are trying to keep it on the down low and”, you took a deep breath, “she said I should bring you then and I may or may not have said Yes.”

“Y/n.”, he groaned.

“I know, I know! But I will get you SlimeBlast2 and the new Counterforce if you just pretend to be my boyfriend for one more evening. We can even leave early!”, you offered, spurred on by the fact that he hadn’t yet simply gotten up and left, “You can say that you have a planned stream that night and be back home before you know it.”

He thought about it for a moment while he resumed his game.

“Why have a reunion three years out of high school anyway?”

You mimicked her voice. “Because she is moving to America with her doctor fiancé and wants to say goodbye to everyone before she leaves. - Tch.”

He paused the game again and regarded you with a studying look. You, on the other hand, were focused on kneading your chubby fingers and not meeting his gaze.

“When is it?”

“So this is what all that streamer money can get you, not bad, not bad.”, you said as you slid into the passenger seat of his new car. Kenma didn’t comment on that. Nor did he compliment your little black dress that had him do a minuscule double take the way it hugged you in all the right ways. You broke up six months ago and instead of wallowing in a dark room as you had done, Kenma chose retail therapy - to the extent that every other day another out-of-breath mail carrier was ringing his doorbell and handed him anything from new consoles to games to figurines and even a body pillow because, thanks to you, he was now incapable of sleeping without something soft and squishy in his arms. This car was one of those more recent purchases, an impulse that surged in him around the same time he watched you flirt with a TA. He also felt the forgotten price tag itch in the back of his black button-down and matching dress pants he wore tonight.

The drive to the venue was mostly silent due to a mixture of old comfort and new awkwardness. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw you play with your fingers, twirl your hair, scratch at your neck, and chew your lip.

“No one forces you to go to this thing.”, he eventually said. His GPS announced that you’d arrive soon.

You stopped scrunching your dress, sighed, and looked out the window onto the well-lit row of restaurants and bars you were driving past.

“I know. Social pressure does, though.”

“You never really cared about what people thought.”

“Ha! Good one.”, you countered drily.

“I mean it.”

“You only think that because we didn’t know each other in high school. This devil-may-care attitude”, you gestured vaguely up and down yourself, “was carefully curated once I was finally free of these people.”

“So, why not just ignore the reunion and go do something fun?”

“You know, if you’re gonna keep being right and logical, this night is not gonna work.”

He smiled and rolled to a stop in the parking lot among many other cars.

“We can still leave.”

You scratched at your neck again. He reached out to grab and trap your ever-busy hand in his, laying it gently on the middle console. He waited.

“Yeah… maybe you’re-“

“Hey!”, a muffled call accompanied by knocking on your window cut you off. Outside stood one of your former classmates waving excitedly.

Kenma grimaced.

“Look who I found getting all cozy in the car!” The large private room in the restaurant was filled with a whole bunch of people you hoped to never see again. They sat on the floor around the long table, apparently a couple of drinks ahead already.

“Oh my god, Y/n! I can’t believe you came!” Momoka got up to greet you like an old friend. Her cheeks were pink and she was clearly not too steady on her feet.

“What’s this? - Is that a hickey?!”, she squealed with mock scandal, pointing at your neck.

Your hand shot up to cover the reddening mark.

“I-uh-“

“Yeah, I just… couldn’t help myself.”, Kenma said in a tone that wouldn’t convince anyone sober. Luckily no one was.

She turned to him and as if she’d known him for years she slurred, “Well if it isn’t Kodzuken! I’m gonna be honest, I didn’t think you were real. I mean, of course you’re real but what would you ever want with our Y/n, when you could have anyone!” She laughed and ushered you both to sit next to her.

“I’m so sorry.”, you whispered to Kenma while cups of sake were pushed into your empty hands.

“Tell me, because I’m dying to know”, Momoka said, leaning forward, “how did you two even meet?”

The handful of former classmates in your general vicinity stopped their conversations to listen.

Kenma and you looked at each other.

“We just met at uni.”, you shrugged and pulled a platter of food closer to have something to do.

“Oh come on, Y/n-chan, there’s gotta be more to it than that.”, Momoka playfully pushed your shoulder.

“It was our first day actually.”, Kenma said, “I was sitting in the cafeteria playing a game and she came up to me with her tray and asked if she could join me.”

You caught his eyes and smiled, touched that he remembered.

“Of course, you met over food. Our Y/n loooves to eat, doesn’t she?” Momoka giggled into her sake.

Unfortunately, your mouth was just full of maki roll.

Kenma frowned.

“So, Kodzuken - or should I call you Kenma? You’re probably so tired of people addressing you by your username. Like hello, I’m a human being, too! So Kenma, what is it like being a streamer? I, personally, love YouTube. I think if I hadn’t gotten engaged”, she raised her hand to show off her ring, “I would have also gone into streaming. It looks so fun. And you’re just playing games all day. I love playing games. You could say I’m a gamer girl myself.”, she laughed and brushed her hair behind her ear like she was confessing something embarrassing, “I have played Animal Crossing over 100 hours. I know it’s too much, but what can I say, you understand, right? Sometimes you can’t put a game down for months.”

“… right.”

When he didn’t answer as bright-eyed and infatuated as she hoped, she turned to you with a devious smile, “Our Y/n should definitely do some of those�� uh eating shows! You know, the ones where they just eat ungodly amounts of food at once. She’d be so good at that. Honestly”, she chuckled behind her hand, “I could have sworn she was training for that in high school.”

“Excuse me. I have to go to the bathroom.” You pushed your untouched sake further away, stood up, and walked quickly out of the room, sliding the door closed behind you. Muffled voices, cheers, and laughter could still be heard. You swallowed the lump in your throat and took a few deep breaths. Slipping back into your shoes you walked over to a corner with an open window that looked over the quiet courtyard that was closed for guests because of the snow. What a horrendous idea to even come here. Why did you think it would be any different? People didn’t change. As soon as you were in the company of your bullies suddenly you turned back to the timid little fat girl that was pushed into cold showers with her uniform on, that was tripped in the hallways, hackled in class for a wrong answer. The girl that was pointed at whenever she ate something. It didn’t matter what it was.

Normal lunch? - What a glutton!

A homemade salad? - Who is she trying to impress? As if that is gonna do anything.

It was only in university that you found people who accepted you for who you were and not what you looked like. And Kenma had made you feel loved and wanted for the first time in your life. Until he didn’t. You vividly remembered the night you broke up with him. His genuine shock when you told him that just hanging out and watching him stream was not how you envisioned your relationship to be like. After over two years of dating, you realized that you wanted more than dry texts and being the one to initiate intimacy. Kenma was a great listener and didn’t rush you into anything. He let you grow on your own and was truly happy when he saw you smile. But it wasn’t enough. You didn’t regret breaking up with him. It was the right thing to do. But whenever you felt stressed or overwhelmed you did seek out his streams. His calming voice and deadpan comments still helped you truly relax. You wondered if he missed you too sometimes.

“You’re gonna catch a cold.”, Kenma said behind you.

“Hey.”, you sighed, “Sorry I dragged you into this.”

“Don’t worry.” He came to stand next to you, close so that his arm was touching yours for a sliver of warmth. You both watched the snow fall for a moment.

“You really toned down just how obnoxious those people are.”, he noted, “I understand that you’re upset.”

“Oh, I am not upset. I am way past upset. I’m freaking miffed, that’s what I am.”

He gave a playful gasp. “Damn, not the m-word. - By the way, that girl hit on me the second you left the room.”

“Oh god, really?”, you scoffed.

“Yeah, apparently I’m on her list.” He put the last word in air quotes. “Like she can sleep with me and her fiancé would be fine with it.”

“Wooow, congratulations. Doesn’t that make you feel extra special.”, you said sarcastically.

“Absolutely.”

“Truly the bedrock of any good and healthy relationship.”

He chuckled under his breath. “I know, right? As if I’d ever want anyone else when I have you.”

A pause followed in which you were trying to find covert ways to push your face in the snow to cool it down and Kenma regretted ever learning to speak.

“Listen…”, he said after a minute or so, “why don’t we get out of here? You made an appearance, proved I’m real and now you can go enjoy your night. Maybe… maybe we can head to your place, get some pizza, and watch a bunch of those trashy Christmas rom-coms? I know Netflix is flooded with them right now.”

You stared at him for a moment, then squinted suspiciously. “I’m gonna yell at the TV, you know that.”

He smiled and his eyes softened.

“I’m counting on it.”

You looked down at your arm that was still gently pressed against his, thinking.

“Alright.”

“Alright?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay. I’m gonna go get your stuff then. - Here.”, he fished his keys from his pocket, “You can wait in the car, I won’t be long.”

You turned the keys over in your fingers as you watched him go, shaking your head in an attempt to smother the bubbling feelings in your chest. As you walked out towards the car, you tried to remember in what state you had left your living room when-

“Y/n?”

Very confused, you lifted your head and saw a young man standing a few meters away. He was maybe a head taller than you, broad shoulders were well hidden underneath a soft sweater and coat. Nothing about the man seemed familiar, not the glasses or the styled black hair. He must have noticed your confusion when he put a hand to his chest and said, “Izumo.”

Kenma was very glad that he wasn’t raised to be polite so he just gathered your purse, scarf, and jacket, said you both would be leaving, and closed the door behind him. Even though at most 20 minutes had passed since your arrival, it felt like you and he had stood by that window for hours watching the snow. He should tell you that he wasn’t over you.

He should tell you that he wouldn’t make the same mistakes again if you’d give him another chance.

He would ask you to take him back.

His steps lengthened at the thought of being back at your place, cozy on the couch and having an absolute ball listening to you rip the movies to shreds. Pulling his puffy parka tightly around him he hurried in the direction of his car and saw you talking to someone. At first, he was worried it would be another bully but then you laughed. His steps slowed.

N…no! He was not about to lose his opportunity to get you back to some random hunk with a sleeper build. Picking up the pace again, he thought hard about what to do. What happened next was not one of his proudest moments. Kenma came to a halt next to you, lay your jacket over your shoulders, and said, “Here you go, babe.”

“Oh, hey, you’re Kodzuken!”, the guy said and had the audacity to give him a genuine smile, “I’m a big fan! I’m glad to see you two are doing well. I wondered if you might have broken up because you haven’t posted about him in a while, Y/n.”

You laughed nervously.

“No, nothing like that.”, Kenma said, and, developing a life of its own, his arm naturally wrapped around your waist, “Everything’s great.”

“That’s what I thought.”, the guy said brightly, his eyes flitting momentarily to the mark on your neck and to Kenma he added, slightly flustered now, “You got yourself a good one.”

“Did you want something?”

“I- uhm.”, Izumo blinked, perplexed, “No, just catching up. But I see you’re on your way out. Have a good night you two. And Y/n, we should totally have coffee.” Kenma pulled you closer to him. “You know, when you have the time.”

Very glad his much-practiced glare was still hitting the mark, Izumo bowed to both of you and went inside.

Once in the car, Kenma looked at you, mentally preparing himself for a scolding but found you smirking and nodding your head.

“What?”, he asked.

“Nothing just…. Didn't have you being jealous on my bingo card this year. Interesting.”, you clicked your tongue in amusement, “Very interesting.”

“I wasn’t j-“

You met his eyes and cocked your brow.

He mumbled something and turned to focus on his steering wheel so you wouldn’t see the hue of pink blooming in his cheeks.

“Izumo was bullied in high school, too.”, you explained, “So he was one of the few people I got along with. We weren’t ever super close or anything but I’m glad he seems to be doing well.”

“Oh. Well… okay then.”

“So no need to be jealous, babe.”, you echoed his tone with the last word perfectly.

His face felt even warmer.

“In my defense, he looked like he was about to ask you out.”

“Uh huh.”, you became, if possible, even more smug and clicked your seatbelt into place, “I mean, could you blame him?”

It was remarkable how quickly your confidence bounced back by simply watching Kenma squirm for an answer.

art: 8.amidori_RN on Twitter

a/n: thank you so much to the anon for this absolutely juicy request. I hope you enjoyed it! And thank you everyone for waiting 🌱🌟

[ectogeranium]

me seeing that The Garden is playing a show in my city and knowing that I can't go:

[oceantornadoo]

IDK! HEAR ME OUT THO!!!

Simon, staging the break in and what not so he could push you back into his arms??? INSANE!

Delicious story. Thank you for the food! <3

so originally when i made that last fic (which unexpectedly blew up tysm everyone) i added in the creepy elements almost on accident?? but this and another reply has me thinking...

tw: slight humiliation (but you'll like it)=

simon riley wasn't a bad man. he also wasn't a bad husband. at least that's what he told himself.

when you had presented him with those divorce papers a bit ago (13 months and 4 days, but who was counting), he thought it was a bluff. a joke. he had gone too far in your last argument, and that was your reaction. when he told you he'd go to therapy, you stared at him with a look he'd only see on men in the battlefield. dead all the way through, a walking husk. so he signed them and went to therapy anyways.

the whole time, this whole 13-month break, where you had been 'building a new life' or whatever, he had been planning. internalizing the commentary his therapist would make, and then spitting it back out to you while you moved out of his place. every time you seemed to forget one extra box, and who's to say if he hid a couple in his room? he had a plan.

over time, simon really seemed to have learned so much from therapy. so much about communication. he had become open and welcoming, far from that man who would respond to your complaints with hard stares and a lack of words. so maybe you met for coffee a couple of times and that's how he knew about the cafe by your new place. maybe that's how he tailed you one night after a date, just to make sure this new guy didn't try anything (and not to figure out your unit number). whatever he did, he played a dangerous game by letting you have this illusion of freedom while balancing his presence in your life, just enough to make you want more. after weeks and week of stagnant progress, he needed one extra push. something small, not even a shove.

and if he happened to mention your unit number to a bunch of shady guys that hung out in the alley by your building? happened to brag about your pretty pussy and sweet-smelling panties? maybe mention your habit of not locking the window when you left for work? who's to say. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

and now here you were, back in his arms where you belonged. a little frightened but comforted in the knowledge that he could protect you. the ghost wasn't shed when he took his mask off, but you didn't need to know that.

--

your body was so used to being in simon's arms you didn't even realize you had been grinding on him for the past ten minutes. his boxers you wore were sticky with arousal as you grinded against his clothed cock in the dark. even in your dream, it was simon underneath you, no one else. "si." you panted, a near-whisper that only a military man could have heard. "dove?" he adjusted your sleeping positions, tossing the covers to give you more room to maneuver against him.

"i know i said that thing about the line not being crossed." he gave you a low chuckle. silly little girl. you had finally realized how much you needed him and he was going to milk you for all you were worth. "and?" you stopped. shit. he needed to seem more responsive. he moved you from his thigh to his boner using one arm, the other one snaking its way under your shirt to stroke your back. you moaned as he massaged the tension from the day's earlier events away, giving you sweet relief. the sweetness of the massage made a hard contrast to the friction in your core as he rubbed you against his hardened cock.

"spit it out, baby." he growled. "can you-fuck." his hand had moved to the back of your neck now, holding it in a tight grip. his hand was so large he could feel the pulse points on either side of your jaw, heart racing. finally. "can you get me off? just this once?" he snorted, moving you up and down against him faster, dragging your sensitive clit over and over. "what's the magic word?" he flipped you both around, pressing his body weight on top of you.

simon turned the light on, wanting to see how needy you were. you were panting, shirt sticky with sweat as your chest moved up and down with exertion. he hiked up your shirt and took off your boxers, exposing your sticky cunt to the cool air. he took a sniff of the fabric, noting your small gasp as if you didn't know how obsessed he was with you already. "magic word." your mouth dropped. guess you weren't getting off that easily. "please, simon." he clucked his tongue at that. "ghost?" he left out a short laugh, arms reaching out to tug his shirt off of you. your nipples were so hard, aching to be pinched and sucked just how you liked them. "not ghost." he reached over to his nightstand, pulling something out of the drawer. he fumbled with his hand for a second, then held yours up to the light as he slipped something on it.

"husband." the words left your mouth in a whoosh, eyes transfixed on your wedding ring that was on your hand. the one you had flung at him after he complained about the divorce papers, the one you said you'd rather die than wear again. and here it was, right back on your finger, sparkling in the lamplight.

simon captured your mouth in a rough kiss, entering you with his ring and middle finger at the same time. "so willing for your husband, hm? all puffy and wet. look at your cunt, darling." you both looked down at your pussy at the same time. it was squelching, your vibrator sessions not holding a candle to what your ex husband could do to you. you were almost embarrassed by how desperate your pussy looked, clit enlarged from its earlier friction. his fingers worked in and out of you, wedding ring covered in slick. you watched as he pressed his thumb to your clit in small circles, a tightening sensation in your lower belly rising to the surface. "simon, si-fuck" he gave your pussy a small slap, pulling his fingers out as you addressed him incorrectly. "husband, please." he entered you again roughly, drawing a low moan from you. he captured your nipple in his mouth, teething it just enough to make you hurt. punishment.

"please please please i'm right ther-" he pressed hard against your clit and sent you careening off the edge into your orgasm, back bowing off the bed. simon gave you small love bites as you recovered, hand still working your cunt to draw out your orgasm.

finally, he removed his fingers and drew back from you, forcing eye contact. he put both in his mouth, moaning at the taste of your arousal mixed with the metal from the wedding band. your jaw was still open, looking at him like you had never seen him before. like the sheep's skin had finally been removed, and now only the wolf remained.

"let's get you to bed, wife."

[marysfics]

Shifting Glances

Week after week, you see her in the waiting room.

Angst, Trauma, EMDR, Comfort, Fluff

Note: In this story, you'll find references to EMDR therapy. I’ve undergone EMDR therapy myself for several years, and while it has been challenging, it has also brought me relief. It's important to note that EMDR can be a unique experience for everyone. The way it's depicted here reflects my personal journey. If your experience with EMDR is different, that's completely okay. Feel free to share your thoughts, but let's all remember to approach these discussions with kindness and respect for one another's experiences.

The clinic smells of antiseptic and lavender-scented air freshener, a juxtaposition that somehow fails to be comforting. You’ve gotten used to it by now, the muted tones of the waiting room, the low hum of the fluorescent lights, and the way the receptionists’ voices hover just above a whisper. It’s always the same, except for her.

You glance up from your seat near the corner, fingers nervously playing with the hem of your shirt. She’s there again, across the room—her presence nearly impossible to ignore. She’s sitting with her head tilted down, long blonde hair cascading over her shoulder, a face mostly hidden under the bill of a cap. Still, you know. You’ve learned to spot the details by now. She’s always wearing loose sports gear, her left knee often taped in some fashion, crutches sometimes leaning against her seat.

You’re not a sports person, so at first, she was just another face, another person passing through the clinic, but then she became something more—a mystery. You’ve stolen more than a few glances during the weeks you’ve sat waiting for your turn. The routine was nearly identical: you both arrived at the same time each week, a brief flicker of acknowledgment between your eyes before you both looked away, as though there was something too dangerous in holding that gaze for too long.

Today is no different, except something feels heavier. There’s a quiet ache in your chest that refuses to leave. EMDR therapy—Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing—it’s exhausting, and today, it feels impossible.

You know you’ll be going through the usual: being asked to relive memories, to feel things you’ve spent years suppressing, and to heal what’s been fractured inside of you. It’s tiring and it leaves you feeling hollow at times, especially when you leave. The vulnerability in those sessions never fails to drain you, and you always wonder if it’s helping or just opening old wounds.

You steal another glance at her, curiosity buzzing beneath the weight of everything else. She has that same air of exhaustion, though you assume hers comes from something more physical. You don’t know her, not really. Just a face, a woman who happens to sit in the same room as you once a week.

But today, you notice something else. Her fingers fidget more than usual, her eyes flickering between her phone screen and the door. Anxiety. She’s nervous too.

The nurse calls your name, interrupting your thoughts. You stand, giving her one last glance, but this time, you don’t look away as quickly as you usually do. To your surprise, her gaze meets yours for the first time in weeks—really meets it. There’s something in her expression, something you can’t quite name. Maybe recognition. Maybe sympathy.

Your feet feel heavier than usual as you walk to the nurse, but there’s a buzzing under your skin now. Her eyes linger on you even as you turn your back, a weight you feel but don’t dare acknowledge. The conversation between the nurse and your therapist is distant, your mind still locked in that fleeting moment of connection.

Why did she look at you like that?

The door closes softly behind you, and you sit down on the familiar couch in your therapist’s office. The room is softly lit, the same as every week, but today it feels different. Or maybe you feel different. Your mind is already racing, though not about the usual memories that drag you under.

“Ready to start?” your therapist asks, her voice calm, grounding you slightly.

You nod, but your mind keeps tugging back to the waiting room, to her—what’s-her-name—sitting there with those tired eyes that somehow looked straight into you. It’s not like it was the first time you’d stolen a glance. But it is the first time she looked back.

The session moves forward in a blur. The rhythmic back-and-forth of your therapist’s fingers in front of your eyes, the instructions to focus on your memories, to feel them without being overwhelmed by them. But today, it’s harder. Harder to concentrate. Harder to dive into the past when your present is hanging on the thread of something unspoken in that waiting room.

Why did she look at me?

The therapist’s voice blends into the background as your eyes follow her hand back and forth, back and forth—trying to focus, trying to do what you’re supposed to. But the room feels wrong today. Usually, this process grounds you, pulls you deep into the recesses of your mind, where old wounds wait to be confronted. But today, your mind is somewhere else entirely.

More specifically, on her.

You’ve spent weeks perfecting the art of pretending she doesn’t exist. A stolen glance here, a quick look away there. She’s always been on the periphery, a quiet presence you’ve never acknowledged out loud. It’s become part of your routine—pretending not to notice her, letting her fade into the background like the murmur of the clinic around you.

But today, she didn’t stay in the background. Today, she noticed you. She looked at you. Not the polite, disinterested glances you’re used to exchanging with strangers in waiting rooms, but something else. Something charged.

Why did she look at me like that?

The therapist’s voice cuts through your thoughts, soft but firm. “Stay with me. What do you feel right now?”

What do you feel?

You swallow, trying to push the image of her from your mind, but it doesn’t budge. Her eyes—the way they held yours for just a second longer than necessary, how something flickered in them before she quickly looked away. Recognition? Or maybe something else? Sympathy? Sadness?

“Um, I feel… I don’t know,” you admit, shaking your head slightly, trying to focus. You’re supposed to be processing your pain, your own tangled memories, but your brain is stubbornly clinging to the way her fingers fidgeted in her lap, the way her leg bounced with impatience. The way her shoulders seemed to carry an invisible weight, just like yours.

Your therapist doesn’t push, though her eyes study you carefully. She shifts in her seat, slowly moving her hand back and forth again, drawing your focus back.

“Stay present,” she repeats gently, and you try. You really do. You close your eyes for a moment, breathing in slowly, trying to feel something other than the strange energy still buzzing under your skin.

But as soon as you open your eyes again, your mind is back in the waiting room. You can almost see her sitting there now, shoulders hunched, the corner of her lip pulled between her teeth as she stared at her phone, looking anxious—maybe even upset. Was it something on the screen that bothered her? Or was it the reason she’s here at all? The knee she cradled with unconscious care, as though even sitting still caused her discomfort?

You don’t know her story. You barely even know her name. But you can’t shake the feeling that there’s something more under the surface, something that runs deeper than just an injury or a tired glance. Something that mirrors your own pain in a way that feels unsettlingly familiar.

“Can we take a break?” you ask suddenly, your voice sounding too loud in the quiet room.

The therapist pauses, her hand still mid-movement. She lowers it slowly and nods. “Of course. Do you want to talk about what’s on your mind?”

You hesitate. Talking about what’s on your mind usually means revisiting the same memories you’ve been unpacking for months. Trauma that you’ve carried with you like a second skin, the kind that weighs you down and makes you feel like you’re suffocating in your own body. That’s what therapy is supposed to be for—that pain.

But right now, it’s not the past tugging at your mind. It’s the now. The girl sitting across from you every week, the unspoken weight of her presence lingering in your thoughts like a slow burn.

“I… I’m just distracted,” you say, your voice quieter now, unsure.

Your therapist doesn’t press, just nods in understanding. “That’s okay. Sometimes our minds drift when we’re processing a lot. We can pick up whenever you’re ready.”

You nod, grateful for the reprieve, but your mind keeps spinning. The session feels heavier today. Usually, the weight is familiar—the kind of weight you’re used to carrying alone. But now there’s something—or someone—else filling your head, making it hard to sort through your usual patterns.

Why did she look at me like that?

You replay the moment in your mind again, trying to decode it. You tell yourself it doesn’t mean anything, that you’re overanalyzing a simple glance. People look at each other all the time. She probably doesn’t even remember it now, back to whatever’s pulling at her in her own life. But still… the way her eyes lingered.

Your thoughts tumble into a messy loop of frustration and curiosity. Did she feel something too? Or was it all in your head? She’s a stranger. Just a face you’ve seen in passing. You don’t know her, not really. But somehow, that one glance has you questioning everything.

The therapist’s voice breaks through again, softer this time. “Do you want to try and continue?”

You nod, even though your mind is still miles away from where it should be. As the therapist raises her hand again, beginning the familiar motions in front of your eyes, you take a deep breath, hoping this time you can focus.

But even as your gaze follows the movement of her hand, your mind drifts back to the waiting room, back to those tired eyes and the way they seemed to see something in you. Something you’re not sure you want to face.

And for the first time in weeks, it’s not your own memories that are haunting you.

As the session drags on, the rhythm of your therapist’s hand becomes background noise to the thoughts that swirl relentlessly in your head. You try to bring yourself back to the task at hand, back to the healing process you’re supposed to be focused on, but you feel adrift, untethered.

Her eyes won’t leave your mind. That flicker of something—connection, maybe—that felt so intense in that brief glance. You can still feel it, like a pulse that’s not entirely your own.

It feels ridiculous, honestly. This isn’t supposed to happen. You’re here to heal, to peel back the layers of yourself and work through the wreckage inside your mind. You’re here to process your trauma, not to get caught up in the orbit of a stranger who happens to sit across from you once a week. A stranger you don’t even know by name.

Still, the thought of her consumes you.

Why did she look at me like that?

The question hammers in your brain, louder now that you’ve allowed yourself to acknowledge it. There’s a strange comfort in the idea that maybe she sees something in you, too. That maybe the weight she carries isn’t so different from your own. You’ve been drowning in your own pain for so long—what would it feel like to share that with someone who understands? To find recognition in someone else’s eyes?

Or is that just you, projecting?

Focus. You need to focus.

You force yourself to sit up a little straighter, your hands gripping the edge of the chair as your therapist’s voice drifts back into your awareness. You know she’s watching you carefully, noting the way you’ve been distant, distracted, ever since you walked into the room. You haven’t been present today, haven’t really felt anything but the odd, lingering sensation of her—the woman with the tired eyes and the worn knee brace.

You wonder what she’s here for, what injury brought her to this clinic. You’ve pieced together the clues over the weeks—her knee, the way she sometimes leans on crutches, the soft wince she tries to hide when she stands up. Maybe she’s an athlete, or used to be. You’ve caught glimpses of logos on her clothing that hint at something sports-related, but it’s not your world. You wouldn’t know.

Yet despite not knowing, you feel it—the heaviness in her, the same way you feel it in yourself. There’s something unspoken, something you’ve both been avoiding in your stolen glances.

The therapist’s hand passes in front of your eyes again, and you try to refocus. You try to reach for the memories she’s guiding you toward, the ones you’re supposed to be reprocessing. But the memories feel hazy today, like they’re distant and out of reach. Usually, they’re so vivid—too vivid. But now, they’re dulled by the present, by the way your mind is pulling you somewhere else entirely.

“Let’s take another pause,” your therapist suggests, her voice patient but concerned.

You exhale a breath you didn’t realize you were holding, nodding gratefully. The tension in your body eases just slightly, but your mind is still racing.

“I think…” you begin, your voice hesitant. “I’m just not all here today.”

Your therapist waits, giving you space to elaborate. You know she’s used to this. Distraction is common during these sessions, but you’ve never felt this kind of restlessness before. This kind of… preoccupation.

“There’s… someone,” you admit finally, the words slipping out before you’ve had time to really think them through. “In the waiting room. I keep getting distracted thinking about her.”

Your therapist tilts her head, curious but not judgmental. “Someone in the waiting room?”

You nod, feeling a little foolish now that you’ve said it out loud. “Yeah. I don’t even know her name, but we’re always there at the same time. We’ve never talked, but today… today she looked at me differently.”

Your therapist stays quiet, letting you find your words. Her patience helps, but it also makes you feel exposed, like you’re admitting to something fragile and uncertain.

“And it just—it’s been stuck in my head,” you continue, your voice quieter now, as if saying it louder might make it too real. “I don’t know why it’s affecting me so much. It’s just… I can’t stop thinking about it.”

You’re not sure what you want from this confession. Reassurance, maybe? Validation? Someone to tell you that you’re not losing your mind over a brief glance from a stranger?

Your therapist’s expression softens, but she doesn’t immediately dive into analysis. Instead, she asks, “What do you think it is about her that’s sticking with you? Is there something familiar, something that reminds you of yourself?”

The question lingers in the air between you, and you feel your chest tighten. It’s not something you’ve allowed yourself to fully consider. The way she looks at you. The way she seems just as weighed down by something invisible. The recognition, maybe, of pain.

“I don’t know,” you say, but the words don’t feel entirely true. “Maybe.”

Your therapist nods thoughtfully, but doesn’t press further. “It’s normal to connect with others in ways that might surprise us, especially when we’re going through difficult things ourselves. If she reminds you of something—of yourself, of a feeling—it’s okay to acknowledge that.”

You nod, but your mind is still racing. What is it that you see in her? Is it really just a reflection of your own pain, or is there something more? Something in the way she carries herself, the way her eyes met yours like she was trying to say something she couldn’t put into words.

“Do you want to explore that more?” your therapist asks gently. “Or would you rather focus on something else for now?”

You hesitate, feeling torn. Part of you wants to dig into it, to figure out why this woman has such a hold on your thoughts. But another part of you feels scared—scared of what you might find if you look too closely.

“I’m not sure,” you admit quietly. “I guess… I’m not sure if I’m ready to.”

Your therapist nods again, understanding. “That’s okay. We can take it at your pace. But if you want to talk about it more, we can always come back to it.”

You feel a strange mixture of relief and apprehension. Talking about her—about that glance, that moment—feels like opening a door you’re not sure you want to walk through. But at the same time, you know that you’ll think about it for the rest of the day. Maybe for longer than that.

As the session winds down, your mind is still preoccupied, but there’s a little more clarity now. Maybe it’s not just the glance itself that’s bothering you. Maybe it’s what that glance represents—the possibility that someone else sees you in a way you’re not used to being seen. That someone else might be carrying their own weight, just as heavy as yours.

And as you step out of the therapist’s office, back into the familiar waiting room, your eyes instinctively search for her. For the woman who has somehow taken up so much space in your mind.

But now, her seat is empty.

And suddenly, the room feels a little colder without her presence.

The week drags on in a strange, heavy haze. Every day, your mind keeps drifting back to her—back to that brief, fleeting glance that’s somehow managed to burrow deep under your skin. It’s ridiculous, you tell yourself. You’re overthinking it, turning something meaningless into something monumental. You’ve spent so long keeping people at arm’s length, hiding yourself behind carefully constructed walls, and now, one moment with a stranger has you spiraling into obsession.

You try to shake it off. You try to focus on work, on your routine, on anything but her. But it’s like a splinter in your mind. No matter how much you push it away, it’s always there, just under the surface. You catch yourself replaying the moment over and over again—the way her tired eyes locked with yours, the faintest flicker of recognition passing between you. Did she feel it too? Or are you imagining it?

On Wednesday, you find yourself walking past the clinic—deliberately, even though you don’t have an appointment. You glance through the glass door, half-expecting to see her sitting there, leg bouncing nervously, fingers fidgeting with the hem of her jacket. But the waiting room is empty, and the sight of it leaves you with a strange hollowness in your chest.

What if she doesn’t come back?

The thought gnaws at you. It’s irrational, but the possibility that you might never see her again—that this inexplicable connection could vanish as quickly as it appeared—makes you feel like something important has slipped through your fingers. Something you didn’t even realize you were missing.

Get it together. You need to move on.

But by Friday, the restlessness is back in full force. You find yourself lying awake at night, staring at the ceiling, wondering. Wondering if she’s thinking about you too. Wondering if she felt the same pull, the same strange energy lingering between you.

Maybe you’ll never know. Maybe it’s better not to know.

But as the next week rolls around, you feel a nervous anticipation building in your chest. Your next appointment is coming up, and the thought of seeing her again—of what might happen this time—has your mind racing in a way that feels almost… dangerous.

What if she’s there?

What if she’s not?

The questions twist and turn inside you, and by the time your appointment day arrives, you’re practically buzzing with a nervous energy you can’t quite contain. You tell yourself it’s stupid, that you’re being irrational. You’re supposed to be focusing on your healing, not obsessing over some stranger you’ve never even spoken to. But the truth is, you haven’t felt this alive in a long time.

When you walk into the clinic, your eyes immediately sweep the waiting room. For a moment, the space feels empty, cold. But then, there she is—sitting in the same spot as always, her knee braced, her posture tense. She’s staring at her phone again, her fingers tapping the screen, but you notice the way her leg bounces restlessly. There’s a tension in her shoulders, a tightness in the way she’s holding herself, like the weight she’s carrying is a little heavier today.

You pause just inside the door, your heart suddenly pounding in your chest. You weren’t prepared for this, not really. Seeing her again feels like stepping into a current you can’t control. You want to look away, to keep pretending she’s just another person passing through your life. But instead, you find your gaze lingering on her, the same way it did last week.

And then, just like before, she looks up.

This time, there’s no hesitation in her gaze. Her eyes meet yours, and for a moment, the room falls away. The world outside fades, and all you can feel is the intensity of her stare, the weight of something unspoken passing between you. It’s like you’re both suspended in the same moment, tethered by something invisible and undeniable.

You freeze, unsure of what to do. Should you smile? Look away? Say something? But before you can make a decision, she shifts in her seat, straightening up slightly, her gaze flickering with something you can’t quite read. There’s recognition there, yes, but also something deeper. Something like understanding. Or maybe even… curiosity?

Your throat feels tight, your pulse quickening. You don’t know what to do with this feeling, this connection that seems to be growing stronger with every second you hold her gaze.

And then, she does something you didn’t expect.

She nods.

It’s subtle, just a small dip of her head, but it feels like a monumental shift. Like she’s acknowledging you—not just as a stranger, but as someone… more. Someone she’s noticed, someone she’s maybe been thinking about too.

Your breath catches in your throat, and before you can stop yourself, you find yourself nodding back. It feels awkward, stilted, but it’s the only thing you can think to do in the moment. It’s not much, but it’s something. A bridge, maybe. A connection.

You take a seat across from her, your body tense with nervous energy. You can feel her presence, like a subtle pull in the air between you. Neither of you speaks, but the silence isn’t uncomfortable. It’s charged, filled with all the things you’re not saying, all the questions you’re not asking.

The door to your therapist’s office opens, and her familiar voice calls your name. You stand up, feeling a strange reluctance to leave the waiting room, to leave her behind. But as you turn to head toward the office, you steal one last glance at her.

She’s still watching you.

And for the first time in weeks, you don’t look away.

The session that follows is one of the hardest you’ve had in a long time. The therapist guides you through your memories with a gentle persistence, pushing you to confront parts of your past that you’ve been carefully avoiding. Today, it’s not just the weight of your own pain that feels unbearable—it’s the weight of everything you’ve been holding back for so long.

Your memories of childhood are raw, jagged, and unsettling. You find yourself reliving moments of fear and isolation, the sting of harsh words, the bruises you tried to hide. The sessions are usually a mix of distant recollections and present-day reflections, but today, the past crashes into you with a force that makes it hard to breathe. Your mother’s anger, her frustration, her harsh words—they’re all too close, too real. It’s like the boundaries between then and now have dissolved, leaving you exposed and trembling.

When the session ends, you barely manage to pull yourself together. Your eyes are red, streaked with tears, and your face feels hot and heavy with emotion. You nod to your therapist, a wordless acknowledgment of the work you’ve done. You need air—space to breathe and let the turmoil inside you settle.

You stumble out of the office, the hallway seeming longer than usual. You make your way to the clinic’s entrance, your steps unsteady, your mind still tangled in the remnants of painful memories. The cool air hits your face, and you stop just outside the door, letting it wash over you. It feels like a fleeting reprieve from the storm raging inside.

And then, you see her.

She’s standing there, just outside the door, her back to you. You recognize her immediately—Alexia. She’s wrapped in a coat, her arms crossed tightly in front of her. You can see her shoulders trembling slightly, and as you watch, she turns and looks at you. Her eyes are red and swollen, tears still glistening on her cheeks.

For a moment, neither of you says anything. The silence between you is heavy, filled with unspoken understanding. You can see the same rawness in her face that you feel in your own. It’s as if both of you are caught in the aftermath of a storm, trying to find a way to navigate the wreckage.

Alexia takes a step toward you, her gaze meeting yours with a vulnerability that makes your heart ache. “I didn’t expect to see you,” she says softly, her voice wavering. There’s a tremor in her tone, like she’s struggling to keep herself composed.

You open your mouth to respond, but no words come. The sight of her—so open, so unguarded—strikes a chord deep within you. It’s not just about the glance you shared or the way you’ve been obsessing over her. It’s something deeper, something you’ve been grappling with in your own way.

“I…” you start, but the words fail you. Instead, you take a tentative step toward her, the distance between you shrinking as you both stand in the cold air, the weight of your shared pain hanging in the space around you.

Alexia looks down, her voice barely above a whisper. “I’ve been coming here for a while. I didn’t think anyone noticed.” She pauses, her eyes meeting yours again, filled with a mix of sadness and curiosity. “You looked at me today like you understood something. I felt the same way.”

Her words hit you hard, echoing the thoughts that have been circling your mind all week. It’s as if she’s voicing the unspoken connection you both felt—the shared weight, the recognition of each other’s pain.

“I didn’t mean to stare,” you finally say, your voice rough from the emotions you’ve been grappling with. “I just… I saw something in you. I don’t know what it was, but it felt familiar.”

Alexia nods, a tear slipping down her cheek. “It’s strange,” she says, her voice breaking slightly. “I’ve felt like I was carrying this alone. And then you came in, and for some reason, it felt like… like maybe someone else understood.”

The shared understanding between you deepens, and you feel a flicker of hope. Maybe, just maybe, you’re not as alone as you’ve felt. The connection you’ve both sensed, the unspoken recognition—it’s not just in your head. It’s real, and it’s giving you both a moment of connection that you’ve been craving.

Without thinking, you reach out, offering her a small, hesitant smile. “If you want to talk… or if you just need someone to be here,” you offer, your voice steadying despite the tears still lingering in your eyes.

Alexia’s gaze softens, and she nods. “I’d like that,” she says quietly. “I think I’d like that a lot.”

Part 2

[katiascraft]

✐ᝰ "You knew all too well i was right where you left me" | CL16 ࣪𓏲ּ ᥫ᭡ ₊

parings: retired!charles leclerc x writer!ex!reader

🔎 chapter one: "love is short but forgetting is so long"

chapter two: “did the love affair maim you too?” -> chapter three

summary: It’s the story of a woman frozen in the moment her world fell apart. A perfect dinner ended with, “I met someone else,” and while everyone moved on, she remained stuck in that instant, unable to let go of the past. A poignant tale of heartbreak, grief, and the weight of being trapped in a “forever” that never was.

word count: +4,5k.

BLOG MASTERLIST - series masterlist

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It's been a few crazy days for you. After what happened last time, it took you a few days to go back to the last flower cafe to write. You preferred writing in your studio at home. You had a comfy balcony with a lovely view of the Monaco sea. So you just took inspiration from it to write another chapter of your book. 

Seeing Charles confused you. You didn't know what to think or how to feel about it. You got scared you would see him again. But at the same time, you wanted to see him again. 

It felt confusing because you knew it wasn't right for you or the best to see him again, or wanting to or whatever. But even if he broke your psyche the way he did, you couldn't stop thinking about the what ifs. 

What if this time works? What if he was immature but he is worth it? What if this time is better? What if he feels the same way you do? What if he says he’s sorry? What if you forgive him?

All of those questions filled the fire to write. Writedown all of the what ifs as it was reality for your character. Maybe in this fictional life, you two have your happy ending.  

Your writing process was interrupted by your bestie phone call that you, of course, picked up. “Hey” you could hear the kids scream as if you were there.

“Are you coming to pick the kids up?” she asked, remembering you, you promised her to take them to have ice cream and for a walk. You facepalm. You forgot about it.

“Oh sorry, A. Yeah,of course. I’ll pick them up in 30 minutes. I’m sorry, i forgot” you apologised starting to walk towards your bedroom to get change. You still have your pajamas on. 

“It’s okay y/n. I knew you would probably forget that’s why I called. They will be ready when you get here. Thank you, i love you” you said i love you back and ended the call. 

You chose to wear a tracksuit, trainers and a coat. It was really cold this year in particular. But you loved it. You weren’t a fan of summer that much. You preferred snow and hot chocolate. Cuddling in bed to keep yourself warm. And playing cards near the chimney. You Loved autumn and winter, it made you feel special. 

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So today was the day, the day he probably would become officially single. Charles really hated the divorce process. It was a very painful one. He had, once again, broken another woman’s heart. He wasn't proud of it but he really wanted to do things the right way from now on. No more bullshit. No more feeling guilty of the past, tied to it as if he had to pay for everything. So 6 months ago he communicated it to Alex, it was really heavy on the heart scene. He felt like an actual monster. However, he started therapy. He was starting to understand himself more and learning to forgive himself for every decision he took that maybe wasn’t the best, but he didn't know better. He was young and about to become one of the most successful drivers in formula one. He thought he knew what he was doing to then realize he actually didn't at all. 

He started his day journaling. He tried to write something but all he could do was drawing your face. That image he couldn't stop seeing every time he closed his eyes. He felt scared about it but he let himself follow along. It was best to try to take you out of his mind in some way. Then after breakfast he decided to play some piano and record new parts of a new piece he was working on. He sent it to his producer and drove to Carlos' house to have lunch together. Lando was also there. They all chatted and enjoyed barbeque at Carlos’ beach house. 

And at that moment, talking in the living room, something changed. 

“Yeah, I don't know. I think she is a writer. I always see her on the balcony surrounded by multiple sheets of papers and a computer. Or maybe she is a translator or something I don't know but she is cute, you know? Maybe you can hit on her lando " Carlos commented while serving more wine to their cups.

“Do you follow her on instagram or something?” Lando asked for further information, apparently interested. Charles was zooming out thinking about you. 

“Oh no I don't, I don't even know her name but” Carlos opened his window curtains “yup, there she is” Carlos pointed to the balcony that was visible from there. Lando patted Charles' arm so the three of them could see through the window hoping the woman wouldn't notice them. 

“Oh my god” Charles almost fainted when he saw you there in your sherk pajamas drinking from an avengers cup (you didn't change that, though. You still are a geek for movies, superheroes, comics and books he guessed). Your balcony was quite close, the view was 4k. The guys who looked at Charles getting whiter, felt weirded out about his reaction.

“All right mate? I don't think she is that ugly, you know? I mean, she is fine as hell if you ask me and I'm not that into red hair” Lando said, checking on charles.

“Yeah, maybe she is too beautiful… now that he’s officially single” Carlos added.

Charles shook his head going back to the sofa.

“It’s y/N, carlos. y/n it’s your fucking neighbor. She was there all this time and i didnt fucking know. I don't know how I never bumped into her " Charles spitted with so much mixed feeling. Lando and Carlos looked at each other. Carlos closed the curtains before sitting along them.

“Mate, i didn't have a clue she could be y/N to be honest. I’ve never met her, "Carlos explained himself.

“Wait, who’s y/N? And why is she neighbors with you?” Lando was confused. For a moment he thought they were joking but Charles looked affected. He missed a part of Charles' story or something. The only woman he met was alexandra and she is officially out of his life.

“It’s his ex, like the one” Carlos explained to him but then Lando was even more confused. Charles noticed and with a sigh he explained the situation better in his opinion.

“y/n was my girlfriend during my f2 days. I left her for Alex but since that moment I regret it. It was like 10 years ago. "Lando's face expressed understanding with his mouth showing an ‘o’.

“So I guess I can't date her now, right?” Lando said, receiving a correcting punch on his arm by carlos. “Alright, alright” 

“I need to go guys, i got stuff to do” Charles said after a long silence and stood up ready to go. He Couldn't stay longer. He needed to breathe some air. He was scared. He actually hated feeling like that. Scared of what? Of her? Of himself? Of the truth? The truth that maybe he did indeed waste all of these years pretending to like his life when all he wanted to do was go back to her? Maybe. But the truth was too heavy to admit and process. 

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You were out with your nephews. It was a saturday afternoon, cold but the sun was shining bright. Between giggles you were walking with them to their favorite ice cream shop. 

Unfortunately, it was LEC ice cream. 

Benjamin and Renato were four years old, they were twins. And then there was Dante who was 6 years old. They were messy but today was a good day, they were chilling. They ran inside the ice cream shop all excited followed by you. You closed the door and they were already on the counter talking with the cashier. You smiled shyly. 

“good afternoon” you greeted her and she smiled back at you.

“Auntie, I want the chocolate one! It is always so yummy!” said Benjamin, excitedly grabbing your coat and pulling from it in desperation. He did a few little excited jumps as his twin. 

“No! Benjamin! I want the chocolate one!” Renato got mad at his brother. Their voices were so cute they made you giggle a bit. 

“It's alright boys, you both can get the chocolate one” you said, mediating between the siblings smiling at the cashier. She noted and went to look for them. “Dante, darling, which one do you want?” He was the shyest out of them all. He was so like your best friend, polite and collected. He looked at the flavour list on the wall. 

“I want the vanilla one, please” he talked directly to the cashier making you smile proudly.

“That’s my boy,” you said, congratulating him. Seeing him smile filled your heart full. You loved those three kids with your whole heart. You always get so emotional realising how fast they are growing. 

“Alright, gentlemen, here are your ice creams” the cashier said warmly and rounded the counter to give the ice cream to each one of them. You smiled watching the scene. They got shy but grabbed their ice creams anyway. 

“What do you say boys?” you looked at them gently. 

“Thank you very much” they said in unison, making the cashier smile widely. “go seat” you told them and they obeyed you. You got close to the cashier now in her seat on the counter. “How much is it?” you asked but before she could answer you, a voice, that fucking voice, interrupted.

“It’s on the house” you wanted to believe it was a dream and that it wasn’t real. But it was. It was charles. You turned to look at him a bit confused about the whole situation. He smiled at you again, the same way he did at the restaurant. You tried to play it cool, but you knew your smile and attitude were weird. 

“Oh, thank you. It wasn’t necessary” you said politely and he shook his head. 

“No problem, for real” he said and you half smiled in return. 

“Thank you” you say for both of them and went to sit with your boys at the sofa table they chose. You just didn't want to look at him that much nor you didn't know what to say. “Hey” you greeted them, and took some napkins from the table and cleaned the twins' faces full of chocolate. you smiled funny. Dante got closer to you while you were helping Benjamin clean his hands. 

“Auntie, is that the driver dad is a fan of?” he asked shyly close to you and really low so only you could hear him. 

“I think it is darling, would you like a picture with him?” you offer sweetly. He nods, smiling brightly. That made your heart race because you now have to talk to charles. You could hear him talking to his employees in a relaxed way. You could hear he came just to check in. 

You licked your lips nervously “i'll be right back, okay?” you tell the kids and stand up to walk right back to the counter. Your heart was racing. “Um, excuse me” you tried to capture his attention, and for sure you did. He looked at you immediately. His eyes found yours and you felt your heart skip a beat for a moment. “Sorry, but one of my nephews recognized you and I wanted to ask you if you could take a picture with him? Don't mean to bother you, of course,” you finally said. And you saw his face light up instantly. You were pretending you didn't know each other. You just played along without even mentioning it. You swallowed hard half smiling.

“Of course, no problem,” he said sweetly.

“Thank you” you said to him before getting to the kids.

“It's fine,” he assured you. 

You called Dante to come over and he came all shy. “Hey champ, is it good?” Charles was squatting to be on Dante's height. He talked really sweet to him. Dante stuck to you, intimidated to  have that awesome driver his dad loved so much. He nodded looking at him. “You wanna take a picture? I’ll be really happy to have one with you”  he said sweetly so Dante would loosen himself. He looked at me for aprovation. You just smiled and nodded at him excitedly. Dante then relaxed, nodding towards Charles in a huge smile. He gave him a hug and charles’ heart melted between the kid’s arms. 

They posed together and you took as many pictures as you could. And after cleaning Benjamin and Renato`s faces again, they also posed with charles. They started yapping with him and imitating car noises. They made you laugh for a bit. 

They got so excited, they gave Charles so many hugs. You played along so they can have a great moment to remember someday. You recorded some videos to send to your best friend agostina later, so she can have the memories. “My daddy loves you! He always screams to the tv ‘GOOO CHARLES GOOOO’ ” Dante commented imitating his dad in the funniest way making you laugh. “But he doesn't like Carlos that much, he prefers hamilton!”

“Oh wow, you are an expert in formula 1. Who’s your daddy?” Charles really engaged with your nephews. He even sat next to you so he could have a conversation with them. He got confused for a bit, he believed they were your children. But it didn't seem like that. 

“My dad is andrew and my mom is agostina, and she is auntie y/N” dante explained to charles the whole family dynamic in his way. You smiled nodding looking at Dante, then moved to see charles. He now understood the whole thing. You were their aunt. His heart melted for a moment. He didn't know what to say.

Benjamin asked you to grab him and you did. You sat him on your tights, and he was sleepy. You stroke his thin shiny hair gently as he pressed his head on your chest wanting to fall asleep. 

Charles looked at you with a half smile.

“I think it’s time to go home kids, mommy is waiting for you. It’s pizza night!” you told them funny and excited so they would get excited. Dante celebrated along with Renato doing a victory dance making you and Charles let out a laugh.

“Let me give you a ride, that baby wants to sleep,” Charles offered sweetly, looking at Benjamin in your chest. He was trying to play it cool but his heart was speeding faster than his car in any race. Looking at you like this, made him regret every single decision of his life. How could he leave you like that? He wanted to punch himself on the face because he was sure you hated him. So it was impossible to get a second chance nor that he believed he deserved it. 

You doubted but he got a point. Walking ten blocks with a baby or two in your arms was not gonna be an easy task and your back will suffer a lot. You sighed. “Alright, thank you. It’s really nice of you” you gave in at his offer and he smiled widely. 

“Alright, let’s go home guys” Charles announced. The cashier was even more confused than the two of you were. Since when did Charles Leclerc engage so much with strangers and offer them a lift? They must not be strangers at all. They must know each other all too well. 

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Charles helped you get the kids in the car, or well, his Ferrari  that was parked one block away. Dante, all excited, wanted to touch every single thing the car had so you had to tell him to calm down and behave for a bit. You got in the passenger seat. 

Charles let you use his phone so you put your friend's address on it. He now knew where you lived and he was thinking of offering to drop you there after leaving the kids but at the same time he didn't want to be so invasive. 

Smelling your perfume was sending him on a spiral. You still had that effect on him. And he didn't know how to feel about it. You didn't look at him. You probably hate him, he thought. He couldn’t stop thinking about it. But then why did you let this happen? Because of the kids? It was ten blocks away. He stopped himself from keeping up his delusions for way too long he would believe them. He felt like a kid about this whole thing with you. Or the one you had. The life you had. You made him and his family so happy. Arthur still likes you, you always had a soft spot on his heart. And that made Charles feel miserable. 

The drive was silent. The kids fell asleep in like three blocks. You were so nervous you would throw up right then and there. You just looked out through the window. You didn't want to talk that much with him. You knew that would be dangerous. 

He knew it too. He knew all too well what you were trying to do and in a way he was thankful for it. But in another way, he just wanted to know everything about you, again. 

A million questions were playing again and again in your heads silently but agonizingly at the same time.

Ten minutes later, you were finally on your destination: your best friend’s, agostina, house. She was waiting at the porch of her house. When she saw the black ferrari stop by her sidewalk she frowned. She thought you were coming on foot with her three children. 

You looked at charles in a half smile, just praying your friend doesn't get mad at you for this insane idea. “Thank you for lifting us” you said shortly and he nodded. It was awkward. 

“Let me help you” Charles said and both of you got out of his car. 

When your friend first saw you, she looked confused, with a million question marks in her eyes. But then, when she saw Charles coming off the driving seat, her eyes almost fell out. I mean, she was relieved that it was him at some point but not so much out of concern for you. 

“Hey, A” Charles greeted her with a wave helping you wake the kids up. He remembers your friend, of course. He remembered everything about you. 

“Hey, charles. It’s been a long time” A said, grabbing Benjamin from your arms. Charles helped Dante and you grabbed Renato in your arms. Both baby twins were knocked out sleeping. Dante grabbed his mum's hand and waved to Charles in a goodbye. He closed his Ferrari door and waved to us. You just smiled. You were in the most uncomfortable situation of your life. You didn't have a good feeling about this. 

You felt it was the beginning of the end, for some odd reason you couldn't identify yet. 

“Bye charles!” Dante said happily and was still a bit sleepy. Agostina smiled at him but when she turned to look at you, her eyes were screaming “ARE YOU CRAZY GIRL?” and how could you blame her for it. You just put her kids into the car of a known stranger. 

Charles observed the situation with you and your friend from his car. The sunset sun made you glow. And your eyes were so shiny he got confused for a bit if he was actually dreaming. He made his horn sound and disappeared into the monaco streets pretty fast. 

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Cozy wrapped around blankets and pillows, your friend brought you a cup of hot chocolate. You decided it was to sleep overnight to gossip because Andrew, her husband, was out of town for work. The kids were sleeping in their rooms. The baby monitor in front of you two. You were laying on the living room couch with ambient music in the background playing from the tv above the chimney. 

“I can't believe you bumped into Charles, to be honest. It's been ten years, you have never seen him and out of nowhere you see him everywhere” your friend was as surprised as you were. 

“Yeah, I don't know. I feel really weird about it. I thought next time i would bump into him i would be dead but i’m still alive so far. He felt so different… Yet he felt the same. His perfume was the same. His eyes are the same, the way they shine and…” you sighed stopping yourself. You started crying. You didn't know what you were feeling. If you were supposed to feel happy or angry or sad. The stress level was at its peak. It was too much emotionally to handle. 

It hurts you to pretend you didn't know him, that you didn't want him or that he was once your everything and now he was a stranger. A stranger holding so many secrets of you. All of your life traumas and experiences, your virginity, your first ever love story (and the only one). It still hurts because it couldn't be easier. Why couldn't it be forever together as you dreamed? When you saw him you felt the same as that last day you watched him leave that motherfucking restaurant. 

Your friend hugged you understanding how hard this was for you. And how frustrating it must feel to finally be ready to move on and then he is back just like that. How unfair life could be, right? She felt so sorry for you. You deserved to be so happy yet here we are, still crying for that ficking stupid asshole. 

It felt like the beginning of the end.

⋆˚࿔ 𝜗𝜚˚⋆

“Hey, Arthur, I'm officially and legally single again. Want to have dinner at my place?” Charles called his brother on his Ferrari the second he sat in the driver’s seat. He needed to talk to someone about what happened this afternoon. His anxiety had made a hole in his stomach and he almost threw up a couple of times. 

He felt guilty. Like he did something terrible lifting you and your nephews to your friend’s house.

“Bro!!! That’s amazing!! Ready to enjoy life? I’ll be there in 30 minutes, and order some steak. I’ll bring wine. Love you!!” he shouted into the phone making Charles put it a little far away from his ear so he won't be left deaf. He ended the call, so Charles couldn't say otherwise. He giggled a little to himself. He loved his family, but especially Arthur, he was his little brother, and also his best friend.  

After a few minutes, he was already wearing his comfy clothes and had ordered the stake his brother told him to. He had set the table and put some random playlist on spotify on shuffle. Now that he was home, the hole in his stomach was not as huge as it was during the day. His house was his safe place. Though, it still felt weird not having leo (his and alex’s puppy son) or alex around. He tried so hard to love her, he got used to having her around. The chemicals on his brain were adjusting still to his new life. He changed furniture and redecorated the whole house. He wanted to start again from zero. Rebuilt himself step by step and finally, the Charles he always wanted to be. 

The bell took him out of his thoughts announcing his brother had arrived. 

“Hey, Brody,” Arthur said excitedly, hugging his brother when the older one opened the door. Arthur was really proud of his brother. He knew how hard all of it was. And how hard he was with himself when it came to mistakes committed in the past.

⋆˚࿔ 𝜗𝜚˚⋆

They sat on the couch in front of the tv with everything already tidy up and with their stomachs full. They talked about everything and anything but yet not about her. 

“I brought you something, wait a second” Arthur said and got up looking for his bed. Charles observed his brother a little tipsy by wine already. He didn't know what to expect from him. He was always a surprise box. “I know you saw her again, I don't know how you feel about it but I know we will eventually talk about her. But I think it will help you if you read her book. I think it’s a fictional story but the way she tells it… i think it can make you reflect on what happened.” he added coming back from his bag with a book in hand. After he sat again on the couch he handed it to charles. Charles listened and watched the book in front of him. He took it carefully.

“I saw her today, she was with her nephews. I also know where she lives now as well. It was at carlos’ house and he was talking about his neighbor being attractive so Lando could try and hit on her. So he opened the fucking curtains and there she was on her balcony. I almost choked and died. Then I saw her at LEC. and I gave her a lift to her friend’s house. "Charles started throwing up everything that happened that day. Arthur’s eyes were big as plates. He couldn't understand how his brother survived o all of that. I mean, he was happy. He loved y/n, but he knew damn too well it was probably a nightmare for his brother to go through all of that. 

“Oh my god, charles. And you also were announced to be single legally? How did you survive? I'm impressed. You’re strong dude” arthur commented half joking half serious. Charles laughed it out a bit shaking his head. 

“I don't know but all I know is that my heart almost stopped how fast it was beating,” Charles answered.

“That’s called anxiety,” Arthur pointed out.

“I know. I was scared. She looked even more beautiful than she ever did or that I remember” he grabbed the book in his hands more strongly. He took a deep breath. “Today was too much for me,” his brother agreed. 

After Arthur was gone, Charles sprinted to his bed. He had a headache. He wanted to pretend it was because of the two bottles of wine they drank. But he knew it was because of overthinking. He laid in bed. Book in his hands. He started analyzing the cover: It was light blue, her favorite color he remembered. A red scarf and autumn leaves falling down. Her name is printed on the corner of it. He brushed his thumb above it taking a moment.

Adjusting his glasses he flipped to the back cover of it and that’s where something changed inside him.

‘Just between us, did the love affair maim you too?’

⋆˚࿔ TO BE CONTINUED 𝜗𝜚˚⋆

chapter three: coming soon.

tag list: @a-beaverhausen , @priniya , @annaluna12 , @thehoplessromanticclub , @emryb , @hadids-world , @kaztheemyth , @freyathehuntress , @diorbrxtz , @theseerbetweenus , @sie17136

shout out: thank you to my girlies from the gc (ur the best i<3u all), specially Sonny for hyping and helping me sm with this!

author's note: here it is <3 i'm so excited about this series! Sorry if you don’t see that much French I know NOTHING of it so yeah :(

what do you think it's gonna happen next?

don't forget to like, reblog or comment! and follow me so we can be friends :3 (and drink mate together!)

[hauntedhowlett-writes]

somebody to hold

pairing: könig x female reader

rating: explicit (18+ MDNI)

word count: 4,884

summary:

König discovers cuddle therapy.

You discover König.

author’s note: i don’t play COD, i just have a mask kink. all translations are from google, so feel free to send me corrections if they are needed! translations available at the end of the fic

content warnings/additional tags: explicit sexual content (18+ MDNI), potentially bad German translations, mentions of König’s social anxiety, descriptions of scars, touch starved könig, oral sex (m receiving), size kink, praise kink, dirty talk, unprotected p in v, mild breeding kink, choking, fingering, ab riding. Let me know if any are missing!

“Hey, your next appointment is here,” the voice of the practice secretary, Amy, says from the doorway of your office.

You look up from your computer, brow furrowed as you click around your calendar. “I didn’t think I had a late appointment?”

“Last minute add. And just…prepare yourself,” she says, eyes comically wide before she disappears.

You shut your laptop and head for the waiting room, curious about what’s got Amy acting so funny.

You stop short in the doorway. Perhaps it’s the veritable mountain of a man sitting in the tiny plastic waiting room chair fully kitted in military combat gear, including a sniper hood that only reveals two pale blue eyes that scan the room. His hands rest on his large thighs, fingers curling against the fabric of his tac pants.

You’re not unfamiliar with military clients. Your office is near a base, after all. You’ve had a few wander in before. But you’ve never had one quite like him.

“Uh, hi? Hi,” you say, clearing your throat. His eyes shoot to you and you swallow nervously. You give him your name, followed with, “I’m going to be your cuddler this evening. Do you want to follow me back to the session room?”

The man gives a single nod before unfolding from his seat. He absolutely towers over you, his build just as broad as it is tall, and he has to tilt his head down to look at you. He holds an arm out, gesturing for you to lead the way.

You lead him to the back session room, a space curated for comfort. It’s painted a deep blue and lit only with dimmable lamp lighting and string lights that can be turned on or off, depending on the client’s preference. There’s a large couch pressed to one wall, a sectional that has a hidden portion that pulls out to fill in the middle, essentially turning it into a bed. It’s perfect for both seated snugglers and the prone cuddlers.

There’s a snack and water station set up on a wood console table near the door, and beside it are cubbies for storing belongings. A large basket of soft blankets sits near the couch, along with an array of pillows.

You look back at the man that has followed you through the door. Those blue eyes take in every detail of the room before they land back on you. You toe off your sneakers, leaving you in your frog patterned socks. You wiggle your toes.

“Did Amy explain the rules to you and brief you on the terms and conditions?” Another silent nod. “Okay, well, everything we do is completely up to you, within those parameters. We can talk or touch as much or as little as you’d like for the length of your appointment. I can make some suggestions for positions, if you’d like?”

His hands fidget at his sides, fingers flexing and curling into fists like he’s not sure what to do with them. He stares down at the shoes that you’ve left by the door.

“You don’t have to take anything off, if you don’t want to,” you reassure him. “Why don’t you take a seat on the couch?”

The man takes two broad steps before taking a seat, as instructed. You feel a weird sort of giddiness that a man clearly as powerful as him listened to your orders.

He sits with his back straight as a bar of steel, eyes trained on you for the next step in the process, hands placed on his thighs once more. You take a tentative step closer.

“I’m going to sit right here, okay?” You narrate as you sit down near him, a cushion of distance between your bodies. “Is this alright?”

He nods.

“Would you like me to be closer? Or farther?”

“Closer,” a deep accented voice says. It makes your breath catch, the quiet gentleness of it and the way it sounds rough from disuse. “Please.”

You scooch closer, the distance between your bodies shrinking but not yet removed. “Okay?”

“Ja. Yes,” he says. A pause. “Could you…closer?”

“Of course. Is it okay if our bodies touch?”

He nods. You close the gap between your bodies, your thigh pressed along his and your arms brushing with each breath. He’s tense, shoulders tight and fists clenched as he breathes rhythmically through his nose and out his mouth. You let him take a moment to adjust.

“What’s your name?” You ask quietly.

“König.”

________

You are very warm. König can feel the heat of you even through his gear.

He feels a bit ridiculous, sitting here on a couch beside a stranger who he has paid to cuddle him. And he can’t even reach that point yet. Even just having you sit beside him has him trying to calm his breathing.

In…2…3…4….Out.

“Would you like to talk about anything?” You ask. He glances down at you. Scheiße, you’re pretty. That fact certainly isn’t helping him keep calm.

He shakes his head, not trusting his voice to reply. You give him a small smile.

“Well, do you mind if I talk?”

No, he doesn’t mind at all. He’d listen to your voice for hours if he could, the way it's so soft to his ear compared to the shouts and commands he’s used to hearing day in and out. He shakes his head.

Your small smile grows, a bright grin across your face that makes your nose crinkle adorably. König finds his shoulders relaxing the slightest bit.

You tell him about your day and how you were looking forward to the weekend because there is a show that you wish to catch up on. You talk about your cat, a little orange tabby that you adopted three years ago named Toast and how he likes to perch inside the window and watch the birds outside of your apartment. You also mention that Toast has an entire wardrobe of sweaters for the winter that he hates, but you love putting him in them anyways.

Slowly, the tension leaves König’s body. He relaxes against the back of the couch and adjusts his legs, stretching them out in front of him. His hands, which once fidgeted in his lap, are now folded on his chest as he tilts his head back and listens to your stories.

“König?” You place a tentative hand on his shoulder. “Our time is up.”

He blinks. Oh. He must have fallen asleep. He looks over to find you smirking at him.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to bore you to sleep,” you say, voice self-deprecating.

“It was not boring, liebling,” he replies quietly.

______

The following week, you notice a calendar event labeled [CLASSIFIED]. You ask Amy about it.

“It’s the big guy from last week. He made a standing appointment,” she tells you. “But he’s all big, scary military so he didn’t give me a name to put down.”

You smile to yourself. You know his name.

It feels like a fun secret between the two of you.

You’re thrilled that he wants to come back. You hadn’t stopped thinking about his voice and those bright blue eyes all weekend.

When it's time for his appointment, you smile brightly at him in the waiting room. He follows you back to the session room, just as silent as the last time he visited.

You remove your shoes, just as before. He sits on the couch without being prompted.

“Would you like me to sit beside you? Like last time?” You ask. He nods.

You sit down, close enough that your limbs brush, just as you had the week prior. He seems a bit more at ease this time.

“How is Toast?” He asks. You beam at him, thrilled that he remembered you told him about your cat. You tell him about your weekend spent on the couch with your furry friend.

“Can I--,” he begins to ask, pausing uncertainly. He lifts his arm slightly.

You wiggle against him, settling against his side as his arm drops across your shoulders.

“Danke,” the man says. “Thank you.”

“Of course, König.”

______

It goes like that for four weeks. Konig sits on the couch and allows you to settle in beside him, your sides pressed together on the couch. You talk to him about anything and everything that comes to mind, and he listens intently.

He doesn’t talk much, but when he does, you cling to his words. Especially when he slips into speaking in German.

And if you have to press your thighs together for relief during those moments? Well, you hope the man doesn’t notice.

On the fifth week of his appointments, König surprises you.

When you remove your shoes, König begins to unclasp the buckles holding his tac vest to his chest. You grin at him in encouragement as he sets it to the side.

“I feel…naked,” he comments with a small huff of laughter.

You bite your lip, trying to hold back the cheeky reply that ran through your head. He is a client, after all.

He sits beside you on the couch, just as all the other sessions started, but he fidgets with the strap of his leg holster. “Could—,” he starts, pausing for breath. “Could we….lie down?”

“Of course,” you murmur. “Do you have a preference for position?”

“You can…lay your head on my chest?” He says. You give him an encouraging nod, standing up so that he can rearrange his large body so that he’s laying on his back. You reach for the pull tabs of the middle section, sliding it into place. He looks at you in surprise. “That was neat.”

You giggle. “Yeah, this couch is the best,” you comment as you crawl onto the cushion and settle your body along his, your head pillowed on his hard chest.

“This is…nice,” he says.

“Yeah, big guy. It is.”

______

Two weeks into sessions where you lay beside König, he begins talking.

In a quiet, albeit deep, voice he tells you about how he struggles with social anxiety. Being as big as he is was never useful for him until joining the military. He was mercilessly bullied in school as a young boy. He wanted to be a sniper, but his size was a burden to the position. Not to mention, he can’t sit still. He fidgets constantly, and his mind tends to wander if his body is not in motion.

His heart beats quickly beneath your ear as he tells you all the things about himself that he’d been keeping close to his chest for the last two months. He doesn’t stick to just the serious things. He tells you that his favorite color is blue. He has a massive sweet tooth and would kill a man for some traditional Sacher torte.

The laugh that accompanies that particular bit of information might just be your favorite sound in the world.

You don’t mention when your time with him has come to an end. You let him keep talking, afraid to break the spell and return König to his more stoic state.

König ends up noticing that the time has gone past his scheduled appointment. His blue eyes go wide and he sits up abruptly, knocking you off his chest as he begins to apologize profusely in a mix of German and English.

You place a hand on his chest. “It’s okay, König. Really. I just…I like spending time with you,” you admit quietly.

He rests a large gloved hand over yours.

“I enjoy our time as well, mein herz.”

______

König doesn’t show for his next scheduled appointment.

Or the one after that.

Or the one after that.

By the fourth missed appointment, you start to lose hope that you’d ever see him again.

You just hope he’s okay.

______

A sharp knocking noise breaks through your heavy sleep. You roll from the bed, landing gracelessly to the ground and startling Toast, the tabby darting beneath the bed for cover. Another knock sounds through the apartment as you stumble towards the door.

You stand on the tips of your toes to peer through the peephole with bleary eyes. Fumbling with the locks, you pull the door open as quickly as you can.

“König?” You ask breathlessly.

______

The adrenaline from the mission still courses in König’s veins as he tries to wait patiently for you to answer the door to your apartment, but he’s about one minute from either kicking down the door or picking the locks.

He imagines you would likely not appreciate either effort.

But finally, finally, he can hear your soft steps on the other side of the door before the locks disengage and the door is pulled open.

“König?” You ask. You’re wearing a large t-shirt that hits the middle of your thighs, more skin on display for his greedy eyes than he’s ever gotten the chance to see before.

“Liebling,” Konig replies. He steps forward, tentatively crossing the threshold to your home. When you don’t stop him, he takes another step. You look up at him with wide eyes.

“Where…what—,” you stutter, moving aside so that he can fully enter the apartment. He shuts the door behind him.

“Please, liebling, I–,” he starts, words catching in his throat as he looks down at you, the emotions bubbling up his throat. “I need you.”

______

König keeps his eyes trained on you as he unbuckles his helmet, lifting it from his head and dropping it to the floor. Next are the protective braces on his arms and legs, followed by the heavy tac vest and thigh holster.

He lifts the sniper hood, revealing the black balaclava beneath. His chest heaves with harsh breaths as his wide eyes scan your face.

You step forward, wrapping your arms around his middle and squeezing tightly, your head pressed to his chest as you close your eyes and inhale the scent of him.

“Missed you, König,” you murmur. His arms wrap around your shoulders, holding you impossibly tight to his body.

Suddenly you’re lifted from the ground and you squeak with surprise, your legs wrapping around his waist and your arms circling the back of his neck, holding onto him like a koala. The position puts you face to face with the man. His eyes search yours.

“Is this okay?” He asks. All you can do is nod. “Where is your bedroom?”

“Down the hall, last door on the right,” you instruct. König abandons his gear by the door, taking broad steps down the hall in the direction you gave. He gives the door a gentle kick, opening it wide enough to enter.

Toast darts out from beneath the bed, sliding past König’s legs and out to the living area.

He sets you gently on the bed, standing between your spread legs. His eyes remain fixed on yours as he kneels, deft fingers tugging at the laces of his boots.

You could get used to a view like this.

König stands to his full height once he’s removed his boots. A broad, scarred hand cups your cheek tenderly, calloused thumb moving across your cheekbone.

“Mein Liebling," he murmurs. His hand leaves your face and works the fly of his pants open, tugging the rough fabric down over his thighs.

You try very hard not to look but when he curls his fingers into the hem of his combat shirt, you can’t help the greedy way your eyes rove the miles of pale skin.

You take in the muscular thighs that give way to a defined Adonis belt, the cut so severe beneath the waistband of his boxer briefs that you long to trace your tongue along the valley. His abs flex, guiding your exploration up towards his thick chest.

There’s a litany of scars across his body, from smaller bullet wounds to deep slashes covered in thick scar tissue. You reach a hand out, lightly trailing your fingers across one that spans from his collarbone to the middle of his chest.

His hand curls over yours, holding it still against his warm skin. You can feel the frantic beat of his heart beneath your palm.

König’s free hand grasps the top of the balaclava and pulls, finally revealing the face of the man that’s occupied your every free thought over the almost two months you’ve known him.

Shaggy dark blonde hair falls across his forehead, slightly damp with sweat. Thick straight brows over the ice blue eyes framed with long blonde lashes you’ve become so familiar with. A slightly crooked nose and high cheekbones that lead into a strong, stubbled jaw.

There are scars on his face, too. A long silver scar slashes through this eyebrow and across his nose. Another cuts across the high point of his cheek.

He is so beautiful.

You watch as his cheeks turn pink and you belatedly realize you’d said that out loud. You shift to your knees on the mattress, reaching for his hand and pulling him toward you. He plants a knee on the soft surface and you guide him up until you’ve reached the pillows.

Stiffly, he lays beside you, head turned to watch you with those familiar blue eyes. You lay your head on his chest, sighing at the heat of his skin beneath your cheek. You wrap your arm around his waist and throw a leg over his hips, squeezing him tightly.

König doesn’t speak. He has an arm around your body, fingers pressing into the grooves of your ribs to hold you close. You breathe in tandem and his tense muscles begin to relax in your hold.

You shift your leg slightly, eyes going wide as you feel his cock against your knee. Feeling brave, you shift again, dragging your knee along the side of him.

His breathing stutters and you can feel his abs tense beneath you. You slide your hand across his chest, skimming your fingertips across the tight muscles.

“What are you doing, Kleine?” he asks. You lift your head from his chest to look at him.

“I want…can I—,” you stutter, losing your words at the dark look in the man’s eyes.

“I would let you do anything you wanted to me,” König says. “All you have to do is ask.”

You swallow nervously. “Can I touch you?”

“You are touching me,” he replies, a little smirk tilting his lips.

You ghost your hand across his straining length in retaliation. The smirk drops so fast you can’t help the giggle that escapes your lips.

“What happened to all that cockiness, hm?”

“Do not tease.” His hips flex beneath your palm, grinding his cock against your hand. “I have very little patience for it.”

You sit up on your knees beside him, moving one of his thick thighs to the side with a press of your hand so that you can crawl between his legs. He looks down at you with half lidded eyes, an arm thrown behind his head to prop him up to see better. You curl your fingers into the waistband of his boxer briefs.

“Is this okay?” You ask. He nods.

Permission granted, you slowly work the elastic down until his cock bobs free, slapping obscenely against his abs. Your mouth waters at the sight of the thick, uncut length of him.

“Jesus Christ, König,” you mutter. “Where do you think this thing is going to fit?”

“Ideally? Down your throat and then your cunt,” he replies easily. When you look up at him with wide eyes, he grins so brightly you feel like you’re looking into the sun.

And you’d gladly go blind for it.

You lean forward, giving into the urge to dip your tongue against the divot of his hip, running it along the cut of his abs reverently. His hips jolt at the contact, a whine spilling from his plush pink lips.

“Scheiß,” the man growls. “Bitte, baby, please,” he begs.

You let your tongue trail along the underside of his cock, tracing the prominent vein there to the flared head. You swirl your tongue along the tip, gathering the bead of precum and swallowing it greedily.

König’s chest rises and falls rapidly with his heavy breathing, his large hands fisting your blankets so tightly you briefly worry his bones may crack. He watches you intensely, almost like he’s worried you may disappear if he so much as blinks.

“Relax, König,” you coo, wrapping your hand around the base of his cock. “Let me take care of you.”

______

König has to think about the steps for disassembling a rifle to prevent himself from coming down your throat too quickly. The tight wet heat of your mouth feels so heavenly that for a moment, he worries that he may have actually taken a bullet to the chest on this last mission and he is actually in heaven.

But then you swirl your tongue around the sensitive head of his cock when you draw up his length and he realizes there would be no sin as glorious as this in heaven.

You eyes catch his as you slide him to the back of your throat, your lips straining around him as you try valiantly to take more of him than your limit allows. You gag around him, throating tightening exquisitely before you withdraw for a gasp of air.

You return to your task with admirable determination, eyebrows pinched together in concentration as you work to relax your throat and draw him in deeper.

“Just a little more, liebling, you can do it,” he murmurs, cupping your cheek, feeling the bulge of him in your mouth as his thumb traces the stretch of your lips around his cock. “Nimm das alles für mich.”

Your lips meet your small hand that is still wrapped around the base of him and you breathe deeply through your nose as you hold yourself there for a moment, throat fluttering around him. He groans, fighting the urge to flex his hips and drive himself even deeper.

“That’s it,” he whispers. Your eyelashes glisten with little tears, tiny pearls of wetness that speak to your efforts to please him. “That’s my baby.”

You moan around him as you pull back, his cock dropping from your mouth with an obscene pop. Your breathing is labored as you scramble up his body. König’s hands steady you with a grip around your waist as you reach for his face, tugging him into a messy kiss.

It’s a desperate clashing of lips and teeth and tongues that has König groaning, little whimpers slipping past your lips as he explores your mouth. Your teeth nip into his lower lip before trailing down his jaw and neck.

“Let me see you, Schatz,” he asks, a hand sliding up the back of your thigh to grip your ass and grind your body against his.

You flip beside him hastily, tearing your panties down your thighs and pulling your shirt over your head. Gloriously naked, you straddle his waist.

You’ve positioned yourself just out of reach of where he wants to feel you the most. His hands circle your waist, sliding up until his thumbs caress the underside of your breasts.

“So schön, meine liebe,” he murmurs, brushing his thumb across one tight nipple. Your hips flex and roll across his stomach and he can feel the slick wetness drenching his abs.

“König,” you moan, blunt little nails curling into the hard muscle of his pecs. Your head drops back, the long line of your throat calling to his hand.

He gives into the impulse, wrapping his fingers around your delicate neck, not constricting but merely holding. Your eyes go wide, hands gripping his wrist as you lean into the hold, your hips still grinding against him.

“You are making quite the mess,” König comments with a grin. You shudder in his hold. “Do not worry, liebling, I have never been afraid to get dirty.”

You moan, the sound vibrating deliciously against the hand he still holds around your neck. Your hips still over him as your release courses through you, your eyes fluttering shut.

König releases your throat and you sag against him. He runs a hand down your sweat slick back, over the curve of your ass until he can slip a single finger into your still fluttering hole. You gasp against his neck and he smiles.

“So fucking tight,” he groans, working his hand against you. You make little whimpering noises, lips working against his neck as you rock back against him. He eases a second finger into your dripping pussy, which earns him the sting of your teeth against his skin. “Scheiß!”

_______

You push yourself up on shaky arms, staring down into König’s dark eyes. His fingers slip from your pussy and you whine quietly at the loss.

“Wanna fuck you, König, please?” You murmur.

“I would love nothing more,” he says. He takes his cock in hand. “Take it, liebling.”

You lift your hips to position yourself over him, the fat tip of him notched at your entrance as you start your slow descent. The stretch of him is almost too much to bear, and it must show in your face because he drags a soothing hand across your thigh.

“That’s it,” he coos.

You slide another inch further with a whimper. “You’re so fucking big,” you tell him breathlessly. He chuckles, his cock pulsing inside of you and making you moan.

“Just think about how good it will feel when it is all inside of you, mein süße,” he says. “Filling every inch of you.”

You moan, your body accepting another inch. Your thighs shake with your efforts.

König’s hands grip your hips tightly, sure to leave fingertip shaped bruises that you’ll discover in the morning. On a deep breath, you lower yourself until you’re fully seated and stretched to your limit.

“Good fucking girl,” he growls. You meet his eyes, the blue nothing more than a thin ring around his blown pupils. His chest heaves as he breathes that same controlled rhythm you’ve watched him use before.

In…two…three…four…out.

You shift your hips experimentally, gasping at the overwhelming feeling of fullness. He wasn’t kidding about filling every last inch of you.

Pressing your hands to his chest, you lift your hips just barely off of him before dropping yourself back down. He moans, your name a curse and a prayer on his lips as you continue to build up a rhythm for yourself until you’re lifting almost fully off of him and slamming back down.

“Scheiß! Fuck!” König shouts as your pace picks up. “Mein perfekter kleiner Schatz.”

You lean forward to meet his lips, more of a sharing of breath than a kiss. He wraps his arms around your waist, holding you still as he thrusts up into you.

“König!” You cry, the slide and stretch and dull ache of him too much and yet not enough. His powerful thrusts are so deep at this angle that your eyes well with tears. Each drag of his cock from your pussy hits a spot that makes you see stars. “I’m gonna cum, please, König, please make me cum.”

“Anything for you,” he promises through gritted teeth, his hips picking up speed as he uses a hand on your ass to help slam you down on his cock. He turns his head, his nose brushing against yours tenderly in direct contrast to the way his hips pound against you. “Cum for me, engel. Let me see you.”

With a cry, you do just as he commands, your whole body going taught before sparking like a live wire, your release rolling over you so strongly it's more like a tsunami than a wave. He moans against your lips, hips pounding in an erratic speed as he works you through your orgasm and into his own.

“Fill me up, König,” you slur. “Wanna feel you. Bet you’ll get it so deep with your huge fucking cock.”

He comes with a deep groan, pressing up so deep as he spills inside of you that you gasp at the sensation, the warm heat of him filling you to the brim.

You collapse against him, the sweat on your bodies cooling in the chill of your apartment. He presses a kiss to the crown of your head.

“I missed you,” you murmur, tilting your head up to meet his eyes. “I’m glad you’re safe.”

“I will always come back,” he whispers, smoothing the sweat damp hair from your forehead. “So long as you are here for me.”

You tug the blanket from the foot of the bed over your bodies, snuggling into his side. You enjoy the quiet together, his fingers drifting up and down your back. The rapid patter of paws on the wood floor announces the approach of your cat.

The orange tabby hops on the bed, walking on light feet until he reaches the pillow König rests his head on. He curls up along the top of the man’s head, purring contentedly.

“Hello, Toast,” he says. His eyes flick to you. “This is a good sign, yes?”

“I’d say it was an excellent sign,” you reply, kissing the man’s cheek. He smiles.

“Good. Because I think I will be here a while.”

Translations:

Scheiße - fuck

Danke - thank you

mein herz - my heart

Mein Liebling - my darling

Kleine - little one

Bitte - please

Nimm das alles für mich - take it all for me

Schatz - treasure

So schön, meine liebe - so beautiful, my love

mein süße- my sweet

Mein perfekter kleiner Schatz - my perfect little darling

engel - angel

[netherfeildren]

Busy, Dying. Part 2;

Pairing: Joel Miller x F!Reader

Summary: In an in-between place called his life, Joel Miller is alone. In search of a cure. In need of a miracle. In want of God.

Can I interest you in a cure for loneliness? She'd asked him in a language without words. Taking it is the easy part. Letting her go is impossible.

-OR-

an a/b/o soulmates AU

Rating: Explicit 18+

Content Warnings: No Outbreak AU, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Soulmates AU, Infidelity, Cheating, They're behaving badly and doing things they shouldn't be doing idk, HEA!!!!!, Angst, Fluff & Smut, Scenting, Angst with a Happy Ending, Group Therapy, Social Experiments, Explicit Sexual Content, Dom/sub Undertones, Complicated family dynamics, Discussions of self harm, Depression, Existential Angst, He’s a loser your honor!!!

Word Count: 6.3K

Read on AO3

Part 2;

It is your own conspiracy that if you say the words three times in the mirror—I am so alone I am so alone I am so alone—the feeling will go away. Banished ghost. 

You commit yourself to this practice religiously for three weeks before you feel you must absolutely return to the meetings held in the basement of the Emmanuel Episcopal Church or you might just die. 

The first Friday back, you watch him. He blunders around the crowd, struggling to find a seat when he rushes in late that evening, trying to sit as far away from you as possible and, to his great misfortune, ending up right behind you. Squashed between two old ladies, his big body comically trying to fold itself into the tight rows. You laugh at him the whole way through the meeting. 

He’s like a raging bull after that. Scowly and unapproachable as the omegas in the group inevitably make their meager attempts to talk to him. It makes it all the more irreconcilable, a man like that here in a place like this—all the while with a wife at home. 

You wonder about her. 

“That one has a bad temper,” Maria warns as the two of you watch him. They seem to know each other in some way outside of this church, and it takes everything in you not to beg for details. “Big and hairy like a bad, lonely dog.”

You say, “I think he’s shy.” 

She watches you very peculiarly after that, and tells you, “You’re lost, girl. Joel Miller isn’t what you need finding you.”

But you know this, you assure her, and you continue to avoid him. 

The following Friday, he’s the one playing the disappearing act. The next week, as well—no show. You start to dread even your own shadow, wondering where he is, wondering if he’s ever coming back, if he has children and how old he is. Wondering if he wonders about you. Wondering why you’re so obsessed.

Too full of curiosity for your own good, you hover when he finally appears once again. Circling him and Maria, desperate for any sort of information. 

His wife had been sick, he says. He’d had to take her to the doctor. 

You wonder if her sickness might be his baby—sick to your stomach at the thought of it yourself. 

Finally, the week after, the two of you break your fast from one another. 

“You’ve been ignoring me,” he says, coming up from behind, ambushing you once again at the dessert and coffee trough. This is supposed to be a safe space, yet it feels anything but with him near. 

“No I haven’t.”

“You’re not supposed to tell lies in church. It’s a sin.”

“I don’t believe in sin.” You turn to face him, and your stomach hurts. 

He’s got on a dark green fisherman’s sweater—well worn but knit sturdy. A thing that looks as if it’s been his for years. 

You’re feeling thin-skinned and unable to face him today, and for no good reason. You don't know this man. You have no right to punish him with your silence, no right to be angry, to wonder about him. But that sternness from before, the one that looked too heavy for him to carry, has been wiped away from his face now, and in its place he only looks very earnest, like he really wants to talk to you. And it’s only that, well you don’t know him, yes, but you’d felt that you needed to, or that you would. That you were meant to find him in this place, and you’re angry at yourself and at him at how wrong you’d been, still even after all these weeks of radio silence while he’d been busy caring for his sick wife. 

“Me either,” he gives a small huff of laughter, shoving his fists into the pockets of his dark jeans. 

Setting the donut in your hand back on the table—rude and gross, but it’s an afterthought—you wipe your sweet sweaty palm against your hip, appetite all gone now. The basement is suddenly unbearably hot, your heart beating in your throat. 

“Anywho, I gotta run. Somewhere to be—” you mumble, brushing past him. There’s a sudden rush of itching heat burning its way up your chest, your throat, ants crawling over your scalp. The room is stifling, your limbs leaden and too many bodies; so many disgusting, clashing scents: pheromones, and desperation and such terrible loneliness, and him at the center of it, ambrosial.

You’ll have to recite your mantra more faithfully in the mirror every night, not a single miss. Remind yourself, I am so alone, so that the feeling might go away, and you’ll forget him and the way he smells and his eyes like amber green river stones, more quickly. 

“Whoah, hold on,” he calls after you, following to the exit and up the steps to the world outside of this church. You’d brought a coat today, unable to enjoy the cold the way you usually do, uncharacteristically chill, aching limbs, miserable in the biting morning air. He calls your name, and you clutch the wool against your chest, trying to hurry away from his much longer legs and pace as he catches up. 

Suddenly, though, you change your mind. Whirling around to look up, you stop your running, and he’s right there, so close. “I haven’t been ignoring you. You were gone.” Mind changing again, your gaze falls, unable to hold his eyes. You watch his left hand flex like he wants to do something with it. 

“I know. I’m sorry.”

A scoff. “What are you apologizing to me for?” 

“You’re the most interesting person I’ve ever met in my entire life.” He says it quietly by way of explanation, like another apology. 

“You must not have met very many interesting people.”

It feels hot and cold at the same time out here. Your stomach still hurts. Your eyes ache as if you could cry, which is ridiculous because you have absolutely no reason to cry. 

“Maybe not,” he says very low. It seems he’s drifting closer, like you’ll float away. A car honks its horn loudly somewhere in the background, and you still can’t look at his face. His own coat is clutched in his fist and now the honker is shouting too, expletives and God’s name being taken in vain. 

“You should go back in there,” you tip your chin at the depths you’d just fled from, stealing a quick glance at his face, “Find someone else who’s interesting.”

He grunts once, a wordless no and lifts his coat to drape it over your shoulders—you decide you’re even colder now, you don’t think you’ll ever be warm again—and takes yours from your listless grip, draping it over his elbow. 

This man. “Aren’t you here to get to know people?” You demand, finally looking up at him angrily. 

“No,” he shakes his head. “Let’s go for a walk.” His palm at your bicep urging you towards Arlington and the garden sends all sound skittering out of your ears. He reminds you of your earlier words, that he might like to walk, and you can hear yourself agreeing while you look up at the muted light of the late November afternoon leaching through the cloud cover. Through the wool and cotton you feel your skin sucking heat from that singular point of contact, warming you entirely.

It had been blisteringly cold last night, the alluring taste of incumbent winter in the air, and a vicious frost had ermined all the tree trunks within the Boston Public Garden, roughened the surface of the grass. 

Joel chooses a quiet spot by the pond, the willow weeps above your head and all around the two of you the sharp autumn air is lightly laced with the fragrance of leaf rot. An elderly couple floats serenely in a lone swan boat at the center of the pond, not a ripple in the surface, as if they weren’t really there. 

Helping you to sit, he gently pulls his coat from your shoulders, laying the garment for you to rest on protected from the frigid ground and carefully looping your arms through your own coat now, he pulls the excess fabric of his up, draped over your shoulders once again, leaving you securely enveloped from the cold. 

“Here, let me help you,” he says, and the sudden gentleness in his voice makes you want to burst into tears. His character, that of some matryoshkin sort, one embedded in another in another, never knowing which is the realest one, the truest one, which will come next. Angry snarling dog one day, a gentleness that burns the next. You have the sense that a person could know him for decades and still never reach the center, never cease to discover more. 

Sitting before you—you perch alone on the island of his given coat—he tilts his head, leaning back braced on thick arms to look up at the swaying vines with just an impression of brilliant yellow-green, as if that were the color of the air. A sudden breeze stirs the softness of his hair, lifting a stubborn cowlick, and at that exact moment, the cloud cover parts on the face of the sun. In the brilliant shaft of buttered sunlight, his dark curls glint with specks of purest silver, leaving you wishing you could touch the fan of fine lines at the corner of his eyes, feel his age with your fingertips. 

“You’re angry with me,” he finally says, head still tilted towards the sky. You watch him very closely, learning. His voice is deep, quiet. He looks tired, the violet shadows beneath the brilliant hazel eyes. Still beautiful, the full, slightly sulky curve of his mouth surrounded by dark beard. He is everything, all of him, masculine. 

“It doesn’t matter.”

Finally, he looks at you, too. He’s got a big head, proportionate to his big body, that falls back heavily. You can’t help smiling at him, it feels too natural. 

“Now you’re honest.”

“I wouldn’t tell a lie here,” you say, and he sighs like you’re a supremely difficult little omega, too impossible to be reasoned with. But turning back to the sky, eyes closed now, there’s a smile across his mouth also, and you wish the two of you could sit here and laugh forever in this moment.

The silence between the two of you is marvelous enough to be unnerving. Settled beneath his great coat, you’d never believed you could feel the cold so little—learning every fine detail that makes up the man. Even inches away from him, he seems utterly unattainable, each of the two of you existing on your separate islands—you trace the woolen edge of his coat against the ground—some twenty years your senior and married. But the cold has given you such a feeling of grounding buoyancy. You’d awoken angry, miserable, so full of despair you would’ve been sick with it if it were possible. And now—you hadn’t felt this alive or awake in years, perhaps your entire life. He is a marvel, and there are bubbles in your head threatening to take you floating away, and yet, your feet are firmly melded to the ground in reality. 

How attractive, how delicious the prospect of intimacy is with someone who you know will never grant it. It fills you with something ferocious or hungry or snapping, something pathetic that makes you want it all the worse. And he, with a gravitational pull too strong to even think of escaping.

Yes. You hadn't felt so happy in years. 

“How old are you?” Breaking the silence, you ask him.

“Forty three.”

“You have a brother.” He nods. “I have one too.”

“Do you speak to yours? I don’t.”

“He calls me once a month. It’s all he can bear of me.”

“Mine won’t speak to me.” He sounds sad saying so. 

“Why not?”

“I hurt him. Scared him.”

“My brother, he says my whole life is papier-mâché. My values are all wrong, I’m a crowd-pleaser. It’s probably true.” You’d felt it impossible to better yourself, and yet still, you tried for him. “How did you hurt him?”

“You can’t change a man, only make him more secure. Depending on his character that may then bring happiness or strength or success. Tommy’s failure of this in me was more than he could bear, also.”

The willow becomes your confessional. “I spiked my own drink once just to see what it would be like. A doctor told me afterwards that I have self destructive tendencies. I want to hurt myself, but I don’t want to actually feel the hurt, which makes me all the more addicted to it. A supernumerary on the stage of my own life, too afraid of hurting and hungry for it at the same time.”

The heel of his left hand, you notice, is bearing down on an old acorn burr, and yet he seems not to feel the pain. 

He’s looking at you very intently now. Some glimmering streak in his eye. It almost looks aggressive, and a muscle flutters madly at the edge of his jaw. He straightens, sitting up to face you. The acorn burr is left flattened and disfigured in his wake.

“The last doctor I saw told me I was depressed. I never went back after.”

“Are you?”

He laughs surprisingly full of humor and then instantly serious again. “Probably. I’ve been watching my life, scratching at it trying to get in. I can’t. It’s right there.” The matryoshka shuffles, locked in his melancholy one moment, spilling brightness the next. 

You want to understand him so badly your hands shake with it. 

“What’s your favorite thing about your work?” You ask him. 

Where does his wife think he is right now?

“That’s a nice question. Maybe…” he thinks a moment, “Getting to make things that’ll go in people’s homes. The idea that something that came from me will be surrounded by a family.”

You can’t help yourself. “Why aren’t you at home?” You ask him imploringly, unbearably sad for him, sick with need, desperate to understand what it is he’s doing here, and all at once, utterly certain of what it is you are. “Don’t you love your wife?” The question is posed with no bravery, and yet it still comes out into the world demanding. 

He clicks his tongue, taken aback, a shocked breath, maybe even a small, reproving smile. A hundred different emotions coming to life across his face in that single moment. 

“I don’t know,” he finally answers. “I remember loving her. Maybe. At best? She’s a stranger. At worst? An excuse?” But he says it like a question. He’s asking you, not telling, for he isn’t even sure of it himself. You’ve caught him off guard. 

“No…” the click of his tongue snapping you to attention, “That's too generous. We’re trapped in a box together, but completely strange to one another.” It suddenly feels like he shouldn’t be telling you this—about her. You’re sure he shouldn’t be. 

“Do you hate each other?” You ask anyway. There’s something…your only example of love and marriage being two people who had always hated one another and filled the home where their children lived with more hate. It’s difficult to fathom something different than what that had looked like. 

If you were truly brave, you’d ask if he has children, too. 

“No,” he says immediately, a non option, his brow furrowed. “That would take too much effort.” 

Now you understand. He’s alone anyways. The feeling of urgency within you mounts. You’re frightened by this moment of discovery. 

“You’re Southern. Your accent…” You can’t discuss this anymore, needing to change the subject. 

“Texas.”

“When did you leave?”

“Long time ago.”

“Do you miss it?”

At his, he laughs like the question is ironic. “No. Where are you from?”

“Sometimes it feels like I can’t even remember.”

And as if he’d pulled the feeling straight from your mouth, he tells you that he understands what that’s like, and you can’t help it when you reach for his hand, being as careful with him as you would any shy creature, needing to hold him. 

-

“I’ve never been in love,” you tell him, childish look of recklessness and valor coming across your face as you pick up on the earlier thread of conversation you’d frightened yourself with. “It seems too daring, even grotesque.” 

He thinks he wants to capture that look in a bottle and take it everywhere with him. His entire body throbs with a heartbeat and the shape of your hand fits his as if every joint and muscle and soft ligament had been specifically designed for him to hold, filled suddenly with a terrible sense of foreboding. Looking at you, one just knows there’ll be a broken heart. 

Your small thumb smooths gently over his large one, and he marvels that such an exquisite creature would touch him. God, but you’re beautiful. Your touch, soft and enticing and painful all at once. No one had ever been so gentle with him.

“Won’t you tell me a secret?” You beg.

He will. He might give you anything in this moment. In the weeks he’d been kept away, he’d desperately counted the days and minutes until he could return to that place of worship and honesty. 

“I think about you,” voice hushed, the shaking of the leaves not loud enough to mask the soft breath you suck in as he gives you his confession. He maps the architecture of the small hands in his grasp, fingers tracing fingers, uncured clay fragile before the heat. He feels tired and strangely spent, almost drunk on your touch. His thumb slides upwards, marveling at the softness of your wrist, and then there, beneath the shivering distraction of your pulse and his disturbing search, the unlocked fragrance of your scent gland. It drifts towards him slowly like smoke rising from sleep.  

The air seems to pulse between the two of you with heat and premonition. That singular moment before everything goes terribly wrong, he can see it in your eyes. Such vibrancy, excitement, recklessness turned danger. 

“We should…” you feel him begin to pull away, grappling to hold on to the moment and his hand, “We should fuck.” He takes himself back, letting you go. Where else was this being led?

He cringes away from you. “Excuse me?” 

“Sex. You’ve had it before.” His mind reels. His body’s reaction at hearing your mouth say these things, the way it shapes them, the soft, full lips wrapped around the words.  

Looking away, he watches the pond’s couple help each other out of the swan. In his periphery, he can see you begin to bristle at his silence. 

“Don’t be peevish. It’s unbecoming.” 

He can’t help feeling angry. “I’m not. I’m old enough to be your father.” And you laugh at him. You’re deviating paths now, going opposite ways and angry at one another for it. 

“We could pretend that—if that’s what you want,” you say, voice husky and seductive. A small palm smooths up his thigh and his gaze snaps fire at you, hand clamping painfully at your wrist, fingernails digging at your gland, disturbing more of that gorgeous scent into the air. 

You make a pained sound. He needs to leave. He needs to never see you again.

“Don’t be disgusting,” he shoots back, hot everywhere. 

“Don’t be a prude.” He flings your wrist away, and you cradle it against your chest as if he’d hurt you. The heat turns to guilt pulsing through his limbs. 

Warring to wounded then, your eyes. You wrap your fingers around your discarded wrist. “What if we lose everything? What if tomorrow’s the end of the world? What if we’re so thoroughly cured of our loneliness after all this is done, we never feel like we need another person this way again?” 

His muscles tense with the need to flee or attack, the thought of you needing him, of being needed in such a way—he’s like some creature coming upon its mate. 

Despite his age, he had never tried to truly seduce anyone. He had never truly wanted anyone. Not in any real and base sort of way. Desire for him had been a mute and ordinary thing. But he could have you now, turned into a thing he’d never been before, he could mount you and rut you into the dirt like an animal. Never so much a product of his designation as he feels in this instant. 

He can’t even form word, and your body seems to pulse against his with embarrassed heat and indignation. 

“Have you ever even fucked an omega?” You spit at him meanly. 

“We shouldn’t be talking about this.” Voice carefully restrained, each syllable off his tongue is measured with his tenuous control. 

“Tell me anyways,” you demand, shoving his coat off your shoulders being the thing that almost makes him lose it. 

“It’s cold. Put that back on.”

“Tell me.” And he shouldn’t. You should have no sway over him. No demand of his honesty or anything else that belongs to him.

“Once. Only because I wanted to know what it was like.” He’s man enough to admit to himself the embarrassment he feels telling you this.

But it seems to quell some tremor in your eyes, and you sit back, palm petting at your throat as if you’re trying to soothe yourself. 

“I’m sorry,” you say, gaze averted, glassy, delirious look there. “I’ve always gotten my feelings hurt easily. I’m—” you shake your head quickly, sucking on your lip. “...too sensitive. Sometimes I feel like I’ll float away if I don’t find anyone to hold me down.” 

He should tell you that you’re not, wants to, but the image of you weak and pinned beneath him churns in his mind. Whole body aching suddenly, needing his hands on you before he does something truly heinous—he straightens abruptly, abandoning your reassuring warmth. Feeling suddenly cold despite the sweat dotting his spine. 

Without another word he turns to leave you there, alone, while the swan pair watches from across the pond as the two of you part ways. 

The next morning he awakens stiff and burning, his cock a brand of heat against his stomach. And works his entire day in a static haze, lavender spots at the edge of his vision where all he can think about is how you smell and the way your hand feels in his. By five o’clock, his fingers ache, spasming painfully from gripping his tools too hard. Breaking his weeks-long habit, he decides to attend the Saturday night meeting, full of constrained energy and sullen moodiness. Reasoning that a pretty, young girl like you wouldn’t waste her weekend in the basement of a church abandoned by God. 

And is sick to his stomach with equal measures elation and dread when he spots you sitting amongst the crowd of metal folding chairs—wearing his coat. He doesn’t hesitate even a little when he claims the seat next to yours. 

The two of you sit in strained silence the entire meeting, the other alphas and omegas surrounding throwing alarmed and intrigued glances your way as the tension brews hotter and more frenzied. 

His body hurts. This is a painful kind of lust. 

He listens to the speakers tonight with only half an ear, instead, occupied with the memory of what you’d looked like the other week eating a jelly and cream filled donut, imagining what your mouth would look like smeared with his blood and come. He can smell your body, how hot and trembling nervous you are. So unlike all that blistering, innocent valor from yesterday. 

The omega with the cruel husband turned sick one is taking her turn again tonight. Now that he looks at her, she has hair that at one time was vibrant red, now turned a softened copper threaded through with white. Time is such a painful, slow thing, Joel thinks. 

“Have you ever been with someone you knew you were too good for?” The omega asks the room, while the one beside him begins to shake, knee jolting nervously.

You’re anxious, and it makes him angry that you should be made so by his actions. 

Too rough for forbearance, his palm clamps down tightly on your knee, holding it still, and you make some supplicant whimper at the back of your throat. Almost imperceptibly, you draw away from him, the line of your shoulders growing rigid, and a wild, irrational sense of loss steals his breath. 

He’s been so busy lately, distracted. He’s hungry, overstrained, anxious himself. He doesn’t mean to be brusque with you. He just can’t help himself. 

Would we be here if we had? Someone lost in the crowd pipes back. 

The woman laughs, she has a kind face. “Me either.” You shove his palm off your leg as if it burns. “But there was someone… once. A chance, maybe. Someone I didn’t choose but should have. We were friends. We came very close to being happy.” 

And he suddenly feels a wave of desolation so overwhelming wash over him. He turns to look at you, your vibrating profile, so pretty, and he’s gentle this time when he touches your knee. Just to feel you. How terrible, he thinks, to only come very close to being happy. 

The speaker changes, and then it’s Maria’s voice talking to them all. Joel still can’t look away from you as you, in turn, refuse to look at him. “Stop, Joel,” you whisper. But he can’t. 

“At the start of this, we usually discuss a second option for those of you who aren’t able to find what you’re looking for in this. Sometimes it’s not so simple,” Maria tells them. 

A miracle move on drug, she calls it. 

The group’s coalition is sponsored by a pharmaceutical company, one testing a cure for loneliness. Something they think of as pilled perfection, something to numb the pain of loss. Any emotional wound, now with the potential to be a thing of the past. The young omega handing out the pamphlets had promised an easy cure, it seems this is what he’d been referring to. And if the potential side effects included an inability to hold on to any sort of emotional attachment afterward, well, the encounter groups they’d targeted thus far were grateful for it in the end anyway. They were all alone after all. 

“It’ll help you let go of everything you can’t let go of,” Maria tells them. “Help make you forget. Help make you un-lonely. We’ll be holding a session Wednesday morning for anyone who’s interested in being part of the trial. Our sponsor company, Firefly, is very happy to welcome as many of you as possible.” 

Beside him, you whisper, “Only a coward would take that option. What a cheat.” He hesitates, perplexed and wounded by your words. 

“You’ll never have to grieve or miss something you can’t get back, ever again. I know that for many of you, this is the ultimate fantasy,” Maria says.

“I think it sounds like something to help let go. Like what I came here for.”

You exchange cards. Now it’s your turn, the wounded look. 

When Maria’s through, bidding the group goodnight and setting them all free to mingle, you’re up and out of your seat before he can get a word in. He watches you go as if he were some sort of abandoned lapdog, only for a second, before he’s once again, striding after you. 

You weave almost drunkenly through the crowd, first heading towards the exit, then to the beverage station, then correcting and veering towards the back hall where the restrooms and catechism classrooms are. 

Gaining on you, he takes you by the elbow, pushing you deep into the darkness of the long hallway. Going far enough the din of desperate socialization turns a quiet murmur. You’re really in the belly of the beast now. So quiet and dust infused it feels as if it’s been years since a soul stepped through here. 

“What’s wrong with you?” Your face glows with fevered sweat. 

“I’m sick,” you mumble on the tail end of a whine when he shakes your arm into responsive compliance. “Let me go. Stop,” you fight, trying to claw away from him.

“No you’re not.”

“Yes, I am. I threw up all night. And you have the personality of a snarling dog more than a man. Has anyone ever told you that?” Shoving at his chest now feebly.

Ignoring your caterwauling, he takes you in entirely. “You’re not sick,” he says again, sure now. 

There’s a timeless hunger gnawing at his gut. Joel suddenly feels more himself than he think he’s ever felt in his entire life. 

Dragging you high against his chest by the collar of his own coat, he brings the tip of his nose slowly to the valley of sweet fragrance at the side of your throat. Inhaling deeply at the flushed, swollen scent gland there. The sound of your toes scuffing against the floor excites him even more. 

“You’re not sick. You’re going into heat,” he says slowly; gathering the overwhelmed, shivering creature as gently as he can in his arms. 

Your fingers claw at his own throat in return, as if digging for his own answering scent. “No. But it’s not time. I had one not so long ago.” You sound on the verge of tears, and he makes a deep, soothing sound in his chest. “My blockers...I— I can’t be. It’s not time yet.”

“It’s a breakthrough heat.” His other hand comes around to the small of your back and ever so slowly, he presses your hips closer to his. “It’s mine. Because of me.”

“No.” You shove back with renewed strength suddenly, spinning around to scurry deeper down the dark hall and then careening on weak legs into an abandoned classroom. 

Heart beating madly at the prospect of the hunt, he takes a singular calming breath before he’s prowling after the sound of your crying. 

-

“You need to not run from me right now. It’ll make my rut come faster,” his deep voice comes from somewhere in the dark unknown. 

You scramble around the children’s desks, weaving your way clumsy with disorientation to the far end of the classroom. You don’t want to go into heat right now. You can’t. Not with him. You need to be safe and alone in the confines of your warm, comfortable bedroom, far away from the temptation of him.

His heavy, panting breath sounds closer and there’s a shriek in your throat like a struggling kitten. 

“You want me to lose my self control. That’s what this is, isn’t it?” There’s a loud crash as he shoves one of the little desks out of his way, followed by your answering shriek. And then he’s here, coming up behind you but finding mercy enough to hold himself back at the last moment, panting as if he’d just run miles fighting against himself. 

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m sorry. Come here, baby. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you. It’s okay.” He takes a step closer, and the slowing of his breath and soothe of his voice calms you in turn. “You’re only going into heat, that’s all, sweet girl. I’ve triggered it for you and I’m sorry. Let me come to you.”

You let out a high and harried sound, palm smoothing over your throat over and over again. “Joel,” you say once.

“I’m here. It’s okay.”

“It’s only that—”

“What is it?”

“I have to tell you something.”

“Tell me.”

“I’m embarrassed.” A helpless tear spills out over the edge of your eyelid. 

“You’ve nothing to be embarrassed about with me. Ever. We understand each other, you and I. Don’t we?”

And he’s right of course. You’d picked his face out of the crowd in instant recognition, after all. “I’ve had heats…but I’ve never—never had a, a heat with someone. With an alpha.” 

He’s utterly silent and you feel deranged enough you’re almost certain you can hear the pound of his heart inside his chest.

“You’ve never had a knot take your cunt?”

“No.” You swallow. “Never.”

You hear a muttered fuck, and his breathing goes quick and shallow and then even again. He has better control over himself than you do at this moment. 

“Then how?”

You flush full of heat, embarrassed. “T—toys,” you stutter. “Medication to help ease it.”

When he steps closer, only calm accompanies him. All is suddenly quiet. You want him. Your disjointed mind, overwhelmed by too many confusing emotions had gone into overdrive for a moment, but now, with the scent of hot, aggravated alpha surrounding you, it’s obvious this was all you’d needed to calm down. 

You can feel his hot breath against your forehead, the wash of heat on each exhale and the lingering scent of sweet musk at his inhale. You touch his cheek with shaking fingers and feel him turn ever so slightly into your palm, and then he’s bending slowly. 

First, it’s a soft, wet nudge of his mouth, your bodies held apart. Then his strong nose bumping into the side of yours, the splendor of inexperience turning to knowing, a nuzzle. Coming in again hungry, with the slick of tongue now, and the deep inhale of shock at first taste. Your breaths rush through one another, and you feel yourself backing away in maybe fear, more likely overwhelm, but his mouth follows your retreat and then his palms are at your waist, tugging you into himself, pressing you tightly to his body with a ragged groan. 

“Your mouth…Your mouth is so beautiful,” he says.

Everything in your lower belly cramps in painful agony, and you scratch at his arms and neck without much strength, trying to climb higher and take more of him into your mouth. Oh, you want this so badly. You want it to be everything you’ve dreamed of so obsessively the past weeks. Nothing else in the world exists except for your two mouths pressed together.

His lips burn a wet path across your cheekbone, sliding to the side of your neck to suckle at your scent gland. “Fuck.” His scraped teeth along the patch of sensitive skin. “Have you had sex before?” The question is gentle, understanding, his tongue tasting your sensitive earlobe, head ducking suddenly to give a sharp bite at your breast. 

“Yes.” His erection is pressed firm at your belly, hot even through his jeans and your sweater. His large body radiates heat. At your back, his palm finds the edge of your top, sliding underneath to make first contact, blistering skin against blistering skin. 

“But not an alpha.” He says it smugly, the bastard. Palm sliding down to your rump, tucking you more tightly against his hard cock. You shake your head at the crook of his neck, fingertips twisting in the back of his hair. Your breath comes in wet little pants that sound too pathetic to bear. 

“It’s going to feel so good,” he promises, rubbing slow circles low on your back with that wide, strong palm. “It’s different. It’s…” That palm slides lower, squeezees the curve of your ass. “It’s ordinary if it isn’t with someone…special. If there’s not the possibility of—” 

You tell him you understand what he’s trying to say. 

“I think it’ll be so good between us,” he finishes. 

At the waist of your skirt, his fingers press between your skin and the stretch of your tights, forcing his large hand into their confines. Your breath skips into his open mouth, panting into one another he cups you between your legs and suddenly all you can focus on is the tight ache there, the nylon soaked obscenely between your thighs. His arm around your back squeezes you tighter to his chest and his fingertips are pushing past lace edge to feel the slick swell of wet cunt. 

“Oh, Joel. Not here,” you moan. “Someone will come in.” He’s circling your clit, so sensitive and so swollen it hurts. You tug him impossibly closer, and he presses you back into the cold stone wall. “We can’t in a church.” Your protestations sound weak even to your own ears as you spread your legs wider for him. 

“I don’t give a fuck.”

He takes your mouth again, sucking deeply, groaning even deeper when he presses inside of you to the first knuckle. “Tight, baby,” he breathes into your neck, his hips slowly grinding into your pelvis. 

He feeds you more, then presses a second finger, holding still for a second, then another. Panting like a rabbit caught in a trap with three of his too thick fingers stuffed in your overstretched cunt. The sound of popping seams moves up your spine. 

“Can feel your little cunt shaking around me. Jesus—” he groans. It’s all mine, whispered into your hair. 

Suddenly, there’s the open and close of a door nearby. And then the sound of someone’s voice calling your names. Joel huddles you further into the dark corner, confined by the protection of his body, his fingers still moving in and out of you, stretching you well enough to burn as he presses as deeply as he can and with the utmost gentleness, pets lightly at the painfully sensitive mouth of your cervix. Humming in satisfaction at the feel of you. 

“Right there?” He hums. 

You’re crying, clutching at him even more tightly. Your name sounds again, being searched for, like a warning. 

“If I fuck you, nobody else ever will.” His voice is so dark it’s menacing. It’s recklessness, verging on a lie. Maybe it’s hope. 

Pressing lightly again, petting, petting, he pulls his fingers back a little, the loud sucking sound of your cunt trying to hold onto him, and you’re coming for him, crying into his neck, sucking on his scent gland so that the taste of him floods your mouth. The sound of a door opening, and you hear him growl at someone to fuck off in a very scary voice, his fingers never ceasing their steady thrust inside of your clenching sex, and the frightened slam of a door. 

“It’s alright. You’re alright. That’s my good girl,” he pets and soothes at you, pressing a kiss to your temple, your eyelids, your mouth again and again.

Part 3;

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