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richeeduvie · 1 month ago

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hey👋 😊🤗

where’s wedding bells pt.2 😠😾🔫

Wedding Bells (Part Two)

Stewy H. x Reader, Roman R. x Reader (complicated), Kendall R x Reader (minor, minor as in what Baby was when she was groomed by him) here yall go damn!! (jk it's been long overdue after my failures I love u guys)

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.

PART ONE (OUT OF FIVE), AUTHOR MASTERLIST After assuring Roman that Stewy being your date was nothing but a platonic necessity for Shiv's wedding, the start of the night has decided on proving you wrong. It's much to your dismay...maybe not so much Stewy's (for the most part), but most certainly Kendall's. Knowing the aspects of the "DogandBone!AU" do help add content to both parts of this story, but you do not need to read anything prior to understand it. If you would like to, you can go onto my masterlist linked and browse through the masterlists/content of my succession characters. All are content for DAB!AU. Or you can simply search up the tag. (Stewy's POV next!)

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.

The ceremony was beautiful, vows mandated. Knowing Tom as your technical boss, you're sure he wanted to say something from the heart. Knowing Shiv...Shiv, Shiv, your only girl friend Shiv...you know she wouldn't have that.

Roman took to looking bored next to Tabitha. You caught him making quips to her and you hate to wonder what he was saying, if he'd tell you the same things if you were his date.

Or maybe there's just some different with you that you wouldn't get the default comments out of Roman. Something just for you.

Maybe that's true for the past, before Tabitha and the now. You hate to think that, you think to not be over it already - you were asking Roman the what ifs of finding someone for you and you've got nothing to show for being ready to find that someone. That not-Roman.

Almost. Not really. No, you won't say you do have something to show for you. That something being taking looks at Stewy in the aisles.

Feeling your heart skip when he caught you taking those looks.

You were to not figure what the fuck Stewy was thinking at your stares when you were supposed to be gooey-goo over the new marriage of your friend. You were and are to not think about the way he met your eyes. You were to not notice the way Roman's head quickly, curtly snapped to follow where you were looking.

And now it's time for pictures!

"Has new, tanner dick brought you cause to lie to me?"

Roman kicks the grass, cut and too green underneath the both of you. What he's wearing isn't much different than his suits day to day at Waystar, but he looks nice. You don't know how to feel about how you don't feel the warm roll throughout your body at the sight of him handsome. Like he's not your boyfriend anymore.

He never was, he wasn't ever anything but the only person you've ever been in love with. Felt your loins on fire for, if you want to be gross about it.

You tilt your head.

"What?"

They're flashing pictures of just the bride and groom and it leaves Roman to whine to you on the sidelines. Stewy...in fact him and Kendall are nowhere to be found. You just know it's got something to do with whatever will ruin this family again. It'll be by tonight and forgiven in two weeks. At least the way you've grown into Roman over the years isn't something of a complete waste, you get understand the family you're working for for the rest of fucking time. Life.

Frank waves to you, you wave back.

"Ow! What the fuck?"

Roman's slapped your hand down mid-wave.

"You told me you just needed a date and you were too stupid to go with the obvious three-way Tabitha and I offered. Okay. I accepted that like I wasn't being fucked, but then you're fucking Stewy with your eyes, opening legs with your irises at my sister's wedding. Bridesmaid gangbang."

"...Are the bridesmaids gangbanging Stewy?"

Roman's brows are perpetually down, nose flared. You've shat on the grass, basically. The joke's bombed.

"You. Stewy...and his of color cock and his smarmy eyes. You think you can find out the number to his shaft shade by now? With all the times you've-"

Your eyes dart to where his fist opens and closes, then to where his neck rolls and head jolts. It's like a visual cough.

"Jesus Christ, you know what? Let me just not quip bullshit, I can be serious. I think I deserve that, maybe?" He sniffs.

And there it is...or there it isn't. No automatic, instinctual rush to comfort Roman and hold him or punish his insecurities with teases or insults punchier than his. Nothing.

Because you see Stewy coming up behind him.

You've always noticed he holds himself well, ever since you were younger. But now...no.

But then, you look into Roman's eyes, brown - facing rejection or no-care he's always so sure of. You sigh.

There it is. The rush.

Roman leans into your palm on his bicep.

"I'm going to ask if you've been keeping track of how many times you've ridden him. Or he's ridden you. You've taken to American Paint Horses."

"...When the fuck did you know pony breeds?"

"When you started fucking the brown kind."

Jesus. Roman.

"Roman! Fucking cool it. You're being...like, racist. Cartoonishly racist over something that you've made up in your head."

"It's not racist. Stewy's brown. Shocker. You went from me, not brown, to him. That's a fact. I didn't press negatives onto the color of his cock or our cultural differences in...fetishes."

Roman blinks, he turns to Stewy smiling at you before he's talking to Kendall.

"And did I make it up? Really."

You blink. You sigh.

It just slips out.

"You went from me to Tabitha. Should I whine?"

The words already leave a bad taste in your mouth once they leave it. They're not even particularly jealous-sounding, it's more of a casual tease to bite Roman and his hypocrisy. Still, it reeks on your tongue - it's a gag of admittance and by Roman's smug fucking face, you know he knows it too.

It's a slow growing smugness, too. First it's comprehension of what you said in the first place, then it's realization - life breathed onto his face.

Complete satisfaction.

....She still likes me. Wants me. Fuck it, knew it. Her vagina cares enough to be jealous. Knew it, knew it. Knew it. Thank God, I thought I was fucking done for and ready to be shot out back.

"I'm joking, but it's also a genuine question...because you're doing that over something you're making up in your head, Rom."

Roman puts his hands on his hips, lips pursing out.

"I just question the stares, you baby. That's all I'm doing. It's fair, they were like - fucky eyes."

No.

You don't know what they were.

"No. They weren't. And I-"

"Okay, now the family together!"

You turn to the photographer, Roman doesn't.

"I don't think you get to think over who I stare at, may-"

"Fuck you. Of course I do. I don't deny you from commenting on Tab's love for me as a result of pussy envy. I don't. I won't...and we..."

Roman turns to his family gathering, Shiv's blinking quick at him. It's like she's cursing at him to hurry the fuck up. He turns back.

"We can talk about it. Past the bullshit."

...Really?

"Really?"

The word on your tongue is more sarcastic than it is in your head. And there, in the pause...it's like Roman's pulling back from the openness of himself. Taking what he's put out away.

"Me and Tabitha and you...sure."

"...Mm. Shiv's waiting for you."

"Like, do I have to stop playing bits here and be fun for you to actually still have fun with me-"

"Roman, hurry the fuck up, dude! Seriously."

"Cool it! I don't care that it's your wedding, Shivy Ginge. I'll set fire to your minge."

He taps into his British roots there before he's off. Not before he kisses your knuckles, though.

"I just fucking miss you, weirdo. I want conversations. I just...I don't like...do things in spite - not towards you, even though you're being fucking weird. I don't make wounds and shove my dick into them as a gotcha."

It's said as he moves off. They take photos - the Roys...your Roys. You smile at Kendall when he smiles at you. Your thumb rubs your knuckle, you won't think about his kiss.

"Tabitha, just get it here."

But you don't think anything at all when they let Tabitha into the frame. It's easy for her. Rightfully so, but it's on your skin on a knife and you don't feel that's right.

But you don't feel it go away.

It hits you like the first time you cried as a child. It's a childish hurt and you can't make it go away as you watch the camera flash and Roys and Tabitha smile, as they bring Rava into the picture taking. Rightfully so.

It's a nail in the coffin, the confirmation what Roman has with Tabitha is real.

Your love, it still here thumping at your heart, is not.

Why are you about to cry?

"Hey, you."

You turn to the dark-haired, clean bearded man at your side. His knowing but soft voice.

"Hey, Stewy."

"What's with the glossy eyes?"

The burning is against the sudden, unwanted warmth you feel. You don't want to feel warmth at how Stewy's so close to you. You've been close to him before and nothing - nothing like what you feel with Roman.

But here, everything with what you feel with Roman. Maybe something new, something giddy that differs because Stewy isn't Roman, he's Stewy. He exists differently.

And now Roman exists away from you.

"Weddings, you know?"

Stewy smiles thin, brown eyes light.

"...Yeah. No. But even if it was yeah...I don't think it'd be Mr. and Mrs. Wambsgans getting me leaky. How's your legs from your formal-attire workout."

"...Upright planking?"

"Exactly."

You are sore. "It was a workout. At least I didn't have to listen to DIY vows. That would've been the real challenge."

Stewy leans you. You try not to breathe, you don't know why.

"I don't know, I think it'd be fun to see a Roy attempt romantics in public. Do you remember Ken's wedding with Rava?"

Yes. You won't be mean in your thoughts, genuinely.

"Yeah. The singing during the dinner was cute, I'm glad he chose to put that stunt there instead of the altar."

Stewy puts his hands in his pockets.

"Isn't that fucking right." His voice is warm, almost teasing - well...always teasing, even if the conversation is genuine. You know him well enough to know he's not fucking with you, laughing at you in the bore of small talk. It's just how he talks.

You also know him well enough to know his cologne is wearing off.

"You're not going to join the happy family photoshoot?"

"No. Have no reason to."

You and him haven't been facing each other in your talk, eyes to the Roy family with Tabitha and Rava as the reception beings to bustle inside.

You wonder if Stewy feels the tension too. If you're crazy - if you're childish for thinking he does or if you're both for feeling it yourself in the first place.

"That's a same, you're basically a fifth child. Which makes whatever you had with Roman incested. Which makes it less hot. I know, I'm weird, not...illegally weird, though. For the most part...so, the honorary incest is not hot, now that I think of it."

Stewy takes his hand out of his pocket. You see it out of the corner of your eye and you feel his touch on your back a couple seconds after.

You don't see how he pauses, you couldn't know how he thinks about how this touch is going to feel on his skin.

What the fuck happened, man? What happened that now things are...fucking coiling inside him. Like he's a boy - or no. Gross, cartoonish to describe it like...now it's just different with you. What fucking happened?"

Stewy smiles.

"You're perfume is disappearing on us. I don't want to be sniffing up on your sweat follicles while we're dancing, princess."

You shiver.

Why the fuck are you on fire in the best way possible?

"What a bore, right? Let's get inside."

Shiv fixes the waist of her dress.

"Yeah, honey. Photos are a bore, but important for our memoralization of our love...tonight, right? And I think we're supposed to let everyone go in first before we come crashing as bride and groom."

Photos are done. Everyone separates and even in the fire, you look to see if Roman's watching the flames. And....

Of course he is. But then you realize that you didn't tell Kendall that Stewy's your date. You didn't think you had to, but his eyes catching to where his best friend holds you is where you remember that yeah, Stewy's his best friend. The only reason why you know Stewy is because he's Kendall's best friend that he introduced when you were 14. You'll give him more leeway than you give to Roman. Even though it's still a date you needed, it must be weird for Kendall to see without context.

"I think you looked very beautiful up there."

You turn to Stewy, heart beating quick. Too quick for you to judge yourself for it.

"For Shiv's sake, I won't say you outdid her but...you were the closest bridesmaid to doing the out."

You smile to break away from that tension - between him and between how Kendall's hand drops from Rava's waist, how his eyes blink low from afar.

"You were examining all of us up there to figure that out?"

It's a joke you think warrants another smarmy-charming reply.

But all Stewy does is just hold his head up with something....serious along his face. Nothing under a tease, just eyes not blinking before he looks to the grass.

"No."

You can't stop your smile from falling before the photographer comes up to the both of you.

"Hey, you two want a photo? Cute couple."

"Oh, we're jus-"

"Sure. Have at us."

Stewy says it as charming as he says everything before he pulls you close by the waist.

"Oh, I can smell you better now. Smile, princess."

You do with every roll of fire on your skin. Your stomach turns over.

Maybe it's not childish...it's just new, it's just how you feel. What you hate is that you do, that it's Stewy. You have a right to new people, a new person to feel like this for...but not Stewy.

But it is, for some strange, new reason.

The camera shutters on you and him.

"Can I kiss you? It'll be modest. Cheeky."

It doesn't take you more than two seconds for it to slip out.

"...Sure. Yeah."

"Alright, yeah."

Stewy says it quietly before he kisses your cheek.

Oh, God.

The camera shutter, you might be...shuddering. You smile anyway. The photographer smiles too.

"Alright, make sure to catch the bouquet!"

They walk off and Stewy doesn't let go of you. You realize that he was holding it before the photographer came up for photos.

...Just breathe, just breathe.

And you do, Stewy's face doesn't stop you from breathing, you're able to breathe into it. Because of it - suddenly.

With his smile, with his smile.

...Maybe you'll indulge, maybe you have been indulging.

"I-"

You were going to, just before there's the sound of immense gagging. Vomiting.

"Fuck!"

"Rome?"

"Roman? What the fuck?"

Stewy turns to the commotion, brows rising up.

"Oh...oh. Fuck. That's disgusting."

It's Roman puking chunks onto the grass. Tabitha stands over him, complete ohs and rightful confusion on now knowing what to do. His father, Logan just looks completely disappointed.

Roman's hunches over. He's holding his head in what you know to be complete pain.

What the fuck?

"Roman?"

Of course, he doesn't answer you. You go to go up to him, but there's a hand on yours.

"I think we can go inside. Roman's vomit breath will meet us there, it looks like he's got enough people to check on him and his insides."

"I don't th-"

Even after everything, or because of everything, you still try and go to Roman. But Tabitha's hands rubbing his back stop you.

It takes the breath out of you.

Yeah, it's just...he'll meet you inside. Roman's got comfort, he decided it wouldn't be you and that'll stop hurting.

Roman will stop hurting a lot easier than you, you're sure. It'll be okay, you've got the rest of your life to take his insults of tonight.

"Okay, yeah. Let's go."

You hear the last of the gags as you and Stewy head inside to the start of the reception.

"I think they got my favorite desert, actually. I don't know how. If I'm feeling sultry and you're feeling consensual, I'll fork it into your mouth for you to try."

"...Sounds sultry. Okay"

You neither lean or move away from his hand on the small of your back. You let him pick something out of your hair.

"Roman, what the fuck? You okay, bro?"

"That was...you okay, son?"

You won't catch how Roman can't catch his breath. He can't recover. He can't come up from his knees. He actually lowers.

Tabitha's hands feels like bees, unfuckingfortunately. Roman crawls away and jolts at her palm finding him again.

"Stop! Just- it's fine. Stop. Sorry, sorry, Tab's. Dad, I'm good. I'm-"

He hacks. He can't breathe.

He knows why he can't breathe, but where are you? Where are the hands that actually feel like life digging back into his lungs?

Roman looks up.

What the fuck? What the fuck? What the fuck?

Where are you?

"Roma-"

Whoever's talking to him gets interrupted by more vomiting. He's choking on it.

"Oh fucking Christ. I'm going, I'm going inside, Pinky. Someone get him water. Absolutely disgusting."

He would say he doesn't know what he did, but he does. He just doesn't...but he's sorry.

Where did you go? Why don't you come back?

"Roman, baby-"

"Don't fuckin-I said! I said stop. Sorry, you'll touch me later. I'm sorry."

He really fucking is, but someone else will be. If Roman sees Stewy in there...the bullet in Roman's head will be his to blame. That'll make him feel better.

Roman wipes his mouth, his eyes. He sniffles.

"Are you cry-"

"No! Tabitha, stop! Shiv - go get banged, it's your wedding day."

He can feel eyes. So, he's right. Staring does mean things.

"Fuck off!"

#inbox #hc's #drabble #dog and bone!au #succession fanfiction #roman roy x reader #roman roy fanfic #stewy hosseini #stewy hosseini x reader #succession fic #roman roy x you #succession imagine

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thirdsaltyhunter · 5 months ago

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Hold Me Together

Dean Winchester x Reader (could be read as platonic or romantic)

Summary: you're having a hard time trying to hold it together after Bobby's death, but Dean's there to pick up the pieces

Warning: hurt/comfort, sweet Dean, character death, talk of death and depression, smoking, season 7 spoilers

A/N: this is written as a reader pov but it's more of an o/c just without a name, not proofread all mistakes are my own

Bobby had taken you in when you were a teenager. At fourteen your entire life had been upended. You lost your parents and any semblance of the normal life you had. Bobby had found you on a hunt and had taken you back to his home. You were hesitant to trust him and for the first few weeks you hardly talked, ate, or slept, still processing what had happened to you. At least processing the best a fourteen year old, with no prior knowledge of the hunting world, could.

Bobby was patient with you, gaining your trust and trying to get you to open up. He was hesitant to tell you about hunting and the world of the supernatural, but you were a curious kid and you started to read his lore books. After that you figured it out pretty quickly and took quite the interest in it. Many days, you spent reading about monsters and the paranormal. You learned about how to kill them and Bobby taught you how to protect yourself.

At the age of sixteen, you decided to become a hunter, against Bobby's wishes. You fit the bill of a hunter: no family, no friends, and a boat load of trauma. Despite how young you were, you were pretty good at killing monsters, given that you now had two years worth of knowledge about hunting and a lot of training.

Hunting became your life. You were on the road a lot of the time, but you would always come back to Bobby's house after every hunt and he would take care of you. Through him, you met Sam and Dean. You helped them find their dad and after he died you went quite a few hunts with them. Eventually you became close friends and hunting partners, being there when Sam died, when Dean came back from Hell, fighting side by side during the Apocalypse.

You were one little, messed-up family, brought together by the fact that Bobby was like a father to all of you. And now he was gone.

It had been almost two weeks since Bobby had passed away. You and the boys were holed up in Rufus's cabin in Montana, trying to deal with his death. You hadn't been sleeping, opting to stay busy to try and keep from breaking down. You had spent a lot of your time getting his affairs in order and calling the people closest to him to let them know what happened. As his adoptive daughter, you felt it was your duty.

When you weren't doing that, you were trying to figure out what the numbers he had scrawled on your hand meant. You had tried almost everything you could think of, bank numbers, passwords, lock codes. Nothing worked and it was driving you crazy.

You had been distant from the boys, even though you were all staying in the small cabin together, you were quiet and in your head most of the time. You knew they were worried about you, trying to get you to eat or sleep. They knew that you were the closest to Bobby out of the three of them and would take his death hard, but it surprised them that you never broke down, you just kept working.

But everyone break eventually. There's always that moment where everything hits. That is where you are now. Crying so hard it hurts and utterly exhausted.

Both the boys were gone, Sam had gone on a supply run and Dean had gone to give Bobby's mystery numbers to Frank to see if he could figure them out.

You sat crammed between the coffee table and the couch, knees to your chest, holding a picture of you and Bobby in one hand and a cigarette in the other. You don't even know what had started it, but you had just...broke. All the emotions you had been pushing back came to the surface all at once and now you had sat there and sobbed until your chest ached.

You didn't know how much time had passed when you heard the front door open. Lifting your head from your knees, you saw that Dean had walked through the door. You didn't want him to see you like this, you never really cried in front of him and certainly not sobbing like you were now. He hadn't seen you yet, given that you were on the floor, so you quickly wiped your tears. Maybe you could run to the bathroom before he saw your face.

Nope. As soon as he turned around, he locked eyes with you and you knew there was no way he wouldn't notice you had been crying. He noticed everything.

"Aw, Sweetheart," he said softly. Seeing your face, he crossed to room and moved to kneel beside you.

"I'm ok," you said and stood up, trying to brush him off. "I'm ok," you repeated, more to yourself, as you tried to will away your tears.

However, you couldn't hold back the fresh wave building behind your eyes. You let out a broken sob and your legs gave out on you, partially from the awkward angle you had been sitting at and partially from how exhausted you were.

Dean caught you before you could fall. "Ok, you're ok," he said, holding you to him with one arm as he took the photo and your cigarette from your hand and put it out in the ashtray.

Before you could protest, he had lifted you into his arms and move to lay on the couch with you on top of him. All you could do, was let the tears fall as you clung to his shirt and let him position you in a way that was comfortable.

"Shhh, I got you, it's ok," he soothed, wrapping you in his arms and running a hand up and down your back.

He didn't say anything other than whispered assurances, just letting your emotions run through you as he fought tears in his own eyes. After what felt like an eternity of crying and soaking his shirt, sleep finally pulled you under.

Sam walked through the door with an arm load of groceries. "Hey man, wha-" he stopped himself when himself when he saw his brother raise a finger to his lips and then point to you. Only then did the younger Winchester realize that you were asleep on top of his brother, wrapped in a blanket that Dean had pulled over you.

"She ok?" he mouthed, noting the solemn expression on his brother's face.

Dean shook his head 'no'.

"I'll make her some food, she needs to eat," Sam whispered, as to not wake you, and proceeded to make dinner as quietly as possible.

You felt a hand gently shaking your shoulder before you heard Dean's voice.

"Hey Sweetheart," he said, when your eyes finally peeled open. "Sammy made dinner." He hated having to wake you, but you had to be starving.

You nodded and untangled yourself from Dean's embrace. You really didn't want to leave the comfort of his arms, but your stomach was demanding food after so long without eating.

You went to the bathroom to wash the tears stains from your face before joining the boys at the kitchen table. Neither of them made you talk if you didn't want to, instead they made light conversation and tried to make you smile. You knew this was going to be a hard time on all of you, but you were eternally grateful to have them by your side.

#dean winchester #dean winchester x reader #dean x reader #dean winchester x you #supernatural fanfiction #dean winchester fic #dean x y/n #supernatural #dean x you #dean winchester x gn!reader #dean winchester x female!reader #dean winchester fanfic #dean winchester fanfiction #dean winchester x reader fluff

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macfrog · 1 year ago

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if i had a gun cowboy like me chapter 12.5 (joel's pov)

long-awaited, pain-packed, and sealed with a bow by yours truly. i love y'all. thank you for being so patient and kind with me on this one. this chapter is joel's experience of the end of illicit affairs and all of hits different. you might wanna check those chapters out before you indulge in the angst-fest that is this one. hope you enjoy 🧡

pairing: dbf!joel x fem!reader

summary: walk a mile in joel miller's shoes. see if you'd do anything different

warnings: more heartache, more angst, lois, alcohol + drug consumption, mention of reader being roofied, very brief mention of joel punching knox, age gap (reader is 23, joel is 48), cursing

word count: 9.8k

terrible news! there is no more taglist! make sure you're following @macfroglets w notifs on if you wanna be buzzed when i post 🤍

series masterlist | main masterlist | playlist

“Right. Sorry. It’s just…we kinda have a…situation, here.” It’s you. He fucking knows it’s you. His heart begins to hammer. He doesn’t give a fuck whether she puts two and two together or not when he asks – “Where is she?” “We’re still at Frank’s,” Anna says, sniffing. He can hear the booming bassline of music, muffled; the sharper chatter of voices. She’s on the street. In his head, he can see her shoulders hunched; her bare arms wrapped around her body for warmth. She goes to say it again. “We’re still at –” “’n where is she?” Joel cuts, and she finally cracks.

You’re still fast asleep when he lifts his head.

You’ve had this argument plenty before. I do not snore. Yes, baby, you do. I’ve heard you. I don’t! It’s alright, it’s okay that you do. It’s a cute snore. Joel, I don’t fucking –

Right now, he’s pretty certain you’re snoring. He just wishes you were awake to hear yourself.

He thinks about pulling his phone, taking a video so that once you’re up, you can hear the little bursts of air, the tiny rasps from your nostrils as you snooze. But if he ever did record anything like that – just like the Hillcrest pictures, until you’d found them last night – he’d keep it for himself. Wouldn’t offer it up so easily.

Just something for him to have, for all the time he spends without you.

Your hair’s still all over the place. Tangled in Joel’s right arm, still smelling of chlorine and sex. Your head rests softly on the crook of his elbow like it’s a pillow; your lips and eyes are puffy, tired. You have this ridiculously strong vice grip on his left arm; during the night he felt you wrap your wrists around it and pull it into your chest, tucking it gently under your chin until your entire upper half was drowned in his.

His chest snug against your back, his arms encasing you safely, and his hips…his hips lined with yours. His now semi-hard cock buried between your legs – he’d slept inside you last night, and it was like, after forty-eight years, someone finally took him by the shoulders and said: This is how you do it. This is how you rest.

He was out as soon as his head hit the pillow, soon as his eyes fell shut. He stirred only to feel you maneuvering his arm, and then fell straight back asleep.

He felt comfortable. He felt safe. Big, old, tough guy Joel Miller. Never let anybody in since Sarah’s mom left. Alone for almost seventeen years, and fine with it. His cheeks heat at the idea of needing – of wanting to feel that. Safe. But then you came along, and he realized he’d been waiting his whole life to feel it. Didn’t even notice he’d been missing it.

That’s how these things go, right? Can’t miss what you don’t have, and all that.

But now he has it. Now he has you.

And you make him feel things he’s never felt before, or if he has, it was so fucking long ago that he’s forgotten. You drive him fucking insane. Keep him up at night, wondering what the hell he’s gotten himself into. Make him do stuff that his reflection glares at him over. Are you being serious right now? Make him…different. New.

The night before last, when he’d picked you up from Frank’s after rodeo night, he promised to make you a big breakfast in the morning. Compensation for not swinging by McDonald’s on the way home. But then your dad called, and you had to take off before Joel had even properly woken up.

When he eventually rose from the bed, he went straight to the store. Stocked up on eggs, flour, sugar, bananas. He’d printed a recipe from his computer while you were gone. Marked the items off as he meandered through the store. Stood for ten minutes deliberating over which gluten-free flour would be best, before an assistant asked if he needed any help.

I’m good, he muttered, and then, as the kid wandered off, cleared his throat and said, Actually –

Greg – the kid assistant in question – had suggested the red bag. Said it’s corn flour, instead of wheat. Joel can’t pronounce the brand name. He just knows it’s tucked behind a box of cereal in the cupboard downstairs – he hid it there so you wouldn’t find it and snuff out his plan.

His plan, which he now has to put into action. Without waking you. He’d lie here forever just staring at you, if he hadn’t sworn to himself to make good on his promise and cook you some damn pancakes.

So he slowly pulls his left hand from between yours, loosening your death grip, and steals it back across your waist. He does the same for his right arm – more careful, though, so he doesn’t tug on your hair. Like some kind of wild cat creeping through the jungle, every moment calculated and careful.

He bunches the comforter up a little at your back, so that if you do stir, it might feel like he’s still there. Still a weight, curving around you. He takes a good five minutes just to travel the length of the room – the lightest he’s ever walked, dodging the spots on the carpet that he knows make the floorboards squeal.

When the door gently clicks back into place, he heads downstairs. Cracks out his frying pan – non-stick, obviously – and all his ingredients, pulls the printed recipe from its hiding place between two cookbooks and lays it out on the counter, flattening the creases and unfolding the corners. And gets to it.

His first egg cracks messily over the lip of the bowl. The yolk runs down the outside, and he curses before swiping it back up with his index finger. The second egg empties fully inside the bowl, but drags with it tiny fragments of shell. Joel spends five minutes focusing on picking every single piece out of the mixture. He crouches to make sure he’s poured the exact amount of milk, eyes level with the top of the liquid, and he double checks every step before he follows it.

This has to be perfect. Has to be. For you.

The entire time, all he can think about is you asking to sleep with his body inside yours. Wanting him closer than you’d ever wanted him before, as close as he could physically be. Your sleepy voice circles between his ears on loop – want somethin’ else. That safe feeling creeps up on him all over again.

He knows he shouldn’t. He can’t. He’s spent the last month purposefully pushing those feelings down, dampening them anytime they rose to the surface. Only allowing himself to feel them, to acknowledge them, when you’re around. Because he can’t fucking help but acknowledge them when you’re here – they stare him straight in the face.

So he’d been making peace with letting the floodgates open just a little bit at a time – one quick rush whenever you’d give him one of your meaningful glances, when your hot skin would brush against his, when your mouth would fall open at the feeling of his first deep thrust inside you.

And then he’d bolt them back up.

Except that, now…he’s not sure the dam can hold much longer. There are cracks he’s not repairing quickly enough. Unintended consequences hammering against the other side of the stone in the form of angry white waves.

He’s staring at the beige circle of batter in the pan, swept off with the waves into someplace far from his kitchen, when the sound of your voice draws him back.

“Joel? You down there?”

The floorboards at the top of his stairs creak. You’re leaning over the banister.

“Yeah, darlin’, I’m here.” He slips halfway out of the kitchen door, closing it over his body in hopes you won’t smell the pancakes. You ask what he’s doing, and he says, “Just makin’ a coffee. You want anything brought up?”

“I’m good,” you reply. “’m gonna take a shower.”

“Alright, baby. There’s probably some stuff in Sarah’s bathroom you can use.”

He listens closely as your footsteps recede, waiting to hear the hum of his shower before he relaxes again, flipping the pancake over. It sizzles away as he runs one thick finger along the inside of the bowl and tastes his handiwork. Pretty damn good, he thinks. He’s sucking his finger clean when his cell goes.

Joel swipes to answer, and before he can utter a Hello?, your dad’s voice is screaming down the line to him.

“Mornin’, pal! You in? You up?”

He figures this is the infamous speakerphone you rambled for ten minutes about last night. Like a fucking foghorn, man. I’m deaf in this ear now.

He doesn’t wait for Joel to respond. “I was just passin’ by, remembered you got that leakin’ pipe, or whatever it is. Under your sink, right? You good for me to drop in ‘n take a look?”

“Uh – uh, I’m –” Joel stammers his way through a sentence he doesn’t know the ending of, slotting the phone between his cheek and his shoulder and giving the pan a rattle against the stovetop. He slips the spatula under the mixture, and when he flips it over, the pancake is charcoal black. “Fuck.”

“What’s that?” you dad roars, deafening in Joel’s ear. Fuckin’ speakerphone.

“Nothin’, it’s…” He sighs, accepting his new-found position: backed into a fucking corner. What’s new these days?

“Yeah, I’m up. See you in a bit.”

He hangs up the phone midway through an Alright, buddy from your dad, and whacks the chargrilled pancake on top of the pile. His phone surfs across the counter in a blur of blind panic, before Joel’s taking the stairs two at a time to get to you.

The door’s ajar. He can hear you quietly singing to yourself. Same song you’re always fucking singing, always trying to coax Joel into singing along with you. You’re humming the guitar solo when he whips the door open.

“Hey, hey,” he’s panting, taking your towel in one hand and reaching for the shower door with the other, a blur of movement before his eyes like he’s not in control of his own body. “Out.”

“Huh?” you reply, blinded by the soap suds running down your forehead and into your eyes.

“Baby,” Joel whispers, desperate, “you gotta get out. He’s here. Your damn dad’s here.”

He drags you over to the first place he spots: his closet. He knows it’s no fucking good, but he can hear your dad’s car squealing to a halt in his drive, and he’s in a blink panic wondering what artefacts, what evidence of your being here lie dotted around his house. Your bikini’s hanging up out back, there’s probably a hoodie still strewn over the back of his couch.

He doesn’t have time to think, though, because in the midst of his mental scan of every room whilst explaining to you what’s going on, your dad’s heavy boots just thudded onto his doormat.

“Miller?” he calls up the stairs. And Joel closes the closet over.

----------

He stands by the front door watching your dad’s car purr off down the street, waiting until it turns left and disappears behind the Dawsons’ back fence to shut the door. When he turns back into his hallway, the house is uncomfortably silent. You’re still up in his room.

The weight of your phone pulls at the waistband of his jeans. He slips his hand into his back pocket, fishes it out, and takes one step toward the stairs. The screen lights in his palm.

There’s a cluster of notifications from some film class group chat, a couple Snapchats from Sarah. A reminder to take your birth control from some pink-icon app, and then –

I’m heading over to Joel’s to check something out for him. Wanna meet me there?

He stares at it until the text burns into his eyes. Blinks, and it’s seared into his lids. His breath leaves his chest in a heavy, burdened sigh. It trembles as it pushes from his lungs. He feels something burning under his skin. All over.

He’s angry. And he’s trying to keep it contained.

Keep it where it lies, keep it beneath the surface. Stop it from pooling right behind his lips, collecting in the light of his eyes. Keep it from revealing itself. But when his foot lifts to the first step, it’s like a deadweight in the air.

He’s angry. But he’s fucking exhausted.

The bedroom is empty when Joel pushes the door open. You’re still hidden in the closet. You don’t look up at him when he pulls on the shuttered door, letting light flood across your hands, still covering your face. There are flicks of dripping wet hair peeking out from under the towel on your head.

He wants to put his arms around you. Wants to kiss you all over. Tell you, It’s okay, it’s alright. He didn’t see nothin’.

But he can’t. Because neither of those things are true.

Your dad saw the cowgirl hat. Hell of a lot like a hat my daughter has. It sent a sharpened bolt of panic through Joel’s body the second the words came tumbling out. He might’ve seen your bag lying at the bottom of the stairs. Might’ve passed your car on his drive here. There are so many loose fucking ends.

And more than that – harder to accept: maybe this isn’t okay anymore. Maybe it hasn’t been the entire time. And maybe, despite all his good efforts and the fucking way you make him feel, despite it being weeks now of tiptoeing and lying and covering your tracks – maybe you finally crossed a line.

He can’t look at you a second longer. His heart’s in his throat. If he opens his mouth to speak, he’ll probably choke. Break down. So he walks away.

You follow him downstairs a few minutes later, fully dressed and silent. Your touch sweeps across his shoulder blades, and it takes everything in him not to turn to you then and there. Come here, kiss me. Pretend none of it’s happening, just for a moment.

He sets your plate down in front of you. He’s taken the burnt pancake. He follows a pattern: cuts into the food, glances out to the backyard, and back to the plate. It’s the only thing keeping the words from rolling out onto the table in front of him. The only thing stopping him from –

You kick his leg. So gently, he barely feels it.

“You gonna eat?” he asks in response, chewing on the smoky flavor of burnt batter. Your hands hesitate, and he feels his own flinch as if to take them, rub them, squeeze them. And then he watches as you drag your knife through your own breakfast.

He wants you to yell at him. He wants to give meaning to the guilt he feels. He knows what’s coming, and he isn’t so sure that you do.

This is…impossible. It has been, from the start. Always sneaking off, coming up with excuses. So many fucking excuses, he can’t even keep them straight in his head anymore. She’s here, droppin’ my flannel off. Now we’re upstairs, I’m showin’ her my guitar. Need her to help with decorations. Your TV’s broken, did you know that? Don’t mind us, just sat in this private corner of my backyard, out of view of fucking everyone. I’ll pick her up from her rodeo night, take her home. She’s at Anna’s all day today, right?

And your dad – kind and naïve, or maybe just so fucking gullible that every single one lands like the flour did in the egg mixture. Just gracefully floats down into his brain, absorbs itself and folds perfectly into place.

So, yell at him. Get mad. Make him feel like the fucking asshole he knows he is. Leading you on, and letting you get close to him, and then when it gets too hard – pushing you away. Doesn’t matter if that’s what he did or not; doesn’t matter whether he did or didn’t mean it. He wants you to be mad at him. To justify what he’s about to do.

He slides you your phone. Motions for you to read it.

“Fuck…” you whisper, and then he thinks you get it.

But then you say, “…he didn’t see me, though. Right?” and his heart sinks.

No. He didn’t see you. But he saw so many little pieces of you, that Joel finds it impossible to consider that he isn’t already seeing the entire picture. He’s picturing your dad at home in the living room, one hand on his hip, the other running through his hair, adding two and two and two and two and –

You’re bickering. Actually arguing. He doesn’t know how to navigate it, save for letting the frustration take the wheel and drive the point home: you came too close to being caught.

You’re smarter than this, he knows you are. He knows that you can see plain as day, everything that he can. The bag, the hat, the fucking home-cooked breakfast sat on his kitchen counter. He’s watching you argue your point, hands dancing in the air animatedly, eyebrows lifting, eyes widening. Hear me out. Listen to me. Hear me out.

“I didn’t fucking mean to let him see the b–”

“That’s not the point,” Joel says, before he has time to stop himself.

“Then what’s your point?”

He feels his voice carry off into the air with the images racing around his head. Hank’s shadow under the door. The roar of voices downstairs as you climaxed. Your body pinned under Joel’s on your couch. The way the morning light screamed into the house as your front door burst open.

He doesn’t sound like he has much of a point, even to himself. He’s in it just as much as you are. He’s lied and he’s hidden just as much as you have, and made mistakes that are…worse, as far as he’s concerned.

And the worst one of all sits directly opposite him. Head low, eyes boring into the wood of his kitchen table. He can see the tears swelling across your waterline. Can feel the heat from here as it spreads across your face. Anger thrums through his chest again, and his teeth grit.

He murmurs, pushing himself up from the table and away from you. Tells you there’s some stuff he needs to see to. You’re mad about it, like he knew you would be. Like you should be. He promises he’ll be back in a couple hours; promises you’ll talk when he gets home.

And then he leaves.

----------

Clark’s is on the other side of town. It takes him nearly forty minutes to get there, and more than half of that time is spent staring at the tail lights of a Honda in front of him. Some accident up ahead. His eyes bore into the burning red strip of brake light until it’s singed into them, a blur of blue when he finally rips his glare away and stares up at the white sky.

He thinks about calling you. Saying, Hey, I’m stuck in traffic, talk to me, but he doesn’t. He just…doesn’t.

Instead, he wonders what you’re doing. Whether or not you’re still at his place. He wouldn’t blame you if you weren’t. But if you are – and he hopes you are – what are you doing?

He thinks: She’s on the couch. Bundled in blankets. Grey’s is on TV. She’s rewatchin’ her favorite episodes.

Least, that’s what he wants you to be doing. Wants you to be making yourself feel better, because he knows he was a complete ass earlier. You didn’t deserve any of it. Nothing that he didn’t deserve himself, just as much, anyway.

He thinks about coming home, and you hitting pause, pushing yourself off the couch and sauntering around to him. Wrapping him in the blanket until your bodies are pressed together under the woven red, and kissing him. Kiss me kiss me kiss me.

And the thought of you, standing on your tiptoes to press your soft lips to his, your fingers sifting through his hair, is like a cold pack on a searing wound. Dulls his anger, even if it’s just for a second.

His wide tires crawl silently across the smooth lot of the plant hire, parking right in front of the wire fence. The truck door slams shut when he gets out. He doesn’t mean it. Maybe he does. But he does it without thinking, and with a hot head, a temper sharper than nails, he strides over to the glass-paneled door and swings it open.

She’s sat behind the desk, same as always. Dark, deep auburn hair, groomed and set to perfection so that when she looks up, it doesn’t move an inch. Curls around the sweetheart shape of her face, smooth and shining. Her blue eyes twinkle in the glaring light from outside, and she stands.

She tugs lightly on the hem of her white blouse. You’d probably elbow him and say, That’s cream, not white. She smiles at him and it doesn’t look a thing like your smile. He doesn’t remember the last time he saw your smile. Fuck, he thinks, when did I last make her smile?

And he’s still wondering, when Lois says, “Hey, stranger,” and puts a gentle, pale, red-nailed hand down on the desk. “Long time, no see.”

“Yeah,” Joel grumbles, clearing his throat and glancing at the man in a pair of thick, steel-toe boots, sat in a waiting area to his left. He thinks it’s probably polite to ask how she is. It’s been seven weeks since he blew off her hint for a date.

“Good, thanks,” she replies, cheeks swelling even more. They’re lightly shaded crimson, a soft shimmer to them against her snowy skin, dappled with light freckles. “You?”

He nods once. “Good,” he echoes, not sure what else to say. He’s lying, and she doesn’t seem to figure him out the way you would.

No. Instead, Lois steps back, straightens up, and twirls the pen in her fingers. “What can I do ya for?”

“Got some equipment I’m after,” he mutters, hand slipping into his back pocket for his phone. Lois’s eyes flit up and down his body as he taps his passcode in with his thumb.

She asks him something, but it sounds like she’s speaking through a closed door. He’s elsewhere.

The phone unlocks, screen lifting to reveal the last open app: his camera roll. His thumbs hover over the screen, tracing where yours would’ve tapped last night.

The video’s muted, she won’t hear it even if he let it play, but he swipes away the second he recognizes the tangled mess of your hair, his fist locked tight in it. His own hair, salt and pepper buried deep in the crook of your neck.

Something in his chest aches. Pulls tight, hurts his heart. He takes a deep breath and scares the feeling away. He’s staring at his camera roll. Staring at twelve little square thumbnails – couple of them work stuff, couple of them lists of supplies he has to remember to pick up – and then. Then.

You. At the Hillcrest. Dimples in your cheeks. That’s what made him take his phone out. The soft dips in your skin that appear anytime you smile, laugh, sometimes even just when you talk. He’d first noticed them when you had a mouth full of pizza, chatting animatedly about Meredith and Derek, and he’s noticed them every time since.

He’d seen them, as you posed with Sarah for a selfie at lunch. And his hand had slipped into his pocket before his brain even had the chance to finish the thought.

His quiet way of marking how he felt in that moment. How his chest seemed to fill as if with air, or something thicker. Sweeter. Like it was trying to push words up, a comment to tell you how beautiful you looked. Trying to make him move, run his thumb light as air across that tiny valley in your cheek and look at you with eyes that translated the words hammering behind his eyes.

But you had company. And all he managed to do was take two fucking photos.

Lois talks again, and this time, there’s no closed door.

“Huh?” Joel’s head snaps up, takes a few seconds to focus on the red hair in front of him. “Sorry, Lois, sorry.”

“’s alright. You okay?” She’s smiling so warmly, so sincerely. And there are no dimples in her cheeks.

“Yeah,” he clears his throat, “just checkin’ for the address.”

She holds out a pad, a stack of hire agreement forms hovering between her body and his, but he’s not looking. He’s still scrolling through his phone, thumbs searching your dad’s text thread for the information. Lois lowers the pad to the counter, places the pen on top. Fiddles with it until it’s lined up with the top of the form perfectly.

Then Joel looks up, and she smiles again.

“Not for you, then?” she asks.

He shakes his head. “Just the messenger.”

“Got it. Well, you know what you’re doing. Let me know if you need anything.”

Lois takes a step back, eyes still on Joel, who smiles politely, then swipes the form from the desk and takes a seat between Steel-Toe Boots and some tall, leafy plant that he has to bat away when he sits down. He’s copying the site address, phone resting on his thigh, when the receptionist speaks again.

“How’s Sarah doin’? She home yet?”

“Yeah,” Joel replies, “been home a couple weeks now. She’s been in Nashville this weekend.”

Lois lifts her head, blinking slowly. “Nashville. Nice. So, you’ve had a weekend to yourself.”

He scoffs. “Yeah,” he croaks.

“And what does Joel Miller get up to when he has an empty house for a few days?”

His fingers squeeze around the pen, pushing deeper into the paper. His expression hardens. “Nothing excitin’ enough to share. Sat by the pool yesterday. Was nice out.”

She agrees. “Sure was. You have company?”

Joel shakes his head once. Blinks the image of you and your red bikini from his vision. Focuses on dragging the pen one digit at a time across the line labeled Phone Number. If he cared enough, he’d give the obvious hint a couple seconds’ consideration, even just to protect Lois’s pride a little.

But he doesn’t care. And right now, he ain’t interested in protecting anyone but you.

“Nope. Just me ‘n a few beers.”

“Better off that way,” a hoarse, forty-cigs-a-day voice rasps from his right. “Less fuckin’ problems.”

Joel’s jaw rotates a degree towards the work boots; notices the folds of dry, leathery skin piled atop the raised gray eyebrows of their owner, and then turns back silently.

Lois clears her throat awkwardly. “Well, I spent the day with my book. I’m readin’ a Colleen Hoover. Adam’s at camp, so – quiet house for me, too.”

Joel finds himself nodding. Autopilot. He’s pretending he’s listening.

You’re still in his sight, wandering over from the sliding kitchen doors, a bottle in each hand. He can hardly see you when he looks up, the sun’s so bright. You hold a beer out, condensation dripping down your fingers towards Joel’s when he takes it, and then you slump down in the sun lounger next to his.

His arm reaches across, and your small fingers wrap and then unwrap around his, running across his knuckles, nails lightly scratching his worked hands. And he’s smiling, and he doesn’t even notice it until his eyes meet yours and you laugh, and he asks, What? through a chuckle, and you say, Nothin’, you just look happy.

Your dimpled blush blurs back into checkboxes and scrawled handwriting. You’re gone again. He’s in a white office, and the gentle lapping of the water on the pool’s edge fades into the headache noise of a fan humming, and he feels the warmth of your gaze on his skin turn into the cold, harsh spotlight glare of Lois’s eyes on him.

He looks up. She’s still smiling. At this point, he finds it fucking unnerving.

He rises from his chair, swings a wandering leaf from that ugly green plant out of his way and paces back over to the desk, sliding the pad back across to her. Their hands brush as she takes it from his grip, and he pulls his wrist close to his body. Lois doesn’t seem to notice.

She’s running the pen down the form, checking everything he’s filled in. Her tongue moves around the inside of her cheek, sucking on a hard candy. “Delivery on Friday?” she double checks, and Joel nods. “Alright,” she says, tearing away his copy, “we’ll call ya.”

“’ppreciate it,” he mumbles, folding the paper into his back pocket.

She turns, reaching to slip the form into a blue tray, and Joel pauses. Thinks to say something – he hopes Adam has a fun time at camp, or that Lois enjoys the rest of her quiet week. But then he sees you sat opposite him, staring fixedly at the plate before you, tears threatening to spill down your cheeks. He feels your hand laced in his, hears your laugh still ringing in his ears.

He misses you. He should never have left you. You matter more to him than some equipment for a site. Matter more to him than anything. He should’ve never fucking left.

Joel nods. Reaches for the handle of the door. Glances back to Lois. “There a florist anywhere near here?”

----------

He pulls the truck in alongside the florist. Teal window frames, a little pink door. He can hear you now. How fucking cute is that store? Give me your phone, I gotta get a picture. Mine’s is in my bag in the back. Look, the traffic’s movin’, Joel, give me your phone – quick!

His fingers hook around the silver door handle. He pats his jeans once – wallet’s right there – and goes to pull, when his cell vibrates from the center console. He can see himself in the glass screen, your dad’s name written across the reflection of his forehead.

He bites down on his lip. Hard. Glances up to the road ahead. Blinks. And decides to answer.

“Joel,” your dad chirps down the line. “Sorry, buddy, you’ll be sick a’ the sight ‘n sound of me today.”

Joel manages a convincing laugh. “What’s up?”

“Just makin’ sure you’re rememberin’ to put Friday’s date down for delivery on that order. We’re gonna need the stuff over the weekend, so.”

“Yep. Just been to do it right now. Friday’s date, Harvey’s site, your card details ‘n everything.”

“’attaboy. Good job. You’re all grown up.”

“Funny.”

“Thanks, pal. I appreciate it. There wasn’t no chance I was gettin’ time to do it myself,” he lowers his voice, “I’m still stuck here with Kelman.”

Joel’s fingers trace around his steering wheel. “Oh, yeah? He keepin’ you busy?”

“You bet. Had to haggle with ‘im just to get a lunch break. Speakin’ of – I swung by the house and that daughter of mine wasn’t home. Haven’t seen or heard from her since yesterday mornin’. I’m just checkin’ she ain’t stop by to see Sarah or som’?”

His fingers lock tight around the leather. “Sarah’s still in Nashville, she gets in tonight. Couldn’t tell you where yours is. I’m not home yet, so.”

It’s a half-truth. He could wager a pretty good guess, but he can’t be certain, can he?

Your dad chuckles down the line. “She spent the night at Anna’s. My house must be like prison to her – she’s never around anymore. I’ll hear from her soon, I’m sure. Alright. Thanks, again, Joel.”

He drops the phone back into the cupholder with a sigh, leaning back against the headrest to stare at the roof of the truck. He’s still picturing you in his living room, head turning to the street at every sound of a car door, or tires rolling by. And then the image is marred by your dad, peering in the window back at you, catching you wrapped up in a situation you shouldn’t be in.

He doesn’t want your dad to find out. For obvious reasons. Because it would mean the collapse of their friendship, the collapse of the world they built between them – for you, for Sarah, for themselves. Comfortability, and normalcy, and routine and order all thrown to the wind on account of some month-long fling.

But more important than all of that: it would mean dragging you into all of that, too. Fucking up your relationship with your dad. Making things weird between you and Sarah. Ruining whatever’s left of what you and Joel had, before you both took it too far.

And if he doesn’t want all that – if he doesn’t want your dad finding out – then something has to change. Something’s gotta stop.

His fingers wrap tight around the key and turn, and the truck jumps to life. He turns away from the teal-colored florist as he pulls off.

----------

You take it about as well as he reckoned you might. About as well as you should, given the circumstances. He isn’t surprised, and he doesn’t blame you. He’s probably on your side, when you argue back with him.

“You’re not serious, right? Joel. You’re not –”

“Kid, I…”

“No. What? Because of a fucking bag?”

He lifts his gaze and pleads with you. “Because of the lying.”

You’re right, with your response: it’s never been an issue until now. He’s been more than fucking happy to sneak off, take you as his own, and then return with a satisfied grin and a mouth full of excuses to feed your company. He almost agrees.

It’s just: this time, your dad’s at your heels like a bloodhound. A little less sharp, maybe. Blind as a fucking bat, sure. But he can smell something’s up. And he’s circling it, nose to the ground, drawing nearer and nearer to the pair of you with each step.

You ask if he wants to tell the truth. That thought scares him just as much. Knocks him back a few steps. No, he doesn’t want to come clean.

The words fly back and forth like a tennis match. Too fast for him to keep control of what he’s saying and how you’re hearing it. He wants to break it off – is there anything to break off? – but he doesn’t want to lose you – how can you lose something you never had? – and then: did he ever have you in the first place?

You’re standing over him, between his knees. “End it,” you tell him. “I’ll go.”

There’s a casualness in the loose shrug of your shoulders that scares him more than the prospect of you actually leaving. How easy it looks like it could be, for you to just wander out. Sling your bag over your shoulder and revert back to the start of the summer, when he was just a ride home after a rainy day at work.

Forget how to touch him the way he’s certain only you can, forget the secret language between you, forget every stolen glance and whispered word and every thought that ever translated from your brain to his as easy as they would pass between your lips.

“You don’t mean nothin’ to me? That what you think?” He’s laughing. Disbelief, fear, shock. Whichever one it is, it pulls across his cheeks painfully. Somehow, you’ve ended up at the foot of his bed.

“Well, what else am I supposed to take from this, asshole? That you’re fuckin’ in love with me?”

It’s cold water over an already-dying fire. The words smother into ash on his tongue. No more come to the front. He just stares at you. His phone starts to chitter out into the silence between you.

You take a step forward. Your voice is low. “You don’t get to do this, you know. You don’t get to pull me in and then drop me…once you’re done with me.”

“Don’t.”

It’s not much, but it soars from the pit of his stomach, through his throat and past his lips like a final arrow. All he can muster up.

“Don’t.”

There’s a weight where the words originate from. Something deep in his gut, an ache pulling its way upward, swelling across his chest. His ears are screaming.

Of all the things you might think – he’s an asshole, he’s a liar, he doesn’t know what the fuck he’s doing – the worst one would be that he spent this entire time leading you on. Making you feel special. Making you think you were something to him.

You are something to him. You’re – you’re fucking everything to him. It’s why he’s doing this, right? Going against every instinct, every gut feeling. To protect you. To do what’s right by you. He’s not fucking done with you. He wonders if he’ll ever go another day in his life without thinking about you.

“I can’t read your mind anymore…” you whisper, and his lungs steal a breath. His lack of response flattens your expression.

Joel might not be done, but you are.

He can feel you slipping from his grasp like sand through his knuckles. Each grain rocking itself loose, choosing to throw itself to the depths below rather than spend another second wrapped in his clutch.

He’s trying so desperately to hold onto you. Listen to me, he thinks, and he knows you can’t hear him anymore. Because now you’re really going – you’re tripping out of his room. Your heel catches on the threshold, like one last-ditch attempt from fate to pull you back into him, but you stop yourself and spin, fleeing down the hallway.

He takes a loose grasp of your wrist, fingers barely meeting on the other side of your skin before you tear it away from him like he’s scalded you. The look on your face makes him think for a moment that he might actually have done it – burned you. Pained you. Raised the skin below your gentle palm in a furious, red glow.

He’s swapping words out like they’re tools, each one immediately breaking and being flung back into the box. He’s trying any combination, any useless, futile order of words to make you stop in your tracks. You know how much I care about you, ‘s why I’m doin’ it, baby, come back, we can talk about this.

And he opens his mouth to give voice to the only words he knows would stop you – the reason why he’s doing it in the first place, the only thought he’s had anytime he’s looked at you for the last couple weeks. He opens his mouth to say it, or say something like it, when the machine silences the ringtone and the pair of you, too.

Her voice is like ice down the back of his shirt. He stares at the machine, red light blinking like a rag to a bull. He could walk over to it and smash the ever-loving fuck out of it with his fists until it’s dust on his coffee table. Until it shuts the fuck up, stops interfering with his fucking business.

And then he thinks about Lois, and her cream blouse, and her red nails, and her big, blue eyes, and her soft drawl and everything about her that is so entirely opposite to everything about you.

And how much – despite how nice and friendly, or funny and good-natured she is – how much he hates her right now, and how much he fucking loves you.

But you’re gone, now. Washed away by the tide. No more sand in Joel’s palm.

He tries to stop it. Tries to wind back a little, tries to make the sea cough up what it just stole from him. Give her back, you fuck. His eyes are stinging like salt water. Why are they stinging? There’s a roaring in his ears – the waves laughing in his face. Sickly and deafening.

He’s doing his best to keep a hold on his trembling voice. He knows he sounds pathetic. But yours is louder, stronger, steadier. And when you talk, it’s with an air of finality. Like you’re turning over the horizon. The last time he’ll ever see you again.

“I’ll see you ‘round, Joel.”

----------

He doesn’t call or text you that night. He doesn’t know what he’d say. Doesn’t even know where he’d begin. You’re mad, and Joel figures you got every right to be. This entire thing – today, this weekend, the whole month you’ve been together – is one big fucking mess.

He spends the afternoon hunched over his kitchen table, trying to distract himself with work. Twirling a pencil between his fingers, reading three, four, sometimes five times over the same building plans before deciding that the words and numbers won’t fucking sink in. He leaves them strewn across the table, wanders aimlessly upstairs and takes a cold shower.

Sarah’s flight gets in at 8PM. Joel’s sat curbside, truck engine humming, scanning every single figure that walks out of the airport building. When he spots the gray hoodie, the brown hair tied back with a pink scrunchie, the much-too-big-for-four-days-away suitcase rolling at her heels, he gets out.

She hugs her friends, they nod in passing greeting to him, and she skips over.

“Hey,” he breathes as she wraps her arms around his waist. “How was your flight? Saw you comin’ in.”

She shrugs in response. “I’m hungry. Wanna go get McDonald’s?”

Joel grumbles, slotting her case in the back of the truck. “You don’t wanna get home? Take a shower first? You smell like plane.”

“Ha! No.”

She opens the passenger side door and hoists her foot up on the seat, retying her sneaker. Joel’s already in and buckled up, hands on the wheel, watching her blue nails loop the laces.

“There’s one, like, ten minutes away.”

He’s shaking his head. “We got food in the house.”

Her gaze lifts. Her foot drops. “Oh, c’mon, it’s on the way home. We’ll be, like, five minutes. I just got off a two-hour flight, dude, right through dinner. I’m starving, I –”

“Would you just get in the damn truck, Sarah?”

It’s shorter, snappier, angrier than he meant. But he’s parked in the middle of the packed pick-up area, and the rattling of suitcase wheels and the whistling of cab drivers and the fucking roaring of planes overhead are making the headache behind his eyes worse.

Sarah freezes, one arm still leaning on the doorframe. “Jesus. What the fuck?”

“Sorry,” Joel mutters, shaking his head. “Sorry. Just – get in.”

“No need to be an asshole about it,” she murmurs, pulling herself up into the passenger seat.

Joel’s face is in his hands, elbows atop the steering wheel. “I’m not tryna be an asshole,” he says into his palms.

His daughter looks at him. Concerned. “Somethin’ happen? While I was gone?”

He shakes his head again.

Nothing happened.

He’s quiet the rest of the night. The rest of the week. Sarah notices, he knows she does, because she pries. In her own way. She’s smarter than he is. Less obvious.

She’s already up and in the kitchen when he rises on Tuesday morning. Spins around at the toaster, tells him the machine’s ready for his coffee. Asks if he wants her to make it. Asks if he wants any breakfast.

Thanks, kiddo. No, I’ll get it. No, you’re good, thanks.

They sit opposite one another in silence, save for the crunching of Sarah’s toast. He can feel her eyes on him, same way he felt Lois’s. Trying to burrow deep inside, take a look at his brain. Catch a glimpse of the words he’s thinking over and over and over.

There ain’t no words, though. It’s just images. Video replay of your back as you strode down his driveway, the way the wind caught your hair and brushed your cheek, the way your hand came up to wipe your tears. And the way he stood there, like a fucking idiot, and did nothing.

His chest hurts any time he thinks about you. Pulls in, knits itself together in knots. He’s good at pushing feelings down, good at turning them away from the sunlight like faded pebbles. But this is different. It’s a different kind of hurt.

It’s unresolved, it’s an open wound. It’s you. And it’s every time he hears REO Speedwagon, every time he pulls a flannel over his shoulders and catches the scent of your perfume on it, every time he’s flicking through the TV and catches a flash of a hospital setting, it’s a pair of hands deep inside the wound, pulling it a little wider.

It aches. It stings and it aches and it winds.

And then he turns the pebbles around. Back to the shade. Over and over and fucking over.

On Wednesday night, he caves. Asks Sarah if she’s spoken to you.

She’s chewing on a slice of pizza; licks the grease from her fingertips before she answers. “Not really. She’s been quieter than usual. Why?”

“She’s been quieter than usual?” he repeats, playing off the way his head shot up by looking straight back down at the pizza box.

Sarah narrows her eyes. “Yeah. I figure she’s working a lot.”

“Right. Right.”

“She gets tired of being in the house all the time, I think. Getting treated like a kid still. So I guess the more time she can spend outta there, the better.”

Joel nods slowly. He already knows that much.

Sarah studies him. Watches his hands as he dabs a pizza crust into the dip. When he tosses it in his mouth, he looks back up at her.

“What?”

“Nothing,” she says. “You want the last slice?”

“You take it,” he mutters, sitting back and wiping his hands on a napkin. “I’m stuffed.”

She hums, reaching forward. “Whatever it is,” she says, pulling the dough apart, “that’s got you this down –”

“Ain’t nothin’ got me down, kiddo.”

“– whatever it is,” she continues, “I bet it works itself out.”

Sarah stands up, taking her water with her, and wanders out of the kitchen.

----------

Joel struggles through another sleepless night, Thursday through Friday. His eyes don’t close over once. He hauls himself out of bed early in the morning, forces a black coffee down his throat, and heads off to work.

He’s up at some new client in Waco. Andrew Curtis – or, well, Andrew Curtis’s father, but Joel’s been dealing primarily with the son, and the guy’s a fucking imbecile. Doesn’t know his head from his ass, probably. And he has a voice like nails on a damn chalkboard, and his shirt’s untucked around the back, but Joel ain’t got a tone kind enough, or half the wordsmanship, or an ounce of energy to tell him.

Anyway – he spends all day at this dusty site, trying to work and instead, thinking about whatever the fuck you’re doing. Wherever you are, whoever you’re with. It’s almost seven by the time he’s leaving, packing up his truck and watching Andrew Curtis across the yard. He’s spotted his own shadow; he’s twisting around to reach the ducktail poking out from above his belt loops.

Joel thinks to call you about it on the way home. Tell you all about the guy: his dry conversation, his flannel, the fact he kept calling Joel Joe all day. He figures it would make you laugh, least the way he’d tell it, and he reckons that’s exactly what you need right now. That’s exactly what he needs, right now.

When Clark’s call him, he dials your dad. Has his ear blown half to hell by the speakerphone. Learns midway through the conversation that you’re right there in the car, too, and bites back a stream of incoherent, senseless words. Settles for a quiet reminder: he’s right here if you need him.

He doesn’t expect you to take him up on it. Knows you got better things to do than deal with some asshole who’d rather break your heart than have a few difficult conversations. You’re probably having fun, probably finally feeling good again. You’re probably fine.

But still. He doesn’t sleep that night, either.

It’s just gone two when Anna calls. He’s lying in bed, some shopping network on loop on the TV. His tired eyes bore into the screen, defocusing over the pixels, not watching nor listening and barely fucking breathing until he picks up the phone. Her voice is panicked, shrill, and shaking so much he wonders if his own phone is trembling with it.

“Mr. Miller?” she asks, and Joel sits up. “Got your number from Yelp. ‘m sorry it’s so late, it’s…oh, fuck – it’s, like, 2AM.”

“Anna,” Joel says hoarsely. Get to the fuckin’ point.

“Right. Sorry. It’s just…we kinda have a…situation, here.”

It’s you. He fucking knows it’s you. His heart begins to hammer. He doesn’t give a fuck whether she puts two and two together or not when he asks –

“Where is she?”

“We’re still at Frank’s,” Anna says, sniffing. He can hear the booming bassline of music, muffled; the sharper chatter of voices. She’s on the street. In his head, he can see her shoulders hunched; her bare arms wrapped around her body for warmth. She goes to say it again. “We’re still at –”

“’n where is she?” Joel cuts, and she finally cracks.

In one long, drawn breath, she spills. “She was fucked from the second we walked in here; she drank too much too quick, Mr. Miller – Joel,” she says when he corrects her, “and then she just – I dunno, she just – fucking disappeared with these guys, me ‘n Kara never saw ‘em in our lives – and they went upstairs we think, and she came back smelling like weed, and then this guy – he just, like, scooped her off, Mr. M– I mean Joel, like, totally dragged her away, and then –”

“Who–? Anna – Anna, wait,” Joel says, shushing her between her rambling, trying to rein in what she’s saying. When she finally shuts up, he speaks slowly and calmly. “Who dragged her away?”

“We don’t fuckin’ know!” she almost shrieks down the line. It cuts out for a second and Joel’s heart stops dead.“– so we don’t know,” she says when her voice filters back through into his ear, “but Sam said he saw the dude drop something in her bottle when he turned away. A pill or something.”

Joel’s body tenses. Freezes solid, with the blood in his veins. His eyes fix on one spot on his dresser: the loose handle that sits a little squint. He stares at it until his peripheral starts to blur.

“He – say that again?”

“He roofied her, we think. But we can’t fucking find them. Sam and Kara are in there just now looking. The guy pulled her away, that’s what I’m tryna say!”

“Right,” whispers Joel, nodding. He drags a heavy hand over his eyes, tries to push the image of you in danger out of his head for one second so he can figure out what to do.

Anna doesn’t hear him. She keeps talking. “…and then Sam said she told him not to call her dad, but I had to call someone, y’know? You’re the only person I think she wouldn’t – I think she wouldn’t mind me callin’. Please.”

He’s already halfway down the stairs, arms pushing through the sleeves of his shirt. He keeps the phone against his cheek when he bends to reach for his boots, ties them loose and grabs his keys.

“You call me as soon as you find her, you hear? I’m on my way,” he tells Anna, and hangs up.

He’s panicking. Fear, transferred between her cell and his, creeping over his shoulders, wrapping long, cold fingers around his throat. He’s panicking. He’s panicking. He never panics. Where the fuck are you? Who the fuck are you with?

There’s barely any traffic on the road, but the drive takes for-fucking-ever. The lights at the side of the road blur into long, thin streaks of orange. His hands are tight around the steering wheel, his jaw clenched. Your name lies loose on his lips.

He pulls up right outside the bar. There are small clusters of people, congregated tight together under the streetlights; cigarettes hanging from lips, bottles loose in hands. He shoves by them on his way to the door. Some guy shuffles out of his way, looking up to cuss Joel out and quickly dipping his head again when he locks eyes with the grizzly expression.

He shoves the door open with his shoulder, and spots you instantly.

----------

His knuckles are throbbing. Skin stretching anytime he moves his hand, searing hot and sharply stinging across the bone. Your touch is the only thing soothing them right now.

He got two good punches in. Just two. Burst the guy’s nose. He would’ve kept going, had he not been in a bar full of people – people who knew who he was – and had you not been stood behind him, body liquid-like from how much you were swaying.

But he has you home now. Up in your room, settled in bed. You’re safe. You’re with him.

You’re fucking wasted. Like, can barely lift a glass of water to your lips unaided wasted. He spent the entire drive watching over you, stealing glances when your head turned or your eyes lulled closed, checking you were still awake, still talking, still fucking breathing.

Whatever that asshole gave you, you don’t seem to have had enough for it to do too much damage. The alcohol is the real culprit. Though you were cognitive enough to yell at him over Lois in the kitchen, which relieved him for a second before it fucking crushed him. He’s lying awake right now – listening to the sound of your snoring – replaying the argument in his head. Over and over.

You’re an asshole and a liar. Just stringing me along this whole time.

He’s some awful cocktail of angry and terrified and fucking heartbroken. You’re lying inches from him, your hand resting softly on top of his, and yet – you’re miles away. The space between you both – fragmented, treacherous.

In a perfect world, he’d have wrapped his arms around your shoulders. He’d have pulled you against his weight, against his strong, steady form. And he’d have walked you, as slow as you needed, out of the bar and to his truck. Maybe laughing. Maybe singing.

He’d have told you everything was fine, told you he loved you, told you he was gonna get you home, make you feel better. He’d hold you until the sun came up, and then hold you until it went back down.

He’d love you. And you’d let him.

Maybe that world doesn’t exist, Joel thinks. And maybe that’s for the better.

It fucking hurts, though. Stings like a hot blade through his chest. All this time, messing around, pretending there was nothing more to it. Letting his feelings through like water in a fucking dam. It was bound to break eventually.

And maybe he really thought, even just for a fleeting moment, there could be something here. Something worth holding onto. More than two idiots messing around, more than sex and secrecy.

He didn’t even realize. Didn’t notice the shift. When did he start feeling…more? When did it cross that line?

He’s staring at the end of your bed. Thinking about you under him, gripping onto his shirt, his hand between your legs. The very first time. And every other fucking time since then. Which one was the threshold? Who pushed who?

His ringtone bursts through the silence, making him jump. His arm swings to fish it from the nightstand, swiping to answer before he’s even read who’s calling, just to shut the thing up.

“Hello?” he murmurs.

“Hey, Joe? Uh, I mean, Joel? It’s Andrew Curtis here.”

He rolls his eyes. For fuck’s sake. “Mornin’, Andrew.”

“Hi. Sorry, I know it’s super early. I’m just checkin’ we’re still good to go. I got my guys ready, we’re rarin’ to get goin’ whenever you are.”

Joel clears his throat, pushing slowly off the plush mattress, resting your hand on the sheets. “Yeah, uh…” He slips out of your room, hopping over to the bathroom and closing the door over. “…I had a, uh…a family emergency durin’ the night. I’m gonna be a little late, but I’ll be there.”

“Oh, gee, I hope everything’s alright?”

He phrases it like he wants Joel to clue him in. He considers for a second actually saying, Yeah, my best friend’s daughter – who I’ve been sleeping with for the last month – got plastered at a bar – Frank’s, local place, you heard of it? – because I broke things off with her – but I didn’t want to, I was just tryna be fuckin’ noble – and I went and picked her up, punched a guy who was tryna hurt her, because guess what, Andrew – I’m in fuckin’ love with her.

He sums it up with: “Yeah. Everything’s fine now. Thanks.”

“Alright, well, great news! Call me when you’re twenty minutes out, I’ll have the guys here for you arrivin’. Safe journey, Joe!”

Joel breathes an Uhuh and hangs up, holding the bridge of his nose. He has a headache, like he’s the one who’s been drinking. It’s only going to get worse, too, heading off to go spend his Saturday with Andrew fucking Curtis and his loose flannel.

The sun’s rising slowly, lighting the hall in a warm glow. Joel pads quietly into your room and pulls the cover back over his side of the mattress. You stir; your head jerks only to move some hair from your face, and then you sigh, sleep pulling you back into its arms.

He watches you for a second. Wishes he could run a light hand down your cheek, kiss your head. Whisper a goodbye, the same way you did to him almost a week ago.

He shakes the thought, collecting his boots from the floor. His hand hovers over his shirt for a moment. And then he lifts it by the collar, lays it neatly on the pillow by your head, and leaves. You can keep it, trash it, burn it. But it’s yours. Everything about him is yours.

In the kitchen, he stands by the sink, nursing a cup of coffee. It’s a quarter to six. This early on a Saturday, he figures he’ll be in Waco by seven, seven-thirty latest. His eyes fix on the spot you two stood last night, yelling back and forth about Lois. She seems so far away, now. He can barely remember the shape of her face, the sound of her voice.

His grip tightens around the mug. He places it in the sink, and grabs his keys. As he passes the stairs, he pauses. Leans on one foot, head tilted to listen out for any sound of life. Any fucking sound – the creak of a floorboard, the squeak of a door handle. Anything to keep him here. Anything.

Nothing comes. No sound, no movement, no you.

He closes the front door gently on his way out.

----------

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peggyao3 · 1 month ago

Text

Relic - Pt. 13 "Come not with a Sword"

PAIRING: Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen x Unnamed Ambiguous FMC

SUMMARY: ✧ Dreams are messages from the deep ✧

A woman from the unknown comes to Feyd in his dreams and his nights become his days as he flees to the dreamscape to escape the nightmares that haunt his waking hours.

TAGS: Third person POV, she/her AFAB FMC, explicit sexual content, smut, vaginal sex, vaginal fingering, oral sex, Porn with Plot, Feyd-Rautha's black cum and big cock, Praise Kink, Body Worship, angst/hurt and comfort, drama, fluff, plans within plans, implied/referenced child abuse, implied/referenced abuse, Trauma, mentions of suicidal thoughts, Healing, Strangers to Lovers, falling in love, Vulnerable/ Emotional/Possessive Feyd, Feyd is a sweet baby who did nothing wrong and I WILL pamper him, nurture not nature, Stockholm Syndrome but in a consensual way, lucid dreaming, Implied/Referenced Cannibalism, murder, teaching the universe about feminism, female rage, Frank Herbert would frown, No actually he would kneel in front of me, putting the science and the porn in sci-fi, angst with a happy ending

WORD COUNT: 4.1k

A/N: I apologize for the delay, I've been thinking about the Kinktober prompts a little too hard 🥹 But chapter 13 is ready to be served and I want to thank everyone who takes the time to comment because that literally is the one thing that makes actually writing this instead of just playing it out in my head worth it 💕💕💕 I appreciate you so much.

CW: Suicidal thoughts, implied abuse, something like attempted suicide, but also… be not afraidt

Reposted from my Ao3 💕| Masterlist | Relic Masterlist

Dividers by @saradika-graphics

← Previous Chapter, Next Chapter →

Day 15

With the opening door breezes a cool rush from the hallway and in comes Lilia, her gold-speckled eyes like coins of color against the black backdrop as she tries to switch off her smile like one might try and fail to switch off the sun.

Mikhail's sharp jaw turns, lips quirked into a crooked grin as the handmaid's shape flutters past him. His cocky eyes drift to the swell of her ass beneath her white servant's robes, his longing glance cut short by the closing door.

"You're in a good mood." The relic ceases the tender rubbing over her healing port and the delicate layer of new skin under the inconspicuous, shaved patch.

"I thought you weren't watching, forgive me." Lilia misinterprets the woman's quizzical look and scrambles to place the stack of new whalefurs and blankets on the lower end of the bed.

"Wasn't I looking right at you?"

The handmaid counters with an openness that might have cost her her tongue with any of her former Lords or Ladies. "Well, sometimes when you're looking right at me, it seems like you don't see me at all." And she doesn't mean the way the hallowed family or the advisors and generals refuse to see her. She feels like she's a ghost to her Lady sometimes, those faraway eyes twitching in hypnotizing patterns like she's a lucid dreamer dancing through a waking dream.

"An old habit. I'm just… Dissociating. Practicing Harkunnin."

"Without looking at any tapes? I only saw you looking at them once."

The relic pulls one of the furs over her crossed legs on the bed. So soft. Her beloved and her new, eight-arm-legged friend will love them. She deflects quickly: "The new guard, do you know him?"

"Oh, uh, in a way!" Lilia turns to the vanity and wipes at an invisible stain with her sleeve. In the mirror, she catches her Lady's glance, this time anything but dissociated. It almost burns her, to be actually looked at by someone of higher standing, but it's a pleasant burn.

Both women are sniffing each other's lies out like a dog does freshly cut meat in the other room, but Lilia breaks first, throwing up her arms in a gesture of giggly defeat. Fine!

"Mikhail's my husband," the maid blushes and lowers her head. "He wants you to know that he's very happy with his upgraded chair."

"Your husband!" The relic exclaims with a bright jolt of her facial features. "Yes, he told me that three times already." She dismissively swats away the talk about the chair. "I couldn't help but notice the look on his face when you passed him. Looked like he wanted to eat you."

"Well, I hope so." Lilia's bold tone contrasts with the way she awkwardly sits down on the vanity stool, one wiggling leg crossed over the other and her chin buried in her palm.

The woman on the bed bursts out laughing and rubs at her eyes, reclining against the headboard. "I feared he was molesting you. If he was, I'd have shown him how we dealt with molesters on Earth."

"I assure you, my Lady, I can give as good as I can get." Lilia's features shift into something as feral as anything living on Giedi Prime is bound to become. Beneath the chiseled mask of unyielding subservience lurk the same baser instincts that incite any organism. The relic has no trouble at all imagining Lilia and her husband fucking each other silly in their sparse free time.

"Oh, good." Snickering, she points at her handmaid with a sweeping finger gun, the motion awkward in its silliness, misplaced among the radiation and murder. "You tell him."

"Mikhail can be all bark and bite until you get to know him. You just need to know how to pet him right," Lilia diligently explains.

"That sounds like Feyd, to be honest."

"Really?" The maid's bobbing leg freezes mid-air. Not only is it improper to talk about the na-Baron in such a demeaning way, it is also deadly. Her shoulders then drop— because it is also true, which almost makes her even more giggly because of the depravity of it.

"Yes, absolutely." The Earth woman's impish smile dissolves into thoughtful tendrils. "But it's not just that. There's so much more that I get to see." The talk of marriage spins the wheel of her thoughts further. "Forgive me the impolite question, but-"

"Nothing to forgive ever, my Lady!" Lilia butts in.

"I disagree, but… I can't help but wonder, did you marry because you were forced to?"

"Oh, no." Trustfully, Lilia scoots closer to the bed, toes wagging and fingers drumming on her own cheeks. If anyone will understand her, it's the woman from old Earth. "We married out of love. Mikhail would throw a tantrum if he knew I told you but… I was the one who asked him to marry me." The ambers that are the woman's eyes spark to life with a golden glow. Nourishing sun beams. "And he said yes."

Something green then springs into bloom inside the relic's chest, a leaf to her tender sapling perhaps. Hope, she finds, tastes pink and yellow— cherry blossoms and lemons. A single goodness is enough to peel away her lurching belief that the universe of her people's descendants is inherently poisoned into badness.

"That is wonderful, Lilia. I'm so happy for you. I will make sure that nothing happens to you or your husband." I will make your life better.

The maid blushes purple, eyes lowered to her own knees.

"But that's our task, my Lady, to protect you."

"I don't think anyone can really protect me, but that's fine." She'll just have to adapt. The astronaut is unhappy with the course of her thoughts, the tender leaf ruffled by the winds that tug on it from all directions. She is almost thankful when her handmaid brings up the silly chair again.

"Sooo, about that chair." Lilia purses her lips with a jolly quiver of curiosity. "How did you…?" Her glance sweeps to the cryo pod before she lowers it shamefully.

An electric charge of wary caution prickles along the relic's nerves and she weighs her words with care. If this knee-jerk act of empathy on a desperate night is going to cost her the revelations of her secrets, she is going to hurl herself off that balcony.

Unknowingly, Mikhail saves her from the explanation, knocking then strutting into the room with his slightly o-shaped gait, toolbox in hand, folded chair under his arm.

"M'sorry Ladies," he drawls with an exaggerated extension of the last vowel. "I am to seal that ventilation shaft, confidentially."

Mikhail doesn't seem to give a shit about keeping the relationship to his wife a secret. He seems to give few shits about the proper tone in general.

"Confidentially?"

"Yes, Ma'am. Na-Baron said so himself, eh." He taps the transponder button behind his ear, its placement quite similar to the relic's fine chip port.

Confidentially. So, the Baron mustn't know that his pet has been taking liberties and befriending the unwelcome guest. Feyd has told her of the many deaths, the many rebirths, Gholas, when he held her tight the other night. Memories embedded in the flesh, a scientific breakthrough lost to a universe's political machinations. It makes her sick as much as it fascinates her.

"You know how to seal a ventilation shaft?" The Earth woman questions with a suspicious lilt.

"I know my way around things, eh. Seen some things, done some things before I joined the troops."

"If it really needs to be done, let me do it!" The engineer quizzically ogles the electrical welder that Mikhail swoops out of the toolbox. 24,000 years later, and some tools haven't changed at all. She's almost yearning to get her hands around it, but Mikhail, whistling something low in his throat, disregards her prompt benevolently.

She hadn't seen to the ventilation hatch sooner, hoping that the being named Glugo would come for a secret visit once more. Now she is forced to watch Lilia's husband climb on the plastic chair (upgraded with an unfoldable flap to rest his legs upon) whose statics are not balanced to carry a standing man.

"The Lady said you were looking at my ass earlier, is that right?" Lilia has jumped up from the stool, sauntering over with a swing to her hips.

"So what if I— huurghh!" She pokes the back of her husband's thighs, causing his ticklish hamstrings to contract into a twitch. "Ah! Woman-"

Mikhail sputters a litany of curses in Harkunnin and Lilia has to grab a whole two handfuls of ass to keep the wiry guard from flying off the wobbly chair.

The relic can't help but laugh and laugh, even when her cheeks start hurting. So alien, that feeling, as alien as the colors green, pink and yellow have become.

"Give me an hour and I'll print you a ladder!"

So, love, after all.

It turns out, real love can be born out of any sort of wasteland.

Day 20

The engagement - canceled! How delightful! Things couldn't be going much better for Vladimir Harkonnen. Though there is room for improvement. His darling nephew still sneaks into the concubine wing with its single, occupied quarters each night. Vladimir hadn't expected Feyd-Rautha to recover from the blow of rejection so quickly.

No wedding! It's only a matter of time until the order of robed poison whisperers comes knocking on his orbit and demands that he make it happen. They might even want to install a witchy pestilence in his palace to observe the process. It puts him in the mood for good old-fashioned femicide, but for now he has bigger concerns.

Because Feyd almost looks happier than before and that is decidedly against the rules.

The Baron is nothing if not a kill-joy, and so he waits, half-afloat in a bog of oily bath water and self-complacence.

To kill her like the sorry graftling, that might be a bit much, though he had entertained the idea as early as when he first saw the needy gleam in his nephew's eyes when speaking of that woman. Wouldn't it be fun to have her killed and remade as a Ghola, the same flesh but unable to remember a thing about Feyd-Rautha?

No, no, no - The Baron needs to play his nephew like a fine instrument, as tempting as it might be to punch him like a drum with a stick. With well past 80 years of age, Vladimir is slowly growing tired of mind games.

If the Bene Gesserit are telling the truth, the woman has already had her rebirth. A mummy out of the ice. And she might as well be dead to him, the way she stays in her chambers as silent and unmoving as a corpse. That's all right with the Baron. He doesn't need to see the toy his nephew wets his dick with.

But a proper meeting is long overdue.

And so he waits and exhales herbal vapor into the soggy air, the only sounds being the drip-drip-drip of oily, steaming bath water whenever he lifts his heavy arm, and the pistons of his lung machine.

Then, a hollow rumble shakes the bath crypt's vaulted ceiling. The door opens to a rectangle of light from the hallway and a waft of cold air stirs the lazy molecules, quickly swallowed by thick, muggy air.

A figure cuts through the fumes, broad shoulders, dark eyes gleaming past the fog. So anxious that boy.

"Ah, there you are, my boy. You've left me waiting. Too busy to indulge your old uncle in a bit of your precious time?"

There are no guards, no slaves. Feyd-Rautha stands stiff as a board in front of his uncle's tub, knowing what it means. He offers no response.

"You've been spending an awful lot of time with your new toy." The Baron's neck wobbles as he tilts his head.

"So? What's a new toy if I don't play with it?"

Vladimir laughs and laughs until his lungs hurt from the rotting disease inside. The pistons of the bulbous breathing apparatus that hovers like a moon in his back jump up and down with wheezing jolts. "I'm starting to feel a bit neglected."

Anxiety is barely the right word to describe the crippling tightness behind her sternum when she walks down the bug-like bowels of the palace pyramid. After almost three weeks of being huddled up in the illusionary safety of her chambers, her advance down the hallway feels like she had just given birth to herself, more vulnerable even than she had been when the sisterhood freed her from her sarcophagus and she came out spitting the thawed, amniotic fluid.

Guarded by Mikhail, his presence does little to brighten her mood today. And then he stands still in the middle of the corridor, footfall stopping so that the only sound she's left with is her thundering heart.

"Ain't allowed to go closer." His jaws and neck are ramrod stiff as he jerks his chin to the far door. Tall and glinting black, it may as well have led to hell. "But you go. It'll be fine."

Fine is no word that agrees with her when she is invited by the Baron Harkonnen himself without a given reason. She didn't even have the time to have Feyd in the training hall informed.

"Okay," is all she manages with a small voice, not looking at her guard for affirmation. Mikhail is glad for it, because anxiety is ticking in the veins under his temples. He doesn't know what the Baron wants of his new Lady, but he knows of the dead slaves that are frequently carted from the bath chambers to the meat plants. "Please don't let anyone into my room."

"Yes, my Lady."

And so she walks with only a bobbing glowglobe left for company and her gun in its makeshift holster which sits snug against her waist, concealed by a jacket whose armpits have long grown clammy with anxious sweat.

Come quietly, don't knock, the note had said. Gingerly, her fingers wrap around the cold, bulbous handle and quietly push the door open, just a crack so she can slip through.

She finds herself blinded, venturing into the dense fog that nearly takes her breath away. It smells of herbs and metal, the scent so thick she can taste it at the back of her throat. Immediately, her jacket clings to her arms from the humidity. The sound of distant bubbling drones out her quiet footsteps on black, slippery tiles.

The room takes shape and structures emerge from the thick mist, an oval contour, a pale mountain, a person standing at the side. She parts the fog and freezes with a thousand little icicles in her chest.

Feyd-Rautha stands next to his uncle's bathtub, his tunic discarded, his bare shoulders milky and damp as oily, scented steam curls off them, muscles rolling as he turns to face the unexpected visitor. His teeth clench tight, a muscle snapping like a whipcord across his jaw.

Her poor beloved looks at her with such horror, she may as well have been the apparition of her own naked corpse. His hands are frozen at the hem of his trousers, pushed below his hip bones with just the top of his flaccid cock peeking out.

He is the minotaur at the center of a prison-maze and his woman is the gun with its cold muzzle pressed directly at his forehead. Fog slips from the bath chamber into his mind and the world begins to spin.

The woman's dumbstruck gaze sways slowly to the Baron who sits half-submerged in oily liquid. The top of his massive, fleshy chest wobbling just above the surface. Veins are stretched thin across the expanse of skin, each blood vessel leaving a purple imprint against his sickly pallor. Her glassy eyes remind Vladimir of his dear nephew's when he was still young and sweet, afraid and confused.

The Baron smirks, lifts one fat arm on the back of the tub with a playful bat of his fingers, rings clanking on the tiles, as if to say 'Hello, little pawn'.

Glass shatters in her eyes and if she could strike him down with anger, she would. The Baron's meaty finger twitches to his thickest ring that hugs his middle finger like a capsule and the fog around him snaps and ripples. A shield powered by a tiny Holtzman generator, and the first time she sees one in action. The hidden gun at her ribs taunts her with its uselessness.

Helpless like a fly in a web, she averts her gaze from the thick, white tarantula patriarch who mocks her with glinting, beady eyes below his saggy brows. She has no weapon, no tool to obliterate the devastation in her beloved's eyes, the humiliation that has burrowed itself so deep that neither fingers nor knives could claw out its festering tumors.

"Feyd…" Her voice dies with his cold, wet stare.

"Isn't my dear nephew pretty like this?" The Baron drones, stirring the waters with a gooey, fat knee. "But I suppose you've seen him already. Just remember that I've seen him more often." Seen him— and touched him.

Feyd snaps into a crouch, picks up his belt and tunic, long limbs turned into stiff, hard rods. With no sound besides his feverish breath, he rushes past her. The touch of tender fingers on his naked belly makes him jump like a wounded foal and he finds his voice, a low-pitched bellow that echoes off the cavernous chamber walls a thousandfold.

"Get away from me, woman!"

The door bangs open and out the fog bursts a haunted bull, stampeding down the corridor. Veins across his hands and arms are swollen thick from the humidity, blood races through them hard and fast as punches the glowglobe to shards. He slings the belt around his hips and yanks the tunic over his head savagely, his own blood running down his knuckles. Mikhail has wisely removed himself.

"Feyd, I'm so sorry, please wait, please let me—"

"I said get the fuck away from me!" His voice cracks, his uncle's laughter rings in his ears like death knells. The Baron has poisoned her now with an image she will see every time she lies with him, every time she looks at him. Her steps grow quicker. So do his.

"I didn't know what he wanted!" She pleads. "If I had known, I would have killed him straight from the door!"

"No one can kill him!" Feyd-Rautha spits over his shoulder, takes a sharp turn, away from the concubines' corridor, dizzy from the fog, dizzy from the rage. "I've tried, too many times!" Bracing himself against the wall, he runs onward, collecting dirt under his damp soles.

His darling calls for him. This time, he draws his blade and her little footsteps falter at his back. Immediately, his throat draws tight. Wetness blurs his sight and he wants to curl up, curl up with his blade, with his blade tucked against his tummy. His bloodied palm finds the panel to unlock his own chambers.

There is no peace there.

A tiny sob from behind him makes him jolt over the threshold. He doesn't want her pity, he wants her rage. He wants to die.

She is quicker than the closing door and bursts inside his room together with him. A quick glance across the large room, vaulted ceilings, glossy windows with the shutters half closed, the furniture hard and uninviting.

Despite Feyd's build and height, she manages to tackle him to the ground, or rather, he stumbles in his hysterical attempt to pull away from her. He rolls on his back, hand on her tummy in a half-hearted attempt to keep her from crawling over him.

"Please, please, please, you're panicking. I'm here!"

Yes, that's the exact fucking problem. She was there.

Feyd-Rautha laughs, tears streaking from his eyes to his ears, tongue peeking out between his blackened teeth. He presents his blade which gleams in tear-wet astigmatism. Real pretty. It would be even prettier embedded in his neck, dripping with his blood. His darling's belly rises and falls under his palm in quick fearful breaths.

"What d-do you want with the blade? Please, put it down, please put it down, please—"

Oh God, it's not at all meant for her, she realizes when Feyd-Rautha points the glinting blade at his throat. It's meant for him.

Her fingers lock like vises around his wrist, nails digging into the thin, white skin. Feyd giggles, biceps clenched as he guides the knife slowly to its soft target, free hand sprawled across her belly, twisted into the flesh. To push her away or to pull her closer; maybe both.

Is he really trying, or just trying to scare her? Her arms aren't really stronger than his, yet she somehow manages to drag the blade away from his jugular, clutching his wrist so hard, his carpal bones are bruising her palm.

"Stop this, stop this, stop this!" She yells with each hearty tug.

The sharp tip jerks down and scrapes over his collar bone, a little curve, a crescent shape. Feyd gasps a wet little moan, giggling through his stinging tears as blood slips down his shoulder, warm and wet. His woman fumbles for something under her jacket and he finds himself presented with the barrel of a gun made of half-transparent plastic. He nearly goes cross-eyed before he starts laughing.

"Yes, shoot me, my darling!" Feyd-Rautha slurs hysterically, twisting his fingers hard into her stomach. He nearly grows hard from the idea of his rotten brain matter splattering across the gross tiles of this insidious room, finally delivered from evil. No one would be better to do it than the angel from his dreams. She'd have to burn his corpse afterwards, so the Baron can't have him brought back.

He still holds the blade, metal tremoring above his neck, now contained by only the counterforce of her non-dominant hand. Her clammy fingers fumble with the hammer of the gun.

"Put the blade down, or do I need t-to shoot your fucking hand off, Feyd?" She pleads and his eyes snap up with sudden fury, mouth twisting into hardness, eyes spilling over with shiny tears. His arm flexes, pulling her clenched hand right with him in its pathetic belief that she could stop him with the strength of her body. The black-hot tip kisses his neck.

The relic snaps the gun up and points it at herself, the muzzle cold and grounding against her damp temple.

Laughter fades at once. Feyd-Rautha's brows furrow and his grip slackens, deeply disturbed. "My darling… What are you doing?"

"Drop the blade right now!"

He obeys without thinking, weapon clattering across the tiles before his palms find her hips, clinging to them in fear. "What are you doing with that gun? Stop that— You c-can't leave me."

"And you can't leave me." With a deep exhale and smoldering eyes, she places the gun right next to Feyd's knife, a tiny click of plastic on marble. His fingers clench, his belly where she's seated jumps with quick breaths.

"I still love you," she sighs and Feyd-Rautha's entire body goes slack. Maybe that's what he needed to hear all along. "Of course, I still love you!"

Her voice cracks, her shoulders slump. Crying, she throws herself over him, forcing her arms around his neck to serve as pillows for his head. Cheek to cheek, she kisses his tear-streaked skin. Feyd's arms slide home around her back, holding her to him like a blanket.

"I'm so sorry."

"It's okay," she murmurs. "It's okay. You're my love and nothing could ever change that." Brief laughter tickles his ear. "When I woke up, I thought I belonged nowhere. But that's not true, because I belong with you and you belong with me. I think I've been floating through space for 24,000 years just to get to you."

He is so ashamed. He never wants to come back out of her embrace.

"I'll find a way," she promises, a sweet whisper against his ear. Already, the gears have started turning in her head and her interface twinkles like a shooting star to make a wish. "We'll kill him."

Feyd wants nothing more than to believe her. His fingers trail up her spine, to the nape of her neck. His flesh burns with vile memories. "Can you— Can you still touch me and make it go away?"

"Of course, my love. I will make it go away. I'll make it better." Her voice trembles from the decision she's made. "I will make it all better."

Come not here in the sun! Come not with a sword! Come not crying over a naked corpse! Come not with a disturbed mind!

- Druth (Hellblade)

A/N: To distract you from your killing fantasies, I think this is the right time to mention that Lilia and Mikhail are my lovely bestie's and my OCs in Dune disguise and I love them so absurdly much, your honor 🥹❤️

FEYD TAG LIST

@nostalgichoya, @forgedfromthestars, @sweetiee-o, @missbingu, @minedofmoria

@sebastianswallows, @charmingballoon, @flower-frog, @welliah, @aoi-targaryen

@coastalcowgirl35, @esolean, @szapizzapanda, @tatertooted, @sunny747

@ughdontbeboring, @meetmeatyourworst

#feyd rautha #feyd x reader #dune part 2 #dune fanfiction #feyd #feyd rautha x reader #austin butler #feyd x oc #feyd rautha x oc #peggysuave fanfics #peggysuave;relic #feyd rautha harkonnen #feyd fanfiction #feyd rautha fanfiction #feyd smut #feyd rautha smut #feyd imagine #feyd rautha imagine #dune part two

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epicbuddieficrecs · 26 days ago

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Weekly Recap | October 28th-November 3rd 2024

To my American neighbours, I hope you've all exercised your right to vote or will soon do so, and I'm hoping for all of our sakes for a good outcome after Tuesday. 🙏

Complete

all dressed up (with somewhere to go) by 42hrb / @exhuastedpigeon (S8, Halloween, Getting Together | 3K | Teen): “Hey,” Buck grinned when he reached Spider-man, grabbing him by the wrist to turn him around. He peeled the mask up just enough to kiss him. That was weird too, he’d never had to lean down to kiss Tommy before, even if it was only by an inch. Maybe the boots Buck was wearing had a bigger sole than he’d realized. Buck wrapped his arms around him and deepened the kiss, groaning just a little when he felt Tommy wrap his arms around Buck too. “Evan?”

Cleaning Up After Communion by Pansys_goth_gf (Post-S8E5: Masks, Friends to Fiancés | 3K | Teen): “I want to fuck a priest.” Across from him, Frank blinks. Pauses. Then sets down his notebook and leans forwards. “Do you want to fuck a priest, or do you want to fuck God?” Or, Eddie crushes on a priest, figures out his feelings, and does something selfish

never believe it's not so by rainbow_nerds/ @rainbow-nerdss (Magic AU, Maddie POV | 6K | Teen): Maddie Buckley never expected to enjoy hanging out with her little brother's best friend. She just didn't think they could have all that much in common. Turns out they've got more in common than she could have expected. And she can't tell Buck. In which Maddie has magic. And so does Buck. And so does Eddie. And she can't tell either of them. Or: 5 times Maddie has to listen to Buck and Eddie talk about each other without spilling their secrets, and one time they actually talk to each other.

i put a spell on you (because you're mine) by teenytinytomlinson/ @littlefreakbuckley (S8, Infidelity, Getting Together | 11K | Explicit): Tommy bails on Buck's Halloween plans, Eddie offers to take his place in the couple's costume contest, and Buck goes home with a grand prize.

🔥we won't look back, we won't be lost by Daisies_and_Briars/ @cal-daisies-and-briars (Post-S7, Dad Buck | 37K | Teen): Over six years after the 118 rescued a baby from a pipe, Buck meets that same child again on a different call. And in all that time, she never found a home. OR: Buck adopts Pipe Baby while Eddie waits for Christopher to come home.

WIP

eddie diaz vs. the dating apps by savemebobbynash (Post-S7, Getting Together | 5/8 | 10K | Mature): Newly out as gay, Eddie Diaz explores dating apps with the help of his teenage son and his chaotic best friend.

🔥 go and kill, go and die by Daisies_and_Briars/ @cal-daisies-and-briars (Zombie Apocalypse AU | 11/14 | 48K | Mature): The 118 are a group of survivors in a small California town in the wake of a zombie apocalypse. For months they've been isolated and safe. But the arrival of some new players, the search for some missing loved ones, will shake everything up and put their little team in jeopardy.

#epic buddie fic rec #buddie #buddie fanfiction #buddie fic rec #buddie fanfic #buddie fic

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otherone12 · 1 month ago

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High School Stuff

Basement!Gerard Way x Reader

-> Masterlist

A/N: Hey!! I recently realized that I had never written a Basement Gerard fic, so I made this one. I also never did a DD era too, but soon I will… idk if i really liked this one, but I hope you like it! <3

(If u have some suggestion, idea, or request, just drop it! )

Summary: Gerard alwas has a crush on you, but you're part of "popular" world, so he didn't get any hope to be with you. Little did he know that you liked him as much as he liked you. (I know that canonically basemant gee would already be an adult, but in this fic he is like 17 years old.)

- Word Count: 2.850

- Warnings: None, but this fic is a teenage cliché, and swach from the 1st person to the 3rd person POVs a lot.

- Ps: I'll not use y/n…

- Ps2: I'm brazilian, so english is not my first language ... sorry if i wrote something wrong.

___________________________________________

3 Person POV

- They're so perfect! - Gerard sighed, daydreaming, and drawing them in his sketchbook - Like... all pretty, and so kind, so smart... fuck!

It wasn't the first time he did this, everytime they passed through him in the school corridors, he spent the morning talking about this. In the beginning, it was cute, but it turned out to be a bother.

Spending lunch listening to him talk wouldn't be a problem if the topics were different, but before he could continue declaring himself to his own drawing, Frank couldn't contain himself.

- Gee, we know that you're in love. - He began, still chewing his sandwich - Hm... But can you shut up about this for once?!

Without Stopping looking at what he was scribbling, Gerard sighed once more.

- Sorry...

His sad voice made the boys exchange glances, a little regretful for cutting off their friend. But that didn't last long, because he went back to talking as if nothing had happened.

- But I could literally kill for a kiss! - Gerard growled - Nothing is ever gonna happen,I know, but I can dream, can't I?

Frank huffed, burying his face in his hands, while Ray found himself in need of interfering before they ended up being rude to Gerard.

- Sure you can, dude. - Ray's comforting smile didn't mask the fact that they couldn't take it anymore. - But I think Frank is right... you talk too much about them.

- But the draw is pretty cool, by the way. - Mikey smiles, putting his hand on his brother's shoulder.

- Thanks, Mikey... - An awkward smile filled his face - I'll stop talking about this... I didn't mean to bother you, guys.

- That's fine, Gee. - Mikey said, while he chuckles - We know you can't help it.

It wasn't long before the bell rang, causing each of the boys to go to their respective classrooms. Before going to the classroom, Gerard needed to stop by his locker to get the right books.

1st Person POV

- Want me to go with you? - My friend asked me, after we heard the bell rings. - I'll skip the next class anyway...

- No need, I'll manage. - I chuckled, getting up - Thanks... if you get bored, text me!

Walking through the school's corridor, going to my locker, I couldn't help but stare at Gerard, who was in the middle of the crowd of teenagers, walking to his locker too. He always looks so cute...

I never had the chance to talk to him, but, discreetly, I've heard him talking about comics, movies, rock bands... but whenever I had the opportunity to talk to him, my friends ended up stopping me in some way.

They say he's weird, he stinks, his locker is gross... Once, my friend said he has a dungeon in his basement. Still, I think he's interesting.

I made my way towards him, thinking that would be my chance to talk to him, but I wasn't fast enough, and he got in the classroom. It's been months trying, but something always goes wrong.

Well, my class went smoothly, but I still couldn't get him out of my mind. I think if something was going to happen, it would have already happened. If he had any feelings, he would have told me, right? Or is the lack of opportunity mutual? Anyways, the next class is my favorite... Gerard sits in front of me, but his science partner doesn't stop talking for a minute.

The teacher arrived in the room, and the noise of the conversations stopped. Nobody really likes her, but she sure is scary.

- Good afternoon, class! - she starts, with a fake sympathy - Well, today we're gonna do something different. I'm gonna change your partners.

The whole class booed, but soon the noise stopped.

- Calm down, everyone! It's just for today. But... I'm gonna choose.

She started to separate the pairs, in the end I think I ended up without one.

- Are you left without a partner? - She asked, with the least kindness a human being could have.

- I guess so... - I responded, I won't lie, the feeling of being alone is bad, but I faked confidence - But I can do it by myself.

She took a quick look around the room, and her gaze landed on the only person who was oblivious to the whole situation, with his headphones on full volume and his head buried in a sketchbook.

- I think mr. Way has no partner too... Well, now you both have.

Finally it was my chance, I didn't take long and got close to his table, I didn't know exactly how to get his attention, Gerard seemed to be in his own world, very completely distant.

My body ended up casting a shadow over his drawing, causing Gerard to look in my direction. His eyes widened, and he quickly took off his headphones.

- Hey! Gerard, right? - Obviously I knew who he was, but since we never talked, it would be weird if I said I knew a lot about him.

- Y-yes - His face turned light red, and he swallowed hard.

- I'm-

- I know who you are - Panic took hold of him, turning him even more red, as he realized what he had said without thinking. - I-i mean, you're one of the p-popular ones, so e-everybody knows you and-

- I got it - I smiled at him, taking a seat in the chair by his side. - good thing, I didn't waste time with introductions.

He stared at me, his eyes were even more beautiful up close... well, if I didn't speak, he wouldn't either, so I started

- Well, I think we're partners for the class today...

- A-are we? - A shy smile appeared on his face - That's n-nice...

Gerard put a lock of his black hair behind his ear, damn he's so strangely handsome... That shy way of his, I've actually never heard him stutter, could it be because of me?

Not giving a damn about the work the teacher had given, and realizing that he wasn't paying attention either, I started to bring up a subject.

- I saw you were drawing... - I looked towards his notebook, but unfortunately he had already quickly closed it when I sat down next to him. - May I see?

- I-i don't know... - Strangely, he turned the notebook over, handpicking the drawing he was going to show me. - M-maybe this one-

Before he could turn the notebook over, a sheet fell out of it, gliding delicately to the floor, right next to my foot.

In an effort to help, I bent down and picked up the sheet from the floor. As soon as I did it, I couldn't help but look at the drawing on it.

- I-is that... me? - I stared in disbelief at the drawing, then back at him, who was about to pass out, trying to hide every inch of his beautiful face in his hands. - What's wrong? That's fucking awesome!

- Y-you not supposed to see this... - he whined, shaking his mug in disappointment

- Why not?! - The more I looked at the drawing, the more I loved every detail... but I didn't understand why he didn't want to show it to me... or why he chose to draw me... among so many people. - The drawing is perfect!

- D-do you think so? - Little by little he was digging his face out of his hands.- D-don't you think it is c-creepy or something?

- No way! I'm even flattered! - He let out a proud smile, but his shyness was still visible. - I was thinking... maybe we could-

Before I could say anything, and finally make plans for us to go outside this damn school, but it turned out that the bell rang right on time and my friend came running and grabbed me by the arm.

- 'Cmon, I have a million things to tell you.

It all happened so fast that I didn't even get to say goodbye to him. But I don't plan on telling anyone about his drawing... if he got nervous just because I saw it, imagine if other people knew.

Even though they told me a million things, I couldn't absorb anything, my mind was still lost in the science period I spent with Gerard.

3 Person POV

Gerard stood there, Sitting in class and putting materials in the backpack. He was taking in everything that had just happened. It was a mixture of joy, at having finally talked to them, and fear that they would find him even more weird.

Knowing where he would find his friends, Gerard left the room and ran to tell them every detail.

- ... And then they saw one of the drawings I made of them.

The boys looked at each other, already expecting the worst, then Mikey asked the question that was on everyone's mind.

- So now they think you're a perv?

Gerard was embarrassed, remembering the exact moment it all happened, but a small, hopeful smile appeared on his slightly flushed face.

- I-i don't think so... - the excitement in his voice was becoming more evident - They said they were flattered, so...

The worried expressions soon turned into smiles, and Gerard sighed in relief.

- Man, that's a great thing... - Ray put his hand on Gerard's shoulder, encouraging his friend. - I don't want to get your hopes up, but you should talk to them.

- You think? - His hazel eyes glowed.

- I'm sure! - Ray almost screamed, but he didn't care.

Before they could celebrate, Frank raised an extremely important point that none of the others had thought of.

- But you have to find them alone - He suggested, seriously - 'cause their friends are jerks and gonna humiliate you.

- Frank! - Mikey widens his eyes, afraid that this would make his brother give up.

- But it's true! - Frank defended himself - I already heard them saying shit about you, about us, actually...

- You're right... I should meet them alone... - Gerard took a deep breath, pausing for a moment to think about when he could actually have a conversation without their friends around. - But it's almost impossible... they're always with a friend.

1st Person POV

A few days have passed and I still can't get him out of my mind. All I want to do is chat about him to someone, but my friends definitely won't take it easy. Sometimes I wonder if they're really my friends, or if we just decided it was socially appropriate for us to hang out together. Like, I disagree with almost all the things they do, the way they talk about people is just not nice and once in a while I ask myself if they talk shit about me too.

Well, my parents aren't a good option either, they think that dating at my age is a waste of time or whatever. So I have to keep it to myself... I wish I had asked him to give me the drawing he did, y'know, just to make sure i didn't make it all up in my head.

Well, the days went by, one more boring than the other, until one ordinary morning, I was in the corridor again, and I saw Gerard approaching, I couldn't help but let a smile grow on my face

- Hey! - He said a bit shy.

- Hi! - I smiled at him, excited that we were finally talking again - How’s it going?

- I’m fine! How ‘bout you?

- Better now - He took a deep breath and scratched his hand behind his neck - i…hm… i wanted to ask if you wan-

I wanted to hear it, but then a couple of my friends showed up, interrupting, like always. They looked at us, trying to understand the situation and expressing their annoyance that Gerard was there.

- Does he really think he can talk to you? - He chuckled, pointing to Gerard with disgust.

I saw Gerard's gaze change completely, one second ago I saw the most beautiful smile I've ever seen, and now he was looking down, avoiding any eye contact, embarrassed.

- Dude, you have no chance here - She said threateningly, stucking up her nose - so why don't you just get away, you freak!

Gerard gave me a brief look, making his way to leave, and before he could really do it, thinking I would act like my "friends", I didn't help myself back and stared at them in an unafraid way.

- I was actually talking to him, so I think you guys really should leave. - I was calm, but ready if they wanted to discuss.

Gerard's eyes wide, unexpecting me say that. A light smile appeared in his face,

- Are you trading us for this thing?! - She was shocked. Her eyebrows furrowed, and almost screamed in the hallway.

- Yep, - I wrapped my arm around Gerard's waist and he gasped. I keep eye contact with my not-friend-anymore and mocked- it's that hard for you to get it? I thought you're smarter than that.

- So now you're dating this? - He curled his lips, looking at the top from the bottom of us. - How gross.

Carried by the heat of the moment and wanting them to leave, I held Gerard's face, pulling him close enough for me to reach his lips. Damn how I wanted this kiss. I got drunk on the taste of coffee and cigarettes in their mouths, for a second I even forgot that they were looking at us.

Surprisingly, he kept kissing me, so I didn't break it until I really needed to breathe. The soft skin of his face in my hand and the feeling of his lips on mine was so perfect, I wanted this never to end.

Letting go of his mouth, I smiled at him, which was clearly still holding his breath, and didn't know how to react. I ignored the disgusted looks our audience were giving us, just smiling at him, as he did the same, blushing hard.

- I am - I answered, confident - Right, Gee?

When I looked at him, Gerard passed his hand behind my back, not even looking at the idiots in front of us.

- Y-yeah! - He was still stunned, but in a good way, I think.

they exchanged looks, chuckling, i was supposed to feel embarrassed or something like that, but being by Gerard made things seem different. Is not like he was confident, but at least I wasn't alone.

- Don't you ever talk with us again. - He said, and they walked away.

I waved at them, playfully, trying to have fun with the situation , but I knew that they wouldn't leave Gee alone, quite the opposite, now I was a brand new target. Anyway, at that moment, the only thing I could think was "what if he didn't want me to kiss him?!".

- I-i'm, sorry for the kiss. - Desperately and not wanting him to think I was weird or he saying that he didn't like me that way, I started to apologize - I didn't mean to. Like, i did, i want it really bad, but i shouldn't have-

Without warning, he cut me off, kissing me with his soft lips, his two hands holding my face. The kiss was not delicate, but messy and inexperienced. My hands went up to his greasy hair, and I could hear little moans coming from his mouth as my tongue made its way over his lower lip. There were people in the corridor, but I didn't care, and neither did he. Again, we ran out of steam, slowly separating from each other. I licked my lips, absorbing the situation.

- Don't worry, i wanted it too, you can't even imagine how much - He admitted, without any sort of shame - and thanks for defending me. I am used to them doing this kind of thing, you don't need to worry...

-You shouldn't have to get used to this. - I sighed - The least I could do was be by your side.

I turned my attention to the materials in my locker, picking up the things I would need for the next lesson, but he didn't seem completely satisfied. His eyes remained on me, not a bad feeling, but I was curious to know what he was thinking. Gerard snorted, and I closed the cupboard, looking at him again.

- So... you said we were dating - He sounded confused and innocent, so fucking cute - Were you serious? I mean, I know we're not dating, but would you?

- Well, I really like you, but before we could properly date, I think we should hang out, if you wanted to, of course.

With every word that came out of my mouth, I saw his eyes shine brighter and brighter, he looked like a child who just got a new toy

- Yes! I want, I always wanted! - He cheered, trying to hold his enthusiasm - Are you up to get to starbucks after school?

- Sure! - my joy was cut off by the school bell - But I really gotta go now... math test.

- May I accompany you there? - He let out a shy smile

- Yes, please. - I giggled.

Gerard extended his hand, and I held it. I'm not gonna lie, it was weird at first, 'cause his hands were sticky, but after a couple steps, i didn't mind anymore.

He was practically jumpping, and I followed suit down the corridor, taking advantage of the company I could get from him in that moment.

___________________________________________

~Soo, that's it! hope u enjoyed. ;)

#my chemical romance #mcr #gerard way #gerard way x reader

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francisco-castle · 11 months ago

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POV: You're married to Frank Castle

#frank castle #frank castle x black!reader #frank castle x black reader #frank castle smut #frank castle fanfiction #the punisher #the punisher x reader #black reader #black coded reader #frank castle x reader #frank castle moodboard #moodboard #fanfiction moodboard #the punisher x black reader

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kkcauseway · 9 months ago

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Pregnancy fics

All my fics relating to pregnancy/childbirth 🩷

Oh Baby- Joel Miller x F!reader (Series) (after outbreak) You're settled in Jackson happy in a relationship with Joel. The only thing missing, a baby. You cant wait to expand your family.

Caring hand- Joel Miller x F!reader (Oneshot) (No outbreak) You and Joel are travelling, on the way to your long awaited trip in celebration of your recent promotion, but your morning sickness is at its worst.

Life- Joel Miller x F!reader (Series) (No outbreak) Sarah doesn't die nor does she have a deadbeat mom. You and Joel are so happy together and extremely excited at the prospect of your growing family. (Also written from Joel's pov)

Forever- Joel Miller x F!reader (Series) (after outbreak) Follows the usual story events, you and Joel have been dating for two years when you find out your pregnant. You know Bill and Franks is safer than the QZ so you plan to move there permanently, but then you bump into Marlene and she needs help escorting Ellie. So much happens, but you get through it for your growing family. (includes childbirth, lots of smut & family fluff)

Something- Joel Miller x F!reader (Series) (No outbreak) New neighbourhood, new neighbours, new start. Unexpected friendships are made and life is changed forever. It's full of ups, downs, secret moments, lust and desire.

It’s happening!- Husband Joel Miller x Wife F!reader (Oneshot) (no outbreak) Joel has a dream that you're pregnant. You've been trying for a while, is this it?

Birthday wishes- Jackson!Joel x F!Reader (oneshot) (after outbreak) Telling Joel he's going to be a daddy again on his birthday.

Upgrade to Grandpa- Joel&Sarah Miller (Oneshot) (after outbreak) Sarah survives that fateful day and so she and Joel are happy in Jackson surrounded by family. She has been feeling off for a little while and so goes to get checked, it's there she finds out shes pregnant. Aged 22 and having recently lost her boyfriend she needs her family to support her and they do just that.

Mine for life- Parent Joel Miller x F!reader (Oneshot) (no outbreak) Your son has been on the earth for a whole two weeks, the day are all blending into one, but you wouldn't change anything about it. As you go about your morning routine as normal Joel has the biggest of surprises for you.

#joel miller #the last of us #no outbreak!joel miller #fluff and smut #pregnancy #childbirth #morning sickness #pregnancy fic #pedro pascal #pedro pascal characters #Pedro pascal character fanfic

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coffeexafterxmidnight · 2 years ago

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The Token Human - part 1

So that Welcome Home ARG eh? Eh? You know it right, my followers? You should look into it some, it looks like it's shaping up to be something really, really good.

Anyway I'm a sucker for well-made evil children's characters in horror media so I tried to capture the ✨vibes ✨. I don't feel I succeeded, but oh well. Part 1 of a possible series? We'll see.

Reader [gender not stated] pov CW: Body horror, eye horror, size horror[?], creepy puppets, memory alteration, whump? ask to tag Part 2

Nobody else in Home was quite like you. But nobody in Home was quite like anyone else, either! Everyone was different, and unique, and special! That's what Wally told you when you first moved in. And he was right, like he always was.

But still. Nobody was quite like you. Nobody had hair like yours, on your head, on your arms and legs. Nobody had skin like yours, soft and squishy in a different way than everyone else. Nobody had eyes like yours or ears like yours.

Nobody had hands like yours. And you noticed that right away the first time you held hands with them in a game. You had five fingers total. They had four.

You were pretty sure you were human. Julie was human too, but… a different kind of human, you were pretty sure of that, too. Really, everyone just seemed to be… them. Frank was Frank and Howdy was Howdy, Eddie and Julie and Poppy and Sally and Barnaby were all themselves too.

And Wally…

Wally was your best friend.

That's why when he invited you to his Home, to prepare a surprise party, you jumped right at it. You were always up for a party! You were too big for most of the games they played but you could put up the decorations and light the candles on the cake and clean the hard to reach spots your friends couldn't! You were a perfect fit in Home-

Wally called your name.

"Be careful!"

Bit late for that. In your little thought train you stepped back and right off the little ladder you'd been standing on to clean. It wasn't a bad fall, the step ladder was built for your friends after all. No, it just knocked the air out of you. But it reminded you of something else.

Your friends… didn't really seem to feel pain.

"I'm okay!" You called out as the air returned to you.

Wally had been standing nearby with one hand over his mouth, but lowered it slowly. His smile returned, and he laughed.

"Silly, silly," he said between the distinctive sound of his amusement. "You were thinking too hard!"

Yeah, you were. You laughed with him and sat up. He stood over you now, his soft little hands helping you stand.

"What were you thinking about?" He asked. "Was it the party?"

You hummed, backtracking your thoughts. What had you been thinking about, really? What set that train of thought rolling…?

"I think I'm forgetting something again," you said, looking at him.

Wally tilted his head to the side.

"Silly," he said. "You're always forgetting things. What is it this time?"

"I don't know!" You said, smiling. "If I knew, I wouldn't have forgotten it, would I?"

You both laughed, but yours faded sooner than his. Your smile fell. What had you forgotten?

A door creaked and swung open. You and Wally turned towards the sound.

"Maybe," Wally said, "you forgot to eat. Let's go in the kitchen!"

"Okay!" You couldn't remember anything else you could've forgotten so into the kitchen with him you went.

It was a nice little kitchen, though Wally never seemed to use it much unless you were here. He didn't like anyone seeing him eat. In fact, other than apples, you didn't know what he liked to eat at all. He liked sweets, you knew that much…

As you looked down at the colorful kitchen table, you frowned. You didn't feel hungry, now that you thought about it. You couldn't remember the last time you ate but it didn't seem that long ago.

Maybe, you thought, running your hand over a scratch on the table, Wally was the hungry one but didn't want to say it. That didn't seem like him though, he was so open and sincere…

Your hand ran over and over the scratch.

"Hey Wally?" You asked. "What happened to your table?"

Everything seemed quiet.

You lifted your eyes up towards the wall. The quiet stretched on and on.

You had forgotten something. You had. You knew you had. It was close to you, slipping away from you like dangling strings every time you reached towards it.

It was close to you. Right there. So important.

What did you forget?

"Wally?"

You looked over your shoulder.

You looked up at him.

Your stomach dropped. With a gasp, you stumbled backwards, away, your eyes wide as you looked at him. Looked up at him.

Wally once proudly told you he was twelve apples tall. You, uh, weren't. You were taller than him by a lot. But now he was tall, taller than you, looking down at you.

He tilted his head.

"Is something wrong, friend?" He said. "You don't look well. Maybe you should… sit down…"

"Wally," you said. "What happened to you?"

His mouth curled up, and your gut churned. That kind of smile didn't fit on Wally's face. That kind of smile shouldn't be possible on his face. He was a puppet -

A puppet? What was a puppet?

Wally laughed. It shook his shoulders, every syllable moving them in a rhythm. As if string moved his shoulders, but he wasn't that kind of puppet so he couldn't-

What was a puppet?

He tilted his head the other way. Jerked it, really.

"You're thinking too loud, friend." He jerked his head to the other side. "What do you mean, what's a puppet?" He laughed, ha ha ha. "Silly, silly, silly. That's you. You're my puppet."

His pupils went wide, and it was horrible how familiar it was, the feeling of teeth clenching down on - not your skin not your flesh not your head or your arms or any part of you.

You were. So tired. Like the energy poured out of you into a tiny drain.

My fear, you thought, he's eating my fear.

When he stepped towards you, you heard the click of his shoes on the kitchen tile. Had you ever heard that before? Your mind spun, you stepped away from him again.

"Don't-" you started.

Your name comes from his mouth in a tone you've never heard before.

"I won't," he said. "If you promise to stay."

And you knew exactly what he meant. And you knew you would do anything you had to, so you could go home.

You ran for the door.

It slammed shut.

The handle was meant for puppet hands, not human ones. Your legs gave out from under you as you scrambled with it, nails scratching the wood behind it as you tried to open it. Behind you his footsteps clicked, clicked, clicked towards you.

He said your name again, so sweet, so hungry.

"You don't really want to leave," he said. "I don't believe that at all. I know how much you love it here. We'd all miss you so much."

His arm reached out. His hand, with four fingers, took your wrist and pulled it away from the door. You shook your head, your throat wouldn't make a sound.

"Hey now," he whispered. "No more mysteries this time, okay? Don't go digging into things you don't understand. And everything will be fine."

You felt the teeth again, biting chunks into your mind. The panic. The fear. The dread. Gone, gone, gone.

My memories - you thought. He's going to eat my memories, too. He's going to eat my memories and put me back at square one. I was so close. I was almost-

You took a deep breath and groaned. Your eyes opened to a strange place, one you didn't recognize for a moment or two. The evening sun streamed in through a window, onto the couch you laid on. You groaned again and covered your eyes with your arm.

"Where am I?"

A familiar voice called from another room. You lifted up your arm, and smiled. Of course. You were at Wally's Home.

"What happened?" You asked.

"You fell off the ladder!" Wally said. "You must've been thinking too hard again. You think too much, I think."

You laughed a bit. "Maybe I do. Falling off a ladder? That's a bad time to get distracted."

You frowned. Wally watched for a moment.

"Did you forget something again?" He said

You sat up fully with the realization.

"The games!" You cried. "I left the games for the party at my house!"

Wally laughed. Was it just your imagination or did it seem… relieved almost?

"You can get them tomorrow," he said. "It's getting dark. You should stay here for tonight. I don't want you to trip on anything."

You thought about it, frowning at the patchwork blanket draped over you.

It would definitely be bad if you tripped and hurt yourself in the dark, you thought. Wally was right, like he always was.

"Okay!" You said at last. "Thanks Wally." You smiled. "You're a good friend."

#welcome home #welcome home puppet show #wally darling #welcome home wally #welcome home fanfic #welcome home fandom #yes yes this is cringe I know BUT LOOK AT THE SCARY PUPPET #reader pov #gender neutral reader #could be read as #welcome home x reader #yandere wally darling #tagging for visibility #I didn't really intend for it to be that way but if I can see it I think everyone else can too

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pablitogavii · 1 year ago

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jealous Gavi end in fluff

Only Mine

Your POV

We were on vacation in Ibiza which meant two main things: I wore bikinis every single day and Pablo acted more jealous than ever.

I knew my man was particular about his possessive nature, and I grew to accept that about him. It didn't bug me to reassure him that I'm his whenever he needed, and in whichever way he wished ;) but recently it became unbearable to handle.

I lay on the beach to tan my back...he pulls down my bikini bottoms to 'cover' my ass although it was already properly covered.

A guy smiles at me...he throws a tantrum and becomes moody for the rest of the day.

His own friends give me compliment...he pulls them to the side to have 'the talk' about me belonging to him.

It started to feel like no matter what I did, said or wore Pablo would get jealous. And to be frank it really started to get on my nerves.

He left me with Cristo at the bar while he went to answer the call from his mom but when some random blonde showed up, his friend bailed to talk to her and I stayed on my own.

"Would you like a drink??" young bartender asked smiling and at that same moment Pablo walked back and saw me smile back politely. While the guy was making me a virgin lemonade, Pablo rushed towards me giving him a nasty snarl.

"She's fine!" he says grabbing my wrist and we walked towards the beach so we can talk alone. Here we go again...

"I left you with Cristo but it looks like you like getting drinks from random guys!" he said and I stared at him in disbelief. The guy was literally a bartender!!

"Pablo, are you being serious right now!?" I said and he nodded his head still clenching his jaw in anger.

"You're being unbelievable lately! He is a bartender! It's his job to give people drinks! And Cristo left to talk to some blond girl, so what was I suppose to do!?" I fought back really done with his attitude.

"Not smile at him and look at him like.." he spoke but I interrupted him immediately unable to stop my own anger and frustration any longer.

"Like what!?" I said

"Like you look at me when we are naked and I'm on top of you!" he spat immediately catching the meaning of his words but it was too late. He did not just accuse me of giving that guy 'sex eyes'!?

I didn't say anything to him but it was clear that he really passed the line as I walked past him and he tried grabbing my wrist but I pulled away.

"I'm going back to the villa! Alone!" I spat and he gulped as I walked past his friends who were all concerned what happened.

"Amiga, you alright?" Cristo asked but I didn't reply anything going back home while Pablo stayed behind with his friend.

Pablo's POV

Joder!! Pablo, you stupid cabrón!!!

"Que pasa hermano? Why did she go home?" Cristo walked up to me and I rolled my eyes wondering why couldn't he just stay with her when I asked him to do that!

I knew I was possessive..and jealous..and impulsive..but I love her..I love her so much it hurts sometimes..I finally found someone worth keeping..someone who isn't using me for fame and money..I found an angel and i was terrified of losing her to someone else. So I acted out..a lot.

"Because I'm a jealous cabrón! Joder! What do I do if she leaves me!?" I say and my friends all surround me tapping my shoulder and reminding me how much we love each other and that it was just a stupid fight.

"Did you really get angry a fucking bartender asked her for a drink??" Ale said jokingly but I was in no mood for it right now. I knew it was stupid...but I hated when any guy looked at her..she was only mine!

"You're fucking stupid Pablo! That girl has eyes only for you..even when you're not looking she always smiles when she looks at you..it's clear you're the only one she wants" Cristo said and I knew he was speaking the truth feeling more and more like a complete idiot.

"You need to go home and apologize hermano" Ale added and I nodded my head knowing that was the smart idea but still fearful that she wouldn't hear me out after everything.

"And don't forget the flowers!" Javi yelled as I walked away and I nodded giving him a thumbs up for the idea. Let's see if I can fix this.

Your POV

I felt so angry when I arrived back home going to our shared bedroom and plopping myself onto the bed. How could he say something like that to me!? Does he really think I would look at anybody but him!?

About half an hour later, I heard a front door opening and I immediately knew it was Pablo..I would recognize my man's perfume from a mile away. He knocked on the bedroom door before entering with a bouquet of weirdly looking flowers.

"Amor, can I um come in please?" he said and I just nodded putting my book away and sitting up in on the bed as he approached sitting on the edge.

"These are for you..um..you always say that roses are boring and predictable so I got these..I have no idea what they are" he said and I took the bouquet of interesting looking flowers not being able not to smile that he remembered me saying that one night we watched a romantic comedy together.

"Thank you for the flowers.." I said when the room became quiet while putting the bouquet on the bed besides me looking at his big eyes. I could tell he was nervous..I could always tell how he felt from his body language.

"You're welcome, mi amor..but I came to apologize..for today and for the way I acted since we came to Ibiza" he said and I nodded waiting for him to finish.

"It's just that I..I love you a lot..and I feel threatened sometimes by all these guys who think you're beautiful which of course they are right but you're also special to me..as a person..as a woman..and I don't want to lose you" he finished looking down and I sighed moving a little closer to him.

"All I ask is that you trust me Pablo..like I trust you. How many times have you went out with boys and I've had no issue with that?" I said and he nodded his head really loving that fact that you were not one of those toxic girls that is latched onto their boyfriends.

"Many.." he answered

"And I do it because I know you love me..I trust your feelings and I know you would never do anything to hurt me, right?" I added and he quickly looked up taking my hand and kissing them.

"Never, mi amor! I think about you even when I'm out there..I can't wait to come home to you sleeping in our bed peacefully and to hold you in my arms" he said and you smiled blushing a little.

"And it's the same for me Pablo..when I am without you, I always think how much I miss you..and if you are worried that others like me, don't be..because I am madly in love with my man" I finished touching his face and he leaned into my touch.

"With me?" he said with a pout and I just couldn't be angry anymore..he was way to adorable right now. I nodded my head moving on top of his lap and kissing his lips passionately as he held me tightly in his arms.

"Mhmm with you Pablito.." I used the nickname he only allows me to use for him and he smiled nodding his head and deepening the kiss.

"And..there is a clear difference how I look at you and everyone else" I pulled away and he smirked flipping us over and getting on top of me with a smirk. I gave in and gave him 'the infamous look' as he leaned down to kiss me.

"Joder princesa! You make me weak.." he groaned kissing my neck as I turned to the side to give him better access catching the glance at the flowers.

"Amor..we should get these flowers out of our bed because they look like they could eat us" I said and we both laughed loudly as Pablo just plopped on top of me making me hit him to get off.

"Dios! I love you.." he said while laying on his back while laughing and I smiled laying on top of him happy that we have resolved out little disagreement.

"I love you too..and I'm only yours" I said and he smirked nodding his head proudly while kissing my hair.

"Only mine.." he added as we cuddled up close to each other.

Hope you enjoyed :)

#pablo gavi #pablo gavi icons #pablo gavi x reader #pablo gavi x y/n #pablo gavi x you #fc barca #fc barcelona #fc barça #gavi #gavigif #gavira #pablo gavira #pablo martín páez gavira #pablogavixreadersmut #gavi x reader #gavi x yn #gavi x you #gavi x vini #pablogavira

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fairuzfan · 1 year ago

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hi! i just want to clarify first of all that im pro palestine, but a lot of people in my life aren't. ive been looking for ways to convince them but tbh im kind of lost. ive tried showing reports from websites like al jazeera but that's been dismissed out of hand because they're a middle east jounral and thus must be biased (pointing out that stuff like cnn then must be biased too because they're american hasn't worked lol). so, do you know of more "unbiased" resources/journals/etc, or anything that can argue for palestine? sorry if this is badly worded its pretty late. appreciate everything you've done btw 🇵🇸

No worries, I totally understand where you're coming from.

I guess I wanna ask for clarification—do you know what resources they personally are willing to accept? I can provide from Jewish scholars/voices if that'll help.

The issue is, not many USAmerican/European sources are unbiased, and they often spout imperialist propaganda. So if they're looking primarily for those types resources, I'm afraid I cannot really give you too many.

Here's a segment from an Angela Davis interview from Democracy Now that I like: https://www.democracynow.org/2021/12/28/angela_davis_25th_anniversary_taped_segment

Also her book Freedom Is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement: https://www.amazon.com/Freedom-Constant-Struggle-Palestine-Foundations/dp/1608465640

Angela Davis is often pretty vocal about the harms of imperialism throughout the world and specifically mentions Palestine in her activism. I suggest looking to her writings also.

Can't say I know too much about DemocracyNow! though.

Some other scholars/orgs are:

Jewish Voice For Peace: https://www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org/

If Not Now: https://www.ifnotnowmovement.org/

Ilan Pappe (he's specifically "Israeli", if that will help at all)

Frank Barat

Noam Chomsky: https://chomsky.info/

Modoweiss: https://mondoweiss.net/ Now I don't totally love Mondoweiss all of the time but if the people in your life are really against learning from non-Palestinian sources they might be ok to introduce them. They do have Palestinian writers and editors tho.

I guess if its more that they're unwilling to trust SWANA news sources, you could show them The Institute for Palestine Studies, which is associated with Columbia University.

This list was a little difficult because I can't say I'd always recommend these sources (except, well, Angela Davis—I really look up to her—and Institute for Palestine Studies), but it could be a good introduction if they're rejecting other places that have more reliable reporting. If they're willing to accept these places/people, then you could move on to more Palestinian led sources.

I don't know if this helps, but you could say that they should listen to the Palestinian's POV because you'd always asked the people directly involved in a situation what their viewpoint is? Might help shift their understanding.

There are more sources that I thought about adding, but I need to look into them a little more. I might add on to this list later.

Let me know if any of this helps at all or even if it didn't, I'm genuinely really interested to see what they have to say.

#palestine #gaza #info post

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bellaxgiornata · 1 year ago

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You're Safe With Me [Chapter Five]

Pairing: Frank Castle x Fem!Reader

[You can find the full series summary and masterlist of chapters for You're Safe With Me here.]

Warnings: 18+; series contains violence, mentions of mass shootings, angst and comfort, slow burn romance, enemies to lovers, eventual smut

Word Count:6.4k

a/n: A little sexual tension presents itself in this chapter, and Reader and Frank bond a little more. You also get a brief Frank POV at the end! Feedback is always appreciated!

Tag List: @lunaticgurly @allaboardthereadingrailroad @linamarr @hollandorks @sleeperthelazy @marcysbear @mattkinsella @mattmurdocksstarlight @xxdrixx @v4leoftears @aoi-targaryen @danzer8705 @anon-cat-posts @heimtathurs @kmc1989 @thepunisherfrankcastle @agirlcandream84 @americaarse

The young woman behind the Happy Lodger Motel's front desk warily eyed the folded stack of cash Frank had handed her. Gradually her focus drifted up towards you, silently eyeing you up and down for a moment. There wasn’t a doubt in your mind that she was taking in your disheveled appearance and dirty hair. You shifted your weight back and forth on your feet, becoming uncomfortable under her scrutiny as you sent her a tense smile. You figured she was wondering if Frank had abducted you–truthfully that look was a look you'd gotten often with his gruff appearance at your side. Or maybe she was just making sure you weren't a prostitute.

"So, two queen beds, was it?" she asked.

The woman’s attention finally returned back to the computer monitor before her, her fingers slowly tapping at the keyboard.

"Yes, ma'am," Frank replied.

At his curt and polite reply, her hand’s stopped their typing and hovered above the keyboard. One of her dark brows rose up onto her forehead as she scanned Frank over the top of her monitor. You saw the moment something shifted in the way her eyes lingered on him, her head tilting a bit to the side as her gaze openly surveyed his face with interest. Your own eyes fell down towards your feet, an uncomfortable feeling unfurling in your gut at her flirtatious stare. Beside you, Frank loudly cleared his throat.

"Room seven is open," she told him. "As long as this really is sixty-five dollars."

You glanced back up, watching as the woman unfolded the stack of cash in her hand and began counting it, intentionally taking her time. From its place along the edge of the desk, you noticed Frank's finger tapping rapidly in barely contained irritation while she did. You bit back the smile threatening to form on your mouth, enjoying his frustration.

When she finally finished counting the bills twice , she spun her chair around, scooting it back before grabbing a key from the wall behind her, the number seven clearly written on the tag. She wheeled her chair back over to the pair of you, holding the key out to Frank. He snatched it quickly, shooting her a tight lipped smile. After, he turned to face you, gesturing his head towards the door behind himself.

“C’mon,” he muttered.

With a sigh you followed obediently after him, readjusting the strap of your duffle bag on your shoulder as you walked. Frank pushed the door of the motel’s office open, stepping outside before he stopped to hold it open for you. Hesitating for a moment just before the doorway, you were caught off guard by the unexpected display of politeness from him. But the second the muscle in his cheek jumped, you ducked your head and slipped past him, making your way to your left towards the line of motel room doors.

“Looks like we’re at the end,” Frank said from just behind you.

Wordlessly you made your way all the way down the sidewalk to the last door, stopping in front of the one with a large seven hanging unevenly along it. Moving to the side, you leant up against the building as Frank stepped over to the door and placed the key into the lock. Your eyes drifted across the street to where you spotted a gas station situated next to a bar. Reading the sign atop the bar with its name vibrantly displayed, an amused snort of laughter slipped out of you. Frank opened the motel door, shooting you a curious look at the sound as he pulled the key from the lock.

“What?” he asked.

You pointed across the street to the bar with the obnoxious neon sign flashing on top of it. Frank turned, his eyes following the direction of your finger.

“The Flaming Rose?” you pointed out.

Frank focused back on you, his face emotionless. “Yeah?” he asked. “That supposed to mean somethin’?”

“No, I mean it just–” you paused, shaking your head as you pushed off of the building, “–seems like such a stereotypical biker bar in a small town,” you finished lamely.

Frank grunted in response, whether it was in agreement or annoyance was undecipherable to you. Ignoring his stony expression, you stepped past him and into the motel room–and then you laughed again when you actually saw the room.

The carpet, though very noticeably discolored and stained, was leopard print. The wallpaper on the walls was torn in many places, but they were also covered in a leopard print that had clearly faded over the years from the sun. And on both beds were leopard print comforters and pillows.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen so much animal print in one place,” you said in amazement, heading over to the furthest bed as Frank closed the door behind himself. “I mean it’s–it’s on the walls, the floor, and the bedsheets. They definitely committed to the theme here.”

“It’s a bed at least,” Frank muttered.

“One I definitely wouldn’t want to see under a black light,” you said under your breath.

As you dropped your duffle bag on the end of the mattress, you heard Frank let out a chuckle behind you. You instantly froze at the mirthful sound coming from the man who barely expressed emotion. Looking over your shoulder at him behind you, you spotted Frank slipping out of his thick jacket, an amused smirk on his face as he tossed his coat on his bed. When he realized you were watching him he looked up, his eyes studying you.

“Did you just…laugh?” you asked him in awe.

“‘Bout as surprised that you can make a joke, Spunky,” he shot back.

Your face fell at the irksome nickname he’d given you. It had seemed to stick for the past couple of days now and it grated on your nerves every time he called you that. Sighing in irritation, you sunk down on the edge of the bed, your eyes scanning around the room as one of your hands reached up, pushing your dirty hair from off your face.

Truthfully you’d love a chance to shower right now. It was going on almost three days since you’d last had one and you were positive you didn’t smell pleasant at this point. Even a fresh change of clothing would be welcomed right about now. But with the way Frank had kept you tied up in his van, then tied up in the previous motel room before you’d both had to run, and then stuck in his van all day today until right now, you hadn’t had much of an opportunity.

As your attention returned to Frank where he was currently surveying the parking lot outside the window, you nervously began to chew your lip. Would he even let you shower? Or was he planning to tie you back up now that you weren’t on the road? Even though the pair of you had fallen into a more comfortable silence with each other after your stop at Denny’s earlier today, you still hadn’t gotten a good read on Frank. Most of the time he seemed focused and detached, barely paying you any attention, though on occasion he’d been almost comforting–in his own way.

Figuring Frank would never break the silence if you didn’t, probably content to be quiet the rest of the night, you cleared your throat and decided to be the one to break it. At the noise, he half-turned towards you, that impassive look on his face.

“You’re not uh…planning to, you know, tie me to the headboard again, are you?” you asked him cautiously. “Now that we’re not on the road?”

“Do I need to?” he asked back.

Pressing your lips together, you slowly shook your head. “No,” you answered. “I’m not–not going to run anywhere, I swear.” Your shoulders drooped as you glanced down, your hands fidgeting with the hem of your sweater. “I wouldn’t have anywhere to go, anyway. I don’t even have a phone since you smashed it on the side of the road.”

"Just don't leave the room," he said. "'S'all I ask."

"So you don't–don't mind if I actually shower then, do you?" you asked in a small voice, peering up at him from under your lashes. Some unknown emotion flashed across his face and you quickly added in a rush, "It's just been a few days and I don't know when I'll get a chance again and–"

"Go on and shower,” he cut you off, something akin to guilt in his tone. “I’m sorry, I didn’t–” he stopped mid-sentence, his focus dropping down to the floor as he hung his head. One of his hands reached up, rubbing awkwardly over the top of his head. “Go shower. Use the bathroom,” he urged, still avoiding looking at you. “I ain’t–ain’t tryin’ to stop you from taking care of yourself.”

For a second you sat on the edge of the mattress, curiously watching him. It was indeed guilt that you saw on full display from him right now. Bottom lip slowly slipping between your teeth, you slid off the edge of the bed and picked up your duffle bag before shuffling through the motel room towards the bathroom. You pushed the door open wider before reaching a hand in, flipping on the lightswitch. Stepping inside, you set your duffle bag onto the floor and then turned, focusing on your disheveled state in the bathroom mirror. Though you promptly shrieked at what you spotted on the wall behind you.

Darting backwards in fright, you nearly tripped over your own feet as you tried to place as much distance between yourself and the giant spider on the bathroom wall. You had barely taken two steps back before you bumped into something solid directly behind you, blocking your path. Startled, you spun on your heel and saw Frank behind you with a serious look on his face, his gun drawn and at the ready. The sight of the weapon in his hands had your heart thundering loud in your ears, your eyes wide as you saw him push past you and sweep the small space from left to right, ready to shoot an intruder. Though he quickly realized there was none.

Lowering his gun, he turned back towards you from his place in the middle of the bathroom, a dark expression on his face. You shrank back from his furious glare instinctively.

"You wanna tell me what the hell that was about?" he snapped.

"There was a–a spider," you admitted sheepishly.

Pointing a trembling hand at the giant black insect still clinging to the wall, embarrassment flooded you. Frank’s hardened stare followed your movement, his eyes landing on the spider. He scoffed loudly, shaking his head and running a hand down his face.

"You kiddin' me?" he shot out, his glare piercing through you. "Don't you ever scream like that for a goddamn spider again. Is that clear?"

You nodded swiftly in response. Frank curled his large hand into a fist before he swung it with precision at the wall. You flinched at the resounding thud as he smashed the insect in one swift movement, his glare never leaving you.

"Here I was thinkin’ someone was in here," he continued to rage, taking an intimidating step towards you which only caused you to take an involuntary step back, cowering against the wall, "and it’s just you terrified of a spider. I think you need to take a moment and reevaluate what an actual threat is here, sweetheart."

The burn of tears was in your eyes as he towered above you, his nostrils flaring with each of his sharp, enraged exhales. His dark eyes were practically on fire as they bore down on you. Under that furious stare of his you weren’t even sure if you were breathing anymore.

Truthfully you hadn't meant to scream; it had been a gut reaction. You hated spiders and weren't expecting to find such a large one just out in the open here. And you'd been so on edge ever since those men had broken into your house that you'd been unable to stop the scream from flying out of you when you'd spotted it.

"I'm sorry," you whispered, wiping a hand at your watery eyes. "I didn't mean to. Didn't think you'd–you'd come in here like that. I just–it just–just startled me. I won't–"

You broke off mid-sentence, eyes focusing on the dead spider on the wall as your teeth clamped together, struggling to fight back a sob. You would not break down in front of Frank.

A moment later you heard him release a rough exhale, the sound drawing your blurry vision back up towards him. The tension had visibly eased from his muscles as his hand rose up, pinching the bridge of his nose.

"Just don't scream unless someone is actually tryin' to kill you, alright?" he growled, annoyed.

"Okay," you breathed out.

Without another word, Frank stalked off out of the bathroom, closing the door behind himself as he went. It was a few seconds before you released the breath you'd been holding, leaning up against the bathroom counter and trying to calm down. That man was absolutely terrifying when he was angry and you did not want to be on the other side of that anger ever again.

You took a minute to collect yourself after that encounter with Frank before you headed over to the shower, turning it on and letting the water warm up. Not wanting to risk losing your chance to finally get clean, you decided to push aside whatever that moment with Frank had been and focus solely on the shower right now.

°•°•°•°•°•°

Curled up on top of the obnoxious and scratchy leopard print comforter, you’d long ago let your eyes drift closed as you rested your head on the matching lumpy leopard print pillow. Listening to the shower running in the other room, you had slowly begun to relax as you lay there. Thankfully Frank hadn’t decided to zip tie your hands to the headboard again while he washed up in the bathroom, displaying a show of trust on his part that you weren’t about to just run while he was indisposed. Though as you told him earlier, you had nowhere to go. Especially not with the dangerous people out there who were looking for you.

Before heading into the bathroom to shower, Frank had told you that he planned to figure out something for the both of you to eat for dinner when he was finished. And you were grateful for that considering how your stomach had been incessantly growling for a while now. Since Frank wouldn't let you leave the room, it wasn’t like you could exactly go out and find something to eat yourself. It didn’t help that you hadn’t eaten much today other than a beef jerky stick from a gas station a few hours ago and those eggs you’d picked at over lunch earlier when he’d stopped at that Denny’s.

At least things between you and Frank seemed to be moving in a better direction today, though. Despite the fact that he’d just reprimanded you in the bathroom for screaming over a spider, it seemed like he was beginning to trust you a bit more. And you were admittedly beginning to trust him just a little bit in return, especially after what had happened at the previous motel you’d stayed at. He had, after all, saved your life–even if you weren’t ecstatic about the way in which he had. Though he’d had a point, one you were trying hard to come to terms with. Right now, it really was you or these militia members, and if you were forced to choose, you’d rather be the one still breathing over any of the members of that terrorist group.

But Frank remained a confusing mystery to you. The media had painted the Punisher as someone who wasn’t quite right in the head after having witnessed his family murdered right in front of him. And then he’d gone on multiple killing sprees afterwards–as the news portrayed it–seeking revenge on the people responsible for killing his family. And while that wasn’t how things were supposed to be done when it came to justice, all of the people Frank had killed had been criminals. And admittedly what Frank had been through was horrible, something you couldn’t even possibly imagine living through and not wanting to seek revenge yourself. There was a part of you that had begun to understand that Frank wasn’t crazy and overtly murderous because of his actions.

You still remembered hearing all of the stories about Frank in the news and hearing the chatter about him at WGN’s news station back in the day. Everyone had thought he was insane and a mass murderer. Truthfully, at the time, he had sounded like a terrifying nightmare to you, too. You had been grateful that he was New York City’s problem and not Chicago’s. But now you were beginning to wonder just how accurate the media portrayal of him had been.

Despite his violent tendencies and rough exterior, Madani had trusted him to protect you. She was a federal agent after all, one who would surely not have done that if she’d thought he was an absolute untrustworthy monster. On top of that, he had risked his life for you and attempted to offer you comfort afterwards. He could have just let you walk out of that motel room and see all those dead bodies lying in the parking lot–but he hadn’t. And he’d been adamant earlier today that you understood how serious he was about keeping you safe when he’d noticed you getting upset at lunch. And just a bit ago he had even seemed guilty about how he’d been treating you, even if it was just a hint of guilt that you’d seen on him.

That all had to mean something, right? Because to you, he didn’t quite seem as heartless and monstrous as the media had portrayed him. Angry and violent, yes, but not crazy and certainly not a ruthless mass murderer. He was nothing like those people that were part of the Patriot Militia that were actually opening fire on innocent people just to push their agenda, the same ones then chasing after you to make sure that truth didn’t see the light of day.

No, maybe Frank Castle wasn’t as dangerous as he’d initially seemed. Or at least, not as dangerous to you as you’d first thought.

“Thinkin’ about making a quick run for food,” Frank’s gravelly voice said, breaking through your thoughts. “Maybe to a fast food joint close by.”

Eyes opening at the sound of his voice, you figured you'd try to pitch the idea you'd had earlier when he'd first gone to shower.

“I was actually thinking,” you began, gradually pushing yourself upright on the bed, “that we could hit up that bar across the street. I’m sure they’ve got–”

Your sentence died in your throat when Frank came into your line of sight, bending over and digging through the opened duffle bag on his bed. He was wearing a pair of dark jeans but no shirt, his hair still a bit damp as he ran a hand through it. You could see a few beads of water slowly making their way down the vast, muscular expanse of his back, your eyes mesmerized by their slow descent as they trailed down his skin.

“Sure they got what?” Frank asked.

Blinking hard a few times, you realized you hadn’t finished your thought, having been distracted by his muscular upper body currently on full display. It was even more on display when he turned towards you, holding a black long sleeve shirt in his hands as he eyed you curiously through narrowed eyes. You had to force your focus back up to his face, your cheeks flaming at the possibility that you’d just been caught checking him out. You hoped he hadn’t realized that’s what you had been doing, though you’d surprised even yourself that you had been. But you hadn’t expected Frank to have such very defined abdominal muscles and surprisingly large pectorals on that broad chest of his. The loose-fitting shirt and thick jacket he’d been wearing the past two days had certainly hidden all that brawn from you.

“Food,” you finished awkwardly, your face still burning. “I’m sure they’ve got food there. And I personally could uh, use a beer,” you continued, noticing the way the muscles on his upper body flexed as he slipped the shirt up and over his head. “After–after all of…this.”

His hands tugged the hem of his shirt all the way down, covering his bare chest from your view. Though you couldn’t help but notice that the shirt he’d just put on was vastly tighter than the previous one he’d been wearing. You also couldn’t help but notice how thick his arms were or how the material of this shirt clung to those large pectorals of his.

“You want to go to a bar?” Frank repeated slowly, his dark brows knitting together. “To drink? Right now?”

“Well we need food,” you pointed out, trying hard to focus on the argument you’d planned out in your head a bit ago and not the way Frank shirtless had suddenly made you feel a little shy. “And we’re stuck here for the night anyway. If we’re across the street you can keep an eye on the motel. See if we were followed. No one would expect us to be at a bar, right? They'd expect us to be in this room.”

Frank grunted in response as he ran a hand over his mouth, clearly thinking about it. Your nails plucked at the material of your jeans as you waited for his response. Inevitably the image of him shirtless raced through your mind and you averted your gaze from him, chewing the inside of your cheek. Why the hell were you thinking about Frank Castle like that?

“I suppose,” he finally answered, his hand dropping from his face before he pointed a firm finger at you. “Just as long as you don’t go gettin’ piss drunk on me. I ain’t carryin’ your ass anywhere and I don’t need you hungover and pukin’ in my van tomorrow.”

“Fair,” you replied, tossing your legs over the side of the bed and rising to your feet. “I don’t want to get wasted, I just want a drink.”

Frank grunted again before he turned, reaching across the bed to grab his jacket. He slung it on before he glanced back at you, his eyes scanning you up and down for a moment.

“Don’t you have a coat or somethin’? It’s cold outside,” he said.

You shrugged, crossing your arms over your chest. “I didn’t have a chance to grab one when I jumped out of my bedroom window,” you told him. “I only have a few things.”

“Gonna have to get you a coat then, Spunky,” Frank muttered, turning and making his way towards the door. “Can’t have you freezin’ to death on me.”

You followed after him, frowning at the nickname. “Why do you keep calling me that?” you blurted.

Frank swung the door open, stepping outside before he glanced back at you. “‘Cause you’re a pain in the ass,” he stated.

Frown deepening, you stepped out onto the sidewalk beside him, hugging your arms tighter around yourself in the cold. “And you’re a ray of sunshine yourself,” you snapped back. “I don’t like the name.”

“Good, that’s why I keep usin’ it,” he told you as he locked the door behind you.

Turning around, he began to make his way through the motel parking lot, depositing the room key into his jacket pocket as he walked. For a moment you just stood there in front of room seven, openly gaping at him. He had been calling you that to purposely irritate you?

“Get moving before I change my mind,” Frank called over his shoulder at you. “ Spunky .”

Eyes narrowing at his back, you began to follow after him in a huff. If he wanted to give you an irritating nickname, you’d give him one, too.

“Right behind you, Sunshine ,” you shot back.

A bark of a laugh flew out of Frank, his head turning over his shoulder. There was an amused grin on his face, one that actually reached his eyes as he slowed his pace, allowing you to catch up to him. Eventually you fell in step beside him, unable to hide the triumphant smile growing on your face at having managed to make him genuinely laugh.

“Wouldn’t have expected you to be funny,” Frank commented.

“Wouldn’t have expected you to have a sense of humor,” you shot back.

A light chuckle fell out of him next, the sound keeping that pleased smile on your lips. Out of the corner of your eye you saw his grin had morphed into a smile. He looked vastly less intimidating when he smiled like that.

“Keep it up,” Frank began, “and maybe you won’t be so goddamn irritating to be stuck with all day.”

“And what does that get me?” you asked him curiously as you both crossed the street. “Radio privileges?”

“Nah,” Frank said with a definitive shake of his head. “You’re not putting on some pop bullshit in my van.”

“Who says I listen to pop bullshit?”

The pair of you headed up towards the bar and you weren’t remotely surprised to see the line of motorcycles peeking out from around the side of it. The Flaming Rose was a stereotypical biker bar, just as you’d expected.

“Guess I don’t know what you listen to,” Frank mused as he reached a hand out, opening the bar door and holding it open for you. “But you aren’t playing your shit in my van," he repeated, shooting you a pointed look. "I’ll tell you that right now. Road trip rule number one, Spunky–driver picks the music.”

You rolled your eyes, stepping past him and into the poorly lit little dive bar. The sound of billiard balls clacking together met your ears, a Jimi Hendrix song playing just loud enough over the speakers. There were a couple of televisions above the bar currently airing the news. As your eyes continued to scan the room, Frank came to a stop just at your side. You noticed the bar wasn’t very full this evening; there were a few bikers in leather cuts situated at a couple of tables and you spotted what you assumed to be the ‘regulars’ who were half bent over the bar counter, hands clutching a glass or a bottle of beer as their eyes blankly stared at the news channels.

Frank’s arm nudged yours, drawing your attention back to him at your side. You looked up at him, your brows rising onto your forehead in a silent question. He was currently scanning the bar himself, clearly looking for threats.

“Why don’t you grab a table?” he suggested. “I’ll grab us some beers and somethin’ to eat. I’m guessin’ you eat pizza, right? ‘Cause it looks like they got pizza.”

“I’d eat a shoe right now,” you joked.

At that, Frank glanced down at you, a hint of amusement in his eye. Then he gestured his chin away from the bar, the glint in his eye disappearing as quick as it had appeared.

“Go on. Grab a table,” he ordered.

“Sure thing, Sunshine,” you replied.

You caught the amused huff he emitted with a shake of his head before you turned, making your way across the bar to an empty table. At least he wasn't being a surly asshole to you tonight. That was progress.

Climbing up into the tall and unsteady chair, you glanced out the window to your left. You'd intentionally grabbed a table with a view of the motel across the street so Frank could keep an eye on it. Resting your chin in your hand, you stared out the window in silence, your mind blissfully blank for once. Though you could feel the exhaustion of the past few days settling in on you like a heavy weight on your shoulders. Hopefully you could manage a decent sleep tonight without waking up to people trying to kill you. The memory of what had happened not quite twenty-four hours ago still sent a chill down your spine.

It was a few minutes before Frank appeared, sitting down in the chair across from you as he set two beers on the table, sliding one towards you. Head turning in his direction, you reached out a hand and grabbed the cold bottle, softly muttering a thanks. Frank nodded once, shrugging out of his thick jacket before pulling his own bottle to his lips for a deep drink.

You drew your own beer up to your lips, your eyes scanning the bar as you quickly began to drink it down. The energy of the Flaming Rose seemed surprisingly flat except for the two men playing pool in the far corner. Your eyes eventually slid to the wall behind them, spotting the dart board hanging on the wood paneled wall. For a moment you remembered the times you’d hit up the bars with your friends in Chicago, throwing back a few drinks and playing a few games of darts. Right now, that felt like another lifetime ago.

“What?”

Your head spun back towards Frank at the sound of his voice, taking in the way he was slouched back in his chair looking entirely at ease. One of his hands was absently twirling his beer bottle along the table, his dark eyes watching you. A sudden nervousness washed over you under his stare.

“You just sighed and looked all forlorn,” he observed. “What’s that about?”

Eyes flickering back towards the dart board, you shook your head. But Frank had caught your gaze, turning his head to follow it. He hummed out a noise before he focused back on you.

“You play darts?” he asked.

You shrugged a shoulder, your eyes dropping back down to the beer in front of you. “A little,” you told him. “Just something my friends and I used to do some nights.”

“Bet I’d kick your ass,” he challenged, sitting forward in his chair. “You look like you can’t aim worth a damn.”

Eyes making their way up towards his face, you spotted the smug smirk stretched across his lips. For a moment your eyes lingered on his mouth, the image of him standing beside his bed shirtless flashing through your mind. Goosebumps rose along your arms beneath your shirt as you began to wonder just how solid that chest of his would actually feel beneath your hands.

Clearing your throat, you tried to ignore the heat once again rising to your cheeks. You weren’t sure why you were thinking about Frank like that, but it needed to stop. Especially before he noticed.

“You’re probably right,” you agreed. “Not all of us were blessed with your good aim.”

“What?” he asked in shock, his eyebrows shooting up onto his forehead. “No smartass comeback from you? I’m surprised and a little disappointed, Spunky.”

Rolling your eyes, you raised your beer to your lips. If you hadn’t known better you’d have wondered if he was trying to flirt with you this evening. But you did, in fact, know better. The two of you clearly needed a chance to bond and break the weird tension that had only grown ever since he’d thrown you into the back of his van. After all, you were going to be stuck together for a while. He was just trying to be his version of friendly, that was all.

Frank’s attention abruptly turned towards the bar, lowering his beer back to the table. His other hand patted the tabletop twice before he slipped out of his chair.

“Pizza’s ready,” he told you. “Stay put.”

Your stomach let out a grumble at the prospect of food as you watched him head over to the bar with that swagger in his step you’d started to notice he often had. Eyes following his form as he made his way around a few tables, you couldn’t help but stare at his back and the muscles noticeable beneath his shirt.

°•°•°•°•°•°

“So what else are the road trip rules?”

Frank’s attention remained focused on the window to his right where he had been quietly watching the motel the entire time he had been eating. So far nothing out of the ordinary had caught his attention since you’d both been here; it seemed like tonight might be more uneventful than last night. Which was good. He hated to admit it, but your idea of coming here for a bit to scope out the motel had been a good one. Though he’d deny it if you asked.

But your voice had cut through his focus, drawing him back to the present with you here in the bar. He’d noticed you’d been less chatty once he’d brought the pizza to the table. And then when he’d seen how quickly you’d put down the food, he’d felt guilty realizing just how hungry you had been. While he might be able to focus on his mission, managing to get by with eating the occasional bite of food and thriving on gas station coffees, he mentally noted that he needed to pay more attention to your needs. Especially when it came to making sure you’d had a chance to fucking shower. Fuck , he still felt like a massive asshole with how small you’d sounded just asking if it was okay for you to wash up. How could he have been such a dick?

But now that you’d both finished eating, Frank assumed you were trying to strike up a conversation with him again. He figured it was so you could get to know him better, maybe to feel less like he’d abducted you outside of Ruby’s Diner a few days ago. He’d been trying his best to be a little less closed off with you, opening up just a bit. If he was going to be stuck with you for a bit, he might as well try to ease your fears of him.

Plus, he really didn’t like when you looked at him with those wide, terrified doe-eyes of yours. Or the way you’d duck your head and speak softly, like you were afraid he’d go off on you. He wanted you to feel safe around him. Wanted you to understand he wasn’t going to hurt you, even if you irritated him sometimes. Like when you’d shrieked over that goddamn spider in the bathroom tonight. He’d grabbed his gun instantly, assuming someone had been lying in wait in the bathroom somehow, and rushed straight to you in a panic, terrified you’d been hurt. But no, you’d gotten worked up over a bug .

He’d done his best to rein in his temper then, too. But still–you’d had those terrified doe-eyes of yours again and spoken in that soft voice. Afraid of him. Clearly on the verge of tears. So when you’d loosened up with him a bit on the way over to the bar, actually cracking some jokes, he’d done his best to drop his guard a bit. Which he figured he should probably try to do with you again now, just a bit.

Just to ease your fears around him, that was the only reason.

“Don’t touch my radio,” Frank answered you.

“Okay, we’ve established that,” you pointed out. “What else?”

Frank’s attention shifted away from the window and over towards where you were sitting across the table from him. His eyes followed the beer in your hand as you drew it to your mouth, wrapping your lips around the bottle before throwing the last of it back.

“No leaving motel rooms or the van without my permission,” he added. “Don’t need you disappearing on me if trouble is around.”

You nodded once, setting your beer back onto the table. “No unsanctioned bathroom trips without a hall pass, got it.”

He couldn’t fight the grin that pulled the corner of his lips upwards. You really were funny. It was a welcome surprise to him.

“No stupid road trip games, either,” he told you.

He saw the way you rolled your eyes at him before you spoke.

“Why would you even need to make that a rule?” you asked.

Frank shrugged, enjoying the way you seemed lighter than you had since he’d met you. It made him feel good knowing that he had been able to distract you from your situation, even if for a little bit. You’d seemed to really be struggling with that all day, silently lost in your mind as he drove. You probably figured he hadn’t noticed, but he had.

“Seem like the kinda person who’d play I Spy or some other equally stupid ass game,” Frank replied. “Not my sorta thing.”

“I get the impression not much is,” you muttered, glancing over at the bar.

Frank laughed, shaking his head. You were at least feeling comfortable enough to give him shit. He liked that. Though his laughter quickly subsided when he saw you stiffen in your chair, your back straightening as you focused on the television above the bar. He turned, his eyes squinting as he quickly read the closed caption on the screen. There’d been a shooting at a grocery store in Glen Allen, Virginia. Three were dead, seven injured.

Frank’s attention returned to you, his eyes narrowing further as he studied your abrupt shift in demeanor closely. You looked like you were about to be sick and your hands had a death grip on the bar table. Something about that story had upset you, and he had a feeling it was somehow linked to whatever it was you were involved in with the Patriot Militia. Madani hadn’t been too forthright with the details.

“I want to go,” you said, abruptly sliding out of the chair.

Frank’s brow furrowed at your sudden desire to leave. Wordlessly he rose from his chair, watching your body language as you wrapped your arms around yourself, hunching forward and focusing on your feet. Something was clearly bothering you, but you’d quickly just closed yourself off to him. He’d have to pry for answers later.

“Alright,” he assented, pulling on his jacket. “Let’s go.”

Without waiting, you spun on your heel and headed towards the exit. Your head remained ducked down as you made your way out of the bar and Frank couldn’t help but wonder what had affected your mood so drastically from that news story.

#frank castle x reader #frank castle x you #frank castle angst #frank castle #the punisher

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