#so facing my fear before the year is over

[aquaticmercy]

Sleeper

Summary : When Bucky falls in love with the antihero he’s sleeping with, he offers her a place in the Thunderbolts*.

Pairing : Thunderbolts!Bucky Barnes x antihero!reader (she/her) 

Warnings/tags : Violence, death, sex (a prominent theme but not graphic), cursing. Borderline obsessive behaviour. Congressman Barnes as per the Thunderbolts teaser. Batman/Catwoman-like dynamic. (Let me know if I miss anything.)

Word count : 6.5k

Note : This fic was genuinely written because of the van scene in the Thunderbolts trailer. That’s it. That’s how down bad I am for Thunderbolts Bucky. Reader is an antihero called ‘Sleeper.’ The Thunderbolts are referred to as ‘the team.’ The reader and Bucky first met a little bit before FATWS. I also have a cap! Sam fic coming out soon because my god. I am drooling over these two. Enjoy!

Bucky first heard of your existence in whispers.

He had heard your codename in hushed tones when he got off the ice in Wakanda, after Shuri helped rid his brain of the trigger words that haunted him.

Several of the Dora Milaje had crossed paths with you in Ivory Coast, and they had told everyone in the palace about how terrifyingly efficient—and violent— you had been. They said you finished the job before they even got there.

Your codename was nothing but silent rumours by those on the fringes of the intelligence community. They called you ‘Sleeper’— it wasn't a name you chose for yourself, but you have chosen to embrace the fear that people associated with it. 

You were an antihero, a vigilante who left rivers of blood in your wake.

Four years ago, you started tracking down the same corrupt officials and Hydra remnants that Bucky was trying to arrest.

The difference: Bucky set out to turn them in, you had your heart set on killing them, fast and efficient, as you always have been.

The first time you crossed paths with the former Winter Soldier, it was in a crumbling KGB safehouse in Eastern Europe. Bucky had taken down most of the guards, ready to haul the high-ranking operative to a jail cell in DC where he can await his trial. He was tired, the strain of therapy and sleepless nights holding him down, but this mission kept him focused.

But when he reached the operative’s office, the target was already slumped over his desk, cold and lifeless. 

"Guess I beat you to it, soldier," you said, voice laced with a confidence that made his stomach twist. You let him process the sight of you—fitted black suit, gloved hands, and a smirk that told him you were not only dangerous, but damn well aware of it. A mask obscured your eyes, but even with half of your face covered, he could see how smug you looked.

“I didn’t ask for your help,” he said, voice low.

“Good thing I wasn’t asking for you permission.” You tilted your head, the ghost of a laugh in your voice. You were watching him, sizing him up with those sharp eyes that felt like they could through see every part of him he tried to keep hidden. 

“Sergeant James Barnes, right?” You said his name with a familiarity that sent a jolt through him. “I’ve heard a lot about you. Never thought I’d actually run into you, though. Lucky night for me.”

He narrowed his eyes, not trusting this mysterious stranger, though he couldn’t deny he was intrigued. “And you are…?”

“I have no name to claim for myself,” you shrugged, leaning back against the wall, “but people call me Sleeper.” You let the name linger, knowing he’d recognize it. 

His memory reeled back to Ayo and the Dora Milaje, who had warned him of you: ruthless, volatile. A ghost who disappeared without a trace, always a step ahead. He’d just never expected Sleeper to be… so easy on the eyes.

“I didn’t ask for your help.” He repeated with no conviction. He narrowed his eyes at the body. “Especially not like this.”

You shrugged, pushing off the wall and strolling over. “Relax, soldier,” your gaze met his, “I only go after the ones who deserve it. Just because I do it my way doesn’t mean I’m the villain here.”

“Still doesn’t make it right,” he muttered, but there was a flicker of curiosity underneath his stormy blue eyes.

“Then stop me,” you challenged softly, leaning close enough to feel his breath. “If you can.”

His breath hitched ever so slightly.

You grinned, a spark of intrigue lighting up in your gaze. “I’ll be waiting, James.”

And before he could respond, you were gone.

He knew he should’ve stopped you— but some part of him was glad he hadn’t. 

As you disappeared, he felt something he hadn’t in a long, long time: excitement.

—

From that day on, Bucky couldn’t get you out of his head. 

At first, it was frustrating. You were hard to track, ruthless—and yet there was a sickening righteous principle to your actions that he couldn’t deny.

As the weeks went by, something else rooted in his brain when he thought of you. Fascination. 

His mind often wandered about you during his quiet, sleepless nights, wondering who you were beneath the mask, beneath the mystery and the whispers.

Sam noticed, of course. He'd raise an eyebrow whenever Bucky lingered too long over case files where you'd been mentioned. He’d nudge if he seemed overly eager to volunteer for missions that involved your typical targets.

“Maybe you’ll get lucky and she’ll show,” Sam teased once, nudging Bucky. “She’s dangerous, though. Is that your type?”

Bucky scoffed, but he knew Sam was right. And maybe that danger was part of what kept him intrigued.

—

The next time you crossed paths, it was in a dark alleyway, both of you dripping with sweat and breathing heavily after taking down an underground fighting ring. 

“You know,” he’d said, “killing them doesn’t make it justice.”

“You think turning them in is enough?” Your voice had cut through the air like a knife, but there was no malice behind it. You wanted him to understand your line of thinking, wanted him to know. “People like them are everywhere. They’ll get out. They’ll come back.”

“So you think you get to decide whether they live or die?” he challenged, jaw tight.

“No,” you said, readjusting your mask. “But I do it anyway.��� There was a flicker of sadness in your gaze that he noticed, even if you tried to hide it.

What had happened to you? He thought to himself. What have you been through?

In that moment, he noticed the pain behind your eyes, the kind of pain he knew intimately. You weren’t just someone who killed for vengeance; you must have had your reasons. You must have carried scars that ran deep, maybe deeper than his.

—

From that point on, Bucky made it a habit to look for you on every mission. It was like an unspoken game, this cat-and-mouse chase. Every time he saw you, the tension between you grew. 

Sometimes, he’d get there first, managing to intercept before you could execute the target. Other times, you’d arrive at the same time. He’d try to talk you out of it, to make you see things his way, but you’d laugh him off, the kind of laugh that hinted at more than your fair share of heartache. 

And sometimes, you’d tease him, push boundaries he wasn’t sure he should cross.

“You like this, don’t you, James?” You’d whisper it low, close enough for him to catch your scent, a faint hint of gunpowder and vanilla perfume. “The chase. Getting to play the hero while I get my hands dirty.”

He wanted to deny it, but he couldn’t. 

—

Bucky grew obsessed, even if he wouldn’t admit it. Every encounter left him more and more drawn to you. He’d search for files on you for days on end without sleep, but all he found were reports with no concrete evidence. He found himself looking for excuses to track your movements, hoping he’d be there to stop you but not quite sure he wanted to succeed.

One night, after another close call, you leaned into him as he pushed you up against the wall. He could feel the heat radiating off you, the electricity charged in the space between you. You looked up at him, the smallest hint of vulnerability peeking through your mask.

“Why do you keep doing this, James?” you asked, voice softer this time. “You can’t save me.”

“Maybe not,” he replied, frowning as his eyes looked down to the edge of your lips, “but I can try.”

That night, he wondered just how long he could keep up this dance before one of you finally gave in.

—

One night, while you were on a caper in Prague, everything changed for the two of you. 

The mission had been bloody, chaotic, and a little too close to mayhem for Bucky’s liking. You had taken down an entire network of arms dealers, setting fire to one of their last remaining munitions blocks and leaving it to burn. 

Bucky had arrived too late, frantically trying to contain the chaos you’d left in your wake, alerting local authorities, making sure the flames didn’t spread to a nearby market.

When he caught up to you, adrenaline ran hot through his veins. 

He'd followed you through winding streets and up dark staircases, up to the hotel you were holed up in. He followed you into your room, locking you both in.

His voice was tight, anger simmering beneath. “You’re careless.” His blue eyes were striking underneath the european moonlight, “you could’ve taken out half the neighbourhood, and for what?”

“I got the job done, James.” You shrugged, trying to look unbothered. “It’s not pretty, but it works.”

He stepped closer, and you held his gaze, “You know, I’d turn you in if you weren’t so…” he paused, his voice faltering, as if the words were lodged in his throat, “Weren’t so…”

Your pulse quickened. “If I weren’t so what?” You snapped, daring him to finish, to admit what had been hanging between you two since the day you met.

But he didn’t answer. Instead, he pulled you into a fierce, bruising kiss.

You didn’t hesitate—you kissed him back with just as much fire, your hands tangling in his hair.

Bucky’s hands found your waist, fingers digging in with enough pressure to leave marks. He pushed you back until your shoulders hit the wall, lips moving down your jaw, then hot against your neck. His breaths were ragged, matching your own, and he was holding you as if letting go would mean losing control entirely. 

You couldn’t help the gasp that escaped your lips as his mouth found a sensitive spot on the dip in your collarbone, his hands roaming possessively over your back, down your sides.

You pulled him back to your mouth, desperately needing that connection. 

When you finally broke apart for air, his forehead rested against yours. You untied your mask and threw it across the room.

Fuck. he thought as his eyes widened, taking in your full facial features for the first time. You were even more beautiful than I imagined you to be. 

Fuck, fuck, fuck, he thought to himself, I’m done for.

He was ready to throw you in jail cell. Instead, he ended up in your bed.

That night, in the dim light of your cheap hotel room, clothes were shed in hurried, frustrated movements, and all that pent-up tension finally found its release.

That first time had been desperate, raw. Both of you were driven by the need to let go, to feel something other than the weight of the cold blooded kills and the darkness you both carried.

Ever since then, every time you crossed paths, it was the same: adrenaline-fueled clashes and heated conversations about morality turned into hotel room rendezvous, hands grasping, lips colliding, both of you seeking the kind of solace you could only ever find in each other. 

—

You’d never admitted it out loud, but Bucky had an effect on you. When he was around, you found yourself hesitating just that split second longer before slicing your target’s arteries and leaving them to bleed.

You didn’t feel the need to wipe out every enemy anymore, and his disapproval of your methods had started haunting you in ways you’d never expected. Maybe that was why you’d started allowing him to find you more often, taking on jobs you knew he’d be there for. 

It was a dangerous game, but you kept playing it. He was obsessed with finding you, and you weren’t about to stop him.

He’d learned to read you better, your patterns, the places you tended to show up. By the time you landed in some city on the opposite end of the globe, he’d be there like clockwork, showing up right before you finished a job, confronting you before you could disappear into the night.

But the nights you spent together were… different. 

You never asked about each other’s pasts; you kept it in the here and now, keeping him at a safe distance even as you let him pull you under the covers time and again.

Every time he asked your real name, you’d smile and brush him off, deflecting his curiosity with a kiss or a teasing answer. He didn’t press, but you could see the questions in the way his brow furrowed, could feel the affection in the way he lingered in the mornings after, with a soft smile in his eyes that made your heart beat faster.

Each time, he told himself it was just catharsis, just a release of frustration for both of you, nothing more. But that excuse had worn thin over the years, and Bucky knew it as well as you did. 

He knew it wasn’t one sided either. He wasn’t blind to the way you’d look at him as he drifted to sleep next to you. Once, he caught a flicker of something vulnerable in your eyes before you put the walls back up. 

And God, was he drawn to you, to the side of you that fought so fiercely, that showed just enough vulnerability to keep him coming back. He was so fucking desperate to understand you better, to see more of the person underneath the mask.

—

One night, after a mission in Manila, you’d both ended up in a small, worn-down cheap hotel room overlooking the city lights. You were leaning against the headrest of the bed, a hint of sweat clinging to your skin, breathing still unsteady as you came down from the high you gave each other.

He watched you, his gaze lingering on the barely-perceptible rise and fall of your chest. 

“Don’t look at me like that,” you muttered, voice thick with exhaustion. There was a tremor in your tone, a flicker of something vulnerable that he wasn’t sure you meant for him to hear.

“Like what?” he asked, nuzzling closer to you. His now long hair was tied back in a low bun, your hair tie holding it together because he didn't have one of his own.

“Like you want something from me that I’m too broken to give,” you said, refusing to meet his eyes. But he reached for you, tipping your chin up until you had no choice but to look at him, and there it was—that flicker of affection he knew ran just as deep in you as it did in him.

“Maybe I want it anyway,” he murmured, his voice low and filled with a quiet intensity. “You ever think of that?”

“This is just a release, James.” Your gaze softened for just a second, long enough for him to catch it before you shook your head, pulling yourself from his grasp. “It’s just something we both need.”

Even as you said it, you weren't convinced. He reached for you again, pulling you close, and kissed you because that was the only thing you’d let him do.

You melted into him once more, you found yourself wondering just how much longer you could keep him at arm’s length.

—

The shift in Bucky’s life had been as dramatic as it was unexpected. You’d never pegged him for politics—neither had he, to be fair—but here he was, representing his district, looking sharp in a suit that cost more than the last few hotels you’d met in combined. 

He’s upgraded. Freshly elected, polished up, all suited and respectable as a congressman, fighting for reform from a marble office by day and for justice in dark alleys by night. 

But tonight, with that half-smile he only gets with you, he’s still the same— still carrying that simmering tension in his lips, his hair tousled from a long night of pursuing you through the shadows. 

After a mission that had you both knee-deep in an abandoned bunker hunting a rogue assassin, you found yourself together once again. Only this time, the hotel he’d booked was far from cheap. 

He brought you to a five-star suite. The bed was massive, the sheets soft, and the view from the window sprawled out over the city skyline, a stark contrast to the dingy rooms you’d gotten used to. 

Now, lying beside him in the rumpled silk sheets, you watched him catch his breath. You moved off of his lap to lay next to him, euphoric from the guilty pleasure you both indulged in. 

“You know, the second someone finds out Congressman Barnes has a relationship with a violent vigilante, you’re out of office.”

He looked over at you, eyebrows raised. “Relationship?”

Fuck. He caught you slipping up. He caught you thinking about a relationship with him.

“Casual sex is still a relationship, James.” You shrugged, trying to save face. You turned to him, with a lazy, unconvinced smile, “Strings attached or not, it counts.”

He shifted, the corner of his mouth twitching as he watched your wall break, even if only one brick at a time. “Casual,” His fingers traced idle patterns along your bare shoulder. “Is that what we’re calling it?”

“Unless you’re pretending you don’t want it anymore.” You paused, leaning closer, “Or maybe you just like that I could ruin everything. That I could say one word to the press, post one picture online and your reputation is finished. You’d be back to square one.”

He chuckled, his fingers grazing down your arm. It was terrifying, how comfortable he’d become with you. “I trust that you wouldn’t,” he said softly, voice laced with that steady confidence, like he knows you better than you know yourself.

His declaration hung in the air, and you felt guilt striking in your chest.

This wasn’t supposed to be part of this arrangement. Trust was for partners, for couples, for people who wanted things that lasted. 

You shook it off, leaning back, a little smirk tugging at your lips as you lifted a brow. “You’re right. I do have a soft spot for you, Congressman Barnes,” you added, the title rolling off your tongue with a touch of sarcasm, “Consider it my gift to democracy.”

He laughed, letting his head fall back against the pillow. His hand drifted down to catch yours, holding it in a way that felt too natural, too comfortable for what you were supposed to be. 

You both knew, despite the banter and the invisible boundaries, this thing between you was already past casual. It was the reason he keeps showing up where you showed up, the reason you’re letting him into your life in ways you never let anyone before. You were both just too stubborn to say it.

He pulled you closer, pressing his lips to yours in a way that feels almost… affectionate. For a moment, you let yourself sink into it, forgetting the consequences, the danger, the fact that this man might just unravel you completely and you would have no say in it whatsoever.

When you pulled back, his fingers trailed over your bare waist. “Maybe it’s more than just a soft spot,” he suggested, his voice barely above a whisper.

You raised an eyebrow, heart beating out of your chest. “Let’s not get sentimental, James,” you brushed, letting your fingers graze his jaw as you murmured, “You’ve got an image to protect, after all.”

He lets out a sigh that’s part laughter, part frustration. He knew you were deflecting. “Right,” he said, brushing his lips against yours again. 

“You and your image,” you chuckled, “Out there, shaking hands and making speeches about justice while you sneak off to hotel rooms with someone like me.”

He grinned, not a trace of shame in his expression as he turned his gaze back to you. “Someone’s gotta keep you in line. Even if it takes…” His voice lowered, dropping into that deep, teasing tone that made your stomach knot. “…a hands-on approach.”

You rolled your eyes. “You’re the last person who’d ever get me in line, James.” You leaned closer, though you didn't believe a single word you said. 

There was a long silence for a while. He eventually reached out, brushing a lock of hair back from your face, his thumb tracing over your cheek.

“Maybe you’re right,” he murmured, his eyes never leaving yours. “Maybe that’s why I keep coming back.”

As the city lights cast a faint glow over the room, you lay there in silence, limbs tangled together in a way that felt a little less no strings attached every time.

—

The next time you meet, you were on a late-night operation on the dark outskirts of the city. You’ve tracked down a group of mercenaries. They’re as ruthless as they were careless, leaving a trail of devastation across the criminal underworld. But tonight, their recklessness will end with you. 

You moved through in silence, precise, methodical. One by one, you took them down, not killing, but incapacitating them. Your fists were quick, your strikes precise. It’s what you’ve done for years, a grim pattern of efficiency that never required a second blow. Just as you reached the man who hired them with your knife drawn—a local crime lord—you felt his presence before you saw him.

“Think twice, Sleeper,” Bucky said from behind you.

You froze, heart pounding as you stood over the crime lord begging for mercy. It would be so easy to end this now, but with Bucky watching, you hesitated.

You lowered the knife.

Instead of killing him, you tied him up alongside the other mercenaries, ignoring the questions in their fearful eyes. Bucky made a call, alerting local authorities to pick up the mess you’ve left behind.

“What now?” you asked, walking away from the carnage. You were expecting the usual pattern: another hotel room, a brief reprieve from the violence, nothing more. 

But he surprised you, lacing his hand in between your fingers, warm and secure. 

He had never, ever, showed affection outside closed doors.

“Come with me.” 

—

You didn’t expect Bucky to take you back to his place, but soon you were standing outside a sleek high-rise in the heart of the city. You followed him up to his penthouse apartment. It’s almost disorienting— the polished floors, the floor-to-ceiling windows.

You found yourself standing in the quiet entryway of his home. The walls were painted in light, earthy tones, and the furniture was clean, modern, yet warm.

You glanced around, taking in the small details that hinted at Bucky's life beyond the missions. There were bookshelves lined with novels and memoirs, some old and looked like first editions, others barely touched. A few black-and-white photographs decorated the walls—New York City at dusk, a forest path, a beach sunset. It was an oddly peaceful place for a man like him. Certainly too peaceful for someone as broken as you.

“This is risky, James,” you said, looking up at him as he closed the door behind him, “Showing me where you live.”

“No, it's not,” he replied, his conviction absolute. “I trust you.”

There it was again. That word. Trust. The thing you never quite knew what to do with, especially coming from him.

You studied the way his favourite leather jacket was tossed on a chair, a half-read book by the couch. It felt like stepping across an invisible line. You set your mask down on the table before he grabbed your waist and pulled you close.

“This feels like crossing a boundary, James,” you admitted. You knew he should pull back, give you a chance to retreat. But you didn't want him to.

So he didn’t.

Instead, he cupped your face as he tilted your chin up gently. “What boundary?” he asked.

He knew that there were nothing separating you two. Not anymore.

The space between you vanished as his lips met yours. You kissed him back, losing yourself in the process of tasting him. His hands slid to the small of your back, pulling you closer. Kissing him felt like falling— like surrender.

You made your way to his bedroom, bodies tangled together, a blur of heated whispers and gasping breaths. Clothes fell away, discarded like old skin. The way he looked at you, it was like he was memorising every inch of you.

In that moment, you realised: the boundary had never been there. Not for him. Maybe not for you either.

—

The room was quiet as you lay tangled up in Bucky’s sheets. The duvet smelled like him, unlike the neutral, sterile scent of the usual hotel sheets. 

You’d never admit it, but it was intoxicating. 

The satisfied pulsing in your body had put a hazy filter over everything. 

Bucky smiled softly, kissing your forehead before reaching to his bedside drawer, pulling out a small glass box, placing it gently on your palm.

"Here," he murmured, almost shyly. He opened the box to reveal a hair tie inside. 

Oh. You recognised it. The ends were a bit frayed, the colour faded.

It was the hair tie you’d given him in Manila, a lifetime ago, a little piece of you that he’d tucked away in a corner of his home

You blinked, caught off guard. "You still have that?"

He shrugged, but his eyes wouldn’t meet yours. Was he… embarrassed? "I thought it was... worth keeping."

"Careful, James,” you couldn't help but tease him, nuzzling closer into his arms. “Keep this up and you might just start falling in love with me."

You felt his breath hitch.

He looked up, finally. Nervously.

Instead of denying it, he leaned closer, his voice dropping to a low, warm whisper. "Would that be so bad?"

His fingers brushed against yours, sending a shiver through your spine. Your heart fluttered irregularly, your head spinning in a daze as you tried to keep your thoughts down.

No.

You couldn’t let him see that he was getting to you like this, so you did what you always did: you deflected, grinning forcefully and rolling your eyes.

"Yeah, right," you said, brushing off the moment. As much as it broke your heart to deny the truth, you were doing it for his sake and yours. "I'm not that easy to love, James."

He chuckled softly, the warmth of his breath brushing your skin as he pulled you closer, tucking a stray hair behind your ear. "Maybe that's why I do." 

You shifted away from him, wrapping yourself in the sheets as if they could shield you from what he was offering — and from the ache in his gaze. 

"We can’t…" you said, voice barely above a whisper. "We can’t do this."

Bucky's eyes darkened, but he would be alright. He expected this from you.

He sighed, running a hand through his hair as he tried to collect himself. You could see the struggle in his eyes, the battle between his desire for you and something else… there was something bigger. 

"I need to tell you something," he said quietly. “I have… a team.”

That caught you off guard. 

Bucky? On a team? He’d always seemed like a lone wolf, just like you. 

“There’s a couple of former Widows, who you’d get along with. Two other super soldiers. And someone who can… phase. Quantum experiment gone wrong.” He paused, “We’re trying to make something real here. And it’s missing someone.” His fingers trailed down your forearm, eventually clasping your palm in his, “It’s missing you.”

He pushed a strand of hair behind your ears, trailing your jawline delicately with his metal hand, “I need you.”

The invitation went unanswered for a moment. You swallowed, caught off-guard by how badly he seemed to want this, how he wanted you to be part of it.

“I work alone, James,” you said, brushing off the offer with a small, bitter smile. “You know that.”

“But why not?” His voice was barely more than a whisper. “Why won’t you let someone else in for once?”

The frustration in his tone was raw, and for a moment, you thought you saw a flicker of pain flash across his face from this rejection.

“This is your chance to do something good the right way,” he pressed, and there was a quiet urgency in his voice. “No more hunting down bad guys with no direction. No more living like you’ve got nothing left to lose.”

His words sank in, and your walls felt shakier than ever. The idea of leaving the past behind, of actually building something… you hadn’t let yourself imagine it in years.

“Just think about it,” he said softly, placing his forehead on yours. “You don't have to decide now. Just… consider it.”

You gave a noncommittal shrug, but the truth was that his offer echoed in your mind, louder than you wanted to admit. He smiled at your dismissiveness, recognizing the crack in your armour. He didn’t push further. 

You realised that for the first time in a long time, you weren’t entirely sure if you wanted to say no.

—

The next time you saw Bucky was in the middle of a mission neither of you had wanted. 

Just a week had passed since you’d spent the night in his apartment. Since then, you had told yourself you shouldn’t return. You couldn’t. You were getting too close, feeling too much.

It was getting dangerous.

But then Bucky had reached out to you, voice tight and desperate, the kind of desperation that stripped away all his pride. It was a vulnerability even you hadn't seen from him before. His team was in over their heads, he’d said. He needed you. 

You’d agreed to help, but you’d been careful to remind him that this was a one-time thing. One mission, and that was it.

But then everything went wrong.

It happened so fast, you barely understood how everything had gone wrong. 

You were with Bucky, fighting side-by-side, the two of you moving as if connected by some invisible thread. 

You had taken a blow, separating you from everyone else. You tried standing up but fuck! The impact had shattered your ankle, sending a searing pain through your leg. Your nerves were on fire in a way they had never been before.

You couldn't move. 

You couldn't get up. Couldn’t run.

And then the ground shifted, an explosion roared from behind, and the next thing you knew, a van was thrown across the road, hurtling straight toward you.

For a single, frozen heartbeat, you realised this was it. 

It was over.

You saw the faces of bystanders staring from the sidewalk, their eyes wide, too horrified to look away. You let go of the cold steel of your knife still gripped in your hand. The acrid taste of smoke on your tongue intensified. And the truck—a wall of twisted metal hurtling closer, closer, impossibly fast.

You’d spent so many years brushing so close to death that you always thought you’d be ready.

But now, all you felt was regret.

Regret that this was how you’d die: in the middle of a cold, empty street, surrounded by strangers who would never remember you, never know who you were or what you’d done. 

Alone. 

You thought of Bucky in those last seconds—his quiet smiles, the way he’d look at you like he could see through every wall you put up, the silent crutch he’d offered without expecting anything in return. Bucky, who’d trusted you, who’d somehow cared for you even after everything you’d done. 

For the first time, you felt regret for every life you’d taken, every person you’d left to die in your wake.

Your life had been nothing but survival and bloodshed. You had told yourself it was necessary, that it was the only way. But here, now, with your own death inches away, it all felt hollow.

You’d given up hope, abandoned the idea of redemption long ago—because you were too broken.

And yet, with Bucky, something had changed. He had looked at you and somehow seen past it all. He’d made you feel as if maybe, just maybe, you were something more than the ghost you’d become. Maybe, instead of running, you could have found a way to fight for something real, something that mattered. 

Maybe you could have been someone better. 

You would never know now.

The world narrowed, and you braced yourself for the inevitable, hoping it would be quick and painless. Your fingers tightened, clinging to the memory of him in those last, precious seconds as you waited to feel the impact—

But it never came.

Instead, there was a rush of air, a deafening crash, and then—silence. You blinked, dazed, your heart still hammering, and when you looked up, Bucky was standing there, his metal arm outstretched, braced against the van that he’d deflected away.

He turned to face you, his expression raw, worry carved deep into his features as he scanned you, checking for injuries. For a moment, he just stared, his breathing uneven, as if he’d been the one facing certain death.

“Are you okay?” he asked, his voice panicked.

You tried to answer, but the words tangled, caught in your throat. You managed a nod, barely able to process what had just happened. 

“Shit,” he kneeled next to you, “Is your ankle broken, can you walk?”

You stared at him, trembling as he tore a part of his shirt and wrapped it around your injury for support.

Bucky had saved you. He had thrown himself in front of a hurtling vehicle without a moment of hesitation, as if your life were worth that sacrifice. 

He had saved you.

You were alive because of him.

Alive, when you’d already accepted that you were going to die alone.

No one had ever done that for you. No one had ever saved you—not like this, not without asking anything in return. Hell, you never thought that you deserved to be saved.

“You’re okay, Sleeper,” he said, his voice softer now, like he was reassuring himself as much as you. “I’m here.”

His words settled into the cracks that had broken open inside you, filling them in ways you hadn’t thought possible. You hadn’t realised how empty you’d felt until now, how long you’d carried the weight of loneliness, of believing that this life—this endless, solitary fight—was all you deserved. 

Bucky made you feel like maybe, just maybe, you didn’t have to be alone. That maybe, even after all you’d done, there was a place for you outside the shadows.

“Don’t call me that,” your voice trembled, “I don’t want you to call me Sleeper anymore.”

Bucky stopped for a second, confused. “What do you want me to call you, then?”

You couldn’t hold it back anymore. Something inside you broke, raw and vulnerable, and the name you’d hidden for years slipped from your lips before you even realised it. Your real name—your last, fragile piece of self you’d kept locked away, hoping one day you’d be able to reclaim it. 

It felt right with Bucky, like you could trust him with it, like you could let yourself be seen.

Bucky’s eyes widened, his face softening as he repeated it, almost reverent, like he wanted to remember how it felt to say it. 

Hearing him say your name, like a prayer, like it was sacred, like it mattered— tore down whatever walls you had left. He’d given you something you didn’t know you could have: the feeling of belonging to yourself again. The feeling of belonging to the world again.

Without thinking, you wrapped your arms around his neck, fingers shaking. He moved, pulling you closer. His touch was grounding, steady—a lifeline that anchored you to the moment, to this fragile reality where you didn’t have to be alone anymore. 

You pressed your lips to his, but this kiss was different— it wasn't casual or sexual as it has always been. This time, it was gentle, carrying something other than desire, something precious and fragile. 

Something worth nurturing.

When you finally pulled away, he looked at you lovingly. 

“I’ll join you,” you said, the words coming from some deep part of you that had been waiting for someone to give you this chance, this choice.

Now you realised that this choice was yours all along. All you had to do was take it.

And you did, because maybe, instead of running from yourself, you could find a way to make things right. Maybe you could fight for something greater than yourself.

For the first time, wrapped in Bucky’s embrace, you believed that maybe you could be someone worth saving.

—

A month later, you were all gathered around a small campfire, tucked away in a quiet corner of nowhere. 

The night was cool, the fire warm, and laughter bubbled up from the group as you shared bits and pieces of each other's lives. 

“Team bonding,” John had said.

John passed around a nearly empty bag of marshmallows, Alexei poked at the fire, and Yelena and Ava exchanged eye rolls at everyone else’s antics, though they leaned closer together under the same blanket.

Eventually, the conversation drifted, as it often did, to you and Bucky. 

“So… how did the Winter Soldier and Sleeper even meet?” Yelena asked, raising an eyebrow as she threw another marshmallow into her mouth. 

The moniker you had adopted still twisted in your stomach every time you heard it, but it had lost its edge. This time, you felt in control. Like you owned it.

"I have theories,” Alexei nodded, crossing his arms, “but I have to know."

You shared a look with Bucky, a small smile creeping on both your faces. “There was a Hydra agent we were both after.” you began, biting back a frown. “And… well, I was angrier back then.” 

He placed his arm on yours, a comforting gesture.

“You wanted him alive,” you said. “I had… different ideas.”

“After that—” Bucky wrapped his arm around your shoulders. “—She was all I could think about. I kept showing up wherever she was, trying to figure her out.” 

“So basically,” John said, trying to hold back a laugh, “Bucky is a bit of a stalker.”

“A stalker?” Bucky echoed incredulously, “I think the word you’re looking for is ‘dedicated.’” 

“No, no,” Ava interjected, “you followed her everywhere did you not? ‘Stalker’ is the right word, Barnes.”

“Fine,” he admitted jokingly, “But what can I say? It was love at first sight.” 

Yelena gagged theatrically and John clutched his stomach in a fit of laughter.

Alexei just chuckled and muttered something about “American romance.” Ava made a face, disgusted but secretly amused.

You couldn’t help but laugh along with them, leaning against Bucky’s shoulder, feeling the steady rise and fall of his breath. You could see him out of the corner of your eye, looking down at you with a quiet smile.

In some way, this still felt too good to be real.

For the first time, you realized you’d found exactly what you’d been missing all along. A home. Maybe even the closest thing you’ve ever had to a family.

A place where you belonged.

And you knew, looking at all of them—especially at Bucky—that this was just the beginning.

-end

[vanteguccir]

── ୨୧ !　CAR CRASH

matt sturniolo x reader

SUMMARY: Where an amazing date night leads to a devastating car accident, leaving Y/N severely injured and Matt hospitalized and feeling extremely guilt.

WARNING: Car crash, blood, gore (nothing too extreme), mentions of surgery and death.

REQUESTED?: Yes, by an anon.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: That is my work, I DON'T authorize any plagiarism, copy, or "inspiration"! | English isn't my first language, so I'm sorry if there's any grammar error.

　　　༻✦༺ 　༻✧༺　༻✦༺

The night had been perfect. The kind of night that made Matt wish he could bottle up every second and live it over and over again. As they cruised down the road, Y/N’s laughter filled the car, bubbling up with a joy that made his heart swell. He stole a quick glance at her, unable to resist the smile tugging at his lips as he watched her eyes crinkle at the corners.

It was all almost too serene. The road was deserted, stretching ahead like a long, winding ribbon through the dense forest. Trees lined both sides, their dark silhouettes swaying gently in the cool breeze. The glow from the dashboard lights bathed Matt’s face in a soft blue hue, highlighting the way his jaw clenched whenever he concentrated on the road.

Matt’s hand rested gently on Y/N’s thigh, fingers intertwined with hers. The music in the background was just soft enough to allow their conversation to drift through the air. Their fingers were laced together like they had been for years, her thumb softly brushing over the back of his hand in a way that always sent a thrill through him.

"You know." Y/N started, turning to look at him with that familiar, teasing sparkle in her eyes. "I still can’t believe you almost choked on that dessert tonight."

He rolled his eyes, shaking his head.

"Hey, those strawberries were huge, okay? It’s not my fault they didn’t fit in my mouth." Matt chuckled, his voice low and slightly raspy as he lifted her hand to press a soft kiss to her knuckles.

"Sure, that’s what she said." She quipped, sending a playful wink towards the brunette.

His laughter echoed through the car, his eyes crinkling at the edges.

"Hey, babe, we should-"

But before he could finish his sentence, Y/N's heart jumped to her throat as she noticed something.

"Matt!" Y/N’s scream pierced the air like needles.

Matt’s heart seized, his veins flooded with pure adrenaline. The world seemed to slow down, the seconds stretching into infinity as he turned his eyes from Y/N to the approaching car. It was swerving uncontrollably, zigzagging across the two-lane road, headlights blinding and erratic.

Panic gripped him like a vice. His instincts kicked in, hands flying to the steering wheel as he yanked it to the right with all his strength, desperate to avoid a head-on collision. The tires screamed in protest, the smell of burning rubber filling the car as the vehicle veered off the asphalt, gravel spraying against the undercarriage like bullets.

The seatbelt bit into his chest, and Matt let out a guttural grunt as the force of the swerve tried to rip him sideways.

"Hold on!" He shouted, the words raw and choked with fear.

But there was no time to process, no time to think. In the chaos, Matt’s vision narrowed to a tunnel. He could barely make out the blur of trees and darkness as the car skidded off the road. The other car blazed past them, its horn blaring like a scream of rage, disappearing into the night as if it had never been there.

Matt’s heart hammered in his chest, every beat like a drum of dread. He tried to correct the car’s course, but it seemed to be impossible with the velocity of it, and the steering wheel slipped under his frantic grip. The headlights illuminated nothing but shadows and thick trees ahead, and before he could even register what was happening, the world exploded into chaos.

The impact was instant. The front of the car crumpled like a tin can as it collided with the tree, the force of the crash sending them both jolting forward. Y/N’s scream was cut short as her side of the car bore the brunt of the crash, the airbags exploding around them in a cloud of powder.

Everything went black.

　　　　　༻﹡﹡﹡﹡﹡﹡﹡༺

A few seconds - or maybe minutes, Matt couldn’t tell - passed before he came to. The first thing he noticed was the sharp, metallic taste of blood in his mouth, his head throbbing like it was being split open. His vision was blurred, darkness and flashing colors swirling together as he tried to blink them away.

"Y/N..." He croaked, his voice barely a whisper. Panic seized his chest like a vice grip as he turned his head, trying to see her through the haze. "Y/N!"

She was slumped against her seat, her head tilted unnaturally to the side, blood smeared across her forehead where she’d hit the window.

"No, no, no, no!" Matt’s voice came out in a broken sob as he reached for her, his hands trembling violently. Pain shot through his ribs with every movement, but he ignored it, his vision blurred with tears. "Y/N! Wake up, please, wake up!"

But she didn’t move.

"C'mon, please. Please- fucking shit!"

He could barely breathe, his chest tightening as though an invisible hand was crushing his lungs. Warm blood trickled down his temple, but he barely noticed it. All he could focus on was Y/N, slumped lifelessly beside him.

"What do I do? What do I do?" His bloody hands flew to his head, smearing it all around his skin. "An ambulance, I need-need to call an ambulance."

His trembling fingers fumbled with his phone, hands slick with blood and sweat, and his vision blurred with tears. He couldn’t think straight; everything was a whirlpool of noise, pain, and terror. As he finally managed to dial 911, he searched for Y/N hand, squeezing the cold, unmoving member, his other hand shaking so hard it almost dropped the phone.

"911, what's your emergency?"

Matt could hardly get the words out, his throat so tight it felt like he was being strangled.

"We-we've been in an accident! Oh god, please- please help us! I... I don’t know what to do!"

His voice was a broken sob, the words tumbling out in a chaotic rush, barely coherent. He was gasping for breath, panic clawing at him with icy fingers. He kept glancing at Y/N, hoping, praying that she would suddenly move or blink or give any sign that she was okay. But she was too still, her face shining with blood, eyes closed, and her chest...

He couldn't even tell if it was moving.

"Okay, sir, I need you to try to stay calm. Where are you? Can you give me your location?"

Matt’s mind was spinning, the world around him a dark blur. He tried to remember where they were, but it was like every thought was slipping through his fingers.

"Uh- I, I don’t know! Somewhere near... near Elm and... I think we’re by a park or something. There’s glass everywhere, and- she's not... she’s not waking up!"

As he spoke, Matt’s voice cracked again, his words coming out in choked sobs. His free hand kept shaking Y/N’s shoulder, trying to rouse her, to pull her back to him.

"Alright, I’ve got your location. Help is on the way. Sir, I need you to focus for a moment. Is anyone else in the car with you?"

Matt’s voice broke into a desperate wail.

"Yes, yes, it’s my girlfriend. She-she’s not moving! I tried to wake her, but... but she’s just lying there, and she’s bleeding. Oh god, there’s so much blood!"

He couldn’t stop his crying, his entire body shaking as if he were freezing. Maybe he was.

"Okay, I understand. Help is on its way, I promise. But I need you to check if she’s breathing. Can you see if she’s taking any breaths?"

Matt let out a strangled noise, almost animalistic, as he leaned back to try to see. His hands were unsteady and he wiped furiously at his eyes to clear his vision. He leaned closer to her, straining to see if her chest was rising, but everything was too dark and chaotic.

"I-I can’t tell! I’m trying, but she’s not moving! Please, just help her!" His voice rose to a scream at the end, cracking under the weight of his despair.

"We're doing everything we can, sir. You’re doing great, okay? Just stay with me. Take a deep breath. I need you to look at her chest. Is it rising and falling, even a little?"

Matt tried. He really tried. But all he could see was blood. Blood on her eyes, her lips, her collarbone. He could barely make out her features through the darkness and the horror of what was happening.

"I don’t know, I don’t know!" He cried, his voice breaking into another sob. "It’s too dark, and her hair- there’s so much blood on her face. I’m scared to move her, I don’t want to hurt her more! Y/N, baby, come on. Please, don’t leave me." He begged, his voice raw with desperation.

He reached for his own seatbelt, fingers fumbling as he tried to undo the latch, but it was jammed. Tears blurred his vision constantly, frustration and fear boiling over as he yanked at it, the metal digging into his palms.

When the seatbelt finally gave way, he turned his attention back to her face.

"I’m here, I’m here." He whispered, pressing frantic kisses to her forehead, ignoring the cold of her skin and the taste of blood hitting his tongue. "I’m not leaving you, okay? Just stay with me."

"You’re doing the right thing by staying with her, sir." Their voice made him remember that he was still with the call on-going. "Just keep talking to her, alright? I know it’s hard, but you need to stay calm for her. What’s her name?"

Her name. God, her name was everything. It was the first thing he thought of when he woke up and the last thing on his mind before he fell asleep. He let out a shuddering breath.

"Y/N... Her name’s Y/N." He whispered, his voice raw. He cradled her face with his free hand, gently brushing the blood-streaked strands of hair away. "She’s so cold. Why is she so cold?"

"Y/N is going to be okay, sir. We’re sending an ambulance to you right now. I need you to tell me: are you hurt? Are you bleeding anywhere?"

Matt’s mind was short-circuiting, the edges of his vision tinged with black spots. But he couldn’t focus on himself. He couldn’t care less if he was bleeding or broken.

"N-No, I’m fine. It’s just her. She-she hit her head so hard." His voice broke into a whisper at the end, as if saying it too loudly would make it more real.

"I understand. But you might not realize you’re hurt because of the adrenaline. Can you check if you’re bleeding or if you feel any pain?"

Matt’s eyes darted frantically between his phone and Y/N. He couldn’t think about himself, couldn’t even process what they were asking.

"I told you, I’m fine!" He screamed into the phone, his voice cracking with a desperate fury. "I’m fine! It’s Y/N! Just... please save her! She’s... she’s everything. I can’t-" His words broke off into a series of harsh, broken sobs.

"I hear you, and I promise we're doing everything we can. Help is almost there, okay?"

Matt nodded frantically, even though they couldn’t see him. He clung to Y/N’s hand like a lifeline, pressing it to his lips, whispering her name over and over.

"Please, baby, stay with me... Please. You’re so strong. You can get through this. Just keep breathing for me, okay? Please..."

Outside, the wailing sirens grew louder, the red and blue lights flashing through the shattered windows of the car.

"Please... don’t leave me." He whispered one last time, the sound of his door being ripped open sounding muffled before the darkness around him finally swallowed him whole.

The last thing he felt was Y/N’s cold hand slipping from his grasp as the world went dark.

　　　　　༻﹡﹡﹡﹡﹡﹡﹡༺

A slow, rhythmic beeping was the first thing Matt became aware of as he drifted back into consciousness. His eyelids were heavy, as if weighed down by invisible anchors, and when he finally managed to pry them open, his vision was blurred, everything around him a hazy mix of white and blue. The smell of antiseptic stung his nostrils, making his head spin, and the low hum of machinery filled the air.

Matt blinked, trying to clear the fog from his mind. The room was dim, a soft light glowing from a corner lamp, casting long shadows across the pale walls.

There was an IV taped to his arm, the clear tube connected to a bag hanging from a metal pole beside the bed. His body felt like it had been crushed, every breath sending a dull throb through his ribs.

It hurt to move, but he turned his head slowly, trying to get his bearings. That’s when he noticed the figure slumped in an uncomfortable-looking position on a small armchair near the bed.

Chris.

His brother was fast asleep, his face drawn with exhaustion, dark circles etched beneath his eyes. The armchair seemed to have been pushed so close to the bed that it almost touched it, like Chris had wanted to stay as close to him as possible.

Matt’s mind was sluggish, like wading through thick mud. He couldn't remember how he’d ended up here. Why was he in a hospital? What had happened?

As he lay there, trying to piece together the fragments of his memory, a flash of vivid color cut through the fog like a lightning bolt; Y/N’s face, pale and covered in blood, slumped in the seat next to him.

The memory hit him like a truck, and suddenly everything came rushing back at once: the crash, the panic, the desperate phone call. Y/N’s lifeless body beside him.

"Y/N!" The name ripped out of his throat, raw and broken.

Adrenaline flooded his veins, pushing away the pain as panic seized him. He tried to sit up, ignoring the sharp agony that shot through his side and the dizziness that made his head sway. The only thought in his mind was finding her, making sure she was okay. He had to see her. He had to know if she was still-

His hands scrambled at the IV taped to his arm, trying to yank it free.

"No, no, no... C'mon, I need to find her!" He gasped, his voice frantic and uneven. His vision blurred with tears, anxiety closing in like a vice around his chest.

Chris woke with a sudden start, his eyes snapping open. For a split second, he was disoriented, but then he saw Matt struggling on the bed, clawing at the IV line.

"Matt! Hey, stop. Stop!" Chris practically leaped from the couch, crossing the short distance to his brother in a heartbeat.

Matt barely registered Chris’s presence.

"Let go of me! I need to find her!" His voice was wild, a desperate, guttural scream. He shoved at Chris with what little strength he had, the effort sending another stab of pain through his ribs, but he didn’t care. All that mattered was Y/N. She was out there somewhere, alone, hurt. He had to get to her.

Chris’s heart twisted painfully at the sight of his brother in such a state. He grabbed Matt’s hands, trying to stop him from tearing the IV out.

"Matt, listen to me! You need to calm down!" His voice was steady, but there was an edge of panic in it, fear for both Matt’s physical and mental state.

He pushed the call button for the doctor frantically, knowing they needed help, now.

Matt was beyond reason. He was sobbing, his voice breaking as he shouted like crazy.

"Get off me, Chris! Please, I have to find her! Y/N- where is she? Where’s Y/N?!" He thrashed against Chris’s grip, raw terror coursing through him. His mind was a whirlwind of worst-case scenarios, each one more terrifying than the last.

Chris used every ounce of strength he had to pin Matt’s hands down against the bed, his fingers digging into Matt’s wrists. He leaned in close, his face inches from Matt’s, forcing him to make eye contact.

"Matt, you need to stop!" He shouted, his voice cracking. "Listen to me, please! Nick is with her, and they’re taking care of her! You have to stay here and let them help you, okay? You’re hurt, too!"

But it was like Matt couldn’t even hear him.

"No, no, no! She’s not okay, she wasn’t moving! I need to see her, Chris! Let me go!" His screams were hoarse, filled with a raw, primal agony that tore at Chris’s heart.

Before Chris could say anything else, the door burst open, and a doctor, along with two nurses, rushed in, their expressions tense and focused.

"What’s going on?" The doctor demanded as she approached the bed, her gaze flicking between the brothers.

"He’s trying to rip the IV out." Chris said breathlessly, his voice shaking. "Please, he won’t calm down!"

The doctor nodded sharply, gesturing to one of the nurses.

"We need to sedate him before he injures himself further."

"No!" Matt screamed, thrashing even harder against Chris’s grip. "Don’t you dare! I need to find Y/N!" His voice was broken, desperate, his eyes wide and filled with terror.

Chris's hands tightened around Matt’s, holding him down as the nurse prepared a syringe. Tears streamed down Matt’s face, his breaths coming in ragged gasps.

He was looking at Chris with an expression so lost, so utterly heartbroken, it nearly broke Chris, too.

"Matt, listen to me." Chris pleaded, his own voice breaking. "She’s going to be okay. But you’re going to hurt yourself if you don’t stop. I promise, I promise I’ll take you to her as soon as they say it’s okay. But you have to calm down, okay? Please, Matt..."

Matt’s eyes were wild, searching Chris’s for any sign of a lie, any hint that he was just trying to placate him. But Chris’s face was so full of anguish, so full of love and sincerity, that Matt’s resolve wavered for a moment.

The nurse took advantage of that brief second of hesitation, quickly inserting the needle into Matt’s IV line. Within seconds, the sedative began to take effect. Matt’s thrashing slowed, his screams dying down to broken sobs as the world around him began to blur again.

"No... Chris, please... It was my fault... Y/N..." Matt’s voice was barely a whisper now, his eyelids drooping as the drug pulled him under. The last thing he saw was Chris’s tear-streaked face, mouthing something he couldn’t quite hear before the darkness swallowed him whole.

　　　　　༻﹡﹡﹡﹡﹡﹡﹡༺

The darkness that had pulled Matt under before slowly began to recede, but this time, it was different. Darkness enveloped him in a terrifying nightmare, pulling him under like the tide dragging him out to sea.

He was back in the car. The smell of gasoline and blood was suffocating, the crunch of broken glass grinding beneath his legs as he struggled to move. Y/N was next to him, her face ghostly pale, her eyes closed, blood streaming down her forehead and pooling beneath her. Her body lay limp, lifeless against the car seat, and no matter how many times he screamed her name, she didn't stir.

"... Y/N, please! Wake up!" Matt’s voice was raw, his throat burning with the force of his screams. He shook her shoulder frantically, his fingers slick with blood. "No, no, no... please, Y/N, don’t do this to me!" But she remained still, her head slumped to the side, blood trickling down her delicate features.

The world around him was spinning, the sound of sirens in the distance growing louder, yet somehow they never seemed to get closer. His breaths were short, and frantic gasps as he clutched at Y/N, his tears falling onto her lifeless body.

"God, no! Please!" He was breaking, unraveling, his heart tearing apart as he held her close, praying for a miracle that wouldn’t come.

"Matt!"

The voice was distant at first, barely cutting through the thick haze of his panic. But it grew louder, more urgent, like a beacon trying to pierce through the storm in his mind.

"Matt! Come on, wake up!"

But Matt couldn’t make sense of it. His eyes were still glued to Y/N’s lifeless form, his hands desperately trying to stop the flow of blood, his heart shattering with each second that passed. The voice was there again, louder this time, sounding so familiar, so achingly real.

"Matt, it’s okay. You're safe. Matt, listen to me!"

The scene in front of him wavered, flickering like a glitch in a broken film reel. The wrecked car, the blood, Y/N’s unmoving body; all of it seemed to blur, like someone was tearing the nightmare apart at its seams. Matt blinked, his vision shifting between the nightmare and something else. A figure - blurred, indistinct - hovered above him. He could hear that voice again, so much clearer now, so desperate and familiar.

"Y/N?" Matt’s voice was a hoarse whisper, his eyes darting around frantically. But his mind was still caught between the nightmare and reality. He could feel Y/N’s cold body beneath his fingers, could see her blood staining his hands. "No, please! Don’t let her die! God, please, don’t take her from me!" His voice broke into anguished sobs, raw and heart-wrenching, as he pleaded into the darkness.

The figure above him froze, and then, in an instant, arms wrapped around him. Matt was pulled into a tight embrace, warmth pressing against his trembling body.

"Hey, hey, it’s okay. I’m here. Matt, it’s me. You’re safe." Chris’s voice was thick with emotion, his own tears spilling as he held Matt close.

The youngest dropped to his knees beside the hospital bed, leaning over Matt’s shaking form, one arm cradling the back of his head as he tried to bring him back from the brink.

"Shhh, it’s okay, Matt. Y/N is okay. I promise you, she’s alive. It was just a nightmare." Chris whispered desperately into Matt’s ear, his grip tightening when he felt his brother’s body shake with gut-wrenching sobs. He rocked them both slightly, his own chest heaving as he tried to keep it together for Matt’s sake. "I’ve got you, alright? I’m right here. She’s okay. I swear."

But Matt couldn’t process the words. His mind was still stuck in that twisted nightmare, where Y/N was cold and still beneath his hands, where he’d failed to protect her.

"No, no... I have to get to her." He choked out, struggling weakly in Chris’s arms. "I can’t lose her... I can’t..."

"Matt." Chris said more firmly, his voice breaking. He pulled back just enough to look Matt in the eyes, his hands cupping Matt’s face, thumbs brushing away the tears streaming down his cheeks. "Listen to me. You’re not in the car anymore. You’re in the hospital. Y/N is okay. She’s being taken care of. She’s safe."

Chris’s words were slowly, agonizingly, starting to sink in. Matt’s sobs grew softer, his breaths still ragged and uneven, but the desperate thrashing stopped. He could feel the warmth of Chris’s body, the steady pressure of his hands holding him down, grounding him in the present. The nightmare was slipping away, reality clawing its way back into his consciousness.

Matt’s fingers, which had been gripping Chris’s shirt with bruising force, gradually loosened. He blinked, his vision clearing enough to see the hospital room around him. The blinding lights, the beeping machines, the sterile scent, all of it slowly registered, pulling him further away from the nightmare’s grip.

"Chris...?" Matt’s voice was small, broken, like a lost child. His wide, tear-filled eyes searched Chris’s, looking for confirmation that this wasn’t another twisted dream.

"Yes, it’s me." Chris whispered, his forehead pressing against Matt’s. "You’re safe. I’ve got you."

Matt collapsed into Chris’s arms, his body going limp with exhaustion. The adrenaline that had kept him going drained away, leaving him weak and trembling. He buried his face in Chris’s shoulder, his hands clutching at his brother’s back like a lifeline.

"I thought... I thought I lost her..." He sobbed, his voice muffled and choked. "I couldn’t... I can’t lose her, Chris..."

"I know, I know." Chris murmured, tears streaming down his own face as he held his brother tighter, laying his cheek above his head. "But she’s alive. She’s okay. And you’re okay. We’re all here, Matt. You’re safe."

Slowly, so slowly, Matt’s sobs began to quiet. His breathing evened out, but that only brought the pain to control. Each breath sent a jolt through his bruised ribs. His head throbbed, the pain pulsing behind his eyes, and his skin was clammy with cold sweat. He shivered, his body exhausted and aching, but he let himself lean into Chris’s embrace, the warmth of his brother’s presence keeping him grounded.

Chris continued to murmur soothing words, his hands rubbing circles on Matt’s shoulder, trying to calm the tremors that still wracked his brother’s body.

"You’re okay, Matt. You’re safe. I’ve got you."

Matt let out a shaky breath, his body finally beginning to relax, the nightmare fading further into the recesses of his mind, the steady rhythm of Chris’s heartbeat against his ear helping to calm the storm inside him.

For the first time since waking, Matt felt like he could breathe again. He was still in pain, his body battered and broken, but Chris’s comforting presence kept him anchored, keeping him from slipping back into that dark abyss.

"Can... can you call me the doctor?" Matt whispered hoarsely, his voice barely audible.

"Are you feeling pain?" Chris asked worriedly, receiving a small nod as an answer. "Okay."

Chris brushed back the damp hair on Matt's forehead while pressing his free hand against the red button.

"Chris." Matt croaked out again. "Y/N... how is she?"

His younger brother's face crumpled, and he let out a shaky breath. He looked away for a moment, trying to collect himself before turning back to Matt.

"She... she was in surgery." He said quietly, every word seeming to cost him. "Nick told me... she had internal bleeding, and they had to go in to stop it. She hit her head super hard, too. But... the surgery went well. She’s stable now and probably still asleep."

Matt’s heart shattered at those words, a cold, sick feeling twisting in his stomach. Internal bleeding. Surgery. Y/N had gone through so much, and it was all because he couldn’t control his own damn car. If he had just been paying attention... He clenched his fists, nails digging into his palms as he struggled to hold back the tears.

"Can I... can I maybe see her?" He asked, his voice so small, so broken, it almost didn’t sound like his own.

Chris stared at him for long seconds, his eyes searching Matt’s face, like he was trying to read the thoughts swirling in his mind. And maybe he could see it. Maybe he could sense the guilt that was eating Matt alive. But Chris didn’t press him. Instead, he sighed heavily, searching for his hands and stopping him from hurting himself further.

"The doctor is the one who has to let you." He whispered, biting his bottom lip hard. "You know... I was really scared, Matt. I thought... I thought I was going to lose you forever."

Matt watched the pain swimming inside Chris's blue eyes.

"I’m sorry, Chris." He muttered, his voice cracking. "I’m really sorry for scaring you. You and Nick."

Chris looked down at him, his eyes shining with tears, and shook his head.

"No, Matt... no, it’s not your fault." He said, his voice fierce despite the tears. "I just... I’m just so glad you’re here. That you’re alive."

Matt swallowed hard, his throat tight. He didn’t deserve Chris’s relief, not when Y/N was still out there, hurt because of him.

Before he could say anything else, the sound of the door creaking open echoed, and a doctor stepped in, clipboard in hand. Behind her were two nurses, ready to assist with whatever was needed.

Dr. Patel, a middle-aged woman with gentle eyes, gave Matt a small, reassuring smile as she approached his bedside.

"Good to see you awake and calmer, Mr. Sturniolo. How are you feeling?" She asked, her tone soft yet businesslike.

Matt swallowed, his throat dry and raw from the crying.

"I... I’m in pain." He admitted hoarsely, his voice barely more than a whisper. "Everywhere."

Chris squeezed his hand reassuringly before turning to the doctor.

"Is there something more you can give him for the pain?" Chris asked, his voice thick with concern.

Dr. Patel nodded, her expression turning more serious as she flipped through the pages on her clipboard.

"We’ve been managing his pain with a mild dosage to avoid any complications, but given that he's more conscious now, we can adjust his medication." She gestured to one of the nurses, who immediately set about preparing a new injection.

Matt’s eyes fluttered closed for a moment as he tried to focus on breathing through the pain. Each inhale felt like it was slicing through his ribs, the weight of his guilt and worry making it even harder to catch his breath.

"Doctor, can... can I see her? Y/N, I mean... please." He pleaded, reopening his eyes before looking at her.

Dr. Patel paused, her gaze softening as she looked at him.

"Let’s take care of your pain first, Matt." She said kindly, her voice a steady anchor in the chaos. "I promise, as soon as you are stable enough, we’ll let you see her."

The nurse approached with the syringe, and Matt turned his head away, too drained to watch as she injected the painkiller into his IV. Moments later, a cooling sensation spread through his veins, slowly dulling the sharp edges of his agony, but it did nothing to ease the turmoil inside him.

As the medication began to work, Matt’s eyelids grew heavier, but he fought against the sleep that threatened to pull him under.

"I'm fine now... please." He begged, his voice wavering. "I'm fine, I need to see her. I... I have to make sure that she’s okay." His breath came in shallow, slow gasps, and his eyes darted to Chris, silently pleading for help.

Chris stepped forward, placing a calming hand on Matt’s shoulder.

"Hey, hey." He whispered, trying to soothe his brother. "Let the doctor decide if you're stable enough, okay? I promise you’ll see her soon."

Matt shook his head stubbornly, the panic still clawing at his chest.

"I promise that I'm feeling okay now, m-my pain is gone." His words sounded slurred, his eyes blinking slowly while trying to keep himself awake, looking at the doctor with determination.

Dr. Patel’s face softened as she listened to Matt’s broken pleas. The room was quiet for a minute, save for the rhythmic beeping of the heart monitor. She glanced at Chris, who was holding his brother’s shoulder tightly, as if trying to anchor him to the present moment.

"Please... I have to see her." He whispered again, the words more of a gasp now. "I just... I need to know she’s really okay."

The doctor sighed, rubbing the bridge of her nose. She understood his desperation, his need to see Y/N with his own eyes. It was a common reaction, patients often believed that seeing their loved ones would somehow confirm their survival would make it more real. And judging by the fear and panic still etched into Matt’s face, this was something he desperately needed.

Dr. Patel turned to the nurse beside her, exchanging a brief, silent conversation before she turned back to the brothers.

"Alright." She said finally, her tone gentle but firm. "We can take you to her room, Matt... but only if you’re in a wheelchair. You’re still recovering yourself, and moving around too much could set back your progress."

Chris’s head whipped toward the doctor, a glimmer of hope lighting up his tired eyes.

"Wait... you mean... he can see her?"

"Yes, but only for a few minutes." Dr. Patel clarified. "And he must stay seated. We’ll have to monitor him closely."

Matt’s entire body seemed to sag in relief at her words. He would have agreed to any condition at that moment if it meant seeing Y/N, even if it was just for a second.

"Yes... yes, please. I’ll stay in the wheelchair. I promise." He breathed, the frantic edge to his voice slowly easing into something softer, more hopeful.

Chris nodded gratefully at the doctor, his eyes glassy with unshed tears.

"Thank you." He whispered, his voice thick. He turned to Matt, squeezing his brother’s shoulder. "Okay, Matt... just breathe, alright? We’re gonna see her."

The nurse quickly wheeled in a padded, adjustable wheelchair. Chris helped Matt shift carefully from the hospital bed into the seat, wincing with every grimace of pain that crossed Matt’s face. Matt tried to hide it, but his stiff movements and shallow breaths were enough to betray just how much he was still hurting. Once seated, Matt clutched the arms of the chair with white knuckles, willing his trembling legs to steady.

Chris crouched in front of him, locking eyes with Matt.

"Are you sure you’re good to go?" Chris asked softly, his voice laced with concern. "If you start to feel worse, we can turn back, okay?"

"No." Matt said quickly, shaking his head even though the motion made him dizzy. "I need to see her, Chris. I won’t... I can’t rest until I know she’s a-alive." His voice was nothing more than a hoarse whisper now, but it carried a weight that cut Chris to his core.

The small entourage - Matt, Chris, the doctor, and a nurse - began their slow journey down the fluorescent-lit corridor. The sterile scent of antiseptic filled the air, and the occasional sound of distant monitors and hushed conversations drifted from other rooms. Chris stayed beside the wheelchair, his hand on Matt’s shoulder the whole time, a steadying presence as they moved.

Matt’s heart was a wild drum in his chest, each turn of the hallway only ratcheting up his anxiety. He felt like he was caught in a nightmare that he couldn’t wake up from, the fear that he might find Y/N still and lifeless on a hospital bed eating away at him.

Finally, they stopped outside a door marked with Y/N’s name on a small placard. Dr. Patel turned to Matt, giving him one last assessing look.

"Remember, just a few minutes." She reminded him gently. "She’s stable but still heavily sedated. It might be a while before she wakes up."

Matt nodded, barely hearing her as his eyes locked on the door. Chris leaned down to give his shoulder one last reassuring squeeze before opening it. The soft creak of the door seemed to echo through Matt’s mind, the sound like a gunshot in the quiet hallway.

As they wheeled him inside, Matt’s breath hitched. There she was, his Y/N, lying so still in the bed, surrounded by machines that beeped and hummed softly, tubes and wires connected to her fragile form. Her face was pale, bandaged in places, and her chest rose and fell in the slow, steady rhythm of sleep. But she was breathing. She was alive.

Before his eyes could drink in every detail of her condition, his attention was pulled to another figure in the room.

Nick.

Nick’s head shot up at the sound of the door, his eyes widening in surprise. Relief washed over his face, softening the lines of exhaustion and worry that had been etched there. He looked like he hadn’t slept in days, his hair disheveled, eyes red-rimmed.

"Matt." Nick breathed, his voice trembling with emotion.

He quickly crossed the room in a few long strides, his eyes scanning his brother’s face like he couldn’t quite believe he was awake and here in front of him. Without a word, he dropped to his knees beside the wheelchair, wrapping his arms around Matt in a tight, desperate hug.

"Oh God, Matt." Nick’s voice cracked as he held on tight, as though letting go would make this moment disappear. "I thought we lost you... I thought..."

Matt weakly lifted one arm, patting his brother’s back as best as he could manage.

"I’m okay." He whispered hoarsely, though the pain in his body begged to differ. "I’m here, Nick... I’m here."

Nick pulled back, his eyes shining with tears, but he quickly wiped them away with the back of his hand.

"You have no idea how scared we were, Matt... but God, I’m so glad you’re awake."

Chris, standing close by, put a comforting hand on Nick’s shoulder, giving him a small, reassuring squeeze.

"He’s okay, Nick. We’re okay." Chris murmured, nodding assuredly.

The doctor and nurse patiently waited for the brothers to have their moment before gently nudging the wheelchair forward.

"Let’s get you closer to her, Matt." Dr. Patel said softly.

As they wheeled Matt to Y/N’s bedside, all the noise of the hospital seemed to fade away. All he could hear was the soft, steady beep of the machines monitoring her vitals.

Matt’s eyes welled up with tears as he took in her pale face, the bruises peeking out from under the bandages on her forehead and the soft rise and fall of her chest.

He reached out with a trembling hand, his fingers brushing against hers. Her skin was cool to the touch, and a sob tore through him. Without hesitation, he leaned forward, bringing her hand to his lips. He kissed her knuckles softly, over and over again, his lips lingering on every bruise and scrape he could see.

"I’m so sorry." He whispered, his voice raw with anguish. "I’m so, so sorry, my love. Please... please forgive me. I love you so much, Y/N. I need you. You have to wake up soon. Please."

He kept pressing gentle kisses to her hand, his tears slipping down and wetting her skin. His heart ached in ways he never thought possible, the guilt eating him alive. This was his fault. If only he had been more careful...

Nick watched silently, his own eyes filled with tears, and Chris had to turn away for a moment, pressing a fist to his mouth to stifle a sob. The sight of their brother - usually so composed - completely broken over the woman he loved was almost too much to bear.

Finally, Matt’s strength gave out. His body, already weakened and worn from the medication, was quickly reaching its limit. He slowly leaned forward, resting his head gently on the edge of Y/N’s bed, his cheek pressed close to her hip. He stayed there, clinging to her like she was his lifeline, his breaths coming in soft gasps as he struggled to stay conscious.

"I’m here, Y/N... I’m right here." He whispered, his voice barely more than a breath. "I won’t leave you... I promise."

The pain was slowly fading, his body seeming to finally allow the medication to work its way through his system. Matt’s eyes grew heavier, his body sagging with exhaustion. But he didn’t want to sleep. He wanted to stay with her, to watch over her, to be there when she finally opened her eyes.

Dr. Patel watched him with a soft, sympathetic gaze. She could see how much this was costing him, but she also understood that this was what he needed.

"We’ll let him stay for a little longer." She said quietly to Chris and Nick, who both nodded gratefully. "But you must agree that, if anything changes, if he starts showing signs of distress, you call for me immediately.”

"We will." Chris promised, his voice low and earnest. Nick nodded in agreement, his eyes never leaving Matt.

With that, the doctor and nurse quietly exited the room, leaving the three brothers alone with Y/N. The room was dim and quiet. The only sound was the soft beeping of the monitors and the occasional muffled sniffle from Nick or Chris.

Matt finally let the exhaustion pull him under, his breathing evening out as he drifted into a fitful sleep. His fingers were still wrapped loosely around Y/N’s hand, and his head rested against her side as if he could protect her even in his sleep.

　　　　　༻﹡﹡﹡﹡﹡﹡﹡༺

Several hours passed in quiet vigil. Chris and Nick stayed sat on the small couch by the wall, watching over Matt and Y/N like silent guardians, their hearts heavy with worry but relieved that, for now, their family was still holding on.

As the soft light of dawn began to creep through the tiny window in Y/N’s room, there was a faint stirring.

The world around her was a hazy blur, everything out of focus and spinning, like she was caught in a dream she couldn’t quite wake up from. There were distant beeps and muffled voices, but they all seemed so far away, like she was listening from underwater.

A faint, familiar smell flooded her nose. Matt. Or is it Nick? It was something like strawberries or maybe coconut. She couldn’t tell, but it was comforting enough. She tried to move, to lift her heavy eyelids, but her entire body felt like it was weighed down by an invisible force.

After what felt like an eternity, Y/N finally managed to blink her eyes open, the harsh bright lights above her making her squint. The ceiling was white and sterile, and as her vision adjusted, she could make out the faint sounds of machines beeping rhythmically around her. Her mind was foggy, like a thick cloud had settled over her thoughts, and it took her a moment to realize where she was.

A hospital. She could feel something tight around her ribs, a dull, throbbing pain in her head, and an odd numbness throughout her limbs that made it difficult to move. Her throat was dry, like sandpaper, and when she tried to swallow, it sent a sharp ache down to her chest.

Panic started to bubble up in her chest, her heart rate quickening as fragmented memories began to resurface - the blaring headlights, the screech of tires, and the sudden, jarring impact that had stolen her breath away. She let out a small, pained whine, her chest tightening as she tried to remember more, but it was all so blurry, so confusing.

A voice cut through the haze, it sounded quiet but rough, like it had been scraped raw.

"Y/N? Hey, it’s okay... you’re okay."

She turned her head slowly, every movement feeling like she was wading through thick mud. The face that came into focus was familiar, a face that brought her the feeling of home amidst the confusion.

Nick.

Y/N’s eyes blinked slowly, struggling to focus on the two faces in front of her. She was still groggy, the world around her hazy, but the concerned expressions of Chris and Nick gradually came into focus. Her brows furrowed slightly, confusion clouding her tired gaze.

"N-Nick...? Chris...?" She mumbled, her voice rough and barely audible. Her throat was parched, every word scraping against the dryness.

Nick let out a shaky laugh, tears gathering in his eyes.

"Oh my god, I was so... I'm so glad you're back." He whispered, his voice breaking with a mixture of relief and emotion. He stepped closer, reaching out to gently brush a strand of hair away from her face.

Chris nodded, his face lighting up with the first real smile in what felt like an eternity.

"We’ve been really worried about you, Y/N." He murmured, his voice thick with emotion. "You’re a fighter, you know that?"

Y/N tried to smile, but even that felt like lifting a mountain.

"What... what happened?" She asked, her voice weak, her words slurred from the medication and anesthesia coursing through her veins. "I... I remember the crash. I remember..." She trailed off as she recalled the moment of impact, the way everything had gone black in an instant. "It all happened so fast."

Nick’s eyes filled with tears, and he traveled his hand from her hair to her shoulder, squeezing the covered skin tightly.

"It was... it was really bad. But you are here now, okay? You made it through the surgery. You’re safe."

"Surgery?" The word sent a chill down her spine. She tried to remember, but everything after the crash was a blur. "What... what happened to me?" She asked, her voice barely more than a whisper.

Nick took a shaky breath, his grip on her tightening as if he needed the contact to ground himself before connecting his eyes with Chris's, begging for him to answer her.

"You had internal bleeding caused by some broken ribs." Chris explained gently, cleaning his throat to disguise the emotion in his voice. "You’ve been out for at least 15 hours after a four-hour surgery. And... and you hit your head really hard. But the doctors said the surgery was a success, and your concussion is mild. You’re going to be okay."

Y/N let out a shaky breath, the reality of it all crashing down on her. Surgery. Internal bleeding. The thought of how close she’d come to... She couldn’t finish the thought, the fear overwhelming her.

"Where... where’s Matt? Is he okay? Oh god, he was driving-"

Chris’s eyes softened, and he exchanged a glance with Nick.

"He’s right here, Y/N." Chris reassured her gently, pointing towards Matt's figure with his head.

Y/N’s gaze flickered downward, and her breath hitched when she finally registered for the first time Matt slumped over on the edge of her hospital bed, his head resting beside her hip. His brown hair was disheveled, and his face looked paler than she had ever seen, decorated with a variety of bruises and cuts, but he was breathing, his chest rising and falling steadily.

It was then that she noticed the weight of his fingers against hers, holding her hand firmly as if she could disappear at any moment.

"He’s been by your side from the minute he woke up..."

The sound of the boy's voice, combined with the familiar touch of his girlfriend, pulled Matt from the depths of his medication-induced sleep. His eyelids fluttered, a groggy groan escaping his lips as he slowly stirred awake. For a moment, he looked confused, his eyes unfocused as he blinked against the harsh lights.

But then, as his gaze settled on Y/N’s face, now wide awake and staring back at him with teary eyes, everything clicked into place. His heart leaped in his chest, and any remaining fog of sleep vanished instantly.

"Y/N?" He croaked, his voice raw with disbelief. His eyes widened as he looked at her, truly seeing her awake for the first time. "Oh my god... you’re... you're awake."

Y/N managed a weak smile, tears gathering in her eyes as well.

"Hey, baby. I'm here." She whispered, her voice trembling with emotion. "You look like you’ve been through hell."

Matt let out a choked laugh, a mix of relief and joy bubbling up inside him. He quickly pulled himself closer to her, his hands shaking as he reached for her face, brushing his thumb tenderly over her bruised cheek.

"I thought... I thought I had lost you." He confessed, his voice breaking. "God, Y/N, I was so scared. I... I couldn’t-" His words were cut off by a sob he couldn’t contain, and he buried his face in her neck, pressing desperate kisses to her exposed skin, his curls tickling her chin in a grounding way.

Y/N’s heart ached at the sight and feeling of him so broken. With what little strength she had, she squeezed his fingers, trying to comfort him.

"I’m here, Matt." She whispered. "We’re okay. You don’t have to worry anymore."

Matt shook his head, his tears soaking her neck.

"I’m so, so sorry." He choked out between sobs. "I’m so sorry, Y/N. I should’ve protected you... I couldn't even-"

Y/N’s brows knitted together in confusion as she tried to process his words. She lifted a trembling hand to stroke his messy hair, trying to calm him down.

"Matt, baby, hey... where's this coming from?" She asked, her voice soft and full of concern as her eyes traveled momentarily to Chris and Nick, searching for an answer in them that they didn’t seem to have.

Matt just kept shaking his head, his sobs growing louder, muffled by her skin.

"It’s my fault... it’s all my fault." He whispered, his voice breaking. "I should’ve seen the car... I should’ve done something... God, you wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for me. I'm really, really sorry..."

Y/N’s confusion turned to anger as she realized what he was saying.

"Matt, look at me." She demanded, her voice suddenly stronger despite her weakened state.

He slowly lifted his tear-streaked face from her shoulder to meet her gaze momentarily, his eyes red and puffy.

"How can you blame yourself?" She asked, her voice tinged with disbelief. "You... Matt, there was nothing you could’ve done. A crazy driver was coming to our direction. You didn’t cause this."

"But... but I should’ve seen it sooner. I should’ve done more." Matt insisted, his voice cracking terribly. He couldn’t meet her eyes for more than a second, ashamed of the guilt that had consumed him. "You got hurt because of me... I should be the one lying in there, not you."

"Don't you dare say something like that, Matthew." Y/N said firmly, her fingers gripping his hand as tightly as she could manage. "Listen to me. It was not your fault. There was nothing you could have done to stop it." She let out a shaky breath, her eyes softening as her free hand traveled to his face, softly brushing away the tears from his cheeks. "I’m okay, Matt... because of you. You were there. You kept me safe until help came."

Her words only made Matt’s tears flow harder, dripping directly where her fingers met his skin, his sobs causing his body to tremble and his ribs to ache, but there was a shift in his eyes, a flicker of something like relief. He didn’t fully believe her, but hearing her say it, seeing the sincerity in her expression, it was like a balm to his raw, bleeding heart.

"You did everything you could, baby. You saved my life. If it wasn’t for you..." Y/N couldn’t even finish the sentence; the thought was too painful to bear. To lose a life with the love of her existence.

Matt sniffled, pressing the side of his face against her palm and wiping the other side of it with the back of his hand, still holding on to Y/N like she was the only thing keeping him afloat.

Nick and Chris watched the whole scene unfold in silence, their hearts heavy with the raw emotions in the room. Chris discreetly wiped away a tear while Nick stood there, his arms crossed over his chest as if trying to hold himself together.

"I love you so much." Matt whispered, nuzzling against her hand. "I can't even picture a life without you."

"I love you too, Matt." Y/N murmured back, her fingers weakly squeezing his. "But you don’t have to picture anything. I’m right here."

Matt let out a shaky breath, nodding.

"Now, why don't the both of you rest a little bit more?" Nick's voice seemed to remind them of the brother's presence. "It will do good for your healing process." Y/N's eyes lifted to the oldest momentarily before nodding slowly.

As the room settled into a comfortable silence, Matt gently laid his head back down on the bed, still holding Y/N’s hand as if it was his lifeline. Y/N stroked his hair softly, her heart aching with love and relief.

For the first time in what felt like forever, they could finally breathe. They were together, alive, and that was all that mattered.

[darktrashsoulbear]

Exploring Local Treasures

Ewan Mitchell x new girlfriend!reader

Summary: Ewan takes his new girlfriend on a tour of his hometown Derby, on her insistence, and scrambles to find things to do while also just being so incredibly in love.

This was a request sent in by the lovely Freyja @endless-ineffabilities who persuaded me to share a fic that showcased my insider knowledge of Derby!

Actors Masterlist

Warnings: None

Word Count: 2019

A big thank you to @gwaynesprincess for beta reading this!

Divider Credit: @saradika-graphics

Any likes, comments and reblogs are always always appreciated :)

A/N: The rucksack is filled with your favourite drinks and snacks as well as extra hair bobbles and his own shopping bags to carry whatever the two of you collect during the day!

The sun was nowhere to be seen, instead the sky was littered with grey clouds and the odd pigeon here and there. Many would describe it as bleak, a fitting description for his location. The streets of the city centre were filled with the sounds of construction which would make you think perhaps it’s preparing for the upcoming Christmas Markets, wrong. There aren’t any Christmas Markets over here, only an ice rink if you’re lucky that year. With a grimace plastered across his face he sighed “I still have no idea why you’d want a tour of this place, love, there’s nothing to see. How about I take you to Nottingham tomorrow where they actually do have a Christmas Market hm?”

“Ewan, babe, I’ve come here to see where you grew up which is right here in Derby not half an hour away in Nottingham!” she refuted, eagerly dragging him along – to where, she wasn’t sure.

“Darling, there’s really nothing to see here, only a few pubs and there’s a decent milkshake place over there,” he fired back ready to head back to the lifts to the car park.

Grinning she manoeuvred herself, so she was before him, walking backwards, dragging him by both hands, “excellent, I’m absolutely parched and besides, aren’t you supposed to be calling me duck here baby?”

Letting out yet another sigh, Ewan resigned himself to his fate and a day of boredom before finally giving in and walking with his girl, pulling out his wallet “unless you’d like for us to get the attention of every girl within earshot then I won’t be calling you duck, my love its almost too common here”

“What and my love isn’t,” she teased leaning in to peck him on the cheek and he quickly took the chance to turn his head, earning himself a peck on the lips promptly followed by a reprimanding pat on the chest.

As they ordered their milkshakes Ewan racked his brain on what on earth he was going to do and how he was expected to provide an entertaining day when it was only three o’clock. Don’t get him wrong, Ewan didn’t hate Derby, but he had long made peace with the fact that it offered very little in terms of entertainment when compared to other bigger cities – sure there were still bowling alleys, escape rooms and a pub on every corner but that’s not exactly revolutionary anymore. This usually suited Ewan just fine when he came home from long shoots away from home and all he wanted was the comfort of doing mostly nothing but in this circumstance, it was a nightmare. Because this was her, his girl, the one. Yes, they had only been together for a few months, but things were going great, phenomenally even. She ticked every box of his and every night he’d send a prayer up to the sky that she felt the same about him. They hadn’t said ‘I love you’ yet but he sure as hell felt it and if the way she looked at him was any inclination, then she did too. Which is why he wanted today to be perfect, he had to say it today – he feared he would combust if he didn’t.

His thoughts were interrupted by another soft tug on this hand as his girl led him over to collect their milkshakes, hers a combination of white chocolate and raspberry and his, a plain dairy milk – he was far too preoccupied to be adventurous today. After checking yet again that she was absolutely sure she wanted to stay, he reluctantly led her towards the pub that was a favourite of his brothers and had become the go to pub ever since he’d first been taken their by his parents when he was twelve ‘The Bless”, ensuring he went the long way to give them enough time for them to drink their milkshake, and for her to change her mind.

Stepping into the warmth of the pub after walking around the city centre was welcomed but he received it with a hint of annoyance due to it meaning that his girl unfurled herself from her position wrapped around his arm, body pressed against his. Although the blinding grin she flashed him as they walked to an available table in a corner towards the back made up for it, her opting to sit next to him on the booth, body leaning against his rather than on the chair opposite certainly did. The pub was relatively quiet due to it being a random Wednesday at three-thirty which Ewan was thankful for as it meant he was able to bury his face in the crook of her neck, lips brushing against her skin as he responded to her questions without any shame.

Their drinks arrived, a water for his darling and an apple juice for him – a decision made after he advised her that it may be best to stay completely sober for what he has planned later, to which she excitedly probed him with questions and general triumphant remarks at her getting him to co-operate. As they sipped their drinks and made general conversation – gossiped – about anything and everything, Ewan couldn’t help but admire the gorgeous girl next to him, glancing over the eyes he so easily finds himself getting lost in, the slope of her nose and the lips that entice him in without even realising. He glances down to where her body meets his, one arm wrapped around his waist while the other switches between taking sips of her drink and wrapping around his, fingers dancing across his own as she plays with the cool metal of the ring on one of his digits.

“So, then I looked at her like yeah, I completely get it but honestly I have no idea what she was talking... mmph,” she was abruptly cut off by Ewan’s lips finding home and colliding with hers. After recovering from her shock, she eagerly responded thankful for the booth standing tall and curling around them as the arm Ewan wrapped around her shoulders tightened and near enough pulled her onto his lap. Believing she’d indulged him enough, his love pulled away as his hand had begun to snake its way up her soft brown knitted sweater.

Between refilling her lungs with air, she wondered where that had come from, his response came with a smirk that painted his angular face “well if you agree to end our little excursion, I’d be happy to give you the full package.”

To which she responded with a breathy laugh and a simple “as if I wouldn’t get it anyway”, rendering him momentarily speechless – because she wasn’t wrong – and she used the opportunity to pull him up by the lapels of his green coat, perfect for the chill in the air, and guided him back outside before demanding he take her to the next place.

With the thousandth sigh of the day, he did just that wrapping his arm around her waist this time and guiding her back into the centre’s main building to the car park, when he quickly explained they’d have to drive to the next location to narrowly avoid the shove coming his way as she believed he was yet again hoping to end their fun early. Reluctantly she agreed to get in the car but not before making him pinkie promise he wasn’t lying.

As Ewan parked up in what he can only assume is an actual parking spot – the car park was so run down he couldn’t really be sure – he took a quick look around, due to the fact that while this was shared between the ‘Rollerworld’ and the Indian restaurant next door ‘Slice of India’ that was its secondary use especially now that it had started getting dark sooner this time of year. With a light jog, he made his way around the front of the car to open the door for his love before she could even think about doing it herself – chivalry to him was not dead – and he happily accepted the “Cheers, Mitchell” and peck on the cheek, that actually landed on his cheek, he got in return.

Grasping her hand in his own (more like engulfing) he quickly led her around from the back of the building where the car park is to the front entrance, making quick work of paying for their entry before making their way up the steps that were far too steep to have a place so close to where people are roller skating. After giving their sizes to the guy behind the counter, Ewan and his love took a chance to survey the place. He again is thankful that it is a Wednesday and its less busy meaning fewer kids for him to accidentally run over or trample, he looks back over at her and sees she’s yet again grinning from ear to ear and has decided that while this certainly wasn’t how he’d have initially opted to spend the day, every second was worth it to see her so happy and he hopes she looks at him that way every day for the rest of their lives.

He was yet again snapped out of his musings by her dragging him over to the seats to put the skates on practically vibrating with excitement and he takes a moment to hope that his lack of roller skating over the past few years doesn’t catch up to him. Which, of course, it did. Multiple times. Any time he believed he had it, the universe sniggered and proved that he, in fact, did not. He wishes he was able to say that it was made worth it by his sweet girl being there aiding and reassuring him but well, if you looked at her any time he was reacquainted with the floor it would seem as though she had front row tickets to a Ricky Gervais comedy show – although she at least had the decency to attempt to ask if he was alright through her cackles.

Eventually, his legs started co-operating, his girl no longer laughed at him (mostly due to the pain her stomach was in for laughing all that time) and they embarked on a shared rhythm around the rink. Neither would admit to it under questioning due to the major cliché of it all, but they did indeed hold hands as they went – once she was sure he wouldn’t drag her down with him. About an hour after their arrival, they both gravitated towards the exit of the rink deciding to grab food on their way back home. As they debated where to go once they’d walked down the too steep stairs, Ewan suggested just popping over to the Indian buffet next door with the promise that the Chinese styled noodles were to die for. This caused her to softly chuckle while looking up at him through her lashes teasing about how “out of everything at the Indian food buffet his highlight was a different cuisine” and just as he was about to defend himself, he looked down at her. Really looked. He looked at the way she looked at him with the softest gaze he’d ever seen, the way she lightly bit her lip while waiting for a response and at the way the hints of her beautiful smile remained in her eyes, and he couldn’t stop himself.

He dipped his head making direct eye contact and said the easiest three words of his life. Her face went from shocked, to happy, to elated as she responded with an “I love you” of her own in earnest. The tension that he didn’t even realise was there escaped his shoulders as he grasped the lapels of his own green coat wrapped around her and met her lips in a kiss that had him seeing spots of white behind his eyelids. A minute or five later, they pulled away from one another, took each other’s hands and walked into the restaurant, where the Chinese style noodles were indeed to die for.

Notes:

As I've said, likes, comments and reblogs are so appreciated

As is constructive criticism, this is my first time writing so some kind pointers are welcome!

Thank you so much for reading!

[tofics]

You Owe Me - Part 2

Pairing: Joel Miller x fem!Reader

Summary: Forced through circumstances out of your control to rely on Joel Miller, you end up traversing the country with him. You're not particularly enthralled with him, and neither is he with you - or so you think, until your period strikes, and you're practically bed-ridden. Or: Joel can't stop jerking off to you after he accidentally got a taste of your lips.

Warnings/tags: canon typical show/game violence, sort of dubious consent (reader gets kissed without being asked and only later agrees), age gap (reader is about ~25 years younger), enemies to lovers kind of, awful period + period cramps, jerking off, fluff, slap on the cheek (brat taming??), unprotected p in v

Word count: ~9k

Previously: How all of that had brought him here, kneeling behind you as the sweetest moans fell from your mouth once more - he didn't know. Joel couldn't tell whether you were a blessing or a curse, if you were the price he had to pay or the price he received. Seeing as how his life had gone though, it was unlikely that you were the latter. And yet he couldn't help but feel like he'd won when he brought his thumbs down on the sides of your lower spine and earned a low moan in return, long and elongated and putting all kinds of pictures into his mind that his head momentarily fell to his chest, a pained expression painted across it. No, no. You were both. A blessing and a curse.

"Joel?"

The mention of his name brought him back to reality. He blinked once, twice, before his eyes focused on you. You were looking at him over your shoulder through hooded lids, your hair all frizzy around your head from how it had rubbed against the cushion. Lord have mercy. If he didn't know any better, he'd have said you looked all fucked out.

"What is it, darlin'?"

There it was again. Not your finger in his face, no, but your bottom lip slowly pushing out into a pout. Joel swallowed. You had to be doin' this on purpose, right? ...right?

"You stopped." You looked at him with your pout, all sad and sorrowful. It was such a pitiful picture that the corners of Joel's mouth quirked up.

"Sorry. Thumbs're hurtin', is all. Gimme a moment," he replied and shifted so you hopefully, hopefully couldn't see the strain in his pants.

You sighed and plopped your head back down on the sofa. Joel exhaled quietly in relief.

"S' still hurting like hell in the front," he heard you murmur into your arms.

"Hmm?" His thumbs were hurtin', he hadn't lied about that. While he waited for the ache to pass, he gently drew his fingers across the exposed skin of your back. He could do that much, at least. And he'd get to keep touching you.

"S' still cramping like hell," you repeated and looked back up at him over your shoulder. That goddamn pout.

Joel inhaled deeply. Keep yourself in check. His hand brushed over your lower back once more. "I know, darlin'. I'm sorry."

He'd had a lot of low points in his life, there was no doubt about that. But this, this had to be his lowest. Joel was bent over what had once been a bathroom counter, his forehead bunched up as he brought his fist down around his hardened cock, once, twice, again and again. Here he was, furiously jacking himself off behind closed doors, trying to hold in his moans and groans through gritted teeth and bitten lips while you finally slept in the living room.

It had taken a while until you'd been able to drift off to sleep. Joel had massaged your lower back a little longer, the hard-on in his pants pressing uncomfortably against the seams, but he hadn't dared to adjust himself for fear of you turning around and seeing what your moans had caused. He'd felt like a fuckin' teenager, getting a boner like that from just touching on you. It was ridiculous. And then, you'd asked him to pet your head.

Can I lay on your lap while you brush over my head? He was convinced then that you knew. You simply had to know. But there was nothing on your face that indicated any form of evil intent on your behalf. You just wanted his comfort - you were in pain, nothing more than that. Joel had scolded himself, then awkwardly gotten up with a pillow already held to his crotch as inconspicuously as possible. C'mon, he'd said and you'd laid your head on his lap, two layers of worn out fabric and a few measly clumped up feathers being the only thing that kept your face from his hard-on. He'd almost felt ashamed as you closed your eyes and he began stroking a hand over your forehead. Sick old pervert.

That's how he felt now, hunched over as he got himself off to the memories of your moans once more. He came onto the splintered wood with a muffled groan, his free hand balled into a fist. Sick old pervert, he told himself again as he wiped his hand on a ragged old towel behind the bathroom door and closed his pants back up. He'd make sure to tell you not to go into this bathroom when you woke again next morning. Dead infected, he'd say, and hope that you wouldn't check.

Your period wasn't any more forgiving on the second day than it had been the first. You spent most of it on the couch, dozing in and out of your misery while every single bone in your body ached. The only times you got up were to change your pads and to do your business in the backyard, making sure each time to tell Joel to not look. He was weirdly gentle with you, bringing you water every now and then and making sure you ate. He'd apparently found a well in one of the backyards just a few houses away, so at least you didn't have to worry about dehydrating while you bled and bled and bled.

You woke up again sometime in the late afternoon to the warmth and crackling sounds of a fire. Joel must've had started it in the fireplace while you had been asleep. You also found yourself draped in a blanket that hadn't been there before. A small smile appeared on your face at the gesture. Gruff and snappy as he was, he sure had his sweet moments, just like when he'd massaged you last night.

With a stifled yawn you stretched your (still) aching limbs, then paused mid-stretch as your eyes landed on something by the fireplace. What was that hanging from a string above the fire...?

"JOEL!"

Thump, thump, thump. He came thundering down the stairs and sprinted into the living room, rifle raised.

"What, what," he asked hoarsely, his eyes quickly scanning the room for whatever danger had made you call out to him. You glared at him from your position on the sofa.

"Did you - did you wash my pads?!"

He blinked, then lowered his rifle. A hint of pink colored the tip of his ears. "Uh... yeah. Figured you'd need 'em." He scratched his neck, shuffled his foot.

You kept staring at him. "You... washed. My pads."

You could feel the heat in your face as your own cheeks got colored a soft pink.

"Uh-huh." He nodded again. "Washed 'em out in cold water first, then boiled 'em..." Joel finally seemed to pick up on your embarrassment. "Ain't much different than washin' bloody clothes." He shrugged.

"Umh. Thank you." Pink was a long forgotten shade. Your face resembled more that of a tomato now.

"Don't mention it." Joel stood in the doorway a moment longer, then went back upstairs to do whatever he had been doing before you'd called him down.

Some things fade as time passes. For example, you didn't remember much about your mom. She'd passed away early on after the outbreak, and you had been so young, barely ten years old, that you had a hard time recalling her in your mind. There were a couple of times though when you'd hear her in your mind clear as day.

This was one of those moments, as you stood in the upstairs bathroom of the house you and Joel were staying in. The cracked mirror was foggy as you stepped up to it and ran a hand over the cold and wet glass. Your reflection was slightly warped, but you could see the warm flush in your cheeks, the way your damp hair settled around your head.

Baths can make you feel like a new person. She'd always said that as she'd bathed you when you were sick, and you had to give it to her. She was right about that.

Joel had surprised you with a bath, of all things. He'd spend a day upstairs scrubbing down this tub so he could fill it with hot water, one bucket warmed up over the fire carried up after the other, the tub filling up painfully slowly. You'd walked up and down with him with each water delivery excitedly, watching how the water level slowly rose. Of course you had offered to carry some of the buckets yourself - it's for me, just let me do the work - but he had just shaken his head and grumbled at you. I got it.

It had felt so good, slipping into the warm water. You carefully used the strands of soap you had shaved off of the piece Joel had stashed in your backpack, taking your time as you slathered your body from head to toe. The warmth of the water relaxed your muscles. By the time you were done, you truly did feel like a new person.

You had spent the last three weeks in the same outfit, but now you slipped into the spare set that had been in your backpack. Complete with a fresh pair of panties and a fresh pad, you couldn't remember a time you'd felt so comfortable in the last three, now almost four weeks.

The drain gurgled as you let out your bath water. Soap, grime and blood all swirled around and then slowly disappeared down the creaky old pipes.

Joel sat downstairs by the fire as you came down. His gaze flickered up to you from his book as you stepped into the living room.

"How was it?"

You hesitated, unsure of how to express your gratitude. You pulled your sleeves over your hands, nestled around with the fabric in your fingers. "Like a whole new person," you said finally, a soft smile settling on your lips.

He could tell you meant it too. There was a sense of serenity about you that had been severely lacking the past two days - hell, the last couple of weeks. Joel hadn't known you all that long, but this was the first time you didn't seem tense.

"Mhh, I can tell. Might have to go through that whole hassle again, make me a new person too. Sure could do with a new pair of knees."

The bath didn't grant him a new set of knees, but he couldn't deny that he felt fresher than he had in weeks. He came down the stairs to tell you how you'd been right, running a hand through his damp locks to get 'em out of his forehead when he found you on the couch, a sour expression on your face as you stared up at the ceiling.

"Thought you said you felt all fresh," he commented as he sat down in the armchair again. He couldn't help but feel slightly disappointed at the sight of your frown. Hadn't he helped you feel good? You mumbled something under your breath, still staring at the ceiling.

"What's that now?"

You sat up with a sigh. "I said I did, right up until these fuck-ass cramps picked up again." Another one shot through your abdomen right then, like your uterus was giving you the finger for what you had said. You winced and closed your eyes, your nostrils flaring. Why, why had you been born a woman?!

"Back hurtin' you again?"

You nodded, unable to keep the pout from your lips. "The whole damn deal."

Joel knew. He knew he shouldn't. He'd done so well today, busying himself in completely taking apart his gun, cleaning it meticulously before setting it back together as you took your bath. The idea of you, laying in that tub in just your birthday suit - it had only appeared to him once, maybe twice. His hands had stayed out of his pants, he hadn't paid any new visits to the downstairs bathroom.

But now, you were in pain. He shouldn't offer. He'd done enough today, heaving bucket after bucket of scorching hot water up the steps to fill that tub for you. He'd done his share.

"Want me to have another go at it?"

God-damn-it, Miller. Pray she says no. What was he supposed to do? Let you suffer?

Damn right you should, he scolded himself.

"Would you? You've already done so much for me today. I couldn't impose on you like that -"

Damn right, you couldn't.

"Ain't no bother, sweetheart. C'mon. On your knees, like yesterday."

Diggin' yer own damn grave, that's what yer doin. And didn't he know it.

You were so compliant, so quick to get down on your knees in front of the couch. Joel had half a mind to put a stop to the images that were already flooding his mind at how swiftly you slid from the couch to the ground.

Sick old pervert. Gettin' off on commandin' a young little thing to get on 'er knees.

His joints ached as he dropped down on one, both knees behind you, once again glad for the fact that your head was already buried in the sofa cushions. He was sure the eagerness was written across his face, just short of some drool leaking down his chin.

Should be ashamed of yerself.

He would be, later. When he'd undoubtedly be curled over the bathroom counter once more, spray painting its remnants with his cum. He'd been so good today-

"Joel." You whined in front of him, lightly wiggled your hips as if to say get a move on. Joel found himself questioning once again if perhaps you did know what you were doing to him. "Alright, alright. Gettin' to it, kiddo. No need to whine."

Just like the day before, you melted like chocolate under his touch. Your tense body became pliant, coming loose under his strong thumbs digging into your back. Up your spine, up up up, from down around your tailbone all the way up to your ribcage. In his fingers dug, kneading through your skin and muscles like you were dough.

He'd pushed up your shirt a little higher this time, just an inch or two. You hadn't commented on it. Save for his name, you hadn't said anything since you'd gotten back down on your knees. With the first slump of your shoulders came your first moan, sweet and short, like you probably had moaned when you'd dipped your toes into the hot water first. Joel pressed his thumbs up your spine carefully, running his calloused tips deep into your tissue. A red trail followed his motions as your skin began to bloom under his touch.

Up and down, up and down. His fingers worked tirelessly into your aching back. Joel's brows were furrowed in concentration as he searched out the kinks in your muscles, finding the delicate spots that made you jump and keen. Whether you knew it or not, the words tumbling from your lips when he found a point that gave you trouble were like cocaine to him. Oh my god Joel, right there, fuck- and shit, yes, that's the spot- and right there, right there, oh good fucking god.

It took about three of your moans and one mumbled praise for his work until you'd hitched the tent in his pants again. Joel's cock twitched in his boxers as he dug into your back, begging to be set free. The tips of his ears were burning, set alight each time you commented on another knot he found in your back.

Sick old pervert.

He couldn't help it. Touching you was like drinking nectar. He'd never felt anything so delicate under his weathered hands, never before touched on skin so soft and warm -

"Fuck, Joel, right there. Oh god, yes. Don't stop, please."

You'd be the death of him.

"Tell me where it hurts, babygirl."

Your hands came around your back, shakily trying to locate the spots that bothered you. Joel backed up an inch so you wouldn't accidentally brush over his hard-on.

"S' in here-" Your hand flew over your lower spine, close to your tailbone, where Joel had already spent a good portion of his energy. "An' here-" You fingered over where your bra sat, then hunched up your shoulders. "-n' here, drawing all up into my neck." Your fingers trailed up your neck and got lost in your hair at the base of your neck.

"Mh." Joel tutted at you. "Got my work cut out for me, hu, darlin'?"

He saw your head beginning to turn towards him, likely to interject how he didn't have to, but he laid his hands on your shoulder blades instead, swiftly pushing you back down into the cushions. "Ah, ah. Ain't said I wasn't gonna do it. Relax, darlin'. I got you."

He could feel the grumble vibrate in your chest as he slid his fingers down your spine. "Mh. Lotta' spots givin' you trouble, mh?"

She said as much. Ya need te hear it again, sick old pervert?

"See if we can rectify that for ya, eh? Let Joel take care of ya."

He knew he was treading on thin ice, practically heard it cracking under his feet. His words bordered on dirty talk, but he just couldn't help himself. You gave your back to him so willingly, downright begging for his touch.

He was just a man, after all.

A sick, old, perverted man.

"Might wanna lose this, darlin'. Gonna be a relief for sure, n' I can't go rubbin' over it." Joel lightly tapped on the clasp of your bra over your shirt. He already knew he was going to hell anyway. And he really couldn't go on rubbing over your bra. Wouldn't have been comfortable, for you or him.

He'd expected you to object, had half expected a lecture (that he rightfully deserved), but none of that came. Instead, he watched you do that little wiggly move he'd seen women do before where they reach under their shirt and take their bra off without anything ever showing. It had always been one of his favorites to see. One second a woman would be wearing a bra, the next it got tossed across the room, not a single piece of clothing ever having gone amiss in the meantime. As far as Joel was concerned, it was a little magic trick.

And you pulled it off without a hitch. He tried not to look in too much detail as you put the garment next to you on the sofa. He had other things to focus on.

Wallpaper, wallpaper, hole in the wall, wallpaper, rusty nail, crooked crown molding. He could've fixed that easy, back in the day. Didn't need much more than the tools in his belt to do it. Would've made a fine job of it too.

Door frame. Tarnished, cracked. Long forgotten. He could take care of it, bring it back to life, with just a few touches here and there. Just a bit of straightening up the ridge, nothing too fancy. He could certainly do it, expert that he was, doing work with his hands. He'd bring the wood back in shape, love the wood like it was meant to be, gently work on it until it'd comply with his hands and mold to his touch, soft and warm-

No, no, strong and hard, like wood was supposed to be. Fuck, this was going nowhere.

Joel was doing all in his might to distract himself from how you were falling apart under his touch. Your moans didn't let up, praises flowing freely from your mouth as he slowly worked his way up your entire back, pushing more and more of your shirt out of the way until all of your back was exposed to him.

He was glued to the carpet where he knelt, afraid to even move an inch. If he looked hard enough, he could imagine the soft rounds higher on your torso, where shoulder blades softly gave way to what he was sure was a delightful pair of boobs-

No, nope, he wasn't gonna move. Couldn't risk it, not even an inch. If just the thought of your breasts sent his head careening, what would a mild case of side-boobs do to him? He couldn't risk it.

Pity what you consider 'standards', pervy old man.

He did what he could. And he was making you feel so good. You kept telling him so. That had to count for something, didn't it?

You wish.

Where was he, then?

Door frame. Right. Perhaps he'd have to replace parts of it. That'd be okay, too. He'd have to find wood to match the leftover structure - sand the original down, couple of times likely, then apply the stain. He could make sure the new and old pieces matched up that way-

"Fuck, Joel. Yes. Right there."

His head slumped down in defeat.

"Babygirl, please. Go easy on me. I can't do this no more." Joel's beard touched on his chest as he shook his head. "I can't - I'm tryin', I am -"

He heard you shift, felt the loss of your warm skin under his hands as you turned around in front of him. He couldn't look, just kept his eyes shut, not out of respect but-

Open yer damn eyes, you coward. See how she looks at you. Face your shame.

Joel forced his eyes open.

He wasn't met with shame, or even disgust. You had a worried look to you, like you couldn't quite figure out what had happened.

"Are you okay? I'm - I'm sorry, I knew I shouldn't have let you go on for so long, your hands must be hurting-" You felt awful. Joel looked like he was in actual pain. In all your bliss, you had let him work on your back for way longer than you had promised yourself, and he had overexerted himself.

"I'm so sorry, Joel," you started again, but then his hand flew up in the air, silencing you almost immediately. You looked at him with big eyes, trying to read his face. He was red all over from how exhausted he was.

Let an old man work for you like that, you should be ashamed. What are you, a princess?

"Joel-"

"Darlin', I ain't hurtin'. Is' - s' just - goddammit." You watched him run a tired hand over his face. Was it just you, or were the tips of his ears a slightly darker shade of red than the rest of his face?

Joel sighed. You looked at him with worried eyes. What had you done?

"Sweetheart, ain't about you workin' me to the bone. I don't mind that one bit. Trust me," he insisted as you opened your mouth to object. "S' about how you... how you respond to my touch."

You furrowed your brows. "Uh...huh?"

"Your moans, darlin'. They're just about killin' me."

...oh.

You felt your face flush red in a couple of seconds. Of course. How thoughtless of you.

"I'm - I'm real sorry, Joel, I didn't-" Joel shifted in front of you, visibly uncomfortable, and your eyes fell into his lap, widening at what you saw.

Oh.

If possible, you grew a couple shades darker in the face. You could feel the heat pulsating in your ears as your eyes flicked around the room, unsure of where to look. "I'm - uhh, sorry...?"

You heard Joel huff. "Will you quit apologizin'? S' fine. I'm the one that ought to be apologizin'. Ya didn't mean te-"

"You? You've been nothing but good to me all day! You did nothing wrong!"

Another huff of amusement. "I got a tent in my pants here that says otherwise."

Your eyes found his, decidedly staying on his face. "Yeah well, but that's... natural. Not like you're doing that on purpose."

"That bit, no. But I'd be lyin' if I said touchin' on you, workin' your back - that ain't just entirely for your benefit."

He figured if he went with the truth, he might as well come clean about it all. Half-truths had never really been Joel's thing.

He watched you work through his words, could practically see the gears in your head turnin'. He wouldn't have blamed you if you had told him off, hell, he was expecting your finger to come flying into his face any minute now.

"Alright."

He blinked, once, twice. Hu?

"Alright?"

You nodded, slowly at first, then more decidedly. "Alright. Yeah."

Joel's eye was twitching. "Uh... catch me up, darlin'. I got no idea what you mean."

"I mean, alright. Yeah. You can... do me. If you want to."

He watched the words come out of your mouth, heard them coming in through his ears, a faint ringing sound following them. Surely, he had to have heard wrong.

"Come again?"

A slow smile spread across your face. Joel watched it stretch out, like a cat waking up after a nap. The ringing sound in his ears wouldn't die down.

"I said, you can do me. Fuck me. Make love to me, whatever you wanna call it. You have my consent."

Well, now you've done it. You've broken the man.

Joel kept looking at you, a blank expression on his face. The silence between the two of you began to stretch so long that you were seriously beginning to worry.

"...Joel?" You snapped your fingers twice in front of his eyes. "Miller? You home?"

His eyes zeroed back in on you and you let out a sigh of relief. Not a stroke, then. Good. The tips of Joel's ears were burning a bright red. You had to bite down on your lips to keep from smiling.

"You... good?"

He nodded slowly. "Y-yeah. Sorry, sweetheart. Thought I heard you say I could do you there for a second. Fried my brain for a moment."

You couldn't help but chuckle at that. The mighty Joel Miller, feared by all, reduced to an abashed puddle by just a few of your words. Now wasn't that something to see.

"Probably cause I did. Do you need me to write you an invitation? Put my consent on paper? You surprise me, Miller. Didn't seem much to care for it when you pulled me in for that kiss on the stree-"

"Uh-uh." Joel suddenly growled and leaned forward, towering slightly over you on his arms. "None of that again. I paid my dues. Got you out. I drew you a damn bath, girly. What more do you want?"

His finger was right in your face, daring you to object to him. You bit down on your lips once more, trying not to grin at the reversed roles.

"I want you to help me with my cramps. Not on my back. In the front. Please?"

Look at that, you old fucker. Got her on her knees in front of you, begging you to take her. Ain't you a lucky old bastard.

And didn't he know it. Joel's tongue darted into his cheek as he looked you over, taking in your puppy eyes and slight grin that was surely meant to taunt him, but only spurned on the hitched tent in his pants. If you had been a sight to see while he drooled over you in secret, you were almost out of this world when you wanted him to touch on you. Like that.

He shifted around on his knees, a hand on his crotch to find a more comfortable position for his hardened cock that was straining to spring free. "Darlin' -" His voice was strained. "Not that I don't want to, but it wouldn't be right, me being that much older than you-"

Oh, so now you got standards, you pervy old man? Who are you trying to fool?

"Joel, do I need to beg?"

Yes darlin', please, on your knees, impatient and whining like when you were waiting for my hands on your back-

"Cause I will."

Lord have mercy.

Joel had you scooped up in his arms faster than you could blink, bringing you onto his lap in one swift motion, his old arms and knees suddenly very willing to be cooperating with him.

"No, sweetheart. Don't gotta beg," he said as he cupped your face with his hands, running a gentle finger over your cheek to tug a hair behind your ear. "Joel's got you. I'll help you with your cramps. No begging needed."

He looked at you a moment longer, determined to take all of it in. The way you were looking at him expectantly, a soft tint of color in your cheeks hinting at the fact that you were perhaps a bit nervous, the way your teeth bit down in your bottom lip. There was a glint in your eyes too, the kind he had seen when he had pleaded for you to work with him. You looked wicked, bewitching. You could've told him to lick the floor in that moment, and he would've done it, no questions asked.

Joel Miller was a goner for you.

No news there, you old fuck. Now get to it, before she changes her mind.

Joel took one last look at you before he gently tilted his head and put your lips on his. It was a gentle kiss, soft and probing, just testing the waters. He was dipping his toes in, seeing how you reacted to him.

Your lips met his hesitantly, just a blank, unmoving canvas at first, but then you came to life. He felt your lips beginning to move against his own, tentatively and careful, just like he had been. Joel's right hand slipped from your cheek to the back of your head to hold you tighter, his left thumb drawing soothing circles on your other cheek for comfort. I got you, darlin'. Let yourself fall, he was trying to say, and you seemed to understand, sighing and relaxing into him with your body.

Spurned on by your reaction, Joel nipped at your bottom lip, asking you to let him in. He didn't have to ask twice. Your lips promptly opened at his silent request, letting Joel's tongue in to taste the sweetness of your mouth.

My god, you tasted like heaven. Joel was certain he'd never tasted anything so sweet in his life before and he couldn't hold back the groan that had built in his throat. His hands flew down to your hips, securing you against him tightly, as he rocked forward to push himself up. "Hold on to me, sweetheart."

You were so obedient, legs swiftly gripping around his waist as he pushed himself up to heave you and himself on the couch. Joel grunted with the effort and from impatience. He couldn't wait to feel your legs wrapped around him like that without a barrier of fabric between them.

You were gently laid down in your preferred place for sulking, though you couldn't currently remember which, if any problems you had had in the past few days to complain about. Any and all period-related issues seemed to have flown right out of your mind the moment Joel had put his lips on yours, and your brain was too busy tracking the movement of his hands on your body to do anything else, even if it was just about 'remembering'.

He had laid you down on the sofa and had positioned himself over you with one knee between your legs, while he steadied himself with one foot on the ground. The couch wasn't very wide, but you didn't have it on your mind to complain, and neither did Joel. Not that you would've had any time to complain either. Joel was too busy by keeping your mouth occupied with his own while his hands traveled up and down your body as if he was trying to map out all your curves and dips. He must've had more than just two hands, the way he was feeling you up, his hands seemingly everywhere on you at once, brushing over your shoulder, running up the side of your neck to tug on your hair at the base of your neck, holding you at your waist to steady you, then gently cupping your breast before giving it a careful squeeze. There wasn't any part of you that remained untouched and all you could do was try to remember how to breathe in between moans.

"Joel," you panted when he'd abandoned your lips in favor of your neck, trailing down kisses towards your collarbone where he nipped at the skin and then promptly brought his lips down on the harsh mark, soothing what little pain he caused you. There was a growing need between your legs, your arousal mixing with your wetness from your period. You felt a tug in your abdomen, decidedly different from the cramps you had been experiencing for the past days. While also slightly painful, this one was born out of want. You wanted Joel inside of you - no, needed him inside of you.

So you're an old-people fucker now? Yeah?

Apparently, you were, if Joel Miller could be described as "old". He certainly felt anything but as his hands glided under your shirt and found one of your breasts, his thumb and index finger trailing up the soft skin until they found your nipple to take between them, rolling it gently between his finger tips. You moaned into Joel's mouth at the sensation, bucked your hips up into him. Needy, needy, needy. You needed him.

Old-people fucker. Yep.

"I got you, darlin'. I got you," he reassured you when you ground your hips against him, willfully. "Just gotta sample everything on the menu first, before we get to the desert. I got you, sweetheart. Relax."

You whined at his murmured words. You couldn't relax, it was the furthest thing from your mind when there was a pool of heat between your legs that you needed to be cooled down.

"Ah, now." Joel tutted in your ear as you writhed beneath him. "Patience, darlin'. You trust me, don't you?"

You pushed your bottom lip out in response. Of course you trusted him. But that didn't mean you couldn't ask him to hurry the fuck up?

There was a light smack on your cheek before you knew it. You blinked, feeling the stinging sensation before heat spread through your cheek where his fingers had struck you.

"I set the pace. You hear me, sweet cheeks?" Joel's beard prickled against your tingling skin as he pressed soft and gentle kisses on your blooming cheek. "'Nough with the impatience. I got you. I'll take care of you. You gotta trust daddy Joel."

Fine, perhaps he got a little carried away with his smack, but you didn't seem to mind, not severely anyway. He watched you closely just in case, looking for signs that you were uncomfortable or wanted him to stop, but even though you'd looked mildly shocked after he had struck your cheek, your eyes had soon glazed back over with bliss as he worked your nipples between his fingertips. Attagirl.

Joel felt like a kid on Christmas morning, the way he got to undress you piece by piece. It was like tearing off wrapping paper, except he didn't tear through your clothes (not for a lack of want - he'd have scoured the down for new clothes for you if he didn't know that was just a tad overboard) but carefully slipped them off of you, piece by piece, step by step. With each garment of fabric that got discarded on the floor, he got to unearth more and more of you. More of your delicate and soft skin that he had been lucky enough to get a taste of from behind as early as the previous day.

He got stuck on your boobs for a good long while, drawn in by the sight as soon as he pushed your shirt up over them. It was just too good of a sight to pass up, and he had to get a taste to commit your breasts to his memory for good. He sampled one boob first, kissing up from below it and working his way towards your areola, taking his time with your nip as he whirled his tongue around it, even gently pulled on it with his teeth.

Joel couldn't decide what he liked better, the way you felt and tasted under his tongue or how your body responded to him, writhing and rocking up towards him to meet his mouth, the sweetest moans and whimpers falling from your lips as he mapped out your torso with his tongue. It was a hard decision, and he kept falling back and forth between it.

He knew he was pushing your patience by sound of your moans changing. They got breathier and whinier as he went on, sampling your other breast in the same slow and painstakingly precise way he had the other, and he could hear how worked up you were getting, your whines rising in pitch with every stroke of his tongue.

"Joel, please."

He chuckled, drew himself up to meet your pleading look at eye-level. "Gettin' there, sweetheart. I promise." Joel watched your bottom lip push out once more into that delightful pout of yours. He dipped down to suck on it, pulling your plump lip in between his and nibbling softly on it before capturing you in another sloppy kiss.

If it hadn't been for the stark reminder in his pants, he would've worked you over until you were nothing but a whimpering mess underneath him, begging for him with tears in your eyes, but alas, he was nearing the end of what he could take as well.

There was only so much he could do to your upper body before he inevitably got pulled downwards to where you wanted him most, needed him most.

You all but scrambled to help him get out of your pants as he tucked the fabric down your hips, your bottom springing up into the air when he tapped a cheek and nudged his head upwards. "Up, babygirl." A low chuckle rumbled through his chest as he pulled your pants down your legs, carefully slipping them off your feet. "Needy little thing, aren't ya. Mhh, me too, darlin'. Can't wait either." He lightly grabbed your calf and helped your leg up on his shoulder, peppering kisses up your shin towards your knee.

You fumbled with his hair when he continued his trail up your thigh, stopping him when he was more than halfway towards his target. Joel looked up at you from between your legs, his hand running up and down your leg that was holstered on his shoulder. "Somethin' wrong, babygirl?"

You mumbled something unintelligibly, color blooming in your cheeks without his palms ever having come near either of them. You were too quiet for him to hear all of it, but he could make out a few words here and there. Period and all he heard and don't wanna make a mess and the smell.

Joel kissed your thigh again, not nearing your core. "Don't gotta worry about that, hun. Ain't nothing I'd care about. But I'm not gonna do somethin' you don't want. Alright?" He looked at you, made sure you saw the sincerity in his eyes. You fumbled around with your fingers, visibly uncomfortable. Joel kissed your thigh once more.

"Ain't gonna do anythin' you don't like," he repeated and brought himself up again so he was hovering over your torso once more, lavishing kisses on any piece of skin he could find on his way, save for where your panties kept you hidden from him. He made sure to move around it with enough distance that you knew he took you seriously, honored your boundaries. He still had standards.

Low fuckin' standards. More like bare fuckin' minimum.

If anyone had told you you'd be under Joel fucking Miller three weeks ago, you'd have laughed at them and asked them if they'd had one too many helpings of moonshine. Yet here you were, stark naked from top to bottom, laid out for him to see like an exhibition piece under no one else than Joel fucking Miller, about to fuck you.

It was as much as a surprise to you as his tenderness had been. Besides the strike on your cheek (which, the more you thought about it, you didn't really mind) he was being more than soft and gentle with you, working over every spot of you with a dedication and mind for detail that you had never encountered before. You had been exceedingly grateful when he had heeded your wishes about not coming close to your core with his mouth, and it could have been your imagination, but he had seemed even more gentle with you when he slowly coaxed your panties off of you, praising you and leaving kisses all over as he went. You'd never been called so many pet names in one day, let alone within the two minutes it took him to get you out of your underwear. Doin' so good, darlin' and you're so beautiful, sweetheart and never felt a thing so soft, tasted anything so sweet had been among the many, many things he'd purred at you.

Now he was lining himself up at your entrance, kneeling on the sofa with one leg while he steadied himself with the other on the ground as he softly padded the tip of his cock against your soaking folds. You still didn't feel too keen about being out in the open like that, blood just leaking out of you unstopped, but Joel seemed to have an answer for that too.

"Gonna draw you another bath afterwards, mh, pretty girl? Get you all cleaned up nice?" He dipped just the bare tip of his slightly leaking head between your lower lips, gently dragging it up and down, coating himself in what you were sure was a bloody mess. While picturing what was leaking out of you made you tense up slightly, Joel seemed blissed out at the sighed of it. You could see the glint in his eyes, the hunger that was written all over his face as he dragged his cock up and down through your slick, coating himself and more of you in it.

"Ain't that the prettiest cunt I ever did see," he mumbled, his eyes transfixed on your entrance. You felt your cheeks bloom once more, both from the compliment and embarrassment you felt. It was a strange sensation, to feel so flattered and put on the spot at the same time.

Joel didn't give you much more time to think about it though. You flinched when you suddenly felt his warm tip tapping against your clit, gently but forceful enough to send tiny sparks flying through you. "There she is," he said and you saw the smile draw across his face. "Saw you getting all lost in your own pretty head, darlin'. Can't have you zoning out now, we're just getting to the good part." He lightly tapped against your clit once more, a sly grin taking over when he saw how you inhaled sharply at the sensation.

"With me now, sweet cheeks? Ready for me to come inside?"

Joel fucking Miller, a man full of surprises, as you had come to learn. Looks like he could learn after all.

"Yeah," you breathed out and shook your head eagerly. "Yes, please."

You saw his eyes darken as you renewed your consent. A growl sounded from his chest and he quickly dipped down once more, surprising you with another fierce kiss. "Attagirl."

You felt him align himself with your entrance once more, the tip of his length pressing against your aching entrance. "Eyes on me, sweet cheeks," he murmured and your eyes quickly flew to meet his, not wanting to do anything that could stop him from what he was about to do. A kiss was placed on the edge of your lips. "Good girl. Listening to me so good. Makin' me real happy, you know that?"

You gasped as you felt Joel slowly pushing into you. It was a good stretch, on the brink of too much, but he took it slow, pushing in inch by inch while he peppered your chin with more kisses in between murmured praises. "Look at you, taking me so well. Doin' so good, sweetheart. S' a bit of a stretch, hm? Yeah? Pretty thing like you, all tight for big ole' me?" More kisses rained down on your face, Joel's beard tickling over your cheeks as he kissed down your nose, teeth nipping at your lips. "God, you feel so good," he breathed out and you watched in awe as his eyes fluttered close. He was filling you out more and more and you wondered how much more there could possibly be of him as he kept gently pushing into you.

Joel stilled as he bottomed you out, the tip of his cock pressing into you deeply. You could feel it deep inside of you, a gentle push on a spot you alone could never reach, not even dream of reaching. Your breath was shallow, trying to get acclimated to his width.

You felt Joel's beard brush against your face as his head dipped down. "God, darlin'. Takin' me so good. Let me come in all the way, didn't ya? Such a good girl." Your breath hitched in your throat as you felt him retract slightly, the gentle pressure on your inside slowly retreating as Joel slowly pulled himself out of you. Not all the way, no, just enough to make you worry he could, but then his teeth were softly nipping at your chin and you were being stretched out again as he caaarefully drove himself back inside of you.

You made something of a gurgling sound as your eyelids fluttered close while your eyes rolled backwards into your skull. It was the most excruciatingly slow pace he could've taken, and though you knew - guessed - he was doing it on purpose for you, not to tease you, you couldn't help but yearn for more, and faster.

Your hands flew up to Joel's back to pull him closer to you. Would you not have had Joel's penis painfully slowly plowing into you at this moment, perhaps your movements would have been more coordinated. But alas, your hands fumbled all over the place, pulling and grabbing at him in an attempt to get him down to your face so you could kiss him, to hopefully spurn him on to get a move on. You groaned into Joel's mouth when your lips connected at the same time as he met your insides with the tip of his cock once more.

"Fuck, Joel."

He grinned like a stupid school boy as he heard you curse. Hadn't he dreamt of this just a night ago, hunched over the broken bathroom sink? Even if he had imagined it, he never could've imagined this, the real deal. Filling you out with every inch of him was so much better than he ever could've dreamt up himself. Where your moans had been like cocaine to him, your pussy was just straight up heroine. One push inside of you and he knew he was a goner, lost to your pussy forever. He would never feel anything like it anywhere else, that much, he knew.

"Yeah, baby? That feel good?" He kissed your ear as he pulled himself back out, then drove back into you. It was an agonizingly slow pace, but he wanted to savor every moment of it, drag it out for as long as he could. Who knew if you would allow him such a delicacy ever again? He had to make the moment last.

You nodded below him, your cheek rubbing against his scruff as you did. "S'so good, Joel," you murmured against his ear. "But faster, please. Please go faster."

Now how could he say no to such a kind request?

Joel felt his knee object as he adjusted his position on the sofa, preparing himself to fuck into you faster.

Not now.

He didn't have time for aching joints and other ailments. Not when he had you below him, asking him to go faster. Now who was he if he denied a pretty girl like you a favor like that?

A sensible man instead of a pervy old fuck, perhaps?

No. He'd have been a heartless old fuck, that's who.

He grounded himself into the floor with one foot and then got to work. Never mind his fifty-six year old hips. Never mind his aching, complaining knee. He had a job to do, and he was gonna do it.

Joel fucked into you like his life depended on it. He gradually increased his pace until the old sofa was creaking and shrieking underneath the two of you, but those weren't the sounds he was listening for. His hearing was attuned to you instead, carefully dissecting each moan and groan that fell from your lips. What did you like more? What made you groan, what made your fingers dig into his back?

Joel acutely listened to the cues of your body, your verbal ones taking the lead while the rest did their own speaking. He didn't care that your nails pierced the skin on his back, or that you drove your teeth into his forearm, likely leaving a bite mark that would last him a day. It'd be a kind reminder of the gift you were giving him, and had he not been pounding into you at this very moment, he likely would have fantasized about giving the old bathroom another run while staring at the bite on his arm, perhaps running his tongue over the indents in his skin that you were so kindly imprinting at the moment.

"That's right, babygirl, take what you need," he encouraged you and did his best to give you what you needed too. He had heard about it once, how cervical stimulation could help with period cramps, and he could only hope he was alleviating your pain in the same way you made him forget about all his aching joints. Joel wasn't fifty-six as he drove himself into you again and again, he was twenty-five at best, fucking his heart into your pussy like she owned it.

"Joel - Joel -," you whined underneath him and he laid a gentle hand on your face, turning your chin with his thumb so you'd look at him. "Whaddaya need, babygirl? Hm?" He never stopped his pace, never slowed down so you could think better. Joel watched your brows furrow as you tried to form a coherent sentence.

"I'm - Joel, think I'm gonna -"

"You gonna cum for me, pretty girl? Yeah?" Even though his instinct was to lower himself on you so he could kiss on you again, he knew better than to change his pace or angle now. If he was lucky enough to be able to gift you with an orgasm, he wouldn't pass that chance up, even if it meant to starve himself of your lips.

Your face was scrunching up like you were thinking real hard. Moans were no longer falling in a steady stream from your lips, but Joel didn't worry. He'd been with enough women to know the signs, knew that you were getting close. Even though he missed your moans, excitement tightened his chest as he drove himself into you again and again, hoping to push you over the finish line. It'd be the best damn thing he'd ever done.

He felt you clenching around his dick, your walls cramping down around him more and more as your breath hitched in your chest coherently. One, two, three more pushes, and Joel saw the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen in his life. You fell apart underneath him, moan after moan flowing from your heavenly lips right into his ear, jumbling into one another as your orgasm rocked through you. Joel bit down on his tongue hard, the sight and sound of your climax enough to make him cum right there and then, but he was determined to fuck you through it. He owed you that much.

"That's right, babygirl, let go," Joel cooed as you convulsed underneath him, wave after wave of pleasure slowly rolling through you. He fucked you through it like he promised himself he would, then slowed in unison with your ebbing ecstasy, despite his dick yelling at him to keep going.

Not now. He had other things to focus on.

Joel leaned down to kiss your blissed out face. First your forehead, then each closed eye, down your nose, over your right cheek, left cheek, the corner of your mouth. You kissed him back lazily when he finally landed on your lips, a satisfied hum vibrating in your throat.

"You good, darlin'?" Joel searched your face as you slowly blinked up at him. He ran a thumb over your cheek, drawing small circles on your soft skin.

He didn't care that he hadn't finished. He could do that later, in the bathroom when you were asleep. Of course, nothing would feel as good as your silken walls wrapped around his cock - but that would be fine, too. He'd have all of this to remember, to draw from for the rest of his life, if need be.

You nodded slowly, a sheepish smile on your face now that you had come down from your high. "Yeah. Think I made a mess of you though."

Joel looked down at his pelvis. He was covered in your blood and slick, tinting his pubic hair a deep shade of red. "Don't you worry about that, sweet cheeks. Nothing some water can't clean up. Want me to run you another bath?"

Periods aren't fun, that much was true.

But you couldn't help but think that perhaps, they weren't the worst thing in the world, now that you laid in a bathtub full of warm water, while Joel Miller slowly massaged your upper body.

Having your period in the apocalypse could prove as a challenge, but it helped to have help. Help like Joel Miller, who washed your pads and massaged your back and fucked you deeply to help with your cramps if you asked him.

Yeah, perhaps periods aren't the worst thing in the world, you thought as you tipped your head up and pulled Joel in for a kiss. You could certainly survive another period or two this way.

Series Masterlist - Mobile Masterlist

Credits: plant divider by @strangergraphics

A/N: Yep, part two out not even a full two days later because I could not stop thinking about this fic. This is only the second time ever I've written smut (not counting part 1 of this mini-series?) and I would highly appreciate some feedback! (Don't hold back on the criticism too if you got any, I can take it!) This fic was definitely very much influenced by @strang3lov3's 'Seeing Red' story which I highly, highly recommend, and the fact that I was on my own period. Also, if anyone's wondering, I couldn't stop thinking about these goddamn gifs so I had to bring the cheek biting into this. 🥵 Now, none of this is proof-read so I apologize for any typos etc. Hope you had fun reading this! Please leave a comment if you did 🫶💓

(No pressure) Taglist:

@missladym1981 @guelyury @roboticsupersonic @auteurdelabre @ashleyfilm

@mandojojo @picketniffler @vickie5446 @frogsdeservelovetoo @elli3williams

@yesjazzywazzylove-blog @justajoelsreader @oldmenenthusiast

[rosenclaws]

Hi!! I’d love to see you do the prompt “Don’t tell me you love me unless you mean it.” with Logan! Was thinking of the reader who’s so self loathing of her own powers opening up for the first time towards Logan 🥺

warnings: angst/fluff, Logan has interesting teaching methods lol

600 follower drabble masterlist

wc: 1.2k

a/n: So this also...turned into more than a drabble oops. I got carried away I can't help it asdflk;h. Anyways I totally got inspired by ATLA for some of the logan pep talk if u can tell lol.

The mansion was so lonely. It shouldn't be but it is. Especially for you. Brought here as a child you grew up here. You were excited, hopeful that maybe you could start a new life here. But then your powers went haywire.

Just when you thought things could be different your emotions got the better of you. Fire raged through the mansion and you couldn't stop it. The more you panicked the worst it got.

When the flames were put out all you could see was the destruction that ravaged the once spotless mansion. It was an accident. Charles knew it and so did everyone else but that didn't stop the whispers, the fear. You never wanted this.

You did all you could to suppress your powers for years. Leaving the school and never looking back. Years passed and you managed to live a quite life. You went to work and went home. It was a lonely life but you couldn't hurt anyone so it you learned to live it.

Then one day you got a letter from Charles. It was a matter of such importance that you had no choice but to return. It was weird being back.

It was in the dead of the night that you found yourself alone. Just as you remembered. This time wandering through the halls of the mansion. Your fingers traced the familiar paintings and furniture. A frown coming over your face as you trace the faint scorch marks that still remain.

"So those were you." A deep voice startles you.

You feel a light flame escape your fingertips as you shove you cross your arms and hide your hands away. There stands Logan with a cigar in his mouth. You breathe a sigh of relief as you lower your arms.

"Sorry, didn't meant to scare you." He holds out his cigar and you roll your eyes. He's been trying to get you to use your powers, to light his damn cigars because he's too lazy to reach into his own pocket.

"Come on, just a little flame." He says with a smirk.

"Can I help you Logan?" Though you're glaring he can see that small smile.

You and Logan were unlikely friends as you put it. The two of you understood each other. Understood the want to hide away. Don't get close and you won't get hurt. Even with that mantra somehow you were each others exception.

Maybe it was stupid but having Logan was nice. He was nice in his own weird way. Looked out for you, joked with you on the rare occasion. Plus he was easy on the eyes, but you don't let yourself go there. Love...it's just not meant for you. You don't do love and neither does Logan. Even if you want it, even if sometimes he finds his way into your dreams.

"Nope." He gestures for you to follow him so you do. Walking quietly through the halls until he leads you outside. A chill washes over you step outside.

"Just a little light for me sweetheart?" Okay the first time was charming but now it's getting annoying.

"Will you quit it." You snap. Logan raises an eyebrow and you sigh. Sitting down on a bench and looking down at your hands.

"You know I don't use my powers anymore."

"I know."

"So why do you keep asking?" He shrugs and sits down next to you.

"Because, I think you're being ridiculous."

"Excuse me?" You scoff. You clench your fists as you glare at Logan.

"So what you burned some wood big deal. That really all it takes for you to run?"

You're hurt and confused where the hell this is coming from. You thought he'd understand you but clearly you were wrong.

"You know what Logan fuck you." You hiss as you stand up.

Logan grabs your wrist before you can walk away and in a fit of anger you push him away. Flames coming out of your hand and hitting him square in the chest. You gasp as his flannel catches fire. Without thinking you press your hand and kill the flame.

"Logan I-"

"Stop." He grabs your wrist and points to an empty fire pit.

"Light it."

"Logan I can't."

"Yes you can sweetheart," He tilts your head towards him. Looking at you with a sparkle in his eye.

"Trust yourself." You take a deep breath and send a fireball into the pit, lighting it up.

Your hand tingles as you use your powers for the first time in a long time. You wait for the other shoe to drop. For the fire to rage past what it's meant to be but it never does. Slowly you hold your hand out focus, the fire slowly gets smaller until it's snuffed out. You stare at your hand in awe. Control. You had control.

"Fire is destruction." Logan interlaces your fingers with his. He's got this smile that you've never really seen before.

"But it's also life, it's beautiful. You're beautiful." You bite your lip as he squeezes your hand. There's a fear that you'll burn him without thinking but he heals. You can't hurt him.

"Why are you helping me?" Why does he care this much? He didn't have to do this, you're not a student and yet here he is. Pushing you past your worries.

"I..." Logan tries to find the words. You're right he doesn't do this but he did for you because, well because..."I love you sweetheart."

Your eyes cloud with tears as you take in his words. He doesn't mean it can he? I mean, it's does he understand what that means. What it means to love you.

“Don’t tell me you love me unless you mean it. Please." You don't think you could handle it. He's already got your heart and it won't take much to crush it.

"Are you doubting me? I'm over a hundred years old I know what love feels like." Logan brushes your lips with his thumb, he's not great with words but he knows what he feels. No one can tell him any different.

Your eyes flutter shut as he kisses you. He smells like cigar smoke and he tastes like honey. The kiss a little rough, you can tell he's trying to hold back. To be gentle which he's not always great at. You pout when he breaks the kiss, already wanting more.

"Later." He promises after noticing the look on your face.

You walk back through the mansion hand in hand. It's better at this hour, no prying eyes and whispers. For now it's just you and him. Though something does cross your mind as you reach your room.

"Did you...Were you trying to make me mad on purpose?" He smirks and pulls out another cigar from somewhere.

"It worked didn't it?" Unbelievable.

"You're an idiot Logan, what if I couldn't control it? What if I burned down the mansion, again?!" Logan rolls his eyes and kisses you again. Pushing you against the door. Your thoughts turn to mush as he kisses your neck.

"You aren't the monster you think you are." He whispers and you freeze. His words hitting you like a brick. Logan knows what it's like to be a monster, a weapon. He's the monster if anything. But you? You could never be. Not in his eyes.

Before he leaves he hands you his cigar. You shake your head and laugh. Holding out your hand you produce a small flame and he lights his cigar.

"Was all this just so I could give you a light?" You ask teasingly. Logan chuckles and presses another kiss to your cheek.

"Absolutely." As much as you want to invite him in your room, you decide to wait. Rushing anything with Logan is the last thing you want. You want the time to be together. A good fire needs to grow before it becomes a roar.

"Goodnight Logan."

"Goodnight sweetheart."

Your fingers slowly unlace as he walks away. You don't want him to go, fearing that this is just a one off night. There's no way you can have control so easily but then he looks back at you. He's got this look on his face that makes you feel like everything is going to be alright and for once you believe it.

[lethalchiralium]

Waiting Room | Happiness Series

a/n: yes, i’m posting twice in the same month! crazy lol (always thanking my lovely @as-is-above-so-below for editing)

warnings: mentions of kidnapping, medical stuff, injuries, simon spiraling

The ICU is bare at this time of night. There are no alarms for nurses to attend to, and the lights are dimmed. The doors shut, and meal trays were taken away hours ago. Triangle lights above the doors are filled in with red or green lights. The only sound in the corridor is of boots thumping against the floor.

Calloused hands gripped the nurse’s counter. Your name prattled quickly off his tongue with a question of where you were. A room named off, and he was already out of sight, running and escaping the nurse calling him to come back. When he reached your room, his hand didn’t tremble as it did the whole way to the hospital. He calmly and slowly pushed the door open.

All he saw was no bed, and John Price sitting on the couch below the window, hunched over and murmuring into the phone against his ear. He looked up and ended the call, standing quickly to walk towards him.

“Simon-”

“Where is she?”

“Still in surgery.”

“What the fuck happened?”

Price stiffened slightly, and the air between them suddenly stifled. Simon’s dry eyes stared him down, and Price could feel his failure crushing him. He promised to keep them safe and sound, yet here they were, barely thirty minutes into emergency surgery before your husband arrived.

“According to Laswell, she made them take Winnie to the park–her and Roach. She was home with Mel and König when they were ambushed.hey shot him, and took the girls.” He looked down at his phone, then pulled up the pictures of the damage to his front entrance–showing them to Simon. “…Your father took them to a cabin in the Lakes District witht he intention of selling her and Melody to traffickers, in a bid to exploit you for money.”

His heart began to race, hard, like a hammer against museum glass. Shattering it into his ribcage, the thumps of his lungs against his liver and spine like an out-of-control wave.

“She escaped with Melody, and uh… well.” Price swiped, and Simon was met with a caved-in face. But, he picked out the silvery scars on his father’s forehead from when he beat him himself, many years ago. “She beat the shit out of him.”

“Is he dead?”

“He is.”

Pride would be the word he was looking for, if not for how intense the injuries were to his father’s face. Your hands must be mush. “Good.”

“She was found in a valley. She tucked Melody in a dense fir tree; she has some scrapes and bruises, and was freezing to the touch, but we found her. She was calling for your wife.” Price slid the phone into his pocket, settling back on his heels. “Only reason we found them was because she was crying. She’s upstairs in the NICU; Laswell and Roach are there with Winnie, whenever you’re ready to see them.”

“Okay.”

Yet, he made no hurry to move from his spot, hovering in the center of the near-empty ICU room, the space left for your bed, the machines that would be attached to you, and the fear that would radiate off of you and permeate the silence like no other sound. Could he leave this spot to check on his children? Could he escape the betrayal he indirectly caused when he failed to protect you? Would he be able to pretend that he isn’t full of rage for his superiors, barring him from keeping his promise? But, should he be able to stay upset with Price, his closest friend, in finding and saving his wife and child?

Could, would, should. All words with no meaning without action.

Simon’s eyes met John’s, and a brief silence fell upon them.

“Go see the girls, Simon.”

There wasn’t even a moment of hesitation, “I can’t.”

John didn’t even breathe before speaking again, “Then stay. I will go sit with them.” He quickly ushered Simon into the chair he had occupied only moments before. Simon practically collapsed into it. His head in his hands, heart torn into shreds of silken fabric, drowning in a sea of despair. The thin plastic chair would do nothing to soothe his aching bones, his body a fresh arrival from London to base an hour ago. Never did he imagine he would have to rush home, in the midst of a panic attack over losing you the way he lost Grace, losing another unborn baby, and his infant. He didn’t dare pretend like he could hold this weight, the fear, the panic, the imagination of the sound of your screams.

There, in the white chair after thirty-six hours of being awake, he watched John leave him alone. And there, leaned over his knees, he let out whimpers that sounded much like the ones that escaped him as a child.

He didn’t wake again until he heard a collection of clicking. His arms tightened across his chest as he heard footsteps fade away. He rolled his head up before opening his eyes - all he saw was the hospital bed, and your figure covered by thick blankets, nodes pressed onto your forehead like thorns on a rose, a breathing tube taped to your chapped lips, and a level of calm on your face that he’d seen only a few times. The sound of the chair screeching across the floor, closer to the bed, closer to the iodine smell that permeated the room from you. His hand slipped under the warming blankets, lifting it to seek out your arm, gazing at the wrapping on your hand before he settled his own on the undamaged skin of your forearm. Covering you again, he silently thanked the nurse for keeping the bed rail tucked away. He leaned forward and settled his head against his arm - listening to the soft wheeze of the breathing machine.

His mind was void of words, but his tongue spoke from the root of his pain, just a gentle, “I failed you.”

In the dim light from above the bed, Simon’s thumb traced warm circles on your lukewarm skin, and he closed his eyes. He couldn’t remember before he left for the hospital, couldn’t remember the mission, only…emptiness. An overwhelming urge to vomit ichor into his lap as he sped through red lights. A softened part inside his stone-cold heart rotted, black like tar, gooey and burning every inch of his injured rib cage.

His lungs filling with warm breaths, fighting to ignore the iodine stench only found him asleep again, body hunched over as if to find some solace in protecting you now - when the void of his betrayal burned harsher than the dance of bourbon on his tongue.

Simon doesn’t greet your brother, and doesn’t dare move his temple from the blanket tucked beside his head, eyes glued to the TV in the dusty corner of the room. Below it hung a whiteboard detailing your name, age, gender, and nurses. Following that was a rotation with the times they would be by for checks, medication, replacing the cold blankets with warm ones, and moving you so bed sores don’t grow on your already fragile skin. The BBC show wasn’t anything interesting, not his favorite but something to do that wasn’t throwing up what little breakfast he had into the trash can.

He’d been visiting Mellie the morning before, brought in by Price after she was discharged. Her one-day hospital stay was officially over, and he had finally seen her - but guilt nestled in his esophagus as he pressed his nose into her scalp, her little body curled as far as it could into his chest. He would have been a better father to tend to her first, but the thought of losing you was more apocalyptic than he ever imagined. He couldn’t leave this room, could barely piss in the bathroom without the door open to keep an eye on you, and barely spoke to anyone who came in; whether it be a nurse or the task force, they were all given silence in exchange for their pleas for him to go home, take a shower, get a fresh set of clothes.

“You smell like shit, dude.”

Jake, your older brother, moved a chair beside Simon on his right, his hand gently patting your ankle as he sat. Your husband may have snapped at him if he wasn't absent from his mind. Simon was nestled in a deep corner of his consciousness, only pretending to be human for his friends and children as he rotted beside you.

He didn’t answer his brother-in-law, eyes flickering from character to character on the screen, as if that was a good-enough distraction from his painful thoughts.

“That Soap guy said you haven’t showered in four days. You smell like it, go take a shower.”

Simon huffed out a humorless chuckle. “Not leavin’ her.”

Jake paused for a moment, pensive for just a millisecond. “The bathroom is right there. Yes, she’s protected at all times with you here, but she’s safe when I’m here too. So go. I’m sure she wouldn’t want to smell your ass when she wakes up.”

“Fuck off, Jake.”

“You have to at least wipe down if I’m going to sit next to you. You reek.”

“Then don’t.”

“Not a chance, bud.”

A gentle but firm hand settled on Simon’s shoulder, and he barely reacted, only a rumble of disapproval from his throat. He wanted to wretch his shoulder backwards, get Jake’s hand off, scream at him, ask him what makes him think he’s right. Ask what made him think he truly knew the answer to Simon’s mistake, miscalculation, the broken promise that lay like glass at his feet. What makes him think that Simon could accept his help at all?

He would’ve fought his brother-in-law off if there was any point, but he had been sitting at your bedside for two days straight and you hadn’t woken up yet - even when they shined lights in your pupils, checked your wounded hand, adjusted nodes on your forehead, checked the back of your head. So Simon found himself standing, Jake’s hands ushering him to the bathroom, but he slammed his hand against the door when Jake tried to close it.

“Leave it open. Wanna see her.”

Jake didn’t make a sound, just gave an understanding nod. “Try to use the curtain. I’d like to avoid seeing your dick, and I’m sure the nurses would appreciate it.”

Simon doesn’t even remember keeping the curtain open, getting under the hot spray, and just… standing there. The water hit the crown of his head, spilling down and over his face, his chest, his stomach - his body ached from the lowest muscles in his calves to the tenderness nestled in the nape of his neck, yet he could feel nothing in between. No tremor of his lungs, no twitch in his bad knee, no rumble of his heartbeat. Even as the scalding water cascaded over his lips, eyes, and cheeks, he felt nothing. No prick in his eye to cry, as if he had already cried everything out and had nothing left to give.

There was nothing in this hospital room shower, just a shell of a man who wanted nothing more than to switch places with you.

“Why do you do that?”

“Do what?”

“Mess with her hair.”

The wrapping around your head was changed this morning, leaving more of your hair visible, and Jake was combing it with the shitty brush he bought down at the gift shop. “She always had a thing for her hair to be untangled. It bothered her a lot as a kid.” He set the brush down by your side, his fingers quickly remembering the braiding motion as he continued to speak softly, “Learned how to braid on her dolls so I could braid her hair for her. She didn’t like Mom or Dad doing it, only me.”

Simon rested his head on his arm again, watching the morning news. “Looks like shit.”

“I’m out of practice. Like you could do any better.”

“I have two daughters. I can do better.”

Jake could only half chuckle, almost lifeless. For a few moments, the only sounds were the breathing machine, the rustle of your hair, and footsteps approaching the door. Simon raised his head, watching over you like a hawk as the door creaked open; his hackles relaxed instantly as Winnie bounded in, followed by Price, who held Mellie. Simon was quick to sit back, allow his child to climb into his lap, and bury her face in his neck - he cradled Winnie close, kissing her hair and reclining back.

Her hair was in a messy ponytail, curls unruly and Simon felt acidic bile creep up his throat when she started crying.

She couldn’t say a word; neither could he, when he truly needed to. He needed to comfort his daughters, tell them that everything would be okay, that the doctors are taking care of Mama. He should be taking accountability with his children for failing to uphold his promises, yet, he kept his lips pressed to his eldest’s hair. His hand rubbed light circles on her shoulder blade, his eyes flickering to his brother-in-law and then his brother-in-arms. His infant was curled identically into Price’s chest, her little fists grabbing at the worn Metallica shirt, curls finger-brushed, onesie covered by a thick coat. Simon’s eyes fell back to you, the braid settled against your shoulder as Jake moved to the side, gently rubbing your bicep for a moment.

“You know, it’s been a long time since I’ve been able to take care of her hair,” Jake mumbled. Simon didn’t miss the tears that rimmed the man’s eyes.

Simon didn’t make a sound, listening to his daughter’s sniffling as Price spoke, “She’s been taking care of everyone but herself, and we will keep taking care of her.”

Winnie whimpered; Simon kissed her hair again, keeping her close for as long as she’d let him.

12:39 am. Simon could barely make the time out from across the room. The heel of his hand rubbed into his eye, and he flipped up his phone, squinting to see the date. Four days. Four days since you were rushed here, four days since he hasn’t left you alone. A sigh settled deep in his bones as he let his phone fall, his tingling hand gently rubbing your forearm before he leaned up, wiping his face. He flicked the crust from his eye away, turning to look at you before laying his head down again.

His eyes fluttered closed, his stomach churning just a little before he settled again. His chest weighed like a bell, his heart laying limp in the comfort of his cushioning lungs, his mind wandering, pondering whether he would ever see your eyes again-

He sat up instantly; your eyes were staring at him, wide, almost painful. The look made his stomach roar, his hackles raised, eyebrow furrowed, eyes full of tears and concern.

“Sweetheart, it’s me, it’s okay-”

An alarm blared from your heart monitor, and the call button you rapidly pressed with your less injured hand. Simon’s heart clenched as your tears mirrored his, and the sound of you choking on the breathing tube made his stomach acid toss like salad dressing. He stood, and you flinched; he knew what was happening. He scrambled away, found the switch for the blinding overhead light, and flipped it before he moved to you again. The flood of tears in his eyes made it hard to see you recognize him, but you did. You reached for him as the door burst open - making you jerk again, a whine-like cry escaping your throat.

You thought he was Lloyd.

Simon couldn’t blame you. He spent years breaking mirrors because he looked like his father, his abuser.

He stumbled back, his wrist to his nose as nurses flooded your bedside, his eyes never leaving you. The nurse closest to him helped remove the breathing tube while the other injected something into your IV, and the last furiously typed on the computer. Simon could only keep himself a few steps away, listening to the sound of your whimpers and watching your weak attempts to move away from the help. His nails met his teeth, the quick already bloodied as he had chewed them down two nights ago. The emptiness in his chest had surged as if it was a flood, knocking his respiratory system around like a ping-pong ball against his ribcage. He couldn’t breathe, his heart felt as if it was beating so fast that it would catch fire, the tears leaking into his mouth were like acid.

Of course, you would think he’s Lloyd, the man humorlessly chuckling in his clouded head. Simon looked so much like him that they could be considered brothers, not father and son.

A deep part of him knew this would happen. The one thing Simon fought the hardest to protect was an easy domino to fall, the most direct way to get Simon’s attention, hit him where it could and would hurt the most. He’s kneeling and bleeding, his heart pouring blood as he has to watch his wife cry out when a nurse even grazes her skin.

Simon would be lying if he said he could handle this.

He doesn’t get frustrated with you when you turn your face a little to the left when he brings the spoon to your lips. He put it back into the ceramic bowl as he softly sighed to himself. You’ve barely eaten all morning since they took out the breathing tube, visiting hours are almost starting and Jake would be here, asking a million questions that Simon would need to answer. If the best you could do was five half spoonfuls of broth, it would have to do. He pushed the rolling table away, moving the blankets farther up on your abdomen and tucking it close to your body. Your gaze felt like knives on him, he was barely strong enough to look at your face when the profound sense of guilt only seemed to take his words. He refused to be upset with you when your hand touched his, even though he felt like he needed to rip his skin off.

Your thumb brushed over his bruised knuckles as he kept his hand settled on your hip, staring at the minute gesture that meant so much before, but now… felt bitter. Simon would have thrown up again, recognizing the way your comfort now felt painful.

“You gotta eat more later.” He mumbled, hunched over your bed, wanting to rip his hand from yours but also needing it to stay there. “You need to sleep too, you have to be tired- Ow!”

He looked up at your face, ignoring the dark bruise on your throat, to see just a little smirk. You had pinched his hand, and he furrowed his brows, confused.

“Was that funny?”

A tiny movement like a nod, and he huffed out a flat laugh. His free hand raised a little, in your vision, before slowly moving to settle on your face. He hovered his thumb along the bruise on your cheekbone, his fingers cradled your jaw like porcelain. Your head only moved into him, eyes never moving from him. He wasn’t sure you’d ever be able to look at him like Simon again, after your reaction a couple hours ago. He wouldn’t blame you at all if you couldn’t. He wouldn’t blame you if you left him after this, take the girls and move far, far away from him and everything that came with him - enemies, lies, pain. He wasn’t even sure how safe you were now and that killed him, destroyed his sense of safety and replaced it with so much fear.

“Mel…ody.”

Simon snapped back into reality where your eyes were narrowed slightly staring at him, and he instantly answered. “She’s safe. Just some bruising, she’s home with Jake and Price and Soap.”

Relief washed over your face, your head settled back on the pillow as your gaze finally moved to the ceiling. It’s at times like this where he wished he struggled to know what you’re feeling, what you’re thinking. But, he could read you like an open book.

“You did good,” He spoke, your name escaping like the prayer he needed days ago, “Our baby is safe. Mellie’s okay.”

You pinched him again before you looked back at him, and he let his thumb lightly graze your bruise, you didn’t even flinch.

“New one’s okay too.”

A whine escaped your throat, tears instantly falling from your face as relief washed over it. He patted your hip.

“You did good, Mama. Did really fuckin’ good.”

[ultralightpoe]

Sticky - Bucky Barnes

Authors Note: Yeah the fandom is EATING with this song and that trailer so I figured I might as well feed into my own obsessions. -Ultralight

Song Inspo - Sticky from Tyler The Creator

Word Count: 1851

Warnings: Fighting, reference to smexy times

Requests: OPEN [working on the first round now]

MAIN MASTER LIST

[Thank you for the gif @unearthlydust ]

Enjoy!

It’s the bitter laugh that no one wants to hear, that’s the moment when the realization begins setting in. The chill down his spine, locking in the fear as the cold sweat begins to form, knuckles tightening around his glass of whiskey. 

The room wasn’t cold, with the fire crackling just a few feet away, so there wasn’t really a reason for him to be shivering. But that cold embrace of fear was wrapping Declan Morarie like a blanket. He was a man coming to the realization he was about to die. 

It was Valentina Allegra de Fontaine, sat at the end of the long table she hadn’t been invited to, in a home she hadn’t been welcome in but still sat in nevertheless. In the beginning of Declans career he always wondered how people remembered her full name, but watching the women now he understood. She was completely untouchable. 

“Oh come on now,” She teases, clapping her hands together in excitement as that same bitter laugh passes her lips. “I’m excited for the show.” 

“You think this is funny?” He bites out.

“Well from my seat I think it’s pretty great. I, however, would never want to be the one getting hunted down by Bucky Barnes and his fucking wife.” She chuckles, pulling a piece of lint off her dress. 

“And how….” He has to take a breath in to compose himself, slamming the glass on the table before him. “How did they get to me?”

“You tortured her for years, your very own project….. Well her and 20 others. Honestly it was only a matter of time before they tracked you down.” She explains, standing up and walking herself to the bartop. 

“And you didn’t happen to put my name in their ear?”

“Barnes will be my problem….. On another day.” She nods, pouring herself a shot and turning to him to cheers before downing it. “But today, he’s yours.” 

She slams the glass down until it splatters across the entire floor, her heels crunching into it as she waltzes to grab her coat. “I do apologize old friend, and I am….. Hopeful? Yes, that seems like a decent word, I’m hopeful you will succeed surviving.”

“I will.” He sneers, but even the words fall flat.

“Oh I’m sure you will.” She laughs, her words dripping with sarcasm. “Though I do hear things get a bit sticky when those two decide they want someone dead.”

- 

“Who would have thought that this… hunting down the bad guys of the world could be soooo… hmmm.” You tilt your chin up in a quiet contemplation as your husband frets over your suit. He busies himself with checking all the safety measures you both had designed for the suits when you decided they would be worn again. 

“Tiring.”

“Cathartic,” You hum back, sliding your hands down to snatch onto his own and bring them up so he can stop fretting. “You’re grumpy.”

“I’m not grumpy.”

“You are.” You argue, kissing the knuckles of his metal hand before doing the same to his flesh hand. “You didn’t get much sleep and now you’re tired and grumpy. I don’t like when you do this grumpy.”

“No more with the word grumpy. You have overused it.” He huffs, leaning to kiss your forehead. 

“Fine, ill-tempered.”

“Hardly,”

“Testy.” 

“Not even close.”

“Crotchety.”

“Really? We’re going that far?”

“Hmmmm. Waspish. How about that?”

“I….. will allow it if it means we can just get this over with.” He kisses around your face, using his metal hand to tilt your face for easier access while you fight off a smile and push him back. 

“You know what to do.”

“Straight to business then.” And though he turns his back to you he keeps you close while using the tech pad to monitor the halls of the building you both were about to enter. 

“He doubled up on guards. Someone warned him.” He analyzes, shifting a bit to show you the footage. “Valentina.”

“Hmmm.” You choose not to actually respond, allowing your husband to work through his own anger and suspicion while you watch the guards to begin learning the patterns. 

“You don’t believe me.”

“I believe you.” You defend, passing the tech back. “But I don’t want you getting ahead of yourself. That is a hunt for another day.” 

“You ready?”

“Of course.” And it’s easy, the way you two fall to the plan so naturally, having worked together for years now. He lets you pass by him, his flesh hand catching a strand of your hair as you strut past, casting him one more glance before disappearing to find your entrance. 

Once you are at your mark you place the comm in, tapping it twice to make sure it works as you begin slicing the door with the silent laser. 

“Placed?” Bucky asks after a moment, meaning he had made it to his own mark. 

“You know it.” You mutter, pushing the door open in the small place you had cut before easily sliding in, your feet near silent on the ground as you watch the hall and begin trekking through. 

Moving like a shadow should never have been this easy, and yet it was, all thanks to the man you were here to kill. 

“будь в безопасности.” He mutters in your ear, his voice a soft caress in the first moment you hear steps approaching. ‘Be Safe’, his favorite thing to say since he knew you didn’t need luck. 

“être en sécurité,” You repeat his saying back to him, this time in french just to bother him since he could never speak it fluently. 

And then you finally meet the person walking closer, but before he can even prepare himself you are already sliding across the floor to kick out his legs before you swipe the overly large gun from his hip and knock him out with it, sliding on your knees to face forward with the stolen gun and raise yourself back to your feet. 

Each movement is a simple glide, one in front of the other as you trace the hall for movement. The plan was simple, meet in the middle and make your way up. You just had to shut down all the exits first. 

You started with the elevators, opening the first and shooting the controls until the light within it flickers and marking it useless and moving to the second one. When the doors slide open a guard moves to rush out, and you use his outstretched arm to heft him over your shoulder until you are throwing him to the floor and twisting until you hear a snap. 

“Sorry.” You whisper, kicking him away as you hear Bucky grunt within the comms as he finds his own issues. You mimic the movements you had used on the other elevator before rushing to the front entrance and using their own night time security gates against them. Locking anyone from leaving and keeping anyone from entering. 

And now that you were finished with that you began you started your way to meet your husband. 

It only took 15 minutes and by the time you do find him he’s leaning on the wall like nothing else mattered, tilting his metal hand under the light above him to admire the etching done for your wedding. 

“Fancy meeting you here.” You murmur, your tone seductive as you lean next to him. “What’s a place like this doing in a guy like you? …….Wait, don’t I have that backward?” 

“Keep looking at me like that and I’m sure we’ll find a lot of things backwards.”

“Oh,” You blink, staring at him. “I honestly can’t tell if that was sexual or a threat.”

“Then why can I practically hear your heart beating through your chest?”

“I never said I wouldn’t like it as either.” You huff, turning on your toes and signaling him to follow you. “You’re very beguiling.”

“Another big word. Should I be worried?”

“You got me the dictionary. Which I was slightly offended by.” You huff, twisting your body up the stairs as you see a figure in the corner of your vision, working with grace to pull him down and over the railing. “Stop flirting with me Barnes.”

“You stop flirting with me, Barnes.” He snaps back, making sure that guard stays down before using his gun and following you as back up. “Almost there.”

“Noted.” You murmur, shooting the tech pad to enter the door from the stairwell. The second the door swings open there are guards swarming you both, but it is lightwork when you both work together. 

The man that went to punch you met Bucky's metal fist before he could even make contact, the knife that almost hits Bucky’s mid section is easily lost the second you kick the wrist holding it. Like a bloody tango, every motion has a repercussion. 

“Любовь [love],” You huff, spinning to take out two men while facing Bucky. He reads your idea the second you make eye contact, allowing you to use his thigh as a stepping stool and throw one leg over his shoulder. 

He shoots the men in front of you both as he makes his way down the hall, you taking out the men coming up to flank you. 

By the time you reach the double doors holding the enemy within,  you swing off his shoulder with ease before an unknown figure rushes you both. 

You are thrown back, back meeting the floor as you slide while Bucky is thrown into the wall. 

“What the…..” He starts. 

“Fuck.” You finish, upon seeing who just hit you both. 

He was tall, with red eyes and a sneer on his face, yet another over drugged super soldier. 

Bucky is the first to regain himself, standing quickly and pushing himself into the soldier to knock the weight off and send him down. Only he pushes back, both men stuck in the hold, so you launch up. 

Your hands hit your husbands shoulders and you vault over him to lock your thighs around the neck of the soldier and twisting your body to send him flying back with you. 

Unlike you, however, he doesn’t manage to catch himself and falls on his back. Bucky is there, foot on his neck as you pull the gun and finish him off before moving to kick in the door and find Declan Morarie.

He doesn’t say anything, merely turning to the door with a bottle in hand as he staggers for balance. 

“Fuck.” 

“Fuck.” Bucky mocks, giving you a look before you both rush at him. 

-

“I think you need to go to bed.” You huff, watching your husband pull out the paperwork the second you both got home, after dropping your duffel bags by the doors. “No work.”

“I need to review her bills, she’s hiding something in plain sight-” His conspiracy theories about Valentina were interrupted by you slipping your shirt off and throwing it at him. 

“A hunt for another day then.” He amends, following you into the bedroom as quickly as he can.

[oreolemur]

Cursed Baby Daddy

After finding out you were pregnant, you made it your mission to leave your toxic relationship with Sukuna. You’d been with him for a year. He was so sweet and gentle in the beginning, but after countless arguments he became abusive. You were scared to lose your baby so you ran away while the bastard was too drunk to notice. It took a few months to settle into your new life, especially after giving birth. Your son looked just like him. That’s what scared you the most. Your bond with your baby took a few weeks to form. It was hard at first, but you made a promise to yourself that you would raise him to be a better man than his father. Everything was fine, until it wasn’t.

❤~3:00 AM~❤

You were sitting in your living room watching TV. You weren’t able to sleep for whatever reason, so you decided that watching your favorite movie would help. Forty minutes had passed before you got up and headed to the bathroom. While you were there, your son suddenly started to cry. “Don’t worry my love, mommy’s coming”. As you wash your hands, your baby begins to cry louder. “What’s wrong? Are you hungry?”. Stepping out of the bathroom. The crying stopped. “That’s strange”, you thought. Walking to the nursery, you paused. “Shh, it’s ok”, a man said. The voice was coming from inside the room. You heard your son’s cooing as the man calmed him down. 

With quick thinking, you quietly tip-toed to the kitchen, grabbing  a knife. You stood by the baby’s door, preparing yourself to attack. The moment you ran in, you froze. The person in front of you smiled. “Did you miss me, dollface?”, the man said. “Put my son down”, your voice cracked as you held back tears. He tilted his head. “You mean…our son”, he corrected you. Sukuna giggled. “You did a good job giving me a boy. I finally have an heir who can follow in my footsteps”. The hand holding the knife shook. You gripped the handle tightly. “W-what do you want?”, you shakingly asked. Sukuna took a seat in a nearby rocking chair. He rubbed the baby’s soft head. “I want my family back”, he said. “I knew you were 3 months pregnant before you snuck off. It just took me a while to find you”. The man smirked. “Why do you think I stopped beating you during that time?”. 

You looked at your son as tears flowed down your face. “Please”, you begged, dropping to your knees. “Don’t hurt him”. Sukuna glanced at his son, then glared at you. “Why would I do that? He didn’t do anything wrong. But his mother…I’m not too sure”. You begged him to hand the baby over. You just wanted your son to be in safe arms. “Please, give him to me”. The man gestured for you to come over. Once you tried to stand up he shook his head. “No…crawl to me. Just like the old days”. You did as told, quickly moving to him. “Slow!”, he shouted. You crawled slowly, crying at how you were satisfying him. As you sat in front of him, you held out your arms. “Please Sukuna, hand him to me. I just want my baby”. His smile widened. The man handed your son. “T-thank you”, you cried. 

Sukuna was displeased. “Since I did something for…now you have to do something for me”, he said in a serious tone. He got up from the chair, taking your son away. “No!”, you yelled. He put the baby in the crib, letting him cry. “Get up”, the man ordered. You did as told, standing in front of him in fear. “Come closer”, he whispered. He held his arms out, wanting a hug. You shook your head. “N-no”. Sukuna sighed as he started to approach you. “Stop”, you whined, stepping back. He trapped you into a corner of the room. “I missed you so much, doll”, he moaned into your ear. You felt his hot breath on your neck. His slick tongue licked your soft skin, savoring the taste. “Don’t you miss me?”, he asked, looking deep into your eyes. You stared at his sharp teeth, remembering how he used to bite you until you bled. 

The two of you stood in front of each other, feeling two different emotions for one another. “Don’t look at me like that”, he said. The man grabbed your face as he leaned in to kiss you. He smashed his rough lips against yours, making you whine. His tongue brushed past the barrier, forcing your mouth open. You cried, feeling the aggression he was putting you through. “Mmph”. Once he stopped, he pulled you in close. “I’m gonna have so much fun with you”, he said. Sukuna’s hand grabbed your ass. “Damn baby”, he groaned. “I don’t remember you being this fat”. He gripped you hard, making more uncomfortable noises come out of you. “Please stop touching me”, you begged. The man ignored you, doing as he pleased. 

The cries of your son soon died down. “About time he got quiet”, Sukuna said. He took hold of your wrist, dragging you out of the nursery. “Let go of me”, you protested. You fell to your knees, fighting back. “Come on, doll. We both know you’re weak compared to me”. He picked you up, throwing you over his shoulder. You kicked and punched his back, but your hits did nothing. As he walked into your room, he dropped you onto your bed. You scooted back, creating distance. “Come here”, Sukuna grinned.  Shaking your head, you refused. “I don’t wanna be anywhere near you”, you said. The man chuckled as he removed his shirt. You saw his hands then move down to his pants. The sound of his belt clinging, sent waves of fear throughout your body. 

“I still remember the first time I put this belt around your neck”, Sukuna paused. “You couldn’t hardly breathe the harder I pulled on it. You were on your knees begging for me to stop”, he continued talking as he walked over to you. “The look in your eyes made my cock so hard. You looked as if I was gonna kill you”. He had you cornered again. “I’ll give you a choice. Either you take off your clothes right now and do what I want…or you can make this hard for the both of us…and I guarantee our son won’t be able to recognize your face by the time I’m done”. You were shocked by his words, but you knew he wasn’t playing around. “Why do you hurt me?”, you asked, tears rushing down your face. Your baby daddy smiled. “Because why not? You look prettier when you’re in pain”. 

Sukuna wrapped his arms around your waist, pulling you in. He pressed your head against his chest. “You don’t understand how much I’ve missed you. It hurt when you ran away”, he said. “Imagine how you would feel if your precious toy disappeared”. The man held you tightly, making it hard for you to breathe. “You left me? After everything I’ve done for you”. You painfully moaned into him. “Please stop”. He went harder, almost breaking your ribs. “S-Sukuna”, you whined. Your begs soon began to quiet down, forcing him to let you go. You dropped to the floor, catching your breath. “Pathetic”, he sucked his teeth. 

The man unbuckled his pants, pulling out his hardened cock. He stroked it a few times while he looked at you. “I didn’t give you permission to breathe”. He grabbed you by the hair, guiding your head towards his dick. He pressed the tip against your reluctant lips, trying to push it in. “Stop fighting and suck the cock you were made for”. You attempted to push him away, but your attempts were futile. Sukuna was getting upset. He yanked your head back and pitched your nose shut. Struggling to breathe, you eventually opened your mouth. By doing so, your baby daddy shoved his dick inside your mouth, pushing your head all the way down his shaft. “That’s it, doll. Take all of your master’s cock”. You gagged uncontrollably, causing more tears to fall. 

You turned blue, and your eyes rolled back. “Looks like you haven’t worked on your cock sucking skills”, he grunted. Sukuna fucked your throat faster. Your nose hit his pelvis. “You’re so cute when you drool on my dick”. You dug your nails into his thighs as he kept going harder. The man was close. You could feel him throbbing. With a few more thrusts, his load shot down your throat. “You better swallow every last drop”. You looked up at him. Sukuna glared at you, praising you for sucking him off. “Such a good fucking whore”. He yanked your head back, pulling you off his cock. You coughed as you were finally able to breathe. “Dramatic as usual”. He lifted you up and threw you onto the bed. “No, no please”, you cried. Kicking your legs, Sukuna grabbed your left foot, breaking your ankle. You screamed in agony. 

“That should do it”, he grinned. He took advantage of your wailing as he spread your legs apart. “Mm, you’re so wet”, he groaned, rubbing his dick against your soaked pussy. You were so distracted by the pain that you didn’t notice him doing that. “I should put another baby in you”. Sukuna shoved his cock inside your tight wet hole, causing you to whimper. “Fuck baby. Your pussy is even tighter now”. He put your legs over his shoulder, pulling you closer to him. You felt him go in deeper as he began to pound into your uterus. “Stop…it hurts”, you whined. The man grunted and groaned as he fucked into you without mercy. Your broken ankle bounced against the back of his shoulder, making the pain even worse. “Honey please”, you called out. Sukuna licked his lips. “You haven’t called me that in awhile”, he chuckled. “Too bad it won’t work this time”.

His cock slid back and forth, each thrust spreading you open more. The hard motion made your nightgown rise up, exposing your tits. Sukuna grabbed the right breast, squeezing it roughly. You placed your hand on his, trying to pull him off. He let go just to slap you. “What have I told you about doing that”, he growled. The man flipped you over onto your stomach. He forced your back to arch, smacking your ass in the process. His cock entered you again. You felt more of him this time. “Ow”, you weeped. Your baby daddy grabbed the sides of your waist, digging his nails into your plump flesh. He scratched the skin, getting your DNA under them. “Fuck I’m boutta cum”. Sukuna held you tight, fucking you harder and harder. 

By now, your begging and crying have stopped. You gave in, losing all the fight you had left. You accepted that no matter how far you go…Sukuna will always find you. “Oh shit”. He came inside, flooding your hole with cum. “That’s the best fuck I’ve ever had”. The man used your nightgown to wipe your pussy juice off his cock. “Damn I’m tired”, he laid beside you, getting comfortable. You sat on the floor, resting your head on the edge of the bed. “Get out’”, you said. Your face was expressionless. “Get out right now or I’m calling the cops”. Sukuna ignored you. He grabbed a pillow as he shut his eyes. “Make sure you fix me breakfast in the morning”. From that day on, you lived in hell once again.

[dira333]

Old Man and the Sea - Tsukishima Kei x Reader

Best Friend's Brother and confession - for @fuzztacular - for the Milestone Event Week 1 - Words: 4,4k

- Age 4 -

You meet Akiteru first, of course. 

He’s tall for his age, towering over the other kids even at four years old.

“You can play with me,” he declares with a smile when he notices your excellent aim and non existent fear of getting dirty.

“Do you wanna walk home with me?” He asks that first fateful day at kindergarten, your mothers chatting at the gate.

“Sure,” you say and clutch your bag a little tighter, excited to have found a friend on your very first day too.

“Do you have a pet?” Akiteru asks as you walk.

“Yes. We have a turtle. His name is Old Man.”

“That’s so cool!” He grins wide, astonished. “I wish we could have a pet. Or if I could have a sibling. Do you have a sibling?”

“Yes,” you nod. “My sister is older.”

“Oh, that’s cool. Is she nice?”

You think of her, towering above you. How she always does her homework when you want to play, how she doesn’t like when Old Man tries walking into her room.

“Sometimes,” you offer, because last week she helped you bake a cake for Mom and Dad, didn’t snap once even when you accidentally added too much flour.

“If I was a big brother,” Akiteru declares with gusto, “I’d be the best big brother in the world.”

-

“I have to tell you something!” Akiteru declares just a few months later during break time, pulling you with him toward the swings where there’s enough privacy to share secrets. “I’m getting a sibling.”

“Really?” Your heart beats hard in your chest and you smile. It’s hard not to, when Akiteru smiles so brightly himself.

“Really. Oh, I hope it’s a brother. I wanna teach him all my favorite games.”

“You could teach those to a sister too.”

“Sure,” he hesitates for a second. “If it’s a little sister, you need to teach her.”

“What?”

“Like how you do your hair so nice.”

You touch your braid, hesitating. “But my mother did it.”

“Well, you can teach my little sister then.”

And you think, surely you’ll be able to teach her. Surely it won’t be that hard.

-

- Age 5 -

Kei is born at the end of September. You remember it well, because the day had been unexpectedly rainy, drenching you on the way home where your mother sat, phone in her hand.

“Do you need me to get Akiteru? No, no, bring him over. I’m sure they’ll be happy to have each other until everything is done.”

“Akiteru is coming over?” You ask, dripping all over the floor.

“Yes, in a minute. His brother is coming.”

“Where?”

“Here, silly.” Your mother smiles. “He’s about to be born.”

And you wonder what that means all while feeding Old Man with Akiteru, while eating Ramen and watching TV, the rain hammering against the windows as if it’s just as eager as the grown-ups to meet the newest Tsukishima.

You, well… you’re a little more hesitant than eager.

Kei’s red faced and small, his skin wrinkly and weirdly fuzzy.

“He’s ugly,” you point out with surprise, flinching at your mothers disapproving glare.

“He’s just squished,” Akiteru defends his little brother. “I’m sure you looked ugly on your first day too.”

You consider that for a second. You don’t remember what you looked like that day.

Kei raises his voice in the silence, loud and determined and you think that at least he’s got something to say if he’s not good-looking before you’re being ushered out again.

-

To your surprise Akiteru is right.

Kei’s wrinkly skin smoothes out, the red turning into a soft, pale shade. His eyes are a warm brown and he likes to squeeze your pointer finger as if he’s shaking your hand. He grows quickly too, both in seize and weight, turning heavy in your arms whenever Akiteru allows you to carry him.

Kei likes Old Man and the space underneath your bed, crawling in there when you’re all playing in your room. 

He likes your dinosaur plushy and strawberries and sometimes, when everything is quiet and calm and Akiteru and you lay down next to him on his blanket, you wonder if your sister ever looked at you the way Akiteru looks at him or felt the way you do.

That quiet sense of wonder, that prickly feeling of astonishment, that warm love you can’t seem to stop.

-

Akiteru likes Volleyball. You don’t mind it. 

Ever since Dad got you your first Science kit you’ve grown obsessed with digging up rocks and examining the minerals, or picking bugs from trees to identify them under your little microscope. 

Little Kei has no choice but to share those interests.

Even at three years old he does his best to receive his brother’s spikes, not once crying when it hits him in the face.

“Look what I found,” he tells you on the daily, delivering a shiny beetle to your waiting hands or putting away the rocks you find in the park when your mothers eyes are averted, knowing she’ll never check his bags as thoroughly as she checks yours.

When you have to do a report on your best friend in school you hesitate for a moment. Is it Akiteru or is it Kei? 

-

- Age 10 -

You’re ten years old when your parents separate and although you don’t understand the full extent of it, you know you’ll always prefer your father over your mother. 

So when they ask you who you want to live with, it’s not a hard choice. 

It should have been, though, because no one told you your father was going to move you, away from Miyagi with it’s wide, open landscape and away from Akiteru and Kei.

“You’re going to visit, right?” Akiteru asks, so much taller than you already, both arms on your shoulders as he tries to instill something inside of you, maybe a sense of peace or belonging or something else.

Kei’s tall for his age and you often forget how young he still is, looking eight at barely five years old.

But he acts his age now, snotty nosed and crying, dirty hands curled around yours.

You’re dear to him like he’s dear to you, you know, and you don’t want to miss him growing even taller.

“You can keep my dino plush,” you promise him. “So you don’t miss me while I’m away.”

“What about Old Man?” He asks. “Are you going to feed him without me?”

“I’ll have to,” you admit glumly. “But I’ll take pictures whenever I can. He’ll not forget you, I’m sure.”

-

It’s hard, seeing them only once a month when you’re with your mom, even more so when she tries very hard to capitalize the little time you have in Miyagi.

“I’m trying to build a family here,” she tells you more than once when you’re on your way out and over to the Tsukishima’s. “You can’t just leave for the neighbours every time you’re here.”

But Kei grows so fast you feel like you’re missing everything and Akiteru’s got a new best friend at school you don’t know and can’t she understand that’s more important right now?

- - -

- Age 15 -

Something has changed this year. 

The House of the Tsukishima’s is quiet as you turn up, no Kei running down the stairs to greet you, no Akiteru training in the garden out front.

“Hello?” You yell into the quiet. “Anyone home?”

“Oh, sweetpea.” Their mother steps out from the kitchen. She looks older, much older than you remember. Has it really been just a month that you haven’t seen her?

“You’re growing so much,” she points out as if it means anything in comparison to her sons. “How’s school?”

“Good. Where are Akiteru and Kei?”

“Oh,” her brows furrow. “Probably in their rooms.”

“But it’s so nice out.”

“Yeah,” she sighs. “I know.”

You trample up the stairs with impatient steps, knock on Kei’s door first because it’s closer to the stairs. 

“What?!”

“It’s me,” you tell him, supply your name after an alarmingly long pause. “Can I come in?”

“Fine.”

You swing the door open to find him on his bed, reading. He’s grown yet again and the thick-rimmed glasses make his eyes look big, their brown still warm and reassuring even though all of him is cold and angry.

“What are you doing?”

“Reading.”

“What about?”

“Stuff.”

“Are you mad at me?”

“No,” he huffs before hesitating. “Maybe. Did you know Akiteru-” He hesitates again. “Did you know Akiteru stopped playing Volleyball?”

“What?!”

“Yes,” he seems braver now in the face of your surprise. “He kept telling us he’s the ace at his Volleyball Club but he’s not even a starting player.”

“Oh no.” 

“Yes,” Kei’s voice is wet now. “It’s so lame.”

You sit with him for a while, pretending not to notice the tears rolling down his cheeks as you try to understand the world. Akiteru, lying? That’s unheard of. 

-

“Whatever!” Akiteru snaps when you ask him about it. “It’s not that big of a deal.”

“Yes it is,” you insist. “That’s a lie! You never lie!”

“I had to,” he bites back. “Like anyone would have still liked me if they knew I wasn’t even good enough to play!”

“I would have liked you.”

“Sure,” he scoffs. “But you’re never here anyway.”

“That’s not my fault.”

He falters at that, softens around the edges to the point he just drops where he’s standing, just a heavy weight on his bedroom floor.

“I don’t know what I’m supposed to do now.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’ve got science. I only had Volleyball. Turns out I’m not even good at it.”

“Just because someone’s better doesn’t mean you’re no longer good.”

Akiteru scoffs again. “It’s not the same. You’re not the same.”

And maybe he’s right. 

You’ve finally found friends in your new hometown, some girls from your english class that like to dress up with you and go shopping and there’s the Science Club that you attend that has a lot of funny guys in it that invite you to Game Nights. 

You feel like you’ve finally found a foundation to build onto only to find your old friendships crumbling.

“I’m sorry.”

Akiteru looks conflicted. “You don’t have to be sorry about that. It’s okay… I think.”

- - -

- Age 20 -

“Hey, I’m driving back to Miyagi this weekend,” Akiteru declares as he picks you up from Lab. “Do you wanna come?”

“Uh,” you check your calendar. “Sure, why not. Anything new?”

“Yeah,” he smiles, wide and excited. “Kei’s playing Volleyball for real now.”

You snort. “He’s been playing for a while now, what’s the difference?”

“You don’t get the difference, because you never took it serious. But I can tell it means something to him. He’s started caring again.”

“Oh,” you think of Kei, the one you knew as a little boy and the cold, difficult preteen he turned into five years ago. “I’m curious.”

-

You can see it too, now. It’s in the way he holds himself up, shoulders wide and proud. It’s in the way he talks to his mother, his best friend - adorable Yamaguchi who always blushes like crazy in your vicinity - and his brother. It’s in the way he talks to you. Like he means what he’s saying. Like he almost dares to be vulnerable again.

“How’s Old Man?” He sidles up to you after Dinner, Yamaguchi already on his way back home. Your Futon waits to be unfolded but you’re not that tired yet and he doesn’t seem to be either.

“Good.” His shoulder presses into yours, warm and steady, like a promise.

It’s still there, that feeling you first felt when sleeping next to him as a child, that quiet sense of wonder, that prickly feeling of astonishment, that warm love you can’t seem to stop. Friends, you remind yourself. You’re friends. More like siblings, really.

“How’s school?”

Kei tells you all about it. How annoying Hinata and Kageyama are, too loud and too talented and too dumb at the same time. How their managers are so vastly different in their characters and yet both so trustworthy at the same time. And although he does not say it out loud, you can read the worry between his sentences. What will happen once the Third Years Graduate? 

“You’re doing amazing,” you smile and he reciprocates, a tiny, quiet, warm moment just for the two of you.

-

And Kei is just a friend, you keep reminding yourself.

When you go watch his Matches with Akiteru, laugh when Saeko Tanaka not so subtly asks if you’re interested in Akiteru before she advances on him herself. 

When you watch him grow even taller, prouder, more sure of himself.

When you attend his graduation and wonder just how it could happen, how tiny, ugly Kei could turn into this.

-

- Age 25 -

You’re dating a coworker by the time Kei starts College. 

Masayuki is not the most romantic, but neither are you. He plays volleyball after work so he and Akiteru are well acquainted, though not as close friends as you’d like them to be.

Old Man lives with you now, just the quiet companion you need for your after work studies, for lounging on the floor with a good book, or wondering about how the world works at the quiet hours of the night.

It’s a quiet life, filled with too much work for too little pay, but you get payed to look at rocks for a living, so you don’t want to complain too much.

-

“I’m leaving in half an hour,” you tell Masayuki over the phone as you’re getting ready. “Do you want to come?”

“To what?”

“Kei has a game,” you pull a sweater over your head and decide against it immediately. That color really washes you out.

“Okay.”

“Okay you’re coming or okay you have other plans?”

Silence.

“Masayuki?”

“I’m just wondering why you attend all his games.”

“Well it’s Kei.”

“Sure,” he doesn’t sound sure. “But-”

“What?” You stand there, topless, staring at the bright display of your phone, the background not one of the few pictures you have with Masayuki but one taken after a big win, Kei’s arms slung around you and Akiteru, face pressed together. 

Something drops low in your stomach and you know, even before he speaks up again, that something just changed.

“Don’t you think it’s weird?”

“Weird?” You repeat, your voice empty.

“Yeah, how you… how much you care about Kei. I thought maybe it’s because he’s a Division 2 player and I get that, our games are not as big or flashy or important, but it’s in other things too.”

“Other things,” you echo and he talks on, seemingly encouraged by your answers.

“Yeah, like… you’re not one to go out much and I get that, I’m the same, but when Kei calls you’re always up to go to whatever College Party he’s inviting you. Remember how you had that trip with your mother that you wouldn’t cancel for me?”

You remember it well. You cancelled your family trip because Kei had tickets for the Jurassic World Premiere. In your defense, Jurassic World Premiere’s only happen once, your mother will keep bugging you forever.

“That’s different.”

“Is it?” His Question seems to grow in the Silence, multiply into a hundred voices all screaming at you. Is it? Is it? Is it?

“If it would be Akiteru, I could understand, you know? You grew up together, you’re the same age, I’d think you’re into him.”

He doesn’t add any more words, doesn’t have to.

You’re five years older than Kei.

“Don’t you think it’s weird?” Masayuki asks now and your stomach clenches so violently you fear throwing up.

“I’ve never thought about it,” you tell him. It’s not a complete lie but not the whole truth either.

“Well, you should. And I- maybe we should take a break… while you figure it out.”

His voice is too casual. He’s thought about this in great detail, it seems.

“Okay.”

“Okay.” You can hear him sigh. “Take care, okay?”

“You too.”

The connection ends with a click and it’s ironic, it really is, that that’s all that’s left of your almost one year relationship. Just the Silence after, and the stale test of old secrets.

You: Hey, I’m afraid I can’t come to your game tonight. Period came early and it’s wreaking havoc on me. So sorry! But you’ll rock it without me, I’m sure!

Kei: What a shame. Shark week truly has the worst timing. Take care, okay? I’ll check in on you later. Koganegawa says Hi.

You stare at his message for far too long, curl up under your blanket and watch Old Man walk tireless circles around your bedroom.

Masayuki’s words dance like demons through your brain until you fall asleep.

You wake in the middle of the night to soft knocking on your door and a familiar voice.

“It’s me, Kei. Are you up?”

You don’t dare move, don’t dare to come face to face with him so soon. 

“Don’t you think it’s weird?” His question is heavy on your heart. Does Kei think that too? Maybe you are. Maybe you’ve been his weird big sister for a while, sitting too close at family gatherings, always there at every game because you can’t seem to stay away.

Maybe he’s never had the courage to tell you to take a step back.

Maybe, and that hurts the most, you’re the reason he still doesn’t have a girlfriend yet. Because you’re holding on to tight. Because you’re acting weird about it. Because-

“I’ll check on you in the morning, okay?” Kei’s voice cuts through the turmoil in your head like a hot knife through butter. “Sleep tight. Take care of her, Old Man, okay?”

In the morning you’ll find chocolate and painkillers in a bag tied to your doorhandle and a good morning text on your phone. 

You do your best ignoring both.

-

“What’s up with you?”

You turn, surprised to find Akiteru at your desk.

“Hi to you too. Do you need a report on any minerals?”

“No, I’m here to check if you’ve turned into a fossil yourself.”

“Geology,” you point at yourself. “You need to ask Kei about Fossils.”

Akiteru rolls his eyes. “You know what I’m talking about.”

“No.”

He snorts. “You’re ghosting us. Me and Kei and probably your other friends too, but I don’t have their numbers to check.”

“I’m not doing anything like that.”

“Please,” he scoffs now. “You’ve missed two of Kei’s games. That’s unheard of. If Masayuki said anything-”

“Can we just not talk about it?” You interrupt him, grabbing your bag and ushering him out. You don’t really want to be the lab gossip for the next month.

“I think we should.”

“Oh no,” you shake your head, pushing him along. “I was the middle man of your stupid fight for years, you owe me.”

Akiteru’s face falls. “Damn, it’s serious if you pull that card. Really, what did he say?”

“What makes you think he said something?”

“He mentioned something at training. He let me know that you’re no longer together, but that it was a mutual decision and that the reason should stay private for your sake.”

You huff out an unamused laugh. “That Shithead.”

“So?” Akiteru’s eyes are warm and honest, but you swallow the need to tell him.

“You’re biased, I can’t tell you.”

“Please, when have you ever not told me something? I know everything about you.”

“Ah,” you turn your face away. “Sure.”

“Well, if you don’t want to tell me, can you at least call Kei? He’s been in a mood all week. He deserves to know you’re not mad at him.”

“Maybe I am.”

“Oh,” Akiteru whistles a tune. “That’s new. You’ve never been mad at him once.”

You falter. “Surely that’s wrong.”

“Nope. Can’t remember a single time.”

“Well,” your stomach churns as you speak, as you try to make your lie sound more believable. “That’s how it is with little siblings, right? They can never do anything wrong.”

And you wish you didn’t look Akiteru in the face as you said it, because you can see it so clearly in his eyes. He knows you’re lying. 

So you turn on your heel and walk back inside, relieved and disappointed at the same time that he’s not following you.

Kei: I’ve bought too much Lettuce, I’m bringing some over after training.

Kei: Left the Lettuce outside. Did you remove your spare key from under the rug?

-

Kei: Hey, didn’t see you at the Match tonight, are you still not feeling well?

-

One missed call from: Kei

-

Kei: You’re really starting to worry me, what’s going on?

-

Kei: I’m giving you one last chance to call me back.

-

The sound of a key turning has you look up from your book, frozen in your spot on your bed. Old Man’s munching on his lettuce, too focused to care.

“Hello?” You ask into the quiet of your apartment, heart hammering against your ribcage. 

The door opens soundlessly. Kei’s head almost knocks against the top of the doorframe as he steps through, hair disheveled, glasses speckled with raindrops. He stops in his tracks when he sees you and you wish he wouldn’t, wish he’d give you a moment to regain your composure, rain in your heart that tries to crash out of your chest at the sight of him.

He’s too tall and too broad, his hair too pale-golden like the moonlight and the worry in his eyes too thick to swallow.

“What’s going on?” Kei asks, breaking the spell. You shift your gaze to the page in front of you, unseeing. Can he read your eyes as well as you think you can read his.

“What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean.”

“No, I don’t.” 

He sighs, clearly exhausted. At this time, he must have come here right after training, maybe even skipped the shower.

“Look if Akiteru said something-”

Your head lifts, surprise gurgling through your veins.

Kei’s wringing his hands now, a nervous gesture you’ve never seen on him before. He’s looking at Old Man instead of you, lips moving without making a sound.

“Just because Masayuki broke up with you doesn’t mean he has to rush things, I mean-” He hesitates and your confusion grows.

“I’m not following you, I-”

He gestures for you to stop, pulls a chair out from your kitchen table and sits down across from you, shoulders hunched under an invisible weight, cheeks burning red.

“I’m going to make this quick, okay, because I’d rather not make myself suffer anymore than necessary but- I like you. I’ve liked you since I knew what that meant. And I know I’m much younger, but I’m not a child and I’m mature for my age and if you’d give me a chance I’d make sure you’d never regret it-”

“What?”

Kei takes your hand and you can feel the tremor going through his limbs as he does.

He licks his lips.

“Would you date me? Yes or no. You can say no, I’ll get over it, I promise.”

“Y-yes, I mean wait, what?”

Kei’s eyes are open and vulnerable. You’re reminded of that one night five years ago, when he started caring again, when he sidled up to you after dinner, one shoulder pressed into yours. Your fingers twitch and curl around his as if they already know what your brain hasn’t processed yet.

“You like me?” You turn your eyes to the floor, too overwhelmed with the truth swimming in his. “You like me? It’s not weird?”

You can feel him shrug but his hand doesn’t let go.

“I mean, maybe it’s weird, but who cares? I’m pretty sure Akiteru is dating Saeko and that’s weird too.”

You laugh, the sound breaking free from you.

“You like me,” you repeat, reaching out with your other hand to find his already moving toward you. “You like me.”

“Should I repeat it too or is it enough if you do it for me?” Kei’s sarcasm is softer now, just a little teasing. You smile and he smiles back and you can’t help yourself, have to lean in and touch the red blooming on his cheeks.

“You like me,” you confirm once more, for good measures. “For real.”

Kei snorts. “You sound like a teen.”

“Shush. Did no one teach you how to respect your elders?”

- - -

- Age 26 -

Kei snores. It’s such a tiny tiny detail in the sea of things to know about him, yet you’re so unreasonably fond of it.

He’s doing it right now, one head on your shoulder, his glasses folded in your lap.

“Can you shut sleeping beauty up?” Akiteru asks from the front, clearly annoyed.

“I could, but I don’t want to,” you reply.

Kei’s nose curls as if he’s heard that but he lets out a sigh right after, exhaling softly as he sinks further into you.

“Such a sap,” Akiteru teases you once more and you let it happen.

It’s true after all.

-

“Oh, you’ve grown again,” Tsukishima-san calls out with exasperation at the sight of Kei, pinching his cheeks. “Are you eating enough?”

“Mom!” He cries out, embarrassed. 

“Help me!” He asks you. You just laugh.

“I put your Futon into Kei’s room,” she tells you as the boy carry up the luggage. “I know how he is. He’d just climb through your window if I didn’t and I know your mother. She’d throw a fit.”

“How is she anyway?” You ask. “Did she say anything, about… you know what?”

“Ah,” Tsukishima-san weighs her head left to right. “She was surprised, for sure. I think she always had her mind set on Akiteru. Got me a pretty Yen, you know.”

You gape at her as she snickers, proud of herself. “Oh yes, I knew it right away. That bet’s been going on for almost as long as Kei’s been around.”

“You’re a trickster,” you tell her, not quite sure what you’re supposed to think about it.

“Where do you think Kei gets it from?”

“Gets what from who?” Kei asks, stepping into the kitchen. He’s never far away for long, always eager to close that space again. His hand slides into the back pocket of your jeans now, squeezing your butt. 

You throw him a pointed glare and he grins, the picture of innocence when he’s anything but.

“I can’t tell you without insulting at least one of you,” you huff and he preens while his Mom snickers.

It’s weird, you can’t help but think as they chat, how this house, this family, already feels like home.

Maybe because it always has been. You’d just been a little too shy to grasp it fully.

[aspergerasparagus]

What if... Lucky Contestant and/or Real Frankie angst? 👀

<Incorrect-Finding-Frankie

You asked for this. Bad Ending unlocked. Also on Ao3

They were on the 65th season when things finally came to an end. The chat was slowly starting to lose interest in their winner. They needed someone new and Lucky had seen the writing on the wall before the new season had even started. So in hindsight it was no surprise that he had come out of the gate swinging. Literally. 

Of course Frankie had been the first to face him. He'd been getting used to playing with them first before trying to catch them so he'd let his guard down. It was only when Lucky drove the knife he'd concealed into his eye did he finally realise what was happening. Of course the fight had still been a brutal affair. Lucky being tossed around like a rag doll as the rabbit screeched in pain, lashing out blindly in search of his target. Both were bloodied by the end but living up to his name, Lucky had managed to strike the final blow by tripping the beast and sending them careening into a saw blade trap. Bloodied and beaten he continued on, clutching his broken ribs as he breath came out in short ragged bursts.

He'd ignored the Frankie on the tvs for the most part. It's not like they could do anything but to throw curses and insults his way. But even that Frankie fell silent after Lucky had made his way to the server room. Leaving only one “Frankie” left to deal with.

And so here they were, finally at the end and it was everything the rabbit had wanted and more. Frankie lay pinned under a piece of parkour equipment Lucky had managed to dislodge during their confrontation. His legs pinned down meaning he had been easy pray for when Lucky had plunged the metal pipe into his chest. Pity he didn't have the strength to hit a little deeper, seeing at the rabbit was now slowly “bleeding” out rather than the quick end his contestant had hoped for.

“You're beautiful you know that.”

“Shut up. I've heard enough from you…” Lucky was leaning against the broken screen, the chat still visible behind the cracks. He was caked in blood, sweat and oil, his breath laboured as he tried to keep himself standing. It was impressive he was still upright given the damage Frankie had done to him, the rabbit was pretty sure he'd broken their arm in the scuffle, along with their collar bone. He must be in annoy and yet he still refused to back down. Frankie could only grin wider. He was perfect!

“It's true tho. After all you've been through, all we've been through, here you finally are. My “Lucky” contestant, my money maker, my lover, my everything.” Frankie could stop the purr that escaped him as Lucky glowered at him, disgust clear on his face for the first time in a long time, haven finally discarded the mask Frankie had become accustomed to.

“Look at me more like that, my little rabbit. You know what you do to me when I get to see you angry~” Lucky went to spit out an insult, only to hiss in pain as he clutched his side the exertion of such an act too much for him right now.

“Go to hell you bastard…”

Frankie just chuckled as he watched Lucky force himself to pick up a jagged piece of scrap and begin to stumble his way over to the rabbit. He wasn't going to let the rabbit just bleed out, that was too kind of a death, no where near befitting of their relationship. He wanted it to be close and personal. A suddenly shiver went down Frankie's spine as he realised this was it. This was his end. He was going to die. When he first realised that the higher ups were going to terminate him he'd felt real fear for the first time. Terrified of the ceaseless void of nothingness that was going to take him. But now, here, facing his end, he couldn't feel anything other than absolutely ecstasy! This was beyond anything he had ever felt before and he was intoxicated.

Grinning wider he held his hand out to the man as he shuffled towards him, as he had when they had first made that deal all those years ago. A wonderful memory he had come to cherish. Sighing the man reluctantly took it as he shifted his weight to it as he continued on, it's not like Frankie could do anything now. He'd lost. Lucky had won. As he always did.

Finally reaching him the man took a moment to catch his breath, the rabbit studying him, memorising each and every detail of him in this moment.

“I wasn't lying when I said you were beautiful. Right now you are stunning, Lucky.”

“I know and that's why I wish you'd stop talking for once.” Frankie just snorted as he gently rubbed the back of their hand, soothing them for what they had to do next.

“I wonder if a small part of you will miss me? I'll miss you.”

“I… Maybe a sick part of me will miss you. But it'll fade. I'm not letting you control my life anymore. I'm getting out of here and taking what is rightfully mine.” Lucky held the rabbit's gaze as through his confession, even at this stage refusing to hide his true feelings. Truly a stunning man~

Frankie just smiled and nodded before directing the man's attention towards a spot on his head.

“My main CPU is stored here. A hard enough strike there will shut me down permanently. So try and not mess it up, it would be embarrassing to miss with such an audience watching us.” Lucky could only roll his eyes before offering a small smirk, unable to resist Frankie's charm one last time. Helping him up onto his chest, he watched as Lucky steadied himself before he raised the metal above his head ready to deal the finishing blow. To end this all. For both of them.

“Do you remember my promise? The one I made to you on our first date?” Lucky hesitated, the scrap still raised.

“Yes, as if I'd forget that. But it doesn't matter now Frankie. You've lost.”

“I know but I still intended to keep my promise my sweet little rabbit.”

Lucky didn't have a chance to react as Frankie wrapped his arms around them and contracted the springs in his arms. 

The sound of the pipe impaling them was a mix of the sickening cracking of bone and squelching of meat. His poor little contestant didn't stand a chance. He heard them cry out, gasping in pain as they tried desperately to expand their chest, but the blood quickly filling their chest charity and lungs made it impossible. (Not to mention the pipe.)

“Shhhh it's okay Lucky. I'm here. Frankie’s got you.” His tone was so soft, like a mother with their child as he cradled their shaking form closer. Coming up to pet their hair he could hear them gargling, before they hacked, blood spluttering out, covering them both. Now this was the ending they deserved. It was perfect. The triumph of the hero over the villain, only for the twist and betrayal at the end. This story was already written the moment Lucky had agreed to stay. There was no happy endings here for them.

Holding him Frankie could only let out a purr, this was practically orgasmic. The feeling of Lucky dying in his arms, by his hand, was even more perfect than he could imagine. He'd have to make sure the techs didn't erase his memory when they repaired him. He needed to remember this moment for all eternity, just so he could have it on a constant repeat in his head. This is how he wanted to remember his Lucky. Hearing them gag he snapped back, offering a small apology he nuzzled this head before leaning down to place a soft “kiss” against their forehead. 

“B-bastard… t-this was always the plan wasn't… it.” Even with his injuries he still had the ability to talk. How impressive~

“It was. You were never going to leave this place alive Lucky. And I think you knew this.” Lucky could only give a weak nod, tears slowly starting to drip down his cheeks, leaving streaks in the blood caking them.

“I… did. I…just had t-try still… Frankie i-it hurts…” Hushing him, the rabbit cuddled him close, burying his face against his hair.

“I know, just close your eyes Lucky. Just give in. It'll be over soon. I promise I won't leave you here like the others, I'll put you somewhere special. So we can be together forever~”

Lucky could only let out a weak sob, but just as Frankie had said soon he closed his eyes. His breaths becoming shallower and shallower until nothing. His body lay limply against the rabbit as they soon succumbed to their own injuries. The only sound left was the hum of the facility and the sound of multiple footsteps approaching them.

[unsoundedcomic]

Whumptober 2024 - 23 - “Forced Choice”

((First part here))

When first the Lady whispered to me of a cache of forgotten wisdom hidden in the heart of Mmatont Anchert, the image of a library had blossomed in my mind's eye: dusty parchments, fat worm-eaten tomes, crumbling scrolls crowding each other for space on warped and collapsing shelves.

What I had not envisioned was what Rahm and I found when our gruff guide opened the Living Wood door.

A breeze colder than ice assailed us from a chamber of unbroken blackness. I could see no ceiling and see no walls; only a rectangle of floor smeared golden before our feet by the light of the Soud's torch. I stepped into it. My boots crunched over the fragile granules of ancient insect carapaces and layers and layers of… bird droppings?

The door closed behind us suddenly - very theatrical, pissmop! - and Rahm and I were in the dark.

"A moment, a moment," he muttered. I imagined him smacking his lighter against the heel of his hand and yes, it cracked suddenly to life with a muted blue burst. Despite the chill, Rahm's face was shiny with sweat, eyes wide, nostrils flared. I imagine my expression was similar, though more handsome of course.

"It stinks like Juste," I whispered.

"Birds."

Aye. Birds. I hooked his elbow with my own and we moved deeper into the room. Rahm thrust the wee pymaric light before us, but it made few inroads through the ink: no walls, no structural planes to catch the glow and reveal themselves; only an empty void where we had expected so much.

"I hope that boy is all right," Rahm said suddenly. I yelped a nervous laugh - I could not help it! - and he tensed against my arm.

"You know they have killed him. Let it go. He was nothing to us. Perhaps he touched children or worse! Licked his fingers at the supper table! Put your mind on why we've come."

My arm was colder and the room a bit blacker when he pulled away from me. "You're an asshole, Bastion. I know where your mind is."

"My mind is fixed firmly upon obtaining the algorhythms needed to chase the pieces of the scattered human soul, I have never hidden this-"

"In order to bring your sister back!" Rahm sounded triumphant, as though he was exposing to the light some long hidden and grimy secret. I always did love my self-righteous friend. And so I hated to scoff at him, but I cannot control my ego when it is in control. Which is often. Daily. Hourly.

"I had to pick SOME deceased subject, Rahm. She is as good as any other. I knew her well, I can identify whatever mind that reconstitutes as either belonging to her, or evidencing too aberrently. Should I have chosen that lovely young soprano who threw herself off the Spire last year, bashing her pretty brains out all over Rue Jonovan? I didn't even know her favourite colour."

Rahm's lips worried over his teeth with unvoiced emotion. I frankly did not give a whore's fart whether he believed me or not. I continued: "You? Your mind? You are after the resurrection of your dead son. And not for the good of us all, not to overcome the gods' crime, not to raise us from the muck that mortality condems us to; you wish it to apologise to your wife and to mend your cracked heart. Well, I think that is a WASTE - a disgraceful WASTE of a spellwright's intellect and a great man's mind!"

A strange expression passed over Rahm's face. For a moment I was fearful he would weep. But that was not quite right. It was sorrow yes, but… why, if I hadn't known better, I would have thought it was sorrow for ME.

What a fool that Rahm Ripa.

"What is here!" he suddenly challenged the emptiness, and wheeled away. He spun about, blue light feebly punching at the black, dust motes wildly bobbing. I saw a single small feather catch, then vanish again. "We were told of this place by Lady Ilganyag, Eldest of the Old! Who heard the First Words spoken and saw the Arbiter Khert take hold!"

No response.

"Try it in Tainish," I suggested. Rahm glowered deeper. Understandble. Dreadful bother to translate and localize verse, you always lose something. One really must learn Continental to enjoy the written works of Gari Fiat at all.

"Look onto the khert," he bade me sharply.

"Ach, very well, but you watch my back while I am vulnerable." I felt the Lady stir in my thoughts but say nothing as I complied. With a steady inhalation, I imagined my breath sweeping the flesh and blood and baggage from my bones; my bones themselves crumbling like ash behind me as I stepped forward through myself, and opened my eyes to the khert-lines.

I stumbled. Rahm caught my arm. A fool, but a friend.

Cutting golden through the blackness, the khert-lines here were thick as hawsers, knotted and twisted around themselves, Aspects and ghosts both sluggishly pulsing through them as though as cold as we were. Phantoms fitfully fluttered in the far, far corners of the room, and still more spiraled against the ceiling far above, skittering blind ghost fingers for some khert-line to follow towards freedom. Feeling Rahm watching me, I dropped my gaze and squinted through the gilded slashes, leading him deeper in.

There. An undefined void against the golden glow of the khert, I saw a Shape. It was a well-known shape to any son of Juste and follower of the Lady. The lines skittered around it, unable to intersect, and the ghosts themselves seemed repulsed. I heard Rahm gasp. A familiar belch of panic gripped my midsection when I tried to return to my fleshly eyes and found them sluggish. Then I steeled myself and with a moment's concerted effort the khert was blinked away, the blackness was returned - burning with no after images, no scintillation of pupils dilating - and I was immediately able to see the blacker black that loomed before us.

Every filament of Silver throughout my body burned hot. The torc at my throat clenched enough to leave me breathless.

In crackling old Tainish, the great Agib asked: "What do these Humans desire."

Oh, what a creature! Imagine a great avian raptor as tall as two men, of ebon plumage and silver razor talons. Now stretch its neck out to thrice the length of its body, give it the beak of a crow, golden human sclera, and irises red as fresh blood.

Rahm gibbered a moment and grabbed his own collar. Then our torcs relaxed, leaving us panting in tandem. Distantly sexy. The bird cocked its head to the side, then level again, then back. It was looking at Rahm's wee lighter. It occurred to me that a creature such as this must not often see such devices. In fact this was a newer design out of the Fluirstadt workshops, using starfly lymph and mirrors, and likely completely revolutionary to such a Mmatont shut-in.

"Give that to Agib," croaked the bird.

Rahm moved to comply and I snatched at his arm. I swear to the dead gods these Crescians do not know how to negotiate.

"We are come for knowledge," I interjected, making the lighter my own. I crushed the shiny bargaining chip to my chest, afraid he'd snatch it. "Lady Ilganyag sent us. She-"

The agib exploded into movement! It drew up on its claws, extended its legs, and shook open its dusty wings! They reached to the ceiling, embers of red burning deep at the roots of the primary quills. "Not the Lady of this Agib!" I think it said. The words were so garbled, the vocabulary so archaic. "Not the Lady of this Agib!"

Inside my head, my own bird was still.

"She wants not a thing from you!" I called, "My compeer and I wish only discourse with a brother scholar, one that I recognise has a savvy appreciation for pymary and pymarics! We have more than this lighter; we have an entire collection with us - in our luggage - of the most modern devices in use today. More than I can say of these savages keeping you prisoner."

"Agib is no prisoner," said the bird. Indeed, I realised suddenly there were no chains on this creature. But what a black, sad room it had been crushed inside. How was this more than a cage of stone, the floor a morass of shit and feathery down-

Oh, shit. SHIT. It had been shitting. Eating. Senet beasts only eat to repair wounds.

"Great injury," the bird lamented, folding its wings. Looking closer, I saw gaps in its primaries, and grievous half-healed fissures in its breast and legs.

"You fought with something," Rahm guessed politely. The monster shifted. All its plumage puffed suddenly, throwing off dust and muck in a choking cloud. It shook, then settled, its down sinking and skirting over its fearsome First Silver talons. Red eyes swung between my face and Rahm's.

"What do these Humans desire?" it asked again, "Humans of Ilganyag. Agib will give you single thing. You will all your precious creations give. Give to Agib all your precious creations. Single thing will Agib give."

Doubt nibbled at me. I knew that these creatures had for all time been the keepers of pymary, for they were the keepers of Old Tainish, the first language of the world. They alone fluently spoke the first words, and had taught them to men when they had thought them ready. If there were secrets, these testy great squawkers would have them. Having had one nesting inside of me since I was a boy, few know them as well.

But this monster did not seem as… put together, as my Lady Ilganyag.

Rahm must have had similar thoughts for he asked: "Who are you, my Lord? How can Humans know what it is Agib… Agib has to give?" It was charming to hear the Crescian try to modulate his Tainish into the old cadence, and use the older words.

"Agib knows," it replied simply.

"Agib knows words," Rahm agreed, "And Agib… knows that words can be spoken to… mirror reality, or to conjure a reality that is not real."

The beast twitched and threw its head, frustrated with the pair of us. I think it had grown accustomed to its solitude. "Humans," it said, "Humans invented the thing that is lying. Ilganyag lines her nest with it! Agib do not lie. Agib love the garden, admire the garden, protect the garden; never is there cause to speak untrue words about the garden!"

"But how can we KNOW?"

The beast puffed its breast and throat again, weaving its long, long neck in a serpent pattern. Rahm extended mollifying hands, his rings flashing in the soft blue light. The sight of them captured the bird's wandering eye. I chuckled. Apparently it loved shinies just as much as my mistress.

Without looking away from the glinting jewellery, in hisses and croaks it recited: "The garden is the garden, paths and stones fixed. Motive and movements determined. The world is in this garden grown and for this garden meant. To change the garden is to KILL the world. Agib alone know how to plant, to prune; the tools are of the Agib and the Agib alone have the tools. To lie is a tool to shape humans; a lie cannot shape the garden. Human tongues never can twist the heart of the garden; only the hearts of humans."

"That was true once," I said, not caring for its arrogance, "But there is a reason Agib have become passing rare, isn't there? Humans have surpassed you and taken your tools-"

The Agib's terrible eyes flared. "AGIB COULD PRUNE YOU NOW, ILGANYAG HUMAN."

Incomprehensible pain opened my insides like a knife. The sun itself burst out of my entrails, up through stomach and esophagus, into my mouth and devoured my eyes, my sinuses, my brain in fire. I have no memory of how I came to be on the ground but then I was, all of reality shrinking away from me - I was in the dark, screaming.

When sensible again, I saw Rahm crouched protectively over me, shielding me, and the wee lighter was in the Agib's beak. All of my friend's rings were gone. Rahm's lips moved but I couldn't hear his words through my groaning, through the echoing pain.

How was I alive? Briefly, I did not wish to be.

Small red hands come from the beast's silver maw. They drew the lighter in, greedily in, clinking against the other jewellery already in its mouth. Then its bill shut, and we were all of us left in the dark. I sobbed like a child in Rahm's arms.

"He did not speak!" I wailed, "He did not speak!"

"What do these humans desire," asked the Agib a final time.

I desired nothing more in that moment than to flee from this room, from this structure, from this island, and away from this monster. It was nothing like Ilganyag. My Lady leads me on a merry dance, but I know the steps. I can sense her moods like a hound turning its snout to the wind. She hates me, but she loves me too. She feels the same about every one of us.

No similar ambivalence from this bird in the black. I knew it cursed us all, and would peck the eyes from a newborn's skull. It had, too. Somehow I knew that it had, countless times. It had been the God of the Soud Vaghal; one of the things on the mountain beneath whose shadow the primitive Tains had cowered and sacrificed.

"I want nothing," I whispered. I'd never said that before. I'd never meant it. I've not meant it since.

Rahm held me tightly as I shuddered, but he was not so defeated. I wonder now what thoughts were behind his eyes as he cast them through the lightless room and towards the unfathomable power of the Agib in the Dark. Did he think of Iori sobbing over their dead boy? The boy himself, dissolving into the khert like sands captured by the surf and pulled into the sea... I wanted to tell him that no answer this creature gave would be answer enough for any of it.

Rahm shifted softly against me and drew his shoulders back to speak. "I wish for us to fly," he said, "Humans cannot shape the garden, but to look down upon it as the Agib does, and behold its splendour, might inspire our tongues towards the same reverence as yours."

A long moment passed. Very faintly I could hear the muffled clinking of metal inside the bird's body, as its tiny hands turned its new treasures over and over. Then:

"A good trade."

---------

A few days later, Rahm and I were back in Tain. Our boat had landed in a little fishing town called Orniers, similar to Lurick and quite as dull. Still, our inn served a fine side of pork and I had ordered a bottle of Omid Red, stewed apples, and a wedge of that soft cheese they make in the west. Rahm swirled his pour in his slim brown fingers, naked now of their pymaric finery but no less elegant.

I'd felt sour and cross since returning. I had left the monster's room to be ill, but Rahm had stayed behind, conferring with the bird and watching it produce formulae of incredible complexity. Now he had a stack of notes and numbers written with impossible precision - they nearly looked pressed with type.

"Did it use its wee mouth hands?" I asked, piling cheese and pork on a slice of good rye, "Did his human moiety ever emerge?"

"I don't know," Rahm answered, expression distant, "It never rose the lights again and I was afraid it would change its mind if I reached for my second lighter. Sitting in the dark for hours, the great monster writing away, my best friend abandoned me for the toilet-- by the Lady, I've only been that afraid for that long a few times. He may have given me new direction for the flying machine, but he may have taken a fucking year off my life."

"Same," I admitted. Rahm narrowed his eyes at me.

"You have many more to spare."

"That is true and it is not my fault. I say if I do not begin taking Ilganyag's suggestions with more caution going forward, it may not matter. Sometimes I cannot tell if she is trying to get me killed, or merely to humble me. Try these apples, there is some rum in them."

My friend moved a few to his plate. He picked at them with little interest. "What does she say about all this?"

"She is amused," I sighed, "But largely silent. I think she and the Agib in the Dark have some history. She wishes me to instruct you to keep its existence a secret."

"I already promised it the same. Senets and their mysteries."

"Aye."

Night was falling. The fishermen had already docked and I could hear the shout and clamour of the lads unloading their catch. We'd stay one more night there, then hire a vliegeng to take us over the mountain in the morning. I thought again about that mountain; the sacred mountain from the top of which, it was said, all pymary had sprung. What had the Tains given the Agib for it? Surely more than light; more than rings.

"I thought you were after the same thing I was," I baited, pouring my friend a second glass.

"So did I."

"Lose your nerve? I say, men accosting senets for information on how to raise their loved ones must be the most tedious trope to them."

Rahm shook his head. "Didn't you listen to it? We can't shape the garden, Bastion. To attempt to… it would kill the world. Death is a part of it. There is no undoing it. But if I finish the flying machine, then… then there was a point to what happened. There was a reason."

He put the wine to his lips. He never said if he cared for the apples.

I'll be honest with you, my dear and patient readers: my friend's answer stuck in my throat like a stone. It sits there still, and galls me when I visit them; when Iori is fingering her gaudy ugly necklace sadly, and Rahm has red eyes after a late night in his workshop. To look for a reason is to look for your own madness. There is no purpose and no reason. We pattern-seeking rodents exhaust ourselves in pursuit of melody within this maelstrom, but there's only noise, and our ringing ears. There is no purpose and no reason, Rahm.

Yet I know he must live each day acting as if there is. That is the thin membrane of sanity we all tread upon so heavily but so carefully, trying not to snap through.

I love my friend Rahm Ripa.

But I will not be put off by the arrogance and tyranny of created things; things that have seen firsthand what the determination of the grown thing can accomplish. Do you remember it tucked away hiding in its own shit? Do you remember? Something brought to great ruin, that Agib in the Dark. Something rent its breast and broke its wings. Was it another senet? Or was it someone wielding our clever pymarics, and our constructed weaponry, and our determination to obtain the tools we need to shape the garden for ourselves?

I don't know for certain, reader; but I ask you to believe with me, sincerely and with your whole heart, that it was one of us.

[itsfreerealestatelol]

Just. Really fast.

I really do try to keep politics away from my social media but...

I'm American. We just voted for the stupidest candidate we could have possibly voted for. If you know that one Cyanide and Happiness skit where the presidential candidates were a perfectly good, reasonable and professional person vs. a literal glutton for humiliation promising to make the country fall into ruin just for shits and giggles? Yeah that's basically this election right now. We fucking voted for a man so cartoonishly bad he is basically a Cyanide and Happiness character.

This country quite literally hates women more than it actually wants to have freedom. That's the bottom line here.

We are literally getting lambasted by OTHER COUNTRIES because we voted for Trump, our allies overseas are quite literally calling us idiots, and frankly? We fucking deserve it. People want to kill themselves over this election, LITERAL CHILDREN are concerned for the future of this country- I recently heard my very, very conservative, God-fearing mother express concern over her own future moving forward over Trump. It wasn't just her either, it was my entire right-wing family as well, they are all so concerned about what's going to happen with Trump in office, so it's not just the fucking liberals or whatever who are terrified of what's about to happen.

I'm scared for the hundreds of thousands of other queer folks out there who didn't get the chance to start living their truest selves before their rights got stripped again. I'm scared for the women who now have to live in constant fear of their own bodies because what if they get taken advantage of and don't want to carry the baby, or what if they miscarry or birth a still born? Congratulations you're going to jail! I'm scared for the POC people in our country who are about to face the worst racism this country has seen since the goddamn slave-years. I'm scared for every single person in this country who isn't a cishet white man because they're about to face the consequences of someone else's actions and have no say in it.

I'm scared for the businesses who are about to face tariffs so dumb they're going to have to restrict their worker's pay. I'm scared for the enviornment because Trump wants to go after the fucking climate crisis for some goddamn reason. I'm scared for my own future, because I want to go through college, I want to be an architect, and I may not get that opportunity over the sex I was born with and didn't get a choice in having.

I agree with the people that are saying shit like "if we can elect a president with 34 felons, then you should be able to get a job with one" because yeah. I think people are seriously forgetting Trump is convicted on 34 felony charges, is a rapist, a literal national security risk, is half a billion dollars in debt, is also convicted of fraud, whose own political party minus the loud part stopped supporting him, and his administration is not returning to the White House because they either hate him or are in jail.

And yet we elected him to be our president.

All of this to say-

Raise fucking hell.

Demand those votes be recounted, fight for your rights, donate to good causes, research what stores and businesses support human decency, do what you think you can do within your own limits to help our country and it's people.

We are not done fighting, we are not going to just wallow in our own defeat. If they get to be loud, then we get to be louder.

As Optimus says, "Freedom is the right of all sentient beings"

-

Edit:

Trump doesn't have the power to do shit right now. That is why I'm saying we fight before he does.

And also,

Our lives are worth more than the price of gas and eggs. Remember that.

[arkieve]

1977, Christmas break. Regulus had his first kiss behind the greenhouse at their school two weeks ago. With a pocket full of coins and a stomach full of weights, he learns how to use a phone box for the first time–clutching a piece of paper with a phone number on it. All just to hear James’ voice again. One last time before the year ends. | wc: 582

It’s nerve-racking listening to the ringing, waiting for his call to be picked up. He sways back and forth, white-knuckle grip on the phone, thumb between his teeth as he waits. 

Regulus keeps an eye out on the cobblestone street, irrational fear that the passers-by will somehow know he’s doing something he shouldn’t and report back to his mother. 

A few feet over, Mr. Kreacher leans impatiently against the sleek black Rolls-Royce. When he notices that Regulus won’t be coming out anytime soon, he, too, engages in a covert activity–fishing a pack of cigarettes from his inner jacket pocket and lighting up. It almost eases Regulus’ nerves and makes him smile.

“Hello?”

Regulus jumps at the sudden voice–one he doesn’t recognise. Older, masculine–James’ dad. Shit, he hadn’t rehearsed for this.

“Hello?”

“I–Hi,” Regulus cringes. This was stupid, he feels stupid, and he can’t feel his nose; the tips of his fingers are tingling from the biting cold. “Sorry, I’m just go–”

There’s another, rather weaker voice that joins in on the other line. “Who is it?”

Oh. Regulus recognises that one, and so does his heart, apparently, from the way it threatens to leap out of his chest.

The conversation on the other end is muffled, and then there’s some shuffling before things become clearer.

“Regulus?”

His heart goes pitter-patter, pitter-patter, pitter-patter. The heat in his cheeks should be enough to defrost the windows of the phone box.

“James.”

“Shit, it really is you,” he sounds excited, breathless. More shuffling and he settles, breathing out a sigh that sends shivers down Regulus’ spine.

“So,” James’ tinny voice calls over the line. “What are you wearing?”

Regulus allows himself the blush that covers his entire face and he knocks his head against the glass window to his right. 

“Oh, you know,” he mumbles, playing James’ game to the best of his abilities, “the usual.”

“Ah,” Regulus can hear the stupid smile on his face, “my favourite.”

“Shut up, you’re just saying things.”

“I’m not! I like everything about you, so I’m not lying, not really.”

Regulus thunks his head against the glass again in response, biting his lips so hard it hurts. “Shut up,” he mutters.

“I miss you,” James says without missing a beat, and Regulus needs him to stop, or at least give him a minute so his heart can slow down. There are only so many times he can hit his head against the window before the lady walking her dog, who’s taken a special interest in his peculiar behaviour, intervenes for his sake or he, you know, drops unconscious. “I really miss you,” James repeats, as if once isn’t enough.

“I miss you too,” comes Regulus’ reply, and it doesn’t scare him how easily those words come out of him, nor how much he means it. “I really miss you too.”

“Then I should hurry back, shouldn’t I? Can’t leave you there all by your lonesome.”

“No,” Regulus pouts, and then he remembers himself enough to stop pouting, but not enough to stop himself from saying, “you can’t. So you better hurry.”

“I’m on my way, love.”

Love. Love. Love. Love. Lovelovelovelovelovelovelove—

There’s a knock against the glass door of the box. “Hey, kid! Knock it off with all the banging will ya!”

Regulus startles, struggling not to drop the phone before cradling it to his chest, frozen as he watches the man leave him to his horror and James’ awful cackling on the other end of the line.

[estellan0vella]

Sunshine's Guide To Murder│Lee Minho

Chapter Twenty One: It's Over SS: 1 (ignore time stamps and dates) Word Count: 4.1K Content Warnings: Abduction, Talks of murder, talks of keeping someone imprisoned Previous Next Masterlist

Hayun’s eyes flutter open, and she groans, her head throbbing as she pushes herself up. The room is dark, but there’s just enough light to make out the shape of a bed, a small desk, and old posters peeling off concrete walls. Her heart drops when she realizes where she is—Jisung’s grandfather’s bunker, the one they’d used as kids to get high and hide out when the world felt too heavy.

She glances around, her breath catching as memories flood back. The rough, cold walls. The creaky bed. They’d practically lived down here on long summer nights, laughing and pretending they had no responsibilities, no broken parts weighing them down. But that was years ago. Now, it feels eerie, like a time capsule gone wrong.

A quiet voice breaks the silence. "You’re awake."

Hayun jerks her head up, her stomach lurching as a man steps forward into the faint light. She blinks, her eyes adjusting, and her throat tightens as she recognizes him.

"Mr. Han?" Her voice cracks, disbelief laced with dread.

Jisung and Lia’s father, Han Minsun, looks back at her with an odd expression, a mixture of something almost like remorse and something darker. "You always were a bright girl, Hayun," he says softly, his voice carrying an unsettling calm. "Smart enough to get yourself into quite a mess."

Hayun swallows hard, trying to steady herself. "You- you took me off the street?" Her voice is shaking now, incredulous and angry. "What the fuck are you doing?"

Minsun sighs, rubbing a hand over his face as if he’s burdened by some great weight. "I saw the envelope you sent Lia, the one with all that supposed proof of Yuna’s death." He pauses, his gaze piercing. "Recognized that neat little handwriting of yours right away. Clever, signing it with ‘XOXO, Yuna.’”

Hayun stiffens, her stomach churning. "You recognized my handwriting? What, did you go snooping after that?"

Minsun chuckles, but there’s no warmth in it. “Not exactly. I went to the local chapel. Used to meet Yuna there, as you already know.” His eyes flash with something unsettling like he’s reliving an old memory. “Imagine my surprise when that idiot night priest starts talking about a girl dressed as a- what did he say?” He pauses, feigning a thoughtful expression before his eyes glint with distaste. “Ah, right. ‘Slutty nun.’ And with three friends who made him pick me out like some criminal.”

Hayun feels her fists clench, anger bubbling up despite the fear knotting in her stomach. "So you know, then. You know Jisung found out. He knows about you and Yuna. Knows you were fucking your own student."

Minsun’s face tightens, but he nods, barely flinching. "Yes, he knows. But it’s you who knows everything. You’re the only one who knows that I killed her." He steps closer, his voice dropping to a dark whisper. "And that I killed Lee Chaeryeong."

The words hit her like a punch to the gut, her mind spinning. "What? You- You didn’t kill Yuna." She’s stumbling over her words, caught between anger and confusion. "She was alive after you pushed her. I know who killed her, and it wasn’t you-"

Minsun’s eyes narrow, and for a moment, he looks genuinely surprised. "Oh, I know. But she must’ve wandered off, got lost in the woods, something like that. She didn’t make it home."

"No," Hayun says, shaking her head as she processes his confession. "She was alive after that. I know who really killed her." Her voice catches as another piece clicks into place. "Wait, did you just say you killed Chaeryeong?"

Minsun’s gaze sharpens. "You didn’t know?" His brows knit together, a flicker of genuine confusion crossing his face. "I thought you knew everything." He chuckles, low and humourless. "I was planning on killing you because I thought you knew that, and now, well, now I have to kill you because you do know."

The terror spikes in her chest, but she tries to keep her voice steady. "What the fuck are you talking about? You don’t have to kill me-"

Minsun’s expression shifts again, and he starts pacing, muttering to himself in an unsettling, almost detached way. "No, no, I don’t have to kill you, do I? You haven’t really done anything wrong. It’s just complicated, isn’t it?" His voice drops, almost as if he’s talking to himself. "Yes, that’s it. I’ll keep you here. Yes, that way, you won’t tell anyone, and I don’t have to do anything drastic. Yes, I’ll just keep you here."

Hayun’s mind races as Minsun’s confession settles like a stone in her stomach. "Why did you kill Chaeryeong?"

Minsun looks at her, almost bored by the question. “If my affair with Yuna ever got out, I’d have been the prime suspect. Chaeryeong was smart enough to figure that out. She confronted me, kept digging her nose in, asking questions she shouldn’t have. I couldn’t let her ruin everything.” His voice shifts to a matter-of-fact tone, his words chillingly casual. “So I drugged her. Forced her to write the note, made it look like she was coming clean on her ‘guilt.’ Then I staged her suicide.”

Hayun blinks, unable to reconcile the man she’d known most of her life with the monster standing before her. She stares at him, her stomach twisting with horror, but she can’t look away.

Minsun shakes his head as if regretting a small inconvenience, oblivious to the disgust seething in her silence. “I had to do it, Hayun,” he says, almost pleading as if she would somehow understand. “I had children to look after, a family name to uphold. If I went to prison, Jisung and Lia would be left alone, and I couldn’t let that happen. They would’ve been lost.”

He sighs, eyes softening. "But I can’t kill you. I’ve known you since you were that tiny little thing in kindergarten with Jisung." He chuckles, almost fondly, as though she hasn’t just heard him confess to murder. “No, I can’t do that to you. So you’ll stay here until I figure out how to fake your disappearance.”

Hayun’s pulse pounds in her ears, each beat a surge of pure, unfiltered fear. "What? No, you can’t keep me down here!" She steps back, her voice a mixture of panic and anger. “You’re insane if you think I’ll just stay here and play along!”

Minsun steps closer, his face calm, an unsettlingly kind smile tugging at his mouth. “Don’t worry, Hayun. I’ll look after you. Just like I always have.”

Every step forward he takes, she matches with a step back, her eyes scanning the room, desperate for something, anything, she can use to defend herself.

“Mr. Han-” she begins, her voice faltering as he moves in, a cold confidence gleaming in his eyes.

“Oh, what happened to ‘Uncle Minsun’?” he asks, his voice soft and full of twisted nostalgia. “That’s what you used to call me.” He pauses, a mocking glint in his eyes. “It felt warmer, more familiar.”

Hayun’s heart races, her feet sliding backward until her heel hits the edge of the old metal table. She glances down for the briefest moment, her hand brushing the cold edge of a rusty wrench left forgotten on the table from long ago. She wraps her fingers around it, pulling it behind her as Minsun steps closer, his posture calm, confident, but something far darker lying underneath.

“Uncle Minsun-”

Hayun tightens her grip on the wrench, feeling its cold weight in her hand. Without another thought, she swings it hard, the metal cracking against Minsun’s face with a sickening thud. He stumbles back, a strangled yell tearing from his throat as blood gushes from a fresh wound on his brow.

“Fuck!” he screams, clutching his bleeding forehead, eyes wide with shock and rage. But Hayun doesn’t waste a second watching him recover. She bolts toward the ladder, scrambling up the rungs with a frantic speed she didn’t know she possessed. Her hands shake, her heart pounding wildly in her chest as she pushes against the heavy lid at the top of the bunker, finally shoving it open.

She barely hauls herself out before the sounds of Minsun’s ragged breaths and footsteps echo up the ladder, each one faster and louder than the last. She stumbles as she clears the hatch, barely able to catch her balance as her feet hit the ground above. She takes off running across the field, adrenaline fueling each step as her sneakers dig into the muddy earth.

“Hayun!” Minsun’s voice cuts through the night air, raw and desperate, the sound filled with a twisted frustration. “I’m not going to hurt you!”

But she doesn’t look back; she doesn’t even consider it. She pushes forward, her breath tearing from her in sharp, panicked gasps, her lungs burning with each inhale. The field stretches out in front of her like an endless expanse, the dim light from the farmhouse a distant beacon guiding her toward some semblance of safety.

“Stop running!” Minsun calls, his voice closer than she wants it to be, his footsteps heavy as he barrels after her. The absurdity of his words nearly makes her laugh, but fear tightens its grip around her chest, strangling any response she might have had.

All she can do is keep running, eyes fixed on the farmhouse ahead, the faint outline of the main road just beyond. Her legs ache, and every muscle screams in protest, but she refuses to slow down. The farmhouse is close. So close she can almost feel the rough wood of the door under her fingers, the promise of escape just steps away.

“Hayun!” Minsun’s voice cracks, and she risks a glance over her shoulder, just a split second to gauge the distance. He’s still chasing her, blood streaking down his face, his hand pressed against his head to stem the flow. His expression is a twisted mask of anger and desperation, his eyes wild as he tries to keep up with her sprint across the field.

Minho and Chan park the cars, gravel crunching beneath the tyres as everyone piles out, their faces tense and unreadable in the afternoon light. The farmhouse looms in the distance, worn and familiar, but today it feels darker like the place is harbouring secrets none of them are ready to face.

Jisung points across the fields, his voice barely steady. “Lia would’ve taken her to the bunker. It’s out there, behind the farmhouse. My grandpa, he was a total tinfoil hat man, thought World War Three was around the corner every time he heard a car coming down the road.”

The group moves in tight formation, skirting the farmhouse as they follow Jisung’s lead. Minho spots something glinting in the grass and bends down, fingers closing around a fake pearl-encrusted hair clip, smudged with dirt. His jaw tightens.

“This is Hayun’s.” The words are ground out through clenched teeth, each syllable dripping with rage. He turns the clip over in his fingers as if he can wring answers from it.

A sudden cry of pain echoes from somewhere ahead, slicing through the air and freezing everyone in their tracks. Without a word, they break into a sprint. Seungmin gestures frantically, “There! Look—”

Up ahead, they see Minsun, blood streaked across his face, dragging Hayun by her legs across the field. Her dress is torn, caked in dirt, and her hands claw desperately at the grass, leaving deep, frenzied grooves in the earth.

“Let me go, you murderer!” Hayun’s voice is hoarse, shaking with fury and terror. “You killed an innocent girl!”

Minsun’s reply is cold, dismissive. “Lee Chaeryeong was not innocent.”

Minho skids to a halt, his breath catching as the words sink in. The admission lands like a punch, his vision tunneling as he stares, unable to fully process the horror unfolding in front of him.

Jisung staggers back, eyes wide with shock, his face going pale. “No… no…” His stomach heaves, and he doubles over, retching into the grass as Hyunjin moves to his side, one hand on his back, holding him steady even as Jisung’s world shatters.

The rest of them charge forward. Felix reaches Minsun first, fury blazing in his eyes as he closes the distance. Jeongin glances at Minho, voice tight with restraint. “Let Felix handle it. Dude’s got twelve years of Taekwondo and a hell of a lot of pent-up rage.”

Minho doesn’t budge, fists clenched as he glares at Minsun. “That piece of shit killed my sister.”

Jeongin grabs his shoulder, grounding him. “Killing him won’t bring her back, Minho. It’ll just get you locked up right alongside him.”

As Minsun drags Hayun closer to the bunker’s entrance, Felix intercepts, wrenching Minsun’s grip off her and shoving him backward. Hayun scrambles away, pulling herself to her feet, her breaths coming in short, sharp gasps. Felix’s fury is volcanic as he swings a fist, connecting squarely with Minsun’s jaw, sending him sprawling to the ground.

Jisung collapses back into the grass, shaking with sobs as he watches the scene unfold, the betrayal ripping him apart. He digs his fists into the dirt, trembling uncontrollably, and Hyunjin crouches down, keeping a steady hand on his shoulder.

“Breathe, Ji,” Hyunjin murmurs softly, trying to calm him. “We’re here. It’s okay. Just breathe.”

Jisung’s voice is raw, broken. “My dad… he… my family... they’re all monsters. How could they—how could he—” He chokes on his words, burying his face in his hands as he crumbles under the weight of the truth.

Meanwhile, Chan crouches beside Hayun, assessing the scrapes and bruises on her arms and legs. She winces as he tilts her head to the side, examining a cut near her cheekbone, worry creasing his brow.

“You alright?” he asks, voice gentle but tinged with anger.

Hayun’s voice is a shaky whisper. “I… I think so.”

Seungmin quickly shrugs off his jacket, draping it over her shoulders to cover her torn dress. She pulls it close, clutching the fabric as if it’s the only thing keeping her grounded.

Felix has Minsun pinned to the ground now, his fists bruised and knuckles raw, as he holds Minsun down with a strength fueled by rage. Minho steps forward, the barely contained fury in his voice cutting through the chaos. “Why did you kill my sister?”

Minsun’s face is streaked with blood and sweat as he looks up, desperation in his eyes. “I… I had to! I thought I’d killed Yuna, but Hayun. She said I didn’t. I panicked.” He looks over at Jisung, a sick, desperate look in his eyes. “But I wasn’t going to hurt Hayun! I was just going to keep her there, in the bunker, keep her quiet.”

Jisung pulls himself to his feet, leaning on Hyunjin for support as he looks down at his father with disgust and disbelief. The betrayal is etched deeply into every line of his face, his eyes red-rimmed and glassy.

“I’m sorry!” Minsun’s voice breaks, pleading. “I’m sorry!”

Felix sneers down at him, pressing his knee harder into Minsun’s back. “Save it for the police. You and Lia can have a nice long chat from opposite sides of the penitentiary.”

Minsun’s eyes widen with fresh horror. “Lia… Lia’s going to prison?”

Jisung steps forward, wiping the tears from his face as he glares down at his father, voice trembling with anger. “Yes. She helped a rapist, and you murdered an innocent woman. You’re both going to pay for everything you did.”

Minsun stares up at him, broken and bloodied, the weight of his crimes finally pressing down on him like a death sentence. He looks between Jisung, Hyunjin, and Minho, his face twisted with desperation and terror as the reality sinks in.

Jisung stumbles over to Hayun, his face pale and blotched, and then, as if his legs just give out, he drops to his knees in front of her, broken and lost. His eyes are red-rimmed, tears already streaming down his face as he reaches for her hand, clutching it tightly as if she’s his lifeline.

“I’m… I’m so sorry, Yunnie,” he chokes out, voice thick with guilt and pain. “My family—they’ve… they’ve done so much to hurt you. Lia… Mingi… and now… now my dad…” His voice cracks, and he bows his head, letting his forehead rest on her hand as the words tumble out of him, shattered and raw. “I swear, I… I never wanted this for you. I never thought…”

Hayun looks down at him, her own face blank, as though she’s watching this scene unfold from somewhere far away. Slowly, she places her hand on the top of his head, her touch gentle, almost as if trying to soothe him. Her eyes remain distant, her thumb barely brushing against his hair in a quiet comfort that seems automatic rather than intentional.

Changbin approaches cautiously, glancing over at the others. “Uh… is she okay?”

Jeongin shoots him a look, eyebrows furrowing in exasperation. “She was just abducted by Jisung’s father, you idiot! Of course she’s not okay, pabo!”

At that, Minho’s gaze snaps away from Minsun. He turns to look at Hayun, his expression softening when he sees her vacant stare, as though she’s been hollowed out by everything that’s just happened. With a resolve that is almost feral, he steps away from Minsun and heads over to her, gently prying her hand off Jisung’s head and pulling her away.

Chan, Changbin, Hyunjin, and Jeongin gather around Jisung, grounding him as he breaks down, his friends becoming a wall between him and the man who tore their lives apart. Meanwhile, Minho wraps his arms around Hayun, leading her to a quieter part of the field, his hand steady on her shoulder.

Once they’re alone, he tilts her face up to his, pressing his forehead against hers, eyes closed as he tries to bring her back to the moment, back to him. “Come back to your mind now, princess,” he whispers softly, his voice a steady anchor in the storm. “Back to reality, okay? Come back to me”

Hayun’s eyes close, and a single tear slips down her cheek. Minho catches it with his thumb, brushing it away gently, his own face etched with worry. She takes a shaky breath, and he holds her a little closer.

“You know,” he says, his voice low, with a soft humor that’s meant to comfort, “I’ve never met a girl who gives me as many damn coronaries as you.”

A faint smile tugs at her lips, and he nods, catching the flicker of life that returns to her eyes. “There she is,” he murmurs, relief coloring his tone. “I’ve got you, princess.”

Hayun nods slightly, leaning into him, her voice barely above a whisper. “He didn’t hurt me,” she says, almost as if trying to convince herself. “I’m okay.”

Minho nods, brushing his fingers through her hair. “Okay,” he says simply, accepting her words without question. She takes a steadying breath, and her gaze flicks over his shoulder toward Jisung, still crumpled on the ground.

“Jisung…” Her voice is quiet, filled with worry, but Minho cuts her off, his tone gentle but firm.

“No, sweetheart. Right now, you need to focus on yourself,” he says, guiding her face back to him, making sure she’s looking into his eyes. “You don’t have to hold everyone else together. Not today. Just focus on you, okay?”

She bites her lip, a hint of a nod, and Minho pulls her into his arms, holding her close, feeling her start to let go just a little, her weight leaning into him. The world around them might be chaotic, but for a moment, it’s just the two of them, breathing in sync, drawing strength from each other’s presence.

The police arrive at the farmhouse, a swarm of uniforms and flashing lights, and soon they’re guiding everyone one by one to take statements. Minsun is handcuffed, his face a mix of exhaustion and resignation, and as he’s led toward the squad car, a detective approaches Minho and Hayun.

“We’ll investigate Mr. Han’s confession regarding Chaeryeong’s murder,” the detective says, voice flat but tinged with something akin to grim satisfaction. “We’ll be in touch once we’ve gone through everything.”

Minho nods, though his jaw is tight, and his eyes don’t leave Minsun as he’s shoved into the police car. There’s a collective exhale from the group, relief mixed with disbelief at what they’d just witnessed.

Once the police have finished taking statements and the cars start pulling away, Hayun clears her throat, catching everyone’s attention. “There’s somewhere we need to go,” she says, her voice steady but laced with a hint of mystery.

They all look at her, puzzled, but they pile into the cars, the adrenaline still coursing through their veins. Minho starts his car, glancing at her in the passenger seat as she stares straight ahead, her eyes set with determination.

“Where to?” he asks, though he seems to already sense her answer.

“Mingi’s apartment,” Hayun replies, her lips curving into a smirk that surprises him. There’s something new in her expression—calculated, even a little wicked.

In the backseat, Felix glances up, raising a brow. “Wait, why are we going to Mingi’s place?” His voice is curious but cautious.

“You’ll see.”

Minho exchanges a quick glance with her as he turns the ignition, his eyes catching the glint of something fierce in hers. He seems to understand, even without her saying a word, and with a sharp nod, he pulls out of the gravel driveway, followed closely by Chan’s car behind them.

The drive is tense, the weight of what’s just happened pressing down on all of them. Felix shifts in his seat, looking back and forth between Minho and Hayun. “I feel like I’m missing something big here,” he mutters, tapping his fingers nervously against his knee.

“Just wait,” Hayun says, her tone amused yet serious. She turns to look out the window, her fingers drumming rhythmically on her thigh.

As they stand outside Mingi’s apartment, everyone’s eyes are fixed on the doorway, watching as officers escort him out in cuffs. The entire group is silent, tension crackling in the air, as Mingi’s eyes search the gathered faces. His gaze lands on Hayun, her dirt-streaked skin and the cut on her cheek, with Minho, Jisung, and the rest of their friends standing protectively around her like a wall. A flash of recognition crosses Mingi's face, his features twisting into a sneer as he struggles against the officer’s hold.

“I’ll fucking kill you, Jang Hayun!” he yells, his voice rough and unhinged. “Mark my fucking words! I know you framed me for Yuna’s murder, you conniving bitch!”

Hayun’s face remains impassive, but her fingers tighten ever so slightly at her sides. Minho stands close, his body language daring Mingi to make another move, but it’s the officer who gives Mingi a hard shove forward.

“Keep moving,” the officer snaps, voice cold with authority. “You’re not just facing a murder charge, so watch it, you disgusting rapist.”

Mingi’s sneer fades, replaced by a flare of fear, as he’s forced toward the police car. His eyes keep darting back to Hayun, still held between fury and something darker.

Hayun’s eyes drift over to Ryujin and Yeji, who are leaning against the opposite wall, watching the scene from a distance with a kind of detached amusement. Ryujin, cigarette in hand, raises it in a lazy toast toward Hayun, her lips curling into a smirk, while Yeji winks, expression smugly satisfied. There’s no guilt in their eyes. Just a dark, shared triumph.

Minho follows her gaze, watching the silent exchange, noting the look on Hayun’s face as she regards Ryujin and Yeji. He glances back at Mingi being shoved into the squad car and back to Hayun but says nothing, simply resting a hand on her shoulder.

The car door slams, muffling Mingi’s threats, and the crowd begins to thin. Jisung shakes his head, a mix of disbelief and shock flickering across his face. “I can’t believe he killed Yuna,” he mutters, running a hand through his hair. “If he’s claiming he’s been framed, that means they found evidence that he actually did it, right?”

Chan nods slowly, eyes trained on the departing police car. “I assume so, I mean the officer said he's facing a murder charge, they can't slap that on someone without proof, solid proof"

Felix exhales, his jaw set as he watches the car pull away. “Good fucking riddance.”

Minho’s gaze lands on Hayun, who’s staring at the scene with an unreadable expression, her face blank, as if every ounce of emotion has been sealed behind an invisible wall. He shifts his gaze between her, then Ryujin and Yeji, catching the subtle satisfaction on their faces. He’s sharp enough to connect the dots, but he doesn’t voice his suspicions. Instead, he tightens his hand on her shoulder, a silent gesture of reassurance.

Hayun’s eyes don’t leave the police car, even as it rounds the corner and vanishes from sight. Her voice, quiet and steady, finally breaks the silence. “It’s over.”

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[inhurtandincomfort]

A Night to Regret

CW: Kidnapping, abusive relationship

“Hey babe,” Kieran answered his phone with a grin, “Yeah, I’m on my way back now. Guess what? I’ve got a job!” 

“Really? That’s amazing!” He pulled it back from his ear as Abigail squealed, “What is it?” 

“It’s a short film, an original horror I think. I don’t know all the details, Kate said she’d email them to me first thing Monday. It’s a student film, but they’ve done quite a few popular ones.” 

“You know what this means? Celebration! We should invite Mike and Lisa, I’ll see if Cameron’s free too, and Jaysen, though I think he’s busy…”

Kieran laughed softly, “Is that really necessary? I was thinking we could just have a quiet night in, just the two of us.”  

“We do that all the time! Come on, we haven’t had a get together in ages. It’ll be fun. We’ll order pizza, and if you pick up some drinks on your way home… ooh, make sure you get some of that beer I like.”  “Since when did this become about you?” 

“I’ll pay for everything!” 

He smiled even though she couldn’t see it. “I got it, don’t worry. You order some pizzas, I’ll be home soon. I love you.” 

“Love you!”

Kieran slid his phone into his pocket, making a u-turn to head towards their favoured liquor store. He shivered, hugging himself as he walked down the quiet street. Strange, to be so quiet on a Saturday evening; it was freezing, he reasoned. It wasn’t that late, but the sun set early this time of year and a starless sky made the frigid air seem bleak. Still, deserted streets always held an eerie feeling. Though they weren’t completely empty, he only saw an occasional passerby in thick coats, scarves weaved around their faces. Man, he should have brought a scarf; his lips were probably turning blue. 

A small, childish part of him wished he had stayed talking with Abigail. Past every alley, every covered stranger, a chill crept up his spine that had nothing to do with the weather. He considered calling her back. She was probably calling their friends though. You’re worrying over nothing, he scolded himself. He was a grown-ass man, he could handle walking down a street himself, the same route he’d taken many times before. Alone. In the dark. 

Abigail kept telling him he should ask his doctor about anxiety meds. Maybe she was right. 

He was relieved when he made it to the store, offering him a brief respite. There was only one other customer who seemed to be studying two bottles intently. Kieran made his purchase, making easy small talk with the grizzled cashier trying to ignore his stomach twisting in knots.

He rubbed his hands together in an attempt to get warm, an awkward motion carrying bags of glass bottles. He hummed to himself as he walked, a cheesy romance he hoped would stave off anxious thoughts. He glanced behind. A couple of men were trailing at a steady pace, scarves concealing their faces. He turned back to face forward, his pace quickening just slightly. People are allowed to walk behind you, Kieran. He told himself firmly. Learning to face your fears is an important part of recovery. Don’t let anxiety control you. 

…But he’d also been taught to follow his instincts. What was he supposed to do when every gut feeling told him to run? 

He considered stopping to let them pass. Would that just make him seem suspicious? It would probably be weird. Home wasn’t far, he’d be there soon. A black car with tinted windows was parked up ahead. Had it ever been there before? He shook his head. Paranoid. He’s just paranoid. Lukas had always said so. It was hardly an unusual car, it’s no surprise he’d never noticed it. And people were allowed to visit.

Still, as he got closer his shoulders hunched, blood rushing in his ears. His stomach cramped, tightening painfully as every signal in his body rang wrong, wrong, wrong. Something was wrong. He halted in his tracks, willing himself to move, his body frozen as his mind raced, every alarm bell screaming go back, go back, danger danger dangerdanger-

A heavy weight slung around his shoulders drawing him in. He opened his mouth to yell, a gloved hand silencing him. Something hard pressed into his back, small and rounded and fuck, this wasn’t happening, this couldn’t be happening-

“Don’t make a sound,” A gruff voice whispered, a voice that didn’t sound natural. They were trying to disguise it. “Come with us quietly, and there won’t be any problems.” 

Kieran nodded numbly, his heart hammering against his chest. With a small nudge from whoever stood behind, with a gun did they have a gun please say that’s not a gun he was bundled into the black car where someone was already waiting to drive away. Two men sat either side of him, blocking every exit.

“Head down,” One commanded, shoving his head to his knees before he even had a chance to do so himself. His shopping bag was placed by their feet. They’d probably take the drinks for themselves. They took his phone too, along with his wallet leaving him with no form of identification. 

“Who are you?” Kieran dared to ask, his voice trembling. “Where are we going?”

“Shut up.” 

They were going to kill him. Oh god, he was going to be murdered, his body thrown in a woods somewhere or a lake or burned and oh god. Would they ever find him? Would his mother get to bury him? What about Abi, would she blame herself? How long would it take her to grow concerned? Was she already pacing around anxiously, wringing her hands, waiting for him to come home?

When they were out of city limits, they pushed him to the floor, wrapping cloth around his eyes, binding his wrists and ankles with duct tape which they also placed over his mouth. They must have driven for miles. He was transferred to another vehicle at some point, open conversations taking place in a language he couldn’t understand. Occasionally they’d rip the tape off to pour water down his throat. He fell asleep at one point, he thought. It was all a haze, fuzzy memories leaving him unable to distinguish what’s real and what is fake. 

Next thing he knew he was being roughly dragged outside, mud staining his clothes as  he was thrown to the floor. 

“Good to see you again, Angel.” 

Kieran stilled, every hair on his neck stood on end, his heart leapt to his throat. He thought it might just stop. 

“What? Cat got your tongue?” Lukas jeered, his honeyed voice washed over Kieran like acid. The blindfold was yanked off his face, letting him look up to a man he wished he’d forgotten. 

Calloused fingers cupped his cheek tenderly, bronze eyes filled with such gentle warmth met his own. He used to melt under that same gaze, putty in his hands. He would have done anything to please him, debased himself in so many ways just to see those soft eyes look at him once more. 

Now they just filled him with fear. 

“It’s been so long, hasn’t it Angel? Were you afraid you wouldn't see me again? I was beside myself. I couldn’t close my eyes without seeing your face, haunting me like an enthralling ghost. I didn’t know what to do, I was so lost without you.” Lukas grabbed Kierans face in both hands, leaning in so close their noses almost touched, staring deep into his eyes in a way that made his skin crawl. This couldn’t be happening. This had to be some horrible nightmare, he was gone, he got out, he fled across half the country just to be safe and it wasn’t enough. He wanted to scream, wanted to yell, wanted to kick and scratch and do anything that would get him out of here, anything to never be trapped with this monster again. 

But his limbs were bound, his mouth stuffed full of cloth. Even if they weren’t, he wasn’t sure he was capable of it. He’d never fought back then. He hadn’t changed at all, not really. He was still the same meek figure he’d been back then. 

“You should never have left me Angel,” Lukas breathed, his breath hot on his face. “You’ll never leave me again.”

If you enjoyed please consider reblogging, it really helps the reach and lets others enjoy it too!

Being kidnapped by your abusive ex is bad enough - even worse is Lukas needs to make money. How will he do that? Hurting his Angel on camera, of course <3

[movingmusically]

Caught Feeling - Chapter 14

Synopsis:

The morning after Hank’s confessions, Y/N senses a shift in their relationship, both strengthened and delicately altered by what he’s shared. They indulge in a day cocooned from the world, wrapped in quiet intimacy. As they rediscover each other’s touch, the bond between them feels stronger than ever, leaving Y/N basking in a newfound closeness she hadn’t anticipated.

Word count: 8,617

Masterlist

The morning light filtered softly through the blinds, casting gentle, fragmented patterns on the walls. I lay there, tangled in sheets and silence, my mind still retracing the lines of Hank’s confessions from last night. Every word, every hesitant glance, each rough-edged moment had settled into me like pebbles dropped into a pond, creating ripples I couldn’t still. Each memory hovered just beneath the surface, stirring emotions I was only beginning to name.

It wasn’t like Hank to share things so openly—not like this. He’d built his own fortress over the years, thick walls crafted from unspoken hurts and old wounds, carefully fortified and guarded. But last night, he’d let me glimpse beyond them, allowing me to see the scarred pieces he usually kept locked away. Piece by piece, he’d handed me parts of himself that felt weathered and raw. I wanted to believe that sharing his past had lifted a weight from him, that he felt lighter now, freed somehow. But the way he’d held me after—the tightness, the quiet—made me wonder if he felt exposed rather than unburdened, as though he’d given away something he didn’t know if he could ever take back.

His secrets now lived in the space between us, shifting the fragile foundation we’d built into something both stronger and shakier all at once. I could feel the weight of them pressing into the silence, settling in the creases of the sheets, sinking into my own heart. It felt as if we’d crossed some invisible line, leaving the easy familiarity of before behind us. And yet, the warmth of his body next to mine, his steady breathing, the feel of his hand still wrapped around mine—it all grounded me, a quiet reminder that whatever this was, we were in it together.

Eventually, he stirred, blinking slowly as he adjusted to the morning light. For a moment, he looked at me, his gaze still carrying the shadows of last night, the memories still close enough to feel in the early morning quiet. There was a vulnerability there, a quiet hesitance that made me realise he was still trying to piece everything together, still finding his way back from the place he’d allowed himself to go.

“Didn’t think I’d sleep at all after…all that,” he murmured, a soft, uncertain smile tugging at his lips. “Guess I was wrong.”

I returned his smile, feeling a familiar warmth in my chest, something reassuring in the simple honesty of his words. “Maybe that’s a good thing. Sometimes…letting it out is what we need most, even if it doesn’t feel that way at first.”

He nodded, his gaze lowering for a moment as if considering, his fingers tightening slightly around mine before he looked up again, his eyes meeting mine with an intensity softened by a hint of doubt. “Feels strange, though. Like…I handed you all these pieces and don’t know how to put them back together.”

“You don’t have to, not alone,” I replied gently, my hand resting between us in the space that felt both close and infinite. “I’m here. For all of it.”

He gave me a look that held a thousand unspoken words—gratitude, fear, maybe a flicker of relief. For a few heartbeats, we just stayed like that, searching each other’s faces, and I could feel the distance between us shrinking, inch by inch. There was something in the way he looked at me—like he was seeing parts of me even I hadn’t fully discovered yet. It was terrifying and thrilling all at once.

His fingers brushed lightly against mine, his touch tentative but steadying, as though testing the reality of it all. In sleep, he’d looked almost boyish, the weight of his past hidden away. Now, in the light of day, he seemed both softer and stronger, as though the openness from last night had reshaped him in some unnameable way, something both fragile and enduring.

Without thinking, I let my hand move, reaching out to gently trace the curve of his eyebrow, feeling the warmth of his skin beneath my fingertips. His eyes softened, his breathing slowing as if settling into the quiet rhythm between us. He didn’t move, letting me take the lead. My fingers drifted down, following the line of his cheekbone and along his jaw, where rough stubble met the softness of his skin. The feeling was familiar but electric, each touch revealing something new, something I hadn’t noticed before, like he’d always been waiting for me to look closer.

A few stray strands of hair had fallen across his temple, softening his usually sharp features. I reached up, hesitating for just a second before tucking the hair back behind his ear, the gesture so natural it felt like breathing. It was something he’d done for me countless times, a quiet intimacy that now felt strangely reverent with the roles reversed.

He looked at me with an openness I wasn’t used to, something soft and vulnerable lingering in his eyes, and my heart clenched with a mix of emotions I couldn’t quite name. Slowly, tentatively, I leaned forward, letting my lips press gently against a faint freckle on his cheek, feeling him exhale softly as if even that small touch lifted something from him, letting him know he was seen, he was safe.

I kissed each tiny mark, tracing an invisible path across his skin, each kiss a silent promise, a quiet assurance that I was here, that he didn’t have to put himself back together alone. When I pulled back, his eyes held a warmth that felt like sunrise, steady and reassuring, a look that said he knew I meant every word I’d promised.

And as we lay there, tangled in each other and the soft light of the morning, I knew we had something real. Something worth holding onto.

Hank shifted slightly, his arm tightening around me as he settled into the quiet comfort between us. His voice was soft, still thick with sleep, as he murmured, “I don’t have to be back at work until Monday night. So…looks like we’ve got the whole weekend together.”

A warmth spread through me, gentle but thrilling, as I met his gaze. The thought of having him all to myself for two whole days felt both rare and perfect. I leaned into him, closing the small distance between us, my fingers brushing lightly over his as I let the quiet anticipation settle around us.

For a moment, neither of us moved, simply soaking in the closeness. His thumb stroked a soft, idle pattern on the back of my hand, a touch that felt like a silent promise. I brought our entwined hands up to my lips, pressing a gentle kiss to his knuckles, my eyes meeting his with a soft smile.

“Bud’s probably wondering why breakfast is late,” I said softly. “Stay here,” he murmured, his voice low and warm, as though he couldn’t bear the thought of even a brief separation. His fingers tightened around mine, a gentle but insistent pull that made me want to sink back into him completely.

I smiled, lingering just a heartbeat longer, and then shook my head with a playful sigh. “I’ll only be a minute. Bud needs me too.” I slipped out of his arms, feeling his reluctant release as I slid out of bed. He groaned playfully, flopping back onto the pillow, but his eyes followed me, a warm, sleepy gaze that made me want to hurry through the task just to return.

I padded to the kitchen, where Bud waited with a patient stare, rubbing against my leg as I filled his bowl. “Alright, big guy,” I murmured, stroking his head before setting his food down. He purred contentedly, and I couldn’t help but smile at his simplicity—the straightforward needs of a cat, so different from the tangled emotions swirling between Hank and me.

The second I returned to the bedroom, I felt the pull of his presence, something soft and magnetic. Hank had shifted, lying on his side, arm outstretched in invitation. I climbed back into bed, and he wrapped himself around me, pulling me close until I fit perfectly against him, my back to his chest, his arm draped over mine.

We lay there, bodies pressed together, warm and secure. His fingers intertwined with mine, holding gently, his thumb tracing lazy circles on the back of my hand. I could feel his breath against my neck, each soft exhale centring me, drawing me deeper into the quiet intimacy of the moment.

“This,” he murmured, his lips close to my ear, “this is all I need.”

I smiled, closing my eyes as I settled into his embrace, letting myself be completely held. The weight of his arm across me, the warmth of his skin against mine—it felt like a kind of trust, a silent promise that didn’t need words. I nestled closer, feeling his steady heartbeat against my back, a rhythm that seemed to match mine, syncing us in a way that felt new and yet completely natural.

Neither of us spoke for a while, letting the silence carry us, content just to be close. The world outside felt distant, unimportant, as if this bed, this room, was the only place that mattered. His fingers brushed up and down my arm in soothing strokes, and I felt myself relaxing even more, sinking into the softness of the morning.

Eventually, he whispered, “I could stay like this forever.”

“Then don’t move,” I whispered back, a smile playing at my lips.

His hold tightened just a little, as though he wanted to anchor me here, to keep me in this moment with him. I felt his lips press a soft kiss to my shoulder, the touch featherlight but filled with so much warmth that it made my heart ache in the best way. In the stillness, there was a tenderness that made time feel irrelevant, and as we lay there, I knew this was a memory we’d both hold onto—a morning where the world felt far away, and we had nothing but time.

Time passed in a quiet blur, marked only by the steady rise and fall of our breathing, the faint sounds of the world just beginning to stir outside. Every now and then, his hand would shift, fingers grazing my arm or drawing small, aimless patterns along my skin, as though he wanted to memorise the feel of me, of this moment.

At one point, he shifted slightly, resting his chin gently atop my head. “I don’t think I’ve ever done this before,” he murmured, the vulnerability in his voice pulling at something deep within me.

“Done what?” I asked softly, letting my hand cover his where it lay draped over me.

“Just…lay here. Doing nothing. Letting it be enough,” he said, a quiet wonder in his voice, as though the simplicity of it both puzzled and amazed him.

A soft smile curved my lips, and I turned just enough to catch his gaze, my eyes reflecting everything I couldn’t quite put into words. “Then let it be enough, just this once.”

He held my gaze, his fingers lacing with mine as he drew me back against him, his arm wrapping around me with a gentle but steady hold. I felt his chest press warmly to my back, his breath brushing against my neck in a way that felt intimate and safe, as if he was anchoring me to this moment.

Slowly, I turned my head just enough to close the distance, my lips finding his in a kiss that was soft and steady. His hand tightened around mine, and I could feel the warmth of his smile against my mouth, a quiet reassurance that we both felt the same pull. His thumb brushed gently over my knuckles, the movement small but filled with so much tenderness it made my heart ache.

When we finally pulled back, he nestled his face into the curve of my shoulder, pressing a light kiss to the back of my neck. The simple gesture sent a shiver through me, anchoring me deeper in the closeness we shared, with no need for words or explanations.

He pulled me even closer, his arm tightening around my waist, our fingers still intertwined. His hand rested just over my heart, where he could feel each steady beat, matching his own. In his embrace, I felt completely safe, as if time had slowed to give us these rare, unhurried moments of peace.

The world outside became a distant hum, unimportant and quiet, as though it had taken a step back, giving us the space to just…be. In the warmth of his arms, I felt my eyes grow heavy, lulled by the steady rhythm of his breath, and I let myself drift back to sleep, content and weightless, held in a moment that felt endless.

As I stirred awake, the morning light was still soft, casting warm hues over the room. Hank’s arm was wrapped securely around me, his chest pressed against my back, a comforting weight that kept the outside world at bay. I lay there, sinking into the feel of him, the quiet intimacy settling in my bones.

A slight movement from him brought me back into awareness, his fingers tracing gentle circles on my stomach. I shifted slightly, and his arm tightened around me, his touch becoming more deliberate. His breath, warm against my neck, sent a shiver through me, and my lips parted in a soft exhale as he brushed a tender kiss along the curve of my shoulder.

I felt him then, his arousal pressing against me, solid and real, and instinctively, I pressed back into him. He responded with a low murmur, his hand sliding up my side, fingertips grazing my skin as though he was memorising every inch. He continued his slow, reverent kisses along my shoulder, up to the base of my neck, his mouth lingering, each press of his lips soft but loaded with intent.

My pulse quickened as his hand moved higher, grazing the side of my breast. His fingers brushed my skin with a gentleness that made me ache, his touch unhurried, as though he wanted to savour every moment. I leaned back into him, letting myself be held, feeling the steady beat of his heart against my back, our breaths syncing in a quiet rhythm.

Hank’s hand moved over my breast, his palm warm as he cupped me gently, his thumb ghosting slow circles over my nipple, which hardened instantly under his touch. I closed my eyes, absorbing the sensations as a soft moan escaped my lips, my hand finding his, lacing our fingers together as he continued his slow exploration.

He pressed another kiss to my shoulder, his mouth soft, lingering there as if he was pouring every unspoken feeling into that touch. His other hand drifted lower, slipping over my hip, his touch light but intentional as he guided my leg forward, opening me to him. My breath caught as I felt him adjust behind me, the unmistakable press of him against me, filling me with anticipation.

Slowly, I reached down, my fingers trailing along my body until they found his, and together, they guided him into place. I felt the warmth of him, the promise of his body ready to join mine, and a thrill ran through me as my fingers brushed both my own heat and his hardness at the same time. I lingered there, touching myself while feeling him, the dual sensation heightening the intimacy of the moment.

Hank moved slowly, his hands steadying my hips as he eased himself forward, filling me inch by inch, his breath a warm whisper against my neck. We moved together in a rhythm that felt as natural as breathing, my body adjusting to his, meeting him with a softness that felt both tender and grounding. His fingers continued their slow circles on my skin, reassuring, each touch a silent promise.

My hand found his at my waist, and I entwined our fingers, holding on as he moved within me, his thrusts slow and deep, as though he wanted to savour every second of our connection. I leaned back, letting myself feel him fully, feel the reaffirming way he held me, the way he moved with me as if this was exactly where he belonged.

We stayed wrapped in that gentle, unhurried pace, our breaths and heartbeats becoming one, our bodies speaking all the words we didn’t need to say. I reached back, running my fingers through his hair, pulling him closer until I felt his lips against my shoulder again, pressing kisses that felt reverent, anchoring.

With each slow, deep thrust, I felt myself surrendering more to the rhythm we’d built between us, each movement drawing me closer to him. His hand drifted to my hip, gripping me firmly, pulling me to him as he pressed himself deeper, filling me in a way that felt like he was leaving a part of himself with every motion.

A soft, needy sound escaped my lips, and in response, he tightened his hold on my hip, pulling me closer still, pressing his mouth to the curve of my neck. I could feel his breath, warm and heavy, before his lips found my skin, grazing and then pressing, a kiss that lingered and grew into something more. His mouth worked softly at first, but as his teeth grazed and his lips closed around my skin, I knew he was marking me, leaving something behind that felt like both a claim and a promise.

Ordinarily, I’d shy away from something so visible, but now, wrapped in the warmth of his arms, I wanted it—I wanted him to leave a trace of himself on me, something to carry with me beyond this moment. I tilted my head slightly, offering him more of my neck, feeling a thrill run through me as his mouth pressed harder, drawing a soft moan from me, his mark imprinted on my skin in a way that felt both possessive and tender.

My hand drifted down, fingers finding the heat between my legs, touching myself with a gentle, circling motion, heightening each sensation as his body moved in sync with mine. I felt the rush of warmth build under my fingertips, every touch sending ripples of pleasure through me. My hand slid further down, fingers brushing over where he entered me, feeling the firm, steady rhythm of him moving in and out, a connection that felt so profoundly intimate it made my breath hitch.

Hank’s grip on my hip tightened, his rhythm growing just a fraction deeper, each thrust deliberate and affirming, as though he wanted to imprint this moment on both of us. My breathing quickened, and I pressed my fingers harder against myself, the pleasure building into something urgent, something I couldn’t hold back.

I could feel him tense behind me, his breath heavy and uneven against my neck, his mouth still grazing the mark he’d left, his hand tightening on my hip as if to steady himself. The sounds he made, soft and barely restrained, were like a whisper of everything we felt but didn’t need to say. And as my body moved closer to release, he matched each movement, guiding me there with him, his every touch a promise that he was right there, holding me, carrying me through.

I felt the wave crest, my body clenching around him, my hand pressing harder as I spiralled into release, a soft cry escaping my lips as he held me, his grip on my hip steadying me, his mouth pressed to my neck, murmuring words I couldn’t quite catch but that only drew me deeper into the moment.

As I trembled in his arms, I felt him reach his own edge, his hold on me tightening as he let go, his body shuddering against mine, his hand still holding me close, as though he never wanted to let go. We stayed like that, entwined and connected, our breaths slowly finding a rhythm again as we came down, tangled together in the quiet aftermath of our shared release.

A gentle stillness settled around us as our breaths began to slow, the warmth of his body enveloping me like a blanket that felt both secure and freeing. His hand, still wrapped around my waist, softened its grip, fingers tracing soothing patterns over my skin as if to reassure me that he was here, that he wasn’t going anywhere. I nestled back into him, letting the remnants of our connection linger, my body still humming with the aftershocks of our closeness.

Hank pressed a soft kiss to my shoulder, a silent thank you, a reminder that every moment we’d shared was as real for him as it was for me. His lips lingered, trailing up to the mark he’d left on my neck, and he touched it with his thumb, a small, almost reverent gesture that sent a shiver through me despite the calmness between us.

I smiled, reaching up to cover his hand with mine, our fingers interlocking. “Guess I’ll be wearing a scarf for the next few days,” I murmured with a soft laugh, the warmth of his touch still fresh against my skin.

He chuckled, his breath a warm whisper against my ear. “Good. That way, you’ll have a reminder… of this,” he replied, his voice quiet but full of meaning. “Of us.”

The weight of his words settled over me, comforting and exhilarating all at once. I squeezed his hand, letting the silence speak for us, because words felt unnecessary, almost too small for the magnitude of what I was feeling.

We lay there like that for a while, our bodies entangled, our hearts still beating in sync. The world outside was still distant, and there was a peacefulness in the quiet rhythm of our breathing, as though time itself had slowed, allowing us to savour this fragile, beautiful moment.

Eventually, Hank’s fingers began a lazy, comforting stroke along my arm, tracing an invisible line up and down, each touch calming and centring. He rested his chin gently on my shoulder, his presence a steady warmth that felt like home.

“What do you want to do today?” he asked softly, his voice warm, carrying a hint of curiosity but mostly a willingness to simply be wherever I wanted to be.

I tilted my head back to catch his gaze, smiling. “I kind of just want to stay right here…with you.”

He smiled, his eyes softening, and he pressed a tender kiss to my temple. “That sounds perfect to me.”

We stayed wrapped up in each other for a while longer, drifting in and out of quiet conversation, his arm draped over me, fingers tracing small circles along my back. At one point, I shifted to face him, nestling into the curve of his shoulder, my hand resting against his chest, feeling the steady beat of his heart under my fingertips. The morning felt soft, untouched by any need to move or be anywhere but here.

A sudden pounce on the bed signalled Bud’s arrival. He nestled himself right between us, his small body curling into the gap as though he, too, wanted to be part of our little world. I laughed, reaching out to scratch behind his ears, and Hank’s fingers brushed over mine as he joined in, both of us petting Bud until his purring filled the room, a soft, steady hum that seemed to lull us all back into a comfortable quiet.

Eventually, a thirst for water made it impossible to stay cocooned in bed any longer. With a soft sigh, I slid out from under the blankets, grabbing his T-shirt from the floor and slipping it on, the fabric hanging loose around me, warm from the feel of him. Hank stretched, rolling onto his back, his gaze following me with a lazy warmth.

“Come on,” I murmured, smiling over my shoulder as I padded to the kitchen.

He pulled on his boxers and followed me, tousled and unhurried, his hand grazing my waist as we reached the kitchen. I filled two glasses with cold water, passing one to him, both of us taking long sips, feeling the refreshing coolness spread through us after the warmth of bed.

“Stay here. I’ll make us something,” I murmured, flashing him a soft smile as I reached for the ingredients.

He settled into one of the kitchen chairs, looking completely at ease, his gaze following me with an unguarded affection that sent a warm flush through me. Moving around the kitchen in his T-shirt, I felt a strange comfort and intimacy, as if the shirt itself were an extension of him, wrapping me in his presence.

I grabbed the waffle iron and the ingredients, quickly mixing up the batter. His eyes stayed on me as I worked, the shirt skimming my thighs. I poured the batter, watching the steam rise as the waffles cooked, filling the kitchen with a cosy warmth and the familiar scent of maple syrup.

A few minutes later, I plated the waffles, drizzling them with warm maple syrup, and handed him a plate. His eyes lit up, and he wasted no time digging in, a soft groan of appreciation escaping as he took his first bite.

“These are… amazing,” he said between bites, looking up at me with a grin that made my heart flutter. “You’re holding out on some serious waffle skills.”

I laughed, taking a seat across from him with my own plate. “Just something I picked up along the way.”

We ate in companionable silence, each bite filling and warm, the simple act of sharing a meal keeping us rooted in the moment. I sipped my orange juice, watching him polish off his waffles and then down his water, a content expression settling over his features. He looked satisfied, relaxed in a way I didn’t often see, his gaze drifting out the window where the Hudson stretched in the distance, the city calm beneath the late morning light.

Leaning back in my chair, I propped my feet up on the table’s edge, letting the moment linger. His shirt had slipped a little higher on my thigh, and I noticed his eyes catch on the bare skin exposed there, a flicker of heat in his gaze as he realised I wasn’t wearing anything underneath. A quiet thrill moved through me, the awareness between us simmering just beneath the surface.

I raised an eyebrow, a small, teasing smile playing on my lips. “See something you like?”

His eyes met mine, that warmth deepening. “More than a few things,” he replied, his voice a touch rough, the hint of a smirk tugging at his mouth. He reached across the table, his fingers brushing mine, a simple touch that felt both grounding and electric.

Without breaking eye contact, he moved his hand lower, fingers gently curling around my ankle. He held it with a gentleness that belied the intensity in his gaze, his thumb brushing soft circles against my skin. Slowly, he lifted my foot, pressing a soft kiss to my ankle, his lips warm against the delicate skin. I shivered, feeling the warmth spread up my leg, the thrill of anticipation building as he took his time, each kiss a deliberate, gentle exploration.

He didn’t rush, his mouth tracing a slow, teasing path up my calf, his eyes lifting every so often to catch my gaze, a spark of mischief and intent flickering there. As he reached my knee, he lowered my foot to the ground, but instead of rising, he slid off his chair, sinking down onto his knees in front of me. My breath hitched, heart beating a little faster as he settled himself between my legs, his hands gliding up my thighs with a quiet reverence.

His lips brushed against the inside of my knee, featherlight, lingering there as if he was savouring the feel of my skin under his mouth. I leaned back, feeling my pulse quicken, my body responding to each touch, every careful kiss. Slowly, he worked his way up my thigh, his mouth tracing a path that was both tender and teasing, each touch building the anticipation, stoking the quiet, simmering heat between us.

As he reached the sensitive skin of my inner thigh, his hands tightened their hold, anchoring me, keeping me steady as his mouth moved closer to the ache that had been building with every kiss, every glance. His gaze lifted once more, and the intensity there made my breath catch, a wordless promise that sent a thrill through me.

With a firm yet gentle pull, he drew me forward until I was perched at the very edge of the chair, his hands drifting over my knees, coaxing my legs wider as he settled even closer. His lips continued their path, pressing soft, open-mouthed kisses along the sensitive skin near the apex of my thigh, the heat of his breath making my head spin. My fingers gripped the edge of the chair, anticipation thrumming through my veins as I watched him, feeling completely vulnerable and yet utterly safe under his steady gaze.

When his mouth reached the soft skin just below my hip, he paused, his breath hot and steady against me. My pulse raced, each beat building the anticipation until it felt like every nerve was focused solely on him. I watched as he lifted my legs, draping them over his shoulders, his hands gripping my thighs to hold me in place. The feel of his hands, firm and reassuring, paired with the intense gaze he held me with, sent a shiver through me that only deepened the ache pooling low in my belly.

Then, without further hesitation, his mouth found me. His lips pressed against my most sensitive spot, warm and gentle at first, a slow, deliberate kiss that drew a breathless gasp from me. His tongue traced a soft, teasing path, each movement controlled, unhurried, exploring me with a reverence that made my skin tingle. The sensation was overwhelming, every nerve ending alight under his careful attention.

A soft, satisfied hum escaped him, vibrating against me, and I felt a rush of warmth at the sound, knowing my reaction stirred something deep in him. He continued with a steady rhythm, his tongue circling, pressing, coaxing me closer with each pass. My fingers slipped into his hair, gripping as he deepened his touch, his mouth working against me in a way that was both skilled and achingly tender. The pressure built slowly, a delicious intensity that had me shifting in his hold, my breath coming in shallow, uneven gasps.

His hands tightened around my thighs, anchoring me as he adjusted slightly, pressing his mouth harder against me, his tongue and lips moving with an intensity that left me breathless. My back arched, a soft moan escaping as he found a perfect rhythm, the sensation so consuming it felt as though I could dissolve into it. My hands slid down, one gripping his shoulder, the other resting on his forearm, needing to hold onto something as he continued, each movement deliberate, thorough.

He responded with a low groan, his movements growing just a bit more focused, as though my sounds guided him. His breath, warm and uneven, washed over me with every shift, and I could feel him responding to every tremor, every gasp that escaped my lips.

His hands flexed on my thighs as he sensed my body tightening, my breathing growing shallow and quick. He pulled me even closer, the soft sounds of his pleasure blending with mine, a quiet harmony that only heightened the closeness between us. Each noise he made felt like an affirmation, a gentle promise that he was as affected as I was, completely in sync.

My back lifted off the chair as his tongue worked against me, swirling and pressing with unrelenting precision. Each deliberate movement drew me tighter, a desperate sound escaping as he pulled me closer to the edge, every flick and swirl so consuming it was as if he was unraveling me one touch at a time.

He seemed to sense the exact moment when the pleasure crested, his movements coaxing me over the edge with a precision that felt both gentle and powerful. I shuddered, my body arching as a wave of pleasure washed over me, his mouth still moving, guiding me through each tremor, grounding me in his hold. The world blurred, my senses overwhelmed, every touch, every kiss, every whisper of breath blending into a symphony of sensation.

When I opened my eyes, he was gazing up at me, a warm, satisfied smile on his face. He leaned forward, pressing a gentle kiss to my thigh before he lowered my legs from his shoulders, his hands still warm and reassuring on my hips. Rising slowly, he brought his face close to mine, his thumb brushing softly over my cheek as he looked at me with that familiar, tender intensity.

“Beautiful,” he murmured, his voice low, filled with a quiet reverence that made my heart flutter.

I wrapped my arms around his neck, pulling him closer, leaning in to capture his lips in a kiss that was soft and tender, a quiet echo of everything we’d shared. The taste of me lingered on his lips, a reminder of the closeness we’d just experienced, the quiet intimacy that bound us together in a way that felt deeper, more profound than words could capture.

Our kiss deepened, growing slower and softer, the kind of kiss that felt like sinking into something warm and familiar. But as our smiles began to creep in, it became harder to keep up the rhythm. My lips curled against his, and I could feel his mouth twitching with his own grin, the playfulness bubbling up between us. Then, just as we leaned in again, our teeth knocked together with a soft, awkward clink. We both froze, then burst out laughing, the sound filling the room as I pulled back, covering my mouth.

He raised an eyebrow, still grinning, his hand resting lightly on my waist. “Guess we’re not as smooth as we thought,” he murmured, his own laughter softening into a warm, amused smile.

I bit my lip, feeling a blush spread over my cheeks. “I just… I feel like a horny teenager,” I admitted, laughing softly.

He chuckled, eyes glinting with mischief. “Come on,” he said, grabbing my hand and leading me back toward the bed. “If we’re going to feel like teenagers, we might as well do it somewhere comfortable.”

We settled back onto the bed, lying side by side, limbs entangled as we caught our breath. After a moment, I looked at him thoughtfully, imagining a teenage version of Hank. “You must’ve had girls lining up for you,” I said, a teasing smile pulling at my lips. “Tall, athletic, funny… you probably had half the school crushing on you.”

He laughed, shaking his head. “Believe it or not, I had my awkward phase too. Gangly, too many freckles, braces—the whole package.”

I tried to picture it but struggled to imagine him anything but effortlessly charming. “Still, I bet you outgrew it fast.”

He shrugged, a sheepish grin forming. “Maybe… but I still wasn’t exactly Mr. Popular.” His gaze softened, turning curious. “What about you? I bet you were the cute, mysterious girl everyone wanted to know more about.”

I shrugged. “More like invisible, honestly. I had friends, but… no one ever really saw me as more than that. I was quieter than the other girls who were… you know, bubbly, a little louder. It didn’t really stand out.”

Hank tilted his head, studying me. “I would’ve liked you. It’s always the quiet ones, you know.” His voice was gentle, sincere, and for a moment, I felt a soft warmth spread through me.

I smiled, reaching for his hand. “Alright, so tell me—when was your first kiss?”

He grinned, leaning back as he thought about it. “I was twelve. My first date, believe it or not—my mum actually dropped us off at the movies. I remember sharing popcorn, all nerves and sweaty palms, and then… about halfway through, I made my move. Leaned over and just… kissed her.”

I grinned, picturing him as an eager twelve-year-old, nervously going in for that first kiss. “Bold. I’m impressed.”

“And what about you?” he asked, turning the tables.

I sighed, already cringing at the memory. “I was fourteen, it was at this under-16s event at a local club. They had a DJ, dance floor, the whole vibe—just no alcohol, obviously. Anyway, I spotted a cute guy, and my friend, bless her, decided to play matchmaker. She ran over to tell him I thought he was cute. I was mortified.”

Hank’s laughter echoed around the room, and I joined in, the memory both embarrassing and oddly endearing in hindsight.

“So, what happened?” he pressed, clearly invested.

“Well, he just came over and planted one on me. No ‘hi,’ no conversation. Just… straight in, and it was… awful,” I said, wincing. “Way too much tongue, sooooo sloppy. I pushed him away and went back to my friends. Never found out his name, never saw him again.”

Hank laughed, shaking his head. “Alright, I think that wins for worst first kiss. You didn’t even get his name?”

“Nope.” I smiled, shrugging. “A true mystery man. Didn’t matter though—no one else even looked my way until college.”

He leaned in, brushing a gentle kiss along my temple. “Their loss,” he murmured, and the simplicity of his words left a warmth lingering between us, settling deeper than I expected.

We lay there, tangled up in each other, sharing old memories and quiet laughter, each story revealing a little more of who we’d once been and the path that led us here. And as the early afternoon light shifted softly across the room, I realised these moments—these quiet, unguarded glimpses—were exactly what I’d been hoping to find.

We stayed curled up in bed, limbs entwined, the warmth of his body melding with mine as the hours slipped by, unnoticed. We shared more stories, our voices soft in the quiet, the closeness weaving an unspoken connection between us that felt both thrilling and achingly real. Hank’s fingers moved gently along my arm as he listened, his gaze attentive, as though every word mattered. And with each memory, every laugh, we sank deeper into a shared intimacy that felt as natural as breathing.

When words gave way to silence, our bodies took over, finding each other in gentle touches and lingering kisses. It was unhurried, a delicate dance that felt equal parts exploration and surrender, as if the only goal was to lose ourselves in the warmth and comfort we’d created together. His hands roamed my skin, fingertips mapping a path that made me shiver, and I found myself memorising the curve of his shoulders, the way his breathing shifted with each soft touch. There was something deeply grounding in the simplicity of it—no rush, no expectations, just the two of us discovering what it meant to truly let someone in.

By the time the sun had begun to dip lower in the sky, casting golden light across the bed, our stomachs reminded us of the real world outside our little cocoon. Hank’s hand slipped down to his phone, pulling up a menu. “Pizza?” he asked, a lazy grin spreading across his face. “Or are you in the mood for something fancier?”

I smiled, nestling closer. “Pizza sounds perfect. Let’s keep it simple.”

He nodded, ordering without missing a beat, as though he knew exactly what toppings I’d choose. When he hung up, he turned back to me, his arm wrapping around my shoulders to pull me close. We lay like that, content in the warmth of each other’s presence, the quiet broken only by the distant hum of the city beyond the window.

When the pizza arrived, we sat cross-legged on the bed, laughing as we devoured each slice. It felt wonderfully normal, like we’d been doing this forever. Hank looked at me over the edge of his slice, a soft, almost hesitant smile on his face.

“So, tomorrow,” he began, tracing patterns in the pizza box with his finger, “I was thinking… we could go to the aquarium? Coney Island, maybe?”

My face lit up at the suggestion. “The aquarium? I haven’t been in years. I’d love that.”

His smile widened, a glimmer of excitement flashing in his eyes. “Good. I thought it might be fun to do something different… and I like the idea of us just… being together.”

I leaned over, brushing a gentle kiss to his cheek. “Perfect. It sounds perfect.”

We lingered there, talking about everything and nothing, spinning plans for tomorrow while sharing quiet glances that said far more than our words.

The evening unfolded in a gentle rhythm, each small moment settling comfortably into the quiet intimacy we’d built together. After we’d shared the last of the pizza, Hank wandered into the kitchen to fetch Bud’s dinner, calling for him with a soft whistle. Bud trotted over, tail high and eyes bright with anticipation. He rubbed against Hank’s leg, giving a low purr as Hank scratched him behind the ears before setting down his bowl. We stood together, watching Bud eat with contented little snuffles, our hands brushing as we leaned against the counter.

There was something deeply satisfying in this simplicity, the way even the smallest routines felt like tiny acts of closeness. Clearing the plates, rinsing them together, and putting away the empty pizza box—all of it took on a new meaning, like we were building a little world just for us, even in these fleeting, everyday moments.

Once the kitchen was tidied, Hank stretched his arms over his head, giving me a sleepy smile as he reached for my hand. “How about a shower before bed?” he suggested, his voice low, carrying that familiar warmth. There was no rush, no urgency—just the simple, comforting idea of sharing the quiet before sleep.

I nodded, letting him lead me to the bathroom, his hand warm around mine. He turned on the shower, adjusting the temperature until the steam curled softly through the air, misting over the mirror and filling the space with a gentle warmth. We stepped in together, letting the water cascade over us, creating a private world where nothing else existed but the soft patter of droplets and the quiet presence of each other.

Hank’s hands moved slowly, almost reverently, as he lathered up the shampoo and began working it gently through my hair. His fingers massaged my scalp with a tenderness that felt both intimate and unassuming, each touch a quiet reminder of his care. I closed my eyes, sinking into the sensation, letting the water and his hands wash away the remnants of the day. He rinsed my hair with a slow, careful touch, his fingers threading through each strand, ensuring that every last bit of shampoo was gone.

When he finished, he turned me gently, pressing a soft kiss to my forehead before I reached for the body wash, mirroring his careful, deliberate touch as I lathered his shoulders and chest, my hands moving over him with the same unspoken promise.

With each movement, each soft touch, it felt like we were sharing something beyond words, a connection that went deeper than the physical. As I ran my hands over his chest, feeling the steady beat of his heart under my palms, I looked up to find him watching me, his gaze warm and open, his eyes reflecting the quiet understanding that filled the space between us.

When he took the body wash from me, I caught his eye, smiling softly, and he returned the look with a warmth that made my heart flutter. He started with my shoulders, his hands moving in slow, soothing circles, the gentle pressure relaxing every muscle. As he worked his way down my back, his fingers tracing along my spine, I felt the pleasant soreness between my thighs, a lingering reminder of the passion we’d shared earlier in the day.

His gaze fell to the faint hickey he’d left on my neck that morning, a soft blush blooming where his lips had been. He brushed a thumb over it, smiling to himself before his hands continued their path down my body, washing over my hips and stomach with a care that felt almost reverent.

As his hands moved lower, he paused, his touch growing more deliberate as he lathered the body wash over my thighs. When his fingers slipped between my legs, his touch was gentle, his fingers moving in slow, tender circles that sent a soft gasp tumbling from my lips. The delicate way he washed over me, his fingers brushing against my folds with careful, unhurried strokes, made me feel seen and cherished in a way that was almost overwhelming.

I opened my eyes to meet his gaze, and in that instant, something shifted between us, a quiet intensity building in the warmth of the water and the softness of his touch. He leaned in, capturing my mouth in a kiss that started soft but deepened quickly, his hands steadying me as I wrapped one leg around his waist, drawing him closer.

He pressed me back against the cool tiles, his body flush against mine, his length hard against my thigh, a promise of everything I already craved. His mouth moved from my lips to the hollow of my throat, lingering over the hickey he’d left earlier, his tongue tracing it slowly before he kissed his way down, each touch igniting a fresh wave of heat beneath my skin.

His hands moved to cup my breasts, his thumbs brushing over my nipples, sending sharp jolts of pleasure through me as he took his time, his mouth following the path of his hands, his kisses trailing down until I was arching into him, breathless and aching. The contrast of his warm, wet mouth against my skin and the cool tile at my back made every sensation sharper, more vivid, as though he were marking every inch of me.

He lifted me slightly, his hands firm on my hips, and I felt him position himself, his cock pressing insistently against me. Slowly, he entered me, inch by inch, filling me with a deliberate slowness that left me gasping, my fingers clutching his shoulders as he pushed deeper. The stretch was intense, a delicious pressure that mingled with the soft ache from earlier, heightening every sensation until I could hardly breathe.

He moved within me with a slow, steady rhythm, his hands gripping my hips as he guided me, each thrust measured, each movement unhurried, as though he wanted to memorise the feel of me. His mouth found mine again, his kisses deep and consuming, the warmth of his tongue meeting mine in a way that mirrored the slow, intimate dance of our bodies.

I reached down, my hand slipping between us to touch my clit, each gentle stroke amplifying the pleasure coursing through me. He felt my touch, a low, guttural sound escaping him as he tightened his hold on me, his pace quickening slightly as I worked myself closer to the edge. His mouth moved back to my neck, his teeth grazing the sensitive skin as his hands pressed my hips firmly against him, our bodies locked in a rhythm that was both tender and fierce.

The pleasure built and built, coiling tight and hot until it finally shattered, my body clenching around him as a wave of release swept over me. I clung to him, lost in the sensation as he held me steady, his movements carrying me through every tremor, every pulse of pleasure. He followed moments later, his grip on my hips tightening as he buried himself deep, a shudder running through him as he let go, our bodies locked together in the warm cocoon of the water.

We stayed like that for a few moments, his forehead resting against mine as we caught our breath, the steady beat of his heart thrumming against my chest, grounding me in the closeness we’d created.

Gently, he set me down, still holding me close as he reached for the thick, fluffy towel nearby. He wrapped it around me with a tenderness that sent a gentle ache through my chest, pressing a soft kiss to my forehead. I reached up to towel off his hair, grinning as he leaned into my touch, his eyes filled with a playful warmth that mirrored my own.

We moved to the sink, brushing our teeth side by side, standing close enough that our arms brushed now and then. I caught his eye in the mirror, and we both smiled, sharing a small, almost childlike amusement at this shared, ordinary moment. It was strange, but standing there with toothpaste foam on our mouths and a sleepy contentment in our eyes felt as intimate as any kiss we’d shared.

I took my time drying my hair, enjoying the lingering warmth of his touch, the softness of the towel around me. When I finally emerged from the bathroom, I found Hank already stretched out on the bed, his breathing deep and even as he’d drifted off, one arm sprawled across the pillow beside him. Bud was curled up near his side, a small ball of fur nestled into the blankets, his tiny body rising and falling in time with Hank’s breaths. The sight filled me with a gentle warmth, a sense of contentment settling over me as I realised how natural this scene felt, like we’d been doing this forever.

I switched off the bathroom light, leaving a soft, dim glow in the room as I climbed into bed. Sliding under the covers, I nestled against Hank’s side, fitting myself into the familiar curve of his body. Even in his sleep, he instinctively shifted, wrapping his arm around me, his hand resting lightly against my back. I could feel the slow, steady beat of his heart under my cheek, a quiet, reassuring rhythm that seemed to sync perfectly with mine.

As I lay there, the events of the day drifted through my mind like scenes in a film—our laughter, the playful teasing, the stories we’d shared, and the warmth of his hand in mine. Each memory felt like a piece of something we were building together, something that felt both fragile and resilient, like the kind of trust that could weather anything.

I turned slightly, pressing a soft kiss to his shoulder, my lips brushing against his warm skin. Bud stirred beside us, curling up a little closer, his purring a gentle hum that filled the quiet, lulling me further into the comfort of the moment. The weight of Hank’s arm over me, the warmth of his body against mine, the soft breaths that filled the room—it all felt like a promise, a silent vow that we were in this together, wherever it might lead.

With a final, sleepy smile, I let myself relax completely, letting the peace of the evening wash over me as I drifted off, cocooned in the warmth of Hank’s embrace and the contentment of a day spent in quiet closeness. And as I closed my eyes, feeling his heartbeat steady under my cheek, I realised that this—this quiet, unassuming closeness—was all I’d ever wanted.

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