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darksturnz · 3 days ago

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† A SINNERS EMBRACE — matthew sturniolo x angel!reader.

SYNOPSIS: Desperate for forgiveness, she stepped into the confession booth, unaware that the very man who was the subject of her dream was on the other side, his ears listening to her confession while his hand was wrapped around his throbbing cock. CONTENTS: heavy religious imagery・semi public masturbation (male!)・perv!matthew・fem!reader・corruption・not proofread WC: 5k

Sunlight streamed through the stained glass windows of St. Mary's Cathedral, casting colorful patterns across the polished wooden pews. The air was thick with the scent of incense and the soft murmurs of the congregation as they awaited the start of mass.

In the sacristy, Father Matthew Sturniolo stood before the mirror, adjusting his crisp black cassock. His piercing blue eyes met his reflection, a hint of a smirk playing at the corners of his lips. He ran a hand through his neatly styled curly brown hair, ensuring not a strand was out of place. Satisfied with his appearance, he stepped out into the nave.

As Father Matthew made his way to the altar, his gaze swept over the gathered faithful. His eyes lingered on a young woman seated near the front, her delicate features framed by soft curls held back with a ribbon. She seemed to radiate an innocent purity that drew his attention like a moth to a flame.

He began the service, his rich baritone voice filling the cathedral. His words were honey-sweet, weaving a spell of devotion over the congregation. Yet beneath the pious facade, dark desires stirred within him, hidden from all but himself.

As the mass concluded, Father Matthew descended from the altar, ready to greet his flock. His smile was warm and welcoming, yet his eyes held a calculating gleam as they once again found the young woman. He approached her slowly, his presence seeming to fill the space between them. "Good morning," Father Matthew said softly, his voice like velvet. "I don't believe we've had the pleasure of meeting. I'm Father Matthew, the newest member of our little community here."

He extended his hand, palm up in invitation. "And you are?"

The young woman looked up at him, her wide eyes shining with innocent curiosity. "Y-yes, Father. I'm Y/N, sir. It's nice to meet you." Her small hand rested lightly in his, her skin soft and warm against his own.

Father Matthew smiled, his thumb brushing ever so slightly across her knuckles. "The pleasure is all mine, Y/N. I look forward to getting to know you better."

With a final squeeze of her hand, he released her and turned to greet the other parishioners, leaving Y/N flushed and flustered in his wake. One Sunday afternoon, after the congregation had dispersed and the cathedral lay quiet, Father Matthew sought out Y/N in the empty nave. He found her kneeling before a pew, head bowed in prayer. Approaching softly, he cleared his throat to announce his presence.

"Forgive me for disturbing you, Y/N," he said gently, "but I couldn't help noticing how deeply you seem to connect with the Lord during services. Your devotion is truly inspiring and I’m sure your parents are very proud."

Y/N looked up, startled, then smiled shyly. "Oh, thank you, Father. I try my best to please them."

Father Matthew nodded, his expression turning thoughtful. "Your dedication is admirable, indeed. As your spiritual leader, I feel it's my duty to nurture that spark within you. Perhaps we could arrange some...private Bible studies?"

Y/N's brow furrowed in confusion. "Private studies, Father? But wouldn't that be improper?"

A hint of amusement danced in Father Matthew's eyes. "Not at all, dear. In fact, one-on-one instruction allows us to delve deeper into the scriptures together. I assure you, it's a common practice among clergy and their devout followers."

He reached out, placing a comforting hand on her shoulder. "Think of it as an opportunity to grow closer to God under my guidance. What do you say, Y/N? Would you be willing to meet with me regularly, just the two of us, to explore the Word?"

As Father Matthew's hand settled upon Y/N's shoulder, a shiver ran down her spine. The gentle pressure sent tingles through her slender frame, making her acutely aware of his proximity. His touch was warm, reassuring, and yet...different. There was a subtle intimacy to it that left her breathless and disoriented.

Y/N's cheeks flushed a deep crimson as she struggled to find her voice. "I-I mean...if it's really necessary, Father..." she stammered, her eyes darting nervously between his face and the floor. "But won't people talk if we're alone together?"

Father Matthew's fingers squeezed her shoulder lightly, a silent reassurance. "Let them talk, child. The Lord works in mysterious ways, and sometimes that means challenging societal norms for the greater good,"

"Besides," Father Matthew continued, his voice low and soothing, "our meetings will take place in a secluded area of the rectory. No one will ever need to know."

Y/N swallowed hard, her mind reeling with the implications. A private setting with Father Matthew, away from prying eyes...it felt both thrilling and terrifying. She bit her lip, torn between her desire to please him and her instinctive fear of doing something wrong.

"I...I suppose it would be a good opportunity to learn more about God's word," she ventured finally, trying to sound convincing despite her racing heart. "When did you have in mind for our first session, Father?"

Father Matthew's smile broadened, revealing a glint of approval in his eyes. "How about tomorrow evening, after dinner? I'll make sure to leave a light on for you at the door."

With a nod, Y/N agreed to the clandestine meeting, her heart pounding in her chest. She spent the remainder of the day in a daze, her thoughts consumed by the prospect of being alone with Father Matthew.

As night fell the next day, Y/N found herself standing before the rectory, a mix of trepidation and anticipation coursing through her veins. She knocked softly on the door, her knuckles trembling slightly.

After a moment, the door creaked open, revealing a dimly lit hallway. Father Matthew stood in the shadows, his figure imposing yet inviting. "Welcome, Y/N," he said, his voice a low rumble. "Please, come in."

She entered hesitantly, her eyes adjusting to the faint glow of candles scattered throughout the room. The air was heavy with the scent of incense and leather-bound books.

Father Matthew guided Y/N to a plush armchair positioned near a large, ornate desk. "Make yourself comfortable," he instructed, gesturing to the chair. "We have much to discuss tonight."

As she sat down, Y/N noticed a Bible lying open on the desk, its pages marked with a silver bookmark. Her gaze lingered on the ancient text, feeling a sense of reverence wash over her.

Father Matthew settled into a nearby chair, leaning back with an air of relaxed confidence. "Before we begin our study, I'd like to share a personal anecdote," he said, his tone taking on a contemplative quality. "Growing up, I often felt disconnected from the divine. It wasn't until I dedicated myself fully to serving the Lord that I truly started to understand His plan for me."

He fixed Y/N with a piercing stare, his words dripping with conviction.

"I believe that same calling exists within you, Y/N. Tonight, I hope to help you recognize and embrace it."

With those enigmatic words, Father Matthew reached across the desk, his fingers brushing against Y/N's as he handed her the Bible. Their touch sent another jolt of electricity through her, leaving her breathless.

As she opened the book, the weight of the sacred text seemed to press against her palms. Y/N felt a strange connection to the pages, as if they held secrets meant only for her ears.

Father Matthew leaned forward, his elbows resting on his knees. "Let's start with a passage that resonates with me," he suggested, pointing to a verse marked in the book. "Psalm 23, verses 3-4. 'He restores my soul; He leads me in paths of righteousness for His name's sake."

Y/N's eyes widened as she read the familiar words, a sense of peace washing over her. She recited the verses aloud, her voice soft and reverent. "Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for You are with me..."

As she spoke, Father Matthew's gaze never wavered from hers, his eyes burning with an intensity that made her skin prickle. When she finished, he nodded approvingly. "Beautifully said, Y/N. Those words offer solace even in the darkest of times."

He paused, studying her face intently. "Tell me, when you pray, what do you usually focus on? Is it asking for blessings, seeking forgiveness, or perhaps longing for a deeper connection with the divine?"

Y/N shifted uncomfortably in her seat, unsure how to articulate her feelings. "I guess..."

"...I mostly pray for protection and guidance. For my family's well-being and for not doing anything wrong," she admitted, her voice barely above a whisper.

Father Matthew's expression softened, and he reached out to place a comforting hand on her knee. "Those are noble prayers, but remember, the Lord wants a relationship built on trust and openness. Don't be afraid to express your desires and fears to Him."

His touch lingered, sending warmth spreading through Y/N's legs. She found herself leaning into his palm, craving more of that comforting contact.

"Perhaps we can work on expanding your prayer life together," Father Matthew suggested, his voice low and persuasive. "Start by sharing your deepest concerns with me. I'm here to listen and guide you, Y/N."

Y/N took a shaky breath, her heart racing as she considered Father Matthew's offer. The idea of unburdening her innermost thoughts to someone - anyone - felt daunting, yet there was a part of her that yearned for this kind of intimate connection.

"I...I worry about pleasing God," she confessed, her voice trembling. "About not living up to His expectations. Sometimes I feel so small and insignificant compared to His greatness."

Tears pricked at the corners of her eyes as she met Father Matthew's gaze. "And then there's the fear of sinning...of doing something terrible and irreparable. It keeps me up at night, wondering if I'm worthy of His love."

Her confession hung in the air, heavy with vulnerability. Y/N waited with bated breath for Father Matthew's reaction, her entire being attuned to his response.

Father Matthew's expression turned solemn, his eyes filled with compassion. "Sin is a heavy burden to carry, Y/N," he acknowledged, his voice a gentle murmur. "But know this: you were born innocent, and it's never too late to seek forgiveness and redemption."

He squeezed her knee reassuringly. "The Lord loves you unconditionally, just as you are. Your worth comes from being His child, not from achieving some lofty standard of perfection."

Leaning forward, Father Matthew rested his forearms on his thighs, bringing their faces closer together. "In fact, it's precisely your humility and willingness to acknowledge your flaws that make your faith all the more genuine and beautiful."

His words washed over Y/N like a soothing balm, easing some of the tension in her shoulders. She found herself drawn to his presence, craving the comfort and understanding only he could provide. As Father Matthew's proximity intensified, Y/N's breathing grew shallow. The scent of his cologne mingled with the musty aroma of the old books, creating a heady mixture that clouded her senses.

His warm breath tickled her ear as he whispered, "Remember, Y/N, true strength lies in vulnerability. By sharing your fears and doubts, you're taking the first step towards a deeper, more meaningful relationship with God – and with me."

One of Father Matthew's hands slid from her knee to gently cradle her cheek, his thumb stroking her skin in a tender caress. Y/N's eyelids fluttered closed, savoring the sensation of his touch.

In that moment, she felt an overwhelming urge to surrender completely to him – to let go of her inhibitions and simply exist in the safety of his presence. Father Matthew's lips hovered mere inches from Y/N's, the anticipation almost palpable. Then, with deliberate slowness, he inclined his head, allowing their noses to brush together in a fleeting, electric contact. The briefest of sighs escaped Y/N's lips as she savored the closeness, her eyes drifting shut. But before she could process the intensity of the moment, Father Matthew pulled back, breaking the spell.

Opening her eyes, Y/N found him smiling at her with an unreadable mix of tenderness and restraint. "Until next Sunday, Y/N," he murmured, his voice low and husky. "May the Lord bless and keep you in the interim."

Rising from his seat, Father Matthew offered her his arm, guiding her towards the door with a gentle pressure. As they walked side by side, Y/N couldn't shake the lingering effects of their intimate encounter. Every step felt weighted, each breath charged with a newfound awareness of Father Matthew's presence beside her.

At the entrance, he paused, turning to face her. In the dim light filtering through the stained glass windows, his features appeared almost ethereal, as if carved from shadows and moonlight.

"Farewell for now, Y/N," Father Matthew said softly, his gaze holding hers captive. "May your dreams be peaceful and your heart remain open to the mysteries of the spirit."

With that, he cupped her cheek once more, his thumb tracing the curve of her lower lip before releasing her. Then, with a final, enigmatic smile, he stepped back and watched as she disappeared into the night, the sound of her footsteps echoing in the stillness.

As Y/N retreated to the sanctuary of her bedroom, the events of the evening swirled through her mind like a tempestuous sea. Father Matthew's touch, his whispers, the weight of his gaze – each detail replayed itself in vivid Technicolor, refusing to be relegated to the realm of memory.

She slipped beneath the covers, her body thrumming with a restless energy. Try as she might, sleep eluded her, replaced instead by a kaleidoscope of forbidden fantasies.

In the darkness, Y/N's imagination ran wild, conjuring scenarios where Father Matthew's hands roamed her body with increasing boldness. She pictured his fingers trailing along her collarbone, dipping into the neckline of her nightgown to tease the sensitive skin beneath.

As the illicit visions intensified, a telltale dampness began to gather between Y/N's thighs.

Exhaustion finally claimed Y/N, her eyelids growing heavy as the fantasy montage continued to unfold behind her closed lids. With a soft sigh, she surrendered to the embrace of slumber, her dreams already tainted by the forbidden allure of Father Matthew.

In the depths of her subconscious, the scenario shifted, becoming more explicit and sensual with each passing moment. Y/N found herself lying on the cold stone floor of the rectory, her nightgown pushed up around her waist as Father Matthew loomed over her, his dark robes pooling around his knees.

His hands, once so reverent, now explored her body with a hunger that made her shiver. Fingers danced across her breasts, teasing the hardened nipples until pleasure-pain shot straight to her core. A whimper escaped her lips, muffled by the priest's mouth as he captured them in a searing kiss.

As the dream intensified, Y/N's hips bucked involuntarily, seeking friction against the damp heat building between her legs. Her hands reached down to press against Father Matthew's, urging him closer, wanting more of his touch.

Moans and gasps punctuated the erotic haze, the sounds muffled by the priest's insistent kisses. He Trailered his mouth down her neck, nipping and sucking at the delicate skin until Y/N arched off the ground, crying out in ecstasy.

In the throes of her climax, Y/N's vision blurred, colors bleeding together as wave after wave of pleasure crashed over her. She clung to Father Matthew, her nails digging into his arms as she rode out the intense sensations, lost to everything but the bliss consuming her.

Y/N jolted awake, her chest heaving as if she'd run a marathon. Sweat beaded on her forehead, and her nightgown clung to her skin, dampened by the remnants of her climax. For a moment, disoriented and panting, she struggled to anchor herself in reality.

As the fog of sleep lifted, memories of the dream came rushing back, leaving a trail of shame and confusion in its wake. Y/N's cheeks flushed hot, and she buried her face in her pillow, mortified by the intensity of her own desires.

What had possessed her to imagine such things? Father Matthew, the man she trusted above all others, reduced to a participant in her most private, debased fantasies. The thought alone made her stomach churn with self-loathing.

Throughout the day, Y/N moved through her routine with mechanical precision, her mind consumed by the guilt gnawing at her soul. Every time her parents glanced her way, concern etched onto their faces, she couldn't help but wonder if they sensed the turmoil brewing inside her.

The telltale flush on her cheeks seemed to pulse with a life of its own, a constant reminder of the shameful secret she harbored. Each time she caught her reflection in a window or mirror, she flinched, as if the image staring back might hold some hidden clue to her innermost thoughts.

By mid-afternoon, the weight of her confession became unbearable. Y/N excused herself from the kitchen, where her mother was preparing dinner, claiming she needed fresh air. As soon as she stepped outside, however, she found herself drawn inexorably toward the familiar solace of the church.

The imposing stone structure loomed before her, its towering spires reaching toward the heavens like outstretched arms. Y/N hesitated briefly, her hand trembling as she grasped the ornate bronze handle of the massive wooden doors.

Taking a deep, steadying breath, she pushed the doors open, the creak of the hinges echoing through the empty nave. The interior was bathed in a warm, golden light, casting long shadows across the polished marble floors.

Y/N wandered deeper into the church, her footsteps echoing softly off the walls. Eventually, she found herself standing before the confessional, its wooden screen adorned with intricate carvings depicting scenes of redemption and forgiveness.

With a sense of trepidation mixed with relief, she knelt before the grated opening, her voice barely audible as she whispered, "Bless me, Father, for I have sinned..."

Inside the confessional, Father Matthew listened intently as Y/N's hesitant voice filtered through the grate, her words painting a picture of guilt and contrition. His heart raced at the realization that the penitent before him was none other than the innocent, sheltered girl he had grown to care for.

Concealing his true identity, Father Matthew adopted a neutral, soothing tone, meant to provide comfort without revealing his knowledge of her personal life. "My child, please, share your sins with me, and know that you shall receive absolution."

Y/N took a shaky breath before continuing, her voice trembling slightly. "Father, I...I had a dream last night. A wicked dream. I imagined doing sinful things with someone I trust deeply, someone who should never be the subject of such thoughts." She paused, biting her lip.

"It was Father Matthew," Y/N admitted, her voice barely above a whisper. "In my dream, he touched me in ways no one ever has, and I felt things I shouldn't have felt. Desire, longing...even pleasure when we did things that are wrong."

Tears pricked at the corners of her eyes as she confessed, "When I woke up, I was...I was soaked. It was as if my body betrayed me, responding to those forbidden imaginings. I'm ashamed, Father. So terribly ashamed."

Y/N waited with bated breath, her heart pounding in her chest as she awaited the priest's response, unsure whether he would offer condemnation or understanding.

Inside the confessional, Father Matthew's composure faltered at Y/N's explicit admission. The mere mention of her dream, coupled with the intimate details, sent a surge of arousal coursing through his veins. His cock twitched to life, straining against the confines of his black cassock.

Swallowing hard, he fought to maintain his calm, professional demeanor. "Tell me more, my child," he urged, his voice low and husky despite his best efforts. "Describe this dream in greater detail. What exactly transpired between you and Father Matthew?"

As Y/N began to recount the specifics – the sensation of his hands on her body, the taste of his kisses, the feeling of being taken against the cold stone floor – Father Matthew's erection grew even harder, throbbing with an almost painful intensity.

"Did he touch you intimately?" Father Matthew pressed, his curiosity piqued and his desire escalating with each word from Y/N's lips. "Was there any...physical contact beyond kissing and caressing?"

His fingers tightened around the edge of the confessional booth, imagining the tender flesh beneath Y/N's garments, the softness of her breasts, the warmth of her cunt. The mental images were almost too much to bear, stoking the flames of his lust to a near-blazing inferno.

"Please, continue," he rasped, his voice thick with need. "Every detail is important for your spiritual guidance, my child."

Father Matthew could no longer resist the temptation. With one hand, he unzipped his fly, freeing his throbbing cock from its fabric prison. He wrapped his fingers around the shaft, giving it a firm squeeze as he continued to listen intently to Y/N's detailed account of her dream.

As she described the feeling of Father Matthew's cock sliding into her virgin depths, stretching her tight walls, he began to stroke himself in earnest. Slowly at first, then with increasing urgency, he pumped his fist along his length, imagining it was Y/N's slick cunt enveloping him instead.

"Mmmm," he groaned under his breath, the sound muffled behind the wooden screen. His hips rocked in tandem with his hand, thrusting upward as if seeking to bury himself deeper into an imaginary pussy.

Y/N's blush deepened as she recounted the lewd acts from her dream, her voice quivering with a mix of embarrassment and excitement. "He...he kissed me everywhere, Father. My neck, my breasts, even between my thighs. And then..."

She paused, her breath catching in her throat as she relived the sensations. "Then, he entered me. It hurt at first, but soon it felt so good. Like nothing l've ever experienced before. I wanted more, even though I knew it was wrong."

Y/N's confession hung heavy in the air, the vivid descriptions painting a scandalous picture in Father Matthew's mind. His cock throbbed painfully, straining against the fabric of his clerical robes. He could hardly believe the depraved thoughts now racing through his head.

Father Matthew's composure slipped further with each salacious detail Y/N revealed. His breathing grew ragged, punctuated by stifled groans as he continued to stroke his aching cock. The once sacred space of the confessional now reeked of sin and debauchery, the air thick with the musk of his arousal.

"Go on," he urged, his voice strained and unsteady. Gone was the calm, reassuring tone of a spiritual guide; in its place was the desperate plea of a man teetering on the brink of self-control. "Tell me everything. Don't leave out a single detail."

Y/N's innocence, her purity, only served to fuel the fire burning within him. He imagined defiling her, corrupting her, molding her into his perfect little slut.

Father Matthew's mind raced with perverse fantasies, each one more depraved than the last. In his twisted imagination, he saw himself bending Y/N over the altar, tearing away her flimsy dress to reveal her nubile body. He pictured her on her knees before him, those innocent eyes wide with shock as she took his cock into her mouth, gagging on his length.

The thought of claiming her virginity, of being the first and only man to plunge into her untouched depths, drove him wild with lust. He stroked faster, harder, chasing the release that seemed just out of reach.

Father Matthew's resolve crumbled like a house of cards, the soft sniffles emanating from Y/N proving to be his undoing. The sound of her guilt, her shame, only served to heighten his own dark desires, pushing him over the precipice of restraint.

With a strangled cry, he erupted, his seed spilling forth in hot, pulsing spurts. Ropes of cum painted the inside of the confessional, splattering against the wood in obscene patterns. His hips jerked erratically as he rode out the waves of his climax, each twitch sending another burst of semen from his spasming cock.

As the haze of orgasm slowly dissipated, Father Matthew slumped back in his seat, his chest heaving with exertion. He quickly tucked his spent member back into his cassock, zipping up his fly with shaking hands.

Taking a deep, steadying breath, Father Matthew tried to compose himself, to slip back into the role of the compassionate priest. "My child," he began, his voice still slightly rougher than usual, "you mustn't blame yourself for these dreams. They are merely manifestations of your natural, God-given desires, warped by the influence of the world outside our holy sanctuary."

He paused, choosing his next words carefully. "What matters most is that you recognize the sinfulness of such thoughts and actions. Repentance is key, and you've already shown great courage in confessing these impure urges."

Father Matthew's mind raced, torn between his vows and his growing obsession with Y/N. He knew he should steer her towards prayer, fasting, and increased devotion to ward off these temptations.

Father Matthew's heart raced, his pulse pounding in his ears as he grappled with the conflicting emotions swirling within him. The urge to lead Y/N astray, to encourage her down a path of sin and debauchery, warred with his duty to guide her towards righteousness.

In the end, his own twisted desires won out. Leaning closer to the screen separating them, he lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "Listen closely, my child. While these feelings may seem unnatural, even sinful, I assure you that they are perfectly normal for a young woman of your age and disposition."

He paused, letting his words sink in before continuing. "God created us with these desires, these needs. To deny them entirely would be to go against His divine plan."

Father Matthew's voice dropped to a husky murmur, his words dripping with barely restrained lust. "If you were to act upon these urges, to explore the pleasures of the flesh with a willing partner, I don't believe the Lord would hold it against you. After all, He gave us these bodies to enjoy, to revel in their sensations."

He shifted in his seat, his spent cock already beginning to stir again at the thought of guiding Y/N into the world of carnal delights. "Should you ever find yourself tempted to cross that line, know that Father Matthew is there to offer his support, his...guidance. Together, you can navigate this treacherous terrain, ensuring that your journey remains safe and fulfilling."

Father Matthew's mind raced with possibilities, visions of stolen moments and illicit encounters dancing behind his eyes.

Father Matthew's mind raced with possibilities, visions of stolen moments and illicit encounters dancing behind his eyes. He imagined taking Y/N's hand, leading her away from the confessional and into a secluded corner of the church. There, in the dim light filtering through the stained glass windows, he would show her the true meaning of pleasure.

His fingers twitched with the urge to touch her, to explore every inch of her nubile form. He pictured her gasping beneath him, her body writhing in ecstasy as he claimed her innocence, molding her into his perfect little plaything.

Y/N's eyes widened in shock at the brazen words, her cheeks flushing an even deeper shade of crimson. She squirmed uncomfortably on the hard wooden bench, her thighs pressing together as a strange warmth blossomed between her legs.

"I...I don't understand, Father," she whispered, her voice trembling with a mixture of confusion and budding desire. "Isn't giving in to such thoughts and urges considered a grave sin? Won't God punish me for entertaining such wicked notions?"

Despite her words, Y/N couldn't deny the thrill that coursed through her at the idea of exploring these forbidden desires. The taboo nature of it all sent a shiver down her spine, awakening something primal and hungry within her.

Father Matthew leaned closer, his breath ghosting across the screen separating them. "Oh, but that's where you're mistaken, my dear. God understands our human nature, our need for connection and intimacy. He doesn't expect us to live as celibate monks, denying ourselves the joys of the flesh."

His voice dropped to a seductive purr, each word dripping with sinful promise. "No, He wants us to embrace these desires, to revel in them with a loving partner. And who better to guide you on this journey than your humble priest?"

Father Matthew's mind raced with wicked thoughts, imagining all the ways he could corrupt Y/N.

With a trembling voice, Y/N thanked the mysterious priest for his guidance and understanding. "Thank you, Father, for hearing my confession and offering such wise counsel. Your words have brought me comfort and clarity."

She rose from the bench, smoothing her skirt with nervous hands. As she made her way out of the confessional, Y/N's mind buzzed with a whirlwind of emotions - confusion, curiosity, and a simmering undercurrent of excitement.

On the walk home, Y/N found herself replaying the priest's words in her head, trying to reconcile them with everything she'd been taught about the evils of lust and temptation. Yet, despite her best efforts, she couldn't shake the image of the handsome priest who haunted her dreams.

Father Matthew remained seated in the confessional long after Y/N had departed, his mind reeling from their encounter. The scent of her lingering perfume filled his nostrils, mingling with the musk of his own arousal.

He palmed his hardening cock through his cassock, biting back a groan as he recalled the way her voice had quivered with a mix of innocence and burgeoning desire. The thought of corrupting her, of guiding her down a path of sin and depravity, consumed his every waking thought.

Rising from his seat, Father Matthew emerged from the confessional, his gaze drawn to the spot where Y/N had stood mere moments ago. A wicked smile played across his lips as he plotted his next move, determined to make the innocent girl his own personal plaything.

AUTHORS NOTE: first chapter >.<!! i rewrote this one a good four times and ultimately cut the wc from 16k to 5k... she’s a bit rushed but i’d like to get the boring details out of the way.

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marvelfanfics1 · 21 hours ago

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s2 rafe losing his temper ౨ৎ⋆ ˚.⋆

Rafe closes the front door of Tannyhill, resting his forehead against it and huffing out a breath. His wet and dirty clothes cling to his body and he licks his lips, tasting the dried up blood from his altercation with Pope he clenches his jaw before striding up the stairs to his room.

You sit up the moment the door opens, smiling brightly but it drops as quickly as it formed when you see the state Rafe is in, completely muddy and blood under his nose and splattered on his cheeks.

Your eyes widen and you scurry off the bed, approaching him you start to touch him all over with a frown on your face. "Daddy? Wha' happened? S'you hurt?"

As you keep fussing over him he closes his eyes, his head twitching to the side, muttering. "Stop..."

You continue to ask and press him to answer, too focused on figuring out what happened or if he's alright to hear him.

"Stop." He says again and when you don't seem to listen he snatches your wrist in his hands, suddenly snapping at you. "I said stop! Jesus. You're so clingy, I just want one damn second without you being all over me is that so hard to understand, huh?"

He looks so angry, you have often seen him mad but never were the one to receive the brunt end of it and it scares you. Rafe scares you right now.

You shrink in on yourself, looking up at him with a quivering bottom lip while you try to blink back tears when he lets go of you again harshly.

Rafe shoves past you and heads for his bathroom, slamming the door behind him. You stare after him before your face crumples, feeling guilty for wanting to help him and pushing him so far that he had to shout at you.

Maybe he just wants to be left alone for now, right? You decide to leave him alone and turn to sit back on his bed, grabbing your lamb plushie and holding it close with a tight grip.

After a while he comes back out, a towel wrapped around his waist as he went over to his closet to get dressed, pushing his wet hair back.

As he changes into clean clothes he stops when he hears an all too familiar sob, turning to meet your broken form, watching as you keep rubbing the tears from your cheeks, trying to not rile him up more than he already is.

Rafe sighs, pulling a shirt over his head he makes his way over to sit on the edge of the bed beside you, placing his hand on your knee his heart clenches when you pull your knees back, your rejection hitting him deep.

"Listen I...I just had a really long day. But that's not an excuse, I shouldn't have snapped at you." He murmurs, waiting for you to meet his gaze but you keep your eyes trained on your lap, not having the courage to look up. "I'm sorry."

Now you lift your head. Since you've known Rafe you never heard him apologize to anyone so hearing that coming from his mouth surprises you, a single tear running down your face.

Seeing that he reaches a hand up, stopping mid air. "Can I?" He asks softly, only cupping your cheek in his hand when you nod slowly, giving him permission to touch you.

You sniffle, overwhelmed with all the emotions you're feeling right now, shifting on the bed to get settled on his lap, still seeking his comfort despite the fact that he yelled at you.

Rafe starts rocking you gently, his hand stroking your back in a soothing motion as he presses a kiss to your cheek. "I didn't mean what I said. I love everything about you and wouldn't trade you for anything in the world. You know that, right?"

Nodding your head, you snuggle your face in the crook of his neck, grabbing onto his shirt to ground yourself.

Even though you don't say anything he knows you're slowly starting to forgive him and he keeps rocking you, whispering sweet nothings to you. "Did you pack some clothes like I told you earlier?"

"Mhm..." You nod, drawing some shapes on his chest. "Where we goin'?"

"Guadeloupe."

Taglist

For everything:

@my-river-lilly @pauntedblacknails @fanfictioniseverything @devilslilbabysblog @buckymydarlingangel @hallecarey1 @daybreakwinter @loveshineslikethesky @wandaslittlewhore @vase-of-lilies @white-wolf1940 @simpingbutch @mischiefsemimanaged @alina02 @teddybearsgrr @doozywoozy @angelbabydoll28 @glxwingrxse @lilymurphy03 @veryvaughnny @lokigirlszendaya @youngstarfishdinosaur @little--baby--bear @minideathgoddess @rach2602 @gh0stgurl @flourishandblotts-inc @lovelyy-moonlight @yoruse

@mythixmagic @iris-xoxo-juhu

For Rafe:

@chiaraanatra @chimindity @erikasurfer

#little!reader #daddy!rafe thoughts #daddy!rafe drabble

98 notes · View notes

citrinae · 17 hours ago

Text

forgive me, for i love being bad for you.

sanji x reader (ft. platonic!zoro)

summary; everyone agrees that you and roronoa zoro are like two peas in a pod: cool, unbothered, hitting pubs on the regular. everyone, except your boyfriend sanji—who’d try anything to distract you from your visibly chaotic lifestyle. even visiting a potion shop. or: sanji needs to get out of his head in four acts.

contents; angsty vibes, lowkey love triangle, miscommunication™, abandonment issues, drinking, sex pollen, a little dubcon tbh, piv, oral sex (both receiving), facesitting, multiple orgasms, creampie, college/modern!AU, witch!sanji, jealous!sanji, afab!reader, wc: 7.3k (wheezes), mdni. spooky carnival is still in town, go catch it if you’re in for a bad time.

masterlist.

Zoro sets his glass back on the table with a forceful clink. There’s liquor rolling to the corner of his lips.

“I still don’t get it,” annoyance hangs from his voice as he speaks. “How the fuck you put up with him?”

Your reflection looks back at you from the amber in your glass.

“He’s sweet and he cooks for me,” you mean it. Despite Zoro’s lack of trust in your newfound romance, slightly taking to repulse, Sanji has been nothing but a dream to you. Resting his cheek on yours as you were watching some movie you borrowed for the night, swinging hands as he took you grocery shopping. Everything about him buzzes with the type of comfortable affection one meets in magazines, or in Christmas commercials, and you’re sure to fall harder for him by the day. “Have you taken the time to cook for someone you dated?”

“Yeah?” Zoro washes the accusation away with another sip. “You into cooks?”

“Apparently.”

“‘s he a good cook?”

A smile, prideful. “Nothing but a wizard in the kitchen.”

“Christ, you’re even starting to sound like him,” he teases further. “Putting random words together and expecting to make sense.”

“He’s a good cook, Zoro,” you tell him again.

There’s a pause.

“No kidding.”

At a loss of what to say, you clumsily try to fill the silence.

“Yeah.”

“As long as you like him or whatever,” defeated, waving his hand. “Just keep him outta my sight, will you?”

“Deal,” you say, downing your drink as you do. Bitterness lingers on the roof of your mouth, throat burned and numbed out. Suddenly your mind wanders somewhere else. “Care for another round?”

Zoro’s smirk is sly, devilish. “Now that’s more like my language.”

So you get yourselves a second refill that turns into a third, and a forth, until there’s no more use to bother about keeping count. Your surroundings seem to start whirling for a second. You close your eyes, then open them. And everything gets back into place.

On the day you met him, somewhere around campus, basking in the sun like a stray cat on trim lawn, you and Zoro hit off immediately. Scruffy hair, bomber jackets, eyes looking like he’s about to fall asleep any minute, Zoro is the type to never dwell on things for longer they’re worth. Always a guy of instinct, speaking truths others might opt to stay away from. On the other hand you have a knack for chaos he easily complements, so for over a year now he’s been a good and loyal friend to you, your time together something neither of you would regret or give up on.

He’s the one who introduced you to Sanji. Now it’s clearer to you that Sanji had probably asked him to. Neither of them expected it when you accepted to go out with him, “It’s just a fucking date, chill out. Free meal you know?”; and to your own surprise, your heart skipped a good beat when you saw him that night.

Sanji. Annoying, perverted, absolutely fucking delusional Sanji, lighting up a cigarette in front of his car. Light fell nicely on his rings as he kept a hand around a flower bouquet—the pretentious kind, with a wrapper and ribbon and all. Red button-up, black jeans, coat. Heart-warming smile.

Everything about the scene felt like something taken from those really sugary rom-coms you and Zoro make fun of when drunk. Yet somehow you admired Sanji for putting in the effort. His hand quivered on the door handle, “You look sensational, my dear.” Adjusting your seat belt, you told him that he didn’t look so bad himself, and by the pink crossing his face as you did, you deduced he might not be used to having flattery thrown his way.

At dinner he told you he was raised in a small restaurant down east, and that they sold soy wax candles and herbs right next door. Wiping up your mouth with a handkerchief, you tried to come up with a quip around it, “And you stocked healing crystals and runes as well, right?” But then he just propped his hand in a palm, a wide smile blooming on his face that made you unsure whether he was playing along with the narrative or simply felt happy to talk about his past. “Sometimes we did, yeah. But we were more into the culinary side of things.”

When, a couple days later, you told Zoro that you and Sanji had spent the night together, he didn’t hesitate to let you know that he thought it a bad idea. He warned that Sanji was weird—not in the sense that he had a wandering eye or spent a rent-worth on cigarettes. He was simply weird. Fingers drumming on wood, “Caught him mustering some nonsense crap to a jar once. Like he was enchanting it or something.” Soon you were reliving the conversation you had on your first date. “You mean he’s, like, Sabrina the Teenage Witch?” Zoro didn’t catch it. “Who?” he said, and you waved him off. “Nevermind.”

The sneer he wore back then was similar to the one he makes now, seeing the blue light of your phone fill the room with a notification.

“It’s him,” you say, fingers instinctively hovering to your lock screen. Neither can you help looking at the hour displayed in blinding white: 01:51 A.M.

Zoro keeps himself from rolling his eyes. “Tell him I’m bringing you to your dorm.”

You text; the reply comes in a beat.

“He asks if you even know where my dorm is.”

“Of course I—” Zoro clicks his tongue. Then he snatches the phone from your hands and presses ‘record’. “Of course I know where to go you jackass,” he snarls, throat pulsing.

Taking your phone back, you check the message popping in not long after. “He says he’s coming over.”

“Fine then. Whatever.” It’s low. He sounds irritated. “Let’s pay and we’ll wait for your princess outside.”

And that’s exactly what you do; take care of the bill, grab your jackets and throw yourselves out. Feeling the crisp air on your cheeks, you realise you’re so much drunker than you’ve felt inside. You’re light, feathery, persistently on the verge of being blown out. Concrete flounders around you and you have to put in some additional effort to maintain your balance. Time becomes harder for you to register or something Zoro has just said made you cackle for too long because here is Sanji, your sweet boyfriend Sanji, parking his car not too far away from your forms. You can tell he put on himself the first things he saw in the wardrobe. His hair is slightly disordered, his step heavy as he rushes to your direction.

“Evening Angel,” Sanji chirps, pulling you into a hug, and you cannot help but dig your nose into the soft fabric of his hoodie, closing your eyes, glad to finally have something to lean your weight onto. His tone drops when he looks at Zoro. “Mosshead.”

Zoro’s hands are sunk into his pockets. “Told you I got everything under control.”

“Pardon me if I didn’t believe you.” Sanji is sardonic. “Looking at the state of this slump, seems like I was right not to.”

“Not my idea to come here, bitch,” Zoro drones. His breath fogs the air as he speaks. “Next time get your head outta your ass and listen to people before running your mouth.”

Some of Sanji’s cologne still hangs from the soft fabric. “This was the only place that allowed us to play cards,” you say against his chest.

“Aha,” he flattens his hand across your back. “At least tell me you played for money and bled this loser dry. Tomorrow will get yourself something pretty with stupid mosshead pocket change.”

“You done talking?” Zoro says through gritted teeth.

“Yeah,” Sanji’s lips press into a thin line. He’s slowly urging you towards the car. “We’ll be off in a beat.”

“We didn’t play for money,” you tilt your head to look at him, trying to match his steps as you distance yourselves from the pub.

“What a pity.” Between wry and affectionate.

You raise a loose fist in the air. “Till the next one, Zoro!”

“See ya daredevil,” Zoro shifts his weight from one leg to another. “Tuck your princess in and give him a sweet goodnight’s kiss, yeah?”

“Fuck you,” Sanji heaves, closes the door behind you.

On the way to your dorm, he doesn’t ask about how many you had or lecture about being alone—with Zoro—late at night. Why would he? He’s aware this is a part of you, and he’d lie if he said he doesn’t melt watching the glimmer in your eye and your lips curling into a wicked smirk each time you tell him how much fun you had. Though he does worry about you, sometimes, when you willingly throw yourself in all kinds of dangerous shenanigans. Seeing your head slipping down the backrest, silently Sanji casts a spell on your eyelids to make sure you sleep unbothered until tomorrow morning. Tucks some strands of hair behind your ear, yet his eyes are still fixed on the road, and his hands are both rested on the steering wheel.

Normally, he wouldn’t have been so exhibited with his magic had you been awake. But for now he takes the liberty to carry himself as if he were alone or in the company of the shitty bunch at the Baratie that taught him the craft to begin with. Foliage and plains and cottages move remotely in his wingspan while he continues to think of you. Your smile, your laughter, the nonchalant way you coil your arms around his own to show you around the places that you have so many stories to tell about. To him you are a bundle of new experiences and joy, something pleasant and airy he wishes to emanate himself someday. Always honest, always so easy to approach. Dandelion seeds whirling loosely in the wind.

But the one thing he cannot seem to take his mind from is that having a bent for partying also means having a bent for Zoro.

Lazy, shabby, perpetually absent-minded Zoro.

His hands tighten on the steering wheel.

Sanji has never really liked the guy, for reasons he doesn’t have the time or energy to list. Tolerance is perhaps too much to describe the compromise he’s willing to take; but he attempts it, for your sake. Because no matter how he tries looking at things Zoro adds something to this life of yours he certainly doesn’t have, or doesn’t know how to make up for. No matter how well you fit in his arms, early in the morning with sleep still heavy on your lashes, throaty voice narrating a dream so bizarre it plucks a laughter from his lips, the nights will always be reserved to someone he wouldn’t even bother to understand. Because he doesn’t want to.

Window rolls down; he lights up a cigarette.

Moments pass. His car stops by a pair of victorian-esque gates he doesn’t take long to recognise. He carries you on his back all the way to your dorm room, putting to sleep everyone he stumbles upon as he does; he isn’t supposed to be here, and certainly you aren’t supposed to return this late at night. He’s thankful you chose to sleep in the bottom bed. With this thought in mind he arranges your pillow and places you under the covers, slowly, gently almost like you were made of glass. From his tote bag he picks out a flask and a piece of paper he scribbles on: “for your hangover—sanji <3”

ii.

The sun bleeds through stained glass in dazzling shades of pink and blue and yellow. Wind chimes, cluttered shelves. Dusted books. The air is thick with the smell of wood and incense. Sanji picks at the fingers that he keeps tucked into the pockets of his hoodie. He isn’t allowed to smoke in here, but fuck does he need a drag. Light catches across the variety of bottles and jars lined up in front of him, all displayed in eye-catching colours and labelled in alphabetical order.

Would I? He tries his best not to pick up the light blue piece lingering a little too at hand not to be a work of fate. Should I? Sanji kisses his teeth; he takes the thing into his palm.

There’s a piece of paper attached by lace ribbon. Writing is dainty, yet small and hardly intelligible.

Truth shows itself in wicked colours;

betrayal, freedom, promise.

For they who shall drink this wicked brew

take a night in their beloved’s embrace.

Is their bond seen pure and true,

the Garden sees no place for others.

Like the first lovers on Earth—

runaways from Eden, they shall be.

Sanji takes a deep breath. Flips the flask on all sides, reading and rereading, biting his inner cheek. It’s not like he doesn’t trust you. He does, with all his heart. And yet he cannot help but shamelessly wonder: if Zoro hadn’t introduced you, would you and him have ended up together? Does he stand in the way of something which is meant to be? “I’m pathetic, fuck.”

He tastes blood.

Talking to you about this is out of the question, since that would mean admitting Zoro is a better match for you. Plus, honesty is one of the things he admires about you. He’s sure you wouldn’t cheat. To bring this up would only lead to conflict and the sort of disappointment he’d rather choke to death than see reflected in your eyes.

“This shit is ridiculous.”

The flask makes a frail sound as Sanji throws it in the basket. Stomping the floor with his foot, a cold sweat bobbing at his nape, at checkout he’s greeted by a gorgeous woman dressed in a velvet dress and speaking with a faint voice he doesn’t care enough to pay attention to. There’s a black cat sleeping on a shelf behind her.

“Is this everything you needed?” she asks, carefully placing the goods in a paper pag.

Sanji drops some cash on the counter and leaves without saying a thing to her.

iii.

“What do you think, my dear?” Sanji asks you on the other side of the table. The potion he bought a week ago forms a bump inside the pocket of his dress pants.

You want to be sure of your answer, so you take another forkful of your food, still steaming hot and methodically arranged on the plate. It’s good. No, it’s tremendously good, better than you imagined it to be.

“Sanji, this is incredible,” you say, not allowing yourself the time to fully swallow. “And I’m not only saying this because I like complimenting you.”

“I’m glad to hear that.” His face brightens, a mix of pride and the unpretentious joy he takes from cooking to other people. However he still looks to be preoccupied by something else you never find the right timing to ask about.

Embarrassment hitching up your throat, you drag your fork across ceramic. Sanji stays silent for a moment; his plate is barely touched. In hopes to escape the tension, your eyes wander to look at his curtains, his shelves, an enframed picture with a gruff old man and a much younger Sanji cheerily holding out a slice of lemon cheesecake. The apartment is small, but tasteful, with decent flooring and a rent anyone your age can afford. White walls, light blue cushioning. A closed balcony where he grows basil and rosemary.

You are going to sleep over tonight. It’s not that you've never done this before; have dinner together before deciding on a movie you’ll never get to watch because his hand grips on your thigh a little too tightly and your knee presses itself somewhere too bold to go unnoticed. But something feels different now, you cannot quite tell why. He feels different. With his avoidant eyes and stuttering words and index finger that frequently climbs to scratch an eyebrow.

“If you wanted to break up with me you could’ve chosen a café, you know?” you hear yourself saying, arms folded.

“What?” His chair scrapes the floor; he tries not to cringe from the sound. “No, no.” It's ferm. It's rushed. “Why would you think that?” goes unsaid.

Fingertips digging into the table, Sanji doesn't know how he ended up on his feet. He takes the opportunity to take the seat next to yours, plate and cutlery clanking along as he does. “No one's breaking up with anyone, sweetheart,” words fight their way through the knot in Sanji's throat.

Sanji shoves his fork in his food which now looks less parmigiana and more like something a primary school kid would make for their art class assignment. Fuck, adding wasted food to his trainwreck fog of thoughts is the last thing he wants for tonight. After he swallows it down, his tone finally relaxes.

“I was actually thinking of proposing something, now that we’re soon to move up to dessert. Something I'd like us to try,” he says.

It registers quickly. “Like in bed?”

“It might sound a little weird, though.” Sanji avoids meeting your eyes. His chest rises and falls in a disjointed rhythm as he tries his best to empty his plate.

“I like weird,” you say, propping your head on a fist, curiosity pushing your mouth a little higher.

He cannot help but mimic your smile. “Well I bought us something.”

“You did.”

“Yeah, I did.” Not wasting any more time, he pulls the flask out of his pocket, displays it on the dinner table—clear liquid bottled in cerulean crystal, ribbon unfastened and label removed. Your eyes widen. “I was doing some grocery shopping, and stumbled upon this,” Sanji explains.

You take it in your hands, blinking, carefully not to damage the contents. “Is this an aphrodisiac?”

“You can call it that,” he says. “It stimulates the senses, so everything should feel a little more intense than usual. I know I haven’t been necessarily adventurous with you, dear,” looking into his plate, then at you. Inevitably he starts thinking of Zoro. “Thought maybe I can start from somewhere.”

Your hand reaches his. “You don’t have to go out of your way for me. You’re perfect for me, yeah? And I have fun with you. Lots of it, actually.”

“I know—” heat rising in throat, he reaches to loosen his shirt collar. “I mean, you’re perfect for me, too, hell I cherish each and every moment we spend together. Kind of felt intrigued to experience this with you, is all. However it’s definitely ok and understandable if you don’t feel comfortable doing it.”

Inspecting the flask in your hands, you give it a second of thought. You know the kind of shops Sanji frequents: equipped with dust and smoke and mysteries. The between-buildings types you have asked about before, and received a response either too vague or too straightforward to be taken seriously. Even still, trust has never been an obstacle. You trust Sanji; he has trustworthy eyes and a soothing voice that feels like a kiss on one’s eyelids. He’s good to you, always has been, when he cradles your face in his palms and calls you his sun and moon and stars, stardust dripping from his eyes as he assures you’re the best he’s had.

“Does this have any side effect or some sort?” you look up to search for his gaze, and like pulled by a magnet Sanji returns it.

“No,” he says. “Wears off in the morning. Like nothing happened.”

If you don’t end up running to Zoro, that is. There’s a sinking feeling in his stomach as the thought snipes through his mind. He’s not sure how to feel about lying to you, either. But maybe it’s for the best; if it turns out he isn’t your meant-to-be after all.

Decisive, “Fuck it. Let’s do it, then.”

Sanji’s smirk fades out the anxiety. “In this case our next course will consist of one more secret ingredient.”

Feet swinging, tapping against the floor. Walls drifting apart and closing in. Moments have passed through you like sequences from a dream, and you fiddle with the sleeves of your sweater as Sanji sets the dessert on the table—two delicate things, like they were long intended to play the highlight of your night, light pink and beautifully decorated with dried rose petals and pomegranate seeds. For a minute you marvel at Sanji’s attention to detail, the love he puts into any dish as he turns them into something special and palatable.

“Baby,” your laugh is a casual play at fragrancy Sanji takes in with a one-sided smile. “There’s no way I can run my teaspoon into this.”

He takes the seat to your right. “The real deal happens when you taste it, sweetheart,” he says, reaching for a teaspoon of his own, strands of blonde hair brushing one cheek as he does.

And when you eventually do it, run tableware through moulded cream, you relish the sweetness that melts on the roof of your mouth. Sanji asks if you can tell the other thing apart from the dish. You say no, I don’t, do you? I think it’s the pomegranate, he acts like he’s uncertain even though you’re sure it shouldn’t take more than a few seconds. I only used some as decor. But here it’s rather pungent, not that I’m complaining. Child’s play. Halfway through your tasting, a second question comes.

Do you feel anything?

I don’t.

Do you?

No.

Sanji’s heart clutches in his chest. He’s impatient, laughable even, he knows he is, since spells like this should take longer to surface. Three times he mouthed the chant and the potion gracefully vanished into steam as it poured down the servings, no drops left. By the look of that, Sanji might at least expect something to happen. Either bad or reassuring.

Yet you stay your familiar comfortable selves even after you’ve eaten the whole thing, carrying on as such when you help him—at least attempting to, he never lets you lift a finger—clean the table and watch him washing the dishes from one of his counters. Sleeves pushed to elbows, fingers sunk into the sponge, hair pushed into concentrated, concentrating eyes. Water rolls off his wrists—drip, drop. He tells you something, but you cannot hear him. It hovers towards the ceiling and in the back of your head, a muffled sound engulfing you not less like the numbing feeling of being underwater. Shamelessly you ask him to repeat.

Okay, maybe you do start feeling some way.

Sanji turns off the tap. A crushing silence.

“I was wondering if you thought of something to watch tonight,” he turns to look at you, and stops.

He cannot tell if it’s your eyes, suddenly looking bigger, or your collarbones, stretching in and out in anticipation, wet lips looking wetter, slightly parted as you breathe, but he feels helplessly drawn to you, like you’ve been tied up by some invisible rope that keeps rolling up, more and more, thinning the space between your bodies. Air catches in his lungs as he lets himself be torn apart by his awe and not knowing what to do with it.

Just as indiscreetly you wrap your eyes around his shoulders, his chest, his biceps, looking so much more strained under his shirt. Watching him make a step towards you, it seems like his eyes have gotten brighter, cheeks catching a faint tinge of pink, and you have to fight the impulse to dip a hand under your sweater and see how those long fingers of his would feel on you.

Your fingertips bite into the front edges of the counter. “Not yet, no,” you say, a little disconnected from yourself. Sanji’s scent is an intoxicating mix of rosemary and sandalwood. “Guess we’ll have to browse and see what comes our way.”

“Sure. We’ll look.” Stepping forward, Sanji is the most relaxed he’s felt in days, his limbs and shoulders so much lighter as he moves, comfortably numb in the absence of a thought which has weighted on his back like a fiend draining him of his life force. He knows he has been waiting for something tonight, an answer, you calling a name he cannot bring himself to remember, and yet his mind is blank with nothing but the image of his lips crashing on yours.

His presence radiates need, and it sends an electric shiver down your spine as he comes closer to you, fingers running over your knuckles. When your eyes align with his, you find it impossible to look anywhere else. So you sink into the blue and drown. Sanji leans further in, and his breath is sultry against your earshell as he speaks.

“Fuck knows what’s happening to me, dear,” he says, a hoarse sound that makes your thighs squeeze together. “But please tell me you’ll ride my face before anything else.”

But he sure knows what’s going on. He put a spell on you; or something along these lines.

Your body moves by its own as you push forward, biting your bottom lip, pressing your chest against his. “Want me to fuck your mouth, pretty?” your tone echoes the urgency of his request.

His lips trail down your ear and across your neck. Suddenly your legs are wrapped around his torso. “Oh, and even more,” he tells you. “I want you to cream on my mouth so much that you’ll never find any other to please you just as good.”

“Then why am I not in your bed yet?” It comes out more desperate than it should. Without realising your fingers have unfastened at least two of his shirt buttons, and now they seem to cling onto his collar for dear life.

Something flares in him; powerful, primal, which he hasn’t been aware he’s had before, sliding a hand under your hips and picking you up before slamming his lips against yours. The kiss is deep, all tongue. You return it with closed eyes and a breathy moan that pulls Sanji in a frenzied daze. Hands curled at his nape, you lose yourself in the taste of nicotine and pomegranates as you let him carry you past dim lit walls and into the bedroom. He doesn’t bother to turn on the lights. When he hurls you in bed, it’s with a deliberate movement, careful not to bruise you in any way but not the less forceful altogether.

Then you take care of the rest of his buttons and belt, and he moves his focus to your pants, tugging them off while your mouths can’t gather the resolve to leave each other. Your fingers rake themselves through his hair. Smoothing the skin under your sweater, his hands stop to flatten around your breast. As Sanji presses his weight on you, it becomes impossible not to notice how fucking hard he is, greedy and throbbing against your soaked panties. He’s at his most unbridled tonight, and yet he touches you with the ritualistic devotion of a priest, mouthing syrup into your ear like lighting candles on an altar. The full moon spills in her light through the window, blue and delicate, and for a moment there you are sure Sanji’s contours have caught a prismatic glow, colourful flashes whirling in your vision, wavering around him like some sort of aura.

After he breaks away, you are still tied together by a thin thread of saliva. He pushes your panties aside, and your back arches when he slides a digit, and then a second one, into your slit. There’s lust in his eyes, the kind you’ve never seen on him before, drinking in the sweet faces you make while his fingers press in and out of you in circling motions, rubbing your clit just so sweetly as he does.

“Look how wet you are, dearest,” he mutters, more to himself than to you. “Always such a lovely mess for me.”

“I want you, Sanji,” you say, aware that you cannot hide the way he makes you feel by looking at him alone.

It’s you, Sanji.

Your voice echoes in his heart like water dripping in a cave, let it melt inside him with something close to relief. He wants to thank you; and yet he cannot tell exactly what for. What he does instead is pull you into another kiss, less vicious and more affectionate, keeping you close with a hand flattened on your nape.

The more you kiss him the brighter the room looks. Spectral rainbow fading behind his form.

“Could you shift your hips for me?” Sanji eventually suggests. “Let me taste you, honey.”

It doesn’t take long to figure out what he means by that. Like a thing of habit, you let Sanji take your spot on the bed, then climb your way onto his face. You take yourself a moment before starting to move, but all wariness disappears the moment he drags a flat tongue across your slit. His voice vibrates into your core as your taste has him mumbling seared praises against your folds. Further you drop yourself on his mouth, and more he laps at your pussy, wet and desperate, coaxing you those sounds that fill the room and blend in with the moonlight.

Sanji’s tongue has always managed to make you shiver. But this time is different, because you can feel everything; nose and beard and lips, drenched in your slick, white-hot as they rub themselves against your favourite spots. You can feel it when his eyes close and open, taking his time to savour the moment, and when he lets out a pleasured sigh to let you know how grateful he is to be allowed the luxury of tasting you, there is a delirious sensation rushing from your heat and climbing to your back like an electrical shock. It makes you thrust your hips harder against his mouth, call out his name with the urgent solemnity you didn’t know your voice could be able to reproduce.

Looking at the way Sanji’s lower body tries to helplessly grind against nothing, cock straining in the confines of his boxers, bulging and stained with precum, you come to realise he must be feeling the same as you do. Oh, but Sanji revels in seeing how sweet you can be for him, and how good he can make you feel when he eats you out. He doesn’t mind the pain as long as he gets to lick you off his chin after he’s done. Never someone to dismiss your pleasure over his own. And yet.

As his mouth diligently works on the heat that is now building in your stomach, and your movements pick up in pace to reach the high, you cannot help not to stare at his cock, thrusting the air to catch up with your rhythm. Hands running a touch across his stomach, you lick your lips. Sanji moans into you when you lean down to tug at his boxers.

“Angel, what—” you hear him saying.

Not allowing him the time to protest, you press yourself onto his face. “I’m so close, please,” you inform him, in a voice you don’t recognise. “Please don’t stop.”

So he doesn’t, running his tongue around your clit, not letting a single drop go to waste. You’re almost there.

“Good goddess, fuck,” he huffs, feeling your hands on his balls, and shortly after your mouth kissing him at the tip.

He comes that instant; let heat shoot in your mouth and down your throat as you wrap your lips around him, swallowing and licking off everything you can. There is something wrecked in his voice as he’s taken through his crescendo, something like a prayer sent to an all-mighty, and even then he continues to kiss your folds and drag his tongue across you until you come to climb a peak of your own. With Sanji’s taste lingering on the roof of your mouth, tears begin to well up in your eyes, blurring your vision as you call for him, over and over again, enveloped in pleasures you never thought that existed.

Only when you’re brought back, a panting mess, you realise Sanji remained just as hard as you left him—something only that weird sex drink could’ve made it happen. You take the opportunity to lift your hips from his mouth and better adjust yourself at his crotch; he starts shifting awkwardly the moment you do.

“There’s no need to, really.” Sanji is hesitant as he looks down at you, lips red and goatee still soaked with your slick.

“But I want my meal,” you say, already licking at the tip. “It’s only fair you let me have one too.”

He’s having a hard time saying no to you; but how can he, when you talk with that voice, and when you look at him with those pleading eyes that reflect the gates to Heaven and more? Your mouth takes a little more of him, hot tongue trailing up and down his cock, and his eyes roll back into his head in visible defeat.

Sanji runs his fingers through your hair. His tone takes to yearning, “So my precious darling is hungry, huh? Cute and silly for my cock?”

“Mhm,” bottom lip rolling up, wetly.

Half smug, half dazed. “Then it’d be cruel of me not to keep you fed.”

Deeper you push your mouth around him, until he’s twitching in your throat and you start to gag. Sanji’s thumb finds your cheek—please don’t do anything you don’t want to. But you wouldn’t stop. You cannot stop. Not when you get to hear the whimpers he makes as your lips press around the skin ever so slightly, when you look up at his heaving chest, his parted lips, pushing out a broken exhale, the eyes that now flood with wavering reflections of the moonlight and tears threatening to wet his lashes.

“Oh, my angel.” It’s coarse, struggling for air. His eyes shut close. “My sun, my everything. Yeah, like that. So fucking good.”

Hands coated in spit, you reach to give his balls a gentle squeeze, continue to fill your throat. Once praises have started to spill from Sanji’s mouth, they don’t stop, and they touch a point at which the words feel like no more than babbling, trashed and incoherent, with his hair blown in both of his eyes. His hand sometimes runs to his forehead, other times he uses it to caress your face and pet your hair, but no matter what Sanji stays loud in letting you know how good whatever you’re doing to him feels.

The moment he sets both of his hands on your head, you know it’s because he’s getting close. With a fearful thrust of his cock into your mouth a growl leaves him, and soon after his second release spills down your throat, warm, somehow sweet. You swallow; his chest expands and contracts in attempt to catch his breath.

Specks of light dash off Sanji’s lips. Pulling you at his level, he clashes them against yours into yet another kiss, sloppy and greedy as he runs his hand down your curves, sinks his fingers into your skin. The touch sears everywhere it reaches; and you cannot do anything but melt in his arms, let yourself be moulded by this growing need that somehow can never quite satiate you.

“Hope you don’t think you won’t be rewarded for that,” Sanji breathes into your mouth.

Your lips rolling to his jaw, you say, “Hope you don’t think I’ve had enough of you.”

“I’m here for you to take,” with a quivering hand Sanji squeezes your pussy. “Will always be.”

His fingers send a delightful shock throughout your body. Something close to a moan tears from your throat. “You're such a whore for me, Sanji.”

“Can you blame me?” Sanji rubs his tip against your inner thigh. “Darling, please look at yourself.”

“For the love of god—” wet and breathless against his ear. “Don’t make me wait any longer.”

Your impatience endears him, has his heart beating so much faster than it already does. Still he starts slowly, pushing you onto the pillows, taking his time to relish your expression as he lifts your legs and lovingly sets them atop his shoulders. Sanji almost laughs at himself, because even under the influence of this potion that brings out anything wild and viscerally troublesome he has in him, nothing delights him more than getting to unravel you with the same care one deseeds a pomegranate in the kitchen.

Placing a kiss on your calf, he croons, “Say, sweetheart, what about you? Who do you crave for just so?”

Not wasting a beat, “You, Sanji.” It’s you.

He could get off by these words alone.

“And what do you want from me?” he starts to coat himself in your slick, pressing the tip on your clit every now and then. “Do you want me to fuck you, maybe? Fill you up and call you beautiful?”

You can only nod, legs coiling around his neck in anticipation. “Yeah, yeah. Please fuck me.”

Then you can feel him burying himself into you, and it rips a sound from your mouth as soon as he does. Your hips lift to increase the friction. You accommodate him easily, trembling under him and through the persistent knot in your stomach that has you wanting for more.

When he bottoms out, his voice is low, hypnotic. “Like this?”

“Like this,” you echo, drowning yourself in the wild glimmer flaring in his eyes.

Fingers dug into your legs, his temples sweaty, Sanji pulls out, then drops himself back in, each motion steadier than the other. Wet sounds fill the sheets as your bodies coil and flatten together like nothing matters in this world but you and this moment and the moon capturing your contours in ethereal glow. Nothing, no one. Sanji speeds his hips, chest flushed and sweltering. Usually you’re not as permissive with your sounds as he is, but tonight they seem to just pour themselves out of your mouth, every sigh and moan and whimper, sugar waterfalls thickening the air as Sanji moves you into each thrust.

“Ah,” you hear him say, a man aflame. “Refresh my memory, would you, angel? Who did you want to fuck again?”

Through an exhale, “You—” a pause. “Only you.”

“You feel so good,” he whines, collapses with a slapping sound. “So sweet, so perfect for me.”

Blue and pink and yellow; just as vivid when you close your eyes. He goes in deep, deeper, and your thighs are shivering against his torso.

“Yeah? You like that?” legs tightening their grip around him. “Like it when I take you good and confess?”

“More than that,” Sanji is breathless. “Makes me insane. You’re making me go insane.”

You wouldn’t admit it, but you know how it feels. To have your sanity run scarce by a voice telling you how faultless you are, that no matter how you see yourself you will always be a cosmos in someone else’s eyes. If anything, you should know this better than anyone else, the maddening feeling of being fed honey and sugar glaze as your thoughts are pressed against body heat. Lost in his trance Sanji picks up the pace, and there’s a wet, debauched mewl that overrides even the careless crash of your skins.

Lip caught under your teeth, “Want to, mh—wanna hear another confession, baby?”

“What’s on your mind, my sweet?” Sanji’s lips ghost over your calf.

“Think I—” with a thrust your eyes are hurled to the ceiling. “Fuck, I think I love you.”

Vulnerable.

Suddenly his chest drops against yours, a chance for your legs to flatten across his back, pulling him the closest you can. His fingers interlace with yours as he sinks into the crook of your neck.

Reckless.

The pace doesn’t slow down, but you can very well tell it’s become sloppier than before. A lost rhythm. When you look at him again, you are quick to notice the dampness pushing at the corners of his eyes.

“I love you too,” glad to finally word it this way. “I love you so much.”

Then he continues to rut into you, shaky voice fogging your neck the moment your nails pierce into his back. Your hips thrust themselves up, desperate for tandem. Heat erupts inside you. Another peak you’re yearning to chase.

“‘m gonna come, ‘m gonna come,” you tell him, cheek brushing over his hair.

“Let go, my dear,” in a frail tone. “Let me hear you.”

With a squeeze of your hand Sanji fucks you the way you need him to—viciously.

He could try. He could at least try to make you fall so hard for him that you will keep your words even after the spell wears off.

You pull at his hair, mean and senseless as a sudden burst of pleasure tears through you. Your lips move without being able to hear the words. There must’ve been something you said, though, you’re sure there was, because Sanji’s soon chasing after, hung on a mournful vowel, flooding you through his end.

The moon soaks into your bodies.

iv.

Sanji wakes up with tinnitus. He blinks, once, twice, waiting for the specks of colour before his eyes to rearrange into furniture. The next thing he recognises is your breathing, small and lukewarm on his chest. Instinctively his arms wrap themselves around you, and there’s a long exhale when they do. You’re naked, both of you. His head becomes heavy with flashes of last night, lips pressed together, bending sternum, and soon they are replaced with the sound of a name he thought he couldn’t remember. Sentiments he thought he discarded.

He thought he would lose you.

But you are still here.

Before knowing it, his arms are shaking, and like he’s done many times when he finds it impossible to contain himself, he covers his eyes with an elbow.

He starts crying.

Muffled, subtle, more worried about waking you up than about having to figure out an excuse for his tears. Droplets roll off his cheeks and onto his collarbone. His chest jerks up and down in a pathetic staccato. He wishes he were someone with more control over his emotions, sometimes, during moments like this. But he isn’t, and he cannot change, just like he cannot be many other things.

A soft rustle beneath the sheets. Arms squeezing his torso.

“Sanji, hey.” The words come out rasp, still filled with sleep. When he doesn’t answer, there’s a thumb wiping across his cheek. “What’s wrong, baby?”

“I’m sorry,” is all he can manage.

Warmly, concerned. “Sorry for what?”

“I’m sorry,” he hiccups again. “I’m so sorry.”

Because he doubted you. Because he cannot fucking stop doubting himself. Heaven knows he’d tell you all these things, were he a braver man. Instead there’s only one thing that seems to be coming out of him, a broken record.

“I’m sorry.”

You wouldn’t want to pressure him. Without saying anything else you keep Sanji in your arms, squeeze him tighter as his tears blend with your hair and your fingers move to soothe his frantic shoulders. Salt pours on his bottom lip. Sanji accepts the comfort despite his better judgement, burying his face into your neck, trying to focus on the sound of your breathing. You stay like this for a while.

There are so many things he’d want to tell you; the kind of things that eat through his guts and tear him apart. Silly images of him taking you to the Baratie, teaching you the way around potions, topping your hand as you sign your name in blood and knowledge, are you to feel rebellious enough.

And he will, one day; talk to you about everything he’s ever seen and touched. Now, however, he closes his eyes and hopes you will somehow catch a flicker of all the love he has in him; everything that makes him foolish.

by far the longest thing i've written in years & it's a boring au. now excuse me but i need to go lie down for a while.

#one piece x reader #sanji x reader #vinsmoke sanji x reader #black leg sanji x reader #one piece smut #sanji smut #mdni #spooktober 2024

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pixieishottogo · 3 days ago

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"Anything" ♡ Curly x Anya

art credit: seagummies on twitter

warnings: angst, topic of miscarriage

this is a good ending au of mouthwashing! if u are a hater, then dni🥰 this post aint for u, babe

Chapter 1

Jimmy had been dead for the past few months due to the crash. The crew has been slowly rotting. They have lost all hope, and for good reason. Daisuke and Swansea are unconscious because of hunger and exhaustion. Curly and Anya are slowly losing grip. Despite all this, the beautiful glowing screen still showcased the moon and stars. Curly's hair sticks to his face due to anxious sweat. "Well, we had a good run. Didn't we." Curly smiled. Anya laid beside him and she smiled despite the tears rolling down her face. "Yeah." Curly's breath hitches "Anya... I'm-”

Curly opened his eyes with a jolt. There he was, in the hospital. His whole body was aching. A nurse walked over to his bed, "How are you feeling, sir?" His eyes widened harshly. "Where is my crew?" He yelled. "Are they okay? Is Anya alive? I never got to tell her I'm sorry!" Curly's heart beat spiked. Thinking about Anya's distressed face made him feel nauseous from guilt. He placed his head in his hands, as if grappling with reality. The nurse spoke gently to try and to calm him down, "Everyone is okay. Some are still waking up." He sighed, feeling relieved. A doctor came into the room. "How did we survive? How are we home?" Curly was more than shocked. The doctor walked up to him, holding his papers. "Another space ship found you guys. Some astronomers were on an expedition in the area. You all were very lucky they were out there." The doctor said, cracking a smile. Curly looked down at his hands. "What room is Anya in? If you don't mind asking." Curly asked quietly. The nurse responded, "Room 25. And this is 24." After doing some basic checkups, and giving him some medicine for the pain, the doctor and the nurse left. Curly laid there, alone with his thoughts.

A few hours pass by, and unable to just sit and do nothing, Curly sneaks out of his room. He finds Anya sitting down in the lobby. The moon light shining on her in her hospital gown. She looked tired as usual, and mentally drained, but she still smiled faintly when she heard his voice. "Anya!" He cried out, limping towards her. She looks up at him and smiles with tears in her eyes. He wrapped his arms around her and cried. She held his head gently. "Anya... I-I I'm so sorry. I should have done something. You already had told me that you felt uncomfortable around him. I felt like I was losing my mind. I didn't know what to do. I'm so sorry that I made it seem like I didn't care. I care so much. I will do anything you want to gain your forgiveness. We don't have to ever talk again if that's what you wish. I'm so sorry, Anya." The words came out almost pleadingly, and rushed. He couldn’t hold back a sob. "Captain-... Curly. Our worst moments don't define us. I don't blame you for what happened, we were in the middle of space. But it will still take me a long time to heal. Thank you." Anya was always the more quiet kind. She didn't know how to respond. After several quiet minutes spoke quietly, "I lost the baby." Curly looks up at her, his eyes slightly wide. To not offend her, he asked honestly, "How do you feel?" Tears rolled down her face, as she stared at the ground. "Empty.”

In the morning, Curly and Anya met up with Daisuke and Swansea. It seemed they were recovering well. The crew all sat together in the lobby. It was surreal, everything felt so much lighter. Almost happy. "How are you guys doing? What do you plan on doing after this?" Curly asked. Daisuke's face lights up, "That was totally crazy! I'm happy we survived. I can't wait to see my mom." Swansea pops in, "Heh, It will be nice to be with my family again. No more pony express. I get to be a retired lazy old man!" Swansea chuckles. Anya and Curly look at each other smiling. It felt like a dream.

A few days went by, and the crew slowly recovered. Everyone was released from the hospital once they were fully recovered. Getting back from the hospital was refreshing. The sterile white rooms grew to be nauseating. He could finally go home. Curly pulled up to his home, the sight of his big white house with blue shutters made him smile. That company never cared. Some random astronomers were the ones who cared enough to save them. He was free from that stupid job. He hated being glorified, he soon realized. Curly felt like a monster after everything that had happened. His loving pet guinea pig was waiting for him in his bedroom. Curly’s mother would take care of her every day while Curly was gone. Whenever anyone visits, they are surprised that he has such a small creature when he's such a big guy. Almost every time someone says the classic "Wow. I thought you would have a dog of some sort, captain." He sighed and flopped on the bed but gently held Daphne. He felt so relieved to be home, after all this time. But every time he tried to close his eyes, he would see Anya's crying face

☆

sooo this is my first fan fic ever that im gonna actually commit to😭 plz be patient. also, im gonna try to write the miscarriage plot as realistic as possible. i have had multiple friends and family that have suffered from miscarriages

#mouthwashing #curly mouthwashing #anya mouthwashing #curly x anya #jimmy mouthwashing #swansea mouthwashing #daisuke mouthwashing

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batboyblog · 2 days ago

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Hey, do you have any organizing tips for rural/suburban (rust belt) areas? I keep seeing posts about how we all need to build community for the coming 4 years, but, like, how? I join what existing groups I can (including non-political things like DnD), but there’s not many considering my citys population has declined every year for like 60 years. There’s no pride group in my county, nor is there a DSA presence. I do what I can running a political group, but I’m not the most charismatic and can’t seem to get people to show up regularly. (I’ve seen you talk about canvassing and dude- mad respect. I suck at it, even though I’ve knocked doors for years)

you'll have to forgive me, I'm a little sick today, low grade fever, so if I'm a little on the fuzzy side thats why.

first off being consistent and organized is far far FAR more important than charisma when it comes to organizing and leading any kind of group

any ways right now there's a lot of phone banking to "cure" ballots, chasing people who cased provisional ballots, there are a lot of very close House and Senate races that may well come down to these ballots, everyone can check Mobilize for info on that

from there I'd say look up your state's Democratic Party and there should be county parties for every county in the state, start going volunteer for whatever needs doing you'll be amazed by how a willingness to say yes will push you up the party, I'd also look to see if there's a local PFLAG chapter, that might be a jumping off spot for organizing a local pride

I always push people to look into Run For Something you might find a candidate running in your area you can help and support, or you can make calls and help local progressives all over the place, also check out the NDTC which is focused on training, while a lot of its stuff is for candidates it also has stuff for volunteers and people helping on campaigns, I'd sign up for Swing Left, Sister District, and MoveOn.Org

hope any of that was helpful.

#politics #political #US politics #American politics #Ask #Answer

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zepskies · 3 days ago

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@lamentationsofalonelypotato Ooh yay!! I'm still loving this story, and after the last chapter, I've been very eager to see what happens next!

The aftermath of her trying to piece together her memories of her parents' death and her brother's betrayal is so heartbreaking. 😥 Like she's realizing that the narrative of her life was a lie, in a way. Hopefully she'll be able to reclaim the part of her past that was good and true with her parents, vs. the love and care she still has in her life through the people around her.

For some reason that particular image seemed to cling on to you and refused to fade. You'd never seen him look that way, almost… helpless and a little fearful. In all the time you'd known him, Ben had never looked at you that way. Sure you'd seen him proud, angry, cocky, lustful, mischievous, but never fearful. And you were sure that it wasn't an emotion that he was used to feeling, but that begged the question… why? Why was he looking at me like that? Why wouldn't he let me go? And what was he afraid of?

Lol GIRL. You KNOW WHY. You're just refusing to see it! But I could really see this moment in my head like a movie -- that look on Ben's face, watching her walk away. 💔

That little creature she created is interesting though. You really get a sense that she tapped into something in her powers that was before yet unexplored -- like she broke through a barrier without realizing and unlocked new depths within herself.

You wanted to feel his awkward shoulder pat and his awkward version of hand holding and you wanted to hear him try to tell you to "buck up" or whatever he thought that a comforting word should be. He's really not the best at that.

Loll he's really not. But the thing about Ben is, when he does make those gestures, you know it's coming from a place of sincerity because he doesn't soften himself easily.

"Shh. It's alright honey." She whispers, rubbing her hand over your back, her embrace steady and surprisingly strong. "Let's go home."

Aww I love her grandmother so much! At least someone in her family is in her corner. 😭

There was something or rather someone that should be here, but you didn't know what or who. And your mind supplied Annie, but you weren't sure that's who you meant.

I think we ALL know who you meant. 😂

I also love how you describe the "creative chaos" of her grandmother's house. The imagery in those paragraphs are so descriptive and lovely to imagine. I love especially: "boxes upon boxes of cookies in different stages of being packaged all over the counter." It's so grandmotherly and yet feels unique at the same time.

"Too late of course, but I'm a little rusty. I was able to warn Ben that Darren was coming back. That's how he got there so quickly or rather-" She shrugs sheepishly. "He got there in time to make sure that Darren didn't get you to forgive him. Which you shouldn't have at all, but I know he's always had a talent for manipulating you."

OOOOOH, MY GOD!! GRANDMA'S A SUPE TOO!! 😱😱 And it explains why Ben got there in the nick of time! And she already knew Darren was scum!!

Discovering more about her past as Soothsayer, as well as her friendship with Ben was so very interesting! I didn't see it coming and that's the best thing of all, but now it's a way her grandmother can relate to her even more -- as well as be in an even better position to give her advice when it comes to that man.

Tears crest and fall down your cheeks as you sit there, throat thickening. "I don't want to hurt Ben."

Heart...breaking... 😢 She's such a sweetheart. How can she not realize how much she cares about him (loves him)?

"He doesn't love me and Ben isn't afraid of anything." "He is. It might not look the same way on him as it does on everyone else, but if you pay close enough attention you can catch it." She hesitates. "And I think if you pay attention to you, you'll see what it is that you're afraid of too."

GRANDMA YESSSS, TELL HER!!! GET IT THROUGH HER HEAD! lolll

Ben isn't incapable of fear (or love), no matter how much he'd like to pretend. The way it comes out of him might "look different," through snappish anger and denial and rigidity, but it's still fear.

But the feet keep moving past the apartment and Ben sinks into the couch cushions. Even Bean seems to be disappointed. "It's alright buddy." Ben mutters. "She'll come back." But he wasn't sure.

Awww Benjamin, you're breaking my heart! 😭 But the fact that he went back to save Jake honestly speaks volumes! (Even if I did cackle my ass off at "What a fucking pussy.")

Ben didn't understand why he hated watching you cry.

Come on now, Ben. You're over 100 years old! Surely you get what's happening to you by now! 🤣🤣 You're simping for a girl you care about!

He wasn't sure if you'd noticed it yet, but you looked different too. There weren't as many lines on your face and your hair was more springy, the few silver hairs that Ben had noticed in passing were no longer there.

Oooh the plants are keeping her young, huh? 😏 Maybe enough to sync up her lifespan with Ben's???

"Di?" "Yes it's me. Who did you think it was? Santa Clause?" Your grandmother snarks. "Why are you calling me and why the fuck are you so mad? What did I do?" Ben answers slightly annoyed.

LMFAOO. Again, I love her. Kick his ass, Di! Get him in gear! "Try harder" -- INDEED.

"How is it that it's been forty fucking years and you're still able to dance on the grave of my last nerve?"

I'm deeeeeadd! I loved this line so much. 🤣🤣🤣 Benjamin is testing my patience too, good Lord. I can see why he's scared. He's on the verge of admitting he loves her -- and finally doing something about it. After his experience with Countess, that'll put anyone off of trying again to delve into a proper relationship (not to say their relationship was a proper example of a loving one, because it wasn't, obviously). Especially for someone like Ben, who struggles with real intimacy and dealing with his feelings, it makes sense that he'd digging his heels in now -- no matter how frustrating it is. 🙃🙃

But omg the cliffhanger though! Who just called him? My gut feeling is Stan Edgar, but I could be wrong lol. Can't wait to see how you close out this series! 💕

Chapter 14: Don't Be A Bundt Cake

Pairing: Soldier Boy x f!reader, Reader POV, Soldier Boy POV

Summary: When you decided to work with Butcher and his merry band of supe hunters to take down Homelander, you never expected to be saddled with a sullen, grumpy, jerk like Soldier Boy when the job was done. The more you're around him the more you hate him, but you can't help but wonder, is he really as big a jerk as you think? Reader is a supe with plant powers. This takes place in an AU about a month after the end of The Boys Season 3, in which Butcher has let Soldier Boy continue to work with him on his team. (I'm real bad at summaries, please forgive me!)

Tropes: Enemies to Lovers (Not in this chapter), Slow Burn, Age Difference (Reader is in her 20s), Soft Ben/ Soldier Boy, Protective Ben/Soldier Boy, Miscommunication Trope

Word Count: 13.1K

Warnings: I'm going to label this 18+ because Soldier Boy (he's a warning and everyone knows it), Swearing, Mentions of Sex, Sexual Innuendo, Talks of Death, DENIAL, Idiots in Love, Pining by the Reader (and SB, but he won't admit it) Depressing Thoughts, Mentions of sexual assault/rape (not detailed at all, really just in passing) Talks about weed, Sexist comments, Ben makes derogatory comments, Threatening Ben/Soldier Boy might be a little bit OOC.

Note: This is told from Reader's perspective. Any references to the reader is made using you or your. There is minimal use of y/n. I tried my best to proofread, but nobody's perfect. If you don’t like, don’t read, but if you do like, you’re my favorite!

Internal monologue is in italics and is in first person.

Series Masterlist

Main Masterlist

A/N: I am so sorry this one took me a bit longer. The writers block was fighting me the whole way, but we are very closely nearing the end of this series and the moment the reader and Ben stop being so stinkin' stubborn.

Reader POV

You lean your forehead against the cool window, watching the world flash by in a flurry of color. The wooded forests had vanished hours ago and all that was left were the yellowed sprawling fields of corn and grain and family farms that were laid sporadically along the interstate. Each one a little world that caught the flecks of golden sunlight as the sun began to peak above the horizon.

The bus rolled smooth and steady over the weathered pavement towards it's destination and was filled with an odd assortment of people young and old. There was man with a brightly colored parrot that had been singing "It's A Small World After All" since you left NYC, a woman with a little boy playing with an iPad and who refused to turn down the volume no matter how many times his mother asked him to, a group of teenagers a few seats up that continued to pass around a flask, and due to how far back you were sitting on the bus an uncomfortable smell emanated from the bathroom each time the door was opened.

But you didn't notice any of it.

The only thing on your mind were the events that happened almost twenty hours ago. They continued to circle your mind, playing over and over again like a perverted cassette tape making you sink further into the worn cloth covered seat at the back of the bus. The images were haunting, some new and some old, but all the more still horrible to re-live.

The song "Nights In White Satin" floating into the backseat of your family's car, the flash of unnatural light you knew was never lightning, the caskets at your parent's funeral covered in flowers that were much to pretty to lay on something so morbid, Elijah's body succumbing to the poppies that ripped him apart, the proud sneer on your brother's face when he admitted to killing your parents, Darren's broken and bloodied body strewn in pieces over the street with the creature standing over him with a dripping red maw, the ruined building that housed "Please Don't Die" reduced to nothing more than rubble, and the look on Ben's face when you turned your back on him and fled the scene.

Why was he looking at me like that? Why wouldn't he let me go? And what was he afraid of?

The creature curled in your lap snorts something in it's sleep, turning it’s head further into the cradle of your elbow to shut out the brilliant early morning sunlight. It was now the size of a toaster and had warranted several odd looks whenever you got off to change buses, but you didn't care.

You weren't sure about anything anymore. Everything your brother confessed to you made you feel like you were living a lie and the revelation of exactly what your powers could do- take life from plants to heal yourself, create whatever the hell it was on your lap, and speak to plants… it scared you.

You thought for so long that you knew everything about your powers, that you were in control, but now you weren't sure.

You felt different, as if something had unlocked deep down that you couldn't shut up again.

You'd felt different after you killed Elijah, but this was more alive, weaving and twisting in the pit of your stomach. You felt more connected to the earth, to the world outside the bus even though you were divided by glass and metal. You could feel the energy that thrummed through the body of the creature on your lap, bending to your will, the life force of the plants it was formed from molding with you, becoming a part of you.

You felt so different than the person you had been before Darren entered the shop, so uncertain, and there was only one place you wanted to be when you felt like this… home. You couldn't wait to run up the worn front steps of your grandmother's house and into her arms. She always knew what to say in times like this.

And you desperately needed the comfort of her embrace.

The phone in your pocket buzzes again and you flip the screen to see the ridiculous selfie Annie and you had taken on Halloween last year. The one that you'd both spent dressed up as the two brothers from your favorite paranormal tv show. It wasn't the first time she'd called. Annie had called and texted you more times than you could count over the past twenty hours but you didn't answer her. You didn’t want to.

It was the first time that you didn't want to talk to her, but talking to her meant that you'd have to re-live all of it again and you were clawing at the last shred of sanity you had left to keep it together.

The overwhelming waves of emotion kept pummeling you, dragging you deeper beneath the white surf. Each one brought the memories of what happened surging over you and were followed by everything that Darren said to you. Years of taking care of Darren and doing whatever he wished were tearing at your soul, years of giving up little things in your life to make him happy, and years of taking care of a man who you thought cared about you, but hated you enough to kill your parents and try to kill you too.

It made your skin crawl. Each time your brother told you that he loved you was an even bigger lie and now that you knew the truth and saw him for what he was, it felt like you were drowning. The darkness that ebbed just on the edge was begging you to leap into the abyss, but you were resisting the best you could.

The tears had stopped falling miles ago, but you couldn't stop the memories or the emotion that formed a cold ball in the pit of your stomach.

A sigh works it's way up and you pull your legs on the seat underneath you, jostling the creature on your lap that raises it's head for a moment to blink it's black eyes at you sleepily.

It was surprisingly docile right now, especially considering that twenty hours ago it had ripped your brother to shreds. In fact it seemed to understand how upset you were and had spent the better part of the last twenty hours rubbing it's head against your arm as if trying to bring you some comfort. It was settled on your lap, the weight of it a comfort, almost like a weighted plushy that gave you something to focus on.

"It's alright buddy." You whisper, scratching him under his chin. "We're almost home."

The phone in your jacket pocket buzzes again, but when you pull it out to turn it off, you catch a glimpse of the screen, and you hesitate. Because this time it's not Annie who's calling, it’s Ben.

The picture that flashes on the screen under the contact name "Gramps" is the picture of Mr. Fredrickson from Up. It always made you smile whenever he called you and you saw the picture because Ben did often remind you of him. He was certainly just as grumpy as Mr. Fredrickson and just as out of touch, but you thought it was cute.

Your thumb hovers over the answer button and you think about talking to him.

But what would I say?

You weren't sure what to say to him, or why you wanted to speak to him so badly, why you wanted him to be sitting here on the bus with you as you went home, and why you wanted him to hold you against his chest while you allowed yourself to break, but you did. You wanted to feel his awkward shoulder pat and his awkward version of hand holding and you wanted to hear him try to tell you to "buck up" or whatever he thought that a comforting word should be.

He's really not the best at that.

You smile to yourself at the memory of how he tried to comfort you back at the hospital, but the longer you sit there and look down at the picture on the screen the worse you feel.

Maybe that scared you more than your newfound powers, how much you were realizing that you needed him, how much you depended on him when things got too much for you to bear. The memory of him appearing as soon as you needed him back at the shop, another of him grabbing Darren and throwing him into the street as soon as Darren insulted you comes in a flash, and finally followed by the memory of Ben carrying you out of Elijah's office while you curled into his chest. You couldn't remember too much from that moment, in fact you'd thought that Ben had kissed you on top of your head, but you ascribed that to the haze of pain you'd been in from your broken arm.

What you did remember was how wonderfully warm he was after you'd been trapped in that damn freezer and how nice it felt to be in his arms. Another memory of Ben sleeping on the couch at the hospital bubbles up and you feel something in your chest begin to crack open. And you try your best to tell yourself the same thing that you always do when you feel like Ben might care more about you that he was letting on.

Ben doesn't want that. He's made it perfectly clear. He doesn't want a relationship. He's only wants one night, that's why he goes out with all those women-

You hesitate, thumb still hovering over the answer button as you do, the memory of the week you'd spent at the apartment with him flickering in the back of your mind. The week where he refused to leave you alone in the apartment, where he refused to do any jobs for Butcher, where he took care of you the best way he could, when he sat with you on the couch and made you laugh with his ridiculous movies, and the week where he hadn't had one date.

Your finger itched to answer the phone, but you couldn't, because you didn't want to feel this way about Ben, not when he'd told you countless times that you kept romanticizing him, not when he told you that he didn't want a relationship, and not when you could feel yourself beginning to fall for someone you thought was the wrong man.

For just a moment you tried to pretend that it was different, that he was different, but you didn't want to. It only made it hurt more.

The phone stops ringing, but the pit in your stomach still gapes open at you and for the first time in twenty hours you feel tears begin to fall. You didn't know why you were crying about this, why the thought of not picking up Ben's phone call seemed to hurt more than everything that had happened, but something made it hurt.

The bus driver announces over the overhead that you're reaching your final destination as he takes the exit for your hometown. The familiar buildings that line the streets are sheathed in a honeyed glow from the sun, the long shadow of the bus darkening them momentarily as it rumbles down the small streets to the bus station.

When it rumbles to a stop at the bus station you wait for everyone else to get off, trying to summon the strength to stand, and swipe the back of your hand across your face to rid yourself of the remaining tears.

The bus station was about a thirty minute walk from your grandmother's house, and you still hadn't called her. You didn't know what to say, didn't know how to tell her that Darren was dead and that he was the reason why your parents were dead.

The creature crawls up your body to drape it's warm body over the back of your neck as you stand. It wasn't bothering to hide, besides the people in your hometown already thought that you were odd because you were a supe and you'd always welcomed it. You give him a scratch on top of his head and his warm tongue flicks on the bottom of your earlobe as if thanking you before it curls further into the side of your neck, seeking warmth.

The first few steps on solid ground are shaky, but you find the strength while taking in a deep cleansing breath of the outside world, letting the gentle warmth of the sun and the tickle of the autumn breeze pull at your coat. You hadn't stopped at your apartment before coming here, instead you had stumbled your way to the bus station covered in dust, flecked in blood, and demanded the first ticket back to Illinois. It was lucky that the next bus was leaving immediately, because you didn’t want to spend another second in NYC, not when all you wanted was to be home.

Plus you were worried that someone had recorded what exactly happened outside the plant shop and you didn't want to get arrested.

It was self defense anyway. Maybe Jake would represent me in court.

The thought of Jake makes you twinge. You hadn't checked to see if he was alright before you ran from the scene. Not to mention you'd destroyed the shop he'd put all his life savings into after he stopped being a lawyer.

Oh fuck, what if he sues me? He can't exactly sue Darren…

You hear someone call your name and you open your eyes.

Your grandmother is standing in front of the same baby blue pickup truck that she'd had longer than you've been alive, wearing a long multicolored skirt and a pressed white blouse tucked elegantly into it. Her silver hair is loose and long, curling over her shoulders in gentle waves. She looks the same way she looked one week ago when she left, and you've never seen anything so beautiful in your life.

You're running before you can stop yourself, crumbling into her warm embrace, with more tears streaking down your face, but she doesn't mind.

"Shh. It's alright honey." She whispers, rubbing her hand over your back, her embrace steady and surprisingly strong. "Let's go home."

Her home is the same as it's always been. A two story Victorian house painted in a happy yellow shade, with a white wrap around porch and two white rocking chairs sitting empty on the front porch. You'd spent more nights than you could count rocking silently beside her with a crochet project in your lap listening to the rain fall and soak the world outside, while the plants sang praises with every gentle bend beneath the heavy droplets.

You could barely remember the home you spent in your early years with your parents, not when you'd spent most of your childhood spending the night here and after your parents died living here permanently. There was still a large oak tree were a wooden swing swung in the slight breeze on the left side of the yard, a gardenia bush that stretched as high as the second story on the right side of the house and brushed it's soft leaves against the sunshine colored outer walls, a garden filled with both flowering plants and herbs that perked up on both sides of the front yard as you walked up the path, and a cobblestone path that Annie and you had spent hours of your shared childhood covering in chalk art.

Neither of you were good, but when the rain would fall and smudge the clean lines, you'd jump in the puddles that pooled along the walkway singing the lyrics to ABBA's "Cassandra" not quite understanding what it meant.

Standing here outside your house made you miss Annie and feel worse about not calling or texting her back, but you didn't feel like talking about what happened and you were sure that Butcher filled her in. The only thing that you wanted was to collapse in your bedroom upstairs and curl under the comforters.

Despite everything the house was a welcome sight, but at the same time it was different. You could feel the plants calling out to you, asking for you, bending towards you just to touch your shoes as you walked by. You'd never felt so connected with them before, not even when you were in your apartment or working at the shop. It was overwhelming.

And although a part of you was frightened by it, another part of you rejoiced in it. You didn't feel alone, didn't feel weak, and you knew that you never would ever again.

The creature nuzzled into the side of your neck with a sigh, soaking up the sun's healing rays as you walked up the front steps with your grandmother following behind you silently. She hadn't spoken since she picked you up at the bus station and you hadn't supplied anything in the ten minute car ride back to her house.

You didn't know where to start and you were still trying to process everything yourself.

The inside of her house was just as cozy and warm as it was the day you moved out. There were photos of your parents and you covering the walls (Darren's had been placed in the closet long ago), half-finished knitting projects sorted in different baskets on both the dining room table and the living room coffee table, spools of yarn were strewn over the couch sorted by color, and the fresh smell of gardenia wafted through the open windows on the breeze.

It was home. This was what you'd been missing the moment everything began to crash over you, but as you stood there in the familiar living room it felt like something was missing. Something tugged at the back of your mind, but you couldn't put your finger on it.

There was something or rather someone that should be here, but you didn't know what or who. And your mind supplied Annie, but you weren't sure that's who you meant.

"Let's have some tea." Your grandmother says from behind you and you feel her soft hands come down on your shoulders to steer you through the familiar creative chaos and into the large kitchen at the back of the house.

The kitchen isn't spared from the madness, it rarely was. There are boxes upon boxes of cookies in different stages of being packaged all over the counter, dirty bowls and a measuring cup stacked in the sink, and a large opened bag of chocolate chips spilling over the flour covered kitchen island.

It wasn't unusual to find the kitchen or the house in a state of chaos, your grandmother always said that a house should look lived in and that the mess was part of the fun of any major project as long as you were responsible enough to clean it up.

"Bake sale?" You ask as you sit down in the breakfast nook, uttering the first words that you'd said to another human being in twenty hours.

The next breath that you inhale was supposed to be cleansing, but you can still feel a weight pressing down on your chest, the same one that settled in the moment everything happened with Darren.

You contemplate again how you're going to tell her that Darren is dead and was the reason why your parents died.

Damn it Darren.

"Mhmm." She hums, filling the well used red kettle. "Annie's mother practically cornered me in the supermarket yesterday and begged me to make cookies. I love Annie, but her mother needs someone to pull that stick out of her ass. It's been up there for so long that I'm sure it's rotten."

The creature crawls down from your shoulders and down your arm to sniff at one of the chocolate chip cookies nearest you. It hadn't eaten since…

Darren.

You wince slightly at the thought and hope that you hadn't created something that needed and craved human flesh. The last thing you wanted to unleash on the world was Audry two especially in the wake of Homelander.

Truthfully you were waiting for the guilt at killing your brother to come, but it never had and you wondered if it ever would.

Probably not. He deserved that, he killed our parents, he tried to kill me, he tried to kill Ben.

The thought of Ben again makes a lump form in the back of your throat. You didn't know what was happening to you only that you felt guilty for leaving him like that, for yelling at him to let you go, and just vanishing on him when he probably thought that you were going back to the apartment.

He doesn't know where I am. Maybe that's why he tried to call, because he got back to the apartment and couldn't find me there and he was worried. You press your lips together. Yeah. Worried. Right.

"Honey?" Your grandmother says in a soothing voice

You look up from the box of chocolate chip cookies that you didn't remember picking up. Even the creature is looking at you with an expression that you can only explain as worry.

"Yeah?" Your voice shakes slightly.

She's leaning back against the counter, arms crossed over her chest, head tilted slightly to the side, her beautiful grayed hair pulled up in an elegant bun, but in her eyes you can see genuine concern. "Fuck." She sighs after a minute.

You blink in surprise. It was the first time that you'd ever heard her say that word in your entire life.

"I shouldn't have left." She breathes. "I told Ben to look out for you. I told him, that little bastard was bound to show up again and what did he do? He left you at that plant shop alone with no protection!"

You'd only seen her really angry a handful of times in your lifetime. Like you, your grandmother often had a gentle disposition and didn't get angry unless the situation called for it.

I mean, Darren admitted to killing our parents and then got fucking ripped apart. But how does she know about any of that? I haven't told her…

"How did you know that he left me there? Did Ben call you?" You ask putting down the box of cookies.

An odd expression crosses her face, as if she's contemplating something. "No." She hesitates again. "I saw it."

"No." Your grandmother hesitates. "I saw it."

"You saw it?" You repeat, confused.

What's going on?

"What?"

Is she saying what I think she's saying?

Instead of explaining further your grandmother walks out of the kitchen, leaving the kettle behind on the stove and you in a state of utter confusion.

Is she saying that she can see the future? Because that would mean that she's a supe and there's only one supe in history that I know of that can do that. A supe that no one has seen in over forty years.

You can hear her open the door to the closet under the stairs and the sound of her sifting through all the junk that the two of you had shoved in there over the years instead of finding the right place to put it.

When she comes back into the kitchen, she's holding a giant cardboard file box that you'd never paid attention to each time you opened the closet to find something. Your eyes shift from the box to her still not comprehending exactly what she was saying.

"I probably should have told you this a while ago, but…" She trails off and nods her head at the box before turning back to the kettle on the stove that has begun to scream. "I kept putting it off."

The box is old, worn at the edges, and theres a musty black fabric beneath a collection of yellowed photographs. You pull out the one on top to examine it.

Ben is standing there in his full Soldier Boy regalia outside of Vought tower and the woman standing next to him is Soothsayer. The outfit she wore was familiar, a black-skin tight suit with a blind fold tied over her eyes.

Soothsayer was a supe who could see the future and who was apart of Payback, a supe that had vanished a year before the mission in Nicaragua and no one knew where she went. There were rumors that she'd died and that she'd been a Russian spy, but you'd never believed them. You'd heard Butcher talk about how he tried to find her when he was trying to figure out what happened to Soldier Boy, but he never had. Said that the trail went cold.

But now you knew where she went, because she was standing directly in front of you.

She's Soothsayer? Holy fuck that's why Ben kept accusing her of cheating in the poker game because he knew that she could see the future.

"You were Soothsayer?" You gasp. "But why didn't you say anything? Why didn't you tell me?"

She continues to measure the tea leaves. "I didn't tell anyone."

"Grandpa didn't know? But he was alive when you were a supe?"

Your grandfather had never spoken about a history with supes that you remember.

"No." She turns to look at you, a hurt expression crossing over her face for a minute. "Well, I know that I said I was going to have tea, but if we're going to talk about this I'm going to need something a little bit stronger."

Your grandmother opens a cabinet under the stove an pulls out an enormous bottle of scotch. Truth be told you'd never seen her drink more than just a glass of wine, to see her like this was about as shocking as seeing a polar bear sunning itself on a Florida beach.

"Do you still want the blueberry tea or do you need something a little stronger?" She looks back over her shoulder at you as she pulls down a glass for herself.

"I think I need something stronger." You answer honestly.

Learning about everything Darren had done was one thing, but finding out that your grandmother used to be a famous supe and that she never told you about it was another thing. It was like looking at another person. You'd always loved your grandmother's gentle way, her care for her community and her family soft, but now you weren't sure you really knew who she was.

She sits down across from you and hands you a glass of the amber colored liquid. There's a heavy silence that hangs between the two of you as she tries to find a way to start. The photo of her and Ben is laying on top of what you realize is her uniform inside the box and she smiles down at the photo, just a little twitch at the corner of her lips.

"I met Ben when I was twenty three years old." She begins taking a sip from the glass. "Legend 'discovered' me. I had the injection of Compound V maybe two years before that, not when I was born, but I hadn't gotten popular. Other powers were much more flashy and by then there were so many heroes coming out of the woodwork that someone with the ability to see the future didn't seem as marketable."

There's something reflected in her blue eyes, the same eyes your father had, that you can't place. "I had just moved to New York, I had no money, and the way I was getting it was by pretending to be a fortune teller and betting on some sports events on the side. It wasn't hard to prove that I could see the future, the past was more difficult, but Legend somehow stumbled into my shop and figured out that I was a supe. And he didn't think I was too bad looking so he helped me get big."

"You pretended to be a fortune teller?"

She snorts into her glass. "Mhmm. People really will believe anything if they're desperate enough and back then there was so much turmoil going on with Russia that people were scared and wanted to feel comforted. My job provided some of that."

"But why did you walk away from it if you were such a big hero." You ask. "Everyone knew your name, you were-"

Your grandmother raises an eyebrow at you and you fall silent so she can continue. "When I got onto Payback that's when everything exploded for me, the films, the commercials, the ridiculous ads." She sighs. "That's also when I met Ben."

You take a sip from the glass in front of you, sputtering slightly. It was stronger than you were expecting. "And you two were-"

Please don't say dating, please don't say dating, please don't say…

"Friends. Just friends." Diana sits back against the back of the breakfast nook, sinking into the navy blue pillows. "But he is almost as charming now as he was then."

You cringe at the thought of Ben coming on to a younger version of your grandmother.

She taps her glass with her index finger deep in thought. "But I think that I was the only person that Ben actually talked to, the only person that he was comfortable being around."

"What do you mean?" You ask confused. "Didn't he talk to Countess and to Legend?"

Her expression hardens at the mention of Countess's name. "He didn't talk to her the way he talked to me. Ben is difficult, he always has been and I think that most of the people he meet him write him off as this asshole with a chauvinistic look on the world, but he's not. At least, not all the time. There are so many people that he's met that are never willing to take a chance on him. To trust that there is really something beneath all of that bravado."

It was what you had been thinking for the past week, that there was more to Ben than he was willing to let people see, but you were slowly realizing that Ben was letting you see those parts. In the quiet moments at your shared apartment when he sat with you while you read or made you laugh or walked you to and from work you saw another side of Ben that you never saw when he was around anyone else. The guilt rises again when you think of how you ran from him, how you turned your back and left him standing there to clean up your mess.

I shouldn’t have done that, but it was all just so overwhelming and I didn't want to talk to anyone.

"I think that Ben is the most loyal friend I ever had. No one ever seems to believe me when I say that. That we were just friends, but nothing happened between us."

"You didn't date? Or sleep together?" You ask cautiously. It was difficult to imagine Ben being friends with a woman and not having a sexual relationship with her.

Well. We're friends, but that's different.

The last thing you wanted to think about was Ben and your grandmother having sex.

I would need so much therapy after that. You sigh. Yeah, because after all the shit I've been through and found out about my life in the last twenty hours, the knowledge that Ben fucked my grandmother is what's going to push me over the edge.

"No." She shakes her head with a small smile. "About a week after I met Ben, I was running late to a movie shoot and I stepped off the crosswalk without looking. There was a car coming and I didn't see it. Ironic isn't it?" She laughs at herself. "I can see the future and I didn't see a car coming, but your grandfather did and he grabbed the back of my jacket and yanked me onto the sidewalk, saved my life. And the second my eyes locked with his I saw our future. I saw our wedding, our first house, I saw our son take his first steps and I saw how much I would love him and how much he would love me." She clears her throat for a minute, her fingers tighten on the glass, and her gaze drops to the wedding ring on her left hand. “The future is never set in stone, it’s fluid. It morphs and shapes with your decisions, but in the future I saw, I was so happy. And I didn’t want to lose that.”

Your grandfather had passed a few years ago, but you knew it weighed on her everyday. She had spent the week after he died in her room not saying anything to anyone. And sometimes she'd look out the window into the backyard with an odd expression, but you knew that meant she was thinking of him.

Growing up you'd seen how in love the two of them were, more so than your parents. Seen the flowers your grandfather always brought home just because he was thinking of her, watched him do little things around the house without being asked, saw how they never walked away angry from one another, and seen the soppy expression he'd get when he watched your grandmother move around the kitchen baking with a grace that you'd never possessed.

You reach across the table to touch her hand and she takes it gratefully.

"I didn't want to tell him that I was a supe, and at the beginning I thought I could balance it all, but then Ben started dating Countess." She takes another sip from her glass. "She hated me."

"What? Why?" You ask. The creature crawls across the table to sniff at the glass in front of you, before it snorts and falls into your lap, curling into a ball.

"Countess was a bitch." Your grandmother says mirthlessly, her expression hardening. "She wanted to possess Ben completely. Only loved how famous he was, how popular it made her, and he threw himself at her feet, in his own way, not understanding that love didn’t look that way. He’s never had a good example of it in his life. And she never understood that Ben and I were just friends. By then I had been dating your grandfather for a few months and things were getting serious. It was about a year before everything that happened in Nicaragua."

She presses her lips together as if remembering what happened to Ben there. "She was jealous, possessive, and she came to me one night. Ben was out of town for a film so she knew we wouldn’t be interrupted. She threatened to tell your grandfather who I really was and threatened to kill him.” Her jaw sets. “My powers were never really as offensive as hers were. And she said that Ben wouldn’t ever protect me over her because he loved her and would do anything to make her happy. So I left and I never looked back.”

And here I thought I couldn't hate Countess any more than I did for what she did to Ben.

“You didn’t talk to him ever again?” You wonder out loud.

She left without telling him goodbye?

“There was the occasional phone call. Sometimes Ben would ask me to see who was going to win a ball game or something so he could make a few bucks. He stopped by to say hi a few times because he was in the neighborhood. One time he brought your father a baseball glove that was way too big for a one year old.” She snorts, the memory flashing in her eyes. “I always thought Ben would be a good dad some day. But I think seeing your father was when Ben realized how much he wanted to have kids. And I think seeing the way your grandfather treated me made him start to feel conflicted about Countess. But he respected that I walked away, he saw that I was happy.”

“But what about Nicaragua?"

A dark look crosses her face followed by something that looks suspiciously like guilt. “I saw what they were going to do to him.”

“What? But why didn't you tell him what they were planning? Why didn't you-"

"I tried." She snaps, shoulders tense, but then they drop. "I called Ben, but Stan answered. By then your father was turning two, your grandfather had opened up his practice, and Stan threatened me, he knew where we were and knew everything about us. So I kept my mouth shut and I’ll regret it for the rest of my life.”

You could feel your heart breaking for her.

Ben was her best friend and she had to sit by and watch them do that to him. She saw what they were going to do and they were going to kill her for it, kill my family for it.

The anger that surges in your chest makes the creature in your lap stir and grow a few inches, but you tamp it down before it gets bigger than a small dog.

“Does Ben know?” You ask her to distract yourself.

You didn't want Ben to hate your grandmother for this, didn't want him to hate her for something that wasn't her fault.

She nods. “Yes. I told him everything.”

“When?”

“The moment I saw him in your hospital room. I couldn’t keep it in any longer. I wasn't expecting him to be there, but it all poured out of me. I was so surprised to see him there. I hadn't seen a future where he came back."

“Was he mad?”

I mean… he didn't seem mad when I woke up, not to mention he was upset when she left to come back to Illinois.

“Not at me.” She shakes her head. “He knew how much I wanted a normal life and how much I loved your grandfather. He doesn’t blame me for any of it.”

“Good. I can’t believe you didn’t tell me.”

The glass in front of you is still more than half-full but you don't want to risk another sip of what you're sure is gasoline packaged to look like Scotch. Your grandmother reaches to pour herself another glass.

“I didn’t want to until you were ready.”

“And when would that be?”

Your grandmother shrugs. “Maybe on my deathbed.”

You weren't angry for her not telling you, more surprised, but now that you knew everything about her it was hard to see her the same way you had.

You snort. “And no one knew?”

“Your dad figured it out.”

“How? When?”

“The moment you made that strawberry plant grow from your high chair.” She shakes her head with a smile. “It skipped a generation. Don’t know why, but you got it all somehow.”

“I was never injected?”

“No. That was a lie your father created. He knew that your grandfather didn't know and he knew that I didn't want your grandfather to know."

“Darren thought I was.”

“I know.”

At the mention of your brother's name, you watch her expression harden and she takes another swig from the glass in front of her, not flinching as the liquid goes down her throat.

“Did you see everything that happened?” You ask in a small voice.

You still weren't 100% sure how it was her powers worked, but you figured that she was able to see some of what Darren did and what he said.

“Yes.”

“You heard everything Darren said?"

“Yes.”

You chew the inside of your cheek for a minute hoping that she didn't take it as hard as you did. “Did you know that he killed them?”

“No.” She breathes, rolling the glass between her hands for a moment. “The night they died, I got a vision a few minutes before the car ran off the road. I was the one who called the police and who told them where to look, but I never saw that it was Darren or that it was anyone causing the accident. All I saw was the three of you in the car. I should have known.” Her voice breaks.

“It’s not your fault.” You squeeze her hand.

“And it’s not yours either.” She squeezes your hand back.

The memories are beginning to float up from the recesses of your mind and your teeth clench together as you try to keep them at bay.

“I know.” You breathe. The memory of the ruined shop flashes through your head. “I didn’t know that I could do something like that.” You gently touch your healed right arm and glance at the creature that is nibbling on the edge of the cardboard box with its sharp splinter-like teeth. “I feel so different and I don’t know how to go back to the way I was.”

“I don’t think you ever will.”

"Really?"

The thought was unwelcome. You were hoping that all of this was going to blow over, but you knew it wouldn't. Your powers had changed. There was an energy that thrummed in your veins now, stretching out of the house to the plants that grew in the garden. You could feel them all if you concentrated.

She frowns. “When you told me that you were working for Butcher I was worried about you getting involved in the supe world. I didn’t want that life for you, didn’t want you to suffer the way I did-“

“Was it really that bad?"

“Not all the time, just at the end. But I think that’s why I loved your grandfather so much. Because he was different than all the supes. He was down to earth, not just normal but-“ She shrugs. “I think Compound V does something to our minds, makes them more susceptible and when you’re surrounded by people using their powers and thinking that they’re gods it’s easy to lose who you are. I was glad I left when I did."

“Great." You huff, thinking about how your powers had grown exponentially since you killed your brother. It was scaring you to think that you would reach a point where you acted like Homelander, where you saw yourself as a god and killed anyone who stood in your way.

As tired as the stereotype of you only being able to make the flowers grow, you liked doing that. You liked healing plants, tending to them, and helping them grow. For you it had never been about using your powers the way that you had to kill Elijah and your brother and had always been about spreading a little more joy and love like your grandmother did with her kindness in her community.

Your mind flashes back to the first night that Ben stayed with you in your apartment and he'd asked you why you worked for Butcher and told you that he thought you "didn't fit."

Before you hadn't. You knew that. You weren't intimidating to look at or fueled by revenge or had a bone to pick with supes. You'd joined because you thought it was the right thing to do and because you wanted to be closer with Annie. She had been so involved in the supe world and you'd felt like you were losing your best friend. When in reality being at "Please Don't Die" was the only thing that felt natural for you.

You could feel yourself changing and you weren't sure that you wanted to and you weren't sure if you were changing for the better. Deep down you still felt like you, despite everything Darren had revealed, but your powers were greater than you'd thought they could be.

“No.” She squeezes your hand pulling you out of your head. “I don’t see you losing yourself in this.”

“You’ve seen-“ Your eyes widen.

“The future yeah.” Her lips twitch up at the ends in a smile. “It is what I do.”

“That’s so weird.”

You hadn't meant to say it, but you really didn't want to know too much about your future.

Well, not all that much. Maybe just a little.

“You of all people have no right to judge what’s weird. Not with Godzilla sitting in your lap.”

"Godzilla" yawns, flashing a mouthful of his pointy teeth, before settling back down on your thighs.

You smile for the first time in twenty hours, but then it drops. “I don’t like losing control. I thought I knew who I was but now I don’t-“ The emotions were bubbling up again, chest tightening, and lungs beginning to gasp for air. “I don’t know who I am anymore or what I am or what I can do and-“

“There’s nothing wrong with not being in control.”

“But what if I hurt someone? What if I kill-“ You body shakes as you think about all the important people in your life, Annie, Hughie, Butcher, Kimiko, MM, Frenchie- and then your mind stutters on Ben.

“Your powers are growing and there’s nothing to be afraid of or ashamed of. If you’re afraid of them it won’t get easier for you. You have to embrace the fear to see the lights that line the path through it.”

"I killed Darren, I killed Elijah-"

"Not because you lost control. You did it because you were protecting yourself and protecting your friends."

"But-"

"Who is it that you're scared of hurting? Annie?" Her expression turns sympathetic. "Annie is a supe and understands what it's like to lose control. None of us are in control all the time and it's ridiculous to believe that you won't lose control at least once."

Your throat clenches tightly, because when she asked the question you didn't see Annie's face, you saw Ben's. You knew that it was probably ridiculous to worry about hurting a guy with a nuclear reactor stuffed in his chest or a guy who'd been through every torture known to man, but you were. And you weren't entirely sure if you meant hurting him with just your powers.

Tears crest and fall down your cheeks as you sit there, throat thickening. "I don't want to hurt Ben."

"He's a little more indestructible than us sweetie." She cracks a smile, but you can't smile back and you don't answer because you're unsure how to.

She sits back against the breakfast nook and sighs, examining your face and slowly realizes what you mean. "Ben is complicated. He always has been. I like to think that most of it, is his father's fault. Has he told you anything about him?"

You shake your head.

"He was a dick. Made Ben think that he was a disappointment his whole life. I don't think that Ben has had someone love him unconditionally since his mother died. And loving Countess only made it worse for him. Her love was jealous, possessive, and I don't think that he's really come to terms with what real love should look like." She lets out a breath, tapping her index finger against the glass. "I never saw him as more than a friend, but I do love him. It's not a crime to love him."

"I don't love him." You say it immediately.

"Why not?"

"What?" You sputter. "I don't know what you're-"

"Tell me why you don't love him." Your grandma says methodically, as if she's trying to talk you through it.

"Because I-" The pressure was back in the back of your throat and you couldn't quite meet her eye. "Because-" You scramble for the answer, trying your darndest to keep your heart from clenching in your chest. "I want what you and grandpa had, what Annie and Hughie have, and what my parents had. A strong relationship with someone who sees all my flaws, the little parts, and the darkness and still choses to fall in love with me anyway. I don't want just one night I want every night. I want something real and Ben has said countless times that he-"

"So you've talked about it with Ben?" She raises an eyebrow.

"Only because he kept trying to sleep with me and I told him that I didn't want to have sex with him." You reply exasperated.

"You don't?"

"Gran!"

"What? He's attractive."

"It doesn't matter. None of it does. Because Ben has said that he doesn't have relationships, that he doesn't care about feelings, or emotions." Saying the words that Ben had told you countless times made something inside begin to shrivel up and die. "And I do. And I don't want to manipulate him into being something he's not or force him into a relationship that's doomed from the beginning. Ben is Ben. He's not changing or-"

"He has." She interrupts.

"What?"

"The Ben I saw in your hospital room is not the one I knew." She says it so matter of fact that makes it hard to breathe. "And neither was the one that I saw in your apartment when I stayed with you. I mean he is in essence Ben, but-"

"What does that have to do with anything?"

"He is changing. Not completely, but he's acting differently than when he was with Countess. I mean, I saw all the things he did for her. The way he was around her."

"Why does that matter?"

"Because he loved her."

The words make your heart seize in your chest. "Ben doesn't love me. He's my roommate and my friend-" It was the same thing that you kept telling yourself on repeat to beat back the other feelings that you hadn't quite identified yet. "And he's told me that he doesn't want a relationship and that I should try to meet other people."

That last part was a lie, but you honestly didn't know where she was going with this conversation or why it was getting so hard to breathe.

"Have you thought that maybe Ben doesn't want to love you because he's scared?"

"He doesn't love me and Ben isn't afraid of anything."

"He is. It might not look the same way on him as it does on everyone else, but if you pay close enough attention you can catch it." She hesitates. "And I think if you pay attention to you, you'll see what it is that you're afraid of too."

What does she mean? What the hell am I afraid of? Ben isn't afraid of anything, he's practically shouted that from the mountaintops like Julie Andrews.

"I already told you what I'm afraid of."

"I'm not talking about you hurting someone honey. There's something else that you refuse to admit to yourself because you're scared." She smiles sadly at you. "You should though, because when you embrace it, what comes after is really beautiful." There's a far off look in her eyes and you realize that she'd seen something further ahead that she wasn't letting on.

"And it's all I want for you. To be happy." Your grandmother stands from the other side of the booth "I think you need some rest. You drove all night long and I doubt you got any sleep. And I have to package all of these before Annie's mother calls down the four horsemen of the Apocalypse on me."

"Wait-"

"Please sweetie." She lays her hand down on your arm. "I think you'll feel a little better about all of this when you've had some rest." Her fingers raise to push back some of the hair that's fallen forward into your eyes. "Hmm?"

You didn't want to rest, you wanted to talk about this, but you knew better than to argue with her. Not to mention she was right, you hadn't slept.

"And when you wake up I'll make your favorite for dinner, alright?" She smiles, but there's something behind it that you can't place.

"Okay."

And this time you don't argue with her. You go up the worn staircase that you have your entire life and collapse onto your bed, wondering exactly what it was she saw your future hold, and what it is that you won't admit to yourself.

Soldier Boy POV

There was no light in the apartment save from the burning red tip of Ben's blunt and the bluish glow emanating from the tv that caught the dips and sharp edges of his face. But it was nothing more than background noise.

His hand absentmindedly stroked along Bean's back, his eyes focused on the ceiling above the couch. He hadn't moved in hours. It had been over twenty four hours since everything that happened at the plant shop, since you'd summoned a creature from the depths of the store, since Darren had thrown Ben through the plate glass windows of the bakery, and since Ben had last seen you.

He didn't understand why you hadn't let him take you back to the apartment and why it was that you had to leave. Ben hadn't liked the feeling that stabbed him in the chest when you turned your back on him and ran away. He'd felt the urge to comfort you the way he'd watched Hughie do for Annie in the car a week ago, but you hadn't let him.

Instead all he'd done is stood there and watched you run, still covered in dust, rubble, and blood. Worse was you hadn't let him check you for injuries and Ben hated the thought that you were hurt somewhere and he didn't know where you were.

You were so much more fragile than he was. He was realizing that more every day, was acutely aware of it after everything that happened with Elijah. Honestly, sitting there in the hospital with you laying there asleep with nothing that he could do, but wait for you to wake up had been agony. Not to mention that looking at the bruises around your throat, over your eye, and the bright green cast only made him feel worse. He'd never felt so helpless in his entire life and he hated it. Because Ben wasn't some helpless damsel in distress, he was a man and a man shouldn't wait on anyone or feel out of control, or at least, that's what he told himself.

Ben hears someone walk down the hallway outside the apartment and he perks up to listen, hoping that it's you finally coming home. Ben's mind stutters on the word "home." He'd lived many places in his life, apartments that felt more like way-stations, and the drafty cold mansion back in Philadelphia where he grew up, but neither felt like home. And although he hated how small your apartment was, it was the first place that Ben liked living in. He was starting to understand the word home.

But the feet keep moving past the apartment and Ben sinks into the couch cushions. Even Bean seems to be disappointed. "It's alright buddy." Ben mutters. "She'll come back."

But he wasn't sure.

Ben also wasn't used to feeling this way. It was close to the way that he felt when he went to Boston and was sitting in that damn hotel room waiting for something to happen and he still didn't understand what it meant. He didn't understand why he couldn't stand it that you weren't back yet. It made him feel like a woman waiting for her husband to get home from work when he told her that he was "running late." He'd tried to distract himself by looking at some possible prospects on Tinder, but just like the week after you'd come home from the hospital and just like the date he had in Boston, no one held any appeal.

His mind was awake and roaming around, pacing back and forth. The blunt was supposed to help, but it hadn't.

His phone chirps and Ben picks it up to look at the screen, but it's not you, it's Jake.

Jake: I know that I'm not your favorite person, but thank you for what you did.

Ben huffs and turns his phone face down on the couch once more. "What a fucking pussy."

When you left Ben had realized that Jake was still inside the building and as much as he wanted race after you, he understood that you'd be even more upset if you'd killed Jake. So Ben had tromped back through the building and found him trapped beneath some rubble. Jake was okay, just unconscious, but Ben had carried him out and put him on the sidewalk before he high tailed it out of there. The last thing that he wanted was to be caught with a shredded body outside a ruined building.

I didn't do it for him. I did it for her. Ben thinks to himself, looking down at the text message.

As much as he hated the thought of saving your future boyfriend, he didn't want to see what it did to you if you found out that you killed Jake, so he'd done it to avoid watching you cry again.

Ben didn't understand why he hated watching you cry.

Women cry. They're damn emotional all the time. He tries to reason with himself taking a puff from the blunt pinched between his thumb and forefinger. And she fucking cries way too much.

The image of you crying outside of the shop in the wake of everything that happened pricks something under his ribcage. Fuck.

Ben didn't feel remorse for what happened, well, the only thing he regretted was not getting there sooner and getting to fuck Darren up himself. When Diana had called him to tell him that Darren was coming, Ben had practically ripped the apartment door off in his haste to get back to you. He hadn’t wanted to leave you at the plant shop, but Butcher had told Ben, that he had a possible location for Darren, but it came up empty and Ben had been at Butcher's apartment chewing him out for sending him on a fucking wild goose chase.

It only made Ben more angry to allow Darren to speak to you, but he was trying to let you handle it even though he wanted to handle him. But it had brought him an unholy amount of joy to throw Darren in front of that minivan and to watch that creature tear him apart while the final whitish blue pulses of electricity jumped and crackled down the street making the streetlights shower sparks everywhere.

But Ben was more upset that Darren had been able to land a few hits on you before you killed him.

Ben remembered the giant lizard that crawled out of what was left of "Please Don't Die" and felt his lips quirk up into a smile. As much as he hated the entire situation, Ben couldn't help but feel a little surge of pride at what you'd done to your brother. He'd never seen you look so powerful standing there in the street, your eyes glowing a brilliant green, arms outstretched, and the ground trembling around you as the world begged to be unleashed.

Of course he'd been just as surprised as you were at the fact that you'd healed your broken arm. He wasn't sure if you'd noticed it yet, but you looked different too. There weren't as many lines on your face and your hair was more springy, the few silver hairs that Ben had noticed in passing were no longer there.

He wasn't sure what that meant, but there was something that felt suspiciously like hope tingling in his stomach, hope that you weren't as fragile anymore and hope that it meant you wouldn't die.

When Diana had told Ben that her husband had died, he saw the pain in her eyes when she said it, saw her relieving the memory, and for some reason as soon as she said that he was dead, the first thing Ben thought about was you. Ben hadn't considered his inability to age as much in the past, hadn't cared about outliving anyone before. Seeing Countess as an older woman had made him more aware of it. Looking at the woman who he once thought he loved, had showed him what that was like. Not that he had a problem with daring older women, Ben always thought that women really did get better with age, but it was what came next that Ben wasn't fond of.

And for some reason thinking that one day he'd wake up and see the marks of age on your face or one day he'd wake up and he wouldn't be able to annoy you or hear you yell at him made his chest tight.

Ben takes another hit of his blunt. The longer he sat there the more then unnatural feeling stirred in the pit of his stomach, thrumming through his veins, the feeling that he was trying to avoid. He thought that the joint would calm him down, but he found himself jumping at every creak and footstep in the apartment building, perking up each time and hoping that it was you coming home.

He didn't know where you were. You hadn't answered any of his texts or calls and Ben was ashamed at how many times that he had tried to call you.

Get a fucking grip. He'd thought to himself when he typed out another text message to send you, stopping himself from sending it.

But he'd been so desperate to hear from you that he'd actually gone to talk to Annie who seemed upset that she couldn't get ahold of you either. When Hughie and Annie had seen how upset Ben had been, Hughie had laid his hand on Ben's arm and told him not to worry. Ben had yelled at him that he "wasn't fucking worried and to mind his own business" and had shaken off Hughie's comforting hand before stomping out of the shared apartment.

No one else seemed to be as concerned about finding you. Butcher, MM, and Frenchie were all deeply involved in trying to figure out the cover-up for what happened outside the plant shop. By some miracle no one had caught a picture of your face, but there was little they could do about Darren's body that had been strewn across the street. Annie was having to deal with the repercussions at work, trying to handle what the news was calling a "super villain threat."

Personally, Ben thought that since they froze Homelander, the Seven looked weak and Ben believed that the superhero team that represented America shouldn't look weak. Of course before Ben had also thought that they looked like a bunch of pussies and again felt himself sink deeper into the couch when he thought about what his supposed son had become.

He shakes off the feelings he has about it and his thoughts turn back inevitably to you.

Ben wasn't used to thinking about someone as much as he thought of you, but each time he settled back into the apartment and you weren't there he was hyperaware of how quiet it was.

Maybe I should call Diana. She might know where she is.

As soon as Ben thinks that, his phone begins to ring, but Ben doesn't bother to look at who it is before he answers it.

"Hello?" Ben huffs out a breath of smoke that hangs in the air in front of his face, catching in the bluish light coming from the television.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" The voice on the other side of the line yells at him.

"Di?"

"Yes it's me. Who did you think it was? Santa Clause?" Your grandmother snarks.

"Why are you calling me and why the fuck are you so mad? What did I do?" Ben answers slightly annoyed.

As much as you got under his skin, your grandmother had been the same way. He actually thought that it was amusing that even before he figured out that she was your grandmother that he had often compared you to her in his mind. You had the same mannerisms, the same defiant and stubborn attitude that drove Ben up the wall, and you were just as beautiful as she was.

Ben was okay with admitting that he was attracted to you. To him that felt normal, it was the other feelings that he was conflicted about, the ones that he'd never felt before stirring in his chest that made him feel "too emotional" and "woman-like."

Truthfully, Ben was sure that if your grandmother had given him a shot that maybe he would have felt that way about her too. She was the only person that Ben actually trusted in the 80's, the only person that was brave enough to call him out on all his shit. You did that now. But he liked her husband also, so Ben was content with letting her go. He liked how happy that Henry, your grandfather, had made her. He knew that she wasn't happy as a supe and seeing her so happy and in love made Ben feel something that was close to happiness.

And it was seeing the way the two of them were together made Ben wonder if what he had with Countess was the same thing. Because he did have feelings about her that were different, but each time he went to visit Diana and saw your father playing on her lap he felt that there was something missing in his life.

It was the same way that he thought something was missing when you weren't in the apartment, but Ben hadn't realized that yet.

"Because I don't understand what the hell you're doing!" Diana replies and Ben honestly doesn't know why she's angry with him.

"About what?"

"My granddaughter."

Ben sits up the blunt in his fingertips forgotten. "Is she there with you?"

"Yes." Her voice softens for a moment.

Ben relaxes and leans back onto the couch, sighing in relief. "Good. That's good." Relief swelled in his chest when he thought about you staying with her, safe.

That's what she meant when she said that she wanted to go home. Home is with her grandmother. Ben stopped the next thought before he could go there.

The thought that home wasn't with him.

Ben was trying not to think about that or think about you hating him. He didn't think you did, well, didn't think you did anymore. At first it really was touch and go, but now he was almost eighty percent sure after you'd told him more than once that you weren't afraid of him and didn’t hate him that you sometimes wanted him around.

"No, not good."

"What do you mean? Is she okay?" Ben's grip on the phone tightens so hard that he's sure that he hears the screen cracking.

"No."

"What happened?" Ben's voice is a growl, the feelings of relief evaporating as soon as they had begun to bloom in his chest. He mentally calculated how long it would take him to get to you.

"Her entire life fucking fell apart and where are you? Not here!"

Oh. Ben relaxed a little bit.

"I don't need to be there." He says on an exhale of smoke.

"Yes you do!" Diana presses.

"No, I don't. She a big girl she doesn't need me there, she's-" Ben takes a puff from the joint.

“If you were any denser you’d be a Bundt cake Benjamin!” She says exasperated.

"What the fuck are you talking about doll? I am not-"

“Let me guess." She interrupts and Ben can imagine her tapping her foot. He hated when she did that. "You’re moping around smoking a blunt on the couch probably with a glass of something that you're hoping to numb whatever the hell it is you're feeling."

Ben's eyes shift to the bottle of whiskey on the coffee table that he hadn't touched in a few minutes.

“I’m not fucking moping and stop spying on me!” He snaps back at Diana.

He hated how well she knew him. She was his best friend in the 80's through all the shit, she had seen him at his worst and at his best too many times to count.

“I don’t have to use my powers to know what you’re doing. I know you Ben.”

"Sorry to disappoint you sweetheart.” Ben grits his teeth, temper flaring hot. “But if you know me as well as you fucking say you do then you then you know that this is-“

“You avoiding your feelings by acting aloof and brooding like a fucked up version of Mr. Darcy.” She interrupts.

She certainly hasn't changed.

“I am not avoiding-“

“She needs you here Ben.” Diana stamps her foot, the same way you do when Ben pisses you off, and Ben can hear it.

“She doesn’t need me! She said that she wanted to go home, that she didn’t want to be here with me! I tried to-“ Ben shouts back standing up. It was the exact thing that he'd been thinking for the past twenty four hours, that you didn’t need him and that you didn't want to be any where near him.

That last thought made an uncomfortable sensation prickle in his gut when he thought it, because all it did was remind him of how you acted when the two of you first met, when you didn't want him to live with you and tried your darndest to make him go away.

He didn’t want to and he wasn't sure why that was.

“Try harder.” Diana interrupts him again and frankly it was pissing him off.

Ben clenches his jaw. “I think that you’ve confused me with someone else baby.”

“Don’t you 'baby' me Benjamin! We both know that you’re doing what you always do when things get hard for you.”

“And what’s that?”

“You pretend not to care and shut out everyone who tries to care for you. Not to mention you drown yourself in drugs, booze, and women.”

“She doesn’t care about me!” He spits.

“She does!” Diana snaps back. “And believe it or not she needs you here and she wants you here.”

"But-"

"Ben please." It was the first time that he'd heard Diana sound softer and almost pleading since the conversation started. "Don't do this to her. She's worth more than Countess and all those other women you've fallen into bed with."

"Do you really think I don't know that?" He roars. The answer surprises himself. "Do you think I don't know that she's different?"

Wait what?

"If you know that, then why aren't you here?"

He hesitates.

Everything you said to him the night of the party comes roaring back. You looking beautiful in a dress that made his throat tight, and you telling him that you just wanted to be friends and that you understood that he wasn't the type of guy to have relationships. He didn't understand why it stung a bit when you said that, but it had.

Ben thinks about the week that the two of you spent together after Diana went home, when he tried his best to take care of you, distract you from everything that happened with his movies, and would sit with you and try to make you laugh. He'd never wanted to take care of someone before.

Not to mention he kind of liked the way you laughed. He wouldn’t admit that to anyone, but each time you did, it made him want to laugh too. That had never happened to him before. But he wanted to make you laugh to forget everything that happened with Elijah. His fist clenches when he thinks of exactly what Elijah tried to do to you and it makes him feel so mad that he feels close to spontaneously combusting. Ben might not be the best role model when it came to women, but he couldn’t imagine the type of man who would force himself on someone else.

It had made him angry when he thought that you were suggesting that he would try something when he first moved in, because he wasn't that type of man.

Ben was trying to be better for you. He wasn't admitting that, but he really was trying to be better. He didn't understand why. You'd told him countless times that you didn’t want to be with him, that you wanted to be with someone else like Jake.

Ben frowns when he thinks about the man he'd pulled from the rubble of the shop. And again thinks to himself that you should be with someone different, someone who was a supe and could understand you. Ben had seen how difficult it was for Diana when she was keeping her supe life a secret from your grandfather and he didn't want you to have to do that with someone.

"Because I'm not-" Ben begins to say, but he holds his tongue. It was too honest, too raw, too unlike him to admit this to anyone.

Because I'm not this guy. Because I'm not the one she wants. Because I'm not some knight on a white horse. Because she's everything right with the world and I'm just a fucking asshole who sleeps on her couch.

"Ben." Diana breathes and he can practically hear her pinching the bridge of her nose. "In all the years I've known you, you've never done what you did for her with anyone else. You carried her out of that warehouse, you stayed with her in the hospital even after she woke up, you took care of her when she came home, you protected her from Darren. You can't ignore all those things."

"I'm not ignoring them. She's my friend." The word sours in his mouth as he says it. "And she would have done the same thing for me." He knew it was true.

She's a good person and she wouldn't let me chase her away if any of that shit happened to me and I told her to leave me alone.

"Yes she would. Because she cares about you." Diana sighs.

"She doesn't."

"Why don't you believe me?"

"Because she's told me what she wants!" Ben shouts so loudly he can feel the room shaking. "She wants to be friends-“

"Because she doesn't think that you want a relationship you nitwit!"

"I don't." Ben spits the words before he can stop them, but as he does something tightens at the base of his throat.

"How is it that it's been forty fucking years and you're still able to dance on the grave of my last nerve?"

Ben chuckles. "I missed you too sweetheart."

She sighs into the phone again making it crackle in Ben's ear. "She needs you.” Diana repeats. “And I think you need her too.”

His temper was flaring again, the thoughts that his father pressed into him surging up before he can stop the words. “I don’t need anyone. I’m Sol-“

“If you say that you’re Soldier Boy, I’m going to reach through this phone and slap you silly.” She snaps. “And you do need her, but you’re still just too stubborn to admit it.”

“I-“

“Ben I know that everything that happened with Countess was fucked up, but my granddaughter she-“ Diana pauses before she changes the thought. “You say that you know she’s different, but right now you’re treating her the same way you treat all those other women.”

“I’m not-“

“My granddaughter has decided you’re important to her and once that’s happened it’s hard to make her let go. You saw the way she was with Darren and that guy was a manipulative asshole. Imagine what she thinks of you.”

“I-“

“Stop making excuses!”

“You didn’t even hear what I was going to say!” Ben shouts.

“And I don’t need to! Think what you want Ben but if you’d stop acting so stubborn and so ridiculously blind to what’s right in front of you. I promise that what comes next is worth the risk.”

“Don’t go all fucking mystical on me doll.”

“And don’t go all macho- no feelings asshole on me! So stop being so damn stubborn, get on a plane and get your ass here.” She retorts. “Don’t fuck this up Benjamin because if you do I’ll fuck you up.”

The line goes dead.

Ben sat there for a minute in the silence still holding the phone up to his ear, listening to what your grandmother said to him ring around in his head for a second.

No one ever spoke to him that way. In fact, Ben had never allowed anyone to speak to him the way that she did, well, not until you came along. You reminded him so much of her that it was astounding and he wasn't going to admit that maybe it's why he liked being around you so much.

Ben frowns at what Diana said, thinking about the unusual feelings that were swirling in the pit of his stomach. He felt wrong and the feelings were odd for him. He hadn't felt anything remotely like this ever in his life, not even for Countess.

And although Ben refused to be afraid of anything, the feelings he was having scared him. He didn’t understand and he wasn't sure that he wanted to. He wasn't sure that he wanted to see where this ended up. He felt like he was in too deep.

As much as he wanted to go to you like Diana ordered him to, he wasn't sure that he should. Something was holding him back, digging it's heels in and refusing to budge.

But why do I feel like-

His phone rings and he doesn't look at the caller ID when he picks up, expecting it to be Diana again, yelling at him.

"Di I-"

But it's not Diana.

"Hello Ben. It's nice to hear your voice again." The familiar voice says, sounding calm and collected.

"What the fuck do you want?" Ben snarls.

"I thought it was time the two of us had a chat.”

A/N: At this point Diana is really just trying to give both Ben and the reader the kick in the pants they need. And yes I know another cliffhanger, but you know you love it. 🤭😉 We are quickly reaching the end of this series, but that means the confession scene is coming and I am so excited about it!!

As always thank you so much for reading! Reblogs, likes, and comments are not required, but are always appreciated. I love hearing what y'all think! If you'd like to be added to the taglist for this series let me know. 😊

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honeybeezgobzzzzz · 10 hours ago

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𓅨 The Endless’ Adventure with Animal Control: Chapter One

The Endless’ Adventure with Animal Control: You are being courted by Morpheus, one of the seven Endless. Then you get stood up on your date, and find out the shocking reason why.

Warnings: None.

To Note: Morpheus x Reader, Destiny = Russian Blue, Death = Sphinx, Dream = Mainecoon, Desire = Bombay, Despair = Exotic Shorthair, Delirium = Bengal.

Word Count: ~3.4k

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Apparently, having an Endless ‘court’ you means being showered with attention, gifts, and being treated like royalty while visiting the Dreaming. A quick Google search makes your situation clear. Courting is basically dating with the intention to marry, the step before engagement. So, you’ve essentially told Dream of the Endless he could court you and potentially marry you. Wow, you really have a knack for getting yourself into situations!

On the bright side, you enjoy the intimate time spent with Morpheus as he shows you places within the Dreaming you’d never imagined. Despite all the ethereal beauty and wonder you gaze at, Morpheus always keeps his eyes on you. That makes you feel special, beautiful, and seen—a first in your life.

It’s also an ego boost for the Endless to watch you fawn over his creations, as there’s nothing you don’t find awe-inspiring or amazing.

Morpheus’ courtship sweeps you up in a romantic swirl of magical dreams, picnics, and strolls, making you feel like you’re living a never-ending fairytale. But fairytales always end, right? You don’t think it’s going to crash and burn; you’re just suspicious of how well things are going in your life. Nothing has ever been this smooth and easy for this long. You’re suspicious, to say the least. That’s how you find yourself absentmindedly stirring muffin batter while lost in thought.

“Hey, uh, Y/N?” Matthew chitters, his head cocking to the side. “I think you’re over-stirring the batter…” You blink out of your tumultuous thoughts and glance down at the bowl. Damn it.

“It’s banana muffins,” you mutter, trying to hype yourself up. “They’re forgiving… right?” Matthew has no idea if banana muffins are forgiving, as he doesn’t bake, but he remembers that over-stirring muffin batter is a kitchen no-no.

“No idea, but sure, they’ll taste good either way,” the raven replies from his perch on the window sill. You installed a little bird perch for him after Morpheus began courting you. Matthew cocks his head further at you while you spoon the batter into the muffin tray. “So, you’ve been really lost in your thoughts lately, Y/N. Something wrong?”

You don’t reply at first, choosing to collect your thoughts while spooning dollops of batter. With a more than necessary drawn-out soft sigh, you finally reply:

“I feel like I’m in a fairy tale,” you explain almost numbly, realizing that admitting your thoughts out loud makes them true. “A stupid Disney fairy tale where all my wishes and dreams come true.”

Listening to your softly spoken words, Matthew is confused by how down you seem about those words. You’re happy with your life, right? It sure seems like it with the way you smile when Morpheus is with you—you practically glow! Clearly, everything isn’t fine in reality.

“What’s wrong with that?” Matthew broaches, ruffling his wings. “Isn’t that a good thing?”

“Fairy tales come to an end, Matthew, and I’m starting to wonder when mine will do the same.” You reply with a shrug, setting aside the now empty bowl and grabbing the filled muffin tray. “I’m not going to pretend that this is going to last forever. Nothing in my life has ever been without problems or heartbreak.”

“What exactly are you saying? Things are going too well between you and the boss man?”

“Pretty much,” you say, putting the tray in the oven and setting the timer. “I mean, do you know what it means to court someone? It isn’t dating, Matthew.”

“Uh, you’re gonna have to clarify for me because I have no idea what courting even is…” the raven responds sheepishly. You lean back against the kitchen counter and stare out the window.

“It means you get to know someone with the intention of marriage,” you explain to the raven, feeling silly for even saying the words. In what dimension would an Endless want to marry you?

“Wow, boss, you’re really going for it,”

Sitting on the park bench where you’ve spent countless hours next to a certain brooding man, your jaw clenches and fingers grip the worn wood tightly. Morpheus is never late. In fact, it always seems like he waits for you to arrive. He’s always careful never to have you wait on him and extends every chance he has to spend more time with you. So why isn’t he at your meeting place today?

Perhaps something has come up in the Dreaming, and he had to tend to that incident first? No, Matthew would have come to inform you of such an event. You spend many of your waking hours in the raven’s presence, and he keeps you well informed about what’s going on in the Dreaming. They wouldn’t leave you sitting all by yourself on this bench wondering...

“Maybe I was right,” you softly speak to yourself, thinking back to the conversation you had with Matthew about how your life is a fairy tale. Perhaps this is the great end you’ve been expecting? No, Morpheus wouldn’t do that to you. He dotes on you like a loyal boyfriend and worships the ground you tread! If you and he were going to end your relationship, no doubt it would be an explosive event with anger and tears. Not this nothingness. “They wouldn’t do this to me, they wouldn’t do this to us.”

You repeat those words in your mind, trying to convince yourself that nothing is wrong and that, for once, Morpheus and Matthew are distracted by something to miss your bi-weekly date at the park. Tonight you’ll enter the Dreaming and hunt down Lucienne to find out what happened. An Endless hellbent on courting you like a queen wouldn’t ghost you.

Sighing in dejection, you rise from your seat and stuff your hands in your pockets. Clearly, your date is going to have to be postponed. So you turn and slowly begin walking back towards your home, trying not to let your mind turn upon itself. Following the winding path, you pass a group of children kicking around a soccer ball and a pair of gossiping women. The pathway bends around a group of trees that obscure the rest of the park, and while you glance at a flowering bush, a cacophony of birds and breaking branches startles you out of your inner thoughts. You look up in time to see a black mass of ruffled feathers shooting directly at you and take the bird straight in the chest.

Obviously, you fall on your ass with a less-than-graceful yelp. While your palms sting from rocks and gravel digging into your flesh, you grunt and shift into a sitting position as the black bird rights itself.

“We’ve got a MASSIVE problem, boss lady!!” Matthew thunders from where he’s still perched in your lap, feathers askew and very ruffled. You blink at him in surprise, wondering why the hell he would be pulling such a stunt in broad daylight around the public. But before the flustered raven can tell you exactly what’s going on and why it’s such a huge problem, your phone’s ringtone goes off.

“Hold that thought, let me get off the ground and check my phone. It might be work…” Moving Matthew so he’s perched on your shoulder instead of your lap, you pull yourself to your feet and slip your phone from your pocket. The moment your eyes glance at the screen, your brow furrows. “Why on earth would they be calling?”

“That’s what I’m trying to tell you!” Matthew all but shrieks in your ear. “The boss is a cat again!” Dear sweet Jesus, not again! At least the animal shelter has your number on file and is calling you. Accepting the call, you hold the phone to your ear while speed-walking home.

“Hello?”

“Hello! We are calling you to inform you that we have picked up your cat Morpheus after he was found at the scene of an accident with other felines. We suspect that someone might have been trafficking purebreds given the conditions he and the others were found in. We’ll give him a once-over before you take him home.”

Well, no wonder he hadn’t shown up for your date!

Never mind that, brain. Morpheus is a cat again and possibly mixed up in animal trafficking? You need to get over to that shelter pronto!

“I’ll be right over as soon as I get home,” you promise before ending the call.

“Boss lady to the rescue,” Matthew sighs in relief. “I’ve been trying to bust him and the others out for at least two hours, but I got chased off.” The raven explains. “You have no idea how despondent the boss was when he realized he was going to miss your date. Thought he was going to start crying… can cats cry?”

“No idea and I do not want to find out.” You muse, crossing the street and setting your eyes on your front door. You unlock the door and throw yourself into your home, searching for your car keys. “Stay here while I handle this. It shouldn’t take long since they’ve dealt with him before.”

“Well, yeah,” Matthew agrees, coasting to his perch. “But what about his—” you’re already out the door, the wood slamming shut behind you. You know Morpheus isn’t in any danger of being neutered by the staff, but you do know he isn’t too keen on being touched and prodded while being examined. The last thing you want is for him to get injured a second time while in cat form… which makes you wonder how the hell this happened a second time!

Your boyfriend has a lot of explaining to do. Boyfriend. Gripping the steering wheel in a white-knuckled grip, you stare at the red light holding you in place, wondering when you began to think of him as your boyfriend. It makes sense; he is courting you. Has been for several months. But you’d never put a name to your relationship like that, just worried that things were going too well.

“It was a cat that got me into this, and a cat that will probably get me out of this,” you sigh to yourself, pressing the accelerator when the light finally turns green. The only question is, how long are you going to have to wait this time? Hours? Days? Are you going to wake up in bed with him naked again? You wouldn’t complain about that if it did happen again. But seriously, Morpheus really needs to stop getting stuck in cat form because once was excusable but twice is just ridiculous. Especially for an all-powerful Endless.

While you aren’t feeling as stressed as you did the first time entering the animal shelter, you’re still jittery about the idea of an Endless confined in a feline form. Trotting up to the desk, you give the receptionist a smile and tell her that you’re there to pick up Morpheus.

“He’s in back with the other five cats. Follow me,” she says. You do as told, following the receptionist to the back of the clinic and to a room marked ‘holding.’ The moment the door is opened and you step inside, your eyes zero in on the large form of your boyfriend currently sulking in a corner while a gorgeous Bengal bounces off the walls with energy near him. They couldn’t be more opposite! Letting out a breath of relief, you take a step forward, ignoring the dark-bodied Sphinx that trots up to you and sniffs your jeans.

“Morpheus?” you call softly, not wanting to spoil his mood further. Azure eyes settle on you, and in less than a second, the Black Maine Coon is launching himself at you. “Oh jeez,” you exclaim, awkwardly catching the flying form of your boyfriend as he latches onto you with his nails and instantly begins rubbing his face everywhere he can. “Mor—Morpheus, is this… is this really necessary?” you question, pulling away from his nuzzles. A rumble sounds in his body.

They must know you are mine.

You have no idea what he’s talking about, let alone who ‘they’ are. Perhaps the other cats? Your eyes glance around the small room as you hug Morpheus to your chest to support his weight. Obviously, there’s the energetic Bengal and the dark Sphinx, but a black cat with the most peculiar golden eyes lounges on a table observing you while what you think is an Exotic Shorthair lazes about. Finally, your eyes catch sight of a looming body perched on top of a bookshelf, glossy blue-gray fur shimmering in the light while an eyeless gaze stares into your soul.

Holy fuck.

“Family,” you whisper faintly, realizing what this is. The whole Endless family has been turned into cats. Destruction is clearly not here, he’s been missing for a long time, but the six remaining siblings are all accounted for. “How—how did this happen??”

I am afraid we cannot speak of what took place, beloved.

Morpheus’ words draw your gaze from the sightless, but not unseeing, Destiny. You look at him with panic in your eyes.

“Morpheus, Morpheus I am not—” You cut yourself off when a worker pops in.

“Hello! You must be Morpheus’ owner! We’re so glad to reunite him with you after the accident. We haven’t been able to identify the owners of the others, but they are obviously well-fed and cared for…” You speak before you can think your words through.

“They’re all mine,” you blurt out. “The cats. I mean, I’m not a crazy cat lady, I just… love cats…” You ramble as your face heats up, but the worker doesn’t even blink at your claim. The Sphinx obediently sits at your feet, looking up at you. The Bombay gets to its feet, stretches, and jumps down to the floor to get closer, and the Russian Blue, who has been the most aloof, gracefully leaps to the floor and joins the Sphinx. Clearly, they know you and are comfortable with you. “It’s complicated.” You finally sputter out.

“Just means a little extra paperwork, but we are glad to see that they have a loving home to go back to,” the worker replies. “We were real worried about a bunch of families missing their cats.”

“Nope,” you say in a high-pitched voice, cringing on the inside because you clearly need to calm down. “All mine, and clearly I need to make sure to fix whatever they used to get out.”

“I’ll go grab the paperwork and get the cardboard boxes ready. Hang tight,” she says, leaving you alone in the room with six of the most powerful beings in creation, all stuck in cat form.

“Someone better start speaking because this is above my pay grade,” you state, turning back to gaze at Morpheus’ siblings. This is not how you pictured meeting them. You never expected to meet them in the first place! “I—Let’s just be clear that I am a mortal human, and I do not play around with supernatural bullshit on the regular.”

That is understandable; this must be quite a shock for you, Y/N. You look down at the Sphinx, hearing a gentle female voice coming from that direction.

“Great, so I have no idea who is who except I can guess who is Destiny.” The Sphinx blinks at you, and you could swear you receive the cat version of a smile. Meanwhile, Morpheus is still rubbing his face everywhere he can reach.

I am Death, and I am pleased to meet the one who holds my brother's heart.

“Do Endless even have a heart to be held?” you wonder aloud.

Not a physical one. This time, the voice is suave and silky, drawing a low rumbling growl from deep within Morpheus. He pulls away from your neck, where he had been furiously rubbing his scent, and settles his gaze on his sibling.

Do not meddle with my beloved, Desire. Desire, the gorgeous Bombay, doesn’t even bother to bat an eyelash at the hostility in Morpheus’ voice and words.

Oh big brother, must you be so protective? It’s not every day that we get to meet the one who currently holds your attention. You can’t help but flinch at that wording. Hold his attention. Is that all you’re doing? You’ve heard bits and pieces of Morpheus’ past lovers, and by far, you’re the plainest. But you also know about Desire and their love for stirring shit up in the family.

“Desire, I presume?” you ask, stroking Morpheus’ body in an effort to calm him down before a full-on cat fight breaks out in this room. His hackles are already raised.

A pleasure. You must meet my twin; we’ve been ever so curious about you. Twin. Despair, the Exotic Shorthair, who is almost as sulky as Morpheus but barely makes any effort to move from where she lounges. That must mean…

“So you must be Delirium,” you surmise, turning your gaze to the Bengal that’s exploring the room and getting distracted by every little thing she comes across. “I didn’t exactly expect to meet you all like this, but I guess this is what was in the cards?” Your eyes glance down at the silent, eyeless Russian Blue. It’s a little creepy to look at him, but you can’t deny his beauty. Which is odd to think because he’s currently a cat. A cat with no eyes.

This is as planned. That’s a relief to know. Destiny, after all, sees everything. But still, how long is this going to last?

“Okay, and how long should I expect you all to be like this? If you can even tell me about that…”

Not for long, beloved. Morpheus reassures you, only taking solace in the fact that you won’t be subjected to his sibling’s noxious presence for very long. A few days at most.

“A few days, I can do that,” you breathe out, steeling yourself for a few tense days before everything returns to normal. You hug Morpheus to your chest for comfort, which the Endless certainly is pleased about, until the small cardboard boxes arrive to package up the cats for transport.

Morpheus’ ears go flat on his head, and a soft rumble emerges from his throat. Desire slips far away from you, clearly understanding what’s going to happen. Destiny, Death, and Despair wouldn’t care about being shut in the cat carriers, but Dream, Desire, and Delirium are probably going to be another story!

“The quicker you get into the carriers, the faster we can get home, and the faster you can get out of the carriers,” you announce to the cat Endless. The cardboard carriers are lined up, and you’re happy to see that Destiny and Death don’t hesitate to walk over and climb in one—they’re sensible enough. Desire glares at the boxes in disdain but ultimately sulks over, calling for his twin at the same time. All that’s left are Dream and Delirium.

Delirium is still bouncing off the walls and playing with every little thing she can get her paws on before getting distracted by another object… and Morpheus is still covering you in his scent and refusing to ease his claws out of your shirt.

“Morpheus, my love, box,” you chide him while peeling his claws from your shirt. “I need to get Delirium into a box before she gets out of the room and we have to chase her down.” Your boyfriend couldn’t look more pathetic than he does when you place his massive body in the extra-large box and close it up. Sighing, you stand up and look at Delirium.

She’s currently pawing at the space beneath a storage cabinet. Something has caught her attention.

“Delirium?” you call, and the Bengal turns towards you, revealing one blue and one green eye. “It’s time to go to my home. You can play around there as much as you want.” The youngest Endless blinks at you, and for a moment, you think she’s going to ignore your words and go back to bouncing off walls… but she runs over to you, full of energy, and launches herself into the box with an excited meow. “Thank you.”

With the six cats boxed up neatly, a worker helps place them on a rolling cart to make transport easy. Of course, you have to fill out paperwork for each of your five new ‘cats,’ but with Morpheus already in their system, it’s not that long of a process. While you finish up the last bits of paperwork, the cats are loaded into your car, and with a profuse apology on your part, you scurry to your car to get the Endless back to your home.

Date Published: 11/13/24

Last Edit: 11/13/24

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#dream of the endless #the sandman #dream of the endless x reader #the sandman netflix #lord morpheus #dream the endless #dream the endless x reader #sandman x reader #morpheus x reader #morpheus

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bokettochild · 3 days ago

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Hi, I've been following you lately. Your fictions are so awesome, they really made my day.

I'm currently looking for new works and came across your Opera House AU. It's a bit unfortunate that those main ideas and plot aren't quite on AO3(where I usually read most because I'm not good at English). So I follow your instructions to Tumblr to search by tag.

I don't know and I'm not sure but I have scroll down all the way to find the first post about the idea of it. Well... I've come to the post from 20/3/2023 and it not the first one(?). It seems like you've talked about it for a while before having the tag.

The story plot made me feel so curious because you've been talked about it for a while. What have happened? What are those about? What will happen next? So exciting, can't wait to know!

Sooo... If you don't mind, can you tell me about the first idea of it and the story line up until now. I'm really grateful and thankful for any ideas that will help me know more about the AU!

After all, thanks for answer me and please forgive me for bothering you. I love you so much! Wish you have a great day/night! <3<3<3 💗💗💗

Oh hi!

So, the opera house AU actually did only start around that time! I made sure tag all the posts with the appropriate tag, it's just that ny missing pieces you feel might have existed before exist only in Ds between myself and @/cantankerouscanuck, who I believe was one of the ones to start the AU rolling and really get me making it (him and @/mermain123)

The AU is still pretty new works wise, although I guess it's been around for over a year now!

The main plot is yet to be written, but would focus, theoretically, around a young Hyrule, who, freshly booted to the streets after out-growing foster care, is homeless and working a crappy job while trying to figure out life, and runs into Legend, who is, well, on the run from the cops (he's a graffiti artist in his spare time).

The two boys would sort of connect as Hyrule insists on helping the guy- who literally fell through a window of a (seemingly) abandoned building and landed him while he was trying to sleep there -back home. After this, they meet again and, attempting to help Hyrule in return, Legend gets him a job at the opera house where he's worked since he was small.

The main story would follow Hyrule getting familiar with the cast and crew of the opera and finding his own place among them, either as a performer himself or in some other role (so far unknown because that's something he has to decide for himself).

I fully intend to write this one day, but have a lot of other big stories in my head so it's been slow. that said, there's been so many great ideas, suggestions and prompts given to me that I did end up creating a few one shots for the story, focusing around the other Links and their own respective drama (mostly Legend and Twilight but trust me the OH AU Time brainrot is real rn)

If you have any further questions about the series, feel free to ask! I love talking about this one so very much and it's never a bother for me when I see messages or asks about it (it honestly brightens my whole day!)

#asks and answers #linked universe #linkeduniverse #opera house au

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2346khith · 3 days ago

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Hi dear donors ! ❤️

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latibvles · 3 days ago

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THE TASTE THAT YOUR LIPS ALLOW.

this week on longform ficwriting that nobody asked for — june & benny first kiss that has been rotating in my head like a rotisserie chicken for the past few months. a special thanks to @flipfloplogic & @upontherisers for lending me two lovely girls who get some name drops in this (Missy Campbell and Henrietta Hobbs, namely)! No warnings for this one besides yanno, June being dramatic as per usual.

[ Read it here on AO3! ]

The lipstick’s out in the hut tonight.

Fern’s singing, so it’s a given. They flew a practice mission today while the other three squads flew over the channel — she went right to the Red Cross girls to ask about hair rollers after the fact. Her hair’s long enough for that now, and she was brimming with excitement about the prospect of “dolling herself up.”

As usual, the beds are alight with conversation.

“And you all better be on your feet,” Fern declares from her spot by the mirror, near the door. “Or I’ll never forgive you for it.” She’s dappling rouge onto her cheeks, soft and subtle enough to get past uniform regulation.

“Yes ma’am,” Missy Campbell, one of Rivera’s girls, affirms from her spot on Jo’s bed, where she’d been showing Jo a letter she’d gotten from her husband down in… Australia? Something like that.

“Oh I know you got me, Soup,” Fern hums, June can practically hear the wink that accompanies the affirmation. “I’m talking to that little rain cloud in the corner over there.”

June lifts her hand, and gives Fern the bird from her spot laid out on her bed, staring up at the curved ceiling. Fern giggles still, and June feels her cheeks burning.

“Come on, Juney,” she pleads in that sing-song tone that she so often uses to get whatever she wants, whenever she wants. June’s resolved to not give in this time. Instead she scoffs, rolling her eyes from her spot and letting her hand fall unceremoniously onto her stomach.

“Hm. No. I could say it in Polish if you want.”

“Nie, right?”

“Well somebody better call the General, Sergeant Carmine’s trilingual!” June announces sarcastically, raising her hand in a faux-triumphant fist before letting it fall once more. That garners a laugh, although it might just be because of the ridiculousness of their current bickering.

“So mean,” Fern counters, more than likely faux-pouting in the mirror, which garners in a few scattered, quiet laughs.

“S’fine,” Lena hums. June can see her crossing the room to sidle up behind Fern, patting her shoulders. “Just send DeMarco after her. She’ll sing a different tune then.”

June’s head snaps up.

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?!” She asks — or rather, demands — her voice raising in pitch. She can see Lena’s smile in the mirror’s reflection, watches her shrug her shoulders and June has to fight every urge to cross the threshold and shake the woman around until she fesses up her secrets. As if Lena can sense June’s current urges, her grin only grows infuriatingly wide.

“You just seem to be spending a lot of time together is all,” Lena hums, but June scowls.

“We do not.”

“Very convincing,” Lena counters, “It’s like he’s got Meatball on a leash and you’ve got him on a leash. Making sure he doesn’t wander off or something. Like he’s gonna get lost and wind up in France.” June hates that it’s a good joke. There’s another round of laughter from the other girls, she even sees Willie in her corner of the hut running a hand over her mouth, trying to maintain a level of composure. June has half a mind to shove her head beneath her pillow and call it an early night. She doesn’t though. She rolls her eyes, standing up and crossing over to swat at Lena’s head. Lena ducks out of it and grins, sticking her tongue out.

“Missed me.”

“I was doing you a favor. Trying to knock your goddamn screws back into place.” June declares, cheeks burning as she glowers at Lena, who’s unsurprisingly all smiles.

“If you two mess me up, I’ll tell Benny you’ve both got the hots for him and started a cat-fight in the barracks over it,” Fern declares as she sweeps a brush over her upper lashes, drawing attention to the vibrant green of her eyes as she paints her eyelashes black. Lena takes a couple steps back, hands in the air in mock surrender. She's still snickering and June thinks her head might just light on fire.

"He's all yours, Junebug," she offers, and June scoffs, throwing her hands up in the air before making her way out of the hut into the waning twilight. Sometimes the clouds break and make for a half-decent sunset out here — orange and purple broken up by chunks of white clouds and wispy chem-trails.

A few feet off, she hears a dog barking, and elects to ignore the beat of butterfly wings once again making themselves present in the pit of her stomach.

—

It isn't that she has a problem with liking Benny DeMarco.

Okay, that's not exactly the truth, either. She does have a problem with it. Mostly that she doesn't want to like him — didn't want to before, but for some reason he wasn't deterred by her habit of snapping at whatever and whoever inconvenienced her in a day. It made him a good friend, and presumably, a great pilot to his boys. That patience of his that has him dragging her to the nurse's station after dark to tend to her torn knuckles. That keeps him from being mad at her when she does something admittedly dumb.

She knows that she is, innately, hard to swallow. And while June isn't especially ashamed of that fact, she also knows that there are easier girls to be around — even in the influx of female crews coming to replace the ones lost. Nice, pretty girls, who he doesn't have to scruff like a stray kitten trying to take out someone's eyes.

So maybe it's not a problem with liking Benny DeMarco, and more like a problem with the nearly-impossible chance that he could like her, too. There's a war on, which is much more pressing than whatever inconveniences she could thrust upon him. And either way: he never would, a fact that has her stomach twisting in a knot in a weird mix of rejection and relief.

"Juuuuuuuney," Harrie's waving in her face, pulling her from her thoughts. She's sat between Jo on her left and Henry on her right. Across from her, Harrie's looking at her puzzled, with Carrie right next to her and an open seat right next to the younger girl. "You hear a thing I jus' said?"

June clears her throat, looks down at her beer.

"Repeat?"

Harrie smiles, seemingly unbothered by June's poor listening skills.

"Cap's birthday's next month, s'what I was sayin'. Wanna know what t'get 'er."

"We still do birthdays?"

"I'm still doin' birthdays," Harrie declares, tilting her nose up proudly into the stuffy air of the O-Club. "We did your birthday. N' we did Fern's in Iowa," she points out. Harrie casts a look across at Fern, who's talking to the conductor over by the band with her megawatt smile, made impossibly brighter by her red-painted lips. She claps and bounces on her feet, which is how June knows she's got her way again.

"So what're you gonna get her?" June asks, resting her fist on her cheek.

"I was thinkin' maybe a nice scarf or somethin'. Could ask my mama to knit it. Gets cold up here 'round fall," she explains, and June's listening, but she's also taking in the space around them. Lorraine and Lena are over by the bar, shoulder-to-shoulder. Willie's by the Bucks. Inez is listening to some conversation Croz and Payne are having that she can't hear from over here.

No Benny yet. She elects to ignore the urge to get up and go sniff him out, not wanting to give anyone at the table ammunition.

"Dunno what I'll get her. I'll sign the card, though," June leans back in her seat. Over on the other end of the room, Fern giggles into the mic and greets everyone with her signature: You all miss me?

Scattered clapping, a couple loud whistles and a Hey Fernie! from Dougie, somewhere else in the room. June feels a hand on her shoulder, and nearly jumps three feet in the air. She whips her head around, tilts it up.

Benny smiles down at her apologetically. There's a stray curl brushing his forehead, falling out of place.

"Didn't mean to scare you," he offers as the other girls start getting up, understanding the assignment given to them back in the huts.

"You didn't scare me," June huffs. "Just… surprised me." She feels warm again. Can see Lena's traitorous grin and Fern's half-baked threat about telling Benny she's got "the hots" for him.

"Alright. Didn't mean to surprise you then," Benny corrects. She thinks he'll make a move to sit, but he doesn't as the music kicks up again and Fern starts singing; loud and proud and melodic in a way that Bucky knows he's not. She recognizes the song, too — Harry James, Helen Forrest, she'd heard it a couple times stateside. His hand is still on her shoulder, a paperweight pressing her into her spot.

She thinks, briefly, that if he retracts it she might melt into the floor. It's a thought that bruises her ego, if nothing else.

Benny looks like he's debating something before he says it, hand moving to run through his hair instead of ensuring she doesn't run from him. The strand just flops back onto his forehead defiantly.

"Dance with me."

June pulls a face.

"Get turned down by a Red Cross Girl or something?" she asks, brows furrowing. Benny puts his hand over his chest, still smiling even as he feigns hurt.

"Low blows, Juney. You mad at me?"

"No," she counters, suddenly feeling embarrassed. "Just think you got options, is all." Easier ones, at that. Benny shrugs, lips pulling into a contemplative pout, nodding slowly.

"Maybe," he counters. "But I'm askin' you," he then casts a look towards Fern, over by the band. "And maybe saving your skin." June snorts at that, rolling her eyes.

"My hero," she chuckles a bit, looking down at the floor for a moment before meeting his warm, dark eyes once again.

"Yeah well, I'll be here all night." Benny grins, teasing, and offers his hand to her. She stares at it for a long second — a couple torn callouses on his palms. She's been yanked along by him enough times to know they're warm, rough. She tries not to shudder at the idea of those hands pressed into the small of her back.

She sighs, and takes it.

"Thanks for sparing my feelings," Benny teases again, half-tugging her towards the floor where people are already dancing.

"Sparing your feelings would be declining." June lets him tug her towards him, her hand finding his shoulder to steady herself. "The real victim here is gonna be your toes."

"I can forgive it," he offers of her. His hand is warm on the small of her back. June glances down at their feet, self-conscious in a way that's foreign to her. His thumb traces a small circle where it presses against her uniform. "I've gotcha though. Think I'm a halfway decent lead."

"You think?"

"I've got three sisters and a ma who all like dancing and I think at least one of them would tell me if I was bad by this point."

She laughs at that, looking up at him instead of fixing her gaze on the floor. He's laughing with her, breathy and still managing to crease the corners of his eyes.

"Well I'm trusting you, then." She offers and elects to ignore the weight of a sentence like that.

Benny nods, moving with her around the floor, and she tries to keep looking at him to ignore the feeling that she's being watched in some regard. Like there's something to laugh at right now. She preferred being the center of attention when it came to her crew's flying, not so much her own shortcomings. Benny spins her and is grinning like a madman when she settles back in his arms, wondering if he grew a second head.

"Your brothers never teach you?"

"And give boys another excuse to talk to me? Hell no. Think my dad would throw a fit," she admits after she gets her bearings once more. Benny chuckles at that, nodding slowly.

"And what would they think of it if they were here now?"

Why are you asking me that?

"Piotr would be whisking me away and Antoni would be taking you out back to have a word." It's an immediate response, one that has Benny whistling low and has his brows raising, slightly nudging that hair that she can't stop staring at.

"I'll keep that in mind when I visit."

"When you visit?" June fixes him with an odd look, but he just smiles. She thinks, briefly, about how Meatball stares up at the two of them sometimes — mouth open in a pant, tail wagging without a worry in the world.

"Well if I'm allowed that is. You banning me from the residence, Juney?"

"You don't even have my address."

"Well can I have it?" June blanches at him. She can't really tell if he's kidding or not when he asks that. He spins her again, a little slower, like he's giving her time to think about it without him staring at her. June sighs, reaches up to tuck that stray, defiant hair back into place, and rolls her eyes.

"You're ridiculous." She can feel her cheeks burning, and Benny chuckles.

"That wasn't a no." He points out, and he's right. No, it wasn't. But if she thinks too long about the idea of him showing up on her apartment building's front stoop in his dress uniform, she'll wrench herself out of his hold right now and run for the hills before she does something stupid.

"My mother likes violets," she says instead, tilting her nose up. He nods again.

"Hope that keeps me from getting thrown out on my ass, then."

"No promises," June declares.

And there it is again, butterflies in the pit of her stomach. She wonders if he can feel the sweat forming on her palms, which leads into her wondering if he's disgusted by the warm dampness of it.

When the fuck has she ever cared so much about what a person thinks of her?

The song ends and another begins, this one much slower in nature. For a moment, June's breath hitches, and she swallows hard, feeling shy for once.

"I can go sit if you— if you wanna sit this one out," she points out, feeling obligated to give him that chance to maybe get another girl on the floor. Benny's smile turns almost shy. His hand presses a little firmer into her back, the other giving hers a squeeze.

"Do you want to?" She hates when he asks that, bouncing the ball back into her court and leaving her to make the decision. Because her brain's telling her yes, I want to, this is getting ridiculous, but that stupid desire to be near him is screaming no, no, no.

So maybe Lena's had it wrong the whole time — Benny's the one who's been holding the leash, and she's the dog that might just wander into occupied France if he doesn't tug it with stupid, unassuming questions like this.

"I… don't know," June answers, feeling dumb. He smiles, arm looping around to rest on her hip, pressing her closer to him and leading them in a sway. He leans forward and she feels like she might light on fire with his lips so close to her ear.

"I'll let you figure it out then. Feel free to run whenever you want."

Whenever I want, June parrots internally, ruefully. Sure, Benny, you're really making a great case for me running for the goddamn hills.

He's so warm like this, solid beneath her hand on his shoulder. June wonders if he can feel the powerful hammering of her pulse in her wrist, if he heard it when he lent down to mutter in her ear near that spot by her neck. Fern's still singing, low, smooth and sweet, a proper showgirl if there ever was one. It makes her want to hide, press her face into the crook of Benny's tanned neck and pretend that they're not here.

A dance hall in Chicago would be nice. One of the ones her friends from high school would drag her to begrudgingly — she never liked going to them, because she was no good at this. And she didn't want to give anyone an excuse to laugh at her.

"Whatcha thinkin' about?" he asks after a beat of quiet between them.

"First he wants to know my address and now he wants to read my mind. Anyone ever tell you that you're nosy?" June asks, just to feel that rumble of laughter against her.

"Mostly my sisters," he admits.

"Well they're right. And I was thinking of, uh, high school."

"Yeah? What about it?" June swallows, wondering how much she could share before she ends up as the butt of a joke.

"I used to hate dances. But I don't anymore. That's all."

He hums in that pensive, thoughtful way he always does when she says something that's more loaded than she means for it to be. Putting a little bit of space between them, he looks her over, and June tries not to squirm beneath his gaze. His lips part on a sentence she doesn't get to hear before the shrill sound of someone whistling pierces the room.

"C'mon everybody! Race in the Mess Hall!" she doesn't know who said it, but Benny tilts his head before letting go — not entirely, because he takes her hand in a familiar way and tugs along as people start flooding out of the O-Club. June makes a noise of protest, halfway between a whine and a shout of his name as they follow the flood of people.

"Didn't you eat dust last time?" June points out as the guys who have bikes start tugging them along towards the mess, from where they were lined up outside the club. Benny gives her a wide set grin, tugging her with one hand and his bike by the handles with the other.

"I did not, we had that bomb raid before we could call it. Have a little faith in me Juney," he counters, insistent as they stop in front of the mess. He pauses, swathed in the warm glow of the light from inside. It makes his hair look so much darker, his skin even more warm than before. His smile is blinding, the only thing between them being the bike handles. "Do I get a kiss for good luck?"

"What?"

"Benny! You in or what?" Benny looks into the room, then back at her. He hesitates, then walks into the room, still giving her that smile before he goes.

June feels like she's just been knocked in the chest, had all the oxygen siphoned from her lungs. Dizzy, she leans up against the entryway, watching all the guys shouldering and nudging at each other from their bikes, and her knees feel shaky. Her hands curl into fists.

He wasn't serious, she scolds herself, trying to shake it off. No way he was being serious.

And yet her feet can't move those couple steps to walk fully into the room — forcing people and, on occasion, their dates, to squeeze past her. She can't see him past so many people with dark hair and uniforms, and she doesn't even know if she wants to. What if he looks at her and she really does fizzle into dust, right there in the middle of their makeshift bike track?

She can't. She can't do any of it. She's stumbling back, until her feet hit the grass, and then she's standing there with cool summer wind piercing her clothes. It doesn't do much in way of cooling down her pinkened cheeks, but oxygen fills her lungs good and proper again as she turns her back to the door, hugging herself.

Her heart is still pounding, like it had when they danced, and when he'd touched her shoulder, and—

June could come up with an alphabetized list of all the times Benny DeMarco's made her heart race. She wishes it was something she could indulge happily, but really, it just makes her feel mad and dumb like a little kid with a school crush. Like he knows it and does it all on purpose to rile her.

She shuts her eyes, lets the wind brush against her face like it had a month ago when she'd laid in the grass and he'd watched over her to make sure "no other jokers let their dogs off the leash." The thought makes her squeeze herself tighter, like she could force the memory from her brain.

But she can't. He's embedded himself there.

June feels like she's been waiting there forever, but it's only maybe twenty minutes before the night swells again with laughter, people cheering and bemoaning losses, and of course—

"June! Hey, thought you went to—"

She's walking off before he can finish the sentence, towards the gravel road and down it, hoping that maybe Bucky's decided to go for a drunken nighttime drive and will run her over with a jeep. No such luck, the roads are empty and he can hear Benny behind her still.

"June? Slow down, would you?" Benny asks, and she feels the tips of his fingers brush her shoulder before she's turning around and trying to glare.

More hair brushing his forehead, expression so clearly puzzled.

"Your joke's not funny," June declares with a huff. His brows furrow.

"My… joke? What are you talking about?" June points an accusatory finger at him, face burning as she pokes his chest and crowds him.

"Your- your joke! That whole… kiss for good luck, visiting me stateside thing? It's not funny. It's mean!" She's thankful that they've moved far enough away that no one can pay much mind to her words, or her actions. "Did Lena put you up to it? Or was it- was it one of the Red Cross girls? Since it's so damn obvious, right? I'm just—"

"June, what are you talking about?!" Benny hasn't moved her finger from where it pokes at his chest, over his pilot's wings. The metal is cold against her finger tip, a sharp contrast from the warmth of him. She swallows hard.

"That I— That I like being around you! That I like you! It's all just a joke to you, right? That's why you asked that before that stupid bike race!"

"It wasn't a joke!"

Silence between them, heavy and only broken up by the distant murmurings of others. She stares at him, wide-eyed and flushed, finger still pressing into his wings. She feels like she's just run a marathon around the whole of England — heart pounding in her chest, ribs aching, face burning. She wants to bury her head in the dirt.

"What?"

She doesn't have any time to process it before it's Benny's hands on either side of her face. It's Benny, pulling her forward. It's Benny pressing his lips to hers, firm and insistent and warm. He's so warm. His lips taste like whiskey, and they're soft, and her knees are going weak — hardly registering what's happening here beyond that urge to kiss him back, which she does. Eyes fluttering shut, trying to match the pace he's set — insistent and hungry, like he's trying to convince her of something right now.

It's working, she thinks, feeling dumb as she reaches up to card her fingers through messy dark waves, ruining them further.

They part once her lungs start aching, but he hasn't let go of her. His finger traces a line against her jaw, and she stares up at him dumbfounded.

"I wasn't joking," Benny repeats, and June's well of words has run dry in the wake of it. Like in kissing her he's just stolen coherent thought from her as well. "Jesus Christ, June, you really think I'd be that mean? To you?"

She can't tell if she's really hurt him with that or not. She assumes that she has, and she stares at him for a long moment.

"I-I'm sorry.It's just—" June's lips press into a line. "…I'm pessimistic," she starts out. "And… and I'm not patient, not like you. And I hate losing, bad. And I'm really bad at staying up late and I suck at dancing and being all romantic and all that stuff that girls are s'posed to be good at and—"

"June," Benny cuts her off again, thumb sweeping over her cheek. "Makin' it real hard for me to follow you here, honey."

Her stomach twists at the nickname. She wants to kiss him again.

"I'm giving you a warning," June breathes out. Benny chuckles, searing a kiss between her brows.

"Don't need one. I know what I'm getting into," he insists. "S'why I like you."

Benny's smiling like he's just said the best pickup line of all time. And it works, because June is tilting her head to kiss him again and taste the last bits of whiskey on his lips.

#*poet writes #ch: june cielinski #ship: june/demarco #benny demarco x oc #benny demarco #masters of the air oc #masters of the air fic #hbo war fic

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