#so looking that up only brings up the baseball player!

[seokminfilm]

one and only | lee seokmin

pairing, lee seokmin x reader

warnings, non-idol au, sports au, light themes of hurt/comfort, seokmin is a college baseball player, reader is mentioned to be a coach, reader is mentioned to be wearing an athletic skirt, secret relationship

Lee Seokmin was a household name on your campus⎯Seoul University's Daesung Dalmations took pride in their captain, and you did too, smiling from the sidelines as the crowd cheered the team's name. 

The sun was beaming down on the massive baseball field, stands filled from spectatiors from all around Seoul and the surrounding cities. Sure, the headmaster said the turn out was going to be a bit bigger than most of the usual varsity games, but "a bit bigger" was a massive understatement. The bleachers were packed with people and children, the roar of their cheers shaking the dugout.

"Seokmin, keep a level head! Don't overthink anything!" You clapped your hands from the shaded box, hoping the eager male would calm down and slow his roll.

You knew Seokmin better than anyone did, and you knew how he seemed to feel emotions ten times stronger on the field. You could tell he was starting to get worked up by the dark look in his eyes, dark eyebrows furrowed as he talked to himself quietly and watched the pitcher recieve the ball from another player.

Sweat dripped from his dark hair and down his broad back as the sun caught his tanned skin, and you could see him clenching the baseball bat from your vantage point, forearms strained and veins highlighted as he gripped it with a force.

"Dino, get ready to pitch next. Seokmin is going to need to calm down in a few minutes," Your voice was commanding, and the new rookie, Dino, jumped into place, ready to follow your directions. The pitcher stretched his arms to get ready to pitch, and you clenched your whistle to your chest, nervous as you watched Seokmin slide his feet into his usual stance.

The crowd was quiet as the air became thick with anticipation, and you leaned over the edge of the dugout box, chewing at your lip as the pitcher wound his arm up and threw the ball.

Seokmin reacted the best he could, giving it a harsh swing as it flew into the air⎯the ball disappeared into the sky for a split second, and the crowd went wild as Seokmin sprinted to second base, long legs striding across the dirt before a whistle signaled the end of his run.

Just as Seokmin had slid onto his base, one of the opposing team's players caught the ball and returned it to second base, counting Seokmin out for the next play.

The stands erupted with clapping, but Seokmin didn't react, walking towards the dugout box with a harsh look on his pretty features. His face was red and doused in sweat, but it still gave him a glow that you thought was ethereal in nature.

His brown eyes didn't light up once his teammates came to greet and congratulate him, and you asked them all with a plead of your eyes to leave you two alone, to which they did without hesitation. 

Seokmin pushed his way out of the dugout, nearly pulling the door off of the hinges as he went into the darker part of the storage. You followed after him, telling him to calm down as his eyes started to water.

"Seokmin, calm down. You did amazing out there." Your voice was calm and quiet, and Seokmin couldn't help but push you away, fighting you as you tried to grab his hands. He pulled away from you quickly, averting his eyes as he looked back onto the field.

"No, I didn't. I could have hit that ball farther, and I know it! Did you see how easy they retrieved it? It was like I didn't even try." Seokmin's voice was booming, sending goosebumps to your sun-stained arms as you crossed them.

"Seokmin, you did try. That was a wonderful play! You gave us a three-point lead during your time on the field. That's what we needed from falling behind. Dino and the others are going to help bring us up so when you return to bat, you'll be more than ready to win it for us." Exasperated, you tapped your foot against the concrete floor.

Seokmin ignored you, taking his baseball cap off as his dark hair fell around his ears gracefully. He ran a hand through it, sending the curls in a frenzy as he sighed, breath shaking with the rising wave of anger bubbling in his chest.

Your fingers itched to reach out and touch him⎯taking his slender hands in yours as you kiss his mumbling lips and sour thoughts away⎯but you remember you had to keep it professional.

You had to keep you and Seokmin's relationship professional, unuspecting to the public eye.

"Seokmin, please, calm down and get a hold of yourself. We need you back on the field whenever we need a mood booster. You're the only one who can do that." Your voice is shaky as you try to get Seokmin to look at you, but it's unsuccessful as he continues to look off to the side, sharp nose and strong jawline defined from the clenching of his jaw.

"Seokkie.." You were crossing the boundaries now, and you knew it, but you didn't know what else to do. Your hand rested on his upper thigh, leaning in to press a soft kiss to his cheek as he froze, turning to face you as his eyes softened a bit.

"Don't be hard on yourself, alright? You did the best you could, and you gave us a lead against the other team. Just rest for now. You've done all you could." There you go again, using that tone you only saved for times you and Seokmin were alone on the field, practicing into the late night. The only thing watching you was the massive stadium lights and empty bleachers, and you could hear your laugh echo when Seokmin did something unserious or kissed you after a sucessful home run.

Sighing, Seokmin's chest fell as he nodded slowly, hands finding their way around your waist as his sweaty body pressed into yours.

"I'm sorry." He whispered, breath brushing your ear as you brought a hand up to his sweaty face, sliding your finger down his sculpted nose as he sighed, smiling under your ministrations. He closed the distance between you, lips teasing yours before the door to the storage room bumped open.

The surprising sound caused both you and Seokmin to jump as far back from each other as you could, and you nearly tripped over a bag of baseball bats as the ballboy of your team interrupted you and Seokmin's little moment.

"Seokmin, we need you out there. We're three points behind and it's the last inning." His voice was worried, and Seokmin nodded, seemingly pepping himself up as he shook his shoulders, glancing at you with a blush on his face.

"Later." Seokmin had mouthed, and the look in his eyes told you everything he meant by that. Smiling, you nodded as you fixed his baseball jersey's collar. After a few seconds of silence and shared glances between you and Seokmin, he stepped backwards, ready to go.

"Right, well...I should get back out there." You laughed nervously as Seokmin finished his observation, making his way back into the dugout and out on the field as you followed after him, heart beating a mile a minute as your athletic skirt billowed in the warm breeze.

The stands were voluminously charged with the familiar excitement it was charged with when Seokmin was up to bat, and you smiled as the calm look in Seokmin's eyes met yours, glancing back at the box as he walked up to the base.

Seokmin was the one and only to you, and you were more than ready to see that one and only take your team to victory.

[chloesimaginationthings]

The baseball reference on vanessas screen was genius because theres a baseball player named mike schmidt!

IM GLAD someone noticed this detail!!

[classyrbf]

DO I LOOK LIKE HIM! — MEGUMI FUSHIGURO

SYNOPSIS...all his life it was just him and his mother, his father nowhere to be seen or found, vanished, a ghost. No one ever spoke a word of him, he didn’t even know his name. But deep down he begs for answers as his mother always said that he looked just like ‘him’

INFO...megumi fushiguro x mom!reader, toji x fem!reader, angst angst angst, megs is 17, absent father, family trauma, young love, arguing, talks of pregnancy, talks of killing/assassination, not proofread

OTHER...likes and reblogs are appreciated

based on: like him by tyler the creator

“Alright move closer into the photo—yep! Perfect!” Your mom held the camera up to her eye, slightly bending down. “Alright, three…two…one!” She snapped the photo, smiling as she looked at you and Toji.

It was Megumi’s first birthday, friends and family surrounding to celebrate. Endless gifts and food, music playing over the speakers. Small children ran around the yard, infectious laughter filling the air. The sun shined brightly, not a cloud in the sky. You were happy. Toji held Megumi tight in arm, looking down at the baby with a full head of jet black hair.

You and Toji had met in high school, falling for each other in an instant. You were captivated by his silent and mysterious presence and Toji was capture by your smile and the way your eyes shined in the light. But neither of you expected to end up with a baby boy just two years later after graduation. Not a single moment was regretted. You wouldn’t trade this for the world.

“Happy birthday, little man,” he scoffed, holding Megumi above his head. He babbled, giggling as he chewed on his chubby fingers, smiling at his father with love in his eyes.

“I can’t wait to frame this one. You guys look so cute.” Your mom pouted, walking back into the house to put the camera away.

A soft smile spread across your face, holding onto Toji’s arm. “Did you ever think you’d become a dad?” You suddenly asked, watching as your baby played with the fabric of his shirt.

Toji turned towards you, a confused look on his face. “No, but…I’m happy I did. You know I’d do anything for you two.” Toji pulled you in by your waist. “Did you ever think you’d become a mom?”

You shook your head, reaching a hand out to move hair out Megumi’s face. “It’s just weird. We were so young, you know? We still are. But, it feels right.” You rested your heard on his shoulder, letting out a small sigh. A small laugh erupted from your chest, “I carry him for nine months and he came out looking exactly like you.”

“What can I say? I got strong genes, baby.” He nudges you slightly, teasing.

“Oh, hush. I did all the work.” You roll your eyes at him.

“I’m only messing with you.” He plants a kiss on your forehead. “Go on, give mama a kiss, little man.” He holds Megumi towards you. As if on cue, he leans his head down and places his slobbery mouth on your forehead. “There you go! Good job!” He chuckles, smiling at his son. “I can’t wait until you’re older so I can teach you about all sorts of things.” Megumi grabs ahold of Toji’s finger in his small palm, squeezing it. “Gonna teach you all types of sports, how to fight so you can protect mommy. I bet you’ll be a good baseball player.” Megumi squeals at Toji. “Baseball? Yeah? Alright, baseball it is.” He kisses his cheek.

You stand there, admiring your two favorite boys. It’s like you see the future when you look at them. A happy life, a cozy home. Maybe even a sibling for Megumi. A ring on your finger, happily married. Thinking of the days when Megumi starts going to school and brings back all his little projects so you can put them in a box and keep them for the future. You already had so much planned at such a young age, but you were determined to fight for it. For him. For your son.

Megumi sits on the edge of his bed, deep in thought. The ceiling fan provides a low hum as it spins. He stares at the wilted paper in his hand, a handwritten note to him—one he’s never seen until now. His chest feels tight, tears welling in his eyes as he reads who it’s from over and over again.

—Your Dad

It feels like he can’t breathe, anger swirling through him. He thinks of all those times you dismissed his questions and conversations about his father—whoever his father was. And now, he was holding a note from him that was written fifteen years ago. A note of how sorry he is and nothing else. A man of few words. No explanation, nothing.

Growing up, Megumi learned from a young age that he looked just like ‘him’. His grandmother and grandfather always slipping up, staring at him like a ghost had just walked in the room. It only got worse as he grew older, starting growing into his features. You even began to stare at him, a look of sadness in your eyes. He never would say anything, always keeping his mouth shut like he didn’t notice. Not once, did you ever speak of his father. Hell, he didn’t even know his name or what he looked like, but from what he’s been told, he probably looks like an older version of him.

All those days, watching fathers bond with their sons, his friends dads coming to sports games, school events, he always felt like deep down something was missing. He felt different. Every Father’s Day, being tasked to make something special in school for their fathers, but how is a nine year old supposed to say he doesn’t have one? How is a thirteen year old supposed to participate in the father-son day at school when he doesn’t have one? How is a seventeen year old supposed to feel when he sees everyone posting their dads on social media, a heartfelt message written with each one, yet he doesn’t even have a photograph to remember him by?

Tears fall on the paper and the hurt that he held back is now manifesting. Why was so hard for you to say anything about him? Was he dead? Is that why it was so hard? Yet, there was no excuse. Whatever it was, he needed to know why he left. Why he was so sorry. It wasn’t until he heard the front door open, your calming voice calling out to him.

“Megs, I’m home!” You shut the door, placing your bag on the countertop.

The door to his bedroom swung open, fresh tears still on his cheeks, the wrinkled note gripped in his hand. He stomped towards you. “What is this?” His nostrils flared.

A crease between your brows formed, noticing the distressed look on his face before your eyes landed on what he was holding. You felt your heart drop, your mouth falling open to say something, anything, but nothing came out. “Meg—”

“What is this? Huh?! I found it in the back of your drawer! A note from my dad!” He slammed the paper down. “Who is he?! Why did he leave?!” He was screaming, his anger pouring out through his words. “You never talk about him! No one does!” He throws his hands up. “You kept…you fucking kept this from me! Fifteen years!” Hot tears spill from his eyes.

Your eyes widen, your lip quivering as you hold back tears. “I’m sorry.” Your voice breaks. “I’ve been wanting to tell you—”

“When? When, mom?! I don’t even know his fucking name! I don’t know what he looks like! There’s not a single picture in this house of him? Is he even alive?!” The look in his eyes makes you want to break down. You knew this day would come sooner or later, but you never expected it to turn out this way. The note. Of course it was the note. Almost like it was fate.

You inhaled deeply, licking your lips as tears fall. “I’m sorry, baby. I just…”

“Why can’t you tell me?” He speaks softly, voice wavering. “I see it in your face. Everyday when you look at me…you can see him. Who is my dad?” He clenches his jaw, letting out a shaky breath. “Why did he leave us? Why did he leave me?” He questions before fully breaking down into tears, sobbing.

“No,no,” you whisper, taking him in your arms. His tears soak through the fabric of your shirt, clinging onto you like his life depends on it. “It’s not your fault, baby? You hear me? It’s not his, not yours. It’s complicated.” As you stand there with him in your arms, flashbacks of that night Toji left flood your brain.

“Then where is he? Is he dead?” Megumi asks, raising his head to look at you. The question makes you freeze up, biting on your bottom lip so hard you’re sure to draw blood. “Is he dead, mom?” He stands up straight, wiping his tears.

“I…I don’t know,” you sniffle, shrugging your shoulders. You shake your head as you look at your son, feeling so ashamed and embarrassed. So hurt and disgusted. “He loved you so much, Megumi. I promise you.”

“What do you mean you don’t know? If he loved me, he wouldn’t have left!” He shouted in anger. “Who is he?! Just tell me!” He pleads through his cries.

“His name was Toji. Toji Fushiguro.” You stare at him. “Me and your father met young, back in high school. We had you two years after we graduated. We were so scared. Well, I was scared, but your father was ready. He was so excited,” you chuckle, remembering when you first told him you were pregnant. “He loved you, Megumi. And that’s the exact reason why he left,” you explain.

He shakes his head at you. “It doesn’t make any sense.”

“Your father did everything he could to provide for me and you. You were his everything. His little man. But, he got caught up with the wrong people trying to find ways to make quick money. He was young and desperate, we both were.” Your eyes flutter shut, letting out a sigh. “What your father did for money…you wouldn’t think he was a good man. He made enemies—”

“Mom, what are you saying?! I’m not a kid anymore! Just tell me—”

“He killed people, Megumi! Is that what you wanna hear! He fucking killed people just so he could put food on the table! Fuck!” You hurriedly stand to your feet, looking away from him.

“What…?” He nearly said in a whisper.

“I don’t want you to think he wasn’t a good man, Megs. I don’t want you think he hated you or me. He didn’t. But what he was doing put him and us in danger. He realized that and he left. He couldn’t put us in danger, especially you. That night he left he wrote you this.” You grabbed the note off the counter. “I begged him to stay, baby. I did. I tried. I tried everything.” Megumi sat on the edge of the couch, staring blankly ahead of his as he took all this information in. “He never stopped loving you, Megs. He never wanted to leave.”

He slowly turned to look at you, his chest heaving up and down. His eyes were red and glossy from crying. “Where’d he go?”

“I don’t know, baby. He never told me.” You shook your head. He sobbed softly, holding his head in his hands. You walked over, sitting beside him and pulled him into your arms. “Don’t hate him,” you whispered. “He’d be so proud of the man you became. Such a sweet, strong, and smart boy.”

“When did he leave?” Megumi asked.

“A week after your second birthday,” you spoke, biting at the skin on your lip. “He told me you were the best thing to ever happen to him.” You wipe away his tears as they continue to fall. “He’s not a bad guy, he’s just done bad things.”

Now knowing what happened to his father, Megumi felt like his whole world came crashing down. What his father did, who he was. How he came to be. And as much resentment as he holds, he can’t bring himself to hate him. In a way, he understands, but at the same time he doesn’t. He wonders how different things would be if he was here. What life would be Ike. “I’m sorry, mom,” he cried.

“Don’t be, baby. I’m sorry for keeping from you for so long. I didn’t know how to tell you. I didn’t want you to think he was a bad man. I was scared.” You continue to hold him in your arms, consoling him.

“What does he look like?” He asks.

You smile, looking down at him. “You guys are damn near twins.”

Megumi chuckles a little, “I figured.”

“Wait there a moment.” He watches as slip into your bedroom, a few second passing by before you walk out with something in your hands. “Here.”

Megumi looks down, seeing the array of photos you hold on your hands and hesitates on taking them from you. You sit beside him as he grabs them and looks at the first one. “Is that him and you?” He asks, never taking his eyes off the photo.

“Back in high school.” It was one of the first few photos you and Toji ever took together. A picture at the homecoming dance, a plain look on his face while you had a wide smile on your face. “Your father barely ever smiled. But when you came around, he couldn’t stop.”

Megumi was struck. He really did look like him. From the hair, to the eyes, to the nose. Everything. He looked at the next photo. You were pregnant, Toji holding your belly while kissing your cheek. “You guys looked really happy,” he says.

“Of course we were. Me and your dad loved each other very much. I still love him.” Megumi looks over at you as you say those last words. You still hold so much hope and love in your heart and that tells him maybe he should let this resentment for his father go. Maybe it was time to move on.

“Was this my birthday?” He questions, looking at the family photo your mother took of you three that day. He could see a faint smile on his father’s face, looking at the way Toji held him so close in his arms.

“Your very first birthday. So many good memories. Despite the fact you threw up on your dad’s shirt,” you laughed.

“Really?!” Megumi smiles. You nod, still giggling. “Yikes, he must’ve been pissed.”

“At first he was mad, but then saw you started crying after and felt horrible. I remember his exact words, ‘Stop crying, little man. You can throw up on this shirt a thousand times if you want to.’ He could never stay mad at you.” You brush his cheek, watching his smile get wider and wider.

He finally gets to the last picture. One you took of Toji asleep with Megumi on his chest. “I took that picture after it took him three hours to get you to sleep. You didn’t want to sleep in your crib, kept crying and crying and finally your father just fell asleep with you on his chest.” You watch as he runs his thumb over the picture, observing it more than he did the other ones. “You can keep it if you want.”

“Really?” He glanced at you, a desperate look in his eye.

“Of course.” You kissed his cheek. “I have more we can look at later.”

Megumi nods. There’s a moment of silence as he sits and goes through the pictures again, almost like he’s reliving memories he had no recollection of. “So, you really don’t know if he’s alive or not?”

You shake your head. “Like I said, what your father did caused him to get caught up with the wrong people, making enemies out of anyone. He was never scared of them, of course. But he knew if they ever found out about you or me, it wouldn’t end well.,” you explained. “I wish I knew.”

“Is it weird that I miss him?” He turned towards you, confused. “How can I miss someone I don’t even remember?” His eyes became teary.

“Oh, Megs.” You wiped his tears. “It’s not weird at all, sweetheart. I’m sure he misses you too. A whole lot.” You give him a sad smile.

He sniffles, looking down at the pictures. It was like he finally felt this weight had been lifted off of his shoulders. After years of this gut wrenching feeling, he finally knows the truth. His father did love you. Love him. He no longer felt casted aside. And that feeling gave him hope that maybe he’s still out there, still alive.

[gurugirl]

Spiderman | fratboy!harry

Continuation of this one shot - but can be read as standalone.

Summary: You’re at the big Halloween frat costume party and get to flirting with someone dressed as Spiderman. The tall, masked man with a deep voice just so happens to know a private spot to reveal his true identity to you.

Word Count: 4.2k

Warning: 18+ only, smut, slight mask kink, this is mostly just gratuitous smut

Tonight was your excuse to dress up like the supervillain Poison Ivy. A short green dress with patches of fabric leaves all over and a crown of ivy on your head. Mostly it was just something cute to wear to draw a little attention. Plus Poison Ivy is bisexual so you were hoping at least someone picked up the hint. All were welcome, so to speak.

When you got to the frat house you noted all the sexy and fun Halloween costumes. Lots of tit-bearing cats, a few she-devils, some baseball players in well-fitted jerseys, a Lego. The house was packed. The music was loud. Too many of your fellow university schoolmates had begun drinking early. You arrived late on purpose. Drunk wasn’t a cute look. At least you didn’t think it was. Not on you anyway. And you kind of hoped to get hit on and maybe get lucky. Tipsy sex could be fun. Drunk sex wasn’t memorable enough to be worth it.

“Haven’t seen you around in a while.” You looked over at a tall someone dressed in a Spiderman costume. The hood was covering his face so his identity was a mystery, though you thought you recognized the voice as someone you’d had a fun hookup with once.

You leaned your hip into the counter just as you’d finished pouring yourself a drink, “Is that so? I guess I wouldn’t know if I’d seen you around or not since I can’t exactly be sure who you are.”

His laugh had you grinning suddenly as he mimicked your stance, leaning his own hip into the counter facing you, though you couldn’t see his eyes under the spandex material.

“So, you’re telling me you can’t recognize me by my body?” He leaned his head down as if looking over himself before bringing his face back upward, “This costume hardly hides anything.”

You cocked your head, sipping your drink as you allowed your eyes to travel over the red and blue spandex. It clung tightly to his chest and hips, thighs… You didn’t miss the bulge either as you brought your eyes back up to the spot where you figured his eyes were under the mask, “Nope. Sorry. Should I recognize you by your body alone?”

You could tell he was smiling under the spandex, “You should. As I recall, you know my body rather intimately.”

Now you were certain it was the fun hookup you had a while back. You didn’t know him well. But you did know him to be quite popular. And attractive. And the time he went back to your dorm with you and your friend was quite memorable. But you decided to play coy a little bit. Just to get him going.

“Really? Hmm…” You feigned confusion as you slowly ate up his frame, inch by inch with your gaze. His heavy-looking bulge was a nice reminder of how sizable he was. You wouldn’t forget it. “Still doesn’t ring a bell. I don’t see any outstanding features here.” You waved your hand up and down gesturing at his frame.

He nodded and remained quiet. You were sure he was feeling you out. Trying to see if you were fucking with him or not. You were.

When he inched in toward you and placed his gloved hand over your forearm he leaned in and spoke quietly into your ear, “I’ll give you a hint. Would you like a hint, Y/n?”

You nodded as you felt his warmth. He was so close to your body as he spoke, “Had you bouncing on my cock, made you come, all while your friend watched us fuck.”

You swallowed. Yes. You remembered very clearly that night. It was the only time you’d ever done anything like it before. And now, he was clearly trying to get you in bed again. At least… that was the vibe you were getting. You looked down and realized his bulge was, well it was bulging. Was he getting turned on just thinking about it? You needed to have him again. Wouldn’t mind feeling that thick cock inside of you once more.

You sighed and turned to face his mask, “Hmm… maybe. I’m not positive, though. Might need to check a few things out to verify–“

Harry’s grip on your forearm tightened, “Can be arranged. Wanna go find a room so you can verify?”

You laughed as you looked around. You’d never been talked into something like this so fast in your life. Then again, Harry, you knew it was him, was quite convincing and he was good in bed from what you remember. You couldn’t feel bad for giving in so quickly.

Harry took your hand and you followed him upstairs, leaving your unfinished drink in the kitchen and long forgotten.

The good thing about the frat house was that it was massive and there were enough bedrooms that you were able to find a free room almost right away.

Harry locked the door behind himself and then suddenly he was pushing you backward toward the bed where you fell to your bottom the moment the back of your thighs hit the edge. You giggled as he put his spandex-covered hands on your thighs. Propping yourself up by your elbows you watched him take in your bare legs and then one by one, lift each upward to remove your heels. He was between your thighs and the erection he was sporting indicated he wasn’t wearing underwear. Or if he was he’d fully pushed his way up and out of the top band.

“M’gonna give you a little reminder. Take you down memory lane and have you sit on my face. Is that all right?” He climbed over you on the bed, hovering over your body and looking down at you. You really wished you could see his pretty eyes.

“Okay. But how are you gonna do anything with this on?” You plucked at the fabric covering his face.

You heard a breathy, amused laugh fall from his chest as he pushed himself off of you and laid down on his back, “You’ll see. Climb up.”

You adjusted yourself, straddling his torso, and then lifted upward, gently placing yourself over his face, not yet sitting all the way. You were still wearing panties and you were hovered over his mask so you weren’t sure what his plan was exactly.

“Lean forward a bit.” He spoke from under you.

Leaning forward, you put your hands on the headboard and he adjusted something underneath you and that’s when you realized he was lifting his mask to uncover his mouth and part of his nose before pushing your panties aside and grasping your thighs, pulling you down on his mouth. You laughed when you settled and looked at the Spiderman mask between your thighs. You couldn’t see much of his nose and his mouth was covered by your pussy but the whole thing felt ridiculous to you.

Ridiculous until he began mouthing at your pussy slowly, using his tongue through your crease and his hands gripped your ass, pushing you into him further.

“Oh!” You tightly grabbed onto the headboard again in a gasp.

His warm tongue slid up and down and his moans made you hot. You hadn’t quite been ready but with his mouth on your clit, you were quickly aroused and slowly wetting his face.

Kissing and sucking sounds below drew your eyes down to him. You could see his dark curls sticking out from the edges of his mask where he’d pulled it up, his pink lips were also memorable. How had you not reached out to him after that first night? He was good. And he was so fucking hot. But he was also really nice to you and to your friend.

You tilted your pelvis down and dragged your clit over his nose and moaned softly as he pushed his tongue into your entrance. The slow lathering of his tongue up and down your crease and his puckering lips felt just as good as you remembered.

He pushed at you and inhaled a sharp breath, “Starting to remember me now?” His shiny berry lips quirked up in a cocky smile as you panted and shook your head, “Nuh-uh. I’ve sat on lots of faces. Gonna have to give me something more if you really want me to remember you.”

His raspy laugh had his nostrils flaring and he pushed at you, causing you to move off his face, “Fine,” he breathed as he sat up, “Lie down. Looks like you need something a little extra.”

Your back hit the mattress as he sat back on his haunches and pulled at your panties, tearing them down your legs and pushing your dress up your thighs, exposing your cunt to him as he lowered his face over you, his shoulders bumping into the back of your thighs to hold you down.

“Y/n, you taste just like you did before. So soft and sweet,” he ran his spandex-covered finger through your crease and you gasped at the odd feeling of it. He laughed at your reaction, “You’re wet enough that this should still feel really good. Tell me if it’s irritating to your skin,” his mouth and nose, and ends of his hair were still exposed as he circled two fingers over your clit and had his face tilted toward you.

When he opened his mouth wide and lowered it over your clit you grasped onto his hood and sighed. It was so good. Just like before. His tongue and lips and the way he gently sucked you in made you quiver.

But it was the odd sensation of his fabric-covered fingers slipping through your wetness that kept you very much in the moment. You kept imagining that the shiny spandex would soon collect all your wetness and you’d be left dry and it would start to hurt but it was the opposite.

The smooth material became coated and the extra friction from the fabric felt yummy.

He slurped your clit and took a good long lick upward from your entrance to your clit and then held up two of his fingers so you could see, “Look. Just want you to see this before I start fucking you with them. Nice and slippery,” he scissored his fingers apart and you saw the strings of arousal stick together,” But tell me if you don’t like it.”

“Oh my god…” you moaned as you craned your neck up to watch him as he slowly plunged them inside of you.

You tightened your thighs, but Harry used his free hand to hold you apart and the grin on his face as he watched his gloved fingers slide in and out of you was lewd, “Hear that?” He increased the speed at which he was fingering you, your wetness being pushed in and out with his fingers was definitely audible, “Bet that feels so good, doesn’t it, Y/n?”

You nodded and moaned again, still trying to keep your neck tilted so you could watch.

When he wrapped his mouth around your clit once again, though, you cried out and your head fell back onto the mattress in surrender.

His fingers, his tongue, and his lips had you writhing and moaning pathetically, “Oh fuck…” you cried as he curled his fingers just right, and flattened his tongue over your clit, his face aimed toward you as if he were watching your reaction.

He continued fingering you as he lifted his face and planted a sweet kiss to your clit, “How’s it feel? Do you want to come, Y/n?”

You moaned and gasped as you nodded, “Yes, Harry…” and the moment you said his name you knew you were busted. Your eyes widened and Harry’s grin took over his face, you could see the beginnings of his dimples.

“Figured you’d remember me,” he kissed your clit again and spoke against your pussy, “Hang on, sweet girl. Gonna finish you off properly.”

And finish you off he did. Properly at that. He held you down with one shoulder and one hand as he fingered you with his other and sucked and dug into your clit. The noises were obscene. From the wetness you’d created, to the fast pace of his fingers pushing and curling into you, to his slurping and moaning…

“Come on baby,” he coaxed when he felt your thighs shaking and your moans turned into whimpers and cries.

His tongue flicked side to side quickly and then he dug in as if he was sucking the last bits of juice off a mango and the vibrations from his moans had you seeing stars. You gripped his head and shouted his name as you came in his mouth. You thought you heard a laugh come from him but you were so far gone in ecstasy that you couldn’t care. You knew you were being loud but it wasn’t every day that a man came around to give you head the way Harry was.

When you’d opened your eyes you noticed you pushed his mask up further with how you’d been hanging on, nearly his whole nose was exposed as he softly licked upward from your entrance to your clit. He removed his fingers and was cradling the underside of your thighs with both hands. Like a loving little gesture to help you come down.

Suddenly he was hovering over you and had his lips pressed to yours. Your first kiss of the night and it tasted like your pussy. But you liked the taste of pussy so it didn’t bother you.

You could feel Harry’s hard erection on your thigh as he licked into your mouth and cupped your face.

It felt so sweet and so desperate at the same time. You knew he needed to be taken care of too. He deserved to have the favor returned after the way he’d just handled you with such precision.

Pushing at his shoulders he gasped as he parted from your lips, “What do you need, Harry?” You asked him.

He moaned and rolled his hips down so you could really feel him, “You. Just you. Whatever you’re willing to give.”

You grinned and wrapped your finger around a chunk of his hair, “But what do you want? Want a blow job? Want to fuck me? Want my hands?”

Harry exhaled heavily and dropped his mouth open, “Can’t stop thinking about how good you felt on my cock. The way we fit together.”

You bucked your hips up and nodded, “I can’t stop thinking about it either. You felt so good. Stretched me out so nice.”

“Fuck.” Harry quickly moved off of you and stood at the edge of the bed before opening up the side drawer, “Need a condom.”

You rolled over and opened up the other side table drawer to rummage through it. Not finding anything other than pens and loose charger cables. You couldn’t find it in yourself to feel bad about rummaging through a stranger’s things when you had Harry Styles about to fuck you.

Harry adjusted his cock as he quickly walked to the dresser on the other side of the room and looked through the top drawer and let out a groan of relief, “Fuck yes.”

Holding up the condom he placed it on the dresser and untied the top of his spandex suit. He was still wearing the mask, though it had been pushed upward and his hair was exposed at the ends, slightly more grown out than the last time you saw him, but he was too focused on his task to worry about how funny he looked with his mask half covering his face. The moment he untied the top he began to pull at the suit and peel it down his toned and tattooed torso. You sat up and watched him undress. He had no underwear on just as you suspected.

You had to laugh at the spectacle. Just like a woman wearing a cute tight body suit, men had the same issue with needing to remove the entire thing in order to use the bathroom, or in your case, fuck.

“Heey, don’t laugh. Beauty comes with a price.” He grinned as he kicked the body suit away and opened up the condom, slowly putting it over himself. He looked over at you and tilted his chin upward, “Get your dress off. Wanna see those pretty tits.”

You giggled and pulled at your stretchy dress, easily removing it by the time he made his way back to the bed. He climbed over you, his mask still covering his eyes as he leaned down to kiss you.

The way his mouth moved against yours and his hands found your breasts and your ribs and your tummy as he moaned and licked at your tongue gave you a surge of need. You lifted your hips toward his and slid your hands down his torso to grab his cock.

He pushed himself down into your hand and then reared back gently to slip his shaft through your labia, wetting the condom, “This is gonna be better than the first time. No performance anxiety with a third watching.” He grinned down at you as he moved back to take you in below him.

You laughed as he pulled at your thighs and lifted your legs over his, angling your hips upward so your bottom was positioned on the tops of his thighs, “Were you nervous last time with Heidi? It was your idea? And… can we take this off?” You gestured to his mask.

“Heidi? That was her name?” He responded as he pulled the mask off from over his eyes and tossed it behind himself. “Sorry, I barely remember. But… I wanted you to think I was cool. Plus she was kinda cute. But it was really all about you.”

You pushed yourself up to your elbows at this revelation, “Wait. You only invited her because you wanted me to think you were cool?”

He shrugged and smiled shyly, “Yeah. Knew you liked girls too. Figured it might make you like me if I was cool with that.”

You shook your head, “And then you just never reached out to me again after?”

He puffed out a soft laugh, “I don’t know. Felt like maybe you weren’t as into me. Didn’t want to embarrass myself.”

You took his hand and pushed your fingers between his, “Well, after this it looks like we’ve got some talking to do. I kinda thought you were too cool for me so that’s why you never bothered.”

The look on his face was surprised, “Me? Too cool? That’s not… no way. If anyone is too cool it’s you, Y/n.”

You laughed and tugged at his hand, “Please, Harry. Just fuck me.” You were relieved to see his eyes and the top of his head finally. Just as handsome as before, hair slightly more undone from the hood he had over his head, but it was perfect for what you two were about to do.

Harry let out a shaky breath and looked down to where your entrance was wet and softly clenching for him already. His lips dropped open as he leaned forward, your hand still in his, pressing it down to the mattress next to your head as he pushed his tip in.

“Ohh…” you breathed out and watched his face scrunch up as he plunged in slowly.

“Feel that? This the reminder you needed?” He whispered lowly as he inched in.

There was a moment of silence between you two as you watched each other and he began to move in and out, deeper on each thrust. Heavy breaths and soft moans until he’d reached into you as far as humanly possible, hips rocking into you and fingers tightly squeezing around yours.

“Fuck me… Fucking condom sucks but you… holy shit…” Harry moaned and began to roll into you faster.

You reached your free hand up to move his hair from his face, “Harry… you feel so good inside of me. Oh, my god…” The snap of his hips wetly collided with you as the small bed creaked gently.

Harry held himself up with one hand, palm flat on the mattress as pushed into you, his muscles tensing and flexing above you, “Yeah? Feels good just like you remember? You’re so wet for me, Y/n. Didn’t know you needed me so bad,” he panted his words.

You were wet for him. So wet it was almost embarrassing, but you were glad in a way because he was quite sizable, and if you’d been any less wet it might have hurt. But as it was, the slip and the stretch and the way he could drag himself in and out was delicious.

You cupped his face and moaned loudly as he pounded into you harder. You could feel your tits wobbling and the bed dancing under your back. Harry was groaning and his eyes grew dark fast. Every time he bottomed out he ground himself into you deeply and you gasped at the ache, “Careful! You’re almost too deep!” You breathed out your words in a rush.

His cocky smirk meant that he took that as a compliment, so he did it once more, his eyes pinned to yours as he slowly stuffed himself into your cervix, “Ahh! Harry…” You widened your eyes and then he pushed himself back to his haunches.

“Sorry. Can’t help it,” he spoke, still grinning at you as he smoothed his fingers over your clit and worked his cock in from the new angle.

You knew he was long and that he’d reach deep, but that kind of deepness usually wasn’t achieved without you being on top. Even average-length guys felt deeper when you were on top. But Harry, of course, wasn’t average-sized. And you could tell he was very aware of that fact. Proud of it even.

With his fingers on your clit and the new angle his cock was nudging into your little sparkly, yummy soft spot inside over and over again. You moaned his name and he let go of your hand to fondle your tits. He continued a nice pace, slipping back and pushing in, long, exquisite strokes that filled you and stretched your insides apart. You could only imagine how he’d feel without the condom inhibiting the texture of his skin pressed into your skin. The friction, the way his foreskin would move inside of you, and his swollen tip uninhibited by smooth latex would really make the drag something.

“Yesss!” You moaned as he hit your spot perfectly, the repeated glide of his thick crown into your g-spot, had you trembling.

Harry breathed hard through his nose as he looked down to where he was fucking into you and back to your eyes, “Gonna come already, Y/n? Tell me how good it is.”    

“Fuck, Harry… You’re so big and you're pressing into something inside of me that I can’t… I’m gonna… it’s so good… so full… oh fuck! Gonna come…” you babbled and moaned as the bed squeaked and the headboard softly tapped the wall in time with Harry’s thrusts.

“Shit. Was gonna fuck you doggy but if you come I’m gonna come, baby. I can’t help it. Your wet pussy is just sucking me in,” he pressed down over your clit and hastened his fingers and you could feel him shaking.

You tensed your thighs and cried out just as a knock came to the door. Someone was saying something but you were gone. Your ears were ringing and your loud cries and buttery, mouthwatering orgasm were all you could focus on.

Harry groaned and pushed into you a few more times, before he couldn’t hold back, dumping his come into the condom with a choked moan.

He could hear someone threatening to unlock the door but Harry was in bliss. There was no way he could stop his cock from twitching and coming and you were so sweet and pretty below him with your face scrunched and your cries of nonsense.

The cliché of time standing still had been true in that moment. You couldn’t stop trembling and clenching over him as you felt his cock throbbing inside of you. Harry’s own orgasm just prolonged yours. He had leaned over you, his fingers in your hair as he pushed into you with gasps and soft whimpers.

When you finally opened your eyes and Harry had caught his breath the door was opened and Harry turned back quickly, covering your frame with his broad chest, “Sorry! We’ll get out. Just… let us get dressed,” Harry’s words came out breathy and stuttered as he was still breathing heavily.

“Harry? God damnit! Just… Fine. You owe me, man.” The guy who was speaking closed the door. You never saw his face because Harry had covered you and when he sat back he smiled softly at you.

“Want to go back to mine? Stay with me tonight? We can talk a little.”

You grinned and sighed with a nod, “Of course. And then maybe if you’re up for it, you can fuck me doggy like you wanted.”

Harry breathed out a laugh from his nose, “Oh I’ll be up for it.”

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[femd-archive]

hiiii!! omg i love ur work sm it just scratches an itch i’ve had forever, i’ve always loved the dom reader + sub male character relationship and ur work is perfect! if it’s okay could i be 🌺 anon if you use the emoji system for that?

i have a request if ur taking them atm, i saw ur sub kenji oneshots and i was wondering if you’d be interested in writing a subby kenji x reader w a lot of miscommunication or general angst bc that’s my absolute fave!! w all the smut you want ofc!

and if you don’t want to take the request that’s totally cool! i really just wanted to tell you ur writing is amazing and ily!

— 🌺

hello! thanks for ur request :] and of course u can be 🌺 anon! i also love angst, more so the hurt/comfort trope, but i'm really bad at writting it (╥‸╥) so this was my attempt to write a hurt/comfort fic for the first time. hope u like it! i'll practice to make it better next time (ᵕ—ᴗ—)

p.s.: i didn't add much smut, mostly because my brain is fried :p

NOT ALONE

pairing: ultraman: rising — ken sato x fem!reader

word counting: 2.7k

content warning: arguing | kenji is so stressed :( | riding | unprotected sex | masturbation (female)

side note: english is not my first lenguage, so i apologize in advance for any grammar mistakes

You notice, of course you notice.

You love and care for Kenji too much to not notice the dark circles under his eyes because of the lack of sleep; the way he's been more sensitive, even over the most little things; how he overworks himself in his baseball practices and won't stop unless Mina turns the stadium hologram off.

You knew how his relationship with his father was, but you have seen the way he declines his calls without a second thought now, knowing the guilt trip he had to overcome before he even hit the decline button on his watch before.

You notice, and of course you're worried about it. You didn't have to be his girlfriend to be worried. Hell, you would even be worried by just seeing him walk like a zombie in the streets as a stranger! And all that worry is what brings you in front of his mansion door at midnight.

He hasn't been answering your messages nor calls. You get it, he's a busy baseball player, but he always made at least a few minutes to reply to your messages, mostly saying sorry for not picking up your calls and that he'll call you back after he's done with an interview, telling you that he loves you.

After ringing his doorbell, you only had to wait for a few minutes before you could hear the hurried footsteps coming to the door. Opening it, there he was. With his adorable bed head, he looked up at you, tired eyes wide with surprise.

"Baby" his voice cracked, making him clear his throat before he talks again. "Hey baby, uhm...I didn't know that you were coming!" he laughs nervously.

"Well...I did text you" you shake your phone, and Kenji gulps.

"I..." he sighs, "I'm sorry baby. I just been...so busy later" he groans, rubbing a hand over his face with fatigue.

"I understand, Kenji. May I come in? I just wanna talk with you. It's been a while"

Kenji looks at you through his sleepy eyes, and even in that state, you were able to see the way his eyes softened at the sight of you. It really has been a while. He reaches a hand to your face, caressing your cheek with his thumb.

"Of course" he mumbles, low but loud enough for you to hear him. He moves his hand from your face to your hand, taking it and pulling you softly inside, closing the door behind him.

You guys walk over the kitchen. Kenji lets go of your hand to walk over the fridge. "Do you want anything?" he asks, referring to the fridge's content.

[Name] sucks in a breath, gathering courage to speak. "Yeah, I'd like for us to talk" she finally said, noticing how Kenji's shoulder tense as he close the door's fridge, staying there with a can of soda in his head, not facing her. "For you to talk to me, Kenji. I believe you when you say you're busy with baseball, I really do! But I thrust my gut to know that there's something else going on"

She walks closer to him, staring at his broad back. How she wishes she could just hug him from behind and erase all his problems. But the world is more complicated than that, and she knows it.

"You can't always rely on your gut to make conclusions" opening the can soda, Kenji spit those words with a gruff tone, making [Name] surprised over his mood change.

Of course she wasn't off limits of seeing him mad only because she was his girlfriend, but she didn't expect for him to talk to her like that over a simple request.

"Then talk to me, Kenji. I don't wanna be like this either" she starts talking, following Kenji as he walks away while drinking from the can. "You don't have to tell me everything, but at least admit that you're having a hard time so I can at least hold you"

Kenji lets out a chuckle, incredulous. "Hard time? Baby, I'm Ken Sato! I don't have hard times, I only have good times" he spread his arms beside him, trying to appear as flawless as ever, obtaining a deadpan face from you.

"Kenji, you look like shit" you simply say. "You can barely walk with your eyes open. I don't know about anyone else, but I can see the lack of sleep in your eyes, I can see how your shoulder has been bothering you more each day that passes. I know that you always work hard to be on a good shape for the games, but you go to an extent that is not healthy"

"What? Did you became a physician now?" he asks after finishing rubbing his eyes, a mocking tone on his words.

"What? No" you needed to take a breath to not break. "I'm just concerned about your well being"

"I am okay" he affirms, eyebrows furrowed. "You're the that's being like 'Ohh Kenji ~ you're so tired. You should rest up'" with a high pitched tone, he mimicks you in a mocking way while pouting exaggeratedly.

You feel your heart beating fast on your chest, your cheeks hot with embarrassement. Why was he behaving like that? You just want to help. Were you being too overboard? You give him his space, you have gave it to him for weeks. And that you finally thought it was a good time to adress his lack of selfcare and how sad he looks, he talks to you like this...

"I know that you're having a hard time, Kenji. Everyone that cares about you can notice that. I just...I just want to help in what I can" you say with a weak tone now. You had shrunk in your spot, suddenly feeling sorry for even going to his house in the first place.

"Well guess what? You can't help me"

In a desperate attempt to push you away —because if you kept looking at him with those pretty eyes, he'll spill everything— he's mean to you. Not the smartest choice to treat your lover, but that's the only response that he could muster at the moment.

He was flustered at the confrontation. Of course you will notice about his poor state. You love him and care too much for him to not notice that he's going insane little by little, but he doesn't want to share that burden with you. In his mind, he just can't.

You look up at him, big sad eyes that just make him want to hug you until you both forget this stupid moment.

Holding back your tears, the only thing you could do was sigh. Your heart feels heavy on your chest, wunded by his words and harsh tone. You're not the savior of the word, you're not Ultraman either, you just wanted to help your boyfriend...

"Yeah, I already knew that" you mumble. Taking a deep breath, you look up at him with a weak smile. "Alright, you might not want to talk right now, but if you need anything...I'm always gonna be there" you remind him, giving him one last look before starting to walk off to the front door.

Kenji looks at you go. You seemed little with the way your shoulders shrunk and you walked slowly, like an injured animal. His heart also feels heavy on his chest, a pang of guilt striking over all his body as his eyes are already watering with tears.

He hated that his stupid pride wouldn't let him as for help, for it to hurt you when the only thing you wanted to do was help him in whatever way you could.

He knew you weren't weak, he knew that you could be able to handle all the secrets that he's harboring on his chest, but he doesn't want to share the burden, he doesn't want anything bad to happen to you only because you know he's Ultraman.

What would he do if he lost you? He's sure that he was gonna lose his mind. Just the same way he'll lose his mind if he let you walk away through that door.

"Mina, lock the door" he commanded, and in a split of a second, the computer did so.

You didn't even try to open it after you've heard his command. Confused, you look back at Kenji, who's already walking towards you like a kicked puppy.

"Forgot to say something?" you ask, bitterness on your tone that made Kenji cringe.

He sighs, a guilty expression on his face. "Yes...I'm sorry baby" he begins. "I...I promise that I want to tell you, I want to tell you everything! But— it's...it's too dangerous"

And finally, after months of bottling all this emotions, Kenji finally breaks into loud sobs, fat tears running down his cheeks. Startled, [Name] didn't have any other reflections than hug him, even though she was still mad at his earlier attitude.

"Hey, hey" she whispered, running a hand up and down his back. "It's okay, it's okay"

Kenji wraps his arms around her shoulders, hiding his face on her neck. "I don't—" he chokes, "I don't want anything to happen to you" he cries, almost incomprehensible.

"Nothing is gonna happen to me, baby" she reassures, feeling his tears run down her neck and wetting her shirt, but she doesn't care about it. Kenji finally is being open with her, and that's all that matter.

Kenji sniffs a few times before talking with a weak voice. "Promise?" he asks.

She squeezes him a little bit more in her arms. "I promise"

Still sniffing, Kenji slowly pulls away from the hug, looking at his girlfriend with his big eyes full of tears, a cute pout in his lips. [Name] reaches her hands to run her thumbs under his eyes, drying his tears away. He nuzzles into her, a shaky breath exhaling out of him as he calms down.

"There you go" she whispers softly, caressing his cheeks with her thumbs now. "Come on, let's sit on the couch. I'll get you some water"

After a lot of reassurance that nothing was gonna happen and lots of cuddles, Kenji had finally told her everything. That his dad was Ultraman; that he took his legacy and he now serves as the new Ultraman to the city of Tokyo, and how he knows he's not doing a good job; that he has a 6 feet tall baby Kaiju that think he's her mother trapped in a container, and he clearly don't know how to take care of her; how much he misses his mother everyday...

[Name] listened to him attentively, her heart swelling at how much pain Kenji had to endure on his own and feeling guilty about not noticing sooner. Why she couldn't have been there for him? Right now, everything seemed so obvious, all of it happen in front of her, and she couldn't do nothing.

Her caresses on the back of his hand never stopped for even one second, even caressing his back when he needed to make a pause to cry.

Now they were cuddled up in the couch under a blanket. After spilling everthing out, Kenji just let himself fall into her arms and bask into her warmth.

"Thank you for telling me, Kenji. I really didn't wanna pressure you into talking, but you looked so sick...I was just so worried" she blinked back the tears, she needed to be strong for him now. "And yeah, it's a lot to take in. Like damn...I'm dating Ultraman" her comment makes Kenji giggle, his body trembling with laughter in her arms, "but it's nothing that we can't overcome, together" she remarks the last word. "And it's not something that it's gonna make me love you any less"

Kenji pulls away from her arms to make eye contact, his puffy eyes still able to show how soft they become when he looks at her. "I'm sorry I didn't reach out for you to talk. I just— I don't know how to ask for help" he admits, feeling a weight that he didn't know he had on his chest being gone.

"Well, admiting that is a big first step, so I'm really proud of you for that" she kisses his forehead, making him smile. "And we can work on that. We can search for professional service, that wpuld help out a lot. And, I'm always gonna be there for you" she reminds him, running her fingers through his hair.

She cups his cheeks, making him look at her in the eyes. "You're not a burden, Kenji. Your problems are valid and I'm always gonna be up to hearing them and help you in what I can and I can't do. We're in this together, alright? You're not alone anymore"

[Name] saw the way that Kenji's eyes swell with this again, a small pout on his lips as he gulps softly. He nods, slowly, letting her words sink in. He was not alone...he had her. It was not something that it would easily stick in his mind, but he'll try to remind himelf everyday. He was not alone anymore.

She leaned in, going for a kiss, and Kanji meet her midway, kissing her with yearn after all those weeks that they couldn't be together, that they couldn't touch each other. He could've barely see her with his busy schedule, and that also added to all his stress, all this mess. All he needed was to be in her arms.

Kenji takes one of [Name]'s hands that cupped his cheek and slide it down his shirt at the same time he traced her bottom lip with his tongue.

[Name] pulls away from the kiss, almost smiling when she hears Kenji whine and chase after her lips, desperate. "Hey, you really wanna do this? You're still tired, Kenji" she reproached.

"Please baby" he whines, looking at her eyes and then her lips, intensely. "I need you"

Kenji straddles his girlfriend's lap completely, letting her feel his hard cock against her stomach. [Name] gasps softly, looking up at Kenji's cute needy face as he starts rocking his hips softly.

She bits down her bottom lip before pulling him into another kiss where he moans.

They didn't even realize when did Mina lowered the lights. How could they? When they were so engrossed in each other's touch. The room was filled with the couple's moans and their skin hitting against each other.

Kenji was laying down on the couch, [Name] on top of him, as they hugged each other thightly while she moved her hips up and down, Kenji's dick hitting the right spot with every thrust.

Kenji's grip on [Name]'s waist just get tighter as he hide his moans in her neck. "Baby...baby" he calls for her, feeling his orgasm coming.

"I know baby, I know" she kisses his shoulder. "Go ahead, you can cum" she reassures, speeding the pace of her thrusts.

Kenji meets his girlfriend's hips midway, bucking his own as he hits the last thrusts before sliding out of her, ropes of cum shooting out of his tip, dirtying [Name]'s back, his thighs and the expensive couch under them. But who cared? He could buy another one.

[Name] brings her hand to her clit, making circle motions on it with her fingers as she grins on Kenji's abs. He manages to look up at her with cloudy eyes, brain still fuzzy with the euphoria of his recent climax. Still, his hands come up to caress her thighs, encouraging her to keep using him to get off.

"S' pretty" he slurs, running his thumbs on her skin.

"Fuck...Kenji" with his name on her lips, she ends up cumming with a few more motions of her fingers before collapsing on top of her boyfriend's chest.

They stayed there, in each other's embrace as they calmed down. Kenji's finger run softly down [Name]'s arm, his free arm wrapped around her waist.

"I'm sorry I didn't help you get off" he whispers suddenly, making [Name] chuckle.

"It's okay. To be fair, you're about to pass out now" she props her chin on his chest, looking at him with dreamy eyes. Kenji chuckles as well, not denying it. "Come on, let's take a bath and then you can finally have some good night sleep" patting his chest softly, she starts getting up and helps him as well.

"Are you gonna introduce me to the baby Kaiju tomorrow?" she asks as they walk together to the bathroom.

"Oh yeah, and she's gonna love ~ you. Just like I do ~" he litters her cheek with kisses, making her giggle.

"Come on, Romeo. Let's take a bath"

[taglist] @vinegarjello

[xoamiiren]

BATTER UP, ⋆｡°✩ 𓈒𓈒 home run, baby

𖥔 PRECIS. a series of headcanons for my university star athletes au PAIRING. star baseball player!jake x supportive gf!reader GENRE. fluff, suggestive WARNINGS. skinship, kissing, petnames

authors note ୨୧ this is pt. 1/4 of this hyung line star athlete au I’ve conjured up in my head. yuh.

─────────

Star baseball player Jake, who always spots you in the stands, gives you a little wink before stepping up to the plate, making your heart race as if he knows exactly how to fluster you.

Star baseball player Jake, who teases you about how obsessed you are with watching him play, but secretly waits for your cheers the most, knowing it gives him the confidence to perform even better.

Star baseball player Jake, who surprises you after every game with a playful hug from behind, his face buried in your neck as he asks, “Did I impress you today?”

Star baseball player Jake, who casually slips his baseball cap onto your head during games, flashing that easygoing grin as he says, “Looks better on you.”

Star baseball player Jake, who shamelessly pulls you in close for a messy, rough kiss after a tough game, the sweat dripping down his face, his breathing heavy, as he mutters, “…This was all I needed…”

Star baseball player Jake, who throws mock glares at his teammates during team events when they try to flirt with you, not-so-subtly marking his territory by draping an arm around your shoulder.

Star baseball player Jake, who stays up late to help you study, even when he has early morning practice, insisting that “my grades are good enough—I’m more worried about you.”

Star baseball player Jake, who gets caught staring at you instead of focusing during practice, only for his coach to yell out, “Jake! Eyes on the game, not your girl!”

Star baseball player Jake, who gives you his jersey after a big win, knowing you love how it smells like him, and later sends a cheeky text, “Better not let anyone else see you in it.”

Star baseball player Jake, who can’t wait to get you alone in his dorm after an especially good practice or game, letting you pull his jersey over his mess of hair as he peppers your body in warm, rushed kisses.. “Is this my reward?”

Star baseball player Jake, who sulks after losing a really intense game and refuses to talk to anyone but you, only to break down when he’s alone with you, admitting, “I just hate letting everyone down, especially you...”

Star baseball player Jake, who sneaks you into the locker room after hours, sitting on the bench beside you with a mischievous grin as he says, before capturing your lips in a warm, sensual kiss. “We’re not supposed to be here, but I couldn’t wait to see you.”

Star baseball player Jake, who makes sure you’re wearing his team’s colors at every game, calling you his “lucky charm,” and firmly believing that you bring him good luck. He especially likes when you write his jersey number on your cheek!

Star baseball player Jake, who challenges you to a playful game of catch after practice, laughing at how uncoordinated you are but always rushing over to help you fix your stance, his hands lingering a little too long on your waist. “What…? It’s your form that’s all weird..”

Star baseball player Jake, who secretly loves when you call him out for spending too much time at practice, just so he can dramatically pout and whine, “But I’m doing it all for you!”

Star baseball player Jake, who posts cute pictures of the two of you on his social media after a game, with captions like, “My #1 fan ❤️” or “Couldn’t do it without her support 😘.”

Star baseball player Jake, who runs his fingers through his hair and sighs dramatically every time you mention one of his teammates, playfully asking, “You like them more than me now, huh?”

Star baseball player Jake, who puts his cap on backwards and shoots you a playful smirk, jaw flexing as he chews his usual bubble gum, every time you try to focus on your work, just because he knows how much you’re into that look.

Star baseball player Jake, who gets flustered when you wear his oversized varsity jacket, trying to play it cool but eventually blurting out, “You’re gonna make me lose my focus if you keep looking that good in my clothes.”

[sidekick-hero]

(steddie | teen | 1.2k | tags: first date, first kiss, very slight angst | written for the stwg daily prompt kiss in the rain)

Today has to be perfect, Eddie vows as he parks his van in the Harrington's driveway.

Because today Eddie is taking Steve out on their first date.

Frankly, he has no idea how he managed to get a date with the Steve Harrington. Even more, he has no idea how someone as beautiful and kind and sweet and funny as Steve would want to go out with someone like him.

It certainly helps that they saved the world together and share many, many traumas, as well as some horrible scars that tell the story of everything they've been through.

Eddie wants to believe that's not all that binds them, that the months they've spent growing closer over shared custody of Steve's six nuggets, movie nights, and long hours spent smoking and talking on top of the Munsons' new trailer have a lot to do with it, too.

But Eddie also knows that the Eddie of a year ago would have scoffed at the idea of going out with King Steve. Just like that Steve wouldn't have gone out with the town freak.

Which is why Eddie needs today to be a success.

Today has to be perfect.

As he rings the bell, his heart beats wildly in his chest and sweat forms on his palms.

Steve answers the door with a smile that makes Eddie's knees weak. "Hey," he says, and Eddie's mind blanks for a moment. Steve's wearing those jeans, the ones that look like they're painted on, showing off his legs and...other parts. And he has them paired with a striped polo shirt that is not supposed to look as good as it does.

"Hey," Eddie replies, finally finding his voice. "You ready for a day full of adventure?"

Steve grins and nods, stepping out and closing the door behind him. "Lead the way. As long as there are no monsters to fight, I'm game."

Eddie's plan is simple: a picnic in an empty field he found a few weeks ago, but first some good old-fashioned ball throwing to indulge Steve's love of sports. It's no secret that Eddie hates sports, but he's willing to make an exception for Steve. He often feels that Steve is the one indulging the kids, Robin, or even himself, because except for Lucas, none of their friends enjoy sports, either playing or watching.

So Eddie wants to show Steve that his hobbies and interests are important too, and that Eddie can try to be as involved in them as Steve is in his.

They drive to the field with music blasting, a mix tape that Eddie has made especially for this occasion, a perfect blend of his and Steve's taste in music, and he feels a little more at ease as Steve sings along, off-key and carefree. When "Somebody To Love" comes on, Steve playfully nudges him with his elbow and Eddie joins him as they both sing along, grinning broadly.

"Did you bring me here to murder me and get rid of the body, Munson?" Steve jokes at the sight of the empty field and Eddie lets out a theatrical cackle.

"Afraid I'm going to have my way with you, Harrington?"

Heat pools in his stomach at the smile Steve gives him in response.

"Don't threaten me with a good time."

Deciding on a hasty retreat before he does something embarrassing like whimper, Eddie climbs out of the van and goes to the back, pulling out an old baseball and a pair of gloves.

"Thought we could start with this," Eddie says, holding up the ball to Steve, who has followed him to the back of the van.

Steve's eyes light up at the sight. "You remembered."

As if Eddie could ever forget all the secrets and stories Steve had shared with him, while the stars above them were the only witnesses to some of the best moments of Eddie's life.

Steve had told him how he had always loved baseball as a little boy, and how his father had sometimes taken him to games. Looking back, Steve said he probably loved his father's attention and time more than the sport itself, but for whatever reason, it had been his first great love. He collected all the cards and knew everything there was to know about stats and players and rules. All he wanted was to be a player.

When he tried out at school, he didn't make the team. It was only years later that Steve found out why he had trouble hitting the ball with his bat: he had impaired vision, something his parents never bothered with, so he was never examined. At the time, he believed it was because he wasn't good enough, a failure. His dad seemed to think the same thing, because after he didn't make the team, he never took Steve to games again.

Steve hadn't played since, so Eddie figured it was time to help Steve have some good memories of baseball again.

Eddie shrugs, trying to play it cool. "Yeah, figured you'd like it."

They toss the ball back and forth, Steve coaching Eddie on his form, laughing when Eddie fumbles a catch. They're both having fun, and Eddie starts to relax, thinking maybe this date won't be a disaster after all.

But then Eddie misjudges a throw, and the ball smacks him right on the forehead. He stumbles back, more surprised than hurt, but his confidence takes a hit.

"Shit, Eddie, you okay?" Steve rushes over, concern etched on his face.

Eddie laughs it off, though his heart sinks. "Yeah, I'm fine. Just my luck, huh?"

Steve looks relieved but still worried. "Maybe we should take a break."

Eddie nods, feeling like he's already ruined things. He wonders why he thought it was a good idea to throw a ball with an ex-jock when he failed gym class more than once. So much for giving Steve a good baseball memory.

Still, he trudges over to the van to get everything they need for the picnic he has planned. The delighted smile on Steve's face at the sight of the basket and the blanket under Eddie's arm makes him think that maybe all is not lost. But just as he spreads out the blanket and unloads the food he's prepared, he glances up at the sky and sees dark clouds gathering. Still, he clings to the hope that they can finish before the rain comes.

Eddie should have known better. Luck and he have only been acquaintances at the best of times.

Just as they're settling in, the first raindrop falls, then another, and within seconds, it's pouring.

Eddie's heart sinks. This day was supposed to be perfect, and now it's a mess. "I'm so sorry, Steve. This was supposed to be perfect and now —"

Steve cuts him off with a bright laugh, his hair plastered to his forehead, rain running down his face. "Eddie, it's fine. Really."

Eddie looks at him, confused. "But the rain, and the ball, and—"

Steve steps closer, cupping Eddie's face in his hands. "I don't care about any of that. I care about you. You did so much for me today, Eddie." And before Eddie can respond, Steve kisses him.

It's a soft, lingering kiss that makes Eddie forget about the rain, the ball, and everything else. When they pull apart, Steve's smiling. "This is perfect, Eddie."

Eddie laughs, feeling lighter than he has all day. "Yeah, it kinda is."

As they pack up the picnic in the pouring rain, Eddie realizes that maybe perfection isn't about everything going right. Maybe it's about finding the right moments, even in the midst of chaos, with the right person.

[devoutekuna]

Matching their father's energy

Includes- Toji, Sukuna, Nanami, Gojo, Geto

Sukuna-

Sukuna's daughter definitely inherited the mouth that can move all around her body, normally her father would use it to bite her whenever she was acting like a brat, and she took that upon herself to do the same, finally mastering the movement of the small mouth, always keeping it on the palm of her hand. Using it to her advantage as she bit anyone she found annoying, especially her father, even trying to sharpen the teeth inside of it so that it would hurt more, but her father didn't even notice that he had been bitten since it was so weak to him. "Did you feel that?" Grinning at him, as her head stuck into his eyesight. "Feel what?" Pushing her head out of his way, he hadn't even noticed that she had bitten it. A distraught look appearing on her face as she heard his question. "But I bit you!" Waving her hand in his face. "Didn't feel a thing" smirking at her as he put her on the floor.

Nanami-

"Thank you love" kissing your cheek as you handed him a coffee. He was sat reading a book at the kitchen table, his daughter sat opposite him,marrying to copy his actions, first by reading a book, staring at it despite not understanding a word it said, it was about finances so of course she didn't get it, even putting on someone's glasses she found. "Can I have one too mummy?" Talking about the coffee as she pointed at it.

"No, I'm not giving you a coffee" a small chuckle being heard as he peered over his book, trying to cover it up with a cough. "Why not!?" Acting shocked as if she hadn't been told repeatedly that she wasn't to have caffeine. "Cause I said so." Defending your point and you poured yourself a cup, gloating in her face. "But dad gets one" mumbling under her breath as she slouched In her chair and crossed her arms over her chest.

Geto-

His daughter has seen him countlessly swallow the balls full of curses, watching her father's disgust appear as he washed it away and put on a smile for him daughter, later she had found out about the minty flavour of chewing gum, always going to the shop to buy some with you. Soon enough she wanted to try do what he was doing, finding a small button in the house and shoving it down her throat only to choke on it and fortunately he was there to save her, even though it ended in tears, she still tried again but with bigger objects.

Gojo-

Gojo has a thing for eating big meals, so when his son was born, he wasn't surprised that he had a big appetite just like him. Scoffing down nearly a full tub of ice-cream, it was 2am and Satoru had just woken up for a drink, walking into the kitchen only to find his 3 year old with a spoon in his mouth and a half empty tub of vanilla ice-cream, sat on the tile flooring. "Hi daddy" smiling at the man as he rook the spoon out of his mouth, going in for another spoonful before realising how rude it was not to offer some. Hand stuck out with a spoon attached to it. "Want some?" Oblivious to the fact that he had just eaten half a tub. Scratching his bare stomach as he wore only sweatpants, pondering if he should take the offer. "I'm good" patting the girl's head as he walked towards the fridge.

Toji-

He has a thing for killing people, that's why he was an assassin fortunately your daughter didn't know how to kill nor use her cursed technique. For her birthday she had been begging for a bat after seeing a group of kids playing with one.

"Hiyahh!" Hitting the man with the wooden bat, you didn't understand why she needed a wooden one and not a plastic one, but then again, it was the same bat that a professional baseball player used. "Go away",grabbing the bag and bringing it to his face. "Go use your ball if you want to use this" he didn't understand why she didn't use the ball that came with it, instead trying to smash up anything in her path, though it was normally just cushions.

[vampzity]

home run! | J.WY

—✫ pairing: baseball! wooyoung x gn! reader

—✫ genre: fluff, ateez, headcanon, jung wooyoung, idol au, baseball au

—✫ description: all the pics i’ve been seeing of wooyoung at the baseball event is making my heart throb he’s literally so precious. i needed this headcanon BADLY. enjoy these delusional thoughts!

—✫ wc: 484

baseball! wooyoung who always looks for you in the crowd when he’s about to throw a pitch.

baseball! wooyoung who kisses each ball right before pitching so you know he dedicated it to you.

baseball! wooyoung who despite being a private event, finds a way to bring you, just so you can watch him throw the first pitch.

baseball! wooyoung who makes sure you don’t get overwhelmed by the countless fans asking for signatures.

baseball! wooyoung who gives you a sly look every time someone hands him a baby to hold.

baseball! wooyoung who always ends up talking about kids with you, and how much he adores them even though you’ve heard this same ramble about 20 times a month.

baseball! wooyoung who makes sure to save you an extra signed ball that he happened to pitch, just because you’re his favorite.

baseball! wooyoung who appreciates the fact that you don’t mind him bringing his brother along.

baseball! wooyoung who trusts you to watch his brother while he’s pitching in the field.

baseball! wooyoung who asks you to take countless amounts of photos of him, just for his fans.

baseball! wooyoung who gives you his hat and shades to stay cool, despite his heat rash tendency. (rip woo irl fr)

baseball! wooyoung who calls out for you as he’s practicing pitches on the sidelines.

baseball! wooyoung who doesn’t mind sharing his food with you, as well as eating the rest of what you couldn’t finish.

baseball! wooyoung who yells louder than everyone else when a player is about to hit a home run.

baseball! wooyoung who talks endlessly to you about how he’d want to put your future kids in sports.

baseball! wooyoung who makes your heart pound when you see him at his absolute happiest.

baseball! wooyoung who lets you try on the mittens they gave him to pitch with, and laughs when he sees how big they are on you.

baseball! wooyoung who whines because his white shoes got dirtied by the sand on the field, only to be annoyed by your “i told you so” after you told him not to wear white.

baseball! wooyoung who kisses your forehead every time a home run is scored, just because.

baseball! wooyoung who appreciates that you love him, even despite his tendency to be loud.

baseball! wooyoung who always laughs at how shocked you are every time fans surround him for autographs and pictures.

baseball! wooyoung who accepts your challenge to getting a home run in exchange for whatever baseball merch he wants.

baseball! wooyoung who somehow manages to play a full home run, despite not being a professional.

baseball! wooyoung who constantly nags and brags to you on how he scored a home run on the first try.

baseball! wooyoung who is happy he got to spend his day with you and his brother, and hopes to do so again one day.

a/n: im losing my mind 🧎‍♀️i do have some more sport headcanons on the way with other members so just be on the look out for those hehe ;)

taglist: @skzline @rvereri @evidive @xoxkii @vrtualsins

@sanslovesblog @dvrktvnnel @scarfac3 @honeyhwaaa @sundaybossanova

@kittykat-25 @losrpark @yyaurii @hwasddeongbyeoli @aestheticjoonie

@roomsofangel @mingtinysworld @minghaoslatina @interweab

*comment to be added to the taglist!*

—divider creds to owner—

[theoceansluvr]

Baseball Player! Percy Jackson x Reader

warnings; none ! author's notes; oooo how i love baseball player Percy headcanons.. i eat up every single moodboard people make of him it's insane !!! watched an entire Yankees game while writing this too sooo.. (Juan Soto come home the kids miss you😞)

behind the lovely Sally Jackson herself, you're his biggest fan !!

there's nobody louder than you two cheering Percy's name

he gives you his training jersey because of course he does.

this man's ego inflates tenfold whenever you wear it too

especially if it's a jersey with his last name on it too

he's has a million thoughts going through his head about everything ever

in his defense, you look really good with a big 03 on your back so he's not complaining !

you know how players like.. run the top of the bat over the sand ?(i can't explain this but y'all know what i mean)

well he does your initial

nobody really questions it either

he does it in games, in practice, everything

watches every single Yankees game(me too)

he actually daydreams about playing for them it's kinda cute

he's a die hard New Yorker what can i say ?

you could start dating him not even caring about baseball and 3 months in you know almost all the rules and top players

he's a bit of a yapper-

anyways !

he brings you to the batting cage with him

mainly because he's a show off but also because he wants to teach you how to play !

of course he won't force you

but that dorky smile on his face when he sees you try is well worth the terror of getting hit in the face

good luck kisses good luck kisses good luck kisses good luck kisses good lu-

you get the point

also kisses for winning or losing

usually winning because he's an absolute UNIT on his team

has you initials embroidered onto his hat im afraid

likes pitching but is an insane hitter

jack of all trades if you will

if you won't that's alright too

you make him those really cool gift boxes

you made one for him after his last game of the season and he actually cried

he never takes off/gets rid of whatever you gave him

plus you bring snacks so his team is obsessed with you

they ask more about you than they do Percy i'm not even kiddin'

uhhh possibly, maybe is on his best performance all the time but ESPECIALLY when you come to his games + practices

his coach literally encourages you to come because of this fact

calls you his lucky charm

"Everytime you come, we always win !" as if he doesn't always play well

which you explained to him, to which he brushed off and ignored

".. You're initials on my hat helped ?"

he's trying okay ?

the first time you took him to an actual MLB game he lost it

peppered you and kisses and couldn't sit still the whole time

he was the loudest one in the stadium i can tell you that much !

would also FREAK if he got his bat signed by his favorite player

who that may be is entirely up to y'all

i feel like he follows the necklace tradition so he wears a little locket that has a picture of you two in it

you are the only person that can touch his bat

he considers it bad luck for anybody else except you

that's all of my long windedness for tonight im afraid loves🗣️

i love you baseball and i love you more Percy Jackson !!

[6xillaa]

If requests is still up then - Can you please do a kenji sato x best friend/ extrovert x introvert relationship. Where kenji likes showing off , reader is reserved. And like a balanced relation?!🙏

Kenji x !introverted bestfriend reader

my requests are open dw! actually this is my first ever ask, so idrk how i'll do- but i think i got what u wanted correctly? (pls tell me if im wrong) also, as usual i dont proof read so mind my mistakes! (Ｔ▽Ｔ)

cw: ken sato x gender neutral reader, relatively sfw, introverted reader, (pre-relationship) best friend reader, reader is a pessimist, ken is aggresively kind (kinda)

-bestfriend! kenji who aggresively shakes you while holding your arm. "y/n!" kenji yells excitedly, this made you drop your book, bending its pages. "oh my- what do you want ji?" you grumbled, taking a deep breath to calm yourself down. "you~" he flirted while smirking.

-bestfriend! kenji who gets a flick in the middle of his forehead. "you made me drop my book." who'd rub the spot with a pout playing on his lips. "that hurttt" he whined. "and what do you want me to do about it?" youd query, picking up your book tryying to find the page. "a kiss to make the pain go away?"hed smile.

-bestfriend! kenji who's smile would grow wider once he felt your soft lift press against his head briefly. "thank you!" hed drag out before swinging an arm pver your shoulder to bring you closer. you know, regular friend things.

-bestfriend! kenji who always forces you out of your comfort zone by dragging you to events such as concerts, parades, festivals and most recently the movies. the movies where hed buy everything for you both, eat an absurd amount of snacks you both knew would make his tummy hurt and yet he still did. putting on a mask to not draw any unwanted attention to you both. forcing you to watch horror movies with him that had an excessive amount of blood and nightmare fuel, making you cling onto his arm whenever itd make you jump. not that he minded. of course he wouldnt mind, he never did when it was you.

-bestfriend! kenji who'd rent out the entire theater if you really didnt want to interact with anyone. youd always try to discourag him from doing so, saying he shouldnt spend a lot of money on you, but he always says its fine. he loves to show off his wealth to you, and he also loves to spoil you. buyinng you gifts and practically anything you wanted. just say the word and youll have it. perks of having rich baseball players as a (sadly) best friend.

-bestfriend! kenji who'd drag you into various fancy stores that someone of your working class would have no idea about just so you could rate the things hed grab. "does this shirt look good on me?" hed ask, as if he could look bad in anything. and youd nod, a slight warmness in your cheeks when youd watch him change in and out of each shirt. trying your best to not stare.

-bestfriend! kenji who'd lay his head on yours or on your shoulder after a tiring game. only wanting to sleep. and you didnt mind, just ruffling his hair and enjoying the company of your friend. all while ignoring the little voices in your friend that were desperately trying to change the word friend into something else.

-bestfriend! kenji who promises to always be by your side in larger crowds. tuggling you close enough so that you felt the warmth generating off of his body. you especially liked this warmth during the winter, he was like your own personal fireplce wrapped in a ball of cuteness and a ribbon of sarcasm.

-bestfriend! kenji who you may or may not have feelings for. the same kenji who just asked you out on a date.

(i hope i didnt dissapoint, ty again for submitting an ask, i hope i did u justice!)

[naughtyneganjdm]

Love's Second Chance: A Holiday Reunion - Chapter 10

Summary: Tensions are high when Y/N comes home from her trip with Negan to the city when she finds that Joel is already inside of her home waiting for her with a special surprise.

Characters: Joel Miller, the reader (OC), Negan Smith, Elizabeth, Peter, etc.

AO3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/60501985/chapters/155947468

Warnings: Swearing, angst, dirty talk (maybe?), etc.

Notes: I put this chapter up late last night. Realized I made a mistake. Took it down. Forgot to put it back up. And yeah. My bad. So here it is. Sorry that my schedule is a bit off for this one. Thanks again to those that read this story.

After the day they spent in the city with Negan, coming home almost felt disappointing. Sure, that was a life that Y/N really didn’t think she fit in with but getting that escape from this small town helped more than she ever knew it could. For as long as she could remember, she felt stuck in this town. A place she dreamt of getting away from her whole life. Yet rarely left. And when she did? It was never for very long. But it was never in a way like Negan had given her and the children.

“Thanks for everything, Negan,” Elizabeth spoke up from the backseat, finally drawing Y/N from her thoughts. Glancing back over her shoulder, she saw that Elizabeth was looking at the signed baseball that Dale had given them when they were at the baseball stadium. Letting out a small sigh, Y/N felt Negan squeezing at her hand from where their fingers were hooked in her lap. Sweeping her thumb over the back of Negan’s hand, Y/N realized how fast this all was really moving. They were completely comfortable in this situation. It wasn’t awkward at all. The children liked Negan and this felt right. Everything felt right between all of them. Being divorced and dating someone new always seemed like it would be a hard thing, but nothing with Negan was complicated. “This whole experience was really cool.”

“No problem kiddo,” Negan stole a quick glance back in the rearview mirror, giving a smirk and a simple shrug. “Hopefully I’ll get to take you and your brother during the season. So that way you can see it fully and meet the team.”

“No shit,” Peter blurt out causing Negan to snort.

“You’re gonna fit right in kid,” Negan assured Peter who nudged his sister with his arm. What was crazy is that Peter had a mouth like Negan. Peter may have looked like Joel, but his personality and his outward attitude was much more like that of Negan’s. “You and Liz can come to any home game you want. You’re always welcome to come.”

“Always?” Elizabeth repeated and Negan immediately nodded. By the tone of her voice, Elizabeth seemed both skeptical and excited at the same time. “So if I wanted to bring some friends?”

“I will always have tickets waiting for you and you’re welcome to come back any time you want as long as you talk to me beforehand,” Negan declared, bringing Y/N’s hand up to place a kiss over the back of her hand. Thinking about what he said, Negan tipped his head from side to side and let out a small laugh. “Within reason of course. Everyone will have to be…clothed.”

“Yeah, cus’ we know Lydia would take advantage of that shit,” Peter noted teasing Elizabeth about one of her closest friends. “She would hope that all of the players were changing when you went back into the clubhouse.”

“Enough,” Elizabeth silenced her brother causing him to laugh before going back to his phone that he had been playing a game on. Once they pulled onto the street, it had Elizabeth’s eyebrows furrowing and she let out a tense breath. “Dad is here?”

Turning to look toward her home, Y/N realized that her daughter was right noticing that Joel’s truck was parked in the driveway. Sighing loudly, Y/N thought about her last interaction with Joel. Which only made her imagine that this was going to be uncomfortable.

“I thought you were going to drop us off at dad’s later,” Peter commented when Negan pulled into the driveway. The original plan was for Negan to drop them off and he was supposed to go to his mother’s home to check in with her. But now that he saw that Joel was at her home, Negan didn’t know if she needed some kind of back up so he was waiting for some kind of direction with what she wanted him to do.

“I thought so too,” she frowned, squeezing her fingers around Negan’s. She could only imagine what she had waiting for her inside the house with Joel. They weren’t supposed to see each other again until tonight when she dropped the children back off with him. “Thank you for all of this. Yesterday was amazing. All around.”

“It’s no problem,” Negan winked, leaning across the car to faintly brush his lips against hers in a kiss. A loud, disgusted groan fell from the backseat that was followed by a real one after Elizabeth clearly hit her brother for being silly. Laughing against her lips, Negan tipped back and nodded toward the house. “I’ll let you go in and deal with things. I’ll go check in on my mom. If you need me, just let me know and I can be back here in no time.”

“Thank you,” Y/N slurred, giving Negan another kiss goodbye before gathering her things. “I’ll call you later.”

“I look forward to it,” Negan pushed his sunglasses further up his nose, his jaw flexing when she worked her way out of his car.

Giving her a big, cheesy smile had her snickering as she closed the door and waved to him. Wiggling his fingers, Negan waited for them to get out of the car before pulling back slightly to make sure they got to the door. Once they were inside, she looked back to wave telling him they were safe before he finally pulled away.

“Hey dad!” Peter immediately screamed making Y/N tense up with how loud he was purposely being. Moving through the first floor, Peter was desperately looking for his father, but didn’t see him. “Dad! Where are you? I have something to show you!”

“Hey. Inside voices please,” she requested with a small laugh, moving in beside Peter to brush her fingers through his messy hair. There was a sense of worry flooding her veins over the fact that Joel wasn’t anywhere to be found on the first floor. Elizabeth went to go upstairs, but Y/N reached for her hand to stop her. Right now? All she was going on was what she knew. And that was Joel was very upset the last time she saw him. If they couldn’t find Joel, this might have been bad. “Maybe I should go look upstairs first.”

“Why?” Elizabeth tipped her head to the side, confused why her mother would even suggest that. “Where do you think dad is?”

“I’m up here,” Joel called out, his voice sounding incredibly raspy with how loud he was yelling. A weight had been lifted from Y/N’s shoulders, thankful that Joel seemed to be okay. For some reason, the worst-case scenario had flooded Y/N’s head thinking that maybe Joel had done something to himself in their old home.

Pushing through his sister, Peter ran up the stairs skipping a few steps as he went to get to the second floor. Running down the hallway, Peter threw his hands up in the air and huffed, “Where is here?”

“Up here,” Joel scoffed from the top of the ladder that was out from the attic. Scrambling toward the pullout ladder, Peter grabbed a hold of it and laughed. “Common sense buddy.”

“Don’t ask me to have any of that,” Peter snickered, swiftly moving up the ladder toward the attic where Joel was. “What are you doing up here?”

“Well…” Joel stammered, helping Peter get up into the attic. Once his son saw what he was doing, Peter dropped his bookbag at his side and a surprised expression flooded his young features. What was once a dusty, half-finished attic full of junk was a clean, fully finished attic. There were just a few more things that Joel had to complete.

“Mom!” Peter yelled out moving back toward the opening in the floor to gaze down at his mother who stepped up to the ladder. Waving her on, Peter motioned her dramatically to climb up. Pointing behind him, Peter was trying to tell her it was big. “You need to see what dad did while we were gone. It’s nuts.”

“I was hoping to…” Joel huffed, stopping himself when Y/N started to move up the ladder. Clearing his throat, he stepped back and away from the opening to allow her to come up into the attic with them. Originally he wanted to finish the whole thing before she came up here to make it a surprise, but he obviously had run out of time. As she stepped up into the attic, Joel nervously stroked at the back of his neck hoping that she didn’t hate what he had done. He had cleaned everything out, finished the wooden floor and the walls. Did the shelves that he promised he would do. Put the walls up where it was needed and painted them. All he had to do was finish with the large window he was putting in near the nook so anyone that was sitting there would have plenty of light. Y/N was standing at the center of the attic looking around and Joel shrugged his shoulders. “I cleaned all of the junk out of here. The boxes that are over there are the things we would still want. Photos and what not. I brought all the books up here, just haven’t put them in the shelves. I found a desk like the one you wanted and I set it up…”

Pointing over toward the desk that he had gotten, he led her toward it and saw her eyeing it over. There was a photo that he had placed upon the empty desk. Grabbing it, she lifted it to see that it was a family photo from when the children were younger with the two of them. Joel had Elizabeth on his shoulders and he was making a goofy face while she was holding Peter when he was a baby in her arms.

“You can set up your workspace in here so you no longer have to work in the living room or in the dining room,” Joel rubbed his hands together and cleared his throat. Nervousness flooded his body. This was something he wanted to do as a surprise. Something that he knew would have made her happy in the past. And more than anything he wanted her to be happy with it. “I figured you could use that area of the attic for maybe a sitting area? Or somewhere to do your photography. So I just kind of left it open so you can decide what you want to do with it.”

“Wow,” she breathed out, her arms folding in front of her chest when she gazed over the work that Joel had done. Joel’s eyes were locked on her trying to read her emotions while she looked everything over. Considering they weren’t even gone that long, she couldn’t believe how much Joel had gotten done on his own. “This is really nice. You did a good job.”

“From what I remembered, this is exactly what you wanted it to look like. Right?” Joel looked for confirmation noticing the way that she bit down on her bottom lip and nodded. There was a sense of awe in her eyes and it took his breath away. What he had try to do was remember everything she told him she wanted up here in the past when they were married. “Good. That’s really good.”

“I’m gonna get Elizabeth. She needs to see this,” Peter swiftly moved down the ladder which brought Joel’s attention to it.

“You give me a few months and I’ll be able to build a staircase so we don’t have to worry about Peter tripping down the ladder and breaking…everything,” Joel explained with a half smirk, shoving his hands into his jean’s pockets.

“Joel,” she began, taking notice of how tired he looked which made her wonder how long he had been doing this. “You did this all on your own?”

“Most of it,” Joel explained throwing his hand up toward certain areas. “I needed Tommy’s help to carry some of it up here, but I had the thought during the middle of the night after…well, I just realized I always promised you that I would finish this and I never did. I know the key is supposed to be for emergencies only, but you weren’t home and I was going to try to finish it before you got here, I just…” Joel paused to look around, “didn’t.”

“You should hate me right now,” she suggested causing Joel to frown, his hands sliding to his hips to rest them there while adjusting the way he was standing. An ache grew at the center of her chest. After she had turned down Joel and let him know that she didn’t want to be with him, she couldn’t believe he would even do something this nice. “After everything that happened…”

“I don’t hate you. At all,” Joel reasoned with her letting out a huff at the thought. That was hard to believe with how broken she had left him at the school. “I understand it. I may not like it, but you made a decision and I have to honor it. It’s my fault that it turned out the way it did to begin with. This isn’t to make you feel guilty…or…whatever. I did it cus’ I should have done it a long time ago. I want to do the things I always said I would and…never did.”

“But you don’t have to,” she stressed noticing the way that he had a hard time looking at her with his chocolate brown eyes. Reaching out, her fingers curled around Joel’s wrist getting him to look up at her. Pulling it forward, she gave Joel’s hand a small squeeze. Stepping closer, she wrapped her arms around his waist and gave him a hug. Resting her head against the center of his chest, she closed her eyes hearing the way his heartbeat grew louder. “Thank you.”

After a moment of awkwardness in his lack of response, Joel finally wrapped her up in his arms and rest his jaw over the top of her head, “You’re welcome. I want to do this.”

Silence followed. Maybe he should have said something more, he just enjoyed the hug that she was giving him after everything they had been through. Joel wasn’t even sure she would want to talk to him after everything. So this was nice.

“I probably smell really awful right now,” Joel confessed, knowing that he had been working hard. And he was sweating. “I don’t know if you want to keep hugging me like this.”

“You’re a contractor Joel. I was used to this smell for years,” she assured him with a tiny chuckle, hearing the steady sound of Joel’s heartbeat underneath where she had her head resting against his chest. “Thank you so much for doing this.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t do it sooner,” Joel apologized in a whisper only to have their hug broken up by the sound of footsteps coming up the ladder. Looking to it, Joel saw Elizabeth’s eyes lighting up once she saw what it was Peter was freaking out about. “Hey Ellie.”

“Dad! This is so cool,” Elizabeth stammered, wiping her hands off on her pants when she got up into the attic. “Much nicer than it was the last time we were in here. A lot less dusty.”

“I’m glad you noticed,” Joel grumbled under his breath causing Elizabeth to chuckle at Joel’s straight forward attitude. “I was hoping to finish before you got home, but I’m a few hours out from that. I have to finish the window. Put the books into the shelves…”

“We can help you with that,” Elizabeth offered and it made Peter immediately scoff. That was like their daughter. Always wanting to help her father with any of the projects that he was doing.

“No thank you,” Peter frowned going to leave only to have Elizabeth grab him by the shirt to pull him back. Stumbling into place, Peter’s big brown eyes stared out at his parents and he offered up a big, crooked smile. “I’d love to help you guys! I can’t think of a better way to spend the rest of my day!”

“Good boy,” Y/N laughed moving across the attic to wrap her arm loosely around Peter who rolled his eyes at his sister’s antics. “It’s only polite for us to help your father after he put in all the work that he did.”

“And it’s for mom. It’d be nice to do something for her,” Elizabeth noted causing a warmth to flood Y/N’s body. It was nice to hear that Elizabeth thought she deserved good things.

So that’s what they did. They all helped Joel finish what he had left. What was strange about it was that it was the first time in many years that they had worked together as a family on a project bigger than cookies. Even long before they actually were divorced.

They worked together well. With Joel directing them what to do, it was pretty easy. Once everything was finished and cleaned up, it left only for her to bring things up to fill the space that Joel had done for her along with go through the boxes of important things that he left.

With Joel finishing something up over by the window with Peter, Y/N worked with Elizabeth to go through the old boxes which were some of the children’s old toys, clothes and of course pictures that she figured she would just leave as is right now.

A loud groan pulled her away from where she was seated with Elizabeth on the ground seeing that Peter had jumped onto Joel’s back with his arm wrapped around his father’s shoulders and his legs wrapped around Joel’s waist. This was something Joel and him had done a lot in the past. Fake wrestle with each other. She had always warned Joel that it would come back to kick him in the ass one day, but he still did it with Peter.

“Y’know, this was a whole lot easier when you were fifty pounds lighter,” Joel grunted using his weight to flip Peter over his head onto the cushion of the nook that was by the window. Loud laughter followed once Joel started tickling Peter to give him pay back for the sneak attack. “I’m still stronger than you.”

“I give,” Peter burst out in laughter trying to push his father’s hand away, but Joel wasn’t stopping. “This is cheating! Mom!”

Getting up from the ground, she moved over toward the nook with Elizabeth following her who joined in with Joel tickling her little brother who howled out in laughter while trying to push them both away, “I don’t remember there being any rules.”

“Mom!” Peter called out once more, tears running down his face from the laughter of having his father and his sister tickling him. “I’m too old for this! I’m too old for the tickle torture!”

“You’re never too old for that,” Joel alerted him with a smirk, finding amusement in the way his son’s face was beet red. A moment later Joel felt hands tickling at his ribs which had him using one of his hands to try to swat them away. “Hey!”

“You’re never too old for tickle torture,” Y/N replied back having Joel trying to swat her hands away when he started laughing. “It’s you he got the ticklish gene from.”

“Is not, stop,” Joel demanded trying to hold back a laugh now that she had his full attention. “I really am too old for it.”

“Dad’s ticklish?” Elizabeth started in with her mother giving Peter a moment to catch his breath now that they were focused on Joel. Soon Joel was wiggling like a fish underneath them trying to get them to stop. “Why did I never know this?”

“Because daddy isn’t ticklish,” Joel growled out managing to flip Y/N over onto her back on the cushion of the nook. Pinning her down, Joel’s fingers curled tightly around her wrists to pin her down onto the cushion. The room went silent with his lips hovering just over hers with both their laughter filling the air. Realizing the position that they were in, Joel’s laughter slowly lowered down until his nose slightly nudged hers.

“Mom? Dad?” Elizabeth stammered drawing the both of them to look over at Peter and Elizabeth who were now staring out at them with a surprised expression. It had Joel immediately letting go of Y/N to move away from her to sit at the edge of the nook area. “You okay?”

“Of course,” Y/N carefully pulled herself up into a seated positioning realizing that both Elizabeth and Peter were unsure of how to respond to what they had just seen between their parents. “How about I go make us something to eat for dinner? I’m sure everyone is hungry after everything.”

“I’m hungry,” Peter held his hand up eagerly eliciting a smile from Joel’s lips at how silly his son was. Hopping up from the sitting area in the nook, Peter headed for the ladder to crawl down first. There was an odd expression in Elizabeth’s eyes still when they awkwardly moved across the room.

“You coming,” Elizabeth noticed that Joel stopped and he held his hand up. “Dad?”

“I just want to make sure that I’ve got everything,” Joel waved for them to go ahead downstairs. Turning away from them, Y/N assumed that he needed his time so she gave it to him.

Going down the ladder first, Y/N helped Elizabeth down carefully. Changed into something more relaxed and then went downstairs. Joel was still in the attic by the time she got in the kitchen. Once she was in there, something at the center of the table caught her eyes. The flowers that Joel had tried giving her the other night that she had left were in a vase as the centerpiece of the table.

Seeing them took her breath away. Guilt ate away at her remembering that night. How she reacted, the things that Joel had said. What she had done to punish herself. Having Joel put them there confused her. Footsteps drew her to look back over her shoulder to see Joel walking into the kitchen, slowly coming to a halt when he noticed her eyeing over the flowers.

“I got them for you,” Joel reasoned with her, shoving his hands into his pockets. Shrugging, he tried to come up with some good kind of explanation why he brought them here, but at the end of the day? It just felt like the right thing to do. “They belong with you. I wasn’t going to throw them away or give them to anyone else because…they are yours.”

“Thank you,” all she could do was say that. Looking at them had her eyes burning. Emotions were eating away at her which was inappropriate. Especially after how she turned him down when he gave them to her. Forcing herself to look away, she moved for the refrigerator to see what she had. “You can go see what the children are up to. I’ll find something to make.”

“I’d like to help you,” Joel offered, showing his hands to her to show that they were clean. “I just grabbed some clothes that were still here that were mine lingering around. I’m clean. I won’t get anyone sick.”

“You don’t have to do that,” she lifted her head from where she was looking. Shrugging, Joel moved around the refrigerator to help her look for things.

“I could really go for a burger,” Joel declared with a huff reaching out for the ground beef that was there. Looking at the packaging, he grabbed a few more things and surprised her with the way he started to help her prepare the meal. Having her eye him over like that made him feel strange. “What?”

“I can’t remember the last time we made a meal together,” she responded, her eyes full of surprise with him helping her.

“I should have been helping you all along. Lord knows I eat enough of your food. I might as well help you make it sometimes,” Joel commented with a wink. Going back to get the burgers prepared, Joel could hear her moving around behind him getting some potatoes to prepare to make some French fries. “Remind me I have something in the truck that I want to add to the attic before I leave.”

“You have more?” she teased him, moving in beside him at the counter to start working on the fries.

“This one was planned in my head for a very long time. I think you’re going to like it,” Joel suggested giving her a quick glance. Clearing his throat, Joel went back to working. Softly speaking up, Joel knew that he was testing the hot water here with saying this. “I wish I would have spent more time with you when we were married. We should have been doing things like this all along.”

“We did at first,” she reminded him hearing Joel sighing when he dropped his head forward. “It was fun playing a game of what the hell can we make for a meal with these odds and ends of supplies that we have.”

“Lots of rice bowls, mashed potatoes, ramen and those cheap pasta packs,” Joel recalled with a shudder causing her to giggle. “I’ll never look at instant mashed potatoes the same way again. That was gross. Beans. Christ. I couldn’t believe how many ways you could come up with a way for them.”

“We did our best,” she noted with a laugh, moving over toward the spices that he had already gotten out to look through them. “But we managed.”

“We did,” Joel agreed with her, thinking back to when he was younger. “I have a confession to make.”

“Yeah?” she looked to him with an amused expression.

“All those things we mentioned I have a hard time eating, but there is one thing I still love after all of this time. I can’t get over Chef Boyardee,” Joel informed her hearing her giggling in response. “Some days, I won’t even bother to warm it up. I can eat it right out of that can. It’s like the boy inside of me still lives somehow when I eat it.”

“No wonder you like coming over here and stealing my food so much,” she playfully stammered nudging him in the ribs hearing his amused scoff. “There is nothing wrong with that. I remember how much you liked it when we were younger. I never got the whole eating it out of the can thing, but you like what you like.”

“Ellie likes it,” Joel reminded her about their daughter drawing her to laugh. “What?”

“She’s a mini version of you because she loves you so damn much,” she pointed out getting Joel to look up at her while she continued cutting up the potatoes. “Anything you did? She was doing growing up. If you drank from the milk carton? So did she. You were…you are her hero. So of course she likes eating it like that. You would always sit her on the couch with you, watch cartoons with her and eat from the can. She thought it was so cool. It was your special thing together.”

“Who knew eating cold ravioli from a can could be so special,” Joel sighed loudly remembering what it was like when they were younger. How he would be the first one up on the weekends even though he was exhausted because he wanted to spend every minute with his daughter. “I love her. So much.”

“I know you do,” she couldn’t deny that fact. Joel loved both children. He showed it. In a lot of ways. He always did. “And they love you just as much. You did good with them Joel. Even when you were busy, you showed up for them. I don’t regret you being their father one bit. My children grew up knowing love from both of their parents. Not many people get that. So in my mind? I was lucky you were their father.”

“That’s uh…that’s really nice,” Joel breathed out loudly, working to help her with the fries now. Hearing her say that made him surprisingly emotional, but he didn’t want to show her that with his actions. “Thank you.”

“It’s just the truth, Joel,” she stated with a long exhale knowing that she didn’t regret having him in her life, she just wished things would have gone differently.

“Can I ask you something?” Joel wondered, his jaw clenching when he turned to face her, bracing his weight on his right hand against the counter. Waiting, she didn’t seem to give him an answer because ultimately he would ask anyways. “Why me? Why was it me that you had a crush on growing up? Negan was your shadow. He would have done anything for you. He did do everything for you. Why was I the one that you were obsessed with?”

“I wasn’t obsessed with you,” she feigned being offended which got a very over the top serious expression from Joel. Finishing with cutting the potatoes and preparing them correctly, she took a minute to think things over. “I don’t know. You were really cute. With your big brown eyes, your dimples and the way you tried to act so grumpy. You were something new. Something I wasn’t used to. And then the older you got, the hotter you got. Maybe it was because you didn’t give me the time of day that had me so hooked on you. I knew you had zero interest. I didn’t get it.”

“I didn’t have zero interest,” Joel countered with a huff, folding his arms in front of his chest and leaning his hip now against the counter. “You just…scared me. You were very on. Showing up all the time. And you could kick the ass of a boy twice my size. I could too, but you were this girl two years younger than me holding your own. You were more like one of the boys than…”

“Someone to crush on,” she finished for Joel who thought it over, but didn’t respond. Instead the crease over his nose seemed to grow more. “What was it that made you finally like me?”

“What do you mean?” Joel stammered, moving around her to prepare to start cooking the food. “I told you the other night the day that I fell in love with you. Why would you think it was anything else?”

“It was just a quick switch,” she remembered how fast Joel went from being her friend to essentially throwing himself at her. “You didn’t want me to suddenly you were making out with me and dragging me home to sleep with you.”

“Do you regret that it was me that took your virginity and not Negan?” Joel wondered causing the color to drain from her face at the thought. “I know you guys did things, but I took your virginity and I wonder if you would have preferred Negan.”

“Sometimes,” she was honest with him eliciting his breathing to grow louder. There were a lot of nights where she thought about the what if with things. “I think Negan would have maybe been a little more…”

“Romantic?” Joel stammered having her nod her head a bit. Knowing that she thought Negan might have been a better first did have him insanely jealous. “So you didn’t like our first time together?”

“Sure I did. It just…” she paused looking Joel over noticing the way that he seemed uncomfortable with the idea. “It hurt. But it’s not because you were bad or awful at it. You weren’t. I just wasn’t ready and I was rushing things. Negan and I were used to each other back then. I think he would have known my body a little better.”

“Not to be that person…” Joel grumbled under his breath, his right hand pressing to his hip while he stared down at her with some frustration in his features. “Negan and I both have big dicks. Bigger than normal. So I reckon no matter who you had for your first it woulda hurt. I don’t think it’s fair to think that Negan wouldn’t have hurt because his dick is big too.”

An uncomfortable sound filled the air with Y/N’s face flooding with humiliation. Straightening his posture, Joel felt his heart hammering in his chest knowing that the sound came from behind him. Dropping her head down into her hand, Y/N tried to hide her embarrassment with Joel looking back over his shoulder to see Elizabeth standing at the entry way of the kitchen.

“Ellie…” Joel started, turning on his heel to try to apologize for what his daughter undoubtedly just heard.

“Adding that to the list of things I never wanted to hear in my life,” Elizabeth held her hands up in the air to silence Joel before he could say anything more. Disgust flooded her young features and Joel suddenly felt angry with himself for letting that out. “I’m going to file that away and pretend I never heard that.”

Pacing a bit, Elizabeth considered her next move and could barely look her father in the eyes after walking into their personal conversation, “I was going to come help with dinner, but I think we all could use a few minutes of space. So I’ll give you both ten minutes to finish this conversation while I go take a minute to die on the inside.”

“I am so sorry,” Joel’s thick southern drawl followed with Joel attempting to step forward, but Elizabeth immediately threw her hands up and shook her head. “You should have never heard that.”

“It’s okay. It was my fault for interrupting a conversation I never wanted to hear in the first place,” Elizabeth hushed her father noticing that Joel looked completely mortified that she heard that to begin with. “I’m going to go try to burn that information out of my brain though before I suffer an eternity of disgust from knowing what you just said.”

“I’m sorry Elizabeth,” Y/N apologized to their daughter knowing that it was partly her fault that Elizabeth heard what she did. Instead of responding, Elizabeth stood there for a moment. Gazed at her father, shook her head and then covered her eyes dramatically before walking away. “When the children are awake we need to be careful what we say.”

“I didn’t…” Joel paused looking down, shaking his head in disbelief that his luck was that bad for his daughter to hear. “Should I go say something? Should I…”

“I don’t think so. I think she’s uncomfortable right now and needs some space to let that pass,” Y/N suggested noticing the color that flooded into Joel’s face from the embarrassment finally starting to set in. “No daughter wants to hear about their father’s…”

“Fuck…” Joel scoffed brushing his fingers through his hair in a distressed manner. “I can’t believe I just did that.”

“It was a bit blunt for you,” she noted hearing Joel growl under his breath and fall back against the cabinets, bracing himself by his hand on the edge of the counter. Lowering her voice, she folded her arms in front of her chest and huffed. “How do you know about Negan’s…size?”

“We grew up together,” Joel shrugged his shoulders, but the glance she gave him was almost scrutinizing his answer. “You were best friends with him too.”

“I was screwing around with him,” she commented causing Joel to grunt.

“I was on the baseball team with him. We took showers together in the locker room. I know what a lot of the guys looked like naked,” Joel stammered, throwing his hands up in the air frustrated. “It’s not like Negan had a problem walking around naked all the time.”

Snapping his fingers, Joel drew up a memory of when they were younger and shook his head, “That one time all of us went skinny dipping in that lake. Remember? We were all naked around each other. A lot.”

In his rush to explain himself, she raised her hands and motioned him to lower his voice, “Right. I’m sorry. I forgot.”

“You just have a thing for guys with big…” Joel’s voice turned into almost a whisper, “dicks.”

“I don’t have a thing for…” she was overwhelmed by his comment, letting out a laugh and shaking her head. “I liked both of you before I ever saw you naked. Just because you’re both well endowed doesn’t mean that’s the reason I liked you. I blame your smiles. With your fucking dimples, I was a fool for both of you from the start.” 

“Which brings me to my next question. Why didn’t you get with Negan back then? He clearly thought the two of you were dating,” Joel continued on with their previous conversation in a quieter voice and it had her frowning. Disappointment flooded her features and she shrugged.

“Because I’m a bad person,” it seemed like she truly believed that answer and she wasn’t fucking around. “I had someone perfect, but I was so obsessed with you. As you put it. Once you gave me attention? I felt like I was the luckiest girl in the world. You finally saw me. And I hurt the person I loved the most in the world at that time. When I had no one, I had Negan. What I did was wrong. I hurt him. And it all makes sense with how he reacted. I deserved worse.”

“For loving someone else?” Joel countered with a frustrated scowl. “You can’t help who you love. Him being a dick and writing both of us off wasn’t the way to do things.”

“What would you rather him do? Beat the hell out of you and tell me how I broke his heart?” she pushed hearing Joel’s breathing growing louder.

“Yeah. I deserved it,” Joel stammered noticing the way that she was staring up at him with confusion in her eyes. “I was with you two every day for years. I knew how he felt about you. But the way I felt about you and liquid courage trumped that. I could have stayed away from you. But I didn’t. I let my emotions and feelings for you drive me. Negan saw how amazing you were from the beginning. I took longer,” Joel acknowledged seeming to get angry at the idea of Negan. “But you needed him. I needed him and he wrote the both of us off. Treated us like we were trash that you could just throw on the corner of the street. He was our best friend and he abandoned us.”

“And he probably felt abandoned by me,” she reasoned with Joel throwing her hands up in the air. “Once I had you, I couldn’t get enough of you. I didn’t want to be away from you. I could have gone to him, but I was greedy. I was selfish. I was focused on him completely ghosting me. Not once did I think about what I had done to him. I was an ignorant, stupid little girl.”

Anger flooded Joel’s features when he shook his head and went back to getting things going, “But I don’t regret it. I think about the what ifs sometimes. But it gave me our children. I wouldn’t want to change that for the world. I loved my life for a very long time. No matter how poor I was. Or how pathetic I may have been. I loved you. And you loved me. That was enough for me. And I wouldn’t give those moments up.”

The anger that Joel had over Negan was soon replaced with a softening expression followed by confusion. Slumping forward, Joel huffed loudly and cleared his throat, “You make me feel guilty.”

“For what?” she decided to ask while turning away from him while they started their dinner.

“For wanting more,” Joel stammered under his breath, biting down on his bottom lip. “I was so upset that everything I deserved got ripped away from me. Everything I worked so hard for…”

“And I understand why you felt that way,” she replied trying not to get emotional about things. “You were really too young to be making the decisions you were. I understand how what happened could upset anyone in your position.”

“You never once thought about wanting more?” Joel was desperate for some kind of response knowing that he felt like the worst person alive after what he did the other day and having her turn him down. “I know you had big dreams too.”

“Everyone has big dreams,” she suggested hating that they would always go back to this because it just made things more complicated between them. They had a good day and it was now being replaced with emotional conversations about their past. “Life just had a different plan for me. You, Elizabeth, Peter and Tommy were enough for me. I was okay with just being a mom, a wife and working the job that I did. It grew on me and I wouldn’t give up those days for anything.”

“I had to grow up fast,” Joel reasoned with Y/N trying to find the right thing to say, but he knew that it wasn’t coming. “I just had a break where I let my regrets eat away at me and I fucked up. But I think I should point out the depression that I went through. I should have gotten help for it, but instead I ignored it. And I think that’s why what happened…happened.”

Nodding her head, she didn’t know what to say, “We can’t change the past Joel. Like you said, what happened, happened. And in some fashion it was probably meant to happen.”

“You have to know that I love you,” Joel stressed, stepping forward to grab a gentle hold of her arm to get her to look at him. “Y’know that, right?”

“And I love you too,” she sighed, lifting her hand to press it in over his giving it a firm squeeze. “Divorce isn’t going to change that. You were a big part of my life. You’ll always be a big part of my life. I can’t hate you Joel.”

“Hey,” Elizabeth called out from the entrance of the kitchen looking between the two of them. Lowering her hand from Joel’s, Y/N swallowed down hard and went back to cooking. Joel looked sad when he made his way back to the corner of the kitchen to rest there. “Is it safe to come back in and help?”

“It’s safe,” Joel answered for them, his eyes lowered to the ground showing the disappointment he had in everything.

Together the three of them finished with dinner and they all ate together with the children talking about what Negan did for them in taking them to the stadium. Peter dominated the conversation with his excitement allowing Elizabeth to talk about it on occasion. By the expression in his eyes, Joel was jealous. Y/N knew Joel long enough to know that look that he was trying to hide from the children. They both liked Negan and they both thought what he did was incredibly cool.

After dinner, Joel grabbed something from the truck which led to the children starting a snowball fight with Joel. What was supposed to be a quick trip to his truck ended up being a while with him playing with Elizabeth and Peter. Even though their children were older, it was sweet that they could still find fun in spending time with their parents and doing silly things.

Once the sun started to set, she noticed that they were beginning to build a snowman together with the snow that had fallen. Going out to help them, she brought some things to help decorate the snowman and once they were done, they all took a step back to look him over.

“Could be better,” Peter suggested drawing Joel to huff and playfully nudge his son with his hip knocking him into the snow. “Hey big butt!”

“I’m sure the fall in the snow hurt you really bad,” Elizabeth teased her little brother only for him to throw another snowball at her. They both scrambled to grab more snowballs while fighting with each other leaving Y/N and Joel still standing before the snowman.

“I can’t remember the last time we made a snowman together as a family,” she commented, gazing over the snowman with amusement. “The children had to be really small.”

“I think we should make him a partner,” Joel suggested, brushing his gloved fingers through his hair. Sure, they were all cold and it was almost completely dark, but he meant it. “He’s going to be lonely and before he inevitably starts to melt, he should have someone to share those moments with.”

“I thought you were going the romantic route, but then you had to make it depressing,” she noted with a laugh, shrugging her shoulders, starting to work on a base for the next snowman with the snow that she could gather. Joel was helping her and it took a while for the two children to help them, but eventually they got the base together. With the last part for the head, Joel let out a grunt when he lifted it and once he rest it on top, his feet slid out from beneath him from the icy snow which led him to fall to the ground.

“Smooth,” Peter laughed, looking down at his father hearing the groan that came from Joel.

“Let’s go grab some girly stuff to make them match,” Elizabeth tugged her brother toward the house leaving Y/N staring down at Joel who was blinking up at the sky.

“That was smooth,” she sighed, reaching her hand out to help Joel get up to his feet. “You’re going to need some hot chocolate to warm up.”

“We all are,” Joel agreed with her, helping them finish the second snowman. Once they were done, Elizabeth did her best to get a selfie with all of them in it so they could cherish the snowmen that they made together.  Grabbing what he originally came out for, Joel followed them back into the house where they got some hot chocolate and sat together talking about old Christmases together. It was nice reminiscing about things, but ultimately it upset Joel because he knew they were memories that they would never truly have again.

Warming up, it seemed like time went by super fast and before they knew it, it was late into the night. Heading up to the attic, both Y/N and Elizabeth followed Joel to see what he was adding. String lights. Which brought forth a dreamy state to the whole area.

Together with Elizabeth, Joel got them up and the way he wanted. Moving over toward the nook, Y/N took a seat on it and sighed loudly. It looked nice. When they were living here together as a family, this was as close to what she pictured back then. A place to be able to work, relax and find inspiration in her work.

At the corner of the room Joel and Elizabeth were laughing about something with the sound of Peter’s footsteps coming up the ladder, “Whoa. This is actually really cool. Maybe we can come up here sometimes too?”

“Of course you can,” Y/N motioned her son forward, but he held his hand up which drew attention to the fact he brought the baseball that Dale had given them at the stadium.

Laying back against the cushion, Y/N stared up at the starry sky feeling her heart skip a beat. God, she would have loved this when they were younger. It was nice now, but then? It would have been the perfect escape to just relax.

“Dad, check this out. The coach of the team gave both Elizabeth and I these,” Peter threw the case with the ball inside of it in Joel’s face, clinging to it tightly. “Isn’t that super cool?! I’m sure this is worth a ton. Don’t you think?”

“I reckon it is,” Joel agreed with Peter, grabbing the case and eyeing over all the names that were on it. “That was really nice of the man to give you both one of these. You’re really special kids.”

“He’s special alright,” Elizabeth reached out to brush her fingers through Peter’s messy, dark hair drawing him to groan out and playfully push her aside.

Handing the ball back to Peter, Joel pushed his hands into his pockets and sighed loudly. Once his eyes were locked on Y/N, it took his breath away watching her lay like she was staring out dreamily at the night sky over her.

“I was thinking of doing the backyard next when it gets warmer. I remember how we always talked about what we wanted it to look like. I promised I would do that too, but I never…” Joel paused when Y/N turned her head to stare out at him and he shrugged his shoulders. “I never did that either.”

Hearing the sound of a cell phone ringing, Elizabeth gestured them to wait as she made her way down the ladder of the attic. Peter was now standing there alone, holding tightly to the ball, “I’ll be right back. I’m gonna put this in my room.”

“We’ll be here,” Joel threw his hands up in the air. And like that, both children were gone. Swallowing down, Joel noticed that Y/N moved over and pat down on the cushion next to her to have Joel join her. Unhurriedly moving across the attic, Joel laid down beside her and looked up at the stars. Huffing out, he motioned her to wait and got up to turn the lights off except for the string lights he just put up. Making his way back, he laid in beside her and curled his arm around the back of his head to get comfortable. “This is nice.”

“It is,” she agreed with him, enjoying the silence that they had together after all the stress that had been going on lately.

“I should have given this to you sooner. I’m sorry,” Joel once again apologized which she wished he would stop doing. “You were the one thing that gave my life magic other than the children and I should have been filling your life with special things like this all along.”

“Joel,” she turned her head, her eyelashes fluttering at him with the way she smirked. “Stop apologizing for things. It is what it is. Things happened.”

“I can’t just be okay with it. I did a lot of shitty things and you were right,” Joel countered, turning on his side to face her, his hand nervously stretching out to caress in over her side. “I never deserved you to begin with.”

“You were…you are a good man,” she assured him, placing her hand over the center of his chest rubbing a small circle over it. “I was very lucky to be with you when I was younger. You were better than you are giving yourself credit for.”

“Right. I was great. Then I dropped the ball and I’ve been trying to make up for it,” Joel pointed out realizing that it was a little too late. “I uh…I think we are good together Y/N. Not just us, but the four of us. We have fun. We’re a good family.”

“Joel,” her breathing grew louder with the roughness of Joel’s thumb dragging across her bottom lip. Sliding in closer to her had her eyes coming to a tight close and she swallowed down hard. “We’ve always been good parents.”

“It’s more than that,” Joel stated with a frown, pressing in closer to her to pepper faint kisses over her lips. It had her tremoring beneath his touch. “I think you know that deep down, the four of us are meant to be together. We’re good together.”

Each kiss grew in strength, with Joel curling his arm around her stronger to pull her in closer to him on the cushion they were laying on together. Brushing his tongue against hers, the sweetness from their hot chocolate still lingered and it made Joel smile against her flesh.

“You taste sweet,” he hummed against her flesh, crawling in over her. A nervous sound escaped her lips when he lowered himself down to rest himself between her thighs. Starting to kiss her again, Joel took his time with his fingers sweeping along her jawline. It felt like he was mesmerized by her features with him peppering loving kisses against her lips. “You are so beautiful.”

Burying his head against the side of her neck, Joel kissed at the sensitive parts of her body. His palm slid over her side and down over her back to pull her closer to him. Bucking his hips faintly against hers had her whimpering out, her fingers sinking into his dark hair. Tugging softly at it, her eyes slammed shut with him nipping at her chin.

“Stop,” she begged, placing her hand over the center of Joel’s chest to get him to put some distance between them. Everything felt like it was spinning. Heat ran down her spine and her heart was hammering in her chest. “Joel, I love you. I do. But I’m dating Negan. I care about Negan and I…I want to give this whole thing a shot with him.”

“I just…” Joel tried to speak, but she pulled herself into a seated position and buried her head into her hands. “You’re taking it that serious?”

“Yeah,” she was honest with him feeling guilty that she let it get as far as it did in the first place with what just happened between her and Joel. “He’s really good with me. And the kids. I feel happy when I’m around him.”

“It’s not going to last Y/N,” Joel was irritated with what he was hearing, his eyebrows furrowing when he pulled himself up into a seated position beside her. “He’s just here for the holiday and then he’s going to leave. The guy has one season of baseball left. Do you really think he wants to be tied down to someone like you?”

“Someone like me?” she repeated what Joel said, finding herself lost as to where he was going with that.

“You know how celebrities are. You’re a normal person with two children. You’re divorced,” Joel listed off things that he thought Negan wouldn’t want when it came to dating someone. “Spring training starts in February. And I’m sure he’d had to leave before that to be with the team. His life is going to be filled with fan events. Interviews. Photoshoots. The guy right now has been trending on social media forever. He’s famous. And him retiring has just made him more famous. People are going nuts about him. You have what? Three months with him and then he’s just going to leave.”

“Negan isn’t like that,” she suggested to Joel who gave her a glare.

“All rich people are like that,” Joel slurred, bracing his hands on the cushion realizing that he was upsetting her with what he was saying. “Right now, you’re a distraction while he’s home. Something familiar. But when things get busy with his life, you know people are going to hound him about dating a nobody with two teenage children.”

“A nobody,” she stammered, her chest hurting with Joel rambling off what he was saying.

“I don’t…you’re not a nobody. That’s not what I meant,” he threw his hand up finding himself flustered seeing that she was getting upset with what he was saying. “You know what I mean with how people are in the media Y/N.”

“Yeah, I get what you are saying,” she held her hand up almost as a request to get him to stop talking. “I’ve listened to everything you’ve said.”

“I think you’re focusing on the wrong things,” Joel claimed, placing his hand in over the center of his chest. “I love you. Okay? You’re just gonna end up hurt and I don’t want to see that. I don’t. You care what people think about you and I promise you it’s gonna draw up so much shit once people learn that Negan is dating you. About you. About our family…”

“I hear you,” she stopped him before he could continue and she crawled over him to get off the cushion. Pacing in the attic, she shrugged her shoulders and sighed loudly. “I just would still like to give this thing with Negan a chance.”

Hearing footsteps returning, Peter was coming back up and by the look on his face he could tell that there was tension between Joel and Y/N, “You two okay?”

“Yeah. I’m going to get your father a pillow and some blankets,” she offered looking back at Joel. By his dark eyes she knew that he was disappointed with where their conversation ended. “It’s late. Why don’t you spend the night up here so you can enjoy what you’ve done. Get to experience it for yourself.”

“Sure,” Joel frowned, dropping back onto the cushion again looking up at the sky.

“You okay?” Peter moved over to sit down beside his dad at the edge of the nook area with his legs hanging over. Y/N had headed back downstairs to go grab the things that she had offered to Joel.

“I’ll live,” Joel stretched out with a lump growing in his throat.

“You two aren’t ever getting back together, are you?” Peter wondered with a seemingly disappointed expression. Gazing over at Peter, Joel didn’t know what to say. It was a hard question to hear from Peter and he just shrugged. “I guess that’s a stupid question. If you two would have gotten back together it would have been four years ago. Not now.”

“It’s not a stupid question,” Joel stated reaching up and out to squeeze at his son’s shoulder. “Don’t say that.”

“I don’t understand why you two split anyways. We were always so happy when I was younger,” Peter recalled how things were when he was a child. They got separated when Peter was only nine so he was still pretty young. “I thought mom loved you.”

Hearing that had Joel’s eyes coming to a tight close. In the past, Y/N had mentioned how the children blamed her for them separating and Peter saying that just confirmed it, “When she kicked you out of the house I was so angry. I hated her for making you leave. We were a family and I never understood why she took you away from us.”

“She didn’t…she didn’t kick me out of the house,” Joel admitted behind a grimace, his throat tensing up at the thought. “Peter, I left. I’m the one that asked for the divorce. Not her. Your mother begged me to stay and I…didn’t.”

“Why?” Peter’s face twisted with confusion and even though he was used to his son being silly, Joel could see that Peter was actually conflicted with what he just learned. “What did she do?”

“Why do you assume that it was her that did something wrong?” Joel pushed himself up into a seated position.

“Because mom never complained about you. She just cried all the time,” Peter stressed what he remembered from when he was younger. “I mean she tried to pretend she was okay, but I heard her crying when she was alone. I just figured she was upset with something she had done. If it was your fault, wouldn’t she have said something?”

“Your mom is a really good mom,” Joel stressed what he knew to be true. “She never wanted you to hate me or feel negatively toward me. I just had a lapse in judgement and I’m the one that asked for a divorce. Not her.”

“And you regret it?” Peter wondered having Joel inhale loudly and nod. “Does she know you regret it?”

“It’s complicated,” Joel stammered not knowing the right thing to say.

“Hey,” Y/N’s voice drew both of them to look over at her and she held the pillow and the blankets up. Carefully hopping up from where he was laying, Joel cleared his throat and gave her a nod. “You’ll have to let me know what it’s like up here.”

“Will do,” Joel gave her a wink and then went to set up the area for him to get comfortable. Peter was still there sitting on the edge contemplating everything. Stealing a look back over his shoulder, Joel noticed that Y/N was still watching the two of them together. When their eyes locked, Joel sensed that she was sad before moving down the ladder to leave them alone. At this point? Her decision was made and Joel felt like he was just supposed to deal with it.

----

Tonight was sleepless for Y/N. Since she hadn’t called Negan during the day, he showed up at night to check in on her. It was uncomfortable considering Joel was up in the attic sleeping, but it was something that Joel was just going to have to get used to. Having Negan around was going to be a normal thing for them.

Lifting her head from Negan’s chest, Y/N let out an extended breath to look over Negan. Repeatedly the words that Joel had said to her about Negan had run through her mind. How she was just something to keep his interest while he was home. It was hard for her to believe that considering how good he had been with her since he had come to town.

Stroking her fingers over Negan’s abdomen, she lowered her head back against the center of his chest. Listening to his strong heartbeats comforted her. His breathing was loud letting her know that he was still sleeping. Forcing herself to close her eyes, she tried to sleep, yet she couldn’t stop thinking about things. Her mind wouldn’t relax.

Why couldn’t she sleep and just let it go?

“Ain’t he sweet?” a southern drawl caused her eyes to open slowly. Once she saw Joel standing at the door to her bedroom, she felt her throat tensing up with her head lifting from Negan’s chest. “Look at the two of you together.”

“Joel,” she spoke his name feeling uncomfortable that he had made his way down from the attic to come and see them together. “You shouldn’t be in here.”

“Why not? This used to be my home too,” Joel reminded her with a tip of his head, unhurriedly making his way to the corner of the bed to lower down onto it. Looking to Negan, Y/N was surprised to see that he was still sleeping with Joel approaching them. “Shouldn’t I be able to go anywhere I want?”

“Please stop this,” she begged of him, panicked that this was going to lead somewhere bad. “We’ve talked about this extensively Joel.”

“Stop what?” Joel retorted with a snort, leaning further back and bracing his weight on one hand. “I’m just having a conversation with you Y/N.”

“It’s inappropriate considering the situation,” she suggested looking to Negan when his breathing shifted, but he was still sleeping.

“What? You two are fully clothed,” Joel pointed to Negan, throwing his hands up in the air when she exhaled loudly. “For fuck’s sake, he’s sleeping anyways.”

“Can we please just talk in the morning?” she requested, pushing herself up into a fully seated position, doing her best to not wake Negan up with her movement. “I know you have a lot on your mind, but I just want to have a peaceful night, okay?”

“What is it about him?” Joel tipped his head to the side gazing over the sleeping Negan. “You obviously are still in love with me, so what is this? You’re trying to just make me jealous? Punish me for the things that I did?”

“No Joel, that’s not it at all,” she tried to reason with Joel having his face scrunch up in disbelief. “Yes, I love you, but I love Negan too. He’s incredible…”

“To you,” Joel pointed out with a huff. “We both know what Negan is capable of. Things he did. Sure, he acts different now that Lucille has passed away, but we both know the kind of man he is capable of being.”

“Knock it off,” she warned Joel who was obviously trying to start something. “I don’t know what it is about the two of you, but he’s been nothing but good to me and your children. When he didn’t even have to be. So please Joel, just go upstairs and sleep.”

“It always had to be a competition with you,” a deep rumble of a growl stammered from behind her. Looking over her shoulder, Negan’s eyelashes were lazily fluttering to an open. Negan’s voice was tired leaving it sounding raspier than normal. It took a minute to gather himself, but Negan dragged himself into a seated position, pressing his back against the headboard. “Not everything has to be a competition between us Joel.”

“Come on,” Joel scoffed, throwing his hand up dramatically. “When you’re sleeping with my ex-wife when I’m doing my best to get back with her, how couldn’t I?”

“Sleeping with your ex-wife?” Negan repeated, scratching at the side of his face. “We’re doing a little more than sleeping together. You act like I’m only here to get fucked.”

“You’re a man Negan,” Joel retorted, turning to face Negan fully. “You could have had anyone in this town, but it was my wife that you went after.”

“Ex-wife,” she corrected Joel who immediately rolled his eyes at her quickness.

“There is no feud between us here Joel. We were teenagers when everything happened and I’ve grown up,” Negan insisted, letting out a tense breath when he shrugged. “In some ways at least. I just care about Y/N and the things that she wants.”

“Right,” Joel mocked Negan’s tone having Negan snickering in response. “I’m sure that’s the only reason that you are doing this.”

“Listen, buddy…” Negan began, but Joel held his finger up in the air to silence him.

“I’m not your buddy,” Joel snapped at Negan which had Y/N in a panic. Why did this have to happen? With their children in the house, Y/N assumed that Joel would behave, but this was happening.

“You know what the difference between the two of us is?” Negan pointed at his chest and then toward Joel who shook his head dramatically waiting for some kind of answer.

“Can we not do this?” she asked them both, sliding forward in the hopes that they got the hint that she didn’t want the two of them fighting. Especially since both children adored Negan and Joel. Having them fight would just make things way more complicated for them.

“No, this needs to be said,” Negan assured her, sliding his left hand out to cover her knee to give it a supportive squeeze. Adjusting his position on the bed, Negan slid more toward the middle of the bed and it had a breath catching in her throat. “You want her all to yourself and if you can’t have her, you’ll have a shit fit. Me? If she wanted to be with you? I’d accept it.”

“Bullshit,” Joel’s jaw flexed, his angered brown eyes narrowing when his head tipped forward trying to intimidate Negan in some way. “I know that’s not true.”

“It is. I’d be okay with her picking you because I actually want to see her happy,” Negan declared with a firm shake of his head. “Even if she decided that right here, right now she wanted both of us…I’d be okay with it.”

Something switched in Joel’s face, the seriousness of the moment suddenly changing to confusion. Going to speak up, Joel stopped and then let out a tense breath, “Do you mean like a three-way?”

“Why the fuck not? If that’s what she wanted,” Negan muttered with a half-smirk. “If she wanted to be between the both of us? Who am I to say no? Unless you couldn’t handle something like that Joel. Are you too much of an alpha male to be able to share?”

“Share?” she repeated what Negan said, her heart fluttering at the idea. “You’re…you’d be okay with that?”

“Why not?” Negan threw his hands up in the air letting out an amused exhale. “I’m not an asshole. Like I said, the thing that matters the most to me is that you are happy. Joel. Me. Both of us. I’m okay with it.”

Gasping out, she felt the firm grasp of Joel’s fingers pulling on her jaw to get her to turn toward him. Hammering his lips in over hers, Joel’s kiss was determined eliciting an amused rumble from Negan behind her. A gentle tug on her jaw brought her to Negan who captured her lips in a kiss as if trying to prove something to Joel.

“Just like that?” Joel snorted with Negan faintly pulling his lips away from hers. “No jealousy?”

“Not from me,” Negan claimed with a wolfish smile, nipping at her bottom lip to give it a small tug. Chills were flooding her spine with Joel pushing at the material of the t-shirt she was wearing. Revealing her shoulder to him, Joel started pressing heated kisses over her shoulder having her trembling slightly at his touch.

“What is going on?” she placed her hands over both Joel and Negan’s chest to get them to back up. Right now it did feel like they were trying to have some kind of competition between them with her to prove a point. “What are you two doing?”

“He says he doesn’t care, so if he means it why not have both of us?” Joel growled, his thumb sweeping in over her jawline having her whimper. “It’s what you want, right? What you don’t get with me, you get with him and vice versa. So, take advantage of his offer.”

“The children are home,” she reminded both of them wondering if she was the only one that saw this as inappropriate.

“We’ll find ways to keep you quiet,” Negan captured her jaw between his thumb and index finger to bring her to kiss him. With a flick of his tongue over hers, Negan had her purring out against his lips. “So why don’t you just enjoy what it is that you really want.”

Both men were kissing over the sides of her neck having her heart rate skyrocketing with both a nervousness and want for them.

Just then, the sound of a car alarm went off eliciting a gasp from Y/N’s lips when she sat up in her bed. Letting out a tense breath, she realized that it was all a very realistic elaborate dream that her mind conjured up. The bed beside her was empty. She had spoken to Negan before bed, but he hadn’t come over.

Swallowing down hard, she dragged her hands down over the front of her face letting out a tense breath, “I can’t believe I just did that…”

If that car alarm hadn’t gone off, there was no question that she was about to have a sex dream where she was between both Joel and Negan. Reaching for her phone on the nightstand, she looked at the time and felt like the room was spinning around her.

Pulling herself up from the bed after letting her body calm down, she left her room. Taking a look around, the hallways were dark showing that everyone was still asleep. The ladder for the attic was still down which had her mind going to Joel. Moving up the steps of the ladder, she stopped when she reached the top.

Laid stretched out across the nook area of the attic was Joel deep in sleep with Peter laid out over his chest. Their loud breathing told her that they weren’t waking up anytime soon and truthfully? This was a sight that she actually liked. Even after a complicated dream like that, seeing the two of them this way warmed her heart.

Cautiously moving up into the attic, she unplugged the string lights to give them a break. Now the only light that was filtering into the room was from the stars and the moon from the outside. Which meant there wasn’t much light to filter throughout the attic that Joel had just finished for her. Thankfully there was a small light that she always had plugged in for the children when they would walk in the hallway to make sure they wouldn’t get hurt at night.

Stealing one more look at Peter and Joel together, she let out a long exhale. Leaving, she was careful to walk back down the ladder to the second floor back toward her bedroom. Laying back down, she thought about how realistic that dream was. It might have possibly been the most realistic one she ever had.

For some reason, her brain was doing a good job fucking with her lately and she didn’t know how to feel about it.

----

Tags: @chainsawsangel @fancypeacepersona @violent-darkness @negansbestie @elegantfanficluv

@sanctuaryforthelost @dead-of-niight @dilfsandmartinis @jennydehavilland

[amyriadofleaves]

୨ kenji sato — old habits die hard. ˚୧

synopsis : kenji sato breaks under the weight of new, unfamiliar eyes ─ foolishly confessing his love to the public. you, the one that got away, are stupid enough to fall into his trap. will you two ever be able to just be friends?

⌗ pairing : kenji sato x fem!reader ; warnings : alcohol consumption, sexual innuendos ; word count: 3k ; angst!!!

© an amyriadofleaves work. do not plagiarise, translate, or use to train ai.

KENJI SATO, newly recruited, renowned and beloved baseball player of The Giants, is being interrogated to the bone.

“Come on, relationships have nothing to do with my career,” he sneers with a curl of the lip, guise of unease betrayed by the incessant movement of his knee concealed by the navy blue tablecloth.

A woman, clad in a blazer, follows up with her question. “They have everything to do with your career, Mr Sato. You return to Tokyo only weeks before your championship with the Dodgers. Why?”

The silent, yet deafening clicks of cameras give Kenji a pocket of air to swallow hard, clearing his throat into his fist. Perhaps it’s the heat of the moment, but he doesn’t realise that the baritone of his voice had been caught by the mic, blaring through the speakers. Not that it was his intention to shut the whole room up, but he’ll take his victories. 

Kenji eyes his PR team in the back of the room, giving them the look they’ve been trained countless times  to know he’s about to make a dumb move — after many close misses, perhaps this is the blow he deserves to take. “Ms. Wakita, right? Ever associate something you love with someone you’ve loved? Well — I’m simply here to feel a little closer to that someone. I hope you understand, Ms. Wakita, that I wish to not elaborate any further.” 

He shoots a small smirk at the camera airing this conference live, hoping with some semblance of his untouched ego that you’d see it.

Ami Wakita eyes him with an amused look, penning down every word of his down to a T. Kenji Sato, sitting on the other side of the room, takes a generous gulp of water before plastering that shit eating grin that glitters amongst the sea of camera flashes. “That’s all for tonight, everyone. Keep your eye out for the Ken Sato on the field.” A subtle wink at the camera goes unnoticed by the man behind it, but certainly not by you. 

Because nothing gets past you.

You chuckle nervously at the man seated next to you, the silhouette of your ex tracing every inch the projector can cover. Sure, word had spread about Ken Sato returning to Tokyo, but you thought it an utter sham; whether it was in the States, or home in Japan, gossip columns would and still will fight tooth and nail for ways of profit. And you, of all people, should know this well. Though hard to admit, his face swamped you with a multitude of emotions your trip to the bar was supposed to help with, but little Ken just had to ruin the fun — along with the pleasure your distraction, a white, tall, and borderline conceited man was supposed to provide you with.

Looks like that’s going to have to be another day, then.

“You a fan of that guy?” the man asks, brusquely pointing to the live broadcast. 

Adjusting your top, you sceptically analyse the way his eyes dip to your chest, and your brows furrow as his gaze trails lower, and lower… “More than a fan actually.” your voice comes out meek, and you think this is how you broadcast your lie to the world. But your audience is a tipsy man with a shell for a brain, so what threat does he bring to you?

More than a fan, huh? It was definitely more than that. From late night drinks to advancements you swear on your whole being to not speak of, you think you’d consider yourself more than that. 

Frankly, with no terms to address the man except for using the term ‘man’, you know nothing about the drunk specimen in front of you — and he knows nothing of you, either.

He scoots closer to you, arms rested against the bar table. The stifling scent of his cologne does nothing to drown the beer’s breath with every syllable coming out his mouth. “Well if you’re the fan you claim to be, how have you not recognised me yet?”

You almost scowl at his cockiness. It’s even worse than Ken’s! God. “Well, unfortunately, I only focus on the important players. ” Your words come out muffled as you take a shot of vodka, sliding it across the table to request for another to add to your tab. It’s your fifth, and you haven’t even started feeling fuzzy yet; this is going to be a long night.

The man, on the other hand, seems piss drunk — and given your observations, this is only his third shot.

Lightweight, you note, his flushed cheeks and lidded eyes a spectacle for sore eyes. You feel your heart constrict into itself; for a second, in your stupor, his face flits to Ken's. Pulling away from him, you turn your head to the couple sat in a booth to divert your attention, but it only makes matters worse — so you resort to shutting the world out.

“I could show you how important I am if you’d come over to my place,” the man mewls, slithering his hand onto your thigh. It’s awfully easy to catch his bluff, and you certainly aren’t buying that awful sneer.

A nervous, polite laugh leaves your lips before you swat his arm away with a chastising glare. “I think you’ve got this wrong. I don’t think you know how important I am.”

He begins to giggle, and he keeps on giggling until he’s caught by a snort. You can’t help but grimace. There are many things you aren’t sure of, but you know for a fact that there was absolutely no shot that this man was an athlete. “And just who might you be?”

A satisfied smile tugs at the sides of your lips. “That just gives you your answer. I’m too important for you, and our conversation is over.”

You grab your purse and slam a hundred dollar bill onto the table, swiping the man’s shot and downing your own shot and his at once. The buzz of alcohol numbs the burn as it travels down your throat. 

He grabs your wrist with a quivering grip. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“Haven’t you heard? I am the most demanded model in this city. So if you think you can win me over with sweet talk, you’re wrong.” You wrench the hold he has on you, and backhand him (though the swing is terribly calculated). 

See, if you were sober, you would’ve held him to it — that he owed you. But with seven shots of vodka now finally working its way through your system, you let it slide.

Your stilettos click angrily against the marble floor, and you walk out with two lies.

The first: You weren’t at the bar for a good time.

The second: You definitely aren't a model at the biggest agency in Tokyo.

The bell tied to the handle of the door jingles as you storm out (with a concerning amount of difficulty) of the bar with your thumb out on the road. 

“Taxi!” you shout, to no fruition. 

After ten minutes of nothing, an orange taxi stops and swerves to your end of the sidewalk.

Stumbling into the taxi with nothing to show for the decorum you had seven shots ago, you slip off your heels and hug the headrest of the taxi driver. “To the Sato Residence please,” you command — or so you think you do — before keeling to the side and vomiting up your dinner.

“Ken. I don’t think that was a very good idea,” the supercomputer Mina reprimands, robotic arms reaching for her spherical head. 

Ken maintains an unbothered pose with his arms crossed. “But it sure as hell was an amazing one.” He curtly taps the bottom of his couch with his heel to reach for a drink in his mini fridge, only for it to shine with the enthusiasm of seven coconut water cans.

“Ugh Mina,” he groans, sliding a clammy hand down his face. “Do you not have anything else?”

“Would you like it if I gave you water instead?”

This only spurs him to move both his hands to cover his face in what Mina detects is shame. She floats closer to him, the light of her eyepiece a stinging pain against the backdrop of dimness. “Is something wrong? I detect you are going through… some stress.”

“Yes Mina, yes I am! And it’s not ‘cause I just outed being in love with someone in Tokyo —” He trails off, digging himself into a deeper hole when hit with the realisation that Tokyo, out of the cities in Japan, is a small world of connection. Everyone knows everyone. Shit.

She reaches for a can of coconut water with a metallic arm and opens it, offering it to him. Ken, coming empty for excuses, accepts the drink, wincing as he sips it. “It’s ‘cause I still — nevermind.”

“Because you still what, Ken?”

“Goddamnit Mina. Do I have to spell it out for you? I still miss this girl!” He thinks of you and almost makes himself sick at the thought of you with another man; and for a sudden, lurching moment, he wishes he never had an imagination at all. 

He slumps into his seat, peeking through the slits of his fingers, admittedly curious to see what the robot’s reaction to his statement would be. 

Ken visibly wilts when she doesn’t move a muscle — or robotic limb, or whatever.

“Would you like for me to contact her?” “Yeah no, no.” He shakes his head, but stops mid-action. “Wait — how do you know who I’m talking about? I don’t think I’ve ever talked about her, have I?”

She floats around him as if in orbit, and pokes at his head. He whines out an ow! “You have. When severely intoxicated. Which is why I’m not giving you anything other than coconut water.” “God save me.” 

And that He does, when Ken’s moping is interrupted with a ding of the entrance. 

You rethink what you’ve known about yourself, and it’s that you certainly cannot take seven shots of vodka, and that it leads you to doing stupid things: like walking half a kilometre of an automatic bridge just to have it out with Ken Sato. 

Any normal person would have walked the distance in less than five minutes, but it took you twenty. Still, in your eyes, pretty impressive. You give yourself a pat on the back; but for some reason, the intention is off and you’ve just slapped yourself in the chest. Way to go.

The alarm to his house doesn’t blare when you heave the gate open. Woah, since when did it get so heavy? You giggle to yourself, the prospect of no alarms going off an unimportant matter in the midst of your exhilaration.

Stumbling to his doorstep, your heels click sloppily on cement — confident stride muffled by the slurring of words you never knew existed in the first place. You feel your way to the entrance, sliding your hands across a bike — his bike. If your sight wasn’t blurred, you could spot a polaroid of a familiar face taped just a little to the left of the speedometer.

Your wandering hands lose hold of the vehicle and feel for the doorbell, and clumsy you misses the mark. Bullseye, your Ken would say, glimmering with all the love in the world when your arrow proved as accurate as your aim.

Leaning against a pillar, you almost slip forward before the door opens just in time. But instead of meeting marble, you meet the warmth of an embrace.

Seeing him in the flesh stirs something terribly nostalgic you could definitely use for vomiting in the taxi again.

“Hey, Ken Sato, how’s it going?” you mumble with your gestures sluggish — and ultimately, very miscalculated; so your attempt at sounding sober goes to waste the second you bump head first into the man who completely did not expect to see you.

Ken stumbles backward in both surprise and the sudden addition of weight on either side of his arms; and to him, you sound like a garbled mess. But above all, you’re still the same girl who cussed him out the first time you met. 

You try to walk, but the attempt goes to shit, and you see a floaty thing manifest a bed at Ken’s own command. Crazy stuff. You almost fall for Ken’s offer to carry you, but you’re not one to fall back into bad habits.

When you sag onto the mattress, you see him crouch down so your face is level with his. “[Name], what happened?” 

“You happened, Ken. Finally found me worthy enough to come back for? I saw your little speech about love at that press conference,” you seethe, ignoring how your words end in a quiver. Brimming, hot tears, betray whatever semblance of composure an intoxicated woman can hold for herself. Suck it up, you tell yourself — because if you needed to cry, it would not be in front of the reason.

This mantra doesn’t seem to hold for any longer than you think it will, because you finally find something that makes you break: his own, crestfallen curl of the lip.

“Hey, hey,” he starts, hesitantly reaching to wipe the tears staining your face. But seeing you after two years, such intimacy came at a price: your complacency. Would she want it? Want me? He thinks, eyes diverted so he wouldn’t have to bear the sight of someone he never knew as messy. Someone he never knew to break. 

He, against all his strongest desires, retracts his hand. In some act of desperation, in some act of needing to feel him, you take his hand and press it against your cheek. He brushes the tears pooling around his thumb in slow circles, whispering sweet nothings into your ear. You wouldn’t consider his words nothing, not after he mutters a quiet, incomprehensible ‘I won’t leave you. Not this time.’ under his breath. 

Nothing gets past you.

“But you lied. And I believed you. Over and over —” you hiccup, your hand over your mouth to muffle your cries. 

His voice softens a notch, and it's so subtle someone as wasted as you wouldn’t notice, but you find you notice it more than you would’ve with a clearer mind. “I know, I know. And I’m sorry.”

“Are you really? Because the last time I checked, you were the one who left me behind.”

He doesn’t reply.

He knows he should take your words with a grain of salt, and against his better judgement, he doesn’t. To be frank, he never did. Every word from your lips dripped with golden honey, and he still, against his better judgement, savours every last drop.

You choke up on a sob, and Ken rushes to trace lines from the cliff of your shoulder bone to the very tips of your fingers. It was something he used to do — a little joke between the two of you. Something you shook off as a placebo, and something he insisted helped you with your anxiety.

Or rather, the only way he knew how.

It was — and still is, the only way for him to level the wrinkles of your face, just so he could at least see you soothe in his arms — for some morbid part of him crunches up at the thought of this being the last time he sees you; in this state, delirious, yet, for lack of better words: painfully right.

“I just — I just wish we could go back to being us,” you croak, reaching to trace the fine lines of his face. Your touch blindly feels for the familiar: the dip from his jawline to the nape of his neck, the scar soldered into his cheekbone, the softness of his lips. 

All rhyme or reason (if there was any to begin with) blurs into the fray, and the war raging in your chest comes to a standstill, docile in nature. You feel his Adam's apple bob against your touch, and your hand travels, and travels, until met with your comfort against the cacophony of searing voices. 

The approach is slow and borderline sloppy — though you can’t expect much of it. It’s just how things were with the two of you. Your lips hover against his, before you give up everything you’ve ever believed in for a crash against his lips, the taste of vodka weaving into his veins (except that it’s not the vodka, it’s very obviously you).

He rounds around the curve of the bed to feel you, and you let his hands wander. Some part of you screams in reprimand — that for some inexplicable reason, you’d regret this in the morning. But why would you regret having everything you’ve wished for in the very palm of your hands?

That is exactly why.

The high is stripped from you like an angel of its wings, and you pull away, eyes puffy and lips swollen. “I — we can’t do this.”

He pulls away, brows knitted. “We can’t and yet we still are doing this! [Name], what is it you really want?” His eyes search yours for an answer, before he gives you that look again. 

You smile, and this time, it’s beautifully real. “I don’t know. But it has to stop. We’re a mess, can’t you see?”

“Yes, we are. But that was our thing.” That is our thing, a voice inside him screams, but the words die on his tongue. Again, and again, his words fail him like he does a lost game.

Everything around you is a swirl of blocked colour, but you squint through the grain and push him away with a light nudge of his chest against your palms.

“And it isn’t gonna stop until one of us does,” you say, biting your lip from going back on your word.

“We can make it work. I promise,” he begs, reaching for your hands. 

In an attempt to shrug off your daze, you rake a hand through your hair and reach for your purse that had fallen in the heat of it. “We loved each other, Ken. But I think we should stop convincing ourselves we still do.”

His eyes flit to the floor, and his tousled hair falls against his nose. And to a certain pair of people an arbitrary moment ago, they would’ve thrown themselves against all propriety upon white bed sheets with sun peeking through the blinds, and your fingers would’ve combed through strands of tousled, jet black hair that appeared honey like in the dawn.

Through the haze of your high, you catch a glimmer of hope you’ve never seen him have. “Please, you’re still drunk. Let us discuss this when both of us are in our heads, yeah?”

Tilting your head to the side, it is your only sign of complacency that he recognises amidst it all. Through your insobriety, your smile can only tell him just as much: 

This is never gonna end, and we both know it so.

a/n: hello hello!!! please excuse the sappiness i've written the bulk of this at times where I shouldntve been awake GOD I blame it on the fact that this guy actually consumes every morsel of my SOUUL

[captainsamuelmorrigan]

Spank Bank

Steddie! NSFW! TW: Porn, Body Dysmorphia

Steve has a huge problem. He's obsessed with this magazine he found at Eddie's house. Well, one photo specifically.

He found it in Eddie's copy of Dungeons & Dragons Players Handbook that he had been trying to use to create his first character. The book was so well-loved that for a moment, Steve had thought part of the book itself had fallen out, before looking down and seeing the cover of a gay porn magazine. His entire face turning red, thinking he hadn't been meant to see this, he quickly stuck it back into the back of the book and back onto his nightstand. Falling onto his back, staring up at his popcorn ceiling, trying to get the shirtless man from burning into the back of his eyelids.

He made it 36 hours before tentatively pulling the magazine back out of the book again. There wasn't any shame in knowing what a friend was into. Right? He's one of Eddie's best friends! They can laugh about it later! 'Haha, you left your dirty magazine in the book you lent me. You pervert!'

Steve looks at the front, a lithe and handsome young guy staring straight into the camera, holding up a football. The only indication that this magazine was dirty at all was the text advertising "HOT Young Jocks, Otters, and Daddies!!" Steve shakes his head and puts the magazine face down on the bed. He feels insane. This is way over the line.

Grabbing the magazine once again, he leafs through the pages, seeing all manner of muscular young men in a variety of sporty attire. Some in baseball outfits that were a size too small, legs spread on a bench to see his package straining against his pants, next to a picture of the same guy from the behind, the same pants making his rather round butt look almost like a girl's. Turning further past a few guys making out in camo gear, Steve comes across a dog-eared page.

For a moment, Steve remembers whose porn this is. Eddie had dog-eared this page to return to. The page that was folded for easy access was a muscular, sweaty guy in a basketball uniform. The uniform was a costumey shade of red that seemed that it was made for this shoot in particular, with the top cropped right below this guy's chest, the basketball shorts hanging low on this guy's hips, showing the waistband of his underwear, and a neatly manscaped happy trail. His hair was tossed around sexily. No, teased. It was kind of like Steve's, a warm, natural brown. This guy also had a few moles like Steve. Plus, the basketball outfit is almost a little too on the nose.

The page next to it made Steve's mouth go dry. This Not-Steve was below the camera now, mouth open for someone's hand to be pressing their thumb down onto his tongue. Looking through his long brown lashes like he was receiving sacrament, a silent prayer of reception in his soft eyes.

Steve hastily shoves the magazine in his bedside drawer. He struggles to sleep with so much blood southbound.

It's two days after that that he has to meet Eddie's eyes.

He's over to watch Rocky Horror again, nothing new. But this time, he sits an extra few inches away from Eddie. He isn't worried about Eddie making a pass at him, but he is worried he'll be weird if he thinks about Eddie thinking about sporty boys, his face getting all flushed and sweaty and- Quit it, Steven.

He stuffs pizza into his mouth, willing the cheesy bread to blanket his busy mind.

"Dost the King wish to share his royal thoughts?" Eddie quips.

"Shush, Freak." Steve flicks a piece of stale couch popcorn at Eddie.

Eddie cluches his chest, leaning back dramatically. "Oh! I'm wounded, Steve! How could you bring up my troubled past?"

"Sorry, just distracted tonight."

"Anything I can help with?"

Steve sighs. "Nah, just one of those nights."

They nodded at each other. They had seen enough of vines, girls with superpowers, and demobats to fill a million nights. They looked back towards the TV to watch the glittery outfits of the Transylvanians.

Steve felt a twist of guilt deep in his stomach at the small lie.

"Mm." Eddie said, knowingly.

"Yeah."

They sat in silence for quite a while, the campy sparkly show tunes bursting forth from the wood-paneled television enough to keep the quiet from becoming too awkward.

Janet breaks the silence with her iconic line, "I don't like men with too many muscles."

"I didn't make him FOR YOU!" Eddie shouts back along with Frank, laughing.

Steve takes a breath to gather his courage. "Do you like guys with muscles?"

Eddie's fingers drum on his thigh, looking away from Steve, pulling his hair to cover his face. "Whaat? Steve, do you really want to know my taste in guys? Isn't that like... weird to you?"

"Robin and I talk about our taste in girls all the time."

"Yeah, but that's different. You both like girls." Eddie's fingers pick up their rhythm, speadily pressing out a few chords into his thigh of choice. "You don't like guys."

"I don't, but Nancy does. I've talked with her, El, Max, even Argyle about the guys they like."

Eddie is quiet for a moment. "How about we talk about this another time. I'm kind of floaty on my painkillers right now."

They turn back towards the movie.

...

"Do you think Rocky or Frank-N-Furter is hotter?"

Eddie sighs, folding his hands in his lap. "Rocky. I think I'm too much like Frank. Plus, any gay guy can't resist those smooth muscles." Eddie laughs. "Not my usual type, though."

They part ways an hour later after the movie. Eddie's eyelids had started to droop during "I'm Going Home," and Steve knew he had about 20 minutes before he had to drag Eddie's spidery form to bed.

Once he was home, he grabbed the magazine and turned to the folded page. He stared down at Mr. Basketball, or "Rory," as the mag had dubbed him. He seemed slimmer than Steve, definitely less hairy.

Eddie's line from earlier chimed in Steve's head. "Any gay guy can't resist those smooth muscles." Well, Eddie liked smooth. Steve wasn't smooth. Eddie liked slim. Maybe that's what 'wasn't Eddie's type' about Rocky. This guy in the magazine was everything Eddie wanted. All the things Steve was, and the things he wasn't.

Steve pulled up his shirt, revealing his muscular stomach. It wasn't as toned as his high school days, but he would say he was muscular. His thick brunet curls, spreading up his stomach to his chest, and swirling down towards his cock.

As he pulls his shirt up further, more to the length of the boy's in the picture, he noticed the slight tenting of his pants.

Was this guy in the picture getting him hard? He looked between his junk and the mag a few times, noticing the tenting of Rory's own shorts in the second photo. It seemed that Rory was also a little more well-endowed than Steve. Steve had plenty, sure, but this guy? Steve clenched a little at the thought of staring down the barrel of that thing.

Eddie liked big-dicked, hairless, skinny jocks. Steve was maybe one out of three.

His hand drifted from playing with his stomach hair, following the swirls lower, into his pants. His dick twitching at the notion of use. Twirling the hair around his fingers, watching the front of his pants move, giving slight bits of friction to his quickly responsive dick. He groaned softly. Was he really about to jerk it to Eddie's porn?

He slowly wrapped his fingers around his cock, tugging lightly. He thought about Eddie there. What would Eddie think of Steve like this? Maybe he'd pull out the theatrics, like he used to in high school.

He imagined Eddie looking down at him. "You really think I'd want you, Harrington? With all that beastly hair? You look like a werewolf, man."

His dick twitched at the thought of Eddie looking at him with disgust. His eyes were getting misty.

"I don't even know how I'd get to that tiny cock through that thick jungle anyways. Truly a needle in a hairy haystack. The only thing you're good for is taking my load on those muscles."

That did it. Steve came with a weak cry, tears streaming down his face, thinking about Eddie's glistening cum on his stomach, soaking his belly fur.

The shower after was full of pitiful sniffles and more shame than Steve was used to. He felt empty.

The next week was full of more shame-wanks than Steve had ever done before. Night after night, Steve opening the magazine, finding more of his shortcomings, all ending in his hand around his dick and a pitiful cry in the shower. The nights following are full of fitful tossing and turning. He barely had the energy to do his hair in the morning.

By the 8th day of this Robin had rebooted the 'You Suck' counter. Steve couldn't really blame her. He had dropped VHSs, forgotten to tidy the break room, and worst of all, had snapped at Robin. He had gotten 3 strikes for that one.

"What's your damage, Steve? You're not being a real girl's girl right now. Plus you look like shit." Robin crossed her arms for emphasis.

"It's nothing."

"Truth, now." Robin leaned in. "Or I'm assuming you have brain cancer or something! You could even be a government replacement or something! What's my middle name? Wait... that's something the government would know. Where did I tell you I was a lesbian?"

"You're a lesbian?"

Robin's eyes widen in horror.

"The Starcourt bathroom, after the Russians. I'm me, I'm just distracted." Steve looks away from her. "I found a magazine in one of Eddie's books and it's freaking me out."

Robin scoots to be next to Steve. "Is it like... a porn magazine?"

Steve nods.

Robin cringes. "Are you freaked out in a 'this sex stuff is too weird' way, or in a 'this is gay and I don't like it way'?" She looks softly into Steve's eyes, obviously trying to be delicate with him.

"One of the guys looks like me, but he's like... not me? Maybe I'm making too big of a deal out of it." He starts to turn away from her.

"No! I'm sure it's weird to see that in a magazine, but it's just one picture, right? Could be a total coincidence."

"The page was marked. He'd definitely meant to come back to it."

She covers her mouth, eyes wide. "Oh that's..." She searches for the right thing to say before speaking. "Still, could be a coincidence! There are lots of guys with brown hair."

Later, at Steve's house, Robin stares at the page, mouth agape. "Steve this is... this guy looks A LOT like you. He's got your little chin moles and the basketball uniform, and the styled hair? I get why this squicked you."

"Squicked?"

"Made you feel gross. This is kind of shocking."

Steve pulls the magazine back to himself. "Well- I- I don't care if he's doing that to me." He's shaking a bit as he tries to collect his thoughts.

"You don't?" She raises an eyebrow, reaching towards Steve. "I don't think I understand."

"This guy isn't me! He's smaller, and better looking. Plus, he's like, HAIRLESS! Obviously Eddie would never want me if he likes this guy." Steve flops back, leaning limply against the wall.

"Woah woah woah!" Robin puts a hand on Steve's arm, rubbing soothingly. "Steve pause the negative self-talk for a second. Do you WANT Eddie to want you like that?"

Steve ceases for a moment. "I don't- It's not-"

Robin pats his arm. "It's okay if you do."

"No! It's not!" Steve sits up quickly, Robin having to jump out of the way. He hides his head in his hands, stressfully rubbing his face as his voice grows small. "It's not. He wouldn't-" His voice trembles. "He wouldn't want a guy like me. He wants a guy like that."

Robin reaches over to rub his back. "Steve, I know you're sleep deprived, and it seems like you're suffering through your first gay crush, but I promise you that you and that guy are much more similar than you are different. Even though I think it's really gross that Eddie is doing things while thinking about you, you seem to want that! And that's totally and completely okay."

Steve peeks out from behind his hands. "What if Eddie doesn't want me, though?"

"Stephen Maurice Harrington, you are the biggest idiot in the entire world if you think that Edward Munson is not" she takes a breath, cringing "crazy horny for you if he was willing to find a sporty soft-core porn magazine with a guy who looks so much like you that it grossed me out to see him in the position he's in." She folds her arms again, looking down her nose at him. She raises an eyebrow expectantly.

"Do you think I should talk to him?"

"Steve, I say this as your best friend. Go do him."

Hours later, Steve is on Eddie's doorstep. The newer, nicer, double-wide trailer in front of him suddenly much more imposing than it was last week. He brings his hand to the door, lowering it and turning around before hearing it open behind him.

"Steve? Robin said you were coming. What's going on?"

Dammit, Robin. There was no way to escape now. He plastered his trademark King Steve smile on before spinning around. "Hey! Yeah, I remembered I forgot to return your book." He offers Eddie back his book, knuckles white with stress. "I didn't get around to completing the character, but maybe we can hang out next week, and you can help? Unless you're busy or something. It's totally up to you, man." He crosses his arms to put something between him and Eddie, stepping back.

Eddie raises an eyebrow. "Steve, you know I'm not doing anything. Is this about Rocky? I told you that this was going to make things weird." He hugs his book to his chest, using his other hand to lean on his cane. "If you're going to be homophobic about it, can we just forget about it?"

"I can't forget about it, Eds." Steve shakes his head.

Eddie cringes, starting to lean back to close the door, losing his balance a bit. The book slips from his grasp, falling in slow motion as Steve grabs after it. It slips through his fingers, the pages fanning open enough to allow the magazine to slip to the ground first. The book thudding to the concrete next to it. They both stare, at a loss for words.

Eddie covers his face defensively with his arm. "Steve I- I can explain. I'm so sorry that was in there. I totally forgot about it and- and- I would NEVER make a pass at you. You have to understand! I'm not like- like THAT!" Eddie looks like he wishes he could disappear into oblivion. If he still had the running power, Steve was sure he'd be down the block by now.

"You wouldn't?" Steve deflates. Of course he wouldn't.

Eddie's arm drops. "What?"

Steve bends down, stacking the mag on top of the book. "Robin said, she said the guy in the magazine looked exactly like me. That you... you probably liked me. I knew that I wasn't your type. It's okay." He offers Eddie a weak smile, he tries and fails to stop his chin from trembling. This hurt more than Nancy, more than anything.

Eddie pushes the book out of the way. "Steve." He takes a deep breath, his shaking calming down a bit. "Do you want it to be you?"

"He's thinner than me, though. I mean, I get it if that's your thing. He's thinner, way less hairy, his dick is- Well, you know, not a lot of guys are that big." Steve looks at the little bundle of dandelions in one of Wayne's mugs on the table by the door. Anything to avoid Eddie's eyes.

Eddie lets out a nervous laugh. "Steve. Steve. Look at me." He waves his hand in front of Steve's face, trying to get him to disengage from his self-hatred fixation. "I don't care about that stuff."

Steve looks into the curly-haired boy's eyes. "You don't?"

"Nah, I mean, not as much as some other people might. I like muscley guys as much as the next homo, but beggars can't be choosers in small towns."

"So you're settling for me?"

"Jesus, Harrington. Who pissed in your cheerios? No. I'm saying you're super fucking hot, like, way hotter than some guy in a magazine." He fidgets with his cane, tapping it on the floor, laughing nervously. "I've had that magazine since, like junior year. I forgot it was in that book."

"Did you have that page marked that whole time?" Steve holds his breath, his eyes sparkling as he looks at Eddie.

"Y-yeah? It's really embarrassing. I used to have this weird fantasy where you'd like, be one of those homophobic bullies who turned out to be gay and you'd do a bunch of nasty stuff with me. Again, it's very super embarrassing, actually. You totally don't have to do any of it with me if you don't want to." He tucks a curl behind his ear, looking at Steve sheepishly.

Steve laughs, leaning in to kiss Eddie. It's just an innocent peck, their lips meeting as their eyes close. Eddie's lips are softer than Steve expected. "I want to hear about it. We might try some of it out."

"Careful there, Stevie, you're gonna get my hopes up."

"And about the dick thing?"

"Steve, trust me, I am totally fine handling average."

"What about like, slightly above average?"

Eddie stumbles for a second time. "So the legends are true!!" He laughs.

[prettiestlovergirl]

hii! its tots fine if no but could you maybe do some fluff with basketball player luke and like him tryinh to teach you how to play?🙈

i read basketball & fluff and my one tree hill obsessed heart started singing. YES, ABSOLUTELY I CAN DO THIS <3333 have to preface this by saying that i know like nothing about basketball, though. i am a strictly baseball-hockey girl myself sdjfhskdjfh. my knowledge is limited but i will do my best, hehe. she's short and sweet. enjoy, my lovely! 𓆩♡𓆪

"you might be the worst player i have ever seen, and i once watched grover try to play." your boyfriend, luke castellan, chuckled unhelpfully from behind you.

you and luke had been going out for a couple of months now and honestly? you'd never been happier. he'd made you feel so welcome your first week of camp and every day since, he'd made you feel safe and cared for.

you were basically luke's dream girl. you were funny, caring, charming, and you had very quickly become his safe space. your one big flaw, however, was that you couldn't play basketball for shit.

the two of you had been playing horse on the camp court and you were failing... miserably. luke already had H-O-R-S and you... had no letters. yeah, you were that bad.

"in the words of annabeth: statistically speaking, you should have at least gotten one by now." he grinned, his smile only growing wider when you turned around to glare at him.

"oh, fuck off! not all of us are basketball superstars!" you huffed, but you couldn't help but laugh along with him. this was part of why you cared about him so much, he could always make you laugh despite yourself.

"if this is the best you can do, i don't think we can see each other anymore. makes me look bad." he laughed, quickly getting up from the bench he was on to avoid getting hit with the ball you tossed at him.

"i'm kidding, i'm kidding! c'mere." he laughed, beckoning you toward him with that easy smile you loved. "i can't do it, basketball is not one of my many skills! quit on me, castellan, i'll only slow you down." you sighed dramatically.

"alright, drama queen. you can, just trust me." luke stated, rolling his eyes at your dramatics. "square your shoulders, to the basket." he instructed, watching as you begrudgingly did as told, lips formed in a little pout.

"now, you gotta bring the ball up right past your nose like this, okay?" he instructed, demonstrating exactly what to do with his own arms, ball in hand as you went through the motion with him.

"bend your knees a little." he corrected, holding the ball out for you to grab before stepping behind you. "relax your hips..." he murmured, gently placing his hands on you and leaning down to your ear to make sure you could still hear him... and also to be a romantic sap.

"and... just shoot." he stated, eyes watching you while you eyed the hoop suspiciously. "that's it? just shoot?" you asked, voice a little breathy as you turned your head a bit to look at him. "just shoot." he repeated with a nod.

"well, here goes nothing." you sighed, bending your knees a little more before bending a little and letting the ball fly out of your hands and... right into the net.

"holy shit" you breathed, grin breaking out onto your face as you turned to look at your smiling, slightly cocky boyfriend. "told you so." he smirked, grunting a bit on impact as you flung your arms around him with a laugh.

"okay, maybe you can be right sometimes." you relented, sighing dramatically like it was the hardest thing you'd ever have to admit. "that's very big of you, babe." he chuckled, eyes shining with adoration as he looked at you.

"now, do it a few more times and maybe you'll catch up to me." luke hummed, jogging leisurely to go pick up the ball from it's spot by the bench.

"nuh uh, castellan. i'm going out on the high of making that one shot, i'm retired, 'm too good to keep going." you stated, shaking your head and turning on your heel to leave.

"quitter!" he called after you, grinning as you simply flipped him off and kept walking. "see you before dinner?"

"duh, you owe me a victory kiss."

ᵈⁱᵛⁱᵈᵉʳ ᵐᵃᵈᵉ ᵇʸ @ᵐᵘʳᵘᶠᶠⁱⁿ

[pasukiyo]

SWINGS AND MISSES

mlb player!steve harrington x f!reader word count: 6288 words warnings: angst and smut notes: i don't know if i made it super clear in the story but steve plays for the phillies in this au summary: with steve's record-breaking walk-off home run, it should've been an extraordinary night. but steve's wife can't help her longing for hawkins, and when she hears from one of his teammates a rumor that steve may have received an offer from a team even farther away from home, she finally meets her breaking point.

AUGUST, 1994;

“I’ve never seen a home run in real life before! It was incredible!”

 Steve’s lips curled into a smile as he held the baseball close to his stomach with his left hand, a marker in his right, printing his signature on the ball. “Well, I’m glad I was able to make a good first impression, bud,” he chuckled, leaning further into the wall separating the stands from the field to hand the ball back over before taking another from the other young boy beside him. 

 “Yeah. The announcer even said it broke a record! That was such a cool way to end the game,” the boy said as Steve handed him his newly autographed ball, capping the marker and stuffing it in the back pocket of his baseball pants. “I’ve never seen a homer hit that far! And it was a walk-off!”

 “Yeah, I think it even went out of the park!” The other younger boy exclaimed and Steve laughed, crossing his arms over his chest. “I wanna hit like you one day!”

 “Yeah, how do we learn to hit like you?”

 Steve laughed again at the rapid fire questions, uncrossing his arms to lift his baseball cap off his head and run his fingers through his sweat-slicked hair. “It’s all about the effort you put into the game. It’s all pointless if you don’t take the time to practice, right?” he replied, glancing away when out of the corner of his eye, he could make out a figure making its way down the stairs, heading in their direction.

 A very familiar figure. 

 “Yeah! I practice all the time!” One of the younger boys responded, a wide grin on his face. “Sometimes, my mom brings her video camera to record me at batting practice. I love going to the cages!”

 Steve was trying his best to keep his attention focused on the two children in front of him, he really was, but how could he possibly focus on anything else when his wife was coming his way looking like that? His muscles ached with fatigue and his stomach growled, and all he really wanted was to get some food in his system, clean himself up, and maybe even make a little love to his wife before getting a good night’s sleep. The closer she got, the harder he found it to maintain his patience. 

 The young boys in front of him continued to babble on about the practice they do outside of games as Steve’s wife approached in one of his jerseys— which was a few sizes too big for her— tucked into denim shorts, a Phillies baseball cap fit snug to her head. Steve’s grin widened as she approached and he gave her upper arm a squeeze before turning back to the children. 

 “I really hate to have to go but I’m sure your parents would hate me if I kept you boys up too late anyways,” Steve chuckled, raising a hand to the crown of his head to give the boys a little salute as he helped his wife climb over the wall and step onto the field. “Keep practicing!” He called over his shoulder as he threw his arm around his wife’s shoulders, giving her arm a squeeze. “And respect your parents!”

 Her face pulled into a smile and her chest heaved with a laugh as she glanced up at him, scrunching her face when he met her gaze. “Look at you being so good with kids,” she giggled, lacing her fingers together with the ones dangling from her shoulders. “Almost like we’re back in Hawkins.”

 Steve rolled his eyes at this comment, pulling her in closer so that he could press a kiss against her temple as he led them towards the dugout where only a few of his fellow teammates remained. “At least these kids don’t drive me up the fuckin’ wall,” he snorted. “You know Henderson called the other day just to make fun of the way I run bases?”

 She tried to suppress her laugh as he pulled away from her to gather his equipment and he turned to cock an eyebrow at her as he snatched his helmet, tossing his batting gloves and fielding glove inside it when she let a giggle slip through the cracks of her lips. “What?” He watched as she crossed an arm over her chest and propped her opposite elbow against it, hiding her smile behind her knuckles. She shook her head, “nothing, nothing.”

 Steve pressed his lips together in a pout and stood back up, a hand on his hip. “You think the way I run bases is funny too, don’t you?” He used his helmet to gesture over to where she stood, scoffing in disbelief when she broke into laughter, trying her best to hide it behind her hand. “I can’t believe you.”

 One of his teammates strolled up, reaching past Steve to grab his bat, using his other hand to clasp his shoulder. “If it makes you feel any better buddy, we all think you run bases funny,” he spoke with a grin and she erupted in laughter again as Steve used his glove to smack him against his shoulder. 

 “Oh, fuck off Kev,” he grumbled as he plopped down on the bench, prying his cleats off his feet. She giggled as she shuffled between his legs, cupping his face and pressing a soft kiss to his lips. “It’s okay, babe. On the bright side, your ass still looks ridiculously good in those pants,” she tittered and he rolled his eyes, playfully pushing her face away as he slipped on his slides. 

 “Whatever. You can talk to me once you’ve stopped taking Henderson’s side,” Steve rolled his eyes as he gathered the rest of his things and she followed him down the steps leading into the locker room, her hands in her back pockets. She gazed down at her feet, rolling her bottom lip between her teeth, contemplating what she said next. 

 “You know… kinda miss that kid,” she said softly and Steve furrowed a brow, peeking at her from over his shoulder. “Are we talking about the same Henderson right now?” He asked and she chuckled, shrugging her shoulders. “It’s just… you know, it’s been awhile since we’ve seen him. And everybody. And… Hawkins…”

 “We went back for Christmas, remember?” She pressed her lips together and felt her face fell, wrapping her arms around herself, shrugging. “Yeah, I know but I mean… it was just an overnight trip and that was months ago…” She trailed off, stopping in her tracks when Steve’s name permeated the corridor and she turned to face the source of the voice. 

 “Coach,” Steve acknowledged the Head Coach of the Phillies, taking the older man’s hand when he outstretched it for him to shake. “The man of the hour!” Coach exclaimed before glancing behind Steve where she stood, nodding his head in acknowledgment. “Always good to see you, Mrs. Harrington,” he greeted and she nodded back, a shy smile on her face as she weakly waved. “You wouldn’t mind if I stole your husband for a quick minute, would you?”

 Steve blinked back at her, a slight furrow still in his brow but she waved him off anyway. “As long as you promise to bring him back,” her laugh came out as more of a breath, but the coach chuckled anyway, leading Steve away towards his office. She stood alone in the empty hallway leading to the Phillies locker room, arms wrapped around herself, her heart pounding and mind racing. 

 She wasn’t sure what she was hoping would come out of confessing to Steve how homesick she felt. It wasn’t his fault they hardly ever had the time to visit— Major League Baseball was his career, traveling and moving one place to another was just part of it. 

 But still, she couldn’t resist the yearn she felt for something more… stable. For a place she could call home, for a place she could stay. Hawkins was home to her— it always, always was. Even after all the strange things she and Steve had experienced in the small town in Indiana, she still felt connected to the place, still had threads tying her down in its roots. It was where she grew up, where she had friends, where she had family. 

 But she wasn’t sure how Steve would feel about that. 

 “Harrington leave you all alone?”

 She turned to the source of the voice and there stood Matt, one of Steve’s teammates, big and burly as ever with his arms crossed and his baseball bag hanging from one of his shoulders. She forced a smile, “Coach needed to see him in his office. Maybe he’s in trouble.”

 Matt rolled his eyes at this, “yeah right, like Star Boy is gonna get in trouble,” he scoffed. “You know, rumor has it Boston’s interested in him.”

 She blinked. “Boston?” Steve had never mentioned this to her before, of course she knew his contract with the Phillies was about to expire, but surely he would’ve told her if he’d gotten any other calls? Was he keeping this from her?

 Matt lifted his baseball cap to scratch at his scalp, his brow furrowed, lips turned in confusion. “You didn’t know?” He asked, and she shook her head. “No… No, I didn’t.”

 As if her mind wasn’t already racing before, it was practically a typhoon now. Surely this was all a misunderstanding? Perhaps he was in the Head Coach’s office right now working out a new deal to renew his contract, maybe there was nothing to worry about after all. Because Steve would’ve told her about something like this, right?

 “Anyway, surely you have nothing to worry about,” Matt tittered as he sauntered past. “No matter where he ends up, he’ll be making a shit ton of more money than I’ll ever make in a lifetime, so what the hell do I care where he goes?”

 She blinked as Matt said his goodbyes and disappeared into the locker room, once again leaving her alone to her thoughts. It wasn’t long after that Steve finally reemerged from the Coach’s office, laughing at whatever had been said moments before. The sound of the door closing echoed through the hallway and Steve turned back to face her where she stood, gesturing with his head to the locker room. 

 “I’m gonna go get changed, be back in a minute,” he said, turning around before she had the chance to even open her mouth, disappearing inside the locker room. And the whole time she stood in that empty hallway alone, all she could think of was Boston and how much further away from home— Hawkins— it was. 

 She told him when he got drafted in the major leagues that she’d follow him anywhere he went— and she still stood by that. But was it so wrong for her to long for home, to miss her family, her friends? Was it so wrong to just wish for a week, even a weekend to go back and visit her loved ones? 

 And why was she so nervous to ask Steve about it?

 Steve had never been too fond of Hawkins. Perhaps, years of dealing with alternate reality monsters and scary Russian men will do that for you. But she knew Steve loathed Hawkins for another reason— his parents. His parents that were never there, his parents that never cared to show up to a high school basketball game, baseball games, even his own graduation. His parents that never even bothered to be there, who always had something better to do than be at home with their son. 

 Hawkins was where he grew up, Hawkins was a constant reminder of how unwanted he used to be. So of course he’d gotten out of there the first chance he got, of course he’d brush her off every time she wanted to go back, of course their time to visit was reduced down to a simple overnight stay over Christmas. 

 Hawkins would never be home to Steve Harrington, and sometimes she feared he failed to acknowledge that it was quite the opposite for her. 

 “Ready to go?” His voice broke her thoughts and she blinked up at him, now wearing sweats and a plain white tee, his hair messy and unkempt atop his head. He spun the keys to his old BMW around his pinky finger, pinching his lip between his teeth as he approached, using his free arm to sling around her shoulders. “Everything okay?” He asked, giving her a fleeting squeeze and pressing a kiss to her hair. 

 She wanted nothing more than to question him, ask him what the quick little meeting with his coach was about, ask him what she was hearing about being traded to the Red Sox, whether or not he’d been hiding it from her, and if he was considering taking them up on whatever they offered him. But not here— it could wait for the car. 

 “Yeah, yeah,” she nodded, letting him lead her towards the exit. The night air in Philadelphia had a bit of a chill and she shivered when Steve opened the door leading to the players’ parking lot, the old BMW he’s had since high school waiting for them beneath the lamppost light. She clutched the strap of her purse as they made their way towards the car, worrying her lip between her teeth.

 Steve glanced up at her over the top of his car as she circled around to the passenger’s side, swinging open the door and slipping inside. He watched as she buckled in her seat belt while he turned the keys in the ignition, her fingers dropping in her lap as she stared out the window. 

 “You sure everything’s okay?” He asked again, reaching over to brush his fingers against her knuckles. She turned to face him, face void of expression as their eyes surged into one another. Something was wrong, Steve could feel it. 

 “What was all that about?” She questioned. “You know, with your coach and all that.” Steve pulled his fingers away and leaned back into his seat, searching the steering wheel as he tried to string together what to say next. She watched as he scratched at his chin, outstretching his palm, “he wanted to discuss my contract,” he replied. “Since it’s expiring soon.”

 She nodded, pressing her lips together in an attempt to still her beating heart. Steve rolled his tongue against his cheek, unsure of what to say next, and when it was clear he wasn’t going to elaborate any further, she drew in a shaky breath, gazing out the windshield. “I heard from Matt that Boston is interested in you.”

 Steve blinked, his lips pressed in a firm, thin line as he grew silent, gripping the steering wheel with one hand and turning the keys in the ignition with the other. The car roared to life and Steve said nothing as he turned to gaze out the back windshield to pull out of his parking space. Silence was thick in the air as he drove out of the parking lot, a lump forming in her throat and the tension was hot, a heavy weight on either of their chests. 

 “Why are you not talking to me?” She finally asked, glancing over to where he sat, jaw clenched, his knuckles turning white from how hard he was gripping it. “Why didn’t you tell me about Boston?” She questioned, fiddling with her fingers in her lap. Steve ran a hand through his hair, “the call only came in a few days ago.”

 Her stomach flipped at the admission and she turned, brow furrowed in disbelief. “You got the call a few days ago and didn’t think to tell me about it?” It was hard to hide her agitation now. “What happened to… to talking to each other, Steve? Don’t you think I would’ve liked to have known about something like this?”

 Steve tapped the pad of his thumb against the top of the steering wheel, propping his other arm against the window, cupping his chin in his palm. “I didn’t know how to tell you,” he replied. “I know how much you hate traveling and I didn’t know how to bring it up and—“

 “Steve, I… don’t hate traveling,” she interrupted, crossing her arms over her chest, scoffing as if it was the most ridiculous thing she’d ever heard. “I told you early on that I have no issue following you anywhere you go, and I still stand by that. What I have an issue with is you, number one: not telling me any of this crap and number two: brushing me off when I tell you that I want to go home. Why can’t we go somewhere for me for once? You have off days, but we spend them doing what you want, never what I want.” Her words were pouring out of her but at this point, she couldn’t make them stop. 

 Months upon months of her frustrations that had been pushed to the side to rest were now forcing their way to the frontlines, and she realized now that she wanted to be heard. She didn’t want to be pushed to the sidelines anymore, she didn’t want to keep everything to herself anymore, she just wanted to be seen. She wanted everything she’d spent energy burying to be recognized, she wanted Steve to acknowledge her. 

 “Can we… not do this tonight?” Steve said at last, wiping his brow in vexation and gripping the steering wheel with a two hand feel. “I’m tired, you’re tired, so can we please just chill out and talk about this in the morning?” She gnawed at the flesh of the inside of his cheek, “no, Steve,” she spoke firmly, her tone as stern as it could get to let him know that she wouldn’t be cowering away this time. “I’m not tired. Don’t tell me to chill out whenever you don’t feel like listening. I’m not going to let you push me to the side this time,” she said just as the car rolled to a halt in front of a stoplight. 

 “I’m not pushing you to the side!” His voice has raised this time, but still, she had no intention of backing down. “Honestly, you’re sounding so selfish right now,” he muttered, shaking his head and gazing out the window to his side, keen on looking anywhere but at her.

 She blinked, clearly taken aback. “I’m being the selfish one?” She scoffed, pointing a finger to her chest. “You won’t even listen to me. You won’t even talk to me.” Steve didn’t reply as the light turned green, making it clear he didn’t want to argue any further, only adding more coal to her fire.

 She dropped her head, feeling the bitter sting of tears in her eyes that she desperately tried to lock away, sinking her teeth further into the plush of her lip to help keep them from falling. Feeling unheard was probably the worst feeling she’d ever felt in the world, it felt as if she were drowning, meters below the ocean, her screams falling onto deaf ears. All she could see for miles was darkness and she was falling deeper and deeper into an abyss of black. 

 Steve was usually her lifeline but now, he was further and further away, and she was sinking deeper and deeper…

 “So what is it then?” She said at last, turning her head to glimpse over to where he sat, her voice cutting through her throat like a knife. “We’re just gonna move to Boston— which is even further away from Hawkins, by the way— and everything will just be okay? We’re just gonna forget about our friends and family and throw away everything I want to do just so I can be King Steve’s good, obedient little wife?” She hissed, and Steve turned to face her now as he pulled into the parking lot of their luxury apartment building, eyebrows knit together in frustration. 

 “We spend all your off days doing whatever the hell you want, why can’t we take a weekend or something to go back home and see everyone?” She pressed further. “I miss them. I miss Nancy, Jonathan, Dustin, Max, El, Robin— Robin’s your fucking best friend and you’ve only seen her once in the past year. You can’t even stay on the phone with her for more than ten minutes now.”

 “Because I’m fucking busy trying to give us a future!” Steve practically roared, his voice like a crack of thunder, even making her tremble where she sat. She recoiled and pressed her lips together, blinking. “I’ve been working almost every single fucking day to provide for us, to provide for you. You tell me you understand that this is my career, that traveling and press conferences and practices and brand deals and all that other shit is just a part of it. But then you sit here and bitch at me for it, complaining that I’m not listening, that I’m being selfish when all I fucking do everyday is work so you can be comfortable!” 

 Her vision glossed over with the haze of tears again and she blinked, sniffing. “You’re missing the point, Steve. I never asked for you to give up your career. I never asked for you to take time off for me. I asked you to hear me. I asked that we use the time that you’re off to go back home,” she replied softly, her tone void of the firmness she held before. Steve didn’t dare look at her, eyes narrowed as he stared straight ahead through the windshield, hands still tight around the steering wheel. 

 “Then what the hell’s stopping you from just leaving?” He asked, voice dropping to a hoarse whisper, and she blinked, sure that tears were falling now. “So that’s your answer?” She grimaced at her own voice, watery and threatening to break. “You’re just going to push me away? Tell me to leave?”

 Steve closed his eyes, his chest heaving with a sigh as he leaned back in his seat, resting his head against the headrest. A moment of silence dangled between the two, neither seeming to know how to break it. One hand dropped to his lap and the other rose to his forehead, the bridge of his nose pinched between his thumb and forefinger. She sniffed and wiped the tears from her wet and sticky cheeks, pressing her lips together as she shook her head, gazing at the parking lot outside the window. The city was alive and noisy at this time of night, its light polluting the night sky and ceiling away the stars. 

 This wasn’t what she had grown up to know. Even still, the city was still foreign to her. She missed the quiet of a small town, missed looking up at the night sky and seeing the stars twinkling down at her. She just missed home. 

 But what was Hawkins without Steve in it too?

 “I don’t…” Steve began, blinking up at the ceiling of his car. “…I don’t know what to do.”

 She glanced over at him, her arms crossed over her stomach, her fingernails scratching lines into her skin. She looked at Steve now and saw someone she hadn’t seen in awhile, not since they lived in Hawkins. 

 Steve looked lost. 

 “I don’t know what the right thing to do is anymore,” he breathed a laugh at himself, flattening his palm against his eyes and shaking his head again. “I just feel like I’m letting you down no matter what I do.”

 She furrowed her brows together and turned in her seat until her back was against the door, her left leg bent and leaning against the back of her seat. “Steve, you’re not… you’re not letting me down,” she replied in a soft murmur. “But it hurts me when you don’t listen to me. I never try to push you too hard or stop you from doing what you love to do,” her lips curved into a small smile. “And it makes me so happy to watch you play baseball. Because you just look so… peaceful. You look happy. Even if you do look funny running the bases.”

 Steve snorted at this, turning his head to the side to face her. “For awhile there, you weren’t happy,” she could feel her voice begin to crack, more tears glossing her vision, her voice thick with emotion. “I know you weren’t happy back in Hawkins,” she continued. “Just like you know I used to not be happy back then either.”

 Steve sniffed, his eyes dropping to her fingers where they rested in her lap, and he watched as she leaned closer towards him, her fingers finding his. He shuddered when their skin met, already melting into her touch, squeezing her fingers tighter when they laced together with his. His molars sunk down into the flesh of the inside of his cheek, trying to maintain his own composure. 

 “But Hawkins is home to me,” she murmured. “Hawkins is where our story began. It’s where we both grew up, it’s where we found each other. And I’ll always be grateful to Hawkins for that.”

 Steve let his fleeting gaze linger on their hands for a moment before her other hand pushed against his chin, leading his eyes back home, back to her. “Even with everything we went through there, we made so many memories,” she chuckled. “Like the first time you took me on a date and you pulled up to my house and my dad…”

 Steve’s lips curved into a smile and parted in a laugh, “he grilled me.” She laughed along, nodding. “I still remember how nervous you were to even hold hands with me, like my dad was waiting around the corner or something.”

 “He can be really intimidating.”

 “No shit,” she chuckled, leaning the side of her head into the passenger seat’s headrest. “And I remember our first kiss…” 

 Steve let the pad of his thumb soothe over the smooth skin on the back of her hand as he recalled the memory, the image of her standing in front of him, looking up at him with those beautiful eyes he fell in love with, wearing that ridiculously pretty baby blue dress he still secretly wished she would wear more often. He could remember how nervous he was, how he felt like his heart was going to either burst out of his chest or he was going to shit it out. He remembered wondering how a girl so perfect could ever want to be with him, how insecure he felt about himself, whether or not he was a shitty boyfriend. 

 All of it melted away when she fluttered her eyes closed and began to lean in and he, too, began to fall in closer…

 “Yeah,” Steve sighed his reply, and she smiled warmly. “So you see now why I want to go back so bad?” She asked. “Hawkins was where our story started. Hawkins will always be home to me.”

 Steve drew in a deep breath and nodded, rolling his bottom lip between his teeth. “Yeah,” he said. “But I still don’t know what to do about Boston.”

 She glanced down to their joined hands, her free hand soothing up and down his arm. When she looked back up, Steve’s face was contorted in thought, eyebrows knit together, eyes unfocused and lips pressed together. She gave his hand a squeeze, “do you want to go to Boston?”

 He blinked and peered over at her where she sat, waiting for a reply. Her face was void of all frustration from before, expression warm, inviting. How could he have ever taken her for granted?

 Steve gave a short nod, “I think so.” 

 Her lips grew into a grin, “then we’re going to Boston.”

 Steve’s face softened but a wrinkle in his brow still remained. “And you’re… okay with that?” He asked, and she nodded. “As long as we can do things I want too. I just want to dedicate some off time to going back home. I want to see everybody. I miss all our friends. I miss my dad.”

 Steve nodded, giving her hand a squeeze, “okay.”

 She nodded back and pushed herself from her sitting position, leaning over the console until their faces were close, their lips a whisper away from one another. “Okay,” she whispered against his lips and Steve gazed up at her, his deep, brown irises melting into hers. His gaze fleeted down to her lips as he reached a hand around to cup the back of her head, pulling her mouth down onto his. 

 His lips were soft and she melted into them as if they were a pillow. Steve kissed her with an urgent, tender need, like his tongue was telling her a million sorrys he couldn’t relay in words. She moaned into his mouth when he squeezed her hip with the hand not tangled in her hair and she climbed her way over the console and onto his lap, her hands on either of his cheeks, the firestorm on her skin erupting into a volcano, hot magma pouring over her and pooling onto him. 

 His kisses trailed down her chin to the underside of her jaw, her fingers inching their way to his hair, giving the roots a tug when he sucked a mark there. Her lips fell apart in a gasp at the feeling of his teeth ghosting over her flesh, teasing a bite on the sensitive part of her neck. “Steve,” she mewled as his hands felt up her waist, to her stomach, and around to the buttons of her jersey. 

 “I don’t deserve you,” he murmured against her lips when his kisses found their way back to her mouth, his fingers working at the buttons of her jersey. “I’m an asshole,” he mumbled as he pushed her now fully opened shirt down her arms, his mouth hot when they found her one of her erect nipples and she threw her head back, squeezing the roots of his tendrils tighter. 

 “Mm mm,” she shook her head as he swirled his tongue around her peaked bud, staring up at her through a hooded gaze as he sucked. “You’re… not!” She arched her back and moaned when he released her breast with a pop, trailing kisses between the valley of her tits to ravage the other. “Not an… asshole.”

 His smile was a crescent against her skin as he worked at the other and she pressed her lips together in a whimper, feeling heat pool between her legs, her core clenching when she ground her hips down into his erection. “Stevie,” she panted when he released her breast, kissing her collarbone until he could make out dark marks in her skin. “Hmm?” He hummed against her flesh, glancing up at her. 

 She ground her hips down into him once again, causing him to groan and buck his own up into her. She gasped at this, feeling tears sting her eyes before streaming down her cheeks. “I just… I just wanna feel you,” she managed to breathe out, her teeth pinching her bottom lip hard enough that she nearly drew blood. “Just want you inside me.”

 Steve probably could’ve come from just her voice alone. His cock was aching and throbbing in his sweats and he tapped the underside of her thighs to tell her to sit up. She mewled as she rose off his lap, allowing them both to strip themselves from their pants and underwear. 

 Their eyes surged into one another as Steve’s middle and pointer finger traced a line down her center, his palm flush with her clit, her lids fluttering closed and a cry erupting from her throat and permeating the small space of his car. “You’re dripping for me, baby,” Steve purred, using his other hand to wipe the tears from her cheeks, the pad of his thumb soothing over her closed eyelids. “You always get so wet for me,” he praised, drawing her face closer to his to pepper kisses all over her cheeks. “You’re always such a good girl for me. Always make me so proud.”

 “Stevie,” she mewled, voice dripping with need from his words. His fingers still worked back and forth over her slit, the tips teasing her clit and every so often, her entrance. “Yeah baby?” He cooed, nuzzling the bridge of his nose against the underside of her jaw. She whimpered again, “just need you inside. Please.”

 Neither of them could care any less that anyone could easily be watching them right now, all they cared about was each other. All Steve wanted to do right now was take care of his girl, to make sure she felt wanted, needed, heard. 

 So he wasted no time in grabbing a hold of the base of his cock, hissing between his teeth at the sight of her cunt just dripping, aching to be filled. He gazed back up at her and reached for her face, cupping her cheek with one hand and kneading the flesh of her hip with the other. “Look at me,” he whispered, waiting until her eyelids fluttered back open and he could stare into his gorgeous irises of hers. “You ready?” He asked with a little nod, and when she nodded back almost immediately, he guided her down into his lap with the hand on her hip, his lips falling agape, a deep, guttural groan bellowing from his throat. 

 She cried as he slowly pushed himself all the way in until she was fully seated in his lap, crystals of tears resting on her eyelashes. Even after all these years, she couldn’t believe how big he was, how every inch seemed to fill her up in the most perfect way, leaving no part of her untouched. 

 And Steve couldn’t believe how tight she still was. She always squeezed him in just the right way, her pussy always seeming eager to milk him, and he always seemed to be near spent even when they had just started. 

 “Ready to move?” He murmured close to her ear and she nodded, lifting her hips gently before setting her pace, either of his hands now on her waist, guiding her up and down his cock. The windows had since fogged up, the lights outside nothing more than white and orange dots, like watercolors. She managed to peel her eyes open enough to peer down at him, her lips finding his, their moans muffled against each other. 

 “I love you,” Steve purred against her mouth, his breath hot and making liquid of her insides. She felt her heart skip a beat when he said this, as if it were the first time she’d ever heard him say it. It was like this with everything with Steve. He made every touch, every kiss, every ‘I love you,’ every everything feel like the first time. 

 And that’s what she loved most about him. 

 “I…” she gasped at a particular deep thrust, rivers of tears streaming down her cheeks. “…oh God! I love you too!”

 Her palms ventured down the chest of his t-shirt until they reached the hem, tugging at it to signal that she wanted it off. Steve wasted no time in reaching down to pull it up and over his head, her hips still rocking back and forth on his cock as he discarded it somewhere behind him, his hands cupping either of her elbows and drawing her mouth back onto his. 

 She was so dangerously close to the edge, Steve was so dangerously close to the edge. It was enough to make her cry out, to wrap her arms around Steve’s head and hug him close to her chest. “Gonna… fuck! Gonna come baby?” Steve groaned as he thrusted up into her, meeting her hips in rhythm with her rocking. She nodded, unable to speak as a spark trailed down her stomach until it erupted in flame at her center, white light flashing behind her eyelids as she exploded, a blissful heat ripping through her. 

 Steve’s hands cradled the small of her back as she struggled to catch her breath, letting him pound her through her orgasm until he too let himself go, spurts of his seed spilling somewhere deep inside her, painting her cervix like it was his canvas. 

 He held her tighter as she trembled, panting and chasing air back into her lungs, aftershocks rumbling through her as he slowed his hips before pulling out altogether, making sure his hands were there to catch her before she fell. 

 His palm cracked the back of her head to his chest, their pants slowly dwindling down to soft breaths, their skin melting into each other until they became one. His thumb soothed over her shoulder blade, his other arm wrapped around her waist, ensuring neither he nor she were going anywhere. 

 “I’ve got you,” he whispered close to her ear, his breath hot as it rolled over her skin. “And I’m sorry. I promise I’ll hear you out from now on. You shouldn’t feel like you’re being silenced around me.”

 He could feel her smile against the curve of his shoulder, her lips pressing a soft kiss to his skin. His lips curled into their own smile. “Thank you,” she murmured against his flesh. “Can we just stay here like this for a minute?”

 He hummed into her hair, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. “Mhm,” he hummed, resting his cheek against their head and letting his eyelids flutter closed. “I’m not going anywhere.”

a/n; i have literally been wanting to write an mlb player steve au for the longest time and i just never have gotten around to it 😭 i'm not sure if any of you know this, but i used to play softball, started playing when i was 8 years old all the way up until my senior year of high school, so softball/baseball has pretty much always been a big part of my life and LAWD can you just imagine steve as a major leaguer 😍 anyways, its been awhile since i've posted anything steve related and i'm so sorry for that! but i hope you all enjoy this one! it turned out to be a lot longer than i initially expected it to lol (ps, i definitely wouldn’t mind writing more for major leaguer steve in the future 👀)

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@thesilentshape @oliviajdjarin 🫶