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weeknd-ogoc · 3 months

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AMERICAN JESUS 𐙚 LOGAN SARGEANT

SUMMARY: in which logan feels like you're the only one who believes in him.

(inspired by nessa barrett's song, american jesus)

FACE CLAIM: nailea devora

CONTAINS: spanish!reader, o'ward!reader, lando being messy, small smut scene; unprotected sex, missionary, praising & a small angst scene due to an argument.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: hope you guys like it!! 💙

yn_oward

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yn_oward his blue jean little baby 🫐

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username my NEW favorite couple!

username honey forget about him and look at me, this isn't u!

logansargeant my very pretty girl 💙

yn_oward 😚😚

username how i'm announcing my man

elbaoward FINALLY! welcome to the family logan! 💙

patriciooward you knew?? elbaoward ofc, soy la hermana favorita! (i'm the fav. sister) logansargeant can't wait to meet you guys!

username nah this can't be

williamsracing can't wait to see you next weekend!!

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landonorris 💔 you still have time to delete

max_fewtrell he's kidding landonorris not kidding oscarpiastri is kidding

username why is there so much hate?? you guys are adorable!

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𐙚

"god, i don't deserve you." logan quietly whispered as he hugged your sleeping body just a bit more tighter.

every now and then he would think back to the day the two of you had met — it was really love at first sight for him but you on the other hand, it took you a good while to really notice him.

he was just a rookie and you were the younger sister of pato o'ward who was in the mclaren indycar team, zak brown had invited you to the mclaren garage every now and then so you were hanging out with people like lando and your brother's good friend, checo.

soon enough you were hanging out with oscar and he found this as an opportunity to finally introduce himself to you.

"they're good friends..." oscar told him as they ate and at the table in front of them sat lando and you. "pretty sure lando has a thing for her but she's hard to read so i'm not sure if she does."

logan was ashamed to admit that this moment was when he sort of became jealous of lando.

oscar knew him for years now so he knew how to easily read him, he had a crush on you. "just talk to y/n, she's really sweet so it's not like she's going to ignore you or something."

so when it was time to go logan held the door open for you and you smiled at him.

"such a gentlemen, thank you!" you smiled and turned back around to lando who was eyeing the whole interaction between the two of you. "you've never opened the door for me."

as time went on he saw you show up to more races — you never went into the williams garage but he still managed to bump into you and you guys even exchanged numbers at one point.

"captain america!"

alex and lily saw the little smile that appeared on logan's face when he saw you walking towards him.

they both thought you guys would be so cute together.

"congratulations on getting your first points!" they overheard, also seeing the hug you gave him and how quickly he was to wrap his arms around your waist and gently twirl you around. "i told you that you had nothing to worry about!"

𐙚

logansargeant recently added to his story

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[caption: my future wife and my son 💙]

[tagged: yn_oward]

replies to your story

username omgg are you guys engaged??

yn_oward pls i look like death 🤠

logansargeant hush! you look beautiful as ALWAYS!!

username cuties!

username break up with her

oscarpiastri wow you're a dad before me

patriciooward slow your roll brother, you haven't met me yet.

𐙚

logan sargeant was known to be quite the gentleman but all chivalry leaves his body when he had you sprawled out and trembling as his dick drilled into you at a steady pace.

his confidence in himself had gone significantly down since they chose alex to drive his car in australia this weekend and now there was rumors of a certain boy from formula 2 possibly replacing him.

"tell me again." he whispered as he pulled himself out of you, leaving his tip right at your entrance.

you whined from the loss of the feeling. "log plea-"

"tell me again." he pressed light kisses onto your cheek. "please, i need to hear it from you, always you."

aside from alex placing eleventh in his car and the rumors, lando had gushed to you about his pole position and decided to go find you after he placed p3 just to give you a hug, giving him a smirk right after letting you go.

"i love you and i believe in you."

he pushed back into you right after those words leading you to scratch down his very toned back and lock your legs behind his waist.

"god, i really don't deserve you." he said right before picking up his pace and hitting your sweet spot continuously soon leaving the both of you to see stars.

𐙚

williamsracing

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williamsracing home soil hits different 😮‍💨 #f1

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yn_oward i pledge my allegiance to this man 🫡

logansargeant really babe yn_oward ilyyy !!

username replace him already

alex_albon my captain america 🫡

yn_oward amen logansargeant i hate you guys

username good luck in qualifying!

username 🦅🦅

patriciooward you got this!

𐙚

"i'm such a dumb fuck!" you overhead logan say as he placed nineteenth in qualifying for the sprint.

it completely broke your heart listening to him say that about himself because you knew he had what it took to get into a good position but since the team was always prioritizing alex it was making him lose his confidence.

so it left him feeling uneasy for the next two days because he really wanted to get points in and make everyone proud of him, make you proud of him.

the day of the race you made sure to give him a good peptalk and he nodded along to your words, kissing your forhead. "you're right i got this, what am i even worrying about?" and just before he could tell you that you were his good luck charm, alexandra was calling you due to the girls wanting to meet up to see the puppies together on the paddock. "go. i'll come get you before we have to go back into the garage."

after a good fifteen minutes of girl gossip and the puppies playing together — you had noticed a blue and an orange figures talking in the distance, you knew how lando was towards logan so you decided you should go stop their conversation incase it wasn't going well.

"ugh they're adorable, maybe i should tell pierre to get us one." kika said as she looked at both yours and alexandra's puppies play around.

just a few minutes before that logan had just ended his small discussion with alex and james, he was looking for you but instead bumped into lando instead.

"logan! i was looking for y/n, do you know where she is?"

"she's with the girls showing off our dog." logan emphasized the word our to him.

"oh right, oscar told me about that." he popped a chip into his mouth and patted logan's shoulder. "so when did you guys become a thing? we used to talk all the time and she never even mentioned you guys talking."

logan knew he wasn't the best liked on the grid so he knew you weren't going to get the best support through social media and you knew how protective your brother was over you that you guys decided to keep your relationship a secret for awhile.

"right, i actually asked her out during the mexican grand prix last year and we just decided to keep things quiet."

"so that's why she cancelled our date over there." lando popped another chip in his mouth and nodded. "keeping a girl like her a secret mus-"

"hey babe should we start heading to the garage?" logan felt a pair of arms wrap around him and felt his building up anger, wash away. "hey lan."

"hey, i was looking for you but we can talk later..." he smiled at you and looked back at logan. "well see you on the track and good luck out there."

he rolled his eyes as soon as lando walked off and began walking with you towards the garage to get ready before the race started — you knew that interaction probably bothered him because he was being extremely quiet which was rare for him.

he felt his hands a bit clammy after you handed him his helmet and before he could put it on he gently kissed you. "quit being nervous, you're going to do great."

he nodded kissing you once more. "see you in a bit."

once the race began, you had been watching him through the screen nervously since he was doing pretty good — you had hope he would do good so the both of you could be in high spirits to move into your new condo in new york.

"are you sure you want to move in with me? i drool sometimes." you giggled as logan twirled you around. "and your son tends to snore sometimes."

"i know, you've drooled on me a few times already." he chuckled and nodded. "i don't know i'm going to get any sleep around you guys but i'll manage."

as you focused you attention back into the race you saw kevin magnussen make logan spin out of the race and you knew it was going to be such a hard week for him.

𐙚

logansargeant

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logansargeant we're new yorkers now or whatever 🤎

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username happy for you guys!!

patriciooward i think its rude, you guys never show off my beautiful fur nephew

yn_oward you can facetime him and see him chewing up our shoes patriciooward smh you guys always make that litte man out to be a menace 😭

username i think i bent my phone a little

alex_albon lily is asking for a sleepover

logansargeant y/n said come asap in pajamas

username im glad to see a smile on your face after sunday!

username bye you're so lucky to have her logan

logansargeant i know 🙂

𐙚

after only four days since moving in, logan and you had already had your first fight which resulted you giving him the silent treatment that afternoon.

even though logan tried to put on a happy face you knew what happened on sunday was still bothering him but he didn't want to talk about it. "quit asking, i am fine!" he didn't mean for it to come out as loud as it did and he sighed looking back up to you. "look i-"

you didn't let him finish his sentence and walked into your shared bedroom with the dog following behind you — he pretended that your silence didn't bother him but it did and with all this silence he found himself thinking about the dnf and how this was most likely the end of his career.

he remembered you wrapping your small arms around his waist as he watched the rest of the race in silence. "it wasn't your fault amor."

at least he still had you right?

"it's a landmark day for lando, lando norris wins for the first time in formula one!" he scoffed as he overheard and excused himself from everyone. "it's victory in miami for norris and mclaren!"

he couldn't help but to think about lando — i mean he had a good team an even better car than him, he had the looks, his best friend and he knew the british boy wanted you.

but then he thought lando could never have you because you had eyes on him only and he was always letting his jealousy get into his head that he kept forgetting.

so the next morning you finally decided to leave the room quietly to walk your puppy and saw logan with a pout on his face. you had expected him to come crawling into bed some point at night but he never did.

he watched as you grabbed the blue leash and usually he would tag along but he thought you wouldn't want him around at time time.

and it was his own fault for missing out on it.

"be careful baby." he called out as you start heading for the exit but you just give him a small nod which causes him to slouch a bit. "have fun?"

your silence left him pouting once more and just as you were about to open the door, he sprinted towards you. "please tal-"

“logan, i'm giving you your spa-”

he groaned before grabbing onto your hand. "no. i want you to be in my space and i'm sorry for even shouting, it was so stupid and i did not even mean for it to come out like that."

before he could continue, you had placed a soft kiss on his cheek and nodded. "i know."

𐙚

patriciooward

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patriciooward our monthly family game night was hosted by our baby sister for the first time, 10/10 will be doing it again sometime. 🎲

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username my favorite trio ❤️

patriciooward p.s. if captain america tells you he's a better monopoly player than me, he's a big liar!

logansargeant p.p.s if the duck tells you he beat me in monopoly, he's a big liar! elbaoward please the both of you lost! 😭😭 yn_oward I WON!!! patriciooward yeah cause you're a cheater 🙄

username i should've been your cuñado

username you snooze you lose, get a life!

username lols why was she mad?

patriciooward she wanted to take the picture 🙂

username never thought her siblings would like logan

elbaoward 10/10 aside from her dog being a real menace it was great1

yn_oward told you guys but you guys didn't believe me

username bye i love you guys all hanging out!!

𐙚

at the beginning of your relationship with logan, he was super patient with you after telling him he had to wait before you could introduce him to your siblings because of how protective your brother was over you and your sister.

"i just don't think lando is boyfriend material, he's like a diva..." you remembered your brother showing up to your room one early morning after pictures were posted of you and lando at a club.

"first of all, we're just friends i don't like him and please get out so i can continue my beauty sleep."

you had the biggest fear that your siblings wouldn't like him as much as you did but after some time you told your sister. "he's adorable, i'm glad he makes you happy."

just a month after lando had gone to tell pato about your relationship and your brother insisted on meeting him but you kept making excuses on why it wasn't the time yet.

"y el guero?" your brother asked the next morning and you guys giggled at his morning hair. "you guys don't look any better." (and the white boy?)

you scoffed throwing a pillow at him. "he went to get us bagels and coffee."

your sister braided your hair as she did since you guys were younger. "i like him, he's really nice."

ever since you were little pato had chased off boys that got too close to you and your sister but when elba had found her now husband, he became a little less annoying about who you were hanging out with.

he even tried setting you up with his other teammate david malukas before he knew about logan and you politely declined. "fine but you are missing out cause he's really great and i would approve instantly!"

pato nodded as he rested his head onto your lap. "yeah he's cool i guess."

by the time logan got back he caught the three of you having a pillow fight — he loved how close you guys were so he should probably get used to almost always having them around from now on, not that he had a problem with that because they were actually really fun to hang around.

he even planned to go fishing with your brother next week and your sister had invited you guys over for a sleepover the following week so he could meet her husband.

"i'll tell you what i told alba's husband the day i met him..." he remembered pato drunkly tell him last night. "she's a big girl and i know she can protect herself but i promise you te mataré si la lastimas." (i'll kill you if you hurt her)

right before he could even ask what that meant elba smacked her brother's arm. "he's kidding, he won't actually kill you."

logan chuckled nodding but with the look he was giving him right now he knew he probably wasn't joking. "i would never dream of hurting her."

later that afternoon everyone decided to watch a movie so you were setting up the snacks and logan stopped you, kissing your forhead as he always did.

"you're amazing." he whispered before giving you another kiss. "you're the greatest love of my life."

you smiled and before you could kiss him, pato cleared his throat. "sorry to interrupt this little nasty moment but your dog just peed on the carpet."

𝐦𝐲 𝐦𝐨𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐬𝐩𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐬 𝐦𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭!

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javierpena-inatacvest · 3 months

Text

Melt

"And if I die because you made me melt, oh well."

Summary: You and Frankie spend a hot summer day by the pool

Word Count: 1.8K

Pairing: Husband!Frankie Morales x Wife!Reader (no use of y/n)

Warnings: SMUT (18+), oral (f receiving), vaginal fingering, semi-public shenanigans (we're assuming there's a big, tall fence around the pool lmao), Frankie being our 🐱 eating king, Frankie being the sweetest and so obsessed with you, poor Pope probably needs to clean his pool after these two leave, reader wears a bathing suit, can swim and can get sunburned

A/N: HEY HOMIES, IT'S YA GIRL!!!!! What better way to celebrate National Catfish Day than with a lil poolside Frankie 🤪 It has been hotter than Satan's ballsack out here in the midwest, so this song is dedicated to this ongoing heatwave and this song that I am absolutely obsessed with and is SO Frankie coded 😭 This is the first thing that I have worked on since May so apologies in advance for bein' a little rusty, but I'm excited to finally be back on the writing train again!!! ily all, big forehead kisses for each of you MWAH!!!! 🥹 poorly beta'd bc that's how i roll

Love it or hate it, if there was one thing that you could always count on, it was the fact that summers in south Florida were hot.

Really fucking hot.

So when Pope had offered up his pool for you and Frankie to use while he was out of town for the week, it was a no brainer that the two of you had ecstatically accepted his invitation.

“We really owe Pope for this one, huh?” You smirked, setting down your beach bag on one of the lounge chairs spread across the pool deck, pulling out some sunscreen and towels for you and Frankie.

“Yeah, I guess we do.” Frankie sighed, nodding his head in agreement, admiring the crystal blue water sparkling in the heat of the hot summer sun, hands on his hips as he looked out over the pool.

You couldn’t help but giggle as you stood behind him, secretly whipping out your phone to take a picture of Frankie inspecting the pool before quickly texting it to Pope, knowing what a kick he’d get out of it.

You: Thanks for letting us use the pool! New pool boy is taking his job very seriously. 🫡

Pope: Haha. Would have looked better if he showed up in a bikini. Have fun u 2.

“What are you laughing at?” Frankie asked, turning around to the sounds of your sneaky snickers before feeling his own phone buzz in his pocket, looking down to see a text from Pope.

Pope: Your wife thinks you’d make a good pool boy. Told her you need a bikini first. Have fun with Mrs. Fish today.

Pope: Not too much fun though. 🤨

Frankie: Sorry to disappoint.

Frankie: What’s that supposed to mean?

Pope: I just cleaned the pool before I left. Don’t need any baby fish swimming around in there if you know what I mean 🐟 💦 lol

Frankie: Jesus christ, Pope.

Frankie shook his head as he slipped his phone back into his pocket as he made his way over to you, wrapping his hands around your waist and pulling you closer to his chest.

“You think I’d make a good pool boy, huh?” He smirked, planting a chaste kiss in your lips as the two of you laughed.

“The best. But only if you give me another kiss and put some sunscreen on me so I don’t turn into a lobster.” You teased, kissing him right back before pulling away to grab the sunscreen bottle, passing it off to him.

“Fair enough.”

As he took the bottle from you, starting to shake it up, Frankie couldn’t help stop and watch in awe as you began to remove your coverup. Underneath, it revealed the little, strappy, bright yellow bikini you had just bought, deciding that today would be a good choice to show it off for the first time with just you and your husband together.

“Fuck me…” Frankie whispered under his breath, his tongue darting out of his mouth and swiping over his bottom lip as he looked you up and down, admiring every sun-kissed inch of your soft skin and the way the fabric of your swimsuit hugged your curves. “Is this- fuck, is this new?” he asked softly, his sweet brown eyes just about popping out of his head, trying to use every ounce of self composure to even form a coherent question.

“Do you like it? I got it a few days ago when I was out. Figured I could use a new one.” You blushed, biting down on your lip at Frankie’s reaction, wondering how in the world he still managed to make you feel as beautiful as he did the first night he’d met you after all your time spent together.

“Can I show you?” Frankie asked, running his hands along your waist, gently toying with the strings holding your swimsuit bottoms together.

“Show me what?”

“Show you how much I like it?” He responded, his voice sending a shiver down your spine as his fingers slowly began to undo the bow tied around your hips while he gently nipped at your neck, making your stomach swell with arousal.

“Mhmmmmmm.” You nodded, carefully backing up until your legs hit the lounge chair behind you, Frankie gently guiding you to sit down and lay back while he nestled himself between your legs, draping each one over his bare, broad shoulders, his tanned and freckled skin glowing in the blazing afternoon sun.

Frankie wasted no time planting soft kisses up the inside of your thighs, the familiar scratch of his beard and mustache against your skin making you moan in eager anticipation as you could feel the wetness beginning to pool in your swimsuit bottoms.

“You’re so fucking beautiful, you know that? I’m so lucky.” He whispered between kisses along the meat of your thighs before stopping at your core, letting his fingers brush against the fabric of your swimsuit, sneaking under the material just enough to feel how wet you had already become in the few short moments since you had sat down.

“Seems like you're pretty wet for not even getting in the pool yet, Hermosa.” Frankie teased, the ghosting of his fingers along your cunt making you whine as you propped your head up to see the devilish smirk between his cheeks.

Almost painfully slowly, Frankie untied the first, then second bow holding your bottoms together on each hip, watching your swimsuit fall to the ground, revealing your pussy, slick and puffy, worked up from Frankie’s touch.

“So pretty…” He cooed, letting his fingers drag across your cunt, collecting your arousal and rubbing at your clit, already aching to be touched.

Frankie was nothing if not a methodical man, memorizing every twitch and hitched breath beneath his touch, learning all the things that absolutely drove you wild.

Knowing that he could be the only one to make you feel this good got him off more than anything else ever could.

He couldn’t help but grin at the way your lips fell to a perfectly parted “O” as he pressed more pressure against your sensitive nub, and how they fell even wider as he pressed two of his fingers into your entrance, gently curling them to bump against the soft, spongy spot inside you that had you clenching around his hand.

“Oh Frankie… Fuck…” You whimpered, your head falling back as Frankie’s fingers were soon followed by his tongue, licking a long, broad strip across your cunt, putting just the right amount of pressure on your sensitive bundle of nerves as his fingers worked in tandem to make that all too familiar sweet tingling sensation to start build in your stomach.

Frankie’s tongue danced in a swirling pattern of flicks and strokes between your folds as he lapped you up. You could feel yourself rolling your hips against his hand, whining at how thick and full he felt inside you with just his fingers. That, combined with the meticulous and skilled motions of his tongue had the coil in your belly beginning to tighten further and further.

Your hand shot down between your parted legs, reaching to grab a fistful of Frankie’s brown, curly locks, thick and sweaty from the heat, tugging just hard enough to force his gaze up towards you, your eyes locking with his rich, brown ones.

“F-Frankie-” Was all you were able to mutter as he continued with his fingers to press against your g-spot, slick coating his digits with each stroke. He licked one more strip along your pussy before placing soft kisses on your clit and the inside of your thighs, peeking up at you with a boyish grin.

“That’s it, Hermosa. I know you’re close, baby girl. Let me feel you, mi amor. Wanna taste you all over me.” Frankie moaned, the low rumble of his words making your breath hitch in the back of your throat as he dove back between your legs, wrapping his free arm around one of your thighs, firmly holding you in place.

Curving his fingers ever so slightly and latching his lips around your clit, you knew it was only a matter of moments before Frankie was about to make you fall apart completely. You could feel your legs begin to tremble as your cunt clenched tighter around his fingers, able to utter nothing but a “F-fuck…” as you felt your orgasm rip through you, your pussy fluttering as pleasure radiated in your veins and soaked Frankie below you.

Frankie worked persistently through your high, only pulling back after making sure that you had cum for him with everything that you had in you, sitting back on his haunches as he admired the blissed out and ragged mess you had become. Your pussy was slick and swollen as your chest rose and fell in wrecked inhales and exhales, trying to compose yourself from the way Frankie had fucked you senseless with just his tongue.

“Frankie, holy fuck.” You whispered under your breath, still trying to regain your composure as you looked down at a satisfied Frankie, wiping the slick and juices glistening in his mustache with the back of his hand with a smirk.

“Always taste so sweet, Hermosa. You’re so fucking hot, I swear you’d make me melt faster than the sun.”

The two of you both couldn’t help but snort at Frankie’s cheesy comment, sitting up as you giggled to grab Frankie’s face and bring him in for a long, deep kiss, the taste of you still fresh on his tongue.

“You are such a cheeseball, Fransisco Morales. I can’t believe that- Frankie! Frankie! Put me down! No, no, no, no, you better not-” But before you could finish the rest of your sentence, Frankie had already picked you up out of your chair, flung you over his shoulder and had you flailing your arms and legs as he carried you towards the edge of the pool, jumping in with you mid-way through your poorly fought protest.

Your heads bobbed to the surface, still in a fit of laughter as you floated in the refreshing cool of the sparkling pool water, you wrapped your legs around Frankie’s waist, draping your arms over his shoulders while he pulled you closer to his chest.

“Sorry, mi amor, what were you saying?” Frankie teased, raising a playful eyebrow at you as he grinned with his goofy smile, making you over dramatically roll your eyes at him.

“One, that you are the biggest goof I’ve ever met and I love you for it,” You snickered, plating a soft kiss on his plush lips, “and two, I think I can practically hear Pope screaming at you for the fact I’m half naked in his pool.”

“What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him.”

Taglist

@chaotic-iguana @rhoorl @bbiophiliaa @angelofsmalldeath-codeine @pedrobaby

@fatima-marisa @beboldbebravethings @poodlebae @kittenlittle24 @3sriracha

@jungchloee @perennialdoll247 @prettyinpunk85 @partyofone3413 @harriedandharassed

@pedrohoe04 @theorganasolo @endlessthxxghts @beware-my-thorns

@missladym1981 @milly-louise @jay-zzle @the-one-with-the-grey-color

@persephone-girl @bitchesuntitled @pedropascallvr @millennial-teenybopper @nastiasnow

@vee-bees-blog @hopplessilse @mxtokko @its-nebuleuse @mandoisapunk @msmorningstaarr

@amyispxnk @honeyedmiller

@mountainsandmayhem @picketniffler @burningnerdchild @copperhalfcent @theoraekenslover

@bloodyinspirationaldemon @vee-bees-blog @samgirl4life @pigeonmama @survivingandenduring

@itsokbbygrl @javierpena-inatacvestnotifs

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wintrwinchestr · 3 months

Text

bite the hand

the killer & the sound - chapter 3

summary: you hadn't expected joel to put such an abrupt end to... whatever it is you two had. or, what you thought you had, anyway. you write and perform a new song on the second night of the tour about it, and the consequences aren't quite what you expected them to be. how could something that seemed so simple at first have become so complicated?

warnings: 18+, smut, no outbreak au, no use of y/n, rockstar!joel, aspiring rockstar!reader, d/s dynamics, pretty major daddy kink, age gap (reader is early-mid 20’s, joel is early-mid 50’s), pet names (sweetheart, darlin', baby, babygirl, songbird(!!), etc), big time angst, daddy/mommy issues, religious shame, degradation (joel calls you a whore), spanking, fingering, oral (f receiving), unprotected piv sex, manhandling, one (1) kiss, spitting, smoking (reader & other characters), drinking (reader & other characters), getting walked in on, characters who need therapy sooooo badly, lots of internal monologue, let me know if i missed any!!

word count: 13.2k

a/n: as always, thank you so much for your patience and sticking around to see what i put our pookies through this time. these chapters just keep getting longer and longer but it's not my fault they have a lot to say!!!!! if you'd like an idea of what reader's lil diss track sounds like, i very much imagined gibson girl by ethel cain when i wrote it. thank you as always to my best babygirl kiers i love u to death. i hope you like this one, nice comments/reblogs appreciated if you enjoyed!!

series masterlist

read this chapter on ao3

divider by @saradika-graphics

Jesus Christ, what the hell is he doing?

Joel has been in the shower for at least thirty minutes now, and he’s spent more than half of that time just letting the scalding water pound against his back as his vision goes blurry from the steam. He finished his “rinse off” within five minutes of stepping inside the bathroom, and now he’s just stalling, wondering how the fuck he’s supposed to go back out there and get in bed with you.

If it weren’t for the decades’ worth of tattoos that he can see when he looks down at his bare body, he wouldn’t be able to recognize himself right now. He’s always been one to hit it and quit it, love ‘em and leave ‘em, or whatever little figure of speech you want to use for just being a fucking playboy. Since when has he ever cleaned a girl up, given her his clothes to wear, let her sleep over after he fucks her? Though, he has to give himself some credit, it’s not like he was planning on letting you stay. He was just trying to preserve some of your dignity, but then, when did he even decide to start caring about shit like that?

Fuck.

When the tour bus jerks to life as the driver begins the trip to the next city, the loss of balance is enough to finally snap Joel out of the uncharacteristic morality spiral he’s now found himself in. He rubs his hands across his face, pinching the bridge of his nose and cursing under his breath, knowing that he can’t hide in here and avoid you forever. Besides, he’s getting old, and he has to sleep at some point if he wants to be at least a little functional tomorrow. And what is he so fucking scared of, anyway?

Joel turns off the water, and the knob screeches in protest as the dull roar of the shower fades into silence. He steps out of the stall and hardly makes any effort to dry himself off, solely focused on getting out of there before the fog evaporates from the mirror and he’s forced to confront his own reflection. He shakes out his hair and pulls on a clean pair of briefs, then sends out a silent prayer to whoever the fuck might be listening, begging for help in making it through the night without having to address whatever it is that’s gnawing at his conscience. He didn’t even think he had one of those anymore.

Joel enters the bedroom quietly, hoping that you’d be exhausted enough to have fallen asleep by the time he returned. When you don’t even twitch as he shuts the door behind him and climbs under the covers, he lets out the breath he’d been holding, and lays himself down as close to the edge of the mattress as he can without falling off the damn thing. If he can put as much distance between the two of you as possible tonight, maybe he can make it out the other side unscathed.

Just when he thinks he’s in the clear, having settled himself down with his back to you and situated his silk sheets and pillows to his liking, he feels you roll over in your sleep as you let out some dreamy little whine. Joel likes to keep it cold on the bus, and your shivering form must feel the heat still radiating off of him from his shower, because then you’re wrapping your little arms around his bicep and pulling him close. He wants to shake you loose, to put some extra pillows in between your bodies just for good measure, but he can’t be so cruel. Not when you look like such a goddamn angel, sleeping so peacefully with your hair spread out around you like a halo, long lashes fluttering against your cheeks. He wonders what you’re dreaming about.

Joel isn’t sure when exactly it happened, but somewhere in between that very first rehearsal and right now, the lines started to blur between a fun little fling he wasn’t going to think twice about letting go of once the tour ended, and something that he wants to sink his claws into and claim as his own. He has to face it now, whether he wants to or not—he can’t get himself to push you away, to growl at you not to touch him and to stay on your own side of the bed, because he doesn’t want to. What he wants is to tattoo his fucking name right underneath that shitty moth on your upper thigh, and therein lies the problem.

He has a history of breaking things, of being too controlling and rough and mean when he plays with his toys, until they fight back and tear themselves apart as they escape his clutches. But you seem like something that can’t be broken, that would glue itself back together just to get played with again the next day, and that sets off some alarms he didn’t know he was capable of hearing. Maybe he does still have a conscience, after all.

At first, Joel had liked how eager and willing and naive you were, how easily he could push and pull you this way and that because you didn’t seem to realize what this was. Or at least, what it was intended to be. Whether you were smart to his intentions or not was never really his concern before, but now… You’re nuzzling your face into his arm, breathing in his scent and letting it soothe you as it coats your senses, and it’s awakening something protective, possessive, in him. Joel has never been good at romance or love or relationships, and he had resigned himself a long time ago to the fact that he’d never be able to settle down. The life he lives can’t sustain something steady or healthy like that anyway, what with the touring and the groupies and the sex and the alcohol.

But now here you are, this fragile and yet unbreakable thing in his bed who he worries wouldn’t run away no matter how much he growled and bared his teeth. And god dammit, that scares him. Joel had thought he was done being scared, that he had left that feeling behind before you were even born, probably. And yet, here it is creeping up on him again, grabbing him by the throat and suffocating him. You’ve got real talent and beauty, with a promising future and blossoming career ahead of you, and you’d probably give it all up and follow him into the darkness if he promised to call you a good girl once you did.

Joel has never been a very good man, but something about you makes him really have to stare down the barrel of it now. He can’t do this to you, he can’t let you in, and he knows that. He’d poison you, if he hasn’t already. And he can’t give to you what you seem to think this is, what it could be, if he wasn’t so fucking damaged. So he decides it then, as he doesn’t stop his hand from brushing a stray strand of your halo out of your delicate face, that he has to put a stop to this first thing in the morning. And he has to be cold and concise about it, so that you’re perfectly clear on what the two of you are going to be from now on, even if it hurts you. You’re a big girl, and he trusts that you’ll get over it somehow, because letting this continue would hurt you a hell of a lot worse, in the end.

And you seemed to have taken it well, all things considered. He didn’t tell you the whole truth, the real reason why he decided to yank the arrow out of your heart when he was the one who shot it in there in the first place. Because then you’d know that he’s a broken man who also breaks things, and he can only shatter so many of your illusions about him in one morning. He knows this is his fault, and he was at least man enough to take the blame, he can give himself that. He had decided to paint himself as an actually respectable person who knows when he’s taken something too far, who definitely does have a conscience. Maybe you’re the one who lured it out of the dark cave it was hiding in, but he still can’t risk anything, on the off chance that he still is the same mangled man he always was and the one he will continue to be. So he lies to you, just a little bit, because what you don’t know won’t hurt you, and he can’t let you come any closer for fear of causing even more pain than he already has.

Joel watched as your bare legs carried you out of the living area and off of his bus, the tops of your thighs just barely concealed by his shirt he had lent you the night before. He didn’t react when you slammed the door on your way out, he had expected you to do as much. But he did half-expect you to turn around and spit a fuck you, Joel at him the way he would have deserved. It might have hurt less if you did, that way you would have left a sour taste in his mouth to replace the still-lingering flavor of your pussy mixed with the cum he had spilled inside you last night.

God, he is so fucked.

—

You had made sure to thank the audio technicians before you disappeared from the venue after your sound check, but otherwise avoided looking at or speaking to anyone on your way out. Especially him. You had held Angel close as you swiftly made your way back to your bus before Death’s Head had a chance to take the stage for their turn, not wanting to hear any more of Joel’s voice than you’ve had to today. Besides, it’s already been looping like a skipping record in your mind since this morning, refusing to let up no matter how hard you try to drown it out.

Mistake, respect, and professional are the choice words that are chanting themselves over and over again, so many times that they almost don’t sound real anymore, just a random sequence of letters and noises that you can’t make sense of. What happened last night didn’t feel like a mistake to you, especially not when he was so gentle in cleaning you up afterwards, when he brought you a glass of water, when he let you curl up against him in his bed, wearing his clothes. He sure as hell had plenty of time to decide that you were worthy of respect before he had you act like a whore on stage in front of tens of thousands of people for his own sick pleasure. (And apparently yours, but that’s not the point.) And now you’re supposed to believe that he suddenly had a change of heart overnight, that splitting you open on his cock and using your body to get what he wanted made him finally develop a moral compass and decide that he wants to start acting like a professional? Damn, maybe you are more powerful than you thought.

You just can’t believe you were stupid enough to let yourself feel something for him. He was just playing you like his guitar this entire fucking time, a pretty instrument that he can pluck and strum and draw pretty noises from, then put away without a second thought. He’s a celebrity, a rockstar, for fuck’s sake. Half of his songs are about sex, and if the rumors are true, he recorded the original intro to Kiss it Better while he was hooking up with some groupie in a bathroom. Just like you, he had probably used her to get what he wanted, then dropped her like it was nothing. Of course he never fucking cared about you.

You should burn the clothes that he sent you scurrying back to your bus wearing this morning. They’re currently shoved into the bottom of your plain-looking laundry bag in the corner of your room, though you’re half tempted to just toss the whole thing into the dumpster behind the venue and set it ablaze. But you know he doesn’t care about material things as much as he does his ego, and it’s going to be much more satisfying to set that on fire than some worn-out pieces of clothing, anyway. Destroying them also wouldn’t do anything about the way you keep catching an inhale of his cologne every once in a while, the masculine smell of it wafting from his t-shirt and carving out an undesired space for itself in your brain. You try to ignore the way your cunt flutters against your will at the scent, at the memories it conjures, and hope that she doesn’t develop a habit of betraying you like this when it comes to him. She almost gets the better of you, tempting you to second guess your plan to perform your scathing new song at the end of your set tonight.

Almost.

You’re feeling good about what you wrote, and you’d be even more upset with yourself if you backed out now, if you gave in to Joel once again, without him even knowing it this time. He seems to think that he knows you better than you know yourself, that he can make decisions for you and that he always knows just what to say to get you to do as he asks. For once, you want him to be fucking wrong about you.

The show starts in just under an hour, and you’re dedicating your last bit of quiet solitude to solidifying the new words and the motions of your fingers in your memory. While you were scribbling in your notepad earlier today, you had tried to ride the fine line between calling him out so blatantly and using descriptions that were too clichéd, and you’re happy with the in-between that you landed on. The song could be about anyone, but it isn’t, and if the shoe fits when he tries it on, oh fucking well. Plenty of men wear the same size, and if he wants to make yet another thing about himself, that’s not your problem.

Ideally, you had wanted to include the song in your sound check so that your band would be prepared for tonight, until you had let your eyes drift to the side of the stage and saw Joel observing in the darkness, just like he had done while you were performing the night before. You suppose it wouldn’t be very professional of him to avoid you like the plague the way you’re trying to do with him, but still. You had averted your eyes as quickly as you had spotted him, and decided that the song was just going to have to be a surprise for everyone, not just Joel. Your band members are smart enough guys, you’re sure they’ll be able to catch on and back you up when it’s time to unveil what you had been working on all day. But if they don’t, you’re prepared for it to just be you and Angel up there, the same way it has been for as long as you’ve been making music. Until recently, at least.

You’ve opted to get yourself dressed and ready in the safety of your bus, attempting to avoid a repeat of last night’s pre-show interactions with Joel by minimizing the amount of time you actually have to spend inside the venue. You doubt he’ll try anything, but considering how unafraid he was to volunteer himself as a witness to your sound check, you’d rather not risk it. So, you do your best to keep your distance as you make your way off the bus and to the side of the stage with Angel in tow, hoping that your viscous aura alone will be enough to keep him away.

Your band members are already waiting for you in the wings when you get there, and you tuck yourself safely behind the group of them as you wait for the lights to go down. You ghost your fingers along Angel’s strings one last time, just to make sure that your muscle memory is securely locked into place—it is, because you’re fucking good at this. You don’t need Joel’s whispered praises and soothing touches to know that you’re a star, and you don’t want them. You don’t. You fucking killed it last night, and you knew it before he told you so, because your ears were still ringing long after the audience had finished applauding and screaming for you. For your own performance, not for the on-stage degradation you endured because of a dumb teenage crush you couldn’t seem to shake off.

If your timing is right, you should’ve gone on a few minutes ago now. Each passing minute has you gnawing at your bottom lip and picking at your nails with increasing intensity as you and the audience both become more restless. You aren’t sure what the hold up is, but you just want to get out there and safely away from the possibility of Joel before you make one of your goddamn fingers bleed. You’re so consumed in your destructive self-soothing that you don’t hear the sound of jingling chains and creaking leather approaching you where you stand, followed by a clearing throat and the last voice you want to fucking hear right now.

“Tommy told me they’re jus’ tryin’ to fix a light or somethin’. Shouldn’t be too much longer now,” Joel says, and you stiffen as he speaks. He sounds earnest in the way he addresses the group of you, but the feeling of his gaze lingering on your skin tells you his true intentions.

Your bandmates hum in acknowledgement as they maintain their casual demeanors, while you shift your jaw and remain steadfast in your stoicism. Your face is calm and concentrated, but your fidgeting hands tell a different story, and the telltale habit is most of what prompted Joel to come over here against his better judgment. He so badly wants to take your hands in his so that you’ll stop tearing at your skin, to massage the worry right out of your palms and tell you there’s nothing to be nervous about, just like he did last night. Though, you’d probably bite his goddamn fingers clean off if he even so much as reached out a hand in your direction, and he wouldn’t entirely blame you if you did, considering that he’s more than likely the reason for your agitation.

Instead, he settles for asking, in as neutral of a tone as possible, “You okay, darlin’?”

Your gaze remains focused on the stage, on the mic you should be standing behind right now, if it weren’t for some stupid fucking light. After a pointed beat, you answer him with a short, “I’m fine.”

You can see in your peripheral vision that Joel nods and shifts his weight, moving a little further behind your band and closer to you. He lets a matching bit of silence pass, for some reason not using the opportunity to just turn around and walk away, before speaking again. “Quit messin’ with your fingers.”

“Don’t tell me what to do,” you snap, whipping your head to finally face him. You peer up at Joel from under your eyebrows, putting on a stony face and doing your best to look intimidating even as he towers over you. Despite your efforts, your heart still flutters for just a second when your eyes meet, before he drops his own gaze to the floor and takes a step back from you.

“That how this is gonna be?” Joel asks, and you could swear he sounds a little defeated.

“Yeah, it is.”

You turn yourself back to the stage again, and he takes a deep breath, like he’s trying to steady himself and suppress a reaction to your attitude that he might regret.

“Look, can we–” he starts, but a sudden burst of screams and hollers cuts him off as the venue lights finally dim. You push past your bandmates and stomp your way towards the stage, feeling volatile and as determined as you’ve ever fucking been to give a killer performance tonight. You could’ve spit some real fire at him, told him to leave you the fuck alone like you had been so tempted to, but you didn’t want to scare him off. You don’t even need to check to know that he’s still standing exactly where you left him, and that he’ll probably stay there and watch you the whole time because he doesn’t know what the fuck he wants, apparently. Maybe you should bring him onstage for his public humiliation the same way he did to you, see how he likes it. But you have a little more humanity than he does, and if it all works out, he’ll have to watch you tear him down surrounded by his own bandmates and brother, and that’s gratifying enough for you.

When you and your band have all taken your places, you introduce yourself to tonight’s crowd with a newfound vigor, and begin your set with a chord so resonant it vibrates your bones. The sound surrounds you, grabbing you by the shoulders and shaking loose the wallflower version of you who performed these same songs just last night. It feels like a metamorphosis, like the moths that adorn the strap slung around your body and the one etched into your skin finally belong to you instead of him.

—

You sail through your set, never stumbling over a chord or missing a lyric, even in your anticipation to reach the end. While you thank the crowd and wait for their roaring cheers to die down, you finally chance a look at the side of the stage. Just as you had predicted before you went on, Joel’s silver-tipped boots are still planted in the same place they were thirty minutes ago. Perfect.

“Y’all have been amazing tonight, this was so much fun,” you pant into the mic. “I, uh… I actually have one more song before I go, if that’s alright. Just wrote it this morning.”

Another wave of whistles and applause engulfs you as you turn to check on your bandmates, who all wear confused expressions as expected. You step back from the mic to tell each of the guys the key and tempo of what you wrote, and ask if they can maintain something steady and follow along while you carry the melody. When they’ve all gotten the plan, they look at each other and wordlessly communicate a final decision, seeming to be up to the challenge.

You resume your place at the front of the stage, taking one last look at your victim before beginning to strum the song’s now-familiar echoing intro. The tone is a little Western, and you wrote it that way on purpose, just as an extra hidden jab toward the obnoxious midnight cowboy persona Joel had first lured you in with. Your haunting voice comes in a few measures later, singing lyrics that are unlike anything you’ve written before. They’re darker, more graphic, and they tell the story of a girl and a cold-blooded man covered in leather and tattoos, who got her alone one night and ripped her clothes off and whispered things he didn’t mean while he fucked her. And after everything was said and done, the girl had lied to herself, replaying everything that had happened between her and the cold-blooded man that night, convincing herself that because it felt good, because he was good to her, that it had meant something. She had bared her body and soul to him, only to find out that he had also been lying to her that night, playing with her like a doll who didn’t know any better, who was just happy to get looked at and touched and praised by someone she had once held on such a high pedestal. You let the lights embrace you and warm your skin as you bare yourself once again, trusting this time that it won’t end in shame or hurt or tears.

When the buildup of your lyrics and chords finally culminate in the song’s cathartic crash, the first thing you feel is relief, like a crushing weight has been lifted off your heart. The crowd’s enthusiastic response to your creation surrounds you, filling your ears and infiltrating your soul, and you can’t help but laugh at the overwhelming feeling. You gesture behind you for your band to meet you at the front of the stage, and you all bow together to another round of raucous cheering before making your way offstage. This time, you do remember to leave Angel behind, satisfied in what the two of you accomplished tonight.

You’re still reveling in the rush of your performance by the time you’re shrouded in the backstage darkness once again, so caught up in the feeling that you nearly forget what your moment of spontaneity was for in the first place. Or rather, who it was for. You didn’t have enough wherewithal to check if Joel would still be lying in wait once you exited the stage, mostly assuming that his ego would get the best of him and he’d just huff his way out to the buses for a smoke once he realized what you were doing.

You assumed wrong.

Before your eyes even have a chance to adjust to the change in lighting, a calloused hand is gripped tight onto your upper arm, dragging you deeper backstage as you exclaim in protest and try to snatch your arm out of the iron hold that traps it.

“What the—Joel?! Get the fuck off me! What are you–”

“Will you fuckin’ quiet down?” Joel hisses next to your ear. “Quit makin’ a goddamn scene, already made enough of one as it is.”

Despite your struggle against him, his size and strength overpower you, and before you know it you’re being shoved into a dressing room, the door getting slammed shut and locked behind you in a second.

“What the fuck, Joel?” you shout up at him as he backs you into the door, finally letting go of your arm to loom over you and brace one of his hands next to your head.

“I can ask you the same goddamn thing. What the fuck was that out there, hm?” He spits back at you.

You massage the aching finger-shaped marks on your skin where he had gripped you, eyeing him with an annoyed expression. “It was just a song, what is your fucking problem?”

He scoffs, rolling his neck as his brows twitch in disbelief. “Just a song, right. Everybody knew that shit was about me.”

Your heart hammers in your chest, both from the anxiety of being confronted like this and the aggravation caused by his egomaniacal tendencies. “You are so fucking self-centered, it’s insane. It could’ve been about anyone—”

“But it wasn’t, huh?” Joel interrupts. “Who else do they know that has a filthy title inked into his hand, as you put it. Gimme a break, sweetheart. As if that same title didn’t have you soakin’ your fuckin’ panties for me last night.”

You hate that you can feel your cunt flutter in response to his words. “Whatever, will you just let me go? This isn’t very professional of you, locking me in your goddamn dressing room just so you can throw a fit,” you retort.

Realization flashes across his face as he steps back from you, breathing a heavy sigh. “Professional…” he speaks quietly, testing out the word, searching for the meaning behind why you had used it so pointedly. “Jesus Christ, is that what this is about? You are such a goddamn child, you know that?”

Now it’s your turn to laugh, crossing your arms now that he’s given you the room to do so. “Didn’t seem to think of me that way last night. I’m a big girl, I can do what I want, why do you care so much if I wrote a stupid song about you?”

Joel shuts his eyes, scrunching up his face like he’s fighting against what he wants to say next. “Because, fuck—This ain’t what I wanted, okay? Said I wanted to keep it professional between us, not that I wanted you to make a goddamn fool outta me in front’a God and everybody.”

“Well, what do you want?” You push, stepping into his space as your blood begins to boil over. “Because I thought you fucking cared about me, and then you just told me to get lost this morning, like none of it meant anything to you—”

“Of course it fuckin’ meant somethin’ to me, Jesus Christ.” Joel says, so breathlessly it’s like the words escape his mouth before he can catch them. “Did this for your own goddamn good—”

“Oh, for my own good?”

“Yes, for your own good. Because I know what you want this to be, and I can’t give that to you, I can’t.”

“Why not?”

Joel doesn’t answer, but he shifts his jaw like he considers it, and lets your angered breathing fill the silence.

“Huh?” You provoke, hitting your palms against his broad chest once. Your push hardly does anything to knock him off his balance, but you swear it makes his eyes darken. “Why not?” You demand a second time.

You can tell he wants to bite back, but he suppresses the instinct, instead backing away from you as he shakes his head in disbelief. “Y’ know what, I ain’t gonna do this with you right now. We can talk about this later.”

Joel makes for the exit, but you dart in front of the door handle, feet planted firmly on the ground as you block his only way out. You grit your teeth as you stare up at him, daring him to either do something about it or finish what he started.

He takes another steadying breath. “Really ain’t helpin’ your case much right about now. I suggest you move, sweetheart.” His voice registers a somewhat eerie calm, the kind that a storm usually follows.

“You don’t get to back out of this.”

“Ain’t backin’ out. Said we’re gonna talk about it later. Move.”

You stare at each other in strained silence for a few moments, neither of you in the mood to give in to the other. You doubt that you’re about to bear witness to the first time Joel has ever submitted to someone else, so you slide away from the door, making a vow to yourself to find him after the show and force him to make good on his word.

“‘S what I thought,” he huffs, unlocking the door and slinking out into the hallway. He holds his head a little too high for someone too scared to tell you how he feels, like it’ll eat him alive if he admits to anyone that he really does have a heart.

You step out of the room and watch him walk, waiting until he gets a few paces away from you to grumble under your breath, “Self-centered and a fucking coward.”

Either Joel wasn’t as far out of earshot as you had thought, or the angry thudding of your pulse inside your head had made it difficult to tell just how loud you had said your little dig. He stops in his tracks, giving you a second to sweat before turning around to face you. “What was that?” he asks, but you already know he had heard you loud and clear. He begins to stalk towards you, and that predatory sway of his shoulders has you suddenly feeling meek.

“N-nothing,” you lie, backing into the dressing room as he continues his prowl.

“Nah, go ahead. You wanna do this right now, we’ll do it right now. What’d you say, baby? C’mon.” Joel’s movement forces you backward until the base of your spine hits the edge of the vanity table in the room. You wince at the impact and the sound of the door slamming shut again, and then he’s bracing both of his hands on either side of your hips, caging you in. Joel’s hot breath ghosts against your face as his eyes seem to glow a fiery shade you’ve never seen before. “Say it again.”

You swallow hard, nervous eyes flitting around his face, unsure of the safest place to land, or if there even is one. “Called you a coward…” you admit softly, voice trembling.

“Yeah? I’m a fuckin’ coward? What else, hm? Why don’t you use your big girl words and say to my face what you really wanted to say about me out there instead o’ that bullshit lil’ poem you wrote.” He’s just being mean now, lashing out because you hit him where it hurts. But god fucking dammit, there’s something about the way he’s standing over you, how he’s using his size to intimidate you and how the smell of his cologne mingles with the fading aroma of his last cigarette, that begins to cloud your judgment. You can’t help the way a dampness begins to bloom between your thighs as a result of his demeaning words and close proximity.

You figure you don’t have much of a reason to hold anything back anymore, already having pissed him off by threatening his ego twice in one night. “I hate you,” you rasp, which is pretty much what the lyrics of your song boil down to. You do hate him, for saying all the right things and touching you all the right ways to make you think he wanted the two of you to be something, only to throw your naivety in your face, tell you that you’re acting like a child when he’s the one who tried to give up and walk out when something became more complicated than he could handle.

“Yeah, I bet you do. Think you can do better than that, though, huh? Sure had plenty to say earlier, don’t get all shy on me now, sweetheart.” He spits the pet name at you like it’s an insult, coated in the venom dripping from his sharp canines.

“Fuck you,” you snap, eyes welling up and threatening to spill over despite yourself.

Joel spins you around as soon as the words leave your lips, pinning your wrists behind your back with just one of his hands, using the other one to grip your jaw and make you face your own reflection in the vanity mirror. You shut your eyes tightly, not wanting to confront what he’s reduced you to, and he allows you to keep them that way for now.

“You want me to? That why you’re all fired up, ‘cause you need Daddy to fuck this bratty ass attitude outta you?” Joel rumbles next to your ear.

You struggle to shake your head in his hold, mumbling, “No, I don’t.”

“No? So if I reach my hand under this lil’ dress, I ain’t gonna feel that pretty pussy drippin’ for me?”

You aren’t sure why you bother lying to him again, humming an mm-mm that sounds more like a whimper.

“Hmm, let’s see about that, then,” Joel muses, releasing your face from his hold to bend you forward and flip up the skirt of your dress. “Would you look at that… panties are ‘bout fuckin’ soaked through, ain’t they?” You whine as he begins to rub your folds over your underwear, pulling back the crotch of them and letting it go so that you can feel the damp snap of the fabric against your sensitive skin. “Thought you were such a good girl… you like it a lil’ mean, hm? ‘S that why you pulled that stunt tonight, to get Daddy all worked up so he’d treat you the way you really been wantin’?”

You feel a stinging smack on your ass before you’ve even finished muttering a complete No. Joel’s rough hand does nothing to soothe the burn as he rubs it around your smarted flesh, squeezing at the plush of your ass with a possessive grip. “Had just about enough of you lyin’ to me tonight. Why don’t you tell me the goddamn truth and I’ll give you what you want, hm? Gonna ask one more time. You want Daddy to beat up this lil’ brat pussy?” He asks, moving his hand back to the wet fabric of your panties, circling your clit over the material with the pad of his finger.

You can’t help but moan at his crude language, releasing another pulse of wetness in response. “Mmh, yes, please—” you mewl.

“Open your fuckin’ eyes,” Joel barks, and it startles you into obedience. “Yes, who?” he challenges, making eye contact with your reflection in the mirror.

He continues his ministrations over your covered clit, and you force your brain to work through the distraction, to give him what he wants and not earn yourself another spank.

“Y-yes, Daddy, I want it,” you admit, your voice drenched in a pathetic need.

Joel swiftly yanks your panties to the side, practically tearing them clean off your body with one hand in an effort to expose your swollen core to him, not daring to release your aching wrists from the other one’s hold. He circles your dripping entrance with the rough tips of two of his fingers, not pushing all the way inside just yet.

“Think you owe me a goddamn apology first, hm?” he taunts, using his fingers to smear your ashamed slick around your entrance.

“Sorry, ‘m sorry–” you whine, pushing back into him impatiently.

Smack. “For what, baby? What’re you sorry for?” Joel presses, his harsh spank telling you to stay fuckin’ still.

“For… for writing that song… for calling you a c-coward… ‘m sorry, Daddy, I’m sorry–” you cry. He shoves both of his thick fingers inside you as your reward, carving out space for them inside your little hole as he starts up a bruising pace, the obscene wet sounds of his movements filling the room and mingling with your broken little wails. It shouldn’t feel as good as it does, getting ordered around and talked down to and used like this by someone you said you hated only a few minutes ago, but you don’t really care to unpack that right now. Or ever. Maybe you were naive and immature in thinking that this thing you’ve gotten yourself into could ever pan out like what you’ve seen in the movies, but you think you could learn to be content with what he is willing to offer you—praise doled out as easily as he deprives you of it, a firm hand and fingers that can strum along your clit as expertly as he does the strings of his guitar, and a cock that makes you feel like someone else entirely, that can send you somewhere far away and bring you back down to earth at the same time. You let him use his fingers to pound all that angst and fire and attitude out of you as your eyelids flutter shut again, losing yourself in the feeling of him.

“How many times I gotta tell you, huh? Keep ‘em open, look, baby,” Joel commands, letting go of your wrists to deliver a light smack to the side of your face. You fall forward at the sudden release of his hold, catching yourself on the vanity table and digging your nails into the hard surface to ground yourself. His punishing hand forces your gaze straight ahead with a claw-like grip on your jaw, and your eyelids still feel so heavy, everything moving slowly as you look at yourself in the mirror. Your parted lips, smeared mascara, and unfocused gaze paint a debauched version of yourself that you don’t recognize, blurred by the sleepy submissive state he seems to be able to plunge you into so easily. “Take a good goddamn look in the mirror, at what I’m doin’ to you, and you tell me if you really want this.”

Every sharp thrust of his hand against your cunt knocks loose more and more of your ability to think, let alone speak. But you know by now that if Joel demands a response from you, he’ll get one, coherent or not. He seems to like it when your words come out a ruined mess of whines and slurred syllables, anyway, getting off on how hard and fast he can knock down those walls you attempt to put up and turn you into something so servile and saccharine.

“Want it, please, Daddy,” you beg, struggling to hold yourself up as his fingers get you closer and closer to your release.

“You sure about that? ‘Cause this is what you’re gonna get, sweetheart,” Joel grunts, the exaggerated word punctuated by the stretch of a third finger joining the other two inside your already fucked-out cunt.

“D-don’t care, just want you—ah—” you’re cut off by the sudden stroking of Joel’s curled fingers against a particularly tender and unfamiliar spot inside you. You begin to unravel at the overwhelming feeling, letting out little wanton pleases and Daddys as you continue to soak his tattooed hand.

“Fuck, gonna be the goddamn death o’ me, lil’ songbird, you know that? Tried to stop this shit before it could get started, tried to keep you away from me, but I just can’t seem to fuckin’ help myself, can I? We’d be nothin’ but bad for each other, but—shit—been thinkin’ ‘bout this tight cunt all goddamn day, couldn’t get the taste o’ you outta my mouth. Reckon I never will… In fact—” Joel pulls his fingers out of you in an instant, and you cry out from the sudden loss as you watch him suck them clean in the mirror. You feel dizzy, letting him manhandle you as he spins you around to face him and hoists you on top of the vanity table with little effort. He groans as he crouches, pulling your drenched panties down your legs and tossing them somewhere behind him. With your raw-looking cunt now fully exposed to him, he spreads your legs wide and curses under his breath, “Should’a done this shit last night, fuck—” before diving in between your thighs and licking a long stripe from your entrance to your swollen clit. He latches onto the sensitive nub, closing his eyes and sucking hard as his large hands force your legs to stay open. You let your upper back rest against the mirror as he works you over, and the cool glass sends a shiver down your spine as your hips tilt upward, allowing him better access.

He drinks from you as if you taste like his favorite top-shelf whiskey, growling into your flesh as he’s surely leaving fingertip-shaped bruises on the softness of your thighs. He alternates between swirling his tongue around your clit and fucking it in and out of your hole, beckoning you to spill yourself into his mouth. He savors every wave of slick that pours from you, each of your little cries and whimpers making his cock strain harder against the confines of his jeans.

You can’t help but let one of your hands drift to his hair, and he doesn’t stop you from grabbing onto his messy curls as you buck pathetically against his tongue.

“Such a sweet lil’ cunt, got me fuckin’ addicted to it, I swear…” Joel half-whispers, rubbing his thumb in circles around your clit to make up for the absence of his tongue as he speaks, your hips still desperately chasing after his movements. He spits onto your folds once, watching it drip between the curves of them for a moment before lapping up your combined juices and picking up where he left off. Your eyes are shut tight, brows peaked with need as you beg him to keep going, please, Daddy, gonna come.

Joel pulls away again just enough to tease, “Always come for me so easily, don’t you? Sing for me, songbird, c’mon.” A few more rough strums of his thumb and pulses of his tongue have you crying out, shaking where you sit on the table as you gush into his waiting mouth. Joel works you through it as you practically ride his face, your hips twitching with each overstimulating flick of his tongue over your sensitive clit.

He doesn’t wait very long for you to come back into yourself, the impatient bastard that he is, before he’s commanding you to open and using his strong fingers to yank your jaw downward. Your eyes blink open just in time to watch him spit a mouthful of your own release onto your waiting tongue, and then he’s pressing his lips to yours in a sloppy kiss, tongues twisting around each other as he forces you to taste yourself. So immersed in the distraction of finally feeling his lips against your own, you don’t notice when he loosens his grip on your face to grab one of your hands instead, placing it on his still-clothed bulge and growling into your mouth as you massage the hard shape of him.

“Feel what you do to me, babygirl?” Joel breaks the kiss to ask, voice low and eyes dark. “Even if I kept you away from me, wouldn’t fuckin’ matter. Still have to take care o’ myself one way or another, would just be pretendin’ it was your perfect cunt squeezin’ me instead o’ my hand, anyway. Might as well stick to the real thing, yeah?”

“Yeah,” you agree, lashes fluttering at his filthy words.

“Yeah? You want it? Want Daddy to split you open again?”

Your skin is burning hot, every one of your nerve endings on fire with need, and you don’t care how pitiful you sound when you answer with, “Please, Daddy.”

“Good girl,” Joel praises. He makes quick work of ridding himself of his belt, tossing it aside to join your discarded panties on the floor with a metallic thud before freeing his leaking cock from his jeans. He prods the thick head at your entrance, still so wet and stretched out from the earlier efforts of his fingers and tongue that he slides inside with hardly any resistance. “Greedy thing…” he hisses, holding onto your hips as he watches his thick length begin to slide in and out of you. A flash of silver catches his attention from the edge of his vision, and he focuses there instead, on the cross shaped charm dangling from your neck and resting between your breasts. He picks it up between his large thumb and forefinger, rubbing the pads of them along the smooth metal. “Probably shouldn’t be wearin’ such a thing anymore, hm? Now that I know how much of a whore you really are.”

“Not… ‘m not a whore,” you counter, but it’s so futile, meaning nothing at all when you really take a look at where you are now, how it all began, and how your voice cracks in your poor attempt to prove him wrong.

“Y’ are, though, songbird. ‘S okay that you are. Only for me though, huh? Jus’ Daddy’s whore? All mine?” Joel drops the cross in favor of cradling your cheek, hurrying his pace as he taunts you. There’s no use in denying it, not when his degrading words prompt your cunt to squeeze around him and provide more slick aid for his quickening thrusts, an involuntary whine escaping your throat. You’re seeing such a different side to him now than the one he showed you the night before, and you begin to wonder which one is the real Joel, or if either of them are, or if both of them are, somehow. Or if he even knows. You’re willing to take whichever one he decides to let you have, you think.

“Y-your whore, Daddy… wanna be yours, please,” you babble, his cock hitting you deep and hard as you let him fuck you so dumb you allow yourself to just give in and agree to whatever he says you are, whatever he wants you to be, just the way he likes.

“Fuck,” Joel curses through gritted teeth, removing his hand from your face and to grip onto the plush of your hip again. Your pliant state and filthy admission combined with that sinful symbol around your neck spur him on, and he uses his hold on your skin to fuck into you with abandon. “Really would just let me ruin you, huh? Tried to be a decent man for once in my goddamn life, but you just had to be a fuckin’ brat about it and start some shit, didn’t you? If you don’t want me decent, tha’s fine by me, baby. But lemme make somethin’ real goddamn clear to you,” he rambles, each slam of his hips into yours getting you closer to release for the second time. He delivers another sharp slap to your cheek with a You listenin’? and you nod to the best of your ability, finding it impossible to focus your eyes on him as that knot in your stomach begins to tighten.

“You want this, you wanna be mine, you can be mine, babygirl. Lord knows I’d find my way right back inside this sinful lil’ cunt, anyway. But this ain’t gonna be a fuckin’ relationship, you understand? Take it or leave it, songbird.” He slows his thrusts as he spells out his ultimatum, but they still make you ache, all the same. His fiery gaze bores a hole straight through your skull as he awaits your response.

“Take it, w-wanna take it, Daddy.” The desperation in your voice and painted across your expression have him returning to his punitive pace, grunting and swearing into the warm skin of your neck as your hands scramble across his back, pulling yourself into him and burying your face into his shoulder. His thick leather jacket helps to muffle your cries as he loses all control, using your body to chase after his own high.

“Course you’re gonna take it, filthy thing. Made to fuckin’ take it, Christ,” Joel rambles, your vocalizations increasing in pitch as you squeeze around him, whole body tensing as your sore pussy prepares to drench him one more time. “So goddamn desperate… Just take whatever I give you, however I wanna give it to you, always have you comin’ on my cock just the same, huh? Go on, babygirl, come for Daddy again, tha’s right…”

With his permission, and a few more just-right strokes of his tip against that sweet spot deep inside your walls, you’re spasming in his hold, whining that filthy title you had just used against him less than an hour ago. He spills his release into you at the same time, and despite the way he’s treated you and the words he’s spat at you tonight, it makes you feel whole again.

You breathe heavily against each other for a few minutes, neither of you wanting to let go as you both struggle to process what the hell just happened, what it will mean for the remainder of the tour.

A sudden knock at the door quickly yanks you out of your thoughts, offering a taste of what the future may hold much earlier than you were expecting.

“Joel? You in there?” a voice asks from outside the dressing room.

“Huh…? Yeah, just gimme a–”

The door opens before Joel can finish answering, and you can see clear as day over his shoulder that it’s Jesse.

He claps his hand over his eyes when he notices you, but you can still see how his cheeks burn red under his fingers as he shifts where he stands, undoubtedly trying to come up with the least mortifying way to get himself out of this situation.

“Jesus, kid–” Joel grumbles, finally pulling out of you and shoving his still-slick cock back into his briefs. He zips himself up as you tug the skirt of your dress back down to cover yourself, still feeling much more exposed than you’d like as you eye your forgotten panties laying just a few feet from where Jesse stands.

“Sorry! Sorry, Joel. It’s just, uh—”

Joel turns to face him as he finishes adjusting himself, and you’re thankful that he doesn’t walk away from you completely, using his broad form to provide you with what little modesty he can afford under the circumstances. “What, Jess?” he barks, exasperated.

“Um… The guys asked me to come find you, we’re on in like a minute—”

“Well, tell ‘em to hold their fuckin’ horses. I’m comin,” Joel orders.

“A-alright, I will, man. I’ll, uh… I’ll see you out there.”

Jesse leaves the room as hurriedly as he had entered, nervously fumbling with the handle as he shuts the door on his way out. “That kid ever learn how to fuckin’ knock?” Joel mutters to himself, picking his belt up off the floor and looping it back around his waist. He retrieves your ruined panties when he’s done and casually tosses them over to you, a stark contrast from the attentive aftercare he had provided last night. You slide off the vanity table and tug them back on over your legs, shivering at the feeling of the cool, damp fabric against where you’re so sensitive and sore, still leaking Joel’s spend. You fidget with the hem of your dress and try to ignore the way your heart sinks into your stomach, wondering what Jesse must think of you now. You haven’t really spoken to him at all since this whole thing started, and you doubt you ever will after what happened tonight. Of course, he’d had a front row seat to your obscene little performance during Kiss it Better, but it was all just an act, as far as he knew. But he has more than enough confirmation now to know that it very much wasn’t, and the humiliation of it all makes your anxious imagination begin to run wild. Your bottom lip quivers at the thought of Jesse running straight back to the guys with a shit-eating look on his face, eager to tell them all about how he just saw their opening act with her legs spread for Joel in his dressing room. Images flash through your mind of the band you’ve looked up to for so long now shooting you dirty looks backstage and whispering about you amongst themselves, sharing their doubts about if you really deserve to be touring with them at all. Maybe they’d call you easy, say that you’re just another dumb slut who gave it up for the first rockstar who asked, that your career will be doomed unless you grow up and learn to respect yourself a little more. And maybe they’d be right.

You can’t stop a few hot tears from rolling down your cheek at your catastrophizing, but you wipe them away quickly. This is what you asked for, isn’t it? Joel had given you an opportunity to leave this where he had ended it, and you were the one who had begged to be his, even after he showed you what it would look like, and told you explicitly what it would never be. You pull your shoulders back and make an effort to stand up a little straighter as he addresses you again, not wanting to look like some pathetic, defeated thing.

“You good? Need anythin’?” Joel asks, and it would be kind of sweet if he weren’t halfway out the door already.

You sniffle a little, but try to feign nonchalance as you shake your head and reply, “No, ‘m fine.”

You must not do a very good job of it, because he’s craning his neck to look down the hallway as soon as you finish your sentence, like he knows exactly what’s on your mind. “Don’t worry ‘bout him,” Joel says to you, giving an annoyed shake of his head. “If he knows what’s good for him he’ll go to his grave swearin’ he didn’t see anything. Kid knows better,” he reassures, and it does help to slow the unspooling of your thoughts some.

“Okay,” is all you offer, along with a small smile.

Joel nods curtly, “Okay.” And after another beat and a rake of his eyes along your form, “I’ll see ya, songbird.”

He’s gone before you can reply, and you let the sound of the door closing ring out in your ears until you’re left in total silence, save for the sound of your own unsteady breathing. More than anything else, you just want to head back to your bus and scrub yourself clean of him, to put on unstained clothes and remove your ruined makeup so that you have a better chance of recognizing yourself in the mirror if you’re unfortunate enough to catch a glimpse of your reflection. Maybe if you hurry the pace of your walk of shame, you can outrun the feeling altogether, you think, swinging the dressing room door open and letting it slam behind you as you make a swift exit, heading straight for the one place that even slightly resembles a home to you right now. You keep your head low as you wander the unfamiliar backstage halls, and hold the skirt of your dress down against the breeze that threatens to expose you yet again when you push open the venue’s back door. More tears begin to fall as your boots carry you up the steps of your bus and lead you to your private little room in the back, and you don’t wipe them away this time, although you can’t put your finger on why they stream down your skin so impatiently, one stinging droplet after another.

You sit down heavily on the edge of your bed, although you have a strange urge to kneel at the foot of it instead. Your fingers find their way to your crucifix as you contemplate the idea, and it hits you all at once how very lost you feel. You miss… something. Your mother? Perhaps not, but maybe the idea of having a caregiver, someone to turn to when you feel the way you do now, to help you sort through the tangled knot of emotions unraveling itself in your heart and attempt to make some kind of sense of it. She wasn’t the perfect mother, by any means, but she tried, and it was her first time being a woman too, after all. You are following in her footsteps, as many daughters aspire to do with their mothers, but you don’t think she would be very proud of the particular path of hers you’ve begun to find yourself stumbling down—the one that leads you to a man who won’t change himself, who can’t, but who you’ve somehow convinced yourself that you deserve, because you’ve never known a man who’s told you otherwise.

And now here you sit, alone, in the dark cave of your too-big bus on the second night of a career-changing national tour, crying girlish tears and missing something you can’t place but that you know you can’t go back to, wishing someone could just wipe your mind clean and tell you that you’re good and that you’re not a disappointment to your mother and God even though you don’t really care what they think of you anymore, anyway. You need someone to tell you who you are, and Joel seems to know the answer—a good girl, a whore, his songbird. You shift at the memories of when those names for you have spilled from his mouth, and you’re reminded of the wet fabric still pressed against your core. It feels good when he tells you who you are, after all, when he slots himself inside of you and makes you feel like something he owns, when he makes you feel perfect and floaty and beautiful and like he knows you better than you’ve ever known yourself.

And how could something that feels so good ever be bad for you?

—

The whiskey burns as it slides down the back of Joel’s throat, but it still isn’t strong enough. All it does is remind him of the igniting spark that led to the blaze now engulfing him—when you’d both had a few glasses of the stuff swimming around in your blood streams in the green room of last night’s venue, when he’d lured you onto his lap and teased the wet spot on your panties and asked if you’d let him touch you. He knew you were going to say yes, but it was still the respectable thing to do, and he had liked hearing you beg for it all pretty and polite. He fears that’s the last he may have seen of that version of you, that what he did this morning had stomped out the little delicate, glimmering light that had drawn him to you in the first place. And if it wasn’t snuffed out then, it’s surely nothing but a wisp of smoke now.

Joel had recognized when everything had started to become too real too fast, in the dark of his bus last night when even in your sleep, you had seemed to consider him as something warm and comforting and safe, instead of the beast that he knows himself to be, with too sharp of claws and too loud of a roar. He had tried to do the right thing for once in his goddamn life by finally thinking about someone other than himself, so why didn’t you take the opportunity to get out of this while you had the chance? What is it that you see in him that he knows for a fact isn’t there, has never been there? You had retaliated because you had wanted this to work, because he had hurt you when he shoved you away, but he can’t possibly fathom why you’ve chosen to fight so hard for this. And he’d only gone and proved himself right when he responded to your reprisal the only way he knows how, especially when you’d used that word against him that he’s always been avoidant to admit about himself—coward.

And you were right, weren’t you? Joel is a fucking coward. He does everything in his power to pretend otherwise, to show his fans and the world a version of himself who’s never for a second thought of himself as anything less than God incarnate. And maybe except for Tommy, no one has ever been the wiser to his ruse, until you. And it scares him, to be seen so clearly. Because then he might actually have to try to understand where all these defense mechanisms came from in the first place, and he can’t have that.

Coward.

Joel tosses back the last of the amber liquid in his glass, releasing his white-knuckled grip on it and slamming it back down onto the green room’s bar cart. He knows that his band and about twenty thousand people are waiting for him to buck up and emerge from yet another hiding place, and he realizes that this is becoming a pattern with you—you awaken some long-dormant feeling from deep inside of him, it makes him feel threatened, and he retreats until it goes away and he remembers how to paint his mask back on. And the one time you didn’t allow him to run away, he lashed out like a caged animal and undoubtedly gave you a pretty solid idea of what he meant by “for your own good”. And yet, you were so desperate to be allowed any part of him at all that even in his most volatile and beastly state, with his talons out and his teeth bared, you didn’t run away. You didn’t even try. You didn’t want to. You took everything he had given you like it was a privilege to do so, and he doesn’t think he’ll ever understand why.

Joel shakes himself out, hitting a solid hand against his cheek once in order to bring himself back from the depths of another unwanted episode of introspection and self-loathing, and lets the burn of the whiskey dissipate as he makes his way to where the rest of Death’s Head is waiting for him. He can feel their eyes on him without even needing to look, and snaps out a defensive I don’t wanna hear it before any of the guys get a chance to say anything.

Tommy shrugs, stepping up to Joel with his arms crossed. “Wasn’t gonna say nothin’.”

Joel finally turns to face the group, giving each member a scrutinizing once-over in an attempt to read their body language, to suss out if they’re just pissed because he left them waiting, or if Jesse ran his mouth while he was gone. When Joel’s examining eyes land on the dark-haired guitarist, Jesse’s quick to shake his head, mouthing the words they don’t know. Satisfied, Joel nods once in understanding, adjusting his jacket and cracking his neck before turning toward the stage again.

“Y’all ready, or what?” he mutters rhetorically, not bothering to wait for an answer before he marches his way into the spotlights and allows them to enshroud him, burning up what remains of that cowardly version of him, if only for the remainder of the night. Joel picks up his guitar, swinging the strap around his chest before fiddling with his mic stand as the deafening sound of the crowd reminds him of who the fuck he is, or at least, who they think he is. Who he pretends to be. And he gets to believe it for the next two hours. If he plays the part well enough, maybe he can lose himself in it entirely. But then, hasn’t he been trying to do that for the past couple of decades? It hasn’t seemed to work yet, but it doesn’t hurt to keep trying.

Or maybe it does.

—

You feel a little better now, more at ease, now that you’ve had some time to focus on taking care of yourself. It’s easy to forget the wonders that a hot shower can do for a girl, especially when you have to fight against your own brain just to get up and take the ten or so steps towards the bathroom, when you’d much rather stay curled up in the same position on your bed until your skin adheres to the sheets. Now having scrubbed away the tears and the sweat and the tacky dampness between your thighs, you emerge from a cloud of rose-scented humidity as someone you think you understand a little better now, who deserves to be taken care of instead of reprimanded for only doing her best with what she’s been given.

With clean hair and skin and a comfortable change of sleep-ready attire, you decide to finally make some efforts to unpack your suitcase and make your little room feel more like a home. You hang your dresses up on the rack, set your shoes into a somewhat orderly line on the carpet below them, and place your jewelry neatly onto the antique tray you had carefully packed away to bring along with you. You had found it in a little thrift store downtown, when you had first left home and decided you needed something that was only yours, something pretty and special that you could look at everyday and know that it was the very first step in building the life that you had always wanted for yourself. The brass needs a little polishing, but it’s still one of the most beautiful objects you’ve ever seen, and the way the ceiling lights glint off the metal brightens up your space just enough that it feels a little more familiar to you now.

Your earrings and other necklaces fill the blank space in the center of the neatly carved filigree, and you make the decision to add your crucifix to the pile of silver studs and chains. It’s strange how such a simple charm can make things feel so complicated. You haven’t taken it off in so long that you fear the guilt that might come with removing it, but you figure it will still be there for you if you ever feel like clipping it around your neck again. And if that feeling never comes, then you’ll deal with that then, too.

For now, you breathe a little deeper without the weight of the thing resting against your chest, and smile to yourself when you hear a small group of excitable-sounding male voices approaching your bus. Your bandmates file through the door a second later, though you’re suddenly shy to greet them as you emerge from your bedroom, worried that they might be pissed at you for what you sprung on them earlier in the night. You lean against the doorframe as they each collapse onto the living area couches, cracking open beers from the minifridge and passing them around to each other.

“Hey, you,” greets your floppy-haired drummer, Max, patting the cushion next to him. If any of the guys were to be easy going about what you put them through tonight, it would be him. You’re happy to see that he doesn’t seem to hold any animosity towards you. “You want me to crack one open for you?” he offers.

“Um… sure,” you agree, approaching the group and relaxing into the open seat next to him as he hands you a bottle. You take a few swigs while the guys begin to talk amongst themselves, waiting for an opportune lull in their conversation for you to chime in.

It comes about halfway through your beer. “So, listen,” you start, setting the sweating bottle on the table in front of you as you feel their gazes shift in your direction. “I’m sorry for pulling that on you guys tonight. This whole thing is just as big for y’all as it is for me and… I guess I forgot about that, for a second,” you say, although the end of your sentence kind of sounds like a question. “I really appreciate how you backed me up out there, that’s all.”

It’s rare that the four of you get sincere with each other like this, and your apology lingers in the air for a moment before someone else speaks up.

“It’s alright, kid.” The comforting voice comes from Scott, your quiet and kind-eyed bassist. “We’re all professionals here, yeah? We’d be some sad fuckin’ musicians if we couldn’t improvise every once in a while.” You laugh at that, and his lopsided smile warms you when you meet his soft expression.

“I mean, I kinda fucked up a little bit,” says Joey, your rhythm guitarist, ever-reliable for lightening the mood. “You sounded badass though, so whatever. Nothin’ you need to apologize for.” When you turn your head to look at him, he looks slightly uncomfortable with the way Max has him pressed up against the wall, but his gaze is sincere. “You wanna talk about it, though? Some pretty heavy shit you wrote.”

You do consider it, but shake your head, having reflected on it quite enough for one night. “Not right now,” you reply, and he gives you a sympathetic smile in return. “One of you have a smoke, though? Think I’m just gonna get some air and call it a night.”

“Now, how are you gonna ‘get some air’ with all that smoke in your lungs?” Scott jests, and you give him a look before standing up and holding your palm out flat to him, making a hand it over gesture with your fingers.

“Don’t give me shit, dude, I know you have one. That’s why I asked.”

Despite his protest, he digs the pack out of his pocket and slides one out, playfully holding it hostage against his chest. “Still shouldn’t smoke ‘em, though. Gonna ruin your voice one of these days.”

You roll your eyes at him, but laugh, anyway. “Fine, tonight’s my last one, I promise. Just gimme.”

Scott extends his hand out to you, and you snatch the cigarette out of his hold. “Light, too?” he asks, and you nod, leaning down to him with it in your mouth already.

You make a quick exit when the tobacco begins to burn, trying to fill the bus with as little smoke as possible, but not before making your appreciation known to the guys one last time. When you step out into the chilly night air, you wish you’d brought a sweater to wrap around you, but figure the flame between your lips will warm you up soon enough.

The Death’s Head bus is parked just up ahead, and you can make out Jesse’s silhouette in the moonlight, his back leaned against the idling vehicle as he puffs his own cloud into the sky. The sound of your bus’s door shutting behind you draws his attention your way, and you give each other a friendly nod as you each burn through your cigarettes.

“Can I join you?” he asks, having to shout in order for his voice to reach you over the rumbling engines.

The fears you were ruminating on a few hours ago all come rushing back to you in an instant, but his inquiry seems casual enough for you to let your guard back down a little. It would be rude of you to decline, and it might be nice to get to know him a bit more if he’s offering, you suppose.

“Yeah, okay,” you reply, nodding for good measure in case your voice didn’t come out loud enough. His long legs close the short distance between you in just a few seconds, and you shove your unoccupied hand into your pocket in an effort to come across more relaxed than you feel. You’ve never been great at small talk, or meeting new people, especially ones who’ve walked in on you after having just been fucked by the lead singer of his band.

You’re grateful that Jesse decides to break the silence first. “So, uh… you two, huh?”

“Mhm,” is all you offer, kicking a rock around the asphalt with the toe of your shoe.

“Yeah… Well, I don’t want you to feel weird around me, or anything. We can just forget it ever happened.”

You can’t help but release a puff of smoke through an awkward giggle. “Sounds good to me.”

“And I didn’t tell the other two, just so you know.”

His admission makes you pause, trapping the rock underneath your shoe as you peer up at him. “You didn’t? So… they don’t know?”

Jesse shakes his head. “Don’t think so. Well, Tommy might, just ‘cause he knows Joel better than anybody, but Eugene’s probably clueless. They’re all good guys, they won’t give you shit for it even if they do find out… I might, though, just for fun.” He nudges your shoulder with his as he jokes, and it makes you laugh a little more earnestly this time. “Just… be careful, that’s all. And I want you to know you have a friend in me, if you ever feel like you need one.”

His kindness is nearly enough to bring you to tears. You feel so relieved that everything the worst parts of your brain had conjured up had all been a lie, that Jesse isn’t who you feared he’d be, and that he’s offering you his friendship, even after he’d seen you in such an embarrassing and compromising state tonight.

“Jess!” Joel yells from the doorway of his bus, and the harsh gravel voice startles both of you out of the moment you’d been sharing. “Finish up, kid. Takin’ off in a few.”

Jesse nods, raising the end of his cigarette in acknowledgement before stomping it out on the pavement. “It was nice talking to you. Remember what I said, okay?”

“Okay,” you nod, and he’s handsome and boyish when he smiles back at you before following his orders and jogging back to his own bus, sliding through the door past Joel’s broad form.

Joel’s expression is hard, but otherwise unreadable as he juts his chin at you, wordlessly suggesting the same direction he’d just barked at Jesse. He shuts the door behind him as he steps inside, and you think on Jesse’s words as you finish puffing your smoke down to a nub. Be careful, he’d cautioned, and it’s like he had been waiting outside for you to make sure he had a chance to tell you that. Remember what I said, like it was important to him that you took his words to heart. You finally toss the end of your own cigarette onto the ground, letting it sizzle out before heading back inside and carefully passing the now-occupied bunks as you make your way to your own little sanctuary.

You’re still buzzing from the tobacco as you close yourself into your room and crawl into bed, and you can’t decide if the emptiness of it makes you feel comforted or afraid. You don’t necessarily wish you had Joel’s heavy, lumbering form tucked in beside you, but you hadn’t anticipated how having a bed to yourself would leave you with only the company of your own thoughts. You try not to dwell too much on Jesse’s warning, instead trying to snuff it out like the smoldering end of your cigarette so that it doesn’t prevent you from getting some much needed rest.

Even for being a bed inside of a tour bus, you have to admit that it’s one of the most comfortable, luxurious things you’ve ever slept on, especially compared to the lumpy double bed from back in your apartment. You don’t fight it when sleep begins to pull heavily on your eyelids, the incoming wave of it washing away any lingering anxieties as you allow yourself to relax into the plush mattress.

You hardly rouse even as the bus heaves forward on its trip out of the parking lot, leaving everything that happened tonight exactly where you left it, the ghost of it now left to wander the halls of the venue instead of haunting you as you travel to the next one. And there’s something comforting in that, you think, in the idea that nothing on this tour is permanent, that your life begins anew every 24 hours in a city you’ve never been to that doesn’t know your name yet.

And maybe that’s how you’ll figure this whole thing out, by taking it one day at a time, fluttering as close to the flame as possible without touching it, because you kind of like feeling the heat on your wings. As long as you’re careful when you dance around the fire, then there’s really nothing to be afraid of.

But only time will tell.

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