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postracehair · 3 days ago

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fracture

max verstappen x reader | 3.5k

max breaks his wrist during the first week of the off-season.

cw: max breaks his arm, r is a bit rattled, some blood, a naked shower, intimacy, mentions of sex

a/n: c'mon. you know he'd be so annoying. good thing we love him. [i wrote this before the season ended and then...never posted it. so, here, have it before we start all this shit over again in a few weeks.]

You are not there when it happens.

You're asleep, actually, curled up on Max's couch with the cats while he enjoys the first week of the off-season. The celebrations have ended and there is a great deal of work to be done in the next few months, but everyone gets a little bit of respite.

Vacation will come after the holidays. That's the plan, anyway. The last few days have seen you in Monaco, mostly inside Max's place. Just spending time together, relaxing, watching movies, rumpling his sheets. Today, though, he and Danny decided to go on a world-class-athlete-level bike ride.

Which is why you're on the couch. They've been gone all day and you don't expect Max to get home until later. You ran errands, cleaned a little, and then took an afternoon nap.

As you rouse from it, you fumble for your phone to check the time. The screen lights up and you're greeted with --

35 texts. 4 missed calls.

"What the hell?" you mutter, sitting up and opening everything.

DR: sorry for the three calls don't freak out but i think max broke his arm

DR: he says you're probably napping but i'm going to document this for when you wake up

DR: he's fine but yeah that shit is fucked

DR: he says not to tell you he fell off his bike but he fell off his bike

DR: he braked for some animal in the road and went over his handlebars

DR: oh he also scraped his face but he's still pretty, don't worry

DR: his palms are fucked though which is why he's not texting you

DR: we're on the way to the hospital, btw

DR: you're gonna be so pissed when you wake up

It goes on like that. Daniel, to his credit, has given you a play-by-play of the whole situation. You've only been asleep for about an hour and based on the time stamps this started right after you fell asleep.

You get up as you read, grabbing your things and trying to find your shoes as you read. You need to -- you need to go and be wherever they are. You need to help. Heart racing, chest tight, you need to be near Max as soon as possible, even though Danny said he's okay. If this was you, Max would already be there. God, why did you take a nap?

According to the texts, they got to the hospital and he was seen immedietly, x-rayed, and bandaged up. Broken right wrist, Danny had said. He's pissed more than anything.

You're about to call him back when your phone rings in your hands.

"Danny," you say as soon as you accept it.

"Oh, thank fuck," Daniel exclaims. "I thought I was going to have to surprise you in person with the whole thing."

"I'm about to leave, just give me 15 minutes to get there--"

"No, no, no," he interrupts you. "He just got discharged. I'm bringing him home."

You stop in your tracks, one foot shoved halfway into your sneaker. "Really?"

"Yeah, we'll be there in like, 20 minutes?" You can hear Max saying something in the background. "He wants to talk to you," Danny sighs. "Mate, you'll see her soon--"

He's cut off and there's some muffled noises and then Max is saying your name.

"I'm fine," he says. "I only made him tell you so it wasn't a surprise when I came home."

"Max," you sigh, shoulders creeping away from your ears at the sound of his voice. "I'm so sorry, I was asleep!"

He laughs. You feel a bit weepy, which is both an overreaction and cathartic. "Good," he says. "The whole experience has been a pain in the ass."

"You're coming home now? Are you in pain?"

"Eh," he says, dragging out the sound. "They gave me something while they set it so I don't feel it much. Daniel says we'll be home soon. Oh, hold on --" There is some muttering, Danny's voice in the background. "Okay, I'm going to give you back. See you soon, liefje."

"Okay," you say softly.

"Be there in a flash!" Danny says brightly. "Seriously, don't worry."

You hang up and just stand in the hallway, at a loss. Something bad happened to Max and you weren't there. It feels wrong. Not that he's in poor hands with Danny -- quite the opposite. He's probably the only person aside from yourself that you'd want there for Max in a crisis. But, god. You wish you had been there.

The cats weave around your ankles as you pace, waiting for Danny to call or for the door to open or, anything at all to happen. Your mind is running a million miles a minute. Objectively, it's the best time for Max to break something. There isn't even a car for him to test right now and he had at least another week of time off before needing to go back to Milton Keynes. This might throw a wrench in your holiday plans but you couldn't care less about that. How long will he be in a cast? You assume he's in a cast. What kind of help will he need? Will you be enough to provide it? What if he --

Noises in the hall make you freeze and then you hear Danny's voice. You bolt to the door, unlatching the locks and pulling it open. You're greeted with the sight of the two of them -- Danny looking down at Max's keys in his hands, both of their backpacks on his back. They've both changed out of whatever ridiculous bike outfit they must have been wearing for the ride, but you devote your attention to your boyfriend.

You can see the bandages on Max's knees and forearms where he must have scraped himself up on the road. His wrist -- it's in a black cast that runs the length of his forearm. He cradles it to his chest in a sling they must have given him and then you make your way to his face. A few scratches along one cheek, hair a mess, mouth drawn into a frown. A frown that relaxes slightly when you meet his gaze. Your eyes well with tears.

"Max," you breathe. He steps in front of Danny and meets you in the doorway, his cast-free hand cupping your face through the bandages on his palm.

"I'm fine," he says. "You're looking at me like I'm in a coma."

"Sorry," you whisper. "I just --"

He tugs you to him gently, pressing your face into his neck and rubbing your back. You try to be careful of his arm as you breathe deep and will yourself not to actually lose it.

"Guys, can we at least go inside?" Danny asks.

Max huffs and you pull away. He drags his thumb under both of your eyes but doesn't comment on the dampness he finds there. "Inside, liefje."

Danny drops Max's stuff and passes along the documents from the hospital. He's quite the personality but he's all business when he needs to be. "Pain killers in his bag. Call me if you need anything, guys."

You step away from Max long enough to throw your arms around Danny. "Thank you," you whisper. "For looking after him." For calling. For bringing him back to me. For doing what I should have been there for.

He chuckles. "Alright," he says. "Max should break something more often."

Once Danny leaves, it's just the two of you. Max has settled on the couch, head leaning back into the cushions.

"Come sit with me," Max calls. "God, I forgot how much I hate hospitals."

His eyes are closed and he holds his arm gingerly. It's not the first time you've seen him injured -- you've been at his side in the medical tent before after watching him careen into a wall at 190mph. And yet, right now, you're still so upset.

You settle into the cushions on his left side and just watch him.

"I'm sorry," you say again. Max's eyes open. "I can't believe I was asleep when Danny called."

Max shakes his head. "What would you have done?"

"I could have come to get you and take you to the hospital, or just met you there, or--"

He puts his hand on your knee. "Come on," he says. "Don't be silly."

How do you explain it to him? How do you tell him that something happening to him feels like it happened to you? That not being there feels like a personal failing?

"Will you tell me what happened?"

He sighs and you pull his palm from your leg to hold it in your hands.

"It's stupid," he grimaces. "You don't need the details."

"Max."

He folds. Other people in his life have called this your superpower -- Max's will is iron clad. It is very difficult to get him to do something he does not want to do. But one word from you, one soft look, one gentle touch, and he often relents. It's like you can peel back that layer of him that has hardened out of necessity. To protect himself and his heart, to make sure he's taken seriously, to stop things from hurting.

It's like you remind him that it's okay to feel, even when it's hard.

"Daniel summed it up," he grumbles. "We were biking down a hill outside the city and something ran out into the road in front of me. I stopped. Or tried to, at least." He mimes squeezing the breaks, fingers curling in towards his bandaged palms. You stroke his unbroken wrist with your thumb.

"And you went over," you finish.

"And I went over. Got my knees, my forearms, my hands. My wrist, obviously. Just landed badly."

You reach for his face ever so gently, dragging the pad of your thumb over the shallow scrapes on his chin, his cheek. He allows it, knowing that you need to touch him to be sure he's okay. Whenever he has a crash on track you have trouble letting him out of your sight for hours. You just need to look at him, feel him warm and alive under your hands.

"I'm going to write a letter to your helmet manufacturer," you say, not entirely kidding. You slide your hand over his temple and into his hair. It's dirty, you can feel it, but you cradle his skull all the same. "Thank them."

He laughs once, amused with your sincerity. "I need to shower," he says. "But I can't get this wet." You finally direct your attention to his broken wrist, the entirety of his forearm and hand encased in the cast under the sling.

"Does it hurt?" you ask again. Max would tell anyone else off for badgering him so, but he keeps his face soft and reassures you.

"It's strange," he says. "I'm sure I'll feel it later."

"Did it hurt?" you whisper. "When you broke it?"

You know that Max has felt a great deal of pain in his life. His day job requires it -- physical, mental, emotional. He knows how to handle it and get over it. But he's also honest with you, always.

He wrinkles his nose. "It wasn't nice," he confesses. "I knew right away."

You grimace. In the silence, you match your breaths to his and just sit together for a little while.

And then Max's stomach growls.

"Whoops," he says, grinning crookedly. Still an athlete, still a boy with a fast metabolism. You can't help but laugh.

"How about this," you begin, unfolding yourself from the couch and standing in front of him, hands on your hips. Max looks up at you like you're the best thing he's ever seen. "I order some food and then we get you showered while we wait for it. Let the scrapes breathe and keep your cast dry, then we eat and watch a movie and go to bed. Okay?"

"We get me showered?" He sounds skeptical.

"You think you can wash your hair on your own?"

He smirks. "I can do a lot with one hand."

You roll your eyes. "So you're turning down an opportunity to shower with me, is what I'm hearing."

Max gets himself off the couch and rests his palm on your hip. "No," he says softly. "I'm not that stupid."

He kisses you lightly and heads for the bathroom.

"I guess we can wrap it in a plastic bag, or something?" you call after him. It takes a few minutes of opening and closing cabinets for you to find one. You put in a delivery order and make your way to the bathroom. Max has already turned on the shower and you find him shirtless and peeling off his bandages in in front of the mirror.

"Let me do that." He doesn't put up much of a fight, not even wincing when the tape pull at his skin. You see the gashes on his forearm, the raw skin of his palms. "Arm, please." The plastic bag goes around his cast and you tie it at his elbow.

"You planning to wash my hair while wearing your clothes?" Max asks with a straight face.

You stare at him, trying to seem unimpressed. He breaks first, mouth pulling up at one corner before he shucks off his soft shorts and briefs in one go. He pecks you on the cheek and gets in the shower, still smirking at you through the glass door.

"Alright, alright," you mutter. "So dramatic."

You feel Max's eyes on you as you undress, leaving your clothes on a pile on the floor.

The shower is unnecessarily big but Max does not give you much space. The hot spray is at his back and he keeps his plastic bag-clad arm mostly out of the way.

"Feel good?" you ask. Max sighs but nods. You'll bet he's aching but hasn't admitted it. He turns to the side so you can catch some of the spray, too, fighting off the chill outside the warm water.

"I might fall asleep in here," he mutters.

"That'll be the painkillers, darling," you tell him. "C'mon, get your hair wet."

Max tips his head back. You readjust so that you can card your hands through it. You shampoo him gently, taking your time and massaging his scalp. It's a miracle he stays on his feet, but he does. You hum as you work and Max's breaths get deeper, slower.

"Head back," you say softly. He obeys. You do the same with some of your conditioner because you know he likes how it smells.

This shower feels more intimate than the countless hours you've spend in his bed, tangled up in one another. He's been inside you and yet this feels more vulnerable. He's totally ceding control, trusting you to take care of him. You're naked, slick bodies brushing, always touching whether it's your hands in his hair or Max's own fingers reaching for your skin just to feel.

One time, when you were sick, you couldn't muster the energy to take a shower. Max ran you a bath and washed your hair for you, talking all the while because you asked to hear his voice. It's obvious that you'd do the same for him, as you're doing now. It's just how you love each other -- all the way, all the time. When it's easy and when it's hard.

"Danny was right," Max says, words slurring half from bliss and half the fatigue of the day catching up to him. "I should break bones more often."

You finish rinsing him and just stand there in the spray for a few moments.

"Please, no," you groan, brushing wet strands back from his forehead. "If you want me to wash your hair I will, Max. You don't need to break anything."

His eyes flutter open and find yours. He smiles lazily and you turn off the shower.

"If you say so," he says. "Can we take this off, now?"

Bag removed, skin patted dry, comifes on. The food comes when you're settling Max on the couch with a pillow for his arm. In all likelihood he'll manage a few bites of take out and fall asleep 15 minutes into the movie. But he needs the rest, you think. And besides, he'll have you to watch over him.

It becomes clear remarkably quickly that Max is an awful patient. You sort of knew this -- he's been sick a few times when you're around, but you figured that was just man-disease. Whining, refusing to sit still. This is 10x worse. He won't let you do anything for him until he's proven that he can't do it himself. You consider locking him in your bedroom to keep him from trying to do things he shouldn't do.

Max just wasn't made to sit still.

But you can empathize -- it's frustrating to not be able to do any of the things he really likes to do. Drive, use his sim, even play regular video games. It's a lot of movies and long walks and leg days with his trainer.

And then there's the way he just won't ask for help. That's a Max Verstappen original and you know it gets worse when he's frustrated. You do it too -- everyone does. But Max wants to do everything himself, wants to prove that he can.

You try to sit back and let him work it out. About a week after he comes home with his arm in a cast, he calls your name. You're in the kitchen, staring into the open fridge and wondering if you should order more groceries or just go to the shops yourself.

"You okay?" you call back. "Where are you?"

"Bathroom,"he shouts.

Ah, you think. Here we go.

He hasn't shaved yet. You've always loved when he keeps his facial hair a little longer. You love the feel of it on your skin and how it lightens along with his hair when you're on holiday somewhere nice. It's more likely that he keep it long in the off-season. Hot races are a nightmare with a beard, he's said. It itches like mad.

"Coming," you call.

Sure enough, you find him in front of the sink, razor in hand and frown firmly in place. He makes eye contact with you in the mirror and even though you can feel his annoyance from here, the set of his jaw softens.

"Do you think you could help me shave?" he asks. No lead up, no hem and haw.

"Of course, Max."

You quickly work out that sitting on the counter next to the sink while he stands between your knees works best. His broken wrist hangs at his side, the other hand resting on the counter next to your leg.

You lather him up, carefully applying the white foam of his shaving cream on his cheeks, his chin, his neck. He's got a fancy razor, one that will probably make it hard to cut him. Still, you feel the way he's basically handed you a blade and asked you to use it on him. In so many ways it's one of the most intimate things you've ever done. Even more than the showers you've had this week, just chatting and washing his hair.

"I'll be careful," you say softly.

"I know." He tilts his chin up, showing you his neck. "Go on, then."

It's quiet work. You're focusing hard and Max seems content to allow you. Stroke after stroke, rinsing the razor in the sink. You keep one hand at the base of this throat as the other works, gliding it over his skin. Cheeks, jaw, upper lip. Chin, neck.

"I like your beard, you know," you say when you're almost done. He waits until you're rinsing the razor again to reply.

"I do," he says, smirking. "You aren't quiet about it."

The last patch comes off as easily as the rest and you grab a damp towel to clean the rest of the shaving cream. Max appears to have relaxed enough to become pliant, leaning into your touch as you finish. He lets you rub moisturizer into his cheeks, eyes fluttering closed. His hand ends up on your leg, fingers pressing into the flesh of your thigh.

"Cheeky," you mutter. He smiles, boyish and easy. You take your time, pleased that he's letting you, but also because you could touch him forever. "Schatje," you whisper, trying to make it sound like it does from his lips. "All done."

Max doesn't move. You frame his face with your hands and lean in until your lips touch. You feel his smile against yours, but he dutifully tilts his head to deepen the kiss. His freshly shaved skin is so soft. You've kissed thousands of times by now, but you can never get enough of him. The way he responds to your every move, meeting your pressure with some of his own. Your tongue with his, swallowing your moans and giving you his own like a gift.

It's Max who pulls away, dragging his lips over your cheek.

"Dankje," he whispers. It means more than that, you know. From Max, it means thank you for dealing with me, for taking care of me, for loving me.

He doesn't think any of that is easy for you. But he's wrong. It's the easiest thing in the world.

#max verstappen x reader #max verstappen #max verstappen fanfic #mv33 x reader #mv33 #f1 fanfic #my writing #fic: fracture

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hjparisian · 2 days ago

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angel baby - theodore nott x reader

p: theodore nott x fem!reader w: just some fluff, theo pining, swearing, drinking, ooc(?), kinda modern au? (mentions 1996 romeo and juliet) s: after hearing who his crush is being at the slytherin's halloween party, theo decides to impress her with his own costume a/n: i know i know, very late, but i finally got around to finishing this and still wanted to post it

It was a week before Halloween, which to many, was one of the most anticipated holidays other than Christmas. But it wasn't the candy upper year students were excited for. Rather, it was the Slytherin party that would be happening that night.

All the girls were chatting about who they would be for the night. Ideas ranging from vampires to scantily dressed nurses. It was a night to show off.

Theo never cared much about the costume part. The past couple years he settled on skeleton face paint, mainly because his roommate Enzo has a surprisingly good eye for art.

Truthfully, he had planned to do the same again, despite Blaise's insistence on doing something different. But plans had changed for him.

Theo was at the Slytherin table with the rest of his friends as they chatted about the upcoming event of the season.

"I'm so excited for this party," exclaimed Daphne. "Have you guys decided on what you're wearing?"

"I've decided on a black cat," Pansy told them. "Got the perfect outfit and everything."

"Oooh you're gonna look so good Pans!" (Y/N) told her.

"I know, I'm so excited. What about you Daph?"

Daphne smiles. "I'm going to be a vampire." A sound of 'Ooos' was heard after the girl's answer. "What about you (Y/N)?"

(Y/N) giggles a bit before responding, the sound making Theo's heart pick up a bit. "Do you guys remember that one muggle movie we watched during summer?"

"Was it that weird one where that girl and boy died at the end because their families hated each other?" Draco chimes in.

The girl scoffed at Draco's comment. "Well yes, but you know its more than that." The boy rolled his eyes.

"Anyway, I think I want to be Juliet from the party scene."

"Oooh, is that the one where she's dressed as an angel?" asked Daphne. "You're going to look stunning!"

(Y/N) grins, thanking Daphne. Her smile made Theo's lips twitch a bit, wanting to mirror her. A small nudge was felt on the boy's left side where Mattheo sat, smirking at him. Caught red handed.

It wasn't like nobody knew about Theo's crush on his fellow Slytherin classmate. In fact, Mattheo had been the first to know about it, albeit, not by choice. Theo had kept his interest for the girl low key. It was just that Mattheo had notice Theo staring a little too long at (Y/N) one time and had basically got his friend to confess his crush.

After that, Mattheo had made it his mission to help Theo to get with (Y/N).

"I just wished I could have someone be my Romeo though," (Y/N) confided with her friends. "It would make the costume feel more complete."

"He was the knight right?" Asked Pansy. "That would be so cute."

This had caught Theo's attention again. The gears were beginning to turn in his head.

Back at the dorms, Theo was pacing, Enzo and Mattheo watching him from Mattheo's bed.

"So are you going to tell us what's happening or are we going to continue watching you burn a path in the floor?" Enzo asked his dormmate. "Feel like I'm getting dizzy from watching you."

Theo stops his tracks before looking towards his two friends. "I need to find a halloween costume."

Enzo stared at the boy, confused. While Mattheo had a feeling as to what was stirring in his friend's mind.

"You're going to match with (Y/N), huh?" Mattheo asked.

"Finally!" Enzo shouts, startling the other two. "Thank Merlin, I won't have to do that fucking face paint anymore. You know I was getting tired of that shit, right?"

Theo rolled his eyes at his friend.

"Anyways," Enzo began. "What's (Y/N) going to be?"

Mattheo answered. "An angel basically."

"She wants to be Juliet from that movie we watched over the summer." Theo explained to him as he sat on his own bed. "But during that party scene."

"And Romeo here wants to be her knight in shining armor," Mattheo said.

"Ooh. And let me guess, you need our help?"

"No, well, kinda," Theo said. "Help me find the perfect costume."

"And what will we get out of this?" Mattheo had a look of mischief in his eyes.

"Nothing."

"Well. Then you wouldn't mind if I asked (Y/N) to the party would you? Share a drink or two with her, maybe dance?"

"You wouldn't."

"Oh I would," his roommate said. "Unless you do my homework for a month."

"No bloody way."

"Fine. Three weeks."

"Two and that's final."

Mattheo thought for a second before grinning. "Alright, two weeks it is. Didn't think you'd actually go for it though, was just joking a bit."

"Oh you bastard, I'm going to kill you!"

That weekend, the boys had dedicated their time at Hogsmeade to finding stuff for Theo's costume. They had found the items surprisingly quick thanks to Enzo and his eye for things.

The three had ended their day at the Three Broomsticks with Draco and Blaise, who noticed the bags they carried, but decided to not question it (didn't stop Mattheo from telling them what was going on).

The day of the party had come way too soon for Theo's liking. He stood in front of the mirror, staring at himself with the costume on.

What if (Y/N) doesn't like his costume? What if she thought it was stupid and laughed at him? Should he have done this?

So many thoughts and scenarios ran through Theo's mind, he was half tempted to take the costume off and go for a smoke.

"Theo?"

The boy looked towards the door to find Enzo and Mattheo. The two were examing Theo's current state.

"You good?" Mattheo asked. Theo just shrugged.

"Come on mate," Enzo said to him. "She'll like the costume. And if she doesn't, who cares? Now, let's go for some shots. I know Mattheo has been itching for some."

After a few more minutes, Enzo and Mattheo had successfully gotten Theo out of the dorm room and into the Slytherin common room. And true to his word, Enzo had gotten a couple shots into his dorm mates to liven things up.

Things were going alright for Theo. A couple shots had gotten him feeling more loose, but he was still thinking about (Y/N), whose whereabouts were unknown to him.

He was grabbing another drink when he heard his name being called. Confused, he turned around to find the culprit.

"(Y/N)."

"Hi Theo."

The boy took a second to look at (Y/N)'s outfit, or what he thought was a second. He saw how intricate it was, almost like it was a replica of the costume from the film.

She looked like an angel.

"I like your costume," Theo heard her say. Seems like he wasn't the only one looking.

"Thank you. Don't look too bad yourself."

(Y/N) smiled at his comment. "Thanks. Made it myself."

"Well it looks lovely," Theo said to her. "Drink?"

She nodded, taking the drink Theo offered her.

"Who are you supposed to be?" She asked after taking a sip.

"Oh uh," the boy began. "Romeo. From the movie we watched back during the summer. Thought his party fit was cool."

"Really? Well I like it. You look really good Theo."

Theo felt his cheeks heat up. She liked his costume. He would have to thank Enzo (and maybe Mattheo) for his help.

The music in the common room had begun to slow down. Couples gathered with each other and swayed to the music. Theo turned his head and saw Mattheo dancing with a girl, but he was looking directly at him.

'Ask her' Mattheo mouthed to him, discreetly pointing at the girl next to him.

Theo nodded his head at his mate before turning to his crush beside him. Just as he was about to speak, the words on the tip of his tongue were stolen.

"Dance with me?"

(Y/N) looked up at Theo, waiting for his answer. Out of shock, Theo just nodded. Taking his answer, (Y/N) pulled Theo closer to the center of the room where everyone was. She wrapped her arms around his neck, his hands on her waist. Eyes gazing at each other. Everything felt perfect.

"So, why did you choose this costume, Theo?"

He faltered in his steps, surprised at the sudden question. He had two choices, he could be honest and admit his feelings, or lie and say Mattheo made him do it, which is something he would actually do. But the more he looked at her, realizing how close they were, he needed to say the right thing.

"I did it for you."

"For me?"

Theo nodded. "I heard how you wanted someone to match with you to make your costume feel complete. I wanted to make your night special. Because. I like you (Y/N)."

(Y/N) halted her steps, confusing Theo.

"You like me?"

The boy nodded, feeling slightly nervous. "Actually have a while."

(Y/N) took in this new information, nodding at him. The silence between them was killing Theo. He was half tempted to kill Mattheo if she said she didn't like him. Since technically, if he thinks about it, it would be.

As Theo was going through every little thought and concern in his head, he missed out on the girl in front of him trying to speak to him. He finally tuned back into the world when she said his name.

"Hm?"

"Theo, I was trying to tell you, I like you too," (Y/N) tells him with a smile on her face.

"Really?"

"Really."

"Well bloody hell finally," said a voice.

The two turned to see Mattheo looking at the two, seemingly having stopped dancing to spy on this moment.

"Thought I would never see the day come where Theo finally admits his feelings for you. I was thinking I was gonna have to make a move myself."

"Mattheo shut the fuck up." Theo glared at his roommate.

Mattheo stuck his hands up. "Alright, alright. I'll leave you too lovebirds alone. Don't be surprised when Enzo is asking you questions when you come back to the dorm." The Slytherin took his leave, relieving Theo.

"I hate that motherfucker," he mutters, raking his hands through his hair.

(Y/N) chuckles. "Maybe, but I think you don't mind him. You guys are best friends after all."

Theo laughs, shaking his head.

"So, I hear there's a Hogsmeade trip happening next week. Would you want to go on a date there?"

"I'd like that." (Y/N) grins.

#harry potter #harry potter x reader #theo nott x reader #theodore nott x reader #theo nott imagine #theodore nott #theodore nott x y/n #theo nott #theodore nott x you

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howisjoostfanfictionforfree · 2 days ago

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Three Times as Many ///// Longer Nights

Real person fiction! Joost Klein x vampire!reader

CW: 18+, MDNI, RPF, brief reference to past murder, cannibalism if you squint, smoochin, dry humping, oral sex, light bondage

Reader: vampire!reader, cisfemale!reader, not too descriptive with readers appearance, implied to be smaller than Joost but by an unspecified amount

Notes: Read part 1 here. Sorry for how atrociously long this part took! Vampire Joost in the Why Not??? mv helped give me the inspo to finish. I hope you guys like it because I can’t tell if I do or not. Thanks for reading!

Gargantuan kudos to @joosthead for being my inspiration and my support as always! Also huge shoutout to @catholicfacade and @tkomptgoedluv for your kind words that have driven me onwards with this fic! My tumblr homies on god

Words: ~11,600

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You're not sure why you left Joost standing there.

Why you ran away.

Again.

Things were going so well. You could have kissed him. Could have done all sorts of things. It's not like he wasn't into it.

Maybe it was just to get a reaction. Joost is so expressive. The way he looks at you is already something you crave and you've really only just met. Maybe, it’s because as much as you want to believe you overreacted that first night, you're still not really sure you did. Nothing has made you lose control like that since the time you literally ate someone.

The doubt tickles at the back of your mind but it’s also hard to pay it too much attention when the insistent pressure of Joost’s cock against your ass is seared so clearly into your memory. It’s hard not to want to see him again.

Still, if you’re doing this, you’re taking no chances.

Joost is expecting you at his studio tomorrow, so tonight, Melkweg is the place to be.

Tickets to actually see a show are too expensive when you're not there to enjoy yourself so the cold evening is spent against the even-colder cement wall of a movie theater across the street. Wedged between gently lit ads for Bones and All and Puss in Boots you watch those who have partied too hard trickle out of Melkweg’s ever-revolving door.

Each is more than drunk enough to suit your needs, but tonight they are all in groups. So responsible. So unhelpful. When one guy finally stumbles out sans-friend you let yourself follow, slipping into those same shadows that are deeper than ever.

Fall is well underway and nights are only getting longer.

A few streets away the lamps are sparse enough and he goes down easy. His blood is hot and sharp and everything it should be, but it’s hard to miss how unmoved you are by the man beneath you. He tastes good, it scratches an itch, but your attention is divided and the whole process somehow feels clinical.

Even now you're thinking of Joost. How you wish it were him. How he would moan when your teeth slide in deep. Deeper than he expects. Would he still be so happy-go-lucky then? Or would he claw and beg? You don’t even know which one you prefer. The man groans and you realize you're biting way too hard.

It was a good idea to do this tonight.

You try to drink your fill, as much as you suspect the poor guy can tolerate, and release him. He nearly stumbles into the canal in his panic, but rights himself before you have to make a watery rescue. His hot blood simmers in your veins, warming you against the evening chill as you watch him stagger down the street and disappear.

Hopefully he can find his way home on a cold night like this.

Anti-murder insurance measures complete, you head for your own home with what you hope is a full belly.

The morning doesn't bring the rain so typical of your new favorite city, but instead a creeping mist. Almost as thick as the shadows that multiply with each passing night, the tiny droplets obscure the neighborhood as you stand on your balcony ruminating on how very in-control you will be today.

The address Joost gave is surprisingly close to your own apartment. The brisk ride on your shabby bike that may or may not have originally belonged to someone else lasts only ten minutes.

16 Schimmelstraat is like much of Amsterdam. One of many brick row houses lined up one after another, complete with compulsory loading beam and hook jutting out above the top window, leftover from when the street was once a canal. There are a few small shops tucked in at ground level but most of the buildings appear residential.

Few people are on the street and with the way the sun can’t quite penetrate through the murky whiteness, the world almost seems to stand still.

Joost stands on the stoop at the end of the row in what looks like at least three hoodies. He’s still so beautiful it’s shocking. Leaning against cold whitewashed brick, much as you did last night, he smokes lazily. The tendrils curl up and away from perfect pouty lips to join with the mist and you can imagine the city is enshrouded all because of him.

You see Joost long before he sees you. Hard not to spot a glowing head of hair like that even in this murkiness. Here in the Netherlands it shouldn’t stand out, but it did in the club and it does now too. You’re sure it’s just the almost-mullet. Nothing to do with the way his features are imprinted on your hindbrain.

When he notices you coming down the street, his face lights up just like before. He can barely stub out his cigarette as he keeps looking up like you’ll disappear. Bounding down the steps on those long long legs, Joost skids to a halt mere inches away, nearly bowling you over and flooding you with his scent.

“Heyyy!” Joost looks so excited it's almost embarrassing. Hands flit around at his sides like he wants to touch but in the sober light of day he can't seem to find an excuse. It doesn't keep him from standing way too close for sanity. Already, your preparations are threatening to become useless as you fight the tug behind your eyes and the pit in your stomach yawns.

“I’m happy you came!” He blurts, giddy. “I didn't know if you would really come in the middle of the day.”

You squint. He can’t be serious.

“I’m not nocturnal, I just prefer the club at night!”

He giggles nervously “I wasn’t sure. Everyone knows vampires burn in the sun. Or sparkle. Looks like you don’t sparkle either.”

“Sorry to disappoint.”

He smiles so sweetly at that. “You don’t. I’m glad you came. Still want me to show you my stuff?” There's the eyebrow waggle again. You didn't know someone could look so tender and so unrepentantly horny at the same time.

“C’mon, it’s just upstairs.”

Opening the door, Joost lets you through before following you inside. Immediately faced with another door you try the handle, but before you can budge it there is a jingle and he leans past with a key. It’s obvious Joost is making a move when he lets his chest press against your back as he all but pens you in, breath fanning over your neck. It’s more than welcome, but in the tiny space trapping every molecule of his scent, it nearly makes you do something terrible.

“Wait, wait, hold on.” You whip around and press flat against the door to regain some space, trying desperately not to get riled. No matter your preparations, Joost is an assault on the senses.

“Sorry!” he pulls away quickly, big blue eyes searching you from behind thick black frames, eyebrows inching upwards. “Sorry. Was I reading this wrong?”

Holding your breath would help, but he's asked you a question and you can’t imagine ignoring a face like that. “No, you just..you smell too nice…and…I really need to get a handle on the eyes. Just…hold on one sec.”

Joost absorbs that for a split second before melting back into a smile. “Oh, but we're alone, it's okay right? I like your eyes.”

Such a flatterer. And he’s kind of right, it is good that you're alone for this. It’s a goddamn miracle no one noticed your eyes at the club. Here, you almost want to take advantage of the opportunity to relax around such an unusually accepting person. Still, you know Joost is also an unusually slippery slope.

“No- I’m trying not to-” you can’t even finish.

He waits patiently while you fight it but the memory of him hard against your ass in the club makes a timely reappearance and the eyes snap into place.

“Fuck.” You cover them quickly.

He brings a hand to your wrist. “Let me see.” So gentle and so shameless, he convinces you easily. Dropping your hand, you meet his eyes and he holds them, just as mesmerized as before.

“That must be a huge pain in the ass.”

Your confusion must show because he clarifies “Hiding that all the time I mean. I’m glad I didn’t just buzz you in, Tantu might have been the one to get the door.”

You blink. “I don’t think Tantu would have been a problem.”

It’s his turn to look puzzled.

“I mean, this isn’t usually a problem. You just smell so much better than anyone else.” Now that you’re past pretending to be human you can’t find it in you to be anything other than blunt.

The gears turning in his head are all but visible as he swallows thickly, face pink. “Oh.”

“Yeah. Well, just give me a minute, I think I’m almost there.” something about what you say makes his stunned look slide into a smirk but you ignore it in favor of focusing on slowing your heart and pretending you don’t smell the spike of arousal coming off him.

You’re definitely not wet. Nope.

After another minute you take a deep breath, and even though the accompanying wave of pheromones makes you want to punch the wall, you manage to keep your eyes normal. “Okay, let’s go” He obliges, and you give him room to unlock the door.

Turns out, Tantu is the DJ from the club. One of the many of Joosts friends that had been there that night. You step into is in fact a very real studio full of very real equipment you couldn't even begin to guess the purpose of.

Tantu daps Joost up with noticeable warmth and welcomes you into the space without fuss. It’s clear any friend of Joost’s is a friend of Tantu and soon he leaves you to return to stabbing at his computer. Joost shows you to his own in the opposite corner.

Right off the bat, you realize any assumptions you might have had about Joost had been wrong as he hands you the most expensive looking pair of headphones you've ever seen and proceeds to play you his entire studio album released just over a month ago.

At the club he had said ‘huge artiest’ so jokingly, so flirtatiously, somehow managing to be modest mid-brag. You hadn’t known whether to believe him. You had hoped it would be true, but you hadn't really expected it.

Here, now, in the span of fourteen songs it becomes abundantly clear he’s not just some soundcloud rapper, not a wannabe star. He’s a real one.

He tells you a little about each song before he plays it. Who helped him the most in the end (mostly Tantu), where he was when he started writing it (so many places, he travels a lot), how he sampled this for this song and this for that song. He is deeply proud but you can tell there is also a layer of nervousness, like he truly wants you to like it.

You sing along to Fryslan Bop, the one from the club, and he laughs hysterically as you try and fail to imitate the sound of Dutch lyrics you can’t understand to the best of your memory.

Finally, you finish and he seems to be waiting for a review.

“I couldn’t understand almost any of that, sorry to say. Only fuck, the handful of other English words, and Joost Klein. That really is your favorite lyric isn't it?” He shrugs happily. “But I didn't need to. I liked it. It made me feel… things. You have a lot of range in your sound. All the festivals I went to this summer and nothing sounded like this.”

He’s grinning ear to ear. “Did you go to Pinkpop? I got to play this year!”

“Yes! I definitely didn't see you though, I would have remembered.”

He nods sagely. “Must have been a different day.”

You want to ask about the sad song in the middle of the album. Florida-something. So different from the upbeat tracks before and after. Somehow though, it feels like you can’t, like you shouldn't, and you let it lie.

“All right! What’s next?”

Joost remains flirtatious over the afternoon but it’s dramatically toned down compared to your last encounter. Maybe it’s just how he behaves normally, without the booze and the high of the club. Maybe it's shyness given Tantu within earshot. Either way, you have no such reservations.

“Y’know, I was half expecting it to be all talk. Like, I wondered if ‘come to my studio’ was code for my place or yours?” Tantu coughs in the corner and a blush creeps up Joost’s neck. His scent kicks up and you're reminded why flirting right now isn’t actually a good idea.

Still, getting reactions out of Joost is a wonderful pastime and you can't help yourself. “This is so much better, this stuff is amazing, I’m serious. I think I’m gonna join the groupies.” From the corner of your eye you can see Tantu put on headphones. Joost looks rightfully smug.

Hmm, not shy then. Smug is good too.

After another hour of poking around in the files, you propose early dinner. Joost seems kind of surprised but suggests a few spots nearby. Maybe he expected you to bail again. To be fair, you’ve never stuck around this long before.

Tantu declines to join, citing too much to do. A suspicious answer, but you won't complain if he wants to let you be alone with Joost.

Joost leads you to an Italian restaurant of all places. It’s a short walk but from the corner of your eye you catch him almost reach for your hand no less than four times. You don’t reach back, pretend not to notice. He hasn’t touched you since this morning when he crowded you against the door and you wish he would again but watching him squirm is so much fun.

The October sun has already gone down and the neon sign for Antonio’s glows like a beacon on a street with few other lights. Joost stops to stare up at it. “Can you uh…can you eat garlic?”

What are you gonna do with this guy?

“No, I'll die.” He whips his head around. “Really?! Fuck, sorry, I wasn’t thinking, I know another place-.” You can’t keep a straight face. “No, I’m kidding. C’mon I’m hungry.” He follows, sputtering.

They must peg you for a couple because they automatically seat you at a table in the corner away from other customers. As you peruse the menu, Joost is unusually quiet. His eyes keep flicking up to you as you read. The waitress comes to take your order and his eyebrows disappear into his bangs when you ask for pasta. He’s still staring once she leaves and you can’t stand it any more.

“Dude, I can't drink blood all the time.”

He chokes on his water.

This is apparently the permission he needs to unleash the legion of questions that have been brewing since the fateful moment you rubbed up on his dick and disappeared into the night. Joost proceeds to take inventory of your personal brand of vampire with a thoroughness you did not expect. You really should have, considering the way his heart picks up every time anything vaguely vampiric takes place.

He’s a bit of a nerd about it actually.

“So you eat regular food?”

Yes.

“Do you have to drink blood?”

Yes.

“Do you have fangs?”

Yes.

“It doesn’t look like you have fangs.”

They’re retracted.

“Re..tracted.”

Not full length right now.

“Oh. Can you turn invisible?”

No.

“Can you brainwash humans?”

No. What?

“Can you turn into a bat?”

No!

“Okay, okay! How often do you have to drink blood?”

You tell him what you’ve found to be true over the years.

Blood doesn’t seem to be necessary for actual nutrition, but the longer you go without it the more you crave it, and ultimately the more forceful you become when you finally take what you need. It makes you feel healthier, it gives you energy, but beyond any of that it’s just an urge you always have.

Abstaining for very long only leads to bad times for your unwilling donors when you finally give in. Indulging about twice a week seems to be the best for keeping people out of the hospital.

By the time the food arrives, Joost is looking suspiciously horny. Smells like it too. Resisting the tug at the back of your eyes is already becoming a practiced routine. He doesn’t seem the least bit deterred by the casual mention of violence and you wonder if you could ever tell Joost about that night.

The thought gets flicked aside as quickly as it came.

No one can ever know what you’ve done and it’s honestly crazy to be letting him in at all. Everything you have come to accept can’t be part of your life, everything you left behind, it was to protect you- you did it to survive.

With Joost, it’s almost like those rules have gone out the window. You don’t know what about him has you wanting to be so honest. He may be unfairly hot and the only person who has never freaked out on you but where is the self preservation?

You’re probably going to have to move again.

Joost has more questions but you’re curious about him. He’s Dutch, he’s beautiful, he’s not actually a poser, he clearly has a danger kink, but who is he?

Somehow, though he’s bright red again, the first thing out of his mouth is that he is not Dutch. He is from Fryslân! Joost tells you a little bit about where he grew up, when he first moved to Amsterdam, how he used to do Youtube and how he first met Tantu. You let him talk and set to work making a dent in your noodles.

Everything Joost tells you helps paint a picture, but to your curiosity, he is quick to skate over most of his past. Anything more than a handful of years ago gets more and more vague and it becomes clear there's something he’s avoiding.

You don’t see why he would be holding out on you, it’s not like you haven’t been telling him all your secrets. Well, maybe not all of them. Whatever.

The Florida song tickles at the back of your mind and you don’t press it.

“I’m down to one noodle, wanna Lady and the Tramp this shit?”

Sadly, though he accepts with enthusiasm, the noodle breaks and you don’t get your arrabiata kiss. He checks his phone while you wait for the bill and curses under his breath. “What is it?” you mumble through your napkin.

“Tantu was just being polite earlier. He wanted to work on more stuff after dinner but I didn’t see the message.” You begin to wonder what that means for your evening but Joost is already smiling again as he slips the phone back into his pocket. “Oh well, Tantu always forgives me. We’ll do it later. Wanna go through the park on the way back?”

Your stomach gives a little flip. “Yeah.”

The last vestiges of the sunset are long gone and the park is deathly quiet. The fog has been so thick for so long that the grass is soaked, glistening under the lamplight and stretching out on either side of the path to form dark fields of glitter.

“So, is it a date this time?” He asks innocently.

You try not to trip over nothing.

You want it to be a date. It really shouldn't be, you shouldn't let people know you, but for so long it hasn’t even been an option and Joost is so much more than an option. You’ve never met anyone like him.

“Yes.”

He grabs your hand and every hair on your body stands on end. It’s an innocent touch, all things considered, but you know where this is going and finally, finally, something is happening. It’s a wonder you didn’t end up in his bed that night at the club. He so clearly wanted you, and you were just as ready to let him hit it against the wall in the alley if he’d asked. This time, you're not running.

He swings your hands as you walk, trying and failing to keep the smile off his face. Every ounce of your attention is zeroed-in on the way his big hand curls around yours, but it’s also becoming impossible not to notice the emptiness around you.

The surface of the pond is mirror-smooth and the trees stand lifeless as you wander deeper into the park, like everything is holding its breath. You are utterly alone and the crunching of your shared footsteps seems to echo.

Forgetting you're an apex predator, one would almost worry about what is lurking in the shadows. It’s fun to suspend your disbelief, let the atmosphere affect you and pretend that Joost is your only hope against the creatures of the night. You grip his hand tighter and he grips back, giving a little squeeze then lacing his fingers between your own.

The path continues along the water and under a bridge. Low but wide, the street that goes over must be a main thoroughfare yet not a single car can be heard. Joost’s puffs of breath are all the more audible as you enter the void of the tunnel underneath.

The shadows are deep, unnaturally so, and you can only half make out the patchwork of graffiti. The lamp at the exit seems farther than it should be and it gives you a thrill, still indulging in your supernatural fantasy. You press your side up against Joost, letting the closeness be a comfort even though you are nothing but excited.

He stops in place suddenly, catching you by the hand, and pulls you to his chest. He wraps an arm around your back and squeezes. “Why are we walking so fast?”

The light is so low but you can still make out his features, pink, golden, and perfect, looking at you bemused. “It’s spooky out here, don’t you think?” You half-whisper. “If I’m out here, who knows what else is too.” It’s said with a smile and Joost grins right back.

“Don’t worry, we’re safe if we’re together.” His eyes dart to your lips and back up before he speaks again. “Slow down for me?” In the stillness of the night, his heartbeat is deafening. His normally crystal eyes are dark, pupils dilating more and more with his climbing pulse. It’s a shame he can’t hear yours. A feeling you refuse to name pricks at your chest and you crane your neck up.

He beats you to it.

Your mouths meet and color explodes behind your lids. If his scent was powerful, the taste of him is something else entirely. Joost groans against your lips and releases your hand to wrap both arms around you, crushing you close.

When he has you where he wants you, one hand comes up to cradle the back of your head and he licks at the seam of your mouth. You open for him and he licks further into you with a sigh.

It’s hard to keep up. Now that Joost finally has you in his arms he is greedy and the hot wet of his mouth threatens to eat you alive.

You don’t think you would mind if it did.

Joost is forced to pull away first, his laboured breath visible in the cold. You whine at the loss and his eyes widen. Need for air forgotten again, he peddles you backwards until your back hits the wall of the tunnel and he’s on you again. Joost kisses you deep, hard, pressing you into the concrete like you’re laid flat on a bed.

The kisses make their way down your neck and when your eyes open as he sucks at your collar bone, it is to see that the passage and all its vandalism register in perfect detail. You never even felt the tug but your eyes are fully shifted.

He lifts his head to capture your mouth again and you can’t mistake the infatuation in his eyes when he notices your own.

It ruins you. You could never say no to a face like that. What’s more, you don’t want to. His devotion is so apparent and this is only your first time together. If he weren't pressing you into the wall, it would have you on your knees.

You kiss back, hungry. Maybe if you swallow him whole, you can keep him forever. It’s hard to ignore how good he smells. His arousal has been simmering all day but now it’s kicked up to a thousand and every inhale sends a pang to your cunt. Your panties are toast.

The hand cushioning your head from the wall comes around to cup your cheek as Joost tries his best to drink your little noises. He has plenty of his own. Words too. Little yes’s and encouragements when he slips his knee between your thighs and you grind down.

His length is hard against your tummy, bigger than you realized when it was against your ass before.

The rush of blood under his skin is almost tangible- so quick with the frantic pace of his heart. The hot length of his throat is flush with it, and the most mouth-watering aroma curls lazily from the neck of his hoodie.

Your core throbs. Your teeth ache.

Joost’s fingers start to curl under the edge of your jacket, fumbling to get under the shirt. The cool air and his cold hands make you moan and he whimpers in response, grabbing you hard by both hips and grinding into you firmly. It turns your legs to jelly, and you have to break the kiss to catch your breath against his chest.

Too overcome to focus on a rhythm, he thrusts mindlessly every couple beats as his lips make their way slowly down your temple. Even through all the clothing, the hot length of him is like a brand over your navel. He licks over your ear and all the air you managed to recover whooshes right out again.

Joost’s shameless enthusiasm, his desperation, has your head spinning. His scent has enveloped you completely- arousal so thick you can almost taste it with his throat so close to your face. You want to taste it. He nibbles at your earlobe tenderly and your stomach swoops.

Spit pools on your tongue and it’s dawning on you that there might be a problem.

His lips start to travel down your neck a second time. Open-mouthed kisses and tiny nips followed by the flat of his tongue laving over each mark, soothing each time it makes you grip him tighter. Then, without warning, his mouth drops to that same spot on your shoulder- the same as in the club, and he bites down.

The thrill it sends through you ricochets down to your pussy, clenching around nothing, and back up again in a split second. Your fangs drop.

You lunge forward before you can think.

You can’t think, actually. Joost is on you, around you, and he might as well be in you with the way he fills up every corner of your awareness making higher functions impossible. He jerks back, surprised at the speed of the movement, and your teeth sink into three layers of hoodie.

It tastes like the pasta sauce he dripped on himself at dinner.

Your gut swoops in an entirely different way as your head clears all too suddenly and you unlock your jaw and shove him off you, hand slapping over your mouth. Joost staggers back a few steps at the force, nearly falling on his ass. He looks petulant, big eyes pleading like you’ve just taken away his favorite toy.

“What's wrong?” He huffs, already closing the distance again. You lurch away to maintain the space and confusion twists his brow. Joost tugs at the neck of his hoodie, tucking his chin to look at it and finding two jagged holes and a patch of dampness.

His brow goes slack in understanding. “Oh, it’s okay, come here.” He reaches for you again. “You know I want you to bite me right?”

Your eyes widen and you dodge his grabby hands. You don’t dare remove your own hand from your mouth to speak. Really, you should have known. In retrospect, it was obvious. Should have known from the moment he bit you the first time in the club that he really did want you to bite him back. Fucking vampire kink fucking weirdo.

Not that you’re entirely complaining.

Finally Joost stops reaching for you, pouting, and waits. You don’t trust yourself to speak for several minutes. It would be better if you left, ran away again in case the sanity doesn’t hold. You don’t want to do that to him again though, not a third time. You have to get a grip.

Slowly, you remove your hand and he perks up. “Sorry, about your hoodie. I- , We- , We shouldn’t do that. You won’t like it.”

“What, why not? I think I would.”

“Believe me, it hurts.”

His trademark blush and grin combo is firmly back in place. “I don't care, it’s kind of hot.”

You pause, unsure how to counter without laying out the details of how you don’t want to commit murder a second time. “It’s like with the eyes. With you, I can’t really help what I’m doing, can’t control myself. It would probably be rough. I might hurt you. I mean, it always hurts but I think I might hurt you for real.”

He looks contemplative, though you notice the blush hasn’t diminished. “Is it really that different with me?”

“Yeah. I don’t know why. I think- , I think I just need to get used to you. I probably can’t ever bite you, but if we’re gonna get cozy without me flipping my shit, then I think we might need an adjustment period.” You immediately realize what you said. “That is, uh, if you want to keep doing this sometimes.”

He doesn’t leave you hanging. “I do! You said this is a date, I want more dates.” His earnest expression becomes immediately suggestive. “If I have to wait to show you my stuff, that's okay. Can’t help it if I drive you crazy.”

Oh, he’s a bastard. “Whatever you say, spaghetti shirt. You’re gonna need to stop biting me too, I can’t be held responsible for what that makes me want to do to you.��

“Noted.” He chokes through a laugh.

“Alright, let's go back. I’m fucking cold.”

The second Joost had kissed you, all fantasies of supernatural ambiance were forgotten. Now that you're separated again, they are at the front of your mind once more. The shadows look like more than shadows and the density of the fog feels designed to conceal something lurking beyond. You feel the need to protect Joost, probably from yourself, but it’s nicer to imagine something else so you let the fantasy reform.

The twinge of unease from the misty morning on your balcony is back and you do your best to stomp it out. You just need to take it slow. You can still do this if you take it slow and let yourself get used to him.

The walk is mostly quiet. Joost seems thoughtful and you try not to hold his hand too hard. When you make it back to the studio, you unlock your bike and try not to imagine the night swallowing him when you go your separate ways. When you turn back to him, Joost swoops in again for another kiss.

It’s only a peck, he’s giving you the space you asked for, but then his hand grabs your own and brings it to his mouth. It seems like he's going to kiss that too, goofy as he is, but quick as blinking he gives your knuckle a nip and winks before doing a one-eighty and starting down the street.

You clutch your hand to your chest like you’ve been burned.

He bit you!

Again!

He keeps biting you and now he's walking calmly with his back turned like it doesn’t make you want to chase him down and pin him. Like it doesn't make you want to take him there on the pavement and tear into him.

Is this his idea of compromise?

“See you later!” He waves before disappearing around the corner.

It’s hard to decide whether to blush or go pale.

You wonder, not for the last time, what the fuck you are doing.

There's no chance to stew too long because the very next day Joost is already taking up all your attention. He hits you up at ten. You're naked in front of the mirror brushing your teeth when he calls.

“Hey, what are you doing?” So chipper.

You spit into the sink. “Just work, was gonna go to a cafe.”

“Can I come with?” He is possibly the most distracting person in the world for you, if last night was any indication, but he sounds so eager you can’t find it in you to say no.

Joost meets you at your usual cafe down the street. A place you often find yourself working these days when your cozy apartment, though a good refuge from the persistent rain, becomes just a little too monotonous.

There is another moment of acclimation when you meet him out front, but you manage to keep your eyes from changing. You lean into him, forehead against his chest to keep anyone from seeing in case you can’t keep a handle on it while he smooths a hand down your back, heart noticeably fast and scent stirring at the closeness.

Anyone bothering to pay attention would think you were any normal couple embracing. After a few minutes when nothing happens, you straighten. Joost almost looks disappointed.

He swoops in rather dramatically to pay when you order at the counter and you let him, bemused. He wants to know whether you’ve ever tried poffertjes and when the food arrives he feeds you one off his plate, looking only vaguely horny when you wrap your lips around it.

Joost asks you how you like the Netherlands and you find yourself telling him how long you really haven't been here. Before you know it, you're telling him all the places you've lived over the past few years, distracted from your work already.

He has so many questions and he drinks up your stories eagerly, relays some of his own about some of the same places. He really does travel a lot.

You get so caught up that you retrace your journey all the way back to your home country. When you pause, he notices you’ve exhausted your list. “That’s where you're from, right? You have the accent.”

You hesitate, but telling him where you're from won’t actually bring him any closer to knowing what you did. “Yeah, that’s home.”

“Why did you leave? Why so many places?”

Fuck.

“Is it because-” he pokes at his canines with the tips of his index fingers “vampire?” Relief washes over you. It’s the truth technically, more than he will ever know, and you don't really have to explain it. He’s filling in the gaps himself.

“Yeah, got too hard to hide.”

When you part after many hours and little work, he gives you the tiniest, softest kiss, takes your hand, and brushes his mouth over the same knuckle before gently biting it once more.

The cafe becomes a pattern for the two of you, him showing up more often than you would have thought he had time for. He’s better at letting you work after that first day. Often brings his own things to work on, mostly concert visuals, and becomes deeply immersed in editing and drawing when he isn’t serving as your unwitting tech-support.

When you’re not working, he takes up your time all the same. He texts you constantly. A stupid picture of his dog, of Tantu, an edgy meme.

You're not used to it. It's been years since anyone has texted you at all. Even your boss just emails. Most often, the texting is to suss out where you are and if you're busy.

He seems determined to take you to what you're realizing is every place he usually spends his free time. His favorite restaurants, his favorite parks, his favorite bars. He's so bright, so gleeful in almost everything that he does. Joost shows you things just to see if you like them too.

One night he shows up at your door, six-pack in hand.

“Hi! …How do you know where I live?”

He stares back with eyes that look huge through the black frames slid low on his nose. “You sent me a pin? I thought you wanted me to meet you.”

A glance at your phone reveals the sent pin and several highly enthusiastic reply texts that you very much had not noticed. You meant to send him the link to the place you were meeting tomorrow. Fuck your life.

“Uh, I didn’t mean to. Hope I didn't make you drop anything to come here.”

“No, you didn't! What are you up to? Wanna hang out?” Joost almost talks like a kid. The bottles clink at the way he wiggles while he speaks and it only adds to the effect despite the way he towers over you like you're the child.

That night you proceed to have the first of many regular movie marathons with Joost. Keeping your hands to yourself is hard with him on your couch all cozy and warm, oozing pheromones, but he mostly behaves and so do you.

Another night, he takes you to his favorite skate park where you don't do any skating. You just sit and watch everyone else and eat ice cream that melts way too fast while he tells you about someone named Nathan.

Another night after that he brings you to his place where you play COD until he gives up trying to teach you and you talk until the sun comes up. It's more difficult being in Joost’s flat, everything smells like him and it was fucking mean of him to wear grey sweatpants the first time you come over. Still, he gives you space, not pushing like you can tell he wants to.

It’s kind of sweet actually. This stranger you met at the club, grinded on at the club, trying to work with you and be delicate like being delicate matters. It all felt like some kind of weird extended hook-up at first, but the longer this goes on the more it feels like Joost wants to know you.

No one has been allowed to know you in a long time.

You want to know him too- know more of his favourite places, his favorite movies, his favourite foods. Know what it is he isn't saying every time you talk about the past.

It’s beginning to feel like you will. Like this thing you have going isn't so crazy.

Seeing Joost starts to fill your days, replacing the sporadic trips to the club that filled the human-shaped hole in your chest with a companionship that made you forget there ever was a hole. You didn’t realize how much of your time was so empty before.

Of course he isn’t always around. Often disappears for days on end to the studio and long weekends away for concerts. But, he always comes looking for you when he’s done and no matter what else you get up to together, you always find yourselves back at the cafe. You’ve carved out your own territory there, a table where no one else ever seems to sit as if they know it's meant for the two of you.

One morning you sit at it, waiting for Joost.

He strolls in later than usual, humming what sounds a lot like Numa Numa as he approaches with an extra spring in his step. He plops down unceremoniously in his usual seat across from you, fishes around in one cavernous pocket, and deposits a steel ball-gag in front of your croissant and coffee with a clatter.

“Hey, good morning. What’s this?”

He rubs his hands together like some kind of cartoon villain. “Good morning! I’m so glad you asked! I was just thinking since, y’know, sharp teeth problem, you could wear this and then we could do whatever we want!” His eyebrows wiggle furiously. “Well, I guess we wouldn’t be able to kiss, but you know what I mean.”

“Uhhhhh.”

“I know you said you just need to get used to me but this way you don’t have to!” His giggly, somewhat bashful self of the first few weeks knowing him has melted away to leave a Joost with honestly very little shame. It was gradual, and he was never too reserved to begin with, but these days he is incorrigible. You must be rubbing off on him.

Sadly, this one isn’t up your alley.

“I’m gonna be real, that’s not happening. Have you ever tried one of these? It’s a good idea but I can’t handle that much drool.”

“Come on, please? I won’t laugh at you I swear. And honestly-” He leans in close. “I needed to eat you out like yesterday. Can we try it?”

As much as you don’t care that everyone in the cafe has been looking at you since the second Joost whipped out a ball gag, you also don’t want to get kicked out. This is your favorite spot.

“No, put that away!”

Joost takes it in stride but as the days pass, you can tell he’s far from done with his scheming.

At the movies and the automat and everywhere else he takes you, at his apartment and at yours where you’ve both started expecting each other, he is always nudging. Tempting you more and more while still following the rules. Little flirtations and kisses and those goddamn tiny little bites you never quite get used to. The tender press of his canines around your knuckle make your stomach swoop without fail.

You're sure Joost knows what he’s doing, what with the way he smiles that same little smile every time.

Bastard.

It’s not like you can blame him for any of it. You want him too.

One day though, less than a week before Christmas, Joost is forced to pause his efforts. It’s a cold and gray afternoon, and though there’s no snow on the ground, every shop and every home has wreaths and candles on doors and in windows. It’s impossible not to notice what time of year it is.

When Joost comes knocking, all bundled and breathless and confused why you aren’t at the cafe, he can tell immediately that something is wrong.

It’s a bad day, really no other way to put it. Today is your little sister’s birthday and for the third time ever, you won’t be there.

She was a brat really, but you loved her and she is one of the few things that always makes you think of home.

That wasn’t true at first, when you spent the first few months missing all your friends and family something awful. But after you literally killed and ate someone, the fear of discovery and the fear of hurting them drove your travels farther and farther until before long, you felt like you were doing the right thing.

Besides, the world was too big and too detailed to miss out on. Too vibrant in all of your new senses to spend your time sulking over what could never be. Most days now, home was just a passing thought.

Still, your sister never fully left your mind, and on this one day every year you have been gone, you can never help but let your mind drift over what is and what could have been.

Joost can tell the second you open the door. You let him in without fuss, but when you answer his probing questions with little more than noncommittal grunts and squeeze him far too tight when he goes in for a hug, he starts to adjust his demeanor.

He follows you into the kitchen and you shut your laptop, still open with the work you had been using for distraction.

“So, you don’t usually pass up the gift of my presence, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing, I’m good. I just have a lot going on with work. Sorry I forgot to tell you I wasn’t gonna be there.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

A pause.

“I've seen you stressed about work. Usually you’re asking me to help you find a file or proofread an email…”

“Yeah, okay, yeah. I’m a little distracted.”

“With what?”

“With-” you allow yourself to lean against him. He’s saddled up behind you as you finally come to a stop in the middle of the kitchen. His arms come around your waist and you let out a bone-rattling sigh.

There’s few places you’d rather be than in his arms, but the knowledge that even that is something you're still trying to allow yourself to have makes it hard for it to feel like a comfort right now.

“-with things at home. There are things I left behind that I can’t go back to.”

“You wish you could?”

“Sometimes.”

“You miss someone?”

“Yeah.”

Fuck it. There’s so much you’ve already told him. Why not this.

“My sister.”

His grip relaxes slightly. You didn’t realize it had become tense. “Oh. I didn’t know you had a sister.”

“Yeah.”

“I have a sister too. I don’t see her very often but it’s not because I can’t or anything. I don’t know what it would be like to not have the option.”

“Yeah.” You sniff. It seems to be the only thing you can say.

He squeezes you tight again when he hears it. “Wanna…talk about it?”

“No, not right now. I’ve been thinking about it all day and there’s nothing I can do so I might as well stop.”

“Okay. Wanna do something with me? Wanna watch a movie?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, how about Spiderman?”

He knows you so well by now.

Joost coaxes you back to his apartment. Away from your work and to what you have to admit after many movie marathons is a home cinema setup superior to your own. The perfection of the couch-pillow-foot rest-cup holder placement leaves you unable to turn down the journey when the ride is only ten minutes.

Tonight, you watch Far From Home. Though you always cycle through the the Spiderman movies, it’s the one you saw with your friends the night you turned, and somehow it's the one you always come back to.

You’ve never told Joost you prefer it but he’s noticed anyway. Tonight, he pulls it out before you can ask.

By the time Peter Parker gets knocked out by Mysterio and accidentally arrives in the Netherlands via train, you're in Joost’s lap, clinging on with arms slung around his neck and face pressed into his chest, barely watching. Being sad does wonders for not being riled by his closeness.

He holds you right back, hands at your waist, occasionally pressing light kisses to your hair as he comments on the inaccuracies of the movie’s Dutch portrayal.

“Y’know we do love soccer but honestly, no one is so super happy like this, especially not if you’re stuck in jail.”

You just hold him tighter. It’s been hours now in Joost’s presence and finally, you feel yourself unwinding. Just like always, Joost is the best distraction you’ve ever encountered. Your teeth itch of course, what with your face so close to his throat, but you ignore it so you can savor the feeling of him wrapped around you.

Joost is sweeter than you could have ever asked for. So often wants to know about your problems and offers up his time to solve them. Provides his presence and his affection when he can’t.

Not that you have many problems. Your tech issues present the majority.

Still, here and now, he's trying to fix everything just like he always does and it is with a deep shudder from yourself that he starts to rub your shoulders. His hands smooth down your back to your hips and back up again, reminiscent of the moments in front of cafes and shops where you always have your moment of initial acclimation.

Now, there is no pressure to the moment, no rush to get yourself under control. All you have to do is relax further into his hold and let his big hot hands melt sensation into your flesh.

A sort of tingle accompanies his hands wherever they go. Up and down and up again. They knead at the muscles of your lower back before working their way up either side of your spine with gentle compressions of his knuckles. One big palm cups the back of your neck when his ministrations make it to the top and he takes a moment to inhale deeply from your hair.

The motions repeat over and over, up and down and back again. You would be letting him know exactly how much his efforts are appreciated if those efforts weren’t completely melting your mind.

Lingering in that liminal goo-brain space for what feels like hours, it occurs to you that every pass over your hips is gradually getting lower. Every time he works his way down your spine, his thick fingers splay just a little further over the swell of your ass.

You let him do it, fully on board with the feelings it’s inspiring in your core and too strung-out to think of why there might be any reason not to indulge.

Before long, his hands are fully cupping your ass with every pass. Each time he spends a moment squeezing lightly before continuing the cycle. After a couple more circuits, he finally breaks the pattern and stops to hold each cheek in one huge hand, pulling back from your hair to make eye contact, asking silent permission.

You hold his gaze, unable to think further than the lazy, slow, creeping want he inspires. He made you so comfortable, so pliant and soft, why would you ever do anything other than what he wants?

You slump forward to mouth at his jaw, forgetting yourself, and his heart stutters.

His hands slide lower to the back of each thigh and his fingertips brush over your slit. It’s the first time he’s ever done anything quite so direct since that moment under the bridge and it makes you moan so loud that he pulls back once more to get a read on your face.

“Is this okay?”

“Mmm, yeah.” It’s hard to remember why such a question makes sense. His fingertips, so close to where you need them, make higher processes a herculean effort. Still, your brain is the stuff of legends, and you pull it together to consider what he means.

“Fuck, uhhnh, gimme a sec.”

His hands don’t leave their precarious position, but make no further move. In the meantime, his mouth fills in the gap.

‘You know I bought something else. After the ball gag I mean. I was thinking handcuffs kinda do the same thing but, y’know, less drool.”

He smiles sheepishly.

“We don’t have to use them, I just wanted to tell you. It could keep your mouth away from me if I stayed down here.” he squeezes with both hands for emphasis.

“Oh.” With the strong departure from the sadness that had been consuming you and the reminder of all Joost represents, you are quickly coming back to awareness. Your gums ache in a way they haven’t for quite a while now, the tug behind your eyes making a return. “I- how would that work?”

“If I cuff you to the headboard and stay down here-”

Another squeeze for demonstrative purposes,

“-then your teeth will never come near me. We can’t kiss, after a point, but we can do other stuff. There are a lot of things I want to do to you.”

“Okay, I’m with you, but you would need like a steel headboard or something. I’ve seen the IKEA particle board slats you have going on.”

“I may have- uh, I may have bought that too.”

Oh he is a freak.

Your smile is all Joost needs to scramble to shut off the movie and scoop you up like it’s nothing, mouth on yours like a man starved. You cling to his shoulders as he slowly walks you back through the apartment. It’s a miracle you make it when he can’t be bothered to look where he’s going.

Somehow, he neither bangs your elbow nor your knee on a door frame and all of a sudden the world shifts as you are deposited onto his bed with a bounce.

True to his word, it’s a new bed. Same dark blue comforter and faded Minecraft bed sheets but a new frame with solid metal bars. He lets you look while he fiddles with something on the bookshelf before turning back to you with a ‘clink’.

The handcuffs, equally metal and solid, glint in the low light of his bedroom. You’ve never been into bondage per se, but just about anything Joost wants, you find yourself wanting too.

His enthusiasm never gets old. Even if the bed and the cuffs are just a means to an end, Joost picked them out for you, he picked them out and bought them because after all this time dancing around each other, he still wants to fuck you so badly.

The tug behind your eyes is irresistible like never before. This time, you don’t fight it.

Joost takes you in, eyes wide and wanton, fixed on your own dark pools. He gives a shuddering sigh and unclicks the cuffs. “Oh, liefje, let’s start with this.”

The simple endearment used for the first time short-circuits any intelligent response. There are no words. You scoot up the bed, overcome by the word still bouncing around your skull and the hunger evident in his scent.

Laying back slowly, you lift your arms above your head as he crawls over you.

Something about the position feels a little strange, but the thought leaves as quickly as it came when you’re distracted by cold metal clicking into place. He adjusts the cuffs gently, one on each wrist with the chain hooked around a thick steel post of the headboard. A good tug proves them to be durable and Joost lets out a breath you didn’t know he had been holding.

Though the bedside lamp is dim, the blue of his eyes practically glows as he removes his glasses and lays them on the nightstand to admire what’s laid out before him.

It’s obvious all too soon that there are drawbacks to the position. You can’t lean up to kiss him, at least not much, can’t reach out to touch him and tuck a bright blond strand behind his ear or cup a cheek and trace his pouty bottom lip.

You need to, if you're being honest. Need to touch him and hold him and kiss him and tell him there is no one else you would ever want to do this with.

You don’t even know what that means, since there haven’t exactly been other options, but you know it’s true.

Joost watches your squirming with increasing amusement as you test the limits of your bonds. Finally, mercifully, he parts your thighs and presses flush against you to capture your mouth. Your legs wrap around him immediately, holding him the only way you can. His scent is just as potent as it was that night under the bridge and quickly becoming stronger. It’s a good thing you’re cuffed because your willpower is already softening.

As overwhelmed as you are already, your teeth haven't dropped yet and you're thankful as he all but steals the breath from you. The increasingly desperate press of your mouths is all that's keeping you from begging him to get on with it.

You never thought you would be one to beg, but here with Joost above you, presence all encompassing and hips slotted into the cradle of your own like he belongs there, you think you would.

In the end, you don’t have to. Joost pulls away all too suddenly and the hands braced at either side of your head come down to toy at the hem of your shirt.

“Can I?”

“Please!”

The transparent need in your demand short-circuits him for a moment. He says nothing, huge pupils unblinking for several long seconds before they snap down to fix on the stripe of skin that gets wider and wider as tattooed fingers slowly peel the shirt up your stomach. It would have been smart to get undressed first, but you’re both a bit beyond reason and you do your best to help as he drags it up above your head to tangle around your wrists.

He pauses again to drink you in, more bare skin than he’s had the opportunity to see yet. So much of the past months has been little more than kisses. His hands trace their way back down, over your sternum and your belly, ignoring your bra for now, until they reach the hem of your lounge pants.

Joost doesn’t ask this time, just meets your eyes and takes the nod you give without words. He removes them much easier than the shirt and whips them away to land somewhere to be found later. Hot palms smooth up your thighs and a single finger hooks into the elastic waistband of your panties.

The whine you let out as soon as he does it sends him scrambling and they are quickly tossed away to join the pants.

Huge hands brace themselves against your inner thighs and you're made to bend your knees up to accommodate. It spreads you wide, everything on display. It’s been so long since anyone has seen you like this it’s borderline embarrassing. The way his scent picks up and his pupils nearly eclipse their blue border makes it all worth it.

He crawls forward to give you a single deep kiss.

“All good?” He breathes against your lips.

“All good.”

He shuffles back down and starts laying more kisses against your inner thighs.

You know exactly where this is going.

Joost’s overture that day in the cafe never strays too far from your mind. If you were wet before, now you’re positively dripping. It starts to run down your ass and you wonder if he will notice, see your desperation made flesh.

It’s unlikely, what with the way his eyes are shut tight and his brow is slack with bliss. He’s getting exactly what he wants.

Joost laves a hot stripe over the skin closest to the junction of your thigh, pauses for one maddening moment, then turns to lick into where you need him most without warning.

Your gasp is more of a shout.

He groans in response and hooks an arm around each thigh before you can squirm away, the wet, slippery friction on your clit so intense you almost try to. He starts out with deep, long licks directly over it before he goes anywhere else, straight to the punch without teasing.

After what feels like far too much and nowhere near enough, he gives one long lick through your folds and shifts his focus lower. He lingers over your entrance, the flat of his tongue seals tight to the rim, textured buds undulating against the delicate skin making you writhe. He does it again and again, taking breaks to pull back and run the tip around the edge, tracing and circling before latching to it yet again with a wet ‘smack’.

Normal breathing is becoming impossible and when your thighs have been tensed so long they start to shake, he dips it in.

There’s no telling what undoubtedly guttural noise you make because you are too busy wrestling with the sensation of blood blooming across your tongue and iron filling your sinuses. Every teasing nudge inside your pussy sends your fangs digging deeper into your lip.

The brief agitation from earlier has returned, but now you know what it is. There’s nothing actually wrong, it’s just so much harder to bite lying on your back. The urge you usually manage to suppress is now front and center of all thought. As always, pleasure seems inextricably tied to predation.

You need to pin Joost and bite him and feel him struggle but you also need his delicious weight on top of you and his hands around you and his tongue inside you and you can’t have both.

You feel insane.

Joost’s groans are heavy, the vibrations rolling through you as he lazily pumps his tongue deeper, nose grinding into your swollen clit. He settles into a pattern. Deep, languid tongue-fucking followed by licks to either sider of your bud, close but not close enough, before directly grinding the flat of his tongue into it a few times and then starting the process all over again.

The cuffs are fighting a battle of their own above you. Every time Joost switches targets the headboard gives a heavy creak.

You hardly notice. It’s taking all your remaining brain power just to try not to squeeze him too hard with your thighs. Though, it might be okay since every time you do he lets out a groan, far too pleased for what is probably a legitimate threat to his skull.

Blood drips down your chin now, your canines deep in your bottom lip when you hear it:

A shuffle.

A rustle.

A slight sway to the mattress.

He takes your clit between his lips and sucks hard. The bedsprings give a pathetic wheeze as your head slams back and your spine arches as a squeal rips out of you.

The rhythmic swaying picks up the pace.

When Joost finally gives you a second of reprieve to kiss at your thigh, hot heavy breaths fanning over you, the gentle swaying continues. Puzzled, you find the willpower to lift your head and shakily unlock your thighs from where they have become earmuffs.

It’s hard to place it at first, the incessant tongue back on your skin and sharp iron in your mouth more than distracting, but then you notice.

Gently,

slowly,

almost tenderly,

Joost’s hips roll down into the mattress.

It might be the hottest thing you’ve ever seen.

The way his brow has started to knit as he ruts instinctively, pleasure seeping up his spine as he gets off on your own. The way his hips jerk softly like he isn’t even aware, like his body is just making him do it. The way his sweats have slid down to reveal the dark material of his boxers, snug against the muscles of his ass that are working insistently.

You can’t handle it. You have to do something, anything. Your hands whip down to bury your fingers in his hair as you grind up into his mouth and lose your mind.

Your fingers in…his hair?

He flinches. Makes a pathetic noise as he withdraws his tongue. The sudden hard stop to the blissful sensation all the more highlights the bright red sheeting from his brow.

In your pleasure, the cuffs ripped like paper. Both loops are still attached but the chain, now broken, swings freely from your right wrist, bloody from where it lanced him deep across the temple.

Oh.

Fuck.

Joost has never bled in front of you before. Not a single scratch or cut, not even a hangnail.

It's like hearing colors or tasting music. Now that the source of his scent isn’t trapped under his skin, it is so much more potent than you could have ever prepared for. You could never have built a tolerance to this.

The sudden certainty of a guaranteed meal, the knowledge that your strength is superior, that you've won, it overwhelms you in an instant and the sureness of it almost leaves you calm. You're going to get what you want. There's nothing that could possibly stop you. And why should it?

The only thing that keeps you from destroying him on the spot is the look on his face.

It’s all happening within seconds. He’s still mid-recoil. His face screws up now that the pain is starting to register, blank confusion twisting to stricken agony.

It’s nothing like you imagined.

Those nights alone when you think about Joost and can’t quite control that deep, savage part of your mind, the part that's been there ever since you woke up bloody in the middle of the street all those years ago, you never imagined it like this.

That inhuman part of you was sure his pain would be something beautiful. Even if the logical majority of you protested, somewhere deep down, you always expected it to be true.

Maybe it’s the added shock of the sudden blow, maybe it’s just the wrong kind of pain, but the hurt on his face is terrible.

Not pleasure-pain like when you press on a bruise you accidentally gave him the day before and he can’t help the way his eyelids flutter, not like when your sharp nails dig into his back when you go in for a kiss and he picks you up and you have to hold on tight as he groans into your mouth.

Just pain.

Your heart folds in.

You’re rolling off the bed and shooting to your feet before Joost can even look at you, too busy staring at the blood on his fingers as he draws them back from his forehead, shaking.

It’s physically painful to turn away. You grab your phone with enough force to rattle the night stand and make yourself walk towards the door. Every sense is cranked to eleven and every reflex and muscle fiber is dialed in, all strength and no precision as you work against your instincts. Every base impulse is screaming at you to turn back and take what is right in front of you.

There’s no running away this time, just brute force resistance.

There’s so much blood.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m gonna get someone, just stay there. Stay there.” The words are choked as you use every ounce of willpower to force yourself into the hall. You don’t know if he hears you and you can’t afford to look back to check.

His gasps of pain almost sound erotic now without the visual evidence of his suffering and it makes you want to turn around and devour him.

When you recognize the thought, you hate yourself just a little.

You wrestle into your long winter coat and manage not to break the front door as you unlock it. Joost calls out your name just before it slams shut behind you.

Outside in the cold, damp, wind whipped darkness, there is enough of a disconnect from what’s inside that you can feel control come back online.

You want to run but you make yourself walk, thankful your coat covers your bare ass, as you prioritize sending a cryptic but detailed text to 112 and then dialing the one other person that can possibly help. Tantu answers on the third ring.

“Tantu. I need you to check on Joost. I need you to go over to his place right now and it can’t wait.”

“What? What do you mean? Did he call you?”

“No it’s- Tantu please just do it. Please. Will you check on him?”

“Yes, yeah, I will, what’s going on?”

“Do you promise?”

“Yes! I’m putting on my coat! Tell me what’s wrong!”

“Please hurry, Tantu.”

You hang up, cutting off what sounds like a curse.

He’s a good friend, you can tell. It’s a good thing you have his number. You don’t know any of Joost’s other friends. Honestly, you barely know Tantu. Joost talks about them often and with love but you’ve just never met them.

It’s mostly Joost’s efforts to try not to spook you, to ease you into knowing him without pressure. You let it slip once that you try not to make close connections for practical reasons and he let up on group invites quickly, if a little disappointed. Anything to keep you around and unwilling to gamble with being the exception.

The trill of your phone makes you slow once more.

It’s Joost.

He’s okay. Okay enough to call at least. Hopefully emergency medical or Tantu gets there soon.

You don’t answer. You can’t.

Your phone continues to buzz as he calls again.

And then again.

You wanted to see if this could work, whatever this is. It felt possible once. Felt like one day you would say yes to meeting his friends, like you would feel close enough to ask him about his past and maybe even tell him the full truth about yours, felt like one day you might finally adjust enough to be able to love him properly.

Because you do love him.

You’ve known it and denied it but you do.

You do and it didn't stop you. Such a small mistake, made so easily and unconsciously and almost the end of his life.

You love him and that’s why as you walk down the street, completely enveloped in abyssal shadow, no moon in sight, you know that when you get home you’re going to pack your things.

#joost klein x reader #joost klein fanfic #joost x reader #joost klein smut #joost klein #my writing

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lamentationsofalonelypotato · 7 hours ago

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@zepskies

Karl Urban and Bruce Willis' fight to Back In the Saddle is literally everything to me! It lives rent free forever in my head! But I will forever be disappointed that Karl Urban didn't come back for the second movie 😭

You should watch Knight and Day if you haven't seen it. It's like Red but with Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz and it's an action Rom-com.

Also you're spoiling me with all of these wonderful reviews 🥰💗

Ahh the "hear me out" thing is so relatable lmao. But Marlin?! Really?! 🤣🤣

It really is the best thing to do with your friends 🤣 My friend group has a chat where all we do is send photos of our "hear me out" characters lol.

Oh God, you're giving me Vietnam War-level flashbacks to undergrad when I was stuck until 12 am at the library working on essays and shiz. 🫠

I'm sorry, but man it's so relatable. I was up for hours studying for physics tests that I never understood. I hated Physics... I mean I know it's real and that it exists, but I don't need to know why things work the way they do. They work and I believe it, that's it 🤣

GIRL PLSSS. 💀💀💀 Not "daddy gorilla." 🤣

🤣 I had to do it LMAO! I'm ashamed 🫣

Okay, lmfao. I'ma need you to stop calling me out like this. 😂😂

Its funny because I was one million percent calling myself out with this. Girl, you had no idea how many romance novels I read lol, but I love the use of the "You're out of order gif" so much 🤣

But I so love the description of Russell -- he's a man in a sea of man-boys our age, and there's a distinct difference. 😏

Amen 🙌🏻 That's why we like men in their 40's, because they're experienced and they actually know how to treat a woman. 😉

LMFAO. Reading this snippet in context is of course even better. I'm dying but also she would so be me in this situation. 😝

Thank you sweetie 😘 Yeah, I wanted to make her a little bit more realistic and not as confident or practiced lol. She's literally me whenever an attractive man talks to me. 😭

OMG YESSSSS. Lmfao Rain was beautiful! And I love that you referenced one of my favorite movies. 😆😆 Totally agree that Nala had bedroom eyes. And I raise you Robin Hood from the Disney movie! They did NOT have to draw him that sexy.

Dory is a horsegirlie and I will make Russell the cute older brother that had to endure her obsession! But I might have also been thinking about cowboy Dean and your follow up series Outlander. I'm so excited to jump back into that world!

Oh my word Robin Hood is peak disney animation- they had no business making a fox that sexy 🤣. And he was GOOD WITH KIDS and a GOOD PERSON! Robin Hood walked so Nick Wilde could run in Zootopia and that is the hill I will die on!

Miss ma'am!! Don't make me bring out the Out of Order gif again! I had to fan myself when he literally caught her hand. Dear Lord. 🫠 Also, the way I was so shocked and literally laughed out loud at the way she headbutted him. 🤣 Honestly that would probably be me trying to flirt. A+ casting 😂👌🏽 But again, that spice and the way he kissed her melted me like the Wicked Witch of the West. ❤️‍🔥

The man is too smooth 😉 I'm going to be honest the original draft didn't have the headbutt, but then her kissing Russell like that seemed too easy for her and she needed to be more awkward lol. I needed her to embarrass herself and I wanted to suffer from second hand embarrassment lol

"A+ casting" ☠️🤣 LOL

Thank you! Russell is really working her, but he's also making her feel comfortable with her awkwardness lol

lmaooo sage advice! 😂

Kay is the Gandalf of this fic 😂. She's trying to steer the reader in the right direction and support her!

LOL I love her inner monologue. She's so adorkable, but I'm already getting the RED vibes omggg. 🙏🏽

Thank you friend! She is very "adorkable." And yay! I'm glad you're picking up the RED vibes. Of all the Jensen Characters I felt like Russell fit the best for that kind of situation.

It's the little things I love loll. 🤌🏽

Oh goodness thank you! Yeah, Russell protecting her head while she fell is so him and I love him so much for that.

Not me feeling sorry for him right now when she's well within her right to try and beat him with a pink baseball bat. 🤣🤣🤣

She is one million percent within her right to beat him senseless, but I also felt bad for him too. He really isn't a murderer (well... maybe) but he was attacked!

I was smiling so hard while reading the rest of this. I was actually so disappointed to get to the end! This was one helluva meet cute, hun. 💜 The thing about your one-shots is that they feel like the start of a series--of an amazing adventure that's about to start. I know you have probably a million WIPs at this point lol, but this does feel like a RED kind of movie and I would love to see more of these two if you ever feel so inspired. ✨

Yay! I'm happy it made you smile Alex! It really is one crazy meet cute lol

Girl stop, you're making me cry with these compliments 😭💕 I do have about a million WIPS, but I really do love this reader and Russell too. And I would love to continue their story in the future, because I'm obsessed with RED. I might have to watch it again to plot out a series with these two 😉

I Can Explain!

Pairing: Russell Shaw x f!reader, Reader POV

Prompt: "How Do You Know Where I Live?"

Requested by: @vixaaa

Summary: When you meet a gorgeous green-eyed stranger at a bar and agree to go home with him, everything goes off the rails and you're strapped in for the ride.

Tropes: Awkward Rom-Com? Forced Proximity? Protective Russell.

Word Count: 10.6 K (But You'll Laugh The Whole Time)

Warnings: An Unhinged Game of "Hear Me Out," References to Sex, Sexual innuendo, Little bit of self-deprecating thought (reader), Reader is kinda awkward and clumsy, Gunfire, Weapons, Talk of Murder, Shooting?, Brief Description of Torture, Brief Description of Murder, Terror, Fear, Cursing, Kissing, I think that's everything? I promise this one is a rom-com despite all the warnings. 😅

Note: This is told from Reader's perspective. Any references to the reader is made using you or your. There is no use of y/n. I tried my best to proofread, but nobody's perfect. If you don’t like, don’t read, but if you do like, you’re my favorite!

Internal monologue is in italics and is in first person.

Main Masterlist

Prompt Celebration Masterlist

A/N: Hey guys! This is another wonderful prompt request that I got for my prompt celebration from the enchanting @vixaaa! This one is based a little bit on the movies "Knight and Day" and "RED." If you've never seen either of those, go and watch them right now. They are some of my favorites!

P.S: Yes, this is the one I've been writing that has just been making me wheeze/cackle laugh the whole time I wrote it...

“Alright, hear me out… Gil, the angelfish from Finding Nemo. There is no way in hell he was made for kids.” Your friend Liza says wobbling slightly on the plush leather bench seat of the booth before taking a shot of vodka. Her peacock blue No. 2 hair shimmers like a beacon in the dimly lit bar.

“That’s low hanging fruit.” Kay snorts from your left while leaning heavily into your shoulder, the smell of her vanilla perfume wafting up with the movement. “That scar? The tragic backstory? And voiced by Wilem Defoe? Sign me up.”

You giggle into the shot glass clasped in your hand before you knock it back, face scrunching at the taste and pleasant burn.

The “Hear Me Out” drinking game your two best friends proposed to clear your head from the nuclear level bombing of an exam you just took in your Physics One class, had been successful so far. You couldn’t remember any of the questions from the test that made you scream obscenities into the strawberry shaped pillows on the couch in your living room earlier. Exactly where the two of them had found you when they got back to your shared apartment at the end of the day.

The live music in the crowded bar thrummed through your veins and the shots were giving you just the right amount of buzz to feel more carefree than you had in the past week. The week that you’d spent approximately one million hours studying for the test and trying to memorize all the formulas that looked exactly the same.

Four times you’d fallen asleep on your computer and had the imprint of the keyboard on your cheek, three times you’d had a mental breakdown and decided to change your major promising yourself that you were sure you could make it doing freelance whatever the fuck sounded good at that moment, and you couldn’t count the number of times that you’d gone to the library to study only to get distracted by whatever else was better than studying for a physics test.

Spoiler alert, there are a lot of things that are.

But you knew you were screwed the second you saw the first question and the rest of them had only been the final nails in the coffin that was the dream of getting an “A” in the class before the semester was over.

The glimmering sheen of hope at the end of the semester you once had, was ebbing to a dim lantern being swung by a lighthouse keeper in a hurricane, hence the large tray of vodka sitting prettily on the water ringed table in front of you.

You were sure to regret every single shot, but your next exam was two days away and you didn’t want to think about it yet, not when the shadow of the last was poking you in the back with a pencil like someone looking for your final piece of gum.

For a Tuesday night, Duke’s, the bar the three of you frequented so often that the rotating circle of bartenders knew you all by name, was crowded.

There was the familiar glow of the neon signs posted on every wall, a new band performing a set on the small stage in the corner, a collection of screaming girls in the front row of the crowd snapping photos and drooling over the base player, a group of frat guys shouting obscenities at a tv blasting a football game, and a few patrons trying to unwind from a long day while nursing multi colored drinks and sitting sporadically around the crowded bar while the bartender of the hour leaned against the counter and tried to hear orders people shouted over the din.

You would have been more than happy to spend the evening on the couch eating a greasy pizza and drinking margaritas back at the apartment, but Kay and Liza refused to let you rot on the couch.

The three of you had been inseparable since freshman year when you’d been assigned as roommates together. Liza was an art major hoping to illustrate book covers one day, Kay was a hardworking pre-med student, and you were… undecided. Physics 1 had been the idea of your advisor, who after a year of trying to get you to declare a major was close to throwing in the towel, you believed that he was using Physics 1 as a form of payback for driving him almost to the point of early retirement.

“Okay, okay I see you.” Kay giggles, before grabbing a fresh shot. Her long black hair is pulled back from her face with a claw clip, but a few pieces bob around her head with the movement of her head to the music. “And I raise you Kerchak from Tarzan!”

“The daddy gorilla?” Liza asks, leaning into her fiance, Matt, where he lounges back against the faded maroon leather beside her.

There was a half full glass of beer sitting in front of him, one he’d ordered when he found out what everyone else at your table was drinking. But he’d been a good sport so far despite all of his suggestions to the game being so obvious there was no reason for him to defend his choice and the rest of you mocking him endlessly for it.

“Sweetie, he could be my daddy any day of the week.” Kay winks and throws back her shot.

“You’re disgusting.” Liza rolls her eyes, refusing to take a shot to agree with Kay.

“Hey! What happened to ‘we listen and we don’t judge?’” You interrupt, putting your arm around Kay who holds up a middle finger in answer to Liza’s taunt.

“Where was that when I said Jessica Rabbit two turns ago?” Matt grouses from his side of the table, crossing his large arms over his chest. His blond hair had tumbled out of the bun at the back of his neck to cover the grass stain on the collar of his jersey. He’d come straight from practice when Liza called.

And then Kay and you had to suffer through the long make out session the two of them had when they reunited as if they’d been separated by war for fifty years and not two hours. They were recently engaged and you loved Matt, which is why you’d let them make out for exactly thirty seconds before Kay and you started making exaggerated gagging noises while they kissed.

Kay’s boyfriend hadn’t been able to get out of work, but Kay was going to walk to the coffee shop inside the library to pick him up when the tray of shots in the center of the table sat empty. Usually you’d worry about that sort of thing, your friend walking alone on campus at night, but because Kay had the highest tolerance out of all of you, Matt included, and a total badass who welcomed the challenge of anyone who tried to test her, you were willing to let it slide.

That and the three of you tracked each other’s location with your phones.

“Because Jessica Rabbit isn’t a hear me out! Everyone knows that she’s super sexy!” You argue. “She doesn’t fit the criteria of this game!”

“She’s right babe.” Liza says, squeezing his arm with a sympathetic smile. “But it’s okay. I love that you’re a basic bitch.”

“But she’s animated!” Matt exclaims, obviously confused.

“So? Flynn Ryder is animated and he’s every woman’s dream.” You shrug, picking up a glass to take your turn.

You begin to shuffle through the mental file folder you have on characters who possessed “the energy” that made them so attractive. Truthfully, Kay and Liza had already said most of the ones you were thinking.

“You want to talk about every woman’s dream?” Kay smirks, her eyes flick over to the bar. “Check out green eyes over there. Holy shit, I’d let him rock me like a hurricane all day and all night!”

“I’ll be sure to tell Sean, your boyfriend of three years-” You begin to say, but Kay pinches your cheeks between her fingers and turns your head so you can see who she’s talking about.

Oh.

The stranger sitting at the bar is everything she suggested and more. He’s the kind of handsome that didn’t exist outside of the stack of communal romance novels that sat on the bookshelf in your living room and served as the perfect reminder of how single you were.

The man is taller and broader than any of the so-called boys you went to class with each day, his tight fitting dark t-shirt pulling up over muscular arms that rippled with taunt muscles and were decorated with smoky tattoos curling beneath the ink colored sleeves. His chocolate colored hair is long and pushed back over his head, but a few strands hang forward to frame a well defined jaw covered in a thick dusting of facial hair.

Your throat suddenly gets very tight.

The man’s gaze is focused on you, the green of his eyes brilliant, crinkled just around the edges with his smile. He winks and your entire face takes on the identity of a strawberry with your flush.

“Holy shit!” Kay nudges you. “You have to go over there.”

“What?” You squeak. “Are you insane? That guy is-”

“The kind of man who would make you forget all about that physics test?” Liza raises an eyebrow.

“The kind of man who would break the laws of physics with you all night long?” Kay adds. “Babe, come on, it's been months for you. Why don’t you go over there and say hi?”

“No way.” You shake your head vehemently, hyperventilating a little bit at the thought of going up to a complete stranger.

You were not the confident girl in the group that did that. Kay was. It was exactly how she had met her boyfriend Sean three years ago, by using a cheesy pick up line that made him snort so hard he had beer coming out of his nose. Liza wasn’t much better. She’d met Matt in this very bar when her heel broke and she stumbled into where he was sitting with his friends at the bar.

And the truth was it had been a few months since the last relationship (if you could call it that) fizzled out… and with both of your friends in relationships you often were the awkward fifth wheel. It wasn’t that you didn’t like your friends' boyfriends, Matt and Sean were great and they always did their best to make you feel comfortable whenever you were out with everyone, but you were kinda tired of being the spare tire.

“I don’t think we should be encouraging her to go off somewhere with a random man from a bar that she just met.” Matt says with a frown.

Matt often held the braincell in your friend group and was the one who was more focused on making sure that everyone was safe. He was the one who followed up with a text whenever someone left to go home, the one who made sure that everyone stayed together when you were out late, and was usually the designated driver.

“You’re such a hypocrite.” Liza boops Matt on the nose. “You were a random man that I’d never met before. And if I’m not mistaken we met in this very bar.”

“That’s different.” Matt sighs, but he leans towards Liza, the tension dissipating from his shoulders as he looks at her and his frown slips into a smile.

They were one of those couples that no one ever thought would work. Liza was the carefree art major with no plan in the world and Matt was the All American, blue-eyed, blond haired football player that everyone said was “going to do great things” when in reality all Matt wanted to be was Liza’s husband. He didn’t care about anything else, but making her happy. Hence the giant engagement ring on her finger, the same one that he’d let her design because he knew that was important to her.

They were everything you wanted in your own relationship. A beautiful merging of crazy (from you) with someone stable and structured, preferably someone with a strong jaw, brilliant green eyes and-

Great, he’s already invaded my subconscious.

You glance up again to see if the stranger is still looking. He is, but this time his smile is just a little wider, and you watch his eyes drag down the length of your body for a moment appreciatively before flicking back up to yours and catches you doing the same thing.

You weren’t wearing anything revealing, in fact, you hadn’t bothered dressing up to go out because you didn’t feel like it. You were still wearing the blank sweatpants and oversized sweatshirt combo that you’d worn to your exam.

When you caught him looking at you, it made you regret you hadn’t worn something more eye-catching.

“Come on, that guy is checking you out! Go over there.” Kay nudges you, jostling the forgotten tequila shot in your hand.

“He looks like trouble.” Matt says half-heartedly, but he’s too busy staring into Liza’s eyes to really care. Her hands are entwined at the back of his head pulling his forehead down to hers.

When it got to that point of the night, it usually meant that the two of them were about fifteen seconds from calling it an early night and going back to Matt’s apartment. Technically Kay would probably end up there as well because Sean was now Matt’s roommate and that meant you’d have the apartment to yourself…

“How can you tell? Are you looking at his reflection in Liza’s eyes?” Kay takes a shot from the collection of the remaining few in front of her.

“We all know that if Sean was here, you’d already be practicing your scuba breathing.” Liza gently brushes back the few strands of blond hair that hang forward into Matt’s face which only makes him sigh softly and look at her like she’s the last woman on earth.

You try not to be jealous.

Kay only rolls her eyes. “Alright, I’m taking initiative.”

“What does that mean?” You begin to ask, but Kay shoves you out of the booth and towards the handsome stranger who hasn’t taken his eyes off of you since your eyes met moments ago.

“Kay. What the hell?” You turn back to look at her, but she’s already holding up your forgotten shot.

“Take this and go over there.”

“But-”

“The only butt you should be thinking about is his, in those deliciously tight jeans. You will thank me in the morning.” She refuses to budge. “And then come home and tell me everything the two of you did, because Sean’s about to go visit his family for a week and I will need something to fantasize about.”

You wrinkle your nose in disgust, but then look to Liza hoping for help. Unfortunately she’s too busy counting Matt’s eyelashes to defend you. You look back at Kay who is still holding up the shot, gaze unwavering.

I can’t believe I’m about to do this.

You think to yourself with a sigh, before taking the shot, hoping that it will give you some of the confidence you need to talk to the most attractive man you’d ever seen in your life.

I can do this, I can do this-

The internal monologue repeats itself over and over again with each step as you weave your way through the crowd to make it where the man is sitting, dropping your gaze to the people around you as if you’re more focused on them.

You weren’t, but staring at him while you were walking towards him seemed too predatory, and you could already feel how warm your cheeks were from your flush.

You grip the firm edge of the bar when you make it to him, using it to ground yourself there in the moment before you find the strength to meet his gaze.

There’s a faded green jacket hung over the high backed barstool behind him that you hadn’t noticed before.

Your eyes trace over his body, just a quick glance, but snags on his arms for just a second too long to be casual. They were even more glorious in person, tan and flecked with cinnamon colored freckles hidden beneath twisting tattoos that disappeared into his dark shirt sleeves.

“Hi.” You smile shyly at the man when you meet his gaze.

“Hi.” He rumbles with an easy smile while the green of his eyes flashes in the neon sign hanging behind the bar.

His voice catches you off guard. You weren't expecting it to be so smooth, silk over your skin, but also like the rough drag of the ocean against sand as it pulls it out to sea.

“Hi.” You say again as all other thoughts evaporate from you mind and you fight the urge to facepalm.

What the hell am I doing over here? I might as well do the walk of shame back to my own table.

Russell raises an eyebrow, his smile widening. “Hi.” He echoes.

You open your mouth-

“Before you say hi back sweetheart, why don’t you tell me what you’re drinking instead?” He winks making your cheeks warm with their flush.

Honestly, you were expecting him to be turned off by your somewhat awkward introduction, but if you bothered him, he doesn’t show it. He leans towards you curiously, eyes drinking you in.

You clear your throat while your mind scrambles to come up with something appropriate or sexy to say other than ‘wow you’re pretty.’ You settle on. “Whatever you’re drinking.”

Smooth real smooth.

You glance back in the direction of where your friends are sitting as the man’s gaze turns to the bartender so he can order you a drink. Kay makes an obscene gesture with her hand that makes Matt kick her under the table, and Liza gives you an encouraging thumbs up.

Kill me now.

You turn back to the man lounging against the bar, unaware that he’s watching you again.

“You seemed like you were having some fun over there. What were you talking about?” He nods his head in the direction of your friends, the motion causing more of his dark hair to fall into his eyes and you fight the urge to push it back from his face and find out if it was as soft as it looked.

“Oh um.” Your mouth goes dry. The last thing you wanted to say to the gorgeous man was that your friends and you were discussing what animated movie characters turned you on. So you blurt out. “The First Law of Thermodynamics.”

It had clawed its way from the dark recesses of your mind where the rest of the test answers had been hiding from you when you tried to summon them earlier.

“What?” The man laughs while you feel your face begin to blaze.

“The First Law of Thermodynamics?” You clear your throat. “The theory that energy cannot be created or destroyed."

Where was that when I needed it for the test?

“Huh.” He smirks and takes a long sip from the beer in his hand. “Didn’t think Tarzan had anything to do with that.”

Oh sweet baby potatoes he heard the daddy conversation. Why couldn’t he have heard the Jessica Rabbit conversation instead?

“Ah.” You laugh awkwardly, realizing exactly what he overheard.

The bartender puts down a bottle of beer in front of you and whirls away to another patron sitting on the opposite side of the bar. The band begins to play a new song, this one louder with more drums than the last one, causing the man to lean closer to you so you can hear him.

“So.” The smell of the man’s cologne wafts over you. He smells like pine, mint, whiskey, and there’s an odd smell you can’t place, something that smells almost a little bit like smoke.

You ascribe it to cigarettes, but you don’t realize how wrong you are.

There’s something about him, more than just how attractive he is or how good he smells that draws you in. Maybe you’d just been burned by far too many boys and were blinded by the man sitting in front of you, but he had a roughness and self-sufficient air that you found refreshing.

He was assertive, sexy, with smoldering green eyes that somehow seemed soft and hard at the same time and filled you with an unholy amount of desire.

“So?” You parrot, bringing the beer up to your lips, hoping that a sip will take the edge off.

“Don’t you want to hear mine?” His voice is low and sultry, breath warming the air between the two of your faces.

You sputter out a cough, choking on the sip you took in surprise, and his eyes widen in concern.The man brings his hand down against your back with a hearty smack to clear out your lungs.

“Are you okay?”

“Never better.” You choke out, voice a little wheezy. “Wrong pipe.”

This is quickly becoming the most embarrassing moment of my life.

“Are you sure?” The stranger’s eyes trace over you as if he fears you’ll start asphyxiating at any moment.

“Mhmm.” You clear your throat again. “What were you saying?”

“I asked if you wanted to hear mine.”

You suddenly forget how to breathe, the only thing grounding you to this moment is the hand you placed on the cherry wood of the bar. “Sure.”

“Rain.”

Despite the last few seconds of you feeling so awkward it made you want to sink into the floor like quicksand and the fact that your throat is still burning from when the beer went down the wrong pipe, your mouth quirks up in a smile. “The horse from Spirit?”

“Mhmm.” He smiles a little wider. “My little sister used to watch that movie non-stop, and there was always something about that horse.”

“Huh.” You muse taking another sip of the beer, this time successfully not choking on it. “I didn’t peg you for a horse guy. You seem more like a Nala person.”

“Oh that lion did it for me too.” The man leans closer to you and you can feel your knees getting weak. “She definitely had bedroom eyes.”

“She did!” You laugh at him. “The animators knew what they were doing.”

It was getting easier to talk to him now and you could feel your nerves slowly going out to sea. There’s a comfortable silence that fills the air between the two of you.

“Why did you say the First Law of Thermodynamics earlier?” He asks before taking a sip from his beer. The condensation trickles down the side of the glass to pool against the wood of the bar.

“Because I didn’t want to admit what we were talking about.” You answer honestly. “And I guess it’s still a little fresh in my mind-”

“Why?”

“I had a physics test today. Completely bombed it. That’s why my friends brought me out tonight, they were trying to make me forget it.” You wave a hand dismissively, but it was the first time you’d thought about the test in the past hour and it still stung a little bit.

You were hoping that by this point of the night it wouldn’t have mattered anymore, but it did. Not to mention you didn’t exactly want to be talking about your most recent failure with a man who looked anything like he did.

But something about him made you feel comfortable talking to him about things that were not on the pre-approved list of subjects you created when you spoke to people you were attracted to. He didn’t seem to just be some hot stranger in a bar, he seemed like he actually cared, and that he was invested in what you were going to say.

It made him even more attractive. You weren't used to boys wanting to actually listen to anything you had to say.

“I’m sorry.” His face pulls down into a sympathetic frown.

“Me too.” You sigh.

“Maybe you didn’t do as bad as you think you did.”

“Oh I did. When I turned in the test, the professor made a face.” Your thumb rubs against the glass of the cold bottle clutched in your hand. “I studied all week for it and it kinda feels like I wasted all that time.”

The man studies you for a moment. “I think that if you learn something from it, then it’s not a waste. There are no accidents.“

“Are you purposely quoting Master Oogway to make me feel better or is that just a coincidence?”

“He’s a smart turtle.” He laughs pleased with himself that he made you smile. “But you remembered the First Law of Thermodynamics. And I thought it was a nice pick up line. Might use that sometime.”

“Shut up.” You laugh and raise your hand to hit him on the shoulder, but he catches it with his.

The contact of the rough palm of his hand in yours makes electricity zing through your body, bringing a wave of heat coursing behind it.

“That’s not very nice. Keep trying to hit me like that and I might have to take you to court, Sweetheart.” He winks.

“Oh please-”

“How else am I going to run into you again?”

“Well-” You swallow trying to find the next words, but they’re stuck in the back of your throat.

I am so out of practice.

“Well?” He raises an eyebrow in a silent challenge, the end of his perfect mouth teased upwards in a smile.

“This doesn’t have to be goodbye.”

“What did you have in mind?” The heat of his gaze sends goosebumps dancing over your skin and you swear you can feel your heartbeat in the base of your throat.

People do this all the time. I can say it. I can-

“Maybe-” You scoot closer to him, summoning some courage from the tequila. “Something like this.”

Your free hand curls into the front of his shirt to pull the stranger closer for a kiss.

Unfortunately, you pull him just a little too hard, with a little too much enthusiasm, and he falls off the stool with a startled cry in surprise and knocks his head into yours.

“Ow.” You groan rubbing at the red mark forming on your forehead. “I am so sorry.”

By now your cheeks are so warm that you could fry an egg on them and you were sure you looked like a giant raspberry. You had never been so clumsy or so embarrassed in your entire life.

“It’s okay, you just surprised me a bit.” The man says, but he’s peering at the mark on your forehead. “Are you okay?”

How many times is he going to ask me that tonight?

“Yeah the only thing that’s hurt is my pride.” You let out an awkward laugh. “I’m just gonna-“ You gesture with your thumb over your shoulder to signify that you’re going to leave.

The anecdotes that your friends were going to tell from tonight had already begun to manifest in your head:

“Hey, remember that time you tried to flirt with a gorgeous man at the bar and you headbutted him?”

“Hey, remember that handsome stranger? The one you told all about your failed physics test instead of sleeping with him?”

“Wait.” He gently puts his hand on your waist, sending your heart into a gallop. “Can we try that again?”

“Huh?” You blink in surprise.

So far all you’d done was head butt him and tell him your sob story about failing your physics test.

Worst seduction technique ever.

“Don’t move.” He smiles. “Don’t want to have to take you to the hospital for a CT if you bump my head again.”

It would have made you laugh if he wasn’t already kissing you.

It might just be the alcohol talking, or the fact that the last thing you kissed was the strawberry pillows on the couch in the living room last week when Liza, Kay, and you were watching your favorite paranormal tv show and you were imagining the male lead, but this kiss is nothing like any of the others you’d had in the past.

His mouth devours yours, beard scratching against your cheeks in a way that makes your entire body buzz. The man’s hands tighten your waist to draw you closer, closing the space between your bodies, and all you can feel is the wonderful drag of his fingertips against the end of your sweatshirt, the burn of his beard, the press of his chest onto yours, and the tangle of his tongue as you sink further into him.

A moan vibrates up through his chest and into your mouth that you echo with a soft sigh, your hands slipping over the taunt muscles before finding purchase against his back, your fingertips curling into the soft fabric of his t-shirt.

The rest of the bar is rendered to a dull throb of life at the back of your mind, the man in front of you absorbing the rest of your attention as he should. He is nothing like anyone you’d ever met and you wanted to know more. You wanted to see the end of the odd shaped scar just at the base of his throat, trail your fingers over the dark tattoos that decorated his skin while searching for more in places you couldn’t yet see, and sink into the deep green sea of his eyes.

“Better?” He breathes.

“Much, but if you’re not into that, I also know the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Just to give you something to remember me by.” You mumble against his lips, still slightly embarrassed. Your hands were still curled behind his strong shoulders, fingertips digging into the firm muscles.

“Beside the bruises?” He smirks before he kisses you again, the languid roll of his tongue against yours makes you forget your own name. “I’d very much like to hear it.” The rumble of his words vibrates through where your bodies are pressed against one another. “But first let me get the car and then I’ll let you tell me all about it.”

He brushes his lips to yours one more time, before he puts cash on the bar, and leaves you breathless as he saunters away towards the front door.

Holy fucking shit. How did that work?

“Girl Yes!” You hear Kay, before you feel her hands come down on your shoulders to shake you excitedly. “I was a little worried in the middle there for you with that head butt, but yes! That’s how you do it!” Her excited squeal brings you back down to earth from the cloud you were floating on with Russell.

“Where’d he go?” Liza asks. Matt was holding her from behind, his chin on her shoulder as he slowly rocked her to the music.

“To get the car.” Your cheeks flush at the insinuation.

“Fuck I am so jealous. The only thing I’m going to get to do tonight is Sean’s back.” Kay gives an exaggerated sigh. “It’s acting up and that means I’m going to have to give him a massage for an hour and not the good kind. It always knocks him out.”

“Aww babe.” Liza says.

“It’s okay.” Kay shrugs, but then sends her a saucy wink. “I can do some laundry. His washing machine has this spin cycle that makes me see stars.”

“I didn’t need to know that you’ve been molesting our washing machine.” Matt closes his eyes as if trying to scrub the image from his mind.

“It’s money well spent, Mattie.” Kay batts her eyes at him.

He huffs, but then turns his gaze on you, his blue eyes are filled with concern. “Are you sure you’re going to be okay?”

“Yeah.” You shrug, nerves popping and sizzling inside so much that they might as well be giving off enough electricity to power New York City. “I don’t get a creepy vibe from him. I think he’s actually kind of nice.”

It was true. Your radar was usually on point with things like this, and there was something about Russell that didn’t scream axe murderer. He seemed surprisingly laid back and honest, and you found yourself curious to know more about him.

Matt doesn’t look convinced.

“It’s okay babe.” Liza says, swaying her and his body to the music. “We have the app on our phones and we all know the safe word.” She continues, referencing the word the three of you designated when everything was okay as well as the other word that meant everything was going terribly wrong.

You didn’t think that you would need it.

He sighs. “Fine, but if he tries anything weird-”

“What qualifies as weird for you?” Kay asks, raising an eyebrow. “I’ve always been curious about your kinks.”

Kay always took pride in getting under Matt’s skin. You never knew why that was, only that it seemed to be her mission to make him crack. He never did.

“Be safe.” He nods at you before he drags Liza towards the door.

“Seriously babe.” Kay begins to back away. “Be safe. Because the last thing you want to pass right now is a pregnancy test.”

“Why are we friends again?” You groan as you follow behind her, weaving through the mass of bodies writhing to the newest song.

The air outside the bar is cooler, but there’s just a hint of something on the wind. Spring was coming, but it was still far enough away to leave just a light chill in the air. The street in front of Duke’s was populated sporadically with cars of varying shapes and colors, but you couldn’t help but wonder what kind of car the mysterious stranger drove.

Why didn’t I ask him for his name?

“Because you’d be lost without me.” Kay laughs at you, but then pulls you into a hug. “Have fun and please try not to think about that stupid test. You’re so smart and I promise that one test is not going to define your entire future. If that were true my first organic chemistry test would have come with a refrigerator box to live in, because that test was literally the stuff of nightmares.”

She frowns at the memory. It was the first test that she had ever failed in her entire life, and although you were the one who usually obsessed over grades, it was the first time you’d ever seen Kay so disappointed. That was also because her professor had asked her to stop by for office hours and told her that there was no way she’d ever be able to get the grades she needed in his class.

But a weekend marathon of Sex and the City listening to her mentor Samantha Jones, had brought her back to life and she’d sauntered confidently into the classroom armed with a flat white latte and sat in the front row at every lecture the rest of the semester.

She’d gotten the highest grade in the class.

Basically, Kay was your hero, that was the real reason why you were her friend.

“I’ll try my best. Tell Sean hi for me.” You squeeze her just as tight, before she walks away down the darkened path back to campus where Sean would be waiting for her.

There was an odd glow over the sidewalks tonight, a yellowed light that crawled along the cracked brick building that housed Duke’s and halted just shy of the opening of the alley that ran between Duke’s and the bank next door. No other people were visible. Even the small crowd that usually leaned against the rustic brick wall outside of the bar smoking was nowhere to be seen.

It was odd.

You rub your hands down your arms with nervous anticipation. You’d slept with someone from a bar one time before, but one night stands were not your forte at all. The last time it’d happened, you’d gone back with a guy to his apartment only to find out an hour later when his girlfriend got home that he wasn’t single. She hadn’t seemed surprised that you were in bed with him, but you had been when she pulled out a switchblade the size of your hand and began to slash through the neatly arranged collection of plush squish-mallows on the floor while screaming obscenities at the guy.

In hindsight, maybe the squish-mallows were a clue that he was in a relationship.

But you didn’t have any bad feelings about the man you’d met. He was attractive, witty, nice, funny, and he genuinely seemed concerned about you when you almost choked to death on a sip of beer.

I will make him forget the entire awkward encounter.

You promised yourself, but you also began to be a little bit nervous. You didn’t know why it was taking him so long to find the car.

A bird caws overhead, sweeping low across the buildings, feathers an inky black in the night air, its shadow flickering across the moon.

Another two minutes pass and you start to get antsy.

Maybe he just left?

The thought brings a wave of disappointment over you. The stranger was the first person in a long time that you’d felt genuinely attracted to and now you couldn’t help but think that maybe he lied and when he said he was going to get the car, he really was trying to get away from you as fast as possible.

You take a few steps in the direction that Kay left thinking that you might as well cut your losses and see if you can catch up, but hesitate.

What if I leave and he comes back? What if-

An odd noise that sounds like a cat hacking up a hairball comes from the alley directly to your right, followed by the sound of something heavy hitting the pavement.

You turn. Most of the alley is obscured in shadows, several large dumpsters jut out from grimy brick walls stained with God knows what, but you don’t see anything out of the ordinary.

There are some lights fastened to the wall that runs the length of the bar, sending a dingy orange light over the bags of trash, empty flattened cardboard boxes, and plastic cups strewn over the wet ground.

The door of Duke’s swings open for a moment, bringing the sounds and smells of the bar through the doorway as a woman enters tugging a sullen looking man behind her.

You turn your attention back to the empty alleyway, and catch the low rumble of a voice that sounds oddly familiar. It echoes through the darkness bouncing off the stone, metal, and bags of trash to where you stand at the dimly lit mouth of the alley.

That’s weird.

Another sound follows the voice, a wet sounding thud that piques your interest. You take a tentative step forward into the darkness.

Wait. Isn’t this how every horror movie starts?

It was a valid question. But then you hear the voice again, it’s louder, vibrating against the brick and mortar, and it pulls your forward.

Anxiety hums through your body as you inch down the alley, sticking to the well lit side that runs the length of Duke’s.

“Who sent you?” The familiar voice asks.

There’s no answer, and the sound of the cat choking up a hairball comes back.

Someone needs to get Grizabella a glass of water.

You take another shaky step passing by the first dumpster before you reach the part of the alley that wraps around the back of the bar.

At first you’re not sure what you see. The part of the alley behind the bar is more of a cramped street with a tire marked dirt path, bathed in awkward light from the moon and from a lazy streetlight that’s only half lit. There’s another dumpster back here, this one a little larger than the others you’d seen along the side of the building, but that isn’t what’s interesting.

The image comes into focus.

The stranger from the bar is standing there, his back to you, but he isn’t alone. The stranger has a man pinned to the dumpster, a large knife stabbed into the space between the man’s collarbone and his right shoulder while his other hand is clasped tightly around the man’s neck.

“Who sent you?!” The stranger roars, the knife digging into the man’s shoulder.

Your entire body freezes in fear.

My radar was so wrong. How could it be this wrong? He was so caring and kind- That’s what they said about Ted Bundy.

Your gaze drops to what you thought was a garbage bag at the green-eyed stranger's feet, but realize that it’s not a bag, it’s a body.

Holy shit he’s a murderer! Maybe if I just back away slowly-

You take a slow step backwards hoping to edge back into the alley that runs the length of the bar and forget this night ever happened, but instead of your foot finding solid ground, it finds a forgotten potato chip bag.

The crinkled plastic crunches underfoot, breaking the still silence of the night. You inhale sharply and look up. Your gaze locks with the green-eyed man.

“I didn’t see anything.” You hold up your hands, backing away slowly. “Have a nice night.”

“Wait-”

“Nope.” You turn and flee down the alley hoping that someone is coming out of the bar at the exact moment who can witness the broad stranger chasing after you. His boots thud against the concrete, splashing through water in hot pursuit, contrasting against the plods of your own feet sloshing through puddles and through trash to get back to the light.

Before you make it halfway through the darkness, he grabs your arm and turns you to look at him.

“Let me go!” You shriek, tugging at his grip, preparing to kick him between his legs, the only place that matters.

“Please wait. I can explain!”

“You don’t have to explain!” You keep pulling at his arm. “I didn’t see anything! I don’t know who you are. And you know what? I wasn’t even in the bar tonight! I was back in my apartment watching Crime Scene Kitchen!”

It was the first thing that popped into your head, but if it meant that you got to live, it would be your alibi.

He hesitates confused. “What’s Crime Scene Kitchen?”

“What? You just fucking murdered someone in an alley, you’re about to murder me, and that’s what you’re asking me?” You scream.

“I’m not going to murder you. And I was the one who was attacked!”

“Oh sure!” Fear clamps down hard on your throat squeezing the air coming in through your lungs. Tears begin to burn against your eyes as you try to release his grip. “Somebody help me!” You scream loudly trying to twist away from him and wishing that you’d brought your bottle of pepper spray or that you’d taken the self-defense class last summer with Kay or at least paid more attention to that scene in Miss Congeniality.

How could I have been so stupid? He’s going to kill me here and I’ll never know what that physics test did to my GPA.

You frown slightly at that thought. It really is weird what goes through your head when you think you’re going to die.

“Please, let me explain.” He says again, eyes wide and filled with an emotion that looks surprisingly like regret.

His dark hair has fallen forward over his cheeks that are flecked with blood, but the lights that line the wall of the dark alley perfectly frame his face. He looked like a model for a beer commercial or one that they’d roughed up a little for those weird perfume commercials you saw that never made any sense, but were always intriguing.

Why are all the hot ones crazy? Why couldn’t he have just been a bad kisser? Or maybe a little too loud? Why is his flaw that he freaking MURDERS people?

As you think that, there is a little voice inside your head that asks: Could I be okay with that?

NO! OF COURSE NOT!

“There’s nothing to explain! You’re a murderer! You just killed those people!” You aim a kick at his crotch, but the man only catches your ankle with his large hand. You could feel the warmth of his skin through your sweatpants, the sensation that brought warm tingles through your body when you were in the bar, only sends a wave of fear crashing over you.

“Yes I did, but for a good reason!”

“Really? What reason was that!?”

“They were trying to kill me!”

“I don’t believe you!”

“I-”

Before he can finish his sentence, gunfire explodes over your head. Sparks fly as bullets crash into the dumpsters and rip through the night air around where you and the man are standing.

There’s a large black suburban parked in the street that runs behind Duke’s where you’re found the stranger with the body. Three men stand in front of it all in dark clothing and each one is holding a pistol pointed directly at where you’re standing.

“Holy shit!” You scream, but the stranger tackles you back behind the large rusting green dumpster that juts out and gives you cover from the blaze of bullets.

His body lays over yours, curving protectively around you, and his arm is behind you head so when you hit the ground, your head doesn’t. The impact of the cold, wet, concrete beneath your body jostles through your system, but you can’t focus on it too much, not when the man’s entire body is laying on top of yours and it feels as if he was made especially for you.

He lays in the cradle of your thighs, wonderfully broad and hard, the muscles of his body contrasting to the soft curves of your body underneath your clothes. It left very little to the imagination, well… not little.

It’s enough to make a girl forget that he’s a murderer… No, what am I saying!!

You shove him off of you and cower back behind the dumpster, the sound of gunfire filling your ears and making you realize exactly what you smelled on the man earlier that you thought was smoke.

“Baby-” He says reaching out to comfort you.

“Don’t touch me! I’m not your baby!” You swat his hands away from you pressing yourself back into the wet wall of the alley.

The smell of mold and trash was rising all around you in an unholy mist. The wet ground soaked into the soft fabric of your pants and left stains that you didn’t want to think about what they were.

“Holy shit. Holy shit. Holy shit-” It comes out like a sickening mantra as you rock back and forth, hands on your ears to make the sound of the gunfire stop.

I’m going to die here. In this dismal back alley. In front of this gorgeous murder. If I had know that I wouldn’t have spent so much of this week studying for a mother-fucking physics test!

“Sweetheart!” The man shouts to catch your attention, but you don’t look at him.

“What in the devil’s ass is happening?!” You shriek.

“Listen to me!” He shouts louder over the sound of gunfire and takes your cheeks in his rough palms to make him look at him. His green eyes are brilliant in the light, but filled with a determined fire that makes you suddenly feel very safe despite watching him kill someone and the active gunfire bouncing all around you.

You wanted to trust him, but you also didn’t want to be on the news or used as a cautionary tale for mothers to guilt their daughters with.

“I promise that nothing is going to happen to you.”

“How can you guarantee that?!”

“Because I don’t break my promises.” The determined grit in his eyes hardens as they sweep over your face. “I will explain what’s going on. But first I have to go talk to them.” He releases your face, but hesitates.

The man wasn’t bothering to duck and cover, in fact each time a bullet ricocheted off the side of the dumpster he didn’t even flinch, meanwhile the sour taste of bile was rising into your mouth and you were sure that you were going to throw up. Panic was setting in, and your heart rate was getting dangerously high as anxiety and fear flickered along your nerve endings.

Oh my sweet goodness he’s mentally unstable.

“Actually.” He sighs and flashes an awkward smile. “I don't want to lie to you. I’m going to go kill them. Don’t move.” He reaches into the waistband at the back of his worn jeans and pulls out a gun.

Has he had that this whole time? HOW did I not feel it?

“Wait what? Don’t go out there!” Your fingers fist in the front of his jacket, the fear of him leaving you more than the fear of him murdering you. At this point it was either be killed by the beautiful stranger or killed by the other guys, and being killed by the other guys meant that you’d have to meet someone new and look where that had gotten you tonight.

“They’re not exactly going to leave on their own.” He cracks a smile despite the situation. “But promise me you’re not going to move.” His smile turns into a concerned frown, eyebrows furrowing together as his eyes settle on you once more, steely and unyielding.

“I promise.” Your voice comes out shaky and not at all what you sound like. Truthfully you were surprised that you got anything to come out of your mouth that wasn't vomit.

He nods once.

When he leaves, you wait exactly three seconds, counting each of them out in your head before you take off in a dead run for the front door of Duke’s bar and into the safety of the street beyond without looking back while hoping that all of this has just been a bad dream.

Coming back to the apartment feels surreal, crossing through the living room like a Salvador Dali painting, and finally closing your bedroom door and locking it is like a mirage.

You weren’t sure how you made it back here, only that you did, and that was all that mattered.

Kay and Liza weren’t home, predictably, but you would have tried to call both of them if you hadn’t dropped your phone in the cluster fuck that was everything that happened an hour ago. Because on top of everything now you didn’t have any way to contact your friends and let them know that you’re alive and okay.

Your body was still buzzing with the anxiety of everything that happened, mind going a mile a minute the longer you allowed it to bathe in the memories of being shot at and watching the stranger kill those men.

The stranger that somehow was able to trick your radar.

I just need to breathe, relax, and-

You turn around towards your bed expecting to go to sleep and forget all of it, but the thought stutters to a halt as you realize you’re not alone. The green-eyed stranger is standing there in the center of your bedroom. He is holding a bundle of your clothes in one hand and your empty school backpack in the other.

“What the fuck?!” You scream and reach for the Strawberry Shortcake bat your dad bought you when you moved out, hefting it high on your shoulder preparing to swing. “What the hell are you doing here?”

He raises an eyebrow at your awkward stance. “Why are you holding a bright pink baseball bat?”

“All the better beat the shit out of rapists who break into my apartment in the middle of the night!”

“What happened to murderer?” The end of his lips lift up in a smile too perfect to be real. He almost seems to be enjoying this, like he thinks you’re being cute and not accusing him of something terrible.

“That too!”

He laughs at you, but then his smile slips into a frown.“Why did you break your promise?” You don't understand why he looks like a kicked puppy at the thought that you broke your promise.

Of course I didn’t keep it! I was running for my life to get out of the way of the millions of bullets pointed at my head!

“What?”

“You promised that you would stay there and you didn’t. You could have been killed.” Worry flashes in his gaze, and your eyes drop to the flecks of blood on the outside of his jacket that remind you of everything this man had done tonight.

“Oh, well excuse me for breaking a promise I made to a murderer!”

“I’m not a murderer.”

“If the boot fits!” You snap back. “You showing up in my bedroom certainly seems plenty murdery. That and you going through my underwear drawer for a little souvenir.” Your eyes narrow in suspicion.

“A souvenir?” The man laughs at you again, his shoulders shaking. He’s still wearing the same clothes he was in the alley, and again you’re momentarily stunned by how attractive he is.

“Why else would you be going through my drawers? And how do you know where I live!?”

“That’s not important right now.” The man shoves the bundle of your clothes into your backpack before moving back to the chest of drawers in the corner of your bedroom for another handful.

“What the fuck do you mean that’s not important right now? And what the hell are you doing?”

“I’m packing you a bag.”

“What? Why? So it’ll look like I ran away?!”

Oh holy fuck he’s still going to kill me!

You swing the bat as hard as you can, but the man raises the backpack to block your attack.

“Calm down Derek Jeter! I’m not going to murder you, please stop saying that.”

“Why?”

He frowns and shrugs his shoulders. “Because it’s hurting my feelings a little bit.”

“Hurting your-” You shake your head in disbelief. “Look, I have no idea who the fuck you are or why you broke into my apartment but-”

“Hi. I’m Russell.” The man now identified as ‘Russell’ holds out his hand to try and shake yours.

That’s obviously a fake name.

You stare at him blankly. “Are you insane?”

“No, I just told you, I’m Russell. And we have to go.” He retracts his hand and begins to shove clothes into your backpack again.

“I’m not going anywhere with you, crazy! I have class in the morning and an exam in two days!” You heft the baseball bat higher on your shoulder as a silent threat.

Judging by the way he blocked your attack so easily a few moments ago, you didn’t have high hopes. But you did think that if you screamed loud enough your elderly neighbor, aptly named Willy due to the many, many times he’d flashed Kay, Liza, and you “accidentally,” would come over at least to see if you had any extra magazines to take back to his hoarder apartment that was stacked floor to ceiling with yellowed newspapers long out of print.

Russell sighs, and looks from the bat to you, shoulders relaxing a millimeter, but there’s still something determined in his gaze. “I understand that you’re scared, but those guys, they saw you with me.”

“So?”

“So if I leave you here with no protection, they’re going to come here and take you.”

“You don’t know that!”

“Yes I do!” He replies, the edge of his voice is tinged with anger and frustration.

“How?”

“Look!” Russell holds up a battered phone. Displayed on the cracked screen is a message thread of texts to an unknown number. Russell clicks on one of the pictures that was sent an hour ago, about the time the two of you met.

As it grows larger on the screen you recognize the two people in it. It’s a picture of Russell and you kissing at the bar. Your eyes are closed, hands curved over his shoulders possessively, while you smile into his mouth.

The memory of the kiss sends a warm tingle down your spine as you remember how good the kiss was. It was definitely in the top ten, hell, it was number one.

Don’t be seduced by his charm and good looks! You saw him kill someone tonight! Not to mention he probably killed those other guys that were shooting at you.

Russell swipes his finger over the screen again, this time the picture is of him and you talking, your face on full display. You’re laughing at something Russell said with your right hand resting on the cool bottle of beer you never finished. Honestly, if anyone was seeing those photos for the first time it would look like Russell and you were together.

“You took pictures of me!?” You shout. “You’re a fucking freak!”

“Sweetheart, listen to me-”

“I’m not your Sweetheart. You’re just some random murder that I met at a bar!”

The things that I’ve said tonight for the first time could be an SNL skit. Why me?

“For the last time, I am not a murder! And I didn’t take those photos. The men who were after me did.”

“So? Why would they care about some random girl?”

“Because they don’t know you’re some random girl I met! They think that you’re important to me and until I figure out who they sent these pictures to, you’re not safe.”

“Can’t you text them and say that you just met me tonight? That it’s a pure coincidence?! That I’m not important to you.” You point at the cracked phone, waving your free hand frantically at it.

Russell laughs at your question. “Are you kidding? Do you think they’re going to believe me?”

“I don’t know! And how would they know where I live?”

“The same way I knew how.”

That is a good point. How did he know where I lived?

You hesitate, gaze flicking over where Russell stands with your backpack in his hand, but another idea begins to wiggle from the depths of your mind. “Wait. Is this some kind of kinky thing you do? Some fetish? Pretending to be a spy or that people are after you just to get yourself all hot and bothered?”

“What?” Now it’s Russell’s turn to look at you like you’re crazy.

You take that as confirmation. “It is! Holy fuck, that is so messed up.”

Wow forget murderer, he’s an actual psychopath. Why the hell did I drop my phone?

Kay and Liza weren’t going to be back tonight. Especially not if they think that you took “Russell,” if that really is his name, back to the apartment. You had no other way of contacting them, except with your laptop that was sitting closed on your bed behind where Russell was standing.

“Wait a minute. I’m not a spy.”

“Exactly, that’s the point! You’re pretending to make me-”

“No, I’m not. I promise all of this is real!” Russell sighs frustrated. “I know that you don’t want to believe me, but it isn’t safe here. And I can protect you!”

“That’s exactly what you would say to kidnap me!”

“Sweetheart. I am not going to kidnap you, I’m trying to keep you safe. I mean, if I have to kidnap you I will-”

Your eyes widen and you heft the bat high on your shoulder prepared to swing.

“Sorry, that was a bad joke.” He holds up his hands in surrender, flashing an apologetic smile. “What would it take to make you believe me?”

It was the question that you had been contemplating since he’d protected you in the alley. You knew nothing about him, didn’t know what he did for a living, and you’d only just learned his name. But despite everything that happened there was a little part of yourself that wanted to believe him. You wanted to believe everything he was telling you, well, not the part about you being in danger and the idea that people now wanted to kill you, but the part about being able to trust him.

You think about the way he made you feel at the bar, when he listened to you complain about your physics test and made you laugh. You’d trusted him then, enough to go home with him or at least, try to go home with him.

“I don’t know.” The bat slips a little bit from your shoulder with your honesty. “Do you have any character references?”

Russell cracks a smile. “Isn’t it a little early for you to ask me about my old girlfriends? Don’t think any of them would be willing to say anything good about me either.”

This time you can feel a little smile begin to tug at the end of your lips, one that Russell notices.

“I know that you’re scared.” He takes a tentative step forward. “But I promise that I will explain everything to you, answer all your questions, but all I know is that you’re not safe here. And I can’t in good conscience leave, if I know you’re in danger.”

The look in his eyes had the determined fire you’d seen many times tonight, but there was something honest about it. They saw through you, and even though you had spent most of the night terrified and believed him to be a murderer, you didn’t think that someone like that would be so determined for you to go with him.

It felt like two parts of your head were at war. You wanted to trust Russell, you didn’t think he was lying to you, but you had seen him kill those men. And there was an unfortunate part of you that worried he made all of this up to kidnap you.

But I think if he meant to do that… he would have jumped me the minute I walked into my bedroom, he wouldn’t have said “hi.”

“I know this whole thing sounds crazy. But the last thing I want is for you to die because of something stupid I did. Please.”

You bite the inside of your cheek thinking about Kay and Liza. “If I leave, what about my roommates? They live here too.”

He rubs the back of his neck. “I’m not going to sugar coat it Sweetheart, there’s always a chance that they’ll be hurt, but with you gone, there’s also a chance that these guys will focus more on finding me.”

“So basically you can’t guarantee their safety?”

“No.” He drops his gaze for a moment, but then he looks at you again. “But I can guarantee yours and I don’t want to take the chance with your life. And my brother is smart, maybe he can figure out a way to keep them safe too.”

You stand there for a moment contemplating what he’s saying, the memories of everything that happened tonight rising up in an unrelenting wave, not just cowering behind the dumpster, but the kiss the two of you shared, and the way he made you laugh.

I want to trust him. I don’t think he’s lying, I don’t think he’s going to hurt me. You think to yourself, and then the inevitable thought comes. I feel safe with him.

“Do you promise that your name is Russell and that you’re telling me the truth?” You ask one more time to make sure.

“Yes.”

So you take a chance and hope to God that you’re not wrong.

“Okay.” You nod, lowering the bat entirely. “I’ll go with you.”

He sighs in relief. “Good.” Russell holds out the backpack towards you. “You should probably pack this. If I had my way, there won’t be much in here besides underwear.”

“You’re such a guy.” You roll your eyes and take the backpack from him, but you can't help the smile that curls on the end of your mouth.

Russell returns it, pleased with himself that he'd gotten you to smile again. “That's better than you accusing me of being a murderer.”

“Jury’s still out on that one.”

“But you have to admit… this did make you forget your physics test right?”

He's not wrong... but you don’t think that this is better.

A/N: I had so much fun with this one. I hope y'all laughed as much as I did 😂

Thank you so much for reading! Likes, Reblogs, and Comments are not required, but are always appreciated! I love hearing what y'all think! 😊 If you'd liked to be added to my taglist please let me know!

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ramblingautisticman · 3 days ago

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Logan would be (is) such a good dad. Genuinely.

Obviously, Logan with Laura is something we get, and don't get me wrong- he is actually really good in that as a father figure- but I want more of it so bad. I want him with a baby. Him and Wade with a baby.

I want him trying to figure out how to put a nappy on, testing the temperature of the milk again and again and again cause he's worried it'll be too hot, terrified this tiny baby will be scared of him with his claws only to find she is actually very amused everytime he pulls them out, struggling to put a stroller together, watching her crawl around after Mary Puppins.

And yes, obviously, Wade is the other parent. And yes, obviously, I want to see him with a kid real bad.

He wants one so bad- it's basically half the plot of the second movie- and it's something we don't properly get with him ever in a movie.

He would be so gentle and soft, he would make sure she had whatever she needs (and wants, because let's be serious here, Wade would spoil his baby girl) and that nothing would ever hurt her. Ever.

And again, yeah, seeing Wade do all the stuff I listed for Logan would be nice, but I'm cruel and kind of just want to see Wade be a total and complete mess the whole time.

I like making him suffer okay?

Like, he would have such a complex about their daughter finding him scary, but not for the same reason Logan does. Logan is scared because his claws are sharp and could hurt her, Wade is scared because of how he looks. He's bad enough with adults, how do you think he is with his kid?

He would be constantly worried that something was going to happen- that he would be the reason something happened- because it has so many times before. So. Many. Times. Example, all of his movies.

He would be worried about her health all the time. Wade would have this deep fear engrained in him for his own health shit, and he is definitely terrified that that could happened to his little girl.

Anyway, that's my angst for Wade today.

#deadpool and wolverine #poolverine #wade wilson #deadpool 3 #deadpool #deadclaws #logan howlett #wade x logan #logan #wade winston wilson

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cyanbugremix · 2 days ago

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✨Cyanbug's Redacted Headcanons Pt.2✨

(Once again, some of these may be used or were used in fics, but some are just there and I want to share them)

1. Morgan Kyne has near-sighted glasses (he can't see far away clearly), but he wears contacts when he's out and about, because when he was younger he got teased for needing glasses.

2. Sweetheart despises mint toothpaste because of the spice (Hot spice = good. Cold spice = bad). So they get fruity flavors instead.

3. If Doc and Hush are going to watch a movie together, Hush always suggests to watch How to Train Your Dragon (2010).

4. Speaking of movies, Huxley likes to watch FernGully: The Last Rainforest (1992) whenever he's sick.

5. Angel's side takes up the most space in the closet. They have their usual work clothes hanging up, and their casual clothes in a dresser, but most of the closet is filled with costumes + cosplays outfits and pieces that they've made or collected over the years.

6. And to add to that, Milo and Angel would totally help their friends and the pack make costumes for ren-faires. Sometimes when the two hang out they go to craft/fabric stores together. (Angel comes back with too many jewelry pieces and Milo comes home with yards and yards of different fabrics. They'll trade items if he needs some jewelry or if Angel needs a specific type of fabric).

7. I feel like Elliott's favorite zoo animal would be red pandas or spider monkeys. (Idky he just gives off those vibes).

8. Aggro adores green beans. Milo thinks it's one of the weirdest things a cat would want to eat. Sweetheart came over one time to Milo's apartment for dinner, and thought that Aggro was going for their chicken, but instead stole their green beans off the plate.

9. Darlin' could play only one actual song on the guitar for the longest time. They are/were musically gifted when it came to instruments. In middle school, they picked up the clarinet really fast, and then eventually switched to bass because Darlin' got bored (their parents made them promise that they'd stop switching instruments because buying/renting different ones costed a lot). Their parent's had gotten them an electric guitar for their birthday one year, but they only learned how to play one actual song on it (American Idiot by Green Day). Not because they didn't want to learn more songs, but because they found it more fun to make up random songs with friends when they hung out. They did stop for a few years when they moved to Dahlia and they didn't pick it up again until they were in their later teen/early adult years. They do know more songs now and have played for Sam.

10. Anton likes to hand carve small wooden animals for My Love. He mostly likes to make them tigers, elephants and bears, but at this point he has made an entire forest or zoo of different wooden animals around their home.

Part 1 of headcanons

#redacted headcanons #redacted asmr #redacted audio #redacted darlin #redacted tank #redacted elliott #redacted milo #redacted aggro #redacted morgan #redacted sweetheart #redacted anton #redacted love #redacted angel #redacted doc #redacted hush

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tubattutu · 2 days ago

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Heyyy!! I hope I'm not annoying youu. Could you do Soobin teaching his innocent virgin girlfriend how to give a blowjob?? This has been stuck in my headdd //By the wayyy I'm the same anon with school problems and I really f up in maths and hey I became a school prefect yayyyy!!!!

hii!! answering this a little late but don’t worry i do too maths is my biggest enemy 😭

cw: virginfem!reader, blowjob, praise kink, cum eating, established relationship

you always found the fact that you were a virgin and not your boyfriend embarrassing. you both hadn't even done anything before, until now.

tonight, your loving boyfriend had invited you to come over to his apartment since he'd be lonely. obviously with no doubt you accepted the invite, got your things ready and drove over to his apartment building.

a while after you got there, you both honestly just cuddled in his bed and watched movies while you munched on your favourite snacks and chocolates.

the movie you two were watching was this rom-com you randomly decided to put on since it felt like there were barely any good movies or shows on netflix anymore. though it seemed quite corny and stupid, the more intimate parts of the movie seemed to get you both into the mood.

it was like one minute you both were fully immersed into the movie in eachothers arms snacking, and then the next you two were making out.

you both had always went no farther then just making out. i mean, he did grope your tits and stuff like that, but nothing further out of your comfort zone. tonight though, you felt a little bored of it.

you pulled away in the middle of the kiss, and almost out of breath you spoke;

"can we... try something a little different tonight?"

"like what baby?" soobins eyebrows furrow in confusion, though he was intrigued. but he wasn't expecting your next words,,,

"i want to go down on you."

it honestly surprised him to say the least. it wasn't that he wasn't down for it, he just always thought you never were into that. maybe it was out of your comfort zone?

"i- yeah, of course.." he stammers a bit, his cheeks flushed a soft, pale pink.

"but i don't know how to... give you a blowjob.." you mumbled out sheepishly, a very clear embarrassed look on your face. he thought your words and cute, embarrassed face were adorable.

"i can teach you..." at his offer, you felt like your cheeks turned as red as a tomato.

“please do..” he chuckled at your eager request and kissed your lips again, squeezing your hip.

“well, if you want to suck me off you gotta take my pants off huh?” he grinned at your flustered face.

you blush more if even possible, before your hands reach over to slide down his sweatpants and boxers. your eyes light up at the sight of his already hard cock popping out from his boxers.

you shift and move so you were between his legs on the bed, your hand slowly and hesitatingly starting to stroke his length.

at that he let out a soft moan, his head falling back against the plush pillow. “fuck..”

your lips curl into a small smile at his noises of approval. you were nervous what to do next, and it was clear to him.

“are you sure youre ready to do this baby?” he asks, needing reassurance as to him it looked like you weren’t sure of all of this. but you knew you we’re definitely ready.

all you did was nod, and then you lowered your head down, giving small kitten licks to his tip. he gasps quietly and bucks his hips up on instinct, biting his bottom lip at the sensation.

“fuck baby..” he groaned, hissing as you, without hesitation, took him inside your mouth, letting your warm and wet tongue and mouth engulf around his dick.

“oh fuck- just like that baby..” he moaned prettily, his hand resting on the back of your head as he helped guide your head up and down his dick.

you felt yourself becoming wet in your panties at his moans and praises, bobbing your head up and down with your eyes closed, your tongue swirling around his cock.

“doing such a good job for me baby..” he praises once more, his breath heavy and his legs subtly twitching at the sensations.

you lower your head again just slightly, taking him deeper in your wet mouth, moaning around his dick as you felt his tip brush against the back of your throat. he moaned a bit louder at that, head falling back again. it felt as if he almost came right then and there.

you pull away to breathe, panting softly before running your tongue up along his cock, looking up at him with doe eyes. seeing you like that to him made him want to take you right at that moment.

his breath hitches once you take him back in your mouth, bobbing your head up and down softly and moaning against him again. the sensation left him speechless everytime.

“f-fuck.. im gonna cum.. dont stop..” he breathed out, moaning in bliss as his chest rises up and down at a quick pace.

you pull away, stroking his cock quickly and swirling your tongue around his tip, until he finally reaches his orgasm, his cum spurting up onto your face and into your mouth.

#txt x reader #txt moa #txt smut #txt hard hours #txt hard thoughts #soobin x reader #soobin smut #soobin hard hours #soobin txt #kpop hard hours #kpop x reader #kpop smut #kpop fic #txt post

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smallpwbbles · 2 days ago

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I needed to yell about this somewhere and I felt like you would appreciate this: I rewatched the first Sonic movie last night for the first time since I first saw it in theaters and tell me WHY IS IT ACTUALLY GOOD?

Why had I convinced myself it was too cringe to watch again? I love the second movie, but have avoided the first, but it's not cringe? At all??? It's actually really funny and made me laugh? Sonic is just a little lonely meme loving guy??? Maddie and Tom are the most couple ever?

I actually think it was better paced and funnier than the third movie, but that's just me.

Anywho, Movie Sonic is the most little guy ever, you could never make me hate him.

The first movie just has this unmatched vibe that the other two don’t have, like people who call it another James Marsden and a whitty animal dude road trip movie I feel only see it from one lens’s. Tom and Sonics relationship in the first movie is so dear to me like bro it’s such a fun and heart warming dynamic.

It’s also real funny seeing Tom go from “get the fuck out of my car” in the first movie to “go to your room, your grounded” in Movie 2

And I’ve said this before but people who actually acknowledge how Sonic acts in the first movie because of his 7 year prolonged self isolation from society and apply that to how he continues to act will survive the winter

#ask

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wirewitchviolet · 2 days ago

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Let's talk about how Ranma is trans in the 2024 anime, part 1

Way the hell back in 2018, after a random exchange with a friend, I sat down and wrote a series of four blog posts where I looked at the manga Ranma ½, which ran from 1988 to 1996, explicitly through a lens where I assumed the protagonist is in fact a trans girl. A major component of the series being that Ranma and several other characters fell into various pools in a cursed set of natural springs causing them to magically change into whatever tragically drowned in one when hit with cold water, then back to their original body with hot, and Ranma fell in the girl one, so it was bound to be a series that would crack a lot of eggs regardless, but my memory of reading it years before transitioning was that it worked on a mundane level too, particularly later. I did somehow forget a bit towards the end where Ranma honestly just kinda straight up comes out of the closet, but I'm not going to link to that panel yet again for the sake of preview links not blending together. Anyway, those posts were already the most popular things I ever put on this blog and have never stopped circulating, despite it being a pretty old and largely forgotten series at the time.

I had always had the idea that I really should go back and also watch the anime adaptation(s) of Ranma, which deviates a good bit from the manga, but that is 161 episodes, 3 movies, and 11 OAVs which are terribly terribly paced, and I don't actually get paid for this. But then lo and behold, here's a brand new anime adaptation coming out decades later, looking really nice, and surely that will deviate even more from the source material, so here I am diving in to find all new bits of gender stuff to talk about, under the fold here and-

Oh. Turns out the new anime series is actually an EXTREMELY faithful adaptation of the original manga and the only deviations I've actually noticed are that there's a little bit less nudity and the one scene with Ranma's breasts fully on display goes the route of not drawing nipples. And really that's only significant because the original anime adaptation somehow got away with that one. Speaking of the original anime run, this adaptation brings back the entire surviving voice cast, and continues the tradition of coloring Ranma's hair red in cold-water form as an extra tell for the audience. And speaking of color, one thing this adaptation does now and then that I really appreciate is punctuating certain scenes with the sort of cool pastel palettes (see above) that were used for the cover illustrations of the original manga.

Another thing the 2024 anime does is throw in a quick little vignette before the opening credits of each episode to restate that Ranma and Akane are engaged, and the feminizing water thing, which mostly feels like it's there as just a little extra emphasis that regardless of all the other shenanigans going on, those two are the one actual couple and making it clear that the rest of the tangled web of crushes and obsessions don't really matter. Something I feel like this adapatation is keen to emphasize in general. In fact, being as nearly 1 to 1 an adaptation as it is, the title of every episode is directly lifted from the chapter names of the manga, so we can just slap together a little infographic and see what's getting compressed a bit and what's getting the time it needs to breathe!

We're chewing through the extended fight scenes pretty quick and slowing down any time Akane's having an emotional moment or some time in the spotlight basically. Which makes sense since the action scenes in the manga are like all full page splash images with a word of text and need to be flowing quickly, and because we have the benefit of hindsight knowing that the Kunos become irrelevant real quick. We're also squeezing out a little early identity crisis stuff for Ranma in the process (there's an early dream sequence after first meeting Kuno, coming to grips with the whole "since I'm a girl, dudes want to sleep with me" realization that barely makes it in and a few early moments of internalized misogyny that get dropped), and we really give Shampoo's debut some space (not QUITE as much as the above suggests, most of episode 10 is wrapping up a three parter on the ice skating with her just punching through the wall as a cliffhanger at the end).

The whole thing is also paced out to nicely cover the first four volumes of the manga, out of 38. They might up the compression rate a little, but as it stands, it's going to take another 8 or 9 seasons to get through everything at this rate. In comparison, my first blog post got through three times this much of it, but the original anime covered only the first half of this in the same episode count (and then for some reason introduced Shampoo and Mousse early and didn't get through the ice skating until episode 27).

Anyway, like I said, this doesn't really change things up enough to have a lot to say about how clearly Ranma is trans. Jumping back to the start though yet again, it really cannot be emphasized enough though just how clearly, even from the very first episode, she is SO much more comfortable presenting as a girl, not at all nervous meeting Akane's family like that, then suddenly super tense and awkward and closed off when interacting with... really anyone while boy-moding. So I guess it's time to bust out some of these other lenses to look at this...

Let's talk about how Akane is gay, part 1

I mean, we've established she's into Ranma, with extra emphasis in this adaptation, and we've established that Ranma is in fact a girl, but that's just the one data point. What else do we have? Well, she's quite explicitly not a fan of guys, particularly guys who are attracted to her, and we're keeping plenty of a focus on that while not wasting time trying to pretend Kuno matters at all in the grand scheme of things. The closest she ever comes to showing interest in a guy is Dr. Kuno, and the anime here is strongly emphasizing how that's less of a real crush and more just emulating her oldest sister (Nabiki of course is also some flavor of queer, and I don't think anyone has ever questioned that) since that's kinda what you do, right? She also gets intensely jealous of the idea of Shampoo kissing Ranma while assuming Ranma is a girl, talks about how hot she is, and hell, at the start of things when everyone's assuming they've somehow gotten into a situation where one of the three sisters has to marry a cis girl, Nabiki points out how that works out perfectly for her. Because she is extremely gay.

Let's talk about how Ryoga is trans, part 1

OK so this isn't the same absolute slam dunk as Ranma turned out to be, but there is a surprisingly strong case to argue that Ryoga is also a trans girl. What do we know about Ryoga after all? Real real socially awkward. Only has one sorta-friend from childhood, who turned out to be trans later. Can we call Ryoga a furry? I'm not even talking about the pig curse, but there's this whole feral wolf vibe before that's even established. In a series where basically every guy who is ever introduced is a horny creep obsessed with rigid gender roles, Ryoga does not bat an eye at seeing women naked (which comes up oddly often), spends a lot of these early arcs hanging out with the gal pals to help practice gymnastics and skating, deals well enough with the pink heart collar and being called Charlotte, and like so many of us, Ryoga is introduced to the series indignantly sputtering about how Ranma's situation shouldn't really be called a curse and is a situation we'd be happy to be in. You could argue that Ryoga's saying this just relative to the pig curse, I guess, but I do at least get the vibe that Ryoga wouldn't be too super worried about finding hot water with that one.

Speaking of the pig curse, I feel like every time I revisit Ranma I have a different perspective on the whole "P-Chan" situation. With this adaptation, it does feel significantly closer to "it's really just this super awkward situation where I've been looking for a good moment to explain and at this point it's been so long she'll probably kill me" than "I am a loathsome sex offender using a disguise to snuggle up with this girl who thinks I am a small animal" and Ranma is doing an appropriate amount of "I'm not going to blurt it out, but you should seriously come clean already" so, glad to know we're downplaying that.

Also, the emphasis on Ranma and Akane as The Couple in this adaptation really makes it clear that Ryoga isn't so much into Akane as just kinda... incapable of conceiving of any sort of existence that doesn't involve being Ranma's rival/friend/polycule member.

Anyway, I guess that's where I have to leave this until the second season drops? Have a patreon link?

#trans reading #ranma #ranma 1/2 #trans #ranma 2024

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witchygagirlwrites · 1 day ago

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Wildflower-Part 3

Jay Halstead x Reader (nicknamed Wildflower)

You and Jay start to find your way back to each other. Can it work?

Warnings: Hailey is a bitter ex

“So you’ve seen him and all that?” you could tell Violet and Sylvie both were wanting to ask so much more but weren’t wanting to pry into your personal life too much. You shrugged “He was my best friend for years, yeah we drifted after Mouse died and he left but I think it would’ve been weirder for him to be in Chicago and not see me on his own accord wouldn’t it?”

Sylvie tilted her head with a small smile “Did he meet Leah?” you nodded “Yeah, you know I’m not hiding my babygirl from anyone” Violet grinned “Our babygirl. The only reason you’re the only one on her birth certificate is because there isn’t enough lines for all of us” you laughed and bumped your arm into hers “Oh I know ma’am”

You were currently held up in the Lieutenant's quarters with the two of them and Stella. Kelly was in a meeting with Matt and Chief Boden. Stella nodded slowly “What did he say?” you shrugged “That she’s beautiful, that she looks like me” Stella grinned “We already knew that. So you two are friends again?” you nodded “Yeah, I mean I think so?” you knew if there was any hope of you being around and about with Jay and it not being weird that fifty one had to know about it. As bad as a part of you wished he’d just forget you and her both existed the other part of you knew he wouldn’t.

Stella nodded “As long as he’s ok with Leah and treats you like he used to before I’m good with but if he hurts your feelings or anything I won’t even need Kelly to kick his ass” “I second that” Violet added and Sylvie laughed “I’ll just go their bond”

You shook your head with a laugh “Nice to know that Leah’s second godmother at least won’t be locked up” She grinned “Someone has to stay out” Violet shrugged “I’ll send Sam to pick up Shay from school at least” “Thank you” Stella told her with a laugh. Shay was Stella and Kelly’s daughter. They’d adopted her at five. She was absolutely adorable.

“Well since we have a gameplan on who’s killing Jay and who’s picking the kids up, let's get back to work because Kelly is heading this way and technically he is my boss” you cut your eyes up and he grinned when he realized he had your attention. Stella shook her head “Please, I’m his boss. You’re good but just for the record if Hailey even looks your way because Jay’s hanging out with you I will knock her ass out detective or not” you shook your head “I love you Stella Kidd” she grinned “I love you too my Wildflower”

You were curled up on the couch with Leah in your lap watching some new marvel movie on disney plus. Bucky was in it and that was your only qualification to watch it. She started to fuss and you looked at the time. Yeah she was getting ready to bed down so she’d need a bottle before going to sleep.

You stood up, putting her on your hip as you headed to the kitchen but stopped when your phone rang. You grabbed it on the way and saw Jay’s name “Hello?” you answered and he laughed lightly “Any way you might want some company?” you looked down where you were currently wearing a white t-shirt and pink puffy sleep pants. Fuck it, he’d seen you in worse…and less considering. “Yeah, sure” “Good because I bought chinese and I’m at your door” you groaned and looked down at Leah who was currently nuzzling into your shoulder “Were you that certain I’d let you in?”

You walked over to the door and unlocked it. You swung it open and he stood there with the phone still at his ear and smiled “I hoped so. I got off earlier than I thought because the governors meeting was wrapped a lot faster” you nodded and stepped back “Come on then, I gotta get her bottle”

He walked in behind you, closing the door and followed you into the kitchen “Can I help?” he asked after he sat the bags of chinese food down on your counter. His eyes were glued to Leah and you sighed “Jay, use your words buddy” his eyes flicked up towards yours and he smiled “Can I hold her?” you nodded “Of course” he gently took her from your arms and she started cooing and babbling as he talked to her. You watched them for a moment then turned to get her bottle fixed.

She was just beginning to get food added to her diet. Jay was walking around the living room with her when you turned around and you smiled “You’re not tired?” he shrugged “You bust your back at the firehouse all day and do it. I can manage” you shook your head “Here, she needs her bottle so she can start to bed down”

He passed her back so you walked over to the couch “Want to finish this movie with me then we can eat after she goes down?” he nodded “Sure”

He followed you over and you turned, getting comfortable with her in your lap again and he smirked slightly “What?” you asked and he raised an eyebrow “Me, you and her on the couch” you shook your head “Full circle moment huh?” he grinned then motioned “Well you’re stretched out, where should I go?” you shifted your legs further back, giving him just enough room to lay across the couch with you. He kicked his shoes off and laid across the couch, his head on your thigh and Leah’s little hand reached out for him. He froze when he felt her and your heart flipped. This was a little too intimate but it wasn’t like you could move now. You were stuck in this position until she went to sleep now.

____________________

Once Leah was out cold, you slowly slid off the couch to go lay her in her crib so Jay headed for the kitchen to lay out the food. He was trying to ignore just how much his heart was aching. It felt so damn right just laying across the couch with you and her. He hadn’t even known she existed when he chose to not renew his contract. You were the reason he came home. Now he was so damn happy he had because he managed to make it home while she was still little. She was just a couple months old, she could know him.

He just wished he could do something to get you to open up a little to him. You’d let him take you and her to breakfast and had even let Will meet her officially. You were trying and he got that this was hard for you. You’d already laid your life and hers out in front of you. After Mouse you truly hadn’t expected him to come home. He just wished you’d stop saying things like you wanted him to not “ruin his life” by claiming Leah and you. He could give a damn less what anyone said.

He knew what he wanted his future to hold and if he was being honest? This was the best insight into it he’d had. He didn’t want anything other than a life with his girls.

“Jay?” you spoke behind him and he turned to see you standing there with a smile “Yeah?” you waved a hand towards the food “Did it offend you? You were staring it down” he grinned “Naw sweetheart, just thinking” you smirked “Oh, thank god. I thought the food smelled burnt”

He shook his head with a laugh but hearing you tease him like that? It meant your friendship was healing, it meant the two of you were still something to each other. “Yeah wouldn’t want to hurt myself huh?” you grinned and walked over to him, your hand against his lower back as you leaned up over his shoulder to look at the selection “So, did you remember my favorites?”

He cut his eyes at you “Did you think I’d forget?” you smiled “Nope” and grabbed two plates before holding him one out.

______________________

You were sitting on one side of the couch and Jay was sitting on the other. “You know that street fair thing you’ve always liked?” he asked and you nodded “I remember it” he smiled “Well I’m off that saturday, are you?”

You chewed on your bottom lip for a second as you thought about your schedule “Yeah as a matter of fact I’m on a two day off stretch, why?” he shrugged “It’s Leah’s first year. I thought we could take her together” your eyes widened “Jay..” but he cut you off “Not like that Flower, I thought it over here. You’ll be going with your girls right?” you nodded “I’m sure Stella, Sylvie and Vi will be there or at least one of them”

He shrugged “I could go with Will or Kev and just run into you two then if it’s just you were already there you technically didn’t go with me” “Are you really just thinking up ways to be around and about with me and her?” he looked down at his food and shoved it around with his chopsticks before saying “I missed you so much. Every damn day over there, you were all I thought about. Every letter you didn’t respond to, every email. When your number changed. I thought I lost you. That was why I chose not to extend my contract, why I took the private security gig. I had to get my ass home to Chicago to see if you were ok, see if you’d still smile at me like you used to, if you still cared about me”

You leaned up to cover his hand with yours and he stopped fidgeting then slowly raised his eyes to yours “I never meant to worry you Jay. It’s just when that pregnancy test came back positive..I didn’t know what to do, I was scared”

“Of me?” he asked and you shook your head “Never, I was scared of hurting you. What if what happened between us was just a mistake to you, what if she was a mistake to you?” he sat his plate down on the coffee table then reached for yours and sat it down next to his before taking your hands in his “Look at me when I say this flower” you raised your eyes to his and he smiled “What happened between us was so far from a mistake.You keep saying you don’t want to ruin my future but sweetheart that night made me a future. That little girl is perfect. There’s no other word for her”

You were trying not to tear up “I just want you to be happy Jay. You shouldn’t be stuck with me because we were both falling apart and clung to each other” “Was that what it was for you?” he asked and you shook your head “I don’t want to talk about that night right now, please” he nodded slowly “Ok but just know it meant something to me, something good. As far as being stuck with you? How many times do I have to tell you, you are my best friend. You’ve been my best friend for years. No one knows me like you do, I wouldn’t want anyone else to know me like you do. I’m not pushing for you to tell people I’m her father, I won’t do that to you but I want you back as my other half, my best friend, the person that if you see me you see you. I miss that, it doesn’t feel right”

You smiled “How about I just meet you at the street fair with her?” a broad smile slipped onto his face “What?” you nodded “I’ll meet you at the street fair with her. Then it’s just I was out with my daughter, ran into my best friend who then chose to spend the day with us” he started to pull you into a hug but froze until you sighed “You can hug me Jay” he grinned and damn near snatched you across the couch into his lap. You laughed when you landed against his chest,snuggling into the bend of his neck and he wrapped both arms around you “See, this? This feels right” you shook your head “You’re ridiculous Jay” he pressed a kiss to your forehead “And yet you’ve always let me in your life”

You lifted your head and raised an eyebrow “Leah is proof I let you in more than that” and was rewarded with a light blush gracing his cheeks “And you call me the ridiculous one”

You were trying to decide just what to wear to the street fair when Stella texted you So, we’re meeting at the petting zoo right? You laughed and texted back Yes ma’am, is Sylvie and Vi coming too? She replied Not sure about Sylvie but Vi is supposed to come. I heard her threatening Carver about it That sounded like Violet Sounds good to me. See you ladies there.

Once you decided on just sneakers, jeans and a long sleeve shirt you got dressed then headed to Leah’s room. She was babbling and currently playing with her feet. “That’s just lovely baby” you laughed and she cooed when she realized you were in the room.

Once you got her dressed and her diaper bag fixed you sent Jay a text Leaving for the street fair then headed for your truck. By the time you got her buckled in and slid into the driver’s seat he’d texted back I’ll meet you there

______________________

You were standing with Stella, Kelly and Shay. Violet and Sam were currently playing a game at one of the booths with the goal of winning stuffed dalmatians for both of the girls. Violet wouldn’t give up until she won. Kelly had Shay on his shoulders and she was laughing “Daddy, I want cotton candy” Kelly cut his eyes at Stella who sighed “Get her a hotdog at least too” he grinned and walked off.

You laughed “He’s adorable with her. You two are amazing parents” she smiled “You’re pretty amazing yourself there flower” you grinned “Thank you honey” she whistled and nodded “Lookie what the cat dragged in” you followed her line of sight to see Jay walking towards the two of you talking to Will and Nat who were walking with Owen.

“Hey Halsteads and Mannings” you greeted and they all smiled. Once they got to you and Stella everyone traded pleasantries. Nat played with Leah a bit as Stella talked to Jay and Will. In the meantime Kelly came back with Shay.

Jay smiled “And who is this?” Kelly looked so proud as he said “This is mine and Stella’s daughter. Shay Severide” Jay cut his eyes at you and he looked a little sad. You knew it was not being able to claim Leah like that in public. “Congrats you two and nice to meet you Ms Shay” he told her and she laughed “Nice to meet you”

“Jay, we’re bout to go” Will said and Jay nodded then looked back at you “Can I tag along with your bunch?” you shrugged and looked at Stella and Kelly who shrugged “Why not?” Will nodded “Ok. Nice to see you again Flower”

You watched Will walk off then before you could say anything to Jay Violet came running up with a grin carrying two hot pink stuffed dalmatians with Sam walking behind her shaking his head but he was wearing a grin. She looked at Jay and raised an eyebrow “Hey Halstead” the held up the stuffed animals “I won Leah and Shay one” “It only cost twenty bucks” Sam added and she looked back at him “Hush!” before handing you Leah’s and Stella Shay’s.

You grinned and showed Leah “Look what auntie Vi got you” she pulled at the stuffy and Violet grinned. Shay named hers strawberry. Violet was beaming when she looked at Sam “Worth the twenty?” Sam nodded “Yes it was” and all of you laughed. You waved a hand towards Sam “Jay, Sam Carver. Sam this is Jay Halstead, an old friend of mine”

“Hey” Sam greeted with a nod. You fell in step with Stella as all of you headed for the face painting area because that’s what Shay wanted. You could feel Jay at your side.You cut your eyes at him and he smiled as he walked. He was actually enjoying just something this simple.

_____________________

Violet and Sam had already left, they had a dinner reservation then it was Kelly and Stella next because Stella’s cousin was in town and wanted to see Shay. Once it was just you and Jay he looked at you “I could carry her”

You held her out “Knock yourself out” you and him were walking back to your truck. He took her and a broad smile slipped onto his face as soon as she was in his arms “Hey sweet girl” you reached up to run a hand down her back. “Have fun today?” “I think she did” he replied and you laughed “Good but I was asking you”

He laughed “Oh, yeah. I got to be in public with you and her. I got to be with you and your friends. It felt almost..” he trailed off then said “It felt good” you smiled “I’m glad. I enjoyed it too”

You watched him with her and pulled your phone out to snap a quick picture and he grinned “Can you send me that?” you nodded “I also have a couple I’ve snuck, if you want them?” he nodded “Please” you grinned and sent them to his phone, hearing it chime. He smiled “Thank you”

You’d taken one the day he met her. He still had his uniform on and she looked tiny in that pink onesie lost in the sea of tan he was wearing. He buckled her into her car seat then turned to face you where you were standing behind him “So, can I come over?” you shook your head “You don’t want to do anything else?” he shook his head “I want to come see you and her” you shrugged “If you want, you know where I am” he smiled and leaned down to press a kiss to your cheek “I’ll be over soon”

How the hell had you gone from a few months ago thinking Jay would never lay eyes on Leah to now he’d do his best to not go over a day without laying his eyes on her? The longest he went was when you were on shift.

You were laying across the floor with Leah on her tummy time blanket, your feet were propped up on the couch while she played. You heard a knock at the door and knew it was Jay. You grabbed your phone and hit his number. “Hello?” he answered so you asked “That you at my door?” “Yeah?” he replied so you laughed “Come on in”

He hung up then opened the door and tilted his head to the side “What are you doing beautiful?” you pointed at Leah “Tummy time” he grinned and kicked his shoes off “Then I’m just in time” he put the food he’d gotten on the counter then came over to lay across the floor on the other side of her. He smiled over at you, “I’m glad I came to see you before I left”

You laughed lightly “So am I Jay” you both got quiet, watching her play. This was becoming a usual occurrence. Hell your friendship was back as strong as it ever was. You loved Jay, even if it was so much more than you should. He was so proud to be Leah’s father and that warmed your heart. All he wanted was to claim her in public but fuck you were still afraid. You’d spotted Hailey from a far a handful of times and the glare she gave you? Nothing good was going to come out of that.

“Where did you go Flower?” he asked and you smiled “I’m here. Just thinking a little too much” he shook his head “Then stop it, your face fell and I don’t like it” you laughed “Well excuse me sir”

You’d never meant for that night to happen but you were glad it did. Jay had always owned a piece of your heart, that night just gave him a bigger piece and had formed something beautiful. She was currently gnawing on her dalmatian toy. You couldn’t see Jay like that because he didn’t see you like that. He loved Leah, that much you were certain and that was good enough for you.

_______________________

Leah was long asleep and you were laying backwards across Jay’s chest watching a movie or you had been watching a movie. He was fairly certain you were asleep. He tilted his head around to look and saw he was right. You were turned just enough to curl into his chest and his heart ached. This was what he wanted. Why couldn’t he just have the chance to tell all of Chicago that then he wouldn’t have had to deal with the issues like at the coffee shop the day before,

Jay was in line to grab everyone’s order from his office. He wasn’t paying attention because he was thinking about the last day he’d spent with you and his baby girl. He heard someone call his name and glanced back to see Hailey two people back and felt his heart drop. “Hey Hailey” he greeted. You’d been pushing him to talk to her anyways.

He motioned in front of him so she slid in the line then turned to face him “Why haven’t you come to see me yet?” he shrugged “We divorced before I left Hails. Didn’t figure you’d want to see me” she nodded “I get why that happened Jay. The stress from Mouse, our jobs. I forgive you” “Thanks?” he told her and she put one hand on his chest “We could try again? Have a real chance” he shook his head “No, I don’t think so” her face hardened “Is this because of Wildflower? You know she went home with a different guy every night the first month after you left. She’s not this big sweetheart like you act like she is”

“That doesn’t sound like her and oh well if she did” he argued and she scoffed “She was always in the middle of our marriage” “She’s my best friend. She was always supportive” he told her and she shook her head “Maybe if she would’ve left us the hell alone we could’ve made it work” “Ok Hailey, turn around and order your coffee” she rolled her eyes “I know she’s had you out and around with that baby. I could give you one that actually belongs to you, remember that” then passed him a card with her number before grabbing her coffee and leaving the shop.

He hadn’t told you. You would push him away. He knew you would. You’d argued from the start that he needed to try to get her back or move on with someone else. You couldn’t see the fact that you and Leah were his heart, his entire heart. He shifted just enough he could lay his head down on the back of the couch and closed his eyes. If this was the only way he could hold you, he’d take it just like if the only way he could be Leah’s daddy was in the four walls of your apartment he’d take it. He’d be patient and prove to you that he wanted you, wanted Leah. When he thought about his future? It was with his girls, only his girls.

@desimarie12

@allisonargent144

@nevaehstreater18

#jay halstead x reader #jay halstead fanfiction #jay halstead x you #chicago pd fanfic #chicago pd fic #chicago pd fanfiction #one chicago fanfic #chicago fire fanfic #chicago fire fanfiction #chicago fire imagine

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ar-agon · 2 days ago

Text

TikTok

So branching out some more on writing but I got inspo for a fic and I thought I'd give in a try- Ar

Summary: Inspired by @alnilaem post about TikToker reader and grumpy-looking Simon Riley. Reader is described using fem pronouns.

Length: 1276

You gained a following on TikTok due to making easy meals and baking cakes. You also always wore dresses and hand-made embroidered aprons while making your videos, giving all your videos a warm, homey vibe. It was what some of your viewers called your aesthetic, a lovely housewife. You didn’t mind it too much, given you were a stay-at-home wife. Your husband Simon worked construction, and that brought in enough to pay for everything, and the little you got from your videos helped cushion whatever else you wanted. Simon never showed up in your videos, either letting you have reign of the kitchen or him being at work while you filmed.

You decided for today’s video to hop on the “pack my husband’s lunch with me” trend. So you began the video as you always do, “Hey, everyone, I am doing something new today. So, we are going to be packing my husband’s lunch today.” You smile at the camera as you start making Simon two roast beef sandwiches. “He's not very picky when it comes to food, but he certainly doesn’t like anything super fancy for lunch,” you say as you continue to pack his lunch. You hum to yourself as you make the sandwiches, placing them in a plastic bag. You then grab a small container and fill it with grapes, placing it in the bag as well. You then grab a small thermos and fill it with coffee, placing it in the bag as well. You then grab a small bag of chips and place it in the bag, sealing it up. You then grab a small notebook and pen and write a small note, placing it in the bag as well. “And there it is, my husband’s lunch.” The camera pans over the lunchbox before the video ends.

You posted the video without watching it fully. If you had, you would have noticed Simon in the background. You knew your husband looked mean all huge and muscular. He was also wearing one of his work shirts that was covered in paint splatter. You had tried your hardest to get most of it out when you washed them, but you never truly succeeded. Simon was handsome but always had a resting mad face. So, when you looked at the comments and noticed a bunch of people asking you if you were okay, you knew that your rough-looking husband had made an appearance.

“Close your fist with your thumb inside if you're not safe,” You read one of the comments out loud to Simon as you cuddled on the couch, watching movies.

“What?” he asked.

“My comments from my packing your lunch video. They’re filled with people asking me if I’m okay.”

Simon snorts and laughs, pulling you closer. "You should know by now that people are always worried about you. But I'm sure they're just seeing my face and getting confused." Simon was a large man, always wearing paint covered clothes and always looking grumpy, even if he was in a good mood.

“Maybe I should do a video about you?” you ask as she scrolls through more and more worried comments. “Just because you’re bigger than me and look mean doesn’t mean I’m in any danger.”

“I don’t know you might be,” Simon laughs as he pinches your side.

“Si, I’m serious,” you squeak softly as you push his hand away, “they think you’re forcing me to stay home.”

Simon looks at you in shock, then rolls his eyes jokingly and lets out a fake gasp. “But what else can a brute like myself do except keep a tiny and very beautiful wife at home?” He asks in mock shock, and he pinches you again softly, knowing how ticklish you really were when you let your guard down.

“Stop it,” you giggle, pushing his hand away again, “you’re not helping your case right now.”

“Maybe I don’t want to,” he states as he kisses your cheek, “fine, make the video if you must, but I doubt it will change much.”

“Blink twice in the next video if you need help. This is getting ridiculous.”

"Sure whatever you say dear," Simon teases, before grabbing your chin and making you pay attention to him. "But please know that I love you and wouldn't make you do anything you didn't want to," he added a gentle, teasing smirk growing before pulling you on to his lap.

“I know, Si,” you sigh softly, “I love you.”

“I love you too, Mrs. Riley,” he grinned before pulling you into a kiss.

The next day, you decided to make the video while making one of Simon’s favorite cakes.

The video starts with you standing in your kitchen, dressed up in one of your many dresses with a hand embroidered apron on. You smile at the camera, looking pretty in your quaint kitchen as you begin to speak. "Hey, everybody! It's me again," you greeted your phone camera, "today I'm making a special cake for my husband. It's one of his favorite, so I thought I'd share it with you."

Simon is seen sitting across the kitchen counter, reading a novel and occasionally glancing up.

“He likes them very rich, so we are making a dark chocolate with caramel filling and white chocolate flakes on top,” you state as you begin to prepare that batter. “So, I also wanted to address the very nice and worried comments about me. My husband may look mean, but I can assure you all that he is just a big ol’ teddy bear.”

You started to stir the batter together. “He doesn’t keep me at home, I like making videos and baking for all of you. So, I have made it my full-time job. I used to work in an office, but now that there are so many of you who enjoy watching me bake and cook, well, I am really grateful for all of you.”

Simon watched with amusement as you made cakes and defended him from strangers on the internet who were convinced he was keeping his wife chained to a stove. He chuckled and then added a remark.

"You always said you hated that job anyway,” Simon said, finally pulling his gaze away from his book to glance in your direction. You had always loved being a homemaker, but back in you office days, there was definitely no shortage of complaints.

“I did but thanks to you guys,” you said addressing the audience in the video, “I can finally do something that I love.” You pause the video so you could cut to when the cake was baked and cool before decorating.

“Do you think that will go over well? That they’ll believe me?” you place the cake batter into the oven.

Simon closes his book and gets up from his seat, coming up behind you to wrap his arms around you. "They better believe us," he mutters into your ear, "don't want people thinking that I abuse my poor wife." He gently kisses your neck before letting you out of his grip.

“I’m sure some will still think so but I’m just glad to have you around, Mr. Riley,” you tell him.

“As am I my little housewife,” he says pulling you close.

You finish the cake and the video before posting it to you viewers to see. There's a couple of worried comments, but most of the comments range from "Aw, that's adorable," to "See? Told you guys he wasn't such a brute."

Simon leans over your shoulder, looking at the comments. "Told you they would believe us," he says with a teasing smirk.

“I know,” you smile.

#ghost x reader #ghost cod #cod x reader #simon riley x reader #cod modern warfare #tiktok reader

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hyukabean · 1 day ago

Text

──── kim sunoo, best friend (to lovers?) headcanons

in which sunoo is your bsf (and possibly bf)?! ～ warning: suggestive(?), reference to weight, unedited

sunoo x fem!reader

best friend sunoo. a dream!! i don’t even know where to start because there’s so much to say!

you guys met through mutual friends. perhaps at a gathering that friend left the room temporarily, and you noticed him awkwardly sitting there and decide to introduce yourself. the two of you spend the rest of the night gossiping and playfully side-eyeing people acting rude, and the rest is history:)

you two do everything together!

sunoo is the king of supplements and treatments, so self care evenings are a must!

if you ever need any recommendations, this man has you covered. any issue, whether it be hyperpigmentation, dark circles, blackheads, he is your man!

expect a lot of random, ‘hey, i bought this for you, let’s try it out together!’s.

meeting up at his dorm for a movie night (consisting of mostly scary horror flicks till you’re both scared shitless), snacks, and tons and tons of skincare!! “call me the moon because my pores are looking craters right now”, he’d sigh while applying a clay mask to his face, (the same mask he’d rub all over your shirt when he inevitably gets jumpscaresd and buries his face into your side).

when one of you eventually gets the bright idea to switch to something more light hearted, you end up throwing snacks into each others mouths while watching. a little later, you completely ignore the movie, scrolling through your phones to share funny videos and such, before falling asleep on each other.

the members would 100000% take pictures of you two and make fun of you later. sunoo definitely complains about it, “what the heck guys! why are you taking ugly pictures of me? seriously, why are you like this??”, before silently setting the one where you’re ontop of each other as his wallpaper.

speaking of wallpapers, it’s no secret sunoo is an amazing photographer. remember that one vlog he did with his sister? he’d coach you the same way he coached her! look down, up, adjust your mouth, lean to the side, he knows all your best angles. proudly posts you on his private sns and shows his members after. brags about you a ton during these moments as well, “y/n and i went there! but to be honest, the food wasn’t too great. we tried this one dish and y/n really liked it! it was something like…”. and whoever he’s talking to us like “?… that’s great… so what was the ticket price again?”.

you’re the only one who has the password to his phone! you guys meet up just to end up going through each other’s camera rolls. he’d pull up random screenshots or pictures of food and different views you’d taken and ask about them, taking every opportunity to learn more about you!

even when you hang out with the members, it’s clear your bond is slightly different. nevertheless, you absolutely tease the frick out of him with riki. the two of you gang up on him all the time and it’s hilarious.

he says something to poke fun at you? “your face isn’t bloated, you just gained weight” (quote from that vlog with his sister lol), you both play embarrassing clips of him. “you’re so loud~”, he’d whine while you and riki play video games in the living room. okay, no problem. “riki, call me real quick”, and suddenly your phone’s buzzing and playing his aegyo on full blast. “did you seriously set your ringtone to me? wow, y/n, fan behavior”.

still, he knows your *his* friend first and it’s all in good fun. hug him a bit and tell him he looks cute while pouting and he’s back to his bright and happy self. tldr: terrorizing him with riki is your favorite pastime, second only to actually spending time with him.

this man would switch to spotify just for you, so you could have shared playlists. would recommend you songs while he’s out and about, and make private ones dedicated to you (these you don’t get to see though huhuhu)

pinpointing when exactly you two started falling for each other is difficult. looking back, all of it seems kind of romantic, no? somewhere along the way, sunoo caught feelings and now he doesn’t know what to do. and sometimes, it can’t help but slip out.

“hmm? that’s not usually your style”, sunoo asks while sifting through the rack of clothing of some corner vintage store. "ah, it's not for me," you explain with a laugh. he cocks his head to the side a little. "i was thinking of riki, he likes this sort of stuff, don’t you think?".

"hey! why are you shopping for niki?" he says, his voice ringing through the small store. the workers glance up at you two and he quickly lowers his voice as to not draw attention to you both. "this is *our* time. we're supposed to be hanging out together. me and you. you and me. y/n and sunoo!"

"sunoo... i just happened to see it…”, you flash him an apologetic pout. "this just happened to be his style! do you want a gift, too? i can buy you something. or treat you to dinner?”.

"why are you thinking of him, anyway?!”, he mumbles accusingly, arms crossed, “are we even best friends?”. he shoves his hands in his coat pockets with a huff, “who even buys stuff when they go window shopping?… tch…”

the members though? they knew wayyyy before he did. and boy do they take advantage of it now that he’s realized~.

he’s introduced you to his members already, but if you guys somehow ended up hanging out more intensely and that one question would drop, his reaction would be embarrassingly telling.

“so y/n, are you seeing anyone?”, heesung asks, feigning nonchalance as he pours you both a glass of water. sunoo scoffs, “no. you think she’d be sitting here with you if she did?”.

jungwon, joining in on the fun, pulls up a picture. “y/n have you seen this drama yet? the actor is going viral for being super cute apparently”. you lean over and nod, “ah, i guess so, he’s pretty cute”.

sunoo scoffs, pulling a face. “*he’s* cute?…”, he side eyes, “i mean, i guess beauty is subjective”. you chuckle and tell him to “play nice”. the others laugh along and he gets all pouty. you poke at him until he relents, “i’m the cutest, right? right? say it. ‘sunoo is the cutest’!”.

you tackle him in a hug, “yeah, you’re the cutest, sunoo~”. you shake him, pecking his cheek teasingly, until he half giggles, half whines, “what are you doing~?!”.

but even that would change. sunoo likes being called cute, he *is* cute, but he’s more than that. and when you keep cooing at him, he can’t help but feel like you don’t take him seriously. sunoo strikes me as the type who genuinely enjoys being super bubbly most of the time, unlike riki, for example, he doesn’t feel the need to be seen as mysterious or aloof (re: “i’m a puma, not a duck!”). however, he’d also get tired of not being “taken seriously”.

you lean back against the couch of his small office, yawning quietly as you wait for him to finish up his selfie session.

something catches your eye, then, a small notebook beside his keyboard, stuffed full of loose pages and sticky notes. picking it up, you start flipping through it casually, opening it to a random page. scribbled notes, that at first you thought were lyrics, fill the paper. it looked more like a diary, but before you can decipher his handwriting, the notebook’s snatched from your hand.

“what are you doing right now?". the air is cold, sunoo stares at you, but not in the dramatic or playful way you’re used to. his palm rests firmly against the cover and you instinctively take a step back. "just… sorry, was it something personal?", your head it tilted to the side, hand rubbing your arm nervously. he sighs, sitting down and leaning back in his chair, “yeah, it is”.

in an attempt to soften him up, you wrap your arms around him from behind his chair, your chest pressing against his shoulder blades, “i’m sorry, hmm~? don’t be mad! you only look half as cute when you’re mad~”.

sunoo doesn’t reply for a while, silently glancing up at you. “do i always have to be cute?”, he breaks the tense quiet.

“hmm?”, you blink, surprised at his sudden tone.

“i’m not just cute, you know. there’s more to me than aegyo. i’m still a man”, he mutters, eye contact unwavering.

you blink again, before a relived smile graces your lips. so that’s what this is about. “of course, you’re not just cute! and duh, i know you’re a man, but like, you’re my best friend! i can relax around you, you know? why even bring that up in the first place?”.

he leans in closer to you, eyes narrow as he cups your cheek, “yeah? am i?”. the chuckle he lets out sends shivers down your spine, warm breath fanning your face. “just because we’re best friends doesn’t mean i don’t have urges and feelings like anyone else, and you’d do well to remember that before pressing yourself up against me in a locked room like this…”.

now that’s an indirect confession if i’ve ever heard one;) but worry not, he does properly admit his feelings to you eventually.

"i like you, y/n. i’m not sure when it started or how it happened… i just do. this won’t change anything between us if you don’t want it to, but feel like i owe you an explanation. i promise i won’t be awkward if you don’t feel the same way, just… please reciprocate my honesty. that's enough for me"

nana's notes : i'm surprised at how decisive the poll was! i thought for sure k would win lolol. to those who did vote for k, worry not! his will drop in a few days:) i tried something a lil different with the format, kind of a blend between an imagine and hcs, but idk if you guys vibe with it hahaha. also, i would like to clarify that, as long as you're healthy, you're beautiful at any weight in my eyes. the comment about gaining weight was quoted from sunoo's vlog with his sister. as always, if you guys have any feedback or suggestions, please let me know!

taglist : open!

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3amfanfiction · 2 days ago

Text

Simon Goes on a Trip (pt 6 of Doll and Darling)

Price x f!reader x f!oc

Simon has to go on a trip and decides to leave you at the Price house. Will you finally get to see your baby girl again? This is part 6 of the Doll and Darling series. You don't need read the others to understand this story.

10k, kidnapping, stockholm syndrome, uncaring sex (reader is used like a toy), oral (f x f), slight breeding talk, general bad feelings

18+ MDNI

Change was never a good thing.

You'd been with Simon too long to properly conceptualize the amount of time it had been since he took you in the dead of night. And in that time change always brought untold terrors with it.

And now it was happening again.

You watched as Simon packed up his bag, a mechanical feel to his movements—clearly something he'd done thousands of times prior. In no time he tugged the last zipper closed and turned to you, dark eyes watching emotionlessly as you fidgeted where you stood, shifting weight from one foot to the other before back again.

"What's going to happen to me?" you finally dared to ask, a croak in your voice revealing your anxieties. You were terrified at the thought of staying in the basement with your ankle chain the whole time he was gone. He'd done it before—for shorter trips. You were inconsolable the whole time, convinced he had been killed or he had left you and you would die a slow death underneath the house. Rotting away with no one the wiser, withering away to nothing. It was horrifying.

He didn't say anything, content to continue watching you, deep thoughts spinning behind dark eyes. He'd play these mind games with you whenever he was bored. Sometimes asking for something a second time got you what you wanted—a movie night, an extra blanket, takeout brought back from your favorite lunch spot—other times he would wait for you to bring it up again before offering a harsh rebuke. Insolent, greedy, demanding. Words heard through rushing blood in between the swing of his hand or the thrust of his hips.

He liked keeping you on the back foot.

But you had to risk it.

"Am I going to go with you?" you tried, a faint wobble in your voice you did your best to disguise. You couldn't help the flinch as he suddenly moved, taking a step closer to you, same stoic expression across his face.

You whimpered, hunching down as his hand came up and grabbed your face, pinching your cheeks between his thumb and forefinger pursing your lips. You couldn't hold eye contact as he stared down at you, your gaze shifting to the middle of his face instead. It was silent as you waited for him to speak, nothing but your shaky breathing heard, little gasping breaths you fought to keep stifled. Quiet.

"Be careful. No one likes it when their pets become demanding." He gave a shake of your head before letting you go. Your gaze dropped to the floor, nervously twisting your fingers together as you waited.

He stood there and watched you fidget for a moment before dropping the bombshell.

"You'll be staying at the Prices while I'm gone."

\\\

You couldn't help but watch avidly as the scenery passed by. You were limited to your view from the windows most of the time, rarely let outside to experience sunshine or the wind. You never thought you'd miss it so much. Watching the trees rush by as you passed caused something approximating happiness to bubble inside.

You could barely stop yourself from fidgeting in your seat when the truck rolled to a stop, gravel crunching under the tires. Anxiety and nerves warring with excitement kept you from sitting still but you were determined to be good.

You weren't going to mess this up.

You practically launched yourself through the door when Simon opened it, struggling to keep pace with him and not dart forward as you slowly walked up to the front door. Was she here? Would you get to see her? It had been months by this point, there's no way she would remember you. You'd broken down when you realized you'd forgotten the way she smelled, the sound of her cries, the shade of her eyes. She'd be crawling now, wouldn't she. Probably nearly walking if not already and you could just imagine her getting into everything.

You hoped she was happy.

You hoped you'd get to see her.

You hadn't said anything by the time you made it to the front door—keeping quiet, being good—and Simon gave three strong raps to the brightly painted wood, the thudding booms echoing out to the trees ringing the property.

He turned to look at you while you were waiting for the door to open, dark eyes pinning you in place as if to say, if you fuck this up I'm not responsible for the outcome.

You wouldn't. You wouldn't fuck this up. You'd show him that you could behave and you would get to see your daughter. That was all that mattered in the end.

Her.

Your Charlie.

But you'd need to be careful not to call her that. They had changed her name. They called her Olivia now.

Olivia. It was a pretty name but it wasn't what you chose all those months ago when she was tucked away in your belly, safe from the world. When you would feel her little feet tucking up under your ribs as she stretched, or when she would get the hiccups and you could feel her jolting inside you.

You realized your eyes were tearing and about to overflow when you wrenched your thoughts back to the present. There was no use for it now, you couldn't change anything.

Olivia.

Her name was Olivia.

But she was still your daughter.

The front door opened, swinging wide on well-oiled hinges until you saw John standing there with a stern mien. He filled the doorway, shoulders touching the doorframe on each side, button up flannel loose over a tshirt with the sleeves rolled up over his hairy forearms, folded at the elbows. A rich, earthy smell rolled off of him, something spicy you couldn't name.

"Simon," he greeted.

"Captain."

Turning to look at you he let a smile crack through his expression, blue eyes crinkling slightly at the corners as his mustache twitched, "Doll. It's lovely to see you again." You smiled but didn't say anything as he continued, "No use standing outside on the porch all day."

Stepping back he gestured you both inside, pulling you into the warmth of the house. You followed Simon as he stepped over the threshold. Stepping into this bubble that could be everything you ever wanted or another hell, different -scape.

You were hit by a wave of heavily scented air—a late lunch bubbling merrily in the kitchen over to the side. You watched as Darling took a loaf of bread out of the oven, placing it on a wire rack to cool. You could see steam coming from the pot on the stove and a kettle placed off to the side, already heating.

Darling gave you a genuine smile as she turned around and made eye contact with you. It was clear she was happy to see you. You couldn't help the way your eyes darted to the highchair sitting in the kitchen with her holding a chubby-faced baby currently gnawing on a clenched fist—drool dripping down their wrist to wet their sleeve.

Darling followed your line of sight and darted over to the baby. She picked them up and brought them over to where you were still standing near the entryway. John tucked an arm around her waist like he couldn't bear not touching her. Lifting a little arm, she encouraged the baby to wave and said, "Hi Doll, this is Henry."

Not Char—not Olivia.

You choked, swallowing through the sudden desert in your throat to croak out a weak, "Hello, Henry."

You felt your heart take up residence in the deepest part of your stomach. This was all some cruel trick, wasn't it? Something Simon thought up to show you your place or some bullshit. Thinking back you realized he'd never promised you would see your baby, just implied. This was just like him to dangle hope in front of you before yanking it away. You figured he liked the way your looked when your heart shattered.

You felt like vomiting all over their spotless floor.

Your breathing was coming in short, sharp pants when Darling continued, offering you a saving grace, "William and Olivia are still asleep, they went down for a late nap today."

Suddenly you could breathe again, the weight against your chest rising to allow oxygen to flood your lungs once more. She was here. She was just sleeping. You would still get to see her.

You blinked back a sheen of tears at the whiplash as you reached out to shake Henry's little hand. You watched the other fist—drool covered with little dimples around his knuckles—grab onto his mom's shirt holding tight.

She darted a nervous glance at Simon before coaxing you towards the kitchen. "Come help me with this, lunch is almost done but I could use another pair of hands."

You followed her into the kitchen, Leaving the two men to wander into the living room. They took seats on the overstuffed couch and you heard the rumble of their voices pick up, discussing who knew what before Darling grabbed your attention once more.

She shifted the baby to her hip opposite the stove and held the spoon out for you to take giving you something to do. Voice dropping to a whisper she asked, "How have you been?"

How have you been? How have you been? You used to wake up each day wondering if it would be your last one alive. Every morning bringing a new horror along with it. But that feeling had faded over time. It was clear Simon had no interest in breaking his toy beyond repair. He did a decent job of making sure you were whole at the end of each night.

More or less.

All you offered her was a weak smile in return, changing the subject to her. "He's getting so big." You reached out to gently touch his sock covered foot. "The last time I saw him he was still in your stomach."

With a pinched look on her face she allowed the shift, "Yeah, he just turned 10 months, can you believe it?"

Soft eyes darted down to Henry as she brushed her fingers through his wispy hair. "Him and Olivia are as thick as thieves, you can't find one without the other. William's the odd one out by being so much older. He's about to turn three if you can believe it." She gave a strange smile before continuing, "The only reason there's so much space between him and this one," she gives a little shimmy to jostle the baby on her hip, causing him to let out a sweet giggle, "is because Sir was on deployment for months when he was around the baby's age. I imagine we'll start trying for our next here soon. He's already started sneaking mentions of it into conversations so I know it's on his mind."

"He wants another baby?" you spluttered, aghast at the thought of more than the three children already in the house.

"He's always wanted a big family," she explained. A brittle smile shifted over her expression. "He let me know as soon as he met me that we would be filling the house with little running feet so it's not a surprise."

You let silence lapse, reduced to stirring the bubbling pot for something to do. There wasn't anything you could say to that. It's not like either of you had much choice in your situations. Darling's life had the veneer of a healthy relationship but it was all a facade. She was as much of a prisoner as you were. Just with a pretty house and sweet babies attached at the hip.

The silence stretched thin as she busied herself with Henry, an echoing weight over both of your heads, forever threatening to come crashing down.

"Darling. Doll," was heard from the living room.

You felt like you were on call at all times, helpless but to be lured towards them, nowhere else to go. Subject to their whims and fancies as they appeared. Nothing more than a puppet jumping on a string for their owners enjoyment.

Moving over to the couch, you stopped a short distance away from the men. "What were you two getting up to in there?" John asked, a congenial expression pointed towards you that turned sly, as if he was inviting you into sharing a secret, "Nothing naughty, I hope."

"No, Sir," Darling answered before you could, voice light and breezy as she smiled charmingly at him. "We were discussing the lovely weather we've been having as well as what will be for lunch."

Simon gestured you over to him, wrapping an arm around your hips and pulling you into his lap once you were close enough. "That true, Doll?" he questioned, turning you to look at him. "Making small talk in there?"

You hum in assent, nodding your head along with the sound. No rocking the boat. Not this close to the prize.

Simon just stared at you, dark eyes sinking tethers into your soul, hook-teeth biting and ripping away chunks of yourself. His gaze was miasmic, corroding everything it touched, leaving noxious fumes in it's wake. You hated when he looked at you. You felt stripped bare, no pretenses to hide behind when he felt like peering into your soul.

Suddenly faint crying could be heard echoing from down the hallway. Almost immediately after, you heard a quiet mommy? called out, breaking the tension building between the two of you.

"Sounds like someone's awake, please excuse me," Darling demurred, stepping over to a play mat littered with toys to put Henry down before starting down the hallway.

"I'll help." You attempted to stand up but no matter how you squirmed you remained pinned in Simon's lap. You did your best to soften your expression, turning pleading eyes up to him, "Please can I go help Darling with the babies?"

You hated how much power he had over everything. You had no autonomy—everything went though him. He was in charge of what you ate, where you slept, if you could see your child. It was never ending.

Most of the time you could stand it by not thinking about it. Letting it wash over you as if it didn't affect you helped you keep your calm. Then there were times like this where you wanted to sink your teeth into Simon's neck and bite until your mouth filled with blood, damn the consequences.

But there was an end goal here.

After a heartstopping breath he grunted his agreement but didn't loosen his arm keeping you pinned. When you frowned in confusion at him he simply said, "My thank you?" but the meaning was clear.

He got like this sometimes—where he wanted you to thank him for the very air you breathed. And if you didn't do it enthusiastically enough for him he denied you that air until you turned blue and were appropriately thankful.

It surprised you that you still had any pride left after your time with him. And that it always chose the most inopportune times to raise its head.

You held the vitriolic words you wanted to spew, chewing them down until all their sharp edges were mostly blunted and swallowed them. You instead murmured a meek, Thank you, Simon, I really appreciate it, accompanied by a kiss on the cheek. A there and gone peck all you could stomach.

It must've been enough for him because he let you up with a rumbling hum, forearms flexing as he released you. You scurried away quickly before he could change his mind.

And then there she was.

Your baby.

You almost broke down in tears but stifled them as best you could. There was no use in scaring her when you only just got to see her. It felt like your heart was shredding as you watched her stand in her crib, squeezing the bars in her little fists and immediately stop crying when she saw Darling. She reached up with grasping hands, eager to be held.

You stood frozen in place as Darling went and picked her up. You couldn't move. Too in shock at seeing her again. She'd gotten so big and she had so much hair now. You were awestruck, looking at her.

She'd changed so much in the months you'd missed.

You watched Darling bring her over, ready to introduce yourself, ready to hold her in your arms once more.

"Olivia, this is Doll. Can you say 'hi, Doll'?"

Only for reality to come crashing back down around you.

Of course you couldn't be momma. That title now belonged to someone else. Someone else who would get to kiss away her boo-boos and dry her tears after a nightmare. Someone else who would get to tickle her toes until she giggled and make funny faces when changing her diaper. Someone else. Not you.

You felt like you were about to crumble as you managed a weak smile at Olivia. "Hi, baby. You sure are awfully big," was said while choking back tears. "You look so happy."

She watched you with big eyes, the color the exact same shade as yours. Her faint, wispy brows furrowed before she turned and buried her face in Darling's shoulder, hiding from you. From her own mother.

If you thought your heart was already in pieces this showed you there was still more to break. There would always be more. Some unexplored corner of your heart that could still feel the crushing pain of your life. Holes torn through it like bullets through paper—leaving nothing but gaping wounds for you to attempt to patch.

You couldn't do anything more than nod furiously when Darling asked, "Do you want to hold her?" before she was moved towards you.

She allowed Darling to pass her over, grasping your top with fisted hands when she was close. She let you tuck her under your chin before you buried your nose in her hair, inhaling fervently.

Now you remembered. How could you ever have forgotten this scent? This sweet smell of your baby. It was like a piece slotted back into place in your psyche. Some integral part that you hadn't even realized was missing.

You held her tightly, showering kisses across the top of her head. Her hair silken soft against your lips. You couldn't help but grip her tighter when she started to squirm, fussing slightly at your hold.

You'd missed her so much.

This child who had used to be a part of you.

Who had been ripped from you.

Who was happy without you.

You finally released her, letting her sit up away from you. She turned and held her hands demandingly out to Darling. It tore something deep inside as you passed her back over. You weren't her mom anymore, someone else had taken that role. You were relegated to a nameless nobody who never got to see her.

Fuck Simon.

How could he have taken this away from you. You needed to be a part of her life in the same way you needed sunlight and food. It was intrinsic. Something you didn't understand why you needed but your body and mind demanded it. And he took her away.

You couldn't help the tears that ran furiously down your cheeks, a rough arm scraped over your face to wipe away the evidence. If only your feelings could be managed as easily. Something you could allow yourself to feel and then put away when it no longer served you.

"Sorry. I'm sorry," you apologized, wet eyes glued to the baby, "She's just so beautiful and she's grown so much."

Darling watched you with sad eyes, knowing nothing she said would help. She was nothing more than a mechanism being used to break you. She had no more say in the matter than you did. That didn't stop her from despising the part she had to play.

"Doll—" she started before Mommy! was heard once more from the next room. Offering a tight smile instead, she went to go get William while you stood there in the empty room with two cribs and cried. Your teeth sunk into your lower lip with a vengeance, stifling your sobs. You felt the blood well up but couldn't stop. Too caught up in the cacophony of your swirling mind to pay attention to your physical body.

It was only when you saw Darling cross the doorway headed to the living room once more that you began to pull yourself together. You could do this. You could get through your stay here and you would do it intact.

Fact one: Olivia was your child but you weren't her mother.

Fact two: You were going to be in close proximity to her for the short future. You needed to get a hold of yourself to soak up every moment you could.

Fact three: Both men would love to see you break. You had to do everything in your power not to give them the satisfaction.

A shuddery breath was your only companion in the empty room as you turned to head back to everyone else. If you took too much longer Simon would come looking. And he'd know how much you were hurting. Walking into the living room you saw Darling plating the table with Olivia still on her hip. William was clutching her skirts asking for a snack only to pout when he was told no, that lunch was almost done.

Avoiding Simon and John's eyes you went over to help set the table. It was a matter of minutes to have everything set up before Darling called out to the two men visiting on the couch.

"Lunch is ready."

You struggled not to stare at Olivia the whole meal. If anyone asked you what the table conversations were, you wouldn't have been able to recollect. It was white-noise, in one ear and then out the other. Nothing but meaningless background chatter.

What mattered was the way Olivia's nose scrunched up when she got a bite of carrot. Or the way she frowned so intently while trying to get the soft potato to her mouth. She was precious. And messy.

You watched her bring a food encrusted hand up to her head, gripping her own hair firmly before letting go, leaving a detritus of vegetables in her wake.

You did remember tuning back in at one point in the conversations. The topic of choice was the spread between girls and boys that the other couple had. You listened as John told Simon he, plans on an even number between the boys and girls. And howthey'll, keep trying until we get it, right Darling?

You watched Darling agree with a bright smile and a happy voice and in that moment you hated her. Just a little bit. Only in the way that you couldn't understand her. Couldn't understand why she was so nice to everyone, why she kept a smile on her face with every word she spoke. You wanted her to scream and cry with you. To tell off these two men and—

—And what?

What would you do? What could you do?

They had all the power, you were there at their enjoyment. As their entertainment. You had nothing. No upper hand you could play, no aces hidden in your back pocket. Your only course of action was to survive.

Day after day.

Because even death would be letting them win.

They were locust, taking everything around them and using it up, consuming it until nothing was left. Until nothing of you was left. Only an empty shell remaining. A husk just waiting for a touch too firm—waiting to disintegrate back to dust.

You blinked and realized lunch was over. You'd missed it wrapping up and now Simon was standing in front of you. Darling and John were cleaning off the children before they started on the table while you and Simon stood off to the side of the room, playing at a mockery of privacy in the open space.

He reached out, grabbing your face and squishing your lips into a pucker, molars grinding against the sensitive flesh on the inside of your mouth. You flinched at the bite of pain but kept your eyes on his, waiting.

"You're gonna be good for Price, you hear me?" he growled out, expression darkening. "When I get back, I expect a perfect report."

"I will," you promised through pursed lips. Willing to promise anything in the moment. "I will, I'll be good."

He hummed noncommittally before letting go of your face, cheeks throbbing with the release of pressure. A metallic taste filled your mouth. You'd split your cheeks open against your teeth and now you couldn't stop worrying the wounds with the tip of your tongue.

Nothing you hadn't endured before.

You watched him tell John goodbye with a dip of his head before he was out the door.

You didn't know what you felt as you watched his truck drive away through the living room windows. The children chattering in the background with Darling and John having a quiet discussion off to the side felt surreal. This is the first time you'd had any sort of freedom without him looming over you. Always hovering. You weren't exactly left to your own devices but you weren't chained in the basement.

Silver linings and all that.

Meaning what you'd thought earlier about making the most of your time here, you turned to sit with the two babies playing together on the play mat, William coloring away at the table. You'd take any chance you could get to be in Olivia's presence.

Hours passed with you mostly left to your own devices. John had made his way outside to the detached workshop sitting over to the side of the house. When you asked Darling about it she explained that was where he did all his woodworking. Looking around the house you realized how much of the furniture was handcrafted wood. It was clear he liked to keep his hands busy.

Eventually it was dinner which passed much the same way as lunch, a loosely corralled circus with the children doing their best to wear more food than they ate. By the time everyone was sated the children looked a right mess. John must have been thinking the same thing because you heard him ask Darling to take them for a bath, that he'd take care of the table.

You started to stand, assuming you would be helping her with the children when John stopped you. "Doll, you'll be a dear and help me clean up the kitchen, won't you?"

You couldn't do anything but agree, aware that it was an order rather than a question due to who it was coming from. You felt his heavy gaze on you as you went to begin collecting plates and dishes to be brought to the sink.

"Simon warned me that you might try and act up but you've been a perfect angel, haven't you Doll?" he asked, putting leftovers into the fridge for later. You watched him out of the corner of your eye as you stood over the sink.

"I'm trying to be good," you swallowed and then choked out, "—sir," attempting your best to be polite to him. To not make him angry. To not give him any excuse to take Olivia away from you for however long you were here.

He smiled, eyes crinkling up into attractive crows feet at the corner of his eyes. If you didn't know what kind of person he was, you never would've been able to tell just by looking at him. He masked his true intentions too well behind the veneer of civility.

"I think you've been more than good," he affirmed, shifting to look at you full on. You set down the dishes you had been rinsing and turned to meet his gaze. "I've been watching, making sure you wouldn't need any corrections, especially around the babies. But you haven't crossed any boundaries all day. I'd almost think Simon was mistaken about you not knowing your place."

He took a step towards you that felt menacing, heavy in a strange way. "But you do, don't you?" he continued, voice dropping into a low hum, now close enough to feel his breath brush against your face as he spoke. "You know what's expected of you and you've done a good job at toeing the line. Not confusing Olivia with any mistaken claims of motherhood."

You felt your chest cave in with the blow, lungs stuttering as you tried to breathe through the pain. Your chin dropped but he reached out and tilted it back up, keeping his eyes on you and making sure you looked back.

"I know, I know," he cooed condescendingly, "It hurts but you can take it, can't you, pet? You can keep being good and I can keep being nice. That's the way of things, isn't it?" He asked and then used your chin to nod your head. "Yeah, there's no reason to be mean as long as you keep being good."

He leaned closer to press a kiss to your forehead, lips soft as you caught a wave of his scent, rich and earthy invading your sinuses. With that peck he stepped back and raised his voice back up from the whisper it had fallen into, "Be a dear and finish the kitchen? I have something I need to take care of in the office." He turned and left you to your own devices, left to finish cleaning up while you fought tears and listened to splashes and giggling echoing from down the hall.

By the time you finished, the babies had been put down for bed and you had missed your chance to say goodnight. Another night without kissing her precious head and telling her you loved her. Another night without wishing her sweet dreams to help ward off any nightmares. Another night missed.

You stuffed your hurt deep in your chest with all the rest when they both came out of the hallway. You followed them to the living room where you spent the evening talking as if this were a normal situation. As if you and Darling weren't being held captive. When John asked how you normally spent your days, you let a bit of bite creep into your words when you asked, Before or after I'm unchained?

His response in a warning growl of, Watch yourself, was enough to cow you back into meekness. Timid once more after he showed his teeth. A skittering little creature intimidated by the bigger beast.

He eventually let Darling take over the conversation and it shifted to a lighthearted discussion of what you liked to eat. The topic meandered but it never dipped into anything heavy, staying firmly in the 'small-talk' realm.

You were flagging heavily by the time John stood up and announced it was time for bed. You stood with Darling and asked, "Where will I be sleeping?" You hadn't seen a guest room and barring an unexpected basement situation you assumed you would be taking the couch. Still. You were trying to be on your best behavior and that included not making assumptions. You didn't know how John handled true corrections and you weren't eager to find out.

You had subconsciously turned back to the sofa when John said, "In our room, of course. Where else would you be?"

Oh.

You should have known. Stupid of you not to have realized, honestly. You were a toy. Something to be used and handed around as your owner saw fit. Did you really expect this man to be handed a new toy to play with and think he wouldn't use it? You knew better than that.

You swallowed and gave a weak smile, "Of course," you croaked. Darling had already started down the hall so you turned to follow her, nearly jumping out of your skin at the firm pat John gave your bottom as you walked in front of him.

Entering their bedroom you were graced with the sight of a large bed dominating the space. The head and foot boards looked hand carved and you were able to spot several anchor points built into the woodwork. It was clearly a masterpiece that quite some time had gone into.

You joined Darling in the en suite to get ready for the night, meeting her eyes in the mirror as you brushed your teeth. You wondered what she thought about all this, about everything. There was nothing she could do about it, of course but she must have feelings about your respective situations. You wondered if you'd ever be in a position to ask her. She finished before you and went back into the bedroom. You heard her and John speaking in a low murmur, voices too quiet for you to make out the words.

Finishing, you dried your mouth and joined them, looking hesitantly at the large bed, knowing what was next. What was expected of you.

"Come give me a kiss, Doll."

And there it was. He wasted no time in getting the ball rolling. Stepping over to him, you made brief eye contact with Darling before John's—Sir's lips were on you. You remembered his corrections from last time. He would only allow you to call him John out of the bedroom, unlike poor Darling who was only ever allowed 'Sir'.

You knew he would have no problem taking his hand to your cheek if you forgot.

Letting your eyes close you quieted your mind and fell into the kiss, enjoying the closeness, the softness of the sensation. Simon was never soft when he kissed. He liked to bite at your lips and tongue until they were swollen and tender to the touch. One of his favorite pastimes was 'making out' until your lips were chewed up and bloody and then having you sink to your knees for him. He liked your pained expressions as he stretched your split lips along with the ring of blood you left around the base of his cock. A bastardized version of a ring of lipstick.

But Sir wasn't like that. He was soft and gentle—kissing into you with a delicate touch that belied the need coursing through him, his thickening cock giving him away. It messed with your head just a bit as you struggled not to fall deeper into the kiss than you intended to. The soft suckles to the tip of your tongue had your thighs clenching as you pressed your hands delicately along his chest.

He moved away and pulled Darling in, giving her the same treatment. You watched in barely concealed, disappointed want as they kissed each other sweetly, Sir's hands raising up to cradle her face, keeping her positioned exactly as he wanted.

He walked her backwards to the bed, snaking an arm out to grab your wrist and pull you along with. You caught yourself on the edge of the mattress as he tipped Darling back until she was splayed across the bedspread enticingly, a soft smile dancing along her lips.

"Darling," he purred, avarice filled eyes watching greedily, "Why don't you show us how a good girl gets undressed. Show Doll how I like my presents unwrapped."

"Yes, Sir," Darling said as she got to her knees facing you. She reached slowly towards the button along the front of her dress, coaxing them apart one-by-one with delicate precision. She took her time—a calming inhale heard between each button sliding through it's buttonhole. When she reached the end she shimmied her shoulders, sliding the dress down to be caught in the crook of her elbows. She paused here for a moment, holding eye contact with him before allowing the dress to slip down off her arms until it was puddled around her legs where she sat on the bed.

Pulling the dress loose she tossed it to the side before reaching back to unhook her bra. Her breasts dropped from below the cups as soon as she had unhooked it, coming to rest on the soft slope of her stomach. She shifted the straps down her shoulders until it too could be tossed to the side, leaving her in only her underwear, the front hidden from view below the overhang of her stomach.

"You'll leave your panties on," he said into the quiet air, eyes fixed on Darlings soft-looking skin, tracing the curves and dips reverently as he went. "I like to take those off myself." Releasing her from his stare he turned to you, Darling's eyes also shifting your way, watching as you reached for the hem of your shirt with trembling fingers.

You took a deep breath and coached yourself. This was fine. This was just like with Simon. You needed turn your brain off and let your body feel whatever it feels—there was nothing right or wrong about your reactions, they didn't define who you were.

You did your best to copy Darling, pulling your shirt off slowly, not allowing yourself to hunch forward in an attempt to cover yourself. You kept pace and peeled off the rest, leaving you in only your underwear per his request. You stood there, thousand-yard stare in your eyes until he reached up with a broad palm and pinched your nipple giving it a sharp tug and grounding you in your body once more.

"No floating off, Doll, you'll stay right here with us." His eyes were dark with lust as he took you in, tracing over your soft areas with intensity. He locked eyes with you once more as he said, "Darling, how would you like our toy for the night?"

You couldn't help the stunned and betrayed look you darted Darling's way before you schooled your features once more. She was going to be participating in this? Ordering you around, telling you what to do? It felt crueler than if it was just John.

Probably why he did it.

"I want to sit on her face while I look at you."

You knew your face did something at the declaration but luckily it was there and gone too fast for the others to catch. Momentary. Fleeting.

"You heard my Darling girl, up on the bed you get, flat on your back," he directed you, a pinch to your backside the only touch he forced upon you as you crawled into the center of the bed, maneuvering carefully around Darling's seated form, taking care not to let your skin brush.

If you expected them to dive onto you as soon as you were situated, you were vastly mistaken. Instead, he pulled Darling close to him and took his time kissing her. You were subjected to sitting on the sidelines as he slowly warmed her up, lips trailing over her neck and shoulders with little nips thrown in every so often, but always returning to her lips. As if spending too much time away from her was painful.

You listened to him murmur sweetly between each kiss, Taste so good sweetheart, I can't get enough, could barely keep my hands to myself all evening. Words spilling from his lips as if they couldn't be contained.

His fingers trailed lower, sliding down to play with the band of her panties, pulling it away to release it with a snap before sliding his fingers down lower to tease her clit gently through the fabric.

"Already this wet for me, love?" he asked, "Or is this excitement for our new toy?"

"It's all for you, Sir," she simpered, pressing into his hand and rutting her hips against his fingers. He slid the gusset to the side to slip one finger inside, sinking all the way to the knuckle with no resistance. You listened to her moan and couldn't help but shift your thighs together, searching for any type of friction on your clit.

You watched him gently thrust his finger into Darling's wet cunt before pausing to finally remove her panties and adding a second finger. It slipped in just as easily as the first and brought Darling's moans to a new crescendo. You listened to the wet squelch of it as he fingered her, getting her ready and warming her up before she sat on your face.

Her moans filled the room as she humped desperately into his hand, chasing the pleasure he provided until he took it away with a soft swat against her clit when she whined in disappointment.

"None of that. Take your seat."

With trembling legs she obeyed, moving over to hover above your face, her weight resting on her knees for the moment. You looked up into her glistening cunt, watching strands of arousal string between her lips. Her pubic hair looked soft and curly, as if it was conditioned and taken care of regularly, covering her softly curved mons and spreading down between her thighs.

You swallowed your drool shamefully.

You saw Sir move between your thighs just as Darling lowered herself to sit firmly over your mouth. You couldn't hear anything other than your own pounding heart with the way her thick thighs encased your head, the soft fat pressing from your skull down to your jaw, cradling your face in the heat of her. Your tongue darted out to taste her slick covered lips and you couldn't help the moan you let out at her taste, tangy, slightly bitter and so good.

You chased after the taste with your tongue, searching every fold for any hidden flavor remaining. She rocked into your mouth as you laid your tongue flat to give her clit something to grind against before pursing your lips and sucking lightly. She clenched around your skull, the pressure doing something to your brain, something that caused your thoughts to slow like molasses until it was all you could think about.

It consumed all your thoughts until you felt your own panties being slid down.

It wasn't like how he had removed Darlings—all soft touches and teasing slides— instead it was almost perfunctorily. Like it was another block to be removed until he could get at what he wanted.

You felt two slick fingers at your entrance and wondered if they were still wet from Darling or if he had licked them clean before they were suddenly inside of you. You yowled into Darling's cunt at the sudden stretch. You couldn't hear the, Hush up, can't have you waking the babies, he said. Or the, I don't even need to open you up, you're ready for any man to walk up and stick his cock into you, aren't you? Just a little toy to be played with.

You focused back on eating Darling to the best of your abilities while he played with your cunt. There wasn't any real drive from him to get you off, more like he was playing for his own enjoyment—alternating strokes and thrusts like he was experimenting. You were ashamed of the slick dripping down your ass to soak into the sheets.

You whined into Darling's slickness when he pulled his fingers away. You thought if your mouth would've been free you would have begged. You weren't empty for long however, before you felt the blunt head of his cock pressing against your opening.

You didn't hear the praise he blanketed Darling with as he slid into you, all the way to the back in one firm thrust. The, you look so pretty for me, Darling. Doing so well. Taking everything you're given, meant for her, not for you. You got to wail at the stretch as he seated himself firmly before immediately beginning to thrust, giving you no time to acclimate to the size and stretch of him.

Hooking your knees over his elbows he pistoned into you, jolting you from your place under Darling. Suddenly you could hear the way Darling was moaning above you, the heated whisperings John was directing her way, and the wet squelching of your cunt has he thrust inside. Darling reseated herself and you did your best to try and focus on her, licking and sucking on her sensitive folds, flicking the tip of your tongue against her swelling clit. All while Sir did his best to carve a new space for himself in the cradle of your hips.

He still didn't seem concerned with your pleasure—no soft touches to your clit or gentle caresses against your chest—no, it was all for him. Your body made for his enjoyment and his use. He moved you how he wanted, keeping your legs spread wide for his own satisfaction. Nothing but a doll to be played with.

Your jaw was throbbing, lips numb when Darling lifted herself up and you heard her say, "I want to lay on my back instead."

Sir didn't give you long to understand her words. With a sharp slap to your hip as if you were an animal he were trying to shift, he stated, "You heard her, Doll. Flip over," as he pulled himself out of you and sat back on his heels.

You felt his eyes roving your body as you rolled over onto your knees, dipping down to where Darling was splayed back on the pillows like a lounging princess. Your face was slick with spit and arousal—practically dripping from your chin. You made yourself at home between her thighs once more as you began to nip and lick.

With the new position you were bombarded with a host of sounds previously denied you. You could hear the way Darling gasped and panted, sweet little high pitched moans whenever you managed to flick your tongue just right.And you could see her. You saw the way her back arched and chin rose at the sensations. The way she played with her own nipples, pinching and twisting them as she saw fit. You saw her biting her own lip when her moans got too loud.

You were thoroughly distracted when John pushed back into you, once more to the root with no consideration for yourself. He started up a furious tempo, spreading your cheeks between his two rough palms. "Fuck, look at this pretty asshole. We'll have to try it out tomorrow."

You felt yourself clench at the entitled statement, something hot shooting through you at the thought of him inside your other hole.

You wondered how he would compare to Simon.

Darling's hands threaded through your hair, keeping you in place exactly where she wanted you. You could tell she was getting close with the way her hips twitched and tilted towards you, chasing her pleasure. "Almost, almost," she panted.

You couldn't see how John hadn't taken his eyes off her, staring at her rapturously, covetedly, as she climbed her peak. "That's it, Darling. Let me see you cum. Keep those pretty eyes on me and cum for me, sweetheart."

And she did, clamping her thighs tightly around your head once more as she bucked into your mouth, drawing each wave as far as it would go as she crested. You rode it out along with her, keeping your mouth sealed to her clit as best you were able. Helping her ride it out to the fullest extreme.

As she convulsed you realized you wouldn't be granted the same opportunity unless you took it for yourself. Sir had shown you very thoroughly how you weren't more than a toy to him. Something to be used but not cared for. If you wanted to cum tonight you would have to take the opportunity with your own two hands to make it happen.

You started to pull back once Darling was done, her body laying limply like she no longer inhabited it, chest heaving with every panted breath only for John to grab the back of your head and press you firmly back into her cunt. "My Darling cums more than once when she's being good, and she's been very good recently. You're not to stop until I tell you to."

It was clear you were being used as an over-stimulation tool because Darling started squirming and whining as soon as you attached your lips back to her clit. You watched her fight to keep from pressing your head away as she cried, "Please, it's too much."

"It's not too much, my love, it's just what you needed. Now say 'thank you' and lay there like the good girl I know you are."

Her entire body clenched like she'd just grabbed a live wire before she took a deep breath and purposefully relaxed into the sensations. You did your best to be gentle, easing her back into another climb with soft suckles and kisses, lapping gently at the swell of her clit.

While John had a plethora of soft, sweet words for his Darling, the same couldn't be said for you. For each, Let me see that pretty face, baby, there was an equal, Look at this sloppy cunt sucking me in. I didn't realize you were such a whore, directed your way. It was two extremes, directed at the two of you.

You tried to listen to him praising her and pretend it was for you. Each, Yes, Darling, just like that. Show me how good it feels, was directed towards you, not her. Every, You look so good like that, my pretty girl, taking it so well aren't you? Behaving so well for me, attempted to stoke your own fires.

But that wasn't the sweet comments that made you clench.

It was the groaned filth that fed the kindling buried down deep in your core, slowly smoldering, helped along by the relentlessly paced thrusts he hammered into you from behind. It was hearing, such an easy fucking slut. I bet you'd let anyone in these holes, wouldn't you? Probably thank them for it afterwards, that had you building higher and higher, clenching around his cock like a vice—attempting to milk it.

You were settling into a heart-racing rhythm, John's thrusts scraping something deliciously sensitive inside when Darling came for the second time. You walked her through it again, making sure to keep your tongue and lips soft around her swollen center, still chasing the drippings of slick she was leaking as if you were searching for a treat. Something sweet to be enjoyed.

He let you back away from her this time, panting into the soaked bedsheets as you fought off your own moans that had been muffled by her flesh shortly prior. Grasping your hips firmly, he began to thrust with fervor, no longer worried about dislodging you from your place between Darling's thick thighs.

His thrusts were jarring in their intensity. The force rippled through your bones until it shook your brain in its skull. A steady, thwap, thwap, heard as he buried himself in your wet cunt.

"Did he get you fixed?" he panted unexpectedly, confusing you. Fixed? Fix what? Your brain felt like it was melting from your ears, electricity racing along your whole body as he continued to thrust into you. You scrambled to try and find his meaning as you grasped the bedsheets under your hands to help keep you anchored when it finally came to you.

Fixed.

Oh.

Nothing more than a pet to be fixed so it wouldn't cause unnecessary difficulties. A dog subjected to her owner's whims. Even if you agreed with this specific choice, it was still made for you. Nothing you could have done would've made a difference. A particularly jarring thrust brought you back and made you unstick your tongue from the roof of your mouth to answer him. "Yes. I'm on birth control now."

"Waste of good cum, dumping it in a closed womb."

He said it more to himself than to you, under his breath with a disgusted tone as if it was sacrilegious. Something he couldn't understand. Would never abide by. Something objectionable.

He pressed you down by the neck, face buried into the bedding until it was hard to breathe as he picked up his rhythm once more. You were mortified that it only took one final, Be good and fucking take it, to find your own release, clenching tightly around his cock as you attempted to milk him of everything he was.

It was with a low groan that he filled you up, muscles flexing in relief. You felt the hot wash of him as it bathed the base of your cervix tucked deep inside.

Uselessly—as he said.

He was panting as he pulled out, slumping back on his heels with a firm swat to your backside in parting. You allowed yourself to fall to the side, curling up into Darling's hip, forehead pressed to soft skin as if you could obtain some of her composure through osmosis.

Your thoughts wandered in the aftermath. You laid there and breathed in the hot, sex-scented air as you thought about your life. This is what you could expect now. To be used, passed out to whoever Simon wanted, whenever he wanted. And you had no say in it.

Maybe you did understand why Darling fell into her role like she did.

You came back to yourself when John entered your line of sight, holding a damp washcloth in his hand. He wiped down Darling's face gently, using his free hand to steady her chin as he took the towel to her drool and tear-streaked face. It was reminiscent of the way they cared for their children. When he moved between her legs he took the same care. Delicate, gentle strokes along over-sensitive skin that twitched at the slightest touch. The whole time whispering sweet nothings into the air about how good she was for him.

Once he was finished he shifted over to you and you braced yourself for the same kind of touch. Instead what you got was an indifferent, perfunctory swipe with the damp cloth. He at least used the clean side to wipe your face but that was all the concern he bothered to show as he cleaned you up, face and cunt with a quick hand. It was over before it began and he threw the towel into the nearby laundry hamper.

You fought back the tears you felt brimming at your lashline at his uncaring attitude. There was nothing you should have wanted from him but you found yourself yearning for it anyways. You wanted the soft words and soft touches. You didn't want to be a Doll. You wanted to be a Darling.

Only that wasn't quite right either, was it? Darling was a prisoner too. Maybe with more liberties but still locked in the cage, the same as you.

There was no freedom to be found there.

He shifted the three of you around until Darling was in the middle, him laying closest to the door. You wondered if it was in protection or entrapment that he blocked the only route of escape.

You tried to curl into Darling's side, craving any sort of comfort you could find only for that door to be closed firmly in your face. Darling turned away from you to curve tightly into John's arms, leaving you cold and alone along the outside of the bed.

You felt like a used doll, put away in the closet once no longer of use. Not someone with thoughts and feelings, instead only a mannequin in a human-ish shape.

You used the corner of the bedsheet to dry the tears that wouldn't quit falling.

\\\

Your remaining days passed much the same way as the first, the daylight hours filled with babies and chores around the house and the evenings filled with debauchery behind closed doors where you were treated as nothing more than a toy that was added to their bedroom.

It was almost a relief when Simon returned and said it was time to go home.

You stood from where you had been helping William color in his coloring books, moving towards Olivia to tell her goodbye. You were stopped by a hand on your wrist, keeping you in place. Simon's eyes were wells of pitch black, tiredness lined every inch of his face and it was clear he'd had a stressful trip, wherever he went.

"I just need to say goodbye and then I'll be ready to leave."

"Now."

You ignored him and tried to pull away from his grasp, knowing you only needed a few seconds to give Olivia one last kiss goodbye before you left but he wouldn't let go. Keeping a firm grip he started to move towards the door.

"Wait! I didn't even get to say goodbye yet," but he didn't listen, pulling you towards the door by the arm. "Simon. Simon, wait—" you searched for some glimmer of humanity hidden under his skin, "Please let me tell her goodbye," you pleaded but he continued to the door and you realized he wasn't going to stop.

Olivia started to cry, scared by all the commotion and Darling raced over to pick her up, John stood and used his body as a shield between you and them. As if he were afraid you would hurt them. Launch yourself from Simon and rail at them with your fists. It was absurd. You only wanted to tell your daughter goodbye. Not snatch her from them.

But once again, you were subjected to others desires instead of your own. Simon let out disappointed huff as he removed you from the house. Your last sight was of Olivia crying into Darling's shoulder as John shut the door.

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#john price x reader #reader x oc #fic series: doll and darling #fic: simon goes on a trip #cw kidnapping #reader is used like a toy #subtle breeding kink

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