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yourlocaltreesimp · 3 days ago

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Run, Rabbit

Here’s part two, as promised! A little shorter than I wanted, but that’s because there’s gonna be a part 3

synopsis: you’re turned into a bunny on accident… chaos ensues as Legend and Twilignt try their best to get you back

Part 1 — Part 2 — Part 3 (in progress)

“So, My lover turned into a hare.” He sighs, his fingers putting pressure onto the ring on its chain, savouring each clack as the ridges slide past the links.

“That’s rough buddy.”

“Dude.” Legend stops sharply, though the change in pace isn’t much. He didn’t notice how he’d slowed to a near stop in his spiral. Twilight’s laugh is chalky; dry and slightly uncomfortable.

“My bad, my bad- it is tho’” He holds up both rough hands in a show of good faith. It does soothe the itching panic beneath the Vet’s skin, but airs out the annoyance that plied under his ribs.

“They’ll be impossible to find at this rate” His brow furrows, a wrinkle already carving at his youth from just how often he scowls. “Not like we know the way around here. And not like it’s easy to track something as small as a rabbit— ‘specially with all this leaf litter dampening tracks.” The sharp edges of his chewed nails catch on the teal felt of his hat, pulling off fibers as he methodically obsessively tugs it down. It’s ironic, almost. You were the one that got him to stop scratching at his skin to begin with; bandaging up the jagged scratch marks when he was too embarrassed to ask for them healed and too guilty to spend the resources doing it himself. You were the one that gave him replacements to his vices. Things that prevented damage to someone you thought so precious.

He hopes that if he finds you, you’ll ignore the growing patch or reddened skin on the softness of his inner wrist.

“Y'know, Lege’. Ya don’t *need* tracks t’ track” One of the Rancher’s arms settles over the back of Legend’s shoulders, forcing his arms to settle by his sides.

“I hate to be that guy for you Twilight, but it’s literally in the name” Shoving aside the sass, Twilight’s glad his brother isn’t past the point of joking. The few times where he has been were nothing short of haunting. No grin pulling at his lips or challenge in his gaze, just guilt tugging his lips, baring of his guilt, and the hollow fear in his eyes that things wouldn’t ever be ok again.

“Oh shush n’ let me have mah fun” He shakes Legend by his shoulders, the two of them sharing quiet laughter. “Y’ always gahtta be stealin’ my thunder now, ain’t ya?”

“Ok ok, go on then if you’re so proud of yourself”

“Well, as I was sayin, before I was oh so rudely interrupted” His accent emphasizes the R’s to a point it’s actually almost comical

“Yew, my good sir, have a huntin’ dog at yer disposal” He takes a few extra steps to be in front of Legend, turning to he’s walking backwards while he talks, gesturing proudly to himself. Legend has to suppress a laugh at the thought that he’s almost reminiscent of a smug dog after a job well done.

“Oh *really* now?” A single eyebrow raises in accordance to the single corner of his lips pulling over his teeth.

“Tha’s right”

“And you reckon we can find them before anyone else realises they’re gone?”

“Oh I more than reck- Aw!-“ Twilight trips over the knotted raised root of a tree, twisting out of the ground. Legend can’t find it within himself to hold back any more laughter and doubles over, clutching his stomach as he cackles. He throws himself up, back straight, as the pain begins to work its way into his bones, his fringe and hat lifting slightly from his head while Twilight huffs on the ground.

“Oh c’mon now d’ya want the help or not?” Legend’s only ever seen the look of pure defeat and deflatedness on the Rancher’s face achieved by Wild and Wind in their shenanigans. And despite the begrudgingness in the latter’s tone, they both already knew the answer.

𖦹

Somehow, Legend felt even weirder being an anxious wreck near Wolfie than he did Twilight. The mental image of him wringing at his hands, hoping you’re alive, all while this giant sassy dog sniffs about, is somehow rather embarrassing.

Wind shakes the trees, the silver side of the leaves showing as they wave. The sound is just enough to be calming, the world trying to put him at ease. He wonders about you quietly, that if you darted from the brush, would he be able to hear you over the tree? He finds himself at odds with his feelings. He’s always traveled alone. Before he even knew the life before him, he traveled on his own; in boots too big and with a sword too heavy. And he’d live alone too if it weren’t for his house being… housenapped… at the hands of Ravio. The point is— he’s lived life alone.

Painfully alone.

So why now, all of a sudden, does it feel so wrong? Why does it feel like his soul wants to leap from his body and return to you?

𖦹

The sunny patch between the raised gaps of root felt lovely on your skin.

Fur?

Right. That.

Well— point still stands, sunbathing is an incredibly lovely time, human or not. Once the puttering of your heart had slowed, and your head cleared of single-minded trauma, it turned out that this body wasn’t too horrible. In fact, flopped over on your back like this was immensely delightful.

The tree swayed above you, the roots tilting gently, almost rocking you peacefully back and forth. The roots echoed soft groans from where the wood gave way to the wind combing through.

Fine pieces of dirt loosened from where the roots shifted, settling as a line of dust where your coat pressed against the wood. You used your odd limbs to push yourself around, letting the dust settle well within your fur. The panicky part of your hindbrain felt as if this were safe, without risk. You stretched back onto your back when you noticed something.

The patterned prodding of something against the forest floor.

Just beyond the roots, broken up by the wood, but still slipping through the cracks to be felt. Large thumps as something stalks it’s way closer.

and closer.

You roll onto all four clumsy feet and feel as it pauses, taking a huff inward. You can’t quite make out what it looks like, but your small heart still *pounds* against your still-sore ribs. It pauses its steps to catch a few more deep inhales before it licks its chops, the unmistakable sound of tongue against ivory teeth. Your mind halts all other thoughts, the paranoid little voice whispering to you that you needed to get out. You both pause in uncertainty, before it rustles.

It… whines

Now, perhaps if you weren’t a prey animal, and your brain had any fraction of logic in its primal panic, you could appreciate the large wolf puppy as he bounds toward your little hiding spot. Though, that wasn't the case. And you were suddenly, rather achingly aware of just how much this thing might want to take your life.

Your fuzzy ears press against the roof of your root room –though now it feels more like a cage– as your eyes wildly search for the quickest way out. You had to get out.

The wolf’s fat snout pushes between the gaps in the roots, muzzle fully pressed inside, as your hind legs finally spring you toward a gap in the wooden bars. You had to get out. As it presses inward, you struggle further to get out, stuck between where the tree’s legs have bent so it’s slightly too small for you to get out– you had to get out. Your hinds begged purchase, clawing desperately to force your way out. The tree tilts as this wolf-dog (you’re seriously beginning to question if this were a stray wolfos) presses itself intently deeper toward capturing you, continuing on with its little whines. It sounds starved for food, and likely wouldn’t let up on the chase if you were the only option it had. You had to get out.

Like the nail in your coffin, another set of footsteps joined that of the dog’s. A man, with a heavy look of dismay set upon his brow, and the sword on his back more than enough to show anyone with eyes and a sense for danger that they should flee.

You. Had. To. Get. Out.

You feel the dog’s wet, twitching nose tap against the bottom pad of your left foot, and have something to kick against. You shove your legs back in instinct, paw pads no doubt digging harshly at its face while you push your way toward freedom. It's a struggle that convinces the man to a run, hands preparing to claw down so he might pick you up, no doubt for stew.

You feel the push of the animal behind you and the thuds of the man, each getting closer and closer and leaving you with less and less ways out.

Your mind is emptied with pure panic, the looped chants to get out becoming the symphony to this hellish pandemonium. Your heart blocks out even the snarling little whines from the wolf and whatever odd calls the man makes as he gets closer.

You only hear the pounding drums of your wild heard, claws against dirt, and your hunter gaining ground.

And as this utter discord of a crescendo finally reaches its peak, you finally push hard enough to be freed.

The second all four legs hit the dirt, you dash toward the shade. Wherever they couldn’t follow is where you would go. It wouldn’t be long, surely, before they’d begin pursuit all over. No man nor animal, though truly how different were they, would simply give up on dinner if they were that hungry.

You ran anticipating the case. You ran so hard and so far that you don’t even notice that there’s no one behind you. You’d won to see another day.

So why did your heart feel like sinking back into the mud.

Why now, after running so far and trying so hard to be alone, did you wish you hadn’t?

𖦹

Somehow, Legend feels worse.

He didn’t even think that was possible– he thought he’d gotten you killed. The one good thing in his shipwreck of a life, dead at his hands. And yet knowing you were alive was somehow worse. Watching, frozen, as you desperately fought to flee people you once would’ve considered safe. He’s hunted animals before. He had to. But even compared to his first time as a boy, does he remember being so disturbed by the wild bucking and thrashing of whatever animal had been caught. You looked terrified –partially of the wolf trying to chase you out of your hole– but partially of him. He could see the moment you noticed he was there and the second you doubled down on getting away as fast as you physically could.

Another part of him was disturbed because that reaction isn’t supposed to happen.

Usually, whenever he turns, and mirrored by Twilight, he keeps his senses. He knows who he is and recognises faces, and understands what’s happened. Sure– he’s a little jumpy, a little paranoid, but that can’t be helped. You… You looked no more person than animal. Your eyes were glassy, and wide, and not quite thinking.

He wonders, briefly, if the Wizzrobe changed things. If you weren’t really you and were instead actually a rabbit. He wonders if he did technically kill you, took the humanity and the care and the feeling of safety from your hands and left you to a body that only knows panic and fear.

He wonders how the hell he’s going to explain to Ravio why he’s building a rabbit hutch.

He’s shaken by his shoulders, head rocking back enough to give him whiplash, and begins to take in his surroundings. Namely, the extreme concern on his brother’s face. Twilight’s eyes hold a painful amount of knowing it makes the Vet want to gag. It seemed the Rancher too knew how it felt to be so close, and yet so, so far.

“Uuhhhh-” A thick country drawl finally breaks the heavy silence, “So that didn’ exactly go to plan…”

No shit, he thinks in response, too far deep in his spiral to even spit the words out. He tries, difficult as it may be, to at least bask in the knowledge that you’re some variety of alive. He hardly registers as the hands at his shoulders press him down to sit on the ground.

“They were scared” Twilight tires again, but stops to process when Legend reels back at the comment. “Mostly of me, you jus’ spooked em” He tries to jest, but it seemed that even the thought of causing you panic that bad was enough to shut Legend down. Twi coughs, trying to get to his point when his audience looked like his life had just been ripped from his hands.

“I mean if I- oh fer hylia’s sake quit moppin’ I have an idea” He gives up on easing Leg into it, seeing as he wasn’t the most receptive at the moment. Finally, that seems to get some attention out of him, his pouty eyes finally looking towards Twilight, who was trying his best not to laugh. Never in his life would he or could he have imagined the Vet looking like a kicked puppy, and yet here they both sat.

“If they’re scarred a us cause were huntin’ them, then they'll be a whole less scared of you– you as a rabbit like them though, woul’nt get much a different result like this” Twilight watches, bristling in pride as Legend takes in the idea, processing. The hardly covered despair shifts and gives way to consideration, and then again to some amount of hope.

𖦹

You stop upon a cracked clay shore of what used to be a magnificent river. The dried up bed is now exposed to the sun, and empty of vegetation. Still, a small brook of water carves its way against the dirt,

Your mouth is parched from all the running, almost as dry as the riverbed. Tentatively, you move towards the stream, keeping your ears perked in case you still weren’t alone. The cool water feels good against your paws, but even better on your face as you drink slowly. You weren’t exactly sure how long it’d be until you were back to normal. You still felt the buzz of magic keeping you in this body that wasn’t your own, strong and unweakened.

You make sure to savour every sip just in case.

You feel half tempted to flop right here in the sun, if it weren’t for the horrific lack of cover. There weren’t even reeds or soft ground you could burrow into, just hardened clay. For a moment you curse out that hunter, since that tree would’ve made for a good warren. But alas, here you were. You huff, longer teeth grinding in frustration when you’re interrupted. A soft chittery honking noise from a few metres behind you. Instinctually your ears perk and swivel to listen closer to decipher what the noise came from. It steadily moves closer and you raise onto your hindlegs to see better.

And just above where the land dipped for the river, is a rather large pink rabbit sticking out from the green grass

#linked universe #link x reader #linked universe x reader #lu legend x reader #bunny!reader #yeehaw

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imnotjustreadingg · 2 days ago

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the list pt.3

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Novelist!Fem!Reader (y/n) Genre: Established relationship, hurt (a little), fluff Word count: 1419 Summary: Bucky and Y/N are dating, and have an established relationship. She’s a novelist and currently the Avengers’s roommate. He’s the hero with a terrible past.

“Buck?”

He swallowed, jaw tightening. “I wasn’t supposed to see it, right?”

“See what?”

“The list,” he whispered. “You left your napkin on the desk and I though…” Your heart stopped.

“Oh my god.” You blinked. “You read that?”

He nodded. His hands were trembling now. “I thought I was losing you. That I’d already lost you. I-I didn’t know what to do.”

You took a step forward, grabbing his hands. “Bucky, that wasn’t about you.”

He looked at you like you were lying to protect him. His hands, both the flesh on and the metal were trembling. He didn’t meet your eyes. His jaw clenched, his shoulders rigid. He took a step back from you.

“You wrote… ‘Doesn’t talk about his feelings,’” he said quietly, by heart. “that’s the first thing on your list. And you’re right. I don’t. Because half the time I don’t know what I’m feeling, and the other half, I’m terrified I’ll say something wrong and ruin everything.”

“That wasn’t…” Bucky shook his head, eyes dark and glassy. “You say it’s not about me, but—how could it not be?” He stood, running his hands through his hair like he needed to physically get the thoughts out of his head. He wasn’t yelling, he never did when he was hurting but his voice had that sharp, tight edge. The kind of pain that didn’t need volume to be deafening. He turned to look at you, his voice cracking. “You know how many times I wanted to tell you something, anything and I just… couldn’t? Because I didn’t want to dump my nightmares on you? Because I thought maybe you’d finally realize you deserve someone lighter, someone who doesn’t walk around with a goddamn war in his chest?” You stayed quiet, tears slipping down your cheeks. Bucky’s hands trembled as he continued.

“‘Inconsistent effort.’” He laughed bitterly, breathless. “I know. I know. One minute I’m making you pancakes, the next I’m halfway across the apartment, pretending I didn’t hear you ask me what’s wrong. I try. I really do. But sometimes, just getting through the day without falling apart feels like a win. And that’s not fair to you.” At this point you weren’t sure how to reply.

“‘Jealousy and control’s the third.” His mouth twisted like the words themselves tasted bitter. “I see the way people look at you. And I hate that I see it. I hate that my first instinct is to pull you closer like you’re going to disappear. I hate that part of me still thinks love means gripping too tight instead of trusting you to stay. But it’s not because I don’t trust you, it’s because I don’t trust me. Because I keep waiting for the day you wake up and realize this isn’t worth it. That I’m not worth it.”

You tried to reach for him again, but he held up a hand, not to push you away just to finish. He turned his back at you not capable for a second to look at you.

His voice went quieter then. Like something inside him cracked.

“And then there’s the last one.” He turned to face you fully again, completely stripped down in front of you. No walls, no mask, just him.

“‘Only love an idealized version of you.’” His jaw trembled. “I’ve spent so long trying to be someone better for you. The guy who leaves sweet notes. Who brings home the right kind of takeout. Who remembers to say ‘I’m okay’ just so you won’t worry. Because I thought maybe if I acted like that version long enough, maybe one day I’d become him.” He looked down. “But I’m still the guy who flinches when doors slam. Who wakes up in cold sweats and sometimes forgets how to breathe. And if that’s not the version you love…” He swallowed hard. “Then I don’t know who you’re here for.”

You stood frozen for a beat after Bucky’s monologue, his words hanging in the room like smoke — heavy, thick, choking. His eyes were red, shoulders tense like he was bracing for a blow, like he thought you might confirm all the worst things he believed about himself.

But you didn’t. You couldn’t. You stepped toward him, hands trembling, voice small but sure. “Bucky… I’m so sorry.” He blinked. “What?”

“I’m sorry. For leaving that list out. For not thinking that you might find something and mistake it for a goodbye.” Your voice cracked. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. I didn’t mean to open every wound you’ve been trying so hard to keep stitched up. I thought I was just working through a character, building her reasons, making them believable. I never meant for you to think those words were for you.”

You stepped closer. He didn’t move, didn’t blink and just stared at you like he wanted to believe you. “You’re not the man on that list, Bucky,” you said, voice thick with emotion. “Not even close.” He shook his head slightly, pain flickering in his eyes. “But I saw myself in it.”

“And I understand why,” you said, nodding. “I do. You read words that hit too close to old scars. You saw patterns you’ve fought like hell to break.”

Your hand found his warm, real, calloused and trembling. “The man on that list doesn’t talk about his feelings because he doesn’t care. But you? You try, every single day. Even when it’s hard. Even when you don’t have the words.” You placed his hand over your heart.

“The man on that list doesn’t try unless he’s afraid of being abandoned. You try because you love me. Because you want to grow, to be someone I can build a life with.” A tear slipped down your cheek, but you didn’t wipe it away. “The man on that list tries to control the woman he loves, because he doesn’t trust her. But Bucky…” You shook your head. “You’ve never tried to cage me. You’ve never asked me to be anything but myself. Even when you’re scared, even when your hands shake, you’ve always let me breathe.” His lip quivered.

“And that last one?” you whispered. “The one about only loving a perfect version? You couldn’t even imagine loving anyone who wasn’t messy, complicated, real. Because you know what it means to be broken, and you still look at me like I’m everything.” You stepped in, cradling his face in both hands now.

“You are not that man, James,” you said, firm. “You’re the man who makes my life softer. Safer. You’re the man who leaves the light on when I write late. Who waits up for me just to make sure I eat. Who reads my terrible first drafts like they’re sacred texts. That is who you are.”

Bucky’s eyes closed, a shaky breath leaving his lips. He leaned into your palms like they were the only steady thing left in the world.

“I’m sorry I hurt you,” you whispered. “I will never stop being sorry for that.” He opened his eyes, searching yours like he was trying to find a crack — a lie, a condition, something that made all this feel like a dream.

But there wasn’t one.

Only you.

Only love.

And when you whispered, “Please believe me,” you saw something shift in him like the weight of the list, of his past, of his doubt started to lift, just a little.

And then, without warning, he dropped to his knees in front of you, head bowed, hands clinging to your waist like a lifeline.

“Please don’t leave me,” he choked out. “Hey,” you whispered, voice trembling, “look at me.”

He did. Slowly. Hesitantly. “I love you,” you said, pressing a kiss to his cheek, his temple, his scar. “Not some idea of you. Not the version that performs for me. You.”

Tears welled in your eyes as you touched your forehead to his. “I’m not going anywhere. I didn’t write that list about you. But maybe you saw yourself in it because you used to carry those things. And maybe some days, part of you still does. But I know your heart. I see you. All of you. Even the parts you think I should run from.”

And when you finished, you turned to him and whispered, “You don’t need to be perfect. You just need to stay.”

Bucky looked at you, breathing ragged, eyes rimmed with red.

And for the first time in days, he finally whispered back:

“I can do that.”

#bucky barnes #bucky barnes fanfiction #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes imagine #bucky barnes x y/n #bucky barnes fluff #bucky x reader #bucky x you #bucky x y/n #bucky x female reader #bucky x oc #sebastian stan

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whosyourmommy69 · 3 days ago

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Private Property 18+

Cocky!Rafe/Stripper!Reader

this story contains mature material

The lights pulsed hot and red, the air thick with sweat, smoke, and money. The music was just background noise to the way he looked at you, like he already owned you.

Rafe Cameron lounged in the VIP section like he was the goddamn club. Leaned back, one arm draped over the booth, legs spread wide, bourbon in hand, smirk on his lips.

He didn’t even pretend to hide the way his eyes dragged over your body as you danced. Every shift of your hips, every drop to your knees, every glance over your shoulder his gaze was glued to you like he paid for exclusivity.

And maybe he had.

The other guys, drunk, slobbering, waving bills, were nothing. They didn’t get your attention. Not the way he did. And Rafe? He knew it.

When your set ended, you barely made it past the curtain before you felt his presence behind you. Close. Intentional. Dangerous.

“Your little routine’s cute,” he said, voice slick like oil. “But we both know you’ve been dancing for me.”

You turned slowly, chin high, challenging. “You sure about that, rich boy?”

He stepped into your space, way too close, his smirk cocky enough to slap. “Yeah. I’m sure.” His eyes flicked down to your exposed chest, slow and shameless. “I know what it looks like when a girl’s wet for me.”

Your stomach clenched. “You’re cocky.”

“And you like it.”

You hated how much he was right.

He brushed his thumb across your jaw, tilting your head like he owned you. “Come upstairs with me.”

You didn’t answer. You just went.

The private suite upstairs was dimly lit and quieter, the bass from the club thumping faintly below like a second heartbeat. Rafe kicked the door shut behind you and locked it without a word.

“You know,” he said, tossing his jacket on the couch, “I’ve had to sit through way too many of your little performances.” He stalked toward you slowly, fingers undoing the buttons on his shirt one by one, like a fucking movie. “All that teasing. Those looks. Acting like you didn’t want me.”

You crossed your arms, shifting your weight just to see his eyes flick down to your thighs again. “And now?”

“Now?” He grabbed your hips, pulling you flush against him. “Now I get what I want.”

You gasped softly as he spun you, pressing your back against the wall, his mouth on your throat before you could think. He bit, just hard enough. His hand slid up your thigh, fingers teasing along the edge of your thong.

“You walk around dressed like this,” he murmured against your skin, “and expect me to behave?” He scoffed. “You wore this for me, didn’t you?”

“No,” you lied.

He laughed darkly. “You did.” His fingers dipped beneath the thin fabric, brushing over heat. “Fuck. You’re soaked already?”

“Shut up.”

He pulled back just enough to meet your eyes, cocky smirk still painted across his stupidly perfect face. “Make me.”

That was all it took. You pulled him down, crashing your mouth to his, and it was filthy from the start, tongues, teeth, heat. He kissed like he fought, rough, confident, no room for hesitation. His hands gripped your ass, lifted you like nothing, and carried you to the velvet couch.

“You gonna act like a good girl now,” he growled, laying you out beneath him, “or do I need to remind you who’s in charge?”

You narrowed your eyes, breath ragged. “You think you’re in charge?”

His laugh was dangerous. “Sweetheart. I know I am.”

He pulled your thong off with one firm tug, letting it fall to the floor, and didn’t wait. His mouth was on you like he’d been waiting for this for months licking, sucking, groaning when you gasped and arched into him.

“You taste like heaven,” he muttered, voice muffled between your thighs. “Goddamn. I could keep you here all night.”

You moaned, fingers in his hair, hips grinding into his mouth, and that only made him smirk harder. He didn’t stop. Didn’t let up until you were shaking, gasping his name like a prayer and a curse.

And then he moved, fast, hungry, dragging you into his lap as he sat down, jeans half-undone, cock already hard and leaking. He gripped your jaw, made you look at him.

“You gonna ride me now?” he asked, voice low, filthy. “Show me how desperate you really are?”

You nodded, breathless. “Yes. Fuck, yes.”

He groaned as you sank down onto him, both of you gasping at the stretch. He filled you perfectly, and the look in his eyes when you started to move. Like you’d wrecked every last ounce of control he had.

“Just like that, baby,” he hissed. “God, look at you. Fucking yourself on my cock. That’s it. That’s my good girl.”

The praise was like gasoline, burning, addictive. You rode him hard, nails digging into his shoulders, his hands gripping your ass tight enough to bruise.

“Think you’re gonna forget every other guy after this,” he said, voice ragged. “Ain’t no one fuckin’ you like I do. No one owns you like I do.”

“You don’t own me,” you panted, even as your body screamed otherwise.

He grabbed your face, lips crashing into yours. “Then why the fuck are you coming on my cock like this?”

You shattered around him, gasping his name, and he followed right after, growling into your neck as he spilled into you, holding you tight like he never wanted to let go.

Afterward, you lay in his lap, both of you a mess, chests heaving. He lit a cigarette, offered it to you. You took a drag, passed it back, your thighs still shaking.

He looked at you, eyes darker now, more serious.

“You ever dance for another guy like that again,” he muttered, smoke curling past his lips, “I’ll fucking lose my mind.”

You smirked. “Jealous?”

He leaned in, kissed you slow. Possessive.

“No,” he whispered. “Territorial.”

#fanfiction #rafe cameron #obx fic #obx rafe cameron #rafe outer banks #rafe x reader #fanfic #rafe x you #rafe smut #cockyrafe #rafe cameron imagine #dividers by dollywons

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goodolddumbbanana · 1 year ago

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It would be so sad and funny if Sun will be the one who puts the end for Nexus.

You know how All Moon's variants and Eclipse have a habit of mockery and taunting Sun when it comes to murder? Like Old Moon, Like Eclipse v1, v2, like Bloodmoon v1, v2, Computer...

It usually doesn't end well for them. Sun had killed BM v1 in anger, Eclipse v1 in self defense, Eclipse v2 to protect his family and truly he was tired of Eclipse's crap, Bloodmoon v2 nearly got blasted to death,...

So what if, Nexus, after being a "Bad guy" aka "IT NOT A PHASE SUN, IT IS WHO I AM."

Decide to continue the tradition of classic good old dumb characteristics of Moon, taunting Sun.

Maybe it will be along these lines like: "You can't hurt me Sun." Or "Do you really want to prove to yourself that you just like Eclipse?" "Sorry I guess I was wrong. You are worse than Eclipse."

And then maybe Sun will snap in anger and hit him unconscious or dead. Or maybe, just maybe Sun decides enough and enough and the plan Nexus and Dark Sun gonna do would hurt his family and he is just so tired.

He will be like, Nexus turns out that way is my responsibility, and I need to fix that. -Good old Sun move, and then do something very dangerous.

I don't know how they would interact or how the outcome will turn out, but it definitely will break Sun.

When Sun says when you kill a member of the family, there won't be any routes to come back.

I want to see how Sun, will kill 2 members of the family, again and again. Because, when we look at the fact who has the highest body count when it comes to killing their siblings, it surprisingly is Sun.

Sun indirectly killed the Old Moon, indirectly making Lunar runaway and ended his life in the hand of Eclipse. If we talk about how Eclipse supposedly is Moon, and then... Hoo boy... Directly and directly death in Sun's hand. And because Ruin chose Sun to live, Solar died. Seemingly Sun is the centre of a lot of the murder of family themes.

#forgive me for my sadistic #i just want to see angsty #i want to see how break Sun can be #i mean sure #this little guy right now only on step from the edge #but i need more of that man #i need to see him at the lowest of the lowest #still it would be great if Nexus come back to his sense #i don't mind his emo phase #but can he be emo with his family?#i miss Sun and Nexus man #sun and moon show #tsams #the sun and moon show #sams #tsams sun #sams sun #tsams moon #sams moon

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militaryapple · 5 months ago

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I'LL GIVE IT ALL TO YOU.

synopsis. caleb finds out you’re sleeping with other men. other men who look like him. if you wanted him so badly why didn’t you say so? it’s fine, he’ll just fuck the sense back into you.

cw. fem!reader, praise, edging, overstimulating, calebs a big meanie, reader fucks around and finds out, breeding, idk I need him so bad.

add ons. guys I'm so tired OH DONT GAG ME I FORGOT TO FIX THE SYNOPSIS THIS WAS MADE AT LIKE 11 AM BABES

wc. 2.2k

caleb has always had tabs on you. whether you liked it or not. he needed to know what you were doing, who you were with. it was just.. a safety precaution - well that's what he told himself anyways. he knew your friends , the people you worked with , even going as far as learning who your neighbors were. he could only thank his position as the fleet's colonel for letting him get this information. he was originally going to plant a chip in your phone and learn about both your social and personal life but this just made his little watch-sessions a little easier than what they had to be.

and so caleb thought he had nothing to worry about, truly. he knew where you were at all times and have been in your life for a decent amount of time there should be no one new. well - anyone that poses a threat to him anyways. it's not like you could hide anyone from him anyways.

is what he thought, so so foolishly.

it wasn't until you started spending your time at different places. unknown places at that. caleb took note of each and every house you were in. he took note of the people who lived there. man after man after fucking man. he didn't want to think the unthinkable, how you could be so stupidly whoring yourself out for perverts? one night fucking stands? this wasn't like you, far from you. it wasn't until he looked closer at the men you were fucking, and jesus.

they looked somewhat similar to caleb. it only engulfed him with rage. his heart hurting and pounding. if you wanted him so badly why haven't you spoken to him? talked to him? why were you going around trying to find scraps of him while he was already here for you? with you? arms open and ready for you whenever you were ready for him? that's when caleb decided he needed a bit of time off from work.

caleb made his way home. door opening as he scanned the living room for you. he sat down on the couch, still. he was going to talk to you about this little issue you had. it was gonna be fine, right? he talks to you, you tell him and this could all be swept under the rug. it wasn't until hours later, he heard the twist of the door and the creak of it opening.

just like when you both were in high school, every time you snuck out you would try to slip in silently. though you were never really silent, and caleb was the first to catch you back home before gran. what made you think this time would be any different?

he hands clenched as he stood. caleb didn't think about changing out of his uniform, hell he couldn't think about anything. all that filled his mind was anger. pure. fucking. rage.

"welcome home." he said, it was almost bittersweet. you looked at him, with a sheepish smile. waving. "hi caleb, didn't expect you home." was all you were able to muster out, and that was before caleb took a step closer to you. he watched as you twist and turn, looking for an escape. anything to help you leave, but that wasn't happening. not with him. not now.

"where were you?" he asked, his gaze shifting from you to your body. the clothes you wore tolling him more than enough.

"out." you said softly, you gaze averting his. "with a friend."

caleb scoffed, grabbing your arm and pushing you on the couch as he leaned down. you felt like you were being interrogated, which in theory, you were. "bullshit." he snarled. "you wouldn't be out for hours at some 'friend's' house. nonetheless a friend named fucking jacob. do you think I'm dense, pip-squeak?" caleb was angry, his hands balled up. his body shaking. every movement made him want to die, he could smell the foreign musk, the way you attempted to fix your hair. it was the only time he couldn't bear to be near you.

"he looks just like me." he scoffed. "just. like. me." he moved away from you. in a situation like this, you would've blown up at another guy. yelling at him on how he was able to even find out what house you were in, but it was caleb. of course you couldn't hide anything from him. how stupid could you be trying to anyways?

you couldn't say anything, you wouldn't dare. you lowered your head, but caleb wasn't taking that. he grabbed your chin tilting your head upwards to face you. "don't do that pip-squeak. if you wanted me - craved me, fucking needed me , why didn't you say anything? I'm here. in the flesh." his words piercing through you. oh how he hated being mean towards you, your wavering lips was all that he needed to see before he eventually got down. your head lowering so you could make comfortable eye contact with him.

calebs hands moved from your chin to your cheek. "come on pips," he huffed softly. "you're being reckless for no reason. instead, I'll show you how much I want you, how much I missed you, yeah? you don't need those other guys. after all, they can't beat the real thing." he snickered softly, and you could only nod your head in approval.

"ah-ah, say it. I need a verbal answer." caleb wanted to make sure what he was doing was okay, was right. he wanted to make it known that after tonight, there were no more caleb 2.0's. no more 'casual friendship'. that there would be more than what the two of you already had.

"please show me caleb."

he tugged on your skirt, pulling it down your leg as he rubbed small circles on your panties making you groan. he was being mean. really mean. you grabbed his arm, "caleb, don't tease me. your hands are cold - ah, your gloves." you whined. caleb could only chuckle. "you think you can tell me what to do right now baby? really? just shh and enjoy what I'm giving you."

you groaned, he was slow, too slow. your heat dripped as you twitched and squirmed. caleb used his evol to keep you down, leaning in and placing small kisses around you neck. "do you know how long I've had to restrain myself?" he said, his voice barely above a whisper.

"how many times -" kiss. "I've had to get off thinking about you?" kiss. "I've held myself back until you were ready." kiss. "and you've made it so so difficult baby." kiss.

each word sent a shiver down your spine, teasing you and handling you. caleb looked over at you smiling. "i think you're ready, don't you?" he said softly.

caleb leaned in towards your aching cunt. staring at it like he was starving. he grabbed his hat before placing it down on the side of the couch. "grab on my hair if its too much 'kay baby?" he rubbed your thigh. you nodded in agreement as a smirk laid on his face. Caleb dug in. he licked your cunt making you mewl. your hands searched for something, anything to do.

caleb sucked on your pretty clit, groaning as he tasted your sweetness. he used his free hand, making his way up your body. finding your hand and making sure he intertwined both of your fingers.

he was starved. he placed sloppy kissing on your lips. his tongue finding any to go deeper in you. you felt hot, fuzzy. he made you feel so fucking good, other men were useless compared to him. he was right, nothing - nobody compared to how he made you feel.

and right now he was making you feel fucking divine.

the feeling of calebs tongue on your click made you shiver in ecstasy, it wasn't until moments later you used the hand on his head to pull him back. oh did he look absolutely pussy drunk off you.

your juices flowed off his chin while he licked his lips. the way he looked up at you in pure bliss. oh god did you love this man. "you look so cute, and you taste perfect." he said softly, going back and licking the juices he neglected. you shook and grabbed more of his hair.

"caleb 'm gonna -" you whined, bucking your hips up as he used his hand to hold you down. the other still holding your free hand. caleb hummed in approval, giving you the signal that you could finally let out the release you were holding in. caleb suckled for a moment before moving back, admiring the mess he just made of you.

he got up, his evol lifting you as he sat down in the spot you were once in. his legs spread before placing you in between them. his fingers pushing your panties over before they made their way inside your cunt. your hips buckled at the feeling, caleb grabbed your waist with his arm bringing you back down.

"its okay baby, you can take it." he coos "I know you can, 'gotta make sure you can take me , hm?" you moaned as his fingers stretched you. the sensation of his gloves curving as he hit every spot of your gummy walls. you clenched and twitched between him, making him plant soft kisses on your face down to your neck. "cmon you can take it. stay still, if you don't get through this you wont be able to take me." he reassured you. how big was he?

caleb pushed another finger in. hushing you and kissing you while tears strained down your face. oh he was being mean. "caleb - please 'm gonna cum again" you cried. in response he moved his arm that was holding you down. now using one hand to pump his fingers in you and another to move in little swirls on your clit. you throw your head back in pleasure.

"aren't i the best? making you cum twice? jacob couldn't do that, could he now?" he hummed in your ear, you whined in approval. caleb moved his hands out of you. "since I'm feeling generous, I'll let you ride my cock. but in return.." his voice trailing off as he moved his finger to your belly.

"I'm gonna make you into a mother." he coo'd in your ear, nibbling it. "so I can show everyone who you belong to. to show that you don't need other men. I'm here." caleb planted a kiss on the back of your neck.

it didn't take caleb any time before he was unzipping his pants, pulling on the fabrics waist line and pulling out his cock. "I need you to relax for me, you're ready." he said, pulling you up by your hips and straddling you down on his hard on. oh god, did he feel good.

your cunt dripped all over his base. he couldn't help but let out a small chuckle. "look at you, messy girl. we haven't even started yet you're already dripping all over me." he grunted adjusting himself a little more.

caleb rocked your hips. he whined for you "mhm that's it, work those hips for me." he moaned. he loved the feeling of pumping his inches in and out of you. the 'pop' noise your cunt and his cock made as he slid out and back in.

your cunt was brimmed to the top with cock. so full it made you think of only him and you. fuck, you were lewd. you couldn't even form a sentence, the only sound coming out of your mouth being moans and pants that were increasingly getting faster and faster.

"gonna come again? come on come with me its - ah okay." his voice was raw and rasp. his gloves dug into your skin as you made a mess on both his cock and his uniform. he didn't care, he was going to clean his uniform this week anyways. it was a sign to let people know that he was yours, and you were his.

caleb still fucked you deep. he caused your toes to curl up and your legs to lift to help him massage every part of you. clit and all. he grunted as he slammed into you, his rhythm leaving and now becoming messy thrusts. "I'm gonna come inside baby, okay? yeah? I'm gonna make you a mommy. oh fuck" he groaned.

"gonna make you bear all my children. fuck fuck" his hips stammered. "just me 'n you 'kay?" you clenched down on him. your back arched as your hands made their way to his thighs gripping tightly.

caleb bit down on his lip, not wanting to hurt you. both of your breaths steadying before caleb moved his head in your neck. he didn't dare pull out, all of his sweet cum would leak out, and you wouldn't want that right?

"I told you," he heaved "I'm better then some lousy rip-offs pip-squeak." he panted heavily. you nodded in approval. he knew that you wouldn't go to any more one night stands. still, there was a long way to go. he still hasn't made you a mom.

and he was going to make sure you bore his children.

3K notes · View notes

ladsonlads · 4 months ago

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Impartial Hearts | Sylus - Part One

Pairing -> Boss Sylus x Non MC Reader

Parts -> Part One | Part Two

Synopsis -> You’ve been working as Onychinus’s accountant for two years, and you’ve been carrying two heavy secrets for a third of it. You were in love with your boss, and your mother was dying.

A/N -> Guys this shit is just sad icl I need to lay off the sad songs... anyways, reader is not MC but MC is mentioned I called her 'Miss Hunter' or 'MC' bc I couldn't come up with a name, sorry.

EDIT: Thanks for all the love <33333 I honestly didn’t expect so many people to want a part two, I promise it’s in the works and I’ll try to get it out ASAP.

Trigger Warnings -> Death mentioned, heart issues mentioned.

Word Count -> 7.3K

“I’m sorry, what?” The question slipped out of your lips without much of an attempt from your brain to restrain it. You regretted that instantly.

“Watch your tone, Y/N.” The scarily low timbre in Sylus’s voice threatened retribution if you didn’t.

“Sorry… It’s just that— are you sure? I feel like this is a decision that requires a little bit more contemplation. Like getting a dog!” You tried to backpedal, but from the look of Sylus’s narrowing eyes, he wasn’t happy with your response.

“Are you comparing her to a dog?” There was a threat thinly encased in Sylus’s question and under the thick layers of fear, you felt the slightest pang of jealousy that the he felt so strongly about defending her honour.

What a dramatic and far-fetched conclusion. You wanted to say, but instead you bit your tongue.

“N-No! Of course not. Not at all. I’m just wondering if wiring her such a significant sum from your equity account is a good idea when you met her—” You make a show of glancing at your shabby watch “— 13 hours ago is a sound decision.”

“So you’re questioning my judgement? Is that it?”

You couldn’t blame him for being difficult, you walked right into that one.

“No! Well… yes?” One would think that after two years of working for Sylus, you’d have the ability to stand your ground against him. But there was only so far someone could push a man like Sylus before he deemed you irredeemable. The consequence of which involved a hollow point in your skull.

“Wrong answer. Wire it. Now. I’ll deal with your insubordination later.” He quickly left the room that doubled as your ‘office’; you shared it with the twins who liked to use it as their reprieve from crime. You wouldn’t have minded had they chosen less rambunctious ways of cooling-down, like reading or watching a show. Instead they’d play-fight, actually fight, play video games on the loudest volume or — the worst option of all — karaoke.

The sarcastic yes sir died on your tongue as quickly as it crossed your mind. You pissed him off far more than usual today, and he was already way more tense since her arrival.

Miss Hunter. Sylus kept her first name under lock-and-key, said it was safer that way. You barely caught a glimpse of her as Sylus dragged her out of his office, which was across from yours. From the glimpse you did catch, she was beautiful. Fair skin, jet black hair, a fit body. Her outfit, which was the Hunter’s Association standard issue uniform, had never looked so good.

From what you knew from shameless eavesdropping, she was extremely important to Sylus. She was part of some critical master plan you weren’t privy to.

You hated her.

Albeit, completely unfounded, your hatred for her stemmed from an ugly feeling you could not shake. In the two years you worked as an accountant for Onychinus, Sylus touched you once. Correction, you touched him once accidentally when you had too much to drink with the twins after work. You were taking careful steps to the bar to pour yourself another glass of a gross vodka raspberry mixture when you tripped on the edge of one of Sylus’s extremely expensive rugs. Your feet pedalled forward in an attempt to keep you upright, and you clashed right into Sylus who was innocently scrolling through his phone on the wall next to the bar.

You could recall the fear you felt vividly. You almost felt the same wedge lodged in your throat. Sylus quickly removed you from him, steadying you with his cold palms on your shoulders (an action that made you blush like a schoolgirl) before verbally deeming you cut-off from all liquor from the night.

That was the full extent of all physical contact you’d had with Sylus in two whole years, meanwhile it took Miss Hunter less than 24-hours before he was holding her hand. God, you hated her.

“Oi, Y/N, we’re using the company card for lunch today.” Luke quickly yelled out to you from the hallway, too engrossed in your self-loathing and plain old regular loathing, you forgot to remind Luke that they only had $40 left on their weekly lunch budget.

Knowing the twins, they wouldn’t have cared anyway, creating yet another problem you had to fix.

Looking at the excel sheet that contained this month’s trial balance, you shivered at the thought of having to deal with Sylus’s wrath at yet another monthly increase in expenses. So, you shifted the remaining balance on your lunch budget, a generous $255, into the twin’s joint account. It was only Thursday morning, and they’d managed to max-out their $1000 budget.

You hated them too.

You looked through your drawer in hopes you had a leftover snack that could sadly double as your lunch and felt a wave of relief at the sight of a protein bar.

It wasn’t like Sylus didn’t pay you enough to afford your own lunch, in fact he was the most generous employer you’d ever had. But the only thing bigger than his bank account was corporate greed, and the blood-sucking heathens at Akso hospital were milking you dry.

Life in the N109 Zone wasn’t easy for most people, especially your mother who raised you all on her own after your father left. She worked 3 jobs to put you through university in Linkon, so the least you could do was use every last cent you made on ensuring she had the best medical treatment money could buy.

Your mother had a bad heart ever since she was born, it was a hereditary condition that would sometimes skip a generation only to show up in the next. She had an atrial septal defect, or in another words, a hole in her heart. You were born with one too, although yours was much smaller. She’d undergone several surgeries to repair the hole, but it reopened, and now the scar tissue surrounding the surgical site was obstructing her arteries. She was now on bypass patiently awaiting a heart transplant you couldn’t quite afford, but you’d make it happen. You were sure of it.

With half the protein bar in your mouth, you began to call Dr Zayne, the cardiovascular surgeon who was overseeing your mother’s care. You called him for updates on your mother and the transplant list every day, since a train ticket to Linkon was too big an expense to justify, you’d settle for Dr Zayne’s cold recollections of your mother’s heart function.

“Ah, Miss L/N, I was beginning to think you weren’t going to call today.” The dead-pan sarcasm dripped from his tone.

“Your bedside manner needs serious work.” You bit back. You weren’t sure when or how your relationship with your mother’s doctor turned so hostile, but you figured the busy chief of surgery was annoyed by your constant calls.

“Need I remind you, Y/N, you’re not the patient.”

“There isn’t a waking second I’m not thinking about the patient, Dr Zayne.”

An uncomfortable silence hung in the air at your confession. You didn’t mean to make him feel guilty, in all honesty, you looked forward to the banter before the updates on your mom, it helped ease the nerves.

“Do you want to see her?”

“Of course, but I’m working a lot.”

“No, I mean right now.”

“Are you finally letting me borrow the hospital helicopter?”

“No, but I will let you borrow my phone so you can FaceTime her.”

His kind offer caught you off guard. “Really?!”

“Sure, you caught me in a rare moment where I don’t have someplace to be.”

“It must be Christmas.”

“Rarer than Christmas. Think solar eclipse.”

“Okay, okay, I get it. Now give me my mother.”

Zayne kept his promise, and you spoke to your mother for your entire lunch break, and then some. You would’ve continued talking to her until the sunset if not for Sylus’s interruption.

“I don’t pay you to FaceTime your friends, Y/N.”

“Sorry, I have to go. Talk to you later. I love you!” Your mother rasped out that she loved you too before you quickly hung up the phone.

“Sorry.” Your apology fell on deaf ears as Sylus took slow, deliberate steps toward your desk.

“Do you hate this job?” Sylus’s asked this deceivingly innocuous question while sliding a finger across the mahogany tabletop.

“Um… no?” You placed your hands in your lap as you answered to hide the slight tremor.

“You sound unsure.”

“I like this job very much.” You made the declaration with as much confidence as you could muster. Your mood was already depleted from seeing your mother’s sick face for the first time in months. She wasn’t looking any healthier, and Zayne told you she’d barely moved up the list.

107. There were 107 people who’s lives were more important than the woman who raised you. You were well aware that wasn’t the way they calculated the metric, but it didn’t make the number hurt any less.

Sylus let out an sigh that suggested whatever he’d say next was a much tamer version of what he truly wanted to say. “Then I’d suggest you start acting like it. Remember, sweetheart, everyone’s replaceable. Especially you.”

His comment stung like antiseptic on an open wound, though you were sure that was his intention.

“Right. Of course. I won’t let you down.”

“For your sake, I hope not. The twins told me they went to that seafood buffet for lunch, you haven’t let them go over the budget again, have you?”

You quickly pulled up the online banking account connected to the company card. You saw the $189.95 charge for the seafood buffet and swallowed the lump in your throat.

“Nope, it’s all dandy.” You gave him a smile that didn’t quite reach your eyes. He noticed.

“Good. You wire that money like I asked?” The venom in his tone alleviated, and you were glad at least one thing seemed to have worked out for you that day.

But alas, your joy was short-lived.

“Yes, an hour ago, but it’s still processing until you put in your access code.” You moved away from the computer to give him room to step around and put in the code like he usually did. However, his feet never moved from their position in front of your desk.

“Why didn’t you tell me that?” Just like that, his voice was all venom again.

You were beginning to grow agitated with his misplaced anger constantly being taken out on you. It didn’t happen often, but when it did, he’d tear into you like a bear would a boxing bag and then act like everything was fine the next day. You never got an apology, you knew not to expect one.

But lately these fits of unbridled rage came about more often than not, and Sylus took a shovel to your mole hill of resolve every time.

“I always need your access code on transfers over $500,000. I’ve never told you before, I just assumed—”

“Are you stupid?” You didn’t bother answering the mean rhetorical question. “What about this transaction seemed usual to you? Did I not convey my urgency effectively earlier? Or are there rocks where your brain should be?” His voice never went up in volume, but you could tell he was angry. Livid even. Seething with fury at your supposed incompetence.

Your eyes welled up with tears at his outburst. Normally you could take whatever insults he’d throw at you with little outward reaction, but you were particularly sensitive from the sandwich-shaped hole in your stomach, and the maternal hole in your heart which ached every second, reminding you of the much bigger one your mother bore.

Before you could stop it, a tear rolled down your cheek, and the second you registered the sensation you quickly went to wipe it.

“Stop crying.” Sylus ordered.

“I’m not—crying.” Your voice betrayed you, a hitch in your throat interrupting the sentence. The tears began to stream down faster, so fast your hands couldn’t keep up.

You prepared yourself for a speech about how weak you were, how he wouldn’t tolerate such inane shows of infirmity. But all Sylus did was watch as you embarrassingly tried to pull yourself together.

You weren’t sure how much time passed before Sylus moved next to you, hunching down to input his code into the transaction. His eyes glanced at the second monitor, displaying the company card’s account, and he zeroed in at the twin’s charge, and your lack thereof.

“Did you have lunch?” Sylus’s voice was softer, you attributed that to the fact that he was inches away from you. The question was so out of left-field it actually caused your tears to cease.

“Yeah?”

“You didn’t use the card.” Your eyes followed his to the bank statement and you let out a sigh of relief.

“Oh, I had some extra cash on me I wanted to get rid of.”

“You’re supposed to use the card, Y/N. That’s what it’s for.”

“It’s fine, I’ll have an extra big lunch tomorrow. Granted you’re not firing me?” You were only half-joking, but you could’ve sworn you saw the corners of his lips perk up in an almost-smile before he shut it straight down.

“I won’t fire you if you tell me what’s got you this upset? I’m not so proud as to assume it was me.” It was that moment you realised Sylus was capable of feeling empathy. He was aware of how hurtful he was being all those times he’d berate you over the smallest inconveniences for virtually no reason, and he simply didn’t care.

It was far worse to know that he did possess empathy, but chose not to extend it to you.

“It’s just that time of the month.” You lied, convincingly. You’d mull over your blatant betrayal to feminism later, but for now you needed a means of shutting this inquiry down and quickly. You didn’t want anyone knowing about your mom, you were sure the pity would destroy you. She wasn’t going to die, and you didn’t want people to treat you like she might.

Sylus waited for the transfer to clear before he left. You let out a breath you didn’t know you were holding when the door closed behind him.

“Are you sure we only have $105 on our lunch budget.” Luke’s question grated on your frayed nerves.

“$105 and five cents.” Your distinction didn’t do much help.

“Come on, can’t you do your weird accounty magic and make more appear? We want steak.” Kiernan’s plea wasn’t helping either. You’d exhausted every last option, anything else would definitely cause alarms when Sylus eventually reviewed the accounts.

“I already did all I could, I gave you an extra $255!” And a fat good that did you, now you were hungry and annoyed.

“Well, we both know there’s plenty more where that came from.”

There really wasn’t, but you didn’t tell them that.

“I’m sorry, $105 is all you’ve got.”

“Fine. But we’re very unhappy with you, Y/N. Very unhappy.” Luke chastised you, but you couldn’t even pretend to care.

“Better you than Sylus, now please leave.” The twins opened their mouths with a retort, but a domineering voice interrupted them.

“You heard her. Beat it and stop bothering my accountant.”

The twins scurried at the sound of Sylus’s voice, and you wondered how much of that conversation he overheard.

“So, where did that extra $255 come from, Y/N?”

Too much of the conversation. Way too much.

“My budget.” You cut your losses and told him the truth. Any other answer would have surely pissed him off.

“I give you $300 for the whole week. Your sandwich costs $15. Either you haven’t been eating, or you've been paying out of your own pocket against my orders. Which is it?”

Well, that was a lose-lose situation if there ever was one. You didn’t want to deal with the questions about why you were skipping meals, so you lied again. You always were an exceptional liar, your mother taught you that the less people knew about you, the less they had to hurt you with.

“I made too much food for dinner so I had leftovers. It’s no biggie.” You didn’t even look up from your screen as the lie left your lips.

“What leftovers?” He asked.

“Pasta.” You answered.

“What kind?”

“Alfredo.”

“With mushrooms?”

“Yeah.”

“You hate mushrooms.”

Shit. Why did he know that?

“I had a change of heart.”

“You’re lying.”

You bit your lip in worry, wondering how you were going to get yourself out of this one.

You stalled as much as you could, pretending to be engrossed in something on your screen, until the sound of Sylus’s phone ringing broke the tension.

You internally thanked every deity that could possibly be watching over you as he took the call, and prayed to all of them that it would be something urgent.

You heard the faint sounds of a feminine voice through his phone.

“Kitten, where are you?”

Wait, who’s kitten?

“Just calm down, tell me where you are.” Sylus didn’t even give you a second glance as he quickly stormed out of your office. Leaving you to mull over the intimate pet name, knowing exactly who it was intended for.

As Sylus left the room you reflected on the cacophony your feelings created in your mind. You weren’t sure when you developed such strong feelings for Sylus — or why. His personality was the antithesis of yours. Where he would free fall off of the proverbial cliff of his life without a second thought, every risk you took was meticulously calculated. Where he was rough and respected, you were sort of a pushover. Where his deadpan sense of humour tended to elicit more fear than laughter, you had an awkward habit of cracking jokes in situations they were not appropriate.

You were polar opposites, two parallel lines that were destined never to intertwine. You figured that was why everything hurt so much around him. He wasn’t right for you, but he would be right for someone else.

The envy you’d carried for so long began to subside for the first time in years. Sylus had an array of estranged lovers that he’d bring around his mansion every once in a while, and now Miss Hunter. But for the first time the reminder of that fact didn’t hurt as much as it usually did.

It was Mid-September and you warned yourself that if you couldn’t eliminate all the romantic feelings you had for Sylus by the end of Autumn, you’d cut your losses and quit.

Of course, you’d have to find another job that paid just as well, but you were willing to cross that bridge when it came to it. There was only so much turmoil your fragile heart could take, and if you were dead, your mother would be as good as dead too.

Happy with your iron-clad plan, you opened up your notes app and began to draft ‘Operation Sylus: No More’. You could change the name later.

Operation Sylus: No More

The foolproof guide of getting rid of all feelings Sylus related by the end of November.

Step 1: avoid Sylus and all thoughts of him at all costs.

Step 2: no more funny jokes, his laugh is seriously deadly.

Step 3: force yourself to remember Miss Hunter in moments of weakness. She’s the one he really wants.

Step 4: try to find love elsewhere, like the corner shop owner, he may be in his 50s and happily married but he’s kind of a silver-fox!

Step 5: do not, under any circumstances, allow yourself to be alone with Sylus for too long.

You looked back at your list, proud of the relatively easy steps to follow. This should be a cakewalk. Whoever said you couldn’t be the master of your own feelings clearly never met you.

“Boss needs you in his office. He says bring your laptop.” Kiernan’s voice broke your focus. You were almost finished with the end of year report for this financial year, a task Sylus forced you to complete annually. It was meaningless, considering Onychinus wasn’t necessarily a legitimate business listed on the stock exchange, but you took it seriously nonetheless.

“Okay, I’ll be right there.” You felt Kiernan’s eyes bore into you as you continued to make minor edits to the report. You’d sleep so much better once this 180 page document was out of your life.

“He needs you now, Y/N. We’re both toast if you make him wait.” You sighed and couldn’t help but roll your eyes at Sylus’s lack of empathy for your large workload.

You berated your past self for being so eager for this role, completing far too many tasks far too quickly, and setting the precedent that you were some sort of accounting machine. You really should learn to stick to the bare minimum.

You walked over to the door leading to his office, and gave it a soft rap with your knuckles. The door opened by itself, or rather with the help of Sylus’s evol, to the sight of him leaning back in his chair, with Miss Hunter sitting directly in front of him on his desk.

Step 3 of your guide felt less like a friendly reminder and more like a stab in the gut. Think of corner-shop man. Think of corner-shop man. Think of corner-shop man.

“We don’t have all day, sit down, Y/N.” Sylus’s command woke you from your trance, and you hoped your envy wasn’t as obvious as you thought it was.

This was the first time you’d seen Miss Hunter up close, and when your eyes travelled to meet hers, she gave you a warm smile. You felt like the shittiest person to exist for ever hating her.

Your eyes scanned the room for somewhere to sit. The chairs opposite his seemed like they would intrude on the intimate moment he was clearly having with Miss Hunter, so you settled on an armchair in the corner that had a coffee table in front of it.

Sylus sighed and didn’t even bother to ask you to move before he used his evol to whisk you up and deposit your body onto the chair at his table like a rag doll. You hated when he used his evol on you, it felt like the arms of a prickly cactus.

“In a few minutes, I’ll be getting a phone call from a possible investor. He’s extremely exclusive and known for running tests on his potential partners before agreeing to invest with them. My intel suggests he’s going to propose a joint project, but the numbers he’ll give me will be far off. I need to counter-propose numbers that would generate a high return and quickly, or he’ll hang up and I’ll never hear from him again. So, open up your laptop and prepare, because if you tank this for me, there will no longer be a place for you here. Understood?”

When Sylus did things like that, it made it easier to love him a little less. He could be a complete and utter dick sometimes, and while you’d learned to accept it as a human flaw, recently it seemed more like a permanent predisposition.

Perhaps Sylus was nice to you because you were entertaining, now that he had someone better to occupy his time, you were nothing more than a forgotten bygone.

“Yeah, I got it.” You opened up an excel sheet with a project analysis template. These were the types of questions you’d get in your first year accounting courses but you let Sylus think it was much harder than it actually was — just to make him sweat.

When the phone rang, Sylus’s muscles grew tense and Miss Hunter gave him a comforting squeeze on his shoulder. You bit your lip to hide the sudden scowl on your face. Think of corner-shop man. Think of corner-shop man. Think of corner-shop man.

Your eyes bore into your excel sheet with an intensity that would’ve produced laser beams in an alternate reality. You focused entirely on the calculations, listening intently to the brassy voice of the investor on the phone.

It didn’t take you long to generate the minimum initial investment they’d need to generate some form of return, as well as the payback period. You wrote the numbers down on a notepad, and you let him do the rest.

When you heard the investor let out a humorous ‘I’m impressed’ you packed up your laptop and left the room without so much as a wave. You felt Sylus and Miss Hunter’s eyes follow you out of the room, but you didn’t bother looking back.

You felt the thin line between love and hate begin to grow blurry. Where Sylus was concerned, your feelings were as clear as the muddy water in a swamp. Maybe two and a half months was too much time. You needed these feelings gone expeditiously.

You decided to take your lunch early, and you left the extravagant mansion that doubled as HQ to find your bike. You couldn’t really afford a car, or a license, but your bright yellow bike could do everything a car could for a fraction of the price. You were in the process of strapping up your helmet when Luke walked up.

“What’s up with you lately?” His question was inevitable. You wondered how long it would take for someone to notice that you were fighting internal battles on every front. Your mother’s health, Sylus’s sudden chronic asshole syndrome flareup, your dwindling bank account.

“Nothing, I’ve just been tired.”

“Well, we’re having a few friends over tonight. Just a small group, if you’re not too tired, you should come.” Luke was the more sociable twin, and he was most likely extending this invitation to you out of pity, but you’d take anything over being trapped in your own mind.

“Will there be alcohol?” You quipped.

“Duh.” Luke’s response brought the first genuine smile to your face in weeks.

“I’ll be there.” After your agreement, you cycled away toward the corner shop for lunch.

It was a quaint bakery/deli run by a Turkish man who you knew on a first name basis. He was aged-like-fine-wine handsome. Features weathered tastefully by age, with a full head of hair that quelled your fears of your future children inheriting the early onset male pattern baldness gene.

But when you entered the store and saw Mr Demir, there were no butterflies. Your heart didn’t skip a beat. Your hands didn’t even quiver as you paid for the sandwich. In fact, they were so steady you figured you could give Dr Zayne a run for his money.

Speaking of Dr Zayne, his daily updates were growing scarcer in detail, and you were worried that something was wrong. He insisted he was just busy and since your mother had moved up to 93 on the transplant list, you let it slide.

“You know you’re allowed to try the other sandwiches, right?” Mr Demir’s handsome face contorted into a teasing smile, and if he didn’t own this shop with his beautiful wife, you might’ve asked him to marry you then and there.

“I like this one. Your family is very talented.” You smiled at him, but it seemed even he could tell that it wasn’t genuine.

“You’re getting skinnier you know, and you haven’t been coming as often. Is something wrong or are you cheating on me with a salad store?” His joke brought a giggle out of you.

You never thought that people noticed you in a way that was significant. You felt as if you were akin to a missing bird poster on a telephone pole in the middle of a busy street. People would glance at it, remember how common and undistinguishable birds are, and forget it ever existed.

Mr Demir’s concern warmed your heart, and you promised that if you ever won the lottery, you would give him half.

“I’ve just been cooking more, that’s all. Thank you Mr Demir, say hello to your wife for me!” You gave him a small wave as you exited the shop and the weight suffocating your chest was a little lighter.

Mr Demir’s family had boundless love to share, and while their shop was small, they were happy. Maybe things would work out for you and your mother after all.

The rest of the workday passed by like a fever dream. You finally managed to complete the annual report, a copy of it sitting in Sylus’s email, surely unopened. He left soon after that phone call with Miss Hunter, you didn’t bother to ask where.

The mansion was empty when you turned off the last monitor, and you thought you’d start pre-gaming early. Sylus always warned all of you that his bar was off-limits unless he stated otherwise, but the man had so much alcohol, you doubted he’d ever notice.

He only drank red wine and whiskey, and you hated wine, so you settled for an almost full bottle of whiskey. You took one sip and realised you couldn’t stand the taste either, but it was still better than the wine, so you chugged glass after glass like they were shots.

The heavy alcohol burned your throat on the way down and continued to burn in your stomach, but the feeling kept you warm so you didn’t really mind. You’d consumed half the bottle by the time the twins returned with two other men and one girl following in suit.

“Y/N! Good, you’re here. Help me set up the drinks on the table.” You nodded your head at Luke’s request, knowing your speech would likely be slurred.

You helped him line up the bottles of cheap tequila, vodka, fireball and a fear-inducing amount of absinthe. These cheap spirits were much more your speed.

“Alright, we’re starting with truth or dare. Pick your poison and sit around the coffee table.” Kiernan’s announcement had everyone scattering around the coffee table with cups in hand. You opted for the fireball, too scared to mix alcohol this early in the night.

You recognised everyone from another one of the twin’s impromptu parties. They only ever threw them when they were sure Sylus would be gone overnight. You didn’t let yourself dwell on where he was or who he was with.

The game was more entertaining than you expected, everyone had interesting questions, and when it came to dares, the twins always had something sadistic in mind.

It was your turn when they decided to up the stakes. You were already wasted, so you committed to answering whatever question they pummelled at you.

“Truth.”

“You’re so boring, you always pick truth.” Luke whined, his arm shaking yours in protest.

“That’s because I’m scared of your dares.”

Luke rolled his eyes but conceded.

“Fine. How many people have you slept with?”

All conversations came to a stifling halt as everyone’s eyes landed on you. Far too embarrassed to tell 5 people you barely knew that you were still a virgin, you changed your answer. There was nothing to be ashamed of, but you knew the twins would mercilessly make fun of you, and you didn't have the energy to explain that between the constant pressure to succeed for your mother, and her eventual illness, your love life had been placed on the back-burner.

“Dare.”

“You know the rules, if you switch options and refuse to do it, you have to finish everyone’s drinks.”

“Yeah, yeah. Hit me.” You glared at Luke with determination. You should’ve known that when everyone was this drunk, the dares could only get progressively more outrageous.

“I dare you to call Sylus and tell him you crashed his McLaren.” Luke looked proud of his dare, and the smile dropped from your face instantly.

Even Kiernan’s eyes flashed with concern before he broke out into an obnoxious laugh.

“Oh- Holy shit! That’s gold.” The words left Kieran’s mouth in-between his laughter. Everyone around the table looked at you eagerly.

You knew if you finished off everyone’s cups you’d definitely die, or worse, throw up.

“Fine.” Too drunk to realise the implications of what you were doing, you dialled Sylus. There was also the chance he just didn’t pick up, but four and a half rings later his annoyed voice resounded through the speaker of your phone.

“What is it?” From the sound of Sylus’s tone, you’d interrupted something important. You bit down the bitter feelings that threatened to spill out, and stuck to the objective.

“I have something to tell you, but you have to promise you won’t get mad.” There was no universe in which Sylus couldn’t tell you were drunk.

In all honesty, your phone call was a welcome reprieve from his mind-numbingly boring conversation with Linkon’s politicians. He’d offered to attend this event with MC with little thought as to what it would pertain. His eyes raked over her baby pink dress, and since he couldn’t get her out of it just yet, he entertained your drunk rambling.

“I don’t have to do anything.” Sylus expected you to apologise, but all he heard was a sound foreign to him. Were you laughing? Sylus heard indecipherable voices in the background, and he found himself wondering who was making you laugh.

“True. Okay well, you know that dark grey sports car you love soooooooooooo much?” Nice going, Y/N, remind him just how much he loves this car. You thought. The phone was on speaker, per the requests of the fellow attendees.

Everyone bit back laughs at the situation which was extremely unfunny to anyone with a blood alcohol level under 0.05.

“What did you do?” Sylus’s question had a deadly underpinning, but you couldn’t bring yourself to care.

“I crashed it!” At your exclamation, the room exploded in laughter, and you muted the microphone quickly before Sylus could hear it.

“You crashed it?”

You quickly unmuted to add. “Yup! Absolutely totalled.”

“Are you okay? Where are you? I’m coming.”

The laughter immediately died down. That was not how he was supposed to react, not at all.

Luke and Kiernan gestured for you to shut it down and you quickly began to backtrack.

“No! No you don’t have to come home. I’m fine. It was just a prank.”

“Oh, so you’re at my place?” ShitShitShitShitShit.

“Yes… The twins and I had too much to drink and we thought it would be funny to prank you. I’m sorry, I really shouldn’t have interrupted your night.”

You braced yourself for the angry lecture on how Sylus’s time was more valuable the rarest ruby, but it never came.

“Just you and the twins, right?”

Luke and Kiernan gestured for you to agree.

“Yes.”

“You should probably call an exorcist.” Were you drunk or did he actually just tell you to call an exorcist?

“Huh?” Everyone in the room looked just as perplexed.

“You know, since those three other people in my living room must be apparitions.”

“You didn’t rig the camera?” Kiernan’s shrill scream was definitely registered by the phone’s mic.

“Fuck! I forgot.” Luke exclaimed in response as they scrambled to pack everything up.

“Um…” With everyone frantically running around the room, you were left to deal with Sylus’s wrath alone.

“How come you never laugh when you’re with me?” And with that question you were convinced the alcohol had induced auditory hallucinations.

“You’re not very funny.” You decided to play along, after all, imaginary Sylus was much more fun than the real one.

“Hmm, I thought I was.”

“Nope. All your jokes end in someone dying, and usually that someone is me.”

“Oh, sweetheart, those aren’t jokes.” That was something real Sylus would say. Damn, these auditory hallucinations were realistic.

“I know, I really thought you were going to kill me last week.” You let out an involuntary snort at the hilarious image of your head on a pike.

“Why’s that?”

“Because I screwed up that wire transfer to Miss Hunter. You were soooo mad. You must reaaaalllyyyy like her.”

“I guess I do.” The line went quiet on both ends after that.

This auditory hallucination was no fun following his confession, so you hung up. Sylus called a few times after, but you never noticed. The room began spinning and your eyes began watering, so you curled up on the floor until your head stopped pounding, but by then you were fast asleep.

Sylus returned to his mansion the next morning to find your office empty. It was still an hour before you were due to start, but you were always early.

With an internal promise to check again in an hour, he walked toward the living room. It didn’t take long before he noticed a mop of light brown hair on his rug.

He walked toward your sleeping form with indignation, only to find every ounce of anger sucked out of him when he knelt down to find your sleeping face.

He hadn’t been that close to you in what felt like forever. Was your face always that pale? His eyes caressed your under eye bags, and your hollow cheeks. He could’ve sworn they were fuller when he hired you. What happened to you?

Before Sylus could give in to the urge to wake you up and ask, your phone made a sound from the coffee table. He picked it up and saw you were getting a call from Zayne.

Who the fuck was Zayne?

He answered the phone before he could think it through.

“Oh, Y/N, good. I’ve been trying to reach you since last night.”

“You should’ve taken the hint.” Sylus couldn’t help the bite in his tone. He wasn’t sure why he was so angry at this Zayne, but his emotions were beginning to confuse him more often than he cared to admit.

“Who’s this?”

Sylus could’ve said that he was your boss. He should’ve said that he was your boss. But what he said instead…

“Y/N’s mine.” His employee, but that distinction didn’t seem necessary in the moment.

“Well, could you tell her to call me back as soon as possible. I have urgent news about her mother.”

The comment about her mother perplexed Sylus even more.

“Who are you?”

“I’m her mother’s heart surgeon. I have to go, have her call me soon.” Sylus felt stupid for the unnecessary show of hostility, but he only had more questions following Zayne’s answer.

It seemed the conversation was enough to wake you up from your slumber, and the moment you registered your surroundings, the headache you had was amplified tenfold. Your muscles hurt from sleeping on the hard floor, and you were sure your legs had morphed into jelly.

You were never drinking again.

“Well hello, sleeping beauty.” Sylus watched as you groggily rubbed your eyes. The right side of your face had an indent matching the pattern of his rug, and your hair was dishevelled. He couldn’t help but smile at the sight.

“Sylus. I’m so sorry.” You spoke through a yawn before cradling your head in your hands. The world needed to stop spinning.

Sylus shoved an open bottle of water in your face, and you greedily snatched the peace offering before he had time to change his mind.

“Zayne called, said he had some news about your mother.”

You shot straight up, spilling some water in the process.

“What did he say? Where’s my phone?” You glanced at large Sylus’s hand which was wrapped around said phone. If you weren’t so worried about your mother, you might’ve found the sight of Sylus holding something covered in a floral case amusing. Powering through the piercing pain in your temple, you held your hand out.

“Please give it back.”

“What’s wrong with your mother?”

“Please Sylus, I can’t do this right now.” You tried to lunge for the phone, but he was faster. Raising his hand above his head and well out of your reach.

“You’ll have this back once you answer my question.”

“She has the flu. Now give it back.” You jumped up in a feeble attempt to retrieve the phone, but he was just so goddamn tall.

“I didn’t know flu treatment protocol involved heart surgery now. Guess I need to brush up on the latest medical news.” His sardonic tone made you scoff. Only Sylus could be such a dick while your mother's life was in limbo.

Curse Dr Zayne and his blabbermouth.

If it wasn’t for the severe hangover, you might’ve been able to think of an explanation. But you were so nervous you felt sick and you needed to know the news Dr Zayne had.

“Fine. She needs a heart transplant, she’s on coronary bypass and if she doesn’t get a heart soon she’ll die. Is that good enough for you?” You continued to try to reach the phone, not bothering to check Sylus’s reaction to your confession.

He dropped the phone in your hand and you all but sprinted out of the living room to make the phone call.

The line rang once, twice, three times before Zayne picked up.

“Y/N?”

“Yes! What’s wrong? Is my mom okay? Tell me she’s okay.”

“Slow down, she’s alive, but she had a cardiac event. Not a heart attack, but it still did some damage. Her condition is worse, much worse, Y/N. I’m sorry.”

Your back slumped against the wall of the hallway and you felt your knees give in as you slid to the floor.

“How long does she have?” The tears streaming down your face fell onto your shirt, leaving uncomfortable wet spots in their wake.

“A few weeks, a month’s top. But this did move her to the top of the list. She might get a transplant in time.” Zayne must have heard the sadness in your voice if he’d offered words of encouragement. He never did that.

“Thank you. I’m going to come see her.”

“I’ll get the nurses to bring in an extra bed. I’ll see you soon, Y/N.”

You couldn’t bring yourself to respond so you hung up instead. The pain in your head was now but a mere memory as your heart began to splinter into a million little pieces.

There was so much you still had to do. You needed to buy your mom her first ever house, and help her plant the prettiest flowers in the garden. You had to get her the dog she always dreamed about and the outdoor swing she missed from her childhood home. She still had to walk you down the aisle and sing your future children the lullabies she sang to you. She couldn’t go. Not yet.

You didn’t even notice Sylus enter the hallway until you felt him sitting down next to you. He wove an arm behind your head, bringing your face into his chest. The intimacy of the act only made you cry harder. The last person to hold you that close was your mom, a few days before she’d collapsed.

“It hurts.” You choked on your words and they came out muffled against Sylus’s chest.

“What hurts?” He asked.

“My heart. It really hurts, Sylus.” You sobbed harder. It felt good to finally admit that you weren’t okay. To have someone hold you as your life fell apart around you.

“Tell me what to do, Y/N. Anything.”

“Can I have some time off?” You took deep breaths as you tried to slow your crying down. You could break down once you reached the other side of this tumultuous predicament.

The humble request drove Sylus insane. He’d offer you his own heart to save your mother if he wasn’t sure it was severely damaged, and all you could think to ask for was time off.

“Of course.”

“Can you give me a ride to Linkon?”

That request was a little better, but still not enough.

“I’ll take you now, come on.”

“No wait, I need to go home and pack some things. I’ll be back in an hour.”

“You know you can still get a DUI on a pedal bike, right?”

“I’m not drunk.”

“But there’s still alcohol in your system, and you’re very upset. It won’t be safe, I’ll take you home on the way. Let’s go.” He stood up, his hand outstretched toward you.

And with a heavy heart, you took Sylus’s hand.

#love and deepspace #lads sylus #lnds sylus #sylus x reader #sylus angst #l&ds sylus #sylus imagine #sylus smut #sylus x you #lads angst #lads x reader #lads x you #lads zayne #lads fanfic #sylus fluff

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areislol · 7 months ago

Text

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤhow they react to a child wooing you

pairings. various (hsr + genshin impact) x gn! reader

warnings. fluff, mentions of jealousy, established relationship

a/n. i find men getting jealous over a little kid so funny, never fails to crack me up.

wordcount. 2.4k

synopsis. how they react to seeing you getting wooed by a child

you’re casually minding your business when a bold little kid struts up to you with a flower they picked from who-knows-where. "you’re the most beautiful person i’ve ever seen!" they declare, face as bright as their words.

"awww, thank you sweetie!"

"...."

the jealous one (despite their big age)

the moment the child runs up to you with wide eyes and a flower clutched in their tiny hand, you can practically feel the temperature shift around you.

whether he's subtle about it or blatantly obvious, as they watch this scene unfold, he is most definitely NOT thrilled. he can not believe his eyes right now.

he doesn’t mean to react the way he does—it’s not like a child could ever be serious competition—but something about the moment sends a spark of possessiveness through him. his entire demeanor changes. his arms cross over his chest, his jaw tightens, and his eyes narrow slightly as he watches the scene unfold.

just what in tarnation is this stupid kid doing?!!?!?

he’s not angry at the child, but the audacity of it throws him off. really? even kids are lining up now? he thinks to himself, feeling his pride take an unexpected hit. as you crouch down to accept the flower with that sweet smile of yours, he can’t help but bristle. there’s a tug at the corner of his mouth that he tries to suppress, but the faint scowl is hard to miss

he crosses his arms, as if the whole situation is beneath their concern, but his sharp eyes never leave the child. he visibly stiffen, his body going tense as they quietly seethe.

when the child boldly proclaims their affection for you, offering their flower with the confidence only a child could muster, you suddenly hear a quiet scoff under his breath, muttering something like, “ridiculous,” before he speaks up, eyes trained on the poor child.

“a bold move, kid, but maybe aim for someone your own size next time.” his tone is teasing (is it really??), but there’s an unmistakable edge to his words, his presence looming protectively by your side.

after the child scurries off, his chest puffed up with pride at his bravery, the jealous one steps in almost immediately, closing the distance between you as if to reclaim his territory.

“so,” he starts, his tone casual but laced with pointed sarcasm, “should i be worried? do i need to watch my back now?” his eyes search yours, and though he’s trying to play it cool, there’s a hint of vulnerability in his gaze—a silent plea for reassurance.

if you laugh and tease him about being jealous, his cheeks darken slightly, and he huffs, looking away. “i’m not jealous,” he insists, though the way his arms cross tighter over his chest says otherwise.

“it’s just… what kind of guy lets someone else give his girl flowers without saying something?” his voice trails off, grumbly and defensive, but you can tell he’s mostly embarrassed by his own reaction.

later, he finds ways to reassert his place by your side, subtle but deliberate. maybe it’s the way he holds your hand a little tighter or slings an arm around your shoulders when you’re out together. he doesn’t need to say it outright, but his actions make it clear: you’re mine.

there’s a faint air of possessiveness to their actions, whether it’s the way they guide you away from the scene with a hand on the small of your back or the way they glance over their shoulder to make sure the child is gone.

if you call him out on their jealousy, the reactions are just as varied. he will deny it outright, scoffing, “jealous? of a kid? don’t flatter yourself.” but their lingering glances and subtle protectiveness give them away.

he simply shrugs, his calm voices betraying none of his innerturmoil: “it’s only natural. beauty like yours is bound to attract attention, even if it’s… unconventional.”

for the rest of the day, you’ll notice small shifts in his behaviour. he'll stand closer, touch you more often—whether it’s a hand on your arm, your waist, or your shoulder—and find little ways to remind you of their presence.

his jealousy, as amusing as it is, only serves to highlight one thing: he want you to know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that he's the only one who deserves your attention.

— CHILDE, SAMPO, WANDERER, BLADE, aventurine, MOZE, DR. RATIO, jiaoqiu, gorou, lyney, XIAO

the (soft) supporter

when the child shyly approaches you, clutching a flower with trembling hands and nervously stammering out a confession, his reaction is immediate but far from possessive. instead of jealousy or annoyance, he watches with a warm smile, his eyes softening as he takes in the innocence of the moment.

his first thought isn’t to interrupt or overshadow but to appreciate the sincerity of the child’s feelings and your gentle response to it.

he watches the scene unfold with quiet amusement, his heart swelling as he takes in the sweetness of the moment. he doesn’t see the child as a rival or a nuisance—far from it. instead, he’s struck by how earnest and brave the little boy is for approaching you with such sincerity.

he knows how kind and patient you are, and seeing you respond with such gentle affection only reminds him of why he adores you.

as you crouch down to accept the flower, thanking the child with a kind smile, he can’t help but admire you even more. there’s a tenderness in the way you interact with the child that makes his heart ache in the best way possible.

he doesn’t feel threatened by the situation—in fact, he finds it endearing. if anything, it reminds him of how natural it is for people to be drawn to you, no matter their age.

standing just a step behind you, he chuckles softly to himself, murmuring under his breath, “well, that’s brave of him.” his voice carries a note of amused admiration, but he doesn’t feel the need to insert himself into the moment.

instead, he stands by as a quiet presence, ready to step in if the child needs a little encouragement but content to let you handle it.

if the child looks nervous or unsure, he might step closer and kneel down to meet the boy’s eye level, his tone kind and reassuring. “that’s a beautiful flower you’ve got there,” he’d say with a small smile. “you chose well.” he has no intention of stealing the spotlight or intimidating the child; he just wants to make the situation feel a little easier for everyone.

his gentle demeanor leaves no room for misunderstanding—he’s here to support you, not compete for attention.

after the child scampers off, cheeks flushed with pride and excitement, he turns to you with a soft laugh. “you’ve got quite the admirer,” he says, his tone light and teasing but laced with genuine affection. there’s no jealousy in his voice, just quiet amusement and warmth.

he even suggests preserving the flower as a keepsake, offering to press it in a book or find a small vase for it later. to him, it’s a sweet moment worth cherishing.

you thank him for being so calm about the situation, he simply shrugs, his smile soft and unassuming. “he’s just a kid,” he says, his voice full of understanding. “and honestly, it’s sweet. how could anyone not fall for you?” the sincerity in his words is undeniable, and the way his gaze lingers on you for just a second too long tells you everything you need to know about how he feels.

later, he might bring it up again in passing, unable to resist a little playful teasing. “so, should i be worried?” he asks with a grin, the corners of his eyes crinkling with amusement. “seems like you’ve got admirers lining up these days.”

despite the joke, his actions remain steady and reassuring—he never leaves your side for long and finds subtle ways to remind you of how much you mean to him. whether it’s brushing his hand against yours, standing a little closer than usual, or simply looking at you with that soft, adoring expression, his quiet support is unwavering.

for him, the moment wasn’t about competition or insecurity. it was just another reminder of how incredible you are, and how lucky he feels to be the one by your side.

— KAZUHA, ZHONGLI, WELT, GEPARD, ARGENTI, LUKA, SUNDAY, LUOCHA, JING YUAN, tighnari, THOMA, DILUC, BAIZHU

the dramatic ones

when the child approaches you, holding out a flower with all the sincerity in the world, the dramatic one immediately acts as if the universe itself has betrayed him. his eyes widen in exaggerated shock, a hand flying to his chest as if struck by an invisible arrow.

“oh, you’ve got to be kidding me!” he exclaims, his voice dripping with mock offense. he takes a step back, looking between you and the child with theatrical disbelief, as though he’s stumbled into the climax of some tragic love story.

as the child nervously stammers out his confession, the dramatic one groans, running a hand through his hair as if trying to collect himself. “really? really? even kids now?” he mutters under his breath, though loud enough for you to hear. his tone is less genuine frustration and more exaggerated exasperation, the kind that begs for your attention.

when you smile at the child and crouch down to accept the flower, his reaction shifts into full-blown melodrama. “a flower? oh no, not a flower!” he gasps, pretending to stagger backward as if this tiny gesture has dealt him a mortal wound.

“this is how it starts! next thing i know, he’ll be writing you love letters and stealing your heart!” he places a hand on his forehead, tilting his head back with a long-suffering sigh, as though the betrayal is simply too much to bear.

if the child dares to glance his way, he leans in slightly, crossing his arms with a mock-serious expression. “you’re bold, kid. i’ll give you that,” he says, narrowing his eyes playfully. “but do you have what it takes to keep them happy? hmm? flowers are just the beginning, you know.” despite his words, there’s no real malice—he’s just playing up the moment, reveling in the absurdity of the situation.

when the child finally scampers off, proud of his bravery, the dramatic one steps closer to you, shaking his head with a heavy sigh. “unbelievable. i leave you alone for one second, and this is what happens?” he grumbles, though the grin tugging at his lips betrays his amusement. “what’s next? a line of admirers waiting around the corner?”

if you laugh at his antics, it only fuels his performance. “don’t laugh! this is serious!” he says, though his voice is far from convincing. he leans in closer, his tone dropping to a mock whisper. “tell me the truth—did he win you over? do i have competition now? should i be worried?” his eyes glimmer with playful mischief, his entire demeanor practically begging you to reassure him.

later, he won’t let you forget it. “do you remember earlier? that kid? yeah, i’m still recovering,” he teases, his voice full of faux indignation. “i mean, who does that? confessing right in front of me? bold move, i’ll give him that.” he’ll recount the story to anyone willing to listen, embellishing every detail to make it sound even more dramatic.

“i had to stand there and watch my partner get swept off their feet by a four-foot-tall rival. you have no idea the pain i endured.”

despite all the dramatics, his actions make it clear that it’s all in good fun. he doesn’t actually feel threatened—in fact, he enjoys watching you smile and laugh at his antics. the entire situation only gives him another excuse to shower you with playful affection and remind you in his own ridiculous way just how much you mean to him.

— KAVEH, SAMPO, venti, luka, BOOTHILL, JING YUAN, ITTO, CYNO, kaeya, lyney, BAIZHU, MR. RECA, wriothesley

the quiet ones

when the child approaches you, holding out a flower with trembling hands and a nervous confession, he is instantly at a loss. his breath catches, and he freezes in place, wide-eyed as he tries to process what’s happening. for a moment, he just stands there, completely still, as though moving might draw attention to himself. his hands awkwardly hover near his sides, unsure whether to intervene or stay back.

his gaze darts between you and the child, his face rapidly turning pink as he realizes how sweetly you’re smiling at the little boy. the warmth and gentleness in your voice as you thank the child make his heart ache in the best way possible. he swallows hard, suddenly hyperaware of how soft and kind you are, and it only makes his cheeks burn hotter.

as you crouch down to accept the flower, he glances away, his fingers fidgeting with the hem of his sleeve or brushing through his hair in a nervous attempt to compose himself. it’s not that he’s jealous—no, he wouldn’t even know how to be jealous in this situation—it’s just that seeing someone else, even a child, shower you with admiration leaves him tongue-tied and painfully aware of his own feelings.

he mumbles something under his breath, barely audible, like, “that’s… bold of him.” but the moment the words leave his mouth, he cringes internally, wondering why he couldn’t come up with something better. instead of saying more, he stays rooted in place, trying to appear calm even as the tips of his ears betray him with their deep blush.

when the child looks at him, perhaps seeking approval, he manages a small, awkward smile and a quiet, “good choice.” his voice is soft, almost shy, and there’s a hesitant nod to go along with it. he wants to be encouraging after all, this is a child.

still, he’s not upset—he’s impressed by the child’s courage and, more than anything, endeared by how naturally you handle the situation.

after the child runs off, proud of his brave confession, the flustered quiet one exhales a shaky breath, his shoulders sagging slightly as he finally allows himself to relax. he hesitates before speaking, his voice low and slightly uneven. “that was… something,” he murmurs, a faint smile tugging at his lips as he dares to meet your eyes.

if you tease him, his blush deepens, and he looks away, rubbing the back of his neck. “i’m not flustered,” he insists, though his tone is far from convincing. he might even add, “it’s just… surprising, that’s all.” his attempt to downplay his reaction only makes him seem more endearing, his bashful demeanor a clear giveaway of how much the moment affected him.

for the rest of the day, he’s quieter than usual, replaying the scene in his mind and feeling his heart skip all over again. when he finally gathers the courage to bring it up, it’s in the form of a shy, almost hesitant comment.

“he was pretty brave, you know,” he says softly, his gaze flickering to you before quickly looking away. “but, uh… i hope you know that… well, i admire you too. a lot.”

his words are sincere, even if his voice is barely above a whisper. while he may not be as bold as the child who approached you, his quiet admiration and the way he lingers close to you for the rest of the day speak volumes.

— CAELUS, IMBIBITOR LUNAE/DAN HENG, gallagher, GEPARD, XIAO, DILUC, DAINSLEIF, ALBEDO, ALHAITHAM, NEUVILLETTE

note: got hit w baby fever sadly

taglist: @tomansimp @one-offmind @miitchiji @dainsleif-when-playable @momoewn @stygianoir @irethepotato @v4an @imetsk @fiannee @sunnyf4lls if im missing anyone please tell me because i have an inkling feeling i missed a few..

liking + following + reblogs are very much appreciated!!!

another note: not proof read so if you found any spelling/grammar mistakes PLEASE tell me

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ciaoteamo · 1 year ago

Text

Milk and Water Pt. II

pairings: doppelgänger!Milkman x fem!Reader

summary: the aftermath of letting him in

pt.I

(art credits: @yunonoaii)

warnings: 18+ content

“…what. the. fuck.” You mutter to yourself, watching the scene before you unfold.

“mmm, how about letting me in now? promise i won’t bite you too hard” His eyes were dangerously seductive.

Your desktop fan and the slight rustling sound of (what you could only assume was) him touching himself filled the eerie silence of your office space.

However, he could still tell that you were hesitant to let him in, especially considering what he just did to D.D.D.

“how about this, sweetheart we-“

“if i open this door.” You cut him off. He shuts up quickly and halts his movements with a blank stare. His eyes watching you intently.

“you come straight to me, or else i swear to fuck. it will not be a good time for you. you copy?” Your hands were firmly grasping the edge of the desk as you stared the man in his color changing eyes.

“i promise” He kisses the window and you give him one last short lived glare before unlocking the door for him.

BZZT!

He slowly turns away from you and walks toward the door and you felt relieved to hear a light knock a few seconds later before he let himself in.

“see? you can trust the milkman” He grins.

He was a mess. Between the torn clothing, the blood, and his unzipped slacks that displayed his black briefs holding back a huge bulge, he honestly looked like something out of a wet dream.

“this is quite a small space… you think i’ll be alright in here?” He closed the door behind himself and strides toward you.

“you don’t have any choice but to be alright” You retort and he chortles.

“i love this mouth of yours… i’ve never crossed paths with a human as bold as you…” He tilts his head, placing a hand under your chin to lift it a bit.

“unless you’re actually scared… and using this boldness as a tactic..?” His irises turn white once again and his grip on your chin tightened slightly.

Though you were enduring a near death experience right now, being that you were this close to a doppelgänger, you were unbelievably horny.

“tactics?” You start. You already knew that you probably wouldn’t be able to get out of his grip just by moving, so you used a more… inappropriate approach.

You took a step closer to him, closing in the 2 foot gap that sat between the two of you and you placed your palm over his hard-on.

His grip immediately loosened a bit and his fingers twitched against your skin. What a reaction that was…

You feel more confident, realizing that he’s just another horny good looking guy. “is there a reason i should be afraid of you?” You ask, hand squeezing around him and a finger rubbing his tip.

He shudders and his hand falls from your chin and rests around your throat. His forehead tapped against yours, and your eyes were fixed on each other. “…you really are something”

“wish i could say the same for you“ You start, breaking the eye contact to look at his lips and sharp canines. “you’re just a slutty and messy excuse of a monster” Your words would probably be venom to anyone else, but this only riled him up more.

You felt his throbbing under your palm and grin to yourself before being greedily pulled into a kiss. For a brief moment, you could taste a metallic bloody taste on his tongue.

You moaned at the warmth of his mouth and felt his hands rested on your hips, rubbing circles into the area.

You release yourself from the kiss with his bottom lip between your teeth and a smile. “desperate, are we?” You tease.

“painfully…” His eyes glistened. “what’ll it take to get those pretty lips to go a little lower?”

“show me what yours can do first and i’ll see about returning the favor” You challenge. His eyes go back and forth between yours before he kisses you again.

This time however, he started to undo your uniform. Groaning so deeply that you felt the rumble in your throat. His skilled hands loosened your belt and your slacks came down and off.

Next he lowered himself and lifted you a bit to get off your socks and shoes, making him get more sloppy and needy within the kiss.

At this point he was squatting and you were standing over him, holding both sides of his face. His hands travelled up and down your leg as he stayed in his position and this time, he’s the one to break the kiss.

You were both breathing heavily, and staring each other down. You almost forgot your resolve and let him fuck you right then and there.

But you had to stay strong, for both of you guys’ sake. You take a deep breath in and til your head.

“well, you gonna show me? or are just sit there and look delirious from a simple kiss?” You teased.

“…may i?” He asks with a slightly raised eyebrow, gesturing toward your leg.

“go ahead”

“hold on to something right”

“why am i h- shit!” You would’ve fell right to the ground if it wasn’t for the shelf behind you that held last months documents. Albeit, they’re scattered over the floor now.

Your legs were snatched from underneath you and each one was hooked over the man’s shoulders. His warm breath against you felt sinister. It sent a slight chill up your spine.

His eyes stared down at your sex and he licked his lips, looking more excited than you did for this. “don’t let go” He says before using gis fingers to spread you sticky lips.

His tongue pressed hard into you and drug from your hole, up to your clit. You bit your lip at the warmth and felt your back arch against your will.

“ha~ this all you got? Thought you said you’d be bet- anghh~!” Your eyes widen and your mouth drops at the new feeling below.

“you were saying?” He mumbles into you. His tongue was longer with a pointy tip, and his lips were wrapped tightly around your clit.

The pleasure was almost overwhelming. You could definitely admit that he made you eat your words and replace them with loud endless moans.

As you felt yourself getting closer you began to grind your hips over his face, chasing after your high.

“don’t stop” You could barely get out the last word before the wave of immense overstimulating pleasure came over you.

You curse and take in a few deep breaths, calming yourself down a bit, and only then did he let your clit go with a ‘pop’, making your legs to twitch.

“that wasn’t fair” You jokingly glare at him, the sweat making your skin shine and chilly from the fan air.

“i told you i was better” He wipes his chin with his thumb and licks it clean without breaking the eye contact.

“you have to be some sort of… sex demon” You shake your head in disbelief.

“maybe i am?” He lets you tug him closer by his tie and give him another sloppy kiss. The change in size of his tongue being just below too much for you as it explored your mouth.

“well let’s see how long you can last then… hm?” You ask, beginning to leave a trail of light kisses on his next before a harsh bite.

You could feel him shudder and decided to have him sit in your office chair. “let me borrow this..” You say, undoing his tie while he sat.

You spin the chair around and bring both of his arms to the back and tie them to the chair. When you spin his back around, his had such a mischievous grin that you went ahead and addressed.

“yes, i know you could probably get out of that in a heartbeat” You start and roll your eyes. He chuckles, amused at your awareness. “but, will you?” It was your turn to put on the sly grin now. The second he managed to break free from his restraint, would be the moment you’d send him off.

“…” He read your face, bit knowing if he should say something sly or not.

“right, thought so” You smile and give him a few taps on the cheek.

You kneel between the man’s legs, finally addressing the large and throbbing penis before you.

“god you’re hard… you weren’t kidding when you said you needed help” You joke, rubbing his wet tip through his boxers with you finger.

He grunted a bit and readjusted himself in his seat. You look up at him before pressing harshly on it with your thumb.

“oh fuck you~” He throws his head back and you giggle.

You reach for the hem of his briefs and tug at them, signaling him to lift his hips. Once he’s exposed, you could really see the girth and length of him.

He was veiny, thick… bright pink tip, and god knows how long it was.

You put your hand around the base, it was warm and nearly pulsating. Your pace was moderate, giving him just enough to work with. You knew it was a nice steady pace when his hips slightly jerked up for more friction.

“needy boy wanting to fuck my hand? this wasn’t even the main event you asked for, love” You coo, strengthening the grip you had on him by a smidge.

“i can’t help that you know how to use those hands of yours so well” He remarks, still facing the ceiling.

You pump your fist higher up and use your own skilled tongue to drag along his vein.

“@$?!~” He moaned and immediately looked down at you with a snarl. An almost threatening one telling you that he wanted more.

And were you planning on giving it to him? Absolutely not.

You stare right back at him and smirk, using the same motion and occasionally sucking the pre cum from its leaky pink source.

“i’m gonna cum” Your eyes welled a bit at the large shaft triggering your gag reflex. But he was close so you would endure the slight pain.

His thrust his hips up a few times and you force your head as far as you could before completely stopping.

“fuck- why’d you stop” His voice was almost a whisper and suddenly thick white ropes shot into the air and landed on his thigh.

“oh i’m sorry, i’ll keep going” You reach for his most sensitive spots, overstimulating him into a nervous laughter as he begged you to stop.

It was fun watching him experience more than he could handle, but all good things come to an end.

He sighs in relief, sweaty, heaving, and dazed.

“can i be freed now?” He asks.

“sure, why not. looks like you’re done here anyway” You shrug.

“who’s done?” He stands up, simply snapping the tie apart.

“oh… you’ve still got more in you?”

“im the milkman, i never run out” He suddenly picks you up and sits on you on the desk. Jesus, these things are strong.

You wrap your hands around your neck, suddenly feeling the arousal for another round yourself.

His hands find your slick entrance, teasing the outside and slipping two cold slender fingers into you.

“mmm!” You mean into the kiss, holding onto his forearm as he fingered you at an inhumane pace. You break away and cat h your breath trying to slow him down a bit.

“i don’t want to cum from this, put it in” You say.

“yes ma’am” He lines himself up without your entrance and slowly pushes himself in with a moan. You could every centimeter of the stretch as he went deeper.

You tapped the back of your head onto the window behind you and felt him kissing on your neck and collarbone.

“fuck you’re big” Your voice slightly shook as you stated the obvious.

“and you’re so warm and wet inside, i ashamed to admit that i almost came putting it in” He chuckled before biting back another groan.

RIIIIING

You snap your head in the direction of the phone and see D.D.D. calling.

Shit.

“stop, i have to take this.” He halts his thrusts and you grab the phone. “hello?”

“agent number” A deep voice says over the phone.

“5 5 8 4 3 7” You state clearly.

“thank you agent (Y/N), we’re calling about a few M.I.A. cleaners? it says in our system that you were the last to call. is everything alright?”

“ye-es~” You feel something rubbing your g-spot and look over at Francis. ‘stop, now.’ You mouth silently. He just smirks and speeds up.

“are you sure? you sound like you’re being threatened” The man on the phone asks.

“mhm~, im fine sir, just a little shaky” You put your hand over the phone speaker and look at Francis.

“what the fuck is wrong with you??” You ask, interrupting yourself with a few moans.

“just a little thirsty for some water” He thrusts harder, causing him to hit your g-spot, and your clit back to back.

You cover your mouth with your shirt and moan into it, hearing the buzz of a voice on the phone. Honestly you should be scared, they could show any minute, but right now, you could care less.

“im gonna cum” You whisper, still being mindful of the potential listeners.

“yeah?” He grabs a young and stands straight up, slamming you down into his cock. You let out something just short of a scream into the crook of his neck and find yourself twitching and shaking in his grip.

You heard a splash and felt him fill you up with his seed. You both were a moaning, groaning mess, heavily breathing in place.

“(Y/N), do you copy?……. we’re on our way” The phone then hangs up and the low buzzy voice is replaced with a prominent beep.

“you have to go, they’re coming” You lazily try to leave his strong hold with a tired push against his chest.

“but first” He puts you back on the desk where you rest your back against the cold glass window. “a drink..” His tongue grows longer right infont of you, and cleans you from your ankles to your navel, and of course he ran it over the bundle of nerves he’s been abusing all night, making your body jolt.

“you’re so delicious… i wish i could always taste you” His tongue goes back to its normal size.

“well i’ll get going now… i’ll be seeing you again soon, love. i’ll try not to cause too much trouble next time…” He gives you a peppery kiss on the nose and leaves.

Well, that’s one way to end your day shift…

#ciaoteamo #x reader #imagine #smut #milkman smut #milkman x reader #milk the man #milkman #thats not my neighbor #francis mosses x reader #francis mosses

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lauraneedstochill · 2 months ago

Text

can’t pretend

pairing: Jack Abbot x resident!reader summary: He is puzzled with you first, then vexed, and he can’t understand his feelings. In an attempt to get to know you better (or maybe to get you out of his head), Abbot accidentally crosses the line. (or, alternatively: what if Jack met someone similar to him in many ways. traumatic past included) »»» part 2

warnings: <rivals> to friends to lovers, slow burn, mentions of blood and injuries / I’m hinting at the age gap but you can ignore it / some complicated feelings and a LOT of Jack’s thoughts (his poor therapist will need a raise); assault. ANGST. / words: 7K author’s note: this is my first fic for “The Pitt”. I binge-watched the show in 2 days and didn’t plan on writing anything but my inspiration decided otherwise. I’ve never had a beta reader in my life, please be kind. ♡

Early at dawn, the sky is just the right color — the darkness slowly dissipates, deep purple at the edges, black fading into blue. If he squints and looks above the roofs, he can pretend he’s looking at the ocean. He’s been toying with the idea for some time but it’s more of a dream, a comforting mirage: him getting a small house by the beach, waves crashing softly in the distance, clean blue water blending into the bright blue sky. He’d wake up to the sunrise, take lugs full of cooling salty air, walk in the sand that glistens under the foaming swash. He’d probably adopt a dog — someone to pass his days with, just so the silence doesn’t get too heavy, doesn’t weigh on him when he can’t sleep at night.

A passing car honks down the street, loud and sudden, and Jack flinches, opening his eyes. That’s when the perfect image always falls apart. He is afraid he will get lonely with just a dog and with nothing to do, he will be going up the walls, bored out of his mind. But he doesn’t know how not to be alone. And some days he wishes that he did.

The air in Pittsburgh doesn’t carry any scents at this morning hour, and Jack’s gaze wanders down to the tree leaves writhing in the wind. He absentmindedly rubs his wrists when he hears the door creaking behind him.

“You know, security is getting worried about you,” Robby chuckles, his steps slow. “I heard the guys making bets on how many times a week you’ll come here.”

“Says the man who likes to brood in my spot,” Jack huffs without looking at him.

“Me, brooding? No idea what you are talking about.”

Robby gets to the roof edge but stays behind the railing, leans on it and slowly stretches his arms. His tone lets empathy in when he speaks up:

“Tough night?”

The sky is overcast, a mush of white and grey clouds the blue barely peeks through, and Jack sighs as he turns away. “Remember you told me about the kid who OD’d on Xanax laced with fentanyl? The parents sat by his bed hoping he’d wake up by some miracle,” Robby only nods when Jack throws him a glance. “I’m dealing with one of those.”

They both lost patients before, and both know that it doesn’t get easier with time. You have to tuck your grief away to walk into the room with their loved ones, offer apologies that carry little meaning, take even more grief in because this isn’t about you and this loss is not for you to carry. But they do carry it — Robby memorizes lifeless faces, Jack never forgets the names of everyone he couldn’t save.

“Brain dead?”

“Yep,” Jack drawls, hands gripping the metal rails. “He’s got three sisters, and all three were begging me. And I stood there feeling absolutely useless.”

Robby watches as his friend’s knuckles turn white. “If you couldn’t do anything then there was nothing that could’ve been done. And I’m really sorry.”

If only words could bring people back from the dead, Jack thinks bitterly but doesn’t say it out loud. He doesn’t want to sour Robby’s mood. And he can’t help but notice — it used to bother him way more, it sometimes would eat him alive; now Jack is mostly numb.

“I’ll sleep it off,” he mumbles.

“Not staying for the welcoming party?”

It takes a few seconds for the reminder to pop up in Jack’s head: a new senior resident, today is her first day. After Collins took maternity leave, Robby spent hours on the phone, glasses pressed to the bridge of his nose as he flipped through the applications, always unsure, never satisfied. And then he got a call and drove across the city to another hospital to meet her in person — he came back beaming. Jack must’ve zoned out so he didn’t catch the details.

“Don’t think I have a very welcoming face.”

“Should’ve seen the guys she worked with. I thought her chief of surgery would literally fist-fight me after I offered her the job,” Robby cackles.

It stirs Jack’s curiosity a bit. “She’s that good?”

“I believe she is. Skilled, confident, haven’t heard a single bad thing about her,” and even though his voice is certain, Robby dithers, bringing a hand to the back of his neck.

“But... ? I sense a but coming.”

“No-no, she’s great, really, and I made up my mind. It’s just that… She comes off as quite stubborn, and I feel like she is used to flying solo,” his eyes dart to Jack. “Reminds me of someone I know,” a smile grazes his lips, an unvoiced comparison he can’t help but draw.

Jack doesn’t see it, his gaze set somewhere on the horizon. “We all have to be team players here, that’s how it works,” he says dismissively. “I’m sure she’ll learn.”

The streets are getting busy, filling with people talking, rushing, making endless calls — and with more honking and more sounds that all merge into one unpleasant noise. And Jack is getting really tired.

“I should go back. Don’t want anyone to scare her off,” Robby puts a hand on Jack’s shoulder, a friendly but firm grip. “I’d also rather not waste my time on scraping your frail body off the pavement. Let me walk you out.”

“Frail body? You are three years older, you bag of bones,” Jack quips, and they share a laugh, and it warms up his heart a little.

But the warmth fades as they get inside, into the weave of corridors, into the crowd of nurses and other doctors pacing, the lighting bright and harsh, the smell of antiseptics clinging to the walls like mold. And it is not as overwhelming as it’s tiresome; once he is out on the street, Jack takes a few deep breaths. It’s hardly a relief.

As he passes by the park, exhaustion already on his heels, he suddenly picks up a sound, something between a whine and a small woof. Jack looks around to find the source peeping out from behind the bushes — brown eyes, wet nose, grey fluffy ears, one marked with a white spot. When Jack takes a step closer, the stray puppy immediately runs off.

On his way home he gets some dog treats and throws them in his bag. He tries thinking of pet names but nothing comes to mind. And when he falls into his cold bed, thick curtains not letting any light reach him, he dreams of standing on a long road framed with grass, a murmuring of waves heard through the mist. But he can’t see the ocean.

It keeps raining, and they have to close the roof — “Merely a precaution, sir, we don’t want anyone to slip. I heard the weather is supposed to clear up in a few days,” one of the guards assures Jack. His mood these days is just as gloomy as the sky. But he’s a man of habit, so every time Jack wants to get out to the roof, he instead gets more cases, drinks more coffee, barely a few words squeezed in between that aren’t work-related.

At first, he only catches glimpses of you.

On the days when your shifts overlap, he sees you tearing along the hallways, your hair up and your face focused, removing gowns to quickly put on fresh ones, your hands either in gloves or carrying the charts. You don’t speak much, and very few times Jack gets to walk past you, he is slightly puzzled by this combination of quiet and fast-paced.

Your first week is nearing its end when Dana prompts Jack to make a proper introduction. She calls him uncooperative and calls for you herself when she sees you leaving trauma#1. You swiftly come by the nurses' station and glance up at the board — and then you finally face Jack, your gaze so piercing, it catches him off guard. He clears his throat and manages a greeting, a bit coolly.

“Nice to meet you, Dr. Abbot,” you tell him calmly, offering a hand. And you don’t look away, and your handshake is firmer than he would expect. The next thing you are holding is another chart, eyes following the lines of words and numbers as you step away, Whitaker barely keeping up.

“She is so fast, she’s almost flying. Beautiful,” Princess notes approvingly, and Perlah hums in agreement.

Their voices snap him back into reality, and Jack inhales sharply, only now realizing his gaze is still on you. He looks down, pretending he needs to fix his watch. “What is this, a fan club?”

“Aw, no need to be so jealous. You will always be our favorite old white doctor,” Princess teases.

Perlah gives her a side-eye. “I thought Dr. Robby was our favorite.”

“Well, yes. But I have a soft spot for men in existential crisis,” Princess winks at him.

Perlah rolls her eyes. “They are all in existential crisis.”

“And I wonder why,” Jack deadpans, then picks a case just so he’s got an excuse to leave. And maybe an excuse to pass by the room you’re in, your gloved hands already stained with crimson.

He starts watching you more often, an impulse he can’t necessarily explain.

He’s careful, he’s not staring, but his hazel eyes always pick you out from the crowd. He’s taking mental notes: you lean on doors with your right shoulder when you rush in, you scan the injured head to toe in every case, hands moving quickly in tandem with your gaze. You never raise your voice but you keep eye contact — with the interns when you give instructions and with the patients to make sure they understand what’s going on. You are efficient with your work-ups, you’re the first one to come in and you stay late to turn your patients over to the night shift. You are meticulous and disciplined in a way he finds relatable; in three weeks' time there’s a foundation laid for him to grow respectful. But sometimes Jack can’t stop the thought: he is yet to see your smile. He is also yet to see you slip up, and that is bound to happen because no doctor is without fault.

A month in, he thinks you finally come close to failure.

A patient is wheeled in on a gurney, gesticulating, red in the face from how displeased or pained he is (probably both); still, as you talk to him, he makes pauses to listen. There’s blood on his chest and his speech is slurring, and Jack’s gaze follows you. From where he’s standing, he can see you clearly, so he can’t help but glance up a few times from his computer screen. It’s all the same routine and it seems to be working smoothly — but when he takes another peek, he sees you frozen.

Jack instantly draws near, alert and observing through the glass: the man is intubated, his shirt cut and chest bared — and with a nail sticking right out of where his heart should be. The monitors go off as the blood pressure drops. When Whitaker makes eye contact with him, Jack takes that as an invitation to come in.

“What do we got here?”

Whitaker looks half worried, half relieved. “Um-m, 41 years old male, nail to the chest, intracardiac. Prepped for the thoracotomy. Cardio is tied up with another surgery, and it’s at least 15 more minutes until we can get an O.R.”

Jack knows the patient doesn’t have that long. His gaze flickers to you but you do not meet it, and he can’t tell what you are looking at. There is no time to guess — if you’ve never cracked into someone’s chest, he’ll gladly guide you. And his guidance is assertive, if a little cocky.

“It’s not every day that you get to do a thoracotomy. And it can be daunting — also, pretty risky if you ask me—”

“Then it’s a good thing I’m not asking,” you retort abruptly without even sparing him a glance.

And then you pick the scalpel and make the first incision, your hands steady and never hesitating, the confidence of a tsunami sweeping rocks away.

Jack has to take a step back because it would be childish to argue when someone’s life is hanging by a thread. And all his doubts are crushed before his very eyes the way ribs are under the pressure of a steel retractor you are holding, the metal sinking into flesh and blood to give you access to the heart. After the nail is out — long but intact, you deal with excess fluid and with the bleeding — and you are more nimble than he is, than he’s ever seen the other doctors be.

“Well, call me impressed,” Jack says earnestly.

The silence is a little awkward — a couple of seconds before you give reply: “Thank you, Dr. Abbot.”

He wonders if maybe his compliment might’ve come as patronizing. What he knows for sure is that you do not need his help. But when he backs away, he sees a glint out of the corner of his eye — dog tags left in the pile of the man’s belongings on the floor. Jack has the same tags hanging on a chain around his neck. He almost doesn’t feel the weight of them but the memories they bring are heavy — sometimes an image flashing through his mind, sometimes a nightmare stirring him awake. And mostly it’s the latter.

But today, as his shift goes on, he isn’t thinking of torn limbs and collapsing buildings and bombings that looked like firecrackers in the night. Those weren’t the reasons he kept going back — he never once craved violence, never really cared about the money. For him, it was the roar of the adrenaline and the belief that even amidst the death and ruins, he could make a change. He hasn’t felt that for a while: the rush, the determination, the power held in your hands when you are cutting into someone’s body, fixing the organs and sewing the skin together, bringing the life back in. He lacks that spark, he misses it, he wants to get it back. To prove to himself that he still can do that — or maybe not only to himself.

So now he isn’t watching you but studying, with a diligence of a man who once had to learn how to walk again.

He starts work earlier just so he can get more patients — but also to listen in on your case reports and trail your steps, peek into trauma rooms you run in and out of. He often finds himself holding back the questions: damn, how did you do that? How come you easily catch things others take so long to figure out? You take on complicated cases: a feeble woman who can’t hold her food down, her arms marked with a red rash; a young jogger who keeps fainting, short of breath; a man whose neck hurts, the pain radiating to his chest. And you examine them and pick the clues to solve the tangle of the symptoms — it’s Celiac disease, it’s kidney failure, it’s spondylodiscitis and you know exactly how to treat it. But Jack knows all these answers too. And even if they don’t click in his mind as quickly as they do in yours, it’s still a victory: he’s not as rusty as he thought he was, he is enjoying this. He can’t believe he almost let himself forget.

When he decides to try a day shift for a change, he’s met with Dana’s worried face, her wondering out loud if he feels okay. She then proceeds to ask the same question two more times, just to make sure.

“You on day shifts may be the thing that saves Robby from a heart attack, you know,” her face softens.

“Are you saying you guys get way more action than us night owls?”

Dana grins. “What, you are already reconsidering your choices?”

“Like hell I am,” one corner of his mouth hints at a smirk.

The day is busy, and he can barely catch a break, but it isn’t a chore: he’s equally enthusiastic about a road accident that left a guy with a skull fracture, an appendectomy, a stoned teenage with a knife stuck in his thigh, a street worker with a leg broken in two places. An hour before his shift ends, they get a lacrosse team of middle schoolers, and the staff shares an exasperated sigh; but not Jack. He fixes broken noses and split eyebrows and some nasty shoulder dislocations, then goes to talk to their coach — a woman in her fifties, robust and perhaps too loud with her scolding. But her blaring voice cracks as soon as the kids are out of her sight. At some point, Jack finds himself holding her hand in reassurance, and she jokes that she’d gladly marry him if only she didn’t have a wife. She also promises that all the kids' parents will give the hospital the highest ranking. And they do.

Jack clocks out when the sky is colored orange, the shadows bleeding on the pavement, and his limbs hum but this weariness is pleasant. He is content, he’s almost joyous — the almost comes from you having a day off. He got to work with so many people, why would your presence make a difference? Jack persuades himself it’s not the reason he takes a few more mornings.

But when he comes back the next time, and you’re already there, there is this weird feeling in his ribcage — a spill of heat, a flutter of his heart. He blames it on the caffeine. You stand with your eyes glued to the chart while Princess lets out a big yawn.

“If another lacrosse team comes in today, I might actually quit,” she laments.

“Send them my way,” you say with ease, without missing a beat.

“That’s ten people,” she punctuates, incredulous. “We got lucky they were just kids. Grown-up men who slam into each other while voluntarily chasing a ball scare me.”

“I’m not easily scared,” you carefully tap on the screen, scrolling through some case report, someone’s illnesses broken into signs and terms; but you do pay attention to what she’s saying. You glance up at the nurse, your voice kind: “If you ever need help, please don’t hesitate to ask.”

And then you look over your shoulder as if you can feel him watching — and it’s the same as the first time: your gaze startles him, like would a fire eruption or a ball lightning. But Jack’s greeting stays rooted in his mouth because Mateo sprints in:

“Hey, there’s something wrong with my patient’s veins, can someone take a look?”

And you are by his side and following him out of the hall in what feels like barely a second.

“I’m so grateful for you!” Princess calls after you. Then she spots Jack too, her face expression turning smug. “Oh, hello there, boss,” and she grins like she knows a secret Jack wasn’t let in on.

Turns out, Robby showed his gratitude by taking a sick leave, the first in three years (Jack would’ve sent him home himself if he heard Robby’s muffled coughing one more time). And it left Jack with way more shifts to cover. He readily gulps coffee from his to-go mug as he skims through the list of patients. The others join him soon: Mel smiles at everyone, the ever-optimistic one, Whitaker looks like hasn’t slept in months, and Santos teases him about something Jack doesn’t care to listen to. McKay is running late. Langton walks briskly to the nurses' station, taps on the tabletop right next to Jack.

“Ready to get back in the game?”

“I’ve been in the game for more years than you can count on your fingers,” Jack gives him a cold stare.

Frank sighs, his fingers drumming on the wooden surface, although he sounds barely concerned. “Love the positive attitude. Dr Robby surely won’t be missed.”

“As if you are such a pleasure to work with,” Dana cuts in, hands on her hips. “You guys should redirect that buzzing testosterone into your work. No one is getting paid for whining.”

“Preach,” Jack huffs as he steps away.

He stops himself from immediately going to check up on you. And twenty minutes later, he is glad that he did — you walk back, unruffled as you always are, Matteo tagging after you. His patient is an old lady with thrombocytopenia she probably ignored until it got too bad: there are bruises sprinkled on her arms and legs, a splotch of dried blood under her nose from how often it’s been bleeding. You gave her a platelet transfusion but you suspect it’s cancer; you order more blood tests and bring her a blanket before she even asks for it. Her eyes well up, voice shaking with heartfelt gratitude. And Jack has to remind himself that he can’t pick any favorites, he isn’t in it for the long run; but if he was to pick, it would’ve been an easy choice. And no one lags behind today — he’s got a well-coordinated team, like gears interlocking in a clock, the harmony built out of weeks of practice. They make jokes, share work stories and snacks; but every time Jack’s eyes get back to you, he can’t catch even a ghost of a smile.

He finds that you are very hard to read. And it unnerves him, maybe just a little.

He tries for his attempts to look brief and nonchalant — a kind word here and there, a quick approving look, a dry joke — and you offer nothing in return. As thorough as you are with diagnosing, you take no part in other conversations, you rarely take breaks or stand around. By the time the noon rolls in, Jack is fighting the urge to grab you by the shoulders: hey, take a seat and have something to eat. And tell me how can I cadge a laugh out of you, just one will be enough.

Dana waves a hand before his face, the phone up to her ear. “There’s been some gang fight at the North Side. Four victims coming in, two critical — one shot in the stomach, the other has his head smashed in. Don’t think they both will make it.”

Jack’s bet is on the first guy but it’s the head injury that’s fatal — the victim is pronounced dead, face so disfigured they’ll need a DNA test. Mel looks away in shock, and Santos frowns. Your stare is blank and unimpressed. You volunteer to take the third guy with a pelvic wound — he’s rambling incoherently, the tight bandage over his hip already soaked; you press your hand to it on the way to trauma. Jack leaves the worst case to himself.

“Who’s down for an ex-lap?”

“Can I run the bowel? I’ve never done it,” Santos asks, hopeful.

“Sure. Once we open the abdomen and remove the bullet, you can have your fun,” he offers, and she runs along with joy.

Although Jack can’t imagine a procedure less joyful. Yet, he is fueled by his new-found appreciation for his job so he walks her through the steps: identify the entry wound and cut in, look for the bleeding and what the bullet might’ve hit. It missed the liver by an inch; but to confirm the damage they need to evaluate the area by hand.

Perlah peeks into the room. “Is he stable?”

“Well, unless Dr. Santos gets too excited and makes a bow out of his intestines,” her hands stop, and Jack breathes out a chuckle. “I’m just joking, keep going. I’d say, his vitals do look promising.”

“Then you can keep him down here for a bit. We have a guy with a balloon in his aorta, he’s gotta go up first.”

Jack blinks at her once, twice, the meaning of her words settling in. “Did someone do a REBOA?”

“You bet she did. And it was awesome,” the nurse then scrunches her nose. “Apart from the amount of blood. And by the way, the fourth one only has a broken rib, so no miraculous procedures needed.”

He doesn’t find it funny and he can’t find the word for it: it’s something in between confusion and offence. As soon as Santos’s done with stitches, he strides out to find you.

His turmoil momentarily recedes when he sees one of the cubicle curtains stained, the deep red lurking through. Jack pulls at the material and barges in — and then he’s silenced at the sight. The area looks horrifying: bright streaks of blood left on the floor, the anesthesia trolley, the table with the instruments that you are now collecting, a few droplets smudged over your cheek. Before he’s even angry, there is another feeling — a thought, a pull: if only he could brush that splatter off your face, a few brief seconds for one briefest touch. Of course, he doesn’t.

Jack keeps his hands behind his back. “You didn’t think you should consult with anyone first before doing a damn REBOA?”

“Why would I?” your eyes are on the tools.

“Because it’s dangerous as hell and since I am the attending—”

“I do know protocol. But I also know how fast a human can bleed out. It was a truncal hemorrhage, and you were hands deep in someone’s abdomen. Was I supposed to wait?”

He wishes you were meaner, rougher, anything that would give him an excuse to snap. But you aren’t doing this to show off — your tone is measured and your reasoning is simple: a man was dying and you knew how to save him. Jack realizes it is the same logic he often uses. And he can’t tell what is it that bothers him so much. If Whitaker pulled off something like that, Jack would’ve chosen to commend him. The same goes for Santos, Javadi or King, for any other intern or resident that he can think of... Except, they would’ve asked for his opinion or his help. You didn’t even think to.

Well, Robby warned him you’d be stubborn.

“I want to be informed about any life-altering decisions. At least give me a heads-up so I am not blindsided when a nurse gushes over it in passing,” Jack insists, head tilted slightly so he can catch your gaze.

What he really wants is for you to look at him. You grant him that one wish.

“Will do,” you tell him simply.

But your eyes are still unreadable, a book written in a foreign language, a manuscript he doesn’t know how to decrypt.

And either out of incomprehension or rejection, his brain makes an assumption: maybe you believe that you are better, maybe you think the rules weren’t made for you. You never really gave him cause for rivalry — you are in your final year of residency, and Jack is put in charge. But you are so bluntly independent and reserved, his every try to understand you feels like leaping in the dark. Later that day he can’t help but glimpse into your file — there’s hardly anything of interest: you previously trained in a small clinic, in a nice neighborhood, your letters of recommendation all consist of praises.

What adds to his moroseness is that you fit really well with literally everybody else. Langdon tones down his sarcasm, listens to you like he only does to Robby. Santos discreetly brings you cases she needs advice on, McKay and Mel enjoy your company when you get a free minute. Whitaker seems to be your favorite although Jack isn’t sure why — he deems him soft and insecure; but Dennis does a better job under your guidance. On rare occasions when he’s got a day off, Javadi always takes his place.

Jack figures out everyone’s relationships by his fourth morning shift; he hasn’t gotten any closer to figuring you out. He’s fighting the grimace at how bitter his coffee is when Javadi pops out in the hall and you follow suit. He catches scraps of your conversation: something about a teen with a gashed forehead. Javadi rambles — until you ask her nonchalantly, unprompted. “You don’t like the sight of blood?”

“What? Oh no, it’s fine! I’m totally fine,” Victoria stumbles over the words, but her denial is too meek.

From how nervous she is, Jack guesses that she’s lying. He almost wants to laugh — before a thought comes to his mind: how come he never noticed her fear of blood?

“It’s just a little disturbing sometimes... But I only passed out, like, once or twice.”

“I used to be like that. Fainted many times during blood tests,” you tell her quietly while entering some data.

Jack is so caught in disbelief, he can’t help a glance in your direction. But your sincerity doesn’t seem feigned. Javadi gapes at you.

“And how did you... what did you do to overcome it?”

“I found myself in a situation where someone needed help and there was no one else around to help him,” you shrug. And Jack discerns the subtle reticence behind your tone.

It only spurs Javadi’s interest. “Was there a lot of blood? Like, a heavy bleeding, a deep wound?”

Your fingers freeze over the tablet screen, your facial profile not betraying your true feelings. But Jack swears he can see the tension crawling down your body. You don’t give the answer right away, you weigh the words carefully before you say them.

“A drug overdose, he still had a needle in his arm and I must’ve missed it. Took barely a minute of chest compressions for the needle to fly out across the room. It was a lot of blood to me.”

Javadi’s hopefulness grows dim. “Yeah, I don’t like needles too. I tried drawing blood a few times but the process kinda makes me nauseous, and I can’t force myself to —”

“It’s different when it’s someone you care about.”

Your comment slips out involuntarily — and immediately you look like you want to take it back. But you get it together and meet her eyes, your voice carrying just the right amount of firmness.

“Listen, I’m not suggesting you should torture your family members. But you may not always have attendings by your side or someone else to take your place in case you feel like fainting. If you fall, you can hurt your head, you can hurt a patient, you can disrupt a surgery when every minute counts. I think you have a good head on your shoulders, and I don’t want to downplay your efforts. But please, figure it out. Otherwise, you won’t make for a good surgeon.”

You reassure her you won’t tell anyone her secret. Javadi manages a small smile, a hushed “thank you”. It is a sweet moment, a heart-to-heart chat you bond over; it’s also three times more words than you’ve spoken to Jack in weeks.

But he accepts your silence — as a challenge.

Jack keeps an eye on you, now critical, resisting the gravitation that’s been attracting him to you. Although it’s hard to find the reasons to be hard on you. Whenever he has questions — or more so when he can come up with some, you give detailed replies, and he’s left with nothing to complain about. Your patient satisfaction score is high, you are never facile or reckless with your judgment; with how smart you are, you can give odds to many doctors, him included. And Jack knows he is older, with years of experience under his belt — but he can’t in good faith wish for anyone to go through the same things he did to gain the same knowledge.

On his second week of day shifts he is still clueless about what to make of you. And Jack tells himself that he is simply looking for a connection — except, all his attempts look like he is trying to pick a fight.

“This is a teaching hospital. You are supposed to teach them things,” he grumbles as he meets you outside the trauma room. You got a guy who came in spitting blood — post-tonsillectomy hemorrhage, and things went south pretty quickly. He started choking, crashed, his airways flooded with liquid; you had to intubate him blindly. Whitaker spent an hour by your side, his questions endless — to which you did give answers, barely ever breaking focus, but you only allowed him to use suction.

“He’ll learn plenty if he is attentive enough,” you say, throwing away the gown, trying to put some distance in between you.

Jack doesn’t like it, he keeps pace with you. “Whitaker needs more practice, as much as he can get. He’s not supposed to stand there like some deer who wandered into the yard.”

You whirl around, so fast that Jack comes to a stop when you are separated by merely an inch. And your gaze burns, like lava seeping through the mountain’s restrain.

“And I needed the patient not to die on the table,” you bite back, then breathe in — and then add more coolly. “Dennis will get his chance to shine.”

“And when exactly is that gonna happen?”

“That’s for me to decide,” you state, like you would do a fact that can’t be questioned. “Thank you for your input, Dr. Abbot, but I have to get back to work.”

You turn your back to him and leave him standing there, and Jack almost feels helpless. And that’s the feeling he can’t stand. It simmers in him, it must be the reason his cheeks suddenly feel hot.

Dana tsks as she comes near, her brows furrowed and face visibly concerned.

“You know how I’ve been calling Robby a sad boy? I’m gonna start calling you a pissy boy.”

“Not the worst thing I’ve been called,” he dismisses, a humorless escape attempt. But her fingers grab at his elbow, and he pauses with an annoyed exhale.

“I’ve been watching you hammering away at her for days,” Dana makes sure to lower her voice. “If she was a student, I’d maybe let it slide, but she is a resident, a senior one. And nothing I am seeing suggests she isn’t doing well.”

His eyes dart to her hand; then he glares stubbornly at her. She looks unfazed.

“Jack, you will take it too far one day — and you will regret it,” Dana tries to reason. “She is a good kid and she’s really good at her job. Just let her be.”

“Thank you for your input, Evans. I’d prefer to get back to work,” he frees his arm, and she allows it. But Jack can feel her worried gaze as he walks away.

He doesn’t come home until the twilight hugs the sky, until he feels like he’ll pass out on the next step. Jack wastes hours on attempts to wear himself out: he walks the entire park three times, peeping about in case the puppy comes again. It doesn’t. He stops by the bar he hasn’t been to in a few weeks, orders a beer and sips on it, his musings soon drowned out by the blasting music. The alcohol tastes weird, and the bass guitar gives him a pounding headache. He takes a walk instead of taking a bus home, two miles on foot in hopes he falls asleep as soon as his head hits the pillow.

But the thought of you cuts into his mind as easily as a nail does into a human body, and it stays there, vexing and robbing him of whatever little peace he’s had.

He barely gets any sleep.

And his nights are dreamless.

It’s just another Friday, and these bring in a lot of drunks — from parties and family gatherings, from business meetings that ran late and tense until someone reached for whiskey. Jack stays behind for paperwork, a tedious pastime that keeps him pinned to an uncomfortable chair. He briefly takes eyes off the screen, stretching his neck — and then a noise catches his attention. It’s someone talking in a raised voice, someone who sounds too wasted to be reasoned with. Which sounds like a problem.

Jack finds the source with ease — the nurses all glance in the direction of the trauma room, and in support of their agitation Mateo all but flies out, his face hardened at the edges. Jack gets up and gets closer, his ears open and eyes watchful.

“Should we call security?” Dana asks warily.

Mateo brushes the suggestion off. “No, it’s fine,” — but it sounds like it’s not. “I just need a short break.”

“What’s wrong?” Jack interrupts.

And it isn’t a question but a demand for explanation Mateo can’t reject. He lets out a tired sigh.

“The guy got drunk and couldn’t hold his liquor, some passersby saw him sprawled out in an alley and called the ambulance. Came in with a nasty arm fracture. He’ll live though,” Mateo looks back at the room with obvious disdain. “Unfortunately.”

Jack promptly moves forward. “I will deal with it.”

“Hold on, Rambo,” Dana interjects. And she keeps her eyes on him while she talks to Mateo. “Did he get physical?”

“Nah, he’s too inebriated. Keeps trying to get up from the gurney but mostly he’s all talk.”

More can be heard from where they are standing — it’s some drunken yelling, a disarticulated chain of curse words. And then they hear something break, a dull sound of an object hitting a wall.

In a few seconds comes another one.

“I can’t just let him trash all of our equipment,” Jack gives Dana a pointed look.

She clucks her tongue at his persistence. “It’s not the equipment that I fear for.”

“Rest assured, Evans, I won’t give him another arm fracture.”

“I didn’t think you would, but now that you suggested it so easily—”

“Finally someone decided to take action instead of all this talking,” Perlah remarks, her gaze isn’t on either one of them. And Jack turns to follow it just in time to catch you running right into the room.

His heart falls. Why the hell are you even still here?

And it’s barely three heartbeats before a realization strikes: you can’t go there alone. He can’t let you.

Jack bolts to you without waiting for anyone’s permission. He comes in just in time to see you dodge the trolley the patient pushed at you — it slams into the wall and rolls over, the instruments scattering loudly across the floor. You don’t seem scared, but you are all tensed up, gaze fixed on the guy who’s screaming his lungs out.

“You won’t trick me! I won’t let you experiment on me!”

And you don’t look away once but you must’ve noticed Jack; your voice comes out low. “I think he’s having an episode. He needs benzodiazepines but I can’t get close to administer them.”

“And you should not,” Jack retorts, eyeing the guy with discontent. “You absolutely shouldn’t deal with him on your own. Not when he’s flapping around and yelling like a fucking psycho.”

“Silently watching him wreck the room didn’t seem like a good tactic either.”

In an instant Jack’s gaze is drawn to you, pulse racing as he is struggling to bite down his emotions: why would you put yourself in danger, why can’t you ever back down, why can’t he stay away? And unexpectedly you look at him, and your gaze isn’t a puzzle or a dare but an explanation: you can’t be mad at me for the thing you would’ve done yourself. I know you would have.

The room goes quiet but only for a moment — before another cry comes, and the patient lunges straight at you. Jack’s eye catches the movement, and at the very last second, he moves to stand in the guy’s way.

The drunkard crashes into him, hands swatting at the air, too uncoordinated to land a proper punch. And then all of a sudden he headbutts Jack. The pain is sharp, shooting toward his nose, but Jack manages to stay upright. He can’t see you stopping cold or the security approaching in a hurry and in worry.

Because Jack is only seeing red.

He breathes in through the mouth and grabs the man with both hands, rough and unflinching. Jack pushes him back to the gurney, then throws him on it, face flat against the pillow; his angry cries tone down to weak whimpers.

“Shut the fuck up. Stop moving,” Jack hisses into his ear.

He can taste the blood that oozed down to his lips and he can hear the sound of footsteps in the room. But he doesn’t let go.

Jack feels a hand on his shoulder — he turns to see one of the guards, Ahmad. “Man, let us handle this. C’mon, step away.”

Begrudgingly, Jack does. Ahmad quickly takes his place, he and two other guards strapping the patient down; Mateo wriggles in the middle to sedate the guy. He dozes off, a dark purple bruise already blooming on his forehead, drool at the corner of his mouth.

You are still standing at the exact same spot, but then your eyes land on Jack’s blooded nose, and you immediately fall out of the stupor. You rummage through the nearest drawer and get a few clean cloths, then call for Dana to bring an ice pack. The guards leave but Mateo hangs back; he pulls up a chair for Jack to sit on.

“Are you okay? Any headache or dizziness or—”

“I’m fine, no need to coddle me,” Jack waves off his concerns crankily. Mateo looks at you for some support.

“He needs a head CT,” you say, gaze glued to Jack. “Ask the radiology if they can squeeze him in.”

Mateo nods and takes off with no other questions asked. The silence is now laced with tension, and while Jack’s pain gradually subsides, his anger doesn’t. He’s not the one for chit-chats, and it’s not a 'thank you' that he wants — but an admission: he was right, and you were careless, and maybe this is the one time you can agree with him.

You lean over wordlessly and wipe the dried-up blood, pushing his head back to examine his nose. Your touch is light, fleeting, but his skin heats up under your hands. You take a penlight to check for septal hematoma; then your thumbs move from his cheekbones to his nostrils. Jack doesn’t wince or look away, eyes dark and boring into you, unblinking. You put a finger to his nose and move it slowly from side to side, watching closely as his gaze follows it.

And then you pull away, and something cracks in him, a line formed on the ocean floor after it’s shaken by an earthquake, a force that pushes waves to crash onto the shore. And all his feelings surge up, unstoppable like a tsunami.

You look for more cloths, and only with your back to him, you finally decide to speak:

“Doesn’t look like a fracture but—”

“Are you out of your mind?!” Jack bursts out, the stridency of his voice barely contained.

Your hands flinch at the sound. Jack misses it or maybe chooses to ignore it, too adamant in his displeasure, too wrapped up in it.

“Do you realize how dangerous it was for you to go here alone? What could’ve happened to you if security came late? Or do you just assume it’s not a big deal if you get hurt? Can you for at least a second consider the consequences of your relentlessness, can you imagine how dire they might be? And what it’s like for someone else to throw themselves between danger and you?”

But then you turn to him, and his tirade breaks off, the anger ebbing instantly as he sees your face expression.

It would be easy to assume he must’ve hit a nerve. Except, it looks way worse than that.

Your gaze is swept with pain, eyes wide and bright with tears you are holding back. An inhale quivers at your lips, chest heaving like you are scarcely managing to curb your feelings. Like there’s been a wall you’ve built meticulously over the years, and he didn’t just put a crack in it — no, he tore it down completely, drove through it with a bulldozer, only a mess of rubble left behind. And he knows that’s not something an apology will fix.

Jack feels the guilt already swirling in his chest as he sits straighter, eyes not leaving yours.

“Listen, I didn’t—”

“I heard you loud and clear, Dr. Abbot,” your voice is lacerating, a blade you’ve armed yourself with, steel that cuts him deep. “If my company displeases you so much, I will make sure to limit our interactions. Apologies for any inconvenience.”

You turn away, and when he sees you wipe your cheeks with one quick motion, Jack knows he is the only one to blame. But you don’t let him see your tears nor do you wait for him to talk again. You rush out of the doors, and the words he catches aren’t meant for him:

“Dana, please help Dr. Abbot with the ice pack.”

He hears her coming in and he’s almost ashamed to look — Dana meets his gaze with arms crossed over her chest, shaking her head in disapproval. She doesn’t say a thing and puts ice on his nose with a face that looks like she would rather punch him. Jack doesn’t even try to come up with excuses — he knows that he has none.

He fails to find you after the shift ends: you must’ve sneaked out to avoid him, and he can’t say that he’s surprised. Jack walks home in the rain, not bothering to open the umbrella, the street lights drowning in the puddles underfoot, the wind biting his wet face. He can barely feel it. And in the privacy of his apartment — a cold, half-empty space, walls void of any color — a thought that has been lurking in his mind finally takes shape:

Jack loathes being alone.

And he messed up so badly.

»»» part 2

🎵 the title is a quote from Tom Odell’s “Can’t pretend” (the song is just so Jack-coded to me! highly recommend you give it a listen. the small part from 1:29 to 1:49 gives me heart palpitations and is very fitting for this chapter lol).

by “rivals” I meant it’s all in Jack’s head, he’s silly like that 😩 you’ll learn about the reader’s past in the next chapter!

I didn’t specify how big the age gap is exactly. google search told me you get into residency when you are in your 30s, and Abbot is def over 40. but some like to imagine the reader younger, so I didn’t want to ruin that for you.

there are definitely some medical inaccuracies (pretty sure ex-lap isn’t performed in the ER) but I am begging you to ignore that.

dividers by me & plum98.

» I plan on writing 3 parts in total (a prayer circle for my inspiration to stay with me, PLEASE). of course, there will be smut... they just have to learn how to talk to each other first. » read on AO3 » English is not my first language, so feel free to message me if you spot any major mistakes. reblogs and comments are very appreciated! tell me if you want to be tagged ♡

#the pitt #jack abbot #I’m so nervous about posting this I’m about to have a heart attack #lauraneedstochillinsteadshewrites #jack abbot x reader #jack abbot fanfiction #dr abbot x you #dr abbot x reader #dr abbot #dr jack abbot #jack abbott #shawn hatosy #the pitt fanfiction #the pitt x reader #the pitt imagine #the pitt hbo #abbotjack

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itneverendshere · 9 months ago

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LOVED YOU AT YOUR WORST - r.c series - ONE

pairings: ex!sweethearts; rafe x thornton!reader; rafe x sofia. chapter warnings: none (angst) chapter two┆ chapter three ┆ chapter four

The bass from the speakers rattled the glass in your hand as you leaned against the porch railing, eyes scanning the backyard for him—Rafe.

It had been a long month.

Longer than you thought it would be. Usually, when you and Rafe had your little “breaks,” they lasted about a week, maybe two at most. It was always something stupid, a screaming match that ended with slammed doors and his truck peeling out of your driveway. But it never lasted. It couldn’t. You’d known each other too long, been through too much, and deep down, there was this unspoken truth—he’d always come back.

But this time was different.

This time, he wasn’t calling or showing up at your window in the middle of the night, eyes tired and sorry, pulling you into his arms. The space between you had been growing wider since his dad died. And sure, maybe it was your fault for what you said after Ward’s death—But it was the truth.

Still, you hadn’t expected him to shut you out completely. Two months. Two months of silence. And the only thing you’d heard about him since was through Ruthie, Topper’s new girlfriend, of all people. A random comment at Mase’s place—something about how Rafe had been hanging around some pogue girl named Sofia.

You’d rolled your eyes at that.

Rafe? With some Pogue? Yeah, right.

You pretended not to care when she tossed it out like it was nothing.

You weren’t stupid.

You’d always known Rafe wasn’t the easiest guy to love. He was complicated, angry—but so were you. And in some messed-up way, that’s why you two worked. Or at least, why you thought you did. You were just as stubborn, just as damaged. But now, as you sipped your drink and looked around, something felt off.

Your gut was tight, and that nagging feeling that’d been growing restless under your skin since the breakup only grew stronger the longer you stood there.

You pushed yourself off the railing, discarding your drink on a table before moving through the crowd, past people you knew but didn’t bother with.

Your mind was set on one thing—Rafe. You were done with the break. You had your space. It’s time to get back together. It was never even really a question. It was just the way things worked with you two.

But then there was Ruthie—blocking your path, her wide smile dripping with the kind of smugness that set your teeth on edge. She looked like she was reveling in your misery and that little giggle she let out only made it worse.

"So glad you could make it!" she sang out, her voice too sweet, too bright. Her eyes flickered over you like she was sizing you up, taking stock of every inch of your perfectly put-together outfit.

You forced a smile, “Yeah, well, wouldn’t miss a party like this,” you said, keeping your tone casual.

You weren’t in the mood for whatever game she was playing.

“Oh, I just bet,” she replied, her smile growing wider. She stepped closer, her breath reeking of cheap wine, and you had to resist the urge to roll your eyes. Ruthie always drank too much at these things.

What the hell was her problem? She always acted like she knew something you didn’t, like she held the keys to all the dirty little secrets in Kildare, and she loved dangling them in front of people just to watch them squirm.

“Ruthie, I swear to God—” you began, but she cut you off, her grin widening.

“Oh, honey,” she cooed, her voice dripping with fake sympathy, “don’t get mad at me. I’m just the messenger. You should really be talking to Rafe about this.” She took a step back, still smiling, and glanced over her shoulder. “He’s around, you know. You can go find him yourself. See how cozy he’s gotten with her.”

You bit your tongue, jaw, forcing yourself to stay calm. She was trying to get under your skin, like the snake she’d always been. You couldn’t believe Top was lonely and horny enough to finally fall into her claws.

“Thanks for the tip,” you gave her a tight lipped grimace, brushing past her, didn’t try and wait for her reply.

You only caught glimpses of empty rooms along the way. You hadn’t seen him since the break, and part of you didn’t want to admit how much that messed you up. How much he messed you up. Your steps slowed as you neared the hall that led to the back of the house, the sound of voices filtering through the air. You recognized some, laughed at the drunken ramblings, until one voice cut through the noise. Rafe’s.

And then you heard hers.

No fucking way.

You didn’t stop. You couldn’t. You told yourself you just needed to see him, talk to him, tell him this break had gone on long enough, that you were done with the games. That’s when you heard it again—her laugh. It was light, flirtatious, the kind of laugh that made your stomach turn into a million different directions because you knew exactly what it meant.

She was there, with him.

You moved forward, the hallway barely lit as you reached the half-closed bathroom door. Your breath hitched, hands trembling as you peeked through the small crack, unable to stop yourself from looking.

There they were.

She was smiling, laughing softly at something he’d said, her fingers brushing through her hair as if she didn’t have a care in the world. Your breath caught in your throat as you watched his hands move, tying the knot in her bikini with such gentle precision like he’d done it a thousand times. The kind of softness he used to have with you. And then he said it, his voice teasing, amused like this was some kind of inside joke between them.

"God, this is just landing right in my lap, isn’t it?"

You froze.

He laughed quietly, his lips brushing against Sofia’s shoulder as he tied the last knot, and the way he touched her—like she was something to be savored—sent a rush of burning humiliation straight through your chest.

You stumbled back, your heart pounding in your ears as Rafe’s words repeated over and over in your head. Landing right in my lap.

What the fuck was this?

Your heart clenched, vision blurring as what you were seeing slammed right into you. You backed away, your hand flying to your mouth to stop the sob from escaping. But it didn’t help, not even a little. The tears burned, and you turned quickly, practically running back through the house and out the door before anyone could see the humiliating mess you were becoming.

It was real. He moved on in two fucking months. That’s all it had taken for him to replace you, to be done with you.

He was over you, just like that.

After everything you’d been through together, all the times you had to pull him out of his own darkness, the nights spent in his arms when you thought you couldn’t breathe because your whole family was gone—after years of being his and him being yours—how the fuck could he move on when you’d been rotting away in self loathing for pushing him away?

Your head spun as you stumbled down the steps, out to the street where your car was parked. You couldn’t breathe, it was coming out too fast, shallow, and your hands were shaking so hard you had to press them against your knees to hold yourself up.

What the hell was wrong with you? You hadn’t even had anything to drink. But your stomach was rolling, twisting in knots so tight you couldn't stand straight. You leaned against the side of your car, the cool metal grounding you to reality for a second before a wave of nausea hit, forcing you to double over and retch onto the pavement.

Tears stung your eyes as you coughed, wiping your mouth with the back of your hand. You felt dizzy, disgusted even, everything you thought you knew, everything you thought was yours, had been ripped out from under you.

Without a single warning, not a text, not a stupid call, just pure indifference. No respect or regard for you. None of them. Everything you’d just seen replayed in your mind—Rafe, her, the way he touched her like she meant something to him.

“Look who’s still standing!” Topper’s voice. He was laughing as he strolled over, hands shoved in his pockets, that same carefree grin on his face that he always had at parties. “Jesus, what did you have to drink? You look like you’ve been hit by a truck.”

Normally, you might have had something to say back, maybe a fiery insult or a roll of your eyes. But right now, everything felt like too much. You couldn’t say a word.

Your cousin stopped beside you, his grin dropping as he finally looked at you. “Hey, what’s wrong?” He leaned down, trying to catch your eyes. “You good? You look kinda—"

You cut him off, the question was heavy, a lump lodged in your throat. “Did you know?”

He blinked, the confusion spreading across his face. “Know what?”

You swallowed, your heart hammering in your chest as you forced the words out, your voice shaking.

“About Rafe and Sofia.”

You hated saying her name. Hated that you’d been forced to know it by heart.

Topper’s smile dropped, his expression changing. He didn’t answer, but he didn’t have to, you knew him well enough to read his micro expressions. You clenched your fists, you were the only one in the island who’d been let out of the secret. Surely, your friends, your only family would’ve told you something right? It’s not like you were on a remote island away from them.

You’d spent the last month in New York, not in the fucking jungle.

You visited occasionally. You were a call away.

“Did everyone fucking know?”

Topper exhaled slowly, rubbing the back of his neck. “Look, we didn’t think it was serious. You know how it is with you two—you’ve done this before. Played with other people…”

Played with other people. Like you and Rafe were just some game, a revolving door of heartbreak and hookups. It didn’t make sense. You’d always known how it worked, understood how these things went—but it was never real.

You stumbled back, feeling like you might collapse.

“Oh my God, I’m going to be sick again.”

He reached out, obviously concerned since he hadn’t seen you in this desperate state in years, “Hey, hey, calm down. Look, it’s not like it means anything. Rafe’s just—he’s going through a lot with his dad dying, and he… he’s just messing around. You know how he gets.”

But the words did nothing to soothe you. They only made it worse—how everyone knew, they’d all watched Rafe move on, while you were stuck, still reeling from the breakup, thinking he’d come back like he always did. And he was just out there, with her.

With someone else.

You pressed a hand to your stomach, your head hurting. The idea of Sofia, of Rafe being with someone else in ways that only you knew—ways that had always been yours—made you feel like you were being torn apart.

Topper was still talking, still trying to rationalize it, but his words were like static now, blending into the noise of the party behind you.

“It doesn’t mean anything,” he was saying. “You know how it goes. You always end up back together. He’s just doing whatever to distract himself.”

That word. Distract himself, as if your entire relationship could be boiled down to that—a series of distractions until you decided to come back to each other, to pick up the pieces and pretend everything was okay.

You could still remember the night your life changed—the phone call, the horrible, gut-wrenching moment when you learned that your family’s private plane had gone down. Your parents, your sister.

Gone, just like that.

Rafe had been the one to pull you through it. He was the one who had held you as you cried so hard you thought you were going to die, who sat with you in silence when you couldn’t bring yourself to speak, who stayed with you every single night because you were terrified to be alone in a haunted mansion that now felt like a mausoleum.

You'd been seventeen, and losing them all at once had killed something inside of you. But he was there. He wasn’t perfect—far from it—but he knew what it was like to grieve.

He knew loss, he understood. Because you’d been there for him two years earlier, when his mom lost her battle to cancer. You could still see the look in his eyes that day—fourteen years old and already drowning in so much anger and sadness, like the world had ripped something essential out of him.

The way he cried at her funeral when he thought no one was watching, and you’d found him, sat beside him in the cold, letting him cry without saying a word. You hadn’t started dating yet, hadn’t crossed that line, but something had changed between you two in those moments.

A connection, a bond forged in shared pain, in the kind of trauma that no one else really got. Maybe that was why you were so obsessed with each other, it was fucked up, but you couldn’t imagine anyone else understanding you the way Rafe did.

How could it all come down to this? To you standing here, feeling like the world was ending while he moved on, laughing and touching someone else like nothing you had ever been through mattered?

Was that it?

Did that one moment, that one argument about Ward, erase everything you’d done for him?

All the times you’d been there, the way you had comforted him when he felt like his life was spiraling? You remembered exactly what you’d said a month after the funeral, when your boyfriend blamed everyone but Ward for his own death. "He wasn’t a good person, baby. I know he was your dad, but you can’t pretend like he didn’t fuck you up."

You hadn’t even said it to hurt him, not really. It was just the truth. Ward had been a terrible father, controlling and manipulative, and you’d spent years watching Rafe try to live up to some impossible standard, chasing his father’s approval like it would ever be enough. But that didn’t make it easier for him to hear. You should have known better, how raw he was after losing his dad, how complicated his feelings were.

But instead, you’d been brutal. Honest, but brutal.

And now, two months later, here you were—staring at the empty street, wondering if you’d pushed him too far. If that one moment of honesty was enough to make him forget everything else. Now you were just the ex, the crazy one who didn’t know when to keep her mouth shut.

“Fuck, why did I say that?” you whispered to yourself, voice shaking. Why couldn’t you have just let it go?

But then another clarity of anger took over you, pushing away the guilt that had been building inside.

So you’d been too harsh about Ward. So you’d said what everyone else had been too scared to say.

It wasn’t like you’d been wrong. Ward had messed Rafe up.

Everyone knew it. He knew it, deep down.

You gritted your teeth, staring out at the dark street, the hum of the party still buzzing faintly behind you. You were never going to get that picture out of your head. Like they hadn’t just met, like you hadn’t spent years learning how to calm Rafe when he spiraled, how to hold him together when he couldn’t hold himself.

Your chest tightened again, a bitter taste rising in your throat.

You could still feel the weight of his head on your shoulder that night, years ago, when his mom passed. The silent sobs that shook his body, the way he’d held onto you. That was the real Rafe—the one he hid from everyone else, who was lost and broken underneath all the anger.

And you’d seen him, really seen him in ways no one else ever could.

Not Sofia. Not anyone.

"Look, you're emotional, okay? I get it. Maybe it's that time of the month or something. You know how you always get when your hormones go crazy."

The words got to you, but not in the way he probably thought they would. At first, it pissed you off, like it always did when people tried to downplay your emotions. Everyone always said you felt too much, that you were out of control.

But then…

You stopped moving, blinking rapidly as his words spiraled around in your brain. ‘Time of the month’, he'd said.

Your heart started doing summersaults, your stomach dropping as the idea settled in. You grabbed your phone, hands trembling like leaves as you opened the calendar app. You scrolled, trying to think, trying to remember when you’d last…fuck.

You hadn’t had your period in… so long. Almost two months.

No. No, no, no. This couldn’t be happening. It had to be some kind of fucked up joke. You felt light-headed as you reached for your car again, your body shaking so badly you could barely stand against the door.

"Shit."

How could you not have noticed?

Topper noticed the change in you instantly, his brow furrowing. "What’s wrong with you?" he asked, his tone softening a little. "You okay?"

You couldn’t even form a sentence. Your brain was too full of what-ifs. Two months late.

You hadn't even thought about it until now—everything had taken so much space in your head that you hadn't noticed the most obvious sign. This wasn’t possible. Your hand flew to your stomach, almost instinctively. You had no idea what to do with the panic creeping up your throat.

“Shit,” You hissed, this time louder, trying to push the growing dread down. But it wouldn't go away.

He was still staring at you, “What? What’s going on? You’re freaking me out.”

But you were already backing away, shaking your head.

“I—I need to go,” You mumbled, barely hearing yourself.

Your cousin moved quickly to block your path as you tried to make your way toward the door. That kind of protective streak only made you want to shove past him even more.

"You’re not driving in this state." he warned you, his hands up, trying to physically stop you.

You just glared at him, “Fucking watch me.”

He didn’t budge.

"You get in that car and I'm calling Rafe," he said, sounding dead serious.

You couldn’t believe it. Your head was already spinning, and he was trying to guilt-trip you like this was some kind of helpful thing to do?

You threw your hands up in frustration, voice rising, cracking.

"He’s too busy fucking Sofia. Knock yourself out."

The words felt like venom in your mouth, the bitterness rolling off your tongue. You didn’t care how harsh they sounded, you didn’t care about anything anymore except getting away from this suffocating stupid place.

Before he could say anything else, you made your move, pushing past him with all your strength, chest hurting with the urge to feel something other than this suffocating mess. Your hands shook as you fumbled for your keys, managing to unlock the door, sliding into the driver’s seat, the cool leather biting into your skin.

You needed to think. But all you could think about was that one, terrifying realization: you might be pregnant.

Your breath hitched, terror swirling around your chest. The calendar app was still open on your phone, the dates staring back at you like a flashing red warning sign, daring you to confront the truth you’d been ignoring. Two months. Two months without a period. And you hadn’t even noticed. You pressed a hand to your stomach again, heart pounding as if it was trying to escape your chest.

This couldn’t be happening. Not now. Not like this.

You weren’t thinking clearly—shit, you weren’t thinking at all, but you couldn’t stay here. Not with Topper trying to baby you, not with him out there, living his best life like you didn’t even exist.

You turned the key, the engine roaring to life, and just as you gripped the wheel, ready to peel out of the driveway, Topper bolted in front of the car, planting himself right there like some kind of human roadblock.

Fucking idiot.

His arms were stretched out wide, as if he could somehow stop you by sheer willpower.

“You’re not doing this, I swear to God, you’re not!” he yelled, his voice frantic, echoing off the dark street. He looked panicked, pleading even, like he was convinced you’d actually go through with it.

You gritted your teeth, eyes narrowing on him through the windshield.

“Top, I swear, you have three seconds before I run you over.”

“Are you serious right now?” he yelled, his voice cracking with disbelief. But he didn’t move. “You think I’m letting you drive like this? You’re out of your fuckin’ mind!”

Your fingers gripping the wheel so hard it hurt.

You weren’t bluffing, you were too wound up, too out of control. The only thing keeping you from flooring him was the fact that, deep down, you knew your cousin didn’t deserve it.

You just needed to get out of here.

“Move!” you screamed, “I’m not joking’, Topper. Get the fuck out of my way!”

His face twisted with frustration as he looked over his shoulder, something catching his attention. He started waving, yelling at someone, his voice cutting through the night.

“Rafe! Dude, get over here!”

Your brain stopped. It was like everything had been sucked out of you. Your hands froze on the wheel, your entire body locking up as you looked to your right and saw him—Rafe. Right there in the yard.

And she was with him. He had his arm draped around her casually.

As if he belonged there, just standing in the open, so stupidly comfortable in his new life. His head turned when he heard Topper call out, and your eyes locked for a less than a second.

A moment too long, amoment that broke something inside you.

While Topper was distracted, his attention on Rafe, you made your move. You slammed your foot on the gas, tires screeching as the car lurched forward, swerving just enough to dodge Topper’s stunned figure. You heard him yell after you, but his voice faded into the background noise as you sped away.

You didn’t look back. Not at Top, not at Rafe.

The only thing you could hear was the sound of your own heartbeat pounding in your ears, drowning out everything else. You hated this, hated that you were crying, that you’d let yourself get to this point.

“God, what is wrong with me?” you muttered, your voice quavering as the words tumbled out. “Why the fuck am I crying over him? I shouldn’t be crying over him.” You slammed your palm against the steering wheel, angry, disgusted with yourself.

You’d told yourself you were stronger than this—that after everything you’d been through, you didn’t need him or anyone else. But here you were, falling apart like some pathetic excuse of a mess because of him. Because he had always been there, hadn’t he? After the crash, after you lost everything, he was the one constant, the one person who kept you from completely losing it. You’d relied on him so much.

Too much.

“Fuck,” you hissed, tears streaming down your face. Your throat burned as the memories came flooding back, all the nights you’d spent together, him holding you while you cried yourself to sleep, of the way he’d pulled you out of the gloom when you thought you’d never get back up again. You thought he’d always be that person for you, the one who understood your broken pieces because he had his own.

You’d always fit together perfectly.

You pulled into the parking lot of the nearest drugstore, your hands still shaking as you put the car in park. The tears had dried up on the drive over, replaced by a cold determination. You didn’t want to be here. Didn’t want to even think about what you were about to do.

The moment you stepped out of your car and into the harsh fluorescent lighting of the drugstore, you felt completely out of place—like a stranger in your own skin. You hadn’t even thought about how ridiculous you must’ve looked until you caught your reflection in one of the store’s glass windows. Your hair, still perfect from earlier, framed your face in soft waves, and your makeup was flawless, despite the crying. The designer dress you were wearing—sleek, red, and worth more than half the shit in this store—with its sticky floors and white lights, it made you feel like an alien.

You didn’t belong here.

You caught the eyes of a couple of people loitering outside the entrance as you walked in, their stares lingering too long, murmuring to each other behind smirks. You knew they were talking about you.

They always did, kook queen, overdressed, out of touch, bitch, whatever they wanted to call you.

The sliding doors let out a grating beep as you entered, and the air inside was stale and heavy, reeking of floor cleaner and cheap perfume. You adjusted your grip on your purse, strutting past the aisles with your head high even though everything inside you felt like it was falling apart.

You always did this—dressed to kill, head up, like armor. But there was no real glamour in buying pregnancy tests from some random pharmacy in the middle of the night. No way to mask the deep, growing hysteria in your bones.

The girl behind the register clocked you the second you stepped up to the counter, her eyes dragging over your, she couldn’t quite believe what she was seeing. You could almost hear her thoughts: What the hell is someone like you doing here?

You didn’t bother looking at her, all you wanted was to pay for that shit and leave without a scene. But of course, people always found a way to make things worse. She hesitated before scanning the tests, looking like she might say something.

For her own good, you prayed she didn’t.

You threw the money on the counter before she could open her mouth, two crisp hundreds on top of the total. The cash hit the counter with a sharp thwap and you gave her the bitchiest look you could muster.

“Take it. Keep your fucking mouth shut.”

She swallowed hard, her hand trembling as she slid the bills into the register. You didn’t care that she was young or nervous. You weren’t here to make friends or for anyone’s sympathy. The extra money would make sure she didn’t talk, that was all that mattered.

You walked out, your heels clicking against the linoleum, head high, even though every nerve in your body screamed for you to disappear. You slid into your truck, slamming the door shut, the silence finally hitting you. For all the designer clothes, the makeup, the money—none of it meant shit right now.

You felt so small. So scared. Terribly lonely.

You sat there for what felt like forever, staring at the stupid bag in the passenger seat like it had the power to ruin your whole life—which, to be fair, it kind of did.

You didn’t know what the fuck you were going to do. Not about any of it. Your foot tapped nervously against the floor mat, the sound too loud in the quiet car. The bag crinkled as you glanced at it again, your stomach twisting all over again. A bunch of pregnancy tests.

How had it come to this?

Rafe. You squeezed your eyes shut, willing yourself not to think about him, not to picture his face when he found out. If he found out.

Shit, what the hell was he going to do? He was with Sofia now, right? So was this going to ruin his life too? Did he even deserve to know?

It was probably nothing, you told yourself. Maybe the separation anxiety had gotten to you. Your body was probably fucked up from all the stress. Perhaps your period was late because you’d been so all over the place lately. There could be a million reasons. You didn’t even want to think about what would happen if it wasn’t nothing.

You didn’t want to cry anymore, not after all of this, especially not over Rafe or your life turning into some fucking soap opera you didn’t even want to be a part of.

The second you were inside your house, the walls closed in around you. Your perfectly decorated place—the one you’d spent so much time making into a refuge, an escape—it didn’t feel like that anymore. Every designer pillow, every carefully chosen piece of art, mocking you. Your phone buzzed in your bag, you reached for it.

Of course, it was Rafe.

“I don’t know what the fuck that was but save the fucking dramatics, okay?”

The nerve.

The fucking nerve of him to act like he was the center of your universe, acting like you were some inconvenience.

Months of silence and this was the first thing he decided to text you? Knowing how much you despised when people called you a drama queen? Fucking piece of shit. Your fingers hovered over the screen, a thousand different responses running through your mind.

You wanted to tell him to shove something up his ass, but instead, you did the only thing that felt right in that moment.

You blocked him.

You stared at your phone, half expecting it to buzz again, half dreading that it wouldn’t. It was done. You cut him off, at least in that tiny, virtual way. You sat there for a minute, gripping the phone, trying to remember how to breathe.

This was supposed to feel empowering, right? You told yourself it would, cutting him out would help you get back some control. But your mind wouldn’t settle.

Those damn pregnancy tests were sitting in the bag next to you.

You were tired.

Exhausted in a way that had nothing to do with how late it was or how emotionally spent you were. You kicked off your heels, letting them clatter against the hardwood floor as you sank into the plush couch. Your house felt cold and unwelcoming tonight, no comfort to be found.

Not here, not in the muted tones of beige and white or in the sleek lines of furniture that were supposed to exude elegance and sophistication.

Maybe tomorrow you’d feel differently.

You'd wake up with a clear head, ready to take the stupid tests, you’d be strong again like you’d been so many times before.

Tonight, you were just tired.

You leaned back against the cushions, closing your eyes for a moment, willing the noise in your head to quiet down. Sleep.

That’s what you needed, a few hours to clear your mind, and in the morning, you’d deal with everything.

All of this would go away.

TAGLIST: @maybankslover @october-baby25 @haruvalentine4321 @hopelesslydevoted2paige @rafebb

@rafesbbyy @whytheylosttheirminds @astarlights @bruher @nosebeers @carrerascameron @serrendiipty @sunny1616

@yootvi @ditzyzombiesblog @psychocitylights @maibelitaaura @kiiyomei

@stoned-writer @justafangirls-blog-deactivated2 @starkeygirlposts @enjoymyloves @ijustwanttoreadlols

@icaqttt

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buckysleftbicep · 16 days ago

Text

little black dress 𐙚 b.b

pairing: new avenger!dom!bucky barnes x fem!reader

warnings: nsfw, 18+, minors dni, unprotected sex, rough sex creampie, possessive!bucky, bathroom sex

summary: you and bucky have always danced the line between desire and something more. but he never made his move, so you showed him exactly what it looked like when john does.

word count: 4.8k

author's note: hii my darlings! i had this fic in mind for a while now, and it took me a few days to finally get to writing it! and, honestly, john's growing on me 🥹 i hope you enjoy reading it as much as i enjoyed writing it! thank you for your support <333 love ya guys and stay safe out there! 💖

The dress was barely a dress at all, if anything it was more suggestion than fabric, clinging to your body like a second skin.

Black silk, paper-thin, and cut like it was designed to destroy restraint. It slipped over your curves without resistance, the kind of fit that made strangers stare and men lose their footing.

The back plunged low, scandalously so—baring the line of your spine, the dip at the small of your back, the parts of you that longed to be touched. The hem itself was short enough to provoke imagination, short enough to turn heads.

You hadn’t even considered a bra, the silhouette just didn’t allow for one, but truthfully, that wasn’t the reason. The absence was part of the appeal, it made you feel unrestrained

The silk whispered across your thighs as you moved, every step practiced and purposeful, it caught the light in just the right places, teased your skin like a lover’s touch.

You could feel how the dress made you watchable, the kind of thing people noticed and couldn’t look away from. Every inch of exposed skin became a silent challenge and every shift of your hips, a calculated dare.

You stood at the mirror, sliding in one earring, then the other, your lips were slicked in a soft, gleaming gloss that caught the light every time your mouth curved.

Yelena’s voice carried through the doorway, amused. “Wow. You trying to kill Bucky?”

You didn’t flinch, just met her eyes in the mirror as she leaned lazily against the frame, one brow arched in mock accusation, a knowing smirk tugging at her mouth.

“Maybe,” you murmured.

“He doesn’t stand a chance.”

You turned slightly, letting the dress shift like a ripple down your thighs, your mouth curving into a knowing smirk. “He’s had chances,” you said, voice lower now, almost thoughtful. “He just never took them.”

Yelena’s grin widened. “Don’t let him off easy. The man’s been blue-balling himself for months.”

She disappeared down the hallway with a lazy wave, leaving only the soft sound of her boots against tile and the muted thrum of your own heartbeat.

The tension between you and Bucky had always lived in that thin space between too much and not enough. Flirting had blurred into something else long ago, something darker, slower, heavier.

It lived in the way his eyes tracked you across a room like you were a threat to him. In the way his touch lingered a second too long when he helped you up off the mats. In the way your breath caught every time he leaned close enough that you could practically feel his restraint.

It had become a game, a slow-burn stalemate of low voices, shared glances, and touches that hovered right at the edge of indecent. He’d press you down during training, thick thighs caging you in, vibranium fingers wrapped firm around your wrist, and the heat between you would spike.

He never moved. Never let himself fall.

And you were tired of pretending not to notice the way his hands tightened when you teased. The way his jaw clenched when your laugh came too close to someone else’s ear. The way he looked at you—like he wanted to devour you, and somehow hated himself for it.

Your heels clicked softly against the concrete as you stepped out of the compound’s elevator, each step deliberate.

Ava was already by the SUV, one hip cocked, gaze flickering between her phone screen and the cluster of the others around her. Bob nodded along absently to the pulse of whatever bass-heavy song Yelena had commandeered for the aux.

Alexei stood beside them, sipping something clear from a paper cup that definitely hadn’t been cleared by protocol, honestly, nothing he had been drinking since the team moved into the compound had been, not that you were complaining though.

But all of them stilled, for just a second, when you walked out into the warm, electric hum of the night.

John let out a low whistle, his gaze unfiltered and unhurried as it raked down the length of you. “If I knew you were wearing that,” he said, voice warm with amusement, “I’d have taken longer to get ready.”

You smiled, slow, confident, a little cruel, and breezed past him with a smirk that felt like the start of trouble. “Too late, Walker.”

As you passed, your fingers brushed Bucky’s. Barely. A whisper of contact, just enough to feel the static crackle between you. It could’ve been dismissed as accidental, if not for the way his fingers twitched, the almost-imperceptible flex, like he was fighting the urge to catch your hand and hold it there.

He was leaned against the SUV’s doorframe, arms folded across his chest. Stil, watchful. The tightly-leashed expression he wore wasn’t new, it was the same one he wore during missions, when the objective was in sight but the timing wasn’t right. Controlled tension, that coil of restraint wrapped tight beneath the surface.

His black tee stretched obscenely across his chest, the sleeves clinging to biceps that seemed to be sculpted from Adonis himself. His jeans were broken-in and low-slung, worn soft in all the right places, he looked lethal, almost unbothered. Except he wasn’t.

His gaze dropped—from your eyes to the slope of your bare back, pausing there before trailing lower. You caught the subtle shift in his jaw, the clench and release that gave him away.

He didn’t say a word. He didn’t have to.

And you didn’t look back.

Inside the SUV, it was chaos, the kind that came with too many personalities jammed into one vehicle. Alexei and John were already halfway into an argument over the playlist. Both men reached for the center console like it was some kind of atomic bomb they were racing to defuse.

“I pick! You picked last time,” Alexei snapped, clearly offended.

“That was the gym,” John countered, cocky and unbothered. “This is clubbing. Different playlist.”

“It’s still music, идиот (idiot).”

Bob, ever the neutral third party, tried to mediate with a calm voice and a poor sense of timing. Yelena, predictably, told him to stop touching her mirror, and he did, again.

You climbed in last, taking the only seat left, right beside Bucky. It was tight, deliberately so. Your thigh pressed flush against his, the heat of his body seeping into yours through denim and skin, a slow, smoldering current that made your breath hitch.

He didn’t shift. Didn’t lean away. Didn’t lean in, either.

He sat like he’d been poured into the seat and frozen there, every muscle drawn tight beneath his skin, jaw ticking, eyes fixed on the window like it was the only thing keeping him together. His stillness wasn’t calm, it was restraint, sharp-edged and suffocating, the kind that only lasted until something snapped.

You could feel it in the air between you, thick and heavy. You knew that silence, knew what it meant when Bucky went quiet like that.

So you moved instead. Slow. Intentional.

You crossed your legs with a fluid, unhurried motion, letting the silk of your dress slip higher on your thighs. The fabric whispered against your skin, you knew what you looked like, knew how little the dress left to the imagination.

And you knew he was watching. Even if he wouldn’t look directly, you could feel the way his focus narrowed.

The effect was immediate, barely visible, but you saw it.

The twitch in his jaw. The subtle exhale through his nose. The slow, unmistakable flex of his gloved fingers against his thigh, the leather creaking ever so slightly as his knuckles tightened.

You turned your head just enough to catch him in your peripheral vision, your voice dipped low and syrup-sweet.

“Something wrong?”

He didn’t speak at first. Just blinked, once, as if clearing a fog, his throat worked around the words like they tasted dangerous.

“You know exactly what you’re doing,” he said, low, hoarse, like it scraped its way out of him.

Your smile curled, wicked and slow. You bit the inside of your cheek to keep it from spreading too far, too fast, but you were glowing with it. Thriving in the weight of his unraveling.

That wasn’t denial. That was surrender, dressed in defiance.

And you hadn’t even touched him yet.

Tonight was going to be fun.

The bass hit first, low, pulsing and thick enough to feel in your chest. It vibrated up through the soles of your heels as lights strobed across the club in rhythmic flashes, bathing the dance floor in a kaleidoscope of heat and haze.

Everything smelled like sweat, smoke, and sex, bodies pressed too close, perfume clinging to skin, desire hanging thickly in the air.

The boys peeled off toward the back, claiming a booth near the edge of the floor wall, Bucky didn’t even look at you as he passed, didn’t acknowledge the dress, the skin, the sway of your hips. But you felt him clock every inch, felt his gaze dragging behind him like smoke.

Let him look.

You, Ava, and Yelena made a beeline for the bar, heels clicking against sticky tile, hips swaying in easy confidence. The kind of entrance that wasn’t loud, but undeniable. The three of you moved with practiced grace, synced like predators on the hunt.

Ava leaned her elbows on the counter, tipping her head just enough to catch your reflection in the mirrored back wall. Her mouth curved in a smirk, “So… what exactly do you have up your little sleeve tonight?”

You took your time answering, sipping your margarita first, your eyes went wide, mock-innocent, voice featherlight. “Nothing. Just drinks, dancing.”

Yelena snorted—elegant and completely unamused. “Right. And I only wear red lipstick when I’m feeling shy.” Her accent slipped ever so lightly as she raised a brow, tipping her glass at you. “Game on.”

You laughed into your cocktail, the rim cold against your mouth, the liquid burn sliding smooth down your throat. “Come on. I’m overworked and underfucked. Let a girl have her fun.”

Ava raised her glass in mock salute. “Here’s to that.”

Yelena clinked hers against both of yours and deadpanned, “To sins we don’t plan on confessing.”

You grinned behind your glass, letting the moment bloom in your chest, the ache, the buzz, the sharp sparkle of anticipation. The burn of your drink was satisfying, but it was nothing compared to the heat unfurling low in your belly, thick and steady, pulsing with every beat of the music.

This wasn’t about about playing coy or waiting for someone else, him to make the first move. It wasn’t about almosts, and it damn sure wasn’t about patience.

Yelena finished the last sip of her drink with a dramatic sigh, setting her glass down, “alright,” she said, turning toward the dance floor. “Lots of bad decisions on the floor tonight,” the blonde added, gesturing with a tilt of her chin to the sea of bodies moving, looking like they were chasing sin.

Ava grinned and looped her arm through hers. “Pick your poison.”

They disappeared into the crowd, a blur of glitter and limbs, swallowed up by pulsing lights and sweat-slick rhythm, leaving you at the bar with a half-full glass and the slow, deliberate thrum of possibility building beneath your skin. You didn’t follow.

Not yet.

Instead, you leaned against the counter with one elbow, the condensation of your drink trickling down your fingers. You drew slow, idle circles into the damp ring left behind, a flick of your nail here, a swirl there.

The music surged, thick and pulsing, you sipped slow, lips parting just enough to let the burn slide over your tongue.

John walked up beside you like a storm rolling in off the coast, easy grin, crooked charm and amused timing. He moved like he’d known you’d be here, like he was already in on the joke.

Two drinks in hand, shirt sleeves rolled up, hair a little too perfect not to be deliberate. He looked you up and down once—not subtle, not rushed.

“They abandon you already?” he asked, lifting a brow, offering the second drink with a tilt of his wrist.

You smiled, slow, sly, just the curve of your mouth like the lift of a weapon. “Strategically separated.”

He handed you the drink, and your fingers brushed his, just enough skin to spark. His gaze dropped, the way your dress hugged your hips, the bare line of your shoulder. He sure as hell wasn’t trying to hide it, and you didn’t ask him to.

“What’s the angle?”

You met his eyes, calm and unblinking, lashes dipped low. “Wanna help me with something?”

He huffed a soft laugh, low and almost fond. “You’re always up to something, aren’t you?”

You gave a little shrug, sipping slowly. “Mmhm.”

He leaned in a fraction, close enough that you could feel the heat of him—not touching, just there.

You tilted your head, eyes glittering, voice smooth. “I need a little distraction. Something that'll get under his skin.”

You didn’t say jealous, you didn’t need to. It was all over your posture, the way you lingered in the doorway between control and provocation. That got you a full pause. A low whistle through his teeth as he set his own glass down on the bar behind him.

His eyes narrowed. “You trying to get me killed?”

You smiled almost sweetly “Mmm. Maybe.”

John’s gaze dragged over you again, slower this time. Appraising. Heat in every pass. His tongue wet his bottom lip before he spoke again, voice dropping an octave. “You know,” he murmured, “with you looking like that, I don’t think it’ll take much.”

You said nothing. Just held his gaze, then—still watching him—reached down and slid your fingers through his. A small tug. No force.

An invitation.

And he followed, just like you knew he would. Because of course he did.

The bass swallowed you whole the moment your heels touched the floor.

It pulsed through the soles of your feet, climbed up your spine, sank low into your stomach—all rhythm and thudding pressure. Lights slashed through the darkness, catching glances of skin and sweat, painting the crowd in strobe-lit temptation.

The air was thick—muggy with lust and music, electric with the scent of alcohol, perfume, and too many people pressing too close. You could feel the pulse of it against your ribs, in the backs of your knees, deep between your legs. It was visceral, almost alive.

Bodies moved in waves, hands where they shouldn’t be..

You led John into the center of it, into the heat and chaos and everything you’d been simmering with all night. You didn’t ask, you didn’t wait. You turned, pressing your body flush to his, and started to move.

It wasn’t subtle and it wasn’t meant to be.

You rolled your hips into his slowly, deliberately, letting the music guide your rhythm—the kind of movement that left no room for interpretation.

John’s hands found your hips easily, like he’d been waiting for the cue, his fingers tight, almost possessive, but not quite. He moved with you, his body catching the pace of yours, letting the friction build, letting the fantasy settle into reality.

His touch dipped lower, tracing the shape of your waist, down the curve of your hips, then sliding further—over the swell of your ass, where he squeezed once, firm and unbothered.

You arched into him instinctively, feeling him hard against you, and felt the heat of his breath against your neck when he chuckled, voice thick with amusement and something darker.

“Shit,” he murmured near your ear, half-dazed. “You really want him to kill me, huh?”

You didn’t answer.

You just turned in his arms—slow, like silk unrolling, until your back was pressed against his chest. Your ass ground into his crotch with no shame, no pause, no hesitation. You wanted him to feel it. Wanted everyone watching to see it, to see you.

You moved with intent, liquid and hot, your body matching the beat in slow, deliberate waves. Letting the music pulse through your hips. Letting every roll say watch this. Watch her choose someone else.

His hand spread wide across your lower back, holding you there, fingertips pressing just hard enough to feel. The other settled on your waist, fingers splaying low beneath the hem of your dress, riding the curve of your body like he’d earned it.

Your hand slid behind you, fingers skating up the back of his neck, slipping into his hair, tugging him down until his mouth hovered just behind your ear.

You didn’t speak. Didn’t need to.

Because across the dance floor — through the haze and the lights and the pounding bass — he was watching.

Bucky hadn’t moved.

He was still sitting in the booth, drink untouched, his shoulders stiff, coiled like wire. Elbows braced on his knees, hands loose but twitching, almost as if he was holding something back. Like if he gripped any tighter, the glass in his hand would break.

His jaw was locked, the muscles working hard beneath his skin.

But his eyes—those fucking eyes—they were locked on you.

Cerulean. Burning. Blown wide. He wasn’t blinking, hell he probably wasn’t breathing. He was consuming you with nothing but a stare, tracking every shift of your hips, every breath you took, every inch of your body pressed to someone else’s.

And when your eyes finally met his, it felt like something cracked open between you—a tether stretched so tight it sang with tension.

You smiled.

Coy. Dangerous. Just the corner of your mouth, like you weren’t thinking about him at all when every second of this performance was for him. Like he wasn’t the reason you wore the dress. The fuck-me heels.

Then you turned your head—slow, deliberate—just enough for Bucky to see your lips ghost against John’s cheek.

Your fingers slid from the back of the blonde’s neck to his jaw, tilting his face toward yours with a kind of practiced care.

And you kissed him.

Full, slow and intentional. Lips parted. Breath caught. Not rushed and definitely not for fun.

Not for John. Not even for you.

Just for the man across the club who hadn’t taken his eyes off you since the moment you stepped onto the floor.

The man who hadn’t touched you.

You didn’t break the kiss right away.

You let it linger, just long enough for Bucky to watch your lips part against John’s, your fingers curled lightly in the fabric of his shirt. Just long enough for him to feel the choice in it.

The defiance. The line being drawn in real time.

You weren’t playing anymore. You were showing him what it looked like when you stopped waiting.

He was already watching, and he hadn’t looked away once.

And across the club, where the music drowned everything but the pulse in his jaw, Bucky sat like a man seconds from detonation.

Yelena leaned in, loud and unapologetic. “Your girl’s with Walker now, huh?” she said, nudging him with the sharp edge of her elbow, eyes tracking the slow, obscene way your bodies moved.

That did it.

The brunette stood, fast and sharp, like a wire finally snapping and shoved past Alexei without a word, shouldered Bob hard enough to make his drink spill.

And he came for you.

Bucky didn’t care. Didn’t slow down. Didn’t speak.

His boots pounded against the floor, direct, unrelenting, cutting a path through the crowd like he was built for one purpose only: you.

People moved before he touched them. Stepped aside like they could feel it coming off him—the possessive edge carved into every clenched muscle.

You didn’t see him until it was too late.

Until his hand wrapped around your wrist. His touch—firm, hot and unmistakable.

Your body jerked back instinctively, caught off guard by the sudden contact. His grip wasn’t rough, but it was tight. Claiming. As if letting go wasn’t even an option.

Your head snapped around, startled, mouth parted. “What the fuck are you—?”

He didn’t answer, didn’t look at John, didn’t acknowledge the beat still hammering around you.

He just dragged you.

One hard tug and you stumbled into him, your heel skidding against the floor, the front of your dress catching against his jeans for half a second before you found your footing again.

John called something behind you, your name, maybe, or just a startled, amused curse but it was swallowed by the music and the crowd.

Bucky didn’t stop. He pulled you through the writhing bodies like they weren’t there, cutting a clean line across the chaos. His grip on your wrist never loosened, not once and you didn’t resist.

Not really.

Not when your skin was flushed, your breath caught somewhere between panic and arousal, and your pulse was thrumming like a war drum in your throat.

He turned down a narrow hallway, cool and dim and lined with flickering wall sconces, and barely slowed before slamming his boot into a door. It flew open with a sharp, echoing crack, and then—

You were inside.

The door slammed shut behind you with a force that made the wall shudder, and then his hands were on you. Everywhere. Hard palms on your waist, his body pressing into yours, his mouth already devouring.

He pinned you against the door with the full weight of his body, all chest and heat and barely leashed violence. His mouth crashed into yours like a punishment, and it was filthy. Hot breath. Tongue. Teeth dragging across your bottom lip until you gasped. He kissed like he wanted to bruise, like he needed to stake a claim from the inside out.

One hand fisted into your hair and yanked your head back hard enough to make you moan; the other gripped your thigh, shoving it up around his waist as he ground his cock into you through his jeans—thick, hot, already hard.

“You think I didn’t see what you were doing?” he growled into your mouth, voice ragged and ruined. “Grinding on Walker like that? Kissing him like you wanted me to fucking lose it?”

You couldn’t answer, too breathless, too far gone, and maybe that was the point. He didn’t want words. He wanted surrender.

He spun you hard—chest to the door one second, then bent over the sink the next. The mirror caught your wide eyes, your flushed cheeks, your mouth already parted in anticipation as he shoved your hips forward and flattened his hand between your shoulder blades.

You barely had time to breathe.

His hand yanked your dress up in one swift, brutal motion, baring you to the air.

No panties.

Just slick, swollen heat between your thighs.

The gasp that tore from your mouth wasn’t just shock—it was want. Need. Desperation.

He froze for half a beat.

Then, “Fucking knew it.”

The sound of his voice—shredded, possessive, starving made you clench around nothing. Your knees almost buckled, but he caught you, of course he did. One arm wrapped tight around your waist, the other slid down, fingers slipping between your thighs without hesitation.

He groaned. Deep. Raw. “You’re soaking.”

He didn’t ease in, didn’t test the waters. He shoved two fingers inside you, knuckles deep, while his thumb circled your clit with tight, filthy pressure.

You jerked against the counter, legs straining, hips rocking helplessly into his hand.

“Filthy little tease,” he hissed against your neck, biting hard enough to leave a mark. “You walk around with this dripping cunt and expect me to stay quiet?”

You whimpered something—his name, or maybe please—but it didn’t matter. He was already undoing his belt with one hand, jeans shoved down just enough, cock springing free, heavy and thick and leaking. He lined up behind you, ran the tip through your folds, groaning when he felt how wet you were.

Then he slammed into you.

One brutal thrust, all the way to the hilt.

You cry out, not from pain, but from shock. From the stretch, from the sheer depth of him. He was thick, perfectly shaped to ruin you, and he didn’t give you time to adjust. He pulled out halfway and slammed back in harder.

Again. And again. And again.

Your hands clawed at the counter, your thighs trembled. You were already splintering.

He fucked you like he didn’t care who heard. Flesh slapping against flesh, deep and punishing. He didn’t hold back. Didn’t slow down. He knew exactly what he was doing—grinding his hips into your ass, hitting the spot inside you that made stars burst behind your eyes with every stroke.

One hand fisted in your hair again, wrenching your head back so he could watch your expression in the mirror. The other found your clit and didn’t let up.

“Say it,” he panted, fucking you harder. “Say you’re mine.”

“Bucky—”

Another thrust. Vicious.

“Say it.”

“I’m—fuck—I’m yours,” you sobbed, eyes glassy.

“Damn right you are.”

Your orgasm hit like an explosion—a scream dragged from deep in your chest, your body locking up around him, pulsing, shaking. Your legs gave out and he held you up, fingers digging into your hips as he fucked you through it, chasing his own release.

But he didn’t stop.

Didn’t slow. Didn’t let you breathe.

“That’s it, princess,” he groaned. “Give me another one. Come on. You can take it.”

You were drenched. Shaking. Fucked-out and trembling. Your body tried to fight it, twitching and jolting with every thrust, but his hand on your clit kept moving—tight circles, never breaking rhythm.

You came again with a broken scream—your second orgasm ripping through you, thighs trembling violently as your body begged for mercy. Your cunt spasmed around his cock, pulsing so tight it dragged a strangled sound from his throat.

“Fuck—fuck, I’m gonna—”

He slammed into you one last time, deep and final, his hips jerking hard against your ass as he came with a growl—a raw, filthy sound buried in the curve of your neck as he spilled inside you, thick and hot, his cock pulsing with every wave.

He didn’t move for a moment, just held you, breathing ragged, his hand still gripping your hip like he thought you might vanish.

Eventually, he pulled out—slow, careful, your body still fluttering from aftershocks, his cum slick and warm as it slid down your inner thighs. You swayed a little, overstimulated and trembling, and he caught you instantly.

“Easy,” he murmured, voice rough as gravel. His hands steadied your hips. “I’ve got you.”

You let him turn you gently toward him, your heart still galloping in your chest, legs jelly-soft. His fingers were shaking as they fixed your dress—tugging the fabric down over your hips, smoothing it over your thighs like it mattered now.

You looked up at him, lips kiss-bruised, eyes dazed, makeup smudged.

His hand cupped your jaw, thumb brushing the corner of your mouth. He didn’t speak for a moment—just stared at you, pupils still blown wide, jaw still tight, like he was trying to figure out how the hell he let it get that far.

“Tell me,” he rasped, “did it work?”

You blinked, throat still too dry to laugh properly. “You mean the jealousy plan?”

His mouth twitched—not quite a smile. “You trying to drive me fucking insane?”

You tilted your head, kissed his thumb. “Just needed a reaction.”

He leaned in, forehead resting against yours. “You want a reaction, princess” His voice dropped to something low and lethal. “Next time, you ask. I’ll give you everything.”

You swallowed, heat sparking in your belly again despite everything. “That a promise?”

He kissed you—softer this time. Still deep, claiming.

“Yeah,” he whispered against your lips. “You can bet on it”

Finally, you opened the bathroom door.

And stopped short.

A paper sign, written in black sharpie and taped crookedly across the door, flapped in the hallway breeze:

OUT OF ORDER — DO NOT ENTER

Laughter exploded a few feet away at the booth.

Yelena and Bob were doubled over, howling. Ava leaned against the wall like she’d been waiting. John stood smugly sipping his drink, clearly proud of himself. And Alexei, hands in his pockets, gave Bucky a once-over and shook his head with faux disappointment.

“Was it worth it, Barnes?!” Yelena hollered, absolutely delighted.

Alexei sighed. “I owe Walker twenty bucks. Told him he’d snap before midnight.”

You groaned, burying your face in Bucky’s shoulder as he groaned under his breath.

“Oh my god.”

You laughed into his chest, muffled. “Told you I’d get your attention.”

He slid his arm around your waist again, pulling you in tight.

“You’ve got all of it now,” he muttered. “Hope you know what the fuck to do with it.”

And you did. You just grinned.

a/n: i hope you enjoyed this fic! if you did, please consider dropping a comment or even a reblog 💌 it keeps me motivated! thank you my loves

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marvelouslymarly · 1 month ago

Text

After Midnight (Bob Reynolds x female superhero!reader)

Pairing: Bob Reynolds/Robert Reynolds/the Sentry/the Void x female superhero!reader

Part two out now!!! Read here

Summary: You're out with the team when some dude starts acting like an ass. Bob helps you get away and takes you home to show you how a lady should be treated...

Rated E for explicit - Minors do not interact!!

CW: physical violence (bar brawl); the void showing up for a second there; some hints at sexual harrassment/assault (no on page rape!); Bob dancing with reader; fluff; half of this is smut (first time reader and Bob sleep together; oral/female and male receiving; fingering, p in v sex (protected); multiple orgasms) [i think i need a pastor]; minor thunderbolts* spoiler warning bc this is set after the film

Word count: 10.6k words (and I thought the last one was a long one, LOL)

Masterlist

[A/N #1: Got the idea for this on the drive home from my parents' place while listening to After Midnight by Chappel Roan, so here you go]

[A/N #2: thank you to @scuttle-buttle for cheering me on and reading through this!!! Dedicating this to you, babes🫰🏻]

The music was blasting over the speakers, and you could feel the beat in every cell of your body. The team had decided to go out that night, needing a break from training and recon-missions and the same old day-in-and-day-out of the last few weeks. While the guys had stayed back at the bar, Ava and Yelena had pulled you into the center of the dance floor, telling you to put yourself out there and have some fun for once. You knew that they were right. It had been a while since you forgot about work and everything that came with first being one of Val's shadow ops and then becoming part of what Val intended to become the new Avengers.

Even after a few months, the title still didn't feel right. It was just too loaded with expectations, with ideas and opinions about who you should be, what you should or shouldn't do. You guys weren't shiny and new. You were rough around the edges, with problems and your own past full of mistakes and regrets. You all had things you'd like to forget or wished to have gone up in flames with every little detail Val put in that vault.

Being called the "new Avengers" felt like stepping into footsteps not only way too big to fill, but also just the wrong shape to begin with. It was like trying to match the tracks of bears with those of lions. You were a different species of heroes - and even calling yourself heroes felt wrong somehow. You were too familiar with being the bad guys, with having your stories twisted, being used for whatever wrong someone wanted done without getting their own hands dirty. But now, you were supposed to be the ones stopping the bad guys, to fight the guys you were made out to be before.

So, this night out felt like the right call for multiple reasons. It was good for forgetting about work, but also for getting to know each other outside of work settings. You'd lived with them for months and knew everything about who preferred what guns, who would do what whenever you were out on missions but whenever you came home, you'd retreat into your own spaces, resting and trying to figure out where you all fit into whatever Val had in mind when she called the press on you and announced her new team of superheroes come to save the world.

~~~

Earlier that evening, while putting on that one dress in the back of your wardrobe, you could hear your mother's voice in the back of your head, telling you not to dress this provocatively. To be a good girl and cover yourself before the Lord's eyes. You felt the anger you'd repressed for so long bubble back up inside of you. Images of the time before you ran away from home came rushing back in.

The front lawns of the neighbourhood peppered with signs with psalms and verses written on them. Crosses in every room of the house you’d grown up in. The metal rods and mosquito nets outside the windows to “keep evil out” but, in all honesty, they were there to keep you from climbing out the windows in the middle of the night. Memories of everything your parents tried to make you believe about the virtues of life and how to be a pious girl and a good servant of the Lord.

You could feel the bile rise, thinking back to the person they had tried to turn you into.Their attempts to marry you off to some boy from the community. Michael Dawson. A good boy, named after the archangel. A god-fearing boy just barely old enough to drive a car. In the year before your parents had told you about their plans, you had barely exchanged two sentences with him. But still, it was blatantly obvious to everyone who looked at him and at the way he looked at Paul for even a second, that this probably wouldn’t have been the happy and sacred marriage your parents had envisioned for you.

When the blip first happened, it felt like you were set free from everything you hated so much. With your family gone, there was nothing holding you back from leaving the community while the rest turned to prayers and service. Just having turned 18 a couple of weeks ago, you’d grabbed the keys to your father’s truck and never looked back.

You caught a look of yourself in the mirror and thought about how far you'd come in the last 8 years. How much distance you'd put between your old life and this new one - regardless of how lost you still felt sometimes. You thought about how you moved to the big city and took up self-defense classes after a close call on your way home from work one night. How powerful you felt once you’d realised you loved to fight and get stronger both physically and mentally. That now, there was very little that you couldn’t get through because you didn’t have to rely on prayers anymore.

You pulled the dress down in the front, revealing more cleavage, and adjusted how your breasts sat in the built-in cups. The thought of your mother’s jaw falling to the floor at the sight of you in this get up, her hands doing quick work to bless herself, sent a smirk to your lips. You smoothed out the dress, letting your hands dance over the sides of your body while you admired yourself. The tightness of the dress, hugging you in just the right places, the skirt just long enough to cover the ass that you trained so hard for. Reapplying the dark red lipstick, you smacked your lips in a playful manner and ran your hand through your locks before leaving your room and joining the others in the common area of your shared apartment.

You could still hear the whistles Walker had sent your way, adding an approving 'looking good, [y/l/n]' after standing up straighter and looking you up and down. You rolled your eyes at him while you put your purse over your shoulder, and then adjusted the leather jacket thrown over your am.

"You clean up nice, too, I guess," you retorted and looked around the group.

Ava and Yelena had put themselves into their best party outfits as well, wearing a knowing smirk while putting up both thumbs, respectively. When your eyes landed on Bob, you could see a faint pink tint to his cheeks, and he quickly averted your gaze, nodding vigorously.

"Yeah, you look really nice... Really... nice, yeah!" He cleared his throat, the blush deepening a few shades. His jaw clenched and you smiled to yourself, having secretly hoped he'd like the way you'd dressed up.

When you'd first met him in the vault those few months ago, in the scrubs that seemed three sizes too big for him, he looked like a helpless puppy, his blue eyes so big and excited at what he'd stumbled into - literally. But then, when you saw what he was capable of, both as the Sentry and the Void and your interest in him grew. He was no longer just the sad, helpless puppy but something more intriguing. Someone with layers that you wanted to uncover one at a time.

After first moving to New York and into the Watchtower with the others, there weren't many chances for you two to interact, to get to know each other better. But when it became more and more obvious that he wasn't ready to be sent out into missions with the rest of the team just yet, you came up with the idea of rotating who would stay at home with him. The rest of the team welcomed the idea of it and so, whenever someone wasn't needed for the mission, they'd try and help Bob figure out how to channel his inner Sentry without also summoning the Void with it. Or they'd bake cakes or make dinner for when the others came back.

You'd stayed back with him two times at that point but every time you asked if he wanted to join you for a gym session or for a swim in the new pool, he'd come up with excuses. Saying he'd sprained his ankle the last time he was working out with Bucky or that he'd just done his daily laps in the morning and was looking forward to reading that one book he didn't have the chance to get to yet. The first time around, you figured he was just a little anti-social and needed some more time to get comfortable but then you heard about how Yelena had gotten him to punch the punching bag so forcefully that it came off the hinges and flew to the other side of the gym and how even Walker could convince him to try some new technique to compartmentalise.

When he declined your invitation to watch a movie the second time you stayed behind, you grew weary, scared that you'd done something wrong or that he just simply didn't like you at all. That the interest you had in him wasn’t reciprocated. But, seeing him blush at the sight of you all dolled up set the tiny bit of hope you still had ablaze once more. On the way to the bar, you caught yourself disengaging from the conversation, coming up with ideas or ways to get him on his own, hoping that he’d be more forthcoming once he had a drink or two in him.

~~~

The feeling of arms slipping around your waist brought you back to the bar and to the song you were mindlessly singing along to. Hands were moving down to your waist, holding onto you as you swayed your hips from side to side. Your eyes travelled down your figure, thinking that maybe it was one of the guys playing a trick on you but then you didn't recognise the tattoos winding up the left forearm and into the rolled up sleeves. Your head turned to the side, trying to catch a glimpse of you had come up behind you but you couldn’t quite make out who it was, an uneasy feeling settling in your stomach.

Looking around for the girls, you saw that Ava and Yelena had gone back over to the bar, probably to get you guys some drinks. Also sitting at the bar, you made out Walker, Bob and Bucky - the latter engaged in a conversation with some girl desperately trying to get his number from the way she pushed her phone into his direction, a bright smile on her lips, despite the restrained expression on his face and him shaking his head repeatedly, pushing her phone back every time it made contact with his chest.

Wildly gesticulating with every fiber of his being, Walker was talking to Bob, who was staring into the glass in front of him. You weren’t sure if he was just lost in thought or if he had one too many was getting overwhelmed by the loud music and people pushing past him in the crowded bar, his face inattentive to what Walker was talking about and his shoulders slumped. His gaze wandered over to you, as if he’d felt your eyes on him, and then to the guy behind you, his jaw clenching tightly. Just as quickly as his eyes had met yours, they were back on the remnants of whatever drink he had been musing before, his knuckles turning white in the dim light.

The arms around your hip pulled you back, bringing your attention back to the dancefloor, and you felt a very clammy shirt press into your shoulders before the smell of cheap alcohol mixed with even cheaper breath mints filled your nostrils. Your whole body tensed, when the guy’s right hand travelled back up your side and stopped just under your breast for a second, before moving to the front and up to your neck.

"Hey, Mama, you alone here," the voice slurred questioning, hot breath hitting your ear and neck, and sending goosebumps down your body. His hand was slowly wrapping around your neck and made you turn your head again. Out the corner of your eye, you could clock the name tag on his shirt, making out ‘Sam’ written in cursive stitches.

Feeling your throat close up from the stinging aroma of the cheap liquor he must've bathed in, you tried to push Sam’s arms off of your body, scratching at his skin. But his grip didn’t budge one bit, only growing tighter, his nails digging in through the fabric of your dress and into your neck.

Your desperate pleas for him to let go of you seemed to be useless, lost to the loud music coming from the speakers in every corner of the dance floor. But you couldn't get anything out above a feeble whisper, tears brimming in your eyes while snippets of the last time you went to a bar raced through your brain.

"Why are you so tense? Let's have some fun, baby," Sam pushed and started to grind into you from behind, his dick getting harder with every move, pressing into your behind.

Again, you looked around for the rest of the team, hoping someone would notice your struggle and come over to help. But Ava and Yelena were nowhere to be seen, and Walker must’ve gone out to get some fresh air with Bucky because they weren’t where you had last seen them either. The only team member you could still make out was Bob, sitting at the bar with his back turned to you, waving down the bartender for another drink.

Realising you were on your own in this one, you tried to turn around, to get some leverage on him and were just able to turn your face away when he leant down and tried to press a kiss to your lips.

“I told you to leave me be,” you repeated forcefully, your flat hand landing on his cheek in a satisfying slap.

An urgent cry left your mouth, then, and the force behind your shove grew stronger, pushing Sam away from you and making him lose his balance. He stumbled back a step or two before he caught himself again, glaring at you.

He pushed up his sleeves again and started to come at you, an evil sneer on his face.

"What's your fucking problem, bitch,” he spat and looked you up and down, stepping closer slowly.

“You dress like that, and then you turn into a prude when -"

He was cut off short when a fist met his jaw and threw him into the people surrounding you, a tooth and a spray of blood flying from his mouth. You looked at who had landed that blow, still unable to fully comprehend what had just happened.

To your right, there stood Bob, his mouth hanging open a bit and his eyes glowing a dangerous golden colour. You hadn't noticed him getting up from the bar and coming over, but you were deeply grateful for him doing so, scared of what would've happened if he hadn't stepped in.

When he realised what he'd done, he shook his head slightly, the blue returning to his eyes once more, and he got ready to fight. With his fists raised in front of his face, he waited for the other guy to get back up again.

“What do you want, you limp noodle of a man, huh? You just got lucky with that one, fella.” The other guy pointed at Bob before spitting blood onto the light-up dance floor and cracking his neck, walking up to Bob. When he was still a few steps from him, Bob threw another punch, this time with even more force behind it and knocking Sam right out. There was a dark air around him, blackness enveloping his fist and travelling up his arm right before your eyes.

“She told you to leave her alone, asshat,” the Void growled, his voice several shades darker than that of Bob.

Looking at the limp figure before him for a split second, the Void went back in, throwing punch after punch, the black hand glistening from what must have been even more blood. Scared of what he’d do to Sam, you tried pulling Bob off of him, whispering into his ear that it was enough and for him to come back to you.

“Bob, please. He’s down already”, you begged and finally got enough strength to drag him away. Cupping his face, you tried to get Bob to focus on you and the black started to recede from his arms, his bloody hand cradling your face in return. It took a moment for the blue to return to his eyes again, for his jaw to unclench and the deep frown to relax a little.

"Are you ok, [y/n]?” Bob’s voice had gotten softer, his eyes searching yours for any sign of lasting harm.

"Yeah, I think I just need some fresh air," you murmured and held onto his shirt, your legs feeling like jell-o all of a sudden.

Bob wrapped a protective arm around your back when he felt you dip against his stature and pulled you closer, his eyes going to somewhere behind you. He gulped loudly and you looked over your shoulder at what he’d seen.

"You two!" The security guard pointed at you and Bob, and then motioned for you to get out of there.

"Congrats, you just earned yourself a no-return ticket out of this bar," the guard added, and Bob started sputtering, trying to argue about how Sam had started it, how he was just trying to protect you and that Sam should be the one getting kicked out of the bar instead. Picking up the bloody mess that the Void had turned Sam into, the security guard started for the door, looking over his shoulder as if waiting for us to follow him.

"Oh, don't worry, he's going with you!" The guard pushed Bob towards the back exit, Bob's shoulders slumping a little before making his way out of the group of onlookers, pulling you with him by the hand. You intertwined your fingers with his, trying not to lose him while pushing through the mass.

"Our friends are still inside," you tried when you got outside, but the security guard wouldn't have any of it, telling you 'life sucks' and 'better luck next time' while propping Sam up against the wall of the back alley. Without another word, he made for the back entrance before the door fell shut on him, and then disappeared into the turmoil inside the bar.

Looking around the dark alleyway, Bob scoffed before turning towards you, an angry look on his face.

"What a dick!"

You just shrugged your shoulders and felt tears well up in your eyes again, the shock of the situation wearing down and the fear taking over once more. When you tugged at his hand, Bob looked down, realising he was holding your hand, fingers intertwined, and let go before scratching the back of his head.

"Sorry, I didn't realise..."

He wiped his hands on his shirt, the blood staining the white shirt he was wearing under the flannel, and apologised again. When the first tears started to roll down your cheeks, a sob left your mouth and pulled his gaze back to you. His eyes widened in shock and his jaw went slack again, his brows knitting together in a regretful frown.

"Oh, no... I didn't mean to... [y/n], please don't cry..." He came up to you and cupped your cheeks, looking into your eyes deeply before wrapping his arms around you tightly. "I'm sorry... I just get really clammy hands whenever I feel... overwhelmed… And well, the blood and all…"

The embrace was warm, his arms feeling like a protective blanket wrapping around you, shielding you from any more harm. You sidled up to him, relishing in the comfort the hug offered against the cold air of night-time New York in early December. You stayed wrapped in his arms for a second, silent tears rolling down your cheeks while you tried to gather yourself, listening to the faint sound of his heart beating rapidly.

When you heard the groggy groans of the figure behind you, you tensed again and looked up at Bob, his face breaking further when he saw your tear-stained cheeks.

"Can you please get me out of here," you begged, grabbing a fistful of his shirt, and he nodded quickly before letting one arm fall down from its place around your frame and cupping your cheek.

"Yeah, sure. Just tell me where to," he affirmed, wiping away the latest tears with the pad of his thumb. When he realised that you were shivering, he shimmied out of his flannel, wrapping it around your shoulders and mumbling ‘here, this should keep you warm’ under his breath.

"Just take me home, please." You pulled the soft fabric around you tighter, the warm scent of cedarwood and vanilla mixed with his own warm smell enveloping your senses.

He nodded again and turned towards the exit of the alleyway, his right arm wrapping around your shoulder again while he led you towards the main street.

~~~

You guys spent the first few minutes of your walk in silence, not sure how to make conversation after what had happened.

That was until you were stood at a red light and Bob turned towards you, his arm having fallen from around you a few blocks ago.

"I'm sorry, I got us kicked out of the bar," he apologised and put his hands in the front pockets of his jeans, the uneasy look from earlier making its way back onto his face, knitting his eyebrows together and making him pull his bottom lip between his teeth.

"You really seemed to have a good time until that fucker turned up," Bob went on and you shrugged, the fun from earlier already a distant memory in the racing tornado of thoughts wreaking havoc in your mind.

"It was alright", your voice was low and you kicked at the burger wrapping left behind on the sidewalk, hoping you'd be able to boot the haunting images of past trauma away with it.

"Maybe it's stupid, but I kinda wanted to dance with you up there", Bob admitted, looking off towards the traffic light on the other side of the crossing.

His fingers were mindlessly fidgeting with the brand label at the hem of his shirt, a nervous habit you had observed so often when you were around him. When his gaze met yours, the small smile playing on his lips sent butterflies to your stomach, a warmth you hadn't felt in ages rushing up your arms and down your back.

"You looked really beautiful, you know. In the lights, lost to the music. Like you were somewhere else entirely and you didn't have a care in the world", he added, a chuckle at the end of his sentence, and his eyes sparkled, reflecting the cool light of the headlights lining the street.

"I would have liked that", you admitted, offering him a warm smile in return before turning your attention to the changing traffic light indicating you were allowed to cross the street.

“You wouldn’t have enjoyed that for long though,” he replied, chuckling to himself again, before looking over to where you were walking by his side. “I am a really terrible dancer. Like… I’ve totally got two left feet. Just the thought makes me feel sorry for your toes.”

He struck a pose and wiggled his butt to imaginary music when he reached the sidewalk, looking over his shoulder at you with his bottom lip between his teeth and trying his best to look seductive.

This had you laughing loudly then, holding onto his arm for support and putting your head against his shoulder, your eyes closing in appreciation.

“Thank you! I really needed that right now, Bob,” you got out between laughs and grinned up at him, the butterflies in your stomach making you feel like you were 14 all over again.

“Always at your service, m’lady.” He bowed and winked at you before continuing his way down the street, pulling you with him by the hand.

~~~

“Ok, so, I’m gonna hop in the shower real quick, but how about we put on some music after and have that dance party”, you suggested, walking through the elevator doors and looking over your shoulder at Bob, who had an easy smile on his face, his cheek a healthy shade of pink from all the laughing.

He put his arms out and grabbed a hold of the lapelles of the flannel you were still wearing, pulling you back closer to him before wrapping his arms around your frame in a tight hug. You snuggled up to him, ignoring the bloody streaks on his shirt and buried your head against his chest.

“What’s that for,” you asked, looking up at him from under your lashes and trying to keep yourself from blushing at the softness in his eyes.

“I just felt like hugging you, that’s all,” he admitted, shrugging his shoulders. “You looked so cuddly in the dim light, wrapped up in my flannel.”

The words left his mouth quietly, barely above a whisper and when he realised he’d said it aloud, his eyes grew wide, his Adam's apple bobbing up and down in a thick gulp. After trying to find the right words to reply to this and coming up empty, you pushed up on your tiptoes and put a quick kiss on his cheek. Scared you took it too far, you wriggled out of the embrace and turned to the general direction of your bedroom, leaving Bob standing near the elevator, his fingers repeatedly running over the spot that you had just kissed, his eyes glued to where you had just stood and his mouth opening and closing rapidly.

“Remember, dance party in the living room in ten minutes,” you yelled over your shoulder and vanished in your bedroom.

~~~

You connected your phone to the speakers in the living room, sneaking up to Bob sitting on the couch and wrapped your arms around his neck, a giant grin playing at your lips.

“Ready to dance, Bob,” you whispered in his ear cheekily, drawing out his name and letting your hands run down his chest while your towel dried hair fell around you.

He grabbed your wrists and pulled you over the back of the couch swiftly, making you land with your head in his lap, his hand quickly moving to your hip to keep you from rolling off the couch.

“You have no idea what you’re getting yourself into,” he joked and pulled you up with him, his arm wrapped around you and letting his hand rest on the small of your back.

“Well, if you dance anything like what you showed me down on that street corner, I’m in for a hell of a time.” You pulled your phone from the pocket of the shorts you had gotten into after the shower and looked through your playlist for a good song to start with.

“Here, I think this will be a good one,” you mumbled, choosing ‘Me because of You’ by the Faim, and wiggled your eyebrows at him playfully, when the song started playing over the speakers.

“Ok, I think I can work with this,” he said, nodding his head and moving the coffee table off to the side to make more room for us to have fun. He stretched his arms and cracked his neck, starting with a simple step-touch and moving his shoulders to the beat of the song.

You studied him for a second, suddenly a little scared of what he might think of you if you just let loose and have fun. He motioned for you to come closer and you followed his request, stepping closer and trying to keep from laughing, when he faked licking his pointer and pinky and smoothing his eyebrows over.

“Come on, you can’t hold back now, [y/n],” he yelled over the music and pulled me closer right when the song said ‘dance with me, feel the beat, follow my lead’. He placed your hands on his shoulders and then put his hands on your waist again, starting to waltz with you for a whole two seconds before both of you burst out laughing.

“You wanted to dance with me. So, dance, love,” he added and moved his body to the beat again.

“I’m nervous,” you confessed, running your hands over the clean shirt he put on while you were in the shower, and looked at him, biting your lip restlessly.

“Close your eyes and just imagine I’m not here. You’re alone in your room where no one can see you. And then do what you do,” he tried, brushing a strand of towel dried hair out of your face.

“If it helps, I can close my eyes, too,” he offered and put his hands over his eyes, peeking through his fingers.

“Fine,” you grumbled and moved away from him a little, turning your back on him but then looking back over your shoulder to make sure he had his eyes covered.

When you saw that he really wasn’t peeking, you started to move and smiled to yourself, feeling the music take over your body and jumping up and down giddily. After a few seconds, you started to sing along and moved freely, turning around and shimmying your shoulders and nodding your head.

“Are you doing it? Are you dancing,” he asked, still covering his eyes but moving his hips to the beat.

You peeled his hands from his eyes and pulled him into the middle of the carpet, making him stumble over his own feet. He opened one eye, looking at your dancing figure, and you tried to hide the smirk playing at your lips. He joined in with dancing and pursed his lips, concentrating on his moves so as not to stumble over his own feet again.

When the chorus started to play for the last time, he wrapped his arms around your waist, pulling you closer again, and started swaying with you, his head on top of yours. He intertwined his fingers with yours and then moved away from you, extending his arms before stepping in again. He threw your arms over his shoulders and stepped past you before turning around quickly, to repeat this spiel another time, though instead of simply stepping past you, he wrapped his arms around your shoulders, swaying from side to side.

Bob sang along to the words, his voice in your ear as his head dipped down a little and then he spun you around and caught you in his arms again more masterfully than he had led on to believe before.

“Tonight, I’ve changed, yeah. I’m only me because of you.” He put his cheek against yours and hummed happily, picking you up and twirling you around.

When the song had ended, he held you in place, your forehead resting against his. His gaze was moving back and forth between your eyes and your lips, his breath having grown a little shallow. You could feel his hand travel up your side and then caress your cheek, his face coming closer until you could feel his shallow breath on your lips, the tips of your noses just millimeters away from each other.

Expecting him to close the last bit of distance, you closed your eyes and turned your head upwards a little, your heart beating rapidly inside your chest. The moments until he finally put his lips to yours felt like an eternity, millions of thoughts running through your brain, the anticipation of what it’d feel like to kiss him raising goosebumps across your body. When he finally closed the distance and kissed you, his lips were soft, moving against yours slowly at first and then you deepened the kiss, moving your hand to the back of his head. Your other hand ran up his chest, feeling his pecs flex under your touch.

When your teeth sank into his bottom lip, he let out a soft moan and you slipped your tongue into his mouth, exploring it carefully and moving your tongue in sync with his. His hand grabbed a fistful of your shirt and he moved you back over to the couch, letting you drop into his lap when the couch hit the back of his legs and he sat down.

You straddled him, your left arm wrapping around him to hold onto the backrest to keep you from falling into him, while your right hand ran through the hair at the back of his head, pulling on it softly, when one of his hands moved up the outside of your thigh to your hip.

He pulled away from you for a second, trying to catch his breath, his mouth hanging open a little while he searched your eyes for any sign of regret. When he couldn’t find any but instead realised that your mouth had split into a bright smile, he chuckled cheerfully and kissed you again hungrily.

With the kisses getting more and more heated, you started grinding into him, the aching need for feeling him closer growing in the pit of your stomach. When you rolled your hips a little extra hard, he groaned deeply and the grip of his hand on your hip grew stronger, a pleasant pain running up your spine and making you throw your head back.

His lips went to your neck, peppering hot, open-mouthed kisses on the soft skin and then he started sucking on the pulse point underneath your ear, biting and licking and driving you into overdrive. The fingers buried in his hair pulled on his locks and his growing bulge started to rub up against you just the right way when he bucked his hips in response.

“We… should probably…”, he started in between kisses and you nodded mindlessly, trying to get as much friction from grinding down into him harder.

“Fuck, [y/n], ok, wait…” He stopped you from moving your hips by wrapping his arm around you and pulling you impossibly close, and then made you look him in the eyes before going on: “I can’t do it like this… If I have you, I want all of you.”

You gulped at this, realising he wasn’t joking and felt your jaw go slack.

“We don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do, but I will not let this be how I have you for the first time.” His thumb caressed your cheek and he kissed you softly, his forehead falling to yours, probably fighting the urge to just have you right then and there.

“Then take me to your room, Bob,” you mumbled breathlessly when he pulled away again, nuzzling your face with his in a love-drunken state. You placed soft kisses all over his face, earning a little chuckle from him, when you moved down to his neck, his head falling back to give you more room to work with.

“[y/n], god, you drive me crazy,” he moaned and let his hands slip underneath your shirt, sending shivers down your spine from the tiny sparks his touch left on your skin. Letting out a ‘mh-hm’ in response, you ran your thumb over his bottom lip and kissed him again, your tongue slipping into his mouth easily.

His hands went down your back and held onto your ass when he picked you up in one smooth motion, your legs wrapping around his hips to gain more stability. Your arms snaked around his neck and a chuckle escaped your mouth when he stumbled over the couch on his way out of the living room, holding you in space with one arm while he steadied himself.

“How about we stop kissing until we’re actually in your bedroom,” you joked and he nodded, telling you ‘that’s a good idea’ before making his way over to his bedroom, his steps quick and assertive.

“Wait, we still have to turn off the music,” you realised when you were halfway down the hallway and Bob stopped dead in his tracks, sighing heavily. He looked back over his shoulder and you could see the cogs work behind his eyes, trying to decide what to do.

“Ok, you go turn off the music and I’ll get everything ready?”

Setting you down on the floor, he pecked your lips and then slapped your ass, making you jump a little and hurry back to the living room. You made quick work of turning off the music and grabbing your phone, eager to get back to Bob and what you were doing, running back down the hallway to where his bedroom was. Sliding in through the door, you stopped when you saw that Bob was on the phone with someone, holding up a finger to you just as you wanted to ask what was wrong.

“Oh, no, y’all can stay out longer. No… No. [y/n] wasn’t feeling too hot, so I took her home.” He looked at the floor for a second, scratching his head while trying to understand Yelena over the thumping music on the other side of the line. “I think she’s sleeping already. No… I don’t think she’ll mind! Go have fun, you guys,” he added and then ended the call after telling Yelena goodbye.

“Is everything ok,” you enquired, walking up to him and putting your phone on his desk, the screen lighting up and showing you had a couple of missed calls from Yelena and Ava. He matched you and put his phone down next to yours, before turning back to you and searching your face for a second.

“Yeah, they were just worried where we went and because they couldn’t reach us earlier.”

He wrapped his arms around you, pulling you closer and brushing the hair from the slope of your neck, adding a ‘so, where were we’ before running his fingers over the soft skin under your chin.

“Are they coming back already?” You asked, your head falling back when Bob started to kiss your neck.

“No, there’s this party at another bar they wanna check out.” He bit your neck playfully and then nuzzled the side of your face, telling you that the two of you should be in the clear for the next few hours. He picked you up again and walked over to his bed, dropping you in the middle of the mattress before climbing onto the mattress and kneeling down between your legs.

“Next few hours? What do you have planned,” you asked cheekily, your hands working on taking off his shirt.

“I’m gonna take my time with you, love,” he replied, helping you to get him out of his shirt and kissing you passionately.

Your fingertips ran over his abs and up into his hair again and you pulled him down with you, moaning when his hips settled between yours like puzzle pieces fitting together perfectly.

“God, you sound so good when you moan,” he whined desperately, his hand caressing your cheek and then running through your hair. “You sound so much better than I could ever imagine.”

“You imagined how I’d sound?” Your voice was barely a whisper, too much anticipation and desire clouding your brain already. The building tension in your core was painful at this point and you could feel your arousal gathering between your legs.

“More often than I’d like to admit, yes.” His kisses were growing hungrier with every passing second, his hands running down your sides, pulling at the fabric of your shirt and digging into the bare skin of your legs. He wanted to feel your skin and memorise every inch of it, having wanted to touch you for months now.

“What did you picture,” you asked, flipping you over and straddling his hips again, pulling your shirt over your head and grinding your hips into his rhythmically. His eyes were wandering over your torso, his teeth sinking into his bottom lip before he sat up and wrapped his arms around you to work on undoing your bra. When he’d opened the clasp in the back, he slipped the straps down your shoulders, kissing the freckles that dusted your skin there.

“The way you’d sound… How you’d taste…” He pulled your face closer, his fingers on your chin, and placed his lips on yours again, this time slow and deep. His other hand came up to your right breast and cupped it, running his thumb over your nipple hardening from the relative cold in the room. “How you’d look taking me. The way your face breaks when I make you cum…”

He bucked his hips, his clothed erection pushing up into your clit and you gasped, running your fingernails over his abs, your head falling forwards to rest on his shoulder. You moved your hips with his, the layered fabric of your shorts and panties rubbing up against your core with every thrust of his hips. It had been a while since you last were intimate with someone, so you could already feel the knot in your lower stomach begin to tighten, your breath hitching when Bob’s tongue licked over your sensitive nipple before taking your breast into his mouth.

Your hand travelled further south and you lifted your hips, dipping your fingers into the waistband of his joggers, realising he wasn’t wearing any boxers underneath when you made contact with his hot skin. Trying to meet his eyes, you lifted your eyebrows in surprise and he shrugged, letting go of your breast with a popping sound.

“Hey, a guy can hope, right,” he tried to defend himself and smirked at you, when you pushed him down onto the mattress, while your other hand slipped into his joggers fully and wrapped around his hard length. He was bigger than you’d imagined, thicker too, and at the thought of having him inside of you, your pussy started to ache deliciously and eager.

You pumped your hand up his length slowly and his eyes rolled up into his head, his jaw hanging open slightly, a string of curses and whines leaving his mouth. Seeing him enjoy your touch this much, sent you into overdrive, and you moved off his legs, pulling down his joggers with you, before throwing them to the other corner of his room. His erection sprang free and you took in the sight before you, Bob leaning on his elbows, completely naked and looking sexier than you ever dreamt up.

Running your hands through your hair, you felt your cheeks heat up and hid your face in your hands, chuckling to yourself for a second.

“What? [y/n], what’s wrong? Did I do something wrong,” he asked, worry evident in his voice while he moved to sit up a little, his hands on your shoulders.

“No, you didn’t do anything wrong,” you started and took a deep breath, letting your hands fall from your face and meeting his eyes. “It’s just been a while and I… Well, I didn’t think I’d ever end up in this situation,” you added, your eyes darting over the smile lines appearing around his eyes and the dimple in his right cheek. “I think, it just hit me that this is happening, you know?”

He nodded, understanding you perfectly well, his thumb caressing your cheek before he kissed you. His arms wrapped around your shoulders and he laid you down gently, settling between your legs. You deepened the kiss, running your left hand through his dark locks while your right hand travelled down his back and settled on his hips. You wrapped one of your legs around his hip and smiled into the kiss, enjoying the feeling of his skin on your own.

“Like I said, we don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do. And we can take our time, there’s no rush. Not tonight,” he murmured against your lips, his forehead resting on yours between soft kisses.

“I want you, Bob,” you whispered, searching his eyes, the blue of them having darkened by lust. “I want all of you.”

His face split into a bright grin and he let his head fall to the crook of your neck, hiding his own nervousness by peppering your skin with kisses again. His left hand moved down your side and to the leg wrapped around his hip as he angled his hip a little, his erection brushing up against your core again. You moaned softly and tried to meet him better, your leg snaking around him more tightly.

“If we’re really gonna do this, then we’re gonna do this right,” Bob said, his voice darker than before and sending shivers down your spine.

He pulled away from you, his fingertips moving to the waistband of your shorts and he pulled them down your legs, your panties coming off with them. Bob tossed them over to where his joggers had landed and spread your legs slowly, taking you in and biting on his bottom lip, his eyes sparkling in the dim light from his bedside lamp. He let his fingers dance over the inside of your legs, drawing loose shapes on your skin from your ankles up to your hips and then grabbed one of his pillows from above your head. You lifted your hips and he put the pillow under your ass, settling between your legs and looking at you intently from under his lashes.

“You sure you wanna do this? You can say no or stop me at any time,” he assured you and you nodded, biting down on the knuckle of your index finger in anticipation, butterflies making somersaults in your tummy. He lowered his head and blew on you, earning himself a low whimper from you, the air feeling cold against your wet pussy. He ran a finger up between your folds and chuckled, sending vibrations through your core from how close his mouth was to your center.

“God, you’re already so wet and I haven’t even done anything.”

His finger slipped into your vagina with ease and the squelching sound that was heard by him pulling it out again, made the blush on your cheeks deepen. He pushed his finger back in and then curled it, making you moan his name loudly as he brushed your g-spot. He repeated this a couple of times while his tongue ran along the outside of your folds, slowly making its way inwards. When he finally ran the tip of his tongue up your folds and flicked your clit, your hips bucked, another moan falling from your lips, having him hum in response.

“You taste so good, babe.” He lapped at you and then slowed down again, the tip of his tongue circling your clit and then flicking it with a masterful tab, sending sparks up your spine and making your toes curl. Your fingers buried into his locks again and you pulled on them, pulling him closer in an attempt to get even more friction.

“Mhm, do you like that,” he asked, meeting your gaze and smirking cheekily.

“Yeah, feels good, Bob,” you moaned, your head falling back down and your eyes rolling back when he removed his finger from your hole and circled your pussy with the tip of his tongue. Then, he added another finger up, running them through your folds and back down towards your vagina before thrusting them in, this time a little more forcefully.

You yelped in surprise and pulled on his hair, your legs going a little numb. He waited to move his fingers for a second, looking down at how his fingers had disappeared in you completely and then pulled them back out a bit, curling the same way he did before, brushing over your g-spot again. When he’d found a good rhythm that had you breathing heavily, the knot tightening in your stomach, he put his mouth on you again and pushed you over the edge, your toes curling while your legs tensed around his head. One of your hands left his head to move to the bedsheets, gripping it hard as pleasure rushed over your body like a tidal wave.

“Fuck, Bob, you feel so good.”

You were writhing under him, Bob relentlessly licking up your juices while you clawed at his shoulders and rode the highs of the orgasm coursing through your body. The wet noises of his fingers pumping in and out of you filled your ears and you felt another wave of the orgasm rain down on you when his teeth scraped over your sensitive nub before flicking it again with his tongue. You could feel your walls clamp down around his fingers and then heard him chuckle deeply, before his arm pushed down on your hips, keeping you in place.

He kept at it, fingering you and eating you out, only coming up from between your legs when you started to come down from the high, your breath still rushed and shallow. You ran your hand through your hair, and looked at him, moving up your body, his lips glistening from your arousal and his spit mixed together. He put his fingers into his mouth and sucked your juices off of them, closing his eyes in ecstasy and the corners of his mouth pulling up in a smile, after he pulled his fingers out again.

“God, that was so hot,” he breathed, putting his lips to yours and kissing you hungrily. You nodded, deepening the kiss by slipping your tongue into his mouth and tasting yourself on his tongue. Your hand ran down his torso and wrapped around his length again, your thumb wiping over his tip and feeling the sticky precum leaking out of him. With your brain still hazy from your recent orgasm, you pushed him down onto the mattress and started peppering kisses on his neck, moving down to his clavicle and his chest, the nails of your free hands scratching over his chest, while the other one pumped his length slowly.

When you were on the same level with his dick, you looked up at him and opened your mouth, taking him in as far as you could, your hand still wrapped around the part of him that didn’t fit into your mouth anymore. You started bobbing your head up and down his length and his fingers ran through your hair, his hand cupping the back of your head and aiding you in keeping an enjoyable rhythm, while whines and moans fell from his lips.

“Oh, fuck. You’re better than I ever imagined,” he whined, his hips bucking and his dick hit the back of your throat.

Your eyes travelled back up his figure and you opened your mouth a little further, trying to take more of him. Tears were brimming at the corners of your eyes and your own arousal started running down the inside of your leg, so you moved your free hand to your clit, rubbing yourself while sucking him off.

After a couple more bobs of your head, Bob groaned loudly, his hips tensing and his grip on your hair getting harder. His cum spilled onto your tongue and you swallowed it, humming in enjoyment, while continuing the motion of your hand pumping up and down his length. Feeling another orgasm approaching from your own fingers between your legs, you moaned, some residual cum of his running out the corner of your mouth and dripping on his length.

Biting down on your lips, you looked up at him, his mouth hanging open at the sight of you pleasuring yourself. He motioned for you to come closer, pushing your hand away from between your legs to take over while pulling you into his lap again. You rested your head against his shoulder, while his fingers were drawing circles around your clit, pushing you ever closer to the edge. You could feel that you were getting overstimulated already and whined, wanting to get the release you so desperately needed. Pulling his lips to yours and kissing him hungrily, you moved your hips a little to meet his touch, his fingers slipping into you once more while the pad of thumb brushed up against your clitoris.

“Bob, don’t stop. Please, I’m so close,” you whined, your face falling at the pressure building in your core.

“Come on, baby. Come for me,” he whispered into your ear and nibbled on your earlobe, thrusting his fingers into you deeper and curling them on their way out.

Feeling his tongue lick over your pulse point was enough to make you fall over the edge again, his fingers brushing your g-spot again and again, sparks flying between your bodies. Your nails dug into his back and you rode his fingers, moaning his name at the top of your lungs.

“God, I love it when you moan my name like that.”

He put you back down on the mattress, knowing you’d need the support of the bed beneath you, your legs having turned to jelly and shaking from all of the stimulation. Your chest was rising and falling quickly while you tried to catch your breath, absolutely exhausted from two big orgasms so close together.

“Do you need a little break,” he asked, laying down next to you and running his fingers up and down your sides. You turned your head toward his and the look on his face was so soft, caring and full of love, making your heart ache at being the object of his adoration. You nodded, still unable to form words, the last after waves of your orgasm having your ears ringing and your fingertips feeling numb.

Bob pulled you a little closer, wiping the beads of sweat from your forehead, and placed soft kisses all over your face, telling you how beautiful you were. How lucky he was to be here with you at that moment. How he never thought this would actually happen.

“You know, I thought you didn’t like me,” you told him, your voice still barely a whisper, your fingers starting to draw circles on his chest while his fingertips did the same on your shoulder blade. “That you didn’t want to spend time with me when the others were gone because you secretly hated me.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever liked anyone as much as I like you,” he said softly, his hand cupping your face and making you look at him, before going on: “I’m sorry that I made you feel like I hated you, but it is clearly the very opposite.”

He kissed you then, softly and with all the love he felt for you. Your lips melted against his and a warmth spread in your chest, creeping up the back of your neck and rolling over your legs and into your tiptoes. This kiss was different, it wasn’t hungry or desperate but still intense in its own way. Even after everything the two of you just did, you felt closer to Bob now, his arms wrapping around you tighter and flipping you on your back again, your legs intertwined lazily and his broad chest like a shield keeping you safe.

You stayed like that for a little while then, making out and exploring each other’s body slowly, your touch soft and meaningful, as if you wanted to memorise every inch of the other’s figure. You couldn’t say how long you were just lying there, enjoying each other’s presence and forgetting everything around you. It could’ve been five minutes or it could’ve been an hour but it didn’t matter to you because you were right where you wanted to be. Wrapped in his arms, having his lips on yours and feeling his delicate touch on your body.

His lips ran over your shoulders, dusting the freckles with love, while your lips grazed his collarbone, your fingers gripping his ass cheeks and earning you a high pitched giggle from him.

“Are you ticklish,” you enquired, a cheeky smirk on your lips and he shook his head vigorously, trying to push your hands off of him.

“No, of course I’m not ticklish. What makes you think that?” He rolled his eyes and tried to put a little distance between you two, his hands swatting at you trying to poke his sides.

“I don’t know. That very manly giggle that just slipped past your lips, maybe,” you teased and his jaw dropped, so threw yourself at him playfully, making him lose his balance and taking you down with him.

“I don’t know what you're talking about. What giggle?” He grinned up at you and cupped your cheek, pulling you down to him and kissing you again passionately.

With your leg thrown over his hip, you could feel him getting hard again and you moved your hips, straddling him once more. You purred softly at his length pressing up against your folds and instinctively grinded down on him, coating the underside of his dick in your arousal. Bob’s hand gripped your hip and he stopped you from moving for a second.

“Wait, I’ve got condoms in the drawer over there,” he murmured, motioning to his bedside table, and his voice broke when you rolled your hips into his again.

“I’m on the pill, so,” you started, kissing him quickly and then added: “I’m good either way.”

He looked at you and for a second, his brows knitted together in a frown. He let his thumb run over your bottom lip and you stopped moving, lifting your hips a little before leaning over to his bedside table.

“I just wanna make sure nothing unexpected happens, you know,” he started to explain and you looked over your shoulder, opening the drawer slowly.

“Bob, hey. It’s ok, really!” Your hand looked for the packet of condoms and took one out when you found it, before turning back to him. “I’m glad you wanna be safe, love.” You cupped his cheek and smiled at him, placing a quick kiss on his lips.

You opened the shiny packaging and took out the condom, turning it over in your fingers to have it the right way around. Pinching the tip of it, you looked at Bob and asked him if he was ready. When he nodded, inching closer to you, you grabbed his length and put the condom on, pushing the rubbery material down his length easily. His hand came up to caress your cheek and he kissed you softly, his fingers burying in the hair at the back of your head while you climbed onto him, straddling his hips again.

With your hand still wrapped around his length, you guided his dick along your folds and then lowered onto it, moaning at the burning sensation of his thickness stretching you slowly. Bob’s jaw dropped and he groaned at slipping into you, his teeth digging into your bottom lip. You stayed there for a second, trying to adjust to the feeling of him filling you up so well and held onto his shoulders before you lifted your hips again slowly. The delicious pain of his size slipping in and out of you made your brain go foggy and you sank down onto him with more ease this time. Picking up the pace, you threw your head back and rode Bob’s dick, his right hand on your breast, kneading the tissue while his tongue worked on the nipple of your other breast. His left hand was on your hip, guiding you as you took him.

“Mhm, you fill me up so well, Bob,” you mused and bounced on him, the pain having turned to pleasure a few thrusts ago. His mouth let go of your breast and he pulled your face down, kissing you hungrily and he bucked his hips into yours and slipping in deeper with the next thrust, bottoming out. You moaned into his mouth loudly and let a giggle fall over your lips as you noticed the familiar feeling of your orgasm nearing.

He stopped moving for a second and turned you around, so you were beneath him and then he grabbed your right leg and moved it from around his hips to have it over his shoulder instead, changing the angle at which he thrusted into you.

Bob groaned against your mouth as he bottomed out again, his balls slapping against your ass with the next thrust and you let out a moan of his name, your nails digging into his back.

“Ugh, you’re so tight, babe. Feel so good,” he slurred and went to town on you, thrusting in and pulling back out, his bed groaning under his movements.

“You gotta tell me if I’m too rough,” he whispered into your ear, enveloping you with his form and leaning on his elbow while his other hand held onto your leg.

“No, it’s good. So good, Bob,” you assured, relishing in the feeling of him filling you up to the brim and stretching you with every thrust. You knew that you were close again, the knot twisting and tightening and you reached between your bodies, your fingers working on your clit while his dick slipped in and out of you at an exquisite pace.

He looked down at where your bodies met and whined, his forehead falling to yours. The sound of skin hitting skin filled the room and you were glad that the rest of the team was still out, fearing just how much they would’ve been able to hear of what you two were doing.

“[y/n], fuck, you feel so good. I don’t know how much longer I can…” The movement of his hips got a little sloppy and you kissed him again, steadying him with a hand on his ass while you tried to meet his thrusts with your hip.

“It’s ok, babe. Come, Bob. I’m right behind you,” you purred into his ear and his hips stuttered, a low groan falling from his lips. You moved your hips, helping him ride out his orgasm and kissed his closed lids, when he suddenly thrusted into you harder again, pushing you closer and over the edge.

You fell with him, your third orgasm of the night sending lighting through your whole body. You clung to his body, biting into his shoulder and scratching your nails over his back, earning a wince from him at the pain that seemed to send him into a flurry. Your walls clenched around him as your orgasm progressed and he put his lips on your neck, riding out your shared orgasm, his breathing quick and shallow.

When he came down from his high, he sighed, an exhausted but gratified look on his face, and laid down next to you. You curled up to him, throwing your arm over his chest and putting your head on his chest, listening to the rapid beating of his heart and his quick breath.

“Did I hurt you?” The question came suddenly and you looked at him, confused at where the concern was coming from.

“Why are you asking?”

“This was my first time since the medical trial,” he started and turned onto his side, wrapping his arm around your hip.

“No, you didn’t hurt me, Bob. Quite the opposite, actually.” You caressed his cheek and kissed him softly, before adding: “I enjoyed it very much, if you couldn’t tell.”

A proud smile pushed up the corners of his mouth and he shook his head, chuckling lightheaded.

“God, you’re an incredible woman, [y/n].”

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fckwritersblock · 2 months ago

Text

I Never Told You (part 1 )

Elias ‘Stack’ Moore x black reader

Description: ( unedited af ) You and Stack have been in love for what feels like forever, but neither of you has had the courage to speak up. Stack is convinced that your heart belongs to Smoke, and as for Smoke? He’s exhausted from trying to show you both that the love you seek is right in front of you.

Word count.: 3,852

A/n: this was originally one part, but I thought it’s a break it up into two because when I tell you, it’s getting a longer and longer 😭 I don’t wanna rush the way I want it to end but the way I’m craving these Sinners fic and I know some of y’all are too. I thought it would be nice to drop it now. Couldn’t contain my own excitement 😂

Part 2 - What I Should’ve Said

Enjoy ! 🩷

As soon as you stepped off the train, a smile broke across your face. The familiar sights and sounds of home wrapped around you like a warm embrace. You were excited to finally be back, but a flutter of nerves danced in your stomach at the thought of seeing your sister for the first time in ages. Yes, you guys had written to each other, and she had tore your ass a new one in a few of them letters back home bout to running off with the twins without a word. Nevertheless, you knew regardless of how upset she may be with you, she’d always welcome you home with open arms. You missed your sister. You also missed the twins, who you were eager to reunite with. It had been almost a year since you’d all been together, and just thinkin' about Stack made your pulse quicken.

Steppin' aside so other boarding the train would have access to the front door, you made your way toward the center of the station, your eyes scanning the crowd. You were sure Stack knew you was comin' at this time, so you had a feelin' he’d be lurkin' around here somewhere. Just then, you heard it—a voice that sent a thrill of nostalgia through you. You turned around, curiosity piqued, and there he was, front and center.

But your heart sank a little when you noticed the woman standin’ in front of him. Fair-skinned and confident, she had that undeniable charm—Mary. Of course she would find him, you thought bitterly.

You watched as Stack’s gaze followed her, a solemn look crossing his face as she walked away. You should’ve known he’d seek her out the moment he arrived. You’d bet money he could find her in a crowed room, without fail.

You loathed Mary.

It wasn’t a secret. You couldn’t stand her presence and that gnawed at you deep down. It wasn’t just jealousy; it was that gut-wrenching belief that Stack cared for her more than he did for you. He looked out for her in a way that was different from how he looked out for you. The attention he gave her was the kind you had secretly longed for, and judging by the way he stood there, it seemed nothin' had changed.

Oh, how wrong you were.

“Old habits die hard, huh, Stack?” you snarked from behind him, the playful edge in your voice barely masking the hurt you felt.

“Damn,” he muttered under his breath, closing his eyes in resignation. He knew he was caught.

He didn’t even have to turn around to know it was you. Stack could tell by the sound of your voice that you was pissed, especially with the faux sugary sweet smile you wore when he finally faced you. That, and when you were at him, it was the only time you called him Stack and not Elias.

Turning around to face you he could barely contain the smile that wanted to break out.

It had been a year since the two of you had seen each other, but for him, it felt like a lifetime. For six years, y’all had traveled the world together. You had taken care of him and Smoke, watchin' their backs, makin' sure he stayed outta trouble. You had put up with his antics for so long, and he’d never understood why you stuck by his side. That was until you decided it was time to carve out your own path, to prove you could stand on your own.

So you left them. You left him. You promised to return within a year or come runnin' if he called.

But Stack didn’t call.

He figured you didn’t want him to. Not really. A part of him was upset with you for abandoning him. He knew Smoke had written to you a few times, and he tried not to let the green-eyed monster show. Smoke would tell him when he received a letter, sometimes even havin' one for him too. Stack never wrote back, but he always read the ones you sent for him. Several times in fact. He wanted to know how you were, what you had been up to, even if he fronted like he didn’t care. You were miles away and all he wanted was you near..

And now you were back, standing right in front of him, looking as breathtaking as ever. The sun-kissed brown skin of yours practically glowed in the light. The apples of your cheeks rounded as you smiled, dimples showing, and the curves of your hips called out to him as he admired your frame in the flowy yellow dress you wore. It reminded him of your favorite flower, magnolias, and coincidentally, yellow was his favorite color on you too.

You were home for him, and you didn’t even know it.

“It wasn’t even like that, Bam,” he said, tryin' to brush off the tension and butter you up with the nickname he gave you.

“It never is, is it, Stack?” you shot back, crossin' your arms, though a smile tugged at your lips.

“Come on now, after all this time, that’s the mood you wanna get off on?” He hand taken a few steps toward you and grabbed your hand.

“A brotha can’t get no love first?” He flashed you a smile he knew you couldn’t resist.

Despite yourself, your smile grew bigger as you felt the warmth of his presence pulling you in. You wrapped your arms around his neck, sinking into the comfort of his embrace.

“I missed you,” you confessed, your voice barely above a whisper as you melted against him.

“I’m glad you’re here,” he replied, his words a gentle way of sayin', 'I missed you too.'

“Who’s this?” you asked, eyeing the guitar-totin' boy standin' next to them after you two finally pulled apart.

“The boy,” Stack replied, nodding in his direction.

“The boy—Little Sammie, is that you?!” you exclaimed, shocked.

“Miss Y/n?” he said, his eyes wide with disbelief.

You laughed, pulling him into a warm hug. God, he was all grown up. You used to help his ma look after him and his siblings sometimes, and you even sang in his daddy’s church for a while. That was until you started hangin' out with Smoke and Stack more and stopped goin' to church. You didn’t want to hear no sermons about how the devil had his hands on you and how you needed to come back to the Lord.

It was a bittersweet feeling, thinking about how much you missed them and how much Sammie had grown. You could see he still had to get his head on straight, but it warmed your heart that he was still playing the guitar Stack had given him.

“Well then, there will be plenty of time to catch up later. You boys finish up here. I’ll be in the car,” you announced a beat after pullin' away. You knew they was up to no good.

“Little Sammie, help Stack with my bags, will ya?” You pinched one of his cheeks playfully before giving the other a quick kiss, treating him like the youngin' he still was in your eyes.

“Oh and drop the ‘Miss’.” He stared after you, bewildered, as you walked past Stack, givin' him a wink while you patted his chest slowly, draggin' your hand away.

“That’s really Y/n,” Sammie said, still in disbelief, causing Stack to chuckle.

He hadn’t seen you since he was a boy, and he couldn’t believe how different you were now. You were just a teen girl girl in his eyes back then, but now you were a grown woman—an extremely attractive one, at that.

“She’s—”

“Way too much woman for you to handle, lil nigga,” Stack stated matter-of-factly, a smirk playin' on his lips.

Not too much for me, though, he thought to himself, wordlessly pickin' up both suitcases and handing his little cousin one. You would probably fit real pretty in the front seat of his ride right about now, knowin' you and those pretty pick pocketing hands of yours had already snatched the keys from his coat pocket.

“Well, are you?” Sammie quizzed.

“Am I what?” Stack frowned slightly.

“Handling it?” The corner of Preacher Boy’s mouth twitched just a little, and Stack knew the younger man could tell you were vexed with him, and he wasn’t handling shit.

“Bring yo ass on, smart ass.”

As a result of those endless hours of travel, you were exhausted. You hadn’t gotten much sleep on the train, not wantin' to doze off around strange white folks. Your father had raised you and your sister to always be aware of your surroundings. After hearin' Delta’s wild stories about the men he knew from the side of the road, you needed a moment to decompress. So, you let the sounds of Sammie’s guitar and the rhythm of the car rockin' gently lull you into a well-deserved rest.

You weren’t sure how long you had been asleep, but soon you felt somethin' soft brush against the side of your face.

“Bam,” you heard softly as you began to stir.

“Bam.” This time you felt a poke to your cheek.

With a soft groan, you opened your eyes to see Stack standin' outside of the car, looking at you with that soft smile that always made your heart race.

“There’s my girl.” He smiled down at you.

“What you want, Elias?” You tried not to blush at his words.

“We made it. Come on.” He extended his hand for you to take.

You took it, pullin' yourself up to stand. Prepared to jump over, he surprised you by lifting you up in the air out of the back of the car.

You squealed, caught off guard as he held you slightly above him. You looked down at him for a minute, and he slowly set you back down, your body sliding against his.

“Thank you,” you said bashfully, pretendin' to fix your hair in the mirror.

He stood directly behind you, just close enough for you to catch a glimpse of his smirk in the car mirror.

“Anytime.”

“I—” you began, but were cut off by another car pullin' ahead. Once you noticed it was the truck Stack had said Smoke was in, you started walking quickly toward it. Stack told you the two of them had to split the work and that Smoke had a few stops and you knew it wouldn’t be anywhere else, but to see Annie. It was one thing for Smoke to be gone; of course then, he and Annie couldn’t be together. But while he was home, he wouldnt go anywhere without her.

“Annie!” You called as soon as your older sister came into view.

“Y/n?” Annie couldn’t believe her eyes as you ran toward her the biggest smile on your face.

“Surprise.” You spoke tearfully, as you slowed down taking the last few steps before crashing' into your big sister. You embraced her tightly, the two of you holding onto one another as if the other would disappear if you let go.

“Look at you.” She ran her hand up and around your face, cuppin' it affectionately.

“Look at you.” You repeated, mesmerized by your sister’s loving eyes.

Eyes that always looked at you with understanding, compassion, love, and support. Annie didn’t always agree with the choices you made, but she always supported you in choosin' your own destiny.

“Don’t you ever leave me like that again,” she fussed, swattin' lightly at your butt.

“Stop, girl, I’m grown,” you laughed, spinning around in a circle to dodge her playful swats.

“Girl, I don’t give a damn.” Annie fixed you with a stern look. “You’re still my baby sister. You don’t just run off and leave me without notice like that. You scared me half to death.”

“I’m sorry, Annie. It’s not that I wanted to; I just—” you paused, searchin' for the right words.

After a moment, you realized you didn’t need to say much. Annie would understand.

“Mine doesn’t have a mojo bag; he just has me,” you said, your voice wavering, knowin' she would know you was referring to the more reckless twin.

She smiled and nodded in understanding. You stood there for a little while longer, embracing each other, tryin' to wipe the tears from each other’s eyes, gigglin' like school girls as you did so.

“We’ll take more later ya hear?”

“Yes ma’am.”

Pullin' away, you angled your body a little more to the left to finally get a good look at Smoke.

“My girl!” he said with a small smile of his own, and you couldn’t help but laugh.

“Hey Smoke.” The two of you wrapped your arms around one another.

You missed the way Stack’s jaw clenched as you embraced Smoke. The latter didn’t as he grinned at his twin. It was an asshole thing to do, but he couldn’t help it. He had been watching the two of you pine after one another for years. If Smoke had a dime for every time he tried to convince his brother that you felt the same way about him that he felt about you—or to get Stack to confess his feelings for you—boy, he’d be rich.

It was your last night in town, and the three of you went out. You were currently dancin' with some random nigga from round the way. Stack watched you like a hawk, grillin' the hell outta the man who had your attention. Smoke couldn’t do anything but laugh at his brother’s expense.

“Nigga you got it bad,” he said with a chuckle.

“Shut up, bitch. You got it just as bad for her sister,” Stack shot back.

“Sho’ll fuck do. Don’t give a fuck who knows either.” Smoke shrugged blowing a cloud in Stack’s direction.

“Yeah, whatever.” Stack muttered, takin' a sip of his beer.

“Mmhmm, whatever shit, nigga. Could be you out there dancin' with her, tryna cop a feel. Instead, you’re here,” Smoke teased.

“It ain’t like that with us, Smoke.” He denied.

For the life of him, Smoke couldn’t understand why Stack was in denial about you. It was like he was purposely standing in his own way, unwilling to accept a good thing.

“Have I ever been wrong about a woman tryna throw her pussy at you?”

“Nah,” Stack grumbled, his defenses slowly crumbling.

“Aight then, nigga. Listen for once.” Smoke said, playfully mushing the side of Stack’s head as he stood up to head to the bar.

“Aye, watch out.”

“Girl follows you around the world, and you still questionin' shit,” Smoke called over his shoulder.

He could only shake his head at the memory. Smoke swore dealin' with y’all shit was gonna put him in an early grave.

Once the two of you released one another from the hug, you walked back toward your sibling, and Smoke did the same.

“You good, man?” Smoke asked, knowing full well he wasn’t. He just wanted to see if he was ready to be honest with himself.

“Yeah, uh, I’m good.” Stack cleared his throat before repeatin', “I’m good.”

“Good.” He patted his brother on the back. “Now let’s get to work.”

Now, you knew you was comin' to work, but you ain't expectin' to be put through the wringer! As much as y’all got on each other’s last nerves during the setup, it was all part of the charm. Smoke being the bossy one, always puffin’ up his chest like everybody ain’t already know he ran the place; Cornbread, with his big ass, ain’t stop complainin' 'bout how heavy them boxes was; Delta always droppin' “back in my day” stories like they was gospel every five minutes. And Stack? He was slick, finessin' Preacher Boy into doin' part of his work in the name of “respectin' your elders.”

Not to mention you, Grace, and Annie, makin' one little complaint 'bout the heat, which led to Bo shakin’ up a bottle of beer and lettin' it spray all over y’all like a makeshift sprinkler system to “cool y’all off.” But this? This was the stuff you cherished. These were the moments you missed. After hours of busting your backs, the grand opening was here, and the party was in full swing.

You found yourself wrapped up in Stack’s arms, your back pressed against his solid front. The sweet sound of southern blues wrapped around you like a warm embrace. Ain’t nothing like live music from home, and tonight, the air was thick with rhythm. Effortlessly, your body flowed with the beat, swayin' in a circle until you found yourself once again meetin' Stack's chest. One of his arms hung loosely around your waist, his fingers barely grazing your skin, followin' the pace of your movements like it was second nature.

“So, this is new,” you teased, glancing back at him.

“What’s that?” Stack’s voice was low, his eyes glued to the way your hips moved, like he was tryin' to memorize every curve.

Stack thought you was downright gorgeous, and it drove him crazy. He wished he could tell you every single day how beautiful you were. Your body? It made his heart race. Big hips, thick thighs, and those legs that seemed to go on for days. That dress you wore? It gave him a perfect view of your curves, and he found himself lost in thoughts he shouldn’t be havin’.

“You dancin' with me,” you said louder, breakin' him outta his daydream.

“I’ve danced with you before,” he replied, a hint of challenge in his tone.

You leaned your head back further, givin' him a smirk. “Not like this.”

Stack’s grip around your waist tightened, the two of you still swayin’ to the music. “What’s this?” His breath brushed against your ear, sending shivers down your spine that you tried your best to ignore.

“Like you tryna work your way into my drawls,” you shot back, playful but with a hint of seriousness.

“And if I am?” he shot back, spinning you around so you faced him, his gaze intense.

You were momentarily stunned, your eyes searchin’ his for any signs of this bein' a joke, you arms now loosely around his shoulders.

“Smoke told you.” you said, his words heavy like a weight on your chest, but it felt more like a statement than a question.

You knew Smoke couldn’t keep his mouth shut when it came to his brother. Stack had ditched you and Smoke for the night to run off with some floozy and you were hurting bad. Especially after the way he had been flirting with you day after day. After an attempt at drowning your feeling in a bottle of whiskey, you had confessed your undying love for Elias Moore to his other half after the world became a bit too blurry. The truth came spillin' out like vomit, then afterwards, literal vomit. You could curse the ground Smoke walked on for lettin' it slip.

Stack watched as the gears turned in your head, his eyes dropping to your bottom lip, which you had pulled between your teeth. He chuckled softly, still swayin' with you, but the tension was thick.

“Smoke been tryna tell me for years,” he confessed, his gaze dropping to the floor before meeting yours again.

He wasn’t sure if he was talkin' 'bout Smoke tryin' to get him to accept his own feelings or the ones you held for him.

It was the way you cared for him. In every way. You checked on his well being constantly. The effects of the war on smoke were clear. He had his issues and one of them Stack always took care of. Rolling his cigarettes, making certain shit easier for Smoke every chance he got. Stack was the suffer in silence type. No I didn’t know the trauma he had suffered. He preferred everybody think he was OK. But you saw right through him. You seem to be able to tell every time something took him back there the lifeline you’d reach out of your hand, holding his gentle caresses to the top of his hand, which is the tiniest of squeezes that will bring him back and remind him that he was here and safe and with you. Stack was the type to suffer in silence, keepin' his struggles close to his chest. But you? You saw right through him. You could tell when something haunted him, and each time, you’d reach out, holdin' his hand, givin' him that gentle squeeze to remind him he was safe with you.

You were everything to Stack.

The air between you two shifted, thickening with unspoken words and feelings.

“When did it click?” Your heart raced, the world around you fading away.

Y’all had stopped movin’, probably the only two still in the crowd of people dancing and signing having a time.

“The one you left.” Stack admitted, feeling a bit guilty for only realizing how deep his feelings and love for you really were.

Speechless you pulled away from him completely, mouth opening and closing as you stuttered trying to find the right words to say. Overwhelmed with emotion and not quite sure what to do with yourself you turned around to scurry away when he grabbed your hand and pulled you back to him.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on now. Why you runnin'?” He was holding you again, bobbing his head around trying to catch you eye as you avoided his.

“Elias, you drunk,” you said, your voice shaky.

“Baby, I ain’t had a sip of liquor,” he replied, his grip on your chin gentle, forcing you to look at him.

Big brown eyes searched yours, filled with a truth that made your heart swell with love.

“Y/n,” he started, but just then—

“Stack!” Smoke’s voice cut through the moment like a hot knife through butter.

You two pulled apart at the sound of his brother calling.

“Let me holla at you for a minute,” Smoke beckoned, clearly oblivious to the tension hangin' in the air.

You could see Stack was ready to protest, but you stopped him, gently cupping the side of his face in your hands. Stack might not have been running off liquid courage, but you had dug deep for some courage and found enough bravery to push through.

You pressed a soft kiss to the side of his cheek, and then another right next to the corner of his mouth, lettin' your lips linger just a moment longer.

“Go. We’ll talk later,” you assured him, pulling away with a grin as you turned to find a seat at the bar y’all had been swayin’ next to.

It wasn’t long before Stack's arms wrapped around you from behind.

“Count on it,” he whispered, kissing the side of your neck, sending warmth flooding through you.

You flushed at the feeling of his lips on your skin, that deep baritone voice igniting a fire you didn’t know you had.

You couldn’t wait until later. But unfortunately, later never came.

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