#tread cautiously in the comments

[freedfromthegalactichivemind]

Why, hello thar, I happened to write an entire fanfiction series a long time back that might just scratch your itch on this. A series of stories detailing the lives and work of a pair of clone-brothers who became undertakers and officiants for funerals for their kind.

It's been a headcanon of mine for a while that clones don't take the death of one of their own lightly. No one hour funeral, a few hours sitting around after talking and then back to life for them. They were treated as disposable for centuries. They won't do that again.

[navybrat817]

Hold You Tight: Part 10

Pairing: Club Owner!Bucky Barnes x Female Reader

Fic Summary: The owner of The 107th wants you to be his girl whether you like it or not.

Part 9 | Series Masterlist | Part 11

Chapter Summary: You're determined to have a good day today.

Chapter Word Count: Almost 4.4k

Chapter Warnings: DARK AU, tension, mild dirty talk, unease, possessiveness, inner turmoil, slight feels, Bucky Barnes (he's a warning, okay?), more warnings to come.

A/N: More Hold You Tight and thank you for your patience! Hope you lovelies continue to enjoy. Bucky edit by the beautiful @nixakimbo . ❤️ Beta read by the lovely @whisperlullaby , but any and all mistakes are my own. Divider by the talented @firefly-graphics . Please follow @navybrat817-sideblog new fics and notifications. Comments, reblogs, feedback are loved and appreciated!

The next day you cautiously looked around your bedroom as you opened your eyes. You expected to find Bucky in bed beside you since you wouldn’t have put it past him to sneak back into your place once you fell asleep. It was a relief to find yourself alone. It also surprised you that you slept so soundly, but the night before had mentally worn you out. Bucky and his crew were a lot to handle.

If you truly accepted that you were going to be Bucky’s girl, you’d have to get used to them.

“No,” you whispered. You weren’t going to accept it. Not today. Bucky may have taken a few hits at your inner armor, but you’d repair it. You couldn’t give in. But last night, thinking of asking him for your own space at his place, he was luring you in his direction. You had to tread carefully and not lose your resolve.

You got out of bed and went to retrieve the necklace that Bucky gifted you on your first “date”. The diamonds sparkled and reflected the light as you admired them. Beautiful, lavish, something you could easily lose if you weren’t careful. A gift for a pretty doll. Not for someone like you.

“Just buy me a collar and show the world that you own me,” you muttered.

Grabbing your phone, there were no new texts or calls from Bucky. You weren’t sure if that was a good or bad thing, but you’d take it as a small win that he hadn’t blown up your phone. Smiling to yourself, maybe you could have another small win today. An opportunity.

“Hey! I know it’s short notice, but are you free Saturday? Maybe we can do a small girls' day outside of the city if you aren’t busy with wedding prep.” You sent to Addison. “And I can’t wait to hear about The Terrace.”

It didn’t matter to you that Bucky had some sort of power in various parts of the city, more than you could possibly imagine. You were still your own woman and you wanted to spend time with your friends. After he had a hand in messing up your night with Addison, he owed you that. And the best part? If you went outside of the city, it meant you could have fun at a place he couldn’t touch.

Right?

“The Terrace was AMAZING! I can’t wait to tell you all about it. And are we sharing a brain? I was just getting ready to text you! How about The Winery at Hunter’s Cove? It’ll be fun!” Addison sent back.

You frowned at your phone. The Winery at Hunter’s Cove was beautiful and the perfect place to relax with a drink and good company. Reading that should’ve filled you with joy, but your shackles rose up. It didn’t feel right. Did Bucky or Nick or someone have anything to do with that?

After a second, you laughed. Your nerves were continuing to get the better of you. It wasn’t as if you could go the rest of your life with second guessing everything. It would drive you crazy.

“Just give me a time and place to meet and I’ll be there. Can’t wait!”

A bright smile on your face, you got ready for the day with a spring in your step. A spark of optimism lit within you and you let it spread as you set out your work clothes. You even sang to yourself in the shower and drew a smiley face in the fogged up mirror before you dressed yourself. It was going to be a great day.

“I’m walking on sunshine. Whoa-oh,” you sang as you opened the front door.

“And don’t it feel good,” you heard from the hallway.

“Shit!” Your heart pounded as Bucky stood there with an amused smile on his face. How long was he waiting there? Did he know you were leaving right now? “Bucky, what are you doing here?”

God forbid the man give you even half a day to breathe.

“I know I said I’d try to meet you for lunch, but I couldn’t wait. I thought it’d be nice to take you to work instead,” he said, his eyes still sparkling as he moved closer. An impeccable suit like always, but today he wore an aqua shirt. He was really leaning into the shirts that enhanced his eyes. “You’re in a chipper mood. That’s nice to see.”

You were in a bit of a chipper mood until now. No, you wouldn’t let him showing up put a damper on things. “Just determined to have a good day,” you explained, looking at his arm before you took it. “I’m actually glad you’re here,” you added. You did have to talk to him about Saturday and, well, whatever the future would bring.

“Yeah? I’m glad I’m here, too.” His eyes lit up as he glanced at you. He looked over the moon and you had to sweep your gaze down to avoid his stare. “Is it bad if I admit I stayed up way too late staring at your photo?” He smiled, leaning in like he was telling you a secret.

If you had to guess, he likely jerked off to your picture. How long would that keep him satisfied? His control had to be diminishing. “A picture of me is hardly a reason to lose any sleep.”

“Worth every second of lost sleep. I definitely need more pictures.” Your stomach dropped when his smile widened. “You know, the more I think about it, I kind of want to replace that painting in my office. Maybe it could be a photo of us or even just you? Or Steve could paint us! I know he’d love that.”

Guilt brewed within you since he sounded so enthusiastic and you would likely crush that mood, but you pushed that feeling aside. There was no reason for you to feel bad in the least. “So, I’m going out with my girlfriends on Saturday. Somewhere outside of the city,” you blurted out to change the subject, staring at the elevator door when the smile slipped off his face.

You were suddenly terrified of his reaction and you were about to step into a very small space with him. There would be no hiding. So much for treading carefully, but it was better in this case to just rip the bandaid off.

Bucky’s stare was almost impassive as you went into the elevator, which had your heart speeding up. “You’re going outside of the city?” His voice was soft, but had an edge that threatened to cut through you like a knife. “Without me?”

“It’s just a short girls trip. A bit of time with my friends. You understand, right?” Your voice cracked, your body tight with tension. “You and I didn’t have any plans, so maybe you can hang out with the guys.”

“I don’t want to hang out with them. I see them all the time,” he said, bringing his lips to your ear with a shaky breath. “I want to be with you.”

The air thickened, the elevator feeling smaller than usual as you considered his words. He didn’t sound upset that you wanted to go, but because you wanted to go without him. Sympathizing with his loneliness wouldn’t help your case, not when he manipulated things in his favor.

“I know this may not be easy, but you need to accept that I have friends, Bucky. That I had a life before you… showed up. It wasn’t much, but it was mine,” you said, not daring to turn your head and risk his lips touching yours. “It’s good for us to have things outside of each other. And may I remind you what you said on our first date? You said you wouldn’t stop me from spending time with my friends or having hobbies.”

Bucky almost seemed to need you and no one had ever needed you before. But he couldn’t completely depend on you for whatever it was he needed either. Relying on you too heavily wasn’t healthy. It wouldn’t just smother you, it would eventually destroy you both.

“I remember,” he said, his voice barely audible. “I just don’t know if it’s safe for you to be so far away from me for the time being. I think I’ve said I don’t even like you being in this building because my place is safer than yours. And if I haven’t, I’m telling you now.”

Worry crept into your face as you inched away a bit and faced him. “Why wouldn’t I be safe going out with my friends?”

His blue eyes narrowed, but there was no annoyance there. “Kotyonok, you may be innocent in some ways, but you aren’t naive or that forgetful. I told you last night that you need people looking out for you if you’re with me,” he said, your stomach sinking more. He was right. “And you must be aware that I have my hand in things outside of the club. You’ve seen some of the company I keep. Do you think everything we have was earned through honest, hard work?”

The men Bucky surrounded himself with lived in the gray. You couldn’t ignore obvious signs, like how Marc reacted to hearing his name. Bucky even treated your courting that way, breaking in and intimidating you. “It’s none of my business,” you said. The more you knew, the harder it would be to get away. “I haven’t even looked for anything about you online.”

“The harsh reality is that it’s going to become your business, at least it will to a certain extent. I can’t leave you in the dark, but I don’t want you fully exposed.” He sighed, suddenly looking tired. If you didn’t know any better, you’d say there was a hint of regret there. It disappeared quickly. “As far as looking online, you probably wouldn’t find much. We work hard to keep it that way. I don’t even have social media. Though if I did, it might just be photos of you and the two of us together.”

“So, you don’t want me to go out of the city for my safety?” You asked, stepping off the elevator. You wanted to believe that was his twisted reason for having you move in so soon and not because he wanted you close for his own selfish desires. Wasn’t it selfish though for dragging you into his world without so much as a warning or giving you a choice? “Do you really think people outside of your circle know we’re ‘together’ yet? You said it yourself, you don’t have social media and it isn’t like I’ve been in your life for that long.”

“As far as I know, no one is aware,” he said slowly. After what he did to John for merely insulting you, you prayed no one would be stupid enough to cross your path and try to cause you hurt or harm. “But I don’t know if I want to take the risk.”

“You wouldn’t be taking the risk. I would. And it isn't fair that you’d expect me to put my life on pause,” you argued, seeing Ray standing outside of the car. How the hell did they get a spot right in front of the building? “Ray, would you kindly tell your boss that I should go out with my friends on Saturday? Please?” You cut him a pleading look, needing this.

Ray blinked twice. “I’d rather not get involved in that quarrel,” he said, looking at his boss. “But perhaps if she really does want to go and you’re unable to accompany her, boss, someone could discreetly keep an eye on her.”

“Yes! That’s a great idea. Thank you, Ray,” you smiled before Bucky could interject. You wouldn’t normally agree to someone hovering nearby, but right now you could kiss Ray for the suggestion. “See? I get time with my friends and you don’t have to worry about my safety. Problem solved.” You even flashed him a soft smile for good measure.

You weren’t sure if it was your smile, the stare from his bodyguard, or the combination that made Bucky nod, but your heart soared. “I guess I’ll have to see if someone is free.” He let out a humorless laugh and raked a hand through his hair as Ray looked at his feet. “Using one of my men to sway me? You’re playing dirty. I’m impressed.”

“Or maybe I’m just learning how to play your game,” you said, ducking into the car with Bucky right behind you. The happy feeling was back in full force. Had Bucky not agreed, you would’ve been defiant and gone anyway. Who knew how that would’ve gone? This was a better compromise. For now.

“Ray really does have a soft spot for you,” Bucky said once the door was shut, taking your hand. “It would worry me if he wasn’t so loyal.”

“Worry about what exactly?” You asked.

“Him trying to get you away from me.” He smiled a bit, making you shift in your seat. Did he know you had tried to get Ray on your side? “But he isn’t a man to typically let his emotions drive him. He’s loyal.”

“He won’t try to get me away from you, Bucky. He knows you’re happier because I’m in your life and wouldn’t risk changing that,” you said, thinking back on your conversation with Ray. It wasn’t like you wanted to assure Bucky that you two would be together, but you also didn’t want his bodyguard on the man’s bad side indirectly because of you. Not when he watched out for you. “Maybe he isn’t a man driven by emotions, but I think he does care about your emotions.”

“Maybe,” he smiled softly as he kissed your hand, making you gasp when he gently nipped one of your knuckles. “There’s something else you want to say. I can feel it.”

You took a deep breath, steeling yourself. “If I move in with you, I need my own space.”

He looked surprised. Not entirely, but there was still a flicker there. “So, you’ve accepted that you’re moving in with me. I’m glad to hear that.”

“I said ‘if’, Bucky.” You had to emphasize that. “I’m not saying it’s going to happen, but you do need to give me some leeway if it does.”

His tone was calm, dare you say serene, when he asked, “And what exactly would your own space entail?”

“An area for me. Not for you, Ray, or anyone else. Just me,” you said. Nothing in your life felt sacred anymore. You needed your own sort of safe haven and a place to relax, even if it was in the prison he helped create. “That’s important to me and I won’t budge on that.”

“Okay. A space just for you if that’s what you want. I won't let anyone go in there,” he promised.

Your gaze was skeptical. Why was he being so agreeable? Well, agreeable to a point. “That would be really nice,” you said, your eyes shifting from suspicion to gratitude.

“But as far as sleeping arrangements, I want you in bed with me,” he said, his voice raspier as his gaze went to your legs. “It’s a shame you have to cover yourself up for work, but I’m looking forward to helping you out of your clothes. I wonder if the smell of those petals seeps through the fabric. I can’t wait to find out.”

“Bucky,” you whispered, his gaze telling you to part your thighs. You didn’t, even when he sighed.

“Sorry. I shouldn’t get us worked up and make you late for work,” he said, sounding anything but sorry before he reached for something beside him. At least he didn't push it further. “Before I forget.”

“What’s this?” You asked as he handed you a book.

“The one from the shop yesterday. You left it here last night.”

“Oh.” You were so eager to get out of the car that you had left it behind. There was also a small stack of books on the other seat you hadn’t noticed before. “And what are those?”

“I went back to the shop and got more from that same author,” he smiled, brushing his knuckles over your cheek. “You seemed to like the book you were reading and I don’t recall seeing any of those books at your place.”

The gesture took you by surprise. “How? The shop opens later and was closed by the time you brought me back last night.”

“They were kind enough to open a little earlier than usual for me,” he said.

You ran your hand over the spine and smiled before you could stop yourself. It was the kind of gift you wished for, books to line your shelf. “You didn't have to do that,” you said when you caught him staring. “But thank you.”

“You have such a beautiful smile,” he whispered, brushing his hand over your cheek again before he took out his phone. “And you just inspired me.”

“How did I do that?” You questioned, watching him quickly type a message. “And should I be scared?”

“I can’t spoil the surprise,” he winked, typing a bit more. “But I do have a plan and I think you’re going to like it.”

“We’ll see about that,” you said, your mind drifting to work. “I’m curious. You mentioned that the last flower your dad gave to your mom was a black dahlia. Was that her favorite flower?”

He paused before he put his phone away. “No. She loved alstroemerias.”

“The Peruvian Lily. Those are beautiful,” you smiled. His smile didn’t reach his eyes. “That’s one of the flowers I like to donate to the hospital because they have no fragrance, but still brighten up the room.”

“I know.” He swallowed, a shine in his eyes before he blinked a few times. “Yellow ones.”

Your eyes snapped to his face. “I donate a lot of flowers. It’s oddly specific that you know I donate yellow alstroemerias.”

“I told you I did my research on you,” he whispered.

“So, what? You got… hospital footage or something of me?” You felt your blood boil. How many boundaries did he cross, rules did he break? “I saw the look you gave Thor. You didn't want him to mention that, did you?”

His gloved hand curled a bit. “He was complimenting you, but I wasn't ready for that conversation. At least, not last night.”

“Why not?” You asked. Why did it matter?

“Because you already think I’m crazy,” he said. You didn’t deny that. “And what I tell you, you may either agree with me that fate brought you into my club and life or that I really am crazy.”

“I don’t know what that means,” you said. The grave look in his blue eyes gave you pause. The fond gazes and even the heated, intense ones, you were almost used to them. Sadness? That was something else.

“You’ll find out soon enough.” He nodded toward the window. “You should head into work.”

You didn’t realize the car stopped. Work would be a good distraction anyway. “I’ll get the books later.”

“And I’ll walk you to the door,” he offered.

Helping you out of the car like he did every other time, he guided you toward the flower shop with a possessive touch. “You know, you haven’t asked where I’m going on Saturday.”

“I’m sure I’ll get it out of you, especially if one of my men needs to be nearby. Maybe I can buy you a new outfit to wear,” he said, tracing a finger along your neck. “Or maybe a collar to show off while you tell your friends all about me.”

“A collar.” Your body went rigid, remembering what you muttered in your bedroom. “Why would you…”

“Maybe I’ll see you at lunch? I’d love to look around the shop.” He pressed a kiss to your forehead. “Have a good day and be good,” he added, opening the door and giving you a pat on your ass before you went inside.

You looked over your shoulder as he went back to the car. The first thing you were going to do when you got home was tear your place apart from hidden microphones or cameras. You should’ve done that the second he broke into your place. You live and you learn.

“And who is that handsome young man?” Mrs. Crandle asked from behind the counter.

You smiled as you turned toward your boss and the owner of the shop, one of the kindest people you had ever met. It was a good sign that she didn’t recognize Bucky. “Someone who thinks he’s my boyfriend,” you teased a little. You couldn’t burden her with the whole truth.

She raised an eyebrow. “Oh?” She knew you hadn’t dated in ages. “And what do you think?”

“I think he’s very determined to win me over,” you said, going to put your bag away.

“Let him!” She called after you.

“Maybe!” You called back.

As you went about your tasks, you pondered on what Bucky had to tell you and the anniversary Marc mentioned. It had to do with Bucky’s mom, it had to, but what did that have to do with you? Not every customer became registered in the system, but your team did a great job of keeping order history for deliveries, parties, and more. Nothing came up when you searched “Barnes”.

You tapped your finger against the keyboard before you straightened up. Hospital donations likely wouldn’t have a name saved since you weren’t usually given the patient names. You did, however, keep track of the dates. If you knew the range to check…

“Excuse me?” A deep timbre pulled your attention away.

You glanced up to find one of your regular customers towering over the counter. Blue eyes crinkled behind his glasses when he smiled, his dark curls adding to his boyish charm. For such a large and imposing man, he kept his shoulders hunched and voice gentle. Like he was trying to make himself look friendlier. “Clark, hi. Sorry about that,” you said, closing out your search screen. Mrs. Crandle was back in her office and you wouldn’t make her help him. “How are you today? A dozen red roses, right?”

Clark usually showed up once a month to get a dozen roses for his girlfriend. No more, no less. But the mention of his usual order made his smile disappear. “Actually, I don’t think I’ll be needing those today.” He took off his glasses to clean them when you set out the bouquet, though there wasn’t a spec of dirt on the lenses. “I, um… Well, I’m not in a relationship anymore. We broke up a couple of weeks ago.”

“Oh. I’m so sorry.” You felt terrible, especially since you weren’t sure what to say. It wasn’t your business regarding why things ended, but he always seemed so happy when he purchased the roses. “Are you okay?”

He put his glasses back on, his eyes holding a weight of sadness. “I’m sorry, too. And I’m not sure if I’m okay. Everything seemed fine and then it fell apart.” He sighed, looking around the shop. “I’m not even sure why I came here today.”

You felt for him. You really did. “Well, it could’ve been part of your monthly routine and you went on autopilot? Or you wanted to go somewhere familiar?” You suggested, looking around, too. “Or maybe you thought the bright atmosphere would help?”

He nodded after a moment. “It could be any of those things.” Scratching the back of his neck, he sadly chuckled. “It’s just an empty feeling being alone again, you know?”

“I do know. Emptiness can weigh a lot and it’s very lonely to walk alone. But that walk, no matter how long or short, makes us stronger. It gives us a chance to grow until we find someone to walk with us again. And when that happens, things will look much brighter.” You said, your heart heavy as you selected a couple of roses from the bouquet. “I’m sorry. You didn’t ask for my input and that’s probably the last thing you want to hear.”

“No, that’s… Thank you. You’ve always been really kind. Insightful.” He glanced down as you put the roses in his hand, his large hand closing around the stems. “What are these for?”

“I’m happy to help,” you smiled. “They’re for you. No charge.”

He gazed at you before he placed them back in your hand. “You take them.”

You weren’t sure why the gesture made you feel uncomfortable, but it did. Maybe it was because he was fresh out of a relationship. “Oh, no. I couldn’t. I’m surrounded by flowers,” you said, gesturing with your free hand. “You keep them. Or you could always give them a neighbor or someone who needs cheering up.”

“You sure you don’t want them?” He asked when you passed them back again. You pulled your hand away quickly, refusing to let it linger. “You really have been so kind to me whenever I’ve stopped in.”

“Well, you’re a great customer.” You also didn’t want to have to explain to Bucky that a customer tried to give you flowers. “Take them. I insist.”

Flashing you a warm smile, he relented. “Thanks,” he said, hesitating when he went to turn away. “Maybe I’ll see you around sometime?”

“I’m sure you’ll see me at the shop,” you said carefully. Unease filled you, which didn’t make sense. Clark was a regular customer who wanted nothing to do with you. But if he did have some sort of intention, you weren’t about to lead him on. “I hope things look up.”

Clark hesitated again before he pushed his glasses up and headed out of the shop without another word. You swallowed, staring at the remaining roses as if they would tell you what to do next. For now, you’d have to brace yourself for Bucky stopping by for lunch. And maybe you’d ask him if there were any devices hidden around your place and save you the trouble of tearing the rooms apart.

Though you had a feeling you weren’t going to like the answer.

Awful nice of Ray to suggest some leeway, wasn't it? Is Clark going to be a problem? What's Bucky going to think? Love and thanks for reading! ❤️

Masterlist ⚓ Bucky Barnes Masterlist ⚓ Ko-Fi

[leclerc-hs]

tachycardia! pt. 1 - cl16

pairing: doctor!charles leclerc x nurse!reader (alpha/omega au) summary: in which you don't always get along with the arrogant alpha doctor warnings: LIGHT a/b/o dynamics, angst??, none really (yet!), badly translated french, NOT PROOFREAD word count: 1.7k author's note: hi so this is the first part!! I'm thinking about turning this into like a "blurb" series, like i'll do a bunch of parts with them but they won't be toooooo long. emphasis on the LIGHT a/b/o dynamics because i am STILL leaning all about it but I'm sure the more I write the better with it I will get. I def will discuss more about it during smut scenes. let me know what you guys think and what else you would like to see happen between them!! don't be shy!!! xoxo

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦

IT WASN’T HATRED, per se, but more so the fact that you both knew how to get under each other’s skin so easily. 

The amount of time it took for Doctor Leclerc to make some sort of asshole comment as you entered the doors of the hospital was little to none. It was almost a predetermined ritual at this point. So common that you should’ve been more concerned with the premise that he might’ve memorized your schedule just so it’s his face you see first thing every time you arrive to work. 

You had made a solemn vow to yourself long ago never to become romantically involved with a doctor. Any doctor for that matter. The allure of dating a doctor might have seemed appealing in theory, but they tended to exude an air of pretentiousness, rudeness, and arrogance that left a bitter taste in your mouth. 

Doctor Leclerc was what you would consider the living embodiment of this, a constant reminder of the vows you made in the first place. Yet, the fact that he was probably the hottest fucking man you have ever seen, made it hard to not want to blur the lines sometimes. His chiseled features and commanding presence were sometimes a magnetic force, no matter how much he annoyed you.

So, you wonder why, even as you’re leaned against the nurse’s station with an elbow propped on it, you can’t help but stare at the muscles of his back poking through his scrubs and white coat, as he pours a cup of coffee into his mug. His massive shoulders rising and falling as he picks the coffee pot up and places it back down.

-

“Did he say something to you?” You ask as you press a tissue into the hands of one of your co-workers, April. You didn’t know that well, but nurses stuck together regardless.

“I’m fine,” she says, but the tears welling up in her eyes, made you know better. “I just need to stop being so sensitive.” The words hang in the air, a fragile façade masking the turmoil within, and you recognize the weight of her emotions despite her attempt to downplay them.

“He must have been a proper douche,” you remark, the water from the bathroom sink running over your hands as you meet April’s gaze through the mirror. “What did he do?” Your tone carries a mix of concern and frustration.

Her hesitance to disclose wasn’t rooted in desire to withhold information, but rather in a reluctance to escalate the situation unnecessarily. Aware of your tendency to stand up to Doctor Leclerc, she treaded cautiously. You turned back around to face her, an eyebrow raised as if you’re saying spill the beans already.

“Well,” she begins, her grip tightening on the crumpled tissue in her fist, “all I did was ask if the symptom the patient was experiencing was a common side effect of the medication we prescribed her, just to be sure.” You cross your arms over your chest, you can feel the agitation growing in your chest. “He wasn’t mean in front of the patient, but he pulled me aside after and told me how unprofessional it is to be questioning in front of a patient.” Her voice wavers with a mix of frustration and hurt.

Your lips press into a thin line as she recounts the encounter. “He then told me that I should’ve paid better attention in school and then maybe I would know the answer,” she emphasizes, tinged with a hint of bitterness. The word “maybe” lingers in the air, weighted with insinuation, as if Doctor Leclerc’s implication stung deeper than mere criticism.

“What an alpha asshole!” you exclaim, your frustration evident in the forceful wave of your hands. “Don’t listen to him.” You offer her comfort, a smile of reassurance accompanying your words, a silent vow to stand by her side.

April’s lips curl upward into a small, grateful smile, her eyes softening as she murmurs a heartfelt “thanks”. In that moment, her expression speaks volumes, conveying both appreciation for your support and glimmer of relief.

-

You saw him before he saw you. 

As you step through the doorway into one of your patient’s rooms, a pang of exasperation washes over you, accompanied by the silent question of what you did to deserve this particular form of punishment. It feels like a cruel twist of fate to find Doctor Leclerc attending to one of your patients, whom had just recently had a coronary angioplasty and a stent placement. Despite the urge to roll your eyes, you summon all your professionalism and force one of the biggest smiles onto your face. It’s a façade of warmth and cooperation, masking the internal tension brewing beneath the surface.

There he stood, a figure of authority on the opposite end of the bed, his arms folded across his chest as he chuckled at whatever anecdote your patient shared with him. His laughter, though genuine, seemed to echo with a hint of superiority. You can’t help but notice the subtle flex of his jaw muscles as his head tilts back briefly. The sight of his scruff and the contours of his muscular neck send a tingling sensation coursing through you.

You need to snap out of it! You repeat to yourself, a silent mantra echoing in your mind. You were so preoccupied with convincing yourself that Doctor Leclerc wasn’t unbelievably attractive that you failed to notice the scrutiny of two pairs of eyes now fixed upon you. The sudden realization jolts you back to the present, and you redirect your focus to the patient.

You didn’t need to glance at Doctor Leclerc to sense the presence of a smirk tugging at his lips; it was almost palpable, a silent acknowledgement that he had caught you staring at him. Distracted by him. 

“Glad you can join us, mon lapin.” My bunny.

You narrowed your eyes at him, a flicker of irritation igniting within you. That forsaken nickname—he just couldn’t resist. Ever since your first day, when you innocently showed up with a tote bag adorned with colorful bunnies, he had taken great delight in teasing you with it.

“Ne m’appele pas comme ça.”  Don’t call me that.

The patient looked up at both of you, eyes full of delight in entertainment.

His verdant eyes look at you for a few seconds, contemplating something, before looking back at the patient. “I’ll make sure you’re out of here in no time,” he assures the patient, his voice full of warmth. “I just need to check your vitals, and hopefully we can have you out here in a few days.” His words are reassuring, delivered with a blend of confidence and empathy that contrasts with the earlier tension in the room. Despite your reservations, you can’t deny that he provides great care for his patients.

“How has your medication been? Still uncomfortable?” You inquire, while Doctor Leclerc listens intently to your patient’s chest with his stethoscope.

“A little bit,” your patient murmurs in response, pausing between deep breaths as instructed by Doctor Leclerc.

“I’ll make sure you get another dose of aspirin to help ease the pain.” You promise with a tight-lipped smile as Doctor Leclerc removes the stethoscope from his ears.

“I think we need to reconsider the dosage,” you assert, meeting Doctor Leclerc’s gaze.

“We don’t want to risk any adverse effects.” His eyes, a much darker hue of green now, narrow at you, like he can’t believe you’re telling him what to do. “I’ve already adjusted his medication. It’s within the recommended for his condition.” 

He shifts his focus back to the patient, the darkness and annoyance that once clouded his eyes now dissipating. “Everything is looking great! I’ll check on you tomorrow morning,” he reassures the patient with a warm smile before bidding his farewells. As he turns to you, nodding toward the doorway, his demeanor shifts, and a lethal glare meets your gaze. Without a word, you follow him out the room, bracing yourself. You refuse to cower, meeting his glare with a steely resolve of your own. Each step you take alongside him is a silent assertion.

His touch on your elbow sends a jolt of tingles to your stomach as he swiftly turns you around, your back now pressed firmly against the wall. His gaze pierces through you with a lethal intensity. 

“Que pensez-vous faire?” What do you think you’re doing? He pinched the bridge of his nose in between his pointer finger and thumb, with his eyes scrunched as if he got a splitting headache in the span of one second. Like he was in pain. Did you know how strong you scent was? He wondered mindlessly, almost forgetting why he was so mad at you in the first place.

You thought nothing of his actions, too busy feeling the anger swell in the pit of your stomach.

Your eyes roll in exasperation, and your eyebrows knit together in annoyance at the audacity of this man. 

His eyes meet your again and can’t help but think how beautiful you look, even when angry. How he would just love to bend you over his knee and remind you who is in charge.

“Je veille sur mon patient.” I’m looking out for my patient.

He rests his hands on his hips, stealing a glance at his beeping pager before fixing his gaze back on you. His eyes, nearly black, pierce through you. “Non, tu essaies juste de provoquer une dispute comme d’habitude,” You’re just trying to start an argument as usual. He grits through clenched teeth. “His medication is completely fine, et tu le sais!” And you know it!

So, maybe you were trying to start an argument with him. Especially after April’s crying face came to your mind.

He’s so close that you can hardly think around his scent. It’s almost intoxicating.

“Don’t ever make April cry again.” You jab your finger into his shoulder, reminding yourself why you’re here in the first place.

He blinks, and you catch the glimmer of recognition spreading across his features. “Elle n’a aucun courage” She has no spine. He remarks before continuing, “She should learn from you. You probably have spare spines.” He steps back from you before striding down the hallway in opposite direction of the nurse’s station.

No matter how annoyed you were, you couldn't peel your eyes off his muscular back until he was completely out of sight. You scoffed at yourself. How pathetic am I? You questioned yourself repeatedly until you take in his last words to you.

Did he just make a joke?

[leejenowrld]

campus heartbreak series

m. angst, fluff, smut

— enter the heartbreak campus, where love, sex, heartbreak, playboys, fake dating, tangled emotions, and unexpected connections unfold in intricate ways. join the rollercoaster of relationships, where navigating matters of the heart is as demanding as acing your exams. tread cautiously in this campus; heartbreak isn't just an experience—it's a vital part of the curriculum.

— comment to be added to the tag list for each update

☆ PLAYBOY ONE - completed

lee jeno x reader

strangers to lovers, opposite’s attract

— my first and last meet jeno, the campus heartbreaker and secret nerd. he only has eyes for you—a shy, introverted stranger who turns his life upside down. what begins as a reputation-defying connection evolves into intense, immediate love. unexpectedly, personal struggles and external issues threaten your bond, leaving once-confident jeno shattered and entangled in a tumultuous love story.

☆ PLAYBOY TWO - here

na jaemin x reader

situationship vibes

— ghostin’ (inspired by ariana grande)

after being brutally dumped by your ex hyunjin, you’re living a broken life, lost in the consumption of getting high and heartbreak. then you meet na jaemin, a one-night stand transforms into a bond. he becomes the catalyst for your healing. but can you genuinely break free from the attachment to your toxic ex? between newfound connection and lingering attachments, will you move on or hold on?

☆ PLAYBOY THREE - unwritten

mark lee x reader

best friends to lovers

— if i get my way you've loved your best friend mark lee forever, but when he dates someone you have tension with, it gets rocky. unable to handle unrequited feelings, you distance yourself. when mark's relationship ends, he turns to you, sparking fights, emotions, and a tumultuous journey. can you navigate this chaos or will it all come crashing down?

☆ PLAYBOY FOUR - unwritten

donghyuck x reader

enemies to lovers, bet au

— 10 things i hate about you your no-nonsense attitude makes you the last person anyone would want to date. however, your younger sister jieun can only date if you do. enter renjun, a new student, who, with the help of the mysterious donghyuck, attempts to win your heart and clear the path for jieun’s love life.

☆ PLAYBOY FIVE - unwritten

jung jaehyun x reader

fake dating, friends to lovers

— love letter when your secret love letters are accidentally sent to your past crushes, you agree to a fake relationship with jung jaehyun, one of the recipients. as you navigate the charade, unexpected feelings surface, complicating the arrangement.

— all are smut, fluff, angst. all fics will be one shots or two part series. however they can also be read as standalones. these are connected, all taking place in the same universe and campus, meaning you will see original characters and nct members making big appearances in each and every fic.

— read with caution, the fics will theme heavily around smut, playboys, drugs, drinking, mature content, explicit language, heavy angst, heavy smut, heavy fluff

[azucaradamente]

streamer!kenma x reader - secret relationship

Synopsis. kenma, in the peak of his career neglected y/n, but dont worry! our pudding head knows exactly how to fix things!

wc. 2,9k words | genre. angst to fluff | cw/tags. streamer!kenma x reader, angst to fluff, post time skip, neglect.

important ! Please if the content was of ur enjoyment dont doubt following me, liking and sharing ;D! maybe i'll make this a little series of streamer!kenma and his girlfriend lives, i have nothing else to say so, enojey! !

Kozume Kenma, or "kodzuken" to his online legion, had finally reached the apex of his streaming career. Years of relentless grinding had paid off, but success often comes with a price. Especially for a relationship... and a sometimes insecure girlfriend.

Y/N, once the undisputed star of Kenma's social media and life, felt a pang of loneliness. She was undeniably happy for her boyfriend, but ever since his rise to influencer status, things had changed. Gone were the days of their selfies plastered across his feeds. Now, his past posts, brimming with her face, were archived – a digital ghost town. Kenma, wary of online scrutiny, decided to keep their relationship private. While Y/N understood the logic, it gnawed at her. Five years together, built on trust and shared experiences, felt invisible to the world. Unknown to Kenma, sleepless nights plagued Y/N.

His phone buzzed incessantly, a constant barrage of love comments, fan messages professing love, and even DMs from other streamers seeking collaboration. Despite knowing Kenma's loyalty, a seed of doubt sprouted – a fear of being overshadowed by his online fame.

Today wasn't any different. Y/N woke to an empty space beside her, the familiar chill a stark contrast to Kenma's usual warmth. He was probably hunched over his computer again, another night sacrificed to the algorithm gods. A pang of sympathy stabbed at her. How could she blame him? Reaching the peak of streaming was his dream, and his excitement over the recent growth was infectious. All she wanted to do was support him, even if it meant sacrificing their mornings together.

Treading softly towards the studio, the faint glow of the monitor spilling into the hallway. Inside, Kenma was indeed sprawled on the worn couch, exhaustion etched on his face. She knelt beside him, her touch feather-light as she ran her fingers through his sleep-tousled hair.

"Ken… sweetheart," she whispered, her voice a gentle nudge. "Why didn't you join me in bed? Your back will hate you later."

Kenma stirred, a low groan escaping his lips. "Just… so tired, Y/N. Almost beat my viewer record last night." A hint of pride snuck into his voice despite the fatigue.

"Amazing, babe! That's fantastic news," Y/N beamed. "But sleep is important too. Come on, let's get you some proper rest. Breakfast is ready, I made your favorite – [insert Kenma's favorite food]."

His response was a mumbled curse, a stark contrast to his usual cheer. A frown tugged at Y/N's lips. Was he annoyed? She knew he was exhausted, but his reaction felt harsher than usual. Maybe she was overthinking it. Taking a deep breath, she nudged him again, this time a little more firmly.

"Up you get, sleepyhead. We can talk more after breakfast."

Moments later, Kenma shuffled out of the studio, a mix of exhaustion and… something else clouding his features. Y/N followed, her smile strained. Breakfast was ready, but the air between them felt thick, a potential storm brewing beneath the surface.

The breakfast was a tense affair. Kenma scrolled through his phone, barely picking at his food. The silence stretched, punctuated only by the clinking of his fork. Finally, Y/N decided to break the ice.

"Hey," she started cautiously, "I was thinking… we haven't really had any quality time together lately. Don't you think it would be nice to… maybe go somewhere tomorrow? Just the two of us?"

Before she could finish her suggestion, Kenma let out a heavy sigh. "Y/N, I can't tomorrow, or today for that matter. I'm swamped. There's this charity stream thing with some new, up-and-coming streamer. My manager practically forced me to do it."

A flicker of disappointment crossed Y/N's face, but she quickly plastered on a smile. "Oh, I see. No worries, I understand completely. You're busy, that's perfectly fine." Her voice held a hint of forced cheerfulness.

A beat of silence hung in the air, heavy with unspoken emotions.

"Of course I understand," Y/N continued, her voice dropping to a low murmur. Maybe a little too low. "My name isn't Kozume 'Always Understanding' Y/N, after all."

Kenma finally looked up from his phone, his brow furrowed in confusion. "What do you mean? What are you getting at?"

Y/N's carefully constructed smile faltered. A surge of frustration bubbled within her. "Maybe," she said, her voice tight, "you should consider what being 'Kozume Understanding' actually costs sometimes."

Kenma pushed back from the table, barely touching his breakfast. "Look, I appreciate you trying to be supportive, but I have a lot on my plate right now. I gotta get everything set up for today's stream." He mumbled something about needing more coffee and practically bolted out of the room.

Y/N sat alone at the table, the untouched food mocking her. Tears welled up in her eyes, blurring her vision. Understanding was one thing, but feeling invisible was a whole other story. The air crackled with unspoken resentment, leaving a bitter taste in her mouth.

A few hours had crawled by since the breakfast debacle. Y/N found herself folding warm laundry in the bedroom, the rhythmic whoosh of the dryer a monotonous lullaby. In an attempt to bridge the gap, she turned on the TV, pulling up Kenma's stream. He was just a few rooms away, physically close yet emotionally distant. Tuning in had always been a source of comfort, a way to connect even when they were apart.

But today, the comfort was replaced by a gnawing emptiness. The stream displayed two camera feeds: Kenma on one side, and a girl on the other. The unfamiliar face sent a jolt through Y/N. So, this was the "new streamer" Kenma mentioned. Y/N hadn't expected a girl.

They were playing Minecraft, a stark contrast to the usual high-octane games Kenma gravitated towards. The girl was chirping cheerfully, gathering flowers, while Kenma focused on mining deep underground. A humorless chuckle escaped Y/N's lips. How predictable.

Despite his focus, the chat box buzzed with activity. "Great duo!" "Shipping them so hard!" "You two should collab more often!" The girl, clearly enjoying the attention, punctuated her flower-picking with playful glances towards Kenma and flirtatious comments. He, on the other hand, seemed oblivious, a mix of annoyance and feigned disinterest etched on his features. He muttered a few sarcastic replies, clearly trying to deflect her advances.

But Y/N wasn't convinced. The way the girl preened, the way the chat reacted, it all felt… intrusive. A subtle shift began to gnaw at her. Maybe it wasn't just the lack of quality time that bothered her. Maybe it was the realization that this new reality, this world Kenma inhabited, wasn't one she felt comfortable sharing.

With a decisive click, Y/N shut off the TV. Enough boyfriend content for one day, she thought bitterly. Intellectually, she knew there was nothing wrong with Kenma collaborating with another streamer, especially a girl. Yet, a suffocating tightness constricted her chest.

It wasn't just the girl's undeniable beauty – the cascading hair, the infectious voice, the effortless charm that seemed to captivate the chat. It was the way the internet, that ever-hungry beast, latched onto the situation.

Four hours. That's all it took for the fandom to erupt. Fan art depicting them as a couple flooded Twitter. A dedicated hashtag, #KenmaAndQueen (Queen being the other streamer's username, no doubt), trended at an alarming rate. The internet worked in mysterious ways, Y/N thought, a humorless laugh escaping her lips.

Tears pricked at her eyes as she scrolled through clips people had already made of the stream. The girl's relentless flirting, the forced interactions designed to fuel speculation – it all felt like a cruel parody of their own relationship. Y/N couldn't hold back any longer. Fat tears streamed down her face, blurring the screen.

The last few months of loneliness and neglect had taken their toll. The trickle of tears transformed into a torrent, sobs wracking Y/N's body. The sound was probably louder than she'd intended, echoing through the house.

A few minutes later, Kenma appeared at the bedroom door, his face etched with concern. "Y/N? What's wrong? Are you okay?"

Y/N's sobs intensified, her voice barely a whisper. "Kenma," she managed to choke out, "do you like Queen?"

Kenma's brow furrowed in confusion. "Queen? What do you mean?"

"The streamer you were with today," Y/N explained, her voice trembling. "Do you like her? Is she better than me? Prettier? Funnier?"

Her words hung in the air, heavy with insecurity. She felt like a shadow compared to Queen's radiant presence, her own worth diminishing with each passing moment.

Kenma's eyes widened in disbelief. "Y/N, what are you talking about? Queen is just a colleague. I don't like her in that way. And you're the most amazing, beautiful, and intelligent person I know. Don't ever compare yourself to anyone else."

He gently pulled her into a hug, his warmth radiating through her. "I love you, Y/N. More than words can say. You're the only one for me."

Y/N's tears subsided, replaced by a sense of relief. Kenma's words were like a balm to her wounded soul. She nuzzled into his embrace, feeling safe and loved.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, her voice still laced with emotion. "I just felt so insecure watching you with her. The fans, the comments, the whole situation just got to me."

Kenma chuckled softly. "I understand, love. But you have nothing to worry about. You're my everything, and no one could ever replace you."

He held her tighter, his presence a comforting anchor in the storm of her emotions. Y/N felt a surge of gratitude for this man who saw her for who she truly was, insecurities and all.

As they sat in silence, enveloped in each other's embrace, a sense of peace settled over Y/N. Kenma's words had not magically erased her insecurities, but they had offered a glimmer of hope, a reminder that their love was strong enough to weather any storm. An idea sparked in Kenma's eyes. He reached for Y/N's hand, his expression a mix of determination and nervousness. "Come on," he said gently, pulling her towards his streaming room.

Y/N's heart hammered against her ribs. She wasn't sure what Kenma was planning, but a sliver of hope flickered within her. They entered the room, the familiar hum of the computer the only sound. Kenma settled back into his gaming chair, gesturing for Y/N to stand beside him, just out of frame.

He took a deep breath and addressed the chat. "Hey everyone, sorry for the sudden break. Thanks to some attentive viewers, it seems you might have heard some… background noise." He glanced at Y/N, a playful smile tugging at the corner of his lips. "Yep, those cries were from my amazing girlfriend here."

A collective gasp, presumably from Queen, erupted from the speakers. Y/N felt a wave of heat flush her cheeks. Kenma ignored it, his focus laser-sharp.

"The truth is," he continued, his voice low and sincere, "I haven't been the best boyfriend lately. I let my career take priority, neglecting the most important person in my life." Y/N's breath caught in her throat.

He reached out, gently taking her hand in his. "This is me, publicly apologizing. Y/N, I've been a jerk, and I want to change that." He squeezed her hand, his eyes locking with hers, conveying a wealth of emotions that transcended words.

A beat of silence hung in the air, thick with tension. Then, with a swift movement, Kenma pulled Y/N closer, framing her face in the camera's view. "This," he declared, his voice husky, "is the most amazing, supportive, and thankfully, understanding girlfriend a guy could ask for." He leaned in, his lips brushing hers in a tender kiss.

"Isn't she the prettiest?" Kenma murmured against her skin, a playful glint in his eyes. He pulled back slightly, cupping her face, his gaze holding hers. A blush bloomed across Y/N's cheeks, a mixture of relief, surprise, and a flicker of possessiveness aimed at the unseen Queen.

Kenma chuckled, the sound warm and genuine. "Alright everyone, enough mush for one day. We'll be back with the stream shortly, but for now, I have some serious apologizing to do." He winked at Y/N, a silent promise hanging in the air.

[yazmarina]

and everything is new (and everything is you)

zak o'sullivan (f2) x fem!reader

a beach trip, one bed, and your ex-teammate turned frenemy. you're no math genius but you can already see the result of this equation.

warnings/notes: suggestive, enemies (?) to lovers, only one bed, appearances by other drivers

a/n: you guys have been too kind to me requesting all these zak fics <3 here's a little (mostly) fluffy thing for all my fellow zak enjoyers

"Are you coming along to Mallorca?"

You tug off your balaclava, turning your head toward Marta. She's undoing her race suit, looking at you expectantly. For a moment, you're confused, but you remember just as quickly the group chat that popped up in your notifications this morning. The one with current and ex-Prema drivers.

"Is that where we're going? I haven't gone through the chat yet, sorry," you admit, pulling off your hair tie.

"Why not? Even the ex-members already said yes," Marta prods. "Is this about Zak?"

Your head snaps back up in Marta's direction, your forehead creased.

"What about Zak?" You try nonchalantly, ripping your race suit's zipper down.

Marta snickers. "Ollie told me that you and him don't get along that well."

You raise your eyebrows at this. "Ollie told you? You talk often?"

"Don't change the subject," Marta says rolling her eyes. She sidles up to you as you start to walk out of the garage, back to Prema's service truck.

"Come on, Amna and Hamda will be there, it'll be fun," Marta pleads, nudging you lightly.

You sigh, contemplating on it. A few days in Mallorca, with friends, and for sure, free-flowing alcohol. The FRECA season hasn't been good to you lately and a trip like this one before the season picks up again in Imola might do you well.

It's a no-brainer. And yet...

"Is...he going?" You tread cautiously, already rolling your eyes at the way Marta grins at your question.

"Zak? Yeah, he is. What's the deal with you two?" Marta asks, just as you two arrive at the service truck.

You two let yourselves in, momentarily distracted by the strategists and engineers who congratulate you and Marta's qualifying positions. Mostly Marta's P5, though. Not much to celebrate about your P17.

"The deal is..." you begin once you're settled in the small sitting area on the second floor. "He and I are just kind of awkward around each other. He's always so standoffish when I'm around. So I don't push, 'cause I wouldn't want to bother him if he doesn't want to talk to me."

"Standoffish?" Marta asks. "Like, Zak ignores you?"

You nod. "Never knew why but I guess he just doesn't like me that much."

"That's crazy. What's there to dislike?" Marta asks incredulously.

"Ask him," you say. "He's left Prema and all and he still hasn't said a word to me other than, 'hi', 'bye', or 'see you'."

"Maybe he likes you," Marta suggests, plopping down on one of the chairs.

"No," you immediately interject. "Don't give me that, 'he avoids you so he must like you' theory. It's so cliche!"

Marta just shrugs. "Cliche, yes. Impossible? No."

You let out a breath, opening your driver room door. Just then, Rafael comes bounding up the steps, grinning, fresh from his pole position celebrations.

"That's pole, ladies!" He exclaims. "My mind's already celebrating in Mallorca."

Marta throws her balaclava at Rafael, who catches it with ease.

"At least someone's happy about Mallorca," Marta comments, turning to look at you knowingly.

You huff, slamming your door shut.

-

"Hi."

You already know who the man standing in the aisle next to you is. This was your connecting flight to Mallorca from Heathrow Airport and the moment Zak texted the group chat that his flight was the exact same time as yours, you already knew you'd run into him.

You look up and sure enough, Zak has his lips pursed as he eyes the seat next to you.

Great. Not only are you on the same flight. He's sitting right next to you, too.

"Hi Zak," you mumble quietly, the feeling of his name in your mouth so unfamiliar that you almost cringe.

"You can take this seat and I'll just move," you hurriedly add, not wanting to stretch the conversation any longer. You scoot over to the middle seat before hauling yourself all the way to the one next to the window.

Zak blinks, giving you a look. He shakes his head, situating himself in the seat you were previously in.

"And if someone comes along and says they have that seat, what then?" Zak asks, glancing your way briefly before averting his eyes back to his phone.

You take a deep breath, your stomach flipping around weirdly. You haven't ever been this physically close to Zak, always making sure to keep your distance. The proximity makes you feel all jumpy now.

"Boarding's almost over, I'm sure no one–"

"Hi, sorry, I believe that's my seat?"

You're cut off mid-sentence by a sweet old lady, peering over at you from the aisle. Zak quickly gets up and motions for her to enter your row, smiling all gentlemanly, even guiding her by the arm. You grit your teeth as you exit the cramped space, letting the woman shuffle into the widow seat.

"Aisle seat is yours," Zak says with a smirk, gesturing to the place he just vacated.

"Wouldn't want you to bear the inconvenience of the middle one," he adds.

"Thanks," you reply quietly, settling back down into your original place as Zak takes the space between you and the old lady.

"Long time no see, _______," Zak greets, smiling at you politely.

"Yeah," you say rather flatly. "Leaving the team kind of does that."

"I didn't leave," Zak counters matter-of-factly. "I was...There wasn't enough space left for me at Prema. That F2 seat wasn't going to be for me, anyway, unless I find another team."

There's a moment of silence as you suddenly feel bad for wording it the way you did. You glance up at Zak and find that he's already looking. You look away, heart leaping in your chest.

"Sorry," you mutter under your breath.

"You're good," Zak says with a sigh.

-

You blink your eyes open, finding yourself rather warm in the airconditioned aircraft.

Then the smell hits you. Perfume, vaguely manly. And then the feeling of a soft wool sweater against your cheek registers in your mind. Someone is leaning their head against yours from above.

That's when the dots connect in your head.

You've fallen asleep on Zak's shoulder.

In that short amount of time from when you took off and the moment you fell asleep, you managed to cuddle up to your...enemy? Ex-teammate? Ferenemy?

You shift your eyes downward and see that your arm has coiled around his own, his fingers loosely wrapped around yours, as if the two of you were just holding hands. Zak must have felt the sudden rigidness in your body because you feel him wake up as he raises his head, pulling away from you.

You retract your own arm, smoothing your hair down, and avoiding eye contact. Zak clears his throat, busying himself with his phone.

"We're about to land," Zak says.

You merely nod, your chest squeezing tightly.

"I was about to wake both of you, but you two looked so peaceful," the old lady suddenly says, drawing both your and Zak's attention.

"What a lovely couple," she adds, grinning at you both.

You smile weakly in return and Zak mumbles a nervous 'thank you'.

-

"This villa is huge!" Hamda exclaims, bounding through the foyer of the beach house your group has rented for the week.

You pull your suitcase past the landing, neck craning as you take your temporary residence in.

The ceiling's high, with a balcony overlooking the entrance from the second floor. The kitchen is to the right and the living room is to your left. Large glass double doors are straight ahead, leading to a garden which then leads to the beach.

"It says there are six rooms," Marta declares, peering at her phone. "And there's twelve of us, so that's perfect."

"I'm rooming with Dino," Paul cuts in, already hauling his stuff up the stairs. Dino gives the group a thumbs up as he follows Paul.

"Okay, there should also be two beds in each room," Marta adds. "So no one can complain about their roommate punching them in their sleep."

The Al-Qubaisi sisters stalk off on their own, automatically roommates. Arthur and Ollie decide to room together, with Rafael and Gabriele racing up the stairs to see who gets to their room first.

Doriane sticks around with Marta, helping the older organize the kitchen before they retreat to their own room.

That leaves you and Zak because of course it does.

"I can room with the other guys," Zak offers as the two of you stand around the living room.

You give it a thought. Marta did say it would be two beds.

"I'd feel bad if I had a room to myself while everyone has a roommate," you reason, hauling your luggage along.

"I mean, if you don't want to room with me, that's fine–"

"No," Zak cuts in quickly. "I mean, it's fine. We can share a room."

"Are you two roommates?" Marta asks from the kitchen, peering through the doorway. Doriane gives the two of you a look before nudging Marta not-so-discreetly.

"Yep," you respond, trying to act casual. "That happens when there are more guys than girls."

You're about to drag your stuff up the stairs when Zak slips his own hand into the handle of your suitcase. You pull your hand back, as if burned, peering up at him.

"Let me," Zak offers, bounding up the stairs easily, both your and his things in his hands.

Unbeknownst to you, a violent blush creeps up your whole neck and face.

You follow Zak to one of the two remaining rooms. He pauses by the door and turns to you. "You wanna take this one?"

You nod, just wanting to get settled down and bond with the other girls. The image of Zak's hand around yours is still fresh in your mind and you don't like the way it sends flutters through your stomach.

You need to get far away from this man before you say or do something drastic.

He sets the bags down and pushes the door open. There's a short hallway leading to the actual room, concealing the rest of it from view. Zak shuffles in, past the bathroom to your left and the closet to the right. You follow at a distance, startling when Zak cusses.

You approach, peeking at where Zak is looking and your heart sinks.

"Dino and I were supposed to pick this one, but it only has one bed."

You turn to see Paul standing in the doorway, a knowing smile on his face. Dino peeks from behind him and gives you a kissy face which he quickly drops when Zak turns to look as well.

"We can let Marta and Doriane have this one," you offer up to Zak, already grabbing the handle of your bag.

"They already picked the other one," Paul says hurriedly, reaching for the doorknob. "We'll leave you guys to unpack. Bye!"

He swings the door closed and you're about to protest when you decide against it. Knowing the rest of them, they probably planned this ahead of time and they'll give both you and Zak hell if you refuse.

You turn to Zak who looks just as confused as you. You sigh, setting your things down at the far end of the room, just beneath the large window looking out into the ocean.

"It has a nice view," you comment, watching as the clouds breeze past in the sky. You feel Zak come up behind you and you freeze, trying not to crowd into his personal space.

"Huh," Zak begins. "It does. I guess that's one good thing about this room."

You turn around fully, facing Zak as he looks out through the window. He glances down at you and you realize how close the two of you are standing together.

He has his glasses on, which you always thought made him look cuter than usual. You blink the thought away as you brush past him, seating yourself on the bed.

"At least it's queen-sized," Zak remarks, kneeling down beside his suitcase. He unzips it, rummaging through his things.

"Yeah," you agree, half distracted by the way his jaw clenches.

"I won't give you a hard time, I promise," Zak says with an apologetic smile.

"Likewise," you reply.

The two of you fall into silence for a few seconds. Zak makes a face and you can't help the laugh that escapes you.

"Did we ever figure out why we're so weird with each other?" Zak asks, pulling himself up to his knees so he's level with you as you continue to perch at the edge of the bed.

If you reach out now, you'll be able to touch him. His hands hover awkwardly in front of him as if he's deciding whether to lay them on your thighs or not.

You shake your head, pulling yourself further up the bed before rolling off of it completely.

"Don't know what you're talking about," you brush off, heading straight for the door.

-

You sigh as the cool air of the room hits your freshly showered skin, the faint scent of body wash reaching your nose as you scan the room.

Zak is nowhere to be found and you fight against the twinge of disappointment that pokes through your chest.

He'd been weird with you the whole day. More so than usual. Or, at least you think he was.

The group decided to spend the rest of the daylight hours on the beach, splashing around and sitting out in the afternoon sun. You were having trouble with your sunscreen, particularly reaching over your shoulder to your back. Zak just so happened to see you and offered to do it for you.

"Move your hair a bit, yeah?" He said when your reply came as stunned silence, brushing some of your hair away over your shoulder.

You felt his hand move over your upper back, traveling lower with each swipe of the product. You flinched when you felt him brush against the small of your back.

"Thanks," you said, in a hurry to pull away. You've just spotted the others watching you two like a bunch of vultures, happily taking in every interaction you and Zak had.

It also didn't escape your notice the way he'd help you out of the water each time, the sand weighing your bare feet down.

"Talk about a change of heart," Marta had whispered to you as you were entering the villa just after sunset.

"He was watching you and not the sun when it was going down," Marta added, elbowing you playfully.

And now, you're looking for him, though subconsciously, but you're aware enough to know that something had indeed shifted today.

"Hey."

You turn to see Zak in the doorway, hair still damp, and a fresh set of clothes on.

"Where were you? I thought I'd let you shower first," Zak asks, leaning against the doorframe, arms crossed.

"I showered in Marta and Doriane's room," you reply. "Thought I'd let you have a moment alone."

Zak's eyebrows furrow. "I'd like a moment with you, though?"

Your eyes widen and you laugh, all nerves and uncertainty.

"You have all night with me, Zak, seeing as we're sharing a bed," you remind, patting his shoulder goodnaturedly as you scurry past him into the hallway.

"Sounds great!" Zak calls out from behind you, your lips spreading into a smile.

-

Dinner was a fun affair, with the food prepared mainly by Marta and Paul. The drinks came out not too long after.

And now, some bottles of beer later (mixed with whatever cocktail Ollie came up with), you're stumbling into your room, trying to walk in a straight line. Keyword is trying.

You nearly jump right out of your skin when you hear the door close behind you.

"Whoa, sorry, it's just me," Zak says with a chuckle, holding his hands out toward you as if scared you're gonna topple forward.

"I need to sleep," you mumble, words slurring around the edges.

You climb onto the mattress, burrowing yourself under the fluffy covers. You watch with bleary eyes as Zak moves to the other side of the bed, sliding in beside you.

The bed shifts under his weight and you close your eyes trying to will yourself to sleep, but despite the alcohol, your heart beats wildly in your chest, more so when Zak's arm momentarily brushes against yours.

"I'll turn the light off," Zak announces. You merely hum in return.

The room is plunged into darkness as the lamp goes off, the room filled only with the steady hum of the air conditioning. Neither you nor Zak move, but you're nearly a hundred percent sure that he's still awake.

The minutes tick by but you're still lucid, watching as the moonlight filters in through the window. Zak finally rolls over and you assume that he's fallen asleep by now.

That is until you feel his hand reach for yours under the cover.

"Zak," comes your hushed whisper.

"Hm?" Zak questions.

He threads his fingers through yours but you feel a slight tremble in his hand, like he's waiting for you to reject him and pull away. You make no indication of doing so, running your thumb over his skin.

"Why are we weird with each other?"

Your question hangs in the air for a few seconds. Zak shifts even closer and you let him, finally looking over to his side of the bed.

You can see the faint outlines of his features, his eyes wide and looking straight at you. Turning over to your side, you notice just how close your faces are.

"I thought you would have figured it out by now," Zak says, voice low.

You hear the blood rushing in your ears. Your heart hammering against your ribcage. Your hand shaking as you bring it up to rest against Zak's cheek.

He closes his eyes at the contact, expression softening as if finally letting himself feel you. Really feel you.

You push yourself up on your elbow, hovering over Zak as your hair falls, curtain-like around your face. He tucks it behind your ear, hand resting on the back of your neck after.

Before you can second-guess yourself, you lean down to kiss Zak, catching him by surprise as he freezes for a moment. He quickly springs into action and parts his lips against yours, sighing into the kiss.

You swing your leg over his torso, situating yourself on him, giggling as his hands fly down to grip your waist.

"You like me," you whisper, breath fanning against Zak's face.

Zak laughs, palms smoothing down your sides before stopping at your ass, fingers squeezing at your flesh.

You gasp, swatting Zak in the chest.

"Yes, I fucking like you, I have for years now," Zak confirms, leaning up to peck you on your lips.

You kiss him fully once more, your own hands creeping up under his shirt.

"Worth it?" You ask.

Zak bites his lip as you rake your nails over the bare skin of his abdomen.

"Definitely."

-

"The walls are very thin, you know." Paul points an accusatory finger at you and Zak as you walk into the kitchen the next day.

"We had a 'no partners' rule for this trip! How come they get to fu–"

Doriane smacks Gabriele's arm to shut him up and it's at this moment you feel the heat rising in your cheeks.

"They're free on a technicality," Marta says matter-of-factly. "They weren't partners when this trip started.

"You owe me a hundred euros," Arthur says, nudging Ollie.

"A hundred? We said fifty!" Ollie protests, still clearly hungover.

"Yes, but we said fifty if they kiss and get together on this trip, they clearly did more than that," Arthur points out, giving you a knowing smile.

You meet Zak's eyes and he shrugs sheepishly, leaning down to kiss the top of your head.

You see the whole group physically recoil, averting their eyes as if they've just intruded on an intimate moment.

"Gross! Have some decency, you guys."

[whositmcwhatsit]

Enjoyable Slide to Oblivion

Chapter 13: Promises and Jealousies

AN: I can't stay away from my original baby. Please enjoy a fluffy, smutty, angsty.... thing from me with all my usual ingredients: temper tantrums, allusions to drugs, both baby and 70s Elvis, Elvis smirking, Elvis... elvising.

You might want a refresh, but it's not really necessary Chapter 12

Thanks for @thatbanditqueen for providing vital feedback as always.

Early 1956

Chancy held her breath as she pulled the car up alongside the Cadillac Fleetwood parked on the gravel driveway. She had only been driving a few weeks and her parking was still a work in progress. Navigating near Elvis’ pride and joy just added to the pressure.

“Oh my goodness, we made it!” Alicia gasped, opening the rear door and staggering out dramatically. 

“I wish you’d stop doing that every time we go anywhere!” Chancy snapped, leaning out of the car to change her shoes. 

“I’m just saying what we’re all thinking!”

“Yeah, well, we’re all thinking that you’re a brat!”

“Chancy!” Grandma reproached softly over the top of the car, both her tone and her face suggesting she was disappointed rather than angry, which was always worse. 

“Sorry, Grandma.” 

Alicia skipped across the yard, swinging her arms in that loose-limbed unself-conscious way of a child and Chancy envied her a little. She couldn’t remember ever being that unconcerned and content herself, but then again, she and her sister had had very different lives though they came from the same family. 

Chancy walked with studied casualness alongside Grandma to make sure that she didn’t slip on the wet grass or leaves, trying not to let her know that was what she was doing. 

By the time they had reached the steps up to the porch, the front door was open and Mrs Presley was standing silhouetted in the light with a big warm smile on her face. She commented on how tall Alicia had grown, which was the perfect thing to say since Alicia was the shortest in her class and conscious of it. Over the top of Alicia’s head she gave Chancy a knowing smile and ushered them in. 

In the living room, Mr Presley was dissecting the newspaper on his lap and gave them a brusque nod as they all piled in, shedding their coats. 

“Make yourselves comfortable. Chancy, come help me fetch the drinks?” 

Chancy smiled and shot up from the sofa, following Mrs Presley into the kitchen. 

“Where’s Elvis?”

“Oh, he only woke up not ten minutes ago. You know, I don’t think that boy rests at all when he’s away from home, and it takes a full day just flat out sleeping to catch up. He needs to start taking better care of himself. Here, why don’t you take this lemonade in to him.”

Chancy glanced into the living room where Grandma was sat in silence waiting for Mrs Presley’s return and the only noise that Mr Presley produced was a rustling of the newspaper. Alicia was on the floor playing with Elvis’ dog, Boy, giggling as he excitedly licked at her face. 

Chancy tapped on Elvis’ bedroom door and pushed it open. 

“I’m up! I’m up. I’m… almost up,” came a muffled mumble from within the darkened haze of the bedroom. 

“You liar!” Chancy said playfully, treading cautiously over carelessly discarded shoes, clothes, cases and instruments.

There was a pause and then Elvis sat up slightly, pulling his blanket to his chest like a maiden protecting his virtue.

“Cha-Cha?!” His voice went high and she couldn’t help giggling, enjoying getting the upper hand and surprising him for once.

“Get a lot of girls coming into your bedroom, do you?” she returned, perching on the side of the bed. His hair was sticking out in all directions and he seemed to think of it just as she was noticing, his hand reaching up to cover/smooth it. 

“What are you doing here, what time’s it?” His voice was adorably hoarse and matched his sleep-puffy face and squinting eyes. 

“A little after six.” 

“At night?!” 

Chancy couldn’t help but giggle again at the way his voice cracked and he dropped back onto his pillows in stunned realization that he had slept the whole day away. She slid the glass of lemonade onto his nightstand and watched him grab it and gulp it down thirstily. 

After a few seconds, his legs moved around beneath the blankets and he complained, “Ugh, I have got one hell of a crick in my neck.” She shot him a disapproving look at his language, but it got lost in the murky darkness. “Rub my neck for me, baby.” He rolled onto his front and grabbed her hand, pulling it and dropping it on his shoulder like she wasn’t moving fast enough for his liking. 

Sighing affectionately, Chancy started kneading her thumb into the muscles and tendons that passed down the back of his neck and into his shoulder, trying not to respond to the soft little moans he was making, she knew deliberately, to get her riled up. 

“Ain’t no one can do that the way you can,” he murmured, one hand hanging off the bed and gripping her ankle. 

Chancy had no doubt that he had discovered this through rigorous testing too. They had broken up just after Christmas and the grapevine had been sure to let her know that Elvis was getting over her with just about every girl that crossed his path, on the road, up in New York when he was performing on TV, even at home in Memphis. 

When he showed up at her house after New York, he had claimed that it was all overblown and that every time he had to speak to a girl, the newspapers and magazines turned her into his date, but it wasn’t the papers that had told her friends to tell her that he was ‘plowing through every girl like it was his job.’ His cousin Gene didn’t write for the papers, or much at all as far as Chancy knew.

Ironically, the reason they had broken up was that she had got a Christmas present from a boy in her class; just a little skating figurine that the boy said reminded him of her after they had gone, as a big group from school, roller skating one weekend. When Elvis found out, because Alicia couldn’t keep her big mouth shut, he acted like the ornament was an engagement ring and the big argument had ended with both the figurine and their relationship in pieces. 

It had been their longest break-up yet. They had had little tiffs before, usually something to do with him being away so often, it made both of them suspicious and jealous over the other, but nothing quite like the one at Christmas. It had been the first time that Chancy had not been certain that they would get back together. She had suffered through an unprecedented month of not seeing him, in person at least, since he was just about everywhere she looked on television, magazines, newspapers and almost constantly being played on the radio. 

Then, the night he got back into town, he was at her door as if nothing had ever happened, telling her all about New York and what it was like recording for a big record label like RCA Victor and how he had hardly had any sleep and the food hadn’t tasted right. She had been so glad to see him, so relieved, that she had risked Grandma’s wrath by climbing onto the back of his motorcycle and letting him take her for a ride all the way down to Riverside. 

Without warning, Elvis flipped over onto his back, his neck apparently miraculously healed, and tried to yank her down by pulling hard on her arms. 

“Ow!” she cried, fruitlessly fighting his grip, “too rough! Elvis, stop it!” He abruptly let her go and pulled himself up in a seated position, his pouty, sheepish face clear in the half-light.

With a mournful sigh, he let his head drop forward against her upper arm and she shivered, smiling, as she felt the little kisses he was pushing against her bicep. 

“Sorry,” he murmured in a baby voice, “Just missed my widdle baby so much.”

Before too long, the kisses had moved upwards, over her shoulder and to her neck as his warm hands drew her forward, pulling her down incrementally with patient but determined slowness. 

As was becoming more and more common these days, even with their parents and guardians just outside, Chancy wondered how far she would let this go, if today was the day when she would relent just that slight bit more and they would go all the way. It was the last boundary, the last little piece of herself that she had not given to him, and she was aware that, as the world became more and more enamored with him, threw everything at him, that she would have to keep giving, too, in order to keep hold of him. 

It was taken out of her hands when the bedroom door flew open and the overhead light flickered into stark brightness.

“Elvis, your mama says that you need to get your behind out of bed or you’ll be sorry!” Alicia announced. “Say, why are you two sitting in the dark?”

“Anyone else in your family wanting to march into my bedroom tonight?” Elvis commented, dropping back onto the pillows with an air of exasperation. “Grammy ain’t waiting in the hall, is she?”

“No, but she is in the living room, so keep your voice down!” Chancy whispered. “Alicia, get out!”

“Hey!” Elvis grabbed hold of the back of her skirt as she stood to steer her sister out of the room. “Don’t run off!”

“You need to get dressed!”

“I think I need help!” he returned, pouting cutely. 

“Okay, I’ll send in Grandma,” she replied, giggling when she was hit on the back by a pillow as she walked out the door. 

Not much later, Elvis was sat between Chancy and his mother on the couch, drinking his third glass of lemonade and telling Grandma about life on the road. Chancy had to give him credit, he was note perfect, playing down the mischief that he got up to, and instead talking about the interesting and/or famous people he had met on the Hayride, and the pretty country he had driven through. 

“Can’t tell you how glad I am to get home though,” he pronounced, his jiggling left leg nudging into Chancy even as he was patting her and his mother’s knees. “Don’t think I had anything worth eating in nearly two weeks!”

“You know, Chancy’s been so busy these last couple of weeks too. Haven’t hardly seen her!” Grandma said, airily shaking her head. Elvis’ eyes sharpened and he leant forward in his seat. 

“Oh yeah?”

“Oh my yes, one of the families at church, the Barkers, their home burned down just last month and they lost everything, Lord help them. The church have been fundraising to give them a little something, help them get back on their feet. Chancy here helped put on a dance. She organized everything, and in just two weeks too.”

Chancy felt uncomfortable as everyone looked at her with a variety of expressions on their faces. It was sweet of Grandma to give her all the credit, but the truth was that she had just called up all her pals on the usual committees and all the girls pitched in. Margie and Barb were just the tops at talking reluctant, cantankerous adults into submitting to their will with the sheer force of their enthusiasm and, once they managed to get a number of local businesses to sponsor the event in exchange for advertising and the chance to put up sidings, it had all come together. 

Chancy had come up with the idea, but after that she preferred to be the cheerleader, the secretary, making sure everyone was where they were supposed to be and at the right time, ensuring the budgets were balanced and everyone knew when to show up to decorate the school gym. She could create a color-coded notebook like nobody else.

“I was just saying to Vernon the other day, wasn’t I, Vernon- Vernon! Wasn’t I? I said Chancy hasn’t been coming around here so much these past couple of weeks. I thought you were busy with school, but you were doing all that work, honey, and for that poor family? What a sweet little girl you are!”

Warmth spread through Chancy at Mrs Presley’s pronouncement. She had a way of talking and smiling at you that made you feel like you were being hugged, much like her son, except he wasn’t looking like he wanted to hug her very much right then. 

“Wasn’t that clever and sweet of Chancy, Elvis, to do that?” Mrs Presley prompted, after Mr Presley had glanced up and given a vaguely disinterested, lopsided smile and nod. 

“Yeah, yeah, she’s real clever and sweet, Mama,” Elvis murmured, not looking at Chancy. 

When Chancy volunteered to help Mrs Presley dish up dinner, Elvis followed, leaning in the kitchen doorway while he watched them perform what was by now a familiar dance routine. 

Chancy could feel him behind her even when he didn’t say anything, could feel the weight of his thoughts and emotions almost as if they began in her. She could even feel him working up to say something, but before he did, Mrs Presley scolded him for hovering and sent him off to the table with a basket of rolls. 

“I just can’t stop thinking about that poor family,” she confided to Chancy as she plated up the chicken. “No one was hurt, were they?”

“No, Ma’am, they all got out okay,” Chancy reassured her. “They’re moving into a new apartment at the end of the month, and I heard Mrs Barker telling Grandma that the Lord sure does work in mysterious ways, because they would’ve never been in the position to live in a place so fine before.”

“And that’s down to you,” Mrs Presley said, patting her arm. 

“Oh no…” Chancy demurred, feeling awkward but not wanting to lose that look of pride in Mrs Presley’s eyes when she looked at her.

She whirled around to bring the corn to the table and almost smacked into Elvis’ chest. He silently grabbed her arm and drew her into an alcove by the bedroom doors.

“You didn’t say nothing about no dance when I called you,” he whispered fiercely.

“Didn’t I? Maybe you didn’t call when it was happening. It was so last minute.” She saw by the way he ground his back teeth that he got the underlying jab. 

“I called plenty enough for you to say something. I-It just gets me to thinking that there’s maybe other things you ain’t telling me.” 

Chancy took a surreptitious peek into the kitchen to see that she hadn’t been missed and then pressed up onto her tiptoes and kissed him to try and defuse the situation. He didn’t pull away but he didn’t respond either. 

“Who took you?”

“Huh?”

“To the dance, who was your date?”

“Nobody, I was helping out.” He shook his head and went to walk away and she grabbed his arm, still trying to balance the dish of corn. “We went as a group, a big group of us.” He let himself be pulled back into the alcove and she shoved the dish onto a side table so she could press up on him. 

“Who took you home?” 

“Margie and her date. I was a lonesome wallflower the whole night, don’t worry.” 

“Baby, you know that ain’t what I want,” he murmured, gripping her waist with his fingers. “I just- I gotta make the most of this while I can. Ain’t no telling how long it’s gonna last, you know that.” He stroked her side with his thumb as he spoke. “Just… be patient, honey, and remember what you promised me.” He was leaning back against the wall, his head slightly tilted back as he looked down at her, all heavy-lidded eyes and full lips. She couldn’t remember anything right then. 

“There’s my corn!” Mrs Presley snatched the dish off the table and gave them both a leveling look. “Let’s go sit at the table, huh, and remember why we’re all here?” She cuffed Elvis’ shoulder as he jerked upright and followed Chancy. 

Awkward and sheepish, they shuffled into the dining room where everyone else was already seated and looking at them expectantly.

Why they were all here finally came up as they were eating. It felt like most of the evening had been tiptoeing around the shape of it, no one quite willing to touch on it, but leave it to Alicia to bulldoze her way right through it like someone who had never had anything fragile to look after. 

“You know, Aunt Rose said that I might be allowed to get a kitten when we go to visit, but only if I take care of it,” she informed the table after getting caught trying to hide food to give to Boy. 

“Well, she said ‘might’,” Grandma reminded her quietly, taking a dainty bite of greens. 

“Chancy said she wouldn’t go even if she was allowed to get an elephant.”

Chancy winced as she closed her eyes and felt her body heat up several hundred degrees. She just kept chewing the same piece of chicken, feeling as though she would never be able to swallow it down. 

“That also remains to be seen,” Grandma commented primly. She had a way of seeming small and delicate and also as rigid and resilient as iron. 

“Well, if it helps, Grammy, I promise I wouldn’t let her get an elephant,” Elvis put in, giving her that winsome, impossible not to love boyish look. 

“I sure appreciate that, son,” Grandma replied, smiling in spite of herself, “but I’m more concerned with making sure she’s still attending school and giving her attention to her studies.”

“I told you I would,” Chancy said softly. She looked to Mrs Presley since they had talked about this, about how they would handle this so many times. 

“Mrs White, you know that schooling is just as important to us. We made sure that Elvis graduated before anything else and we’d do the same with Chancy, I can promise you that. We all know she’s a smart girl.” 

Chancy nodded slightly like a director pleased with how the lead had recited the script. She turned back to her grandmother.

“I understand that, Gladys,” Grandma nodded. “And I’ve always appreciated how much you and your family care for Chancy. It’s just that… I promised her mother that I would raise her, that I would take care of both girls the best I could. And leaving her behind, even if it is for a little while, it just doesn’t sit right, not at all.”

Chancy forced the overly chewed chicken down and she could almost feel it drop into her tense stomach. She looked at Elvis and, though he had been following the exchange between the two women closely, it seemed he felt the prod of her gaze as his eyes dropped to her face and his expression softened.

“Grammy, I can promise you that I love Chancy and-and I would never do nothing- anything- to spoil her or ruin all the hard work you’ve done raising her up so well. It’s- It’s because you done such a good job that I love her so much!” 

Chancy had been scrutinizing and scoring the exchange like she was a judge, deducting points for the bad grammar, which she knew made Grandma curl up like a snail on salt, and adding points for earnestness. It took a beat for her to actually hear the meaning of the words and she coloured a little, her eyes welling slightly. 

“And if I stay here while you’re taking care of Uncle Stan then I can keep going to school every day instead of getting and sending all my assignments in the mail. I’m so close to graduation, after all.” 

As soon as she said the words, Chancy wanted to swallow them back up, because that left the door open to Grandma laying down the law about what happened after graduation, when she no longer had the tie of school, when she should have been thinking about her future. Luckily, faced with their three pleading expressions, Grandma wasn’t exactly thinking her clearest. 

After dinner, Mrs Presley shooed them out of the house with conspiratorial excitement. Elvis obeyed without hesitation, but Chancy wavered, leading Mrs Presley to give her a firm peck on the cheek and push her off out of the door. 

“Go on, babies, let the grown ups talk now!” She spoke with such a sense of control and determination that Chancy’s stomach finally eased a little. Mrs Presley would take care of it, iron out those final little wrinkles that Grandma kept rucking into their plans, and Chancy would be able to stay instead of being dragged off deep into the backwoods of Mississippi with Grandma to help take care of Uncle Stan after his big operation. 

They had to bribe Alicia to stay behind, Elvis asking her, all furrowed brow and bottom lip, if she wouldn’t mind taking Boy for a walk and looking after him until they got back. The Presleys outmaneuvered the Crawfords so completely that evening that Chancy should have had more of a sense of foreboding and outrage about it, but it wasn’t until much later that she realized that she had already switched teams, that she had been the first victim. 

“You think your mama can do it?” Chancy asked, as Elvis slid his arm along the seat behind her and turned to reverse out of the drive. “Grandma can be real stubborn.” 

“I think if anyone can, Mama can,” he nodded, winking at her. “Grammy ain’t coldhearted, she knows how much we love each other.” His breath hitched as he laughed softly. “And how you can’t live without me.” 

“If that was true I’d be dead a hundred times over!” she retorted. It took a minute for Elvis to respond, a tiny battle where she watched him decide whether to snap back or let it go. He finally chose the latter and hit her with a peck to the temple. 

“Prettiest ghost I ever saw.” 

As was happening more and more often, they were not alone for long, and pretty soon they had gathered up some of Elvis’ friends and were cruising the streets, sniping and poking at each other playfully. Red had a girl with him too, so when they stopped for drinks and snacks, Arthur was sent in to fetch them. 

“Soooo rich and famous and we’re sitting here getting Krystals,” remarked Red’s date, emerging from beneath him with her lipstick smeared across her cheek in the back seat. “How much money do you even make anyway?” 

Even with his face buried in the crook of her neck, Chancy could imagine Elvis’ expression as he tensed against her. He hated bad manners, especially in girls, and while he wanted everyone to know how well he was doing, talking specifics really made him uncomfortable. The girl had already made cracks about the car, wanting to know how much he paid for it, and had also remarked that Elvis was wearing flashier jewelry than his own girlfriend, implying he was cheap. 

“Hey, cool it, would ya?” Red muttered, grabbing the girl and pushing her back against the seat so he could mess up her lipstick and clothes some more.    

It was too late, that little switch inside Elvis that turned him from the sweet, polite, silly boy to the crazy, reckless, and wild one had already been flicked. Chancy could feel it, her senses keenly attuned, and she was now just waiting to see how it announced itself. He glanced up from nibbling her shoulder and saw Arthur heading towards them with the sack of food. 

With what might have outwardly looked like a playful grin, Elvis started the engine and pulled off just as Arthur reached out to grab the door handle. Arthur being Arthur, none the wiser, hurried after them. Elvis made the car squeak to a stop, let Arthur grab the handle and then jerked forward. He did it a couple more times until, finally, breathless, bewildered and slightly annoyed, the boy dropped into the car, still diligently hoisting the sack. 

“Gimme that,” Elvis snapped, snatching it out of his hands just as Red and as his date reached for it too. 

With his jaw clenched so tightly that you could hear his teeth cracking, Elvis emptied the sack out of his car window, then yanked the car into reverse and shot back, before driving over all the contents, letting his tires spin, and then flying out of the parking lot like a flash. 

“Now no sonovabitch is eatin’!” he raged. 

Seconds later, he was pulling up alongside the sidewalk, the poor Cadillac bouncing to a premature stop, and Chancy having to throw out her hands to brace herself against the dashboard. Red was already telling his date to get her things together like a man trying to help his wife prepare for an oncoming hurricane. So, when Elvis yelled for either the girl or both of them to ‘get fuck out’, he was ready to bundle her out instantly. Red barely pushed the door shut behind them before Elvis took off again. 

Chancy turned her head, watching through the rear window as the girl stumbled over the sidewalk trying to gather her purse and her jacket, looking shell shocked. Chancy caught Arthur’s eye and he gestured in confusion for an explanation, but she shook her head very slightly.  

After a tense few minutes, Elvis pulled over near an abandoned lot and jumped out of the car, pacing back and forth, his outstretched fingers clenching and unclenching. Chancy slid out after him and Arthur had the good sense to stay where he was. 

“Why’d she have to ruin everything like that?!” he cried, gesturing so wildly that Chancy took a step back just in case. “We were having a good time, weren’t no call for her to start in with her bullshit!” He wrinkled his nose and gave an impression that sounded like a cross between Mickey Mouse and Droopy:

“How much money do you make, Elvis? Why you gotta wear so much jewelry, Elvis? Why you eating burgers, Elvis? Shoulda shoved those burgers right up her-” Chancy finally took the chance and grabbed his arm as he passed her, almost getting yanked along for the ride. 

As he turned to storm back the other way, he wrapped his arms around her in a bear hug and marched her right up against the wall of a darkened store, pressing in tight. She was rubbing his back as he pressed into her front, soothing him like a colicky baby, feeling his tense muscles beginning to unlock. He rested his forehead against her shoulder and she heard him take some deep breaths, trying to calm himself. They were on the home straight now, she just had to keep on rubbing and murmuring, pressing her lips against his fluttering pulse. 

He shuffled forward, his hips tilting against her stomach where she could feel that he was riled up all over. His thighs squeezed her leg between them and he finally just slumped, the dark, demonic rage flushed out of him. Now, he scooped her jaw between his hands and was kissing her as if trying to wash out the taste of his temper with the taste of her. 

“Baby’s all better now,” she said softly, submitting to the baby talk in a way she only ever did to soothe him after an episode like this. He exhaled into the kiss and nodded, pushing his forehead against hers. 

“Sorry,” he murmured in a breath. “He’s sorry.” 

“I know.” She felt him gripping her fingers and, when he stepped back, she glimpsed his diamond pinky ring on her finger. Her stomach lurched at the sight of it on her left ring finger, but she knew he hadn’t really been thinking about that. “Honey, you don’t have to-” 

“And that’s why I did it.” He shrugged his shoulders uncomfortably, finding it hard to carry what he had done in the past twenty minutes. It was always the same, after. “C’mon Cha Cha, we gotta go.” 

“Where are we going?” she asked, though she already knew.

“Well, we can’t just leave ‘em on the street.” 

The switch flipped back, the other Elvis held the door open for Chancy to slide in and then joined her, pulling her hand onto his thigh as he started the car. 

“Hey, you doing alright back there, Arturo?” he commented with exaggerated good humor, sounding the all-clear. Arthur nodded and sat up, his face bright again. 

“Yeah, sure thing!” 

And they were back on the road. 

Red was by himself, traipsing along the sidewalk by the time they caught up to him. Elvis leaned on the horn and when Red turned and squinted into the headlights, he didn't look surprised to see who it was. 

“There you are, man!” Elvis called out of the window. “Knew I’d find ya, could make out that hair from five miles down the road!”

Back on Getwell, Elvis pulled up next to Grandma’s old Ford and fixed a faraway stare at the house with its glowing windows. Chancy sat beside him, arranging her hands on her lap so that she looked like a genteel Southern lady, mainly to stop herself from stroking the creases that ran from his nose and the corner of his mouth, tickling a smile out of him. 

“You know, if your mama hasn’t convinced Grandma, I’m gonna walk all the way back from Mississippi,” she said finally. “When my shoes wear out, I’ll just carry on walking barefoot.”

“You ain’t leaving,” he said in a low voice. In spite of how quietly he had spoken, the ferocity was deafening. He looked down at her hands folded so primly and picked up her left, frowning over it pensively. 

“You can have it back, I-” He gave a fierce shake of the head and she stopped. 

“What if it was real?” he said, his words flowing slowly like a lazy river. “W-what if we just drove on down there tonight and… I mean, you’re nearly eighteen, ain’t nobody that could stop us!”

“They’d kill us!” Chancy breathed, even as her chest was swelling with excitement. “We’d be married and dead in a day. They would take turns: Grandma, then your mama, your daddy, Grandma Minnie… Uncle Stan when he’s feeling better…” 

For a moment, they tilted on a knife point, the desire to do it, to lie about her age and get themselves a marriage license, tie themselves together so that they didn’t have to bend and scrape and beg for anyone’s permission to be together again versus the fear of the no doubt terrible consequences. 

Chancy wouldn’t have to worry whether the photos she saw were really fans or the easy girls that threw themselves at Elvis when he was on the road. She could go with him, get away from rules and babysitting and dusty textbooks about dusty subjects. 

The fire dampened in Elvis’ eyes before she felt it gutter and extinguish within her. She knew what he was about to say before the words pierced their excited bubble. 

“Colonel says that if I get married right now, it’ll be over.” He swallowed, hitting his long thumbs against the top of the steering wheel. “All of this-” He flapped his hand at nothing in particular, but she took it to mean the comfortable one-family house he was renting, the car, the bills paid on time. “All of it, just gone.”

Chancy nodded, feeling her throat tighten and her eyes prickle over losing an idea that hadn’t been hers to begin with, that she had not even considered until he put it out there. 

“I’ll wait,” she croaked, clutching her fingers together until they turned white. “You know I’ll wait.” She started to slide the ring from her finger, but he grabbed her hand, his own fingers damp and shaking. 

“Whenever you get to worrying or thinking that I don’t love you, Cha Cha, I want you to look at it and remember that you are my perfect little baby, ain’t nobody more perfect for me than you. And one day you’re going to be my wife.” He kissed her hard, like he could will the words into truth with the force of his lips smashing against hers. He sighed and shook his head. “And if Mama hasn’t changed Grammy’s mind, then we’re just gonna forget all of that and find a damn courthouse. Colonel or no Colonel.” 

Chancy laughed, unspent tears spilling from the corners of her eyes, and felt the weight of the ring as she lifted her hand to wipe them away. 

That night, she had to make a thousand promises to her Grandma, promises to go to school daily, even if she was sick, even if she was run over by a bus on the way; promises to be a good girl and not do anything that could sully her reputation or diminish herself in anyone’s eyes; promises to always heed the Presleys just as she did her grandmother; promises to call whenever she could…

“You’re only going for a few weeks!” Chancy said with a laugh. “We’ll all be back home before we know it!” Grandma just looked at her for a long time, her eyes uncharacteristically hazy, until Chancy had to start touching her face and shifting in her seat. She had known what was really happening, even if Chancy had been too young and stupid to see it. 

“I promise.”

Mid 1973

The white Stutz shot across the intersection, which was thankfully clear, forcing the cavalcade of cars behind to do the same to keep up. Chancy winced at the distant sounds of horns as someone in the back encountered traffic. 

“A microphone, godfuckingdammit? Who steals a motherfucking microphone?!” Elvis seethed, gripping the wheel with white knuckles, glaring out from beneath his wide brimmed hat. “And fucking how’d they do it? Twenty sonsofbitches on payroll and not one of ‘em sees a goddamn thing!” 

The silence from Charlie and David in the back seat was a wall built for their own protection, and his, knowing that whatever was said would just make things worse. 

“I knew I made a fucking mistake agreeing to record in that shithole. Only reason the place is still standing is ‘cause the rats and the roaches are working together to hold up the damn walls. Fucking broken down, dirty-” He was thumping the hard rim of the steering wheel with his knuckles to emphasise each word. 

“Good to stay in Memphis though,” Charlie remarked blithely from the backseat. “Better than hauling our asses out to Nashville.” 

It was far too soon, Elvis was not ready for the bright side yet and Charlie was about three drinks too far in to gauge it right. 

“Fuck Memphis!” Elvis bellowed. “And fuck recording too! If RCA wanna sue me for breach of contract, they can go right ahead! Ungrateful motherfuckers, how many records have I sold for them over the years?!”

It had been a trying night. Chancy was very quickly discovering that working all day and being with Elvis at night was not a feasible plan. Really it had been sheer wishful thinking from the beginning. 

The day before, she had wished so many clients a good evening before eleven thirty in the morning that her assistant Lynette had started to worry she was having a medical episode. And when she yawned one too many times in the studio, Elvis had cut the session short without recording a thing and stormed back home, though not to let her sleep. No, he decided that what she was lacking was excitement, so he, Red, Sonny and Dave had put on a karate demonstration for everyone that featured disarming an assailant using a gun with live ammunition. He noted triumphantly that she didn’t yawn once through that. 

And then on to tonight, where he had taken almost three hours to dress, calling up various people to discuss different matters with them in his dressing room like he was an executive taking meetings. 

Chancy had waited in the bedroom at first, trying not to doze off in all her finery, but eventually wandered downstairs and visited with Grandma Minnie, who regaled her with all the old stories about Elvis as a sweet, thoughtful little boy as if she had not heard them before. Some of them had changed over the years since Chancy had first heard them, turning almost into parables: ‘Elvis helps the old man across the road’, ‘Elvis gives all his toys to the poor’, ‘Elvis heals the sick by bringing them a glass of water’. 

The absurdity, of the stories but never Grandma Minnie’s devotion to her grandson, was even more apparent when Elvis tapped on the door and appeared swathed in a Superfly outfit that made him look like he was taking a break from making a cocaine deal that would get him out of the ghetto and set him up for life in order to record some records. 

“Now that is an outfit!” Chancy pronounced, reaching over and rubbing the velvet fedora as Elvis leant down to greet his grandmother. She had to bite down hard to stop herself questioning the fur coat in a Memphis summer, because she knew he would either get upset or go and find a matching cape to let her know what he thought of her advice. 

“Well, I figure if I can’t wear it now…” 

Chancy nodded and smiled, hoping that the guys at Stax would take the clumsy homage as earnestly as it was intended. She doubted Elvis would notice either way, his voice was soft and slow and his movements slightly out of time or sync; he was using more than the thick fur coat to insulate him from what had increasingly become more of a chore over the years. 

“Okay, Dodger, I gotta go to work,” he announced, giving the fragile-looking lady an uncharacteristically gentle kiss on the cheek and rubbing her arms. 

As he drew back up, his eyes fell on Chancy and narrowed. She had a moment of dread that he might ask her to go put on the white fur he had bought while they were on tour and quickly decided she would just fake a faint. Drop right there on the carpet.  

“What’s wrong with your neck?” he asked sharply, peering down his nose, his eyes looking almost black. 

“My neck?” Chancy put her hand to her throat, quickly trying to catch up. Grandma Minnie rolled her eyes indulgently and gave Elvis’ hand on her shoulder a little tap. 

“Yeah, c’m’ere a second.”  She approached tentatively, knowing it was just as likely that he would pretend to throttle her than fix whatever problem he had spotted. When she felt a cold weight unravel and slide down her chest, she slumped a little with relief before she examined what it was. She lifted the pendant and tried to make sense of the lettering picked out in diamonds. It wasn’t difficult. 

“Elvis,” she read slowly. 

“Yes, sweetheart?” he replied dryly. She fixed him with a look of affectionate irritation. 

“Thank you, I’d been trying to work up the courage to ask you to remind me of your name, but it seemed a little awkward after so long.” 

He glanced at his grandmother, her presence muting whatever reply he had originally intended. 

“You can give it back if you’re gonna-”

“No, no, it’s beautiful, honey, thank you!” She gave him a hasty kiss and made a big show of letting Grandma have a closer look. She pronounced it ‘very fine’ and then made a comment about them being a good looking couple that had them both shuffling their feet and fighting embarrassed smiles like they were in Junior High. 

“Yeah, she ain’t bad to look at,” Elvis mumbled, clearing his throat. “C’mon Ugly, we gotta get going.” He snorted as she swatted his back, waving goodbye to Grandma Minnie as she followed him out of the room. 

When they got to the studio, the long jamming and joking session started as everyone warmed up. Chancy recognised a few of the session musicians from a previous life, but she was a little distracted by the way that Kathy was giving her furtive looks even as she seemed engrossed in working out her parts with Mary Greene and the Holladay sisters. 

When Chancy had got back from work earlier that day, everyone had been down by the pool as Elvis was working on his tan for Las Vegas. Chancy had wandered out there after changing out of her office wear and found Elvis and Kathy on adjacent sun loungers, heads close together as everyone splashed and laughed and joked around them. Apparently they were discussing weighty spiritual matters, but Chancy had the distinct feeling of intruding on something personal, serious. It made her return to the house soon after, ostensibly because she was hot and in need of a refreshing shower, but also to rinse away the bitter feeling in her gut. 

Why ask her to come and stay, encourage her to burn herself out working all day and playing all night when he already had someone else much more available and in tune with him right there?! It was just… rude. Yeah, that was it. It was poor manners, that’s all. And greedy. 

The faint prickle of offended sensibilities and definitely not jealousy still plagued her as she watched the band and singers preparing for their first take. There was nothing better for making you feel left out and superfluous than being the only non-performer during a performance. Even Hamburger James got to carry a towel. 

Too soon, she regretted that reflection as Elvis wandered over to where she was sitting and plopped his hat on her coiffed head, wiping his damp, sweaty hair off his forehead. Great, now she was useful. 

A little while later, Elvis was back, still teasing one of the musicians as he swigged water from the bottle and wiped his face with the towel he had taken from James. He dropped his discarded big gold, bejeweled bracelet in her lap before his hand cupped her chin and he deposited a quick kiss on her mouth, then he returned to the microphone. 

This happened several more times, until she was laden with a jacket, hat, towel, various pieces of jewelry and was diligently copying out some lyrics from the sheet music. It was only when she approached with her sheet of handwritten lyrics just in time to see Elvis giving Charlie a sharp shake of the head as he proffered him a printed version that she finally realized what was going on. 

“Here you go, Boss,” she said, smiling softly. Elvis squinted at the words slightly, before nodding with satisfaction. 

“Thank you, baby. Don’t understand why all this poetry keeps slipping outta my mind.” He shook his head. “Next song we’re doing is ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star’ to a bossa nova beat. Gonna storm the fuckin’ charts with that sumbitch.” 

Laughter choked Chancy as she tried to fight it down and when he saw her, eyes watering and face red, and biting hard on her lip, he laughed a little too and some of the sharpness of his frustration was dulled. Audience appreciation always soothed what ailed him. 

“We ready?” Felton’s voice buzzed in from the booth. 

“Uh, yeah,” said Elvis, waving the sheet that Chancy had passed him. “Forget my damn name half the time, man… Oh no, there it is.” He tapped the pendant on Chancy’s chest, lips twisted into an ironic smirk.  

They broke for a coffee break around one am, which Chancy assumed gave some of the musicians the chance to try and sober up a little. She felt a little drunk too trying to walk on the sloping floors. 

Marty was explaining, as if they couldn’t tell from the front facade, that it was because the place used to be a movie theater and they had just torn out the seats and moved in the equipment.

“Wish it was still a damn movie theater,” Elvis intoned, returning from posing for photos with the session musicians. He wandered off again to talk to the Stamps and Lamar remarked under his breath:

“He keeps on the way he’s going, in a couple of hours we could tell him he’s at the movies and he’ll believe us.” 

Chancy frowned, hating the bite in Lamar’s tone, but also recognising the concern and truth in there too.

Loud laughter rolled in from over by Elvis and the quartet. Towering JD could always be counted on to give Elvis the validating big grin and rumbling laughter he was reaching for, but even he was looking a little bemused. 

“I don’t know what I’m supposed to do,” Chancy murmured under her breath. She felt responsible, though logically she knew it was not her responsibility and certainly not her job to run interference and defend a grown man from himself. Didn’t stop the feeling though. 

“Well, you can lead a horse to water…” Lamar remarked with a sigh. “But try it with Elvis Presley and he’s gonna tell you to go fuck yourself.”

It was when everyone reconvened after the break that everyone realized Elvis’ personal mic was missing and suddenly they were pulling towards the gates of Graceland without slowing down. 

Luckily, someone had called ahead and the gates were already open, though a couple of the fans had to scurry out of the way as the Stutz bounced slightly against the curve of the slope and raced towards the back of the house. 

After they jolted to a stop, Chancy reached down to grab the purse at her feet, but when she sat back up, the driver’s door was open and the seat empty. 

“Where’d he go?” she asked Charlie and David in the back, and they gestured towards the house. She trailed after him in the path of devastation, walking through the returning guys, who were standing around, wondering what Elvis had in mind for them next (Please, not another karate demonstration!)

In the kitchen, the staff were hurriedly preparing iced water and discussing whether Elvis needed anything to eat. 

Chancy climbed the stairs, almost tripping over the purple velvet hat sitting on a step about halfway up. On the landing was the fur coat, which she snatched up and tucked over her arm. 

She idly wondered if he would be naked at the end of this trail and whether she should have let the maid go up first for fun. 

“Elvis? Wh-” She tripped over a boot and almost toppled head first through the door into the bedroom. “Dammit!”

Elvis’s explosive laugh was both infuriating and a relief. She glared at him laying on the bed, sadly still wearing most of his clothes, and threw the hat and then the coat at him. She was gearing up to pitch the boot when he hastily rolled away and scrambled down the other side of the bed, leaving a (no doubt loaded) handgun behind on the mattress.

“Cease fire!” he yelled, waving a hand above the mattress. 

“No way, this is-” Chancy stopped when the maid brought in Elvis’ water as if it was a perfectly normal situation to walk into. She even paused to ask Chancy if she wanted something to drink and to tell Elvis that Pauline the cook wanted to know whether he wanted something to eat, all while Chancy stood there holding a boot above her head.  

After she left, closing the door behind her, Chancy and Elvis looked at one another and started laughing. Hers was more out of relief than anything else. She had been preparing herself during the car journey for a sleepless night of cooing and placating and soothing to the best of her abilities. This abrupt switch was not unprecedented, but the frequency with which he could swing from one extreme to the other had definitely increased lately. 

With his hands raised, and a naughty smirk on his lips, he cautiously climbed back on the bed and she gestured wordlessly to the gun. 

“I’ll move it if you ditch your weapon,” he countered, twitching an eyebrow, showing that he had definitely learnt his skills of negotiation from the Colonel Parker school of nonsense and befuddlement.  

With a pout that telegraphed her misgivings, Chancy dropped the boot and Elvis grabbed the gun and shoved it onto his nightstand like it was a discarded book. 

“There we go,” he said in a sing-song voice, reaching out and tugging her closer by the waist. “You know, baby, that I’m a lover not a fighter.” He folded her backwards onto the bed, cradling her as her legs tucked up beneath her. 

His kiss was like a warm blanket, easing her tension and warming her from the inside out. Whatever he wanted to invoke in her, he knew exactly what to do to achieve it. Chancy didn’t even know if he understood the amount of power he had and the way that she had fought to make sure no man ever came close to attaining it over her again.   

“That’s not what I saw with Red and all those guys last night.. Yesterday?” She ran her palms over his shoulders and down his chest, marveling at the way touching him had almost the same effect on her as kissing him. 

“Well, honey, a man’s gotta be both sometimes, you know.” He moved the pendant aside and trailed his fingers across her chest, his nails sending a wave of goosebumps across her skin. “Gotta take care of my baby, keep her safe… and keep her happy.” 

“I’m sure you do,” she murmured, gripping a handful of hair at the nape of his neck as he leant down to press his hot, breathy mouth against her tingling skin, but he abruptly pulled short as he registered her words. 

“And what in the hell’s that s’posed to mean?” 

Struck slightly dumb by having him pressed against her, Chancy blinked and scrambled to regain control of the strings that controlled her mind and body. 

“You make me happy?” The moment the words were out of her mouth, he looked disgusted, his lip curling in disdain.  

“Naw, that ain’t what you meant with that sneaky-ass, snide little comment. If you got something you wanna say, just fucking say it. Just say it..” He braced his arm by the side of her head, but didn’t pull away, pressing in on her, forcing her to yield both mentally and physically. 

“I didn’t mean anything, Elvis, I’m tired and it came out wrong.” She made a half-hearted attempt to pull away from him. 

“I’m tired, I’m tired,” he intoned in his high-pitched impersonation of her. “This ain’t about you being tired, honey. You keep trying to play it off like you’re some kind of modern woman who’s just in it for the kicks, that you don’t care, but I know you. I know you, Cha-Cha, all the way deep down.” He tapped at her breastbone. “You know what’s happening just as much as I do.” 

“Oh really, and what is that?” She resisted the urge to reach up and rub the sting on her chest, panting slightly under the weight of him. His stormy expression broke into a slow smile at her defensive tone, her discomfort, her utter confirmation of everything he was saying. 

Instead of words alone, which had never been his favorite way to communicate, he let his slow, careful hands give an answer as he reached over and drew the straps of her dress down from her shoulders. 

Not even Elvis Presley could make clambering back onto his knees look cool and graceful, but she still let him take her hands and pull her up too so that he could draw down the zipper of her dress with infuriating slowness. She watched him blink, eyelashes fluttering as he focused intensely on getting the silk to slide down into a pool at her bent knees. She hadn’t been wearing a bra and her skin pebbled in the open air, nipples peaking and tingling. She reached up to touch… something, and opted for him, fingers grappling for purchase on the tiny buttons of his shirt, fingertips slipping inside and brushing against coarse hair. 

He let her work, his face unreadable as he flicked his tongue against his pillowy lower lip, until finally she reached the bottom of the shirt and she tugged it off over his shoulders, nowhere close to as gently and sensually as he had removed her dress. His cheekbones brimmed as his mouth twisted into a wry smile. 

“Can I keep my arms, honey, I need ‘em.” 

Chancy responded with her mouth, gasping a moan as she pressed her lips into his, slipping and sliding her tongue against his; she was his. Her hands flexed against the warm skin of his chest, tickled by the hair as she followed it down over the soft curve of his stomach to the waistband of his pants tucked underneath. 

Just as she managed to unhook them, he surged forward, sucking at her neck, and she half-laughed and half-squawked as she toppled backwards. She reached for him, but he just withdrew with a mischievous smile, grabbing her foot and yanking her leg straight as she tried to shake him off. 

“Hey, quit,” he intoned sharply, like she was one of his horses getting restless. His stern look faded as he studied her foot, running his thumb along the arch meditatively and repetitively until she felt a strange warmth starting to pool in her lower belly, tendrils of excitement creeping down the inside of her thighs. 

Slow enough that it was almost cruel, he lifted her foot and kissed the top and then the inside of her ankle, his kisses leaving warm, wet patches that felt icy cold in the conditioned air. It took all of her self-control to stay still as his lips and tongue took a long, scenic route up her calf and behind her knee. Every twitch that gave her away felt like a point lost in this battle of theirs, this parrying of wills, the dance around the truth.  

When he gave out a sigh that almost sounded like a moan and pressed his hot cheek against the inside of her cool thigh, it felt like a victory, even though the depths of her ached and flooded with fierce, heated anticipation.  

“What a way to go,” he murmured to himself in answer to whatever thoughts were swirling around behind that vulnerable and hungry expression he was wearing. She started as she felt him nip at the soft, thin skin at the top of her inner thigh and she curled upwards, her hands scooping around his face, to pull him away, to push him down, to claw and slap at him, or everything all at once. 

Elvis’ face as he awkwardly obeyed and climbed up so that he was poised over her, was so needy that it almost looked pained. His mouth slightly open and his brow knitted, he gave her a wet, sloppy kiss even as he was shoving down his pants. Their mingled breaths were rasping and fast and she snatched the opportunity to wriggle down, kissing a path along his side, making him twitch and then still as she reached the crease at his hip. It was all she could not to rut against the mattress as she salivated and moved fast, ready for his firm hand to push her back. It never came, and the musky, salty sweetness of his cock filled her mouth and made her hum a moan of recognition and delight. 

Who was winning this battle now? She wasn’t sure, she only knew that she was delirious to be playing. Elvis was arched above her, his face wreathed in shadow as he watched her mouth work, his breathing light and panting, interspersed by little whines from the back of his throat. As her lips tingled and grew numb and she struggled to get enough air through her nose, he began to twitch and jerk forward, just a little.  

“My turn,” he muttered breathily, not even sounding like himself as he drew back and grappled with her arms, pulling her up towards him. He didn't even manage a kiss before he was ripping down her underwear and burying himself inside her. She couldn’t tell if he was trembling or it was her, or the both of them, as he paused, trying to adjust to the way she gripped him in her warm, wet embrace. 

Showing, as ever, that rhythm came naturally to him, he thrust deeper and knocked the air from her as she clung to his shoulders, keeping a steady, unrelenting pace.

Chancy rested her forehead on his shoulder and squeezed her eyes closed. She could hear herself breathing, then moaning, the sounds refining into words:

“Please, please, Elvis, please.” She was signaling defeat, a joyful, emphatic and ecstatic defeat in this fight of theirs. She wasn’t indifferent, or cool, or realistic. No, stripped back like this, she was still that desperate, hungry, besotted seventeen year old, ready to offer herself up to any pain, any suffering, for the chance to feel this way. 

With a guttural groan, he stuttered and spilled into her. She felt him pulsing within her and her nerve-endings exploded with a surge of pleasure that was almost painful. He relaxed down on her, burying his sweaty face in the crook of her neck and she felt herself sinking into the mattress, breathing in the heady scent of them together. Tonight, at least, she had what she had always wanted. 

Chancy waited for him to say something, to make one of his silly little comments or tease her for her neediness, but he was still and quiet. She knew what he was waiting for her to say, the final act of submission. 

“I know what’s happening,” she whispered, before clearing her throat and repeating herself. 

With a grimace, he peeled himself away from her shoulder and lifted his head so that he could see her face. There was not even a hint of a smirk on his face, it made it easier. 

“I’m in love with you.” It sounded so stupid, redundant and repetitive. The teenager in her rolled her eyes like it was obvious, like it was easy to say. The adult Chancy felt like she was tearing out parts of herself to admit it. Like she was handing him that gun and helping him aim. 

“Aw, honey,” he said finally, when she had started to feel cold spidery legs of embarrassment in her stomach, “we’re in love with each other. Don’t you know little us is just crazy for each other? Ain’t no stopping it now.” 

She nodded, watching a happy smile spread slowly across his face, transforming it into radiance the way it always did. 

“I love you,” she said, wondering if it would feel less like the words were ripping out from her chest the more she said it. “I love you, uh…” She lifted the pendant she was still wearing and pretended to read the diamonds. “Oh yeah, Elvis, that’s it.”

Jutting his jaw and clenching his teeth in a playful show of rage, he placed his whole hand over her face and pushed her back down onto the pillows. His hot breath played against her ear as he murmured:

“I love you too, baby.”

Just hours later, bleary-eyed and barely awake, Chancy stumbled in the direction of her car, having left Elvis submerged deep within a sea of medicated slumber. She watched Mr Presley get out of his car, about to head into the kitchen for his usual pre-work cup of coffee, when he went round to the trunk and pulled out a small bundle of wires and a small, silver microphone. 

“Elvis, you sneaky bastard,” she murmured to herself, chuckling a little against her will.  

Taglist:

@richardslady121 , @dkayfixates , @fallinlovewithurlove , @notstefaniepresley , @heartbrake-hotel , @freudianslumber , @bbrtt777, @18lkpeters , @prompted-wordsmith , @literally-just-elvis-fics , @eliseinmemphis, @lookingforrainbows , @stylespresleyhearted , @amydarcimarie , @returntopresley , @savedrebelcreation, @lettersfromvenus , @littlehoneyposts , @joshuntildawn13 , @i-r-i-n-a-a , @from-memphis-with-love , @ellie-24 , @be-my-ally , @vintageshanny

[06605]

NOISE

trent alexander-arnold x reader

summary: the reader wanted a late night snack..let's just say things get noisy.

pairings: trent alexander-arnold, reader

genre: fluff

a/n: someone tell me how to get 3 pictures aligned together on tumblr, mobile (comment or msg me) hopefully this makes up for me not posting for a week. this was requested by xevr, have a nice hiatus. <3 (feel free to request)

──────

You checked the time, it was 1:35 am.

You ran your fingers down your face, awakening up to reality, because you were so immersed in this book that you lost track of time and maybe disrupted your sleep schedule.

You turned around to see your partner, Trent, how calm he appeared, white disheveled sheets starting at his lower abdomen, dreadlocs tangled up against the pillow. Soft breathing coming from him, back muscles slightly tensed. He was quite the sight.

You put your book down on the nightstand and decided to fetch a snack before returning to it.

You got up cautiously, keeping an eye on the others' motions so as not to wake him up.

When you got out of bed, you kept your eyes on him as if you were approaching something hazardous and wanted to tread softly, and didn't pay attention so you stubbed your toe on the corner of the bedstead. (ouch. relatable.)

SHIT,  you said internally; biting inside your mouth to refrain you from making any noise. Making a sour expression.

Trent grumbled quietly and turned to the left side; you paused for a moment before exhaling slightly when you heard him snoring again.

Limping, you headed to the kitchen of your shared flat.

"Dark as hell," you said to yourself. Luckily for you, the moonlight projecting through the balcony window saved you.

You observe Prince and Koba resting in their cages, which is excellent; another obstacle to avoid if you want to wake up Trent. The dogs are notoriously loud.

You stood your ground for a minute, thinking about a plan of how to get a successfully.

After some thought, you tiptoed over to the, your gaze shifting to the dogs. You stubbed your toe on your way to the kitchen.

CHRISSTTT, you thought internally once again. You quietly fell to the ground touching the toe that was stubbed twice.

You stayed on the floor for awhile gathering your thoughts, why do I do dumb shit, the hell is wrong with me, AAAAAAA— you stopped thinking and got up you limping got worse and it hurt to tip toe again.

Why the hell is it so quiet at night, you kept yourself steady on the kitchen island counter, and inhaled and exhaled 3 times and returned to finding a late night snack.

It was dark, like pitch dark, no moonlight no nothing. You relied on your hands to guide you the way.

You sighed again, recovering your calm. You took a step and saw that it was safe to take another, so you did. You walked 3 steps to the main counter, where you brought your hands and move them side to side.

OOPS—

You dropped something, trying to wonder what it was it that echoed, sounded like a platistic cup, why this shit still going, you thought to yourself and you bent down trying to track the cup.

You grabbed it and placed it on the counter. You sighed, you didn't recall that getting a late night snack would be this difficult.

You raised your hand, looking for the cabinets; you located one and opened it. You just felt plates inside it. You carefully close the cabinet again.

You made your way slowly to the island counter, moving your hands trying to find something, literally something edible at least.

Your hands made contact with a glass bowl, you brought it closer to you and felt was inside, it felt like fruits.

JACKPOT

You took a bite of the fruit, and dropped your head.

You swore that you were just gonna burst put in tears and laughter because of your stupidity.

It was fake; it was a fake fruit.

You removed your teeth from the decor, and dropped it on the floor.

You felt around the counter again trying to see if you could find anything again. You felt a bag, you grabbed it and inspected it. It was a chip bag.

THANK GOD, You opened your chips, they were loud. Feeling relieved, you ate one and crunched on them, feeling satisfied. You sat on the floor enjoying your chips happily.

You heard faint steps, becoming louder.

Click—

The kitchen lights opened, blinded by them you rubbed your eyes getting used to the lighting.

Busted , you thought.

"...babe?"

You grimaced, "..down here Trent"

Trent appeared from where he was standing; you could see him clearly; he was very adorable, wrapped in a blanket; like a burrito."

"Fucking freezing in here" He said, scouse accent thickening.

"Why are you on the floor...eating chips...at nearly 3 in the mornin'.."

You shrugged, "Late night snack?"

"Is that the reason why I heard noises coming from here?"

"Yes. stubbed my toe 2 times, 'ought to feel pity for me." You said reaching down to massage your big toe.

Trent laughed, you rolled your eyes.

He sat besides you, you two didn't say anything for awhile.

"I was trying to stay quiet to not disturb you from your sleep.." you admitted under your breath.

Trent kissed near the corner of your lips. "Thank you" he muttered in your ear, his breath hot near your ear.

"Now then, let's head to bed." He got up, giving you a hand to remove you off the floor.

extra

You opened to door to and made your way to the kitchen, and you saw Trent in his usual fitting white underarmour shirt, and grey sweatpants.

He's on his phone doing god knows what, and you've just bought new groceries.

After placing them on the counter, Trent put his attention onto you.

"What'd you buy?"

"Fruit."

"..fruit?"

You grabbed the platter of fake fruits and dumped them out. Muttering to yourself, "who the hell just buys fake fruit."

"It's for decor, babe. Trent stated

"Y'know last night I bit into one of these thinking it was an actual fruit."

Trent bursted out in laughter, you rolled your eyes and began replacing the fruit.

[darkficsyouneveraskedfor]

Special Interest 3

Warnings: non/dubcon, age gap, creep behaviour, and other dark elements. My username actually says you never asked for any of this.

Characters: Cole Turner, short!reader

Part of the Bookstore AU

My warnings are not exhaustive but be aware this is a dark fic and may include potentially triggering topics. Please use your common sense when consuming content. I am not responsible for your decisions.

As usual, I would appreciate any and all feedback. I’m happy to once more go on this adventure with all of you! Thank you in advance for your comments and for reblogging.

You package up another pair of mitts. It’s that season where sales pick up. It’s cold and the holidays are lurking just around the corner. Your hands are achy from working your needles but you can’t complain for the uptick in demand.

Along with your crochet menagerie, you supplement your etsy shop with stickers, while pondering the prospect of cards, especially given the time of year. As overworked as your hands are, your mind feels more so.

Your computer bings. Another sale? You go around to check your open Etsy page. Nope, a message from a customer. Please don’t be a return.

It’s a message. From the vaunted Farmer’s Delight. You might be avoiding them but that doesn’t need to be a whole thing. You’re working on their order! That’s not neglect.

You open the chat, knowing to leave that little dot just hovering there would drive you crazy. 

‘Hey, just checking in. Was hoping to do a pick-up soon. Maybe in the next week?’

Sigh. Great, did they not read your last message? You know you’re a bit hard to take seriously in real life but this is text. There is no height difference or age gap. You’re on even ground. You’re traversing a world of digital equity.

‘Hey. Not sure if you saw my last message but I can’t do a pick up. Please provide your mailing address and I’ll be happy to send this out. Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns.’

There, firm but still customer service-y. You hit send and go back to smooth labels onto bubble packs. Another chime.

‘Like I said, mailing out here is inconsistent. I need the order as soon as possible. Please let me know a time that works for you. I need to hit the hardware store so I’ll be coming to town. We can meet there for exchange.’

Ugh. You want to punch the computer. You should just refund their order and be done with it. Even with your pick-up in sales, it’s a big chunk. You just can’t stomach giving back that much money and they didn’t even ask for their shipping fee back.

You let the message stew. They are offering a public meet-up. That seems like a good omen, at least. Friday night might work, your mom will be done work at four. That’s a decent amount of time. And it’s close to the post office.

You seal another package and leave the room, treading down the hall as you hear your mother clacking away at her keyboard. You approach cautiously. She closes the door when she’s in a meeting. You tap on the doorframe and peek through the open door.

“Mom, sorry, I don’t wanna bother–”

“All good,” she sits back and pushes up her glasses to rub her eyes, “all these emails are doing my head in.”

“Um, well, you remember that order I got. For pick-up. Could you drive me to the hardware store on Friday?”

“Friday?” She echoes.

“I figure we can stop by the post office on the way. And I’ll buy dinner. You know dad loves the gyros down at Eddie’s. It’s on our way…” You give a smile and sway, “please.”

“Sure. Sounds like a good excuse to get out. Besides, I need to grab some washer thing for the sink. I don’t know, your dad was going on about it. I’ll ask,” he flips her glasses down, “oh, that’s so nice! A big sale–” she claps her hands. “I’m so proud of you, honey.”

You raise your brows, surprised by her excitement. You remember when you quit your craft store job to buy a Cricut machine and go all in. She was less than jazzed.

“Really?”

“Of course,” she beams, standing and grabbing her empty mug, “you know, I was a bit concerned. No school, no job, but you’re a go-getter. Any man would be happy to marry someone with so many hobbies, and hobbies that pay.”

“Hobbies? Mom, this is a business. I have to pay taxes,” you back out of her way as she comes into the hall.

“I know, sweetie, but…” she glances around, “it’s still young. You don’t know if a business is a business for a few years. I’m not knocking you down, I’m trying to be realistic.”

“Mom, please, do we have to worry about five years from now? I want to see how far this goes without worrying about guys or a husband or– I can’t even order a beer yet.”

“Me and your dad married right out of high school. We never worried about all that dating stuff and it was all so simple. Trust me, once you find someone, the world will be so much clearer.”

“If it’s easier, I can get an uber on Friday,” you cross your arms and follow her towards the stairs.

“Don’t be like that. I’m being supportive. But you make sure you’re saving money. Pray the day comes and you’ll have a nice nest egg for your wedding,” she stops at the top of the stairs, “or tuition. There’s lots of cuties in college.”

“Mom,” you roll your eyes, “let’s just take it a day at a time. Friday I’ll get that order out.”

“Oh, remind me to grab some grout cleaner when we’re there too,” she points at you before she turns to descend the stairs, “the bathroom is looking a bit grimy.”

You mutter, “alright, mom,” and slowly turn away.

Everything with her comes back to that one thing. She just assumes that you’re lonely. Worse, she seems to believe you’re wasting your time on all this. 

You shut your door and tramp around to your laptop. You sit on the cushioned stool and type in your reply to Farmer’s Delights; ‘Friday works for me. After four.’

Three dots pop up almost right away. Then disappear. Then appear again.

‘Sounds great. I’ll see you there.’

You send a thumbs up and close out. You have to finish packing then get back to destroying your carpal tunnel. It’s money, your mom’s right about that, but you won’t be saving for a wedding.

[peterrefur]

Chirirenge spoon ⅏ ARG!Wilbur Soot x GN!Reader

Summary: Experience the raw beauty of love and communication as Wilbur navigates his honest struggle to express his feelings.  A tender, overnight journey that celebrates the authenticity and true essence of the relationship between Reader and Argbur.  Notes:  Hey Mate!!!  I’m Peter and I say right away that English is not my first language.  I’m curious to hear your opinion about this work in the comments!  Enjoy! 

𝕋he room's ambiance felt like a quiet sanctuary, the soft clicks of the keyboard punctuating the silence until Wilbur's soft-spoken words cut through. "I'm cold," he murmured, a hint of discomfort in his voice, followed by the rustle of him adding another layer to stave off the chill. 

𝕄y attention swivelled away from the computer screen, drawn to Will. There he sat, adorned in a mishmash of clothing - a T-shirt layered under a jumper and a sweatshirt, now cocooned further under an additional blanket. 

"Cold?" I echoed, surprise lacing my words as I regarded him. "Hmm... We don't have the ingredients for soup ... How about we embark on a late-night walk for some comforting ramen or romantic curry?" I suggested, glancing at the clock that taunted us with its approaching midnight digits. Our penchant for late-night dining outings was no secret, testament to our shared nocturnal rhythms that often wrecked conventional bedtime schedules. 

𝕃ocking eyes with Wilbur, I observed his immediate turn of the head, a silent gesture laden with unspoken nuances. His hand reached for his glasses, hesitating midway as if seeking permission, before he sighed and met my gaze, the unspoken language between us painting a poignant picture. 

In that moment, I felt a pang of empathy wash over me. "You alright?" I inquired gently, sensing there was more beneath the surface. 

Wilbur's reply, delivered in his characteristic monotone yet friendly voice, carried a subtle warmth that transcended his usual tone. "I'd love to... ramen sounds good," he murmured, his curls swaying slightly in unison with his nod, lending a quiet affirmation to his words. 

𝔸 smile curved across my lips at his response, and I cocked my head to the side, a gesture of silent understanding and appreciation. Watching him gradually shed the blanket and extend his hand towards me, offering companionship in our journey to the front of the room, filled me with a tender sense of connection. 

Accepting his hand, I felt a surge of gratitude for the unspoken bond between us. Together, we commenced our preparations to venture out into the night, each movement carrying an unspoken agreement, a shared understanding that transcended mere words. 

𝔸s Wilbur reached for his gloves and scarf, a sense of concern nudged me, prompting my hand to instinctively rest atop his. "Won't you feel too warm once we're at the restaurant? You're already bundled up in four layers. You might overheat," I ventured cautiously, treading the fine line between observation and comment. 

Wilbur's response was subtle yet telling. He released the extra layers, his gaze briefly falling to his shoes, a contemplative air surrounding him. Finally, he draped a scarf around his neck, a silent compromise between comfort and necessity, before opening the door and setting off up the stairwell. 

Suppressing any trace of exasperation or further comments, I gathered my belongings and followed suit, catching up to Wilbur and intertwining our hands as we descended from the second floor. 

The unspoken exchange lingered between us, an uncharted territory of emotions and unexpressed thoughts. 

𝕊tepping out into the embrace of the night air, a gentle wintry chill greeted us, sending a tingling sensation down our spines and a pleasant nip to our noses. 

"A very pleasant night," I remarked, acknowledging the serene ambiance that enveloped us. 

𝕋he air seemed to hang still, a touch of the sea's breeze delicately caressing our surroundings. Despite the lingering freshness, our neighbourhoods exuded an unexpected warmth, a curious amalgamation of factors creating an inviting atmosphere. 

It was a juxtaposition—the distant hum of the local sewage system, slightly audible after recent rains, intermingled with the comforting warmth radiating from the tall figure of my brunette boyfriend beside me. 

𝕋he sensation was peculiar yet oddly comforting, as though the night itself had conspired to cocoon us in its contrasting elements, weaving together a tapestry of sensations that heightened the experience of our late-night excursion. 

Underneath the streetlights, the night embraced us, the silence between our steps filled with a symphony of thoughts and emotions. Wilbur's hand in mine felt familiar, a reassurance against the cold while simultaneously warming my heart. The streets, usually bustling with daytime activities, now wore a serene guise, creating an intimate space for us to traverse. 

I stole a glance at Wilbur, catching the faint reflection of the streetlights in his eyes. His profile exuded a blend of contemplation and tranquility, the occasional twitch of his lips indicating thoughts wandering somewhere beyond the realm of our nocturnal stroll. 

𝔸s we walked, the city's soundscape became our backdrop—a distant car engine, the occasional shuffle of leaves, and the soft chatter echoing from a nearby café, a testament to the city that never truly slept. 

"Is something bothering you?" I ventured, the words slipping out softly, fearing they might break the delicate bubble of comfort we seemed cocooned within. 

Wilbur's response was a hesitant nod, his grip on my hand tightening ever so slightly. "It's just... things have been a bit overwhelming lately," he admitted, his voice a whisper, almost lost amidst the night's. 

“I guess I've been feeling a bit lost," he continued, his tone laden with a vulnerability that I rarely witnessed. 

A surge of empathy washed over me. "You've been doing so much lately, it's okay to feel overwhelmed," I reassured him, trying to infuse my words with as much comfort as possible. 

He muttered quietly; annoyance was evident in his voice “No.” He wrinkles his nose and frowns hostilely at the ground. “You don’t get it.” 

"I can...- Can you explain to me, then, what is in your head that makes you feel the way you feel?" I ask gently, trying not to put pressure on the stressed young man. 

All I get in response is a shake of the head. 

𝔼ntering the cozy embrace of the night restaurant, we were greeted by a comforting warmth that enveloped us like a familiar hug. The air was infused with the tantalizing fragrance of spices and the simmering aroma of savoury broths, an olfactory symphony that tantalized our senses. 

Locating a secluded spot in the corner, we settled into our seats, the soft murmur of conversations from other diners acting as a gentle accompaniment to the ambiance. The hustle and bustle of the eatery wrapped around us, creating a sense of intimacy within the bustling environment. 

𝔸midst savouring the steamy, flavourful noodles and exchanging occasional glances, a weight seemed to settle upon Wilbur's shoulders. It was as though the weight of unspoken thoughts and emotions bore down on him, casting a shadow over the otherwise relaxed atmosphere of the evening. 

I noticed the subtle shift in Wilbur's demeanour—the slight furrow of his brow, the hesitant pauses between spoonful of ramen. It was as if a cloud hovered over his usual composure, dimming his vibrant presence. 

Setting my utensils down, I leaned in closer, my voice soft with concern. "How can I help, Will?" I inquired, choosing my words carefully to convey both my care and respect for his thoughts. 

Wilbur glanced up, his eyes reflecting a myriad of emotions—apprehension, hesitation, and a glimmer of gratitude for the invitation to share his thoughts. With a deep breath, he began to unravel the tangle of thoughts that had been weighing on him. 

𝔸s he gingerly set down his half-eaten soup, his gaze fell to the tabletop, as if seeking refuge or solace. 

“𝕀 don't like it. I don't like it when you show me that you care. I don't know how to give it back. I don't... I care about you, I really do, but I don't know how to show you or tell you. I hate it... I feel bad about it," his voice quivered, the weight of his emotions palpable in the tremor. 

"It's like I'm drowning in the unknown nature of my emotions towards you. I don't know if I'm supposed to like, love, or hate you," he confessed with a gut-wrenching honesty, his face etched with a blend of pain and sorrow. 

His words echoed in the silence that followed, casting a poignant hue over our surroundings. It was as though the weight of his uncertainty, a turmoil that gnawed at his heart, now lay bare, a profound ache etched on his face, yearning for understanding and resolution. 

𝔽or a moment, the bustling ambiance of the restaurant faded into insignificance, leaving only the raw honesty of Wilbur's emotions. 

Reaching across the table, I gently took his hand in mine, a silent gesture of support and understanding. "Wilbur, it's okay," I began softly, trying to infuse my words with reassurance and tenderness. "If you want to see us as friends who sometimes have sex, I'm okay with that. If you want to see us as a couple, that's okay with me too. If you want us to end-" 

"NO!" Wilbur raises his voice interrupting me. “no.” he adds after a moment with quiet voice. 

𝕎ilbur's sudden outburst echoed through the hushed ambience of the restaurant, drawing a few curious glances from nearby diners. His voice, usually soft-spoken, now carried a tinge of desperation, the sheer intensity of his emotions piercing through the air. 

"Please, I don't want it to end," he continued, his voice trembling with a mix of anguish and urgency. His gaze bore into mine, pleading for comprehension, for an assurance that my mention of an end was merely a hypothetical scenario. 

“𝕀'm sorry," I murmured, my voice barely audible amidst the intensity of the moment. "I didn't mean to suggest that." 

Wilbur's grip on my hand tightened, almost as if he feared losing the connection between us. His eyes, wide with vulnerability, searched for reassurance, a silent plea for validation that our bond meant more than mere definitions or labels. 

"We don't have to label it or fit it into a rule," I offered softly, trying to ease the tension that had enveloped us. "If you feel good with that - we can just be."  I whispered, my words carrying a promise of unwavering support, a silent commitment to navigate the intricacies of our relationship at a pace comfortable for both of us. 

ℍis struggle to articulate his feelings simmered beneath his solemn expression, a struggle to bridge the gap between his affection and his inability to express it. 

"No... I don't know how to... How to communicate to you how I feel about you. I like you and want you next to me. Living with you is pleasant, and only a few things about you are annoying. Acceptable," he began, his words a tentative attempt at unravelling the tangled web of his emotions. 

ℍis candidness was striking, his struggle palpable. He delved deeper, admitting, "But I don't know what to do to show you that I like you... Holding your hand or nice words are not able to show what I feel, giving you gifts or pebbles is not enough either. I don't know if sex is a good to prove love but... I don't know what... I don't know how to be a good boyfriend to you." he confesses his emotions, making him finally open to me in full. 

𝕀 reassured him gently, my voice carrying a warmth laced with understanding. "It's okay not to know exactly how to express your feelings. What matters is that you're honest and that you're here, trying." 

His struggle to find tangible ways to express his affection was evident, his sincerity shining through the layers of uncertainty. 

“𝕋he way you care, the way you're here with me—those things matter," I continued, hoping to alleviate some of the weight that burdened him. "Being a good boyfriend isn't about grand gestures or finding the perfect way to show your love. It's about being present, being yourself, and sharing moments, even the imperfect ones." 

A flicker of relief crossed his features, a glimmer of hope amidst the maze of confusion. His honesty was a bridge between us, a connection that transcended the need for elaborate demonstrations of affection 

“𝕁ust be me?" he asks. 

"Yes, just be you," I affirmed gently, meeting Wilbur's gaze with a reassuring smile. 

I could sense his relief, a slight relaxation in his posture as my words seemed to resonate with him. His earnestness in wanting to understand and contribute to our relationship was evident, and it was a comfort to witness him gradually embrace the simplicity of just being himself. 

"You're funny you always know what to say." Wilbur says and goes back to eating his soup. 

I lightly kick Wilbur under the table and we both smile when he accidentally spills the soup from his spoon. "I don't always know, but I try." 

[sillyandvile]

⁺ ⛧ ﹒ HI HELLO HI ! — ˚ ☠️ ⌢

⛧ I’m Woods, he/him! I’m 19, and I draw scream content!

⛧ May write some too one day, we’ll see :3

⛧ Pinned post!!! pinned post!!! 🎉

⛧ May update occasionally !

⛧ I barely know how Tumblr works so bear with me!

★ • ┈┈⊹★°┈┈⊹°┈☆

🦷﹕‹𝟹﹕I’d rather minors DNI, or at least tread cautiously, as this space is intended for adults.

🥩﹕‹𝟹﹕You are responsible for keeping yourself safe here, I can’t monitor everyone who follows me ^^

🍖﹕‹𝟹﹕I may post drawings that contain blood, artistic g0re, suggestive themes, and/or silly gay men.

‼️﹕‹𝟹﹕I yap a LOT and am very social!

🦴﹕‹𝟹﹕Feel free to send in asks, comments, Scream related drawing requests, etc!

🦷﹕‹𝟹﹕I love talking about Scream! This includes the Scream’d musical and fanfics such as Debaser. I also like talking about human anatomy, slashers, cannibalism (metaphor for love), diseases, and psychology!

🥩﹕‹𝟹﹕I’ll try and tag stuff: #yapped sorry - mm rambles, #woods scribbles - my art

🍖﹕‹𝟹﹕Proshippers, delusional Stu x Sidney shippers, and pro/neutral contact paraphiles dni ^^ (stuilly doesn’t count as proship)

‼️﹕‹𝟹﹕erm um uh I’m part of a DID system, endo “systems” DNI. I’ll kill and eat u <3

[taccobelle]

Teenage Dirtbag

Paring: Eddie x fem!reader, Eddie x Cheerleader!Reader

Word count: 2.9k

Summary: In the small town of Hawkins, Pixie Dunphy, and Eddie Munson couldn't be more different, living in a small town like Hawkins, where rumors define you. Pixie is a charming and independent girl who seems to have it all. Pixie is adored by many in Hawkins High, Eddie, on the other hand, is the school's freak. Their paths cross unexpectedly, igniting a love story that defies expectations, learning they have much more in common than they initially thought.

Authors note: Hiya! this is my very first story🫣 (that I have made public). I really hope you all enjoy reading this, I truly tried my hardest to make this as good as possible, but please be kind 🥹

Warnings: language, slow burn, opposites attract, she/her pronouns, the reader is FAB, Eddie might be a little shit, I gave the reader a nickname because y/n is so cringe. There is no mention of race, but I do occasionally describe what Pixie looks like, but those are subtle enough that you can ignore it!

Chapter One: The Notorious Rumors

  

As I cautiously navigated the foreign halls of Hawkins High, my heart raced with anticipation and uncertainty, school would start next week, but the halls flooded with freshmen and their mentors, getting a tour of the decrepit building, an attempt of avoiding the inevitable, the freshmen being lost on their first day. You can’t help but relate to those poor kids. Entering the halls of this high school, knowing damn well that the fact that Hawkins High is small, is exactly what makes it that much scarier. Tiny meant close knit, everyone knew each other from birth, and you were just an unwelcome stranger. You huff in frustration, realizing the freshmen had one leg above you, they at least had pre-existing friends from junior high, you on the other hand, knew nobody.

Being the new girl in a sea of familiar faces would be like treading on uncharted territory. A group of teenage girls, all adorning white and green cheer uniforms, hairs perfectly in place, tied in a fashionable ponytail stood in front of the packed bulletin board, near the principals office. The group of girls chatted away, each holding printed out copies of extracurricular activities offered for the fall, pretending to show any interest in the activity. They looked as if they owned the building, displaying fake smiles, whispering about every person that walked by, commenting on their shoes, if they had volunteered to hand out sideways glances, they’d get their credits immediately. This all only heightened my anxieties, their presence made me feel like an outsider, an alien amidst the established cliques and well-worn friendships. But then, like a shimmering ray of sunshine piercing through stormy clouds, she appeared before me. “Hey there! You must be the new girl Higgins told me about, I’m Chrissy!" a cheerful voice called out, I turned to find a girl with a crooked smile, strawberry blonde ponytail, flashing a genuine smile that instantly dissolved my worries. You introduce yourself as Pixie Dunphy and explained that Pixie is not even actually your name, it was a nickname your grandpa had given you as a kid because of your short stature, and it just sort of stuck.

Chrissy showed you around the school, going on about which teachers were a pain, and which weren’t, the school policies, and which table was the best to sit at during lunch. The halls of Hawkins high couldn’t have looked more like a maze to you, surprised how a school so small, could be so confusing, the walls filled with posters and fading pieces of art projects made by past students, lockers that resembled a bumpy road, adorned with dents and grooves from the years of nerds being shoved against them. The chipped paint on the wall gave away the lack of maintenance, and the yellowed lights above on the drop down ceiling flickered with every gust of wind. As you both rounded the corner, back to the bulletin board by the principals office, you see all the posters for sports and clubs the cheerleaders had been holding pretending to pass out to fulfill their community service hours requirement for graduation. “You know, we’re having tryouts this tomorrow at 10, I know it’s short notice, but u can talk to coach to let you bring in your physical when school starts off. . . It is just that I noticed you looking at the flyers” Chrissy’s voice startled you out of your day dream, her warm smile brought you back to reality. it is true that you had previously been eyeing the flyer, it is a sure way to make friends, and you had been part of the cheer team in your old school as well, you had thought about joining anyways, but the ironic group of girls that lacked any sort of cheerful bone in their body kind of made you get cold feet.

In the end of the tour, Chrissy and I stood by the front door waiting for your rides home, you both spend hours waiting for your parents to arrive to pick you up, you found out you both lived near each other, meeting her had given you hope. Hope that maybe things in Hawkins would be so bad, maybe you’d get along just fine. After finding you you two will basically be neighbors, she mentions something about a party on Saturday, something about it being the last of the summer before school started back up in the fall, the small amount you both had exchanged, made her invitation not feel unexpected, Chrissy even offered a ride. What could go wrong? I needed to socialize if I didn’t want to be some outcast. It felt like a golden ticket into a world of belonging and acceptance, a chance to shed the label of the "new girl" and find my place among the vibrant tapestry of high school life. In Hawkins, the opinions others had of you determined how others would treat you. In this tiny town, full of people with even tinier brains, one rumor could determine a person’s whole life. As I mulled over Chrissy’s invitation, a whirlwind of emotions swirled within me, excitement danced in my veins, a symphony of nerves and doubt as I imagined myself at the party, surrounded by laughter and music, feeling like I belonged for the first time since my arrival. I had never been the outcast, always had made friends easily in school, but it wasn’t anything like Hawkins. Hawkins felt claustrophobic, like a small box of a high school. Chrissy’s invitation was a glimmer of a future where I wouldn't be an alien, where I could forge connections and weave myself into the intricate threads of teenage camaraderie. In the face of uncertainty, I chose to embrace the invitation, to believe in the kindness behind Chrissy’s smile.           

     When it came around the time of the party, you take one last look at yourself in the full-length mirror hanging from the inside of your closet door, boxes haphazardly stacked on top of each other full of unpacked clothes, decoration, and untouched sticker packets you have been saving for a “special day” to use them. You take a minute to look over every detail of your outfit. You had spent your whole Friday afternoon at the mall with Chrissy picking out the perfect outfit for tonight. You had settled on a pair of white Keds you already owned, with wool white socks that bunched up around your ankles, a bubblegum pink sweater with a white turtleneck collar underneath, and a denim pencil skirt that reached slightly below the middle of your thighs. Chrissy had convinced you to wear the skirt, it was a little short for your liking, considering you haven’t worn a skirt this short since you were about 14 and Jennifer McLaughlin pointed out how thick your thighs were, and offered to lend her mother’s copy of the Jazzercise VHS for the summer. You had tried curling your hair with the heatless curling rods you secretly took from your mother’s room, making a secret bet with yourself how long the curls would hold up, your hair being way too slick to hold them for more than 2 hours. You fixed your wispy bangs and tied half your hair you with your favorite scrunchie, matching the color of your eyeshadow, which was a pink of Pepto Bismol, and glossy lips. 

     You looked nice, nice was good; nice would get the kids at this god forsaken town to like you. Chrissy had said she’d be over to pick you up at your house at 8:30pm, you look at the digital clock laying on your desk, and curse under your breath, you were going to be late. “…shit” Pixie huffs out making haste to grab her purse and house keys her dad had given, he the new copies earlier today, making her promise not to lose it in 5 minutes like always. Once she got downstairs, she sees Chrissy sitting in the front seat of her boyfriend’s burgundy wood panel Ford Station Wagon Jason had gotten as a birthday gift earlier in the year. Pixie makes her way down the steps of her suburbia home, and made her way into the back seat, sitting behind Jason to get a better look at her friend. “It’s no problem at all, Jay would be coming this way anyways, I live two streets down” Crissy says with a cheery tone “So, you excited? You look so nice” Chrissy said, turning her body back to have a better look at her friend. I feel your face start to heat up from the comment, I gently smile and express my gratitude and buckle up, I clear my throat and say “Jeez, thanks Chris, you look amazing as well! I take a deep breath and chuckles out her answer “I’m a little nervous” I take a deep breath and continue with a chuckle “but I think it’ll be fun” I feel Jason’s eyes on me, preparing to say something.

   As they arrive Pixie looks out the window. The house was considerably larger than the others on the street, it was a pale shade of green, and was littered with teenagers talking around on the lawn. The song was booming from the inside of the house, and it belonged to one Steve Harrington, Chrissy said that the 16-year-old had the house to himself after his parents went on a business trip very often, frequently throwing the raddest parties that anyone who was someone, was invited to. Chrissy mumbled a quick hello to the girls sitting on the couch with red solo cups in their hands, grabbing my hand, dragging me across the sea of people in such haste you’d think her life depended on it. In high school, everyone has an “identifier” a descriptive word, that everyone will associate it to you for the full four years—or how many years it takes for you to graduate. Tommy Fletcher’s identifier was “Angel face” Tommy just had this face to him, that made people almost want to trust him from the get-go.

It was at that party where Pixie met Tommy, they hadn’t really talked much, but when Tommy asked if you wanted a ride home, you didn’t sense any malice in his words. That is how whispers began to ripple through the streets, carrying with them an account that had the power to stir curiosity and ignite judgment. It was a false rumor, a tangled web spun by idle minds, woven with threads of teenage gossip, and embellished with imaginations eager for scandal by the elder women of the town. According to the murmurs that churned like a hidden undercurrent. The vicious rumor began with none other than Tommy boy himself. Tommy felt the pressure of his friends’ questioning gazes after he had giving Pixie a ride home. Not confirming nor denying his pal’s suggestions of going past first base, when in fact Tommy had gone in for kiss as he parked his car in front of her modest house but failed miserably spilling Pixie’s drink on her lap. Too embarrassed to admit his lack of game, he just said something about not kissing and telling, and their futures forever altered. The truth, obscured by the thick fog of gossip, remained elusive, leaving Pixie to bear the burden of a rumor born from the whispers of a small town's collective imagination.

     That is how Pixie got her very own identifier, as a matter of fact, Pixie got multiple identifiers. From that party on, Pixie started to be known as "easy" and "Hawkins whore." The shit these people will come up with is unbelievable. The rumors spread like wildfire through the halls of Hawkins High, each murmur chipping away at Pixie's resilience, threatening to tarnish her spirit. But Pixie, with a strength hidden beneath her delicate frame, refused to let these cruel words define her. Instead, she clung to the unwavering support Chrissy had shown her, Chrissy saw beyond the gossip and knew them to be untrue, stood by her side, solidifying their friendship even further. Every day they’d walk to and from school together, seeing as they only lived two blocks away from each other. Chrissy's unwavering support and friendship became Pixie's sustenance, a constant reminder that she was not alone in the trenches of the American school system. With Chrissy's support, Pixie found the courage to rise above the malicious rumors, and chose to defy expectations thrust upon her, everyone thought she’d shrivel away and hide. Anyone else with an identifier like that would. But not Pixie, choosing to rebel against the rumors, and in defiance, Pixie joined the cheer squad the following month. It was a decision that sent shockwaves through the school, challenging the judgments and assumptions that had been cast upon her. Though some still regarded her with a lingering skepticism, Pixie discovered a newfound sense of belonging among the spirited cheerleaders. The support and camaraderie within the team became a shield, warding off the arrows of judgment that continued to be hurled her way. Yet, even with her newfound confidence and belonging, Pixie couldn't escape the persistent advances of boys who believed the rumors to be true. Their unwelcome attention became a bitter reminder that the stain of gossip could be stubborn to wash away. However, Pixie refused to let their misguided perceptions diminish her worth or tarnish her spirit. She stood tall, armed with resilience and an unwavering belief in her own truth. Pixie's journey through the tangled web of rumors and judgments was not without its scars. It tested her strength and resilience, leaving behind wounds that would heal with time. But she carried on, navigating the intricacies of high school life and her untiring belief in her own worth.

                  

     As Pixie walked out the house, the crisp morning air hit her skin, sending a chill down her spine. Pixie never dressed for the weather, she dressed for the fashion, always trying to mirror the magazine covers. Today’s ensemble would embrace the essence of the times, it included a pair of form-fitting acid-washed jeans, hugging her figure with a rebellious edge. The jeans, featuring strategically placed rips and frayed edges, you choose a pink oversized sweater, slouchy and comfortable. It would drape casually over your shoulders, and exposing your collarbone, and giving off an air of nonchalant confidence. To complete her outfit, she would slip into a pair of high-top sneakers, their pristine white canvas sneakers that exuded an athletic-chic air and added a touch of sporty flair to her look. Accessories played an integral role in Pixies fashion, a collection of jelly bracelets, stacked high on her wrists, would jingle melodically with each movement, letting everyone know once she had walked into a room, a testament to her trendsetting status. Oversized hoop earrings, gleaming with metallic finishes, framed her face perfectly and added a touch of glamour. Your makeup of the day was a delicate light purple eyeshadow, thick lashes made darker with mascara, eyebrows perfectly in place, and lips were adorned with gloss, shining n shades of hot pink, amplifying her radiant smile.

       As the students make their way into the halls of Hawkins High, Pixie’s day began like any other, spirit radiating with confidence, she gracefully navigated the bustling corridors. Conversations and laughter filled your ears as you weaved through the throng of students, your presence attracting friendly smiles like moths to a flame. As you approach your locker, the familiar chatter of your circle of friends caught your attention, pulling you in animated conversations, going on about the outfits in Whitney Houston’s new music video. As the bell rang, books and notebooks were quickly retrieved from the organized chaos of your locker. Walking into class before the second bell rang, you gave Ms. O’Donnell a tight-lipped smile, a silent apology for rushing into class right before the bell. It’s not like you absolutely loved Ms.O’Donell as a person, but the teacher adores you! Ever since you had helped the woman in the library carrying the mountain of books, she has taken a liking to you, always brushing minor tardies under the rug, you weren’t complaining. But you couldn’t deny the way your teacher’s voice never failed to lull you to sleep, just as you were about to start to doze off into a comfortable nap, a rushing mop of dark curls comes bursting into the room. “Late again Mr.Munson” O’Donnell’s graining voice pointed out the painfully obvious. 

     Eddie Munson, identifier: Freak. Eddie had a distinctive sense of style, everything that he wore screamed that. Eddie's wore a pair of well-worn dark denim jeans, cuffed at the bottom, bore the marks of a well-worn piece of clothing. He wore his favorite band T-shirt, faded just enough to give it character. Always adding layers to his outfit, Eddie wore his customized jean jacket, heavy with pins of various sizes. On his feet, Eddie would sport a pair of  worn-in white sneakers, his bulky studded belt and his  folded bandana tucked away in his back pocket. Eddie’s outfit, much like your own, perfectly reflect your personalities. Eddie looked down, being caught trying to sneak into the room, he  grinned had the back her O’Donnell’s head, and took a seat in the back of the room, near the right corner. You never understood why everyone hated him so much. I mean sure, he can be kind of annoying sometimes, with all his screeching and hollering in the halls, or his disinterest in school, but cult leader was a bit much, it’s literally a board game, nerd shit. He is just a geek, that has it out to lose his hearing, with the type of music he enjoys listening. You’ve come to learn not to judge a person solely based on rumors. 

     You had always enjoyed joining extracurricular activities, you knew it looked nice in your college applications. So, when Higgins suggested you be the head of a study group afterschool, of course you said yes. Higgins had said I would be able to pick the time and date, but to be able to earn credit, It would have to be at least once a week. You had agreed to do it every Wednesday, after cheer practice, it’d be a taxing to administer this tutoring business, and cheer every week, you would have to rush to the library after cheer practice on Wednesdays. You were a little nervous to meet the kids you’d be tutoring. Higgins hadn’t given you names, only a number. It would be you, and two other students inside the stuffy study room in the back corner of the clammy library. 

     You slugged your compact backpack on your left shoulder, heavy with thick textbooks, the canvas material of the straps making a permanent dent on your soft skin, leaving a red mark where it rested. Making your way to through the empty school hallway, a profound sense of anticipation hangs suspended, the ache from practice making its way up your back thigh. The distant hum and flicker of fluorescent lights, their yellowed glow casting long shadows along the vacant corridor. That is when you meet the eyes of Principal Higgins, the look on his face displayed a certain amount of concern. As you approached him, he stood in the way of the entrance of the library. “There has been a change of plans Ms. Dunphy” he pauses, almost looking for words “…Ms. O’Donnell has informed me that Amelia Richardson won’t be needing tutoring any longer…so, it will be only you and Mr. Munson.” Munson? You hadn’t known you’d be tutoring Eddie. You don’t have anything against him per say, you feel bad for him even, in the unfair way people treat the guy. But one thing remains true, Eddie Munson was intimidating, perhaps it was on purpose. The hair, the clothes, the chains, and tattoos don’t really make him look like a boy next door. You would manage, you had never interacted with Eddie before, but he was hard to miss, making his presence known in every room possible. After you gave your principle a tiny acknowledgement as you passed by him, making your way to the study room. You knew Higgin’s worry stemmed from the fact that your father had recently made an extremely generous donation of new textbooks to the school earlier this year, he was rather important in town. As you make your way into the musty room, your body reacts before you can hold back. Stopping in your tracks, holding the handle, you lock eyes with the metal head. You knew he’d be the one you would tutor, you thought you’d have time before he showed up. He sat there like he was in his living room, feet up on the table, chewing on the end of a pencil, patiently waiting for your arrival. The foreign feeling of his eyes fully locked on yours, causing all the hairs in your body to stand up. “Cats gotcha tongue Tink?” 

I really hope you guys enjoyed this first chapter, I have so much planned for these characters. Please be patient with me as I am definitely not a pro at this yet, but I will get the hang of it!

If you have any sort of constructive feedback, feel free to leave them down below! I’d love them 🫰🏼 leave a heart for support, or repost for double support 🫶🏼🥹

Much love,

Belle.

[vulturevanity]

Content warning for the current wataoshi anime arc

I'll keep this post as spoiler-free as I can, but I'm posting it nonetheless because I feel it's important and I haven't seen anyone else talk about this: late in the Manaria arc there is verbal confirmation that someone was r*ped. It is admitted to by the perpetrator themself. It's something meant to be a cautionary tale, and as such it isn't taken lightly, but within the greater context of the story it will certainly leave some people (rightfully) outraged and it might be especially triggering for victims, particularly those who might like the perpetrator. I'm not sure the anime will show any visuals relating to it, but it's very likely since we got a panel dedicated to it in the manga.

So if this is a triggering subject for you, tread cautiously ahead, or perhaps give this arc a pass.

Important edit in light of new info I've received: this post was a misinterpretation of a scene as it's framed in the manga. Sorry for the scare

Some points, still trying to keep it spoiler-free:

Media adaptations always lose something of the original text when formatting it for the new medium. In the manga, the backstory for the character in question is told by said character, who phrases it in a really weird way (strongly biased against themself), and that in addition to the single panel depicting the way they viewed the relationships made it much harder for the scene to be read with the original intent, leading me to believe that it was indeed an act of violence. However, that is not the intent of the original text. In the LN, as it was sent to me in the comments of this post (spoilers if you want to read it for yourself), the story is told through Rae's narration, whose PoV as someone with nigh absolute knowledge of the game gives us a bit of the greater context that lets us know that the relationship was ultimately consensual. It's unfortunate that so much crucial context was lost in the adaptation, and I once again apologise for jumping to conclusions with such a limited perspective.

That being said, I still believe some caution is necessary, for the very same reasons stated above. We don't know how the anime will frame it, and depending on their choices it could really go either way, and anime-only fans may or may not get a poorly framed, potentially triggering scene in much the same way it was with the manga.

A sincere thank you to @worldenoughntime and @cyberbun, who stepped up to correct me on this. I will not be deleting this post because I believe in open and honest communication, and I want to let it be known that I'm open to being corrected when I commit mistakes. Once again I am sorry, and thank you for understanding.

[mysicklove]

𝐑𝐔𝐋𝐄𝐒

𝑮𝑬𝑵𝑬𝑹𝑨𝑳

MINORS, BLANK, AND AGELESS BLOGS DO NOT INTERACT YOU WILL BE BLOCKED.

I do not take requests! I write for myself and requests stress me out. I do take suggestions and thirsts. Ex: "What about ...." or "What do you think about ....." basically not written in a command form lol.

I always age my characters up!!! In my head to early 20s. BLOCK ME if you don't agree. It's fine if you disagree with my view, but I am not going to argue with you. It's pointless.

Please don't ask when my next fic will be, I do have a life outside of Tumblr.

I write for fem!, AFAB!, and Gn! do not send thirsts about male reader. I am a cis woman...so....its just not my thing lol

I am a Dom! Reader blog. Please don't send in Sub! Reader thirsts, and stuff that implies the reader is a switch.

This blog is not spoiler free. I tag most of my things appropriately, but little things will often not be tagged. This is my warning to you, tread cautiously!

I write and interact with dark content including: yandere, cnc, step/incest, and dubcon. all of this will be tagged as dark content cw with the addition of: "yandere cw", "incest cw", etc.

You can ask to be mutuals!! I love meeting new ppl and being friends with them <3 tho it will be from my main @/mysicklove-main

HARDBLOCK to break the mutual

𝑩𝑰𝑮 𝑵𝑶'𝒔

For Writing:

Pedophilia, Self-harm, Suicide, Any sort of specific reader (other than female/gn): For example, male! readers, chubby!readers, poc!reader, etc. (I want all crowds of ppl to enjoy my work. if my work is fem!reader I will def tag it.), Scat/Piss/any toilet type kink, Rape/non-con, Feederism, Submissive readers

For My Inbox:

Roleplay, Addressing me as any sort of title, Hate (obvi lol), Racist/Homophobic comments, Spamming my inbox, Sexually flirting with me or asking about my sex life.

𝐀𝐍𝐎𝐍 𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓

👑 | 🐀 | 🤍 | 💐| 🪡 | 🐝 | 🙈 | 🎉 | 🫐 | 🚬 | 👨 | ♥ | 🦇 | 🕷️| 🩰 | 🌑 | 🦷 | 👒 | 🧽 | ❄️ | 🍄 | 🕸️ | 💄 | 👼 | ♻️ | 🌷 | 📸 | 🦈 | 🍝 | 🤭 | 🪿 | ☁️🌙✨| 📼 | 💤 | 🍭 | 🎀 | 👽 | ☘️ | 🧛 | 🫀 | 🪭 | 🪅

meow anon | douma simp anon | >:) anon | song anon | J anon |

[vereais]

@alexisomnias asked: do other companions have special comments or reactions upon recruiting RHYS?

" t'chaki! " LAEZEL practically spits, casting a nasty glare towards rhys' way. your new recruit remains ever nonchalant, staring at her blankly. "not only have you recruited the drow, but her half-born rabid dog as well? the worm must be eating at your brain faster than you care to admit..."

" charming company you've decided to let us keep, " SHADOWHEART says, as sarcastic as ever. she'd vouched for giving rhys a chance during his whole spiel, giving you some sort of hint that she finds some similarity between him and herself ( you don't really know, granted the mystery that she shrouds her background in so willingly ) but she makes it known that she still finds him suspicious; especially with the picture rhys paints, sharpening his blade with his armour still dripping in blood.

" my, he's certainly . . . delectable, isn't he? " ASTARION purrs, the tone of his coy voice almost wanton as he eyes the latest addition to your cosy little camp. he looks to be eyeing his next meal, and when you warn him about acting out around the mysterious paladin, the vampire spawn only laughs and waves a dismissive hand, his gaze paying little to no attention to you; you understand that rhys is handsome, above average standards even, but this seems all too much. you hope not to find a corpse the next morning── whether it be astarion's or his.

it takes a little probing, but you finally coax GALE's thoughts about your latest recruit out of him: " there's . . . something about him. i can't quite place my finger on it, but i guarantee you that he is not one to be trusted, never mind how useful of an ally he could be to us. " when rhys glances to the both of you, you can see gale's face pale as he makes some excuse and hurries away.

WYLL is one of those who makes it clear that he does not approve of your most recent recruit, let alone what little you know of rhys's (admittedly) poor character. " he lacks any sense of loyalty and empathy. mark my words, he will one day make us regret ever allowing him into our camp. "

when you approach HALSIN regarding the former ally of the goblin's camp, he only offers you a sympathetic smile and a shake of his head. apparently, rhys had not been amongst the goblin's party that had ambushed him and his men; " you will have to make your own judgement of him, as i know as little as you do ── but tread cautiously. a man so quick to abandon his own is not oft a man to be trusted. "

" a most wise decision to include him amongst our ranks ," MINTHARA commends you begrudgingly when you pass by her tent, glancing at rhys as he sets up his tent. " but watch your back. a man who works as efficiently as he does in the shadows is not oft one to be trusted. "

[llliiinnnaaa]

Reprisal | Chapter Four | Part Two

coriolanus snow x gaul oc

A/N: Thank you to everyone who has reblogged and liked, or even just read the previous chapters I’ve posted. It really means a lot!!!

Summary: Ten years after the Tenth Hunger Games, Coriolanus Snow is under Dr. Volumnia Gaul’s wing as a Gamemaker alongside her niece. Unbeknownst to either of them, they’re both being prepared for a much greater task.

Warning: This story will contain explicit violence against adults and children alike (I mean, it’s Dr. Gaul AND Snow) as well as explicit language, and sexual situations.

***This fic is in no way, shape, or form, me endorsing or co-signing the horrific shit Snow does, nor am I trying to romanticize it. Also, apathy and will be the main driving force of any remnants of a relationship between my OC and Snow’s character. So if you’re interested in something very romantic and fluffy…it’s not gonna be this.

Enjoy!

     Ma Plinth damn near shouts as she examines the apartment, commenting sweetly on every little thing she possibly can, acting as though it’s the grandest home she’s stepped foot in. 

Seeing Dyess Crane drink up her kindness makes Coriolanus sick. 

Tigris helps Tawny finish up the table before announcing, “Okay, everyone, dinner is served!” 

Moments later, the sound of scraping silver across the dinner plates is all that’s heard along with the sound of Tiberius and Strabo’s laughter as Mrs. Plinth smiles warmly at Tawny. 

“Mrs. Crane, you truly do have a lovely home. It’s beautiful.” She says after swallowing a bite of roast. 

Dyess cautiously keeps an eye on the exchange, paranoid Tawny will lose her manners and lash out rudely to their guest based off the fact she simply doesn’t like that the Plinths are district. 

But he’s been nice to Coriolanus, so if he can tolerate Snow, she can tolerate the Plinths. 

“Thank you, Mrs. Plinth.” She maintains her best behavior, grinning at the woman adorned in a floral printed dress.

“Please tell her it would be even more beautiful with the sound of little feet pitter-pattering down the halls.” Minerva adds, sipping the wine she’s clearly had too much of already. 

The focus quickly becomes Tawny as everyone absentmindedly looks at her. 

“Mini.” Tiberius says, raising his brows. 

“I’m just saying.” She replies, motioning to Dyess. “Dyess agrees with me.” 

Tawny snaps her head to her left to look at her husband who grins at his wife. 

This is quickly becoming a conversation their guests feel should not be heard by them, Tigris coming to the rescue to say, “This weather has been horrific,” referring to the downcast of rain that’s been hounding the Capitol endlessly. “We passed by three different vehicle accidents on the way over.”

“I know it. My hair was ruined this morning before we even got inside for breakfast.” Minerva states, rolling her eyes.

“That reminds me, we need to get a new set of tires, Sweetie. The tread’s damn near gone.” Dyess says to Tawny, to which she mutters, “Language, Dear,” while he continues, “We’ve probably worn it out with our back and forths to work lately.” 

“Do you two both still work at the Citadel?” Strabo asks, cutting into a carrot. 

“Yes.” Tawny says to him. 

“Oh, they are very accomplished scientists, aren’t you, Dear?” Tiberius asks his daughter, the pride radiating off of him. 

“If you say so, Dad.” She humbly retorts, earning a small wink from him as Dyess finishes off his drink and pipes, “Mr. Snow, that reminds me…” 

Coriolanus stops his eating, looking across from himself to stare at Dyess while Tawny’s breathing stops as the two men look at one another. 

“...I heard from a little birdy ,” He deliberately puts emphasis on “birdy”, Snow’s lip nearly curling, but he keeps himself together, “That Ravenstill is going to be honoring those whose cases are chosen to be presented in the Hunger Games with medals of Resilience.” 

“What?” Tawny’s now looking at Coriolanus, along with Livia, the two of them just as confused. 

Snow takes a sip of his drink after swallowing his food. 

“Your birdy is full of it.” He refutes the rumor – though it’s not a rumor in the slightest.

But it is confidential information. 

“Hmm.” Dyess hums flatly, wearing a smug smirk.

“That would be a handsome incentive, though.” Tawny’s mother states, earning a, “Oh, yes,” from Mrs. Plinth before the woman adds, “Do you all work together in a group?” 

“No.” The four of them all quickly state, everyone’s eyes looking to them as Ma says, “Oh…” 

“Ma, Dyess, Tawny, and Livia create the different mutations of animals and plants in the arena you see. It’s my job to sort through those and incorporate them into the Games.” Snow adds sweetly to the woman who is practically his adoptive mother. “Each Gamemaker is paired with at least one scientist to collaborate with each year the last few months leading up to the Games to examine their work and pick out what they would be interested in incorporating.” 

“If they have something worth incorporating.” Livia adds, eyes flickering to Tawny before Snow’s nudging his wife’s leg with his own, silently telling her to knock it off. 

“Oh, I see.” Ma nods. 

“And to think I tried to get her into finance.” Minerva chuckles, running a fingertip along a strand of her light brown hair to push it back in place. 

“Tawny’s gotten the pick of the litter, right, Snow?” Dyess asks next, Coriolanus raising his brows. 

“If you say so.” He doesn’t entertain whatever it is Dyess is trying to get at, feeling that he doesn’t mean it genuinely in any way, shape, or form. 

“He’s too humble, really. Everyone knows he’s the best Gamemaker we’ve got aside from Dr. Gaul.” Dyess goes on. “And Tawny gets him all to herself.” 

The way it’s worded sends a tick up the spines of both Snow and Tawny. 

“Isn’t that right, Dear?” He nudges his wife with his elbow while she takes a long drink of wine. 

“I’m very fortunate, yes.” She mutters. 

“What do you do with the creatures or plants you don’t use?” Tigris is quick to once more change the subject. 

“Put them down, file them away as a success so we can go back to it if we need to have the notes and instructions there to do it.” Dyess interrupts when Livia goes to speak. 

“That seems like a waste.” Minerva adds in. 

“ It is .” Tawny states, almost bitterly, recalling Snow tearing into her for wasting their time, money, and resources. “Is it not, Mr. Snow?”

“Yes, Dr. Crane, it certainly is.” He doesn’t miss a beat before replying, and she immediately avoids talking about it further when she looks to Tigris and asks, “What about work for you, Tigris, do you have any ideas yet?”

“I’ve always gotten ideas, Tawny. It’s getting the idea to translate in physical form the way I’d like it to that’s the difficult part.” She responds, lighting up when asked about her work. 

Tawny can heavily vouch for that frustration, but she doesn’t say a word more about her own work. 

“Dad, Tigris was the young girl who helped with my wedding gown, remember?” Tawny asks her father, realization coming to his face. 

“That was you?!” He asks, a wide smile on his features. 

“Yes, sir.” Tigris replies. “That was what got me the job working with Fabricia.” 

“I still won’t wear the suit she did for me. I’m scared to mess it up, it’s so fine.” Strabo jumps in, Tigris grinning as she replies, “I’m glad you like it, Mr. Plinth.” 

“So, you do fashion?” Minerva questions, trying to get a tipsy grasp of the conversation. 

“Tigris is the best designer we have in the Capitol, Mrs. Gaul. I can’t ever get myself put together for an event without her.” Coriolanus explains, giving his cousin a soft smile. 

“How much money do you make doing that, Miss Snow, if you don’t mind me asking?” Minerva questions, Tawny’s face falling in horror at her mother’s question, Tiberius going to speak but Tawny beats him to it. 

“Mother, don’t start badgering our guests about what their checks look like.” She doesn’t even try to hide the hiss in her tone, irritated beyond measure at this point. 

“It is a reasonable question as fashion is not as stable of a job as what the other four of you do.” She motions to Tawny, Dyess, Livia, and Coriolanus. “I hear that most designers struggled to make ends meet up until the last couple years. A lot of them had to sell themselves — ”

Tawny’s clattering fork against her plate as she drops it and interrupts her mother’s words that are slowly starting to slur. 

Awkward silence falls over the whole table, the air so thick and uncomfortable that Snow contemplates grabbing Livia and Tigris and getting out as soon as he can. 

“…Let’s change the subject, Mini, alright?” Tiberius patiently suggests to her, seeing the way she’s glaring at their daughter who is glaring right back at her. 

Mrs. Plinth looks at Coriolanus with worry in her eyes. 

“My wife meant no offense, Miss Snow.” Tawny’s father says politely to Tigris. 

“No offense is taken, Mr. Gaul, I assure you.” Tigris says gently, trying to help ease the tension. 

“My daughter is just easy to get spun up.” Minerva says, next. “It could be remedied with children as they make one’s heart more patient and kinder but she refuses.” 

Coriolanus keeps his mouth shut despite his confusion. 

Did Dr. Crane have a child or not? 

She said it’s the only reason they got married, but there is no kid between them, apparently. 

“Why would I want to create more targets for rebels to hit?” Her composure  has left her, sighing out the words with her brown eyes closed, dark eye makeup illuminating in the soft glow of the dining room light. 

“Tawny —” Dyess mutters only for her to cut him short. 

“—I did have daughter. A damn good one. And she was blown to smithereens. Though people can’t seem to remember that because they can’t quite place their finger on which Games it was exactly that she died before. Nor do they recall I didn’t want her to go anywhere near that arena in the first place but you insisted.” Tawny now looks at Dyess, her voice shaking with the threat of tears. 

Livia digs her nails into Snow’s leg as if begging him for them to please go home, but he can’t move out of his chair, memories flooding his mind. 

The tenth Hunger Games, the arena blowing up with him and his classmates, and tributes, in it. 

The scarring on his back from the burns that he’d told Tawny came from a terrible accident with the fireplace. 

It slowly trickles in that, yes, he does recall hearing something about one of Dr. Gaul’s family members getting fatally injured in the explosion, outside the arena looking around when it happened. 

He flinches. 

Tawny’s daughter had to have only been about four years old. 

“Tawny,” Dyess starts, Snow’s eyes finally looking at them instead of the table as everyone else has appeared to stop breathing, “It was a very horrible situation, an accident…can you please stop hanging it over my hea—”

“—Your stupidity got our daughter murdered !” She outbursts, she herself having too much to drink, clearly. 

She doesn’t give him time to get up before she’s forcing her chair back, screeching against the floor, as she hoarses out, “Excuse me,” to her guests, leaving the dining room and going to the guest bathroom off the hallway by the front door — the furthest place from her husband at the moment. 

     Tawny takes in heaps of fresh air, the tip-toes of her heels standing on the solid back of the toilet, elbows resting on the high window sill that almost touches her collar bone as smokes blows past her lips and into the Capitol night life. 

The rain has somewhat subsided for now, leaving a heavy haze of fog and humidity. 

Her hair is probably ruined with frizz but she doesn’t care.

She looked like a raccoon when she got in here, the tears that fell as soon as she left the prying eyes of guests smeared her makeup. 

Her goal is to stay in here until everyone leaves, anyway, so it’s not like anyone will be seeing her like the way she now does. 

Mortified doesn’t even begin to describe how she feels for her outburst. 

Apology cards will definitely have to go out. 

She doesn’t think herself mad or mentally unwell, truth be told she’s been doing much better than what she was when it first happened — or even better than she was a few years ago…or months ago.

Refusing to acknowledge that working with Snow had helped her, she shakes her head and takes another drag of her cigarette. 

Smoking was reserved strictly for emergencies — she hadn’t smoked one in over a year. 

This was an emergency. 

A faint knock at the door pulls her attention, more than likely Dyess or her mother. 

She’d throw herself from the window before opening it for either of them. 

“Dr. Crane.” She hears Coriolanus lowly, not bothering replying, but she does move from the toilet to tip-toe to the door. 

 A moment passes and she thinks perhaps he’s decided to leave her be, until he says, “ Tawny ,” in a rather stern whisper. 

Shit, she thinks to herself, unlocking the door and opening it as quietly as she can. 

They look at one another through the small silver of the open door, and he looks at her as it to say, “Really?” Unamused with her. 

She opens it enough for him to fit in, closing and locking it behind him before moving right back where she was, standing on the toilet, smoking out of the window. 

“You’re ridiculous.” He whispers it, trying not to laugh at the sight of her acting like a teenager trying not to get caught by her parents. 

She turns to look at him, plucking the cigarette from her mouth, extending it to him. 

She’s sure everyone in the apartment needs one right now. 

Snow declines her offer. 

“I don’t smoke.” He says, the smell of it wafting to his nose as smoke curls in the air. 

It reminds him of his father. 

“Have you read over the case I gave you?” He questions, seeing the muscles under the skin of her back tense for a moment. 

“Yes, I did.” She whispers back, blowing more smoke, looking at him. “It’s not going to work. Everything I touch goes to pot.” She reminds him. 

Everything you touch your husband fucks up , he wants to correct her but he can’t.  

“You won’t be doing it by yourself. I’ll personally keep an eye on it, so will Dr. Gaul. We really want you to be a part of these Games this year.” 

She finishes her cigarette, Snow extending his hand to help her down, and she glares at him. 

“I’m not doing anything.” He defends himself, honestly. “I’m just trying to be a gentleman and help you down.”

She sighs and grabs his hand, getting down, and leaning against the counter beside him. 

“I’m sorry about all this, Snow.” Tawny apologizes for tonight, humiliated with herself. “It was unwelcoming and embarrassing.” 

“Things happen when people have a little too much to drink.” He shrugs, glancing at her when she scoffs. 

“Don’t we know it?” She mumbles, staring off for a moment before Coriolanus is saying, “I’m sorry to hear about your daughter.” 

“My mother and my husband keep pressing me to have another.” She admits. “‘Your biological clock is just ticking away’,” she mimics her mother and he smiles just a little bit at how accurate she sounds. “Dyess just wants to screw me without a condom. He doesn’t care if I have another baby or not.”

Snow just looks at her, letting out a soft, “Hmm,” the corners of his mouth twitching to smile but he won’t. 

He can’t say he blames her husband for scouring for any excuse to have her fully. 

His expression practically shows what he’s thinking, eyes roaming over her as the wine she’d drank tonight starts to send her thoughts into a bad place to be. 

The last thing either of them need is Dyess or Livia trying to come in here and find the two of them together. 

“They’re all on the roof.” He tells her, as if reading her mind. “Everyone decided they needed fresh air so they’re having their after dinner drinks up there since the rain eased up.” 

“Oh.” 

She has to get out of this close space with him, they both have to, his hands staying to himself by his sheer willpower not to grab her. 

“Let me show you something.” She offers, walking to the door. 

They leave the bathroom, and he follows her to the hallway on the other side of the apartment that holds the bedrooms. 

Down the hall, the very last door that’s shut, she opens it and flicks on the light. 

The walls are a soft pink, shining gold accents scattered throughout the room in the form of  knickknacks and picture frames. 

Toys scatter the floor that’s covered with a fluffy cream-colored rug, the bed looks as if someone had rolled out of it without making it, the cream bedding appearing a very slight shade of yellow. 

He follows Tawny completely inside, glancing at the pictures on the rich wooden chest of drawers by the door. 

All of which contain pictures of Tawny —one of which has a younger Tawny holding a newborn baby, then another she’s got a toddler that’s seated in her lap, in front of a cake with two candles on top of it. 

Another shows where the same child is older, holding a rainbow colored snake with Tawny assisting her, crouched down beside her in her lab coat, a big smile on both of their faces. 

No, not just smiles. 

The picture had captured their laughter. 

He has to pull his eyes from the photo, recognizing the snakes all too well. 

Snow looks at her, studying her expression as she looks at the photos. 

“She died a couple days after that photo.” Tawny states. “Dyess had wanted to take her to look around the arena. It’s treated like a tourist attraction more times than not, as you know. I begged him not to, I didn’t want her to be around all of that…I didn’t particularly enjoy the Games themselves. I thought them to be cruel, but still necessary…” She trails off, taking in a breath. “He was off that day and had told me he wouldn’t take her,  but I felt like he was going to, anyway, so I just ignored it as best as I could.” She continues. “Next thing I know I have a Peacekeeper telling me that my child, Tullia, has been identified as one of the casualties of a rebel bombing at the arena.”

He looks at the floor. 

“If he would’ve been there when I first found out…” She adds, referring to Dyess, “…I probably would’ve killed him, Snow. I was so angry with him.” 

“Rebels killed my father, out in Twelve.” He states to try to ease the rage slowly starting to bubble in her. 

She looks at him and nods, saying, “I know. My dad lost half his leg trying to save him.” 

He hadn’t realized Tiberius served with his father, though he supposes it doesn’t come as a surprise. 

Dr. Gaul was so heavily interwoven with Crassus Snow, of course Tiberius knew him, too. 

“I thought he walked that way due to his age.” He adds, earning a smile from her.

He liked seeing her smile. 

She was pretty to look at. 

“No, no, there’s a chunk of prosthetic under those pleats.” She informs him. “He’s too proud to admit to himself, still, though.” 

“He seems like a good man.” He admits, taking a liking to the old man.

He carried himself well. 

“He is.” Tawny is fast to confirm it. “A very good man. A very, very, good man. He’s wonderful. He truly is.” She adds before saying, “I hope my mother didn’t make you uncomfortable.”

His eyes bulge and he scoffs.

“She’s…” He trails off, recalling those sharp green eyes staring at him hungrily.

“She really likes men.” She outright says it, no other way to put it than that. 

“Yeah.” He agrees, able to tell it without her confirming it to him. 

“She sold herself when dad was off fighting to make ends meet.” She confesses, swallowing the lump in her throat. 

Coriolanus thinks of Tigris…

“I didn’t judge her when I realized what she was doing. I couldn’t. Everyone was starving and scared and she did what she felt she had to do to keep me alive while dad and my brothers were away.” She explains. “Dad didn’t know about it, but then the war ended shortly after he got injured, and he got home, and she didn’t stop seeing other men — although by that point they didn’t pay for her anymore. She just wanted to be anywhere else but home with anyone else but my father.” Tawny rolls her jaw. “She’d stay gone for days at a time and we would go look for her.” 

“Why didn’t he leave?” Snow questions, furrowing his brows. “They would have granted him a Dissolution of Marriage on grounds of infidelity.” 

“He didn’t want to leave.” She shakes her head. “He told me, ‘War changes people…and it rarely changes them in ways we like. That’s just the order of things’.” She says. “I think he felt guilty that my brothers were killed, and he couldn’t be home to support her in her mourning. So he couldn’t leave her for being desperate to get her mind off of things.” 

He can’t imagine loving someone so much that he’d tolerate them embarrassing him in that way. 

He doesn’t know if it makes Tiberius a good man, or a fool. 

“My mother used to sleep with inappropriate men when she was stressed.” She says it as a realization, looking at him and he picks up on what she’s saying. 

“They do say the older women get, the more they turn into their mothers.” He states humorously. 

“Promise me you’ll kill me before that happens, please.” She says it in a half-laugh, half-serious tone. 

“I promise.” He assures her casually, not saying anything else as she looks up at him and expects him to keep speaking. 

She needs him to say something and fill the silent void because the longer they stare at one another, the heavier her breaths get, the more her chest heaves and catches his eyes, the more he wants to rip her top off of her…

“I, um, I need to clean up.”  She tells him, “They’ll probably be coming back inside soon.” 

She moves to leave the room, and he follows her, waiting patiently for her to shut the door and step in front of him to the dining room to help collect plates and clean off the table. 

“Thank you,” she says as he takes the last of the wine glasses to the sink. 

She wipes the table off and replaces the cloth on it, before she turns to head back to the kitchen only to be stopped when she sees him leaning against the door frame, staring at her. 

Perhaps it’s the little bit of wine that he had himself, or the sight of her leaning over the table as she smoothed out its cloth, or the sob stories she had confided in him earlier that makes him somewhat pity her more than he already had, but when she backs up to the table while he slowly steps to her, he has to fight against the urge to unbuckle his belt, undo his pants and have her. 

Instead he settles for her tongue mixing with his, her legs wrapped around her waist, grinding against the bulge in his pants as soft breaths sigh out in his ear, his lips leaving her own to trail along her neck. 

He wants to taste her, fumbling with the top of her silkie pants but she pushes his hand away, stopping him. 

“We can’t they’re—” she can’t speak, mouth falling open at the feeling of him between her legs, the two of them moving against each other desperately. 

She wants him inside of her, tired of picturing him when Dyess touches her, exhausted with trying to touch herself the way he does and being completely unsuccessful. 

She wants his hand around her throat, or in her hair, his spit in her mouth, his bite marks along her skin, his cock taking what he wants from her. 

His hand goes between her thighs, feeling the fabric is slick with her, the feeling making her hips buck into him, her head falling back as she relents,“Okay.” 

He rips at her pants, the button that had been secured with a small string falling to the floor but neither of them care. 

She has to bite her wrist when two of his fingers push past her skimpy panties and go into her, his jaw going slack with the way she tightens around the digits, his pants painfully strained. 

He has to be quick with this, so he is. 

She damn near crawls away from him when he sucks her clit into his mouth, fingers continuously hitting against that spot inside of her that has her wrist falling from her mouth, hand threading in his hair. 

“Fuck,” she whispers in a squeak, “ Coriolanus .”

He grins at the sound, no more professional “Mr. Snow,” or casual, “Snow.” 

Not when they do this. 

She grinds against his face, heels kicked off her feet as her back arches, tears at the corner of her eyes. 

Her mother was right. 

She is so easy to get spun up. 

She fists the lace table cloth in her hands to avoid messing up his hair, the less evidence of this atrocity the better. 

Her stomach knots up, painted toes curling as Snow twirls his tongue around her, pistoning his fingers in and out harshly, making her nearly see stars. 

“I —” she goes to speak but can’t, unable to breathe when he groans into her, more of her slick coating his tongue, making his own eyes roll back. 

Her legs shake, tensing up, her abdomen tightening along with her cunt. 

She hits her peak, nearly trying to push him off of her, it’s too much at one time, and it’s messy when she cums. 

Perhaps it is the thrill of the risk of being caught, perhaps it’s the fact her husband is just above them, but he keeps his fingers moving in her, allowing her to ride out her high on them as he captures her lips with his own, her tongue licking her own spend off of his tongue. 

“It feels so good,” She whispers to him in a whimper, his fingers still curling inside of her. 

“Does it?” He asks huskily, heaving out a breath when she palms at his cock through his pants. 

“I want more,” she begs, wanting to shove him on the floor and sink down onto him. 

“Not here.” He doesn’t want to go that far.

He digs his fingers against her walls once more, her eyes fluttering shut, forehead falling to his shoulder as she allows him to pull another orgasm from her. 

She clings to his shoulders, shaking and trying to control her noise level when she cums again. 

“We’re going to keep doing this .” He tells her, grabbing her chin, forcing her to look at him as blue eyes stare  down into brown. “Because I want to. And I’m going to keep looking at you because I like looking at you.” He adds. 

It doesn’t affect work, it doesn’t affect their marriages. It’s just them using one another to feel good. 

“Okay.” She nods, his lips pressing to hers before his teeth sink into her bottom lip, her gloved hands holding either side of his face gently. 

He pulls away after a moment, letting out a heavy breath as he calms down, noticing movement in the corner of his eye. 

Tigris’s blue eyes widen to the size of saucers at the sight of them tangled together, and all she can muster is a very quick and stuttery,  “Th-They’re coming back inside.”