#weather forecast / oc | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

uzumaki-rebellion · 2 months ago

Text

A Daughter's Plan

Pairing: Terry Richmond x Black Female OC

Warning(s): Pure Fluff. Single Dad. Girl Dad energy. Terry's POV. Low angst.

Summary: Terry Richmond is a lonely single dad caring for his ten-year-old daughter, Pilar. When Pilar's mother re-marries and moves overseas to start a new job and family, the pre-teen thinks her dad needs to find someone for himself, too. Unbeknownst to Terry, his clever daughter has her sights set on the new neighbor, Allegra, who might be the perfect match.

Word count: 7,481

youtube

"Isn't she pretty

Truly the angel's best

Boy, I'm so happy

We have been heaven blessed"

Stevie Wonder—"Isn't She Lovely?"

Terry Richmond heard the familiar rolling sound of his ten-year-old daughter's skateboard crossing over into the cul-de-sac of their gated townhome neighborhood. He could always pick out the unique sound of her board's ka-kump, ka-kump, ka-kump rhythm compared to her school buddies as they raced each other home.

Pilar always did a few kick flip tricks by Mr. Rhea's property before she jumped the curb and circled past a speed bump near Mrs. Purdue's home. While hand sanding a rocking chair, that he made for his pregnant sister, Terry paused.

He didn't hear Pilar's skateboard anymore.

Her crew of three friends whizzed past his open garage door toward their homes, but Terry didn't see his only child roll up to greet him with her angelic smile and chaotic energy. He lifted his protective goggles and wiped his hands on his work apron. Still no sign of her.

He strode out of the garage to take a peek and he noticed her lingering by their mailbox, still wearing her protective helmet and staring across the wide street. A furniture van blocked the driveway of the townhome facing across their property. A Black woman in her late twenties or early thirties directed two burly movers to carry a brand new sofa covered in plastic through her front door. The cute bob and conservative pastel colors of her sweater and pencil skirt had him guessing she was a teacher, or worked in corporate.

He glanced at Pilar who kept her dark brown eyes laser-focused on the recent addition to their quiet corner of the world. She chewed on her lip and rolled her board back and forth with her left foot. The new neighbor bought the house of Pilar's best friend since kindergarten. Little Leslie Gardner left Ville Broussard, Louisiana a year ago, and her old house stood empty for nine months until the For Sale sign finally came down three months ago. Terry knew that Mr. Gardner put a pretty penny into renovating the place before putting it on the market, and the expense of the renovation drove the price up.

The woman across the street probably spent over two-hundred and fifty thousand dollars for the two-bedroom property. Pilar pretended to dig in the mailbox, knowing he had already gotten the mail, and stared at the woman. From that distance, he couldn't tell if Pilar was still upset about Leslie moving or if she was upset that a stranger was moving into her bestie's old home.

"Pilar," he called out.

His daughter looked his way, and so did the woman across the street.

Whoa.

Terry never got a full view of the neighbor before. He always caught sideways glances or the back of her head. But the full frontal turned out to be something else. She looked like a gorgeous Black Barbie doll. He peeped her figure a few days ago when she first showed up in form-fitting pale green sweatpants and a matching hoodie. The fall weather brought out the layers, but she must've ignored the forecast because she walked around double-cheeked up in sportswear not designed for cooler temperatures.

Miss Neighbor turned her attention back to the interior of her home and Pilar ambled over, carrying her skateboard. She pulled off her skateboard helmet.

"Hey munchkin," he said, ruffling her thick two-toned curls pulled back with a light blue scrunchie. From the roots to just above the tips, Pilar's hair was dark brown. The ends had turned their annual summer-in-the-sun reddish brown that matched her skin tone. She looked exactly like his oldest sister Brianna and had her spirited personality, too.

Pilar's down-turned lips reflected a little 'tude.

"I don't see any kids," Pilar said.

She sounded bummed.

"Checking out the neighbor, huh?"

"She's pretty. Do you think she's pretty, Dad?"

"She is very attractive."

"Very?" Pilar said with a smug grin.

"Don't read anything into that."

"We should go say hi."

"She's busy with furniture. Let her get settled in."

He guided Pilar into their home through the garage, and she dumped her board and helmet by the dinette table. She washed her hands in the kitchen sink and he pulled a PB&J sandwich on a plate and a Capri Sun from the fridge, placing them on the table for her after-school snack.

The landline rang, and he answered it.

"Hi Terry, is Pilar in yet?"

His ex wife's voice sounded perky and happy.

"Yeah, hold on.'"

He carried the cordless from the living room into the kitchen and handed it to Pilar.

"It's your mom."

Pilar's face brightened, and she chatted away on the overseas call. Terry returned to the garage and began sanding the armrest of the rocking chair. He swept sawdust on the ground and closed the garage door after he finished.

Back in the kitchen, he rinsed his hands. An uneaten sandwich remained on the kitchen table without Pilar in sight. He looked in their living room and didn't find her there.

"Pilar?"

Terry climbed the stairs to the second floor and found his daughter weeping on her bed, her face buried in a yellow Big Bird pillow.

"What's wrong?"

He sat his big body on her twin bed, and she shook her head on the pillow. He laid a hand on her back.

"Babygirl, what is it?"

"Mom isn't coming back for Christmas. She eloped with that man in Italy and they plan on flying me out there for a boat cruise instead of coming to the lake like she promised. They'll have a big party in place of a wedding in Rome next July."

Pilar never addressed her new step-father by his name, Bryson. It was always "that man" despite her mother dating him for two years. Bryson was east coast respectability. A Black Archon Boulé with a prestigious prep school background and long family money. The complete opposite of Terry's country boy/military roots. He drove a 2015 F-250 truck and drank beer. Bryson drove a 2025 Jaguar and sipped Chardonnay.

Yolanda leveled up to the Black bougie life she always wanted. Terry knew in his heart that Yolanda would never be happy building a life with him. They were both twenty and naïve, getting married the moment they found out Pilar was conceived. He quit college and joined the marines to support them. Yolanda worked as a flight attendant after their daughter was born, so Terry stayed the primary caretaker, training other marines and not deploying out of the country.

Yolanda wanted more out of life than he could provide financially and asked for a divorce when Pilar turned six. Both their families had been shocked when she granted Terry primary custody of their only child. Yolanda wanted to travel the world and her career let her do that. She eventually settled in Atlanta, working for Delta. Pilar adjusted to being shuttled back and forth for holidays and summers.

Then Bryson popped up, freeing Yolanda from the working class. He was older, established, and child-free. Also very generous with his money.

Terry had made arrangements to send Pilar abroad for a lavish wedding the following summer as her mother's flower girl. She and Bryson had planned to spend the Christmas holiday with the entire Richmond family so that they could all meet the new man who would be connected to them through Pilar. Christmas was going to be the rare treat of being with both her parents for a holiday. The Richmond clan had reserved fancy cabins by a lake for a week and planned on turning it into a family reunion of sorts. Yolanda offered to arrange her Christmas plans for the reunion so Pilar wouldn't miss out on seeing all of her cousins from all over the states. Now she eloped and switched up on their child three months in advance.

Terry kept his anger in check in front of Pilar. He'd call Yolanda when his daughter was back in school and give her a smooth cuss out. He offered to switch Thanksgiving for Christmas because it was important for Pilar to experience a big reunion for the first time on his side of the family.

Pilar turned her head from the pillow. Big, wet eyes stared at him. Her bottom lip trembled and his heart squeezed in his chest. His daughter was the light of his life. Watching her expectations crumble hurt his soul. Pilar came first before anything, and that was the difference between him and Yolanda. Their daughter became a secondary consideration with her. His ex wasn't a terrible person. He loved her once a long time ago. She was ambitious, energetic, pretty, and gave him a perfect child. Yolanda just wasn't cut out to be a mother saddled with the responsibility of putting her daughter's emotional needs first. To Yolanda, whisking Pilar off to Rome probably sounded like giving her child the best in life. Bryson was an American Express Exec for their Italian branch and lived in a lavish home with staff and chauffeurs. Yolanda shopped, dined, and played tennis every day in luxury. She wanted Pilar to experience that lifestyle. In his own way, Terry wanted their daughter to have that chance, too. But without pulling the rug from under Pilar. She set her heart on having them all together for once since their divorce.

"Tell you what…I'll talk to her and try to convince them to come for Christmas."

"She said the cruise is their early honeymoon and they want me to go so we can bond as a new family. I already have a family!"

Pilar buried her face in his chest, and he stroked her hair.

"How about we go to Cholly's Burgers for dinner and you can mope over a double cheeseburger and a big chocolate malt?"

Pilar sniffled and wiped her nose.

"Okay, I'll go…but I can't guarantee that I'll feel better."

"Deal," he said.

He left her alone in her room and went down to the kitchen and put her sandwich and juice away. Checking emails on his smartphone, he spent the next couple of hours watching TV and then ironed Pilar's clothes for school. He showered and called his daughter down for their dinner trip. Outside, their new neighbor carried some things from her cream-colored Mercedes S-Class in the driveway.

"Excuse me," the woman called as Pilar jumped into his truck's passenger side.

"Yeah?" he called back.

"Hi, I'm Allegra…new neighbor…um, can you tell me what day the trash and recycling go out?"

"Thursdays!" Pilar called out.

His daughter had her head stuck out of the window with a big grin on her face.

"Yeah, Thursdays. They normally roll through around eleven a.m.," he said.

"Great, thanks."

"I'm Terry, and this is my daughter, Pilar—"

"Are you married? Have kids?" Pilar asked.

Allegra smiled politely, holding a small box. Her eyes bounced from Pilar's to his, then back to Pilar.

"I'm not married. No kids."

Pilar whipped her head around to look at Terry. He ignored her.

"Have a good evening," he said.

He climbed into his truck and started it up.

"You're really not good at finding a date, Dad."

"What are you talking about, little girl?"

He backed out of their driveway and headed toward the main road that led to the highway.

"A single, beautiful woman with a fancy car asked you about trash day. She could've called her realtor or looked it up online."

"We were right there in front of her. It's quicker to ask a neighbor. That woman is not looking to date people she lives around. Besides, she saw me with you, so she'll think I'm married with a family already."

"She'll know pretty soon that it's just you and me."

"I don't think most upwardly mobile Black women are interested in men that already have children nowadays."

It took them twenty minutes to arrive at the burger joint, and Pilar's mood lifted considerably. They talked about her upcoming soccer game and she slurped down her chocolate malt content with life once again.

Back home, he washed and braided her hair in two cornrows, tying it down with a black satin hair scarf so he wouldn't have to do her hair in the morning. Their evening bedtime routine went off without a hitch and he allowed her to watch a cartoon before she went to sleep in her room.

The next couple of weeks were normal in the Richmond household. He'd ride his bike in the morning to take Pilar to school, following behind her as she skateboarded ahead of him with her classmates. Later, he'd ride his bike over to check on the restaurant he invested in. He spent a few days with his financial advisor and moved some money around that he received from a police settlement. His current financial status allowed him to enjoy not having the worries of steady employment until he found something he wanted to do. He put funds in stocks that did well, paid off the townhouse, and Yolanda's monthly child support covered the rest for Pilar. His woodworking kept him busy during the afternoon while Pilar was in school. But once she was home, he went straight into daddy mode. Soccer Dad duty, carpooling to games, checking homework, cooking and cleaning, fixing things at his parent's house and running their errands…they all filled his time.

Once a week he went bowling with friends and drank at bars, chasing a little tail, but not really trying to catch much. His three older sisters rotated keeping Pilar with their kids so he could have some adult time. The last few "dates" he had were with single moms who complained about their ex-husbands or ex boyfriends. He thought one woman named Michaela would be a long-term situation, but she reconciled with her boyfriend and moved to Dallas.

After a Saturday soccer practice, Pilar came to him and asked if she could bake some cookies for a school party. It was nearing Halloween. He pulled out some easy to bake pre-made Tollhouse cookie dough from the freezer. All Pilar had to do was place the small chocolate chip cookie dough squares onto a baking sheet and use the stove timer to keep them from burning.

He kicked up his feet to watch the news and when the stove buzzer went off, he trotted into the kitchen to make sure Pilar didn't burn herself by taking them out of the oven with the oven mits. She only baked a dozen.

"Shouldn't you bake more for your class?" he asked.

"It's a potluck, so people are just bringing whatever to share."

After they cooled, she used a spatula to scoop them onto a decorative plate of pumpkins and fall leaves. He covered them with plastic wrap.

"Maybe you should put them in some Tupperware," he suggested.

"No, this is good."

He left her to handle her party business.

Terry didn't think anything about the cookies until three days later when Allegra showed up at his open garage door. His electric sander and earplugs prevented him from hearing her approach. He turned toward the street and almost jumped, not expecting someone to be standing near his truck watching him. Shutting off the sander, he pulled out the earplugs and stared at her with his goggles on.

"Sorry to startle you…Terry…right?"

He nodded.

"I came over to bring you back your cookie plate. That was such a thoughtful housewarming gift. I ate every single chocolate chip cookie. Perfectly gooey in the center the way I like! The note you wrote was really sweet, too. Thank you so much."

"I'm sorry?" he said in confusion.

Terry pushed up his goggles. Allegra handed him the plate that wasn't empty. On it were slices of banana bread. He looked at the baked goods, then back at her.

"To show my appreciation for the cookies…I just made it last night. I didn't put nuts in it because I don't know if anyone in your family is allergic to nuts."

"No, we aren't."

"I'll remember that."

Allegra's pretty eyelashes curled over naturally, and her lips had just enough red lipstick to give her plump lips a rosy tint. She was dream girl material, and the cut and style of her bob reminded him of something the old Black starlets wore in the sixties, but it looked contemporary too with a soft flip on the ends. Terry became lost in her face and she seemed equally lost in his, her gaze never leaving his eyes. That was one of the physical traits that women always said they loved about him. The green, lion-like eyes. She looked up at him and their size difference was quite obvious. She was petite-chic, the cut and color of her clothes making her seem taller far away. Allegra was shorter than his ex wife. He felt like a big giant standing next to her. She smelled so good. Her perfume hinted at jasmine in the summer.

"My daughter and I will enjoy this. Thanks for bringing it over with the plate," he said.

Allegra smiled and his chest caved in. Was it possible for her to be even more attractive with a smile on her face?

She glanced around his makeshift workshop.

"Woodworking? You do this for a living?" she asked.

He stepped aside to let her see the dining cabinet he built for another neighbor.

"Actually, it's a hobby of mine."

"Hobby? This is true craftsmanship."

He touched the side of the cabinet.

"I learned it from my dad and kept at it in highschool."

"If I paid you, could you make me a couple of custom bookshelves?"

"What type of wood?"

"Not too expensive."

"I can make some maple wood shelves and stain them to look expensive.'

"I like your way of thinking. When I get the time, I'll measure my walls and let you know what I need."

"Still settling in?"

"My god, I haven't unpacked all of my boxes. I'm still eating takeout because I dread unpacking everything in my kitchen. My new job keeps me busy and I'm usually too tired by the end of the day. I should be unpacking right now, but I have to leave for an event soon."

She sighed and pushed back a flipped curl on her forehead.

"I better let you get back to work. Again…thank you for the sweet welcoming gesture."

Allegra left him alone in the garage and he watched her walk back across the street to her place. She had a little sway in her hips as she walked in her well-fitted navy blue dress pants and structured white button-down shirt. The light pink cardigan sweater tied around her shoulders was such a classy touch, along with her chunky blocked-heeled pumps.

He looked down at his dust-laden ripped jeans and brown work apron. Not too shabby, but he almost wanted to spruce up. He took the plate into the kitchen and checked the time. Pilar would be there in half an hour. He wanted to know what she wrote in that note to Allegra.

Running a hot shower, he cleaned his body and stared at his reflection in the mirror afterward. Time for a fresh line-up. His facial hair looked a little ungroomed. He took time to shave and then changed into better jeans and a fitted long sleeve shirt. He waited at the front door, peeking out of the screen.

Allegra stepped into her Mercedes wearing a pastel coral cocktail dress with an upswept hairdo, looking like Diahann Carroll with a smidgen of Grace Kelly. She drove off to wherever she needed to go and he imagined how breathtaking she'd look, stepping into a crowded room with all eyes on her beauty.

Ka-kump. Ka-kump. Ka-kump.

Pilar glided onto the sidewalk near their house and headed for the garage.

"I'm right here," he said.

She looked at him through the screen. He opened it and stepped outside. Folding his arms over his wide chest, he gave his daughter a questioning look.

"Am I in trouble?" she asked.

Her friends Caleb, Trudy, and Aisha waved at her and kick-pushed their skateboards toward their houses while yelling hello to him.

"You baked those cookies for Miss Allegra. Not a school party."

Pilar gave him a sheepish grin.

"What did you write in the note?"

"I just said something like…welcome to the neighborhood. Enjoy these homemade cookies. Then I put your name on it."

"Just my name?"

"Yes."

"She brought the plate back and made us some banana bread."

"Ooh!" Pilar said, rubbing her hands together. "My plan is set in motion."

"What plan?"

"Dad…c'mon. Miss Allegra is the best-looking woman around here. I think you should ask her out on a date."

"I don't need my ten-year-old setting us up."

Pilar put a hand on her hip.

"Well, Auntie Brianna and Auntie Sloane said she's gorgeous and they think you should get to know her. She might be your perfect fit."

"How would they know? They've never seen her."

"I snuck a picture of her on my phone and sent it to them."

"Why the sudden interest in getting me to date?"

Pilar's gaze dropped to the ground.

"No reason. She's new and you don't go out as much anymore."

"That's because I have to take care of you. You're my priority. Dating can always come later."

He stepped aside and let her come in with her skateboard.

"It was a nice thing you did…giving her the cookies," he said.

Pilar grinned.

Terry was an adept father and took pride in keeping a meticulous home, and his child put together well when she exited the front door. Two weeks before Thanksgiving, Pilar started coming home from school with wildly disheveled hair. Even if he put protective styles in with twists or high buns with little curls framing her face with cute tendrils, his daughter returned looking like her head went through a blender.

She'd claim it was the weather. Bad rainfall, or the wind messing it up, but for ten school days, she rolled back home with her hair every which-way, rubber bands busted, barrettes missing, and knocker ball hair bobbles vanished into thin air. She'd roll through, and each time, their neighbor Allegra would be outside collecting her mail. Pilar would wave and say "Hi!" really loud and Allegra responded in kind before stepping back into her house.

He assumed she wanted her hair out, craving to wear hairstyles like her older girl cousins. Rather than make a big deal about it, he started putting a headband on her.

One Saturday afternoon, Pilar played outside on the curved part of the cul-de-sac with her friends, kicking a soccer ball into Caleb's two netted goal posts. A typical loud day of children freely running around screaming and playing in the street. Pilar rocked a bushy 'fro and had the loudest voice out of the bunch.

He kept an eye out for them while watching a football game by leaving his livingroom shades open. Snacking on some chips, he turned his head to check on the action outside.

He quickly ducked his head down low.

Allegra played outside with the children.

Terry hid behind the couch and secretly watched Allegra interact with the neighborhood kids doing soccer ball tricks with her knees and sneaker'd feet. She kicked the ball to Pilar and his daughter charged her, heading for a goal post. Allegra wasn't shy about her defensive moves and easily swiped the ball away from his daughter, kicking it with a curved arc into the opposite goal post. All the children squealed in delight and high-fived her. She stepped aside to let the children continue their boisterous match up.

Terry's back ached from being hunched over spying. Pilar spoke to Allegra for a long time, ignoring her friends, and her bouncy energy kept a smile on the woman's face. Allegra glanced toward his open window and Terry dropped to the floor, hiding his body.

He waited five minutes.

"Why are you on the floor, Daddy?"

Pilar stood above him with a quizzical expression. She'd come in the house through the garage door.

"Stretching my back out," he said.

"But you're on your stomach."

"Can I help you with something?" he said, standing up.

Outside, Allegra stood watching him through the window.

"I asked Miss Allegra how she kept her hair so pretty and she told me her hair care routine. I'm coming to get a pen and paper for her to write it down so you can take care of my hair."

"What? I know how to take care of your hair! I've been doing it since you were born."

Pilar grabbed a Bic pen and tore a piece off some junk mail envelope sitting on the coffee table.

"Daddy, please. Work with me here. I've been looking raggedy for two weeks to get her attention. She finally asked about my curls and I asked about her hair."

Pilar dashed out the front door before he could stop her. She handed Allegra the pen and paper. Terry became flustered. His daughter pretended to be unkempt to fool a grown woman into having sympathy for him.

Allegra scribbled on the paper outside and he felt exposed for something that wasn't true. Pilar ran back into the house through the front door and handed him the half envelope. Most of what Allegra listed, Terry already had in his bathroom for his daughter.

However…she wrote her phone number down, too.

"Boo-ya!" Pilar said, flinging her fingers open like an explosion going off.

"Come into the kitchen with me," he said.

Pilar followed him.

"Sit," he commanded.

He stuffed the half envelope in his back pocket.

"Pilar…babygirl…I know you mean well, but please…stop the antics."

"But Daddy—"

"I mean it."

His voice went down an octave, his baritone sounding harsh. Pilar ran from the kitchen table and stomped loudly up the stairs. He closed his eyes in frustration and waited fifteen minutes before going upstairs.

Pilar cried on her bed. Her loud bawling startled him.

"Munchkin…I'm not mad…I just…you don't have to do this."

"I do!" she wailed.

He sat in his usual spot and let her get her emotions out. She eventually calmed down to gaspy shudders and sad moans of pain. He brushed her hair back, and she threw her arms around his neck.

"I don't want you being alone. Mom married somebody and now she gets to be happy. I want you to be happy, too, Daddy."

"Munchkin, I am happy. I have you…grampy and grandma, your aunts, my friends—"

She shook her head against his neck.

"It's not the same as having someone for yourself. I'll grow up and go to college and you'll be here by yourself. Everyone in our family has someone. Grampy has Grandma, Auntie Brianna has Uncle Mitch…Auntie Sloane has Uncle Kenny. Even Auntie Monique has her boyfriend Gordon. I'm scared for you, Daddy. You're such a good, kind person and you deserve what Mommy has."

Pilar burst into more tears and his eyes grew blurry. He wiped them and pulled back from his daughter.

"It's not your responsibility to worry about me. My job is to worry about you, hear me?"

Pilar kept crying. Her nose ran, but she nodded at his words.

"When the time comes for me to find my special someone…it'll happen. Naturally. Understand?"

"Y-Y-Yessss," she blubbered.

He kissed her forehead and used his thumbs to wipe away warm tears.

"Can I tell you something that will make you happy?"

"O-O-Okayyyy," she choked out.

"Your Mom and 'that man' agreed to change their plans back to coming out for Christmas. And, I don't have to trade Thanksgiving."

"For real?"

"For real. In fact, Bryson urged your mother to reconsider, and he rescheduled the cruise for next year. He's not so bad, huh?"

Pilar sniffled, and her swollen red eyes pained him.

"I guess not."

"Let's make a deal, okay? You don't worry about hooking me up and just enjoy being a little girl with a happy father."

"Are you happy?"

"I am. I have you and a very full life. Promise. Go wash your face and get back outside with your friends."

"Okay, Daddy."

She jumped off the bed and ran to the hall bathroom. He went to her bedroom window and peeked out from the blinds. Allegra went back into her home. He pulled the scrap of envelope from his back pocket and stared at her phone number.

Saturday afternoons were usually Terry and Pilar's time to decompress and watch movies together. Sometimes there was a slumber party with her cousins at their house or one of his sister's. But on this particular Saturday, it was football fever on the flatscreen TV with his buddies while Pilar was at her grandparents' house.

Terry had plenty of pizzas and beer, and his sound system blasted the play-by-play of the game. He enjoyed the company of his buddies, all Black men with families, and very little free time except for the small moments of respite at Terry's place. The Steelers beat the Commanders and the guys talked shit, then they played his AuxGod Hip Hop Edition game. He rapped his ass off while playing Nas's "One Mic" on his smartphone and got his friends hyped to share R&B music. They all howled when someone messed up playing the wrong songs based on cards they pulled, thinking they had the perfect jam. Good clean fun.

The afternoon wound down into late evening and he cleaned up pizza boxes and empty beer cans. His friends bumped fists and gave each other dap as they left out the front door. Rain started falling, and he noticed Allegra pulling into her driveway. The late hour had him guessing she had a night out again. Her job didn't keep her from a busy social life. He often caught sight of her coming and going on the weekends. One time, another car brought her home and stayed overnight in her driveway.

He waved his friends away and pulled out his cell to call his father.

"Hey Junior," his father said.

"Hey, Pops. How's it going over there?"

"Good. The girls are playing and your mama is letting them stay up late to watch some Godzilla movie on Amazon Prime."

"I wanted to say goodnight to Pilar."

"No problem, hold on…Pilar! Your Dad is on the phone!"

Terry waited for his daughter, and soon enough, her voice rang in his ear.

"Hey, Dad."

"Being good?"

"Of course. What time are you picking me up tomorrow?"

"After you get back from church."

"Aw man. You can't get me early, so I don't have to go?"

"I had to suffer through it. It's your turn now."

"But they take forever. Even God goes to sleep by the time that preacher gets done."

"Hey, don't blaspheme, and don't you two keep Grampy and Grandma up too late, okay?"

"We won't. Night, Dad!"

Terry swiped his smartphone and noticed Allegra's car lights were still on. She hadn't left her driveway. He guessed she was talking on her cell phone.

His house smelled of cigars, pepperoni, and Budweiser. He finished cleaning up and sprayed the dining room with air freshener. Rolling his neck muscles, he climbed up to his bedroom. His blinds were open, and he checked the street again.

Allegra stood near her car in the rain looking up at the sky. She stuck her tongue out, tasting the droplets, and spun around in a circle with her arms outstretched. He smiled. She looked like a big kid having fun.

The rain drenched her hair, and she swiped it back, her tresses turning into slick ringlets. The playfulness she exuded cracked something open inside of him. Maybe Pilar was right. Maybe he did want someone to share his life with. He and Allegra barely exchanged enough words in passing for him to sense that she would be open to going out for a coffee or dinner. She never got back to him about the bookshelves, and he never called her phone number to ask about the hair care products she suggested for Pilar.

His confidence in asking women out had waned that year. Each time he thought he might want to spend time with a woman, schedules didn't match up, or he didn't feel that pull to pursue a relationship. The spark wasn't there. Part of him was afraid to put his heart back out there. His ex, Yolanda, had been a heartbreak he finally let go of two years ago. It frightened him into not wanting to be vulnerable with another woman again. Romantic love was for the brave, and Terry was not feeling brave anymore.

But Allegra?

After shaking her arms, she finally went inside her house, not caring that her snazzy outfit was soaked clear through to her skin. He looked at his dresser. The envelope with her number sat next to his hairbrush.

He texted her number.

Hi, Allegra. This is your neighbor, Terry. I was going to pick up some lumber at Home Depot tomorrow and wanted to know if you were still interested in getting bookshelves made? No rush to answer. I'm always going there every other week. If you changed your mind, that's cool, too.

He sent it off, and seconds later, she rang him up.

"Hello?"

He sounded breathless.

"Hi…Terry? It's Allegra…from across the street. Got your message."

"Oh, great. Sorry for texting so late. I was about to turn in and wanted to ask you before I forgot and left tomorrow."

He winced. His words came out in a rush of nervous energy.

"I do want the bookshelves made. I've been so busy I just never got around to measuring anything. Could you come by tomorrow before you leave and take a look at my floor space? You'd have a better idea of measurements than I would."

Terry stared at his reflection in the mirror. His eyes turned into saucers.

"I can do that. I've got to pick up my daughter from church tomorrow at one. I can drop by with my digital tape measure before then and then go to Home Depot."

"Can I go with you? I'd like to see the wood you're considering besides the maple you told me about."

"Uh…sure."

"What time should I expect you over here?"

"Let's say ten?"

"Great, see ya then."

"Goodnight."

He hung up, stunned.

She wanted to go with him to the Depot?

"So, what do you think? Two shelves here and then two more in my office room?"

Allegra watched him make final calculations on his phone. He surveyed her living room set-up one more time to ensure efficient use of her space. They'd spent a good twenty minutes upstairs in her stylish office and he made a quick sketch on his notepad of the shelving unit he could make for her in there. She would pay for the wood and any extra supplies he needed, and he insisted on doing the work for free.

The layout in her house was roomy and leaned toward a mid-century modern styled interior. She liked rich and luxurious wood furniture with mustard yellow and avocado-colored accents. Her home fit her personal style the way he imagined it would. It had a timeless quality. He told her a little about the family that lived there before she bought the place, and the conversation meandered into her own hobbies of painting and gardening. She showed him her patio space in the back and he offered to build her plant containers to grow her favorite flowers. Those were easy to put together and would be cheaper than her buying them pre-made online.

He learned that she had been a highschool soccer star, and that talent landed her a full-ride scholarship to Brown University where she almost landed a spot on the Olympic team. But a skiing accident ruined her shot. She still liked to watch the game and play occasionally.

Allegra worked from home mostly as an In-House attorney for a legal firm with document heavy cases, thus the need for bookshelves to hold all her law books. She did contract reviews, legal research, and dealt with a lot of intellectual property research for her clients.

Terry listened to her talk about herself, and her warm personality gave him the courage to open up about himself. Of course, he bragged about Pilar, and on their way to Home Depot, he pointed out places of interest to her.

"I always wanted to live in a small town," she said. "I grew up in New England, but my grandparents were from here, so I had annual trips for holidays and always liked it. Now that I can work remotely from home, I put stakes in the ground and live here full time. Getting away from the east coast has been a relief. This place makes me happy."

"We love it here. Excellent schools, nice people who look out for each other."

"It's just you and Pilar?"

"Yep. My ex remarried and moved to Europe."

"Co-parenting overseas must be rough."

"Yolanda…my ex…she recently moved there. It's going to be a change for sure. I'm used to Pilar flying a quick hop to Atlanta. Now, she'll have partial summers there and I don't know if I can handle her flying so far away where I can't get to her fast, y'know?"

"I had to do it when I was young. My parents divorced when I was twelve. I hopped from Boston to England to stay with my dad and his new wife on my school breaks. My mother was a nervous wreck at first, but you adjust."

"I hope so. I try to be stoic for Pilar, but I know I'll be in shambles when she flies out there next year."

Allegra laughed and the sound of her voice so close comforted him.

"I'll help talk you down when those nerves kick up," she said.

They walked up and down aisles at the Home Depot, and since he was a regular, the workers there were quick to help him because he didn't waste time. Terry explained the different type of wood options and they compared prices. He did his best to keep costs down for her, and she went along with whatever he thought was best. She'd seen his work output and trusted his skills.

He loaded up the truck bed, and they swooped over to his grandparents' church to pick up Pilar. His daughter's eyes widened when she noticed Allegra sitting in the truck. She ran past Terry and chatted with Allegra. He soon introduced his parents to her, and they invited her to attend a church service in the future.

Pilar hopped in the seat behind Allegra, and he drove them back to their home.

"I'll unload this and start working on your shelving units tomorrow," he said.

"Great."

Pilar watched them interact. She wore the goofiest grin on her face.

Allegra took off across the street and he watched her leave along with Pilar. When she was outside of earshot, Pilar grabbed his arm.

"You hung out with her?" she enthused.

"We talked about her bookshelves."

"So you went inside her house and spent time with her, right?"

"I did."

"Isn't she cool? She plays soccer, and she likes monster movies…"

Pilar stopped gushing about Allegra.

"I forgot. You told me not to interfere."

"I might've been wrong about that," he said.

Pilar's face lit up.

"Oh, yeah?"

"I like her. She's really nice and smart."

"My work here is done," Pilar said.

She skipped into the house, and he unloaded the truck.

Making bookshelves and planter boxes was the beginning.

Next came inviting Allegra over for football game gatherings with his family.

He introduced her to his oldest sister who gave birth to a baby boy, her first, and he watched Allegra nervously hold the newborn with trepidation in her eyes.

"You got it…just hold his head like this and keep him close to you…yeah, see, you got it," he said.

Terry's new nephew was a little chocolate drop.

"He's so tiny and adorable," Allegra said.

All of his sisters liked her, and his mother took the grand gesture of inviting her to join them on their family Christmas trip. Allegra looked genuinely receptive to the idea, but she already had plans to fly out to Boston to spend the winter holiday with her family. Terry felt bummed about it and realized that he was catching feelings for her.

He kept their budding friendship platonic, but by the following spring, it was clear to everyone around them that something was blooming past friendship. They hadn't been physical with each other yet, not even kissing. He liked the slow, easy pace. It gave him time to know her before jumping into anything serious, especially since he had Pilar to think of.

His daughter was crazy about Allegra.

He was too.

As time ticked on and it grew closer to the time that Pilar would have to fly overseas, his anxiety spiked. He was not planning on attending the celebration. His former sister-in-law, Zarah, was going to fly the long distance with Pilar to Rome.

The day his daughter was to leave, he paced in his living room, going over Pilar's packing list several times. Allegra hung out with him, reassuring him that all would be well. Zarah was on her way in a Lyft to pick up Pilar. They all thought it best that he say his goodbyes from home and not go to the airport.

"Go to the restroom one more time before you leave," he told his daughter.

Pilar ran upstairs to her bathroom.

"I'm going to put the roast in the oven for our dinner tonight," Allegra said. "Be right back."

He walked her outside of his home. When Allegra reached the sidewalk, she turned around to face him. For the first time, she slid her arms around his waist and looked up at him.

"You're a great Dad, Terry. Pilar is so lucky to have you…and so am I."

Terry locked eyes with her, and any fears he had about taking a chance on finding love melted away.

"May I kiss you?" he asked.

Her eyes twinkled like she'd been waiting her whole life to hear him say those four words.

"Yes, you may, Mr. Richmond."

He placed his forehead against hers first and savored the moment before the moment. Yes, he deserved someone for himself. His wily daughter had been so correct in her assessment of him. Forever grateful for Pilar's push to get him out into the world with the special woman in his arms, Terry lowered his head and kissed Allegra.

His full, lush lips were nothing compared to the soft place of comfort he found pressed against her mouth. Her lips coaxed a passion out of him he hadn't felt in years. He kept the kiss a little below chaste…she gave him a little teasing of her tongue to entice him for more later, when they would be alone. His grin broke their physical contact and the butterflies in his stomach told him she was the one to take a chance with.

He pushed a fluffy bang away from her left eye and Allegra glanced up toward his second floor. Terry followed her gaze, and they both glimpsed Pilar looking down at them from her bedroom window. She fist-pumped her right hand, and the expression she gave them was pure joy.

Her little plan worked.

Author's Note:

I wanted to write something fast and fluffy to put out the day after the horror of that anti-Black orange menace being put back in office by racist white people and their non-Black PoC racist minions. Black women need soft, joyful things to get us through. We all we got. Remember that.

#Terry Richmond #Rebel Ridge #Aaron Pierre #terry richmond fanfiction #rebel ridge fanfiction #terry richmond x black reader #terry richmond x oc #terry richmond fluff #Uzumaki Rebellion #Girl Dad Terry Richmond

244 notes · View notes

vennilavee · 1 year ago

Text

Petrichor

pairing: stsg, geto x reader, gojo x reader, stsg x reader

summary: In the middle of the lush forest, there sits a lonely house on a hill. On a dark and rainy night, you find your way to the house and it's inhabitants while running away from a deep, dark secret that you refuse to confront. Little do you know that they welcome you with open arms because they want you in a way that you’ve never been wanted before. It’s so easy to succumb to the darkness once you’ve been invited in…

warnings: this is meant to be a horror fic so please heed with caution - vampire geto, ghost gojo, smut, biting, drinking of blood, bloodplay, unreliable narrators, murder, death and dying, suicide, everyone is a little freaky here including oc, yandere behaviors (i think??)

word count: 15k

a/n: meant to be written for spooky season in october...happy new year do not perceive me. HUGE thank you to @lovenona @libroparaiso @hoennislands for reading large chunks of this fic before i posted it, and @lovenona for the painting for the fic banner! i appreciate u<3

To add to an already terrible day, heavy and dark storm clouds cover the expanse of the sky before splitting open. Rain follows the split seam, pelting down and landing on your car before being met with your windshield wipers.

It’s a good thing you had your tires replaced recently, you think distractedly while tightening your grip on the wheel.

The rumble of your car’s engine is the only noise you hear as you zip through the barely there road in the forest. There are no cars on this road. There are no lights, save for the high beams bursting from your car.

It feels as if you are going in circles, despite the GPS telling you that you are on the right path. You can barely see five feet ahead of you as the rain begins to downpour. You hate driving in storms.

Perhaps you should pull over, rather than potentially wrap your car around a tree while trying to get out of this storm. Can you beat it? Can you beat the ominous clap of thunder and the bright streak of lightning?

In the distance, you hear the winds picking up speed as the towering trees sway. The last thing you need is to die because a tree fell on you.

All you were trying to do was clear your head with a nice, soothing drive after what can only be described as the worst week of your life. The weather forecast didn’t include heavy rain with zero visibility today. You must just be incredibly lucky.

Driving in this weather will surely result in your premature death. You make a split second decision and pull over to the side of the road, glancing at the umbrella in your passenger seat.

You scoff, stepping out into the darkness and further into the belly of the forest.

Night has fully draped over the forest and yet, the rain has not relented. You must have been walking, following your GPS for hours now. And yet, it seems as if you continue to walk further and further away from the road.

You are drenched and shivering, possibly looking like a drowned animal as you trek through the mud and fallen branches. Even if you wanted to, you wouldn’t be able to return to your car. There is no way to tell what direction it’s in anyway.

So you continue on, shivering with the hood of your jacket covering your head and cursing the skies for leaving you stranded in this endless storm. Your phone vibrates with weather alerts indicating that you should seek shelter due to extreme flooding.

How ironic.

Your umbrella is long gone, proving to be useless with the force of the rain and the wind. You are completely alone in the lush, green forest. Perhaps you stop and appreciate the scent of petrichor if you weren’t so stuck and at the mercy of the unseen forces from above.

You don’t know how much you endure the walk, but you see something in the distance. Something warm, something like the light.

A tall, dark house sits on a hill barely visible with the darkness of the night. But you can clearly see the warmth of the lights that emanate from inside the house.

It feels like a reprieve, a lighthouse as you are lost at sea. So you run towards the warmth.

The house is more of a mansion, you realize as you stand in front of the ornate, mahogany door. Green vines twist around the door as if to protect the house from any trespassers. They seem to pulsate when you touch them, hissing at you in an attempt to send you away.

You shiver again.

Lilies and red roses line the entryway to the front door. Despite the remote location of this strange mansion, clearly someone maintains the upkeep of it.

You’ve never seen a viridian so vibrant. It’s hard to take your eyes away from it, tracing the way drops fall from the vines onto the stark white lilies before dripping onto the meticulously carved stone pathway.

The rain pours down on you heavily, and it rolls off of your trembling shoulders. It feels dry here, like the sun is gently peering out. This strange mansion must be an oasis, or a safe haven for those lost in the woods.

You knock on the door impatiently, hoping that someone, anyone, can save you from the storm. A crack of thunder splits your ears and you jump, knocking again.

“Come on, come on,” you mutter under your breath, “Please, it’s freezing-”

The magnificent door creaks loudly before being pulled open dramatically, only to reveal a tall, white haired man with striking and absurdly blue eyes.

You can’t look directly at him for too long. You think you’ll be blinded.

“How annoying,” he drawls, “Annoying and impatient.”

“My car broke down,” you interrupt, your teeth chattering, “Please, I’m so cold-”

“Oh?” he looks you up and down several times over with an infuriating, smug grin on his stupidly handsome face.

“Can you please assess whether I’m a thief or a murderer or anything equally as dramatic while I’m inside?” you say, glaring at him, “I’ve been walking for hours, please let me in until the storm passes over. I’m begging you.”

“You’re lucky you’re so charming when you beg,” he says, waving you in.

Warmth immediately engulfs you and you sigh in relief. “Thank you, thank you, thank you-”

“Don’t thank me just yet. Didn’t you call for help?”

“My phone has no service,” you reply easily, staring him right in the eye.

“No service, What a shame. I suppose it cannot be helped,” he shrugs, “Didn’t you hear? This storm is supposed to last several days. You must be a fool for driving through this.”

“I guess so-”

“Especially in the forest. You never know what’s lurking around here.”

His smile fades and he looks at you pointedly, as if he’s looking straight through you. His gaze unnerves you but still, it takes you half a second to decide you’re staying here in the dry warmth.

Besides, it’s not like you have anywhere to go.

“Gojo Satoru,” he says simply and begins walking away from you. Does he care to know the name of a complete stranger that he just let into his home?

“Aren’t you afraid of strangers? Have you learned nothing from the movies? I could kill you when your back is turned,” you reply as you follow behind him.

“That’s highly unlikely,” Gojo laughs, but it sounds hollow as it echoes through the hall.

“You don’t know me.”

“I know you’re stuck in the middle of this horrendous storm with only me and the inhabitants of this house for company. You think I have reason to fear you?”

Gojo Satoru stops walking and abruptly turns to face you, crowding your vision. He speaks to you, but you’re not quite listening. You’re too enchanted by the odd blue of his eyes. Eyes that bright and deep simply do not exist beyond the walls of this house.

You think you may drown if you stare for too long. Gojo’s skin is pale, even when the lights hit the angles of his handsome face. Maybe there is a halo around his head, invisible to your eye. After all, he is the only semblance of a human that you have encountered in the last six hours.

He must be an angel, sent to shepherd you through this storm.

Inhabitants. Gojo mentioned other inhabitants, but you have yet to see anyone else in the house. Despite the emptiness of the house, it looks homey and cozy, with trinkets and odd items strewn about. It is clear that someone lives here. Someone other than Gojo.

You try not to let curiosity get the best of you and just focus on getting warm. With chattering teeth, you allow scalding hot water to drench your skin and your hair. Trying to catch your breath as you shake like a leaf under the spray.

All alone in a strange house in the middle of nowhere with no escape. It’s enough to make anyone nervous, but you welcome it like a reprieve. A second chance. A rebirth.

You brace yourself against the wall of the shower and watch absently as blood mixes with water into the drain.

Wholly unaware of the pair of eyes watching you in the bath, you sigh heavily as if the weight of the world is on your shoulders. It is. Everything is-

No. You won’t think about it, not now.

You can’t feel the graze of his fingertips, not when he caresses the slope of your neck or presses his fingertips to your hips. Not even when he rubs the inside of your soft thighs, or flutters over your calves just to feel the warmth of your skin. He traces the curvature of your spine with the palm of his hand, while you are none the wiser.

He stands in front of you, admiring the way you turn your neck from side to side and rub your sore muscles. Will you let your hands drift downwards? Would you give him that reprieve?

Your tits fit perfectly in his hands, spilling into his palms without any misgivings. He’d nearly forgotten how velvety a woman’s skin was. Much less a human’s. A gasp leaves his lips as he massages your chest, meeting your eyes eagerly. But you can’t see him.

Your cheeks are heated as you lather soap on your skin with hooded eyes and bitten lips. He leans closer, sniffing your neck- you smell divine, what a gorgeous gift you might be…

And then he is called away abruptly, lamenting that loss of your warmth curled away in his hands.

A dark emerald silk robe lays on the pristinely made bed. It’s buttery and soft against your fingertips and it looks brand new. You can’t help but try it on, and somehow it fits you as if it was tailored for you. It’s perfect. You do a little spin in front of the full-length mirror and giggle to yourself, marveling at how it fits you perfectly.

The guest bedroom he showed you to is massive, with ornate cherry wood furniture and a four poster bed that seems like it was custom made.

The warm scent of sandalwood remains on the duvet and on the pillows as you sink into the bed and try to get comfortable. It’s been such a long day and you just want to rest…

It doesn’t take you long to fall asleep in this odd house despite only having been here for a few hours. The storm rages on outside, rain battering against the windows as it lulls you into the first peaceful slumber you’ve had in months.

It has been a long time since a human showed up drenched, terrified and shivering to his home. In the modern age, it seemed that less and less people would venture this deep into the forest. In the old days, it would have been the odd traveler or warriors passing by through the night or a woman running away from her betrothed.

Those were always his favorite visitors. These days, it’s usually just foolish, inebriated teenagers or a stray fox. Definitely not nearly as entertaining.

He remains hidden, until Gojo tells him to come out of the shadows. For now, he will remain content to watch you from a distance in his own home. Your shoulders are tense but your face is friendly as you chat away with the white-haired man as you nurse a warm cup of tea in your hands.

You keep him at arm’s length but not too far away so as to arouse suspicion from the man who gave you shelter during such a horrendous storm.

It smells so sweet inside now. Like nectar and honey and flowers. He had a feeling that dark green would be your color, anyway.

There is a portion of the house that Gojo has warned you to not enter. About half of the house is dimly lit, a sharp contrast to the rest of the house that you have seen. The quietness of the hallway just a few short steps away from your bedroom is eerie.

You can’t help but look beyond the threshold and into the darkened hallway.

With the risen moon in the storm as your witness, you ignore Gojo Satoru’s voice in your head and take a few tentative steps towards the forbidden part of the house.

The bedroom at the end of the hall.

It’s not your fault. He shouldn’t have made it sound so enticing.

An owl hoots in the distance, just outside the house. Is the storm still devastating the forest? It’s awfully quiet. Save for your clumsy footsteps. How long has it been? A night? Three?

Darkness is your only company as your heart thunders in your ears and you push against the heavy wooden door. A single turn of the knob reveals that the door is in fact, unlocked.

You exhale, very aware of the hairs standing at the back of your neck. Turning your head, you squint into the darkness. Trying to shake the inevitable feeling of being watched in this endless abyss of a hallway.

You have to know. You must know why this room is forbidden to you.

So you push the door open with your full strength, only to be met with even more darkness. Somehow, it’s a different kind of darkness. The kind of darkness that swallows you and does not spit you back out. The kind that you surrender to.

Surrender comes easily.

Your pupils cannot seem to adjust to the dark, no matter how long you stand here in the forbidden room. Waiting for something - anything - a stream of moonlight, a flicker of a candle. Instead, you stand in the middle of this airy room, one that you can’t see even five feet in front of you in.

A shiver rips down your spine as the door slams shut with a sudden gust of wind from a seemingly closed window whips around you, only for the air to remain perfectly still and breathless.

Amethyst eyes stare back at you in the unmoving darkness. Mirth is clear in these eyes and your shock is amusing, it appears.

“Can’t follow instructions, can you?” The voice is syrupy and magnetic. You hear the voice, beckoning you closer, but you cannot see where the voice is coming from.

He is illuminated by a sudden flash of thunder just by the large French windows.

This is what Gojo must have meant by inhabitants.

The stranger stalks towards you, his steps languid and sure. You’re frozen in place, unable to move. Too mesmerized by the gold flecks in his violet eyes, and the curtain of glossy, black hair that billows with each step he takes.

Light does not need to brighten his face for him to announce his presence.

“Not great at following rules, are we?”

“Rules?” you manage to reply after a beat, squeezing your fingers together in an attempt to ground yourself. He notices, a barely there smirk forming on his handsome face.

He towers over you like a god of the skies, with the moon as his crown.

“You were told not to come here, weren’t you?” His voice is coated by soft velvet, curling around you but leaving you cold.

“Gojo’s told you about me?” you ask curiously. He talks about you? To this chiseled stranger? The thought makes your heart flutter and heat to flood your cheeks.

“I know all about the lost women who seek sanctuary in my home,” he says softly, a hand curling around your jaw. Your eyes drift to his glossy lips briefly. It’s impossible for you to look away from him, his eyes are magnetizing as they stare right through you. As if you are made of glass.

He chuckles.

The erratic beating of your heart thrums in his ears as blood rushes through your veins like syrup. He licks his lips as your eyes drop to follow his tongue eagerly.

What a foolish girl. You don’t even know his name, and you’re already rubbing your thighs together. His reflection looks back at him in your glossy, dark eyes.

Oh, you are exquisite, a divine little thing wrapped up in a bow. A gift given to him by his lover.

Gojo Satoru is a man of celestial tastes and he always has been for decades. He must remember to praise his lover on a job well done, after all. It’s not often that a woman with blood as sweet and ripe as yours falls into his bedroom serendipitously.

Your eyes are wide and wanting, waiting for him to say something. You just want to hear the melody of his voice once more. Just once more. Another few minutes until you leave his bedroom. Just once more.

His touch is icy cold as his thumb parts your lips further, a sharp exhale blowing against his face. A shiver wracks your spine once more but you will not leave his embrace. The simple touch makes you feel alive again, as if you have been searching and searching for something for years but have not been able to find it.

It feels familiar and foreign.

“Go back to bed, girl,” he says dismissively.

“Can’t I stay? With you?” you ask unabashedly, reaching for his velvet, black robe. You catch a sliver of his tanned chest from underneath his robe and swallow.

He is vaguely reminded of a stray kitten, desperate for attention. Adorable, and pathetic.

“Not yet,” he replies, disappearing back into the darkness that he emerged from with a featherlight touch to your cheek, “Not yet.”

His voice echoes through the walls of the grand bedroom, bouncing off of the ornate paintings. You leave the room, wondering if the enigmatic man with purple eyes was merely just a dream conjured up by the wildest parts of your subconscious.

Time must operate on a different frequency in this house. You’ve slept at least six nights here, and yet the storm is as vengeful as it was the first day you arrived at the house. There is no sign of the storm easing up, either. With no end in sight, you continue to explore the house, thoughts of your car long forgotten.

You’ve yet to come across the purple-eyed man again.

Gojo Satoru is the best company you’ve had in weeks. Possibly months, or years. He finds you in the library more often than not, or in the garden.

The garden that seemingly has not been marred by the wicked winds of the storm. Somehow, the house stands still, impervious to mother nature.

“What are you reading today?” comes a voice far too close to your ear. Gojo Satoru loves invading your personal space, as you’ve come to learn.

“It’s a history book,” you reply, not looking up from the page you’re on. He doesn’t need to know, but you’ve stopped reading the page ever since you noticed him appear in the room. You’ve been waiting for him to stop by, as he always does.

“How absolutely fascinating,” he says, sitting next to you and pushing the book aside to lay his head on your lap, “Now you have something nicer to look at.”

“Is that so?”

You look down at him, once again startled by the blue of his eyes. No matter how many times you’ve seen it, it always takes your breath away. It takes a moment to adjust to the unnatural hue of his eyes and his stark white hair.

He smiles at you. At that moment, he looked so boyish and young. You wonder how long he’s been here.

“You’ve made quite a home for yourself here, haven’t you,” he muses.

“Have I overstayed my welcome?” you don’t sound particularly troubled by it.

“Not at all. Don’t you want to get back home? I’m sure you have people wondering where you are. A child? A spouse?” he probes, eyebrows raising when your heart quickens at the mention of a spouse.

“He’s not waiting or wondering where I am,” you say bitterly, immediately tensing up, “He never loved me.”

“I’m sure he’s worried about you-”

“No. He’s not,” you say with a note of finality. You look away, at your hands in your lap as your face falls and something far away settles on your features. Your lips tug into a slight frown.

“Well, anyone would be lucky to have you love them. He wasn’t worthy,” Gojo soothes you with a comforting squeeze of your hands.

“No, he wasn’t,” you reply. Your eyes are glassy and distant, as if you are replaying a memory of your past in your mind. It was simple, until it wasn’t. You were enough, until you weren’t. “I am deserving of a lover who would do anything for me.”

“Of course you are, darling,” he says, sitting up and tilting your chin up to meet your eyes, “I’m sorry anyone convinced you otherwise.”

You turn toward him, meeting his gaze with big, watery eyes. Your hands are held tightly within his, as you lean towards him. Allowing your gaze to flicker to his pouty lips and back to his eyes.

“You deserve a lover who would write you love letters,” he murmurs, “Compare you to the moon’s beauty.” A kiss to your chin. “Be your lighthouse in the storm.” A kiss to your cheek. “Protect you from the darkness of the world by destroying it. Keep you safe,” A kiss to your eyelid. “A lover who would do anything for you.” A kiss to the corner of your lips.

“A lover who would kill for you.”

A final barely there kiss to your lips. Your cheeks are warm, chest fluttering as you lean into him once more to press your lips to his again. He lays back against the couch so that you lay on top of him comfortably as you chase his kisses. You are impatient, your hands straying to his hair, to his chest to unbutton his shirt.

Your moans are soft in his ears, as if you haven’t been touched like this in forever. Gojo watches the pretty planes of your face shift as he focuses his energy on you, on gripping your hips and letting his hands wander over you before resting on your chest. Your heart is hammering away, soft and delicious.

He looks ethereal under you, fallen from the skies above. You can’t pull away, certainly not from the foreign look in his eyes. One that you’ve never seen before, not in your husband, not in previous lovers… It’s for you, the look of ripe, unbitten desire.

“Oh, you are a gorgeous thing, aren’t you?”

Your skin feels overheated- with too many layers covering the space between you and the man beneath you. You struggle to take your dress off, but Gojo replaces your fingers with his own.

“I’ll take care of you, won’t I? You’ll let me take care of you?”

You nod wordlessly as he lifts you up to take your dress off. You sit completely naked on top of him while he is still clothed.

Your face is buried in his neck as you rut your hips against him, trying to gain friction. Gojo looks up and to the side, feeling a pair of eyes on his back. Purple meets blue and he winks at his lover and smiles before turning his attention to you.

He hopes his dear lover is watching.

Geto Suguru is exhausted, deep within his centuries old bones. Blood does not come by the house as often as it used to, and while it would be just as easy to go to the nearest city to get his fill…

It does not hold the same pleasure anymore. Besides, when his lover is intent on finding him an everlasting source of blood, who is he to argue?

He is just so hungry, absolutely famished. It doesn’t help that a brilliant and beautiful damsel is sleeping in his home, just down the hall. He can hear your soft breaths and the rustle of the sheets as you twist and turn. Are you dreaming of him?

He supposes he can find out just as easily.

He enters your dreams with hardly any resistance from you. Your mind is malleable as he sifts through as if flipping pages of a book. There are patches of grey darkness melded in with hues of emerald and cerulean and amber as he takes a look around the essence of your mind.

It’s almost as if your subconscious can sense his presence and clears a path for him.

There you are, standing in a cemetery surrounded by fallen leaves and dead trees. The sky is grey, fitting with the melancholy that surrounds the cemetery. A breeze in the air whistles through his hair and leads him to you.

Sitting in front of a tiny memorial with an odd smile on your face.

Is this a dream, or is this a memory?

He makes a note of the name on the memorial, just as you lift your head and stare vacantly at him. Almost as if he’s made of glass and you are looking straight through him to the other side.

The dream shifts in a puff of smoke and he is suddenly in an apartment shrouded in shadows and darkness with nothing but the sounds of hoarse voices speaking loudly to each other. Not quite yelling, but not quite talking quietly either.

“... You never loved me, never made me a priority-”

“That’s not true and you know it-”

“You can’t wait to get rid of me, can you-”

“You have this version of love in your fucked up head that doesn’t exist. That nobody can live up to-”

“I just want you to love me and protect me!”

Then there is crying and harsh screaming. It grates against his eardrums before ebbing away into nothingness.

Until he is flung into an ocean of blood and nearly drowns trying to get back into reality.

An envelope outside your bedroom door awaits you after your morning walk in the garden. It is addressed to you, with your name written in black ink in cursive with a large wax seal. You run your finger over the seal in awe.

Who exactly are the men who live in this house, anyway?

The letter reads:

You are cordially invited to join me for dinner tonight, at 6:30 PM sharp. You will find three dresses in the closet of your bedroom. Choose wisely.

I look forward to our evening together.

There is no signature, only initials embossed in the parchment paper in silky, black print. The initials are shiny and wet, as if it was just signed and placed under your bedroom door.

You hold the letter close to your chest, unable to keep the giddy smile off of your face. Ever since you were a young girl, you’ve always dreamed of a lover who would write you letters dictating their unconditional love for you.

You look at the letter again, tracing over the initials gently and press a gentle kiss to the ink. How utterly enchanting.

You decide on the muted mauve gown with tiny, shimmering stars embedded into the tulle. Will your mysterious dinner guest be happy with your choice? Which of the three dresses did he want to see you in?

Your heart flutters at the thought of seeing the long, dark haired man with otherworldly eyes chance a glance at you once more.

He awaits you in lustrous black robes at the bottom of the neverending marble spiral staircase, looking like a painting come to life. Your breath catches in your throat when he meets your eyes with that soft up-turn of his lips.

“Good evening,” he says, voice carrying as he offers his arm to you, “Your punctuality is alluring.”

“Only my punctuality?” you ask breathlessly.

“I suppose that remains to be determined, doesn’t it?”

He leads you to the dining room, one of the many rooms you have not explored yet. A heavy chandelier glitters above the dark mahogany table and if you look for longer than a second, you’d be able to see your reflection in it.

“I’ve observed you, you know. Exquisite taste in books,” he informs you.

“Oh, yes, I’m…well-read, I guess,” you shrug, taking a sip of your flavorful soup.

“I’ve seen you in the library. That old couch isn’t very comfortable. Is it you who leaves my books out in disarray?” he teases.

“What?! I never left behind a mess-” you protest but relax when you see his grin, “Oh. Don’t make fun of me.”

You both sit in comfortable silence for a few minutes. He barely touches his full plate of food, instead opting to take in your presence in his home. In just a few short days, you’ve made this house your own home.

“Tell me,” he says, his voice curling around you and warming your cold hands, “What are you reading? What’s caught your attention?”

“A little bit of this, a little bit of that,” you say vaguely, “I like history.”

“History? What about history interests you?”

“Well… I like learning about the past,” you muse, “We’re doomed to repeat history if we don’t see the patterns throughout time…”

“Yes, we certainly are,” he nods, “History is funny that way.”

“It is. Our own histories are just a reflection of that, too.”

“Oh?”

“We’re doomed to make the same mistakes if we don’t recognize our own flaws… I suppose.”

“And what are your flaws?” he asks smoothly, making you laugh.

“I have none, couldn’t you tell?” you reply with a wink.

He merely looks at you, staring at you as if he can see right through you into the fibers of your soul. It’s unnerving, and you look away to focus on your food and on chewing each bite thoroughly. He doesn’t eat much, if anything, only drinking every few minutes from his glass of wine. But his eyes remain transfixed on you even as you sit in silence.

“I want to show you something,” he says once you’re finished with your meal.

You nod and let him lead the way.

He takes you through the garden, past freshly bloomed tulips, cherry blossoms and red spider lilies and dewy, green bushes. Your eyes are suddenly filled with color, but all you can fix your gaze on is the man who glides in front of you with your hand in his.

His hand is cold, but his voice is warm like tea.

The summer rains continue to fall, but not on you.

In the center of the vast garden sits a shimmering lake with the bluest, clearest water that you’ve ever seen. Your eyes are wide in wonder. Is there a mountain hidden beyond the trees?

“This lake wasn’t here when we moved into the house,” the man says softly.

“How is that possible?”

“The universe gave her to us when we needed her most,” he replies, turning his head with an intense stare.

“And you believe that?”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

You shrug, breaking eye contact with him to look back at the lake. The man is intense, like a blazing fire in the darkness. You can’t help but hold onto his every word as he regales you with the tale of how he stumbled upon this forest. His voice is enchanting as it echoes through the silent forest- the trees must be listening to his reverence as well.

He reminds you of a tortured prince. His voice is heard from further and further away as you marvel at the stillness of the young lake. Soon, you can’t hear his voice at all.

The thought should scare you, but you feel safe and protected by the trees in this forest.

You hardly realize how far you’ve walked by yourself, to the other side of the lake. Excitement (maybe adrenaline) settles in your bones as a sudden impenetrable fog emerges, and yet you touch it, wrap your hands around it. As if it has a heartbeat.

It surrounds you but is gentle in its caress as you pick up the skirt of your dress to avoid tumbling as you sprint through the woods.

The trees fade away behind you.

Inhale, exhale. Inhale, exhale. Air fills your lungs like a reprieve. Just before you let it go and gulp down air again. The crunch of boots on fallen leaves and sound of birds fleeing does nothing to quell the nerves in your belly.

The puffy sleeve of your dress catches on a stray branch, the pretty tulle ripping into shreds. What a waste of such a beautiful dress, you think absently. Your arm begins to bleed profusely but you pay it no mind.

You are a princess, being sought after by the monster in the closet.

Geto Suguru nearly hisses when the scent of fresh blood permeates the air like a barely hidden vice. It’s sweet, like a freshly plucked peach on a summer day.

He wonders how you’d taste on his tongue, your neck bare and craned all for him…

Dull pain radiates across his gums as his fangs descend further. Your sharp laugh pierces the uneasy quiet of the dark forest. His runaway princess, always seemingly ten steps ahead of him.

You flit in between the trees, looking over your shoulder with curious, cautious eyes. Even from this distance at the edge of the forest, he sees honey dripping from your wild eyes.

As you look over your shoulder, you see him taking languid steps toward you. When you blink, he’s there, a shrouded shadow that you nearly miss in your line of sight. When you blink again, he’s gone. Your sprints slow to a walk before you stop completely. In the middle of these strange woods, you look up to the sky, only to see a shroud of endless grey descending upon you.

Purple blinks back at you from high up in the trees. You shiver, and he suddenly stands in front of you, his velvety black robes billowing behind him.

“You have every opportunity to leave,” he says silkily. His words melt over you, dripping onto your skin like hot candle wax. The warmth is soothing and you would do anything he asked, you think.

“I know,” you say softly.

His eyes sear into yours, searching and burning through you as he comes closer. His touch is cold as his index finger remains on your jaw, stroking your cheekbone slowly. Your eyes are wide, shining eagerly with obedience.

His lips part, his gleaming fangs lengthening so daintily and his eyes shift from purple to black. But he is still his welcoming self, with his easy smile and his gentle touch. Except, the way he smiles is different.

The shift is there, but barely recognizable.

“You should’ve run away, little dove, ” he says softly in your ear as you shiver in his hold, “When you had the chance to.”

You shake your head, only making him graze your neck further. You are ravishing, the slow honey in your body gushing like a waterfall.

“There is nothing for me beyond this forest anymore,” you whisper softly into his ear. His lips flutter warmly against the column of your neck.

The first bite is always the most painful, but it eases away as quickly as it came as his fangs sink heartily into the delicate skin of your neck. Right next to your jugular vein, but not quite.

A sigh echoes through the forest, barely a noise over the sound of drops of your blood dripping onto his tongue. It is euphoric- your eyes flutter shut when his fangs pierce further into your neck. Almost straight into the vein.

If he’s not careful, he might drain you dry. That would be…tragic, considering the promise he made to Gojo.

But you are so sweet. Like nectar, and you walked right into his home with open arms, tangled in his decadent web.

Your grip on his robes is tight as you somehow pull him closer. As if you want him to take more out of you. How greedy. But he doesn’t, instead pulling away and licking his lips. His eyes revert back to their chilling purple as he keeps his gaze on you.

You sigh again, feeling lightheaded and dizzy. And yet, something flutters in your belly, making you smile and look up at him with lovestruck eyes.

“What’s your name?” you exhale, your breaths coming out in cold wisps as the wind bites your skin.

He smirks at you, fangs still tinted red with your blood. Your heart races.

“Geto Suguru,” he murmurs, brushing a stray drop of blood away from your neck with his lithe finger and licking it.

He says your name softly before he kisses you, the taste of metal ripe on your lips like a summer peach. Your knees immediately buckle as he slips further into your mouth. Despite the chill of his fingertips, a fire alights in your belly and spreads and spreads. Your breaths are erratic as you trail after him, struggling to keep up.

Your name in his mouth sounds like a promise.

The slight pain in the back of your head throbs lightly with each thready thought that forms in your brain, and yet all you can think about is the way Geto Suguru’s lips felt on your neck. The cold touch of his fingertips against your skin as he meticulously drank your blood.

Your blood. He chose you and he came after you in that forest.

It makes you giddy. It makes the headache worth it.

Slowly, the night turns into day. Repetitively, you hear the sound of the cozy rain and the sharpness of the wind against the windows nearly rattling the house. You don’t recall the last time you saw the sun, and yet light filters into the house through the skylights placed in the living room.

You don’t question it. It’s better than the alternative, being stuck in that stuffy house with your awful husband. Your husband who never cared for you, who never sought you out. Made you his priority.

Despite the fancy jewelry and pristine silks, the way you would dote on him, he never noticed you. He probably didn’t even notice that you were gone, anyway. You were supposed to be his favorite. His only.

No matter. Geto Suguru drank your blood today. Nobody else’s but yours. Are you his favorite? His only?

You can’t help but laugh at such a ridiculous thought as you gingerly touch your neck and soothe the bite marks. Of course, you’re his only. You are the only woman in this house, save for Gojo Satoru. And he has been nowhere to be seen as of late.

You must be his favorite.

“Jealousy is quite attractive on you,” Suguru says, chuckling as Satoru glares at him and throws a pillow at him half-heartedly.

“Don’t make fun of me,” Satoru sighs dramatically, throwing his arm over his eyes.

“Now you’re just being juvenile,” Suguru says, tossing the pillow back. The air is briefly knocked out of Satoru’s lungs and he tries to sit up. He glares at his lover, but the heat in his bright eyes falters as he reaches for him and cradles his jaw.

“You know this is only a means to an end,” he soothes.

“Sorry I can’t be a human again so you could drink my blood,” Satoru says petulantly, “You like her, I know you do.”

“There’s no need to be accusatory,” Suguru replies, airily, “And there’s no reason to lie. I know you like her, too. As if I don’t know that you watch her when you shouldn’t.”

Satoru rolls his eyes but his shoulders slump as he slides into Suguru’s warm embrace. “I just…I wish I could bleed for you the way you need me to. I wish I could fulfill you in the way this stranger can.”

“Oh, I’ve neglected you, haven’t I,” Suguru says softly, tightening his hold around Satoru’s narrow waist, “You brought her into our home for me. There must have been something about her that was alluring to you.”

“It’s not everyday you find a woman who abandoned her car in the middle of the worst storm in years only to show up drenched at the front door. The opportunity presented itself and I couldn’t resist.”

“She seems in no rush to leave. To go back home. We should find out why,” Suguru muses, his train of thought interrupted by Satoru’s wandering hands.

“That’s a later problem,” Satoru murmurs, letting his fingers trail up his thigh. His touch is fleeting, barely there. Just applying the tiniest pressure behind his knee, where he knows Suguru is sensitive. He shudders- it’s funny, that a vampire as old as him can still feel flustered by a simple caress.

Well, Satoru has had many opportunities to learn over the centuries from the Meiji era to now. They were both young high school boys when they met, with dreams of samurai becoming distant as their worlds cracked wide open by the introduction of new literature, new teachers, new philosophies. They were still boys, running through empty fields, sharing copies of the same books. Sharing shade under the same tree branch.

Sharing each other’s first kiss. They were boys, until they weren’t.

The clocks continued to spin until neither of them could control the inevitable passage of time. Time pulled them apart, Satoru to Tokyo and Suguru back to the countryside to take care of his parents and the farm he left behind.

They found each other again, this time under much more dire circumstances. Vampirism was spreading through Japan like a plague, and Suguru wanted to know everything about it. What was eternal life like? Was it beautiful, did it contain multitudes? Was there anything human about an immortal being?

His questions were meaningless because it didn’t take long for him to succumb to a vampire bite. His parents were dead and everything on the farm was gone, ripped to pieces and blood splattered across the wooden walls of the barn.

It took him about three decades to discover that the carnage was laid out by him. He was turned and he rained blood on his own home. It took another decade to find the vampire nest who did this to him.

Then another three decades to find Gojo Satoru once more.

He had been nestled in the heart of Tokyo, as a teacher of all things. There had been a very brief, happy reunion. It didn’t take Suguru long to realize that something was off about Satoru. The coincidences were too many- he was flighty and impulsive, rarely eating (in fact, Suguru can’t recall the last time he saw him eat any food), and he swears that his skin was translucent in the sunlight.

“Something is keeping me here,” Satoru muses with his lover’s head in his lap, “Can’t imagine what it is.”

“I don’t want you to cross the Sanzu River, not without me,” Suguru says firmly, looking at him with red eyes.

“Is there an afterlife for vampires?” Satoru muses, “I mean, I’m surely safe. I’m a ghost, after all. A spirit tethered to the material earth, or something.”

“If you wanted to leave, you would.”

“Yes,” he says solemnly, “I suppose I would.”

It has been decades since that day and the universe has pulled them apart and brought them back together many times. For two immortal beings, spending five or eight or fifteen years apart is just a blip in the fabric of time. They both find each other each time, even when Suguru was contemplating his entire existence as a vampire and a former human.

He had become Japan’s most infamous vampire for a period of time after draining over a hundred humans completely of their blood. How was it just, for them to hold two little vampire girls hostage when they had no say in being turned?

Suguru couldn’t stomach it- how isolating and selfish humans could be in the face of adversity. In the name of self-righteousness.

Never again, he vowed. Never again would he allow humans to treat his own that way. But Satoru brought him back from the brink of sure destruction, before Suguru could decimate the entirety of Japan.

Satoru wouldn’t let him give in to his most primal urges. He wouldn’t let Suguru lose himself because he couldn’t be bound to the earth without him-

“I can’t let you do this.”

“Don’t tell me you care-”

“I can’t let you do this to me, you can’t leave me here! Not for this. Not for them.”

“You’re selfish, Satoru!”

“So are you,” he scoffs.

But that was the end of it. Suguru’s eyes had returned to their purple and Satoru whisked him away.

He had whisked him away from all the noise, the blood, the chaos to the towering castle in the trees that they currently lived in in the quiet of the forest-

“Hey,” Satoru questions, poking his cheek, “You just spaced out for a while.”

“I was thinking about you,” Suguru replies, turning his head to meet his caress.

“As always-”

“You saved me. And you continue to save me,” Suguru says, “So let me show you my undying gratitude.”

Satoru hopes desperately that you can hear the echoes of his pleasure from your bedroom.

The house seems to have transfigured into more of a castle the longer you stay here. Winding staircases appear out of thin air complete with unfamiliar corridors and twists and turns.

But what remains the same is the library and how often you frequent it. The entire history of the universe must be kept in these bookshelves. There isn’t enough time in the day for you to read all of the treasures inside the library that seems to get bigger everyday.

You have been reading the same book for some time now, getting distracted by thoughts of Gojo Satoru. He hasn’t come to visit you in the library recently and you can’t help but wonder if you’ve done something to upset him for him to avoid you.

He comes and goes as he pleases. As if he’s there but he’s not there at all.

“There you are,” you say easily, sitting next to him on the bed.

“Can I help you?” Satoru says petulantly. You resist the urge to roll your eyes.

“Are you mad at me?” you ask, nudging his shoulder with yours.

“Whatever gave you that idea,” he deadpans, still not looking at you.

“Oh, come on,” you whine, tugging at his hand, “You can tell me anything.”

His head turns to you abruptly, too quickly to be considered normal. With narrowed eyes, he searches your face for any sign of deceit.

Satoru scoffs and lays back on the bed dramatically. You follow his actions and face him, meeting his terribly piercing gaze. Unable to stop yourself, you allow your fingers to graze his pale cheek. When he doesn’t flinch, you let your hand rest on his chest. He is more muscular than he looks, you think.

As if Satoru can read your thoughts, he turns to you and glares at you.

Comfortable silence fills the room. He stares at you, thoughts swirling behind those azure eyes, willing himself to speak.

Satoru pretends like he doesn’t notice your hand drifting down further.

“I found you first,” he mumbles, “And I found him first.”

“You did find me first,” you muse, “When nobody else wanted me, you did.”

Your grip on his shirt tightens briefly.

“And now he’s drinking your blood and I can’t-”

“Oh, Satoru,” you say softly, “You don’t want to be left behind, do you?”

He doesn’t meet your eyes, but his silence conveys all you need to know. If Satoru could blush, his cheeks would be tinted a rosy color. You vowed before, to never let yourself feel as unwanted and lonely as you did in that relationship. And to never let anyone else feel that same loneliness.

His name is a honeyed whisper on your tongue that he wishes to pull from your pretty lips as often as he can.

“I found you both first,” Satoru replies harshly before he presses his lips to yours, “Don’t ever forget that.”

Chaos bursts in his bright eyes before he closes them to kiss you, to pull your voice to the tip of your tongue. Your mouth is sweet, full of roses and tea. It’s no wonder Suguru is so taken with the taste of your rich blood.

You fist his shirt as if you can’t get close enough to him with quickened breaths. Satoru can feel the rise and fall of your chest against his. Can you feel his weightlessness against you?

Satoru pulls you into his lap easily, groaning into your mouth when you lazily rock your hips into his. You remind him that you’re with him in this magical forest, that he found you first. The universe brought you to him and he kisses you fiercely, to ground himself.

Despite your hands marking his shoulder blades and your legs tight around his narrow hips, Satoru feels far away. Impossible to touch as if there is a veil keeping you on the outside.

Does he know? It doesn’t matter- you’ll find your way through the fog to touch his soul with your gentle fingertips.

The castle contains newly appearing staircases and paintings that have surely been lost to something as feeble as time and history. It protects you from the raging storm outside, the storm that surely awaits you in your home.

It protects you from dangers that you cannot see.

You shouldn’t be here. You really shouldn’t, but you can’t be blamed. Not when the endless shadows of the house- the castle- lead you here. Straight to the ornate door of what must be Suguru and Satoru’s bedroom.

Only a door shields you from them. Only a door shields them from you.

Quiet whispers are muffled beyond the door, both of their voices mixing together. Whispers flow into syrupy moans as you press your ear against the door to listen.

You shouldn’t be here, disrupting what is surely to be an intimate moment between two lovers that you are not privy to. But you want to be. You want to feel their breaths span across your back, hear their voices low in your ear, feel their sinewy limbs under your fingertips.

It makes you shiver. To be velvet in between silver and gold. All you can do is press your ear closer, closer…

No, you shouldn’t. But they’re so close to you-

“I can hear you breathing from out there,” Suguru says dryly, loudly enough for you to hear through the door, “If you’re trying to conceal yourself, you’re not doing a very good job.”

Impatiently, you push the door open, mesmerized by Suguru on his knees in front of Satoru. He is seated on the bed, leaning back on his elbows with hazy eyes and his fingers tangled in Suguru’s hair.

You inhale hungrily, unsure of where to look. Suguru chuckles at you and beckons you closer with a simple, heady look.

“Don’t just stand there,” he says, his voice strained as Satoru complains over the lack of attention on him, “Sit down.”

You barely breathe as Suguru strokes Satoru’s hardened, leaking cock with his massive hand. You wonder how that hand would look around Satoru’s neck- as if he can read your mind, his left hand wanders up the pale divots of his chest and to his neck. Resting there, holding Satoru in place as he squirms for Suguru to do something. Anything.

Suguru’s voice is low but clear, softly telling Satoru to stay still and be patient. His hips jump in time with Suguru’s lazy strokes. How torturous- how long has Suguru had his lover on his back like this, waiting for mercy?

It must have been for a long time, considering the trembling of Satoru’s body and how he silently begs for more.

He smears pre-cum over his cock before pushing Satoru’s legs wider apart. Looking over his shoulder to see if you’re watching his movements, only to smirk at you knowingly. Your cheeks are warm as you peer at him. At Satoru’s vulnerability.

Suguru must know everything about Satoru. Everything about what he likes, about how to dissolve him into a pleading mess of want. You want to learn. You want to please them both. You want to learn from them.

But you just watch, for now.

You rub your thighs together subconsciously when they both sigh in unison as Suguru bottoms out. Their breaths are heavy against each other, silenced when he kisses Satoru harshly in contrast to his slow, purposeful thrusts. The fondness, the love between them is palpable in the way they gaze at each other. As if you aren’t even there- as if they are the only two stars in the entire sky of the universe. It wouldn’t be fair to the scales of the universe for there to be two pairs of lovers like them.

You wish to be the exception. You will be the exception.

“Touch yourself,” Suguru grunts from the bed, looking at you over his shoulder. You make an attempt to crawl closer to him but he stops you abruptly. “No, you’ll stay there and you’ll touch yourself. Let us see you.”

Their hands are interlocked and desire washes over you in a tidal wave. He turns away to give his attention to Satoru but you lift the skirt of your robe up to your waist to give them both a full view of your wetness.

You clench around nothing, wishing desperately to take Suguru in your mouth or press your pussy to Satoru’s lips. Instead you rub your clit in time with Suguru’s thrusts, watching his hips roll. Satoru’s moans are loud and raspy, calls of his lover’s name, please, please, please, more…

“Watch her,” Suguru hisses, his hair in disarray as he shoves Satoru’s face towards you. You gasp when both of them watch you together, watching as you shove your finger deep into your pussy, the sound of squelching mixing together and bouncing off the walls.

You’re quiet in your corner of the room, obediently waiting for Suguru to beckon you closer. For him to grant you a small touch, however fleeting. But he never does, and you are desperate for their attention. For an ounce of their shared love to drip onto your heated skin.

“O-ohhh-”

Your clit throbs as Satoru’s moans get louder and louder, breathier and breathier and Suguru is concentrated on how his cock pushes into Satoru effortlessly, how effortless it’s been for decades but it feels like a millenia- and if there is a god- this is the salvation he’d pray for-

He cums with a broken moan, his chest heaving but continues to push into Satoru as he murmurs sweet nothings to him. They both turn their eyes to you, you who is currently rubbing yourself furiously as if you’re racing against time. Your eyelids are hazy, clouded over with lust. You listen so well. You hadn’t even moved an inch from where Suguru had told you to stay.

“Come here, darling,” Suguru coos, “What a good girl. Do you want a kiss?”

You nod eagerly and all but crawl to him and sit in front of him on your knees, waiting patiently.

“Good girls get kisses,” he replies, “Come here, next to me.”

Satoru pushes back on Suguru, trying to fuck himself on his cock but to no avail. Suguru places a warning hand on his hip to stop him. He kisses you, a chaste peck. It’s not enough for you, but he gives you a meaningful glance. Telling you to listen to him.

You lean forward to give Satoru a kiss and before you can deepen it, Suguru tells you that’s enough.

“No touching,” he clicks his tongue, “Touch yourself while Satoru cums. Show him how much you like it when he cums, sweetheart. Doesn’t he look good like this?”

You nod vigorously with warmth pooling in your cheeks. Suguru’s hair is in disarray, long strands falling from his messily made bun onto his forehead. He moves gracefully, a painter with his paintbrush as he strokes against Satoru. He is Suguru’s canvas.

Your chest tightens at the stars barely concealed in his meteor eyes.

Satoru’s gaze is hooded and heady, concentrated only on the man hovering above him as his hair falls onto his skin. Your fingers are warm against your thighs, but you prefer the coldness of theirs.

Suguru pushes his angel hair away from his forehead and murmurs for him to sing for him. To sing for you. His moans rise in pitch with every stroke- you can’t stop the way you look longingly where they are connected. Each tense muscle in his body is soothed by the other’s gentle but firm touch. It’s a delicate dance, one that Suguru has barred you from partaking in.

Your fingers wander, languidly rubbing circles on your clit, entranced by the ripple of muscles and the sheen layer of sweat on skin. The connection of two lovers is a sight that you are blessed to witness. You want to drink them in, be drenched in their love for each other- for you.

“What a patient girl,” comes a silky voice from next to you, “Why don’t you let us have you now?”

Suguru laughs when you nod your head vigorously. Like an enthusiastic puppy wanting her owner’s attention.

“I want you both,” you say impatiently, pawing at them both,“Together-”

“Let’s give the girl what she wants,” Satoru says, still catching his breath as he lays flat on the bed.

You are met only with hungry eyes and salacious smiles.

The moon hangs above for prolonged hours as the night begins earlier and earlier. It must be nearing the winter, you think. Frost clings to the air like stars in the sky, but you don’t mind it. Not when you’re there to keep both Satoru and Suguru warm.

Despite the winter fast approaching, you still hear the faint sound of rolling thunder.

“That’s enough,” Suguru murmurs, pulling away from your wrist gently as he licks drops of your sweet blood.

“Are you certain?” you ask, despite feeling a bit lightheaded.

“Yes, darling. You’d let me have you, wouldn’t you?” he coos, as if he is speaking to a newborn deer. Your lips part into a wide, bashful smile as you bat your eyelashes at him.

“My sweetest girl,” he says, pressing his lips to your jaw. You laugh airily at the sensation, pretending to push him back with a hand on his firm chest.

“I would give you all the blood you wanted,” you reply, “You only want my blood, right?”

“Is validation from me what you seek?” Suguru teases you.

Your voice is so full of hope, eyes shining with reverence as you wait for an answer. How far would you walk for him? Just to the edge of the universe? Would you fall over the precipice with him? Would you look over your shoulder before jumping if he told you to?

Judging by the way you shove your wrist in his face, he thinks he has his answer. Your skin is dotted with fading bite marks, some fresh and some old. You wear them with pride, uncaring if anyone sees. Not that there is anyone to see you, besides Gojo Satoru and himself.

The soft smile that uncurls on your face when Suguru’s eyes shift from a calm purple to charcoal and veins abruptly appear under his eyes as he feeds on you is enthralling. No feeling will equate to his soft whimpers as the first drop of your blood enters his circulatory system.

That’s all he is, anyway. A mess of blood and an undead heart thoughtlessly arranged together with frayed red strings in a puzzle where the pieces don’t fit. But somehow, you fit. You and Satoru both fit in different places.

No feeling, not even the memories of your formerly known lover, can make you feel as desired as Geto Suguru drinking your blood as if you are the last living, breathing thing on the planet.

Suguru gives you beautiful gowns and glittery jewels to adorn on your neck and your ears. All you need to give him is your blood and he’ll indulge you with his undivided attention.

“I desire you,” he mumbles, kissing your cupid’s bow, “Your mind,” a kiss to your forehead, “Your company,” a kiss to your palm, “Your body,” a kiss to your clothed chest, “Your soul,” a final lingering kiss to your bruised wrist.

“Oh,” you say sheepishly. Suguru can feel your lashes flutter against his cheek.

“Shall I prove it to you?”

He grins wolfishly, determined to indulge in every inch of you.

“Oh, I almost forgot,” Satoru says with food in his mouth, “A cop came by earlier. He was asking about a certain abandoned car about two miles from here.”

Satoru’s eyes shift to you, piercing and intense but you don’t meet his gaze.

“That’s so…interesting,” you mutter, “Who would come out this far and just dump their car? How weird…”

“Someone trying to leave something behind, maybe?” Suguru suggests knowingly, his eyes equally as piercing as Satoru’s.

You avoid both of their pointed gazes and take a long swig of red wine.

The silence suffocates you, but you don’t relent. They don’t need to know your secret, the one that you’ll carry with you until your dying breath. The real reason for your abrupt departure from your home, the perceived carelessness of throwing your car keys out in the mud on the forest floor for anyone to find. All for the simple hope of salvation in this sea of trees.

Instead of salvation, you’ve found eternal damnation with the immortal vampire Geto Suguru and ever living ghost Gojo Satoru. It’s still far better than the unfortunate alternative that awaited you in your former life.

You play with the emerald necklace seated at the base of your neck. A gift, of course, from the two ethereal beings sitting in front of you. Your lip nearly bleeds from how tightly you hold it between your teeth, debating whether you should tell them or not.

Not today.

“We need to know who is looking for you,” Satoru says firmly.

“Why? So you can hand me over to them all wrapped up in a bow? Or so that you can exile me from your home?” you challenge petulantly. Suguru narrows his eyes in your direction and you swear they flash an angry red. You try not to feel small in your seat and hold your head high.

“Don’t you dare imply that either of us would give you up so easily,” he all but hisses, “Do not insult me.”

“Besides, don’t you think we should know why the cops are knocking on our door asking about your abandoned car?” Satoru chimes in with a barely concealed smirk, “And how stupid do you think we are? To not know that that abandoned car was yours?”

Your eyes land on your hands in your lap and you sigh, the burden of your former life weighing heavily in your throat.

“You will banish me if I tell you,” you say, “I can’t handle it if you tell me to leave. There is nowhere for me to go.” Your words are sincere as you cave into yourself.

“Of course we wouldn't, sweetheart,” Satoru coos, coming around the table to sit next to you. He places a lithe, translucent finger under your chin and forces you to look at him. Uncertainty dances in your dark eyes but you’re unable to break the trance that he has placed you under.

“Maybe I’ll tell you later,” you mumble.

“How very mysterious of you,” Satoru teases you, patting your hair without a care in the world.

“We’re only asking so we can protect you if we need to,” Suguru offers. Heat blooms in your chest at his firm admission. Of course, they’d protect you. After all, this house is a lighthouse in the storm.

Today, you've forgotten to check if the rain continues to fall outside.

The garden behind this castle of a house is flourishing and colorful, filled with flowers and blooms that you have never seen before. A sea of reds, pinks, blues and greens bursts in your eyes. To think, you’ve never seen the garden before. In fact, when was the last time you stepped outside?

You have not seen the sun in days, weeks, months, perhaps. But you feel the warmth of the sun whenever you lay between Satoru and Suguru.

But the breeze is refreshing against your face as it threads through your hair.

You look over the treeline, at the tallest trees that seem to pierce the stormy, grey sky. The rain has not begun for the day yet, but you suspect it will soon. It’s heavy in the air, palpable against your skin. If you reach out into the empty space, you’re certain you could collect raindrops into your hands.

A shiver trembles down your spine as the frosty air whips your face. Perhaps the rain will turn to snow soon. You always did love the snow. The silence of a fresh, bright snowfall where everything is as still as the night

Despite the approaching winter chill, the flowers in the garden are flourishing as if it’s the middle of springtime. You never really appreciated the springtime flowers in the past. But maybe because you never noticed, never took the time to smell the roses.

The tiny pond centered in the garden is as motionless as the air that chokes you with silence. Lotus flowers float mindlessly from one side of the pond to the other. You’ve never seen so many lotuses in one place before. It’s beautiful and rather ominous.

Time does not move in this patch of the forest. You’re forced to stand still along with the magic of the house, the symphony of the storm. Is it the magic of the house, or is it the vampire and the ghost who live inside the house?

Does it matter?

You sigh heavily, picking at your cuticles as you lose yourself in your thoughts. Your coat is heavy around your shoulders. Are they watching you in the windows? Wondering why you’ve left them alone in the house, why you’re sitting outside all alone?

Will they come find you? What would it take for them to come crawling to you, begging for your attention? Perhaps a deep cut on your wrist with the sharpened end of the gate surrounding the backyard, a scrape of your knees-

A whoosh of air wraps around your face in a firm caress but it’s not the wind, it’s more warm and comforting. You feel something being placed gently into your hair- a red spider lily.

You hide your smile.

The breeze feels like the curl of lithe fingers around your cheek, invisible but heavy against your skin. You sense Satoru’s touch but you still play coy, pretending like you don’t notice him pawing at your clothes.

You can’t see him, but you can feel him. His hands pushing the collar of your coat to lick up the column of your throat. Cold breaths against your ear as his teeth graze your earlobe.

It’s playful, teasing- you can nearly hear his laughter. Until it’s not anymore, and you find yourself on your back in the grass. Staring at the stormy sky, despite the column of sunlight illuminating you.

You wonder if Suguru is watching. You hope he is.

His hands are nimble, an out of body experience, as your blouse becomes unbuttoned and tossed to the side. With a shaky breath, you try to feel for him, wanting to touch his chest or press your lips to his-

But he doesn’t allow you to, only allowing you to be at his mercy as he holds your chest in his unseen hands. You look down in interest as your own flesh is kneaded by the concealed force that is Gojo Satoru. His touch is searing, heavenly and goosebumps rise on your neck as the pressure of his hips presses against yours. Your skirt is suddenly flipped upwards in a flurry of impatience as he pulls you closer to him. To close the gap between life and the afterlife- to tip you towards the latter.

A moan parts through the veil and settles deep in your belly as warmth bursts. You are sensitive to the plush grass against your back, against your bare thighs- your skirt has been pulled off and you lay unclothed in the garden. Like izanami herself, you lay with only the elements to witness as the unearthly being on top of you parts your knees lewdly.

He stares at your wetness as your legs part open- after all, divine intervention sits at the apex of your thighs and he wants a taste. He wants to see the great light, or whatever comes next, in your eyes as his teeth brush against your inner thighs. Satoru tastes honey once he moves your hands aside. You can’t hide from him- you can’t hide from something you cannot see. He is hungry for you, hungry to devour you, hungry for you to give in fully to him. To be absolutely and fully open to him and bare your entire soul to the deepest, dead parts of him.

Your gasps are slight, barely heard breaths as he licks you with fervor. In between your legs is Satoru, grinding into the dewy grass in time with the rise and fall of your chest. You throw your head back when Satoru pushes two translucent fingers into you, your slick coating his skin.

You smell ravishing, the pulse of your heart a song in his ears. No wonder Suguru nearly drained you dead the other day.

Satoru groans when you wrap your legs around his hips. It’s not surprising that you intuitively know exactly where he starts and ends. To your eyes, you see nothing but open space in front of you. But you feel his distorted lines pinned against you, pushing you further into the earth.

He wants to savor the image of your parted lips and half-lidded eyes, the heat on your cheeks as he strokes himself and pushes into you. The noise that leaves your throat goes straight to his cock. Do you enjoy being full like this? Stuffed full of his cock and not being able to see it? See him?

“Faster, Satoru,” you mumble, looking straight at his six eyes, “Faster-oh!”

Careful what you ask for. He grins at you wildly, pushing his chest down to yours. He could spit into your mouth if he wanted, it would be so easy to let his spit slide into your wet, warm mouth. Your body jolts with every thrust, tightening as he rubs your clit and spreads your wetness sloppily.

A pearly sheen of sweat coats your sweet skin and if you could see him now, the wolfish look in his eyes would be shining in yours. He presses down against your bottom lip with a ghostly thumb, groaning when you whimper into the open air. It’s quickly silenced when he pushes his finger into your mouth harshly as surprise melts into heat in your eyes.

Satoru can feel Suguru’s eyes on you both, laid out in the grass. He wonders if you can, too.

The slope of your neck is enticing and he must sink his teeth into you. With a breathy gasp, you shudder and clench your walls around him as you cum abruptly. He grins crookedly at you, not that you can see it. You squeeze around him like a velvety vice. Your eyes are mischievous as you roll your hips against him. The rise and fall of your chest is tantalizing- his hand moves of its own volition to wrap around your neck loosely.

As if you are a goddess with a chain to keep you tethered to the earth, to him, you look directly into his eyes and smile.

His hips stutter as he loses rhythm before he pushes into you and stills completely. Satoru whines your name brokenly in your ear before he cums loudly and triggers you to cum once more. You feel full and heavy, sated with the feeling of his thick, gooey cum pooling and mixing with your own wetness.

His eyes widen when you let your hand graze downwards to rub yourself. You taste him on your lips; tangy and sweet. Your smile is lewd, like you’re proud of yourself for seducing him in the open garden with your bare body and honey eyes.

Your skin glistens with the dewy grass that you have claimed to be your bed as the selective sun forms a patch around your head like a halo. In truth, Satoru feels unholy in the way he looks at you, thinks about you.

He drops his head low to kiss you once more, driven by the desire to paint you with himself. To paint brushstrokes of his devotion on every inch of your skin.

It’s so simple to give in to his kiss. To dive into him without worrying about how far the jump is or how far off the cliff you’ll go. You trust that he will catch you, even if you can’t see him.

He is still unseen to you, but your hands are flat against his taut chest as you maneuver yourself on top of him. You throw your head back as you welcome him inside, your wetness coating him like a salve.

Your hips move of their own accord and Satoru lays back to let you take control of him. You lean down to kiss him but your lips hover. As if you want to say something.

This garden of Eden will hear your secrets and here they shall die, you decide. Nothing seems so terrible with the way he fits inside you. You want to give him your mind, body, and soul.

And with this declaration you will. You rotate your hips, coming down on him gently at a slow pace before picking up again. His hands stay idle on your hips as you finally say something-

“I killed him,” you say softly, wrapping your arms around his neck.

You can’t hear him, and you don’t need to.

“My husband. We just…it fell apart!” you pant, bouncing faster, “what was a girl to do?”

“He never loved me! Never wanted me. Never paid attention to me,” you whisper, “so I killed him. And I ran away. I just wanted to be his one and only…”

“I killed him and you found me,” you sigh breathlessly, moving an arm away to rub your clit furiously. The words have never been said out loud and the secret that remains between you and him has you squeezing around him tightly. “I wish you had been there to see it, Satoru-“

He finishes loudly, without warning and you keep rolling your hips. He pushes your hand away to replace your fingers and rubs you until you finish with him.

You fall onto his invisible chest and sigh happily. He stays unseen, running a hand over your bare back and feeling the mix of your cum and his of you both leaking out of you and onto him. Your words are the words of a lover, confessions and shy smiles bursting at the seam of your lips and into his.

It must be alright, if a gentle spring breeze caresses your back.

Satoru looks at you in awe- how frightened you must have been when you had realized what you’d done. And through all of the strife and turmoil, you still came to him.

That must be divine intervention. After all, he only planned for you to be a momentary blood bag for his lover until your inevitable decay.

The openness of the house, the wall to wall windows, the way the breeze floats inside and coats the house in a gentle chill despite the ongoing storm outside, is comforting to you now. Rather than eerie as it was days ago. Days? Weeks? Months?

An invisible weight is lifted from your chest, one that you didn’t know even existed since you drove away in a frenzy on that cold, rainy night. The memories are almost too painful, but the newfound freedom tastes sweet on your tongue.

“Will you keep me waiting much longer, darling?” Suguru whispers, tracing your cheek with a long finger. You lean into his icy touch and he smiles at you.

Lifting the skirt of your midnight blue robe, he caresses your thigh and smacks it lightly. His grin widens when you yelp and laugh. Oh, he’ll have so much fun with you. What an excitable thing you are, completely defying any expectations he had of you only to enjoy your time in this castle.

A prison without a fence. He expects you won’t try to leave for a long, long time. Not when it took you all of the drama of a poor husband for you to leave in your prior life.

Yes, you are starting a new life, as you’ve indicated to him in the confines of his bedroom before. A new life with him and Satoru, one where you will be free. As free as the rain that falls from the sky.

Your soul is vulnerable, exposed for him to read whenever he desires. All Suguru sees is pure longing and fear. Fear that you will be abandoned once more.

It doesn’t matter. Suguru will make it so that your wishes are fulfilled forever. And once forever ends and you are nothing but an afterthought in his everlasting life, he will be sure to scatter your ashes in the lake by the house.

He will remember you fondly as the girl who killed to find a home in him. But ultimately, this story will not conclude with you in it. No matter how sweet your blood tastes or how you bat your eyelashes at him to get your way or how endearing he finds you as you list out trivial history facts from a time period he never lived in, not even how warm your pussy feels right after he cums inside you-

None of that matters, except for right now. Right now, when you reach for him with warm hands and look at him as if he is not a bloodthirsty creature, but as if he hung the moon in the sky.

“Make you wait? I’d never,” you reply with bright eyes, shifting against the cool sheets to press yourself closer to him. Your eyes flutter in pleasure when he pulls the knot of your robe loose from your waist. He pushes the robe to the side, leaving you open and exposed to him. Suguru purrs against your skin, the noise vibrating against your bare chest. He lifts his head as his eyes turn red and black veins form on his face.

He’s hungry.

Suguru lifts your wrist to his lips, pressing delicate kisses to the still bruised skin there. Most of the bruises have faded by now, anyway, with fresh ones blooming elsewhere. He remembers where each one is- your thighs, your chest, your neck… You don’t bother with covering them, not anymore. Not since you’ve fully accepted the castle in the forest as your home.

His tongue is gentle as he allows his fangs to elongate and brush against the skin of your wrist, like he is asking for permission.

With a soft gasp, you feel his sharpened teeth pierce your skin as he messily drinks from your vein like a man starved. In truth, he has been starved over the last few decades. Starved of a sweetness like you.

In over one hundred years, he can only remember Satoru’s blood tasting so decadent. Filling him up with a sudden unquenched thirst. Suguru wants more of you- and you know it.

He lets go of your wrist, lapping any extra blood that angrily pours out of the small puncture wound with his tongue. With a comforting rub of your skin, he presses kisses down your torso, taking his time in enjoying how you squirm in his tight grasp. Your body moves in waves against his hold, moving with his push and pull.

The familiar pierce of his canines brushes against the fragile skin of your inner thigh, one of his favorite places to drink from. He says he can taste all of your feelings in that exact spot. Suguru doesn’t care about the guttural noises that rip from his throat as he drinks from you, careful to ensure that you don’t nearly faint from blood loss. Again.

Warmth blooms in your belly, uncurling like fairy wings to envelope you in comfort. But really, it’s Suguru’s touch, his mouth, how loved he makes you feel. He says he’s never had blood like yours before and you believe him. You push his head further with your free hand, encouraging him to take more from you.

But he pulls away, blood dripping from his teeth down his chin and onto his chest. You pull him on top of you for a sharp kiss, smearing your own blood on your lips. He tastes metallic with the taste of your blood down his throat. You want to devour him, to see how you taste in his eyes. You never want him to stop looking at you the way he does- as his prized possession, his favorite girl.

“There have been so many women,” Suguru coos, “Has Satoru told you? But you are the only one who stayed.” He drags lithe fingers over your chest, only to use his long nails to cut you. It’s not very deep, but you watch in wonder as ruby red blood blooms on your skin.

He uses his thumb to paint your blood over your skin only to press his finger to your lips and wordlessly tell you to suck.

“You stayed because you love us,” he says in a honeyed voice, “Good girls should be rewarded for their loyalty.”

Suguru reaches over to his nightstand where he pulls out a silver dagger encrusted with jewels. You stare at him as he places it carefully into your hands. What does he want you to do with this?

It dawns on you when you look at the angry lines on your chest. You sit up on your haunches and smile at him, enamored that he entrusts you to this degree.

You hold the dagger, trying to get comfortable with the feel of such a heavy metal in your hands. It’s a foreign weight, necessary for the foreign task that your lover has for you.

“Right here?” you ask quietly, your hand on his chest where you expect his heart would beat.

“Wherever you’d like, darling.”

With no hesitation, you allow the surface of the blade to pierce Suguru’s skin. Dark, burgundy droplets fall from the cut and trickle down his torso. With wide eyes, you look at him, asking him what to do. Instead, he laughs at you, curling a hand around your cheek.

“Is it not obvious?”

He gathers the blood from the cut onto his finger and presses it to your lips once more. You swallow instantly with doe eyes- you will always take whatever he gives you. But you surprise him when you lean forward and press your lips to the blood on his torso and lick, whimpering with each swallow of his blood in your circulatory system.

“Come here, sweetheart,” Suguru says, petting your hair, “Good girl. Do you want more?”

With darkened lips and eager eyes, you nod vigorously. Wanting nothing more than to please him. He takes the dagger back from you and cuts a much deeper wound into his chest, wincing as he does so.

“There you go,” he says, throwing his head back when you latch onto him and drink his blood. It comes to you so easily. The urge to please.

Strangely enough, he tastes like ripened cherries. His moans are soft as you drink from him as you please. He owns you now, whether you realize it or not. Now that you’ve drunk his blood, he is a part of you now.

Until he decides otherwise.

In your new home, you have created the perfect life. You are cherished and desired, not needing to hide the ugly truths about yourself to Suguru and Satoru. You see them with rosy hearts in your eyes, convinced that they have accepted you the way that they have accepted each other.

You refuse to let any seeds of doubt fester. Will they tire of you, the way your husband did? Will they say that you’re too needy, too demanding of their attention?

The words are familiar in your mind but they look at you as if they are enthralled by you. No, you are a part of them as much as they are a part of you. You try your hardest to quell your rising, unfounded fears. It’s you, not them, you convince yourself. It’s you, not them.

Suguru and Satoru are already in the library, waiting for you to join them on the barely sat-in leather couch.

You read your book in silence, the same three paragraphs burned into your eyelids. You can’t focus, not when the two men next to you try to vye for your attention. Despite their lips on your neck and their sweet, seductive words… There is a buzzing in your head that you can’t seem to shake away. It gnaws at you and gnaws at you, even as you succumb to their touches. Even as they drape themselves over you and pull sweet sounds from your throat.

Why don’t they look at you the way they did before? Are you imagining the look of disgust in Satoru’s eyes as he undresses you? Is the boredom on Suguru’s face an unfounded figment of your imagination?

You are desperate for them, for them to bury themselves in you and build a home inside you. For them to keep you and never let you go. With a harsh kiss and bite to their lips, you seal your fate of your own accord.

In the thick of the frigid winter, the seasons change. It no longer downpours everyday- instead, snow covers the forest. Completely untouched and pure in a delicate, white blanket that cradles the earth.

The cold nips at your cheeks as you step outside the castle on the hill. You are dressed only in a thin black robe that rustles with the icy wind. With barren feet, you step into the snow. Hardly registering the way your blood cools with each step or how your teeth begin to shatter.

Despite the clean scent of snow in the air, you still catch the lingering scent of rain.

Loose deep red rose petals that you hold in your arms taint the pristine white snow as if they were drops of blood. The plant life still somehow thrives even in the wintry weather.

It is so quiet, with each step you take hardly making a sound. The world is still as you make your way over to the nearly frozen over darkened lake. It glitters with the pale sun, almost blinding you but you remain undeterred.

It is a chance for rebirth. Revenge. Or is it redemption?

You dip your foot in the lake first. Then, you close your eyes and surrender to the unknowing abyss with nothing more than a silent splash.

Melted snow coats the earth you walk on when your eyes open once more. It must be days later that you breathe the dry air and emerge from the depths of the lake, your robe soaking wet and sticking to your clammy skin.

But you do not feel the cold, nor do you need to breathe air. It’s a leftover reflex from the person you were not even a full week ago.

The door to the castle on the hill is the same as the first day you saw it. When you were running away from your old life. Here you are, embracing your new one.

You knock on the door gently. Once, then twice.

You are met with wide, surprised celestial eyes. Only offering him a grin in return.

“What did you do?” Satoru hisses, yanking you inside by your forearm. He senses the difference in you already, the darkened energy coating your bloodstream. Your heart does not beat at all and your canines have become sharpened fangs in your mirthless smile. Your hands are cold when you paw at his chest. He’s used to cold hands, but yours are unforgiving. A threat when your nails nearly pierce through his skin.

Most of all, blood stains your skin and your teeth when you smile widely at him. Some of it is fresh, still dripping down your neck and some of it is dried along the curve of your jaw and your chest. It reminds him of a lost, wounded wolf. It’s jarring, the sweet smile he is used to is sinister and unforgiving.

It doesn’t suit you, and yet this is what you have chosen. Your laughter is grating in his finely tuned ears, reminiscent of a curse. Is that what this is? Is that what you have become? An immortal curse?

He ignores the trepidation crawling on his skin. Satoru can’t exactly slam the door in your face, can he?

“Come, lover. Let’s find Suguru,” you say with bright eyes, “We have much to catch up on.”

“You were supposed to be nothing but a blood bag for Suguru,” Satoru seethes, “Look what you’ve done-”

“No, please, I did this for you,” you wail, tugging on his shirt, “I want this forever. Don’t you want the same? You said you did!” Doesn’t he see you? Doesn’t he see how much you crave him?

“Enough,” comes Suguru’s voice from behind Satoru. He looks at you, running a thumb over the blood on your skin. Then at the silent, unmoving lake.

He closes his eyes for half a second and sighs, ignoring Satoru’s very purposeful glare at his head.

“I did it for you, Suguru,” you whimper, relaxing when he gathers you in his arms and strokes your hair. He says nothing, instead raising his eyes to meet Satoru’s. Two vampires in the same forest? A newborn vampire, at that?

Suguru is tempted to stake you for your naivete, but refrains from doing so. Sheer bloodlust is what got them into this mess, after all.

“We’ll figure it out,” he says into your hair, but he means for Satoru to hear it, “Don’t you worry about a thing.”

The sun sets in brushstrokes on the world, but not on you.

#stsg x reader #geto x reader #gojo x reader #gojo satoru x reader #satosugu x reader #geto suguru x reader #jjk x reader

417 notes · View notes

katuschka · 2 months ago

Text

Pierrot Sleeps

Josh Kiszka x f!OC/reader

/friends to lovers/

8.036 words

I dedicate this one to everyone who needs some healing...

Pierrot sleeps, silently He’s dreaming next to me Painted black tear, on his soft face And the sweetest lips; they never speak to me My Pierrot sleeps (Barbora Mochowa – Pierrot)

Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction, intended for adult readers. Any resemblance to real persons is purely coincidental. Also, if you're under 18, go find some other entertainment elsewhere.

Warnings (are spoilers): heartbreak, unrequitted love, pining for a friend, breakup, friends to lovers, slow burn, sweet Josh, kissing, fluff, smut: petting, oral sex, vag. sex, a few allusions to a suicise of a minor character (in the past), briefly mentioned attempted suicide (retrospective), depressive thoughts, expressive language, bad weather

You can also view my Masterlist, join the Taglist or listen to Pierrot Sleeps Playlist 🎶

At least it stopped raining… eventually.

Josh had expected there would be morning fog, so the fact that the world around them was shrouded in a thick blanket of clouds did not surprise him. Not only was it just as the forecast predicted, but he had been even looking forward to it. Foggy woods looked dreamy at this time of year. They’d have the best time, surely, and he could take a lot of pictures...

He however did not expect to be woken up by heavy rain drumming on the roof above them, and – on top of that – a whole half an hour before the alarm clock was supposed to rouse them. Too early to be happy about being awake, and too little time left to go back to sleep. Had it been the fall morning sun shining right into his face, he wouldn’t say a word. But rainfall? That didn’t go according to the plan.

He had been warned though, and despite his own nature, he chose to believe the technology instead.

The initial rhythmic patter only grew in intensity and it soon sounded as if the cabin was built right under a waterfall. That, together with the obtrusive light coming from the screen of his phone, finally woke her too. She didn’t make herself known at first. She listened silently for several seconds to the downpour growing stronger and waiting for his reaction with malicious glee. She was rewarded pretty soon, and his loud, annoyed grunt made her chuckle.

“Told you…,” she mumbled from under the cozy blanket sleepily, suddenly hopeful that they’d just stay inside, sipping sahlep in front of the fireplace. She would eat almond truffles and he could have his dried apple chips, or whatever. Maybe they could even try to play a game of chess. Josh had been telling her that he didn’t have the right brain for that, but she was adamant; and determined to teach him. His annoyed face, illuminated by the light blue light, however told that it probably wasn’t the best day for that. Again.

They had been both really looking forward to the trip, so she wasn’t even sure why she suddenly felt almost glad that their hiking plans might be ruined. The prospect of getting wet and numb with cold didn’t appeal to her at all, but it usually didn’t stop her. And when it did (When the heavens literally opened just like that morning), she’d be pretty pissed off for being forced to stay inside. Not this time though. Not when she was enveloped with the warmth and the scent of him. And that was something she had been looking forward to even more.

They shared the bed, just like many times before, just like friends often do. The cabin had two separate bedrooms, but it didn’t even occur to them to part their ways for the night. Not when the whole point of this trip was not to be alone. That would be silly.

And just like many mornings before, she closed her eyes again in a pretense of having fallen back to sleep just to revel in the morning smell of his body close to her for a little bit longer. But he wouldn’t be fooled by her closed eyes; being already quite familiar with her breathing patterns.

“Yeah, you did, weather girl, but let’s not get discouraged, yeah? The…the app says it’ll be over in an hour. So, we’re still on schedule. AND it also says there might be some sunlight by midday, and so does the radar… Hey, hey, wake up! Tea?”

“Coffee!” she huffed in exasperation. After all that time, he still kept trying. Coffee’s bad for you, blah blah blah… And maybe he was right. Just look at him! Fit and bubbly, filled with sunshine and energy right from the moment his eyes opened to greet the new day. Even when he was hurting, he always mustered enough energy to fill every room with light and love. As long as there were other people willing to share the moment with him, he was ok. Meanwhile, she felt like Gollum, torn between love and hate for the things that kept her (barely) functioning. Not just coffee… him, too. Her precious. She kept pursuing him, seeking his presence, while hoping that one day, she would be free, while not really wanting to. It was always the worst on mornings like this one, when she almost had him in her grasp, and then he always slipped out, because he was never hers.

She watched him fumbling for his clothes in semi darkness, pondering. Sleeping just in his briefs right next to her never seemed to faze him, and the thought always made her heart sink. Maybe he didn’t like the way she looked, so he never considered those moments to be overly intimate. That’s fine. But didn’t it ever occur to him how much she loved his body? Probably not. They were such good friends, after all. Right? Truth be told, she really tried her best to hide the truth from him. There were so many things to say, but she never did.

‘Come back to bed.’ What a simple request; one that people often say in situations like this one. ‘Come back to bed and just be with me. The world can wait…’ Yet she couldn't. She had no privilege to ask that.

Such good friends. That’s what everyone kept saying: ‘You two are such good friends.’ Everyone except Jake; that nosy, observant asshole. He mentioned his suspicion just once, and then abandoned the topic forever after she made it VERY clear that she didn’t want to discuss it and threatened to cut his balls off if he ever mentioned that to Josh.

They had been so close from the very start – she and Josh – despite the fact that they were from two seemingly different worlds. Or maybe because of that, because he seemed to deliberately seek the company of the people who didn’t care what he was. He didn’t have to pretend anything in front of her; she just let him be himself, even when it was not always nice or flattering. She loved all of him.

Yeah, she did. She loved him. And she knew she would from the moment she first saw him, when he ran into the coffee shop she worked in to hide from the rain...

The bell chimed, and she looked up, together with several other people, all of them surprised by the sudden commotion that disrupted the serenity of that lazy afternoon. He literally fell through the door, giggling awkwardly before he looked around, beaming and taking everything in, like a child in a toy store.

Are you familiar with those cheeky and extremely cliche movie scenes when the hero sees the object of their desire for the very first time and everything suddenly turns to slow motion? So melodramatic and stupid, very stupid indeed; so stupid they use it mostly in parodies these days. And yet, it’s also exactly what happened to her when her eyes first fell on the dampened halo of his messy curls. What a tiny, beautiful, ethereal man. He looked like an angel on vacation, dressed in pale jeans and a simple white long-sleeved shirt. Quite ordinary. It was the long string of beads around his neck, almost like a rosary, that made him look out of this world. But nothing could prepare her for the feeling that swept through her and he finally looked at her.

When she was very little, maybe two or three, she had a very strange dream once. The sun fell from the sky, landed on their street right next to their house and she watched, quite mesmerized, how it rolled behind their windows like a huge fiery balloon. She was too small to know that the sun was literally just a ball of fire, and yet that’s exactly how it appeared to her in the dream, except “her” sun didn’t have more than two meters in diameter and it didn’t scorch anything. That strange and bizarre dream left such an imprint on her young and expanding mind that it eventually became one of her core memories. Then, as years went by and adulthood hit her with brutal force, she almost forgot about it.

Until he appeared.

He introduced himself as Josh without even being asked, ordered matcha tea and then he took a barstool by the counter right opposite to her, because she was the only person in the whole room willing to talk to him; everyone else was staring at their phones or laptops and just minding their own business.

And it was SO easy talking to him, despite the fact that she was completely and utterly smitten with him, which usually tied her tongue in similar situations. Not with Josh. They talked for only half an hour about nothing important, but it was enough for him to unknowingly etch himself in her brain and gut.

Then he finally picked Josh up, just when the rain stopped, and they left together, seemingly forever.

Her mind was still full with the images of him when she went to bed that day, and he even materialized again as a drunken memory in her dreams. Her conviction that she wasn’t destined to have people like him in her life made the apparition both sweet and distant, but destiny never prevented anyone from having dreams about it, right? His existence seemed almost unreal the morning after. He became a vision – and an illusion – of a better world where people were actually nice to one another. Like a character from a favorite comfort book: someone who never really existed, but it was still nice to imagine.

Then, five days later, Josh came back.

He stayed for three long hours, as if he had no responsibilities in this world except for filling it with his contagious laughter. He ordered a whole pot of oolong and charmingly voiced his desire to pester her for the rest of the afternoon. When she asked why, his answer was simply ‘why not.’ That’s what the places like the one she worked in were for, and she shouldn’t get excluded, he said.

So they talked again, pausing only when other people came to take their order. They talked about poetry and cartoons and favorite sweets (she loved almond truffles!). She told him about her early childhood and a grandmother who could bake heavenly pastries, and he shared funny stories about his brothers and praised the wit and beauty of his sister.

There were times when such stories would make her feel miserable, but his own tales filled her with hopefulness. He exuded so much love and light no doubt because those people he talked about had always been there for him. If only she hadn’t failed to be there for her sister when she needed her the most. People kept telling her that it wasn’t her fault, but their words fell flat. Convinced that she should have known, she almost followed the same footsteps. They just found her in time…

Back then she told him that she was an only child.

The next time, Josh came back with a small bag full of almond truffles, which he traded for her number. And so they slowly became regular friends, with their lives gradually intertwining even outside of that coffee shop.

Days went by, then weeks. Slowly, she learned all about his passions and dreams, and nothing about his job. Then one day, just before Christmas, a group of people asked for a picture and he had to come clear afterwards. Nothing shocking in Nashville, It just made her admire him even more, and he couldn’t get mad when she finally told him her truth. Months passed by and finally there were no more secrets, even though her initial childish idea that he must have fallen from the sky was crushed.

At least she wasn’t surprised when he disappeared for months.

He often said ‘I love you’ and sometimes she imagined how it would feel if one day he’d mean it in a way that would make her skin tingle and cheeks burn. But that was not to be. The meaning was reserved for someone else, because he belonged to someone else. Plain and simple. They were so in love. Even through the veil of her jealousy, she could see the pure miracle of it. Everything Josh did seemed miraculous. It kept breaking her heart in the most peculiar and strangely addictive way.

He was always there for her as a dear friend, but never as someone who could keep her warm at night. He was unavailable.

Until he wasn’t. And yet…

He called her around two am that night, crying so hard he couldn’t even talk coherently. She wasted no time; having thrown just a long cardigan over her pajamas, she ran out the door, jumped in the car and headed straight to their… to his house.

They snuggled together in his bed, and she kept holding him tight until he finally relaxed and fell asleep. And when she woke up a few hours later, feeling his limbs wrapped around her body and his hot breath on the exposed skin of her shoulder, she looked up at the ceiling and her heart broke in a thousand little pieces once again. So this was how it felt… and she was destined to experience it only when they both felt like that, only not for each other… His touches during waking hours kept whispering ‘I’m glad’, but never ‘I yearn’.

He mewled suddenly, no doubt tormented by some disturbing dream, and grip around her only tightened. She turned to her side and hugged him back, watching his peaceful, doll-like face and listening to his light snores that made his parted lips quiver ever so slightly.

“Why didn’t you call one of your brothers?” she asked once he finally opened his eyes and, seeing her face right in front of his, greeted her with his sweet smile, even though it was short lived.

“You don’t judge me…,” he mumbled after a while.

“Your brothers don’t judge you either, silly! I know that, and so do you.”

“Yeah, but…I guess I needed a hug, and not just having my shoulder squeezed. Besides, they…they have their own people and, uh… other creatures to take care of...”

Ouch…

The truth is, he had tried to set her up with other people in the past, oblivious to the fact that the only one she wanted was him. So she kept lying to him, making up reasons why the dates and hook-ups never did work out. Even when she ended up in bed with them – and some of them were really good – it never made her want to see them more than just a couple times.

She had been like that even before she met him, to be honest. Men and women had come and gone, and her heart had remained closed, save for a few youthful infatuations. Her resolve not to commit to anyone only strengthened after what happened to Shania. Then one day, Josh appeared with a golden key, forced it in the lock and occupied the tiny space ever since, unaware of what he really did.

And the reason why she always tried to hide it the best way she (physically) could was because she was too grateful for what she already had in him. Such good friends… The risk of ruining it all was too great and too foolish. Because, by being there for her as a friend, he had already helped her more than she could possibly imagine. He had danced into the darkness of her dreary life and brought sunshine into it. She had a wonderful friend in him. The fact that she loved him romantically was just a minor snag. Maybe, just maybe, if she had known him sooner, she wouldn’t have to keep hiding the scarry reminder of forecast days on her wrists. But for everything there is a season…

… and fall is perfect for hiking.

So was the summer after he left, and so they – Josh and her – took advantage of every opportunity to spend it together in nature… or at least in his garden. Because, in spite of all the bad things happening, one could always rely on nature to be beautiful and welcoming, at least for now.

Josh’s busy schedule and constant traveling blessed him with the mercy of having his mind occupied, so that he wouldn’t have to think about the breakup so much, but everytime he got home – even when it was just for a few days – he kept seeking her company as well as her hugs, because his house suddenly seemed too big and silent and scary, and his brothers naturally wanted to spend the valuable time with their own significant others.

After that first, painful night, falling asleep in each other��s embrace became at first a frequent occurrence, and later almost a habit. Their movie nights, Sunday outdoor trips or late night garden picnics often ended that way. Lying on a blanket under a cloudless sky and pretending they could actually see any stars, they cuddled more often than not as the temperature dropped. He cried a few more times in early June, but after a while it just became a pleasant habit. Josh was never the person to shy away from physical contact, so it felt completely natural to him. It was always innocent, too, with their hands never wandering to any inappropriate places. A few times she could feel his lips brush against her locks – feather-like kisses that never touched the skin – but that was it. It always left her hungry for more, and the hunger kept growing…

The smell of coffee and vanilla coming from the kitchen put an end to her reminiscing, as it made her stomach rumble and pulled her mind back into the physical reality of the cabin. She finally managed to drag her lazy body out of bed and, after a short stop in the bathroom, followed the smell and the sound and the light, like a curious cat.

Josh was not a fruit loop guy and she was not allowed to eat that shit either, at least not under his watch. In consequence, their days spent together also meant that she was eating properly for a while.

She found him standing by the stove, making oatmeal with raisins and swaying to some unknown tune he was humming. She caught just a few words, something about bed and needing to touch again, and immediately wanted to go back, because damn! He was reading her mind.

Her footsteps made him stop and turn around, greeting her with his radiant smile. Snap. Another beautiful picture for the photo album of her mind. Having been blessed with an excellent memory, she often used it as an internal polaroid, taking snapshots of the beauty of the world to browse through when old. She, however, cheated with her stills of Josh, replaying them in her mind every time she was alone in her own bed.

“Finally! I thought I’d have to drag… you’re doing it again!”

“Doing what?” She couldn’t help but to reciprocate the toothy smile.

“You know what!” He threatened to pat her head playfully with the stirring spoon, making her duck down so as not to have chunks of hot oatmeal in her hair. “Save some space in that fancy brain of yours for the wonders of nature. Today’s gonna be EPIC!” He swung the spoon epicly towards the milky blue nothingness outside the window.

“It’s still raining, Josh.”

“Mmmm, not for long, I’m tellin’ya. Now grab that mug before that bitter shit gets cold.” He nearly overturned the cup of coffee with the large spoon and she snatched it out of his reach just in time to save the valuable fragrant liquid. He turned back to the stove, chuckling. “Gonna serve this heavenly manna in a sec, so take a seat, mademoiselle,” he added playfully in a low voice. “Cinnamon?”

“Yeah, why not. Just a pinch.”

“As you wisssssssh… Here comes the sun, little daaaarling, here comes the su-un, and Iiiiii saaay…”

Moments like these often made her mind and body dissociate. The body was drawn to him, yearning to hug him from behind and bite at his exposed earlobe, while the mind knew her place was at the table, where she was told to patiently wait for the breakfast to be served, while admiring his beauty from a respectable distance. The mind always won. Their new-found closeness, however exciting and really borderline intimate sometimes, had its boundaries.

He was right. The rain stopped eventually, so they packed their bags with all the necessities they might need for the whole day outside, and together they entered the misty world of barren bony branches, orange leaves and hidden horizons. It was already almost 8 am when they left the warm confines of their rented cabin, but the landscape remained shrouded in early November murkiness. They walked for at least an hour without speaking, the ubiquitous mist still unwilling to dissipate.

“It’s almost like a completely different planet, isn’t in,” she finally broke the silence.

“M-hm,” was the only response she got. She honestly often preferred it that way, being able to get lost in her own thoughts and daydreams, but that very rarely happened when Josh kept her company. His need to share everything that was on his mind – which was usually a LOT – could often be quite overwhelming. It also never failed to entertain everyone around him, because the vastness of his mind could compete with the plains on Mars, and it was just as untamed.

The fact that he was suddenly so unusually taciturn made her a bit uneasy. Something was wrong. She already noticed it the night before, and thought it was only understandable, given the recent events. She was devastated as well, thinking about Shania again, and how it would break her heart if she hadn’t chosen to make it stop beating willingly.

But then they talked quite openly about that and he returned back to his normal, radiant self as soon as they climbed in their shared bed. Now she had that nagging feeling once again… as if he was hiding something from her. Something was different.

“Are you still sad?” she asked tentatively.

“About what?” His tone was wary, making her uncertain whether she should even continue or just let it be. Alas, her nosy nature prevailed.

“The breakup.”

It took him a few seconds to respond, clearing his throat and kicking a few pebbles first. She’d swear she could sense a brand new kind of tension in the air, but she couldn’t really put her finger on it. It was almost just a split second.

“No, not anymore. Sometimes at night, when the house is quiet, I feel a sense of melancholy, you know? I guess I’m just not used to being alone. But I welcome the feeling, really. I think I wrote my best lyrics feeling just like that. And…” And he kept on talking. On and on and on. She asked a simple question and he could have provided a simple answer, but after three minutes of babbling, just when his mind somehow wandered to Sam’s ravioli, she suddenly stopped in her tracks and started laughing. The bitch was back, as he himself would say, although that was not really it. He sensed her worry and just wanted to do anything he could to disperse it.

“What?” He really tried to frown at her accusingly, but failed miserably, the corners of his mouth twitching.

“It’s just… you could have just said ‘no’, but I admire the lengths you go to prove that you’re not.”

“Keep mocking my eloquence, love, and you’ll regret it, I tell ya!” Already a few steps ahead of her, he started walking backwards, pointing his finger at her menacingly.

“Josh, be care…”

“FUUU…ouch!”

“...ful… Moron!”

Of course he stumbled over an exposed tree root and fell right on his butt. Thankfully, he managed to land in the middle of a small heap of wet foliage instead of stones or worse – down the steep slope adjacent to the path they were on. She offered him her hand with an exasperated sigh and helped him get back on his feet, feigning anger – anything to hide how much that one word reverberated inside her ribcage. Love…

“C’mon! Don’t be mad. My ass is damp and freezing now, so it’s fun, yeah?” Once back on his feet, he grabbed her shoulder for support in order to regain balance and smiled reassuringly to wipe that frown off her face. To no avail. No, it wasn’t exactly fun, and seeing his beautiful eyes so close only made it worse. She stared back into those dark beads before her gaze slid down to his lips that he licked just a moment ago, and the chilly mist filling her lungs suddenly felt like water, together with a totally unwelcome wave of arousal that swept through her body. She was genuinely mad all of the sudden, but only at herself.

“You’re an idiot, Josh.” She let go and stormed up the path, forcing him to speed up to catch up with her.

“Y/N, hang on… why are you so angry?”

“You were literally just a few feet from breaking your leg… or something else!” she spat in response and with her eyes set on the path ahead.

“No, I wasn’t. And nothing happened!” Josh raised his voice just a notch, his own anger growing. They were side to side again and he finally forced her to turn back to him. She tried to fight it, she really did, but in spite of her efforts to behave reasonably, she could feel her eyes prickle again, threatening to betray her.

“It’s been almost five years since she jumped… in November…just…stop scaring me like that, ok?” Her voice quivered under the burden of her sudden deliberate machinations. What she said was true, but it wasn’t the real reason why she felt so upset at that very moment and she felt bad instantly for using it as an excuse. That was completely unfair to both of them.

Josh’s features immediately softened and he pulled her in for a tight hug. “I know… sorry,” he whispered, and she melted into his touch, no longer caring how she “deserved” it. They remained like that for almost a minute before he commanded that it was time to move if they didn’t want to return back after dark.

The rest of the morning was spent more or less in silence once again, interspersed with occasional casual chit chat. As the path grew steeper and more stony, pale patches of light cerulean blue began to show up through thinning low clouds, making them both hopeful. The air temperature grew gradually milder, too. “The inversion season’s finally here! Yay!” he exclaimed with childish enthusiasm – one of many things that kept people drawn to him like moths to a flame. It seemed just impossible not to love him.

They reached the ridge – their final destination – just around midday, and just in time to step out of the clouds that still hung low in the surrounding valleys. It felt like reaching the sky, with the ridge and a few surrounding rounded peaks looking like floating islands in the midst of a foamy ocean.

“Aaaah, this is beautiful!” She tilted her head back, letting the sun warm up her damp cheeks.

“Told ya,” he smiled softly and she expected him to continue teasing her, but he seemed unnaturally quiet and serene once again. Pulling his camera from the bag, he took a few snapshots of the misty sea below them. They watched the clouds roll by slowly for a while before he spoke. “I used to dream about telling stories through pictures...”

She knew all about his old passion, but she also thought he was exceptional at what fate chose for him eventually. “You do tell stories Josh. You help people paint their own internal landscapes.”

“Do I…”

“Of course you do!”

“So I believed. Pictures, words, soundwaves, doesn’t really matter, that’s not my point. I mean,.. I wasn’t really telling the… the truth yesterday. I am scared…I mean, not for myself, not really, but…I don’t…I guess, sometimes things are just destined to remain broken no matter how hard you try, you know…I’m mostly heartbroken, really.”

She wasn’t really sure where this was going. Having been familiar with his insecurities for quite some time, she knew too well that he was sometimes too humble for his own good, but he hardly ever sounded that defeated. “Well, you know…how was that line…’Take your broken heart and make it into art.”

“But what’s the point?”

And just like that, with a snap of a finger, the temperature dropped, making her shiver. Speaking to the world through art was the core of his whole existence and she’d rather die than watch him doubt the importance of it.

“Josh!”

“Y/N!”

His feeble attempt to mock her sudden urgent tone annoyed her, but definitely not enough to stop her from trying to prevent him from going down that gloomy path. “Listen, asshole! Stop with the bullshit, ok? You believed we’d have sun today. And look! I absolutely needed this, and would have missed it if it weren’t for you. And MANY people feel the same, because you inspire them, so cut that defeatist crap or else I’ll smack it out of you!”

He looked at her as if she had already really slapped him in the face, but his shocked and astonished expression slowly morphed into a soft and grateful smile. “Thank you, Y/N.”

“WELL YOU’RE WELCOME!” she responded with an unnecessary theatricality, unwilling to abandon the angry pose just yet, just in case. “Now give me this, because I think you need to see what I see.” She snatched the camera out of his hand and took a step back so that the viewfinder showed exactly what she wanted to capture. He, however, started fumbling for a phone in his jacket, completely ruining the shot.

“No, let’s take a selfie,” he said when he finally found and unlocked it.

“Selfie? You? Since when have you been taking selfies?”

“I DO from time to time.” He looked almost offended, pouting at her like a defiant child. Sighing exasperatedly, she finally agreed to it, stepping closer to him, letting him wrap his arm around her shoulder.

“But you need to look into the lens Jo…” On the display, she could see him looking sideways at her, his eyes slowly tracing the contours of her profile. His jaw clenched and she could no longer finish the sentence. Instead, she slowly turned her own face to meet his gaze. He lowered his arm, snaked it around her and she held her breath, barely conscious of his other hand slowly finding its way to cup the nape of her head just below her ponytail. Dreamily, she watched his lips growing closer to hers until they met and she could swear her heart stopped.

He tasted like apples.

It was soft and tender at first, his pouty lips just brushing over hers like the wings of a butterfly. She leaned into it and invited him in, and soon they could taste each other properly, with their tongues entangling and dancing around languidly. She turned deaf and blind, but acutely aware of every cell of his body she could reach and taste and caress and devour, and getting high on it, her head spinning more and more with each passing second.

When they finally parted and her sight returned, they looked at each other and even though neither said a word, they could both see the same question in each other’s eyes.

What now…

The entire walk back into the cabin was spent in silent anticipation. The way he held her hand was completely innocent, even with their fingers intertwined…

The contents of their minds, not so much. They didn’t dare to speak about it just yet, in fear that they might jinx it. She kept replaying it in her head, over and over again. The feeling of his soft lips on hers still lingered and her insides twisted and turned with the primal need for him to do it again. It was just as strong as thirst, and much more overwhelming.

As the hour grew late, even the valleys were now sun-soaked. The world joined them in their silence and only the rustling of gravel and foliage under their feet disturbed the unearthly peace. Having kept her eyes on the ground, she looked up when they left the shadows of trees behind them and set foot on the vast clearing that separated them from their cabin… the fireplace… the bed… The road to it was blinding, as the late afternoon sun turned the distant horizon into silver ribbons, making them squint. She squeezed his hand involuntarily as her heart freaked out again, and he responded by stroking her knuckles with the tip of his thumb. The lust was palpable, making them both alert like lonely puppies just before hearing the door knob turn.

Having avoided the topic for a few long hours, the tension between them only grew when they reached the cabin, only to be replaced with a sense of panic and uncertainty when they stepped inside.

“So…”

“Are you hungry?” She interrupted him, before he could say more. Please say yes, so that I can cook us dinner and...

“Not really, no.”

“Me neither.” She was fidgety, biting her lip, scratching her arm nervously, looking up at him and then averting her gaze repeatedly.

“Y/N… we don’t have to…”

“I want to!” she blurted out and then sank her teeth in her lower lip again.

Ok… calm down baby, let me…follow me…” he offered her his hand and slowly led her into the bathroom.

They stripped each other slowly and then they kissed again. He turned on the shower and she bashfully stepped under the streaming water next to him. He pulled her closer and kissed her some more, while tracing the outline of her shoulders with his fingertips. Only then he dared to venture lower.

His fingers brushed over her left nipple before he cupped the whole breast gently in his palm and she could swear it felt like he was cradling her very own heart in it instead, making her hold her breath. His eyes were lowered the whole time, watching his own actions intently and attentively, almost apprehensively, waiting for her reactions and receiving none. She was frozen with illogical fear. He looked up suddenly, making her head spin. “Tell me what you like,” he whispered.

“Everything.” His brows shot up in question, so she clarified: “I like everything about this, Josh.”

She meant it as encouragement, but it wasn’t helpful at all. He cleared his throat nervously and stroked her arm gently, from her shoulder all the way down to her elbow. His eyes once again followed the motions of his hand. “I wanna know everything about you.” This time he wasn’t talking about her life or soul. He already knew almost everything about that, after all those hours and hours spent talking and daydreaming together. Her body, however, was an unknown instrument, and he was desperate to learn how to play it well.

Feeling wanted, and with all the newfound courage she could muster, she cupped his cheeks and kissed him with long suppressed passion, pausing only briefly to ask him back. “Can I learn everything about you, too?”

“Please! You must,” he whispered against her lips, while she wrapped her fingers around his full-blown erection and started stroking him tentatively, making him moan in her mouth. Encouraged, she tightened her grip and quickened her pace. He gasped, breaking the kiss and pressing his forehead against hers instead. “You learn quickly, baby,” he whimpered, leaning with his outstretched arm against the tiled wall behind her. She kissed his flexed bicep in response and slid down on her knees in front of him, but he only shook his head and pulled her back up.

“You don’t want that?” she asked, confused. There was a hint of hurt in her voice, so he pulled her in an embrace and kissed her wet hair as the water kept pouring down on them.

“Just the idea of your lips wrapped around my dick tells me it’d be very quick… and I don’t want that. Let’s take this slow, yeah? Let me…”

She let him take the lead and his lips went on a journey. They traced the edge of her jaw when he shampooed her hair and she tilted her head in delight. This new intimacy could only be described as ecstatic. Everything turned into a blur. She was just barely aware of him wrapping her in a bath towel, and she couldn’t remember how they got in bed. It was his tongue licking a stripe up her inner thigh that made her acutely aware of her surroundings once again. She gasped in surprise when she felt his hot breath on her wet pussy. Looking at her daringly, he hovered just an inch above it, the tip of his tongue resting on his upper lip tellingly. “May I?”

She swallowed harshly to relieve her parched throat. “I want you fuck me, Josh. Please.”

“And I will… but let me make you fly first.” Without any further ado, he darted his tongue between her folds and she arched her back as if struck by electricity. After a few more teasing licks, he wrapped his lips around her clit and started sucking gently, with his velvet tongue drawing slow circles on the underside before it started fluttering rapidly over the whole bud. Soon he sent her into orbit, just as he promised. She was still shaking and gasping for air when he swiftly climbed up her body and positioned himself in between her legs.

Once inside her, he could no longer keep it slow. He let out a deep guttural groan and, as if a bolt of electricity shot through him, started thrusting into her with newfound virility. She wrapped both her arms and legs around him and pulled him even closer to her, almost afraid that he would float away and dissolve in midair if she stopped holding him tight enough, just like he always had done in her dreams. Even her own mind never allowed her to feel like this, so how could this possibly be real? After all that time. It felt too good to be real. His hands cradling her head, his own loud moans so close to her ear, urgent and melodic and almost lewd, all in one. With his elbows on each side of her head, and his lips brushing against her earlobe, she felt enshrined under him. It was overwhelming, it made her head spin as if high on oxygen…which she probably was. Unable to control her wildly beating heart and her quickened breath, she was barely conscious of that pleasant feeling he was stirring deep inside her. It didn’t even matter. She arched her back again and shivered as his singing grew louder. She could come just from listening to him.

The skin on his back under her wandering hands, warm and velvety at first, soon turned damp and sticky from exertion, as his movements grew even more frantic and wild. She tilted her head back and cried out when he hit her cervix particularly hard… and he stopped.

“What…” she asked dreamily.

“You’re so tender and soft, I don’t wanna hurt you.” His face was hovering mere inches above her, as he was searching for more cues. Still inside her to the hilt, the blissful feeling of her velvety walls caressing his cock still lingered and it took all his will to keep himself from moving momentarily. His hips jerked involuntarily and she responded by deliberately tightening around him, making him hiss.

“You’re not hurting me,” she mumbled, rubbing her cheek against his shoulder. “I don’t even know if I ever felt this good. I’ve been waiting for this for so long…” Her own words made her freeze. She opened her eyes again and looked at him, frightened. His own expression was somber and almost unreadable. Oh god, you stupid cow, why did you say that?

“How long, Y/N?”

Please, don’t make me ruin this even more, Josh. Just go on, just let me feel this at least once…

His eyes never looked more beautiful. He kept looking down at her, searching for the answer. She knew she should say something, but the sudden lump in her throat made her only gasp for air as she tried to fight off the tears. Stupid, unstable bitch!

It seemed that he took mercy on her. Instead of pushing the subject, he leaned down and pressed his lips on the pulsing point under the skin of her neck. She closed her eyes and sighed in delight, waiting for him to resume the previous pace and make her mind go blank once more, letting her dream about her sun before the real one would come.

He remained still though. His dick twitched inside her, making it known that he too wanted more, but he wasn’t merciful enough. And he wouldn’t let it go.

“How long, Y/N?” Josh whispered once again against her skin. Each syllable was like a kiss, soothing. He left a physical trace of his words along her jugular, smoothing the gravity of that question mark with the tip of his nose. There was a new kind of urgency in his voice. At last, as if really reading her mind, he finally moved inside her once again, rolling his hips slowly as if to say ‘I’m not going anywhere’, encouraging her.

“Since the first matcha tea,” she sobbed and he tried to soothe her nerves with yet another slow and deep thrust. But it was no use, the dam that had been holding her pent up emotions broke. He pulled out and lied down beside her. She missed him instantly but had enough dignity not to beg. She expected him to get up and leave. Instead, he pulled her closer and patiently waited for her to calm down. Only then he spoke.

“Y/N, he left because he…he thought that I liked you a bit too much. And, uh, after I called you and you came to me that night, I realized he might have been right…”

Josh was crying, he was yelling, he even tried to beg eventually, as the warm spring breeze coming from the open window suddenly felt like a winter gale on his exposed skin. He kept repeating ‘what does it mean, what do you mean…’, only to be told that it was up to him to figure it out. ‘But I love you!’ Josh cried some more, and it was met with silence for the first time. ‘I can no longer say it back,’ he broke that silence after a while, and Josh’s hopeful eyes veiled with even more tears. ‘I wanted to be the only one. I’m not an idiot, so I beg you to stop treating me like one. Goodbye, Josh.’

And once again, Josh’s words were met with silence. The only difference was that she wanted to scream it back. “I’m so sorry,” she said instead after a long minute. “I didn’t want to be the reason for his leaving.”

“Y/N…” he inched closer and buried his face in her still damp hair. “You weren’t. I was. Didn’t you hear me?”

She did, but her self destructive mind chose to ignore it. His cryptic might-have-beens couldn’t penetrate the armor that she had spent long years building. Thankfully, he knew her well enough to realize his mistake. Enough of all this beating around the bush.

“I love you,” he whispered in her ear and this time it made her skin tingle and her toes curl.

His caressing hand traveled from her shoulder down the middle of her chest, where he could feel the fast rhythm of her wildly beating heart. Her eyes were closer and she lay unmoving, except for her hand that wrapped around his fingers, stopping them momentarily. “I’m sorry babe, I just had to say it,” he continued. “And since you…”

“I love you more than life.” Her own words startled her, as if something fell down with a crash. Without waiting for him to make another move, she pulled his hand down to her wet pussy and his middle finger slid inside with ease.

It quickly made him hard again. She spread her legs, inviting him back in. He shifted just a bit, with his head still resting next to hers on the pillow. She turned towards him, threw her leg around him and he entered her again just as their mouths reconnected again in a hungry, sloppy kiss.

It was slow this time, but no less intense, with their senses heightened by the recent revelations. They were making love. She kept her eyes open, watching how his own rolled up and he moaned loudly with his tongue still swirling around hers, their parted lips barely touching. She could feel a second orgasm building soon and her breathing quickened, turning her own moans into short, high pitched gasps, making him hiss when her fingernails dug deep into his skin.

Suddenly, he shifted and straightened, sliding his knees under her legs and grabbing her hips possessively. “That’s it baby, one more, go on, let go,” he urged and started thrusting into her with a new force that made her thighs tremble. She looked up and her jaw slackened at the sight. Her sweet and radiant Josh looked almost demonic in the twilight. He was watching her too, with his jaw clenched and his brows furrowed and glistening with sweat.

“Harder,” she cried out and he obeyed, hissing and baring his teeth as he tried to hold on a little longer. Then suddenly, she could feel it snap and her whole body tensed, making him groan as she squeezed him inside her. A few more deep strokes before she could feel him falter. “Fill me up,” she whispered and her eyes widened. He placed his hand between her breasts, bent his head down and let out a long, high pitched whine, his body jerking erratically as he spilled inside her. Then he collapsed on top of her, panting.

Josh

She looked like an injured doe, you know? So lonely and abandoned behind that counter. The room was full of people of all sorts, but – as it often happens – nobody paid attention to the things that desperately needed all the attention in the world. So I stayed a while – even though I didn’t really have to – watching her face brighten up, growing more and more beautiful with every passing second. I knew she had it in her.

Someone ordered an irish coffee and she had to grab a bottle of whisky from the upper shelf. That’s when I saw the scars on her wrists, and the shadows behind her deep blue eyes suddenly made perfect sense.

There are millions of people on this planet who are hurting and I’ve always believed that nothing happens without a reason. When I was younger, I wished I could have saved everyone, but that’s impossible. There’s only so much burden one can bear. But I believe that every wounded soul has their person somewhere. A sibling, a parent, a friend, a lover… Someone willing to share the load. Sometimes they don’t find each other in time, otherwise the world wouldn’t be full of tragedies and tears. Sometimes you don’t choose it. It just happens. And sometimes, you fuck up in the process. Colossally, even. I’m painfully aware of the fact that I did, too. But everything happens for a reason.

I just had to go back…

I can't imagine how it is To be forbidden from loving (ah, ah) 'Cause when you walked into my life I could feel my life begin And then I learned the truth How everything good in life seems to lead back to you And every single time I run into your arms I feel like I exist for love Only for love (Aurora – Exist For Love)

@thewritingbeforesunrise @fleet-of-fiction @writingcold @lvnterninthenight @its-interesting-van-kleep @takenbythemadness @edgingthedarkness @myownparadise96 @gvfstuddedmajesty @jazzyfigz @sanguinebats @josh-iamyour-mama @lyndz2names @wetkleenex-gvf @peaceloveunitygvf @cheersdannyx2 @fleetingjake @lizzys-sunflower @emojakekiszka @gvfmarge @Dayumclarizzel @lipstickitty @clownstarr @gretasfallingsky @musicislove3389 @i-love-gvf @psychedelectable

93 notes · View notes