#when i woke up! was even able to take a bath comfortably without any pain but after a few hours it suddenly started hurting

[aria0fgold]

There are days where I want a knee brace or a cane and this is one of those days. My right knee... it hurts...

[lovesanmotion]

mafia!ateez reacts: s/o helping them wash up

💌 This is: Requested

A/N: This is my first time writing in the mafia category jfhwhfu

Hongjoong:

Hongjoong came home with his back and arm muscles aching, a bruised lip and a few scratches on his right hand. Grunting and groaning as he makes his way to the bathroom, he wanted to be quiet in case he woke you up from your sleeping, but he couldn't help it. The pain was unbearable and the pain coursed throughout his lower back and lower lip. He swung the bathroom mirror open to get bandages and gauze, setting them down recklessly and loud onto the sink before closing the mirror. Hongjoong's once pained expression softened when he saw your sleepy figure standing by the doorway of the bathroom.

"Did..Did I wake you up?" He asked, sighing as he slowly turns his body to face you. You shook your head, a small smile painting your pink lips.

"I was hardly even asleep. I was waiting for you." You said, smiling softly as you made your way close to him. Gently you turned on the faucet and took his bloody hands in yours, washing him gently with a melon scented hand wash before discarding his clothes and running the warm bath for him. As Hongjoong soaked himself up in the water, you sat at the edge of the bathtub and carefully treated his cut lip.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" You giggled as you stared at his lips while dabbing ointment with a q tip.

"I really don't know what my future looks like until I saw you."

Seonghwa:

After two days of being admitted into the hospital, Seonghwa was finally free to go home with you with a bandaged chest after being cut open and three broken fingers that will take some time to heal. For the mean time, Seonghwa worked his aim with his left hand on a rifle as he's used with his right hand.

Bathing was particularly hard task for him to do. He was unable to raise both of his hands without stretching his chest and he found it difficult and tiresome to use only one hand. But since he's with you, he let himself be bare with you and help him out. While Seonghwa sat on one end of the bathtub, you sat on the edge behind him, situating him between your legs as you massaged his hair and scalp with shampoo.

Moments like this are what makes Seonghwa soft and vulnerable. And he couldn't thank you more for having you in his life.

Yunho:

Yunho endured one stab that pierced through the side of his stomach and a bullet shot on his left shoulder. When one of his men informed you that he is in a critical condition in the hospital, you came running inside the premises and his room with tears. Yunho's men knew better than not to touch you or else their heads would be the next decoration that would be adorned in their office. Gulping, they could only offer words of assurance to you and left Yunho's room, leaving you alone.

When Yunho woke up after two days, he was still bedridden as ordered by the doctor, any activity had a great possibility of his wounds to re open, and so you think it to yourself to take care of him. Getting a basin and filling it with warm water, washing his face, hands, hair and body before helping the upper head of his hospital bed up so he could eat.

While you're asleep on the couch, Yunho would stare at your peaceful sleeping figure, wishing he could take your form in his arms and tell you how much he is thankful to have someone like you in his life. Truly he doesn't deserve someone like you.

Yeosang:

He couldn't bear to hear his group losing and falling down one by one. Yeosang originally wasn't part of the combat squad, but he left their van with a taurus 9mm and colt .38. As Yeosang entered the warehouse that smelled like dust, smoke, gun powder, weed and blood, he took down the remaining men standing from the enemy group. When Yeosang thought the coast is clear, a feigning dead member from the enemy group got up from the ground holding a knife, attempting to stab Yeosang right in the stomach. Yeosang who moved quickly, felt no stabbing pain, rather he felt his palm being sliced open and the tip of the knife poking through his clothing.

And that's the story of how Yeosang came home to you with a sliced open right palm. He was used to doing a lot of things with his right hand, but with his condition, he had to learn to adjust to doing everything with his left hand. Yeosang dreaded the idea of going to the hospital, he hated how that place smells. But his s/o knowing all about first aid, nursed his hand back and wrapped it up neatly.

"Can you imagine if you really lost your hand? I would really cry if you really lost your hand." You glared at him while returning the medicines and bandages back into your kit. Yeosang only took this lightly and examined his bandaged hand.

"I'm confident that I can still satisfy you with one hand." He grins, watching a pink shade of blush splotch across your cheeks.

San:

He was about to come and slash an armed man in his sight when swiftly did his target moved and stabbed his foot. San coiled in the ground and held his stabbed foot in his hand, watching the blood seep out of his leather shoes. On his attempt to get up, his black boot made squelching sounds and he no longer attempted to go further. One of his men had to help him get back into their base.

The sight of your boyfriend's bloodied foot suddenly made you stand up straight, take the medical kit from their doctor and take the matters in your hands. San followed your every instruction - sitting down on the chair and watching you sit down before him, placing his foot in cold water and washing the blood away. As much as San is wincing in pain, his eyes were making little hearts because of you taking care of him. And he preferred it when it would be you who is helping him.

Mingi:

He felt the stabbing pain of Masamune's sword pierce through his shoulder. Grunting in pain, Mingi tried to grab the steel of the sword and raise it up, raising the wielder from his feet and then tossing both the wielder and the blade away from him. Before any of his blood could be lost, he was immediately taken away from the scene and back into their location.

And now you're in one shower room with Mingi, under one shower head. You could see the look on his face at how bothered he is with how the stab looked on his shoulder. You assured him by smiling, taking a liquid moisturizer and lathering a few in your hand, washing and rubbing his skin gently with a bath puff.

Wooyoung:

The doctors said it was a miracle. A miracle how Wooyoung endured seven stab wounds in the stomach and still alive but unconscious. You were holding back tears as the doctors informed you of the current situation he is in, and once they have all left you alone, you broke down into a fit of sobs. Crying at how you could have lost Wooyoung with his frowned upon society shady business.

Everyday, you admired the look on his face, so peaceful yet so painful. Everyday, you'd take a small basin and a clean towel, dabbing it into the warm to wash away the greasiness forming in his face. And after a week, Wooyoung was finally able to open his eyes. But as he opens his eyes, he felt something cold running on top of his head and it smelled like raspberries. It didn't take him long enough to figure it out that you were washing his hair with your own bottle of shampoo. Too weak but managed to raise his hand, he held your wrists, telling you that he's awake now.

Jongho:

He was quick to escape the building from a ticking bomb, watching the building he was in a few seconds ago finally blow up with furious orange fire, black smoke and collapse before him. Just as Jongho was about to leave the scene what he thought was clear, a hiding member from the enemy group aimed his arrow at him at shot Jongho once on his foot, one of his side and two of his forearm. With the strength he has left, he took out the arrow from his body and the last thing he saw was his men rushing to him and a loud gunshot.

When Jongho woke up, he was in the comfort of his own home, laying down on his bed and watched you gently dab the cloth onto the water and wipe his skin gently. As your eyes met his, a wide smile immediately displays on your place. The smile on your face was priceless, he took note that he need to be more careful next time or else that'll be the last time he will see your smile.

[lordabovehelpme]

Grounded- Javier Peña x Reader

Summary: After a long tiring day at work, Javier comes back home to you. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You can hear the door open and close as you stir from your sleep. A deep long sigh echoes through the apartment and you can hear various clothing fall onto the floor.

Peeking one eye open, the harsh red numbers of 3:23 stare back at you. The blanket lifts and a strong body slides in next to yours. Warm hands instantly wrap around you and pull you as close as they can. Like the last piece to a puzzle, your back fits against his chest. Your hand moves to rest over his and idly scratch the golden skin.

“Javi?” Your eyes stay closed as his name falls from your lips.

A kiss is pressed to the back of your head. “Hermosa…”

His voice breaks, overfilled with sadness. His arms squeeze you and once again that deep sigh graces the world. The tone he holds is something you’ve only heard a few times.

“I just need to hold you.”

And so he does.

The harsh smell of smoke from too many cigarettes lingers on his skin. It floods and mixes with the whiskey on his breath. It’s the scent that you’ve come to love. To crave. To need.

Slowly, you turn around in his arms to face him, bringing your hand to reach up and scratch at his scalp. He groans and his hands flex on your back.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

His eyes peel open and stare down at you, sadness swirling and yet they soften at the sight of you. He leans down and presses a kiss to your forehead, his lips lingering on your skin.

“Tomorrow.”

You pull him into a firm hug and mutter, “ok.”

The two of you stay like that for a while, him just holding you and you rubbing various muscles of his. A frown works its way onto your face when you feel how tight his back is. He nearly whines when you dig particularly hard into one of the many knots.

“Baby… this can’t feel good.”

A small chuckle falls from his lips. “It doesn’t.”

Your frown only deepens and you can feel your eyebrows furrow. But then an idea strikes you and you feel like the brightest person in the world. “How about a bath?”

He considers this for a great amount of time, or he could just be ignoring you.

“You can sit in the warm water and I’ll rub your back and give you all the head scratches you could ever dream of.”

“Aren’t you tired? I woke you up.”

“I won’t sleep knowing you’re in pain. Come on, it’ll be nice.”

He sighs and allows you to pull him from the security of the comforter. You gleam when he sits on the toilet lid and starts to slowly take his clothes off. Reaching over, you turn the hot water on and raid the cabinets for the nice smelling oils he bought you.

His stare is heavy on your butt as you bend down to reach the back of the cabinet. You know exactly what will cheer him up a little. With a hidden smile, you wiggle your hips in a hopefully enticing way.

Slap!

You nearly hit your head on the wood as your behind screams out in agony. A gasp leaves your lips as you jump.

But a warm chuckle floods the bathroom and it almost makes the string go away. Almost.

Finally when you find the vial of lavender and camomile oil, you lean back and send a jokingly glare his way.

He only shrugs, his way of telling you that you were asking for it. But you’re rather distracted by his now naked tummy. So you lean forward and press a kiss to it. He looks down at you with an eyebrow raised.

Before he can make a vulgar comment, you turn the water off and add the oil. “Okay, it’s ready. Get in please.”

He rises from the toilet lid, slides his jeans down, you’re no longer surprised at the lack of underwear, and a large golden foot lifts up and sinks into the warm water. Then, the rest of his body follows.

He lets out a groan and his back falls against the edge of the tub. You can’t help but to kiss him. It’s as if he’s got you under a spell, because you can never go too long without pressing your lips against his own.

Your hands find the bar of soap you usually use, and lather it up in your hands. Then you start to work out the muscles in his shoulders. His head falls back and he groans for what seems the millionth time.

A smile breaks onto your face as you notice him starting to relax. His shoulders drop, his jaw unclenches, and his eyebrows fall to their natural state.

As your fingers dig into his overworked muscles, your eyes trail over his face, admiring his beauty. From the scruff on his chin to the faint lines in his forehead, you love it all.

“Hermosa, I can feel your eyes on me.”

“Mmm, is that a sin?”

His eyelashes flutter and his eyes open. “No, but you should get in with me.”

Weighing the pros and cons, you can’t deny how good it would feel to cuddle up to him under the water. “Alright.” You rinse your hands in the water before peeling your shirt and underwear off.

He happily offers you a hand as you bring one foot up to step into the tub. You take his hand and marvel at how small yours look in his grasp.

A content sigh falls from your lips as the water envelops your torso. His legs encompass your own as you lean back against his chest. Hands find purchase at your stomach and you place your own over them.

You can’t help but lean your head back, perfectly slotted on his shoulder and tilted just enough where you breathe in the strong scent of his neck. Your eyes fall closed and it’s now that 3:23 has started to catch up to you.

His hands start to stroke up and down your thigh, soothing you even further.

“Wait,” You sit up and rub your eyes, “I’ll fall asleep.”

He just smiles as he pulls you back against his chest, his strong hand resuming it’s pattern. “It’s okay, I’ll be fine. Just as long as you are here.”

You meant to nod, you meant to continue talking, you truly did. But the heat from the water, the heat from his body against yours, and his soft touch has you drifting off.

His heart swells with love as he holds your sleeping form. He knows you’re going to yell at him later for not waking you up so you can comfort him, but if only he was able to tell you how much you naturally do. How even a picture of you can bring him so much happiness and joy.

You don’t know it, but tucked away in his wallet is a small polaroid of you. Your eyes squint in the sun as you offer him a wide smile. He carries that polaroid everywhere. Only leaving it when he has to go undercover. But whenever the paperwork seems to pile too high, or his mind seems to shut off, he’ll pull that photo out and just hold it.

It calms him more than any cigarette or any glass of whiskey could ever imagine. It grounds him.

You ground him.

He presses a kiss to the top of your head and faint smiles at your rhythmic breathing. Slowly, he moves you and rises from the water, carefully laying you to rest in his spot. Two fluffy towels rest on the counter and he happily claims one and dries himself.

Then he picks you up and wraps you up all snug. Kicking the drain, he flips the light off and walks the two of you to the bed.

He makes sure you’re all nice and snug before climbing in next to you. His strong arms wrap around you and once again pull you into his hold.

“Te amo hermosa. Te amo mucho mi corazón.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So yeah, I hope you all liked it! This is my first Javi fic, so if it sucked, feel free to reach out and go “Hey Lordy, that sucked, write better.” I will completely understand! 

Please consider reblogging or leaving a comment. I literally love what you all have to say. It makes my day. 

Love, Lordy :) 

Masterlist

Taglist: @ficthots @along-the-lines-of-space @jedi-jesi @coldlilheart @t3a-bag @all-along-the-resolute @impala1967666 @rosiefridayrogersunday​ @over300books @donnaa 

So with the taglist, I just added y’all who are currently on my mando one. But if Javi isn’t your person please reach out and I won’t tag you in the future. 

Now, If you want to be added to my taglist, just give me a holler and I’ll happily do it! 

[mercy-burning]

Nightfall

Part of Mercy’s 1k Celebration: A collection of Spencer Reid x Reader requests to celebrate 1,000 followers.

Pairing: Spencer Reid x fem!Reader Summary: After a near-death experience on the job and dark nightmares that follow, Reader and Spencer find comfort in each other. Category: ANGST / FLUFF (hurt/comfort?) / ***OPTIONAL SMUT ENDING (18+)*** Warnings: A nightmare sequence that includes brief mentions of a chainsaw, dismemberment, and blood/gore, heavy crying, basically it’s just very sad and dark, but comforting and soft at the end | SMUT includes: handjob, cum eating, shower sex, oral sex (female receiving), penetrative sex, unprotected sex Word Count: 1.6k | 3.3k

Full Request: “Could you do a spencer fic where the reader wakes up from a night terror due to nearly dying on a recent case, and leaves the bed and Spencer panics because he can’t find them in the bedroom, and it becomes a mutual comfort fic where Spencer’s trying to calm both him and the reader down with just lots of angst and fluff?...” — @willowrose99

MASTERLIST | 1K MASTERLIST

NOTE: Y’all, I can’t believe this is the final 1k request!! I’ve had so much fun writing these, so thank you for sending them in, reading, reblogging them, and for celebrating this milestone with me!!

This one’s a little... dark. And extremely sad. I actually, like, sobbed writing this, so I apologize in advance. It also gets a little horror movie-esque during the nightmare sequence, so I apologize if that’s not your thing (I’ve been watching a shit-ton of horror movies lately and I love it lol) ANYWAY, I hope you enjoy this final request! Thank you again for celebrating with me, it means the world ❤

***

It started with flashes of light, faintly resembling fireworks as they shot through the nightfall, albeit silently. They were constant, red and blue and— They were police lights... But he should have heard sirens to accompany them, right? Why weren't there sirens? If he tried hard enough, though, through the loud thumping in his ears, he could faintly make out a high pitched whine. Or... was it a cry?

Crying.

No—sobbing.

Screaming.

It was at this point that Y/N had awaken, screaming almost at the top of her lungs as she startled forward in bed. Though it took a few painstakingly long seconds to realize where she was and that she was safe, at home with Spencer and bathed in the deep sound of silence, she still felt the hum of the chainsaw and it's loud groaning as it descended closer and closer above her neck. It was loud, haunting, and even as she furiously rubbed at her eyes, the images and sounds wouldn't go away.

She stumbled from the bed and trembled the entire way to the bathroom, so enraptured in terror that she was entirely unaware that Spencer had only merely jumped in his sleep at the sound of her screaming.

Meanwhile his dream continued, that high crying sound fading into some sort of tune that resembled a music box... As he made his way through the flashing lights, they also seemed to dissipate, eventually leading him to one single streetlight in the middle of a field. But underneath it stood a large pile of dirt, something glistening on top of it as it... spun?

He approached the dirt, only to notice it was, in fact, a music box that he was hearing. Each note grew louder and louder as he crouched down to get a closer look, and without warning it started to smell like... rotting flesh. It was unmistakable. But... why? There weren't any bodies around, only the music box rotating on a pile of...

It was a grave.

And right as he finally recognized the tune coming from the music box, which served as some type of headstone, Spencer was pushed back, the dirt rumbling until something shot up from the grave, sending the music box shattering in front of him into pieces.

It couldn't be... I saved her, she's not... It can't be her...

The tune was her favorite song. And as the music box sat broken in front of him, he realized it was also a gift to her from her late mother.

But it couldn't have been her...

The streetlight flickered heavily as whatever shot up out of the grave started to come into better view. Arms outstretched, until the left one gave off a glow that pulsed at its ring finger— A glittering diamond ring that he'd picked out years ago and had sat on her hand ever since.

But it couldn't have been her...

The arm fell clean off the figure with a loud thud, and then it dissolved into a pool of crimson, the glittering ring laying right in the middle, untouched and untainted by the gore. The rest of the figure trembled heavily until he heard the tune again— Only now, it was her voice. It lowly hummed the melody as a head came into view, slowly revealing her face.

But... It couldn't have been her...

Spencer trembled as her voice continued to hum, each note becoming more warped and drowned out until suddenly, the streetlight stopped flickering and remained blinding.

There was no mistake anymore.

Under the harsh white light, Y/N's tattered, dirty and bloody body was sitting up in a pile of dirt like it might have once been sand at a beach. Her left arm was a pool of boiling blood next to her, and the ring still laid there, as sparkly and ethereal as ever—the only good thing that remained.

"Why didn't you save me?" she drawled, her voice deep and warped. The terror grew and grew in the pit of his stomach as he watched her head, a thin, red line at her neck getting larger and larger as it tilted... Farther and farther to the left, until finally, she laughed, and it snapped clean off her body and into the pool of blood that once was her left arm.

All he could do was shake violently, his mouth open in a silent scream as the wind nearly knocked him out.

When Spencer woke up, he couldn't breathe.

His eyes shot open and his hand clutched at his chest as he tried to catch his breath. And even as he blinked rapidly, gradually realizing it was all a dream and that he was at home, his breath slowly coming back to him, the shaking he was experiencing was still very real.

The first thing he did was reach for her hand, her body, anything to let him know that she was with him.

And all he found underneath his fingers was a cold sheet.

"Y/N?" he whimpered out, turning frantically to see if he could spot her. His heart beat frantically in his chest to the point where it's all he could hear, panic starting to settle in his bones even as he scrambled out of bed and went searching for her.

On shaky legs, Spencer travelled throughout the house, a purchase they'd made only a year ago. It still hadn't entirely felt like home, but after being married for four years whilst traveling everywhere for work, they'd come to terms with that fact that home was wherever they were together. But right now the Reid house felt more foreign than usual, because things were bad, and Spencer couldn't find his wife anywhere. His home was with her, and without her, without home, he was empty.

When he stumbled into the bathroom, swinging the door open and turning on the light with fumbling, shaky hands, he heard a yelp coming from the direction of the bathtub. And when his eyes landed on his wife, huddled in an empty tub and visibly shaking just as badly as he was, his world corrected just a little bit.

"Baby?" he whispered, silently asking if it was alright to approach her.

All she did was stare blankly at him, her body trembling as tears silently streamed down her face. Her bottom lip was wobbling, and it was then that he knew she wouldn't be able to speak.

"Y—You had a bad dream, too?" he whispered again. She nodded, still shaking, and the tiny sob that cracked through her closed lips gave him permission to move forward.

He was still anxious as he got in the tub with her, cuddling up next to her and letting her fall tirelessly into his open arms. He hugged her tightly, resting his chin on the top of her head and feeling tears of his own start to well in his eyes as her breathing labored. This time he could audibly hear her breathing, just as shaky as her body was, and even though she made no sound, it didn't take a genius to understand that she was silently sobbing.

The wetness from her tears soaked through his thin tee shirt, and with every second she hugged him tighter and tighter, her breathing getting heavier until she eventually let out one, huge screaming sob that shattered his heart in two. His own tears fell hot like streams of liquid fire down his face as they cemented into the top of her head and spread throughout her own body, expelling themselves through screeches of emotional pain and a tight grip.

It was a vicious cycle that only slowed when Spencer fell backwards, causing them to fall down and Y/N to choke out a sob-infused fit of uncontrollable laughter. It was chaotic and cathartic, a vessel of release that felt very much like home to them despite the coldness that had infiltrated their dreams and made them feel hopeless and scared.

Just being there together, holding each other as they cried, slowly washed that hopelessness away until their cries became laughs, which then dissolved into a sweet, comfortable silence that further cemented the fact that they'd only been dreams.

This? Right now? This was real.

Spencer's hand gently combing back his wife's hair as it fell in her face and threatened to stick to her mouth? That was real.

Y/N's clutch on her husband's tee shirt that was sure to leave wrinkles and tear stains, the thought of the moment when he'd inevitably joked that she 'leaked' all over him making her laugh? That was real.

It wasn't long before the two of them drifted off into near-unconsciousness, laying down uncomfortably in the porcelain tub but too afraid to move that they'd endure it for the night.

Y/N loosened her clutch on Spencer's shirt, taking to placing each of her hands on his chest instead as she nuzzled her face into his neck. Her cheeks were itchy with dried tears, and the dampness of his shirt from the same thing felt oddly comforting pressed coolly against her palms.

"I love you, Spencer," she whispered.

The gravel in her voice slightly made his heart sink, but it rose again when she pressed the most loving kisses to his neck, conveying all the love and appreciation and warmth that they could. He glanced down at her hands, the glittering ring on the left one looking rather dull compared to his nightmare. But then she twitched her hand, and under the soft blue tint of the bathroom light, it glinted in a quick flash.

He placed one of his hands over hers, pressing a kiss to the top of her head before whispering back, "I love you, too."

***OPTIONAL SMUT ENDING***

Waking up in a bathtub was bound to be painful, but after such a deep, dreamless sleep, Spencer and Y/N found it somewhat comforting. It was strange waking up wrapped up in each other in a bathtub after a solid hour and a half of emotional wreckage the night before, sure, but once they realized where they were, the goofy, half-asleep smiles they adorned couldn't be of any greater comfort than a warm, soft bed.

Their wordless greetings began when Y/N ran her thumb gently across the planes of her husband's chest, letting him know she was awake. He did the same, running his thumb along the inside of her other arm. Soon after, it was her whole hand, tracing his entire torso up and down for a few cycles until she reached the hem of his shirt and slipped it underneath. She closed her eyes and sighed, kissing his neck while feeling goosebumps start to rise on his skin.

Her kisses became deeper and more sloppy when he reached out and clutched her other hand, lacing their fingers together and bringing them up to his mouth. He sighed over the back of her hand, and it didn't take very long for Y/N to feel his hips twitch against her, a familiar hardness bringing a cheeky smile to her lips.

Spencer felt it against his neck, and as his whole being went into a state of utter bliss as he wondered how one single being could have this great of an effect on him.

He was hyperaware of her wandering hand as it slipped out from under his shirt in favor of slipping into another fabric. The moment her delicate fingers grazed his dick, he groaned against her hand, giving it open-mouthed kisses that well-mirrored the ones she was currently giving his neck.

After a bit of fumbling around to get him free of his pajama pants and boxers, Y/N's hand was firmly wrapped around her husbands hard, ready cock. She swiped her thumb over the tip and spread around some of the precum there before humming into his neck and starting a quick, dry pace that allowed her to feel every dip and ridge of him. Spencer's head tilted back to give her more access to her neck, causing his forehead to softly thump against the cool porcelain of the tub.

And then she made sure to pay special attention to the underside of his tip, gently rubbing circles into it with her thumb as her tongue did the same to the weak spot on his neck. These two things together, naturally, had him tensing within a matter of seconds, his throat expelling a deep groan as his dick expelled his thick, warm release over her hand.

Y/N only groaned against his throat as he finished,=. And when he did, she brought her hand to her mouth and started to lick it clean as she sat up and straddled him.

"Good morning to you, too," Spencer sighed with a small laugh as he watched her sucking off her fingers. Though her shorts were still on, she started to rock against his thigh, using her other hand on the side of the tub as leverage. "I can help you out, you know," he offered, starting to sit up.

She had other plans, but the scratchiness in his voice—no doubt because he'd just woken up but also due to the crying last night—took those plans and threw them out the window. She'd let him do whatever he wanted, something that was a usual occurrence, but when it came to his morning voice she couldn't resist.

So she waited as he sat up, his hands immediately finding their way to her shirt, which he lifted and threw out of the tub. And then he used his thumbs to gently swipe over the peak of her breasts, leaning forward to kiss her neck ad mumble "I love you," into her skin. She sighed and grinded on his thigh again, each swipe of his thumbs over her hardened nipples giving a new jolt of pleasure with each grind. She gripped his hair softly, combing through it and twirling pieces of it around her fingers, her eyes fluttering closed and her mind going numb so as to completely live in the moment and focus on the way he touched her and loved her unconditionally.

Spencer brought one of his hands down to pull at the waistband of her shorts, and against her leg, Y/N felt him grow hard again. So she lifted her hips and let him slide her shorts and underwear down, and once she got them off her legs she tossed them out with her shirt and worked at his own clothes. Due to the small space in the bathtub, things were most certainly clumsy and impatient, but once the clothing barriers were gone for good, leaving them both completely bare, it was an easy feat to stand and get easy access to each other.

Y/N whined into his mouth as he pushed her against the shower wall, her hands exploring the planes of his hack and his ass while he reached behind her and turned the shower on. Water rained down on them, freezing at first, but it got warmer each second as they made out and let their hands roam.

Soon, though, one of Spencer's hands came down to grab Y/N's thigh, and she wrapped that leg around his waist, pulling him closer as she brought her hand down to line him up.

"You don't want me to use my mouth?" he whispered into her mouth in between kisses as she ran the head of his dick through her pussy.

"Mmm... Later," she sighed back, circling his tip over her clit a few times before deeply kissing him and using her leg to pull him closer. "Right now I need you inside me."

Who was he to deny her anything? So he slowly pushed into her, dropping his head to rest on her shoulder.

The water was arm now, mostly cascading down his back, but it rolled to the front of him, accenting every forward snap of his hips with a loud smack.  His thrusts were quick, but each time he went forward, he stayed there for a moment, not only to make sure he didn't go too fast and end up slipping, but also to gauge his wife's reactions— feeling her nails scratch lightly down his shoulders, the rumble her throat as she groaned at each slow circle of his hips as they connected with hers... His primary goal was to draw out every little noise and reaction from her until she was crying out with pleasure, honestly his favorite sound in the world.

The only thing that came close was when she begged.

"Baby, please," she whined, her hands reaching down to grab his ass. "I need more..."

Spencer groaned into her neck, granting her wish and setting a quicker pace drilling into her. She clenched her whole body around him, not only to draw out more pleasure, but to keep a good grip so they wouldn't fall. In the few times that they'd had sex in the shower prior to this, they'd always taken precautions by bending Y/N over the edge of the tub as he fucked her, though the floor usually ended up almost completely soaked with water by the end of it. Which, of course, was why they'd hardly ever done it.

But when you and your significant other wake up in the bathtub after a rough night, sometimes you just have to take advantage of the opportunity.

Everything seemed to work out, though, because it didn't take any time at all for them to get there. With one orgasm already under Spencer's belt and the constant thrumming of his dick against Y/N's g-spot, the two of them were only seconds away from losing themselves in blinding bliss.

Sure enough, his hips started to stutter, and she held his ass close to her as he stilled and came yet again. She cried out in high whines as her walls fluttered around him, and even as she came down, her grip on him remained, the sudden urge to be as close as possible to her husband outweighing any concern about overstimulation.

Even as he pulled out of her and started to kneel, Y/N kept her hands on him at all times, settling them finally in his wet hair as she sighed. "What are you doing?"

"You said later," is all he offered in response. "It's later."

And then he licked a long line along the inside of her thigh where his cum had started to drip out. The sight below her almost turned her on more than the touch itself, what with the way the water covered him and sprinkled his face as he looked up at her. Eventually though, the water in his eyes was too much, so he stuck to keeping them down as he gently ran his tongue through her pussy and cleaned her up, bringing on another impending orgasm for her in the process.

Y/N brushed his wet curls away from his face as he did it, gently tugging on them and rolling her hips slightly to get more friction. But he held them still, his way of telling her that he was going to take his time with her and that it would be worth it in the end.

And worth it it was. Anything he did would have been worth it, but Y/N couldn't deny the loud cries of intense pleasure as his tongue rapidly flicked over her clit, never slowing or picking up the pace. He kept at it, over and over and over until she was shaking above him, her grip in his hair so tight that it elicited moans of his own.

Once he could tell she was done, her grip becoming a little too tight, Spencer pulled away, pressing wet kisses along her body as he made his way back up to his feet.

"There," he said, kissing her cheek and then nuzzling into her neck once more. "And now we're even."

Y/N laughed, wrapping her arms around her husband and holding him tight as they stepped further into the water to wash up.

***

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[equestrianwritingsstuff]

More drugged villain please?

Okay so I did not know if this was an ask for a new piece, or a continuation of Paying For It. Because I already am planning on Paying For It Part 2, this is going to be a new piece, so ladies and gents I present to you *drumroll*...

Villain Pursuit

@shydragonrider

Warnings: drugged whumpee, tranq dart, needles, fever, tired characters, chasing of whumpee, bullet wound, guns, infection, descriptions of injuries, knocked out by blunt force, kidnapping

*not edited, sorry*

~

"He is getting much weaker," Hero reported as she stood in front of her boss, Superhero. "His right leg is very swollen and he can hardly walk, much less run. I believe it is infected and-" a yawn "- and he can hardly walk in a straight line anymore."

"Then, why didn't you grab him if he is this easy?" Superhero asked, ignoring his employee's obvious signs of exhaustion- it has been a long, rough two weeks of chasing a villain across multiple states. One of the other heroes managed to shoot his leg in hopes of incapacitating him, but the slippery villain somehow walked it off. Or, he did and now the wound was badly infected.

"He disappeared into a crowd," Hero replied. "I think it's time to chase him down and sedate him or something. If he continues like this, he is going to die."

Superhero nodded curtly in agreement. "Okay," he sighed. "We go out there and we do not rest until Villain is safetly behind bars."

Hero narrowed her eyes at the bluntness in Superhero's voice, but decided that her boss was just tired. She also reckoned that was the reason he didn't mention the infirmary as Villain's first destination after capture.

He was just tired, right?

《~~》

"Okay," Hero said, adjusting the tranq gun on her belt. "There he is."

Villain was laying against the steps to a door in an alleyway. His head was thrown backwards against his shoulder, eyes cracked open in semi-consciousness. His injured leg was stretched out whereas the other was curled up in an attempt to use some leverage to support himself. One arm was propped to keep himself upright, the other strewn to the side.

"He looks horrible," Teammate commented, chewing nervously on his lip. "I doubt its going to take much to put him out."

"Yeah, me neither," Hero agreed, feeling a rising nausea in her stomach. The pair crept towards the injured villain. Hero glanced over to see more heroes also advancing to corner the man.

But, at the last moment before Hero was able to shoot the dart, Villain saw them. He scrambled up his feet, leaning heavily against the door and swaying wildy. He looked over all the heroes, before turning and running off.

Hero cursed under her breath and sped after the hobbling villain. For a moment, she felt absolutely sorry for him. He could hardly stay on his feet, his right leg not even stepping that much on the ground. She could hear his pained groans from where she was.

Hero stopped running and drew out her tranq gun. Whispering an apology, she let the dart fly.

The feathered dart hit Villain directly in the side of his neck. He stumbled a bit, the drug already taking effect. He made an awkward circle- more of an oval- before collapsing backwards on the ground, his arms limply trying to break his fall, but they failed. His head crashed into the ground, leaving him laying in a motionless heap.

Hero grimaced. She never saw someone go down that quickly from the tranq gun before.

She walked up to the villain, crouching down and staring at him. An odd mixture of defeat and relief expressed itself on his unconscious face. Hero sighed, running a hand through her hair, before taking a look at his swollen leg.

The bullet that previously imbedded itself in his leg was gone, leaving a very infected gash. His whole calf was twice the size it would normally be- due to the infection and the fact that he seemed to have a badly sprained ankle.

"Finally!" Teammate exclaimed, sitting down exhausted next to Hero. "I was getting to the point of just shooting him and being done-"

"Look at this," Hero gestured towards his leg. She pressed into the flesh, it wasn't like he could feel it. It was burning hot.

"Yeah, looks nasty. I'm gonna call Superhero and then let's get him to the infirmary," Teammate said and went to call their boss.

Hero positioned herself by Villain's head and placed it in his lap. For some reason, even though he was incapable of realizing her presence, she felt a call to comfort him.

"It'll be okay buddy," Hero whispered, brushing the unwashed hair out of Villain's face. "Just hang on for me, will you?"

Superhero came within a few minutes, oddly without the aid of doctors and nurses. Hero watched with a perplexed look on her face while Teammate shrugged, also very confused.

Superhero smirked down at the unconscious man, nonchalantly using his foot and shoving his shoulder over. Villain rolled deeper into Hero's lap, his muscles devoid of any resistance.

"Well good job my heroes," Superhero said in an annoyingly chirpy voice. "Help me get him into my car, and I'll take him to the, uh, infirmary."

Hero nodded curtly, but really she found this odd. Why was Superhero taking Villain? What if Villain woke up? Maybe he meant for Teammate and Hero to join him in the ride and just harmlessly forgot to mention it?

Teammate and Hero loaded Villain into the back of the car and buckled his limp body up. They had him in a sitting position with his leg dangling over his chest, arms lazily lying at his sides.

"Thank you so much, guys. Really, great job," Superhero applauded in an interestingly quick voice. Hero smiled back and prepared to ride shotgun.

"Wait! No, no, no," Superhero chuckled nervously. "Honey, why don't you and Teammate go home and get some sleep. You two have been working incredibly hard."

Hero detected the tension in her boss's voice, but chose to ignore it. Truthfully, she was too tired to argue and the thought of collapsing on her bed and sleeping was too tempting. She stepped back and Superhero got into his car and drove away.

《~~》

"It's been a week Hero," Teammate spoke over in between sips of his morning coffee. "A week and no signs of Superhero, we can't visit Villain, and the agnecy is a mess."

"Yeah, kind of odd," Hero agreed, looking out the window and across the busy street. She took a lip of her own coffee and glanced bavk over at her partner. "Maybe we should call him."

"Yeah." Teammate nodded, then a mischievous grin dawned on his face. "You do it," he challenged.

But Hero was not in the mood for games. She flipped out her phone and dialed her boss's number.

"Hey Hero, how are-" cough "-you." The superhero on the otherside of the line sniffled.

"Are you sick boss?" Hero asked, brow furrowing in concern.

"Yeah, just the flu. Nothing serious, just miserable."

Was it Hero's ears playing tricks on her, or did Superhero's voice seem suddenly much less congested?

"Oh well I'm sorry. Rest up and we'll see you next week."

"Is everything okay Hero?"

"Yep all good."

It was not all good. Hero hung up and looked over at Teammate. A wordless conversation passes between them and they both hustled to their feet and practically ran out the door.

Superhero lived on the outskirts of the city in a vintage farmhouse. Hero's sport car felt very out of place in the picturesque view of the red barn and old tractor.

Teammate knocked on the screen door and stepped back. Hero tried not to notice, but he had a gun with him.

"Coming! I'm coming!" Superhero's clearly not sick voice rang out. Hero heard the poudning of footsteps before Superhero, dreased in a sweatpants and a tank top, opened the door.

His face paled at the sight of his employees.

"Oh, hey ack. What brings you here? I said I was totally good," Superhero chuckled, tapping his fingers against the doorframe.

"Cut the bull Superhero." Teammate drew his gun. "Where is Villain?"

Hero was shocked. She didn't really piece two and two together, but it seemed like Teammate did.

Superhero had Villain.

"No where. What makes you think-"

Teammate brought the barrel of the gun to Superhero's temple, knocking him out. He immediately rushed over and stuck his boss with a needle.

"What?" Hero asked, astonished.

"I'm always prepared. Never trusted that guy anyways," Teammate replied, turning his nose up slightly at Superhero's sleeping form in amusement, before rushing into the house. Hero followed.

They found Villain unconscious on the floor of the basement. His arm was strewn over his face, bruised and bloodied.

Hero ran over and took one look at the villain an immediately knew that he was in reallt bad shape. The original infection seemed to be drained, but it was still quite pussy. Also, the swelling did not yet go down.

Teammate grabbed Villain's arm and turned it over to reveal tiny holes. Hero swallowed. He has been drugged, she realized with a shudder.

Teammate, without another word, scooped Villain into his arm and carried him back up the stairs. Hero followed, stunned into silence.

When they came across Superhero's peacefully sleeping form, Hero brought her heel down onto his nose. With a satisfying crunch, it broke.

"Serves you right," Hero whispered, voice dripping with malice.

Teammate had Villain lying in the backseat of the small car, his bad leg resting against his jacket as a pillow. Hero scooted in next to him, laying his head on her lap. "Okay, let's go," she said and Teammate droved to her house.

The first thing the two did was get the disgusting, soiled articles of clothing off Villain's partially starved body. He immediately started to shiver, convulsions overtaking his body.

"Okay, he need to be warmed up," Hero said. "Bath?"

"No, wrap him in warm blankets and then sit with him on the couch. I need to tend to this leg ASAP," Teammate said, voice completely focused and monotoned.

Hero did as she was told, swaddling Villain in a fluffy beige blanket. She laid his upper body across her lap as Teammate went to work on properly draining the abscess. Villain didn't stir and Hero got worried. She checked his pulse finding it too fast and erratic to be normal.

"Okay done." Teammate cleaned his hands off on a paper towel and doused the wound with antiseptic. When that was done, he wrapped the gash in thick bandages.

Hero clutched Villain, dragging him closer to her. Waking up slightly, he nuzzled his face into her arm. Then, he stilled again, asleep.

"What are we going to do about him?" Hero whispered. "Superhero won't let us get away..."

"I know." Teammate rubbed his eyes. "That's why I am going to pack and we are running away."

[homerforsure]

Whumptober No. 6 Bruises / Touch Starved / Hunger Whumptober No. 30 major character death / left for dead / ghosts

Me: I can’t believe I have to post this absolutely incomprehensible piece of writing. 

Me: You don’t... have to?

Me: No, I’m gonna. 

Buck has an exceptional number of pillows on his bed. There are six, before he knocks a few to the floor every night, and he burrows into them like a nest, curling up with one against his chest, two pressed against his back, one between his legs. His sheets are a ridiculously priced, cool, crisp cotton that welcomes him in, surrounding him. The blankets he uses aren’t weighted, but they’re heavy and thick and he keeps his air conditioning turned up so he doesn’t have to give up the feeling of nestling into them in the heat of summer. Along with the white noise machine on his night stand, all of it is chosen to trick him into sleep. To keep back the feeling that night time in his own apartment is the loneliest part of Buck’s day. 

It wasn’t perfect, pre-covid. It’s been a long time since Buck had someone share his space, share his bed, someone he could reach out and touch whenever he wanted. But his life outside of home was full. He didn’t lack for closeness; in some ways he had more than he’d ever dreamed. So while he had lonely moments, they weren’t a constant ache in his chest. 

These months though. These months hurt. Facetime isn’t a substitute for curling up on Maddie’s couch with whatever silly-labeled wine she’d liked best that week. It’s definitely not a substitute for Eddie’s couch and losing to Christopher over and over again at Mario Kart. The last time they talked, Eddie had reached over and ruffled Christopher’s hair and Buck felt it. First as a tingle up the back of his scalp and then as a bruise to his heart. Eddie’s touches, so constant and so casual, became essential somewhere along the way and Buck feels himself reaching out for them even when he knows it’s not allowed.

“Six feet, gentlemen,” Bobby says gently when their orbits swing toward each other and Eddie makes a dramatic show of raising his hands and taking a giant step backward. Bobby just shakes his head and reminds them it’s the price they all agreed to pay for not wearing masks in the firehouse. 

Buck starts dreading the end of a call when taking off his heavy turnout coat leaves him feeling cold and exposed. He folds into himself, claiming a chair, putting in earbuds and crossing his arms tight over his chest, pulling his knees up even though he knows better than to put his shoes on the furniture.

It’s a similar position to the one he lies in at night, clinging to the pillows, trying to draw comfort out of the smooth fabric. In those moments, his loneliness is so loud it might as well be a beacon sent out into the universe, a burning shout of need. 

And that shout is heard. 

***

“Have you guys heard of exploding head syndrome?” Buck asks one morning when the calls are slow and the crew is all lingering in a lazy way rather than rushing off to take care of their other duties. 

“What, the band?” Chimney asks.

“I think it was an album,” Bobby says.

“No,” Buck sighs. “It’s a sleep thing. It’s this loud noise that you hear when you’re falling asleep like a massively loud explosion. Only it’s just happening in your head.”

“Is your brain actually exploding? Like an aneurism?”

“No. It’s just the noise.” 

Just the loudest noise Buck had ever heard. It woke him up with a feeling of abject terror. It was an explosion that didn’t echo. It just rang, clear and true through his eardrums like the end of the world. Even as he struggled out of his sheets, searching for the source so he could run from it, part of him knew it wasn’t a sound that left any physical evidence. What could it even be? A sound like that? An old fashioned safe dropping from two stories up? A car crash without the crunch? Just a high speed collision of two immovable objects, all of the equal and opposite reaction of their momentum forced to escape as sound. 

Once his heart rate had slowed, he googled. He wasn’t initially sure what to google. “Ridiculously loud noise woke me up” seemed at once too vague and too specific but sure enough. Exploding Head Syndrome. It was what happened. Obviously. But Buck remained too full of adrenaline to sleep. As he sat up in bed, he couldn’t shake the urge to look around. Under the bed, in the closet, behind the shower curtain. He didn’t feel alone. 

“I’m just glad it’s happening in your head instead of mine,” Chim laughs. “Maybe try putting some earmuffs on before you go to sleep tonight.” ***

The sound doesn’t reappear. Buck is relieved, but sleeping doesn’t get any easier. He tries to soothe himself with obscenely long hot baths, by ordering a hoodie that’s more fluff than fabric, by running a foam roller across his muscles, trying to pry them into relaxation. It’s so much work and it does so little. Buck’s entire body is screaming out at all times for a hug or a massage or even just a really fucking good haircut. It takes longer and longer to fall asleep and the little sleep he does get isn’t restful. It’s like whatever meager comfort he manages to give himself during the day is leached away in the night. 

He doesn’t even notice the bruises at first. It’s an easy enough thing to miss. Their job is heavy physical labor and Buck barrels through a scene like a one man stampede. Bruises are as common as the smell of smoke in his hair. The ones Eddie points out on his arm though are different. 

Buck’s carrying a kitten at the time. The fire they’ve been fighting is beaten back to smolders. Buck shucked off his coat, wet and dripping from the hose and too cold for the shaking animal, and grabbed a blanket from the ambulance to wrap her up and cradle her against his chest. He’s rubbing his face against her damp fur, feeling the softness like a concentrated shot of endorphins when Eddie asks, “What the hell happened to you?”

“What are you talking about?” Buck asks and Eddie’s hands are pushing up the sleeves of his shirt, rolling them up to his shoulders while Buck’s trying to hold onto the cat.

“You don’t feel that?”

“Feel what?” He’s maybe a little ruder than he means to be but the sleep deprivation makes him cranky and the touch deprivation means that Eddie’s gently probing fingers feel like a dream on his skin. The care in the brush of his hands makes Buck’s knees weak. 

“Your arms are bruised to hell,” Eddie says. “Are you- Did someone grab you or something?”

“I swear to god, Eddie. I don’t feel anything.” Except grumpy and exhausted and longing. 

“Jesus, it goes all the way up your shoulders. It looks like-” He stops, pulling Buck’s collar aside and tracing a small spot that Buck can’t see even if he turns his head. “They look like fingerprints, Buck. Are you seeing someone?” 

“What!”

“These are handprints. And they’re dark. Do you really not-”

Buck wrenches himself from Eddie’s grasp so he can turn around and look at him because if Eddie’s really accusing him of putting everyone at risk by trying to date someone right now… But Eddie’s face is nothing but concerned. Which makes Buck scared. 

“Is it really that bad?” he asks, clutching the cat to his chest. 

Eddie rubs a hand up Buck’s back (it feels so good, hot like Buck’s t-shirt isn’t even between them and is it just because it’s been so long or just because it’s Eddie?) without looking around to see if Bobby’s watching and that’s really all the confirmation Buck needs. It’s bad. 

***

After that, Buck starts to feel them. He wakes up and he can’t breathe. He wakes up and he can’t move. He wakes up on the floor. He spends every moment that he’s asleep fighting to wake up. Buck can only remember fragments and pieces of the torment but he knows that it feels like drowning. Like being held down. Like being grabbed and pulled and smothered. He thinks he remembers long dark hair. 

Google is useless. Sleep apnea. Sleep paralysis. Sleep terrors. Even sleepwalking. None of them can account for the worst of it. For the physical signs of whatever is happening to him while he sleeps.

Bruises bloom blue on the pale skin of his hips. Purple on his ribs. Green on the back of his neck. The ones that Eddie saw first on his arm fade to yellow.  A long scratch runs down the side of his face. Dark circles under his eyes grow darker every day. 

“What’s happening to me?” he asks his reflection.

All he wants is to be able to ask that question with someone’s arms around him. He wants anyone to hold him tight and shush his fears and tell him that it’ll be okay. 

It’s easier than he thought to hide it. Buck just chooses his shower times strategically and opts for a long sleeve uniform, complaining that he ruined his short sleeves ones by grabbing bleach instead of detergent while he was half asleep. 

He’s always half asleep these days.

At least in the bunk rooms, he gets some semblance of rest. Whatever presence he feels in his own bedroom doesn’t cross this threshold and Buck sleeps deeply, almost missing the scream of the alarm. 

“It’s getting worse isn’t it?” Eddie asks, cornering Buck in the locker room. Buck can’t help but nod and Eddie steps closer as if to touch him. 

Buck flinches away and Eddie pulls up short as though hitting an invisible wall. 

He breathes Buck’s name on a pained exhale and says, “You have to get some help. Whatever it is…”

“I don’t know what it is!’ Buck answers. “It’s living in my house and it- it- God. Maybe I need an exorcism.”

“Maybe you should come home with me,” Eddie suggests and Buck recoils again. 

The firehouse seems safe but there’s no guarantee that Buck won’t be followed anywhere else. He’s desperate to be safe--desperate for Eddie to make him safe--but not at the expense of anyone else. Not when he doesn’t know what he’s facing. 

“Okay,” Eddie says. “But call me in the morning.” 

***

The burned girl screams louder when she sees Buck than she did while they were putting out the inferno of her car. 

“Stay away from me!” She shrieks. “Stay awaystayawaystayaway.”

“Miss, we’re going to need you to calm down,” Hen says to her. “Buck, you wanna move aside? Like preferably somewhere she can’t see you?”

Buck does because the patient’s well-being is more important than anything, but his skin feels like ice. He wants to demand to know what else she sees when she looks at him. Wants to know how she knows. For half a second, he imagines following her to the hospital and waiting for her outside the glass doors.  

They aren’t far from her house (52% of accidents happen within five miles of home) and the girl’s father arrives on the scene before they finish prepping her to be transported. And he sees Buck. 

He freezes when he does, but at least he doesn’t scream. He ignores Buck completely, instead going to the ambulance where his daughter is still crying and trying to soothe her. Hen offers to let him ride in the ambulance, but he says that he’ll take his car. 

“You’re in a lot of trouble,” he says, returning to Buck as the ambulance pulls away. “What you summoned… That’s not a normal ghost.”

“I didn’t summon anything! It just happened.” Buck’s voice is high-pitched and he just barely stops himself from grabbing onto the man’s arm, but the man doesn’t seem afraid of Buck the way his daughter was. “What is it? How do I make it go away?”

The man shrugs, “She came in through an open door. Which door depends on the person. But she’ll do everything in her power to keep it pried open. All you can do is try to close it again.”

It is… the least helpful advice Buck’s ever been given in his entire life. But the man’s daughter is on her way to the hospital and he needs to follow her. He vanishes. 

***

They’re about to have four days off. Buck’s bracing himself to meet the woman in his dreams. To look around in that dreamspace for open doors and slam them shut again. He can do it. He has to. 

***

The next night Buck wakes up and he can’t move. He’s paralyzed on the bed. He’s paralyzed on the bed and someone’s standing at the top of his stairs. 

She’s not… right. Buck can’t quite see in the dark and he can’t lift his head but the woman on his stairs isn’t solid in the way a human should be. The outline of her is strong, but it’s like she’s a shell wrapped around a cavernous emptiness. She’s across the room but she’s already pulling at him. 

Buck tries to thrash but his arms are pinned as if her hands are already on his wrists. He needs to reach the lamp. If he can just turn on the light.

“Get away from me,” he pleads and the part of her face where lips should be turns up, revealing pointed teeth that stand in front of a void.

“You called me,” she says. The words don’t come from her mouth and Buck doesn’t hear them with his ears. It’s wrong wrong wrong. He throws himself hard to the left and he rolls, flying further than he expected to, suddenly free, and crashes hard into the table, knocking the lamp to the floor. It shatters, bulb and all and pain scrapes across Buck’s shoulders.

“Poor boy,” the ghost mocks. “Poor lonely boy. Just wants someone to touch him. Just wants someone to stay with him. I heard you.”

“No,” Buck says and he tries to scramble, but his feet can’t find purchase on the floor. “I didn’t want you.”

He doesn’t deny the call. Can’t deny it when his heart is reaching out in the same pleading, desperate way now. Please. Anyone.

In the time it takes to blink she’s in front of him. She’s so close. She shouldn’t be able to get that close without standing on him but she’s there. Her voice whispers in his mind, “You should choose your words more carefully.”

And then her hands are around his throat.

The pressure is insistent and her motive is unmistakable. She’s going to kill him. She’s going to squeeze the life out of him. He’s going to die here and Eddie’s going to find his body because Eddie’s going to come rushing over as soon as Buck doesn’t call him in the morning and what if this thing is still here waiting for him. 

Eddie, Eddie, Eddie.

Buck’s mind yells for him like his lungs did when Eddie was buried except now it’s Buck who’s too far away, who’s trapped somewhere deep and dark with no hope of escape. 

He tries to breathe and his breath whistles. It’s like the first time someone handed him a styrofoam cup of coffee and he tried to drink through the plastic stir stick. Black stars twinkle in the room and tears build in his eyes. 

Eddie, Eddie, Eddie. 

There’s a shift as she adjusts her grip and it’s enough for the stars to clear. Buck throws himself forward, shaking his head like he isn’t a ragdoll trapped in the jaws of a rottweiler, like he has a hope of breaking free and then he does. The ghost is thrown off balance and Buck jumps, scrambling back over his bed for the stairs. He can’t even think about defeating her, finding out the secrets of where she came from, closing whatever fucking door he left open. All Buck wants to do is live. 

A force behind him swells like a wave to lift Buck off his feet and slams him into the bathroom door. He expects to slide off of it and onto the floor, but he’s held in place hard, his head turned and his cheek pressed to the wood, toes just brushing the ground. 

“You begged me to come,” the ghost hisses. “I’m here for you, lonely boy. Don’t fight so hard.”

A hand skims up his back, nearly gentle, but leaving a numbness in its path and Buck shudders in disgust. He jerks against the door, but his arms are wrenched behind him and he screams. He realizes it’s the first time he has.

“I didn’t call you! I don’t want you here! Get out.”

“I came because you needed me.” A long finger trails down his cheek and Buck whimpers. She’s taller than him now. Was she always? “I could feel you from so far away. An aching ball of need. I’m here for you now.” 

“I don’t need you,” Buck growls and the room flashes like lightning. He hopes to fall, almost expects to fall, where he can scramble again but instead, Buck is hurled away from the door completely. He has time to see that he’s above the stairs, throw his hands out uselessly and then he’s frozen. 

Buck hovers there in the air above the stairs, dangling in the grip of the ghost, like a cat grabbed by his scruff. Kicking wildly, he grabs for the invisible hand that’s holding him, yelling “No, no, no, no.”

“Need me now?” the ghost asks. 

Smothering the terrified part of him that nearly answers yes, Buck forces himself to stop twisting and just hang there. He doesn’t want to fall. He doesn’t want to die. But what he needs isn’t going to come from the ghost. 

“No,” he answers. 

And he can’t explain how he knows what her face looks like when it’s screwed up in fury, but he does. It’s vicious and vindictive and Buck’s not surprised at all when he’s flicked away from her and down the flight of stairs. 

He seems to hit each one as he falls, something that should be impossible with the speed that he’s traveling and the force with which he bounces off of them, but the ghost is obviously responsible. Air leaves his lungs as his ribs crack against the stairs. His elbows and knees scrape. His head bangs the rail. Buck’s long, long legs seem to tangle as he falls, cartwheeling him down and he lands in a heap at the bottom. 

As he tries to figure out if he can still move, the door flies open. 

Warmth rushes in. Buck hadn’t even realized how cold it had gotten since he first woke up, but the room seems to thaw around him. It’s like sunlight. 

It’s Eddie. 

“Oh fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Evan. Buck. I’ve got you, Buck. I’ve got you.” 

Tenderly, he scoops Buck off the floor, unsnarling the mess of his limbs and feeling all over for the damage he can’t see. “I’ve got you. Open your eyes. Come on.” 

The ghost stands at the top of the stairs and then she’s at the bottom. Buck clambers backward again, digging his heels into the floor to push himself upright in front of Eddie, to try and hide him from view. Eddie doesn’t seem to see the ghost. All of his attention is still on Buck, stroking his hair, promising over and over that he’s there, that he has Buck. 

All of the ghost’s attention is on Buck too. “You need me,” she says. “You called for me.” She sounds different now. Bitter. Like Buck wasted her precious time. 

“I don’t need you,” he says and he reaches behind him to grab Eddie’s hand. “I already have everything I need.” 

Lights flicker and that impossibly loud sound bangs in Buck’s ears again. He gets one last look at the ghost’s vicious, violent visage and then she’s gone. 

And then Buck wakes up.

[soliavenne]

Between Naked Souls - 1 (Gaara x Reader R-18 Fanfiction)

Hiii, everyone! :) <3 This long fic had been my baby since early September. It took really long, but I think a part of me is in agreement that this story really needed that amount time to develop, and I'm really proud and happy of what it has resulted to. This work really means the world to me. It had exhausted me beyond measure but I have really fallen in love with it.

Warning: NSFW work ahead.

Word count: 26.6k (I know, self-control is not my best suit.)

I hope you enjoy! <3 

Cover art by yours truly. 

---

Gaara jolted awake with a choked gasp; the clawing sensation down his now hoarse throat as the strain caused by unintelligible growls for help that has been leaving his mouth for the past twenty minutes began to catch up with his dawning consciousness. He propped his elbows behind his back, his chest heaving up and down heavily as he tried to chase his breath. He continued to shift backwards until he felt the headboard press against his back in support to his weakening composure. Gaara brushed his forearms across his forehead, making him wince when he raked his fingers down his now, sweat-dampened hair. He really wasn’t able to conjure images just yet as his eyes were still adjusting to the almost pitch black darkness of his room, so he gasped in shock when he felt something touch the back of his hand, with his head automatically shooting towards the direction in which the surprising gesture came from.

“Hey…” Your voice croaked, followed by a yawn as you rubbed your knuckles against your eyes. “Gaara? Are you awake?” You slowly sat up, swinging your body towards the side of the bed to reach for the lamp above the nightstand. After turning it on, you returned your attention towards Gaara, whose chest was still heaving up and down, with his face angled towards the ceiling; eyes glued shut, skin pale and sweaty. Your blood ran cold out of panic, as his current state was unraveled to you. You quickly grabbed a fist of the blanket before throwing it out towards the floor to give him some air. The amount of concerned queries that rambled down your mouth without any sense of halting any time soon was cut short when Gaara placed his hand above yours, giving it a firm squeeze to snap you out of your agitated daze.

“Y/N,” Gaara breathed out as he was still trying to stabilize his panting. “there’s nothing to worry about...”

You leaned over towards Gaara, your knees pressed down against the mattress. You reached out for him and placed a palm against his forehead. “What do you feel, Gaara? Do you feel sick?”

“No,” Gaara let out a deep sigh as he crossed his arms against his stomach; palms sluggishly rubbing up and down his arms in hopes of calming the chills enveloping his body. “it’s just… another nightmare.”

Your eyes went soft at what you heard, and over the very sight that that was happening before you. He only had little to no time that was reserved so that he could take a proper rest, yet even that was being robbed away from him. You couldn’t help it, your stomach continued to drop in a bottomless pit of pity, as it felt like you could almost sense every fiber of fatigue and exhaustion from your lover.

Gaara doesn’t deserve any of this.

“Tsk,” Gaara groaned, as his head started to throb in pain. He pressed the pads of his index and middle finger against his opposite temples, massaging it in circles to alleviate the pulsing pain. “I’m sorry.” He sighed. “I didn’t mean to wake you up like that… I’m so sorry, my love.”

“Hey…” Your voice softened at him, as you reached out for the side of his face so that you could redirect it towards yours. “you have nothing to apologize for, okay?” You stroked his cheek as you smiled reassuringly before him. “None of this is your fault, Gaara.”

Another worn out sigh ripped from his chest. Gaara held your hand that was placed against his cheek, caressing it with his thumb before leaning his lips towards your palm to kiss it gently. “I will be alright, Y/N. You have nothing to be concerned about.”

“Well, that’s too bad… I’m kinda’ bound to be always concerned about you no matter what.” You chuckled at him, eliciting a small smile from your lover in return. You ran your fingers through his locks, a little surprised when you felt how soaking wet it was. “You’re so sweaty right now, Gaara. Let me grab some towel and water, alright?”

There was a sight of a slight pout on Gaara’s lips, his gaze anywhere but in direct contact with yours. “Stay…”

Your hand on his cheek travelled down his shoulder, and down on his hand, giving it a soft squeeze to ease him down a bit. “But you might suffer from colds if I let you go back to sleep like that, Gaara.” He seemed like he was about to speak another word, but he nodded in agreement after a minute of silence. You stood up from the bed, opening the closet and rummaging through his clothes before grabbing another pair sleeping garments for your lover; placing it on top of the mattress. Prior to walking straight towards the door, you went towards Gaara, who was now watching you from his side of the bed. You ushered his face closer towards yours by both sides of his jaw, before pressing a soft kiss on his forehead. “I won’t take long, I promise.”

“Promise?” Gaara mumbled, his soft voice feeling like he was tugging on your heartstrings.

“Yes, Gaara. I promise.” You smiled at him once again. “I will be back.”

The subtle sound of your footsteps echoed throughout the corridor as you walked towards the kitchen. Despite how dim it was, you somehow knew exactly where to walk through to get towards the switch; as it finally seems like you have already memorized the layout of Gaara’s house over the course of time you have spent inside it.

Gaara was indeed a busy man, he was the Kazekage of the village after all. He rarely comes home, as he never really found any reason to stay inside his house all by himself when he could just be doing paperwork instead inside his office. It did change, though, when the two of you had started dating one another. After a year of being together, Gaara finally invited you over to his house, and you swore that the whole vibe that it radiated off was as if his house was recently furnished, and was finally in commercial to be sold. It was spotlessly-clean, from up the ceiling, down the floor; a little monotonous and plain if you were to be honest; not entirely homey, as expected from someone who doesn’t really live much inside his own home; a decision with a much more deeper reason that you have just been recently informed of when Gaara offered you to stay with him for the meantime while you were looking for a new apartment to move in.

When you started living with Gaara, he offered you the luxury of having his bedroom to yourself, which something you disagreed wholeheartedly with. There was no way you were going to let him sleep on the couch when the two of you could fit snugly on top of his bed. The only thing that made you agreed to his proposition was when he said that he wasn’t ready to share a bed just yet; so as much as you wanted to tell him it was more than okay for you to sleep beside one another, the last thing you wanted was to put pressure on him.

It was when you woke up in the middle of the night to drink water, when you found him sitting alone in the couch in a sleepy daze, his elbows pressed on top of his thighs with his face buried into his hand. His hair was disheveled, and his breathing was labored. When you sat beside him, asking him what was wrong, the frustration and weariness in his voice was evident.

“I had a nightmare…”

According to Gaara, it seemed like he had started suffering from recurring nightmares a year after the Fourth Great Ninja War, confessing to you how he had been coping about it ever since. Gaara said that he tries to take short naps throughout the day in order to make up for little to no sleep that he gets at night. He tries to steer himself away from sleeping at the comfort of his home, because when the exhaustion catches up to him, he ends up losing control over the state of sleep, making him susceptible to another yet episode of a nightmare.

The next morning, you almost pleaded to Gaara to finally sleep beside you.

“Please, Gaara. If you were in my place, you know it yourself that you would do everything you can just so you could take care of me. We should always take care of each other no matter what.”

It honestly took a lot of convincing before you got Gaara to agree with you. He kept telling you that he didn’t want to disturb what should be a night of peaceful sleep for you, but you knew it yourself that having him beside you would not be the reason of you losing sleep, but the fact that you would always be worried sick about him. Who was he kidding? How could you even get an ounce of sleep now after knowing what he goes through at night? As much was you wanted him to give him the autonomy over his decisions, this wasn’t any matter that should be dealt alone with, and Gaara knows that himself. If you were to be the one in his place, he wouldn’t sit still about it as well.

After a minute of letting the kettle’s whistle tear through the quiet of the night, you wrapped a rug on the plastic handle before taking it off the flame. You leaned downwards to grab a small basin from the cabinet, filling half of it with cold water under the faucet before turning it off. You poured the hot water in intervals, feeling the water with your other hand now and then as you tried to bring it up to a proper temperature; the steam coming off of it feeling rather nice against your cold cheeks. You placed two bath towels over your shoulder, and just before you were about to lift the basin from the sink, you felt someone shift behind your back.

It was Gaara.

You felt his hands travel from your waist, towards on top of your stomach as he pulled you in for a backhug. “Let me carry that.” Gaara whispered into your ear before pressing a soft kiss on your cheek.

“You should be resting on the bed,” You mumbled, your voice laced with just a tiny bit of scolding. “I’m supposed to be the caretaker here, Gaara.”

Gaara smiled against your face, as he continued to plant gentle kisses upon your skin. “I will always take care of you… as much as you take care of me, even if I’m incapacitated to do so. We’ll always take of each other no matter what; that’s what you said, right?”

Your chest tightened with what you just heard, feeling a soft brush of warmth across your now probably flushed cheeks. Before you knew it, Gaara was already walking back towards the bathroom with the basin at hand, leaving you a flustered mess in the kitchen.

The windows were now opened, and the moonlight bathed the bedroom in a gentle, luminous glow. Gaara sat still on the edge of the bed that was facing the window, eyes trained on the side as you stood before him. The basin was on your right side, sitting above a wooden stool, with the bath towel now soaking the warm water inside it.

“Uhm… Would you rather have me take off your clothes, or you want to do it by yourself?”

After turning on the night lamp, you saw a clearer glimpse of Gaara’s face, which was currently laced with concern. After a minute or two of wondering why, that was when you realized what he had been thinking about ever since he sat on the bed.

“You have nothing to worry about, Gaara. I don’t mind… seeing you with your clothes off.”

Gaara’s chest tightened, as his face started to get as red as his hair. He pursed his lips subtly out of embarrassment, before pulling his dampened shirt over his head, folding it neatly above his lap before placing it down the floor. Gaara stood up from the bed, before pulling his pajamas down until it pooled down his feet. You redirected your gaze towards the walls behind your lover, your lips in a slight pout as you tried to release a subtle, drawn out sigh to ease your jittering nerves.

“I’m… I’m done.” Gaara murmured, his palms pressed down against the mattress on both sides of his body, as he was now left wearing nothing but black, cotton boxers, a messy hair, and a blushing face.

You smiled nervously at him before taking a sit beside him, the mattress sinking down a little in response to the movement. You reached for the bath towel lying on the bottom of the basin, and with both hands, you squeezed the excess water out, dipping it up and down as you continued to drain it just until it was damp enough to cleanse his body off of the stickiness of his sweat. Gaara rotated himself to face you directly, so that you could have a better access to his body. You grabbed him softly by his wrist, starting by his hands. You gently rubbed both of his palms, before cleaning in between of his fingers. “Your hands are rather pretty, don’t you think? They’re so soft… and slender.”

“I never took notice of that,” Gaara mumbled in between of trying his best to meet your gaze, but failing nevertheless halfway through it. “but, uhm… thank you, Y/N.”

You smiled back at him while you were rubbing the towel from his wrist towards his arm in firm, upwards strokes, doing the same thing with the other one before returning the towel into the basin, allowing it to soak up water for a minute or two before wringing it out once again, the sound of water dripping down the basin sounding rather relaxing as it consorted the quietness of the night perfectly.

“Uchiha… Sasuke, huh?” You asked curiously, as you were now rubbing the towel on top of his left shoulder, gazing intrigued at the huge scar just a few inches below the tail of his collarbone. There was an odd, circular looking-shape at the center, its edges jagged; seemingly appearing to be the epicenter of the attack. It seemed to branch out in different directions, some of it being three to four inches in length, finalized by extensions of smaller, thinner limbs of scar. The color of it was in between oleander and umber, rather a little glossy in appearance considering how old it was.

“Hmm…” Gaara sighed with a slight, amused smile on his face; remembering that he once considered his scar as a memento of the very day he met his first friend; Uzumaki, Naruto.

“What do you think about it?”

“…About what?”

“Your scar.”

You were now scrubbing the damp cloth against his chest, and you couldn’t help but get a little nervous.

Gaara wasn’t overly buff, his muscles were rather lean and well-defined. It wasn’t the type to put an exaggerated strain on the fabric of his clothes, as Gaara himself also opts for a looser approach of garments; so you were rendered surprised when you saw how toned his upper muscles actually were; specifically his shoulders and his arms, which may have probably been a result of the years he had spent carrying that heavy, large gourd on his back.

He really was… beautiful.

Gaara has been noticing how lingering your stare was over his body for the past few minutes, and he would be lying if he said it didn’t make him self-conscious. He tries to diffuse his embarrassment by answering your questions in return. “Well… it does bear some emotional significance to me, since during that day, a lot of what took in place changed my life forever.”

You nodded back at Gaara, knowing exactly what he was talking about since this wasn’t really the first time he told you about what happened during the final round of the chunin exams.

“Appearance-wise…” Gaara sighed in thought, “I guess I myself don’t really mind it that much, but…” Gaara trailed off, as he was now trying to avert his gaze away from you once again. You didn’t want to inquire further, even though the curiosity was killing you. If there’s anything that Gaara solidified in you, that was improving your ever short-lived patience. You smiled at him before dropping the towel once again, squeezing the water out as you hummed.

“Let me clean your face now.” You shifted closer to Gaara, as the side of your knee was now brushing against his. Since you have to lean a little closer to him, you ended up unconsciously placing your warm palm on top of his naked thigh, the abrupt contact eliciting an inward gasp from Gaara; his shock not visible at all to you with how excellent he was in trying to bottle every reaction he has behind his usual, stoic face. What he couldn’t hide though was how his other hand was clenched in a tight fist, his thumb rubbing against his folded index finger in hopes of calming down his nerves.

You pressed a palm against his forehead before flipping back his fringe towards his head, revealing his tattoo. You dabbed the towel softly against his skin, wiping in between. “Your hair’s getting a little long, huh?”

“Should I cut it?” Gaara asked.

“Well, that is up to you to decide. I think you look handsome either way.” You pinched his cheek teasingly before wetting the towel once again. Gaara couldn’t help how racy his heart was at this moment; he was still not used to positive affirmations.

“Close your eyes.” You whispered under your breath. You folded the bath towel around your index and middle finger, as your grip on his thigh got a little tighter as you continued to inch closer towards him. You started around the area surrounding his eyes. “I really think you have gorgeous eyes.”

Gaara, despite being a nervous wreck that he was, found humor in what you just said; as a gentle, chortle of laughter left his mouth. “I have… what…”

“You don’t agree?” You pouted.

Gaara sensed a hint of sadness in your voice, and he could imagine you pouting right at that very second. “It’s just… it’s the first time I have received such compliment. It surprised me, my love.”

“Hmm… well, I think it really strikes a very interesting contrast, you know?” You mumbled, telling him that he can open his eyes now. You smiled even more as you saw the literal proof of your statement just now. “It might sound odd to you, but I think your eyebags bring out your pale, seafoam eyes better. You have such unique-colored eyes.” You smiled genuinely at him.  Gaara tried to avert his eyes from the eye contact you were now trying to initiate, but you wanted him to know this wasn’t small talk; you were genuine about it, every bit of it. “Gaara?”

“…Yes?” Gaara flinched a little when you held him by the side of his cheek as you ushered him to face you once again.

“You’re beautiful.” You whispered quietly as your face started to inch itself closer to his. Gaara shut his eyes closed in response, a soft sigh staying behind his nervously, zipped-tight lips when he felt the softness of your slight pucker against him. “You are so beautiful to me, Gaara.” You grinned against his lips before pressing a lingering peck once again. When you pulled back from the kiss, Gaara’s eyes barely fluttered open; with the evident blush staining his cheeks red. He was rendered speechless of it all, and you were nothing but understanding of it. You grabbed the folded, black shirt behind your back that you’ve fished out from the closet. Gaara was still not speaking, but he nodded in agreement when you told him that you were gonna put his shirt on for him.

“Thank you…” Gaara mumbled under his breath.

“You’re welcome.” You grinned brightly at him before standing up to place the basin at the corner of the room, telling Gaara along the lines of emptying it out tomorrow morning. “Oh, you go change into your pajamas now. I’ll stand here for a bit until you’re done, okay?”

Gaara didn’t answer, but you heard him shift from behind your back. You hummed a tune to yourself as you allowed him to finish getting dressed, adjusting your shirt and shorts as well so that you can now go back to sleep afterwards. When you heard a soft signal from Gaara telling you that he was done, you couldn’t help but giggle at how cute he looked like; all tucked up on his side of the bed. A few minutes after you settled yourself underneath the blanket as well, you decided to change your mind, as you opted to sit instead; with your back pressing against the headboard. You couldn’t help but notice how awfully quiet Gaara was, lying on his side and facing away from you; not moving at all, but his way of breathing tattle-taled that he was still awake.

“Gaara?”

“Hmm?”

“We can cuddle, if you’d like…”

“…”

Gaara shifted in his position, the rustling fabric ringing to your ears as he rotated himself to turn towards you. He propped his palm against the mattress before situating himself closer towards you, earning a surprised reaction from you with his choice of position; before having it transition into a soft, endearing smile.

His cheek was currently resting above your lap, the back of his head pressing against your stomach. He laid on his side, his knees folded so that his legs weren’t going to dangle down the edge of the bed. Gaara felt a little stiff and awkward as he still wasn’t entirely used to being this close and affectionate under his very own initiative - but a part of him… a part of him wanted to reach out towards you at the moment.

He yearned to feel your warmth against him tonight.

Gaara sighed, his thoughts mixing in with the undecisiveness of what kind of words should leave his mouth right now, in contrast to the other side of him wanting to open up, because the last thing he wanted was to get you worried over him. You caught up to his internal plight, his eyes fluttering open gently to meet yours as you combed your fingerpads through his hair, softly cooing to him that he didn’t have to talk about it if he didn’t want to.

Truth be told, the obvious lack of communication skills on his behalf paved way towards difficulties; it had been a root to some of the problems you two have encountered during the earlier onset of your relationship. Of course, you weren’t devoid of the responsibilities over the dilemmas as well, and you are very much aware of that. The innate awareness itself, and the perseverance to let each other know which issues that you two have that render setbacks on the relationship is what made your connection be continuously resilient. On your behalf, you finally understood that you should not take personal offense over his predisposition to stay silent; as it was already an internal struggle that he himself acknowledges, and tries his best to overcome in order to be a better partner for you.

With his heart touched over your reassuring gesture, Gaara reached out for your other hand, which was currently resting above his hip, and held it in front of his face, eyeing it lovingly while he fiddled with your digits, as if he wanted to feel every bleed of comforting warmth that poured out from your skin. Gaara pressed the back of your hand against his lips, giving it a gentle kiss before placing it above his cheek, as his thumb continued to press and massage against your palm to return the favor. “Would it be a bother if I were to ask you to your read your book to me, my love?”

A slight surprise graced your face, as this was the first time Gaara had requested something like that. “Of course not, Gaara.” You smiled softly at him. “Would you like me to get something that you like? Do you have anything in mind?”

“You don’t have to,” Gaara trailed off, followed by a soft, fleeting whisper,  “I just want to hear your voice…”

Your chest fluttered at what you heard, and you could almost feel your stomach dropping in an unfathomable happiness. You reached for the book beside the lamp on your nightstand, opening it on a certain page you were reading into earlier. You cleared your throat, a little nervous, yet also wanting to give it your best shot. Gaara’s eyes were closed once again, a hint of anticipation gracing his peaceful face. “Rest for the meantime, okay?”

And with a slight nod from Gaara, you started to read to him.

"You are beautiful, but you are empty," he went on. "One could not die for you. To be sure, an ordinary passerby would think that my rose looked just like you−− the rose that belongs to me. But in herself alone she is more important than all the hundreds of you other roses: because it is she that I have watered; because it is she that I have put under the glass globe; because it is she that I have sheltered behind the screen; because it is for her that I have killed the caterpillars (except the two or three that we saved to become butterflies); because it is she that I have listened to, when she grumbled, or boasted, or even sometimes when she said nothing. Because she is my rose.”

And he went back to meet the fox.

"Goodbye," he said.

"Goodbye," said the fox. "And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."

"What is essential is invisible to the eye," the little prince repeated, so that he would be sure to remember.

"It is the time you have wasted for your rose that makes your rose so important."

"It is the time I have wasted for my rose−−" said the little prince, so that he would be sure to remember.

"Men have forgotten this truth," said the fox. "But you must not forget it. You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed. You are responsible for your rose..."

"I am responsible for my rose," the little prince repeated, so that he would be sure to remember.

“You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed.” You repeated with a soft smile, your eyes sneaking down a glance at Gaara through the slight gap between the bottom edge of the book and your chest; his fiery, red locks reminding you of the said vibrantly-colored flower in the story. “I am responsible for my rose.”

Before you spoke another line once again, Gaara pressed his palm against the spine of the book, hooking his index and middle finger in between the partition of the pages and pulling it softly away from you. He placed the book on the side before sitting up, the faint sigh that left his mouth fanning air against your lips.

Gaara wanted to thank you, but the shock barred himself to speak even a single syllable right at that moment. He had underestimated how close his face would be, and the short space in betweeen the two of you had robbed him off of his capacity to speak as his eyes unconsciously glanced down at your lips.

He wanted to kiss you.

He wanted to kiss you so much.

…But, he stood frozen before you, his stomach and chest tightening beyond belief as he couldn’t move even an inch to close the gap that was preventing him from feeling your lips against him. He just continued to stare, taking in every line, corner and curve of your soft, glistening pout. Gaara felt his breathing gradually quicken, as he found himself leaning closer and closer to your equally, blushing face.

“Can I kiss you?” Gaara whispered under his breath, his deep, husky voice sending shivers down your spine. “Can I kiss you, my love?” Gaara nudged his face forward towards you, basking in the emanating warmth from your face.

You nodded at him, your heart racing uncontrollably beneath your chest. “You can kiss me, Gaara.”

Gaara pulled back his face away from you, his almost shaking hand holding you by the side of your cheek, a thumb sneaking in soft strokes against your lower lip. His heart fluttered at how supple it was to the touch. He closed his eyes before leaning in towards you once again, that being the last sight before you shut your eyes in return. It wasn’t too long until you felt his lips brush gently against yours; a little hesitant, yet the intimacy of it igniting his urge to feel more. Gaara inched his lips forward with a deeper pressure; as your tender pout continued to bathe his body in a calming sense of warm solace that he couldn’t get enough of.

When he pulled back from the kiss, he immediately dove his face towards the crook of your neck, his arms sliding down on both sides of your body before wrapping them around your waist; ushering you closer for a hug. His breathing was rather erratic, slow and deep. You wrapped your arms around his shoulders, your hand sneaking in a soft, rub across his scalp to ease him down. “Do you want to get some sleep now, love?”

Gaara hummed vaguely in response, his tone lingering with a hint of not wanting to let go of you just yet, coinciding perfectly with the fact that he just hugged you closer towards him.

“…”

“Do you want to kiss me again?”

Gaara buried his face deeper against your warm skin.

“Yes…”

You relaxed your shoulders against the headboard, your breathing almost hitching in anticipation as Gaara pulled his face back from the curve of your neck. His eyes fell down to the side, and just before you thought he was now going to lean forward for an another kiss, Gaara nuzzled his face towards your neck once again, his hug getting a little more tighter this time.

Gaara swallowed the lump in his throat, the beat of his heart getting tighter and deeper, like he could almost feel his chest sink as every pulse got heavier and heavier. He wanted to confess that his nervousness had skyrocketed beyond reach; and he wasn’t sure he could initiate another kiss once more with his weakening resolve. His jittering nerves were getting the best of him, making him mumble soft apologies against your skin as he cuddled closer towards you.

“I can kiss you, instead… if you want to.” You whispered to his ear.

Gaara faced you once again, his eyes glassy and heavy with anticipation.

“D- do you know how to kiss,” You scratched your index finger against your cheek embarrassingly before trying to meet his nervous gaze once again. “with our mouths open? Y- you know, using our… tongue.” The last word seemed to evaporate into thin air, as Gaara’s blush grew a deeper hue. “Don’t worry,” You chuckled nervously as you tried to comfort him. “I- It’s not like I’m an expert on that or anything. I have just… read about it,” You cleared your throat. “from the books I have.”

“I’m sorry… My lack of experience…” Gaara closed his eyes with a sigh.

“Hey,” You placed a hand on his shoulder, giving it a reassuring squeeze. “like I said, I have only read about it. I don’t know how it’ll actually be like in real life, or something…”

“You can… you can practice on me, if you’d like.”

You shot Gaara a surprised look in response to his newfound tone of voice. Despite being a flustered mess of pink and red, there was an evident determination in his face. “I want to learn about it, and I want to be able to… please you. So… if you may, as long as you’re comfortable… let me be your guest.”

You nodded at Gaara, “…Uhm, can I sit on your lap?” You mumbled softly.

With an anxious swallow and a shaky nod, Gaara piled three pillows against the headboard before laying on his back comfortably beside you. You thanked him under your breath before letting a sharp sigh of self-encouragement rip from your chest. Gaara couldn’t help but mentally curse inwardly to himself when he felt your supple body press down on him.

“Nervous?” You giggled, both asking Gaara and yourself to ease the tension just a little bit. “Our first makeout session, huh?”

Gaara gasped when you shifted your position, as inching closer towards him paved way for your crotch to grind briefly against his. He clenched his fists tight in hopes of not getting a hard on and making you uncomfortable.

“I’ll start now.”

You placed both of your hands on both sides of his cheek, giving him a soft, endearing smile of encouragement as you dove your face slowly towards him. Both of your eyes weren’t entirely closed; just enough for it to have a small peek of where both of your lips would land on. You pressed a teasing kiss upon his upper lip; pulling back a bit before brushing another peck against his lower lip this time. With a smile, you planted a full kiss on his soft pout; the pressure gradually increasing as Gaara tried his best to respond bit by bit.

“Open your mouth,” You whispered under your breath. Gaara swallowed nervously before allowing a slight gap part his lips in between. “if it feels too weird, just tell me, okay?”

“Mhm..” Gaara answered.

With your drooping eyes trained on his pucker, you inched your face forward, slowly sneaking in your tongue inside his wet cavern, eliciting a soft whimper from your lover. You ushered your body forward, as you leaned in for a deeper kiss; the teasing exploration of your tongue inside Gaara’s mouth not getting intense any time soon with how tensed he was beneath you.

You pulled back from the kiss with a soft grin on your face.

“So…” You asked shyly, “I- I guess that’s how it goes?”

Gaara hummed in thought, brushing his forearm against face as he was still processing what just happened.

There was rather an awkward silence brewing between the two of you, as Gaara’s gaze was fixed on everything but towards you. He couldn’t help it, his heart felt like it was going to somersault out of his ribcage at that very moment, and the fact that you were so close to him for the very first time was just adding fuel to the fire.

“We should get some rest,” You cooed. “There’s no rush about this, alright?”

“N- no, I-“ Gaara cleared his throat immediately, as his immediate disagreement made him blush even harder. “I can still manage, Y/N.”

“Are you sure?”

Gaara nodded in response.

With a soft smile, you ushered your face closer again, your heart beating faster and faster as you got closer to his haze-lost face. Gaara was surprised when you landed your lips upon the corner of his mouth, his confusion spiralling tighter when you started peppering pecking kisses across his cheeks. “Making out isn’t really just about open-mouthed kisses.” You whispered in between, as your other hand went to stroke the other side of his face adoringly. “There are other sensitive spots in our bodies that we can… please, like… here…” You kissed the spot below his ear, tracing the outer shell of it with slow, teasing kisses; enveloping Gaara in a shudder; which was suddenly reciprocated by your own body in return when you felt his hand travel down your spine as he loosely gripped you in place by your waist. You mapped a trail of kisses downwards once again, his grasp getting briefly tighter as your lips got lower and lower down his neck. You halted for a minute, the sensation he’s been feeling not stopping even for a bit as he still felt stimulated by your hot breathe tickling the skin of his neck. “Can I suckle on your neck?”

Gaara’s face had never felt so hot, the heat was nothing in comparison to even the hottest rays under the sun in Suna that has been reflecting over his face for years.

“Yes...” Gaara mumbled as he pressed his face against the plane of your shoulder.

You brushed a gentle pucker against your chosen spot, peppering it with endearing reassurance. Gaara shuddered once more when he felt your hand ran upwards his spine; a barely audible gasp leaking past his mouth as he felt your fingertips rake through the base of his scalp, your fingers slowly threading through his locks as you tilted his face sidewards with a soft grip. With a whispered warning, you took in the skin of his neck into your mouth, suckling on it softly and kissing it in between before sucking it once again a little harder with every try.

“Ahh, Y/N…”

…

Your heart felt like it missed a beat.

“Did I hear that right?” You whispered breathily to his ear. “Was that a moan?”

Gaara nodded bashfully in response.

“Does it feel good?”

“Yes…” Gaara mumbled under his breath. “Y- you’re so… good at this.”

“It doesn’t stop here just yet.” There was a faint smirk on your face. “There’s so much more you’ve yet to see,” You could feel Gaara’s labored breathing against you, his breathing hitching for worse when you brushed your crotch against his on purpose. “so much more you’ve yet to feel…”

“Y/N…”

“You can touch me too, if you like…” You mumbled suggestively, as you placed your hand on top of his hand that was resting upon your waist, giving it a soft brush of contact before dragging it under your shirt, the warm skin contact of his palm brushing against your bare skin making you bite your lip subtly in response.

You pulled back your face from the curve of his neck, initiating an effort to meet his shaky gaze once again. “Do you want to see me, Gaara?”

And with a nervous nod from your lover, you pulled your shirt over your head.

You reached for the clasp behind your back, unclasping it rather a little shakily as you were also nervous as well. You were kind of thankful that Gaara wasn’t there to notice how long you have been taking off the damned fabric off of you, as he was enveloped in a bashful shell of himself; with his eyes drifting towards the side out of respect.

With a satisfied sigh, you quickly placed your forearm below your chest in support before tossing the bra to the side.

“Y- you can look now…”

Gaara felt like the air he was barely breathing in was now taken away from him completely.

You quickly grabbed the discarded shirt, covering yourself in a frazzled mumble of words.

He was quiet, he was too quiet; his rapid breathing was the only response you were hearing from him and you would be lying if you said that the lack of verbal reaffirmations from him didn’t affect you at all. When Gaara caught up with how he might have made you feel, he quickly snapped back to his senses. Through his crippling bashfulness, he managed to look directly into your eyes.

…And with an adoring smile, Gaara spoke once again.

“You look so beautiful, my love.”

Gaara might be beyond a nervous wreck at this point, but so were you. He couldn’t help but coo soft apologies in reference to this thought, as he felt like all he did was sit back and let you do the work. You reassured him that it wasn’t anything like that, that it’s only natural to be high-strung at that moment since both of you had not done this before.

“Please,” Gaara said, although his voice was soft and endearing, you could still tell the deep-seated determination behind it. “if you’re comfortable with it… please, tell me how I could make you feel good.”

You tossed the shirt to the side once again.

“W- wait, let me… let me reposition myself a little bit, my love.” Gaara mumbled, as the squeeze of his hand placed on your waist got a little firmer in response to the movement. He straightened his back once more, allowing him to have a better posture; with a nod, you started to search for his other hand.

You guided his tad bit shaky hand towards your left breast, a soft sigh exiting your mouth as you felt the warm contact of his palm upon your nakedness. You tried to meet Gaara’s eyes, but a nervous tick sent him down staring intently down his directed hand as the brief eye contact with your heavy-lidded eyes sent shivers down his spine.

“Feel the weight of it first,” You mumbled. “Start slowly, allow your… fingers to wrap around the roundness of it…”

Gaara nodded studiously as he took mental notes deep into his brain. He was starting to get more comfortable around it, as the urge to please you was starting to get ahead of his tensing nerves.

“That’s it… Gradually increase the firmness of your grasp… Ahh.” You moaned softly under your breath, as Gaara’s firmer ministrations started to send jolts of pleasure down the rest of your body. Gaara felt like his breathing halted momentarily, but he knew better this time. You were now starting to feel good under his touch, and he would stop at nothing to ensure he wouldn’t keep you away from feeling that way.

“T- Touch my other breast too…”

With a swallow, Gaara followed through, repeating exactly what he had learned previously.

You tried your best to tone down your voice, but another pleasure-soaked moan ripped from your heaving chest as Gaara continued to play through his ministrations. He watched you in awe, as you stared lustfully down at your breast being toyed with by his very own hands. You knew he was starting to feel good as well, as you started to feel his protuding erection across your clothed slit.

“Wet your thumb with your tongue, Gaara.” The way you moaned his name at the very end of your sentence made him curse inwardly to himself. Gaara extended the tip of his tongue, licking the pad of his thumb diligently until it was appropriately wet. You propped your palms behind your back, placing them above Gaara knees as you arched back a little, allowing him to have a fuller view of your naked, upper body.

A budding, lustful sigh leaked past Gaara’s lips. Somehow, he did have a vague idea in regards to what was going to follow past your previous instruction, so out of instinct, Gaara rested his palm upon the side of your breast, and with a swift motion, Gaara brushed his lubricated thumb against your nipple, eliciting a sweeter moan from you.

“Not only a fast learner; you’re also quite the intuitive one, are you?” You mumbled with a smirk.

Gaara smirked back briefly, before wetting his other thumb to reflect the exact ministration on your other breast.

“Ohh, Gaara.”

Gaara flicked both of his thumbs teasingly, side to side, upon your now stiffening nub. Not depending entirely on your instruction alone anymore, Gaara went through his instinct as he rubbed the pads of his thumb in circular motions against your nipples; dragging out a drawn out, blissful mewl of his name from your lips as you started to unconsciously dig your nails against the skin of his thighs.

“Gaara, that feels so-“

Gaara’s hands went down your waist and without any foreword, he yanked you closer towards him, earning a surprised yelp from you.

“Can… can I put it in my mouth?” Gaara breathed heavily beneath you, his eyes glassy with impending lust. You raked your fingernails softly across both sides of his head, planting shivers all over his body at how stimulating it felt like for his hair to be played with like that.

“I’d love that…”

With a slight, nervous sigh, Gaara stared at your nub, a hint of curiosity pooling on his seafoam eyes. Gaara pressed a soft kiss on your left breast, his lips tiptoeing towards the other one as he kissed it just as endearingly. “You’re so… perfect, Y/N.”

Your chest and your stomach fluttered at his whispered compliments, as he continued to admire every bit of your nakedness.

“You look so beautiful, my love…”

You pressed a soft kiss against his head, as his utmost adoration continued to weaken every fiber of composure within your body… and after the lingering stare between the two of you, Gaara tightened his grip on your waist before parting his wet mouth; enveloping your nipple lovingly into his wet cavern.

Gaara shifted in his position, straightening his back better against the cushion of the pillow as the way he folded his knees towards his body elevated you a little, allowing you to tower over him even more. Gaara took back his mouth only to dive his face forward to your other teat, moaning adoringly against your naked nipple. Gaara used his forefinger and his thumb to stimulate your other nub in circles, eliciting strings of mewls from your mouth as you continued to moan his name selfishly.

“That’s so good, that feels so good,” You groaned above him, a blissful sight of you being thoroughly watched by Gaara as he shot his gaze towards your mewling stance.

Sneaking past your rational thoughts, your hips began to grind itself against his body on its own, as the pleasure of getting your tits suckled and toyed with by your eager lover’s mouth continued to stir your lust for worse. You pulled on Gaara’s hair, tilting his face upwards to face you, and with a swift motion, you initiated an open-mouthed kisses against his soft pout; your body feeling like you’re being enveloped in a feverish sensation as you continued to swirl his tongue around his mouth. “Touch me down there too…” You whispered in between your sloppy kisses as you redirected both of Gaara’s hand to fumble down your lower back, before shoving it under your shorts. The fabric was loose enough to give Gaara an ample room to massage and squeeze your backside, with the relaxing gesture passing a pleasured moan from your mouth to his. Gaara rubbed his palms across the roundness of your ass in circles before giving it a firm squeeze. The way he was touching you at the moment almost overwhelmed him to a certain point.

You shoved Gaara deeper into the pillow fort behind his back, lapping your tongue inside his mouth, eagerly intertwining it with his own; which was guided by his slight nervous attempt to kiss you back just as passionately. You smiled against Gaara, encouraging him with your soft whispers of approval in between your kisses, making his stomach flutter in a mix of slowly diminishing self-consciousness and the brewing desire to please you more.

You pressed your lips harder against him, deepening your sloppy kiss as you raked your nails through his messy, red hair; making Gaara shudder against you. You pressed your body closer against him, pinning and pinning him deeper into headboard. Dragging your lips past the corner of his lips, you planted pecking kisses towards his ear. “I’d like to… try something.” You whispered breathily, the hot air sending shivers down his spine.  

“W- what do you have in mind, my love?” Gaara asked back breathily.

“You need… stimulation down there as well, right?”

Gaara swallowed the lump in his throat with a slight, wide pair of eyes; processing exactly what you were trying to insinuate.

“I want to make you feel good too, Gaara.” You mumbled blushingly. With a coy smile, you started to grind your clothed slit across Gaara’s stiffened arousal; and the way it got harder and harder with every thrust almost sent you towards the edge.

“Do you want me to touch you down there, love?”

Gaara, although a little hesitant due to his embarrassment, nodded through his bashful stance; as he would be lying if he said that the way his cock throbbed harder beneath you wasn’t starting to feel a little touch-starved.

Gaara left a final, parting squeeze on your backside before allowing you to shift your position; as you were now sitting beside him, your palm propped upon his other thigh to support your composure. “Can I?”

Gaara nodded again with a soft agreement leaving his mouth. You hooked your fingers into the waistband of pajamas before peeling it off of him completely, leaving him in nothing but a new, dark gray boxer shorts. Despite being the one who’s pulling the reins at the moment, you were indeed just as anxious as your lover; as both of you tiptoed towards your very first sexual interaction with one another. Nevertheless, the trust that both of you had for each other made it easier to settle in comfortably under one’s touch, and as foreign as it may be, it still felt like there was a strong, innate connection that bounded you and Gaara together; an undeniable bond that envelops you and your lover in a sense of solace despite showing each other’s naked vulnerabilities.

Everything just feels like… it was meant to happen.

With Gaara’s notice, you slowly undressed him from the lone, remaining fabric that was covering his body; making you flinch in surprise when his aroused cock snapped against the spot just below his clothed navel. You couldn’t help but swallow in anticipation. You left his boxer shorts just above his knees; so that if ever he feels the need to cover himself up, he’d have no trouble looking for his clothing. Gaara couldn’t help but smile to himself warmly with your caring gesture.

You rested your palm upon it, making you gasp slightly with the contact. “Wow, it’s… hot. I mean, it’s hot to the touch... I- It’s so warm?” You stuttered confusingly.

“Y- yes… it really is like that.” Gaara stuttered back nervously with a pleasured sigh, as you used the area between your thumb and index finger to rub against his throbbing cock, the silhouette of his hardness pressing a defined outline against the skin of his lower abdomen igniting a fire of arousal in his body as he was continuously reminded of how rigid his dick was under your touch.

“Oh? It’s wet up here…” You mumbled curiously as you brushed your thumb against the tip of his cock, making Gaara moan softly as you rubbed the pad of your finger against it in circles.

“Ahh… i- it happens… when I am aroused.”

Truth be told, the way you were looking at his cock with wonder in your eyes made his cock even harder. How you looked nervous and in awe at the same time as you took in the sight of his stiffened cock made him choke on his own breath.

“Do you play with yourself?”

Gaara’s breathing hitched after hearing your question, seemingly not knowing exactly how to answer it as his shock sent his brain into a haywire. A minute or two later, he seemed to retrieve back a sense of himself, as he was now trying to conjure up an answer to satiate your curiosity.

“Before I met you… I only saw it as a way of releasing… pent up stress. B- but when I got to know you, and my affections for you started to develop more and more, I…” Gaara sighed, as his nerves started to shake him up once again. Deep inside, a possible answer did plague him as to why sharing his deepest thoughts felt so difficult; maybe it was related to the fact that he doesn’t talk about himself as much as other people tend to do. He appreciates hearing other people’s thoughts and feelings, and finds comfort that they trust him to tell him those kind of things, but for him to open up himself was still a little off to him.

It was different with you. Other people would just go off and respect Gaara’s wishes not to talk about himself, and proceed to an almost one-sided conversation with Gaara just nodding in response. You always asked him, you always wanted to know more about him, but in a way that was not laced with any ounce of condescending pressure at all. Your words were calculated enough to encourage him, not to force him. He found comfort in the slight taste of curiosity that you offered to him, and in a way, it had made him much more open in regards to his thoughts and feelings.

Despite of being a nervous wreck at the moment, and as much as how embarrassed he was to admit it to himself, Gaara wanted to continue the conversation. A part of him wanted to selfishly indulge in it. He just needed a little breathing in between to get through it.

“I found myself… thinking about you. T-  thinking a lot about you, actually…” Gaara’s heavy-lidded gaze landed upon his cock being stroked softly against his abdomen, and the way you looked so encouragingly gentle on the contrary of literally playing with his cock at the moment was almost a complex combination of funny yet sexy in his view. “We were still friends at that time, and I… I actually felt guilty about it… because I was starting to have inappropriate thoughts about you, and I just… Y/N…” Gaara moaned your name, no longer able to continue, as the way you were stimulating him at that moment and the added effort of opening up for someone as private as him rendered him speechless.

“Just sit back and relax, love.” You cooed, as you wrapped a full fist around his pulsing dick, pumping your fist up and down as you found yourself leaning your face closer and closer towards it, taking in the sight of the muscle throbbing within the hollow of your fist.

“Gaara?”

“Y- yes?”

“Do you know oral sex?”

Gaara’s eyes were wide in surprise as soon as he heard what seems to be a potential proposition you could be speaking of minutes later. A thought so alienatingly foreign, yet somehow, he had already envisioned you doing it while he jerked off his cock deep into the sleepless night of having nothing but fervent, erotic thoughts about you.

Oral sex, huh?

He had read about it, probably twenty pages into that green book that the sixth Hokage himself; Hatake, Kakashi, gave him during his diplomatic visit in Sunagakure before opening his cabinet and shoving it inside out of panic.

…But through his jittering nerves, he did pick up the book from the shelf to take it home, and the provocative imagery that the book embedded into his innocent mind as he took in sentences of nothing but pure, lustful sex, did make his trousers tight in response.

The deeper he got into the book, the more he didn’t realize that he was already stroking his cock while he laid back on the comfort of his couch, legs spread open, back pressed against the cushion sluggishly as he continued to pump his fist slowly up and down his throbbing dick, moaning your name in between the wet, skin slapping noises that ripped through the silence of his house.

In his mind, you were enthusiastically bobbing your head up and down in between his thighs.

“I am… I am aware of it.”

You gulped in response, as the sight of the tip of his cock starting to glisten more with the erupting lust from his cock ignited a hunger inside you, and with letting your instincts tore through, you wrapped your other fist in his cock, before taking in the one where your thumb is wet his pre-cum, and putting it in your mouth to taste.

“Shit.” Gaara shut his eyes closed in an exasperated arousal.

“Do you want to know how it feels?” You whispered seductively, as you placed your dominant hand once again to pump his cock up and down.

“A- are you comfortable with it?” Gaara asked with concern despite the lustful haze he was starting to get lost in.

“I am,” A small smirk made its way on your lips. “I want to… I want to wrap my mouth around it.”

“Around… what?” Gaara asked, eliciting a surprised reaction not only from you, but from himself as well.

“Around your huge, throbbing cock.” You teased, earning another yet breathy cuss from Gaara.

Just before you were about to take his throbbing member into your mouth, Gaara whispered your name softly to tug on your attention, and you were met by the utter gentleness in his eyes. Gaara tucked a stray hair behind your ear, before allowing his thumb to brush across your cheek. “You don’t have to do it… if you don’t want to… okay? You’re the one who gets to decide what you want to do, my love… You can stop anytime you want to, do not mind me at all.”

Your chest fluttered at his caring reminder. “Thank you, Gaara…” You leaned towards him, as you pressed another peck of kiss upon his lips. “Don’t forget about yourself too, alright? If you want me to stop, tell me right away, okay?”

Gaara nodded with a smile as he thanked you back softly in return. After telling him to lay down and relax, you started to trace a trail of downward kisses from his jaw, and down his sensitive neck. You peppered the plane of his collarbone with gentle pecks in between telling him how perfect he was. Gaara’s flushed face was angled towards the ceiling, his breathing a little loud and laboured as he tried to meet your gaze after telling him to look at you. “There’s nothing to be embarrassed about, love. Every inch of you is more than perfect to me.”

“Y/N…” A shocked, breathy gasp escaped his lips when you flicked the side of your index finger against his nipple.

“Too ticklish?” You asked gently, getting an embarrassed nod from Gaara as he tried to cover half of his face with his forearm. “That’ll be reserved for next time…” You mumbled with a smirk, making Gaara shudder as his thoughts began to run wild.

“I- I didn’t say I didn’t like it… I was just-“ Gaara parted his thighs apart, the ample space it resulted to allowing you to rest down on your breasts and stomach comfortably.  I- uhm, is your position comfortable? Don’t hesitate to tell me if you need a pillow, or if you want me to… uh change my position...” He mumbled caringly. You nodded at him, reassuring your anxious lover that everything’s fine at the moment, there was no need to worry.

“Ready?” You asked with a slight, coy smile on your face, as you eyed the sopping wet tip of his cock while you sluggishly pumped your fist up and down his shaft. With a breathy moan alongside a nod from Gaara, you started to get down on your business.

You extended the tip of your tongue, pressing it flat against the underside; dragging your tongue back and forth before encircling it around the circumference of his pink, sensitive tip. Your fist remained as a slight grip around the base of his cock, with your index finger and thumb wrapping a loose, jerking off motion so that he doesn’t get too overwhelmed right away. As the encircling stimulation of your tongue got lower and lower, that was when you decided to take in the whole, pulsing tip into your wet mouth; earning another breathy gasp of your name from Gaara.

You allowed the soft, innerside of your pout to envelop the tip in a gradually tightening massage, sneaking your tongue in between the slight, back and forth motions of your head. Your attention was caught by the sound of rustling fabric, with your eyes falling down on to the side; only to see Gaara’s knuckles turning white as he placed a tight grip on the sheets in response to the bliss you were serving him. With the free hand that was resting above his thigh at the moment, you reached for his hand, brushing your palm above the back of it before intertwining your fingers in between his digits, pulling it over to rest it above his thighs as you placed your palm flat down above it.

His lower lip gradually dropped down in anticipation, as he locked his eyes upon the sight of your face, slowly taking in his arousal deep into your wet mouth. He gasped even louder when you didn’t bother stopping midway, as you went on to take whole length of his cock deeper and deeper into you, only halting when a loud, gagging sound ripped through the dead silence of the bedroom. You allowed yourself to choke around his dick once, twice, before releasing it with a lustful pop right before Gaara’s eyes, the teasing hint of euphoria of your airway being cut off making you mewl his name dirtily as you tried your best to chase your breath. Gaara’s whole body bathed itself in prortruding goosebumps, a reaction you saw yourself after seeing his thighs covered with the said bodily reaction.

Just before Gaara gets to speak a query of concern, you fixed your hair out of the way before diving his cock right into your mouth once again; as you have now decided to put an end in your teasing touch. You gripped the tip of his cock around the inner swell of your pout in place as you pumped your fist up and down the body of his dick; allowing your face to gradually dip downwards, your mouth slowly taking in more areas to suck and lick on while the rest of what’s yet to follow was still stimulated by the hollow of your fist.

“Y/N… w-what are you doing… ahh…” Gaara moaned helplessly before you as the increasing bliss continued to send jolts of euphoria down the rest of his body. “That feels… so good…” He felt so embarrassed to be mewling like this, but what you were doing with him at the moment, toying on his cock expertly just had him crumbling apart desperately under your touch. Gaara hastily sat up from having his back leaning against the pillows, with his palms now propped flat against the mattress on opposites sides of his body in hopes of supporting his diminishing composure. He shut his eyes closed, but a part of him wanted to take a peek on the real life counterpart itself of what he has been lewdly jerking off to for months. There were so many aspects of such acts that no amount of heavily-vivid imagination could ever come close, details that he took in carefully and mindfully.

Apart from the mind-wrecking sensation itself of having his cock be sucked off by his beloved, the consorting sounds it bears alongside with aroused him beyond anything. The way you breathed out helplessly as you release his cock with a pop, looking up to him with gently-innocent, yet ironically lustful eyes as if you were silently asking for further reaffirmation to settle down that you were making him feel good just drives him towards the edge. The sound of spit, rub, slurp and choke; the raw sound of wet-slapping skin as you jerked his rock hard cock before your flushed, glistening face, only to swallow his dick whole once again robbed him off of the capacity to communicate.

“I don’t think I-“ An uncontrolled moan interjected at his crippling ability to speak, as the established pace of your head bobbing up and down his sopping wet member started to tighten his lower abdomen in a familiar, addicting sensation. This was it, this was the feeling that he finds himself losing even the slightest ounce of rational thought. He folded up his thigh while the other remain rested upon the mattress. You frantically searched for his hand, placing it above your head and instructing him to lock his fingers in your hair. Gaara didn’t want to inflict pain on you, so he wrapped a loose fist of your locks, his fingerpads sneaking in to rub against your scalp in hopes of returning the smallest amount of favor in contrast to what you were doing with his cock at the moment.

He finds himself shuddering even more, as the wet, gulping sounds of your mouth coming down on his dick up and down continued to get louder and desperate with every down and upwards thrust. With a nervous swallow, Gaara tried to look down at you; and a barely audible cuss left his salivating mouth.

The increasing knot of impending orgasm in Gaara’s lower abdomen started to get tighter and tighter; his body jerking out of shock when you slyly brushed a thumb across his nipple once again. You stared at him back, giving him a sly wink before focusing on the task at hand once again. As you felt your jaw starting to get sore, you pulled his cock out of your mouth; jerking him off with your now, sloppy wet fist as you pressed his now overly sensitive tip against your tongue. Gaara’s chest was now heaving up and down desperately, his face angled towards the ceiling as his mouth gaped in utter, pure bliss. He looked back at you once again, and despite his blurring, lusftul gaze being blocked by strays of his messy, red hair, he saw how you arched your back, with your body now bending over erotically before his feasting eyes; and before any word of warning could have ever leave his panting mouth, you felt the tip of his cock pulse uncontrollably against your wet tongue; only to be followed by streaks of hot, thick cum jolting out of his convulsing arousal.

Your eyes widened in shock, as you look up towards Gaara whose face was contorted in what seemed to be nothing but raw and primal look of euphoria upon his flushed, open-mouthed face; an interjecting moan of bliss ripped from his heaving, sweating chest as his body convulsed against you. Gaara tried to pull away out of embarrassment, and the said gesture had only resulted to his what remains of his cum being milked down by his drawn out throbbing orgasm to paint a streak across your cheek; making you widen your eyes even more as Gaara continued to cum all over your face and your hair. Out of an instinctive flight response, Gaara quickly grabbed the pillow behind him, covered his face with it, and slumped down his back on the mattress.

As surprised as you were; the blur of Gaara’s muffled curses and heavy breathing against the pillow started to ring clearer towards your ears; his bashful response making you chuckle in return. You squeezed yourself beside Gaara, sneaking your hand underneath the pillow he had been covering himself up before hugging him from his side; your thigh placed above his as you relaxed your face against the supple pillow. “Are you okay?”

“…”

Gaara couldn’t still bring himself to talk, but with a soft, “I’ll be back.” He placed the pillow gently beneath your thigh in replacement of his as he stood up from the bed, yanking his boxer shorts upwards before confusingly walking outside the room. You wanted to ask him if he was okay, but he was so panickingly quick that even before you get to a speak a single syllable, he has already bolted outside the door.

“So that’s what it tasted like…” You thought to yourself, as a feverish flush painted your cheeks warm; your stomach coiling bashfully as your buried your face deep into the pillow. You weren’t going to lie, giving Gaara his very first blowjob was something you have been thinking about before. The thought itself alone was fervently erotic, but the literal act itself that just took place earlier was beyond anything your mind could have ever muster. How he moaned your name breathily as you slurped his cock into your mouth sent you addiciting shivers down your spine.

You snaked a palm down your stomach, your curious fingers inching and inching closer towards your arousal; you sneaked your digits underneath the constricting fabric of your shorts and your underwear; and you cussed inwardly as your fingerpads were met by how sopping wet your slick was. You hooked your thumbs into the waistband of your shorts before lifting your ass from the mattress and swiftly discarding the said article of clothing off of you and tossing it on the floor.

Fuck, sucking your lover’s cock was indeed arousing.

Just after cleaning your face off of Gaara’s cum with your discarded shirt, Gaara entered the bedroom once again, both his hands busy as he carried a glass of water and a dessert plate on the other hand… containing a slice of… cake?

Gaara awkwardly tiptoed his way towards the bed. He placed the glass and the plate on top of the nightstand, his gaze and smile endearing yet still so… shaky. A soft creak of the bed responded as he sat on the edge of the mattress, facing you directly while you were now leaning your back against the headboard, your upper naked body covered up by the soft, fluffy pillow. Gaara placed his palm on top of your hand that was resting on your lap, his thumb giving an encircling rub. "I… uhm… I got you something.” Gaara mumbled under his breath. “I- I know that the taste of semen isn’t entirely too pleasing as I have tasted mine b- before-“ He almost choked on the last word of his sentence as he realized what he just said, making him whisper an almost inaudible “what am I saying?” to himself as he rubbed both of palms against his cheeks out of frustration.

Choosing not to inquire further to spare him the additional embarrassment, you chuckled to yourself as you reached out for the glass of water, drinking it halfway through before returning it on top of the nightstand once again; letting a satisfied sigh rip from your chest after the chill rehydration. “Thank you so much, Gaara. This was very nice of you.”

You leaned your body towards the nightstand, allowing Gaara to see the naked, graceful curve of your back as you unintentionally bent over before him, as you only wanted to have a bite or two of the cake; the decadence yet the muted sweetness of it rolling nicely upon your tongue. You sliced the fork into the dessert, placing a cupping palm below it in case it falls as you shuffled your way through the bed; facing Gaara once again.

“Have a bite, too.” You smiled softly at him.

Gaara’s blush grew a deeper hue, his eyes falling down to the side as he opened his mouth slightly to take in the slice of cake into his mouth. He chewed slowly as you watched him curiously while you took another sip of water before handing it to him so he could cleanse his palate as well; earning a soft worded gratitude from him.

You folded your thighs towards your chest, leaning your chin down against your forearms that was resting above your knees as you continued to gaze at him, and Gaara couldn’t help but be even more fidgety under your stare. “Gaara?”

“Hmm?”

“Are you okay?”

Gaara sighed before nodding slowly in response. “Yes… yes, I am. I’m really sorry… I’m just flustered.”

“Really? Why?” You inquired gently.

“It’s… it’s my first time. A- and I know that it’s your first time too… It’s just… it felt so good.” Gaara trailed off, as he gathered his scrambled thoughts with a sigh. “I’m sorry, I’m just worried that I’m going to end up doing something wrong, or in my case at the moment… I already did something wrong… I’m really sorry, my love.”

“Gaara…”

This time, you held his hand, tugging on his attention as his quivering stare tried to meet your eyes once again. Your eyes were full of warmth, a very inviting sense of care that he couldn’t help but be drawn to; and before he even realizes it, he has already pressed a soft kiss against your forehead. He closed his eyes, savoring the emotions he was bathing himself as he continued to display such adoring act that you utmostly deserved.  

“There’s nothing you should be saying sorry for.” You held his hand, brushing soft strokes against it before leaning your face closer to kiss it gently. “Also, please remember that we’re not in a hurry. We can always take our time.”

Gaara nodded with a sigh, his eyes expressing what seem to be a tad bit of loneliness and disappointment in himself.

“Do you want to talk about it?” You whispered carefully, following  up with another statement in order to reduce the pressure on your lover. “If you don’t want to, that would be fine as well… we can just cuddle and sleep. If you do need some space to think about it, I wouldn’t mind that, too. Anything you choose to do would be fine, okay? Anything, love.”

Gaara’s eyes softened, his heart and stomach warming and tightening up in a coil as he couldn’t help but feel so vulnerably comfortable with you.

Your eyes widened out of curiosity when you saw Gaara peel his shirt off of his body, only to put it over your head as he gently reached out for each of your hand to assist it towards the armholes of the clothing. “Thought you might start feeling cold…” Gaara mumbled with a soft smile on his face as he continued to gaze at you with a pair of adoring eyes.

“But now… you’ll feel cold.” You poked his naked, toned chest teasingly.

“Not entirely so.” Gaara chuckled. “Because I know you’ll be here all night to keep me warm.” He mumbled with a genuine smile on his face before reaching out for the blanket on the bedroom floor and covering himself from the back before tackling you down on the mattress playfully as both you giggled under the fabric.

“I’ll keep you warm for the rest of my life,” You whispered softly as you wrapped your arms around his shoulders before pressing a kiss on top of his head; his face nestled in between your now clothed breasts. Gaara eyes widened after hearing such words, and with the overpouring gentleness and warmth that you continue to generously offer to him, he couldn’t help but close his eyes to allow himself to bask it in; in ardent hopes that your affections was something he truly deserved. To be adored and cared for in ways that he had given up on a long time ago as means of atonement, he was still far from being forgiving of himself at the moment; but your adoring words, your caring gestures had allowed him to warm up to such idea bit by bit.

You made him feel that he was worth loving after all; and in a complex, innate response that he somehow ends up feeling; he begins to love himself a little more than he’s been robbing himself of for so long.

Every ounce of emotions that he has tried to repress for so long started to gush through his system; and it placed him in a spiralling haywire of everything else in a blur in exception of you.

You.

You…

“I love you.” He thought to himself as his hands started to travel underneath your shirt, his lips peppering soft, pecking kisses towards your neck as he mirrored it himself how you shuddered beneath him when you traced the length of his naked spine upwards to his nape with soft scratch of your nails. “I love you.” The words never left his mouth as he continued to spoke it inwardly, all alone in himself to hear such confessions, “I love you, Y/N. I love you so much it almost hurts to say it.”

With his eyes heavy and his breathing labored, Gaara brushed his lips teasingly against your wet pucker; taking his time slowly as traced the outline of your lower lip with pecking kisses. With a soft sigh, Gaara closed his eyes gently as he leaned his face forward. He suckled on your lower lip; and with a gentle bite that parted your mouth ever so slightly, Gaara inserted his tongue inside your mouth.

Oh, how he fought through his nerves.

Gaara placed his thumb and forefinger above your chin, his other hand resting above the side of your face. Gaara halted the kiss for a second, his heavy-lidded gaze taking in the sight of you before shoving himself towards you once again. You felt his thumb stroke your cheek softly as his middle and ring finger brushed gently against the skin of your ear; the endearing gesturing weakening your composure even more as you found yourself succumbing to his affectionate kiss. His tongue unraveled the depths of your mouth with a slow, loving pace; striking an interesting contrast, as despite his hunger for you, Gaara couldn’t help but still find himself savoring you as if he would never, ever run out of all the time in this world.

The longer his kiss dragged on, the more he realized that it was as if the gentle taste of your wet mouth imprinted a soul-numbing addiction into him. And if you were to directly ask Gaara about it, he knew damn well that beyond the red face and the shaky effort to avoid your penetrating gaze, he’s just too honest to deny that he’s beyond smitten at this point, and the lone thought that he only he could conjure right at this moment is you, and the fact that both of you were basically making out with each other inside his bedroom.

With a firm suck on your tongue, Gaara released you from his fervent, smothering kiss; a smile cracking on his lips as he pressed his forehead against you.

“Am I deemed to be lacking in your standards, or do I somehow… pass just enough?” Gaara chuckled.

“Don’t sell yourself too short now.” You giggled back, sneaking in a pinch on his cheek to tease him. “You’re an amazing kisser. You’re already beyond skilled, to be honest.”

“Really?” Gaara’s cheeks were now rose-colored in bashfulness, as your compliments never failed to make his heart race.

You nodded at him encouragingly, embedding a deeper smile on his lips.

“I love you.” You whispered lovingly to him.

Gaara shut his eyes closed as he felt his chest tightened.        

“Don’t say it again, not now; not yet.” He pleaded silently to himself.

It scares him.

It scares him so much at how weak feels like, at how needy he was of your love.

It scares him, it scares him so much.

“Please, not now.”

“I love you, Gaara,” You mumbled with the most endearing smile he had seen in the entirety of his life.

Gaara shut his eyes closed, squinting his lids tighter and tighter in hopes of cutting off the impending tears that was starting to swell in both corners of his eyes. His eyes were now glassy and heavy, as he started to smother needy, pecking kisses all over your face, down the path of your jaw; licking and suckling on the skin of your neck in shallow and deeper intervals; Gaara traced a linear path down the middle of your clothed breasts; the thin fabric of his shirt allowing a soft silhouette of your naked body underneath to show through.

Gaara threw the blanket off of his body before placing a loose grip on both sides of your hips, his thumbs sneaking a caressing touch on your skin as he began to plant kisses upon your clothed teat; the continuous surge of shudders painting the rest of your body as you arched your back a little with a soft moan when Gaara took in your fabric-covert nipple; suckling on it with a gradual increase of pressure; his face delayed yet in synonymous motion with how the tip of his tongue rolled over the nub in circles. He spat on the fabric, allowing you to feel the cold wetness of his saliva to peer through the threads. Gaara snaked his other hand upwards he placed a soft grasp above your other teat, flicking the side of his middle finger against the other nipple before wrapping it around with his index finger and thumb; encircling and tugging on it occasionally as your stiffened peak began to protrude through the fabric of his shirt.

As his hands went lower once again, hooking his thumb into the waistband of your underwear, he halted momentarily; before trying to meet your equally heavy-lidded gaze; “Can I?” He whispered ever so softly. You nodded in agreement; arching your back upwards as he began to pull away the sole, remaining fabric covering your bare body.

As bold as you may seem to be most of the time, having been seen naked by your lover for the first time had you conscious as well; as you tried to hide your worsening, flushed face underneath the cover of your forearms. As starstrucked as Gaara may be; he knew better now than to stay graveyard-silent this time; as worded expressions of adoration was something essential in establishing comfort during such acts of intimacy. With both hands, Gaara brushed his palms slowly underneath your thighs, stroking it upwards until he gripped you in place by the back of your knees. He pressed soft kisses against it, whispering stuttered, affirmations with a soft, breathy voice.

Gaara leaned downwards to brush a caressing touch against your jaw; smiling ever so gently at your adorable flusteredness. You felt him shuffle above you, and you flinched in surprise when you felt his hot breath fan against the side of your neck; as he was now laying on his side next to you.

“I figured… I should be closer towards you,” Gaara whispered into your ear. “So that you can tell me right away how you want my fingers to please you.” He mumbled breathily as he snaked his arm underneath the back of your head as means of support. “If you’ll allow me, please let me return the favor and make you feel good this time.”

You reached out for his hand that was resting above your thigh, placing it in between of your faces before giving it a soft kiss. You held his index and middle finger, a soft gasp escaping his lips as he watched you take his digits into your mouth; suckling on it with your eyes closed before fluttering them open once again, your eyes darting below you as you guided his hands towards the sopping arousal between your legs.

Gaara watched his guided digits carefully; as you parted his index and middle finger apart, before directing it to press softly up and down the outer lips of your lubricated slit. Gaara felt your arousal tense up slowly underneath his touch. You held his hand by the back of it before shyly commanding his fingers to brush briefly against the sopping center, allowing his fingerpads to trace a linear path upwards until it halted against your now, pulsing nub.

“T- that’s called the clitoris,” You mumbled shyly against him. “Penetrative foreplay such as fingering, or the penetrative act of sex itself,” You cleared your throat, “I- I guess it feels good… but the easiest way to make me cum is by rubbing my clit.” Your breathing went erratic when Gaara started to slowly rub against it under his own initiative. “It could be like… what I taught you earlier. Increase the pressure and pace gradually, do intervals with light and… ahh…” You clenched your thighs together slightly as Gaara’s skillful application of what he’s learning at the moment began to crumble you apart bit by bit. “a- and firm touches. The surrounding area might be less sensitive, but teasing in between would feel just as good,”

“Have you tried doing it on your own?” Gaara whispered, his voice sultry and deep.

“Y- yes…” You gasped softly under his touch.  “A lot…”

A grunt escaped his lips as his stomach coiled tight with the lewd imagery of you teasing your pussy with your own fingers.“C- can I kiss you?”

“Yes…” You moaned softly as he steadied his rounded, rubbing pace against your arousal, alternating between pressing up and down the sides before tracing the inner of your slick itself, only to massage your clit once again. “I- I would love that. You can also play with my breasts, if you’d like…”

Gaara shifted your body a little bit by snaking his forearm behind your upper back, propping his elbow against the mattress before elevating your body by your shoulders as you ended up inching your face closer towards his; with your panting breath now fanning directly across his lips. After a soft, fleeting kiss against your lips, Gaara whispered breathily into your ear, “Lift up your shirt for me, angel.”

You shuddered in response, biting your lips shyly as you hooked your index and middle finger into the hem of the shirt before pulling on it upwards, revealing your naked teats before his eyes. “Hold your breast closer to my mouth…” Gaara mumbled against your ear before leaning his face downwards, snuggling in the side of his face against the suppleness of your breasts before taking in the perk nipple into his hot, wet mouth; eliciting a jolt out of your quivering body. You couldn’t help but cuss under your breath with how erotic it was to the sight to hold your breast for him as he suckled on it greedily.

Everything was starting to feel like you were drowning in a euphoric trance; Gaara, as nervous as he was, was more than willing to compensate for his lack of experience by being an excellent, attentive lover, an enthusiastic one at that; with how he was working your body inside out as if he was desperate to deliver you the utmost euphoria. Every timbre of moan, gasp, a soft mewl or a lustful groan of his name in response to what he was doing, he takes in all of it calculatingly. His pace and pressure has been steady up to this point, his index and middle finger as it being continuously bathed lasciviously by your juices while he rubbed circles against your pulsing clit allowed him to start hearing soft, wet schlick noises, and how your cunt seemed get wetter and wetter by the time he started to toy with your nipples simultaneously aroused him beyond belief.

He wasn’t one for dirty talk, but at least not yet at the moment, but his genuine curiosity at how your body ticks and reacts was something he couldn’t help but wonder about.

“You’re so… wet…”

You couldn’t help but moan under his ministrations; half of it being your honest response with what he just said. “B-because… what you’re doing… it feels so good.” Your body jolted upwards when he used the hand that was holding you by your shoulders to sneak in a teasing, left-to-right flick of his index finger against your other nipple. “Gaara…”

Gaara built up his suckling on your hardened nipple before releasing it in a slow, erotic pop. “Yes, my love?”

“I want you to…” You moaned breathlessly before him as you started to rub your palm against the back of his hand once again. “I want you to finger me…”

Gaara’s breathing hitched in response, the hot air leaking past his panting, open mouth sending shivers down your spine as it continued to fan against your bare neck as he looked up to you. “How would you like me to do it?”

“Insert it slowly, just one finger at first.”

“Do you want me to proceed after every instruction, or would you like me to hear everything first-“

“Gaara.” You chuckled against him, pressing the tips of your index and middle finger to loosen the wrinkle on his forehead as his face started to get serious once again.

“I’m sorry,” He mumbled. “I’m just… worried that I might hurt you.”

“Well… slight discomfort might be something that should be expected, since… it is our first time after all… But, I mean…” You pulled your hand away from guiding his for a brief moment, tucking in a stray of hair behind his ear before pressing a gentle kiss against his forehead. “What I just want to say is, I trust you; I trust you a lot. I know that you will always take care of me no matter what.”

Gaara pouted slightly in response, as he couldn’t help but be so calm and comforted with how you talk to him like that. He just feels so at ease and loved throughout the whole process, at how understanding you were of him. “Tell me right away if you want me to stop, okay?”

You nodded at him with a smile. “I will, don’t worry.”

And with a reassuring nod from both of you at the same time, Gaara rubbed fleeting circles against your nub before slowly slipping in his index finger into your wet slick, sliding it inch by inch, with Gaara halting right at the middle. “You can go deeper.” You chuckled. Gaara followed your instruction, earning a soft sigh from you when it finally entered you fully.

“It’s so… soft.” Gaara mumbled, his voice laced with a hint of wandering curiosity.

“Yeah…” You whispered back with a sigh. “You can explore it, just be gentle and slow on making your way around.”

“Does it hurt?”

“Not really… since I’m very turned on at the moment…” You whispered shyly.  

“Oh.” Gaara chuckled, his voice low and deep. A slight ‘o’ shaped your pucker as a blissful mewl escaped it when Gaara started to trace gentle, stirring motions inside your pussy, having it in intervals as he also stroked the upper walls of your cunt. Gaara took your response as a positive affirmation, making him a little more confident this time.

“S- slip in… another finger…” You mewled.

Gaara looked up to you, his face mixing in both parts of hesitance and impending lust. “Are you sure?” He whispered.

You nodded at him before another yet breathy groan left your panting mouth, as he begun to slowly insert his middle finger into you; the gradual stretch that followed becoming much more evident to feel. A whispered cuss followed through when you felt Gaara grind his clothed cock slightly against your thigh, as it started to get rock hard once again.

You ran your fingers down his chest, snaking down your palm against the plane of his stomach, tracing it downwards until you felt the waistband of his boxer shorts against your fingertips. With a sly smirk, you began rubbing your palm across his boxer shorts; feeling in the silhouette of his hardening arousal protrude through the fabric, making Gaara groan in response.

“Do this,” You gestured a sluggish ‘come hither’ movement with your fingers before returning it on top of Gaara’s boxer shorts. You moaned against him when he started to follow through, going for the gesture once, twice and thrice; retreating it out to rub teasingly against your clit before doing it again and again.

Schlick.

Schlick.

Schlick.

Even Gaara’s knuckles were soaking wet at this point, and he couldn’t help but have the curiosity in regards to how the taste of your pussy would roll on his tongue if he were to insert his fingers into his mouth. Gaara retreated his fingers, inching it closer to his face; parting his index and middle finger apart to see how far would the string of your wetness stretch out. In a lusftful daze, Gaara shoved his fingers into his mouth, suckling on it fervently; licking even the smallest trace of your arousal off of his digits.

Fuck, you taste so good.

Gaara raked his fingernails through the base of your scalp with his other hand, inhaling the scent of your locks as he continued to swallow in the sound of your sopping wet cunt being fingered and rubbed by his very own fingers. A gasp escaped his lips as he felt your palm crawl down underneath his boxers, and before he could muster a mewl of your name, you were already palming the pulsing body of his cock.

“Gaara…” You mewled desperately, making him shudder in response as he kept drowning deeper in the sweet sound of your moans. “I think I’m cumming, fuck…” You darted your eyes down, your heavy-lidded gaze taking in the erotic sight of his fingers entering and disappearing back and forth inside your cunt. The pleasure was beginning to get the best of you, and it wasn’t long until it began to overtake your sense of control over your own body; as your bliss-soaked cries began to get louder and louder to consort the increasing rock of your hips, almost riding against the curved digits that was plunging inside and out of your now tightening pussy. You took your hand from Gaara’s cock, sneaking in a desperate, circular strokes against your clit to coincide with his steadied fingering, “I’m cumming, Gaara! I’m-“  and with a loud, selfish scream of your lover’s name, you bucked your hips upwards; allowing your thighs to writhe and shake as you rode the heights of your orgasm in reckless abandon, whimpering Gaara’s name again and again until you could no longer muster anything incomprehensible. “Yes, yes… ahh…” You slapped your palm against your mouth, muffling out the continous drip of cries until it almost felt like you were choking on your unspoken euphoria as the length of your orgasm continued to render your body weak and shaking.

Fuck.

That felt so good…

“Y/N…”

Gaara was in shock.

His face might not reflect it at the moment, but he was genuinely stupefied by the intensity of it.

“Shit,” You cussed breathily as you tried your best to stablize your labored breathing. “Shit… that was amazing.” There was a hint of utter surprise in your remark as well, and it wasn’t long until you slapped your palms against your flushed cheeks as you began to laugh out of shock as well. “Fuck, did that just happen?”

Gaara sighed loudly as he slumped his back against the mattress, the realization hitting him just as hard as well like a punch on the gut. “Fuck.”

“What did you just-“ The way he cussed for the very first time made you completely erupt in laughter. You clutched your stomach as a slight hint of pain began to stir it, but when you tilted your head towards his face and you met Gaara’s gaze once again, you laughed even harder this time. You grabbed his arm by the wrist as you rested your weight on the side of your body, shifting your position and making him hug you from behind since your back was starting to feel a little sore and heavy. “I can’t believe you just said fuck.”

Gaara chuckled back as he playfully buried his face into the crook of your neck, eliciting a tickled reflex from you. He responded back by nuzzling his face deeper into the curve of it, nudging it left to right until both of you were giggling childishly together. “I loved it…” He whispered softly against the skin of your neck as he hugged you closer towards his body. The way his labored breathing started to calm down as you felt the heaving of his chest subside against your back relaxed you.

“You loved what?” You mumbled back as you entangled your fingers in between his digits, basking in the warmth and suppleness of his palm. You held his hand in front of your face, taking the sight of it with a loving smile as you closed your eyes before pressing a soft peck upon the back of it.

“The way… the way you get so into it…” Gaara retreated his hand briefly to tuck your hair behind your ear and to gently brush the remaining scattered mane away from your neck so that his face was directly pressing against your skin. He returned his hand back to your grip, entangling his fingers with yours on his own. You felt his chin rest upon the plane of your shoulders; his hot breath tickling your ear as he leaned even closer towards you. “Like you can’t get enough of it, like you want so much more… from me…”

“Gaara…” Your voice almost disappeared into thin air as a sigh tore through your sentence; the familiar warmth spreading across your cheeks as you began to feel something stiff pressing against your tailbone. An almost inaudible yelp escaped your lips as he pulled you even closer to him; his embrace getting tighter and tighter by the minute as his breathing began to function erratically once again.

Gaara’s body felt like it was being bathed in the warmth of a calm, burning flame. He felt so hot, so bothered, yet somehow the rising temperature seeps into his skin like a slow, gentle embrace. His chest and throat was beginning to feel dry and constricted, worsening his desperation to breathe. He could feel the deepening timbre of his heartbeat, and he would by lying if he said that he wasn’t terrified. This was all so new… so foreign, to him.  Gaara didn’t know exactly how to respond to it; his rational thinking process wasn’t in tact, leaving him with nothing but a jumble of words and phrases that barely scratched the surface of how he really felt at that moment.

Underneath the shallows of his confusion, he somehow recognized that there was an epiphany beneath it all; its edges jagged and blurry, all because he tries so desperately to see his emotions through a concise, logical standpoint; the one he can easily explain, the one he can support with facts. He has a hard time allowing himself to feel something he can’t comprehend because it feels like it cripples his sense of control; and that alone scares him.

But that wasn’t what he needed, that wasn’t the one who’s going to help him at all.

He was now dealing with a language that his own body speaks for itself; a language that wouldn’t drip perfectly-worded explanations from the tip of his tongue.

He just needs… to feel it as it is.

Every last bit of it.

“I want it bare against me…” You whispered under your breath. Your remark earned an almost exasperated groan from your lover; the build-up of excitement coiling his stomach in an increasing grip making him bury his face deep into your shoulder. A gasp tore through your shallow breathing as you felt the familiar warmth of his cock embedding a girthy silhouette against your lower back.

“Ahh…” He moaned into your ear; the ring of pleasure bathing the timbre of his voice sending mutual shivers on yours and his own spine. He didn’t understand why, but it seemed like allowing himself to verbalize his carnal desires outspokenly somehow increased his sense of euphoria. The way that his bare cock grinded against the supple curve of your tailbone sent him towards the edge. “Y/N…”

You shifted your body upwards and deepened the curve of your back; offering your ass as an enthusiastic opportunity for luscious friction reserved for his private gratification. You stretched your hand behind you, your fingers tiptoeing lines all over his skin before planting a firm grip above his toned ass, giving it a sluggish, relaxing squeeze before resting your grasp above his hipbone as you helped him thrust his body forward. A deeper flush graced his face, the slight shock of having his backside squeezed and the fact that he moaned in response flustering him even more.

“Gaara?” You bit your lip, as you could you feel your heat starting to desire more and more.

“Y- yes…?” Gaara halted the grinding of his hips.

“Would you like to grind it against… me?”

“B- but I already… am…” The realization that chased his scrambled thoughts afterwards had hit him like a whiplash. “Oh…”

“Y- you don’t have to do it if you don’t want to, of course.” You quickly followed up as you felt him slightly tense up behind you. You placed his hand in front of your face before giving it comforting, repeated pecks.

“Y/N…” Gaara mumbled breathily against you. “I want it, too…”

“Gaara…”

“Tell me…” Gaara swallowed the lump in his throat as his mouth began to feel drier. “Tell me… where you want me to grind against… I- I need to know that I did not misunderstand anything.”

If it even was possible, the warmth in your cheeks continued to burn even more.

“Uhm… g- grind it…” The scalding heat enveloping the rest of your body was starting to make you feel dizzy. “Against my pussy…”

“Shit.” He cussed breathlessly, his barely audible voiced laced down with a mix of panic and arousal.

The way your heartbeat sank your chest deeper in every pulse paralleled his own bodily reaction; yours and his own breathing loud and labored. A subtle yelp of anticipation left your panting mouth when you felt his palm run a linear path down behind your thigh; halting upon contact against the back of your knee before parting your thighs apart; assisting you to plant your foot behind his body. You couldn’t help but blush even harder at the lewd nature of your disposition.

…And the fact that you loved it like that made it even worse.

“A- are you sure that you really want to do this?” Gaara cooed into your ear.

You hooked your thumb into the waistband of his boxer shorts to tug it down even lower.

“I am, Gaara…”

You darted your gaze down below, a bite on your lip tearing through your moan as you felt the stiff silhouette of Gaara’s cock hovered in between your sopping folds. You rested your back against Gaara’s body, tilting your face towards him to meet his gaze; with a slight nod from you, Gaara took a deep breath before thrusting his hips upwards.

Ever so slow… and almost unbearably shallow.

“Ohh…” You mewled as the wet, spongy tip of his cock brushed briefly against your still, sensitive clit.

I guess it could be said that there was almost a certain feel of fullness to it. His cautious pace allowed you to take a fleeting sip of what is yet to be unraveled and, it’s doing nothing but make you beg for more. “Grind it deeper, Gaara… Please…”

Gaara’s face was in a continuous wince of bliss; as he couldn’t help but almost salivate pantingly in response to the overwhelming affection and sensation that he was currently taking in all for himself alone. He could feel himself shudder in pleasure as you started to get dripping wet once again; making it easier for his dick to grind up and down your soaking slit. The starting point of his thrust would begin at the sensitive area just below the actual entrance of your slick before having his veined, thick-girthed cock separate the folds of your cunt ever so deliciously. The suppleness of your labia clung onto his stiffened member with a bare hint of grip as he continued to rub it lewdly against you. Gaara planted kiss upon the roundness of your shoulder before resting his forefinger and middle finger on top of opposite sides of your folds before spreading them apart, having your throbbing clit further out exposed; making it much more easier for the tip of his cock to grind against your nub.

Again and again.

“Fuck…” You shut your eyes tight before fluttering them open once again, groaning at the sight of the pink tip of his stiffness peaking through your groin.

“I- I’m a my limit, Y/N…” Gaara whispered weakly, his breathing rendered erratic for worse. “I think I’m going to cum again…”

You did notice that his thrusts were getting sloppier and shaky, but you wanted to keep the momentum and steadiness in tact so that your lover gets the best out of his impending orgasm. “L- Lay down… on your back…”

With a flushed face and a gasping mouth, Gaara nudged his face affectionately against your cheek before pulling the pillows closer to him. He laid on his back, a sense of nervousness and anticipation peeking through his heavy lidded gaze. You tugged on the fabric of his boxer shorts before peeling them all the way down. You planted your knees down against the mattress, straddling either side of his hips. The hem of his shirt hung way too low on your body, so you decided to pull the fabric over your head and set it aside. Gaara couldn’t help but sigh exasperatedly at such erotic sight of his fully naked beloved sitting on top of him. You leaned your body forward, placing your palm on top of the other as you rested it above his upper abdomen; the position of your arms rendering your tits squeezed together. “Y- you’re about to cum soon, right?”

“Y- yes, my love…” Gaara groaned as he began to feel your sopping flesh grind against him once again. The abundance of your juices rendered his groin and scarlet pubic hair to be glistening wet. You rocked your hips a little farther behind, allowing your cunt to not only stroke his pulsing cock, but his balls as well. A loud, uncontrolled moan tore through Gaara’s quiet cries when you began to thrust forward, the soft impact sending an electrifying jolt on his trembling body.

“K- keep going…” Gaara covered half of his face with his forearm, the intensity of watching you in such a compromising act becoming a little too overwhelming for him.

There was just something so… dirty and erotic about the whole thing. The fact that the act was nestling perfectly in between two, utterly separate things just felt so carnal. Both of you weren’t technically having sex, but at the same time, there was this bare feeling of your cunt being lusciously filled by the thick girth of his cock, and there was a teasing taste of what’s it’s like for his dick to be choked by the suppleness and wetness of your pussy. It was the state of not doing it but already feeling a rather addicting hint of it that drove both of you to the very edge.

“I’m cumming…” Gaara whimpered pantingly as he shrugged his shoulder tight, and with a firm, forward thrust of your body, Gaara shot his thick load all over his abdomen; some of it even reaching his chest. You retreated back your body to see how his dick trembled uncontrollably against his lower abdomen as it continued to spurt his thick cum before thrusting your pussy forward once again; earning a loud cry from Gaara’s panting mouth. His chest heaved up and down heavily, little breathy sighs of bliss escaping him as he let his orgasm run its course. “Ah… ahh… Y/N…” He mumbled in between his gasps.

Gaara flinched when he felt your index finger trace a line on top of his stomach. You brushed his forearm away from his hand so that he gets to see you tasting his cum of off your finger; the very sight of it covering his skin with goosebumps. Even with such an erotic face; you cracked a gentle, reassuring smile towards him before reaching out for his shirt, using the fabric to wipe the remaining cum off of his abdomen. Gaara’s eyes softened, the beat of his heart ringing with an affectionate and warm pulse as he watched you take care of him ever so gently. “That was great, Gaara…”

He didn’t understand why, his thought process at the moment was in deep shambles. Gaara thought that was all to it, but his chest was still getting warmer, and his stomach was still getting tighter. He was already begging himself to stop because it was becoming almost unbearable to feel, but his emotions still paced through and through. He was beginning to feel lightheaded due to his debilitating ability to breathe; worsening his impending meltdown, and with a soft caress of your hand on his cheek, and that ever so endearing, comforting smile; he might have shut his eyes tight as early as he was able to, but his tears were already streaming down his face.

A shocking jolt of panic sent your body to sit down beside him, your chest feeling like it was in a tight, choking grasp. “Hey, hey…” You whispered softly as you helped him sit down, relaxing his back against the headboard. You wrapped an arm behind his shoulders, cooing out affirming words as sobbed quietly into the back of his hand. You pulled him into a hug by the back of his neck, your other hand combing fingers through his hair as you pressed a kiss against his forehead. You felt his arm snake around your body from behind. “It’s okay, Gaara… I’m he-“

Your sentence was cut off when Gaara placed a soft grip on top of your jaw, gestured your face towards him, and pressed his lips against yours. Gaara’s kiss lingered with so much affection and longing that you couldn’t help succumb every bit of yourself to it. He propped his knee beside your opposite hip before shifting his position and situating his body on top of your lap without breaking the kiss even for a second. He was groaning audibly into your mouth as you were rendered almost drunk of how intoxicating the taste of his mouth was. You were already cornered by your lover as you felt the headboard press firm against your back, but Gaara was still shoving himself towards you, feral and starving as he lapped on your tongue selfishly.

“G- Gaara…” You whimpered breathlessly in between as he continued to tower over you, the sound of your wet mouth being explored by your lover’s tongue eagerly sending shivers down your spine. His kisses grew desperate by the minute as he chased the diminishing air in his lungs, and with a low growl, Gaara released you from his grasp; dropping his head down right away to his lap in order to avoid your gaze. The sound of his pants dominating over yours as his shoulder heaved up and down with his constricted chest. His knuckles turned white above his lap, a visible frustration being out in display as you stared at how he clenched his fists tightly into a ball. You reached out for it, stroking the back of his hand with your thumb. His eyes softened at the sight; your caring gesture making him hold your hand in front of his face before pressing a kiss against the back of it, and before you know it, he has already leaned his body forward; lips brushing against yours in a much more gentle peck.

“I’m scared…” Gaara mumbled under his breath as he buried the side of his head into your neck, his face angled towards the side so he could speak clearly.

“Of what?” You replied worriedly.

“Of this.”

His answer felt like it jabbed a sharp sensation into your chest, but you swallowed your reaction to allow him to speak his mind. You stayed quiet, the silence you offered paving way for his faint, nervous sighs to be much more audible.

“I’m terrified of this, Y/N.” Gaara said weakly as he reached out for your hand and rested it above his heaving chest. Gaara landed his gaze down upon your hand, stroking the back of it with his thumb as he allowed your palm to press contact against his skin. It was faint to the touch, but the familiarity of it made it easier for you to understand what he was trying to say. His heartbeat was slow, yet deep; the weight of its pulse making it harder to bear than a quick-paced one. It was a type that laced a hint of pain with how much love and affection it rung with.

You remained silent, but you brushed your lips on top of his sweat-dampened hair in hopes of relaxing him even just a little bit. He couldn’t help but shut his eyes tight as his chest hammered harder againt your palm; the smallest of your gestures enveloping him in so much tenderness that he had never had the luxury of receiving for so long.

“I had never felt something like this…” Gaara smiled to himself as he began to think of all the memories that you two had since the very beginning. “It’s so… warm… it feels like a lot of things all at once…” He chuckled as his words began to run out again. It was frustrating to not be able to express one’s self eloquently, but he was so flustered at the moment that he was beginning to derive the slightest humor in it. “I have never felt such joy, but at the same time, I have never felt such dread…”

You stroked his hair with your fingertips, not even a word leaving your mouth to allow him to speak comfortably.

“It feels like it’s reaching out to me, like it’s telling me that it was fine… it was a safe space that I can be vulnerable around with once again.” He breathed in before speaking once again.” That I can be happy without having to put up… so many walls…” His voice almost seemed like it was about to disappear into thin air. “But at the same time, I do know that once it disappears, I will never be the same again; and that terrifies me.”

“Gaara…”

“But… do remember that you don’t have to return my feelings for the rest of your life, you don’t have to promise me anything.” He mumbled with a weak smile. “I am already more than grateful for what you have graced my life with.”

Your chest got heavier and heavier by the second as you continued to listen to your lover.

“When the time comes… where being with me harbors nothing but pain and loneliness, you are free to be on your own.” He whispered faintly against you, his words becoming harder to discern in between his choked sniffle and heavy breathing. “I will not take that away from you, my love.”

“Gaara…” Your voice croaked as your tears began to swell up on the corner of your eyes. You knew it yourself that if he says another word, your crippled control over your emotions would fail completely.

“Either way, no matter where you choose to go,” Gaara pulled back his face from your shoulder, returning his gentle caress on the side of your cheek before pressing a kiss against your forehead. “For me, it will always be you.”

Your eyes fluttered open briefly before shutting them tight once again as your tears began to stream down your cheeks. In one swift motion, you pulled Gaara downwards and dove your face forward for a kiss. He entangled his fingers deep into your locks, his grip laced with a gentle firmness as you reciprocated it by wrapping your arms behind his nape to pull him closer to you. “I’m scared, too…” You whispered weakly in between his kisses. “But I can’t help it, Gaara. I just can’t.” You sniffled in between as you continued to tug his body downwards until you were once again in the same position as you were earlier; back pressed hard against the headboard, mouth wide open, breathless. “I love you, Gaara.”

Gaara growled lowly into your mouth as your words continued to set his body in flames. Hearing it again jabbed a crippling shot against his sense of control. “I love you…” You continued to moan pantingly beneath him.

“Please…” Gaara pleaded softly as he grew weaker and weaker by the minute, his voice cracking upon his pleas.

“I love you, Gaara… I really do…” Your voice broke as you stroked his cheeks softly.  

Underneath the entrancing, lingering stare he has you under, there was a deep-seated conflict that resides within himself. It was a beautiful imagery that he found himself embedding deep into his mind; the way your lips curved and parted as those three words left your mouth. He kept hearing it,; the exact, gentle timbre of your voice, despite the fact that you were now silently breathing under him as you stared back at him adoringly. It feels like he was nakedly vulnerable against it, it feels like a trance that’ll make him succumb every bit of himself just to hear it once again.

Gaara dove his face forward, his kisses emanating nothing but pure need, a raw desperation to remind himself that this was indeed happening, that this was his reality now; that after all the years he has suffered alone, he was now finally given the very chance to fall in love and to be loved back ever so genuinely. “You’re really here, right?” Gaara mumbled desperately in between his fervent kisses as he snaked his hand behind the back of your head, entangling his fingers through your locks gently as he angled your face better for a much more deeper kiss. He closed his eyes before leaning for another kiss, nibbling and sucking on your lip; swallowing your taste hungrily as if he wanted to own you all for himself. “When I wake up tomorrow, you’ll still be here with me, right?”

The further you swam in the very depths of his affections, the more you it terrified you; as his deepest conflicts and resolutions mirrored exactly how you felt about him; and to be so mutually entwined with one another almost felt too good to be true.

But, it was.

It was the truth.

“I’m never going to leave you,” You whispered back as you stroked the side of his face with your fingers, tucking in strays of his beautiful, red locks as you returned the urgency of his kisses ever so passionately. “When you wake up tomorrow, I’ll be the first one you’ll see. When you sleep tomorrow night, I’ll be the last one you’ll see. I promise, Gaara. I promise you that. You’re not going to be alone anymore, I’ll always be with you no matter what.”

His tears flew free now, basking in every ounce of emotions that he has repressed for so long. He was right, he thought to himself. Love really did feel like a lot of things happening all at once. He had never felt so free, adored, terrified, yet ironically calm at the same time. It was a complex emotion that so fucking consuming, and he no longer bring himself to stop. He had never felt so willing to surrender himself without any ounce of doubt.

A genuine smile graced his tear-stained face, a grin so truthful that he couldn’t help but bask it in with his eyes closed as he continued to press pecking kisses upon your wet face. “Take me as you please. I am yours, forever.” He held your knuckles in front of his face, fluttering his eyes closed as he dropped kisses on it endearingly.

“Take me as you please, too…” You mumbled with a soft smile before wrapping your forearms behind his neck once again, tugging his body down as you laid your back once again on top of the mattress. You raked your fingers through the base of his scalp as you continued to swallow his wet groans into your open mouth, moaning just as blissfully as his kisses continued set your body in fire. You pulled back from the fervent kiss, darting the tip of your tongue out to lick a path up his throat; making Gaara shudder breathlessly as he felt your pucker nibble and suckle the edge of his jaw before biting in softly the spot below his neck.

Gaara snaked his hand behind your nape, interlocking his fingers with your locks and planting a firm fist of it as he pulled it backwards, allowing him lap on the skin of neck your selfishly. A sudden moan from his wet mouth vibrated against your skin when you sank his hips lower and you bucked your body upwards to have a sly grind of your soaking slit against his now hardening cock. “Gaara…” You mewled breathlessly under him as he began to thrust his hips in return, the familiar feeling of having his member rub against you once again eliciting strings of curses from your lips. You halted for a moment, striking an unwavering gaze towards his own heavy-lidded eyes as both of you exchanged hot exhales of breath. “I’m… ready…”

The paralysing beat of his heart began to pound once again. “Y/N…”

“I’m ready, Gaara…” You smiled softly as you stroked his cheek. “I’m yours, forever…”

Gaara was not speaking, he was just breathing heavily above you; scarlet locks framing his beautiful face messily. His eyes spoke a thousand of words that will probably never leave his mouth, yet somehow, hearing it wasn’t something you needed at all just to understood what he wanted to say. His glassy, seafoam eyes continued to tear through you ever so seductively yet endearingly. It’s cripplingly intimidating yet ironically comforting at the same time. It was a pile of irony that you’ll probably never be able to explain in this lifetime. It wasn’t simply black and white…

He really was just simply a million of beautifully-threaded complexities.

“Make love with me…” You whispered lovingly underneath him.

Your words sent his brain into a haywire; the shock setting in making his chest heave nervously. Gaara swallowed a gulp before taking in a sharp breath. “Did I hear you right, my love?” He mumbled with an almost chuckling voice as manifested by a flustering panic.

You nodded before giggling back at his cuteness.

Gaara held your face by your jaw, his thumb gently rubbing against your wet lower lip. “Let me hear it again, my love… just so I am sure…”

You bit his thumb playfully; the surprised, wince of pain in his facial expression that made his one eye close making your heart beat faster. Gaara pulled back his thumb from your lips before plunging it into his mouth, sucking off the small trails of your saliva clinging onto it. “I’m listening.”

Your gaze drifted to the side before meeting his steady stare once again. “M… make love with me, Gaara…” The sudden realization hit you, making you whisper a soft “shit” under your breath, rendering your lover’s forehead furrow in confusion. “I… uh… That’s not really my decision alone. I mean, only if you’re ready. W- we don’t have to-“

Gaara pressed a firmer kiss this time, nibbling your lower lip into his mouth before parting your pucker apart with his curious tongue.

“You… really have the best way… of cutting me off when I speak…” You whispered in between his kisses, the way both his hands held either sides of your jaw in place with a gentle hint of possessiveness reigniting the warmth in your stomach.  Your amused, chuckling giggle against his kiss embedded a soft grin on his mouth as well. Gaara pulled back from the kiss with a gentle smile gracing his flushed face. He did not cry for long, but his nose was already flushed red; eyes a little swollen and pink. An embarrassed chuckle from your lover tore through the brief silence of just staring at each other.

“I am ready…” He whispered to you. “But are you… really ready, tonight?” His arms was starting to get sore from carrying the weight of his body so he nestled his body softly above you. Gaara traced a line upon your cheek with the tip of his nose, before speaking once again. “Are you on protection? I might get you…” His breathing becoming gradually erratic, his voice ringing even deeper this time “…pregnant.”

“Shit…” You whispered breathlessly, the warmth in your cheeks getting more botheringly scalding. Your cuss elicited a deep, amused chuckle from your lover. Knowing that a part of why he said it like that was to tease you a little, and you knew better than to not clap back. “There’s no need to worry. You can cum inside me all you want.” You mumbled seductively, easily eliciting a flustered groan from your lover.

“Y/N?”

“Hmm?”

“W- would it be okay if… y- you were on top?” He asked, his voice a little shaky and worried. “I just… I just thought that such position would allow you to have a better control on how you want it to go… I want to give you that choice; I don’t want to hurt you, my love.”

Your chest fluttered at his caring words. “Stop making me fall in love with you more, Gaara. I wouldn’t be able to get out of it if you keep doing that.”

“Well… that is the point.” He chuckled before laying his back against the headboard and gripping you softly by your waist as you sat down above his lap. Gaara asked you to bent over slightly towards him, the curve of your spine pushing your ass up in the air as you wrapped your arm around his shoulder and buried your face into his neck. “I’ll make sure you’ll never get out of it.” Gaara whispered to your ear before plunging his index and middle finger into his mouth, coating it abundantly with his saliva before reaching out for the increasing heat resting between your legs. Acting upon what you have taught him, Gaara teased the either sides of your labia first; his touch barely even hovering with how light it was. In every passing second, the pads of his fingers began to gradually sink a little deeper against your skin; a look of subtle wonder gracing his face as he felt the muscle tense up bit by bit as he continued to stroke it. You spat on your palm before snaking it towards his groin, and before Gaara could moan back, you were already working his cock with your sloppy fist.

Gaara began to rub the length of his digits from left to right upon the sensitive center of the slit, the sly gesture resulting to a wet, slapping sound that made his cock twitch harder in between your sensually-pumping fist. Gaara traced a vertical path towards your throbbing clit before teasingly flicking the tip of his middle finger upon it. It wasn’t long until he began knead circular strokes against your nub, the intensity of its pressure crawling gradually as he swallowed your mewls of bliss directly into his ear.

“Finger me…” You panted as you redirected your face towards him. “Please…”

Gaara’s breathing hitched after hearing you beg. With a soft nudge of Gaara’s face bumping against yours, he carefully inserted his index finger into your pussy, a jolt of euphoria shaking your composure when the side of the knuckle of his middle finger brushed against your clit as he allowed your walls to get used to the feeling of his lone digit nestling inside. It wasn’t long until Gaara plunged his middle finger inside as well, eliciting a soft sigh from you as you continued to play with his stiffening cock in return.

Although his fingering was still very, very cautious, he was starting to get the hang of it, and is now slowly getting the confidence in himself that he could make you feel good under his touch. He maneuvered his digits gently in a stirring motion, and the way your walls wrapped around his fingers wetly and tightly was a sensation he was starting to get addicted to. Gaara’s cock was now significantly erected at this point, its pink tip beginning to erupt with a clear, slippery pre-cum that made his cock glisten wet under the soft light in the room. When he began to the flick his index and middle finger to stroke your sensitive spot, you began to lose your focus on toying with his dick.

Surprisingly, Gaara wasn’t just shoving his fingers back and forth. It was as if his cautious, patient nature rendered him to not be impulsive on his foreplay. He was taking his sweet… sweet time, his hand on your jaw caressing your face as he whispered how pretty you were; the tender, endearing words leaving his lips coinciding erotically with how slow and sensual he was; the thrust of his fingers hinting enough firmness, curling it up as he applied the perfect pressure against to elicit your impending cum bit by bit from your cunt. Not being able to bear it anymore, you crawled your lips towards his ear and gave him your permission.

“Gaara… I’m ready…”

With his chest tightening even harder with your voice dripping off like a sweet honey from an overpouring pot, Gaara pressed a soft kiss against your cheek. “Thank you… for trusting me…” He whispered with sa smile. Gaara assisted you once again in a sitting position, his erected cock pressing against your lower abdomen this time. “I- I promise… I wouldn’t do anything that will hurt you. Tell me everything, okay?”

You nodded before him with a reassuring smile. You lifted your body off of his lap before gripping the base of his cock, holding it in place as you grinded your clit against the tip of it before redirecting its angle and slowly taking it in inside of you.

You sighed breathlessly as you dropped your gaze down his cock, with the pink, wet tip of it slowly disappearing into your tight, wet cunt. Gaara carefully held you on place with his faint grip on your waist, the contortion of pain upon your beautiful face rendering him worried; but he trusted you as much you do with him. You bit your lip as you began to sink your body deeper into his length, the thick girth of his cock beginning to topple immensely in comparison to what his fingers had to offer. “S- so… big… Gaara…” You mumbled erotically, your remark reddening Gaara’s face for worse as he felt his cock twitch harder with how you complimented him like that.

There was an immense pressure that pooled upon your lower abdomen; a hint of pain in it, a burning discomfort as you may say. You shoved two fingers into your mouth before snaking it down towards your clit, rubbing it slowly and simultaneously as you continued to swallow in his cock into your pussy in order to ease yourself off of the discomfort. Gaara’s gaze dropped to the side, still wasn’t used to seeing you it right before his eyes for you to play with yourself like that while you’re literally shoving his dick right into your cunt. When you finally took in the rest of his length, your upper body collapsed above him alongside a relieved sigh ripping from your chest.

“Take your time, my love…” Gaara cooed sweetly as he brushed your hair away from your face before dropping a kiss against your forehead. “Y- you’re doing great, okay?”

His last sentence made your giggle against his neck.

“I’m sorry…”

“Aww, I didn’t mean it like that...” You propped your forearms against on both opposite planes of his shoulder before bumping your forehead against his. “In fact, I actually felt incredibly motivated.”

Gaara had a small pout on his lips. “You are being… sarcastic…”

“I’m not!” You pouted back before nudging your face against him playfully. “And I’d like to say that you’re doing great, too…” You giggled before pressing a kiss against his nose. “So, uh… what do you think, about this?”

He hummed in thought and cleared his throat, the flush in his cheeks getting tad bit deeper. “It’s so hot… inside you…” Gaara mumbled, his voice hinting with curiosity. “Soft, and tight…” The fact that he was literally describing how his lover’s cunt felt around his dick was enough to sent him to the edge.

“D- does it feel good?”

Gaara nodded bashfully, a gasp tearing through his supposed shut mouth when you grinded your hips teasingly against him.

“You feel good, too…” You replied. The burning sensation was starting to dissipate bit by bit, a tiny presence of it lingering still but the feeling of fullness was starting to arouse you more. “I’m going to start… moving a bit…” You mused, and with a nod from Gaara, he helped you buck your body upwards, allowing your slick to grind against the girth of his cock to increase your arousal even harder. “S- steady your cock in place, Gaara…” The way your words rolled off from the tip of your tongue made Gaara groan in response. He gripped the base of it immediately, gaze straight upon as he watched your pussy sank down to swallow in his dick; the familiar warmth and wetness making his face wince in bliss; making him cuss even louder when he darted his stare upon your face, a trace of euphoria gracing it as you felt the gradual pleasure nestling in between the pressure of his cock reentering your cunt.

“Ahh…” You moaned shakily, a satisfied sigh exiting your panting mouth before both of you groaned almost in unison when you stirred your hips in a circular motion, allowing the whole length of it to grind against the unexplored, sensitive spots all over in one move. Gaara couldn’t help the soft hiss that left him as the tightness of your pussy choked his cock even more. You planted a firm grip on his shoulder before raising your body once again and allowing yourself to get used to the newly-discovered euphoria of having your pussy by stretched deliciously bit by bit by the scalding, thick girth of his veined cock. “Gaara… fuck…”

Although drowning in bliss at the same time, his concern for you didn’t even blur for a second. “D- does it still hurt?” His voice gentle and sweet.

“A- a little bit sore, yeah…” You murmured back. “But it’s… it’s beginning to feel better, I think…”

“Can I do anything… that might help ease the pain?” Gaara wanted to touch you; he wanted to play with your breasts or stroke your clit in between, theorizing that the pleasure of such acts might distract you from the pain. But initiation wasn’t something that has sat comfortably inside his resolve just yet, and the last thing he wanted was to do something that’ll make it harder for you to adjust. “Tell me anything, I- I’ll do it, my love.”

“Kiss me…” You mumbled breathlessly. “Play with my body… everything you did earlier to make me feel good, y- you can do it.” Towering over him, you began to initiate a kiss, your tongue eagerly exploring the rest of his panting cavern. You felt his grip leave your waist, the suppleness of his palm spreading warmth down your hips before wandering gesture began to squeeze your ass. The way his pressured knead sank into your muscle almost sedated you to utter relaxation. “I love that…” You mewled against his mouth before leaving a teasing bite on his lower lip. “I’m going to start moving now.” You mumbled before beginning to rock your hips back and forth.

“Damn it.” Gaara cursed under his breath as the sight of your naked, glistening body on top of him, and the way his cock disappeared into the wetness of your pussy flashed before his very own eyes. A sight so erotic, a sensation so pleasurable, that he was beginning to blur his sense of control as he began to grab your ass a little harder.

You were beginning to get the hang of it, as the thought alone in itself of making love with Gaara started to bathe your body in bliss. Apart from the literal pleasure that your body is going through at the moment, to hear him moan your moan, to see his flushed face; forehead furrowed, eyes shut tight and a firm bite on his lip was another form of indirect stimulation that made your body writhe in bliss. With your back starting to feel sore from leaning over, you arched your spine, hands placing a grip on his knees before planting both of your knees inches before the opposite sides of his hips, spreading yourself wide open for his eyes to feast on.

“Shit…” Gaara whispered with a shaky voice.

“It feels so good…” You kept mewling, your throat beginning to feel drier by the minute.

“Ahh… ahh, Y/N…” Gaara moaned louder as you began to rock your hips in a steadying pace that had his arousal being milked tight on a carnal static. The sight of your tits bouncing up and down was a very sensual visual that he kept swallowing all for himself, and an even louder cuss left his panting mouth when you caught a peek of your swollen clit protruding through your folds. Taking back a hand from your ass, Gaara shoved his thumb into his mouth, suckling and covering it abundantly with spit before pressing his palm against your groin, stretching his hand out so his thumb is able to reach your throbbing nub. A loud moan screa m of his name escaped you, sending him in a jolt-awakening panic.

“N- no no no, please… keep going.” You moaned above him, your nails sinking into his thighs as the sensation of your impending orgasm began to crawl. “Please, please. Keep going, Gaara.” You cried out.

With a firm gulp, Gaara resumed his gesture. He shifted his initial approach, with his hand now laying a grasp on your inner thigh as his thumb sneaked in lewd, kneading circles against your pulsing nub. The sensation of your clitoris being toyed with adding to his cock stroking the circumference of your entire sensitive cunt, the familiar knot in your lower abdomen began to thrive; the burning eagerness to chase it embedding itself so fucking deep into your skin. You repositioned your body, your hands now gripping the plane of his shoulders as every firm bounce of your body sinking him deeper and deeper into the mattress. The weight of your body clashing down on him was another yet sensation he was starting to get addicted to. The words that wanted to leave his mouth at the moment was something he’s barely holding on to suppress.

The urgency was getting the best of you, but the rougher you chased it, the easier it made for Gaara’s to feel his orgasm dawning upon him. It was too much, just too much. Every inch of his body was starting to feel immensely sensitive and you yourself began to notice that his cock was starting to swell so much harder inside your cunt. Gaara was trying his best, but overwhelming sensation was starting to cripple all kinds of autonomy that he had on his body. The rub on your clit was starting to get unsteady, and it was as if Gaara was almost starting to pull his body away from you with the mind-numbing stimulation that had him throwing his head back against the pillow as he unconsciously bucked his hips upwards. “Y/N…”

It felt like a never-ending stack of pleasure that continued to pile over one another until he couldn’t breathe. He was almost ready to beg his own cock to just cum already because it was starting to feel so much to take. The foreign euphoria that was penetrating every bit of pore on his skin for the first time almost broke him.

“Y/N!” He growled underneath you.

Your focus on your orgasm wavered as soon as you heard what was leaving his mouth.

His moans were so fucking hot.

His voice rang with utter haste, almost breaking in desperation as he tried to apologize profusely that he was going to cum earlier than you. You kept your pace steady and firm, more than eager to provide him yourself the very first coital orgasm of his life. “Please, please kiss me, my love.” He begged with an open mouth, a dribble of saliva beginning to stain the corner of his lip. Before you could even muster a reply, he had already pulled you down with his arms wrapped behind your neck, sloppily letting his tongue lick everything he could as his thought process began to crumble for worse. When you noticed him starting to lose his breath, you pulled back from his lips and pressed your forehead against him, allowing the hot, shallow inhale and exhales of air fan across your equally gasping mouth. His chest, throat and face were flushed bright red as he continued to writhe beneath you.

“I- I’m cumming, Y/N…” Gaara rubbed his face needily against yours.

“I love you, Gaara.” You whispered back.

And that was it.

The last straw of fervent intimacy that drove him straight towards the edge.

“I’m yours,” He mumbled desperately in a hush as his face contorted with the deepest form of euphoria that had him furrowing his forehead and shutting his eyes tighter than ever. He fluttered them open once again, his glassy, seafoam eyes tearing through you in a passionate daze. “please… please t- tell me that I belong to you, Y/N...” He pleaded, his voice cracking in desperation as he felt another wave of tears swelling on both corners of his eyes once again.

“You’re mine, Gaara.” You moaned back breathlessly. “Y- you belong with me, you belong with me forever…”

He cried out again and again and with the last downward thrust of your hips colliding with his, his body shook beneath you, his toes curling in bliss before dragging his feet towards his body, the rise of his thighs elevating you slightly. Under his orgasmic instinct, Gaara shoved his hips upwards, burying his cock deeper into you as strings of hot cum exploded deep inside your cunt. Your eyes widened at the sensation; his cock was at its most rigid state and it was twitching so fucking hard you can feel it pulse against your walls. The pure sensuality of having your lover bury his cum deep inside you was a whole new level of intimacy and affection. Knowing that your orgasm was just a nudge away from coming; you slipped off of his dick, the thick cum leaving down your pussy adding another form of lubrication as you began to grind your slit desperately against his girth; and with a firm, fifth thrust, a powerful orgasm began to wash over you. You gripped the base of his cock and reinserted his still cumming dick into your cunt, the hard, clamping motion of your walls choking his length eliciting some of the remaining cum from his arousal. Your body writhed above him desperately, not even a moan leaving your mouth as the utter, raw bliss was so intense that you couldn’t even muster a slightest sound. You collapse onto him, both of you panting heavily as the immense, euphoric shock continued to linger inside the two of you.

Both of you whispered each other’s name endearingly in content.

There was a comfortable silence that tied you both beautifully, a moment where everything just felt so raw and perfect that no words were ever needed to leave each other’s lips. A faint sniffle woke you out of your stupor, and before you could even redirect your face towards him, Gaara hugged you tight to his chest.

“I don’t know why… I keep tearing up like this…” He chuckled as he nestled his face into your locks, his voice cracking up a little.

You hugged him even tighter, and when he heard a barely audible sob from you; evidenced by the feeling of dampness staining his chest wet, his chest throbbed harder and another yet quiet cry he desperately tried to restrain had left him once again.

You shifted in your position, situating your self next to him as you laid your weight on the side of your body. Gaara proceeded to mirror your angle, as you two are now facing each other directly with both, gentle smiles upon your tear-stained faces. He held your hand against his chest; allowing you to feel the very beat of his heart; calm, deep, and genuinely affectionate. What he proceeded to do after a soft, weak smile shakened your entire resolve.

“I love you…” He mouthed silently before curling his lips in another yet genuine smile.

Audible words had never left his mouth, but if there’s one thing you almost heard, it was the beat of his heart that throbbed even harder after those three words as he held your hand tighter against his chest.

“I feel so scared that I can’t say it,” He slowly mouthed once again before chuckling weakly. “But I love you, Y/N…”

“I love you, too…” You mouthed back with a soft giggle as you used your other hand to stroke his tear-stained cheeks; your eyes barely fluttering open as you allowed yourself to bask in every ounce of emotions you were going through at the moment, and suddenly…

It was harder to breathe.

You were beyond stunned, the overpouring emotions you did not expect for had suddenly washed all over you, body and soul, and it has robbed you off of even the tiniest bit of chance to speak.

There was nothing, really.

Nothing but heavy breathing, a shared grace of a gentle, fulfilled smile between the two of you, an affectionate nudge of your equally-flushed cheek against his as you allowed yourself to have the warm of his face plant soft kisses upon your skin.

It was as if everything had stopped, and there was nothing in this world at this very moment that mattered but you, and him.

Gaara’s hands roamed, fingertips laced with prudence yet ardent need to know you, to feel you, to be one, with you.

The connection binding the two of you began to feel ethereally transcedental…

…And Gaara felt it, too.

“Do you feel it, too?” Gaara whispered weakly, his eyes gentle and loving as he reached for your wrist and held your hand in front of his face. He shut his eyes closed before placing an endearing kiss upon the back of it; his pucker brushing soft pecks upon every tip of your five fingers before carefully dragging his kisses down your palm. Gaara’s eyes fluttered open to take in the beautiful sight of your face as you watched him caress your wrist with his soft, wet lips.

Gaara had the utmost respect towards you. He viewed with the highest reverence, and he had always seen you as strong, independent person.

But tonight…

Tonight was different.

He never knew he could feel so much for someone until he met you, but at this moment, everything he had ever known was almost incomparable to what he feels at this very moment. You were a gift to him. To feel your warm, supple skin, to hear you breath, to listen to your voice… was a gift. He was looking directly through the uttermost tenderness inside of you, a sense of delicateness residing within your very soul that has ignited the fire inside of him to to love and protect at all costs.

“I feel it too, Gaara…” You whispered endearingly before planting a soft kiss against his lips and pressing your forehead against his. “If you’ll have me, I would give my life to protect you, too.”

Your words made his chest tighten, and before you knew it, he was already holding your body against him; an arm snaking in between the side of your head and the mattress as he pulled you closer towards him. Gaara caressed the supple, roundness of your shoulder, tiptoeing the tips of his digits down the blades of it before petting you by your hair and kissing your forehead gently. “I will always keep you safe, no matter what.” He whispered.

Noticing the slight shudder on your skin, Gaara reached out for the blanket laying messily in between your bodies. With a gradually increasing loudness of cute, annoyed grunts as he tried to yank it out freely under his body, he was finally able to cover the halves of both of your nakedness under it. You couldn’t help but chuckle in amusement, but also blush at how endearing his gesture was.

“I feel so sticky right now.” You giggled. Gaara had that “me, too” look on his face despite the lack of verbal reply. “We went to bed at like… 10 PM.” You stared at your fingers as you tried to count. “It was probably around 2 AM when you woke up… It’s probably quarter to four now.”

“I think so too, yes…” Gaara chuckled back weakly. There was an obvious heaviness in his lids, but he still wanted to talk about what just happened. He wasn’t one to ask such daring questions, but it was as if some parts of him had improved for the better; it felt like he was more than willing now to initiate communication with you. “So… uhm, Y/N…” He trailed off. “How did it… feel?” Gaara asked, his voice a little nervous.

You hummed in thought. “Hmm… how do I put it in words…” You thought out loud as you traced lines and circles upon his naked chest.

Truth be told, it was probably something you could never, ever explain justifyingly with words alone.

As you continued your inward search for the perfect word, Gaara began to speak.

“I feel so connected… with you.” He whispered lovingly, his eyes gentle and endearing. “Body and soul…”

With a soft kiss and on his lips and an easing caress on his face, you pulled him closer to you as he began to nestle his face against the warm solace of your skin.

“And I feel so connected with you, too…” You repeated softly before caressing the back of his head as he began to fall asleep. “Body and soul…”

--

Your head throbbed painfully when you fluttered your eyes open and the not so gentle rays of the sun began to peek through the slight gaps in between the curtains. You quickly glued your eyes shut; and with the increasing awareness of your surroundings as your system began to wake itself up, you were almost shocked at the fact that there was still a familiar warmth and weight pressing upon your naked body at this time of the morning.

You were now lying on your back, and when you tilted your head towards your lover, you couldn’t help but giggle softly at such beautiful, rare sight.

The side of his face nestled upon the upper part of your breast, a heavy hand and leg pinning you down against the mattress, almost leaving you with no chance of escape. He had never looked so etheareally peaceful to you until now, eyes not so loosely shut and lips in a soft, curled pout. On top of that, this might just be the very first moment that you learned that Gaara actually snores… A really soft, baby snore, though. You couldn’t help but giggle when you noticed how there’s new, darker ray of eyebags pooling below his eyes… which is probably mirrored by yours, too.

Guess that’s what you get, making love so deep into the night where the moon itself is already close to losing its shine.

A soft, inward groan never left his lips but it was audible enough to hear, carving a deep smile upon your lips once more.

Finally, a very… deep, undisturbed sleep that he utmostly deserved.

You stayed still, even though your body was beginning to feel sore, apart from the expected one resting in between your legs; just in hopes of maintaining the relaxation he was currently pampering himself with.

Gaara really needed that more than anyone.

When he began to shift his body, and turned his back on you in a still, deep stupor, you began to carefully sit up and grab your discarded shirt off of the floor to walk to the bathroom.

After refilling the glass with water to bring on your way back towards the bedroom to give to Gaara once he wakes up, you took a short re-route towards the living room and sat upon the couch; dialing Temari’s number on the telephone before pressing the cold metal disk of its diaphraghm against your ear.

“Oh, finally!” You heard the familiar voice on the other side of the line.

“Good morning, Tem!” You greeted happily.

“Good mor- Oh?“ Temari’s eyebrows furrowed in surprise. “Y/N?”

“Yep.” You chuckled.

Temari chuckled back meaningfully at the surprising revelation, the familiar, teasing tone becoming something that was easy for you to discern.

“Come on, is it really that much of a shocker?”

“It is.” She replied amusingly. “The earliest you usually get up from bed is 10 am. You have beaten your record,” she shot a look towards the wall clock on her living room. “it’s 9:50 AM now.”

“How do you even know that?” You tried your best to stifle your usual, kinda’ loud voice when talking with her.

“Just a hunch.” Temari grinned. “Gaara had been asking me lately if there was a way he could maintain the warmth of the pancakes and coffee he makes for you at 6 AM. He says he doesn’t want you to have it cold because it might upset your stomach, but at the same time, he can’t bring himself to wake you up or to leave it up to you to cook your own breakfast.”

You couldn’t help but blush when you realized another yet undiscovered ways of how Gaara tries to show how much he loves you.

“By the way,” She cleared her throat as she shrugged her shoulder towards her, pinning the telephone against her ear as she tried to pull half of her locks into a side ponytail. “I have been ringing you guys for the last two hours. I was actually about to go on my way there to check up on the two of you because Gaara usually leaves for work at 6:30. It’s weird that he’s late.”

“Oh… uhm,” You couldn’t help but smile giddily like a teenager to yourself. “I’m sorry for not being able to answer right away. I called, too, because I was about to ask you if Gaara could take half the day off.”

“Why? Is he okay? Does he feel sick?”

“No… he’s just, sleeping really, really good right now.” You slumped your back against the sofa. “Like, the kind of good that’ll make you feel guilty if you wake him up from it. Out of all people, you do know the best that his sleeping schedule is still troubled.”

“I see…” Temari smiled gently to herself, her chest warming up at the thought of her baby brother being able to rest easy as he thoroughly deserves. “It’s okay. I could run some of his errands for him to ease his workload for today. I’m really glad to hear that Gaara’s sleeping well.”

“Yeah…” You grinned softly as you raked your fingers through your messy bedhair in hopes of fixing it up. “He’s pretty tired.”

“Tired?” Temari asked surprisingly. “He didn’t have much to do… yesteday…”

As sharp as she ever was, it was almost scary with how good she was at deducing things.

“So… what baby names are you choosing from?”

“Tem!”

Temari laughed hard from the other line. “I have leftover waffles here. I’ll hang the bag on the door knob, you don’t have to get up to greet me if ever you end up going back to sleep.”

“Thank you so much, Tem…” You couldn’t help but feel so thankful for how kind she was to you.

“No,” Temari said with a soft smile. “Thank you, Y/N.”

“Tem…”

“Gaara loves you very much, Y/N.” Temari spoke so gently. “Thank you for giving him the chance to feel like that.”

After exhanging goodbyes, you flinched in your seat when someone grabbed and placed the telephone back on its cradle on your behalf.

“Do I have to carry you back to the bed?” Gaara mumbled, his voice a little grumpy. Before you could even answer, he had already made his way from the back the back of the couch, firm strong hands lifting you up from the cushion of the couch as carried you back towards the bedroom.

“Is this why you always try to wake up earlier than me?” You narrowed your eyes at him. “Are you one of those people who are grumpy as hell when they wake up?” You teased.

Gaara dropped your body onto the mattress, the surprising edge of roughness in his action making your chest flutter in excitement. The heat between your legs started to burn harder when he towered over you, the familiar weight of his body cornering you down against the bed. “When you said… last night…” A satisfying yawn ripped from his chest before he pinned your hand softly against the bed, his thumb rubbing soft circles above your palm; the other hand stroking the side of your face softly as he leaned his face closer. “That you will be first thing I’d see when I wake up, I took it to the heart. But what I saw… was my boxer shorts…” His sudden, surprising dominance broke as he ended up giggling softly against the skin of your neck. You snorted back with a laughter, the odd, funny noise making him chuckle again.

“I called Tem… I asked her if you could come in a little late today. You looked like you were having the best sleep of your life, and I couldn’t bear to be the one who takes it away from you.”

“It really did…felt amazing.” He sighed, the way he breathed out hinting satisfaction on his end.

“The sleep?” You mused. “Or what happened before the sleep?”

Gaara buried his now flushed face deeper into your neck as he began to remember everything that took in place night.

Vividly.

“I’m sorry, though…” You whispered gently. “I didn’t mean to have your unromantic boxer shorts to be the first one you see in the morning.” You felt a smile against your neck before he props his chin above your chest, the vibration of your giggle pressing against his skin. “Would you get mad if I do it again? What if I had to pee?”

“You think I have the capacity to be that possessive?” Gaara asked, his voice hinting with amusement.

“I think you’d let me pee.” You smiled at him before brushing the messy locks from blocking the view of his eyes.

“I will.” Gaara began to press soft, pecking kisses upon your breast before dragging his lips in a linear path towards your neck, making you tilt your head to the side as he began to suckle softly on the skin. “But I wouldn’t shy from tying you down if it means I’ll be able to keep you in bed as much as I want to.”

--

[dropssofjupitter]

Coffee Cups and Cigarettes

Pairing: Fred Weasley x Reader

Summary: Ever since Fred’s near death experience at the battle of Hogwarts, everyone at the Burrow had been walking on eggshells around him and doting on him as much as they could. Everyone, that is, except you. The end of the war may have freed everyone else, but it changed and hardened you. And after a late night walk, Fred is going to find out just how much. 

Word Count: 2.4k 

Warnings: Mentions of war, PTSD, nightmares, not handling trauma in a healthy way, mentions of depression but not in an explicit way, depictions of smoking, very slight mention of drinking

Masterlist

A/N: I don’t even know where this came from but here have an angst fic. Also I’m really sorry for the lack of content lately! I’ve been struggling with my mental health and am trying to pull myself out of my rut by picking back up my unfinished fics. 

You could still hear the screams. You could still remember watching bodies fall and the bright flashes of curses burst across your vision. You saw the bodies of Remus and Tonks, lying still, arms outstretched towards each other, every time you closed your eyes. You remembered the feeling of dread settling into your stomach as you spotted his deathly still body across the room, his family surrounding his body with tear stained faces. 

Memories of the war haunted you every time you closed your eyes, suffocating you with their feelings of fear and desperation. They woke you up in a panicked frenzy night after night, hands gripping the bed sheets and desperately reaching for your wand out of impulse. Eventually, you stopped trying to sleep. Instead you took to sitting in your room, a cup of coffee in your hand and a book open on your lap. To the others, it seemed like you were coping, like you were trying to return to whatever sense of normalcy that you’d had before the war. They couldn’t have been more wrong. What they saw as coping, you knew was the opposite. Instead, you were using the books and insomnia as a way to ignore your feelings of inner turmoil and pain. 

When the flashes of green curses began to overtake your vision every time a wave of exhaustion rolled through you, you turned to walks. You walked in the woods outside of the Burrow, letting the sickly sweet summer nights wash you in their cool heat as you walked for hours upon hours. You walked until your legs felt like jelly and your breath was coming out in short bursts; you walked until the orange hues of the sun tainted the dark night that had cloaked you for so long.

No one at the Burrow knew that you took such walks, and to be honest, you wanted to keep it that way. Your actions would only make them worry and try to reach out more, and as it was, you could hardly interact with them at all.  Every time you looked at the Weasley’s or your friends, your head couldn’t help but to fill with what-if’s. 

What if Harry hadn’t woken up? What if Ron had failed to dodge the killing curse? What if Hermione had decided to take on Nagini by herself? What if Mrs. Weasley hadn’t been able to kill Bellatrix? What if Fred had been unable to minimize the damage on the Confrigo curse?

They consumed you, those thoughts. They threatened to voice themselves every time you so much as glanced up at someone with red hair, so you kept to yourself. But while you sought solitude, everyone else sought comfort. Harry and Ginny were hardly apart from each other for long, hands clasped tightly at all times. They whispered in hushed voices in the corners of the rooms, strained smiles on their faces. At night, you could hear Ginny’s soft footsteps pass by your door as she headed to Harry’s room. 

Ron and Hermione were complicated. They were often engaged in fights that soon evolved into screaming matches; sometimes Hermione won, other times Ron did. In the end, it never really mattered who won. The two of them would make up by dinner, and sit next to each other with their hands intertwined underneath the table and terse smiles on their faces, knowing that tomorrow they would have the exact same fight.

If Fred and George were close before, they were nearly inseparable now. They had closed their joke shop for the time being, giving Fred time to heal after his brush with death, and were often found trying their best to keep the mood in the house light. They knew all too well the importance of humor in dark times.

Fred had changed though, and you knew that you weren’t the only one who’d noticed it. You’d caught him staring into the distance multiple times, eyes trained on something that no one else could see. His skin would pale, his hands would shake, and sometimes it would take him an agonizingly long time to pull himself out of whatever he was seeing. 

No one ever mentioned it. Instead, they chose to live in their blissful ignorance and show their support in ways that they were familiar with. They let him choose meals and take his seat first. They joked with him, let him choose the nights entertainment, never asked him to do any chores. They were walking on eggshells around him, and it was infuriating. 

You knew that you could never tell them that, though. You knew that if you did, the entire structure that the family had been clinging to for so long would topple without warning. So you bit your tongue and forced a smile; forced yourself to laugh along with them at one of George’s strained jokes, and forced yourself into complacency. 

And it had been working, until Fred had wandered outside and, subsequently, upon you leaning on the porch railing. 

It was dark out, still the early hours of the morning, and you had a mug of steaming coffee clasped in your hands like a lifeline. Hearing the front door open, you looked over at him, obviously startled before looking quickly away once more. “I didn’t know that anyone else was up,” you said quietly, taking a small sip of your coffee and wincing as it burned the tip of your tongue. 

He hesitated before replying, moving to sit on the rickety steps that connected the porch to the ground. “Neither did I,” he replied with a small smile, fiddling with a package in his hand as he looked out at the fields surrounding his home. 

You glanced over at him and nodded to his hands. “What are those?” you asked, doing your best to make conversation as the two of you were bathed in starlight. You hoped it wasn’t incredibly obvious that you were uncomfortable with him being outside with you. It felt like he was encroaching on your safe space, but you didn’t have the heart to kick him out. 

His hands stop flipping the package and he stilled for a moment before forcing a smile onto his face and opening it. He looked over at you as he pulled out a cigarette and placed it between his lips before taking a lighter out of his shirt pocket. “My secret to staying sane,” he replied, lighting the cigarette and placing the nearly empty container on the step next to him. 

You tried to force a smile, mouth turning up at the ends in a shaky gesture as your eyes shifted from staring past him to staring at the fields surrounding you, but after a minute you dropped it. You were so tired of pretending that everything was okay. That you were okay. A deafening silence fell over the two of you, and it fell heavily on your shoulders.

You used to be good at talking to people; before the war. You used to be able to start a conversation over the most mundane objects and let it foster a wary friendship. You were exceptional at it. And then the war happened. Now you didn’t know how to talk to anyone. Every conversation was strained and dense; filled with silences that neither you nor those that you were conversing with knew how to handle. 

You glanced over at Fred, flinching as your mind twisted the sight and forced you to see the deathly stillness you had come to know quite well in your nightmares. Closing your eyes, you turned your head away and took a drink for your mug. You were far too sober to be dealing with this right now. 

Fred took a drag of the cigarette, inhaling deeply before blowing out a puff of smoke, watching it curl and flip in the cold sky. “Why won’t you look at me?” he asked quietly, staring down at the cigarette that lay between his fingers before looking up at you. 

You stared out at the field, watching the fog lay over it like a loving blanket. Your coffee mug was resting comfortably in your hands, and you blew on it gently. “Because every time I do, I watch you die.”

You were never one to sugarcoat the truth, he knew that. Often you were even described as brutally honest. But it was no stretch to say that he had never expected you to say that. He hesitated in his reply, something you picked up on easily yet held your tongue about. “I didn’t die,” he replied, taking another drag. “No matter how much George wants to be one brother short of a twin, I can’t give him the satisfaction.” His lips curled up in a smile, and you knew that he was trying to diffuse the tense air around the two of you. 

“But you almost did,” you said calmly, lifting the mug to your lips and taking a sip. It was scary sometimes, how unbothered you were about things like this. It was like you weren’t properly feeling, and maybe you weren’t. Or maybe you were compartmentalizing, shoving what you didn’t need into the depths of your mind.

 “So did everyone else. We all took risks in the war, but we made it out,” he said with a shrug, turning his head to look out at the field as well. 

You took time with your response, turning the words over in your mouth and feeding them to yourself in a mental debate. You knew that once you said them, you would be opening the talk into something more, something bigger. Maybe...maybe that would be a good thing. “Then why does it feel like we never left?” you asked in a soft voice, eyes now trained on the coffee in your hands.

He paused, cigarette frozen inches from his lips. You could tell he was mulling over his answer as well; wondering if he should let you in or push you back beyond his walls. Eventually, he smiled, an expression that conveyed no joy and was paired with a bitter laugh. “I wish I fucking knew.” 

You accepted his answer, choosing not to pry or open up any further as the two of you lapsed into a comfortable silence. You listened to the birds chirp their wakeup call as the sun finally began to emerge from beyond the hills, and inwardly you knew that your time out here was limited now. Your friends were going to start waking up soon, and they would be concerned if they found you outside at this hour. Just as you were about to finish the rest of your coffee and leave, Fred spoke again. 

“Why were you out here?” he asked, eyes turning to catch yours as you finally looked over at him. You saw a flash of his body in the Great Hall, pale skinned and eerily quiet with his family standing over him and quickly looked away again. 

You debated lying to him. Telling him that you’d heard a noise and were unable to go back to sleep. But you were so tired of lying. You were tired of hiding flinches, of hiding the dark circles under your eyes, of hiding. Your fingers fidgeted with the bracelet you wore on your wrist, a reminder of your parents, of what you lost, and you sighed. “It’s hard for me to sleep, so I come out here instead. It’s . . peaceful. Quiet. It makes me feel safe.” 

Out of the corner of your eye you saw him nod in understanding while taking a final drag from his cigarette and dropping it onto the porch before stomping it out. “It’s the nightmares, right? They keep you up and take you back to the war.” 

You silently nodded your head, closing your eyes and pressing your hands up to your face as a sudden feeling of desperation welled up inside of you. “I haven’t slept in months,” you confessed softly. You squeezed your eyes shut, fighting against the slew of emotions that were suddenly surfacing after being pushed down and held back for so long. 

You could sense Fred hesitating, feel him cautiously stand up. You heard the soft creaking of the porch as he walked over to you, unsure of what to do and how to help. “Can I . . . can I hug you?” he asked gently, feet shuffling as he shifted his weight from side to side. 

Taking in a deep, shuddering breath, you nodded. “I just-” your voice broke and you cleared your throat. “I just want to know when I’m going to stop seeing everything. I can’t blink without seeing the school. Without seeing him. It’s like..,” you took another breath, your shoulders shaking and your eyes shining with unshed tears. “It’s like I’m always going to be back there. Watching people die. Unable to save any of them.” 

Fred wrapped his arms around you, resting his head on top of yours as the two of you faced the grassy hills that surrounded the Burrow. “Every time I close my eyes I wonder what would’ve happened if I hadn’t fired that counter curse.” 

Your hands dropped from your face slowly, reaching down to place a comforting hand on his arm to let him know that you were there for him as tears slipped silently down your face. 

“I can see it, you know. When they look at me. I can see it in their eyes. They’re all thinking the same thing that I am.” His fists clench and he grits his teeth, pain evident on his face as his mind takes him back to the final battle.  “If I had been a second slower...” he trailed off, eyes hardening. 

You could smell the smoke on him like this. It clung to him like a cloud, sticking to his clothes and enveloping you in its scent. It was, surprisingly, calming. And you could see why he had turned to smoking as a coping mechanism. 

Wordlessly you lifted one of his hands to your lips, pressing a soft kiss to his palm. “Thank you for not being a second slower,” you whispered, leaning your head back against his chest and savoring the feeling of being held. 

You knew that in a few short minutes you would have to move; to go back up to your room and pretend that you had gotten a restful nights sleep and that you were actually okay. But for now you were content to be here, in this moment. You were content to live in this point in time for a few more seconds and pretend that you weren’t terribly broken inside. You could allow yourself this, one thing. 

.

.

.

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The Aftermath

Chapter 1: Consciousness

Sanemi Shinazugawa/Reader (F)

You find yourself alive at the Butterfly Estate beside your closest friend after the final battle against Muzan Kibutsuji. You both are hurting over the loss of your comrades, so you must find a way to comfort each other.

**THIS SHORT STORY CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR THE END OF THE DEMON SLAYER MANGA. DO NOT READ IF YOU HAVEN’T FINISHED THE MANGA.**

Tags/warnings: Shared trauma, angst, survivors guilt, slight tw, comfort, slight fluff, reader is a Hashira

You can also read here on Ao3. Enjoy!

It’s not your time yet, young one, you still have a long journey ahead of you.

Be sure to live a life that will inspire others every day, please know that I will always love you.

We will always be here, watching you, waiting for you. We know you will do great, we are so proud of you, Y/N. Live on.

✾✾

Rain pattering gently against the window stirred you from your dreams. You blinked a few times as you peeled your eyelids apart, feeling the discomfort of the built-up eye-crusts that had grown as you slept for the past few days, to which you didn’t realize just yet. Your mouth felt dry as you slowly smacked your tongue against the roof of your mouth. Your tongue felt swollen. Staring up at the dimly lit, wooden ceiling of the building that protected you from the rain outside, you took a few moments to try to recall where exactly you were. You remained in a numb physical state, or so it felt; you just needed to fully wake up. When you did, all of the memories came flooding back.

You tried to pull yourself upright in the bed you found yourself on, but immediately froze as the pain shocked and ran through every nerve in your body. You shut your eye and let out a sharp inhale through your gritted teeth that interrupted the silence of the room, trying to ease the pain. It was then that you realized your left eye was covered. Slowly, you brought your bandaged hand up to your face, pressing your scarred fingertips to your cheek. Your head had been wrapped several times with a bandage that ran at a slight angle across your face and over your eye.

It was a long, final battle between the demon slayer corps and the demons. The war that was fought for centuries, even millennia, had finally been won, and because you remembered your victory, you were able to slump peacefully back into the bed you laid upon. You laid for a few long moments, the ringing in your ears starting to fade away, allowing you to finally relish in the serene sounds of the rain against the roof.

“You’re finally awake,” came a familiar voice to your left. You hesitated for a moment, tears welling up in your uncovered eye, realizing who the voice belonged to.

You slowly turned your head towards the voice before gasping out his name, “Shinazugawa-san?”

He met your alarmed gaze with a kind smile that made your heart feel warm and fuzzy, and it just might have been enough to cure the aches among the rest of your worn-out body. You wanted to tear the blanket right off of your figure and throw yourself upon him in a triumphant embrace, you wanted to bury your face into his neck and cry, but neither of you were in any physical condition for that.

Your fellow Hashira lay sitting up in his bed, covered in bandages from head to torso, arms to shoulders. He was certainly in a rougher state than you, but for good reason. Sanemi Shinazugawa risked his life for the sake of humanity against the demons, and the most feared of all, Muzan Kibutsuji. He was ruthless in every battle he’s fought, but until he butted heads with Kibutsuji, you’d never seen him so merciless. At the end of the fight, you were sure he’d never pull through. Before you passed out from exhaustion and blood loss, you caught a glimpse of his bloodied figure sprawled across the ground. The last thing you saw was Kibutsuji crumbling away, and with that sight you allowed yourself to finally drift off, to that you imagined would be death.

But it wasn't.

Instead, you woke up next to the man whom you’ve come a long way to care so much about. He was such a tough nut to crack, but you and Sanemi had become so close, and you were sure that you’d meet him in the afterlife along with many others, but rather, you woke up just a few feet away from him at the Butterfly Estate. With that you were beyond thankful at another chance. This time you were sure that you’d tell him how you’d truly feel. Now, finally, you’ll be able to express to Sanemi how important he is to you without any worry of an unexpected end, unlike the last time you opened your heart to someone.

“I’m surprised, you slept longer than I,” he continued. “I was thinking for sure that I’d never wake up, and instead I woke up to you still napping.”

You couldn’t help but chuckle at his comment. You figured he was trying to make a lighthearted joke, so you thought you’d at least react somehow. “I’m sorry, I thought I wouldn’t make it either.”

“You’re a tough girl, I knew you’d be just fine, unlike the others,” he slightly turned his gaze to the floor, a solemn expression curtaining his face.

Before you could ask, three Kakushi rushed into the room that you and Sanemi were resting in, audible gasps coming from behind their masks.

“S-She’s awake!” one cried as he ran out of the room. The other two hurried to your side to take your vitals.

“Please sit back L/N-sama, don’t strain yourself!”

“Yes, your wounds are still fresh and healing, don’t try to move until the nurses arrive!”

✾✾

Hours later, your bandages were rewrapped after you enjoyed a nice bath with the help of the Kakushi. They had given you an extraordinary painkilling formula that had been invented by Shinobu Kocho, the Insect Hashira and outstanding pharmaceutical expert, prior to her death. It was almost as if she created the formula in preparation of Kibutsuji’s attack. You had learned of the deaths of many, including the other remaining Hashira, with the exception of Sanemi and Giyuu Tomioka. You prayed to them as you sat in the bath after the Kakushi gave you some time to soak alone. You cried, for they weren’t as lucky as you to be able to know a world without demons, to know a world in which you could live free. However, each and every life that was lost during the battle against Muzan Kibutsuji belonged to those who fought valiantly and believed in the freedom that you were so fortunate to experience.

It was evening now, and the rain had finally stopped. The colorful pastel clouds were moving out of sight, and the falling sun gleamed brilliantly between the damp leaves of the trees it tried to hide behind. The dew drops sparkled against the rays before they each slid off of the leaves at their own individual pace. You slowly walked yourself outdoors to the engawa, which is where you found Sanemi. He was sitting by himself, a single leg hanging off of the engawa edge while his other was propped up in front of him. You’d never seen him so quiet and peaceful looking, even with his back towards you. You didn’t want to startle him or disrupt his alone time, but you wanted to talk to him. You wanted to know what he was thinking; what was going through that mind of his?

“Shinazugawa-san,” your voice gently hit the breeze, carrying your greeting to his ears. His head slightly perked up, but his gaze remained forward. He didn’t respond, but rather patted the wood floor beside him. After a moment of noticing his gesture, you stepped forward to slowly lower yourself next to him, gritting your teeth to suppress any signs of pain from your injuries. Once seated beside your friend, you glanced out of the side of your eye to see a single tear rolling down his cheek. The sight punctured your very soul. After all these years, training and fighting beside this battle-hardened man, you never thought you’d see him cry. Of course, he lost his younger brother during the battle, so it seemed he was taking this time to grieve; you were just surprised that he allowed you so close to be able to see him in such a state.

“Genya would have liked this view, don’t you think?” Sanemi broke the silence, fighting away the cracking of his voice. “When we were kids, we would always watch the sun set in the evening. It was one of the things that really helped us forget how shitty the world was for us back in those days. Seeing his bright, wide eyes and that happy expression was what pushed me to continue forward every time. But now…” he finally turned away, wiping his remaining tears with his sleeves. “I just wish he could be here to see it, to see the sun set in a world where we don’t have to fight for our lives anymore.”

You didn’t know how to respond. It seemed as if the best option would be to let him talk and express how he was feeling. It was, after all, better than him bottling things up, similar to what he’s done for his entire life. Genya wasn’t the only person that Sanemi has lost. You couldn’t forget what he had told you about, what had happened to his family, what he had to do to protect Genya way back then. He’s lost family, friends, others… And you did too, but this wasn’t about you. Right now, you had to comfort someone who was very dear to you.

“I wish he was here too,” you spoke, leaning yourself towards him to rest a hand upon his shoulder. You hoped your gesture would help ease him. “I wish… everyone was here. Our families, our friends,” you lowered your head for a moment in respect, saying a silent prayer for those who had been lost. When you looked back up you found that he had turned to your direction, and you locked eyes with him. His expression was absolutely pitiful. You could feel him tense up when you began to involuntarily squeeze his shoulder faintly. “But we must live on. Live on for them, or else their sacrifices would not be worth anything. Please, Shinazugawa-san, know this,” you rested your other hand upon his, which was laying atop his lap. “Every person that you have ever loved is always watching over you, and they are so proud of you, including myself,” you smiled warmly as you concluded your words of reassurance.

Trapped in each other’s watery eyes, there was a sure understanding between you both. You knew how he felt, and he knew that of you. Ever so gently, Sanemi leaned forward to rest his forehead upon yours. His hand reached up and rested behind your head, pressing you even closer to him. As you both sat there beneath the dimming purple skies, you quietly thanked whatever higher beings allowed you both to survive hell and finally find paradise. Stars began peeking through the pastel-colored atmosphere, and the air felt fresher than it ever had before. You both shared a smile.

“Thank you for everything, L/N-san.”

✾✾

[beelsnack]

Obey Me! Boys Taking Care of a Sick MC

In honor of me no longer having covid, I decided to write down how I mentally coped with having the plague  some headcanons about our boys and a sick MC. Because I’m all about the hurt/comfort life.

-----

Lucifer: “You should be resting.”

The human scowled. Of course Lucifer was standing guard at the bottom of the staircase.

“I’m just going to get some water,” their voice sounded like sandpaper against wood as they spoke. They felt like the living dead, and judging by the cool stare Lucifer was giving them, they looked it, too.

“No, you’re just going back to bed.” He caught them by the elbow as soon as they were within reach. “I’ll bring a pitcher of water to your room for you.”

“Lucif--” their complaint was cut off by a sudden coughing fit. The force of it made them double over, and they clutched at their chest with one hand while the other went to cover their mouth. Demons couldn’t catch human illnesses, but old habits die hard.

It wasn’t until their lungs stopped trying to eject themselves from their body that they realized that Lucifer had sat them down on the bottom step. He was rubbing slow, soothing circles on their back, a rare look of concern in his dark eyes. “Easy now, my dear,” he murmured as they caught their breath. “You’re shaking, are you chilled?”

“...Just a little,” they wheezed. They must not have sounded very convincing, because Lucifer quickly removed one glove and gently pressed the back of his hand against their forehead.

“Your fever has come back.” In one quick, fluid movement, he had taken the cloak from around his shoulders and wrapped it around them like a blanket. “Go back to bed, now. I’ll bring you water and something to bring your fever down,” he spoke softly, like raising his voice would trigger another coughing fit.

It was too bad they were too sick to appreciate Lucifer’s soft side.

Mammon: “…A’ight, that should be everything.”

Admittedly, he might have gone a bit overboard. But, could you blame him? He’d never nursed a sick human back to health before!

…Okay, so Lucifer may or may not have let Mammon use his credit card to get stuff for them. And he may or may not have taken a few liberties. It was for the human though!

“Mammon, holy shit,” they mumbled, poking their head out from the blanket burrito they had cocooned themselves in. “Is there anything left at the convenience store or did you buy them out?”

“Shut it.” he set the last six-pack of Gatorade (well, the Devildom equivalent of it, anyway) at the foot of their bed. “Ya’ weren’t specific, so I just got one of each!”

Their room looked like a doomsday prepper’s bunker. Cans of soup, a myriad of flavors of instant noodles, a portable heater, the works. Maybe they should have been more specific.

“Do ya’ need anything else?” Mammon sounded vaguely annoyed, but underneath the gruff tone he spoke with, his concern was obvious. They had given him a scare when they first came down with the flu two days ago, temperature so high that they ended up collapsing on their way to RAD. He had been fussing over them since. They weren’t even sure if he had slept.

“...Just one more thing.”

“Yeah?” he perked up like a dog waiting for an order from its master. “Whaddaya need?”

Instead of speaking, they wiggled their arms free of the blankets and held them out. For a moment, Mammon just stared at them in confusion. When what they were asking for finally clicked, his face grew so hot they could use it as a space heater.

“What are you, a little kid?” he grumbled, but there wasn’t even a moment’s hesitation as he climbed into the bed with them. They settled themselves against his chest, sighing contentedly. Sleep had taken over in a few heartbeats.

“...Get better soon, you hear?” they didn’t, obviously, and Mammon took the opportunity to gently pat their head, like they so often did for him. “If you’re gonna be all cute and stuff, I want ya to be conscious of it.”

Leviathan: “You know, I really thought you would take longer to go through all of these.”

The human looked like a whole new person compared to the last time Levi had seen them. They were sitting upright, although they looked ready to slide back down into their previous coma-like state any minute, and the number of blankets wrapped around them had been reduced to just one instead of three. They managed to shoot him a weak grin as they handed over the manga he had let them borrow.

As much as Levi loved staying locked away in his inner sanctum, it was only an enjoyable experience if one’s source of entertainment was also locked away with them. And he couldn’t, in hood conscience, let the human die of boredom instead of dying of illness, so he had ventured out of his lair armed with his collector’s edition box set of I’m A Scholarship Student At An Obscenely Rich School and Now I Have To Work Off A Debt Because I Broke A Vase That Belonged To A Host Club!

That had only been a few days ago, but this morning he had gotten a text from them saying that they were finished.

“It’s not like I have anything else to do, Levi.”

“Pretty sure you could have been sleeping, but okay.”

They stuck their tongue out. “I couldn’t put it down.”

“Right?” Levi nodded enthusiastically, clutching the box to his chest like it was worth his weight in gold. Actually, knowing him, he probably paid his weight in gold for it. “I definitely bawled my eyes out at the end. You have to watch the anime next, the music really brings the scene together. And, like, I’m not usually into pastel themes, but the color scheme actually really fits the mood, and - “

Somewhere in the middle of Levi’s overly-excited info dumping, the human’s eyes had slipped closed. By the time Levi realized he was geeking out, their breathing had evened out and they had slumped against the headboard.

…Oh. They looked really cute like that.

“Sheesh, c’mon, normie,” he muttered, shaking his head. “I can’t believe I bored you to sleep.”

He set down the box on their nightstand and, very carefully, so he didn’t wake them up, inched them down to lay were laying against the mountain of pillows they had. Once they were settled into a position that wouldn’t give them a crick in their neck, he pulled the blanket up to their chin.

“There,” he nodded to himself. “You rest up, because you and I are going to have an anime marathon, and I won’t forgive you if you fall asleep in the middle of it.”

They mumbled, but otherwise stayed unconscious. Levi had definitely seen this in an anime before. His heart was pounding somewhere around his throat, but he wasn’t getting this opportunity again any time soon. Gently, like he was approaching a wild animal, he leaned in close and pressed his lips to their forehead.

“Seriously, get better soon.” he murmured. “I don’t like seeing you sick.”

Satan: His leg was falling asleep.

He had been sitting in the same position for at least an hour, and if it were anyone else he simply would have shoved them off and went about his day. But, how could he push the human away when they were curled up like a kitten in his lap?

They had been complaining about being bored, since they had been too feverish to attend RAD for the past few days. So Satan, always the man with a plan, had arrived in their room ready to binge watch his favorite crime drama. Even though he had seen this show at least eight times, he still found himself getting absolutely sucked into the plot. So much so that he didn’t notice the human starting to nod off until they landed against his side.

“Honestly, you could have just told me you were tired.” he muttered, gently rearranging them so their head was resting in his lap. They made a small noise in their sleep, but otherwise remained unconscious.

It was so rare that the human was still. They seemed to have an endless source of energy, able to be embroiled in all of the shenanigans that tended to happen around the family without absolutely disintegrating. To have them finally at rest, even sick, was quite the treat. Satan couldn’t quit help himself as he reached down to pet their head.

Well, if he was going to be stuck here until they woke up, at least he had a good show to watch.

Asmodeus: “Asmo, I can bathe by myself.”

“Yeah, no, don’t even try it.” Asmo shook his head as he ushered the human into his bedroom. “You passed out in the shower the other day, darling. This is the only time I’m grateful for Mammon’s snooping, because you might still be there if he hadn’t heard you fall.”

They subconsciously touched the sore spot on their shoulder where they had collided with the wall. The pain blended in with the rest of their body aches, but the bruise certainly didn’t.

“Besides,” Asmo sat them down on the chaise lounge. “A nice, hot bath with some quality oils will rejuvenate you like nothing else. Now, go on, strip.”

When they gave him a clearly unamused look, he just laughed. “Not while you’re sick, darling. You know full well being with me requires you to be at peak energy.”

With a sigh, they began peeling themselves out of their days-old pajamas. Admittedly, they did feel like a bath would help them feel a little better. They were pretty sure they read somewhere that the steam from hot water would help clear out all the gunk in their chest. And if anyone knew the intricate rituals of bath time, it was Asmodeus.

While they were stripping, Asmo had made his way over to the Grecian temple that was his bathtub and turned on the tap. After a few moments of running his hand under the stream to test the temperature, he stood and began browsing his impressive collection of bath accoutrements. “Hm, let’s see, let’s see…here it is!”

Asmo turned around, holding up the little bottle like he had just found buried treasure. “Eucalyptus, to help clear out the lungs. It’s good for muscle aches, too!”

With a flourish, he put a few drops into the water. “Alright, ready. Can you get in yourself or do you need my help?”

“I’ve got the flu, not the plague, Asmo.”

“You. Fell. In. The. Shower.” he punctuated each word with a poke to their cheek before holding out his hand to help them. Although they grumbled, they were still feeling kind of weak, so they allowed Asmo to pull them up.

“There, now, easy does it,” he spoke softly as he guided them to sit on the edge of the tub. If this were any other situation, they would be painfully aware of the fact that they were completely naked in front of the Avatar of Lust. But, the fragrant steam rising from the water was beginning to ease the ache in their chest, and Asmo’s soft hands had begun massaging their shoulders. They barely even noticed when they were fully seated.

“You’re not coming in?” they murmured sleepily as Asmo sat himself along the edge of the tub. He just laughed.

“Next time, darling. Now, you just relax and let me take care of you.”

Beelzebub: The phrase “don’t have much of an appetite” just didn’t make sense to Beel. How could someone not want to eat? Maybe he was a bit biased, being the ever-starving Avatar of Gluttony, but still. Humans needed lots of nutrients to get better when they were sick, right? He was pretty sure that was what Satan told him.

Beel scowled, scrolling through the eighteenth listicle about foods to eat when sick. Honestly, he was making himself hungry, but he was starting to get the general idea. Looks like he’s making them some soup.

The kitchen was separated into “human” and “demon” sections, after the one time that they almost used cyanide instead of salt. Human cuisine took less time and involved less magic, so Beel knew his way around the human spice cabinet. Making the soup was the easy part, making sure it got to its intended recipient was another matter.

Climbing the stairs to the human’s room felt like a Herculean task, but he did it - mostly. He may have taken a few bites here and there. But he had purposely put more in the bowl than he knew they would be able to eat, so it was fine, right? He knocked on their door twice, listening to them shuffle around before they finally called out weakly that the door was open.

“I brought food.” he said, shutting the door behind him. “You haven’t been eating much lately.”

They poked their head miserably out of the blanket burrito they had wrapped themselves in. A thin sheen of sweat covered their forehead, but they were shaking, which meant their fever hadn’t broken yet. Did humans always take this long to get better? Another question for Satan.

“I’m not really hungry, Beel.” they mumbled, voice thick and gravelly due to the sore throat they had. “You can eat it.”

Shaking his head, Beel sat himself down on the bed beside them. “I had some already.”

“Have some more.”

“No, I made it for you.” his stomach growled, completely undermining his words. “It’s basically just broth, you can drink it.”

They wiggled around for a bit before they managed to extract themselves from the absolute cocoon they had made. “…What kind of broth?”

“Just chicken, I promise.” he laughed. “I wasn’t about to try to get you to eat a Devildom recipe.”

Finally, they got themselves into a sitting position, but even that seemed to wear them out. They flopped against Beel’s shoulder, and he definitely didn’t like how hot their skin felt against his. Their breathing was ragged as they tried to get the energy to sit up.

“Here,” Beel dipped the spoon into the broth. “I’ll help.”

“I’m not a baby…”

“No, but you are really weak.” he replied gently. “Let me help you.”

He could feel the urge to protest vibrating through their body - their independence was definitely an endearing quality of theirs. But, eventually they must have come to the conclusion that a content of tenacity between the two of them was going to take longer than simply waiting out their illness. With a huff, they opened their mouth and let Beel feed them.

“Oh, wow, this is pretty good.”

“I’m a good cook if I don’t eat the ingredients first.”

Belphegor: “I thought humans slept a lot when they got sick.”

The bags under the human’s eyes were almost as intense as they glare they gave him. When the rest of the brothers had begun arguing over something stupid, Belphegor had taken the opportunity to bundle them up and whisk them away to the peace and quiet of the attic. His intent had been to take a nice long nap with them, but apparently their lungs had a different plan.

“We should,” they groaned, sounding like their throat was made of sandpaper. “Every time I feel like I’m going to fall asleep, I start coughing.”

“That sounds counter-intuitive.”

“Tell me about it.”

Belphie rolled over so that he was lying on his side, facing them. “Well then, you picked a good nap partner.”

They blinked blearily up at him. “Why is that?”

“Come here, I’ll show you.”

He reached out, tugging them towards him until they were settled comfortably against his chest with their head tucked beneath his chin. Although he wasn’t the tallest of the brothers, he had enough height to basically surround the human. “Can you hear my heartbeat?”

“I’m too tired for you cheesy lines, Belphie.”

“No, seriously, just listen.”

He could practically hear them roll their eyes, but they quieted down. Once he was sure they were synced up with the steady ba-bump, ba-bump of his heart, he began to work his magic - literally.

He brought his hand up to cup the back of their skull, fingertips tingling as he focused his magic their. They squirmed for a moment before sighing as the cool rush of Belphie’s special brand of sleep magic washed over them.

“I told you, being tired isn’t the prob - “

“Hush,” he murmured, letting them feel his voice rumble through his chest. “Just relax for me, okay?”

Belphie massaged their scalp like he was washing their hair, working his magic into their skin. Slowly but surely he felt them soften, the tightness in their chest easing. Finally, their slightly labored breathing evened out, and the poor human finally succumbed to sleep.

“About time,” he kissed the top of their head. “You need to rest if you want to get better, so let’s sleep as long as we like, okay?”

[thatmultifandomhoe]

Loving the Sun

Pairing: Sun God (Apollo) San and Reader

Group: Ateez

Word Count: 1,451

Genre/Rating: Greek God AU - Established Relationship AU - Forbidden Relationship - Fluff - Angst - Teeny tiny implications of smut - PG-13

Overview: He may have been immortal, but with you, there was just never enough time in the world.

Warning: Faintly implied mentions of losing a baby

A/N: Shout out to my sweetest @ezralia-writes​​ for putting up with my constant dumbass and helping me out when I need it, whether it’s to be a beta-reader, or me messaging her at 11 at night on how to describe men’s hair, or simply having a good simp session. You’re the best sweet pea and I hope you enjoy this - again - hun! *sending you all the flying smooches*

Tagging: @skyys-universe​ @kunrengui​

Main Master List:

©thatmultifandomhoe 2021. Do not repost, translate, or use my stories without permission.

The blankets were warm as you shifted on the bed, lazily blinking your eyes open only to close them immediately afterwards, the sunlight streaming in through the window was much too bright this early in the morning. Rolling back over, you tried to open your eyes again, the sight of San’s bare chest coaxing you back to him as his body heat and faint remnants of his cologne from the night before made your mind foggy. With him lying next to you, and the silver chain of his sun necklace that reflected in the light, - that matched the one you wore - made it easy to forget about the outside world. At least, for right now.

Responsibilities? Gone the second his lips curled into his infamous smirk.

Deadlines? They vanished the moment his hands slipped into your back pockets; fingers always eager to grip what was forbidden to everyone but him.

Your name? Easily forgotten about when he kissed you. He’d settle his arms around your hips and carefully bring you closer until your bodies pressed together. Only then would he slide his hands up to your waist for a hug, breaking the kiss to bury his face in the crook of your shoulder because it had been so long since he last got to see you.

In the early morning light of dawn, the room looked like it was on fire, but a glance at his face had you thinking that he was being bathed in golden fairy dust. While awake he was beautiful. Asleep, he was ethereal. With cheek bones that the Gods and Goddesses were envious of, you gently reached a hand up to lightly trace its path, following the curve to his lips that even in his sleep, formed the slightest pout.

He suddenly inhaled, eyes blinking open just in time to see the tired smile that grew on your face.

“It’s early,” San murmured, his voice husky as he took your hand, his grip loose so that he was able to drop your arm around his waist. When he was satisfied, he slipped his left arm underneath his head and wrapped the other around your waist to drag you back to him, eliminating the space once more. San liked to feel you against him at all times, especially since he risked everything to take these chances to sneak his way back into your embrace.

You softly chuckled, feeling his fingers lazily stroke through the locks of your hair. “I know,” you whispered. “But I don’t want to lose any more time.”

There was a tired hum coming from him, lips tenderly pressing against your forehead before he laid his head back down on the pillow. The slightest shift from either of you and your heads would be bumping into the others, but done carefully, it was reminiscent of cats rubbing against each other.

“Don’t worry about time.”

“All I do is worry about time since we have so little of it,” you softly countered.

His black hair fell into his brown eyes and you reached up, brushing them away for him. He captured your hand then, bringing it closer for him to kiss your palm. Once. Twice. Thrice.

“The sun will rise whether or not I am there to guide it,” he promised.

Heat from his body appeared to transfer to you, spreading from every single spot where your bare bodies touched underneath the blankets that sat on your hips.

“That’s not what I’m talking about,” you whispered. “And you know it.”

His Adam’s apple bobbed when he swallowed. Briefly, his gaze flicked towards the window behind you, the gauzy curtains doing nothing to stop the sunlight from filtering through the blinds that were opened at an angle. At most, he had maybe a few hours before the others woke and noticed his absence. He couldn’t let them find out that he was visiting you once more.

“I love you,” San murmured, setting his arm down to tap the back of your spine in a rhythmic pattern.

Your lips trembled despite pressing them together. Sliding a leg over his, you shook your head. “Why do you say it like that?”

“Like what?”

“Like you’re apologizing.”

He was quiet. The room silent with the exception of the bed creaking with every shift made in order to get comfortable and closer. No matter how hard the two of you tried, there was always space and time trying to get in between you.

“Because for as long as I live, I will always be sorry for what they did.”

A chill blew across your face, and not surprisingly, the tears fell off your chin and onto the blankets. “You can’t apologize for your entire life for something you didn’t do.”

“Yes, I can. Our little one was meant to be here by now, I should have been here to protect the two of you but I wasn’t, and they took that away from us.” The corner of his mouth twitched. In the sunlight, you watched a stream of tears slide down his cheeks. “All because I fell in love with a human and as punishment, they took away what we both treasured.”

Out of instinct you lifted a hand to cup his cheek as you both leaned your foreheads together; the memory of a night not so long ago was still raw, the sting not yet having gone away. It was punishment for a crime that all the Gods committed, but yet, San was the only one to live with the consequences of his actions. That had been the first day in eons that the sun – having only been bright and full of warmth minutes prior – turned black as night and painful to gaze upon with the naked eye in mere seconds. There wasn’t much from that day that you recalled, the majority of it had faded away as a result of the events, but you remembered a looming figure with lightning flashing in his eyes, and the piercing screams. Whether they were yours, San’s, or a combination of both, you weren’t entirely sure.

What you were certain of, was that the man you loved had been taken away from you, and the child you carried, who had called its home inside of you for the last six months and you fondly teased for making it impossible to fit into your old jeans. It was that little one who had San crouching in front of your belly to sing the sweetest lullabies, who was suddenly gone, like they had never been there to begin with.

You had thought it was all a dream. Months had passed and you were starting to believe that it had been all a figment of your imagination. That you weren’t possibly pregnant or had met a man who wasn’t supposed to exist, but when you had been sitting at the park bench and the sun kissed the earth goodnight, he appeared. Kneeling in front of you with a cut on his cheek that hadn’t been there before, his clothes dirty with soot and the edges singed as if he had been reckless and gotten too close to a fire.

Kissing him, you slipped your hand through his hair as the tears mingled together. He rolled you over on your back, his body blocking out the sunlight as he slapped a hand on the blinds to close them. You could taste his please forgive me in his kisses, knowing that he would never be able to forgive himself for what happened that day. As you kissed him back, beads of sweat began to build up along your temple when he sat down on the bed and brought you onto his lap, his arms tightening around you even though you were already clinging to his shoulders.

Even as he loved you, his arms held you in a tight embrace, his breath and tears intermingling with yours with every desperate, but loving kiss. San was afraid. Fearful that like the little one, you too, would be ripped away from him.

It had never been easy, and it certainly wouldn’t be in the future. There were lonely nights when he couldn’t sneak away, whispers from jealous Goddesses trying to dissuade you from his advances, to having to keep the love you shared a secret. Even the heartache of losing him and the little one. But you’d go through it all over again. You had known that to love a God – a sun God nonetheless – was going to hurt.

As much as it hurt, loving him was worth the pain and even more. To live without the sun after all, was to die a cold and painful death.

[sif-the-tsunami]

When I Was His Wife

“Well I was looking forward to/ staying here forever/ ‘cause you asked me to/ Didn’t think I could do better/ So I settled down/ in this ten cent town/ it’s about to break me.” These are the Best Years of my Life- Pistol Annies

This is the follow up to “When You Fall Apart” Which is one of my favorites that I’ve written.

(there is Sy just carrying the weight of all of my own internal chaos)

A/N thank you for everyone who encouraged me to write this, I adore Sy as a character. He seemed like someone who could pull off the impossible. I made some choices in here that not everyone will agree with. Tell me I’m wrong in the comments an we can discuss it there.

Pairing: Sy and Josephine

Warnings: again all of them. discussion of infidelity, Discussion of child loss, discussion of unprotected sexual intercourse, headbutting, day drinking, self medicating, therapy, swearing fealty on ones hunting knife, discussion of knife play, I’m probably missing something

 Everything is going below the cut this time to save anyone who doesn’t like this kind of stuff from unpleasantness.

word count just shy of 7.5K

Thank you to @inlovewithhisblueeyes for letting me bounce ideas off of you, love you sweet girl

tagging: @oddsnendsfanfics @willkatfanfromasia @rocket44 @feralrunaway @littlewrenofrivia​  @summersong69​  @coffeebooksandfandom​ @klaine-92​ @nothingright​ @cavillsim​ @watery-lane​ @above-average-ass-bitch 

unbeta’d

I slept for the next two days, Mama only woke me up long enough to drink some water once she started worrying about me. She managed to wrangle my out of my clothes and into one of Daddy’s shirts we got him that she left in the drawer. My phone was dead, but thankfully Mama and I had the same kind so I could charge it today. What fresh hell was going to be waiting for me on my digital leash? I lay there for a while, the murmur of conversation in the other room was comforting. Mama left a fresh glass of water some time recently, it was still chilly with only a little condensation forming around the sides. The ache in my chest was almost unbearable. The hole in my heart was Syverson sized, being sober made the edges of that abyss feel even more raw and pronounced. I don’t know if my liver could handle me drowning my sorrow much more, but I would give anything to not feel it. I need to make this feeling of worthlessness go away.

When I finally decided to rejoin the land of the living, Mama and my brother Teddy were talking at the kitchen table, discussing about if they should come with me to go get my things or if I should call the sheriff’s office to be monitored. I stayed behind the corner long enough to let them finish what they were going on about.

“If I know Jo well enough, she’s going to need someone to keep her from burning the whole house down with him in it tied to a chair,” my brother chuckled. “She’s been taking care of herself for years. You should have seen how she handled one of these girls who came up to us once on Post.

“Jo was loading up the car when this prissy little thing came walking up, she must have thought she was some kind of hot shit. You would have been so proud of her Mama, the girl said to her that she had been sleeping with James during their deployment. All Jo said back to her was ‘You’ve both been back for something like three months, right, have you seen him since?’ Little Miss Hot Shit stuttered and said ‘Well not yet,’ like she had been really holding out that he was going to. ‘He doesn’t have my new phone number.’ Jo just tiled her head to the side. Smiled at her real sweetly and told her, ‘Baby girl, he’s not going to. He knows how to find you. You were just a rental car to him, sweetie bell. Ford Fiestas are fun as hell to ride but let’s be honest, you aren’t going to pick a Fiesta over the Mercedes Benz you have at home. You aren’t the first and you sure as hell won’t be the last, now go on and get out of here before I ruin the rest of your day like you tried to ruin mine.’ One of the other officer’s wives came up to her and said she was amazed that she handled her so well without breaking Miss Prissy Pant’s face. She just said ‘I’m too pretty to go to prison, Kathy.’ And we hoped in the car. You raised one tough lady, Mama.”

“How many times has that happened, Theodore, I need to know.”

“She has only told me about four women meeting her face to face. The two pregnant girls who got knocked up to get out of their deployments, Prissy Pants, and one who thought that James was in love with her. She evidently broke down in tears on the tarmac when Josie jumped into his arms and he swung her around. But she would get letters tucked into the windshield of her car for months whenever he returned from deployment.”

“You two kept this from me for years, why?”

“Jo said that this was her problem, don’t you remember how you handled it when her first boyfriend ran out on her on prom night? She cried to you and Dad, and you just told her that no one is worth weeping over. She’s just been trying to make you proud, Mama. Daddy might have known because I know they had a really nasty fight about a month before he died.”

I walked out after that. Mama’s eyes were red, “Good morning, baby, do you want pancakes? Bacon and eggs? What do you want, Darlin’?”

“Coffee would be a good start.” I rasped. “Can I use your charger?”

“It’s right here. Cream and sugar?”

“Black as my sense of humor, please Mama.” I said, Teddy chuckled again. I reached over and squeezed my brother’s shoulder. “Hey, I’m glad you’re here.”

“I got to look after my little sissy.” He replied using what he called me growing up. “So what are we doing to get over Jimmy?”

“I was thinking tattoos and day drinking?”

“Atta’ girl, Josie. Fuck that douche canoe.”

As soon as my phone was able to turn on, it sat on the counter vibrating for the next five minutes.  Six missed calls from James. And seventy text messages. A few from stores I shop at, but the majority were from my husband.

“Ugh, I just don’t feel like dealing with this right now.” I said as my mom put my coffee in front of me.

“Just leave him on read. I doubt he’s hurting for company.”  Mama said, in almost a snarl. I looked through a few messages. The last one was from this morning. Sweetheart, I’m worried sick about you, I miss you. Please talk to me?

“Ted, do you want to go with me to Walmart so I can get a couple day’s worth of clothes, I am just not ready to go back and I can’t live in Daddy’s old shirts.”

“Of course, we can get some booze while we are there.”

“Get yourself a bathing suit while you are there, honey, its going to be beautiful today and you can go for a swim.” Mama added.

I texted James back finally as I finished my coffee. I’m sorry I worried you, Sy, I have literally been asleep since I got here. I’m not ready.

I understand. I’m sorry, I should have seen how much I’ve been hurting you. I swear to God, I really do love you. Please, let me know what I can do for you.

Yeah, you should have, James. You should have seen how bad you’ve been treating me. You can drop off the face of the earth, that’s what you can do for me, I think spitefully. Thankfully, Mama washed my yoga pants and tank top. It would have to be alright for now. My brother let me wear one of his extra flannel shirts he kept in the back of his car. An hour later, Ted and I were at the store, picking up chips, dip, and cheap champagne. Mama loved mimosas, so I thought it was the least I could do. I grabbed a couple of sun dresses and a bikini, if I was going to be gone for a few days, I was going to come back home looking refreshed, radiant even, and not like the hot pile of garbage I was feeling like. I made a small detour to the cosmetics department, got myself a couple of face masks, hair dye, and sun screen.

“Really? Dark brown, Josie?”

“That’s as close to my natural color as I can, I’m tired of the blonde highlights. I think after this I might just let it come in. Grays and all. Who ever loves me next is going to have to just deal with me as nature intended.”

“I’m proud of you. Do you think you will leave him for good?” He said, Ted has always been very protective of me.

“Well, I certainly can’t leave him for evil, can I?” Making him laugh. One the way outside there was a truck near the front of the store with a sign that read “Puppies for sale.”

“Teddy, we need to see these puppies.” I gasped. Walking up to the truck bed I saw the sweetest little German Shepard puppies. I reached in and they all started flopping all over the place trying to get pets and love. Maybe a puppy was exactly what my hurting heart needed. We haven’t had a dog since Aika passed away. It was looking like I would never have a baby but maybe this was the kind I needed. Puppy snuggles would definitely make that Syverson shaped hole less painful.

“I’ll buy you a puppy if you divorce James.” Ted said to me, half joking.

“Shit, I can afford the puppy, pay for the divorce.” I jest back. “How much for one of the precious babies?”

“$500 a pup, mom has a pedigree, but daddy was the neighbor’s sneaky bastard.” The woman also petting the puppies said. “Mama is in the front if you want to meet her, daddy is very friendly as well.”

I start laughing uncontrollably. With tears in my eyes, I ask if any of the puppies are girls, and she pulls   out a beautiful little one with floppy ears and the biggest smile I had ever seen on a dog. Oh yeah, she was meant for me.

“I’ll take her, do you take checks?” I think I’m ready to start healing.

*****

“Josephine, that son of a bitch you call your husband is here to see you.” Mama shouts from the house. It’s Sunday afternoon now, Teddy and I have exhausted all the snacks and mimosas hours ago and now we were sobering up by the pool. My new baby girl is laying next to my sun chair, chewing on her bone, wearing a pretty pink collar.

“Well, might as well let him out here.” I shout back.

“Are you sure, I can kick his ass to the curb if you want me to, baby.”

“Its okay Mama, I can handle him myself.” Sy walks out in the back yard a couple minutes later. I’m guessing Mama threatened to stick him in a meat grinder.

“I deserved that.” He said, looking thoroughly admonished. “You changed your hair, it looks really good...

“Oh bless your heart, James. That’s not even half of what you deserve.” Ted spoke up before he could finish, not moving his face towards him. He lay there in his swim trunks and dark sunglasses.

“Oh great, all three of you have been drinking. I can tell this is going to go well...” James sighed. “Who is this cutie pie, did your Ma get a new dog?”

“She’s my dog, her name is Stella Rosa.”

“I don’t think anyone asked you to come, Colonel Sanders, what are you doing here?” Ted snapped.

“Hey, I got this, okay? I’m a big girl, please, go in the house. The fuck are you doing here James?” I lift my sun glasses up.

“She’s a very sweet pup. Yeah, you are a good girl for your mama, aren’t you? I came to see you. I want to bring you home, baby, I miss you.” He’s checking out my fresh tan in my new bikini. Subtly, but he does it.

“I’m not ready. I’m not even ready to talk to you. Why would you think that I even want to come home?”

“I don’t know, I asked myself that the entire drive here. I don’t know what I’m even going to do with myself when I go home alone. Pussycat, I can’t begin to think of life without you. I know I fucked up. And I know I can’t take that back. You asked me the other day what I kept that was special just between us. I should have answered you then. All those nights where you fell asleep with your head on my chest, the evenings laying in the back of the truck looking at the stars after driving around trying to find the best nachos in town. And, baby, no matter where we go, yours are always the best. No one else ever got moments like that. You are the only woman I want to slow dance with in the middle of the night.

“You are the only person in the world that I would wait four hours in the freezing cold to get the best brisket in Austin for because you were craving bbq when we were still, you know...” He paused. I don’t think he ever stopped blaming himself for what happened. His knees were never the same after that accident, and usually whenever he stood up from kneeling, they clicked and popped painfully. He leaned a little closer spreading his legs and reached down to pet Stella. She seemed a little leery of him. It is easy to be cynical given the circumstances, but there is something about the way he is talking to me, I haven’t heard him be this earnest in years.

“When was the last time you were with someone other than me?” I can’t bring myself to look at him. I keep my eyes anywhere but on him. My body aches so badly for him to just wrap his arms around me. I miss him.

“When I got held up in Kuwait for two weeks in December...”

“December? You mean when you missed my fucking birthday. Goddammit James...” And the ache is gone. My heart shattered again. He’s going to make me cry again.

“Hey, it was after your birthday, and it was a hate fuck because I was mad that I broke yet another promise to you.”

“That doesn’t make it better.” I snap. “How many that deployment?”

“Just the one. And she’s someone who I knew was more discreet because we had that arrangement before.”

“I swear on my Daddy’s grave that if you are lying to me right now, I will end you Syverson. You couldn’t have waited a few more days?”

“I had no idea when I was going home. We boarded that fucking plane three times and had to turn back because there was a problem with it. I was two seconds away from tearing apart the first Private that so much as looked at me sideways. It felt like, at the time, the less terrible choice.”

“They sound both pretty shitty to me. You are a fucking adult James, you have to be able to control yourself or at least be responsible for your actions. If this is what you think love is, I would rather you hate me.” I stand up. Stella wags her tail excited to get away.

“Josephine, please...” He grasps my wrist, not hard, but there wasn’t anyway I was going to be able to get out of his big hand.

“Please what? Please stay so you can keep treating me like this. There are some people in this world who have no problem playing second or third fiddle, they are just thankful they are in the band. But I deserve to be your first chair, or I don’t want to play at all.”

“Mama wants to know if the jackass is staying for dinner.” Ted shouts at us.

“He going!” “I’m staying!” we yell over each other. He’s not looking at me, he’s not even looking at the pup. His eyes are somewhere else, mentally for a second he is somewhere else also.

“Baby…  I… You have always been my first chair. There is no one else on earth like you. I have never done anything with these women as an act of love. It was always been, and I mean always, just a way to scratch an itch. Every time I was gone, every time things got bad, getting to come home to you was the thing that keep me going, Jo. You have been my safe harbor for the worst parts of my life.”

“James… That doesn’t excuse what you’ve done. You aren’t the man I fell for anymore. This isn’t healthy.” He let go of my wrist, and rubs his face. Those beautiful eyes of his have seen so much. For the first time I think he actually looks… broken. Is this the remorse I have been wanting to see? I try not to keep scores, especially when it comes to my loved ones. But for the first time since things went sour, he looks like I hurt him as much as he has hurt me.

Maybe there was love between us once. However there are just two broken hearts for now.

“Come on in the house, I can at least feed you before I send you back.”

“I think I will just go,” he says it quietly. “I don’t want to be a burden on you.”

“Don’t be like that, I am still cooking like I’m making dinner for you, so its way too much for the three of us. Come on in, I made carnitas.”

“I’ll be in, I just need a minute.” He refuses to let me see him cry if he’s not waking up screaming, even after all this time. Whenever we could have a healing moment, he pushes me out. I went inside, and started setting the table.

“Are we poisoning his tacos?” Teddy asked me.

“That’s not the worst idea I’ve heard today.” Mama interjected.

“No, and don’t start anything. He’s eating dinner with us, don’t either of you make him feel bad. I already did that.” Sy walked in at that moment, those blue eyes of his rimmed with red. He looked defeated. The four of us ate our dinner in silence. There was a time where he would have made some kind of comment about eating me out when we had tacos. He looked at me once during the meal, I think he remembered it too. He offered to clear the plates when were all done and sat in uncomfortable silence. The cockiness I had grown accustomed to over the years was gone.

He carried himself like this when we lost our baby, he can’t take that kind of humility. At least not with me.

“Sy...” I waited until the others were out of the room. “Do you still want me to come home with you?”

“Not if it means all we are going to do is get a divorce. I can’t see you every day knowing that I will never get to be yours again. I let them do a lot of terrible things to me over the years, but that… that I can’t handle.” His voice cracked. “If you want out, I will give you everything you ask for. I won’t fight you. But please, give me a chance to fight for you.”

“I don’t think you are exactly in a position to make that that request.” I lean against the counter across the room from him.

“No, I’m not.” he half smirked, “I don’t deserve you.”

“Look, I’m not saying that this can’t still all explode in our faces. But I miss my best friend and that has always been the best part of us. It will never be the same as it was before, it can’t be. However, if you are willing to work with me, I am willing to see if we there is any salvageable. If nothing else, we both need therapy very badly. We can’t just shrug this off. The second that it goes back to where we were, I’m gone.”

“Okay. I’ll do it.” He sniffs hard, and his breath is broken up, tucking his arms against himself. Usually its in authority, this time hes just trying to hug himself. I gesture him to come over and I hug him. He wraps his arms around then envelopes me. Leaning his head on mine, he whispers “I’ll do whatever you want, my darlin.”

I told my mom that I would be going home, she sighed at me. “Do you think this is the best idea?”

“I don’t know, Mama. I think I just want some closure. I told him if he so much as sneezes out of line that I’m gone. Forever. There will be no more chances.”

“Well, baby, I trust you. You are always welcome back here if you need to get away.”

While I’m packing my stuff into the shopping bags I had, I hear a sudden crack and Sy groans then swears. “yeah, I deserved that too.”

“What the fuck did you just do, Theodore?” I yell coming out. Ted was still holding my husband’s hand, and Sy was holding his face. “Did you… just headbutt him?”

“Yes, I did. My sister my might be willing to move past your mistakes, but I’m not. However, I’ve always been the petty one in the family. Hurt her again, they will have to dig your nuts out of your chest cavity, do we understand each other?”

“Yep, perfectly.” Sy grimaced. There were very few men that he would not retaliate against. Teddy, at 6’5, and years of horse wrangling, was one of them. Sy was build like a brick shit house, but so was my big brother. I thought we were old enough to not resort to violence, I have been wrong before.

My probably, potentially, soon to be ex-husband put mine and Stella’s things in the back bench of his truck. I held her in the crook of my arm as I climbed up in the cab. He gently shut the door for me, I noticed his shiner was going to be pretty gnarly in the morning.

He climbed into the other side as I set little Stella down on the floor. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, it was a cheap shot, I’ll be fine. At this point, I don’t want to rock the boat with your brother and Ma. She tore me a new asshole before I got outside today.”

“I’m surprised you haven’t changed your mind, say to hell with me and that I’m not worth the hassle.”

“Josephine, I might not have made the appropriate effort to show you how much you mean to me, but you are worth it.” The Syverson shaped hole in my heart roared. Why couldn’t he have been this way all along?

We talked about the girl at the movies, and how she was one of his new officers. She might have come on to him, but he never engaged with her outside of work related things. He told her several times that he wasn’t interested but she was persistent. I halfway apologized for trying to decapitate him with a tequila bottle. He acknowledged that this was a long time coming.  This was the most we had talked about anything deep for months. I don’t know if it was too little and too late though.

The rest of the drive home we made a plan of action. He would move into the office and would stay in there until I invited him back into my bed. We would start couple’s therapy as soon as we could. He would also start seeing a therapist individually. Before we got into town I also told him my final request for our reconciliation. I wanted to see other people. I had been with him since I was nineteen, I have never faltered in my devotion to him. I wanted to see if he was really the one for me.

When I got home, I poured out the rest of my alcohol, save for a bottle of champagne I was saving for our anniversary. He took Stella outside to go potty and came back singing her name “Stella bella, who is a good girl? Your Mama picks good puppies, yes she does. Good girl, Stella bella.”

Stella came prancing back to me with her tail wagging happily. He walked up behind me, and grazes the backs of my arms gently with his knuckles, leaning down to kiss my neck. “Not yet, Sy. I don’t want us to complicate things more than they already are.”

“Josie, what do you mean?”

“I don’t want to have sex with you until we start therapy.”

“So you want us to stop having sex, sleep in separate rooms and at some point you want to start seeing other men.” He starts nodding. He lets out a deep sigh and closes his eyes. “Okay, it that’s what you want to do. I was thinking about getting my stuff out of the bedroom so I can try to get some sleep. I love you, Pussycat. I’ll see you in the morning.” And with that, James went to bed. He was snoring on the couch in the office by the time I went to go lay down.      

****

It took us three weeks to get into see a couples therapist. It felt a little validating about my decision that we shouldn’t sleep together until we have really decided to try or not. She had me stay behind and talk with her for another half an hour the first time we met.  She asked me why I wanted to save my marriage with Sy if he’s hurt me for years.

“I don’t rightly know,” I told her. “Maybe its because when we are good we are so damn good. Before we were married, I was warned, I knew that things happened overseas and I shouldn’t take it personally, he’s just a man and not a saint. I never have had a doubt in my mind about if he’s been faithful when he’s been here until recently when a woman he knows started acting weird around me. The love we had was so passionate, like sometimes he thought that if he couldn’t put his hands on me I would disappear. I don’t think I will ever find someone who can love me like that again.”

The therapist suggested that he starts getting treated for PTSD and anger management while we all were working together. I would also have my own separate sessions to work on my own issues. It took a few months but I started seeing small differences in how he was handling things at work that pissed him off. He was able to defuse himself more easily. He became more open with his feelings. I think it helped that we both stopped drinking. We could be a little volatile when we had a pitcher (or three) of margaritas.

There were days with our sessions where we leave emotionally exhausted and not speak to each other the rest of the day, some of them ended in peals of laughter, others where I would cry for most of it. We discussed the infidelity at great lengths. I don’t want to rehash the details but it was definitely one of the bad days. But it seems that the root cause was him using the only the other women for comfort after fairly traumatic events. It’s why it only happened on deployments. He needed to feel something other than pain.

The lack sexual intimacy between the two of us made James start to get creative to initiate closeness between the two of us. He started helping me make dinner on the weekends, or he would bring me my coffee in the morning the way I like it. Mama and Teddy started coming over occasionally for suppers. It was nice to have the house filled with laughter. We started talking again like when we first started dating. He would take the time to go with me grocery shopping.

He started asking me out on dates again. Myself, him and Stella would drive out to the country, with a picnic basket that he would even prepare himself and we would go star gazing like we used to. I loved seeing the effort, but that hole still ached in my chest the whole time. The pieces should have all fit together, but here I was still not sure I could commit to him for the rest of my life.

On one of these dates, he asked me what I thought about him retiring. He had been in for almost nineteen years at this point and had far exceeded is expectations for being in the Army as an officer.

“I kind of just want to sell off all our extra shit and buy a really nice Air-stream. We can pull it with my truck. Just travel up and down the continent, I know you always have wanted to see the Northern Lights, we can just go anywhere. Me, you and Stella would visit where ever we could find a parking spot.”

“That sounds nice, Sy.” It came out a little half hearted.

“You don’t sound convinced, sweetheart.” He said, started sounding concerned.

“Hun, I don’t want to have a fight right now, so please just let me get this off my chest.” I sigh. And then I told him about the pain in my chest that I’ve had since my night in jail. That sometimes, like tonight, it was only a dull ache. That other times the edges are still so sharp that it feels like the pain was going to swallow me whole. He sits up, jaw dropped.

“Why haven’t you told me this before? I… Jo… son of a bitch.” He groans. He lays back down, the same defeated tone came back that I hadn’t heard since Mama’s house. “I’m trying my best, Josephine, but I feel like I have one hand tied behind my back… you will never love me again, will you?  I can grovel, and beg. I don’t know what else I need to do. I know what I want to do, but it will just hurt you more.”

“What do you want to do, Sy?”

“I want to kiss every part of your skin, remind your body that I worship it. I want to pin you to the wall of our hallway and make love to you. I want to go to sleep with my nose buried in in your hair, and wake up sliding inside of you. I have since you came home. Hell, I always want to do that with you. But that can’t be the only thing that keeps us together.” He looked over at Stella sprawl out.

“I didn’t say this to hurt you, hun. I just wanted to be honest with you.”

“I know, I… just don’t want to cause you more misery. I really thought we were, you know, heading back in the right direction.”

“We have been, and honestly, I think if we threw in the towel now, it would cause more harm than good.” I say as the tears well up in my eyes. For the first time since I was taken away, I straddle his hips. He sits up and I place my hands on either side of his face, then lean in to kiss him. He kisses me back with the same hunger. I missed him. The ache dulled a little until he pulled away.

“Let’s get going, Jo, I want you so fucking bad. I want to take you here and now, I want to make you scream my name and damn anyone who catches us. We need to stop this, the agreement was that we wouldn’t. Fuck I’ve missed how you taste.” He said before stealing one more kiss.

*****

The next week was awkward to say the least, the therapist was pleased about the kissing and that I opened up. She said that it was possible that the pain would go away, but that he and I needed to remember that it was like I was grieving. In the mean time, we should continue to take it slowly because we both needed to be sure. The following few days he was distant, and the ache returned in full force.

With his PTSD treatments, he was having less nightmares. It was the best thing I could ask for. There were still times where he would yell in his sleep but they had become farther and farther apart. It was a night after he had his individual treatment, he had come home talking about how he felt the night of my breakdown. He came home and told me a little bit, how he had never seen me so angry before, thrashing about like a caged animal. He hated himself for pushing me there. That night, in the darkness of the small hours, I woke up from being dead asleep hearing him say my name in a panic. He then repeated sounding more and more scared. “Josie, oh my god, Josie, no. I’m sorry Jo, I didn’t mean to. JoJo!”

I rushed into the office, he was jerking violently in his sleep about on the couch. I turned on the light near his head. When these dreams happen, his eyes were usually opened, it creeps my out every time. I start to gently wake him up, saying his name and touching him as gently as possible. It took a few moments but he came back to me.

“Jo, Jesus fuck, you’re alright?”

“Of course I am, sweetheart, what happened? I’m right here, I’m okay, you are okay, everything is okay.”

“I dreamed we were back in the kitchen, you were under me. Screaming and whipping about. I had to restrain you more then I accidentally broke your neck and you died in my arms. It felt real, baby, I was holding your body and then the sheriff came and that’s when you woke me up. Oh my god. I fucking can’t. I can’t anymore. I need you, Josie. If something happens to you, oh fuck.” I have never seen James sob like this. He pawed at me until I was wrapped in his arms. I slipped my arms around his neck and held his head to mine. His sobs were hard. We sat there until he let it all out.

“Come on, big man, let’s get you into bed. Come with me. I’ll stay with you all night.” He nodded at me and followed me to the bed we used to share. I wrapped him up in our fluffy blankets. He snuggled into me and was asleep in moments. I stayed there in his arms until he woke up. The Syverson shaped hole hurt less that night.

When he woke up he started crying again. He held me and started kissing my face. “Thank god. I thought you coming to me last night was another dream.”

“No baby, I’m here.” He sniffed hard and squeezed me closer to him. We went back to sleep for a few more hours and when we got up for the day he moved his things back into our bedroom. We might not have started other marital acts but we both started sleeping better having the other person in bed. It had been almost six months we started trying to reconcile.

*****

It had been an interesting couple of months while we started the transition for him to retire. Soon it was only a matter of days. The dates had continued, the kissing had continued, but something was keeping me back from being able to say that the next step was what I wanted. Therapy continued, and we would be seeing her for the next few months. Before I left my private session she asked me if I had given myself a deadline. She was concerned that I might keep dragging it out and that would just make both of us miserable. I told her I had an idea and that I planned on pulling the trigger soon.

Sy’s superiors were setting up a retirement ceremony for him, followed by a dinner with the upper chain of command. He wasn’t looking forward to it, Sy just wanted to be out and done. He came home one day while I was watching a show based on a book series I had read when we first were married. The redheaded Scot swore fealty to his wife, offering to pierce his own heart with a dagger if he should ever rebel against her again.  

“What’s this you’re watching?” He asked.

“Outlander, it just picked back up again from a season break. It’s pretty damn close to the book.”

“So is this what the ladies like these days, men in kilts offering to off themselves if they fuck up?”

“Women have liked men in kilts since I can remember. Why do you think we go to the Renn Faire every year.” I wink at him. “But yeah, I’m sure that does it for some people.”

“Well shit, Pussycat, it’s the only thing I haven’t done.” Sy walked out of the room and came back with his favorite hunting knife. It had been his dad’s once upon a time. The handle was made out of buck horn. In his warn and dusty uniform, he knelt in front of me on the living room floor. His beautiful blue eyes looking into mine, “Well, this isn’t iron, and it definitely isn’t holy. However, I will swear on it either way. Josephine, you are the only woman I have ever loved, you are my best friend, and I adore you. I will never do anything to make you doubt that love or loyalty again. If I ever do anything that makes you feel like you are less than the beautiful, smart, incredible, sexy creature that you are, you can sink this right in my heart. I will even hold it there for you so all you have to do is press it right in.” He finishes with a tongue click as an exclamation.      

“James, you didn’t need to do this. You know I am weird about grand gestures.”

“No, I think I do. I said my vows to you on our wedding rings and I wasn’t able to keep it. But, I will never break this one. If I can earn your love back, I will never do anything to make you regret giving me this chance to be your man.” He still held the knife against his chest with one hand, and placed my hand over his with the other. “So what do you think, baby girl? We still have a long way to go, but I can’t think of anyone else I would rather struggle with.”

“I think you just put yourself in a position that I could just end you now if I wanted to.” I say with my usual sass.

“Yes, you could. I don’t think you will though.” He said smiling, his voice was husky and deep as usual. I love that easy smile of his.

“Is it wrong that I want to get on your lap and make out with you while I hold this against you.” His eyebrow raised. “Maybe more than just make out with you.”

“Oh, don’t you tease me now, sweet thing. I don’t want to start anything you won’t finish.”

“Who said I won’t finish it, Colonel Syverson?” His eyes grew as big as dinner plates.  

“Wait, do you mean it?” He choked.

“Yeah, I do mean it.” I laughed. Before I could get up, he had hiked the skirt of the dress I was wearing up to my hips, pulling me to the edge of the sofa, revealing that I had skipped a certain garment that day. “I had an idea for after supper, but if you want we can do this now…. Oh fuck I’ve missed this.”

Before I can even finish my sentence, he was going to town with his tongue on his favorite part of my body. He remembered everything that made me squeal in delight. From the lack of sex on both of our ends, he was able to get me off easily. My body was desperate for his touch. He stopped once my body was trembling, kissing one of my thighs from my apex to my knee. He suddenly grunted and bit down on a tender part. He started panting and kissed the spot he bit.

“I’m sorry, sugar, I didn’t want to only last for two or three thrusts. Fuck, I have missed this pretty pussy. You taste so good.” He had a handful of his own cum and looked around for a tissue. Without a word, I grabbed his hand and licked it clean, keeping eye contact with him the entire time. He moaned out and then stood up. He took his shirt off, and lifted me up off the couch. I knew this hurt his back and knees but I wasn’t about to chastise him for wanting to be romantic. He carried me like we were on our honeymoon back to the bedroom. He lay me down as gently as possible then finished stripping himself. I took my dress off leaving myself exposed to him in a way that I haven’t in almost a year. Sy joined me on the bed, open and vulnerable to me. I loved those thick thighs and torso of his, he always eclipsed me.

“Hello ladies, nice to finally see you again.” He purred as he licked and sucked on my nipples. He leaned to one side and massaged my breasts with one of his hands. “Glad to see you that you missed me too.”

Before long, I could feel his erection pressing against my thigh. He spread my legs and rubbed himself against my opening. He leaned down and kissed my neck before sliding himself inside of me. I moan his name as he gently started making love to me. Bearing his weight on his elbows, he kissed and nipped at my neck.

Breathlessly, he told me how much he missed my body, how much he loved me, how lucky he was to have me. As his tempo increased, he started to whisper in me ear.

“Josephine, tell me what you are.” I looked at him confused. “You are my wife, I want you to tell me that you are my wife.”

“I’m your wife, James.” I tell him as lovingly as possible.

“Louder, baby.”

“I’m your wife.” I said loud and clearly. The Syverson shaped hole in my chest is gone, finally. Replaced with the warmth of knowing we were going to be able to survive this.

“Even louder, Jo.” I yell it out and he thrusts harder and deeper. “Keep going, beautiful, I want the whole neighborhood to know.”

I screamed it as he started pounding me harder, building his orgasm. As my own starts its crescendo, I screamed his name and arched my back as he pulls my hips down on himself and spilled into me. He lay down beside me, twitching and jerking a little. He kisses all the parts of my skin that is available to his reach.

“I think we should order a pizza for dinner tonight,” He says after a few minutes of catching his breath. “So we can stay in bed and make love again.”

“Or, and hear me out. I put my dress back on, you get dressed and we go out for sushi with your cum dripping down my thighs. What do you think about that?”

“Shit, I missed you being a damn freak like that. Do I we get to have more fun tonight if I say yes?” He chuckles, then kisses my hand, “I still want you to ride me with my knife pointed at me some time tonight.”  

“Aren’t you scared I’m going to cut off a nipple or something.”

“You, with a knife? To be honest, cutting off my nipple is the least of my concerns. How do I know if this just isn’t a whole plan to lure me into complacency with sex and sushi, then you just murder me in my sleep.” He rolled onto his back and whined for a second, but got up. He put on a pair of khaki shorts and a black Metallica t-shirt as I got into my dress again.

“God damn woman, you are so fucking sexy.” He tells me as he opens the door on my side of the truck and leans down to kiss me again. As I climb up he give my butt a little tap just like he used to and closes the door for me. The ache I’ve been feeling these long months has subsided. Sitting across the cab from me, holding my hand, he asks if we want to go look at travel trailers this weekend. For the first time in a while, I feel like everything is going to be alright.

[cafeinthemoon]

Founders with s/o traumatized from a mission 💔

So this request is both interesting and challenging and I want to thank the anon who made it! Let me tell you that I have a thing for dark/unsettling content though I don’t write anything explicit. I like to explore the psychological aspects of these type of experiences through my writing, using them to create a bridge between the characters and the readers. I think this is my job as a writer.

For this request we have the Grandpas with a s/o who’s a shinobi and just came back from a mission, but something happened during it that left her traumatized and refusing to talk, and they have to deal with it until s/o is recovered. I didn’t tell what exactly happened in the mission: instead I focused on what each of them would do in that situation. Hope you don’t mind XD

I hope you enjoy it!

Fandom: Naruto | Founders

Symbols: ◻ | 💜 | 💛

Warnings: traumatic experiences, nightmares, psychological suffering, painful memories

Hashirama

He didn’t need to look twice to understand that something was wrong with you

It was beyond physical tiredness

That hesitation in your steps, that way your eyes widened while looking around as if you were expecting something terrible to appear at any moment, that abnormal trembling on your hands

All of this made Hashirama start to question his own decision of sending you to that mission

That was how he found you: surrounded by your team mates, needing their help to keep walking. When he asked what was going on, they didn’t respond

He then looked directly at you and repeated the question, but you just fell in his arms and burst in tears

His first measure was to take you home and check if you had physical injuries. Fortunately, they were few, and superficial

After treating them, he helped you to take care of yourself and took you to your room

After some time with only him by your side and in a place where you felt safe, he thought you’d finally feel comfortable to talk

But your silence persisted

He was running out of ideas, so his last resort was to prepare you some food

He helped you to sit on your bed and explained that he would be at the kitchen making something for you

Once you heard that he would leave you alone for a second, your hands pinched his arms and you desperately shook your head, begging him to not leave

Hashirama tried to reasonate with you

“But you need to eat”, “I will be right back, I promise”

All in vain: you held him tight and started to cry again

Now there were no doubts about the gravity of your situation

He sat by your side and surrounded you with his arms, caressing your hair and whispering comfort words until you fell asleep

He took the chance to cook something for you (he could have sent a wood clone to the kitchen in his place, but he was too worried about you to think of it)

When you woke up, you were still not talking, but you were no longer physically tired

You were able to eat, not without a little help

Later, you wanted him to stay with you again, which he did since you were still not in conditions to be all alone

Hashirama covered you with a blanket, but you only stopped trembling when he came to your side

“Listen to me. I’m sorry for sending to this mission. I would never do it if I knew this was going to happen, okay?”

He tightened his embrace around you, kissing your hair

“I know you can’t talk right now, and you don’t need to. It must have been… complicated to you. But now you are safe. I’m right here. No one will hurt you. And whenever you feel prepared to talk, I will be here to listen”

The vision of his assuring smile was the last thing you saw before you close your eyes to sleep in his arms for the second time

Tobirama

You could only feel at ease – or the closest from this that was possible for you in your conditions – when you saw Tobirama coming to you at the village’s gates

Carried by your team mates, too desperate even to speak, you needed to walk out of there, to go with him to your home and forget about that cursed mission

Once he laid his eyes on you, he knew something was not right

He has been with you long enough to read the signs: the way you were staring at him, calling for help without a single word, those trembles on your hands, usually so firm and controlled, none of this was normal

Whatever the reason for that, it didn’t matter: first he needed to take the necessary measures

Tobirama told your team mates to take care of everything and report the mission at the end of the day while he was going to watch over you, then used his Hiraishin to take you home

You were tired, scared, not seeing anything in your way; you’ve been like this since that moment during your mission

You were trying to convince yourself that it wasn’t but a bad dream, but deep inside you knew it was real, you knew that something like that could exist in this world

And that was a burden you weren’t managing to carry

Now seeking for Tobirama’s protection was all you wanted

He was never the most gentle person around, whether in words or actions

Even the way he used to express affection was not entirely free from some roughness: his embrace was a little too tight; the way he would press his forehead against yours would force you hold yourself in place, otherwise he would push you back; the strength with which he’d hold your hands sometimes was too much, and he would end up squeezing them

However, it was his gentleness you were used to, and watching his practical, composed way to deal with the problems while you couldn’t was the only thing capable of calming you down

And Tobirama knew it too well

At home, he sent his Shadow Clones to take care of the tasks that otherwise would have to be performed one by one

One would prepare you a bath; the other would cook some healthy food; the third would see your team mates and talk to them about the mission to find out what could have possibly happened that left you in such state

Yes, he would listen when you’d decide to talk, but he wouldn’t wait for you to do it to find out the truth. And once he heard the other ninjas’ report, he saw it wasn’t for nothing that you came back like that

Later that day, he came to your room and noticed you were more calm, but still not talking

He took the place by your side and explained that you were going to stay out of missions for a while until your body – and primarily your mind – were back to their healthy state

You nodded in response

The hardest part were your nightmares in the nights after you came back

You would wake up in the middle of the night, sweating and screaming, and when Tobirama asked you what was wrong, you just could scream

Many times you fell asleep in his arms after crying for an hour or two

(You secretly blamed yourself for not letting him take some appropriate rest)

You forced yourself to eat despite the lack of appetite, and went outside to take some minutes of sunlight though you wanted to stay indoors all the day

Months after that period, when you were recovered and participating of missions again, you finally talked to Tobirama about what happened

You were afraid that remembering those moments would throw you back to your previous state, but it didn’t happened

To be honest, you felt like a weight was taken off your back, and now you could finally move on

You couldn’t thank him enough for being by your side while you got through your darkest experience

Madara 

Madara didn’t wait for an explanation once he found you in those conditions at the village’s gates

He came took you off your team mates’ side, hiding you in his arms

You didn’t protest: first, because you couldn’t make a sound since that terrible episode; second, because that was everything you thought about on your way home

And now you could finally breathe in relief: you were with him, you were home, you were safe

However, those scenes would not disappear from your memory so soon

Your body would sense their effects for a long time: you couldn’t stand on your feet without help, you couldn’t speak, just cry and moan

But how you were going to explain this to Madara before he could take any measure? Because you knew he would

And things not always ended up well when he entered that state of mind

(It was something one would learn living with an Uchiha)

Once you were home, he left you on your bed and tried to find out what happened

“Tell me, y/n. What happened during this mission that left you like this? Who did this to you?”

Who. That was the question you were afraid of hear him making

But now it was too late: since you didn’t say anything in response, Madara was immediately convinced that the responsible was a person

You held him tight, you cried, you tried all you could to make him stay with you, to not try anything, not yet, but your pleading had no effect over him

He came closer and made you look in his eyes

“Listen to me. I’m going to take care of you now. I’m going to be with you as long as you need. But I will fix this, and the sooner I do it, the better. Now come here”

You were exhausted, but you obeyed, and he took you on his lap. You laid your head on his shoulder while he whispered assuring, sweet words to calm you down

After some time you stopped crying and were no longer trembling, and Madara decided that it was the time to act and make you look into his eyes again

He activated his dojutsu and started to search through your memories

He wanted to see exactly what you saw, to feel everything you felt in order to see the face of the aggressor and never forget it until he finally met them

Other people could consider this method invasive, specially when used in someone in your circumstances, but you were used to it and gave him permission when you didn’t want or didn’t know how to explain something

That time, however, things were different

Once he saw those scenes, heard those sounds, felt that pain and fear, his attitude changed

He didn’t speak about what he saw, but you sensed it: no matter what he was planning to do, you wouldn’t want to know about

Madara stood with you for the rest of that day and that entire night. But when you woke up the next morning, you found a clone in his place

He took care of you as good as the original would do, but his constant company and attention couldn’t erase the anxiety for what was going to happen

When Madara came back at the afternoon, he didn’t let you see the remaining rage in his eyes, nor the blood in his clothing

He didn’t say a word about what he did, and you were grateful for that

He took you in his arms and kissed your forehead, a sign that everything was over

From that moment, the only thing you’d have to focus on was your recovery

[myheelsdontmatchmysweatpants]

Or Red Lilly with Iida 👀

Thank you so much for sending an ask! Sorry this took me forever but i hope you like it!!

Red Lily (Passion) with Tenya Iida

Warnings: MeanDom/Tenya Iida, SubFem/Reader, impact play, handcuffs, use of “sir, good girl”, oral sex (fem receiving) consent check, orgasm denial, degradation, vaginal fingering, no condom, d*cryphilia. 

Also big shoutout to @doinmybesthere @patchworkpuzzle @eyebagsbutglam for helping me out!! I love all of you!!

The first time Iida found out that you sleep without clothes he gave you a two-hour lecture.

“What if there was a fire and you needed to evacuate immediately? What if someone broke in? What if you sleep walk and get out of your apartment? What if- “

“Tenya!” You grab his arms, concerned that they are going to fall off with how aggressively he was chopping them. “I understand that you are just trying to help, but I am comfortable sleeping like that. Could you please respect that?”

He looks down for a moment, the sun glare on his glasses making it impossible to see his eyes. When his shoulders drop, and he visibly relaxes you know he has calmed down. “I am sorry my dear, you’re right. It is important that you are comfortable.” He kisses your cheek. “Let’s go to bed now.”

Two years later

Iida was done, done with the day, done with people, done. Done. DONE.

He was late to the agency because of a villain backup that he couldn’t help with. When he finally ended up getting to the agency, he had to calm down several interns because number one hero Deku had stopped by. One of his engines went out because a villain on his patrol was able to get some sort of substance in his exhaust. This meant he had to go to Mei Hatsume because she was one of the few who could fix it. She tricked him into activating a “baby” of hers that exploded effectively covering his entire hero suit in ash and soot.

Numerous other things happened through out the day that soured his mood even further. The last thing was him getting home late, not 30 mins, not 1 hour, but 4 hours late. He had to take his hero suit to be cleaned and ended up taking a shower at the agency. All he wanted to do was go to bed with you.

Iida sets his stuff down by the door and removes his shoes. Walking carefully, so as to not wake you he opens the bedroom door and glances at your shared bed.

Iida’s breathing stops for a moment, the sight of you making his heart skip a beat. Laying on your side, one of your hands laying on his pillow; the blanket between your legs. Moonlight peaks through the curtains, bathing your naked form in a soft light that makes you glow.

As he shuts the door, he can feel his pants getting uncomfortably tight. You are so beautiful and what better way to ease the stress of a horrible day than to bury himself in your tight heat.

He walks up to the bed, reaching out to caress your face with his knuckles. Your eyes slowly open hazy, and unfocused from sleep, eyelids fluttering.  “Mhm… Tenya?” A soft smile appears on your face and you grab his hand, turning your head to kiss it.

“Sorry I woke you darling, why don’t you go back to sleep?” Iida feels guilty, waking you up just to have sex with you. He moves to pull his hand back but you clutch it tight, he looks at you, raising his brow in question.

You push yourself up with one hand and sit on your knees in front of him, still holding his hand. Rubbing the sleep from your eyes you take a quick moment to stretch, arching your back and lifting your arms up in the air. You hear Iida suck in a breath and open your eyes with a smirk.

“Now why would I go to sleep when you clearly need some help turbo.” You lower the hand not holding his and graze your fingers over the obvious bulge in his slacks.

Iida shudders when you touch him but doesn’t react any further, more worried about your sleep schedule. “Don’t worry about me love, nothing I can’t take care of on my Ohh.” His sentence gets cut of when you give him a squeeze through his pants. His forehead pressing against yours you can hear his breathing getting heavy.

“Don’t worry about me love.” You repeat his words back to him. “Nothing we can’t handle together.” You place his hand that you were still holding on one of your breasts and grab the bottom of his shirt. As you pull it up, he reluctantly lets go of your warm chest and takes his shirt off throwing it behind him. You are already unbuttoning his pants before he throws his shirt and as you work to pull them down, he grabs your hands.

“Let me do this okay? Can you lay down for me? I want to look at you.” His eyes pleading, his face weary and tired you can’t help but abide by his wishes.

You lay back down on the bed, your legs bent at the knees resting to the side. Your hair is splayed out on the pillow a hand on your chest the other to your side resting with the palm up. Iida doesn’t move for a moment, entranced by the goddess in front of him. It’s only when you say his name on a breath that he remembers what he was supposed to be doing.

He undresses in a flash, quick and efficient his clothing forgotten in a pile next to the bed. Now its your turn to admire your partner. His dark blue eyes, chiseled jaw, and wide breadth of his shoulders. Iida worked hard to maintain his physique for hero work, and it showed in the way his muscles flexed as he moved to hover over you.

You both look at each other for a moment longer before Iida leans down to kiss you slow and deep. His lips melding with yours, his tongue meeting yours in a soft caress. You reach your hands to cup his face, but he grabs your wrists and pins them above you.

When he breaks the kiss, you can’t help but whine, arching your back and lifting your head to meet his lips once more. “Y/N.”

The authority in his tone makes you shiver in delight and submission. You lay back down on the bed, once again resting your head on the pillow as you look at his innocently. “Yes Tenya?”

His eyes darken further, almost black in the light. The hand not holding your wrists softly moves up from your hips to your breast. You sigh in contentment until his large fingers pinch one of your nipples and you yelp.

“Now dearest, I understand that you just woke up however – “He pulls on the nipple and you whimper, your eyes starting to water a sadistic smirk crawling up his face. “– I do believe you know better than to address me like that.”

“S-sorry, Sir. I’ll be good, I promise.”

He waits a moment after your answer then lets go of your nipple, rubbing soothing circles over it with his thumb. “That’s better. Now, I’m gonna handcuff you and you are going to keep your eyes shut understood?”

You nod your head before closing your eyes. “Yes sir, understood.”

You feel him shift on the bed and hear a drawer open before the sound of metal clinking together fills your ears. You fidget in anticipation before a sharp pain blooms on your breast. You cry out when Iida slaps you but keep your eyes shut, not wanting to anger him further.

“I thought you said you would be good for me dear. That also means staying still.” Iida lets go of your wrists locking one of them in the cuff before wrapping the chain on the reinforced hook he installed on the bed. Before he cuffs the other wrist, he softly grabs your chin and tilts your face up.

“Y/N, open your eyes for a moment darling.” When you do your eyes immediately connect with his, no longer dark with lust but softly filled with tender love and concern. “You ready for this? Let me know if you are too tired, we can stop.”

You shake your head and give him a soft smile. “I’m ready Tenya, I need you too.”

“Tell me the safe word.”

“Axel”

He kisses your nose, eyes quickly darkening again. “Good girl.”

Before he can ask you to shut your eyes again you do and lay still. “Thank you, sir.” You feel him shift again and you other hand is cuffed; he pulls on the chain to make sure its secure and double checks that the cuffs aren’t too tight.

When you feel the bed shift you know he crawled off of it. You try to listen, to hear any sound that lets you know what is going to happen next but there is only silence.

All of a sudden you feel to large palms on your thighs, giving them a squeeze before pulling them apart.

“Such a perfect pussy.” Iida lightly drags his nails down your legs, a breathy moan escaping your lips. “Look at you, such a good girl for Sir.” You feel a breath of air, the slick of your arousal on your cunt and thighs going cold.

It’s difficult, holding yourself still but the feeling of his large hands on your body keeps you submissive. His hands on your body, however, do not help with the anticipation. Iida isn’t moving, you can almost feel his eyes on your core but no movement, no dipping of the bed or shifting of his hands.

You whimper, trying to relay your need for touch you finally feel the bed move under his weight. “Are you trying to tell me something dear?”

You almost open your eyes, needing to show him just how bad you need his touch, but you don’t. “Please, sir. Please touch me, I-I need you.”

Silence, and then Iida slaps your pussy. You can’t help but arch your back and yelp, eliciting another slap from your lover for moving.

“I don’t remember this being about you. I vividly recall you saying that we were helping me.” Iida wrenches your legs apart father before shoving his face into your cunt, he licks a broad stripe up from your tight hole to your clit before biting to little nub.

“Ahhh! I’m sorry! I’m sorry sir you’re right!” You can feel the tears escape past your eyelids and Iida huffs before biting the inside of one of your thighs.

“Of course, I’m right now you will lay there and be obedient or I will punish you as I see fit.”

“Yes, sir.”

Iida kisses the mark he left on your thigh and continues kissing and biting until he gets to your core. “Fuck you look so good- “He licks you again, humming as your taste blooms on his tongue. “– taste good too.” He continues his ministrations, alternating between biting your thighs and licking at your sex. You can feel the faint tightening of your core, but he isn’t licking hard enough, not giving you enough attention for the feeling to build.

Iida relishes all the little whimpers and moans that escape your mouth. He can tell you’re getting frustrated with the lack of stimulation but like a good girl you are following his orders. After he has decided you deserve a reward, he slots his mouth over our cunt and starts dipping his tongue in and out of your slit.

The needy moan you let out at finally feeling something has his cock twitching. As you strain against the hand cuffs, resisting the urge to grind against his face Iida wraps his arms around your thighs and pulls you impossibly closer.

You choke out a sob when he moves his mouth up to lick shapes onto your clit and gently suck it. He hums against you and the extra stimulation has you crying.

“Please S-sir, I’m m’gonna cum. Can I please cum?” Your thighs are shaking but you’re too focused on holding your orgasm back to care.

Iida thinks about it for a moment, slowing down his movements just to hear the frustrated cry from your mouth. He backs away from you for a moment, chuckling at your frustration.

“I don’t believe you’ve earned the right to do that yet.” He leans down to give you one last swipe of your tongue before sitting up.

The tears fall in earnest now, your need for release clouding your mind. “N-no, please sir I’m – I’ve been a good girl! Please sir I- “You let out a wail when Iida slaps the inside of your thigh.

“Are you such a needy slut that you can’t even follow orders?” He slaps your other thigh and growls when you don’t answer. He adjusts his position until he is at your side, wrapping an arm around your torso to pinch at one of your nipples before running his whole palm down your aching cunt. “Do you like it when I punish you? Is that it?”

You finally calm down enough to shake your head. “N-no, I don’t like it s-sir.”  You are still crying, the tears running down your cheeks and wetting the pillow beneath you.

“I think your lying to me, because every time I hit you.” Iida lifts his hand up and slaps your clit, his fingertips rough from hero work. “You look like you enjoy it slut.”

You can’t help it when you feel the sharp pain on your clit you moan, the feeling slowly fading into pleasure.

“I told you, you like the pain, don’t you? My naughty little pain slut.” He hits your clit again twice in quick succession. “Do you want to be a good girl for me?”

You nod your head, tilting it to the side to rest on his shoulder. “Y-yes, I wanna be a good girl sir.”

He kisses your forehead. “If you can cum just from me slapping your clit then I’ll reward you with my cock yeah?”

“Yes sir!” You force your body to relax, knowing you’re your too tense the pain won’t give way to pleasure.

As Iida repeatedly slaps your clit you can’t help but utter a jumbled mess of words.

Yes sir…. thank you, sir, …. feels s’good…. m’close…please ..... harder ….

When you finally cum you back arches completely off the bed, your mouth open on a silent scream as tears pour down your face.

Iida lays there for a moment, watching as you come undone, he almost finishes right then and there. Before you can catch your breath, he is crawling on top of you and pushing your legs to your chest. He shoves two fingers in your hole scissoring them to open you up before he puts his cock in.

You only have enough energy to moan as he fingers you, your eyes shut from exhaustion instead of obedience.

Iida is intently watching his fingers move in and out of you, clearly you don’t have any control over your body anymore and yet your cunt still pulls his fingers in. When he pulls his fingers out, he shoves them in your mouth, without even a thought your sucking on them to clean them off.

“Good girl.” He lines himself up and thrusts into your cunt, balls deep in one go. No letting you adjust to his size he is now just after his own release.

It doesn’t take long for him to finish; he was already close to coming when he was slapping you. The sounds coming from your mouth and the tears streaming down your face, he will never get tired of it. Right as he is on the edge of cumming he feels your walls start to tighten again, he holds back just long enough so that your orgasm hits and you milk his cock for all its worth.

Iida stays like that for a moment holding your legs and enjoying the post orgasmic bliss until you let out a little whimper. He gently pulls himself out of your abused hole, wincing when he hears a small groan fall from your lips.

After he puts your legs down, he leans over and cups one of your cheeks and kisses your forehead. “You did such a good job my dear, I will be right back to clean you up.” Iida stays there until you give him a nod and gets off the bed without jostling you and heads into the bathroom. When he comes back, he has a warm washcloth and with a light touch he wipes the insides of your thighs and your slick folds.

You still haven’t said anything, but he knows you like the back of his hand and doesn’t push. “Let’s take a shower love, need to clean you up.” Iida takes your cuffs off and rubs your wrists you slowly open your eyes and focus on his face. He smiles down at you and kisses your nose. “I love you dearest.”

“And I you Tenya.”

[justahopelessssromantic]

Gone

A/N: Happy Thanksgiving 😊 I hope you all have a great and safe day no matter how you are celebrating ♥️

As always thank you so much for reading! I hope you enjoy

Request: @beardburnsupersoldiers Okay so first I have to say I love love love the way you write Angel! I am so happy I found your blog as fan fiction for him doesn’t seem as easy to find! Also, if you are currently taking requests I was wondering if you could do one with Daddy Angel where reader is being stalked/kidnapped and how he balances getting her back with helping his children through her absence?

Thank you so much for the request! And for your kind words ❤ I'm so happy you found my blog as well! I hope you enjoy and are doing well

Warnings: Angst

Word Count: 1,694

*gif not mine*

Angel sat at your dining room table staring at your empty chair across from him. You should be there. You should be looking back at him with that breathtaking smile of yours as you listened to each of your children tell the two of you about their day over your meal. You'd be engaged with them picking up every detail and at the same time be fully connected to Angel making him feel just as seen even without any words. 

You were always good with that, being able to make everyone feel seen and most importantly loved. 

You should be here enjoying another dinner with him, with your family like every other night. But no you weren't here and Angel was by himself at your empty table. 

How could he have not known? How could you have not said anything? How could he have let this happen? These were the thoughts that kept plaguing his mind.

Today began like every other day. The two of you woke up, late as usual, rushed to get the kids fed and ready for school, finally got everyone out and in the car only to have to go back in for something they forgot before you two finally parted for the day with the promise of seeing each other again later that night. Angel took off for work and you headed the other way with the kids to drop them off at school and go to work yourself. 

It was just an average day in your life or so you both thought. 

Angel stared down at the photos on the table in front of him, photos of you. Creepy, disturbing photos of your everyday life, going to work, picking up the mail, walking the dog. The photos made Angel’s stomach churn. Your coworker Amanda gave them to Angel just a few hours ago hoping they would help in any way. She told Angel you began receiving them weeks ago. You brushed them off, tossing them. You didn’t want Angel to worry. 

You should have told him. He should have been worried.

Now you were gone, someone had grabbed you on your way to your vehicle after work.  

Angel ran his hand over his face. He was exhausted and his head was pounding. He wanted to cry, to scream, to lash out at anyone around him but he couldn’t. 

Felipe walked in behind his eldest son. His heart broke as he saw how defeated he was. He gave Angel a firm squeeze on his shoulder before sitting down next to him. Angel may not want to hear what he had to say but he had to say it. “I know how much pain you’re in mijo.” He spoke, getting Angel to remove his hand and look at him. “I know you want her back, you want vengeance but none of that matters right now. You have to stay level headed, strong, for them.” Felipe motioned over to your three kids in the next room watching Finding Nemo. “They need you to be strong.” 

Angel watched his kids for a moment. Diego, your oldest, sat in the middle of the couch while your youngest Camilla, Angel’s princesa sucked on her thumb leaning on her brother for support as she was mesmerized by the pictures playing before them. Rosa, your middle child sat on the other side of Camilla more interested in her game boy than the movie as you showed her tio EZ how to play.

They were oblivious to the horror their father was facing. 

“They need her.” Angel kept his gaze on them a moment longer. You were the rock in your family. Angel couldn’t do this without you. He needed you. “I need her.” 

Felipe wanted to have hope that you would be found safely but he knew the dangers this life brought, he knew the dangers of the situation. “You may be all they have now Angel.” 

“What the fuck are you trying to say?” Angel turned to his father. 

"I'm just trying to keep you from making the same mistakes I did Angel." Felipe explained. After their mother passed he was never the same and certainly not there for his sons like he should have been. His boys were older, adults then which helped but was no excuse. 

"Don't talk like she ain't coming back." Angel warned. “She is coming back home to us. She has too.” He didn’t even want to think about what his father was suggesting. There was no way he was losing you. 

EZ cleared his throat as he now stood in the entryway with Camilla in his arms and Rosa holding his hand, Diego right behind him. “I’m going to order a pizza. Everyone is getting a little hungry.”

“Is mom not coming back?” Rosa asked. Her eyes bore into Angel’s searching for answers he didn’t have. All they knew was that you were staying with your sister tonight to help her pack for her move. 

“Come here.” Angel held his hands out instructing her to come sit in his lap. EZ passed Camilla to Felipe exchanging her for the pictures so the kids wouldn’t see. “Of course mom is coming back.” He looked at each of them seeing a little piece of you. Camilla had your nose, Diego your eyes, and Rosa was the spitting image you. “She’s just helping auntie out, she’ll be back before you know it.” 

He made that promise to them even knowing it might not be true. It was what they needed to hear and right now he had to do what he’d wished someone would for him. To hold them comforting them with the promise that everything would be alright. 

—————————————————

Angel finally got your kids bathed and in bed. It was definitely much harder without your help but he did it and he was proud of himself. He thought you would be too. None of them wanted to sleep in their own beds without you home so the three of them were snuggled up in your grand king bed. 

Felipe was still here just in case Angel got a call. Having him in just the other room brought some comfort to him. EZ had taken the photos with him excusing himself after the pizza arrived to help in the search for you. If anyone would notice anything crucial to your safe home coming he knew it would be his brother. 

Angel sat in your reading chair with your favorite blanket across his lap as he watched your kids. He had his gun on the dresser next to him just in case and his phone in hand waiting for any updates. He hated not being out there looking for you but he also knew you would want him to stay with the kids and he trusted his brothers would leave no rock unturned in their search for you. They loved you just as much as him, there were no other people in the world he’d entrust your life and safety with. 

He wasn’t sure when it was but at some point he must have dozed off. He was awoken by the buzzing of his phone now on the hardwood floor of your bedroom. He shot up checking his surroundings and on the kids first to make sure they were still in bed before grabbing his cell. He fumbled with the device a moment cursing until he finally got it answered. 

“Did you find her?” He asked. His stomach was in knots as he prepared for the worst. He was trying to remain positive but that could only do so much.

He hated not feeling in control.

“We got her. She’s safe, Angel.” EZ said on the other end. “She wants to talk to you.”

Angel stood up quickly but quietly , exiting the bedroom before closing the door gently behind him. He was overwhelmed with emotion as the news rushed through him. He slid down the door settling down on the ground before his legs had the chance to give up on him.

“Hey baby.” Hearing your voice was what truly caused him to break.

“Hey, mi amor.” Angel managed through a sob, the tears flowed fully and unapologetically now. He had never been so happy to hear your voice in his life. “Are you okay?”

“I’m okay.” You reassured him. “We’re on our way home now. How are our kids?” 

“Good but they’ve missed you. I miss you.” His voice was defeated. “Don’t ever pull this shit again. You come to me, okay? We can’t do this without you.”

Now it was your turn to break. The only thing you could think about the whole time you were gone was Angel and your family, of how the only thing you wanted was just to see them once more, to just have a little more time with them. “Okay, I promise Angel.” 

Angel rested his head back against the door. He couldn’t trust his own voice to say much but he needed to say this. “I love you.”

“I love you too.”

———————————————

That next morning the table was set with your plates full of pancakes you and Angel had made for breakfast. You spent all your time being back home in Angel’s lap watching the kids sleep together. Neither one of you could sleep so once dawn approached you decided to make breakfast together, something the two of you hadn’t done in a while. 

Angel sat across from you at the table never taking his eyes off you. He watched you as you listened to the kids tell you about their night with Felipe and Daddy. You smiled engaging with each of them, laughing at their little jokes. For just a second you looked up back at Angel and your smile only grew. You gave him a look telling him you were proud of him, that he did an excellent job and that you loved him so much. 

You saw him even when he would feel unseen. 

All was right in his world once more and in that moment he vowed to himself that he would never let anything happen to you again. 

Tagging: @jad3djay @fairygardenss @carlaangel86 @starrynite7114 @gemini0410 @knowles-morgan @everyhowlmarksthedead @ktiz90 @brothersofmayhem @vsfavs @scuzmunkie @chibsytelford @sadeyesgf @blessedboo @multiyfandomgirl40 @behindmyeyes-insidemyhead @toni9 @mayans-sauce @briana-mishell24 @langiinspirations

[elphiej]

Be My Light - Chapter 4:   The Mad Leader

*Genre: Mafia, angst, eventual smut, slow burn

*Warnings: References to violence, minor assault, 

Author’s note: First off, I’d like to send a special Thank You to someone who was a huge inspiration to me and to this story. This is the chapter that really started it all and I was inspired by @bangtan-sonyeonddaeng  ‘s mafia reaction series. She is a fantastic person and was one of the first people I showed this Be My Light to when I was too scared to post it. She is a beautiful soul and wonderful writer. Thank you for the push. 

Another Big thanks to my editor for sticking with me all this time and into the future. And, of course, to all the people who are reading, commenting, and reblogging this. I can’t tell you all how much is means to me. Thank you all and I hope you enjoy this next installment of Be My Light. (P.S. I have a thing for RM in a long trench coat.)

Tag list:  @lolalalooo @bangtan-sonyeonddaeng, @barbikatherine , @mrsfortune1306 , @lovesick-heart0 , @iamnamjoonsbxtch , @deathkat657 , @deeepvibes , @sugamonster22 , @weiinihao, @hemmofluke , @rainbow-zebra-unicorns , @joyfullyobsessed , @elvencantation , 

                                   Chapter 4: The Mad Leader

              You stared at the cell phone clutched in your hand, your mind spinning with so many questions. Who were those people? Why did talking to this ‘RM’ make you feel like something bad was coming? With that deep, serious tone, were they just as dangerous as the man with the cane? And what kind of normal person calls themselves ‘RM’? Agust was already on the edge of interesting and odd as it was. Scanning over the still lit screen, you wondered what other names were in the contact list. Other than ‘God of Destruction’, the last few calls you could see without going through the device belonged to ‘Mochi’, ‘My Favorite’, and ‘Worldwide Pain in my Ass’. Based on those names, you couldn’t begin to imagine who was gonna match those names.

               It was safe to assume that this RM guy was concerned about the man in the suit trying to finish the job. The hospital had a good security team but you thought it best to talk to Doctor- Henry- to see if more could be done. Your hand paused as it went to put the cell phone back with Agust’s things; if RM or any of the odd named voices tried to contact you for an update, they would most likely call that, instead of trying to navigate the hospital switch board. Figuring it was the best option, you placed the phone safely in your scrub’s pocket as you moved to the bedside for one last check on the patient. Agust hadn’t moved again since right before the phone call and was still as could be. The monitors were all reading normally. There was a blood transfusion line in his arm to help replace what he had lost, along with another IV pushing fluids and medication. You adjusted his arm to make it more comfortable for him once he woke up.

               “I’ll be back to check on you as soon as I can,” you said as you fixed his blankets. “Please, try not to do anything until I get back.”

               You slipped out of the room and pulled the door shut behind you. There was an anxious feeling that crept back into your gut, the same one you felt when you had first heard the gun shots ring out from the silence of the construction site. Your mind had so many thoughts and scenarios running through it that you felt overwhelmed. Things like, ‘what if the man with the cane and rough voice came here? Would he shoot his way through the floors until he found Agust? Were you really as safe as you hoped?’ The hospital had been under a few threats but nothing had ever come from those except words. It would be best to stay as cautious as possible. You had too many friends and patients to not take your feelings seriously.

               As you made your way towards your station, you were surprised to see that Henry was already there leaning over the desk with the phone pressed up against his ear. He pulled a pad of paper from the other side of the desk and started scribbling something down as he nodded and spoke in a low tone to whomever was on the other end. That saves me from having to page him, you mused. Henry did a double take towards you when he noticed you out of the corner of his eye. He beaconed you over with an urgent wave of his hand. The calm yet awkward demeanor from earlier had been replaced with a more serious one. Once you were within an arm’s reach of him, he reassured whomever he was talking to that ‘everything will be taken care of’ and hung up.

               “Good,” he said, placing a hand on your shoulder, “I need you to help me.”

               “Henry, about that John Doe patient. I was able to talk to someone close to him. I think we may need to alert the security team about- “

               “I’ve already talked to them. The hospital is going on alert for any suspicious activity entering the hospital. And we are actually moving the patient to one of the private units upstairs. I just got off the phone with the director and we’ve got everything worked out for you so you’ll be safe,” he said over his shoulder as he started walking down the hall.

               “Wait, what does that mean? What do you mean by worked everything out?” You took extra long steps to keep up with his brisk pace.

               “The same person who demanded higher security for that patient requested that you be kept with him as his private staff until otherwise. Which means you’ll be in the secure ward with him in case anything happens. It’s gonna be for the best. You were the first one with him and it’s gonna be more comfortable if he doesn’t have to get acclimated to someone else after all this. Don’t worry, we’ve got it worked out with Jax already.”

               Henry led you back into Agust’s room and made fast work of disconnecting him from the machines that surrounded him. He pulled the IV bags down and placed them on the bed by the still form. Meanwhile, you were frozen at the end of the bed, feeling dizzy from how fast he seemed to expect you to understand what was happening. This wasn’t the first gang related case you had been assigned to since starting at Mercy, nor was it the first gunshot case; why did this sudden change to the routine make you feel ever more nervous? Never had you moved a patient into a secure wing designed from more severe or quarantined patients before just because someone had requested it. Henry called your name to shake you from your thoughts and motioned you to move to the side of the bed as he unlocked the wheels of the gurney and pushed the bed from the wall. As you helped guide it from the room, you couldn’t help but feel the tension grow.

               “So, I am just supposed to stay locked up in some room like a prisoner? And be someone’s private nurse? What about the rest of my patients here? I can’t just leave Amber to tend to them all alone. We are short staffed as it is,” you mentioned as you navigated everyone into the elevator at the end of the hall.

               Henry hit a button and the elevator started to move. He leaned close to look you in the face, his eyes filled with seriousness. “Listen, Y/N, I know this is strange but you just have to trust me. I don’t know all the details but someone particularly important has to be involved to make the director so quick to comply with whatever they asked. But no matter what, your safety is my priority, maybe a bit more than my patients. I’m sure the director thinks that too. Whoever it is must just want to make sure this guy has the best care possible. And when he gets here, he’ll probably want to hear from you what happened. And if whatever gang did this does try anything, I don’t want you to worry because no one is going to get to him or you. Only the director, you, and I will have access to this room or know where he is. Apparently, the man the director talked to said he would have a way to get a hold of you and prove his identity to gain access. I know how you are, Y/N, you are a great person. That’s why you’re so good at what you do. But don’t think that you are inconveniencing anyone; Jax has already rearranged everything and made some calls. I really need you to think about yourself now. And what is best is for you is to do what I am asking and not over think this right now.”

               Henry was being so sincere that you couldn’t find the voice to make any arguments. You gave him a weak nod and tried to take what he said to heart. As Amber had pointed out before, one of your qualities was that you put others well before yourself. Hence, why you were in this predicament. As the doors opened onto the new floor, you promised him that you would try.

               The door opened onto a floor where the more severe, long term patients were kept. This floor could, also, be used for quarantining or the more delicate of patients. At the moment, you knew it had only a few occupants: a coma patient, a patient suffering from extreme burns, and someone from the psych ward that needed more focused attention. To enter this ward, you needed a key card, making this more isolated than your full and frantic floor. Henry commented there was no record that Agust had been moved in any of the files. And if anyone tried to look him up, it would be like he never existed. The person who had called to make all this happen had said he’d contact you and that he and his colleagues were to say they were here to perform community service if asked by anyone else. Apparently, they deemed it as security protection. Henry had you swipe your ID to gain access to the floor and you made your way down the silent hall to the vacant room Henry had staked out for you to stay in. The room was bigger than the one you were used to on your floor. There was a small couch across from where the bed was to go, a private bath off near the entrance, and even a TV in the corner. There was, also, a small recliner near where the head of the gurney was to rest. You imagined you’d be there most of the time. Henry helped you set everything back up in the room and did a quick check on the patient after he was secured in his new residence.

               “Hopefully, he’s gonna wake up a bit soon. He’s reacting well to what I’m doing,” Henry commented as he checked Agust’s pupils constrict as he shined his pen light in them. He gave some instructions about his IV and transfusion processes. He gave you a quick run down of the floor in case you needed anything. “Until he wakes up, I guess feel free to do whatever in here. It can be like a mini vacation. You know, if you ignore all the weird stuff happening. You can watch some TV or order some food. The mysterious man said to spare no expense when it came to our patient or you. I promise by Friday this will be all over and we can go out and talk about nicer things. Okay?”

               Before you could stop yourself, you felt your cheeks get hot and you turned your eyes to the floor. This was not the best place for this, but you knew Henry did it to only ease the anxiety you were feeling. He was almost too perfect. Henry promised to check in once he had finished his rounds as he left from the room and pulled the door shut behind him. You heard the security lock click into place, knowing it would only open from the inside or if you had an ID card. You allowed yourself to drop into the recliner, allowing everything to wash over you. Paranoia was thick in the air as you tried to make sense of everything. Henry was right; whoever these people were they must just want to talk to you and this was easier than scouting the halls. But the thought did very little to chase the nervousness away. Your hands started to rub together out of tension, squeezing your fingers, cracking your knuckles one by one with your thumbs. You took a few deep breaths as you tried to force yourself out of the impending panic. Your eyes looked over at the bed. You tried to remind yourself that you needed to keep it together and be strong for him. Then your eyes landed on his hand. You remembered when you were hiding behind the counter when the man with the cane was getting closer and closer. And when Agust had reached over and squeezed your hand. In that moment, he gave you reassurance with such a small gesture, not thinking of himself. You remembered how genuine it felt. It’d be nice if you could do that now, you thought with a weak smile.

               Instead, you settled for forcing yourself to think of something else. You read through his charts, tapped through some news on your phone, and tried to people watch out the window behind the couch. The afternoon sun had started making its way towards the horizon; how quickly the day had ended up flying by. You had decided against turning on the television for now, thinking how awkward it would be for him to wake up to you watching some trash TV show. You tried walking around the room to get a sense of where you’d be staying for the foreseeable future. But all of that only killed twenty minutes and you were still stir-crazy. There wasn’t much you could do for Agust at the moment, except allow him to rest without you trying to hold his hand or anything else.

               Suddenly, there was a buzzing in your pocket; it was Agust’s phone. You were a bit ashamed at how quickly you reached for it. There was a new text message. It was from a new named contact: Sunshine. The preview of the message said, ‘To Miss Nurse’, making your assumption that the people on the other end would have expected you to keep the phone on you correct. And since it was addressed to you, you didn’t feel too bad about opening the phone again. You swiped open the text and tried not to scroll anywhere higher into their previous chats.

-          Sunshine: To Miss Nurse. if you see this, please take good care of our Hyung. And if he gives you any trouble, tell him I said to behave. RM should be almost there. He tends to speed.  

               There were a couple silly emojis next to it that made you smile. Surely, they can’t be bad people if this is how they communicate. They must be close friends. Though, you still wondered how they had gotten the director to do all this. Maybe there was someone else doing all of this? You shook your head and typed a quick message back, so not to have them worry.

-          I’ll take good care of him. That’s my job.

You really hoped Agust didn’t mind you messing with his phone. Though, you figured it was better to ask for forgiveness than permission in this scenario. There was no response which made you think that it was all he needed at the time. Gazing at the clock on the phone, you had wasted thirty minutes in the room so far. You thought of your backpack in the locker room a few floors down and some of your things at your stations that you could pass the time with. Since Agust was secure here, you thought it may be a good idea to gather some things to help you waste time until this RM shows up. It was unlikely that Agust was going to wake up yet, and you could be fast so he wouldn’t be alone for long. You slipped the phone back into your pocket and rose from the chair, heading for the door. You cast one more look at the still figure in the bed before dimming the lights and pulled the door shut behind you.

               You set off at a brisk pace for the elevator and took it down a few levels to where the staff locker room was kept. You raced in, pulled your bag from your locker, and left before anyone noticed you. You were sure since the director had put the whole hospital on alert that everyone was making rounds to keep eyes everywhere. You hoped grabbing your stuff from your station was just as easy; you weren’t sure about how to explain why you had suddenly deserted your station. Amber wasn’t there but you could hear her and Jax talking loudly from a back room. You wanted to talk to your best friend, to help ease some nerves and have her tell you exactly what you needed to hear. But you didn’t want to wait around or take her away from her new workload. You pulled open the drawer where you kept some personal items, incase of slower work days, and shoved them into your bag. You froze when your fingers hit against something that you knew, instantly, should not be in your bag. Peering into the opening, your eyes locked onto a metallic, black, studded object that you had seen earlier that morning.  

              The gun Agust had placed in your hand.

             How did that get in there? You didn’t remember grabbing it unless it had happened in the chaos of the EMTs and police rushing to assess the situation. Well, if you weren’t already anxious, this just made it worse. Let’s just add this to the ever-growing list of stupid things I’ve done today, you berated yourself. You brought a potentially loaded gun into a hospital. You needed to get back up to the room and get this out of your possession. Maybe when this RM got there, he could take it from you. You pulled the bag shut and slugged it over your shoulder, trying hard not to think about it.

            You moved away from the desk and down the hall towards the elevator. But as you stepped into the silent hall with all the doors closed, one was not closed as it had been when you left; the room where Agust had been. And there was someone looking inside. There was a man, tall and stocky, and dressed in a simple navy uniform. He wasn’t a part of the hospital staff and you didn’t think he was there to clean the room with the lights still off. Trying to stay as unnoticed as you could, you took longer strides towards the end. As you passed behind him, you peered beyond him into the pitch blackness of the room to just make out another figure lurking there. He wasn’t dressed in the same way as the man in the door. He was in darker colors that you couldn’t make out and wore what looked like a fedora on his head. What caught your attention as you passed, was the small peek of icy, blue hairs that were just visible on the side. A deep grumble that sounded from the room made your breath catch in your throat, and made you stop in your tracks. It sounded so familiar to the sadistic voice from this morning. The man with the cane had gotten into the hospital?! How, they upped security measures, hadn’t they? Maybe it was your imagination playing with you with all the stress. Not wanting to stick around to figure out if you were right, you tried to get away before they had noticed you.

            But, sadly, you weren’t that lucky.

           “Excuse me, nurse. Perhaps you can help me.”

           You felt your whole body stiffen as the voice was all to clearly the one that had stalked you from beyond the counter. The voice that dripped with crazed malice and venom as he called out for Agust, that had taunted and tried to lure him out. The voice that you were sure would haunt your dreams. It was the man with the cane, though he didn’t have it now. As you turned, he looked nothing like the half-crazed man yelling and destroying things around him. He looked almost normal, save for the fake smile he had plastered across his lips. He was no longer dressed in the light blue suit and fur coat you had caught a glimpse behind the counter, but in a simple dark blazer and trousers. The man who lingered in the doorway had come to stand next to him as they walked up to you, dressed in a police uniform. His uniform cap was pulled low to obscure his face, though you could see bruising and swelling through the shadows. Both of them gave a slight bow to you.

           “Allow me to introduce myself. I’m Inspector Taop, this is officer Chen. We are here following up on a patient that was supposed to be brought here. I’ve been looking everywhere, but no one has an answer for me whether he is here or not. And I haven’t seen a single worker on this floor.”

           He had never seen you at the scene so you knew he didn’t recognize you, or could see that you didn’t believe anything that was coming out of his mouth. That would help you, you decided. You took a deep breath and tried to hide the fear and nervousness. Just act normal. Try to stall until someone comes around.

           “Sorry, officer, we’re a bit understaffed as it is. What can I help you with?”

           “I’m looking for a patient that was brought here. Gunshot victim, a young man, brought in this morning?”

           “Can you be a bit more specific? We are a hospital. Do you know how many young men we have come in here with some kind of bullet wound? I had six this month.”

           You saw the smile slip and irritation rise in those cold eyes. He cleared his throat, trying to hold on to his polite composure. “This one would have come in this morning. There was a shooting downtown. He would have had multiple gunshot wounds. One nurse said he was brought in by ambulance this morning, but then another said that they found no record of him. And the last person I talked to sent me here. Please, this is very important.”

           “Can I see your badge, sir?” He looked completely off guard by the question. You, also, seemed confused. It had just jumped out of your mouth before you realized it. But it seemed like the right thing to ask. You continued, “There’s been a threat made to the hospital, you see, and I need to make sure that everything is in order. I would get in trouble if I gave such information about any patient to an imposter.”

           You could see the wheels in his head turning. But you didn’t expect him to nod his head, understandingly, and reach into his pocket to hand you a leather, bifold wallet. Was this psycho really a police officer? How could someone so vile be in law enforcement? You thought back to what little memories of your father that you had lingering in the back of your mind and couldn’t begin to imagine him doing anything like what this man had done, no matter how bad of a criminal they were. Before you could think, your body seemed to act on it’s own again and opened the wallet and your eyes started to dance across the metal shield. You weren’t entirely sure what you were looking for at first. Until your eyes caught it and something clicked in your mind. It was a fake, but an exceptionally good fake. Anyone else would have just taken it at face value but something in your mind flashed and screamed that this was a fake like the smile still on the ‘inspector’s’ face. In the reaches of your memory, you remembered running your fingers over your father’s badge, memorizing every detail. And you still did that when you were stressed out; you still had his badge and it was currently in the front pocket of your bag. And you seemed to recall your father teaching you how to identify a real badge from others.

           A sudden anger took hold of you that seemed to spur on some brave part of you. You closed the wallet and handed it back to him, keeping your face neutral to hide that you were even more sure of his act. Maybe it was the dishonor to officers like your father, or that he was trying to get to the boy you had risked a lot to save. And your hard work was not going to waste. “I’m sorry officer. But like I said, we have a few patients that could fit your description. None on this floor at all. And if the other nurses said they have no record of him, I’m not sure what I can do for you. Besides that, if we did have a patient come in with multiple gunshot wounds, I imagine that they’d need extensive surgery and wouldn’t be conscious to answer any questions you could have. And with no guardian to act in their place until they are awake to consent to a line of questioning about a traumatic experience, I can’t let you go any further. You should know that, Officer.”

           The smile was wiped from the man’s face. The uniformed man’s eyes got wide at your declaration and they shifted towards his leader in panic. Taop, or whatever his real name was, straightened up and took a step towards you. He towered over you and the energy radiating from him would have intimidated you into submission. Just like with your ex. But you needed to protect Agust. In any case, all you needed to do was scream and someone would be alerted. There wasn’t much this asshole could accomplish without being found out. But he continued to advance until he backed you up against the wall. Even still, you never broke eye contact with him.

           “I don’t think you understand the situation of this, little girl,” he said, rage tittering on the edge of his voice. “There are some really dangerous people and it would be a shame if you got caught in the crossfires. It’s in your best interest to answer my questions and tell me what I need to know.”

           “Then bring a warrant,” you challenged.

           His hand collided with the wall next to your head, making you jump. His face was so close to yours now, and there was the crazed man you remembered from this morning. Your heart was in your ears. He, suddenly, took a deep inhale then another before tilting his head to the side. “What a brave little girl. Tell me, where were you this morning? Something tells me you may be exactly who I need to talk to.”

           “Hey, back off her!”

           Both you and the man turned to look down the hall towards the elevator towards the source of the deep voice that had interrupted the line of questioning. The doors of the elevator were opened and from them stepped a young man with platinum white hair. His eyes were haunting and strong, like a dragon woken from his peace. He was exceptionally tall, taking long strides towards the scene. You couldn’t help but let your eyes take in the man who was coming to your rescue. Dressed in a dark trouser and a white buttoned up shirt gave him a classic handsomeness, and a long black coat with a hood drawn up that accentuated his height. As he approached, he slid the hood down and swiped his hand up to push the stray white hairs from his face. If you weren’t terrified, you would have appreciated how handsome he was. You glanced back at the man caging you; his body tensed as the newcomer walked up but his face never showed.

           He let out a sigh and a small smile reappeared, but it was not the same he had tried to charm you with. It was one of arrogance.  “Ah, Mr. Kim,” the inspector said, not moving from his position, “how nice of you to drop in.”

          “You’ve got some nerve,” the handsome newcomer said, his tone low and smooth. 

          “What for? Being too formal? Do you not like me using your surname? I’m not sure which name you prefer now; you change names so often, it’s hard to keep up after all this time.”

          “You’re one to talk. What name are you going by now, officer? Here to investigate a fraud? Or are you here to put yourself into more trouble?”

          “Such a negative attitude. Officer Chen and I are here on official business,” the detective flashed his badge at the so named Mr. Kim. “And this nice young lady was willing to help me out with some information. Isn’t that right, Little Girl?”

          “It sure doesn’t look that way coming from the elevator. I think you need to take a step back,” Mr. Kim ordered with a strong but suggestive tone that made you question what kind of power someone as young looking as him could possess.

          The fake detective made no sign that he was planning on heeding the newcomer’s words to move from your personal space. His eyes shifted from Mr. Kim back to you. His stare bore into you sharper than claws and made your breath catch. You weren’t sure if he was trying to scare you into agreeing with him or just threaten you. But Mr. Kim was having none of that; he gave the older man’s shoulder a hard shove and wedged himself in the space between you to keep you away from the other man. Mr. Kim reached a hand behind him and placed it on your arm, to keep you secure behind him and to give you some reassurance that he was not going to hurt you. You couldn’t help yourself, as you fisted your hands into the back of his coat and peered around his massive frame.

          “You always have to play savior, don’t you Rapmon?” The way he had said the name made it seem like he was trying to strike a nerve in Mr. Kim. But the other man gave no sign that he was bothered. “You make it seem like I was doing something unseemly to her. You and your broken boy scouts always turn things difficult. Speaking of, where are the others? Maybe they could answer some questions for me. There’s one in particular I’m interested in seeing. I’m checking up on a victim from a shooting downtown. Just making sure he’s doing alright.”

          “You’re really committed to this bit, aren’t you Choi? Oh, sorry- what name are you going by today? It’s so hard to keep track, isn’t that what you said?” Mr. Kim tilted his head to the side, eyes twinkling with a mischievous shine.

          “What a nuisance you are. I’m just trying to get information to make sure things go well. Though come to think of it, your boys may not know much. Word was that the victim was all alone. Left all by themselves, bleeding and hurt in such a dangerous situation. What kind of friends would let someone knowingly go into that situation alone? Now, I’d really like to finish my conversation with the little lady, Rapmon.” When Choi, as you figured his name actually was, took a step towards you, Mr. Kim moved the both of you to keep you behind him and further away from the other. “Well, since you seem hellbent on keeping me from doing something so simple, I could always ask you. Though to be honest, your being here may have answered my questions.”

          “My being here answers nothing,” Mr. Kim challenged. “Unlike you, I am here to do good for the community. And it’s a good thing I came by when I did. You’re already on thin ice after all the trouble you’ve caused. Imagine what would happen if you caused any problems while on Hallowed Ground. If you were to hurt anyone staying or working here, you would have more than my family looking for you. The rest of the Families would be looking to teach you a lesson. Imagine what most of them will think when they hear about the deceit you pulled this morning. After what I witnessed, you can be sure I’ll have eyes monitoring this place. You will not go against the Accords.”

          “Don’t you lecture me about the Accords, you psycho. I’ve been around just as long as they have and lived them. I taught them to you.”

          “And yet, you only follow them when they suit you. Just like your leader and his before him. But things are different now. They are gone, and your hold is slipping. I have enough pull now to ensure Accords are followed. And if you want to make a further spectacle of yourself, I’ll gladly show you I’m not that kid anymore that you ordered around. You saw what my boys can do when pushed. Try me.”

          Choi started to laugh, eyes shining in disbelief at the younger bossing him around. As you peered around Mr. Kim’s frame, you saw him go to say something to officer Chen, but couldn’t form the word. He raised his hand towards the white-haired man, but let it drop with a growl. Whatever look was set upon the elder made him rethink his next move. He settled for raising his hands in a surrender and jerking his head towards his companion to tell him they were leaving. It surprised you that he was giving up so easily after how he had acted towards you. You weren’t sure what Mr. Kim meant by accords and families, but it was more than obvious that it meant something to them. Glancing up at your protector, his face remained locked in the same stern and serious mask he had when he had appeared. His eyes, perfectly lined and accentuated with makeup that only made him more intriguing, followed the pair as they turned down the hall.

          But before they could get too far, Choi stopped. He turned enough to gaze at the two of you over his shoulder, the dark and manic gleam from that morning flashing like a warning sign. He chuckled before his teasing and taunting voice that had called out to Agust filled the hall like glass shattering. “Look at how far our little maniac has come. Really living up to the title of Mad Leader, aren’t you? He thinks he’s so big and strong that he can just order me around and act like a knight in shining armor to the weak. The Mad Leader’s trying so hard to put up a front, to hide who he is, to hide the other side of the looking glass. But lest he forget, I know things he wouldn’t want others to know. And I seem to recall,” Choi turned fully around and took a full stride back towards Mr. Kim, “you had an issue with places like this. You don’t enjoy being here. Are you falling down the rabbit hole? You even have an Alice this time it would seem. So tell me, Mad Leader, are the walls closing in on you yet? Are you feeling anxious?”

          You could feel Mr. Kim tense up at the name ‘Mad Leader’ each time Choi said it. He took a deep breath, trying to ground himself. He gave you a polite push away from him before fixing Choi with a glare that made officer Chen startle. You could almost feel the air change as he stepped up to be nose to nose with the thug.

          “Since you can’t seem to remember my name, asshole, let me spell it out for you. It’s RM, R to the M. And I’m a motherfucking monster. Keep pushing me. I dare you. You hurt one of my boys. You better pray that he makes it out of all this ok. Or you’ll see just how ‘mad’ I can get.”

          Chen seemed to realize that something bad was building as he took hold of his superior and pulled him away from RM, newly identified. Choi kept the taunting smile spread across his lips as he allowed Chen to lead him away. Before he got too far, he looked over at you and gave a nod, “We’ll be in touch, Little Girl.” And then he disappeared from the floor, leaving you in the presence of RM. You can’t say you had expected this person to belong to the voice on the other end of the phone, but it would seem like that was the theme of the day. The tall man took a few deep breaths and ran his hand through his white hair before turning back to you. The serious mask he had worn had slipped away and was more approachable. He straightened his clothes before returning to your side.

          “I’m sorry you had to see that,” he said, “But he shouldn’t be back. He talks a good game but he knows when he’s out done. Did he hurt you?”

          You shook your head. “I can’t believe he got in. The hospital is on lock down.”

          “Well, he’s been around a while. He has his ways. Now that he’s gone, I was hoping you could help me. I’m looking for a nurse called Y/N.” You locked eyes with him and gave him a nod of affirmation. He gave you a smile, showing off a pair of dimples in his cheeks that made him much more innocent and sweeter than the man who had gone nose to nose with the monstrous thug. “That’s a coincidence. Nice to meet you. Can you show me where to go?”

          “Prove that you’re who you say you are,” you said, taking a step away from him. Despite that you were sure he was the one you had talked to, it seemed like nothing was safe. He looked at you for a moment, before coming to a conclusion. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a cell phone before letting his finger glide across the screen. A moment later, Agust phone sounded off in your pocket. He glanced over at you with a bemused look as you pulled the phone out and saw the screen lit up with a notification.

-          God of Destruction: It’s me.

          “Sorry,” you said, feeling embarrassed by your sudden suspicion, “but after that guy flashed a fake police badge at me, I just wanted to be sure. Thank you for coming and for helping me. Are you Agust’s brother or a friend?”

          RM’s eyes narrowed when he heard you say Agust and gave you a strange look. His eyes seemed to dance about you, as if he was trying to figure something out. But as quickly as it appeared, the look disappeared and he smiled again. “We usually call him Suga. Only people who don’t like him call him Agust. I don’t think he’d want you calling him that. Can we go see him now? We’ve been worried about him.” You nodded and motioned him to follow you back to the elevator. As you waited for the doors to reopen, he leaned over and whispered, “Don’t worry, I won’t tell Hyung you had his phone.”

          “What? Does he have some embarrassing things on here,” you joked.

          “Maybe,” came the reply and heard RM chuckle as he allowed you to step into the elevator.

          You hit the button for the floor that they moved Agu- Suga to, the doors slid shut, and the lift jolted to a start. As the sound of the mechanisms filled the space, you caught a glimpse of the tall man flinch. It seemed odd, seeing as he had just faced off against the most frightening person you had ever seen. The taunting words he had said to RM before leaving came to mind, about not liking it in a hospital. It wasn’t uncommon for people to have bad experiences related to hospitals, so you tried to brush it off. Once you had made it to the secure floor, you led him down the hall. You explained that the floor was only accessible to a few people and how they had followed the directions as specified to the director. The entire time, RM listened very intently, eyes never leaving you. He was the picture of professionalism and sincerity. You swiped the two of you into the ward, and he held the door open for you as you led him down the hall to the room. As you neared the room, you wondered if you were going to survive the present of two very handsome men. Hopefully, the rest of his friends that you heard over the phone were somewhat average.

          As you both entered the room, RM came to a stop in the threshold of the door, his eyes staring at the bed. You could see the worry and panic that you had heard over the phone slip across his face. You reached out and touched his arm. He looked at you with an almost innocent gaze, like he was questioning if it was alright to get closer. You gave him a nod and he was beside his friend in a flash. He looked as if he was debating to reach out to Suga, as if he were made of glass, but settled for taking hold of his hand. RM let out a breath and looked relieved to have finally seen his friend. From your place at the edge of the room, you could see how much one meant to the other and all worries about them being as bad as Choi disappeared.

          “Is he going to be ok? What did they do to him,” RM asked, never taking his eyes off his companion.

          “Dr. Na took good care of him,” you said, reaching for the file at the end of the bed. “He was shot twice, once in the shoulder and on his left side. The gunshot wound on his side appeared to be at close range and the bullet went through. Thankfully, there wasn’t much damage done. The bullet was lodged in his shoulder, but Dr. Na was able to remove it and mend up some of the damage. We’ll know more when he wakes up, but he should have full range of motion after some rest. He, also, has some bruised ribs and a slight concussion. Along with bruising and defensive wounds pretty much everywhere. He, also, lost a lot of blood. He’s in the middle of a transfusion now. But he is responding well to everything and we believe he should be waking up soon. With enough care, patience, and support, he should make a full recovery in no time. Which is amazing; when I found him, I was worried with how much blood he had lost that he may have had a harder road to recovery.”

          RM flicked his eyes over to you. “You found him?”

          “They must not have told you. I was on my way to work when I heard the gunshots. I was the first to find him and get him to safety.”

          RM looked like he wanted to ask more questions, when a soft groan came from the bed and drew the attention. Suga took in a deep breath and his body shifted as if fighting to wake and identify the voices. After a tense moment, his body relaxed and his eyes opened slightly. From the edge of the bed, you could see the glazed and shiny effects of the medication still trying to hold him in the state of unconsciousness, and realized he may not fully be aware of what is happening. But you were sure the presence of RM had drawn him out enough to give them a sign that he was okay. RM called out to his hyung softly, drawing Suga’s attention as he gazed about the room.

          “Hyung, hey, can you hear me?”

          Suga’s eyes fully landed on RM. It seemed as if he was fighting his way to recognition before he gave a small, drugged smile back. “Joon,” his voice sounded exhausted and stained.

          RM laughed. “Yeah, Hyung, it’s me. You’re gonna be okay. You’re safe.”

          “Joonie, I think I’m dead. I saw an angel.”

          The whitehaired man reached out and ran his fingers, gently, through his friend’s hair. “No, Hyung, you’re only tired. That bastard messed you up but you’re gonna be alright now. Why don’t you go back to sleep? The boys and I will be here when you wake up.”

          “Oh,” Suga said, almost sounding disappointed as the drugs started to drag him back to oblivion, “too bad. It was a pretty angel. Prettier than Jiminie and Hyungie combined. But don’t tell them I said that.” And just as fast as he woke, Suga went silent and still again.