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wwandaslover · 5 months ago

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Closer

Pairings: Dark!Wanda Maximoff x SHIELD Detective!Female Reader

Word count: 8k

Tags | Warnings: +18 smut, angst, top!Wanda, bottom!reader, Wanda being a perv criminal, fingering (r), enchanted strap (r), dubcon, breeding kink, pregnancy, comic/tarot reading inaccuracies (I did try my best searching about them), jealousy if you squint, friendzoned!Nat

Author's note: This is set after the MoM, Wanda being stuck on Earth-818, where she is a multiversal criminal after killing the Illuminati—the planet's mightiest heroes. Title inspired from the song Closer by NIN. I have another a/n at the end of the fic.

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"Do you know this girl?"

Wanda lets out a small huff, then leans on the table, her sore cuffed hands resting on the cold surface.

"I'll tell you if you tell me what color those pretty little panties of yours are."

ᱬ

She had killed the Illuminati, the very protectors of your universe. You couldn't understand why she would go after them, they were the ones who were keeping your universe safe and sound. It seemed that the only reason she had for doing this was to gain more power somehow and that's the only thing you got as of now.

But you couldn't help but wonder if she's up to something…more or personal? If she isn't after more power, then what is she up to? She could be plotting something far more sinister than anyone could imagine.

Or something she just lost.

As you stand in front of the interrogation room door, your heart is pounding fast, your hands are cold and your breathing hitched.

"I'll get you to talk." You murmured to yourself.

You then took a deep breath before signaling the agents that you are ready, then you watched as the door slowly opened before you. Sitting behind a desk facing you was the most wanted criminal on your planet.

As you stepped inside you examined her, you noticed that her body was covered in a number of devices which were meant to restrain her from using her magical powers. There's something on her temple, something that looked like an electric device. She also had the same thing collared around her neck and in her cuffed hands, you also took note of her blackened fingers. But both her feet seem to be free and in full display. She seemed to be unfazed by all the devices though, despite the fact she looks restrained in almost all parts of her body.

You were one of the top detectives in your field, but you had never seen any of this stuff, let alone be in a high security room with the most wanted criminal in your universe.

"Worried about me? Detective?" She asked as if she could read your mind.

"Comfortable with those on your body?" You huffed lightly, you hoped that you were able to keep a straight face while asking that question. You were doing your best to keep your cool, but it wasn't easy with her looking at you like that. "Sadly, you can only have those removed if you cooperate with me."

Wanda's face started to form a smirk before letting out a small chuckle as if to torment you even more. It was as if she knew exactly what kind of effect she was having on you.

"What about you? I don't think those clothes are comfortable on you…" she spoke with a wolfish grin, "want me to remove them?"

You force yourself to look away from Wanda, your heart rate slightly elevated. You take a deep, subtle breath, trying to compose yourself completely, focusing instead on your mission. There is no room for any distractions right now.

But God, this woman is a breathing distraction.

"Wanda Maximoff, is that your name?" you started, putting down the files you were pretending to fix a while back.

"Yes."

"Where are you from, Wanda?"

Silence.

You pressed on with the same question rephased, "Could you tell me where exactly you came from?"

She still didn't respond. Her eyes were like ice, cold and emotionless. You sighed disappointingly that now made the woman curve her lips upward.

Now, you began to lay out the facts, "You're not from here," you stated. "We've figured that one out. You're not from our universe and you killed our heroes." You slid a photo in front of her, the sound of the paper touching the cold metal table. "Do you know who that is?" It was a cropped photo of her. She was wearing a sweater and wide pants. She had a soft and gentle expression on her face, unlike the cold and emotionless looks she had been giving you so far. You observed how she looked at the photo and there is something you can't put a finger on her expression as she stared at it—jealousy?

"That's me."

"Wrong," you said firmly. You saw her eyes shot through you faster than the lightning. You were pleased that you were finally getting some sort of reaction from her. You could tell that you had caught her off guard. It seems like she wasn't used to being contradicted like this, you'll take note of that.

As a detective, if you cannot get an answer from your culprit you will get a reaction out of them. It was a fun game for you.

You held up another photo, before sliding it down on the table. This one is a closeup shot of her looking eye to eye at one of the monitors of Illuminati headquarters that was recovered. She was covered in blood and her eyes were glowing red.

The photo that has been haunting you since this case was given to you.

She just stared at it like a mirror. Then slowly, she began to tilt her head to the side, imitating the pose in the photo—taunting you. You could feel her eyes piercing into your soul.

Before you could lose yourself at her stare, you slammed your fingers down the photos. "This is not you, this is the Wanda Maximoff of this universe." You pointed at the photo of her variant with the soft and gentle expression on her face. You slid it towards you before grabbing the photo that is left, which was a photo of her showering in blood, "This…this is you."

Silence.

"Happy," you flick the photo of the happy Wanda. "And miserable." You pout, putting down the bloody Wanda in front of her.

Well, your tactics seemed to be not working. Because silence is all you got.

You took a deep breath and spoke again, trying to keep your frustration in check. "I'm going to ask you again, why are you here in my universe?" You stared at her expectantly, hoping for some kind of response this time. But Wanda remained silent, her face impassive as she stared back at you.

You were just starting, you just got here for like twenty minutes. Usually, during this part of interrogation you aren't frustrated yet unless you didn't have your pack of gummies before you started. You still should be cool and calm, but right now? You don't think you are at all.

She seemed to relish in your frustration. Taking pleasure in watching you struggle to get a straight answer out of her. This only added to your growing annoyance, making you wonder how long you could keep up this interrogation without losing your temper completely.

"Don't breathe too hard, detka."

You swear to your dead grandparents, you are going to lose it.

Your face flushed red like a fool, stomach was in knots as you tried to ignore the growing feeling of something you will slap yourself about.

Now, you managed to compose yourself back again, it's your turn to be silent. Fun games for you to play—the silent game where you'll sit on your chair while the culprit moves themselves in every way they could think of, walk, sit on the floor until their ass gets sore while you sit comfortably on your chair and this will go on for long painful hours. You've got to have years of training before you can master it.

So you sat comfortably, not saying anything. You waited to see what she would say or do next. But it seems like she was playing a waiting game as well, trying to see who would break first.

The two of you only sat in silence but the tension was too obvious in the small suffocating metal room.

You looked up from your file folder over and over again, taking notes of everything you got so far and that is the unknown name she had given you—detka. Now, you blinked as you realized how much time had passed. Your eyes shifted to Wanda and you noticed that she was tapping her blackened fingers impatiently on the table. It was clear that she was growing restless.

Good, you told yourself before getting back to your papers. One thing you're sure about is you have been here over and over, you had sat in a small cramped room for ten to twenty four hours half of your life. You're used to it. You do it for a living.

You'll last longer than she will.

"Detective Y/L/N, we got something for you." You heard through the comms of the suffocating room.

You got up and went to the door, waiting as a folder was delivered through a small opening of the door. As you walked back to the table, you couldn't shake off the feeling that Wanda was watching you intently. You tried to ignore it, focusing on the folder in front of you. But the weight of her gaze made the hairs on your neck rise. You glanced up at her, and sure enough, she was staring at you, a smirk written all over her face.

"It's quite disappointing I am not unwrapping something," she commented suggestively as she watched you unwrap the manila envelope on your hands. Then, her gaze drifted up to your lips and to your chest, your cleavage showing slightly on your low cut blouse that seemed to be taunting her from the moment you had stepped into the room.

Your jaw tensed as you tried to ignore the effect her nonsense comments were having on you, you tried to remain focused and professional, but you couldn't deny the heat building between your thighs.

You shame yourself.

You crossed your legs awkwardly, trying to conceal your discomfort. Wanda's smirk only grew wider when she noticed your movement. You could feel her eyes on you, and you wondered if she could tell how this back-and-forth was affecting you. Your mind raced, trying to come up with a way to regain control of the situation without giving her any more satisfaction. So you just decided to shift the focus of the conversation back to the interrogation. You examined a photo of a young girl wearing a denim jacket, taking note of a slight glow on her knuckles before showing it to Wanda.

"Do you know this girl?"

Wanda lets out a small huff, then leans on the table, her sore cuffed hands resting on the cold surface.

"I'll tell you if you tell me what color those pretty little panties of yours are."

"Who is this man?" you pushed another photo towards her that you weren't even able to see first just so you could dismiss her painful teasing, hoping to shift the conversation back to your hands because clearly, it's in hers.

"You want answers? Come on, detective, it's a simple question. Red? Black? Maybe something a little more innocent, like pin—"

"If stupidity is the only thing that will come out of your dirty mouth, then don't talk to me or don't speak, at all." You finally snapped, "I had asked you simple questions as well but I think you're too dumb to answer them since you're all silent." You knew that this was a low blow, but you couldn't help but feel a sense of gratification as you threw her own words back at her.

But still, you didn't last long.

You gathered the papers, folders, and envelopes in front of you, you couldn't help but feel Wanda's venomous glare burning into you. When you glanced up at her, you gulped by the sight of her face. Her expression was a picture of barely contained fury, suddenly feeling like prey being stalked by a predator—like the photo of her showering in blood. You immediately avoided her fiery gaze, you swore you saw it flicker red. You shake your head and take a hold of your documents.

You couldn't believe she had gotten the best of you in this interrogation and you only got defeated and frustrated. All you can do is huff, straightening your collar and smoothing your hair as you try to regain a sense of composure and the little shame that this investigation left you. You glanced towards the two-way mirror, knowing that the other agents and your colleagues were watching this whole ordeal unfold. They watched as you got humiliated by this multiversal criminal.

Taking a deep breath, you spoke up, your voice firm and decisive. "I think I am done here," you said, signaling them to open the door for you. But before you could even step outside, Wanda suddenly spoke up, her voice cutting through the tension in the room like a knife.

"It's not stupidity if it's all true," her words dripping with a cold and thick accent you are not familiar with that sent shivers down your spine.

You knit your brows together but you didn't turn around because you knew you would only see the annoying smirk plastered on her face.

"Victoria's secret, it's lacy and has a floral pattern, scarlet. And it's wet."

You clenched your jaw tightly, your nostrils flaring in anger. Now, you felt violated and humiliated, she had really gotten under your skin in a way that no one else had ever managed before.

As the door shut behind you, you felt a sense of relief at finally getting some distance from her, and you took a few deep breaths to try and calm yourself down—a routine you usually do.

"You okay?" Natasha immediately asked, removing her leather jacket and placing it on your shoulders, "I swear, allow me to do this."

Wanda rose from her chair and tried her best to stretch, trying to pop and shift some bones in her restrained neck and her back. Her movements were slow and deliberate, as if she was savoring the moment. Then, she walked towards the one-way glass mirror.

"No, Nat. If I allow that to happen one of you will come out in that room in a body bag." You walked to put your files down briefly staring at Wanda who was now hovering closely to the mirror.

Natasha then grabbed you by your right arm, her face dangerously close on yours. She clearly didn't like how this multiversal criminal talked to you. "And who do you think that will be?" Natasha asked intimidatingly.

You just huffed playfully, rolling your eyes on her making Natasha let out a few laugh.

"Are you sure those devices are really working on her?"

"Well, we don't know where she's from or what entity she really is. So we don't really know what else she can do," Natasha said and you already know that fact. "As of now it is the highest and most secure restraining device that they have. At least that's what they told me. Why?"

Well, you don't think it is working or restraining her powers at all.

Natasha didn't speak as if she already knew what's going on in your mind. "So it's true?"

"What is?" You asked as you crouched down to your bag, stuffing all the heavy documents you had dragged to and fro wherever you go.

"What she said."

"Natasha, she said nothing but taunt and—"

"Eye fuck you, yes."

Humiliate, humiliate is what you were going to say.

"The last thing she said, was it true?"

Natasha's question hung in the air, you found yourself frozen in place, your mind racing to come up with an appropriate response. You then slowly turned around and your eyes first landed on Wanda. You still have no idea if she can hear or see everything despite her being locked inside, but you can see her staring right at you as if she can see you through the one-way mirror. Now, you are both staring at each other even with the glass standing against the two of you.

Guess there is only one way to find out.

"Why don't you drop by later and find out, agent?"

You stepped back, almost like a flinch as you watched Wanda hit the mirror with her cuffed hands, her jaw shaking and her eyes flickering with a terrifying red glow, as if the rage within her had taken on a life of its own.

Now that you know how much effect you have on her, and how you figured out how she plays—you will play her game with your own hands.

Play the game or the game plays you.

ᱬ

Your fingers flew over the keyboard of your laptop as you delved into the files that had been recovered from the headquarters of the Illuminati. The video footage was particularly compelling, showing Wanda's abilities at their most devastating. You watched in horror as she unleashed a barrage of powerful magic, tearing through the ranks of the Illuminati with ease.

Black Bolt was killed having his mouth covered.

Captain Carter was cut in half with her shield.

Reed Richard was grated to death.

Photon was blasted with her own powers and was crushed by a statue.

And Professor X's neck was snapped by Wanda after what you think was a telepathic duel.

"Why did you do all this, Wanda Maximoff?" You whispered to yourself.

You knew that what had happened there was unprecedented and that the implications were far-reaching. Another set of evidence was given to you stating where this multiversal criminal was, Earth-616—from a different reality. With the Illuminati gone, multiversal travel was impossible, and the potential for catastrophic consequences seemed to loom around every turn with her being in your reality.

You watched another video footage of a young girl who was clearly in the throes of something far beyond her control. The way she was running and in a second she was being consumed by a star-figured portal she made herself, as if her own power was turning on her, devouring her from within.

A theory now begins to take shape in your mind. You theorized that perhaps Wanda was here in your universe because of the young girl. But again, it would always fall back onto why Wanda killed your world's mightiest heroes.

"Think, Y/N. C'mon."

As a seasoned detective, you couldn't help but consider all angles and possibilities. Then, another theory popped, what if Wanda used the girl to get to your universe? But the question that nagged at you this time was why she would do such a thing. What was her motive? Was she trying to escape from her own universe or did she have some greater purpose in mind? The uncertainty of it all made your mind tangle, as you desperately tried to piece together the puzzle that was Wanda Maximoff of Earth-616.

"What do you want?" You whispered, your gaze was locked repeating the footage of Wanda going on to Illuminati one by one.

ᱬ

"Thank you for meeting me."

Wanda nodded in acknowledgement, as she locked the door of the cafe behind you. You carefully watched her actions and movements as you followed her. And as a detective yourself it was your nature to observe and it was clear that she was a bit nervous, a far cry from the confident and aggressive that is her variant.

She led you to a small table for two, as you two finally settled in, you spoke.

"So, uhm. I'm detective Y/N and I think you kno—"

"I-I know who you are, I know what happened," Wanda interjected, cutting you off mid-sentence. Her tone was sharp and clipped, as if she had already anticipated your attempt to broach the topic of the devastating events that had transpired within the week. "You don't need to repeat it all over again," she said with finality.

It was all over the news for days now, hell it would be for the next few years. The death of the World's mightiest heroes and footage of the one who killed them, which was her—not technically her but her variant from another universe.

"I have received threats and so are my children. I had to close my shop since then," your gaze darted around the surroundings. Before you got in, you'd seen the words "murderer, witch, killer, anti-hero," painted on the shop's windows in bold, aggressive strokes.

"But…I have nothing to do with it," Wanda's voice trembled with emotion, you could hear the undeniable anguish in her words. "There would be times that I can't control my powers and it frightens me. My body was present but my mind was something else...someone else," she continued, her voice growing fainter, almost like a distant echo. "I had glimpses of a star…more like a portal, a shattered mirror and a book. But it's…I swear, it's not me I have nothing to do with it."

"Hey, it's—" you carefully edge in. But she quickly stopped you.

"No, I want to get this over with. I just want my children to be safe." She looked at you with glossy eyes. She looks so tired and defeated. "I used to dream every night," she continued, her words tumbling out rapidly, "I was…I was happy, I was with my children, I was in control of everything. But then it's gone. I put my kids to sleep then everything slowly started to disappear, I watched it. I watched everything I created, everything I loved disappear right in front of me."

"You lost your children…" you whispered unintentionally.

"Not me, I'm with my children," Wanda shook her head lightly before looking at you.

"It's not you who lost them…"

It struck you deeply, and suddenly, the pieces started to fall into place.

"What we see in our dreams are what is happening on our alternative selves. They may not be our exact selves, but they're our counterparts from different universes, and when we sleep, we inadvertently tap into their experiences."

"H-how sure are you about that?"

"I came to my old mentor, I told her everything about it. She might give you better answers than I do, I stopped learning more about my powers since I retired," She paused briefly, her gaze dropping to the ground. "Besides, I…I'm just a sitting duck variant here."

"Hey—" you blinked when she handed you a piece of paper. Stopping your attempt to comfort once again.

"I don't need it. Here is the address if you still need answers. That's all I can give you."

She stood and you panicked, you hurried after her. As she reached the door, she turned to face you for a brief moment, her expression unreadable. Before you could utter a polite goodbye, she had already shut the door behind you, leaving you standing in the cold street.

You took an exasperated sigh, then, you quickly pulled out your phone and dialed Natasha's number, asking her to send some SHIELD agents to keep an eye on Wanda and her kids for protection. After the call, you felt lost, it's like you're close to hitting a brick wall, but then you remembered the paper Wanda gave you.

"This sounds like a sham."

ᱬ

"What are you doing here in our universe?" Natasha asked for God knows how many times now. But Wanda remained silent.

She unbuttons her suit jacket, revealing her holstered gun. She watches Wanda's silent form, she is unfazed—unthreatened. She wishes you were here, with how easily you extracted information just using your eyes and laughter. How your disarming smiles could crack even the hardest facades, including hers.

"Was I right?" Natasha freezes, surprised by Wanda's sudden voice.

"What?" Natasha responds sharply, trying to hide her shock. "What did you say?" She watches Wanda closely. Her eyes are no longer empty. They're stormy and intense. "Right about what?"

"C'mon you know what I am talking about." Wanda's eyes crinkled to the side. And Natasha's eyebrows furrowed in confusion at the smirk, remembering the last thing this criminal had said about you before you got out of the first interrogation. Natasha catches herself slowly smirking as well before she can stop it, leaning back confidently in her chair. She hoped this play of hers would look natural.

"Not going to lie, it was impressive 'cause you were right about it. Saw it upclose, it was black, lacy Victoria's Secret, and it's wet—for me."

"It's red." Wanda immediately corrected, the colors of Natasha's face started to drain in embarrassment. "Dark red," She emphasizes, "Almost burgundy, like wine...or blood." She grins mischievously, enjoying how the agent in front of her clenched her jaw.

Natasha intended for it to look like she indeed saw what you were wearing that day. You even told her to come to your place and find out even though she knew it was just a play to get something out of this criminal, only for the two of you to do nothing but investigate and investigate. She even bought wine! But since then you had made it clear to her, that you two cannot be a thing—that she's just a friend.

"Listen here, you twisted criminal," Natasha strided and grabbed Wanda by the collar of her prison suit, pulling her closer. "Try to disrespect her like that once again, you will never be back in your universe again."

Wanda laughed despite Natasha's threat. "In just one snap I can go through your mind and see the very not-so-respectful things your twisted brain has thought of doing to your boss," she spoke calmly, unfazed by Natasha's grip on her collar and how close their faces were to each other.

"Give me your boss or you'll get nothing from me."

ᱬ

You find yourself standing in front of a quaint, old-fashioned shop, nestled between two larger buildings. The sign above the door reads "Madam Calderu's Psychic Readings" in a flowery, Victorian script. As you push open the heavy wooden door, a bell chimes merrily, announcing your arrival. The shop is dimly lit, filled with an eclectic mix of incense burners, crystal balls on a small, round table.

Before you can take in your surroundings properly, you hear a sudden scream.

Your hand goes for your holster, gun drawn instinctively. The woman freezes, seeing the gun pointed at her. "Wait!" She throws up her hands, the shawl falling back to reveal a middle-aged woman with sharp features and piercing dark eyes. The woman's gaze locks onto yours, and for a moment, it's as if she's peering right through you, seeing something that only she can comprehend. Her eyes widen slightly, and she takes a step closer, her voice dropping to a hushed whisper.

"You…"

Taking a deep breath, she forces a calming smile. "I apologize, dear. You just gave me quite the surprise. Please, have a seat. I am Madam Calderu."

Even though something about this feels off—hell, everything about this feels off, you holster your gun and take a seat at the nearest table. The smooth wood is cool to the touch, just like her hands when she places them palm-up on the table.

"What's your name, dear?"

Her eyes seem to pierce through you as she awaits your response. There's a strange intensity to her gaze, like she's trying to unravel the very fabric of your existence.

"Y/N…" you were about to get your badge to show her that you are a detective but she gently stopped you.

"Y/N, no need for that," She repeats softly as if she already knows what you really are.

The goosebumps you're feeling made you want to finish whatever this is. "I am here about Wanda Maximoff."

"Which one?" She asks, laying out a spread of cards you thought are tarot cards across the table.

"What? Wh-what do you mean which one? Hey I-I am not here for that." You rushed out, but she already flipped a card.

"The Fool. Bare…untouched, pure." You cringe slightly, what a nice way to say you are a virgin…which you truly are. "You are going to bring a new life."

"W-what?"

She turned to another card that was placed vertically. "The Hermit. You're in deep search for something. The Devil, upright. You are bound...constrained by circumstances beyond your control." Another card was flipped. "The Empress Meaning, upright. You are a vessel…meant to contain something immense, powerful. But you're unprepared. A fragile container for a force that could shatter you at any moment."

The last card made her eyes widened as she saw the image—a hanged man suspended upside down from a tree, with his right foot bound and his left foot free. "Someone is after you…" She mutters under her breath, then she looks at you who was in a deep frown, images of something red…a crown, something powerful flashed her mind that made her scream. You immediately took a hold of her hands with yours, as if you pulled her out of her nightmare, she stopped screaming but she was breathing hard.

"You wait here, young lady." She stood, shaking as she rushed from her seat disappearing through the string curtains.

The room grows silent again as you wait for Madame Calderu to return. Your phone suddenly rings, making you jump slightly. You pull it out, seeing Natasha's number.

"Romanoff."

"She wants you."

Realizing what she meant, you shifted on your seat in frustration. "Romanoff, I told you not to…" you didn't finish, sighing defeatedly knowing that scolding Natasha would get you nowhere. She had always been like this, stubborn and would sometimes go against you and your higher ups. "I'll be there." You say, ending the call and tucking the phone back into your pocket.

Madam Calderu came rushing back with a wooden rectangular sigil in her hand only to see a 20 dollar bill on top of the table.

You were gone.

ᱬ

"Y/N, I'm sorry." Natasha followed you behind as you strided toward the interrogation room. You have not been giving her any words or any blink of an eye as you arrived. And she has been apologizing, following you around like a lost puppy.

"I want you out of this case, Romanoff. This is not the only time you went against my orders." You say with finality before disappearing behind the door of the interrogation room, not wanting to hear any of her reactions.

You took deep breaths before you turned around and saw how the criminal had been staring at you. She was wearing a wolfish grin, elbows on top of the table while her cuffed hands together were in the air.

"How are you holding up?" You asked, much calmer like you were the first time.

"I'm good, detective." She said, simply. "I'm good now that you're here."

"I could say that." You quipped, making her let out a few chuckles that made your stomach flutter.

"I didn't like the attitude you have the last time we saw each other."

"Well, I didn't like how you didn't cooperate with me."

Wanda smirks teasingly, her black fingernails tapping against the metal table. "I missed you, detective," she purrs softly, her voice dropping an octave. She manspread her legs slightly under the table, unnoticed by you.

You respond in a neutral tone, your expression giving nothing away. "I could say that," you repeated, never breaking eye contact with the criminal.

She chuckles softly, her eyes sparkling with amusement. She leans forward slightly, the movement subtle yet intentional. "Didn't you miss me too?" She just threw you a bone, looking for a reaction—any reaction. She watches your face carefully, eyes picking up every tiny muscle twitch. She sees your jaw tighten slightly, your shoulders stiffen. She notes how you never left her gaze, how you keep your voice neutral and unreadable.

But then, you remained composed. Chuckling but you didn't give any response to her question, instead you answered with a question yourself.

"Wanda, have you had dreams?"

She frowned before huffing softly, but failed to hide the slight uptick in her lips. She leans back slightly, her gaze drifting away before slowly returning to meet yours.

"It's here, right in front of me."

As Wanda answered, a smirk tugged at the corners of your mouth draws Wanda's attention back to your face. She sees the genuine smile hiding behind the smirk, and it makes her pause. She's not used to seeing genuine smiles, especially not directed at her. Wanda's eyes linger on your smile, her gaze seeming to drink in the sight. She notices the way your indifference during the first interrogation melts away, replaced by something warmer. Something that makes Wanda's heart skip a beat.

"Have you lost someone?" You asked another question, much personal this time. But silence was the only answer you got back from Wanda. You expected for it to not work for now but you know that eventually, later on, you will get something out from her—you will make her say something.

"I used to have dreams, Wanda." When the words escape your lips, you see Wanda's eyes widen slightly, hanging onto each word. "I dream of my kids, and I dream about losing them every single time." You continued. Your dreams have become a nightly ritual, an obsession. Every night, you relive the same scene, sitting on the couch, surrounded by laughter, playful shouts and calls for you—their mommy. You're surrounded by your children, their faces blurry but their joy unmistakable. And then, next thing you know is you're awake in an empty bed, no signs of your children.

"Every time?" She asks, already knowing the answer.

You hesitate, then nod. "Like clockwork. I see them, hear them. They feel so real…" You trail off, smiling at the memories. "Then they're gone." You add softly, unconsciously wrapping your arms around yourself. Wanda swallows hard, her fingers twitching slightly. "It's funny because I don't even want kids, but after those dreams, when I wake up the first thing I expect to see is them beside me."

As she sits there, watching you wrestle with the ghosts of your dream children, she feels an unfamiliar pull. She's seen the same thing in her own dreams—blurry faces, laughter that turns to silence.

"Every night the same dream, every morning the same nightmare." She murmured under her breath.

For the first time since you've seen her, Wanda's mask completely slips.

"I can say the same, Y/N. I've lost people I loved…but I am here to get them back now."

Bingo.

Wanda blinks, momentarily taken aback as she watches you rise, a flicker of confusion passing over her face.

"I'm so sorry for your loss, Wanda." You say before disappearing, leaving her alone in the cold room.

ᱬ

Later that night, as the prison settles into a quiet routine, you find yourself back at your apartment.

You pour yourself a glass of wine, the cool liquid sliding down your throat as you relax on your couch. This case has been tough, but tonight, you finally made a huge progress. She had opened up, shown emotion. You smile smugly to yourself, confident that tomorrow, with your newfound insight, you'll finally break the case wide open.

You finish your glass of wine, feeling tired. You've had a long day of investigating and interrogating. You let out a breath, your body relaxing as you slide into bed in your silk nightgown. You close your eyes, ready for sleep. But you felt dizzy. As the room spins around you, suddenly, unmistakably, you hear it—laughter. The clear, joyous laughter of children echoes through your darkened bedroom. Your eyes fly open, but the sound doesn't stop. It surrounds you, bouncing off the walls, growing louder.

Figures begin to take shape right before your eyes. Two boys—the same children from your dreams. They're laughing, their faces fully visible this time, and they're reaching out their little hands towards you.

"Mommy!" You laugh, reaching to them.

But then, in an instant their laughter turns cold, their smiles disappearing as they hiss, "Mommy, go away! Run, Mommy, run!" They push you back, their small hands shoving you towards the bed. You saw a glowing figure just outside your door, a woman with horns in her head—glowing red.

Your kids continued to scream, "Run! Mommy!"

Your heart was pounding in your chest, you wrapped your arms around your children, pulling them close. You can feel their small bodies shaking, mirroring your own fear.

"Mommy, go." The first boy whispered.

"You have to go now, mommy." The other one said.

But you didn't let go of them. The footsteps grew louder and the figure was just right beside your bed. Blocking out the light on the hallway of your room.

You jolt upright in bed, your nightgown damp with sweat. You pant, looking around your room. No children, no figure. Just you and your phone ringing loud.

"Y/N," Maria's voice is tight, "Wanda escaped. We don't know how but we need you here. Now."

"2800 Sherwood Street, Eastview." You rattled out. Your heart pounds in your ears as you stand still. "Maria, 616 is after 818's kids, she might be on her way to get them now. Target is the variant Wanda of Earth-616. Presumed armed and dangerous. Objective: Contain and capture." You stood, walking to where your closet is, "Eliminate if you have to." You ended the call swiftly, pulling on your tactical gear—bulletproof vest, cargo pants, combat boots out of your cabinet.

When you were about to get undressed, there was a figure that loomed over your room's doorway. You can't be wrong but it was the same figure you saw in your dreams just a while back. A woman with little horns, glowing red.

As you sweep the hallway, you think you're alone. But then, a movement catches your eye—a shadow darting between rooms. You turned around, gun raised, heart pounding. "Who's there?" You call out, voice echoing through the empty house. Then, a shadow appeared right at the end of your hallway and it started crawling to your direction. Without thinking, you spin around and dash back to your bedroom, slamming the door shut behind you. You lock it immediately, and aim your gun straight at the door as you step back.

You felt an energy behind you so you whirl around, gun still pointed at the air, only to find yourself face to face with the towering figure. It looms over you, the red light pulsing violently. Your hands tremble slightly as you raise the gun higher, aiming at the center of the shadowy mass. You gasp, eyes widening as you recognize the features hidden beneath the glowing shadow.

"W-Wanda?" Your voice is barely a whisper.

Her blackened fingers extend, reaching to the gun aiming at her and it disappears in a flash of dark energy. Before you could react, she snapped and in an instant you were up in the air. An unseen force lifts you off the ground, suspending you in mid-air with an invisible restraint tying your feet and hands. You struggle, legs kicking uselessly as you float higher but her eyes glow with an intensity you've never seen before, almost burning with the red energy that surrounds her. She watches you like a predator eyeing its prey—calculated, intense, and completely focused.

"Miss me?"

"What are you doing?" You manage to choke out, heart is now hammering to get out of your chest as you stare into her glowing eyes. Her appearance is disturbing; she wears a crown that looks like horns, and a suit that looks like it was drenched in blood. The red energy seems to be seeping from her very pores. Her features are still beautiful, but twisted into something dark and terrifying.

"To get what I lost."

Your frown deepens as you process her words.

Then, a chill laughter escaped her lips. "I thought you already figured it out, detective," she says mockingly, her voice dripping with condescension. "You're supposed to be the smart one. The one who sees through every lie and unravels every mystery." She leans in closer, her face inches from yours as you elevate in the air. "But you've got it all wrong."

Your mind races, trying desperately to connect the dots. Your detective mind isn't working at the moment and she tilts her head, studying your baffled expression with cruel amusement. Her blackened fingers gently caress your cheek, tracing the line of your jaw. "You really don't get it, do you?" She murmurs, her touch icy cold. Her fingers started to caress your stomach. "Let me give you a hint...what's the same thing we lost every time we close our eyes?"

Your kids. Her kids.

You shake your head, trying to clear the confusion. "But…I-I don't have your kids, Wanda."

"Oh, you will." Her voice drops to a threatening whisper as she snaps her fingers again. In an instant, you find yourself falling backward onto your bed, the familiar indentation of your pillow against your head. Wanda begins to crawl up your body, her blackened fingers digging into the blankets, pulling her closer. Her face hovers above yours, her twisted crown casting ominous shadows on the walls. "Now, let's make them, shall we?"

You squeeze your eyes shut, praying desperately that this is all just a nightmare. But as Wanda's cold hands begin to roam over your chest, pulling the knots of your nightgown, you realize with a sinking heart that this is no dream. This is terrifyingly, undeniably real.

"Open your eyes."

A shiver runs down your spine as the cold air hits your bare skin. You have nothing under your nightgown, just your lacy panties. You're exposed, vulnerable, lying naked beneath her. She takes a moment to admire the sight, her red eyes burning with a fierce intensity. "I knew you're more beautiful without clothes," she murmurs, tracing a finger down your chest. She then squeezes them roughly, pinching your nipples between her fingers until you gasp in pain. Her other hand reaches up to grab your throat, squeezing tightly as she attacks your chest with a frenzy of kisses and bites.

You arch your back in pain as Wanda's cold hands maul your breasts, her fingers digging into your flesh like claws. Her hand around your throat tightens, cutting off your air supply as she nuzzles her face between your breasts, inhaling your scent deeply. Your body goes limp beneath hers. You spread your legs wider, letting her settle deeper between your thighs. Your arms lift up, wrapping around her neck possessively. You whimper softly as she bites down hard on your collarbone.

Her fingers slip beneath the lacy fabric of your underwear and immediately find their way inside your warmth. You gasp at the sudden intrusion, her skin so cold it burns against your sensitive flesh. She begins to move her fingers in and out of you brutally, ignoring your cries. She silences you with a brutal kiss, her cold fingers continuing their relentless assault on your insides. Her thumb finds your clit, pressing down hard as she forces another finger inside you. You feel yourself stretching to accommodate her blackened fingers, your body trembling with a mix of pain and pleasure.

You should be fighting, clawing, biting, anything to make her stop. Instead, you find yourself wrapping your legs around her waist, pulling her closer as she invades your cunt with cold, blackened fingers.

Letting her darkness in.

"Hng Wanda..." You whimpered.

She smirks wickedly as she hears you cry out her name, your pleasured gasps mingling with anguished moans. Her eyes glitter with cruel triumph. "Say my name again," she commands.

"W-Wanda…" You stuttered.

Then, she curled her fingers inside you agonizingly slow, hitting that perfect spot. "Louder."

"Fuck! Wanda!"

Just as you're about to release the coil on your stomach, she pulls her fingers out of you suddenly, leaving you gaping and empty. You whimper in protest, but before you can even process what's happening, she shoves two of her blackened fingers into your mouth instead.

"Suck."

Magic crackles in the air as Wanda presses her blackened fingers against your lips, demanding obedience. Shimmering sparks dance before your eyes before you reluctantly close them, submitting as your mouth envelops her fingers. The metallic taste of chaos magic and your wetness coats your tongue, making you shudder.

She pulls her fingers free from your mouth, leaving behind trails of dark magic. Kneeling between your legs, she lets you see the crimson strap-on secured around her waist—it looked so real, enchanted.

As you finally register what's happening, adrenaline shoots through your veins. Your body goes instantly rigid, eyes wide with realization and fear.

"No..." you whimper, trying to close your legs, but she holds them firmly open with her knees. The alarm bells in your mind scream to fight back.

With a cruel smile, she rips your delicate underwear to shreds, discarding the remains aside. She grabs your thighs tightly, spreading your legs as far apart as they'll go. The enchanted strap-on hangs between her legs, the chaos runes pulsing with dark energy.

"It's time to make what we lost."

She rubs the tip against your wet entrance, coating it with your arousal. You watch in horror as she throws her head back, moaning softly. "You're so tight, around my cock," she hisses, gripping your hips. Without warning, she snaps her hips forward, burying the entire length inside you brutally. She shushes your cries, her free hand caressing your cheek, kissing your forehead soothingly as she continues to brutally thrust the strap-on into you with each heartbeat. With every painful push, you let out a little whimper, your body trembling beneath hers.

"It hurts, Wanda…" you sobbed.

"I know, detka." She placed her forehead against yours before kissing them again, her thumb gently stroking your cheek as she continued to ravage you with the cock. "It's supposed to hurt." She murmurs against your forehead, "This pain will remind you who you belong to now." As she continues to brutally thrust into you, she starts to feel pleasure from the enchanted device. The chaos runes absorb your pain and convert it into dark energy, feeding into Wanda. She moans softly, nuzzling your face, "You're hurting so nicely…" The pleasure builds inside her, her hips snapping forward with increased force, the strap-on plunging deeper into your torn and stretched flesh. She buries her face in your neck, kissing and biting your skin as she chases her orgasm. "I'm going to cum inside you, my love."

All you can feel is the relentless pain, your body bruised and your pussy battered by her cock. But despite the agony, you nod dumbly, willing to take whatever she gives you. "Yes, Wanda," you manage to whisper, your voice hoarse from crying. "Please, please."

She presses a palm firmly against your stomach, feeling the prominent bulge of the strap-on inside you. "Feel that, detka? Feel how deep I am?" She pants harshly, her hips grinding against yours. "You'll be filled with my cum, marked from the inside out."

"Then, we will never lose them again."

"Please…I don't wanna lose them again, Wanda. Please, give me my kids. G-give me your babies."

Your statement throws her over the edge. She groans loudly, her body tensing as she forces her cock deep inside you, releasing wave after wave of hot, enchanted seed. The chaos runes pulse dangerously, filling your womb with dark energy.

She collapses onto you, panting heavily as she caresses your stomach, feeling the warmth of her release inside you.

"Our kids…" she slipped out of you. Making you whimper from the empty feeling. Then, her hand slowly trailed down to your pussy, feeling the wetness of her cum mixing with yours as she pushed it back inside you.

"We'll never lose them again."

ᱬ

You blinked groggily as you stirred awake in your bedroom decorated in a vintage 1950s style. A silky nightgown slips off one shoulder as you sit up slowly. You stare at the two boys beside you, your heart swelling with love. And your dear wife, Wanda lies in between them, her hand protectively resting on the boys' backs, a soft smile on her sleeping face.

Feeling you're moving away, Wanda calls out softly, stirring in her sleep. "Hey, mommy." She carefully removes her arms from around the twins, ensuring they don't wake up.

"Hey." You greeted back, groaning as you finally managed to stand. Wanda immediately rounded the bed to get to you.

"Mmm, good morning, my love." Before you can say a word, she leans in to press a tender kiss to your lips. She took your hands as she sat back on the bed. Then, blackened fingers slide down to your swollen stomach, you laugh, guiding her head as she leans down to kiss your bump.

"Good morning, little one," she coos. "We can't wait to meet you soon."

—

Author's Note: This was supposed to have an angsty ending but I remember promising someone here to write a Wanda fic w happy ending.

I just want to inform everyone that this might be the last fic I will be posting. I will be on hiatus since I have been missing school a lot due to health issues and I need to keep up and get back on track. Every series/fics of mine will be put on hold for a while, but I promise that the first thing I'll post when I get back are updates on them. I'll see you all around :)))

1K notes · View notes

wwandaslover · 5 months ago

Text

𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝐵𝑜𝑜𝑘 𝐶𝑙𝑢𝑏

pairing: wanda maximoff x fem!reader

summary: Your neighbor and friend, Wanda Maximoff, invites you to her book club. The book they're reading is, well, erotic. It sparks something in you, and you find yourself growing closer with your neighbor, in a surprising way.

content warnings: smut, improper use of a book, spanking, fingering, cunnilingus

word count: 6.2k+

masterlist

comments and reblogs are always appreciated! happy reading ♡

The rose petals are soft beneath your fingertips, your mind adrift as you tend to the vibrant bushes near your door. The faint scent of lawn clippings hangs in the air, dulled slightly by the thick heat lazily wrapping around you, an occasional breeze brushing by to dry the back of your damp neck. You glance at the lemonade sitting on your front steps, your mouth watering slightly at the thought of drinking the refreshing beverage.

You clip a slightly dead branch of your rose bush, discarding it in the small, steadily growing pile nearby. There hasn’t been a rain shower in a few weeks, so you’ve been diligent about watering your bushes, but even you can’t beat the arid heat that settles on your town. It’s all anyone can talk about; the endless heat at the height of summer causing kids and adults alike to flock to the brand-new water park in the heart of town.

Ice clinks as you finally cave, reaching over to sip the lemonade through a straw. The taste explodes in your mouth, and you let out a soft sound of relief as the sugar perks you back up. Your fingers slip slightly on the condensation steadily sweating from the cold glass, and you begin to seriously consider retreating back inside to sit in front of your fan.

“Hey, neighbor,” a friendly voice calls out, and you recognize the honeyed tone immediately.

Your head jerks up, your cheeks flushing as you recall the dirt smeared on your knees, and you’re acutely aware of the loose strands of hair sticking to your forehead. You raise your free hand awkwardly, praying you’re not waving too enthusiastically at your neighbor.

Wanda had been your neighbor ever since you’d moved in a few months ago, and she’d immediately taken you under her care. It was endearing, really, to have someone care about you while you adjusted to a new city.

“Hi, Wanda,” you called out, your voice cracking slightly. You could see the older woman smile, her red hair cascading over her back as she walked around her bushes and towards you. You hide your nervousness, sucking on your straw like it is a lifeline, your pulse quickening as she draws nearer.

Oh god, you probably smell so bad. You’ve been out in the sun for hours, sweating under the sweltering sun, your deodorant having lost its potency ten minutes into your battle with the rose bushes. You’re acutely aware of the sweat dripping down your temple, your eyebags showing since you’d decided not to use concealer this morning, not wanting to have it melt right off your face in the heat.

“What on earth are you doing out in the heat on a day like this?” Wanda asks, smiling at you and shielding her face from the sun as she looks down at your still-kneeling form. The faint scent of vanilla drifts over to you, and you wet your lips slightly, your straw making a loud sound as you realize you’ve finished the last of your lemonade. You sense that she doesn’t want a response, her words more of a statement than an actual question, a subtle chide at your ability to make rational decisions in the summer heat.

Helplessly, you gesture towards your rose bushes, your eyes quickly spotting the petals that are slowly wilting, standing out against the vibrant colors.

“Oh, sweetheart,” Wanda says, tilting her head as she examines your rose bushes, “I think they look beautiful. Now, why don’t you invite me inside for a cup of that delicious-looking lemonade, hm?”

Flustered, you stand quickly, gripping your glass and muttering a quick, “Of course,” before holding the door open and ushering the woman inside.

Wanda walks straight into your kitchen, sighing slightly at the cool breeze from your AC unit working overtime. Her green eyes find yours, crinkling at the edges as she smiles at you. Smiling back slightly, you rush to the fridge, pulling out the pitcher of lemonade you’d made and pouring a generous amount into one of your fancy glasses.

“What is a sweet girl like you doing outside working in this heat?” Wanda asks, taking the cup from you. You can’t stop looking at the way her red-tinted lips wrap around the straw as she sips. “Shouldn’t that boy of yours be helping you?”

“Who?”

“The boy with the long hair and the flannel,” Wanda says, her tone slightly off. You recall the other weekend when you’d invited your coworker to the neighborhood barbecue. Wanda had been more touchy with you that night for some reason, her eyes looking at your coworker with light suspicion; you didn’t really mind, assuming she was looking out for you. You can tell that she’s poking around with her words, a hidden question behind them, and you’re all too happy to set the record straight for her.

“Oh, Jared? No, he’s just a friend,” you say, hoping that your tone is casual. It sounds far too high-pitched, but Wanda relaxes slightly at your words, smiling brightly at you as her fingernails clink on the side of her glass.

“Ah,” she mutters, raising her eyebrows slightly, “A friend.”

The silence stretches for an awkward beat before you feel the urge to explain yourself. To get rid of the crushing feeling between your ribcage as Wanda studies you, her head tilted slightly. “No, truly, he is just a friend. We met at work and now we kind of hang out outside of work. I don’t know, it’s just… friends hanging out and stuff. I don’t like boys- or, I mean, him like that.” The words spew from you like a messy word vomit, the letters and syllables all jumbled together as you try to string together a coherent sentence.

Chuckling, Wanda reaches out, her fingers gently touching your cheek. Her fingertips are cold against your skin, and you realize that you’re flushed. You pop your straw back into your mouth, your teeth gnawing slightly on the plastic as you distract yourself.

“I know what boys want from a pretty girl like you,” Wanda says. It feels like an intimate sort of statement, but her tone is far too bright, an air of casualness forcing its way into the sentence as you awkwardly laugh at her words.

“Well, you don’t have to worry about that,” you say, unsure of why you’re reassuring her. “I’m not interested in Jared, like that.”

“Hmm, good,” Wanda nods as she speaks, an air of finality in her words. You assume the conversation is over, your eyes trailing over her blouse, respectfully avoiding looking near her chest, as the fabric dipped quite low. You supposed it made sense, given the heat, but the last thing you wanted to do was make your neighbor uncomfortable.

Wanda didn’t mind. After all, she’d chosen this blouse with the low v-cut on purpose, watching you through the window while making finger sandwiches for Billy and Tommy. You’d been working so hard, your arm muscles showing as you pulled weeds and clipped your rose bush, that she couldn’t help but venture over to your lawn. After all, the boys enjoyed their cartoons on a lazy Saturday afternoon, and your muscles had looked quite striking as you worked in that sinfully thin tanktop of yours.

“Say,” Wanda exclaims suddenly, your eyes snapping up from where they’d been lingering around the exposed skin of her stomach. “You like reading, don’t you?”

Your eyes light up, and Wanda’s teeth gleam as she smiles brightly at you. She remembers you talking her ear off about a book you’d read, her mind wandering to the animated way your hands had moved while speaking. She’d nodded at all the right places, asking you questions occasionally, her attention focused on the way your face shifted into genuine enthusiasm as you spoke.

“I run this book club,” Wanda says, shrugging as though it was no big deal, her eyes flitting up to yours to gauge your reaction. “We meet on Friday at my house, when the boys leave for the weekend at their father’s place, if you’d be interested.”

It’s been a while since you’ve had a consistent friend group or even just a group of people to hang out with. Wanda knows this; you’ve talked about it a few times, when you’ve had a few too many glasses of wine, your face flushed and your eyes dark and wide as you lean into her friendly touch.

“I would love to come!” You bite your lip as you hide a wide smile, containing your obvious excitement at the idea. “What book are you reading?”

“Ah, well,” Wanda ducks her head, peeking up at you through her lashes. It’s the perfect picture of innocence. “I’m not sure if you’d be interested in this specific book.”

“Please tell me,” you beg, setting your lemonade aside as you lean closer to her. You’ve been searching for some new books, even asking Wanda for recommendations. It’s almost cruel, the way she hesitates before answering, her eyes focused solely on your reaction.

Wanda finally tells you, watching as you immediately pull out your phone to search for the name of the book. Her eyes are sharp, gauging your reaction as you quickly skim the description. She can’t tell if you’re blushing more than usual, the book is a lesbian romance, but you don’t seem to mind as you look up and smile at her.

“Can I borrow your book for the meeting on Friday?”

And that’s that. Wanda agrees, of course, her mind racing as she watches you smile and talk about how much you’ve been looking forward to reading books with other people, your words jumbling together in your excitement. You’re leaning closer to her as you speak, your eyes sparkling and lips moving a mile a minute. Wanda takes another sip of the sugary lemonade, glancing at your lips as she wonders if you taste just as sweet.

God, she can’t wait until Friday.

—

You’re nervous, your hands fiddling with the loose threads of your shirt as you walk up the pristine walkway to Wanda’s front door. God, you’ve knocked plenty of times before, but this time it feels… nervewracking.

Truly, you aren’t used to meeting new people. Most of the time, others approach you, starting conversations and inviting you into their lives. It had never been the other way around, and the mere thought of putting yourself out there made your palms sweat and your feet develop an urge to run.

Before you can give yourself a pep talk, your fingers trembling as you reach for the doorbell, the door unlocks, startling you. The first thing Wanda sees when she swings the door open is your wide eyes, her eyes softening when she takes in your tense form. She can tell you’re a few wrong words away from bolting back to your house with a poorly mumbled excuse.

“Oh, sweetheart, I didn't mean to startle you,” she says, and suddenly her hands are all over you, distracting you from the nervousness building steadily within you. Wanda’s hands pull you inside, gently squeezing your arms before wrapping slightly around your waist, her touch insistent as heat spreads through your body wherever her fingers make contact. She can feel you relaxing slightly, your expression opening up as she talks your ear off, telling you that their book club is quite small, but you’ll help grow their numbers as she ushers you into the living room.

“Is that a rabbit?” The words are out of your mouth before you can stop them, your face going slightly red as your eyes widen. There’s a white rabbit munching on some cucumbers, its nose twitching and ears swiveling towards you as you shuffle in your socks on the carpet. Your eyes catch the long fingers gently stroking its fur, moving up to land on the face of a striking brunette.

“This is Señor Scratchy,” the woman says, her blue eyes glinting slightly as she looks you up and down. “You must be Wanda’s new pe-”

“Agatha,” Wanda interrupts, smiling tightly for a moment before she glances at you. “Be nice to our newest member.”

Smirking, Agatha just wiggles her fingers at you, her eyes crinkling at the corners. You wonder what she was going to say that caused Wanda to speak so abruptly, but she turns her head before you can ask. Following her eyeline, you smile awkwardly at the woman who enters through the doorway, her hands full as she balances four mugs on a tray.

“Oh good, coffee,” Wanda says, ushering you onto the couch and slipping her copy of this week's book into your hands.

A steaming mug is placed before you, Wanda pouring a bit of milk and dropping three sugar cubes into your coffee, just the way you like it. You would blush at the attentiveness, but you’re too focused on the way the woman with the tray settles down next to Agatha, her hands caressing her shoulders for a moment. Agatha’s blue eyes are locked on you as she pulls the other woman’s legs onto her lap.

“Nice to meet you, fresh meat,” the woman says, her smile sharp. She does not offer her name.

Agatha cackles slightly, patting the woman’s legs as she takes in your wide-eyed look. “Rio, my love, you’ve scared Wanda’s… friend.”

They’re testing you, that much is obvious. Wanda’s hand is hovering near her mug, her eyes cutting towards the women on the couch opposite from you. Agatha is peering at you from under her lashes, her hands still massaging Rio’s legs, the rabbit having jumped to the floor the moment the other woman entered the room. You can hear him munching in the silence.

Rio, well, she stares at you openly, her eyes a bit too wide.

“Well,” you say, clearing your throat as you take a sip of your coffee to give your hands something to do. “It’s very nice to meet you, Agatha and Rio.” You nod at each of them as you say their name. Hopefully, they don’t hear your voice wavering. “This seems like a fun group for a book club.”

“Oooh, I like her,” Rio murmurs, smiling widely at you. It sends goosebumps crawling down the back of your neck, but you bravely smile back, feeling your lips tremble.

Wanda claps her hands once, letting out a breath of air as she brings attention back to the topic at hand. “We’ve started the book, but we’re only a few chapters in so far. Agatha, why don’t you catch her up?”

Suffice to say, Agatha is excellent at summarizing. You understand the first few chapters well enough, and you blush when she mentions the hot older lesbian the main character is pining over, winking at Rio. You begin to wonder about the nature of their relationship, but decide that it’s none of your business.

“I’m looking forward to the next few chapters,” Rio says offhandedly. “I’ve heard they get steamy, just the way I like my books.”

“Naughty girl,” Agatha murmurs, then most of your previous questions are cleared up as Rio grabs the back of her neck and kisses the woman solidly.

You can feel Wanda looking at you from the corner of your eye, and you hope she doesn’t take your awkward fidgeting the wrong way. After all, it’s not like you could easily explain the warm feeling spreading through your body at the sight of them kissing, your nose hyper-aware of Wanda’s warm vanilla perfume wafting over to you.

“So, do they do this often?” You ask, smiling slightly and injecting sarcasm into your tone as you bravely turn to face Wanda. She looks slightly relieved, an easy smile curling her lips at the corners as you both hear a scoff from the other couch.

“Got a problem with it, sweetheart?” Agatha drawls, her blue eyes piercing. Rio is wrapped around her, reminding you of a large snake coiling around their prey, and you shake your head.

“Of course not, I’m just questioning if you actually talk about the book during these meetings, or if you just make out. That can’t be productive, and I truly do like talking about books…”

Wanda laughs beside you, one of her hands landing on your knee as she does so. You don’t mind, needing the extra support as your bravery fades slightly once you’ve said your piece. Agatha is chuckling and when you risk looking at Rio’s face, she’s smirking slightly at you.

“I bet you’d like that,” Rio mutters, falling silent when Agatha shoots her a stern look.

“Don’t start, besides, she’s right. This is a book club, after all,” Agatha nods at you, picking up her book. “So, should we dive deeper into the chapters then? I’d like to discuss the hints they’re dropping about the more kinky aspects that are to come.”

Oh god, you don’t think your blush will go away for the rest of the club meeting. Wanda’s hand remains on your knee, and you don’t mind when it slowly moves up your thigh. Is it the coffee making you jittery, or something else? You don’t know, but your heart is racing and your face feels practically aflame with every word that Agatha and Rio speak.

It’s the best book club you’ve ever attended.

—

“So,” Wanda says, trailing off. Her fingers run along the edges of the book, and you watch them for a moment before meeting her eyes.

Agatha and Rio have already left with their hands hot around each other's waists, a sight you’ve grown accustomed to seeing. It’s been a few weeks, your cheeks still reddening every time someone makes a joke about the smut in the book, but you’ve grown used to the comments and the way Wanda’s hand feels on your thigh.

At first, you were worried about the implications of her actions. But, Agatha and Rio never commented on it or even looked twice at you and Wanda, their eyes were only made for each other. You’d grown comfortable with the touch, even leaning up against your neighbor at times when the discussion became passionate. Occasionally, your hand would brush against hers, your chin hovering near her shoulder as you read the passages.

Each touch felt charged, and you were glad you could explain the blush away by gesturing to the book.

“Yeah,” you say, your head ducking slightly as the silence stretches on. “So.”

“Today was interesting,” Wanda smiles, her cheeks slightly pink as her fingers spread the pages of her book. She’s referencing the smut, of course. Agatha had taken great delight in teasing you, asking you which scene was your favorite, or if you’d related strongly with one of the kinks introduced.

Forcing a chuckle, you nod. In all honesty, you’d rather not let Wanda know that you’d pictured yourself as the main character while reading the book before the meeting. Your fingers had rubbed furiously at your throbbing clit under the sheets as you read the characters making out, your thighs tightening when the older woman in the book whispered degrading things in the main character’s ear.

“I-” You begin, ducking your head and smiling. “I didn’t mind reading it but… actually discussing it?”

“What?” Wanda asks, her voice teasing. There’s a forced sort of lightness to her tone, her eyes sharp as she looks at you. “I thought it was adorable… how flustered you get.”

A chuckle escapes you, awkwardness flooding you as you think about the kinky acts the group had discussed. Rio had been bored, claiming she wanted more out of a self-proclaimed kinky book, but Agatha had shushed her as Wanda launched into an analysis of each character’s psyche.

You loved it when Wanda talked. She always had the best insights, her words well crafted. She was smart, everything she said was well thought out, and you often found yourself nodding along.

“I’m glad you think so,” you say, the words feeling thick around your tongue. Your heart is beating quickly, and you take a deep breath as you look back down at your fingers, nervously twisting together.

“Would you like to read the next chapter together?” Wanda asks, her tone light. One of her hands reaches out, resting gently on your knee. “I’m looking forward to this one.”

“Isn’t this chapter the one Rio said was really… you know,” you whisper, your knee tensing under Wanda’s touch.

“What?”

“The really dirty chapter,” you mumble, your cheeks aflame as you peer up at Wanda through your lashes. She’s smiling gently at you, her fingers still splayed out on the pages.

There’s something in her eyes that you can’t quite decipher. The hand on your knee tightens for a moment, before sliding up further as Wanda leans in. You barely hear her words, focused on how soft her hair looks and awkwardly trying not to glance at her lips as her vanilla perfume wafts under your nose. God, she smells so nice and her touch is so firm and warm and-

“I want to see your reactions when we read it,” Wanda murmurs, her lips grazing your cheek as she leans closer to whisper in your ear. “That blush of yours is just too adorable to resist.”

You force your lungs to breathe, your knuckles white from how hard you’re gripping the couch cushion. Wanda pulls back, smiling sweetly at you and patting the spot next to her. “Come, darling. Let’s read the next chapter together.”

Mindlessly, you nod as you move to sit next to her. You try to leave some space, your mind racing while also being somewhat blank at the same time. Wanda simply moves closer until her thigh is pressed against yours, her hand firmly on your thigh as she begins to read out loud in that perfect, low voice of hers.

It takes everything in you not to squirm, your bottom lip sore from how hard you’re biting it. Wanda doesn’t seem to notice, her voice calm as she reads the scene. Her hand is slowly inching up your thigh, and you feel your heart rate increasing at the thought of her feeling the heat that is surely emanating from the apex of your thighs.

“The cane whistles through the air, hitting me solidly. My body jerks forward, pain erupting on my bruised ass, but Eliza’s hand grips my hair, her voice hissing that I should be still. I listen, my brain screaming at me to comply while my body is brought closer to an orgasm, the pain turning into pleasure with each strike of the cane.”

You rest your chin on Wanda’s shoulder, your attention split between her hand squeezing your thigh and the scene she’s reading. Ignoring the wetness between your thighs, you pray that you don’t leak through your pants.

“I begin to crave the pain,” Wanda’s voice is steady as she reads, with only a slight breathiness to her tone. “I needed to submit, to let Eliza control every aspect of my pain, and with it, my pleasure.”

“I’ve always wondered how that feels,” you interrupt, your mind still thinking about the cane. You wondered if it really could cause pleasure.

Wanda pauses, her fingers squeezing your thigh for a moment before she turns toward you, lowering the book slightly. “How… what feels?”

“Oh,” you blush, clearing your throat. “The impact play. I just assume that a cane would hurt. I’ve never- well. You know.”

There’s a lingering silence, a sort of tension in the air as Wanda considers your words. She seems to be choosing her next words carefully, her fingers gripping your thigh as she sets the book down.

“Would you like to try?”

Fuck.

Wanda’s eyes are on you, and you can feel them as you stare at the book for a few moments. Working up your courage, you glance up, blinking at how dilated her pupils are, her green irises barely noticeable.

“We- I… where would we get a cane?” You ask, the words feeling a bit thick in your mouth.

Chuckling, Wanda closes the book fully and reaches up to cup your cheek. “Oh, my sweet girl, we don’t need a cane for impact play, anything will do.”

“Oh, right,” you say, feeling stupid. Your brain is full of fuzz, your thoughts muffled slightly. The only thing you can think about is the scene from the book, Wanda’s hand on your thigh moving up further and further until it’s gliding over your hips and pressing on your upper back.

You gasp slightly as Wanda bends you over her lap, her hand gentle but firm between your shoulder blades. You willingly follow her lead, your chest heaving slightly as you try to calm your racing heartbeat, resisting the urge to squirm when you feel how wet you are, the change in position thrilling.

“Is this alright?” Wanda asks, her voice warm. Her hand is gently rubbing your back, the other playing with the hair on top of your head, petting you somewhat. You don’t mind.

“Yes, I just…” you bite your lip. Wanda’s hand pauses, and you quickly speak, your chest tight and full of nerves. “You’re a really good friend and my neighbor and I don’t want to mess anything up or-”

Wanda‘s hand moves from the top of your head to cover your mouth, and you hear a shushing sound. Her other hand is slowly moving down your back, warmth spreading through your backside as she moves to caress your ass, your back arching into the touch. “Don’t worry about that sweetheart, don’t you want this?”

You stutter, nodding against her hand as your words are muffled.

“Good, because I want this too,” Wanda murmurs, and you feel a smile forming on your lips as your heart soars. She wants this too? You’ve felt so much guilt over the past few weeks, blushing when you catch her gaze and then going home to read the book and pretend you’re not imagining Wanda as the dominatrix while you read.

“Say it,” Wanda commands, her voice different. Her hand finally moves away from your lips, returning to your upper back, keeping you in place. She sounds strict, and you squirm at the words.

“I want this,” you whisper.

“Louder.”

“Fuck,” you mutter, grinding your hips into her thighs before you freeze, your eyes wide.

Wanda chuckles lowly. “You must really want this if you’re chasing your pleasure while bent over my lap. Say it, darling. I need to hear the words before I continue.”

You can’t speak, your heartbeat pounding in your ears as you listen to her. It’s already too much, your heart is overjoyed and relieved at the same time. Your thighs are slightly slick, your arousal leaking through your underwear and smearing over your sensitive skin. You pray that Wanda can't smell it.

“I want this.” A part of you hopes that your voice is strong, your conviction shining through your evident arousal. Instead, the words are shaky, your voice trembling with need.

“Good girl.”

Before you can react to the praise, a moan slipping past your lips, the air behind you changes. The book hits your ass, the solid hardcover sending an ache of pain directly to your throbbing pussy.

Your body jolts forward, your thoughts quieting in an instant. Wanda brings the book down again and again, hitting the backs of your thighs gently before increasing her force as she watches your ass jiggle from the impact. You’re a squirming, whining mess on her lap, your upper body restrained by her hand between your shoulder blades, the couch leaving indents in your cheek as you arch your back further into her touch.

It’s everything Wanda had imagined. She wants more. She wants you to beg her, to present yourself to her, to… to take everything she gives you without complaint. Your submission, your pleasure, your pain. She wants it all.

“Look at me,” Wanda says, her voice low as she tugs on your hair.

Gasping, you feel pain radiating into your skull, her fingers unrelenting as she wrenches your head back. You let out a small whimper as you meet her gaze, and she loosens her hold slightly, her fingers scratching your head in an almost apology.

“What do you want?” Wanda asks, her voice soft. She drops the book behind you, the hardcover landing with a thud. Your ass is on fire, and she begins to knead her hand into it, squeezing as you whine.

“Um,” you pant out, arching your back and pressing your ass further into her hand. You feel shame coursing through you in tandem with your burning arousal. The humiliation only sends your mind further into the vanilla-tinged fuzziness you’ve slowly been sinking into. “I want you to… fuck. Um, I want you-”

“Speak up.”

Wanda’s voice is hard, and her hand comes down on your ass harshly. Your body jolts forward at the unexpected impact, and you suppress a moan. You weren’t used to this, the image of Wanda as your nice, friendly neighbor clashing with this new, dominant persona of hers. It’s not that you didn’t like it, but your pussy was uncomfortably wet, and the ache between your thighs could only be soothed by one thing. Wanda.

“I need you, Wanda, please make me feel good,” you say, the words spewing from you as you grind your hips down against her thighs. It sounds more like a whine, your voice high-pitched as you plead, but it satisfies Wanda.

“Well,” Wanda is smiling as she releases your head, your chin hitting the couch as you suck in deep breaths. “Since you asked so politely…”

Her hands both move to your waistband, one curling under your stomach to undo the button and pull your zipper down while the other drags the fabric down your legs. She doesn’t bother to pull them fully off you, bunching them halfway down your calves.

Your skin burns where she touches you, your arousal thick in the air as her fingers roughly cup you. “Oh sweetheart, you needed this, didn’t you?”

Nodding, you bury your face in your arms, bucking back against her hand in search of some sort of relief. You’ve never felt this sort of burning need before, every fiber of your being focused on the way she feels against you.

“Don’t worry, I’ll take good care of you,” Wanda murmurs, your brain processing the words as she peels the damp fabric of your panties down your thighs.

Holy fuck, you can feel the cool air against your throbbing center. Wanda’s fingers massage the area around your glistening sex, teasing you even while her chest heaves. She sucks in a few deep breaths, her fingers inching closer to your throbbing clit.

“You sound so pretty,” Wanda murmurs, seemingly lost in a sort of trance as she watches her fingers collect your arousal. You’re whining beneath her, your hips squirming and bucking into her touch, and she feels her head spin with the rush of power she feels. This is everything she wanted from the moment she saw you, and now, she’s finally taking what’s hers.

When her fingers finally slide into you, it feels like absolute heaven. They curl perfectly, hitting your most sensitive spot as you moan into the couch cushion. Your clit throbs needily as Wanda slowly pumps her fingers deeper, your arousal coating her fingers.

“I have an idea,” Wanda says, her words slightly jarring.

“Mmmphhh,” you manage, forcing your brain to focus on her words while her fingers curl deep inside you. It’s humiliating to feel your pleasure rising as she fucks you, her fingers working you up while she speaks in a casual, conversational tone.

“We’re going to read every chapter together from now on,” Wanda begins, smiling as she watches your body. Your hips are bucking against her, your back arched. “And I’m going to demonstrate everything that happens, just so you’re able to truly understand the text.”

Wanda bends down, her lips against your ear as she speaks. “That means, darling, if Eliza fucks our main character until she passes out, I’ll be fucking you until you pass out. Understand?”

You wish you could explain the sound that tore from your lips at her words. It was something between a moan and an animalistic growl, but either way, Wanda moaned in response as she moved her fingers faster.

It was rough, her fingers pulling all the way out before slamming back into you. This side of Wanda is nothing you’ve ever seen before, and it makes you wetter than you’ve ever been. The image of your perfect neighbor and her warm smiles clashes with the harsh, unforgiving pace Wanda sets as she fucks you.

“Please,” you gasp out finally finding your voice as your fingers scrabble for purchase on the couch. You need leverage, your body limp and pliable over Wanda’s lap as she manipulates your pleasure to her satisfaction.

“Not yet,” Wanda mutters, her other hand grasping the back of your neck tightly. Before you can properly understand what’s happening, her fingers pull out roughly as she tightens her hold on the back of your neck, pulling you backward.

Your head hits the arm of the couch, Wanda’s frame looking over you before she adjusts your body, nudging your legs open with her shoulders and settling between your legs. It’s overwhelming, your hands finding purchase on her head and tangling with her hair as she sucks hickeys around your hips.

One of Wanda’s hands creeps up your stomach, sliding under your shirt and bra to grasp your breast tightly, her fingers brushing over your hard nipple.

That is the moment that you lose all sense of dignity.

“Fuck me, Wanda,” you plead, gripping her hair tightly as she moans. Her lips are near your belly button, her green eyes dark as she looks up at your wanton expression. Her fingers cruelly twist your nipple, your hips jerking up against her at the action.

“A masochist, hm?” Wanda says, her voice teasing as you nod frantically. “Perfect. You’re absolutely perfect, darling.”

Slowly, those sinfully full lips kiss down your stomach, ghosting over your clit before Wanda drags her tongue through your folds. She moans at the taste of your arousal, her chin instantly soaked.

Your hips buck up frantically, your heartbeat erratic as you chase your pleasure. You need her tongue, her fingers, anything.

“Don’t worry, I’ll take care of you.” Wanda murmurs, and you believe her. After all, she’s been taking care of you this entire time, with her homemade meals and soft smiles. You remember all of the times she invited you over to play with the twins, and her smile when you arrived at the first book club meeting. Wanda had always taken care of you, and this was no expectation.

Wanda isn’t gentle, her fingers gripping your hips tightly as she pins you down. You’re too far gone to control your body, your hips bucking and thrashing under her grip as she eats you out with fervor, Your poor little clit throbs under her tongue, whines and moans streaming from your lips when she finally wraps her lips around it and sucks.

“Oh, Wanda,” you plead, pressing her head further against you before her hand shoots out to grab your wrists, pinning them against your stomach. “Please, I need you. I’ve wanted this for so long, just… please make me cum. Oh, I’ll do anything. Just make me yours.”

Well, Wanda can’t say no to that request.

“That’s right, honey,” she coos, licking your clit as you jolt beneath her. “You’re mine. You have been ever since I first laid eyes on you. Say it... Say it and I’ll let you cum all over my tongue. Don’t you want that?”

Fuck yes, you want that.

“I’m yours.”

The orgasm that washes over you is more intense than anything you’ve ever experienced. Every sensation is heightened, Wanda’s perfume permeating your senses as her soft hair tickles your inner thighs, her fingers bruising your hips as her tongue and lips stimulate your most sensitive parts.

She’s relentless, coaxing your pleasure out with every swipe of her tongue, her moans sending vibrations through your oversensitive core. Her hand squeezes your breast, your nipple trapped helplessly between her fingers as you jerk and thrash beneath her.

A second, smaller orgasm slowly crests, pleasure washing over you as you begin to feel your muscles ache. Your hands weakly push against Wanda’s head, her tongue sliding through your folds one last time before she looks up at you, your clit throbbing with pleasure from your orgasms.

“Wow, I-” you begin, breathless as you relax into the couch cushions, your body feeling weightless.

Chuckling, Wanda sits up, wiping her chin and lips with the back of her hand. She pulls you up with her, your body molding against hers as you lean into her side, your head resting against her shoulder.

The scent of your arousal is thick in the air, your heavy breathing filling the silence as you recover. Wanda lets out a satisfied hum, her hand once again making its way to your bare thigh, her fingers squeezing. This time, the action is comforting and possessive.

“Perfect,” Wanda murmurs, and you nod your head.

“Yes,” you say, smiling at her. “You are.”

Wanda picks up the book from earlier, smoothing out the slightly crumpled page, her face flushed and green eyes bright as she rakes her gaze across your spent body. Her pupils dilate again, your clit throbbing at the look in her eyes.

“We’re not done with the chapter yet, darling.”

---

Dm or comment to be added!

Taglist: @alexawynters @msvenablesbitch @marilynthornhilllover @lifespectator @milkeeteaa @imnotawitch @marvels--slut @justabrokensunshine @dorabledewdroop @wandsmxmff @esposadejoyhuerta @captivepotato @justarandomreaderxoxo @godhatesgoodgirls @snowdrop1026 @maximoffmorale @noturlondonboy @wandaspuppy @xenaizogie @imjustvibingsworld @tobiaslut @subby-lesbian @xenaizogie @sxlfishbrokenheart @huggingkoalas @deliriosinrose @godhatesgoodgirls @yeetus-thyself @wizardofstories @wandastan-2 @undercoversoftie @the-ox-fan20

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wwandaslover · 6 months ago

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corset fitting

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wwandaslover · 6 months ago

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You will not use AI to get ideas for your story. You will lie on the floor and have wretched visions like god intended

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wwandaslover · 7 months ago

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Perverts has made me exceptionally horny and irrevocably sad

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wwandaslover · 7 months ago

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Agatha All Along + text posts - 3/?

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wwandaslover · 7 months ago

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a new tradition | wanda maximoff & gn!reader

Christmas is the busiest holiday for Westview’s planning committee, and it’s about to get far busier upon your meeting with a frustrating committee head.

Word count: 24 633

Tags | MDNI: smut, fluff!!! it is the season!, a little bit of angst, some humour, enemies to lovers, fingering, strap-on usage, nipple play, hair pulling, praise, mentions of reader’s genitals and breasts, afab!reader

Winter has always been beautiful in Westview. By the last week of November, there always came flecks of snow, signalling an upcoming white Christmas, and by mid-December, children were playing with their dogs and siblings in their backyards and town parks, sparking white blanketing the roofs, roads, and trees.

The town’s planning committee certainly did their own part for the holidays too, for Christmas was the committee’s largest and busiest occasion of the year. The committee, composed of town volunteers and run by Westview’s municipality, began planning by the first of December, and continued on eagerly until the twentieth.

By the twentieth, there was an itinerary planned and prepared for a performance in the town square on Christmas Eve. Typically, there was a set of musical performers and, around the patio, snack vendors for things like hot chocolate and warm pastries, and small business pop-ups.

Surrounded by outdoor heaters for the patio performers and the visitors, the town came together to listen to music, decorate cookies and ornaments, and support small businesses, with a fraction of all earnings going towards a local charity chosen in November by the planning committee.

Throughout December, the municipality itself decorated the town, with boughs of holly, lights, and other decorations and ornaments adorning the light poles, streets, and storefronts and their roofs. People of Westview began counting down until Christmas as the decorations gradually went up; by the time the town square’s patio was decorated, which was done last, they knew it was only a matter of days until the town celebration, and most importantly, until Christmas Eve.

As anyone would guess, everyone involved in any town affair during the duration of December was rather busy, so you were rather grateful that you were able to join the planning committee late.

You’d always wanted to somehow be a part of Westview’s Christmas traditions since moving there for work a year ago. You moved in around the end of November after you graduated, and your very first impression of the town was the all-around magical month of December. But last year, you travelled to see your family, and couldn’t stay for the planning nor the celebration.

This year, you were hosting, and that meant you could finally take part in the committee as you’d wanted to do last season, though you did end up joining late because you had to bring unexpected extra work home.

Naturally, you were rather excited to be able to both take a break from work and do something fun, and to get more involved with Westview’s community.

But upon your first committee meeting, you realized you weren’t expecting the committee was so… hierarchical.

You understood and even expected the hustle and bustle of assigned responsibilities and time-crunching, and even a few of the disagreements during the meetings and over the text groupchat which sometimes seemed a little hostile to you, so perhaps, to word it more accurately, what you hadn’t been expecting was Wanda Maximoff.

The committee worked by dividing volunteers into different sections of responsibility, involving those who worked with the small business, who handled the budgeting, the charity partnership, the performing bands, and many others.

Wanda Maximoff was the head of planning. She led the committee meetings, and she was the first one every divided section went to to discuss any changes or new ideas. Wanda could independently veto or approve any adjustment or suggestion, and knew everything about everything which not even the many of the divided sections knew about each other since they were too occupied with their own responsibilities.

Being registered as a committee volunteer took an application which went through Westview’s municipal website — not the committee itself.

Wanda had seen in her email that a new member had joined the committee. She’d never heard of you, and though she wasn’t particularly close to anyone in Westview, so she wouldn’t exactly be the first to know about social matters, she’d asked a few of the other executive planning volunteers, and they hadn’t heard of you either.

A large reason you wanted to join the committee was to become more involved in Westview’s community. The past year after moving last November was far busier than you’d expected, and along with a promotion at work, you’d had far too many new responsibilities to adjust to to have enough time to socialize or involve yourself very much.

With that being said, the upcoming holiday spent with the committee was going to be your first real involvement with the town and your community.

The first meeting was okay. It was around the end of the first week of December, which by the committee’s speed, was still late for you to suddenly jump in and join like they’d been playing jump rope. The meeting was somewhat of a debrief about how far everyone had gotten, while bringing up any new ideas in moving forward.

It was actually rather incredible to watch them all plan and discuss; they were diligent and all worked well with each other, and additionally, they were partnering with performers and vendors who were all local, which made planning everything in December possible.

You figured Wanda was the head of the committee for how every conversation either ended or started with her, and if they didn’t involve her, and was far more focused on what each group was saying than anyone else.

You didn’t speak very much, so perhaps that was why you might’ve appeared as some kind of outlier, but truly, you didn’t have anything to say, and wouldn’t have had anything to say even if you tried.

Though you understood the logic of being the odd one out, not much attention was drawn to you, likely because everyone was far too busy to pay you much attention — that is, aside from the busiest in the room.

Circles don’t have heads at their tables, and yet, Wanda was very evidently sitting at it. With the side of her chin in her hand, her head tilted slightly in your direction, your eyes kept flickering over at her, and more than half of the times you did, her green eyes darted away immediately and looked back over at whomever was presently speaking.

After the meeting, you chatted a little with some of the volunteers you were sitting beside, waiting patiently for a window in which you could approach Wanda. Everyone who was part of the committee was sorted into groups to take on different responsibilities, but you hadn’t been sorted yet, and it wasn’t mentioned in the meeting, which you understood given how busy everything was, so you were hoping Wanda could sort you.

Wanda was slinging her purse over her shoulder when you approached her, and when she turned around, there was just a single beat in which she seemed to be surveying you, as if a resolve to the brief glances she had taken of you from afar.

You introduced yourself to her.

“Y/N,” she acknowledged, without introducing herself in turn. “Your name was emailed to me this afternoon after you submitted your application two days ago.”

You looked at her wordlessly for a moment then nodded, as if hesitant. You were waiting for her to continue. What did she expect you to say to that?

You felt slightly belittled for how unwelcoming initially came across, and how her greeting only called you to initiate more of the conversation on your own. And she wasn’t even really acknowledging you, she was just stating a fact, as if she would’ve said the exact words to anyone else in any professional setting.

‘The sky is blue, it’s wintertime, there are light traces of freckles along the bridge of my nose, and your name was emailed to me this afternoon,’ she seemed to be saying.

“Cool,” you answered. It was an answer in the form of an itch; you felt you couldn’t respond to her with the cordiality you’d initially intended.

It wasn’t just the way she had spoken, for you didn’t expect any obligation for any specific form of kindness. She was the head of the committee, and no doubt extremely busy and extremely stressed, and you were late to join, after all.

So you put aside the way she was looking at you, in the bored and scrutinizing way she was, and how she kept looking over at you during the meeting only to say little to nothing welcoming or friendly upon your official introduction.

If you knew Wanda well enough, not that many did, you would’ve noticed the narrowing of her eyes visible only by a slight twitch at the corner of them.

Cool.

“I was wondering how I’d be able to figure out what I should start helping with,” you told her. You hoped feigning curiosity would give yourself a good impression — you already knew it was Wanda who was assigned roles.

“That depends,” she said, her focus not at all on you as she reached into her purse to take her car keys out. She looked back up at you. “Are you good at anything?”

For a moment, you genuinely questioned if you had done something wrong, and then you quickly realized it isn’t at all your responsibility to baby a grown woman.

You repeated, genuinely confused and not willing to intentionally leave a bad impression this early into your volunteering, “Am I good at anything?”

“Are you good at anything discussed during the meeting?” she clarified, her expression remaining still and unimpressed.

“I wouldn’t know,” you answered, “this is my first time here. Wasn’t that mentioned in the email?”

Wanda looked to the side thoughtfully, as if thinking something over, but the slight rising of her shoulders as she took in a breath indicated irritation. Then she looked back at you. “It was. But I assumed you had some prior experience, perhaps from your own job or volunteering experience.”

Something uncomfortable and tense tightened in your stomach. It wasn’t as if she was saying anything particularly rude, but you knew it was meant to be somewhat offensive, if not purposefully condescending.

“We’re always a bit rushed in booking the performances, so if that’s something that interests you, you can help with that,” she finally offered. “I’ll give you Kate’s number so you can contact her and make some plans to meet up on your own time during the week.”

After you received a Kate Bishop’s number, you tucked your pride away and thanked Wanda for her help, only to look up from your phone and find her approached by a man around her age whose face you recognized from the meeting, who she immediately looked far more friendly with.

You weren't planning on sticking around to stand idly watching the coldest woman you’ve met in Westview so far since you moved last November act all buddy-buddy with someone else right in front of you, but the transition from speaking to you to speaking with the man was far too stark to not notice the differences, even for the split second you stood there for.

He placed his hand on the table behind her, to which Wanda turned, leaning against the table and looking up at him as they spoke. A gold wedding band adorned the finger of the man’s hand which you noticed was placed on the table, and you assumed he was her husband.

For a moment as you turned to leave, you sympathized with Wanda, who you could now envision as a stressed and overworked woman who was glad to see her husband after a long day.

Perhaps it was just thinking over the bizarre contrast between her interactions with you and the immediate friendly demeanour she took with the man that made you turn your head back as you walked away, just to reconstruct her first impression on you. But when you turned, you realized she wasn’t wearing a wedding ring at all.

You were slightly confused and perhaps a little intrigued, but not at all invested enough to think about that nor about Wanda Maximoff at all by the time you left the building. When you got into the driver’s seat of your car, you sent Kate Bishop a text message introducing yourself and explaining how you got her number and for what reason, then headed home, eager to finally lay down.

By the time you were on the road, driving down the decorated light poles and storefronts, and down the snowy, sparkling white sidewalks and roofs, you forgot all about Wanda and that dreadful first interaction.

Two days later, you met up with the group within the committee which handled the preparation of the performances. You didn’t know who you were expecting to see once you met up at one of Westview’s cafes to plan and discuss, but you certainly weren’t expecting a group that was composed of only college students.

You weren’t much older than them — you finished your postgrad last year — but you were younger than Wanda, and maybe it was just because you harboured some remnants of bitterness for her, but you almost thought the group she suggested to you was intentional.

After an hour of conversing with them, however, you realized you were being far too obsessive with your first interaction with Wanda to have even had that thought upon meeting them, because you actually ended up having likely one of the first thoroughly enjoyable times with a group of people from your town.

Along with Kate, you were grouped with her friends America, Peter, and Kamala. If you were honest with yourself, you felt a little insecure about your age while being around them, listening to them discuss school while you’d been working for a year since graduation. But you felt, and they assured you once you mentioned it to them half-jokingly, that you honestly blended in just fine.

In fact, Peter very seriously thought you were in his history class this past semester.

But in a way, that made you feel a little bashful — did you still look like a college student, and not at all like the professional you thought you’d been becoming throughout the past year?

Is that what you looked like to Wanda that day you first met?

You didn’t see Wanda again until the next committee meeting, which you found out took place twice a week. Only the first meeting was mandatory, and the other was optional for any pressing questions, and also provided a window for opportunity to speed up the planning if anyone had any extra time to do so.

After the last few days meeting with your group and talking a little over the groupchat between all of you, you found yourself in a particularly good mood, and it was hard to stay sour in Westview when it was winter, getting closer and closer to Christmas each day.

You wanted to make a good impression and wanted to make some room for having further conversation with other volunteers, so you stopped by a cafe and bought a box of twelve fresh muffins. There were about two times that amount of people in the committee, but you were certain not everyone would want one, and you also weren’t sure how permitted it was to bring food to the meetings.

You were planning on arriving early and placing the muffins on the table with a little note to take one, with an easy in and out without being seen. You didn’t want to be seen bringing the muffins in because you figured you’d end up behaving far too awkward in the act, effectively outweighing any possibility of having the first impression you wanted.

If someone brought the muffins up, or offered you one, you were planning on somehow subtly bringing up that you were the one who brought them.

After setting the box down on the edge of the meeting room table, you placed the sticky note you wrote on top of it. You turned to head out the door, planning on waiting in the car for others to arrive before reentering, only to come across Wanda on your way out.

She had her chin tucked into her scarf, and a knitted hat on, looking rather cozy and warm in her jacket, the purse which you saw her carry last week hanging from her shoulder. At the sight of you, and at how you slowed down as you passed her, she untucked half her face from her scarf and took her hat off, causing her brown hair to frizz up as she pulled it off.

Combing her fingers through the top of her head to smooth her hair down, she said, “You’re early. Heading out?”

“O-Oh…” you stuttered, feeling awkward.

You weighed the risk of telling her you brought muffins, since you didn’t know if bringing food was allowed. And wouldn’t you look even far more awkward if food was allowed, and you were running away from a box of muffins as if you’d just wired in a bomb?

Wanda continued to look at you expectantly, slowly unwrapping her scarf from around her neck, which distracted you from making a decision about what to tell her, for whatever reason.

“I brought muffins,” you suddenly said.

She blinked, eyes darting down at your empty hands which laid limp at your sides, then to your back and shoulders, which was devoid of any bag to carry any muffins in.

“I already put it in the meeting room.”

“It’s already in there?” she asked.

You nodded once.

“Then where are you going? Aren’t you staying for the meeting?”

Did she question everyone this seriously? Couldn’t she at least smile a little or give you a little laugh to ease the tension?

“I am. I just… forgot something in my car.”

Wanda looked at you for a moment, and surprisingly, it didn’t look like she was scrutinizing you. It looked like she was thinking something over. She looked in the direction of the meeting room, and you took the time to look at her ring finger. She wasn’t married.

“Why did you bring muffins?” she then asked, looking back over to you and putting her hat into her purse and holding her scarf.

You opened your mouth and promptly shut it, realizing all you knew to do in the moment was stutter, so you stayed quiet for a moment to think of what to say so as to not look like an idiot. “I just wanted to do something nice, I guess,” you said.

“Really?” Wanda said, her eyebrows raising ever so slightly, seemingly surprised. “I see.” She made some kind of noise, like a hum, and looked away into the general direction of the meeting room.

Then she undid her jacket, looking at you only briefly and saying a few words before heading into the building: “Well, I won’t keep you from going back to your car. I’ll see you.”

When you thought back to how Wanda had kept looking over to you during the first meeting you attended, you imagined that she was interested in you because it was her first time seeing you, and figured she was likely that way with everyone who initially joined.

Naturally, that meant that after conversing with her and proving yourself as able to reliably contribute to your group, you imagined she would treat you like any other member, and after that, you’d come to realize that you’d been thinking about her in a rather overdramatic fashion.

But instead, Wanda seemed to pay you even more attention. You caught her staring far more often, though this time, it was hard to justify this as stealing glances when you were actually part of a group this time. She made unwavering eye contact with you when you spoke, which she didn’t do with anyone else. She picked at your suggestions and progress reports more than anyone else in your group.

This time around, you genuinely started to feel rather frustrated. You’d been enjoying your last few days in Westview with your group, and were looking forward to the rest of the month, and had initially believed that your irritating interactions with Wanda were more or less made up by your imagination.

But this all seemed far too targeted to be coincidental.

You were even too irritated during the meeting to pay attention to anyone who was enjoying the muffins you brought — which was, unbeknownst to you, quite popular amongst the members. You told Kamala about the muffins when you’d bought them, since you asked her about where to go for the best ones, so she was able to drop your name to other members a few times.

After the meeting, Wanda was talking with the same man who approached her after the meeting last week — the same married man.

“Can I talk to you, Wanda?” you interrupted their conversation the moment you heard the briefest gap in their conversation. She looked over to you, along with the man, who for some reason irritated you far more than she did in the moment.

They exchanged a few last words before parting, and Wanda turned to you, adjusting her scarf. “What did you need to talk about?” she asked.

You had hoped she was planning on talking in a more private place, but she didn’t move anywhere else, and stayed more or less in the vicinity of traffic of people who were leaving. If she didn’t want to put any effort in nor give any indication that she cared about interacting with you, then you’d have the conversation right there.

“Do you have a problem with me?” you asked.

For the first time, Wanda wore an expression around you that was other than bored and unimpressed, looking somewhere between entertained and surprised. “I’m sorry?”

“You asked me more questions about my group than anyone else I’m paired with, and more than anyone else in the committee,” you told her.

“It bothers you to be favoured?”

You flinched back a little, as if the word ‘favoured’ had physically nudged you backwards. “F… Favoured?”

“Y/N…” Wanda let out a little exhale that you knew was a repressed sigh. “This is your first year volunteering. It is not unreasonable nor should it be threatening to you that I want to ensure you’re playing your part within your group. And I want to make sure you’re getting along well with everything.”

“You’re overdoing it,” you quickly replied. “I joined only a week late, and if you think I need more monitoring than any other volunteer, you’re not focusing your attention on the right things. You don’t think I notice that you look at me even when I’m not the one talking?”

In the split second of silence between your second last sentence and your final one, Wanda opened her mouth to respond, but quickly shut it when you mentioned how she kept looking at you. Her jaw seemed to tense and she adjusted her purse on her shoulder, her eyes darting over to the side for a brief moment.

“To each their own, Y/N,” she replied simply. “Either way, if you’re getting along with everything well, what I do shouldn’t bother you as much as it does. Everything is getting done on time, isn’t it? What more could you ask for?”

She likely had wanted the conversation to stop with a rhetorical question, but if she was really asking, then you were really going to answer. “I want to ask for you to stop treating the committee like it’s some kind of tyranny. You know, people come here in their spare time, away from their families and their homes to do something nice.”

Wanda visibly tensed, and she seemed to be fidgeting when her other hand moved to the front of her jacket to tug at the edge of her scarf. Perhaps she simply didn’t like confrontation. You wondered when the last time anyone confronted her was, and then you wondered when she’d given anyone but you a reason to confront her.

“I’m sorry you feel that way,” she apologized disingenuously, clearly just wanting to end the conversation. You wondered if she had plans to get to, and at the thought that she was just in a rush to go meet that married man at some dingy motel, you exhaled through your nose with visible irritation.

You attended the following optional meeting because America wanted to discuss the possibility of including one of the bands at the college she went to into the performance setlist, so it was just you and her out of your group that attended. Typically, they partnered with more local bands, but America really liked them, and she was certain she could have them perform for cheaper than the usual bands they invited if they paid for their trip here.

Upon arriving, you noticed that there were a few pastries set out on the table, and thermos of hot chocolate and some paper cups and lids, which some members were helping themselves to as they settled in. Everyone was warming up with the hot chocolate, and looking delightfully surprised at the selection of pastries since a storm was beginning to come down outside as they all drove in.

“Y/N, dear, you had the right idea bringing muffins the other day,” Mrs Davis gushed as she approached you from behind, a hand on your upper arm. “Everyone is always so hungry at the evening meetings, since some of us have to squeeze them in before dinner.”

America looked amused at your confusion as your eyes darted between the pasties and hot chocolate and Mrs Davis. She knew you felt a little confused and preoccupied by being drilled by Wanda — though you chose not to share how much she irritated you — so she knew that you hadn’t paid attention to how popular the muffins were last meeting, or how Kamala mentioned to others that you brought them.

“Oh,” you replied with a friendly albeit confused smile. “Did you bring these?”

“I bought the hot chocolate, but Rio and Agatha brought the pastries,” she answered with a beaming smile.

An excited and warm feeling grew in your chest at the thought that you’d started a little tradition, which made you forget all about how confused you initially were.

In spite of the cheery beginning and how the committee started out, chatting about each other’s holidays and preparations at home with their families, the meeting progressed with gradual confusion since Wanda still hadn’t shown up twenty minutes into the hour-long meeting.

It wasn’t a good look on her, since a member of Westview’s municipal financial association had come to sit in to see how things were coming along since the committee was largely funded by them along with some other invested donors.

By the twenty minute mark, everyone decided to begin speaking altogether and writing the biggest takeaways into a notebook, which would be provided to Wanda over text and in the committee groupchat. Things discussed in optional meetings weren’t always necessarily shared with the rest of the committee, since they were typically attended for more specific questions and planning, but it was Wanda who decided what should be made common knowledge, which she covered in the following meeting, or if it was pressing, she’d send it to the groupchat. But since she wasn’t there, it was decided that they’d record everything important that was covered, whether it was a resolved question or not.

Close to forty minutes into the meeting, Wanda arrived, looking a little frazzled, with her scarf and hat still on. She had tried to come in subtly but, perhaps intentionally, Rio called out, greeting her loudly.

“I’m sorry for being so late,” she apologized, and you could detect a little breathlessness in her voice. She sat down and took her hat off, her hair frizzing up at the top like it did the other time she took her hat off. But she didn’t smooth it down before she undid her scarf, making her look even more frazzled.

As she looked around at the table and then at the notebook, and then at the municipal member sitting at the table, Wanda slid her jacket off and smoothed her hair out. “How… has everything been going?” she asked. She was then given a rundown from the notebook, Wanda nodding and listening carefully as it was all explained to her.

Throughout the rest of the meeting, you didn’t catch Wanda looking over at you even once.

The municipal member who had come to sit in pulled Wanda to the side after the meeting finished, engaging in a conversation which looked slightly serious from the other side of the room as you chatted with Mrs Davis and Rio and Agatha as they packed up their things while you and America helped.

They all left as soon as possible, since Mrs Davis carpooled with Rio and Agatha on their way here, and the storm had suddenly come down rather heavy outside, so they were eager to get home quick before the visibility got any worse. America’s mothers were waiting outside for her, so you said goodbye to her too as you zipped up your jacket.

By the time you headed out, Wanda was standing inside the building by the door, looking out through the windows at the side of the front door. She was back in her scarf and hat and bundled up jacket, so you weren’t sure why she was still hanging out at the front.

Upon getting a closer look at her as you continued to walk towards the exit, you noticed that Wanda looked genuinely stressed, unlike the other times you only assumed she was. She seemed anxious looking out the window, and seemingly tense in general.

You looked outside the windows, and the snow was very quickly building, footsteps at least a few inches into the snow until they reached the ground, and a few people still getting into their cars, the sight of them blurring in the white veil of the blowing snow, shielded themselves from the wind, careful not to hit the other cars around them while opening their car doors.

“If you wait any longer to drive home, it’ll only be harder to get through the snow,” you said, stopping a few feet away from her. She jumped a little, turning her head to look at you and staring for just a moment before looking back through the window.

Her scarf was wrapped up to just below her nose, muffling her words slightly as she replied, “I’m waiting for an Uber.”

“Huh? An Uber?” you asked. “No driver is driving around in a small town through a storm that just started. The salters haven’t even come out yet. Didn’t you drive here on your own?”

Wanda didn’t respond, and looked down between her phone — which you assumed she was tracking her driver through — and the window.

Though you were frustrated at her standoffishness and how she just completely ignored you, you inhaled sharply before pressing, “You should just call a friend or some family to pick you up. You’ll be waiting here at least forty minutes before your driver comes.”

“Incidentally, don’t you someplace to be?” Wanda suddenly asked sharply, turning her head around to look at you.

Your eyes narrowed and you adjusted your jacket, preparing for the winter storm. “Fine. Then I guess I’ll be seeing you at the next meeting — still waiting here for your Uber.”

She gave you a look as you walked past her and left the building.

You stormed off into the blizzard with enough anger that you were melting all the snow sprinkling down in your vicinity with how frustrated you felt, suddenly feeling like you were overheating in your jacket.

There was something about Wanda that just really pissed you off, and even worse, you couldn’t stop thinking about her. After the meetings and when you were home, you hardly thought about her, and more often than not, you were ready to be friendly with her every time another meeting came around. But each time you interacted with her, she drilled herself further and further into your brain and buried herself there.

There was just something irrational about how frustrated she made you that just sort of ate at you. You thought she looked so stupid in her scarf, and she looked like an idiot when she took her hat off and her hair was in a frizzy mess.

And what was the deal with her and that married guy? She certainly wasn’t her brother or her friend with how close he got, and you could swear once you saw him brush his hand up against her hip — with the hand he had his ring on!

So, along with being just a dick, she was a stupid idiot who owned stupid scarves and stupid hats, and she was a homewrecker and a total anti-feminist for flirting with a married man.

Then, feeling frustrated and overwhelmed and not paying attention to your surroundings, you set your foot down on some ice and nearly slipped. You were flailing around and practically running in place desperately until your foot landed on the thick snow to give you enough friction to steady yourself.

And you knew it was irrational, but fuck, this was somehow all Wanda’s fault.

You ripped your hat off, finally becoming overstimulated with it on, before sticking it in your jacket pocket. You looked back over at the building, and then at the parking lot which was very empty of an Uber driver, and you stormed back over to the front door.

When you reentered the building, Wanda was still standing in the same spot, and when you turned to look at her, holding the door open from the inside, she looked up from her phone at you, confused.

“I’ll drive you home,” you told her bluntly. “Let’s go.”

She straightened, putting her phone in her pocket. “No, I’m waiting for my ride.”

“You’re not getting an Uber in this storm!”

“Well, I am. I already ordered one.”

You really weren’t planning on raising your voice, but you had nearly slipped on ice, and you needed to get out of your jacket, and Wanda looked so stupid with her scarf wrapped up around the lower half of her face.

“Wanda, let’s go!” you bit as if she were a child throwing a tantrum in a grocery store and you were her parent, who’d been patient for long enough.

She stared at you for a few moments, the whistling wind of the blizzard outside the only noise between the two of you.

“Fine,” she finally mumbled, burying her face in her scarf and heading out the door. She waited a moment for you to exit the building behind her, before she followed behind you towards your car.

Wanda told you where she lived after she buckled herself in and you pulled out of the parking lot. She remained bundled in her hat and scarf. Maybe it was because Wanda hadn’t ever been in your car before, but she looked so tiny sitting in the passenger’s seat, half her head wrapped up in her plush scarf.

But maybe she was making herself smaller, sinking into her jacket and the seat,

Taking in a small breath and trying to melt your frustration away in the warmth of your car, you asked softly, “Why were you late?”

Wanda shifted in her seat, folding her gloved hands in her lap. “My car broke down on the way here,” she explained. “I tried to stay around to get it towed, but I ended up having to leave it there because of how busy the towing company was. They suggested I get it done tomorrow morning instead.”

“How did you get to the meeting?”

“One woman came, but by the time she did, the car was already covered and far too stuck in the snow, and she couldn’t call anyone else. So she drove me.”

Maybe you got a little too excited at the thought that you were finally having a normal conversation with the woman who’d been irritating you so much, so you casually asked, “So, is that guy your husband?”

“What?” she asked, taken by surprise. She looked at you, the lower half of her face a little more uncovered. At the stoplight, you looked at her, seeing the bridge of her nose and her cheeks flushed a gentle pink from the warmth of her scarf.

Then you looked away and back at the road, feeling that you’d perhaps got ahead of yourself, and after thinking it over for a moment, you weren’t sure why that was the question that came out of you. You’d already come to the fine conclusion that Wanda was seeing a married man, but perhaps it was interacting with her normally that made you think for the first time that such a thing might be uncharacteristic of her.

“No, he’s not,” she finally answered. “I’m not married.”

You decided not to mention it again. You had already known that Wanda wasn’t married to him, and you weren’t really interested in knowing more about her love life. Actually, the idea that Wanda even had a love life made you a little uncomfortable. The idea that she could act in any way other than how you’d already witnessed her, and instead, as romantic and affectionate, was somehow startling.

“You should probably cancel that Uber,” you told her.

There were a few moments of silence, and you figured Wanda was cancelling the drive since you weren’t paying attention to what she was doing. Then, she said quietly, “I never got a driver. No one picked it up.”

You looked over at her for a second and she was still sunken down into her jacket, looking straight ahead at the road, whose visibility was becoming steadily worse as the storm progressed. “So… were you waiting for someone?”

“I was…” She sounded like she was thinking something through. “I was just waiting for the storm to die down before I tried to go home.”

“I’m sure one of your friends or some of your family would’ve come to pick you up,” you told her, thinking that she was the kind that was against asking people for help.

You were beginning to realize that Wanda always seemed a little tense each time you brought up any mention of family, so you didn’t press any further when she was silent in response to what you said.

When you arrived at her place, you offered to help her out of the car, but she said she was fine to get out on her own. She closed the door behind her and walked around to your window. Though you felt a little put on the spot, you rolled the window down.

You couldn’t really see her expression beyond her plush scarf still covering everything below the tip of her nose, but she looked just a little awkward as she looked at you, her gaze seeming uncertain and hesitant.

“Thank you for driving me,” she said, and you couldn’t tell if she was purposefully mumbling or if her scarf was muffling her words.

Suddenly you felt a little awkward, and your chest felt fluttery. “You’re welcome,” you answered.

“And I don’t know if you really care about these things, but everything I’ve heard about you from the committee has been very positive.”

“Oh.”

“They all say you’re very kind and responsible and friendly. And everyone thought it was really sweet that you brought the muffins earlier this week.”

You didn't want to say oh again, but you honestly didn’t know what else to say. You felt like you were put on the spot, and more than that, your face felt warm. “Oh. Okay. I see.”

Wanda blinked then looked away for a moment as if thinking of something else to say, though her expression was still and unmoving. But then she looked back at you and said, “Thank you for driving. I’ll see you next week.” Then you waited until she got into her house before you pulled out of her driveway and headed back home as soon as you could, getting out of the storm.

The next time you met up with your group, there was just under two weeks left until Christmas, and you were all making perfect time, and from what you’d been hearing, so were the other groups.

“Did you see all the changes Wanda made to our document?” Kate asked as you all settled down in a booth from picking your drinks up at the counter.

You looked up from your mug.

“Changes?” Peter asked, sounding slightly whiny. “I thought our setlist and budgeting was perfect.”

Kate huffed as she scrolled down the Google Doc. “Yeah, but at least she only changed little things,” she said, leaning forward and reading the screen.

“Like what?” Kamala asked, scooping some whipped cream from her hot chocolate with a spoon and sticking it into her mouth.

A small confused frown formed on Kate’s face. “Just, like… the songs and the order of the bands. And the accessories they were going to wear.”

“She didn’t change any of the actual bands?” America asked.

Kamala added, probably as some sort of inside joke, “Or relocate our spendings?”

“Umm…” Kate scrolled through the document again, double-checking. “Nope. None of that. She just fixed around random things.”

You didn’t really like talking about Wanda with them, because you were still partly convinced that you were just making it all up, and you were just being overly irritated around her. But you still couldn’t really pinpoint why she got under your skin so much.

Taking a sip of your drink and trying not to sound so invested in the topic of her, you asked as nonchalantly as you could, “Does she normally do all the other stuff?”

“Yeah, last year she relocated a bunch of our funding to a different group, then changed around the setlist we scheduled,” Kamala answered, setting her mug down, revealing a white rim of whipped cream along her upper lip.

Kate jutted her hand into the middle of the table, holding all five fingers up. “Five days before Christmas, by the way,” she added, eyebrows raised. “And we had to call the bands to tell them that their performance times had changed, which luckily didn’t conflict with anything, and we also had to cut way down on a whole lot of other things we were planning, and it was just… a mess.”

“Oh,” you said, somewhat shocked at hearing the things she did last year. You already thought she could be rather tyrannical, but you wouldn’t have expected her to go into a group’s plans and change so much without notice.

“I thought she’s been sorta nicer this year,” Peter said, snapping his Biscoff cookie in half and taking a bite of one the halves.

Kamala suddenly gasped and leaned forward, her hands making contact with the table, effectively gaining the group’s attention. “Wait, is it true that she got in trouble at the last meeting for coming late?”

America nodded, “Yeah, because she was forty minutes late, and a woman from the town council came to the meeting.”

“She was late?” Kate asked, looking up from her laptop. “I guess that’s surprising for her, but why did she get in trouble for that?”

Peter mentioned, “Ned’s uncle works in Westview’s financial department, and he told me that the committee was behind in reporting the budgeting.”

“Oh,” America added, “the woman told me she was from the same department. So… I guess the tardiness was just the cherry on top.”

On the way back home from the cafe, you thought about how little you actually knew about Wanda from the meetings, and upon reflecting on your conversation in the car, you realized you didn’t get to learn much about her then, either.

Something about that made you feel a little impatient, with Wanda seeming more and more like some enigma you were compelled to understand. You enjoyed seeing her that way more than you previously saw her since you could see her as more of a mystery than a weight on your shoulders.

But you couldn’t deny how relieved it made you that you weren’t the only one she’d ever pissed off.

By the time of the next meeting, there was a week and half left until Christmas, and everything seemed to be progressing well with all the groups. Everything was scheduled to be finished on time, if not a little bit early.

Aside from the newly-developed tradition of bringing a few snacks and drinks to the meeting, everything went as it typically did, aside from the fact that Wanda looked almost… a little flustered when you caught her looking at you, though you caught her far less frequently than you did the times before.

Because of how little she spoke with the other committee members, you figured it was because she felt a little awkward having interacted with a member outside of the meeting.

And you didn’t forget about how you snapped at her when she wouldn’t let you drive her at first.

It was a little embarrassing to think back on, especially with how frustrated you were, but you ended up being able to drive her anyway, and she told you that everyone had a great impression of you, so it wasn’t all for nothing.

While looking at Wanda from across throughout the meeting, you felt sort of bad for her.

After thinking about it a little bit, why didn’t she mention any friends or family helping her with her broken down car? Or after the fact, once the meeting finished? Even if she was the kind to be against asking people for help, it must say something about her loved ones that she felt she couldn’t rely on them for help.

Then there was the matter about how she always looked a little uncomfortable when you mentioned family.

As much as you hated thinking about her love life for a reason you couldn’t entirely understand — though you were sure it was because it still felt strange for you to imagine Wanda could be in a relationship — it was a little depressing to imagine that the only person she’d been spending her holidays with was a married man.

Being the head of the planning committee for Westview’s busiest and largest holiday was a lot to handle, and volunteering was still something everyone did in their spare time, so the possibility that she could very well have dozens of other far more pressing things in her life going on, only to be reprimanded by someone representing the committee’s funding, couldn’t be very easy for her.

After the meeting, you approached her, and as you did, you came to the realization that you spoke with her at the end of every meeting you attended so far, and not even the married guy did that.

“Wanda, I was wondering if I could get your help with something,” you said as you stopped at her side while she was slipping a few papers into her purse.

She hung her purse from her shoulder and turned to you. “With what?” she replied simply.

Although Wanda still hadn’t given you as much as a single smile so far, you thought you made a little progress, given that you also somewhat expected her to take your request for her help as indicative of your inability to keep up with the rest of your group.

As you walked out to the parking lot together, you explained, “Rio and Agatha’s group asked me for a little bit of help with planning the decorating of the performance patio since they were a little behind, and they thought I would know the best way to decorate since we’re planning the performers’ outfits.”

“They didn’t have to ask you, they could’ve just spoken with your group.”

“They did, but everyone else was busy. I have the least to do in the group since they all fit me in to do anything extra. And it’s not a big deal, I just wanted to discuss budgeting stuff with you.”

Wanda stared down at the snowy ground as she walked forward. Then she looked up and over at you. “Alright. We can meet when you’re free to ask me anything you want.”

Although you technically already had Wanda’s number since the committee groupchat was made through WhatsApp, she gave you her number anyway, perhaps not realizing that you already had it through the groupchat. And there was something about Wanda giving you her number that made you feel a little excited.

But what made you even more excited was that Wanda used one smiley face over text when you planned to meet up.

That was basically a real life smile.

You decided to come early to your lunch with Wanda on the Saturday which you both planned to meet for. You were ten minutes early, but by the time you arrived, Wanda was already sitting at a table with a cup of coffee.

You rechecked the time, and you were indeed ten minutes early.

“Hi, I’m here,” you greeted as you stopped at the chair that was opposite of Wanda, taking off your jacket and hanging it from the back of it. “Have you been here very long?”

In the same way that she looked in your car, Wanda seemed tiny sitting at the table with her cup of coffee and wearing clothes that were a little more casual than those which she wore to the meetings. Maybe she always just seemed much larger to you in the context of the meetings, since she didn’t even really behave the same way outside of them.

“Hi,” she greeted back first. “I’ve been here for maybe fifteen minutes. I thought I would come early too.”

You took a seat and looked around at the place. It was primarily a cafe, but known for its cheap and delicious breakfast sandwiches, so it was also known as a breakfast location, but in the afternoon, as a proper cafe. You hadn’t been yet, but Peter had been queuing this place up to go the next time your group had to meet.

As you looked around, Wanda watched you, her fingers rubbing against the side of her warm mug, feeling a little nervous. When you looked back to the side of the cafe that was behind her and into her general vicinity, her eyes darted back down to her coffee.

Wanda didn’t know anything about you by the first meeting, but she was immediately drawn to how you seemed to her. You were curious, always looking around at the table, and very attractive. She knew immediately that you were going to do quite well at whatever you wanted to put your time towards.

Truthfully, Wanda has never been good with socializing. She was good at planning and being professional in a way that other people hated enough so that she never really had to worry about being close with others.

It wasn’t lost on her how you’d approached her at the end of every meeting, if not only to speak to her with some hostility. She noticed how sweet you were to the other members, and how well you were already getting along with everyone. Though she figured that anyone she asked would have said all those things she mentioned to you after you drove her to her place, she actually hadn’t been told anything about you. She just didn’t know how else to talk to you in that way.

No one really told Wanda anything in the social context; she wasn’t ever really wanted or thought about unless it was necessitated.

Truthfully, she didn’t feel jealous about how popular you were, but instead, she felt rather nervous to be around you. It felt similar to feelings of insecurity, if she really thought about it.

She decided to come to the cafe early to try and prepare herself for lunch with you, since she would’ve felt even worse panicking away at home or alone in the car. God, what did people even talk about over lunch? She couldn’t even remember the last time she met someone in such a casual context. It felt somewhat casual anyway, although you had asked her to discuss some of your committee responsibilities.

“Do you mind if we get some food before we talk about the budgeting?” you asked, and when Wanda looked up from her coffee, you were making eye contact with her. “I haven’t eaten yet.”

She nodded.

You trailed off as you flipped through the menu, and when you noticed she didn’t have a menu open, you looked up at her. “Are you getting anything?”

“Oh. I know what I want.”

“Were you really here for that long?”

“I come here sometimes for breakfast if I wake up early enough.”

The image of Wanda coming in here for breakfast while bundled up in her cozy hat and plush scarf at nine in the morning kind of made you wanna tease her for such an adorable routine. Well, you told yourself it was adorable for her, at least. Breakfast restaurants were pretty popular in many contexts, for many people. But for whatever reason, you liked to imagine Wanda doing things like that.

The food came and you found yourself observing her as if she were some kind of specimen. It was interesting to watch her do things that didn’t have anything to do with the committee or planning or being a little tyrannical. Everything she did outside of that was interesting, like how she held her utensils or which part of her plate she ate first, or after how many bites she took a sip of her coffee.

“So, what do you do when you’re not volunteering?” you asked.

“I teach at a high school about thirty minutes outside of Westview.”

Damn. She must not be very popular there, either. You weren’t even trying to be rude by thinking that; if you were a high school student, you certainly wouldn’t have liked her.

“What do you teach?”

But before she could answer, you quickly interjected, “Oh, wait, let me guess.”

She closed her mouth and smiled slightly, looking like she thought you were sort of entertaining or funny. “Okay,” she replied softly. “Guess.”

You hummed, looking at her in great detail as you thought over all that you knew of her. Wanda shifted in her seat, tugging at the bottom of her knit sweater and tucking her hair back, feeling a little awkward and insecure with you looking at her.

With a slight narrow of your eyes, you spun your fork between three fingers. “Can I ask you a question so I can make a better guess?”

“Sure.”

“Are you good with technology?”

“In what way?”

You clarified, “Do you know how to reset your wifi router?”

She looked up and to the side for a moment, trying to imagine what she would do if her wifi went out. “No, I don’t think I’d know how to. But I could likely figure it out on my own,” she answered, looking back at you. “And that’s far more than one question.”

“Do you teach English?”

A gentle smile formed on Wanda’s and then she nodded. “Yes.”

It wasn’t that English teachers seemed technologically unknowledgeable, but if Wanda did know how to reset her wifi router, she’d likely teach history or maybe even some kind of science. She thought that was funny. She didn’t laugh to indicate that, she told you that it was, with a little smile.

You then told Wanda what you worked as. At the moment, you were doing some research after your postgrad, hopefully to be able to do some further research abroad in preparation for… something or other. You weren’t entirely sure right now.

Wanda was actually quite soft-spoken, and a little shy. She always looked like she wanted to say something more than what she had already said, or was thinking something more and didn’t entirely know how to say it.

After you finished eating, it was you who finally brought up the budgeting although you had honestly only used it as an excuse to get to know her more. After that, it was pretty much just committee talk.

”Do you have any plans for the holidays?” you asked her as you packed up your things. You paid for lunch, since you had asked her to take time out of her day to answer your questions.

Wanda hummed as she fit her hat on then did her jacket up. “I won’t be too busy. Usually, I call my family and celebrate on my own.”

“Call them?” you repeated. “Do they live far?”

“They live in Eastern Europe.”

“Do they ever travel to visit you?”

She didn’t answer for a few moments as the both of you stepped out of the cafe. “No. They prefer not to travel. They say they’re waiting for my brother and I to save up and host them here so they can live in America. “

So, could that married guy have been her brother?

“Does your brother live in Westview?”

“No, he travels around. I don’t think he has plans to save up for them any time soon.”

You felt a little idiotic for being so invested in that man’s relation to her, and you were suddenly uninterested in talking with her any longer. After all, that guy was probably her boyfriend, and she was probably taken aback in the car the other day when you asked her about her affair.

But it shouldn’t even matter to you whether Wanda was dating anyone.

Maybe you’d suddenly become a huge ethicist during the holidays, and just subconsciously hated women who had affairs with married men.

“Well, thanks for helping me with the budgeting,” you said, turning to her once you got to your car.

Wanda looked at you first, seemingly confused for just a beat, before she looked at your car, which she recognized from the time you drove her. She realized she hadn’t really been paying attention to what she was doing; she’d only been following wherever you were going.

“Oh, yes, right.” She collected herself, brushing invisible snow from her jacket. “You’re welcome. I’ll see you next week.”

Then when you were preparing to turn and unlock your door, Wanda stepped back to leave but hesitated a little, so you figured she had something more to say.

She looked over to where her car was, then down to the ground and back to you. “Thank you for inviting me to lunch. Have a good rest of your weekend.”

By the next meeting, there was a week left until Christmas, and things were beginning to wrap up. There were only two meetings left, and the final one wasn’t set for any planning.

The final meeting, since everything had been moving ahead of schedule so far, was going to be reserved for a committee potluck, and any of the committee members could bring their friends or family as long as the volunteers were planning on bringing enough food.

No one wanted to fall behind lest they lose the date of the potluck, and so the groupchat had recently been busy with updates as groups remained on time or even ahead of time, and the present meeting was no exception.

Wanda seemed to have gotten word of how the committee heard that she was reprimanded for being behind in reports, so she made an update on all the things she’d sent to Westview’s council as confirmation to everyone and to ensure that she’d sent accurate information.

Your group was all but finished aside from needing to buy the accessories for the performers, which would just be some bracelets and Santa hats and other small things which unified them as they all performed for the same event. Kamala and America were planning on shopping for them this weekend, and would bring them to the potluck to keep them there until they were taken out of storage for Christmas Eve.

The other groups were all caught up and were just waiting on tiny things, like how the group handling the small businesses were waiting on finalized menu prices for budgeting, which would also be finished this weekend.

Rio and Agatha’s group had finished their patio designs too.

Wanda wasn’t under any impression that you purposefully came up to her at the end of every meeting, and she was more than understanding of the fact that they were just coincidences, or due to reasons that came up which required you to speak with her. It wasn’t like you wanted to.

She was sort of hoping you had a reason to speak with her this time around too, but she didn’t think you had any issues with your group or with things you needed to do for the committee like you did before.

Wanda walked out to her car, trying to accept that she wouldn’t see you again until the next major planning committee event you could attend. She wasn’t planning on going to the next meeting’s potluck, and she wasn’t planning on going to the event on Christmas Eve either. She didn’t really go to those things.

You sounded busy during the year when you explained your job to her, and who knew if you’d be in Westview for next Christmas? Not that she was any thrill to have in your company anyway; she hardly knew how to keep an interesting conversation.

She exhaled a little in the driver’s seat, slumping down into her jacket.

It wasn’t often that anyone gave her their time. She thought the way she regarded you was a little pathetic, since it was clear you saw her as your committee head and nothing more.

Wanda started her car and headed home. She would be finished with her work by tonight before the potluck, since all the other things that remained to be done didn’t involve her reports. The rest of her plans for the holidays involved buying gifts for her family and shipping them through the post. On Christmas, she’d call her parents then talk to her brother, who likely wouldn’t be in the mood to speak with them in a group call.

Then she’d celebrate New Years’ at home alone, and in January, begin a new school semester.

The day of the potluck came, and it was the first year everything had been done not only early, but as exciting as it all was; this year was imagined to be the most thrilling one so far. The blizzard had brought in inches and inches of snow which had been a pain for anyone stuck in it while it had been happening, but a dream to wake up to by the next morning once it stopped.

Westview was decorated in a winter you often saw in the movies, and everyone at the committee was in a wonderful mood.

You waited for Wanda to show up, wondering what kind of food she’d bring, and hoping to see her in a casual setting again. You wondered if she would wear her committee meeting clothes or something more comfortable. But a part of you also kind of dreaded seeing her around the married guy, whose name you found out today was Simon, because it seemed that he brought his wife to the potluck.

But by the thirty minute mark, Wanda still hadn’t shown up.

“Do you think Wanda will come?” you asked Kate.

She shook her head. “She doesn’t come to these things. She never comes on Christmas Eve either.”

“What? Really? But she’s the head of the committee. I thought she’d at least show up to the event since she put so much time into it.”

Kate hummed, thinking about that for a moment. “Yeah, I don’t know,” she shrugged. “I always just assumed she travels or something.”

You looked around at the food, thinking back on all the times pastries and other drinks were brought to the meetings, and you couldn’t recall if Wanda ever partook in them. You looked up at Simon, who was chatting away with his wife.

Some part of you imagined some grand gesture where Wanda came to the potluck though she typically didn’t attend, but you were almost entirely sure she wasn’t going to. From what you had learned about her in the last few times you spoke with her on your own together, Wanda seemed a lot more hesitant than one would guess.

You took two of the takeout boxes someone had brought in case there was going to be leftovers — and there was certainly going to be — to take to Wanda. One box was full of a normal dinner, like some of the rolls, turkey, stuffing, and mashed potatoes and gravy. Then in the other box, you packed some dessert, like cookies, pastries, and some candied fruit.

Then you made your way to her place.

Maybe she had company over, like her actual boyfriend, but in any case, you were fine just dropping the food off and handing it to her. And you didn’t want to call, because you didn’t think you were that close with her, and you didn’t want to assume she was comfortable with you calling her out of the blue.

Her car was alone in front of her place, and it didn’t look like she’d pulled out of her driveway since at least last evening given how much it’d snowed over her tire tracks.

You knocked on her door, and after a few moments the door opened, revealing Wanda in sweatpants and a thin plain black t-shirt.

“Y/N,” she firstly greeted, surprised as she pushed the door open further at the sight of you. “Did we talk about meeting?”

“No, nothing like that.” You held the two takeout boxes out. “I just thought you’d come to the potluck.”

She looked down at the boxes, reaching her hands out hesitantly to take them, then retracting her hands so they froze halfway to them. “Are these for me? What are they?” she asked, looking at you.

“It’s the food from the potluck. I brought you dinner and a bunch of dessert.”

“O-Oh, you… really didn’t have to bring me this…” she answered, her voice softening as she looked back down to the boxes and carefully took them from you. She looked back up and smiled at you. “Thank you.”

After a moment of brief silence which made you quite nervous, since it was very awkward to be standing in silence in front of Wanda, you stepped back. “Well, I’ll see you on Christmas then,” you said.

She stepped forward. “Would you like to come in, Y/N?” she asked suddenly.

When you made eye contact with her again, Wanda looked down at the boxes in her hands. “I just made some coffee and I was planning on doing some reading, but…” She looked up. “I made enough for two, and I haven’t had dinner yet.”

You swallowed, feeling somewhat nervous. “If you don’t mind.”

Wanda’s shoulders straightened, her expression lightening. “I don’t mind at all. Please come in,” she invited, stepping back and allowing you to enter.

As you stepped inside and Wanda took your jacket, she took silent deep breaths as she prepared herself to have a proper conversation with you.

“So…” she started as she walked you into the kitchen, pouring you a mug of coffee. “What are you planning on doing for Christmas, Y/N?”

You stood a few feet away from Wanda as she poured you her coffee, watching her. She asked you what you liked in your coffee, and she stirred it in. She looked kind of… cute in what she was wearing. She looked kind of cute looking all domestic.

You scratched your cheek awkwardly, looking away as you answered, “Well, this year my family is coming to Westview and I’m hosting Christmas this time. So I’ve been decorating my place and thinking through some things to make for dinner.”

She carefully placed the coffee in front of you and began plating the food you brought her from the potluck.

“That sounds sweet,” she said. “I hope you enjoy hosting.”

“Do you have any Christmas traditions?”

She hummed in thought as she closed the boxes. “When I still lived with my parents, we volunteered at a soup kitchen, then came home and had late dinner. After we ate, we opened our gifts, then watched a movie as a family.”

You smiled a little as she described it.

Wanda brought her coffee and plate to the dining table, and you brought your own coffee and a platter of peppermint cookies which she said she made yesterday.

Wanda’s house was decorated with string lights, and she had a few unscented candles lit around the house. Her place smelled like cookies and a little bit of cinnamon, and you figured she must bake a lot in her freetime. In the living room, which you passed on your way to the kitchen, she had a large tree in front of the window decorated with gold, white, and pink.

It was kind of cute to imagine her decorating, and she was obviously far more festive than you thought. But then you imagined her decorating such a grand thing all on her own, and that made you feel quite bad for her. Not that you didn’t think she couldn’t — she clearly could — but the idea of someone so alone during the holidays made you ache.

“You said your parents wanted to move to America?” you asked when you sat down at the dining table. You both sat on one side of a corner, closest to each other.

She took in a breath and took a sip of coffee. “Yes, I did say that,” she answered, setting her mug down then cutting a slicing bit of turkey. “But… I honestly don’t think they’re sincerely interested in moving anywhere.”

“And your brother?”

“He moves too much,” she answered. “I had to ask him to stay in one place for a month so I could deliver a gift to his address, but he just told me to send it to a post in Berlin, and he’ll fly over if he’s not in Germany anymore to pick it up whenever it’s been delivered.”

She looked up from her plate, watching you look around her place. She swallowed, playing with her fork a little bit. The candlelight from the dining table made your face look very smooth, and very warm.

Wanda rubbed her knuckle against the back of her cheek, feeling herself flush at the sight. “Um, Y/N,” she said, looking back down at her plate and cutting a piece of turkey just to keep occupied. “I’ve been thinking…”

You looked away from her Christmas tree which you saw from a distance. It was beautiful, and Wanda truly had an eye for decorating. Even her furniture was gorgeous.

“I wanted to apologize for how I must’ve seemed to you when we first met. I mean… not how I seemed, exactly, but how I behaved…” She poked at the piece of turkey she sliced. “I’m… not very popular with the committee.”

Something fluttered in your chest, forcing you to take in a breath of air. Maybe it was guilt, or… Well, you were completely justified for how you acted around her before.

But something about watching Wanda eat at the decorated table in the middle of her dining room in her gorgeous house, and imagining her doing this every evening for dinner alone made your chest tighten.

Even in her own house, she seemed small.

“Can I ask you something kind of personal?”

She looked up from her plate, lowering her fork a little. She nodded. “Of course.”

“Are you seeing Simon?”

Wanda answered quickly, “No, I’m not seeing him.”

Before you could stop yourself from pushing too far, you added, “But he’s always flirting with you.”

She looked down at her plate again. “Yes, he’s…” She trailed off. She put her fork down and took a sip of coffee. “Simon is interested in me — of course I know that.”

“I’m just curious…” you spoke cautiously. “Why don't you see him if you know he’s flirting with you?”

“You’re asking because of his wife?”

When you blinked in response, Wanda figured you had no idea what she was talking about. She took a bite of her turkey, and after swallowing, she said, “His wife isn’t very subtle about her own affair. But I don’t think she concerns herself with what other people think of her; she’s some kind of lawyer, so she’s typically never in town.”

“You know a lot about everyone.”

To your surprise, Wanda laughed, though it was a dry one. “No. Simon just tells me.”

You nodded, taking a bite of a cookie.

Wanda looked up when you didn’t respond, and she bit the inside of her cheek. She wondered if you felt as tense as she did whenever you brought Simon up. She fidgeted with the string of her sweatpants with her other hand. She never knew whether it was ever appropriate to say the things she had in mind. Often, she hesitated between telling you what she wanted to say and staying quiet.

Swallowing, Wanda set her fork down and fidgeted with the handle of her mug. “I know it sounds terrible of me, but Simon always compliments my work as the committee head. That’s what he comes up to me after the meetings to talk about.”

“Oh,” you replied.

Still, the idea of Wanda getting all excited and romantic with some guy made you uncomfortable. It still made you upset that it frustrated you so much, and you wished you could look down on her for her questionable interactions with him, but you couldn’t help but just feel frustrated about it.

A small silence came over the two of you as Wanda looked down at her empty plate. She racked through her mind desperately for anything interesting to say.

Then she looked up and asked, “What do you think about Agatha and Rio?”

You sipped your coffee, thankful for how beautiful Wanda’s house was since it gave you any excuse not to look at her for a few moments during moments of silence. “I think they’re nice together.”

“I think they are too,” Wanda replied, adjusting her fork and knife on her plate. She wanted to cry out and bury her face in her arms. She felt so pathetic; she had no idea how to have a conversation. You probably just wanted to go home already.

Even so, she tried to keep talking with you.

“But Rio doesn’t like me very much.”

You looked over at her, recalling the time Rio called Wanda’s name loudly when she had come in forty minutes late though she had been trying to walk in subtly. “I had a feeling,” you said. “Why not?”

“I saw Agatha for a very short time, and I didn’t know she and Rio were on a break,” she explained. “Agatha told me they were on a break after she and Rio made up, but I didn’t know beforehand.”

Something about that was incredibly funny to you, because Rio and Agatha seemed inseparable, and to imagine that Wanda, of all people, had somehow gotten between them was extremely funny.

Wanda looked up from her plate, her lips parted slightly as she watched you for a moment while you laughed out loud. She felt her heart in her throat at the sight of you. She’d never seen you laugh that hard, and she didn’t think herself to be that funny.

“That must have been very awkward for you,” you said once you could speak clearly.

“Yes, it was,” Wanda answered, smiling at you a little bashfully, tracking you with her eyes as you looked down to the table then picked up your mug of coffee again.

Wanda was never really good at picking up signals from other people either. It must mean something that you were in her house and eating with her, and sitting so close, and you weren’t rushing to finish your coffee. But what next?

It had been a long while since she had any close friends, or any real friends at all, so maybe she was just misunderstanding how she felt around you. Perhaps it was normal to feel so nervous around you and attracted to you.

Should she pursue you as a friend? She didn’t know how to do even that, and she also didn’t know if you still saw her as only your committee head.

“Why did you change all those little things on our document, by the way?” you asked suddenly. “Sorry to bring committee stuff up. I’ve just been curious.”

Wanda looked a little embarrassed and she fiddled with the handle of her mug with two hands, her plate now pushed to the side. “There wasn’t anything wrong with it. I just thought I’d make a few adjustments about things that guests brought up last year,” she said.

She looked up, looking uncertain and even a little remorseful. “I hope they weren’t too much of a change. I just thought I’d try to help a little bit.”

For a moment you couldn’t imagine that this was the same Wanda who had changed major parts of the group’s planning last year just five days before Christmas Day, and then you recalled that sometimes you couldn’t believe that both Wandas you knew were the same person.

You could understand Wanda seeming much larger in the committee room and much smaller in your car and in the cafe because she was sort of scary in the meetings, and soft-spoken outside of them. But you didn’t have a clue regarding things like how she seemed to treat the committee differently this time or how she treated your group differently than previous years, since you recalled that Peter mentioned how he thought she’d been nicer.

“Not at all. I think the changes were nice.”

“Really?” she asked. The corners of her lips tugged upwards a little. “I’m glad I could help.”

Wanda put away the dishes and thanked you again for the food. She packed you some of the peppermint cookies too.

As she was walking you to the front, she watched you from behind, wondering if it was normal to bring up things that didn’t necessarily pertain to exactly what the two of you were talking about in the moment — which was to say, nothing.

Second guessing and uncertainty surrounding how she should behave or speak to you always got in the way of saying things she wanted to say.

“Y/N, thank you for thinking of me today at the potluck when I didn’t come,” she said quietly as you slipped your boots on. She played with the box of cookies in her hands. “I’m not very good with people, as you might have guessed. But…”

She trailed off and you straightened once your boots were on to look at her. “I really like spending time with you outside the meetings,” she confessed, “and I hope that we might be able to keep talking after the holidays.”

You swallowed, suddenly feeling your heart race at the sight of her averted eyes and her quiet tone. You took in a breath and then spoke. “Would you like to help me wrap some gifts tomorrow?”

Wanda looked up, surprised.

“I have a bunch to wrap because I’m hosting Christmas, and some of my family members gave me money to shop for them here because they couldn't travel with too much,” you explained. “So… I’ll really need your help.”

She nodded, gripping the box a little tighter. “Of course. I’ll be there.”

That night, you and Wanda planned for what time she’d come over. She’d come around three so she could have lunch, and you offered to cook her dinner for her help. She wanted to deny the offer, but she truly couldn’t turn down the chance of having a home-cooked dinner with you at your place.

Though you were looking forward to having her over, you felt rather nervous about it all. Wanda had a gorgeous home and was likely a very talented cook as she was a talented baker, and you really didn’t want to disappoint her.

As you went through the grocery store in the afternoon after getting some last minute gifts, you decided on preparing salmon sushi baked, which you’d been wanting to try. You picked up the ingredients then headed home.

Wanda was far different from how you initially thought her to be, but she was still incredibly intelligent and responsible, and although you felt a bit awkward admitting it to yourself, she was gorgeous too, and you still didn’t entirely know the kinds of things she was thinking about you.

She had said that she wanted to see you after the holidays.

As a friend, right?

You were at least certain that she saw you as more than just a committee member.

When had you even started feeling this confused about her, anyway? It was still possible she had a boyfriend or some kind of partner in Europe where she was from.

Thinking back to things you knew about Wanda made you feel a little flustered, even things that had really pissed you off for reasons you still didn’t really understand your reactions to, like her little cozy hat and the scarf that always covered half her face, and her habit of averting her gaze when you caught her looking at you.

When Wanda arrived, she was in jeans and a light brown knit sweater, her hair done in a braid. She smiled at you when you opened the front door, and she was holding a large Christmas gift bag full of different gift wrapping designs. You realized her hair wasn’t naturally as straight as you typically saw it, because the hair was a little wavy, pulled back into the braid.

Wanda sat down on your couch as you brought her some hot chocolate, and some fruit and a little charcuterie board you put together.

“Thank you,” she said, smiling up at you as you set down the food on the coffee table. She was smiling at you more than usual since she’d arrived, and you couldn’t figure out whether you were unsettled or flattered by it.

When you sat down beside her on the couch and Wanda was taking a sip of her hot chocolate, she asked, “How was your day?”

“It was okay. I was mostly running around,” you answered. “I was getting some last minute gifts, and then I bought the things for dinner today.”

At the mention of dinner, Wanda perked up. “Oh, right. I brought something.” She set her hot chocolate down carefully then stood up to go over to her purse, where she also had her wrapping paper set. You didn’t ask her to bring anything, but she brought about four different designs from her place.

She pulled out a bottle of white wine, which looked rather expensive, and brought it over to you before sitting back down beside you. “I was thinking we might be able to have some wine with dinner.”

You carefully took the wine from her and looked it over. “Wow, Wanda, this is a really good kind,” you mused. “I think I had this last Christmas, and I loved it. Thank you.”

“I’m glad, Y/N. I had a feeling you’d like it.”

After setting it down on the coffee table, you looked over to her, only to find her still looking at you. She had a sort of pleasant look on her face. A little smile formed when you met her eyes, which looked at you with a sort of focus or analysis whose details she didn’t disclose to you.

She looked away and took a grape from the charcuterie board.

“Should we start wrapping?” you asked, solely to release the tension in your chest.

You and Wanda sat on the floor in front of your tree, the coffee table moved so you could both reach the charcuterie board and Wanda could reach her hot chocolate. The two of you decided to use the wrapping paper Wanda bought, since hers was unsurprisingly far prettier.

“So, well… I’m actually not very good at wrapping presents. I always put them in gift bags,” you confessed.

Wanda took a box of expensive chocolates and aligned it with the wrapping paper. “I’m quite good at wrapping presents,” she boasted playfully, looking up at you as she cut the paper with a pair of scissors. “I can show you how.”

The chocolate box was wrapped pristinely, and Wanda turned it around a few times in her hands to show you its sharp edges and folds. She gave it to you so you could write on the gift’s label.

“Where did you learn how to wrap so good?” you asked, taking another gift in an easy-to-wrap shape and setting it in front of your crossed legs.

“I had to do a lot of Christmas wrapping when I lived with my parents,” she explained. She stood up suddenly and took a seat beside you. She repositioned the gift in front of your legs and aligned it with the wrapping paper.

Between explaining how to wrap gifts to you and explaining how she learned while wrapping her own alongside you for you to follow her through example, she spoke while you listened.

“My brother and I also wrapped gifts for the soup kitchen I mentioned before,” she explained, her eyes darting between your gift and hers to make sure you were following along properly. “We wrapped so many, so I think I just got better at it over time.”

You spoke a bit slowly since you were focusing. “How long did you volunteer there?”

“I think about…” Wanda paused to think, then reached out to move your hand with her own. “Fold this underneath, not over. Keep it against the box,” she instructed.

When you looked up at her after correcting yourself, she nodded, letting go of your hand as your fingers pressed the paper against the box. “Yes, just like that,” she said.

Then she continued, “I think we volunteered there for about eight years.”

You and Wanda spoke back and forth as you wrapped gifts together for about an hour, sitting cross-legged side by side beside your Christmas tree.

“Do you miss your family?” you asked at one point.

Wanda hummed as she taped some paper down. “My brother and I were very close,” she said. “I do miss him. I sometimes feel resentful that he hasn’t taken any time to come see me, but I understand that he’s always felt very trapped around family growing up. He was far more ambitious and impulsive than I ever was.”

You noticed she didn’t mention anything about her parents.

“When did you both move out?”

“Pietro moved out when he was eighteen. He took up jobs wherever he travelled, and he’s always been a spirited and friendly person, so I hear he’d been able to make fast friends no matter where he landed.”

You noticed that Wanda typically avoided talking about herself when she had the chance to talk about anyone else, especially when it had to do with her family.

Sliding your last gift away under the tree after labeling it and turning your body to face Wanda with hers, you asked, “What about you?”

“I left much later, when I was twenty five. I studied to become a teacher here in America after finishing my undergrad there,” she answered, keeping her eyes on the final gift she was wrapping.

She finished the gift and slid it over to you. You labelled it then placed it on top of another gift.

“Wow. They all look great,” you said, standing up and taking a step back to look. “Thank you for your help. I couldn’t have done any of it without you.”

You looked down at Wanda, who was staring at the tree and the gifts in some oddly sentimental way. You reached a hand down to her, and the movement from the corner of her eye broke her focus. She looked up at you with a grateful smile then took it and stood up.

Wanda opened the wine so the two of you could start drinking as you began to cook together.

This was your first year out of school and you’d been working throughout it without even really getting a chance to settle it in.

This Christmas season, you’d been doing a whole lot of meeting with people from Westview, and it was all incredibly fun. You felt like a college student again, surrounded by older Westview neighbours, doing fun group assignments, and worrying about travelling to meetings in the weather.

But while you were cooking with Wanda, your place finally felt lived in for the first time since you moved to Westview.

It was nice to fit in, but it was nicer to be home.

“So… Can I ask if you have kids? Or, like… some wild crazy ex-husband story that would be interesting to tell?”

Wanda’s eyebrows raised over the rim of her glass as she took a sip. “Goodness,” she said, setting the glass down. “Do I really look that old?”

“No, no,” you assured, waving your salmon-coated hands in front of you. She picked up a piece of salmon from the counter that had flung off from your finger and placed it in the glass dish that was nearly set to go into the oven.

She watched you with a little smile, her cheeks warm from the wine as you flattened the salmon across the rice, thinking of a different way to form your question.

“Then… Do you have a boyfriend?” you asked, looking up after a moment, meeting her eyes innocently.

“No,” she answered. “I’m a lesbian.”

You blinked, partially surprised, and then feeling a little competitive. If she had a girlfriend, things would be totally different, for some reason.

As if she could read your mind, she added, “But I’m not seeing anyone, and I don’t have an ex-wife or any children.”

It was most certainly the wine that was making the both of you feel a little bolder, otherwise you wouldn’t have asked her about whether she was seeing anyone, and she wouldn’t have seen your slightly flushed expression and thought to take the opportunity to tease you.

“Do you have a partner, Y/N?” she asked, picking up her glass again.

“No,” you answered earnestly. “I’ve been too busy to think about those things.”

She hummed at your answer, pouring a little more wine into her glass then topping yours off too. You washed your hands and put the salmon bake into the oven.

“You’re not interested in anyone in your group?” she asked.

“Um…” You frowned a little at the thought, not because you were thinking about it, but because it was a strange thing to suggest. “No — no one there.”

Wanda would be lying if she said she didn’t think of placing you in that group because she wanted to see how you and Kate got along, amongst other reasons that were far less important now. She wanted to figure out if you liked girls, and Wanda figured she and Yelena had broken up since she stopped coming to meetings. But your answer wasn’t indicative of anything, so she figured she’d just never know.

You set a timer on the oven and stood in front of Wanda, who’d been leaning her hip on the counter watching you after she cut the salmon and laid the seasoned rice out into the dish.

“I guess I didn’t really think the rest of the night through,” you said sheepishly after taking a sip of wine. “What do you want to do?”

“Would you like to just talk at your dining table?” Wanda offered with a little smile.

You and Wanda sat very close to each other, with the table’s edge between the two of you like it had when you were at her place. Except, her knee brushed against yours under the table with how close she was sitting.

You said something that made Wanda laugh, and she crossed her legs on top of your dining room chair. Her cheeks were flushed a soft pink, and she kept leaning closer to you.

Wanda had been worrying about the upcoming evening all day, wondering what kinds of things people talked about when they wrapped gifts together.

Then she wondered again about how you regarded her; you didn’t invite just anyone to your place, much less to do something as casual as wrapping gifts.

She’d actually Googled the kinds of things people did at these things, but she couldn’t find anything very good for what to say or do during gift wrapping activities, or even find anything for the specific occurrence.

She’d even tried to search up how people advanced from a professional relationship to a more intimate one. She got some great tips on that from a website called Reddit — share more about your personal life, indicate with body language to express willingness for physical closeness, and maintain eye contact sometimes.

Well, Wanda would say that it was all going quite well. She felt like a great socializer, and you seemed to be picking up on all her hints that she wanted to be closer to you.

“I’m really sorry to ask, but I’m just curious,” you apologized, prefacing your next question as the two of you settled back down at the table, salmon bake now freshly out of the oven and on the dining table.

Wanda was serving the pieces onto a plate after the both of you sprinkled fresh seaweed on top. “Don’t apologize,” she said. ”Ask me anything.”

“Are you close with your parents?”

The tension that often came over Wanda when you asked personal questions hadn’t seemed to come over her the entire time she was over. Instead, she would react with a familiar pensive silence where she looked like she was thinking something over before answering.

“Not very close, no,” she answered. “My parents were very strict and very controlling of my brother and I. Pietro moved out the moment he could, and I stayed to complete my education and support them.”

“I see,” you said, taking a bite of your dinner.

Before you could say how good it was, Wanda exclaimed with a hand over her partially-full mouth, “This is amazing. You’re a wonderful cook, Y/N.” Her cheeks were a little stuffed as she chewed and her hair had been loosened from her braid, showing more of the natural waves of her hair.

You had wanted to agree, but got a little distracted watching her, so after she swallowed another bite, she added, “I worked as a teacher’s aid through my undergrad and worked a lot outside of school to support my family. I still send them money frequently. I think my brother does the same, but we don’t talk very much about them. I’ve always been much closer to him.”

“May I ask you something personal too?” she asked. She looked up from her plate to look at you, and you nodded when you noticed she was waiting for visual confirmation.

She hummed a little, as if she were trying to select a good one.

Then she asked, “Do you like women?”

The question surprised you and you weren’t sure whether you should laugh as if it were a joke. Your cheeks flushed at the idea of Wanda imagining you with a woman. But she didn’t seem to catch onto your embarrassment, even as she watched your face with focus.

You decided to answer simply given how nonchalantly Wanda was looking at you. “Yes.”

Then Wanda took a sip of her wine, looking at you still.

“Okay,” she replied, smiling a little. “Have you dated recently?”

“Um…” You thought about that for a moment, then looked back at her. “No. I think it’s been about two years since my last relationship. What about you?”

Wanda swallowed another bite of her food. “I was with one of my coworkers when I first started working at the school for a few months.”

“Wow. How did that go?”

“It was a very bad idea.”

She looked up from her plate when you laughed, and Wanda couldn’t help but giggle thinking back at the absurd circumstances, which she discussed in more detail with you after you asked about it.

After dinner, you and Wanda decided that it wasn’t a good idea for her to drive home because of how she still felt a little tipsy, but it was late, and you didn’t want to keep her from going home, and you didn’t trust yourself to drive either.

But because of how occupied the two of you had become inside, neither of you had paid attention to another snowstorm that seemed to have been going on for at least forty minutes.

“Do you think an Uber will come?” she asked, looking up from her phone with the weather app open and through the window in your living room, which you were also looking through while standing beside her.

“Ah… I don’t know,” you answered, sounding a little preoccupied as you looked outside. “The snow’s got some inches up your tires…”

Wanda looked at you, biting the inside of her cheek as she watched your deep focus. “Is it okay that I stay for longer? I don’t want to keep you up.”

“It’s really okay,” you said, stepping back from the window. “Please stay.”

The weather app said that the storm wouldn’t stop until later in the evening, so the plan was for you to stay up with Wanda until it died down. Maybe by then, you could shovel the driveway for her ride. Otherwise, she was alright with sleeping over.

The two of you were sitting on your couch, the television on but paused about five minutes into a Christmas movie before one of you paused it for some forgotten reason, and became distracted in conversation moving forward.

Wanda was wearing some of your extra clothes, and you’d changed into something more comfortable too. She had undone her hair from her braid, and you thought she looked beautiful with her hair unstraightened. The two of you were drinking hot chocolate again after finishing off the wine, exchanging stories and talking about random things.

Then, as you looked over at the television, partly in deep thought about something you had just been talking about and the other part wondering if you should play the movie again, Wanda looked over your face, sitting with her knees up against her stomach, her body facing you.

“Y/N, can I tell you something honestly?” she asked.

She thought back to the advice she read online — to become closer with someone, you should try being more honest about things to show that you were open to sharing your real thoughts and feelings.

“Sure,” you replied, turning back to her.

“I think you’re very attractive.”

Sometimes Wanda had a habit of asking questions or saying things which surprised you, in a tone that was entirely nonchalant. But often, when you looked at her expression and found that she was asking seriously or casually, you were able to gauge how to respond without seeming as flustered as you did — like when she asked if you liked women.

But this time, she herself seemed flustered too.

She brushed her cheek against her upper arm which was wrapped around her knees as you looked at her. “I’m sorry if that was a strange thing to say,” she said quietly, seeming hesitant to look away from you, but eventually looking back over at the paused movie.

Perhaps she was also thinking about playing it again, hoping to forget about what she said.

“Wanda,” you said quietly, getting her attention again.

When she looked at you, her eyes meeting yours and looking a little nervous, you said, “You’re really, really beautiful.”

Wanda’s hands tightened around her elbows, and she had the urge to hide her face. She didn’t want to, because she wanted to take the compliment well and say something kind in return, but her cheeks felt flushed and warm and she didn’t want to smile as wide as she felt she wanted to.

Against her better wishes, she buried her flushed face in her arms, which were still wrapped around her knees. “You’re saying that to be kind, yes?” she asked, her voice meek, lifting her head and looking at you. “I read that sometimes people mirror others to seem friendlier.”

You only shook your head in response, and Wanda looked at you, trying to figure what to do with what you told her, her internal thoughts a downright mess.

Wanda imagined what would happen if she decided to stay quiet, like she normally did when she didn’t know what to say, or when she worried that she wasn’t reading social cues well enough to speak within the right context.

Maybe you might have lunch with your committee after the holidays, and realize that Kate was entirely your type. Maybe you would meet someone doing the same kind of research as you did in your postgrad at work. Maybe you’d stop staying in Westview, and start staying with your future girlfriend if she lived outside of town, and she’d never see you again.

“Can you kiss me? Please?” she asked suddenly, letting go of her legs and straightening.

Like a soldier acting on command, you reached over to her, ending up on your knees with one hand on the couch to steady yourself to meet her lips with yours. Your other hand rested on her knee, and Wanda took it, tugging you closer so you could move on top of her as she began to lean backwards.

You slotted yourself between her parted legs, her thighs closing against your hips, holding you in place. Her hands slid under your shoulders and laid against your upper back, keeping you close as your lips moved against each other.

The little noises that came from her made you want to touch her in the most delicate way you could. You kissed her slowly, and she liked that speed. She shuddered when your tongue traced the bottom of her upper lip, and she immediately parted her lips for you.

She rolled her hips upward when your tongue entered her mouth, the tip of her own running along the side of yours, like a gentle greeting, before your tongue swirled around her own slowly.

You parted from her lips to take a breath, and through hooded eyes you saw Wanda’s slightly open mouth, her lips glistening, before you leaned down and tucked your face into her neck. She whispered your name shakily, tipping her head to the side as your tongue flattened itself and ran up to the edge of her jaw.

Unsure if she was alright with you leaving marks, you gently suckled at points of her neck instead, nipping at her skin close to her neck. You felt the vibrations of her soft noises against your lips.

One of Wanda’s hands moved down your lower back and tugged lightly at the waistband of your pajama pants. “Can I take it off?”

You lifted your head from her neck and nodded, reaching down to help her, and lifting yourself up onto your knees to readjust your positions.

“Can you get on your back?” she asked, sitting up and removing her legs from between your knees.

Wanda took the remote and set it down on the floor so you wouldn’t lay on it. She got on top of you, between your parted legs.

You kissed differently when she was on top. It was hard to explain, but you could feel it. She wasn’t necessarily slower, but she was careful and deliberate, your lips moving together as if to feel one another rather than doing so with the explicit intention to kiss.

Your arm was wrapped around her waist, your hand pressed against the side of her stomach, feeling her shirt lift slightly as she moved, warm skin under your fingers.

She teased your nipple through your shirt in a way that made your body jerk slightly, the side of her finger grazing over it until it hardened and became sensitive. The pad of her thumb drew circles against it.

The noises she made sounded more of satisfaction than pleasure as you whimpered beneath her, your body arching beneath her as she continued to tease your nipples.

“Can I push your shirt up?” she asked, having to part from your lips to ask. You nodded immediately, lifting your back a bit while Wanda straightened so she could push your shirt above your chest.

The position you were in was a rather vulnerable one, and made you feel more exposed than if you had just taken the shirt off. Her eyes darted between your breasts, before leaning back down, closer to you.

Her eyes were still on your chest, and your shirt, bunched up close to your neck, obscured your view of her hands. Her finger teased at one nipple delicately, and you could figure that it was quickly stiffening based on a low noise Wanda made.

She leaned her head down and wrapped her lips around it, sucking gently, her tongue rhythmically moving back and forth across the very tip of it and drawing soft moans out of you.

Wanda paid such close attention to how her little ministrations were affecting you, and the speed of everything she was doing was perfect. She rubbed the tip of her tongue at just the right slow and teasing speed against your nipples, knew just when to pinch them between her thumb and index finger.

You couldn’t even remember the last time someone had such a fixation on your nipples, let alone been able to make you feel this good while stimulating just them.

She moved up and kissed you again, and the feeling of her shirt against your chest made you kiss her teasing. “Do you like when I play with your nipples?” she asked against your lips. “I can tell they’re very sensitive.”

You nodded immediately.

“Would you like more?”

“Yes, please,” you practically sighed out in desperation. You sat up a little to take your shirt off to make it easier, and Wanda helped you get it over your head before placing it on the floor.

She returned to teasing your buds, alternating between wrapping her lips around them, pressing gentle kisses to them, or rubbing her tongue against them. The pads of her fingers were gentle, careful to touch them right at their tips, which made you jerk upwards the most.

At this point, you had practically been rolling your hips up against her for several moments straight, desperate for friction against your core.

Wanda released your nipple from her mouth, watching your face as her fingers grazed across your clothed slit. She could feel the contours of your pussy against the pads of her fingers. She was so careful, and so delicate.

She applied pressure steadily, rubbing up and down your slit, rubbing up the mound of your clit’s hood. She pressed into the empty space, feeling how easily your folds slid against the fabric of your panties — you must’ve already been rather wet.

Her finger hooked around the waistband of your underwear and you reached down and tried to help her take it off. She repositioned herself to pull your panties off.

Your legs immediately parted for her and you watched as her eyes ran over your legs and thighs and then your cunt, your heart racing at the steady eyes you knew so well now focused on your pussy.

One of your legs was partially dangling from the couch, while the other was bent, the side of your knee resting against the couch’s back cushion — you were entirely exposed to her.

Wanda moved closer, unbending your knee and wrapping your leg around her hips so she could fit in between your legs. Her one hand placed itself on the couch by your hip.

Curious fingers parted your folds carefully and you felt yourself flutter around nothing, a shudder running up your body. Two cool fingers rubbed slow circles against your pussy, so slow that you could hear the noises your cunt was making.

“You’re so wet, Y/N,” Wanda said, her voice gentle and soothing. She spoke it as if narrating a fact rather than trying to intentionally talk dirty to you. “Your pussy is so soft. I wish you could see the way you look when I rub you this slow. The way you’re coating my fingers…”

She took her bottom lip between her teeth.

With the same two fingers, she parted your folds, watching your opening flutter for her.

Wanda adjusted her posture, straightening her back and leaning forward to shift her weight onto her other hand. With one finger first, she slid into your opening, a satisfied noise leaving her at the feeling of how you wrapped around her middle finger.

“This is one finger,” she told you, looking up at your face. You nodded in confirmation.

You clenched around her immediately, soft whimpers escaping you as Wanda began her rhythm, slow and intentional. She curled her finger upwards, applying light pressure against your g-spot.

At the upward bucking of your hips, she straightened her finger inside of you and began to pick up speed.

Wanda watched your back arch and your hips twitch upwards. She adjusted her speed and how hard she thrusted her fingers into you based on how much your hips chased her, or how much you pulled away or fluttered around her.

Her eyes moved down from your face to your heaving chest, and she shifted her weight onto her heels so she could reach out with her other hand and grope one of your breasts.

“Another finger,” you pleaded, reaching down to loosely wrap your fingers around her hand. She pulled out and reentered with two, adding her ring finger.

As you adjusted to the size, evidently enjoying it much more for how you moaned out, gripping at the edge of the couch, Wanda experimented with her speed again, and tried thrusting her fingers in a little harsher.

“Does that feel good?” she asked.

“G-Good,” you stuttered in response.

At your whimpers and your arching back, Wanda figured she found the perfect rhythm. She maintained it, then began teasing your nipples again.

The double stimulation was far too much, and your leg wrapped around Wanda tighter. Your heel began to press into her lower back, so you set your foot down on the couch to avoid hurting her.

“You feel so nice, Y/N,” Wanda said, practically cooing for how delicately she was speaking. “You’re so warm and soft. When I curl my fingers right here…” She curled them, pressing the pads of them against your g-spot, eliciting a whine out of you. “You fit around my fingers perfectly.”

She began to enter you each time with a delicate curl of her fingers, rubbing against the spot you loved.

You panted, your hips lifting from the couch slightly as you felt yourself begin to tighten around Wanda’s fingers. She let go of your breast and wrapped a hand around the side of your waist, steadying you.

“A-Ah, I’m gonna co-ome,” you stuttered.

“Come for me, Y/N,” Wanda cooed. She looked down at you, biting down on her bottom lip as she watched your face contort in pleasure, listening to your whines mesh with your pants.

She maintained the speed you liked, until she felt you squeeze around her fingers, a cry leaving you while Wanda looked down at your body, feeling her mouth go dry at what she was seeing and at how much she loved feeling you around her fingers.

You were younger than her, but Wanda never thought about your age difference very much when she spent her time with you. But you looked much younger below her as she watched you orgasm, listening to your delicate whimpers as you came down from your release.

Wanda slipped out of you slowly when your hips fell back down to the couch, missing the warm squeeze of your walls. She wrapped her lips around her fingers, savouring you slowly, her tongue sliding around her slick fingers.

Then she moved on top of you, leaning down to kiss your lips. Her hand caressed your cheek, and you felt the remnants of her saliva rub against the corner of your jaw. She parted from you and buried her head in the crook of your neck, and you helped her position herself so she was laying on top of you, on your chest.

She turned her face upwards, kissing your neck chastly.

“You’re so good at that,” you said after you caught your breath in silence, Wanda having closed her eyes as she laid on top of you. Your hand was tucked under her shirt, rubbing her bare side.

With a flush of her cheeks and a repressed giggle, Wanda turned her face to rub against your chest. “Thank you.”

You untucked your hand from under her shirt and lifted it to her upper arm to play with the ends of her hair. Then you raised your hand to the side of her head, your fingers intertwining themselves into her hair, massaging her scalp gently.

Feeling the stark contrast from the present in comparison to when you first met her, you confessed honestly, “I actually really disliked you when we first met.” You avoided using the word ‘hate,’ because sometimes Wanda took your words very literally.

Wanda opened her eyes, looking up at you from your shoulder. “I know,” she said. “I figured you did.”

“But I thought I was just being overdramatic,” you added, “so I never talked about it with anyone, in case I would say things I regretted or if I figured I was just being confused.”

She wrapped her arm around your torso a bit tighter.

“I’m sorry,” she apologized. “I gave you a hard time on purpose.”

“Why on purpose?”

Wanda looked back down at your chest, her hand rubbing against your side slowly. “At first, I felt a little awkward. I thought you were very attractive, and I knew you were younger than me,” she explained. Her fingers drew shapes against your skin, fidgeting slightly as she confessed what she regarded was embarrassing.

“Then you got along so well with the committee — far more than I ever had after volunteering for three years. And I knew you didn’t like me very much, and I also knew that if you spoke about it, you’d certainly speak with others who didn’t.”

Then she added quietly, “And I didn’t know how to speak with you; I don’t know how to speak with anyone. And when you drove me home during the blizzard, I felt very awkward. I didn’t know what I should say.”

You thought about that for a moment, and you realized that Wanda genuinely felt insecure about her struggles with socializing, and often behaved with hostility due to her inability to blend in well with others or figure out how to act in social situations.

“I didn’t think of you like that at all,” you said. “I only didn’t like you because you ran the committee like a dictator, not because I figured you had a hard time talking with people.”

“Really?” she asked, lifting her head to look at you. “I thought I stuck out like a sore thumb.”

You shook your head. “Kate said you didn’t typically come to events like the one downtown on Christmas Eve because she figured you travelled, and I just thought you were very different outside of the committee. I wanted to know more about you.”

Wanda felt her cheeks flush, and she swallowed. “You wanted to know more about me? Even after I was terrible to you?”

“You weren’t terrible to me, Wanda.”

She looked away, feeling a little awkward. You reached out and cupped her cheek supportively, your thumb brushing over the traces of the freckles by her nose that you’d noticed the first day you met her. She looked back at you, smiling at your supportive gesture.

“The day you drove me back, I told you all those things that I heard from other volunteers,” she said. “But no one really tells me those things. They don’t speak with me socially.”

“So… You just made it up?”

“No, I didn’t make it up,” she answered. She averted her eyes. “I didn’t know how to compliment you…”

You smiled at her shy demeanor. You rubbed your thumb against her cheek again, and Wanda re-met your eyes. “I don’t think you seem awkward, Wanda. You don’t stick out like a sore thumb,” you told her.

Wanda always had a very difficult time with eye contact, but she liked being looked at by you. She replied softly, “You’re the only one who thinks that.”

“Do you want to know what I think?”

Her smile widened at the sound of your playful tone.

“What?” she asked.

“I think…” You sat up, and Wanda slipped from your chest, sitting back into your lap as you reached down and put your shirt back on. “I think that we should go upstairs so I don’t have to be the only one without my underwear on.”

“I can take them off now,” she offered, shifting herself on her lap to slip the pajama pants you gave her off.

You placed your hands on hers to keep her from undressing, and you stood up from the couch. “No, I mean, I want to have sex upstairs,” you explained.

“Ah,” she replied, feeling a little silly for misunderstanding, a smile forming on her face. She quickly stood up after you and followed you up the stairs. Her eyes kept darting down to your naked lower half below your oversized shirt, her heart racing at the sight of you, and at the act of following you upstairs.

She sped up a little to walk beside you.

You wrapped an arm around her waist, pulling you against her so you could kiss her. Wanda moaned softly into your mouth. She tugged at your shirt, encouraging you to pull her to your bed.

You unwrapped your arm from her waist, placing both hands on your hips and keeping her against you. Wanda felt herself ache at how you handled her, and she carefully stepped back as you led her towards your bed.

She took a seat at the edge, your lips parting.

The two of you spoke about using a strap, and you showed her the size you had. She held the harness up while you inserted it, then the two of you put it to the side on the bed as Wanda moved back onto your bed.

Your lips met again, Wanda parting her legs for you to position herself between. You felt her reach down to take her shirt off and you straightened to help her.

She didn’t seem to receive as much pleasure when you teased her nipples as she did when she was doing it to you. She preferred for you to be closer to her, with your lips on hers or against her neck.

Her hands tucked themselves under your shirt, running up the curve of your back. She pulled your shirt over your head and pulled you down to her. Her breasts were soft against your chest and you flushed at the sight of the soft flesh against your body.

You practically whimpered as you looked down at them, one hand massaging her gently, Wanda whimpering softly as you did.

“You like them?” she cooed from beneath you, watching with rapt attention as your eyes looked down at her chest. She arched her back up and pushed herself into your palm, your hand full of her soft breast, her nipple stiffening under your contact.

After responding with a useless, distracted noise, Wanda cradled the back of your head with her hand and brought you down to her neck, where you sucked gently at her collarbone first before travelling up to her jawline.

Her pleasured sighs made you ache once more between your thighs, and you could feel Wanda begin to roll her hips up against you. Her leg wrapped around your hips and she pulled you closer.

Instead, you repositioned yourself to slide a thigh between her legs, making contact with her clothed core. Wanda immediately began rolling herself down against you, whiny moans coming from her. You bent your thigh forward, applying further pressure to her clit.

Her eyebrows furrowed together at the sudden attention, and she opened her eyes to look for where the strap was placed. “Please, now,” she begged.

Wanda eagerly took her pants and underwear off as you stepped off the bed and stepped into the harness. She swallowed at the sight of you, and she laid back down, her legs spread for you and her hands gripping onto the blankets, feeling a hummingbirds’ heart thrumming in her chest.

It had been a while since Wanda last had sex.

She was more heartbroken over Agatha than she preferred to let on; for her, it had been a short fling on a break, while Wanda had sincerely liked her and enjoyed the intimacy. When she discussed it with you the time you came over to her place, it had been the first time she thought about it without feeling inadequate for serving as some temporary fling.

It wasn’t just that it had been a while that made her feel a thrum of both excitement and nerves, but also that she couldn’t remember the last time she felt so attached to someone she was about to sleep with. She wanted to do well for you, and she wanted you to feel a connection with her.

You coated the strap with lube before setting it down on the nightstand and meeting her warm pussy with your fingers.

A small whine escaped Wanda at the contact.

You looked up at her.

“Are you feeling nervous?” you asked.

She nodded.

You lowered yourself over her, your fingers still rubbing softly against her warm folds. She made little noises, gripping into the sheets.

“We don’t have to,” you told her, removing your fingers. “It’s okay if you’d like to go to bed, if you would rather that.”

Wanda shook her head adamantly and placed her hands on your sides, pulling you against her.

“I want you,” she assured.

Then, when she felt like she might go silent again like she normally did when she wasn’t sure what to say, she confessed, “I want you to feel connected to me, and… I don’t want you to be bored of me. After this.”

“Wh…” You lifted yourself up, your weight shifting onto your hand by her head to get a better view of her. “Why would I feel bored of you?”

“I want to spend time with you. I still want to see you even if you ever leave the committee, and even after the holidays when we both get busy. Sometimes, I still can’t tell if you like to see me just because you’re free over the holidays,” she explained.

She added quietly, “I don’t want you to… leave me for someone you like more.”

You completely sat up, leaning back against your heels. Wanda sat up a little against your pillows and headboard.

You took her hand. “No, Wanda, I really, really like you. Outside of the committee, and outside of… of the holidays.“

That made Wanda giggle a little, her hand brought up to her mouth. She felt her stomach filled with butterflies at the direct confession.

“You really like me, Y/N?”

With a poorly-repressed grin, you climbed on top of her again and added a little more lube to yourself, your hand wrapped around your strap. “I like you so much, Wanda,” you whispered against her temple.

You heard another giggle from her before you delved into her neck, your fingers drawing circles against her core. You entered and exited her shallowly, steadily pushing yourself further into her with one finger with every gentle entry. The length of your finger slid against her clit with every stroke.

“Tell me when,” you said, speaking against her neck, curling your finger slightly with every slow entry, trying to see if you could gauge the speed she liked.

“I want you now,” she sighed, her hand moving down to find your harness, pulling you against her hips. She let out a desperate whimper when your strap grazed against her core.

Wanda liked it in the same way she liked kissing you. Your speed was steady, and she took your entire length with her legs wrapped around your waist, pulling you in so you met her skin with an echoing slap. Then she loosened the tension so you could pull back, before pulling you back in, lifting her hips slightly so she could meet you with the intensity she wanted.

The speed allowed for her moans to be low and genuine, communicating what she couldn’t with words in little noises and sighs.

You reached over her head to grip the headboard so you could meet her hips without the pressure of her legs. Wanda whined loudly, reaching up to wrap her hand around your bicep as she arched her back up against you.

She whimpered your name, her thighs squeezing against your hips.

“Y-Yes, like that,” she panted. “Ah, Y/N, I’m…”

“Fuck, you take me so well, Wanda,” you encouraged.

Wanda whimpered at your praise and she came not a moment after, crying out into your shoulder, her hand squeezing your bicep when your hips met hers with a slightly more forceful impact as she reached her peak.

Her thighs loosened from around your hips and she groaned, breathing out with a huff. Her hand remained gripping your bicep loosely.

Wanda caught her breath while you laid beside her, rubbing her hip. You kissed her face gently and then the top of her head, and played with her hair.

“Do you want water?” you asked her.

“Please,” she replied, opening her eyes and looking at you with a little smile.

A few moments later you came back with a glass of water, handing it to her after she sat up. “Thank you,” she said, shuffling closer to you as you drank from your own.

After she set it down, she looked at you with a smile, as if expectantly.

You exhaled a laugh into your glass then set it down, wiping the water that had splashed onto your cheek. “What?”

After some giggling in which Wanda bashfully asked to go again, the two of you switched positions.

Wanda turned onto all fours and you held onto her hips, positioning yourself against her opening. She pushed herself back slightly, and you watched as her opening hugged your tip. She let out a soft whimper.

Everywhere you touched Wanda, your bare skin brushed against hers. When you looked at her, you could see every form her naked body took, how it curved and bent and folded. Her skin was cool to the touch and easily warmed.

The bed squeaked beneath the two of you in tandem with your hips meeting her ass in rhythmic slaps, and it didn’t take Wanda long to lower herself, unable to hold herself up. She laid on top of your pillows, moaning out as you kept the steady pace she liked.

You sped up slightly and Wanda whined into your pillow.

“Do you like it when I do that?”

“Nngh, s-so good,” she groaned. She slipped her hand beneath her torso and massaged her breast.

You reached forward and wrapped a hand around the side of her waist to hold her in place. Your other hand moved her hand out of the way, and you groped her breast before flicking at her hardened nipple.

Wanda held onto your wrist, her body jerking forward with each one of your thrusts. The headboard hit lightly against the wall in the same tempo as Wanda’s tiny whimpers, muffled by your blankets.

With this position, it was far easier to thrust against her with a little more intensity, although with the same speed.

“Is this too rough?” you asked.

“A little…”

You let go of her breast and placed both hands on her hips, slowly lowering her so she was mostly laying flat. Her back was arched enough so that she was angled up against you, her ass slotting against the curve of hips.

This way, your range of motion was centered closer to her body.

“Is this better?” you asked, speaking softly now that your torso was entirely against her back.

She nodded, reaching back for your hand. You let go of your hip and interlaced your hands with hers, holding it above her head, her other gripping at the bed sheets.

“Faster…” she muttered against your pillows.

You sped up, your hips meeting her ass eagerly, egged on by listening to her moans so close to your ear.

From behind, you buried your face in her neck, kissing and suckling gently at the soft skin. You bit down lightly on her shoulder to see how she would react, and you were rewarded with a whiny moan and a squeeze of your hand.

“Pull my hair,” she told you.

You let go of her breast and took a handful of her hair, pulling it back, her noises now unmuffled from your pillows. Her hair was so soft. You were sure not to lose your grip.

“Wanda, you’re doing so good,” you whispered. “You sound so fucking hot.”

She whimpered, squeezing her eyes shut.

“Mmm, Y/N…” She turned her head and met your eyes. “Am I being a good girl?”

Your mouth went dry and you felt like you were melting on top of her. Then you realized it made an incredible amount of sense that Wanda would be into being praised.

With the way she was underneath your body, her hand squeezing around yours, and her hair tightened in your other, the blissed out look Wanda gave you through her hooded eyes made you completely speechless.

You leaned in and kissed her, and Wanda immediately parted her lips. The kiss was messy for how often the two of you had to part to take breaths and exhale, panting into each other’s open months, tongues swirling around each other, grazing against smooth teeth, teasing at swollen lips.

“That’s right, my good girl. Take it just like that,” you grunted softly. “You deserve this, Wanda. You’ve been so good… Working so hard.”

Wanda whimpered, feeling even a little emotional at your words. Her lips were parted and her tongue was stuck out slightly, waiting for you as you spoke against her lips, her breath hot.

You tightened your hand around her hair. “You look so pretty taking it, princess. You make me feel so good when you sound like that.”

“I’m gonna come,” she whimpered.

You maintained your speed so you could ensure she took you in deeply, taking your entire length each time, burying yourself inside of her. Wanda cried out at the depth, throwing her head back further and allowing you to readjust her grip on her hair.

In broken noises, she whined, “Aa-ah, I’m coming, I’m com-”

Wanda’s words were interrupted as a long, loud cry left her parted lips, she let go of your hand, reaching up and helplessly grasping against your headboard, fingers pressing into the solid surface as she came.

When she came down, her hand slipped from it, and you let go of her hair carefully, letting her catch her breath as you slowly pulled out of her.

You unfastened the strap from around your hips, setting it to some corner of your bed before laying down beside Wanda’s panting, tired body. Her eyes were closed, her lips slightly parted. Her hair was a mess where you had been pulling it, and her body trembled with the post-tremors of her orgasm.

Your arm wrapped around her waist and Wanda immediately shifted, lifting herself up so she could bury herself against your front. Her arm wrapped around your torso, and she laid her head on the bicep of your other arm.

She breathed out deeply, and you felt her entire body loosen and relax in your arms.

When you pressed a kiss to her forehead, you saw the glimpse of her flustered smile before she buried her face in your chest. “You’re so gentle, Y/N,” she whispered. “That felt so good…”

“How couldn’t I be gentle with you?”

You unwrapped your arm from her waist and combed your fingers through her hair, smoothing it out and fanning it out against your pillows.

“Can I sleep here with you?” she asked, looking up from your chest.

You smiled down at her, and her eyes darted down to your lips, smiling a little in response when she picked up that you thought her question was a little funny. But you couldn’t even poke fun at her. She just looked so small in your arms, looking up and asking to sleep beside you.

“Of course. I want you to stay here with me,” you answered, moving your hand from her hair to cup her cheek. “I’ll get us some new pajamas.”

“Okay,” she answered, beaming up at you and asking for a little kiss before you went to dig through your wardrobe.

A few days later, you and Wanda decided to go to the Christmas Eve event downtown. It was both of your first times there, and Wanda felt rather nervous to go. You had no idea she thought so frequently about how others thought about her; you knew she was insecure about how she behaved, but not regarding how others viewed her.

She told you that she had considered attending many times before, but worried that people would see her attending and think she shouldn’t be there, and so she figured she ought to just do what was expected of her.

She was still rather nervous as she attended with you, but your presence reassured her in the first few minutes you were there. After a few minutes, Wanda became easily amused and was quickly beginning to have a lot of fun. She mentioned all the planning that had come up behind the scenes at things you passed together, and you couldn’t help but smile at how excited she was getting.

You had both said that you didn’t want to be too open about seeing each other right away, so in case the two of you might be seen by other committee members, you agreed on keeping intimate physical contact to a minimum while you were out. It was Wanda who had the hardest time remembering that.

Sometimes you couldn’t help but wrap your arm around her when she got excited — she was too cute. She took a bunch of photos with you, and you took many of her on her own. You took dozens of photos of her while she wasn’t looking too; she looked like a kid experiencing Christmas for the first time.

Because you had convinced her to come, she paid for your hot chocolates and macaroni and cheese. But you paid for the churros and dulce de leche dip, because you were far more interested in trying it than she was.

The two of you stayed for a few of the performances, because Wanda hadn’t ever actually seen any of the bands they partnered with play. The two of you sat with your hot chocolates, Wanda holding the mac and cheese while you held the long churro stick.

“They’re so good, Y/N…!” Wanda whispered to you excitedly.

You laughed, and Wanda continued to look onwards with rapt attention.

As you were leaving, the two of you passed Mrs Davis, who had forgotten her mittens at home and decided to walk over to get them and come back to the event since she lived in very close walking distance. She called your name first, and you felt Wanda’s arm brush against yours, seemingly having stepped closer to you.

“Y/N, you made it!” she greeted cheerily, holding her arms out excitedly. Then upon seeing Wanda, her eyes darted between the two of you, trying to see if she could read the kind of outing this was. But a large and warm smile remained on her sweet face all the same.

“It’s so good to finally see you at one of these events, Wanda,” she said.

Wanda nodded, smiling a bit shakily, not that Mrs Davis noticed. “I thought it was high time I finally attended,” she said.

Share personal information, she recalled from what she read online.

She added, “And Y/N offered to come with me since I didn’t want to come alone.”

“Oh, it’s so nice to see you out during the holidays, Wanda, I always wondered how you were the head of the committee, but were never able to enjoy the hot chocolate vendors you helped us find!” Mrs Davis laughed, and Wanda found herself genuinely smiling, pleasantly surprised by how much she’d been thought of.

“The hot chocolate was amazing,” Wanda conceded with a shy smile.

A voice called from behind the two of you, presumably Mrs Davis’ husband, for she waved back and quickly said her goodbyes as she said she needed to run.

“So, so happy to see both of you,” she said with a beaming smile. “Merry Christmas!”

Wanda waved goodbye, watching the older woman walk away before you both headed back to her car together. When you looked at Wanda, she had a little trace of a smile on her face, and after a moment, she held your hand, not saying anything.

You sat in Wanda’s living room going through the photos you took together, having stopped by a restaurant to pick up some dinner. She was laughing at them, asking you to send all of them to her, and recalling everything you did that night together with great excitement.

She cuddled close to you as she watched you send her the photos.

“I’m so happy we went,” she said, her cheek laying against your warm sweater.

You brought your hand up to her head, combing through her hair and massaging your fingers against her scalp. You watched as her eyes closed, listened to her breathing softly as you touched her gently.

After some silent moments, you asked, “Would you like to come to my place for Christmas?”

Wanda opened her eyes and looked up at you. “But you’re hosting your family.”

You and Wanda had only been together for a few days, and by tomorrow, Christmas Day, you still wouldn’t have been together for even a full week.

“I know, but… Wanda, I don’t want you to be celebrating Christmas alone at all. I want to spend it with you, and I want you to be there.”

She sat up, her hand still resting on your knee.

“But I’ll be meeting your family, right?”

You knew that family was a bit of a sensitive topic for Wanda. You didn’t want her to feel upset while she was there, and you didn’t want her to feel uncomfortable, or like she didn’t fit in. But unbeknownst to you, that wasn’t what Wanda was thinking about at all.

“You… will. Yes. But I promise they’re really nice, and they’ll really like you,” you tried to explain, hoping you weren’t turning her away from spending the holiday with you.

“But, I mean…” Wanda trailed off, trying to find a way to word her thoughts. “You’re introducing me to them as… What?”

The moment a weight was taken from your shoulders at the concern that Wanda would be too nervous to spend Christmas with any family, another one was added in which you and Wanda would have to think about how you wanted to see your relationship.

Wanda felt a bit of panic rise in her at what seemed to her as hesitancy. Didn’t you want to be with her? Were you feeling ashamed of being with her? Or even worse, were there some things about having a family that she just couldn’t understand? Was she fated to never fit in amongst people you loved?

You also felt nervous to approach the topic. Introducing her as your girlfriend felt like forcefully jutting her into your family dynamic. You wanted to show her that you listened to the stories you told about her family, and that you didn’t want to change how she was in order to enjoy Christmas with you.

“We can…” you started, going nowhere. “Maybe I can… If you want… introduce you as my girlfriend.”

Wanda felt her heart flutter and her fingers tightened around your knee. You took that as a sign of tension.

“But that’s totally okay if that’s not at all what you want. I understand. Listen, we can try, just for Christmas, and if you hate it, we don’t have to do it again.”

Then Wanda became confused, pulling back. “What do you mean? You’ll break up with me after Christmas?”

“What? What do you mean ‘breaking up?’”

“Isn’t that what you’re doing right now? Asking me out so you can introduce me as your girlfriend?”

“I-I mean… Yes, maybe. I’m actually… I’m not really sure what I’m doing.” You frowned just a little, looking helpless. “I’m a little confused.”

She exhaled a little, feeling relief that at the very least she wasn’t the only one.

After regaining some of your confidence, you worded yourself carefully, and honestly. “I just don’t want to make you feel uncomfortable being around my family. I don’t want this to be something that divides us.”

“Me neither,” she replied. She moved closer to you again. “I want to fit in with your family.”

“Wh… Really?”

Wanda nodded. “Of course,” she replied sincerely. “I want to be able to fit into your life. I want to take this seriously.”

Then after a moment, she asked quietly, “Do… you take this seriously?”

“Yes! Yes, I do,” you quickly answered, taking her hands. “I just thought that you’d feel uncomfortable being around my family for the holidays, and I didn’t want to force you to have a role with them by introducing you as my girlfriend.”

“Oh,” Wanda breathed out, understanding where the misunderstanding had come from. “But what about what you said about breaking up after Christmas?”

You let go of her hand to scratch the back of your neck awkwardly. “That… Well…” you trailed off, and Wanda squeezed your hand supportively. “Well, are we dating? Right now?”

Not even Wanda really knew, and she was the one who was most outwardly adamant about wanting to be serious with you.

“I want to be your girlfriend, Y/N,” Wanda said.

Your cheeks warmed and you felt your chest flutter with the idea of Wanda calling herself your girlfriend, and the idea that you were dating her.

“Okay,” you replied with a little smile, and Wanda smiled shyly when you squeezed her hand. “Then… Will you be my girlfriend? Can we go out?”

Wanda couldn't help but giggle, both at the ridiculousness of the confusing conversation, and at the feeling of being asked to be your girlfriend.

“Oh, you’re making fun of me now?” you teased, only making Wanda laugh harder. She tried to pull her hand away from you to compose herself, but you didn’t let her.

You pulled her on top of you as she laughed. Your hands held her at her waist and you kissed her neck and shoulder. Then you laid your head back, watching with a smile as she came down from her laughter.

She brushed her hair back and looked down at you.

“Yes, we can go out,” she finally replied, pushing your hair back from her forehead with a delicate smile on her face.

It wasn’t until after Wanda started dating you that she realized she was a little bad with words. It wasn’t only lacking the confidence to say things that made her bad at it, but also her struggles with wording things. But you somehow always understood her when she tried her best to explain, pulling together scraps of a cohesive explanation.

You understood when she tried to explain how happy she was that she was your girlfriend, and you were hers only. Largely, you understood everything she tried to tell you, even when she thought she made absolutely no sense.

It made her much more confident in speaking with others, and in sharing what she thought and felt in a sincere way, and not because she read a tip online saying that she should.

You spoke with her over the phone as you ran the last few errands for Christmas dinner, and Wanda was preparing the dish she was going to bring. She asked things like what she should wear and if they’d like the dish she chose, and even things like conversation starters your family would like.

To the last question, you honestly had no clue, and told her no one had ever asked you that before. It kind of made you laugh, which made Wanda laugh and realize she was overthinking.

After you hung up, Wanda called her parents like she did every Christmas Day. This time, she was able to tell them that she was going to attend something later.

Pietro, unlike her parents, for they didn’t understand the significance of what their daughter was trying to tell them, was thrilled for her. Though she wasn’t sure if he would actually hold up his end of the bargain, he communicated that he really hoped to see her for Christmas next year.

She sent him the pictures of the Christmas Eve event she went to with you, and she promised to send pictures later that night too.

Pietro was always very supportive of Wanda’s interests, and he said he truly couldn’t remember the last time she was so excited about anything. She hadn’t realized she was so excited about the dinner.

He corrected her, saying that she seemed far more excited about dating you.

Wanda knocked at your door, holding her own attempt at the salmon bake she believed you mastered the first time you cooked it last week. She heard the sounds of your family already inside and she felt her chest flutter with both nerves and excitement.

She thought of Mrs Davis, and how excited she had been to see her.

She thought of everything you’d told her, and how you’d wanted to know more about her when she thought she’d treated you horribly, and how you didn’t think she treated you horribly at all.

Maybe she wasn’t so bad at all the things she thought she was. In any case, you still liked her. Though she didn’t think she’d ever get used to that.

You opened the front door, quickly ushering Wanda in. You took the dish from her as she took her shoes and jacket off.

“Merry Christmas, Wanda,” you said softly, leaning in and giving her a kiss.

Wanda beamed at you.

“Merry Christmas, Y/N.”

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wwandaslover · 7 months ago

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i love reader. idc if she’s a bimbo or a crybaby or a little unhinged. good for her tbh. i love her in all shapes and forms. she is barbie. she is a doctor and a student and a barista and she can take five dicks at the same time. what a beautiful world we live in.

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wwandaslover · 9 months ago

Text

Oh my goodness gracious god almighty

malevolent ࿏ wm

summary: in which moving into a new house brings you horrors you never imagined.

words: 7.6k

warnings: forced breeding, strap-on, dubcon/noncon, demonic, horror, gore, top!wanda, evilmommydemoncockwanda4life

this is dark!fic for 18+ only. minors dni. read with discretion.

The day was cold and bleak. The air had a frostiness to it that manifested in a sheen of white over the long-dead grass that had yellowed at the passing of autumn. The leaves scattered around were no longer vibrant reds and oranges but rather dulled browns. The trees were barren—dark, crooked cracks in the grey skyline. You noticed a pack of buzzards eating at roadkill.

Death.

Christmas was just around the corner but, unlike everywhere else in the country, this town seemed to not be celebrating much. You’d noticed that the very first time you drove through—this sort of head-down feeling about the place that differed so much from what it looked like. The town itself was charming and cutesy with so many little shops and beautiful gathering spaces. It was colorful, too. But something about it seemed greyed, like a ghost town almost except the people were still there. They didn’t talk much, especially not to outsiders apparently. They only whispered to each other with concerned faces and low voices, like they were afraid something lingering around in the air would hear them. They held their children very close to them.

So it wasn’t exactly the neighborliness of Westview that attracted you to move there. The town felt like something very dark had happened in a place that otherwise was a great place to live.

To be quite honest, the housing market in that town had taken a sudden dip down in the past couple months. You didn’t understand the housing market and thought maybe people just didn’t like to buy houses in the winter, but there were a few neighborhood roads that had recent For Sale signs up in every yard. It’s like people were evacuating the town. Running from something.

There was a specific house, actually, that had taken a steep dip down in price. It was put up for sale a couple months ago for a shockingly low price. You were stunned when you found out there were no bids, no one who had showed interest since it’d been put up. It was a beautiful house, a perfect family home. Not that you had any family to put in it. It was just you, but you liked space.

And for a price that cheap? In a quiet town away from the city? You couldn’t pass up on it. You were anxious, anyways, to have somewhere to yourself. Crashing on your friend’s couch wasn’t exactly the most glamorous post-breakup living arrangements, but the apartment lease was in your ex’s name.

Now you stood, on this dreadful day, in front of that house. You couldn’t help but feel like the windows were eyes staring at you, measuring you the way you were measuring it. Evaluating, judging. Maybe your confidence was just shot from all you’d been through the past few months. You had a house now. It was time to make it into a home.

It didn’t so much seem like the dark energy of town had made its way into your house, but rather that the house was some sort of energy field pushing it out into the town. This was a strong assumption to make, but as soon as you walked into the front door, you could feel it. The air was thick with something more than just the dust of time. It was still. So still. You could feel the still air on your face like a thick cloud of smoke that wasn’t there. It was energy brimming all around you. It made your stomach turn.

You couldn’t lie and say that you didn’t feel this eerie energy when you viewed the house. You felt it from the very beginning, but you just needed somewhere, and this house was the only one in your budget.

Cursed, is what the local kids called it. It was cursed because of the family who lived there. When you questioned your real estate agent about it, she sort of brushed it off and said that they just disappeared, that whatever happened to them, happened outside of this home.

You were reluctant to believe that story, but you were a skeptic anyways. If a young family had been axe murdered here or something, it was still just wood and brick to you.

The first few days in the house were busy. The moving company was taking all your stuff from your ex’s apartment and moving it into your house, which meant you had to deal with her calling you and screaming that she definitely bought that chair even though you distinctly remembered ordering it for the living room. You hated having to speak with her, with all her narcissistic tendencies. As much as you mourned the relationship, you mourned how stupid you were for ever putting up with so much for so long.

The house apparently was built in the 50’s and hadn’t been touched since besides the usual renovations every decade or so, which you enjoyed. Older houses had so much more character, like the adorable little partition window between the living room and the kitchen. You opened and closed the little shutters, imagining what 50’s housewife used this for so many years.

So you didn’t have much time to dwell on that eerie energy in the house while the movers brought everything in, until they left. And it was just you and those walls.

Luckily you could focus on unpacking all the boxes stacked around. You did so dutifully, and since you really had nothing else to do, you finished pretty quickly. By the next day you were untaping the last box which was full of random childhood artifacts. Trying to think of where you could put these things that you wanted to keep but didn’t really want just lying around, you suddenly realized that this house had an attic. The agent had vaguely pointed to it previously but you had never went up there.

Going upstairs, you opened the attic ladder and carefully climbed up the rickety thing, instantly inhaling thick layers of dust as your head entered the dark attic. To your surprise, you saw a few boxes lying around.

“Huh,” you murmured with interest as you swatted away cobwebs, the floor dangerously creaking beneath you as you approached the boxes. Whoever took the previously family’s stuff out of the house must have forgotten about the attic, which you found strange. Were they in that much of a hurry to get in and out?

Crouching down, you wiped the thick layer of dust off the box. How much dust could have accumulated in a matter of months?

None of the boxes were taped, only folded shut. Was it wrong of you to look through their stuff, especially since they were basically considered dead? To be fair, the house was yours now, and you needed to put some stuff up here. So you opened the box and looked inside.

This one was full of different colors of fabric. A red fabric crown of some sort, green tights, a blue headband, a can of silver spray paint for hair. Halloween costumes? All of superhero-esque kind?

Opening another box, this time you find some sort of fake lobster. A doorknocker? There’s some baby stuff in there too—a book about the psychological effects of pregnancy, a crib mobile made of butterflies. You go through all this stuff, the usual family keepsakes that the mother was too sentimental to throw away, until you suddenly come across something starkly different.

A book, but a different kind of book. It’s at the bottom of the box, and it’s heavy. The front is dark and somewhat torn with strange inscriptions on it. Heaving it out of the box, it falls into your lap with a cloud of black dust. What the hell did a family have to do with this? It looked more like a Halloween decoration than anything.

Mindlessly flipping it open, you saw that the pages were full of language you did not understand. Markings, almost, like hieroglyphics. Symbols. You come across a page that has the only recognizable thing you see—the figure of a woman, hair flowing, seeming to levitate on the page. This page is much darker than the rest, and the corners more torn. Like whoever read this book always seemed to seek out this specific page.

A sudden popping noise that sounded like weight on a floorboard startled you, made the book fall (it felt more like it leaped) out of your hands. You turned around to see nothing but the dark empty attic.

It was much too creepy up there.

Leaving your box of childhood memories up there and deciding to swap it out for this strange dark book, you carefully climbed back down the ladder and closed it.

The air felt thicker than ever now. Vibrating. Like it had just woken up.

࿏

You were mostly settled. Things still felt weird in the house, even after you put up every decoration you owned, but you figured it would go away with time. You’d been living off takeout the whole two weeks, hence the pile of Chinese takeout boxes in the corner of the kitchen. Deciding to go shopping to have some real food in the house, you pulled on your jacket and stepped out into the bitingly cold air. There was even a harsh wind, too, that made your nose hurt. Hugging yourself, you walked down your driveway and noticed a woman standing in the yard of the house next to yours. It was one of the few houses still lived in on the street, and you hadn’t even seen your new neighbor until now.

It was a middle-aged woman checking her mailbox. You struggled internally to decide if you should say hi or not, knowing that being all alone in a strange town was probably not the best idea, but something told you to just keep walking. You almost made it to your car until suddenly you could see her head snap towards you out of the corner of your eye. Instinctively, you froze, looking across the yard at her and seeing that she squinted her eyes suspiciously at you.

“H-hello,” you weakly greeted, shivering from the cold.

“Who are you?” the woman called out loudly, turning her body fully towards you now as if she was braced to defend herself. Great, a crazy neighbor.

“I’m y/n. I just moved in.” You tried to give a smile as you pointed to the house.

Looking between you and the house, the woman hesitated before walking towards you. Wishing you’d just ran to your car and left, you tried to be polite as she approached you.

“It’s nice to meet you,” she said gruffly, sticking out her hand which shook yours rather aggressively. You noticed now something neon green on her hip—a watergun? “Detective Agnes. I work for the FBI. I’m working on a murder case here.” She pulled out a black wallet and flipped it open towards you. You knew that there was supposed to be a gold FBI badge there, but it was only a CostCo membership card for someone named Ralph.

“Oh,” you mumbled as she sighed officially and put her “badge” back in her pocket. She was also wearing a purple shirt with a picture of Dolly Parton and the word “Jolene” on it. Who the hell was this woman?

“Better be careful, newbie,” she said, pointing to your house. “The kids love to egg this house. Don’t worry though, I’ve got top of the line security system.” She nodded proudly and pointed to the roof of her house, which you noticed had one solitary print-only Polaroid camera haphazardly duct taped to it.

“Oh,” was all you could say again, feeling the intense urge to run away.

“Unfortunately the department frowns on tasering the little shits even though it’s what those punks need to set them straight,” she said, stretching and tapping on the other side of her hip, which had a toy car on it that she apparently thought was a taser.

Nodding slowly, you started backing away to your car. “Okay, well, it’s nice to meet you.”

“You, too, young lady. Be safe out here. It’s a crime-ridden place.” She dramatically looked around the nice, quiet neighborhood as if she was looking at Gotham City and went back to her mailbox. You got in your car and sped away.

Westview only had a tiny market in town. It was liminal with its old linoleum floors and flickering green LED lights that buzzed overhead. It smelled slightly of rotting meat. You wondered if you could steal Detective Agnes’ fake CostCo card.

It was deserted in there, too, besides the drunk clerk with a scruffy beard who stared blankly at you. This was the point where you started to realize the citizens here did not take well to new people.

In fact, you had noticed the only other shopper in there seemed to be following you around. You didn’t feel in danger, given that it was just an older lady in a sweater buying fig newtons, until suddenly she came out from the other aisle and slammed her cart into yours.

“Hey!” you yelled out, looking at the older lady with short blonde hair.

“Get out while you still can!” she whisper-yelled, her eyes pleading. “You’re going to die!”

“Excuse me?”

“Run! Get out of that house, get out of this town! Wanda! She’s going to kill you! She’s going to kill us all!”

She was screaming now, eyes tearing up, knuckles turning white as she gripped her cart. You stared at her, wondering if you should call the police, until suddenly her face changed into a pleasant one.

“Ope! Sorry, dear! These carts have a mind of their own!” She let out a cheery little cackle before wheeling her cart away, going down the aisle to look at the Pop Tarts.

You stood there dumbfounded for a moment before deciding to just leave and go to Eastview for your shopping needs.

࿏

Your ex thought you weren’t worth much, but you knew she had to miss your cooking. Cooking was an art to you, a hobby you enjoyed sharpening your skills in. Tonight, since you’d been living off of leftover orange chicken for days, you were making a nice ribeye with lemon green beans and garlic mashed potatoes. A comfort meal. Maybe it would cheer up the angst-imbued house.

The interaction with your neighbors, specifically with the lady at the market, was unsettling. Why was she telling you to get out of that house? Who the hell was Wanda and why was she going to kill everybody? Was everyone in that town cracked out or out of their mind?

It was a little cozier, admittedly, as you were cooking that night. The kitchen had plenty of space for all your cooking tools and equipment, which you had a lot of. They were precious to you, so you had spent almost an entire day arranging them in all the drawers and cabinets.

You limited the lighting in the kitchen to the oven range and the little lamp in the living room. Setting your phone up, you let classical music fill the air as you prepped your steak while your potatoes finished boiling.

You felt calm and at home for the first time in a long time.

Until you started hearing a strange clicking noise.

Your first instinct was to check the oven since this was your first time using it. The clicking was not coming from there. You listened all around in the kitchen until you realized it was coming from the living room. Looking through the partition, you saw that the floor lamp on the other side of the living room was flickering.

Your pot of potatoes steaming and boiling, your steak left on the counter, you emanated through the flip door into the living room. You had just put a bulb in that lamp—no way it was dying already.

The closer you got to the lamp, the more it flickered. Faster and faster, causing your stomach to fold into anxious knots, until finally you lunged and turned it off all together. The room dark now, you caught your breath that you didn’t even notice was quickened.

You reached and turned it back on to find that it was no longer flickering. It must have been a weird glitch with the bulb. You were about to turn away when it suddenly clicked off by itself.

“What the fuck?” you say, reaching to turn it back on when it clicked right back on by itself. Taking a step away as fear imbued you, your eyes widened when the bulb in the lamp started getting brighter.

“What the fuck?” you say again, reaching to turn it off only to find that the bulb was so hot it burned your fingers. “Ow!” Stepping away, you watched in horror as the bulb kept getting brighter and brighter, filling up the entire room with light so that every corner and shadow was lit. You could see everything. And then it got so bright that you couldn’t see well. Your eyes burned, your skin burned with the heat of the bulb. The lamp was shaking where it stood, the fabric of the lampshade starting to burn up to expose the hot bulb even more. Even the metal pole was starting to melt where the bulb sat on it. You could hear the classical music playing from your phone in the kitchen, except that it was frenzied, angered, violent now.

It got brighter and brighter until your face was red hot and your hair felt like it was about to catch fire and all you could see was bright hot white, and you screamed a silent scream “STOP!”

With a loud electrical popping noise, the bright white faded away. You were blinded now, everything pitch dark, the heat replaced with a sudden coolness as the bulb popped and sparked on the lamp where the shade had half melted off. When you could finally see again, you unplugged the lamp and stepped away from it.

“What the fuck?” you said for the third time this night, heart beating fast as you rubbed your hot, aching eyes as your vision came back to you.

Before you could even process what had happened with the lamp, you looked over at the partition window and froze. Your heart stopped in your chest. Every hair on your arm stood up. Your eyes instantly watered with fear.

As you stood across the living room, staring through the partition window into the kitchen, you saw that every single cabinet and drawer in the kitchen was fully opened. All of your cooking tools, all the utensils and knives and equipment, hung suspended in the air right above or in front of the drawer or cabinet you had them in. It was like they were all on strings. And where your dining table was, all 3 chairs were hung upside down in the air above the table.

The air felt alive now. So alive you could feel its heartbeat, feel its breath down your neck, feel it on your skin. It was watching you, taunting you, burning eyes into you. There was something else there with you as you stared at all your kitchen stuff hanging in the air by themselves like they were on pulleys. But they were all so still. Nothing swayed or trembled.

A sigh breezed against the back of your neck. And then everything fell.

All of it dropped, every tool and utensil, every chair. It dropped like dead weight from where it hung, like gravity had suddenly been turned back on. It was deafeningly loud, all the metal tools clanging against the hard tile floor and countertops. Even your boiling pot of potatoes went down with a loud splash of steaming water. It was a deafening clatter, pure chaos as all of your stuff went right down to the floor. Even the chairs cracked onto the ground as they dropped heavily.

Things rolled and trembled until finally it all came to a stop. The air no longer felt as thick, but it was still there. It was silent now except for the eerie classical music still playing from your phone, calmly now.

You didn’t know what to do, or think, or feel. You felt fear. You felt confusion. Fingers trembling, you took frightened steps forward towards the kitchen, unsure of what lied in wait for you in there. Flipping open the door, you expected something to get you. You could feel it, you swore. Watching you. You swore you saw something dark swoop down under the surface of the island counter, but nothing was there. It was just you and all your broken tools and chairs. You avoided stepping on the mushed potatoes that still steamed as you walked through the warzone.

On the counter, your steak laid where you left it. Except that it was bleeding now, covered in thick, black blood that oozed out of it. It dripped down the counter, covered your floor. The center of the steak seemed to throb. Too much blood for just a ribeye, and when you touched it, it was warm.

࿏

Not that you had anyone to tell, but you didn’t speak of what happened. Dumbfounded, you numbly cleaned the mess up and went to bed. After the steak, you couldn’t eat beef for a week.

The house felt different now. Still eerie and angsty, but not as devoid as it did at first. Whatever devoid feeling had been filled the day you went into the attic was angered since the day in the kitchen. It felt like the house was resentful, like it was going to snap at any moment and swallow you. Even the doors kept slamming on your fingers when you tried to close them.

You thought about the lady in the market. Couldn’t stop thinking about her. Something very bad had happened in that house.

“Wanda?” Detective Agnes repeated when you asked her about it. You saw her in her backyard, duct taping another Polaroid camera to her patio. You spoke to her over the fence. It was gnawing at you to know what had happened. “Where did you hear that name?” she asked gruffly, perking up and approaching you at the fence, causing you to take a few steps back.

“Some lady at the store,” you blurted. “She was saying something about a Wanda, like it had to do with my house.”

Agnes squinted her eyes at you, and then she suddenly perked up as if she was listening to something. She grabbed a nearly all-brown banana from her hip and put it up to her mouth like a walkie talkie, speaking in a deep voice. “312 on the move. Dealing with concerned civilian. Be there at 1600 hours.” She tucked the banana back into her belt. “You wanna know about Wanda?”

You nodded, wondering if you should even trust what she has to say.

Agnes sucked at her lip and then blurted, “She’s dead. But you didn’t get that from me.”

“I kind of figured… Did she live here?”

Agnes tilted her head. “And what do you plan on doing with that information, huh? You trying to blackmail a federal officer?”

You raised your hands and backed away. “Look lady, I just live here and want to know why everyone is being so weird about the house I just bought.”

“Look,” Agnes interrupted you, “Wanda Maximoff was found dead in the woods. She’s gone, deadso, totally corpsed out, alright? I’ve got her on an operating table over at the morgue if you don’t believe me.”

You shook your head. “But she lived in my house?”

Then Agnes did something weird. She spoke, “I don’t know.” But she nodded her head.

You looked at her in confusion. “What?”

“I said, I don’t know!” she yelled, but she nodded her head again. The expression on her face was angry, but there was something wrong with her eyes. They were almost… pleading. But like she didn’t realize it.

That conversation didn’t make you feel any better about the situation. And when you got home to find that the old book you’d brought down from the attic was sitting on the coffee table open like something had been reading it, you weren’t exactly comforted.

It was turned to that same page, the one with the figure of a woman wearing a crown. Feeling aggravated with the lack of knowledge you were getting from both the internet and your neighbor, you slammed it shut and threw it under the couch, out of sight. If there was something in this house fucking with you, you would not just lay down and take it.

Things continued to feel off in the house. Your TV kept going off and on at random times. Doors slamming, footsteps in the hall at night, knocking on the walls. None of it felt as aggressive as that night in the kitchen, though. You’d come to terms that you had picked a slightly haunted house, though you still didn’t truly believe in all that stuff. But as a logical, sensible person, you knew that there was something strange causing all these strange occurrences that couldn’t be overlooked.

But when all the little events were mostly docile and didn’t get in the way of your usual living, you just carried on. You wouldn’t forgive what happened that night in the kitchen, but you could live with it and try to forget it. Even though you had to buy so much new kitchen stuff.

That was until you were cleaning one day and picked up that old dark book from under the couch so that you could vacuum. You set it on the coffee table and kept on cleaning, forgetting to put it back in its place of hiding.

That night, with a clean house, you decided to take a nice relaxing bath. You lit candles all around the bathroom and turned off the light as the tub filled with hot water. There’d been more flickering lights and knocking on the walls that evening, but you were starting to get used to it. It was an old house, after all. Maybe it was all just your imagination, and it was all very explainable in a scientific way.

But this event marked a point where you could no longer believe that.

As you laid in the tub, muscles relaxing under the hot water, you opened your eyes momentarily and saw something strange. In the water where you lay, you saw foggy threads of red floating through the water.

Were you bleeding?

Sitting up sharply, you check yourself all over. No marks, no wounds or cuts, no time of the month, but there’s trails of blood floating in the water.

Your heart starts to quicken as the air grows thick around you again, that same feeling as the one that night with the lamp. It swarms you.

“Stop,” you whisper, watching more and more blood appear from nowhere in the water, making the water turn crimson red.

Glancing at the reflective metal surface of the bathtub faucet, your heart stops when you see, in the warped reflection, some shadow of black sitting right behind you in the tub.

That’s when you scream and leap out of the water, nearly slipping on the tile floor as you freak out. There obviously was no one or nothing sitting behind you in the tub, but you most certainly saw the dark reflection of one.

The lightbulb above you starts flickering, even though the light was not turned on.

The blood in the water had gone, but during your jump out of the water your foot had pulled the stopper up. The water was draining now, very loudly, making a deep guttural sound as the water drained quickly. When it was all gone, it was silent.

Something dark appeared at the wide-open hole of the drain. It looked liquid at first, like some black substance was oozing out of the drain onto the white porcelain of the tub, but when it started rising up out of the hole and moving in a very alive way, you realized it was fingers.

Blackened fingers rose out of the drain, wiggling, pulling up a hand along with it. The fingernails were sharpened, the slender hand feminine even with its charcoal fingers.

You screamed when a whole arm shot out of the drain and grabbed at the side of the tub.

All you could think to do was run out of the bathroom and slam the door shut, holding onto the knob and listening as you heard the sickly wet sounds of something being pulled out of the drain and slapping against the wet tub, and even the sound of it stepping over the tub onto the floor. Heavy breathing with effort. Distorted wet footsteps across tile floor.

You wanted to run and call the police, but then you felt the knob gently turn in your hand. This bathroom door did not have a lock.

With some sort of screech of breath, whatever thing that was behind the door pulled hard at the knob. Screaming, you pulled the door back shut before you could see whatever was on the other side, wanting to rather die than to actually see what it was. The thing wrestled with you over the door, pulling hard and fast. You held on with all your strength, hands still wet from the bath, putting your foot against the threshold for more leverage. The air was screaming now, loud in your ears, a heartbeat that was not your own beating from inside your own brain. The lights were all flickering, and the house felt like it was closing in on you.

The thing pulled and pulled, screaming and screaming until it got the best of you. The knob slipped out of your hands, and the door swung wide open.

Instinctively, you slapped your hands over your eyes. You didn’t want to see. You didn’t want to see. You didn’t want to see. You’d rather die than see.

Breathing heavily, you waited for something to get you, because you were certain that whatever was in your house was trying to do that all along.

But nothing came.

Inhaling oxygen and exhaling bravery, you tried to ignore all the visions your brain guessed that you would see, and parted your fingers. Through the slit in your fingers you saw… nothing. The bathroom was empty. The tub was drained but clean. The flame of the candles all around were perfectly still.

But then you heard a creaking noise from behind you. Slowly, breath held, trembling, you turned around and raised your eyes.

A black figure clung to the ceiling. It was the shape of a person with soft edges. It was a shadow, in human form.

It jumped down at you.

With a scream, you buckled to the floor and covered your head, trying to shield yourself. Nothing touched you. You bravely opened your eyes again and looked all around only to not see the black figure anywhere. There was nothing but you, naked and wet on the floor.

The air felt empty again. The thing had come and gone. You were safe.

For now.

࿏

It was hard to feel settled after that. Things got more aggressive. It was like whatever demon was with you had finally laid eyes on you and was set to get you now. You couldn’t find that book anywhere. It wasn’t on the coffee table nor under the couch. You looked everywhere to no avail.

Detective Agnes knocked on your door one night to tell you that someone had been lurking at a window at the side of your house. She was holding a full-size Nerf Super Soaker and said that she had tried to snipe the suspect wearing all-black but they had somehow jumped into your closed window (hence the sound of spraying water you had heard on your window). She demanded to look through the house, which she did and found nothing. You’re pretty sure she swiped a pair of your underwear, though. She taped a Polaroid camera to your roof for good measure and said she took photos of “damning” evidence which included unconcerning pictures of your flowerbed. You knew it wasn’t a person, but rather a thing lurking from within the window.

Nights were the worst. You had never been someone to be so scared, but you could barely sleep from how hard your heart thumped with fear as you lay in bed at night.

A few nights after the bathroom event, you managed to halfway fall asleep somewhere around 3 AM when you suddenly heard loud banging coming from within the walls. Waking up with a shot of anxiety in your chest, you heard the banging again, loud and clear, like someone trying to break down a wall from the inside.

Feeling frozen, you forced yourself to sit up when you fully froze at the sight of something horrific. In the corner of your bedroom, right beside the window, was that dark figure hiding in the shadows. It seemed more formed this time. You could see the outline of hips, hands, legs. The worst part was that you could see two red eyes gleaming at you in the dark.

“Go away!” you instinctively yelled, but it came out barely audible due to the lump in your throat.

The figure slowly came forward, and the moonlight from the window casted over it.

It was some creature of a woman. She was decrepid, slightly hunched over. Her eyes were red and glowing, her mouth set wide open as if her jaw has been broken off. But where her face would have been… Where her face would have been, her skin had been stretched upward into two points, like her skin had been stretched over horns, or over a crown. She was unnaturally tall and skinny, her skin pale and yellowed.

Dark red hair laid at her shoulders, and she was wearing some torn and ratted red suit. Her hands were deformed, long and sharp and bony, blackened at the ends. The horrible smell of death and blood suddenly filled your nostrils, making you gag and cover your nose. The creature smelled of death and appeared deformed, demonic, monstrous, evil.

“Who are you?” you questioned, trying to think of what to say or do. This thing must have been some sort of manifestation of the thing that had been torturing you, and so you say the only name you know. “Wanda?”

The creature erupted into a monstrous screech so loud you nearly went deaf, and in a flash, she lunged fast at you. You swore you could feel her push you down onto the bed when you suddenly sit back up, coming out of a horrible nightmare.

You were sweating through the sheets, panting, looking all around your empty bedroom. Had it been just a dream?

Feeling a sting at your shoulder, you look at it to see a bloody claw mark there, so deep it was already dripping blood.

Once the demon had first seen you in the bathroom, she got more aggressive. Now she had tasted your blood… What was going to happen now?

As you expected, everything got worse. The knocking and footsteps got more violent than ever, doors slamming on you, knives throwing themselves across the kitchen towards you. This thing was trying to get you.

You leased an apartment in Eastview as quickly as you could.

You couldn’t move in for a week, so you were stuck there with that thing trying to murder you. Your friend you had been crashing with was on holiday, but you could not stand to sleep alone in that house. So you asked the only person you could think of…

“No worries, tuts,” Agnes said as she strode into your bedroom with an armful of blankets and pillows. “It’s my job to keep my fellow citizens safe.” She threw her blankets and pillows down on the ground right at the foot of your bed.

Awkwardly, you watched her make a pallet. “You know, I have a couch downstairs… That might be best so you can, you know, watch the front door.” You had told her you were having fears of break-ins and just needed someone to stay with you for a night or two.

“No, no, I can do my job best from right here,” she said as she plopped down onto the pallet. “Besides, these nights can get a little…” She undid her police jacket, which was actually just a varsity jersey jacket with the name Bohner on the back, as she looked up at you with a smirk. “Lonely…”

You just stared down at her, with her banana and water gun. “Okay, Agnes.”

Honestly, the night went better with Agnes there. There wasn’t any knocking or footsteps, no creatures in your corner. It was just Agnes’ obnoxiously loud snoring like a lawnmower right in your bedroom that kept you awake, but eventually you drifted off.

You had dreams of red. Of red and blood behind your eyes. Voices, names, memories, all in red. You don’t know what it was that jolted you awake, but something did, and when you flapped open your eyes, you saw her.

She was on your ceiling.

Red scarlet hair hanging down. Her face was not malformed this time, but rather, it was somewhat beautiful. Even with the glowing red eyes and darkness.

“Wanda,” you whispered, somehow knowing for sure that this was her. Wanda, the woman who had died, who had a family in the house you bought, who had been torturing you for weeks. Her fingers, black, clung to the ceiling as if that’s what kept her there, but you could tell it was magic. It was the same magic that froze your body and made you unable to move as she slowly drifted down the ceiling, closer to you, until she hovered right above you.

She didn’t seem real. This beautiful ghost, demon, whatever she was, her nose so close to yours, breathing over you with red eyes full of desire.

“You opened the Darkhold,” she spoke in deep unnatural voice without moving her lips. “You beckoned me.”

You tried to shake your head, but you couldn’t move a muscle in your body except your mouth. “No, I didn’t…” You thought of the old dark book. You had opened it.

“I can live on…” she spoke, reaching out her hand to touch you. It landed on your stomach, causing you to jump. You could feel her hand. You felt silly for expecting it to just go right through you. Her skin was touching your stomach over your shirt. It made you feel fear and excitement at the same time. “I have a womb now.”

Your eyebrows sewed together. “A womb?”

Chills filled you as Wanda’s lips stretched open in a wide grin that was too perfect to be real. Her face looked fake suddenly, like it was just a pretty human mask put over the real face of something horrible. “A womb for my children,” she said without moving her lips.

Suddenly, your legs were spread wide open in the air. You let out a scream of shock and fear, which made Agnes’ snoring finally stop. Agnes jumped up, stumbling, holding her Super Soaker. Her eyes widened when she saw the demon hovering over you.

“Get down!” Agnes yelled to you as she held up the Nerf gun and sprayed a sharp stream of water at Wanda. To your surprise, once the water hit the demon, it steamed and burned. Wanda hissed and turned to Agnes, levitating upright in the air as Agnes continued to spraying her.

Getting out her banana, Agnes yelled, “664 we need backup over here! I repeat! 664 we’ve got a code red!”

Wanda lifted her hand. Agnes rose up into the air, and with a flick of Wanda’s wrist, she was flung right out of the second-floor window.

Wanda turned back to you, and fear jumped at your spine again. Now it was just you and her.

Flying back towards you, she used her magic to peel the sheets off of you, settling herself down on the bed over you.

“What are you doing?!” you cried out as she somehow tore your clothes off your body, exposing your skin to her.

Her hand immediately went between your legs, groping at your core. “I have been waiting so long for you, detka,” she spoke, her voice sounding a little more natural. Her eyes, once robotic and blank, looked softer now. You couldn’t tell if it was real or not.

You tried to squirm but her magic kept you still. Her hand was expert—she rubbed circles at your clit as her other hand snaked up over your stomach, up to your breast which she groped. “The perfect vessel,” she whispered. “I can live on. I can have my children again,” she repeated as she slid her hand down to your tummy again, her hand glowing red. “Your womb is so fertile. I could feel it when you first arrived.”

Your head was spinning as this demon woman worked at your pussy, pinching your clit and slipping two fingers inside which made you yelp. She was gentle yet firm at the same time, somehow knowing exactly what would make you feel good. You were getting wet for her—you could hear it in the wet sloshing sound that your pussy made as she pumped her fingers in and out of you, curling them at their deepest length.

“Fuck,” you breathed, your head feeling suddenly very hot, as if a fever suddenly set upon you.

“You are so good,” she breathed, voice deeper this time as she adjusted where she sat between your legs, now kneeling over you. Suddenly, something large formed at her crotch. It was a strap—long and maroonish red with charcoal darkness at the tip.

“What are you—”

Wanda grinned and shushed you as she stroked her length, red magic glowing from within her strap. “Be a good, quiet vessel, detka.”

Something evil was showing through in her eyes.

“Wanda—”

She used her magic to shut your mouth so that you could only make muffled noises as the demon nestled between your hips, using her hands to spread your thighs further open. She wanted you as open for her as you could be.

Frightened but also some sickly form of turned on, you watched as the demon stroked her cock and brought it to your entrance which she had prepped and made soaking wet for herself. Her cock was larger than anything you’d ever taken. It was throbbing with magic.

The tip pushed through your entrance painfully, and you cried out through the magic covering your mouth as the demon suddenly pushed her entire cock inside you, ripping open your walls. Pain seared through your human body as the demon forced her way inside you, but when she passed a hand over your head, the pain suddenly went away. It turned more into a feeling of butterflies, of throbbing, of pleasure. You could feel blood leaking down your thighs, but she had taken away your pain.

“You are going to give me such beautiful children,” Wanda murmured, cupping your chin with her dark hand as she started to thrust her hips, pumping herself inside you. The pressure came against your cervix in a hot flash of pleasure each time. She was so long and so large, fucking herself so deep inside you that your stomach bulged. The demon pressed her hand on the bulge and cackled, feeling herself fuck you from inside.

You could feel everything, how deep she was, how the ridges of her strap glided against your walls, the way your stomach bulged with each thrust. Your pussy was being stretched open around her demon cock, taking every single inch no matter how girthy.

“The perfect bride,” Wanda said, her demon voice showing through as she started to fuck you harder. Her hand slapped around your throat, holding you down and halfway choking you as her thrusts became quicker and quicker, demonic grunts coming from her. You could feel yourself tightening inside, preparing for what was about to come.

The demon’s cock seemed to swell inside you, forcing you to stretch even more. Sickly squelching noises filled the air. Blood was all over the bed now. You felt nothing but electric, all-consuming pleasure.

“Stay still,” Wanda said as she choked you harder. “You’re going to take all of my seed. You’re going to give me such beautiful children, my beautiful bride.”

She went harder and harder, fucking deep into your womb until finally, the energy broke. She let out a guttural noise, and you could feel her cock go rigid inside you before a load of warmth filled you deep inside. As you shook from your own blinding orgasm, you couldn’t even see the fact that your tummy bulged as the demon kept filling you with her seed which glowed red from inside you.

Sighing, Wanda relaxed against you, keeping her cock inside you. It was still swollen, stuck inside your cunt. “I’m going to keep myself here until I know it takes.” She smiled for real this time as she stroked your glowing, swollen tummy. You were more than feverish now as you felt things start to change inside you at an inhuman speed. You could feel it taking, feel your tummy swelling more and more.

You didn’t know that once you birthed, she would slaughter you like breeding cattle.

2K notes · View notes

wwandaslover · 9 months ago

Text

all hallow's eve ࿏ wm

summary: in which a bleeding woman shows up to your house asking for more than just help.

words: 8.0k

warnings: blood, dubcon/noncon, fingering, knifeplay, knifefucking, murder, death, horror, gore, top!wanda, fem!reader

this is a dark!fic for 18+ only. minors dni. read with discretion.

There were already chips in the paint of her fingernails which she had painted a thick coat of black only the night before. Wanda liked using her hands—it was a cathartic thing. It only meant she couldn’t keep nail polish on for very long.

In her quiet kitchen, the gentle tink of a spoon again her black porcelain mug could be heard as she gingerly stirred her coffee, watching the cloudy white swirls of creamer fade into the black of her dark roast and turn walnut. She only liked a little bit of creamer. She enjoyed coffee for its depth and dark. Bits of brown splashed around the inner rim of the black mug as she tapped the spoon clean of remnants before gently setting it down in the sink.

Wanda kept a clean house, but her kitchen she kept clean most of all. She was not trained, but she considered herself something of a chef. She enjoyed carnivorous recipes most of all, beefy red ribeyes and delicately roasted chickens. Her kitchen was her wizard lair where she worked to perfect the most complex of dishes, so she kept it meticulously tidy. The clean black marble counters covered lower cabinets filled with pots and pans stacked neatly and drawers shockingly organized with tools and utensils no matter their irregular shape. She made everything fit perfectly because she was a little neurotic about her tools.

Now the kitchen filled with the lusty dark scent of coffee that she sensually inhaled through her nostrils as her ringed fingers clinked against her porcelain mug. The expensive, shiny coffee machine still clicked and steamed from the fresh batch, and it glimmered almost as much as the array of large knives that were set out neatly on the counter beside it. Wanda had also invested in nice lights for her kitchen, because she liked to take pictures of her dishes when she made them. The studioesque lights glared off the silver blades, some freshly sharpened, some awaiting the fate of the honing rod laying discarded next to the line of knives. Sharp knives were also one of the most important tools of a chef.

Wanda maintained the dark minimalist aesthetic of black and white throughout her upscale apartment. Her annual endeavors usually left her with enough cash to get through the year with lavish, hence the nice apartment. Draining a few bank accounts always amounted to more than expected. If she was saving up for something big she would target a nicer area of town.

Through her French windows was the view of the city framed by the bright orange leaves of the autumn tree outside. She had bought a few small baby pumpkins of different colors and shapes and set them along the windowsill. This time of year was always bittersweet. There was always that simmering sensation rising within her that starts near the end of July, when the dead summer heat goes quiet and still with the promise of no new births of nature, only the aging and deadening that future autumn will bring.

Maybe it was the quiet, or maybe it was just her pituitary gland recognizing when it was time for her to awaken, but it always starts at the same time of each year. It was even earlier this year, though. She could feel the first little scritch when the fireworks went off above all the skyscrapers outside her window. It was like the giant booms and bangs shook the thing inside her awake. Now at this point, late in October, it had turned into a ravenous clawing inside her head. She imagined the innards of her skull like a wooden wall caging a wild animal—scarred with desperate scratches to be released. The clawing reminded her of a beast begging to be slaughtered as it is once a year, so that it may enjoy peace and quiet until it starts to conceive itself again like a rebirthing flower.

It gets so hard to manage this late in the season. Usually, she is the most calm and collected person she knows. People compliment her on her otherworldly levelheadedness which they don’t realize is just a lack of emotion. But in September she gets antsy, and in October she is wholly consumed with restlessness and need, constantly zoned out like a lion on the hunt, eyes laser focused for the bright stripes of a zebra amidst the tall African flora, jaw hung wide open, teeth buzzing with anticipation for the first tear of live flesh, ears constantly rounding its skull in search for the sound of food.

Even now, thinking about it as she stared out the window, she let her coffee go cold in her hand. Coming to, she cursed herself and put the mug in the microwave and turned it on. When warmed, she took the mug through her apartment and to her office, settling down in her chair. Her desk was probably the only thing about her apartment that could be considered messy, only because her planning was extensive and elaborate. It had to be for her to have gotten away with it for this many years. Her Octobers were spent stuck at her messy desk which, by the afternoon sun, becomes littered with empty coffee cups.

There were many papers scattered on her desks about many different things. Locations, demographics, news reports, police stations, everything there could be to know about a city. Underneath a stack of papers was another small stack stapled together. “Diagnosis Report.” She had thrown it on her desk carelessly when she took it home from the doctor, miffed that he was only telling her what she’d already known for a long time. “Controlled psychopathy.”

On the other corner of her desk was the most recent news report. “HALLOWEEN KILLER SET TO STRIKE AGAIN.” She’d been waiting for this for years now. She was surprised it didn’t happen sooner.

That was why her planning was deeper this year. Too many patterns in the same city. She needed to branch out, to change it up. She couldn’t complete her mission with cops stationed at every block. They’d even started tracking reports in the outer suburbs. She had to go farther this year.

She rolled out a wide roll of paper over the entire desk: a map of the entire city and its outer areas. Usually, the red circles were drawn on the yellowish vague blocks printed on the map to convey where urban areas were, more concrete and road. This year, her red marker circled farther to the side, almost to the very edge of the paper, where the paper turned green with curly printed lines to signify forested areas.

Wanda ran a shaky hand through her red hair, tugging harshly on the locks. She felt like a mad poet, a tortured artist. It was riskier this year. She wasn’t as familiar with woods as she was with the city.

Letting out a deep sigh, Wanda rolled out of the desk and went over to the little couch against the wall of her office, plopping down with another huff, chewing on all the thoughts in her head that were becoming harder to manage with all the fucking clawing. Lower population out in the woods could mean fewer fish brought home. But it also meant lower income levels than that in the richest parts of the city. Then again, she did pretty good last year and didn’t really need to worry about money this year. If money wasn’t a bias, then it usually would be beauty and females. That was why all the reports were either rich old men or beautiful young women, which made it hard for them to find a pattern. Of course, with women it would take more tactic to get everything she would want out of them besides the main point. The main point would be easy, but the seduction would take more artiste.

Turning her head over her shoulder, she eyed the brand new pair of expensive hiking boots that sat in the corner of the office, the laces recently untightened to let the new leather relax. They were industrial, tactical, ready to climb a mountain. It was the pair of shoes that even the most experienced hikers longed for.

She’d never been hiking a day in her life.

࿏

You’re alone this year.

Sticky green icing melted on your fingers as you picked up the bag of black icing again, piping out little pupils on the Frankenstein cookie you were decorating. Your Halloween playlist played at medium volume through your tiny kitchen as you piped Frankenstein’s black hair on top of his head. Once you had perfected him, even with his messy bangs and uneven mouth, you picked up the sugar cookie and placed it next to other decorated ones which included pumpkins, ghosts, bats, and even graphically disfigured vampires. A delicious aroma in the air emanated from the dish of tomatoes, garlic, onion, and spices roasting in the oven, and on the rack below that, a loaf of bread baking to completion.

“Jeez,” you murmured as you looked at the cookie in front of you that was supposed to be a black cat. One eye was twice the size of the other and its ears were more like Panda ears. You were going for cute, but horrific matched the theme anyways.

It was a cozy Halloween night in your little cabin. Orange pumpkin string lights were hanging from the ceiling, your little space cluttered with your accumulation of Halloween decorations that you just couldn’t stop buying each year. This was another great thing about living so far out in the woods—you could enjoy holidays by yourself without having to worry about catering to bratty little kids asking for candy, or your house getting egged for deciding not to. You had nothing against enjoying the festivities of your favorite holiday, but you were happy you could do it alone without interruption.

Wiping your stained hands free of icing because you had licked so much that you couldn’t take anymore, you slipped on your pumpkin-shaped oven mitts and took the dish out of the oven, feeling warmth on your face as the oil and tomato sizzled in the hot dish. Your kitchen was tiny, but it was cozy, and you could make all your favorite foods in it, so it was perfectly fine to you. And your cabin was small—so small that the kitchen and the living room were basically one room, and you could see the TV in front of the couch from where you stood at the oven. As you very carefully spooned all the tomatoes and garlic and onion out of the dish and into a large red pot that was older than you, you could hear the TV clearly.

Out in the woods, you did not have very good service. The satellite sitting on your roof let you have very few channels, one of them being the local news channel. It was time for the evening news as you heard the familiar theme sound, trying to not let tomato splatter on your Halloween apron that was white donned with black spiderwebbing.

The news channel picked up news from the city, which was a good 30 miles away but the nearest civilization. You halfway listened as they spoke about local events like the highway construction that was branching the city out even farther into the woods, a special on the best places to go trick or treating which was just all the rich neighborhoods, and then they came to the recent crime segment, starting off with one that was the city’s primary worry that night.

“Year after year, our city is faced with crime on this Halloween night that makes celebrating harder each year. For nearly a decade now, the city has experienced killing sprees that happen every October 31st from what locals call the Halloween Killer.”

You opened up your cabinets and waded through the messy piles of pots and pans and tools until you found your old beat-up food processor. The loud clanging muffled the news report that you were listening to with distracted but piqued interest until you found the processor.

“…Police have been unable to find patterns in the killer’s targeted victims or locations, but this famed killer does strike seemingly randomized neighborhoods each year, though they have mostly only targeted areas with higher income levels. Thanks to local funding, police have been able to set up neighborhood watches all throughout the city, even setting up a police line around the border to keep watch of any suspicious activity. Any sightings of criminal or suspicious activity should be reported to your nearest station immediately. For those living outside city limits, please be on high alert, as police think that the killer may start seeking out further areas to evade the local watches. Your local news station sends a huge thanks to our police as they fight to keep our city safe and to track down this Halloween Killer. Please, everyone be safe out there tonight as you enjoy All Hallow’s Eve.” You glanced momentarily to the TV and saw the wide shiny grin of the blonde newscaster that did not match her grim tone as she swiftly moved on to a segment about Halloween party decorations.

At first, the segment about the Halloween Killer started to pass right through your brain, until your brain caught it, and a small seed of paranoia plummeted into the pit of your stomach. You fiddled with your food processor as you thought about the segment.

When you lived in the city, people always talked about the Halloween Killer. At some point, people started to make up their own ideas of what the killer looked like, creating different masks that seemed to change each year. Most of them just settled on a rip-off of Michael Meyers. You always ignored it, until one year the killer struck right near where you lived. That was only a small impetus of why you fled the city searching for a more peaceful life out in nature, but it certainly was a reason thrown in with all the other rising crime rates in the city. It was becoming like Gotham out there, and you wanted no part of it. Hence your cozy cabin life out in the forest.

Still, it made you nervous. You were a young girl all alone. You didn’t have neighbors. If you screamed, it would be to the mercy of squirrels and foxes. And to be fair, though you lived in a forested area and got lucky to live on a plot of land with no other houses, you didn’t live that far from the city. If you climbed the nearby hill all the way to the top, you could see the skyline good enough to track the movement of cars on the city highway. If the killer was trying to escape city limits, all they would have to do was choose East, and they’d be right in your lap.

A shiver ran through you, and you gave a breathy laugh. You’d been watching too many scary movies that Halloween season. It was making you paranoid. This was why each year you chose ParaNorman over Pet Sematary. You were too paranoid of a person.

Though you took your fretfulness with humor, it gnawed away at you. Wiping your hands on the towel on the oven door, you went over to your front door and opened it.

The air was cold that night. Fall had been teasing and tantalizing all month, but it seemed to rush in all at once that Halloween night. That was another thing you liked about living out here—it wasn’t a concrete jungle that trapped in all the heat like the city did. It was cooler out here and less humid. It was just easier to breathe.

You looked up at the dark, shadowy pines that rose so much higher than your squat little house. Their needles rustled in the gentle breeze. It was so dark, nothing like the ever-present source of light in the city. Beyond where your measly front porch light and the flickering glow of jack-o-lanterns on your porch steps touched, it was pitch black. You could hear the whistle of crickets, the belches of frogs all around.

Twigs snapping.

Fear roared up in you at once, but you quickly settled yourself. Twigs snap all the time out here in the forest given that there are twigs littering the whole ground. A pinecone falling, or a bird landing, or a squirrel sitting—it all could snap a twig. You were scaring yourself.

Nonetheless, you pulled yourself inside, closed the door, lock it, turned off the porch light, and closed all your blinds and curtains. Even though you didn’t believe yourself to be at risk, it would be silly to ruin your own night by making yourself scared at the possibility of seeing a face at the window.

You slapped a piece of the bread on the buttered hot pan, deeply enjoying the loud immediate sizzle it made. You followed up with a slice of cheese and another piece of bread, and then flipped the grilled cheese, salivating at the perfect shade of brown the bread turned into.

You ladeled your tomato bisque into a bowl and topped it with some shreds of cheese and one singular basil leaf just to be extra. Bringing your soup and grilled cheese into the living room, you finally settled down on the couch with a sigh, setting your food down on the coffee table before searching for the perfect cutesy Halloween movie to watch. You settled on ParaNorman since you’d been thinking about it.

All traces of the news report had left your mind as you burned your mouth on the soup and did the most immaculate cheese pull with your grilled cheese. You didn’t even think twice when you heard a creaking noise on the front porch.

When you heard it again, you surprised yourself by remaining calm. It was a breezy night. This was an old cabin, and that wooden porch was squeaky. A gush of wind is bound to move the wooden panels enough for it to squeak.

Squeak. It seemed closer now.

You still weren’t worried, but just out of habit, you turned your head and looked back at the front door in the kitchen.

You didn’t really see it at first. Or didn’t recognize what it looked like, at least.

A dark shadow through the sheer curtains over the window of the front door. The perfect shadow for a head and shoulders.

Fear broiled deep in your gut, but you warred with yourself yet again. It was definitely just the way that the moon filtered through all the shapes of the forest trees and landed across the window of your door. That was all it was. You were just being paranoid—the shadow wasn’t even moving.

You’d managed to fully convince yourself and was just about to turn your head back around when there was a knock at the door.

Adrenaline shot through your body so hard that your bowl of tomato soup slipped right out of your immediately sweaty palms, landing with a heartbreaking splash across your shirt.

“Fuck!” you yelled as the hot soup instantly soaked through your shirt and gently burned the skin of your stomach. What was worse about how hot it was, was how sad you were at losing your tomato soup.

The knock came again, much more hurried this time.

“Hello!?” a woman’s voice came from the other side of the door, and the sound of a person’s voice deepened your panic even more. No one had ever been out here except the few friends and family you had invited over a handful of times. No one lived near here. Your dirt road stretched on for three miles before it touched the highway. The dirt road only led to your house, nothing else. It was your own personal driveway. There was no reason for someone to be out here unless beckoned.

And you were all alone. There was no one to glance at with panicked eyes and telepathically ask who the fuck is at the front door. It was just you and your tomato soup-soaked shirt.

“Help!” the voice cried, pounding on the door harder this time, so hard that your windows shook in their panes. “Help me! Please!”

“What the fuck?” you whispered, your breathing picking up as you started to really freak out. Not only was there someone randomly at your door this late at night, but they were apparently in distress? Or at least pretending to be.

“Please! Somebody help me! Please!” the woman screamed outside, and she slammed so hard on the door that it sounded like she was throwing her whole body against it. You could even see the door bulge from the wall, almost like she was trying to break it down.

Rule number one of living out alone in a cabin deep in the forest was to never, ever open your door to strangers. You were way too vulnerable for that. You knew that, and so your instinct was to hide and possibly call the police if she didn’t give up. It could easily be a trick.

Then again, she was screaming for help. She herself was out here potentially alone in the woods, if this was real. What if you later learned that this girl needed help and couldn’t find it from the single house she managed to stumble across?

“Fuck fuck fuck,” you whispered, tugging at your hair as you ducked across the room, hiding behind your little kitchen island. If you made yourself seen, there was no way you could get out of it or even pretend to not be home. “Please open the door!” she screamed with such desperation that her voice croaked, and you heard little sobs follow. “Please just open it! I need help! Please!”

Something about the desperation in her voice panged you deeply in the gut, and for some reason you felt like it wasn’t a trick. Nonetheless, you knew it was bad, whatever it was. She could be running from someone or something and leading them right into your house. The best outcome of this whole thing would be a cruel Halloween prank.

“Please!” she screamed, slamming herself against your front door. You heard a horrible clicking noise that sounded an awful lot like your door coming undone from the hinges.

Internally groaning, you grabbed a knife from your knife drawer and held it as realistically as you could in your hand, slowly going towards the shadow at the front door window.

“Please!” she screamed again.

Gritting your teeth, you gathered all your bravery, expecting anything to happen as you touched the doorknob. With a big breath in, you unlocked it and swung it open.

A scream involuntarily escaped your throat at what stood on the other side of that door.

Seeing a person’s face at your door for the first time in basically months was already a shocking thing, but seeing it covered in blood was even more shocking. The woman stood only an inch or two taller than you, her dark red hair stretching down past her shoulders. She wore a long sleeve white shirt, which you could only tell it was white from the sleeves because the entire front of it was soaked with dark red blood. The blood even caked the thighs of her jeans, and it dripped in long, thick lines down her face, with splatters over her cheeks. The worst part was that the blood glistened against the light that came from inside your home. In fact, it dripped—in horrible black splatters on the old wood of your porch. You could see bloody footprints going up the steps.

For a moment, she looked shocked to see you standing there. Had she started to think no one really was home? The shocked look faded as she glanced over you, her lips seeming to struggle to form words.

“Hi—I need h-help,” she said quieter now, very breathlessly. She was trembling—her eyes looked at you with a crazed, weakened look, like she was about to fall on you at any moment. That was when you realized that she must be bleeding—bleeding a fatal amount.

“Oh my God,” you croaked, not knowing what to do. “What—I—Come in,” you hesitated, and then remembered that whatever cut her up this badly could be following her, so you goaded her. “Come on, come in!”

Quickly, she came inside, leading a trail of bloody prints on your precious wooden flooring as you closed the door and locked it shut. You turned around, pressing your back to the door and staring at her as your heart pounded hard in your chest. You noticed that her eyes were focused on your hand at your side—you looked down and remembered that you were holding a large knife in your hand. “Sorry—” you apologized at first, thinking that she was probably just harmed with the same thing you were holding and wasn’t too happy to see another person wielding it, but remembered to keep your guard up. She could be anyone, and anything could have happened to her. Anything could happen next.

“I need to sit down…” she said, clutching her stomach and bending over. Her eyes, you noticed, were a vivid green against the darkness of the drying blood on her face. “I…” The vivid green disappeared, and you realized she had closed her eyes and was starting to sway.

“Oh God, yes, sit down,” you rushed, absentmindedly dropping your knife on the kitchen counter so that you could help her. Trying your best to avoid touching any blood, you barely held her arm and led her to the couch. She sat down heavily, flickering her eyes to look at you, those green orbs landing at your waist.

“Your shirt…” she whispered croakily.

“Oh,” you blurted as you looked at your own shirt that had an orangeish red splash over the front. “Tomato soup,” you blushed, growing sick at the fact that the red splash on her shirt was, in fact, not tomato soup.

You looked around as this strange woman sat bleeding on your couch, her eyes opening and closing. She was probably losing a lot of blood. What were you supposed to do?

“The police,” you blurted, and her eyes opened wider with a flash. “I’ll call the police!”

You went to your landline phone—there was no cell service up here, so you depended on the weak telephone lines for any kind of communication. You typed in 9-1-1 and pressed the phone to your ear—silence. Confused, you dialed again, only to hear more silence. “What the hell?”

“Water.”

“Huh?” you asked, glancing at the woman on your couch.

“Can I please… have water?”

“Oh, yes,” you said, feeling stupid and rude that you hadn’t even tried to physically help the woman bleeding out on your couch. “I’m sorry—Are-are you okay?” you asked as you went to get a glass of water. It felt like an obviously stupid question to ask, but to be fair, you weren’t entirely sure of her injuries nor her situation except that she was bleeding what appeared to be a lot of blood to you.

“I think so,” she said, coughing to clear her throat as you handed her the glass of water.

You ignored the stains of tomato soup on the other seat of your couch as she sipped the water with a shaky, bloody hand.

“You wouldn’t happen to have a phone on you, do you?” you questioned. It was obvious there was something wrong with your phone, which wasn’t that unusual, and even though there was no cell service the last time you checked, you thought any effort might be worth it to get this girl some help.

She shook her head as she gulped the water down.

Sighing, you glanced toward the curtained window and thought of your car out front. You would need to drive her to help, you realized. You figured you could at least find out what the hell was going on first before you loaded her up in the car.

“What happened to you?”

She finished the glass of water and weakly handed it to you, her eyes flashing up at you. Something about it startled you. Maybe it was the visual connection that jarred you into realization of the situation, or maybe it was because you weren’t used to being around people anymore. Either way, you suddenly felt scared with her eyes on you.

“Someone attacked me,” she hoarsely spoke, wiping her mouth of water only to smear blood around her lips. She gritted her teeth, looking around your house for the first time. You suddenly thought of your knife on the counter.

“Attacked you?” you asked, trying to imagine the situation in your mind. “Do you know who?”

“No, just some guy in a mask,” she exclaimed, sounding like she was starting to calm down and gather her wits. You noticed she wasn’t breathless anymore—in fact her chest rose and fell very slowly and calmly. Maybe she was a good self-soother.

“Where?” you questioned.

“What?” she said, looking up at you with sewn brows.

You hesitated. “I mean, where were you attacked?” You looked towards the window again when she hesitated to answer. “It’s just… you must’ve ran at least like, three miles.”

The redheaded woman only stared at you with her vivid green eyes that you now noticed, with a slight chill in your spine, were oddly empty. Like doll eyes. Like a doll skeleton with human skin stretched over it.

You were starting to feel weird as you tried to explain. “The main road is three miles down that driveway out there.” You vaguely pointed. “Unless you came through the woods. So I was just asking where were you attacked?”

Finally, she blinked. “On the road,” she blurted out. “I was… walking to my friend’s house on the road when this car stopped. And he got out and just… attacked me.” She started to shake again as she looked down at the blood all over her.

But you were still and silent. “Your friend’s house?”

Her eyes met yours, and you could see that chilling emptiness again.

You swayed your weight from one foot to another, trying to think out the entire situation before you spoke. “The nearest house in ten miles is abandoned.”

Her red brows sewed together in confusion, and for a moment you saw, through the blood on her face, that she was pretty. You wouldn’t find it strange for someone to target her.

“I’m confused,” she suddenly sobbed, an illegible cry escaping her throat as she covered her face. “I don’t know what happened.”

A flash of guilt shot through you. This girl is here bleeding out, obviously having just been attacked, and you’re questioning her. Sure, her story didn’t make sense, but you knew if you’d been randomly stabbed in the middle of nowhere, you wouldn’t be making much sense either. It’s possible that she was drugged or kidnapped or all of the above. She certainly didn’t look like she was from around here.

“Hey, hey,” you gently said, starting to reach out a hand to touch her shoulder but deciding against it. She was fully crying now. “It’s gonna be okay. I…” You took a deep breath and tried to be a better savior for this poor woman. “Look, I’ll get you some help, okay? We can take my car and take you to the nearest—”

“He’s following me!”

You stopped in the middle of your sentence. “What?”

“We can’t leave. He was following me as I got away from him…” She slowly turned her face to the window. “He could be out there right now…”

That paranoia boiled within you again. On one hand, you thought it would be better to just risk it to get her the help she needs, but you knew that if someone were lurking out there, it would be just you versus him since this woman was in no condition to defend you.

“The Halloween Killer,” she murmured. “I think it was him.”

Dizziness swirled in your head as your brain shot back to the news report. The Halloween Killer… the police guessed that he would be going out of city limits this year… You imagined the killer taking the nearest highway out of town which happened to be the one you lived by… Seeing a girl on the road… Maknig his first victim of the night… Except that he didn’t kill her. There was no way he would let a witness get away. Especially since she probably saw his face and his vehicle.

“Okay,” you breathed, rushing to the nearest lamp and turning it off. “We’ll wait for a while.” You turned off the kitchen light, the string lights, the range light. “We need to be quiet. If we don’t hear anything in… an hour… we can go.”

You walked back over to her, noticing that she was looking at her stomach.

“Can you wait that long?” you gently asked. “It looks like you bled a lot. Are you still bleeding?”

“I don’t know,” she weakly said. “I can’t tell.”

Biting your tongue, you thought for a moment. If you were going to make her wait an hour, the least you could do was clean her up a little. It was important to clean the wound, and if she was still bleeding, it looked like you needed to put pressure on it as soon as possible before she lost too much blood. You were already surprised she was still conscious with all that blood on her.

“I’ll be right back. Stay right here.”

You left for a moment to get the first aid kit, a rag, and a cup of water, and came back to find her in the same spot, her head leaned back on the couch cushion. Carefully, you sat down next to her with the rag in your hand, dipping it into the water. “We’ll clean you up a little so we know the damage,” you said, laughing at your attempt to sound professional and steady-headed.

“Thank you,” she croaked, turning to face you slowly on the couch. It was completely dark in your cabin now except for the little glare of moonlight that came through the curtains. It felt a little too close, sitting in the dark with her on your tiny couch, and it felt even more close when you started to wipe away the blood on her face with your rag.

“You’re welcome,” you said. “I’m sorry I’m not the best person to come running to for help,” you said with a little laugh.

Her lips curled into a smile, and you felt your heart murmur at how pretty she was. As you wiped away the blood on her face, wondering if she had a head injury to account for her confusion and the blood on her face, you saw that she was actually strikingly beautiful. It made you a little hot, sitting there so close to someone who looked like that.

“Okay…” you said when her face was all clean, now looking at the front of her blood-soaked shirt, hesitating. “Um—”

Without speaking, she rolled up the hem of her shirt to show the flat expanse of her abdomen that was blotted with dark blood. Worried that you would freak out at the sight of stab wound, you very carefully and tensely cleaned away the blood on her stomach, rewetting the rag in the bowl of water which was now murky red.

You always hated how ignorant you could be sometimes.

It wasn’t until you had wiped her entire abdomen clean that it dawned on you.

There were no stab wounds. Not a cut or a scratch.

Nothing felt real suddenly. Confused, you looked up at her.

The deeply malicious look on her face jarred you so suddenly you almost slipped off the couch, stumbling to your feet. Your ankle slammed against the coffee table as you backed away.

Her eyes were staring at you evilly, her lip set in a smirk. You suddenly felt small, tiny, helpless, stupid. So stupid!

“Is this the part where they say trick or treat?” the woman asked now in a gruff voice as she slowly stood up, looking suddenly a lot taller than she did at the door. You also noticed now a bulge in the sleeve of her shirt.

Wanda straightened her arm down at her side, letting the long, bloodied knife slide out of her sleeve, catching the long handle when it touched her palm. She held the knife up expertly, the moonlight glinting off of it.

This was one of her best tricks yet. There’d been times where she had to hide in the closet of the home of a victim, or in the backseat of their car, or she’d even had to follow them several blocks down before striking, but she’d never made herself so intimate with someone she was going to kill before, besides the ones that sparked out of intentional sexual encounters. Wanda had always been more of a grab and slash kind of serial killer, looting their belongings afterwards and moving right on to the next one. But this time, this girl… she was lingering.

You were just so pretty. Pretty girls were Wanda’s weakness, especially when they were vulnerable. And my, how you were vulnerable.

“All alone out in these woods,” Wanda whispered as you both just stood staring at each other, her at your face, you at her knife. “You never thought that one day the big bad wolf would come knocking?”

The fear in your eyes was delectable to her. You’d been so easy to trick. You almost caught her about the friend’s house—she’d been so distracted thinking of all the things she was going to do to you that she slipped up. She blanked.

“Please don’t hurt me,” you whispered, raising your hands up like someone who was just caught by the police for vandalism. “I won’t do anything—I—I won’t tell anyone.”

“I’d hope not,” Wanda interrupted you. “If my plans go accordingly, which they will, which they always do, you will be in no state to do anything or speak to anyone. Ever.” Wanda grinned, chuckling at the way your fingers shook in the moonlight.

The Halloween Killer. You cursed yourself. You also cursed your luck. What were the chances the killer would decide to find you that night?

You realized then that the blood on her shirt was not hers. It was whoever else she had just murdered before coming to you. You were just another life to tick off her quota.

You thought of your knife on the counter. The woman stared at you with a cold, dead look, coupled with the look of enjoyment. She was enjoying this.

You hesitated for a moment before deciding that taking your chances was better than having no chance at all. You jumped over to the kitchen, reached over the counter, and had your fingers on the handle when you felt her warm body slam you against the counter, her hand reaching easily over you and slapping the knife away.

“No!” you involuntarily cried out as you watched the knife slide off the counter and drop to the other side of the floor.

“Bad girl,” Wanda grunted, and you felt the woman’s hands grab your hips. She pressed you harder into the counter, her hips flush against your bottom, grabbing a fistful of your hair and slamming your face down on the hard, cold counter.

“Ah!” you cried as your head slammed into the rock-hard surface, dizzying you. She had you completely bent over the counter, pressing herself into you and holding your head down on the counter with blinding pressure.

“I won’t lie that I like the challenge of putting up a fight,” she whispered, resting her fist that held the knife against the small of your back. “But I’d rather you make it easy for both of us.”

“Get away from me!” you screamed, feeling your cheeks go red hot as your animalistic instincts to survive kicked in.

“Shhhh sh sh,” the woman shushed right into your ear, making you jump at how close she was now, her body laid over on top of yours, her lips pressing right into the soft skin of your ear. “Hush, baby,” she cooed, and the sound made the entire side of your face burn hot. “I’m not going to really hurt you. I’m not that much of a sadist.”

Suddenly, you could feel something really cold on the back of your thigh. The tip of her knife pressed softly into the tender flesh of the back of your thigh, dragging slowly upwards. It caught the hem of your skirt, dragging it upwards and exposing you.

You whined and squirmed, to which she pressed herself harder down on you. The edge of the counter was pressing into your tummy so hard you could barely breathe.

“Now, stop moving, you’ll hurt yourself,” she husked against the space behind your ear, and you shivered at the way your body reacted. You were trembling under her, helpless and confused as the tip of her knife pressed harder into your thigh.

You let out a long cry when she let the knife slice your soft skin, engraving a slash right below your butt cheek.

“Oopsie,” she murmured as she breathed heavily into your ear, her fingers dragging your blood around the back of your thigh. “Sorry about that, you’re just the prettiest one I’ve ever had.” You could feel her smirk against your ear. “I hated how I had to branch out this Halloween, but if I get you, it’s all worth it. I can go right on home—stop moving!”

She grabbed your hip tightly, and your body reacted in the worst way possible. You arched for her, exposing your rear end to her hips even more.

“That’s it,” she said with an air of shock that made you hate yourself. “See? I don’t mind you enjoying it—in fact I want you to.”

Her hand suddenly came down hard on your ass, making you squeak and jump. Your body was hot all over, throbbing against the coolness of the counter, your mind a complete mess.

“Let’s see you,” Wanda said, lifting your skirt fully over your ass to expose it in the moonlight. You felt her finger grab the back strap of your panties and tug them down. Your face grew hot in embarrassment as even you could feel how wet you were. This strange murderer had untapped something inside you that was making you spiral against that counter.

“I knew you were perfect,” she whispered as her fingers touched you, making you jump and whine, swimming in your soaking folds. She laughed against your upper back, her hand roaming over your ass and squeezing it before going back to your pussy, slowly pressing a finger in. You could feel both the blood from the cut and the wetness from your core dripping down your thighs.

Wanda grunted, feeling lost in you. In your fear, your body under hers, the control. This was the best kill she had, and she hadn’t even killed you yet.

“Such a tight little thing, I almost want to keep you.” She pulled out her finger, and you hated yourself for feeling empty because of it. Then you felt something foreign and hard against your entrance, panicking as it pushed into you. She harshly grabbed your hair and slammed your head down again, and that was enough to weaken you.

Your insides throbbed and tingled as she pushed the handle of her knife slowly inside you, grunting at the way you stretched around it. It was a nice knife, thick blade. “You’re taking it so well.”

You squirmed helplessly on the counter, starting to sweat as the woman pushed the knife handle deeper inside you. You could feel it pushing against your cervix, and your legs trembled.

“It’s okay to feel good, you dirty little thing,” Wanda whispered, both a praise and a degradation that made you whimper. You were wordless, mindless, under this killer’s hands and body, and the last part of you that remained subconscious wondered what would’ve happened if you never opened the door.

She pulled the handle almost all the way out before slamming it inside you again. You feared feeling the blade, but you didn’t. She pumped the handle inside you over and over again, soft at first before that clawing inside of her head got the better of her.

“Good girl,” she breathed against the back of your neck, biting into it as she slammed her knife inside you. “That’s it. Stay still.”

You heard a zipper unzip, and the sound of denim shifting, before you felt the warmth of her core pressing into your left cheek. Grabbing the back of your neck with one hand, the other ramming the handle of her knife into your pussy repeatedly, Wanda grinded her clit against your ass, shoving you against the counter over and over again. She was so helpless, so overwhelmed with both intensifying hunger and relief that she just needed to get off. Her cum smeared over the hill of your ass as she rutted herself against it, listening to the wonderful squeaks and whines you made.

“Fuck,” Wanda whispered as she got close, watching the cum-soaked handle of her knife fuck harder into you as she got closer. “Mmmm,” she grunted animalistically as she felt the edge near her.

You clawed helplessly at the counter, your walls spasming around the ribbed handle until finally you couldn’t take it anymore, your hot face pressing hard into the cold, sweaty counter as you came around the handle of her knife. She rutted harder into you as you heard her vague sounds of orgasm, the tip of her knife accidentally making shallow stabs in your inner thighs as she lost control of how she angled the knife.

“Oh fuck,” Wanda breathed as she slowed down, and you were lost under her, your brain far gone and body farther, trembling, thighs bloodied. Wanda hadn’t even noticed that she ripped so hard into the back of your neck that it was bleeding.

Controlled psychopathy. Load of shit.

Pulling out of you, Wanda pulled away and turned your limp body over, looking at your reddened, tear-streaked face. You were such a pretty little thing. A diamond hidden out in the forest. It was a shame she’d stumbled across you that night. If it had been any other night, she would’ve kept you—courted you, even. She could tell you’d make such a good girlfriend to her.

“Well,” Wanda whispered, gently stroking your sweat-soaked hair out of your face. “That was great. I really enjoyed that,” she said softly, almost like a person with real emotions, and for a moment she had almost felt like one.

Controlled psychopathy.

“But I’m afraid I’m going to enjoy this even more.”

The last thing you saw was the flash of her blade as it came down on you.

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