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macfrog · 1 month

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sweet child o' mine | pt. iv

to @mrsmando - without whom this insane story would never have happened in the first place. i love you i love you i love you thank you all so much for coming on this journey with me - it has been a blast. i hope you like where we turn out! love you guys always n forever x

pairing: neighbor!joel x fem!reader

summary: you're a mom. it's time to get your shit together.

warnings: bon jovi mention straight out the gate, labor/delivery [i have never given birth. those of you who have are nothing short of remarkable. please forgive if some of this is a little inaccurate or vague], use of pain medication during birth, description of pain and post-birth recovery, super emotional reader, unprotected piv, oral, alcohol consumption. DISCLAIMER: this series covers some issues which i know may be sensitive and possibly triggering to some. warnings will always be as thorough as possible, but if there’s ever anything you feel i’ve missed, please let me know. feel free to drop by my inbox anytime.

word count: 12k

pt. i / series masterlist | main masterlist | playlist | follow @macfroglets w notifs on to be the first to hear when i post 🩵

It’s September twenty-third.

Well, by now, it’s probably the twenty-fourth. You’ve been a little distracted, rolling between the sheets with your next-door neighbor for the last couple hours.

The wedding’s still going strong downstairs. The same Bon Jovi song has played three times over. Tommy has called Joel to ask where he is so much that Joel’s phone is now switched off and shoved to the bottom of his bag.

You’re slouched on the toilet in a sliver of moonlight. A fistful of tissue, panties loose around your ankles. Rolling your forehead side to side along the cool tile, heartbeat hammering between your temples.

Joel Miller – Joel fucking Miller – is in your bed. Naked, sweating, cock probably still half-hard.

This morning, the very idea of the man was an eyeroll. Stood in your mirror, promising yourself that this time tomorrow, it’ll all be over with.

This time in a month, it’ll be a foggy memory.

This time in a year, it –

His voice is muffled through the bathroom door. “Did you fall in, or somethin’?”

You snort. The milky moon blurs across your vision when you pull yourself upright. You swipe between your legs and stand, flushing the toilet.

“I needed a fucking breather,” you tease, tiptoeing back across the room.

Joel’s stretched out; a worked arm draped along the headboard. Sun-kissed to the middle of his bicep, paler across his shoulder. One leg bare on the mattress, the other under the sheets. They only just cover his modesty – dark hair trailing beneath light silk just in time.

He’s so big. It’s like you never really noticed until now. He takes up half the bed, laying like this. And sure, you’re halfway to fucked, but – has he always been so handsome?

You flop down beside him with a sigh, curling up in the burrow of sheets at his side. Your eyes trail up his body – the sheen of sweat up his side, the dark, damp hair under his arm. All the parts of him you’ve never seen before, will never see again.

You gulp. Quit fucking staring.

He doesn’t notice, anyway. He’s rubbing circles into his temples, grumbling. “How many goddamn times are they gonna play It’s My Life?”

“…for Tommy and Gina…” you nudge him, “…who never backed down…”

Joel chuckles, pulling his hand down his beard. “Twenty bucks says he’s changing that to Maria.”

“Oh, for sure. I ain’t going back down to listen to it, though.”

He hums in agreement, reaching over for his beer. His Adam’s apple bobs as he drinks.

“You owe me, by the way. This is my room, remember? My fucking minibar.”

He pauses, the bottle against his bottom lip. His eyes linger south of your chin before he answers, “I’m paying for the damn room.”

“Then I want a drink from yours. Make it even.”

He clicks his teeth and drinks again. “It’s one beer. Call it an early birthday gift.”

You frown. “When the hell’s your birthday?”

“Tuesday.”

“Bullshit.”

“Serious. The twenty-sixth.”

You push yourself up onto your elbows; chest bare and on display. And it’s a strange feeling, how little you care. Twelve hours ago, you didn’t know how close to sit next to him at the ceremony. How many times you could accidentally bump knees or brush elbows and it not be weird.

But in the last two hours, he’s made you come more times than you can count. More times than anyone you’ve ever been with before – that’s for sure. And you’ve repaid the favor: the proof is still dribbling out of you. Still dripping between your legs, all pearlescent and warm. You’re soaked, swollen, still sore from the size of him.

It’s a fucking strange feeling, that you don’t mind at all.

“How old are you turning?” you ask.

Joel swallows. He settles the beer on his sternum, thumbing the corner of the label. Sucks in a deep breath and says, “Forty-eight.”

“Jesus,” you mutter, eyes wide.

He turns slowly, glaring at you. “Hilarious,” he drawls, bumping the bottle against your tummy.

You hiss at the sudden chill. Wiping cold droplets from your skin, you swipe it from his grasp.

Joel pushes himself from the bed with a quiet groan and pads across the room. His cock sways with each step, an arrowhead of thick hair at its base.

He doesn’t seem to mind, either.

You tip your chin back, taking a hefty swig.

The pulsing bass is heavier, guitar squeal sharper, when he cracks open the window. Cool air sweeps past the scent of sex and settles softly on your skin.

The mattress dips again as Joel settles back into bed. He pulls the sheet over himself, silk falling over the stubborn shape against his thigh.

“Well,” you pass him the bottle, “happy birthday, old man. Here’s to forty-eight.”

“Here’s to forty-eight,” Joel echoes, staring off into space, “and whatever the hell it has in store.”

1:29. 1:29. 1:30.

It’s blurring across your vision. The pain and the panic and the blinking of your fucking alarm clock.

Your stomach is still tensed in the aftermath of the contraction; an ache like the slow sway of the ocean, a wave rolling off into the distance. You’re hunched over the edge of the bed – knee bouncing, palms kneading your round belly.

“We’re okay,” you whisper, blowing into the still night. “We’re fine. Maybe it isn’t labor, right? Maybe it’s just those…Braxton…shit…Hicks.”

The cicadas laugh as your uterus swings again.

Another kick of pain; a bolt that winds you, piercing from your stomach down between your legs. So slow it feels fucking personal.

Your back curls, nails digging into the mattress. You grit your teeth until it passes, then push yourself to your feet, reaching for your phone.

You think of Joel: the flecks of gold in his eyes, the rough surface of his palms. The fresh, woodsy scent woven into every thread on his shirt, seeping from every pore on his skin.

The way he’d pull you under his arm and walk you to his truck. Play more Eagles or whatever shit he has to take your mind off the pain – tell you he knows, he knows as you whimper in agony. The way he’d hold your thigh the entire ride, loosening it only to weave his fingers through yours.

He’s in Houston, though. He’s something like three hours away. There’s nothing he could do, even if you did call – even if he did pick up. Even if he got in his truck right this second.

Shit. Shit fuck shit. How are you in labor right now, on this fucking night? All your teasing, all your taunting the universe. You really think that’s gonna happen? You think your kid’s that much of an asshole?

Yeah. They’re half you.

You’re on your own. It’s nothing new; you’ve been on your own for most of your life. You drove yourself to college, worked your ass off, and sold your graduation guest tickets to your roommate. You found a job by yourself, moved back to Austin and turned it into home by yourself.

You haven’t needed anyone or anything, since you were eighteen.

But – oh, Jesus, fuck it. This was a two-man job from the start. Some things you figure you can let slide – and having a kid seems like a pretty decent excuse.

Fuck it.

You move, hunched and hobbling, to the bathroom door. Slumped against the wooden frame, you cup a hand between your legs.

Sure enough, your underwear is soaked. The fluid trickles down the seam of your thigh, warm and thin. It glistens in the moonlight when you lift your fingers.

“Shit,” you whisper. “Goddamn it, Duck.”

Body tingling and almost numb with pain, you scroll through your contacts to J. You stumble into the bathroom, wet fingers slipping around the sink. A weight begins to pull low between your hips.

Two rings and the tone cuts, his voice instantly spilling a cool comfort down your spine.

There’s no hello, no double checking that you haven’t accidentally dialed him in your sleep. Only that trademark drawl, that flat tone you’d swear sounded bored, if it weren’t for the haste with which Joel asks, “You okay?” the second he answers.

As if he were awake anyway, just waiting for your call.

“Yeah,” you choke, rubbing the nape of your neck. “I just called at one in the morning to…to say hi.”

He sighs, the crackle of breath echoed by the tinkle of wind chimes. The creak of wood as he settles into a chair on Vanessa’s parents’ porch. “Alright, smartass. What is it?”

“I’m…I’m in labor.”

“Mhm. That sure is funny, baby. Good one.”

You groan. “No, Joel, I swear – I swear, I just went into labor.”

He pauses. The chimes titter in the background. “You’re…You ain’t kidding me?”

The sharp peak of pain swipes the air clean from your lungs. The phone hits the sink with a clatter, drowning out your cry.

This kid is beating the ever-loving shit out of you. You’d be embarrassed if you had the energy to think about it.

“Baby?” Joel yells, loud enough that the sound loops around the bowl. His voice lifts to an octave you didn’t know it could reach. “Talk to me. Please, talk to me.”

Your fingers clamp around the phone. “I’m f-fine. It’s fine. I just gotta…gotta change my fuckin’ sheets, Joel, my waters broke while I was sleeping –”

“Oh, Christ,” he growls. The door squeals as he storms back into Vanessa’s family home. “The sh…Change the goddamn sheets? You gotta get to a hospital, darlin’!”

You laugh, head tipping back. “It’s fine,” you tell him. “Feels like the kid’s trying to kill me, but I can – shit, I can take ‘em.”

There’s the jangle of keys, the ruffle of a shirt being thrown over his head. “Yeah?” Joel says.“You can take childbirth, all on your own? Do me a favor and call a damn ambulance, baby.”

“An ambulance,” you repeat, laughing again.

“Yes, an ambulance. Call 9-1-1 right now. You want me to call ‘em? Let me go grab the landline –”

“Joel, do not call an ambulance –”

And if you thought you’d heard him at breaking point before – plucking your underwear from his lawn, dragging you around Home Depot, paling in your room with a pregnancy test in his hands – you know you have, now.

“You gotta get to a goddamn hospital now, baby!”

His voice trembles at its end, quivers like the pluck of a guitar string. A high-pitched echo, a nervous vibration.

Joel’s panicking.

It’s the second thing in less than five minutes that you never knew he could do.

“I can’t afford a f-fucking ambulance, Joel,” you yelp, sitting back on the edge of the bathtub.

“I will pay for it,” he pleads, “I’ll pay. Just – you gotta call them. You gotta…” He sighs again, breath wavering. “You’re in labor, and you’re alone. If anything happened to you, I –”

A hushed voice interrupts him. Follows him through the house, knotting her nightgown around her waist and twisting her dark tresses into a ponytail.

“She’s in labor,” Joel tells her. “I can’t stay. I’m going back for her.”

The porch door slams shut before Vanessa can reply, and Joel’s back outside again. Gravel crunching beneath his boots, crickets screaming in the background. “Still with me?” he asks.

“Still here,” you breathe, tracing your nails along your leg. “Duckie says hi, I guess.”

He hums. “Hi, Duckie. You little shit.”

You rock back and forth, eyes closed. Breathing between contractions, your head low between your shoulders. “How long will you be?”

The truck door creaks open. “I’m leaving right now. I’ll be…Fuck, I’ll be a couple hours, at least. I’m on my way, alright?”

Tears drip onto your bare thighs, the salt spilling into your mouth. “Joel,” you shake your head, “I don’t think I can do this.”

“Yes, you can,” he says. “Are you kidding? Got us this far ‘n now you want to bail? That ain’t you, baby. Come on, now.”

“I wanna bail,” you insist. You slump to the floor, head lolling over the rim of the bathtub. Weeping like a little kid. “I’m scared, Joel. I’m so scared.”

“I know you are. Lord knows I’m scared, too – scared as hell. But –” the engine roars to life, “– I can’t wait to finally meet this kid. Our kid. Can’t wait to hold ‘em. Can’t wait to see you become a mom, and me become a dad.”

“Mom and Dad,” you whisper, sniffling.

“Mom and Dad, right? Yeah. You can do this. I know you can.”

The bathroom blurs behind your tears. You close your eyes, replacing the pale night with warmer dawn. Replacing it with images of tiny hands and feet; missing front teeth and a love-worn teddy tucked safely into bed.

Joel’s voice is softer, kinder. Calmer, now that he’s closing the hundred and fifty miles between the two of you.

“Just – don’t let the kid give you any shit, alright?”

The fear boils into determination. Something more irritating than it is terrifying. You inhale, blowing a heavy, shuddered breath to the ceiling. “Whatever, Miller.”

“Attagirl,” he says. “That’s the spirit. Now, call a damn ambulance.”

With a scoff, you push yourself to your feet, waddling towards the foot of your bed. You sway back and forth, holding your bump and listening to the hum of Joel’s truck.

And then you hear it.

Three sharp raps, from downstairs.

You wander to the hallway, squinting in the dark. “Joel?”

“Hm?”

“Are you…?”

The sound grows louder the nearer you draw. Quick knuckles against your front door.

“Am I what, darlin’?”

You lower yourself down the stairs, fist tight around the rail.

It’s August again. Sun’s encore blazing through your kitchen windows, bleeding golden through your living room. Everything shining, everything new and untouched.

Knock knock knock.

Light satin, duck egg blue; string lights and a diamond-encrusted necklace. The bones of your wardrobe propped against your porch. A rattling toolbox hanging from his fist, a positive pregnancy test in yours.

The knocking halts when you flick the porch light on. She calls your name once, old voice quivering.

Your phone is still glued to your ear as you pull the door open. “Al…?”

She squints at you and lifts a hand to shield from the light. She’s still in her pajamas – green dressing gown loose and lifting in the breeze.

Her eyes drop to the tee draped over your bump, the silver stream of fluid down the inside of your thigh. As she opens her mouth to speak, your hand slams into the doorpost.

“Oh, fuck,” you groan, and Alice Brown steps straight over the threshold.

“Are you in labor? Oh, sweetie. Sit down, sit.”

She backs you towards the stairs. One bony, trembling hand around yours – squeezing as tight as you are. She rubs up and down your spine, shushing until the pain subsides.

You blink up at her glowing figure, haloed by the porch light outside. “How did you…?”

She hushes you with a finger in the air. “I’m up most nights. I heard you from the window. Have you called 9-1-1?”

You shake your head, beginning to cry again.

Alice just nods, dismissing your bullshit. “Where’s your overnight bag, sweetheart?”

You toss a thumb over your shoulder. “It’s up in the nursery. I can go grab it –”

She holds you still with a hand on your shoulder. “Stay.” Another curt nod, then, “Get your shoes, get yourself over to my car. Do you need pants? You need pants. My car, right now.”

“Alice, you really don’t have to –”

“Get in the car,” she insists, climbing past you. “I’m right behind you!”

You watch her figure dissolve into the dim upstairs, and lift the phone back to your ear. “Did you…hear all that?”

“Alice Brown,” Joel replies, and you can hear the smirk in his voice. “What’d I tell ya? That woman doesn’t miss a goddamn thing in this neighborhood.”

“Three centimeters,” the obstetrician says, covering your legs with the sheet. “Still a little ways to go.”

The suite is hushed and still. Walls an unoffending shade of oatmeal; decorated only with oak paneling and a framed painting of some lilies.

A nurse tilts the shades, averting the twinkling city lights in the distance. She turns and smiles – the same fucking smile everyone’s been giving you since you set foot in the place. Head tilted, brows arched.

Sympathy that you want to chew up and spit back out at their feet.

You force yourself to smile in return, and she floats back out to the bustling reception.

“Will he make it?” Alice asks. She’s still in her pajamas; the floral print goes well with the interior of the room. “The father, I mean. Joel.”

The obstetrician peels the gloves from her hands. She shrugs as she drops them into a wastebin. “I don’t see why not,” she says. “Things are moving a little quickly, but I don’t see you having your baby in the next couple hours.”

“You don’t know this kid like I do,” you groan, shifting in the bed.

She lifts the cardiotocograph reading, scanning the jagged lines. “You’re doing great,” she says. “I’ll be back in a little while. Just holler if you need anything.” She strolls off, letting the door sweep shut behind her.

Alice adjusts your pillow and squeezes your shoulder. She holds out a cup of water, guiding the straw to your lips. “He’ll be here,” she whispers.

You take a sip and settle back. “I don’t think I’m that lucky. I told him I hoped he’d get a flat on the ride there. This feels like karma.”

“Well, if it’s anyone’s karma –” she wiggles her fingers, “– it’s his. Going to Houston was ridiculous in the first place. Hell, you two not being together is ridiculous.”

You scoff, shaking your head. “Just because we’re having a kid doesn’t mean we should be together. You shouldn’t be with someone for the sake of a baby who won’t even know any different.”

“Right, right,” Alice agrees, turning away. “You should only be with someone if you love them.”

“Exactly. And me and Joel – we’re not in love.”

She murmurs to herself. She lowers into a chair by the window, crossing her arms. “I’m seventy-three,” she says. “I’m not a damn fool.”

Something twists awkwardly between your hips. You wince, clutching your bump.

Duckie’s heartbeat pulses through the room. Muffled little bubbles of noise, popping one after the other. Strong and steady as hell – a determined little thing, the doctor said.

Don’t I fucking know it, you thought.

You reach for the silicone mask and cup it over your mouth. The gas is cold and funny when you inhale, feeling it shoot straight for the back of your skull. It does little more than dull the spiking pain, but still – you tip your head back, eyes rolling closed.

You let yourself fade from the suite – its yellow lamplight and hushed chatter outside – to somewhere warmer. Somewhere brighter.

Birdsong high overhead, and the whispering leaves on the oak trees in your yard. The sweet breeze on your skin, soothing the sting of the sun. Prickling wood on your fingertips, the gentle strum of a guitar somewhere beyond the fence.

Peering between the slats, catching glimpses of him like watching a film reel. His head nodding, his foot tapping. The concentration tight on his face; the perfect pick and pluck of his fingers on each string.

Half-hoping that he’ll spot you, scold you for spying and storm back into his house. That he might bring it up later – And another thing, while he whips his newspaper from your grasp, ignoring your cackling.

Half-hoping that he won’t. That he’ll sit there at his back door, bottle of beer at his feet, playing to his audience of sparrows.

And you’ll stand here, wishing you could ask the name of each song he hums.

The contraction splits your daydream in two.

In two hours, you dilate almost three centimeters.

You pace back and forth across the suite, pausing only when your womb clenches like a fist. The contractions are lasting longer, swinging lower, and punching harder. They’re giving you less recovery time; less of a chance to get back on your feet.

It’s a fucking nightmare.

Joel’s still not here. Last you heard, he’d just hit Travis County. Twenty minutes, baby, I promise. That was half an hour ago.

It might be for the better that he hasn’t gotten here. You’ve warned Alice three times already that you might just beat the shit out of him, whenever he walks through that door.

And you know what, sweetheart? She chuckled. I bet you could beat the shit out of him, sore as you are.

“Fuck,” you cry out, collapsing onto the bed. You stretch out forward, head hanging between your shoulders, and gulp back more of the laughing gas. The ache barrels from your stomach to your hips, peaking in the very center.

Alice rubs circles into the small of your back. It’s not helping, but you let her do it anyways. Gives her something to tell the neighbors that isn’t damaging to your reputation.

“That’s it,” she coos. “A little longer, just a little…”

The door clicks open just as the tense band begins to loosen.

Your head is spinning. The mask slips from your fingers.

Alice’s hand pauses. “…a little longer…” she repeats, voice drifting. Her weight leaves your back, replaced by something heavier, stronger.

Safer.

Someone grounding, someone smelling of pine and sweet spice.

He sits on the bed at your back and curves around your body. Lips to your shoulder like the sun in your backyard. His beard scratches against your hot skin.

You blink your eyes open.

Joel’s watch face winks back at you. His hands are over yours – bigger, wider. His fists swallow yours whole. They turn, slipping beneath your palms, and your fingers lace together.

“Joel…” you breathe, face turning in to his neck.

“Hi, sweet girl,” he says, wiping sweat from your brow.

You fall limp against his chest. “Holy shit.”

He looks exhausted. Gray, almost translucent. Looks like he’s just driven a couple hundred miles, half asleep and wholly panicked.

But – he’s here. He made it.

The sight of him, the feel of him holding you upright, melts away any anger or resolve to fight back. For now, at least. Picking an argument can wait until there isn’t a human splitting you in two.

He’s here. You’re not doing this alone.

“Holy shit,” Joel repeats. “You okay?”

“How did you get here so –?”

“Ninety-five the entire way.”

You frown. “Only ninety-five?”

“Trunk’s a hunk a’ shit,” he admits. “Couldn’t break a hundred.”

Alice scoffs, somewhere across the room.

He cradles you, his lips to your forehead. “Where we at?” he asks, staring at the paper churning from the cardiotocograph.

“Five, almost s–shit – six centimeters.” You clamp down on his hands, your uterus winding again.

Joel holds the mask back to your lips and you suck another chemical breath in. “Six? Jesus,” he gapes at Alice, “ain’t that…ain’t that real fast? For – for your first?”

Your fingers are weak and shaky, resting on his knuckles. “Your kid has a sick sense of humor,” you mutter into the silicone.

“That ain’t from me,” he says. “That’s all you, maestro.”

You turn closer into his shirt with a groan. He’s solid as a rock, swaying you through it. He’s here.

Alice swipes her coat from a hook by the door. She shakes her head, pulling it over her shoulders. “Ninety-five, Joel? Sweet Lord.”

He rolls his eyes. His hand curves around your bump. “Had a little bit of an emergency, Alice,” he says, watching your face twist with pain.

“And what if you’d had an accident?”

“I didn’t, Alice.”

“You could’ve, goin’ that damn fast. You’re lucky you’re even here.”

Joel finally looks up. “It’s four in the mornin’,” he protests, like a teenager. “Lucky if I passed five cars.”

You give him a weak smile, lowering the mask. You won’t win, you mouth.

He presses his lips to your head. “’s too much fun,” he murmurs, and you snort.

“Oh!” Alice throws a hand up. “I’m glad you find it funny!” She buttons her coat and glares back at both of you, hands on her hips.

She’s a busybody – has been since before you even moved in. She showed up on your doorstep on your first night with a casserole in hand, and made sure to get a good look at your living room before she shuffled back to her own place.

Always watching, always listening.

You never thought you’d see the day when you’d actually be thankful for her snoopiness.

“Thank you, Alice,” you say, head tilting. “For getting me here, for holding my hand…Thank you.”

Her expression thaws, eyes gleaming. With a sniff, she composes herself – and then points to Joel. “You call me as soon as that baby arrives. I won’t sleep, Joel, until you call.”

“I’ll call,” he assures.

She looks back at you. Balls her crepe paper fists, gives them a hearty shake. “Good luck, Mom,” she says, and with one last glance, slips out of the room.

Joel turns back to you, an eyebrow raised. “Take it she was out tendin’ to her tulips again?”

“Yeah,” you snicker, “one in the morning, those fuckers had to be watered.”

He chuckles. “You feelin’ okay?”

“Better now,” you tell him.

“I’m so sorry, darlin’,” he says, shaking his head. “I should’ve been here. A goddamn idiot, headin’ off like that. So damn stupid.”

“Shh, you’re here now.” You wipe the tears from the corners of his eyes. “I just needed you to be here.”

He nods. “I’m here, whatever you need. Tell me what I can do.”

You take a deep breath. “I need…”

Joel straightens – bracing, ready to jump at your first request.

“…I need a fucking break, Joel. I’m so tired, and this fucking kid –”

“Alright,” he sighs, shifting from behind you. “You and your goddamn jokes.”

You smirk, looking over your shoulder. “You missed me.”

“Hm,” he fixes the neckline of your gown, “I missed you. I really did.”

Born at 07:43. It’s a girl.

It’s like being broken open. Like splitting at the seams; your old self falling from you like shards of fruit. Separating, rolling apart; making way for someone older, wiser. Someone with all of the answers in the palm of her hand.

Mom.

You finally get it. She turns to you, finally glances over her shoulder. And she’s no stranger – no one you haven’t known your entire life. I know you, you whisper, nail trailing her smile lines and the pimples along her jaw.

I see you every time I look in the mirror.

Duckie is pulled from your body with a scream like bloody murder – a scream which matches the whimper you let out in shock, if not in volume.

The kid can scream. Jesus Christ, she can scream. It pierces the dull room; deafens you for a couple seconds the first time you hear it.

You’ve never heard a sound so fucking beautiful.

She wails as they lift her from your body. All curled-up, wriggling in the midwife’s arms. She wails as they slot her beneath your chin, as they wipe the blood and amniotic fluid from her.

She wails until the moment her skin meets yours, and as though it’s all you’ve ever known, you begin shushing her cries. Your arms close around her body, rocking her until she settles.

Her tiny hand grabs for something, for someone, for –

You.

Her mom.

“Joel,” you gasp, watching her tiny, pruned fingers clasp tight around just one of yours. “She’s…she’s so small…”

He sniffs in reply, lifting his hand from your shoulder to wipe his face.

You turn to look up at him.

He looks as broken open as you feel. Eyes bloodshot and soaking, tears streaming into his thick beard. A sob in his throat which chokes and silences him, until he catches your eye and he can’t help but laugh with elation.

“Look at her,” he weeps, all torn up by the little girl in your arms. He presses his lips to your forehead in a crash of a kiss: wet, soaking wet on your skin.

You beam up at him when he pulls away. “We did it,” you whisper.

Joel shakes his head. He runs a thumb across the damp print left on your head. “You did it, honey,” he mutters. “I was nothin’ but a spectator.”

“You almost missed the game,” you quip, and he laughs again.

Your body throbs; nearly numb with pain, heavy with fatigue and emotion. But as long as she’s here, this tiny tornado of a girl, you don’t feel a thing.

Clenching and then unclenching her fist around your finger – so delicate compared to the punches she was throwing at your ribs just six hours ago. She’s worth every fucking second of it.

You finally fucking get it.

She fits so perfectly in the crook of your arm. It feels as though your body was made just to hold her – the very shape of you, designed especially for the very shape of her.

You wonder whether it was the same for your mom. Whether you came along and made her feel whole, for the first time in her life.

Duckie’s eyes open – all glossy and brand new, blinking up at the both of you like she needed no introduction. She already knows you, from the inside out. Her dad’s graying beard, the threads of silver around his temples. Her mom’s tear-stained cheeks, eyes red and bleary with sleeplessness and pure love.

You’re Mom, you’re Dad.

It’s all she’s ever known.

The pillow sighs as you lean back into it. The doctor begins repairing the damage done between your legs; threading and knitting your body back together.

You’re caught between a state of bliss and shock. Your brain is doing much the same work to itself as the woman between your knees is. Patching over all the bloody parts: the screams which tore your skin, the pain which cracked your teeth.

None of it holds a candle to the weight of her in your arms. No matter how tired you are, you can’t take your eyes off her. Her puffy cheeks, the little creases between her brows. No matter how sore, you never want to let go of her.

Joel runs a finger down Duckie’s cheek. “Ain’t she the most beautiful thing in the world?”

“I love her,” you say, bubbling again. “I love her more than anything.”

An hour old, and she’s already a daddy’s girl.

Joel ambles back and forth at the foot of your bed in the recovery suite, bouncing Duck in his arms. He’s never looked so relaxed, so natural at something. He’s never seemed so content, so peaceful.

Everything he’s ever made with his hands – structures and framework and your goddamn closet – and yet this, this tiny accident, this baby girl you were so sure you’d dreamt up right up until an hour ago –

This is the thing he’s proudest of.

Morning lifts through the windows, all soft and vanilla. It floats around him, sunlight spilling across his skin and breathing life and color into him.

Sunlight – or his daughter. They’re the same thing, anyway.

You pull apart a slice of toast, watching. Just watching. Sweet strawberry jam on your tongue, the flavor of everything sharper, fresher. The colors brighter, more vivid.

The world makes more sense like this, you think. Painted in shades of honey and ochre; a room in a corner of the world where time slows to a halt. A soft lullaby from his lips, and the little coos from hers.

The ache of love and labor lingers deep inside you, and nothing has ever made more sense.

You suck the sticky sweet from your fingertips.

Joel looks up, toying with Duckie’s hand. “You want her back?” he asks, a dumb grin on his face.

You shake your head. “I like watching you.”

He scrunches his nose, nuzzling it against his daughter’s, and whispers, “I wasn’t gonna give you back, anyways.” He sways in the early light, staring down at her. “Jesus,” he mutters, swiping at his eyes again, “I didn’t…I didn’t know I could love somethin’ this much.”

“Me, either.”

He drifts over, lowering himself slowly onto the edge of the bed. He extends his elbow, still cradling the baby, and helps you pull yourself upright.

You hiss, a not-so-subtle sting between your legs.

“You, uh…you think of a name yet?” Joel asks.

“Not yet,” you reply, hooked onto his shoulder. Duck blows a bubble and you wipe it with your knuckle. “I thought we were sticking with Duckie?”

His cheeks swell. The sun kisses the edges of his beard. “I thought of one,” he says softly. “Maybe. It’s your call.”

You yawn into his shirt, the warmth of him calm and soothing. “Alright, Miller. Hit me.”

He looks down at the baby nestled in his safe hands. The smallest thing either of you have ever seen.

The name must roll around his head a few times, the way he tilts to-and-fro – looking at her from one angle, then the next. Deciding, when he pulls back, that she suits it from every direction. Like it was her name long before he or even you knew it.

You watch his lips shape the name before you hear it.

Sarah.

And for what feels like forever, you just stare at him. The syllables lingering in the air like glistening specks of dust in a sunbeam. Your eyes follow them down to your daughter, now sleeping peacefully with two hands around one of her dad’s thumbs.

“Sarah,” you repeat, remembering whose name it was, whose name it is – whose name it has always been. “Sarah Miller.”

Joel’s shoulders lift. “What do you think? She look worthy of bein’ a Sarah?”

The rustle of tissue paper. Blue and green and purple tearing between your fingers. The funny fuzz of pom poms as your hands rummaged through the bag. Her hand swimming towards you, an orange foam fish riding the waves between her fingers. Bubbly sounds erupting from her lips.

Your girlish giggle. Her silly grin. Hopscotch along the sidewalk; stopping to look for cars before she’d walk you across the street. How much do I love you, baby girl?

More than the whole world, Mama.

“I love it,” you breathe, tears running to the corners of your mouth. “Sarah fucking Miller.”

“Sarah fuckin’ Miller,” Joel echoes; two wet lines the same as yours, curving down his cheeks. He shifts her into the crook of his arm.

You’re impossibly close. Your chin rests on his shoulder, foreheads brushing when you lean in to each other. His breath is hot on your lips, closer and closer and closer until –

He tastes like salt, rich with emotion. Salt, and then sweet when your tongue meets his. He lifts his free hand to cup your cheek, and your fingers link around his wrist.

And you know you shouldn’t be doing it – know this isn’t your man to be kissing. But in this room, where no one else can see – where it’s just you, him, and all the best parts of yourselves shaped into someone better – he feels like yours.

Just for a moment.

Joel takes the first week of Sarah’s life off work.

He spends a good twenty minutes on the phone to the contractor, talking more about the kid than he does the job. Her eyelashes, her fingernails, the way her legs scrunch anytime he lifts her up.

He’s besotted with the entire thing. And he tells everybody so.

He moves in with you both, stays in your guestroom. It’s a week of no sleep, no peace, and a total of three showers between you. Wearing the same clothes covered in spit-up and drool until one of you has the time or energy to do laundry.

It’s hard. It’s the hardest thing you’ve ever done. By your count, you’ve already cried three times to Joel – terrified you’re getting it all wrong.

But you’re doing it. Jesus God, you’re doing it.

You order takeout most nights. You can’t stand long enough to cook just yet, and you don’t trust Joel not to burn your fucking kitchen down – despite his protests. And it feels like, after everything your body’s given you, it deserves a greasy pizza and some chicken wings.

You rot on the couch together, watching shitty TV and arguing over reruns of Jeopardy! – until Sarah wakes and the whole thing begins again.

Joel loses the game of rock, paper, scissors tonight.

“Shh, baby girl. ‘s alright now, I gotcha,” he lulls, tucking her back in to her bassinet.

She fusses and stretches out; arms over her head, legs curled up. Her onesie is still a little too big – the socked feet all baggy, the sleeves rolled up her wrists.

He lingers for a moment as she drifts off, a hand stroking her tummy. Watching, always watching her. The rise and fall of her stomach, the puffs of breath from her nostrils, her lips still suckling away in her sleep.

“I swear I have a baby photo that looks just like her,” you say. “Same nose and everything.”

Joel clicks his teeth. “Got her looks from her mom. Lucky thing.”

“Low-hanging fruit,” you snort.

He drifts back over, sinking into the couch at your side. “Doin’ okay?” he asks, and you nod.

Every muscle in your body still feels like a ton weight. Your stomach is still swollen; there are still stitches between your legs. There are moments you can’t tell if you’re crying because of hormones, exhaustion, or joy.

Every time, it’s a combination of all three.

Life before feels so long ago – and it hasn’t even been a fortnight. But then you held her for the first time, and now – your arm misses the weight of her when she’s not in it. Your house feels eerily quiet when she’s not laughing, or whimpering, or screaming the fucking roof down.

You can feel your daughter growing up already, and she’s only ten days old.

On the mantelpiece, safe in a stippled gold frame, your mom beams down over her. The photo at least twenty years old, the memory even older. Laughing, the way she always was; nothing quite so funny as a joke frozen in time.

Joel prods you with his elbow. “She’d be proud of you, you know. Your mom.”

“Oh,” you scoff, “no, she’d be like, Holy shit. This kid totally kicked your ass.”

He chuckles. “Sure she did,” he shrugs, “she’s your kid.”

The TV babbles to itself across the room. In its glow, Joel meets your eye. A tiny, pearly fleck swimming in deep honey.

It’s familiar – each shade of bronze in his eyes, each thread of silver through his hair. Like you’ve mapped each and every line on his skin, collecting them like the sleepless hours between you.

Everything about him feels so normal. Burnt toast in the morning, a spoon clinking around a mug of coffee. The rustle of the newspaper, the sizzle of eggs in the pan, the baby snoring on your chest.

Everything – and yet nothing you’ve ever known.

“I miss her,” you whisper. “I miss my mom.”

His hand finds yours instantly. “I know, baby. I know you do.”

You slouch down, leaning on his shoulder, and close your eyes. Joel presses his lips to the crown of your head, his thumb looping around your knuckles.

Sarah gurgles in her sleep. She sighs – a satisfied little sound. Nothing has ever made more sense.

His voice rumbles against your skull. “Who sent the lilies?”

Your eyes flutter open. “Hm?”

Joel flicks his finger towards the window, towards a sprawl of speckled, cream flowers. “The lilies? They weren’t there this morning.”

“Oh…” You turn to look up at him, cringing.

He sees the flicker of her behind your eyes. Her lustrous curtain of hair, her perfect almond nails.

“Really?” Joel asks, mirroring your expression.

You nod, trying not to laugh. “From her and Kate. You were upstairs with Sarah when she came by. I offered to call you down, but – she just wanted to drop ‘em and go.”

“What did she…? Did she say anything?”

Your head shakes. “She just…she said congratulations, said she hoped we were okay. Then she got in her car and she left. I kinda figured things weren’t sunshine and roses, anyway. You haven’t fuckin’ seen her since Houston.”

He snorts, fingers massaging his eyes. “I was goin’ to tell you,” he mumbles into his palms, “I just…Honey, I don’t even know what day of the week it is right now. I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have to tell me anything,” you mutter.

“Yes, I do,” he insists. His eyes flit over to Sarah, then back to you. “We haven’t really talked it through yet, me ‘n her. I called her a few days ago, we agreed it’s time. It – it’s past time. I shoulda called it months ago.”

“I guess,” you sigh. “Are you okay?”

Joel’s brow furrows. “’course I am. I got the most beautiful baby girl in the world,” and then, rolling his eyes, “you’re here.”

“Oh, fuck you,” you clip, batting his arm. “Vanessa could do way better, anyways.”

“I don’t doubt it.”

You squeeze his fingers, softly adding, “I’m sorry it didn’t work out, Joel.”

He stares down at your clasped hands. He looks tired, worn out. You figure it’s not just from the newborn. But he takes a deep breath, something the color of relief dawning on his skin, and looks you dead in the eye.

“I’m not.”

“Hey, Duckie – can you say, Happy birthday, Daddy?”

A vinyl wobbles on the turntable – some acoustic record from when Joel was a teenager. There’s wrapping paper still crumpled beneath the coffee table; four plates with more crumbs than cake left, dotted around the room.

Tommy leans in, a lopsided party hat on his head, and tickles Sarah’s chin.

She blinks at him, unamused, then scrunches her little nose and turns back into your chest.

He sighs, straightening. “She don’t like her uncle Tommy all that much,” he grumbles, sulking back over to the couch. Maria puts a consoling arm around his shoulder.

You rest your lips on Sarah’s head, breathing in her sweet scent. Swaying back and forth, you tease, “She don’t like anyone all that much, not unless they’re her daddy.”

Joel’s head lifts and he smiles, eyes glistening. He watches you and Sarah dance; laughs when you twirl her around and she tips her head back, flashing a gummy grin.

“She’ll come around to ya,” he tells Tommy, wandering over to your side. “We all learned to, eventually.”

Tommy scoffs. “Very funny, old man. Jesus.”

Joel stoops down to let Sarah run her small hands through his beard. He catches her fingertips between his lips and pretends to nibble on them.

She giggles, squirming in your arms. Her fingers find the sweeps of hair on his forehead and, taking a fistful, she tugs.

“Christ,” Joel hisses, pulling back.

“That was on you this time,” you chuckle, pointing a finger. “You know she does that, and you still fall for it.”

Maria glances down at her watch. “Is that the time?” she asks, turning to Tommy. “We should really turn in.”

“Oh – right, right.” Tommy tips the last of his beer into his mouth. “We’re takin’ Mom to brunch tomorrow. Better get some goddamn rest.”

Joel hums, still massaging his hairline. “Hey,” he whispers, elbowing you. “Maybe I should take her over. She’s getting sleepy – ain’t you, little Duck?”

“Oh, yeah.”

Tommy stands and holds a hand out. “Why don’t you let Maria and I take her? We’ll tuck her in, keep an eye on her. We weren’t half bad the other day, while y’all were at work. And if she’s stayin’ at Joel’s tonight anyway…”

You glance to Joel, who shrugs. Something shaped like Sure.

“As long as you don’t mind,” you reply, bouncing the baby slowly. “Let me go grab her things.”

Joel’s hand slips across the small of your back as you pass, making for the stairs. He lingers at the bottom, watching until you turn into the nursery with Sarah in the crook of your arm.

You set her down in her crib and gather some of her favorites: a yellow blanket, a duck comforter, a rattle shaped like an elephant. She watches contentedly as you shuffle back and forth, staring when you lean over the wooden rail.

“You know how much I love you?” you whisper, curling a finger inside her fist. She squeezes, and you say, “More than the whole world.”

She grabs at the chain dangling from your neck, the letter S catching the light. Instead, she lifts your finger to her mouth. Her nails scratch light as a feather across your skin. Her gums are tiny and soft around your knuckle.

Everything about her is tiny and soft. Her sweeping eyelashes, her plushy cheeks. Her round tummy, and the squeals she lets free as you dot kisses and blow raspberries all over it. No matter how much she’s grown in three months, she’s still so tiny.

She’ll always be the smallest, sweetest thing you’ve ever known. And she’s all yours.

“Jesus, kid,” you sniff, swiping at your tears. You slip your hands around her back and prop her on your hip. “Alright, let’s go. Quit making your mom cry.”

The bag over your shoulder, you carry her out of the room and into the dark hallway. It’s quiet downstairs; nothing but the crackle of the record player, the distant chink of dishes in the kitchen.

That – and hushed voices in the living room.

“Joel,” Tommy says, over and over again. He’s trying to cut in between his brother’s rambling. Joel – listen to me. Just listen, for one second –”

You linger on the bottom step, trying to split Joel’s voice from Tommy’s. Trying to pluck the words out, over Maria’s humming from the next room.

“…and it ain’t that simple, Tommy it’s –”

“What ain’t simple about it? You have a –” Tommy says it through his teeth, “– you have a kid together, Joel. You really think she’s gonna –”

Sarah grabs the charm around your neck and shakes suddenly, rattling the chain.

You close your hand around hers, losing your balance. “Shhhhit, Duckie, you –”

Joel’s eyes snap to your figure as you step down. He clears his throat, leaning away from Tommy. “Hey – hey, darlin’.”

“Hey,” you reply. Bright. Chipper. Unclenching your fist to let your daughter shake your necklace some more.

She squeals with delight when she spots Joel across the room.

“She ready to go?” he asks, slinging a quick – telling – look at Tommy.

You look between the brothers, browns quirking. They look as guilty as each other: scratching their beards, staring at the furniture instead of you. “Uhuh,” you reply, tongue against your teeth. “Everything…everything okay?”

Tommy slaps his thighs as he stands. “Everything’s great, sweetheart. Sure as shit. Joel – you, uh…you got a key on ya?”

“Oh, yep.” Joel reaches into his pocket. He unhooks a silver key from the chain and drops it into his brother’s open palm.

Tommy calls for Maria. He sidesteps around you, face flushed and smiling.

She floats through from the kitchen, drying her palms on her jeans. “Where’s my baby duck?” she sings, reaching for Sarah.

You pass her over and she melts into her aunt’s arms, curling up into a little pink lump on her chest. “She just had a feed, like, twenty minutes ago, so – she should go down pretty well. And there are more bottles in Joel’s fridge, if you need ‘em.”

Maria nods, wrapping Sarah’s blanket around her. She lifts the bag strap from your shoulder and hands it to Tommy. “I’ll text you as soon as she’s down. Come on, Duckie, let’s get you to bed.”

Tommy leans over and squeezes your arm, winking as he follows his wife. He calls goodnight to Joel, lifting a pointed finger over his head, and closes the door behind them.

Things could not have gone smoother.

It’s suspicious as shit.

You turn when you hear Joel shifting.

“C’mon,” he utters, a pile of plates in one hand. “I ain’t leavin’ you with this mess.” He heads through to the kitchen, broad figure swaying.

The plates spill into the sink, water trickling over them. Joel hums to himself as he gets to work with a sponge in hand.

You linger in the living room.

Things have been good lately – peaceful. You’re in as much of a routine as Sarah will allow: a steady pattern of dropping her off and picking her back up, patchwork family dinners, daytrips whenever both of you can make them.

Your body is healing, pulling itself back together. You don’t have to think about being Mom anymore – she walks in stride with you. The world is painted a new shade of normal – one where you can do anything with a baby on your hip, one where love becomes your first language.

One where you swallow back the ache in your heart, for better or for worse. The only piece of you still fractured. The only wound left open.

Joel’s birthday cards lie flat on the coffee table. You pluck them up one by one – his parents’, Tommy and Maria’s, yours – and Sarah’s.

A messy splotch of a handprint, bright yellow paint smeared across half the fucking card (she hasn’t quite mastered self-control yet). A googly eye plastered to the bird’s chest; orange crayon for the beak and legs.

Sure, you took charge for most of the project – but when he opened it and saw his daughter’s little masterpiece, you caught him swiping his knuckle at the corner of his eye. He snuggled into her, perched on his lap, and whispered, Thank you, little Duckie.

You prop them along your mantelpiece, dotted around your mom’s photo. When you step back, looking from son to brother to…a good friend, you could almost pretend.

Almost pretend that they belong here, on this mantelpiece. There is no yours and his. Just one of everything; nothing doubled nor halved.

Almost pretend that he won’t collect them as he leaves, break into another teary laugh at the sight of the duck painting, and then kiss your cheek goodnight. Promise to have your daughter back in time to go swimming tomorrow morning.

Almost.

“Hey,” Joel calls, “did you, uh – did you hear Tommy talkin’ about Jackson?”

You slip into the kitchen, side by side with him at the sink. “Uh, yeah,” you reply, lifting a towel. “Moose, pine trees. Yep.”

“It sounds beautiful. You think we should take a trip up there sometime? Could be Sarah’s first vacation.”

“You mean the three of us?”

He shrugs, scrubbing a bowl in the water. “Sure. I don’t think Duckie would let one of us stay behind, do you? She’d scream the damn airport down,” he chuckles, looking back to the twinkling bubbles.

You hum. “Maybe.”

“You don’t feel like it?”

“No, I do. I just – I don’t know. Maybe someday.”

“Okay,” Joel says, nodding. “Put a pin in it.”

He passes you a dripping plate and you drag the towel over it, circling the pattern until the suds are wiped clean. And another, and another.

It feels awkward. It feels stiff. There’s something hanging between you, heavy on both your shoulders. A weight you haven’t felt around Joel in over a year.

You turn to him as he stacks the last plate on the draining board. “Is that what you were talking to Tommy about?”

Joel pauses. “You heard that, huh?”

“Only the part about having a kid. It’s none of my business, I know, I just –”

“Actually,” he clears his throat, “it’s plenty your business.”

He leans back against the counter and crosses his arms. A deep breath, cheeks puffing as he exhales. His grip on the dish towel whitens his knuckles.

He’s…nervous. The same shade of gray he wore the night you went into labor.

He takes another unsteady breath.

“Joel?” you ask, head tilting. “Whatever it is, you can say it. I got whiskey, if that’ll make it easier. Probably tastes like shit, but…”

His expression cracks. His eyes twinkle, and he smiles. Only a little, but enough. Enough to let the words slip through.

“You know, that night at Tommy’s wedding was one of the best nights of my life.”

Your heartbeat thuds a bassline in your ears; the rush of your blood the squealing guitar. Skin tacky, moans caught between teeth. Laughter and lust tangling together in the air.

“Yeah?” you ask.

Joel nods. “Yeah. Lying there – talking, laughing, messin’ around. I don’t think I’ve ever laughed that hard in all my life. I could’ve stayed in that room with you forever.”

Your eyes start to sting. You look away.

“I thought I would regret it. I thought I should regret it. And I never did. But then,” he takes a deep breath, “the next day, I look out front, and my newspaper’s sittin’ on my lawn. And for two weeks straight, I kept checking – and there it was. I thought, Sure as shit, she regrets the whole thing. I thought you never wanted to see me again.”

You shake your head. “I wanted to see you again. I missed – I missed you. Missed pissin’ you off.”

He laughs. “I missed you pissin’ me off. Missed that annoying as hell thud on my porch.”

“I didn’t know if you wanted me to – you know,” you admit, and Joel nods.

“We got pretty good at avoidin’ each other,” he grumbles. “And then – with Vanessa, I thought I’d be doin’ you a favor. Letting you off light.”

“You…you took her number to do me a favor?”

“Naw,” Joel says. “I took her number ‘cause her brother in-law has a lumber company, and I had a closet to build. I was drunk, I was an idiot, and I brought it up to her at the wedding. By the time I thought it through, you ‘n I weren’t speakin’.”

You stare at him, jaw slack. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

He shakes his head. He edges closer to you. Voice low, he says, “I shouldn’t’ve gone out on that first date with her. I shouldn’t’ve done any of it. I should’ve talked to you about what I was feeling.”

“Well, maybe we both should’ve,” you mutter, wringing your hands. “I wasn’t exactly the best at it, either.”

His head tips, considering. “Can I tell you now?”

You glance over to him. “Tell me what, Miller?”

“Tell you…tell you that I love you,” he whispers.

It steals the breath from your lungs. One clean swipe.

He nods to himself, then – certain of it – and says it again. “I do, darlin’. I love you.”

Your heart begins to hammer. Tears spill over onto your cheeks, dripping from your jaw.

“And, look –” Joel takes your wrists, “– I got no right to say any of that, I know. I put you through a hell of a lot, these last few months – and that kills me. But if you’ll let me, I swear to you – I’ll make it up to you. I’ll take care of you for the rest of my life.”

You look up. His cheeks are dappled, too – glistening with tears. “Joel…” you weep.

He cups your jaw. “Listen to me. What we’ve had, the last three months – I want it all the time. I want you, and I want Duck. I want the three of us under one roof. I want to sleep in the same bed as you.”

You breathe a shuddered laugh. Your hands fall over his wrists. Keep talking, you mouth, bottom lip trembling.

“I want to get married, or not,” Joel says. “I want to show up to Tommy and Maria’s anniversary party late, ‘cause Duck couldn’t pick which shoes she wanted to wear. I want to have more kids, take ‘em on vacation.”

“Wyoming?” you sniff.

“Wyoming,” he repeats. “I want…I want all of it, baby. You ‘n me. I want you ‘n me, more than anything in the world. And if I’m too late, then you can tell me. Tell me, and I swear on my life I will never mention it again.”

Your hands curve over his. His strong knuckles, worked and weathered and worn by his years. Down to his wrists – the tatty strap on his ages-old watch, the dark hair peppered along his arms.

“I love you so much, baby. So much that it drives me insane. You drive me…fuckin’ insane.”

“Oh, fuck you,” you whisper, balling your fists against his chest.

Joel laughs, nose brushing against yours. “Yeah,” he sniffs, “I figured you’d say som’ like that.”

“I love you, too,” you mumble, linking your arms around his neck. “Shit, I love you.”

“Ain’t that a thing?” he says, and his lips are on yours.

It’s been a year. A year since the first time you felt him – lips soft as velvet, sweet with alcohol and something stronger. His tongue and yours, his teeth and yours. Every part of you clashing with every part of him.

And goddamn, you’ve missed it.

Joel follows you upstairs, pinning you to the wall by your bedroom door. White heat flooding through your veins, he kneels before you and pulls you onto his tongue.

He’s hungry.

He laps at you as though you’ll be gone in the morning. As though he won’t wake up tangled in you, breathing in your scent, lips on your skin.

Dusk seeps in at the edges of your vision; daylight draining from the sky. It’s dark, too dark to see him clearly, but you feel him fucking everywhere.

His beard grazes the inside of your thigh. He kisses where he scratches your skin. He holds your hips steady, tongue dipping in and out.

“You know how fuckin’ sweet you taste?” he growls, slipping inside again.

He looks so good between your legs. Like he was made for it – made for you. All yours, in ways you never really understood until now.

He brings you to the edge with his tongue flat against your clit. Holding your hips firm against his mouth, groaning with you as you fall.

You come with a broken moan. Hips stutter to a halt, legs fall wide open. The warmth in your belly spills over and rushes to every corner of your body.

Joel moans, tongue still lapping as your cunt pulses all over him. “Good fuckin’ girl,” he slurs, watching you come undone.

He stands, a chaste kiss to your lips, and then parts them with his tongue. “Taste good?” he mumbles, kissing you gently.

Yeah, you think, moaning against him, it tastes fucking good.

He spreads you out on your mattress and kisses what feels like every square inch of your body. You giggle at the feeling of his lips behind your ear; moan when they close around your nipple.

Your back arches; little lightning bolts as he pulls the buds to a peak. Your fingers knot through his hair; hissing at the meeting of pain and pleasure between Joel’s lips.

“I love you,” you whisper, when he settles between your legs. You don’t know that you’ve felt something so true in all your life.

He smiles. Your fingers trace the lines at his eyes.

“Come here,” he says, and pulls your hips to meet his.

You curve a hand around his neck, glancing down at your open legs. “Looks a little different to the last time you saw her.”

Joel shakes his head, licking his lips. “Beautiful, baby. She looks so goddamn beautiful.”

Each movement is careful, deliberate. He notches his tip at your hole and pauses until you’re looking at him again.

And then he pushes in.

He slips an arm under your head; the other holding your thigh on his waist. He kisses you as you stretch around him. He still tastes like salt and slick.

You gasp, teeth gritting around a hiss. “Fuck,” you whimper, turning in to his chest.

“Easy, easy,” Joel coos, voice rumbling against your temple. “Catch your breath. Doin’ so good.”

“It’s not sore,” you tell him, nodding for him to move again. “It’s…it’s just…different.”

“Tighter,” he groans, eyes on your cunt as it draws his cock in.

You agree, “Tighter.”

He catches you in another kiss, his tongue slipping between your lips. “Feel so good, sweet girl. Breathe. ‘m right here.”

It’s never felt like this before. This gentle, this tender.

You have never felt like this before. Broken open, stitched back together. Your heart split into two – whole again each time his body meets yours.

Joel catches your moans on his tongue. He steadies his pace; rocking into you over and over. Laughing against your lips; your fingers intertwined with his.

“Feel good?” he pants.

Your head rolls back. “Mhm.”

“Take it, baby. Such a tight little thing.”

“Joel,” you cry, “I’m close.”

His teeth nip at your neck. “Shit,” his hips jump, “attagirl. Just like that.” He thrusts into you harder, bleeding the color from your vision.

You pull his lips to yours, foreheads tacky. Joel’s eyes gloss over.

I love you, he breathes.

And the world whitens.

He pulls you against his chest when you come back around. Shifts up the headboard, skin all sticky and warm. He kisses your temples, kisses your shoulders, kisses your knuckles.

You melt into his grasp, turning to look up at him. You run your fingers over his lips, through his damp hair. Just staring. Drinking him all in.

“You were right next door, the entire time,” you whisper.

He runs a thumb across your cheek. “Yep.”

“Do you think we wasted too much time?”

Joel’s lip turns. “Nah,” he says. “We found our way.”

“Needed a little help, though.”

He scoffs, tongue between his teeth. “I’m sure she’ll hold it against us forever.”

You think of that evening in August. The last bow of the sun before your world changed forever. Of deals struck and promises made. Of satin on your fingertips – newspaper ink and duck egg silk.

You think of that photograph on your mantelpiece. Bright eyes watching every second of it. A smile on her face the entire time.

You laugh to yourself. Joel looks down and kisses your swollen cheek.

“We should go,” he taps your thigh, “got a little duck who’ll be wonderin’ where her mama and daddy are.”

The church tower rings out twice as the truck purrs between graves.

Joel pulls up under the shade of a sycamore, tires rolling to a halt. Sarah kicks her feet, her heels thudding against her car seat.

“Mama,” she presses a sticky finger to the back window, “flowers.”

“Yeah, baby,” you call over your shoulder, hugging your own graveside gift a little tighter in your arms. “Lots of ‘em, huh?”

“Yeah,” your daughter quietly considers, then kicks her seat again.

Joel waits patiently for you to give him the go ahead. He slips a hand around your knee, looking ahead at the rows of headstones. So patient, so gentle.

Your chest swells, a deep breath filling your lungs, and you nod. “Alright.”

“Sure?” he asks. “Take as long as you want, darlin’.”

But if you wait any longer, you’ll never leave. The paper wrap crinkles in your arms. “You take Duck,” you reply, “I’ll take…”

Joel lifts your hand, placing a soft kiss between your knuckles. “You got it. We’ll walk on.”

He leaves you in the truck to collect yourself. He unbuckles Sarah and sets her loose, following her across the grass with his hands in his pockets.

Her light-up sneakers flash as she sprints; head tossed back, toothless smile pointed to the sun. She turns back to her dad, her little hand fitting perfectly into his.

Made for each other.

You hook your fingers around the handle and leave the truck.

Their grave is a short walk down a grassy slope, sheltered by another towering tree. Its leaves flutter down around you as you near the stone; stray petals which catch in the breeze and lead the way.

You kneel down, the grass dry and prickly through your jeans. “Hi, Mom,” you whisper, sweeping some dust from the base of the grave. “Hi, Dad.”

Your grandma picked this spot. She’s long gone – laid to rest elsewhere with a grandfather you never met – so you try to visit as often as you can. Freshen the flowers, brighten up the stone.

It fucking sucks, but someone’s gotta do it.

You peel the brown paper from the bouquet, exposing the soft colors Sarah picked back in the florist. They fit perfectly on the stone, right beneath the words Devoted parents.

Tears prick at the corners of your eyes, a feeling that wraps itself around your throat and steals any other words – until a flash of pink catches your attention.

“Duckie,” Joel calls, following her between graves. “Hey. This is a cem…Hey, Duck, listen – this is a cemetery, we gotta be – Sarah!”

You stifle a laugh, watching him jog after the hoodie tied around her waist. He swipes for her hand and she dodges him, ducking between graves faster than his mid-fifties joints can turn him.

There’s no one else here – it’s only you. And it’s a quiet enough place as it is, so – you let her laugh. Let him chase her, and let her sneakers light the place in pink. What else is there to do?

“Sorry it’s been a little while,” you tell your parents, eyes still on your man.

He’s kneeling now, Sarah on his thigh, in front of a tall, cross-shaped stone. They’re pointing at the words on the stone, her inquisitive eyes studying each one.

“I know I said I’d come visit for Dad’s birthday, but I guess things got busy – what with the move and all. We’re still living out of boxes. But the girls’ rooms are almost done – we just gotta paint ‘em.”

You look back down to the stone. Your mom’s name carved deep into spotted marble, your dad’s underneath. One awful date to tie them both together.

Dad probably heard Duck’s first squeal and turned away; gone back to whatever boring activity he might get up to in the afterlife. But your mom, you know for certain, is sat with her chin on the heel of her palm. Watching her mini-me trace the shapes of words, squirming when Joel presses his lips to her temple and whispers hints to her.

She’s probably smiling, making some comment about how big Sarah’s getting. How smart she is, how funny. How she must keep you and Joel on your toes – and goddamn, she’s right.

“Joel’s been working on the kitchen,” you continue. “I left my phone in the truck, but you should see it, Mom. He got these marble countertops, these little brushed-gold handles. He wrote our names on the wall before he tiled it, so whoever remodels after we’re gone will find that. The four of us.”

“M-meh-mem-orr-mem-or-ree?” Sarah tilts her head.

Joel nods. “Memory, yeah. Good job, Duck.”

“Duckie’s good,” you tell your mom. “She’s top of her class in – well, everything. Really wiping the floor with all the other first-graders. She’d have been your favorite – I know that much. And you’d have been hers.

“She’s gonna be some kind of lawyer, we think. Social justice and all that. She likes to be a woman of the people. Always talkin’ back to Joel – she hardly cuts him any slack, these days,” you laugh.

“He’s good, too – Joel. Working hard, as usual. Tommy and Maria visited last week – they brought Buckley, and now Duck won’t stop goin’ on about us getting a dog.”

You chance a glance over the stone, making sure the pair are out of earshot when you add, “Don’t tell her, but we called the pound last night. We’re heading there tomorrow while she’s at school to pick one out for her birthday. Joel’s giddier than I think Sarah’s gonna be.”

Joel’s carrying Duck now, wandering down a wobbly row of graves.

She halts him by pointing to one. “N-eh-v-eh-never…fff-or-g-for–”

He stares at her, a grin breaking across his lips. “Sound it out, that’s it. ‘s a big word, baby girl. You got it.”

The world seems to blur around them. The birds sing, a light melody from overhead. The green trees sway across the blue of the sky; the straight soar of cars on the highway. It all fades into the background, behind the two of them – wandering from shade into brilliant sun.

Your family. Your man, your blood – and everything in between. The little girl who brought it all together in the end – leading her dad by hand over knolls and broken stone, chasing butterflies, and asking what eh-teh-err-nal means.

“Means forever,” Joel says, kneeling beside her. “’s how long I’m gonna love you for.”

“And Nel?”

“And Nel.”

“And Mama?”

“And Mama.”

Sarah runs her hands through his beard, swaying side to side. “But me the most,” she concludes, nodding.

Joel hms, biting back a laugh. He lifts his chin, asks the little girl whether or not he’s going gray.

She has the same ridiculous laugh you do. The same snort you used to find so embarrassing, until you heard it come from her.

Just watching them stokes the already burning fire in your ribcage – the warmth flooding around your heart. He’s so good at it – being a dad.

Was he ever anything else, before he was a father? You can’t remember a time you didn’t wake up next to him, wrapped up in his arms, or with one of his kids burrowed between your bodies. It all feels so long ago, now.

He wanted to do everything. He’d lie with you between his legs, holding your half-sleeping form upright while you fed her. He’d race home after work specially to bathe her. He picked up any and every single duck-themed thing that he came across.

And what were you? Mom felt like such a fucking longshot. So out of your reach that you couldn’t understand the meaning of the word.

But there are days when she says it – Sarah, looking up at you with Joel’s twinkling eyes and a smirk which matches yours – and it’s like you’ve been waiting your whole life to hear it. Like you’ve been waiting your whole life for her.

Well. Her, and her little sister.

“And, uh – another thing,” you say, reaching for the plastic handle of a car seat. “I brought somebody for you to meet.”

A clumsy fist shoots up to shake a speckled dinosaur toy – the brown spheres of its eyes catching the sunlight. She squeals with delight when you unbuckle her, kicks her legs the same way her sister always did.

“She’s a little nervous, ain’t you, Nel?” you whisper, laughing at her gummy smile and tiny, socked feet. “She spit up on herself on the way here, but – I think you’re gonna love her.”

You perch the baby on your thigh, same as Joel did with Sarah, and she wraps her fingers around one of yours. You wiggle it – waving to your mom’s name, to the petals gently fluttering in the breeze.

“Mom,” you sniff, “this is Ellie.”

#joel miller #joel miller fic #joel miller x reader #joel miller smut #the last of us #tlou #macfrog #neighbor!joel miller #babydaddy!joel miller #tw pregnancy

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hoseoksluna · 3 months

Text

SOJU | jjk

pairing: fuck buddy!jungkook x f. reader (feat. hobi)

genre: heavy angst, heavy smut

word count: 10.4k

summary: jungkook gives you all that he has—his feelings, his dominance and his cum.

playlist: soju / pinterest board: wine

warnings: sex flashbacks, alcohol consumption, jungkook is drunk emotional and a mess, jealousy, reader has daddy issues (like the writer), almost heavy dd/lg themes, plushie used during intercourse, inner child healing, use of a sex toy, oral sex (f. receiving), ass play and nipple play, provocation, dirty talk, hair pulling, dry humping, rough sex, overstimulation, pain felt during intercourse, jungkook instructs reader like the teacher he is, pet names and one particular title used, squirting, praise kink, jungkook is mean and cruel and just so horny

note: i will never forget this fic. never. this is the third part of 'wine' and therefore the very end to this adventitious series. even though, this part has a little bit information and quirks in it from the other two fics, it's fine to read as a standalone, but i do recommend reading all three parts as they interlink and you can beautifully see the process and the change of their relationship. i want to thank the lovely soul who asked me to make this a series because writing this made me incredibly happy—and all the themes i used mean the world to me. i also want to thank all of you for reading and for all the love. i hope you like this as much as i do. please, heed the warnings as there are dd/lg themes that not everyone can be comfortable with. with that being said, enjoy your reading and let me know what you think, let me know your favorite parts. ᡣ𐭩

side note: drunk 3D jungkook being all mean, dominant and daddy is, quite literally, the epitome of my sexuality.

Jungkook will always be a man of his word.

It’s the foundation that keeps his back straight as he leads you through the crowd. The core of the whole promise is the very strength of his fingers as they clasp around your much smaller hand because he notices, under the washed out lights of red and violet, that you’re the center of attention.

He feels as though he’s dragging the hand of a child like a protective father. Except, he has the impulsive need to cover you with his body.

It’s a blasting alarm within the ear splitting chaos of his mind. Louder than the modern music he cares little for; louder than the song of the hard, quickening beats of his heart that he’s unable to ignore. He promised he’d make it up to you about the party because he’d made you drunk with lust. Now that he’s taken you here, he’d much rather be back home with you. Wouldn’t even have the need to seduce you—he just doesn’t want to be here. Doesn’t want you to be the apple of everyone’s eye.

Sweat glistens on the planes of his forehead.

Jungkook returns every inquisitive look of people he doesn’t know with a stern furrow of his brows. Figures he needs a drink; figures he needs his hyung, at least one familiar face among strangers.

A strong one, to calm the storm within, and a big hug from the host himself.

He hates people.

Leading you to the makeshift bar of spirits in the kitchen, he has a protective hand over the small of your back as you climb on the bar stool. Watches as your ass lifts over the leather and almost jumps out of his own skin when the outsole of your high-heeled shoe slips on the footrest and you fall back onto the chair with a thud. A precious set of treble giggles billow out of your mouth, followed by a reassuring flick of your hand that you’re okay, and Jungkook’s own hand trembles when he lifts it off your back. While you open your purse to reapply your lip gloss, he hides behind his tight, feigned smile the need to run and calm his breathing.

His irises wander over the contents of that purse of yours. Finds a long brown pencil there, your phone, a pack of cigarettes with a purple lighter and a ring of keys adorned with the tiniest Hello Kitty he’s ever seen. No wallet, no cash tucked beneath. A smirk tugs the corner of his mouth, hand acting out of its own will—coming over to your long hair, smoothing it down as you focus on lining your lips with another set of glitter and pinkness. Perhaps the gesture is owed to the proudness he feels due to the fact you’re expecting to be provided for throughout the night, wherever it takes you both after this party. Blurred within is the smugness that he’s the reason you’re dolling yourself up again because he couldn’t help but make a mess of your mouth in the car. It makes his cock grow tight in his pants.

He wears the smugness all over his features. From the gleaming cosmos in his eyes, to the smudged kiss stains of all the roses in the world scattering over his nose and cheeks, down to the deepening smirk. He thinks he’d buy you anything your eyes would linger a heartbeat longer on, with snacks included in case you’d get hungry, as he silently praises you for your good behavior, for that smart brain of yours by the brush of his hand down your hair. A sick part of him wants to even get in debt for you for the pure fun of it—the fun being the primal core of your wishes and needs being gratified, for your satisfaction to shine through the veins on your skin like little sun rays, all while having the time of your life on the night out he promised you.

He’s not afraid to admit he’d do anything for you as long as it stays safely stashed within his system. Can’t risk voicing it out. Can’t risk you knowing. Can’t risk shit.

Studying the shape of your lips as you hold up a small heart-shaped mirror, he twirls the ends of your hair as he waits for you to be done to ask you what you want to drink. Is reminded of the way those pillows wrapped around the straw of the banana milk you brought for him the last time he saw you. Of the way they sucked his fingers when he used them for lubrication to rub your clit while he was fully buried inside your tight, dew-sprinkled cunt. He suddenly feels hot under his collar.

He’s a slave to flashbacks. Always has been.

The celestial concoction of your needy moans and his, kept safe within the confines of his car, loop in his brain. The look of agonized lust when he bit your bottom lip in a heated kiss that he soon alleviated with the swipe of his tongue, with the suction of his lips that begged him to take more of you. Jungkook hears it as if there wasn’t any music at all, as if its thrumming wasn’t enveloping the corridors of his panic-stricken heart. He hears your words, embellished by those giggles of yours, in his ears all over again: “Stop, you’re making me horny. We should go inside.” His own, too: “You dance better for me when your panties are wet. I know you do.” Sees again, as if the moment is happening again and you’re standing in front of him, the way you reacted to his hands warming up your sides in the cold after you stumbled out of his car. Sighing softly, glossy eyes whirling upwards to the drowsy sky full of quivering stars, tipsy on the desire he’s obsessed with awakening in you while being tipsy just the same. The smile rising on your lips when he asked: “Show me how you’re gonna dance for me.” The way you moved your hips in such a silly way that squeezed his heart until it was difficult to breathe.

He’s fucked. Knows he is. Has known it for a while now.

You’re the origin of the chaos within his mind. The body of it itself. He has a teeny-tiny version of you in his mind that lives there, and lives there well because he feeds her, brushes her hair and gives her kisses, despite the storm.

He could never tell you—how much he thinks about you daily.

To a certain extent, he almost did the last time you came around, in a frenzy of sensuality and pent-up desire that consumed him. Prayed you didn’t see it for the way it really was.

It’s not just lust, and it’s more than just a friendship.

He figured as much—doesn’t have any fucking idea what to do with it.

Not a single one. Especially not when you pucker your lips at him and screw the applicator back into the tube.

He doesn’t want to lose you. Doesn’t ever want to lose the sight of that pucker of yours. And he fears that if he tells you of his weakness for you, he might never see it again.

So, he opts to keep things safe, keep things casual. That is until he eventually bursts.

That’s another promise, too.

He pulls on one of your strands. Your head knocks back, eyes wide at the audacity of it all. He laughs at your reaction.

“Can you stop?”

Jungkook does it again just to see the shock written over your face, full on belly laughing.

“What the fuck?” You slap his shoulder, the impact so small he barely feels it. “You want me to pull your hair, too?”

He grabs his stomach. “No, what I want to know is what you wanna drink.”

You purse your lips in feigned anger, fingers outstretched by the back of his head to play-pull his hair or perhaps slap him into oblivion. If you could manage it.

He doesn’t think you could.

He goes around you to sit beside you on the bar stool, studying the bottles of liquor his hyung bought. Is ignorant to the way you’re studying him, to the way the corners of your mouth lift ever so slightly at the discovery of the current situation in his intimate parts.

Pulls out one to acknowledge himself with it. Asks you if you wanna drink it.

You don’t say anything.

When Jungkook lifts his eyes to scold you for not paying attention, all the words get hitched in his throat. You’re grinning from ear to ear. All those damned words are forgotten immediately.

“Are you hard?” you whisper, flushed at the face, glossy eyes glimmering, ever so excited about your discovery.

He feels himself twitch. Hides it by cupping himself discreetly.

Averts his eyes. “I’m always hard around you,” he mutters, twisting the bottle open. “I’ve gotten used to it.”

He doesn’t look at you when he pours you a shot, but he focuses on the way your breathing gains speed. Fights the smile threatening his lips caused by how easy it is to provoke you.

“You wanna get out of here?”

You’re hasty as you ask, looking around you, inspecting which room you could use to drag him into and relieve him of his problem, but he assures you it’s no problem at all with a curt shake of his head.

Strangely, he found a way to like the tension in his pants. Thinks it digs deep into the depth of the moment—simply makes it more exciting.

“We just got here,” Jungkook says flatly, screwing the lid back on. “Don’t be rude.”

He filled your shot to the brim not necessarily with the intention to make you drunk as fast as he can, but to watch your eyes widen the way they do so sweetly. And you don’t disappoint him at all when you do just that, the smile on your lips blossoming still. An aura of shyness envelops you in softness due to his disapproving words and Jungkook realizes he grazed your submission by reprimanding you. While it magnifies his smugness, he feels a little bit bad for you. Knows how much it turns you on when his fatherliness looms out, but blames you for it nonetheless. You rouse it in him.

You may have never told him about your father wounds, but his instincts sensed it in you—sought it out like its own child and cradled it in his arms, promising to never let go.

Promise. There it is again.

He wants to spend the rest of his life promising you things. Doesn’t matter what. He just wants the security, the cord of trust, that you’ll be here; that you’ll be here for a long time. It truly doesn’t matter if he promises you things internally or outwardly.

Jungkook cups your chin. Wants to say something. Wants to reassure you that you can take the shot, encourage you a tiny bit. But what you say to him dries up his throat completely.

“You don’t want a blowie?”

Your words were a mere silky noise, but he heard you. Curled his fingers tight into fists in order not to bend you over the bar stool and take you right then and there in front of everyone.

Decides he will provoke you right back.

“You don’t want a lickie?” he murmurs, drawing close to you so you’re the only one who hears him. “You don’t want Daddy’s tongue on your little clit?”

You gasp and grip his knee, your legs intuitively spreading.

Jungkook skims his surroundings to see if anyone’s watching. When the coast is clear—people mindlessly mingling, having conversations—he hovers his lips against your ear, hand coming in between your legs, not to touch you but to cover you. Whispers, “or you don’t want Daddy’s tongue fucking you fast? Licking over your little ass? Hm, you don’t know how good that feels yet, do you?”

You’re holding in a sob—Jungkook sees it in the way your eyes and lips round, brows furrowing. He made you wet. Serves you right.

He pulls away to pour you a chaser. Asks which one you want.

You take a deep breath, flicking your hair back. “Coca cola,” you chirp, despite the deathly grip you have on his knee, perhaps to hold your sanity together, other fingers wrapping around the shot. Small, so fitting for an equally small glass.

Jungkook laughs. Loves it. Loves…

The realization, of what he almost granted access to within his system, strangles his heart. He hears nothing for a moment, not the music, not the tremor of his weak heart. Nothing.

A can of Coke waits for you behind the bar on the kitchen counter and before any thought flicks through his brain, Jungkook stands to his feet to fetch it for you—to get his blood pumping again so he can gain control of his senses. It scares him, the nothingness. Even his eyes fail to focus as he looks for the metallic red can he swore he saw hardly a minute ago. He feels a slap on his back and a familiar face, at last, comes into view.

Hobi.

The first thought that resurfaces is filled with thankfulness enveloping around that name, dispersed with tiny kisses of ‘you saved me, hyung’. Jungkook dives head-first into the offering hug of his savior, his senses returning to him like magnets attaching to metal. He takes in a deep breath as if he was under water and just came up for air.

“So glad to see you,” Hobi says, rubbing his back.

Jungkook squeezes his shoulder. Says something that doesn’t reflect what he truly wants to say, keeps up the small talk while burying under layers upon layers of mud the confession that he almost told himself he loved you.

Which reminds him that he didn’t introduce you.

“There’s someone I want you to meet,” Jungkook says, grabbing the can of Coke his eyesight is now clear enough to spot and an empty, tall glass for you. Guides his friend to where you’re sitting but what he sees almost makes him jump out of his own skin for the second time in the span of an hour—almost sobs tearfully at the unfortunate discovery.

A mop of dirty blonde curls shaking at the impact of his laughter as he whispers sweet nothing into the shell of your ear. He towers from behind you, compressing you in the muscly width of his half-barren chest. An electricity of anguish spasms down the course of Jungkook’s body, for in a flash he’s reminded of the way you towered above him just the same the last time. His sweat cools as you listen to him, a pang after pang of jealousy stinging him in his abdomen. He’s frozen on the spot—Hobi says something, but Jungkook can’t hear him—that is until you make a face of discomfort.

Jungkook sees red.

His heart slams hard against his chest, but he doesn’t feel it. He doesn’t feel its intention to break his ribcage.

The words unfurl out of his tight mouth before he can think them through. “Can I fucking help you?” he hisses through his teeth, setting the glass and the can down harshly. The noise makes you jump, which instantly drives him to regret his actions—and it puts an end to his rage.

He didn’t mean to scare you. Doesn’t want you to regard him this way.

The sudden softness welcomes his senses back with a gentle beckoning.

Lifting his eyes, the guy ignores the question. Whispers something again that forces you to pierce your stare into the fire that burns within Jungkook’s irises. Not the fire he let you see throughout the trajectory of your casual relationship, the blue, the dreamily sultry one.

The one that licks over his eyes is black. Pitch black. No sign of stars, no dots of reflection of light. Pure pitch black.

But you hold his gaze, unafraid of the darkness.

For a reason unknown to him, it ignites you with strength to shove raggedy Barbie Ken away. Your touch lingers on his chest for a mere second and is not as scorching as the bite of your words: “Yes, I’m here with him and I’m not interested in you. Go away.”

Jungkook doesn’t look at the guy. Doesn’t give two shits about the painful twists of his features as he staggers away. Forgets about Hobi; forgets about the questioning looks of strangers digging into his back. All he sees is you. All he hears is the sigh of relief once he’s gone. And Jungkook is hasty as he reaches for you, relieved himself—relieved that he didn’t have to fight the fucker and alter the trust you have in him—needing you close, needing to gain back his control. He’s almost smiling uncomfortably at the ridiculous twist of events, but then the tug of his mouth stills.

You slip out of his grasp and move past him.

There’s silence within Jungkook’s ribcage. Not one beat or flutter, not one kick.

Nothing.

***

Knocking back shots after shots, Jungkook remains silent. Doesn’t answer any of his hyung’s questions. Doesn’t look at any of the girls who sashay to Hobi’s thigh to chitchat. His gaze merely remains fixed on the empty glass of the chaser he never had the chance to pour you.

Your shot of the dark liquor is also left untouched.

It’s the twinge of pity he feels that gives the order to his feet to rise. Hobi grabs his arm, long fingers digging into the hard leather of his jacket. Jungkook doesn’t reciprocate his stare, despite its heavy energy. Keeps his head low instead.

“Give her more time,” Hobi says, lugging him down to a seated position but Jungkook untangles out of his grip.

Grabs a bottle of soju as he mutters, “half an hour is more than enough.”

He makes a way through the corridor towards the door you slinked into, the translucent bottle swinging by his jean-clothed thigh. Doesn’t knock on the wood, instead walks straight in as if he owned the place.

You’re sitting by the foot of the bed. The yellowness of the subdued bedside lamp drapes your sagged shoulders in gold, filtering through your hair that obscures your face. You had taken off your shoes and they lie crooked and alone by your stocking-clad feet. Jungkook wonders if that’s how you feel.

His weakness caused by the unfortunate events and the sadness engulfing you stops him from moving a step closer to you as he beholds your puny form, but Jungkook fights it—fights for you. He needs to be in control. Of his own body and emotions, no matter how strenuous he finds it. He needs to be strong—and he needs to be strong for you to make things right.

He clicks the door shut behind him. As he walks towards you, he opens the bottle of soju with the firmness of his phone and takes a long sip. Settles in between your legs on the ground, crossing his legs at the ankles. Probs you on the calf to make his presence known to you, cooing your name.

You sniff your nose, gathering your hair to the side, curling the shorter pieces behind your ear. Your face glistens from the rivers of tears he wasn’t there to wipe away, cheeks flushed from all the onrush of emotions that wasn’t of the coy or sensuous kind he likes so much. The hard stone of his heart cracks at your broken countenance and the back and forth swipe of his fingers on the nylon of your stocking grows more tender the more he takes in your sadness. He wishes to inhale it, rid you of it once and for all. Thinks it doesn’t belong to you. Wants to fight the guy, make you laugh—make a fool out of himself—and make love to you. Wants all of those things at the same time, but he realizes he can’t tear himself apart.

He decides being here is enough. He can fix whatever has been broken here in Hobi’s room.

“This is so fucked up, Jungkook.”

You’re the first one to break the silence and it takes a slight weight off of his shoulders. Jungkook hums, prompts you to speak further on what hurts your heart. Wraps his entire hand around the muscle of your calf, thumb tracing figures of eight on your skin.

The warmth helps you look him in the eye, but you don’t say anything else.

Jungkook figures it’s his turn.

“I wouldn’t let him touch you,” he says softly, hand drifting down to cradle the heel of your lifted foot. You’re mine, he doesn’t add.

Your mouth rounds once again in a wave of emotion that clutches you. You don’t let the tears fall, looking up to the ceiling so the little pearls don’t trickle out of your tear ducts. Jungkook notices puffy marks of darkness under your bottom lashes, where he swore he saw thin pathways of glitter, small shooting stars traveling around the globe of your eyes. They’re nowhere to be found now, you’ve rubbed them away.

“I know, it’s not about that.” You sniff, hands hooking under the hem of your skirt just to have something to hold onto, to busy your fingers a little—as if he wasn’t right there. “I think I kinda get you know.”

Jungkook makes a sound that asks you to enlighten him, taking a swig of the sweet liquor to aid him in forgetting what he didn’t say. But the more he drinks, the more he remembers—the more his feelings splutter to life. It’s like he didn’t drink a drop at all.

“I never understood why you need to be in control all the time,” you start, fixing your gaze on his. “But I finally did when that guy had his arms around me and wouldn’t let go. I wished I had even a small bit of control in that moment when I was alone. I hated feeling like I had to endure it when all I wanted to do was run away.” You break apart at your last words and Jungkook’s world crumbles in his hands.

There’s chaos in his mind. A chaos of selfish nature that wants to prove you wrong because no, he doesn’t have any control when it comes to you, when you’re dressed, perfect and broken altogether. He doesn’t have shit—he’s nothing. A complete mess. And perhaps it’s his bruised heart that acts out despite this self-pitying mayhem grappling him, shutting it out into eternal darkness, for Jungkook doesn’t even know how he does it when he pulls you down onto his lap by a careful drag of your legs and encases you within the heated snugness of his arms.

He doesn’t even understand his own words when he says, “You can take all of mine. It’s yours.”

Jungkook doesn’t care about anything at all because when you start to sob into his shoulders, he breaks along with you—bursts at the seams completely.

“I know you were scared, but that won’t happen again. Not when I give you all of my control.” His words are smooth amidst the stream of his liquid emotions and Jungkook is glad for it—glad to be a pillar you can lean on. He imagines transferring all of his being, not just his control, to you like a blanket draping around your shoulders, so the situation never happens again.

His tears soak your hair strands and they carry his sorrowful kiss to the crook of your neck. He doesn’t want to utter a sound, wants to remain strong, but his heavy exhales betray him, wafting against you as he tightens his grip around your violently shuddering body in effort to soothe it. Considers this moment to be yours alone, doesn’t want to be selfish. Wants to be there for you.

“You helped me when I saw you,” you say against his skin, the sound muffled but he hears you—tightens his lips in a firm line in order not to wail. “When I saw that you were there, I was strong enough to push him away. You were my backup, Jungkook.”

He agrees with a soft sound, rocking you back and forth as he cradles you. Leans his head against the side of yours, shielding you from the world and its wickedness.

Your cries quieten. “But I want to be strong even when you’re not there.”

Jungkook strokes your hair, understands you even when it pains him—his attachment to you pulled so taut he fears it’ll break. “You’re strong now. I gave you my control, didn’t I?”

To his surprise, you nod.

After you pull away to breathe and Jungkook sweeps your tears away with his thumb, he’s smothered with the reminder that he made a promise to himself—a promise that is on the brink of being fulfilled.

The walls close in on him, but he doesn’t care. He promised to keep things casual until he bursts. He refuses to go another day pretending you’re just a friend he feels nothing for. Maybe it’s the alcohol, maybe it’s the heavily charged emotions that make the decision for him, but he simply doesn’t care about the outcome anymore. The truth has to come out into the light.

Jungkook calls you by your name. Brushes your hair back so he can look properly in the faded lush of your eyes; cradles your face in his hands like that. You call him by his name as well, whispering it into the shadows of the room. Such a soft, silky sound that puts pink plasters over the cracks in his heart. He says your name in the same intonation just to get a taste of liberty.

“I’m yours,” he confesses, a lump forming in his throat, and he’s too late to blink the tears away. “I’ve been yours since the day I met you; since the moment you laid your hands on me. Yours for the taking. My heart, my control—it’s all yours.”

The bridge constricting his throat collapses when you give him a look of endearment, your features softening, rounding in emotion. Jungkook watches as a tear rolls down your cheek; feels an identical one going down the same path on his own skin, fiery and hot.

“I’m sorry.” He breaks into sobs—and break, break, break is all he does. “I’m sorry if you wanted to stay casual, but I can’t… and-and I can’t let you go. I can’t let anyone else have you.”

You bunch the material of his wife-beater in your fists under his jacket, mewling tender weeping sounds. Jungkook bites his lip to prevent himself from spilling in your hands, needing you to say something, anything, so he can straighten his back and call it a night. You bury your head in his chest and Jungkook lulls you to calmness while needing it himself. He suddenly feels alone. Alone and crooked like your shoes, as if he said the wrong thing, as if he didn’t deserve any reassurement, any love for what he just did—

You mumble something into his skin.

His heart jumps.

“I didn’t catch that, baby.”

You lift your head, clutching the sides of his neck. “I like you, too, Jungkook.”

Your words tell him a lot of things.

He didn’t make a mistake tonight. He didn’t do anything bad, didn’t lose you for the rest of his life. He will see that pucker of yours for the months to come, your glitter and all your shooting stars will be there to guide him home.

And the other thing is—he fell for you first. Because while you like him, he absolutely and irrevocably loves all of who you are.

He smiles at you, though. The bridge takes the heft on his shoulders along with it and disperses into nothingness. He wants to thank you. He wants to thank you for the kindness you expressed towards him, for your hands that hold him. And he does by kissing you, by inhaling you, taking away all your sadness and the bad events that caused it.

“You mean a lot to me,” you say against his lips, pretty wet eyelashes fluttering. Jungkook feels their dewiness; wants to feel yours, too. There’s a pout to his mouth as he listens to you. “You changed my life. You make it better.” He nods at your words, senses them opening a window in his heart to let the fresh air in. “I don’t ever wanna lose you, Gguk. You’re too important.”

He almost says it. Those three words. But he keeps them stored within the now brisk chamber of his heart, full of spring. Flowers grow, in place of the plasters.

Jungkook caresses your cheek. “I want to make you forget.”

You beam at him—and there he feels it, the pulse of his heart, its song and its steady, balmy notes.

“Make me forget about tonight, please.”

He kisses you, adds in a million tiny pecks in between, sliding his tongue inside your mouth in brief greeting. His fingers blindly find the bottle of Soju and when he withdraws with a pop, he presents it to you.

“Look at what I got you,” Jungkook says, chuckling.

You wrap your hand around his on the bottle and he tips it to your mouth, helping you drink it. You widen your eyes at him when he wants you to drink more than you do, and he lowers his hand with a grin. Loves those eyes of yours. Loves your mouth as he wipes it clean with his thumb.

It’s lighthearted, the state of his emotions. He had tasted liberty by fondly mimicking your intonation, but now it courses through his veins, now it’s his. He feels so very glad to be alive at this moment and he wants to celebrate in the only way he knows he can.

“I got you another thing as well, but it’s back home,” Jungkook says. “I can’t drive but we can take an Uber.”

“Let’s go.”

Jungkook straps your heels, fixes your skirt and swipes his thumbs under your eyes to rid you of black mascara stains. Offering you his hand, you take his pinky and ring finger and he leads you out of the room with you following behind. He skims the living room to find Hobi but, again, he’s nowhere in sight until you tap his shoulder and point to the right side of the corridor. Hobi is rising to his feet from sitting on the stairs. The thought of his hyung staying around for him instead of enjoying the party squeezes his heart in gratitude. He hugs him and when it’s your turn to say your goodbye, Hobi pulls you in for a hug as well, rubbing your back as he asks you if you’re okay.

The soju remains in your hand. Sitting on the curb outside, both of you finish it while waiting to be picked up with Jungkook’s hand on your thigh and rough kisses shared in between. The wind doesn’t dare to disturb the intimacy, but watches on with a fond care, the stars hanging low, peeking through to witness at least one good thing of the night.

***

“If this breaks me out, I’m gonna kill you.”

Jungkook is carefully tender as he drags the makeup wipe along the perimeters of your cheeks, scowling at the sun-filled tint coloring the whiteness of the wet cloth. He had spent half an hour choosing the right brand in the drugstore earlier in the morning because he decided you were going to sleep over without telling you, reading each small letter on the packaging, despite the fact he understood shit.

You’re still clothed and so is he, resting in the middle of the comfort of his bed as he hovers above you, knees perched at the foot of the bed. The aching ball of your own foot grazes the bulge in his intimate parts and Jungkook himself is at wonder how he’s able to focus when it stimulates all of his senses, adding heat to his body.

“It’s Korean, it won’t break you out,” he mutters, swiping along the underside of your eye with extra care.

“I once had a toner that—”

Jungkook covers your mouth with his palm. “It’s Korean,” he whispers, furrowing his brows at you.

You giggle and he drops his glower, beaming down at you.

“You know I can do it myself. I’m not that drunk.”

He focuses on your forehead now, cleaning off your foundation and all those sparkles.

“I know you can, but let me.”

You babble on and Jungkook decides he’s had enough of it. He clicks his tongue. “I’m gonna shut you up.”

He dumps the makeup wipe on your face and rummages through his bedside drawer. While you use it to cleanse off your neck, Jungkook spoils your surprise and opens your present. Is discreet as he smuggles it between your legs, pressing it against your clothed clit.

The soft vibrations spread throughout his whole hand. He increases the intensity.

You freeze, flicking your eyes to his, makeup wipe long forgotten. You roll your hips against the toy.

“Oh my god.”

Serves you fucking right.

“Keep talking,” Jungkook mutters. “Hm, keep fucking talking and dare to come.”

It’s maniacal, his laugh, but gentle and amorous in nature because he fucking loves you, loves to tease you, loves to make you feel good—show your body new things that it willingly accepts. You wiggle your hips, chasing the pleasure, mouth fallen open, emitting tiny satiny legato whimpers, which cause his cock to twitch in his pants—so much that he begins to move the purple toy all around your femininity while palming himself. He notices your lack of babbling.

“What’s wrong?” he asks in feigned sympathy. “You suddenly have nothing to say?”

You smile at him, and it stops everything. The roleplay of his mean dominance, the vibrations buzzing his hand. He turns the toy off and is straightforward as he says, “undress.”

Does so himself.

He takes off his leather jacket and unbuttons his pants; watches you as you drag the skirt down those hips he wants nothing more than to kiss and hold in his hands. When it pools around your knees, he chucks the material behind him. You hook your thumbs beneath the waistband of your stockings and Jungkook thinks about how he’d like to tear them apart and make you lose your mind through the hole he’d create as he strokes the outer side of your thigh. He wanted to be gentle with you tonight, but he just can’t help it.

You rouse it him and he just listens.

His hands are quick as they rip a hole above the center of your rosily pink panties. He smirks at your shocked gasp, so short and dry, drawing close to your pussy, kissing her, nuzzling his face in her. The tension in his intimate parts is almost unbearable when you run your hands through his hair and incite him to do more. He licks over the tiny wet spot on the frail material that he’s the artist of, adding to it, and watches the roll of your eyes because there’s nothing he wouldn’t do for you. It’s a dance what your hips do, the most unkind torture and he longs to squeeze them.

He’s a good boy when it comes to listening to his body’s desires.

Making a way through the beige hole, ripping it further in the process, he grabs the supple skin, thumbs fondling over your hip bones. So small, so delicious. Jungkook licks his lips, pushes your underwear to the side to reveal your dewy little seashell—fixes it so it stays put. Looks up at you. “Top off. I wanna see those pretty tits.”

You’re a good girl, too, when it comes to obeying his wishes.

A praiseful coo ripples out of his mouth once you reveal your black padded bra. Jungkook decides he wants it to be in line of his sight, so he lowers the straps down your arms and merely tugs the undergarment below your breasts. The spillage and the ripple of their fullness almost makes him die right then and there. Jungkook bites his bottom lip until he draws blood.

Two hindrances. The silky straps on your arms, the stockings he will soon lower down your thighs. Jungkook curses under his breath; thinks he should’ve gotten the ropes he was eyeing after his drugstore run. Pink and rough, just the kind you would’ve liked.

Perhaps it isn’t needed for the lovemaking he longs for with you. Playtime and lovemaking are two different things, he concludes.

He’s so horny he might lose his mind first. And he does—with nose pressed against your sternum, babbling nonsense while he buries his head in your tits. Inhaling your vanilla and tuberose scent, he kisses the valley leading up to the peak of your stiffened nub, trails it with his tongue, goes the extra mile to suck it into his mouth, hearing its call. He’s just listening—listening to your body language that asks for him. His eyes are blurry when he gazes at you. You’ve fled to the pink planet again, but he wants you here with him. While he flicks your nipple with his nimble tongue, he grabs your face and squishes your cheeks. Would die for your adorableness. Would go to war for it, a thousand times over.

Jungkook sucks the nub to make your travel back to Earth faster and he accomplishes what he wants. With a roll of your body and a moan, you’re back, looking down at him, cradling him, brushing his hair back. He makes sure you see the way he toys with your nipple—keeps his mouth open as he circles it, flicks it before he sucks it back inside.

“Stay here with me,” Jungkook mumbles, switching to the other nipple. “Please.”

You nod, grinding your hips against his stomach. Another call. Your hands slide lower to his neck and Jungkook understands you want more.

“Take control of me, baby,” he says. “Flip me over.”

Your breath is shaky. A light flickers in your eyes, glints like his saliva adorning your nipple in the yellow dimness of the room. You grab a hold of his neck with your one hand like he does to you every time while the other comes around his shoulder and you push him to his back in one swift motion.

Jungkook feels proud. You learn well from him. So studious, so smart, so cute.

You straddle his hips and Jungkook begins to trace your thighs, fingertips gliding back and forth on the nylon, until he grips your hips—and grips them hard. He forces you down on the bulge of his cock, hissing at the pleasure rising up his abdomen. He feels your dewiness against the material of his boxers soaking it through. He guides your hips in a steady but firm rhythm and once you familiarize yourself with it and hump him on your own, he brushes his fingers across your wet nipples. The sensation sends you toppling back, spine arched as you ride him like you rode his Hello Kitty plushie, but Jungkook keeps his fingers on those two little nubs. Your tits bounce and slap against each other and he just follows their movement, squeezing, grazing, leading you to the burst of your climax. When he lets go, you lower your body enough for him to nuzzle his face in them, moving you to the tip of his cock that peeks out of his boxers. The contact of your little soaked clit with his oozing arousal makes Jungkook moan into your skin, and he feels his balls tighten.

He lets you know by squeezing your arm, as if his furrowed brows, flushed face and the planes of his forehead shining in a layer of sweat weren’t indicating the matter enough.

You enjoy every second of the torment you bestow upon him, back upright now, fingertip playing with his navel.

Even more so as you flip around and ride him reverse cowgirl style, the nylon of your stockings stretched taut over your ass. Jungkook feels faint.

You’re wearing a thong that is but a thin fabric and would cover absolutely nothing if it were in its right place. He can see your little puckered hole that he’s very hungry for, starved actually, with each backward movement you make. He yanks his boxers down, granting you access to paint his manhood with the loveliness of your shiny dewiness. Grunts at the sloppiness of your flesh gliding back and forth as you toy with his ballsack. On the top of his cock, your juices mix with his—creating a pretty, pretty palette.

The way your pussy lips barely wrap around his girth, your little breaths and sobs—Jungkook can’t take it. White flashes in his eyesight, the build up of his orgasm nearing the end.

“You feel so good,” you murmur, flicking your hair behind your shoulders as you arch your back, your hair like a waterfall cascading down your spine.

Jungkook pulls on it, halting your torture. “You’re gonna make me come,” he purrs. “What a waste that would be—for me to come all over my pants like a teenager when your cunnie is right here.”

He rips your stocking further to reveal more of your ass. Pushes you towards his face until you’re sitting on it and—

He devours you.

You cry out. The sound propels him to tighten his grip around the small of your back, to quicken the shakes of his head while his tongue stimulates your engorged clit, occasionally flicking against the muscle to hear more of your little noises. Your palm feels up his wet shaft and Jungkook rewards you for being such a good girl that thinks of her Daddy by taking your bundle between his lips and sucking it. Your body quivers, plays tag with his tongue and Jungkook growls, your taste the sweetest thing he’s had all week and he can’t get enough. Needs more, needs…

“Fuck yourself on my tongue.”

He guides you. Spanks you when you find him. And the sobs you let out, interlaced with the naughtiest of whimpers, make him ache. Your walls press against him—stars fill his vision—and he can’t breathe. Needs you to come, needs a release himself, needs to taste your tiny hole that has never been touched before.

His hand extends for the purple toy, keeping it on the low setting. He presses it against your clit and the way you tighten around him lets him know you’re soaring; mere seconds away from ascending fully to the pearly gates.

Jungkook lets you reach your climax on your own, even though his hands itch to grab you and invigorate your thrusts. He wants you to have full control; wants you to get a heady taste of that liberty.

Wants you to get used to it.

You slow down your movement and Jungkook hears your cry first before your body begins to convulse. He holds you through your orgasm whilst he rubs the vibrator all over your clit and is ever so fucking mesmerized when he catches your pussy drooling and clenching.

He aches—aches badly to be inside of you.

Ridding you entirely of the mere cobwebs that your stockings have become, Jungkook holds your panties in place. His tongue darts out to swipe at your trickling hole, drags it past your skin across the other hole he’s yearning for. He feels you clench; he hears the litany of your incoherent words as you take in the new pleasure. He doesn’t touch your clit—he knows how sensitive it is after such an intense orgasm, so he just drags his tongue up and down both of your holes, swirling around the tight entrance.

When he penetrates you there, you scream.

You scream a bunch of yes’ in a row and Jungkook imagines your eyes are rolling back like they always are—imagines a grin on that fucked-out face of yours, eyelashes fluttering and wet with liquid emotions. It drives him to drill his tongue there in faster staccatos, moaning against you; the entirety of his bloodstream flowing to his intimate parts. He’s so hard he might burst, length heavy and solid against his stomach, but it brings him a great deal of pleasure to have you open like this, to taste you in a place no one has ever touched before, to give you a new experience that you’ll remember for a long time and possibly beg him for again.

He sighs against you, drinking you to relax his jaw. Is drunk on the moment, probably enjoys it more than you do.

You begin riding his face and he just offers you his tongue. Lets you do whatever you want.

“Feels so fucking good, Jungkook, oh my god.”

You’re fast now and Jungkook feels proud of you. You’re taking charge, chasing your pleasure. His heart skips a beat when you want him in your ass again, and he willingly obliges, fucking you there until the tremor of your body signals him of the thunder of your approaching orgasm.

You come on his tongue violently. Shuddering, screaming, leaving his neck, mouth, chin and cheeks wet. Dewiness for tears—he wouldn’t have it any other way.

Turning around, you don’t let him breathe before you grab his face and kiss him, licking into his mouth, moaning at the taste of your own rich flavor. Jungkook reciprocates all of your kisses and swipes of your tongue, doesn’t try to dominate you but instead revels in the nasty kiss, bucking his hips against your heat. So slippery, so fleshy. He grunts into your mouth.

When Jungkook sees your blissed-out face, he grins at you. Is blissed-out himself. “How’s that?” he asks. “You have all of my control. All of it.”

Your voice is hoarse when you say, “so fucking amazing, thank you,” and grin down at him just the same.

Joy beats through his chest, illuminating him from within as if he had his own tapestry of the whole night sky right there above his heart.

You sink lower down his thighs and pepper kisses along the length of his sticky cock. The gesture moves him and he lets you stay there for a moment while he briefly ponders over how a paralyzing form of pain led him to such a pure, expanding joy that he feels right now.

Tears well up in his eyes.

“Come here,” Jungkook pleads and you lift your head like a puppy.

He decides that he doesn’t want any restrictions on your body anymore. Each move of his hand is calculated as he unclips your bra and tugs your stockings, along with your underwear, down your legs. Even his own clothes come off in a blink of an eye because all he wants is skin to skin contact, to be connected with you on the deepest, most raw level that there is.

There’s a bit of nervousness coating his voice when he asks you to ride him due to his vulnerability. And when he feels the beginning of you, your heat encompassing him like the warm wind he last had grazing his body in his summer childhood days, the tears that loom in his eyes rush out.

It feels like he’s back in those days, but only this time all things are made right. But he can’t lie his head down in that tall grass of his childhood and escape—not when you struggle to take him from the angle you’re not used to.

He doesn’t think he ever let you ride him. Not even once. He apprehends you don’t know how to go about it.

“I know it hurts from this angle, but you can take it,” he says, willing his voice to be smooth as if he wasn’t crying at all—is thankful for the dimness that obscures his vulnerability from you. “You’ve taken me before, you can do it. Relax for me, sweetheart.”

You clench around him, stay frozen on the spot, and Jungkook can’t see. Filmy vision, emotions hurling at him like an incoming surge of waves. But all of that takes a step back when you mewl a pained noise and let yourself fall on his chest, his cock only a quarter of the way in.

“I’m scared. It’s too sensitive, it hurts.”

You shift your hips so he slips out of you. Jungkook kisses your forehead, wraps an arm around you while the other travels further down, below the roundness of your cheeks. Makes sure you look at him as he says, “don’t be scared, I’m here and I’m not going anywhere. There’s no rush. Nothing bad is gonna happen to you.”

He looks at you for a long while—recognizes only some of your features in the dark—and so do you whilst he lulls you into a state of serenity by humming a song his mother sang to him during those summer days, by petting your head ever so fondly. He never realized how broken his inner child truly was until you kiss his tears away—see them, alas—and the boy inside him leaps into the sun-breathed air of the past. Grows into a young man with a dream in his heart and pensive thoughts beneath the thick set of black hair. Transforms into an adult man with love for a dream instead, for all that has become of his ambitions is the desire to be loved, to be wanted.

Dream or desire, none of it matters now because all of it, in a strange way that heals him, intermingles with each exhale of your breath against his cheek—and with the inch you think you’re ready to take—all of it is fulfilled.

A dream come true. A desire gratified.

You’re his and he is yours. And he tells you.

You kiss him everywhere. Nose, cheeks, neck. Grab his bunny plushie and tuck him into the crook of his elbow. Jungkook holds onto him as you take another inch, other hand holding his shaft as you sink down little by little, stopping whenever it gets too much.

“You’ve always taken it so well,” he murmurs onto your pained expression, unable to take his eyes off of you. “I was made for you. It’s yours, baby. It’s yours. You can do whatever you want with it.”

You clench at his words and the noise that you squeak makes him grunt onto your lips.

“That’s right, baby. I’m so proud of you for trying to take me so well like this when your little pussy is so sensitive from my tongue. You deserve to be rewarded, don’t you?”

The smile blossoming on your mouth is dangerous with its coyness but confidence at the same time. He falls in love with you all over again, feels the tall grass of his childhood bending over his head, sifting through his hair.

“I’m doing it for you,” you say. “I want to make you feel good.”

A hum of appreciation. A kiss full of tongue. “Throw your hips back a little. Just like when we dance.”

He’s not fully sheathed inside of you, but he feels your gummy walls smothering the half of his length and it’s enough. He doesn’t want to hurt you by filling you to the brim—he’s heedful even as he guides your hips with his hands, rolling them back as if you were grinding against him. Both of you danced like that many times before and because you know the move, you’re comfortable once you latch onto his hands and lift them, intertwining your fingers with his, pinning them down onto the mattress. Your hips gain speed, bouncing on him as your chest lifts a little, hovers above him and the bunny in the middle of his stomach, and Jungkook doesn’t let himself feel pleasure until your eyes lid and turn to the ceiling.

“That’s it, you’re doing so good. You’re a fucking”—Jungkook whines at the impact of a distinct hard slam of your hips down on his—“pro. My little fucking pro. Doing so good for me.”

He’s losing it and it’s so quick. The change of energy in the room, the arousal rising like fine dust in the air. All because his words nourished you with confidence that blazes the atmosphere around the bed. It’s just you, him and bunny in this microcosm and Jungkook longs to hold onto the plushie. Feels so much like you when he’s the one in control; feels as though you’ve become one in this emotionally charged act. He can’t differentiate between himself and you anymore.

He’s simply become you because he loves you. Or has been you the whole time due to that very fact. Perhaps loving someone truly means becoming them because what you learn from them, what you mimic from them is perpetually yours.

An awareness of how tired you must be drifts across his mind. He knows that with each excellent performance comes the burning of the muscles so without thinking twice, he maneuvers you to his favorite position—remaining on his lap with your back against his chest and bunny stacked on top of you. He takes the lead but lets you decide the pace. You’re the boss. “Fast or slow?”

“Fast.”

Jungkook hums, raising a brow. “Fast? Cunnie isn’t sensitive anymore?”

You shake your head ‘no’, propping an arm behind his neck. “I want it fast.”

It’s simultaneous—the deed of two hands, yours and his, grabbing a hold of the fluffy belly of the plushie, fingers traveling and interlocking without a thought, without a direction, and yet meeting. Like two shooting stars. Like the ones you wear under your bottom lashes.

One person. One mind, one heart.

Jungkook taps your belly button with the tip of his cock. You laugh softly. He remembers how wide your eyes were in fear when you sat upright on his lower stomach and could clearly see how far he reached inside of you.

“Ready?” he asks.

“Yes.”

He sinks his length into your warmth. The grass, the caress of the summer wind. You’re the personification of his childhood and Jungkook kisses you hard, tells you of it by the press of his lips on yours. Is ruthless as he ruts into you. His free hand clutches the vibrator and finds your clit under the small dangling legs of bunny. The low intensity is but a thrum, though by the gasps you emit, by the moans that rise in echoes within the atmosphere, he deduces it’s good.

Smugness returns, hand in hand with his control. He presses the toy harder against you, rubbing it side to side—and this time he doesn’t stop.

He doesn’t stop fucking you.

Vigorous with strength, empowered by the free rein of his emotions that were accepted and loved, he pistons his hard cock into that tightness of yours, regardless whether you can handle it or not. Feels right at home, feels—

“Who’s your Daddy?” he questions without slowing down the rhythm of his brutal pace. “Who’s fucking you this good?”

You hum, licking your lips, and your confidence fucks with him, strips him bare of any sanity he had left. You give him the eyes, flick your tongue against his lips before you tilt your head to kiss him with a brief passion. “You are.”

Butterflies.

Jungkook drops the vibrator on the bed. Has to touch you, has to grip you—and he does. His hand finds your throat and he squeezes, kissing you with the same passion, prolonging it because what you did wasn’t fair. He needs the passion; he needs to swallow it down and feel it course down his body. And when you give him just that, along with your luscious moans, he rewards you.

Gives you all of his cock.

He rams himself into you, balls deep. Repeats it over and over, each thrust harder than the one before. Watches your irises disappear from your eyes, mouth agape, voice gone. Jungkook senses you’re leaving planet Earth again and he stops you.

“Is this Daddy of yours your boyfriend now?”

Like a bell, his heart is clanging and the freedom in that sentence losing its principle of ever being a risk causes his eyes to fill with tears again. He’s a mess. His emotions are a mess. But he’s so happy.

And the smile you give him due to that question—it charges him with the longing power to own it, own you, so he grabs you everywhere. Your chin, your cheeks, your mouth, and you never stop smiling, not even when you say, “he is my boyfriend now, you got a problem with that?”

The chuckle that rumbles out of his chest is a surprise to him because dizziness takes a hold of his entire being. He’s gone—he’s about to die. This is it.

He kisses you and the act of your lips wrapping around his makes this so much more real. He squeezes you and bunny in his arms, hips grinding his circles now. “Does it hurt when I’m this deep?” he murmurs.

“No, feels good.”

“Let me know if it starts hurting, alright?”

You nod, pecking him, gripping his hair.

Jungkook lets go of your hand and slowly lifts you up and down on the hardness of his cock from behind. You’re so light in his hands, like a little angel assigned to his side, just his to play with. You tip your head back, the smile of yours having bloomed into a full grin. Jungkook watches you in awe.

“Look at you riding me. You don’t need any help.”

You giggle. Jungkook feels his cheeks fire up. Thinks the sound is angelic, it must be. Thinks the squelch of your pussy taking him, leaving him dewy, is angelic, too.

It makes him stop playing with you and fuck you properly instead.

He sits up. Angles your head so your lips touch his, but he doesn’t kiss you. He wants you there so you swallow all of the words that will come off his tongue, so you remember them even when the delirium wears off.

He pounds into you.

You’re no longer smiling.

Takes the vibrator again. Provokes you, just because he can’t help it, by turning up the intensity and letting it only float above your clit, never letting it touch you. He’s not fast as he fucks you. On the contrary, his thrusts are hard.

Merciless.

He feels evil when he removes the toy completely, makes sure you watch, and presses it down into the softness between bunny’s legs. He turns your head back to face him and he mimics your moans, scrunches his features in pleasure, giving life to the plushie—acting for her.

But his meanness makes you come and you fall apart in his hands. He feels bad, terribly bad for you, and the feeling begins to consume his insides—so much that he gives you the pleasure he denied you mid climax. He presses the toy against your clit and—

You’re gone.

Your stream of pleasure forces him out of you and it makes him moan loudly. It makes him moan when he rubs the vibrator all over your absolutely drenched cunt and you just keep coming. And it makes him moan when you beg him to keep fucking you.

Who is he to say no to you?

“You just want it bad, don’t you?”

You nod against his head. Gone, gone, gone. He follows you into that rabbit hole, pounding you rough and fast this time, keeping you caged against him, fingers back in an intricate interlock. You smother him with your femininity and Jungkook is perpetually at wonder how you manage to do that, how you manage to never have enough. It makes him lose his fucking mind, lose everything—lose his identity. He just blurs into you. The stars in his chest pour like liquid into your ribcage. He feels them quivering when he touches your breasts all over. Wonders if you’ll come again for him.

“Pussy molded just for me, hm, isn’t it?” he breathes. Hot, sweaty, on the brink of insanity. White flashes. Balls tight. Dizziness stealing his senses. “Good little pussy, always wanting more.”

The air grows dense.

“Mine,” he growls, voice strained—so close, so fucking close. “My pussy. Mine to fuck. Mine to eat. Mine to love—”

His gut tenses. Flames burn it hot. Time stops. Knuckles turn ivory in the feverish grip of your fingers upon bunny’s tummy; your walls, too, splattered in magnificent white. Jungkook fucks his cum into you, once, twice, for the last time—pumping you full. Giving you all that he has.

He falls limp against his pillows. The toy buzzes on upon the comforter, long abandoned.

His exhaustion doesn’t let him open his eyes. Not when his eyes sting with tears once more, not even when your warmth leaves his manhood. He knows you didn’t come this time around, however he doesn’t have the strength to fix it. His vigor oozed out of him and nestled within you—like his control, like his love, like his cum.

He will make it up to you tomorrow morning.

Now he needs sleep. He needs the tears to halt their hurting by leaking out of the inner corners of his eyes. Would prefer if you weren’t the witness to it because with his vigor departing, his vulnerability heightened. He’s ashamed of the sea of his feelings, but there’s nothing he can do to change that. He just loves you.

He’s so happy that he’s yours and he fucked you so good and—

“You tired, baby?”

You sound just like him.

Jungkook suppresses his sob, swallows it right down.

“I’m spent.” Too emotional. “Too spent to wash up.”

He feels a kiss on his nose, the comforter lifting, small warm hands on his body as he’s being tucked into his bed. Jungkook lies on his side. Feels too lonely. As if you had insight into his soul, you settle into the spaces of his form that you know are there for you to hide in.

With a barrier in between.

You push bunny’s back against his chest. Click the lamp off.

In the darkness, Jungkook allows his lungs to expand in their silent weeping. Finds bunny, finds your arm. Moves you closer until the plushie serves like a heart in the middle of your bodies. Fingers petting your hair, he allows another thing—

“I love you.”

BACK to masterlist / read part one, read part two

#jungkook x oc #jungkook x reader #jungkook x you #jungkook smut #bts smut #bts imagine #jungkook imagine #jeon jungkook #bts scenarios #jungkook scenarios #jungkook fluff #btscreatorscorner #kpop smut #jungkook one shot

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alwaysmoncheri · 3 months

Note

hello! I hope you’re doing good! I would like to request a fic with tasm!peter parker or james potter if you prefer, but something where they’re making out and the reader ends up breaking his glasses? If that makes sense🫣

hi, my darling, i’m am doing very well! thank you for requesting, that makes complete sense! I’m totally watching tasm again after writing this <3

cw: fem!reader, making out, slightly suggestive (but not really), aunt may walking in, established relationship, fluff, 1.2k

Peter’s mouth is on your neck while the bridge of his glasses rubs against the skin just an inch higher than his mouth. His hands stay firmly planted on your hips as you sit in his lap on his swivel chair. Your textbook and computer lay abandoned next to his on his desk in front of you.

“Peter, I have to study,” you mumble, but the sigh that escapes your lips makes your excuse less believable, “We have to study.” you add, trying you best to get yourself and peter back on track for a big exam tomorrow. Crazy for Peter or not, this test is important and you need to get a little studying in, but you can’t get Peter to keep his hands off you.

“No, we don’t.” Peter replies quickly, before biting your neck, causing you to let out squeak.

“Peter,” you practically whine, and the chuckle that falls from Peter’s mouth vibrates onto your neck, causing you to squirm in his lap. When Peter lifts his head from your neck, you’re pouting. Lips jutted out and eyebrows pinched together with pleading eyes. Oh, Peter could die right here with you in his arms. He pulls you closer, biceps and hands pressed into your sides and forearms into your stomach.

“You’re going to be fine,” Peter offers gently, pressing a much softer kiss to your cheek, allowing you to release the tension from your face, “You’ve studied plenty already.”

“But–”

“No, buts,” Peter shuts you down, gently rubbing your sides in an attempt to silence your worries. He wants to kiss you so bad, but he would never do it without your permission. And if you want to study, he’ll let you, but he doesn’t think you really do, “Kiss me?”

Peter hears you release a long, dramatic, sigh before shifting yourself in his lap so that you’re straddling him, his hands now stabilizing you by your waist. For a moment your face is expressionless and Peter can’t read you. He worries that you’re unhappy with him but when he sees a giddy smile creep onto your face, he instantly reciprocates and his worries melt away.

You lock your hands around Peter’s neck before leaning in to kiss him. At first, you kiss him softly, tenderly just because you love him. But when you lightly tug on Peter’s hair at the nape of his neck, he takes it as a sign to tug on your hips, pulling you flush against his chest and deepen the kiss. But when the bridge of you nose knocks into Peter’s glasses, you groan in momentary pain, causing his eyes to widen, hand reaching up to gently hold your cheek, the action asking if you’re okay. When you nod your head and meet his gaze, you notice his concern before it’s quickly replaced with frustration. Peter quickly tears his glasses on his face and tosses them towards his bed without sparing a glance in that direction. But when a soft crack echos from across the room, you snap your gaze towards the glasses that now lay broken at the bridge on the floor.

“Peter!” You gasp, shifting your gaze between him and the broken glasses, but no concern seems to be etched on his face.

“Don’t worry, I can get new ones,” Peter assures you, kissing the corners of your lips while his nose delicately brushes the apples of your cheeks, “I just wanna kiss you.” Peter whispers and you feel a rush of warmth spread across your face at his tone.

“Aunt May isn’t going to be happy.” You state, nervously glancing towards the door that Peter probably forgot to lock again.

“Shush, less talking, baby,” Oh god, you melt completely at the way his says baby and presses his finger to your mouth, before replacing it with his lips, “More kissing.” He adds in between a few quick, hard, presses of his lips on yours.

“Oh whatev—hmph!”

Peter kisses you long and hard, successfully getting you to stop talking. You feel hot all over when he kisses you again and again. And when you rank your fingers through his hair, lightly tugging on the ends, while simultaneously gently biting his bottom lip, Peter makes a sound between a gasp and a groan that makes you want to do it again just so you can hear the sound once more. There’s a kiss, another, and another, you’re so caught up in the feeling of his mouth against yours, carefully sliding your hands up and down his chest before lightly gripping a fist full of his shirt to keep him near you.

The way Peter touches you is like muscle memory, he knows how to make you gasp and what makes you shiver. When, his hands slip under the material of your shirt and caress your skin, your body reacts exactly how he knows it always does. Then, he lifts you up, your legs wrap around his waist, and with his lips still on yours, he gently lowers the both of you onto his bed. He seems so far away now and you can’t handle it. Before he even has the chance to lower himself further down onto the bed, you grab his biceps, which are tensed from holding himself up, and tug him towards you. Peter practically falls and suddenly the weight of his whole body is on top of you, Peter worries for a moment, breaking the kiss, but you make a noise, reminiscent to a childish whine before grabbing his jaw with both of you hands and pulling him back. With his lips on yours, his tongue slides into your mouth while your thumbs trace the outline of his jaw and his hand slides behind you back and into your shirt.

“Hey, do you two know where—Oh my goodness!” You and Peter are quickly pulled apart, turning your heads in the direction of Aunt May’s loud gasp. She stands just outside the bedroom with one hand still on the doorknob, her expression loudly displaying her shock. Peter stays on top of you for a split second, before May’s gaze shifts between his hand in your shirt and both of your disheveled appearances, “Peter Benjamin Parker!”

With that, Peter immediately jumps up from on top of you, quickly grabbing your hand to stand next to him. Both of your faces are flushed red from being caught, even if all you were doing was kissing. Aunt May stands by the door, both of her hands placed firmly on her hips, presumably awaiting a reasonable response while you and Peter glance at each other in search of something to say. When Peter’s gaze returns to his aunt, he finally opens his mouth to speak.

“Aunt May—We were just—” Peter pauses as he stumbles over his words, feeling pathetic under the eyes of both you and his aunt.

“Studying.” You finish with a somewhat convincing smile and when Aunt May turns to you, her gaze softens, but when she notices the broken glasses laying forgotten on the floor behind you, her questioning expression returns.

“And what happened to your glasses?” Aunt May asks, a triumphant smile crossing her face as she knows she’s caught the two of you red-handed in your obvious lie, “Were you studying when that happened?”

You and Peter hesitate, he sends you a nervous smile and the both of you bite your tongues, not trusting yourselves to speak. After a moment, the two of you nod, heads hanging low.

“Mhm, right,” May hums before sending Peter a look that says, ‘we’ll talk later.’ Then, she takes a few steps into the room, causing you and Peter’s eyes to widen, but May only steps around you to pick up the broken glasses before walking back towards the door, “Well, dinner is almost ready, you two better behave.”

“Okay, yeah, thank you, May.” Peter says, and you can tell he’s beyond flustered by the situation as he runs a hand through his hair, then brushes a finger along his bottom lip, “We’ll be down soon.”

May nods before sending the both of you one final look, this one a little more playful than the rest. She exits the bedroom and closes the door behind her, leaving you and Peter alone once again.

The both of you share a glance before breaking out in a fit of laughter. Peter falls back onto the bed, tugging you down with his so that you’re laying on his chest.

“I told you she’d be mad.” You tease, running your hand up his chest, eventually reaching the back of his neck, while leaving a gentle kiss on his jaw.

“It was so worth it.” Peter smirks before flipping you over and kissing your face

masterlist . tasm!peter parker masterlist . taglist

thank you for reading, my darling! remember to like! reblog! and comment! i’ll give you a smooch if you do, ily! send requests to my inbox!

tags: @googie-jeon, @Kevia1000, @annoyingmidgetwhowrites, @averyhotchner, @marauderswhxre, @vixparker

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fangswbenefits · 10 months

Text

Consequences

Summary: Miguel’s obsession with you reaches a breaking point, and now he’s left to deal with the consequences.

Pairing: Miguel O’Hara x spider-woman!reader

Word count: 2.5k

18+. Miguel POV. Obsessed and jealous Miguel. Shy/inexperienced sweet reader. Pining. Pillow hump*ng.

Part 1 (if you’re just starting out) - Previous part

Miguel hadn’t managed to get a single second of sleep.

After having heard you mumble that name over and over, he had retreated to the living room, scanning through your file like a madman, hoping he’d find out who this person was.

Tom.

He had Lyla comb through everything, but nothing had come up.

By the time six in the morning rolled around, you exited the room with a long yawn, stretching out your arms, as Miguel sat on his counch, eyeing you intensely.

Still not wearing a bra.

Still in his shirt.

But having mumbled someone else’s name.

Needless to say, this ordeal had effectively killed his boner for good.

It was hard for him to hide his scowl. “Sleep well?”

Your lips curled into a satisfied smile. “Hmm. You?”

Laughable.

He nodded, not wanting his voice to betray his feelings.

“Do you think I can take a shower before I go to the lab?”

“Sure.”

You glared at him, arching an eyebrow. “Is… everything okay?”

“Of course,” he said, clearing his throat. “You have some fresh towels in there.”

“Great!” you chirped happily, disappearing into the bathroom.

Maybe a few hours ago, Miguel O’Hara would have been rock hard from the thought of you being naked with nothing but a door in the way.

But he was having a hard time focusing on anything beyond his blinding jealousy.

Who was Tom? A boyfriend? Family? A pet? Someone random?

Or someone important?

Why didn’t he know about this? Was he overreacting? Maybe there was nothing to be jealous of.

But he was sure of something: he needed answers.

He walked up to the kitchen and brew himself a cup of coffee, needing to deal with the headache that had settled.

Not long after, you emerged from the bathroom, completely soaked in the scent of his body wash, and he nearly gasped at how it completely overtook his senses.

Already in your suit, you quickly dropped by his bedroom to drop off his clothes, and walked right back, bearing a sleepy smile.

“Want something to eat?”

You nodded, sitting on the stool by the counter. “Yes, please. Do you have some fruit?”

He grabbed his cup of coffee and scanned the cupboard. “An apple?”

“Yes!” you beamed.

Miguel offered you one that you immediately brought to your lips, sinking your teeth into the soft surface.

To someone on the outside, this could be considered a moment between a couple who was just getting ready to start the day.

Everything looked very… domestic.

Except, it wasn’t.

Maybe he shouldn’t ask. Would it be too much?

But he had to know. It was eating him alive inside not knowing.

“Who’s Tom?”

Your eyes shot up to meet his and you immediately stopped chewing. “What?”

Miguel tried to appear as casual as possible, but something in your reaction made him regret having asked in the first place.

There was no going back now, so he might as well push for it.

Right?

“I heard you in your sleep,” he went on, taking a sip of his coffee. “You whispered that name.”

Your face had hardened lightly and your gaze dropped to the apple in your hand. “Uh… yeah. I’m sorry if I woke you up.”

I didn’t even sleep…

“Is he family or…?”

You swallowed and slid off the stool, waving a dismissive hand. “It’s no big deal. Wait… what time is it?” you said, tapping your watch. “Oh. I need to head back to the lab.”

At this point, Miguel knew he had maybe fucked up big time, and went into full on panic mode.

“I’m sorry that I asked, I-”

You immediately shook your head. “Don’t worry. It’s fine! Thanks for letting me stay over.”

He rounded the countertop and walked up to you, desperate to fix whatever he had just broken.

“You can take the day off if you need.”

You smiled again, but he knew that this time it was genuine. “That’s exactly what I don’t need. Now that I’ve managed to get the chips to work, I need to get back and run some tests.”

He allowed himself to relax slightly. From this distance he could smell his shampoo on you, and it made his heart clench.

There you were again.

His hardworking sweet girl.

You gave his arm a light pat. “Thanks again, Miguel. Your bed is really comfortable,” you said, heading to the doorway while rummaging through your backpack. “Much more than mine.”

He’d have it in your apartment in a heartbeat, and he nearly offered, but chose silence.

“See you later!” you waved with a smile before taking another bite out of the apple, and disappearing beyond the sliding door.

That smile could break a man.

It had broken him long ago.

And now Miguel wanted to scream.

To break something.

Not only did he not get an answer from you, but now he was under the impression he had crossed a line he shouldn’t have by having asked you.

He stormed into his room, and paced hurriedly from one end to the other, trying to decide what to do next.

That was until your scent gripped his heightened senses again.

He glared at his bed.

Your scent lingered in the bedsheets and, as if on autopilot, he paced towards it and gripped one pillow, bringing it to his face.

The family rush of blood downwards was almost painful.

You had been in his bed, and he had lost count of the amount of times he had fantasised ravaging you in it.

He allowed his digital suit to dissolve, leaving him fully naked.

Miguel knew deep down that this was too desperate. Even for him.

But that didn’t stop him.

Instead, he got on top of the mattress, right above where you had slept, and positioned the pillow lower, until the underside of his cock was resting on the soft material.

You had left his shirt neatly folded on top of another pillow and he brought the fabric to his nose, breathing in your scent mixed with his.

His hips rolled once.

It was intoxicating, but he couldn’t stop himself from slowly dragging his cock up and down the pillow soaked in your scent, soon to become soaked in his precum.

His grunts were muffled by the fabric and he felt his fang tear through it.

He wasn’t going to last long.

This was too much.

With a few more snaps of his hips, and feeling more and more precum spill out, Miguel was a moaning mess.

How he wished you’d be right under him, taking all those thrusts deep inside, whimpering and sobbing as he filled you over and over again.

The thought of you struggling to take him for the first time was enough to push him over the edge, and more sounds of fabric being torn filled his ears.

He stilled as a guttural growl broke from his throat, strings of cum shooting out and seeping into the soft fabric below.

His breathing was still erratic by the time his fangs retracted.

Once he found the will to get up, he picked up the cum-drenched pillow and decided to throw it away.

The post-nut clarity hit him like a thousand bricks, as he cleaned up the mess, allowing his suit to cover his entire body once again.

If you weren’t going to tell him about Tom, then he knew just who to ask.

Jessica Drew.

Pulling out two orange screens in his livingroom, your file immediately coming up. He then tapped on his watch twice.

Jessica’s hologram popped up. “Morning, Miguel.”

“Busy?”

“Just headed out to brief my squad.”

“Who’s Tom?” he blurted out, positioning his wrist so that she could see your file on the screen.

“Oh.”

He scowled deeply. “What do you mean ‘oh’?”

Jess clicked her tongue. “I mean that I’m not surprised this is about her.”

“What?”

“You’re not as subtle as you think you are, Miguel O’Hara,” she said with a teasing smile. “You might be able to fool others — hell, even her —, but you can’t fool me.”

That was Jessica Drew. Perceptive as always. He wasn’t all that annoyed that she could read him that well. After all, he had recruited her for a reason.

“I’m just concerned about her,” he said, admitting defeat.

“I’m sure you are,” she said, adjusting her glasses. “But maybe you should be asking her, no?”

“I did, and she pushed the topic away.”

She shrugged. “Well, I don’t know of any Tom. That name never popped up while I was scouting her.”

He felt disappointment and frustration grip him tightly, and he began scrolling through your file, wishing he could have missed something.

“Look, I may head out to her dimension later today, and see what I can find,” she offered with a sigh.

“Thank you, Jess.”

“But Miguel…?”

His crimson eyes darted to the flickering hologram. “Yes?”

“If she doesn’t want to talk about it, there may be a chance you won’t like what I find out. If I find anything, that is.”

Point taken.

He was started to accept that the truth might be an inconvenience for him.

But he had to know. The frustration of not knowing was driving him crazy.

“Just do what you have to do.”

She nodded and the hologram faded.

The first time Miguel had been at to your place was to check up on you after almost an entire week of going without sleep.

You were stubborn. Even more than he had been in his younger days.

You’d go home, but continue working, so he had no choice but to restrict your access to the lab data from outside HQ. As expected, you weren’t happy, but finally took his advice and got some rest.

Now he was back, but for a different reason, and he could only hope things between you two hadn’t soured.

He had kept his distance throughout the rest of day, occasionally checking you through the cameras as the mic in your suit.

Nothing had seemed out of the ordinary.

But he had an uneasy feeling brewing inside him, so he had to make sure.

You had promptly let him in even though it was close to midnight, slightly confused as to the reason of him dropping by.

As he stepped in, he was met with a sight he hadn’t seen the last time he had visited: there were wires spread everywhere along the floor, mixed between card boxes and paper scattered across every possible surface he could set his eyes on.

“Sorry for the mess,” you giggled apologetically. “Wasn’t expecting visitors.”

Good.

But also… very workaholic of you.

You were dressed in just a shirt — seemingly wearing a bra, this time — and some sweatpants, with a pencil tucked behind your ear, as you paced in circles, glaring at your pad.

“Love what you did with the decoration,” Miguel mused, trying his best to strategically avoid stepping on anything. “Fire hazard aesthetic, is it?”

You paused to stare at him with a lighthearted chuckle. “Bingo!”

Your reaction made him feel more at ease. Perhaps he had read too much into things.

You were still acting like his sweet girl.

The table at the center had barely any room left, and he managed to find a vacant spot on a chair nearby. “May I sit?”

You were looking through a tube with five different wires running along it. “Oh… I was going to place this there.”

Miguel immediately moved away. “Right. Of course.”

Priorities of any scientist.

Flashing him your trademark grin, you moved around to rest the tube horizontally on the chair.

This place truly resembled his when he was first getting started with Nueva York. All the blueprints and planning and computers and screens.

Oddly enough, your apartment made him feel nostalgic.

“So, what’s up?” you said, before taking a sip of your water.

He ran a hand through his hair and heaved a deep sigh. “I wanted to apologise for earlier today.”

You blinked.

“That conversation… about Tom?”

“Oh!” you suddenly said as realisation hit you. “There’s nothing to apologise for, Miguel! It’s a non issue.”

Well. He begged to differ, actually. Whoever this Tom person was, it had already created a slight rift between you two, even if unintentionally.

And he wanted to fix that.

Miguel was a fixer.

“I just want to make sure that Tom isn’t going to become an issue. For you… or for us.”

He added that last part in an effort to compel you to talk about him, which stemmed from genuine concern. What if Tom was someone dangerous and that could put spider society at risk?

You waved your hand dismissively. “He won’t. Don’t worry.”

He bit the inside of his cheek, feeling the urge to continue with the questions, but it had become clear you weren’t going to collaborate.

It didn’t matter.

He would have information on Tom soon enough, and then he’d decide whether he was an issue or not.

But then… “Are you two close?”

He mentally slapped himself for his impulse.

“Oh, yeah… I guess you could say that,” you said, dragging your finger along the screen in front of you. “But, really, there’s no point talking about it.”

But why?

So he was someone close to you… he had dreaded this possibility becoming true.

But maybe… maybe it was just some family member.

He began pacing around with arms crossed, glacing outside the window and into the night sky.

Deep down, he wanted you to know he was there for you, but he also wanted some answers.

He needed answers.

“He didn’t hurt you, did he?”

At this, you slammed your palms on the table, a frown settling on your face. “Miguel! Drop it, please… it’s nothing.”

That was unexpected.

And so unlike you.

And it was enough to stop him in his tracks. “I’m just looking out for you.”

He was. Truly.

And for his relationship with you. A future one, hopefully.

Your features softened as your eyes met his, and he felt the sudden urge to close the gap between you two and pull you into an embrace.

But he chose to keep his distance, not wanting to seem overbearing.

“I know. I’m sorry,” you drawled out, rubbing your temples with both hands. “I shouldn’t have snapped like that.”

He shook his head at once. “I shouldn’t have asked.”

“I’ve been too overloaded with work, which is my fault, I know,” you said, pacing nervously. “But… I just want to help.”

Miguel sighed. “And you are. You don’t need to constantly prove yourself. No one will think less of you for not figuring things out at first,” he continued, and he meant every single word. “There’s so much trial and error in our line of work. We should work hard, yes. But not to the point of exhaustion.”

You halted, glaring at him like he had just uttered something unthinkable.

Unexpectedly, you were the one to close the distance between you two with unsure steps.

Dropping both arms against his sides, Miguel watched in silence as you paced closer and closer, your face holding a hint of sadness that should be forbidden.

You should never have to feel sad.

“I know you care,” you said, you voice but a whisper. “And I’m really grateful for you.”

Miguel’s heart sped up, as you tilted your head to stare at him. “Can I hug you?”

How could he ever say no to you? He’d give you anything. Everything.

You just didn’t know that.

He was left baffled and could only nod, and you wrapped your arms around him, pressed your cheek to his chest.

For a man who was perceived as a genius and had built an entire city from the ground up, Miguel sure felt like a fish out of water. So out of his element. He hadn’t shared this level of closeness with anyone in years.

But slowly, he managed to place one hand to the back of your head while the other pulled you closer, in the hopes that you would find safety and comfort in his embrace.

“Thank you.”

A few hours ago, he was humping his pillow thinking of you, fully drunk in your scent. Now, something else filled him.

Anger.

Rage.

No… there was no doubt whoever this Tom individual was that he had left a mark on you. And he couldn’t stand seeing his sweet girl like this.

He had to find out what had happened and what he had done to his sweet girl.

He would find him and he would break him if he had to.

Your tears were wetting his suit, and he had to muster all his willpower not to bolt into your dimension in search of him.

The fingers on your back caressed you slowly, lulling you into a comfortable position.

“I’m here for you.”

He felt your arms tighten around him, and he heard a sob. “Can… can you sing something?”

“What?”

“It distracts me…”

He felt puzzled at first, but he did want to help you. “Uh… anything?”

You nodded with a sniffle.

“Okay… uh… the itsy bitsy spider craw-”

You broke into a laughter. “Seriously?”

He felt his lips turn into a warm smile, as he kept rubbing your back.

Slowly, you loosened your grip around him and tilted your head to stare at him, chin resting on his chest with a sweet smile.

It had worked.

“You have such pretty eyes,” you whispered.

On impulse, he brushed his thumb along your cheek, wiping away a few teardrops.

His eyes then fell to your lips as they parted slightly, and he brought the thumb to brush along them, enjoying the softness and how your breath came out in shallow pants.

His sweet girl…

How he really wanted to—

And then his watch stared beeping, cutting the moment short.

Of course.

You jolted and he bent his arm and glared, as spider-byte’s hologram emerged. “Boss, Jessica has found subject A on Earth-2848.”

Fuck.

You immediately tore from him, wiping away the remnants of your tears.

“My Earth? What happe-”

He quickly cut you off. “Send me the file.”

Margo glanced briefly at you. “Uploading the file, boss.”

Miguel immediately terminated contact, and the hologram dissolved. He was then met with your questioning face

“Is it an anomaly? Is everything okay?”

He pinched the bridge of his nose. “We are just tracking some unusual activity.”

He didn’t want to lie to you.

But you had left him no choice.

He had to know who Tom was.

For you.

“I’m taking care of it,” he tried to reassure again.

You didn’t seem all that convinced, but didn’t insist.

Instead, you took a few steps back, and he felt your warmth painfully leave him at once.

He could get used to it so easily.

Then, he glared down at the screen of his watch, waiting for the file to be ready.

“Hey, Miguel?”

79%

Almost there.

“Miguel?”

His gaze remained fixed. “Hmm?”

“Do you think you can unlock my suit settings?”

That made him snap his head to glare at you.

What?

You were holding your pad, extending it to him. “I’ve been getting this weird interference in my suit,” you sniffled, eyes still puffy from crying. “I wanted to troubleshoot, but it doesn’t let me access the settings.”

Of course not. He had made sure of that.

But something else began looming over him… “What kind of interference?”

You shrugged, tapping the screen. “Static, I think? I only hear it from time to time, though.”

Miguel’s heart instantly dropped, Lyla’s words of caution ringing inside his head: “You’re not the only tech savvy spider here.”

No, no, no…

“So… can you let me in?”

The mic.

Fuck.

Part 5

Masterlist

#miguel o’hara x reader #miguel o’hara #miguel o’hara smut #miguel o’hara x you #miguel o’hara x fem!reader #spiderman 2099 x reader #miguel ohara x reader #miguel o’hara x y/n #miguel o’hara fanfiction

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