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#but yeah i spiced it up and changed the coloring
somestorythoughts · 3 days
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Eldritch Echo
So. I haven't seen the Bad Batch and don't really intend to, but I have read some fics (please do not take that as me saying that's the same as understanding the story) and between that and my thoughts of eldritch stuff in Star Wars and a cool art piece I came across that I think was referencing something I don't have the context for, I started wondering what it'd look like if of the Bad Batch, Echo was the only eldritch/cryptid/vampire/otherwise not human one. NOT because of the Techno Union, but because of something that happened sooner OR he'd always been like that. And I might put a bit of that in my vampire clones thing but I was thinking eldritch and I ended up writing a thing. So. Enjoy:
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Crosshair’s willing to admit he doesn’t dislike Echo. He respects the guy’s resilience and his willingness to go with the flow, which is necessary for someone working with their team, even as he rolls his eyes at Echo’s tendency to twitch at the state of their ship and his reluctance to drop the “sir” when talking to Hunter. More than that Echo has zero qualms about sassing him if Crosshair picks a fight and it’s a lot of fun to rile him up.
That said. Echo is also really freaking weird.
Crosshair is very observant, between his eyesight, his role on the team, and his training he had to be and either something’s very off about Echo or he’s started hallucinating because he keeps seeing things that don’t make sense. Not for a reg and not for a cyborg.
He explains this the Hunter once, trying to see if he’s noticed anything, and Hunter frowns. “Can you give me an example?”
“His eyes for one.”
Hunter blinked. “What?”
“We all know what most trooper’s eyes look like. And we’ve seen some variations. But they don’t change color. I’ve seen his eyes go golden or violet, and it wasn’t the lighting.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes I’m sure what do you take me for?” Crosshair snapped. “Look. Next time we’re on a sunny planet. Take a look at his shadow. It doesn’t match him at all. I’ve seen it prowling around him like a tooka without him or a light source moving. It doesn’t look like him either. And remember that time we were sparring and he panicked and bit me? I asked Tech, the Techno Union didn’t do anything to his teeth, but I know what bitemarks look like and that was not it.”
Hunter sighed. “I’ll pay attention but-” He paused. “Huh.”
“What?”
“It might not be anything.” He replies and only knowing that he’s getting to the point keeps Crosshair from interrupting. “But remember how I told you guys that people smell like animals? They’re distinct from each other, and you know I can’t describe it cause I tried to describe you guys, but it’s not like they smell like flowers or old books or whatever people like to think they’d smell like unless they’re wearing a scent. Echo, he doesn’t smell like a trooper. I just never thought about it for some reason.”
“And what does he smell like?”
Hunter frowned as he tried to find the words. “Well. He does smell a bit like a trooper and a bit metallic. But he also smells like, what’s was the spice in that cake you liked so much? The one we found on that mission with the weird vultures?”
Crosshair hummed. That had been a really freaking good cake. “The lady said it was a cardamon cream cake. So he smells like cardamon?”
“Cardamon and lilies and wet dirt is the best way I can describe it and I know it’s not his soap cause he uses the same stuff as the rest of us. So yeah. I guess I’ll pay attention.”
Two days later Crosshair gets confirmation that something’s up in a way he did not expect.
Because walking around in the dark in the middle of the night is his job so it’s already odd to find Echo leaning against the cabinet in their ship’s tiny kitchen in the pitch dark. “You’re going to trip reg.” Crosshair says and leans over to get the lights when Echo looks up.
And twelve pairs of golden violet eyes meet Crosshair’s.
He staggers back, trips over something, falls. “Crosshair!” Echo grabs his hand, pulling him up, then scrambles for the lights as if he forgot they might be necessary and Crosshair yelps as the light hits his eyes.
He blames that and the shock for blurting out; “What the hell are you Echo?”
Echo blinks, looking hurt. “I’m a trooper. Like you all.”
“Troopers don’t have twenty-four freaking eyes.” Crosshair hissed. They aren’t there now, he’s got 2 brown eyes in the exact same shade of brown nearly every trooper has, but Crosshair knows what he saw. He knows what he’s been seeing.
Echo tilts his head. And he grins. It’s a smile Crosshair’s seen before, whenever Echo’s about to respond to his taunts with something cutting and clever, part “take that” and part inviting him to share the joke. There’s nothing off about that smile save for that it’s mirrored in Echo’s shadow, splayed against the cabinets behind him too dark for their lights.
“The Bad Batch.” Echo muses, like there’s a joke Crosshair hasn’t caught yet, and he’s never had a reason to call Echo dangerous even when he didn’t trust him, but he’s starting to feel cornered even though Echo hasn’t moved. “You think you’re the only strange ones. ‘Don’t worry Rex, we know how to handle a reg.’ Never mind that Torrent was always a little crazy, or it used to be. Never mind that I was an ARC and a damn good one, and we’re all more than competent. And I appreciate what you all did, in welcoming me into the squad, I appreciate it more than I can say, and I do really like you guys, but you are so freaking cocky. So certain you can handle anything. And to be fair you’re damn good at your job, but sometimes it’s annoying. So.” He grins that taunting grin again. “You want to know what the reg’s deal is? Figure it out.”
He leaves. His grinning shadow lingers a moment before following. Crosshair stares.
And then decides that a glass of water isn’t gonna cut it and goes for the stash of moonshine.
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macfrog · 3 months
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sweet child o' mine | pt. iii
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now taking name suggestions for my joel's duck doodle. must rhyme with a curse word. most creative wins.
pairing: neighbor!joel x fem!reader
summary: as your pregnancy progresses, you and joel are getting closer. dangerously closer.
warnings: reader is literally pregnant so typical pregnancy symptoms & descriptions of stuff like extreme nausea and gagging (reader throws up off-page, no graphic description past sore throat/esophagus afterward), body changing, nerves around birth/becoming mom, another sonogram (gender reveal...?), baby kicks felt, labor pains shhh, age gap (late 20s reader, late 40s joel), joel is dating someone who isn't reader, our girl hates nye (she's valid), tommy uses colors to represent gender (he is Wrong), joel is for sure emotionally cheating at this point and reader knows it, joel kisses someone who is not his partner again, f masturbation, memories of the hot dirty sex they had whew, a SPRINKLING of breeding kink, praise kink, size kink, another parent dies (i love parents i promise ????), jealous!reader, protective!joel, alcohol consumption, cursing, a LOT of angst, lots of fluff, lil bit of smut, and duckie has the best comedic timing of any character in this entire series. :) 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: 11.4k (sorry. lots to cover lots to do.)
pt. i / series masterlist | main masterlist | playlist | follow @macfroglets w notifs on to be the first to hear when i post 🩵
December.
The days are funneled by a quick pinch of dark, the breeze heavy in its sail. Houses lined with twinkling lights and windows pierced by pointed trees. Crooning from every radio station, teary-eyed movies on TV, and spiced apple everything.
You hate every fucking minute of it.
“Wait a second,” Tommy sits forward, leaning in, “you never do nothin’ for New Years?”
You shrug, lifting your eyebrows. “Nope. Just don’t like it much. That a crime?”
He considers it as he hands his empty tumbler up to Joel, his head lolling some. He’s on his…fourth drink of the night, right? Though, if you take into account his earlier argument – I’m eatin’ as I go. It don’t count. – it’s probably more like two. But it’s whiskey, so –
Never mind.
“Yeah,” Tommy finally decides, “kinda. The hell’s wrong with you, girl?”
“Tommy.”
Joel’s voice is a warning, edged by the sharp clink of three glasses pinched in his fingers.
His brother laughs amiably in response, though, nodding to your mock-offended expression. “At least you’re spendin’ it right this year. Last one before lil’ Dickie comes along, huh?”
Maria slaps his shoulder, rolling her eyes. “It’s Duckie,” she hisses, glancing over to you.
“Shoot,” he says, chuckling. “I knew that. My mistake.” And then, hand out towards you in an apology which makes your shoulders jerk with laughter, “I did know that, I swear.”
Tommy and Maria flew in a few days ago; the younger Miller adamant that he’d spend one last New Years with his big brother before he became a father. The night they arrived, they showed up on your doorstep – a hamper filled with diapers and muslins and baby socks hanging from Maria’s arm. They’ve asked to hang out with you every day since.
They’re good fun. Tommy likes you, at least, enough to tease you as much as you figure a brother might. He’s definitely the louder of the two – sometimes you swear you notice Joel cringing at him, something caught between a laugh and a frown on his face. And Maria’s sweet; she’s asked probably six times every hour since she first saw you if you’re feeling okay, if you’re tired, if you’re hungry.
Joel text you yesterday morning. Tommy and Maria wondering if you feel like coming over for NYE. No pressure, he added, I lie pretty good.
A smile snuck its way across your lips before you had the chance to tame it. Sure, you typed, I’ll bring the newspaper.
What Joel’s told them, about the wedding and the baby and everything since, you’ve no idea. You guys almost talked about it when he told you they were flying down after Christmas, but before you got the chance to ask him, Vanessa pulled up out front.
Not exactly a conversation you felt like having with the dude’s girlfriend hooked around his right arm.
She smiles at you, now, as you shuffle to the edge of the armchair you’re curled up in. Joel’s armchair – the plaid blanket cradling you, the leather soft and crinkled beneath. Your eyes quickly drop from hers when his hand reaches for your mug, your fingers crossing as you pass it up. “Let me come help,” you say, pushing from the chair.
He holds up a palm, shaking his head once. “Stay. I got it.”
“Thanks,” you murmur, settling back. Vanessa resumes smiling. You wish she’d fucking quit it. You wish you’d fucking quit focusing on her.
Joel knocks the mug gently against your shoulder with a small, almost sympathetic smile, and heads for the kitchen – leaving you sat between Tommy and Maria on one couch, and Vanessa on the other. You tuck your heels under your thighs, picking at a hangnail as you wait for the conversation to thaw.
Maria makes some comment about Austin in the winter: how different it is to Jackson, and the three of you nod and hum in agreement before the chatter fizzles to nothing again. You glance over to the clock, watching the hands chase one another to twelve.
This isn’t what you imagined a get-together with Joel’s family would feel like. Tight, tense. So tense that you can feel the weight on your chest, closing your lungs. Talking about the weather and the holiday traffic, talking about nothing to avoid talking about everything.
Tommy’s chin lifts, after a second too long of silence. “Hey, Joel!” he barks. “You ain’t shown me this nursery yet!”
Joel leans around the doorframe, half-distracted. “Barely even started it, little brother. Crib only got delivered yesterday.”
“Sheesh,” Maria’s eyes widen, “you sure are prepared.”
Vanessa laughs when Joel rolls his eyes and vanishes again. “You got no idea,” she says, “I have never seen him so…pedantic, right?” She looks to you, still smiling. So sweet, you worry your lips are pursing at the sight of it. Your neck tensing. Your eyes watering.
“Yeah,” you reply, nodding shyly and swallowing back the saccharine. “I think he’s more nervous than he’s letting on.”
Joel’s voice calls from the kitchen again: your name. When you answer, he says, “Why don’t you take Tommy up, show ‘im what we got so far?” and then, leaning back around the door, “She picked the color ‘n whatnot.”
“Ah,” Tommy says, palms pushing down on his knees, “so you’re the brains, then?”
You mirror him, accepting Joel’s request. As though you had any choice in the first place. Standing beside the younger Miller, you mutter, “Sure. Let’s go with that.”
He holds a hand out to usher you ahead, following you upstairs. Past the tousle-haired boy in grayscale, past the German shepherd, past the Christmas Day portrait. Wandering like you know the house inside out, like you might’ve picked the exact coordinates of each nail the picture frames hang on yourself.
Like the photographs pinned to the walls aren’t still as alien to you as they’d been that day you first set foot in here, the dress Joel would come to tear from your body slung over your arm.
You twist the gold handle and unveil a homely little room, painted by you and Joel just last week. The soft blue drying into his knuckles, random splatters on your palms and your jeans. The giggles drawn from your chest; the thief either the chemicals from the paint, or the man rolling it over the walls – and you’ve a pretty good idea of which.
Tommy sniffs roughly, nodding. Taps the toe of his boot against one of the two bulky boxes leant against the wall, a crib printed on one and a rocking chair on the other. His tipsy head bob bob bobbing. “Alright. ‘s nice, ain’t it?”
You settle against the window, the glass cold at your back. “Real nice, yeah. Be even better once it’s done.”
“What’s yours look like?”
“Mine?”
“Nursery at your place. Your one pink, ‘case it’s a girl?”
You snort. “Mine is a little greener. More…I guess it’s duck egg. Had some leftover paint.”
He clicks his fingers and points to you. “See what you did there. Duck egg. Duckie.”
“Hm. Wish I were that poetic. I just like the color.”
Tommy stuffs his hands in his pockets, wanders around the bare room. The faint lingering of whiskey putting up its best fight against the clean bite of fresh paint, the sweet scent shaking from him when he nods some more at the blank walls and naked windows. He clicks his teeth and asks, “How you holdin’ up, anyways?”
“How am I holding up?”
“Yep. With, uh…” he nods to the door, eyes wide, “…Vanessa,” he whispers. Louder than he must think – probably echoed, if anything, by the palm he curves around his mouth.
You cross your arms protectively, shoulders bunching. “She’s fine,” you say, voice deliberately low. You both ignore the crack in it when you add, “I like her. She’s – she’s taken this all like a champ.”
Tommy leans on the window ledge, a rugged hand you reckon you’d know was a Miller’s just by looking at it. Same rough-cut quality as Joel’s, like they’re torn from the same sheet of sandpaper. He props the other on his hip. “But, boy – it’s gotta be complicated, right?”
“I guess. But she’s real sweet about it. And Joel’s been great, too.” You sniff, the memory of your kiss flashing behind your eyes. The steady drum of Duck’s heartbeat, the gleam in Joel’s eye when he looked down at you. The guilt seeping from your skin like beads of sweat, prickling along your spine and fizzling against the cold windowpane.
Tommy blinks at you, liquor-glazed eyes scanning. His shoulders jerk, a loud huh propelling from his throat. When your head cocks in confusion, startled from your daydream, he spills. “He ‘n I had a mighty long talk when he told me.”
You feel yourself leaning in, magnetized to him – body hunched as though you’re gossiping in the corner of a house party. Inhaling secrets with the tinge of alcohol on Tommy’s breath. “Oh, yeah?”
Tommy hums. “Just wanted to make sure he’d thought it all through. Not you – I always knew he’d take care a’ you and Duck. But…involving Vanessa,” he lowers his voice again, glancing over to the warm light spilling in from the hallway, “I just wanted him to be sure.”
Your blood begins to warm, heat flooding through your body as you step closer, murmuring, “What’d he say?”
He flicks his head, seeming to toss his initial response to the wind. “You know Joel. He is his own man.”
Your face screws, head jerking back. “What’s that mean? He is his own man?”
A voice from the doorway interrupts. A shadow swimming in the golden light. “Who is?”
Tommy steps away from you, loosening his arms as his big brother drifts into the shadowy room. Dusting the conversation under the rug. The smell of whiskey backs off. “Speak of the devil. Nice paint job, Joel. Missed a couple spots, but – I’ll let you off.”
“Uhuh.” Joel’s eyes thin, his body slanted against the wall. Arms crossed, bottle of beer hanging from his fingers.
Tommy swaggers forward when Joel holds the bottle out, taking it with a wary glance at the tall figure. A dog meandering back to his owner, tail between his legs and ears flat. It takes his gritty voice to jolt you back to the room, splintering your gaze from Joel’s toned arms and huge chest. “Looks real good, you two. ‘s one lucky kid.”
Joel’s jaw lifts, his eyes landing on you. Dogs are terrible liars. “He talkin’ your ear off?”
You smile; recognizing the softer Joel you’ve grown used to over the last three months replacing the stern, cold version you once knew so well. “Only a little.”
“Tommy,” he says then, “Maria needs you for somethin’.”
The denim-donned Miller nods knowingly and heads out of the room, thud of his boots receding downstairs.
“Maria okay?” you ask, making space for Joel as he settles beside you.
He shrugs. “Only said that to get him outta your hair.”
You frown. “You sent me up here with him in the first place.”
“So I could come up ‘n check on you. Know this must be a lot – the two of them, tonight.”
“I’m fine. Promise. I’m a big girl.”
You both sigh, turning to look out at the dark street. Your arms cross, sitting somewhere above the tiny slope of your bump – a new development you’re still getting used to. Your stomach feels tighter, a little more solid than usual when you touch it. A little more…real. There’s someone in there, right? Like, actually there. They’re changing the way you look, the way you feel.
“This is it, right?” you say, staring at the white lanterns illuminating Alice Brown’s rose bushes. “This is the year.”
“The year,” Joel agrees.
“Mhm. Become a mom. Become a dad.”
He purses his lips. “Yeah, I don’t know. I’ve had bigger years, kid.”
“Let’s hear it, old man. Let’s hear about your biggest year. God knows you’ve had plenty to choose from.”
He sucks a deep breath in, eyes tracing the silhouette of the houses across the street as he thinks. “Senior year, nineteen ninety-three. Asked Stacy Moore as my date to the prom ‘n she said yes. I was so nervous that I forgot my bow tie. Was a pretty good year.”
You hum, agreeing, and then, “I see your ninety-three, and I raise you: two thousand and one. There was this bike I wanted for-fucking-ever; it had, like, little beads on the spokes – would make this ratatatat sound whenever it moved. Tassels hanging from the handlebars, all iridescent. I begged my mom the entire year for it, and on Christmas morning I woke up, and…” You lift your hands, air puffing from between your lips. “Santa Claus delivered that year, dude.”
“Well,” Joel clicks his teeth, shell hardening only a little, “thanks for making me feel old as hell.”
“You’re welcome.” You beam back at him, breaking into a laugh when he does.
The two of you stand a little distance apart, denying yourselves the innocent brushing of shoulder against shoulder, the nudging of elbows and swaying of hips. Admiring the empty sky and emptier street, bathing between the cold moonlight of outside and the warm lamplight in.
And from somewhere deep in your belly, somewhere tucked behind your ribs, beneath your slow-growing womb: an urge to ask about her. To bring her up. To tend to the curiosity that Tommy poked a clumsy, drunken finger straight into, tearing it apart at the seams.
Like pressing on a new bruise, satiating the hungry need to know where you were hurt, how you were hurt, when you were hurt. A bent fingertip, pushing heavily into a sensitive splatter of dark purple; the burst blood vessels hissing in response, whispering, You don’t know, and you don’t want to know.
But you defy them. You do want to know. Want to satisfy the disturbed thrill you felt, leaning into Joel’s brother. Hands turning over one another, wet bottom lip trembling as he rounded the corner on some sort of…what was it, a secret? Some sort of truth, a long-buried revelation about the other woman. She’s a witch, have you spotted her crooked nose? She’s plotting something, I swear. She’s up to no good.
Your eyes lift again, focusing back on the dull color of the outside world. The bland canvas of reality. She’s not a witch, nor some genius mastermind. She’s a boring, relatively normal woman. Kind, thoughtful. Naïve and a little too eager to please; too willing to forgive a situation which warrants no such kindness or empathy.
She’s just…fine. Lukewarm. And you’ve no idea why that pisses you off so much.
Which, incidentally, makes the bruise sting all the more.
“Maria, Maria,” Tommy’s voice claws its way upstairs, “turn it on, turn it – Joel? Joel! It’s midnight, Joel, you two better come on down, now! Have we missed it –? Have we –?”
The sound of cheering slowly bubbles to life behind his drawl as the TV volume picks up, the tittering of Maria and Vanessa chiming in.
“…five, four, three, two, one…Happy New Year!”
Joel’s looking over his shoulder, waiting for footsteps or voices or a girlfriend who never shows. And he ignores his brother, for he is his own man, and turns to you instead. Bracing himself on the ledge, he blinks down with a plain grin on his lips. “Happy New Year, Mom,” he whispers.
You return his smile, taking his hand when he reaches out to you. “Happy New Year, Dad,” you reply, squeezing his palm.
He pulls you in for a hug, kissing your cheek briskly as you hook your arms over his shoulders. His beard scratches your cheek, grazes the curve of your shoulder, and you don’t mind. Your small, swollen belly presses against his; the tiny curve safe in the midst of your embrace.
Outside, the sky crackles to life with the distant spatter of fireworks, color shattering across the black canvas – red, blue, green and gold, dissolving as quickly as they explode into the now-January night. A burst of purple light washes between the two of you, and you turn your head on Joel’s shoulder to watch as the sparks rain over your neighbors’ roofs.
“I should get goin’,” you whisper, feeling his heartbeat a little too strongly against your own. Becoming suddenly aware of the weight of your frames locked together.
“Glad you came,” he says as he leans away. “I know this ain’t…I know we’re all tryin’, but you’re tryin’ the most, and I appreciate it. I hope you know that.”
“I know it,” you tell him, rolling your eyes. “Now, go. Go kiss your girlfriend.”
He chuckles, making for the door. “You want me to walk you home?”
Your eyes close serenely, the image of him doused in flickers of gold burning behind your eyelids. “I’ll survive the walk across the hedgerow, Miller.”
Joel nods once and leaves, plodding downstairs to be greeted by his open-armed girlfriend, a peck between them, arms crossed behind his neck. The lyrics of Auld Lang Syne slurred against his lips.
And you think – You know what? If it’ll rip you apart from her, if it’ll keep her bright red lips and her shining curtain of hair away from you, if it’ll stop her sucking in your air and your smell and your attention for thirty fucking seconds –
Then, yeah. Walk me home. Stay for a drink. Sleep in the goddamn guestroom.
Walk me home.
You slip out of the front door when the two couples are in the kitchen, missing Joel’s calling your name – or perhaps just ignoring it altogether.
“Spread the love at St. David’s this Valentine’s Day…”
Joel slows alongside a wall of cerise hearts, each one fluttering like wings whenever the hospital doors slide open and the breeze sneaks inside. Slips scrawled with names and messages: Love you M! and J + A, crude drawings of stick figures holding hands. Your lips curl into a smirk, watching him flick through each one as you palm your round stomach.
You just saw Duck for the second time. The last time, Freya was kind enough to mention, before they’re tearing you in two. Sorry, she mouthed when your expression dropped, and went back to twisting the probe over your stomach. Silently.
You’re getting better at it, you think. Playing Mom. Like some little game of make-believe, which is only real for as long as you’re looking it square in the eye – attending doctor’s appointments, updating the neighbors on your newest list of symptoms en route to your mailbox.
A little surer on your feet, now that you’ve found a balance to it: taking it as seriously as it warrants, a dry little pill stuck on the cliff of your throat, and making it easier to swallow with humor like water, a huge gulp anytime the fear claws its way up your spine.
And no more panic, since at least before Christmas. Only a little flustered this afternoon when Freya asked if you wanted to know the sex.
It felt too big a thing to hear, too real. You’re only just getting used to the backache and the bleeding gums. (And why didn’t you know that your gums would bleed? Isn’t that something they should fucking warn you about? Congrats, you’re pregnant: prepare for blood seeping from your jaw.)
No. No, thanks. Your head shot around to Joel. No, right?
He shrugged. Makes no difference to me.
Are you sure?
I’m sure, kid. Promise.
‘cause we can find out. I mean – if you want to.
He rocked forward on the balls of his feet, tapping you amiably on the shoulder. I don’t. You’re good.
You don’t?
No, I – He sighed, a hand dragging through his hair. If you want to, I want to. If you don’t, I don’t. Alright?
Freya bit back a laugh, the closed fist over her lips doing little to hide it. You guys should write a book on co-parenting.
But then she left the room again, closed the door on that same old little bubble – the three of you perched on the bed, you and Joel blinking up at the grains of your child onscreen – and you cried. Again. More.
Everything clearer, everything even more human than before: the globe of their skull, the tiny slope of their nose. All glowing in the dark waves of your womb, twinkling like the most beautiful constellation you could ever come across. Their ankles were crossed, feet forming a tiny heart shape in the top corner of the sonogram. Your hand lifted to point it out to Joel, and before the words found voice, you choked and broke down again.
He held you, lips to your hair, body solid as a rock as you melted into him in waves of salty tears. Smiled that honey-glazed smile and said he was so proud of you, said, look what your body’s doin’, darlin’, look what you’re growin’ – which only made you weep more.
And you pretended not to wait for it – for the moment when you might tilt your head up and your lips might line with his, and he might close the achy space between you again, might shush your cries by stealing the air from your lungs and the beat from your heart.
But he didn’t.
Which is fine.
Right?
“Somethin’ on your mind, kid?” he asks now, eyes still glued to the sea of hearts.
Your stare snaps from him instantly, unaware it was even held there. You tug on the hem of your sweater and pull the sleeves over your hands, mumbling, “Fine, I’m – I’m just…Come on, man. I’m hungry. I didn’t eat lunch today.”
“’n whose fault is that?”
You glower at him. “How considerate,” you seethe, “Vanessa’s a fucking lucky woman, you know that?”
He ignores you, a dumb smile on his face. The usual. “Let’s leave one for ‘em.”
A hot temper begins to boil below the surface of your skin, squeezing between your teeth in a fist-swinging breath. Also the usual these days, apparently. “For who?”
“Duckie. Somethin’ to mark the second scan. Last time we see them, before –”
Your hand flies up, eyes closing with a wince. Shut the fuck up. “Enough. I know.”
Joel hms, still smiling to himself. His beard has grown out a little: thicker, darker, gray sewn through like little whip stitches lining his jaw. He fishes a heart shape from the tub along with a pen, which he twirls annoyingly around his fingers as he thinks.
You sink back against the clinical white wall, an offensively bright color, holding your cheeks up in something of a smile when a nurse wanders past, nodding to both of you. Your face drops back to a scowl as soon as she’s over Joel’s shoulder, and your eyes meet his again – his brows raised, expectant.
“What?” you ask, chewing on the inside of your cheek.
He holds the slip up. “What we gonna write?”
And whatever charm the moment may have held, withers instantly. You throw your arms up petulantly. “You wanted to do it! Pick something. See you soon, or something, I don’t fucking know.”
“I don’t fucking know,” Joel muses, creases by his eyes when he smirks. “Poignant.”
“That’s what you should write,” you step closer, shoving your shoulder into his as you study the trembling hearts on the board, “if you can spell poignant, write that.”
“Hilarious,” he mutters, bending to scribble onto the shape, shielding his work from your view when you hang around his shoulder to pry. Cupping over the message until he’s straightening up, tossing the pen back to the desk, stealing a pin from the tub.
“Let me read,” you protest, tugging on his flannel sleeve.
“I will,” he says, shaking you off. “Patience, darlin’.”
Joel turns to the wall and pins the heart higher than the rest, in a spot clear of its own on the corkboard – thick arms stretching higher higher higher and pulling your gaze with them. As he steps back, he takes you gently by the waist and positions you in front of his body, your shoulders brushing against his chest. Your ribs hold your heart back from hammering into his.
You push up onto your tiptoes and squint at the note, which quivers when the hospital doors pull open again. “Mom and…Mom and Dad f…You fucking…”
Joel dodges your batting arm, snickering with you as he turns to make for the exit. “You don’t like it?” he tosses over his shoulder.
The heart stares down at you, black ink carved into the paper, watching as you turn and hurry after him, giggling. “Mom and Dad fuckin love you? So much for my potty mouth. And the –” another wheezing laugh you’d otherwise be ashamed to let him hear, “– the drawing? It looks – it looks more like a giraffe than a duck. Or, like, you know those long-necked dinosaurs?”
Joel’s head tips back, his own laughter caught up by the breeze when you wander outside, slipping your wrist around the crook of his elbow. Something infectious about it, something which stirs your own laughter until you’re walking arm in arm to the truck with a man who, six months ago, you’d barely look at twice over the fence.
The blind rage bubbling from your empty stomach seems to dissipate, dwindled to nothing in the face of that same man – his swollen cheeks and crows-feet eyes. And you say, “You’re disgustingly sentimental, you know that? Like, sickening.”
And Joel smirks, the way he always fucking does, and says, “You love it. Can’t lie to me.”
“I love it,” you concede, nudging into him as he opens the door for you.
The drive home is quiet, but not uncomfortable. There’s another thing you’re getting good at: being around Joel without need for snide remarks, without feeling your tongue curl under the weight of some snappy quip, loaded and aimed. Being around him and talking about Duck, asking how Tommy and Maria are. Forcing your teeth and tongue to carve out words which ask how Vanessa is, what she’s up to, when he’s seeing her next.
None of this is ideal, that’s for sure. Joel’s girlfriend aside, you’ve spent the last five months cohabiting your body with a stranger who lives most peacefully in the eye of a raging tornado of hormones – flitting between fits of giggles and pulsating joy in your veins, to waves of tears and an anger so hot beneath your skin that you wonder if your emotions might dry up completely by the time this is all through.
It's tough. It’s scary. And some nights you lie in bed, alone, wet eyes fixed on nothing, waiting for someone to burst into the room and announce that it’s all a prank. Just a silly joke. You and Joel can go back to tossing newspapers and casting glowers.
But for now, sat in the passenger seat of his truck – the seatbelt warped around the curve of your belly, the Eagles lilting softly from the radio – it feels like you’re making a home out of that tornado, too. Feeling the swirling walls of wind toss your hair like the breeze through the truck window; the chilled caress of the evening around your outstretched arm, soaring down the highway.
Yeah, you think. I can make something outta this.
“You know what I’m craving?”
Joel’s watching the light, waiting for green. “What’s that?”
“A fucking bagel. Cream cheese, pastrami,” you groan.
He snorts, cringing when he adds, “Pickles?”
A moan tears from the base of your throat, head lolling against your seat. “I could orgasm just thinking about it.”
The light turns, and Joel swings right. “I’d rather you didn’t,” he mutters, turning the wheel with one palm. “I got bagels back at the house, if you want one.”
You stare at him, jaw loose, saliva pooling behind your bottom lip. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
He smiles, shaking his head. “Let me make you one, ‘fore you go home. Big day, ‘n all.”
And you hate it – hate the way your cheeks fill with a genuine happiness, something swollen and achy, impossible to ignore when it lifts your eyes and hurts your teeth. Appreciation, or admiration, perhaps, that you figure you’ll only ever have for him. You don’t know what the fuck to call it.
So you sum it up into three words. “That’d be nice,” you whisper, and Joel places his hand over your knee, shaking it lightly as he drives on.
It stays there, until he’s pulling into his driveway.
He pushes the front door open and steps back, an arm extended to let you by first. An after you, ma’am, between his lips. And you turn to make some mocking joke, the beginnings of some comment about how gentlemanly he is, when you’re socked square on the nose by a heavy-fisted, bitter scent.
“Oh, fuck,” you gasp, stumbling backwards across the threshold and onto the porch again. Your throat constricting around nothing, your tongue twisting, your stomach lurching.
Joel catches you just in time to stop you from falling on your ass. “The hell’s the m–? Oh.”
“Hi!” Vanessa calls from the kitchen, leaning around the doorframe to wave you both in. “Almost ready! Take a seat.”
“V–? Hey, sweetheart?” Joel calls back, one hand around your wrist and the other between your shoulders. “What – what’s cookin’?”
She pauses, glancing back at the stove. Pulls the dish towel between her hands taut. “I…I made pasta.”
“Yeah, what kind, sweet?”
“…Bolognese.”
He can’t cover his own sigh quick enough. Thick with something which feels like anger. “Shit,” he turns back to you, “I am so sorry.”
You pull in a deep, unsteady breath, your lungs struggling to separate night air from tomato juice. A weight rolling at the bottom of your stomach, your entire body beginning to tremble with it. “I feel like I’m gonna – Joel, I’m gonna –”
“Breathe,” he whispers, voice urgent, palm slipping to cup your jaw. “Just breathe for me.”
But your throat’s tightening, swallowing hard around gags which come stronger and quicker the more you try to fight them down. “I can still fucking smell it –”
Her shadow blocks the stretch of light from the house. A nervous little thing, a timid creature’s shadow stretched wide across the porch floor. “Is…everything okay?”
“It’s – it’s fine,” Joel sighs again, torn between comforting you and letting Vanessa down gently, “it’s just – tomato is one of her…her aversions.” He’s unable to pull his eyes from you, privately asking, “Are you okay?” when Vanessa turns back to the kitchen.
“I didn’t – I didn’t know,” she mumbles, thumbnail between her teeth. “I am so sorry.”
Suddenly, your will not to throw up is overpowered by your will to tell her, “It’s fine,” sucking in a deep, sickly breath before adding, “I’m just gonna – I should go.”
“I don’t want you to go,” Joel says, his teeth guarding the words from his girlfriend.
“I’m gonna clean up in here,” Vanessa points over her shoulder, and you think she must’ve heard him, “get outta your hair. I’m so sorry, again. I would’ve never…”
Joel lets go of you as you stagger backwards, the cold air tearing down your throat to meet the burning acid tickling up your esophagus. “Please don’t apologize,” you lift a weak hand, “how could you have known? I’ll –” another sharp gasp, “– I’ll see you guys around.”
He must say your name, must try once more to pull you back to his side, but the blood’s rushing through your ears, and your heart’s pounding at the back of your tongue, and your stomach’s notching its way up your spine. You make it to your kitchen sink just in time.
He keeps you waiting all of one hour before he’s calling you. Your arm reaches over to your nightstand, fumbling in the dark for your heavy phone, the screen cold against your cheek.
“Mhm?”
“Are you okay?”
Your lungs pull a deep, slow breath. The acid painted across your throat tickles as the air passes by it, an uncomfortable, scratchy feeling.“Mhm.”
“That a lie?”
“Only a little. Is Vanessa okay?”
He takes a second to answer. Lets go of whatever he was going to say with a sigh, replacing it with, “She just left.”
“Is she mad at us?”
Another second. “Just me. Not you.”
You massage the slope below your breasts, the ache in your esophagus throbbing when you move. “Why just you?”
Ruffling, like he’s settling back into his couch. Sinking into the cushion, his body as heavy as yours feels on your mattress. “I should’ve told her you didn’t like tomatoes. ‘cause now I’m a goddamn mind reader. I mean, why the hell wouldn’t my girlfriend be in my house cookin’ a damn pasta dish while I’m out, y’know? Jesus Christ.”
“Joel,” you turn slowly onto your back, bravely waiting for the waves of nausea still lapping around your stomach to turn with you, “it was a nice thing, what she did. She didn’t mean to…She probably thought she was helping.”
“Naw, I know,” he replies, the sharp bite of his words softening again, shrinking under yours. “I don’t care about her and her helping, though, darlin’, I care about y –” He barely catches it in time. “I care about you carrying my child, and I care about making sure you don’t spend your nights fuckin’…throwing up tomato sauce.”
You gulp, neck convulsing. The backwash of bile swallowed back. Your chest floods with a heat of quick panic. “Can we…maybe…not use the word? I just –”
“Sorry, baby. Sorry. This is just – it’s a lot easier if she would just…”
Your eyes close over, a salty sting sweeping behind them. If she would just lay off. Back off. Fuck off. “…but she won’t, Joel. She loves you. ‘n you…”
The words drift off, taken by the tide, swept off into silence. And neither of you bother with trying to retrieve them – you just watch, stood safe on the shoreline, as they fold under the waves of something too big for either of you to acknowledge. Too dark, too dangerous.
So, you say, “I get it,” instead; say, “I get why you’re mad. Just – let’s forget about it, okay? Sorry for…ruining dinner.”
Joel scoffs, that old, pissed-off Joel scoff. You can see his deadened expression on the back of your eyelids. You may as well have just thrown his newspaper to the end of the earth. “You know damn well that you didn’t ruin anything. How you feelin’?”
“Tired. Throat kinda hurts.”
“Still feel like that pastrami bagel?”
“Not really. Sorry. Appetite’s gone.”
“How about a water?”
“I got some here. Thanks.”
“Okay,” Joel sniffs, “how about: you take the hint and let me come over there to see you?”
You giggle, hand over your eyes to mask your expression from the dark. “I hate you. Yeah, come over. Door’s unlocked.”
Date night – six month anniversary or whatever. Call me if you need anything.
And I mean anything. OK?
Your thumbs hover over the two gray messages, an awkward jig as your brain scrambles to offer words back. Where are you guys going? Too interested. Too weird. OK, what if I’m bored? Delete delete delete. Trying too hard. Sure, have a good n–
The ellipsis pops up and you freeze. A stupidly polite swish delivers Joel’s third text.
Boredom counts as anything, by the way.
And the fucker steals another smile from you. You notice it when you look up, clocking yourself in the mirror. Accompanied by a warmth which drips down your spine, swirls around your tummy; a fluttering you’re not sure is Duckie or something else.
Have a good night, Dad, you type back, tossing the phone to the end of your bed when you hit send. Swiping for a pillow, holding it firm to your face. Pressing so deep into the plush that even the linen won’t be able to see your grin.
Joel told you about this six-month anniversary last week. He wasn’t too thrilled about it then, either. Dinner to celebrate six months? A year, fair enough. But six months?
You swallowed your pride, swallowed the same throttling ecstasy which seeped through your pores on New Year’s Eve, on that February evening she cooked– never mind; a desperate desire to tear apart the very notion of Vanessa and her cutesy little date nights and candlelit dinners. I think it’s a fun idea, you said. Y’all should do it.
And Joel listened. Because he always fucking listens to you, these days. Listens when you tell him that you like the watermelon Sour Patch Kids best, and picks them up anytime he’s at the store. Listens to you when you tell him he should move the crib away from the window, in case the streetlights shine on Duck while they sleep.
Listens when you ramble about how sore your feet are, how heavy your belly feels, how there’s a clammy heat lingering under your skin at all times, bubbling and bubbling and never rising to anything more than steam collecting on the underside of your flesh.
Listens when you tell him to go spend time with his girlfriend. And neither of you pay attention to the jealous shadow behind your words, the hesitant quiver behind his.
He replies almost instantly, the ping like a gunshot at the beginning of a race. Pillow slammed into the mattress, body lunging forward.
You too, Mom. Don’t have too much fun without me.
You lock the phone and slide it back under your covers, smiling dumbly.
There’s still a small part of you waiting for the big reveal: none of this is really happening. A dream, maybe, something you’ll wake from with a tiny throbbing headache, a dry mouth and a new reason to avoid your neighbor at all costs.
But it seems that, each time that thought crosses your mind, you’re quicker and quicker to quash it. Realizing each time that what lies ahead – Joel, your baby, this future version of yourself that you’re yet to meet, still just a little out of reach – fills you with more excitement and wonder, than it does fear.
Mom.
It’s not something you ever imagined for yourself. Not someone you ever thought you’d be. And yet, each time you say it out loud, each time you look in the mirror and picture a baby in the crook of your arm, a toddler perched on your hip, a kid stood by your side, tugging on the hem of your shirt – she feels a little closer. A little clearer. She just has to look over her shoulder, notice you waiting. I’m right here, she says. Come find me.
Mom. Mom and Dad.
You imagine Joel right now, sat in some ritzy restaurant with jazz music and stained-glass lamps on every table, ordering Vanessa some glorified lentil soup and slapping his card over the bill before the waiter has a chance to reveal the damage to him. Your lips twist at the thought – her jewels and her long hair and her sweet little smile laced with a smug possession.
And then you slap your own wrists, hissing to yourself to shut the fuck up.
“She’s nice,” you argue out loud, thin air holding no debate. “She’s kind, and I like her. She’s good for him.”
And then the air replies. Good for him, it swirls, but you could do it better.
Your arm lifts, lingering for a beat before batting the thought away.
Three weeks. Three fucking weeks, between pushing yourself out of his embrace in bed, and pulling yourself back into it – armed with a pregnancy test and a chest full of fear. Three weeks of dodging him, of your cheeks bubbling with embarrassment and regret anytime you thought of it; of hoping to God that Alice or Diane or Steve and Kris across the street wouldn’t clairvoyantly know what had transpired that night and corner you on your own front lawn.
A one-night stand. That’s all it was. Two lonely bodies, excitement enough to convince you both that it was a good idea; a fitted suit and a backless dress crumpled together on the floor. Liquid courage lacing it all together.
Three weeks, then, of reminding yourself how it felt: how amazing you were together. Your hand between your legs and Joel’s name between your teeth.
Fuck. If only he knew. Goodforhimgoodforhim she’s so good for him but I’m better.
You did it better. You know you did. The sun was cresting the horizon by the time the two of you stopped. You hauled yourselves down to breakfast and sat at least three people apart, made forced conversation with Maria about the DJ stumbling off with one of her cousins, while the ghostly ache of Joel’s body churned somewhere deep inside you.
It travels through your veins the way that everything does right now: urgent and unforgiving. A need to be dealt with, immediately. Coursing through your body, an arrowhead pointing somewhere you know it shouldn’t. But your hands lift anyway – following it, loosening the waist of your sweatpants and skimming beneath your underwear.
Your body lights at the first touch. The first dip of your middle finger against the plush over your clit. Knees bend, thighs part. You push your underwear down your hips, settling your bottoms loose on your legs. You’re already wet. You’re already there.
Good fucking girl. She’s good but I’m better, right? Take it, baby. Does she take it like I take it? Take it. Can she take you like I did?
Quicker and quicker and quicker, your fingers heavy on your clit. The other hand sifting between your folds, dipping to collect a glimmer of wet. Yeah. Just like that. Do you fuck her like you fucked me? You feel what you do to me? Fuck no, you don’t. You’ve never fucked anyone like you fucked me.
Head back, eyes fluttering closed, lips parting to breathe answers to a man who isn’t here. To a man who, as he dips sourdough into an overpriced soup, sure as hell isn’t thinking about that time he fucked you so good he got you fucking pregnant.
Well. Maybe he is. You are, right?
Voice without body, drawl etched in your memory. Think she can take it all? You hum in amusement, waiting for him to answer his own question. Yeah, she can.
Attagirl. Your legs spread further, knee lifting as you insert two slick-coated fingers. His hands are on your thighs, following the dip of your hips, holding your waist as you guide him back inside. Attagirl. That’s my – Fuck, Joel, you’re so b– That’s my fuckin’ girl. Take it. Touch it. His thumb on your clit – his, not yours. You like that? Yeah, that’s nice, ain’t it?
The flesh of your breasts filling his palms, squeezing and nipping and rolling between. The warmth leaking between your legs: his and yours and fuck, he’s so deep and he’s filling you again and he’s groaning as more dribbles from where he splits your body around his own, holding you still until he’s done. Until he’s empty.
“Joel,” you whine, a third finger pushing in.
Between your hips. Headboard hammering against the wall. The sun hanging loose at the bottom of the sky. Gonna make me come again, baby. Do it. Do something irreversible. Change me forever. Fuck me fuck me fill me and then pull out, push back in with the wet squelch of your come mixing with mine and changing me forever. Making me brand new. Making me yours.
Another moan. Louder. Sharper.
Yours yours yours. All mine? All yours. We’re good at this. I know we are. Who fucks you like this? No one – No one – just you – just me. It’s so big, fuck, but I can take it. Been thinkin’ about this all fuckin’ day, baby. All I do is think about you. All I fucking do – You gonna come for me? – is think about you.
Know you need it. Let ‘em hear you, downstairs.
Fuck, I’m thinking about you. Come home. I need you to come home, need you to –
Fuck me, Joel, I’m –
Good girl.
– fuck me.
Atta fuckin’ girl.
She’s good but I do it so much better.
We’re good at this. ‘s do it again.
She’s not as good as me.
Again? Again.
She’s not as good. She’s no fucking good.
Your walls clamp around your fist, entire body shuddering to a stop. Breath held by something shaped like the hook of his accent, two fingers either side of your throat. The same smirk on his lips that convinced you in the first place. Fuck, baby, fuck me.
“Joel,” you cry out, the sound ripping between your vocal cords, punching against the ceiling and reverberating in your ears. Your body convulses on the mattress, back arching and slackening again. “Fuck, I’m – oh, my –”
Just feel it, baby. Feel me. You got it.
Let go.
Your lungs lurch open again, breath flooding in like waves spilling over the gunwale and rushing down to pool at your feet. A lulling rock to your movements, chest rising and falling like the steady tide. Soothing, coming down. Foam and salt carrying the flotsam away, the jagged glass of his name disappearing to sea again.
And then he’s gone.
And you’re just alone in your bedroom.
Last you checked your phone, now face-down on the carpet at your hip, it was eight p.m. Streetlights on, the sky painted by the pale dregs of daytime.
Now, you lie in near-darkness, blinking up at the ceiling. Hand sifting through a bag of glow-in-the-dark stars, comparing the different sizes, considering where to stick them, and then tossing them back in frustration.
Your front door clicks open, a pause between the sound and his voice.
“Anyone home?” Joel calls, and you lift your wrist as though he can see it from the bottom of the fucking stairs.
“Up here,” you eventually announce, knuckles rubbing your tired eyes until Catherine wheels spatter across your eyelids.
His shadow splits the light from the hallway, the long rectangle crossing over your swollen belly. “The hell are you doin’?” he asks, wandering in.
You lift the bag. “Decorating. The hell are you doin’?”
He pulls your nursing pillow from its temporary home in the crib and tosses it down on the carpet, bending to lift your shoulders and slot it underneath. “Scooch,” he says, groaning as he lays back beside you. He smells like whiskey and cologne. All woody, pine and spice.
“You got a bad back,” you warn him. “You shouldn’t be all the way down here.”
“You’re seven months pregnant,” Joel clicks his teeth, “neither should you.”
“What if you get stuck ‘n can’t get back up?”
Offense pulls his brows together. “What if you do?”
You smile in response, feeling the heat of his shoulder against yours. Sucking the scent of him through your nose. The pair of you exchanging smirks and batting eyelashes, wrapped in the cool darkness of the room. It’s juvenile and intimate.
You’re trying not to think too much about it.
“I can’t fucking figure this out. I put two of the big stars over there,” you point to the far corner of the room, streetlight splintered by the shades on the ceiling, “but it looks stupid having two so close. So, then I thought,” moving your arm to the right, “a cluster of smaller ones, right over the crib. But I couldn’t move the damn thing to climb up, so…I’ve been down here ever since.”
Joel lifts his hand, stopping your train of thought. “Please do not climb on anything, bein’ that you are…with child.” And then, when your eyes roll to meet his, he grins, adding, “Nesting got you good, huh?”
“You should see my kitchen cupboards. Never been tidier.” Your expression dissolves, voice quietens – your most desperate plea since that morning you shook hands on his doorstep. Your broken wardrobes and his lonely wedding invite. “Will you help me?” you ask.
He thinks it over less than once, dragging his gaze from the twirling star in your fingers. A quick shake of his head, like it’s obvious. “’course I will. ‘s what I’m here for.” And then he yawns, lowering a hand absentmindedly to settle on the curve of your stomach; a gentle pat in greeting to Duck.
“How was dinner?”
“Good,” Joel lies.
“Vanessa okay?”
“Good,” again.
“Sorry.”
Joel’s eyes roll, fingers pausing. “Why do you always gotta be sorry for som’?”
You shrug when you realize it’s not a rhetorical question. He’s genuinely asking. “I don’t know. Just tryna be polite. I know you’d probably rather be at home right now, not…deciding where some plastic fuckin’ stars should go.”
“For my kid’s bedroom? For you?” He huffs something shaped like disapproval. “Do me a favor – stop with the sorrys, alright?”
“I’m not even done with the last fucking favor I said I’d do you.” Your eyes flit down to your bump.
He stares blankly. You know there’s a laugh gathering like hot air on a windowpane behind his eyes, threatening to shatter the glass.
“Fine,” you concede, “dickhead.”
“Better.”
You sigh, looking back down at the phosphorescent shape in your hands. Turning it over and over and over, matching the rhythm of his fingers tensing and then untensing on your belly. His fingers, matching the rhythm of your chest rising and falling with breath. The room quiet. The night’s eyes averted, even just for this moment.
“If it’s anything,” Joel says, “I think the stars look alright.”
Another stolen smile. Another defiant show of teeth. You place your hand on top of his: a thankful gesture, an invitation. Something in between.
Joel blinks back at you, his eyes flitting from yours to your lips. The dim light in the room swallowing the two of you whole, secluded in the upstairs of your home. And you think, Kiss me, kiss me kiss me kiss me, and you will the words over your tongue in a ragged breath – hoping that Joel might breathe them in and feel their sharp edges as they absorb into his bloodstream, each cell flipping like the star in your hand and whispering the same two words to him: Kiss her kiss her kiss her.
But right then –
There’s a burst of movement. Under your fingertips. A fluttering, like bubbles popping right below the surface of your skin.
Your eyes snap down at the same time Joel’s do; your fingers separating and hovering over your tummy.
“Did you – did you feel –?”
“Yeah. Did you?”
“Uhuh. Was that –?”
“I don’t know. Was it?”
He takes your hand, pressing it back against your stomach with his on top. Your knuckles safe in the canopy of his palm. Both staring into space as you hold your breath.
“They’re not…they’re not doin’ it, now…”
“Maybe it was just –”
“Wait! Did you feel that?”
A second burst on your womb, a tiny beat on the other side of your bump. A wide grin breaks across your cheeks, a disbelieving laugh escaping.
Joel laughs, too. “Is that – is that the first time they’ve ever –?”
“Yeah,” you sniff, tears prickling at the corners of your eyes, “that’s the first I’ve ever felt ‘em, anyways.”
“Wait,” Joel says, lifting his hand and holding a finger up. Just yours on your belly. “They doin’ it?”
Your head shakes.
When he lowers his hand, Duckie kicks again. The two of you lean in to one another, exchanging laughter. You lift your own hand, watching his expression as he waits patiently.
But then his head shakes, too. “Nothing. They’re only doin’ it when it’s both of us.”
“What the fuck?” you laugh, replacing your hand and waiting for the baby drum. “How can they even tell? What the f–?”
You shift your hands around the globe of your bump, pausing every so often to feel for Duck’s movements. A tiny fist punching, or a heel kicking, or an elbow shoving right above your navel in a way that’s bordering on painful, but numbed by the sheer thrill of it.
And for a while, it’s all you do: play tag with your unborn baby, giggling when they respond to your tapping fingers and cooing voices.
Joel sits up, leaning on his elbow to talk to his kid; runs two fingers across your shirt like a pair of legs scaling a cotton covered hill. And he laughs, and you laugh at his laugh, as if he’s a kid himself again – tearing apart gifts on his birthday, gasping and throwing his head back with glee at whatever he uncovers.
“It feel weird?” he asks, glancing up at you.
“So fucking weird,” you tell him.
“Does it hurt?”
“More…ticklish, if anything. Might get kinda annoying, if they start doing it when I’m tryna sleep, or somethin’…”
Joel lowers his jaw to your stomach, whispering, “You know what to do, Duckie. Make your daddy proud.”
You slap his shoulder, muttering, “Asshole.”
“Alright,” he says, splintered by a laugh. He pushes himself to his feet, swiping the bag of stars from your side. “Let’s get these up so you two can get some sleep.”
You groan as he pulls you upright, one last pat on your stomach, looking at you a second too long and a touch too meaningful. Too warm, too inviting.
It’s the calm before the storm, though you’re still stood motionless. Still trying to work out whether the tornado is moving away, or headed directly for you.
At five in the morning, Vanessa’s sister calls her.
“Heart attack,” Joel tells you a few hours later, the rustle of paper crinkling in your ear. The truck hums in the background. He speaks through a mouthful of sandwich. “Her dad always had a condition, but they thought they were managin’ it with medication,” another crinkle, and then, voice even more obscured, “but he got rushed to hospital durin’ the night, and…”
“Poor Vanessa,” you reply, nail drawing shapes on the curve of your bump in attempt to lull Duck into a more relaxed state than the sharp kicks they’re throwing at your ribs. Now big and strong enough to do considerable damage, your voice falters each time they swing. “Is she – son of a bitch – is she okay?”
“Shaken up,” he says, turn signal ticking over his voice. “She’ll be alright. She’s pragmatic like that. Problem is – they’re in Houston. Her whole family. So I guess that’s where the funeral’s gonna be.”
You swing your legs off the couch, heaving your awkward, nine-months-pregnant body to your feet – the irritating scratch of hunger suddenly gnawing at your stomach. “Yeah?” you say, waddling through to the kitchen. “So?”
“So,” Joel takes another bite of sandwich, “she has to – I mean, we have to…go. To Houston.”
“We?” You slot the phone between your cheek and shoulder as you fish out a couple slices of bread.
“Me ‘n Vanessa.”
“Uhuh,” you carve a knife around a jar of peanut butter, “you gotta be there for her.”
Joel sounds a little defensive. “I know. And I am. I’m goin’ to be. ‘s just – I gotta be there for you, too. For – for Duck.”
Your stomach swirls, a fire catching which lights your chest in a trickle of flame.
“You are. You will be. Houston’s only, like, three hours away.”
He sighs.
The turn signal fills the silence between you, between Joel and an appropriate answer. Clicking like the sound of a tennis match, his head spinning between his grief-stricken girlfriend, and the third-trimester mother of his child.
“I’m here,” he says, and you hear the squeal of brakes out front. “Give me a sec.”
The door pushes open as you sink back into the couch, balancing the plate on the planet beneath your breasts. Joel crumples his sandwich paper in his fist and lowers his hand over the back of the couch, scrunching his fingers over your belly as he passes.
“Thought you hated that stuff,” he calls over his shoulder, disappearing into your kitchen.
“I had a craving,” you say, ripping the first bite from your sandwich. “You made me hungry.”
He returns a minute later with a glass of water which he sets down on the coffee table in front of you. He lifts your legs, letting them fall gently in his lap when he collapses into the opposite end of the couch, heels of his palms pressing against his eyes.
You tap his thigh with the ball of your foot and he turns to you, placing a hand over your ankles. A sticky paste of peanut butter and bread between your molars, you ask, “What’shup?”
Joel holds back a smirk at your chipmunk cheeks. “Just – just worried that you…you know, while I’m gone, is all.”
You scoff, gulping. “Come on. I am not gonna go into labor in the, what – two days? How long would you even be gone?”
He seems to wince at the thought, fingers sifting through his hair – a gray sweep sat casually over his left eyebrow; flicks following the curve of his ear towards the hinge of his jaw. “Less than that, if I can help it.”
“Joel.”
He turns to you, saying your name just as deflated in response.
“You have to go.”
He rolls his eyes, thumb and middle finger massaging his temples. Crosses his arms and huffs like a teenager. “Well, I ain’t happy about it.”
You snort, unable to hold it in as you take another bite. “I ‘on’t think Vanesha’sh too happy about it, either, to be honesh wih ya.”
Joel’s jaw slackens, a choked laugh bursting from the back of his throat. He lifts a cushion and swings it in your direction. “Heartless. That’s heartless, you know that? Jesus, baby.”
He leaves on Saturday morning.
You stand on your porch, watching him shove a suitcase into the backseat of his truck, squinting in the sunlight as he stalks across your front yard. Joining you in the shade, he leans into you, shoving you lightly.
“Quit it.” Your hand locking with his, steadying yourself. Something in the back of your mind begging him not to let go.
And as if he can hear the thought: “I can stay. You know I can stay, right?”
“I don’t want you to stay,” you tell him, sweeping the hair from his forehead. “We will be fine. We’ll stay up late, eat junk food and watch TV; I’ll do audio description for Duck…”
He scoffs, glancing across the street.
“…and then you’ll be back home, back to buggin’ the hell out of us. It’ll be Monday before you know it.”
Joel’s jaw tightens. “And what if…?”
“You really think that’s gonna happen? You think your kid’s that much of an asshole?”
He doesn’t miss a beat. “Yeah,” he shrugs, tongue in his cheek, “they’re half you.”
“Alright,” you click your teeth, turning away from the simper on his lips, “why don’t you just fuck off to Houston now, asshole?”
“I’ll fuck off, that’s what I’ll do.”
“Uhuh. Here’s hoping you don’t break down, or get a flat, or get struck by lightning, or anything.”
“You’re so funny,” he whispers, leaning closer.
“Hm. Now go.”
His jaw turns, beard grazing your skin. And then his lips; soft and warm, damp when he kisses your cheek. A moment too long. And he doesn’t pull away, doesn’t lean back the way you both know he should. No, he lingers – his lips by your ear, eyes flitting up to the street to make sure nobody sees.
“Joel –”
“I know.”
“We shouldn’t –”
“I know.”
But your arm is hooking around his neck, asking him to do it anyway, and his lips are lowering to yours, submitting to your request, and what’s supposed to be a goodbye kiss lasts at least a few seconds too long for it to mean anything less than a don’t go kiss.
You pull away when you feel the wet dab of his tongue against yours, realizing with an ice-cold shock where you are, and who he is, and what’s happening. Realizing how fucking stupid it’d be for both of you, how catastrophic and terrible the outcome.
A one-night stand.
A one-night stand.
A one-night –
He leans his forehead against yours, nose nuzzling your cheek. “I’ll call you when we get there.”
Your arm loosens, letting him go.
Just – letting him go.
Saturday Night Live ends just after midnight.
You arch your back into the couch, your swollen belly pushing forward. It’s an effort to get to your feet, what with the steady ache in your back all day, the weight on your front, and the fucking human being smushed into every vital organ inside you.
A deep breath feels like it inflates your lungs only halfway, Duck using the bottom half as a fucking ass cushion, and scaling the stairs takes another ten minutes – by the end of which, you’re slumped against the handrail, pausing before making off for your room.
You sink into the mattress, creasing the cool, smooth sheets. Duck stirs inside you, stretches out and throws a right hook against your bladder. You curse under your breath, hoisting yourself back to your feet.
“We gotta sleep, baby,” you hum, swaying back and forth with a hand under your belly. “Shh, ‘s okay. Take your fuckin’ fist outta my bladder, you little asshole.”
Whichever traits of yours and Joel’s have blended into the human cocktail growing in your uterus, you know one thing for certain: this kid has your stubbornness. The weight remains on your bladder, regardless of how much swaying, or pacing, or rubbing, or threatening you do.
You growl, wandering through the upper floor of your house in attempt to shift Duckie, or distract yourself, or, at the very least, tire the two of you out enough to fall asleep.
From the nursery door handle hangs a little wooden star, a tauntingly sleepy smile painted on it. You push the door open with two hesitant fingers, stepping into the still bedroom, the weak wash of streetlight meeting moonlight on the greenish walls.
You suck in a deep breath, floorboards squealing as you take your first step. Over the crib hangs a plastic mobile, soft plush shapes twirling slowly. The matching changing table slotted alongside it, a rocking chair over by the window.
You pad across a fluffy rug and lower yourself into the chair, tilting back and forth on your toes as you glance around one of the two rooms you and Joel have spent the most time in since that October morning bonded you forever. A baby duck ornament perched on a shelf above the dresser, its orange legs dangling. A multi-photo frame Joel’s mom bought you, both scans in the first two slots and the third empty, lying in wait.
Your breathing fragments, struggles, eyes slipping over to the baby clothes hanging in the closet. “You know, little Duckie,” you whisper, rubbing your bump and thinking back to Tommy’s words six months ago, “you are a pretty lucky kid.”
The hooded towel robe on the back of the door, the perfect size for a newborn. The framed prints sat atop the chest of drawers, waiting to be nailed to the wall: a rainbow, a frog, a starry sky.
“You got two houses. Two bedrooms, all to yourself. You got two parents who already love you more ‘n the whole world. And,” you gulp, “you got Vanessa. And she loves you, too.”
You glance down, watching the tiny pulse of movement when the baby stretches in your womb. Your hands scoop them up, as if holding them closer than they already are. As if already cradling them, forcing yourself to feel less alone.
Duck seems to quieten, to still; seems to consider what you’re avoiding. Reads between the lines, hears the words you’re not speaking.
Two of everything, you think, and I barely even had one.
The most evidence you have of being loved by anyone in your life is the house you live in. Four brick walls and three decades’ worth of belongings, more inheritance than memories. But they roll around like marbles – they echo against the walls when they hit them. There’s nothing binding them, no thread of love, or family, or anything real enough to hold it all together.
You’re the only living organ inside a skeleton’s cage. A lonely little heartbeat, making noise for no one to hear.
And that’s the way it has been, at least since you were eight. The absence of warmth and safety isn’t anything new to you – it left the second your parents did. The last scrunch of your mom’s nails on your head, the last kiss of her lips to your plump little cheeks. The passing over to your grandma, like you were cargo, like you were a box to be checked.
Maybe you found some distant flicker of heat in the way Joel looked at you, the day you told him you were pregnant. Maybe you saw the same glimmer of a flame that you used to see in your mom’s eye. The rosy smell of her perfume, the feel of her finger inside five of yours. Maybe, for the first time since you were a kid, you felt safe.
We’re gonna work it out, he said. I’m here. We’re in this together, alright? I am not running out on you.
Together. And yet, now, sat in your child’s nursery – a room built from scratch by Joel’s two hands and strung together by every beat of your heart – you’ve never felt more alone. The same two hands that are wrapped around Vanessa right now, consoling her, wiping her tears away, massaging her shoulders and sweeping her hair from her eyes.
And the same heartbeat which quickens now, fueled by an angry desire, an impulse scratching deep into your flesh to march all the damn way to Houston and tear the pair of them apart. Like he’s yours; like the way he touches you and looks at you and talks to you means anything more than his child growing inside you.
Like it’s you he’s touching and looking at and talking to, and not Duck. Like his attention won’t cease to shine on you, the second this little baby leaves your body.
And then, washing over the scorching hot sand of anger: a foam-lined wave of guilt. Of shame, for wishing for the breakdown of something that clearly makes the two of them happy. That makes Joel…happy.
He doesn’t owe you anything – he was never yours to begin with. Just one drunken night, a mistake until you noticed the two pale lines on the pregnancy test. And by that point, he was already hers again. You had missed him without even knowing it.
You sigh, pushing up from the rocking chair and reaching for a tissue from the changing table. Turning back, giving the room one last teary glance before closing the door, you sniff.
“You’re just…the luckiest little kid who’s ever gonna live.”
At one twenty a.m., cicadas chirping and trees rustling, the low breeze carrying the sounds through your half-open window – your back begins to ache. A blunt, gnawing pain. Feels like your period, and in your doze, you stuff a pillow between your legs and pray you don’t stain the sheets with a show of blood.
The realization comes over you as if that stifling breeze flips to freezing. You slowly come around, eyes peeling open as you think it over twice, then three times, then four. Duck shifts somewhere deep inside you, somewhere you’ve never felt them shift before.
“…No. Not right now, Duck. You gotta give me, like, twenty-four hours. Just – wait until your dad gets ho–”
A blinding pain interrupts you, the moonlit-blue room fading out of focus for half a second before you’re wide awake, clutching the bottom of your spine where you’re sure the kid just tore a fucking hole straight through your uterus.
“You’re a fucking dick,” you whimper, fingers clenching in tight fists around the bedsheets. “You’re a fucking – dick.”
One twenty-three. You go into labor.
2K notes · View notes
chvoswxtch · 7 months
Text
desire
pairing: frank castle x fem!reader
summary: now that the defenders of freedom had been caught, what's next for you and frank?
warnings: swearing, angst, mentions of alcohol & grief, explicit sexual content (minors dni)
word count: 8.1k
a/n: the one you've all been waiting for. as always, feedback is welcomed/appreciated!
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Considering the fact that your place was still an active crime scene and Homeland still needed to track down the rest of Steven’s dipshit goons to ensure there would be no more threats or attacks, Dinah wanted to take you to a safe house until the investigation was finished.
Frank, however, was not having any of that shit.
It was admittedly an ego boost watching Dinah and Frank lock into a heated staring contest while arguing about who got protective custody of you, and definitely amusing. But eventually, she gave into the stubborn brick wall that was Frank Castle, threw her hands up in total exasperation that was followed by a colorful string of adjectives thrown his way, and that was how you found yourself once again on the road with Frank. 
Initially when you noticed that Frank was driving in the direction outside of the city, perplexment weaved between your brows, but he quickly set your curiosity straight as soon as he noticed it blanketing your features. He didn’t even give you a chance to voice your inquisitions before explaining that he was taking you somewhere safe that no one else knew about.
That knowledge filled you with a bubbling sense of giddiness because getting to stay with Frank at his apartment was one thing, but getting to stay with him in a place that sounded private and secluded? Yeah, that was more than okay with you. 
The longer Frank drove, the more drastic the scenery changed, passing by in a blurry film reel on the other side of the passenger window. The clamorous and bustling streets of the concrete city faded away slowly and soon settled into quiet black asphalt that shrank to one lane on either side of the road. The millions of inhabitants of New York City seemed to melt away into the horizon in the rear view mirror of Frank’s truck, leaving the two of you the only souls for miles. The trees became more and more dense, creating opaque patches of foliage in golden ochre, rusty ginger, and spiced cranberry. In that moment, sitting in the passenger seat was the most at peace you had felt in almost seven months since the whole had nightmare began, and a lot of that peace had everything to do with the man in the driver’s seat absentmindedly tapping his fingers against the steering wheel to the Bruce Springsteen CD currently playing.
After about two hours of driving and light conversation, Frank turned off the asphalt road onto an unmarked dirt path, and you turned your head to stare over at him in half-hearted suspicion while lifting a brow in silent questioning.
“You know, if you kept me alive this long just to murder me in the middle of the woods, that’s some serious dedication.”
Without missing a beat, Frank let out a dry chuckle.
“If I was gonna kill ya, I woulda started switchin’ your coffee out with decaf a long time ago.”
It was always a struggle not to laugh at Frank’s dry sense of humor. You tried not to give him the satisfaction of your amusement, but you found yourself giving in more and more lately. Letting out an overly dramatic sharp gasp while staring at him in exaggerated faux horror, you reached over and lightly smacked your palm against his firm bicep. 
“That is the most evil form of torture I have ever heard.”
Frank snickered deviantly, clearly pleased with himself, and the relaxed grin on his soft lips was stretched so wide that his lifted cheeks caused his eyes to crinkle in delight. For a moment, your breath caught in your throat at the sight. It never failed to render you speechless just how much lighter Frank looked when he smiled. Happiness looked so achingly beautiful on him. Every time you silently observed him, you always learned something new about Frank. He had deep set creases softly feathering around the edges of his eye sockets, proof that Frank had once been a man that smiled and laughed as easily as he breathed. You sincerely hoped that version of him that he seemed to keep buried so deeply was steadily rising back to the surface, and that these ephemeral glimpses you got would soon become permanent.
The gilded stream of midday light cast a velvet glow on Frank’s softened features, leaving you so completely entranced that you hadn’t even noticed the lack of motion when he parked his truck. 
“We’re here.”
The gruff alert of Frank’s voice induced you out of your bewitchment, and it was then that you suddenly noticed the quaint one story cabin nestled a few feet away in front of you.
It was composed of wood in a rich shade of burnt umber, and topped with a forest green downward v-shaped roof. There were a few worn steps leading up to an enclosed porch that appeared to snugly wrap around the cabin entirely, and two large square glass windows on either side of the front door that was painted the same shade of green as the roof. The curtains were drawn so you couldn’t see inside, but from the outside it looked incredibly cozy.
When you got out of the car, you noticed there wasn’t anything around at all but thick woods, and you silently wondered just how far back they went. There didn’t appear to be anyone or anything around for miles, and the only sounds you could hear were birds chirping and the worn wooden steps creaking under the weight of Frank’s heavy black boots. 
“Wow. Billy offers one hell of a retirement plan.” 
Following up the steps behind Frank’s large frame, a glimpse of black flashed in your peripheral vision, and you noticed there were security cameras installed on the left and right corners of the roof, along with what looked to be several motion detector lights along the top perimeter. Knowing Frank, there were probably far more around the entire cabin, and probably even hidden in the trees as well.
Frank paused for a moment at your comment, his dark brown eyes glossing over your presence at his right before taking in the sight of his own cabin like it was the first time he had ever seen it. 
“Nah, s’just somethin’ I never got ‘round to finishin’ ‘til a few months ago. Almost forgot ‘bout it. It was s’posed to be a surprise project for my-” 
The second Frank cut himself off, his body language changed entirely. His relaxed posture instantly stiffened, causing him to stand rigidly at his full height while his shoulders squared to their broadened width. The former calm expression he wore turned to stone right before your very eyes and he clenched his jaw in such a harsh line you could hear his teeth grind. Frank was intensely staring directly through the small six panel window that was in the top middle of the front door, like there was something on the other side that only he could see. 
Before you could react, he abruptly unlocked the front door and pushed it open with his left hand, clearing his throat and vaguely gesturing with his index finger before turning away to descend the stairs without giving you so much as a second glance.
“I’ll uh get the bags. Room at the end of the hall on the right is yours.”
The haunted look in Frank’s eyes reminded you of the night of the gala when he had told you that he had lost his wife. It was almost the exact same one. The thought briefly crossed your mind that he meant to say it had been a surprise project for her, but you quickly put it to rest. Frank clearly didn’t want to elaborate on the subject, and you knew better than to push. The best thing to do was give him his space and let him come to you if he wanted to. Still, it didn’t stop the journalist in you from running wild with questions, and also filling you with a slight sense of guilt that you were about to share a space with Frank that was meant to be something sacred and special between him and his wife.
»»———  ———««
The room at the end of the hall ended up being the master bedroom, to which you protested heavily against taking, but ultimately ended up being an argument you lost because Frank played dirty and distracted you with the delectable scent of homemade pasta sauce and a wine glass that was filled to the brim with bubbly pink.
While you sat at the kitchen island and sipped at your now half empty glass, you studied Frank with a narrowed gaze. A part of you was annoyed with him and yourself at how easily you fell into the trap he set. He knew you well enough to know Italian food was your weakness and that you were more compliant after being fed. But a bigger part of you was completely mesmerized by the way he gracefully navigated the open kitchen. 
There was a furrow of concentration nestled between his thick brows while he precisely measured specific spices to add to the saucepan that was layered with ruby sauce that he had garnished with freshly cut oregano and parsley. On the far back left burner was a boiling pot of penne pasta, and in front of that was a skillet of ground meat Frank had added diced onion and garlic to along with several other seasonings. He shifted between each pan with a quiet elegance that captivated you, and simultaneously irritated you, because there didn’t seem to be a damn thing the man couldn’t do.
“So you’ve been a secret chef this entire time and didn’t tell me?”
“You didn’t ask.”
Rolling your eyes at his quick retort, you cocked your head to the side slightly and focused on the way his back muscles strained against the fabric of the black henley he wore.
“I’m pretty sure I would’ve had an easier time getting nuclear launch codes from the Russian government than ever getting a straight answer out of you.”
Frank snorted at that, throwing you a quick humored glance over his broad shoulder.
“Hey, I give you answers.”
“Oh yeah, after nearly five months of stonewalling me. I didn’t even know what you did before becoming a bodyguard until you told me, what, a week and a half ago?”
Frank lifted one of his thick brows while turning his body slightly towards you.
“You never read my personnel file?”
Glancing down at your wine glass, you clicked your tongue against the inside of your cheek and gave a subtle shake of your head.
“Homeland wouldn’t let me have it.”
“And you let that stop you?”
There was a hint of tease in Frank’s deep voice, and you lifted your gaze to squint at him in annoyance noticing the cheeky smirk curling at the edge of his mouth.
“I’m a journalist, Frank. Not a hacker.”
“Ah, don’t give me that shit. That may be your job but it ain’t all you are. Besides, you’re a goddamn force to be reckoned with and a pain in the ass when you don’t get your way.”
A mischievous smirk slipped across your lips while you brought your glass up to your mouth, looking at Frank innocently over the rim.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
Frank’s eyes seemed to wander over your face, stopping at the way the rim of the glass settled against your bottom lip, and when he met your eyes again, they were subtly darkened with that look that sent a tingle down your spine.
He silently stared at you for only a second longer before giving a slight nod, and you caught the wry smile slipping over his lips as he turned back to face the stove.
“Whatever ya say, sweetheart.”
You weren’t exactly sure what the source was of the heat you currently felt blooming in your cheeks: the wine you had consumed, the aroma of the fresh chili pepper Frank had just added to the sauce, or the way he had just looked at you.
Attempting to redirect your impure thoughts before the liquid courage could make you bold enough to voice them, you looked for something to distract yourself with. With your chin in your palm, you glanced down at the rouge tinted liquid and lazily swished it around in your wine glass. A thought quickly popped into your head that caused you to let out a soft snort.
“I didn’t take you as a rosé guy.”
Frank adjusted the heat on the sauce to a low simmer before turning to face you fully, wiping his large hands off on a sage green rag before tossing it over his right shoulder. He took a step over towards the island you were sitting at and wrapped his long fingers around his own wine glass, which looked ludicrously tiny in his hand, and took a long purposeful swig before licking his lips and arching one of his dark brows. 
“What? This is good shit.”
Reaching for the half empty bottle sitting on the island, you let out a soft laugh and went in for a refill. The relaxing effects of the wine had clearly already reached your brain, and before it could catch up with your mouth, you blurted out your next question like it couldn’t possibly ruin the mood.
“Was this your wife’s favorite?”
Frank didn’t clam up like you had expected given his behavior earlier. Instead, he glanced down at the glass in his hand for a moment before shaking his head with a tiny smile gracing the curve of his lips.
“Nah, friend of mine’s wife got me into this stuff.”
Frank took a moment to stare down into the glass, as if there was a fond memory appearing in the bubbles. Clearing his throat, he took another large swig of the wine and set the nearly empty glass down on the island.
“She uh…she liked white wine.”
For some reason, Frank’s casual admission sent a flush of velour warmth through you. Whatever barrier that had prevented Frank from speaking freely earlier seemed to be somewhat dismantled, and this was the first time he had ever spoken voluntarily about his wife that hadn’t left a heavy fog of grief lingering over either of you. A tender smile stretched across your lips as you lifted your glass up in a silent toast.
“My kinda woman. What was her favorite?”
Frank leaned over the island on his elbows, holding the delicate glass in both of his strong hands. The amber lighting in the kitchen made his eyes look like swirls of melted chocolate, and you resisted the urge to lean in closer when he finally looked at you with a faint smile tugging at the left edge of his mouth.
“Pinot Grigio.”
A huge grin stretched across your lips at his answer, and you shook your head faintly as you light heartedly pointed your right index finger towards Frank and lifted your glass to your lips.
“Oh I bet I could’ve easily converted her to a sauvignon blanc girl. There’s this brand from Chile that makes the best blanc, and she would’ve loved it.”
For a moment Frank simply observed you in silent fondness. When you set your glass down, his eyes flickered to his own, and he made a quiet noise of recognition in his throat before speaking quietly.
“She woulda liked you.”
That single sentiment held more weight and significant meaning to you than anything anyone else had ever said to you. A tight lump formed in your throat as those words echoed in your head, and you felt the overwhelming urge to make this intimate moment just as special for Frank, but with the alcohol in your system you couldn’t convey your feelings as eloquently.
“My mom would’ve annoyed you.”
Frank immediately started howling with laughter, turning his head to look at you with squinted eyes in incredulous amusement.
“What?”
“I mean she would have loved you, no doubt about that, but she probably would’ve annoyed you. And definitely hit on you. She was like me, only she had way less of a filter and absolutely zero shame. I think my being nosey and stubborn was genetic, but she took it to a whole other level. Did you know I used to be really quiet?”
Frank’s thick brows lifted in surprise, but you didn’t give him a chance to respond. The rosé was acting as a truth serum, and you couldn’t stop yourself from rambling.
“I was. I was very quiet, and extremely cautious, compliments of my careless mother. She wasn’t really careless, I mean she loved me, she was just a bit reckless, but not in a bad way. Like not a I-need-therapy-for-the-rest-of-my-life way but more of a she-had-me-at-sixteen-and-we-grew-up-together way. You know that I was such a bookworm that she practically begged me to be rebellious and hang out with someone other than her or the local librarian? And she’s the whole reason I wanted to go to Columbia, because she wanted to go to Columbia, but you can’t go to Columbia with a baby and no high school degree, and I don’t know why I’m telling you all this, and I probably should have shut up ten minutes ago, but anyway my mom would’ve liked you but definitely annoyed you more than me.”
Those newfound beloved crinkles were once again decorating Frank’s eyes as he chuckled heartily at your rambling. He downed the rest of his own wine before setting the empty glass down, flashing you a crooked grin as he loosely gestured in your direction with his chin.
“I’m sure I woulda liked Lorelai just as much as I do you.”
There was a skip in your heart’s rhythm, partly because he finally admitted that he liked you as a person, but more so when you realized that Frank remembered your mother’s name. It tugged at your heartstrings, because it was such a simple gesture, but also because it reminded you just how much you missed your mother. 
“I forget sometimes.”
Frank tilted his head to the side slightly when your soft voice settled in the space between the two of you, and his playful grin slowly vanished as he watched while you stared blankly down into your glass, clearly lost in your own thoughts.
“Forget what?”
“That she’s gone.”
There was a slight tremble to your voice as you looked up at Frank with a miniscule sad smile. The empathy in his eyes was almost too much to bear, and you had to look away to keep your composure from crumbling. Turning your head to the left, you took a moment to observe the layout and minimalist decor in the kitchen while letting out a shaky exhale.
“Sometimes I go to call her…just…on my way home from work, you know? Just to talk to her, hear the latest small town gossip, tell her about the latest coffee shop I’ve found that she absolutely has to try when she comes to visit next. There’s even been times I’ve left her voicemails. I’ll be so wrapped up in something and wanna vent to her, and then I’ll start to wonder why she hasn’t called back yet, and then it’ll just…hit me.”
Frank stayed quiet while he listened sympathetically, and the entire cabin was silent apart from the quiet sizzling coming from the stovetop until you gently spoke up again.
“Do you forget too?”
Finally looking over at Frank again, you watched as he lighty dragged his palm down the lower half of his face. While he glanced down at the smooth mahogany countertop, he clasped his large hands together while still resting on his elbows.
“I don’t forget she’s gone, but I uh…I’ve started forgettin’ things. I can’t remember what her perfume smelled like…or what her favorite song was. I can hear it sometimes, ya’know? Every now and then I get these…bits and pieces. Sometimes I can hear her hummin’ it in the kitchen, but it ain’t long enough to remember what song it was, ya’know? Everythin’ started gettin’ fuzzy…and I remember more things I wanna forget than things I actually wanna remember.”
There was a stretch of silence where neither of you spoke. Eventually, Frank straightened up and turned his back to you to walk back over towards the stove. Even though you knew it might not be the right time to ask, there was a question that had been burning in the back of your mind since the night of the gala.
“Frank?”
He hummed quietly in response, turning his head slightly to look at you over his shoulder as he gave you his full attention.
“What was her name?”
The softness of your question clearly caught him off guard, and you could see the hesitation lingering in Frank’s eyes. Worried that you had crossed the line and completely ruined the moment, you were about to hastily backtrack and tell him that he didn’t have to answer when Frank let out a deep exhale through his large nose, touching his index and middle finger over his chest most likely where his wedding band sat beneath his shirt.
“Maria.”
A minuscule smile covered the edge of your mouth as you tilted your head slightly to the side and tried out her name on your tongue.
“Maria. Is this her recipe?”
Frank's eyes flickered over towards the pans and the pot of boiling pasta that were still on the stove. After a moment, he nodded his head and turned his attention back to you with a tender look in his eyes.
“Penne all'Arrabbiata con Manzo. Her grandmother was Sicilian, just like my parents were. She made this every time I came home from a tour.”
The significance and sentiment behind the recipe Frank was cooking made your heart feel like it was going to burst out of your ribcage. Quickly topping off Frank’s empty glass with more wine, you carefully got down from the bar stool that you were sitting on and rounded the island to make your way over to Frank. As you offered him the half full glass of wine, Frank’s eyes flickered curiously between it and your own gaze while his large hand reached out to wrap his fingers around the glass. Smiling softly up at him, you lifted your own glass slightly in the air.
“Well then, to Maria.”
There was a sudden luminescence to Frank’s warm brown eyes, but you didn’t get a chance to study it long before he nodded slightly and his lips stretched faintly into a tiny smile as he delicately clinked his glass against yours and repeated your toast in a more delicate volume of his deep voice.
“To Maria.”
»»———  ———««
“You’re fired.”
Hearty laughter boomed from deep within Frank’s chest and echoed over the crackling firewood currently blazing. He adjusted his position on the couch a few inches away from you, his features highlighted due to the radiant flames cascading from the fireplace in a contorted expression of skepticism and entertainment.
“What? Why?”
“I have known you for seven months, Castle. Seven. Months. And I’m just now finding out you have the culinary skills of a five star chef. Unacceptable. Unforgivable. I’m calling Billy first thing in the morning.”
You couldn’t hardly get through your own sentence without bursting into a fit of laughter, and Frank was in no better shape as he threw his head back against the couch and clutched at his chest with his hand that wasn’t holding his third glass of wine. There were nearly three empty bottles between the two of you forgotten on the dining table, and this was the most loose you had ever seen Frank. Maybe you should get him tipsy more often.
“You can’t fire me.”
“And why not?”
“Cause I ain’t assigned to you no more, brat.”
While Frank teased you nonchalantly as he sipped at his glass and watched the flames dance across the firewood, his words instantly sobered you up. He was right. The Defenders of Freedom had been caught, Steven was facing trial, and there was no reason for Frank to stick around anymore. It was a revelation you had been trying to ignore for the past twenty-four hours. A wave of uncertainty crashed over you in that moment. What would happen between you and Frank? When would he get assigned to someone else? Would that take him far away from you? How long could you stay in this little bubble outside reality?
Glancing down at the wounds in your palm that had steadily begun to heal, you lightly traced your thumb over the raised irritated edges as a thought suddenly flashed across your mind.
“I never thanked you.”
Even though your voice was barely above a whisper, Frank caught it, and he turned his head to look at you intently with slightly confused brows.
“For what?”
Closing your eyes for a moment, you shook your head faintly before looking back at Frank with subtle remorse.
“For everything you’ve done for me. For saving my life, more than once, and-”
Frank instantly brushed off your gratitude with a shake of his own head, reaching over to place his glass of wine on the coffee table in front of the couch.
“It’s my job-”
“No. Your job was to keep me safe, but you did so much more than that. You dealt with all of my shit, fixed every problem I created, and even when Homeland pulled you away, you still showed up for me. Frank, I would be dead if it wasn’t for you. You saved me from those guys at the bar, you saved me from Cavella and Walker, and…you’re still saving me, even now. I could’ve gone to a safe house with Dinah, but you brought me here, even though I’m not your problem anymore-”
Frank reached for your glass of wine and firmly set it on the coffee table, effectively catching your attention while he started almost directly into your soul with a serious expression.
“Hey, you have never been a problem. Ever. You got that?”
There were so many emotions that had been simmering beneath the surface for seven months that you hadn’t been processing, and now they seemed to be rising to a level you could no longer ignore. The verity in Frank’s voice nearly had tears pricking at the corners of your eyes, and you just wanted answers. Why did he care so much? Why was he still protecting you? Why were you here right now?
“Frank…you could’ve walked away. There were so many times you could’ve walked away. Why…why did you stay?”
A substantial weight felt like it had finally been lifted off your chest as you asked the one question that had been lingering in your bones for weeks now. Although that weight was replaced by a lead filled sense of dread while you waited with anxious anticipation for a response, knowing was better than not knowing. 
Frank’s deep brown eyes stared so fiercely into your own, that you felt vulnerably stripped bare despite the clothing covering your body. When he reached his left hand over to place on your jean clad thigh, he grasped it firmly and leaned in just close enough so that you couldn’t escape the enrapture of his gaze.
“I want you to listen to me, right now. I’m always gonna keep you safe, you got that? Job or no job.”
The intensity burning in his eyes and the dropped octave of his rough voice nearly stunned you silent. Your lips parted slightly as if to speak, but your fogged brain struggled to form a coherent sentence. This was the closest you had been to Frank since you had climbed onto his lap in his truck, and you were fighting so hard to not let history repeat itself. But that look…that one goddamn look you could never decipher was roaring fervently in his gaze again, and you were going absolutely mad not knowing what it meant.
Before you even realized what you were doing, you found yourself leaning in closer, staring deeply into Frank’s warm brown eyes with a pleading look reflected in your own desperate stare. You wanted to know why. You needed to know why. And you were begging Frank for a confession that wasn’t encrypted.
“Why?”
“Because you’re mine to protect.”
The possessiveness that dripped from Frank’s low voice had you abruptly clenching your thighs together, trapping his thick fingers between your weakened knees. If he minded the entrapment at all, he didn’t show it. The blaze of the fireplace was no longer what had the temperature steadily rising within your body, and you couldn’t tear your eyes away from Frank’s vigorous and unwavering stare. Your mouth suddenly felt dry, and even though you had a million questions clamoring through your brain, all you could manage to get out in a hoarse whisper was one you needed confirmation on.
“I am?”
Frank retracted his large hand from your thigh, raising it up slowly to carefully grab your face. A few of his long fingers curled around the back of your neck while his index and middle finger rested along the underside of your jaw, and his thumb pressed lightly against your chin. His heated gaze dropped to your lips momentarily before flickering back up to meet your eyes, and that fire in them was burning bright enough for God herself to see.
“You’re goddamn right.”
Without another word, Frank pulled you in for a searing kiss, pressing his soft lips against yours tentatively but with enough passion to make his answer crystal clear. A delicate noise of surprise sounded in the back of your throat, and for a moment you nearly stopped breathing. If that first kiss in Frank’s truck was a rare comet bursting across the sky, this one felt like a supernova erupting in a kaleidoscope of colors and stardust exploding across the expanse of the universe.
Even as he retracted his lips just a bit to stare deeply into your eyes to gauge your reaction, his hand gently cradling your face kept you firmly in place. All you could do was stare at Frank in complete stupefaction. Your lips were fervently tingling and your body felt like it had been struck by lightning. Frank’s eyes were searching yours for an answer he seemed to desperately need judging by the way his other hand lightly squeezed at your waist.
“If I’m crossin’ a line, you gotta tell me now. Cause I can’t go back, sweetheart.”
The tender emotion entwined within his words nearly made it sound like Frank was begging for your answer, and suddenly it all clicked. You could never figure it out before, but now as you stared at him in complete wonder and paid close attention to his display of vulnerability, you were finally able to decode that cryptic look in Frank’s eyes.
Desire.
“I don’t wanna go back.”
That breathless confession was all Frank needed, and he seemed to groan in relief when you surged forward to capture his lips with renewed vigor. Frank was so much more engaged in this kiss, and you took that as a good sign to give in to every single temptation. Before you could even think about climbing onto his lap, Frank was three steps ahead of you, and his large hands were firmly gripping onto your hips and effortlessly pulling you over to straddle his hips. Frank’s hands were everywhere; kneading at your denim covered thighs, gripping tightly onto your waist, carding his fingers through your hair and grasping at the back of your head to keep you as close as physically possible.
You cupped his face firmly in your hands and seductively swiped your tongue along his bottom lip begging for entrance, causing a low growl to resonate from deep within Frank’s chest, and his large hands suddenly squeezed your ass tightly through your jeans while you moaned when his taste met your tongue. The taste of Frank was much sharper this time, and you felt far more intoxicated by him than the three bottles of wine the two of you had consumed together.
Even with your chest pressed firmly against his own, it felt like you couldn’t physically be close enough. You wanted to be entirely consumed by Frank, to completely melt into the warmth of his skin and breathe his essence into your lungs. The synchronization of your lips and tongues molding together was impeccable, and the world outside ceased to exist while the two of you began to unravel one another.
An overwhelming surge of impatience had you nearly shredding his black henley with your nails while you fervently shoved it up his toned chest, eagerly caressing the scarred canvas of his tan skin with your fingertips like you had been daydreaming about doing since that night in the motel. He didn’t hesitate to teasingly brush his thumbs along the sliver of exposed skin above your hips before pushing your shirt up your waist and over your head. While you tore it off quickly and carelessly discarded it behind you, Frank dove in to attach his lips to the sensitive skin on your neck, dragging his warm and wet tongue along the column of it before gently biting down on the juncture above your collarbone.
A soft moan slipped past your lips and you instinctively rocked your hips against Frank’s lap, coaxing a deep grunt from his chest. He left a searing trail of kisses along your shoulder, the rough pads of his fingers softly tugging the straps of your bra down your arms before splaying both of his large hands against your lower back to pull you further against his own chest. Frank nuzzled his large nose along your neck and whispered huskily into your ear.
“This alright?”
“Yes.”
Unfiltered lust clouded your vision a deep shade of crimson, and you blindly clawed at Frank’s belt while he continued his blazing path of kisses along your jawline and down your neck towards your chest. All of a sudden, his large hands clasped around your wrists gently to halt your movements, and he pulled back a bit to stare deeply into your eyes while panting slightly.
“Sweetheart, there ain’t no rush.”
“Frank, please.”
The desperate plea that sounded from your lips seemed to ignite a brand new fire within Frank, and your consent shredded that last strand of hesitation that was holding him back. He placed his large hands against your ass and lifted you effortlessly in the air, and you wrapped your legs tightly around his waist. Frank easily navigated around the coffee table and slowly knelt down on the fluffy cream colored rug in front of the fireplace, carefully laying you down onto your back. This time when you tugged the leather of his belt away from the buckle, he didn’t stop you, and instead his own deft fingers made lightning work in ridding you of your own jeans.
Slipping one of his hands underneath your back, he easily unhooked your bra with his thumb and index finger, and the second your bare chest was exposed to him, Frank firmly grasped one of your breasts in his calloused hand and took your peaked nipple into his mouth. Your lips parted widely feeling the jolt of pleasure that had you arching your back slightly when he swirled his warm tongue around the sensitive and stiff bud while gently sinking his teeth into the flesh of your breast. 
The sensation elicited a series of breathless whimpers to leave your mouth, and Frank grunted lowly in response as you rolled your hips upwards in search of friction, feeling the heavy heat of his hardened cock against your lower stomach through the thin cotton of his briefs. It was a marvel you hadn’t flooded the cabin with how turned on you currently were, and this wasn’t even scratching the surface of what Frank was going to do to you. You gripped at his bulging biceps, his broad shoulders, dark tufts of his disheveled hair, anything you could get your hands on to keep him close to you. 
Frank began to slowly descend your body, placing his hands firmly on your sides while leaving warm and wet open mouthed kisses down your stomach, even licking a teasing bold stripe above your belly button. The sight alone nearly made your eyes roll into the back of your head and caused you to whine softly, knowing exactly where his next destination was. But as much as you wanted to have Frank’s mouth on you, and God did you want it, you weren’t sure you could stand another second of not knowing what it felt like to have him inside you.
After he slipped your panties down your legs and tossed them aside, you gave his messy cropped curls a gentle tug to get his attention before he could spread your thighs and settle his broad shoulders between the apex of them. Frank glanced up to meet your gaze, his warm brown eyes nearly as black as the coffee he’d consumed this morning due to how wide his pupils were blown open. The hunger eclipsing them caused you to shudder, and you took a mental image of the sight of him nearly naked between your thighs staring at you like a ravenous wolf salivating at the sight of a vulnerable lamb.
“Please, Frank…I need you. I wanna feel you now…please.”
The two of you seemed to be stuck in the same conundrum, caught in tandem between wanting to savor the moment you had both waited so long for, and also wanting to give into the impulses of your magnetizing desire.
As much as you could see in his hungry expression that he wanted to take his time, to devour you slowly and worship every inch of you, the distress dripping from your breathless plea triggered his own raging need, and he silently obeyed while moving upwards again to hover over your body, capturing your lips in a deeply passionate kiss while you ardently pushed his briefs down his hips and off completely. Frank settled between your hips, displacing his heavy body weight by supporting himself on his forearms that were locked on either side of your head. You were completely caged in and at his mercy beneath him, but that was exactly where you wanted to be. 
Frank searched your gaze ardently once again for any sign of hesitation, his dark eyes roaming up and down your face before his tongue quickly darted out to wet his lips.
“We can call it here, ya’know? No hard feelin’s. I can-”
Reaching a hand up to gently hold the side of his face, you placed your thumb against his plump lips to cut off the velvet timbre of his whisper.
“Frank, I want this. I want you. But if you don’t-”
“I do. You got no idea how much I do. But…I want it to be right, yeah?”
A gentle smile covered your lips while gazing up at him in complete adoration.
“Doesn’t this feel right?”
Frank’s eyes flickered between your own and he subtly nodded his head, glancing down at your lips briefly before looking directly into your eyes again.
“Yeah…yeah it does.”
Frank leaned in to capture your lips in a sensual kiss, and the second he nudged the blunt head of his thick cock within your entrance, a sharp gasp flew past your lips and it felt like all the wind had been knocked right out of your lungs. He groaned quietly and nuzzled his large nose against the column of your neck, firmly grasping at your thigh and pulling your leg up and around his waist while he pushed in deeper slowly, one inch at a time.
While your nails instinctively dug fiercely into the muscle of his shoulders, no doubt leaving deep maroon crescent shaped indentations behind, Frank paused for a moment and snaked his hand down between your bodies, lightly brushing the rough pad of his thumb in lazy circles over your clit to help your body relax. You had been soaked through your panties from the moment your lips met, but Frank’s girth wasn’t one your walls had accommodated before, and he did his best to ease the sting of the burning stretch with stimulated pleasure.
“Frank…”
As soon as your hips connected completely and Frank was fully nestled within your tight heat, your eyes nearly rolled into the back of your head, and your jaw became completely unhinged as you let out a smooth legato moan. You felt Frank’s body tense above you while he buried his face into your neck, letting out a quiet hiss as he breathed out a shaky deep exhale.
“Jesus fuckin’ Christ, sweetheart.”
“Oh my God…Frank-”
“I know baby, I know. Gimme a second.”
You don’t know how long it was before Frank finally started moving his hips. Seconds. Minutes. Hours. All you knew was that you had never felt so full and so complete in your entire life. 
Letting out a quiet shudder, Frank slowly retracted his hips just a bit before cresting against you once again like a gentle tide. He removed his face from your neck so he could stare down into your eyes to watch your face, and you gazed up at him with wide-eyed passion and marvel. You brought your other leg up to also wrap around his waist and wrapped your arms securely around his neck, trapping Frank against your body just as much as you were beneath his. 
Frank reached between your chests with his right hand and gripped his wedding band between his thumb and index finger, tossing it and the chain over his back so there was nothing separating the two of you, just his heated skin pressed firmly against yours. Bringing your hands upwards, your trembling fingers weaved through his hair, tugging somewhat roughly at the messy cropped dark strands on top of his head when he began to languidly increase his pace.
It was like you couldn’t speak. Your mouth hung open while you stared up into Frank’s warm brown eyes that seemed to gleam from the amber glow of the fire, but nothing came out except echoes of the pleasure he handcrafted. You couldn’t tear your eyes away from him, watching in awe as his plump lips parted from panting heavily, his eyes becoming hooded from streams of ecstasy racing through his bloodstream. He gazed down into your eyes in complete adoration, gently stroking his index and middle finger down your cheekbone delicately as you stared up at him with parted lips and pleading eyes. 
Frank brought his left hand up to gently brush your hair away from your forehead, cradling the back of your head while his right one came up once again to gently grab your face. Although this time, his index finger rested along your jawline while his thumb and other fingers laced around your throat carefully, which nearly sent you into a frenzy. He leaned in to teasingly slip his tongue into your mouth, kissing you with such ferocity as if he craved the very breath in your lungs.
Frank vacillated his hips repeatedly against your own in a steady rhythm, but with a meticulous precision that revealed new depths with your body even you weren’t aware of. Every sensual thrust wound that tense coil within you tighter and tighter, and it was only a matter of time before you erupted into gratified pieces of confetti. Reaching a shaky hand up to grip onto the back of his neck, your fingertips vibrated as they brushed over the close shaven hair on the back of his head, and you pulled him down forcefully for another deeply passionate kiss. 
Only when your lungs began to burn due to lack of oxygen did you finally break apart. He leaned in to press his forehead against yours, gazing so deeply into your eyes you swore he could see right into your soul. You stared back up into Frank’s eyes as yours became glossy due to the overwhelming sensation of pleasure you were experiencing. His coarse grunts and reverberating groans echoing in your ears had your toes curling, and as your mouth hung open in silent begging, you nodded swiftly with an expression that let Frank know you felt it too.
“Please…please…”
That familiar bubble of euphoria was starting to expand wider and wider within your lower belly and you weren’t sure how much longer you had before it burst. The way Frank fit perfectly within your body was unlike anything you had ever experienced before, and you were stuck on the cusp of never wanting it to end, but also wanting to see just how far it could go. You had never been with someone that seemed to be so finely in tune with your body, or that genuinely cared about your satisfaction, but Frank was treating your pussy as if he had designed it specifically for himself. The realization of knowing you wouldn’t have to finish yourself off later like you had to with your exes was a welcomed relief, but not knowing what brink of indulgence Frank was about to catapult you over was exhilarating. 
“Frank…Frank…”
“S’alright, baby, I know. Let me have it, yeah? C’mon baby, let go for me.”
A soft whimper slipped past your lips. You were so close, and God you wanted so badly to jump head first into the free fall. But a tiny part of you felt frustrated because you wanted to witness Frank free fall too. You wanted to see him let go, hear his praises of your name, and be coherent enough to feel Frank lose himself.
But you would have to wait your turn, because Frank was sending you barreling towards the edge of an orgasm with every punctual and powerful snap of his hips, and you had no choice but to surrender to the heat of his body enveloping yours in a cocoon of pure warmth and safety. 
Frank grabbed both of your smaller hands and laced your fingers together, giving them a tight squeeze as a tangible reminder he was right there with you. He pinned them gently on the soft rug above your head, his pace becoming a bit sloppy as he began to lose his own composure. 
“Look at me, sweetheart. Let me see them pretty eyes, c’mon. Let me see ‘em.”
You struggled to keep your eyes open until you physically couldn’t, wanting to witness every second of Frank’s own impending climax contorting his features as he fought to control himself until you were ready to let go. 
“There ya go, attagirl. Let go for me, sweetheart. S’alright, let me have it, yeah?”
A symphony of his name played from your lips at a steady crescendo until it filled the entirety of the cabin, and all at once a flash of white exploded behind your eyes as you free fell through space and time, floating in a cloud composed of Frank’s honeyed praises of your name and delicate sweet nothings. You’d given yourself powerful orgasms before but you had never felt something so intense as the delectation Frank created. It felt like you were floating between the astral space between Heaven and Earth, and you weren’t sure you could find your way back to your physical body again.
There was a faint amber glow flickering across your closed lids, and as you slipped in and out of coherence, you felt soft lips delicately pressing against your forehead and the edge of rough fingers gently stroking along your cheekbone lovingly. You didn’t want to move, you weren’t even sure if you could, but there was one thing you did want.
“Frank?”
The voice that resonated in your ears was fuzzy and distant, and it didn’t even sound like it belonged to you. A strong pair of arms wrapped securely around you, pulling you in from your stranded orbit closer towards where you were meant to be, and Frank’s soothing gruff voice quietly dripped a sacred promise into your ear.
“M’here.”
The hypnotic lullaby of his heart’s rhythm tethered you back to the dreamlike reality of Frank holding you against his chest, and that was all you needed to slip away under the blanket of stars that were dancing behind your eyes.
tags: @thyme-in-a-bubble @day-dreaming-goddess @messymissy @itwasthereaminuteago @strawberry1042 @queenofthenoobs @wanda2themax @xcastawayherosx @avengerstower-houseplant @stevenknightmarc @ponyosmom35 @babygal-babygal @wellwwhynot @oldermenaremyreligion @combustiblemeow @tired-night-owl @fairykiss32 @danzer8705 @calkissed @fxckahs-blog @lemon-world1 @polskiperson @imperihoe @v4leoftears @harperdoodle @spideyvibez @joalslibrary @cherry-berry-ollie @sorrowfulfragmentation @kdogreads @sumo-b98 @blackhawkfanatic @gloryekaterina @whistle1whistle @starbritestarlite @callmebrooklynbabes @hallway5 @scarletfvckingwitch @bifuriouslatina @soupyspence @fireeyes-on-teller-dixon-grimes @wonwoosthetic @linguist-breakaribecca @nerdytreeflower @mrs-bellingham @smhnxdiii @s3riou2 @slavic-empress
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rogueddie · 2 months
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Thinkin Bout You T | 1,061 words Prompt for @steddielovemonth: Love is going out of your way to do something you know will make them happy
Even though he can admit that it's a selfish desire, Eddie still wants to use Steve's pool. He'd thought that, after finally defeating Vecna and saving Max, they could use it as an excuse to have some sort of party.
He's always wanted to go to one of Steves infamous, exclusive pool parties.
"No," Steve immediately snapped, when Eddie brought it up. It was the first time Eddie had ever really heard him angry. "No one goes in the pool. No one- just, stay away from it. It's off limits. That's it."
He'd been confused, but accepted his answer. It didn't matter what he wanted, it clearly made Steve uncomfortable. It wasn't his place to challenge those boundaries.
... but it did make him curious.
At first, he tried to figure it out on his own. Or, more accurately, tried to gauge how Steve fully and truly felt about the pool.
Steve avoided the thing like it would bite him if he looked at it too long. He always steered conversations away from it, or swimming in general, too.
"I'm worried," Eddie admitted, when he finally gave in and turned to Robin. "He can't keep avoiding pools forever."
"It's not pools," Robin says, reluctantly. "It's his pool, specifically. You'll have to ask him, but... you'd get it. If you knew why."
But the only answer he got from Steve was vague, something about Nancy and bad memories.
"I don't want to know what happened," Eddie starts, worming past Nancy as soon as she opens the door. "I only need to know if redecorating the pool might help. Like, if it's bad memories tied to it then spicing it up so it looks different... that'll help, right?"
Nancy stares at him for a moment, needing a moment to catch up.
"We are talking about Steve?" She finally asks.
"Yeah!"
"Right... um... redecorating..." She looks off to the side, frowning in thought. "It might help. He probably won't want to get in himself, no matter what, but... yeah, changing it up might make him more comfortable with it in general."
"Great! I don't know how to redecorate a pool."
Nancy rolls her eyes.
But she jumps into action. She calls Robin, Jonathan and Argyle, gathering them together so they can brainstorm ideas.
It's Jonathan who suggests they try and make it more kid friendly. Argyle is the one who collects pool decals, agreeing on placing them too. Robin insists on being the one to chose the colors with Nancy's help.
Eddie gets stuck with collecting floats and toys, making a mental list of what they could get.
With their hush money, they're able to put aside a decent amount of money for the budget. They're definitely going to be able to completely change that pool.
Getting the kids to agree to distract Steve for the entire day is too easy. They don't even ask why.
Steve calls Robins less than half an hour after they call the kids, pleading and whining about the kids plan. He tries to get her to come up with some excuse to get him out of it.
"Sorry," Robin says, wincing. "Need to stay home with mom. Sounds serious."
It takes another half an hour until Lucas is able to radio them, giving them the all clear.
Sneaking round to Steve's pool feels strange. Mostly thanks to how casual it is, how calm the others look despite the fact that they're technically breaking in.
"We're not breaking in," Nancy points out. "We have keys. He said we can come over whenever we want. We're welcome."
"Hey," Jonathan says, snapping his fingers to get their attention. "Come on, we have a lot to do."
And it is a lot.
Working together, they're able to get through the worst of it pretty fast. It's impossible to rush it all though, having to wait for paint to dry or glue to stick.
They've barely sat down, finally finishing everything, when Steve gets back with the kids.
"Woah, this is amazing!" Dustin says, grinning wide, the first to burst out the back doors.
"Holy shit," Mike says, next out. "How did you do all this in that time?"
"What are you guys yelling about?" Steve asks, voice distant.
The kids scramble out of the way, watching the door for Steve, excited.
"Where have you- oh."
He freezes in the doorway, eyes darting around the garden.
"Surprise!" Robin yells, jumping over to him. "You like it?"
"How did you..."
"It was easy," Nancy says, reassuring.
"Eddie noticed that you hate the pool," Robin adds. "He suggested we redecorate. Change it up. Make it something new."
Steve looks between them all, face blank.
"Steve?" Eddie says, shifting nervously.
"Thank you," Steve says. "It's... thank you."
"Does this mean we can use your pool now?" Mike asks.
Steve laughs, though it sounds slightly choked. "Yeah," he says, shaking his head. "Sure, whatever, let's have a pool party."
The kids cheer, rushing off to get changed. The others follow after them slower, leaving Steve and Eddie alone.
"This was your idea?" Steve asks.
"Kinda? We all worked together to actually... do it. I only suggested we do something. Nancy's the brains behind it all, really. And Argyle."
"Still, you thought to do all... this."
"I guess."
"Thank you, Ed."
"Oh, nah, don't. It was motivated entirely by, like... greed."
Steve snorts, disbelieving.
"It was! You never let us use the pool."
"You wouldn't need to redecorate this much to do that."
"That... yeah, I would," Eddie winces at how his voice cracks. "You're overprotective."
"Eds," Steve grabs his hand, finally drawing his attention to how they've drifted to each other. "Just accept the thank you, alright?"
Eddie glances at their hands, half expecting Steve to pull away. But, despite the flush in his cheeks, he keeps a tight hold.
"Alright," Eddie finally says. "You're welcome?"
"Great," Steve tugs at his hand, keeping ahold of him as he drags them to the house. "I have spare swim shorts that you can borrow."
"You sure they won't be too big?"
Steve glances back, just in time to catch Eddie's eyes drifting down. He laughs bumping his shoulder into Eddie's.
"Perv."
"You love it," Eddie teases, expecting Steve to take it ask a joke.
But he smiles, soft and genuine, squeezing Eddie's hand as he says, "I really do."
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oopwoop · 9 months
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Barbie Movie W/ The Spider-verse Kids
pairings: e!42! & e!1610! Miles Morales, Hobie Brown, Pavitr Prabhakar, Gwen Stacy
warnings: none that i can think of??
BIRTHDAY POST! I saw the Barbie movie for my bday today and had to post something.. it’s been a bit since I have so sorry about that.. enjoy!
e!1610 Miles Morales
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more than willing to go see it with you. was downright excited when you asked him to see it with you. when he was younger he definitely played with Barbies with his mom. and in the comics he eventually has a little sister so he totally plays with her too.
pays for everything. uses the money he’s saved up to take you on dates. he wants you to have a good time
definitely cries. doesn’t have to go through the struggles the movie represents but still sympathizes. we love him 🫶
wears pink without you even asking. it’s a movie about Barbie, of course you need to wear pink!
fav song from the movie is Journey To The Real World by Tame Impala
e!42! Miles Morales
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very reluctant to see it. claims it’ll just be a movie for little kids. little did he know…
now that you convinced him to go, don’t expect him to wear pink for it. you must be pulling his leg if you think he’s going to wear any sort of pink. yeah.. you got him to wear pink.
you bet your ass he paid for every single thing though. the theatre had cute Barbie cups? he’s getting you one. omg, they have cookies? getting you as many as you want. all of it. you want it, it’s yours.
definitely teared up but refused to admit it. you ask and he’s making up a lie on the spot. yet you know he did
Barbie World by Nicki & Ice Spice ft. Aqua is his song (no one is telling me otherwise)
Pavitr Prabhakar
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more excited than you fr. he’s been waiting for this moment since the movie was announced. literally bouncing off walls just waiting
came all decked on in a Barbie themed outfit, it’s not even funny. he’s totally rocking it though
making this the best date of your life fr. you both are super excited, him even more so, so he’s gonna do whatever he can to have a good time.
cried like a baby fs. not ashamed of it either. tears were streaming down his face when the movie ended, face puffy and red. no lie about it.
vibes with Speed Drive by Charli XCX (fav song from the movie)
Gwen Stacy
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wanted to see Oppenheimer over Barbie. but she’s willing to see Barbie and then go see Oppenheimer. she’s excited for it, yeah, but not jumping out of her seat for it or anything.
definitely making it a barbieheimer date. she’s gonna wear a pink shirt with a leather jacket, no doubt.
i feel like she’d tear up a bit but no tears would fall. if you ask she wouldn’t deny it but would be very nonchalant about it.
idk why but i just see her much more excited and wanting to see Oppenheimer
i feel like she like Billie Eilish so probably enjoyed What Was I Made For? she teared up when it came on (honestly me too)
Hobie Brown
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surprisingly but not surprisingly is the one who said y’all should go. was definitely more excited for Barbie than Oppenheimer. refuses to step foot into a showing of that.
will definitely wear pink. it may not match his whole punk ‘aesthetic’ but he doesn’t believe in consistency. “but pink is a girl color”, nope! he doesn’t listen to that load of bull. colors are just colors, plus he’s always changing colors so what’s it matter to him. he himself turns pink sometimes.
begrudgingly pays for tickets but will not pay for snacks. sneaks them in fs.
doesn’t really cry but does sympathize with what the movie portrays.
doesn’t really have a favorite, though he enjoys most of the songs. he finds I’m Just Ken by Ryan Gosling funny though.
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intimacyequalsdeath · 7 months
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Bubz's Slasher Fictober Day 13: Hellboy (Pumpkin Spice)
Friday the 13 in October no less! Happy 13th of Fictober besties as always I hope you've all been enjoying these fics especially this weeks smutty fics and I hope your excited for more festivities in the next couple weeks of Fictober.
Notes: Minors DNI, Smut, Spice and everything nice. No specific pronouns or descriptions are used though the reader does work as an exotic dancer.
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"You said you were ok with it! you knew what I did for work before we got together Red. Why the hell is it a problem now?" You slammed open the door to your dressing room as he followed behind you into the room.
Red had just recently got back from a mission and had come to see you at the club you worked as a dancer at. Something he always did when he got back except this time he had a stick up his ass.
"Well yeah things change toots, Especially when I show up and see all these other men drooling over you" You rolled your eyes.
"Red I tell you all the time, those guys don't matter. I just need their money you're the only one that matters to me" You understood he was jealous but you didn't understand what his issue was.
You watched as he huffed some more and briefly paced the room before sitting on the old faux leather couch you had put in the corner specifically for him to come and visit you at the club. You went and sat next to him, forgetting that you had come back to your dressing room to changed out of your skimpy attire and into street clothes.
"What's wrong red? I can't fix anything if you don't talk to me" You ran your hand up and down his arm trying to coax him to talk.
"All those men out there that aren't well ya know" He said softly
"They aren't want honey?"
"They aren't like me, their normal" He said. You're heart broke.
"Baby, You are normal, You're my normal. You're everything I could've ever hoped to find in a man. I don't care about all those rich dicks out there. The only man in the entire world I care about is you."
You watched as Hellboy processed your words, His face not giving anything away quite yet as he thought for a moment. Your eyes met his and you offered him a smile he couldn't help but to grin himself before looking away bashfully.
"You mean it?" He asked almost a playful tone to his voice.
"Of course I do. I fucking love you, plus no one can handle me like you can baby" You moved into his laps running your hands up and down his chest as you lost yourself into his eyes.
"Hey I'm sorry baby I uh, I guess I just got into my own head again" He told you, wrapping his giant arms around your waist.
"It's ok my love, I understand" You told him, pressing kisses to his face then his lips.
Your arms went around his neck as he took over the kiss. You pulled away a bit so he could fully take in your outfit choice for the night, It was a barley there number with accents in a particular color that resembled your demon boyfriend.
"Do you like my outfit baby?" You asked him playfully. He grinned.
"Course I do, red looks real good on you ya know" You both laughed.
"Ya know I'm kinda partial to red myself" His hands moved up to the zipper in the back of the outfit to take it off of you.
"Really? and why's that?"
"I don't know honestly, I've just always really liked it" He moved the fabric down your body as you started running your hands down his again.
He let the fabric drop to the floor when he finally had it completely off you, His hands made their way back to your waist working their way up to your chest as he slid his fingers over your nipples as he took in your bare form. It wasn't anything new to him obviously but he always liked to take you in like a fine art painting that he was seeing for the first time.
"You know Red I'm feeling a bit underdressed here" You said nodding to the fact that he was still fully clothed. He smirked at you and allowed you to work his shirt over his head before unbuckling his pants.
Once his pants were down, His cock sprang free smacking against his stomach. Precum already leaking out of the top of it before you had even touched anything.
You took his cock into your hand giving it a few strokes before guiding it to your entrance. He pushed into you slowly as always giving you time to adjust to his size as obviously his dick much like everything else about him is huge. Once you had adjusted to his size you gave him the go ahead by beginning to slowly bounce up and down.
He chucked at your eagerness before thrusting hard up into you before you could come back down on top of him. You gasped at the feeling of him all the way inside you, you reveled in how full he always made you feel. Your eyes rolling back into your head as you stopped for a minute just to feel him completely.
Hellboy made no move to continue to thrust so you could tell he liked the feeling of being inside you too. You put your hands behind your legs onto to his knees allowing yourself to lean back for a new angle.
"Red please, Fuck me" You pleaded breathlessly.
"What good manners you have for daddy huh?" He teased before fulfilling exactly what you wanted.
You could feel as your mixing juices were sliding down your thighs making both your laps a mess. The only sound echoing through the room other then your moans and his grunts was the slapping of skin on skin as he fucked up into you making a mess of the both of you.
He brought a giant hand up to gently wrap it around your neck. Using this as leverage he began slamming you onto his cock by your neck, his other hand holding you behind your back to keep you steady.
"Red I- I can't It's, It's" You gasped out grabbing at his chest, He made no move to stop though.
"Nah Baby, I know you can take it and you're going to take it" He commanded.
Your legs fell even more open, if that was even possible, at his words and the only words able to come from your mouth after that were incoherent mumbles in-between your moans.
You felt your walls begin to tighten as he leaned over to kiss and suck on your neck, leaving love bites as he went to further mark you as his. Suddenly here your orgasm was, You cried out as you could feel yourself wrap around his cock as he also came inside you. Your juices mixing together and making an even bigger mess.
Once you both had came he took you gently off his lap and laid you on the couch next to him as you both caught your breath.
"Hey baby you with me?" He asked, taking a cigar out of his discarded coat pocket and lighting it before taking a hand and gently rubbing your back. Wary of your ability to speak your nodded at him and he smiled.
"I'm fine Red, You just wear me out" You gave a soft laugh.
"You think your gonna be ok to walk out of here back to the apartment?" He asked, but something told you he already knew the answer.
"Probably not, You gonna be up to carry me?" You asked, knowing full well nothing stroked his ego more then having to carry you after he fucked you.
"Babydoll nothing would bring me more pleasure then carrying my baby home" Your eyes met his as you both grinned at each other like love sick fools.
Something told you Hellboy was never gonna have to worry about old rich dickheads ever again.
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xspeter · 8 months
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JUST BARELY
peter parker x fem!reader
synopsis - fall is the best season.
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“peter.”
“yeah baby?”
“it’s fall.”
usually, when the two of you first wake up, the first thing out of your mouth is a, “good morning baby,” so this is slightly unusual.
“what d’ya mean?” he asks, voice husky with remnants of sleep.
“it’s fall. like… like leaves changing color, weather getting chillier, pumpkin spice latte… fall.” you say excitedly.
peter furrows his eyebrows in confusion. “okay..?”
you scoff and immediately sit up, your sudden movement causing the fuzzy blanket to fall from peters chest. he’s immediately met by a sudden cold brush of air and his arms instinctively wrap around his body to try and savor any warmth that you had selfishly stolen from him.
“what do you mean ‘okay’? it’s fall! the best time of the year!” you say excitedly. “this is the only time of year where it’s acceptable to wear crew necks and cardigans! and- and haunted houses are opening and pumpkin patches! and we can make those cute little halloween cookies you get at walmart! oh my gosh and i almost forgot about halloween! i love halloween!” you ramble.
peter smiles warmly at you, finding your rant amusing. you two had gotten together back in feburary, so he had no idea you loved autumn this much.
“if i didn’t know any better, i’d say you loved fall more than you love me.” peter teases.
your eyebrows furrow and you pretend to think for a minute before you shrug, “well,” you say, “fall is about here,” you explain, putting your hand right in front of your chest, “and you are around… here!” you put your other hand a tiny bit lower than the first, and peter gasps at frantically throws his head back.
you giggle at peters dramatics, but suddenly your pulled on top of peter as he tickles you in retaliation.
“peter- peter stop!” you laugh, but your pleas fall on deaf ears.
peter ignores you and continues tickling up your sides. your laugh music to his ears.
“peter- peter- wait!” you gasp out, finally finding the strength to pull yourself away from him.
peters eyebrows furrow and a concerned look washes over his face. “what’s wrong?” he questions, his chocolate brown eyes looking into yours. his expression is nothing but pure love, and suddenly, you really do think you’ve found something you love just a little more than fall.
“i just love you.” you mumble.
peters lips crack into a small grin and he leans in and kisses you softly.
“more than fall?” he asks a against your lips.
you sigh dramatically, “just barely.”
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matchalovertrait · 1 month
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Dulce is starting to feel overwhelmed! Is the pressure to win getting to her? Or is it something else...? We won't be finding out in the next segment.
Previous / Next (Transcript under the cut)
(1.) [Carlo] Tsk, tsk. They should have thought more outside the box. Also, Dulce really has to watch the time. Andrea, please check on the contestants.
(2.) [Andrea] How is everything, Chef Dulce?
[Dulce] Ehh, I'm not entirely happy with the flavor and spice, so I think I'll add some red chiles too.
(3.) I have to push through and make it to the dessert round. I think once I get there, the title of Diced Junior Champion is mine since I'm a baker's daughter.
(4.) [Alex] Hi, Andrea. Sorry, I can't really talk right now. Gotta focus.
[Andrea] Oh, okay-
(5.) [Alex] I hope she didn't find that rude. Like I said, I like Andrea. Carlo is kind of getting on my nerves, though. You're worried about time but also want us to stop and chitchat for a while? Let me work, man.
(6.) [Andrea] How's your progress, Rubiya?
[Rubiya] The jicama isn't really cooperating with me right now... but everything else is good!
(7.) [Rubiya] It'd be life-changing for me if I won. I could use that money for culinary school. There's always the regional spelling bees that I'll try in the future, but nothing is ever guaranteed in life. Take every chance you get.
(8.) [Alex] If I won, I would donate the money to the ALS Association. My grandpa in Henford-on-Bagley recently passed away from ALS complications. He was a nice man. He would take me around his farm, and he even gave some goats to my parents.
(9.) [Alex] That's why I know how to raise goats and cook the meat... hey! I guess Lewis and I aren't that much different. We know a thing or two about the farm life.
(10.) [Dulce] If I won, I would give most of the money to my mom for our bakery. There were some people who... took advantage of certain things, so the bakery suffered for a long time. Everything is okay now, but not exactly like how it used to be.
(11.) [Alex] Dang, I almost forgot about my jicama! I have to still spiralize it too.
(12.) [Mia] Wow, I've never seen such concentration from young chefs before. They are fully immersed.
[Sofia] Bring me back as a judge next season! I'll be recording a deluxe version of my album, but I'll make time.
(13.) [Dulce] Done dicing and chopping everything! I'll add everything to the pot and put back the extra things in the fridge.
(14.) [Rubiya] What a beautiful color.
(15.) [Dulce] Excu-
[Alex] Oh crud-
(16.) [Alex] Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry! Are you okay?
[Dulce] Oh, um-
(17.) [Alex] Dulce? Are you okay?
[Dulce] Yeah, yeah, just a little embarrassed.
[Alex] Here, let me help you clean up.
(18.) [Andrea's Voiceover] Meanwhile, Rubiya is focused on her dish, as she should be!
[Rubiya] Hmmmm... is there anything else I can add?
(19.) [Alex] Are you sure you're okay?
[Dulce] Yeah, don't worry about it, but I have to go check on my soup! Hopefully it's about done, I left it simmering.
(20.) [Sofia] Good thing everyone is okay!
[Mia] Chefs, you guys have 5 minutes left on the clock! Please start plating soon.
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grimmbitty · 6 months
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Hey, look it’s Mary Marvel‼️‼️
I finished this drawing on my phone while I was at work so I didn’t have my normal “Kirby dot” brush that I normally use to fill in their chest emblem. But that’s okay I drew these dots by hand!!
Yeah originally I was gonna give her a golden chest emblem but then it was just too much yellow in one spot so it didn’t look good,,, Maybe I’ll change Freddy’s color from a silvery blue to yellow just to spice things up, so they don’t all look the same lol.
But yeah I made her outfit white because sometimes it’s red, but Billy is red. It made sense for both of them to be red when they were canonically twins. However, in a lot of stories they aren’t lol.
Anyways enjoy! ~✨⚡️
Bonus: a closeup for people who wanna see those pixels.
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void-hoodie · 4 months
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OKAY! bear with me on this ramble
Also idk if anyone done it before BUT this is my observation
SO after reading this fic for at least ten times I've come to a realization about trolls' hair and i'm surprised it's not used often!!
so we all know all troll species have hair and they all use it for different purposes if not for the same thing. and theres not one troll type that doesn't possess hair EVEN the techno trolls.
it's literally a vital part of them, specifically for pop trolls!. they use it to carry their eggs and their young. it can change color, shap, length. they can stretch it, climb, grap and literally EVERYTHING.
their hair its particularly their other limp! and i haven't watch the shows fully but in the few episodes i watched they treat their injured hair like a broken arm or leg and even feel pain from it!
which got me thinking whats cutting hair is like to a troll? and when i read that fic that i linked i came to a conclusion/headcanon that cutting a troll's is similar to declawing a cat!
because if they can feel immense pain from similar to a broken body part then cutting it is the same as declawing just without the surgical process which would leave a troll in an unimaginable pain and to spice things up it could also bleed .
and the most affected by this this would be pop trolls because the environment they live in requires for their hair for survival, camouflage and swinging from tree to tree! it's also their most strongest part if not more stronger than their own body.
so cutting it specifically when they're already using it, is a death sentence itself because when they lose it what else could they do? i know they don't use it as much in trolls 3 than they did in the first movie but my point is they can run but without hair how do they escape? how can they reach places so high without it?
I mean this is stright up best angst fanfic material! I'd love to see more people use this idea!
so yeah my whole point of this is cutting trolls hair=decalwing a cat just more twisted and horribly bad because they do literally everything of their day to day stuff with it!
and a little angst thing of Branch having his hair cut unprompted idk 😶
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feyhunter78 · 4 months
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Chapter Sixteen - You're awake and feeling a bit sick, luckily Miguel is there to take care of you, but why did you fall sick in the first place?
Ch 17
You wake up freezing, fatigued, and to the smell of fragrant beef and soft singing. It’s a Spanish song, one you’ve heard playing dozens of times in Mama Rosa’s, but you don’t recognize the voice. Did you leave the TV on or—fuck, is someone in your apartment? You’re in pajamas, throw blanket over your body, phone plugged into the charger and—and you’re not wearing any underwear.
The singing stops, and you freeze, should you pretend to be asleep? Try to grab your phone and dash to the bathroom to call 911?
“Y/N? Are you awake?” Miguel’s voice floats down the hallways, calm, unhurried, and the tension leaves your body.
“Yeah, yeah, sorry, give me a second.” You call back, wrapping your blanket around yourself as you grab clothes to change into. You can’t just walk out into your kitchen half naked, not with Miguel in there. Though the thought is tempting.
“No rush, you were pretty tired, I think you might be getting sick.” He says.
He’s a sight to see, the expanse of his broad back, sunkissed skin littered with small scars, muscles taut, flexing as he sections off a large pot of stew into your colorful Tupperware.
Is it cheesy to say he takes your breath away? It definitely is, but when he turns to face you, warm brown eyes filled with concern, you don’t really care.
“My sister-in-law’s recipe, guaranteed to help you regain your strength.” He says, holding a large wooden spoon towards you. There’s a faint wisp of steam rising from it, and you lean forward, blowing lightly on the stew before taking a small bite.
Miguel’s eyes follow every movement of your lips, waiting expectantly.
“Wow…this is really good.” You say, it’s a perfect harmony of meat and spices, a hint of tomato, a dash of bay leaf, and the warmth of the broth banishes any leftover chill from your bones.
He smiles and puts the lids on the Tupperware before popping them in your fridge. “I’m glad you like it.”
You fiddle with the ends of your shirt—Miguel’s shirt you realize, eyes cast down, nerves overtaking you. “Did we…we didn’t do anything last night, right?”
He shakes his head. “No, we were in the elevator…kissing…and then you collapsed. I carried you back here and laid you on your bed. Once I was sure you weren’t going to die, I came out here to make you something to eat.”
“Ah, okay, well that’s not super embarrassing or anything.” You slide onto one of your bar stools, resting your arms on the faux marble counter, before resting your head on your arms as you watched Miguel move around your small kitchen. It barely had room for two people to be in it at one time, and with Miguel’s size? Yeah, sitting at the bar is a better idea.
The marble is cool against your skin, and Miguel places a steaming bowl of stew before you. “It’s not embarrassing.”
“Says you.” You can’t help but be embarrassed, you’ve dragged him through so much, and then you pass out while kissing him? And now you’re here, sick, tired, and he’s making you a whole meal in your own kitchen.
You’re just asking a lot of me here, y/n, and I’m not even getting anything in return. Todd’s words echo in your mind, and you bite the inside of your cheek.
“I’m sorry I’m such a mess, I feel so bad that you had to do all this for me, I’ll be fine if you want to go home, seriously.” You stare into your bowl, stirring it slowly.
Warm brown skin invades your peripheral vision, accompanied by Miguel’s voice that’s somehow warmer than the soup in your hands. “I want to be here, with you.”
“I don’t want to be a bur—”
“You’re not.” He cuts you off. “You’re not a burden y/n, you’ve never been a burden, not to me.”
You blink rapidly as your vision swims, salty tears threatening to burst forth. “You’re sweet.”
“It’s easy to be sweet to you, it’s easy to be with you, even when you’re passed out.”
You shoot him a look, and he chuckles, raising his hands in surrender. “Sorry, sorry, that sounded creepy. I just meant that I never tire of you. Even when you’re not talking, or sleeping, or just working next to me, I never find myself wishing I was somewhere else, or with someone else, I’m always happy to be with you.”
“Shut up…” You whine, trying not to cry into your stew. “That’s like the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me.”
He crooks your head up with one finger, cooing softly when he sees the tears on your lashes. “It’s true y/n, I’m never bored of you, and I don’t think I ever will be.”
Weird way to propose but yes. You joke to yourself internally, biting back a smile. “I’m never bored with you, either.”
A wave of dizziness comes over you, and you squeeze your eyes shut, eyebrows furrowing as you lean into his touch.
“Eat, you’ll feel better soon.” Miguel urges, smoothing his large hand over your hair and down your back soothingly.
You finally get Miguel to leave hours later after you’ve eaten your fill and are no longer shivering. He presses your palm to his lips, make you swear to call him if you feel faint again, and you watch him walk away.
Once you shut the door, you lock it and sprint to your room, closing the door behind you and sitting down in your rolling office chair. You tap your nails on your cream-colored desk, laptop whirling softly as your fingers hover over the keyboard. Finally, you pull up your browser, the empty search bar staring at you expectantly.
You remember now, the feel of his teeth in your skin, the rush of blood, how you were helpless against his strength, how the pain faded into unexplainable pleasure. Miguel has always been odd, and yeah you saw him necking with Cheryl, which definitely could’ve been him…drinking her blood? Was it a kink thing? Was he secretly a serial killer playing the long con?
You vaguely remember the feel of his lips dancing across your skin, his hips against yours as you slept. Should you have been afraid of him then? You’ve never been afraid of Miguel, maybe a little intimidated by how attractive he was, but never afraid.
Hot man, never eats, bites necks, talks fancy, family in Romania? You typed, feeling stupid even as you did it.
A variety of random things came up, and you deleted your search, trying to refine it.
Handsome, Romania, mesmerizing eyes, bites neck, never eats regular food?
Is My Boyfriend a Vampire? Was one of the first things that popped up, and you pushed away from your desk. “Fuck this.”
You get up, shaking your head as you pace around your room. “There’s no way, there’s no way, vampires aren’t even real, that girl is probably just crazy.”
But curiosity killed the cat, and you return to your laptop, skimming the article, then another, then another, until you’re on a Wikipedia deep dive and your stomach churns uncomfortably.
Is Miguel a vampire???? No, no, you’ve seen him out in the sun, you’ve seen him wear a cross…actually no you haven’t seen him wear a cross, and he avoids Gladys who does wear one. But you’ve definitely seen him in the sun! He has beach photos; he came to the company picnic!
You type, can vampires be in the sun, into your search bar. Daywalkers, Cullens, Sunblessed there are dozens of names for them, it’s apparently possible, some vampires can be in the sunlight. Slumping back in your chair you run your hands down your face, memories of his weight, of his skin against yours as you lay half-conscious rising to the top, no longer content to be ignored.
You saw him in your dream, dressed in dark trousers, with a slightly worn evening coat, half off his shoulders, the buttons on his waistcoat undone revealing a thin linen shirt that you longed to tear off him. His hair was perfectly coiffed, his ascot still knotted with your fingers around the knot, using it to pull him closer with an animalistic hunger. It felt so familiar, you could smell the sweet scent of tobacco on his clothes, see his pulse pounding in his throat, hear his silken voice moaning your name over and over again.
You cup the side of your neck, anxious, mind going a million miles an hour, and your fingertips catch on the still healing puncture wound in your neck. They come away slightly bloody, and you shiver. Blood didn’t scare you; you were an M.E. for goodness sakes but the sight of two pinpricks, crimson and fresh chilled you to the bone.
TL: @obi-mom-kenobi, @poutysprouty, @oharasfilipinawife, @laysmt, @cicithemess, @unabashedcroissanttreefan, @lynxslokley, @thedevax, @generalkenobitrash, @keiva1000, @wilmontana987, @caslistener, @lotionlamp, @chrishy973, @havkjhdecs
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thefangirlfever · 8 days
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DBF! Miguel O'hara x reader (part 6)
Tags: F/M, age gap (reader is 28 and Miguel is 48), taboo relationship, mention of medication, depression and racial prejudice, reader is a woman of color, angst, mention of death and grief, slow burn
Disclaimer: English is not my first language.
See the end for notes.
Words count: 6503
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Miguel and you had come to an agreement. You were in charge of the dinner from Monday to Thursday and he took care of it the rest of the week. But even like that, he couldn’t help but intervene into your cooking; no matter how many times you’ve told him to “trust the process”.
“But how can you be sure that it’s gonna taste good if you don’t even follow the recipe?”
You rolled your eyes, amused by his comment while adding a last spoon of spice to the boiling soup on the stove.
“Who needs the recipe when you got vibes and confidence?”
He was now the one rolling his eyes. He hated to admit it but your recipes always managed to taste edible, good even, despite your inability to follow a recupe. You should have already been responsible of a food intoxication but you didn’t. Cooking by your side was always an experience, truly. But it also managed to help him relax after a long day at work. You even looked more relaxed while doing so.
You turned toward him, holding a spoon of soup and asked him to try the soup with a small grin. Miguel could only oblige when you looked at him this way and so he leaned forward to sip a bit of the soup. And just like he had guessed it, it was delicious. He may not be the most objective taster out there but it was still good. The creamy and rich texture made him think that you must have some hidden talent because he has seen you cooking without a recipe and there was no other logical explanation for it to taste that way.
“So? Not that bad, huh?"
It was nice to see you were feeling better now. After only a few days of his attention, you were already back on your feet. His gaze traveled down your figure, noticing your now rosy cheeks and the way you looked generally better. Maybe the countryside had a better effect on you than what you could have expected? But he couldn’t ignore the tired lines on your face, meaning that you were still sleeping poorly.
“Miguel…” Your soft, questioning voice took him out of his thoughts and he blinked twice, collecting his thoughts.
“Yeah, sorry. I was just thinking…”
“About what?”
“Do you...still have trouble sleeping?” The sudden change in the conversation surprised you but you didn’t immediately deflate the conversation or tried to run away, which was a progress in Miguel’s eyes.
“Yes, I do.”
“Have you considered taking something to help you fall asleep?” Miguel wasn’t surprised when you shook your head no. He still asked: “Not even melatonin?”
“I used to take some when I was in high school but...it wasn’t strong enough.”
His eyes opened wider and he stuttered: “In high school?”
“I was an anxious kid.”, you simply replied. He didn’t have any trouble believing that.
“I could get you something more efficient if you want…” You turned off the stove and shook your head.
“I...I don’t have a good history with strong medications.”, you simply replie. Most doctors you’ve met so far were quite insistent, always trying to convince you to take those type of things. But speaking from your personal experience, you didn’t like how they made you feel. And in general you’d rather avoid any type of medication.
Miguel didn’t insist, thankfully, and he simply nodded.
“Well...if you need anything, you can always ask me.”
“I think I’ll stick with herbal tea for now but thanks.”, you replied while smiling. And he gave you back your soft smile. You seemed in a great mood and he thought it was not the right time to ask anything about your history with medication. Plus, he was not on duty anymore. He could simply enjoy this moment with you, without thinking about anything related to his job.
The two of you were setting up the table and he had to remind himself to leave a good distance between you. Nevertheless he still looked at you from the corner of his eyes, watching every movement you made, from the very tip of your fingers to the way you balanced your weight on your feet. It’s been a month since your arrival and Miguel has felt something changing inside him ever since. He couldn’t quite put his finger on it but he has been waiting with so much enthusiasm for every chance to see you. Every moment you shared had become the highlights of his week. And you were more present in his thoughts than he wants to admit it. Your father had told him how much of a nice girl you were; saying things about how the two of you would get along so well. But Miguel had this feeling that your father may have underestimated just how good the two of you got along… Because he had the feeling that was he was feeling when you were together had nothing to do with friendship or what he was supposed to feel.
You have also noticed how closer the two of you seemed to be. It’s not a bad feeling but you would have never guessed the two of you would feel this comfortable in the presence of each other. Maybe Sarah was right. There was nothing wrong in asking for help… And Miguel has been a great help so far on so many levels. He didn’t just help with the house; you have the feeling that he helped you personally.
You’re taken out of your thoughts when you hear Miguel saying: “That color looks good on you.”
You looked down to where his eyes were. He was looking right at your sweater, an old one that you have found this morning in the back of your closet. You couldn’t remember exactly when was the last time you wore it or even when you bought it, probably during one of your phases in high school. It was bit loose on your shoulders and it hung loosely over your clavicles but the soft fabric felt like a blanket and the color really appealed to you when dressing up this morning. It was a soft lilac, almost the same shade as an aster.
“Oh thanks. It’s just an old thing, I guess…”
Miguel’s eyes have been nothing but locked on the way the fabric exposed your clavicles or the slope of your neck; especially with your hair tied up tonight. That color reminded him of a flower but he was not sure which one exactly. You reminded him of some flower. As embarrassing and corny as it may sound. He thought he was way past this at his age but it seemed like he was wrong. The mohair wool had caught his eyes ever since he came in the kitchen and he couldn’t stop wondering just how soft it acutally felt, how easily his fingers would slide through it…
He promised himself he would not look at you like that. He can’t do this. You trust him. Your father trusts him. He knew better than this and he didn't want to be that type of man who pried on younger, inexperienced and fragile women. He swallowed back the rest of his compliment, which turned into a lump in his throat and he looked away; just when your father called for you.
The three of you were sitting around the diner table, chatting lightly, joking from time to time. It’s been quite a long time since you shared a real meal with anyone. Since you began living alone, you were usually relying on take-outs and would eat in your bed in front of a show, enjoying the calm of your apartment after a long day at work. Your apartment… You had left a double of the keys to Sarah like most people would do so their plants would be watered and all these kinds of things. But there were no plants to water at your place, no animal to take care of… Sometimes this place didn’t feel like yours. But you had to move quickly after and that was the fest thing you had found. It was not objectively bad but...it was not your home.
The conversation had slowly shifted toward the topic of your school years when Miguel told your father about the restoration work that would begin soon. You still remembered vividly the walls of red bricks with the wine climbing on them, the windows decorated with the drawings of the students, the ugly yellows wallpaper… Maybe it was not a bad thing that this place was going to be renovated. It will be safer at least.
“It will be for the best.”, your father declared before taking a sip of his coffee. “Those buildings were already there when I was a student after all.”
“So they must be really old.”, Miguel joked and your father laughed heartily.
“Are you implying that I’m some type of dinosaurs or something?”, he asked with a grin and you couldn’t stop yourself from smiling too. It was nice to see him laughing around. Miguel’s presence only did good things to him.
“I would never.” You looked at Miguel’s expression and he had the exact same grin on his face. But when he was the one smiling, your eyes would linger a bit longer on his face, on the curve of his smile… He caught you looking at him and you were suddenly very invested in the appearance of your cup of tea. Your father didn’t notice anything and kept joking:
“Well, you’re not getting younger either, my friend.” He added with a knowing smile in your direction. “Poor Y/N, you’re stuck here with those two old men…”
“You’re not that old.” You protested weakly and you were not sure who you were trying to convince of that and if you were only speaking about your father. Your father sighed and his smile looked a bit more contrite.
“Well, I’m not getting younger for sure…” He looked at the cast on his leg with a look you've been catching more frequently on his face recently. He was in pain. Not physical pain. But he had to come in terms with his mortality, with the fact that he was growing older...exactly the same way than when your mother died. “I just think you would maybe enjoy more the company of people of your age.”
You were not sure of where this is coming, so you slowly took a sip from your cup, waiting for him to finish talking. Miguel was also waiting.
“Why wouldn’t you try to link up with some of your old friends? You know, most of them didn’t move away.”
Miguel suddenly looked more intrigued and interested by the conversation. It was true that so far, you haven’t mentioned any of your past acquaintances. You couldn’t be this antisocial truly. With a shrug of your shoulders, you replied as casually as you could:
“Well, they must all be busy.”
“I’m sure they would be glad to see you too.” His soft tone didn’t fool you. You know how stubborn he could be when he had an idea in mind. So you asked: “What did you do?” His satisfied smile proved you that your assumptions were right.
“I called one of your best friends and asked her to come visit over. And she gladly accepted.”
“Who did you call?” Miguel watched your exchange like one would watch a tennis game, his head swinging from left to right.
“Actually I called a few people.” Your father said with a bright smile and that was when it hits you. He genuinely thought he did something good. As much as you appreciated his effort, you couldn’t help but groan, slightly annoyed. What were you supposed to say to your old friends? Would you even be able to talk with them or link up the way you used to? Would they even recognize you?
***
The next day the living room was filled with laughter and the faint sound of chit-chat. Sitting on the edge of the couch, you quietly observed your friends from high school. The atmosphere in the room reminded you of the time you would all have slumber parties in high school. Except that it was only 4 in the afternoon and that you had traded your snacks and corny movies for homemade cookies and old album photos.
The three women facing you looked nothing like the pictures you were watching and at the same time they couldn’t be more themselves than they were now. On your right Jane was no longer wearing the thick glasses she used to have when she was younger, having them replaced by lenses but the movements of her fingers reminded you of how she would always adjust the frame of her spectacles back then. She had already apologized three times for being late but who would blame a business woman like her to have more important meeting in her day? Assya’s cooking skills were still unmatched and you thanked the Lord for her cookies, delicately wrapped into a pink paper. Her calloused hands from all her work were still looking rough but your eyes could’t miss the wedding band on her finger. A bright diamond on top of a silver ring. And there was Margareth, Mag as she’d rather have you calling her, whose athletic silhouette was now draped under a delicate green tailor suit. Even under the large jacket, she couldn’t hide the impressive bump of her stomach.
And there was you who was giving “I peaked in high school” energy compared to them. But none of them seemed to address this or even wanted to make you feel uncomfortable. They seemed to respect your silence and they ware graceful enough to not comment on your tired face or rub too hard their happiness on the said tired face. None of them mentioned your mother as they keep flipping the pages of the album. Assya even slided a new box of cookies toward you when you were finished with the first one. So...it was a bit better than what you were expected.
Jane pointed at one of the pictures and started telling a story about this day. Her memory was quite impressive to you. You barely remembered that day. The four of you were looking at the camera with a bright smile. You were all sitting in your bedroom, during one of these infamous slumber parties. The more you looked at the picture, the more you realized that your friends were not the one who changed. You did.
The four of you were still down the memory train when the front door opened. It can’t be your father. As soon as your friends came in, he disappeared into the patio, saying that he wanted to give you as much space as possible. It could only be Miguel. It was a nice surprise for him to be here this early. There was something comforting into knowing that he’ll be back after almost every day...
You turned toward the door, a bit too enthusiastically, and watched him making his way toward the living room. He was the one in charge of the dinner tonight and he was carrying a crate full of fresh vegetables. His forearms flexed slightly when he lifted the box and for some reason, you couldn’t take your eyes away from this sight.
“Doctor O’hara, I wasn’t expecting to see you there. Is this where you’ve been hiding all these weeks?” Assya asked with an amused smile while crossing her arms over her chest. She had told you she’s been working as a nurse at the clinic but it was only now that you realized what it meant. She knew Miguel. For some reason the small grin she gave him annoed you, wedding ring or not.
“I wasn’t expecting to see you there either. Do you guy know each other?” Miguel asked with a polite smile and all the women nodded in unison. His eyes stopped on the silhouette of Mag and he asked in a caring voice:
“How are you feeling today?”
She slowly patted her stomach and replied: “He’s been really quiet today. No nausea whatsoever.”
“Good. If you need anything, my office is always open.”
It was your first time seeing him interacting with his patients and colleagues, and again, you could’t believe that people like him actually existed. People who were so selfless, people who cared and who could genuinely talk to other beings. And for a second, you could picture him at the clinic, working, giving orders, taking care of his patients… Just how many parts of his life did you actually ignore?
Miguel was slightly amused by the sight of all four of you reuniting in the living room. Once again, it seemed that you have underestimated yourself and your social skills. Everything seemed fine. His eyes trailed over you, taking in your polished appearance. You tried to make yourself look a bit better for today and he actually realized that it was the first time he saw you wearing some make-up. It was just a bit of blush and lipstick but his eyes are drawn to the shape of your lips tinted in a deep carmine. The same color rushed to his cheeks and he looked away before saying in a firm voice:
“I’ll let you to your memories now, ladies.”
You watched him going to the kitchen, a bit disappointed. You were not sure of what just happened because it lasted only a millisecond but if you had listened to your body, you would have followed him into the next room. Instead you just sat there, quietly, while your friends started giggling. Assya was the first one to break the silence:
“I know I’m married but…”
“Please, don’t finish this sentence. I already know what you’re going to say.”, replied Jane with a growing smirk.
“Come on, you can’t blame me. He is fine.”
The two of them whispered in order to not be heard from him and you felt like you were back to your high school years when you would all tease each other about your crush. So, it looked like you haven’t been the only one noticing that he was attractive…
Mag gave you a knowing look from the other side of the couch and your eyes were drawn to the shape of her stomach. While Jane and Assya kept bickering around, you decided to shift the conversation away:
“So...when is it due?”
She must have sensed your uneasiness because she chuckled softly. You have always been awkward around children and maternity, so it was not a surprise. Again, her hand gently patted her stomach.
“In two months I think.”
“It’s a boy?”
She quietly nodded and as soon as this conversation begins, you found yourself unable to ask anymore questions. It’s not that you didn’t care but the topic of motherhood made you feel uncomfortable, even more so these last years… Hopefully she changed the conversation when sensing your discomfort.
“So...it seems that he comes here often?”
“Who?”
“Doctor O’hara.”
“Ah...yes, Miguel...well, he is here to help my father. They’re good friends and I think it’s good that they are hanging together.” It felt like you were trying to justify yourself or something. You cleared your throat and grabbed your coffee while Mag kept looking at you with a knowing smile.
“He is nice, isn’t he?”, she asked after a few seconds and you simply nodded slowly.
The rest of the afternoon went by pretty fast as the four of you got lost again in your memories. Assya was the first to leave because she had to pick up her kids at daycare and Jane and Mag followed quickly. Once they were gone, you let the silence of the house wrap around your and youfinally rested your face against the wooden panel of the door for a few seconds with your eyes closed. As much as it was nice seeing them again, you feltl drained of all your energy and you would probably need a few days to recharge your social battery.
The sounds of footsteps made you turn around and there was Miguel, looking at you from the end of the hallway, a soft smile on his lips.
“Are you alright?”
You leaned your back against the door for a few seconds as a migraine started hitting your head. He could sense that something was off and that you needed to rest despite your attempt at reassuring him. He slowly moved closer to you and only stopped when he was a few feet away. He didn’t exactly know what made him act this way but there was again this lingering need to take care of you in ways that would make him feel ashamed if he could admit it.
“I can leave you alone if you want…”
“No it’s okay.”
Your eyes trailed up and down his figure in the dim light of the corridor and your eyes locked on the apron he is wearing. The white fabric had turned yellow at some point and the blue flowers on it looked withered. On one of the pockets there was a small heart. You had embroidered yourself when you were younger, as a gift to your mother.
Miguel seemed to realize his mistake and he started to untie the apron. He didn’t mean to offense you by taking this memory of your mother out of the cabinets. He just took the first thing he had found to cover himself. He was about to apologize when your hands stopped his movements, holding his wrists firmly.
“Don’t take it off.”
Your voice was only a murmur but he clearly heard you. With a soft sigh, he intertwined his fingers with yours while your two bodies got a bit closer. The mere light from the window of the door looked like a halo around your hair and he has to catch his breath. The room suddenly fels like it had been completely deprived of air while he got lost in your eyes. What if he got closer? What if he held you in his arms, only for a few seconds? What if…
The questions rushed in his mind, pressing him to decide what to do. But he had the feeling that none of this is what you need at the moment, nor what he should do. The grip of his fingers on yours finally loosened and he stepped back.
“I’ll be in the living room if you need anything.” You watched him slowly walk away before leaning back against the door. Your body slowly slid down the panel and you end up sitting down the floor, a mix of boiling, raw emotions that you couldn't identify lingering inside your chest.
When you were finally back inside the living room, you noticed that Miguel had left a glass of water and some aspirin for you. You smiled at the sweet attention and immediately swallowed one pill. He also had cleaned up a bit the room and yet, all the album photos were still out. Your father was sitting down the couch, absorbed in the old pictures, so much that he hadn’t notice your presence at first. You didn’t need to look over his shoulders to know what, or rather who he was looking at. In fact you’d rather disappear from the room rather than bring the attention to this topic but he caught the sound of your footsteps as soon as you started moving
“Hey…” he gently called you out. When he turned around, you caught a glimpse of the picture he was looking and you were unfortunately right. It was a picture of you and your mom. It had been taken the first year you all went camping in family. “How was the afternoon with your friends?”
“Good. Thanks.”
He was smiling in a way that would break even a heart of stone. With a tired sigh, you dragged your body to the side of the couch and sat by his side.
Your mother was holding you in her arms on the picture. You zere both wearing matching green windbreakers, an idea from your father because he was wearing the same one on the other side of the picture. There was something so comforting about staying in her arms like that. She was not a frail woman with he square-shaped shoulders, her burly arms tanned after hours spent in the garden and she was always carrying around her a scent like the one of a fireplace. You were sure that it was how a mother’s hug was supposed to feel for a long time in your life, strong, maybe a bit rough in the beginning like a mama bear holding her cubs. It was the only kind of hugs that could chase away the monsters under your bed or in your heads once you grew up.
Your father’s fingers glided over the page and you felt a bit uncomfortable. You squirmed over your sit, not knowing what to do. Should you offer a few words of comfort? Hug him? It would be quite appropriate but you were not sure your hugs would feel as comforting as hers.
He sensed your discomfort and flips the page. A large smile slowly crept up his face and he started laughing. It was a picture of you at a dance recital, around age 8, dressed as a large daisy. You cringed at the picture. Your chubby cheeks were squished by the fabric of your corolla and you were all red and sweaty, because of course the taffetas of the dress was too hot for the month of May.
“Dad, can we please ignore that?”
“No way, you’re looking adorable. And your mother spent so many time on your costume.”
The sound of your banter had attracted Miguel and he smiled when he seed that you seemed to feel a bit better. When your dad called him in, you felt a cold sweat running down your back.
“Dad, no.”
But the catastrophe happened too fast for you to react. Miguel sat on the other side of the couch and as soon as he looked at the picture, a goofy smile curled up his lips.
“No wonder you enjoy gardening. It’s like your natural habitat after all.”, he teased you gently. Your father laughed loudly at what you would have considered a pretty lame joke if it wasn’t for the adorable smirk that he was wearing. On the next picture, you were dressed as one of the rats for the ballet Nutcracker and you thought that you might actually die of embarrassment right now.
Miguel was having a blast seeing all these pictures that your dad always commented on with a funny story. Not only did he get to see an other side of you but he also caught the blush that crept up your cheeks and that slightly annoyed pout you were doing. Ever since he met you, he had never seen you embarrassed or really flustered. This might be the most emotions you’ve shown in one time and he quickly diverted his attention from the picture to your profile. After seeing the pictures he could clearly see how well of a mix you are between your parents. You got the lanky silhouette from your father, his long and thin face with the sharp eyes and pronounced chin. And from your mother, those curly locks, your nose with the high arch and those cheekbones… The said cheekbones were turning more and more flushed, their shade according well with the one of your tinted lips.
"Stop looking", he taunted himself.
As the pages kept moving and your dad talking, you slowly relaxed and your arm was now resting on top of the head of the couch. Just like Miguel’s. You were still trying to act unbothered the first time his fingers brushed against yours, thinking it might be an accident. But when it happened again, you were not so sure anymore that it was a mistake. Your two hands were resting behind the couch and your fingers were brushing from time to time, especially when Miguel was laughing at one of your dad’s jokes. At some point his forefinger brushed against your wrist, right against the edge of your sleeve.
You quickly pulled your hand back to yourself. Not out of discomfort but because you felt confused. This was not an invitation from your part...but you wouldn’t have minded for this contact to last a bit longer either…
Miguel didnn’t dare thinking that he was disappointed. Touching an inch of your skin even for a few seconds was still worth every hour of hesitation and turmoil that would come after it. How could your skin be so soft? So tempting? All when he had seen of it so far was your hands and a bit of your neck?
Still unaware of what was happening behind his back, literally, your father turned to an other page. It was a picture of you on your last recital. You were around fifteen years old, dressed in a dainty pink tutu, glitters sprinkled all over your hair. You had spent hours cleaning them off with your mother afterwards...
“This was your last recital?”, Miguel asked but it was your father who replied.
“She had to stop after that. You know how it is? High school, college entrance exams…”
Miguel didn’t reply but he did furrow his brows and nodded with a serious look on his face. He would have liked to ask more questions about this part of your life that looked so surreal. How come this little girl with that bright smile and her face covered in glitters turned into the woman you were today? He could’t also help but wonder if you still remembered a few dance moves…
But your father had flipped the pages once again and now there was an other picture of you with a boy around your age. His skin was the same shade as yours and brown curls flowed down to his shoulders. The two of you were standing close to each other, at a respectable distance with a shy look on your face. Miguel knew too well this type of picture and when he looked back at you, he was expecting to see some reaction on your face. Maybe you would be a bit embarrassed, flustered or at least nostalgic? But to his surprise you had a blank expression on your face. He didn’t know if it’s good or not. Before he could ask anything else, your father said in an obnoxious voice:
“You were such a cute couple together, David and you. You remember that day, Y/N?”
“Mhh...not really.” You seemed pretty unaffected by the picture, which was not something that Miguel was expecting from someone who just saw such a memory.
“Oh come on...you really don’t remember? It was for your birthday. You remember that nice necklace he gave you?”
You nodded without saying anything. You knew it was useless to argue with your father over this topic. He had always loved David, almost like a son. The fact that his parents were from the same diaspora as your father only made them get closer and your father had always assumed that you would end up with David. He was a nice guy, sure. But there was a reason why you never kept seeing each other after high school and you remembered it while looking at the picture. There was no chemistry between you, even a blind could see that, whatever your dad liked to think.
Miguel’s eyes were still locked on your profile and the more you were looking at the picture, the more anxious he was getting. Why were still silent? How was he supposed to understand the way you were looking at this picture? Was this good? Bad? Did you miss that David guy? Why was he suddenly just realizing that you must have had former partners? And why did he make him want to take your hand back in his, to pull you closer to him?
Your father didn’t seem to realize that there was a slight tension because he kept digging his own grave:
“It’s been a long time since you saw each other. Did you even call him? You know, I think he would be really happy to talk to you…” and with what was supposed to be a playful nudge, he added: “And I heard that he is single.” Miguel quickly caught the pink hue on your cheeks and it made his stomach twist as if he was sick. Were you embarrassed? Or was there more to this reaction? God, he hadn’t realized until now how hard it was to read you and he wished he could ask you directly. But...he was not entitled to ask that of you. Who was he to think that?
“Dad, I’m not going to call him.”, you replied while organizing the albums on the coffee table. “We had a good time and now it’s over. What happened in the past belonged to the past.”
Miguel almost sighed out of relief but your father was quick to reply: “Maybe you should start thinking about the future...I mean, you’re almost thirty and I haven’t seen you with anyone in a few years now.”
That was a low blow.
Even if it had been said in a rather understanding voice, you couldn’t help but feel your blood boil. This was the last conversation you wanted to have with your father. Miguel felt like his presence was unwanted and he tried to make his way out of the living room as quietly as possible. He would be in the kitchen if you needed help but there was no need for him to make you feel like he was prying on this delicate moment.
***
It was not your first time having this argument with your father. In fact, you remembered the last time it happened. It was a few years ago when you decided to move with your last boyfriend. Most parents would have welcomed such a good news but your father wasn’t too happy about it. First of all, he never really liked this man. History would prove him right, but it was not for the good reasons that he disliked him.
“He is not what I imagined. He is..."
Not like us.
That cryptic sentence took all its sense when you introduced your boyfriend to your father. He didn’t fit in. Your father wanted someone who could speak his language, who could share his memories of the country they left…
“And you’re living with him without even getting married?”
“You know what the people will say!”
“I raised you better than this…”
Hearing him screaming was somehow less hurtful that his resigned voice. He could sound so disappointed sometimes that you almost wondered why you even kept trying.
But at least at the time, you had your mother by your side. She always knew how to calm him down. She was like this bridge between the two of you and somehow she was the only one who would manage to help you find a compromise.
At least when she was alive.
***
You couldn’t run to your mother after an argument anymore and you’d rather stay alone than talk with anyone else. At least, that’s what you used to think. Now that you were back in this house, you might as well go and see her.
The next day, you grabbed your windbreaker and headed out of the house before your father had waken up. You had spent the last evening, alone in your room. It’s been so long since the two of you fought; you had forgotten how bad it could hurt sometimes. The thought that Miguel could have heard your argument made you feel so embarrassed. What was he thinking now?
The air around you was crisp and you could feel the scent of the pines and the muddy ground this early in the morning. It was a perfect day for what you were about to do… The gates of the cemetery had barely opened when you walked inside. It was a few days before Halloween and a few people would come and clean the graves soon, change the flowers… Seeing all the decorated graves made you regret not bringing anything. And given your father’s state, no one probably brought anything to your mother’s grave.
She was right where you remembered her. The plaque with her name stood at the foot of a small hill. A vase with withered flowers, a decoration with a dove...exactly how you remembered it to be. You carefully sat in front of it and watched the black marble. A few remaining raindrops from the night slid down the material, on top of her name engraved on it.
“Beloved mother and wife.”
Finally, some peace and some silence.
You didn’t know how long exactly you stayed there, sometimes contemplating the grey sky, sometimes the delicate intricacy of the letters of her name. Next time you would bring some flowers you promised as much as her than to yourself. At some point while looking at the build-up of stormy clouds in the sky, you noticed a large silhouette, all too familiar, moving down the hill.
What was he doing here?
You tried to get up despite your numb legs and the silhouette seemed to walk faster in your direction, his long coat flowing behind him. It was only when the first raindrops fell down that he managed to join you.
Miguel didn’t even dare asking you anything, if you were feeling alright, who you came to visit… the answer to each question was obvious. Instead, he simply offered you shelter under his umbrella and a tissue for your wet eyes.
“Do you want to stay a bit longer here?”, he finally asked after a few seconds. You shook your head and the two of you made your way out of the graveyard. His arm was holding yours, guiding you gently toward the exit, his sturdy shoulder brushing against yours from time to time.
When you reached his car, Miguel opened the door for you and then sat in front of the stirring wheel. But he didn’t feel like taking you back home now. And neither did you.
The rain was hitting the roof of the car in a loud, discorded melody. You could barely see the world outside through that much rain. A slight fog had covered the windows with the warmth of the heater, and yet your shoulders don’t stop shivering.
Miguel’s comforting hand gently squeezed your shoulder as he tried to make you look this way, a vain attempt to anchor you in the moment.
“Hey…”
He was slowly getting a bit more worried that you’re not responding but he doesn’t dare insisting. His hand stopped at a few inches from your face before he slowly leaned back into his seat. The silence inside the car was only troubled by your heavy breaths as you tried to compose yourself. After a few minutes, he couldn’t hold it anymore and asked: “Do you want to talk about it?”
You were not sure if he was talking about the argument with your father or your visit to the cemetery but you still shook your head. He felt a bit relieved when he heard your voice, even if it was barely a whisper:
“I’m fine, Miguel.”
An other heavy silence filled up the space inside the car and quite surprisingly you were the one breaking it this time, again.
“Why were you here?”
His eyes seemed suddenly very focused on the stirring wheel and he absented-mindly started rubbing his pointer finger with his thumb while looking for his words.
“I needed to visit someone.”
===============================================
Notes: This was a pretty messy chapter, so I want to thank anyone who took the time to read this.
I'm currently working on the seventh chapter and just so you know, I'm very impatient to write it.
Taglist: @safixiovi @laysmt @reverieblondie
My Masterlist!
< part 5 / part 7 >
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tired-teacher-blog · 1 year
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Bonjour 💫, I hope this is not adding to a moutain of stuff you have to do but I do remember something that I thought was fun 🌺 And for once it's fluff lmao unless you wanna spice it lol which is fine 😂
Basically Y/n coming to her ( / their ) boyfriend and give them flowers. My favorite characters are too much lol and I don't want to overwhelm putting them all but just to show them ( Izuku, Katsuki, Shoto, Denki, Kirishima, Tamaki, Itoshi, Neito, Dabi, Tomura ) but let's just go for the colorful ones because it's a LOT 😂 ( Our boys are the same age as in the season 6 but now I'm thinking that people are not monir anymore and I too 😂 canon personnality because it's cool 💎 )
As awlays no pressure and take your time ( only if you want to write )
Bonsoir ma belle 😘 how about all of them? It was a challenge I'm not gonna lie 😂 I was mainly afraid of repeating myself so I kept going back to reread what I've written so something like that wouldn't happen. I kept their personalities as canon as possible (like I usually do) but I changed a tiny something here, which is their age. I know you requested their canon age but tbh I'm more comfortable making them older (with the exception of Dabi and Shiggy who are already 20+ years old) but you won't really notice the difference so I hope this is fine.
For you
Characters : Bakugo/ Shouto/ Izuku/ Shinsou/ Amajiki/ kaminari/ Kirishima/ Monoma/ Dabi/ Shigaraki/ Fem reader
Genre : Fluff/ Suggestive in a few parts/ imagines
Please do not read if you're a minor
Masterlist|Second Masterlist
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Bakugo :
_ "What's this?" he sounded a bit confused while eying the bouquet you held in your arms.
_ "This is for you, here." you pushed the beautifully selected blooms against his chest and offered him an equally beautiful smile.
_ "Yeah but, what's the occasion?" you were practically able to see the wheels turning in his head as he tried to remember what he could have missed.
Was it his birthday? Valentine's day? Your anniversary? No, it was none of them.
_ "There is this cute little flower shop on my way home, and it sells the most beautiful roses so I wanted to surprise you with this." you seemed incredibly bashful as your head hung low, wondering if he actually hated them, or if he would give you one of his usual snarky remarks.
Your self confidence dropped to the ground in an instant, and you seriously considered playing it off as a joke, however..
_ "You're really cute you know that?" did he really mean those words?
He held the bouquet in one hand and used the other to gently lift your chin up and place a soft peck on your flushed cheek, "I love them, thank you so much beautiful," he murmured faintly, lips gliding along your skin until they reached your smiling ones, "kiss," was his sole warning to you, before stealing your breath away with a deep passionate liplock.
Shouto :
_ "For me?" he blinked innocently, tilting his head to the side.
_ "Yeah! Do you like it?" you were practically jumping in excitement as you watched him hugging the bouquet to his chest.
_ "I do, of course I do, it's from you after all." he replied with a smile as he grabbed your hand and pulled you closer to him.
He did not demand further explanation, didn't need to, he was just happy to receive something as beautiful from you.
His mismatched irises gazed into yours for a moment, a gaze full of love and appreciation, one that you returned with the same sentiments they reflected.
All he wanted at that moment was to kiss you, to feel your warmth against himself, -and so he did- leaning in slowly to capture your anticipating lips.
It was soft, almost as soft as the delicate petals of those beautiful roses you brought for him, and you got lost in it at once.. lost in him.
_ "I'm so happy you liked them Shouto," you breathed out shakily before kissing him again, a gentle peck on the tip of his nose, bringing out that adorable chuckle you loved so much.
_ "I would love anything from you sweetheart."
Kirishima :
"Hi babe, how was your day tell me! I'll be home a bit later than expected today as well and I'll bring food with me so just relax until I'm there. I love you."
You reread his text and sighed in despair as you gazed at the beautiful roses you picked out for him. He's been working long hours lately and it's been affecting him greatly, but even in the midst of it all, he still made sure to call and text you throughout the day to make sure you're doing well.
You wanted to do something nice for him, to try and alleviate the stress he must be feeling lately which is why you purchased that beautiful bouquet as you wished to see that bright smile on his face while presenting it to him, "I have to see him now." you were determined, and couldn't possibly wait until he comes home, so you decided to surprise him instead.
You drove back to his agency, accompanied by a warm meal that you made in a jiffy, in addition to your special little gift..
You knocked on his door after asking his assistant not to notify him of your presence since you wanted to surprise him.
_ "Yeah come in." your heart dropped hearing how tired he sounded, but you kept your smile for him nonetheless.
_ "Is this a bad time Mr Kirishima?" your cheerful voice came as soon as you opened the door, and those were the only words you could utter before being engulfed in his arms.
It happened in a flash that all you could do was allow him to hold and kiss you all over your face.
_ "Alright alright let me breathe Eijiro!" you couldn't control your giggles as you pretended to suffocate in his strong hold.
_ "I'm sorry gorgeous, I'm just so happy to see you." and it wasn't until then that he took notice of what you were carrying.
_ "Oh yeah, I brought dinner and.. something else." you couldn't control your nerves as you handed him the bouquet, taking advantage of the food packs in your hand to change the subject, "oh, so guess what's for dinner!"
_ "This is for me? You brought this for me?" he was clearly not talking about food as his bright eyes admired the bouquet.
_ "Do you like them? You deserve so much more Eijiro." you kissed his cheek and watched as his smile grew wider.
_ "I'm the happiest man alive because you're mine."
Izuku :
You were excited the whole way home as you kept imagining his reaction to your little gift. He would be a blushing mess, -that part was already guaranteed- but what would he say?
_ Y/n.. you brought those, for.. for me?" you guessed right, he was in fact timid as he nervously held the bouquet in his arms.
_ "What do you think of it Izuku? Do you like it? I just wanted to do something nice for you." and at that moment, he wasn't the only one blushing, since the same soft pink shade that was dusting his cheeks duplicated itself onto your own as you spoke.
_ "What.. of course I love them! They're beautiful! I just can't believe you thought of me that much.." he looked adorable as he attempted to hide his face behind the bouquet.
You took a step closer and tried to move the roses -separating you from each other- away, so you could look at him clearly.
You were tempted to fluster him a bit more, as you placed a small peck on his quivering jaw, and another on his heated cheek, "I just wanted to see this cute look on your face Izuku." you murmured faintly, lips caressing his skin and ghosting over his own.
_ "That's mean. Still, I love your gift and I'm about to show you just how grateful I am." and with that, his cute bashful demeanor was instantly replaced with a primal desire that sent blissful goosebumps all over your body.
Hitoshi :
_ "Hitoshi! Are you home?" you called out for your boyfriend as soon as you stepped into your apartment, hoping he would show up and tell you that he's been waiting for you.
And he did, emerging from the bathroom all wet and steamy, wearing nothing but a towel that hung low around his waist. And for a moment you forgot how to speak as your eyes studied his flexing muscles.
_ "Welcome home babe! Oh, what's that you're holding?" he approached you casually, unaware of the indecent thoughts dancing in your head, but you somehow snapped back to your senses and replied quickly.
_ "These are for you, no particular reason I just wanted to get you something pretty." your eyes were locked on the delicate roses as you did not trust the blush threatening to creep up your face.
_ "Something pretty huh? Well I already have you," he spoke suggestively, placing an arm around your waist and pulling you flush against him, forcing the bouquet to squish between your bodies.
_ "Hitoshi, stop it." you meant to scold him for paying little attention to the roses you picked so carefully for him, but your words came out in a little whine that amused the man in front of you.
_ "I'm sorry, but you're so fun to tease," his chuckles were muffled against your forehead as he kissed you gently before moving back to gaze into your eyes, "I really love them sweetheart, you never cease to surprise me."
Shigaraki :
You tiptoed your way out of his room after leaving something unexpected on his bed, you didn't know how he would react to your gift, and didn't dare hand it to him personally so you left it in his room secretly when he wasn't looking.
_ "Y/n, what are you doing here? Were you looking for me?" his voice startled you but you faked nonchalance as you giggled nervously.
_ "Yeah I was.. but it's nothing! I'll see you later." you tried to flee the scene but he was a lot faster than you were, grasping your arm and pinning you in place.
_ "What's the matter y/n? Is everything okay?" he studied your face and awaited a response that never came, "alright come with me."
He dragged you along into his room and closed the door behind you two, and before he could turn around to face you, something strange caught his attention.
_ "Are those.. roses?" he was confused for a moment, brows knitted as he tried to comprehend, until finally everything started making sense in his head, "oh, so that's why you were acting weird huh?"
You gritted your teeth and braced yourself for a scolding or a mockery, but what came instead left you wide eyed and speechless.
_ "They smell really good, I like them." he declared with a smile, holding the colorful blooms in his arms.
You were still quiet, wondering if that wasn't just a figment of your imagination, until you felt his rough palm caressing your cheek, "thank you darling, they're beautiful."
Amajiki :
You giggled softly, leaning against the doorframe and watching him sleep peacefully.
It has been hectic for him lately, with more night shifts added to his already cramped schedule, leaving him with minimal time to relax and even lesser to be with you.
You missed each other too much that even the regular phone calls were no longer enough for either of you, but today was a rare day off for him, one that you decided to take full advantage of.
_ "Tamaki, can you hear me sweetheart?" you felt a little bad for interrupting his well needed shut eye, but you honestly wanted to see and talk to him.
He groaned against his pillow, still unaware of your presence, until you sat down by his side and caressed his bare shoulder.
_ "Tamaki, can you open your eyes for a moment baby?" you whispered your plea and leaned in to kiss his warm skin.
_ "Y/n, hi sweetie.." he slurred a reply while rubbing the sleep from his eyes and blinking repeatedly until you came into focus.
He looked so cute that you couldn't help kissing his pouty lips, "I'm sorry for waking you Tamaki but I promise this won't take long, I just want to give you something and I couldn't wait until later."
_ "What.. yes of course, what is it?" he sat up -still a bit confused- but something in your lap caught his attention, it was a gorgeous bouquet you specifically went out earlier to buy.
_ "This is for you, I hope you like it," you averted your gaze and bit down on your lip nervously, "you have been down lately because of work so I wanted to make you.. smile."
You felt his hand on yours, squeezing lightly, "you did this for me?" and it was barely above a whisper.
You nodded slowly, finally turning around to face him, and placed the beautiful blossoms on the nightstand next to him before standing back up and preparing to leave, "that was all, you can go back to sleep now and I'll wake you up when dinner is ready."
_ "Don't go!" he grabbed your arm and pulled you down again, "stay with me, and don't worry about food, we'll order something later."
You couldn't say 'no' to him, not when he was looking at you with those big hopeful eyes.
You slipped underneath the covers with him, burying your face in the crook of his neck and relaxing in his hold.
_ "Thank you they're beautiful, just like you."
Dabi :
_ "What part of me makes you think that I'm a flower boy?" he looked unimpressed, crossing his arms over his chest as he spoke.
You knew he would react in that exact same way when you decided to buy him roses on your way to see him, so why were you hurt by his words then?
_ "Yeah I know, sorry.. you can throw them away or burn them or whatever." you placed the bouquet on his couch and took a deep breath as you tried to ignore the sharp sting in your heart.
He was right though, roses? For him? The more you thought about it the dumber you felt, so honestly, you were the one to blame..
_ "I'm sorry Touya, let's forget about this," you feigned a smile as you approached him again, "so how was your day? Anything interesting?" you were on the verge of tears as you desperately tried to change the subject, but he saw right through you.
His eyes moved between your pained expression and the forgotten roses that he finally decided to pick up, "these aren't that bad I guess." in reality, he hated them, he hated how disgustingly bright and delicate they were, but what he hated the most was being the reason of your dejection, so if accepting them would bring back your smile, then so be it.
You were so easy to read, so simple to fool and for some reason, the twinkle illuminating your eyes, and the smile reappearing on your face after hearing his words, warmed his heart and relieved him.
So maybe you weren't the only fool there, maybe he was one too, a fool for you.
Monoma :
_ "Oh, these are for me?" he expressed smugly while that usual annoying smirk -that you loved so much- was plastered across his face, "well I guess I deserve them right?" and there it was, that obnoxious laugh again.
_ "Come on don't be a jerk, I knew this was a bad idea," you shook your head and crossed your arms over your chest as you started regretting what you've done, "everyone said I could do better, but I picked you instead." you tried as much as you could to keep a straight face and stifle your laughter.
_ "Of course you did gorgeous, I'm the best of them."
He's a conceited self-centered asshole, so bringing him a gift with no particular occasion would only boost his arrogance. You knew that, but you still wanted to do something nice for him because even a jerk like him still made you happy, he's the love of your life after all.
_ "Yeah yeah I get it." you still feigned annoyance, but deep down you were actually amused.
_ "I'm sorry sweetheart, come here," his chuckles resumed as he dragged you close, nuzzling your neck and breathing in your scent, "hmm.. sweet," his lips lingered there, right above your pulse, and his free arm pulled you even closer to his chest while the other one held the bouquet, "they're beautiful and I love them, thank you love." and that was a rare moment of humbleness that he only dares to show you because you're the one who owns his heart.
Denki :
_ "Yes! Die you bastard! If you think you've got a chance against Chargebolt then you're clearly dreaming!" his loud shouts reached the outside of your shared apartment where you stood, and you let out a knowing chuckle before opening the front door and walking in.
Your days off are usually lazy, warm and cozy, and it's a nice change of pace from your usual stressful lives as pro heroes, which is why you two prefer to spend that precious free time doing typical ordinary things.
_ "I'm back honey!" you called out for him as you placed your shopping bags at the entrance, except for one thing that you kept holding in your arms.
He clearly couldn't hear you due to all of the infernal shooting and explosions coming from the game he was focused on, so you called again and this time it worked.
_ "Oh! Y/n you're back sweetheart!" he seemed like a little puppy who's excited for his owner's return, throwing his game console away and running up to you, "did you have a good time with the girls? I missed you so much! You were gone for so long!" yes, a little puppy.
He was so happy to see you that he failed to notice the colourful roses you held in your arms, until you pushed the fragrant blooms to his chest with a smile, "I'm sorry for being late, here is an apology gift." it was merely an excuse so you would see that sparkle in his eyes.
_ "These are amazing!" he took them off your hands, peppering your cheeks, nose and forehead with sweet little kisses, "you're the best y/n," was what he whispered to you before finally connecting your lips.
@moumouton4
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ladylooch · 1 year
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I might have to request Nico fluff cause the last one you wrote was absolutely brilliant😭 and if you want to add some spice to it I'm down
The answer to any Nico fluff request will always be yes. Forever. He is so easy to write. And I really love this AU. So how about the fluffiest fluff there ever is in human existence 💍
This is part of the What My World Spins Around AU. Catch the other blurbs on my master list here.
Word Count: 2.4k
Warning: 18+ Content!, fluff, drinking, swearing because I like the F word... and smut LOL.
The final bubbles of my glass of champagne pop and sputter against my lips as I bring the flute to my mouth. I finish the drink off, glancing over my shoulder. I scan the inside of the restaurant, searching for Nico. He’s been in the bathroom for awhile. I hope he’s okay. Not seeing him in my immediate view, I turn back to the street just beyond our patio seating.
We are back in Switzerland for another off-season. The Devils year ended short of a Stanley Cup, but their captain is in much better spirits compared to last summer. The team grew so much this year; Nico did too. He became stronger in his leadership, more sure of the direction of the team and the future management has been promising him since he was drafted.
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It feels like their hard work has pushed them forward enough to ease the sting. Instead, he can barely wait for the puck to drop next season.
I watch as a couple of bikers stride through the street towards the setting sun. It’s hinting at beautiful colors tonight. I pull my phone up to attempt a picture, but it’s pointless. The colors are prettier than the phone can even show.
I reach for my flute again, disappointed when I remember I already drank the last of it.
“Sorry, babe.” Nico announces his presences as he moves to stand next to me.
“Are you okay?” I ask, placing my hand on his wrist. He looks flushed and like he’s a bit troubled.
“Yeah. Just got caught up in a conversation inside.” He assures me. I nod in understanding. It’s a common occurrence when we are here. “You up for a walk?” He extends his hand to move my hair behind my ear, then off my shoulder. My dark curls cascade down my back drawing his brown gaze as they cover the bare skin of my upper back. I look around for our waiter, not seeing him in immediate view. “I already paid.” He tells me. I pause, wrinkling my nose at his weird behavior.
“A little impatient tonight.” I chuckle, grabbing my purse and accepting his outstretched hand.
“You do see this sunset right? It’s amazing. If we can get beyond the buildings in the next few minutes, it will be even better.”
I trust the Swiss native at his word and allow for him to hustle me down the street. My wedges hate the cobblestone path, so Nico has to continuously steady me as we go. We break through the buildings into an open area that leads to the marina and glacial lake we live on the other side of. 
“Oh, wow.” I whisper. “You should have picked a house on this side of the lake.”
“They won’t build anything new over here. Ground is too unsteady in the winter.” His gaze is intense in front of us like he’s facing a fierce opponent, not staring at a gorgeous, summer sunset.
“Bummer.” I pout, following him down to the public pier that leads into the clear, blue water. 
As we walk, the colors begin to change from soft glows of yellow to bursting warm colors beginning with pink and ending with orange and reds.
“Wow.” I whisper to him, completely mesmerized.
Our fingers are linked loosely together as we walk, swinging between our bodies. The colors intensify more, causing the lake to toss diamonds across it’s glass surface. The hues dance along the Swiss Alps causing an idyllic glow in the valley. It’s breathtaking and indescribable. My eyes drink in the sight, barely noticing when Nico’s fingers drop from mine. I stand rooted to my spot, trying to remember each flick of light across the mountains.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen-” I turn, to face Nico completely. When I see him down on one knee, my words get stuck in my throat. “Ah.” Sputters out with what is left of them. 
“You are without a doubt the love of my life.” His voice shakes as he pulls in a breath. My hand clasps over my mouth as I close my eyes, whispering ohmygod over and over to myself. “I love you in ways I didn’t know were possible to love another person.”
“Yes.” I whisper to him, nodding my head and reaching for his shoulders. I drop to my knees, sliding my hands around his neck to stroke his cheeks with my thumbs. I tug his face to mine for a desperate kiss.
“I’m not done.” He laughs against my mouth. 
“Yes.” I insist again, pressing my lips more forcefully to his.
“I haven’t asked.” He reminds me, but his tongue comes out of his mouth to tangle with mine. I pull back to look at him. His face swims in my growing tears. One spills over my bottom lash so he catches it with his thumb. My lips wobble, trying to stuff the happy sob in my throat. I end up bitting into my tongue until I can taste blood in my mouth.
“I never want to know what it’s like to not have this. I want you with me for every moment, good and bad and average, for the rest of my life.” He smiles as more tears dash down my cheeks. I nod enthusiastically in wholehearted agreement. He reaches out for my face. I gasp as I lean into his touch. “Will you marry me?” It’s an excited whisper that has an effervescent grin pulling my cheeks tight.
“Yes!” I squeal, head tilting back and spilling electric laughter. “Yes! Yes! Yes!”
He pops the black ring box open and I practically faint.
“Oh… my GOD. Nico.” I am flabbergasted by the size of the diamond. It’s an oval cut in a platinum setting with several smaller diamonds that form a V down the sides of the band. It’s better than my wildest fantasies or any ring on my Pinterest board.
“You like it?”
“I love it.” I watch my hand tremble as he slides the ring onto my finger. 
“Whew, it fits.” He grins at me when he secures it in place.
“Oh.. how I love you.” I whimper to him, pressing our lips together again. The kiss is filled with sweetness. We share soft, open presses of our mouthes while his hands hold us firmly together.
Cheers break us apart. I look behind Nico and see his parents rushing towards us. Katja has her arms thrust into the air in excitement. Rino hold his hands up to his mouths to hoot at us. I smile, hiding my nose in Nico’s shoulder.
“I think we know those people.” I say, kissing the crook of his neck.
“They insisted on watching.” He chuckles, maneuvering us both to stand. I catch the glint of my ring as I brush a piece of my hair behind my ear. I can barely believe this is happening. Nico wraps his arms around my hips as we watch their final, joyful approach. His touch is grounding, but just in case this is a dream, nobody wake me up.
Nico keeps the celebration with his parents quick. We snap pictures, doing all the ring related poses and popping of champagne. Strangers embrace us with hugs and warm wishes of congratulations. I’m overwhelmed by the feelings of love and joy sweeping from every part of my body. Before I know what is happening, Nico is ushering me back to the car.
We crash into the house when we get home, beginning to strip each other’s clothes off. 
“All I want on you is your engagement ring.” Nico tells me, tugging my dress over my head. My matching red, peek a boo lingerie has him groaning.
“You sure about that?” I ask him, watching as his eyes drink me in. He steps forward, leaning his head down to suck my nipple into his mouth through the fabric. The barrier is too much. He shoves the cup down, gripping my breast tightly in his hand before sucking me deeper into his mouth. “Ahhh.” I whine to him, fingers threading into his long locks.
“Yeah I’m sure.” His nostrils flare when he pulls away. On the counter, the world demands our presence. Vibrating and flashing with text messages and phone calls, begging to hear about how the Swiss captain proposed.
They can wait. We can’t.
Nico reaches around to unclasp my bra, happy when it falls to our feet. 
“So fucking beautiful.” He hums, reaching for my other breast, tugging the pink nipple into his mouth. His teeth scrape lightly against it, making me wiggle impatiently in his arms. I reach for his hand, sliding it into my panties and beginning the motion I want from him. He grins, hooking my leg around his waist so he can run his thumb in tighter circles. My head knocks back to almost between my shoulder blades as I cry my appreciate to my future husband.
When my head snaps back, I turn into a vixen.
“You got on your knees; it’s only fair I repeat the favor.” I drawl. His glinting brown eyes watch my descent to the floor. He tugs his bottom lip into his mouth watching as I pull his thick shaft from his pants. His palms come to gather my hair at the back of my head. He tugs the hairs tight, holding my head back as his erection bounces against my tongue. He leers down at me as I stroke from base to tip. My wet mouth encloses around his head completely, sucking in steady pulses around the sensitive skin. Nico’s knees almost buckle.
“Look at how pretty my fiancé looks with me in her mouth.” He moans as I suck him deeper. 
“Ring looks good too.” I point out, showing him the glittering of the diamond against his taut skin.
“Mmm, almost as good as you.” He groans as I swirl my tongue along his seeping head. I take him as deep as I can, letting him set his hands on my head to fuck my mouth. His thrusts deepen and I resist the urge to gag around his hefty length. He sighs heavily as he falls from my mouth. “I can’t.” He confesses. “Not going to last long enough to get inside of you.” He reaches for my hands to pull me up. “Where?” He asks.
“Right here.” 
“Nah.” His head shake is assertive. “You deserve better than the floor.” He kisses my lips, swirling his tongue in my mouth to taste the last bit of himself there. His hands press into my hips, steering me towards the living room. We get to the couch wrapping our arms around each other, falling on it together. Our tongues meld as one, enjoying the company of one another’s mouthes. 
Nico reaches between us, gripping his cock to put himself between my folds. His fingers play with me, massaging me until I’m whimpering beneath him again.
“Nico.” I’m exasperated, too empty to keep playing this game with him. “Please.”
“Beg a little more.” He asks me watching my face as my eyebrows pull together in need.
“I can’t… please, I can’t wait anymore.” I don’t even need to play it up. I’m that desperate for him. He likes the sound of my pleading. One more stroke down my heat and he smoothly pushes himself inside of me. 
“Oh.” We both moan at the same time.
“So good.” He whispers into my mouth. He kisses me sloppily as his thrusts push me up the couch. The crown of my head hits the arm of it quickly. I wince slightly and Nico adjusts the pillow to protect my head. “Better?” He asks me, watching my face intently. I nod eagerly. With my head safe, he begins to increase the tempo. His hips snap and roll, then his staccato thrusts increase as he widens my knees.
“Fuck, baby you are gorgeous. So.. god damn perfect.” His long locks dance in front of his face as he looks down at us connecting. His gaze returns to mine when I scratch my nails down his arms. “Keep looking at me like that.” He murmurs, hand coming down to stroke my face. “Don’t look away.” I bite my lip, causing Nico to groan again. “So sexy.” My eyes close and he squeezes my cheeks as a reminder. “Me baby, eyes on me. I want you to see who makes you feel this good.” My fingers move from his arms to his ass cheeks, forcing my nails in to make him increase the tempo. “Tell me.”
“I want more, Neeks. Please. Just a little.”
He tilts my hips up, adjusting me so he can go deeper. I lurch off the couch, arching my back as he strokes my inner walls just right. My hand comes down, touching my clit in soft circles. Nico brings a hand to my breast, massaging it beneath his fingers. 
“Baby.” It’s a breathless whisper that falls from my swollen lips greedily. I grit my teeth, eyes closing. Nico leans down to my ear, hot gulps of air enclosing the space between us.
“I’m so addicted to you, sweet girl.” He murmurs, thrusting faster into me. “The rest of my life still won’t be enough of you.” My fingers grip the back of his neck. Then, my nail beds turn white against Nico’s skin as I come, taking him right with me.
I’m shaking when Nico jerks a final time inside me. His strong arms hold most of his weight over me, but our chests stick to each other. I feel his nose on my shoulder. He glides his way to the dip of my neck then kisses his way up my cheek to my lips. Our breathing collides between our faces in ragged exhales.
The way he looks at me has tears building in my eyes.
“Do I really get that look forever?” I whisper to him, fingers ghosting along his face to brush his hair back from his eyes. He doesn’t speak just nods.
There are some things words can’t describe.
The feeling of laying in Nico’s arms, newly engaged and freshly loved, is definitely one of those things. 
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Text
Call of Duty MWII Headcanons - Soap taking you home to his mom's for the first time
Warnings: Mainly fluff but some spice is to be expected (only a pinch) and some angst too cause I'm terrible person
Note : Sorry this is so fucking long, it's more of an imagine than just headcanons at this point but hey!
John told you about how he enrolled in the military at a young age and left his home to live alone shortly after. This resulted in him never really taking the time to move on from his home with his mom to make a home for himself in his new place, especially considering the very few moments he had on leave from his work.
So when he has to take you with him to his mom’s to introduce you, he is very nervous.
“You look stressed out, are you okay?” “Aye, it’s just… I’ve not updated my room since I left my mom’s house, you know…” “Is that so bad?” “I still have the things I had when I was a kid, she didn’t want to change anything to it, and I never got around to it, really…” “I’ll get to see the man you were in your late teenage years, I’m curious,” you laugh slightly at the prospect. “I still have my single size bed in there...” he says, already feeling embarrassed. “We don’t need much room anyways,” you chuckle, eyeing him with a sly smile. He smiles at what you’re hinting.
Your heart flutters when you enter his room for the first time. It’s painted in a light cerulean color that you can barely see as the walls are littered with football and rock bands posters, medals hanging from hooks and flags of various nature, including a Scottish one. His single bed is there as promised, you go and take a sit there, surprised with the creaking ensued as you do so.
Right after you’ve spotted it, John quickly rips a poster of a girl in a very tiny swimsuit from his wall. “Yeah, that’s not…” he tries to say as he crumples the paper up into a tight ball, throwing it in the closet and closing it swiftly. You laugh silently from your seat as he stands in the middle of the bedroom, hands on his hips, not sure what to say.
“So what about this one?” you ask with a chuckle, your index finger pointing to the ceiling, where another poster is taped in between other sports club images. His facial expression crumbles, his eyes widening as he bolts to the bed, climbing on it and ripping the offending poster off like the other.
You can’t stop laughing as he tries to tidy things up a bit. He assures you he’s tried many times to get rid of some of the stuff but either kept getting set back by his mom or by him having to go back to base.
Once you’re back to the living area, John comes to talk to his mom, rubbing the back of his head. “Maw, I need to arrange things for us to sleep?” He could take the couch while you sleep in his room but, what’s the fun in that. He feels so stupid deciding to take you here so quickly, not even taking the time preparing to welcome you properly. “We can put the air bed, Johnny, it’s fine,” she dismisses him lightly and he looks back at you with a disappointed expression, embarrassed to have to have you sleep in a single bed, alone.
The same night, you watch him try to get some sleep on the small air bed placed on the ground beside his bed. The situation is very amusing to you and you smile to him, your arms crossed under your chin. “It’s like a little slumber party,” he looks at you, annoyed with himself. “Wanna come in my bed? There’s some room left,” he smiles smugly and joins you, spooning you and kissing you. You have several blankets on because it’s very cold tonight and you sink into his warmth with a sigh.
All this cozying up against each other makes you both incredibly horny. You end up trying to have sex very silently and you can’t help but laugh as the bed just keeps squeaking and making noise. John ends up having a fit of laughter, his head resting on your chest as he still tries to support himself with his arms.
You try to shush him so you don’t wake his mom up in the room across the hallway but you can barely keep yourself for laughing loudly. You end up having to make love in a spooning position, very slowly. He puts his hand over your mouth when you’re about to cum and he feels you tighten around him. You scream out your orgasm and your voice gets muffle by his hand.
He pulls you so tight to him since the bed is so small but it’s probably the soundest sleep you’ve had in a long time.
In the morning, he tried to stretch a little and ends up falling down from the bed. You laugh at him as he groans from his place sprawled out on the floor. But you lean out of the bed to plant a kiss on his forehead that makes it all better.
After you’ve settled down a bit from your journey, John decides it’s probably time to clear some of his old room. You ask him if he’s sure he wants to do this since you don’t want him to be pressured to do anything just because you’re here.
You start sorting things out in his room, putting away things he doesn’t want anymore, small objects and trinkets he accumulated over the years. You help him a lot and you’re just curious to learn more about him and his life before your relationship. It’s a nice bonding activity for the both of you.
While rummaging through his closet, you gasp in surprise as you find an old rabbit plushy. It’s a bit worn down but you can tell it’s white and wears a black suit and a monocle. You show it to him excitedly. He starts blushing immediately, shaking his head “Christ, why did she keep that?” “Does it have a name?” you ask, petting the light fur. He pretends to dismiss your question, looking away but you insist. He starts mumbling under his breath. “Mister Nickels.” He groans the name out and you can’t help laughing. That man is just so cute. You insist that he keeps Mister Nickles and he pretends to casually give in to your pleas when you can secretly see in his eyes that he’s so attached to the plushy.
One night, when you’re both asleep in his bed, John starts to twitch in his sleep, trembling and whining, waking you up. You rub your eyes slowly and try to get him to calm down. You know he’s having a nightmare and your heart sinks with worry. “Johnny,” you call softly, trying to wake him up. He ends up waking up with a scream and a jolt, sweating and panting. You take his face between your hands and force him to look at you. “You’re safe, Johnny, you’re safe!” he doesn’t hear you at first but you repeat the same words over and over until he calms down, wrapping his arms around your waist and pressing his face to your belly. He hugs you so tight, you can barely move. You smile softly as you run delicate fingers through his hair, trying to soothe him.
The door of the room opens slowly and you look over at his mom. “Lass?” she calls for you as she steps into the room, looking at him. “He had a nightmare, it’s alright,” you say with a smile. She approaches hesitantly and caresses his back. “Braw wee Johnny,” she looks at you lovingly, smiling and leans in to plant a kiss on the top of your head. “He’s in good hands, now,” she whispers before walking out silently, leaving your heart melting inside your chest.
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souryoong · 1 year
Text
try new things (pt. 2) | knj ft. myg (18+)
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pairing: boyfriend!namjoon x reader x yoongi
genre: smut!! (18+ readers only), threesome
word count: 3,942
summary: you and your boyfriend namjoon have a threesome with his best friend to "try new things." this time things are kicked up a notch. read part one here.
authors note: please do not read this if you are uncomfortable/do not enjoy any of these things that im about to list that happens in this story. these are some new sexual themes I have yet to include on my blog. you can kindly not read this, and read some of my other works instead. no hard feelings!
warnings: smut!, pwp, making out, tongue kissing, cunnilingus, fingering, alcohol consumption, blowjobs (both m. receiving), unprotected sex, spitting, squirting, nipple play, maybe slight overstimulation, clit stim, g spot stim, praise kink, mentions of anal sex, some minor ass play, anal sex, yoongi is heavy on the lube, double penetration, creampies (god i hate that word lol).
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A few weeks had gone by since your night with Namjoon and his best friend, and on and off you couldn’t stop thinking about it.
You were sitting on the bed with your laptop while Namjoon was in the shower. Within 15 or so minutes he came into the room in only his underwear, drying his long dark hair off with a crisp white towel.
You closed your laptop and looked up at him, he smirked at you when your eyes met, making your heart flutter. God, he looked so good, he’d been working out a lot more and it’s been paying off.
You put your laptop aside and leaned back, watching as he got dressed in his grey sweatpants and hoodie. He grabbed his book and laid down on the bed next to you.
“Joon.” You used his favorite nickname to get his attention, turning to face him.
“Hmm.” He hummed at you, still reading.
“I umm…” your voice trailed off. “Was wondering if you’ve talked to Yoongi.”
Namjoon looked up from his book, sitting up slightly.
“Yeah, he came to my studio to help me with a song.” Namjoon answered. “Why, what’s up?”
“I was wondering if you guys wanted to have another night together again.”
That made Namjoon close his book shut almost too fast.
“I mean, I can mention it to him.” He smoothed a hand over his hair.
“But like I said before.” You spoke. “I’d want it to be different. Maybe we can do it at his place so it’s more convenient for him.”
Namjoon nodded.
“And maybe this time I’ll take the both of you at the same time.”
_____________________________________________
You and Namjoon stood outside the door to Yoongi’s apartment, Namjoon about to knock on the door.
“Are you positive you want to do this?” Namjoon asked you, looking at you almost worried.
“Yes. You asked me that last time.” You huffed at him. “Now knock. He can probably hear us.”
Namjoon knocked on the door, and in a few seconds almost, Yoongi opened the door.
Yoongi smiled and greeted the both of you.
“Hey, Yoongi Hyung.” Namjoon spoke affectionately as you both stepped past the threshold into the apartment.
“I hope you don’t mind how I’m dressed.” Yoongi referenced to his designer sweatpants and hoodie. “I was at the studio for a while today.”
He had a glass of whisky sitting on the kitchen island, and two other empty ones.
“Would you like a glass?” He asked, taking a sip of his without any change in his expression.
“Sure, just a little bit.” You answered, Namjoon taking some as well.
Yoongi poured you a small glass, a little more for Namjoon.
You took a sip, the light brown colored alcohol was strong, but pleasant. It had a warm spice to it.
“So, if we’re ready.” Yoongi spoke up. “Where do you want to go? Living room? Bedroom? I put fresh sheets on my bed this morning.”
Namjoon looked at you, letting you decide.
“The bedroom.” You looked at Namjoon and back at Yoongi.
Yoongi smirked. “Then follow me.”
Yoongi led you to a rather large bedroom, very spacious with a tall ceiling, huge bed, and a large tv mounted on the wall. The room smelled like cinnamon and lavender.
“Make yourself comfortable, relax.” Yoongi calmly spoke, adjusting the lights.
You went and sat on his bed, his dark comforter nice and plush underneath you.
Namjoon was on the bed soon as well, turning your chin to face him to kiss you. You moaned against his mouth, tangling one of your hands in his hair that you loved so much.
Namjoon moved his hand to your throat, making you moan again, and he started to tongue kiss you. Completely distracted, you suddenly felt another set of hands on you, realizing Yoongi was taking your pants off.
“Baby, you’re soaking through your panties.” Yoongi threw your jeans to the side.
Namjoon smirked and started to kiss your neck. “So wet for us already, huh?”
You bit down on your lip because well, he was right. You fantasized about being fucked by both of them at the same time since the last time you all got together. And now it was finally happening.
Namjoon moved, taking his shirt off. Yoongi did the same as well, even taking off his sweatpants, leaving him in nothing but his underwear.
“Come here.” You climbed off the bed and got on your knees on the floor in front of both of them.
You grabbed Namjoon’s hardening length through his sweatpants, making him groan.
“Take these off, baby.” You spoke to him, tugging on the waistband to expose his underwear.
You turned towards Yoongi, noticing that he was already looking at you, stroking a hand over his hard length. You reached over, smirking at him, and pulled his underwear down in the front by the waistband.
You almost winced at the sight of his thick length, already dripping precum from the tip. You felt your mouth already filling with saliva.
Leaning towards him, you opened your mouth with your tongue out, letting him slide himself into your mouth.
Yoongi sucked in air through his teeth, moaning. “Oh fuck, your mouth. Fuck.”
Namjoon came closer to you, and pulled down his underwear as well, giving himself a few strokes over his length with his hand.
Yoongi moved your hair out of your face, then thrusted into your mouth, hitting the back of your throat, making your eyes water.
You pulled away from him, breathing heavy. “Fuck.”
Turning towards Namjoon, you took him into your mouth with no hesitation. He moved your hair out of your face, letting out a throaty moan that made your core ache.
You let him slide out of your mouth, spitting on the tip of his length, using your hand to pump his length. He swore when you moved your thumb over his sensitive tip, and you hummed to yourself.
Suddenly Namjoon grabbed your jaw, leaning down to tongue kiss you. “Fuck, you’re so pretty like this.”
You grabbed onto his wrist. “Fuck me.” Your voice sounded a bit whinier than you wanted it to.
“You want us to?” Namjoon kissed you again.
“Yes, please.” You looked at Yoongi, then back at Namjoon, both looking like they were about to devour you.
Namjoon smirked at you still on your knees in front of him, touching your bottom lip with his thumb. “Get on the bed.”
Smirking back at him, you got up, taking off your shirt, leaving you in nothing but your panties. You turned around to sit on the bed, both Yoongi and Namjoon coming closer to you. Namjoon motioned for you to lay on your back, grabbing onto the hem of your underwear.
He yanked them off with the assistance of you lifting your hips.
“Fuck, Hyung.” Namjoon swore to himself, making Yoongi hum in response. “She’s soaked.”
Namjoon bent your knees and opened your legs, the cold air making you whine. Yoongi was hovering over your body, eyes traveling directly to your cunt.
“Touch me, please.”
Yoongi smirked, you watched one of his hands move towards your core, and nearly cried out when you finally felt two of his fingers against your clit.
You propped yourself up on your shoulders so you could still try and see what was going on.
Yoongi’s fingers disappeared inside of you, then he pulled them out, giving attention to your over sensitive clit again.
“Fuck.” You whined, leaning your head back.
“Joon told me you wanted to take us both at the same time.” Yoongi spoke quite nonchalantly as his fingers were inside of you again.
“Uh huh.” You frantically tried to nod instead of speaking as his two fingers brushed against your g spot inside of you.
“You said you wanted me to fuck your ass?” Yoongi asked you, smirking right as you felt Namjoon kissing your inner thighs dangerously close to your core, making you whine.
“I need words for that kind of question, sweetheart. Speak.” As he finished the sentence, Yoongi simultaneously inserted a third finger inside of you.
“Yes!” You practically cried out. “Please.”
Yoongi smirked. “Good girl. You’ve done it before?”
You looked up at him, a blush forming on your cheeks.
“Fuck, okay.  I knew you were a freak.”
Yoongi removed his fingers from you and leaned down to kiss you. Right as his lips were on yours, you felt Namjoon’s warm mouth engulf your clit.
You moaned into Yoongi’s mouth, giving him the opportunity to slip his tongue into your mouth. Namjoon quickly began sucking and licking at your clit, while pumping two fingers in and out of you.
“Fuck!” You pulled away from Yoongi, breathing hard and feeling like you were about to cum.
Namjoon was holding one of your legs so you wouldn’t move very much. Your stomach tightened as Namjoon quickly figured out a rhythm to each of his movements.
Yoongi began kissing down your neck and chest, using one of his thumbs to tease one of your nipples before taking it into his mouth, sucking and lightly nibbling on your skin.
Namjoon lifted his head away from your now throbbing cunt. He traced his fingertips over your opening. “Want to cum for me?”
You leaned your head back for a moment, moaning. “Fuck, Joon. I’m so close, please. Please.”
“Make her cum, Joon.” Yoongi spoke, voice slightly muffled against your skin.
Namjoon smirked to himself and how you were falling apart, and begging. He pushed 3 fingers inside of you, curling upwards right on your sweet spot, making you gasp.
“Fuck, Namjoon!” You moaned rather loud. “Right there, right fucking there.”
Yoongi moved his hand towards your clit, rubbing back and forth with two fingers as Namjoon pumped 3 of his fingers in and out of you.
The pleasure was making your body shake, and hard to hold yourself up. You were a whining, moaning mess.
“Mhm.” Namjoon groaned. “Fall apart for us. Just like that.”
“Fuck.” Yoongi spoke. “Hear how wet you are?”
He was right, you could literally hear it.
If that was a question, you couldn’t answer it properly. Your body was nearly trembling, and your mind was foggy as your orgasm hit you. You gave up in holding yourself up, collapsing on the bed.
Namjoon kissed your inner thighs as you gathered yourself for a moment.
“Fuck.” You panted; eyes screwed shut.
You felt someone brush your hair away from your face.
“Please, fuck me.” You finally opened your eyes, looking at both men hovering over you.
“Greedy even though you’re getting two cocks?” Namjoon spoke, making Yoongi let out a chuckle.
You nodded, biting your lip. You took a deep breath in when you felt Namjoon’s cock head against your opening.
Your hands were behind either one of your knees, holding your legs apart for him. Namjoon forced you to let go, and his hands replaced yours, his grip stronger as he pushed your knees up more and your legs further apart.
“Fuck, I love your cunt.” Namjoon swore, looking down. “Pretty. And always so wet for me.”
“Spit on it.” Yoongi spoke suddenly.
You looked at him, then looked back at Namjoon.
Watching him spit directly on your cunt was probably one of the hottest things that you had ever witnessed.
“Fuck.” You whined, moving your hand to rub your clit.
Namjoon pushed his cock inside of you suddenly, letting out a moan at the feeling.
“Yes, yes, yes.” You whined, grabbing at the sheets on the bed as Namjoon was now plunged up to the hilt inside of you.
He seemed to be fucking you slow and deep, making you feel every inch of him. You were a whining, moaning mess. Namjoon eventually picked up his pace, looking down and watching the way his cock moved in and out of you.
“Joon.” You kept repeating his name as if that was the only thing you knew how to say.
Namjoon bit down on his lip. “Tell me how good I fuck you, I wanna hear it.”
“So. Fucking. Good.” You spoke, your words punctuated by his thrusts.
“Mhm.” Namjoon grunted. “Good girl.”
You bit down on your lip at his words, closing your eyes. Suddenly when you weren’t looking, you felt fingers against your clit, making you gasp. It was Yoongi, who was hovering over you, making you slightly try and sit up.
“So sensitive, think we can make you squirt like last time?” Yoongi asked you while Namjoon was still fucking you.
Namjoon suddenly hit particularly deep, making your mouth fall open, but you nodded anyways.
“Joon was right.” Yoongi smirked. “You are a good girl.”
Namjoon started fucking into you hard, while Yoongi’s fingers didn’t ease up on your clit.
“Fuck.” You swore, biting your lip. “Don’t stop.” Your words came out almost as a sob.
“Not going to.” Namjoon breathed out, gripping your legs so hard you thought he was bruising you.
Your legs were shaking, and your hands gripped the bed sheets hard. You looked at both men that were standing over you; both sweaty, and so determined to make you cum.
You drew in a shaky breath, feeling your orgasm close.
“Fuck, you’re clenching me.” Namjoon moaned, letting go of one of your legs to push his hair away from his sweaty forehead.
 You whined something so incoherent; you didn’t even think it was words.
“Let it go.” Yoongi’s face was so close to yours that you could smell the whisky on his breathe, the intoxicating smell making you dizzy.
Yoongi abruptly started to rub your clit faster, making you cry out so loud that you forgot that he had neighbors that might hear all of this. Your orgasm crashed into you, making your stomach tighten as your arousal gushed out of you; some of it getting on Namjoon’s lower stomach, and Yoongi’s bed sheets.
“So fucking hot.” Yoongi swore, before kissing you.
Namjoon pulled out of you, making you whine from the slight overstimulation.
Yoongi leaned close to you, grabbing your jaw for you to look at him. “Ready to take my cock?” His voice was low, making you bite your lip before he kissed you.
“Yes, please.” You spoke, before he kissed you again. Yoongi moaned against your mouth, giving you chills.
“Turn around for me, show me how good you can take it.”
Yoongi smirked as you turned over onto your hands and knees and then he was behind you. You almost jumped when you felt one of his hands on your thigh, and then brushed against your clit. You let out a sob of a moan, making Yoongi chuckle lightly.
“Don’t fucking tease me.” You swore at him, almost angry.
“I won’t.” You heard Yoongi step away from you and open a drawer to grab something. You could only assume that it had to be lube.
He came back, and you felt him align the tip of his cock with your entrance, putting one of his hands along the small of your back.
Yoongi pushed himself inside of you, bottoming out inside your cunt in one thrust, making you let out a rather loud moan.
“Fuck. Your pussy is so good.” Yoongi spoke, forming a rhythm that had your mind already gone.
You arched your back even more than it already was, desperate to feel every inch of him.
“Fuck. Don’t stop.” You gripped the sheets into a fist with one of your hands.
He started to fuck into you harder, and you gave up any attempt to hold yourself up with your hands; your upper body collapsing onto the bed.
Yoongi’s thrusts faltered for a moment. “Hold on.” He muttered, stopping completely to grab that bottle of lube that was now somewhere on the bed.
“Yoongi…” You whined his name, rutting yourself into him in attempts to fuck yourself on his cock.
“Hey, hey, hey.” Yoongi put one hand onto you towards your waist.
You heard him open the lid, and without even seeing him, you knew what he was about to do.
With no warning, you suddenly felt it dripping onto your ass, startling you. It was somewhat cold, but you got accustomed to it quickly.
“Sorry if it’s kind of cold.” Yoongi apologized, squeezing more from the bottle.
He was catching any stray drips with his fingers, spreading it around. Everything felt very messy. You were going to probably need a shower after this.
“How much lube do you like?” Yoongi’s fingers dipped between your folds. “I’ll use as much as you want. I don’t care if it’s the whole bottle.”
“A lot.” Your breath hitched when you felt the pad of his thumb against the rim of your ass.
You harshly sucked in a breath, not going unnoticed by Yoongi.
“Relax for me.” He spoke, and you felt him add more lube.
You were relaxed. You’ve done this before; you were just unbelievably horny.
You breathed in and out, everything feeling like it was moving in slow motion. You almost forgot that his cock was still inside of you.
You let out a high-pitched moan when he finally pushed his thumb inside of you, along with the combination of him thrusting his cock once more.
“Oh my god.” Yoongi muttered through his teeth, now pushing his thumb all of the way in and trying to fuck into you harder.
“Fuck.” You whined, now feeling like you could cum at almost any moment.
Namjoon brushed your hair away from your face. “Doing so good.” His praise turned you on even more. “But you can’t cum until we’re both inside of you.”
Fuck. That was going to be hard.
You sucked in an unsteady breath as Yoongi pulled out of you, and you took that opportunity to gather yourself.
You turned your head to look at him, breathing heavy.
“Fuck.” You whined; hearing Yoongi put more lube onto his length.
You put your knees further apart, trying to get more comfortable, leaning down onto your forearms more.
You moaned when you felt the head of his cock against the rim of your ass. “Yoongi.”
Yoongi was gripping the base of his cock, ever so slightly teasing you. “I won’t go in all of the way, whatever’s comfortable for you.”
You hummed in response, breathing in and out.
You felt Yoongi finally push himself into you, the stretch of his thick length feeling divine; making you let out a rather loud moan.
“Fuck, you feel so fucking good.” Yoongi moaned, leaning his head back.
“Yoongi, fuck me.” You whined, gripping his bed sheets into a fist with one of your hands.
Even though Namjoon said you couldn’t cum yet, it was going to be difficult.
Yoongi was fucking into you slow, making you feel every inch of his cock; even though he wasn’t even going in all of the way.
You reached one of your hands in between your legs, starting to rub your clit in slow circles. You closed your eyes, moaning; the combination of the stimulation and Yoongi fucking into you feeling insane.
“Hey, hey, hey.” Yoongi grunted. “Don’t forget, you can’t cum yet.”
You whined in protest, even though he was right. That’s what Namjoon said.
“I need both of you.” You managed to speak. “Fuck, I need —”
“Yeah?” Yoongi asked you, his breathing erratic.
You nodded and tried to look at him. “Please.” Your voice came out needier than ever, making Yoongi and Namjoon smirk.
Yoongi pulled out of you, making you let out a small sigh. You sat up on your knees on Yoongi’s bed, facing Namjoon. He brushed your hair away from your face and kissed you deeply; his hand reaching for your jaw. You moaned into his mouth, grabbing onto his wrist.
You pulled away, your faces still close to one another. Namjoon couldn’t stop looking at you as he licked his bottom lip.
“Joon, you can lie down.” You spoke softly to him. “I’m ready.”
He nodded and let out a sigh. “Okay.”
Namjoon laid down on the bed, and you climbed onto him soon after he got comfortable, hovering over his hard length.
Namjoon sat himself up with one of his arms, gripping the base of his cock to align himself with your entrance.
“Sit on my cock, baby.” He encouraged you.
You hummed at his words, putting both of your palms onto his chest and stomach to steady yourself as you sunk down onto him; letting out a rather loud moan as your cunt was still so sensitive.
Tilting your hips forward, you let out a small whine when you felt his cockhead brush against your g spot. Namjoon adjusted himself so that his feet were flat against the bed on either side, allowing him to thrust upwards inside of you.
“Yoongi.” You whined, practically calling out to him.
“I’m right here.” Yoongi spoke with a sort of sweetness in his voice, one of his hands moving along your back.
You heard him applying more lube to his cock, making you mentally thank him even though it was such a mess.
“If anything is uncomfortable, I’ll stop, okay?” You felt Yoongi align himself with the rim of your ass, making your brain short circuit; almost forgetting he asked you a question.
“Okay.” You breathed out. “God, Yoongi just put it in me. Please.” You almost laughed at your desperation.
“Breathe.” Yoongi spoke, pushing his length into you. You followed his words and took a breath in and out right as he did so.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck.” You whined, the mix of pleasure and stretch of both cocks making you unable to form words. “Feel so fucking full.”
Namjoon was panting underneath you, obviously feeling everything that you were feeling as well.
“Fuck, that’s so good.” Yoongi groaned.
Both gave you a moment for your body to adjust to everything.
“Move, please.” You spoke to the both of them once you were comfortable. “Need you to fuck me.”
Namjoon held you tightly against himself with one of his arms as him and Yoongi formed a rhythm; both of their cocks never leaving you at the same time. You felt as if you never stopped moaning their names.
With so much stimulation you felt like your orgasm was approaching faster than usual, and you were trying so hard to fight it; until you were practically trembling.
“Fuck, Joon.” Your voice coming out as a needy whine. “I’m so close, gonna cum.”
Yoongi pushed himself slightly deeper than usual with one particular thrust, making your orgasm snap into place, your limbs trembling and feeling numb.
“Fuck, you want me to cum in you?” Yoongi asked you, referencing to cumming in your ass.
“Both of you.” You moaned. “Cum inside me; fill me up.”
“Fuck, you’re something else.” Yoongi grunted before one final thrust: releasing himself inside of you. The feeling made you gasp.
He was still breathing erratically, but he pulled out of you; some of his fluids dripping out of you and onto the bed sheets and such.
“Namjoon.” You let out a wanton moan, almost desperate for him to finish inside of you. “Gonna fill you up so good.” He grunted, grabbing hold of your hips and bouncing you onto his cock.
Suddenly, his pace faltered, and you felt his warm release inside of your cunt; making you sigh. You were desperate to catch your breath.
“Fuck, that was…” Yoongi was panting, trying to find the words.
“Amazing.” A smile was on your face as you too struggled to catch your breath. “I think I should take both of your cocks more often.”
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taglist: @thepurpleghost @dearlyjoonie @che-er-ful @thoughtfullysassysublime @yoongiscta @polyparkj
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