#fought with it too long to be honest | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

writtenfangirl · 2 months

Text

Madness

I wrote this so long ago and then abandoned it because I didn’t know if the ending was satisfactory or not. I thought it would have a greater plot as well but when I couldn’t find it, I was dissatisfied until I reread it and realized the prose was too good not to publish.

Fluff but also a little bit of angst if you squint hard enough.

In which Benedict Bridgerton finally reveals the truth.

She was beautiful. Too beautiful, if Benedict was being perfectly honest with himself. Not the kind of beauty that had him picking up a paint brush and painstakingly striking an easel with lovely swirls of color but the kind of beauty that distracted him, made him brood in a dim corner of the room, watching the little twists of her mouth and the subtle way she arched a brow. Beauty to the point of distraction, like spending hours watching shooting stars dash across the night sky, not realizing as dawn approached on the horizon.

It was utterly maddening.

She was utterly maddening.

How was he meant to live, to exist and breathe, to witness such great beauty and yet have none of the capacity, the right, to keep it?

Just a glance from her, a single curve of her lips, and Benedict could feel his faith in God strengthening as easily as he could deny the Lord’s existence. Only a benevolent God could create such ecstatic beauty and yet no benevolent God could exist in this world if Benedict had to bear the cruelty of Y/N’s indifference.

Maddening.

He sighed, the sound bereft as he continued to watch her charm the eligible men of the ton. She had a veritable cabal of men gathered around her and if any other debutant had been in her position, they surely would have been overwhelmed by now.

But not Y/N.

Never Y/N.

With her head held high and her smile demure, she directed the men as easily as if she was holding court. A slight clearing of the throat and already, someone had a glass of lemonade in their hand while a flap of her hand would have the men falling over themselves in an attempt to get her a chair.

A queen holding court, indeed.

Benedict rolled his eyes at the man to her right, who practically shoved at the man on his left in order to catch Y/N’s attention. Not that it really mattered though, especially not when Y/N’s attention was focused on Benedict.

Even from across the room, the tension between them felt palpable. Exhilarating. It always had been with Y/N. Thick and smooth, the connection between them as tangible as their own beating hearts. Just a shared look between them and the world fell silent, the edges of his vision practically darkening at the edges until he saw only her.

Beautiful. Even as her face contorted with hurt for the briefest of seconds, her eyes pulling away from him and returning to the crowd of men that surrounded her.

Benedict gritted his teeth, the only sign of annoyance he let himself show.

“I see you are not quite so enamored with our diamond.”

Benedict’s head whipped to the left, finding Lady Danbury watching him with those shrewd eyes of hers. The old crone had her cane gripped tightly in her hands and Benedict fought his grimace at the phantom pain that shot up from his ankles. The dowager countess had a terrible habit of whacking gentlemen she didn’t like with that sturdy cane of hers and Benedict had felt the brunt of that pain far too many times for his liking.

Still, as a gentleman, he couldn’t very well ignore the woman. It would have been terribly rude of him to and it went against every fiber of the etiquette that had been drilled to him as a child.

He spared Y/N another glance before he spoke. “You think all those men enamored with her?”

“I think they think themselves enamored by her,” Lady Danbury said. “She is quite a beauty and accomplished too, I hear. Are you acquainted with the young lady?”

He had been, when he was young. As recently as a few months ago, Benedict had counted Y/N as one of his dearest friends but with everything that transpired between them…

“We are familiar with one another.”

Lady Danbury arched a brow, directing her attention back to Y/N. She was animatedly speaking with Anthony and Colin, the only time the entire evening where her smile didn’t seem a little bit forced. “Your brothers seem friendly with her. Why aren’t you?”

Because he was a stupid, bloody, idiot who didn’t know how to keep his damn mouth shut, that’s why.

But his pride would never let him say that, especially not in front of Lady Danbury. “We are familiar with each other.” He repeated, voice tight.

Lady Danbury’s eyes flickered. “I seem to recall your mother telling me about how you and the Lady Y/N were thick as thieves not so long ago.”

Bloody hell, the old crone was relentless. He didn’t want to talk about his and Y/N’s falling out, especially not with her.

He suddenly whirled, cocking his head to the side. “Oh, I believe I hear someone calling me.”

No one was calling him but not even his impeccable manners could make him stay.

Lady Danbury harrumphed. “I may be old, boy, but I am not deaf.”

“Definitely hear someone calling me.” Benedict even cupped a hand, placing it on the side of his mouth before he yelled a quick, “I’ll be right there!” He turned back to Lady Danbury, who was looking at him as if she knew his claims were a lie. “Lady Danbury, if you’ll excuse me.”

The dowager countess simply gave Benedict a knowing look yet let him go.

He ducked into the crowd towards… bloody hell he couldn’t find anyone he would rather talk to. His brothers were still off speaking with Y/N and he didn’t feel like speaking with his mother, who would likely hound him about his fight with Y/N. Which left the last person of their party, Eloise. A quick scan of the room revealed his sister in the other side of the room, conspiratorially whispering to her best friend, Penelope Featherington.

He zoomed towards them, turning his back on Y/N and Lady Danbury.

Eloise caught his eye as he approached and her lips pursed in displeasure. “Why do you look as if you’re expecting me to bail you out of a horrible situation.”

“Can’t I see my favorite sister with joy in my face without being suspected of ill intent?”Benedict said with a grin before bowing to Penelope, who returned the gesture with her own curtsy.

Penelope ducked her head to suppress a giggle.

Eloise rolled her eyes at him. “What do you want?”

“To ask you why you’re sulking in a corner instead of dancing despite—“ he pulled at the dance card in her wrist, every single line filled with names that were unfamiliar to him. “Did you put fake names in your dance card?”

Eloise snatched her wrist back. “Yes. I thought that with Y/N grabbing the attention of so many of the gentlemen, I would be spared the embarrassment of having to entertain any gentlemen tonight. Unfortunately, I was wrong.”

Benedict turned to Penelope. “How many approached her?”

“Six,” Penelope smirked, “and those six quickly turned right back around.”

“Well with a full dance card, I’m not at all surprised.”

Eloise rolled her eyes in annoyance. “Spare me the lecture, brother. I’m sure I’ll hear enough from mother tonight.”

“She caught you?”

“After Eloise turned down the sixth one, Lady Violet began to suspect,” Penelope explained.

Benedict grinned. “When have you known me to lecture you?”

She gave him a saccharine smile, the kind that Benedict always knew would end with her barbed words. “Aren’t you meant to be fawning over Y/N? You’d done it most of our life.”

He bristled at her words.

Penelope shot them a curious look. “You never told me you were acquainted with the lady?”

“Hadn’t I?” Eloise frowned. “Lady Y/L/N’s family and ours have been acquainted for ages. Of course, she rarely ever came to London and if it hadn’t been for her father’s recent passing she wouldn’t have had a season at all. Mama had held hope that perhaps one of my dear brothers would begin to take some responsibility and marry her.” She lowered her voice in a conspiratorial whisper that was so loud, it still reached Benedict’s ears. “Personally, I always thought Benedict would offer. He and Y/N had a special bond growing up. Even Daphne thinks so.”

Benedict had never hit a woman before but perhaps, just this once, excuses could be made for one’s sisters.

“So, well acquainted then,” Penelope said with a slight smile.

“I do recall Benedict pining after Y/N for years,” Eloise mused, uncaring as Benedict’s mood soured. “You never did tell me why it is you suddenly became estranged”

“Not that it’s any of your business.” He grumbled.

Eloise batted eyes innocently. “Irritable today, aren’t you, brother? Could it possibly be because of the cadre of men that hound every one of Y/N’s footsteps?”

“I have changed my mind. Francesca is now my favorite sister.”

“I love you too, Benedict,” she all but grinned.

He turned his attention back to Y/N, who, to his surprise, had taken her leave.

“She’s in the garden, if you wish to speak to her,” Eloise said, noting his wandering eyes and nodding towards the open veranda at the side.

“What gave you the impression that I would like to speak to her?”

Eloise simply rolled her eyes before tugging Penelope’s arm. “With Y/N taking her respite, I imagine there will be a sudden influx of gentlemen who would like to dance. Let us make ourselves scarce.” And she pulled Penelope along, the red head offering Benedict an apologetic look.

He glanced at the crowd once again before letting his feet carry him through the veranda and out towards the garden. There were still many people milling about outside that granted them protection from scandal but it was much more intimate than the loud din of the ballroom.

The night was cool, the spring air serene compared to the humidity of the ballroom.

He spied Y/N, her back turned against the door. Upon hearing his approach, she sighed. “Good sir, if you did not understand me, I wish to be al—“ she turned and her words died at her lips at the sight of him. “Oh. It’s you.”

She looked even lovelier up close. She always did. Whether dressed in a simple frock with her long hair flowing down her back or dressed ornately with jewels adorning her, she always looked lovelier up close.

“What do you want, Benedict,” Y/N said, dropping that societal mask she employed inside.

“To apologize.”

She shook her head. “There is nothing to apologize for. You asked for my hand under false pretenses, I rejected you. End of story.“

“Under false pretenses?” He echoed, his own tone turning sharp. “You think my proposal to be insincere? Is that why you rejected me?”

“I did not think it insincere, I knew it to be insincere. I heard you and the Lady Violet discussing me. I heard when you declared your intention to ask for my hand in marriage simply because she had asked you to.”

Oh.

He remembered then, the conversation he had with his mother right before he proposed.

“Propose to her,” Violet had urged just as breakfast had been served, with only Benedict and Violet dining.

“I am not even courting her, mama,” he replied exasperatedly. It had been far too early in the morning to entertain his mother’s insistence on seeing him wed to Y/N. She’d pestered him about it in one form or another even before the Y/L/Ns had come to visit the Bridgertons and Benedict knew she would not stop until he and Y/N were formally engaged.

But Y/N had just ended her mourning period for her father. And though societal mandates dictated that it was perfectly reasonable for Benedict to ask for her hand in marriage, he knew how deeply she mourned the man, especially since his death had placed her in such a precarious position. The late patriarch of the Y/L/N family had been fond of his only child, even if she had been born a girl. And Y/N had loved him, even if his death left her and her mother saddled with financial debt despite coming from the longest line of barony in England.

“What does it matter that you are not courting?” Violet demanded. “You have known her since you were both children. You’ve been courting her all your life.”

“Mama, please leave it well enough alone.”

“What is it that you do not like about her?” She insisted. “She is beautiful and accomplished and you have known each other your whole lives. Any young man would be fortunate to be bound to her in marriage.”

“I never said anything that would imply otherwise.”

“Then why do you refuse to ask her for her hand in marriage? Doing so would spare her a season in London and limit their financial troubles.” And then she had gasped in indignation. “Or is their financial troubles the very reason why you refuse? I never raised you to be avaricious!”

Bloody hell. “I am not avaricious, mother. I do not care about her dowry or lack thereof!”

“Then what is it? Do not tell me it is because you do not love her. I have seen the way you look at her.”

Benedict had eyed his fork, had wondered if perhaps, it would be a better to shove it in his ears than listen to his mother’s hullabaloo.

Instead he took a scone, spreading a generous layer of clotted cream and jam so his hands had something to do rather than maim himself.

“And how is it I look at her, mother?” He drawled.

“The same way your father used to look at me.”

At that he had paused, scone half-raised to his mouth. He hadn’t known what to say anymore. Mentions of his own father had always been capable of silencing his mind.

Finally, he had decided on telling her the truth, that his mother may finally stop pestering him.

“Asking Y/N for her hand in marriage had always been the plan, mother,” Benedict relented. “I was simply waiting for the perfect moment.”

Violet smiled at her son kindly. “There are no such thing as perfect moments, dearest. Only moments that can be made perfect. And whether you ask her later or tomorrow or next week, that moment will be perfect by virtue of you asking.”

She was right, of course. Violet Bridgerton was so rarely incorrect especially in matters of the heart and love.

Benedict had given her a smile, and said, voice dripping in sarcasm. “Well, since you so graciously asked me to, I shall propose to the Lady Y/N, if only to make you happy.”

That must have been what Y/N heard. Not the whole story but the end, when Benedict had teased his mother.

Now he was convinced that God existed and that he must be cruel. Only the machinations of a cruel God could have lined up the timing perfectly.

Y/N’s eyes flickered as she regarded him. “I do not wish to bind you in marriage with someone you do not hold any affection for. You have fulfilled your promise to your mother and have asked for my hand. I rejected you. We no longer have any obligations with one another. Good night.” She made a move to pass him, to walk back to the ballroom to her gaggle of men but Benedict’s hand shot up, gripping her arm and keeping her to him.

His hands were gloved and even Y/N’s arms were sheathed in silk. And though he had never felt gloves to be particularly offensive, he wished to burn the ones that covered their hands. If only so he could feel her smooth skin beneath his fingers.

The heady scent of her perfume wafted through his senses. She smelled divine, like walking through a garden of roses under the cover of moonlight as the stars twinkled above his head. Utterly mouthwatering, and capable of driving even the sanest of men into insanity. The scent of distraction.

Always so distracting.

Benedict forced his mouth to speak before his brain could forget the words he needed to say. “Do you think so little of me? Capable of such cruelty especially when it comes to you.”

Y/N’s brows met, a flash of pain in her eyes and then it was gone. “It is the opposite, really. I think the world of you, Benedict. Only a gentleman would offer to marry a girl he has no obligations to simply because of her precarious position in life. You are an honorable man and any woman would be lucky to call you their husband. It is why I cannot accept your proposal, not when you do not love me. Not when there is no one on this world more deserving of love than you.”

Benedict frowned at her. “Why do you continue to insist that I do not love you?”

“Because you do not!” She pulled away from him, wrenching her hand from his grasp. Her eyes were pure anguish as she looked at him and the very sight of her pain had him staggering back. “If you truly held any affection for me, I would know. I have studied you all our lives, Benedict. And in all the time we shared together, you had never shown any affection for me beyond that of a friend. Your proposal hurt, Benedict. I have loved you in every way a man could be loved for so long and for you to ask for my hand in marriage out of pity—“ She choked, eyes widening as if she didn’t mean to say the things she’d said.

“You love me?” He echoed, heart beating quickly in his chest. He wondered, briefly, if his fast beating heart marks the day he really lived. If Y/N’s confession had been the reason he truly felt alive for the first time in his life.

Her face crumpled in pain as she stepped back. “Forgive me, I shouldn’t have said those things. Please take your leave, Benedict. That I may salvage whatever scraps of my dignity is left.”

But Benedict did no such thing.

Instead he took her hands and lowered himself into a kneel, setting his eyes upon her. The arching light of the manor spilled over the veranda casted her in a soft glow that took his very breath away.

Y/N’s eyes widened in alarm and whatever pain she held there was washed away by her surprise. “Benedict, what are you doing?”

“Begging you for forgiveness.”

“What? Benedict, get up.”

But he held firm, his determination cementing his knees to the ground. “Forgive me, Y/N, for my grave transgressions against you. That you had ever lived your life doubting my affections for you, or wondering if I cared for you as more than a friend are sins I will carry with me to my last breath. It will be my great shame that I had not made it abundantly clear that I love you. Because I do love you. Most ardently.”

“Benedict, get up. This is madness—“

“You are right. It is madness. The way I feel for you would drive the sanest of people into lunacy. But if loving you is madness then I don’t ever wish to be sane.”

Her eyes gleamed silver with unshed tears that threatened to fall from her pretty eyes. “B-But that morning, the day you proposed—“

“I did not propose to you out of pity for you, I did it out of pity for me. I needed to put myself out of my misery and finally marry the only girl I ever had the privilege of falling in love with rather than continue pining after you in secret.”

She let out a a laugh through her tears, the sound like bells chiming during a storm. Light and beautiful despite the pouring rain that threatened to drown it out. “Ask me again.”

His heart leapt to his throat, pounding so quickly he struggled to get the words out. But they came nonetheless, the words clear and betraying none of his anxiety. “Y/N, will you marry me?”

“Yes.”

2K notes · View notes

netherfeildren · 21 days

Text

FABLE OF THE DOG : 1. The Two Headed Calf

Series Masterlist;

Pairing: Joel Miller x FMC

Summary: Welcome home and buck up, cowgirl.

Rating: Explicit 18+

Content Warnings: Cowboy/Heiress AU; Slowburn(ish); Original Characters; Alcohol & Drug Use; Discussions of Grief; Daddy Issues; Graphic Descriptions of Vomiting; Description of a Dead Body; Death of a Parent; Parental Neglect; Older Man/Younger Woman; Jealousy; Past Teenage Crush; Unrequited Pinning; Yearning and Longing Galore; Boss’s Daughter; Complicated Family Relationships; A Home is a Place but ALSO a Person!; Found Family

A/N: Disclaimer, I know nothing about Wyoming and it’s geography, ranching, or being a cowboy and just made all this up. Any and all misrepresentations are fallacy of my laziness.

The FMC tag was decided because she has a last name. It was just too difficult for me to speak in depth about her father without giving him a name, and thus her one too. After that decision was made, she kind of went away from me and devolved into her own person who I have come to be quite obsessed with. It’s still written in ‘you’ format, anyhow.

I’ve been having a whole lot of fun with this, I hope you do too.

Word Count: 10K

Read on AO3

1: The Two Headed Calf

“She’s been shut up in that house goin’ on three days now, Joel,” Tommy says as the two brothers make their way across the lawn.

The ride had been long and hard, and Joel is tired—he levels a dark look at him. “Just sayin’. Nothin’ you find in there’s gonna be pretty to look at.” He raises his hands in surrender at the brooding glare, that non-confrontational shrug that’s set Joel on edge since they were boys.

“One of you’s should’a gone in there. Made sure she’s okay.”

“The housekeepers’ve been keepin’ an eye. And Frank tried to go in there and check on her himself, but she’s angry as a barn cat. Hissin’ ‘nd yowlin’, and just bein’ downright scary as hell, to be honest. You should be prepared is all I’m tryin’ to say.”

“Her father just died, Tommy. I’m not expectin’ pretty sights right now,” Joel gruffs, trying to swallow the panic that flutters in his throat as they crest the final hill up to the big house.

The beautiful stone, oak, glass monstrosity that’s stood as monument to this place, this home that is not truly his, for over a decade now. The Kelly Ranch. The sky above is still a sultry, yawning blue, deep and tired, basking in the throes of dawn as the sun just now makes its way over the crest of the Tetons in the distance so that the house sits for just a moment longer in its pool of shadowed blues.

Joel pauses on the border of that somber darkness, afraid suddenly of what awaits him inside; boots glued to the ground with the gum of cowardice. He doesn’t want to see her broken. He doesn’t want to see her hurting. But there’s no other recourse, he knows this. The death of the estranged father she’d fought with all her life, the inheritance of this world that seems suddenly too big for just one orphaned girl, all alone now.

He’s afraid that he’ll walk into that house he’s always seen as other and home all wrapped into one—that Olympus that was so far removed and out of reach even when he walked through it’s halls to the man who’d given him sanctuary and salvation, to the man he knew mistreated her sometimes, didn’t love her enough—and not have the capacity to recognize her, this girl who’d always been familiar and stranger all in one also.

Joel Miller suddenly feels afraid of the memory she exists as in his mind, in the face of the woman he knows she is now.

When he lets himself in the back kitchen door, it’s still nighttime within. The cool dryness of the AC cranked up to inhuman temperatures makes him shiver once while sprouting a damp sweat along his nape. He should’ve showered before coming, should’ve washed the ride and the days of camp off his skin before walking into her presence, but all he’d managed were his hands and face. There’d been panic to make sure she was well, if not then alive, at least. But he should be more presentable for her.

Hell, he should’ve been here for her when she came home for the first time in two years to the house where her father had died. He should’ve been here when the man died.

But the herd had needed moving. He hadn’t thought it’d all happen so quickly, thought he had more time, that they all had more time. He’d hoped she wouldn’t return at all, if he was being honest. There was nothing here for her. Nothing except memories of a gilded and loveless, already motherless childhood. The reality of all she was set to inherit. The truth of an aloneness Joel didn’t know if she was prepared for.

He moves through the house slowly, afraid to disturb the ghosts and the silence. The interior, immaculate and beautiful and solemn. Something out of a movie picture or the gloss of a magazine. Something covered not in dust but in sadness. The stairs are silent as his spinning mind makes up for the creak, the boots she’d sent him on his last birthday hit the richly piled rug at the top, and the hallway to the bedrooms yawns long and frightening in front of him. Two grand a pop, the boots—Lucchese, he’d looked them up on the iPhone she’d sent him the year before. A gift giver, generous to a fault, kind to a detriment. She sent something to all the ranch hands that’d worked for her father since she was a girl. Something for the entire ranch at Christmas. And all he managed each time was a perfunctory thank you card, like he did every year because he remembered, years ago, in her little voice, polite people send thank you notes, Joel, my grandmother told me so. Last year he’d written that they were too much, that she shouldn’t have, that he was grateful. There wasn’t much else to say.

That was the extent of their communication, familiar and stranger in one, the far removed golden child of the Kelly. They’d all called him that, the Kelly, for as long as he’d known the man. As if he was some Scottish laird of old, ruling over his clan and half the world. Egotistical, was what it really was. He’d thought himself a god among men, in the face of his only child. Ridiculous was what Joel saw it all for, a put on play, a farce.

And wonder of wonders, she was entirely unlike him because of course she would be. Of course a man ruled by nothing more than ego and narcissism had been sent his polar opposite in the form of his only child. Kind hearted, was what she was—sending him a birthday gift every year. Remembering them all here always no matter how far she’d gone. He sent her a thank you note for each benevolence in return, a word of respectful gratitude for the fact that a person like her could ever remember a dog like him.

Sometimes, Joel had wanted to go to him, the old man, Oswald Kelly, and ask him where his daughter was, why he wasn’t looking for her, keeping her closer, caring for her. He wasn’t the sort of man that could’ve ever understood such callous behavior towards one’s child.

The last time she’d been here, over two years ago: less than forty eight hours that had ended in screaming so terrible they’d all heard it down from the barn, sitting in uncomfortable, swollen silence, the spinning of tires ringing as she yelled at her father that he was never going to see her again, the man’s echoing laugh as she’d fled him.

Joel hadn’t seen her on that visit, it’d been so quick and angry. Flying down on the jet from New Haven for her father’s seventieth birthday and not even making it long enough for the festivities. This was what her life was, as he’d observed it from a distance for all these years, the singular daughter of this great house, coming to her father, attempting joy and finding nothing but disappointment at the end of him.

She’d been right, a knowing streak running through her. Kelly had never seen her again, and Joel didn’t know if the old man had regretted it or not, the anger and the estrangement and the lack of love. But the last time he’d spoken to him, hours before setting off on their move, the herd always came before everything else, the ranch was all that mattered is what the man had always said, with death scratching at the window, his frail and withered body licked down to almost nothing from the austere and imposing figure Joel had always known him as, he’d asked for her. His only child. Do you think she’ll come, Joel? The dying man had asked him. My daughter, do you think she’ll come see me? Joel had lied a lie he hadn’t known was one, said she would, that he’d call her as soon as he was back.

In the end, he hadn’t even afforded her that decency, a personal call.

He comes to her open bedroom door now, pitch dark as grief within, and the stench of sorrow and liquor seeping from the living grave. He looks down the long and empty hall for a brief second, wishing it didn’t have to be him, that again, he didn't have to see her any way other than okay. And he realizes that there’s something about her, as she will exist now, that makes him cowardly. Something about this house without the man who’d granted him the absolution of a hiding place all those years ago, who’d understood and sheltered Joel in the midst of his own past grief, that makes him cowardly. The house feels wrong without Kelly within it, wrong with only her as its holder now.

Joel steps into her dark, and it’s a battleground—

—You are silent and motionless in the blue room.

Nothing of the gleaming splendor that dresses the rest of the home sleeps in here. There are clothes everywhere, an exploded suitcase lies open and massacred in the middle of the plush white rug, a turned over bottle of red wine bleeding into your clothes. Shredded pages with scratched on writing slashed across them, the dusted white mounds of crushed pills, as if you’d smashed each one individually beneath the thumb of your grief. The sight makes him more afraid, the scent of weed and cigarettes heavy in the air, as he takes the final step towards the wrecked bed, and a single small foot hangs limply from the edge.

He stares at it long and hard for a second, afraid, afraid again, still, of what he’ll find. He says your name once, short and gruff like a dog’s bark. It’s what he feels like. Animal, bestial, lacking any sort of cognizance amidst this minefield. His heart beats against his spine, and he thinks he should do something else, shake you, check for a pulse, his bones throb inside his skin. He needs to fucking move, but the smell of smoke is so cloying he’s choking on his own tongue.

Your ankle twitches.

And Joel sucks in a sigh of relieved air without panic, saying your name again. His voice is level now, maybe gentle, no more barking dog. His eyes move up the length of one pretty leg, and then quickly, he averts his gaze when he gets high up enough he’s met with soft-creased asscheek covered in silk. Swallowing his tongue, his eyes roll in their sockets, looking for anything else to look at besides the sight of panty clad ass. He steps closer again, gripping the edge of the sheet to pull it over your scantily clad body, eyes flitting to the silver spun clock on the nightstand, the warm glow of the hall light shows that they have two hours to get you sober and presentable before the funeral.

Joel should have been here. He does not feel that he is even here now. And the guilt eats at him like acid. The fear too.

“Darlin’, you’ve gotta get up now,” he says softly, taking hold of your shoulder, scalded by the feel of fragile skin, realizing with the suddenness of a gunshot that you’ll be the Kelly now. He gives you a gentle shake, “We’ve gotta get you ready,” and his heart pumps blood like a machine. The sight of the dry liquor bottle toppled on the nightstand, the shattered glass glittering the floor in crystal, the empty pill bottles, it all taunts him. His guilt is a cacophony in his mind. He knows he’s going to have to stick his fingers down your throat, make you spit it all up, that you’ll hate him for all of this afterwards, but when his gaze meets streaked rust, dark and shocking against the white sheets, he’s kicked into terrified action.

He turns you over, your head lolling sickeningly in unconscious stupor, hair a tangled mess strewn about your face so that he has to dig for your eyes, parting the curtains of your fringe to uncover you. He focuses on your closed eyes, the too long lashes clumped together, lips cracked and parched.

He should’ve fucking been here.

Smoothing his fingers along the lengths of your arms, he keeps his eyes on your face and averted from all the skin that keeps peeking out below, searching the divots and slopes of your arms for hurts. When he gets to your right hand, battleground of a long ago broken hurt, he finds the drying crust of blood, the ragged split in the soft, small palm, thankfully shallow.

His eyes smart, looking down at the broken glass, feeling the tear in you.

Gripping you gently below the elbows he pulls you into his arms, cradled like a child, light as loss. Your head lolls again, neck crooked at an unnatural angle as he carries you into the restroom, careful of your head, knocking the lights on and putting you down in front of the toilet bowl. He pulls your camisole to rights, making sure everything is covered, and gathers your mess of hair as carefully as he can, trying his best to not snag the fragile strands in his too rough hands, but gripping you firmly in position. And ignoring the sound of your awakening cry, he sticks two fingers into your slack jawed mouth and down your throat until he feels the hot rush of vomit.

Crouching behind you, his thighs bracket you, keeping your form from slumping over as you empty the poison from your belly, flushing the alcohol soaked bile as you struggle. He wipes his messy hand on the leg of his jeans and rubs soothing circles on your back, his fingers woven through the soft silk of your hair to keep your head in place and your face clear. His heart thumps in rhythm with your heaves, your too quick, panicked breathing. There seems to be not enough oxygen for the two of you and your grief in the too small room of the commode, and Joel gasps like a dying fish, trying to swallow calm breaths.

When you finally stop your heaving, you rest your arms at the edge of the gleaming porcelain, head hung low, defeated, wracked with shivers or silent sobs, he isn’t sure, a strange and horrible keening noise, so small he barely catches it, held in your throat. There’s the finest down of peach fuzz that covers the tender slope of your vulnerable nape, and it makes Joel feel suddenly, just as vulnerable, just as unprotected. At a complete loss for how to help you.

“Finally decided to show your face,” you croak, voice ragged with your sick.

His fingers tighten once around your shoulder, a panicked tick of reminder that he’s here now, that he’s him. “I was moving the herd. It had to be done. Your father, he—” he stutters, trying explain, tripping over his own guilt ridden words. “I didn’t think it’d happen now, so fast, that you’d get here so soon. I thought we had more time.”

We.

Your skin seems to cool by the second beneath his fingertips, and then you’re shrugging his touch away, huddling closer to the porcelain bowl, further away from him.

“Get out.”

“Let me explain. I—” And he’s begging now. He can hear the note of it in his voice. Begging for forgiveness. For a chance.

“I don’t want to see you.” You don’t say his name. “Get out.” It feels worse than anything.

“I’m here now. I didn’t know— I didn’t think.” He reaches to grab for you again, but you turn to face him suddenly. Wiping the back of your hand against your mouth, pushing your heels at his shins to kick him away. Your eyes are red rimmed, the hollows beneath bruised with lack of sleep. But fire spits from the deep color, all anger and hurt.

“Go deal with your fucking ranch,” you fling the words at him. “It’s all you care about anyways.” And they weren’t shivers, he sees now, they’re tears tracked as proof of all his guilt, all his lacking, along the slopes of your fine grained cheeks.

Your, you say. As if this place and anything in it has ever been his. He’s never wanted any of it like that, only ever seen a thing that needed taking care of, and him, with the ability to care for it.

“I needed you,” you whisper as if the thought comes along on a second wind of anger, a realization that sends your voice breaking, hitching, your chest caving in on itself as the tears come faster and faster now. “He’s dead, and I needed you.”

“I’m sorry,” he begs. “I’m so sorry.” His voice breaks now too. He thinks he’ll cry now too, for the man who he also lost, who despite it all meant something to him, as well. For you, who’s lost even more. For Joel’s own guilt.

But he doesn’t think you see any of that, not his apology, not his regret, not his own grief. You turn away from him again, laying your temple down again on your forearm. “Get out. I’ll be ready soon.”

And so he goes.

Your father is made small and withered in death.

One of the wealthiest men in the entire world. A stranger, a titan, a nightmare of a man.

It wasn’t something you’d ever considered, that a human body could look so colorless and frigid and not alive. Like a shock or a ringing bell, it’s a realization that you’re an orphan now. That you’re all alone.

You feel something like a memory of regret. Or something that’s like the idea that you should feel regret, that you should feel guilt for how it was between the two of you. But all that is overshadowed by the reality of what you weren’t. All you feel even more, or in actual reality, is the old loss of what you’d never been to each other. That, you realize, is the seed of your grief. That long ago wound, that child’s understanding that he wasn’t like all the other fathers, that he’d never care for you the way other children were cared for.

Looking down at the frozen face that looks nothing like the one he’d worn the last time you’d seen him, the wispy thatch of hair that hadn’t been so jarringly white before sickness had ravaged his body, you realize that this is no new loss, it is only a continuation, a reopening of a very old one.

The cavernous cathedral at your back is silent, vacated by the sea of people that had congregated here earlier. And with sickening curiosity, you uncoil an arm from where you’ve got it wrapped around yourself, reaching out to press a finger against the ice cold back of his hand. Shockingly not alive; he feels made of rubber.

Everyone that’d been here to bid farewell to this behemoth turned slip of a man, to catch a glimpse of you, packed like teeth into Jackson’s grandest cathedral; business men and heads of state from around the world, the oldest family names in the country, figures of the highest echelons of wealth and society, vipers circling the barrel—half the world here to see this person who was supposed to have been your father but was really only a stranger.

You take your hand back, and you don’t say goodbye as you turn away from his body. There’s no farewell to really tell.

And at the back of the church, hiding in a bright ream of sunlight, Joel stands propped against the face of a saint. Dark and silent and maybe even more far removed than your dead dad. Watching sentinel. Oswald Kelly’s hovering man—come to watch over him one last time.

The silk of your stockings slide against each other at the junction of your thighs, the hiss of your skirt around your calves as your reed thin heels click against the stone, and you pull your armor as tightly around yourself as you can. There’s a hollow echo inside of everywhere and everything, your mind like a gong, reverberating, and his gaze is so steady, hazel bright, deeply shaded by the lip of his dark hat, beckoning you towards him from beneath the brim.

Large and strong and steadfast, your heart gives a painful, longing thump—stupid, writhing thing—and you can only bear to look him in the eye for a second, and if you were to really think about saying goodbye to that father that never really was, lying behind you, slipping further and further away, you’d say it to the man that always stood as his shadow before the world, before you ever said it to the man himself.

The drive back home is cast in frigid silence and made all the more uncomfortable because you can practically hear Joel’s brain clicking and ticking away with worry.

He’d sent your car and driver away with a harsh word while you collected your final goodbyes and words of respect from the last smattering of people congregated and waiting for the newly birthed heir to one of the greatest fortunes in the world.

Hovering over your shoulder, he’d kept anyone from stepping too close or getting too friendly, so close you could feel the heat of his chest through the silk of your blouse, and then going suddenly full on aggressive when a reporter from the New York Times had approached, fishing for a quote on the future of the Kelly empire. Ushering you away with a hovering hand at the small of your back before the man could get half a question out, he’s opening the truck’s door for you as a haze descends over your eyes, the distant shutter and flash of cameras bursting in your peripherals, a latent hangover and sleep deprivation and not enough to eat in the last forty eight hours causing you to sag in his hold. Then it’s only his big fist wrapping around the span of your wrist as he lifts you into the truck, your eyes downcast and unable to take in sight or sound, vision all a blur. You murmur a barely there thank you with his hand fitting at the dip of your waist, big body blocking yours entirely from prying eyes trying to catch a glimpse or a stumble, and for a single second, your entire weight is suspended in his hold, allowing you to bypass the struggle of balancing your high heel on the step up, and then you’re sliding onto the leather of the seat, the whisper of your cashmere and silk rustling around you as he handles you like a child being spirited away from the scene of a crime.

The door shuts gently behind you, face turned away from the flashing lights, the watchful eyes of the whole world, and worst of all, the assessment of his concerned gaze. All you’re afforded are thirty seconds of privacy to let out a single gasping sob.

And now, an hour and a half of silent purgatory.

You slip your heels off, flexing your smarting toes against the damp of your stockings and tuck your folded legs beneath you on the seat. Paying the frantic energy of his anxiety and lodged words no mind, you consider instead: your new reality. The burden of it all means very little to you now. The last of your worries is being readied for entombing as the two of you speed down the eighty nine, zinging past the bright Wyoming green. The thrum of his truck drowns out your thoughts, brand new, probably over a hundred grand, only the best for your father’s right hand man, and the Kelly Ranch insignia emblazoned proudly on the sides. A brand for the whole world to see just who exactly is being whisked away to her old home turned brand spanking new grave.

You might be feeling a little bit dramatic. But then again— you’d just put your last remaining parent in an actual grave, surely that provides you some allowances.

Out of the corner of your eye, you can see his big paw gripping the leathered steering wheel in a death clutch, knuckles white with his frustration at the dilemma you pose, his own discomfort. You’re sure if he thought you wouldn’t catch him, he’d be squirming in his seat.

You do something to him sometimes, you know this. Not in any way you’d like, not in any interesting way, that of a woman affecting a man, but something respectfully harrowing. Maybe something a little bit like fear.

There has existed between the two of you, always, that strange intimacy of two people who’ve known each other for a very long time, and yet, have always remained at a far removed, arms length distance from one another.

A professional intimacy of sorts. Your father’s foreman, shadow, fixer. The man who guarded that treasure trove you’d inherit one day, today; the thing your father loved most in the world. Two people who’ve known each other a long time, and yet, don’t really know each other at all.

There has always been, however, the fact of the birthday.

The birthday. Your birthday.

The way you’d latched onto that small, immense, detail when you’d first discovered it at fourteen, when he’d newly arrived at the ranch and the true weight of your first real crush had really hit you, it was probably not entirely healthy. But you’d thought yourself in love with your father’s man, the first figure of the male species who’d ever drawn your attention in such a way.

He’d never paid you any mind; you were the boss's daughter, a figurehead or a responsibility, maybe a nuisance, although he’d never ever treated you as one. But the day someone had let slip it was his birthday, on the same day as yours, your teenage heart had swelled with the naive hope of fate. It was meant to be, the two of you were connected, so on and so forth, swallowed by girlish innocence and made buoyant by fantasy.

But you’d had something to share with someone, which was what really mattered. Something tangible, even if only in your inexperienced little mind, something to wield as comfort so that the first time your father had forgotten your special day, fifteen, and what a tender age it had been, you’d had something to cling to. That's when your gifts to him had started. It was your way of making sure there was at least one person in the whole world who’d remember that was your day too. That you were alive, that you mattered. A reminder of yourself. And as the years and birthdays passed, sometimes, when he sent those coldly gracious notes of his, you’d wished you could’ve written back with honesty. Said something like, I’m so lonely, wish you were here, wherever it was in the world you’d found yourself at the time.

And of course, he was gorgeous and older, strong and patient and capable, entirely unattainable. Impossible to forget. You’d gone so far, traveled wide, gotten yourself an overpriced education that would probably serve you for nothing, had lovers and parties and splendor, and always, you remembered your gifts for him, you remembered him. It was the single most important detail of your birthday every year.

The leather creaks beneath his fist again, chapped knuckles set to burst before he flexes his fingers out, long and straight. Thickly built hands, strong, made for working or hurting, on a man who you’ve never seen be anything but stoically patient.

He was strange in that way, neither wholly impulsive nor precisely intentional in his mannerisms. More so, it was that there was something extremely neutral about him, a middle buoyancy of personality. Strict with the cowboys, exacting, wielding his title as ranch foreman with an iron fist and your father’s blessing, and yet still, quiet, serious, with that patient gentleness about him. You’d seen it in the way he’d handled Ellie when she’d first come to the ranch, young and skinny with that hollow look of trauma kids who’d seen things they shouldn’t have shamed adults with. She’d been a little older than you, and with an air you’d not understood, a sort of lived past you’d been naive to the existence of, frightened when confronted by it, and yet inevitably, the two of you’d become fast friends eventually.

You’d even experienced it yourself, on two treasured occasions, that gentleness that you’d held onto for years. Nurturing the memory of him in your mind like a delusional bloom.

He stretches his hand again, wheel caught between his thumb and forefinger, cinching it there, back and forth. His nails are meticulously clean, cut to the quick, and you imagine he must spend a great deal of time cleaning himself up when he works so hard at getting himself so dirty most days.

You can see him sneaking glances at you, and he coughs once, a clearing of his nervous throat. Averting your gaze, you turn your face away so that you’ll be able to watch him through the reflection in the window. He monopolizes the space in the cabin of the truck, broad shoulders and hulking form, all the fine leather smell washed away in the scent of him. That bay rum aftershave he’s always worn, the one with the distinctive notes of bay leaf, cloves and citrus. An old fashioned scent, masculine and crisp.

You’d snuck into the bunk once with Ellie, before he’d moved into the foreman’s cabin, before Switzerland, when the two of you were still girls running rampant and free through the ranch, clutching desperately at the last vestiges of any sort of happy childhood you could scrounge up for one another. You’d peeked in his things, found a whole world of Joel shaped curiosities. The glass etched bottle of aftershave, a hole spotted t-shirt with a burnt orange longhorn across the front, Flannery O’Connor’s The Complete Stories—something you found comforting, knowing he could read about the small, the freakish, real life; thinking that perhaps he was homesick for the comfort of the South, hungering for a taste of the life he’d had then, through books. And then, in a spine cracked copy of Suttree, the pages almost falling apart beneath your fingertips, dog eared and well loved, her picture tucked between the pages.

It had been the first time you’d done something you knew you shouldn’t have and actually regretted it, looking down at that green eyed photograph.

You’d run back to your room after that, ashamed and something a little bit like jealous, desperate to know who she was, desperate for someone to keep a picture of you like that—as if they loved you. And years later, you’d found the scent for yourself. The little molasses glass bottle you still have and pull out on occasion, when you’re feeling extra bad, extra lonesome, extra far away from the whole world, just for a reminding of home.

Beside you, he sighs again, coughs again, brings you back to himself and the present. Just spit it out already, you think exasperatedly, say something, anything else besides how sorry you are.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t there,” he starts, and you roll your eyes, scoffing quietly.

“You already said that.” Sullen. Mullish. You wish you were a child who could still throw a tantrum and get away with it. Letting your eyes go unfocused from his reflection in the window, you brood at the sight of everything that’s yours now as he turns off the highway, passing below the iron eave of the Kelly Ranch entrance. Eight hundred thousand acres of pristine Wyoming land nestled into the deep valley surrounded by the Grand Tetons mountain range.

“Well, I’m sayin’ it again.” He’s driving too fast, and you refuse to turn and look at his face. Your heart beats blood in your ears, and you screw your eyes shut to the dizzying blur of green legacy, not wanting to see any of it—him.

Your belly swoops, going slightly nauseous and gurgling.

“I didn’t think you’d get here so quick.” He swallows, “Hell, I didn’t think it’d all happen so damn fast.”

“I was already in New York,” you tell him, voice clipped with breathlessness. “I left Paris last week.”

“What? I didn’t know— I—”

“Why would you?”

“I would’ve called you. I would’ve gotten you out here quicker.”

“Ellie called. It’s better like this, Joel.” Finally letting yourself say his name out loud, it feels wrong and molten on your tongue, a heaviness being spit up from the depths of your stomach. “We don’t have to pretend anymore. He’s dead now.”

“There’s no pretending. He wanted to see you—”

“Please, stop.”

But he urges on unheeded: “He told me so before I left. Told me—”

“Stop,” you snap. Finally turning to look at him and hating him for it. For how gorgeous he is, for all the things he’s always made you feel for as long as you can remember what it was to feel something for a man, for all he did or did not have with your father when you had none of it or so much of an entirely different thing. “Stop. I don’t want to hear any of it. It doesn't matter anymore, Joel.”

“But you should know. You deserve to know that—”

“What?” Because that one hurts. “I deserve to know what?” That he actually had loved you but had just never been able to show it? That now it was too late? That the only person the great Oswald Kelly had ever been able to speak to of the supposed care he had for his only daughter was the hired help? You’d read once that one should never let their parents anywhere near their real humiliations. You’d tried your damndest to follow that as soon as you’d grown up. “It’s not your place,” you seethe with teeth bared, an animal shoved into a corner and made to fight for its life, deciding you won’t ever let Joel near them either.

He spits a cursing, growled sound of frustration, but doesn’t continue. The two of you find yourselves at an impasse, and you turn back to your windowed mirror of him, eyes pinching hot, filling with tears. One of the things your father disliked most about you, your easy tears, and a single salt marred inadequacy tracks down the slope of your cheek, dripping off the edge of your jaw into the bandaged cup of your palm, and you breathe slow and measured through your open mouth, watching the fog cloud grow and shrink against the glass obscuring your vision of him.

The last time you’d missed your mother, the one you’d never known, in any sort of real and true way, you’d been eighteen. Returning to an empty house after celebrating your high school graduation in a far off school, alone.

In the midst of your sophomore year, you’d been sent away to a Swiss boarding school. It had been something worse than devastating, losing your life in Wyoming, the only home you’d ever know, Ellie, the other people on the ranch… But it was far removed enough that you couldn’t bother, where you couldn’t ask for things like attention or consideration. The education had been excellent, the upbringing desperately lonely ending on a whimpering sigh despite your many accomplishments. You’d wanted her very badly then indeed, your mother. To have been there, to have helped you pick your dress, kissed your cheek after watching you walk across the stage. To have wiped your tears when she told you that your father wasn’t there because he was busy managing the whole world, but that he was proud of you, that he’d have been there if he could. You’d wished she could’ve been there to lie to you so that you wouldn’t have needed to lie to yourself.

Peering down from your balanced perch atop the deck’s bannister, you survey the deep bed of Lily of the Valley, destroyed beneath the vindictive soles of your bare feet. He’d planted them for her all around the house after she’d died, her favorite flower.

You’d always hated them.

And that was the thing of it all, which you’d learned when you grew old enough to recognize such things like disdain. He couldn't stand you because you reminded him of her. Clichéd and old and tired. An excuse for being a neglectful father. The daughter who was too much like her dead mother, and thus did not deserve to be loved.

You tip your head back, nursing at the lip of fine aged Macallan, and the sky is a glass mirror of blackened silver streaks. You’re almost positive that all the stars in the Milky Way are visible from right here at this very spot in the heart of Wyoming. The sight makes your broken heart feel full and falsely mended.

You’re certain you’re painting a pretty picture right now: tipsy on a bottle of your dead dad’s sacredly hoarded whiskey that probably cost as much as someone’s house, staring up at the stars in your newly inherited home with a whole unappreciated life full of possibilities ahead of you. Basking in the title of your newly minted— orphan-hood? Orphan-ness? A peer of the orphans.

You snort softly, sucking on the bottle again, letting the heat of it settle in your belly, smolder in your heart. Your head feels full of bubbles and sugar and sad.

There’s a part of you that feels a little ridiculous, despite the circumstances. You’re good at compartmentalizing, good at being objective of your realities. Obviously: sad because your father is now dead, and it’d been nine months and eleven days since you’d last spoken to him. Sad because he’d never given a shit about you. Sad because you’re alone, dumped by the stupid French jockey boyfriend who you’d not even liked very much, just a few days before this whole pathetic ordeal of acquiring your orphan-hood, yeah, that’s what you’re sticking with, had occurred. Not to mention the army of looming lawyers and financial advisors and various heads of business vying for your attention, waiting for the what next?

And Joel.

A one man army of looming Joel.

So you’re feeling morose, blue, maybe a little spoiled, but brought low and cut short. Depressed and unsatisfied with your life thus far.

Poor little rich girl. Poor little orphan. Poor little me.

What you want?

Someone to care.

Someone to love you.

Hard to come by. Impossible to buy.

The stars gleam purple silver, winking at you. The bracketing black so dark it swallows the eye. Another taste of the nutty bouquet of smoked apple oranges, and soon you’ll be tipsy enough you won’t be able to balance your butt on the bannister’s ledge anymore. Maybe you’ll go humpty dumpty over the edge and crack your skull against your mother’s valley of destroyed Lily’s.

You laugh again with sound now, not crazy, only an orphan, ha, but you think that it’s only that it feels shockingly as if you’ve fallen through the surface of your life. As if you are still falling with nothing and no one to grab on to, to help stabilize you. A really terrible, shit-out-of-luck feeling.

Your eyes continue their infernal leaking, and you blow your nose loudly on the inside of your sweater. You’ve given yourself three days to do whatever the hell you want, be as disgusting as you may. When the three days are up you’ll plan to get your act together, take responsibility and hold of your life and become the woman you should be.

Who that is? Still being decided.

You think that maybe you’ll buy another jet before that time’s up. Or an island. Something ridiculous. Maybe you’ll sell the goddamn ranch.

You eye the dark rolling hills of the valley with seething suspicion. Let’s see what Joel says about that. You, marching up to the highway entrance and spearing a For Sale sign in the dirt of the largest privately owned cattle ranch in the continental United States. Way more than that God forsaken surly frown is what you’d get.

So long, Joel, it’s been swell. I’m done with this place. It’s time to pack it up and find some new hunk of land to care about more than you care about me or anything else.

Maybe you’ll be real funny and put up a Craigslist ad.

And it isn’t that you don’t love this place, the only home you’ve ever known. You do. In a way that is passionate and consuming and irreconcilable. Everything about it, the serenity, the guarding mountains and the deep woods, the home you’d been born in, that both your parents had died in. You do love it in your way.

It’s only that every man you’ve ever loved—loved—had always cared more about the place than he’d ever cared about you.

For the longest time, most of your youth until you’d decided that you officially felt an adult, you’d thought you’d hated your father. There was just so much anger and resentment and the resound of his ever furious words and insults and endless disappointment. The echo of no mother ringing so loudly in your ears that the confounding feelings had all been mistaken for hatred. But with age and distance and life, you’d realized you didn't hate him. You never had. You thought, actually, and this was a very good and mature thought of yours, that you were the only person in the whole world that had ever seen him as only a man and not a god.

He was only a man, full of greed and grief and missing the mother of the child he’d probably never wanted. Nothing more or less.

Maybe it was that you felt sorry for him. Not in the way of pity, but in the way of one person feeling empathy for another in a clinical and helpless sort of manner. And a numb, detached sort of sadness. A longing for something that you’d never had and had always wanted but eventually learned to live without.

Ultimately, his disappointment had turned on him, and now it was all you felt you had for him at the end of it all.

But, for some reason, and an annoying one at that, you do think that, if you try very, very hard, you could bring yourself to hate Joel Miller. There’s satisfaction in that possibility, vindication—resentment that even now, as practically strangers, you know he’d be able to pull that sort of feeling out of you which could result in hatred. Something strong and overwhelming and not easily escaped.

Your stomach rumbles, and you smile blithely at all your inherited legacy, filling the hollow with more drink. Three days to behave very badly, as badly as you can. The whiskey is so good, and swishing it around in your mouth, you tip your head back further, gurgling it loudly at the back of your throat.

“What the hell are you doing?”

You jerk, scrambling to keep your balance, choking a little on smokey apples and your own spit. A trickle of the golden amber liquor drips out of the corner of your mouth as you find him hiding in the dark across the deck. Accustomed to drooling over him, you wipe it away with the back of your hand.

“Having a party. Would you like to join?”

“Are you drunk again?”

Tough crowd. Ugh. “Never mind. You’re not invited. Go away.”

“You need to go inside and go to bed.”

You tip your chin at him, putting on doe eyes. “Alright. And are you going to be my new daddy also?” You say in a baby voice.

Fucking Christ, you hear him whisper under his breath, turning away to run an exasperated palm over his mouth. Frustration seethes off of him like sulfur. He’s tired. Of you maybe. Of the whole circus this place has become in the past few days—and rightfully so.

“What do you want? I’m extremely busy, if you can’t tell.”

“Just thought I’d check on ya.” Courteous, always the gentleman, bullshit. You roll your eyes at him.

“I don’t need you to check on me.” And you, ever the child. One day you swear you’ll grow up.

But it can’t be said that you’re entirely selfish either. You have considered the fact of Joel’s own grief at the loss of your father. After all, they’d been much closer than you’d ever been to him for many years. And maybe, in his own cold and removed and superior way, your father had seen this man who you’ve thought yourself in love with since you were a teenager, as something like a son.

Probably, that’s just your own wishful thinking: that Oswald Kelly had ever been capable of such tender feelings.

Maybe the fact of Joel’s own grief is the thorn beneath your nail bed that’s making you so angry with him, so needing of his attention. Maybe it’s that he’d failed to fulfill your silly and girlish fantasy that upon receiving the news of your only remaining parents death, he’d have been here waiting for you, at this home he’d guarded for you for so long, ready to take you into his arms and console and care for you.

When instead, he’d been off doing what he’d always done for as long as you’d known him. Protecting your father’s interests, his legacy.

“Is this how it’s going to be?”

“How?”

“You, being difficult.” Driving me fuckin’ crazy— he adds again under his breath.

“I’m an orphan now, Joel.” You’re becoming quickly addicted to the word. “I think I should be afforded a tiny bit of leeway to drive people fuckin’ crazy,” you mock his Southern drawl. Enough of your time had been spent in Europe over the past two years, kissing Europeans, that you’d sloughed off the last of your American twang; something of a vaguely European lilt peppering your words every now and then that Ellie likes to tease you for whenever the two of you speak on occasion.

A muscle under his left eye twitches at the jab, and you take another deep swig of the bottle, provoking him with your gaze. Wishing you had whatever it is a woman needs to entice this man. Like the fucking vet. Fucking world renowned, brilliant, highly coveted, beautiful veterinarian. You know about her. You’re sure he thinks he’s been discreet over the years with their whatever they’ve had, Tess, but you know.

Maybe you’ll be insane and irrational and possessive, taking advantage of your three crazy days, and fire her with your new found power. See what he has to say about that. Ha.

Ha. Ha. Ha.

Obviously not.

Despite your current hysteria, your goal is not to send the ranch head over heels into a tailspin.

But the imagining is soothing.

“Want some?” You hold the heavy crystal out towards him in a peace offering, held precariously between two sweaty knuckles. “It’s probably worth as much as your truck. Would be a waste for me to finish on my own.” You eye what’s left of it, about half, and give him a sheepish grin. It really is very good.

He looks at you for one long, solemn moment, always so silent and pensive, this strange enigma of a man. You get to watch in real time as he loses whatever fight it is he’s trying to fight against you, victorious when he shrugs and comes over slowly, resting his butt against the bannister—a carefully respectful distance away from you.

When he takes the bottle from your swinging clutch, gripped from the base, careful not to touch you in any way, you see the real sad in his eyes. The dim lights bleeding out through the big windows of the family room without a family shine on his face in strips and bursts. A shadow here, golden warmth there. He’s got more lines around his eyes than you remember from the last time you’d been this close to him. Smile lines made bright white in the center and gold burnished at the edges from too much sun. There’s little bursts of silver threaded at his temples now too, a gleam here and there in his dark beard. Forty four years old, he’d turned on your last birthday.

You dig your nails into the soft meat of your palms, and your belly smolders as he brings the bottle to his lips, tasting the exact place your own mouth had just been moments ago. You press your knees together as hard as you can, head a little woozy with the color of his eyes; the most gorgeous green, caramel hazel.

You’d graduated two years ago with a degree in art history and had done absolutely nothing with it since. It was just that everything appeared boring and pointless and shallow. Your whole life had one day suddenly seemed just a little silly. Useless, overpriced degree, nothing to be done with extensive knowledge in color theory when your world is expecting such different things from you now.

But you sure as hell can appreciate the color of his eyes in extensive and meticulous detail. There is that.

Watching the slow slide of the amber liquor down the bottle-neck, the long pull of his lush mouth, the ripple of his strong throat, and the way his eyes go a little wider, shocked at how good it is. You laugh soft: “I know, right.”

He takes another pull, another swallow. That’s what you want to be—swallowed just like that. “Damn, that’s good.” His mouth is a little wet, bottom lip shiny with thousands of dollars worth of your father’s favorite whiskey, and his eyes are sad.

You’d said you were going to be bad, but you don’t want to be bad to him. “I’m sorry,” you whisper.

He swallows again, tipping his head towards you, trying to catch your too soft words—he’s got a bad ear, you know why—and turns to peer at you from beneath his low pulled brow, the tip of his tongue peeking out to swipe at the drop of liquor you wish you could suck off his tongue.

“You’ve got nothin’ to be sorry for.”

The first time he’d shown you that gentleness of his: You’d fallen from your horse at school in your junior year. Something had frightened the beast, and she’d bucked you, sent you flying ten feet in the air, ragdoll-like, before you’d landed badly on your right arm, a comminuted fracture in your radius that you’d needed surgery to fix. At your insistence, and with only a few weeks left to spare, you’d been sent home for the remainder of the semester. Your father had been incensed but eventually allowed it. He’d been away from the ranch on business, after all, at no risk of being truly disturbed by you. But when you’d been readying to return to Switzerland at the end of the summer, arm healed, courage not, you’d not been able to get back on a horse no matter what you tried. Joel had helped you, before they’d shipped you off again. Trotted the corral with you for hours and hours before you’d finally been able to relax and sit on your own without tears and vertigo. No questions or admonishments, nothing but the quiet burr of his deep voice, guiding you and the mare along.

It had been a kindness unlike any you’d experienced in maybe your whole life.

“I’ve been bad.”

“Nah. You couldn’t ever be.”

The second time: “Did today make you think of Sarah?” Years after you’d found that green eyed photograph, he’d shared her with you.

His gaze turns suddenly sharp, but you’re not worried you’ve stepped in unbreachable territory. “Yeah.” The echo of her name rings around the two of you.

“In a bad way or a good way?” He takes another long swig, a low whistle through his teeth and a shake of his head before he’s handing the bottle back to you—again, carefully.

“Both.”

You take your own swallow, slicking your tongue all around where his just was, and you’re drunk for real now. Drunk on a man.

“Do you ever regret telling me about her?”

“Nah.” He tips his head back, looking up at the thick beams of the deck’s awning. He’s got the longest lashes you’ve ever seen on a man, thick and curling. The deepest voice you’ve ever heard too, sultry, a bedroom voice. A voice for fucking. Your belly swirls and dips, and you want so much you’re dizzy with it.

Heart beating like it’s about to burst, out of breath on the verge of hyperventilating, you can taste his mouth in your mouth, the imagination flavor of it. This is what it must feel like to die. This is what your father must have felt like three days ago, this agony.

His Adam’s apple bobs, and it’s so pronounced, the skin of his throat sun pebbled. There isn’t an inch of him that isn’t all rough-hewn man. “You needed to hear about her then, I s’pose.”

Yes. “You told me when I needed you to.” After that lonely graduation, the last time you’d missed her really very badly, longed for a mother. Alone, alone, alone little girl.

“You were missin’ your momma somethin’ fierce. Needed to know you weren’t the only one that felt like that sometimes.”

You laugh a not-laugh, butt scraping against the railing, slipping off your perch, socked-feet thudding beside his gifted boots. The pleasure you feel whenever you see him use one of the things you’ve given him is indescribable.

“Silly,” you say with barely any sound, his bad ear reaches for your voice again. “At the time it felt like I was the only person in the whole world that had ever felt like that.”

“We all feel like that at one point or another, I reckon.”

“Will you miss him a lot?” You ask looking up at him, the beautiful profile, the strong jaw. You’ve always wondered how he sees you. If he’s ever thought you were beautiful. Other men do, it’s a common thing, a nothing sort of thing. There are always men, there will always be men. But this singular man—this one is not like the rest.

“Maybe. Can’t tell yet, don’t think. But it felt wrong earlier, walking through his house without him in it.” His house, not yours.

“Do you wish he’d been your father?” And he turns to look down at you at that, gaze snapping, and you can tell you’ve shocked him with the question. But you’d always wondered.

“No. Never,” he says with such assuredness, an uncompromising shake of his head.

And the answer doesn't necessarily shock you in turn. You don't think anyone could have ever wanted a father like that. But it also doesn't help you understand what it was that lived between them either.

He sighs, perhaps reading the confusion in your gaze. “He helped me at a time when I needed it real bad. Gave me a place and a purpose and a thing to do and take care of. You get me? It was gratitude—maybe. He saved me in a way, after Sarah. Nothing more.” He thinks for a moment, and then, “Perhaps it was that we understood each other about certain things.”

You gaze across the sprawl of dark land as far as the eye reaches, that point of no return where the earth shoots up into the sky, purple blue behemoths in the shape of mountains.

From this spot, rooted to the deck of your family home, it seems like the whole world is yours to keep. Also, like you’ll never be able to touch any of it with fingers or taste or meaning.

Your love for this place is complicated—tied up in the people, the memories, the could’ves and should’ves, the whole dreamscape idea of the monument of childhood and all it’d really never been. The time away had felt eternal, like you’d never really been here to begin with, like the young girl who’d grown up on this land had never really existed. But you’d not forgotten them, this, despite your distance. Your home, the father that wouldn’t want you, Wyoming and all its splendor, the people you’d left behind, Joel and Ellie and shared birthdays that meant a secret world to you. Morsels of small happinesses interloped amidst a largely lonely and sad childhood. That’s what it was at its core.

“Would you be angry with me if I gave it all away?”

He thinks for a moment, maybe you’re making him sadder, but then finally says with a swallow, “No. It’s yours to do with as you please.”

You eye the quarter of whiskey left, but your belly isn’t hungry for its warmth anymore. You want something heavier now.

“Could you even do that—legally—sell it or somethin’?”

“Probably not. He probably tied it to my fucking life. Sell and die.” You mime your name in an imitation of your fathers deep voice, frowning at yourself the way he’d always frowned when he looked at you, but it pulls a laugh from him, and the painful memory is worth it. “But I have a billion dollars to spend now. More?” You tap your chin—you want to make him laugh again. “Gotta think of something interesting to do with it all.”

His mouth slides into an easy half grin. Like the moon—that beautiful. And he turns to face you fully. “You’re gonna be just fine. You know that, right?”

You turn to face him too, gripping the bannister for dear life. “What? Will you make sure of it?”

“That’s my plan.”

“How’re you gonna do that, d’you reckon?” The American twang bleeds back into your voice, and you’re all swollen lush on the inside, heart a beating fist in your chest.

“Haven’t gotten that far, if I’m bein’ honest with you.” God. His eyes, the strong bridge of his nose, his mouth. He’s so tall your head has to crook back to look up at him. “I’ll figure something out.” And after another pensive second, and still with that soft, sloped eye smile, he asks, and nicely, “Will you stop drinking now—for me?”

“Maybe tomorrow,” you say with the same sort of smile in return.

And then suddenly, like vomit again but maybe more humiliating this time: “Did you respect him?” Because you don’t know all the things about him that there are to know, but you do know that Joel Miller’s respect is a thing hard earned.

He clicks his tongue, and you hear the pop of his jaw as he shifts it like he’s chewing on an honesty. His eyes, his eyes, they’re serious, mercurial, warm and deep also. You worry he won’t answer, that he wouldn’t want to disappoint you or something, but then: “No,” said real simple like.

“Why not?”

And the way he looks down at you, you know already, and it makes that falling through the surface of your own life feeling rise up inside you again, makes your ears pop with embarrassment. Ah. “He never did a very good job of hiding the way he treated you, sweetheart. I couldn’t ever respect a man like that.”

This is reality right here, this is you falling through your life, this is the realization that it wasn’t only you imposing yourself, your existence, on someone with gifts they didn’t want or ask for. Joel had seen. Joel had understood.

Someone else had noticed that you exist, and it had been him.

What else had you ever wanted?

And in the blink of a desperate, yearning eye, drunk on a man still, you’re throwing yourself at him, pressing your mouth hot and heavy to his, kissing him full on the way you’d dreamt of since you knew to dream of such things.

Chapter 2; Sugar, Not so Sweet

Netherfeildren's Masterlist

Updates Blog

#fable of the dog fic #vic fic #joel miller fanfiction #Joel Miller x FMC #joel miller smut #Joel miller angst #the last of us AU

512 notes · View notes

iwritefandomimagines · 1 year

Text

NO LONGER IN DENIAL

masterlist

pairing: anthony bridgerton x reader, bestfriend!benedict bridgerton x reader

description: anthony has made no secret of not wanting to marry, despite it being more than clear that he is head over heels in love with you, his “best friend”. benedict decides he is fed up of anthony’s denial, and takes matters into his own hands — by inciting jealousy from his older brother.

warnings: angst, jealous!anthony cos i’m a sucker for him hehe, benedict being a shit stirrer who i adore, fluffiness at the end <3

“Lady Y/N is joining us for dinner this evening, I believe,” Benedict hummed, a small smirk gracing his face as the eldest Bridgerton’s head snapped up, “Mother told me she hopes to, anyway.”

Anthony watched as his sisters fussed excitedly over seeing you, for it had been at least a week since you had graced Aubrey Hall with your presence and they missed you dearly.

Anthony had too, of course, though he’d never admit it was for any reason beyond how highly regarded you were in his family and how much he enjoyed your friendship.

“I very much look forward to seeing her,” Benedict continued, still smirking devilishly, “Though I did have the pleasure of bumping into her as she left Modiste yesterday.”

Anthony furrowed his eyebrows at his brother, “You didn’t tell me that, brother.”

“Must I share every occasion I see Lady Y/N with you, Anthony?” he quipped in reply, crossing his arms over his chest as Colin stifled a laugh, well aware of what was going on, “One might think you jealous.”

“Jealous? You jest, brother. She is my closest friend, I am simply surprised you would not mention even in passing that you saw her,” Anthony spoke through gritted teeth, “Regardless, I look forward to seeing her.”

“Ah, perfect timing!” Francesca grinned as Lady Y/N’s arrival was announced moments later, and in you walked with a gloriously bright smile on your face, though this faltered as you saw the bitter look on Anthony’s face.

“Is everything alright, my Lord?” you asked shyly, taking a few steps towards Anthony, whose expression softened at this, “Have we chosen a bad day to visit? If so I apologise—,”

Suddenly Benedict was at your side now, “It’s quite alright, my dear Lady Y/N. We are all pleased to see you. Might we take a turn about the room? We have some things to discuss!”

“No fair! You saw her yesterday, I want to show her my embroidery,” Hyacinth pouted, though Benedict raised his brow at her and flickered his eyes in Anthony’s direction as if to explain his actions.

Everyone in the family was well aware of the affection shared between you and Anthony, even if he dared not admit how he felt because of his apparent desire not to marry.

Benedict believed he just needed a push to see that you had myriad other options, and that he could only push away his feelings for so long.

“I’m sure Benedict has something important to share, my dear Hyacinth, but I would love to see your embroidery promptly after,” your voice was like honey to the eldest Bridgerton, who fought off the desire to make his own request for a moment of your time, “There is enough of me to go around! My brother will be arriving shortly, also.”

Benedict began whispering almost as soon as you had crossed the room, endeavouring to make you well aware of his plan so as not to cause any discomfort to you.

He didn’t wish for you to be confused by his sudden flirtation, so immediately indulged you with the details of his concocted plan to induce jealousy in his older brother that might finally allow him to be honest about his feelings.

With some hesitation, you accepted his plan.

Benedict was well aware of your feelings for his brother, and you knew this — after all, you had confessed it to him yourself because you trusted him dearly. Much to Anthony’s dismay, nowadays Benedict was your closest friend of all.

Anthony had once filled that role, but as each year passed and your youth slipped away, you had fallen far too in love with him to be so satisfied with a friendship as you were with Benedict.

Benedict was your best friend — Anthony was the love of your life.

Though he did not admit it, you were the love of his too. This is why Benedict’s interference was so necessary as far as the second Bridgerton son was concerned.

It was unfair for you to believe your love unrequited when it was merely his stubborn refusal to see beyond his ‘duty’ as Viscount and head of the household that prevented him from giving in to his feelings.

The plan seemed already to be working by the time you were seated for dinner, far closer to Benedict than to Anthony who sat at the other side of the table.

He scowled as he watched his brother gossiping with you, still irritated by both his earlier remark about seeing you yesterday and his persistence with being the only person in the room to maintain your attention.

“It is working, my dear friend,” Benedict beamed across at you, leaning forward to both better execute his plan and so that you could hear him better, “If looks could kill, my brother would have seen me long since dead and buried.”

You brought your hand to your mouth, hiding the giggle that escaped as you waited to calm before looking across at Anthony, “Benedict!”

You drew in a deep breath, composing yourself before glancing across at the Viscount and catching his eye immediately. His glare was suddenly no more, his lips curling up in a smile that sent your heart racing.

You mouthed a small “Hello,” to him, blushing crimson at the intensity of his stare. Despite the conversation going on around him, all he could do was look at you.

The staring contest you seemed to find yourself in was swiftly broken by Benedict’s voice calling your name again, returning you to conversation with him.

The rest of dinner passed much the same — small conversations here and there with the other Bridgertons, longing stares from an increasingly restless Anthony, and teasing comments from Benedict, who was certain that Anthony would be confronting you tonight.

“We should probably call for our carriage, I suppose,” you smiled sadly, disappointed with both how quickly the night had passed by and the fact you’d hardly spoken to Anthony throughout, “I’ve had such a lovely evening. I only wish I could stay longer!”

“You could!” Anthony exclaimed, an unusual outburst for the eldest sibling but one that made all at the table laugh as he rose to his feet, “We could have a room put up for you. It is late, and Wellsbury Hall is quite the distance.”

You bit your lip, smiling at him as he sat back down again, “Oh we couldn’t trouble you with that, my lord.”

“Perhaps my dear friend is right,” your brother disagreed, “It is getting late, and if it is no trouble we would be incredibly grateful. And I hope we might repay you with an invitation to Wellsbury in the near future? I hope to host a ball before the season ends so that my darling sister might finally find a husband.”

His eyes flickered between Benedict and Anthony for a moment and you realised that he must have been in on Benedict’s little plan.

You looked around the room cautiously at every smiling face, before settling your gaze on Anthony with a nod, “Very well then. I’d be delighted. The many childhoods spent staying here overnight are often much missed.”

Lady Bridgerton grinned, “Fantastic. Then it is settled,” she turned to the maids stood by the door, “Please prepare two rooms for our guests as quickly as possible. It is, after all, late, and I’m sure they will soon wish to rest.”

The way Anthony watched you for the rest of dinner made you impossibly nervous.

When the maids told you which rooms were readied, you stood to retire to bed, but not before Benedict offered to show you to the room as it was in his opinion the best decorated.

“Brother, I don’t believe it’s appropriate for you to show Lady Y/N to her room,” Anthony huffed, having had enough now of him being stuck to you like heavy-duty glue, “Perhaps you should allow one of our maids to kindly do so.”

“It is quite alright, Anthony. We are in the comfort of our own home, and I know Y/N quite well enough,” Benedict sing-songed, “Unless you would prefer to show her? The maids are quite busy clearing up.”

Anthony’s jaw clenched at his brother’s comment about knowing you ‘quite well enough’ and so he found himself at your side quickly.

“In fact yes, perhaps I should,” he agreed, a sternness in his tone you’d become used to again today. He was so much gentler with you, but today with you so seemingly far from him he has grown stoic again, “After all, I am the head of this household and you have not let me spend a minute with my closest friend, hm?”

Colin interjected now, aware of all eyes on the conversation, “Perhaps Lady Y/N can make the decision herself?”

“I—,”

“Fine, I concede,” Benedict raised his hands in surrender, “I suppose I’ve not let her leave my side this evening, though you cannot fault me for that. I will bid you goodnight, Y/N. Goodnight brothers.”

He took your hand in his, lifting it to his lips for just the gentlest of kisses to the back of it, before he bowed and quickly left the room.

With Anthony facing the other way, towards you, Benedict turned to shoot you a wink before leaving, and nerves bubbled in your gut at the unknown of what was to come.

The kiss to your hand was the final straw for Anthony, who linked his arm with yours and lead you out of the room without another word to anyone else.

You were silent for the walk, but once you stopped still outside of the room you were to sleep in Anthony turned to stand in front of you, his breathing jagged as his eyes searched your face for clues to why he was feeling so furious at your friendship with Benedict.

“Is my brother courting you?” he came right out and asked it, his chest heaving and yours doing so now too as you shook your head.

“Not at all, my lord,” you bit your lip again, before looking down at the ground to avoid his gaze.

He brought his index finger to your chin, lifting your face so that you were forced to look at him again, “And do you wish him to be?”

Again you shook your head, but his finger never left your skin for a moment.

“I was so sure—,”

“Forgive me, my lord, I have just been finding comfort in his friendship of late as I see him regularly about town,” you frowned, suddenly even more conscious of how little time you spent with Anthony in recent weeks.

He leaned ever so slightly closer, “Finding comfort in his friendship? And what of ours?”

“Our friendship, my lord? I—,”

“I apologise, Y/N, but I do not like to see you so close with my brother. Not least because of the fear of a scandal if others saw his behaviour,” he gritted his teeth, “He touches you too often. Leans too close to speak with you and it… it is misleading.”

You gulped, “Why would you be so infuriated by the notion of him courting me, my dear Anthony? He is your brother, and he cares for me. Even if it is not him I wish did so.”

He cocked his head in confusion now, before his eyes widened in realisation of his brother’s scheming. And in considering that, he realised that it had worked.

He’d never wanted to marry, and especially never for love.

But with you stood right there at his finger tips, smiling up at him nervously with a twinkle in your eyes, he threw caution to the wind and realised that you had changed that in him.

He could no longer deny his desire to hold you, to have you entirely as his, to make you his Viscountess.

“Who do you wish to treat you as such, my lady?”

“Surely you can see the answer for yourself, Anthony.”

“I simply wish to hear you say it. But if I must do so first, as a consequence of my foolishness in not seeing it sooner, then so be it. I dislike your closeness to my brother because I miss your attention being mine. I wish to have you at my side always, to laugh with you and dance with you and just talk with you all evening. I do not wish to see Benedict court you because I wish to do so myself.”

“Anthony—,”

“Please, my love, let me finish. I have most probably been in love with you for as long as I have known you, and yet chosen not to see it out of my own stubbornness. If not for my scheming devil of a brother, I might still be in denial. But I love you most ardently, Y/N. And if you feel at all the same then I should like to make you my wife. My viscountess.”

You were speechless, perhaps for one of the first times since meeting Anthony.

You had always told him everything, always saved your last dance for him at balls, always rooted for him in every game of Pall Mall even as his competitor.

And now here he was, the famously anti-marriage Viscount asking if you too wished to wed him.

“Anthony, I had hoped it was clear as day that I too have been unfathomably in love with you for longer than I can explain,” you blushed crimson again under his gaze as a smile spread across his face, “To marry you, well, would be the only way I might find joy in marriage. I know you’ve never sought a match, let alone a love match, but I love you most dearly, my dear Anthony.”

He captured your lips with his as soon as you stopped speaking, knowing that he shouldn’t do so but hoping nobody was around.

Besides, he would soon make you his wife, and he couldn’t contain the excitement.

“I know I’ve previously had my reservations but I am no longer in denial, and I’m sorry for taking my liberties with you by kissing you before we are wed but I could not help myself. And I wish to spend a lifetime kissing you, Y/N. Will you marry me?” he looked shy all of a sudden, which you had never seen before, and you grabbed both of his hands in yours to kiss them.

“Of course, my dear, there is nothing I would like more!”

His smile became impossibly wide, and once more he kissed you out of sheer excitement.

“I’m sorry that this was so abrupt, and I have yet no ring. But my mother will be ecstatic and I plan to give you her betrothal ring because— you are the only woman worthy. And I shall spend our whole life ensuring that I make up for taking so long to do this,” he was vulnerable now, still shy under your careful gaze,

“I had no desire to marry because I had no desire to put the woman I love through the pain of losing me like my mother did my father. She was distraught but— I see now that it is no good wasting time with this fear. However long I might live, I wish to spend those years loving you and making you happy, so that any pain might be worthwhile.”

You kissed him now, tearing your gloves from your hands and reaching up to cup his face and kiss him, “I love you, Anthony Bridgerton. Always. And I cannot wait to be your wife. It will be the greatest honour.”

You were both hot and flustered, and it was taking everything in him not to push open your bedroom door and sweep you off your feet.

But for you, he was a gentleman, and so he settled for one final kiss atop your head and a sweet goodnight.

“We shall tell the others as we break fast tomorrow, perhaps?” you could see the dizzy joy in Anthony’s eyes as he asked this of you, and you nodded profusely.

“I cannot wait, my dear.”

“Then I will bid you good night, my love. I will dream of you, and look forward to seeing you in the morning. Sleep well, my future viscountess.”

“Sleep well, my love.”

As you went to part, you heard a rustle a little way down the corridor, both looking up to see a smug Benedict smirking, leaning on the wall just down the hallway.

“Even I underestimated my own plan. Congratulations, brother. You finally saw sense.”

———

hello! i know this is completely random as i’ve been writing for djats lately but i has this idea and felt the neeeeed to write it. feel free to request more bridgerton fics, as i’m inspired at the moment and rewatching it.

in the meantime, here is my masterlist!

#bridgerton #anthony bridgerton x reader jealous #anthony bridgerton #anthony bridgerton x reader #benedict bridgerton #bridgerton imagine #anthony bridgerton imagine #anthony bridgerton one shot #jealous #jealous anthony bridgerton

4K notes · View notes

phyrestartr · 16 days

Text

Love Is Not My Right | Sukuna x M!Reader

W/C: 1.1k

#NSFW, bottom!reader, top!sukuna, reader is early thirties, sukuna is mid twenties, reader is a uni prof, sukuna is a uni student, DON'T SLEEP WITH YOUR PROFS IRL PLS THANK YOU, questionable relationship, smut, fluff, angst, self-deprecating reader, soft sukuna?, sukuna has daddy and mommy issues, not edited that much lol IT'S A DRABBLE STFU

tags: @kamote-kuneho @better-imagination-9 @flowersatwork (SOZ IF Y'ALL HAVE ALREADY READ THIS HFOHGIOHG JUST REMEMBERED I DIDN'T ADD TAGS)

“Fuck, Teach,” Sukuna groaned. His hips pistoned against yours harder, accentuated by the sharp clap of skin meeting skin. He squeezed your thigh, the one of the leg thrown over his shoulder, before slapping the side of your ass as his head tilted back with a throaty groan.

You, on the other hand, were a trembling mess--and at the hands of your student, no less. Everything about this was uncouth as could be; Sukuna was nearly a decade your junior, he was in your class, and he had zero qualms about the fact that you were his professor. He saw you, decided he wanted you, and would therefore have you.

It was easy saying no in the beginning. He was a typical punk with sharp wit and a sharper tongue--many men like him had made passes at you in the confines of your classroom, but Sukuna had the smarts and charisma to back up his flirtatious remarks and daring whispers.

But, if you were being honest, maybe it was because you'd been engaged twice, un-engaged thrice (long story). Maybe it was because you'd been cheated on and dumped on loop. Maybe it was because you'd given up on romance and sex and everything else and–well, maybe that was why you succumbed to his advances. Maybe you were just sad and lonely, willing to be taken advantage of under the man's misguided thought that you'd give him a better grade if he fucked you good enough. You wouldn't. But he never asked for it, either.

You jumped when another sharp spank sent ripples of bitter pleasure and pinching pain fluttering across your skin. The simple feeling had you clamping down around the man and gasping.

“Itadori-kun–”

“What did I say?” Sukuna groaned, spanking you again and adjusting the leg hooked over his shoulder. “First name.”

Your eyes blurred slightly from the embarrassment and pleasure of it all. “I--but that's–”

“I'm ‘boutta cum in your ass, ‘n you're worried about honorifics?” Sukuna cackled, holding your thigh with both hands as he focused harder on moving his hips faster and faster. “‘M fucking you…in your own fuckin’ bed…and you're–ah–worried about–fuck, you're so fucking good--fuck.”

The searing friction eating you alive tripled in Sukuna's frenzy to reach his second high of the night. You burned alive, shyly crying out as he hit your soft spot over and over, tightening up more and more until you plummeted into your third (fourth? Fifth?) orgasm dealt by Itadori Sukuna's hand. Well, hand, mouth, and cock.

“Sukuna,” you gasped, curling into yourself and subsequently toward him, fisting one hand into his dark hoodie to try and ground yourself against the relentless assault.

His hips stuttered when you called his name. His lips crashed against yours, then, with teeth clacking together and tongue bullying into your mouth as he trembled and slammed in with too-much strength to pour his cum into your core.

“F-fuck. Love that sh-shit,” he stuttered as his stomach tightened and contracted, his eyes rolling back before they fell closed to indulge in the pleasure crashing down on him. But his body's seizing didn't stop his hips from moving–he kept pushing and pushing, hard and sloppy and weak but so, so desperate to jam more and more deeper and deeper into you.

Eventually, when you were both threadbare and burnt out, he pulled out and collapsed beside you with a pleased sigh. You hugged a pillow and fought to catch your breath, but Sukuna, the brat he was, tugged away your life boat to replace it with himself.

You sighed, baffled and exhausted. “Sukuna–”

“What? ‘M allowed to fuck you but not–”

“You–I–we shouldn't be–I shouldn't be doing this,” you argued. “You're too young, I'm your professor. You should be looking for people your own age–”

“Not like I fucking chose this for the thrill,” he scoffed, tucking his arm under his head as he looked at your tired face. “This looks bad on me, too. Looks like I'm tryna fuck good grades out of you.”

You huffed and fixed his hoodie's tangled drawstrings. “You already get good grades. No one would believe that.”

“‘M a fucking genius. Everyone knows,” he agreed with a smirk. “But the other extras in your class? They'll act like it's somethin’ else. They'll jump on whatever the fuck they can to make their own pathetic asses feel less guilty for sucking so hard at life.”

You rolled your eyes, but couldn't help a smile. “Well, this'll look worse on me. Either you did fuck grades out of me, or I'm holding said grades hostage ‘n making you sleep with me lest they suddenly drop.”

Sukuna hummed and slid a hand to your bare waist. “Ho? I like the sound of that. Guess I'll have to try harder to make sure I stay your favourite. I could go for a 4.4."

“Please–don't roleplay that,” you begged, feeling more tired by the second. “Just promise me you'll move on and forget about this after finals. Please. It's in your best interest.”

“Yeah? ‘N what's in your best interest, Teach?” Sukuna wondered. His knuckles brushed against the curve of your cheek, and you felt your heart ache with loneliness. But you'd never admit you wanted this. You'd never admit you wanted a cure for being unlovable.

“Keeping you safe,” you said, pulling his hand from your face and squeezing it tightly, “Is in my best interest. I want you to be happy, to stay out of trouble. And this? This can only breed trouble.”

“Trouble ain't so bad.”

“Sukuna.”

“After finals, ‘m not your student anymore,” Sukuna reminded.

Your face got a little hot. “Don't twist this–”

“Twist it? Tch. It's just facts.” He looped his arms around your smaller frame and tugged you in close. “So I'm gonna keep taking my daddy issues out on you even after the semester ends.”

You had to laugh. “That's–you're a little too self-aware–”

“Pretty sure that's a good thing, no?” He yawned and tugged the blankets up over the both of you. “You're starting to piss me off with all the resistance. Just take it. Like how you take my cock.”

You sighed and sat up, pulling the blanket over the younger man more. “You have a dangerous mouth on you, y’know that?”

Sukuna smirked. “Like hearin' that from you.”

“Right. Well, I need to wash up.” You brushed his hair back against your better judgment. “You need anything?”

The look he sent you made everything ache more; it was something so warm and lazy, half-lidded eyes fighting to stay open as your tender touches lulled him to sleep. It was so strange, the apparent peace you brought to such an explosive soul. It almost made you think this could work.

“Jus’ make sure you come back,” he grumbled before letting his eyes fall closed. “Fucking kill you if you don't.”

You smiled the tiniest bit as you brushed his hair back a few more times. “Promise I will,” you whispered, earning a soft grunt of approval in return.

But as you sauntered to the bathroom, shedding whatever clothes you somehow still had on, you cried.

#male reader insert #sukuna x you #sukuna x m!reader #jjk #jjk x you #jujutsu kaisen x reader #jujutsu kaisen x you #reader insert #ryoumen sukuna x reader #ryomen sukuna x reader #jjk smut #jjk x male reader #jjk x y/n #sukuna x y/n #sukuna x reader #sukuna ryoumen x reader #itadori sukuna x reader

740 notes · View notes

galacticgraffiti · 7 months

Text

✿⋅ Oh, to be Alone with You ⋅✿

NSFW ⋆ 18+ ⋆ Minors DNI

Rating: Explicit Wordcount: 2.6k Descriptors: I try my best to write inclusively. Reader uses she/her pronouns and is mentioned in her physicality but not described in detail. If anything escaped me, please let me know! Sorry I couldn't make this more gender neutral, but since this fic is a gift to @naariel I thought I'd use her pronouns. Warnings: dirty daydreams, yearning, lusting after someone, male masturbation, dirty talk, fantasy of PiV sex within the daydream, bath sex, this is written from Halsin's POV

⋆⋅ Inspired by this insane artwork by @naariel ⋅⋆

Author's note: I've been pondering, rotating and marinating this artwork in my mind for WEEKS. It haunts me in the best possible way and I am so happy Naariel gave me permission to reference her art! If you are not already following her, you definitely should - her skill and talent are infinite.

Masterlist ⋆ If you prefer AO3

───── ⋆⋅✿⋅⋆ ─────

Oh, to be Alone with You

Halsin sighs when he finally sits down, long limbs sprawling on the too-small chair that can barely contain him.

Chairs. What superfluous oddities, where a big tree stump might have sufficed. If one has to make them at all, why not at least make them comfortable? Why not sit in the meadows, why not find a place to lay where the sun has warmed a rock that has been washed and polished by the rain? But no, the rules of the city demand he be contained within four walls instead of roaming free, they demand he bathe in a wooden tub instead of out in the wilds, they demand he wear clothes and be polite to people even as they trample the Oak Father’s creations beneath their boots without even stopping to look and enjoy nature’s gifts.

Halsin shuts his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose to stave off the oncoming headache. It has been a long day and he is so tired. A long week. A long few weeks, if he is being honest with himself. In all these centuries, times have been- well- rough, to say the least. But whatever haunts the Sword Coast now… it’s different. Bigger than the invasions of Goblins across the land, bigger than the Shadow druids, bigger even than the Shadow Curse that has occupied Halsin’s every waking hour for nigh on one hundred years.

At least, Thaniel and Oliver have been reunited, some life returning to the lands as it always should have been. A victory, chased for so long, tasting sweet only for a moment before the stale urgency of the matter at hand had seeped back into Halsin’s mind: Mindflayers infecting innocents, magic-infused tadpoles, an Elder Brain… There are too many battles to be fought, and not one of them to be won.

Halsin presses his lips together and tries to banish the dark thoughts from his mind. There are some good things that have come out of this: They have not lost a fight yet, and his newfound companions are… stimulating, to say the least. Fighting alongside them has been a joy and a privilege - watching their blades sear, their magic erupt, their arrows pierce their targets as the bear Halsin rips through flesh and bone. The fighting is necessary, and his companions are more skilled than he could have ever wished for. This day may have been hard, but it was successful nonetheless, and now he is here, freshly bathed and ready to find some rest for the night. If only it could be under the stars, far outside the city walls, he would almost call himself happy. Instead, he must bed down alone, encased by too many walls and a too-small bed frame.

Halsin misses the smell of grass that has not been trampled by hundreds of boot-clad feet, he misses the feeling of bark against his fur, he misses his wildshape and trodding through calm forests instead of bloodied battlefields. He misses air that is crisp and clean and doesn't smell of artificially molten metals. He misses the Grove, he misses Thaniel and he misses the woods. The city has been forsaken by Silvanus, and even if this place is a small oasis of nature, it is not the same as being out among the Oak Father’s creations.

He cracks his neck, his hair tickling his collarbones. Halsin curses quietly to himself, pushing a curl behind his ear. He needs to cut his hair - it’s getting too long. And he needs to braid it again, his plaits are all out of sorts. It might be a hassle to do it without a mirror- but maybe he could ask-

No.

Shaking his head as if to will the thought away, he slumps into the discomfort of the chair a little more.

No, he shouldn't ask her anything. Nothing that would involve her hands on him, at least. Certainly not her fingers buried in his hair, tugging softly, her voice gently commanding that he tilt his head a different way. He can’t ask for that. It would only lead to him asking for more:

More of her hands on him, more of her skin against his, more than innocent touches and whispered goodnights across the campfire. He would ask for everything: To bury himself inside her until the world fades away, to devour her until she is slick with sweat from the pleasure he brings her. To be the keeper of her heart, just as he yearns for her to be the keeper of his.

Halsin can feel the familiar tightness in his back as the golden shimmer of his wildshape travels up to his shoulder blades. One thought of her, and already the bear stirs.

He remembers everything that happened today, even as he tries so hard to think of something else:

He remembers the way she smells, of sweet berries, blood and leather. He remembers her looking up at him, as her fingers clutch her weapon tightly. He remembers the fire in her eyes after the slaughter, the glow in her cheeks when she turned around to look at him and found only the bear. He remembers how she smiled at him, even after all that violence, a smile like the sinking sun, bloodied and red, but more beautiful than he could ever have dreamed up.

And as the day progressed: Her arm bumping into his, her head tilting up when she asked him a question and wanted to read his expression. How her hands slipped around him to reach for some food at the campfire earlier when they rested. Her sweet breath on his face and a mumbled excuse when she walked into him, still drowsy with sleep. And all Halsin wanted to do was pull her into his lap and bury his nose in the crook of her neck and forget about the world, forget about everyone watching, and have her, right then, in that moment. Have her all to himself, make her his very own. To feel her around him, to show her the depth of his affection, the desperation of his desire, the magnitude of his commitment.

All he wanted in that moment - all he still wants - is to touch her, to feel her in ways that he cannot ask for because he is scared she will not want the same thing he does. Halsin wants to lick the sweat off her skin, he wants to be buried between her thighs whenever they can steal away, even for a few minutes, he wants her taste on his tongue when he fights, and to wrap himself around her when they sleep.

The force of his own thoughts makes Halsin shudder, glowing desire stirring deep in his belly.

Her tongue in his mouth, his hands on her skin: How soft she would be against him. How wonderful to hear her voice break when she cries out for him, how she would taste if he could lick her off his fingers, the honey of her thighs, the salt of her sweat. He would give anything to know the expression on her face when she is lost to mindless bliss- he would give everything to know that he is the cause of it.

A low moan escapes his throat then, and Halsin presses his lips together when his mind returns from memory and sweet imagination to this house in the midst of a bustling city. This is not nature, where he can do what pleases him when it pleases him. No, the city - ‘civilisation’ as they call it - comes with rules, expectations, limitations.

He is in someone else’s home, exhausted from the day, the blood barely washed off his skin. And yet, all he can think about is… her. All he can feel is the constriction of his clothing, the confinement of leather where he longs to be touched. He wants to shed like the bear sheds his fur after the winter, he wants to feel free again.

Halsin hums, breathing deeply, willing away the golden sparks of his wildshape that dance along his fingertips. He listens intently, fingers dancing across his thighs, drumming an impatient rhythm.

Nothing in the house stirs. Maybe they are all gone still, running their errands, finding bath houses, visiting old friends and merchants they used to know before they return here for a long night’s rest. Maybe Halsin can have a small pocket of time to himself. Time to dream himself away, to give in to the desire he has harboured for so long.

Maybe… he could use this opportunity to release some of that tension that has settled deep in his belly. Refocus his attention. Maybe it’ll be for the best- not to think of her constantly anymore, not of her smell, or the colour of her eyes, of the way her fingers linger on his for a moment too long whenever they touch, or how much he wished they could have bathed together when he sank into the tub earlier that night.

The city has many downsides, but baths are one of the few things to enjoy. Hot springs are wonderful, but few and far between. Nature provides: The bear does not mind the coldness of a stream in the woods, or the iciness of a mountain lake. But there is nothing like a steaming bath to help prevent the sore ache that settles in his bones after a fight.

If only it was acceptable to ask her if she would join him. If only it had been her hands washing dirt and grime and blood from his skin, brushing his hair, kneading tired muscles, her hands much smaller than his, but strong and determined. Loving.

Halsin lets his head fall back, spine cracking as he settles in the small, uncomfortable chair, spreading his legs to cup his hardening cock. He closes his eyes and tries to imagine it…

She glistens in the dim light, thin streams of water trickling down her skin when she emerges from the bath, her lashes stuck together as she beams at him.

“Mhh, we should have done this ages ago!”

“I could not agree more, my heart.” Halsin loves seeing her like this. She looks happy, like she has not a care in the world.

She crawls up into his lap, settling on him, her thighs bracketing his. Her hands run across his chest, lathering him in soap that smells of lavender and thyme. Halsin’s heart is beating in his throat when she leans in to kiss his collarbone, her lips soft, her hair smelling of smoke and flowers as it always does.

Desire surges inside him, crackling like lightning in his veins, and he sends the bear away, far away. This is a moment he wants for himself: Skin against skin, tongues exploring, hands intertwined. This is no place for fangs and claws, not tonight. Halsin unlaces his trousers with steady fingers, though even those few seconds seem unbearable to him. When his hand finally wraps around his cock, he breathes a sigh of relief, only to feel dissatisfied moments after. He wants her hands, her eyes on him, her voice dripping with lust. For now, his imagination will have to do.

He dreams himself back to the bath, thinking of all he could have had, if he had only had the courage to ask.

Her skin is burning hot against his, her fingers leave a flaming trail wherever she touches him.

“Is this alright, my love?” Her voice is full of concern and affection, as it always is when she asks about his comfort and well-being.

“More than alright.” Halsin’s breaths grow shaky when she moves her hips, shallowly grinding down against him. “Gods, I want to-”

“Mhhm?” There is a curious twinkle in her eye. “What is it you want? Tell me. I’m sure I could make your dreams come true.”

Halsin shifts when the wooden backing of the chair digs into his back as he bucks his hips, fucking into his hand that is wrapped around his cock - a poor substitution for what - for who - he really wants.

A growl rings out in the empty room when he closes his eyes and imagines her again.

Her thighs look so lovely, spread wide so he can fit between them. She smells of the bath salts and of herself, and her voice talks to him through the thick fog of his desire.

“I know what you want, don’t I, bear? I’ll take such good care of you if you let me. I’ll make sure you don’t even have to ask for it. I’ll let you taste me, whenever you want- wherever you want. I’ll help you focus- you can focus on me, can’t you? There you go…”

Halsin is panting, his hand moving faster.

She feels good, so good when she sinks down on him, wet with arousal and so willing to take him.

“You, little flower, are the jewel of nature’s creation,” he mumbles. “You are all I could ever want and more. I want to taste you on my tongue, always- for there to never be a day where I won’t know the way you drip for me- for you to never go a day without being satisfied, without feeling loved and cared for. Your happiness is all I want- your ecstasy all I desire. Let me take care of you.”

She moans, her head falling back as she starts to roll her hips, taking him deeper and deeper with each stroke.

“I’ll take care of you as you do of me,” she whispers. “I’ll make sure to provide for you all you could ever need or want. You give and give, let me give you everything I am in return. Be selfish, bear. Take what you want, swallow me whole, devour me without worrying whether it’s too much. I want you to. Mark me- make me yours. Tell the whole world I belong to you, whichever way you desire.”

Her movements are desperate now, her words only sighs and moans, breathless as she buries her head against his shoulder. Halsin inhales the scent of her hair, sinks into her words as the fog of lust that has settled on his brain grows thicker and heavier, until there is not a thought left on his mind but her.

“Halsin-” Gods, his name sounds so sweet off her tongue. “Halsin, I want you to fill me. Please- please, I want to feel full with you, today and every day you’ll fucking let me. I want to fight knowing you are still dripping down my thighs, I want to kiss you under the stars and know I’ll never be without you again.”

The curses that are falling from his lips are ungodly, but Halsin does not care. He is desperate now, mouth open as he calls her name and thinks of the words he wishes he could hear her say.

“Come for me, bear. Come inside me, lay claim to me as only you ever could- f-fuck- make me yours- please- Halsin, I’m yours, I’m yours and yours and yours, as long as you’ll have me- forever if you want to-”

With a cry of her name on his lips, Halsin gives in to pleasure and lets himself be overtaken by a wave of bliss. His thighs tremble as he spills over his hand, sticky warmth dripping from his fingers. He does not open his eyes. Not yet. He wants to stay in the fantasy just a moment longer.

“Halsin, I-”

His eyes open, blood rushing to his cheeks as he returns to the real world and finds her standing in the doorway.

I'm going fucking feral. Running into the woods hoping to find him there, who's with me -

@purgetrooperfox @ashotofspotchka @dream-alittlebiggerdarling @ulchabhangorm @queen--kenobi @samspenandsword @rescuethewretched @pinkiemme @baba-fett @witchklng @ladykatakuri @certified-anakinfucker @fanfiction-i-llike @voidinfernal @foxferret02 @rosieofcorona @savagemickey03 @perseny @margoisthemoon2 @shiiunn @saucyhedgehog @tonysoffice @pupshr00m @supercalifragilisticprincess @palpipeen @silly-gooseastarion @mila-bee @shit-i-say-throughout-the-day @idkwhatsgoingonwithme @aeryntheofficial @jekasha @gub @nogitsune-the @solarrexplosion @hexqueensupreme @unofficialavenger90 @frankiesghost @curtaincaramba

If you have signed up for my taglist and you are not on this list, I could not tag you. Check your settings and sign up again.

#bg3 #halsin #halsin x reader #in some capacity i suppose #baldur's gate #baldurs gate 3 #halsin bg3 #nsft #halsin x f!reader #gala writes

1K notes · View notes

glystenangel · 1 year

Note

Hi! I would love to request a Sukuna x Sorcerer Reader oneshot where the reader gets called in to help to fight against Sukuna. When the reader arrives to fight, Sukuna took a liking towards her and flirts with her while fighting. Also, this would be enemies to lovers, smut and romance, a spicy vibe to it, and I'm okay with you posting this oneshot publicly ^^ - ☀️💖👑

In the Heat of Battle

Sukuna x Sorceror&Afab!Reader

tags/warnings: 18+ MDNI, everything in the ask but also i did this in a historical au bc...i like them, sitting in a hot spring with sukuna, SEX, cunnilingus, degradation/praise, edging😇, dirty talk, cussing, ridin', bratty reader, cumeating, sukunas got his 4 arms, half smut half fluff, i get a bit philosophical in the middle sorry, mentions of murder, injuries, and blood, etc.

~ 10k i got a lil too excited mayhaps bc this is not oneshot length but whatever

thanks for requesting, i hope you like<3

_________________

Fighting a curse like Sukuna meant you were lucky to be alive for this long.

Of course, you never had much need for luck.

“Ooh, so close.” Sukuna laughs into an effortless dodge, so agile that you can feel the air gliding underneath your palm for an irritatingly brief moment.

His voice is deep and so closely threaded with power the entire town practically shudders with the sound.

“I’ll get you next time.” You spit, gritting your teeth and preparing yourself for the next series of attacks.

Sukuna opens his hands wide, “You can have me anytime you want.”

Ever since you got called into battle, your opponent took it upon himself to flirt with you more than he fought with you. Even as you beat him to a pulp, he would persist. It was nothing short of maddening.

You glare at him, cursed energy coursing through you as you ready yourself once more, “Shut up already!”

“Hm,” He licks the ivory tip on one of his canines with a rough stroke of his tongue, as if savoring the threat, “Happy to have a pretty girl like you shut me up too.”

“I’ll shut you up for good, and you won’t like how I do it. Trust me.”

“Come on, sweetheart. You’re good, but good enough to beat me? Be honest with yourself-”

Before he can finish, the cursed spirit’s neck is in your hands and you’re relishing the way his pupils shrink in alarm at your successful grab. Despite his shock, Sukuna manages to minimize any possible damage by dragging you with him as his body is forced backwards from the impact of your ambush. The instinctive maneuver is enough to pull you into the wall with him.

Rubble from the area you and Sukuna crash into cascades around your fallen figures. The fear of injury stings through your body, and you only register it when you instinctively push out your arms to get yourself back on your feet.

“Not so fast.” Sukuna’s arms entangle you again, and you belatedly realize he had landed beside you.

He also rises to his feet more quickly than you can, pinning you to the chalky remains of the wall and sneering at your frantic clawing along the tops of his knuckles.

You hazily hear the gravelly reverberation of Sukuna’s laughter, and return to the rest of your senses, “Get the fuck off me!”

“Watch your temper.”

He keeps you in his grip with his four arms, and you continue to struggle in their collective grasp. The veins of his arms are tense and pronounced from the rest of his olive skin.

“...And your modesty.” He pinches the hem of your collar between a few fingers, the tease emphasized by the slide of fabric across your skin.

The heat that follows the motion enrages you.

Sukuna looks down at you with continued bemusement, and you follow his line of sight to find your shirt ripped open.

There’s a slight wrinkle in his nose that indents into the small black slash across it, and it’s caused by the smug expression on Sukuna’s face. His grin seems to have a cunning bite to it, and the corners perfectly complement the shape of his jaw.

As much as you hate to admit it, he has a nice smile. Nice enough to make your heart skip a beat.

Too bad you had to get rid of it.

Wrestling him to the ground, the impact leaves you breathless and a loud ringing enters your ears subsequent to you rolling yourself onto your back. You must have slammed your head, because you can feel the back of your scalp becoming sore.

Out of the corner of your eye, you notice your fellow sorcerers retreating and collecting the wounded. After your requested arrival, you had been exchanging violent maneuvers with Sukuna for what felt like hours.

In reality, you know that it probably hadn’t been any more than 10 minutes since you tackled the curse and began delivering blows with your curse abilities.

Everything is on fire.

You have to finish the job.

“Looks like you hurt yourself pretty good.” You hear through your blurring vision, “Can you keep going?”

What?

Part of you strains to hear, and the other half retains enough instinct to push away Sukuna’s broad shoulders as he approaches.

You’re still trying to land attacks as your consciousness fades and he catches each one, making you resist even more and inadvertently expend your remaining energy.

“Stop. You’re cute for trying but don't.” He snarls.

A nice, square blow to his cheek grants you some satisfaction as you finally lose consciousness.

_________________

When you wake up, dozens of local sorcerers and townspeople are flocked to your side and hurriedly checking your vitals from where you lay on the ground.

“How long was I out?”

“About a minute.” A villager answers, dusting the debris off of your clothes.

“It’s fine, I’m fine.” You brush them off, the pounding in your head matching the one in your chest.

Although dazed, you scan beyond the crowd for any trace of Sukuna.

“He’s gone, don’t worry.” Someone says.

Even so, you contine to look for him.

Though you’re not sure why.

_________________

In spite of your bewilderment, you continue to search for Sukuna throughout the days succeeding the fight.

However, he seems to be searching for you too.

As luck would have it, he finds you first.

_________________

You dunk your wounds in the warm water, trying to relax into the hot spring and let the steam clear your mind.

Thanks to a healing sorcerer named Shoko, most of your wounds were able to be skillfully closed up, but they seem to still ache as though they were fresh.

So, you had ventured into the woods to the secret hot spring you had found years ago. The countryside was littered with them, and this one was your favorite due to the privacy brought by the trees and the soothing temperature. You were convinced that it had some sort of healing properties due to the mineral content that clouded the water, but you didn’t expend too much thought on that theory.

No one else seems to know about it either, so you trust the serenity of your secret hiding place enough to rest your head on the rocks and drift off.

As sleep begins to kiss your eyelids, a nearby rustle has them snapping back. You freeze, not wanting any splashing to alert the possible intruder.

Breathing slowly, you scrutinize the area that appears to be the source of the noise. You feel your battle worn joints scream in protest, but your gut instinct tells you that you may have to prepare to defend yourself.

The shadows of the trees drag over a tall figure, and your eyes widen at the familiar outline.

“Oh shit.”

Your thoughts mirror the words delivered by that unmistakable voice ingrained in your recent memory.

It’s Sukuna.

He has a bruise trailing along his jawline, and you recognize the blooms of purple as your handiwork among the other scrapes and scars dotting his person. It seems most of them have healed less neatly than yours have. Sukuna takes a step forward, and you note that he has a limp in his gait. The robes he wears are clean however, ivory and slate gray in color, seemingly too pure for someone as malicious as him. He rotates his neck and shoulders, the movement of those broad muscles prompting the stretch and pull of his pecs. His eyes stay trained on yours, the color of autumn leaves burning into your wary hues. Even with his obvious injuries, his presence brings chills to your body. He still looks strong.

The sudden appearance has you ducking lower into the misty water with a not so subtle splash.

“Don’t look!”

You internally wince at your unplanned plea, expecting him to laugh or roll his eyes, but it only makes him pause.

The struggling rise and fall of your chest becomes ignored as you make out his face through the steam, which lacks emotion or mercy of any sort.

Then, he covers his eyes with a large hand draped over the bridge of his nose.

“Okay.” Sukuna says, the agreement is accommodating yet inflected with a nonchalance that forces you to blink hard.

Another silence falls over you both, and you place a hand on one of the stones bordering the pool. Tufts of grass poke between the coarse gray, and you can feel a few get caught under your knuckle white grip.

You can’t fight him like this, so you have half a mind to run.

The thought is interrupted when the curse speaks again, “Can I come in?”

The ask jolts you back into that perilous place between fight or flight, “No fucking way!”

“I’ll keep my eyes to myself, promise.”

No irony laces his speech, and true to his word, his eyes remain covered.

Before you can retort, he says again, “Besides, I don’t think either of us are in any condition to fight…you more so than me. Don’t you agree?”

His lips move beneath the curve of his hand, and you follow the shape of them with little interest. They’re split with a line of scabbed blood, and his hand has green bruising patched over the back of it.

He somehow looks worse than you do.

“I don’t think you’re in any condition to insult me either.”

“You’re right, I’m sorry.”

The water continues to rush over your body, and you feel it easing the tension within. Nature eroding every facet of pain into smooth relief.

It would be a first for you to share such consolation.

“Fine. But, don’t come near me. Or look.” You acquiesce, though just in case you assume a stance that resembles offense somewhat.

Honestly, you feel ridiculous.

Sukuna smiles widely, and then he continues walking until he senses the edge of the water by the heat on the bottoms of his feet. You briefly shield your own eyes when he disrobes, and he slips into the opposite side of the spring so gracefully you wonder if he’s secretly peeking through his fingers. His sheer mass displaces some of the liquid, and it hits your shoulders as he settles in.

Once he’s waist deep, and to your surprise, he turns away to rest his chin over crossed arms. His other two arms swim through the spring, feeling what little current there was running across his palms.

Feeling awkward, you do the same, but periodically look back to see if he wasn’t going to rip your heart out from behind.

His back is lined with deep grooves of strength and the dark marks tattooed onto his skin, water puddling over the dips and then spreading thin into glossy sheens as it evaporates.

Your throat wets with saliva at the magnificent view.

Every part of Sukuna seems perfectly sculpted to fight and conquer. A sadistic culmination of poetry in motion.

You examine your own figure wrought with power and evidence of your training. The same water decorating him was lapping at you too.

An even match, you think.

“You’re being awfully quiet, getting dirty thoughts about me already?”

The croon shifts your focus, and you whip around to flick water between his shoulder blades. The shot hits its target, though he hardly seems to register the miniscule shot.

What an annoying guy.

“Hey. Don’t make me come over there.”

“I’d like to see you try.” You roll your eyes and return your sights to the treeline when you sense movement behind you.

As soon as your peripheral picks up on Sukuna rushing towards you, you manage to lift your hands in time to catch Sukuna’s.

Large globs of water hang off of the thick elbows he hoists into the air, the liquid trickling down to his ribs and then rippling the surrounding water. His height is nothing short of monstrous as you glower at the smirking curse.

Moisture is also loosely braided into his petal hued hair, which glistens in the sunlight before fading into a dark, cropped shadow around his ears and above his neck. He looks…different up close and without the rigid aura of battle.

Your fingers interlock tightly together, no words easing the moment. Speaking seems impossible, and the prolonged clasp has you swallowing hard.

The stare Sukuna uses to capture your eyes is unreadable. Every secret you’ve ever held seems to be pulled nearer, threads sinking into the garnet depths like those fabled red strings of fate. However after scanning down your neck and then back up to your face, a satisfied glint emerges.

“That’s what I thought.” He tuts, as if disappointed, “You humans have no conviction. Pathetic little creatures.”

With that, he lets out a wolfish chuckle and releases you. The amusement fades in the air as he goes back to his previous seat, the broad shape of his back facing away from you once more.

The silence holds for a while, just the gurgle of water and occasional slosh from you or Sukuna cupping water over yourselves.

Only the damned curse behind you seems to like taking the lead in breaking each quiet stretch of time.

“So, you really gonna kill me?”

You sigh, running a hand over your cheek, “I hope so.”

“Don’t you want to get it over with? I’m right here.”

You chance another glance at him from over your shoulder, resting your temple on a fist.

Sukuna doesn’t move. You can’t see his face or imagine what kind of expression is laid across it.

All you see are the slashes you inflicted upon him, and the slightly pink scars beneath from past sorcerers who died in their attempts to rid the world of Sukuna’s terror once and for all.

As if he can feel where you’re gawking, he scratches the spot with a long black nail and lets out a discontent mumble.

Oddly enough, you find him both pitiful and loathsome. He won’t live for much longer, and surviving that final brawl certainly won’t leave you untouched. Once you take his life, you highly doubt that you’ll be able to keep yours for much longer after that.

There is an intimacy in knowing that you’ll die with someone. That you will be the last person each one will feel under each other’s hands and see as you draw the same, last breath.

Because of that, you find that you can’t look at him anymore.

“I don’t want it to be like this.” You finally admit, cutting the disdain from your voice and tapping the top of a stone.

The smile on his countenance is something you swear you can hear now, “We’ll keep this a secret then, yeah?”

“What secret?”

“This place, stupid.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“Well, you’re acting like it. Now me? If I were you, I would’ve reached over and snapped my neck. Injuries be damned. I get it though, must be that so-called honor you humans adore indulging in. Can’t say it hasn’t infected me unfortunately, I didn’t really feel like finishing you off after you hit your head either. It would’ve been an empty victory. Pretty lame way to get out of it if I’m being honest.”

You tilt your head with a squint, searching for his eyes again and finding them as he drops his head back to send you a cheeky simper.

“Just saying.”

You tear away from him, sinking into the water before rising again to rearrange the soaked strands of your hair.

“I won’t kill you, yet.”

“Well then,” Sukuna preens, derision oozing into his cadence, “I’m looking forward to your next attempt.”

_________________

You and Sukuna begin to meet there consistently.

Just until you heal, you promise yourself.

It isn’t even as though every meeting is on purpose, he just so happens to be in the area when you are.

A wordless, regular cadence where you bathe and Sukuna does the same, except you stay back to back.

At first, you don’t break apart the silences by bringing up sorcerers or most other related circumstances, it just comes off much too taboo.

You also didn’t want to give him any advantages for future fights.

So, you talk about everything else.

What the clouds are shaped like, his philosophies on the world, your hometown.

Sukuna knew quite a lot, you suppose due to his years spent roaming the country.

It makes you more and more curious about how he came to be what he is. You try to not address it, but it gnaws at you. Dancing at the tip of your tongue.

He seems to feel the same way, being quite frank and open with his own questions and replies.

Despite your efforts, one day Sukuna offhandedly mentions that he was once a sorcerer.

Just like you.

_________________

“All you sorcerers are the same. You lie to yourselves and everyone around you.” He rolls a pebble between his fingers and occasionally tosses it in the air.

You can see it arc over the top of his head, plummet down and start again. Sukuna had begun this cycle as soon as you had said something he disagreed with, likely something banal and harmless like how helping the weak is what sorcerers do.

“You make so many baseless assumptions, do you ever get tired of jumping to conclusions so often?”

“Baseless?” The pebble falls and he swipes it into his hand, “Not at all. I used to be a sorcerer, so I can make all the fucking assumptions I would like.”

That piques your full interest.

You openly stare at him now, ignoring the pounding in your ears from such an arbitrary, shared confession.

“So why do you do it?”

“What?”

“Everything.”

He shrugs, and it’s all loose heaves of muscle in that small gesture.

“I want power.”

“For what?”

“Same reason anyone probably does. Isn’t that why you’re a sorcerer? For power to do with what you want?”

He crosses his arms behind his head, leaning to look at you as he rests back on the woven appendages.

The insinuation makes you press your lips together before speaking.

“Yes, but not like you. You kill innocent people, sorcerers and nonsorcerers alike, and you show complete disregard for them. It’s hateful.”

“I don’t hate them,” Sukuna meets your eyes, and you dutifully ignore the burning scarlet held within them, “They’re just in my way. Plus, innocence is subjective. Don’t act like sorcerers or humans you know haven’t thought the same. Done even worse.”

“Well, not on the mass scale you have.”

“Not that you know of.” He scoffs.

“Do you know? Since you used to be a sorcerer and seem to know every goddamn thing about it-”

“I know because I killed those sons of bitches years ago.” His hands fall back into the water, “Look, I’m no saint, we’ve established that. But is having strength so evil? Sorcerers and curses know what that answer is, we’re just waiting to see who will get out of the way first. After that, who knows what will happen. Whoever wins will decide what is considered right, and that’ll be it.”

Sukuna hums in thought, and then rolls his shoulders back with a grumble.

“Whether that includes heart or morals, who fucking cares. The definitions keep changing anyway.”

You scowl at his aloof attitude, “I like the kinder definitions.”

The rebuttal has Sukuna’s nose scrunching with revulsion, “No offense, but there’s hundreds completely different from it. Doesn’t matter.”

“It matters to me.”

The argument comes out like your heart bared between your teeth.

Sukuna is firm as he looks down his nose at you, “You aren’t the world.”

As if you expected him to say otherwise.

Even so, the snide point hits its mark, “I never said I was. I’m no saint either, but I like to think the world can be much more than you described.”

“It’s not. This is all we got.” He opens his hands wide, and the sun weaves through his fingers.

Flashes of verdant trees and distant villages scattered below snow capped mountain tops dance across the edges of his arms.

Unspeakable beauty that you swore to protect.

“It’s all you’ve got.”

You raise your chin, absorbing the outlines of the villages before whipping your head back to the grimacing curse.

“You’re right, we’re going to constantly be keeping the balance between sorcerers, humans, and curses. It’s precarious and annoying as all hell, but these are people’s lives. You may think they’re weak, but to know the world is terrible and yet choose to live among all of the curse related incidents and regular bullshit anyway is power. And what are you doing? Sure, what are some sorcerers doing? Preying on that bravery while hiding behind some preconceived notion of what power really is and what it should give them. You may try to twist your logic into justifying that humans are in the way or useless to the overall battle between stronger forces outside of their control, but my god is that not fucking exhausting and pointless as well? That’s great for you if you don’t mind it, but I do. Kill, don’t kill. If it truly doesn’t matter- If it’s all the same, why do any of it? Why choose to intentionally perpetuate more suffering if it’s going to happen without your help? You’re just- It’s fucking despicable, you know that?”

Anger burns the back of your throat and flushes your forehead with thin perspiration.

“Maybe,” You finally say, “Yes, we are the same. I’ve done awful, irreversible things. Killed when it wasn’t necessary, but I still try. I want to keep trying to be better for the people who deserve it. Like this village. Can you understand that?”

The water stills with a silence so palpable you can feel it pressing on your chest. The spray of steam relieves little tension with its hushed puffs into the solemn, thickened air.

You don’t say anything more, and eventually Sukuna leaves the hot spring.

_________________

He doesn’t return for days.

You don’t mind it.

In fact, you hope it stays that way.

You entertain the thought with a smile, ruffling the ends of your hair to shake the water out.

The amusement follows you as you walk through the forest back home, but then you hear a noise in the trees.

“Sukuna?”

As soon as you say the name, you cover your mouth as if you’ve just accidentally uttered a secret meant only for the dead to hear. Your shoulders tense up by your ears, and you stop in the middle of the forest floor. You wait, doing your best to listen past the chirp of birds and the overbearing rhythm in your chest.

The wind is the only answer you get, however, so you manage to relax until you hear a twig snap.

You jerk your head around, and that’s when the air rushes out of your chest.

Of course, it’s him.

It’s always him.

You’re beginning to toy with the idea that this forest is haunted by an emptiness, save for you two.

“Hi.”

Sukuna waves in a casual manner more adjacent to two friends who had unexpectedly run into each other at the market rather than a curse and the sorcerer tasked with hunting him.

“What?” You glare, crossing your arms over your chest.

“It’s very nice to see you too.”

That cheeky comment makes you roll your eyes, “Move or speak, I don’t care which one you choose.”

“You’re so scary, you know that?” He leans in close, showing all of his teeth and mimicking curling his fingers into claws around his jaw.

Another glare.

“Fine, fine.” Sukuna throws his hands up in exasperation, and then scratches the top of his head.

“Yes?”

The curse rolls his shoulders back, shifting his weight between his feet.

He seems…nervous. But that can’t be right.

The uncertain revelation is startled out of your mind by his next few words, “I was thinking about what you said. You were right.”

The words rush out in jilted succession, like he forced them to escape before he held them in for the rest of his days.

You can only stare at him, and his eyes seem stuck on yours. Like he’s searching for something akin to approval.

“A child was lost in the woods here yesterday. I came across it and…it asked if I was a bear.” He laughs at the memory, and the sound of it without any sort of mirth or irony was unnervingly pleasant and normal.

“Such a feisty little thing, calling me a rude beast and demanding a piggyback ride home to their mother. Since, according to the kid, she would be sad that they got eaten by an ugly bear. It reminded me of what you said. Humans do everything they can to live despite unfathomable conditions. It’s a power many curses lack-”

“What did you do with the child?”

You know of one local boy that matched that description, Megumi Fushigurou, all sass and adorable chubby cheeks with a penchant for berry picking in the forest until sundown and his mother feared he was lost.

“I carried it back to the village, the damn thing complained the whole way but we made it safe and sound.” Sukuna rubs the back of his neck with disdain hissing out from his canines, “Did I mention it’s a pretty convincing power?”

You swallow in epiphany, he wasn’t lying.

You had seen the little boy with his mother earlier in the day. The village hadn’t had any cases of missing residents or violent crimes for a while either.

You don’t know how Sukuna manages to read your face, but he steps forward close enough to make your breath hitch.

“I’m apologizing, if you couldn’t tell.” He rests a hand on top of your head, a heavy warmth that matches the sudden softness of his tone.

“I’m…trying. Just like you.”

The touch is brief due to Sukuna retracting it as soon as you register the weight of his palm. Your vision startles to the curse above you, and it becomes instantly captivated.

Every inhale is noticeable, the taut expanse of his chest rising and falling more delicately than you would have guessed for a murderer like him.

Sukuna’s lashes almost brush the structured perch of his cheeks when he looks at you, and you turn on your heel as soon as the sight breaches your field of vision.

Something about how unexpectedly pretty Sukuna is always causes your stomach to churn.

“Denial goes a long way.” You shrug, and the robe you donned earlier slips off one of your shoulders, “But, you’re welcome.”

You can feel Sukuna following the fall of fabric with his eyes, “Yes, thank you.”

“Thank you too…for listening, even though I was kind of mean.”

“You’re welcome, I needed to hear it.”

Before you can help it, you peer at him from over your exposed shoulder and fail to tug the corners of your lips down to neutralize your expression.

“Does this mean you’ll stop being a murdering, pillaging asshole?”

“Maybe.” He grins and opens his arms wide, “Will you?”

You’re punching him in a heartbeat, and he guffaws so loud and openly that your resolve drops in your stomach.

It’s uncertain whether it was only for a moment then, or completely.

_________________

Sorcerers are crowded around a table, pounding its surface and causing the paper maps strewn across to crinkle and fly.

The meeting had started almost two hours ago, and both you and the elder sitting at the head of the conference looked exhausted by the possibility of being there for another second.

“He’s been too quiet.” One says, staring at the inked out rivers and mountains surrounding the town.

“Thank her for that.” Another juts his thumb at you, and you lean forward to feign biting it off before he flinches his hand back into his lap.

“We haven’t gotten any attacks since you fought him.” He mumbles, and you sit up at that fact.

“Really?”

“Yeah, we have nothing to go on. Because you didn’t finish the job, he probably fucking left.”

You blankly stare at him, and he shies away in embarrassment after the elder speaks up.

“That’s not true. The surrounding villages haven’t had any incidents. He must still be here. Laying low.”

You process the statements and theories, your mind spinning.

Right. Laying low.

Nodding along to the shouts and conversations, you pretend to agree while imagining Sukuna’s laugh.

His eyes shut in contentment while his head is thrown back and his hands clutching at his stomach or chest, the sun filtering through his hair and skirting over the immaculate planes of his face.

You can picture it so well you could practically reach out and touch him. Memorizing his features had been part of your mission while hunting for him, but lately your mind was beginning to conjure so many more different images of him than before.

Not just how he looks, but how he smells and feels. The way water and the forest laps at the tattoos on his skin.

A calming, yet incredibly distinct combination of senses.

One you hope sparks more spite the next time the curse crosses your mind.

The knowledge that Sukuna’s death is your duty simmers your temper as the sorcerers around you bicker.

You don’t grasp any desire within you to have anyone else involved.

“Calm yourselves,” You shake your head, “He’s laying low, but no one can hide forever. I’m already tracking him.”

_________________

Time only continues to pass in that perfect, little bubble you and Sukuna have created for yourselves.

The entire experience is bringing you a puzzling agony you grow less and less tolerant of.

Physically, you heal quicker than expected, and Sukuna only continues to become bolder and bolder following his own healing.

“You seem upset today.”

“Not.” The answer leaves you as forcefully as the clumps of grass you’ve been pulling out of the ground while sitting on the edge of the hot spring.

Your feet agitatedly swirl in the water, and you flick another handful of blades off to the side.

“So you are.” He wades over to you, and you place a protective hand on the hem of your robe resting across your thigh.

The act only makes him grin, so you return your focus to the decimated plants under your other palm. However, you soon yelp in surprise when Sukuna dives head first into the water and then suddenly resurfaces between your knees.

He wraps his fingers around the curve of your thigh, “Need some relief? You being more of a brat than usual is really getting on my nerves.”

“I’m not mad. Just thinking.” You huff, sounding immensely angry.

Sukuna only seems to register the fact that you’re staying under his touch, and he sinks in his nails a bit. Not enough to draw blood, just to test the bounce of your skin and how the water transfers from his touch.

The warm water glosses over the plush of your legs, and to your horror, Sukuna bends down to observe the shifting luster more closely, the swell of his bottom lip drawing heat as it hovers near your core.

It suddenly feels too hot.

The hunger in his eyes isn’t lost on you when he tilts his head up. You didn’t know rose petals could bloom away from the earth, but the crimson of Sukuna’s eyes begs you to reconsider. Once he seems to have his fill of your shaky gaze, he ducks his head back to your lap.

“Normally, it’s kind of cute when you’re upset.” His thumbs rub circles all the way beneath your clothing and up to your hips.

The motion only ignites more fire in you, “But I’m getting concerned. The forest won’t survive if you keep tearing it up like that.”

A chuckle is imprinted in the kiss he presses to the top of your thigh, and you let out a gasp so close to a whispery soft whimper that you pray to the gods Sukuna didn’t hear it.

“I can help you feel better.” Rumbles of dark desire coat the purr of his throat as his lips tread inward, “You sound like you want to. Am I wrong?”

He heard.

Then, in one swift motion, he hoists your calves over his shoulders, and water is streaming off of his body and down the lines of his chin as his eyes meet yours.

Every drop racing down his figure incites petty jealousy in you. You want to touch him. Not in any familiar, destructive way you have previously. Gently and sinfully, with languid licks to the crevices of muscle gathering water. You want to feel his body twitch and contract, and how he groans at the rugged texture of your tongue. Your throat hollows in response to that epiphany, and then it becomes saturated with ill controlled saliva.

At that, you swing your legs off of him, and he catches you in the crook of one of his arms as you attempt to scramble to your feet.

“Get away from me!”

The hissed out words indicate otherwise, as neither of you escape from your holds on each other.

Sukuna’s hand is bracing your forearm, and he has others wrapped around one of your ankles, on the small of your back.

Every point of contact absolutely burns.

“You hate me, don’t you?”

The word hate seems to have a poison specifically sharpened for your conscience.

But the answer doesn’t come to mind.

You should know the answer.

It should be easy, laughably so, rather than something bitter choking your throat.

Where did it go? Where did it leave you?

“You still do.”

It’s not an accusation from him this time, more of a wounded statement.

Murky silence is the only companion to his words, and you offer no other to join them.

Once Sukuna’s grip loosens, you manage to steady yourself and leave.

_________________

The forest clearing greets you with the chirps of crickets and birds the next time you manage to drag yourself back.

Even the bubbling of the hot spring is lively, the steam coating the air and any bare skin you have exposed.

You wait beside it in your everyday attire, needing some semblance of a barrier between you and Sukuna if he ever chose to make his appearance. The loose fitting fabric was thicker than your bathing robes, but less rigid and formal than your sorcerer uniform.

You had spent some time over the passing days to toil over your last conversation with the curse. Sukuna’s question concerning the hatred you held for him being the major thought occupying your mind.

The answer was actually quite obvious, but you couldn’t bring yourself to say it any louder than the soft echo in your head yet.

Practicing it seems pathetic, but when you open your mouth to try Sukuna is striding towards you.

He has no humor in his face, all harsh corners and lines, but that entire demeanor vanishes upon seeing you stand and give him a hesitant wave in greeting.

“What’s this?” Sukuna approaches close enough to pinch the fine cloth gathered at your elbow, “You know I like what I see, you don’t have to cover up.”

The contact makes you flinch away, and a tortured look knits Sukuna’s eyebrows together.

He backs up, holding up his hands and covering up his expression with a half hearted smile.

You never thought your chest would ache at any hint of him being unhappy.

“Okay, okay. Tell you what. Kill me if you’d like.” He bargains, running a hand through his hair, “I know you hate me.”

That word again.

So much bite and emotion to it that it floods your chest with the fresh sting of tears.

“I can’t hate you!”

The outburst forces Sukuna back, and the impact seems to force his eyes wide open.

You swallow your next few words, rethink them, swallow again.

Finally, they crawl out of your chest, “At least, not anymore.”

Truthfully you had always been better with your fists than your words, and you had never wished for the opposite until now.

Sukuna seems to register your claim, but remains silent.

You think he’s going to say something, bracing yourself for it by sweeping your eyes to the tree tops and then to the pebbles speckling the ground.

Still, Sukuna is silent.

The air becomes colder, blades of grass and your shoulders trembling. A desperation deep seated within you blooms in one last attempt to escape this mortifying mess.

“Why aren’t you saying anything?”

A passive stretch of time is the only response you get.

Motherfucker.

As if your own shame and embarrassment wasn’t enough.

Lunging at him, your hands encase his neck with a strangled sound of utter frustration.

You have your full strength now.

You could kill him now.

Then, Sukuna places his hands over yours.

Instead of tensing, you relax completely.

He runs his thumbs over your knuckles, tempering the rage encased inside.

The sentiment in his eyes is far too soft for the murderous narrowing of your own.

It’s as infuriating as it is endearing.

You catch yourself wondering why you hold the power here, but it feels hopelessly lost when Sukuna holds you like this.

One of his hands travels across your arm, finding home in the cup of your cheek.

There it is again, his thumb stroking your skin like the shining facet of a jewel he can’t quite yet catch in the light. A breeze follows the placating touch, and you can’t tell which causes you to shiver.

He sighs, so defeated and low that you feel it mirrored in the tightness of your chest.

“If I say something…We’ll do something.”

The words ghost across his lips in the sweetest mumble you’ve ever heard.

You blink distractedly at the movement of his mouth, pink flesh moving over white teeth, “Do what?”

Saliva pools under your tongue, and you bite down on the swell of your bottom lip to suppress the gnawing appetite rising in your stomach.

His stare falters, his lashes fluttering down with peeks of ardent vermillion between, and then falls to the ground wordlessly.

You feel the comforting weight of it dissipate, and suddenly you’re weaker than before.

“Can you-” Your hands falter, lowering to grab at the collar of his clothing, the fabric clumping in your wobbly hands, “Just show me?”

Sukuna deftly reaches back, placing his hands along your hips and pulling you close.

You can sense fire pulsing under your skin as he continues in deliberate, measured fragments. His eyes never leave yours, all dilated pupils and honeyed warmth. He cups your lower back, the fabric beneath his palms shifting.

Gradually, he starts inching them up the sides of your waist. Squeezing and gripping portions of your curves with airy hums of thought.

You can’t breathe.

This silence is more purposeful than the last.

You both know what it implies, though Sukuna seems intent on making that knowledge undeniably transparent.

The kiss arrives as your eyes flutter shut, and Sukuna’s lips on yours taste like mutual devastation.

He tilts his head, the kiss deepening and unfurling butterflies in your stomach.

You lightly bite down on his bottom lip before swiping your tongue across the achingly soft surface, and he immediately grants you access with a low groan.

You don’t want to fight anymore. You want to surrender.

Curious hands roam along your body as the kiss deepens, stroking your cheek, the back of your neck and encircling your torso.

For someone so feared and strong, he possesses an astonishing gentleness that any prior replication of affection you’ve ever received now seems poor and revolting.

The tips of his fingertips skirt the hems of your clothing, and then they’re against bare skin. Soft tugs have your robes sliding down, and you gasp as the frigid temperature of air raises goosebumps over your skin. Chills kiss at your shoulder blades and up to the back of your neck.

Sukuna draws back, hooking his fingers into the fabric slung across his shoulder as he drags it over his head and reveals the familiar lines of muscle carved into his sides. The latter disappears into his pants, which reveals the tented mound between his legs. Despite the brief interruption, he presses you close to his chest the instant his top half is free from the restrictive material.

And he kisses you.

Kiss after kiss after kiss.

You occasionally flit your eyes open between locks of tongue and curse words stuck to the roof of your mouth, only to squeeze your eyes shut from enduring Sukuna firmly grabbing fistfuls of your hair.

His nails lightly graze your scalp, and he alternates between rough tugs and careful consolations down the back of your neck.

“I’ve never desired anyone or anything more than you.” He pants, and you wince at the desperate rasp of the declaration.

Your pussy is sapped with want, and your hips sway when he rests his hands past them.

“Fuck.” Sukuna sighs, fondling the soft mounds of your ass in his palms.

He spreads them apart, and a jolt of adrenaline shoots up your spine.

“You flinched.” He chuckles, biting your ear lobe.

The electricity in the point of his canine nicking your skin has you throwing your arms around his neck, and you hide in the nape of his neck with a whimper.

Sukuna acknowledges the sound by carefully holding up your wrists one by one and then rolling your sleeves up to your forearms to undress you. The abandoned robes petal around your ankles onto the forest floor, and Sukuna returns your arms to crossing behind his neck.

He tilts his head, his eyes simmering as they rake over your bare skin,” Well, look at you.”

Your elbows lock as your knees buckle, a sequence of motion vastly contrasting the vexed way you had gripped his neck only moments ago.

Sukuna catches you instinctively, hoisting your legs around his waist and clasping you to his front.

Your pussy drools at the flush of rigid heat pressed in the middle of your thighs, and you can hear Sukuna licking his lips as his hips support your weight, “Can you take it? I’m sure you can.”

The curve of his neck hides your face, but you know he can feel the warmth blooming on your cheeks when you stare down the scars of his back to see him tucking a thumb into his waistband.

The empty pocket between his skin and his pants only becomes more revealing, and you swallow as his entire frame soon becomes bare.

Sukuna keeps you settled close against his body, even when the cotton threads you sopped with your arousal get tugged away from you.

Then, you’re skin to skin.

You can sense his hardness before you even get a glimpse.

“F…fuck.”

The word is breathy and pained in your ear, and your own mouth falls open in a soundless gasp.

Every touch is scorching and placating at the same time, like every nerve in your body is perked and alert. So sensitive and ready that no point of contact goes unrecognized.

You want more. Need more. You can feel the ask escape your lips even as the thought fogs your mind.

The tops of your thighs are molded together by Sukuna’s heavy grip around them, and you use that to leverage your hips forward and back.

The bottom of your slit kisses the base of his cock as the length of it throbs against your stomach, and you slot your tongue into Sukuna’s mouth with reckless abandon.

“You-” Sukuna begins, swiping his tongue across your bottom lip, “Are so cute like this. All desperate and needy.”

“Shut up.” You reply simply, sucking at the corner of his mouth with continued fervor.

The meaningless command has him chuckling, but then the back of your neck is wrapped in his palm.

“Sure, I’ll shut you up.”

He deepens the kiss the next time his cupid’s bow meets your own, and your mind is so fuzzy you hardly register that Sukuna has carried you into the hot spring.

The humid heat of it rises along your waist, and Sukuna trails a few affectionate kisses along your jawline and down behind your ear before swiveling your hips to have you face away from him.

Droplets of water cascade down the slope of your back, and a wanton cry escapes your throat when Sukuna stripes them up to your shoulder blades with the point of his tongue.

You buck your hips back at the touch, whining when you feel his length behind you.

This seems to encourage him to explore your back with consideration, eventually lifting your hips and hissing out a strained sound of gratification when the tip of his cock prods at your entrance.

Strings of water and precum adorn the crown of his swollen cockhead, and you slightly wriggle your hips to get more of it inside.

“Put it in.” You demand softly, biting your lip as you attempt to peek over your shoulder and down your back.

Sukuna automatically brings your hips lower, and your eyelashes flutter as he gradually guides you onto his girth.

“Mhm- Yeah, put it in. More.” Your tongue unfurls, and Sukuna swears from the excitement in your voice.

“Oh fuck yes.” He lets out a gasp so full of primal wonder that it comes out as more of a growl, his eyelids flitting over his rolled up eyes.

The whites of his gaze belatedly return to those scarlet irises you adore, his mouth remaining slacked with a strained moan when he draws his hips back.

“Feels good?” You manage to pant, digging your nails into the back of his wrists.

“I love it. Thank you, the sweetest girl for me.”

The sting of his cock stretching open your walls is so addictive that the languid slides into your slick heat are audible.

“Thank you-mm. Fuck, thank you.”

Sukuna crouches to lick at the shell of your ear with a lengthy curl of his tongue, “Best pussy I’ve ever fucking felt.”

You spend some time drinking in each other’s moans, how your bodies fit together and the symphony of movement driving your shared pleasure.

Little time is spared by you for further speaking, and Sukuna quickly learns how to read your every flinch and wail.

He finds the perfect pace to bounce you up and down his cock, the aching preference you have for his tongue twisting around yours as you ride out your orgasms along the thick spine of his girth.

“Is this good?” He asks, full well knowing the answer, “Is this spot good?”

“You’re doing it wrong.” You huff, sarcasm punctuating the lie.

An immediate pause.

“Am I?” Sukuna grinds lazily against your sticky walls, “This isn’t the right way?”

Your mouth falls open, and you spread your legs wider as your insides wind snugly around his cock.

He plunges inside more slowly, nudging at your cheek with his nose, “Tell me how wrong it is.”

Utterly stuffed, no other argument escapes you.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought.” The curse smirks, but even the upturned corner of his mouth in your peripheral wobbles.

It’s incredibly adorable, but you have little time to dwell on it when Sukuna begins to slam into you faster.

You can sense him everywhere now, gripping your arms, his lips sucking soft spots onto your neck, and his hips grinding into yours until your mind is foggy and your screams turn coarse.

“God, your pussy just melts on my cock. Such a bratty cunt, but fuck - Think I like spoling you. Giving you what you need even when you can't ask for it.”

He draws out the curse, gunning into your cunt recklessly. You can feel the plush of your ass rippling against the constant pistoning of his hips.

“You feel that too? You feeling my dick? Good. Good.”

Every compliment hangs off of his tongue like he doesn’t want it to leave before he can get another quick and purposeful thrust in. Threads of thick saliva and precum knit your mutual bliss together, and you can feel his unruly cockhead rubbing creamy circles into the ceiling of your pussy.

“So wet.” Sukuna’s tongue clicks beside your ear while he continues fucking you up and down his lap in buzzing pulses.

He has an uncanny sense of when you’re close to the edge, as he’ll reel his hips back and only resume motion after your tightness minimally subsides.

The lack of release has you feeling entirely helpless, even though every time Sukuna is back to ramming your insides to near completion, you become so stupidly out of touch you forget the consequences and take it.

Every. Fucking. Time.

Not talking was a choice before, but now it’s an impossibility, only your cries punctuating the air with shamelessness.

Your pussy is runny and sloppy from the overflow of desperation. The loud squish of it is echoed by the excited hums of approval Sukuna allows to coat the back of your neck.

“Hey, I love you. You know that right?”

Sukuna bends your throat up higher, kissing and tonguing at the spots of it that he can access between his fingers.

“I love you. You’re mine.”

“You love me?” The question comes out garbled and pathetic, but it makes Sukuna kiss behind your earlobe with a tenderness you never thought could exist.

“I do. I love you. Just look at you.” He strains, one of his hands pressing down on your stomach.

“Oh God,” You observe the brutal penetration beneath you with awe, “What do I do?”

You don’t know why you’re asking, you just feel as though you have to ask him.

“What - do I -” The question is barely comprehensible with cries and ecstatic moans, but Sukuna answers you anyway.

“Take it. Take it all.”

The simple suggestion has your muscles clenching before you fully relax.

“That’s it. T-That’s it. Just like you’ve been doing-shit. Right there, yeah? I got it.” Sukuna pants, and when you crane your cheek back you catch a glimpse of the wild carnage in his glossy, dilated pupils.

It feeds your ego much more than it should.

“You’ve done it. You’re killing me.” He shudders, shoving you onto his cock with so much need that you can hardly tell one thrust from the next.

You gasp out as you clutch at the back of Sukuna’s neck, staring at him with widely blown out pupils and shaky breaths.

“Then, die for me.”

His lips are on yours before you can even finish the sentiment, as if he was eager to accept the total mercy of death as long as it was under your hand.

Sukuna’s hips continue gunning upwards into your flooded cunt, his tongue slotting into your mouth with whiny urgency and his arms tightening around your convulsing figure.

You feel like you’re bursting at the seams, cloudy and dumb with nothing but the heat of Sukuna’s body in your head.

You can feel yourself all over the fat, greedy rushes of his cock.

A warm and gushy mess saturated with praise and pleasure.

“Sukuna!”

The name leaves your mouth with an eruption of paradise springing from your sex, and Sukuna holds you as your body seizes with quivers.

He keeps you upright, doing those slow pumps that drove you crazy back when you were desperate to cum.

Now, they are soothing and filling. Sensual.

Sukuna lets you ride out your high until you’re loose and hoarse in his hold.

Feeling totally spent, you let him rearrange you against his frame and he gives the crown of your head a soft kiss once your cheek is leaning against his collarbone.

“Can I see?” He taps your lower back, voice rough and entreating.

You raise your head, and then provide him with a sleepy nod.

Sukuna pecks your forehead with a grin, and then effortlessly picks you up to rest your thighs over his shoulders.

“Oh wow.” He says, as if witnessing something so wondrous and rare that he can’t tear his gaze away from the sight.

The low exclamation makes you involuntarily squeeze and drip, creamy traces of Sukuna’s fluids oozing out with your own.

You can almost see the want spark in his eyes, deep maroon and curious.

He interlocks two of his hands behind your spine, using another hand to spread your lips apart and swallowing hard when your pussy seeps out more of your shared arousal.

The last of his hands reaches out to rub at your clit with the pad of a finger, and Sukuna licks his lips when you wind your hips down to meet his finger faster.

He looks up at you, a wordless ask, and you answer by tugging his head toward your core.

Sukuna reacts with a muffled grunt, lolling out his tongue and loudly lapping up your juices the second his tongue gets a taste of you.

You squirm in his hold, “Oh god, Sukuna!”

He pinches your slippery nub between his fingers, poking his tongue into the bottom of your leaking slit and then scooping his tongue upwards through the seams.

His taste buds sweep against the grip of your walls, and harsh breaths line your throat as he selfishly explores every inch of your pussy that he already laid to waste with his cock.

“Finish one more time for me.” He rapidly murmurs, his nails digging into your thighs.

“I d-don’t think I can!” You squeak, afraid that the knot in your stomach will snap much more intensely than the first time.

Sukuna seems to take that as a challenge.

He’s undeniable, scorching your flesh with determination and ardent gulps. The tip and flat of his tongue aggressively writhe inside and squelch along your wetness. It’s nearly unbelievable how turned on you are from seeing one of the most powerful curses in the world buried in your cunt.

Your center only becomes more and more taut, which forces Sukuna to act even more starved. The point of Sukuna’s nose bumps against your engorged nub, and he spends such a dedicated amount of time outlining your most sensitive spots with his tongue that your eyes roll into black.

He latches his mouth around your sore bud, flicking and swirling his tongue around it until you mewl his name over and over again.

Liquid bliss coats his tongue, and you can vaguely feel the tired smirk when he makes you cum in his mouth one last time.

Exhaustion sets in hard for you as well, and Sukuna catches you in his arms to return you to his lap.

Once you’re settled again, Sukuna grants you another passionate kiss on the lips. Tasting yourself on his tongue has you wanting more of him, but the heavy drag of your eyelids dissuades you from asking for more.

Although you know now that he would do anything for you.

“I was always looking for you.” You breathe, the authenticity of your admission lighting up Sukuna’s visage.

He is so beautiful like that, eyes glistening with obvious affection and a weary beam. The blossom shade of his hair is damp and raked back, and the olive of his skin is covered with streams of water from the hot spring. A light sheen of sweat also adorns the nape of his neck and biceps, and you can start to see the extensive sanguine marks you raked over his toned body. One traverses from the dark, buzzed undercut behind his ear to the top of the black design on his shoulder.

You weakly raise a hand to relieve the broken skin there, but Sukuna catches your hand in his.

He moves stray strands of hair from around your eyes, pressing his lips wherever he can under your eyes and across your cheeks.

“Thank you for always letting me find you.”

Sleep comes to you remarkably easy after that.

_________________

Morning sun skims the dips of your face once you wake up.

You squint your eyes, wondering why you no longer smell the earthiness of the forest.

“Good morning.”

The drowsy greeting catches your attention instantly, and you sit up to find yourself in your own bed.

“How-?”

You turn and nearly collide your nose with his chest.

“Easy.” He encircles your shoulders, comfortingly enveloping you in a warm embrace, “First, say good morning back.”

You relax, tentatively reaching up to return the hug, “Good morning.”

Somehow, you can sense the charmed smile spreading across his face, even as he rests his chin atop your head.

He deeply inhales, his large hands moving along your back as you breathe alongside him.

“Better?” Sukuna prompts after a brief passage of time.

“So much better.”

His smile widens, “Good.”

“How did we get here?” You yawn, peering over his shoulder at the scattered sunlight in your bedroom.

“I carried you.”

You reel back to gape at him with a dubious raise of your brow, “You know where I live?”

“I followed you home once.” He states matter-of-factly.

Clear offense sprawls across your facial features, “No, you didn’t. I would have sensed you.”

“Not when you were all pouty and angry with me. It was cute seeing you stomp into your house.”

“Uh huh.” You somewhat acquiesce.

Sukuna’s solid frame shakes with a hearty laugh before he addresses you with a more remorseful tone, “I just had to make sure you got home safely. You’re perfectly capable alone, but you didn’t seem to be in your right mind...I’m sorry, I swear I left as soon as you went in.”

He runs his fingers through your hair as you listen, but all you can think about is how difficult it is to have any lasting anger towards him.

Forgiveness punctuates your subsequent sigh, a drawn out and desolate sound, “I don’t know what to do now. With all the hatred I had for you.”

“For me it’s the same passion, only the direction has changed.” Sukuna softens your shoulder with a delicate kiss.

You reach up to cradle his jaw in the heel of your palm, lightly scratching his hair with your other hand, “What are we going to do?”

“What would you like for us to do?”

“I want to kill you.” You admit honestly, but with no malice.

Sukuna shrugs with a smitten beam, “You’re the only one who could.”

You smack his bicep, “Sukuna I’m serious! What are we going to do?”

The curse shrugs again, cracking his neck to one side, “We can stage our deaths and run away I suppose. Build a home in the mountains and live there until we’re old and gray. Or, we can live from place to place, see everything there is to see. You’re smarter than me, so whatever you decide. I just don’t want to fight anymore, now that I have you to take care of.”

He twirls a piece of your hair around his finger, watching the light shift in your eyes as you take in the candid suggestions.

“What do you think of that, sweetheart?”

Appreciation floods your chest, “I like those ideas, actually.”

The corners of his eyes crescent with amusement, and then he lets out a thoughtful hum as he draws random shapes into your cheek.

“There will be time for all of that later though. For now, what do you want to do?”

You pause to think over his question, and then resolve to snuggle back into his embrace.

“I want to stay right here. Just like this.”

Sukuna lightly strokes the back of your scalp and then kisses your temple with a content sigh, his lips moving reverently over the skin there.

“How did I get so lucky?”

_________________

End Notes:

hahahaha. i liked this. it just kept getting longer and longer so i just gave in😩😩 it's p much a multichapter fic lowkey LOL but thanks again for requesting! really enjoyed writing this one :)💖💞

ps. i'd like to talk about this one a bit more so if anyone wants to comment or send an ask about it i will reply in-depth!!💝 tyyy<3

2K notes · View notes

hiddenlife-manager · 11 days

Note

i dont know if you do driver x driver x reader, if you do then maybe oscar x logan x reader? if you dont then just logan x reader is good. i dont really have a good idea for smut but if youre up for it there could be some oral sex, choking, possessiveness, and degradation? ima gonna be honest its been a hot minute since ive read your smut so id theres something in my request youre not comfortable with, my apologies!

Logan Sargeant X Reader X Oscar Piastri

cw... anal, double penetration, not edited, cumshot, kissing with cum, hair pulling, slight dom, slight hinting to the two of them being into each other, gagging, blow job, oral, jealousy, timeskip, plot and porn, etc...

notepad... HIYA! Second post of the day. Honestly speaking I enjoyed this. But i probably could have spent more time on it. Either way I had fun.

There were only a few things Logan Sargeant had that Oscar Piastri didn’t. He hated to admit it, but it was true that Oscar was the better rookie and the better driver. He had things that Logan didn't, but he had one thing—the only thing Oscar couldn’t have and wanted more than anything. He had you. You were his trophy, the girl the two of them fought for in the Perma days. There was no hate between the two of them, still being the closest of friends, but Oscar could never help but be filled with jealousy each time he saw you with Logan. He was the better match for you, yet you chose Logan.

It was the Miami Grand Prix; you were there supporting Logan after a disappointing week. Oscar certainly had a bad week, but compared to Logan, it was a hundred times better. He couldn’t help looking at you talking to Logan, walking hand in hand. He wanted what Logan had; it was selfish; you were happy; his friend was happy; he knew it was wrong.

“Hey Oscar!” He heard Logan's voice call him out, it stunned him. He looked up, seeing him walk up with you. You waved to him, clearly unaware of his feelings.

“Oscar, you look great; how long has it been?” You asked, letting go of Logan's hand, hugging the tall man. Leaving him confused for a moment, he slowly raised his arms to hug you back. It had been sometimes since he felt your touch that all the feelings he felt became stronger than ever.

“Likewise, are you two still together?” He asked if it was true that you were never in the media and were also never posted about. You nodded. Logan grabbed her hand and pulled her away.

“Stronger than ever. Oscar, do you want to join us for dinner at my place? Like before, this time at my own home.” Logan asked him rather quickly. Oscar was unsure of how to respond. After spending an entire night with you and Logann being in love, It sounded like hell, yet he missed you, the sound of your laughs, or the way you talked. It was a tough decision; it felt like hours passed while the two waited for his answer.

“Like old times.”

“Ah~” You mumbled your head back, your legs being pushed while Logan’s mouth sucked at your clit. How did Oscar get here? Watching his friend eat out the girl he wanted. He could have left, but he stayed. Your moans sound so sweet, like honey to him. He watched Logan suck your clit almost as if he were making out with your pussy. You were clearly close to orgasming, your words becoming less coherent. He heard the low voice of Logan.

“You’re our guest, Oscar; I know you want to.” Logan stood up, looking at him with your juices on his lips. Logan knew him too well. Oscar walked over to you and him. Logan sighed, seeing your panting face cumming just by his mouth. “You are my friend, but do know I am possessive of her. Don’t leave a mark on her Oscar, or I might not be able to forgive you for it.”

Oscar nodded; it seemed like all that Logan told him went through one ear and out the other. Logan sighed, climbing on the bed right behind you, hauling your panting body up. He used his chest to support your back, putting you right at the edge of the bed for Oscar. His other hands spread your legs wide.

“You want me to?” Logan rolled his eyes, taking one hand away from you and tossing a condom for Oscar to catch. He hated it because he was acting so inexperienced in front of you. He held the condom, opening it while pulling his cock out and putting the protection on properly.

“Pick a hole, ass or pussy?”

“I know you, Logan; you pick.” Logan smiled upon hearing Oscar say such a thing. He was caressing your cheek, flipping you over, and having you on all four.

“I say surprise her. You dreamed of this, so do what you want for once.” Oscar knew Logan's kind heart was nothing but excited to have control over him. Logan pulled out his cock, pumping it a few times. "Besides, I have her mouth.” He shoved his cock into your mouth suddenly. Oscar began to hear the lewd sounds of your muffled gags. He groaned while doing it. He shoved his cock up your ass. It was so tight, and you were so unprepared. “You picked her ass. I’ve been training her, so she’ll be fine.”

Logan gently placed his hands on your head, playing with your hair; cooing at you. Oscar could tell he truly cared for you. No matter what, even face-fucking you, he had a hint of gentleness. Oscar held onto your hips, bouncing you back and forth on his cock. Causing moans to be heard that were muffled by Logan's cock in your mouth. Logan thrust deep into your mouth, gagging echo into the large room.

“Can I grab her hair?” Logan smirked, nodding to him. Oscar's hand went to your hair, pulling it back, causing a small pop when your lips left Logan's cock. Logan used the opportunity of shock from you to shove his cock once more into your beautiful mouth. Logan and Oscar found themselves moaning, both enjoying the view of you being used. Clearly, they both enjoyed it; their relationship has been a bit rocky since Logan got with you, and this was a good way to get them to fix it.

You, on the other hand, didn’t mind it; you were being fucked in two holes and forced into a moaning mess. You loved it even when your hands got weak. They began to shake, feeling like you were about to orgasm. You knew Logan was close, his cock twitching in your mouth and his thrust being deeper than normal, making you gag even louder than before. You weren’t sure how Oscar orgasmed and were unsure if he was close or not, yet the sounds of his whimpering from how good your ass felt told you all you needed.

The abuse of your ass and mouth continued until Logan thrust so deep it made you gag that you had to pull away while he came. Oscar grabbed your hair tightly, your mouth open, and Logan once more shoved his cock in your mouth, making you milk him dry. You were gasping for air, trying to moan, cum flowing out of your lips, unable to hold yourself up. Oscar fucked you faster; you knew he was enjoying it, but it became overwhelming for him.

That was until he pulled you back by your hair so tight that he sat you up and came into your ass deep, filling his condom up. Leaving you moaning loudly at the feeling of his cock getting soft slowly. You were still covered in cum. Logan leaned down to you, kissing you deeply, not caring about the cum clearly on your lips. Oscar is still deep inside you; his cock is so deep that it feels better than any woman he has been with.

“We can do this again, Oscar.” Logan and Oscar were both naked, watching your sleeping body. You went right to sleep after they helped clean you up.

“I missed you too, Logan.” They turned to each other and shook hands, firmly embracing each other in a quick hug.

403 notes · View notes

novastarrs · 4 months

Note

hiii!! could you do jock!clarisse x nerd!aphroditie!reader pls :))) and like clarisse bullies her but at the end they somehow become friends or like in love idk but if you can’t that’s okay! tyyy xxx!

YOU’RE MINE|| CLARISSE LA RUE

Warning: Horribly written make-out at the end (I apologize in advance), Cussing

Summary: You have to tutor your enemy and overtime she get’s jealous when you tutor someone else.

DNI IF YOURE OVER 19 DIOR IS A MINOR PEOPLE!!!

Nova Speaks: I don’t know how to feel about this but I hope you like it! The ending is kind of rushed and request are still open!

——

You didn’t consider yourself to be a nerd if you were being honest. You just didn’t want to fail all your classes and not get anywhere in life so you sucked it up and got your work done even if you really didn’t want too and because of that perfect attitude your teacher was making you tutor your mortal enemy.

Clarisse La Rue. Star quarterback with a big ego and even bigger muscles. The whole school loved her except for you. At first you had no hard feelings for the girl but when she tripped you in the hallway in front of everyone it was embarrassing as hell especially because she just laughed with her dumb crew and told you to watch where you were going.

Ever since that day you just stayed clear of the girl, it’s not like you guys were friends so there was no point in crossing paths with her.

But here you are sitting in your room waiting for the demon who haunted your thoughts everyday to come to your house so you could help her to her essay. If she didn’t get at least a C+ on it she was going to be forced to sit out of the game this weekend and even though you hated to admit it your school needed her.

You strictly told her to be at your house at 5:30 and not to be late but to no surprise she was. You were even considerate because football practice ends at 4:20 and you did the nice thing and let her go home and shower before showing up and she had the audacity to be late. You could’ve been binge watching your favorite show and making up dumb scenarios in your head.

Sighing heavily, you walked downstairs towards the kitchen to grab a snack out of the pantry. Your eyes moved back and forth as you browed through the delicious snacks that you had, trying to decide on what you wanted to eat.

The sound of the doorbell got your attention and you fought the urge to roll your eyes when you glanced at the clock on the microwave. It was almost six’o’clock and now she decides to show up. Walking over to the door slowly you opened it to reveal the one and only Clarisse La Rue in a pair of gray sweats and a blue crop top that hugged her arms just right, showing off all the muscle she had while her long bouncy curly hair was bulled back into a ponytail.

“Are you going to let me in or keep gawking at me?” She asked in a husky voice with a smirk on her face.

Your cheeks immediately went warm at her calling you out as you hurriedly stepped to the side to let her in. Closing the door behind her you made sure to lock the door before turning around, watching her look around your home.

“Nice place.” She nodded looking at you over her shoulder and you gave her a tight lipped smile.

“Thanks.” You nodded awkwardly not really knowing what to say, clearing your throat you asked. “Do you want a snack or something?”

Clarisse turned her body around to look at you and she not so secretly looked you up and down with a big cocky smirk forming on her face making you blush even harder than before.

“Yeah, I do actually.” She winked causing all the air to leave your lungs making you choke on air as she laughed loudly at your reaction.

“You’re disgusting.” You finally managed to choke out trying to act unaffected but you both knew you were making her smirk even wider.

“You’re the one that offered.”

“I meant food!”

“Sure you did, princess.”

——

“Writing an essay isn’t that hard if you have a good topic.” You began to explain as you sat beside her on the couch in your living room, scrolling through your laptop as she did the same on her own.

“But all these topics are boring.” Clarisse groaned lowly, throwing her head back with a huff. You leaned closer to her and looked at the list of prompts that your teacher gave your class to pick through and she wasn’t wrong the prompts were boring so you just did yours based off of your favorite hobby and why it wouldn’t be beneficial to teach at school.

“How about you do one about football?” You offered your assistance and Clarisse glanced at you.

“But it isn’t on the list.” She stated the obvious and you let out a light laugh making her confused.

“As long as you did the essay she shouldn’t be complaining. Most kids didn’t even do it.” You shrugged carelessly.

As long as the work is done and submitted your teacher shouldn’t have any complaints and if she did she can write the essay for Clarisse.

The quarterback looked at you with a look of disbelief on her face. She thought you did everything by the rules and didn’t take the easy way out of things but she could see she was indeed wrong about you.

“And here I thought you were a goody to shoes.” She cooed and you rolled your eyes but smiled at her.

“Just write something football related down as your prompt.” You nudged her jokingly and she did what she was told without putting up a fight.

Eventually she decided on why football was a great sport for high schoolers and to your surprise she had a lot of great ideas to support her argument. That’s when you realized Clarisse wasn’t dumb like you thought at first (not that you would ever tell her that) but that if it didn’t interest her, she couldn’t bring herself to do it if it was boring. So you made a mental reminder to speak to her teachers about adding football into their subjects because that’s what seemed to be what Clarisse was most passionate about.

If Clarisse was being honest she was pretty grateful for you. She’s been given tutors before and they all left her after the first session due to her not being interested in what they were saying but with you it was different. You actually listened and explained things in a way she could actually understand it without making her feel like she was stupid so that’s how you and Clarisse found yourselves meeting up every Friday afternoon at your place to work on school work together and if you were being honest sometimes you guys didn’t even do work, you talked and got to know each other better.

You learned her dad was a prick who left her and her mother when she was just a baby and because of his abandonment she had really bad anger issues which is why she joined the football team so she could get out all that pent up anger.

She learned that your mother was also a single mother who worked a lot of night shifts because she was a doctor so it was mostly you around the house and you tired to spend time with your mom as much as you could with her busy schedule.

You honestly thought helping her would’ve been a pain in the ass and that she wouldn’t do anything to entire time but it was the other way around. You were so focused on hating her for that one incident you didn’t realize how fun she was as a person and a great friend. Clarisse would be the one focused on getting her work done while you spoke about anything that came to mind and instead of judging you she just listened and added in her own comments here and there.

Due to your study sessions she stopped taunting you at school and to your surprise she actually comes up and talk to you in front of everyone. You just figured she would keep your friendship a secret from everyone so you wouldn’t ruin her reputation but you were wrong.

Her fan club that she gained over the year immediately despised you because they spent all their time trying to get her attention and you somehow managed to get it right away but the two of you didn’t care as long as you had each other to go to whenever you had a problem.

A friendship blossomed and everything was going great until you were asked to tutor another student. A girl named Amira who recently moved to town and she was a little behind and when your teacher saw how Clarisse’s D turned into A+ she immediately assigned you as Amira’s tutor and Clarisse hated it.

You were her tutor first so she doesn’t know why this random girl was trying to take all your attention away from her. At first she was fine with it as you found still hung out every friday but apparently Amira needed so much help that you had to cancel your usual friday hangouts to help Amira some more and that’s what sent Clarisse over the edge. She always looked forward to the end of the week because you were all her’s, all of your attention was on her and now it was gone and on someone else so she began playing her heart out on field and during practice, imagining all of the guys she tackled was Amira and her annoyingly high pitched voice.

Clarisse swore up and down that Amira begged you to tutor her on Friday nights just to get under her skin because when she asked you once and you agreed she looked at Clarisse and had the audacity to smirk and if Clarisse was being honest she was offended, who the hell does this girl think she is taking her girl like that.

You were quick to notice the change in Clarisse’s behavior when she started to become bitter and rude to you and if you were being honest it hurt.

Overtime you caught yourself getting feelings for the girl and you were honestly thinking she felt the same with how close the two of you became and how she would call you sweetheart or baby or when she simply just flirted with you but now you weren’t so sure. So you decided to ask your mom for advice Saturday night.

“-Now she’s being all snappy and mean.” You finished explaining everything to your mother as she got ready for her shift.

“Maybe she likes you.” Your mom said and you couldn’t help but scoff. Clarisse has never taken an interest in anyone and you were a fool to think she would like you.

“Trust me, she doesn’t.” You sighed sadly, bummed out about the situation. Clarisse was your best friend and it was killing you she was being a bitch.

Your mom walked over to you and sat a hand on your shoulder and gently made you look up at her. She smiled sweetly at you and leaned down to kiss your forehead with a dramatic kissing noise making you laugh.

“If you really want to know, you’re going to have to ask her, Sweetie. She’s the only one that has the answers you’re looking for.”

You silently let her words sink into your brain and nodded firmly. She was right, the only one who could give you an answer was Clarisse and you were determined to get one.

“You’re right, mama, thank you.” You hugged her tightly before kissing her goodbye as she grabbed her keys and left. Pulling your phone out of your pocket you sent Clarisse a very dramatic message saying that it was an emergency and that you were hurt.

You knew it was wrong to lie like that but it was the only way you could think of to get her to show up and to get here quickly and you were right because literally five minutes later you heard the familiar sound of her car pulling into your drive way and heavy knocks pounding on your front door. You opened the door and Clarisse immediately rushed past you, ranting and asking if you were ok.

“Are you hurt? Do I need to call your mom? The cops? Wait…do I have to call CPS-” Clarisse rambled and you looked at her like she just turned into a child.

“Clarisse,” You said sternly immediately getting her to shut up. “I’m fine.”

Clarisse paused and her concerned look immediately changed into a look of anger. “Princess, you don’t send a fucking message like that.”

Normally the nickname would’ve made you blush and act like a lovesick fool but instead you scoffed and crossed your arms, leaning your back against the door. “Well I wouldn’t have to if you weren’t ignoring me.”

You noticed her expression soften a little bit before it was immediately covered by her normal scowl that she gave everyone that wasn’t you, your mother and her’s.

“You don’t need me remember? You have Amira.” Clarisse said her name with a bitter tone and you looked at her confused.

“What the hell does Amira have to do with you ignoring me?” You huffed, puffing your lips out and Clarisse eyes immediately locked on them before they snapped back to your face.

“She’s your new best friend isn’t she?” Clarisse snapped and you looked at her in confusion before it suddenly clicked.

She was jealous, jealous of you and Amira spending so much time together that there wasn’t any left for her. It all made so much sense now, whenever you and Clarisse were talking at school and Amira came up to you guys you would always feel Clarisse stiffen up or the way she would mock Amira under her breath.

“You’re jealous.” You laughed with a smile forming on your face and once those words escaped your mouth Clarisse looked at you like you just smacked her across the face.

She was the Clarisse La Rue, she didn’t get jealous especially when it came to dumb blonde’s who tried her hardest to get you to hangout with her. She had guys and girls dropping at her feet everyday there was no reason for her to be jealous of any girl that tried to get close to you but she couldn’t stop the weird feeling in her stomach whenever she thought of you and Amira being in the library by yourselves or the thought of kissing you like she found herself wanting to do ever since she tripped you in the hallway.

The more she thought about you and Amira doing the things she wanted to do with you made her mad but you were too busy to notice because you were still laughing. Marching over to you Clarisse pinned you against the door with a glare on her face immediately making your laughing fit come to a stop and she smiled.

“What’s wrong, Princess? Cat got your tongue?” She taunted, smirking at the stunned look on your face. Her eyes scanned yours before she nervously licked her lips as she brought her face closer to yours to the point you could feel her breath on your face.

“Clari-”

She cut you off by smashing her lips onto yours in a hungry kiss. Her hands trailing down to squeeze your hips tightly, pulling you closer to her. Your hands slowly made their way into her thick curls and pulled causing her to groan into your mouth.

Clarisse was the first one to pull away but not for long as she began trailing kisses down your neck, sucking at a certain spot causing a small moan to escape your mouth. She bit down harshly on your neck, sucking on the same spot, leaving a dark and very noticeable hickey on the side of your neck. You threw your head back as small groans left your mouth as she continued to leave hickeys.

Clarisse smirked to herself as she imagined Amira’s reaction but it only made her leave more hickeys on your neck. After a while she pulled away and placed a soft kiss on your lips and immediately you kissed back only pulling away when you needed air.

“You’re mine.” Clarisse mumbled looking into your eyes before kissing you again and without hesitation you kissed her back.

#clarisse la rue #clarisse la rue x fem!reader #clarisse la rue x reader #pjo tv show #clarisse la rue x y/n #clarisse pjo #cringe

730 notes · View notes

vampiresfromxenon · 8 months

Text

I Wanted To

Astarion x gn! Reader/Tav

Almost 3.5k words

Tags: Fluff, kisses, cuddling, angst, biting mention, no use of y/n, words of affection (so much sappiness), soft! Astarion, they’re in love your honor!!

CW: Slight mentions of SA and trauma (extremely minor, incredibly light piece)

Summary: You and Astarion decide to start your relationship over once you both confess your feelings. It's a mutual decision to take things extremely slow, celebrating little victories of intimacy here and there. Tonight, you can't hide your words of affection as he becomes more comfortable and vulnerable around you.

It’s been a few months traveling with this rowdy crew, and you can’t help but smile thinking about how much you love them all. Granted, they all piss you off on the daily, what from Shadowheart and Lae’zel attempting to kill each other, to Gale eating your favorite pair of enchanted gloves, but you can’t help yourself from smiling every time you think about how close you’ve all grown. One particular member in the party you have become very close with stands out a bit more than the rest, and thoughts about him are enough to make you unsettlingly giddy.

For the longest time, you and the pale elf fought your feelings, too cold to warm up to each other. You both had a wicked past, something that tainted your current perceptions of love and romance. His may have been far more extreme than yours, but regardless of that fact, your feelings and emotions were still valid. For a short few weeks, you found yourselves being extra intimate, dismissing it all as stress relief and nothing more. Those little excursions were merely there as a form of self protection: He gained your trust and protection, and you felt less alone and vulnerable at night. Or, so you thought, until you noticed how distant he was, his eyes never meeting yours every time he sought to pleasure you.

It wasn’t until recently that these barriers slowly began to be chipped away for the both of you, your infatuation not only becoming more real, but unfortunately, more terrifying. One night, you approached him, being brave and understanding if he had other thoughts about what you two could be. It was late, most of the camp either asleep or preparing for bed. You approached him, a soft hand on his shoulder, even though he was well aware you were there. What you were there for though, remained a mystery to him. He turned, smiling at you, taking your hand and kissing it affectionately. As your heart raced, you began a discussion with him, asking his thoughts and feelings about your ‘connection’ rather than just bombarding him with an overwhelming confession of love.

He seemed stunned to say the least, unsure of what to say or how to feel. It was strange for him, his cold heart beating a little faster, feeling a little warmer at the sight of you in front of him, actually seeing him for him and not just another plaything. All these feelings were bubbling up inside him because, for the first time in a long time, someone not only asked him what he wanted in a romantic relationship, but they respected anything he said on that subject matter. In all his nervousness, he felt that he could be honest in his reciprocation to see how far you two could go, this time with real feelings. That was a few weeks ago, and all this time since has been magical.

You haven’t intimately slept together since just before that night, instead establishing boundaries and focusing more on the non-sexual ways to be intimate, loving, and kind. He loves the way your hand brushes his, the way your fingers interlace with his as he moves in to hold your hand. You love the way his hand lands on your back, stretching to your hip to pull you closer to him, especially when meeting new people from town to town. While you still struggle with eye-contact in general, it feels easier around him, especially now since he has found himself to be more comfortable actually looking at you, taking in your appearance and being more present in your conversations.

For many nights now, you’ve been cuddled up nicely in one or the other’s tent, fingers interlaced, hands gently wrapped around hips, legs occasionally intertwined. He still continues to feed on you, though he makes sure to gain your permission before bed each night. On the nights where you felt too tired, too drained mentally even, he would leave you be, hoping to keep you as comfortable as possible. Those nights were just as romantic, as you could feel his breath against your neck as he cuddles you tightly, his lips on your shoulder as he falls into the soft rhythm of sleep.

Tonight didn’t start off any differently from any other night; you both gathered in his tent, doing your nightly routines as per usual (always before promptly passing out until the next morning hit you like a boulder). Most nights he would wear a nice, silky pajama set, one he purchased from an unreasonably expensive fashion designer in a small village. You didn’t have as luxurious of pajamas, but yours still covered most of your body, keeping you feeling safe and snuggled up each night.

Neither of you expected that this night would change everything.

He’s standing off to the side of your shared bedroll, changing into his pajamas while your back is turned to him, fiddling with the blanket you both share. You notice just how used this blanket is, and you realize that it might have been the only thing giving him comfort, the feeling of security over the past 200 or so years. Astarion was far from one to share, whether it was his feelings or his belongings, and it isn’t long before you have a second realization: you are possibly the only person to have ever slept with that blanket besides him. Your fingers gently roll the decaying fabric between your fingers, taking in all of his memories that have been exhausted on the threads.

You hear him walking over and you drop your thoughts about the blanket, not wanting to pry into more of his distressing past. He kneels, picking up the blanket and sliding next to you, your bodies touching in an instant. Turning your attention away from the blanket, you look up to see your love is shirtless, moving around in the bedroll, trying to be more comfortable at your side.

You know just how insecure he is about his scars from Cazador, that disgusting, vile, treacherous bitch, but it was so lovely to see him stepping out of his comfort zone. While you’re quick to notice this new change, he’s even quicker to notice your reaction. Diving back into his comfort charm, he smirks at you, loading a phrase to protect his vulnerable side.

“Like what you see, darling?” His eyes flutter to the side a bit, and you immediately notice his withdrawal from the conversation. With a calm and gentle hand, you caress his cheek, turning his attention back to you.

“I always love what I see…” You smile, your eyes looking at him in such a way that your face beams with pride, though you try to find a balance between that and neutral so as to not overwhelm him. To see just how much he trusts you, is willing to open up to you and be vulnerable… Your heart can barely take it. In a quiet voice you’re sure to check in on him, wanting to make sure he feels secure in his choice. “Don’t feel you have to do this for me though, okay?”

His hand reaches up to hold yours against his cold cheek, his stare suddenly becoming more present. “I wanted to.” His voice is low, his hand taking yours off his face as he leans in gently to kiss your palm. He kisses your forehead before moving to lie down, making himself comfortable in your small space.

You sit there for a moment, considering your options. You don’t want to make him uncomfortable, but you want him to be aware that you feel the same sense of shared comfort. As he turns to the side, looking at a book he left on the ground earlier, you move to remove your shirt, tossing it off to the side. He moves the book away from you both so you don’t roll into it in the night. Turning back to face you, he pauses, taking in the sight of your bare chest. He looks up at you, tilting his head, nearly asking you the same question you just asked him.

Before he can say anything, you lean slightly closer to him, your voice a loud whisper. “I wanted to.” His eyes soften, and you can tell he’s flattered by this display of intimacy. You begin to crawl under the old blanket with him, and he pulls you close, his hand around your waist. The feel of his cold, soft skin against your bare back is enough to send shivers down your spine, and you realize that this must be so close to what heaven feels like. His free hand reaches up and caresses your jaw before tangling in your hair, gently playing with it as he knows it helps you fall asleep.

Your hand rests on his bare chest, feeling the rhythm of his heartbeat slowing down as he continues to relax in your care. You lie there for a while, trying to sleep, but something is keeping you awake. Perhaps it’s the looming threat that you could all die soon in brutally vicious ways, or the fact that you don’t want to waste a single second enjoying this time with your new lover. Suppose you’ll never truly know.

Regardless of what is keeping you up on this night, you begin to feel a little restless, unable to lie there in that position for too much longer without your arms going numb. You sit up a little, leaning on the arm you’ve been lying on, trying to not wake your companion. However, his body shifts with you, and it appears that he is still just as awake as you are.

“I didn't wake you, did I?” You whisper in a worried voice.

“Not in the slightest, my dear. Unable to sleep tonight, as I am sure you understand.”

You sigh, still leaning over him slightly, his hand that was once on your waist now drawing circles on your shoulder blade, the hand in your hair now resting on your hip. You want to speak, but you find yourself getting lost in the way his face looks in the moonlight peeking through his tent flap. It frames his face so perfectly, almost as if this scene was sculpted by the Gods. He notices your sudden distance, and he is quick to check in on you.

“Are you alright, love?” He asks, a tinge of concern in his voice, once again tilting his head like a confused puppy.

“Sorry… Yes, yes. More than alright.” You reassure him, not breaking your focus. A beat; he attempts to determine what’s on your mind. Thinking he’s found it, he smirks.

“Admiring how beautiful I am?”

“Yeah… Just looking at creases around your eyes…” You say in a loving tone, not even remotely aware of how backhanded the comment you just made sounds.

He begins to shuffle, pushing you away, offended by your lack of sincerity. “Alright, there’s no need-”

“No! Not like that.” You chuckle, snapping back into reality. You grab him, pulling him back to you, his head pressing back into the pillow below you.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that. I just-” You can’t stop yourself from laughing a little at the sight of your pouting partner underneath you.

You notice just how unamused he is, and you abruptly stop laughing, clearing your throat and composing yourself in a more serious manner. Your hand reaches up and the pad of your thumb brushes against his crows feet, your mind falling back into your feelings of love and adoration for him.

“The way your eyes crinkle when you laugh… The way your eyes sharpen when you’re glaring at me, like you are right now… The way they soften every time I walk in the room… I love those wrinkles, they’re such a beautiful part of you.” He relaxes again, taking in your words, though still unhappy at your mention of his wrinkles, making him feel old. Though, no matter how much he hates his aging characteristics being brought up, he will never turn away any form of flattery.

“Well, augh. You really are sweet, aren’t you? But I’m sure you like more of me than just my dreaded wrinkles.” He was definitely fishing for compliments, that much was obvious, but he wasn’t aware of just how much you wanted to smother him in loving words. You lean forward and kiss his crows feet on both sides, surprising him. Smiling, your thumb traces over his eyebrows, taking in their shape and feel.

“My eyebrows, really? Nothing else catching your eye?” He whines, his hands going back to resting on your shoulder blade and hip. He can feel your body shake as you laugh, your head falling forward towards his chest as you continue to giggle from his pouting. You bring your head back up, focusing on his face once more.

“One thing at a time, dearest.” You pause, analyzing the shape of his eyebrows. Just how sharp they are, how often he uses them to his advantage when he is charming people. As you continue to gaze at them, he raises one of them, making your heart go crazy.

“You’re so expressive. Your eyebrows are so perfectly shaped, the way you use them like a weapon… I know it’s silly, I know they’re just eyebrows, but they’re your eyebrows, and they mean so much to me.” You trail off, your face flushed with embarrassment as you realize just how overly sentimental your words are. He smiles at you, knowing just how hard you’re trying, and appreciating every second of it. You kiss his eyebrows before quickly moving on.

Your fingers trace along his face, noticing his mole. By now he’s exhausted, you’re three for three with things he’s sensitive about. “Darling, if this is your way of making me feel less upset about not being able to look in mirrors, I must say it’s starting to work.” His words deceive his face and body language, but you still try to abide by his wishes.

Wanting to show your love, without spending too much time on it, you mention how much the mole under his eye suits him, how he would almost seem incomplete without a beauty spot. The usage of ‘beauty’ in ‘beauty spot’ convinced him to let it slide, but the ice you were dreamily skating on was wearing thin. Kissing his mole, you move on once again.

The skin of his nose was soft as you trace the pad of your finger down the bridge of his nose. “Your nose… it’s so sharp. Don’t laugh, but one of my favorite feelings is when I wake up and your nose is either on my back or my neck. I can feel your breathing on my skin, your nose pressed against me while you sleep. It’s so calming, having any little part of you so close to me.” He looks at you a little confused, mostly due to the fact that you’re still here appreciating him. The things you’re saying, they’re so small and insignificant, yet you enunciate each word like it’s the most important thing you’ll ever say. Each word has a purpose, a meaning, and they fall out of your mouth effortlessly; something he still has yet to learn how to do.

You kiss the tip of his nose, your fingers tracing down his face to his smile lines. Oh his smile lines. You just can’t help but adore his smile lines, no matter how much he absolutely hates them. He hates them because they age him, but you love them for all the same reason. To know he laughs, smiles, has any semblance of being happy is enough for you to be overjoyed at the sight of these lines that prove the existence that he has been able to enjoy life enough to have physical proof on his face.

“Don’t you dare.” He teases, though you wish he could bear with you for just a moment to explain your thoughts. Figuring you could do it another time, as tonight has already had enough excitement, you kiss his smile lines and spare him from your honeyed words.

Last, but certainly not least: his lips. Your thumb traces over his lips which are closed together, gently pushing up just enough to where you wonder if he was trying to secretly kiss your thumb. As you continue to run your thumb over his lips, reminiscing on all the times your own experienced his, he takes you by surprise.

Removing the hand from your hip, his thumb graces your lips, and you find yourself trying to inconspicuously kiss at it like he did to you just moments ago. You open your mouth to speak, but he uses his finger to silence you, gently shushing you.

“My turn.” His voice is smooth and tender as his thumb continues to trace over your slightly parted lips. “Your lips… They have always been so soft and inviting.” He pauses, still staring at them.

“I must admit, I despised them at first.” A confused expression crosses your face just before he continues. “They would taunt me on a daily basis, the one thing I couldn’t have no matter how much charm I threw at you. When I was eventually graced with them, I loathed the way my name would be cried out from them, almost as if you were saying it like a prayer. It tore me apart, wanting something I wasn’t sure I actually wanted, or even felt like I deserved…” He trails off, though his gaze remains constant on you.

“How do they make you feel now?” You softly ask, just barely loud enough for even yourself to hear.

He thinks on this for a moment, searching for the proper word.

“Safe.”

He leans up to you, cupping your cheek as he kisses you, the most delicate and loving kiss you two have ever shared. You both pull from the kiss, exercising restraint and respect for your pre-established boundaries. A hand resting on his chest, you encourage him to lie back on the pillow once more, which he does. You lean forward, kissing every part of his face that you mentioned, as well as a few spots just because you wanted to. Kissing his lips again, you pull apart just enough to whisper against his lips.

“I admire everything about you. Every aspect of you is just so lovely… Thank you for being here, with me. I don’t ever want to leave your side.”

He smiles, his fangs poking out this time. His hand moves a strand of hair out of your face as he clears his throat.

“And thank you for all the kisses.” He says, resuming his usual charm. You try to hide your slight disappointment, but you know he is trying his best and you can’t expect him to always meet you halfway, especially in this time of healing.

“Always.” You whisper, lying down next to him as he wraps his arms around you, holding you closely. It’s late, and now that you have this feeling lifted off your chest, you find it easier to sleep. Your heart rate begins to slow, your breathing finding its usual pattern, your lover wrapped up tightly with you.

When you’re on the edge of falling asleep, you feel his head tilting down towards yours, which is resting on his chest. His lips kiss the top of your head, his chin then resting on that same spot. A quiet voice breaks the air, unaware that it still has an audience.

“I love you.”

You freeze, unsure of whether or not you have actually fallen into a dream state, or if you just heard him correctly. In this state of grogginess, your body shifts as you attempt to determine the truth.

“Shit. Did you hear that?”

“Mhm.” You sleepily groan. He lets out a sigh of relief, thinking he’s talking to you in your sleep like he has before. Settling further into the bedroll, making himself more comfortable, he pulls you tighter, finally deciding to rest.

“I love you too.” You break the silence, your voice more awake this time. His eyes flash open, his red irises laser focused on you. You can feel his heart pounding as you rest on his chest, and you lean over and kiss just above his heart.

“Safe.” Is all you can say before promptly passing out, your warm skin slowly heating up his own. He sits there for another moment, taking in the events of today. It was a lot, to say the least, but he felt comfortable and confident in his decisions, and that was almost truly a first for him. His hand finds its way back into your hair, stroking it as he begins to drift off to sleep, for the first time in a long time feeling comfortable, guarded, protected, safe.

Author’s Note:

He’s extremely OOC, I’m 95% sure lmao but I love making characters total softies, even if we don’t see that side of them in the media they’re from. (I'm still in the very beginning of Act 2 so I'm learning a lot about him through this site too)

I’ve never experienced love, I’m also sure that’s obvious- I’ve always wanted to do something like this with someone though (look at their face and kiss all my favorite spots). While I was writing this, I felt so awkward writing such sappy dialogue, but I realized that moments like these aren’t smooth and rehearsed; feelings get mushy and oftentimes people say dumb and dorky things because they’re just so in love. I hope it gets translated that way at least hahaha

My Spotify is fucked because I listen to specific songs on repeat whenever I write. I have probably about 4-5 hours of “Blue Moon” by Billie Holiday logged on there now because of all the time planning, writing, and thinking about this fic- I got this song from Neil’s Astarion playlist, it’s so sweet and loving :)

Edit: So many people are saying he’s actually pretty in character so thank you for the validation because I was nervous 😭

2K notes · View notes

ggyuha · 8 months

Text

good cop, bad cop / leon

[ summary ] : you lost your belongings after a party—of course you’d need help but seeing how the officer is so handsome, maybe he can help you in more ways than one? ( wc is 3.6k words )

[ c/w ] : dom!leon x afab!reader, handjob, fingering, unprotected piv, car sex, degradation, pet names, age gap (reader is in college, leon is in early/mid 20s), …

[ note ] : he isn’t acting like a cutie patootie re2r leon bc it’s mostly self-indulgent but enjoy my filthy leon brain rot anyways & ik it’s p long but i love porn w plots ><

having partying all night, it was inevitable to lose something in the process—the something, in your case, was your purse. of course, how cliché.

it had your money, cards and phone in it and hell if you can survive without your phone.

with sore feet and tired heels, you made your way to the nearest police station. it was almost empty, save for a couple of bored-looking officers. they were all buried in paperworks except for one—damn was he a sight for sore eyes.

he had blond hair which was parted in a curtain-ish type of bangs. his eyes were icy blue, the type to bore holes in someone when they stare too hard. his nose was long and tall, it sat perfectly in the middle of his pretty face. his lips were plump and red, so kissable but save that for later, you thought. it’s your purse over this handsome cop.

he walked up to you with a smile on his lips, his puppy eyes looking brightly at you. “hello, is there anything i can help you with?” he asked gently. you saw the way his eyes roamed over your body, up and down, checking you out. you straightened your back, feeling a sense of pride to have such an attractive man gaze at you that way. who wouldn’t, to be honest? with the way your tight black dress hugged your curves perfectly, the way the hem showed a generous amount of your thighs. you sure are a looker.

“yes, please,” you said in the softest way possible, his eyes flicking back up to match your stare. “my purse was stolen and… and i have to get home. is it possible to borrow a phone?”

he raised his brows. a phone? you’d borrow a phone instead of asking for a lift back home. he was disappointed but intentionally gave you his personal phone instead of his work phone. “here, sweetheart.” he just couldn’t hold that one back. he had a thing for pet names and he sure as shit can’t help himself but call you nicknames.

you blinked a few times, flustered with the pet name but you took the phone from his hand and dialled your friend’s number. it took him a few rings. “hello, chris?” chris was your older brother’s best friend. he’s nice and understanding, he acts more brotherly than your own brother so you didn’t hesitate to punch his number in the keypad.

“yes?” he mumbled groggily. you felt a little guilty, disturbing him this late at night but you had to suck it up or you wouldn’t get home. “uhm, i’m in a police station. i lost my purse. can you come and get me?” there was silence for a few seconds before you heard a loud sigh. he said your name, asking to confirm if it was you.

but of course, it was you. who else would cause trouble only to bother him afterwards, right?

“yes, it’s me.”

you heard a low grunt—fuck, you thought. “i can’t, i’m sorry… i’m s’posed to watch my lil’ cousin for the whole night and my uncle used the car.” your lower lip caught in between your teeth. “i see,” you replied in a steady tone, careful not to sound disappointed because you knew chris would feel even more guilty, if he wasn’t feeling that now, which you sure as shit he is.

“it’s okay, chris. thanks anyway. there are tons of officers here,” you said, eyeing the said officers, which you can count with the fingers of a hand. you couldn’t tell chris the truth though.

“maybe i can ask for a lift.” leon’s ears perked up and he fought hard to hold back a grin.

chris hummed on the other end of the line. “i’ll come by tomorrow to check on you, is that good?” he knew your parents are on a business trip and your brother is, most probably, not home. you nodded, slightly forgetting he won’t see. “yes, thanks.”

you handed the officer’s phone back to him. “i can give you a ride.” leon offered with a small smirk. you shivered slightly under his piercing gaze. you could feel the palpable tension between you two and god, was it wrong. you were barely done with college—how old are you? eighteen? nineteen? fuck, it was so wrong but it felt so right.

curious as you were about his age, you refrained from asking.

“okay,” you said, “sorry, i didn’t catch your name.” you looked up at him with doe eyes. you sure knew how to use your charms, he thought. you were worming your way into his head. he was beginning to imagine things—said things being him thrusting his hips, ramming into you roughly—but he isn’t telling you that. yet.

“leon kennedy, but it’s just leon for you.” he gave you a wink before walking past you, gesturing for you to follow him. “i’m almost done with my shift anyway. can you wait for 10 minutes, sweetie?” he glanced back at you over his shoulders, “let me just hand in my paperworks and clock out, yeah?” it took you a few to process his words, his voice calling you sweetie ringing in your head.

“sure,” you answered, “i’ll wait—“ you eyed the lounge and sat on one of the chair, “—here.” he chuckled before walking away to go to his desk, organising piles of paperworks. he grabbed two handfuls of those papers and put them in drawers. the rest of the stack, he grabbed and he walked into an office, probably to hand it in.

he went out after minutes and he arranged his desk. an organised man, you thought, that’s so fucking hot.

he grabbed his backpack and slung it over one shoulder as he walked towards you. “i clocked out. ready to get home?” he smiled sweetly at you. you nodded and stood up, walking behind him.

you were surprised when he got in his car. like, his personal car. you guess it made sense since he already got off work but still. you thought he’d use the police car.

okay, chill, it isn’t even that big of a deal.

you climbed into his passenger seat. “took your sweet time, didn’t you?” he joked as he ignited the engine. you scratched your cheek. “sorry.”

he chuckled at your apology. “i was just kidding.” you shot him a brief glance and threw him a smile. damn did that do something to him.

he began driving, asking you for directions. it didn’t take that long before you reached your home. “this is it,” you said, pointing at the house outside the passenger window. he looked your way, his eyes drifting back to you after he eyed your house. it wasn’t that big but it still was a statement of your family’s wealth.

“thanks for driving me home. even after your shift ended too…” his hand moved from the shift stick to your knee, his eyes remained on yours, looking at you with a glint and you could swear that you could see through him. “it’s not a problem, princess. don’t mention it.” a corner of his lips curved up in a sly smirk. oh, was he a handsome devil—which was ironic since he’s in the force, doing good.

you bit your lip, holding back to gaze at his hand on your knee. it was burning your skin but you were so fucking aching for his hands to burn more than just your knee.

you hummed a response. “alright, leon.” despite knowing that you’re supposed to get out of the car, because the ride is done, you couldn’t move an inch, holding onto his meaningful stare while he killed the engine. “what?” you huffed out silently. his mouth is still curved up in a smirk and his eyes watched you hungrily, almost as if this whole interaction is a bit too entertaining for him.

what the fuck is behind those eyes?

“maybe next time,” he leaned in closer and your breath caught in your throat, “don’t party too hard, yeah?” his breath fanned your cheek. “or do. then maybe i’ll see you around again.” you gasped inaudibly then bit your lip. “you’re not getting your message across, officer kennedy.” you raised a brow at him. “are you telling me to run wild or not?”

leon grinned at your question. he liked this side of you; bold, confident. you’re a minx and you know it.

“i don’t care,” said leon in a low tone. god, did it sound so sexy, so illegally. “i guess i’m saying, do what you will in life but i wanna see you again.”

your eyes widened a bit and it broke free, that sly smile you’ve been holding back for too long. he thinks he has you in his grasp but no, you have him in your grasp.

men are that easy. for you, that is. play dumb, play innocent—or don’t—it doesn’t matter, actually. just look tempting and they eat everything up.

“i’m still a student, officer,” you finally tell him. he doesn’t show a hint of surprise, almost as if he knew. he looked away and pursed his lips, choosing his words carefully now but it’s quite too late for that, isn’t it?

“but you don’t really care, do you?” you added in a sultry tone. his eyes flicked back to you, reflecting sinful emotions—and you could almost see what kind of thoughts danced in his head, how lewd and how fucking hot those thoughts were.

his lips curved up in a smile but he tried to hide it as he rested his elbow on the steering wheel and put a hand on his lower face, the back of it pressed against his mouth.

“you don’t know that,” said leon in a whisper. your finger traced patterns on the back of his hand that’s still on your knee. you saw his adam’s apple bob in his throat. “oh, but i do.” you grabbed his hand and yanked it so you could pull him closer to you again. his eyes widened, caught off guard.

you were having so much fun. he always seemed collected. all throughout the evening, he was flirting but now, he was at your mercy. fuck those pretty eyes of yours or those damned wet lips. he’d do anything to touch you—and you could feel yourself wanting the same thing.

you clutched the collar of his shirt with one hand, your other hand ran through his ash blond hair. “i know what you’ve been thinking the entire time. trust me, officer kennedy, i’ve seen those eyes before.”

his face contorted to that of jealousy. so you’ve been through this before? you’ve seduced other men? and god so help him—you’ve fucked other men?

you watched as his eyes glinted in envy and he looked so dangerous, so tantalising. you bit the tip of your tongue inside your mouth, your gaze dropping to his lips tugged in a frown.

he grunted, feeling the tension increase. “fuck this,” he murmured and gripped your arm tightly. you winced in pain but looked up at him with a smile. “i’ll fuck you better.”

your mouth dropped open in surprise, his words catching you off guard a bit. apparently, he took this action for something else, as an invitation, and he leaned forward, crashing his lips with yours in a rough and wet kiss.

you’d be lying if you said this wasn’t your goal, not where you wanted to end up in, because it so fucking is.

your hands kept on clutching his shirt, pulling him closer as you kissed him back with much fervour. he groaned into the kiss, sending waves of pleasure. really, damn this man to hell but he’s such a fucking good kisser.

he nibbled at your lower lip, biting it and licking it all while interlocking with it. he bit harder this time and you gasped. he eased the pain by licking it and then pushed his tongue in your mouth, swirling and dancing with yours.

he pulled away, but you knew he only did to let you breathe because he would fucking drown you with his kisses if he could.

“damn…” you were panting heavily. your heart was pounding so erratically, you thought it was possible to suffer from a heart attack. you looked at him through your eyelids. “what do you think?” he asked, caressing your cheek with his hand. “i kissed you better, didn’t i?”

you rolled your eyes and frowned at his question. what a jealous bastard! “huh,” you scoffed, “are you making out with me to heal your ego? are you seriously competing with other men you don’t even know?” you raised your brows at him.

“no, no, no, princess—you don’t get it. i have to make sure i do you better so next time, you come back to me and not them.”

without waiting for your response, he gripped your waist tightly to lift you up, guiding you to him. he adjusted the driver’s seat, pushing it back to give you enough space to straddle his lap. you huffed out shakily, the new position heightening your desire. you gripped his shoulders.

“oh, so there’s a next time?” you raised a brow at him and he just gave a smug sneer. “‘course. i’m not an idiot. why would i make you be a one time thing? you’re too pretty for that.” you rolled your eyes at him but secretly flattered he finds you attractive enough to want you more than a one-night stand.

he just chuckled at your reaction then his hands gripped your hips firmly and crashed his lips with yours once more before trailing down to your jaw and neck, nipping on your skin at every opportunity, leaving hickeys.

you tilted your head, giving him more access to your neck, your fingers entwined with his soft hair, combing and gripping them to spur him to keep going.

his hands gave your hips a gentle squeeze before sliding upwards to fondle your tits through your tight dress. you gasped and he chuckled against your skin. he pulled your neckline down, revealing your round breasts and erect nipples. he cupped them with his big hands, pinching and pulling on your buds with his long fingers.

“shit…” you murmured, tipping your head backwards as you fought back a moan. his hands are so filthy but you bet you haven’t even seen the half of it.

he pushed you gently, your back resting against the steering wheel. you watched him hike the hem of your dress up to your waist and palmed your mound without a word. you yelped, feeling him trace a finger along your slit through your panties. he could feel just how wet you already are and that elicited a throaty growl from him.

“messy little girl,” he whispered as he pushed your panties aside, gathering some of your slick with the tip of his fingers before rubbing your throbbing clit, working in circles. you let out a nasty mewl, your hand flying to your mouth and clamp it shut—which didn’t help at all because once he found the perfect rhythm to work on your clit, rolls of whimper and moans escaped your lips.

“so vocal, aren’t you? don’t hold back, i want to hear it.” hesitantly, you removed your hand from your mouth, putting two of them on his shoulders instead. “leoooon…” you moaned when he pushed two thick digits past your slick folds, the heel of his palm bumping against your nub every time he pumped in and out. once you’re adjusted to his fingers, he began curling them and with how long his fingers are, the tip of them reached spots you normally couldn’t on your own.

“this the spot?” he asked teasingly, sliding his fingers in and out then curled them to press on your g-spots. he kept his ministrations, only picking up the pace but doing it at the same intensity.

you were mush at this point, the steering wheel being the only thing keeping you sitting up because if you weren’t leaning, you sure as hell would be falling back with the way he’s doing your body.

“your tight pussy is just as vocal as you. how cute.” you grunted at his words, feeling your walls clench around his fingers. he was right though. every time he thrusted those damn fingers in you, filthy squelching filled the car.

“i’m close, please…”

he looked up at you and smiled, his other hand tucking your hair behind your ear then leaned forward to kiss your lips briefly. “go on then, cum on my fingers, baby.” a couple more thrusts of his fingers and your hips began to rhythmically spasm, riding your orgasm while he continued to slowly stroke your spongy walls, your cum coating his fingers.

he pulled out, his tongue swirling around his cum-coated digits and licked them clean down to his knuckles. “delicious little thing, aren’t ya,” he said as he unbuckled his pants, his other hand grabbing your wrist to guide your hands and palm his fully erect cock.

your eyes widened and you exhaled, your fingers barely wrapping around his length. your thumb swiped on the precum gathering on his tip and he shakily sighed, throwing his head back on his seat’s headrest, watching you with half-lidded eyes.

you lazily stroked him. honestly, you didn’t have enough energy for this. you just want him inside you and all this teasing—it’s only making you impatient. “hmp,” his brow twitched slightly and glared at you, “brat. i know as hell this isn’t how you give handjobs.” he grabbed your wrist and pushed it up and down to stroke his throbbing cock harder. “what’s the matter? can’t wait ‘til my cock’s inside you?” he smirked and despite wanting to deny his accusation, you just whined instead and watched him use your hand as a fleshlight.

“shit, hold on, baby.” his hips were bucking up in rhythm with your hand, fucking your fist with urgency. with a throaty moan, his cock twitched before ropes of cum spilled on your hand and some on your stomach. you thought about how good it’d feel to have this hot and sticky thing stuffed in you.

he panted heavily but he was clearly still hard. he hasn’t had enough, for sure. he grabbed your hips, lifting them up so your pussy is hovering above his cock then you slowly sank down, your head tipping back as you felt just how much he’s stretching your tight walls—fuck, he’s so big.

his fat tip effortlessly hit your cervix just by being balls deep inside you. you groaned and impatiently squirmed on his lap. “wait up, you slut,” he grunted before firmly holding your hips to help you ride his dick. he rammed inside you relentlessly, repeatedly hitting all your spots with his curves and length. series of moans spilled from your swollen lips. your hands found your bouncing tits, playing with your nipples which heightened your stimulation.

“filthy girl,” he spat but watched you play with yourself while he used your tight cunt like an expensive cocksleeve. “shit shit shit…” you breathlessly whimpered, “not that spot, not that spot—“ liar, that’s what you are because he is thrusting in such a good spot but if he keeps hitting that… “jesus, did you just cum?” he furrowed his brows and stared at the creamy white coating the base of his dick. “oh, that’s good, fuck you’re so tight…” he seemed to be reprimanding you for cumming first but he couldn’t help and enjoy the way you’re just so fucking tight, clamping down around his thick length after your release.

he kept pulling orgasm after orgasm out of you, pumping his cock in you and stuffing your womb with his thick cum as if he’s planning on giving you his kids.

you don’t know how or when it happened, that you’re in your house, on your bed. both of you are fully naked now while he rammed into you like a hungry man, his hands pressing on the back of your thigh ‘til they’re levelled with your ears. “leon, oh god, i’m…!” your walls clenched around him again, pussy twitching and hips spasming though you’re tired from cumming over and over again around his cock. he just kept spilling his load into you.

“shit, baby, can’t get enough of this pussy.” he pulled out and watched his cum ooze out of your puffy lips. you caught a glimpse of the sunrise from outside your window and series of doorbells echoed in your home, followed by chris’ voice. fuck.

he called your name but leon just raised his brows at you before flipping your limp body, spanking your ass to lift them up properly. you whined and did as he wanted, presenting yourself to him while your face is pressed on a pillow, muffling your moans and cries as he fucked you roughly for the nth time since last night.

“shh, princess. we gotta pretend nobody’s home, don’t we?” he whispered from behind, leaning forward to press soothing kisses on your shoulder blade as filthy sounds of skin slapping skin and wet squelching while he rammed mindlessly his cock in you filled your bedroom. “wouldn’t want your friend to catch us like this after all.”

“mhm, shit…” he murmured as his hips picked up pace, swinging more sloppily and with more urgency before spilling another load of thick cum in you. jesus, is he ever gonna stop cumming at all?

“pretty girl, takin’ me so well. what’s another one more, yeah?”

#ggyuha 🍓#leon kennedy x reader #leon smut #resident evil leon #leon kennedy x fem reader #leon kennedy #re2 leon

1K notes · View notes

taylorman2274 · 29 days

Text

We Care About You (Part VI)

The Traveler finally gets to say what they wanted to say to [Y/N].

Content Warning(s): N/A

Notes: SAGAU; GN!Reader;

Word Count: 0.9k

Previous || Next

Taglist: @silverstarred; @victoria1676; @angelofdarkness2; @areaderspov; @andromeda-gay; @ash1; @mercy-not-merci; @toodledoodl3; @jellyedkazoo; @namine123; @innuwu; @agaygothicmushroom; @tired-of-life-86; @fantasyhopperhea; @sweetsourbxtch; @zenith-of-all-zeniths; @velleunv; @creativecupcake; @obsoletedeviant;

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"You're still looking stressed, [Y/N]. Are you sure you're okay?"

You looked up to see the Traveler's concerned face. "Oh, I'm fine, I guess. Sorry. I just really wasn't expecting something like this to happen."

"Paimon understands. Paimon would be scared too if she found herself summoned to another world."

You slowly nodded. You found yourself to be a lot more calm than you were roughly three minutes ago, but that didn't mean you weren't nervous. After all, you were talking with two people who are only known to exist inside of a game. Purely pixels on a screen. And yet, here you were having a genuine conversation with them.

"Speaking of which, you said you wanted to talk to me about your future journey?"

"Not mine, ours," the Traveler shook their head. "It's our future journey."

"No, it is yours," you rebutted, confidence rising within you. "I'm not the one traveling around Teyvat, you are."

"But you are with me, are you not?" the Traveler calmly refuted, crossing their arms. "You're the one who's been guiding me and all the others, right?"

Aaaaaaaaaaand your confidence is gone.

You nervously rubbed your hands together and avoided looking at the Traveler. "Is that how you see it? I'm... guiding you?"

Paimon tilted their head. "Yeah...? What, you don't see it that way?"

You hesitated for a second before you finally shook your head.

"Then what do you see it as?"

You were now very afraid. You wanted to tell them your honest thoughts, but you worried how they would react to it. Would they be angry? Would they threaten you to stop? Would they start fighting you?

... ... ...

...Would they kill you? Was this all just an act to lower your guard?

You gulped, tugging at the neckline of your shirt. "I kind of see it as..." you sighed, looking back down at the stone table.

"...Possession."

You waited for a response but received none. The worst kind of response you can get.

"I felt like I was manipulating your actions without your consent," you continued, your voice barely audible over the sounds of the night. "That's why I tried to make things better. But even then, you still fought back. I thought that you hated me. I thought that you brought me here to get rid of me..."

"...But if you see my actions as 'guiding' you..." you looked up. "...Then what does that make me in your eyes?"

Both the Traveler and Paimon had concentrated expressions on their faces. You waited for either of their expressions to change, but you were also afraid of what the new one would become. Would they be satisfied with your answer? Would they be furious? You didn't want to know. So instead, you put your arms on the table and rested your forehead on top of them.

If you didn't want to use your eyes, you'd have to use your ears, instead. You thought of all the audible reactions you would expect to hear. A slam of fists or hands, yelling and shouting, the sound of a sword being drawn.

Or worse of all, silence. You can rarely tell what a person is thinking whenever they are silent.

...That's what scares you the most.

You waited with bated breath for a response and thankfully it wasn't long before you got one. First, you heard the sound of fabric scraping against stone. Next, you heard the shifting of sand. Lastly, you heard footsteps growing louder by the step.

The Traveler was walking over to you.

At this point, you wanted to do something instead of being vulnerable to a potential threat. But deep down, you knew that it was useless. You couldn't flee because it would take the Traveler mere seconds to catch up with you. You couldn't fight because you knew that you had no shot of going against someone who has gone toe-to-toe with gods.

You are vulnerable. You are weak. You are useless. You are worthless.

...You are going to die.

Tears began to well up in your eyes, but you fought the urge to cry. You probably looked pathetic to them already.

You heard a couple of more steps before they stopped. They were standing right behind you.

Silence.

...

... ...

... … …

*SHING*

...

... ...

... … …

*WHOOSH*

...

... ...

... … …

*CLANG*

...?

...You didn't expect that noise. It came from your left.

You turned towards the noise and spotted the Traveler's dull sword.

"...Huh?"

Suddenly, you felt their arms wrap loosely around your neck.

You immediately stiffened your spine and brought your hands on top of theirs. However, before you could throw them off your body, you felt their head rest on your shoulder. Then they stopped.

... ... …

...Now you were confused. What were they doing?

... ... …

...Wait...

... ... …

...Is this... a hug...?

Sure enough, the more you thought about it, the more you believed that the Traveler was hugging you.

...But why?

"To me... in my eyes..."

... ... …

"You're my friend..."

The Traveler slightly tightened their hug.

"And I wouldn't know what to do without you..."

... ... …

You've finally relaxed.

And now that you are, there's one thing that you'd like to do.

Slowly, to not startle the Traveler, you got up from your seat and turned towards them. You could tell that they were wondering why you got up.

They stopped wondering when you went up and hugged them back. It took a while, but they wrapped your arms around your back in a friendly embrace.

"I wouldn't know what to do without you either."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

THE END

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Author's Notes: And that's the end of that! Hope everybody enjoyed the ending!

Thanks again for all who liked, reblogged, and/or commented on this little series. I appreciate each and every one of you!

#genshin impact sagau #genshin sagau #self aware genshin #genshin self aware #sagau x reader #sagau #sagau genshin #platonic genshin x reader #platonic #gn reader #gender neutral reader #genshin impact

375 notes · View notes

roosterr · 10 months

Text

white flag ✹ ch 4

note: i had to rewrite this chapter TWICE. im sick of it so pls enjoy. also forgot to mention on here that I have been away this week on a little holiday. didn't stop me writing tho lol.

pairing: ghost x gn!reader

wc: 2.3k

no use of y/n

readers callsign is 'stingray'

summary: while you're gone on a mission, ghost has time to ponder your relationship, and comes to a long awaited realisation

warnings: ghost's pov, mentions of blood and injury, lil bit of angst

ao3

【prev】 || 【next】

ghost never knew how to feel about you.

at first, he really did hate you; you were the bright-eyed new recruit with seemingly endless optimism, he simply couldn't help but be annoyed by you. honestly, he half expected you to tap out a week into the job. you were just so… normal, he found it hard to believe you were cut out for this line of work.

of course, he trusted price's decision to hire you, and deep down ghost knew he wouldn't have recruited you if he didn't think you could handle it, but he looked down on you anyway. it didn't matter how good price thought you were, you'd have to earn ghost's respect.

it was infuriating, the way you fit so easily into the dynamic of the team. they all liked you right off the bat, even the captain, who was notoriously hard to impress. he observed you from afar, watching how you easily broke down their walls and fell into place next to them like it was nothing.

if he was honest with himself, he might have even called it jealousy. it seemed that everything was so natural to you; everything that he struggled with, you did with such ease you made it look like child's play. he especially hated the way you could just be a person. you didn't lock up every time someone spoke to you, you didn't need to sit with a visual on every available exit, and you didn't need to analyse every person you met in the fear that the second you turn your back they'll stab you in it.

you pissed him off, but what was worse than anything else about you, is that ghost had to fight with himself not to like you too.

it was the first time he got sent on an assignment with you that he began to understand why everyone seemed to get along with you so well. the ruthless efficiency with which you did your job was almost shocking to see. he couldn't have predicted how well the two of you worked together; like a well oiled machine, by the end of the mission he didn't even need to communicate verbally, you could just tell what his next move would be.

he finally understood why price fought so hard to get you on the one-four-one – and he finally found it in himself to respect you.

but that didn't change the way he felt about you beyond the field. you were soft, too kind, and too optimistic, you weren't hardened by the job like him. so he went out of his way to be tougher on you than he was with the others, and he rationalised it by telling himself he was helping you; that without a little toughening up, this world would break you, and for some reason, he couldn't stand the thought of that.

when you started to resent him back, it made his stomach feel heavy in a way he'd never felt before. it was new, and uncomfortable, and it scared him. he wasn't sure when he first noticed it, but it only got worse when he came to the realisation that you didn't care for him like you did for gaz and soap.

you could joke around so easily with them, but you go quiet when he enters the room. you never meet his eyes, and make sure to never be physical with him. when he addresses you over comms, you answer with a quick 'yes sir' and that's the end of it. ghost would never admit it, but the distance between you hurt – even if it was by design.

as he lay awake that night, he thought about what it would be like if you treated him the same way you treated the others. he couldn't stop the tiny smile that pulled at his lips as he imagined laughing with you, sitting next to you, touching you.

he imagined you, taking his calloused hand into your own, so gentle and kind like you always were, and the way his pulse skyrocketed scared him into staying up the rest of the night.

after that, the way he saw you changed. where he used to think you were soft – and therefore weak – instead he saw the way you chose to be kind. when once your constant jokes with the others was an inability to take things seriously, now it was your specialty way to keep up morale, and ghost actually found himself chuckling at a few of your quips.

it was like his entire perspective had shifted, everything about you that used to annoy him gradually became something he appreciated about you.

it took him a while, but he finally came to the conclusion that he… liked you.

but it was bittersweet, because he already knew you didn't want him, and he doubted you ever would. you'd never see him in the same light, he'd ruined his chances before he even knew he wanted one.

maybe it was for the best, though. you deserved better, someone who would treat you right, someone normal. he already knew you didn't want him, and he could never blame you for that. people like you don't fall in love with people like him, that's just the way it is.

so he resigns himself to burying the feelings he harbours for you. you never had to find out, if you did you'd surely be disgusted by someone like him being interested in you. he couldn't handle rejection like that, not from you.

when price told him he'd have to take you in when your house burned down, he was fucking terrified. it shook him to his core, how much he liked the idea of the two of you living under the same roof. he did his best to avoid you, leave you in peace like he assumed you wanted; but you – wonderful, kind you – wouldn't just leave him to his misery.

you were being nice to him, and he couldn't figure out why. he assumed it was because he was doing you a favour by letting you stay with him; he couldn't even trick himself into believing that you might be doing it because you liked him.

every night, he'd go back to that fantasy of existing with you, by your side instead of at arm's length. you were so close, just a single door separating you, his hands started sweating every time he passed by the living room.

he knew he was a goner the morning you woke up before him. he'd scarcely ever seen you in a casual setting, but walking into the kitchen and being greeted by you sitting at the table, the domesticity of it all hit him like a bullet to the chest.

it was exactly what he wanted, and it scared the shit out of him, so he panicked. he needed to stay away from you, for your own good, so he did what the ghost does best.

he ran away.

he didn't even consider what you'd think, he just had to get away, before he said something he'd end up regretting.

when you came through the door, soaking wet, and laid into him – which he knew he deserved – he immediately regretted leaving you behind. seeing you cry, knowing it was because of him, it made him feel sick. he knew he never wanted you to feel that heartache again, especially if it was because of him.

he'd give anything to start again with you, go back to the beginning and do it all right this time, but the only thing he could do was try and make up for what he'd put you through.

the hot chocolate was a peace offering; he knew you loved it – he even knew about the stash you had of it hidden in price's office, away from the other soldiers. he half expected you to just tell him to piss off, but when you accepted it, he felt his heart soar.

it ignited a spark of hope within him. more than anything, he just wanted you to like him, it didn't matter if you never saw him the way he wanted you to.

he intended on waking you up the next evening, before he left for the pub, but when he saw how peaceful you looked while you slept, he couldn't bring himself to disturb you.

you stayed with gaz and soap most of the night, and he spent the night watching you from the bar and dimly lit corners, assuring himself that you were okay. when it came time to drag you home with him, he had never been so nervous. taking care of people was the exact opposite of his strong suit, especially when they started crying at him.

he almost couldn't believe his ears when you said you liked him.

he'd dragged you home with an arm wrapped around your waist, his head feeling light as a feather. by all accounts, he should've been annoyed at having to look after you in your inebriated state, but he found himself smiling under his mask the whole way home – even when you almost threw up on him.

when you rested your head on his shoulder on the bathroom floor, he might've actually short-circuited. all thoughts except for you evacuated his mind, and a wonderfully warm feeling blossomed in his chest that made his stomach flutter like never before.

he came so close to spilling his guts to you, but then he remembered that you were drunk, and you most likely wouldn't remember it if he did. so he resigned himself to tucking you into bed with an uncharacteristically gentle touch.

the next day, sitting on that park bench with you, laughing with you like he'd wanted to for so long – it was everything to him. it sent his pulse through the roof, it was complicated, and it was so pleasantly warm.

the logical part of him knew that this would only end painfully for him, but found himself willing to risk that if it meant more of these moments with you.

but of course, he'd fucked it all up at the first opportunity. he'd screamed in your face and he had yet to even apologise for it – for any of it. he felt immeasurably guilty, but he was so scared he couldn't even force himself to be around you.

even price had yelled at him for how he'd treated you. you were traumatised, you had a very real phobia as a result of the house fire, and he felt like a fucking fool for not noticing. he swore to himself he'd make it up to you, he'd grovel at your feet for the rest of his life if he had to, and if you never forgave him he still wouldn't blame you.

he regretted it – of course he did. he let his fear consume him; the fear of you getting hurt, of losing you, and not being able to do anything to save you.

almost as soon as the words had passed his lips, he realised what he was doing, he heard himself. the anger in his voice, the fearful look in your eyes as they glistened with tears, it was everything he didn't want to be.

he felt just like his–

no. he refused to even entertain that thought. he'd never be… that. you deserved so, so much better than the broken husk of man that he was. no matter what he did, he would never deserve you; and it was selfish, but he still hoped that you could somehow forgive him.

it's only been a few days since you left on that assignment for laswell, but he's found that being alone in his house didn't bring him the same comfort it used to. the silence never bothered him before, in fact he greatly preferred it, but now it just felt empty. like there was something missing, leaving a hole in the space it used to occupy.

deep down, the rational part of simon knows that it's you, of course it is, but you wanted nothing to do with him right now. he knew he had to fix things, he would never get over the hollow feeling in his chest if he didn't. that's why he was currently standing at the edge of the runway in the middle of the night, watching the ramp of the helo lower to reveal you, gaz, and the captain.

you looked shattered, like you hadn't slept for days – which was probably true – and he was suddenly overcome with the urge to gather you into his arms and not let go. he wondered if the remnants of dried blood that were visible on your hands and face were yours.

he felt his heart rate pick up as you made your way closer to him, his icy stare softening when he sees how you drag your feet across the tarmac.

when you were close enough, he reached his hand out to grasp your arm, opening his mouth to speak, but he never makes contact.

you sidestep him, and he feels his heart break in his chest. any words he was planning on saying die on his tongue as he turns to watch you slip through the doors without a hint of acknowledgement to him.

price gives him a rough pat on the shoulder as he and gaz pass by. "fix it, simon." he murmurs, before disappearing through the doors as well, leaving him alone outside the building.

he will fix it – he'd do whatever it takes because simon doesn't just need you, he's come to the alarming conclusion that he loves you – he just has no idea how.

taglist p1: @sofasoap , @siilvan , @mockerycrow , @i-love-ghost , @projectdreamwalker , @achelois-is-here , @adamsloverboy , @thatchickwiththecamera , @chickensandwich69 , @batmanunicorns523 , @tiny-kasper , @dezibou , @pampeop , @cumbermovels , @goth-boi-atlas , @berryjuicyy , @guiltgoreglory , @postmodernrevolutionist , @untoldshortsofthefandoms , @delilah-grimes , @sunflowerqueen1416 , @luvssemma , @ghostslittlegf , @imonmykneessir , @kenz-ee , @eistro-phobia , @rzmarona , @alanalanalanalanalanna ,

@cathnoneofyourbusiness , @madsothree , @geisterfvhrer , @lazyninjaphilosopher , @aliilium , @koi-feish , @chaoticgoblindev , @clear-your-mind-and-dream , @thrivig-n-jiving , @lesterous , @glitterypirateduck , @slu77ym4nw415ts , @livelaugh-light , @trulylavendedarling , @stateofcatatonia , @rivalriotrenegade , @yoichiislovie , @nirvanaaaonly , @ameliaamareeee , @batmanunicorns523 , @sapientiia , @thesecretwriter , @susanmukami , @ryze1113 , @stars-andfreckles , @spya1 , @tunaa-luvchrm , @tzutology , @kuruksenshi

if your name is crossed out, i can't tag you for whatever reason, sorry! ༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ

#ghost x reader #simon riley x reader #simon ghost riley x reader #mw2 x reader #cod x reader #141 x reader #call of duty x reader #mw2 #cod mw2 #call of duty #simon ghost riley #mw2 ghost #roosterr writes

1K notes · View notes