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chronically-ghosted · 3 months

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go west, to the southern plains, go west to breathe (lover, share your road - part i) series masterlist | AO3 Link | prologue | part ii

chapter rating: T

word count: ~21K

chapter summary: at the end of the line, you make a business proposition to Joel Miller. He brings you and Ellie home to the last sanctuary left in this world in exchange for your skills. What you find there and what you find out about Joel Miller is not what you expect.

chapter warnings/tags: depictions of going hungry and poverty, sexual harassment, period accurate sexism, depictions of a sick child, reader depicted as skinny but due to lack of food not her natural body type (and this will change), allusions to domestic abuse, hurt/comfort, pining, the beginnings of a praise kink, let the idiots in love begin

a/n: shout out to the ever incredible @jennaispun for beta-ing the prologue and this first part!

“After a long walk in hell, I found you. You made hell feel like home, you made the flames feel warm. It’s true, you haven’t saved me but you were the closest thing to heaven.” — Maram Rimawi

part i:

Beneath the soot-gray fingertips of your gloves, the dust of the high plains sits coarse and heavy on the tattered, yellowing strip of paper. You hold it down flat as a brutish wind snakes up the empty dirt road through the center of Dalhart, grabbing hold of the brown dust that clings to everything — and tugs. Underneath your pale blue dress, with the hemline torn and the collar in need of stitching, your heart pounds as you read the small, almost guilty, advert:

Help wanted. Can pay.

Contact Joel Miller.

The promise of actual money should have had every able-bodied American scrambling to answer the advert, but by its place near the bottom of the announcement board outside of the country store, buried beneath slashed prices for milk and eggs and headlines out of Washington – it seems certain to be relegated into obscurity.

For all you know, this could be months, even years, old. Miller, whoever he was, could be long dead, or gone with the rest of the exodus to California. Or he could have gone the way of your “Uncle” Robert – a huckster, discovered too late; one of many who prey upon the desperation that sticks to the country like the acrid smell of smoke. Your hand shakes as you pluck the yellow card from the wooden plank. There is no contact number, no address. Another trick? Dust stings the corners of your eyes when you pinch them close, your breathing quickening, your pulse sharp in the sleeve of your ratty glove.

Oh, God, what are you going to do? What if this is nothing, just like Robert’s promise? What if there’s nothing here for you? What if –

A small hand on your forearm centers your spiraling thoughts. From beneath a faded blue baseball cap, two brown eyes peer up at you, firm and reassuring.

“You okay?” She keeps her voice low, just like you asked.

“Yeah, El–Ellie, I’m fine.” You squeeze her too-thin hand, your stomach toiling with guilt and its own emptiness. “Just figuring out what to do next.”

“Is finding and murdering this asshole Robert still off the table?”

You frown, your niece’s quick temper more from your dead sister than you. “It is. Now, I’m going inside to ask about this advert. Maybe this Miller still has a job or two open.”

Ellie’s eyes fall to the slip of paper in your hand, her aggressive scowl tightening into something that too closely resembles fear. She knows what’s at stake just as much as you do and you hate that that knowledge ages her youthful face.

“You stay close and don’t let anyone get a good look at you, okay?”

Ellie nods, already familiar with the routine, and scoops up your luggage case, her tattered satchel hanging off her other shoulder. She had been wearing pants long before reaching Dalhart, but it soothed you to think the eyes of cruel men passed right over her, their interest rarely in young boys.

A bell above the door tinkles when you open it, but by the dull, muted sound, it most likely has a few dents. Behind you, the afternoon heat follows you in, the sunlight illuminating the floating dust mites in the air. The door whines as it closes, brightening the inside of the store, where the mites settle back into the silver layer that sits over cans of tomatoes and peaches, linens, boxes of gum and cigarettes. Nearly everything sits untouched and unmoved, old dust settling between cracks and grooves, patrons not having enough money to buy something and the owner not having enough to change out stock. Struck still, frozen in a single, long exhale. The slow, creaking death of the economic system has reached Dalhart too. You shudder, suddenly cold as if in a mausoleum.

The further away from Boston the train took you, the further back in time you felt. Here, you are reminded of the old general stores of cowboys and pioneers. But maybe, that is exactly where you are: out of time.

A man in long white sleeves, coiffed hair, and perfectly round glasses, looks up from the wilted newspaper spread out over the counter.

“Can I help you?” His accent hails from the east, North Carolina most likely. However, his manners are not reflective of that famous southern hospitality. He looks at you like you’re a bad dream and it unsteadies you.

“Y-yes. I, uh, I’m hoping that you know a-a Miller. Joel Miller? I have his advert and I’m, um, I’m looking for work.”

The man’s thin eyebrow jumps mockingly. Aren’t we all, sister? But eventually, he shakes his head.

“Look, I don’t know what you’re doing all the way out here, but this ain’t no place for a young lady out on her own, job or no job. Where’s your husband?”

“Dead.” Your voice doesn’t waver, but then again, why would it?

The clerk’s eyes soften, if only slightly. “I see. But I’m sorry to say, there is no job here for you.”

Your mouth instantly dries out. “What do you mean? Where’s Mr. Miller?”

“He’s a mean ol’ sunuvbitch, livin' God knows where. Comes in twice a month for supplies and he’s back out into the prairie.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t see why that’s a problem –,”

“He ain’t fit for civilized life, ma’am.” The clerk drops his nose, eying you seriously over the rim of his black glasses. “Whatever he’s offering, you don’t want no part of it.”

“I think we’ll be the judges of that.” Beside you, Ellie drops your suitcase and it loudly clatters to the ground. “Thanks for the tip though.”

The clerk’s eyes widen – this is terrible behavior even for a boy – his mouth unfurling to give a nasty tongue-lashing, when you interject, your voice thick with pleading.

“I would just like to meet the man. Please, sir.” The clerk, like most men without scruples, can barely resist the sound of a woman begging. Those uncanny blue eyes find you again. “Has he come in recently?”

You can feel Ellie’s wicked sneer behind you, the clerk’s gaze switching between the unlikely pair in his shop. Finally, he shrugs. Who gives a fuck if one more woman goes missing?

“He’s due for a resupply.”

“How soon?” Your palm sweats under your gloves.

He narrows his eyes, evidently annoyed that a woman would reject his warnings. “Soon. We have a parlor in the back if you’d like to wait for him. But you have to buy something,” he adds vehemently.

You nod, unsteady on shaking knees as you walk towards the door in the back of the store.

“Thank you, sir. You have been so kind. We very much appreciate it.”

Any chance that the clerk finds you sincere is lost when Ellie wraps her knuckles on the counter as she passes.

“Buh-bye, dude.”

The parlor is small, dark, damp, and smells faintly of kerosene and leather. A woman, most likely the wife of the clerk you just annoyed, glares from behind a counter as you and Ellie walk in.

“Lunch.” Not a question.

Ellie looks up at you, eyes wide, fearful. You hadn’t let her see what is left in your purse, but she knows it’s low.

With your stomach in knots, you wouldn’t be able to eat anyway. You pluck out a dollar, bringing your total down to three dollars, and giving it to your niece.

“Order whatever you want.”

The beating heart of the blazing Texas sun edges downward across the open sky, falling, until it drops completely behind the harrowingly flat horizon. Purple erupts in its wake, the last pump of blood of a dying muscle, and nearly instantly, the temperature drops. You watch the explosive coronary of the sky from a table at the back of the parlor, your own pulse doubling the later it gets. You squeeze your hand between your thighs to keep your fingers from drumming uneasily on the table. But for once, Ellie doesn’t pick up on your nerves.

A dollar went farther out here and, as a result, Ellie is allowed her first big meal in months. Twice now, she’s nearly forgone the silverware to shove food directly into her mouth with her fingers, had it not been for your glares to remind her to slow down.

“This is slow,” she grumbles as she licks her bowl of mashed potatoes clean. Of course, half of what she ordered sits waiting for you, but you know she needs this meal more than you do – even if your rumbling stomach disagrees. You’d already had lunch at the train station; one more missed meal won’t kill you and less for you means more for Ellie.

Suddenly becoming a parent to a very opinionated fourteen-year-old girl was not something you had anticipated, and most times you figured you were doing it all wrong. The least you could do is give her everything you could.

“You think he’ll show?”

You tear your eyes away from the parlor door, blinking back into your body out of your cloud of thoughts. Ellie’s little hands grip the bowl, a white smear sitting on her bottom lip, her eyes dark as they watch you.

You grin as her pink tongue swipes up to lick her mouth clean. How easy you forget she’s only fourteen, with her loud mouth and provoking eyes. “Eat your food, Ellie.”

The words have barely left your mouth when the door to the parlor bursts open. Two men, clearly drunk and smelling of it, stumble in. This is the part where you wish you too could believably dress up like a man. Your pulse thrums in your neck like a heightened prey animal.

One pushes the other’s shoulder, smirking, and grunting something. His friend, also in a cowboy hat but half his size, nods and makes an unsteady line for one of the tables, while the other does his best to get to the bar.

The man at the table has light green eyes, overly thick eyebrows, and a flat mouth, loose with drink. He flops into a wooden chair and you watch as the Texas Rangers badge on his chest flashes in the firelight behind him. Your stomach tightens.

He stretches out, feet crossed over his ankles, limp hands crossed over his denim jacket, hollering at his friend and the woman working, who looks equally displeased to see them as she did you and Ellie.

Smirking, his eyes slide from the wooden bar top, over the back wall, and right onto you.

You watch as his gaze blurs for a moment, a film of beastial hunger smothering the color of his eyes. You can feel your pulse in your ankles now.

“Well, now, what do we have here?” The lilt in his voice calls out two unspoken words: fresh meat. Distressingly steady, he climbs to his feet, his hat tilted obnoxiously on his forehead. “Where did you come from, you pretty little thing?”

He saunters over, his thumbs stuck in his belt, the gun at his side snug in its holster. The grin on his face is hideous. You’d smack it off if you weren’t suddenly overcome by a debilitating fear. A look like that on a man is never, ever a good thing.

“Whatcha got there, Lee?” his buddy calls out from the bar, beard drenched in beer foam.

“I dunno quite yet, Knapp,” he says over his shoulder, his livid green eyes never leaving your face. He nearly folds in half to press his spider-like hands on the surface of your table, coming inches from your face. His breath smells like corn whiskey and cheap tobacco. “Guess I’ll have to find out. What’s your name, pretty thing?”

“Or she could not tell you her name and instead, you could fuck off.” Ellie’s scowl wrenches her mouth open, her knuckles white around her spoon. There’s a part of you that fully acknowledges and accepts that if given the signal, she’d scoop the fucker’s eyes out with the silverware right here. “We’re eating here, or are you too busy smelling like a fucking whiskey barrel to notice?”

As with most adults when Ellie decides to show her teeth, Lee stares stunned before the self-righteous anger sets in. Your heart stops for a moment when you think he’s going for his holster, but instead, he uses the flat of his hand to swat her hat off her head.

“Shut up, you little fucker, where’d you learn your fucking ma–,”

Ellie’s long hair tumbles down her shoulders, the baseball cap on the floor behind her.

Lee is stunned into silence once again. The parlor goes deathly silent.

It’s Knapp who sets off the explosive spark again. “Holy fuck, you’re a little girl.”

Ellie snatches up her hat, cheeks flaming red, but Lee’s hand grabs her wrist.

“A kinda cute one at that,” Lee sneers. He twists her arm and she yelps. Knapp at the bar laughs, his paunch shaking as beer sloshes over the side of his glass. The woman is cleaning something with a rag, turned away from the scene, her shoulders hunched to her ears. You’re on your feet, your hand on her purse. “What are you thinking, hm? Dressing this sweet little girl up like a boy?”

The trigger clicks and Lee and everyone else in the parlor freezes. The edge of your lash line is wet, fear rolling through you like fog on the bay. Your hand is steady, miraculously, but your voice isn’t.

“L-l-let–,” your voice cracks and you try again. You only have one gun drawn on Lee and you pray to whatever god is listening that Knapp doesn’t remember his. “Let her go.”

This small pistol is your last line of defense against those who would take everything from you. You couldn’t keep your sister safe, your husband didn’t want to be saved, but you’d die before you’d let anyone come within an inch of Ellie. You pawned off your wedding ring long before you ever considered selling this weight in your hand. You couldn’t physically win a fight but you’d be damned if you weren’t going to take someone out with you.

There’s more than one reason you never let Ellie look into your purse. You won’t make eye contact with her now.

Lee’s eyes harden into black flints in his head. “Yeah? You’re shaking like a leaf. You ain’t gonna do shit about it.”

He twists harder, forcing Ellie to her knees, his mouth smearing into a sickening sneer, Ellie’s cries loud – “get off me, you fucker!”

All you have to do is miss. Once.

Your arm shifts right and you fire. You meant to hit the floor, but instead the leg of a chair at a nearby table shatters, wood and smoke sparking into the air. Lee and Ellie jump, their struggle broken, but Ellie’s quicker, smarter. Hunched to avoid debris, they are nearly eye to eye and Ellie doesn’t hesitate; she jerks her head back and then launches her forehead forward – square into his flat nose.

The crunch is sickening and it turns your already empty stomach. Lee shrieks, releasing Ellie, his hands flying to his misshapen nose to staunch the river of blood pouring from his nostrils.

“You bitch!” he whines, voice wet and gummy as blood trickles down his throat, eyes watering. You hear a roar of anger as Knapp stands, no longer finding any of this funny.

“Get behind me, Ellie.” You snap, eyes on Knapp as he lumbers forward. She hesitates, looking like she’d like nothing more than to kick Lee up the balls, but obeys the closer Knapp comes. She slots behind you, eyes sharp on the squealing man on the floor.

“She broke my fucking nose, man,” he cries, face already purpling.

“Yeah, and don’t you forget it, you fucker!” She snarls over your shoulder. One hand holds your elbow, and the other brandishes her mother’s knife that had been at the bottom of her satchel seconds ago. Fuck.

Ellie Williams is not, and never has been, nor will be, one to deescalate a situation. Knapp responds in kind. His drunk fingers fumble with his holster, his face contorted with rage.

“Shootin’ at an officer of the law – you’re gonna hang for this, you thieving little c–,”

“Knapp.”

A fifth voice – low, deep, a mammalian bark that grinds the chaos of the room to a halt. The large man stalls, his engine snagged by the rough grain of that voice. On the floor, Lee lets out one quiet whimper as he cracks open a pulsating black eye.

In the glow of the firelight, you watch as beads of sweat swell on Knapp’s big forehead beneath his wide-brimmed hat. His wide eyes flash between you and the man who just walked in.

“M-Miller, the fuck you want?”

Your heart seizes in your chest. Miller.

Joel Miller.

You never thought your saving grace would come in the shape of a hulking, dark-eyed man.

A well-worn handkerchief around his neck, crusted over with dust, his broad shoulders stretch a denim work shirt, the unbuttoned collar loose and just as dirty. Worked-over hands, dry and brown as the earth, curl into fists at his side. Tight jaw, flared nose, eyes black, his presence expands in the cramped room, a leviathan cresting dark waves to command the roaring void.

“Back off, both of you.”

Knapp sneers, desperately tugging at some misguided sense of bravery, with sweat running hot and fast and smelly down the sides of his rubbery face. “Y-yeah, or what?”

“You fuckin’ know what.”

Knapp visibly swallows and lowers his pistol, hands trembling. Lee whines from the floor, his eyes open as wide as the swelling will allow, abject terror on his face as he stares up at Miller. Neither of them move.

A guard dog satisfied by the corralled sheep, Joel’s heavy gaze roves from the two men, across the room, to you.

His expression doesn’t change.

The weight shifts across the stiff planes of his shoulders, and he turns, leaving as quickly as he appeared. Beneath his thick boots, the wooden floor creaks and it rouses you. Your mouth is so dry you can feel the skin of your lips split apart.

“Mr. Miller, w-wait.”

He doesn’t.

With a single glance to the men still frozen in terror, you follow him through the now-dark and empty store. The cold desert air cracks hard against your overheated cheeks when you burst through the door, into the black night. The moonlight illuminates the threads of silver hair in his beard that the dark parlor hid. His fingers work slowly, unhurriedly, as he tightens the leather buckle beneath the wide girth of his off-white horse. It lifts its head as you stumble out onto the dusty road, its round eyes watching you with more interest than its rider. White ears twitch forward, a snort from the long snout, and Joel rubs the soft place between two giant nostrils without looking up.

“J-Joel – Mr. Miller, please, I need your help.”

“Already got it.” His shoulders flex and roll as he loads up another loose sack onto the rump of the horse, then tightens the securing belt. It snorts again and shifts on its hooves, its long tail flicking back and forth.

You shake your head, swallowing the hot rush of embarrassment. The wind licks at your ankles and you fight back a shiver, bringing a hand to your shoulder to warm the goosebumps. “No, sorry, I mean – I’m here to help you. I saw your advertisement and I was wondering if the position was still open.”

The buckle quiets. The dirt at his feet crunches as he faces you.

There are no trees in Dalhart, Texas. There are barely any clouds, no coverage. Overhead, the few buildings not yet folded up in the wake of the financial collapse throw shadows over his angular face, but you can still feel the trace of his gaze over you. A curious search, the investigation of scent.

Then he shakes his head.

“No.”

Your entire chest tightens. “Has the position been filled?”

“No.”

“Then why–,”

“I don’t need you.” He lifts up the third and final sack and you feel your hope being carried away with it. “Need a farm hand. You’re not the type.”

“N-n-no, I’ve worked on a farm. I-I’ve only planted seeds but I’m a quick learner and I–,”

“No.”

“Sir – please, I’ll do anything–,”

“Then go home.” He unties the reins from the wooden post and clicks to the horse. Its big eyes watch you as he turns them for the road. “There’s nothing here for you.”

You absolutely will not cry in front of this gruff stranger. Panic icing down your spine, you follow him on weak knees. In the wake leftover from the wheat boom, Dalhart is quiet as soon as the sun goes down. Empty of people, of light, of any sort of guiding hand, you try to appeal to the last human you’ve found at the end of the world.

“Mr. Miller, there must be something you need. I’m a hard worker, smart, you won’t have to train me at all. Please. I’ve been a housekeeper, a seamstress – a nurse. I —,”

The horse huffs when Joel pulls tight on the reins.

In the moonlight, all of his hair looks gray. Your heart plunges in your throat. You can feel your stomach trying to digest your spine.

“Done any work with kids?” He asks, after a moment.

His brisk question is not what you expected. You can barely hear him over the pounding in your heart.

“Y-yes. I’ve treated children before. A-and I was a teacher, briefly. I’m very good with children, actually.”

The scarred hand at his side tightens, flexes open and closed, the tips of his thumb and forefinger twitching over the other. Over his shoulder, you think his head tilts a centimeter towards you.

“You know what? Fuck this.”

Out of the shadows of the county store, Ellie tears down the steps, her face pink and her hair stuffed back up her ball cap. She loops her small hands around your forearm and tugs, her eyes like chips of bark, glaring hatefully at the man in the middle of the street. Faint dust churns beneath her faded sneakers.

“She’s fucking begging you and you don’t give a fuck, you old shithead!” She tugs again. In the flash of the moonlight, a glassy film has settled over her eyes. “C’mon, we don’t need him. We – don’t need – him.”

“Ellie, please!” You grab her by the shoulders, a soft hand in a swirling tempest, and she settles, her mouth twisted up in anger and embarrassment. She hates that you have to beg anyone. “Please.” Shielding her from him, you squeeze her shoulders. “I know, Ellie. I know. But I have to keep you safe.”

Ellie finally turns that hot glare at you, eyes damp. Petulant when terrified, your sister was the exact same way.

Fuck, Anna, it should have been me.

“She yours?”

Joel rests his weight on his left knee, fingers loose around the reins. He’s lowered the mask around his mouth. You snap your head up, your voice thankfully steady. “She’s my niece. She . . . I’m responsible for her.”

Below your palms, Ellie stiffens.

Fifteen feet from you, Joel nods, the muscle in his jaw tight. The horse huffs and he glares at it like it just yelled at him too.

“I’m not in the habit of pickin’ up strays,” he says as if that means a lot.

Hope springs in your chest and it snags the air in your lungs. “We’re not. I-I mean, we’ll work hard. Please, give us just one chance.”

“And you expect me to take on the both of you.” It isn’t a question, but his eyebrow arcs all the same. “That’s two mouths I gotta feed, ‘steada one.”

“She can have mine.” In the silence, you think you can hear the faint choir of crickets. You remember the tarantulas and centipedes that lived inside the walls of your husband’s prairie dugout, and your stomach twists. “Ellie can have whatever you give us.”

She makes a brief cry of protest, but you squeeze her shoulders. The sharp flair of his nostrils smooths and the corners of his eyes pinches, tilting his eyebrows up. He’s still glowering, but somehow, his expression has suddenly opened, just a crack.

And then he nods.

“Stay here a night. I’ll be back in the morning with the wagon.”

And that’s it. You have a job.

You’re so elated it takes a minute for his words to sink in. He turns back down the road, the horse's hooves clipping on the dry ground. You follow after him, hand outstretched.

“Oh, no, w-we can walk, it’s no trouble. Let me just get our things and–,”

“Too far to walk. And there’s things out in the dark more dangerous than those fuckin’ rangers.” He nods to the country store, eerily quiet. It sits, ugly, like a brown old frog. “There’s a hotel just up the road. It’s not much, but it’ll do for one night.”

“But, sir, we really can’t stay. I don’t – there’s no –,”

You stumble to a stop when those merciless dark eyes root you to the ground. The leather reins squeak when he tightens his fist around them. Again, you are under the impression of a dog sniffing out your scent for any deception, any treason. He takes you in, all of you in – your ratty gloves, your torn hemline, your tattered collar – and by some miracle, he doesn’t say anything. Instead, the groove above his nose softens.

Wordlessly, he reaches into his back pocket and takes out five dollars from a brown leather wallet. He offers it to you between two fingers.

Take it, his eyes command.

You do, with a shaking hand. You hate charity, you hate that you’re at his mercy –

But Ellie has a bed for the night. Inside, warm. Where, hours ago, she didn’t. You smother your pride and nod, gaze at the scar on his cheek that you only now notice at an arm’s length away.

“One night,” he says. “For you and the kid.”

You nod again because that’s all you really can do, his pity clutched in your fist and held against your heart.

Ellie scowls as he swings up onto the horse and readjusts his mask.

“What a guy,” she murmurs to you, her eyes still narrowed. Joel clicks his teeth, and the horse trots off into the dark, a lone man riding out into the featureless night.

Evidently still feeling slighted, Ellie sticks her tongue out at the denim back.

“Better keep that tongue in your mouth, kid,” he hollers before digging his heels into the horse’s flanks. “Liable to be chopped off like a copperhead.”

Ellie’s mouth snaps shut.

The money Joel gave you is more than enough to cover a room and another plate of food. You even spurge your own money on some small candy for Ellie, determined to give Joel back every cent left over and then some, once you’ve proven you can earn your keep.

For you and the kid.

You shake your head, lost in your own thoughts, the gnawing hunger in your belly satiated, as you pull back the covers to the twin bed. The metal frame squeaks as you climb in, your night dress thin and ragged as the rest of your clothes.

“C’mon, Ellie, time for bed.” When she doesn’t move, you stop rearranging the pillows and look at her. In her own white nightie (because she’d outgrown all her other pajamas), she sits in front of the roaring fire, her chin on her knees, and her arms wrapped around her shins.

She’s quiet - either a good sign, or a terrible one.

“Ellie, sweetie, we’ve gotta get some sleep. It’s gonna be a long day tomorrow.”

You watch as her narrow back expands and falls in one slow breath, her skin bright in the firelight.

She nods mutely and climbs into the space beside you. She rolls onto her side, away from you, her hands tucked up under her head, her knees curled up beneath her.

This is where Anna would know what to say. How to soothe this girl with so much awareness in a world that is raw to even those willfully ignorant. You can’t bullshit Ellie the way you can some kids. She knows too much. Seen too much.

You settle down next to her in the shadow of her shoulder. Your fingers hover, locked between the yawning gap of touching her and not touching her, when she finally speaks.

“Is this really going to work?” Her voice is quiet, soft, dust-covered and buried. “Is Joel really gonna . . . are we safe?”

You cannot bullshit Ellie Williams.

“I don’t know. I’d like to think so. I know you don’t like him, but I think we can trust him.”

She’s quiet again, only this time because there’s something she doesn’t want to say.

“Not like Uncle Robert – or Robert, if that’s even his real name. I’d never met the man in person, but I wanted – so badly – to believe . . .” You swallow, your own shame boiling your skin. “I think we’re safe with Joel Miller.”

The god’s honest truth.

She hears it in your voice.

Ellie tips back to look you in the eyes. She’s lost so much weight recently. “Yeah?”

You tuck a strand of her hair behind her ear, the ghost of your thumb across her cheek. She allows the show of affection. “Yeah, El. I do.”

You want to say: you can trust me. I’ll always take care of you.

But you know it would only come out hollow.

Neither of you would think it was honest.

She pulls away from your grasp, her eyes almost golden in the firelight. She nods and stares at the burning wood.

“Okay.”

“So . . . is your car, like, broken or something?”

You elbow Ellie and she sits up from hanging over the edge of the wagon. She frowns at you – what? – and you both glance at Joel at the front of the wagon. If the question annoys him any more than he perpetually already is, he doesn’t show it.

“Don’t have one.” He says to the back of the horse. The wagon rocks and sways over the clods of dust and stone in the road. “Never did.”

“Uh, why?”

“Cars break down in the dust storms. Short out. They end up being more trouble than they’re worth.”

Again, that half-centimeter turn, his tone implying what his eyes can’t, faced away from you. Ellie narrows her eyes at the back of his head. She wrenches her mouth open, fire in her eyes, but she catches you glaring, and her mouth snaps shut. Pouting, she chucks a lone pebble off the back of the wagon.

The sky is strikingly blue, bright as a livewire, the air warm and crackling with the early summer heat. Away from Dalhart, away from the collection of dust on every surface, dripping through every crack, you find the clarity and distance of the southern plains to be . . . unexpected. So careless and abrasive one minute, but then, in moments like these, it became hard to believe that nature could ever be so cruel as to make the earth rise up and swallow it all whole.

You swing your legs off the wooden edge, the sunshine warm on your knees. It’s no use trying to hide how badly your socks need darning, so you lean back and stretch your legs as far as you can, your face tilted towards the sky, the still air peaceful. This morning, you’d put on your yellow plaid dress, torn cotton lace around the sleeves that stop at your elbows. You tucked your hair up and pinned your straw hat to your head. It was a reflex, to present your most beautiful self to a man, even one you barely knew. By the way Ellie had rolled her eyes, she felt no such compulsion.

Demure, your mother always told you, you’re not very pretty, you’re not very bright, the least you can be is demure.

The wagon shudders, clicks, over the empty road and you open your eyes. Ellie is turned away from you, eyes out to the fields on either side of you. You don’t understand what she’s looking at, until you realize that’s exactly it: there is nothing to look at. On the other side of those loopy barbed-wire fences through cock-eyed posts, there are miles and miles of nothing but churned-over dirt. A lazy wind spins over a patch of emptiness, tossing clods and sand into the air, an aimless sadness as tangible as the dust itself. Phone lines stand, corroded and chipped, along the side of the road like tangible manifestations of a deadly infection.

“There’s no crops here either.” Ellie says, voicing loudly what you only thought. You can’t see her face but she sounds as stunned as you are. “What happened?”

You watch over her shoulder, eyes level with the earth bleached of all material, all life. With the drought, your husband’s field shriveled up in months, the cracked ground peeling away from the sodhouse in some places. You still have nightmares about waking up with grit between your teeth, choking and coughing up bloody chunks of mud.

This is desolation on an epidemic scale.

“Ask different people ‘n they’ll tell you different things.” Joel says in his slow drawl, the crackle of the earth soft beneath the wooden wheels. “No one really knows. But nothing like this happened when the buffalo grass was here, ‘steada wheat.”

“Wait, you were here before Dalhart?” Ellie twists on the wagon, leaning over the lip where Joel sits and drives the horse.

“My family was. Here before anything. My grandpa befriended the Comanche Indians and –,”

“You got to hang out with Indians?” Ellie nearly hurls herself over the edge of the wagon to try and look him in the eye. “What are they like – did they teach you how to shoot a bow and arrow – can they really ride horses like that –,”

“Ellie!” You want to grab her by her collar and yank her back into the wagon. “Not so many questions.”

The noise Joel makes is somewhere between a grunt and the word no.

“It’s fine –, “ he looks down at Ellie, still curled around the back of the seat, her eyes wide with a giant smile on her face. His ever present scowl doesn’t seem any deeper, nor does it deter her. Joel turns away again and in the sunlight, his hair is gooey, caramel brown. You stare at the dirt road while listening, the back of your neck hot. “They’re good people. Didn’t deserve what happened to them – to any of ‘em. But they taught my grandpa and grandma how to take just what they need, nothing more. But then everybody needed grain, offered money for cheap, easy labor. They poured in here, into the prairie, and in years, it became this. Folks blame the drought, but it’s more’n that.”

Ellie’s inordinately quiet. She knows exactly what your husband did to you, to your family, and now, maybe to the entire land.

“‘Next year’ people, they claim,” Joel continues, his voice deepening with anger, “‘next year’, things’ll be better. ‘Next year’ the rains’ll come. ‘Next year’ the wheat’ll return.” He shakes his head, boots creaking against the toeboard. “Anyone who thinks that is lyin’ to themselves. Anyone’s who’s been here, seen what’s here, for us it’s been –,”

“The end of the world.”

The silence that follows your words stretches long, an anchor dropped off the end of the wagon and rattling around the wheels. You swing your legs, fingers curling around a tear in your hemline. It wasn’t the first time you’d heard those words to describe the state of things. That’s what your husband called it and you believed him.

Evidently, Joel agrees. His wide shoulders taught, the denim blue faded beneath the boundless sky, he nods.

“Griiim,” Ellie mutters as she curls up and drops her chin on her knees.

You’ve been watching a single cloud chase the sun from the floor of the wagon when Ellie, silent for all of about fifteen minutes, lifts her head from her hands draped over the edge. Her eyes go wide, her ears pink from the sun, and says:

“Whoa.”

The horse huffs as you sit up, a soft wind snagging the loose hairs on the back of your neck, and your mouth drops.

Grass.

Fields of it.

The air is fresh, warm, and filled with the scent of living, breathing earth. Tipped with lush purple seeds shaped like paintbrushes, a sea of stalks bend and ripple in the cooling breeze, undulating like waves on solid ground. The wind is soft here, teasing, rolling through the tall grass, carrying the scent of growth and green in the air. You’re suddenly aware of how dry your mouth is, cracked and padded with dust.

“We left it be.” Joel offers simply, voice too gruff to surely be filled with pride. “It’s endured and survived, and so have we.”

Further back, you can see where the line of his property ends – a harsh division of paradise and purgatory – and marked to the north by a dip in the ground and even over the crunch of the wheels over the ground, you hear it: water.

A river. An oasis in a wasteland.

Ahead of the white tufts of hair on the horse, the road curves, disappearing into the sea of grass, but letting your graze drift up, you see an a-frame home, white like a lighthouse at the edge of a storm. The instant the home comes into view, Joel clicks his tongue, urging the horse faster – eager.

He leads the horse up through the road, through the grass, and on the other side, by the river, two cows chew up the green, oblivious. Beyond them, tucked behind the house is a barn. Low to the ground but wide, hunched like a fighter with a heavy center of gravity, it looks ready to endure and survive. As this entire secret world had.

Joel tugs the horse to a stop, the wagon rattles as it slows, by the wide porch of the a-frame. It sits also low to the ground, wider with a dark roof, held together with something black and smeared. You’re so distracted by the unique qualities of this house in the middle of paradise that you miss it when the door creaks open until you’re staring down the barrel of a shotgun.

“Who are you?” The voice behind the gun is deep, even if the barrels shake slightly. In the dark of the doorframe, you can’t quite see their face, only their short stature.

You see Ellie’s hand twitch towards her knife, which she now carries in her sock since the night of the county store.

However, Joel is less concerned. In fact, the boulders of his shoulders loosen, ease to simple muscle and blood. He makes a noise that on anyone else, it might be considered a laugh, a chuckle, but he isn’t even capable of smiling –

He slings down from the seat and pats the horse.

“Easy there, Annie Oakley, it’s just me.”

The shadow in the doorway stiffens.

“Dad?”

The shotgun lowered, the shadow staggers into the light. Brown eyes, just like his, scrunched against the blinding sunlight, a girl with the most beautiful head of curls blinks at Joel, her thin hand held up to shield her face.

“Hey there, baby girl.”

In a single leap, she jumps down from the porch but all too quickly, the smile slips from Joel’s face.

“Hang on, not too fast–,”

She stumbles towards him as best as the metal braces around her knees, down to her ankles, will allow, defiant and smiling, despite the beads of sweat that have swelled over her forehead. Joel surges forward, faster than you thought possible, and reaches for her, nearly on one knee.

“Slow down, please, Sarah.”

“Dad, I’m fine,” she huffs before tossing her arms around his neck. “I’m fine. Just – missed you, is all.”

You can’t see his face, but he straightens up still holding her. With one hand he flattens those curls to her cheek, and kisses the other.

“Enough to forget all the things I taught you about gun safety? You just tossed that thing aside,” he scolds fondly. She rolls her eyes as he sets her down.

“Okay, but if you didn’t know it was me, you would’a been totally scared, right?”

She watches as he chuckles, a deep, warm sound, but her own smile flatlines when she spies Ellie climbing down from the wagon. You ease off the edge, your lower half sore from the ride.

The girl, Sarah, narrows her eyes.

“Who are you?” She positions her body slightly in front of Joel’s. “And why are you dressed like a boy?”

Joel’s soft scolding – “Sarah” – is lost beneath Ellie’s scoff. She adjusts her satchel.

“Why are you dressed like Raggedy Ann?”

Her father’s massive hands clench down on her shoulders, Sarah’s scowl evident that she’s about half a second away from launching herself at Ellie, leg braces be damned.

“Now, let’s slow down here.” Joel’s deep baritone is light, but just as firm as his grip. If you knew him better, you’d think he is about to laugh, the lines around his eyes thick, while his mouth stays flat. “We got off on the wrong foot. Sarah, this is Ellie and her aunt. They’re going to be staying with us for a while to help out with your schooling.”

Those curls go flying, her frown now pinched in worry. Another girl caught between a child and adult – for the sake of their single parent, you notice, your chest tight.

“I thought you needed a farm hand. You were going to teach me.”

“You know you already read better than I do.”

“Dad–,”

“Miss here is also a nurse.”

“Oh. Oh.” She glances down at the metal braces as if she’d forgotten they were there. The skin on her knees is chaffed, rubbed pink. “She can . . . help me?”

Twin pairs of brown eyes settle on you, one hesitantly curious, the other aggressively determined.

You can, right?

Ellie’s staring at the braces, her gaze distant, heavy. She’d seen this before, but everything back then moved too fast. Back then, there was no time for braces.

Braces only help a small percentage of polio patients. The lucky ones.

You nod, your heart hammering under your chest bone. “Yes – yes, sir. I think with Ms. Kenny’s therapy, we might be able to alleviate some pain.”

Those eyes, exactly like and so unlike her father’s, widen.

“Really?”

You introduce yourself with your first name, pressing the crease in your glove between your nail and your thumb with your other hand.

“I’d like to try, Sarah.”

You suddenly understand that Sarah is Joel Miller’s most guarded secret, out here in paradise, paradise as the most beautiful prison in the world. He continues to stare at you from under thick eyebrows after Sarah moves away from him. Ellie, caught off-guard by her forward movement, takes a significant step back.

“I, um, got some marbles out back,” Sarah starts, thumbing over her shoulder, and every other word sounding like an apology. “If you wanna play.”

Ellie jerks forward, her eyes round with excitement, but stops. She looks at you.

“Can I?”

Soft when eager, just like her mother. So unlike you. You nod.

“Stay close, okay?”

You and Joel watch as Ellie and Sarah toddle around to the back of the house, Ellie quietly narrating every thought she has as she keeps pace with Sarah.

Those look actually really cool, you know?

Yeah?

Totally. Have you read Amazing Stories? You look like you could be part of the Space Family Robinson.

Who are they?

Oh, you��ve never read those!? Okay, so they’re a family who live in space and they go on these awesome adventures together to different planets and . . .

The farther they go, the faster Joel turns back to stone. His gaze lingers just a hint longer before those dark eyes pin you to the ground.

“You said you can clean? Cook?”

You nod quickly. “Yes, sir.” Guard dog Joel. Stocky pitbull, teeth long and wet Joel.

He tilts his chin towards the house.

“Kitchen’s in the back. I gotta clean up the wagon and the horse, then gonna tend the field. I’ll be back in a few hours, but Sarah knows where to find me if y’need somethin'.”

You nod again, but he misses it, turning away to unbuckle the horse. You slide your trunk and Ellie’s satchel off the end of the wagon and head into the shadow of the house.

The white clapdoor snaps shut behind you, followed by the softer snik of the screen clicking into its frame. Slipping the bobby pins out of your hair to release your hat, you take in the Miller home.

The air is cool. Dust motes float in the sunlight streaming in from the second floor over a staircase with wooden wainscoting leading away from the open front room. With a brief glance up, you can see the faded white walls of the upper hallway, some not-yet-seen window drawing in bolts of morning light that pierce the air in bullet holes. It’s quiet and it smells warm, like lace kept in the back of a drawer near a wall that faces the heat outside.

A blue two-seater couch faces a squat fireplace, with a Queen Anne table sandwiched between the two. Behind you, a large grandfather clock ticks and waits, a server waiting in the shadows with a watchful eye to report back to its master on the going-ons of the house. With only a cedar hutch, a few daguerreotypes, a smattering of books, the room is sparsely decorated, but kept clean and organized. You could see Sarah, a focused look in her eyes, sitting on the steps of the stairs and making Joel move and rearrange furniture over and over again until the room felt right.

Through a white arched doorway, you find yourself in the kitchen. The light sparks more brightly here, the sky a stark blue through the four square window over the kitchen table and above the sink, reflective of the sun. You realize then the house runs north to south at an angle, where there are limited windows in the walls on the east and west sides, thereby limiting direct sun exposure and, more importantly, heat. Both the kitchen and the front rooms had been built out of the line of the sun, making cooking and cleaning and living bearable without a painful glare.

A thoughtful and patient consideration.

Someone had attempted to add some levity with brown and blue plaid wallpaper around the cove of the dinner table, all the way to the other side of the room around the kitchen counters and stove. But unfortunately for everyone else, the wallpaper is hideous, only tampered by the off-white counters and cupboards.

The cupboards have glass doors, blurring ceramic cups and plates on the tops of the shelves.

It reminds you of the small apartment Anna and you lived in back in Boston, when it was just the two of you. It wasn’t much, but it felt sturdy, secure. Safe.

A door to the right of the stove has a latch, and you lift it and poke your head inside. A chilly darkness greets you, along with the scent of wet, deep earth. A basement? No. Not this close to the kitchen. Curiosity pulling you forward, you descend the sturdy wooden stairs, into the sunken darkness. You count ten until a draft licks your ankles. You keep going, one squeak of wood after another until - you touch soil. The heady scents of pine bark and peat moss soothe the air from where your feet press into the ground, fertility thick like mushrooms in the gut of a lichen-drenched tree. But it’s dark, too dark to make out much, barely your own hand in front of your face. With your fingers outstretched, as if you’ll bump into a gas lamp conveniently on the ground, you shuffle forward and almost immediately a cold chain tickles your face. You grab out of instinct and pull.

Nearly blinded by the light that erupts from an exposed bulb directly in front of your left eye, you stagger back, wincing, your footsteps muffled by the earthen floor. You blink through the tears as the secret at the end of the stairs finally reveals itself.

A pantry. A cellar.

At least twenty feet deep and ten feet high, with rows and rows, stacks and stacks, wood shelves cover nearly the entire length of the underground room. In between the rows, large barrels sit, quiet and sturdy, with bottles of vinegar and olive oil sitting on their rims.

You realize two things within seconds of each other.

This house has electricity. It stands above the ground, proud, independent, full of heat and light. So unlike your husband’s dark hole in the ground.

and

there is so much food.

Pickling jars. Seed pouches. Culled wheat. Cans of fruit and vegetables and eggs. Olives with squash and pumpkins. Crates of potatoes and half bottles of wine and syrup. Onions and carrots and spices and garlic.

A feast. Meals for days and days and days. The bounties of earth stored, safe beneath the ground, like a secret.

It’s more food than you’ve seen in years.

A hunger like you can’t remember having roars in your stomach out of nowhere and everything pitches to the right. The edges of your vision blurs, your shoulder knocking into stone wall, and breathing becomes a nearly impossible task. You turn, nearly stumbling up the dozen steps that have turned into a thousand.

The tacky memories that stick to the crevices of your dreams yawn awake, bringing with them dry mud in your mouth and thick salt to your eyes. Mud, dirt, dust – everywhere. In that stinking hut in the ground, the dust replaced your molecules, your atoms, until you too might blow away, until you are cracked and empty and dry. The static from the dust storm memories shoots down both of your arms and you sway on your feet. Your heart suddenly pounding so achingly fast, you have to drop your forehead against the flat surface of the closed door to keep the room from spinning.

You had forgotten what safety looked like.

You had forgotten what living could be.

You know the ringing sound of that gunshot is just in your head, it’s not real, but you shudder all the same, your hands curling into claws under your chin, your nails tearing up the white paint.

You’re here, not there. You are safe. Ellie is safe. That house and him have been entombed together under piles of dirt, with the bugs and the rot and the stench from the weak stove. Rivers of sweat rolling down the back of your neck, you beg yourself to stop shaking. You feel like cheap terracotta pottery – made from dirt, left too long to bake in the sun and made brittle; one good tap and you’ll shatter.

You breathe in and taste wet salt. Breathe out and cry – cry from the fear and the dread and the relief and the hope. God, that hope tastes worse than all the dirt in the Panhandle of Texas.

You cry and cry and cry until you don’t feel so brittle anymore.

Sunlight has struck copper, heavy, tangy in the mouth, when the back door opens and the house is instantly filled with the sound of girls’ rabid conversation. You step back from the stove, cheeks warm and arm sore from continuously stirring the rice and vegetable soup. It’s not as thick as your mother once made, but without milk, it would be nearly impossible to improve. You smile at the girls as they tumble in, more dust mite than human, whispering about some secret.

“Having fun?” You ask with a grin on your face as Ellie helps Sarah take off her shoes, already attentive to what a girl with her health concerns might need.

There’s an overlap of chatter as Ellie and Sarah both answer you and then, answer each other.

“Well, good,” you say, turning back to the stove, making sure the bottom of the soup doesn’t burn, “but whatever you got up to, it’s all over your faces so please wash up before dinner.”

“It smells real good, miss,” Sarah says as she hobbles over to the sink and starts rinsing off her arms and cheeks, while Ellie takes off her own shoes. “What is it?”

“Something my mom used to make when the cupboards were bare.”

Sarah stills, the water rushing over her soft skin. Those inquisitive eyes are just as captivating, just as forceful as her father’s, but for entirely different reasons. She tugs the words out of you by the sheer, needling strength of her gaze.

“I mean – I found the cellar, the house is incredibly well stocked, but I didn’t see any preserved meat or dairy and I didn’t – I didn’t think your dad would want me poking around out back.”

Immediately Sarah softens and rolls her eyes. “Dad’s all bark and no bite,” she huffs. “We’ve got stored beef and cheese in an ice chest downstairs. I’ll show you around tomorrow.”

You smile and those brown eyes go warm in the coppery light. “Thanks, Sarah.”

“Bunch up, I gotta wash my hands too.” Ellie none-to-gently bumps Sarah with her shoulder to get to the sink but before you can scold her, Sarah swings back, using her precarious momentum, and pushes Ellie back. They both giggle. Something that’s been cramped far too long in your chest loosens.

“So, Sarah, tell me where you are with your schooling. Do you have books, diagrams?”

She thinks for a minute as she opens a drawer that leaves her back to you and takes out two, then four thin cloth placemats. She hobbles back to the table to carefully spread them out.

“I was up to seventh grade before the school shut down. That was about two years ago, so Dad’s been trying to make sure I don’t forget anything. He got me a Midsummer Night’s Dream by Shakespeare a while ago and made me read it out loud to him. He has me work on my letters every day – including cursive.” She adds, with a bright spot of joy cranking her mouth open. You imagine someone like Sarah would have beautiful penmanship. “He shows me around the yard, asking me to identify plants and animals, especially anything that might be poisonous. I don’t think he really understands it but he explains what happens when you add water to a seed and keep it in damp earth. Oh, and he has me help balance the books for the farm – what we made, what we sold, how much we have left, stuff like that.”

You smile at her over your shoulder as Ellie hands her bowls. “Accounting.”

“Huh?”

Ellie rolls her eyes. “It’s so boring, don’t worry about it,” she whispers conspiratorially.

“What your dad is teaching you is called accounting,” you say a bit firmly, eyes tracking your niece as she shows no shame. “It’s a very special skill to have, especially if you work on a farm or in a business. Do you like it?”

She nods rapidly, those cork-screw curls bouncing around her thin face. “Yeah! I do! I’m much faster than Dad when it comes to figuring out the sums and dollar value.”

In the front hall, the clap door creaks open then slams shut, heavy footfalls proceeding the man that makes them.

“Does that happen a lot?” you ask softly as Sarah sidles up next to you to peer into the pot.

“Where I know more than my dad?” Sarah smirks up at you, all devious youth. “More often than you think.”

A mini sun bursts from the ceiling as Joel flicks on the light switch and is almost immediately tackled by Sarah. The copper sun on the horizon finally, in the distracted moment, slips down and drags the night behind it. It’s purple twilight outside when Joel lifts his head from the embrace around Sarah’s shoulders to stare at the two strangers in his kitchen.

“Dinner’s almost ready,” you say brightly and you can almost picture your mother in the same exact position in front of the stove, stirring soup until her cheeks were pink, her hand resting low on her back, her tummy round and full in her second attempt to keep her husband’s rage diverted from her. It’s a boy, she promised.

The memory makes you so violently ill out of nowhere, you lose your appetite. But you persevere; you carry on and load up the bowls Sarah stacked for you. Ellie saves you from having to dislodge the prickly knot in your throat when she snags a bowl and eagerly yells, “get it while it’s hot!”

The arrangements from the stove to the table are a bit of a blur, the slick anxious weight from earlier today curling around your lungs again as you remember shadows in chairs like these, but so different from the flesh-and-blood bodies that occupy them now.

You’re dazed, a little light-headed, but not so much to miss the glance between Joel and Ellie. A junkyard puppy skirting the territory of an older watchdog, a bone in each of their mouths and dragged to opposite corners of the battlefield. Satisfied with the lines of demarcated territory that had been drawn, they call a temporary truce by eating in complete silence, until Sarah groans.

“Oh my god, this is better than it smells!” she hums, her mouth full of potatoes.

“Just wait till she adds chicken,” Ellie grumbles, mouth cupped open to keep from spilling. You watch her, a faint smile on your face, and the slippery feeling fades. When cleaning up, she missed a spot on her left nostril and you fight the urge to clean it with your thumb.

“There’s more.”

Your gaze snaps to Joel hunched over his bowl. The spoon that Ellie and Sarah have to both clutch in their fists to eat barely swings between his massive fingers.

Joel’s dark eyes trace down your nose, your chin, your neck, to where your hands lay flat on the table in front of you. Your own bowl and spoon sit on the counter behind you. You worry you might have upset him, with the way he’s frowning.

“There’s more,” he repeats, same tone.

“I'm sorry?”

He puts his spoon down and clears his throat, then nods to the pot on the stove. Ellie watches him out of the corner of her eye.

“I saw how much you made. If you’re hungry, you should eat.”

As though speaking a language only you could hear, he looks at Ellie the same time you do.

She frowns. “What? Is there something on my face?”

Sarah begins to giggle, nodding, when Joel starts again.

“You should eat. There’s enough.”

It’s like his eyes can see through your blue veins and clammy skin, to your yellow bones and clawing stomach. You choke on the mudball that’s been hovering in your throat for months and nod.

“Alright.”

You don’t know if you’re actually hungry – you can’t really remember the taste of warm food – or if you’re doing it just to appease him, but something about the heat of the bowl and solid spoon in your hand, it rouses you from this sinking you find yourself in. Your bones feel like jelly.

“How’re the fields, Dad?” Sarah asks with her big eyes, seemingly unaware of the layered exchange between you and her father, or kind enough not to address it.

He responds to her, his voice deep in the cavern of his chest. It’s an easy way he speaks to her, heavy with the seriousness she’s earned to be talked to like an adult, but gentle enough that for all his low grumbling, it comes out as a thick murmur. You find yourself listening to their conversation, their interactions, as soothing as music turned low from a well-tuned radio. Ellie is even roped in when Sarah tells Joel all about the Space Family Robinson and Ellie’s knife. “It’s really cool, Dad,” she says preemptively. “She knows how to use it and she’s really safe.”

“Well, if it’s really cool . . .” he fills his mouth with potatoes, tamping down the ghost of a grin on his lips around the spoon.

Ellie shuffles in her seat, her own hesitant smile glittering in her eyes, and with only minor prompting, she holds no prisoners when gleefully telling Sarah that she’s got the story of finding a mess of wriggling worms out by the back of the barn all wrong.

“Just keep ‘em outta my side of the bed, alright?” You grin at her, spooning another dribble of soup into your mouth. You’ve realized too much, too fast can just as easily twist your stomach so you focus on cradling a digestible amount of food – broth, potato, carrots – in the well of your spoon.

But the landscape beyond the silver lip has stilled. Both girls are happily slurping up the last bits of their meals, throwing quips back and forth, but Joel’s shoulders have locked up again, the bones of his wrists flat, a static alertness that you’re sure would travel all the way down to his ankles if he was standing up right. You aren’t sure if Sarah has picked up on the subtle change in his breathing – from the deep well of his lungs to shortened and shallow – but somehow you have.

You’re staring at him far too long.

Those thick eyebrows pitch down again. Beneath the loose button that pins your dress closed over your chest, you feel a swell of heat and you wish you were like Ellie, capable of making an easy joke – what, is there something on my face? The heat bubbles almost uncomfortably under his weighted gaze.

“I hate bugs,” you blurt out, desperate to give him what he wants, if only you knew. The girls glance at your sudden outburst. “I don’t like worms especially. I don’t mind straw beds, as long as they’re clean – I mean, I–I hope they are, the straw beds, not the worms.”

Another eternal second of being pinned down by Joel’s frown, this one decidedly less hostile, before understanding breaks open the harsh lines of his mouth and around his eyes. His eyes go wide for less than breath, then he drops his gaze to the bowl. His shoulders shift, muscle redistributing weight as he settles his thick forearm closer to the edge of the table.

Oh, that relief of muscle says.

“You’re not sleeping in the barn.” Joel says, head tucked down. At that, Ellie slows her ravenous eating and frowns at him.

“Then where are we sleeping?”

Joel lifts his head, a new, special emotion just for her tugging on his mouth: exasperation. “My room. You two in there and I’m takin’ the couch.”

Shame and embarrassment drip down over your skull, between your ears, like a cold, runny egg.

“No, we couldn’t possibly–,”

He shakes his head, eyes still on the split potato chunk at the bottom of the bowl. His hand flexes briefly and you think of it around the bridle of the horse.

“It’s not up for discussion.”

Beside him, Sarah frowns at him and you’d wonder how many times in her life he’s ever said that to her – if you could think properly over the roaring of blood in your ears.

“Joel,” you say, something syrupy under your tongue molding the words Mr. Miller into a tone you’d use for an old friend. “I can’t ask you to–,”

Hand flexes. The seat of the chair squeaks.

“You’re not askin’, I’m tellin’.” You’re still vastly underprepared for when those eyes - those deep, dark eyes - suddenly snap on you, as if your very presence commands his entire attention. You notice the dirt underneath his nails and around the knot of his wrist on the table. He’s filthy.

Quietly, with the surety of a dog slipping its snout between its paws, he cuts the last chunk of potato in half with the curve of his spoon. “The new mattresses’ll be here next week. We’ll make do ‘till then.”

The slurp of soup between his lips seems to signal the end of the conversation, but you can’t quite mash together your kaleidoscope-spinning impressions of the man across the table from you.

“Thank you . . . Joel.”

He nods, back teeth breaking apart the soft mush of the potato. He swallows and glances back up at you.

“It’s good,” he says, briefly holding his spoon aloft. “You did good.”

His words burst the choking bubble in your chest and warmth drips down your spine, splashing in the cradle of your hips. Hunger rises, but it’s a different kind of hunger. A growl of neglect. One you sometimes wondered if it was even possible for you to ever even feel.

Even while you were married to your husband.

You put your spoon down to keep your hand from shaking. The soup won’t feed this new churning hunger and, frankly, you don’t know what will.

You did good, he praised, parsed out like torn bread tossed across a black lake.

It makes you warm in places food never could.

The immediate next morning, you meet the sun early, eagerly. Eager to wake and rise and become so useful, you are intricately tied to this house; if you are removed, a vital piece of the land, the prairie is torn up along with you. Ellie sleeps softly next to you, curled up in the same position she was in the hotel bed, tucked in so tightly as if to take up the least amount of space possible. She sleeps, unbothered, blissful, and again you fight the urge to brush the hair that covers her sleeping eyes. You settle for tugging the beautiful quilt, with its stunning blue and red and green patches, up to her shoulders.

As you tie your dress up, your suitcase partially open and on the ground, movement from outside in the dawning pink catches your eye. A brisk shadow, those thick shoulders proceeding a taught waist are unmistakable as they move towards the barn. You stand, transfixed for a moment as broad hands slide open the barn doors, you hear a faint creak, and he disappears inside. The capability of those hands; the surety, where every action is deliberate and intentional – it makes something arc up your throat. A warm piercing that bursts through bone and muscle alike. Trembling fingers tug at the wilting lace around the cuffs of your dress, imagination stretching out into the dark morning, inspired by curious and impossible ideas of those hands.

Something – most likely Sarah next door – squeaks the floorboard and those tendrils of thought snap back as if someone had slammed a lid shut. You glance at the clock and make a mental note to wake up earlier tomorrow, to beat him to the kitchen.

You are also desperately eager to get out of the room where you can practically smell Joel on the walls. It’s simple, just like the rest of the house, but amongst the hand-drawn sketches of himself and birds (likely gifts from Sarah), the half-spent candles and well-read books, you find him in everything. You wonder, briefly, if the indentations made on the cotton mattress are from him or you – the scent of his hair in the pillow from sweat or soap.

The encroaching feeling that you don’t belong here in this house nearly swallows you whole as you dress in a room you definitely don’t belong in.

Joel remains a distant figure, a familiar shadow across the lightning horizon, long after you finish the eggs and toast. You consider perusing the pantry for blueberries or something similar, when Sarah comes down. Fresh-faced, dressed with the care most people reserve for church, she stumbles in, her braces clacking as she finds a seat at the table.

You notice a brief flash of pain across her face when you bring over a plate of food. She unconsciously rubs a circle with her thumb on her left knee as she picks up her fork.

“Pain today?” You ask, eyes on her knee, even though it’s obvious.

She nods, strained. “Just a little bit. But it’s nothing. I’m sure it’ll go away when it warms up outside.”

You doubt that is remotely true, but you let her hold the comforting lie. She doesn’t seem like the type to swallow pity with ease, and neither was Anna. You put on that detached but focused "nurse's" mask, your lips a straight line and brow furrowed, your voice slipping on something more commanding too.

“Let me see.”

Sarah blinks at you briefly, evidently surprised by your shift in demeanor but eventually, she obeys. She drops her fork and slides the chair back, the chair legs squeaking against the rough wooden floor.

You crouch in front of her, gathering up her ankle first and testing its mobility.

“When were you diagnosed?” you ask, as soft as you are firm.

“Never, technically.” She watches you and occasionally winces. You wonder how long she’s grown stiff like this. “The doc had left over braces that Dad bought before the guy skipped town.”

“So then how did you know it was polio?”

By her sudden stillness, you know this is the first time that word has been uttered under this roof in a long time. You lower her ankle, rising gaze meeting hers. Her mouth is pulled tight. You can practically read the familiar headlines as they scroll across her mind.

New Polio Cases by the Thousands

Polio Claims Life of Infant

Polio Outbreak: Thirteen Dead

“Not every case is serious,” you say, gently, using the word serious in place of fatal. You don’t want to scare her unnecessarily. But by her wide eyes, you know the word sits in her chest all the same.

“I know. And I know it can be made worse by moving too much. That’s why Dad’s always on me about resting and going slow.”

You return to your examination. Her skin is rubbed raw in some places by the braces. You remind yourself to ask Joel for some old sheets to make better padding.

“That’s not always true,” you say, shifting to her other leg. “Even though she was sore after, Anna often said she felt the stiffness go away after walking around the neighborhood block.”

Curious, Sarah tilts her head, those lovely curls swaying like leaves in a breeze. “Who’s Anna?”

Your skin around your eyes tightens – how could you be so careless with such a secret – when you hear feet thundering down the stairs and a second later, Ellie swings around the lip of the doorway.

“Is that toast?” She asks, eyes wide and hopeful. “If you got bacon, I’m gonna start kissing faces.”

You and Sarah exchange a small grin before you stand up right and Sarah returns to her own meal.

“No bacon today, but who knows what else is stored in the pantry?”

“Oh, fuck yeah,” Ellie exclaims as she slides into a chair, her own plate pilled far too for a girl her size. “Treasure hunt.”

You see the tips of Sarah’s ears go briefly pink at Ellie’s language but the muffled smile on her face hints at awe, impressed – so you let that one slide. A stream of light through the half-shut curtain tugs your thoughts outside, to the man literally toiling in the fields.

“Does your dad want me to bring him some food?” You ask, standing from the chair and glancing out the window. You can’t see him any more and for some reason that makes your chest go tight.

Sarah shook her bouncy curls. “No. He’ll come in and get it when he’s hungry.”

You didn’t like the idea that you weren’t going to be directly feeding the man who employed you literally to cook for him and his daughter.

“Does he like coffee?”

Sarah arches an eyebrow at you. “Yeah, he loves it. But I’ve tried for years to make it the way he likes and he always drinks it, but I think a little piece of him dies inside every time he does.”

“Then you must be a great cook too,” Ellie smirks up at her. In response, Sarah smiles impishly around a mouthful of eggs.

You hold that little bit of information about Joel - something you knew that he didn’t know you knew - close, like a dollar bill in your pocket. You drum your fingers, searching for memories of how Anna used to shoe-string coffee when you couldn’t afford a maker in Boston.

“Did you eat?”

Ellie’s voice tears your gaze from the window. Her plate is only halfway empty. Her fingers uneasily move the fork around.

“Yeah,” you answer truthfully. In fact, you are rather ashamed by how much you took, sitting at the table in the purple dark, before you remembered that you had to feed three other people. “I’m good, Ellie. Thanks.”

She nods, returning to her plate and shoveling two bites into her mouth without slowing down.

“What’s first today?” Sarah asks, her eyes bright. “I can show you my sums. We have a chalkboard in the barn.”

You smile at her eagerness to show off while Ellie dejectedly pokes at her remaining floppy eggs. She had never been one for school, another thing you found hard to relate to about her. Fortunately for her, Anna nor you ever had the time to be as diligent about her education as Joel had been for Sarah. And unfortunately for her, you intend to fix that as quickly as possible.

“I’d love to see them, Sarah, but would you mind showing me around the cellar first? Maybe there is bacon hiding down there somewhere.”

You don’t miss the small smile that creeps across Ellie’s face.

“Junk or keep?”

Sarah looks up from the tip of her stick dragging nonsense through the barn’s dirt floor, her chin flat in her palm, elbow on her knee. She frowns at Ellie holding up . . . something that might have been a tractor part at one time.

“I don’t even know what that is, so – junk?”

Ellie shrugs, tosses the piece back and forth in her hands, and then chucks it like a ball to the opposite end of the barn. It collides loudly with the wall and Flora, the white and black cow, lifts her head at the noise from her stable and lets out a low groan.

The entire barn smells of hay and animal but in a way that is warm, almost comforting. The two cows lazily munch from their troughs in their stalls, occasionally eyeing you as you carry items back and forth. It’s fortifying in a way only working outside and with your hands can offer.

You turn to her disapprovingly but she’s already back, elbow-deep, in the pile you had designated hers to sort. Sarah, to whom you suggested rest this morning, goes back to boredly drawing circles in the dirt. Even though she clearly hates the idea of being idle, you are surprised she takes your medical advice without any fight.

If you had successfully completed your duties as cook, now it was time to take on your other task as teacher. Sarah had a few textbooks, but mostly outdated and only one copy. You know trying to find a full library in times like these is laughably impossible, but there is nothing wrong with hoping for a blackboard. You’d made one before when the school district you tempted at didn’t approve new funding, and you feel confident you could do it again. Trouble is, you have nowhere to put it, much less set up a laughably impossible classroom for two students.

Until Sarah casually mentioned the unfortunate pile of junk in the back of her father’s barn, “taking up at least half the space in there.”

She wasn’t wrong.

“Yuck – is your dad a hoarder?” Ellie asks with slight disgust as she pulls up a stack of newspapers held together by twine. “Why does he even have this stuff?”

Sarah grins, delighted by Ellie’s prickly teasing. “This place actually used to be pretty organized. This was his space for a long time – where he went to think, or figured out what crops we needed for the next year.”

Her smile crumbles. “But, uh, then I got sick and now he doesn’t come out here unless it's for work.”

Ellie pinches the soft of her cheek with her teeth, nodding, her eyes downcast.

“So . . . junk?”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

The stack of newspapers comes up to her knees and Ellie struggles, off-balanced, to carry it across the hay-covered floor.

You reach for it and she gives it to you gratefully. You take it with a smile; you never know what she’s going to appreciate or just see it regretfully as charity or pity.

“I think your dad is losing it,” Ellie says as she wipes sweat from her brow, shaking her head far too seriously. “Losin’ it, big time.”

Sarah giggles.

You drop the stack of papers in the corner, but when you let go, the string snaps and the papers spill everywhere. With a sigh, you kneel down and gather them back together, but not before a few headlines catch your eye.

Your heart twists.

Paralysis Takes Three Children

Join the Mothers’ March on Polio

QUARANTINE: POLIOMYELITIS

Why would Joel keep these? Everyone knew how devastating polio could be to children, even infants. Why would he –

Roughly dispersed throughout the article, sentences and phrases were underlined in blue pen. Sentences containing, “iron lung”, “bedrest”, “antibiotic” –

No cure.

Warmth spread out across your chest. Joel was looking for a way to treat his daughter, the only way he could in a town without a doctor: outside information. Something about this makes the space beneath your chest bone hurt so badly, you get a little nauseous.

Now you consider conserving these papers as if they are important historical documents. Behind you, where Ellie and Sarah are lobbying jokes back and forth, you see more stacks of neatly contained newspapers. He looked everywhere and found nothing.

You reshuffle the stack that fell, when you spot something else that hardens the warm feeling in your chest and makes it brittle.

Mob Over Breadline Kills FIVE

Experts Say There is No Way Out of This Depression

Mother of Drowned Children Claims She Did “What Was Best”

The rough floor hurts your knees. Eyes closed, you try to ignore the flood of images of what you witnessed in Boston, how desperate and cruel people became in Oklahoma. With each memory, your heartbeat pounds harder.

Red. Blood. Pink. Skin. White. Bone.

The riots got to be so terrible, but people were just hungry.

Ellie calling your name jerks you out of the sinking muck of memories.

“What? What is it?”

She eyes you with distant concern then glances at Sarah. “She wanted to know where you learned all this stuff.”

“About cooking, and teaching, and nursing,” Sarah clarifies. “I think I’ve read every book in our house probably four times and I still feel like I don’t know anything.”

“You probably know more than you think,” you offer as you scoop up the uncomfortable newspapers, easily switching tracks of thought to mute the swell of horrors from the rotting box in your mind. You leave them in the corner for Joel to do what he wishes with them and stand, dusting your dress off. “What do you call the process by which plants get energy from the sun?”

Sarah’s eyes brighten immediately. Where her body fails her, her mind is as sharp as a tack.

“Photosynthesis!”

“Good,” you nod, smiling. “And what’s the primary source of energy in animal cells?”

“The mitochondria!”

“Very good.”

Ellie sighs angrily from her pile and puts her hands on her hips. “I think I’m gonna make like mitosis and split, if we keep talking about all this boring stuff.”

Scorned for her love of learning a second time and already in a bad mood from the pain this morning, Sarah frowns.

“What’s your problem? Why do you act like school sucks? You had your mom teaching you –,”

“She’s not my mom!” Ellie snaps back, her knuckles white around a rusted bucket. “She’s just my aunt!”

“Yeah, well, I have an uncle I never even get to see!” Sarah stands up as smoothly as she can, but her knees and ankles are pink again. Her calves shake. “You’re lucky!”

Ellie’s teeth clench in the back of her jaw, lip curling.

You remember distinctly more than once having to pick Ellie up from school early because she’d been caught fighting and you take a step in her direction, even if Sarah could no doubt land a few solid ones in.

“And you’re–,”

“Ellie.” You know how rough Ellie can be. You remember the tone to take with unruly students, even if you don’t mean an ounce of it. “Don’t. Just let it g–,”

“Why do you always take her side?” That ire whips around to you. Loyalty, that was another trait her mother favored. Ellie’s shoulders roll forward, her fists clenched. “Why do you let her talk like she knows anything about us? About Mom?”

“I’m not taking a side, Ellie,” you say firmly, your chin tilted down to her. One day she’s going to be taller than you, you know it. “Both of you, this is enough.”

That was the wrong thing to say. Ellie tosses the broken bucket in her hand to the ground and storms towards the barn doors.

“You just like her because she’s a fucking dork like you,” she growls under her breath before shoving open the large square door.

It swings shut, the metal clattering against the wood. The brief stream of light filtering in is shortly swallowed up into the shadows again.

“I’m sorry,” Sarah says almost immediately, her brown eyes swiveling on you. Her skin is tinged a little lighter and there’s sweat along her hairline. With a fleeting flash of worry, you wonder if she’s in more pain than she lets on. “I didn’t mean it . . . I mean, I think she is lucky to have – but . . . I shouldn’t have said that.”

She drops your gaze and you think those dark eyes might be softer, wetter than usual. She plucks at the hem of her dress, her mouth twisted to the side.

Where Ellie explodes outwards, Sarah implodes inwards. You never could understand Ellie’s inclination to destroy everything around her.

You hand her a broom, with a smile on your face.

“Do you want to tell me about your uncle?”

She takes it slowly from you, eyebrows furrowed down. This is a look you are familiar with, even when it comes to Ellie. She is stuck between answering like a kid, getting it all off her chest to be free of the emotional burden, and swallowing it all to please the adults in her life.

You’ve also found Ellie tends to open up when she doesn’t have to look you in the eye. Sarah’s own gaze is stuck to the floor as she vaguely sweeps at the hay.

“We don’t talk about Uncle Tommy a lot,” she mumbles.

You focus on untangling an old bridle. “Oh? Why?”

“Dad’s still pissed at him for moving out to California. Said he left what’s really important for a bullshit dream.” Her eyes pop up, wide and shocked. “Sorry, that’s what he said.”

Despite your limited time with him, you can easily see how Joel Miller might take something like that personally, but you just store that away too, another breadcrumb leading the way.

“Why California?”

“It’s–,”

The barn door opens again and Joel’s shadow breaks through the almost painful white light. Behind him, Everett (the horse) snorts and huffs, pulling along the giant creaking plow, the air suddenly pungent with the smell of warm dirt, leather, and animal sweat. Joel murmurs something to the frothing snout and wipes his own forehead with the back of his arm, smearing sweat and dirt across his browline. He stops when he sees you two staring.

By Sarah’s wide eyes, it’s clear Uncle Tommy is a subject that is not often brought up in this house either. Joel frowns, but just as he opens his mouth, you interject – you know how to deflate a potentially angry man.

“We were just cleaning up the back of the barn,” you say, careful not to use words like junk or scrap heap. “I’m hoping to use the space as a school, for Sarah and Ellie.”

His gaze settles on you, like the dust at his feet.

“Mhmm.” His tone scrapes something low in your stomach.

“I’m sorry – I should have asked – I didn’t think –,”

“No, it’s –,” he shakes his head. His eyes catch Everett’s foamy nose and he pats it, noting the long sweaty forelock. “Smart. Next spring, we’ll come up with something better, but there’s no time now, with the harvest comin’.”

You nod, peeling off what you were going to say from the back of your teeth with your tongue. Joel casually drags his fingers through Everett’s forelock before stepping back to unhook the plow’s leather buckles. It’s when he shifts towards Sarah, looking to her, that he grimaces.

He put his weight on his right knee and it immediately caused him pain.

“We could help,” you offer, eyes on his knee, his thick fingers rubbing into the muscle just above his knee cap. "Ellie loves being out in the sun and I can teach her how to plant–,”

“‘M fine,” he mutters gruffly, straightening up and wiping his hands on the cloth around his neck. “Sarah, go inside for a bit. There’s something she n’ I gotta discuss.”

His tone indicates this is not the time for eye rolling but she does it anyway.

“I’ve said for years that you need help, Dad. She’s just offering to–,”

“Sarah, inside. Please.”

Sarah scowls and drops the broom against one of the stalls. She hobbles out of the barn, first scrunching her nose up at Joel’s obvious smell, then muttering something about having to go look for the hell spawn. You finger the scrap metal in your hands, a fluttery nervousness growing in your stomach the closer Sarah gets to the door. With one more disapproving shake of her thick curls, she shuts the door behind her.

Everett nickers and paws the ground, eager to be returned to bed after a long morning of work. Light streams in gold from the slanted windows above the loft, separating the front stalls from the back of the barn where you stand, fidgeting. There’s no escaping the hot animal smell now, and it’s your turn to be intercepted by Joel.

Another apology is nearly out of your mouth when he speaks first.

“Do you know how to shoot a gun?” He asks, his mouth set into a firm line. In the half-darkness of the barn, you can’t quite make out his eyes.

You swallow against the encroaching dryness in your throat. “I-I have a gun. Keep it in my purse, o-only for emergencies and I–,”

“That’s not what I asked.” He shakes his head, tone soft, almost gentle. He glances past you to the stacks of newspapers you had moved into the corner, the ones about violence and pestilence. He rubs his fingers between the bridle and Everett’s thick hair. “Found a hole in the barbed wire fence today.”

You frown, the tension of his voice indicating a severity you are utterly unprepared for. “What does that mean?”

“Someone tried to cut through.”

A white hot panic lurches up your spine out of nowhere. Fueled by fear, you see the outline of your husband shambling across the propertyline and you go cold.

“W-why would someone do that? What are they after?”

His hand stills as every muscle in his body briefly tenses. Eyes dark beneath a tight brow, the tightness in his jaw is an answer and a threat all at once. He looks almost offended by your question.

You know exactly what they would take.

All you can do is nod.

Everett nudges Joel’s shoulder, impatient to get out of the harness, for that bath he so very much deserves. As though you had disappeared, Joel unbuckles the restraints, taking a brush to the gray coat as he goes. Maybe you’d misread that last signal and he thought he told you to fuck off.

You move towards the back door when his voice, timbre deep and low, stops you again.

“I’m gonna to teach you to shoot.” He announces to the lathered withers of the horse. “But you keep that gun on you, at all times, especially when you’re out with the girls. You got that?”

He pauses just as he slides the hitch off the horse's back, his arms covered in dirt as dark as the leather. It’s minute, the shift in his weight, but you suddenly realize he wants verbal confirmation.

“Y-yes. Yes. I’ll take it with me.”

The minutia shifts again, a lessening of tension across his broad shoulder, his thick back. He nods.

“Good.”

The aching need for him to say more, for that good to turn into you did good or good job – or good girl – it sparks so fast and hot inside of you, you think you’ll choke. Instead, you leave through the door on unsteady legs, jaw locked tightly shut.

You find comfort in the monotony of sewing.

Anna always scolded you for it, that you were “giving into women’s work.”

How are they ever going to take us seriously when you actually like doing this dainty shit?

But where Anna seemingly delighted in her mile-a-minute thoughts, you need an outlet – some way to settle, to ground yourself in the here and now. Furthermore, you could sew anywhere – on the train, on the bus, in a foreign house in the middle of nowhere where you were, again, dependent on the kindness of a complete stranger –

It isn’t sewing specifically that you enjoy. If there was another activity where your mind could detach itself from your body, you would have liked it too. Here, in this space of blank concentration, you separate further from yourself with every stitch you pull together. Here, you are not a sister, a housewife, or an aunt. Not a nurse or a teacher or a failed fieldhand.

Not scared of living or scared of your husband or scared that you’ll fail your sister over and over and over again –

For a handful of minutes, you are not scared and you are the closest thing to yourself you can possibly be. You think, as a child that might have been the closest you’d actually been to understanding your own wants and dreams and desires, but now it is through this act of repetition, of delicate guiding, do you find yourself remembering what it was like to exist unafraid, as thoughtless as a child.

You sit on the edge of Joel’s bed, eased into something vaguely like relaxation by the needle and thread in your hand. You’d found some old pillows in the barn earlier today and surprisingly the stuffing was still intact. After watching Sarah struggle today, you knew you couldn’t spend another second watching the poor girl hobble around on painful braces.

It’s twilight, the sun gone beneath a blanket of scarlet and indigo, everyone fed and full – the girls almost instantly forgetting their first fight in favor of a discussion about their most effective marble-flicking techniques – and you already have at least one leather-bound pad that is twice as thick as her old one. You grin, excited to share your creation to her. You wonder what Joel will say.

Through the wall over your shoulder, in Sarah’s room, you can hear the low murmur of their voices, as quick and fast as two co-conspirators. You can’t quite make out what they’re saying, but the words don’t matter. It is the high joy in Sarah’s voice, or the creaky laughter from Joel. They could be speaking in a completely incomprehensible language but the sentiment is unmistakable: you make me happy and I love you.

I love you.

The needle and thread stills in your lap.

You glance out the window, to a much smaller shadow in front of the barn as it cuts and darts in the blurry half-light. The silver tip of Anna’s knife winks in the glint of the light from the windows as Ellie slashes and digs in the open air. Alone.

In the late hours, in the hours when the veil between life and death felt so especially fragile, Anna made you promise that you'd look out for Ellie, to raise her as your own. To finally give her a childhood like the two of you never had.

You had done that. You raised her. She’s alive and healthy and fierce.

But would she find your sentiment about her unmistakable? Do you know hers as intimately as you knew your sister’s?

Do you make her happy when both of you are constantly reminded of the ghost between you?

Sarah’s chatter echoes throughout the dark house, disembodied and entirely untethered.

It’s one week into this new, adjusted life in a house you haven’t yet found a home in when the unthinkable happens.

A loud, wet cry startles you awake and immediately your hand flies towards Ellie, panic like ice in your jaw. Your palm touches her shoulder, but she’s already sitting up, eyes towards the door. She glances at you and from your stumble out of a dreamless sleep, you realize it wasn’t Ellie who made that noise.

It comes again, as sharp as a bone crack, and you both scramble out of bed.

Sarah.

Up against the far wall, in the corner where her bed tucks up into the corner, Joel holds her like a lion clutches to prey.

Giant, fat teardrops pour down the sides of her ashen cheeks, those bright eyes clamped shut, her mouth twisted in agony and she claws at her father’s forearm across her shoulders. His other hand is going white from her fingers crushing his in a bone-cracking grip. His voice is soft, firm, and fast in her ear, comforting and scared as hell, as she whimpers.

Every muscle from her thighs down is stretched taut. Every muscle unwillingly tightened, flexed, the chemicals in her brain battling the commands of the bacteria. The pain, as described in medical journals, is crippling.

Ellie glances at you out of the corner of your eye. Muscle spasms.

“Sarah, darling, how long has this been going on?” She’s trembling from the pain and exhaustion. You wrap your robe around you before kneeling down to inspect her — and you feel Joel’s glare nearly singe the skin from your face.

“Don’t touch her,” he snarls and pulls her closer. Sarah whines and buries her face in his shoulder, trying to stifle her sobbing to keep from shaking and causing more spasms. “She’s–,”

“I can help her, Joel.” Your training became a bulwark – strong, immobile – in moments like these. Maybe it was all an act but that first rush of hope that you could ease pain, soothe what hurts, made you feel like you were made of gold. You let that unbreakable shine pierce Joel’s gaze. “But you need to listen to me.”

Sarah squeaks and you watch his resolve instantly break. Shakely, he nods.

“Ellie,” you instruct over your shoulder. “Go start boiling water. There’s a pail out on the porch.”

She is out the door before you finish your sentence. She knows exactly what you need.

Help on the way, you turn back to Sarah, her feet twisted in grotesque contortions.

“How long has this been going on?”

“About ten minutes,” Joel grumbles. She squeezes his hand so hard you hear his knuckle pop. She sobs, open mouth, and he presses his cheek to her. He murmurs softly, “I’m sorry, I know, I’m sorry.”

“Is this the longest fit she’s had?”

Joel reluctantly nods.

“Sarah,” you say and gently touch her knee. She peels her eyes open, cheeks stained with tears, eyes wet with fear. “We need to loosen your muscles, okay? That’s what’s causing you pain right now. So, we’re going to use heat and pressure to do that.”

She nods, gaze solidifying with your every word, every word a new step out of the path of pain. Joel smooths her curls off her sweaty forehead, his own wide-eyed stare never leaving your face. You roll up your sleeves and curl up your hair off the back of your neck just as Ellie stumbles back into the room. She’s got at least five towels around her neck, and she’s red-faced and straining from keeping the pail of boiling water from spilling or burning her. She eases it down next to you and hands you a towel. Both of you each take a side and immediately tear the one in half.

Before you wore gloves, some sort of protection, but now there is no time. You hear Ellie inhale sharply, recognizing what you’re about to do a second before you do it.

You dip the towel into the steaming water, let it soak, and pull it out. You grit your teeth against the immediate burn on your palms, the trail of fire over your knuckles and wrists, as you squeeze out the dripping water, Sarah’s soft cries in your ears enough to push past your own pain.

Half-way between an inhale and an exhale, you think you hear your name.

Ellie already has another dry towel loose around one of Sarah’s legs. She glances at you, her brows knitted together.

Ready? She asks without words.

You drape the hot towel around her leg and Sarah yelps. She thrashes in her father’s arms as you wrap the towel tighter and tighter. Expecting Joel’s inevitable bark, a hard shove against your shoulder, get away from my daughter – but it never comes.

As soon as you tighten the towel as firmly as it can safely go, Ellie slides in next to you and begins to massage the muscles in her calves, her feet, her toes.

Sarah whimpers again, but the sound isn’t as sharp, pain-choked. Joel holds her tighter, as if her torso is also knotted and could be relieved with warmth.

On an inhale, you pick up the other half of the towel, drench it in boiling water, and wring it out with your bare hands. A silent prayer for lotion is fleeting as it drifts through the dense focus of your mind. You squeeze out the dripping water and wrap Sarah’s other leg, prepped again by Ellie. She watches you as you tug and tuck the steaming towel, her own focus as sharp as a tack, mirroring your motions as you knead and massage the muscles.

After a few minutes of faint whining, a couple of sobs, the room slips into an exhausted silence. Her breathing slow on his chest, Joel draws back her damp curls and finds her face relaxed, asleep. His mouth parts and the skin around his eyes goes slack.

Relief.

With a shudder, Joel knocks his forehead against hers, his thumb on her chin as if to feel her breathing. You look away, the moment so tender it shouldn’t be witnessed.

You realize then how badly your palms ache.

The towels have lost their immediate heat, so you unwind them. Ellie’s small hands overlap yours as she helps. For some reason, you can’t bring yourself to look her in the eyes. The both of you fall back into roles most comfortable to you.

The wet towels gone, you wrap her legs more tightly this time, slightly past the edge of comfort. You ease her back, flat into the bed, and some small part of you is aware Joel is letting you guide her. He slips out from behind her when you tuck her in, tight with another blanket around her legs. She could be exhausted for days after this.

“We’ll need to keep heat on her legs every thirty minutes, fifteen if we can manage,” you say as you fold up the damp towels. Joel hasn’t moved. Stares down at Sarah’s small body. “I’d like to keep a warming pan here, to have hot water on hand if she wakes up in pain again. When she comes out of it, she needs water and food. Have her eat it slowly, small bites at first.”

You remember a doctor at the hospital where you trained as a nurse give advice to a newer doctor: medical mysteries and illnesses are one thing. Nervous parents are something else.

You call his name and he doesn’t move.

You step forward, touch his forearm, and he blinks at you. He feels so remarkably solid.

“Joel. She’s safe.”

“Do you want me to go get more towels?” Ellie’s gathered the damp towels off the floor, her chest wet. She stares at Sarah’s bed frame.

“Get breakfast first. Then I might need your help later.” She nods, turns to go, but hesitates. Her mouth is pinched tight, eyes wide, looking for something to ground her, to calm the vortex that the adrenaline in her veins widens with each beat of her heart. She looks so . . . childlike.

She looks so much like Anna.

The momentary fortified strength shatters and you're afraid again. What do you say to comfort her? What would Anna say? Good job, I'm proud of you, thank you -

But then she turns away, carrying the dripping towels, and you lose your chance to parent.

Joel has curled himself into the rocking chair by her bed, so close his knee touches her mattress. He holds her thin hand in the cup of his two massive palms. His heel taps loosely, quietly against her rug, every possible outcome of this morning striking him in the chest with each drop of his foot. His face is a blurred, dark shadow, hanging between his shoulders.

To describe Joel in this moment, nervous seems quaint.

In silence, you gather up the tepid pale of water and exit the room, closing the door after you.

The rest of the day passes in haze, tendrils of sleep still between the cracks in your brain left there by the harsh break into consciousness.

You have Ellie feed the animals, and you start a load of laundry. The ratio of dry towels to wet is rapidly becoming unbalanced and you know after the initial attack is over, pressure is more important than heat. Sarah has barely moved all day but she is responsive and drinks water when she comes out of her deep sleep. You’ve made soup again – a heavy meal that doesn’t require much managing and can be easily re-served – and it gives you time to think. Sarah mentioned the doctor skipping town, that he had all but dropped everything and ran. You wondered what else might be in the doctor’s old shop. Morphine seemed too valuable to have been ignored in any ransacking, but often doctors kept a secret supply, unbeknownst to even most nurses for special cases or when supply was low. You think about that and stir the pot as the sun crawls across the sky.

With your head bent over the pot, something moves in the field outside and you watch with surprise as Ellie leads one of the cows, Fauna, out of the barn. Through the rippled glass, you watch her talking to the cow, her face scrunched up in concentration, and shockingly, Fauna appears interested, her big ears flicking back and forth. But Ellie leads her only a little bit from the barn, in the grass but visible from the house. She drops to her knees and takes out a wooden stake and a hammer — nevermind where she found those – and then ties Fauna’s lead rope to top of the stake sticking out of the ground.

Ellie wags her finger, her back to the window, her stance very serious. You smile to yourself and to Anna as she marches back inside and shortly returns with Flora, the other cow, to do the same. She gives them both a stern talking to, as evident by her hands on her hips, before turning back to the house. You glance down, knowing she wouldn’t appreciate it if you saw her babysitting the cows. It was what Joel did every morning – let the cows out to graze – but she did it in her own Ellie way: on a smaller scale and perhaps with a little more gentleness.

See, Anna, she’s all grown up.

By nightfall, both of you are exhausted. You don’t know how Joel manages to run this place by himself, especially with a sick child, but after one day, you’re ready to curl up into bed and never leave. Ellie looks like she’s about to face-plant into her soup, her eyes half-shut. You smile, stretching, before gently shaking her shoulder.

“Go to bed, Ellie. You’re exhausted.”

She blinks harshly, indignant and scowly, as you take both your bowls to the sink. “‘M fine. Just a lil’ –,” she yawns deeply, “sleepy.”

“You’re right. My mistake.”

“Besides, we got coffee coming, don’t we?”

On the counter, your make-shift coffee press gurgles, the cap steaming from the bubbling water over the grounds you found in the cellar. You eye her over your shoulder.

“You don’t even like coffee.”

“Yeah but you’re staying up, right? You and Joel?”

Neither of you had seen Joel leave Sarah’s room all day. Ellie eyes the ceiling as if she can see right through it.

“I’m taking him some food and a cup of coffee,” you say as you finish drying the plates. There’s a rigidness to your hands as you delicately lay the plates flat, unconsciously careful to keep them from making a sound as they touch. “But at St. Joseph’s, some of the nurses would offer to keep vigil, to give the parents a chance to rest.”

You know in your heart he won’t take it. You just hope he finds your coffee inoffensive.

But Ellie doesn’t respond. She sits still, staring at the ceiling.

“Ellie, she’s going to be okay.”

Those bright eyes fall on you. “You can’t know that.”

In your hands, you wind the damp towel between your fingers. They’re pink and still ache but the rough linen is a welcome distraction from the churning acid in your stomach.

“This isn’t going to be like last time,” you say, your hips against the counter. “Sarah’s infection is nowhere near her lungs. And she’s been responding to treatment.”

Ellie drops her gaze, her bottom lip curled between her teeth.

“Don’t say that unless you mean it. Unless you can swear to me.”

One of life’s simple truths: parents lie.

You recognize there is a part of her that wants you to look her in the eyes and lie. She’d be angry, eventually, if your lies were exposed, but in that moment, as she sits in an unfamiliar house, at an unfamiliar table, with you and this wretched ailment the only things she knows to be constant – she wants a comfort you can’t give her. You are not capable of parental truth.

“I can’t promise anything.”

She inhales, breathes shaky, and exhales, the spoon in her hand trembling. “I know.”

Hands full of a white, chipped food tray, you knock twice carefully with one hand like you had been trained to before opening the door. The lamplight has been turned on, but the room, blanketed in darkness and shadows, looks the same. Sarah sleeps deeply, if not well, her hand curled by her face against the pillow, her heavy storm of curls cradling her head gently. Joel watches her, as still and silent as the moon. His foot has settled, but now he breathes so slow he might not be breathing at all.

Of all the terrible things you had seen during your time as a nurse, witnessing someone like this is always the hardest. Feeling helpless is a sentiment you are all too familiar with and the thought of someone just sitting there and watching you with your grief makes your skin itch.

“Joel.” A formality, because those trapped in a cyclone of worry require a slow approach, easing a startled animal. “I brought you something to eat.”

Speaking, it lets him acclimate to your voice.

You set the white tray on Sarah’s dresser, a piece of furniture meticulously crafted. Like Joel’s room, there are books everywhere, but more animal drawings, some directly on the walls. Sarah’s brilliant personality expanded here, in the blues and pinks, not capable of being contained in a single body.

A body that seems so small and fragile in that little brass bed, while her father looms impossibly large.

“Joel.” Again, soft, but this time you put a hand on his bicep. Never near the neck, an older nurse warned you, that area is sensitive. His denim shirt is soft beneath your fingers, nearly bleached white from the sun and worn smooth from dust and dirt and wind. You think you smell churned earth and hot leather in the instant it takes you to kneel down beside him, your grip sliding from his shoulder to his forearm. With the other hand, you tip a steaming cup into his open palm.

“Sarah told me you liked coffee.”

Slowly, as though he had blinked and reality disintegrated and reformed around him, Joel’s gaze slides from Sarah’s waxy face, to yours, and then the hand on his forearm. The back of your scalp prickles, the bulwark of courtesy shaking, before you remember you’d done this hundreds of times, to people of all ages, men and women. He seems to understand this – a professional gesture – and he takes the mug from you. With an almost perplexed expression, he stares into the nearly black liquid, his jaw tight.

And then he drinks, without saying a word.

You think you might have heard a low rumble from him, a pleased groan as heavy as the plow in the barn outside, but the floorboards creak when you stand up, so you might have been imagining things.

“This tastes good,” he says bluntly, voice weather-beaten. You smile into the bowl of soup as you wave a hand over the steam to cool it down to something bearable. “How?”

Despite his monosyllabic responses, you take this as a good sign. Something tells you that you’ve made exceptional progress by getting him to talk at all.

“I got pretty good at making cowboy coffee, as my sister used to call it, before we moved to Oklahoma. You already had the beans in the cellar,” you say, shrugging as you bring the soup over to him. He eyes it warily, as if this is not the appropriate time to eat, as if his own suffering would make Sarah’s lessen.

You’d only ever seen that instinct in a handful of parents while in the hospital and it made something wide and warm press up against your chest bone.

So you don’t give him a choice. You push the soup into his hands with enough speed that he has to take the bowl or drop it entirely. He, like most people with common sense, takes the bowl. He has a second to frown at you before you turn away to Sarah.

“And I suspect they were hidden down there on purpose?” You ask as you take out another blanket from the basket beside her bed and flutter it over her legs. You remember stories about the women working with Elizabeth Kenny filling quilts with rocks or beans, anything with weight, and putting them over the affected limbs of polio patients. The compress soothed the ache.

Sarah snores gently in her sleep as her father behind you laughs, a soft rush of air from his nose, his mouth preoccupied with a half-grin.

“I try not to hurt her feelings,” he admits quietly. You hear the clatter of metal on porcelain as you fold and refold the blankets to carry more weight. “That girl is a lot of things, but good at making coffee isn’t one of ‘em.” He slurs around the soup in his mouth.

It’s hard to believe she’s only a year older than Ellie. They have both lost things, indescribable things at too-young an age. But where Ellie carries it in the grip of her hand around her knife, Sarah takes it on the chin.

Polio, a disease of freezing agony.

You wonder how much of Sarah’s inner world she keeps to herself.

Like with Ellie, you fight the urge to brush a lovely curl away from her cheek.

“You have a special girl here, Joel.”

You feel his gaze on the back of your neck and you drop your gaze from her pristine face, remembering it’s not your place to look at her like that. Not like how you want to look at her.

Not like how you might want to look at him.

Joel shifts on his feet, leaning forward to put the now empty bowl on the ground.

“I know.” By the strength of his tone, he admits to knowing that you see the bright light about Sarah like he does and so he lets you look. Your heart stutters at this silent transference and you grab blindly for that mask of noble duty.

“How has her breathing been?” You sit down next to her and pick up her wrist, feeling for that steady pulse. You relax slightly when it’s easy to find. The beat of it is a little faster than you would like, but it hasn’t woken her up.

“Good.” A disgruntled groan from the chair as he adjusts behind you. His voice is rich like molasses, dripping warmth down the knots in your spine. “Woke up here n’ there, like you said. Gave her food. Got her water. But she just went right back to sleep.”

“But she ate and drank?”

He nods out of the corner of your eye. You check the mobility of her joints and they seem to be back to their natural looseness. Whether she’ll feel strong enough to walk is another matter entirely, but it’s not good to worry him unnecessarily.

“That’s good, Joel. That’s really good.”

You smile at him and finally, finally, the corners of his eyes soften, his brows pluck up, and he breathes deep. The tension leaves his body the way steam leaves a lake in the hours before dawn, the cup of coffee resting on his thigh. His gaze falls from your face to hers, shrouded in shadow.

“She’s never slept this long after an attack,” he says quietly. “Always restless, pain flaring up. We once stayed up a whole day and night when it got bad.”

He shakes his head, clears his throat a bit as if the words in his mouth leave behind a mucky, sour taste.

“Thank you. For treating her properly.”

For doing what I couldn’t.

It’s true. But no amount of reassuring – I’ve just had training, you did the best you could – would dissipate that repugnant scent of guilt lingering in the air. You are forced to let it linger, unable to say a single damn thing that would mean anything to him.

As he finishes the last dregs of coffee, Joel unwinds his long legs from beneath the seat and his knees crack. Stiff joints after a long day of stillness, but immediately his fingers fly to that same spot he touched in the barn in that afternoon, his mouth tight from the unexpected flash of pain.

Immediately you kneel down, worried at the slight hiss he made, fingers inches from his thigh when he straightens.

“You don’t have to–,” he shifts as if he can pull away from your touch and stay seated. “It’s not that bad –,”

You frown at him. “Can the person here who has had actual medical training determine that?”

Something light flickers over his eyes, so fast it might not have been real, smoothing the lines around his mouth. Joel nods, glancing to the floor.

“Yes, ma’am.”

That single word almost splits your skull in half like lightning.

You are immediately grateful for the heavy shadows in the room. Your palms, smarting all day, are now blistering with heat. Mouth shut tight, you don’t trust whatever sits behind your lips, so you begin your inspection of his muscles. Thumbs down, you feel along the lines that lead down to his knee.

Hard, firm, you notice. Made solid by work and toil. A few of the bricklayers and farmers you’d attended to had muscles like these. Despite the rough denim and how unsettling it is to be this close to him, it’s easy to lose yourself in the methodology of the human body. You’ve learned to read sinew and bone and scar tissue like a map and you come to find that the topography of Joel Miller is mountainous.

“So, mhm, where’d you learn to make coffee?”

You thought the stiffness in his thigh was due to lingering pain, but when you look at him and his guarded expression, chin tilted into his chest, fingers tight around the bottom of the seat, you realize he is uncomfortable. He is made uncomfortable . . . by you. Something sharp pokes through a slot between your ribs and you sit up straighter, trying to make your touch even more clinical if possible. But what he says next, you aren’t sure if it’s genuine or genuinely meant to hurt.

“Your husband?”

You shake your head. “My sister, actually. Ellie’s mom. We’d trade night shifts when she was a baby. One of us would come home from our second job, and the other would leave for their first. Anna said she’d never have survived those first years without coffee.”

You can hear the question he wants to ask buzzing in his head, your thumb rubbing therapeutic circles around the inflamed area. But instead he asks:

“And you . . . you like coffee?”

You shrug. “I don’t think I ever slowed down enough to ever taste it in the first place.”

With Joel Miller, silence means a thousand things. It’s not the way he looks at you, but the way he looks into you.

“Anna always said we’d be fine, that two unmarried women with a baby could make it in the city. But I wasn’t so convinced. There wasn’t much time for something like enjoying the taste of coffee because I was always busy taking every job I could get.”

“Like treating sick kids.” He says it like he just found a piece of you off the ground and added it to a sprawling puzzle. He politely stares over your shoulder.

You swallow, throat tight. “Actually, um, Anna had it - polio - too. I took the job as a nurse to learn how to treat her from home.”

Those heavy eyes swing into you full force and you can feel your stomach roll and collapse against your spine.

“Every case is different, Joel. What I did for Sarah, it wouldn’t have helped someone like Anna.”

“But she died?” A third unwelcome presence.

“Yes. She went fast. There was nothing anyone could do to save her.”

There was nothing you could do to save her.

Your thumbs are starting to ache, but you don’t want to leave just yet. You want to sit and listen to his voice, even if it’s pitched in anger towards you.

But it’s not. His next words come out soft, if not a little bit disbelieving.

“Where did you come from?” Joel asks. “You said the city, Oklahoma. How’d you end up in fuckin’ Dalhart, Texas?”

You use your elbow on the thicker muscle up his thigh and he tries very hard not to wince.

“We grew up in Boston. City girls all our lives. We had big plans of catching the bus line and going all over the country, just the two of us, but then Anna got pregnant and overnight, everything changed.”

He nods, knowingly. You add that to your own Joel Miller mosaic.

“I met the man I’d marry while I worked as a maid in a motel. He was a banker, or so he told me, and he wanted to whisk me away. We were three months behind on our rent, so I told him yes, I'd marry him after knowing him for a week — as long as I got to bring Anna and Ellie with me. All he talked about was money, so I thought he had it. What he did have was enough to get us to Oklahoma, buy some farm equipment for the wheat boom, and then lose it all in a handful of years.”

“And then we lost Anna. We lost my husband. I went back to trying to find a job in town with no jobs.” You pull your hands back, the deep tissue of his thigh flushed with blood from your therapy, and having nothing more to do, little more to say, you drop them into your lap. “Just after we missed the payment for the equipment for the second month, I got a letter from a man claiming to be my long lost Uncle Robert. I hadn’t eaten in three days and Ellie just got tagged by the police for shoplifting. I sent him a letter back and he said if I sent him our last twenty dollars he’d get us set up in Dalhart where he had a successful car dealership. I did and he didn’t and if you hadn’t picked us up, I don’t know what we would have done.”

You sit with the hot truth of it and he sits with the both of you. It’s silent in a way that only a house in the middle of nowhere can be. Sarah stirs in her sleep, her legs rustling the sheets, but doesn’t wake up.

“You don’t have to do that here, you know.” He straightens his legs, just as quietly as the rest of the house. He crosses his arms over his chest and you think about the muscle just under his forearm, thick and immobile as sea-drenched rope. “Not eat . . . for Ellie’s sake. There’s enough for you and her. Always.”

You think of the cellar with its soft dirt, cool air, the endless rows of stored fruits and vegetables and meat, buried like a still-beating heart beneath the dust-whipped house in a paradise on the prairie.

“But I understand the inclination.” With you on the ground before him and Joel leaning forward, elbows on his knees, his broad back arching under the stripe of white moonlight, he looks at you.

Really looks at you.

Like recognizing like.

A passing in a distorted mirror that might be me but it’s not but I think I know you all the same there is a thing just like me out in the world and it sees me.

Slowly, hesitantly, as if he’s afraid you’ll bite, he reaches forward and takes your wrist from your lap. The calluses on his thumb brush roughly against the knot of bone as he twists your palm upward. Pink, too pink, a stinging color, even in the low lamplight. Joel works his jaw back and forth, staring at your palm with weary concern, as if it told him things he didn’t want to know.

His gaze lifts and your fingers curl instinctively in. He’s trying to make you look and you don’t want to. He sees your sacrifice and you don’t want it called that, there’s certain nobility in sacrifice, in a sort of suffering for other people, but it’s not sacrifice if you go willingly and despite you not wanting to look, not wanting to put a name to it, not wanting to take up any space at all, he looks at you like he, a man as broad and wide and powerful as he, is grateful.

For you.

Every bulwark inside of you, every foundation that you had built yourself because you never had the chance to grow hearty roots somewhere permanent, rumbles. Shakes, beneath a single solitary, rolling earthquake. A landslide of earth behind the strength in his eyes.

“For her, for Sarah, I’d do the same,” he says.

For her. For the children in your lives.

Do you even like coffee? All you know is how to make it. What would you do with it if you did? If you liked coffee? If you loved it.

If there was someone outside yourself and Ellie to make you coffee simply because you wanted it. Because you were in a circle of people for whom people would do things for. For her. For you.

The heart of Joel is like coffee: dark but warm.

Your wrist slips between his fingers, finding refuge again in your lap.

“I know.”

You wonder what it would be like to be within Joel’s circle of people for whom he does things. To be given coffee, just because you want it.

You bet it’s warm.

You stand up, collect the empty, used things, and wish him a good night.

A noise and sunlight startles you awake. Your eyes tear open, hand flat on an open pool of sunlight in the center of the mattress, head twisted and knees bent up by your chest. In your sleep, your body twisted itself into a Gordian knot, unable to escape the dreams about the cellar ground turning into coffee beans, and the cramped bloodflow leaves you disoriented until you can roll onto your back and remember where you are. The smells that surround you.

You hear the noise again and you think of Ellie and in that instance where complete consciousness returns to you, the weight of her is gone. Literally.

Ellie is not in the bed beside you.

The room’s brightness is suddenly too bright, the clear, electric blue sky too blue – it’s too beautiful and it lulled you into a sense of comfort. Stupid, so stupid. You ignore the warm floorboards against your bare feet, the faint birdsong from outside, as you rush towards the source of the sound, towards Sarah’s bedroom – oh god, I was wrong it’s too late it took her in the night and I –

The sound you do not recognize, the sound you could not comprehend while buried in dreams and memories, is the sound of laughter. Loud, full laughter.

The brass bed creaks as Ellie uses the mattress to fling herself into the air. On the other end, just as determined to reach the ceiling, is Sarah. Hands outstretched and reaching, her legs bend and flex and propel her up and up. Every time she gets within a handful’s reach of the ceiling, Ellie’s laughing, cheering her on, and then it’s her turn, Sarah giggling as Ellie’s face scrunches up as she reaches out towards the blue sky on the other side of the roof.

“Oh, hey!” Ellie says, pink-faced and causal, half-way out of breath. Sarah spins, mid-way through a jump, her eyes bright, sweat peaking on her brow line. “Sarah bet – I couldn’t touch – the ceiling — so we’re taking turns – loser has to shovel – the barn!”

You watch, dumb-struck, as the bet continues, the girls laughing and criticizing each other and offering techniques as they work in tandem to fling the other one higher. Sarah is flush with vitality, with life, with a dewy glow reserved for spring mornings when the earth stretches awake after the death of winter.

And Ellie . . . she looks her age.

The earth has shifted beneath your feet, while you were sleeping, and a seedling has been planted, the dawn of something new, something fresh and utterly unexpected. You can feel it in your bones. Hear it in their laughter.

“Not a bad thing to wake up to.”

Joel, arms crossed, eyes soft, leans up against the door frame, blue striped pajamas low on his hips, a thread-bare white undershirt cupping his biceps. He eyes you from toe to head and stops when he meets your eyes. You wonder how long he’d been standing there – if he too woke to noises he couldn’t explain, rushed in here, and found something miraculous.

The smile crinkles his eyes as it unfurls across his face.

“I haven’t heard her laugh like that in a while,” he says quietly, head tilted towards the bed, as if there could be any other meaning. “I owe you one.”

You could say the same thing about Ellie.

There’s the line, the boundary of the circle to the place of being warm. He’s not cleared the way for you, not invited you across, but he’s shown it to you. You can see it, feel it, and know what it takes to get there.

Your smile blooms. The girls’ laughter rings throughout the house and into the sunlight.

But, outside of paradise, away from the river and the white a-frame house, from the horse and the cattle and the long strands of prairie grass, where there is not enough to eat and the earth is in its death rattle, the wind blows. It swallows up dust, and dirt, and fine sand, gluttonous. It swirls and pulses, agitated and restless and seeking violence. Spinning with the power to blind with a single whip of dust, it spins up over the earth in its death rattle, where there is not enough to eat, towards the prairie grass. Towards the horse and the cattle. Towards the river and the a-frame.

Towards paradise with the promise of total ruin.

END OF PART I

series masterlist | AO3 Link | prologue | part ii

434 notes · View notes

ourautumn86 · 11 months

Note

hi! i’m not sure if your requests are open but i’d love if you could write something where the reader works at a tattoo shop as a receptionist or manager and ellie goes in one day and becomes obsessed w her. then she keeps going in and getting more and more tattoos just to see reader? it could end in smut or something sweeter. it’s up to you. i love your writing, thank you!! <33

no cause she’d absolutely fall for you and waste all her money on tattoos to see you again

INK LUST LOVE

ellie williams x fem! reader

cw; +18 content, minors dni!, flirting, switch ellie and reader, sex in a public space (tattoo shop bathrooms), needy sex, fingering (both ellie and reader receiving), making out…

the first time she saw you, she swore the world had just stopped. like in the movies. you were so beautiful it made her go weak in the knees.

“hi! can i help you with something?” oh shit. were you talking to her? you were. your voice was so sweet… oh shit she had to answer.

“i’m yeah… i mean. uh… i’m ellie.” shit. explain. “i have a tattoo scheduled? for 15:30?” she said, cheeks flushed and stuttering.

she wanted to kick herself.

you smiled at her. you smiled! oh shit, her heart was doing flips.

“let me check…” you mumbled under your breath, looking. “here you are. ellie williams. 15:30.” you nodded, and she tried to not let show how fucking much it affected her hear you calling her by her name. it sounded beautiful coming from you. “i’ll go see how jesse is doing, give me a second.” you smiled once again, and she nodded, pushing her shaky and sweaty hands on her pockets.

“els!” jesse smiled, and ellie smiled back, waving at him. “come on in. i just need to sterilize the table and we’ll start.” she nodded, and went ahead to get into the room. you gave her a smile that she returned before the door closed behind back and she was finally able to smack jesse. “hey! what the hell was that about?”

“why didn’t you tell me your receptionist was so fucking beautiful?!” she inquired, completely pissed off.

“who? y/n?”

y/n, y/n, y/n…

a pretty name for a pretty girl.

“she just started. how the hell would i know she’d be your type?”

“dude. she’s everyone’s type. have you seen her?” she inquired in disbelief.

“yeah, i see her everyday. and if you have forgotten… i already have dina.” he smiled and ellie groaned.

“gross.”

“whatever.” jesse rolled his eyes. “let’s get started, we have hours ahead.”

Ellie came back not a week later. And you received her just the same, only this time you remembered her name. And of course you did. She was hot.

“Ellie! Back so soon?” her cheeks flushed. You looked beautiful, with a floral dress that let show your pretty legs. It’s not as if you hadn’t been dressing up just in case she would come back, of course not…

“Uh… Hi. Yeah, want to get my arm finished.” she smiled, pointing to her right arm, where Jesse had added more to her principal tattoo the last time.

“Looks beautiful. Can I see?” you inquired her and her cheeks flushed as she muttered a ‘sure’ and reached her arm towards you. You gently took it, taking a look at the ink. Your touch was burning her. She needed more. Her breath hitched when your fingertips caressed the tattoos on her skin. You touched her like she was made of glass. A softness she had never experienced before. It made her heart ache. She took her time to look at you. At your beautiful face, plump lips, long lashes and beautiful eyes. She was love struck. You smiled, ‘cause she looked so cute all embarrassed…

“Ellie, you ready?” suddenly Jesse’s voice caught her attention and you let go of her. She already missed your warmth.

“Uh yeah.” she nodded and you smiled at her.

“See you later.” you said, your voice sultry, eyes looking into her emerald ones.

“Yeah, see you later.”

Ellie was there almost every day, and somethimg you'd noticed is that she always found a way to make you laugh. She was observant and attentive too. She’d bring Jesse and you some refreshments and snacks (not because he cared about him, but you. She just needed to be subtle). She was not. You knew that she was into you, and you were into her. You had been trying to let her know, but she didn’t seem to get it. Anyways…

Your favorite was this chocolate bars that she’d buy just for you. They were so sweet… Just what you needed to get through an stressful and tiring day.

“And that’s when I told him that he should totally go for it, it was obvious Dina liked him back.” she laughed, rolling her eyes as she took a bite of her own bit of the chocolate she had brought.

“Shit.” she said, looking at her now stained and sticky fingers. “Do you have a…”

But before she could even ask for a napkin or something to wipe it off you were taking her hand and pushing her fingers inside your mouth to lick it off yourself. Her eyes shot open as your tongue met her skin, and you looked at her, humming at the taste. Maybe you took more time than necessary to leave her clean, but by the way her cheeks had dusted in pink you though she hadn’t mind. Oh she didn’t. Not one bit.

The air was thick around the two of you. You had been slowly throwing hints at her direction. Ellie was hot. And sweet. And you liked her. And you knew she liked you too. So you had decided that since subtle didn’t seem to work…

“Jesse is not in for another 30 minutes…” you said as you popped her fingers out of your mouth.

She cleared her throat, trying to act as if she wasn’t completely soaking her boxers. She liked you too fucking much for her own good.

“Bathroom?” she inquired and you smirked, tugging from her hand not after having turned the ‘open’ sign to ‘closed’.

Her heart was thumping inside her chest as you took her with you to the private bathrooms, and she was moaning as soon as the door was getting closed behind her back, your lips on her neck.

“Shit. You really are thick, aren’t you?” you groaned, one of her hands on your hair and the other on your waist. “Been trying to get you all by myself since weeks ago.” her body was shaking. Shit. Was this a dream?

“Fuck…” she groaned when you sucked on that spot that drove her insane, your hands cupping her tits, free under her white tank top.

“Can I?” you breathlessly said against her lips, your fingers on the button of her jeans. She nodded, not before kissing you. Her kiss was needy, and her tongue was hungry inside your mouth. You moaned, and quickly pushed her pants and boxers down. She did the same with your own and panties.

“Jesus Christ.” she moaned when her hand cupped your cunt. You were soaking wet. Her fingers played with your clit as yours slid through her soaking folds. You two looked like a mess. Making out like teenagers in heat in the first hidden place you could find.

You plunged one of your fingers inside of her cunt. “So tight…” you muttered and she groaned, fucking your pussy with her own as you touched each other. Your lips were on her nipples, sucking and biting. She was going insane.

“Fuck. What are you doing to me?” she sighed, her eyes watering and lips bruises and swollen.

You whimpered when her fingers curled against your g spot. Slick sounds were filling the bathroom as you fucked each other. You were grunting against each other, her lips now on your own neck, sucking bruises as you tugged on her hair. “More.” you begged, and she fucked you harsher, adding a third finger that stretched you out so good it almost hurt. But it hurt so good.

“Fuck. I want to taste you.” she said, and you moaned. “Been wanting to eat you out since the first time I saw you. I’m so fucking close…” she moaned and your eyes rolled to the back of your head.

“Ellie… I’m gonna cum.” you breathlessly said and she kissed you, the two of you moaning into each other’s lips as you tightened around the other’s fingers. You two came with a groan, lazily lapping into each other’s mouth as your cum stained your thighs and fingers.

You fucked each other through it, you were whimpering at her praises. “Good girl. That’s it. Fuck. So good…” you hold onto her, gasping for air as you rode it down.

After a sloppy and slow kiss, she pulled away, caressing your cheek.

“Date?” she inquired with her voice weak and dazed glassy eyes. You smiled before kissing her again.

“My house. 8PM.” and she laughed.

a/n; hope you liked it! <3

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freyito · 5 months

Note

Can you do the type of dates Mk1 guys will take you on?

idk if yall caught on but i absolutely love making these big ass drabbles for everyone... takes so long but its always so worth it. i got like 3 more in the drafts el oh el

cw: gn reader, juuuust fluff, bonus characters!, proofread

ᴛʏᴘᴇꜱ ᴏꜰ ᴅᴀᴛᴇꜱ ᴛʜᴇ ᴋᴏᴍʙᴀᴛ ʙᴏʏꜱ ᴛᴀᴋᴇ ʏᴏᴜ ᴏɴ

⎯ Liu Kang

Need I say it? I'll say it anyways. Stargazing. Liu Kang loves taking you stargazing. He'll take you absolutely anywhere in the world. It does not matter that he's lived under these stars for ages and ages. He enjoys seeing Earthrealm's natural beauty. And the stars, of course.

⎯ Bi-Han

Bi-Han prefers private moments with you, so his favorite date is simply a nice stroll. Sure, he could be lavish and drop a whole bunch of money on you, but he feels like that does not display his love properly. He just likes quality time with you, really. A nice, private dinner with you doesn't sound bad, either... or even ice skating. As cheesy as that is for someone like him.

⎯ Kuai Liang

As much as Kuai tries to be simple, he really loves taking you to festivals. As often as he can, of course that kind of amounts to like eight a year. But he loves them, he loves every single aspect of them. Mainly pampering you and buying you all the food you could want. His favorite festival is actually the Lantern Festival, he loves sending off lanterns with you.

⎯ Johnny Cage

Johnny sets up the most fancy, frivolous, and expensive dates for you, always. Truth be told, however, he really just likes a night in with you. Ordering your favorite take-out, cuddling up on the couch, watching one of his favorite movies- which, surprisingly, isn't one of his! He really loves horror movie nights, too. He chooses the corniest movies, and gets kind of disappointed if you don't AT LEAST squeeze his bicep during the scary parts.

⎯ Kenshi Takahashi

I like to think Kenshi is a good ol' fashioned lover boy. He loves extending the date through the whole day. He starts off with surprising you with flowers in the morning, maybe going on for a nice little stroll, have lunch at a quaint little café, and finish it all off with some dancing. Perhaps in the kitchen, or at a club, whichever you choose. Kenshi is actually terrifyingly good at dancing, he's just smooth like that.

⎯ Kung Lao

Madam Bo's. Breakfast, lunch, or dinner. Are you surprised? No. I know you aren't. Kung Lao loves any date that involves food, but enjoying something as simple and humble as a meal at Madam Bo's specifically has been and always will be his favorite.

⎯ Raiden

Raiden loves picnics! Somewhere in the secluded country-side, just enjoying your time with him. A myriad of home-made appetizers and what not. He believes it's one of the most intimate ways to spend time with you. He also loves to admire the way the sun compliments your figure, as well.

⎯ Zeffeero

Zeffeero seems particularly excited when it rains. Of course. It's in the job description. He urges you in the most nonchalant way for a quick stroll in the rain. Which inevitably leads to dancing in the rain. He tries to keep his composure around you, to look like that respectable wizard all the damn time. But you make him crumble, and he just can't help but giving in to breaking that façade with you.

⎯ Tomas Vrbada

Tomas also loves taking you out for dinner at Madam Bo's. Partially because he still feels guilty. But he loves the food there, and he hopes you do, too. To be honest, any time spent with you is worth it. So when it comes to dates, he doesn't exactly have a go-to or a favorite.

⎯ Baraka

Stargazing. The wastes provide a great space away from any sort of light pollution, and truth be told, Baraka prefers any time away from any populated places with you. He's afraid of the backlash you could get, as well as just the overall fear of spreading Tarkat. He knows his place, really. But those moments, deep in the night, where the stars are the brightest make up for all the worry.

⎯ Geras

Geras kind of has... no concept on dates. Like, none. He's a construct, and he doesn't really know much of the human connection. He's content simply by seeing you- which is kind of all your dates amount to. He's busy regardless, he has to watch over the hourglass.

⎯ Syzoth

Would it sound weird if I said Syzoth really liked hiking...? Aside from just cuddling up with you, he likes to explore. Especially with Earthrealm being so new to him. Being all sort of tucked away in the mountains, just with you, where he's free to transform and explore and enjoy his new-found life and freedom just... sparks something within him.

⎯ Havik

Oh boy. Havik also SUCKS at dates. Given his rowdy and anarchist nature, it's really hard for him to find a proper way to settle down and enjoy the day with you. Aside from naps, he genuinely would like you to tag along with him on all his... excursions. Extreme they may be, dismantling some sort of order with you really makes his heart burn for you.

⎯ Shao Kahn

With his status, it's kind of hard to find proper time to take you out. However, when he does, it's always a stereotypical quiet dinner. He's got some pretty damn connections, and somehow always manages to land the right table. Under the moonlight, just talking about your days. He enjoys those quiet, mundane moments.

⎯ Shang Tsung

A day AND night out shopping is really what Shang Tsung loves. He spoils you (and himself), and he's all chatty while you two walk down the market. He's very observant, actually. Any little thing you so much as spend more than 2 seconds looking at is now in your hands. He loves buying you the little things.

⎯ Reiko

Being second in command to Shao, Reiko kind of knows his way around dancing. He's a soldier, yeah, but especially when he's close to the royalty I imagine there's some sort of luxury he has to uphold. Reiko's not the best at dancing by all means, but whenever some sort of ball event starts in Sun Do, he's bringing you. And he gets better, each time.

⎯ Bonus Points! Takeda Takahashi

KARAOKE. Takeda SUCKS at singing, but it's not about that. It is so fun with him. Getting a break from the Shirai Ryu, his father, the special forces, pulling you to some dive, screaming his heart out to some white girl pop, he loves it. And he loves it when you two do those silly little duets. He could care less about how bad he sings, it's just those moments he gets to let loose with you.

⎯ Bonus Points! Hanzo Hasashi

It may come as a surprise, but Hanzo loves little pottery dates. For a man like him, it seems so unlikely. But it's quiet, and actually needs a lot of focus. That's what he likes about it. It's something calming to do, with his love. And he likes to see what you come up with, especially. He kind of sucks at painting, though. So he'll pass off the bowls or cups he makes for you to paint.

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darkchocoboo · 1 year

Text

El Jefe| Javier Peña

summary: You work for Javier in Bogotá on Cali case. And he offers you a couch to “sleep”.

tw: penetration, p in v sex, oral (f! receiving), little context mostly smut

(I can’t write smut)

( and I'm planning to write p2)

SMUT! Minors DNI!

Part 2

You were focused on the board in front of you like your life depends on it. Your hips on the side of the table. You were standing there like that for over an hour to solve the puzzle you've been working on since you were sent to Colombia. The air was thick and hot. Your white formal shirt buttons were already half open. Sweat sliding between your breast. You were so focused that you didn't even hear Peña walking in. His lighters little sound snapped you into the real world.

"Working late Agent?" You hummed between your lips while massaging your noses bridge.

"If you gonna say something Peña, believe me I'm not in the mood for a fight." You were expecting a mocking reply but instead he handed you a whiskey on the rocks.

"Wow, who are you?"

"Just relax a little," he said while closing the distance and taking of his vest. "Everybody needs a break."

You took a sip from amber colored drink burning feeling washing over your throat.

"Everybody left. Go to your home, sleep agent." He murmured as he sipped his drink.

"Jokes on you Boss. I don't have a home. Yet." You sat down to the chair next to you. Kicking of your heels you forgot you were wearing.

"What?"

"I didn't have time to rent. I was just staying at an hotel. But they kinda kicked me out for being an agent or a gringo, you choose." His hands slipped to his neck. Scrunched his face.

"You know I have a spare couch."

"OH you nasty man trying to take me home. Jokes aside. I can't accept your offer. No." You got up walking past so close to him that your hips almost touched his front. "I have to work on this anyways," you said under your breath.

He was an attractive man. Known as a womanizer. Just being with him in the same room made your skin hot. Maybe it was the smell. Maybe it was because you were in a vulnerable time in your life. You were afraid you would fell into his trap.

"I can't let you stay here all night without sleep, Agent. No. Let's go get some food and sleep. Tomorrow morning we can search for a house. Okey. C'mon." His cigarette was hanging from his fingers losely. You massaged your nose bridge. After short seconds you were in his car nibbling on the food he got you. You moaned low.

"That's some good shit."

Your low moaning twitched something inside him. He was watching you with a side eye while driving to his place. Your legs in your mini skirt was glistening with light coat of sweat. Bogotá was indeed hot that time of the year. Your hair was in a lose bun low on back your neck. Leaving your neck open. White shirt on you was tight, just like the skirt. Your make up was smudged a little after the day you had at the office, your under eye bags showing. They were dark because the lack of your sleep.

You were working with/for Peña for over a month now. When you walked in to Peña's room the first day you started he thought you were just there for the money but he saw how focused you were over the time. You were focused on the job. That definitely catch Peńa's attention. Longer he watched you work, longer he wondered about different things about you. Your interests, your drink of choice, your favorite music, the color of your underwear.

"Done checking me out Peña?" He snapped in the reality with your words.

"What?"

"You missed two red lights." He sighed.

"Just tired." He took a sharp turn. Killed the engine.

"That's us." Walked into the building. Keys clinging at the door to his apartment. His apartment was neat. Well decorated. You didn't expected a place like this. He walked to the couch. Dropping his body like a bag.

"Make yourself at home sugar."

You went to the bathroom to change. When you walked in to the living room you saw him in his white t-shirt that was clearly too small for him. His little beer belly was showing and the fabric around his biceps was looking like it was gonna explode if he makes a wrong move. You wish he would. He looked at your side and checked you out like it was his first time seeing you. In your spagetti stap top an your little short that made his cock throbe under his clothes.

"Beer?" He handed you a cold one while he sat next to you in the couch.

Your bodies so close that you felt his heat washing you. He smelled like cigarettes and fresh woods that made your head spin. You took a sip from the bottle. The way your lips touched the bottle made him ache.

His hands walked to your cheeks, his thumb brushing your cheekbone. He got closer and closer to you in seconds. His handsome face stopping so close to yours, breaths lacking your face.

"So, cariño, " The way he speaks, tone of his voice... You slowly turned your body to him. Eyes slightly shut with the atmosphere around you two. "What'u gonna do about house?" You couldn't put words together, just let out a sigh and shake your head in unknown.

"I don't wanna think about it right now." Your lips touching with every word you say. Next thing you know is his lips on yours. Passion was the only word to describe it. Like he was burning internally. Hand run down on your shoulder. Grabbed hard like he’s never gonna let you go. Other on your waist, cold from his fingers gave your exposed skin goosebumps. You moaned into his mouth while the kiss got deeper. You grabbed his hair in need. Pulling his dark curls.

Something inside you was constantly whispering that what you’re doing was wrong. Fucking your boss. But the other side, it was crazy for his touch and needed him between your legs, inside you. Wrecking you to a mess. It was wrong but it felt hella fine. You did nothing to stop.

His lips traced an invisible line to your boobs. Ripping the top to leave you naked. He flicked your nipple with his rough tongue. Your nails digging into his scalp more. Moans coming out of your mouth like it was a sacred song. Filling his ears and making him want you more. He left your skin for a moment, looked into your eyes between his long lashes with eyes that hazed from desire.

Your head falled back. Breathing heavily. He got up, undressed in matter of seconds. His hard cock was thick. Thickest you saw in your entire life to be honest. You stared at it for to long apparently he let out a chuckle.

“You like what u saw baby? Want it?” An approving moan filled the room. He got onto his knees.

“Not yet.” His hand grabbed the waist of your shorts and took it off in a fluid motion. Your lace panties following it to the floor.

His lips were exploring your inner thighs. Taking deep breaths inhaling your intoxicating smell.

“Javier, please.” His teeth digging in to your skin, leaving marks.

Your hands found his hair one more time pressing him into your core.

“Good girl. All wet for me.” His trigger finger find your core parting it.

“S’good, corazon. You look beautiful.” His hot breath hitting your exposed and sensitive core with every word he says. Next, it was his tongue, sending shivers up to your body.

“Javi,” He smiled against your skin. His tongue giving you kitten licks, his soft lips pressing your nub and pulling it. A finger went in. And then another followed it. Feeling his fingers inside made you ache for him more. Long fingers brushing your deep spots you never new existed. Clit throbing under his tongue made his mouth water. Wet sounds coming from your core and his finger was filling the room.

Air was thick and smelled like both of you. Stray curls got stuck on his forehead with sweat.

A knot in your belly was getting tighter with every move his tongue did.

“Javier, I’m,” His fingers got faster when you moaned.

“Yeah, baby. Tell me what u want.”

“I’m gonna, gonna cum, please.” His fingers didn’t leave your insides, never slowed down. He leaned to you. Lips touching.

“Cum baby. Cum on my fingers.” His thumb massaged yor nub. You could taste yourself on his lips when you licked his lips with hunger. Your climax getting closer and closer. Your walls tightening around them fingers.

You bit his bottom lip when your high hit you. Your thights started to shake as you clasped his hands between yor legs. In want to feel him deeper in your core. Room started to rotate with the feeling. Juices coming out of you left wet spots on his couch. Your breaths mixing together as you tried to help yourself come together. You looked at him with watery eyes, your mascara runing down on your cheeks.

His hard cock hitting your belly lit another fire inside you.

Legs hugging his waist as you pulled him for a kiss. He used that to grab you from your ass and started to carry you to his bedroom. Never breaking the kiss.

“S’wet Agent. Only if I knew,” You didn’t let him talk, covering his lips with yours. Leaving wet kisses and kitten licks as he sat on the bed.

Dim light from the street light was hitting his face. His skin was glistening with sweat, eyes nearly shut with the feeling of your wet pussy on his lap.

“Beautiful,” you said unconsciously under your breath. He smiled across your lips.

“Yeah.” You started grinding to his lap, hips rotating slowly. He groaned as you kept moving. He reached out to his bedside table for a condom. Gave it to you as he falled back.

You stroke him, his precum spreading all over, your juices from earlier as well.

“You’re doing so well baby.” He whimpered as your hand kept stroking his cock.

“¿Sí, jefe?” Javier’s cock twitched under your touch.

“Don’t call me boss like it doesn’t turn you on.” You felt his climax raising under your hand. Your hand stopped, you put on the condom as you lined him on your entrance. He groaned.

“Corazón-mmh.” You slowly sank on his length as his groans got louder, turning into moans.

The feeling of him streching your walls was something else. Made the knot in your belly thighter. Burning so good that your head spins.

“Javi~” you kept moaning his name as you jumped on him.

“Yeah baby, like that.” His hands on your waist slapped your as, burning feeling washed over your body. His fingers left a red mark on your ass. Squeezing where he hit you. Hard enough to mark you.

He raised from the bed and hugged you, chest to chest. His lips kissing your thin skin, wanting to get under your skin.

“Javi” He turned our back to bed, hovering over you on his arms. His eyes burning with desire.

He moved his hips as lips find yours. Pumping into you as his pace got faster.

“Javier, please.”

“Yeah, baby. So good. Doin’ so well.” He kept chewing on your skin. Like he wanted to mark you, like he wants everybody to know you were his.

You felt your end growing inside your lower belly as his thrusts got sloppy and out of rhythm.

“YN, baby. I’m,”

“Yeah, Javi, me too. Keep going. Right there.” His groans got louder as you walls were thightening around him. His forehead fell over yours. His hot breath hitting your face.

“Baby” He didn’t let your words to end by kissing your lips as he cums inside you. Your walls milking the last drop of his cum as you came with him.

“S’good, Agent. S’good for me.” He fell on top of you as his weight crushing you to bed. Leaving small kisses all over your face.

“Let’s sleep Agent. We have work to do tomorrow.”

#javier pena #javier pena smut #pedro pascal #pedro pascal smut #pedro pascal fanfiction #narcos #javier pena x y/n #javier pena narcos #javier pena x reader #javier pena x you

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lovebugism · 1 year

Note

hiii idk if you’re still taking requests but can you do something smutty with steve in season 3 w his scoops ahoy uniform on after he gets home from work or something🙏🏼🙏🏼

like sub!babygirl!steve is so 🤤🤤😽😽 and a

dom!femreader 🫶❤️❤️ AND OMG HE HAS A MOMMY KINK😧😧 I BEG OF YOU

✶ ┄ OH, BABY !

summary: after a long day at work, steve harrington needs someone (*cough cough* you) to take care of him. pairing: sub!steve harrington / f!reader word count: 5.6k warnings: sub!steve, brief use of a mommy kink, r calls steve daddy like twice i think, mention of a breeding kink, 18+ mdni (ignore any typos, i am way too tired to proofread <3) a/n: hi, it's me again, turning a blurb request into a full length fic. also i can't stop writing for sub steve apparently. all i can say is baby girl is baby girlin real hard in this one lol thanks so much for your request! enjoy xoxo

( BLURB SLEEPOVER ) | ( MASTERLIST )

It’s sunset by the time his shift at Scoops concludes. He serves the last few remaining customers while Robin less than kindly ushers out the loitering teenagers that have stuck around all day.

A group of moms clad in vividly colored spandex tells him “we’re being bad today” like some sort of mantra that makes them feel better about ordering plain vanilla ice cream. Some middle school aged girls with a mouthful of braces, crimped hair in pigtails, and absolutely wreaking of fruity perfume and daddy’s money try helplessly to flirt with him while they use a matte black card to purchase a banana boat sundae.

His last customers of the night are an old married couple, all gray and wrinkly and smiling like life’s still so new to them. They order one strawberry cone to share between them and hold onto each other’s shaking, frail hands as they make their exit.

Steve smiles as he watches them go. He sees a lot of you and him in them. He hopes by the time you both are all old and brittle, you’ll still be happy like that, still so in love.

Working in the downstairs abyss of Starcourt makes him feel crazy sometimes. With no windows and only manufactured fluorescent lighting for ten hours straight, it makes time feel less and less real.

Sometimes he’ll be in before sun out and cower like some sort of vampire when his shift is over. Other times, he’ll come out when it’s pouring down rain and be absolutely baffled at the sight of it because it was perfectly sunny when his shift started.

Everything else but ice cream all but ceases to exist in the hole of Scoops Ahoy — weather, time, life.

Even though it’s closing when he leaves, Steve doesn’t realize how dark it’s gotten outside until he’s walking through the desolate parking lot to his car. The bustling mall has fallen asleep with the rest of the town. The sky has long turned to a navy velvet, the stars and full moon bright white silk.

It makes his limbs heavy and his eyelids heavier as his tired bones ache for rest.

Steve makes the longer drive out to the cabin rather than his own home to see you. Hopper’s out for some conference which means El gets to spend every ounce of her time at the Wheeler’s and you and Steve get to play house.

He doesn’t bother to knock before he comes in. He shuffles through the entrance like his feet are made of lead and leans his weight against the door after he clicks it closed.

The sound of his arrival gets your attention from where you scurry around the kitchen. A smile pulls slowly at your face as you turn over your shoulder to look at him, placing a cover over a pot of something that smells like your infamous chicken alfredo.

“Hey, Stevie,” you greet with a beam and a sort of sunshine in your voice that Steve’s been missing all day.

His body relaxes for the first time since he got up this morning at the sight of you, freshly showered and in your pajamas for the night — an oversized t-shirt that definitely didn’t belong to you before, because it used to be his.

You look more like home than any four walls could ever be to him.

Steve tries his best to give you a smile in return, but it’s weighed down by fatigue and not all there.

You can see it all over him, every ounce of exhaustion on his lax and tired features. Slinging ice cream for less than grateful customers for ten hours straight has taken an obvious toll on him. The bright blue sailor’s uniform makes him look more boyish, but no less tired — or hot.

Your heart swells at how cozy he looks, fatigued and warmed and in dire need of being taken care of. It makes you glad that you started dinner earlier than normal, even happier that you’ve got the house to yourselves.

You exit the kitchen and walk the short distance to him, taking his scruffy cheeks in your palms and rubbing your thumbs against his cheeks.

“Hard day?” you wonder softly and smile to himself when you feel Steve nestle further into your touch.

The boy hums lowly in reply — neither a yes or a no, but a short hmph that means he doesn’t want to talk about it now. He doesn’t like thinking about work when you’re in his arms and all over him. He’d rather pretend like you’re the only thing that exists and let the rest of the world slip slowly away.

He turns his face to kiss the inside of your wrists. You smell like lavender, he finds, and it makes him that much more tired and needy for you.

His hands settle on your arms, fingers wrapping themselves just below your wrists. “Just tired,” he answers finally. “How was your day?”

“Better than yours, I’m assuming,” you quip with a smile. Your hands drag from his face, down the tense columns of his neck, and settle at the white lapel of his uniform. Steve lets you pull him down by his red neckerchief until his lips press against yours, the pillows of them far cozier than the bed and blanket he so craves right now.

He grows somehow heavier against you. He exhales deeply through his nose as his aching muscles start to relax, the warmth of it brushes against your cupid’s bow. His hands fall to your back and ball into your shirt as he clutches so ardently onto you, as though terrified he might have to go another agonizing ten hours without you.

Your smile contorts against his mouth. A laugh exhales sharply through your nose at this tired boy, exhausted and too willing to let you swallow him whole.

As much as you want to take care of you him, you want him to get a little food in his belly and fresh clothes on his skin.

He’s got freshly laundered cottons sitting in a drawer you cleaned out in your room especially for him and a pot of his favorite food simmering on the stove. He’ll be golden in an hour or more and you’ll happily take care of him then.

Steve whines when you pull away from him. The pathetic sound bubbles from his throat and his face screws up like you’ve actually pained him by not kissing him more. He ducks down, looming over you, as his lips chase yours.

You giggle at him, letting him kiss you — one, two, three quick pecks and a fourth sweeter, more drawn-out one he presses against you as the two of you stumble back into the living room.

“You need to eat first, okay?” you protest when you part from him again, lips clicking wetly as they separate. “You probably haven’t had anything all day.”

“I had half a banana in the break room at lunch,” he retorts, half-heartedly.

“Exactly,” you scold. “Go get changed and then we can eat, ‘kay?”

“If you wanted to see me naked so bad, you could’ve just said.”

You roll your eyes at him and how he’s still so sly despite being so damn tired. You push playfully against his chest and squirm out from under where he’d cornered you between his body and the back of the couch. “You smell like a sundae and cheap cologne—”

“Blame those assholes from Abercrombie.”

“—hit the showers, Harrington,” you tell him with a playful sternness, swatting him on the ass as you pass by him.

The action stopped surprising him a long time ago. He’d complained relentlessly about corporate and the stupid outfit they made him wear to work every morning until he realized how much you liked it.

After that, Steve figured he could put up with the itching and the chaffing and the weird stares from other mall-goers. As long as it meant you being unable to keep your hands off of him, dropping to your knees in front of him before he left for work, visiting him at lunch because you just had to see him again.

“You comin’ too, or…?” he jokes in reply, already inching towards the bathroom, but secretly hoping you’ll say yes.

You refuse to amuse him, though, and instead tell him that you have to keep stirring the pasta so it won’t burn. He’s too tired and too excited to wash all the muck of the long workday from his body to beg.

You knew just what he needed — like you always do. He’s as good as gold by the time he gets out of the shower, smelling of your shampoo and practically glittering at how good he feels.

His skin gets to breathe for the first time all day when he slips on a pair of boxers and a faded forest green Hawkins High sweatshirt. They’re freshly washed. He can tell by how soft they feel and the way they smell of fresh detergent.

It makes his heart swell.

While he’s been slinging ice cream and questioning all of his life choices, you’ve been washing his clothes, folding them and putting the in their own drawer in your dresser. You’ve been cooking him his favorite dinner, knowing he hasn’t eaten all day, because you know everything about him.

You do it all because you love him. You don’t have to think twice about it before you so effortlessly take care of him.

He swears you’ll feed him if he begs hard enough, but Steve hasn’t reached that level of tiredness yet. He does, however, force you to sit halfway in his lap while the both of you opt to eat on the couch in the living room rather than the kitchen table.

A repeat of Miami Vice plays on the tiny television across the room and you tell him about what you’d done on your day off in between shoveling forkfuls of pasta into your mouth with your legs slung into his lap.

Most of it was spent taking care of chores, a feat made harder without Hopper and El to take on the extra workloads but easier because their absence meant less shit to get done.

You drove Dustin and Lucas to the Wheeler’s house later that morning, then doubled back across Hawkins when Max called and all but begged you to free her from the hellscape on Cherry Lane, as she so lovingly put it. You picked her up and dropped her off with the rest of her friends.

And even though they all swore they had rides back home, they’d called again some hours later and asked too sweetly if you could take them back across town.

You complain and grumble about it, but you do it for them anyway.

Because you take care of people. That’s just what you do.

“So you were a personal chauffeur for a bunch of kids all day?” Steve jokes and laughs to himself as he swipes a smudge of alfredo sauce from your chin with his thumb

“Basically,” you nod in reply.

When that’s all done — and the episode is over and the dishes are in the sink and your teeth are freshly brushed — you tell Steve to get into bed, and then to get his head out of the gutter at the look he gives you after.

He’s pleasantly surprised when you bring a whole basket of things from the bathroom and into your bedroom. He watches silently, obediently, as you light a candle on the far side of the room before climbing into bed beside him.

“Scoot down a little,” you tell him. “And take off your shirt.”

He does it all without question. He rises, strips himself of his top, and tosses the thing mindlessly on the floor beside the bed. With his lean torso and bare chest on display, spotted with tufts of chestnut-colored hair and smelling of your body wash, he lazes back onto the bed again with his head on the pillows.

Steve holds his breathe when you straddle his chest.

“Comfy?” you ask him quietly.

He can only nod in response.

His eyes are wide, twinkling with love and curiosity. It makes you smile. He’s always so soft in his way, so compliant with you — and, fuck, if you don’t love how he looks when he’s underneath you.

You lean down to press a chaste kiss to the chiseled tip of his nose then reach for one of the many bottles stacked inside the wicker basket. You drip the rose-scented liquid onto a cottonpad and tell him that it’s cleanser.

“I thought I was already clean?” he retorts.

“Well, this shit is gonna make ya glow like a baby, Harrington,” you tell him and swipe the stuff up and down his face — across his forehead, along his nose, and around his stubbly jaw. “Which means it’s perfect for you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Means you’re a baby,” you quip once, then smile lovingly down at him. “My baby,” you correct.

“Damn straight,” he hums with a soft smile, then shuts his eyes when you trade the cleanser for what you call a liquid exfoliator. He doesn’t ask what that means. He doesn’t say much of anything really, because he’s enamored with the way you dote on him.

Your day has been just as busy as his, maybe not as mind-numbing, but still busy. You’ve been bouncing all across town, trying to make sure a bunch of kids weren’t putting themselves in total danger — Steve knows firsthand how hard that can be.

And yet, you keep caring for him, like it’s more important than how tired you must be.

The way you’ve settled on top of him is just a bonus. It’s not as domineering as you usually are in this position, straddling your legs over him and forcing his face between your legs with your fingers tangled in his hair. He wouldn’t have minded if that’s what you’d done in the first place. He would’ve thanked you for it, really.

It’s comforting more than it is anything, the subtle weight of you on top of him, keeping him grounded.

You rub something that feels like lotion into his skin. The tips of your fingers massage his face — they dig softly into his temples, relieving all the strain there, then trace around his curve of his jaw. Steve sighs and melts into your touch. It makes you laugh.

“Look at you,” you giggle, all soft like the moonlight streaming in rays from the windows. Then you tease him. “My baby’s gettin’ all pampered tonight, huh?”

“That stuff smells really good,” he notes. “Think it’s safe enough to taste?”

You know he’s joking, but you flick him in the center of his freshly moisturized forehead anyway, when his tongue darts out the side of his mouth to lick around his lips.

“You’re such an idiot,” you scold with a laugh. “There’s no way we’re gonna be able to have a kid if you keep acting like one, Steve Harrington.”

The boy's eyes fly open. “…A kid?” he repeats in something short of a whisper.

You only hum in reply with a little shrug like you’re trying to play it all off. Like you didn’t just drop the biggest bomb on him and left him to pick up the pieces. Like it isn't the sweetest goddamn thing he’s ever heard in his life (even though you are sort of making fun of him).

“You want a kid with me?” he presses, eyes sparkling and full of hope.

“‘Course I do,” you shrug again, focusing on capping the moisturizer and putting it away rather than meeting his intense gaze. “Want anything and everything with you, Stevie.”

The boy doesn’t bother to hide the grin your words put on his face. He’s all but beaming from where he lays beneath you, trying to make sure he’s still breathing because his heart has started to flutter something fierce.

It was something the two of you only ever talked about in passing — usually him bringing up the idea of having kids and you swatting them all down.

“We’re too young,” you tell him. “We’re too broke”, “we’re too dumb.” The occasional “my dad is literally in the next room, he’ll kill you if he hears you talking like that” shuts him up real quick.

But here you are now, telling him you want a baby with him, that you want everything with him. It drives him absolutely insane.

“Yeah?” he hums in response, idle hands rising and settling upon your bare thighs, rubbing at the smooth skin there, petting you almost. The room gets suddenly and unbearably hot with the look he gives you, innocent and knowing and hungry.

You feel him shift from underneath you, the hardening cock in his boxers making it hard to stay as comfortable as he had been.

“You wanna be a mommy, honey?” he all but coos. “Wanna take care of our kids like you take care of me?”

Though his words set a fire in the pit of your stomach, the tone of them makes you roll your eyes. It’s like flipping a light switch when it comes to Steve. It takes next to nothing to turn him into a puddle of mush.

He’s always raring to go when it comes to you, and you’d be lying if you said it was totally invigorating.

“What happened to my sweet, sleepy, baby Stevie, huh?” you tease, hands leaving his face to caress the ones he’s got resting on your thighs. “Thought you were too tired?”

He shakes his head defiantly. “Never too tired for you.”

“I’m supposed to be taking care of you,” you scold with bubbly laughter when you feel his large hands trail up your legs. His finger falls beneath your shirt, the tips of them sneaking into the rounded hems of your underwear, all but cupping your ass to drag you further up his chest.

He’s practically salivating at the mere thought of tasting you. Of knowing that the only thing separating you from him is a couple of inches and the thin fabric of your underwear.

He knows that when he slides them to the side, you’ll be wet and needing him underneath, slick enough for his tongue to slip right in.

And, truth be told, oral sex wasn’t the easiest when you weren’t alone. It was too precarious of a position. If Hopper knocked on the door and barged in hardly a moment later, you needed to break away quickly.

So when your dad and little sister were home, it was easier to use your hands to get each other off. And, maybe, if Steve was real good, you’d let him fuck you.

But his mouth on you? There wasn’t enough good he could be for you to let him do that, not when your father was on the other side of the door in the living room. Because you’re pretty sure death would be easier than your dad catching Steve Harrington giving cunnilingus to his daughter. You’re pretty sure you’d die on the spot, anyway.

But Hopper is miles away. Your sister is on the other side of town. And you’re alone with your boyfriend, hidden away in a cabin in the middle of the woods. It’s the perfect recipe for the best sex of your life.

“Don’t care,” Steve murmurs, pressing kisses to the inner parts of your thigh when he settles you more intently over his shoulders. “Wanna make you feel good.”

“Yeah?” you croon. From below you, the boy notes the arched brow and knowing glint in your eye that usually means trouble. “Daddy wants to make mommy feel good, huh?”

Steve knows exactly why you said it. Why you chose to say it like that. It’s the same reason you brought up the kid thing in the first place. Because you knew it would drive him crazy.

And it’s not like you ever had to try to make him mental, all you really had to do was walk into a room and he was done for. But you didn’t just want to just make him go insane, you wanted to ruin him.

And you know you’ve done just that when a groan spills from his mouth and two strong hands dig rather ruthlessly into your hips. He pulls you down without warning, pressing your clothed pussy closer to his face and dragging his nose between your covered lips. A moan leaves your mouth in a heavy exhale when the tip of it nudges your clit.

“Like being called daddy, huh?” you tease through bated breaths.

Steve nods in reply as he hooks a finger through the hem of your panties and slides them to the side, putting your pretty, glistening pussy on display for him.

He was right about what he said before — you were soaked.

All but drunk on the sight of you, he presses open-mouthed kisses to your inner thigh. “Like the other thing, too,” he mumbles against your skin, like he’s hiding himself there.

“The other thing?” you question with pinched brows. The confusion ebbs like a rolling tide as you realize: “Oh. You wanna call me mommy, Stevie?” you ask with a joking lilt.

“Shut up,” he groans against you.

He’s pleasantly surprised when your hand grabs the strands of his hair like reigns, pulling him back just before he puts his mouth on your pussy. He’s even more stunned at the stern expression taking over your features, not nearly as playful as you’d been moments before.

Suddenly you’re ten feet tall, and he’s nothing more than an ant, at the mercy of your boot.

“That’s no way to talk to your mommy, is it, Stevie?”

He shakes his head with glazed over eyes. “Sorry.”

“Sorry… what?”

There is an underlying tone in your voice, something teasing and yet somehow serious all at once. It’d make him roll his eyes if he weren’t lying beneath you like this. Now, with your pussy mere inches from his face, he isn’t quite sure how to be anything but obedient.

“Sorry, mommy,” he corrects.

A flip switches and you’re smiling again. “Good boy,” you praise and it makes his cock twitch in the confines of his boxers. Your hand guides him to your pussy again.

Steve’s always been good at oral. A little too good, actually. It made you jealous sometimes, to know that his technique has been perfected over years of experience.

“All the other girls were just practice for you, honey,” he’d soothe your seething rage with a wink and a tongue shoved deep into your cunt.

You believe him now, that every other girl was just an obstacle for him to get to you, because no one’s had him like this. No one will ever have him like this.

You’re the one who’s got him on his back with his mouth on your pussy. You’re the one who’s got him calling you mommy.

And it makes you feel like a fucking giant.

He wastes little time to envelope your cunt with his mouth. You feel the muffled grunt he lets out at the tangy and familiar taste of you. His tongue pushes into your cunt, licking you with the intent of devouring you entirely. His nose presses intently against your clit, prodding the little button as you ride his face. He encourages every thrust, guiding your hips up and down his mouth.

“Fuck, Stevie,” you whine and feel him smile drunkenly against your pussy, never ceasing his assault against your sensitive skin.

Your head falls back, suddenly too heavy to hold up. Your gaze settles on the ceiling, though you’re not exactly looking at it, and moans fall from your open mouth and into the heavy air — billowing laments in the moonlight.

“You make me feel so good,” you murmur to yourself, but to him especially, knowing he turns into a ticking time bomb when he’s praised. “Always make mommy feel so fucking good, baby.”

He groans against you, and it makes your hips twitch over his face.

Your head turns and your glazed over eyes fall on the hard cock trapped in his underwear. It’s more than apparent against the thin fabric with a wet patch of precum darkening the plaid cotton. The sight of it, paired with his lips wrapped around your clit, makes you moan most pitifully.

“Fuck, Steve,” you cry. “You’re gonna make me come. Holy shit, baby— gonna come so hard in your mouth.” The promise makes Steve double his efforts against you, wanting nothing more than to taste every drop you can give him. “I’ll ride you after, 'kay? Make you come so hard you can’t see straight. Fuck. I’m so fucking close.”

You figure his muffled whine is an affirmative.

“If you make me come now, maybe I’ll let you come inside me—”

You barely get to finish your sentence before Steve’s wrapping his arms around your thighs and keeping you pressed against his face. His tongue works overtime inside of your cunt, attentively flicking against every part of your velvet walls that it can reach, while his nose nudges your clit most relentlessly.

It has you reaching your climax within seconds, hips jerking against him while his hold on you tightens. Steve only lets you go when he’s certain you’ve ridden out every inch of your orgasm.

You’re shaking and half-numb when you unfold your body from his and settle next to him on the bed. You press yourself over him as your lips swallow his, tasting yourself on his mouth that glistens with you.

Your torso is splayed over his bare one, knees digging into the mattress at his side as you arch your back to push yourself further into him.

“Was that good for you?” he mutters after you’ve pulled away, sliding the tip of your nose up and down the bridge of his.

A laugh escapes you in a sharp scoff. If he couldn’t have felt how good it was for you — after you all but writhed against him — surely he must’ve tasted it dripping like honey from your cunt.

“It’s always good,” you assure him, then murmur more quietly, “Always so good for mommy.”

You keep the promise you’d made him no more than minutes beforehand. You pull down his boxers at the same time he’s trying to get you out of your shirt, and it’s just a mess of yearning limbs until the both of you are naked.

You rub yourself over his cock a few times, getting it all slick with you in the place of lube, because you know taking him is never an easy feat. The stretch of his dick inside you is always delicious but fuck if it doesn’t burn. It’s like fire in every sense of the word, hot and filthy paired with a distant ache.

Steve lets you set the pace as you get used to his length nestled deep inside your velvet. His hands rest compliantly on your hips as you grind against him, honeyed gaze fixed on your fucked out features as you take him — brows pinched, eyes squeezed shut, bottom lip trapped between your teeth.

Then, when every inch of him is snug in your cunt and your senses return to you, you deny him of his want to touch you. Your fingers wrap around his wrists and push them into the pillow on either side of his head. “Mommy didn’t say you could touch her, did she?” you purr to him as you lean over him. He shakes his head obediently, if only it meant that you kept fucking yourself on top of him.

And you do. Most ardently.

You keep your bare chest pressed against his fuzzy one, nose-to-nose as you slide your hips over his. And even though he’s had you like this before (in this position and many others), it feels brand new every time. It’s like he’s never felt you before despite how familiar you feel.

It triggers his body into a sense of fight of flight, as though frightened he’ll never get to have you again. It leaves him fucking you like it’ll be the last time he’s inside you, every fucking time.

It never is, though — obviously. Most times he only has to wait a couple minutes or more before he gets to take you again.

But now, with his hands balled into fists beside his head and your’s braced on his chest, digging into the patch of hair there as you rock back and forth on his hard cock — the tip of it nestled deep inside of you and hitting every sweet spot that makes you keen — has left him an absolute wreck beneath you.

He’s chasing his pleasure like he’s never felt it before. Like he won’t feel it again.

“Your cock feels so good, Stevie,” you moan above him.

“‘M not gonna last long, baby,” he mutters between harsh and labored pants.

“’S okay… I want you to come,” you promise and press a too sweet kiss to his swollen, pink lips. You move your hips more intently over him. The sound of skin slapping against skin fills your bedroom. “Want you to fill me up.”

“Yeah?” he breathes out in something short of a whimper. His eyes are glassy and his brows are furrowed and it takes everything in him not to fuck up into you — because he wants to be good, he wants to be good for you.

“Yeah… Want you come in me… Fuck me until it takes,” you babble over top of him, knowing exactly what it’s doing to the whining boy beneath you. “Wanna give you a baby— fuck— I wanna make you a daddy, Stevie.”

A whine spills from his throat. His toes curl into the fabric of your comforter, eyes rolling back into his head, body tensing as he digs his fingers into the skin of his palms that still ache to touch you.

Your name spills from his mouth along with a string of curses and pretty little cries when he stuffs you full of his come.

You happily accept every load he shoots into you as work him through every aftershock of his orgasm. Yours doesn’t come so easy — you roll your hips over yourself and rub your clit until you’re twitching right along with him.

You come down from your highs together with a tender softness. You lay over him, one hand combing through his curls and the other stroking softly at his sweat-slicked bicep. You watch with heavy eyes as his orgasm rolls over him.

His chest rises and falls with every heavy breath, stuttering when another pang of pleasure hits him all of a sudden. “Fuck,” he whines harshly into the heavy air.

He’s happy you don’t deny him when his arms wrap around your waist, hands rubbing up and down the expanse of your slick back.

You press tiny kisses to his face as he comes down — his nose, his cheeks, his forehead his stubbly chin and jaw. You press one, two, three pecks to his lips before you slide off of him, then laugh when he whines.

You’re gone for hardly more than three minutes, but to Steve, it feels like an eternity’s gone by.

You return from the bathroom, wiped freshly clean, and blow out the nearly burnt-out candle on your dresser before you slither back into his side. One of his arms curls beneath your shoulders to pull you closer to him with his other rests on the back of yours that’s settled on his chest.

You share one pillow, noses inches away from one another’s, while you bask in the warm moment and the sex-coated air around you before you have to break it.

“You know I’m still on the pill, right?” you ask him.

He nods.

“And that we’re—”

“Way too young to have a kid right now?” he finishes for you, though the idea makes him sad. He nods.

“Yeah… And—”

“Too broke? I know that too.”

“Also my—”

“Your dad would kill me if I got you pregnant?”

It makes you laugh. You hadn’t realized you’d talked about having kids this many times — at least, not enough for him to memorize all the reasons why it’s not the best idea right now.

“Yeah, I know it’s not happening any time soon,” Steve says with a sigh. “I like to pretend, though. Plus, it’s not even about that to me, you know? I just… I just like being with you and… everything.”

Everything, you repeat to yourself. A word that means so much and nothing at all.

No one knows what everything means, they just know that it’s a lot, a whole lot. That’s what makes it so special. Steve wants it all with you — the overbearing dad, the sister with powers, the teenage kids who never let you have a single second to yourselves when they’re around.

It’s a lot sometimes, most times, but he’ll weather it all with you.

“You like being with me?” you echo just to see him nod.

He does. “I love being with you,” he corrects.

“Love calling me mommy, too, huh?”

He realizes then, the sincere moment was just a set-up for that stupid joke. He groans and flops his head back on the pillow, but makes no move to distance himself from you.

“Oh, my god,” he moans in annoyance. “Am I gonna have to deal with this the rest of my life?”

You nod. “Sorry, Harrington, but I’m never letting that shit go.”

Good, he thinks to himself, even though he pretends to hate it because it makes you laugh. He never wants you to stop.

#published by bug #stranger things x reader #steve harrington x reader #steve harrington smut #steve harrington imagine #steve harrington fic #stranger things imagine #steve harrington #stranger things #stevie oneshot #st oneshots

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judasofsuburbia · 9 months

Text

it's a bad idea, right?

steddie toxic exes au. based off olivia rodrigo's new song.

“Shut it off,” Eddie whines groggily into Steve's ear.

Steve's eyes open up to the incessant ringing of his phone. He reaches over to pick it up off the nightstand, effectively getting out of Eddie's grasp. Eddie makes a disgruntled noise but doesn't protest further.

It's Robin.

“Oh shit,” Steve grumbles as he sits up completely and answers it.

“Dingus! You're up, oh my god, finally. The girls and I are ready for the museum thing whenever you are. Though, I suggest that we go like right now because the lines are gonna get ridiculous and we're most definitely going to hit traffic going into the city and who knows if the teens have eaten anything so we might have to stop at McDonald's too. I have enough to get a bunch of sausage biscuits, could you cover the coffees? Maybe El is responsible and has money but I don't trust that Erica and Max do. I'll make sure they don't get any fancy frappes or anything—”

Robin continues at a mile a minute and Steve's brain is trying desperately to catch up. He rubs a hand over his tired eyes and sighs.

“I can probably bus to your house if that would be easier.”

That gets Steve's attention. His eyes shoot open as he says, “No, no Robin. I'll come get you. Don't even worry about it.”

“Oh, okay,” Robin agrees easily. “You good dude? Sleep like the dead last night?”

“Something like that,” Steve grumbles. “Look I'm gonna need like half an hour to get ready. I'll text you when I'm near your apartment.”

“It's just a Wonder Woman exhibit. Don't get fussy with your outfit.”

“Uh huh, okay,” Steve replies. He starts to roll out of bed but Eddie catches him, yanking him closer.

“Where do you think you're going?” Eddie rasps, sending shivers down Steve's spine. He couldn't get wrapped up in that too long though because all he hears is Robin's responding gasp through the receiver.

“Half an hour, love you, bye!” Steve shouts, hanging up hurriedly.

Eddie chuckles into Steve's neck, successful in pulling Steve back into his hold. Steve's weak to do anything but sink into it.

“You haven't told them, have you?” Eddie asks, pressing a kiss to the back of Steve's neck.

“There's nothing to tell,” Steve argues.

Eddie laughs again, dragging Steve's ear lobe with his teeth. “You keep telling yourself that, sweetheart.”

Steve does manage to get out of Eddie's apartment and back home in time to slip on some clean clothes, spritz himself in cologne, and get out of the door. Thank fuck for fall because the turtleneck he grabs covers the number Eddie did on his neck. He wishes he could get the phantom press of his lips and teeth out of his head.

He picks up the teenagers first. They're easy because they all were spending the night at the Sinclairs. He thought he could put off his death a little bit longer. He was wrong.

The girls are giggling as they clamor into the backseat and Steve is immediately on edge.

“You're so fucking dead, dude,” Max declares as Steve backs out of the driveway.

Steve smiles tightly at her through the rearview mirror. “And who said anything to you?”

The girls are giggling again. It grates every nerve in Steve's body.

“Mike overheard Nancy and Robin on the phone. He texted us. It probably wasn't very nice,” El says, at least sounding a little bit guilty. Steve shoots her a sympathetic look.

It's not her fault he fucked up, again.

“Great,” Steve grits. “That's fucking fantastic.”

Steve pulls up to Robin's apartment, tense and seconds away from wincing when he sees her stomp out the front door. She plops into the front seat and the whole car goes quiet.

“You look nice,” Steve tries.

“Breakfast is on you,” Robin replies.

“Yeah, I figured,” Steve mumbles.

Everyone is happily sipping their fancy frappes. Everyone except Robin of course who has managed to not dig into him in front of the teens but he knows it's coming. Like a storm about to brew.

Steve tries not to think about how Eddie tasted like caramel as they made out because he's quit smoking and sucks on candies instead. He's torturing himself with the caramel frappe in his hand but he can't help it. He craves it more than he should.

They get their tickets and the teens run ahead of them, checking out all the cool displays. Steve starts to walk in front of Robin but he gets yanked back.

“Did you just...trip and fall into his bed? Or is this a repeat offense?” Robin asks with a cool, casual tone.

“I...” Steve stutters, taking a sip of his drink that's long gone to buy him time. All it buys him is a loud empty slurping sound.

“You said you were falling asleep early last night,” Robin states.

“And I did! I was asleep just...not in my bed.”

Robin scoffs. “What was it this time? Eddie looking to reconnect?”

Steve's lips turn into a frown. As much as Steve likes to believe he's above Eddie's words and affection, it truly does not take much to break him. He and Eddie dated casually for about a year. Steve wanted to be serious but Eddie's band was about to take off and he didn't want any strings tying him to Chicago. Steve painfully decided to end it, decided he needed more than “I promise you're the only one I'm sleeping with”. Eddie's band did kind of take off. But not enough to get Eddie out of Chicago. And out of Steve's brain, apparently.

“I only see him as a friend,” Steve lies through his teeth.

“Do I look stupid to you?” Robin asks with a tilt of her head, eyebrows raised.

“No,” Steve emphasizes. “But we...we're not back together or anything.”

“I don't think you were ever together to begin with.”

“Okay. Ouch.”

“I'm serious, dingus. You were not good after that breakup, or whatever you want to call it. I just don't want to see you get hurt again.”

Steve lets out a long sigh, tossing his frappe into the trash, and leaning up against the wall. He watches as fans of Wonder Woman roam the museum, some of them dressed up for the occasion. He's happy he's here, happy he got to take the girls here, but he knows he'd rather be somewhere else. He feels guilty for that.

“I fucked up, okay?” Steve admits defeatedly.

Robin leans her head on his shoulder. “I know you did. I know you know you did. Question is: is this going to be repeated?”

“No,” Steve says. He doesn't believe it and he can tell by Robin's huff that she doesn't either.

“Gimme your phone,” Robin says.

“What? Why?”

“Just hand it over.”

Steve holds his phone to his chest. Looks at Robin seriously. “Don't tell him off or something. Don't read our texts!”

“Ew, I don't want to read your texts,” Robin sneers as she takes the phone from his hands. “I'm just gonna change his contact name.”

Steve looks over her shoulder and sees her typing “DONT PICK UP IGNORE IGNORE IGNORE” is now Eddie's contact name.

“Surprised you didn't just delete it,” Steve mumbles, wincing because maybe he shouldn't have given her that idea.

“Because I know you have it memorized. No use blocking his number either because he has your socials. But take this as a reminder that you deserve better than him.”

Steve's mouth opens and closes, an argument dying on his tongue. It's not that Eddie is a bad person, necessarily. He's a little much sometimes but deep down, he is rather sweet. Very nerdy, very animated. Very thoughtful. It's like he could make the perfect boyfriend if he just let go of his inability to commit to anything that's not his music. But Robin's right. Steve is monogamous at heart and deserves more.

So tell him why he’s standing outside of Eddie’s door not even three days later?

Eddie answers with a shining smile that has Steve clenching his fists.

“Next time, you’re coming to my place,” Steve states as Eddie pushes him up against the door. Eddie drags his tongue up Steve’s neck, causing his knees threatening to buckle.

“Whatever you say, sweetheart,” Eddie answers.

Steve doesn’t hear anything else beyond moans and incoherent ramblings. It’s like the second Eddie gets his hands on him his brain goes “Blah, blah, blah.”

#they wouldn't leave my brain ever since i heard the song yesterday #this may become something one day but i am starting wips like it's my fucking JOB i just need to finish something #steve harrington #eddie munson #steddie #steddie ficlet #steddie au #emily writes

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lana-llama-in-pajamas · 22 days

Text

thick as blood

sweet as milk

pt.3

you woke up sore and oddly over heated, you opened your eyes to see something a 12 year old boy would dream up both the twins cuddled up to you arms hugging you close, you looked down to see you were in a nightgown and they were in slips they possibly wore under their dresses from last night. Els leg was wrapped in cellophane probably fearful of the wound bleeding through you smiled softly looking up at your ceiling hearing their breathing synced together, the smell of their French perfumes with the combination of sweat was actually pretty calming (damn twins are in your bed even before Francis 💀)

you closed your eyes again wanting to catch a bit more rest before getting up for the day, what felt like minutes was actually an hour. you woke up again with the twins gone, you got up rubbing your eyes walking out to the living room hearing talking "you think she's even eaten a meal a day?" a deeper feminine voice asked it wasn't the twins " I don't think you could call bread and jam a meal" another voice said, you peeked in the kitchen to see the twins, mia and gloria all in the kitchen. gloria cooking on the stove as mia and sel unpacked groceries putting them in the proper places, elenois sat at the window mixing something in a bowl. you felt so cared for, your pain from your injuries disappearing for a second, you got caught by mia who walked over with selenne "your awake! so sorry we let ourselves in dear" mia hugged you gently before selenne wrapped her arm around your shoulders "you should go shower we're making brunch" you nodded "no worries miss stone but please send me the receipt for the food" you spoke softly realizing your voice was still strained "oh don't insult me y/n I'm not hurting for money, now go get cleaned up I'm gonna make some tea" she pushed you to the bathroom making selenne giggle walking back to the kitchen

you did strip yourself of your slip and bandages examining yourself in the mirror, bruises kissed your body with indents of the stairs in your back. the memory of the creatures claws ran across your legs with your ankle matching Elenois, it was lightly scarred so you washed yourself gently hissing anytime you had to bend down. you left the shower walking back to your room to change, the girls brought out the table into the living room filling it foods and spare plates, you changed into something less formal putting on some music to lighten your mood

everyone gathered in the livingroom, sitting and passing plates as gloria sat near you looking over your vinyls ¨you do got some bad bruises baby¨ she gently grabbed your arm looking it over, you hissed a little making her let go ¨sorry baby¨ she handed the first loaded plate to you ¨come sit and eat, we know damn well you havent had a vegtable since you came in¨ you smiled thanking the sweet woman trying your best to be polite while eating but she was right you were starving, honestly its a miracle you were able to fight the equivelent of a animal on bread, fruit jam and milk alone. everyone ate and talked as gloria filled your plate to replace what you had ate whispering ¨your in your home, eat with the hunger you have¨ hearing that had you eating mouthfuls only listening to the conversation instead ¨natcha and her little one wouldve come but natcha didnt want her to overwhelm you with questions¨ mia said to you ¨she got you and the twins flowers though¨ you nodded finishing your 2nd plate ¨ill need to send her a thank you note soon¨ everyone nodded in agreement as a knock was heard at the door, you got up wiping your mouth opening it slowly to show most of the men ¨honey i thought you were at work¨ gloria asked as everyone walked over ¨i was but im on lunch, here you go miss l/n your one courageous little lady¨ arnold passed you a small bouquet and kissed his wife good bye then one after another your other neighbors gave you gifts of gratitude, even lois margeret and raftellyn came in with food n flowers low key inviting themselves in.

at the very end natasha came and held up a tin tray to you ¨my mom is at work but she made this for you or whatever¨ you smiled taking the tray and placing on on the table with everything else ¨your mom does so much tell her thank you for me¨ you bent down to talk with her ¨....yeah ok.....did it bite you? are you infected with something? my mom said you saved us and killed it or whatever, does that mean your a murderer or a monster killer?¨ she kept asking things making your head swim but luckily you had a savior ¨she's a monster killer. a hero little Natasha.¨ Francis said sternly also holding a gift in his hands ¨oooh ok....whatever bye hero lady¨ she said waving and walking out ¨here Natasha take a plate¨ mia walked over leading her back to her door ¨uh....um thank you ¨ you looked up blushing ¨for?¨ he asked putting down the basket of fruit and wine bottle in his hands ¨err...uh everything, carrying me, bringing me this¨ you gestured to the basket ¨telling the little one I'm a hero..¨ you looked down intimidated by his hard gaze ¨those gifts are from the DDD. I didn't get the memo we were making your apartment a floral shop.¨ it almost sounded like a joke but he said it so blankly with irritation ¨oh well would you like a pla-¨ ¨you didn't get her something?¨ Margarette said loudly ¨for shame young man she pulled a gun out what could you pull? a bottle of milk?¨ she laughed as the others giggled uncomfortably ¨like I said I didn't get the memo. but I will show my gratitude¨ you turned beet red wondering what he meant by this, the twins felt your forehead ¨you should sit, Francis please help yourself¨ they brought you back to the couch as Francis followed Lois made him a plate and sat right by him ¨aside from this loud mouth, I didn't know you had those types of muscles Francis" god you were uncomfy now "i carry crates of milk i think its self explanatory" he shot back making Lois flustered by the full stop, at this point you weren't sure if Natasha was his, it seems like he doesn't have a filter...or feelings.

soon the awkward feelings subsided and everyone talked about their jobs, marriage and mia's and the dr's wedding plans.

you were in the kitchen looking over your gifts, mostly flowers and chocolate but it seems the Dr. got you a jewelry set, and so did the cappuccin's. the flowers came with cards you read and stacked together, one stuck out to you .

the fruits basket and wine.

it was champagne and fancy fruits (just to set the scene mangos and kiwis were considered 'exotic' in this era) you read the card

dear y/n you did well, enjoy your week off. another agent will take your place so don't let your guard down completely but do relax. rex

you smiled grabbing 2 vases of flowers wondering where to put them. Francis put his plate in the sink staring at you as he leaned against it "...you know who also hasn't gifted you anything....Gauss" he spoke lowly, was he...talking gossip? "why do you think?" you entertained him preening one of the flowers "he feels emasculated. since he isn't the American hero he's pissed" he chuckled making you shiver a little, it made sense though gauss seemed the macho type but that didn't matter , it was the way he said 'American hero' it was very accented "are you not emasculated by me Francis?" you asked walking closer to him even if your knees started to feel like jelly with every step "not at all, i was raised by strong women." he looked down at your level as you could breath in his cologne, strong sweet and alcohol like. " Francis i wonder a lot of things about you" you spoke truthfully like his eyes pulled it out of you "i am a book y/n, you just have to open it and read" his face was so close to yours.

you were swooning, eyes fluttering as you could almost imagine his lips on yours. his cologne was like a drug putting you under, you were in a full day dream before hearing another dark quiet laugh "how unbecoming of you...you know so little about me and yet your ready to throw yourself at me" he held up your chin with his hand as if you were a dog.

he walked away excusing himself to everyone before walking out

you shuddered taking a deep breath hoping to smell him one last time "he teased me....the bastard teased me and left."

im sorrry it tookk so looooongg!!! but here it is my loves enjoy!!! let me know if you like or hate (´▽`ʃ♡ƪ)

#milkman x reader #thats not my neighbour milkman #thats not my neighbor #francis mosses #francis mosses x reader #francis mosses x you

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sturniolos-blog · 7 days

Note

can u please do really heavy angst with dad!matt? but with a happy ending ofc

Shot - Matt Sturniolo x Y/n oneshot

warnings - blood, shooting, swearing, violence, guns, angst, death, mid ending

disclaimer: first and 3rd person PoV

—————————

2:55pm

Ding

I looked away from my computer as i heard my text chime come from my phone.

Picking up my phone i read the text.

Esposo ❤️

can’t wait for you to get out of work baby

i love you

I smiled to myself before responding.

Esposo ❤️

can’t wait for you to get out of work baby

i love you

i love you too matt 💗

2:57pm

I responded before shutting off my phone.

Three more minutes Y/n. Three more then you get to go home to your husband and kids.

Y/n finished typing her article as the clock went from 2:59 to 3:00.

She was done for the day.

Picking up her stuff with her phone in her jean pocket, locking her office door and starting to walk down the hallway.

“Goodbye, Y/n. See you tomorrow!” The receptionist, katie said.

“Bye, katie. See you tomorrow.” I said, smiling at her.

I see my bestfriend Josie come out of the staff room with a coffee, I let out a laugh. “Aren’t you supposed to be getting off work now?” I asked her as she took a sip of her coffee.

“Yo soy, pero el jefe quiéreme stay longer.” She told me.

yo soy, pero el jefe quiéreme: i am, but the boss wants me to…

I shook my head, our boss didn’t particularly like us, it’s either because we were of a different race or because he didn’t like woman. Whatever the reason, it sucks, and he treats us differently, the only reason he keeps us is because we are too good at our job to be let go, and the only reason we put up with it is cause the moneys good.

“Cabrón, el es loco, dios mío.” I scoffed.

cabrón, el es loco, dios mío: bastard, he is crazy, my god

She put her hand on mine, basically telling me she wasn’t bothered by it. “Okay, enough about la chupacabra, we still on for Saturday?” She asked.

la chupacabra: weird animal type thing (search it up to get a better understanding)

I nodded, “Yes, Matt has the kids and no work, so we get the night off.” I told her.

She nodded, “Should we invite Chris? Maybe he needs some-”

I laughed, “Josie, stop obsessing over him! You’re crazy!” I said, starting to walk away again.

She followed me, “He’s hot, y/n!”

“Josie, you realize that if you call Chris hot you’re calling my husband hot because they’re triplets!” I said, taking a left into the hallway that had the elevator at the end of it.

Josie stopped for a second, “Oh my god, that’s disgusting.” She fake gagged.

I let out a laugh and pushed her shoulder, “Bye, weirdo. Love you.”

Josie laughed, “Love you too.” Before walking away back to where we had just came from.

I pressed the button for the elevator, waiting patiently.

Ding

My phone chimed again.

I went to check before i heard a BANG.

I jumped at how loud it was.

It was silent before i heard screaming, my coworkers were screaming.

Along with the screaming, i heard crying, my friends from work begging not to die.

Before i heard two more shots.

I was frozen, stuck in place as i heard footsteps coming around the corner, the same corner i just came from.

The elevator door wasn’t opening, so i decided to take a right and run down the hallway.

I knew there must’ve been a shooter, and he or she was right where my office was.

As i run i open a random office door, locking it and shutting the blinds, before i here a cough.

I look down and see Josie covered in blood, and a shot to her abdomen.

I almost let out a scream, but remembering the circumstances i didn’t, i let out a sob.

“Josie?” I sobbed, falling on my knees next to her.

“Y/n..” She breathed out, her holding her wound.

I pulled out my phone, calling 911.

“911, what’s your emergency?” An operator asked, female operator.

I let out a sob as Josie began to struggle to breathe.

“Y/n, s-shh..” She croaked out, putting her hand on my wrist for me to be quiet.

“T-there’s a shooting- the los angeles news office p-please come quick.” I cried.

“Okay, ma’m. Do you have any idea who the shooter is?” The operator asked.

I let out another sob, “N-no!” I said, maybe a little too loud.

Josie let out a cough, one that gathered a lot of blood to spit up on her chest. “Y/n, be quiet or you’re going to get hurt.” Josie said, squeezing my wrist slightly, not hurting me though.

“Alright. Help is on the way, i’d like you to stay on the line with me. Can you do that for me?” The nice lady asked me.

“M-mhm.” Y/n says, her hands shaking as she held the phone, her eyes locked on her bestfriend that was probably on her last breaths.

“Josie- j-josie! Keep your eyes open, p-please don’t die- this can’t happen you can’t die, i- i can’t! Come on, y-you’re my best friend, w-we’re supposed to get really rich and move far a-away together with my family, a-and matt’s gonna have to deal with having you around all the time because i love you. We are supposed to get out of this office, josie, together!” I sobbed as i held her in my arms.

“Ma’m, it’s best to stay quiet, you would not like to let the shooter know where you are.” The 911 operator butted in, i let out a quick mhm.

Josie smiled at me, “We will make it out of here, y/n. Don’t be so dramatic.” She tried to convince me.

I almost let out a laugh but another cry fell out of my mouth, “I can’t lose you, i can’t.”

Josie let out another cough, “I’m getting kind of tired, i think-”

I shook my head, “Josie, no, please, no no, Josie, no!” I held her to my chest as her eyes started to close.

“I love you, Y/n. Tell Ella and Mailo- and even Matt i love them too. You guys were a real family to me.” She said, letting out a few more coughs, before her body went still.

Y/n let out a blood curdling scream, the scream was loud enough for the police that were swarming outside to hear it, the scream was so loud she was going to be next.

“No- Josie, this isn’t funny, wake up, Jose. Come on! Fuck, please! Fucking wake up! We have plans on saturday! Josie please! Come on, i love you!” I shook her body but she didn’t wake up.

I heard sirens and the 911 operator in my ear, “Ma’m? What’s going on? Are you near the shooter?”

I let out multiple sobs, “M-my bestfriend! She’s dead! S-she’s- she’s dead!” Y/n sobbed, hugging her bestfriends body.

“Im so sorry, Y/n.” I heard the operator say before there was a bunch of commotion outside the office i was in, i heard the cops and a couple more shots.

—————————

3:24pm

Y/n was brought outside with a police officer that rubbed her back, bringing her to an ambulance.

Y/n was still, silent.

Death was weird, it’s like one minute you’re making plans with somebody and the next minute that somebody is dead. Isn’t it weird?

Well to Y/n it was.

Right now she didn’t know what to feel, happy she’s alive to go home to her husband and kids? Or heartbroken that the person who understood her the most was taken away from her, in her own arms.

“Whats your name, hon’?” Asked a EMT, pulling Y/n out of her thoughts.

“Y/n Sturniolo.” She croaked out, her throat scratchy from her crying.

The EMT nodded, offering a soft smile, “Okay.. I need someone we can contact, someone who can pick you up?”

Y/n rubbed her eyes with the back of her hands, “My husband is taking care of my kids i don’t want them to see me like this.” Y/n said, swallowing harshly as she pointed out that she was covered in blood, not that it was hers but she’d never want her kids to see her like that, that vulnerable.

The EMT nodded, “Well, Y/n, it appears that you’re still recovering from shock, so why don’t we give your husband a call, is that okay?” The EMT pushed.

Y/n’s ears started ringing, “I just- i need to go home, i’m so tired.” She whispered out.

The EMT placed a hand on her shoulder, “Let us call your husband.” The EMT whispered with a whole lot of care in her voice, taking in and acknowledging Y/n’s state.

Y/n looked up at the EMT, giving a slight nod before pulling her phone out and dialing Matt before giving the EMT her phone.

The EMT muttered a ‘thank you’ and turned her back towards Y/n when Matt had answered the phone.

“Hi, is this Matt sturniolo?”

“Okay, great. My name is Abby gibbons I am an EMT for the Los Angeles hospital, I’m afraid to tell you that there has been a shooting in your wife’s place of work-”

“Mr.Sturniolo, your wife is okay…”

That’s when the EMT’s voice drifted off, Y/n closed her eyes, her head leaning on the side of the ambulance truck.

Falling asleep.

—————————

3:47pm

Matt rushed out of his car, walking towards where all the commotion was.

He looks around before spotting Y/n sitting on the back of an ambulance with her eyes closed as her head was leaned on the side of the truck, an EMT standing with a clip board.

Matt rushed over there.

“Sorry, there was so much traffic and i had to drop the kids off-” Matt’s breathing is quick and rapid, “Sorry, i don’t-” Matt shook his head as he placed his hand on his chest.

Y/n rubbed her eyes as she started to wake up.

Matt had tears down his face.

“Y/n is okay and free to go home, she is dehydrated so i recommend giving her lots of water.” The EMT told Matt.

Matt nodded and went to give Y/n a hug, Y/n didn’t hug back which was weird but Matt didn’t say anything.

“There’s blood- why are you covered in it?” Matt said as he pulled away from the hug.

Y/n shrugged, “It’s not mine.” She said as she got up, scratching her head.

Matt quirked his eyebrows, “Then who-?”

“It’s Josies, she died.” Y/n cut Matt off as she pulled out her phone, starting to go on it as Matt’s face dropped.

Matt let a few more tears drop down his cheek before he wiped them away, knowing Y/n should be hurting, should be crying, should be showing some sort of emotion but she's not.

"I'm so tired, Matt. Can we go home, please?" Y/n asked as she stood up.

Matt nodded as he grabbed her arm to help her, "We can go."

—————————

4:28pm

They both walked in the house, Matt keeping his hand on the small of her back.

"I can run you a bath, sweetheart." Matt said as Y/n rubbed her forehead, she wasn't in a good state of mind.

Y/n looked towards Matt, nodding, "Okay, that sounds nice. I'm just gonna call Josie, we have plans on Saturday. You're still gonna babysit the kids then, right?"

Matt lets out a sigh, flashing a smile, "Yeah, i got them." Matt reassured, making Y/n smile and pull out her phone, dialing Josie's number.

Y/n stands there, picking at her nails, waiting for Josie to pick up, but as expected she didn't.

Y/n let out a 'huh', shrugging before she put her phone down on the coffee table, "She didn't answer.." Y/n says, her face curious as to why her bestfriend didn't answer her.

Matt bit his lip, trying not to cry at his wife's lost state. "She might be busy, n/n. Maybe you should get in the bath and she'll call you back later?" Matt suggests, putting his hand on her shoulder.

Y/n nods, "Okay."

————

"Arms up.." Matt muttered, Y/n doing as he said while he pulled her shirt off her body.

He put the shirt in the bathroom sink before turning back to Y/n, reaching behind her back and unclipping her bra, throwing it alpng with her shirt.

His hands made their way to her pants, unbuttoning the jeans and pulling them down, along with her underwear. "Step." He mumbled as Y/n held onto his shoulders, letting out a giggle as she stepped out of her clothes, now ready to get into the bath.

Y/n got in the bath sinking into the water. Matt watched as she did this, she was peaceful and unbothered.

"I'm gonna go put your clothes in the wash, i'll be right back, sweetgirl." He said softly, leaning down and kissing her head before he walked out of the bathroom.

That's when Y/n closed her eyes, she knew matt was acting different, but after she took a short nap when she was sitting in the ambulance she couldn't remember what had happened just 15 minutes prior.

Ambulance..? Why was she sitting in the back of the ambulance? Y/n thought, her eyebrows furrowing as she tried to remember. Y/n then took a breath, hugging her knees to her chest before closing her eyes.

As i run i open a random office door, locking it and shutting the blinds, before i here a cough.

I look down and see Josie covered in blood, and a shot to her abdomen.

Y/n shook her head and rubbed her eyes at the memory. Closing her eyes even tighter.

“Y/n, s-shh..” She croaked out, putting her hand on my wrist for me to be quiet.

Y/n started to remember everything now.

Josie let out another cough, “I’m getting kind of tired, i think-”

I shook my head, “Josie, no, please, no no, Josie, no!” I held her to my chest as her eyes started to close.

Y/n let out a blood curdling scream...

“No- Josie, this isn’t funny, wake up, Jose. Come on! Fuck, please! Fucking wake up! We have plans on saturday! Josie please! Come on, i love you!” I shook her body but she didn’t wake up.

I let out multiple sobs, “M-my bestfriend! She’s dead! S-she’s- she’s dead!” Y/n sobbed, hugging her bestfriends body.

“Im so sorry, Y/n.” I heard the operator say.

Y/n was now crying, her face buried in her hands as she let out gut-wrenching cries, her whole body shaking.

Matt ran back into the bathroom as he heard her cries from downstairs.

He kneeled next to the bathtub, putting his hand on her wet back. "What's going on, baby? Are you hurt? Are y-"

Y/n cut him off, "She's dead, Matt! She's gone! A-and I couldn't save her, I couldn't do it!" Y/n cried out, her breaths fast and heavy.

Matt bit his lip and shook his head, "It's not your f-fault, Y/n. It's not, sweetheart, it's not." Matt held her close to his body, kissing her head as she sobbed into his chest, letting it all out.

—————————

6:32pm

Y/n was currently sitting at her vanity, looking into the mirror as Matt brushed her wet hair.

She was emotionless, eyes puffy and red from crying.

Matt kissed the side of her head, "How are you doing, love?" He asked softly.

She responded with a shrug, making Matt nod and continue to brush her hair.

As he finished brushing her hair he placed the brush down on the vanity, letting out a sigh as he turned her chair around to face him.

Matt looked down at her as she made eye contact with him. "Y/n, you have every right to feel what you're feeling. It's going to be hard the next couple months, years whatever it won't stop getting hard, but i need you to promise me, that you'll be okay.." Matt said, making Y/n look down.

He grabbed her face softly with his hand, making her look back up at him. "Y/n promise me you will be okay, a-and you won't do anything stupid. Please, baby, please." He begged.

Y/n nodded, "Eventually..i'll be okay."

—————————

How are we feeling guys ?

My heart hurts

tag list: @sturniolosmind @novasturniolo03 @hearts4chriss @vinniehackerslefttoe @christhopersturniolo @mattybswife @streamermattsgf @sturnolio-luvs @sturnioloslurps @marlenafortuna @lovergirl4387 @sturniololovesss @junnniiieee07 @khxna

#matt sturniolo #chris sturniolo #nick sturniolo #sturniolo triplets #christopher sturniolo #nicolas sturniolo #spotify #sturniolo #matt sturniolo x reader #matt sturniolo x you #tw grief

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itsbeeble · 4 months

Text

Gorgeous

SUMMARY: Minghao was the black sheep, though you'd never understood why. Maybe it's time you figure it out.

GENRE: smut, fluff, angst (MAJOR ANGST)

PAIRING: Xu Minghao x afab!reader

WC: 5.5k

SERIES MASTERLIST

PERM TAGLIST: @juyeonszn @winterchimez

SERIES TAGLIST: @captain-brie @nobraincellmode

18+ MDNI AGELESS BLOGS WILL BE BLOCKED

WARNINGS: this is actually really dark, infidelity, rich people core, p in v sex, exhibitionism (yn gets fingered in the back of her car while on the phone), minghao is possessive, stalker themes, criminal, mentions of blood, reader gets injured, a lot goes on actually i've never written something like this el oh el

A/N: this was NOT supposed to end up like it did, but I decided on a whim to do this. Thank you to @sungbeam and @mosviqu for beta reading this (even if some of it was very last minute). I hope everyone enjoys this as much as I did teehee

“Who is that?” You tilt your head, eyes trained in the direction of someone you’d never seen before at these functions. Your friend, Jang Gyuri, follows your eyes and kisses her teeth.

“Xu Minghao,” she brings her lips close to your ear so only you can hear her. No need for prying eyes and ears to hear what she has to say and spread unwanted rumors. “I’d stay away from him if I were you.”

“Why?”

Many people would have described you as innocent. You came from “new money” as they would call it. Your father practically struck gold when he decided in his early thirties to start a business. The company grew quickly, the products being released becoming popular all over South Korea and, eventually, internationally. You knew that you should pay more attention to his work, as you’d likely inherit it one day, but you can’t find it in you to care. With this recent rise to power, you’d been taking advantage of your seemingly neverending access to parties of all kinds. Galas, clubs, birthday parties for the spoiled brats that had been born into this life. You were a free spirit, never one to avoid cameras, and that made you dangerous in the eyes of many in this country. Gyuri told you that, though old money was never afraid of new money, new money had the power of intimidation.

She’d told you many names as examples: Wen Junhui, Choi Yeonjun, Lee Chan, Han Jisung, Bae Joohyun, Kang Seulgi, Chwe Hansol. Though their families weren’t necessarily liked, they held status among the wealthy children for varying reasons— proving their worth being the main reason, intimidation being another.

Xu Minghao, however, was never a name you had heard in these recent months. Maybe there was a reason for that, you note when your eyes meet his lidded ones and he flashes you a lazy smirk. Your cheeks heat up, and you turn your gaze back to Gyuri. She’s giving you a dirty look, her painted red lips pursed and her eyebrows knit together.

“He’s bad news, Y/N,” she warns. “Seungcheol will tell you about it, and he’d want you to be careful around him.”

“Seungcheol,” your voice is laced with venom, “is in the bathroom with Seo Yookyung. I don’t think he cares what I do, so long as I don’t ruin his reputation.”

“That’s not exactly what I would call a healthy relationship.”

Both you and Gyuri flinch, startled by the interruption, and turn to scold whoever jumped into a private conversation.

You fall short, however, your mouth partially hanging open with shock and, honestly, awe.

From afar, you could tell that he was attractive but now that he’s up close? You feel like you could sink and drown in him. Long dark hair, thin and pointed face, scrutinizing eyes. He was intimidating to most, this you could tell. But to you?

He was the most gorgeous person you had ever had the pleasure of laying your eyes on.

“Xu Minghao,” Gyuri’s tone is cold and she shuffles to stand just slightly in front of you, something both you and Minghao notice.

“Jang Gyuri,” Minghao mocks, sticking one of his hands into a pocket in his slacks.

“What are you doing here? Don’t you know by now that you aren’t welcome?” Her words are sharp, and it almost scares you. Gyuri, despite her reputation for being cruel, had always been kind to you. She’d been a sort of mentor to you, teaching you the rights and wrongs in terms of “rich behavior”. She taught you the right people to associate with, and the wrong people to associate with. However, she had never once raised her voice or made you feel unwelcome. Quite unlike how she talks to Minghao.

“I go wherever I please, Jang Gyuri.” Minghao sighs, a puff of air that makes a few loose strands of hair flutter out of his face. Then his eyes return to you, scanning your body but not in a seductive manner. No, he’s curious. You can see it in his eyes, behind the cold front he puts up. “And…who might you be?”

“None of your business—”

“L/N Y/N—”

You and Gyuri speak at the same time, and you shut your mouth quickly when she shoots you another nasty look. Minghao, however, is amused. One side of his mouth quirks up in a mild show of this, the corners of his lips picking up.

“So, which is it?” He inquires. “None of your business or Y/N L/N? I’m not a betting man, but I’d wager that it’s the latter.”

You poorly stifle a laugh, covering it with a cough.

“What do you want?” Gyuri hisses out, tapping a heel on the marble floor impatiently. Minghao presses his lips together, loosely shrugging his shoulders.

“Just wanted to see if I could buy your lovely friend here a drink.”

“She’s taken.”

“She,” you finally interrupt Gyuri and place a hand on her collarbone to gently push her back. “Can speak for herself. And she will need a few more drinks to make it through the night.”

Gyuri sputters out an argument, trying to get you to stop, but Minghao grins down at you and offers his arm. You gladly take it, giving Gyuri one more warning look before you’re tugged away through the crowd.

“You’re new money.” Minghao leans against the counter next to you while you sit on one of the few open stools left. There’s a martini in front of you, one that’s barely been touched since you received it a few minutes ago.

“Is it that obvious?” You tilt your head and Minghao smiles, his head dipping down a bit.

“Not entirely,” he looks back up and shifts his weight. “Only if you know what to look for.”

“And what, exactly,” you lean toward him, resting your chin on the back of your hand, “are you looking for?”

His tongue runs over his lip, eyebrows furrowing in thought.

“You’re interesting, Y/N L/N.” Evading the question.

“Oh?” You finally bring your martini glass to your lips, taking a small sip of the alcoholic beverage. “Why is that, Xu Minghao?”

“You don’t…you don’t know who I am, do you?” Your lips quirk into a small smile.

“No, I don’t. Is it something important?”

For the first time since you’d begun talking to him, he falls quiet in a way that shows discomfort. Your smile drops, and you lean back on your stool.

“Minghao,” you start. “Is there something I should know?”

You see a muscle in his jaw feather, see his eyes dance around you to see who was around. One of your hands falls to your lap, playing with the expensive fabric of your dress. Now he’s avoiding your questions.

“I’m…” he huffs out a breath, tilting his head back and scoffing out a laugh. “I can’t believe I’m saying this to someone I just met, but…there’s something about you that I just can’t place.”

“I’ve been told that by many people.” Minghao shifts closer to you, his arm resting on the back of your chair.

“What else have they told you?”

“That I can be a bit…straightforward.” His other hand is on the counter, and your fingers dance just a bit closer to his, the tips brushing together slightly. “That when I get nervous, I either talk too much or not at all.”

“And…?” He leans his head down a bit.

“That you’re bad,” your voice lowers, your lips curling into a smirk. “That I should stay away from you.”

“And I take it you don’t listen to these people, do you?” Minghao asks, his voice dropping an octave. There’s tension around you, something so thick you could cut it with a knife.

“Not at all.”

“What would they do if I asked you to leave with me?” His fingers finally lace with yours and you hum, pretending to think.

“Seungcheol might not like that very much.”

Minghao scoffs. “You know damn well that he left a long time ago.”

“But still…” you sigh and shake your head. “Someone has to be loyal.”

A nod from the man in front of you, and a sly smile.

“I understand, and I won’t make you do anything.” He squeezes your hand once, and you feel him slide a piece of paper into your palm. He waits for your fingers to close around the paper before he pulls his hand away. “You’ll know where to find me when you change your mind and drop him. And, when you do, I’ll be waiting.”

When he leaves the building, you feel like you can finally breathe. Your shoulders relax, your heart beating rapidly in your chest. You’re in the middle of trying to get your body under control when Gyuri stomps back over to you.

“What the hell were you thinking, talking to a man like him?” Her nails dig into your upper arm, scraping into your skin and causing you to suck in a sharp breath. “Are you stupid?”

“I don’t see what your problem is,” you sigh and finish off your martini before sliding off your barstool. Your feet are aching at this point, and you’re just itching to get out of this dress. “He isn’t as bad as you think he is.”

“Xu Minghao isn’t the man he’s seemed to convince you he is.” Gyuri warns you. “He’s a liar, just like his father is. He’ll hurt you, Y/N, and don’t come crying to me when he does. I’ll just tell you that I warned you and tried to stop you. I won’t help you if you get yourself tangled up with him.”

“It’s a good thing I won’t need your help then, isn’t it?” You retort, tearing your arm out of her grip and straightening your posture. “I know exactly what I’m doing, Gyuri, and I won’t let you or Seungcheol stop me anymore.”

“Gyuri tells me you’ve been talking to Xu Minghao.” Seungcheol looks at you in the mirror as he tightens the tie around his throat. You’re in the middle of sliding on another pair of uncomfortable shoes that will have your toes bleeding by the end of the night, and raise your gaze to look at him.

“I have. Only once, though.” Your eyes return to the ground to grab the second heel. For two weeks you had been talking to this…mystery man. You’d learned more about him every day, of his father’s scandals that would have left his family bankrupt had Minghao not come out and saved the company. You found it admirable but most chose to despise him, refusing partnerships and refusing to admit the good he’s done for his company and family as someone so young.

And, of course, you had only done this with a little bit of research and a quick phone call to the number he slipped into your hand. You’re sure Seungcheol knows this, knows that you’re too curious for your own good. This is something the two of you had argued about far too many times to count, and he’s since given up on trying to stop you.

“I’m sure that you’re aware of everything, then?”

“Aware of Minghao’s father or of your infidelity?” You rise to your feet, and Seungcheol freezes for just a moment before carrying on.

“Ah.”

“If you’re going to whore yourself out,” Your hand brushes against your boyfriend’s shoulder and you spin him around so you can tie the fabric around his neck. “At least do it where no one will see you.” Your lips are drawn into a tight smile and you rest your hand on his chest. “At least do it where no one will see you, my love.”

“I take it…” Seungcheol watches you walk away and listens to the clicking of your heels on the ground. “...that the engagement is off, then?”

“Correct.”

“What will you do?” You turn to look at the man you once tolerated, now finding him disgusting.

“I think that I’ll be just fine. I have an apartment, I have a family that loves me, and a thriving company that I need to learn to lead. You, however, should worry about your status once news of your actions hits the papers come Monday.”

Seungcheol nods slowly, his tongue digging into his cheek.

“I have a ride to the gala,” you make your way for the bedroom door, lips drawn into a thin line. “I will have someone collect my things tomorrow morning, so make sure everything is exactly as it is now because they will have a list and I will come for everything you have if your toy for the night has the gall to take my belongings again.”

Seungcheol looks at you for a long moment, watching you leave the room before choosing to follow you.

“And what of the deal your father made with my company?”

“Find someone else,” you shrug. “My father just wanted to make connections and you happened to give him the perfect opportunity to benefit both companies.”

“I could tell people, you know.” Seungcheol places his hand on the front door, stopping you from leaving. You turn to face him, your eyes narrowed. He doesn’t appear angry, yet he isn’t looking too pleased either. “That you had an affair. They would believe me. They would never believe someone like you.”

An easy smile passes over your lips, and you place a hand on his chest. “I don’t need them to believe me. Gyuri, on the other hand…” you kiss your teeth. “She can be quite the devil, no?”

“Gyuri trusts him?” Seungcheol asks and you can practically taste the disbelief.

“No, she doesn’t,” your lips draw into a thin line. “She does, however, trust me.”

A silent type of anger radiates off Seungcheol as you turn away from him again. This time, when the door shuts, he doesn’t follow you. You’re glad he doesn’t. It makes it much easier to steady your breathing and the shaking in your hands.

You arrive at the party alone this time. There is no Gyuri and no Seungcheol to protect you from the cameras, from the invasive questions, and the microphones shoved into your face. It startles you and before you can get one foot out of the door, your body freezes up. One of the guards your father hired yells something, and then there’s someone sliding into your car and pushing you back.

“Take a breath,” a soft, silky voice pushes through the yells outside the car. A hand cradles the back of your head, tangling in your long strands of hair, pulling you closer and tucking you into the crook of his neck. “Just breathe, love.”

Maybe it's the adrenaline, maybe it’s the freedom you now know you have, but suddenly you’re laughing and pulling away from Minghao. He looks just as stunning as the last time you saw him. Dark hair, narrowed eyes, lips drawn into a thin line. He’s wearing a suit similar to last time— all black, the top few buttons of his dress shirt undone.

“Are you alright?” His hand comes to your cheek, letting you nestle into his gentle hold. “Talk to me, love. Are you alright?”

But you just keep laughing, and then you’re clutching at his collar and yanking him toward you for a furious kiss. He freezes against you, one hand on your cheek and the other on your waist. It takes him a moment to reciprocate, to get over the initial shock and sink into you. His lips move softly against yours, forcing you to calm down and actually breathe like he’d requested.

After a few moments, you pull away and lean your forehead against his.

“So that’s what this is about?” Minghao murmurs. “You just wanted my attention, is that it?”

“Not necessarily,” you pull away from him, but he doesn’t let you go very far. His hand is just around the curve of your waist, holding you near to him. “I have other reasons.”

“And what would they be?” His lips press against the corner of your mouth, and you feel butterflies erupt in your stomach like a teenager in love.

“I like you, Xu Minghao.” God, you sound like one as well. “Very much.”

“I like you too, Y/N L/N.” Another kiss, this time tilting your head to reach the corner of your jaw. The car starts moving again, and Minghao calls out an address. His address, you assume.

“You’re gorgeous, Minghao,” He laughs against your skin, trailing his lips down your neck slowly. “It makes it hard, you know.”

“Makes what hard, my flower.”

“To focus. To talk to you. You make me so nervous, it’s infuriating.” Your breath hitches as he sucks gently at the skin above a vein. Your hand curls around his neck, tangling in his long strands of hair.

Minghao doesn’t respond, but you don’t mind. Not when he drags you into his lap, the fabric around your body now splayed across the backseat of your car. You can hear your phone ringing, but you ignore it until the sound disappears. You focus on Minghao, focus on the feel of his lips on your skin and his hands all over your body. You focus on swiping your tongue over his lip, on pressing forward until his back is digging into the door, the armrest uncomfortable against his spine but neither of you cares.

Your phone rings again and, this time, Minghao pulls away from you, tilting your chin up and handing you the slim device.

“It’s your father, I think.” His lips press against your jaw, and you exhale shakily. “Shouldn’t worry him too much.”

“Minghao—”

“Answer him.” His hand replaces his lips, giving your jaw a slight squeeze. “Or I will.”

The third ring comes, and you swallow hard. Minghao smiles, his lips curling up as he takes the phone from your hand and swipes on the green button.

“Y/N.” Your father’s voice is steady, and you can hear the exasperation. “What is this I’m hearing from Choi Seungcheol that the engagement is off?”

Minghao’s lips touch your neck again, his fingers sliding under the fabric of your gown to trace up your thigh. It takes all the power in your body to not gasp into the microphone, your eyes fluttering as he touches you.

“He— what did he say?” You briefly stumble over your words, trying desperately to keep a firm grip on your phone and nearly failing when Minghao’s hand dips past your lacy underwear. Two fingers prod at your core and your breath hitches. Your free hand drops down and grips Minghao’s wrist tightly. He shoots you a playful smirk, lips puffy from kissing you and from sucking at your neck. You let him go.

“That you’ve left him. That you had an affair with…” you hear shuffling on the other end of the line, and then a loud sigh. “Xu Minghao?”

“That would be a lie, father.” You inform the older man, and Minghao’s fingers sink deep into you. It’s a wonder you haven’t moaned into your phone yet but with the way his skillful hand pumps in and out of you, soon you very well might. His thumb pushes at your clit, and you let your head drop into his neck, begging silently for him to have mercy on your poor mind and body.

“Is that so?”

“Seungcheol had an affair. Well, several affairs. Minghao simply helped me realize that I wouldn’t—” Your voice cracks as a little whimper almost makes its way out of your mouth. Minghao leans his head against yours and you can feel his cheeks stretching into a smile as he continues to drag his fingers in and out of your sopping-wet walls. He scissors them a bit, and then you feel a third sink into you. Your legs begin to shake and try to close, and with his free hand Minghao grabs onto one of your thighs to hold them open. “—wouldn’t be happy if I stayed with him.”

You hope that the shaking in your voice can pass as upset tears.

“I don’t— It doesn’t matter if you end up happy. I want what’s best for you and the business. Marrying Seungcheol would have balanced this.”

“Marrying Seungcheol would lead to a miserable life and the downfall of two companies.” You snap back, and you hear Minghao beginning to whisper praises into your ear. With red cheeks and a swelling heart, your hips begin to roll down on his fingers. “Minghao, at least, will keep me happy and will benefit both companies in many ways.”

Silence on your father’s end, and a knot begins to form in your stomach.

“Don’t cum yet, flower.” Minghao murmurs, licking at the skin under your ear. “Wait until he hangs up.”

I can’t. You want to scream. Every curl of his fingers, every brush of his thumb against your clit. It’s all becoming too much for you. It’s incredible you’re able to keep yourself together while on the phone.

“Is this what you really want?” Your father asks, and your whole body shudders against Minghao.

“It— it is.” You gasp. Another pregnant pause. Fuck, it’s like your father wants you to suffer.

“Have him come by my office tomorrow for lunch. We’ll all talk then.”

You don’t get the chance to respond before he’s hanging up the phone and the car is rolling to a stop. Minghao rips his fingers out of you, effectively ruining the high you’d been approaching.

“You’re— you’re horrible.” You whine, watching as he brings his fingers to his mouth and sucks them clean.

“You love it, though.” He grins and slides you off his lap so he can get the door. Your body feels like jelly, your mind in a haze. You hardly notice Minghao tugging you by the hand, guiding you out of the car and to the front door of a beautiful house— so beautiful that it nearly takes your breath away.

Minghao’s arm is placed delicately on the small of your back, and you let him guide you into the house and up a grand marble staircase. You can’t begin to express the awe you feel. You can’t help the giddy feeling in your bones when you reach the top of the staircase and Minghao takes your hand. It appears, however, that he is feeling just about the same as you when he smiles so wide that you fear his lips would become stuck like that, and he drags you quickly toward a bedroom.

You let him press you down on the bed and let him kiss his way from your mouth to your jaw, down your neck, and begin to peel the straps of your gown down your body so he can expose more and more skin. You feel like you’re burning up, feel like your body is being set ablaze wherever he touches your body. The zipper along the side of the dress is tugged town, and you raise your hips so Minghao can peel it down the rest of the way and throw the fabric somewhere across the room.

“I should be mad at you for that,” you say to him, although you relish in the feeling of his lips trailing down the valley of your breasts. “That dress was a very expensive gift.”

“Oh?” Minghao’s voice is muffled, and he tugs your panties down your legs as he speaks. “From who?”

You watch as he begins to rid himself of his clothing, watch as he reveals every gorgeous inch of his skin to you.

“Seungcheol.” His gaze hardens when he sees you smirk.

“Then I should burn it, I think. Replace it with something newer, prettier, pricier.” He hovers his body over yours, lacing the fingers of one hand through your own and using his free hand to align himself with you. A pleased sigh is emitted from your lips as he sinks in, back arching as he begins to stretch you out.

“Is that so?” You breathe out. Your hands tangle in his hair, pulling his face closer until you can kiss him.

“Mmm.” Minghao hums against you, beginning to roll his hips slowly into yours. “I should burn everything that he has ever given you, I think.”

You can barely respond, your voice seemingly broken and replaced by gasps for air as he begins to thrust into you harder and faster and you can’t seem to get control of your body. He doesn’t care, though. He doesn’t care that you can only roll your hips into his, can only bite into his skin, and leave dark marks that he won’t be able to hide (not that he would want to). Knowing that you’re enjoying this, fucked too dumb to speak even though he’d only been inside of you for barely a few minutes, it’s all enough for him. It’s more than enough.

“What would he say if he saw us like this?” Minghao continues, his hands sliding down your legs and gently pushing them farther apart. “Hm? Would he stop me? Would he try to fight for you?”

You try to tell him he wouldn’t, but all that comes out of you is helpless babbles.

“I would,” he hisses, and the knot in your stomach returns. It builds and builds, growing tighter and tighter with each passing moment. “He doesn’t deserve you. He doesn’t deserve to touch you, to feel you.”

“And—” you finally manage to choke out a few words. “And what— what m-makes you—oh god, Minghao please— think that— that you do?”

“You already know why, my flower.” Minghao’s hips are slapping against yours at a pace— at a furosity— that you can’t keep up with, “Do you really need me to spell it out for you?”

The knot in your stomach snaps, your walls fluttering around him but he’s relentless. He pounds into you as your body convulses underneath him, your pathetic whines and moans turning into desperate wails.

“I’m better than him in every way,” Minghao grits out, desperately fighting off his own orgasm. “Do you know how long I’ve been keeping an eye on you? How long I’ve wanted to take you from him? You have no idea how hard it was to not take you into the bathroom that night and fuck you the way you deserved. I wanted so badly for you to be mine.”

Overstimulation begins to wash over you, becoming a pleasurable sting that you don’t want to go away. His cock twitches inside of you and his breathing becomes heavier. You can see him trying to say something more, but all that comes out of him is a heavy groan, and then his hips are stuttering against yours. Warm cum spills into you, mixing with your own, and spilling out onto the sheets beneath you. Your legs thrash in Minghao’s grip, but he pins you down as his hips slow. His hair is messy, his forehead tinged with sweat. You can see his mouth hanging open a bit, heavy breaths rolling out of him.

Do you know how long I’ve been keeping an eye on you?

The sentence replays over and over in your mind amidst the scattered post-sex thoughts.

How long I’ve wanted to take you from him?

Minghao rolls to the side, laying beside you on his large bed.

He didn’t say anything to you, and you didn’t say anything to him.

It was pure silence. A silence that allowed for clear thoughts.

Do you know how long I’ve been keeping an eye on you?

The drive to your father’s company the next day is…quiet to say the least. There’s an air of discomfort around the two of you and you’re unsure of whether it’s due to him having to meet your father or the conversation that will follow. Minghao, much like the night the two of you met and you’d asked about why everyone seemed to disapprove of him, was tense. His hands were set on his knees, squeezing tightly to the point of his knuckles turning white. His head is turned away from you, keeping his gaze on the city as you drive. It makes you nervous. Had you done something wrong? Was he regretting everything?

You swallow hard, mimicking his position and turning to look out the window.

Do you know how long I’ve been keeping an eye on you?

There had been something so off about the way he said that. You still couldn’t quite figure out what it was, and it had your stomach churning uncomfortably.

The feeling only worsens when you pull up in front of your father’s building and Gyuri is standing with Seungcheol. Both look upset, standing straight with their arms folded behind their backs.

“What is this?” Minghao murmurs, thanking the driver quietly when his door opens. You slide out behind him, taking his hand in your own as he helps you stand.

“I’m…I’m not sure what this is.” You admit, your eyebrows knitting together as Gyuri approaches you. “Gyuri, what’s happening?”

“You need to come with me,” she tugs at your arm, attempting to pull you away from your new lover.

“What?” Your hand tightens in Minghao’s, your feet gluing into place. “What— what are you talking about? Gyuri, what’s going on? What is Seungcheol doing here?”

“Y/N,” Seungcheol steps toward you, but Minghao is faster and pushes you behind him. Your hand dislodges from his, and you yelp as Gyuri practically rips you away from him. Your knees hit the ground, skin scraping against pavement. The door of the company building practically flies open, a few police officers filing out with your father taking up the rear.

“Father?” Your throat is closing up, too many emotions pulsing through your body.

“What is this?” Minghao is yelling. People are stopping on the streets to stare. Gyuri and Seungcheol pull you to your fight, and you don’t think you have the strength to stop them. “Y/N, WHAT IS THIS?”

For a moment, you’re afraid. He lunges for you, and two officers grab at him. He looks rabid, his eyes crazed and teeth bared like some animal as he yells and screams and kicks against the people holding him. Your father approaches you, relief replacing the typical stone-cold gaze he gives you.

“What’s happening?” You’re sobbing now, blood washing down your legs. Gyuri is crying with you, and Seungcheol’s hands are shaking.

“Are you alright?” Your father asks. “Did he do anything to you?”

“I— what—” you can’t breathe.

“Xu Minghao,” an officer speaks over the commotion. “You are under arrest for the crimes of criminal harassment, assault and battery, and extortion. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney—”

“GET YOUR FUCKING HANDS OFF ME—” Minghao’s hand flies out, nearly clipping the officer in the jaw as he finishes speaking.

He yells obscenities, yells for you, at you, at the people around him. He curses wildly, using every name under the sun, threatens death upon everyone.

Do you know how long I’ve been keeping an eye on you?

“I’m sorry.”

Gyuri is sitting on the chair beside you as you get your knees treated. You stare blankly ahead of you, and she turns her head to Seungcheol, silently pleading for help.

“Y/N,” he says slowly, “do you understand what’s happening?”

No response.

“Minghao…we told you he was not the man you thought he was. You fell too hard, too fast, didn’t give us time to tell you everything.”

Silence. Gyuri starts talking again, not knowing if you heard anything they were saying.

“He’s…he was planning on using you, Y/N. Using you to get…to get your father’s company, just like he did with his own father. It…it was all fake. Everything you learned about him, everything we all thought we knew about him…it was all lies. It was in the small details.”

People always said you were innocent. People always called you naive. You trusted too easily, loved even easier. It made it easy to use you, to take everything you had and throw you to the side. Some people of new money were able to gain the respect of those of old money, but you?

No one would ever respect you.

Not after you fell for the gorgeous man, fell for his gorgeous lies and fantasies.

Thinking about him here in this hospital room…

Something about it makes you want to sink and drown and die. Maybe that would be easier.

“Can… can I leave?” you look up at Seungcheol, tears welling in your eyes. He looks heartbroken. “I want— I want to leave, Seungcheol. Can we leave?”

Heartbroken. That’s the look in his eye that you couldn’t recognize last night. It wasn’t anger, it wasn’t the realization that he had lost you.

“We can go. It’s over now.”

170 notes · View notes

steddieas-shegoes · 1 year

Note

for the request :D

i need more eleven and steve with a sibling bond and hopper as steve's adoptive dad pls! steve deserves to have a loving family and steve hopper just hits different yk? plus i love steve and eleven being protective over each other 🤧

tysm !!

UGH I LOVE IT!!!! This is from Hopper's point of view, hope that is okay. It just felt like it needed to be? This was so good to explore. I definitely want to explore Steve and El being overprotective siblings more in the future, even if it's just in the background. I hope you love this! - Mickala ❤️

--------------------------------------------------

Hopper was at the door. Again.

This was the third party he busted at the Harrington residence in as many weeks.

Steve just didn’t seem to get the picture that he was watching over him.

See, Jim Hopper was far from an idiot.

He knew that Steve was left alone a lot since the too-young age of 11.

He knew that Steve was popular at school.

He knew that rich, popular kids with empty houses usually threw parties.

And it was kind of like Steve wanted him to break these up at this point.

He wasn’t changing the time, the location, the invitees, anything.

All it took was Hopper driving by the first time, and he was in on it all.

Steve was expected to throw these parties, Hopper was expected to break them up. So it goes.

And if that’s what Steve needed from him to keep up his appearances as a “cool kid”, then he could do that.

“Steve.”

“Chief! You wanna come in?”

Steve was slurring his words, his eyes unable to focus on anything.

He was drunk.

He hadn’t been the last two times Hopper broke up the parties. In fact, he’d been in complete control and sober.

Something was wrong.

Steve throwing a party he shouldn’t be was one thing. Steve being wasted at said party was another entirely.

“Uh no. I’d like everyone to leave though.”

“I can’t! This is my house,” Steve giggled.

God, he didn’t get paid enough for this.

“Alright. I’m gonna get everyone out of here. You go shut off the music and drink some water.”

“But then I have to think about stuff.”

Jesus fucking Christ.

He was well aware of how neglected Steve was for most of his life. His parents threw money at nannies that barely did their job, and then threw money at Steve like that was the equivalent of love.

The only person who showed him love was Nancy.

“Where’s Nancy?”

“Oh she broke up with me. Said I was bullshit and we were bullshit and then she left with Jonathan because he’s not bullshit.”

That was. A lot to unpack. He didn’t have time though.

“Steve. I need you to focus okay? I need you to shut the music off so I can tell everyone to go. Then you need to go to your kitchen and drink at least a full glass of water. Make sense?”

“Sure thing, Chief!”

He stumbled away, possibly in the wrong direction, but Hopper didn’t really care so long as he got this shut down.

As he walked through the living room and dining area, he told kids they had five minutes to be gone or he was calling their parents.

They scattered quickly; They knew he wasn’t messing around.

He did the same with the kids on the stairs, the kids in the hall, and the kids in the kitchen.

Finally, the music shut off and more kids came running downstairs. When they spotted Hopper, they kept scampering right out the front door.

He figured the rest were probably in bedrooms or hiding in the backyard, and he needed to check on Steve again first.

Steve was standing at the back door, leaning against the wall with his eyes closed.

“Steve?”

“Just need a minute.”

“Okay, kid.”

Hopper took the chance to open the back door and yell to everyone that if they weren’t off the property in two minutes, he was arresting them all for trespassing.

It wouldn’t hold up, not with how many of these kids had parents with money for good lawyers, but it scared them.

He walked around the house, checking each room to ensure it was empty.

By the time he got back to Steve, he was passed out on the couch.

Hopper made sure he was on his side, blanket covering him, and a glass of water on the coffee table in front of him.

As he did the bare minimum to make sure Steve stayed alive, he had to wonder when the last time someone actually took care of Steve was.

————-

Steve started coming around to pick up and drop off El.

He was the designated soccer mom apparently, always bringing the kids where they needed to go: the arcade, the mall, the movies, the park.

He seemed to do it every day, no complaints.

El loved Steve.

She came home with a skip in her step, a smile on her face.

If he asked her how everyone was, her first response was always “Steve’s great.”

He’d be worried about it being a crush if she wasn’t stupidly in love with Mike. He’d almost prefer Steve.

But El just latched onto Steve in a different way. Like he was a protective older brother who made stupid jokes to make her laugh, but also argued with her over the radio.

Hopper was still worried about Steve. He graduated, but he was starting a summer job soon. A job that would leave him unavailable most days.

Hopper wasn’t a fan of this, and if he were rich, he probably would have offered Steve money to just be the kids’ chauffeur all day every day.

Within a week of his new job, El was barely leaving the house.

Hopper offered to drive her places before his shifts and she refused.

She didn’t even want to visit Steve at work.

Hopper didn’t mind paying him a visit, though.

“Hey, Hop. Everything okay?” Steve greeted.

“Just fine. You?”

“Any day in this uniform is another day I lose dignity, so.”

Hopper hid a smile.

The kid was funny, even if he didn’t mean to be.

“Got a favor to ask. El’s been pretty bummed about you starting this job and not spending much time with her and the others. Think you could take them somewhere your next day off? I could give you gas money.”

“Oh! Yeah. I don’t need gas money, though. The fair’s in town in two weeks, so I figured I’d take them all.”

“Great! Uh,” he cleared his throat, worried he seemed too excited. “I’ll tell El.”

“Awesome.”

But if Hopper knew what the fair had in store for all of them, he would have made them all stay home. He would’ve stayed home.

—————

After Vecna, Hopper had a lot of clean up to do.

He knew he left a mess, but he had no idea how much that mess exploded while he was gone.

El would barely leave his side. She sometimes sat at Max’s bedside in the hospital, but only if Steve sat with her. Then, she was right back home sticking close to his side.

He was grateful for Steve, truly.

He would show up every other day at the same time, give El a long hug, tease her about something stupid that made her crack a smile, and then bribe her to leave so Hopper could have some time to himself.

You’d think spending so long away would make him want to always be surrounded by the ones he loved, but not quite.

When Steve brought her back, she seemed lighter. Not relaxed, but like she’d been able to experience being a teenager. Just regular things.

Steve told him he brought her to get ice cream sometimes, sometimes they’d just drive around singing to songs on the radio, sometimes they’d walk around the quarry trail and try to find butterflies and birds.

He didn’t care what they did.

He knew she was safe with Steve.

—————-

When Eddie Munson’s name was cleared, they all had a party at Steve’s house.

A party that happened during daylight hours and was mostly children and their parents.

Quite a turn of events for Steve Harrington.

But most importantly, he let El help plan the whole thing.

She needed a distraction since Max was still not awake, and the only person who knew what would help was Steve.

They planned board games, and food, and they cleaned the pool together in case anyone wanted to swim.

“Steve. You are being very silly,” El said with a frown as Steve put a party hat on his own head.

“It’s a party! We’re supposed to be silly,” Steve replied, leaning over to place a party hat on her head.

Hopper watched fondly as El smiled.

“Purple is my favorite color.”

“I know. That’s why I picked it.”

Steve was a good kid. He was a good adopted brother to El.

And Hopper could admit now that he was beyond just seeing Steve as a kid he watched out for the best he could.

Steve was more like a son to him than he probably was to his actual parents, more like a brother to El than even Will or Jonathan were.

He watched as Steve pulled El into a hug and started swaying back and forth, dancing.

El was laughing. Steve was laughing. Light and carefree were words seldom used to describe either of them, but when they were together, Steve and El were like the children they never really got to be.

“Steve, can I talk to you?”

Hopper wasn’t really big on emotions. He felt them, just like everyone did, but he didn’t talk about them.

But Steve needed to hear this, he needed to know that someone loved him and believed he was good.

El smiled and went outside to see if Robin and Nancy needed any help with anything there.

“Everything okay?”

“Yeah. I just…” Hopper pulled Steve into a hug.

It was awkward, maybe a little forced at first, but the moment Steve sank into it, Hopper pulled him in tighter.

“I love you, kid. You know that, right? I’ve been takin’ care of you, watchin’ out for you the best I can for years. You don’t have to be the strong one all the time, okay?”

Steve let out a sob against his chest and Hopper felt the telltale burn in his throat that he was not far behind.

“You and El are my kids, you got that? I’m always gonna protect you both. El and I love ya so much.”

“Love you both,” Steve gasped out.

Hopper didn’t let go. He knew Steve needed this. He kind of needed it too.

But El walked in, frown on her face.

“Steve? Are you okay?”

Steve sniffled and tried to wipe his tears away without her noticing that he was crying, which just wasn’t going to work. She was too perceptive.

“I’m fine, El.”

“Are you hurt?”

“No! I’m really fine.”

El glanced at Hopper, his eyes red, but his face trying to remain strong and passive, like Steve had just started crying on him, not that he’d been the one to initiate the hug.

She looked back at Steve, who was starting to pull away from Hopper’s arms.

She quickly ran to them, Hopper’s arms pulling away to wrap around her now as she wrapped her own arms around Steve.

“Steve is our family, too?”

“Yeah, kid. He is.”

“Like my brother?”

“If you want me to be,” Steve said as he turned slightly in their arms.

“Of course. I love you like family.”

“I love you too, El.”

Hopper cleared his throat and pulled away.

“Alright, alright. Party’s starting soon. Guest of honor should be here any minute unless he got himself into trouble.”

“Do not be mean about Eddie. He is a very nice person to me and to Steve.”

Steve was blushing, looking down at the floor.

Uh oh.

Hopper knew that look.

“We’ll talk about that later, Harrington.”

“Yes, sir.”

El giggled and ran out the back door, dragging Steve with her.

Hopper sighed.

What did he get himself into?

#steddie #steve harrington #stranger things #el hopper #jim hopper #request #anon request #ficlet #hurt/comfort #protective hopper

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luci-in-trenchcoats · 5 months

Text

The Princess & The Playboy (Part 6)

Summary: Sam and Max's plan to get their siblings invited to a party may have worked but Sebastian Monroe is a dangerous man and they may have just put not only their lives but their families at risk too...

Masterlist

Pairing: NFL Quarterback!Dean x Pop Star!reader

Word Count: 5,400ish

Warnings: language, family trauma/angst, kidnapping

A/N: Uh oh...

_________

Two Weeks Later

Reader POV

“Damn,” said Dean, shaking out his arm after you’d tossed him a football in the backyard. “I’m going to need your arm workout and no, I am not joking.”

“Oh my god, did I tell you the dance choreographer wanted me to learn to do a handstand so I could sing, upside down? I shut that shit down so fast,” you said, Dean gently tossing the ball back to you.

“I’m sure you could do it. But I don’t blame you for not wanting to,” he said, catching the ball one handed. “Do you get a lot of say in that stuff? Dance moves?”

“That would require me to be able to dance,” you laughed, clasping both arms around the ball when he threw it back.

“She’s right. God awful dancer when it’s not choreographed. Miracle she can fake it as well as she does,” said Eric from the patio table, glancing up from his phone. “It’s four by the way.”

“Ugh. Why’d we say yes to this stupid party?” you asked. Dean shrugged.

“This guy donates a bunch of money to the Wolves charity every year. Plus Emma said it’s not a bad idea to go to a charity event together. Apparently it helps the public not think of me as such a scoundrel.” You tossed him the ball one last time, clasping your hands behind your back.

“I mean you are the big bad playboy corrupting the virtue of the sweet princess of pop,” you said, batting your eyes, twirling your hips. You grinned when he frowned, his eyes like a predator sizing up his prey. “I think the media is right about you. Such a bad influence.”

“Oh keep it up, princess, and I’ll tell them you ain’t innocent in the slightest.”

“Someone put me out of my misery,” groaned Eric, rising to his feet. “I’m getting dressed and going over protocols with the team. We’ll head out at seven.”

“Ain’t it kind of early to get ready?” asked Dean as you tossed him the ball one last time. Eric only laughed and headed inside, Dean cocking his head at you. “I know girls take a long time to get ready but three hours?”

“Shower. Shave. Makeup. Hair. Plus I told Sloane I’d help do her hair and pick out a dress,” you said, Dean humming. “I’m sure there’s a college game on you could watch for awhile.”

“I got some game film I can review,” he said, a heavy sigh in his shoulders. You wrapped your arms around him, Dean ditching the ball to return it. “It just never ends.”

“You love football, though,” you said, Dean nodding.

“I do. But every year it’s getting to be more and more. I know you understand the pressure of it all. I just…I’m tired. I want to have more of a life outside my job,” he said, sliding his hands down your arms, taking your hands in his. “Does that make sense?”

“Yeah,” you said softly, Dean sharing the same sad smile you wore. “Me, I can have less tour dates and not put out an album every single year. I can make more wiggle room for myself. But I know you can’t. And sometimes I worry when I watch you play, pushing your body so hard.”

“I’m incredibly lucky I’m the least sacked QB in the league. I’ve had only one surgery and that was cause I broke my toe like an idiot on a coffee table. I don’t want to be like these guys that stay in too long and wind up with so much pain at forty. Or worse.”

“I guess the thing to ask yourself is, do you want to keep going? Or could you walk away and be satisfied?” you asked. He breathed deeply and closed his eyes.

“All I know is I used to put my head down, bury myself in the game. All I looked forward to was getting to the season, the start of a game, feeling that rush. This year…I’m looking forward to being done with work and games way too much. It’s like I’d rather be somewhere else…with someone else,” he murmured.

You nodded, squeezing his hands. “Nothing to decide today.”

“I know. Go get ready. I can occupy myself for a few hours.”

“Damn,” you said when it was nearly seven. Sloane looked down at herself alarmed, glancing back worried. “Sloane, you’re fucking hot.”

“I’m forty two,” she scoffed, smoothing out the floor length gown. “I’m not hot.”

“Hell yeah you are,” you said, Sloane tucking a strand of freshly curled hair behind her ear. “Eric’s going to fucking drool.”

“He better not,” she mumbled, taking a breath as she put her leg up on a chair and hiked the skirt portion up. She opened up her clutch sat on the end of the bed and slapped a very small thigh holster on her right leg, a smaller than usual gun inside.

“Right. Cause really hot women packing heat are total turn offs for him,” you said, adjusting the strap that ran across your shoulder. She pouted and you handed her the clutch. “You said you could work with him tonight. We’re only bringing two of you inside and we wanted our best.”

“I can. He’s good about not speaking about anything but strictly work lately,” she said, sitting on the bed. “Does he seem…different to you?”

You knew why she was asking. Eric had told you he needed a few hours a week off for therapy a few weeks back. You practically jumped for joy that he was going to get some help to work through some things. Then it all shattered when he said it was related to his dad and needing to address some stuff he did to him as a kid. He didn’t share more but you had a feeling that had as much impact on him as his days in the military, probably more.

“It’s hard to tell with him,” you said, trying to respect his privacy. Plus, it actually was difficult to see a difference. Eric held everything close to the chest. Sometimes too much.

“Yeah. There’ll be no issues working together this evening,” she said, forcing a smile. You wanted to offer some reassurance that he was trying and maybe someday things between them could change. But honestly, you had no clue if they would work things out.

“Good. Well, let’s go see the boys.” A moment later you were coming down the stairs, Dean and Eric wandering out from the front hall in their tuxedos. Eric had always looked handsome when he dressed up but Dean?

He was walking sin in the tailored outfit, showing off his large shoulders and trim waist. You could feel the heat in your cheeks when he stared like he wanted to devour you then and there.

“Wow,” said Dean, a growing smile on his face, eyeing you up and down. It was a fairly simple dress. Black. One shoulder and a thin strap on the other. Form fitting up top before it became loose at the hips. It probably didn’t match black tie standard one hundred percent but it’d been sitting in your closet for two years and you finally had an excuse to wear it.

“Wow yourself,” you said, tugging on the lapel of his jacket. “Put you in one of these and you’d never imagine you spend literally every single day in flannels, henleys, and black tees.”

“Strange considering I’ve seen you wearing those clothing items a lot more yourself lately,” he teased, grinning down like a cat staring at the mouse it’d cornered.

“Oh, just a coincidence,” you said, Eric clearing his throat. You rolled your eyes, getting a roll in return. “You look nice too, Eric. I know you need the compliment on your appearance or your ego will bust.”

“Why did I take this job,” he mumbled to himself, staring at Sloane as she walked ahead for the front door. “You look beautiful.”

Sloane stopped dead in her tracks, looking over her shoulder at him, his gaze shooting to you.

“I know you’ve wanted to wear that dress for awhile,” he said to you, Sloane rolling her eyes and walking outside. Eric closed his eyes when she was gone, Dean slapping his shoulder.

“Don’t worry, buddy. I’m sure my hyper observant protection agent didn’t catch the way you said that straight to her face and then pretended to say it to your boss.” Eric shrugged him off and grumbled on his way outside, harshly pulling the door behind him. “Damn. I was hoping they’d have some kind of fairytale moment or shit. He looked like he wanted to fuck her over the kitchen table.”

“I don’t know. We’ll just…wait and see what happens,” you said, holding out your hand. “Ready to go?”

“One sec,” he said, reaching into his pocket and pulling something out. He slipped something elastic over your wrist, beaming when you stared down at it to find it was a friendship bracelet, like the kind from when you were kids. This one was black, gray and white, the LA Wolves colors. You turned it over when you felt a few square beads, expecting to see DEAN.

Your heart skipped when you saw MAX with a few beads separating it from SAM. You glanced up Dean, his green eyes flittering down to where he’d removed his jacket, right sleeve pushed up.

Dean had always had Sam’s initials tattooed on his forearm. You remember that happened at some point in college, not too long after Sam went missing. The initials right below it were new though, his skin tinged a light pink from where the tattoo was still fresh.

“Is that-”

“Max’s initials? Yeah, looks like it,” he said, a coy smile crossing his face. You held out a finger, Dean humming it was alright to touch. A thick swallow was audible as you traced over the delicate skin, black ink soaked into the creamy canvas of his body.

“Fuck you,” you whispered, Dean’s face falling.

“Sweetheart, I’m-” he said as he wiped at your eyes, mascara coming away on the back of your hand. You laughed, shaking your head at him.

“Look what you did you sweet man,” you laughed, a few tears falling free. “Dean, you didn’t have to put his name on your body.”

“Brothers go on the arm. It’s kind of my thing,” he said, your bottom lip wobbling as a swell of emotion hit you. “Are you mad?”

“No,” you croaked out, squeezing your bracelet. “I wish they were with us.”

“Me too,” he said softly, wiping his thumb under your eye, stopping a tear from falling. “Y/N.”

You met his green eyes, thumb stroking your cheek with a barely there touch.

“You understand you’re my girl, right?” You nodded, Dean’s head tilting slightly, eyes scanning down to your lips slowly and back up just as lazily. “So. Am I yours?”

You held a finger to his lips and turned towards the front door, pulling it open, Eric and Sloane both leaned against an SUV.

“We’ll leave in thirty,” you said, pulling the door shut again, finding Dean with a raised eyebrow. “I need ten to fix my makeup. The other twenty is to show you exactly how much you’re mine.”

Dean POV

I stepped outside while Y/N used the bathroom, the brisk air doing wonders for cooling me down after what I could only describe as the most intimate handjob I’d ever received. It was the one thing that stuck out to me about sex with Y/N. Every other partner I’d had, it was about release, pleasure. With Y/N though, it felt different. A good different. Yeah, it was about the pleasure there too but it was…comforting in a way, joined together.

Once Y/N had let go of her fear of it, intimacy turned out to be one of her favorite things in the world. And it was becoming one of mine too. She just made me feel safe. Whole again.

“Told you she’d cry about the tattoo,” mumbled Eric in my ear, hands clasped behind his back. “Surprised you didn’t get down on one knee yet.”

“We understand what we are to each other,” I said, adjusting the sleeve of my jacket. “The time for that’ll come eventually but I don’t think either one of us is in a rush to get there.”

“Ready!” exclaimed Y/N, rushing outside barefoot, the skirt of her dress bunched up in one hand, heels in the other. “How late are we?”

“Oh, only forty five minutes,” said Eric, Y/N jumping in the backseat when he opened the door. “Clutch?”

“I’m the purse tonight,” I chuckled, patting my pocket where her phone, a lipstick and extra hair tie resided.

“Good. I usually get stuck with it,” said Eric, patting my bottom. “Let’s move it kiddos.”

“Hopefully this party doesn’t suck,” said Y/N beside me as we drove up a long driveway thirty minutes later, lips pursed.

“You hate parties,” Eric chuckled from the passenger seat.

“I hate parties where people ask me to sing at their kid’s sweet sixteen which is like, almost all the time,” she said, my hand reaching over and interlacing our hands together. “Sorry. That sounded bitchy.”

“It sounded like that’s really annoying to have happen all the time,” I said, the car slowing down behind another luxury SUV. “We won’t stay long, just a few hours. I know we have to do this for me.”

“Hey,” she said, voice firm. My eyes flickered to hers in the dark space. “We both have more money than we know what to do with. I’m perfectly happy to waste an evening if it means sending some of that money to a good cause. You getting some good press out of it is a bonus.”

“I ever tell you how wonderful you are?” I asked, heart swelling up as she blushed. “Want to go show off your reformed bad boy, sweetheart?”

“You were never bad,” she said, pecking a kiss on my lips. She grinned goofily and wiped them off with her thumb. “Lipstick.”

“You can take it off if you promise to put it back later,” I said, Y/N’s eyes flirting down to my groin, a wicked smirk on her face. “Down girl.”

“I’ll play with you later,” I said as we stopped. Eric slid out of the passenger seat as I opened the back door. I exited and held out a hand, helping Y/N down in her obnoxious skinny little heels. They looked like a death trap to me but she danced around on stage for three hours in them so if anyone knew how to work them, it was her.

Damn she was sexy in that dress. Almost as sexy as those red flannel pajama pants she wore last night. And that cozy blue sweater on Thursday. Or that-

“Stop staring at her,” said Sloane, pushing on my back so I’d move and she could slip out of the backseat. “You’re like a puppy obsessed with her.”

“Be nice,” Y/N chided, taking a step forward, letting me follow her lead. Eric and Sloane fell in place behind us, the driver staying with the car and driving off towards where the cars were being parked.

A man in a nice suit opened the front door for us, revealing a grand hall that made Y/N’s house look like a starter home.

“This guy is loaded,” I whispered in Y/N’s ear as we found ourselves quickly surrounded by people when they caught sight of her. There must have been three hundred people at this thing.

“Here we go,” she mumbled before putting on a big smile, immediately getting asked to be in a selfie with a woman in her twenties.

For the next thirty minutes it felt like we were bombarded, stuck not ten feet past the door in a never ending line of people wanting to talk to Y/N. Yes, some people were football fans but a vast majority were there for Y/N, some nervous, some practically jumping out of their skins.

“Damn dude, you’re beyond lucky,” said some guy to me as his wife took a picture with Y/N.

“I know I am,” I responded, Y/N giving me a flash of a smile.

“She needs a break,” whispered Eric in my ear. I stepped forward and cut off the next gaggle of women that wanted to approach.

“Excuse me, I need to steal Y/N for a minute,” I said, taking her arm and leading her down the large open hall.

“Thanks,” she said, grabbing a glass of champagne off a servers tray. She knocked it back and I started to scan the room in search of water for her.

“Hi,” said a teenage girl in a light blue dress, approaching slowly. She seemed out of place at the event filled with adults in designer clothes. “I’m Cecilia Monroe, Sebastian Monroe’s daughter.”

Ah she was this guys kid. That made sense. “Nice to meet you. We haven’t met your father yet. We’d like to thank him for his numerous donations to the Wolves charity over the years.”

“You have a lovely home,” said Y/N, the girl blushing, clasping her hand over her wrist in a failed attempt to hide her friendship bracelet. Y/N caught it and smiled. “Did you go to the tour this year?”

“Uh yeah. My dad got VIP tickets,” she said shyly, suddenly straightening her back. “I’ll be on the veranda. Please come find me when you’re through with my dad. It’s very important.”

She scuttled away, Y/N raising an eyebrow.

“I think you have a superfan,” I chuckled, Y/N biting her lip. “You think she’s a problem?”

“No. She’s a fan clearly but I don’t know,” she said, waving for Eric and Sloane to join us from where they stood together by a table of appetizers.

“You two good?” asked Sloane, their eyes finding the young girl and watching her leave.

“Keep an eye on that girl,” Y/N said, nodding as Cecilia went through open back doors outside. They both readied themselves but Y/N shook her head. “Just watch her. This might be a Denver situation.”

“Denver?” I asked, Eric frowning.

“Fan in Denver was being abused by her parents. Subtly asked Y/N for help at an event. Smart kid actually,” said Eric. “Sloane and I can try a soft approach with the girl, get a feel for if something is up, relay we can keep her safe .”

“This guy does have a lot of private security,” said Sloane. “If something’s happening, she may feel safer knowing we can protect her in the interim.”

“Let’s go talk to the girl,” said Y/N just as a man in a very nice suit came striding down the hall towards us. “I think that’s our host.”

“Eric, Sloane, go see what’s up. We can fend for ourselves for awhile,” I said. They scuttled away as the man greeted us, holding out a hand and shaking mine firmly.

“Sebastian Monroe,” he said with a pleasant enough smile. “And you two are the power couple my teenage daughter will not stop talking about.”

“Yeah, we get that a lot. We said hello to her earlier,” said Y//N with a fake smile, staying close to my side when the men looked like he was going to reach for her hand. “Y/N Y/L/N.”

“Dean Winchester,” I said, taking my hand back, the other wrapped around Y/N’s waist. The man only smiled though, like we didn’t need to introduce ourselves. “I’ve heard you’re a Wolves fan.”

“Oh not anymore than anyone else,” he said with a wave of his hand. “Although a signed jersey by you would certainly go for big bucks at our next charity auction.”

“We’ll have to make that happen for sure,” I said, not enjoying the way his gaze traveled down Y/N’s body. I’d seen it plenty of times tonight but his seemed the most sleazy of all.

“Speaking of the auction, where are the tables? I’d love to donate,” said Y/N.

“Right side of the veranda, sweetie.” Y/N hummed, giving me a look to join her as soon as I could. “Boy, if I was ten years younger.”

I couldn’t hide my annoyance, Sebastian flashing me a smile. “Oh no. Please go ahead and tell me what you’d do if you were ten years younger.”

“Easy kid. Half the population would bone her if they could,” he said, sipping from the glass in his hand. He took his turn to eye me, a curious look on his face. “You know, I could be inclined to offer another sizeable donation to the Wolves charity for those kids if I could get one of those signed jerseys myself.”

I bit my tongue, both of us aware of the clear message. Refuse and good ol’ Sebastian stops donating a million dollars each year to kids in poverty.

“I’m sure you got one around here somewhere we could fix up,” I said. Sebastian threw an arm over my shoulder and I hide my cringe.

“Good man. Come on. I got one right in my game room.”

Reader POV

There wasn’t really anything you wanted from the silent auction but you had found a general donation slip at the end of the table and jotted down your agent’s information. You’d looked around for Eric and Sloane or the girl when you finished but hadn’t found any of them which probably wasn’t a good sign. You frowned and walked over the railings edge, looking around the dim yard for any sign of them.

“Bruschetta?” asked one of the servers.

“No thank you,” you said without looking.

“I must insist,” he said. You rolled your eyes, ready to give it to this guy but something seemed familiar about him. He handed you one on a small napkin as you kept staring. “Take a bite and smile, pretend it’s really good.”

You’d had more than a handful of dangerous fan interactions over the years but this felt…different.

You did as he asked, faking wide eyes at the average at best food. “Who are you?”

“Do not make a scene,” he said as you finished off the food. “I need to get to your bodyguards.”

“Are you trying to protect that girl? Cecilia?” you asked as you played along and took another piece off the tray.

“What? No. I don’t have time for this,” he said, stepping in front of you, your gaze narrowing. “Do not ask questions. Just get me and Max the fuck out of here.”

“Max?” Your heart skipped a beat, the food falling from your hand as you understand where you’d seen him before. “Y-You’re Sam.”

“We’re watched. Get your guards to get us out. Don’t get caught or we’re dead,” he said, turning away and offering a couple nearby food from his tray. You swallowed, instantly putting on your performer’s smile. The one you wore that time you had food poisoning during a concert and were throwing up between songs back in the summer. The crowd had no fucking clue you felt like shit while you gave them the show of their lives.

Time to act your fucking ass off.

You walked past Sam without a second glance, wishing you could ask him all the questions swirling around in your head. Tell him he was going to be okay. Give him a damn hug and tell him he was safe now.

But you wore that damn smile, all while your blood was boiling. You’d had a lot of dark fantasies about what you’d do to the person that took Max. In recent weeks that’d turned to include Sam too.

It turned out the monster was a hundred feet away from you inside some fucking mansion.

“Y/N,” said Sloane, appearing through a set of open doors in the house, catching your arm a little roughly. “Stay in public.”

“I need to talk-” She shot daggers at you, shutting you up.

“Stay in public for the love of god or Eric will kill me,” she said, loosening her grip. “In forty five seconds I need you to be the biggest distraction in the world. Do not go in any rooms with anyone. Your fame will keep you safe but only if there are people around to witness it. Eric has eyes on him. Do not ask questions. Understand?”

“Sam’s on the veranda,” you whispered, Sloane nodding. Cecilia must have told her and Eric about your brothers.

“Go give us a shot to get them out of here.” You nodded and slipped inside, heart thumping away in your throat. Max was with with Eric. Wherever he was, he was with Eric. He was safe. And Sam should have been with Sloane by then. They were both safe.

As long as they got them out of this house and into the damn car before anyone could notice. Before all those private security guards seemingly on the edge of every room could stop them. Your driver was fast though. They just had to get the boys in the car and they’d be alright.

So you needed to be a distraction. A big fucking distraction and buy them time. You froze in the middle of the hallway, watching Sebastian leave a room with Dean by his side, horribly annoyed from the looks of it. An idea sparked in your mind, one you hoped Dean forgave you for someday.

Yeah, you knew how to cause a big fucking distraction alright.

Dean POV

“You son of a bitch!” screamed Y/N. Normal people could scream loud. A goddamn professional singer that could belt out ballads while running? The whole house went silent at her ear piercing shriek. Even the string orchestra stopped playing. I stared at her as she climbed on top of a table in the center hall, my eyes going wide. “You fucking cheater! You’re a fucking cheater Dean Winchester!”

“Excuse me?” I said, a hundred already with their phones out with even more people piling into the house from the veranda. “Sweetheart-”

“Don’t sweetheart me!” she screamed again. What the fuck was happening? “You’re a cheating bastard! You swore you were different!”

“Y/N, get off the table,” I said gently, very aware of the many phones that were facing us, even some from the freaking staff and private event security. Y/N only backed away when I reached for her, fury in her eyes so visceral it felt like it burned. “Y/N what-”

“I know what you did with her! By the fucking cherry blossoms? Our cherry blossoms? You think you can sleep around on me? I’m the motherfucking Princess of Pop! The world fucking loves me!”

Something was wrong. Besides the fact I hadn’t cheated, Y/N wasn’t one to scream at people from tabletops. She wasn’t drunk and she wasn’t on drugs. And we had no fucking cherry blossoms. Except for the fact it was the code to get in her house.

Trust. She was asking me to fucking trust her right now in front of three hundred people while she tore down my reputation.

If my girl was losing her shit, well damn I was going to play right along.

“Oh get off your high fucking horse!” I shouted, Y/N flinching for a brief moment like it’d stung. “I never made you promises. We aren’t even fucking exclusive!”

“What?!” she shouted back as Sebastian came over, clearing his throat.

“Perhaps if you two could-”

“This bitch is a moron for thinking I’d ever want someone like her. Of course I’m dicking around with you! You really think I want some goodie two shoes like you?”

“Man whore!” she shouted.

“Fucking prude!” I screamed back, praying to god Y/N knew that every word out of my mouth was a lie. “No wonder no one wants to date you. Getting in your pants wasn’t even worth it!”

“Funny since getting in yours just takes a smile. I’m surprised you haven’t contracted every disease known to man you pig!”

“At least I get some! You’re wound up so tight surprised anything can fucking fit up there!” Fuck, I was really going to hate myself in the morning.

Y/N was halfway through screaming back at me when I felt both my phone and Y/N’s go off in my pocket.

YOUR BROTHERS ARE SAFE. HOST SECURITY KNOWS WE GOT THEM OUT. OUR SECURITY & FEDS ON THE WAY. ETA TEN MINUTES. DON’T TRUST LOCAL COPS. CORRUPTED. HOST IS BAD GUY. STAY AWAY FROM HIM AND GUARDS. DO WHAT YOU HAVE TO TO STAY IN PUBLIC.

“What the fuck does brothers safe mean?” I asked, tossing my phone to her. Y/N caught it one handed, her whole body relaxing momentarily before tensing again, her rage suddenly on it’s true target.

Sebastian Monroe.

“Our brothers were here,” she grit out. She ripped off her heels and hopped down onto the floor, stalking over to Sebastian slowly like he was her prey. Her face darkened and I swore she looked ready to tear someone’s throat out. “Our baby brothers were in this fucking house! As your servers! Not of their free will! No. No, they were being watched. Forced. Last I checked, our baby brothers were kidnapped and they didn’t get un-fucking kidnapped.”

She gripped her heel tight in her left hand, right clenched so hard I saw the bone against the skin of her knuckles.

“I don’t care if you weren’t the one that took them. But you kept them and I’m going to fucking destroy you for it,” she growled, approaching him as my brain tried to catch up.

“Y/N what are-”

“I saw Sam! And he was scared and said they’d kill him if he got caught talking to me. They’re safe now but Sam and Max were forced to live here. By him.” Her head turned towards Sebastian, his own head glancing at his security team. “What the fuck did you do to our brothers?”

It clicked for me what she’d been saying, what the text meant, why Y/N had acted so out of character. So full of hatred. But I barely had a chance to feel that same hatred.

Because in the blink of an eye, one of Sebastian’s guards grabbed at Y/N and her fist shot out, connecting with the man’s jaw. He seemed alarmed at her strength and fell back, another guard trying to get their hands on her.

“Get off!” she shouted, kneeing another guy before flipping him on his back. But there were too many of them and I rushed forward, yanking her behind me just as Sebastian got in my face.

He eyed me up and down, smirking at me. “Oh you two just made a big mistake.”

He clasped his hands together loudly as his guards surrounded us, turning his attention to the rest of the party.

“Let’s give the love birds some privacy to sort out their issues,” he chuckled. “And maybe keep an eye on the open bar, hm?”

He spun back around and leaned in close, the stench of cigars and alcohol on his breath.

“Get your brothers back here or I’ll fuck her up so badly there won’t be anything left to bury.” He gripped my shoulder, too forcefully. “And then I’ll bury you alive in the woods all the while the world will think you got in a drunken accident on the way home. After all you had a very loud and public argument tonight. With the friends I have in certain positions of authority…I can make even you two disappear like nothing.”

Y/N gripped the back of my suit jacket tight, a slight tremble in her hand as she listened to him speak.

“Get those boys back and get those guards back in the next ten minutes or I start cutting off pieces of the damn princess of pop.”

________

A/N: Read the Final Part here!

#supernatural #spn #dean winchester #dean winchester x reader #dean x you #spn fanfic #supernatural fanfic #dean x #dean winchester fanfic #football au

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