#i'm so sad for him and i love him but i'm so sad for him
Text
drunk in love
in which fem!reader gets extra affectionate with spencer when she's drunk and he's just happy to be there
fluff!
warnings/tags: drunk!reader, tooth-rottingly sweet fluff, spencer loves you so bad, short n sweet, that's it
a/n: this is for the person who requested spencer taking care of drunk!reader and they're just being really cute and kissy and i lost your request i'm sorry but i hope you see this!! if you guys like this pls let me know, i have spencer helping drunk!r with a bath locked and loaded and its also so cute oh my god i love him goodnight
“Spence,” you say, voice pretty and airy as a song, pressing butterfly-light kisses with soft lips all over the side of his face.
“What?” he asks fondly, fighting to keep his grip on you secure as you keep trying to fall down and bring him with you. This bar isn’t necessarily a dive, but he’s sure the floor is still sticky and he’s not interested in checking.
“I really love you so much. I love you so much more than anyone else has ever loved anyone before.” It’s the fourth or fifth time you’ve told him you love him so much in ten minutes, but it doesn’t feel any less wonderful to hear. “Say it back!” you pout, settling against his chest.
“You didn’t give me time to say it back,” he explains patiently, looking down at you and brushing hair behind your ear. “I love you so much, too, baby.”
Suddenly you’re too flustered and shy to make eye contact.
“Call me that again.”
Spencer’s brow furrows. His smile flickers wider.
“What? Baby?” You nod into his chest. He smooths your hair. “I call you baby all the time.”
“Because you love me?”
“Because I love you,” he agrees solemnly.
You squeak, covering your face with your hands. Not for the first time tonight, he wonder what exactly was in those drinks Penelope kept ordering for you.
“Kiss?”
He gently grabs your wrists.
“You have to show me that pretty face if you want a kiss.”
Your hands slide down your cheeks and you tilt your head up. Now that your face is on display, pretty and shiny in the low lighting, Spencer ducks down and kisses you sweetly, one hand on the back of your head, the other pulling your wrists down and out of the way. He makes sure to not let it go on for too long. There are still plenty of people around, but more saliently, you are quite drunk.
“Good?” he asks, brushing a thumb over your cheek as he pulls away.
“Can we kiss forever?”
“We can try,” he muses.
“I love you,” you say again, plainly. “I wish there was a word stronger than love. I feel like I’ve said love so much it’s lost all its meaning.”
“Keep saying it,” he encourages. “I like hearing it.”
“Can I tell you a secret?” you whisper. Spencer leans down for you to cup your hand to his ear clandestinely. Sweet vanilla perfume still clings to your warm skin, lingering on your neck, mixing with the smell of fruity cocktails on your breath and making him dizzy. “I think JJ has a crush on you.”
He chuckles, straightening. Grieving the loss of your scent for just a second in the back of his mind—until you’re pressing against him anxiously, and it returns.
“JJ is married, babe. I don’t think so.”
You pout.
“No, but I really think she does! It makes me sad!”
Spencer doesn’t believe it for a second, but he knows hard logic and persuasion aren’t really going to do much for you right now. So he loops an arm around your waist and reigns you in.
“You don’t need to be sad, sweetheart. It doesn’t matter who has a crush on me because I have a crush on you.”
“Just me?” you ask anxiously.
“Just you. You’re the prettiest girl in the world. I have a huge crush on you.”
He realizes his voice has taken on that saccharine quality that Derek would give him shit for, and it’s probably visible in his eyes as he leans close to you, but he doesn’t care at all.
You raise your chin, wordlessly asking for another kiss. He delivers. The fabric of his shirt tugs where you grab onto it, attempting to bring him closer even when he draws away from the kiss. Of course he allows it, narrowly avoiding stepping on your toes as you pull him to you like a dog on a leash.
“Can we go home? I wanna cuddle.”
Oh, yeah. If Derek were present he’d have the most ridiculous, shit-eating grin on his face right now. Luckily he’s not here right now, and even if he were, Spencer would still brush your hair aside and say, absolutely we can go home and cuddle.
“Of course we can. Do you want to say goodbye to everyone?”
“Mm… can we Irish goodbye?”
He chuckles.
“I think you should say thank you to Penelope for buying you all of those ridiculous drinks that are making you so nice.”
You make a face.
“I’m always nice.”
“You’re not always this nice,” he reminds you with a small smile, resting his hands on your waist. You frown.
“In my head I am.”
He kisses your head. It’s impossible not to.
“I know. Come on, let’s say bye. I want to go home too.”
“You think I’m not usually nice?”
“Of course I don’t think that. I think you’re so nice.”
“Oh my god, can we get ice cream?” You gasp, already distracted and pulling him along by the hand as you weave through the sparse crowd.
He smiles to himself, happy to follow your lead as long as you don’t let go.
“We can definitely get ice cream. We can do whatever you want.”
#spencer reid#spencer reid fanfic#spencer reid fic#spencer reid x reader#spencer reid x fem!reader#spencer reid x self insert#spencer reid imagine#spencer reid fluff#spencer reid x you#spencer reid fanfiction#spencer reid x y/n#criminal minds#criminal minds fanfic#criminal minds imagine
789 notes
·
View notes
Text
I Can Do It With a Broken Heart (Pt 2 to unrequited love)
A/n: HERE IT IS BESTIES!!! The official Pt 2 to unrequited love! I know the poll is still live but I’m impatient. So to make sure I’m still taking everyone’s votes into account there will be an alternate ending that should be posted right after this.
Read the Alt ending here, it's pretty similar in places
I'm still absolutely blown away by how well-received the first part was. This is going to be an ongoing series, all could be read individually but the "background" will be these two fics.
Warnings: Angst, Cursing, reader suffers from depressed thoughts
WC: ~3.4k
divder by @cafekitsune
The next morning I was in Rhys office. He barely even looked up from the paper strewn over his desk before I spoke.
“I’m going back home.”
He sighed, leaning back into his chair. His eyes raked over me, “Does this have anything to do with why Azriel was so huffy this morning?” His eyebrow raised and I felt the anger I’d been trying to quell since last night rise its head up like a sleeping dragon.
“Fuck off. Let him be mad if he wants to be mad.” I snapped.
“Mad isn’t exactly how I would put it,” He paused looking at me. “What happened?” The High Lord questioned. I sighed not having the strength to recount the events from last night.
“Nothing but the inevitable.” he frowned at my non-answer but didn’t press any harder.
“I’ll miss you. We all will.” He said finally. I nodded.
“You all should visit.” Not an I’ll visit. No. If I could avoid it I would never step foot into this miserable court ever again.
I was gone by mid-morning. Mor had helped me winnow the things I wanted to take with me. What they did with the rest wasn’t any of my concern. Rhys or Feyre had bought it all for me anyways, let them decide what to do with their money.
Once I had gotten settled into my room, I hugged Mor goodbye and thanked her for her help. She just gave me a tighter hug and told me she would visit soon.
It was two weeks before I could see Helion.Two weeks of settling back into my court that I loved so dearly. He was visiting Dawn court for some trade agreement that needed to be signed. I came by every day, asking if he’d returned you. His second would just silently shake her head at me. And I would stomp back to my room like an angry babe.
Two weeks of checking before I finally saw her nod her head and I had to stop myself from running into Helions office. I had the control to at least knock on the door but not much else. I quickly shut the door behind me as he called me in.
“Sunbeam!” He called out when saw my face. “I had hoped the rumors of you moving back home were true.” He walked around the desk and gave me a brisk hug. Very out of character for him.
“You’re not an easy man to schedule an appointment with, Helion.” I smiled warmly at the High Lord of my court.
“If you wanted a piece of me, you only had to say the words and I would have come running darling.” There's the flirt I remember. I thought, rolling my eyes.
“But judging by your urgency in requesting a meeting that my second expressed to me, I’m going to assume that’s not what you wanted to see me for.”
My smile dropped as I braced myself for the question I needed to ask him.
“I need you to break a mating bond”
His mouth fell open. For once in my life, Helion was speechless. “I don’t know if I can even do that. Are you sure that’s what you want?” His eyes saw right through me. I threw my head back, a sad laugh bubbling past my lips.
“Yes. No. Gods I don’t know. I just don’t want it to hurt like this forever.” I felt treacherous tears starting to fall down my face. Helion grabbed my arms gently before I could wipe them away.
“I know you well enough to know that you don’t run away from hard things.” He held me against his chest as I really started to sob.
“Helion. Every second that I’m away from him it kills me. I’m over here dying inside over some male who only ever saw me as a second option.”
“Then he’s an idiot. But the mother still saw fit to make you two mates. Give it some more thought, you’re clearly still not fully decided. I’ll do some research to see if it’s even possible and if you still want to, I’ll be here to help.” I nodded my thanks into his shirt. He takes my head between his hands and uses his thumbs to wipe the tears still streaking down my face. He gives me a gentle kiss on the top of my head before I walk out of the room.
I sat on the decision for a month. A month of volleying back and forth. Weighting the pros and cons of my choice. I had started doing my own research through the tomes in the library I had access to. My eyes widened as I finally found the information I needed.
Picking up the book I all but sprinted to Helion’s office. I didn't bother knocking as I pushed past the door. Helion looked up from his desk and raised an eyebrow at me.
Panting, I showed him the page in the book. “Are you sure?”
“I’ve never been more sure of anything in my whole life.” I promised him. He still looked skeptical but walked around to where I stood anyway.
“I can’t say this is going to be pleasant.” He said wearily as I laid down on the couch in his study. “I’ve never heard of anyone doing this. I’ve seen rejection but this is cutting off the magic at the source.”
I looked into the males eyes, eyes I had known my whole life.
“Please. Nothing can hurt more than this already does.” Sympathy washed over his face and he leaned over me, placing a hand to each of my temples. It felt like the worst headache I had ever had in my life. My head was being split open and I heard the whimper leave my mouth. The pressure of his hands lifted slightly and I fought to get out the words. “I’m okay. Keep going.” I couldn’t open my eyes to see his face but his hands didn’t move. The pounding broke to a burning heat. I could feel the moment it snapped, I could almost picture the scissors snipping that tight string that connected us. One last fleeting rush of pure pain pushed through the bond. And then it was gone. My head was still pounding, I opened my eyes and saw Helion panted above me.
“How do you feel?” He asked, helping me into a sitting position.
“Like I have one hell of a hangover.” I pressed a hand to the bridge of my nose. Like I could squeeze out the uncomfortable feeling. “But also lighter.” My free hand going to my chest. It would take some time to adjust to this new feeling. But I could not stop the smile that spread over my face. Before Helion could say anything else, I reached up to wrap my arms around his neck.
“I can’t thank you enough.” I said into his neck. He gave a tight laugh and hugged me back.
“You should go sleep this off. Please tell me if any of the pain gets worse.” He held my face between his hands and I nodded as much as I could. I all but floated back to my room.
I fell into a familiar routine back in the Day Court. I took up my old job as a researcher. My days were spent surrounded by the massive libraries of my home court. People would come to us with questions and it was our job to use the knowledge at our disposal to find them answers. It kept me busy at the very least, but I did have to admit that I love doing it. I felt more useful here than I ever had at the Night Court. Pangs of sadness would rip through me when someone snarked in a way that made me think of Cassian. When someone would smirk and I could only picture Rhysand standing in front of me as he beat me in chess. The art was so beautiful that I longed to show Feyre if only to see that twinkle in eye as she dissected the colors and shading used.
I smiled as the pang in my chest at the thought of Azriel held no pain. It had taken me some time to get used to the emptiness in my chest, I had grown so used to the hollow feeling of the unreturned bond but this emptiness wasn’t pain but instead it was like a weight had been taken off my chest.
Someone calling my name pulled me from my musing. One of the messengers, Dia, smiled brightly up at me. “Hey sunbeam. Helion asked me to deliver this to you.” I took the golden envelope from her. I thanked her and she turned around, leaving me back to my books.
I slid my finger under the seal and pulled out the letter. He was flirty even in a letter. He had requested that I accompany him to the latest ball he was hosting. Helion, ever the charmer, even placed boxes for me to check yes or no. I giggled to myself at the juvenile nature of it, but checked yes with the quill sitting next to me.
The ball was just a few days away and I was so excited as dress after dress were brought into my room for me to try on. The one that ended up catching my eye was a floor length glossimer dress, such a pale golden color it looked almost like sunlight itself. The bottom was dyed a light pink color that flowed into it seamlessly. It took my breath away as I smoothed out the light fabric. It fit like a glove and I knew instantly this was the dress I had to wear.
My reflection looked like a stranger. My hair was pinned to one side, sweeping down over my shoulder and my back. A golden tiara was woven into loose curls. Long golden chandelier earrings studded with diamonds almost touched my shoulders. The sun had created a sultry blush on the high points of my cheeks. I looked happier than I had in years. I sensed Helion's presence in my room and caught his eyes in the floor length mirror.
He let out a low whistle and I blushed, adjusting my tiara. I walked over to him and he held out his hand for me, twirling me around dramatically when I took it. “No one will be able to take their eyes off of you, Sunbeam.” His eyes hungirly raked over me, “If you ever reconsider my offer. I would take you to bed in a heartbeat. Just say the words.” I pushed his shoulder, I didn’t doubt his words.
“Keep your pants on Helion. We have a ball to get to.”
“I’m High Lord. I can be late.” His pupils had dilated and I rolled my eyes, pushing him out the door before I linked my arm into his.
The ball was as lavish as I had expected. There was much to celebrate and this was mostly to welcome the new High Lord. Eris. Beron had finally died a few months back and Eris had officially stepped into the role with grace. The autumn court once known for its cruelty seemed to be taking a new direction and as I talked to nobility from the court, it was for the better. I had gotten to know him over the years, his frequent visits to the Night Court, plus a few flirty exchanges that I always brushed off, while he was helping us during the war softened me to him. Learning the true events of that night with Mor.
I locked eyes with Eris across the room. He had been heartbreakingly handsome when he was just High Fae but as a High Lord? His hair had grown slightly longer, just touching his shoulders. Dressed in a deep maroon suit that showed off every single one of his muscles. The permanent scowl that had been etched into his face had been replaced with a smile that radiated comfort. My feet seemed to move without deciding to. Eris kept his eyes locked onto mine as I got closer. My cheeks heated up under his intense stare.
“Hi little sunbeam,” Honeyed words wrapped around me. “Seems like you’re no longer hiding in the shadows.” He held out his hand, eyes flickering to the dance floor. I smiled up at him and gently placed my hand in his.
His touch was firm and the warmth of his power radiated off of him. He clutched my waist, pulling me flush to his front. I felt every plane of his toned body pressed against me and goosebumps broke out across my skin having nothing to do with the temperature in the room. The two of us gilded across the floor. I could feel the eyes of the room on us but I only had eyes for the male in front of me.
“If I had known you danced this good, I would have pulled you out of that miserable court a long time ago.” He spoke into the shell of my ear. “I’ll never understand what the Shadowslinger was thinking, even I could smell the mating bond on you. Plus, one look at me with those beautiful doe eyes and I would have been putty in your hands.” He nipped at my earlobe and I felt it deep in my stomach.
“Well good thing he’s not my mate anymore.” I whispered back to him, voice breathy. He responded with a kiss to my neck. All of a sudden I felt his warmth disappear. Before I could even process what had happened, I was standing half ways across the room. Eris just smirked, eyes twinkling with mischief.
“Stand down, you overgrown bat.” The High Lord said and that’s when I heard the growl from my side, caught a glimpse of wings and sapphire blue. Before another word could leave my mouth, I was being pulled out of the ballroom and outside to the balcony.
I thrashed against Azriel’s grip on my arm. His hand wrapped around my wrist tight enough to bruise.
“What the hel was that?” He yelled at me, finally letting go of my wrist.
“You had no right!” I screeched at him. Anger seethed through me. I felt my palms heat up from the light trying to escape from them. He went to grab my arm and I ripped it back from his reach. “Don’t you fucking dare.”
“Please.” Was all he said and suddenly it was like that night all over again. Me pouring my heart out and all he could say was please.
“Please what, Azriel? Is that all you know how to do, beg and plead. For what? Was breaking my heart once not enough for you.”
“Gods. What do you want me to say?” He ran his hands through his hair. He looked like he was about to lose it. Good. “Do you want to hear how I was fucking terrified. How any good thing that I had ever received had been taken away from me? That when I felt that twinge in my chest, that I knew what it meant but prayed to the gods that it wasn’t that.” I went to start in on him again. “Would hearing that I looked for you in every female I came across help us here?.”
“Stop. Just stop. I’m sure you’ve rehearsed this all before but do you actually think I’m stupid enough to believe it?” I spit out between my teeth.
“No. Gods this is coming out all wrong.” He ran a frantic hand through his hair. I clocked the shake in them “Why did you break the bond?”
I laughed at his audacity. “Why? You have the nerve to ask me why?” My voice dripped venom, “I did it because I couldn’t stand being tied to you like that. That night..” I started, he interrupted me.
“I said the most vile things I could think of. I panicked when you told me about the bond. If you could feel it too, I knew nothing good could have come from that so I pushed you away.” I shook my head, as if I could shake his words away from my ears.
“You seemed so shocked when I told you.”
His head sunk down, voice small “I was shocked because no part of me believed, believes, that I deserve you in that way.” When he stepped forward, I didn’t step away. Mind too busy catching up with his words. “Please say something. “
I turned my eyes up to look at him. Hazel eyes soft sparkling with unshed tears. I wanted to rip into him. I truly did. Some sick part of me wanted to make him hurt like he had hurt me but I know that wouldn’t fix anything here. What is done was done.
“You don’t get to do this to me. You don’t get to say all the right things and just have me forgive you. You don’t get to say that you love me after everything you did.” He sighed. Leaning his head on top of mine. I frowned at the contact, but didn’t push him away, refusing to melt into him. “Whatever your reason. You said all those things that you knew would hurt me, you said them and some part of you had to believe them.”
“I know. There isn’t a day that I don’t regret everything that I said, everything I had put you through over all those years. I took you for granted and I didn’t realize how much I loved you until you were gone. Until I felt that bond being snatched away from me” I wanted to push him back but something in me let his words sink into my bones.
“I had dreamed for so long how it would feel when I finally heard you say those words, And do you know what I feel?” His eyes glimmered with hope as I took a step away from him, out of his grasp. “Nothing. I feel nothing for you. Not anger, not contempt.” Tears slipped out of his eyes at my harsh words. “Of course I remember what it felt like before. Maybe some part of me will always love you in my own way but I’m not tied to you anymore and I have never been so thankful for something in my entire life.” He flinched like I had hit him.
“Do you really mean that?” His voice was so small it almost made me feel bad for him. Almost.
“I do.” I sucked in a heavy breath. “Look, we’ll most likely still have to see each other so I don’t want to end on a bad note. You were still one of my best friends for over a century and this doesn’t undo all of that but this,” I gesture between the two of us, “Will never be anything else but that, a friendship.” He gave me a sad smile.
“I’ll take whatever you are willing to give me.” I turned to walk away and he reached for my arm, I grabbed his hand and gave it a gentle squeeze before I walked back to the ball that was in full swing.
I weaved in between bodies easily. Finding Eris with ease. Despite being in the middle of a conversation, he stepped away the moment he sensed my presence. Not sparing a glance to the fae surrounding him.
“That’s all settled then?” He asked, giving me a once over. I nodded and took his hand again.
“I believe we were in the middle of a dance?” I pulled him against me, not realizing how much I missed the feeling of his heat against my skin. I placed my head on his chest. We didn’t so much as dance, more so swayed in place. Arms wrapped around each other. He tapped my chin with a gentle finger and I let him guide my mouth up to his. The kiss was soft and sweet, like holding your hands in front of a warm fire after a day in the cold. When I tried to deepen it, he laughed against my lips. I let out a shameless whine as he disconnected our lips. As I looked into his eyes, I felt the stirring of something familiar and for the first time, welcomed it as that hole in my chest was filled again.
Tagging people that seemed excited about pt. 2
@cleverzonkwombatsludge @yearninglustfully @myromanempiree @starsandsins @melmo567 @saltedcoffeescotch
#azriel acotar#unrequited love#acomaf#acosf#acotar fanfiction#acotar#azriel angst#eris vanserra#eris x you#eris x reader#angst#hurt/comfort#eris acotar#eris fluff#eris vandaddy
204 notes
·
View notes
Text
king of my heart | pt. 2
pairings: lando norris x fem!reader | pato o'ward x fem!reader
warnings: love triangle? kinda.
author's note: go get some popcorn cause we have some drama here🍿... and it's a long part, so enjoy!!
part 1 | part 2
------------------------------------------------------
yourusername
liked by charles_leclerc, isahernaez, frosenqvist, and 79,121 others!
yourusername Miami GP over and out ✅🏁 No words could ever explain just how grateful I am for all of you and for the opportunity that I get to cover this amazing sport with such incredible people by my side. Thank you for everything Miami, I hope to see you again soon! 🌴💖
user1 the power she holds 🙌
user2 she's really living my dream 🥹
lissiemackintosh so happy to be able to share this with you!! love u❤️
yourusername we really need to do this more often😘 love u too!
user3 y/n and lissie hosting track tv together is my new roman empire fr
user4 SLAY QUEENS!!
user5 the queens are thriving
user6 i wanna be friends with them so bad 😫
user7 omg girl you're STUNNING
user8 BEST F1 WAG
user9 facts facts facts
user10 she's not even a wag lol it's so obvious lando just keeps this nobody around for when he's bored and horny
user11 user10 this "nobody" has done SO much in terms of women representation in motorsport, she's hardworking and a lovely woman. meanwhile, you're just a sad little person who's jealous of her because she's successful and close to your crush, who doesn't even know who you are. so get a life and stop embarrassing yourself.
user12 user11 SAY IT LOUDER 👏
user13 user11 PREACH!!!
user14 i don't know if i wanna be her or be with her😩
user15 this is such a mood tbh
landonorris so proud of you, boo😍
yourusername 🥰🧡
user16 YNLANDO NATION WE WON
user17 we love a supporting boyfriend 🤩
user18 i want what they have, your honor
user19 is this considered a soft launch or what?
user20 y'all are delulu😂 it's so obvious they're just friends
user21 user20 girl being delulu is the solulu 🙌
user22 so when are we gonna talk about felix liking the post?
user23 i'm lost sorry, who's felix?
user24 user23 he's pato's teammate in indycar and one of his besties
user25 if felix liked then WHERE'S PATO
user26 user25 doing more important things than being focused on this girl.
lilymhe such a pretty girl 💗
alex_albon should i be jealous?
yourusername you should indeed. can u fight?
user24 the friendship i didn't know i needed 🥹
user25 MY FAV WAGS INTERACTING YAY
user26 f1 is so lucky to have you!!!
user27 LOOOL why would they be lucky to have her?😂😂😂 she's nothing special
user28 user27 and yet she's still rising 💅
user29 user27 then why are you even on her post? lol obsessed much?
user30 my role model ❤️🩹
📞 incoming call
[y/n; normal] [pato; cursive]
"...Hello? Did you butt-dialed me or something?"
"Uhm, hi. It's not a butt-dial. I-I actually just wanted to talk to you. Hear your voice, y'know. I've been kinda missing you."
"Oh really? And here I was thinking that your cold behavior toward me over the past three weeks meant that you didn't want anything to do with me. Silly me, I guess."
"I-I'm... [sighs]. That's what I wanted to talk to you about, actually. About the way I've been treating you. I'm sorry, y/n. I really am sorry. I know I've been a total jerk-"
"Yeah, you can put it that way."
"...I've been a total jerk and I regret it very much. You didn't deserve it at all. I just- I'm not trying to excuse my awful behavior but I just think I got- Uhm..."
"You got what?"
"Well... I saw Lando's instagram story when you went back to Monaco, as you've probably already figured it out. And I think- Well... I got jealous. And I know it probably sounds stupid now but at the time it felt like a punch in the face."
"Pato..."
"I know I didn't and still have absolutely no business to be jealous about you and Lando, cause you and I are not dating or anything and you don't owe me any kind of explanation about the type of relationship you have with him. But after the great time we spend together in Long Beach... I don't know, it just hurted seeing you with him. But that doesn't excuse anything and I just regret so much the way I've been treating you since then, it hasn't been fair to you at all."
"And it didn't cross your mind that we could have had this conversation way before now? I mean, you waited three weeks to finally talk to me like a decent human being, how-"
"I know and I'm so-"
"Let me finish."
"Sorry, go on."
"However, I do appreciate that you're finally acknowledging all of this and communicating with me like an actual adult. I know it's not always easy to do. And although I don't owe you any kind of explanation, I just want you to know that there's nothing going on between Lando and me."
"So you and him...?"
"We're friends and that's it. We care for each other but there's nothing going on."
"Oh... well, thanks for clarifying that for me."
"Yeah, yeah. You'll have to work harder for my forgiveness, anyway. I appreciate the call but it won't be that easy for you."
"Is that so?"
"You've heard me."
"In that case, what would you say if I invite you for a few days to come here to Punta Mita? Maybe that'll help me a little to earn your forgiveness."
"... I'm sorry, what!?"
"You've heard me."
"You're joking. You have to be joking."
"I'm not joking. You're still in Miami, right?"
"I am..."
"Great! My brother in law is in Miami too and he'll take the jet tomorrow morning. If you want to, you can join him and come here with him! We'd be thrilled to have you here too."
"Oh my God... Pato, I don't know what to say!"
"Say yes and you'd make this birthday boy the happiest man in the world. You'd even make my sister happy, I've been telling her a lot about you and now she's eager to meet you."
"I hope you've been telling her good things about me, then."
"Only the best. She's even on your side, y'know. Said I was being a giant cabrón and needed to make things right. She wasn't wrong tho."
"[giggles] Fine. I'll go, but I'm only doing this for your sister."
"I'll take that anyway! I'll let Brett know you'll join him and I'll send you the details, okay?"
"Okay!"
"Now go and pack your bags for tomorrow."
"Hey! Don't get bosy with me, mister!"
"[Laughs] Fine. Take care, I'll see you tomorrow."
"See you, birthday boy!"
patriciooward posted to his story!
[caption 1; 🦈] [caption 2; beautiful views]
yourusername posted to their story!
[caption 1; para-para-paradise 🌞] [caption 2; in his sharkboy era] [caption 3; 🐶❤️]
paddockgossips
liked by magui_corceiro and 84,091 others!
paddockgossips Among the alleged "breakup" between y/n and Lando, the McLaren driver was photographed last night having fun in a Monaco club in the company of Max Fewtrell and other friends. Some sources have said that Lando seemed very cozy with a blonde woman at the party, whom he later left with. However, we cannot verify this information in any way, so it remains a rumor.
user1 I HAVE A CHANCE AGAIN (i'm delulu)
user2 so this confirms ynlando is over?? 😭
user3 girl i'm devastated 😭😭😭
user4 i'm still in denial
user5 well they were never together to begin with
user6 user5 THIS!! people act like they were a couple when they NEVER confirmed anything 😂
user7 "blonde woman at the party" "it remains a rumor" and magui goes and like the post LOL
user8 she's so desperate for attention🙄
user9 who's magui???
user10 user9 she's kika's friend and she was dating football player João Félix not so long ago (in fact, i thought they were still together lol)
user11 user10 and don't forget she's a cheater.
user12 user9 she's trouble
user13 yn >>>>>>>> magui
user14 user13 no need to compare them
user15 sorry but single lando it's so hot 🥵
user16 SO TRUE
user17 FACTS he looks so good omfg
user18 in his heartbreaker era 😎
user19 in his reputation era 😎
user20 in his idgaf era 😎
user21 i'm a child of divorce fr
user22 i know y'all love y/n for some reason but i'm SO glad lando finally got away from her.
user23 SAME. and if magui makes him happy then great for him
user24 stfu i'm mourning here
user25 y/n this magui that but max was, is and will forever be lando's true wag💅
user26 the one and only indeed
elbaoward posted to her story!
[caption1; off to dinner] [caption2; my love🤍] [caption 3; lovebirds!]
patriciooward
liked by landonorris, yourusername, brettkimbro, and 86,382 others!
patriciooward BDAY WKND DUMP 📸 thank y'all for all the love❤️🔥
user1 THE HARD LAUNCH IT'S HARD LAUNCHING
user2 OMG IT'S HAPPENING EVERYBODY STAY CAAAAALM
user3 he really said i'll give you what you want: thrist traps and y/n... and he's so real for that
user4 he really knows his audience
user5 king behavior if u ask me
user6 everybody say thank you Pato 🙏
user7 YNPATO NATION HOW ARE WE FEELING??
user8 I'M STILL SPEECHLESS
user9 they're so perfect i wanna cry😭
user10 LOVE TO SEE🔥
user11 as a ynlando shipper i have to admit they're cute but ngl this still hurts 😩
user12 MOOD
user13 ynlando will always be in our hearts 🥺
user14 ynlando >>>>>>>>>> ynpato
user15 user13 girl grow up.
user16 THAT SHOULD BE ME
elbaoward where are my credits for the last pic? cuties🤍
user17 u literally gave us the cutest pic ever
user18 elba thank you so much for your service🫡
user19 elba is ynpato's #1 fan and you can't tell me otherwise
user20 elba is just like us fr
user21 LOVE YOU ELBAAAAA 🩷
user22 MOM AND DAD
user23 can't believe how fast she moved on and got together with this dude lol lando really dodged a bullet with her
user24 how fast she moved on?? girl y/n and lando were never even together so stfu
user25 ???? why are you even on pato's ig post? go away
user26 user23 y/n is such an attention seeker and yet everyone loves her, i'll never understand it 🥱
user27 not to be that person but i would KILL to be that piñata😏
user28 MOOD
frosenqvist oh to be tanned, young and in love
patriciooward 😜
user29 IN LOVE??? FELIX BESTIE TELL US MORE
user30 i don't know about y'all but this is all the confirmation i need about ynpato being real, bye
user31 i think i can hear the wedding bells
user32 user31 yesss and felix as pato's best man
user33 bestie don't be shy and drop more y/n pics 🫶
user34 i second the motion !!!
user35 NOT LANDO LIKING THE POST LOOOOL
user36 he is so unserious i love him
user37 ICONIC BEHAVIOR TBH
user38 yeah but i just know he's crying inside
user39 user38 for what? lol lando knows he's so much better than this cheaper version of him.
user40 user39 i'm so done with people like you who insult pato just because you cannot defend lando with good arguments.
yourusername magical weekend 💖
patriciooward with you there? always
user41 STOP THEY'RE SO CUTE OMG
user42 this is such an upgrade tbh
user43 SO HAPPY FOR THEM 🥹
user44 what a bitch.
yourusername posted to their story!
[caption 1; back to reality✈️] [caption 2; I'm a high performance athlete. Athletes sweat. Sweat, baby] [caption 3; cutest model🧡]
paddockgossips
liked by magui_corceiro and 53,237 other people!
paddockgossips NEW WAG ALERT? 🚨 Magui Corceiro, the Portuguese model and actress, attended the Monaco GP after being seen a few days ago having lunch with Lando. It has been rumored that they could be in a relationship, especially since Lando and y/n apparently went different ways, and Corceiro's presence in the paddock has not gone unnoticed by anyone. Still, neither Lando nor Magui have confirmed or denied these rumors.
user1 A TRIGGER WARNING WOULD BE NICE NEXT TIME
user2 um let's hope there isn't a next time
user3 user2 let's pray girl, let's pray 🙏
user4 "neither lando nor magui have confirmed or denied these rumors" well that's bs cause she just liked the post
user5 istg she's trying so hard to get attention
user6 lando was asked about magui and he said she was just a friend... and then she goes and does this lol what a clout chaser
user7 and people used to say that y/n was after lando's fame and yet she NEVER did anything like this
user8 she's such a pick me girl
user9 everything i know of this girl has been against my will istg
user10 SAME
user11 oh good luck lando
user12 oh be prepared for the y/n fans and little girls that'll come attack magui when she hasn't even done anything wrong
user13 literally they're just mad at magui cause she's dating their fav driver loool
user14 they're only jealous cause magui is a gorgeous woman
user15 user14 she's gorgeous but she's still a snake
user16 i'd ask why lando would be with someone like her, but then i remember he's an adult and if he wants someone like her by his side then that's up to him. let's not treat him like a baby please
user17 say👏 it👏 louder👏
user18 weeeeell if this is the kind of people lando likes to have around then i guess y/n really dodged a bullet with him
user19 FACTS
user20 i mean at the end of the day he's just another privileged white boy, so🤷♀️
user21 i really don't get all the hate that she's getting, is she really that problematic?
user22 user21 girl google it yourself but yeah, she is
user23 I MISS MY GIRL Y/N WHERE IS SHEEEEEEEE??
user24 what is she even doing there?
user25 must be cause lando wanted her to be there
user26 why y'all never asked the same thing about y/n? y'all are such hypocrites istg
user27 user26 cause y/n was actually doing her job?????
user28 user26 oh you're stupid 😂😂
user29 magui in the paddock, pato not being able to finish Indy 500... it really is a shitty day huh
user30 DON'T EVEN REMIND ME WHAT HAPPENED WITH PATO OMFG
user31 I'M STILL SO MAD ABOUT PATO
user32 the only good part is that y/n and his family were there for him ❤️🩹
see y'all in part 3!
taglist: @drunkinthemiddleoftheday @evie-119 @evans-dejong @minkyungseokie @noneofyourfbusinessworld @bernelflo @eiaaasamantha @ijustgomessitupx @honethatty12 @daemyratwst @f1fan65
(if you'd like to be tagged in the next part, just let me know in the comments!🧡)
#lando norris#lando norris x y/n#lando norris x you#lando norris f1#lando norris imagine#f1 fanfic#f1 social media au#lando norris fanfic#lando norris fic#f1 fanfiction#pato o'ward#pato o'ward x reader#pato o'ward x y/n#pato o'ward x you#pato o'ward imagine#indycar social media au#indycar#f1#formulaone#pato o'ward fanfic#indycar fanfic#fanfic#fanfiction#female!reader#f1 content creator
168 notes
·
View notes
Text
5 hours apart
[spencer reid x reader]
summary: “I miss you. I miss you so much it hurts.” “I don't want you to miss me. It's tearing me apart.” from this prompt list.
pairing: spencer reid x svu!detective!f!reader
w.c: 3.7K
warnings/content: long distance relationship; crying; sadness; discussions of a case related to kidnapping (brief); migraine; this o.s approaches healthy siblings dynamic and some childhood trauma, be aware; discussions about marriage; spencer does not beat the pipe cleaner allegations.
A/N: decided to do a crossover one shot between criminal minds and law and order: svu (my newest obsession)because I love both shows (and nick amaro has older brother vibes) and it fit pretty well. there's like a few Spanish terms that I used and please consider that I did Spanish in high school and had a few classes afterwards, forgive me if I made some misspellings.
navi
masterpost
cm masterlist
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
There are two missed calls on your phonescreen when you turn it on. The heavy load of paperwork you needed to finish plus the migraine that did not leave you alone forced you to turn your phone off during the daytime so you could concentrate on working. Amanda and Fin telling you to go home wasn't as effective as your boss ordering the exact same thing upon seeing your tired state. Thankfully, by the time he did that, you had already finished everything and you happily obliged.
The keychain clinking against the doorknob makes you drop your shoulders in relief. You aren't home but it's close enough. It's been a few months since you have stepped into your brother's place, but it's the same as you remember. Grey couch, the spotless kitchen island that you can see as soon as you walk in, the innumerous pictures of your brother and your niece scattered around the walls.
You throw your dark brown blazer on the loveseat across the room and sit on the couch unceremoniously, pressing play on the latest voice message.
“Hey... It's me. I called you before and it went straight to voicemail, I... I forgot to say something.” You snort, hair falling off of your ponytail as you let it loose down your shoulders. Never have you ever seen your boyfriend forget something. “I'm sorry I couldn't make it. I know I promised and I really wanted to go but the case, it was a serious one, they needed me.” The guilt in his voice breaks a part of you inside. “I-I'm sorry I let you down.” There's a beat, some voices in the background that you can't make out who it is because they're too far away. “I love you and I'll make it up to you, okay? Call me when you can, please.” And the message ends.
You only notice you start crying when a sob echoes through the room and the sound comes from you.
You were never mad at him. Deep down, you expected him to cancel on you because of a case, you knew you would if you were needed. Both if you are not the kind of people who let your people hanging, especially if the reason is work. And that's fine, when you started dating Spencer, that was the first thing you understood, as he did.
Being far away from him is what kills you. You manage to work long-distance. He visits you on his (rare) day-offs, you escape for a few days to Virginia. It works. It's how you do. But there are moments in which you just need him close and it's not like you can drive over to his apartment right away. 5 hours apart does that to a couple. It's not unbearable, but it's painful.
You miss him.
So you dial the number you know by heart, sniffling quietly on your bubble of loneliness in the empty apartment.
You don't know where he is, if he's home, if he's in a completely different timezone. You don't care.
It rings twice before his voice fills up the call. “Hi—Hey, angel.” He sounds frantic. You smile thinking he must have been waiting for your call.
“Hey, Spence,” you respond, folding your knees on the couch. “Are you home? I didn't text first to see if it was a good time to talk, sorry.”
“It's always a good time to talk to you.” He says without hesitantion. “I'm on the motel, packing.”
“Oh, so did the case end okay?”
You can feel the relief through his exhale. “Yes, we found the boy on time. He's finally back with his parents. Home.”
Your mouth twitches, “that's good.” And you make sure to add as you always do, “you saved a life today, I'm proud of you.”
His soft awkward chuckle causes a tearful grin out of you. You can practically see him blushing.
“Thank you. It was... It's a good feeling.”
“Are you happy?”
“Not really.”
You brows furrow slightly. “Why? Did something happen?”
“I miss you,” he says. “I am happy that we saved someone today, of course but... You know, the first person I wanted to tell it to was you. I just— I miss you. So much it hurts.”
You close your eyes as the tears slip one by one down your cheeks, you felt their salty taste. Your chest clenching as you stay silent for what feels like several minutes until Spencer's concerned tone breaks the silence.
“Angel?”
“Please don't miss me. It's tearing me apart.” Your request doesn't quite make sense but you don't have time to think it through before you say it. It just what comes out of your heart.
“Please, don't cry.”
You let out a tearful laugh, attempting to dry your tears foolishly.
“I'm always missing you, sweetheart. I'm sorry but that's inevitable.” He adds, sadly.
“It hurts so fucking much.”
Spencer clears his throat and you know he's either refraining from crying himself or trying to mask it.
“I know. I'm sorry.” He pauses. “I wish I was there.”
You shake your head even though he can't see it. “'s not your fault. It's your job, you can't help it.”
"I hate it that you're crying and I'm not there to comfort you."
"I'm fine," you whisper, sniffling. "Don't worry about me. Today was just... A shitty day, really."
"Do you want to talk about it?"
You hum, fiddling with the soft fabric of the light green hand-knit throw blanket your brother always left on his couch. "Migraine." It's what you say and all he needs to know to wince in the other side of the line.
"Did you take something for it?" Spencer is aware of your frequent migraines and how much they bother you.
"Yeah, it's okay now." You reply even though there's a little painful pang in the back of your back right now.
"Maybe you should try to sleep a little. Did you know that sleeping seven hours every night impacts on your focus, body weight and immune system? Actually, adults aged from sixteen to sixty years should all get at least seven hours sleep every night, but that's almost never happens because of people's usual hectic work schedules-" He sucks in a breathe upon noticing he's rambling non-stop. You laugh and suddenly the harsh grip on your heart diminishes a little. His voice appeasing the momentary heartache you're going through.
"Says you. Who never sleeps, anyway. And work on caffeine 24/7."
"Hey," his tone has a tinge of amusement but he pretends to be offended. "I sleep."
"You do when I'm there. Cause I force you."
"Oh, you're so cruel to me, angel."
Your lips widen into a smirk. "That I am."
The conversation carries on for a while, until you figure out which time it is where he is and immediately orders him to go to sleep because he has an early flight to catch in the morning. He's reluctant, but he eventually lets it go because you need to sleep too and you will talk in the next day again.
Before he hangs up, he asks, the first time he hesitates in the call. "Uh, does- does your brother hate me?"
Your brain takes a few seconds to grasp what he's implying, until you remember what was supposed to happen this weekend. Spencer would come over to your place in New York to meet your brother.
You bite your lip, straightening your legs out on the ouch. "Yeah, about that..."
"He does, doesn't he? I don't blame him, I did screw up-"
"Wait, baby, that's not it. I... I actually didn't tell him." A pause, you curse under your breath. Now he must thing you didn't want him to come. "Spence?"
"Did I pressure to do something you didn't want? I should have asked you if you wanted meet to meet him, right? I think I kind of invited myself over and-"
"Stop." You cut him off. "No, Spencer. You didn't pressure me into anything. I want you two to meet, of course I do. You're one of the most important people to me, but I really forgot. I'm not making up an excuse."
"Alright, yeah. Okay." He says and you hear a door closing and wood creaking. He must be sitting on the bed.
"I love you." You receive the mental image of the scrunch of his nose and the smile he can't help whenever you drop the L bomb out of nowhere. "And you know he doesn't have to approve anything, right? Nick has no say in who I date or not."
"But he's your brother, he's important to you and I would meet him someday anyway because- I, well." Your body shakes with laughter and the phone almost drops from your hand.
"What, are you proposing now, genius? Through the phone, really?"
"Don't make fun of me." Spencer warns playfully.
You take a few seconds to process that he doesn't deny it. You said it as a joke but he didn't even deny it that he thinks about marrying you. God, your chest could combust.
"You think about it?" You ask, shifting your position to bring your knees to your chest. "Us? Someday?"
"You mean getting married to you? Yes. I do. We haven't discussed it yet, but... Yes, I do think about it."
"Mhm."
"Has it ever... crossed your mind?" He's reluctant, shy to ask even. You find it cute as everything Spencer Reid does. Marriage is something that never really crossed your mind, to be honest. You think is nice when people get married and show their love to their loved ones, but your parents' relationship carved a fear deep within your chest and your entire perception of love had to be relearned through the years they separated. One thing that you learned is that no person and no relationship is the same. It's not because your father broke your trust and destroyed a part of your and your brother's childhood that your future partners will do the same. It is easier said than done, but you're coming around to the idea.
"Not before you." You admit quietly.
"Oh."
“Yeah.” You ponder out loud. “It scares me a bit, that I consider spending the rest of my life by your side. Doesn't it scare you?”
“It does,” he replies. “But the idea is nice to think about.”
You smile, letting out a soft breath. “Yeah, it is nice.”
A male voice calls out for him in his end and you know he has to go. You had already taken up much of his time, anyway.
“They want to go to a bar nearby to celebrate.” Spencer explains to you, not sounding too thrilled about the idea.
You snicker, “go have fun, genius. You deserve it. Try to enjoy it even if this is not your usual idea for fun. I love you.”
“I love you more.” Spencer says and laughs at your groan of protest on the other side.
“We're not going to be one of those couples who never hang up because you love me more or no, I love you more, Spencer.”
“I just like to mess with you.” He admits with an edge of amusement to his tone. And damn you miss the smirk you know he's making right now.
“Yeah, I know. Now go, have fun. And have a safe flight tomorrow, text me when you land?”
“Of course, angel. Try to sleep a bit, you need the rest.”
You smile. “Sure. Bye, Spence.”
“Bye, angel.”
An hour or two goes by since your phone call with your boyfriend and manage to cook some dinner and then throw yourself back on the couch while a random show is played on TV. You end up falling asleep and wake up upon hearing the jiggling keys against the door of your brother's apartment, rubbing your eyes in your disoriented sleepy state. Checking your phone, the screen says 11p.m.
Nick stops midway from his way to the couch, where he was probably about to throw himself at. From his tired eyes and hunched over stance, you are able to tell how exhausted he is. “Why are you always here?” Nick throws himself on the floor instead, his head falling against your knees. The tone he used would make you slap him right behind his ear, if you weren't still with your mind in that phone call and a million miles away from New York. “I thought you rented an apartment. Or is it that you just miss me?”
“I don't miss you.” You mumble, voice muffled by the soft fabric of the blanket covering half of your face. “I see you every day, idiot. How can I miss you.”
Nick raises an arm towards your calf and you immediately kick his hand away before it can get to your feet. He chuckles, fluttering his eyes open for the first time since he got home. He glances up at you, who's glaring at him. His smile falls.
“What's wrong?”
You shrug, pulling your knees up to your chest and turning your head towards the TV. You weren't paying attention since the show started, you had no idea what is going on. “I cooked dinner. Left you a plate on the microwave. Go eat, I bet you didn't have a proper meal. You never do.”
“That's not true—”
“Eating burritos isn't a proper meal, Nick.” You groan as he tries to take another look at your face. “Stop it. I'm fine.”
“Yeah, I don't buy it. What happened?” If there's one thing your brother is, that thing is anxious. Nick is a worrier. And he's completely paranoid about knowing what's going on to find a solution before the time runs out. Even if there is no time to run out. He gently tips your chin up, frowning. “Why have you been cryin’?”
You turn your face away from his reach, sitting up on the couch. You take a moment to form your answer and he's anxiously waiting for it, coffee-brown eyes inspecting your matching ones.
You decide to go simple, but it's also the truth. “'s not a good day, that's all.”
He blinks and then the concern opens some space for understanding in his expression. And just like that, he figures out what's been making you upset. You don't doubt that he really knows, since your brother and you always understand each other with a look.
“D'you wanna talk about it?” His usual sarcastic tone gives place to a softer one. The one he uses in moments where his little sister needs her older brother.
You shrug, letting out a sigh before resting your head against the couch, eyes studying the ceiling. “It's nothing, I just... I miss Virginia, that's all.”
Nick hums, nodding. “You mean you miss the skinny kid from the FBI.”
A laugh bubbles out of you unexpectedly, you playfully shove his shoulder as he offers you an unimpressed look.
“Stop being mean to him.”
“Me?” Nick pulls himself up to the sofa, groaning when his joints complain as he stands up. “'m not being mean to anybody.”
“Okay, grandpa.”
“Hey,” he throws a pillow at you, narrowing his eyes threateningly. “you don't get to be mean to me.” You roll your eyes. There he goes playing the older card that just makes him look exactly like an elderly. “Why don't you take a few days off? I can't remember the last time you did that.” Before you can respond to that, he frowns, turning to you as if he just had thought of something. “Or why doesn't the skinny kid come and visit you? It's not that hard.”
“He was gonna to that this weekend.” His raised eyebrow makes you sigh and shake your head. “He had a case last minute, so he couldn't.”
He pauses, munching on his cheek. You question his thoughtful expression.
“What? No jokes now?”
“It's serious then? You and him.”
You blink at him, puzzled by the question. It wasn't what you expected. “W—yes. Why would you ask that?” He had walked up to the kitchen to grab a bite of whatever you had made him and you followed right behind.
“Nothin’,” he says, turning the microwave on and stepping towards the fridge to grab something to drink. “I just never saw you in a serious relationship.”
You pause.
Okay, you had a few flings in your life, it's not like your love life is messy, it is actually pretty simple. You and the people you've previously have relationships (or situationships) enjoyed having fun. You weren't looking for anything serious and when you were... well, your job got in the way. Until Spencer Reid. He's the unexpected occurrence that showed up during a local case to investigate a series of murders in the city of New York and both of your teams worked together. If someone told you before that you would get attached so quickly to someone and consider driving five hours just because you missed them then you would have laughed in their face.
Your brother might actually have a point. He had never seen you in a serious commitment before, he has, however, had the opportunity to try and scare off some of your partners — the ones he accidentally met, at least.
“I don't need to disclosure every aspect of my love life to you, Nicholas.”
You crossed your arms as the corner of his lips lift in a knowing smile. “Stand down, tiger. I just made an observation, no need to get defensive.”
“I'm not.” You say, shifting on your feet, suddenly self-conscious with the whole conversation. It's difficult to talk about someone so important to you to another someone that's important to you. You've never share much about your personal life and inner struggles with anybody, and that has everything to do with the man you call “father” in the biological sense. But Spencer managed to push through these walls and he didn't demeaned you because of your trauma, neither did he treated you as if you were made out of glass, that you could shatter at any given second. He understood you and you understood him, which is why love has always been within your reach in your relationship. It was only a matter of time.
“He's important to you, isn't he?” The microwave beeped but none of you move.
“Yes.” You utter, playing with the ring on your index finger. “I know we don't— we don't talk about these stuff...”
“We can if you want to—”
“No, it's not— That's not it. I mean. You're my brother and we have a good communication but I never felt the need to formally introduce anyone to you because you're family, Nick. You're my only family,” you finally look at him. “If it ever got to the point, one day, where it was worth it for me to do that, then I would. I just thought that I wasn't made for love, you know?”
You see him rushing to disagree with you and probably say you can't think like this and that is not true, so you intervene before, smiling.
“But I know that that is not true, alright? Porque le quiero y sé que él también.” His eyes soften at your claim and you feel like crying again because you miss Spencer and you wish he's there with you. “So yeah, it is serious. And the reason he was going to come visit me was to meet you properly.”
“What?”
“Yes. That was my reaction too.” A fond smile takes over your mouth. “He insisted he wanted to meet you because he knows how important you are to me.”
“Oh.” He is officially caught off guard and it makes you chuckle. That is a rare image you're seeing in front of you. No one catches Nick Amaro off guard. One point to Spencer, I guess. “Well, now I just have to meet this chico who stole my sister's heart.” He's back to his playful persona, lifting a hand to ruffle your hair, and you flip him off. “Let's see if he is all that you claim he is.”
“He's a good guy, asshole.” He hums, munching on his food. “You'll see,” you say with a small grin while you turn back to the living room to lay back on the couch.
“We'll see.” He mumbles from the kitchen, shaking his head when a thought crosses his mind. He can't believe you fell in love, he still sees you as an annoying toddler who wouldn't let him be at school while he was trying to impress his friends because you were too shy to make your own and would cling to him like a lifeline. In all honesty, Nick has always enjoyed your company, it makes him feel grounded. He cares about your well-being and tries to protect you from every bad thing you have to face, but he knows he can't. Sometimes, you gotta face things on your own. And, sometimes, you don't need your older brother to shield you from pain. It's hard for him to accept that, especially after what you both endured through your lives.
You're all grown up now and he has to stand down his overprotective side because you can handle things, he knows you do. Though he'll be there, in the corner, having your back as always. Because that's what brothers do.
Hopefully, this Spencer Reid will pass the test.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[translation]
Porque le quiero y sé que él también. = because I love him and I know that he does too
chico = boy, kid
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
taglist: @lilyviolets ; @whore-for-spencer-reid ; @yeonalie @ninkieminjaj ;
#spencer reid fanfic#spencer reid x reader#spencer reid x you#spencer reid angst#spencer reid fanfiction#criminal minds fanfiction
167 notes
·
View notes
Text
Protecting her
Life with Pablo Gavi, the boy everyone adores, and I hate with all my passion not for any particular reason. I actually tried making peace with him the moment I stepped foot into his house at the beginning of my exchange program.
I tried to be nice, to even become his friend but he would always push me away and find some reason to fight me. Even Aurora and his parents tried to make us like each other but it didn't work so I just deiced to stay out his way..somehow that didn't stop him to sabotage me every step of the way all the freaking time!
leo: look at what your brother did to me! boy is a delinquent! I can't do this anymore Y/n..I'm sorry.
There was a picture attached of my soon to become boyfriend with bruised eye and busted lip. Did Pablo really did this just so Leo dumps me knowing it would spite me!?
I heard stumbling and rushed towards the front door to comfort Pablo about this. I was done staying on the sidelines and letting him do whatever he pleased just because I am guest at this house..this is MY life he was messing with for his own amusement!
"Why did you do it!? Tell me he said something to provoke you? Tell me you weren't just trying to spite me by doing this Pablo.." I said but he completely ignored me, like I was invisible, unimportant and that drove me mad.
"No! You're going to start listening to me! WHY DID YOU DO THIS TO LEO!!??" I said pushing him against the wall with all my strenght which was not possible unless he let me do it.
"Hm..or what if I don't listen chiqui? What will you do to me precious..huh??" he pushed back and I needed up glued on the wall in the matter of seconds. I gulped..he was so close..and I was no longer angry at him..I was tired of this whole "hate" thing.
"I'm tired of this Pablo..just leave me alone!" I said trying to push him but he wouldn't budge looking down at my face like he was lost in thought. I would give up everything ot know what he was thinking right now.
"P..please.." I was close to tears yet again being dumped not to mention that all my "friends" here only hang out with me thinking they will get to meet my new "brother"..I just wanted to be left alone by everyone especially Pablo Gavi who made this whole trip horrible!
"Fine.." he moved and i walked away not knowing that something in him broke seeing me so sad in front of him knowing he was the reason for it.
I was crying rather loudly knowing his parents and Aurora are not here and Pablo probably didn't even care about it. I was very wrong since he was glued to my door listening to each sound until finally opening the door and walking closer to the bed.
"Stop crying.." he said and I realized that he was indeed there watching me, probably in amusement.
"Leave me alone asshole!" I yelled feeling the bed move as he laid behind me making my whole body contract especially when his strong arms wrapped around my body..what was this nervousness and why did it feel so good to be held by him!?
"Please stop crying...if you like Leo that much I'll stay away.." he said while his hands were tracing invisible shapes on my bare skin making shivers moving down my spine and make me breathless. I truly didn't care that deeply for Leo..I almost cared more how it was angering Pablo..how I finally gotten some type of reaction out of him. I slowly moved turning around in his embrace to face him.
"It's not about Leo..it's about you..why can't you just stop hating me!?" I spoke my hand moving to his face caressing it gently and he let me do it for a few moments closing his eyes looking like he was enjoying it..maybe Pablo felt something for me..maybe I did for him too..maybe that's this tension between us..maybe it's love?
"Because you're annoying!" he pulled away and that gentle caring Pablo vanished in a matter of a second and he was back to being hateful asshole..he only wanted to feel in control and I gave him the chance..like an idiot..thinking he was genuine.
Quickly, he was out of my room returning to his crying himself to sleep..he was a coward to speak about his emotions..because I am not permanent..I will leave him soon and he couldn't afford to get attached.
Weeks went by and I couldn't sleep without imaging those strong arms wrapped around me. Leo asked me to try again but I rejected him..I couldn't stop thinking about my "gentle" Pablo wondering if that was his true nature..I wanted to get to him again..to feel that way again..to understand him.
"Are you ready hermanita?" Aurora said and I met her outside as she was my ride to the stadium for El Classico. I rarely went to his games thinking he would hate me there, but today I wore his jersey and went with the rest of his friends with pride. I wanted him to look me in the ye and tell me hates me if he does so much!
y.n.bebe
Rora and me at #ElClassico ❤️❤️
comentarios:
gvirafans: with Gavi jersey👀
aurorapaezg: hermanitaa💗
belengavira: pretty girls ❤️❤️
pablogavi: ❤️
I saw his comment..he probably did it because people would talk if he didn't..but a heart..it felt special..and made me even more determined to get close to him again.
During the game, Gavi was comeptlely focused as always wanting to win against the biggest enemy. Barca was better but it was frustrating that no ball would finally enter the goal..and time was running out till end of first half.
"I saw that new hermanita of yours..hmm..the things I'd do to her body" Vini provoked and Gavi lost it kicking the ball into the audience and walking towards him while everyone pushed him backwards and referee showed him a red card.
"Say that again hijo de puta!? Let me hear you say it again!" Pablo was not stopping until Xavi himself pulled him away from the pitch giving him a whole lecture about being more mature player.
"It was a good game hermano" Aurora said when we met with Pablo since Barça still ended up winning. Pablo was still heated and seeing me there wasn't helping.
"It's all her fault!" he said pointing at me in front of everyone and I looked away sadly..he was trying to hate me so I give up but I'm not giving up that easily because i know what I felt that night is real!
"Leave her alone! She did nothing wrong!" Aurora tried defending me but I was done being silent walking towards him bravely.
"Let's leave them alone.." Pablo's guy friends said and everyone left as the two of us stood there across from each other not saying a single word. Two can play this stupid game Gavi!
"What did I do to you huh!? Why don't you admit that you don't actually hate me Pablo?? I know you don't.." I said touching his sweaty jersey but he pulled away quickly like he was scared..
"Don't touch me!" he yelled expecting me to turn away and run but I moved closer again.
"Why? What are you sacred of when I touch you huh?"I said once again touching his chest and this time he didn't move staring at my lips longingly.
"Chiqui don't.." he whispered when I moved closer feeling my cheeks blush at the new nickname he chose..the feeling was back and I didn't want to lose it.
"Why?" I asked touching his face and again he closed his eyes as his hands wrapped around my waist pulling me even closer as our chests touched.
"B..because I won't be able to hold myself back" he whispered as we both opened around eyes looking into each other.
"P..Pablo.." I said breathlessly moving even closer but then Leo's familiar voice interrupted our little moment and Pablo pulled away angrily.
"Please let's talk Y/n..about us" Leo said and I internally cursed seeing Pablo's disappointed look as he just walked away without a word..freaking great!
"Is she coming?" Aurora asked
"She has another ride" Pablo said annoyingly reminding himself why he put up a wall..last thing he needed is to get hurt by a girl right now.
"No! I don't!" I said rushing after them after telling Leo I was done with him and sitting in the backseat next to Pablo whose jaw was clenching and he was clearly angry.
"He understood that it's over.." I whispered to Pablo but he was unfazed..once again like he didn't care. Here we go again!
"I don't care!" he whispered back before going on his phone as I sighed loudly besides him.
That night I couldn't sleep..I couldn't have him mad at me anymore..I did maybe the stupidest thing in the world walking to his room in the middle of the night. Luckily he was awake..
"P..Pablo.." I said and he turned around sitting in his bed with a surprised look on his face.
"Go away!" he said but I moved closer standing in front of him.
"I'm not going anywhere..I know why you hit Leo, he told me what he said to his friend and that you heard him" I said and Pablo looked up with raised eyebrows.
"He said you're alone and he can get with you in a week..and I showed him you're NOT alone" Pablo said and I smiled nodding my head and touching his hair as he looked up at me.
"And Vini?" I asked moving my hand down to his face while he looked at me finally putting down his guard and being vulnerable once again.
"Don't talk to me about that disgusting hijo de puta!" he said angrily and I knew he must have said something about me on the pitch..something that didn't sit right with Pablo and he needed to protect me..something you don't do for a person you "hate".
"Don't get angry.." I said and he nodded feeling more sad than angry while his hands snaked around my waist and he pulled me in kissing my stomach over my dress and I breathed heavily.
"I can't stop hating you chiqui.."he spoke into my stomach and I sighed raising his chin up and moving to sit on his lap.
"Why Pablo?" he said moving his hair back and he leaned into my touch as his face went into my neck and he started kissing my skin passionately.
"Because you're leaving me so soon..and I don't want to lose someone I love so much.."he finally said what's been on his mind for awhile and I felt my heart banging against my chest.
"So you decided to hate me? Why didn't you just ask me to stay with you??" I said with a smile and he was surprised to hear me say those words looking up into my eyes hopefully.
"And would you stay for me chiqui?" he said while I held his face and his hands tightly held onto my waist.
"Hmm it depends.." I said smirking moving in and he gulped once again looking at my lips longingly and I smiled.
"On what chiqui??"he smirked and I blushed to scared to tell him what I wanted right now..I just wanted him to finally kiss me.
"Hm..let me guess then" he held my face pulling me in and kissing my lips hungrily making me breathless but never happier. Then he pulled away..and I wanted to cry..I was so tired of these games and I just wanted to be with him!
"Please don't push me away again..please" i latched onto his shoulder and he smiled kissing the top of my forehead before pulling me in bed with him letting me lay my head on his strong chest.
"I'm never letting you go again precious.." he said as I looked up kissing him again as we continued to make out pulling onto each others clothes int he heat of the moment...
#gavigif#gavi#fc barça#fc barca#fc barcelona#pablo gavi x you#pablo gavi x y/n#pablo gavi x reader#pablo gavi icons#pablo gavi#gavira#gavi x reader#gavi x you#gavi x yn
156 notes
·
View notes
Text
helen ; chapter five
be seeing you
Si vis pacem, para bellum.
Or, the choice.
series masterlist | my masterlist
pairing: joel miller x f!reader
tags/warnings: 18+ (MDNI), john wick AU, hitman!joel, husband!joel, established relationship, artist!reader, love as worship, sacrilege in the name of romance, flashbacks, graphic violence, guns, blood + injuries, tess cameo, childhood/religious trauma, criminal underworld, secrecy/lies, betrayal, ANGST, bamf miller bros, smut, fingering, joel is an emotional munch, shower sex, unprotected PIV, handjob, male whimpering, conflicting emotions, orgasms aplenty, Big Angst and Big Sad but also Big Epiphanies, ambiguous ending, i'm getting emotional writing these tags, it feels so final, the typical alcohol/smoking/profanity, dividers by @/saradika
word count: ~ 9.3k
a/n: hi, friends. i can't believe we're already at the end of the main story, and tbh if i think about it too much i'll probably cry. i want to thank @cavillscurls for beta reading this chapter as always and giving me the guidance and support i need. we'll have an epilogue after this chapter, so there's still more to look forward to, but nonetheless, i hope you enjoy and thank you so so much for reading. xoxo
prev | next
Her eyes are so sad, you think, stepping back to take in the full scope of the canvas. It’s doused in paint from corner to corner, still wet to the touch, the woman and her lover intertwined so thoroughly that it’s difficult to tell where they both end. It’s in shades of glum blue and flecks of angry red and brown where his eye watches you. But it’s her eyes that cannot lift to meet yours. It’s her lashes that fan across her cheeks as she casts her gaze toward the bottom edge where the canvas is wrapped taut around the wood.
The sun will soon rise, but you haven’t slept. The contours of the sky are washed in a haze of greys and pale blues and light pink and the air smells warm, heavy—a storm about to roll in. The clouds on the horizon are thick with a blackening rage. You sit in the alcove by the window and put your temple to the cool glass. You yawn. Joel does not come back.
“Do you think it's true,” you asked him one night, your head on his chest, hand on his heart, “that art makes nothing happen?”
Joel, drawing shapes on your back, dozing off in the golden light of the sunrise, frowned. “Someone tell you that?”
“It's something my art teacher used to say,” you told him. “No matter how much it moves people, it doesn't do anything.”
“Your art teacher sounds like a fuckin’ downer.”
You laughed, hiking your thigh up over his hip and playfully biting his jaw. “So it's bullshit?”
“I think,” said Joel, tucking his chin to kiss the top of your head, “that your art makes people feel. It brings ‘em together. It's important because it's yours.”
You propped your head up on his chest and threaded your fingers through his too-long hair, overdue for a trim. A curl draped over his forehead, his beard patchy and soft under the pads of your fingers. “Sometimes I wonder why you chose me,” you said. “I wonder why the universe brought you to me.”
Joel shook his head, guiding his rough, callused fingers up your arm, curling them around your wrist, gently prodding your veins. “Wasn't the universe,” he said quietly. “Wasn’t a choice. I was yours the second I saw you. So, I guess it's your fault.”
You just rolled your eyes and kissed him, mouth to smiling mouth.
Your paintings may be yours, made with life and energy and colour, but when they are finished, they don’t move. They are stagnant as a heavy rock beneath a cliffside, washed over and over again by the cresting waves, its salt stolen for the water, eternal damnation to a fate of non-movement. And sometimes an artist will walk under the cliff, shove their easel into the fleshy ground the way a man erects his country’s flag in the earth he has stolen, and paint the rock. The artist is moved by the breathtaking colours of the shore and the way the wind flutters through the grass. But the rock does not budge. It never will.
Your art will never erupt from the boundaries of the canvas and tell you what it means. The lovers in your painting will not tear open their mouths like the seams holding a wound together. They will not tell you what they want, need, crave. They are you, and that is what you hate—because dimpled flesh and lustful fingers and the press of his mouth to her throat cannot tell you what you’re supposed to do.
You had become complacent in his love for you. You had let him press his worn hands to your body and pull your soul out through his mouth and you had been a wife, while all the time there was a stranger who occupied his heart, a spirit in an abandoned body. All the time, he'd been haunted. And although you had loved him, your love had not been enough to exorcise the guilt and trauma, pecking at him, an eagle at his liver.
Crossing the room and sitting back down in front of the easel, you press your fingers to the corner of the canvas. The paint is cool to the touch, and you leave behind fingerprints where your signature should be. Pulling your hand back, you examine the accumulation of colour, the blues and reds swirling into the deep purple of a bruise, the bodies on a canvas that may only ever mean something to you, and you wonder, Is this all I am? A cautionary tale, a love lost? A fucking footnote at the end of a clause that reads: “See, for example, the one who never loved deeply enough to make it count”?
You bring your hand to your face to wipe away the tears beneath your eyes and blink hard at the sting, realising you’ve smeared paint across your cheekbones.
In the bathroom, you scrub furiously, the cloying scent of it clinging to your throat and your tear ducts, washing away the evidence of their entwined bodies, their love, your pain.
Once, you tried to get Joel to paint. You sat behind him on your bench, your legs bracketing his hips, your paintbrush in his hand.
“I don’t know where to start,” he said.
Your lips brushed the shell of his ear as you spoke. “There’s no rulebook.”
He tried to turn his head and kiss you, but you nipped his ear in reproach. “Remember when you took me out driving at the airstrip because you wanted me to feel the road? Think of this like feeling the canvas. Go on, cowboy. Make nothing happen.”
Joel’s painting still hangs over your shared bed. The intruders never found it, or never cared enough to destroy it. It’s a candle, just a candle, its lines imprecise, the paint unevenly applied in places, the shine of the flame more orange than yellow. But it’s a painting, so the candle always burns. He titled it Love.
The pain still sits low in your chest, pulling down your heart as if tied to it by a string. But Joel is still out there, fighting his way back to you, the way he always has, always will. You look down at your left hand, clutching the edge of the marble vanity, and decide to clean your wedding ring.
“I’m sorry, brother,” says Tommy, turning the gun on Joel.
“What the fuck are you doing?” growls Joel, struggling against his bonds. The clip rattles faintly in his brother’s hand as a tremor courses through him.
“He’s following my orders,” says Cabrera, clapping his hand down on Tommy’s shoulder. “Fascinating what a man will do when he must consider his family’s well-being.”
Joel sucks on his teeth, his eyes not once leaving his brother.
“It's my son,” Tommy says through his teeth. “It's Maria. If I don't do this—”
“Yeah? You gonna kill me, Tommy? Is that why your hand’s shakin’?”
“Shut your goddamn mouth,” his brother snaps. “You think I want to do this? I gotta save my family, Joel. You know what that's like.”
“All I’ve done for you,” says Joel, his hands curling into fists behind his back, “and you put a bullet in my head?”
“Not just your head, Joel,” says Cabrera. “When we're done with you, we’ll take your pretty girl as payment for my son’s life.”
Joel growls like a dog, blood roaring in his ears. “Kill me yourself, you goddamned coward. Kill me yourself and don’t you mention my wife again, or I swear to Christ—”
“You take His name in vain a lot for a nonbeliever,” says Cabrera, pulling his sleeves through his coat and setting his teeth as he looks toward Tommy once more. “Do it.”
“Yeah, brother,” Joel says darkly, “do it.”
Tommy nods once, planting his foot and pivoting. Five distinct sounds of handguns cocking echo throughout the warehouse as Tommy points the barrel between Manuel Cabrera’s eyes.
“Now that I’ve got a gun to your head,” he says evenly, “you can go ahead and pull that contract.”
Joel at last twists his wrists free of the ropes that bind them and shucks down the sleeves of his jacket to rub the raw skin. Not one soul does a goddamn thing to stop him as he rises to his feet. His chest heaves, his open lungs coarse and wet with a brittle rage, his exposed heart throbbing red, transparent as the stained glass windows of the church.
God does not tolerate anger, said the Sisters, again and again, bringing down the whip across his back. Sinew and bone and skin peeling back to lay bare some tender part of him they sought to rot out. Put your energy into His worship.
Slowly, Cabrera lifts his hands, sneering. “Your wife,” he warns, “and your unborn son—”
“Are family,” says Tommy. “Just like my brother. Now tell your guys to put down their guns and I won't kill you where you stand.”
Joel joins Tommy at his side. “Took you long enough,” he says under his breath.
“Got held up,” he says. “Your wife’s a good artist.”
“Yeah, whatever. You bring me a gun?”
“I’m sure you can find one yourself.”
“Jesus, Tommy. I’m too old for this.” Joel turns to Cabrera and glares at the same stubborn arrogance that once gleamed in his son’s eye. “You pull the contract, and I’ll leave for good.”
Cabrera’s laugh weans out in the air like rings of smoke. “You think you can really leave, Joel? You think that there won't be consequences for what you've done to my son?”
“Yeah,” says Joel, “I think I’ll take my chances.”
“And you?” Cabrera’s lip curls up at Tommy, whose gun no longer wavers in his grasp. “I promised your wife and child security. You’re willing to throw that away?”
“My wife and child are safe because I don’t take deals from men like you,” says Tommy. “You trusted a Miller to turn on his own blood, Manuel. That was stupid. Now pull the contract.”
“So this is your great suicide mission.” Cabrera smiles, a man who knows he has lost or a man who still expects not to. “A man who has seen Hell does not willingly descend back into its depths—not unless he likes the taste.”
Joel feels the corner of his mouth twitch, a wound on his cheek reopening. “Maybe I do,” he says plainly. “Maybe it’ll taste even better when I take you down with me.”
The gleam in Cabrera’s eye shifts as his gaze flickers behind Tommy. Night has since descended, and yet the predator’s eye glints in anticipation of the hunt. Joel turns and shoves his brother out of the way—just as the shot rings out.
He hears Tommy’s breath punch out of him as they both hit the concrete hard. Joel tears the handgun from his brother’s grasp and puts a bullet between each of the two men behind them. He rolls behind one of the hulking bodies and holds up his weight as a shield against the incoming bullets. Tommy takes the dead man’s gun and fires at the remaining three assailants. Only one shot misses, but Joel sends his brother a look anyway and finishes the job.
“Rusty,” grunts Tommy, pushing himself to his feet.
Joel grimaces as he accepts his brother’s outstretched hand, his wrists bleeding from the relentless rub of the ropes. “He ran,” he says, grinding his teeth. “Goddamn coward. Just like his son.”
“Yeah, you’re welcome, by the way,” says Tommy, giving Joel the dead man’s gun and snatching back his own. “Saved your ass.”
“And he got away.” Joel kicks his chair, and the clattering echo of metal reverberates like a choir off the cavernous walls. His hands flex, open, closed, open, closed, until they make tight fists and he can see nothing but red and the silver moon mocking him through the broken windows high above.
“Joel…”
For a moment, he hears the young boy his brother once was, whispering across their shared bedroom to him in the middle of the night when they were both meant to be asleep.
Joel… Are we going to be okay?
“I gotta finish it, Tommy,” he says quietly, his hands shaking loose. Parts of him bite and sting, touched by new and old wounds alike, and he wants to come crawling home to you. He wants to curl into your side and wash away the blood in your cleansing pool, daisy and honeysuckle, some faraway field where you are the warden, where he knocks on the door to be let in, to be gathered, covered in white, buried, unearthed.
“Was he right?” asks Tommy. “Do you… enjoy this?”
Joel casts his eyes toward the ground, his trembling hand, the gleaming band on his ring finger, his skin speckled with blood but the metal pristine. “I don’t know,” he says.
This is who you are, Cabrera would tell him. The Sisters: Your place is here, under God, under His word. And God Himself, silent as the air, the ringing in his ears only ever quieted by the soft brush of your knuckle across his cheek, the whisper of My Joel in his ear.
“Think hard on it,” says Tommy, “because you may like it, but you’ve gotta consider if your revenge is worth more than what you’ve already got. And if you choose wrong, Joel, you’re gonna lose no matter what.”
A figure leans stone-still against the wall by the hotel room door, the gleam of a blade in the soft light the only indication that it is not a mere shadow.
“Hey, kid,” says the apparition.
Joel nods in greeting. “Tess. Could get in trouble with that knife out in the open.”
“You expect me to keep your girl safe with just my fists?”
“You make it sound like you couldn’t.” Tess snorts, and Joel places fifteen gold coins in her waiting palm. “I appreciate you doing this.”
Tess peels away from the wall. “You and your brother are paying me good money to babysit a door. I think I can live without the thanks.”
“Still,” he says, “you did us a solid.”
Tess, who itches at the prospect of gratitude as much as any other gun-for-hire, shrugs. “Everyone’s saying you’re coming back. That true?”
“Just visiting,” says Joel. “On my way out soon.”
Tess flips one of the coins and turns it over and over across her knuckles, evidence of a restless energy that’s always made Joel’s eye twitch. “One way or another, huh?” she says.
“One way or another.” He shakes her hand and watches her retreat down the hall, still twirling the godforsaken coin, before he turns toward the door. Joel presses his forehead briefly to the cool wood and turns the key to seek the field that awaits him.
A key rustles in the door and Joel steps through, closing it gently behind him. Judging by the quiet click of the lock, he expects you to be asleep, but you jolt upright from your seat in the alcove and cross the room toward him.
He meets you halfway, his right hand flexing at his side. You inspect him: the gash on his cheek, the bruise on his jaw, the blood splattered on his white shirt. He makes no footfalls as he walks but you can hear every stride like thunder between your ears. You feel his hand at the back of your neck, cool from the night air, rough as the underside of a shark’s belly.
The moment coils taut between you as your hand reaches up to grab the lapel of his jacket, and he smells of iron, cologne, Joel, some paint. Maybe that smell is you, stuck underneath your fingernails, embedded in your blood. Maybe this is a mistake, maybe you could never help but fall, maybe it never mattered anyway, and you’re already snipping the final thread, unwinding the spool, and kissing Joel Miller like it’s the first time.
He let out a small groan, tasting the first drop of water in a drought, steadying you with his arm around your waist, his hand cradling your head. He’s gentle, exploratory, careful not to jostle, to shock you out of it. You feel his heartbeat thud, strong, calm, steady behind his clothing and skin and muscle, and your body caves.
It’s coming home, you realise, your arms snaking around his neck, fingers tousling the messy curls on his head. It's the warm press of his hand to your spine where it begins to curve inward. It's a soft mouth, a plush lower lip, made for slow mornings and black coffee, for the aching release of a thumb pressing deep into a muscle knot, a wound. Old aches soothed in the space where bodies meet, beginning to colour the slate-grey world.
It’s the exchange of gasping breaths when you pull apart, his mouth still vaguely chasing yours, opposite charge.
You hold him tighter, swallowing the lump in your throat, your hands squeezing his shoulders. "Are you…"
Joel inclines his head. "Yeah."
"Did he..."
"Yeah."
Need pulses. Supernova. Bright as the moment of obliteration. "Can you—"
He nods vigorously. "Yeah."
Joel’s kisses are like raindrops: velvet-soft to the touch—his hands bringing the hem of your shirt up over your head, his fingertips scorching, branding, grazing the supple swells of your breasts—before the crescendo roars in your ears and he loses himself to the storm. He always does.
There is nothing reserved about the way he shows his love. Lightning crackles across your skin where he touches you, baring you to him, his lips making a map of you, mouthing at your jaw, your throat. You hear yourself hum at the press of his lips to the spot beneath your ear, detaching from your own body, absconding with the pleasure of being close to him and leaving the fucking world behind.
Joel staggers forward so he can press you to the wall and begins to sink to his knees. Your breath catches as he pulls down your ratty bottoms, your cotton panties, his mouth burning into your hips and your belly and the ring on your finger.
“Joel,” you say brokenly as he clutches your fingers. Tears prickle, pressure building behind your nose, and he shakes his head, unfurling your palm like a bud in bloom and kissing its heel. Wordlessly, you watch him, your eyes shuttering, blood singing.
Don't hurt me again.
He understands even though the words cannot come alive on your tongue. He squeezes your hips, his thumbs dumpling your flesh, his forehead falling to your belly.
“I’m yours,” he says. “I’m whatever you want.”
Your legs haven't forgotten the way they part so easily for him, one thigh on his shoulder, opening the core of you to his waiting mouth. His lips part, his tongue wetting them, glistening, and your stomach tightens at the sight of his eyes so black.
You could easily cower. His hands are stained with blood. His knuckles are split. But your terror has become an arid thing, no kindling to burn, no oil to ignite. Watching him now, as eager to please as he always has been or maybe more so, on his knees like a supplicant, the hairs on your arms do not rise in apprehension. Your body does not squirm in fear. You see a broad horizon, the sun outside spilling its golden blood over the city, and you see all of him in a way you never did before.
He’s Joel, who grew up in darkness, lashed and beaten for not believing in a false god. He’s a man who has lied and killed and yet he is no liar, no killer. He holds you as he always has, your body liquid in his hands, your mouth proclaiming the word he will follow. You're the truth he's always told.
It still unsettles you to see the dark eclipse that warm brown, to watch his desire consume the hypnotic shapes in his irises, and wonder if that cavernous black was the last thing so many men saw before he snuffed out their lives. But there's nothing of the death shudder in the way you guide your fingers through his hair and beg him—
“Please.”
He brings his mouth to your core and parts your folds with his thumbs, slowly gliding his warm, wet tongue through your slit. You die a hundred little deaths in the split-second of that first touch, that first agony.
You sigh, your head thudding against the wall as he licks through you, his hands holding your hips in place, keeping you from writhing. Joel flicks his tongue over the sensitive pearl of your clit, the pleasure searing, and you tug at his curls to push him away even as you cry out, More, please, please. God, I need more.
He obeys you as easily as breathing, though you suspect he can barely hear your pleas, opening his mouth and flattening his hot tongue to your clit. You gasp, your core pulling taut, your eyes locking with his as the muscle undulates over, over, and over again.
“Oh,” you whimper, your hips bucking to meet his face. He groans, his mouth working your clit, closing his lips over it and sucking. You cry out, your leg kicking, the sounds of the world muffled in his stifling closeness. Your thighs begin to ache, tensing and relaxing a hundred times over in the throes of his attention.
And his fingers are gliding across your hip, seeking the warmth between your legs. You gasp his name, your hips flexing, as he collects your wetness on two fingers.
“Let me in, baby,” he says softly, pressing a kiss to your puffy clit. It relaxes you enough to welcome the press of his fingers inside you, sinking to the knuckle, curling up against the spot he would know in his sleep.
You whine, your body keening toward him, tugging his face back toward your pussy. He obliges with a quiet moan, and you think he needs this just as badly.
The obscene squelch of his fingers inside you rings in your ears as he licks and sucks at your clit, his free hand grabbing desperately at your ass to keep you fixed to him. You’re crying, “Yesyesyes, Joel, please—fuck, that's it,” the pleasure stuck in the grooves of your brain. Absentmindedly, you reach for his hand and clasp it tight, your engagement ring digging into his palm. He holds you with the same fervour as he coaxes you higher, his face buried in your pussy. He grunts and groans like it's his own pleasure he seeks, his battered knuckles stinging.
“Joel… Joel, oh, I’m…”
He knows, of course, from the telltale squeeze of your thighs around his head, the relentless crushing of his fingers in your own, your body tightening for him, cavitating, unwinding—
You come with a shout, your throat raw, writhing in his grasp as he keeps sucking, keeps licking, rubbing, pressing. You're dizzy by the time your head lolls to the side, your muscles twitching, eyes glazed, and Joel is there, pulling his fingers out just to place them on his tongue and swallow you down.
Your breath rattles through your lungs. Joel presses his lips to your inner thigh, beard soaked in your arousal, moustache glistening. His mouth soothes your sore muscles and your eyes begin to droop.
“You need a shower,” you say, your tongue like lead in your mouth. You gently pass your thumb over a cut on his cheek and frown. “You're all bloody.”
He nuzzles his face against your thigh, inhaling you. “I know.”
“You were gone so long.” Your voice quivers, pressure prickling behind the bridge of your nose. “I thought…”
Joel rises to his feet, his hands cradling your face. “I’m all right,” he says. “I’m here, and I’m safe, and I’m so goddamn sorry.”
You shake your head, pressing your lips together so the sob will not escape. Tracing his face with your fingers, broken in places, healing in others, you see the echo of a boy who didn't know his place in the world. You see the haunt of days gone by. A ghost still occupies the cage of his ribs.
“I think you should tell the little boy that still lives here,” you say, putting your hand on his chest. “Tell him he’s alive. Tell him that he made it.”
Joel lowers his head, watching the way your fingers splay over his heart. He puts his hand on yours and pushes, and you feel the strong thump-thump-thump of his heartbeat.
“He knows.”
You lean forward and put your mouth to his temple. “Shower, Joel,” comes your whisper in his ear.
He nods, wrapping his arm around your waist and guiding you into the bathroom. The water hits you both true, scalding, the drain circled with red. He’s naked, his back to you as he sets his hair and lets his wounds bleed what they need to.
You lift your hands and trail them down his broad shoulders, your forehead dropping between his shoulder blades where your name is inked into his back. Joel’s muscles idly flex, his palm flat against the shower wall. His body shudders when you press your lips to the name on his back.
Wordlessly, you bring your arms around him, caressing his side, careful of the new bruises. Your other hand drops to his steel-hard cock and you begin to slowly stroke him. The noise that wrenches free from his throat is half pleasure, half agony, his hips bucking into your fist. You bump your nose against his back, your years-old sign to Just relax, and Joel hides his face in his bicep as you work your hand over him.
“G—fuck,” he grunts. “Goddamn… honey, I—”
You squeeze him at the base and twist your hand up and down the length of him, the weight warm and heavy, your thumb coaxing out a bead of precum. Your cheek is warm on his back, your arm struggling to reach around the width of him, your chest humming at the sound of his gruff moans.
“Let me…” He cuts himself off as you speed up your strokes, and you can feel his abdomen tense. “Fuck, let me make you feel good. Shit… let me…”
“Joel,” you say, “for once, stop trying to be my hero.”
His head falls back and you press your lips to his throat, nibbling the sensitive spot behind his ear: the old scar, that tiny circle, that hairless patch. He groans your name, and you’re smiling despite yourself, your mouth curling against his warm, tender skin.
“Inside me,” you whisper, the pace of your fingers over his length slowing to a crawl. “Remind me how it feels.”
He turns his head to look into your eyes, his lashes dewy, blinking hard to flick away the water, brow furrowed. His moustache bristles as his lips part in a question he does not (or maybe cannot) articulate, and you’re fractured into pieces by the intricate curve of his nose, the freckles on his jaw, the silver strands in his beard. A rough hand cups the back of your neck and another takes you by the waist, and you’re flattened to the wall, your hand braced on the glass next to you as he kisses you deeply.
Consuming, heady, warm—you give in, your hands avoiding the delicate skin of his wrists where he’s been bound, helpless. Sighing softly into his mouth, you let his kiss humble the part of you that still needs the walls you’ve built from the marrow of your anger. It circles the drain, lead-filled paint, as you remember under his hands how it feels to live.
You reach between your bodies, your leg wrapping around his waist, and slide the head of his cock through your weeping slit. Joel sucks in air through his teeth, the water lashing his back like a whip, and he surges forward, grasping you by the waist and sinking his cock into your tight hole.
You cry out his name, burying your face in his throat and baring your teeth. Your name leaves his mouth in kind, an apparition, sounds you barely recognise anymore. As you take him inside you, the memory of who you were with him pounds at your ribcage, begging to be let out. And you covet them, selfish as you are now for fucking him this way, needy and impatient, your fingers tugging his wet locks.
You see no point in scooping out the marrow; there is still sweetness stuck to the bones of your old life with him. Instead, you coat your teeth in this, the slow drag of his cock, the depths he reaches so easily, so knowingly. His fingers prod the bruised flesh of your hurt and yet you still guide him inside. You still pull his hair and kiss his throat where his Adam’s apple bobs and you still let him hold you close enough to splinter.
He’s grabbing fistfuls of your ass and sucking on your throat, his thrusts sloppy as he tries to hold back, to make you come first, but you tighten, clenching down on him, making his groans pitch up into whines.
“Joel,” you gasp, your needy fingers prickling his scalp where you pull his hair. His teeth graze your throat and you want him to bite, you want him to sink in deep, you want his jaws to latch onto your skin. You want him never to leave again.
He comes hard. His hips buck, pushing so deep he disappears into your body, and you see the blues, browns, reds of your painting as he empties all he has left inside you.
Panting, he drops his head to your breast, his open mouth still scattering weak, worn kisses over your skin. Your lungs expand under his palms, fingers stuck in the grooves between your ribs, his body an offshoot of yours, not the other way around. In the ringing afterlife of your pleasure, you vaguely feel him mouthing words you cannot hear. You run your fingers through his hair and enjoy the battering of the scorching water as it melts you both into one.
Later, in the sticky, humid silence of the bathroom, steam still swirling around your heads, fogging the glass, you trim Joel’s hair.
"Do you ever get scared?" you ask him, the shhhick of the scissors gliding across a chunk of his hair. "Do you ever go out on a job and think to yourself, What if I slip? What if this is it?"
Joel huffs. "It's not so much about myself as making sure the other guy goes down first."
“I think I’d be scared.” You twirl a lock of hair around your finger and let it fall over his forehead. “I don’t think I’d be able to look into someone’s eyes and take their life.”
He casts his eyes to his lap, flicking off some hair from his thigh. “One time, I thought it was over. I wasn’t quite seventeen yet, runnin’ drugs for some gangster. He sent me to El Sauzal to discreetly transport a couple kilos out of the city; someone had snitched and he didn’t want any rival gangs to find his stash. But the people there, they… They didn’t know any better. There were mothers, kids. Innocent people, y’know? Just strays. I decided I’d come back for ‘em.”
Your stomach twists. “What happened?”
A muscle in his jaw ticks. “I was too late. By the time I got back, the whole goddamn city was on fire. The people were either dead in the streets or close to it. They didn’t do anythin’ wrong. They didn’t ask for any of it. But they were weaker, slower. I couldn’t walk ten feet without seein’ some kid wrapped up his mother’s arms, burned to a fucking crisp. So, I came back with weapons, marched into the gang’s territory, and I killed ‘em all.”
Days ago, you’d be afraid of the man whose back warms your belly where you stand just behind him. You would hesitate to reach out and put your hand on his shoulder the way you do now. But you curl your fingers over the muscled curve of his arm and his head falls back against you, spidering open, his gooey molten centre bared for you.
Joel. Just Joel.
“Did you see the painting?” you ask him quietly.
“I see everything you do,” he says. “It's beautiful, baby.”
You drop your gaze from his face in the mirror and set down the scissors on the vanity. “I can't pretend to understand what you've been through, Joel, and that makes things even harder. All I've ever wanted is to love you, to take your pain, and all this time there's been so much I never even knew about. And I’m sorry.”
Joel’s hand comes to cover yours, clasping your fingers. They’re warm, rough, but you do not sense the phantom blood. “If I’d told you from the beginning,” he says, “maybe I never would've hurt you in the first place. All those years I thought I was protecting you from myself, I was hurting you—the one thing I swore I would never fuckin’ do.”
“Joel…”
“Baby, don't apologise to me,” he says firmly, putting his lips to your knuckles. “Never apologise to me. And don't you let me off easy.”
“Have I ever?” you say with a halfhearted smile.
“Yeah,” he says, “the day you let me marry you.”
You scoff. “Oh, please. Wedding planning was hell on earth for you.”
“Just because I didn't like the photographer—”
“You didn't not like the photographer, Joel. You wanted to draw and quarter the photographer.”
He huffs like an angry dog, frowning at you in the mirror. “He kept puttin’ his goddamn hands on you.”
You laugh, brushing your thumb over the patch in his beard to indicate you're finished. “He was posing us, cowboy.”
Joel rises to his feet and closes the scissors away inside the drawer. “Posin’ you, sure.”
“He was afraid to touch you. Probably thought you’d take off his hand. And the pictures turned out great.”
“Yeah,” he says, a smirk twitching at the corner of his mouth. “Way the sunlight caught in your hair, your eyes… I don't know. Beautiful.”
He was so shy the first time you kissed him. Cheeks flushed, eyes cast toward the ground, the wind ruffling his curls where it blew over the water. He was made in an artist’s image, you thought that night, the details pored over like paperwork, the sparkle in his eyes something the painter covets. But the portrait has never wilted in the years you've known him. It's grown older, sure, but it is not old. He's still shy sometimes; he still looks down when he smiles, and he still turns his cheek when you tell him he's beautiful.
“Do you…” He rubs his palms over his thighs, looking up at you through his lashes. “Do you wish you could go back?”
It's your turn to sit. You drop into his chair, your arms curling over the back of the seat, and watch him on his journey to his knees. “I don't know, Joel,” you tell him. “I think about that day and part of me wants the magic of it back. I want the breeze and the sun and the white canopy and I want you sliding this ring on my finger. But knowing what I know now…”
“You wouldn't have married me,” he says like it's the only answer. His eyes are wet and sad and they sparkle so bright in the day.
“I wish I’d known,” you say plainly, bringing his hand to your cheek and resting it over the cool wedding band. “I wish you would have told me everything. I wish you didn't make me question your love, even for a second. I wish you could have spared me all this anger I have—all this pain.”
He’s stone-still, a figure in a portrait, and you brush your fingers across his cheek. “But killing isn't what you are, Joel. It’s what you do. And I’m so tired of being angry.”
You say it fiercely, your tongue sticking to the roof of your mouth, your throat tightening. You swipe your thumbs under your eyes and meet your husband’s eye. “I love you more than my anger and my hurt have room for. And if I can love you this hard, if I can feel all this pain and still be that same girl who fell for the guy from the restaurant, then I can let myself get hurt all over again.”
Joel shakes his head, cupping your face in his hands as his eyes brim with tears. “Oh, baby…”
“I know it's never been an easy marriage,” you say, your voice breaking, “and I’m always travelling, and I know that I can get snippy and we bicker, but I wouldn't go back to that day, Joel, because I wouldn't change anything. Even if I have to feel all of this again, I wouldn't take it all back.”
His inhale shudders through him and your heart lurches out of your chest. “I don’t deserve that,” he whispers, his thumb stroking your cheek, catching a tear that falls. “I’ve hurt you too much to ever be worthy of what you've given me, sweetheart. I ain't a good man, or even a decent one. But fuck, if I can be good for you, I’ll pray to whatever God they want me to. I’ll scrape my knees and put my hands together and fake it ‘til I’m someone you want. I swear it, baby.”
“Joel.” You gently pry his hands away. “The life you've lived, the things you've been through… I can't change any of it. I can't be what you need all the time, and fuck, I want to be. I do, Joel. But this life is something you have to figure out yourself. Nobody should force you to believe in something that's only ever caused you pain.”
He never told you about the tattoo; you had to find it yourself. Shucking the hem of his shirt up over his head, two weeks separating the last time you’d been able to indulge in his body, you trailed your fingers up his back and paused at the sound of him hissing through his teeth.
“Easy, cowboy,” you cooed. “Are you all right?”
Wordlessly, he turned, taking your hand and lifting it to the reddish skin around the black ink. You gasped, your fingers jolting backward as if struck by a feeler of lightning.
“Joel,” you said tremulously, “please don't tell me you were drunk and this was an impulse decision.”
“Guys in the Marines would get tattoos that meant somethin’ to them. Easier to carry around with you when you're away.” Joel met your gaze again, your tearful eyes, and brought your knuckles to his mouth. “Tell me you want it gone, and it's gone.”
You shook your head, a laugh snaking past the lump in your throat. “Selfishly, I think it’s very sexy.”
He chuckled, kissing the breath from your lungs.
The memory is heavy in your stomach. It's something you'll have to roll around in your mouth a thousand times before the taste begins to dissolve.
“I need time, Joel,” you tell him. “I need to wrap my head around things. I… I can't be the girl you want right now.”
Joel brushes his thumb over your chin. “You have always been the girl I want,” he says. “If you need time, you have it. If you need a warm body, you have it. I’m whoever you want me to be. And if it ain't a husband, then… then that's okay. But I can’t promise you that I won't stop tryin’ to get my wife back. That’s not who I am.”
You sniffle, twirling the ring on his finger. “You’ll get sick of it. The waiting.”
He smiles so softly that you can feel a bud begin to bloom in the core of you, nourished by the way he keeps his hand on your thigh, absently rubbing the sore muscles there. “I waited my whole life for someone like you to come along—someone who could give me the purpose I’d been lookin’ for. I can wait another lifetime. I can wait a thousand.”
“You’ll resent me. You’ll start to hate me.” You don't know why it comes pouring out of you, but the gates are brittle wood and they snapped in the torrent. “I’m an angry drunk. I smell like paint half the time. I travel for work.”
Joel just studies your face, some inexplicable calm etching out the agony. “You take your coffee with milk and sugar and you can't stand it black, but you make it that way for me anyway. You sleep until noon when you're jet lagged and I sit up in bed just to watch you dream. You lie in my arms on the couch at home and ask me about my day even when you're noddin’ off. You dreamed about love when you were a little girl, the way it happens in books. You told me in your wedding vows that you'd found it with me. You think I could resent a girl like that?”
He smiles like it hurts and heals all at once, like it's a foregone conclusion, like you were meant to be loved by him.
“Time doesn't mean a goddamn thing. I know the girl I see in front of me now. Time won't change how much I love her.”
Flipping through the list of potential venues, Joel tucked into your side, you said, “We’ll have an outdoor ceremony. No churches.”
“Baby, I won't burst into flames if I step inside a church.” Joel playfully flicked his tongue over your nipple, obscured by his T-shirt. “Tommy, on the other hand… things he's done…”
You laughed, gently pushing at his head. “No churches,” you said again. “I don't care how much more we’ll have to pay or travel to get around it. You're my husband. You're my comfort, and I want to be what's comfortable for you. Understood?”
He looked up at you, his lips parted as if on the precipice of speech. You beamed, bringing his face to yours and kissing him deeply.
“But if the wind knocks over the gazebo, you're not getting your dick inside me on our wedding night,” you said against his mouth. Joel shook his head, yanking you on top of him and tearing the shirt from your body. Your binder landed with a flutter of loose pages to the floor.
“You didn't kill Cabrera.”
Joel lowers his eyes. “No. He got away.”
“So there's still a contract on your head.”
“For now.”
“So,” you say with a sigh, crossing the room and digging through your bag, “you have to go.”
“I have to go,” he echoes, following you like a shadow. “No matter what… I’m finishing it. Tonight.”
You pull the switchblade from your bag, open Joel’s fist, and place the cool wood hilt in his palm.
“Goddammit, Tommy,” he says under his breath. “He shouldn't have…”
“But he did,” you say. “He said I should be the one to have it. I think it should be yours.”
He curls his fingers over the hilt and flicks open the blade. It's light, but it seems to weigh him down. You rest your hand over his.
“Do what you need to do.”
He drops his forehead to yours and closes his eyes, soaking in this final breath exchanged between your silent bodies, dipping his fingers in the sanctified waters and coming out unscalded.
Bill calls Joel not a moment after he steps onto the street outside the Continental.
“That's a heavy price on your head.”
“Yeah, Bill, I know.” He breathes in the cool air, like cigarette smoke, his nostrils stinging. Trash and a new, fresh breeze carried into the city. Nothing that stays here ever thrives. “Stayed alive so far.”
“So I hear,” grunts the Manager, “and leaving behind a hell of a lot of cleanup.”
“I won't stick you with the check,” says Joel. “It's my business.”
“I don't conduct business inside this hotel,” says Bill, “which is why I won't tell you that a certain helicopter at a certain helipad is refuelling as we speak.”
Joel smirks, flicking out his cuff to check the time. “Any reason why you aren't tellin’ me this?”
“I like you, Joel. Despite myself.”
Silent, he waits for more.
“Besides,” Bill continues, “we live and die by honour. And you've saved my ass more than once.”
Joel snorts. “Which time are you thankin’ me for?”
“Just take my goddamn advice and leave this world. For good this time.”
“I will,” says Joel. “One way or another. Thanks, Bill.”
High above the ground, sitting in the alcove by the window, you watch storm clouds gather over the city, darkening the sky, the sun, and your Joel, so far away, slouching calmly toward whatever end he will choose.
It's raining.
The first time you kissed him, a downpour suddenly swept up the both of you and you'd scrambled underneath a bridge by the water. You both laughed until your ribs were sore, holding hands as you ran, a soaking wet playbill above each of your heads for cover.
“At least the show was good,” you shouted over the roar of the rainfall.
Joel was mesmerised into stillness by the colours of the traffic lights in your eyes, how they shifted over the planes of your face. Starting to think like an artist, you'd tease, and he'd lean into it, a planet circling its sun.
“It was all right,” he said, taking the playbill from your hand. “You could catch a cold. We should get a cab.”
“Always my hero.” You grinned up at him, your eyes scanning his face in that particular way they did, as if ingesting the sight of him to later put the lines to a canvas. “Did you have a good time, Joel? I mean, really. You won't offend me.”
He grimaced. “I, uh… well, see, I’m not the best judge, and… I guess—”
“Joel.”
There was a gleam in your eyes that could have been amusement or could have been hunger. He doesn't remember. He only saw you tilt your chin and lower your eyes to his mouth, to that one place the Sisters always called vulgar, obscene, a place meant only for His word—
“Can I kiss you, Joel Miller, or will you keep being all heroic?”
It was soft, gentle, exploratory. Your mouth opened his like a wound, setting the scorching blade of your lips to the gash, staunching the blood. You healed and burned him, one hand on his back beneath his jacket, the other cupping his face. It reminded him of the statue that lived in the theatre underneath the church where all the boys and girls trained. An angel cast in white marble, cradling the face of Saint Eustace. The statue was chipped where his eye was meant to be.
He remembers the way he shuddered when you touched him like that. He remembers the chill that started in his feet and crept up his spine. Something like coming alive, settling back into his own body—no longer a spirit haunting the shell of a home but a man.
You pulled back, but Joel curled his hand around the back of your neck and kissed you again, deeper, maybe a little too eager, too inexperienced—but you gasped, fingers curling in his hair, your body curving into his. Your noses bumped when you separated, and he remembers laughing.
The rain is nothing like that night. It's the lash of a whip across his face, seeping colour from the world instead of infusing it with light and movement. The water by the docks slaps against the concrete and boats rock and groan against their mooring. The lights of the city are distant now.
Joel steps out of the car.
He marches toward his target, cocking the pistol in his hand, and calls out a name. It gets lost in the roll of thunder across the sky and lodges in his chest.
Cabrera waits on the landing pad, looking wraithlike in a long black coat and a pair of leather gloves. His pilot fuels the helicopter nearby. Neither of them hear Joel’s voice in the air. The rising sun is what gives him away—or maybe the gunshot, as he lifts his arm and pulls the trigger.
It does not pierce flesh. It ricochets off one of the rotor blades. He had aimed slightly to the left.
The pilot scampers off into hiding, but the slash of the bullet through the rainfall is enough to get the attention Joel wants. Cabrera reaches inside the lining of his jacket and fires a single shot. Joel can feel it tear through skin and muscle, but it doesn't hurt.
“Joel,” greets Cabrera.
“Manuel.”
His chest heaves, his jacket soaked through, the cold sinking bone-deep.
“Let's finish this.”
The glimmer in those depthless black eyes is the panther at the hunt, relentless in its hunger, licking its chops at the sight of a challenge. For all the coward’s blood in his veins, it still pulses at the prospect of winning.
“Like men,” says Cabrera, tossing his gun aside at the same time Joel does. “With honour. No more guns.”
And it's laughable: the thought that there is any honour left in a world like this. A world where children are beaten and lashed and trained to hold a weapon too big for their hands. A world that burns villages, butchers families, and still claims that without rules, we live with the animals.
A world as unruly as this cannot be ruled. He never truly considered it until he saw the sad gleam in your eye, felt the empathetic touch of your hand on his face, and began to realise that maybe he should be furious.
But because he already knows he's going to win, Joel lets his opponent land the first blow.
The blood is tangy, near-sweet, as he swipes his forearm over his mouth and smears crimson on his shirtsleeve. It tingles faintly on his lips and crackles, warm as the melt from a late-winter snow. He feels it settle in the grooves of his palms, the hairs of his beard. He’s drowning in it.
Cabrera hits hard, but he’s slow. He’ll take five punches in the time it takes to wind up for one. Joel brings his arm up to block the next and delivers a blow to the sternum with his knee as his opponent’s guard drops. Wide open, Cabrera stumbles a few steps back, choking down the telltale wheeze of being winded. Joel marches forward, relentless in his crusade, grasping him by the scruff of his neck, teeth bared like a mad wild dog, and bears his skull down on the side of the railing. Around them, the wind howls and lashes at his clothes, but he still hears the pained scream as if it were poured into his ears.
Cabrera drops to his knees, and Joel grabs him again, bashing his head repeatedly against the steel bar, the lapel of an Italian leather coat bunching between his fingers, tainted by rainwater and the fist of the man who's come to take his life.
And fuck, Joel wants to make it last.
But there's a knife in his opponent’s hand, conjured from the darkness of his coat pocket, and Joel must release him to avoid the lethal slash of the blade. Blinking blood and lashing rain from his eyes, the man lunges with a snarl, and Joel recovers from his lost victory, stopping him with his fingers curled around his opponent’s wrist. He brings his hand to the crook of Cabrera’s elbow and uses his leverage to snap the bone.
Yowling, Cabrera drops to his haunches, the knife clattering to the ground. Joel, chest heaving, stands over him, flexing his fingers as he readies his fist for the killing blow.
His name leaves Cabrera’s bloodied mouth, accompanied by a mouthful of crimson-tainted saliva spat on the ground at Joel’s feet.
“Joel…” He lifts his head, cradling his broken arm, and sneers. There’s a chilling glow of satisfaction in it. “Did you get your perfect life, Joel? Do you really think you’ve won? It won’t ever stop. Not after you’ve killed me, not after you’ve killed all of them. Is that what you’re going to do? Kill them all?”
He could. He has done far worse. He has spilled blood for gold coins and superficial alliances and someone else's revenge. He has stalked, stolen, lied, killed, and he could finish this now, so easily, with the flick of a blade.
But the song of death does not call to him now.
For so long he had trudged, unmoored, through heavy crimson blood. Like pulling at the seams of velvet, he'd sewn more lives into the sea of red and he never looked behind him to see the souls trying to pull him down at the ankles. He didn't know purpose until he saw the way the candlelight flickered in your eyes, until he tilted his head to the side and realised your smile was a new kind of beautiful from each angle.
The rain sticks to his lashes and he thinks of an old song of prayer the Sisters used to chant. He remembers curling his fingers around one of the rosaries that hung from the large cross in the cathedral and wincing in anticipation. He thought he would burn—that the metal would leave a red stain on his palm. It never did.
Maybe that's why he never believed. Surely, if there was a God, Joel Miller would have burned by now.
He thinks of shopping for furniture and date nights and lazy mornings, tangled in bedsheets. Your mouth, smiling against his, whispering I love you across the breakfast table. Dancing—or swaying, more like—under the kitchen light. Loving easily, never feeling as if he must grab hold of the cross and burn himself upon it just to feel.
Joel turns the switchblade in his hand, lurches forward, and plunges the knife into Cabrera’s chest.
There is no noise but a faint gurgle from his mouth, his hand weakly rising to grasp the hilt. Joel drops to his knees and fishes Cabrera’s cell phone from his pocket.
“The blade is stuck in your aorta,” he says. “If you pull it out, you’ll bleed out and die.” He puts the rain-slick screen in front of Cabrera’s face. “Pull the contract.”
A few feeble taps are all it takes, and Joel Miller is no longer a target. His name glares back at him on the screen, from two million to nothing, not the boogeyman any longer but something akin to a civilian. Joel tosses the phone into the water and turns to leave.
“See you in hell, Joel,” Cabrera chokes, still grasping the shiny wooden hilt of the blade.
He barely hauls himself into the car, which chokes to a rumbling start. There's blood seeping through his shirt where Cabrera shot him, and his fingers shake as they pull away from the wound, the red so bright, so alive. Joel grits his teeth and squeezes his eyes shut.
If there’s a God, he thinks, I hope you fucking hear me now.
Tell me that we don’t get what we deserve. Because there is nothing I deserve in this world if I cannot keep what I’ve found.
His fingers trembling, smearing blood across the screen, he makes a call.
And your voice on the line, soft, sticky with sleep, whispering his name—just his name: Joel?—is what wrenches the first sob from his throat.
Joel, you say, like it means something, like it's precious. A jewel pressed from dusty black coal. Come back to me. Come home.
So he does.
#fic: helen#kiwisbell's fics#pedro pascal#joel miller#joel miller x reader#joel miller smut#joel miller x you#the last of us#the last of us hbo#tlou fic#joel miller angst#joel miller au#joel miller x female reader#joel miller x f!reader#joel miller fic#john wick au
149 notes
·
View notes
Text
Medicine - Chris Sturniolo
Summary: You were having a difficult day where negative thoughts shook you, but luckily your boyfriend Chris is always there to save you
Warnings: cute, hugs, kisses, negative thoughts, a little angst
Author's notes: This is my work, I do not authorize any plagiarism, copying or “inspiration”. English is not my first language, so I'm sorry if there are any grammatical errors.
｡☆��★━━━━━━━━━━━━★✼☆｡
You were sad, so sad, at that moment, your life didn't seem to make sense.
You felt ugly, incapable, inappropriate, God! You were feeling every negative feeling there was, even non-existent ones.
And there weren't enough words that could describe what you were feeling.
You traveled all over the world, collected lyrics, but nothing, nothing could describe this feeling that took over your heart.
And so you asked yourself, how could you talk to someone about this?
Talking to others about your feelings was never really a problem, at least not with your closest friends.
But now? You were a child who was left on a road in the middle of the night.
Lost.
Alone.
In the dark.
At least that's what you thought while cooking dinner at the triplets' house.
You thought that no one could understand what you were feeling, not when you couldn't form words, so why waste other people's time, why be inconvenient by saying that you didn't feel well, when no one could understand you, help you.
When you didn't even understand what you were feeling?
You were so focused on your thoughts that you didn't notice Chris's gaze on you.
Chris knew something was wrong the moment you appeared in the room, your shoulders slumped, your eyes heavy, your smile weak, dejected.
You always had big smiles that brighten any darkness, but now? His smile was wan, a smile that tried to hide his tears.
He didn't know what had happened, if someone hurt you, if they said something that hurt you, if you were in physical pain or not.
But he knew, he was sure, that everything wasn't okay.
Then, he got up from the couch, the place he had been sitting staring at you for the last 10 minutes, and walked towards you.
You were always alert to your surroundings, no matter the situation, you always noticed when something had happened to someone, or when a person approached, so when he approached you, and you didn't notice, as if someone had blindfolded you , he worried.
He was behind you, when he wrapped his arms around you, you were a little startled by the sudden contact, jumping slightly, and looking back.
It was just Chris.
You let out a sigh of relief.
"Don't do that anymore, you scared me" You said softly, when you went back to mixing the food in the pan.
"Everything is fine?" He ignored what you said, needing to know what was happening as quickly as possible.
"Why the question?" You ask back.
You always did this, when you didn't want to answer something, you asked the person a question as an answer.
"You don't look like you're on planet Earth today"
"No? Where do I look like I am? In fact, if I weren't on earth, how would you be hugging me now?"
“No, not like that, you’re here, but at the same time, you’re not here” you raise an eyebrow.
“Your body is here, your mind is not” You go back to mixing dinner, taking a deep breath.
"It's okay, I'm just tired" You weren't lying, you really were tired, but one of the main reasons for those words was because you really wanted to close this subject, you know that tomorrow you would wake up better.
But of course, Chris didn't accept that. He knew there was something more, and he wanted to find out what it was.
He was always like that, he was always there for you, even when you didn't want anyone, you just wanted to be alone.
And that was why you loved him so much.
Because he was your guardian angel, your bulletproof vest when everything got dangerous, he stayed in front of you when you were in the crosshairs.
He was there to heal all your scars.
And you knew he could save you now, when you are in the crosshairs of negativity.
His body leaned over yours a little, taking the spoon out of your hand and throwing it into the sink.
You tried to take the spoon back, making the excuse that the food wasn't ready and you needed to stir it more.
But Chris was watching you, he knew that you had turned off the stove for more than 5 minutes.
He turned his body to face him, and hugged his waist.
"Talk to me, what's going on?" He asked again.
But what he received in response was silence, and his eyes were watery.
"Honey..." He began, a speech already planned in his mind to make you speak, at least the basics, so he would know what happened, but this moving speech was not necessary, because right after he called you, the words ran out of his mouth like a river.
And now, you were a mess.
A beautiful mess in Chris's eyes, even with your tear stained face, messy hair, wrinkled clothes, you looked beautiful.
The gods knew how beautiful you looked.
"I don't know, I woke up like this, I'm just sad, nothing really happened, I just... I feel ugly, inappropriate, annoying, I don't know, I, I don't know, I can't explain it." You tried, you really tried, but you couldn't, gods, you didn't even know who you were at that moment.
You didn't know what were happening.
"Hey, hey, it's okay, pretty girl, it's okay, you don't need to say anything else, I already understand, I got you, I'm here with you." He cupped your face and dried your tears, placing a lingering kiss on your forehead. Trying to calm you down.
Which, even though it took a while, worked.
You let out a shaky breath. And when you look up, back at him, you realize he was thinking of a solution.
"What do you think about us lying down, cuddling on the couch, watching a movie, we don't need to say anything, just cuddle, do you want that?"
You smile lightly and nod, hugging Chris's waist, and hiding your face in his chest.
You stayed like that for a while, when you finally started moving to the couch, you on top of Chris, while you chose a movie.
It had been about 10 minutes into the movie, and you were already feeling better, but there was still something bothering you.
And of course, Chris noticed, so he did what he knew would help, what always helps, he kissed you.
He gently grabbed your chin and kissed your lips, making all that pain you were feeling go away.
Making you feel better than you ever have.
He could do this.
He was your medicine.
You separate, and look at each other, you smile in thanks, and lay your head back on his chest.
For the first time that day, feeling good.
#chris sturniolo smut#chris sturniolo x reader#chris sturniolo imagine#chris sturniolo fanfic#christopher sturniolo#matt sturniolo fluff#chris sturniolo x you#matt sturniolo#matt sturniolo imagine#chris sturniolo#matt sturniolo smut#nick sturniolo#matt sturniolo x you#nicolas sturniolo#sturniolo triplets#matt sturniolo x reader#nick sturniolo fanfic#nick sturniolo x you#nick sturniolo edit#nick sturniolo smut#matthew sturniolo#nick sturniolo x reader#sturniolo fanfic#sturniolo x reader#sturniolo imagine#sturniolo smut#sturniolo edit#sturniolo triplets smut#sturniolo triplets edit#sturniolo triplets x reader
148 notes
·
View notes
Text
kiss ban
gn!reader x sungho ・ drabble college au fluff established relationship ・ cw kissing hickeys (NOT SEXUAL !!!!!) swearing ! wc 538
sungho is the perfect boyfriend you could ever ask for.
from his jaw-dropping looks to his heart-warming personality, he always made you smile and appreciate your relationship. but—
he has a habit, a very up-and-close habit. kissing. or as he sees it "showing his love to someone he loves" this is mainly nice as everyone likes physical touch from their significant other, but this time it's bad.
very bad.
hearts pounded as you locked lips with sungho, his plump lips glossed with a thin layer of spit as the two of you were making out. his slender fingers playing with the ends of your shirt. kissing was a very normal thing to do every day as you couldn't help but melt into a puddle every time sungho pouted at you. you disconnected with sungho and stared into his eyes, such loving and doting eyes that could make you fall in love with him all over again.
suddenly you feel his lips against your neck, giving you chast kisses down to your collarbone. "we have to go soon, sunggg.." you huffed out as you watched him continue to kiss you. "just give me a sec, wanna give you more kisses.."
his lips sucked down on your neck. you didn't mind this as you were in the moment.
soon after the kisses were done and you were ready to go to college that's when you realized what happened. "sungho. what did you do to my neck??" you froze, only looking at the mirror in front of you. "i didn't know it was gonna bruise up like that.." he was referring to a hickey on your neck.
park sungho just gave you a hickey... ! when you were about to campus.
"i'm dead. i'm fucking dead sungho." you muttered, surprisingly sungho caught what you said. "maybe just cover up? or maybe put makeup on it?.." he advised you, but you frowned. sungho's hands clasped onto yours as his eyes looked into yours, showing pure empathy and anxiousness. "y'know i didn't mean to do this to you, right? i'm sorry babe, i just got too into it." he apologized.
a sigh fell off your lips as you looked back at sungho. "it's fine, uhm, i can just wear a sweater." sungho nodded at your response, feeling bad about the hickey on your neck. "you better not feel bad right now sung, it's just a silly hickey. 'ts isn't gonna kill me!" you chuckle while zipping your sweater up.
sungho didn't say a word and placed his arms around your waist, pulling you into his embrace. "i'm just so sorry." he whispered into your ear. "i know you are, and it's okay!!" you reassured him.
your hands gently picked up your bags and headed straight to the door. "you better not be sad when i come back sung!!" "i won't, okay?" you nodded to his response and opened the door.
"just so you know though —"
"you're on a kissing ban, till this thing goes away." sungho's eyes widened as you said that with a smile. "NOOOOO" sungho whined, a pout forming on his lips. "i might give you a kiss if you at least help get rid of the hickey." you giggled.
🐰 : sorry if this is bad. I'm trying to get into the groove of writing (TT)
#★ ( SNOOZE !! )#boynextdoor imagines#boynextdoor x reader#boynextdoor#boynextdoor drabbles#boynextdoor smut#boynextdoor sungho#park sungho#bnd x reader#bnd fluff#bnd imagines#bnd#sungho#boynextdoor park sungho#boynextdoor fluff#sungho fic#sungho x reader#bnd angst#bonedo
155 notes
·
View notes
Text
I'm seeing posts saying they'll feel sad if Debling turns out to be a great guy and Pen doesn't end up with him. I want to say it doesn't matter if Debling is the so called perfect gentleman. He doesn't know her. She doesn't know him. Not really. The same would be true for ANY other man they had come in as the convenient plot device too.
Everyone in these convos always forget what made the Bridgerton family so infamous in the ton. Marriage was a business for everyone, and that was an accepted fact of life, but the Bridgertons had a thing for making marriages of love. Even if Debling is the nicest dude to exist on earth, he's still a man of the ton who will be looking for a wife to fulfill a role, and ultimately marriage in those times would always, always be transactional. And Portia pushing Pen into the marriage mart so early, Penelope looking for prospects year after year, is also for her own worldly well being, not related to her heart.
One of the things that actually makes Colin stand out is the very fact that he appreciated her as a person first, then a friend, and only later as a woman. Back when women were seen as just potential wives or side pieces, ornamental displays for one's arms, or someone to fulfill the role of housekeeper and mother, Colin who appreciated her as a friend first, saw her as someone that could be confided in, but also someone that he could be inspired by, is an anomaly. In fact, even among his own brothers, he is an anomaly.
165 notes
·
View notes
Text
imgonnagetyouback
a/n: I've been obsessed with this song from Taylor's new album and I keep imagining it with jeno </3 i hope you like it :3
cw: alcohol
✧･ﾟ: *✧*:･ﾟ✧
"Whether I'm gonna flip you off or
Pull you into the closet, I haven't decided yet
But I'm gonna get you back"
your friend had brought you to a party of one of her friends - it was a small party but not too small that you had to interact with everyone, thank god. it's only been two weeks since you and your ex, jeno, broke up. you weren't sure whether or not to go to this party, but you were in the mood to go out. your friend had insisted that you didn't need to go to this party too, but deep down, you wanted to see jeno.
when jeno had broken up with you, it caught you off guard, you had no idea his feelings had started to change. "things have changed - i just don't feel the same anymore. i'm sorry" he had said. you were so stunned, you didn't cry, you didn't even say anything at all. "i- i'm sorry" he repeated before leaving you at the front door of your house. you cried so hard that night, it hurt to open your eyes the next day. everything had been so abrupt, one second he's being sweet and the next he's saying he doesn't feel the same. he breaks it off with you in a matter of minutes, not giving you any explanation at all. you didn't know whether to be angry or sad. your mood had been volatile a week afterwards, switching from sharp pangs of sadness one minute to raging anger seconds later.
even at this party, you didn't know whether you felt sad or angry towards jeno. it didn’t help that as soon as you walked in, you locked eyes with him. it was almost like you were two magnets, bound to find each other no matter the distance. you felt your heart drop to your stomach as you quickly looked away and your friend dragged you into the kitchen to get a drink. your friend handed you a cocktail, and when she turned away to talk to donghyuck, you snuck some more alcohol into your cup.
when you stepped out of the kitchen to say hi to everyone, you tried to plaster on a smile and act like you were fine. however, every time your eyes wandered away, they would find jeno almost immediately. and sometimes he would already be looking at you.
you knew that look in his eyes - it was care. it made your heart strings pull toward him, you could feel a knot forming in your throat. you could cry. you wanted him to come up to you first, you wanted to wrap your arms around his waist, you wanted to feel his warmth on your lips.
but it made you so angry that you felt this way. what gave him the right to keep looking at you the way he used to? he knows how that look makes you feel. you felt red with anger, you wanted to hurt him the way he hurt you.
"I hear thе whispers in your eyes
I'll make you wanna think twice
You'll find that you were never not mine (You're mine)"
as the night went on, your two groups seemed to wander closer and closer to each other, the look in his eyes never faltering. jeno had always been very expressive, you could always read his thoughts and mood from his eyes. he looked at you the way he's looking at you now when he asked you to be his girlfriend, when you were sick, when he first told you he loved you, and every time he came home from work to see you cooking in the kitchen or relaxing on the couch.
after a year together, you learned that that caring look in his eyes was his silent way of telling you he loved you, every second of every day, in private and in public.
little did you know, jeno could read you just as easily. when he saw you walk in and lock eyes with him, he could see the shock and sadness in your eyes. it made him feel horrible. had he made a mistake? a piece of him will always belong to you the same way a piece of you will always belong to him.
the party only picked up as it got later, you could feel yourself getting tipsy and letting loose despite feeling jeno's gaze on you. some girls were trying to approach jeno, but he would politely decline them before they moved on to a different member of his group. he couldn't talk to another girl, not with you within arms reach.
he turned around to check on you again only to find you laughing with another guy. he could feel the jealousy quickly bubbling up in his veins. he had a very short debate with himself before deciding to pull you away. surely, you didn't want this guy approaching you? he's only trying to save you, that's what he thought.
"I can feel it coming, humming in the way you move
Push the reset button, we're becomin' something new
Say you got somebody, I'll say I got someone too"
you had no idea who this guy was. normally, you wouldn't entertain any guy you meet in a party setting, but you were feeling bold with the alcohol coursing through your veins. you could see jeno in the corner of your eye, shoulders squared and with a set jaw, walking your way.
"hi baby, i was looking for you" jeno come up to you as he smiles and wraps a possessive arm around your shoulders. he can feel you tense under his arm, making his smile fall briefly. you were suddenly wrapped in jeno's heat and his smell, just the way you yearned for every night but standing here, it doesn't feel right. the guy you were talking to looks confused as he smiles and excuses himself before walking away to grab a drink.
as soon as he walked away, you quickly stepped out of jeno's grasp looking up at him in anger. he only looks back at you before grabbing your hand and dragging you through the crowd onto the balcony. you let him, not wanting to cause a scene and because you were distracted by the familiarity of the warmth of his hand perfectly fitting in yours.
you didn't know what he was dragging you out for. you knew he wanted to talk, you can feel it in the way he's holding your hand and the heat in his step.
luckily, there wasn't anyone on the balcony when you got out there. you rip your hand away from his, "what do you want" you spat. hurt flashed across jeno's eyes before he replied, "i just wanted to talk. how are you?" you scoffed before crossing your arms and looking away as you try to tamp down your tears and anger.
"y/n..." jeno whispers when you don't respond.
"so how is she?" you ask. you figured he had found someone else and that was why he left you. it was so sudden and he gave no explanation after everything was fine in the days leading up to your breakup.
jeno looks at you in confusion before saying, "who?"
"the girl you left me for"
"what? i didn't leave you for another girl"
you feel relief wash over your body as you can feel your shoulders relaxing just the slightest. so it wasn't your worst fear, not being enough only to be replaced. you're wrapped up in your own thoughts when jeno whispers, "i've missed you"
"Told my friends I hate you, but I love you just the same
Pick your poison, babe, I'm poison either way"
you stare at him in shock. had he really missed you as much as you missed him? you still loved him, you knew that no matter how much you tried to deny it - it's only been 2 weeks. but as much as you loved him, you hated him for ending it the way he did with no closure and so abruptly. if he loved you the way you loved him, he wouldn't have treated you in that way, you have enough self respect to know that.
you feel a tear slip down you cheek, but before you could swipe it away, jeno catches it with his thumb, his palm on your cheek. you instinctively lean into his touch, your heart squeezing at the familiarity of it all.
"i'm sorry. you know i hate seeing you cry. i never meant to hurt you. i'm sorry" he repeats as he caresses your cheeks with his thumbs swiping away the remaining tears running down your face. he tilts your head up towards him, and you look into his eyes with your tear filled ones. he slowly closes the gap between you as he lightly kisses you. and you kiss him back.
you let him deepen the kiss for a minute before you push him away from you. he was like a drug, poison, once it was in your system, it would be hard to get it out. always leaving you wanting more. you had just started to purge him out of your system, but he’s back and you’re left craving him harder than ever before.
but you didn't deserve this, he didn't deserve this - reconciliation without an explanation.
"Whether I'm gonna curse you out or
Take you back to my house, I haven't decidеd yet
But I'm gonna get you back"
"why?" you ask, but your voice only comes out as a rasp.
"i don't know" he shakes his head "i was having a hard time at work and i felt like i was letting you down. i thought you were feeling the same, so i let you go. i thought it would be easier to blame it on myself"
"what makes you think you can make those decisions for me? you just left without an explanation! you could have told me this, and i could've helped you. instead you leave me hanging, combing through everything i've done to try to figure out where i went wrong for you to have changed your feelings. you know i love you, we would've worked through it together" you cry shout.
"i know and i'm sorry! i regretted it immediately, i tried calling you but you never picked up and i tired coming by your house but you were never home when i came around" he replied. admittedly, your friend had his number blocked on your phone and you had stayed with them, unable to stay in a place filled with memories of jeno. your heart hurt knowing jeno tried to reach out to you after.
"it's not an excuse" you whisper.
the sadness on jeno's face is clear as day, "i know it doesn't excuse the way i treated you. i'll never be able to apologize enough for that and i'll never forgive myself for it. it haunts me knowing i hurt you in that way. let me make it up to you. let me show you how much i still love you. let me show you how much i care for you. let me show you how much i mean my words."
somehow this was all you wanted to hear from jeno in the last two weeks. you didn't know what to say. fuck you? but you settled with, "i need time"
jeno nodded quickly, grabbing your hand. he felt hopeful. he pulled you into a hug, "all the time you need. i'll get you back"
"me too" you whisper into his shoulder.
#jeno#nct dream jeno#jeno imagines#jeno angst#nct dream imagines#nct jeno#nct dream#jeno lee#nct#nct jeno imagines
104 notes
·
View notes
Text
I know I'm just reaching, but the sequence of Silver waking up in the Rabbit Race feels so much like the occuring ways he's woken up by Lilia 😭😭😭🙏🙏💖💕💞💕
⬆️⬆️⬆️ This is from the Rabbit Fest
⬇️⬇️⬇️ This is the parallel of it in Book 7
also
one thing I noticed, Silver and Knight of Dawn do have similarities with their magic other than their whole white void magic... ITS THAT THEY BOTH REQUIRE A FAE TO DEVOTE THEIR STRENGTH TO 😭😭🙏🙏✨💖💕💖💕
In Japanese, they basically said the same thing😭😭‼️‼️✨✨ especially the 我に力を！！😭😭(in silver's case the way he says his line is just more ""informal"" (俺に力を) than Dawn, he says "ore ni" unlike "ware ni")
Does this mean in Silver's heart,,, Lilia is Silver's guardian fairy??? 😭😭😭💞💞💞
GRAAGHHH I CANT WITH THEM SJSHDJAJD
I know thats like obvious already but "guardian fairies" for Knight of Dawn, was the origin of his power, every time he wields his sword he dedicates his strength to them, so every battle he endures feels like its for the fairies that gives him strength and in turn, he wants to protect them (and remember that Silver's dream is to be a knight capable of protecting Malleus and Lilia (the faes he loves!!!))
IM GONNA SOB... GUYS IT KINDA FEELS LIKE he loves his father so much, he thinks his strength came from his love to Lilia😭😭
So, the thing that makes Silver strong even against his sleepiness or sadness, is true love, JDJSJDJS regardless if its not Lilia, it could be Sebek, it could be the first years...
Its mostly Lilia OFCC but it can also be from friends and in the Rabbit Fest, the first years, who are his friends😭💖💖💖🙏✨ I'm sure Lilia would be proud AJDJWJS
ALSO now this just makes me think that MAYBE Silver's and Dawn's lineage, requires them "to love someone," or "be loved" in order to be strong???
If so, THAT COULD BE A PARALLEL to the fact that the Draconia lineage also needs lots of love in order to be born... so both Silver/Knight of Dawn and Malleus/Meleanor are people who were born and whose strength centers around love— kind of like they cant exist nor grow up without it 😭😭💞🙏✨✨
WE NEED MORE KNIGHT OF DAWN LOREEE I NEED TO CONFIRM THIS KNIGHT'S BACKSTORY PLEASEEEEEEE😭😭💥💥🙏🙏✨✨✨
#twst#twisted wonderland#disney twisted wonderland#twistedwonderland#malleus draconia#disney twst#lilia vanrouge#lian notes#twst silver#twst wonderland#twst malleus#twst headcanons#twst theory#twst analysis#twst book 7#twst book 7 theory#silver vanrouge#twst knight of dawn#twst white rabbit fest#twst hcs#twst lilia#twst diasomnia#diasomnia#silver twst#CAN YOU GUYS TELL I LOVE THE SEQUENCES WHERE LILIA STL MYSTERIOUSLY WAKES SILVER UP NO MATTER WHERE HE IS#EVEN IF HES SURROUNDED BY DARKNESS OR HES ENGULFED BY SADNESS#LILIAS LOVE PROTECTS HIS SON AJSIWJDJWKKDKWK‼️‼️‼️😭😭😭💞💞#SCREAMING AGAIN we need more knight of dawn lore#THESE FAMILIES MAKES MY HEART AND HEAD ACHE
115 notes
·
View notes
Text
Off My Chest
Rant about Hybe under the cut. I give you my word I will try to post a majority of positive content, because the world (and my mental health) doesn't need more negativity, but sometimes you just gotta vent.
Folks, if you've known me for a hot second, you've realized I am a Jimin-biased Jikooker... but I am OT7, and I sincerely love and support BTS.
I believe Jimin is a grown man who can advocate for himself and I believe Jungkook absolutely supports and adores him, whatever their relationship status is.
I always try to accentuate the positive and avoid online drama and negativity as much as possible, but I need to get this off my chest.
I will never be gas-lit into believing that the way Jimin was treated in solo era was fair, or equitable, or even made any kind of business-sense. I've genuinely tried to entertain other people's points of view and listen to people who claim to have industry expertise, but...
I will never forget his mail being tampered with four times, his leaked insurance information, denial of more music videos, overlapped solo release, only 9 days of promotion, split title tracks, no radio or play-listing, no bio for his Spotify for months, no restock of his single CD for months, hundreds of thousands of frozen and deleted sales, millions of culled streams, shady articles in WeVerse and Billboard, insulting dialogue in In the Seom, failure to submit to RIAA certification for months, only a paywall documentary on WeVerse, zero official acknowledgement of his Hot 100 #1, 1 billion streams on Spotify, or wins for The Fact, MAMA, and two Webbys, plus broken in-ears, anemic little balloons and a sad background tarp as decorations for his fan events… and the company telling him how doing more would just be impossible.
I compare all that to the push that other members and other groups got, and I know it just isn't true. It wasn't impossible.
Hell, Jeon Jungkook put in more effort to promote Jimin’s work and showed more respect for Jimin as an artist during his at-home lives than that whole company did, which honestly makes no sense from a profit standpoint.
I will never forget it, and I will not entertain arguments that say I’m a solo or an anti or jealous about it. I have eyes.
I am not out to shade any other members nor put forth any conspiracy theories. I simply want all our boys to get everything they justly deserve.
And yes, other members have suffered mishaps and neglect, but nothing of this scale, this consistently. It baffles me, I cannot understand it, and I'm done trying. Something strange was going on behind the scenes and we may never be privy to the details.
In trying to put this awful feeling behind me, I will say I am elated that Jikook are serving together and can support each other. I am glad there will be a Jikook travel show. I'm continually impressed with all of Jimin's success (in the military and professionally) despite all odds. I will always love and support all of BTS with my full heart.
And I sincerely hope the company has been taking notes and course-corrects for PJM2, even if it rubs some higher ups the wrong way if they had a different vision. Considering Jimin’s unique talents and his amazing star power—even his ability to bring Paris and New York to a screaming standstill just for the opportunity to see him exit a car—I would hope the company will “do their best to promote all labels and artists without discrimination” going forward.
But what happened truly sucked, and I needed to get that off my chest. I am not interested in further discussion or debate. I am now going to do my best to shift my focus and energy on to the things I want to manifest, instead of the things that enrage me.
So let me end on a positive and hopeful note: I put all my trust in Jimin, who signed a new contract with Hybe and who unfailingly adores all his members. There can be no love without trust. I will always do my best to trust BTS.
But I'm watching carefully. For Jimin and all our boys.
Love, Roo
103 notes
·
View notes
Note
I'm excited to read it too! I'm glad you find it interesting! Don't worry about your post because long! Your thoughts are so interesting!
I agree that Astarion would have to come to terms with Reader/Tav's boundaries too since it works both ways! I definitely feel that Astarion would be too lost in drinking from the blood of a sentient creature to notice the signs.
He would feel ashamed when he's aware of their fear yet they still chose to offer despite that might made him feel like he manipulated them like Cazador did to him 😭
What his excuses are if they try to offer in the early days makes sense! He would be too ashamed & terrified to have such a vulnerable conversation with them yet 😞
He would feel safe enough to bring up their fear after he confessed about everything. He would make it clear to them he doesn't want them to suffer by making them do something they don't want to like he did especially after how much they have helped him & how important they are to him 😭
He would respect their decision if they said it's too much for them. He would support everyone's personal choices & autonomies even though the concept is still new to him 😤
He would need an explanation if they insist on feeding him regardless of their fear. They would explain that not only do they trust him, they love him more than they fear it 🥹
He would only accept if they establish some ground rules 👍 like he did when it comes to physical intimacy & sex which is healthy for both of them!
I know it's unrelated but thank you for adding this because you described me pretty well 🤣 I would definitely react to even the smallest of cuts so Astarion quickly but gently sucking it & giving a small kiss on it would be a fantastic distraction 😳
You're welcome! Thank YOU for entertaining me & sharing your thoughts! I'm glad you enjoy putting Astarion and Tav/Reader in all these different scenarios too 🤍
Here's my idea that I would love to hear your opinion! Just to let you know this is quite self-indulgent XD How would Astarion react to GN! Reader/Tav actually had suspicions that he's using them but still chose to believe that he's not. So when he confessed he manipulated them, they're even not angry at him.
They're sad for how much & how long he has suffered to be the way he is now, but they're also genuinely hurt that he did take advantage of their trust in him. They don't blame him but they admit it still hurts and wants some time alone to process it.
After leaving them be, they would go to him when they're ready to talk to him. They would tell him how grateful they are that he chose to come clean with them despite knowing how it would be easier for him to keep quiet for it, and thanked him for trusting them enough to be honest with them.
What do you think of it? I'm curious :3
Hi Anon! Sorry for the super late response, I let this one stew for a little while in my brain and the other night I had this dialogue idea and couldn’t resist writing a little scene about it tonight! I hope you enjoy ❤️
I envisioned this scene happens half way through his confession, and then imagined the rest of the conversation about intimacy and boundaries would happen afterwards! It’s about 1100 words, and canonical Astarion backstory warnings apply — trauma, dark thoughts, etc.
.·:¨༺ ༻¨:·..·:¨༺ ༻¨:·..·:¨༺ ༻¨:·..·:¨༺ ༻¨:·..·:¨༺ ༻¨
“I just — I feel awful." Astarion’s throat worked silently, his eyes glancing down to his boots. "Look, I had a plan. A nice, simple plan — seduce you, sleep with you, manipulate your feelings so you’d never turn on me. It was easy — instinctive. Habits from two hundred years of charming people kicked in." He finally looked up at your face, studying intensely for your reaction.
“I—oh,” You pulled your hand away from him as uncertainty flooded your features. He saw your eyes dart back and forth, but they weren’t studying him. No, you were lost in thought. “Oh.”
Astarion licked his lips, his hands ringing together in front of him nervously. “You have every right to be angry.”
“I’m not angry. I thought we… I don’t know what I thought.”
The rest of what he had planned to say vanished out of his mind. Instead it started to betray him, a cruel voice whispering about how he knew you would react like this. Did he really think it would go well?
His pink mouth hung open as he scrambled for what to say, trying to think of how to make this better. But he’d done enough already, hadn’t he?
You crossed your arms over your body, your cheeks flushing deeply. “I feel a bit like a fool. None of it was real, the whole time?”
“Not the whole time,” He confessed as soft, vulnerable moments with you flashed in his mind. The very moments that made him start to drop the act. “It hasn’t been as of late, but before… in the beginning, up until recently, yes.”
His red eyes followed your throat as it bobbed up and down before flicking back up to your face. Your eyebrows were furrowed, your mouth a sad pout.
“Tell me what you’re thinking.” Astarion whispered, not daring to move forward.
“I’m thinking… I need a moment.” You admitted, already looking behind you and away from him.
His heart sank, but he nodded. “I— okay. Of course.”
And then you were off, your head down as you stalked away from the edge of the beach and back to the warm glow of camp.
He stood there stunned for a moment, before turning around to stare at the dark, choppy waters in front of him. Hundreds of scenarios began to dance in his mind — what if you went back to the camp to tell the others? Would he be met by pointed blades and blazing spells? He imagined being kicked out, staked, cursed, roasted alive with fireballs. Hand delivered to Cazador as extra punishment for his sins. Anything his twisted broken mind could come up with played like a messed up vision.
Astarion didn’t even try to stop the repetitive dark thoughts. It was what he deserved.
Eventually, the vampire slinked back into the camp some time later — once the sky was inky black and the moon was the only light to illuminate the way back to his tent.
“Hi.”
The sound caused his ears and shoulders to perk up instantly. You were sat in the grass and dirt outside of his tent, your arms wrapped around your knees and pulled to your chest.
“Hi.” Gods, he sounded breathless. But he couldn’t see any weapons or angry barbarians or wizards nearby. That was a good sign, right?
“I wasn’t sure when you’d come back.”
He cocked a brow, “I figured you wouldn’t want to see me again.”
A sigh escaped your lips, “Astarion, don’t be dramatic. I asked for time to think — not for you to leave.”
He blinked at your sharp tone, but nodded his head in slight defeat. “You’re right. And you waited for me because—?”
You brushed off your clothes as you stood up to his height, “I would like to finish that conversation, if you’re ready.”
Well, there was no denying the inevitable.
He nodded his head solemnly, stepping forward to open the flap of his tent and inviting you in with a wave of his hand.
The privacy his tent offered was slight, but this late in the night he knew most of his companions would be fast asleep. Quickly lighting a lantern, he joined you on the fabric floor.
His half-dead heart was thundering, the thrumming sound echoing in his pointed ears that he almost missed your quiet voice.
“I understand.”
“What?” His brows furrowed, looking at you with confusion.
“The stories you’ve told me… your scars… I understand why you did it, why you felt the need to do it.” You explained, your voice and eyes tender as you looked at him in the low light. “But you manipulated me, Astarion. You took advantage of me, toyed with me and my emotions to get what you needed. That hurts.”
Astarion’s stomach twisted into a hard knot, “I know.”
“But you also didn’t need to tell me any of this. You could have kept pretending, kept up the charade until we faced Cazador… But you didn’t. Why?”
Now it felt like his stomach was crawling up his torso and into his throat. Gods, what was this feeling? Why did you do this to him. “That’s what I was trying to tell you before. I failed with my plan. It felt apart the moment I realized… that I had fallen for you.” He admitted, but his fluttering heart made more words stumble out of his mouth. “And I know you probably don’t believe me, why would you after everything I just told you. Trust me, nobody feels more stupid about it than I do.”
You cut off his rambling, “I don’t think it’s stupid. I think that’s probably the most honest you’ve been with me since I’ve met you,” You said earnestly. “It would have been a lot easier for you to keep on pretending, wouldn’t it? Pretend I’m just another mark, another means to an end to get through the day.”
“I don’t want easy… I don’t want to just get through the day. Not anymore.” Astarion whispered across the small tent, staring intently at you.
You cocked your head slightly in question, “And what do you want?”
“I want this, I want us — to be real. You deserve something real.”
“So do you, Astarion. You deserve something real.”
Your name escaped his lips as a choked sob as overwhelming wave of emotion settled over him. “I don’t even know what real looks like. How do I give that to you if I—?”
“Do you trust me?”
The vampire nodded through his tears, “Yes.”
“I trust you,” You said softly.
“After everything I’ve done?” He croaked, waving his hands dramatically, “You’d trust a monster—“
You grabbed onto his extended fingers gently, squeezing them. “Yes, even then.”
He looked down at your hands touching, before intertwining his pale fingers with yours carefully. “Maybe you are a fool.”
You let out a breathless laugh, the sound waking up something in him he’d long thought dead. “Maybe, I am. But you fell for me, so what does that make you?”
Astarion’s mouth twitched up until it match your smile, “The luckiest vampire alive.”
#commander-rahrah answers#bg3 astarion#astarion ancunin#astarion fanfic#bg3 fanfic#Astarion X reader#astarion x gn reader#astarion x tav#astarion x gn!tav
99 notes
·
View notes
Text
Camping with Quackity <3
TW: smut 🔞
It would be a cozy afternoon where you decided to drive and camp at the middle of a nowhere just because you were bored of staying at home watching movies or going out to restaurants.
"It's very nice here, what do you think?!" Alex asks when he stops the car in a spot next to a forest. "Yeah, it's great." You answer, the smell of grass makes you smile, you love being around the nature and it was something you wanted to do more. "Let's set up the tent, amor." Alex says and you nod, you both get out of the car. "Imagine, baby, if there's a fuckin' serial killer around the forest and the asshole kills us for no reason at all?! Like, we'd die for free." You say, and Alex looks at you, scared. "Now I won't be able to relax, Y/N." He says and you laugh. "Oh, c'mon. It won't happen, dude."
"Yeah, right." He says. You both set up the tent and put some pillows you brought. "Let's eat?! I'm hungry." You say and your boyfriend nods. "I'm so glad it's cold." He whispers and you smile. "Why?"
"Because we can cuddle." He whispers and kisses your neck, you smile. "That's cute, babyy." Your lips touches his and Alex hugs you. "We should eat first, I won't be able to stop if we start kissing." He says, making you smile and blush a little.
After "dinner" (sandwiches you made), you were just cuddling and talking about your dreams for the future. "We should get married at the Church where My Chemical Romance made the "Helena" clip." Alex says and you laugh. "I don't know, baby, but... Yeah, we can see it." You answer and he nods. "We should have two kids, you know?! A girl and a boy."
"What if we have, like, two girls or two boys?!" You ask him and he smiles. "Well, we can have more than two kids, right?! Two boys and one girl, two girls and one boy..."
"Yeah, no! Two is already too much, imagine three, Alex?!" You ask him and the boy makes a sad grimace. "We should have just a little boy, or girl." You say. "Noooo, two kids, amor! One girl and one boy." He whispers and you roll your eyes with a smile on your lips. "Fine, 'Lex." He kisses all over your face as soon as you answer him. "I love you so much, mi amor." He whispers. "I love you too, Alex." You hold his face with your both hands and give him a peck on the lips.
"We should start now, you know?!" He says and you laugh. "Ain't no fuckin' way, Alex. I have to finish my college and you have to propose to me first."
"Okay, it's fair. We should just..." He kisses your neck, putting himself on top of you. "Have a little train, then." You smile at Alex, kissing his lips. "I agree, baby." Alex kisses your lips, his tongue sliding into your mouth as one of his hands roams through your body. "You're so hot." He whispers when he breaks the kiss to unbutton your pajama shirt, Alex can't help but suck one of your boobs as soon as he takes your shirt off, making you moan with the delicious feeling. "I love when you moan like this, amor." He whispers, his tongue on your nipple. "And I don't even started, mi vida." You whimper as you feel Alex fingers on your clit, the boy smiles when you close your eyes with the pleasure, the boy takes your panties off, the little yellow light of a little battery powered lamp lightens your naked body. "So beautiful and all mine." He whispers and kisses your neck, Alex groans as you rub your cunt against his hardened cock. "Take your clothes off, 'Lex. It's unfair to have you all dressed." You whisper, Alex smiles and obeys you, taking his shirt, underwear and pants. "Are you happy now, princess?!" He asks you. "Not yet, you know?!" You say, suggestively, and he laughs. "Let me just..." Alex slides the condom on his cock and approach you, his dick on your entrance as he kisses your face. "Are you comfortable with these pillows?!" The boy asks. "Yes, don't worry." You answer, the boy kisses your lips as his dick enters on your cunt, making you both moan. "Feels so good, 'Lex." You whimper. "I know, amor, I kn-, shit." He groans against your neck and you moan. "I love you so much, Alex." You whisper and Alex smiles. "I love you so much, Y/N." The boy kisses your lips, his dick fucking the shit out of you, but his touches on your skin is so soft it's almost contradictory. "You're so beautiful, amor." He whispers and you smile. "You too, 'Lex." You kiss his lips. "So handsome." He smiles, his whines fill the tent just like your moans.
"I'm close, amor." He whispers and you nod. "Me too, 'Lex." You hug Alex as his hands touches your face, you both come together and he stops moving his hips, falling with his head on your chest. "I love you." He kisses your heart and you caress his black hair. "I love you too, baby." You kiss his head.
"Can I confess something?!" He asks after a couple of minutes. "Sure."
"I'm scared of... Uh, someone... Like, as you said before, appears here and kill the both of us." He whispers and you laugh. "Unbelievable, Alex."
"I'm sorry, amor, but I don't want to die!" He says and you smile. "You're so cute, you know?!"
"Uhm... Amor, please, can we sleep on my car?!" He asks and you nod. "Sure, baby. We can leave to our home too, if you want to."
"Uh, it'd be nice, but I'm tired to drive." He says and you nod. You both get up and Alex undo the tent, you try as much as you can to make the back of his car comfortable for the both of you and as soon as you lay down with your head on Alex's chest, you want to sleep. "Good night, mi vida, I love you so much."
"Good night, my dear. I love you too." You whisper to him and hug him tighter.
You both slept like two angels in heaven, and thank God none serial killer appeared to kill you both as Alex feared.
Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoy the writing! :)
Requests are open!
#quackity#qsmp#qsmp brazil#quackity imagines#qsmp brasil#quackity x reader#alex quackity#quackity imagine#quackity x y/n#quackity x you#quackity fanfic#quackity fluff#quackity headcannons#quackity smut
68 notes
·
View notes
Note
Hihi can I request a Barbatos and MC with severe depression? Like they have a hard time getting out of bed, showing, and Barbatos helps them if that's okay? Also please take care of yourself! I'm proud of you for taking a break!
Hi, anon! It's definitely okay! I did say in my writing update post that I'm accepting small drabble requests! And thank you, I'm definitely doing much better now! 💕
I used a lot of personal experience for this one, but I've been there and it's hard not to use those feelings when I write. Anyway, I hope it turned out okay!
Barbatos sees the mound of blanket slowly moving up and down with your breathing. It's a relief to see that minuscule movement - an indication that you're still holding on. He sits down on the edge of the bed, knowing that his weight moving the mattress will alert you to his presence. Even so, you don't stir.
He can't see you. The blankets cover most of you. The only thing visible is the top of your head, your hair greasy and in disarray. He knows you haven't showered in days. He knows you haven't left your bed in days except to go to the bathroom. You'll sneak into the kitchen in the night to eat. Sometimes you're awake and scrolling mindlessly through your D.D.D. But mostly you simply sleep. A space of oblivion where you don't have to feel anything when you're feeling everything far too much.
Barbatos reaches out a hand toward you. He hesitates. He knows you're aware of him, that you're awake in that moment, though keeping your eyes closed. He knows you don't want him to see you. He knows that it hurts you to see him. He knows that you don't want to look at him and see pity.
But Barbatos is a master at portraying no emotion aside from the one he very deliberately means to show. All you will see when you look at him is love. Because he will allow nothing else.
Barbatos settles his gloved hand on your back.
He waits.
Eventually you squirm beneath his touch, a subtle indication that you don't want him to be here.
"I will not leave until you speak to me," Barbatos says. He keeps his voice soft, but with a firmness that he hopes will impart to you how serious he is.
You mumble an incomprehensible acquiescence and he takes it.
"Tell me what you need," he says, keeping his tone even and neutral.
There is a long silence.
And then you sit up and look at him. The blanket falls from your shoulders. You have dark circles beneath your eyes and your stare is hollow, but for a tiny spark of surprise.
"You're not going to scold me?" you ask. Your voice is so ragged it nearly breaks his heart.
He reaches out to brush his fingers across your cheek, wishing for the first time that he wasn't wearing his gloves so he could feel you. "You have done nothing wrong, my love."
You bite your lip, hard. He wants to reach out, to pull you to him, to kiss you, to make you stop before you break the skin. But the tears that have formed in your eyes stop him. He's too cautious, still uncertain about what you need in this moment.
He learns his worries are unfounded the moment you collapse into his arms.
Barbatos holds you, rubbing gentle circles on your back as you pretend you aren't crying as hard as you are. You cling to him and the heaviness of your grip feels like solidity to him. Like you aren't slipping away, like you're still his, like maybe he can simply be whatever you need after all. It's all he wants.
So when you've cried yourself out, he asks you again. He asks you to tell him what you need. And you do. And he gives you whatever it is you ask for. It takes some time for you to find your way out of the labyrinth of sadness again. But Barbatos is there to guide you through every turn.
masterlist | Thank you for reading!
#mmm I just think he would understand#he would take care of you#however you asked him to#if someone simply asked me what I needed#it would have made a world of difference#sorry getting too personal in the tags lol#obey me#obey me nightbringer#obey me barbatos#om barbatos#obey me barbatos x reader#om barbatos x reader#obey me barbatos x mc#om barbatos x mc#obey me!#x reader#request#misc writes
120 notes
·
View notes
Last Seen Blogs
shingodzilla98
Insidious Gaunt
winterexinferna
The Winter Soldier
astrangeavenue
creatures and critters and characters galore
a-salty-frenchfry
I Am French Fry
icariebzh
"Couleurs d'Aencre"