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kiwisbell · 42 minutes

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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

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archduke-enver-gortash · 14 days

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mmm essay about sally and kid gort in the tags (cw for child abuse, mentions of suicide, animal cruelty and a murder attempt. i always hope i don’t have to say this but just in case: i don’t excuse or condone any of her or gort’s behaviour at all.) this is literally not even touching upon everything i have to say because i hit the fucking tag limit lmao. NOBODY READ IT’S BAD BRAINSTORMING I JUST NEEDED TO GET IT OUT SOMEHOW

#thinkin too much about gortie side characters again.#sally this time and why she specifically talks about him the way she does #like dravo is obviously still shitty but to me he was. ‘just ‘neglectful #while sally actively hated and even felt terrorised by her own child #like. it’s not like i don’t understand her at all.#imagine you and your love don’t have much besides each other and your shop and you get pregnant and ready to raise a child #only for it to not be a child he didn’t and doesn’t cry ever and he learns everything so much sooner than most but then he never calls you #his parents and it’s not just a petty thing kids do sometimes you feel that he doesn’t see you as family and the worst part is that you #agree deep down #and as he gets older he doesn’t have any friends and actively rejects the notion of the entire concept #but then as time passes you hear about how he has entire groups of children following him and then several of them commit suicide #and that thing coming to sit with you and dravo at the dinner table says that he did what you did last week when the axe to chop wood broke #and you discarded it and got a new one #and he has these habits of ripping out flowers and making sure that they don’t regrow #and then you hear rumours about a friend’s daughter’s cat disappearing and think nothing of it #until you visit his tree house a month later and find a declawed cat and birds with clipped wings and crushed bugs that he keeps fondly #and then you see him with other children and they don’t know and his face is different and body language is entirely different #and were it not for the fact that you know better you would never see anything but a normal child #and you know that you are one who painstakingly brought this thing that should not be into the world and so you decide to end it all one da #and go to him as he’s asleep with the knife shaking in your hand #but he cries when you’re above him! screams at the top of his lungs!#so you beg for forgiveness even though you don’t deserve it through tears but as soon as the knife is put away you see the act drop and fee #his clever fingers having twisted your brain inside and out and you know that you can do nothing #and so the opportunity arises to at least remove him out of your life if not everyone’s lives and you take it immediately.#but you heard him talk. how he will close his fist around the world one day. and you know that it is not a matter of if but when.#like. imagine that. jesus dude.#like i hc her as someone that is messy and does not know a lot about life and she certainly wouldn’t have been a good mother but the love #or at least desire to love is there somewhere. and believing that having a child is really the only somewhat meaningful thing she can do #with her life. she’s not some hero or rich or anything of note. so there’s a lot obligation and not genuine desire for family here.#but she never really got the chance to be an actual mother in the first place so. who knows what that might have looked like

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frazzleddazzle · 2 years

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Bittersweet vague memories of trusted hands running through his hair, long since faded and forgotten.

#ffxiv #ffxiv oc #ffxiv viera #I am crying over his twin sister that my sister created to play FFXIV with me #attached at the hip gremlins didn't like the separation that was mandatory for the males #they would often sneak to see eachother and tell the other about their life #eventually they get caught and his sister frustrated and filled with wanderlust leaves the wood in defiance #cue my viera lonely and confused staying only to finally follow garlemald invaders to hopefully find her again #of course now he's an amnesiac war criminal completely having forgot his original goal after his indoctrination into the Garleans

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umabloomer · 6 months

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I got a job at a Ukrainian museum.

On the first day someone asks me if I have any Ukrainian heritage. I say I had ancestors from Odesa, but they were Jewish, so they weren’t considered Ukrainian, and they wouldn’t have considered themselves Ukrainian. My job is every day I go through boxes of Ukrainian textiles and I write a physical description, take measurements, take photographs, and upload everything into the database. I look up “Jewish” in the database and there is no result.

Some objects have no context at all, some come with handwritten notes or related documents. I look at thick hand-spun, hand-woven linen heavy with embroidery. Embroidery they say can take a year or more. I think of someone dressed for a wedding in their best clothes they made with their own hands. Some shirts were donated with photographs of the original owners dressed in them, for a dance at the Ukrainian Labour Temple, in 1935. I handle the pieces carefully, looking at how they fit the men in the photos, and how they look almost a hundred years later packed in acid-free tissue. One of the men died a few years later, in the war. He was younger than I am now. The military archive has more photographs of him with his mother, his father, his fiancé. I take care in writing the catalogue entry, breathing in the history, getting tearful.

I imagine people dressed in their best shirts at Easter, going around town in their best shirts burning the houses of Jews, in their best shirts, killing Jews. A shirt with dense embroidery all over the sleeves and chest has a note that says it is from Husiatyn. I look it up and find that it was largely a Jewish town, and Ukrainians lived in the outskirts. There is a fortress synagogue from the Renaissance period, now abandoned.

When my partner Aaron visits I take him to an event at the museum where a man shows his collection of over fifty musical instruments from Ukraine, and he plays each one. Children are seated on the floor at the front. We’re standing in a corner, the room full of Ukrainians, very aware that we look like Jews, but not sure if anyone recognizes what that looks like anymore. Aaron gets emotional over a song played on the bandura.

A note with a dress says it came from the Buchach region. I find a story of Jewish life in Buchach in the early twentieth century, preparing to flee as the Nazis take over. I cry over this.

I’m cataloguing a set of commemorative ribbons that were placed on the grave of a Ukrainian Nationalist leader, Yevhen Konovalets, after he was assassinated. The ribbons were collected and stored by another Nationalist, Andriy Melnyk, who took over leadership after Konovalets’ death. The ribbons are painted or embroidered with messages honouring the dead politician. I start to recognize the word for “leader”, the Cyrillic letters which make up the name of the colonel, the letters “OYH” which stand for Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN in English). The OUN played a big part in the Lviv pogroms in 1941, I learn. The Wikipedia article has a black and white image of a woman in her underwear, running in terror from a man and a young boy carrying a stick of wood. The woman’s face is dark, her nose may be bleeding. Her underwear is torn, her breast exposed. I’m measuring, photographing, recording the stains and loose threads in the banners that honour men who would have done this to me.

Every day I can’t stop looking at my phone, looking up the news from Gaza, tapping through Instagram stories that show what the news won’t. Half my family won’t talk to the other half, after I share an article by a scholar of Holocaust and genocide studies, who says Israel is committing a genocide. My dad makes a comment that compares Gaza to the Warsaw Ghetto. This gets him in trouble. My aunt says I must have learned this antisemitism at university, but there is no excuse for my dad.

This morning I see images from Israeli attacks in the West Bank, where they are not at war. There are naked bodies on the dusty ground. I’m not sure if they are alive. This is what I think of when I see the image from the Lviv pogrom. If what it means for Jews to be safe from oppression is to become the oppressor, I don’t want safety. I don’t want to speak about Jews as if we are one People, because I have so little in common with those in green uniforms and tanks. I am called a self-hating Jew but I think I am a self-reflecting Jew.

I don’t know how to articulate how it feels to be handling objects which remind me of Jewish traumas I inherited only from history classes and books. Textiles hold evidence of the bodies that made them and used them. I measure the waist of a skirt and notice that it is the same as my waist size. I think of clothing and textiles that were looted from Jewish homes during pogroms. I think of clothing and textiles that were looted from Palestinian homes during the ongoing Nakba. Clothes hold the shape of the body that once dressed in them. Sometimes there are tears, mends, stains. I am rummaging through personal belongings in my nitrile gloves.

I am hands-on learning about the violence caused by Ukrainian Nationalism while more than nine thousand Palestinians have been killed by the State of Israel in three weeks, not to mention all those who have been killed in the last seventy-five years of occupation, in the name of the Jewish Nation, the Jewish People — me? If we (and I am hesitant to say “we”) learned anything from the centuries of being killed, it was how to kill. This should not have been the lesson learned. Zionism wants us to feel constantly like the victims, like we need to defend ourself, like violence is necessary, inevitable. I need community that believes in freedom for all, not just our own People. I need the half of my family who believes in this necessary “self-defence” to remember our history, and not just the one that ends happily ever after with the creation of the State of Israel. Genocide should not be this controversial. We should not be okay with this.

Tomorrow I will go to work and keep cataloguing banners that honour the leader of an organization which led pogroms. I will keep checking the news, crying into my phone, coordinating with organizers about our next actions, grappling with how we can be a tiny part in ending this genocide that the world won’t acknowledge, out of guilt over the ones it ignored long ago.

#palestine #jewish #museums #history #ukraine

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seattlesellie · 5 months

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Jealous. 🎀

pairing: ellie williams x fem!reader

cw: mean dom!ellie sub!reader, jealous kinda toxic ellie, eating it through the panties, orgasm denial, spit play (literally spits down ur panties like), exhibitionism, some dude named michael.

an: pls be gentle, i haven’t written in a long time! 💗 credit to angel gbc for the mod used in the picture above <3

something we can all agree on is the importance of aftercare — right?

Ellie is big on that obviously, as she should. Caressing her slim fingers down your body, planting wanton kisses on your shoulders, running her palms across your shaky thighs, whispering words of encouragement in your ear;

“Did so good for me, babe”

“I love you, so much”

“Need anything? hm?” She’d murmur against your skin whilst cradling your body from behind.

And she always insists on cleaning you up. She consistently renders you nothing but an achy mess, dried up juices staining your wobbly jelly thighs, combined sweat on your breasts and ribs, back of your neck. The ritual of bringing a wet towel to bed, swiping it’s fabric across your inner thighs, your face, your behind — is a sacred one for her. Not solely because she loves hearing your sweet, exhausted sighs of relief as she cleans the soil away, but also not solely because she gets to see your naked body in all of its glory again.

It’s the act of taking care of what’s hers. In a way, when she wipes your cum away, she’s taking care of herself — too.

Here, lays a solid proof that she can break things apart and put them back together again. She’s not a total fucking fuckup.

The ability of making you scream and cry, then moments later have you whisper in that saccharine voice of yours an airy “love you s’much, Els…”

It’s fucking exhilarating.

She loves it every time, she does it every time.

But today… today you pissed her off. You poked the bear, for real this time.

There’s this new Michael guy in Jackson. He’s handsome, tall, has coal black curls that somehow stay soft and shiny even in this apocalyptic hellscape. He told Ellie and you where he was from, what he did, why he came. Ellie didn’t listen to a thing he was saying. It was like he turned into a fly and started loudly buzzing in her ear. He kept looking at you weird. Smiling at you, smirking, laughing at your jokes, even the ones that weren’t all that funny. She knows you have this affect on people, that damn charm, hell — you have this affect on her.

And she’s usually just playfully jealous, manages to keep it relatively tame and simple by tightening her grip on your waist.

But you just wouldn’t stop bringing him up. “Michael” this, and “Michael” that, “Michael invited us for dinner”, “Michael said this funny thing earlier”,

For all Ellie knows Michael could die in a ditch and she wouldn’t give a fuck.

You're on your way back home from the Tipsy Bison on a chilly Thursday night. Jesse was there, Dina, Maria... and Michael. She thinks of his name and it leaves a bitter taste in her mouth, tart, pungent.

"Meh, I'm more of a Tequila girl, Whiskey tastes like shit" you announced with a giggle. Michael rested his hand on your thigh, and agreed with a nod and a chuckle. For you, it meant nothing.

For Ellie, it meant everything.

Her blood pressure was usually low, steady, healthy as a bull. As of now, Ellie felt like she just ran a marathon. The blood rushed to her head and her brows furrowed without intention. She cracks her neck and moves it left and right, takes a long and burning sip out of her Whiskey and shuts her eyes. She repeats a mantra in her head; "I'm not angry, I'm not angry, It's fine."

But you're so damn intuitive.

"Els? y'tired?" you murmur towards your auburnette girlfriend. She suckles on her bottom lip and considers saying no, but she lies.

"Exhausted"

You leave the humble bar hand in hand, wrapped up in her big coat that smells of mint and wood and Ellie. She prays you won't mention his name, prays you could just go home and forget about this whole thing, but you do, innocently.

"Oh, Michael said one of the horses is sick, I'm thinking of helping out in the barn tomorrow an—"

She stops you mid sentence with a scoff and a tightening grip on your hand. "Oh, mhm, Michael said that?"

Her voice mocks your own a little.

You stop and shift your gaze towards Ellie who has her lips tucked in a tight line. Internally, she's cussing herself out. You don't deserve her anger, but she can't help herself. Your answer is an unsure hum. Her grip tightens even more, and it hurts your palm but you keep on walking side by side, quietly. Five minutes manage to pass with no words being muttered by no one. That's until she shakes her head and lets go of a husky chuckle.

"Did I do something?", you mutter doe eyed. Ellie stops in her tracks and inhales. She grabs you by your waist and walks towards you, making you have to clumsily pace backwards until your back meets a cold grey brick wall with a resounding thud. "Uhg!" You hiccup, breath catching down your throat. You even sweetly giggle, thinking in your head that this could possibly be just a sweet attack of PDA.

But her eyes are dark, gone from emerald to pine, pupils pitch black as big as a button. Her warm whiskey breath meets your nose and your top lip, you gulp. Why isn't she laughing? teasing?

"El?" your voice is still candied, always. Ellies mouth is agape, scarred eyebrows scrunched and furrowed as if she's confused, or pissed, or provoked. Her forehead meets yours so automatically, you attempt to connect your lips with a kiss but she backs away meanly. Albeit her taunting position, how intimidating and truly scary she looks whilst you're caged within her frame, your'e still smiling, you're still thinking she's just teasing.

You're not used to this, she knows, but god knows she yearns to teach you a lesson.

You don't fuck with what's hers.

She licks her bottom lip before she starts speaking.

"Take off your skirt"

Her voice nearly renders you drunk, It's huskiness, gruffness, it's depth, and really, you've only had one shot. Your cheeks heat up and your ears feel as if they're nearly burning. Her lips are so damn close to yours and she still won't let you kiss her.

"Wh... we're in public, we can't—" you stutter, eyes shifting downwards towards the knee she has shoved near your barely covered crotch. When she brings it upwards just to brush delicately on your inner thigh, you let go of a small gasp.

She responds to your gasp with a barely audible "Mhm?", her eyes sharpening with intent.

"Yes we can", she tsk's, and her voice taunts. Her eyes graze over your face, and you expect her next sentence to bite like the last one did, but her voice goes softer. "For me?", she cocks her head to the side.

And it simply pushes you over the edge.

You peel your skirt off of your body, asscheeks plastered over the brick wall as her body squeezes you further back, and you're left half naked with a piece of fabric scrunched below your knees, resting on your shoes. She eyes your body up and down, meeting your pleading and still confused eyes — and for a moment, thinks of just carrying you home and taking care of business once you get there. No jealousy, none of that.

But it's still bitter down her throat, and she can still picture his disgusting hand meeting your soft thigh, her soft thigh — as your body is hers, so that thought is ever so fleeting. It's either now or now.

Her cold as ice finger traces faint circles on your lower tummy, making the fine hairs of your body rise like soldiers. You whimper quietly as her finger snaps the elastic band of your panties and lets it smack down your pelvis. You rub your thighs together, but you're ever so pliant as she makes your legs spread wide with a boot covered foot opening up your calves like a gate.

She whispers in your ear. "Are you wet?", it makes you shiver.

"M'cold" you whine.

She scoffs.

She kneads your bra cup with her palm, squeezing an erect nipple with her thumb and middle finger. "Didn't ask that"

Her eyes meet your gaze and again she reconsiders this whole thing — because you truly look so needy, and your lips are so pouty and sweet and red with cold, you look as if you'd die if she didn't kiss you right now so how can she even be worried, let alone be jealous?

She knows how much you love her, how much you yearn for nobody but her, how her touch leaves you speechless time and time again.

But it's like something takes over, a dark figure, a figure that's thirsty and starving and wants to prove a thing it already knows.

It's an internal struggle, she doesn't want to be possessive,

She can't help it.

Your panties are striped with pink and white, and she looks at them as if they're the most expensive lace in the whole entire world. Her breathing gets heavier as she curls her fingers inside the cotton fabric, pupils darkening when she notices a sweet clear string of your arousal clinging from the entrance of your cunt to the bottom of your underwear.

She chuckles, followed by a sigh of relief that you notice. You are wet, right in the middle of the street where an innocent soul could catch you at any given moment. "Didn't answer cause you're shy?" She knows you so well. You bite your lip and nod, butterflies fighting in the pits of your stomach. A chaste kiss on the lips is all you get from her, and you deeply whine into the air. "At least kiss me!" you beg, — god, you're so cute when you're pissed.

Before landing on her knees, Ellie looks from side to side in order to check that there's truly nobody around, and no — not because she's scared to get caught, but because she'd die before she let someone see her girlfriend half naked with her skirt down her thighs.

Ellie is face to face with your quivering, pantie covered cunt. A wet patch greets her — a fuckin' pleasure, one she can't help but swipe her tongue across. Your choked up, terrified sound of a moan is a symphony to her hears, fuck Mozart. Her eager muscle of a tongue is so warm against your pussy you nearly forget it started snowing yesterday.

You buck your hips inwards, she groans. "No moving", she warns — simply to assert a dominance that has already been asserted. She kisses your little clit, coo's at the way it slightly pokes out of the fabric, erect and pumping on her tongue. "Ellie... Ellie... Ellie", you babble like a prayer, which she nods to. "S'my name, that's fuckin' right", she groans as her husky voice is muffled by your soaked panties.

"Ellie..." you repeat, thighs beginning to ache as you try and spread them further apart, almost sitting on her face.

Ellie, not Michael.

She smiles, greedy, triumphant.

She flicks her tongue on your clit, once, twice, three times before biting on your meaty pussy lips. You bite your knuckles in order to keep your voice down, but she glares up at you. "Do that again n'I swear to god I'm stopping" she growls.

You're not used to this side of her at all, but her voice makes your hole leak a small stream from deep inside. She feels it's wetness on her tongue, eyes closing in ecstasy as she audibly suckles your sweet, tangy, heavenly juices from the now sheer fabric. Her own spit runs down her chin, she doesn't even bother to wipe it off. All you can hear are your breathy, whiney moans, tiny begs of "take 'em off, please", regarding your panties, and Ellie's throaty groans. You're so wet from your own juices and her saliva it nearly gets uncomfortable, but then again you're so goddamn close to cumming.

You try taking matters to your own hands, attempting to peel off your panties from your waist with a shaky hand but she snarls and slaps your wrist away.

"Nuh uh, pussy's fuckin' mine, don't touch it"

With relentless sucking on your drenched clit, and soiled panties, she opens her eyes to merely glare at you again with a warning look. "When you're close, you let me know" she bites.

You don't respond.

A stinging slap meets your pussy, which makes your thighs shake, whole body jolt, and throat ache with a high pitched yelp.

"You're not listening" Ellie warns.

"You listen when I talk" she warns again. Her tongue meets your clit and it pushes it further and further up. You shake, eyesight gone blurry, you're close, you know it by the way the coil down your stomach threatens to snap, and by the way it tickles down there so damn bad.

"M'close" you brokenly wail.

She grunts deeply and stops completely. your heart nearly breaks, no no no no no. "Ellie, Ellie, Els, no!" You try and buck your hips forward but she holds you in place with an iron like grip. You buck them again and she peels off the fabric of your underwear, slightly rising up as she stares inside at the mess she made of you. There's a devilish smirk that creeps up from her lips, apple of one cheek rising. You let out a sigh of relief, thinking that perhaps she'll actually fucking eat you out properly instead of letting you suffer inside a warm, wet material of a mess that truly doesn't look like something wearable anymore. Instead, she audibly spits inside with a "Ptu'", letting the band snap shut. Her saliva mixes with your warm sleek. You're so confused she nearly feels bad, but she's such a cunt that she really doesn't.

"Were going back inside," she murmurs so casually as if she didn't just fuck you up in the middle of the street, as if her chin isn't shiny with your precum. "N'if Michael puts his hand on you again, I'm eating it in front of him"

#ellie williams #ellie williams x reader #ellie x reader #ellie williams smut #ellie williams fanfiction #ellie williams x you

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thewriterg · 7 months

Text

𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬 𝐧𝐞𝐰

pairing(s); simon riley x fem!reader, reader x toxic family

summary; You tried to keep it together to keep him away from it to not get attached but it only take one situation for you to come crumbling down reaching out to simon for comfort —angstober day;14—

word count; 900+

warning(s); age gap, sweetheart is her/your own warning, thinking college student reader so like early twenties and simon is about mid to late forties, arguments, crying, angst, kisses, pet names, mention of violence, simon abt to risk it all, and language

playlist; nothings new by rio romeo

A/n:—GIFs; @astrolux111 & @silenthqll— GIF does not determine race

Simon was up it didn’t take much to wake him and when he heard the footsteps approaching his flat front door he was up the handgun from his scratched wooden nightstand that he’d bought off some older man who he was sure had passed to the unknown by now

The rough knocks on his door frame were demanding and rushed as if the person behind the wood was on time crunch he approached the door the firearm clutched in his hand his finger taking no time to rest on the trigger his hand was on the nob before he swung the door open his eyebrows furrowing not expecting to see what was in his line of sight

Your eyes were red and puffy tear streaks stringing your face your hair out of place as well as your shifted clothes Simon swiftly setting down his defense on standing table next to his door grabbing your arm to bring you into the shelter of his home he checks over your body to find nothing alarming but the soaking wet clothes clinging to your body

“S-simon” Is all you can get out as your body racked with sobs you shoulders hunched and he wraps an arm around you littered with tattoos your face hidden in his chest covered by the cotton tshirt that was a little small on him your cold wet clothes transferring onto his as shushes you slowly moving you into his bedroom sitting you on his mattress slipping your drenched shirt over your head as you sniffle your head throbbing from the continuous tears and energy spent you didn’t realize you were dressed in dry attire until you were getting picked up and suddenly the weighed down fabric wasn’t overwhelming you anymore your legs wraps around the blondes torso lying your head on his shoulder you body still shivering as you felt yourself dip onto his worn mattress rubbing his hands down your goosebump covered arms

“Come on love what’s the matter with my sweet girl, hmm? Tell Si what’s the matter” Something triggers in you causing more streams of tears to fall down your face and you try to speak choking out incoherent words and sniffles simon rubs a hand over your hair pressing a kiss your forehead his brain screaming at him to to go punch the nearest punk out on the street because there has to be something, something major to keep you acting this way

“I don’t want you to leave me” You body wracks you chest feels like it’s gonna cave any minute you feel like your airway you’ll be cut off and your sound will be free from your body

“Sweetheart it’s gonna take more than a few tears to get rid of me, matter of fact you won’t be able to you understand?” You nod your head before your spewing everything weighing your chest down to the floor about you family and how they make you feel more down then you’d ever been without meaning to the situation I particular causing your weaker construction to tip over and collapse your siblings couldn’t keep their hands out of your things and this time it had did it you’d been saving for a new laptop for class it cost more than you liked to admit and your sister god you loved her but she was at the age where she couldn’t keep her hands off of thing your things to be exact and long story short your laptop was broken in your sisters hands you berated her scolded her it was the least you could do for the trouble she caused you

When your parents arrived home you expected them to finish the job rip your sister a new one she ran into your father arms rambling of how mean and what a monster you are and even after you told your parents about what she had done she’s barely get a slap on the wrist you were older you shouldn’t yell at the younger ones defending your honor and standing your ground got you yelled at a stinging mark on your cheek

“My h-head hurts” You whimpered after a moment of silence and it was true you didn’t know how long you’ve been crying for and your head felt like it was going to explode Simon sets you down on the mattress briefly your head still spinning and pounding in your ears he leaves and returns again two pain killers that look like a spec of nothing in his palm he sets and on your cheek gently prying your jaw open setting the drugs on your tongue before you swallow the he praises you for it and your realize how much of a all time low you are

“Come on sweetheart no more tears you know it’ll make it worse” This time you’re not sobbing from the pain your chest but rather the pain your head hiccups slipping from your lips falling apart in his grasp and he held you like he always will and as he always had

He’d glue all your broke pieces back together

NEW; sweetheart and simon headcanons

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peachesofteal · 5 months

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Light On- single mom/neighbor fic Simon Riley/female reader Prompt: 1 of 2 for sickfics / requested by multiple

I’m going to need a raincheck for dinner tonight.

Simon frowns at his phone. You’re bailing? You seemed excited about it when he asked earlier in the week, offering to take you and Emmaline down the street to the little café on the corner for dinner. It had taken him days to work up the courage, needlessly pushed on by Johnny’s ‘encouragement’ relentless text messages filled with date ideas, and bad pick-up lines.

Still, you had said yes. Had asked if meant Emma too, and he took secret pleasure in the way you seemed so relieved when he tilted his head and told you, of course.

Okay. Is everything alright? He fires back immediately, wondering if the crying that he’s been hearing on and off all morning has anything to do with you backing out.

I’m not feeling great, and neither is Emma. I think we’re coming down with something. Coming down with something, like you’re sick? You’re sick? Anxiety twists in the pit of his stomach, worrying curling his fingers into a fist with a clench.

Alright. Let me know if you need anything? He waits for a text back, an answer of some kind, an assurance that you’ll seek him out if you need help or need anything.

It never comes.

Six hours later, Simon is at your door.

He has grit his teeth through the day, paced around his own flat endlessly, tried everything he could think of to distract himself. Every time he heard Emmaline wail, his stomach flipped, worry, fear, breaking down his logical sense, the analytical part of his brain until he was standing in front of your door, waiting for the inevitable click of the handle.

When it comes, and you’re standing on the other side, his heart sinks.

He should have come over soon.

“Hey, sweetheart.” He says it as softly as he can, a newfound pitch of his voice that seems to only be reserved for you, trying to allay the panic that has started to form as ice inside his chest.

“Sorry about the noise.” You croak, and he smothers his wince. You sound awful, voice nearly gone, like your throat has been rubbed raw with sandpaper. Emmaline is clad only in a diaper, and when he looks closer, he can see the stain of what he thinks must be her vomit on your shirt. Over your shoulder, dirty bottles, dishes lay stacked next to the sink, a laundry basket with a mountain of baby clothes piled high sits on the table.

“Can I help-“ You sway, arm tightening around the baby, and he doesn’t think, doesn’t stop himself, he just moves.“Alright,” He murmurs, wrapping an arm around you, supporting both you and Emmaline by shifting you into his side, one hand against Emma’s back. She feels warm, but not nearly as hot as you, and panic tries to bubble up his throat again at the blaring heat that’s coming from your skin. “I’ve got you.”

“Sorry, ‘m a little dizzy.”

“It’s okay.” He keeps you close, turning you back through the door. Emma makes scratchy, unhappy noises, and he rubs his thumb against her skin. “Shhh. I know, I know. You’re okay.” You lean into him harder, and he accommodates it, moving the two of you towards the couch. “I know, you’re not feeling too good are you?” He says to Emma after he gets you down on the couch, hands now around her back, waiting for a sign of permission from you to lift her.

“She can go down. If you-“ Your breath gets caught in your chest, and you curl forward, his hand going to your shoulder, your body shaking with a cough. “If you want to try.” You whisper once you recover, brows knitted together in misery, and he cradles her, rocking her back and forth, mimicking your usual movements.

“You stay right here.” He nods to the couch, using a fraction of the voice he uses on Johnny, and you immediately nod, eyes shuttering closed with a slow blink. “Just rest.”

Emmaline is still crying when he opens the door to her room, the first he’s seen it, pale green walls and dark wood crib, small rocker in the corner next to a changing table. It’s a comforting space, decorated and cared for with love, and for a moment, his mind wanders to an image of you, painting the walls with a swollen belly, or curled in the plush rocker, reading a book to Emmaline, still nestled inside you. He wasn’t there for it, but he just knows you were so beautiful, the kind of glow that would have stopped him in the street. You still stop him in the street.

Emma wails, bringing him back to reality with a softer cry than earlier, and he keeps her close to his chest, murmuring low and soft. “Shhh. You’re alright, baby girl. You’re okay.” He continues the rocking side to side thing you usually do in a standing position, mumbling things to her, stroking his fingers down her cheek, her forehead, bouncing and swaying at the same. “Are you not feeling too good? Is that what’s got you all upset? Yeah. I get kind of grumpy when I don’t feel good either.” He coos, little lashes slowly blinking up at him, transfixed on his face during his stream of chatter until they begin to slip shut, her mouth still hanging half open. He holds his breath, staring in astonishment at her sleeping face, half shocked, half ridiculously pleased.

“Have you taken anything?” He barely sits on your ottoman, leaning over to get a better look at you, uncomfortable with the way your eyes seem glazed over, how slow they are to react. Maybe you need to go to the hospital?

“Some naproxen, a bit ago.” You look exhausted, eyelids heavy, and he can’t stop himself from pressing the back of his hand to your forehead.

“You’re really warm, sweetheart. Do you need a doctor?” Tell me what to do, he wants to beg. Tell me how to help.

“No, jus’ sleep.” A confused look flickers across your face. “Oh my god, did you…” you swallow a cough, his hand sliding down to cup your shoulder, thumb soft against your dirty t shirt. “did you get her down?” He nods, slowly, fighting the small grin that tugs at his lips.

“Wow.” You breathe, and your hand drags up your chest to where his still sits on your arm, fingers intertwining in his with a small squeeze. “You really are our hero.” He smiles at you, because how can he not, heart warm and full in his chest, the feeling something he hasn’t experienced in a long, long time.

There’s a moment, a second extended into a minute, maybe an hour, he’s not sure, where you don’t look away from him. Where you look at him, really look at him, and see him, see his twice broken nose, the scar on his cheek, the one above his eyebrow. He doesn’t flinch, doesn’t try to hide or look away, just holds himself still, staring down at you on the couch, sweat dotting your forehead and neck, still beautiful with your fever parched skin and tired eyes.

“Simon.” You whisper, and he thinks, maybe… he’s supposed to kiss you right now. That if he were braver, if Johnny were here to egg him on, if he felt like it wasn’t taking advantage of your weakened state… he might. But instead-

“Why don’t you close your eyes, love. Try to get some rest. I’ll stay. See if I can get some of these dishes done. I can get her if she gets up.”

“You don’t have-“

“I know.” He soothes. “I know I don’t, but I’m here. Let me help.” Let me help you. Let me be here.

You take a deep breath, as deep as you can manage, and then your voice is light, but so sweet, and so, so trusting when you say;

“Okay, Simon.”

#peaches writes #light on #simon riley x reader #simon ghost riley #simon ghost riley x reader #simon riley

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ceilidho · 29 days

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take me home, country road

[ao3]

You have nothing on your person apart from a hastily packed suitcase and the dress you came into town wearing, on the run from trouble back home. Too bad John's missing a bride that matches your description. Or: the 1800s (mistaken) mail order bride au (part 8)

part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7

Now a nocturnal animal emerges into the daylight hours.

A week becomes two and your shoulders untense. It’s not something you notice at first because you’re used to an ever present strain between your shoulder blades and an ache in your jaw from grinding your teeth at night. Then a fortnight goes by without so much as a missive with your name on it floating across John’s desk or a stranger appearing in town after tracking you down, and you wonder if maybe the world really is big enough to hide in.

It sure feels that way at times. The woods beyond the bounds of John’s property stretch out farther than the eye can see and even walking it feels like you could disappear into another realm. Old spruces shoot up high into the clouds, and deeper into the woods, huge rock formations grow more and more prominent as you near the mountains. John takes you through the woods on horseback, following the rough trails carved into the dirt by a century of wagons and carts using the same path. The footprints of a different time.

Up in the trees, birds warble and chirp, talking to one another in songs that you’ve never heard before. A woodpecker drills into the side of a tree. Pinecones snap out of the upper branches and drop to the forest floor.

There is only a single trail and it’s easy to lose. You grow a bit nervous when John takes you off the trail and deeper into the woods, but he does so with the confidence of a man that knows these woods like the back of his hand. You go quiet when he stops Buttercup to let a herd of deer wander by, the stragglers hurrying to catch up with the group, throwing the two of you nervous glances before they disappear into the thicket.

“Should we be out this far?” you ask in a whisper, reluctant to disturb the silence. Though the woods are full of animals that bleat, chirp, chatter, and hoot, the sound of your own voice feels preternaturally loud and shrill.

“We won’t get lost, darlin’. I know my way around,” John reassures you, curling an arm around your waist to hold you to him. These days, you hardly worry about tumbling off the horse. Not with him at your back anyway.

“That wasn’t really my worry,” you mumble, trailing off.

“Then what’re you getting all worked up about?”

“Aren’t there wolves out here? Or bears?”

He snorts, the sound making you jolt. You don’t topple over because he has such a firm hold around your waist. “They don’t usually come this close to town. They’re more scared of you than you are of them.”

“That sounds like something mothers tell their children to stop them crying,” you say flatly. You draw your legs up automatically when John directs Buttercup through a shallow basin, a shortcut back home. It makes you anxious for a moment, but the water barely goes up to her ankles, so you relax when you realize that you’re in no danger of being swept away by the current.

“That doesn’t mean a bear or wolf can’t wander by, but it’s rare.”

“And there it is.”

You can feel the heat of his glower on the back of your head. “We could spend the night out here if you want to see for yourself.”

At that, you shut your mouth. Even if he were to prove his point, you have no interest in camping out in the woods now that you’ve become accustomed to the luxury of a soft bed. Granted that you’re forced to share that same bed, still you’ve never slept half as well as you do these days. You wake up rested after nine hours of blissful shut eye, a sleep so deep that your dreams only come in half-remembered flashes. Often they involve the man you wake up wrapped around, and for that you’re grateful that they remain submerged.

A new desire has started to burrow its way into the back of your mind in recent days. It starts out as a thought so brief that you hardly notice it before it skitters away.

And then it lingers.

You wake up in the middle of the night hot, sweat dripping down the nape of your neck and a fire burning in your loins, a red-hot coil wound around itself, fit to burst. Pulsating. At some point throughout the night, you must have thrown a leg around John’s waist because it rests there now, your hand planted in the middle of his chest and your sex all but rubbing up against his thigh. Under your hand, you can feel his heart pump strong and steady.

You hold very, very still, waiting for him to wake. But John sleeps on, his palm loose where it rests along the curve of your hip, fingers curling into the flesh of your backside.

You can hardly look at him these days without shaking. You’ve come to fixate on the sway of his hips when he walks and the flecks of silver in his beard. The grooves in his weathered hands. The way your head fits in the palm of his hand when he cradles it to his chest. The fond glimmer in his eyes that shines the brightest when he puts his hat on your head and it slips past your eyes, too big for your head.

When you tip it up in order to see, the folds around his eyes become more pronounced with the force of his smile.

“There you are, bug,” he says, taking the hat off your head to set it back on his and reeling you in for a kiss.

Bug, love, honey, darling. The constant flux of endearments makes your head spin. John never calls you by the name on your marriage license. It’s like that name means nothing to him, cast away at the first opportunity and replaced by an endless stream of pet names.

He hasn’t touched your sex since making you come on the porch swing the week before. He pulls you into a chaste embrace at night, the only evidence of his own desire being the stiff shaft nestled against the small of your back in the early morning hours, which he takes care of on his own in the bathroom downstairs after pressing a kiss to your cheek. You feel robbed of something, though you don’t know quite what.

You’re tempted to offer your help, but you don’t know exactly what that would entail. Inexperience and fear of rejection hold you back, stay your tongue. In the two weeks you’ve been married, he hasn’t once tried to pin you down and rut between your thighs like you expected and dreaded that very first night.

Now that that time has passed, you don’t know how to initiate that moment again.

John promises to teach you how to ride a horse. You can’t see a reason to protest, much to your chagrin. Despite your apprehensions, even you can’t deny that it would be a helpful skill. A train only goes one way after all, confined to a single track. A horse has no such laws to obey.

The thought stays nestled at the back of your mind as the days continue on.

You flounder around in the kitchen on the day that John invites his deputies over for supper. You’ve met the big one—Simon—now a small handful of times, each encounter marked by a silence that sucks the air out of the room when he turns his gaze on you and holds it. Perhaps you’ve simply ascribed too much importance to his person, given that every time you’ve seen him, your life has changed irrevocably. His presence is always followed by revelation it seems. The archangel of vicissitude. A harbinger of uncertain times.

The other two are new. John introduces you to them when you bring out the cutlery and crockery to set the table, and you nearly go cross-eyed when they reach across the table at the same time to offer their hands. You go to meet them halfway, but flinch when John brings his hand down on the table with enough force to make the silverware jump.

“Sorry, darlin’,” he apologizes to you first before turning his glare on the other two. “That ain’t proper, boys. You wait for the lady to offer her hand first—you don’t treat a woman like she’s a mutt you’re teaching to shake.”

“Ah, sorry, hen,” the one on the left says, his voice a thick Scottish brogue like a purr. He’s possibly the handsomest man you’ve ever met, but there’s something dangerous and wild in his eyes. When he smiles, it curls up in a roguish sort of way that makes you falter, like he’s in on a joke that you aren’t. “Dinnae mean to offend. No’ often we get ta meet such a pretty lady.”

“Sorry—” the one on the right apologizes in a voice far more earnest than his counterpart’s. “And sorry for him. We think he was raised by wolves.”

“What’s yer excuse then?” the Scot sneers, knocking his knee into the other man’s under the table. “Dinnae see ye waitin’ for her fuckin’ hand like a gentleman—apologies, hen.”

“Christ,” John sighs, leaning back in his chair and staring up at the ceiling.

Simon stays silent at the other end of the table, but the whole table jumps when he aims a kick at the Scott’s leg. He hisses and blurts out a word in a language you’ve never heard before, the word unmistakably vitriolic. He clutches at his shin and shoots a nasty look at Simon, though he doesn’t make a move to retaliate.

“Name’s Kyle. Kyle Garrick,” the other introduces himself, and you finally reach across the table to offer your hand. His hand is warm against yours when he takes it, dark skin burnished in the candlelight. There’s something inviting about him; something about his eyes, so dark that you almost fall into them. Thick lips curl up into a smile. “And this here is Soap.”

You frown. “Soap?”

The man in question runs a hand down his front, emphasizing the cut of his shirt and the way it clings to the muscle of his chest. “‘Cause of how well I clean up.”

Simon barks out a laugh at that. The sound comes so sudden and sharp that it startles you. “You got it ‘cause your mum had to wash out your mouth with soap.”

It’s the most you’ve ever heard out of him and you can only stare wide-eyed at the lot of them as they dissolve into bickering and squabbling after that. It’s almost a relief to head back into the kitchen to finish cooking.

Dinner is a similar messy affair, punctuated by the sound of Soap practically gnawing the meat off the bone. He only apologizes when John barks at him for making a mess, more food on the floor around him than on his plate, but his table manners don’t last very long. John doesn’t seem so much embarrassed on their behalf as annoyed, but it’s an annoyance that comes with an aftertaste of warmth. You can tell without asking that they’ve known each other for years.

There’s room enough in you for food and envy. Back home you had friends. Never close friends, but acquaintances at least. Maids you could recognize by face. Small talk while ascending single-file up the servants’ staircase. Perhaps little more than that. You’d never been particularly close to any of them, but how could you? You worked from morning ‘till night, up and down the stairs, moving in the shadows. Never making too much noise lest your employers take notice of you.

Like he did.

You shake it off. That’s no matter now. You’re hundreds of miles away and living under a new name. A married woman, to the county sheriff no less. It only sometimes hurts your heart to think of how lonely you’d been.

When they leave, you stand at the window and watch as they disappear into the black of the night, Simon at the front of the pack, his torchlight leading the way. The sound of horse hooves beating against the dirt recedes the farther they get.

His hands warm your shoulders. You don’t know how long he’s been there, standing behind you while you stared out the window after the boys. All you know is that his hands are warm, and the kiss he presses to the back of your head makes you arch back into him, unconsciously gravitating closer to him. Needing to be near.

In bed, you curl your fingers against his chest. On a rough exhale, you wake. You dream still of something terrible that happens somewhere else, in another city, in an old life. His heartbeat lulls you back to sleep.

John takes you to the local seamstress to have you fitted for a pair of pants and suddenly you’re out of excuses. They fit you comfortably, like a second skin, and you find yourself pulling at the legs at your final fitting as if to stretch out the material. The seamstress nearly jabs you with a pin and glares up at you until you stop fidgeting.

You come to terms with it when he brings you into the stables and makes you fetch the saddle from where it rests on its stand. It’s heavier than you expected. You stumble back over to where John now has Buttercup standing in the middle of the stable, holding her by the lead fixed to her bridle.

“I don’t know if—” you start, trepidation climbing up your chest until it grips you by the throat. For as many times as you’ve ridden her, you’ve never done it alone.

John fixes her lead to a post and walks over to you, taking the saddle from your hands and letting it drop to the ground. He cups your face in both hands to tilt your head up. “Hey, honey. We’re not doing much of anything today, alright? Just a walk around the paddock so you get used to sitting on Buttercup on your own. I’m not gonna smack her ass and send you down the trail at full tilt..”

That gets a laugh out of you. “You promise?”

He smiles. “Promise, darlin’.”

And he keeps it. The only thing you do that day is learn how to tack a horse and how to properly mount and dismount her. The latter part of the lesson is devoted to you trying to find your balance while John leads the two of you around the pen at a leisurely pace. He calms you down when he sees you grow too stiff, stopping to coo and rub your thigh until you gradually relax. It’s heartwarming until Buttercup begins to tense up too for a reason unbeknownst to you and you watch in righteous fury as John calms her down the same way.

John gets you a hat to keep the sun from beating down on you, but there’s little he can do about the soreness between your thighs and the stiffness in your legs the next day. All you can do is hiss and moan in pain, hobbling around the house until he forces you down into a chair and hikes up your dress in order to apply an arnica salve to your inner thighs.

It’s a relief and an affront at the same time. The duality of man. The salve soothes much of the ache, but you twitch nervously around John for the rest of the day, the memory of him pinning you to the chair and forcibly spreading your thighs haunting you. The lingering ache in your core is just the salt in the wound.

It rains another day. A light drizzle while the sun is still out.

Every day you sit and you think, will it be today? And then the wash basins are emptied out in the field, the horses are taken out to the paddock, you pin the laundry up on the line to dry, and John presses a farewell kiss to your forehead when he leaves you with Kate and nothing happens. Every inch of you waits for more, anticipates more. Throbs when he leaves you wanting, only a chaste kiss and a squeeze around your waist before he’s off.

You can feel it coming to a head. An itch you can’t shake.

That day comes with another ache you can’t shake.

“Please,” you beg, clasping your hands in front of you. “One day of rest. That’s all I’m asking. I can’t do this anymore, John.”

John snaps the lead in his hands. “Let’s get a move on. We’re burning daylight.”

You hang your head low on the march over to the stables, John taking up the rear like he expects you to bolt. An executioner’s walk. The thought of escape has never seemed further away—not even because of its feasibility, but because all you want to do is lie down and rest.

“You can quit your moping,” he says as you tack up Buttercup, a pout on your lips. “Got something special for you today.”

That makes you perk up, regardless of the fact that he doesn’t specify what that is. Anticipation mounts in you when he helps you up onto Buttercup and then climbs up behind you himself. He steers her away from the paddock and towards the trail leading into the woods, the sun at its zenith now, illuminating everything as far as the eye can see.

You’ve ridden this trail before. A week ago, with John at your back as he is now. Through the fields and over the hills until the trees start to number in the tens and then the hundreds, no clear delineation between plain and forest. Simply there and then everywhere.

By now, after hours of sun beating down on the path, the trail is mostly dry, yesterday’s rain long since having sunk into the earth. You think it’d still be a tough hike on foot, but on horseback you cover acres of land at a brisk pace, Buttercup hardly breaking a sweat. You cross paths with a small group traveling by horse and wagon, but John breaks off from the path not too long after that, steering Buttercup deeper into the wilderness, where the only gullies are the ones carved out by years and years of rainfall.

You only see it when the land begins to dip and you’re forced to hold onto the horn and tighten your thighs around the fenders to keep steady. At the bottom of a hill, a small stream opens up into a larger river, narrowing out at the other end where the land rises again and the water can only trickle over the pebbly riverbed. On the other side, a rocky outcropping cuts the stream off from view.

“Is this where you used to come to bathe?” you ask, recalling an earlier conversation.

John sighs. “Thought I’d take you for a swim as a treat, but if you’d rather just tease me—”

“Well now, let’s not be hasty,” you say, already trying to dismount on your own, eyes glued on the stream glimmering in the sunlight. John chuckles, keeping you pressed to him until he guides Buttercup under a tree for shade and dismounts first, helping you down after him.

All you want to do is wade in the stream up to your ankles, so that’s what you do. Boots kicked off, Buttercup relaxing in the shade of a tree, John standing by the water’s edge with his hands on his hips and watching you tiptoe over the smooth rocks below. You roll up your pant legs, but eventually you feel the ends grow damp as you venture farther out. At its deepest, you would probably sink up to your waist.

“Don’t you want to swim?” John asks from somewhere behind you.

You splash around a bit, kicking your feet through the water. “Hard to do that with clothes—”

When you turn back around to face him, your eyes dart down momentarily at the sight of skin before you squeak and whirl back around, sending up an arc of water. Twice now you’ve seen him naked.

“You’ve no clothes on,” you state, bluntly enough that it almost sounds stupid.

You hear the water splash and ripple when he takes his first step in. “Right—you better think about doing the same if you don’t want to ride home soaking wet.”

“I was perfectly fine just getting my feet wet,” you say indignantly.

“We came out here to swim, not get your feet wet,” John laughs. You stiffen when his hand comes down on your shoulder, conscious of the fact that your husband is standing right behind you, entirely divested of his clothes. “So best get to steppin’.”

“You can’t make me.”

“Oh, honey,” he says pityingly. “Yes, I can.”

You squeeze your eyes shut as you make your way back to shore, careful not to allow yourself a glimpse of him. Your boots are stacked beneath the shade of another tree, John’s clothes folded neatly beside them. You strip slowly, attentive to the world around you; though unlikely, it’s not impossible that someone might wander by. Your only consolation is that John is still within sight, though you keep your back to him because in recent days, you’ve developed a hunger for him that even now makes your stomach hurt.

Though the air is warm, you shiver. When you turn around with your arms crossed over your breasts to hide them from sight, you find John wading in the river up to his waist. You’ve seen him like this once before, the hearty body of a man in his prime. Sturdy and strong. The hair on his chest is darker than that on his head, wet too from the dip he must have taken when your back was turned. His hair is slicked back too, a wet hand combing it back.

“Come on, darlin’,” he calls, beckoning you forward with his hand.

The water is a cold shock when you step in past your ankles. Ice cold tendrils wrap up your legs, sucking the warmth from you.

You suck in a soft breath when he pulls you into his arms and heaves you up, big hands gripping under your thighs. Your breasts press against the wet skin of his chest, nipples already pebbled. The river is deeper than you assumed; John pulls you deeper in until it pools around your waist and then your chest. Cold enough that you shiver until John dips his head down and the kiss he presses to your lips melts you from the inside out.

You can’t escape the intimacy of water-slick skin. When John drags you up his chest, your nipples brush over his and the shudder that passes through you is violent, toe-curling. You know that he can feel the heat of your core even underwater. With your legs wound around his waist, every inch of you is plastered to his front. Even your fingers play with the ends of his hair, arms draped over his shoulders. You can’t look away.

“C’mon,” he murmurs, breath hot on your face. “Eyes on me.”

As if you could look anywhere else.

He reaches down under the water to readjust himself and you gasp when his shaft is suddenly right there, trapped between his belly and your heat. It’s the closest you’ve ever gotten to coitus, his glans nestled between your folds. You’d only have to shift slightly for him to slip right in. The thought makes your breath quicken.

He doesn’t make a move to take you though, even knowing that he could. How easy it would be. How it’s due to him. Your husband that’s waited a fortnight to take you as his own. John kisses you until each slick pass of his lips grows sloppier, clumsier—his lips barely parting from yours before they’re on you again, rendering you a creature of base needs.

But his hands don’t shift from your backside where he holds you in place. His fingers dig into the flesh hard enough to bruise, but they don’t move to part your folds to make room for his manhood. You expect him to—practically yearn for it and squeeze him around the neck all the harder when he subverts your expectations, doing no more than letting you grind your heat against the base of his shaft.

“John—John, please,” you beg, mindless for what. You don’t know what you’re asking for.

“What d’ya need, darlin’?” he asks into your mouth, stealing your answer with another kiss.

You fall under the swell of another wave. When the root of his cock glides over your clit, your core clenches on nothing, a sob half-bitten off in your mouth, ripped from your chest.

It doesn’t matter how close to him you get—he gives you nothing. The heat could very well burn you from the inside out. Cold water caresses your skin as it flows past, but the center of you runs so hot that you hardly notice it.

When he hikes you higher up against his chest, you clench your fingers in his hair, whining when he takes your nipple into his mouth. Your gasp comes out sharp and hurt when the coarse bristles of his beard rub rough against your breast. He sucks at your breast tender at first, gentle, eyes half-lidded like his mind has gone somewhere else, but there’s a glint in his eye that grows wild and dark, that turns him rough. You don’t know what to do except shake and let him use you how he wants.

Desperation nips at your heels, urging you up the length of him. If you had more nerve, you’d reach down and grasp him under the water, notch the head of his member against your sex and sink right down on him. You need him like you've never needed anything before. Every part of you aflame, searing hot under the sun at its highest point; right overhead, right on top of you.

His teeth sink delicately into your areola, tongue lapping over your nipple to soothe the hurt, and suddenly, you break.

“Please—” you gasp, wrenching his mouth away from your breast and whimpering when he resists at first, glaring up at you like he might bite. “Please, John—I can’t take it. I need you.”

His eyes darken, the pupil swallowing everything up. “Need me where, wife? Here?”

A hand dips between your thighs, pointer finger gliding over your sex, plump with blood. So tender that your mouth hangs open on a whine when he touches you.

“Y-yes,” you whimper, gaze swimming.

John’s breath comes out in a harsh, ragged pant. Completely undone in a way you’ve never seen before. “Get out, darlin’. I’m taking you home. Gonna give you what you need.”

#ceil writing #cod mw2 #cod x reader #price/reader #john price/reader #price x reader #price x you #john price x reader #john price

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buckyalpine · 5 months

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Imagine Mob Bucky with his sweet little Bambi. She’s such a shy sweet thing and even though he’s had her countless times, naked and crying on his cock. She still hesitates to touch his most private places and can’t help the way her face heats up with just one look of those blue eyes.

“But-but they’ll hear” she whispers with wide eyes, her hands shaking as he guides her to wrap around his thick cock. Bucky’s thighs were spread wide apart, his slacks pulled down while he guided her under his desk.

“What will they hear pretty baby” he raised a brow while she shifted on the ground, still on her knees. “Are you shy baby? Shy they’ll hear how good you suck me? How slutty and soppy this pretty little mouth gets? Or are you scared they’ll hear what a whore you sound like when you’re stretched open around my cock, which is it”

You whimpered, knowing Bucky’s right hand man was stationed right out side of his office, his best friend of all people guarding the doors of his boss.

“Are you worried Stevie will hear you baby?” Bucky cooed, gentle holding the back of your head, pulling you to his dripping head. “He won’t hear a thing as long as you’re quiet Bambi”

He hissed feeling your soft tongue hesitantly swipe across his silky pink tip, lapping and suckling like a needy kitten as soon as you got a taste.

“Such a good girl for me” he groaned, cupping your cheeks before pushing his hips forward, shoving his length down your throat, “taking all of daddy’s big dick down her throat huh”

He smirks at the way you claw at his thighs while your legs squeeze together, his poor needy princess trying to give herself some relief.

“Bambi, what is it honey, why are you squirming so much”

You shake your head with your mouth full, too innocent to ask for what you want. Which is exactly why he sighs and picks you up off the floor and lays you on his desk, shoving your panties aside before you can protest.

“Daddy, no-daddy!” You slap your hand over your mouth as he stuffs his cock into your pussy, setting in a brutal pace without warming you up first. He grabs your hand away from your mouth, pinning your hand against the solid wood desk with a feral look on his face.

He knows his men are outside, he knows how some of them look at you. Hell, he even knows how Steve looks at you. Bucky wasn’t about to share but he’d give them a glimpse of how lucky he was, moving his hand to wrap around your throat while fucking your brains out.

“Fuckin’ scream! Scream, let them know how much you love my cock!”

“I-I-love I-it!!” You wailed, no longer able to contain your voice, taking every thrust he gave you. “I love it daddy, I love it!!”

“Yeah I bet you do, bet you love knowing my guys can hear you. Bet you love knowing they all stroke their dicks thinking’ bout you huh? Even Stevie’s probably got his hand down his pants thinking about your tight pussy and the sounds you’d make”

Your eyes nearly crossed, voice hoarse from the way you moaned, you’d back arching off the table.

“You act all innocent but you love when guys get all horny for you, don’t you baby. You loving knowing they cum cause they thought of you. Perverted fucks watching my girl, fucking probably jerking themselves right now. Now they’ll know what you sound like. Too bad it’s only my cock that makes you sound like this Bambi”

“Oh god daddy I-I” you slurred, squirting and gushing around his cock without warning, the shut alone making Bucky’s hips stutter.

“Lookit you squirting for me baby, god your a nasty little slut, so fuckin good for me, m gonna cum so fuckin hard for you princess. Gonna fill you up till the room smells of me marking you, you’re gonna walk out of here with my cum dripping between your legs”

Bucky moaned with his head thrown back, possessive over letting everyone know how he owned you.

“Let them all see all the places you let me shove my cock into. That you let daddy empty his cock rigt in your pussy-fuckkk!!”

With a guttural moan he stilled with his cock shoved in as far as it would go, cumming til the desk was a mess.

We don’t talk about how Steve came in his pants immediately after. We don’t talk about how he’s gonna touch himself again tonight. We don’t talk about how next time bucky might let him watch in person while Steve’s handcuffed with his perverted little dick out on full display, leaking and aching while you get railed by his best friend.

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kiss-me-muchoo · 5 months

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𝐖𝐞’𝐫𝐞 𝐚 𝐥𝐢𝐚𝐛𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐲… || 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐠!𝐂𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐨𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐮𝐬𝐒𝐧𝐨𝐰 𝐱 𝐅𝐞𝐦!𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫

𝐒𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲_ As a punishment for helping Coriolanus to cheat on the games, you’re sent to serve as a nurse in District 12 for the summer. He had to choose between Lucy Gray and you. He just needed a reason to pick you, luckily the songbird gave him one in time before you were gone. 𝐖𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬_ evil nurse!reader x peacekeeper!Coryo, very slight canon divergence, jealousy, sexism, stalking, nudity, reader is a little crazy and evil, you can’t trust her feelings, angst, beef with Lucy Gray (I <3 her irl), blowjob lol, buzzcut!Coryo fucks reader in the lake so MDNI 18+, this is so fucked up tbh. 𝐀𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐫'𝐬 𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐞_ reader is mentally unreliable. Song of course is liability, I know it won’t work, Will you cry? And buzzcut season lol. All in my playlist, It’s the worst and will disappoint you.

♪ ♫ The worst playlist 4 Coriolanus Snow ✰ Index (+ fics here)

____________________________________________

You’ve made big mistakes.

You accept it looking at the lake, ripping the delicate petals of a wildflower. Having to say goodbye to your summer vacations after graduation was fair. Your parents convinced Dr.Gaul to have some mercy on you. You wanted to die when they convinced her that you did it because you were a girl in love. You helped Coriolanus to find the aisle where the snake's tank was going to be picked up.

You were so in love that you only wanted to help your lover. Coriolanus was far from being your lover. You heard him countless times making fun of you. And you still helped him because your good heart wanted to see him winning the prize.

And what did you get? Serving as a nurse in the worst district for the whole summer.

It’s been two weeks. And the only good thing is the evening, where you like to kill time alone, in the silent woods. The moment to breathe and realize how naïve you had been. You deal with the damage Coriolanus had done to you. And the worst part is that he couldn’t care less. He only had eyes for his songbird after all.

And that’s what boiled your blood. That it was her and not you.

There’s already a little pile of dry flowers around you, from all the previous days you were at the same position as now. The days passed and you weren’t ready to let go. You needed to find a way to forget about him. “Damn it…” you whisper, cringing at all the memories, rage invading you, violently throwing the flower in your hands and wiping away the tears.

When you return to the medical aisle, you need to pass by the military camp. You were obviously a Capitol girl. Anyone with a golden watch and lip tint was. Since day one, many peacekeepers have asked you out. They wanted to spend the night with you. But you weren’t in the mood to lose your virginity yet. You were stressed, angry, embarrassed, but you tried to put your best face.

“Y/N! IS THAT YOU?” You turn confused. Only to find Sejanus Plinth. It genuinely made you smile seeing him.

“Sejanus? What are you doing here?” You ask for a hug. His hair had to be gone, he had the peacekeeper uniform. You were extremely confused.

“The real question is what are you doing here?” You roll your eyes.

“Coriolanus. He cheated on the games.” He sighs, nodding.

“I know. He’s here too.” Your eyes widen. He notices you are uncomfortable.

“Well, I helped him, and Dr. Gaul punished me to serve here for the summer” Sejanus seems surprised to hear it. He sees your nurse uniform, noticing the silver plaque attached in your chest. He knew women of the military with that plaque were on a higher range. In your case, probably because your father paid for you to have some commodities.

“At least you’re here” you add.

Sejanus knew you weren’t on good terms with Coryo. The boy asked for you on the train. But Sejanus hadn’t heard from you. Which apparently left Coriolanus slightly disappointed.

“Yeah. I’m here… we’ll have a good time. Promise” honestly, you were relieved to see him. But just by remembering that Coriolanus was also near you, it made you wish you were still alone.

“Any plans for tonight?” He asks, smiling.

You only had three friends. All girls from District 1 and 2. They were serving just because they were kind and wanted higher chances to get into University. They comforted you and Fridays were for two things. Going to the most famous bar, where Lucy Gray performed. Or going to a secret and elegant club for people with enough status.

“On downtown’s Main Street. A block to the left, the second alley. Tell the guy at the entrance you know me. Use my full name” your friend giggles, slowly moving away.

“You’re unbelievable” as you go back to your private room with your new friends. You can only think of how to avoid encountering Coriolanus for the rest of the summer.

It was enough for him. You wouldn’t even breathe near him. It was you, always offering subtle love. And he gave nothing back.

…

Lucy Gray was such a warm and sweet girl. Her dress with flowers and detailed boots added something to her performance.

Her voice was hypnotizing, her smile so pure and her hair so soft. It was the third night Coriolanus watched her perform. He smiled, drinking something. It was a humble bar, but the most famous one. He looked around looking for Sejanus. Last night he never appeared either. Coriolanus was growing worried, noticing his friend was starting to contemplate rebellious acts to help the people. Always trying to be the hero. As Lucy Gray finished her song, Sejanus appeared. A big smile on his face.

“Where have you been?” The blonde asked.

“You have to promise me you won’t freak out” Coriolanus rolled his eyes.

“Y/n was punished for helping you to cheat. Gaul sent her here to serve as a nurse for the summer.” His eyes almost popped out.

He had completely forgotten about you. He cringed, already expecting to have you all over him.

“Does she know I’m here?” Sejanus nodded.

“Yeah. She wasn’t happy when I mentioned you.” Coriolanus suddenly remembered that the last time he talked to you, you cursed him. You got mad after he didn't even offer a thank you for your help. Coriolanus realized at that moment that you hoped he would choose you over Lucy Gray. Which didn’t happen.

“She has access to the club reserved for high status military personnel. I won’t say this is bad but there is better…” he looks at his songbird. Everyone cheered for her, but…

Suddenly, Coriolanus doesn't like that Sejanus had spent last night partying with you.

“Take me there.” He says, looking at his friend.

“I don’t think it’s a good idea. She stated very clearly that-“

“Sejanus… I need to see her. I won’t cause any disturbance.” After a minute of debating, Sejanus stands up and tilts his head, telling Coriolanus to get out of the bar.

It’s a fair distance. Coriolanus has no idea where he is going. Until the end of an alley seems to have some hallway that irradiates red lights.

“Here it is.” Sejanus points out.

There’s a man with a different peacekeeper uniform. He asks Sejanus who invited him.

Coriolanus hears your full name for the first time. He learns you have two names and two last names. At the Academy you only used one of each.

“How do you know her full name?” He asks Sejanus when the man lets them inside the place.

The red lights start changing, mixing with crystal chandeliers and velvet walls.

“Our parents have made some deals in the past.” Coriolanus wants to know more. He needs more details about how you ended up in the same place as him. He doesn’t think you also paid to change districts like him.

“Hey. Whatever you plan to say to her, apologize to her. She’s a girl a million would pay to have. She just wanted to help you, Coryo” he doesn’t know how to take Sejanus. He sure sounded like always, the friend trying to give advice. But he also sounded… like he was one of the millions who would pay to have you. Coriolanus didn’t feel pleased.

Finally, the place is crowded. And the people inside look different than the ones at the bar. These people looked very clean and elegant to be in District 12.

The music is live jazz, the smell of pure tobacco and laughs everywhere. Coriolanus feels like he fits there. And he promises to talk with Lucy Gray the next day. After he left the bar she would ask where he did go.

But for now, his eyes start searching for you. A man in a suit that looked very Capitol started talking. Daring all the beautiful women there to dance, promising to crown one as the star of the night.

He hears a group of females laughing. And when he spots the group, you are being pushed to the dance floor.

Since Sejanus is nowhere to be found, Coriolanus makes his way closer to you.

He sees your natural hair down and wavy. Cranberry lips and gentle purple eyeliner around your eyes. A simple mauve dress, and he almost chokes about it.

Tigris made that dress. You asked her one day at the Academy. If she could make a dress from elegant fabric. Tigris said that she didn’t have enough to make a full gown. You didn’t care, you just hoped she could do something.

Coriolanus remembered Tigris making the dress late one night. And he tolerated you even less for making his cousin work harder. That was long forgotten when you paid her and referenced her to work with a friend of your mother.

You looked totally different. Not the same annoying material girl he knew at the Capitol. This humble version of you was totally attractive to Coriolanus.

He couldn’t tell if you were dancing tap, swing or something else, but you were good at it. A couple of times, he heard you talking with Clemensia and Arachne, about your winter concert or rehearsals. Now, it was evident you were good at dancing.

You laugh and people cheer for you. Mostly men, which for some reason makes Coriolanus tense his jaw.

The mauve fabric shined disguised under the chandeliers, and maybe it was just the sight of seeing you happy, or the way the dress hugged your body. But it made him smile. For the first time, Coriolanus feels a positive feeling about seeing you. He wants to talk to you. But he isn’t sure what he’ll say. So he opts to just see you for the night. He can see a slight layer of sweat on your forehead after two songs have passed. The crowd seemed to want you to win. And it only makes you more eager to do so.

In your head, this was a big distraction. It was the only moment of the week where you felt happy and free. It makes you forget about your pending University admission and all the drama. About your silly actions and disappointments.

The way your friends cheer and joke about making a bet to see who’d win between you and the other girl left. You really are having fun.

Until the remaining girl surrenders. It feels great. Being crowned as the star of the night, leaving the dance floor with so much admiration and looking over you.

Coriolanus sees how you cheer with your friends. You laugh and he swore he had never seen you smile and laugh so much. Maybe you are a little tipsy. He can’t tell, but after some minutes, one of your friends leaves with a man. The other two stay drinking, and you say your goodbyes.

Your dark coat covers everything once you’re ready to leave. And Coriolanus knows he shouldn’t, but he does it anyway. He starts following you.

Internally, he claims he did it because he thought it wasn’t safe for you to go back to the medical aisle in the middle of the night.

It’s not a long way. And Coriolanus notices how close his bed is to yours, literally.

He feels like an animal, following his prey. Only that he doesn’t intend to hurt you. Not more than he already had.

His legs act by themselves it seems. He keeps venturing into the decent building. It’s lonely and dark. Coriolanus notices that probably many nurses were already sleeping. He sees you enter a room, and he memorizes the number. Seconds later, when he’s about to leave, you come out again. A towel in your hand…

It’s his cue to leave. He knows it’s enough. He never should have followed you. Not when he was supposed to be listening to Lucy Gray and The Covey. Not when he paid to serve in District 12 for Lucy Gray.

But it’s too late because he’s already poking his head, and when his eyes meet your body, your coat and dress are on the floor. In a bench near lays a simple but naughty red pair of panties. Coriolanus feels himself getting red at the sight of the underwear, just red, no details, just red. Red like his cheeks, you are naked, under the spray of the shower.

As you’re supposed to be a person he barely tolerates, Coriolanus hates himself for admitting how beautiful you were.

The water coats your body in a gorgeous way. He sees your hair become slightly darker and falls longer across your back.

The shower smells like some summer fruit and it’s all because of your silly shampoo. Coriolanus had seen it before at the Capitol, it was expensive.

Something changes as you massage your scalp, giving Coriolanus a view of your soft and pretty stomach. Your breasts and some moles that are visible are the death of the man. He shouldn’t want to hold your waist and help you clean your body. He shouldn’t want to kiss every birthmark and mole covering you.

It’s the first time he sees a woman naked.

That night, you happily go to bed, soothing the heat wave. Some weight falls from your shoulders. And for the first time, you feel like everything was meant to happen, and it’s okay.

For Coriolanus, he has to touch himself to forget about your naked silhouette haunting his dirty mind. And when he ends, he takes a cold shower and falls into the tiny uncomfortable lower bunk. Sejanus was snoring already, some bunks without a host, probably still at the bars or sleeping with a lover.

Coriolanus is ready to sleep and pretend nothing happens. He would go back to his soft songbird by the morning.

But it doesn’t work. He knows he’s so messed up. Because you are still there, and not only your naked body. Your natural hair, sweet lips and the way you smiled, danced and laughed are there too.

…

When the sun rose, it was imminent that it was going to be a hotter day. The summer in district 12 was bright. Full of light, and green from nature in the surrounding woods. That’s not necessarily the case in the medical aisle. You woke up at 5:00 am to start your shift. Your soft hands had been classifying medicines through shelves.

“Y/n” calls one of your friends from the entrance of the storage room. She giggles after seeing you on top of the stairs, holding onto your dear life.

“Need help?” You smile, shaking your head.

“I’m okay, thanks. What happened?”

“There’s a telegram for you at the mailbox” was unusual. Only your mother called once to see how you were doing. She was still very mad at you.

“Oh, okay. I’ll go now…” with that, you hop off the stairs and leave the little box with remaining bottles on a desk.

After a minute of going downstairs in the building, you get to the mailbox. You give your name to the elder woman in the office and she hands you a cream envelope.

Making a pause in the hallway full of lockers for peacekeepers waiting for mail you open your own.

[The head of the hospital has shared with us you’re doing an outstanding job. This is what we expect from you after your return to the Capitol. Keep going and we might pull some strings to get you back earlier.

Take care, dad.]

You smile. It was enough for you. The anger was undeniably lowering. And going back to the Capitol would make you very happy. Already contemplating the perfect lie. That you went to serve as a nurse for charity, for your kind heart. Everyone would believe you, and the girls would be jealous of your bravery. Nobody would know it was a punishment.

A punishment caused by the man you had just bumped into.

He picks you the open envelope and once he hands it, he sees you.

“Y/n…” you take the envelope from his hand, avoiding the touch.

“Coriolanus” with less makeup than two nights ago, you look even more beautiful he believes. The white nurse cap was so silly, but it was part of your uniform. But he can’t help but blush after remembering how the water fell across your body. And how he touched himself that night.

“I-…Sejanus told me you were here.” Your eyebrows rise, nodding with disinterest.

“Yeah, I’m here because of you.” He sighs, realizing that his friend was right, you were really disappointed to see him.

“This isn’t what I wanted for you.” You roll your eyes. Already sick of wasting your time for him. You had been so scared to encounter him one day. But that you had him facing you, you couldn’t care less.

“Of course. Because you couldn’t care less about me…” he wants to say he actually cares. But the truth is, that before the night he saw you at the bar, he didn’t even remember you. But now, it was like you had put on a spell on him, making him want to know everything about you.

“Just stay away from sight of view and everything is going to be okay” he was shocked to hear you talk to him with much indifference. He was used to your sweet voice, asking him every morning how he was doing at the entrance of the classroom.

You were always at his feet. Helping him and doing everything so he would look down at you. And now, he actually was looking up, seeing how you went upstairs again. And he would do exactly the opposite of what you asked.

He would be everywhere if it meant seeing you again.

…

The bittersweet feeling of seeing Coriolanus stayed the whole afternoon until you finished your shift at 6:00pm. The heat was barely tolerable when the sun was almost gone. You went to the market, as you had promised to cook dinner for the girls that night.

The vegetables were fresh and there was a lot to pick. You carried a little basket filled with carrots, some potatoes and a piece of raw meat carefully folded. You were looking at some pair of earrings. They were handmade. With blue feathers and some tiny pieces of quartz. You smiled looking at them. When you were about to tell the little girl who was selling them, you felt very deep looks. And when you turn to the left, there is Lucy Gray and some of her friends from the band. She was sixteen, you were almost nineteen, you couldn’t pick a fight with her. She could hate you for being Capitol, for being such a bad mentor at the games. But maybe she didn’t knew that thanks to you she was alive. And the most important, she couldn’t hate you because of a man.

Before you can even feel awkward, you had already left the earrings and walked towards the girl.

“Is there anything I did to upset you, Lucy Gray? Because as far as I know we don’t know each other” that was the truth. You had your own motives to dislike her. But you hadn’t even turned to look at her. Unlike the songbird, who didn’t have a problem showing her disapproval of you with her face.

“Did you follow him here too?” You smiled. You didn’t know what Coriolanus had told her, or what she suggested on her own. Based on what happened, probably Lucy Gray believed you were the crazy stalker who couldn’t let go of Coriolanus Snow and his unrequited feelings for you.

“No. I was already here weeks before he arrived.” You simply answer her by looking at the notebooks in the table beside you. Lucy Gray couldn’t be jealous, but she had a bad omen about you.

“I was blinded by him once, just like you now. I helped him so you could win. Hoped he could choose me. And it wasn’t enough. He’s not the boy you think he is, Lucy Gray. You don’t know him like I do. But you can rest knowing I won’t lift a finger to make him notice me anymore” she seems surprised by your answer. But there’s no time for her to throw a rebuttal because you’re gone. Her friends gossip without her, saying how mean you were.

And Coriolanus had seen everything from a hidden corner. He was looking for Lucy Gray, already growing confused. Your words had gotten deep into his mind. While Lucy Gray was the sweetest girl he ever met, she also confused him. She had a rebellious side that he didn’t like. And you, he knew he would never be able to control you now, but he knew you would easily do the same things he did to win.

He stayed far, letting Lucy Gray to pass by with her friends. And when she was gone, out of the market, he came out.

He grabbed the same earrings you were looking at before.

…

It’s another night at the private bar. This time you know Coriolanus is there. He had the audacity to bring Lucy Gray. And you wonder if it was a good idea to tell Sejanus about the bar. Her green dress didn’t match the bar style. However, you ignore them as soon as your friends tell you they befriended a high standard peacekeeper. He had some handsome friends and they made you completely forget about Coriolanus and her songbird. You grew invested in the conversation with the men and your friends, even when one of girls makes fun of Lucy Gray and her visit to the secret bar.

Coriolanus keeps painfully turning to look at your way. He wants to go and get you out of the bar. But he already had a girl beside him. A much younger and innocent one. His anger escalates when a man takes you out to dance. You giggle as he says something in your ear. You had a pretty ruffled pink dress. Red lipstick and matching shoes.

“She looks happy…” Lucy Gray says, also looking at you.

“She isn’t happy. And that’s just an idiot” he spits pointing at the handsome peacekeeper dancing with you. He shouldn’t have said that, especially in front of Lucy Gray. But the way the man twisted you like a piece of the softest fabric, and the way he singed for you, it was taking over him.

It’s his hands that should be holding your hips. It’s his voice that should be making you dance. But Lucy Gray grabs his chin and offers him a sweet smile that makes him get lost on her brown eyes. She’s too good for him.

As he kisses her, he still feels the anger. Cause’ it should be you.

…

The roles had switched up. Coriolanus was infatuated by you. And now, you ignored him as if you never ever thought he was the love of your life.

Maybe is his hair, now short. Or maybe it is that deep sight he always has on you. The sweet boy that didn’t look on your way was gone.

As the days passed, you could feel the air changing. Telling you that your punishment would soon be over.

You flip through the pages, tons of files in the racks perfectly accommodated in the room. You read about all the frauds and corruption of the hospital and the military aisle. Enough to make you a dangerous target. So as soon as the headmistress nurse knows you have a long secret file in your memory, he gives you easy jobs.

And the dirty ones too.

Coriolanus follows you. Thought the archives rooms to the cold storage. He sees how there’s a tray ready to go. Some needles ready to pinch someone. And then you are changing the yellow liquid inside the injections, your face mask covering the small grin on your face. It makes him slightly shocked. He didn’t think you would be capable of doing such a thing. Some rumors flew across the militar camp. About a deal, between the heads of the hospital and the camp. Where they would secretly get rid of sick people from the district to stop wasting expensive medicines and other products.

But you hand the tray with an innocent smile.

And he grows worried. He can’t believe it, but he fears you could end up dead because of your little tricks. You leave early. So, he gains some confidence to follow you. He needs answers. He’s tired of following you to beg for your attention. It’s his lucky day that you chose to take the little trail that crossed the resting cabins of the peacekeepers. You walk past his cabin and his brain makes him walk faster, grab your forearm and push you inside it.

“What the hell?” You ask, startled. Looking at Coriolanus in shock.

The bunks are empty. Everyone is out.

“What were you doing? Switching the shots? You could get hanged or something else!” Suddenly you’re confused, questioning why he was caring now.

“There’s a lot more going on in the hospital than you could ever know, Coriolanus.” He understands it. And he isn’t surprised after all. Injustice happened everywhere.

But he wouldn’t easily let go.

“You could still get in trouble. Who’s making you do this?” You sigh frustrated, shrugging.

“Why do you care so much? Why can’t you leave me alone for once?” As you raise your voice, he grows impatient.

“I DO CARE ABOUT YOU!” Your silence makes him step closer.

“Seeing you dancing with that man, how he grabbed you, it boiled my blood.” Suddenly you feel nervous about his proximity.

And the cheeky asshole decided to step even closer.

“That shouldn’t be a problem for you” you do your best to keep the visual contact. But the way he’s looking at you is making it difficult. Especially after his lips are literally brushing your cheekbone.

“You are the one I desire.” He smashes his lips with yours. Honestly, you believe him. But it isn’t enough to make your heartbeats for him.

“Did you let that man touch you after you left?” You giggle, letting him wander under your nurse apron.

“My virginity is part of my pride and dignity” you answer, kissing his neck, letting his sneaky hands touch you everywhere. His right hand gropes your breast and the other is trying to hold the fat of your hip and ass like a starved man.

Your brain can’t work for some minutes. But you kiss him back. You decide he wouldn’t puppet you. Never again.

As he devours your lips, confirming you gave the softest kisses, yet passionate. You push him gently towards a random bed. And slowly, you get on your knees, dropping your nurse cap and navy blue cape to the floor.

Coriolanus is officially in shock as you drop his belt to the floor.

When he least expects it, you are already licking the tip of his cock. You make a wet mess of him. His head drops back, letting you do whatever you want.

He’s in heaven. Of course, you weren’t the most experienced but to be a virgin, you were quite an addictive lover.

In your head, you just can think about giving him pleasure. Your twisted plan would be effective as soon as he exploded. You put much effort in sucking and licking every vein of him. His length did not disappoint, and you mentally cursed as you realized he could’ve been your first time.

Coriolanus knows damn well it is over for him when his eyes meet yours. His tip met the back of your throat, and he ended up spilling his hot seed inside your mouth. You show him your tongue, covered in white, only to swallow everything. He gulps, feeling the remaining spasms of his orgasm.

“You’ll be the death of me…” he admits, taking a long breath.

As for you, you know it’s just a matter of time. If Coriolanus was so invested in making you look at him now, you would give him more reasons until he broke and admitted he couldn’t live without you.

So you clean your messy lipstick. Your nurse cap and navy cape perfectly in place and you look gorgeous in a mirror near the door.

“If anyone asks where I was, you say I went to drop some letters.” After that you don’t nothing else. He tucks himself inside his pants and stands quickly.

“Wait-” but you had already left.

…

In the night, Coriolanus starts looking out for Sejanus. He was going to ask if he wanted to go to the bar to see Lucy Gray. But he couldn’t find him. He feels his forehead sweating even in the middle of the night.

Near a little training center, he hears two recognizable voices. And when he turns into a little hallway, he sees you arguing with Sejanus.

“No, I’m not defending the Capitol, but these people are not worth risking your life, Sejanus” it’s the first thing he hears from you.

“They deserve better luck, y/n. Something we were born with.” Coriolanus sees you huffing, arms crossed as the slight wind makes your uniform cape lift.

“What’s going on?…” the blonde asks. You turn and sigh, expecting Sejanus to explain. You like to think Coriolanus would make Sejanus to think clearly. Like he did before.

There’s only silence.

“You won't tell him? I will…” you turn to Coriolanus. He can feel you are angry; you disapprove whatever it was happening with Sejanus.

“He’s helping some rebels.” Sejanus only looks down.

“They’re not rebels.”

“Well, they’re definitely not on the right track. And helping them will only lead to trouble.”

“Why are you doing this?” Coriolanus joins. He sounds tired, immediately remembering how he had to literally fight in the Hunger Games to save him.

“They are suffering. They don’t have anyone.” Sejanus replies.

“If you weren’t helping them, they would put a bullet in your head before you could even blink. They are not worth risking your life, Sejanus. I don’t want to see you hanged.”

“I appreciate your worries, y/n. I really do. But this is the least I can do after all the things my parents have aligned for me.” Your eyes water. Even after all the horrible you have done at the Capitol, as a nurse, you cared for Sejanus and Coriolanus. You might have been playing a game of manipulation with Coriolanus, but if he ended up in a mess that threatened his life, you would fear. The same for Sejanus.

“Sejanus…” Coriolanus felt slightly bad after seeing you at the verge of tears. He knew behind that new mask of indifference you were very soft.

“If something happens to you, I’m gonna live mad at you for the rest of my life. Life made us end up here for him…” you say pointing at Coriolanus.

And it’s true, you were sent to the 12 for punishment. Sejanus literally followed him just because.

“That’s enough penitence.” Feeling the tears flow, you start walking away.

Sejanus also feels wrong. But he’s confident. Both men stare at you, and different thoughts run through their heads.

“If anything happens, Coryo… Take good care of her.” Coriolanus looks at his friend.

He thinks you deserve more. He finally accepts there’s more to win by your side rather than following the songbird. Yet, he couldn’t push away Lucy Gray yet.

“I’ll take care of her, Sejanus.”

…

You don’t see the boys for the next two days. Until the night. When for emergency protocol you had to work. A fight in the bar caused some injuries to many men. So, there you are at 1:00 am sending gazes and bottles of alcohol. And when you are about to clean your own space, after a knock on your door, you see Coriolanus and Lucy Gray.

Unbelievable.

“What happened?” You ask as soon as you see him properly. The tray on your hands falls to the ground, making a loud sound. There’s blood on his face, a dark splotch on the right side of his nose. Beside him is Lucy Gray. Wearing one her bohemian dresses with her rural touch of always. You go to inspect his face.

“Got into a fight.” Coriolanus explains. You frown, thinking that is very ignorant and low. Completely disappointed of him for joining the cause.

“You got into the fight? Why?” He sighs, and Lucy Gray only huffs, helping him to sit on a bench. You ignore her, proceeding to take some cotton and equipment to stitch the little wound on his cheekbone. Your fingers are cold, and make him squirm as soon as they touch him.

“Some guy. He got violent after harassing her” of course it had to be for Lucy Gray all the commotion. Everything makes sense, the fight at the bar you listened to less than an hour ago. The songbird must’ve performed, and someone made a mess.

You can’t feel bad for her. While half of the district loved her, there was a considerable amount of people who disliked her, rumors saying she carried problems wherever she went.

“Hmm.” you have a lot to say, but you won’t spit everything at once. Coriolanus sighed, pretending it was because the alcohol was touching his skin, but it was because you weren’t pleased.

Even in his exile, he was between two women again. And while he couldn’t push away Lucy Gray, he couldn’t let you go too.

“Can you give us a moment, Lucy Gray?” he asks calmly. And maybe her reaction wasn’t meant to, but she showed that it made her uncomfortable.

“Sure. I’ll wait outside…” awkwardly she made a smile to the man seated in front of you and left.

Silence took over. You continued to clean the wound, and his deep blue eyes were locked on your face.

Finally, he was able to see your real beauty. Bare amounts of makeup. Hair down and short nails. No crazy looks, ridiculous hairstyles and cat nails. This was the real you.

“I didn’t start the fight…” he started.

“But of course, it had to be for her.” you finish for him. Again, he sighs, trying to avoid any possible irritation.

“It wasn’t her fault what happened.”

“Oh my god. Just listen to yourself! … Everything is her fault!” You burst after finishing with the needle.

“Why do you hate her so much?” He asks irritatedly, shrugging and expecting you to answer soon.

“I don’t hate her. I couldn’t care less for that poor girl. But she’s the reason why you got so obsessed with winning the damn prize. She’s the reason why you cheated and she’s the reason why you’re exiled, and I’m punished” he knows it’s true. In a matter of weeks, Coriolanus repeatedly questioned why Lucy Gray. And until two weeks ago, when he started questioning why not you.

Coriolanus smirks. Finding a way to evade a deeper conversation. He wasn't ready for the time to come where he had to decide. Lucy Gray or you.

“You sound like you’re jealous” he actually thought you would deny it.

“Of course it makes me jealous, Coriolanus!”

His smile fades away. You curse under your breath, moving aside to pick up the nursing equipment. There was no way back, and you wouldn’t lie.

“Ever since I met you, I wanted you to like me. And all I received were mean looks and judgmental jokes. About my hair, my lipstick, my dress, everything” you admit, sounding a little hurt.

“And this girl comes, and in less than two months she has you doing the impossible for her” you mumble. Coriolanus was never the romantic type. He was a man of few words and very analytical. He wasn’t a fan of the districts, so you wondered what could possibly be the reason for him to get obsessed with the songbird.

“Do you love her?” For you, it was a simple question. You always faced your feelings. But for Coriolanus, he tended to avoid his feelings.

He looked at the ground, at your boots before looking up at you.

“Why are you making this so complicated?” He asks, in hopes to avoid the real question.

“You won’t have both girls, Coriolanus.” When you come back at him, he stares directly at his view, at your waist. He focuses on the details of the grey and white fabric decorating you. There’s a tiny spot of blood near your breast, and some dirt near where he thought it was your belly button.

For sure, he knows he won’t have both girls.

“And as much as she tries to make you fit in. You don’t belong here. You and I were educated to live in The Capitol.” He’s well aware that with Lucy Gray, he would be pursuing a humble peaceful life. With you, he would be pursuing a luxurious and firm life.

The harder you are pushing his buttons, the harder you’re manipulating him. You trace his chin and neck, fingers grasping his silver chain. And you know he’s getting soft, vulnerable for your touch.

Maybe he changed his perspective of you after seeing you dance. After seeing you naked in the showers. After realising the type of woman you were.

“I would love to see when realization hits you. You’ll see that she only used you. You’ll notice that I was on your side and could’ve been for the rest of my life” his jaw tenses. He looks you in the eye again. You smile, thumb on his lower lip.

“And pretend as much as you can, selling me that face of I don’t care about you. But I know you do; you’re just blinded by the songbird. Count the days till she uses her singing against you. It’ll be too late.”

He hates losing, missing things. And you know it.

“She makes me want to be someone better.” His best attempt to soothe you makes you laugh.

“The summer will be over, and I’ll leave. She won’t inspire you to grow. She will make you lay still. I’ll be at the top of the Capitol again. And you couldn’t make your house rise…” that hit him in his pride. The fact that your words were true. He thought about Tigris and his grandmother. They deserved better.

“I want you to be someone better. And yet, you’re here. Without the prize, without being home. Just picture it… Where would you be if you had chosen me?” He really wanted to choose you. He just needed a fucking reason. But once again, you have disappeared.

…

He cared. But he cared more for himself.

That doesn't make him feel better though. He had doomed Sejanus Plinth by recording his words.

He couldn’t sleep, knowing that anything could happen the following morning. He has a tiny brown bag in his hand, clutched as if it was made of pure gold. He can’t wait, and he can’t sleep. So, he sneaks out of the camp and goes to your room. He needed to see you, he needed to choose you. That would mean leaving. Concentrating on you and his family. Pursuing the Capitol’s type of future, away from the country life.

Your friends were about to leave to go to the secret bar. And they tell him you were gone to the lake. It makes him realize how much you had to be overthinking. Just by seeing you, anyone could tell you weren’t from the districts. Spending the night in the lake wasn’t pleasant at all. With animals, mosquitoes, and the humid heat of the woods.

But he walks in the darkness. Hearing some crickets and frogs that guide him to the little visible light at the end of the trial. The more he walks towards it, the more he can distinguish you.

There you are sitting over a blanket. Reading a book, wearing a long pastel nightgown. The sight makes him smile.

He steps over a branch and makes you turn worried. But as soon as you spot him, you sigh, closing the book.

“What are you doing here?” You ask.

“I could ask the same question. It’s nearly midnight.” He sits beside you on the blanket, you only shrug, facing away from him, looking at the barely noticeable reflect of the lake under the moon.

“I couldn’t sleep.”

“Me neither” there’s a lot of things he wants to say, you want to scream it too.

“I wanted to give you this…” he hands you the brown bag. Frowning, you take it, your fingers brushing his, but you opt to ignore it.

When you dig your hands inside, you feel something soft. And when you see what’s inside, you can’t help but cheekily smile.

It’s the feather earrings you wanted at the market. He probably collected the least he could to pay for them. Or maybe he traded something. It’s uncertain, but you can’t deny it warmed your heart a little.

“You saw me?” He nods, watching how you cautiously caressed the pair.

“Then you must’ve heard me too…” Coriolanus heard it. But he would pretend the opposite. Just to avoid the question.

“I didn’t. I was passing by when you were looking at them. What happened?” You tilt your head, putting the earrings on.

“Your songbird is jealous of me… Does she know about the good time we had the other day?” He blushes, closing his eyes out of embarrassment.

“How do I look?” When he opens his eyes, he sees you have the earrings on. The blue feathers looked very outstanding in the middle of the dark. The light you brought did not make any justice to the beauty of your face. Barely highlighting your eyes and lips.

“You look beautiful…” there’s something on your mind. You want to ask so badly. And while you could pry about his thoughts of your new appearance, you don’t. Your voice slightly trembling as you start speaking.

“Did you and Sejanus have anything to do with the death of the daughter of the mayor and the boyfriend?” He closes his eyes.

“No.”

“Coriolanus Snow… Do not lie to me.” his arms come to rest on his bent knees. And you know the truth through his breathing.

“Sejanus went too far. I wanted to keep him alive” you sigh, feeling already stressed. Panic invades you, fearing for both boys.

“What if this is just what you two needed to end up in real trouble?” He looks at you, and he wants to kiss you so badly. He wanted a hug from you. He wanted you to love him like he knew you did during the Academy days. Just to feel some sense of normality. That this isn’t what his life turned out to…

“What if he gets killed. What if you get killed?”

“It won’t happen. It’ll be okay” your nails were going to suffer from anxiety. But he places a hand on your bare shoulder, calming you.

“Why can’t you give me a rest, Coriolanus?” He knows what you mean, and it makes his heart grow soft.

“Honestly. Before the games I barely tolerated you. But after seeing you here and everything that happened, you’re right. I can’t have both girls.” It makes you weak.

“What made you look at me? Why now?” He sighs.

Firstly, it was pure lust, your body. But at this point, he knew he could potentially end up alone. And he refused to let go of the person he had won since the beginning.

“Because I wasn't able to appreciate that I had you. And… I don’t want to be alone.” You nod, analyzing his words.

“But you have her. Since when is she not enough?” Coriolanus had to accept how analytical you were. He can be honest and be in peace with you or lie and keep fighting for you.

“I don’t think she’s ever been enough. We don’t have much in common. Just that we are orphans… if she never came along… I swear I know I would have ended up by your side.” You think you understand him. He just realized what he lost. And now he was trapped to decide. However, you were not going to give your heart again. Only time or a life-or-death situation would make you admit you still loved him.

“I said it before, I’ll repeat it again. I won’t be here forever…” he leaned closer. His hand caressing your chin, appreciating how soft your skin was. He wanted to crown your head with flowers and promise he was yours. Just not yet.

“I know…” his nose brushes yours, the tension grows and this time, you are the one closing distance to kiss him. You are so close to winning, to have him begging for you.

That night, he keeps kissing you, you read him your book for a bit and before realising it, both of you end up sleeping on the blanket.

In the morning, he finds you undressing to take a quick splash in the lake.

When you realize he’s awake, you smile at him.

“Morning…” like a slow striptease, you let the nightgown fall and he just stares at your body with the first rays of sun illuminating you.

“I don’t think this is a dream. Right?” You chuckle before your body disappears under the water.

It’s the perfect invitation. He joins you, and the first minutes of his morning are spent kissing you. Only to end up in the same blanket both of you slept on. With him on top of you.

“Tell me to stop now.” He says in your mouth. Your leg slowly slides through his ankle, sending shivers through his spine.

“I think it’s too late for that.”

He returns you the favor. His head between your legs is the most erotic thing he’s ever heard or seen in his life. It’s so dirty, eating you out in the middle of the wild. You taste better than expected, and it feels simple, even natural to please you. He can see how your back arches when his nose gently touches your clit. He feels so proud, and he can already see how well you two could handle being lovers. He remembers how you sucked his cock and how good you did it.

To you, you felt some insecurity, because he hadn’t decided on you. But you already feel the lead being on your side. Soon that thought fades away, because the pleasure is becoming too much. And you’re ready to receive the upcoming orgasm.

You forget about Lucy Gray, Sejanus, the deaths, your return to the Capitol.

Everything is gone as soon as you feel him. Even the pride and dignity you talked about on losing your virginity.

It just feels like it was meant to be.

“You’re so perfect…” he says, eyes on your stretch marks, fingers tracing them before moving towards north and pinching your nipples.

The way you clench around him, his lips leaving red marks on your breasts that would soon turn purple. Your moans, and your dirty mouth cursing.

“Fuck- oh, Coryo!” He couldn’t believe you just cursed. But he then realized he was fucking you. Maybe he had already chosen.

“More, please-“ you manage to say between moans. And he’s in heaven again. He fucks you harder, faster, already feeling he was close too. The silver chain dangling just in front of your face. You swear he had split you in half, but the pain was nothing compared to pleasure.

“Wait for me. We’ll do it together” you nod, noticing how intimate and passionate your first time was being. He wanted you to wait for him. And it made your heart clench. You need to hold him. So, your arms hug him, and he understands, leaning to end up with your foreheads together.

In a matter of seconds, you both reach climax.

“Promise me you’ll be careful” he nods, kissing you one last time.

“It’s gonna be fine.”

But it isn’t. You run as soon as your friends say Sejanus Plinth was going to be hanged for treason. You run and your feet burn.

When you make it, you have to hear him screaming for Coriolanus. You start reaching the front faster. But you meet his blue eyes, and you are able to see him saying no to you. Your heart beats fast, sweat on your forehead and eyes watering faster than ever.

When you look at Sejanus again, his neck broke and he was already hanging.

Coriolanus sees the shock and terror on your face. The birds flying and repeating the last words of Sejanus make it worse. He holds the rifle firmly, but his eyes water too.

He follows you as soon as he’s able to leave. Too many things happening at the same time. And he really regrets not noticing you before. None of his life would’ve been ruined.

He finds you alone in your room. Your friends were working. But you were crying on the floor, covering your face and sobbing loudly. His heart broke, and he let some tears fall too. So he couldn’t resist it anymore. He went to hug you tightly.

As soon as you felt him, you hugged him back.

“He deserved better…” you mumble between sobs. You say he was a good man. But soon your sobs stop, and Coriolanus can almost hear you plotting.

“Where is the gun you used, Coriolanus?” His heart stops, and that’s his epiphany.

“I don’t know. Lucy Gray must know…” the girl could easily be fast to learn where it was. You remain silent.

After some minutes of crying, he’s still holding your hands.

“Lucy Gray wants me to go with her outside of the districts…” you don’t have the strength to laugh, but you really wanted to.

“One last time. Do you love her, Coriolanus?” He knows it’s time and there’s no going back. So he sighs, feelings the dry tears on his face.

“No.”

Your soul can finally rest.

“In two days, I’m leaving. I got accepted by Gaul into University. I just learned this morning after receiving mail.” He looks deep at your eyes. Trying to understand what you just said.

“Then you are going with Lucy Gray. You find the gun and if needed… Also get rid of her” you knew Lucy Gray was there when the incident happened. You had also made up your mind. And you would give Coriolanus one last chance.

“I’ll wait for you for two days. If you come back, you know I’ll be yours. But if you decide to stay with her, I’ll understand. And your secret will die with me.” He feels you kiss his cheek and after that, you quietly leave. Giving him no choice but to pack to meet Lucy Gray at the Hanging Tree.

…

You wait impatiently for your train. Coriolanus was gone. He didn’t return. So, you wait with your heart full of fissures. Your violet dress makes you a target among the station. You look very Capitol again. But something from District 12 changed you.

And then you hear him. Calling your name.

When you turn, you see Coriolanus almost running towards you. You can feel some tears forming. Your messed up mind was ignoring all the hell he made you feel and see. Like he never killed anyone, like he didn’t take so long to choose you. Like you didn’t know he consciously chose to be a bad person.

He looks agitated, with his peacekeeper uniform intact. His blue eyes look thrilled. Like a lot of emotions were invading him at the same time.

And the first thing he does when he’s in front of you, is to smash his lips with yours.

It takes you by surprise. The way his free hand immediately goes to your chin. In the middle of the train station. Feels like you were meeting your lover who survived war. It feels wrong to be savoring the moment you realize Coriolanus Snow finally chose you.

At that very moment you tangle your arms around his neck, stepping on your tiptoes to deepen the kiss. He feels you smiling, and that’s all he needed.

He needed to kiss you to forget about the cabin, the birds, the gun and Lucy Gray Baird.

And he does, your lips assuring him it was okay.

He isn’t evil, he can’t be when a sweet woman like you was kissing him back.

It was delicate for sure.

“Is it over?” You ask between tears. He nods, smiling, holding you close to him.

“Everything is over now.” You won’t ask what happened. You will just savor the victory.

“I can go to the Capitol. Gaul wants to see me” your eyes shine, relief flowing across you. Knowing you will be able to go back home with him.

“Where does this leave us?” He chuckles.

“We’re marrying as soon as we make it to District 2, dear” he kisses you to soothe your shock.

Almost at the end of the ride on the train, you chuckle looking at the window. He looks with curiosity, still drooling over you wearing the earrings he gave you. They would be his reminder that you had been there since the beginning, when he had nothing to offer. And yet, you stayed.

“What?” He finally asks.

“We’re a liability, you know?” A smile forms on his face. He shouldn’t be smiling, but he does anyways.

“I would repeat everything if it meant ending up here with you” and it was true. Because he would receive the money from the Plinth family, he would be able to study from Gaul, with you. He would get rid of Highbottom, and anyone on his way. But what seemed to be the most urgent matter, was to make you his wife.

But for now, he just takes your hand, kissing it.

….

Soft!Coriolanus fic is next. Hint? It’s gonna be based on Supercut from Lorde. Thanks to my crush with Tom Blyth, I realized Reputation and Melodrama are my favorite albums on earth. If you want to be tagged on the next fic, comment!!!!!!!! <3.

Taglist: @peachyharht @toogardenheart @slytherinholland @futurecorps3 @asapkyndall @speedycashflowerbasketball

#coriolanus snow x reader #coriolanus x sejanus #coriolanus x you #coriolanus x reader #young coriolanus snow #coriolanus snow #coriolanus smut #the ballad of songbirds and snakes #tbosas

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sukunas-wife · 1 month

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What about the idea that baby Yuuji overhears the screams in the bedroom and thinks Sukuna is hurting mommy?🥺Mommy's little protector. Or the baby asks why they need a collar on the bed, but the mother lies that it is for their future dog/cat. Sukuna is unhappy, but is forced to get a pet because Yuuji is too happy

Hehe pervert 🤭 I’m joking 🥹🤍 but I love the idea

This is the first time your little sweet heart Yuji wasn’t by your side. Today his heart was set on following Uraume around, he was set on following him convinced at times of the day he was just a ghost who would vanish into thin air. Uraume didn’t have a problem with letting his young master follow him as long as he didn’t have to slow down his own business.

You’d see them cross your path a few times that day, Yuji always waving his chubby hand at you with a bright smile before running off to catch up.

The first time Sukuna saw you that day was just before midday, you were out in the garden under the plum tree fingers grazing the fruits you craved. He strolled over scaring you when you felt two of his hands on your waist, the third reaching up with ease to pull down the golden plums you struggled to reach.

“Thank you,” you reached up to his face bringing him down to kiss his lips, he bit at your bottom lip before he pulled away looking at you amused, “Where’s my son?” You turned to face him, smiling as your eyes moved away from him, “OUR son wanted to assure Uraume is not a spirit. Yuji is set on following them around from dawn till dusk.”

You looked back up at Sukuna, he brought a hand up to each side of your waist, “Is that so?” You felt like prey when he pressed you back against the tree, his third arm pressed over head against the bark, his fourth hand came up grabbing a strand of your hair running it between his fingers. “Well, now that you don't have our little brat with you, what are you going to do?” He leaned down closer to your face, his scent filled your air accompanied by his low suggestive tone, “More importantly what are we going to do together.” All it took in that moment was for his lips to meet yours while he brought you closer to his body, holding you close and whispering filthy words against your lips.

It was four or five hours past midday, one or two hours before dinner. Uraume was still on the move with purpose in their step and their mind set on completing whatever tasks Sukuna had assigned them that morning.

One of those tasks was to bring fresh robes to Sukuna’s separate chambers. Which lead Uraume to enter though your shared chambers and they would’ve gladly ignored the sound of wooden frame of your bed creaking. Not have batted an eye at Lord Sukuna’s muffled grunts and your quiet cries. Uraume, the master of “I mind my own damn business but I DON'T HAVE TIME FOR THIS” went about business until they heard the small voice.

“Uwaume! Mommy’s crying! We need to help her!” Uraume quickly snapped around snatching up Yuji, “Don’t worry Young Yuji, your mother is perfectly-“ Both of them were cut off by the sound of wood cracking and a slam. Followed by Lord Sukuna’s voice reverberating clearly through the heavy wooden doors to your private chamber. The last thing was your weak voice saying Sukuna’s name. The string of curses and your name from his father had Yuji shoving his way out of Uraume’s hold and running to your doors.

Behind closed doors you almost peed yourself hearing the bangs on the door and Yuji’s screams. “MOMMY MOMMY ARE YOU OKAY!? DADDY IF YOUR HURT MOMMY IM IMA! IM GONNA…” the banging stopped, “LEMME GO LEEMMEEEE GGOOOOAAAGGGGHHHHHHH” you could almost see the way Yuji was kicking and squirming in Uraume’s hold.

Your heart was racing, and you took a deep breath, “Su,” you looked down at him where he was still laying on you. He looked up at you amused, “Your son just threatened me through a door for hurting you.” His chest rumbled as he let out a breathy laugh. You rolled your eyes, “OUR SON, just heard you trying to give him a sibling and your humoured that all that came from it was he was threatening you?” Your eyebrows raised with a slight smile, you were amused but still concerned for what your little Yuji heard.

Sukuna groaned rolling off your body to avoid crushing you entirely, your bed creaked and finished falling to the floor as the last two legs gave out. You tried not to laugh at Sukuna’s slightly widened eyes. “Your next bed will be one of those made of solid cedar. These raised beds are flimsy and break always.” Rolling over to his side you placed a hand on his chest, your head resting on his shoulder, “Or maybe, you shouldn't let your ego get so big and see if you can break every new bed you bring into my chambers?” Sukuna looked away, both arms on the side you were pressed up against holding you close, “I’ll think about it. Now come here, take that collar off before it taints your skin red.”

Almost an hour passed of Uraume holding Yuji like a sack of potatoes under his arm to keep him from running to your room. In that hour you briefly fell asleep under the graze of Sukuna’s hands. The red leather Sukuna had his name branded into was pulled off your neck and thrown onto your bed to be cleaned up later with your bed.

Waking up from your short rest you got up, Sukuna helping tie your Obi and managing to loosely tie your hair in a nice manner. Of course you couldn’t walk away from him without having your ass smacked. Your walking was cut short the moment you tried and couldn’t take more than a few steps and your own legs caving causing you to fall into your husband who was smirking down at you with lidded eyes. The puff in chest, pride in his lidded eyes, the smug “heh,” you almost missed made you side eye him. “You were the one who asked me,” he mimicked your voice poorly, “Please please fuck me Sukuna, give me everything.”

While he snickered he assisted in helping you sit in your shared chambers bed while poking and prodding at you and your sensitive bruising body.

Sukuna was chuckling to himself as he pulled the blanket over your lap, “I’ll call for Uraume or one of your little maids to bring you dinner. I’ll tell them you’ve fallen ill and it’s best to let you eat and rest.”

There you sat, watching your husband look back at you one last time with a faint smile before he left. You sat in the silence taking a breath, that was until you heard a familiar scream and the sound of little feet running in your direction, “OI BRAT! I JUST TOLD YOU YOUR MOTHERS ILL!” You laughed silently at Sukuna’s yelling, Yuji who let out a little grunt and shoved with all his weight against the wooden doors, “mmoommyy!!?!” He ran to your side of the bed doing everything to climb up, even pulling your blanket down so he could hold on and pull himself up. When he was finally on the bed he sat on your legs looking up at you with those big round eyes, “Are you okay?” His little hands came together, he was looking at you with so much concern it squeezed your heart making you wanted to kiss all over his face and fawn over him.

So you did, he laughed being pulled into your chest as you kissed all over his face and squeezing him in a tight hug that he did his best to hug you back. “Yes baby I’m alright, daddy and I were just having a discussion and you know your daddy.” Yuji laughed, eyes closing while he smiled big “hehe he breaks things.”

It wasn’t long before Sukuna walked in with one of your ladies, she was holding a tray with your dinner, Yuji bounced off your lap and onto the floor “Wanna go see what daddy broke.” You watched as he ran to your room, pushing past the door. Your lady in waiting helped you adjust yourself to be able to eat whatever was served. That was until you heard Yuji’s loud cheery voice “WERE GETTING A DOGGY!?”

You were confused as you looked at Sukuna and he seemed equally confused until you saw his eyes widen slightly before he went back to a neutral expression.

“Yuji, we are not getting a mutt.” You watched as he got closer to your door and you understood why he came to that idea, you looked down at your food feeling heat rise in your cheeks, “but it even had a name!” Yuji came running out of your room with the bright red collar in hand, an oval token hanging that said “Princess” . He had the biggest smile and was visibly excited.

Your lady in waiting was quick to dismiss herself as you waved her off, “We ARE getting a dog Yuji, come here.” You waved him over moving your tray off your lap, “Y/n- we’re not getting a- we are Ryomen.” You gave him a look and he gave you a look. You were both stuck in a stare off, the tension was there, “Ooouu that’s why daddy broke the bed, he can’t say no.” Sukuna looked taken aback, “I said no! And No is no!” He crossed his arms over his chest staring down at You and Yuji who sat in your lap holding the collar. Yuji looked up at you with a smile kicking his feet waiting to hear what you would say.

“Sukuna.” Your brows raised before you angled your head taking the collar from Yuji, “Why wouldn’t we get a DOG if we have a COLLAR.” you spoke through gritted teeth and he kept a hard stare on you, Yuji brought his little fists up to cover his smile, he was looking up at you with stars in his eyes, if anyone could bend his father like bamboo it was you.

Sukuna sighed and rolled his eyes, “FINE- but I'M choosing it, and NO ONE gets a say.” Yuji’s cheer of pure joy made him kick out his legs and throw out his arms. He was quick to hug you and kiss your chefs before running to his dad hugging his leg, “thank you daddy.” Sukuna couldn’t deny he had a soft spot in his soul for his son, especially when he placed a hand on Yuji’s head giving his head a rub. “Sure brat.”

A week had passed and you were outside with Yuji, he was using a stick like a sword attacking a tree making all sorts of sounds as if he were really fighting for his life.

“Oouuuuaaahhh” Yuji’s hands dropped to his sides when he saw his daddy emerge from the path.

“Mommy…” you were just as shocked. Here came Sukuna tether in hand. Until he got to both of you, “well?”

“Sukuna…” you looked at Yuji who looked excited, his eyes were wide and shining, his smile was big and his little fists were shaking in excitement as he stood there basically vibrating in excitement, “That’s not a dog..”

“IT'S A TIGER!!” You didn’t catch Yuji as he ran and hugged the tiger, your eye was twitching while he buried his face in the tiger's neck, his little arms not enough to encircle the beast.

“It’s better than a mutt,” you watched as he knelt, on arms resting on the tigers back, the other leaving firm pats on the tigers chest. Keeping the tether in his hand. “It’s tame also, she came from a palace where she was used to guard someone’s children, so she’ll take care of Yuji.”

You wanted to reject the idea just to hear Yuji’s little voice “I love you princess.” It squeezed your heart to see how cute he looked hugging her, she sat bringing one of her big paws over his shoulder like she was actually hugging him.

“I don’t think… I don't think it's good.- you hear that Yuji? I don’t think your mom wants us to keep her?” He looked at you while hugging Princess, his eyes started to tear up, dammit you never thought he’d use that against you, much less would it be that effective., “Please mommy?” He was looking up at you, and Sukuna was too, behind his son he had a sly smile, turning your plan against you, then there was princess, who looked up at you, purring while Yuji held on tighter, “Fine- but no Tigers on my bed, and maybe a new name… I don’t think the collar we have was meant for a fully grown… tiger..”

Yuji ran hugging you, “Daddy can get her a new collar and we can think of a new name like… like… lightning!” You snorted trying to not laugh, “Lightning is cute Yu, but I think she needs a better name.” He hummed, thinking while looking around, “What about lilies like the flower?” His little finger pointed past you, you turned to see the tiger lily he was pointing at, “It’s a pretty name if you like it.”

He walked over to Lily, his hands on her cheeks fluffing the tufts of fur, “What do you think lily?” The only response he got was Lily nuzzling his face with her nose, “I think she likes it.”

You looked at Sukuna and didn’t miss the smile on his face and the soft expression on his face. He loved his brat. You knew that he didn’t just find a tiger in some palace, he had to have already planned it to some extent.

Walking to his side you hugged his side, “I love you.” Doing your best with your free hand to pull him down, you kissed his cheek and he let out a “heh” sound. “So how long have you really had this planned?” You cocked a brow with a sure smile, “From the day of Yuji’s birth it was made known to me, one of those fools that live scared behind palace walls imported more than just a few.” You saw the smug look on his face and shook your head with a smile, “You are beyond belief.”

“LOOK” both of you turned to Yuji who had jumped on Lily trying to ride her, “Go lily go!” She only looked back at him and you looked away with a smile before Sukuna dropped the tether, “You heard the boy Lily.”

All you heard was Yuji’s scream when Lily started a decent pace run. Your mouth opened slightly, “su- he’ll be fine.” Was all Sukuna said cutting you off before wrapping both arms on his side around you. “Now, let’s talk about your punishment for defying me so openly in front of my son.” He took your jaw in one of his free hands, making you look up at him, those lidded eyes and sly smile made your nerves tingle, “Oh?”

Tag List: @sad-darksoul @satorisgirl @bontensbabygirl @lupita97lm @queen-luna-007 @venus-seeks @bofadeezs @sakuxxi @mercymccann @certainduckanchor @najiiix @bakugou-katsukis-wife @amitiel-truth @souyasplushie @mylovelessnightmare @ynjimenez @dolliira @princessluvz @furiousblacktiger @anyaswlrd @shytastemakerthing

Here’s my shop btw 🥺

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justawritterwithideas · 1 year

Text

law in pink | s.r

�� first part | next part ♡

summary: after confronting an unsub, it leaves you with a ugly mark and Spencer decides to give you a gift to cheer you up.

warnings: mentions of physical violence, beyond that a bit of girl power from reader and a sweet spencer worried about you.

this story is spencer reid (season 7) x ssa elle woods!reader

words: 1,567 words.

a/n: by popular demand, here is part two of law in pink, and yes, I will be returning to this story in a short series with chapters from ssa woods!reader x spencer. thank you very much again and I hope you like it.

The first rule everyone should know about you is that they must never mess with your face.

Never.

Because they don't know what a process it is to get it well cared for, hydrated and with that natural glow. They also don't know how expensive your skincare products are (always the best of the best) and your sessions with your dermatologist.

So they should never, but never, mess with your face.

But clearly an unsub wasn't going to know that, a criminal accused of killing 4 women with a twisted mind was never going to think that.

Least of all when his hand punched you straight in the face, splitting your lip and leaving a mark on your cheekbone, causing the taste of iron to be savored in your mouth.

"What, is Barbie going to cry about her face? I don't understand why they sent the weakest one."

You turned to look at him as you heard his sarcastic laugh, which didn't last long as the Gucci logo on your heel was branded on his cheek and he was falling dazed after hitting a box in the process.

"Weak? Please, you messed with the wrong Barbie." You smiled proudly at the sight of him on the floor, pawing at your face and letting out a groan at the sensation of pain. "Now I'll have to make an appointment with my dermatologist and a traumatologist because of you." You sighed pulling the gun away from his body and proceeded to take his hands to cuff them.

Within minutes, you heard some voices calling out to you, so you began to signal where you were. Within seconds, you saw a concerned J.J. and Emily come down to where you were standing, pointing their guns at you.

The scene was amusing and amazing to watch, you on top of a man who was twice your size as well as weight, lying on the ground while his hands were cuffed.

"Malibu Barbie just captured the undercover toy." You motioned for the cops to take him away, noticing how Emily got a close look at your lip.

"That must hurt."

"It'll hurt more for him, these babies are from last season and has a good sole. Fresh from the mail and ready to make a mark." You commented showing your heels to your companions, hearing their laughter at your joke.

The three of you walked out behind the hoard of people, noticing Spencer and Derek getting out of the newly arrived SUV. As soon as Spencer's gaze captured your face in his field of vision, you could feel him notice right away how your wounded face was the focus of the stares.

"What happened?" Derek looked in everyone's direction, stopping your gaze on you and the clear change in your usual 'perfect' face. "Oh no, Barbie..."

"Don't even look at me, better look at him." You pointed your chin in the direction of the patrol car, where your shoe logo was visible on the criminal's ruddy cheek. "My pilates classes taught him a good lesson." You commented smiling, but immediately let out a groan from the pain it was to move the muscles in your face. "But I think it will leave me achy for a few days."

In between conversations, the others convinced you to go get attended to, so you heeded and walked away from them in the direction of the ambulance, so they could give your cheekbone and lip attention.

"Are you okay, Y/N?"

Spencer's soft voice made you forget the pain for a few seconds, turning to see his face and giving him a smile where your white teeth took center stage.

"I'm fine, it was just a tap." The paramedic walked away to leave the two of you alone. You knew it wasn't an answer that would leave Spencer satisfied about your condition, in fact, his intense stare at you was more than enough to make that clear. You let out a sigh, turning to look at the brunette. "Well, I don't think it's just a 'tap out'. I'll have to ask for a couple of days until I show up at the office decently, not with this horrible face."

One of your biggest problems was your appearance, as many may note, because, if you weren't perfect, you couldn't leave your house.

It had to be everything, head to toe, just the way you have it in your head, if not, sorry, but they'll have to wait for you.

"It's not horrible, you still look just as beautiful." Spencer's words seemed impulsive, but they made your cheeks turn pink, even though I wasn't the only one blushing at that moment, Spencer's were just the same.

"You think so?" your eyelashes fluttered softly, watching the boy.

"Y-yes, y-you always look cute, Y/N."

A kiss on his cheek was the positive response you left for Spence to understand that his words were the best choice, and helped push away those thoughts about how bad you looked with a swollen lip and bruises on your cheek.

"Thank you Spencie, your words are always the right ones. Like a good Chai Latte on a cold day." You smiled getting up from where you were, indicating to him that you would go to the SUV.

For the first time in his life, Spencer appreciated his impulsiveness.

About a week later, you reappeared at the office for a full day's work.

Your body was covered by a pink skirt and jacket ensemble, something that was no longer a problem for anyone after weeks of seeing you arrive like this.

The only thing that wasn't pink at all was your black purse, a beautiful Alexandra. K. Joy and of course, the tray full of coffees you were carrying in your hands.

"Miss Universe, you're back." Derek smiled, causing you to walk up to him and leave a short hug.

"Good things always come back, now be a cutie and help me with this, D." You passed him the tray with coffees, walking beside him as you shared a couple of words.

There was a variety of coffees for everyone according to their tastes, you had taken the time to memorize each order so that it was to their liking.

And as soon as you appeared, you heard Penelope's voice call out to you. Your hand rose to greet her, approaching her with a smile.

"My pretty Y/N." The blonde immediately caught you in a hug, causing you to do the same.

"Penny!" you said cheerfully as you passed her a butterscotch frappe with plant-based milk. "I picked out something I thought you'd like."

"Thanks, cutie. How's your lip?"

"Sore, a little damaged, but better than I thought. My dermatologist recommended a magic cream that Lindsay Lohan used, she said it worked miracles and in two weeks it would be just the way it was."

A smile tugged at your lips, starting to pass out the coffees you had bought until you reached the last one: the one for Dr. Reid.

"Spencie." Your voice snapped him out of his head, turning to see you with a smile.

"Y/N, hey. How are you doing?"

"Much, much better, look... My lip looks almost like it did before! I'll get back to my pretty face." You placed the coffee in front of his eyes, giving him another smile. "A coffee loaded with vegetable milk, I heard around that you're lactose intolerant so I took the liberty of choosing for you."

A blush of embarrassment at that secret settled on his cheeks, causing him to lower his head.

"Thank you, Y/N. I appreciate the coffee." He lifted the cup, taking a sip from it and simply gave you a look, causing you to smile and go to your table.

But it was surprise that settled on your face as you saw a box full of skincare products. Your hands went to grab the products, noticing that it was every single one you occupied and ever mentioned.

"What? Guys... Wow." You held up the little serum box, but the confusion on Emily's face turned your excitement to confusion. "It wasn't you guys?"

"I don't even remember what I did yesterday and I'm going to remember your products, cutie. You take a lot of them." Emily laughed softly, but made you look again in search of the person responsible.

"There's only one person who can remember details like that." Derek's words drew your gaze from your desk to that of a certain doctor, who was shifting his gaze back to his paperwork. "And he hides behind his work."

A soft blush settled on your cheeks, causing you to bring the little box to your chest and press it to your heart, marveling at the detail.

Your feet soon made their way to the desk of the person in charge, and catching him off guard, you left a kiss on his cheek where your pink lipstick was stamped on his skin.

"Thank you, Spencie. I'll take good care of it."

Spencer's heart stopped for a couple of seconds, you could read it.

And as soon as you left, just like a tomato the young doctor's face colored. As a plus, the comments from Morgan didn't take long to come.

"Wow pretty boy, you just won the lottery."

Spencer knew it and that caused him to smile, because boy did he win it.

♡ first part ♡

If you like it, don't forget to like and repost it.

a lot of love, alme. ❀

#spencer reid #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid x you #spencer reid blurb #spencer reid fanfic #blurb #criminal minds fanfiction #criminal minds #spencer reid x elle woods!reader #legally blonde is superior #alme was here!

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luvyeni · 7 months

Text

❛DONT GO INTO THE WOODS❜ ( l. felix )

p. fairy!felix x human!reader w. 1.9k+

warnings? yandere themes, oral ( f. receiving ), unprotected sex, mind control

— 𖦹 ( your mom always told you never to go into the woods) !

freaktober masterlist

the first time you were told to never go into the woods you were 5 – that was the first time you saw him. he was the same age as you , but you could tell he was different from you , you didn’t have pointy ears and iridescent wings.

he was playing around and you being the curious little kid you were , you approached him. “hi.” he stopped what he was doing standing up. “you can’t be in these woods.” you frowned. “you’re a human.” he said handing you a flower. “people get lost when they come in here.” now that should’ve scared you , but as a kid you had no fears.

he took you by the hand , guiding you out of the woods safely. “keep this flower , i’ll see you when we’re older , my name is felix.” you didn’t know what that mean , but before you could ask him , he just disappeared. you couldn’t even process what was going on because soon enough you had been pulled into a tight hug by your mother who was crying.

“listen to me , never go into those woods okay , don’t go into those woods.” she said through tears. “why are you crying mommy?” your little self was confused. “i’m just happy you’re home.” you didn’t know what that meant at the time , but when you got older your mother told something that shocked you. you weren’t in the woods for a few minutes like you thought – you had been missing in those woods for 3 days.

that was years ago , you’re now an adult , you moved away from your home , graduated school , got a good paying job , and a lovely boyfriend – life was good , but you for some reason you always felt tied back to your childhood home – to those woods , to felix.

“hi mom.” you walked into the house , your mom wrapped her arms around you , she never really got over those horrible 3 days , never really letting you out her sight , she was devastated when you moved away for college , so you tried to come and visit her whenever you could. “ah! my daughter , you’re home.” you smiled. “and you bought your wonderful boyfriend , come in and get settled , i’m gonna start cooking.”

“your mother loves you so much.” you nodded unpacking your bags. “she’s a little overprotective , but that’s just because of what happened when i was 5.” you said. “what happened?” your boyfriend asked. “see those woods outside my bedroom? i was lost for three days in those woods.” you said. “oh my god , how can you be so calm.” you shrugged. “because to me it only felt like a couple minutes.” your boyfriend look bewildered. “what?”

“yeah , people say that the woods are magic , as a kid i believed it , i even imagined a fairy boy around my age , he even gave me a flower , his name was felix.” you laughed. “you have a wild imagination.” he wrapped arms around your waist. ‘you will be mine’ you furrowed your eyebrows. “you okay baby?” you shook the thought away , smiling. “yup , i’m fine , let’s go help mom.”

the night went on , and soon it was nightfall and everyone said their good nights , going to their respective rooms. you one the other hand – you sat up in bed , you couldn’t sleep , your mind still on the woods , and that fairy boy from all those years ago. ‘come to me’

there was that voice again , you looked around and saw nothing. ‘come to me my love’ you got up , slipping on your slippers , covering yourself with your robe. “baby?” you heard your boyfriends sleepy voice. “just gonna get some water baby , go back to bed.” you smiled , he nodded muttering a i love you before opening up the bedroom door – something catching your attention on the floor , a flower , a bunch of flowers , the same one that imagined the fairy giving you. ‘follow the flowers my love.’ you picked up the flowers , that made their way all the way to the front door. ‘open the door my love.’

you don’t know why you were listening to this voice , it was like you couldn’t stop yourself – you kept walking and walking until you reached that forbidden place , the place where you first saw him. ‘let me lead you’ it was like you had no control over your body , like your feet were moving on its own , deeper into the woods – your house slowly getting smaller until you could no longer see it.

Your feet carried you further and further until you reached a house , but not just any house , a tree house , the door was slightly open , you pushed it open , walking in. “hello?” you finally felt like you had control over your body and your voice. “is anybody there?” you heard something coming from a room , following the noise , you found yourself outside a bedroom. “come in my love.” you heard a deep voice. “i’ve been waiting for you.”

“who are you?” he turned around , and you were stunned. his angel like face , freckles scattered all over his face , his blue hair adding on to his magical look. but what tied his magical look together was the iridescent wings – you remember those wings from anywhere , those wings had never left your mind. “you’re him , you’re the little fairy boy , felix!”

he smiled , making his was over to you. “i knew you’d remember me , i knew my angel would find me.” he said , his hand coming up to caress your face , you should’ve stopped him , but you couldn’t , his touch just felt normal. “did you like your gift?” you held the flowers. “they’re really beautiful , i kept the one you gave me when were kids until it died , i was so sad when it died.” you said. “i know i saw and felt how sad you were.” he said. “y-you felt it.” you stuttered , he nodded taking the flowers from you , sitting them in a empty vase , like he’s been waiting. “i’ve been tied to you since that day , no matter how far you went , i could always feel everything you were feeling , see everything you were doing.”

“e-everything?” he slowly turned to you. “yes angel , everything – i could feel when you were sad , i saw when you cried.” he slowly walked over to you , backing you into a wall. “i felt when you were angry.” his hand coming up to your robe tie , pulling at it. “i could feel when you were horny , and when you would fuck your little fingers into your dripping hole.” his deep voice soaking your panties. “i could see it all.”

your breathing was so heaving , his fingers tracing your body. “m-my boyfriend.” his eyes turned dark. “he doesn’t matter anymore , none of them do , you’ll never see them again.” he pushed the robe off your shoulders , letting it hit the floor , leaving you in your short night gown. “you even dressed so pretty for me.”

he pushed you down on his bed , hovering over your body. “the day you came into my woods i knew i had to make you mine.” he kissed the inside of your thighs. “y-your woods?” you were so confused , you couldn’t understand a thing he was saying. “these woods baby , they’re mine.” he pulled your panties down your legs. “the creatures and other beings in these woods , they’re under me , and soon you too.” he kissed your pussy. “my queen.”

“felix!” you shrieked feeling his tongue dragging up and down your folds. “taste so fucking sweet baby.” he groaned against your cunt , the vibrations making you moan. “such a tasty pussy.” the fairy ate you like a starved man , his wings flapping behind him , grinding against the bed as he shoved his tongue deeper into your hole. “fuck , fuck felix i’m gonna cum.” you screamed.

he pulled away , shoving two of his fingers into your hole. “wanna stretch you out before you take my cock.” he thrusted his fingers in and out of your hole. “gonna take it like a good girl right , let me fuck your pussy open?” you nodded , moaning. “then cum for me.” he kissed your clit , taking in your all your juices as you came. “shit!”

he lifted your night gown over your body , taking his pants off , he looked ethereal his naked body hovering over yours. “gonna fuck you now.” He rubbed his cock on your folds. “you feel so warm.” you moaned , as he grabbed the base of his cock , sliding into your dripping hole. “fuck you feel like heaven angel.” he groaned , his cock stretching you out as he seethed himself inside you. “just perfect.”

he moved his hips , grabbing your jaw. “look at me princess , keep your eyes on me.” he moaned , his eyes pulling you deeper into his trance. “as of tonight , you’re mine.” he grunted. “forget about your old life , spend the rest of your days as my queen right? you nodded , basically signing your life away , but you could care less with the way he was fucking you. “y-yes.”

upon hearing the small yes they fell from your lips , he sped his movements up , rutting into much faster. “f-felix.” you felt your orgasm bubbling up. “gonna cum angel , let me feel you cum all over my cock.” he rubbed your clit , you , your cunt squeezing tightly as you came.

“fu-fuck , i wanted to wait until we were wed to fuck you full of my kids , but you’re squeezing me so tight.” he cursed. “gonna cum inside you -fuck- tonight.” he groaned. “give me a heir to the throne.” he thrust faltering , thrusting one , two , three times before cumming inside your cunt. “fuck!”

you laid in his bed while he heated up the bath , getting inside with you , washing your skin. “so pretty.” he whispered , kissing your delicate skin , he finally got you , after years of waiting for your return , he finally got you. “you can’t escape me baby , these woods they’re different , they listen to me.” he kissed your temple.

“you’re all mines and all mines , forever.”

©LUVYENI

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ddejavvu · 7 months

Note

I don't know if you're taking requests right now so if you aren't just ignore this, BUT if you are...

Imagine Hotch getting a call from babysitter reader where Jack is in the ER cause he sprained his ankle and, obviously Aaron is a little upset and worried. But when he gets to the ER he sees that reader is an absolute wreck of tears and snot and she rambling on and on about how sorry she is and how she never meant to let Jack get hurt. And Aaron's looking at her like 'omg she's so adorable when she's a mess'. So he calms her down and they go to Jack and Aaron sees that Jack isn't even crying he's just sitting in the bed with a lollipop and a wrap on his ankle. And now Hotch is trying not to laugh at reader for so ridiculously overreacting.

And you can finish it. I know it's a long ask but it's been in my head for a while and it would be such a pleasure and honor for you to make the drabble come true. 😘 love YOU and all your work!!!!!

Aaron's been repeating the phrase sprained ankle in his head over and over since he'd gotten the call from the hospital, but now he's wondering if Jack has since been crushed by some wayward hospital machinery when he spots you hunched over in the waiting room, sobbing into your hands. Your shoulders are shaking and Aaron gravitates towards you rather than the door behind you, letting his shoes click audibly against the linoleum flooring to alert you of his presence.

"Y/N," He calls, and your head shoots out of your hands, your legs trembling as you stand to greet him. You're a wreck, eyes puffy and red and nose dripping obscenely despite the tissues in your hands.

"Mr. Hotchner, I'm so sorry," You gush, and he doesn't hesitate to take you into his arms, voice soothing as he shushes you, "I- I swear I was watching him, but he wanted- he wanted me to wait at the other end of the slide, so when he fell I wasn't close enough to catch him, and he- he- I'm so sorry!"

"I know," He hums, "It's alright. It's not your fault, he's a kid. He gets scrapes and bruises all the time. Where is he?"

"In there," You gladly accept his embrace, even if you don't particularly feel deserving of it, and you jerk your thumb towards the door behind you, "I'm not family, so they won't let me in. They need you to sign paperwork."

Aaron's mouth twists down in a displeased frown, and he makes a mental note to ensure you're on file as one of Jack's emergency contact. Jessica is the only person besides himself that he's added, but in case of any future incidents, he wants you to be able to stay with Jack.

"Come with me," He only withdraws one arm from around your shoulders, keeping the other draped across your shivering frame to keep you steady, "Let's go see him, honey. It's okay, I'm not upset with you, okay? It's not your fault."

"But- but I should have-" You press, but Aaron cuts off your babbling before you can whip yourself up into another tearful frenzy.

"Did you push him?"

You rear back, aghast, "No!" and Aaron has to bite his tongue to stop himself from smiling at the indignation in your eyes. For you to love his son so fiercely as to be offended by such a notion only reinforces his confidence in you as a caretaker.

"Well then, it's not your fault. He almost got a concussion on my watch, you know."

You swallow a sob, composing yourself as he walks through the doorway, pointedly dragging you along with him despite the nurse's suspicious look.

"Really?" You ask, and Aaron nods.

"I was making dinner, and I called him in from the living room. But I'd left my computer charging on the desk, and the cord was on the carpet, and he tripped over it and smacked his head against the wood floor."

You wince at the story, and Aaron internally does the same, remembering the sickening crack of his son's head against the flooring, "It was scary. And that was my fault, I left the cord out."

"But you didn't mean for him to trip over it," You muse, letting Aaron guide you through the hallway towards the room that the nurse had directed him to over the phone, "It wasn't your fault."

"And neither was this," Aaron concludes, stopping in front of door 208, "Ready?"

Your shoulders sag at his artful storytelling skills, and you nod, wiping your hands once more over your eyes. It doesn't do much for your runny nose, and Aaron takes his pocket square from his suit, holding the back of your neck and persisting even when you try to squirm away.

"Aaron- no!" You protest, trying to dodge his grip to no avail. Your words are muffled as he smears the fabric under your nose, "You'll ruin the material!"

"Jack gets macaroni and cheese fingerprints on my suits all the time," Aaron grumbles, his grip firm and tight on the back of your neck, "It's nothing my dry cleaners can't fix."

When he's satisfied that you're as cleaned up as you can manage, he tucks the square back into his pocket, unphased by the grimace you shoot him. The echo of his hand on the back of your neck is still present as he knocks on the door, and he's pleasantly surprised when Jack himself opens the door, his ankle wrapped with a bandage.

"Hi, Daddy!" He grins at Aaron, lips stained red with the remnants of a cherry sucker, "Hi Y/N! You look sad."

"I am sad," You supply feebly, eyeing his ankle warily, "Are you okay, buddy?"

"Mhm!" Jack nods, letting his dad push the door open and guide you inside the room, "The doctor says I can still walk on it, I just hav'ta rest a lot."

The doctor, perched on a stool inside the room, nods with a fond smile at Jack, "That's right. He needs to walk on it for it to recover, but he shouldn't overextend himself. thirty minutes to an hour of exercise each day should do the trick."

"Thank you, doctor." Aaron nods, "Is he free to go?"

"Yes, if you'll just sign these." The doctor pushes forth a modest stack of paperwork, maybe ten pages that Aaron hopes are mainly spots for signatures, "I need to attend to my next patient, so I'll send my nurse in to collect those in a few minutes."

"Thank you," Aaron nods, and you bid the doctor the same thanks as he takes his leave, lingering by the doorway until Jack takes your hand.

"The doctor said to give you this," Jack digs into the pocket of his plaid shorts, pulling out a green lollipop, "He said he saw you crying in the waiting room. Were you crying in the waiting room?"

"I was," You try to smile, but Aaron can tell with only a quick glance at you that you're fighting back tears again, "I was worried about you, Jack. It's okay, you can have the lollipop."

"No, it's for you." Jack insists, and Aaron watches your trembling lips pull into a smile as Jack pushes you over to a chair against the wall, herding you into the seat. You let him direct you into the middle seat, but he bypasses the seats on either side of you to climb right into your lap.

"Here," His tiny fingers pry at the plastic wrapping of the sucker, "I can open it for you."

Aaron doesn't have to look up again from the paperwork he's signing to know there's fondness written all over your face, he can hear it in your shaky, 'Thanks, buddy'. He knows it's there because he can feel the same thing in his own chest, and he doesn't bother trying to keep it off of his face as it flowers equally abundant for both you and his son.

#aaron hotchner x reader #aaron hotchner imagine #aaron hotchner scenario #aaron hotchner oneshot #aaron hotchner one-shot #aaron hotchner one shot #aaron hotchner headcanons #aaron hotchner headcanon #aaron hotchner hc #aaron hotchner hcs #aaron hotchner fanfiction #aaron hotchner fanfic #aaron hotchner fic #aaron hotchner blurb #aaron hotchner drabble #aaron hotchner dialogue #aaron hotchner fluff #aaron hotchner x reader fanfiction

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starsofteal · 2 months

Text

Daylight

Halsin x Tav // Halsin x Reader

Summary: Tav misinterprets Halsin’s declarations, thinking he must not want her as much as she wants him. Can Halsin convince her of his love? A/N: Well, my first Halsin fic is here! Based off this dialogue from the game, featuring a classic miscommunication trope. When I first came across this dialogue, I found myself rather disappointed by Halsin’s declaration, and I realized I was focusing on all the wrong parts of it. I couldn’t get the idea out of my head, so here we have a scenario in which Tav has done the same. This fic is so self-indulgent it should be a crime. Warnings: Hurt/Comfort (emphasis on the comfort—I promise all’s well that ends well). Pretty spoiler free, except for the opening dialogue if you’re romancing Halsin and you want all that to be a surprise.

“Relationship?” A deep chuckle rumbles in Halsin’s chest. A sinking feeling settles into your gut. You weren’t sure what to expect when you broached the topic of a potential relationship, but a laugh? A direct blow from an enemy sword would have hurt less.

“Such terms belong to civilization—a little unfamiliar to my lips.” His words continued, but that soft smile, those kind eyes, the strong, steadfast shape of Halsin, it all begins to shift, distorting just slightly as traitorous tears prick at your eyes. A quick bite of your inner cheek reminds you to hold steady, to not let the tears fall��by every star in that gods damned sky, you are not going to let him see you cry.

“…you and I should each seek happiness wherever it lies…”

He’s still going on? You think to yourself. How long can one rejection take? You bite your cheek even harder, a coppery tang bursting on your tastebuds.

Halsin’s words echo in your mind, despite the fact that his monologue seems to continue, piercing your heart again and again, the pain stealing the breath from your lungs. You will yourself to take in another breath.

“Let others know the happiness of being with you.” Halsin smiles down on you, not an ounce of malice in those soft green eyes. The staunch difference between his kindhearted gaze and the red-hot pain radiating in your chest was nearly laughable. In fact, at that very moment, you were unsure if your next steps would include crying, laughing, or launching an all out assault on the mountain of a man before you—an action that would surely not work out in your favor given the comical size difference between you two.

In the end, it was all you could do to offer a small, meager, “I see.” It’s a notable effort to keep the emotion from your voice, but you’re proud of the attempt all the same.

A frown breaks out across Halsin’s face, his brows knitting together in confusion. “Have I said something wrong, my heart?”

Those two words are a slap to your face. You don’t trust yourself to speak, not again, so without a word you turn and make your way to your tent as fast as your feet can take you.

The fabric barely has time to fall in place behind you before the warm tears finally break free.

_________

Two days had passed since the incident. While you wanted nothing more than to mope about on your bedroll and avoid Halsin altogether, your situation doesn’t exactly allow for such luxuries.

Which is how you find yourself in the woods with Shadowheart, foraging for ingredients to top off your party’s supply of potions and tonics. Though you left early in the morning, the sun glares bright overhead now. Wiping a bead of sweat from your brow, you crouch low beneath a bush and scan the area for the bright violet blooms Shadowheart had you scouting for.

“I just don’t understand why you had to drag me out for this,” you fuss at your friend as thorns from the underbrush prick your side. Your clothing offers little protection against natures most irritating defenses.

“Surely there’s…someone more suited to this than I.” Your following scowl can’t be entirely blamed by the literal thorn in your side, not as thoughts of Halsin flash through your mind once more.

Shadowheart hums absentmindedly. “Yes, this is true. Halsin is more in tune with the forest,” she mutters, collecting something from the earth too small for your eyes to make out. A soft clink tells you the specimen makes it into the glass bottle. “I was actually hoping to talk to you about that,” Shadowheart continues, popping the cork back on the bottle and tucking it away.

“About what?” You hiss as another thorn embeds itself in your palm. You toss a scowl her way before distracting yourself from the conversation as you fiddle with removing the thorn. You’re not sure which hurts worse, the abrupt change in conversation topic or the wound in your hand. Impervious to your dirty looks, Shadowheart makes her way over to you.

“Well, you two were nearly inseparable. Absolutely enamored with each other—anyone could see it.” She takes your hand into her own to assess the damage.

“And now, well, if I’m being completely honest dear, you’re rather dour, you seldom leave your tent, or you’re looking for any excuse to get away from the party—sorry this’ll only hurt a second.” You wince as she pulls the thorn free and presses hard on the wound to stanch any bleeding. “And, well, Halsin’s been…unusually forlorn. Like a poor dog that’s been kicked in the stomach.”

With a scoff you withdraw your hand, taking care to apply pressure to it just as Shadowheart had done.

“I couldn’t care less what Halsin’s been doing.” The lie is ash on your tongue.

Shadowheart looks at you then, really looks at you. You try your best not to fidget under her assessing gaze.

“What happened?”

“I—“

“And don’t bother lying to me,” she’s quick to interrupt. “Save it for someone else. I know something has been bothering you.”

Resignation floods you. Leave it to Shadowheart to see right through your bravado and into your heart.

“I was a fool for thinking he could ever be happy with me.” The words are soft as they fall from your lips, but they burn your heart all the same. A firm weight falls on your shoulder as Shadowheart offers an encouraging hand.

“Tell me everything.”

_______

Halsin’s voice calls out your name from just outside Shadowheart’s tent. His low timbre still brings a tightness to your chest, but you will yourself to breathe normally. You’d been doing your best to avoid him since getting back to camp with Shadowheart, but you suppose now is as good a time as any to rip that particular bandage off.

“Yes, Halsin?” You ask matter of factly, not even looking up from the array of ingredients you’re currently sorting through. You pointedly ignore his gaze as he steps into the tent, taking up a majority of the albeit limited empty space.

Halsin clears his throat, clearly uncertain how to proceed. You two had always shared such an easygoing openness between you, but the last two days had left him scrambling for purchase.

“I was hoping we could talk,” Halsin smiles down at you, undeterred by your clear avoidance.

“Mm, we are talking.” You collect up one of the empty potion bottles, wiping at a smudge spot with the edge of your tunic.

Halsin forces a chuckle, but his smile doesn’t reach his eyes. “Of course we are, but, erm, perhaps we could go for a walk? Enjoy some of nature’s company for the evening?”

“That won’t be necessary.” Your tone is sharper than you’d intended, but the guilt passes over you in a second as you replay his words in your mind, his scoff when you so much as mentioned a potential relationship.

Halsin sighs. He had hoped that his 300 odd years of experience would give him a leg up in navigating this prickly conversation, but—as is usual when you’re involved—his heart and his tongue seem to be tripping over one another.

“My heart,“

That gets your attention. Your gaze snaps up to his, laced with venom.

“You do not get to call me that. Not anymore.”

Halsin feels his own chest start to cave in as the hurt flashes across your face—you master it a moment later, but the damage is done.

“I’m not sure what I’ve done to upset you,” he starts, but you interject again.

“It’s fine. I’m not upset,” you force some neutrality back in your voice. “You weren’t interested in things continuing between us, and that’s fine. Nothing to apologize for.” You gesture to the flap of the tent. “You can take your leave now.”

Halsin does the opposite, braving another step closer.

“Of course I need to apologize. It appears my words have caused some confusion. Worse yet, I fear they’ve caused you pain.”

At that, you still, finger pausing over the bottles set up in front of you.

“You must know that I would never intend to hurt you.” Halsin’s tone was bordering on pleading. “Even now, it physically pains me to know that I’ve hurt you so.” He draws a hand to his chest, moving as if to soothe an ache that’s nestled beneath the surface there.

You glance up to see the hurt now reflecting in his eyes. It’s enough to bring forth a sigh from your lips, your shoulders caving in as resignation takes over your body. Even now, you can’t find it within yourself to hate him, no matter how much easier it would make this.

“You’re not responsible for my feelings, Halsin,” you sigh. “They are my own.”

“No, but I do take responsibility for my words,” he counters.

“You don’t want a relationship with me and you said as much. There’s nothing left to be said.” Despite your best attempts, your voice breaks on the last word. You close your eyes, clinging to the blunt words, mentally rebuilding your armor to power through the rest of this conversation.

“There is so much left to say, my heart.” Halsin’s gentle words caress your face like the sun’s rays on a warm summer day. “I have so much left to say.”

You keep your eyes closed, focus on taking another breath, keeping your heart steady. “Then speak.”

“I love you.”

Your eyes spring open, and Halsin is before you, close enough to touch. A large, tentative hand reaches up to cradle your face. You don’t pull away, and that’s enough to bring relief to Halsin’s heart.

“I don’t understand,” you whisper, afraid your mere voice would crack the perilously thin ice you suddenly find yourself on. “You said—“

“That I would not keep you to myself,” Halsin is quick to finish the thought.

“That we should seek out other people,” you correct, a touch of anger shading the words as you step out of Halsin’s grip.

At that, Halsin’s eyes widen. “No.” His voice holds more sharpness than the druid had ever shown with you before. “I said no such thing.”

“Well, maybe not exactly, but the sentiment was there,” you grumble, the frustration seeping through at your hazy memory.

“That ‘sentiment’ is misguided.” His tone leaves no room for argument, but you do it anyway.

“Well, forgive me if I don’t have it memorized word for word—I was a little busy having my heart broken,” you snap.

Halsin pauses for a heartbeat and you watch the pain shine in his pale green eyes at your words.

“And I will never forgive myself for the pain I’ve caused you these last few days. But listen to my words now. I beg of you.”

Another heartbeat passes. He takes your silence as permission to continue.

“I don’t abide by these conventional rules set in place by society. My home is in nature, and I follow the path the Oak Father has set before me. These ideals of what relationships should or shouldn’t be, you’ll have to forgive me if they're all but foreign to me.”

Another wave of disappointment washes over you and you close your eyes in a futile attempt to deter the familiar pinpricks of tears. A warm, familiar hand caresses your face before tilting your chin up to bring your gaze to his.

“But trust me when I tell you that I have never met someone like you. My heart does not stir lightly. But it does for you. What I feel for you pales in comparison to those who came before you.”

There is no doubting the sincerity that lies in those soft verdant eyes.

"It feels as though I have been asleep in a centuries long dark night, and now I am finally seeing daylight,” Halsin’s deep voice soothes, each word repairing the aches and tears of your heart.

“There is no one else for me, my heart. Call it what you wish; you are all I want. Nothing would make me happier than to have you by my side for the rest of my days, if that is what you desire as well.

My love for you runs deep and true. Never doubt it, my heart.”

And then his lips are on yours, and every thought eddies out of your head, but one: Halsin loves you.

Pure joy and relief floods your body and you don’t even bother trying to stop the tears of joy that follow. Halsin pulls back from the kiss just enough to swipe the tears from your cheek.

“I love you, too, Halsin,” you whisper in the space between you as Halsin presses his forehead to yours.

“Forgive me, my heart. For the pain I have caused you.”

You smile up at that handsome face you’ve grown to hold so dearly. Your slender hand reaches up to caress his cheek, tracing the swirls of his tattoo. “Only if you’ll forgive my foolishness for doubting you.” You feel the shame rise up, bringing a heat to your cheeks.

“My heart, there is nothing to forgive,” Halsin murmurs before pressing another kiss to your forehead.

#halsin #halsin x reader #halsin x tav #halsin silverbough

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