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twola · 6 months

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idk if this is too vague, but arthur/f!reader in the classic trope of, oh my god I can't believe we both almost just died sex? did they both almost drown? Was there a fire? did he save her life? who knows! i feel like arthur would sees the woman he loves almost die and immediately fuck about it

Okay this has been in my asks for WAY too long and it’s such a good one and I wanted to do it justice.

Left Unsaid

Arthur Morgan x F!Reader Smut (18+), MDNI

➵ Fic Masterlist ➵ AO3 Link

When he think's he's almost lost you in a run-in with a rival gang, Arthur quickly gets over his nervousness in approaching you.

The bloodcurdling scream jolts him from sleep, making him stumble up from where he was sitting on a rickety chair in the main room of the old cabin. At first, he thinks it's a dream, but when the sound of breaking glass pierces the night, Arthur shoots up; the chair falling to the ground in a clatter as he quickly shakes the vestiges of sleep from his mind.

This abandoned cabin off of Eris Field seemed the perfect place to spend the night instead of making the trek all the way back to Shady Belle tonight - your yawning from behind him on his horse had him chuckling as he made the decision to stay - doing the gentlemanly thing and giving you the bedroom with the old single bed. As much as he’d like to be sharing it with you - he remained externally aloof - proclaiming that he’d sleep on the chair in the main room. He certainly did not dare to ask to share your bed - not now, probably not ever.

But the rustling and thumping behind the door where you sleep has his heart racing - his hand flies to his revolver as he readies himself to throw his shoulder into the door and shoot whatever it is that is making that noise, but the door bursts open before he gets the chance.

A man stands on the threshold - dirty, and grimy, with a faded gray woolen military uniform and a yellow bandana around his neck.

Of course, goddamn Lemoyne Raiders.

The raider holds up his knife in front of him, and in the din of movement and chaos around them, Arthur can see the liquid sheen over the steel in the man’s hand.

The knife, dripping with blood. The man, seemingly unharmed. The door, slightly ajar, to the bedroom where you slept.

A cold stone settles in Arthur’s gut as he puts the pieces together. In an instant, he snarls, diving toward the man with little regard for his own person, tackling him to the ground and ready to rip him apart with his bare hands for what he’s done to you. As Arthur mounts himself on the man’s chest and begins to strangle him, the movement knocks the oil lantern off the table, crashing to the wooden floor and immediately bursting into flame.

The man’s neck snaps between Arthur’s hands and he immediately leaps up, moving toward the bedroom where you were sleeping.

Another body crashes into him, a Lemoyne Raider dressed like he is straight out of a Civil War battle tackles Arthur to the ground, the two of them tumbling along the floor and breaking through the rickety door to the porch. Arthur rolls backward, unsheathing his hunting knife as he grits his teeth, ready to slice this damn bastard into shreds.

Of course, the wannabe soldier is no match for the hardened outlaw. They sure as hell don’t make them like they used to. Arthur easily dodges a swing of the man’s fist and throws his weight forward. He sinks his knife into the raider’s gut, and immediately shoves him to the ground. He gurgles blood from his mouth as Arthur rushes over him, back toward the house.

The flames burst out the windows as he barrels back toward the door, grabbing at the handle and cursing aloud as it burns him.

The constriction in his chest has settled into a churning in his gut as he prepared to kick the door in. At this point would he be finding your charred, lifeless body, having bled out on the floor because he couldn’t protect you?

“Arthur-!”

He steps off the porch, not sure if he is lightheaded or hallucinating, but you move toward him, hitching your skirts, blood covering your blouse, your hair wild.

“Jesus-” He crashes into you, having nearly leaped the final few steps, crushing you into his chest, nearly causing you to stumble.

He yanks you back, large hands on your shoulders, and looks you up and down, eyeing the blood patch on your blouse.

“N-not mine.” You breathe, but he does not move his hand from your ribcage. It presses inward, against the wet cotton, splaying across your side as if he did not believe you, checking for where the knife would have marred your flesh.

“Arthur-” You whisper, your hands tight on his biceps, “I’m alright.”

His eyes dart back up to yours, searching, pupils dilated, breathing heavily.

“Ar-”

You’re cut off completely as he pulls you against him and presses his lips desperately against yours, muffling your surprised yelp as his tongue demands entrance into your mouth. After a moment of shock, you melt into his embrace, fingers tightening on his shirt sleeves as you open your mouth to him.

He kisses you like you are the air he breathes. Like you are some kind of salvation… like he thought he almost lost something.

Arthur pulls back, breathing heavily, a flush having taken over his face, “Christ-” he goes to unwind his arms from you, “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have-”

It’s his turn to be cut off as your hands immediately travel to the collar of his shirt and you pull him down to your lips to kiss him again, needy as you moan into his mouth.

His arms immediately recircle you, hands moving down from your ribs, down, down to your waist, your hips, your rear. Hooking his arms around the back of your thighs, you’re lifted up, squealing in surprise into his mouth as you wrap your legs around his waist.

Continuing to press into each other's mouths, you barely notice him walking the two of you back, further from the flaming cabin, into the woodline, and finally against a tree trunk a safe distance away. He pulls back, panting as you recline against it, his arms tight under your thighs.

He gazes upon your kiss-swollen lips; your heaving chest as you breathe heavily, your pupils blown wide in arousal. Arthur takes the opportunity to roll his hips once, his hardening cock pressing against your cunt, and your eyes flutter closed as a needy, breathy whine escapes your lips.

“Arthur-”

He does it again, maybe for his sake as much as your own, the blood rushing to his groin and filling his cock properly. He grits his teeth as the rolling becomes rutting, your gasps driving him insane.

Before he gets to the point of no return, he slows his hips and leans over to recapture your lips in another kiss. As he pulls his

“Thinkin’ you was dead back there-” He pushes his lips to yours again, “Christ- I… I never told you-”

One of his hands leaves your thighs, but you have no fear he’s going to drop you. He buries it in layers of cotton, pulling at your skirts to move them from his way, reaching your bloomers and pressing against your cunt, watching your face intently as you moan, the cotton separating you quickly dampening against his fingers.

He leans in again and groans against your neck. Grabbing the cotton tightly, he yanks until he feels the seams give way, the tearing sound ringing in his ears as he delves within the ruined fabric to your soaking folds. You jolt against him and whine loudly as he slides his fingers along the seam of your body.

Arthur covers your mouth with his own as he sinks his fingers into you, working you open as you clutch desperately at his shoulders.

After you’ve cried out several times in the night, his hand leaves you and you sigh at the loss, he shushes you gently as he works at the buttons of his trousers, finally freeing his cock from his pants after moments of fiddling. His hand returns to your thigh as he adjusts you in his arms. The head of his cock presses gently against the rim of your cunt.

Your hands move from his shoulders to cup his face, your thumb tracing his lower lip gently before he sucks the tip into his mouth, his eyes trained on yours.

He pulses his hips and his cockhead slips inside you. Your brows crinkle with the first vestiges of the ache of penetration, and he leans forward again to press his lips upon your forehead.

“What did you never tell me?” You whisper as he holds you on the cusp of joining, the precipice of sheathing himself into you.

One of his hands leaves your thigh, though you are completely unafraid of falling with your legs wrapped around him and the strength of his other arm. His fingers brush back a strand of your hair from your forehead, tucking it gently behind your ear before his rough and calloused palm rests on your cheek.

“You’d have died and I woulda never told you I’m in love with you.”

Your eyebrows raise in shock as you clutch at him, and while you remain silent, after a moment, you pull him closer with your legs, nudging his back with your ankles, and he slowly slides himself inside you, inch by inch, until your hips touch and you mewl with the stretch. He hums softly before slowly, gently, rocking his hips, starting a slow rhythm as you get used to him.

His powerful arms keep you suspended against the tree trunk with each roll of his hips, each glide of the inches of him in and out of you, well glossed and hot with your slick.

Arthur’s lips press to yours incessantly, muffling your gasps and whines as he presses into you. After one particularly deep thrust, you throw your head back in ecstasy, bumping against the trunk of the tree.

“Careful there, darlin’,” Arthur slows his hips, and tightening his grip on your thighs, he pulls you away from the tree, you yelp and tighten your legs around his hips. He chuckles softly as he walks you, still joined, a few steps from the tree and slowly lowers the both of you to the ground on a patch of grass. Spreading himself out over you, he buries his head against your neck as he lets go of your thighs, his forearms on either side of your shoulders, rocking his hips into yours again.

The staccato whine of the syllables of his name escapes you as you hook your ankles around each other over his back. Carding your hands through his hair, your fingers interweave between his honeyed strands, his hat long gone in your desperation to join yourselves.

He presses himself up above you as his thrusts become more erratic, his breathing loud and heavy as he pounds you into the ground.

“God-” you cry out as your hands grasp his shirt, “Arthur, yes-”

He squeezes his eyes shut tightly, looming over you as he careens toward completion.

You arch your back, your thighs wrapping tighter around him as you begin to babble - “Yes- Arthur… I love you too-”, another gasp as he hits that spot within you, “God - I love you so much-”

That’s it. There it is, stripped bare and bleeding out like an open wound, his heart catching in his chest at your confession, and his amazement leaves him speechless as he thrusts into you once more, holding himself as deep as he can possibly get into you, feeling you pulse and clutch around him, wailing your pleasure into the night. It’s only a moment more before he has the wherewithal to yank himself from you, in the nick of time as he spurts his seed over your cunt, dripping white into the dark curls at the joining of your legs.

He’s gasping, you’re gasping, and he groans as he settles himself to the side of you, barely able to hold himself up with the exertion. Your legs hang open as you pant, flushed from your cheeks down your neck.

One of his large hands spreads out over your chest, against your racing heart, and you turn your head toward him, breathing out through your nose as a smile graces your lips.

“Probably should get outta here before any more stragglers find us.” He says, out of breath as he removes his hand to tuck himself back into his trousers. You nod and sit up, pulling your skirts down over your legs.

“D’ya think…” you trail off as you watch him rebutton his pants before he pushes himself to stand. His hair is ridiculously ruffled from the amount of times you've run your fingers through it.

“Mm?” He holds out his hand to you to help you up.

You take it, and he pulls you up into his embrace, his hand secure on your lower back.

“Was wondering if we could spend the rest of the night in Rhodes or somewhere instead of heading all the way back to camp…” You ask as you lay a hand on his chest.

He squeezes you closer to him.

“Sounds mighty nice… certainly wouldn't mind a stay in a hotel room tonight.”

#red dead redemption 2 #arthur morgan #rdr2 #red dead fanfic #red dead redemption #arthur morgan smut #arthur morgan x female reader #arthur morgan x reader #twolafic #prompt request #red dead fandom #rdr2 fanfic

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whore4abby · 7 months

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a room with a view; abby anderson

part one

warnings; older!abby, ditzy fem!reader, mdni

wc; 1.1k

you were getting tired of the bustling city-that-never-sleeps lifestyle, and it was starting to take a toll on you, leaving you feeling burnt out and in need of a little getaway for a while. you had decided to surf the web and look for any airbnb listings, preferably something a couple hours outside the city.

whilst idly scrolling through the available rentals, you eventually stumble upon a listing that catches your attention. the listing is for a room to rent on a charming farmstead nestled in a serene and rural part of a small town, surrounded by rolling hills and lush greenery that seems to span for miles and miles in all directions.

intrigued by the listing, you quickly make up your mind and decide to book this spontaneous getaway. the thought of being on a farm for a few weeks has you feeling giddy and excited about your new adventure, picturing yourself in the idyllic fields and playing with the animals, maybe even going for a dip in a nearby creek.

and after a few swift clicks of your freshly manicured fingertips and a trip to your purse to fetch your credit card details, you’ve finally secured your reservation. you try to hold back your excitement but before long you’re giggling and kicking your feet like a schoolgirl, rustling the soft floral sheets beneath you with your frenzied movements.

a couple weeks later, you find yourself driving up a long and winding path up towards the farmhouse. the fields either side of you filled with gorgeous wildflowers and tallgrass, the gentle breeze causing them to sway slightly. you hum along happily to the music emitting from your radio, a little smile on your face as you feel the warmth of the sun hitting your cheeks.

abby sits on the front porch of the farm house, a coffee mug in one hand and a lit cigarette in the other. she hears the low rumble of your engine and looks over as you slow down and pull up outside the quaint farmhouse. she watches you hop out of your little white convertible and prop your sunglasses up on your head, your wedged sandals crunching at the gravel beneath your feet as you saunter around to the trunk to grab your bags.

abby stands up, taking a final sip of her coffee before walking off the shady porch and towards you. she crosses her arms across her chest and stares at you, clearly unimpressed with your arrival. the clothes you’re wearing scream ‘city girl’ and she thinks you look a little ridiculous walking around in a short dress and high heels.

“i think you're in the wrong part of town, darlin’…” she blows out a big cloud of smoke and raises an eyebrow at you, looking you up and down and throwing the cigarette butt to the floor and stomping it out with the heel of her beaten up cowboy boots. “y/n right…?”

“yeah, that's me…and you’re abby, right?” you smile, before attempting to haul your luggage out of the car. abby nods and sighs before getting closer to help you with your things. “here, let me…” she mumbles, not waiting for your response before grabbing your bags and suitcases one by one. you watch her as she effortlessly lifts the bags and walks with them towards the modest home. you finally get a good look at the woman you’re gonna be spending the next month with, and you feel yourself start to get a little flustered around her as you watch her biceps strain against her plaid shirt.

you giggle softly and look up at her “i could’ve done that myself-” she smirks ever so slightly and gives you another subtle once over, “a pretty little city girl like yourself…? i don't think so, honey.”

abby looks down at you smugly, and gives you a sceptical look, speaking lowly, “ya know.. this is a farm right? this ain’t a vacation. you can’t be wearin shit like that. jesus christ, girl.” she mutters before she starts to take your bags into the farmhouse.

“this is where you’re gonna be staying.” abby sighs and almost rolls her eyes as she leads you down the corridor and into a bedroom. its a small room, nothing like what you’re used to back at home, but you’ll make do just fine. she sets down the pile of bags and stands with her hands on her hips in the doorway. “set your shit up…” she looks at you sternly.

“listen to me missy….im not dealing with any of this bullshit-” she gestures to the excessive amount of belongings you have, from the makeup to the ungodly amount of clothes and other useless material items.

“i don't want you leavin all your things around, yeah? this is my house and you’re gonna follow my rules whether you like it or not…understand?” you resist the temptation to roll your eyes and give her attitude, instead choosing to just nod for the sake of staying on her good side. and with that she turns on her heel and retreats back down the hallway and disappears out of sight.

you let out a heavy sigh and lay back on the bed, giving yourself a little time to adjust to your new temporary home before you start to unpack.

the next morning, you step out of your room, heels smacking against the hardwood flooring as you join abby at the table. she looks up from her newspaper in disbelief and scoffs at your choice of outfit, but its obvious she likes what she sees as her eyes drift down to your thighs, which are barely covered by your itty bitty denim shorts. “coffee?” she pushes over the pot towards you and your eyebrows furrow, “no iced lattes?” she snorts in amusement and shakes her head, “just drink the damn coffee, doll~”

you huff but still bring the mug up to your freshly glossed lips, drinking from the steaming mug, and shuddering a little at the bitter taste, “not even any sugar?” you give her an innocent smile, hoping to woo her into agreeing with you. but instead she looks at you as if you’ve deeply offended her, making it pretty clear she’s not willing to compromise on this.

she finishes reading and snaps the newspaper back together, throwing it down on the table and standing back up. “hey, wh- i wasn't finished!” you pout as she scoops up your mug and pours the coffee down the drain.

“remember what i said!? my house. my rules. now hurry up we got work to do-” she bites back harshly and opens up the door, ushering you out and resisting the urge to slap your ass as you pass by.

god this was gonna be hard work.

#*ੈ✩‧₊˚ ⋆.ೃ࿔myfics⌨️#abby anderson #abby tlou #tlou abby #abby anderson x reader #abby the last of us #abby anderson x you #abby x reader #abby anderson x female reader #abby anderson smut #abby x fem!reader #abby x you

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emepe · 2 months

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— Pairing: Eren x Reader, friends to lovers

— General info: series, 18+, modern AU, serial killer AU, smut, fluff, angst, hurt/comfort

— Summary: Fate is a tricky thing. Certain situations can’t be avoided as much as certain people’s lives can’t be kept from intertwining. With a serial killer on the loose, and unexpected relationships blooming, how will the universe intervene?

— Chapter summary: A simple dinner party leads to new relations. Eren Jaeger can't keep his eyes off of you.

— Content warnings: mentions of murder, alcohol consumption.

— Notes: I'm so excited to post the first chapter to my new series. I've been wanting to write again for two years now and I finally got hit with inspiration. This is a little different from my usual stuff, but I hope you'll like it. A special thank you to @dreamy-jaeger for beta-reading <3 Happy reading, bubs!

Links: Read on AO3 | Chapter guide | Masterlist

at first sight

Nobody ever said anything about the desperate cries that could be faintly heard from one of the units in Sina Park. Then again, the surrounding houses were occupied by people well into the age when sound just doesn’t reach them as well as it did even just a few years back.

Sina Park was known for being a peaceful area. With its small and painterly identical houses, and its gardens full of color and floral aromas, it was a picture-perfect community. It wasn’t embedded into its terms to remain strictly as senior-only housing but the great majority of its residents certainly gave off that idea to any outsider. It was to the point where it came as a surprise for one to find out there was someone under the age of sixty living there. But everyone in Sina was well acquainted with each other, and friendliness was practically the norm between every carefree neighbor.

That was probably why Mr. Shadis didn’t bat an eye when he was enjoying a cup of tea on his front porch and he saw the youngest of the Sina community step out with a duffel bag that was promptly thrown into the trunk of his car, the same night silence reclaimed its territory in Sina Gardens.

“A bit chilly tonight, eh Fred?” Mr. Shadis asked from his side of the street, raising his hand in greeting when he saw his neighbor walk out.

The young man tossed a boyish smile toward his elder while reciprocating his wave.

“Just a bit, Mr. Shadis. You probably shouldn’t be out much longer or you’ll catch a cold,” he replied, still smiling as he slammed his trunk shut and smoothly tossed his car key in the air with his left hand, catching it swiftly with his right.

“Me? What about you?” Shadis teased.

“I’ve still got good bones,” he joked to which Shadis clicked his tongue, feigning hurt feelings as he shook his head.

“You be careful on the road now, eh Fred?” he said, watching the young man disappear into his car, his hand lagging behind to wave goodbye.

The car peeled slowly from its driveway, out of Sina Park, and onto the main road. As the speedometer needle trembled between steady numbers, music flowed softly through the car’s speakers, barely loud enough to disguise the disgusted voice that murmured “That’s not my name, you stupid fuck.”

The early autumn breeze pins your skirt against your thighs and playfully tussles your hair as you hurry toward the bakery on the corner of the street. You’re welcomed by the pleasant jingle of the bell above the door, as well as Kuchel’s warm interior that puts a stop to the outside’s disturbances on your clothes.

A slight impatience consumes you as you wait for your turn to order, but you try to keep your booted feet from tapping against the hardwood floor and settle for tapping your fingers on your wallet as you try to assess the available baked goods from your spot in line. There’s a variety of sweet and salty treats — from jumbo oatmeal cookies to pain au chocolat to rolls — but you’ve only got a single thing in mind. A breath of relief escapes your lightly chapped lips when you get close enough to see a neatly stacked pyramid of lemon bars in the display, and a second one after you have a box of them secured in your hands minutes later.

A satisfied smirk tugs lightly at your lips as you allow yourself to admire the neatly packaged treats. As you make your way to the door, the bell dings, pulling your attention from the box and saving you from clumsily bumping into the man who just walked in. The exchange is brief; he quickly apologizes for the avoided accident and holds the door open for you with a shy smile.

You don’t reciprocate his warm smile but opt for politely nodding in acknowledgment and thanking him for the gesture before hurrying out the door, not wanting to prolong his act of kindness more than necessary. You take a sharp turn toward the nearest bus stop, completely oblivious to the lingering pair of emerald eyes that steal one last glance at you from inside the bakery.

Once again, the wind teases your hair until it finds itself locked out by the shutting door of the bus you settle into. Your hand dives into your purse to retrieve your earbuds as soon as you find a seat, yet no music plays throughout your journey. The box from the bakery remains safely in your lap, the contents being lightly jostled now and then when the bus stops to pick up more passengers.

From the bakery to the bus and for the twenty-minute commute, you go over the names of the people you’ll be meeting in your head.

It’s not often that you get invited to a coworker’s housewarming party. It’s not often that you form a friendly relationship with a coworker. In fact, it’s not often that you engage with someone at all unless it’s for work or other impersonal things. But Armin Arlert’s nice. Despite being the kind of person who can’t seem to let the purposely lonely be lonely, you’ve taken a liking to him.

His friends, you think, might be a different story. It’s not that you expect them to be dreadful people, but socializing has never been your scene. You can be pleasant, laugh at jokes, and perhaps even throw one out yourself, but it’s not in you to pursue deeper connections. You’re more at ease keeping to yourself and observing if anything. However, the hopeful look on Armin’s face during your lunch break last week, when he insisted he wanted you at his party, has been popping up in your head at all hours so you feel as though you have no choice but to go beyond your standard pleasantries.

Your plan for surviving the evening is simple. Get there a few hours early so you can help cook, clean, or anything else Armin might need help with before his friends arrive. Partly because that’s what your altruistic nature steers you to do, but also because you’re hoping you can get a refresher course on what Armin's friends are like so you know what to expect and how to act. If they’re all friends of Armin, maybe it’ll be worth it for you to put some genuine intention behind your courtesies. After all, being friends with Armin hasn’t been difficult so far. You dare to even call it nice. Maybe it’s time for you to make at least one more friend.

Armin’s kitchen is bustling with energy as he and his friends move from one spot to another, swiftly keeping out of each other’s way in perfect sync to finish dinner preparations.

“I still can’t believe every single one of you bought me a candle… and the same one to top it all off,” Armin shakes his head in amusement, his mind recalling the small cluster of ocean-scented candles he left on the living room coffee table.

Despite his constant assurance that he’d take full responsibility for the food and drinks — he was the one to bring up the idea of a housewarming party first, so it only made sense —, all of his friends arrived little by little before noon to help out with the cooking. First was Mikasa who, as soon as Armin opened the door, handed him the gift bag with a smile, congratulating him on the move and saying she hoped her present would help make the place a little cozier.

Then came Connie and Sasha who, despite being roommates, failed to coordinate their gift choices and only realized they bought the same thing when Armin opened Sasha’s bag first and Connie’s jaw dropped in absolute horror. It only got funnier from there. Jean barely stuck the carefully wrapped gift box toward Armin when Mikasa muttered under her breath “It’s a good day for candle sales”.

“Well, you like candles, and the ocean is pretty much your brand, dude. Don’t blame us.” Jean shrugs, not bothering to peel his focused gaze from the carrots he’s grating.

“The last time I even talked about the ocean I was, like, fifteen. Almost ten years ago!”

Everyone knows Armin loves the long-term supply of ocean-scented candles, and what may seem like complaints to outsiders is just another bit they’ve all dragged on from their youth.

But Connie still seems a bit lost. His hands pause from sprinkling rosemary leaves on the potato wedges Mikasa neatly laid out on a baking tray.

“So you’re not fucking with the ocean anymore?” he asks with an uncharacteristically serious expression that causes Jean to sputter a laugh before disguising it as a cough.

“Ignore them,” Sasha prompts, rolling her eyes. Her lips then stretch into a suggestive grin. “Tell us about the girl you invited over. Before she gets here, you have to tell us for real this time, are you into her? Do we need to talk you up? I’m the best wingwoman, Armin. I will make her love you even if it kills me.” Sasha’s hands fall heavily onto Armin’s shoulders as if to back up her conviction.

Armin furrows his brow in mild exasperation. This was the second time he’d been harrowed with that string of questions, which didn’t seem like much, but it took a while for him to get his friends to drop the topic the first time around. He shakes his head and peels Sasha’s hands from his form, fixing them firmly at her sides.

“I already told you it’s not like that. And I don't think human sacrifice is needed, Sash. We’re friends. I just want her to meet you guys… and Eren, of course.”

Nobody picks up on the short pause before Eren’s name or Armin’s sly expression that he’s quick to hide by turning to face the sink.

“She’s a bit quiet but she’s really nice. I think she’ll be a nice addition to our group. You’ll like her, I promise. Just go a little easy, okay?” Armin pauses as he tugs on a pair of dishwashing gloves to whip around one last time. “And don’t say anything weird! I swear I’m telling the truth.”

“Okay,” Jean replies in a sing-songy voice. Armin turns to shoot him a threatening look upon hearing his teasing tone, only to find Jean pointing a stern finger in his direction, “But if you change your mind, I got you, bro.”

Armin only smiles in response, not willing to spare any more breath in correcting him, and starts washing the dishes. Before he can finish scrubbing the bowl in his hands, the doorbell rings and he rushes to pry himself free from his dishwashing gloves before heading to the intercom, glancing back to make sure everyone is still keeping busy.

“It’s me,” a slightly fuzzy version of your voice comes through the speaker.

He buzzes you in immediately and steps into the hall to wait for you.

When he sees you round the corner, his face breaks out into a grin.

“Hey, you made it!”

Your lips quirk into a small smile. Armin makes way for you to step inside.

“I thought I could get here a little early to help you with the food. I hope that’s okay.” Your voice trembles a bit at the end, and you start to worry when you realize Armin’s grin has faded.

“Actually, everything is pretty much done already. Everyone got here around noon, and they kind of took over.”

As if on cue, a burst of laughter hits your ears from where you assume the kitchen is.

You manage to let out a slow ‘oh’.

Your simple plan has officially backfired. Since Armin's friends are already here, and since he's had no shortage of hands to help him prepare for his get-together, there's nothing left for you to do. More importantly, there’s no more window for you to ask questions. You hoped you’d be the first to arrive, and each arrival after that would be spaced out so you had enough time to get a feel on every one of Armin’s friends on their own. Now that that’s out the window, you start to worry the dynamics will be a bit too awkward between you and however many there are of them. It’s a battlefield now. Too many factors, too many things to worry about. Headfirst, no safety net, no baby steps.

Almost as if he can sense your panic through your otherwise expressionless face, Armin smiles.

“Don't worry about it, they're nice.”

Your fingers curl tighter around the box of desserts. There's a permanent knot in your stomach that twists further, reminding you of its presence, in situations like this. Your mind flashes a jumble of different scenarios and all the possibilities for outcomes without letting you actually process or make sense of any of it.

And in the next instant, you're back.

“I brought some lemon bars from Kuchel.” You raise the box just enough for the movement to catch Armin’s eye.

His face lights up when he looks down at the box in your hands and he immediately takes hold of it.

“I freakin’ love these! Thank you!”

Relief washes over your previously tensed features. Of course, you already knew these specific lemon bars are Armin’s favorite. He's always bummed out when you go together to Kuchel for your lunch break and there's no more left.

“I actually got the last batch,” you state proudly, the feeling only growing when his fingers excitedly tug at the ribbon tying the handles together and fishing out a pastry, biting into it with no hesitation.

“No kidding, they always sell out. Come on, I'll introduce you to everybody.” He heads toward the kitchen, waving at you to follow him.

You nervously tug at your turtleneck's sleeves, leaving them to cover your hands in an almost protective manner.

The fact that all eyes fall on you the second you step into everyone's line of vision doesn't help you feel at ease. Your gaze wanders to a distant place in an attempt to lessen the mental weight everyone's stares bear on you. But Armin throws a comforting arm over your shoulder and gives you a light squeeze as he announces your name to everybody.

When you look up — because you have to in order to properly link names and faces together — each new person in the room has a warmth to their features that gradually soothes your internal distress.

Sasha’s the first name to be called out. She's also the only one who goes up to steal you from Armin's arms and hugs you excitedly, squealing about how exciting it is to finally meet you. You're taken aback by the sudden embrace, but she’s holding you so tight that you can't look back at Armin for help. You're also oblivious to his warning gaze toward her behind your back.

Mikasa smiles and nods politely at you from the other side of the counter. It's quite the contrast from the first girl, but her gaze radiates kindness.

Jean's good looks are the first thing you notice from him, and he's got a cool energy to match. He raises two fingers in a salute when it's his turn, paired with a side smile as he casually leans against the bar.

Lastly, there's Connie, who proves himself to be as goofy as Armin told you beforehand, by dramatically posing with one arm against the counter and his opposite hand resting on his hip, muscles flexed, head turned low just so he could look up again and say “the one and only”.

You purse your lips in response to hide the smile that still manages to slip through.

“Nice to meet you all.”

You stand there awkwardly for what you think is a second too long, silently begging to come up with something else to say or for someone else to pick up the task so everyone can move on.

Thankfully, Armin swoops in, showing off his box of lemon bars on his way to a seat at the bar. He taps the seat next to him, gesturing for you to sit.

“Impressive,” Jean says, nodding in approval as he neatly folds a tea towel. He knows how much Armin loves Kuchel's lemon bars.

“It's not a big deal,” you reply, waving him off as you scan the room for something to give yourself to do. But there isn't much.

The counters have been cleared of any signs of ingredient prep during introductions, there's a timer set for the oven, and there's but a small pile of dishes left unfinished at the sink, which Mikasa is already finishing up. So you settle for sitting at the bar and staying out of everyone's way.

However, sitting still doesn't clear you from everyone's attention. It only makes sense that they're curious about you. And with the oven timer still with a little less than an hour to go, you can sense the start of a conversation where you're the main focus.

“So…” Jean begins.

Everyone gathers around the bar.

You brace yourself.

The following minutes are a bit of a blur. You try your best to keep up with everyone's questions. Where you're from, your birthday, your zodiac sign, what kind of music you like, if you've been to this and that place, or tried the food at x, y, and z. They're pretty basic questions, but as long as you're a target you're kept on your toes. After each of your answers, there's an exchanged glance or a nod of approval. You know everyone is only trying to get to know you, yet you can't help but feel as though every question is part of a test and your likability is at stake. That is until the conversation branches out to a story about the best taco truck in the next town over, which, in turn, leads to a story about Connie and Sasha getting food poisoning from a different taco truck they decided to try after their favorite one happened to close early that day. Only then can you breathe a sigh of relief. You even laugh a little at Sasha’s colorful retelling of the taco story.

“So, basically, don't go to Tito's,” Sasha finalizes, giving you a stern look. “You'll be shitting and barfing for a week.”

“I'll keep that in mind,” you laugh.

After that, the conversation flows a lot easier for you. There's less pressure with the decrease in questions thrown your way, which gives you more confidence to chime in with anecdotes of your own. It's hard to pinpoint when the conversation stopped feeling like a test, but you're grateful for it.

You realize there was never any battlefield to survive. Not here, not with this group of friends. And it’s nice to have several people willing to fill in any silence and steer the flow of the conversation instead of feeling the pressure of everyone's interest in your hands.

Just as you take a second to wander your gaze across everyone's laughing faces, finally feeling at ease with your place in the group, the doorbell rings, followed by the shrill sound of the timer.

“Fucking Jaeger,” Jean mutters.

“Just in time,” Armin grins, hops down from his chair, and makes his way to the door. Jean follows him at his heel, mumbling something about “Jaeger” being late.

You're distracted by Mikasa's voice calling your name.

“Could you get me the oven mitts, please?”

You nod and offer your assistance in taking out the chicken.

On the other side of the wall, Armin buzzes his last guest in and holds the door open to wait, shooting a confused look at Jean, who leans back against the wall to wait, too.

As soon as he comes in, Armin yells out, “Eren!” and pulls his best friend into a big hug, forcing him to crouch slightly to accommodate his embrace. They both laugh as Jean stands with his arms across his chest and a disgruntled look on his face.

“Hey, man. Sorry I'm late.”

“Mhm,” Jean hums, expecting Eren to cower under his gaze.

He doesn't. Jean is completely ignored as Eren sheepishly starts to explain himself, even though Armin didn't expect him until around this time anyway.

“I wanted to get you those lemon bars you like from that bakery. But when I got there, they were all out, so I went to their other shop across town, but they didn't have any either, and so then I—”

Armin laughs.

“Relax. You made it, that's what matters.”

“I feel bad, though. I really wanted to get some for you. I know they're your favorite.”

“If you really wanted to do something nice, you could've gotten here earlier to help with the cooking,” Jean scolds. Then he smirks. “Like I did.”

Eren rolls his eyes, finally acknowledging Jean.

He then pulls out a small gift box and hands it to Armin with a smile.

"I got you a candle, though."

Jean snorts and walks back to the kitchen, leaving an annoyed Eren shooting daggers at his back.

Armin graciously takes the gift, taking the lid off to confirm that the candle is, indeed, ocean-scented.

"Thanks, buddy. I was running short on these," he smiles sympathetically at his friend, patting his shoulder.

As they walk into the open space of the dining area, you walk out with a stack of plates in your hands to set the table. Armin perks up upon seeing you and excitedly rushes Eren, saying he wants to introduce him to somebody.

Armin’s voice catches your attention as you carefully set the plates down. “This is my best friend Eren.”

Your gaze shifts toward the pair of surprised green eyes already set on you while Armin’s voice goes on in the background, repeating your name to his friend.

“Hey, it’s you.” Eren smiles in recognition.

Armin’s eyebrows raise in surprise; yours furrow in confusion. Everyone starts filing to the dining area with food and silverware to finish setting the table. You step aside, murmuring quiet apologies as you get out of their way and step closer to Armin and his friend.

“You two know each other?” Armin asks, his gaze shifting between the two of you.

Before Eren can answer, he’s interrupted by Mikasa walking over.

“Hey, Eren. You’re late.” She looks up at him with disappointment. You get the feeling he was supposed to arrive around the same time she and the others did.

“Yeah!” Connie whines from the dining table, where he’s setting up wine glasses. “We had to work twice as hard.”

Eren ignores Connie’s flawed math.

“Sorry, everybody,” he replies, yet his tone is more that of a meek kid who’s forced to apologize.

He returns his focus to his original conversation. Armin is still looking at him expectantly.

“Oh, right! Uh… yeah, we bumped into each other at Kuchel’s earlier,” he finally explains. He looks at you shyly. “I held the door for you.”

Your furrowed brow softens, and your lips shape into a silent ah! when you recall the brief interaction. You didn’t even remember his face, but you nod along now.

“Come on, guys. Let’s eat!” Mikasa’s voice cuts through the silence, putting an end to your conversation.

Throughout dinner, everyone is a lot more chatty than you expected, considering there's plenty of food to get through. Everyone spills out as many light-hearted anecdotes about one another as the bites they take of baked potato wedges, garlic butter chicken, and grated carrot salad. Their stories are clear to have been brought up between them several times over the years, but they're new to you and you appreciate them choosing to share with you.

It turns out, the universe has worked its magic to make sure all six friends remain close since childhood. The fact is a little intimidating when you find out, but you do your best to push it aside.

At first, you're perfectly fine quietly listening as you eat, your voice only adding to the mix in the shape of a laugh, a gasp, or a question for the storyteller — just enough so they don't forget you're there.

The entire time, you feel a pair of eyes stealing glances at you from across the table even when you're not talking. Whenever you slowly look up to meet them, Eren quickly shifts his gaze elsewhere. When choosing places at the table, Armin insisted on having you across from one another. He didn't outright say it, but he did rearrange everyone else so that it worked out that way.

Given that he was the last to arrive and you've barely spoken directly to each other since he got here, you're not sure how to feel about Eren yet. He seems nice enough, but you don't feel as easy even looking at him as you do with the others. It's strange, but his late arrival made all the difference. Somehow he seems like a total stranger compared to the people you met just an hour before him. After your awkward introduction, it’s hard to say if you can make the situation better.

Night has settled in by the time everyone is leaning back in their seats with full bellies, lazily sipping wine every few minutes as the conversation eases into a quieter, slower pace. The serving dishes have been scraped clean. The box of lemon bars you brought over has been split for dessert, leaving just one lonely square that you know a slightly tipsy Armin has been eyeing.

Eren had turned to look at you with surprise when Armin thanked you for the second time.

“Ah, so you're the one who beat me to the last batch,” was what he said.

A soft apology tumbled from your lips.

So far, you hadn't proved yourself to be big on smiling but, when you did, it was nice to look at. Consequently, he tried to be the cause of at least one. So when you gave him nothing for his weak attempt at teasing, he shrunk in his seat and decided to keep quiet.

It's not long before Jean suggests moving to the living room to play a game and you take that as your cue to start clearing the table so there's no mess to come back to later. As you slip quietly into the kitchen, you can hear Jean and Connie arguing over whether to play cards or Monopoly. As Connie argues, he doesn't want to play Monopoly with a cheater, to which Jean says it's not his fault he's the better player.

You carefully place the dishes in the sink, adjusting the streaming water to a warm temperature. As you tug the pair of dishwashing gloves onto your hands, you catch a glimpse of a figure stepping beside you. When you look up, you're met with a boyish grin and shy jewel-toned eyes. He's setting down another pile of dirty dishes on the counter.

“Hi.”

You're not sure how to respond other than with a polite nod and a soft hi back. There's not much else to say, anyway. Half of you hopes he'll leave; you need some space to recharge your social battery. The other half is curious about the kind of conversation you might have to engage in if he stays.

You focus your gaze on the soaking dishes, waiting with bated breath to see what he does.

He stays.

He offers to dry what you wash.

There's a nervous tremor in his voice. Like a kid scared to ask for permission instead of an adult offering help. It's so small you barely notice it, but it's there.

You nod.

You wash, he dries.

It's quiet save for the sounds of dishes clinking together.

Then, his voice comes through.

“I didn't mean to put you on the spot earlier when I got here. I just have a knack for remembering faces.”

An uncomfortable warmth crawls up your neck and pools at your cheeks.

“I'm sorry. I didn't mean to embarrass you. I'm kind of the opposite. I just don't pay attention to faces,” you explain.

“Oh.” He forces a laugh. “Yeah, no, I get it.”

He tucks his bottom lip between his teeth, unsure of how to keep the conversation going. It's a bit discouraging for him to see how laser-focused you are on doing the dishes though, and he already feels foolish for making you apologize for not recognizing a total stranger. He tries not to stare at you too much but it's difficult when you're right there beside him. He only hopes you can't make him out looking at you from the corner of his eye.

You, on the other hand, can feel his eyes burning holes into your side profile. Ignoring it is harder than you hope but at least you have something to help. You're not sure if he expects you to reciprocate his efforts in breaking the ice, but you've yet to get a proper read on him. He was mostly quiet during dinner. Whenever a story with him at the center came up, he'd try to sway the conversation in a different direction. He seemed tense and you hate to think he might be uncomfortable with your presence. Maybe he's an anxious person who's easily embarrassed, you think. Or he might’ve thought you were stuck up and rude after you failed to recognize him and that's why the air now feels so thick. That happens a lot. The people around you are mostly a blur until — and if you ever — have a reason to break into friendly territory.

The next time you hand a dish for Eren to dry, your gaze lingers, carefully taking in his features. His green eyes are striking, but it's not as if the rest of his face falls short of that. He's very handsome. In a more boyish way than you observed Jean to be, but sharper than, say, Armin. His brown hair is neatly cut on the sides, contrasted by the choppy bangs that line his forehead — something that brings more youth to his face. He's got long, thick lashes and plump lips. Faint freckles are scattered along what one might consider to be a perfect straight nose. He's very handsome, indeed. But that's not all. There's a delicacy to his features that blends them all harmoniously, making Eren Jaeger quite… pretty.

Eren suddenly clears his throat; you take it as a sign to stop staring.

“So… um… how long have you been friends with Armin?”

You already know the answer, and you didn’t mind the silence at all, but you might as well try to get Armin’s best friend in your good graces. Especially after your dreadful mistake of not recognizing him. It bothers you to think he might have decided he doesn’t like you because of that.

“Since we were six… Um… He had a lot of trouble with bullies back in elementary school and I beat them up for him.”

That part you didn’t know, so you pause your focus on the plate you’re scrubbing to glance at Eren with admiration.

“I think he might’ve developed a weird hero complex by mistake though,” he laughs to himself. “He wanted me to get into fights every time he saw someone new being bullied.”

You laugh. The sound makes Eren’s chest swell with pride.

“Did you do it?”

He bashfully nods without ungluing his gaze from the serving spoon he’s drying.

You laugh some more.

“And of course, then he would take them in as a friend. Something about strength in numbers or whatever. To this day he has this thing that he needs to take in anyone who seems vulnerable.”

You laugh through your nose fully aware of the familiarity you feel from Eren’s story.

“That definitely sounds like him.”

You grin as you finish rinsing the plate, excited to have found some common ground to latch onto for conversation.

Eren admires your happy expression from the corner of his eye.

But when you turn to look at him, he averts his gaze, curling his lips inwards, and he takes the plate from your hands.

Your lips downturn a bit, thinking you might still have a long way to go before you can make up for your mistake.

Still, the thickness in the kitchen air dissipates as you each return to your tasks, the corners of your lips perking up in relieved smiles.

Armin walks in a moment later with the remnants of a laugh on his face from whatever conversation he just left behind. His faded grin resurfaces when he finds you and Eren together, and he catches a glimpse of the pink tint dusting his best friend's cheeks.

He watches for a few seconds, mildly amused that neither of you seems to notice his presence. Just as Eren finishes wiping the last fork dry, he decides to speak.

“You didn't need to do that.”

His statement is directed at both of you, yet his gaze is fixed on you, a warm smile gracing his features.

“You should join the others,” he tells you. “Oh, and uh…” He swipes a bottle from one of the cupboards. “Take this with you.”

“Let me just help put away everything,” you offer.

“It's okay, Eren and I got it,” he assures you.

You back out hesitantly, only decidedly walking out when Armin gives you a reassuring nod.

Both men watch you leave. As soon as you're out of sight, Armin's lips stretch into a knowing smile.

“She's pretty, huh?”

Eren's eyebrows upturn in clear worry when he rips his gaze from you to look at Armin. They soften a split second later in an attempt to appear nonchalant before his grinning friend.

“Um… I guess so… I don't know.”

He hurries to tend to the dishes waiting to be put away, hoping it's enough to mask the way he slowly deflates.

Plates and forks are stored in silence. An amused Armin keeps glancing at him.

After a while, a soft laugh escapes his lips.

“Relax, I'm not into her.”

Eren stiffens, unable to remove his hand by will from the cupboard door he just shut, and instead letting gravity take the wheel.

Before he can reflect on how exposed he feels, Armin's voice comes through again from where he's now leaning casually against the counter with his hands in his pockets.

“But I meant it when I said she's pretty.” He nods along for emphasis even though Eren has yet to look at him.

“She's really smart too. And kind! I mean, she can seem a little cold at first, but I heard some guys are into that. There's just this charm to her, you know? A few guys at work have tried asking her out but they're totally wrong for her.” He shakes his head at the last thought, then side-eyes Eren expectantly.

“If she ever goes out with someone, I hope it's one of the good guys.”

Throughout Armin's speech, Eren kept his lips pressed together in a tight line, wondering where Armin was headed with all he was saying. At first, he assumed his friend was interested in the new face of the group, which is why he feigned disinterest. But with every word that kept rolling off his tongue, his intentions were blatantly obvious. And yet he still decides to ask, “What are you trying to do, Armin?”

"Nothing... nothing at all," Armin answers with a shrug, playing it off as if any suggestion is all in Eren's head. He straightens up and starts walking out of the kitchen. There's a pause in his step just before he can slip out of sight. Looking at Eren over his shoulder, he leaves him with one last thought.

“All I'm saying is if you just keep staring at her, she’s gonna get weirded out.”

Eren is left alone, blushing profusely and running a shaky hand through his hair.

“Come on! That can’t be your most embarrassing thing!”

You shrug.

“That's all I've got.”

“What’s going on?” Eren asks as he takes in the scene.

It took him a while to reason with himself alone in the kitchen. By the time Eren joins everyone in the living room — nerves finally dormant — everyone is sitting on the floor around the coffee table playing a drinking game. He walks over in search of an open space and ends up nestled between Jean and Connie. Jean throws an arm over his shoulders.

“Jaeger, good. Buddy, tell her about the time you tried to do a one-arm pushup.” From his sleepy eyes and the affectionate term toward Eren, one can easily tell he's drunk.

Eren looks up quizzically at everybody.

“We're telling our most embarrassing stories,” you explain. “Whoever has the worst one wins the round and everyone else has to drink. I think it's just a ploy for everyone to get dirt on me though.”

You pout at your cup. It's clear you're a little tipsy, too.

Eren softly laughs.

“Whaa– we would never,” Sasha pouts.

“You're getting a deal! You get six embarrassing stories for the price of one!” Connie points out.

As you start to argue that it's not really fair because it's not like you have anyone to tell, Sasha’s phone buzzes in her pocket and a loud groan rumbles from her throat after skimming through whatever text she just got. Her chin falls onto the coffee table, arms stretched out before her so she can reply.

Mikasa looks at her with concern and tucks a loose strand of hair behind her ear, affectionately tapping her nose afterward.

“What's wrong?”

“Kaya's out with her friends and she's asking me to send her money for an Uber. I told her to be careful with her money but she just won't listen.”

Everyone either sympathetically smiles at her or idly watches her send over fifty dollars. You look at Armin, who quietly explains Kaya is Sasha’s younger sister who's a college freshman. You nod in understanding.

“That's a little sibling for you,” Connie mutters, softly patting Sasha’s head.

“That's why I love being an only child,” Jean states matter-of-factly. He stretches his arms over his head, rolling his shoulders back before reaching for the bottle of liquor at the center of the table. “Never had to worry about some annoying little runt.”

“I would've liked to have a younger sister,” Mikasa says. “It would've been fun to hang out and teach her things, you know?”

A touch of nostalgia dances along her lips as she traces the rim of her glass with her index finger.

“Oh, do you have any siblings?” Her eyes flit in your direction.

The question is innocent, but the topic of family causes you to shift uncomfortably in your seat.

“No… I don't.” You try to smile, but it's stiff.

Jean's loud clapping startles you. He tops off all but Connie's and Sasha’s glasses.

“Oh yeah, single child gang!” He raises his glass in cheers and downs the contents. You follow his lead, hoping that'll mark the end of that topic. But it doesn't. “You must've been spoiled growing up, am I right?”

You lower your gaze, opting to fiddle with your fingers instead of answering.

Mikasa seems to sense the fragility of the topic from your side because her eyebrows upturn in concern when she looks at you.

“Hey, not everyone has a mother like yours. Don't be rude, Jean-boy.” She raises a teasing eyebrow as she whips her head in Jean's direction.

“Didn't you yell at her when she brought cupcakes to our class for your birthday?” Eren scrunched his eyebrows together in feigned thought.

“I was twelve! You can't keep holding that over my head. I'm twenty-five now,” Jean whines.

“And I've yet to see you mature,” Eren mutters.

A hushed giggle escapes your lips. You cover it up by sipping your drink. A satisfied smirk tugs at Eren's lips when he catches a glimpse of your smile.

Contrary to his sober self, drunk Jean craves Eren's approval and affection instead of their usual frenemy-like banter. He looks at him with sad eyes.

“Hey, I've made up for it. Mama Kirstein doesn't need to lift a finger thanks to her amazing engineer son.”

Sasha’s face contorts in confusion.

“Last time I went to Trost with you, she was still working as a seamstress.”

Jean waves her off.

“She just likes to keep busy.”

“What do your parents do?” Sasha turns to you.

You're trapped.

From the corner of your eye, you can see Armin leaning forward with just as much interest as the others. In the past, Armin's asked about your family only once. After vaguely implying you weren't close to them, he dropped the topic. But now, in his intoxicated state, he doesn't do much to keep his level of curiosity under wraps. And knowing you're slightly buzzed, too, he hopes you’ve let go of any inhibitions that have kept you from revealing more of your background.

Armin likes you. He's always admired your efficiency at work, but you seemed lonely and closed off — which is why he decided to approach you in the first place. To everyone in the office, you were a cold stuck-up woman — yet they still refused to stop obsessing over you. To him, you were just misunderstood and lowkey. Sure, you refused to do much to take up space in a room, but through small conversations here and there, he was allowed to slowly unveil your true self.

But there was always another hidden wall. Armin wouldn't admit it out of fear of seeming like a creep, but that line you expertly draw — allowing someone in without fully giving yourself away — is part of what makes you alluring. That and your keen eye for reading people.

You wet your lips with a swipe of your tongue, looking for a way out inside the clear liquid sitting at the bottom of your glass.

Eren zeroes in on your face, trying to decipher the distant look in your eyes. The weight on his chest lightens when you finally speak.

“I'm not sure what they're doing now. Last time I checked, my mom was a drug addict, and my dad left when I was twelve.”

The weight in Eren's chest comes back heavier than ever.

Silence takes over the living room. Even the darkness outside the window seems eerily quiet as your abrupt statement courses through the gears in everyone's heads.

There's no certainty as to why you blurted out what you did. Maybe it was a sense of security which you now think was a trick of your mind. Perhaps the alcohol is to blame. After all, you didn't feel any need to be a burden on others on an otherwise fun night before. But the words just seemed to push their way out of your mouth.

A severe scolding rings in your ears.

You always ruin everything!

You don't expect anyone to come up with an answer. In fact, you'll be grateful if someone simply discards your words and steers the conversation in a different direction. But if nobody does, then you'll quietly make your way home. There’s no use in annoying others by begging them to let you stay, promising you won't cause any more trouble.

“How long has it been since you saw your mom?” Mikasa's voice cuts through the thickness of the air.

The look in her eyes is sympathetic. Not the fake kind that makes you feel pitied for having endured a rough life. It's the kind that simply matches such an ordinary question.

“About a year,” you murmur.

Jean hums in thought.

“A year, huh? That's almost how long you've been in the city, right?” He scratches his chin as he retrieves the information you shared earlier from his tipsy brain.

You nod. “Yup… one year.”

Everyone nods along to your answer. Everyone but one.

You nervously blink toward the left, searching Armin's face. He's slumped in his spot, his eyes lost at a blank point. They flash in your direction, and he quickly composes himself, but not quick enough for his expression to go unnoticed by you.

Despite some things here and there, he thought you were close. He never pressured you to share anything you didn't want to. Just getting along and respecting each other would have sufficed — he’s a giver more than he is a taker. But he feels like he failed to support you. He's extremely dumbfounded, but he doesn't make it a point that you never told him the specifics on something so big. He refuses to make you think he resents you for it.

But the glimpse you caught of his fallen shoulders and clouded eyes still makes you lower your head in guilt. Just ten minutes ago, you felt accomplished for being on your way to gaining new friends and grateful that Armin paved the way for you. You're embarrassed for having thought that you could juggle more relationships when you've barely been open to the one you already have. It's almost laughable that you thought to leave your comfort zone and give this evening a try.

Before you can issue an apology, Jean's loud clapping startles you for the second time tonight.

"Well.” He tilts his head as he splits the last of the liquor into everyone's glass for one last drink. “In any case... if you hadn't moved here, you wouldn't be drinking with the best people you'll ever meet."

“Hear, hear!” Armin yells beside you, following Jean's lead and raising his glass toward the center.

Your eyes meet his. He's smiling, nodding almost imperceptibly for you to join your glass with everyone else's. The corners of your lips quirk into a relieved smile. You raise your glass.

The rest of the group cheers as joyful clinks spread through the room.

Whatever darkness was squeezing at your chest dissipates. Your eyes crinkle in amusement as you allow your giddiness to take over.

A pair of mesmerized green eyes linger on your face from the opposite side of the coffee table. His lips part slightly to draw in a long breath, followed by a sip of alcohol.

A beeping phone sifts through the commotion.

Mikasa looks down at her phone. First, with curiosity, then with worry.

Levi Don't go out at night for a while. Killer on the loose. SN3

She calls out Armin's name.

“Turn on the news on channel 3.”

The urgency tainting Mikasa's usual steady voice has Armin scrambling to find the remote, though with a bit of confusion. Everyone else exchanges quizzical glances while they wait for him to turn the television on.

A male newscaster is halfway through reciting a report on the police department's recent findings.

“... The twenty-six-year-old woman's body was dismembered and disposed of in a garbage dumpster behind a local restaurant. Police have yet to report any evidence that can lead them to any suspects. An autopsy is ongoing to pinpoint the cause of death but with the initial report, signs point to a possible case of torture…”

The mood shifts yet again. Everyone stares at the screen, but the words no longer reach anyone's ears. Nobody recognized the girl identified on the screen but it's still unnerving when something so tragic and cruel happens in the city one lives in. Being close in age to the victim just makes it even rougher.

Eren is the first to look back — specifically at the girls.

You all seem lost in thought. His gaze flits in your direction. You're just as distant, nursing your glass in your hands as you chew on your bottom lip. He turns to Mikasa.

“Was that Levi earlier?”

Eren's voice pulls Mikasa from her thoughts.

She nods.

“Who's Levi?” you ask.

“My uncle,” she explains. “He texted me not to go out at night for a while. They didn't say if this was a serial killer but I don't think he wants to take any chances as long as the culprit is out there.” In a lower voice she adds, “he's in the police.”

You slowly nod, then suddenly remember where you are.

“I need to get home fast, then.”

Your eyes land on the digital clock beside the TV. It's well past the time to catch the last bus. You swipe your phone from your purse to look up cab numbers, unaware of the nervous glances exchanged all around you.

“I don't think you should leave now.” Eren stops you from dialing the first cab company from your search results, his eyes wide with concern. He doesn't realize his hand is holding onto your wrist until you look down at it.

He pulls away, embarrassed, but remains firm in his statement.

“Eren's right,” Connie agrees. He has a protective hand on Sasha’s shoulder. “Mind if we crash here tonight?” He directs his gaze at Armin.

“No need to ask. I'll bring out some blankets.”

It's two in the morning. A cluster of tired bodies sleeps peacefully on the living room floor. Lazy limbs stretch out and across someone else's. Light snores and rare mumblings are the only thing that disturbs the quiet.

The murder on the news had left everyone unsettled. Much so, that everyone felt inclined to sleep together in the same room. It didn’t do much for their comfort given the space, but it gave everyone a sense of safety.

Eren’s eyelids barely flutter open. They're so heavy, he wishes he could just ignore the uncomfortable fullness of his bladder. But he can't. Begrudgingly, he clumsily rises to his feet and makes his way to the bathroom, rubbing his temples with one hand and feeling around for any walls and furniture with his other while his eyes adjust to the darkness.

When he gets back, he catches sight of a lone figure sitting out on the small balcony outside of the kitchen.

It takes him a minute to rid himself of the extra warmth in his face. He takes a deep breath and quietly slides the door open to step out.

“Hey.”

You look up at him from your chair. Your knees are pressed against your chest, your arms wrapped around them for support as your cheek rests on top.

“Hi.”

“Is it okay if I sit?”

You nod and proceed to face forward, resting your chin where your cheek used to be.

The night is pleasantly warm. You're wearing the sweats and shirt Armin lent you for the night.

Eren's gaze roams every shape of your side profile. It's the second time you've been alone together and he's racking his brain on what to talk about to balance out the way he's been staring at you all night. He doesn't want to give Armin another reason to tease him. His hands are sweaty and his cheeks start to warm at the reminder.

“Did I wake you?”

Your voice is gentle and sweet, but it startles him nonetheless.

“No,” he manages to say. He pauses. “How long have you been out here?”

You shake your head as you look up at the star-littered sky.

“Not long.”

He hums, mulling your answer over.

If you’re awake at this hour, not bothering to try going back to sleep, something must be weighing heavily on your mind, he reasons. That’s further proven by the way you’re shrinking into yourself, trying to take up as little space as you can. Not that he’s especially knowledgeable about you, but there’s a difference in how your quietness manifests itself now than during dinner. It’s comparable to the way you were after watching the news.

“Are you okay?”

He watches you hesitate to give him an answer. Your lips tremble, parting and pressing together a couple of times. It’s as if you’re willing to talk but the words are lodged in your throat.

“You can tell me.”

Still no answer.

“Is it because of the girl on the news?”

Finally, you look at him. Your brows twist with grief.

“I just can’t stop thinking about her. Her family must be devastated.”

All evening, Eren’s had a hard time holding your gaze. Mainly because he didn’t want to give himself away, but it’s also hard to admire someone when they’re looking directly at you. Once his racing heart finds a steadier rhythm, he finds it’s actually easy to lose himself in your eyes.

There’s a subtle glassiness to them — one he’d be more concerned about if he hadn’t noticed it as a natural part of you. Your eyes heavily conveyed every emotion, every little thought. And Eren suddenly felt compelled to learn how to read them.

The way you’ve presented yourself so far — gentle and cautious — gives you an aura of delicate maturity in the eyes of others. But for a brief moment, you seem small. Troubled, even.

“I know it’s selfish for me to be thinking about this, but sometimes I wonder if I’ll have anyone crying for me when I die. I don’t have many people,” you whisper.

It feels strange to Eren to suddenly feel a surge of courage when he’s been nothing but an awkward wreck around you since you met.

“You have us now.”

You don’t show yourself to be entirely convinced. In fact, there’s a hint of amusement shimmering in your eyes. But you appreciate his words no matter how empty they might turn out to be.

Eren hesitates to ask you the question that’s been gnawing at his brain for hours now. You’ve been sharing such a pleasant moment, that he hates to think he might ruin it all and end up losing his cool in the process.

“That stuff about your parents… is it true?”

It’s a leap of faith.

“You think I made it up?”

The raised eyebrow and the humorless smile that graces your lips take him by surprise, even more so than the firm tone of your voice.

“No, of course not!” He chokes on his words, frantic he might have offended you.

But you laugh, and it soothes him instantly.

“Relax, I was just teasing you.” You look away, warmth pooling at your cheeks upon your failed attempt to be funny. “It’s true, by the way. I’m a child of neglect.”

A heavy sigh pushes past your lips.

He doesn't pick up on your embarrassment — he’s much too focused on his own.

Despite the bitterness lacing your gentle voice, he can’t help himself from wanting to know more. It makes him anxious. Finding you attractive is besides the point. His mind is scrambling at any opportunity to get closer to you. He wants to keep talking. He wants to hear more about what worries you. He wants to stretch out the night and keep the conversation going — even if he’s caught off guard by your unpredictable teasing a few more times. He wants to know about your past. He wants to know you. But you kill off his chances when you suddenly change the course of the conversation.

“Do I make you uncomfortable?” You look up at him with concern contorting your features. It takes everything in him not to let his gaze drift to your bottom lip that’s caught between your teeth to keep your nerves at bay.

“Huh?”

You clear your throat before explaining and fiddle with your hands as you do. You focus on the moon instead of him.

It’s quite cute for Eren to see you fidget for once.

“It's just that during dinner you barely talked and whenever I looked at you, you would look away,” you explain bashfully. “And then when we were doing the dishes together, you just felt a little awkward. I mean, I don’t expect you to be all chummy with me, but it was kind of like you were forcing yourself to talk to me.”

Eren wants to smack himself. He had no idea of the message he was sending all this time. All those averted gazes and suppressed smiles must have looked totally different from your end.

“I thought maybe you were uncomfortable with me around.”

Your voice is even softer than before. It might have to do with the people sleeping inside or maybe you're just feeling quieter than usual. Eren has no idea. But it's a nice sound, and his quickening heartbeat isn't lost on him.

The abrupt changes in his system are giving him whiplash. And it’s all because of you.

“I’m not,” he whispers. “I’m not uncomfortable.”

A deep shade of red gradually tints his cheeks, openly defying the pale blue light from the moon. His gaze shies away from you and settles on his lap, where he nervously rubs his sweaty palms just to give himself something to do. When his eyes slowly drift back to your face, he swallows hard.

It finally hits you.

Oh, you think.

Next chapter

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intheorangebedroom · 3 months

Text

Tonight you belong to me, chapter 2

Summary: He comes to you every Friday, in a shady motel on the outskirts of town.

Two months have passed since your first time at the motel with Frankie. What has changed, what hasn't. Who are you now?

Pairing: Frankie Morales x fem!Reader (OFC)

Rating: Explicit 🔞 PLEASE, see series masterlist for extensive trigger warnings.

A/N: Happy Frankie Friday, Orange besties 🧡 How are you all? Gentle reminder that our Reader is an OFC. In this chapter, we get to know her better, and there are indirect physical descriptions of her. Sincerest apologies to anyone who knows Tampa. I did a lot of research, but I'm afraid my ignorance will still show… I swear I did my best. Raul is real, though. He's a friend of a very dear friend and he lives in Paris.

@frannyzooey my love, as always, I am in your debt. Thank you for your help. I love you more than words 🧡

I hope you enjoy this one, Orange besties, it made me sweat blood, @dreamymyrrh and @pedrit0-pascalit0 had to listen to my constant whining to put me on life support. Ily 🧡

Word count: 8.6k

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Chapter 2: Closer

The traffic is dense, but you spot Ava’s red Toyota as soon as it turns into E 7th avenue.

On any given Saturday, the upbeat neighborhood is bustling with cheerful crowds of leisured weekenders and hip thirty-something. On this particular Saturday, the first after Thanksgiving, the streets are a vision from hell.

There’s a constant ballet of cars pulling in and out along the curbs. On each side of the avenue, the sidewalks are swarming with jittery shoppers, frenetically prospecting for good deals on potential Christmas gifts. You’re willing to bet that most of them will stretch their budget thin on useless, meaningless knickknacks. Generic trinkets without soul nor purpose but that will, for the first half hour of ownership at least, fill the void in their consumers’ existence.

The traditional Christmas tree of unholy proportions is up and sparkling. Wrapped around the iron porch columns, electrical garlands blink in rapid sequences like luminescent spasmodic snakes. Storefronts are decorated with more or less taste. The temperature has dropped twice below 70. It’s that time of the year.

The merry season usually finds you adding a generous helping of anxiolytics to your daily cocktail of little helpers. This year, however, you haven’t popped a pill in days, and everything feels… more. Louder, too vivid, more oppressive. Sensations magnified and emotions amplified. Which is, after all, what you were aiming at when you unilaterally decided to taper off your intake.

Ava miraculously secures a free spot on the other side of the avenue, about a hundred yards in front of yours. You watch her parallel park, the maneuver surprisingly sloppy, given the parking assist technology the brand-new hybrid car is equipped with, and you wonder if you really needed to spend that much money on it.

In front of your own parked car, pedestrians agglutinate at the crosswalk. When the light turns green, they move as one, like flocks of extras on a movie set, coming to life on cue when the director yells “action!”

They’re not extras, however, each one of them is the main character in the movie of their life. Together they form a constellation of individual and interconnected stories, while you stand at the margin, forever exhausted, willfully forlorn. At best, a supporting part in Ava’s fantastic tale of eccentric adventures, but more likely a backdrop in your father’s gripping success story.

Although, your narrative has changed drastically over the past two months. You now got a part in your own right, unfolding in between takes.

You wait until Ava gets out of her vehicle before you exit yours, reluctant to leave the hushed safety of your old sedan’s cab, even for the few minutes it’ll take you to meet with her and step into the coffee place.

You wave at her from across the busy street until she sees you, but when she proceeds to jaywalk over to you, reckless and entirely indifferent to your pleading expression, you have to avert your eyes. There’s a crosswalk right in front of you, god dammit.

She levels up with you and pecks a kiss on your cheek, hitting your cheekbone with force, more headbutt than demonstration of affection.

“Hey,” she says, barely stopping in her tracks before she pushes open the glass door to the coffee shop.

“Hello, pup,” you answer fondly, your words lost to the street’s bustle.

Inside, the artificial air instantly pulls at your skin. The atmosphere is cool but dry, saturated with the smell of freshly grounded coffee beans and greasy-sweet pastries. The high-ceiling, cement floor, wide open-space is packed. The brick walls reverberate the ambient noises, and the late morning sun beams brightly through the large floor-to-ceiling windows, evenly spaced along the lateral walls. People sit in small parties around the white designer tables, sipping iced coffees from tall red paper cups with white snowflakes, large shopping bags at their feet.

Trying your best not to shrink and shrivel from the multiple overwhelming stimuli, you focus on Ava’s back, walking behind her as she leads the way to a free table at the rear of the coffee shop, between the counter and one of the windows. There’s a regal quality to her gait and the way she carries herself, not unlike your father, the resemblance enhanced by her preference for masculine clothing, and you have to love the irony, given how much she hates the man. She has your mother’s beauty, though. The same luxurious dark hair, fair, flawless skin, and wide green eyes, her frame tall, her figure athletic. She’s the masterpiece. Next to her, you look like a clumsy first draft, with blurry edges and hesitant features.

She throws her jean jacket on the back of her chair and collapses on her seat with a theatrical sigh.

Across from her, you sit down gingerly on the edge of the hard wooden chair, balancing your weight around the sore and delicious ghost sensation of Frankie between your hips.

“You look good,” you start.

“Yeah, you too!” she exclaims, like it’s unexpected, “tired but like, good. Are you getting any sleep?”

You smile, waving your hand dismissively.

“Don’t we have to go to the counter to order?”

“No, it’s fine,” she answers, “they serve at the table. I’m having an oat milk matte, what do you want?”

“An espresso, I think.”

Right on cue, a young woman dressed in a black cropped top and black skinny jeans presents herself at your table and proceeds to tap in your order on a rectangular electronic device. Her long acrylic nails hit the screen with a rapid succession of click-click-click. The sound brings you back to your parents' dining-room, the large table standing like an angular island on the shiny square of reflective tiles, in the middle of a shag carpet ocean. Your mother’s nails, painted in Revlon Desirable #150, rattling impatiently over the lacquered surface of the dining table near her untouched plate and a glass of G&T sweating with condensation. She never ate her food. She drank even when she was pregnant.

Your fingers find the back of your knee and pinch the thin skin there, so hard you flinch.

The waitress waltzes off, and Ava returns her full attention to you.

“I’m happy to see you,” she offers, and you smile softly at her uncustomary expression of affection. Your chest expends. “It’s been a while.”

There’s no reproach in her tone, but you are usually the one expressing ill-concealed concern over her long silences, and the reversal in your dynamic throws you off. Guilts gnaws at you. You choose defense.

“You were away.”

“Yeah, but like, I came back three weeks ago.”

Three weeks. Your smile fades and you slump in your chair, running a quick mental calculation.

Time has never been an easy concept for you to grasp, but until recently, you’ve managed to remain afloat and functioning, on a practical level at least, amidst a society that revolves around schedules and timetables. The watch on your wrist, yearly organizers, recently and reluctantly replaced by the iCal app on your phone, sticky notes, tin boxes filled with tickets stubs… All clutches to your failing memory, anything to keep you tethered against an overpowering and primal instinct to escape, let go, drift away. And perhaps, most of your exhaustion stems from this endless swimming-race against the current.

Lately, your inability to remember appointments, to navigate time and hold an effective grasp on reality has reached a new high. For the past two months, your life has revolved around Friday nights and the sound of a red pickup truck pulling in and out of a decrepit motel’s parking, tires screeching on the gravel. Inside this timeframe, your entire life is contained. Around it, the days stretch, spiral, and blend. And you’ve lost all motivation and interest in any counter-current swimming.

You frown slightly, scanning her face, but she doesn’t let on anything out of the ordinary. After all, if she genuinely worried, if she so badly needed to see you, she could have given you a call. You were the one to reach out and ask to see her this morning.

Something’s different about her, in the way she holds herself straighter on her seat, with her legs crossed and her head tilted to the side, exposing the undercut she got before the summer. You’re still not entirely sure if this was the bold fashion statement she claimed it to be, rather than a dramatic reaction to her girlfriend moving back to New York. With Ava, it could be both. She’s not wearing any makeup today, her face looks disarmingly young, and the concern she’s expressed, however subtle, churns your insides with guilt and affection.

You plaster a polite smile on your face.

“Well, I’m here now. It’s good to see you, too. Tell me, how was New York? How’s Polly?”

The waitress returns with the pastries and beverages you ordered, and Ava begins to narrate her two-week trip to the big city. She speaks fast, punctuating her words with large gestures to describe the cultural buoyancy, the hip neighborhoods and her thrifts finds, the street food and the refined, cutting-edge restaurants, how everything is bigger there, faster and better, how she fell safe walking hand in hand with Polly, the clubs, the galleries, the weather, crisp air and chilly winds from the north, a refreshing, comforting seasonality to pace the existence.

“I was fucking crying when I boarded the plane back, you have no idea.”

“Oh, I can imagine,” you sigh, shaking your head. “You don’t miss her too much?”

She doesn’t answer, and something in the way she avoids your gaze makes you frown again.

Polly and you have always gotten along well. You genuinely appreciate her solar personality and her worldly conversation. Their encounter four years ago had been the silver-lining in an otherwise horrendous year. The happy, coincidental consequence of a chain of events that had been years in the making.

When Ava dropped out of college halfway through her freshman year, it provided your father with the excuse he had been waiting for to kick his own child out of his house. You had seen it coming. In fact, you had spent your entire adult life shielding Ava from the paternal discontent, investing all your strength into becoming the son and successor he had wished for, and that neither of you could ever be.

Ava, however, had never put in the effort. She didn’t fit into the family portrait. She never had. You didn’t want her to, and she simply couldn’t. Too rebellious, decidedly unconventional, and, well, queer, to boot. Your father had spent years formatting you and there she was, standing proud, strengthened by your unconditional support, a glaring highlight of your diverging values, a breathing reminder of his failure with you both.

In the aftermath of the fall-out, Adrian had refused to take her in, and she had spent days out of your sight, sleeping god knows where. Eventually, you’d dug your heels in, as you only ever did when Ava was concerned and her wellbeing on the line, and obtained that she move in with you. The cohabitation hadn’t gone smoothly in the least. As usual, Adrian was more concerned about potentially upsetting your father than making you happy. You were once again caught between crossed fires.

The strained situation with your fiancé notwithstanding, Ava couldn't spend her time sitting idly at home. You had pleaded with her for weeks before she agreed to resume her studies. Only this time, it had to be with your funding. The realization that you didn’t have any consequential money of your own had been brutal, even though it shouldn’t have been a surprise: you lived in Adrian’s apartment, and were employed by your father, who refused point-blank to let you sell some of your company shares, knowing the money would go to his estranged daughter.

All you could afford was Hillsborough Community College, but things had eventually taken a turn for the better when Ava and Polly had met. Polly was teaching psychology, waiting for a tenure that she would never be granted. Because of the 20-year age gap between them, she insisted Ava graduate with her BA before they started properly dating. And when they did, the improvement in your sister’s mental state and overall balance was immediately noticeable.

Calm and collected, affectionate and thoughtful, Polly grounds your young sibling. She eases her anger and channels her energy into creative and fruitful endeavors, without snuffing her rebellious temper.

And now, despite Ava being almost fully independent, with a job and a place of her own, you don’t know what you’d do if they were to break up. If one of them were to decide that a long-distance relationship is not what she wants.

You lean forward, your hand coming to rest over hers, warm and smooth. “Hey pup, what’s up? Is everything ok between you two?”

“Oh yes,” she quickly assures you, withdrawing her hand, “and by the way, she sends you her best.”

Understanding downs on you like a bucket of ice. You suddenly feel stupid, pathetically naive, forever one step behind. Leaning back in your chair, you let out a short, soundless huff. What you’re facing is not a breakup, but the likely possibility that Ava will soon move out of town to follow Polly to New York.

Ava is talking again, about New York you’re guessing, but you can’t focus on her words. Behind your impassive eyes and your attentive smile, your mind reels and wrestles with a downpour of conflicting thoughts and emotions. Pride flares in your chest at the prospect of your baby sister setting roots in a city as intimidating as New York, but it tugs at something else, something you’re too scared to consider, and an ugly feeling you’re reluctant to acknowledge.

Would she hesitate before leaving you behind, after you’ve prioritized her freedom over yours? After you stayed so she could fly away? And wouldn’t it be the point?

Your eyes travel up along the trail of small tattoos adorning her forearms. Dominos, tea cups, a white rabbit with round glasses, a flamingo, several thin arrows, a broken heart in flames.

What’s your purpose, if she’s not here anymore? If someone else is looking after her? If your sacrifice is no longer necessary nor justified?

“How was Thanksgiving dinner? Did you have fun talking about politics with Richard?”

You wince involuntarily at your father’s name. She never refers to them as “mom” and “dad.” She hasn’t for a long while. But today the sarcasm doesn’t fool you, no more than her feigned indifference.

She’s not truly asking if you had to bite your tongue and smile through conversations that make you nauseous. She knows well enough you’ve got just enough political convictions to carry you to the voting poll, but hardly a step further. Listening to him is painful, but you get by, and your shameful silence buys you necessary peace.

No, what she wants to know is if your family inquired about her. And you don’t have it in you to answer that no, no one has, not last Thursday, not for the past four years, not ever. Not your indifferent father, nor your inebriated mother. Not your bigot grandparents, not your egotistic aunt and her gold-digging husband, not even the housekeeping staff.

You shrug noncommittally.

“Who were the guests of honor, this year?”

The question makes you groan and briefly close your eyes at the memory.

“Adrian’s parents.”

“No?! Fuck! They really want this marriage to happen, don’t they? Looks like you’re not gonna be able to dodge much longer.”

She smacks her hand over her thigh, letting out a short staccato of a chuckle, as if the subject of your confinement through marriage was a laughing matter. You glare at her, crossing your legs and folding your arms over your chest, but the shifting in your demeanor goes unnoticed.

Suddenly, her levity riles you up. She got away. You didn’t. And the only thing that carried you through this year’s Thanksgiving dinner is the perspective of being fucked senseless by a stranger on a dirty motel floor the following night.

For a brief moment, you’re tempted to bite, and retort that, contrary to her, you didn't spend the holiday on your own. But the truth is that you envy her the privilege, and she knows it.

Taking a deep breath that does absolutely nothing to calm your growing nerves, you stir the conversation towards another topic, finding neutral ground with her job. You’re stalling, and you’re not even good at it. You sit restless on that damn hard chair, squirming uncomfortably, sweat prickling under your armpits in the chill artificial air, eyes flicking down to your watch every other second.

“Do you have to be somewhere, or something?”

Your head shoots up. Again, you have no idea what she’s talking about, or how long she’s been rambling for. This is ridiculous. You are being ridiculous.

“Listen, Ava, I have to ask you something. A favor. I have to ask you a favor.”

Her eyes widen at your sudden change of tone but she nods. “Hit me.”

“I need you to… I need to be able to tell Adrian that I spend… that I spend Friday nights at your place. Actually, I’ve already been doing it for a while. He thinks we see each other on Friday evenings. I just… I need more time. I need the night.” You grip your shin with both hands and dig your nails in. “It really doesn’t matter anyway, he’s not home on Fridays, he plays poker and he never comes back until like, 3 or 4am, and I just need— I need to be able to come home after him. Not, like, every week. Or yes, maybe every week. Just in case. If ever. You know?”

She remains completely still and silent as you wrestle your words out of your throat. Her face hardens, her wide, green eyes strained on you. She gauges you in silence for another moment, while you rub your clammy palms on your jeans under the table. Above the table, you do your very best to maintain a casual air.

“And what exactly is it that you do, on Friday nights?”

You anticipated the question, of course you did. You swallow around the sharp stone stuck in your throat. Your eyes dart down to your espresso cup. It’s empty.

“I’m just taking a bit of time off for myself.”

More time, to commit his body and his face to your long-term memory after he’s left you, depriving you of his heat. The tiny bits of him that add up to form the formidable sum of the man he is. The locks that curl around his ears. The dip in his collarbone. The little target tattooed on his hand. You’re never sure which hand it’s on, you need more time, that’s all. And you won’t lie to her, not exactly. You set your mind on that early on. But you will not tell her the whole story.

A large shit-eating grin slowly parts her plump lips.

“Are you telling me that Richard’s favorite daughter is getting some side dick on a weekly fucking basis?”

“Jesus, Ava, why do you always have to be so crude?”

“But you are? Right? You are getting dicked down, every fucking Friday night? Right? Are you on Tinder, or something?”

“I’m not—” you start, but her excitement is louder than your exasperation. She uncrosses her legs to lean toward you, propping her elbows on the table and threading her fingers together, talking over you.

“Why didn’t you tell me? For once that something cool–”

“Because there’s nothing to tell,” you retort through clenched teeth, raising your voice. Her mouth hangs open in shock. You don’t give her time to recover. “And look, if you don’t want to do that for me, it’s fine, it’s not like anyone is going to call you to ask if I’m with you.”

She takes the blow, leaning back in her chair. “Wow. You really thought this through, didn’t you?”

You don’t answer, shame and anger burning your cheeks.

“Why you’re telling me now, then?”

“Like I said. In case.”

“I case what? In case I find myself on a Friday evening in the same place Adrian takes his cuntsluts?”

You steel yourself and stare at her.

“Something like that, yes.”

—

Two months.

Two months of lies and deception, shoving your bright secret deep down inside you, shrouded under a veil of routine and normalcy.

Nine weeks, split into six days of stretched out hours, swirling languid and excruciating, like smoke from a cigarette stub in a room without air, and one day of counting. The minutes, your steps, your breaths, your heartbeats.

Saturdays, worn-out, appeased, pleasantly aching. Sundays rising slow like a lurking threat. Mondays-Tuesdays-Wednesdays merging, dragging and useless. People talking to you, expecting words, when your mind is filled with two glistening bodies entwined in golden hues. A tremor on Thursdays, the nearing promise, and by Friday morning you’re all frayed nerves and aching want, tapping into your pent-up emptiness for focus and patience.

Friday evenings sliced up into a ritualized sequence of actions.

At 6pm, you leave your office and head toward the employees' underground parking. There are 37 steps from your desk to the two silver-doors elevators on the landing. Seventeen stories down, including 2 underground levels, and 58 steps from the elevators to your designated parking place. It is crucial that you don’t allow the pace of your steps to catch up with the racing thumps of your heart.

From downtown Tampa, it’s an hour and thirty-six minutes drive north on the 589, before you reach the motel. An hour and fifty minutes, two hours top, if the traffic’s bad. There might be faster alternative routes, but you don’t use the GPS, so you don’t know about them.

Once you’re there, you park in front of room number 7, the one with the missing brass number. You stuff your phone into your purse, which you slide under your seat.

You exit your car and walk towards the reception in short, hurried strides, cursing the tight skirt that hinders your steps and gives your posture a subdued aspect, which is probably why your father imposes the garment on his female employees.

The reception is a square room with an old humming AC unit, dark-brown fabric wallpaper, yellowing popcorn ceiling and a counter behind which sits Raul, the night clerk. Raul is a short man in his mid-60s. His dark eyes are reshaped into tiny concentric boot buttons by the thick lenses of his small, round glasses. His light brown, straight hair is styled in a bowl cut. He only wears beige Henley’s with rolled-up sleeves and indigo painter overalls. You’ve never seen his shoes.

Every week, Raul hands you the key to room number 2 without lifting his boot-button eyes from the charcoal drawing he busies himself over behind the counter, and tells you in a thick accent that “everything has already been taken care of.”

Every week, you thank Raul, grab the key from his stretched out left hand, and chance a glance over the counter to see what he’s drawing. Mountains, infallibly, week after week, the scenery only varying in shape and shades of anthracite.

And every week, as you exit the reception, you feel Raul’s boot-button eyes strained on your back through his round glasses.

When you step inside room number 2, you flick up the two toggle switches by the door, turning on the lights and the overhead fan, and you go to the bathroom to wash your hands and check your reflection in the antique black-edged mirror.

Then, you return to the room and you sit on the bed. That’s where you wait for him.

You don’t undress, you don’t lie down, you don’t undo the bed.

You know what he’ll do to your clothes. Anticipation trickles down along your spine all the way to the ripe heat between your thighs, and it travels right back up to tug up at the corners of your lips, but you press them together, lips and thighs, as you wait.

He comes in after dark, preceded by the sound of tires on gravel and that of his boots stomping on the porch and he’s here, Frankie’s here, the rush of night air from outside when he storms into the room wafting over your face.

He greets you with a hoarse voice, like he hasn’t used it all week, and he takes a couple of long strides towards the desk, where he sets down his cap. You peer at his reflection in the framed mirror when he combs his fingers through his dark curls, tense jaw, creased brow. You study his broad shoulders, the rippling muscles of his strong back, when he takes off his jacket and drapes it on the back of the chair, swift, precise gestures. It’s his own ceremonial, you let him have it, his transition into this world that you share. The confine of this room. Brown carpet, yellow curtains.

When he turns to face you, at last, it’s always with a heavy, grating sigh, a sound so rough and primitive to express his relief, his hunger, the limit of his patience. You stand up slowly, unfurling in slow motion from your sitting position on the edge of the bed, eyes on him, forever and always. His want radiates from him in colorful angry waves, like a tangible, virulent aura, black eyes boring into your skin and you welcome it as it pours out of him and creeps up to you like thick fumes.

You stand tall in the charged stillness of the motel room, offered, but not quite yet within reach, waiting for him to come and seize you.

“Take off your clothes,” he says as he comes closer, tilting up his chin. The command rumbles low and guttural from his throat, and those words are your cue. You clamber out of your statuesque stillness, twisting your ankles out of your pumps while he tugs at your blouse, as he crashes his lips onto yours.

His first kiss is voracious, unescapable, your face trapped between his cupped hands, and you’re engulfed in the taste of him, drowning in the scent of him, leather and soap and musk. And something metallic you have no name for. It’s intoxicating, you’re floating, losing both bearings and balance, like when you were thirteen, and you’d sneak to the downstairs pantry to drink your mother’s gin before dinner.

On some Friday nights, you’ve already made it back to your glass prison when you notice a tear in the seam of your shirt, or a missing button. “Take off those fucking clothes, I wanna feel your skin.”

“Yes,” you answer with parted lips, parted heart, parted life, jaunty fingers working your skirt open.

Beyond that point, neither of you talks much.

It’s his name –Frankie– falling from your lips, a long but quiet whimper when you come, a whine of pleasure-plain when he inches into you, a moan when you plead for more, a whisper when you promise you can take it all.

It’s his clipped orders, sharp and short.

Open up

Push back into it

Let me hear you

I want you to come on it

And two words, always the same since that first time in the parking lot.

Stop me.

Stop me when he pins your hands above your head or folds your arms in the small of your back, his fingers like shackles around your wrists, and he lines himself up. Stop me before his saliva drips down his tongue in fat drops between your breasts, and he straddles your chest. Stop me, when he closes a fist in your hair and slides you down along his hard length, your chest caving in under your gag reflex, beads of tears like precious shiny diamonds clinging to your lashes. Stop me when he angles your spine backwards with a sudden tug on your hair, when he bands an arm across your belly and ragdolls you to the floor to fuck you harder and deeper. Stop me when he ties your wrists to your ankles with the black zip ties that bite into your flesh.

Stop me with the flat of his hand pressing down between your shoulder blades, Stop me with his thumb teasing your tight ring, Stop me with your legs around his neck.

Those two words, a beacon guiding you through the week that precedes.

Sometimes, when you’re alone, you repeat them to yourself.

“Stop me,” you say, low and quiet, facing the mirror when you're applying makeup, staring straight into your eyes, so intently it twists your reflection.

“Stop me.” A whisper, and a slow-spreading, carnivorous smile that splits your face in two because someone, at last, wants you beyond reason.

Stop me. You will never stop him.

He fucks you twice, three times a night, before he leaves you covered in him, sated and sprawled on the rumpled bed around 2am, with a nod and a husked, “I’ll see you next Friday.” He sounds calm at last. Drained.

Once he’s gone, in the rumbling of the pickup’s engine and the screeching of the tires, your mental countdown to the next Friday is reset. You crouch into the narrow bathtub of dubious cleanliness, and ruefully wash him away in the trickle of hot water. You try to hold on to the thought of him, even more so than to the feeling of his touch. That’s what the soreness is for. It will stay with you until Monday at least.

But in your memory, his face is blurred. Only his sad angry eyes stand out, dreamlike, entrancing.

There's a conflicting distance beyond his hunger. An underlying restraint beyond his roughness. Withheld intimacy. A reluctance to give into your softest touches, when his forehead briefly rests on the plane of your chest, and you circle his neck, or carefully run your fingers through his sweat-soaked curls.

It doesn’t take a PhD in psychology to understand that if he wasn’t in here with you, he’d be somewhere else, doing something worse.

Some weeks, you go through strings of sleepless nights and restless days of anguish, your mind spiraling to the agonizing thought that you are nothing more to him than an empty and interchangeable vessel into which he can fuck his rage.

With masochistic thoroughness, you pull taut a red woolen thread to connect the clues of your insignificance.

He doesn’t name you. There are no sweet names, no terms of endearment, and he certainly never calls you Marion. The sounds he produces when he’s inside you, that’s your reward. Deep guttural grunts, and if you’re lucky enough, they resonate through your whole body when he holds you tight and close.

He never comes inside you. Where do you want it? he pants, when his hips start to fall out of pace. “Mouth,” you quickly answer, always, a greedy match for his gritty ways. And most times, he obliges. Flips you around or scoot over you and shoves his pulsating cock into your warm, wanton mouth.

But sometimes, he doesn’t. The thick pearly white ropes of his spend spurt over your back, your belly, your chest. That’s when he’s got a mind to rub it into your skin. That’s when you want to believe he might have chosen you to be here with him.

In those scarce instances, you are tempted to rely on your instinctual understanding of your relationship. Far from the toxic codependency that, according to Ava, you feed into with Adrian, what you share with Frankie is elsewhere entirely. Week after week, he presents himself before you, visibly wounded, willing to offer exactly as much as he needs to receive. The balance is perfect. No travesty, complete equality. The purest form of interaction. The most honest transaction you’ve ever taken part in.

And thus, no matter how remote he may seem on some nights, no matter how dark his eyes, how clouded his gaze, or how brutal his hold, you can’t help but feel safe.

The feeling thrums underneath your skin and finds an echo in his bloodstream. You hear it in your shared silence, when you lie side by side on the bed and stare emptily at the ceiling, chests heaving, bodies cooling off. When a shiver rakes through you, he gets up and turns off the overhead fan. Walks over to the bathroom to bring you a glass of water.

He’s given you everything you wanted and didn’t know how to ask for.

And when he looks you in the eyes, he doesn’t blink.

Stop me, he says, and what you hear is, Trust me.

He’s been quick to learn your body, and he’s greedy with your highs. He keeps you pinned down onto the threadbare linen with his mouth fastened around your cunt until your legs tremble and your throat is hoarse with your repeated high-pitched moans, the stubble on his cheeks scraping the sensitive skin of your inner thighs. Bestowing pleasure, drinking it right back.

Your body expands into new sensations, after years of a dormant existence, curled up within your outer shell into the tightest ball, the smallest possible shape. You’re spreading, stretching into your limbs, filling them in. Growing nerve endings that shoot farther along your extremities with each fiery kiss, each starving touch, each orgasm, like trees rooting in beautiful, intricate ramifications.

The wild creature nestled between your lungs has a mind of its own. You’re developing emotions unknown to you until now.

The tranquil contentment he leaves you with when he steps back into the night and closes the door behind him rapidly fades over the following days. By Sunday evening, there’s nothing left of it, and you find yourself shivering, deprived of his heat, unsettled, agitated.

Your mind wanders to her. The faceless, nameless woman he drives back to after you’ve fucked each other free of your pain.

Envy, tinged with hatred, pours ugly inside your chest, pressing against your rib cage, hindering your breathing, its heavy particles tainting your oxygen.

Does he handle her with reverence? Does he use sweet names to beckon her into his embrace? Does he spit in her mouth, does she beg him to? Does he rub his spend into her skin, or does he stuff her pussy full of his seed?

Whenever you loosen the grip on your thoughts, you’re brought back to a large reception room on the last floor of another glass prison, stilettos wounding your feet, strangers with empty smiles and cruel eyes drinking from crystal champagne glasses. The excruciating misery of having to interact with Adrian’s colleagues, laughing at golf jokes you did not understand, desperate to fit in. Fighting your survival instinct, to tether yourself and not present a blank stare to those people you were supposed to impress. As Adrian’s fiancée. As your father’s daughter.

The effort seemed worth it, then. You were in love. Or so you thought. In hindsight, you’re not certain anymore. Reinterpreting your past is a temptation you try not to succumb to. In more then one way, you still love him.

There was a hushed tremor in the faceless assembly of tuxedos and cocktail dresses, and you saw her entering the room, parting the crowd. Slender, swaying, lush honey blonde locks and incandescent hazel eyes. Junior partner at Adrian’s firm, quickly climbing the ranks, flawless makeup and oozing self-confidence, she smoked Vogue cigarettes and when your gaze returned to Adrian, everything fell into place. You knew with a chilling certainty that this formidable young woman was fucking your boyfriend.

Adrian had had a couple of flings in the past, but this one was different. He fell for her hard, a grown man in a teenage-like trance. Your blood left your face when you realized everyone else in the penthouse, and most likely in the firm, could see what you were seeing.

You decided then and there that you were never going to marry him, regardless of what he or your father would threaten you with.

But even then, what you had experienced wasn’t jealousy. You’d felt trapped, and yes, betrayed. Wounded, in what little self-esteem you possessed. Thoroughly defeated. But you did not feel jealous.

You understand it now, and every time you think of Frankie’s touch grazing the faceless woman. Every time you torture yourself into considering the nature of their bond and the depth of their attachment.

Would Frankie look at you the way Adrian looked at her? With blunt desire, unabashed, irrepressible thirst? With belonging? Would people around you know? Would they identify you as lovers?

After all, a single glance had been enough for him to take you from a bar, to a parking lot, to a motel. To make you desperate to mean something to him.

Does he miss you outside your shared time? Does he think of you? Does his mind wander to your skin in the blue morning hours, does he try to name your scent?

Deep down, you are no fool. If there’s one thing you’ve always known in this life, it’s your place.

But some Friday nights are more dangerous. They give you too much hope. Prompting you to call your sister, for instance, and risk your little secret so you can spend more time in the small room with the yellow curtains. Wrap yourself in the dirty sheets that bear his musky scent, instead of jumping into the shower. Linger into that breach of your life’s continuum. Extend the delusion.

Last Friday, he buried his face into your core and drew violent waves of release that he kissed back into you, swirling his tongue into your mouth to coat it with your taste.

His face was shiny with your slick and his body glistening with sweat in the soft yellow hues from the bedside lamps, when he got up to the desk and slid his belt out of the loops of his pants.

Your eyes grew wide, but not with fear.

He placed you face down on the bed, with your arms along your chest, and he trapped your body with the belt. You accompanied his movements, docile, curious, without apprehension. The metal buckle was cool on your feverish skin, and the leather smelled like him.

Stop me. He was hard and thick, and he fucked into you in long, thorough strokes, dragging the round tip of his cock along your clenching walls, slamming his hips into the swell of your ass. With his thumb pushing into your asshole and his hand around the belt to keep you where he needed you to lie still.

You came in seismic tides that quaked along your body in concentric ripples, from your wrung out core to the extremities of your fingers and toes. The sound that came out of your throat was unrecognizable, and perhaps it was his. Your mind tipped over into unconsciousness. When you resurfaced, his cock was rubbing in the cleft of your cheeks, his come leaking down the curve of your back, mixing in with your combined sweat, his chest pressing down onto your shoulder blades.

You felt his lips brushing against the shell of your ear, hot breath searing his choked up words into your soul.

“You’re a good girl. Say it. Say you’re a good girl.”

“I’m— I’m—“

“That’s it, say it for me.”

He was lying heavy on top of you, sinking you into the mattress, his belt buckle digging into your side. This was going to leave a mark.

“I’m a good girl.”

“You’re my good girl.”

You will never stop him.

—

Sitting on the edge of the bed, with your back straight and your ankles crossed, you wait. Eyes on the yellow curtains, darting beyond the dusty fabric into the warm December night. It’s yours. All of it. Yours until morning.

There’s the faintest hint of a bad taste sitting on the back of your tongue. Coppery, bloodlike. It comes in waves every time you remember how you twisted your baby sister’s arm into covering for you. But the night is yours. You swallow hard, force a smile. You want to be guiltless, for once.

“Polly says you’re overly secretive. That you like to live ‘hidden between the folds of life’, as she puts it. Something about culpability being a coping mechanism…”

The words, delivered flatly after you’d stubbornly diverted and defused all her questions, had cut through the most tender parts of your flesh.

“Is that her professional opinion?” you had retorted, your chin tilted up as if you were not bleeding inside.

You swallow hard again. If you close your eyes, if you concentrate, you can almost hear it. The pickup’s engine, bolting down the asphalt, bringing him into your needy arms. You can feel the heat radiating from his solid chest and seeping into your body through your palms, resting empty and upwards on your lap. Your tongue tingles with his tangy taste, a trail of goosebumps breaks across your skin, anticipating his caress.

Frankie.

The daydream that carries you through the week, carries you through that very last stretch.

Until the man himself storms into the room like bad weather. Dark, electric, a standing threat.

One look at his face and you know. It’s going to be one of these nights that make you doubt everything.

At first, the change in the script is barely perceptible. There is no gentle acclimatization, no ceremonial, no tacitly shared ritual. He doesn’t face away to let you observe his reflection in the mirror. But he looks like he hasn’t slept since last Friday. The crease in his brow is forbidding, his eyes are too bright, too clouded, circled in black and you’re dizzy with the distance you find there. Tension rolls out from his taut muscles underneath his clothes and you stand up, alert, if not entirely ready.

“Get naked,” he growls, tugging his gray t-shirt over his head, his trucker hat falling to the floor and tonight, you miss your cue.

Instead, you come closer, extending your hands towards him. You call him in a murmur, Frankie, but the wild thumping of his heart under your trembling palms cuts you short.

The light flickers in his eyes, so you hang in brave, hang onto the thread of your touch, sliding your hands up his burning chest. He stills. His gaze focuses on you for the first time since he came in. Your fingertips brush lightly along his collarbone, to the dip at the base of his neck, where they linger, underlining the hollow shape of it, skating around his neck to his nape. His brow shifts, his jaw ticks, and you draw him in for a kiss.

He jolts when your lips meet his. His hands grip your hips, rough and desperate. This is the part where you melt into him, surrender to his touch, but tonight the balance is tipped off. He licks into your mouth with a pained, muffled whimper, and your eyes remain open.

You’re powerless, powerless to get to him and bring him back to you from wherever the hell he may be. And his distance settles between your two bodies, an invisible partition. It stands erect and opaque, projecting its shadow over you when he lies you down on the synthetic quilt and dives between your hips. His ministrations are detached, performative, mechanical. There’s no contained urgency in his handling of you. Empty touches, empty silence, and you orgasm weakly, the sensation floating on the surface of you.

You can sense him, trapped behind his black eyes and this damn crease that splits his face above them, only you can’t reach him. He won’t let you. For every one of your attempts at a caress, at tenderness, is rejected by a shrug, a push of his hand, a shake of his head.

Sweat breaks on his forehead and dampens his curls as he becomes restless, showing none of the familiar signs of the relief he finds in your release, when he hums softly into you, lapping at your entrance to capture what you offer him, what he drew from you. Impatience and desperation roughen his grip on you. He shoves you to the head of the bed and you scramble, sliding on the slippery quilt, curled on your side, until you’re caged between his rigid body and the headboard.

There’s no warning, no Stop me, when he lines himself up with a stifled groan. You bury your face into the pillow and bite down on it to muffle the pain when he splits you open. He starts rutting into you with unrestrained strength, forcing through the vice grip of your tight cunt around his hard length. You try to relax into it. That’s all you ever want, for him to fill you up, to be inside you and around you, but that’s the thing: he’s not touching you. Not really.

Instead of gripping the curve of your hips, or kneading your breast, or lying between your shoulder blades, his hands are clenched on the headboard, white knuckled. His bent knee doesn’t quite touch your folded legs, his hips don’t even slap against the swell of your cheeks.

“Frankie,” you try, but your voice comes out thin as a ripping thread. It’s immediately drowned under the sounds filling the room, the creaking of the bed, his strained breathing.

“Frankie,” you call again, louder this time, reaching to the side to grab his thigh.

He jerks at the contact, sliding out of you with a hiss like you just burned him with a red-hot iron. You grab the side of the headboard to haul yourself up. Behind you, you feel him falling back on his knees. For a few seconds, you can’t bring yourself to move. You remain hunched over, fingers wrapped so tightly on the hardboard, your nails digging into the cheap, tender wood.

“Fuck,” he breathes out, and you turn around to face him.

Your heart sinks and chatters at the sight of him, of his glassy, pleading eyes that won’t meet yours. His chest heaves with exertion, and the weight of something else. He grazes a palm over his face, tilting his head down.

“I hurt you. I fucking hurt you, I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry.”

Tonight, this is it. These words are your cue.

“No,” you start, scooting closer to him as he shakes his head, exhausted, isolated. The gesture no longer carries the warning it did as he was about to succumb. It’s a measure of his failure, of the depth of his defeat, and it chills you to the bones.

“No,” you repeat, stronger, and you offer him the only lifeline you know.

Closing the physical distance, you straddle his lap and wrap your arms around his shoulders. When his body stiffens, you harden your hold.

“Frankie… Frankie…” you coo, again and again, like his name holds the solution, and all of your devotion. You say it as you press your forehead to his, as you rub your cheek against his stubble, as you nuzzle the sharp edge of his nose, and trace his plush lips with yours.

Until his shoulders sag under your embrace, until you feel the choked up breath that quakes his chest, you keep repeating his name. A few minutes, or an infinity of seconds, time doesn’t matter anymore. The night is yours, your skins are glued together in the soft yellow light.

His arms circle your waist, hesitant at first, but you encourage him, raking your fingers through his hair, twining them into his soft curls. He lets you, he gives in, tucking his face in the crook of your neck. He inhales you there, raising the soft hair on your nape. His voice is broken when he speaks.

“I’m not–”

“Frankie don’t, please don’t,” you cut in.

You know the words that are piling bitter and desperate on his tongue, know them on an instinctual level. You feel them swirling, black and hopeless inside his head, you’ve known them from the very beginning, recognized them in the sadness of his angry stare. And you won’t let him pronounce them inside this room you share, you won’t let him give them any kind of substantiality. Not between your arms, not against your skin.

“I’m not hurt,” you begin, pulling back to see his face, to look into his eyes and sink your words of hope and faith into him, past the barrier of remorse and regret, “I want everything you–” but his brow furrows deeper as he clenches his eyes shut, and you trail off.

Panic briefly floods your brain. You’re acutely aware of your shortcomings and limitations, of all the things you’ve never been taught growing up. How to translate feelings into words, how to express compassion, how to care for others. How to be heard.

You take a deep, shaky breath, your breasts pushing into his chest.

“Look at me, Frankie baby. Look at me. Let me–”

Let me in. Let me be yours. Let me mean something.

Your plea dies on your tongue when his eyes shoot open. They shine with unshed tears, pierced by a ray of light from the bedside table, and for the first time, you see that they’re not black. They were never black. His eyes are brown, a deep, rich, precious mahogany brown. The color paints your vision, it flows into your bloodstream and courses along your veins. It spreads into your heart, gets tangled in your soul. Around you, the whole world disappears, along with everyone in it. There is only him, his mahogany eyes brimming with tears, and the feeling of his hot, damp skin against yours.

His arms wrap tighter around your back, his warmth seeps into your bones. His hands find purchase on your curves, drawing you closer.

“I want you so badly to be real,” he whispers, quiet and pained, like he can’t ask you this much, but you know that, for him, you’re willing to be.

“I’m so sorry,” he says again.

Swallowing down the tremor in your throat, you give him a tender smile, tinted with gratitude, colored with praise. You cup his face, fingernails scratching at the heart-shaped patch on his jawline. His eyes flicker down to your lips, and you give him what he needs, leaning in to press them to his.

Underneath you, his length throbs with unreleased hunger, and you sway your hips over it. He moans against your lips, the vibration trails down to your core like hot, liquid amber. His tongue peaks out, and you open up for him, like you always have, like you always will. A grating sound comes out of his throat, an echo of your gratitude, a mirror of your pain, a reflection of your loneliness.

He breaks the kiss to lift you up gently, helping you find friction with his cock sliding between your folds, where it pulsates hard and thick against your clit. Your limbs turn to molasses, toffee soft and sticky, but your hips lock into a slow, languid rhythm, slick pooling down on him as you stroke him between your two bodies. His right hand skates up flat along your spine, to settle on your nape.

He draws you in closer, closer than you’ve ever been. His heart beats inside your chest, enveloping the purring wild creature you still can’t name or tame.

“Make us come, baby.”

A dry sob undulates up to your throat. Your eyes fill with hot tears, they spill against his temple. Mahogany explodes inside your brain. The night is yours.

“Yes, Frankie.”

“Make us come together.”

****

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milf-harrington · 1 year

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i wrote this in like an hour so please forgive the quality but here's some gentle steddie set somewhere in the early 90's mentions of canonical violence and trauma, but otherwise just a gentle morning scene

5:30 am found Eddie Munson on the back porch steps, watching their liver spotted dalmatian patrol the fence-line with her usual level of seriousness. Ronnie moved like a spectre in the half-light, her edges all blurred and smudged until she stopped to sniff at a weed and became solid again.

The cherry of his cigarette flared bright on his inhale as he brought his knees further into his chest, feet crossed over one another like he could trap the warmth in if he just curled up tight enough. With autumn creeping closer, the mornings were getting crisp.

Luckily, his ears were warm under both his hair and the hood of his jumper,but his legs were prickly with goosebumps thanks to his habit of grabbing whatever was on the floor. This time it was Steve's basketball shorts, the one's that used to be trackpants until he'd taken scissors to them in the summer of '88.

They definitely weren't suited for cooler weather, but they were comfortable and Eddie kind of liked the distraction the chill brought. It was harder to get stuck in memories of snapping bones and dead motors and being eaten by bats when your toes were trying not to freeze off.

Eddie sniffled without tears and wiped his nose with the back of his hand, bringing his smoke back to his lips for another drag. His hands were shaking, but it had nothing to do with the weather.

He'd dreamed of Chrissy again.

The problem with an overactive imagination, is that it could always make your nightmares worse.

After weeks of stress free dreaming, he'd wound up back in his trailer last night, but this time he'd known Chrissy's favourite song. Playing it hadn't worked, and instead the bats had come pouring from her mouth like it was it's own gate. They'd swarmed him before he even had a chance to run, breaking free through the windows and those damn vents before tearing him and Hawkins apart.

He'd woken in his and Steve's bed, in the house they bought with their shady government money, sweat slicked and on fire. His skin was tight and itchy as he'd crept out of bed, tapping the dog awake to take her outside and grabbing his smokes from the dresser.

Ronnie chose then to drop her favoured rope at his feet, head ducked and eyes flitting from between him and the toy hopefully, tail wagging. Eddie secured his cigarette between his lips so he could distract her with a scratch behind her ears, and grabbed the toy with his free hand before she could react. She'd turn it into a game of tug-o-war if he wasn't careful, and it was impossible to ask her to drop it when it took both hands just to keep hold of the thing.

The rope sailed across the backyard in a high arc, and Ronnie almost tripped over her own paws in her haste to get to it.

A few more throws later, the sky was brighter and the back door opened with a familiar wheeze behind him.

Eddie didn't turn as he threw Ronnie's toy again, but listened to Steve quietly walk closer and settle down beside him with a soft grunt.

A moment later, his cigarette was stolen from right between his fingers, but when he turned to complain, Eddie was met with a steaming mug shaped like a bear. He took it with hands that were steadier than they'd been 10 minutes ago.

Steve, meanwhile, had tucked the cigarette between his own lips like he used too when he was trying to seem cool and impressive (before they got their shit together), and unfolded the blanket he'd brought out with him.

It settled over both of their shoulders while Eddie sipped his coffee, feeling it's journey all the way down to his stomach. He watched Ronnie register Steve's presence and come bounding over.

She stopped in front of them with the rope toy swinging from her mouth, tail picking up enough speed to move her hips with it when Steve signaled for her to drop it.

Steve generally wasn't verbal this early in the morning, preferring to sign until the world felt awake enough for voices. Luckily their dog was deaf too, even if she was cheeky about ignoring signals by pretending not to see them.

Finally, Ronnie relented, dropping the rope between Steve's ridiculous old-man slippers as he passed the cigarette back to Eddie. She graciously accepted her vigorous head scratches as reward.

Eddie huffed a laugh and tapped off the excess ash, taking another drag and waiting until the dog was tearing off after her toy to pass it back to Steve.

He accepted the smoke with a smile and didn't ask why Eddie was awake so early, or why he hadn't bothered to dress warmer. Just made sure the blanket was wrapped around him properly, and pressed a kiss to his temple over the top of his hood.

Eddie sighed from somewhere deep and tired inside him and let his head drop onto Steve's shoulder, feeling it drop as he exhaled smoke towards the rising sun.

#hoh steve harrington #steddie #steve harrington #eddie munson #i really want a dalmatian but i'm currently in no position to get one so i gave steddie one instead #im imagining that they adopted her from shelter sometime after vecna is defeated #eddie wanted to name her something metal but steve didn't want her to have a weird name so they compromised on 'ronnie'#which is cute and also the name of dio's lead singer #steddie fluff #sort of #domestic steddie #my writing

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unclewaynemunson · 1 year

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Eddie has this habit of feeding the stray cats around the trailer. Sometimes, he’ll even give the occasional raccoon something to snack on. He’s done it ever since he moved in with Wayne, spending hours crouched down on the ground with a pile of tuna cans beside him and an ever-growing flock of cats around him.

‘Just don’t let ‘em come inside,’ was all Wayne would say about it, keeping his distance from the whole circus around Eddie’s legs.

And Eddie sticks to that rule. He tests Wayne’s limits by letting the animals come up onto the porch or feeding them scraps through the kitchen window, but he never lets them set foot inside the trailer, respecting the very last bit that’s left of Wayne’s personal space.

Until he doesn’t, of course.

Wayne comes home one day to find Eddie stretched out on his back on the wobbly old couch with the tiniest black-and-white kitten curled up on his chest.

‘Ed, you know the rule,’ Wayne reminds him without so much as a greeting, annoyance dripping from his voice. ‘Can’t afford shots and cat food. Not enough space. And I don’t wanna find cat hair everywhere.’

‘But look at him, Wayne!’ says Eddie, almost begging - and if the baby cat does nothing to melt his cold heart, his nephew’s wide eyes most certainly do.

‘He won’t survive out there by himself,’ Eddie whines. ‘I found him hidden under the trailer because the other cats kept attacking him! And I promise you he isn’t mean; he didn’t bite me even when I picked him up! I’ll pay for everything and keep him in my room, you won’t even notice he’s here!’

Wayne wants to argue, he really does, but honestly, what argument can be made against those eyes? It’s goddamn unfair is what it is.

‘You sure that’s what you wanna be usin’ your hard-earned drug money for?’ Wayne grumbles. He’s never felt like he had the authority to reprimand Eddie about his sources of income, nor does he have the energy to lecture him about it, but he’s definitely amused by the extremely non-badass way the boy decides to spend his shady money.

Eddie grins, looking like the textbook definition of innocence with that tiny kitten on his chest and the dimples in his cheek, his black clothes and tattoos not doing anything in the slightest to counter that - not in Wayne’s eyes, at least.

‘Yeah, what else would I be using it for?’ he says, completely serious, and Wayne can see so clearly how well Eddie knows he’s got his uncle wrapped around his finger. There’s still nothing he can do to stop it, but maybe that’s not so bad. He doesn’t really mind being wrapped around Eddie’s finger, anyway.

So Wayne only huffs, knowing there’s no stopping Eddie and resigning himself to the fact that he apparently has a new roommate now - no matter what Eddie promised, there’s no way he’ll keep that little monster confined to his own bedroom.

---

And so it happens that Shadowfax becomes the third member of the Munson household. Or at least, that’s his official name, the one Eddie uses. Wayne prefers calling him “the little monster,” which is a way more accurate name if you ask him - which, needless to say, nobody does.

Eddie spoils the little monster rotten, with the consequence that Wayne has to share his food with him whenever Eddie’s out and that he’s always crying for attention when Eddie isn’t present to give it to him. That’s how Wayne ends up, not even three weeks in, with the little monster nestled in his lap as he’s watching tv. No, it has nothing to do with the fact that his purring has a relaxing rhythm, or with the softness of his fur, or the warmth of his tiny body... And certainly not with the disarming effect of a stubborn little stray cat seeking his company, feeling comfortable enough around him to let himself fall asleep in his lap. No, that doesn’t remind him in the slightest of that one evening about two months after he had taken Eddie in and Eddie fell asleep on the couch with his head against Wayne’s shoulder. Not at all. He’s just too lazy to put the little monster away when he dares to invade his personal space.

And when Eddie comes home that night to find not one, but two Munsons snoring in Wayne’s armchair, both jolting awake when Eddie softly closes the door behind him and looking at him with tired eyes, it’s not at all obvious that both of them were waiting equally eagerly for their Eddie to get home.

#insisting to dislike an animal whilst letting said animal fall asleep in your lap is peak dad behaviour tbh #oh the complicated relationship between a gruff old man and his pet #don't mind me rambling about stranger things #wayne munson my beloved #eddie munson #wayne munson #fruity ficlet

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moonchildstyles · 2 years

Text

nest

harry is y/n's best friend. he also happens to be an alpha. spending a week at his place has her brain doing weird things.

cw: a/b/o dynamics! while this has no smut in it, I still heavily encourage anyone not familiar with the trope to look it up before reading ahead!

wordcount: 10.5k+

—————

(Y/N) panted as she scaled Harry's driveway with her too-heavy weekender bag hanging over her shoulder. Did she know she was overpacked for only a week long stay? Sure, but she would rather be safe than sorry, so if that meant bringing an extra five pairs of panties and three more sets of clothing than she needed, that was only being safe as far as she was concerned. What she hadn't planned for, was scaling Harry's long driveway with her bag banging against her side and her phone charger spilling out of the top and her school backpack weighing down her other side. Parking in her usual spot by the curb with shady covering provided by the leafy tree in his yard sounded perfect, until she felt her shoulders aching with the weight of her bags as she peered up the driveway.

By now, she was sure a sheen of sweat had collected above her brow and Harry was going to kill her for exerting herself when she could have easily texted him for some help with her things. But, (Y/N) didn't want to call on him to carry her things, her was already doing too much for her.

He was already letting her crash at his place for a week—maybe more—, so there was no reason to make him carry her textbooks and a week's worth of clothing. She'd take a little bit of a scolding instead of pandering for more help.

Just as she climbed the porch steps, the front door swung open only to reveal the alpha of the house with a bunny-toothed grin on his features and fluffy curls framing his face.

"(Y/N), h—What are you doing?" As expected, the second Harry caught sight of the sweat coating her features and heard the wheeze of her lungs, his brows furrowed and he all but rushed to join her on the short staircase. "Why didn't y'tell me y'were here?" he reprimanded her as he reached for her duffle, "And y'parked so far away. (Y/N), y'should have told me I would have helped y'carry your things in."

"I know, I know," she said, relief flooding her system when circulation returned to her arm, "I didn't think the bag was going to be that heavy, though, I promise. And, you're already doing so much for me, it's not fair—"

"Don't go off about what's fair with me, again," he cut her off, apparently having already anticipated this conversation, "I offered to let y'stay with me, and you're not inconveniencing me in anyway, okay? The only thing that isn't fair is when y'don't let me take care of you like I promised I would."

(Y/N) sighed as he brought up his promise again. It wasn't a new topic, but still one that made her tummy flutter every time he brought it up.

Years ago, when they first became friends their first year of university, Harry had been around when she had gone through a particularly bruising breakup. The alpha was not who (Y/N) thought he was, and that much was only apparent after she had fallen in love with the facade he had presented. Harry had been the only one to pick up when she called sobbing in the middle of the night, needing to talk to anyone who would listen and reassure her that she hadn't just ended a relationship with the only person who would ever love her like that alpha had screamed at her.

That night in the dark of his student dorm, Harry promised her that he would always be there to protect and take care of her. No one would be able to tamper with her self-worth ever again, or make her feel like she was a burden or hard to love—platonically or otherwise. It had been a serious promise, one that he said in the deep grumble of his alpha tone and with his eyes matching hers as he said it.

But, now, he loved to use it as an excuse to get his way whenever she wouldn't let him do something silly like hold her duffle bag or drive her to her early morning class. While she always made a point to roll her eyes at him when he made such comments, it never failed to make her heart feel full at the reminder of his promise.

Harry was always the one alpha who never tried to change her or push himself on her just for the fact that she was an unmated omega. He was even the driving force behind her deciding to continue her schooling towards her master's degree after graduation. So, if he wanted to scold her a little for carrying her own textbooks or parking too far away from his front door, she'd let him. It let her know he cared.

"Sorry, dad," she sighed, a petulant tease carrying her voice, "I'll park closer next time."

"That's what I thought," he said, pushing her with a hand on the small of her back through his front door. "And, you'll let me know when you're here, so I don't have to listen for you."

"Whatever you say," she shook her head, laughter filling the foyer as he piled on his conditions that she knew he wouldn't do anything about if she didn't adhere to them.

"Good," he grumbled, locking the front door behind them before he continued ushering her up the stairs. "Got the guest room all set up for you if y'want to go that way."

Harry's house was (Y/N)'s second home after her apartment, so the layout was easy to maneuver even without his hand on her back guiding her. Still, that didn't mean she wanted him to stop.

As expected, Harry had the guestroom set up perfectly for her, just as he always did whenever she had to sleepover at his place. The quilt he'd had in his dorm when they met was folded across the bottom of the bed, the familiar holes and frayed edges brought a smile to her face as it covered a section of the fluffy white duvet he'd bought specifically for her. There was something especially intimate about him buying her something that could so easily become the perfect base for a nest, but she knew it was only a part of his alpha instincts to give an omega something so special even if they were only friends. The rest of the room still held the potted plant she gifted him at his housewarming, sitting right in the bay window as the vining leaves draped themselves over the sill. A humidifier was stationed in the corner of the room, just beside the walk-in closet, a detail she knew he had in his own room because then he could turn it on just before bed after grabbing his pj's or turn it off in the morning after he got ready for work. The bedside table had a scented candle left with its cap off, allowing the strong scent of him to be filtered through the lens of autumn leaves and vanilla whipped cream.

(Y/N) felt at home as she stepped over the threshold. Harry's hand on her back disappeared as he moved around her, settling her bag on her temporary bed with a bounce of the mattress.

"Everything look good?" he asked her over his shoulder as he began to fuss over the little plant in the window.

"Yeah, thank you. It's perfect." (Y/N) could hear the smile in her own tone, with Harry surely able to smell her happiness as it flooded the room.

Pride lifted Harry's shoulders as he gave her a lopsided smile over his shoulder, having rotated the plant just enough so the baby leaves that just sprouted had the most sunlight. "Good, that makes me happy," he told her, his voice a quiet croon.

It was moments like these especially that (Y/N) couldn't believe he didn't have an omega. She knew that if she had the chance and wasn't so worried about the friendship they had curated, she would be clinging to him at all times, scenting all over and pining for his mark on her neck. He was too good of an alpha and a caregiver to be on his own, she believed.

Settling on the edge of the mattress, Harry unzipped her bag with the intention of helping her unpack just like he always did when she stayed for a little longer than a couple of days. "Has your building told y'any more about what's going on?" he asked her, pulling out her rolls of outfits from the weekender.

"Not really," she shook her head, taking his offerings to the closet with the door open behind her, "I overhead one of my neighbours talking about bugs, though. Like, a lot of them. Enough that the foundation or structure, or whatever, of the building isn't doing great. Some people might have to get their walls knocked down, too."

"(Y/N)," Harry sighed, absently reaching for another set of clothes to pass off, "Jus' come live with me, love. I told you that landlord wasn't right when we did that walkthrough."

"I know, I know, H," she said, used to this conversation from the many times Harry tried to convince her to move in, "But, its close to campus and rent is low, that's all I'm looking for right now."

"What happens when your entire floor falls through because bugs have eaten through the entire structure, hm?" he pressed, raising a brow at her while he plugged in all of her chargers.

"I'm sure my rent will be even lower then."

"(Y/N), please," Harry tried again, not laughing at her attempt to joke, "This worries me. I don't like thinking y'live somewhere so unsafe that they're kicking you out for a week—if not more—because the building might fall apart. You know I wouldn't make y'pay rent, and I can drive y'to class every morning on m'way to work."

Turning towards him, abandoning the hanger she was layering with clothing, (Y/N) gave Harry the same look she did when they talked about this. "You know it's not that easy, H"

"But, aren't we close enoug—"

"You're not my alpha, Harry. I don't want to live with anyone that isn't mine like that."

Though she felt bad to cut him off, she knew he wasn't going to understand otherwise. Yes, they were close enough she told people he was her best friend, but he wasn't hers. He wasn't someone that scented her, kissed her, or marked her. He wasn't her alpha.

Something ticked in Harry's jaw as he matched her eyes, the intensity making (Y/N) want to instinctively curl in on herself. "Trust me, I know," he murmured, "I jus' worry about you, (Y/N). Please at least think about it this week."

"I can do that," she relented with a quiet nod, "I'm sorry I worry you, I don't mean to."

Rising from his spot on the bed, Harry stood to the full of his height with his arms open for her. "Don't need to be sorry, 's not your fault 'm a worrywart," he told her once she stepped into his hug, arms cradling her shoulders while he pressed his cheek to her hair, "Jus' think about it for me. Even if y'only spend time here until y'find another place to live if your bug building gets worse."

"I will," she promised with a sigh, stopping herself before she could tuck her nose into the curve of his neck no matter how badly her instincts were urging her to do so, "Thank you for always letting me stay here if I need it."

"I love it when you're here with me, (Y/N), you know that. Makes me happy when all I have to do to see you is go down the hall." Though no one else was in the room—or the house, even—Harry spoke with his voice low as if he were sharing a secret only for her to hear.

Scrunching her eyes closed, (Y/N) curled herself tighter against Harry's chest. All she wanted to do was cling to him and inhale all of him that she could, scent him so she could take that crisp warmth with her wherever she went. But, like she had just told him: he's not her alpha. If she dared to even graze her nose along his neck, it would be far too intimate an act for two people who claim to be nothing more than best friends, she knew that.

Harry ran his hand along the plane of her back, palm warm as he skimmed over her skin through the loose knit of her sweater. "'S gonna be alright, love. Don't worry about your place, okay?"

While that wasn't exactly what was making her tummy hurt, she wasn't going to correct him.

—————

(Y/N)'s absolute favorite thing about waking up at Harry's place had to be the fact she was completely enveloped in his scent from the second she opened her eyes. While everything was clean and washed before she came over, the detergent and softener smell couldn't even dream to cover up the smell of everything Harry that had soaked into the fabric. Bringing the sheet up to her nose, (Y/N) indulged herself in a deep inhale of crisp apples and burnt cinnamon, deep and warm and heady.

All alphas had their own scent, distinctly identifiable, but they all had that deep dominance in common. Nothing could completely cover it up the same way suppressants could conceal an omega or neutralizers could cover a beta. There would always be a little bit of something—a base note of dark wine, or peppery firewood—that seeped through even the strongest of concealments. And, (Y/N) loved that when it came to Harry. She knew he set up a scented candle for her every time because he didn't want to overwhelm her with the strength of his scent after going from her light omega surroundings, but she always made a point to cap it before she went to sleep on her first night. By the time she woke up, nothing could hinder the smell of him.

The only thing that could top waking up in his scent was getting to lie in it all morning—which, since it was a Saturday, she got to do.

She didn't know how long she soaked in the smell of him, in a half dream state as she dozed in and out of sleep with the help of his comforting scent, but by the time Harry knocked on her door, she still felt like she hadn't gotten enough of him.

"Yeah?" she called out to him, stretching under the sheets as she tried to pry her eyes open.

Harry carefully cracked the door open, peeking his head in with a soft smile on his face as soon as he saw her wrapped in her bedding with wild hairs framing her face. "Jus' wanted to see if y'were awake. I have some breakfast from earlier waiting for you in the microwave if y'were awake enough to come downstairs."

"What'd you make?" (Y/N) peeped as she threw her legs over the side of the bed, feet searching for her slippers.

"French toast and those hashbrowns y'like."

It was the same breakfast he always made at least once for her when she stayed over.

"And chocolate milk?"

"And apple juice, if y'wanted something different."

She hoped he could smell the way her heart perked up for him. He really knew her so well.

—————

"Are you sure its alright that I tagged along today?"

The lopsided grin that molded Harry's features grew as he looked down at her for a second as he steered the shopping cart. "(Y/N), jus' because y'ask me four different times doesn't mean you're going to get a different answer."

"I know," she sighed, rerouting herself when Harry made a quick turn into the bread aisle, "I just feel bad you're shopping for me since I'm only staying with you for a week."

Harry shrugged, reaching for a loaf of thick bread to be placed in his trolley. "I don't mind, jus' like I've already told you. And, it might be longer, remember? We need to, at least, get a couple of things for you to take to class."

"I'm going to pay you back for all of this, Harry," she cemented, following after him as moved an aisle down for all things pasta, "I know you're going to say no, but I am. This is more than just letting me stay with you for a little while. I wouldn't feel right if I didn't give you something for all of this."

"Just be happy and consider what we talked about the other day, okay? That's all I want from you—nothing else, alright?"

"But, Ha—"

"Do you like the five cheese marinara or the basil and garlic more?" Harry cut her off, holding up two opposing jars of spaghetti sauce.

Raising an unimpressed brow, (Y/N) looked to Harry's seemingly oblivious face between the two raised jars. "Harry."

Puckering his lips to the side, Harry turned the jars to get a look at the labels. "Yeah," he hummed, "We should try both. I haven't tried this brand yet, anyway, so I don't know which one is better for the gnocchi."

"Harry," she tried again, a giggle seeping into her words as she followed after his slow steps down the shelves of dried pasta, "Please."

"Nope," he popped, reaching to the highest shelf with ease as he grabbed for a package of whole-wheat linguine, "'M not listening."

"C'mon," she tried again, stepping in front of him so he couldn't get away too easily with the cart in tow. "It's not a big deal, as soon as I get paid I'll just—"

"No, you won't," he solidified, looking down at her with the full intensity of his green eyes, "Remember what I promised you?"

"I can't believe you're using that against me, right now, in the middle of the pasta aisle." (Y/N) playfully puffed out her bottom lip.

"What? Y'don't like being reminded that I like to take care of you where everyone can see you get all flustered? Is that it, (Y/N)?"

Maybe it was the way he didn't dare pull his gaze from hers or the deep tone of voice that rumbled through his chest, but (Y/N) felt her tummy tighten as she gazed up at him. Did she get flustered when he talked about the promise? If she did, she'd never noticed before. But, it seemed Harry did.

"I don't get flustered," she countered lamely, fluttering her lashes as she dropped her gaze, allowing him to win that game.

"Yes you do," he sung, a tease coating his voice as he ducked his head into her line of sight, "Every time I say something, I swear your eyes get all dreamy and y'won't look at me until your butterflies stop."

"I don't have butterflies."

Harry shook his head then, lopsided smile and a single dimple in his cheek. "Sure, y'don't, silly. And I don't smell them on you right now, either." With that, Harry straightened his posture and grabbed for the bar of the trolley. "Now, do y'want some of those little protein packs or fruit to take with y'between classes?"

(Y/N) watched as Harry nonchalantly started down the aisle, moving towards the wall of refrigerators while she couldn't find it in her to unlock her knees and follow after. The muscles of his back shifted under his top as he pushed the trolley, black sweats hanging low enough on his hips that if he moved just right, she was allowed a peek at the tan skin of his hip.

Something's changed. This wasn't the first time in the last couple of days since she'd started her stay that Harry had practically flirted with her. Sure, there had always been a little something to their interactions that solely came from the fact they were sexually compatible given their classes, but this was different. It was more than the friendly teasing that had been apart of their friendship since the beginning. He was doing more, pushing more, getting closer and speaking lower, a voice she wasn't familiar with.

It'd only been three days since she started sleeping over—longer than any of her previous weekend stays—and (Y/N) was beginning to worry about what else he was going to start picking up on if he was now noticing just how easily flustered and butterfly-filled he could make her.

"Are y'coming, love?" Harry called to her from the end of the aisle, his brows pinched as he beckoned to her.

Immediately, she perked up, not wanting to be left behind. "Yeah, sorry."

"'S alright, jus' stay close, yeah?" he murmured once she was close enough, corralling an arm around her back to tug her between his chest and the handlebar of the cart, "Saw some alpha looking for a little too long and getting a little too close to you."

"Really?" She really must have been oblivious if she didn't notice a whole other dominating presence creeping up on her.

"Mhm," Harry grumbled, his hands on either side of her flexing around the bar as he escorted them towards the snacks, "No reason for him to be getting so close, especially when you've got m'smell all over you."

(Y/N) was grateful for the fact he only had a view of her back when a small smile plucked at the edges of her mouth. If she allowed her mind to wander, she could argue he sounded... protective over her. Like he had claimed her.

"I'll stay right here, then," she murmured, "No more wandering."

A contented hum that verged on a soothed purr rumbled Harry's chest. "Thank you."

—————

(Y/N) jumped as the sound of Harry's laughter pulled her from her half-asleep state. Her eyelids fluttered open with a quiet gasp, only to see a different Julia Roberts rom-com gracing the television screen than the one she remembered playing the last time she had her eyes open. Maybe she had been a little more than half-asleep.

Making a point to sit up from the curling position she found herself in, (Y/N) shifted under the quilt that was taken from her temporary bedroom. With a short stretch, she folded her legs underneath her and pushed her back firmly against the cushions. Leaning against the back of the couch, she found Harry's arm tossed around her form, the warmth not having shown up on her radar in her sleepy daze.

Once he realized she was awake, (Y/N) saw from the corner of her eye as he gave her a fond look before ducking his head down. With his lips hovering by her ear, he spoke as if they really were at the cinema they were pretending his living room to be, "Sorry, I didn't mean to wake y'up. I promise I was trying to be quiet."

"I wasn't asleep, its alright," she mumbled out, clearing her voice she in hopes of living up to her facade. Running a heavy hand through her hair with a clarifying tug at the roots, (Y/N) tried her best to suss out what was happening on the T.V. If she squinted enough with the sleep in her eyes, she was somewhat sure that Mystic Pizza was playing.

"Right, cause you knew y'were drooling on my shoulder for the last half hour, and you jus' thought it was too funny to stop," Harry countered, canting his head to the side with a nonchalant half shrug while the light from the television highlighted the side of his face.

Eyes wide and jaw dropped, (Y/N) felt her grogginess leach from her system, warm embarrassment replacing it.

"I didn't drool on you," she denied, her eyes drifting down to the shoulder of his shirt before flicking back to his shaded gaze, "Did I?"

A little too smug of a smile molded his features before he shook his head. "No, but now I know you were sleeping," he teased, his grin only widened when she saw her lips puff into a pout. "'S alright if y'were asleep, love. I can turn off the movie and we can go to bed, if y'want. It's getting late, anyway."

(Y/N) was quick to shake her head, knowing the long day Harry had and that he was taking this time to decompress. "No, no, it's okay. Let's finish this one, and then we'll see," she insisted, focusing her gaze forward, "What did I miss?"

Though she had her eyes trained forward, watching Julia Roberts' character find her love interest in a bar, (Y/N) could feel Harry's eyes lingering on her as he made no attempt to follow the direction of her gaze. Heat traced over her profile as if he were running his fingertips over the planes of her face. The warmth danced over the bridge of her nose and bounced across her Cupid's bow though she swore he lingered over the pillows of her lips. A beat passed before she peeked over at him, the intensity of his gaze confirmed when he didn't mind matching her eyes and didn't shy away when she caught him.

"What?" she peeped.

Something flashed in his eyes—either it was the light from the T.V. or something else, (Y/N) didn't know, but she saw it.

"Nothing," he murmured, voice low and purring, "C'mere."

Slipping his arm from around her waist, he pulled the quilt that was draped over their laps to sit on his other side in a bundle.

"Wait, wh—"

"Lay down, love," he told her, nodding his head towards his lap, "I'll bundle y'up as soon as you're comfortable."

A small smile tugged at (Y/N)'s lips when she realized what he was suggesting. They hadn't cuddled like this in a while, probably not since before her last relationship ended over a year ago.

Shuffling her way over the couch, (Y/N) laid herself out on the cushions with her legs scrunched to fill out the remaining two with her head landing in Harry's lap. The full of his thighs worked as her pillow, warm and comforting with her most favorite smell of all surrounding her, right from the source. Even with the muscles cording his arms and beefing his stature, Harry was gentle as he tucked the quilt around her form, keeping her warm and cuddled up.

"This better?" he asked her. The dark of the living room allowing only peeks and glances at his features once the scene on the television lit up enough to do so, but (Y/N) couldn't help but hope she really did see the fondness in his gaze and it wasn't just a trick of the light.

"Yeah, thank you," she murmured, feeling her eyes grow heavy now that she was comfortable and well taken care of by an alpha.

"Good," he smiled at her, grazing his fingertip across her brow to pull a stray hair that threatened to peek in to her line of sight, "If y'fall asleep, 's alright. I'll take y'upstairs, okay? I jus' want y'to relax, (Y/N)."

The soothing rumble of his tone and the careful skim of his skin against hers was enough to have (Y/N) fluttering her eyes closed in contentment. "Okay, H," she responded dreamily.

Shifting to lay on her side, (Y/N) cuddled in with her hands under her chin while Harry played with her hair in soothing motions. Though she tried to keep track of the film for as long as she could, (Y/N) didn't stand a chance with the warmth of Harry's touch skating through her hair and the comfort of his scent wafting to her nose directly from the source. The audio of the movie became background noise that helped set the tone for the nonsensical dream that was beginning to shape up behind her eyelids.

Until Harry started purring, of course.

That became the center of her focus then. The rumbling deep tone of his purring comforted her farther than what just the smell of him and his soft touches could do. None of her previous alphas had ever shared something so intimate with her, knowing that purring like this could feel like music to an omega like her—especially seeing as how she was fostering feelings for Harry.

Maybe he didn't even realize he was doing it, or maybe it was the pending dream talking, but (Y/N) liked to think he wanted to share this with her.

—————

Harry rolled his neck after shifting his car into park in the garage. With his eyes closed, he let out a deep breath as he relaxed into the plush leather of his seats. This week has been excruciatingly long, and it was only Thursday.

And, it was because of (Y/N).

His workload was the same as always, maybe ticked up a tiny bit just because one of his team members was out for vacation, but nothing he couldn't handle. The only thing that plucked him off-kilter was his little houseguest.

Not to say she was unpleasant to live with—quite the opposite if his badgering for her to move in with him meant anything—, but he found himself struggling more than usual around her. Harry knew since the day they met that they were compatible. Call it instincts or the fact she was so obviously an omega that balanced out the alpha in him, but Harry swore in his gut, he knew that (Y/N) was going to be special to him.

But, that had been years ago, back when she was with another alpha and had confided in Harry as a best friend. Though he never really lost that sparkle he felt for her, it was something he was able to manage, especially as it seemed she didn't feel that same glimmering affection towards him outside of being a best friend.

These past days seemed to be putting that notion of management to the test, though.

Harry didn't know what it was, but something shifted this time around. Maybe it was him; he knew he was toeing into territory not yet explored between them with the way he flirted with her more obviously, and tried to squeeze a cuddle in any time he could manage it. Even with that, Harry couldn't forget the way he caught her snuggling up to his sheets when he woke her most mornings for breakfast. With the scented candle he brought up for her capped and stowed away, she had her nose tucked into the sheets that had been stored in his linen closet next to his usual sets he alternated through for his own bed. He knew, that even though they were clean and unused, his scent had to have stuck to them and wiggled its way between every fiber. She was looking for him when she smelled those sheets.

Even the other night during their impromptu movie night, (Y/N) had been the one initiating all of the snuggling until he had to corral her into settling down in his lap so she could get some actual sleep instead of knocking her head against his shoulder. When she looked up at him after he tucked the quilt around her form, he swore he saw something extra in her gaze; extra soft, extra fond, extra tender, extra trusting. He even purred for her.

Trust was as good as foreplay as far as Harry was concerned, the notion flooding his heart and calling to his more basic instincts, especially when the idea involved (Y/N). That was what had been plaguing him throughout his work days. No reprieve could even be offered when he came home, though—especially not on those days (Y/N) came home early enough from class to get dinner started with her scent trailing all around the house as she cleaned up and did bits of housework he would never expect from her.

Still, that didn't mean he wasn't ecstatic to be coming home to her. He just didn't know how much more his heart could take before it gave out and he had to offer it up to her for repairs.

Leaving the sanctity of his car behind, Harry came in through the garage. Though he hadn't expected (Y/N) to be back already, today being one of the days her classes ran longer than his workday, he was surprised to find the entire house soaked in her scent. More than usual.

With brows furrowed, he stalked through the house, stopping to take a peek out the front window, (Y/N)'s car wasn't there just as he figured. Nonetheless, he couldn't ignore the way his entire house reeked with the smell of her fruity perfume though this selection was decidedly more heady and dark than what he was used to scenting from her. There wasn't even a discernible trail of where she might have been, the mass of scent having permeated through the whole space and planted itself in every inch.

Though the more basic parts of him were responding especially well to the glaze of omega scent that touched over all of his things, Harry couldn't help but feel concerned. She wasn't supposed to be home if her lack of car was any kind of proof, so he couldn't see why her smell would be so deeply ingrained no matter where he touched.

Trailing up the staircase, with every step the perfume only grew stronger and stronger until he was directed to his bedroom. The door was left ajar only a small crack, but Harry didn't need that peek inside to know what he was going to find the second he pushed the door open.

(Y/N) sat on her hands and knees, back and bottom facing Harry as she rummaged through a pile of his clothing she had ransacked and splayed out across the floor. Every suitable piece she found was tossed over her shoulder in the direction of his bed, where her nest was beginning to form, full of every soft piece of linen and bedding in the house as well as everything that was directly Harry's that carried his scent to the max. She'd even plucked her own clothing off in favor of putting herself in a large shirt of his and a pair of slouching sweats he'd worn to bed the night before.

His bedroom was steeped in her scent. The typical notes of cherries and raspberries, creamy strawberries and alluring rose petals flitted to his nose before they were blended and aged into something heady and dark like the wine he had chilling downstairs. There wasn't a single surface left untouched with her smell.

Harry felt his chest tighten as he breathed in, lungs filling but unwilling to let even a single particle of her scent leave his body. With her frantically pulling a nest together in his bedroom and the extra heat that was added to her scent, Harry knew what was going on as well as his body did in the way it reacted to her.

"You're nesting," Harry said, voice low but firm as she stepped further into his bedroom.

With a gasp, (Y/N) sat up from where she was reaching for another of his knitted sweaters to add to the mess that was becoming his bed. She turned with a flutter of her hair, eyes wide as her mouth dropped into a small gape the second she took him in.

"Harry!" she breathed out, her features molding into a smile before she scrambled to her feet, "You're home!"

She crossed the room in frantic steps, all but tripping over herself and the length of her borrowed sweats before she launched herself into Harry's arms. Harry stood solidly as she bounded into him, catching her around her waist as she pressed herself flush against his form. The absolute contentment he could smell mixing in with her pleasured scent was only made more apparent in the way she all but melted into his hold, arms looping around his neck as he gazed up at him with hearts in her eyes.

"I am," he mumbled, trying his best to keep his mind clear despite the way her scent urged him to leave himself to his most basic instincts, "Didn't think y'would be, though."

"Oh," she sighed, blinking her eyes with a flutter of her lashes, "yeah, I left class early today."

He couldn't say he was surprised. "Yeah? What happened?"

(Y/N) didn't even seem to be aware of the way she squirmed in his arms, her chest pressing tightly to his as she lined her hips up perfectly with the full of his thigh. He stayed unmoving as she did so, forcing himself to keep a strong hold on his control until he had a better understanding of what was happening.

"I don't know, I don't remember," she bubbled off for him, a lazy smile on her features as she began to play with the baby curls on the nape of his neck, "I just wanted to be home with you." Just then, her face dropped, eyes rounding out with lips turning into a frown. "But then after my friend dropped me off—she said I wasn't allowed to drive myself because it wouldn't be safe, so I'll have to get my car tomorrow or something, I don't know. Anyway, she dropped me off and when I saw you weren't home, I got so sad, H. I forgot you worked."

As mind-muddling as this whole thing was, her scent clouding his head and directing his blood flow south, he couldn't help but smile some at her explanation. She forgot he had a job and wouldn't be home, even though he had said goodbye to her this morning before he left.

"Is that what got you all upset enough to start nesting in m'bedroom?" Harry pressed, pulsing his arms around her waist when the roll of her hips got a little too deliberate over the full of his thigh.

Her brow pinched in the middle as if she forgot that was what he had walked in on her doing, the mess on his bed having been thrown from her mind the second he walked through the door. "I guess so," she shrugged, "I knew I wanted to make a nest when I came back even if you were home, and I guess I wanted to make it in your room."

The idea of (Y/N) toddling home with the intention to nest, only to instinctively go straight to his room, had him seconds away from backing her into his bed and shucking those sweats from her legs once he got her settled in her nest.

"And y'put m'clothes on?" he murmured, ducking his head down until he felt the tip of her nose grazing his own.

Not a bit of shame or embarrassment he knew would normally have followed an admittance like this came as (Y/N) nodded her head with a lingering smile. "I missed you."

"I missed you, too," he told her, the effects of her scent having nothing to do with that, "Y'said y'don't remember why y'had to leave class? Or why your friend had to drive y'back?"

"I mean," she drawled, tilting her head with a giggle, her throat exposed to Harry's gaze. He swallowed as he traced his eyes over the delicate curve. "I think I do, but I'm scared to tell you."

The mention of her fear pulled Harry from his lost fantasy as he imagined sinking his teeth into the delicate skin that covered her pulse. She would look so pretty with a mark like that on her throat.

"Why? You know y'don't have to be scared to tell me things," he told her, his voice turning to a coo that he knew would draw more of her compliance to the surface. If this was what he thought it was, he needed to hear it directly from her.

"I know, I know," she sighed, matching her gaze to his with that same dreamy quality swirling in her irises, "But I don't want to make everything weird. I don't want you to stop holding me."

His fingertips gently denting the soft planes of her back, Harry held her tightly against his chest, matching her gaze with his own intensity. "I won't, love, see? Hugging y'even tighter, so now you've got to tell me."

Though she attempted to bite back her smile, the curve of her lips took over the softened features of her face. He couldn't help but match her expression with a quirk of his own lips, dimple denting his cheek as she raised herself to stand on her tip toes. Meeting her halfway, he ducked his head down and turned his ear to her.

"I think, I'm having my heat."

Her voice was a breathy whisper as her lips hovered by his ear, her breath fanning across his heated skin. Her words practically dripped over his skin like warm honey, sticky sweet and heavy as they clung to him.

"Yeah? You think so?" he pressed, voice deep enough to verge into alpha territory as his arms tightened around her.

"Mhm," she hummed, canting her head to the side as if she didn't know how tempting that sight would look to Harry in his state. She was lucky she wasn't being as squirmy as before, otherwise all the hard work she put into her nest would have been for nothing with how quickly he would have torn it apart with her on all fours for him. "I've only ever needed to nest this bad when I've been on my heat," she explained, her voice becoming the perfect counterpart to the deep gravel his was leaning into, "But, I've only ever had my heat when I've been with my last alphas, so I do—"

(Y/N) cut herself off as she jumped in his arms, mouth falling open at the low grumble that shook his chest. In a second her pupils were blown wide as he looked up at him, her breathing stuttering in conjunction with the racing of her heart that all but shook her veins. Harry watched as she tipped her head to the side, relaxing against as she bared her neck to him.

"Don't speak about them," he told her, voice low and deep, just one octave above dipping into his alpha voice and making it a command she couldn't refuse.

"Sorry," she whispered though she didn't look all that sorry given how turned on she was.

"Are you?"

The frantic nod she gave him as she trapped her bottom lip between her teeth was all the response he was given before she tightened her hold around him. He felt her body move against him as she strained on her tiptoes, her nose skimming his jawline as she spoke in a whisper, "Let me show you."

Just before she made a move to stuff her face in his neck, scent him just as intimately as he had imagined since he'd met her those years ago, Harry was reminded of the flash of her blown pupils. Her breathless voice rung in his ears and the intoxicating scent of her that not only muddled his head but no doubt had her spiraling since she made the choice to come home earlier in the day. He was quick to shift his hold on her, grabbing for the back of her neck before she could make the choice to scent him, a line they never crossed when they were both sound of mind.

(Y/N) whined when she was stopped, her brows pinching as her lips puffed into a pout. "Why did you do that?"

It took every bit of strength he had to combat his instincts, trying to tame himself against the heat of her body and the fact she was so willing to do anything for him, anything to make him happy. If she really was in her heat, the fact she had only every gone through them with whatever alpha she had been with at the time made it that much clearer to Harry that this wasn't something she would want with him normally. She wasn't of sound mind. She thought she wanted him because he was the closest alpha to her—the easiest one around to quell her needs.

While he wasn't in a much better headspace than her, he knew he had a better chance of saving them from the regret (for (Y/N) when she woke up and realized she'd let someone she only had platonic feelings for be so intimate with her) and heartbreak (for Harry when he saw her come to that realization) that would ensue the morning after. This wasn't a good idea despite how much his body wanted to convince him otherwise.

"We can't, (Y/N)," he told her, softening his tone as he massaged the back of her neck in hopes of soothing the rough way he had grabbed her in the first place.

"Why not?" she whined, her arms around his neck tightening, "Don't you want me? I thought you liked my nest, and I've been making dinner and cleaning up while you're at work. I thought I've been a good omega for you."

Rolling his lips between his teeth, Harry forced himself to refocus as he listened to her.

"Y'have been really good, (Y/N). Such a good omega, you know that," he attempted to soothe her, distracting her with his words as he unlaced his hands around her waist in favor of unwinding her arms from his neck. He watched as he perked up at the praise. "I'd be so lucky to have you, I know that. I've wanted y'for so long it hurts, but you don't want me like that."

(Y/N) was quick to shut him down with a shake of her head, her hands in his turning into a tight grip that urged him to stay. "That's not true! I do want you! I nested with all your clothes, Harry! I want you around me all the time, you're the only one that can make me feel better. I love you, isn't that enough?"

He swallowed as he tried not to let her pleading go to his head. He'd been waiting around for years to hear her say anything close to that ramble she just shared with him. But, the second he reminded himself that wasn't really her—that it wasn't really his shy, sweet best friend who looked to him for comfort and safety without the pressure of other alphas—he knew he couldn't let himself get caught up.

"Of course, that's enough, (Y/N). I jus' don't think rig—"

"Don't you love me, too?"

The back of Harry's jaw ticked as he processed her words, his gaze dropping to the ledge of her collarbones. He didn't have the strength to look into her eyes as she said things like that and keep his head on straight.

"I do, (Y/N), so much. For so long, too. But, I think you and I both know that you're not in the right state of mind right now for us to talk about that, right? Are you listening to me?" Maybe he was using his alpha-sway to his advantage, but he needed to know (Y/N) was listening to him, even if she wasn't quite understanding or agreeing for the time being.

"But—"

"No, jus' need y'to listen to me right now—that's how you'll be a good omega for me," he explained, tilting his head as he waited for her to mirror him to know she was in tune to what he was saying. "I think your heat is telling you that y'need me, but I don't think that's true. And I wouldn't want to do anything to my best friend that might upset her, even if she thinks its what she wants. Do I?"

The short shake of her head he earned was enough to have a lopsided smile curling his lips.

"You won't upset me, though," she peeped back, eyes shining, "I want you so bad because I love you, Harry."

Though the sentiment she shared was enough to have his already hammering heart skip a beat, he needed to level himself out before he only did something that would upset himself in the morning.

"I know," he told her, thought he wasn't so sure of that, "How about y'sleep in m'room tonight, and we'll see how y'feel in the morning if anything's changed. Do whatever y'need to do to make yourself happy, alright? I'll be downstairs." On instinct, he wanted to tack on that she could could grab him if she needed him, but that wasn't the kind of invitation she needed to hear at the moment. "I want to help you, love, I really do. But, I can't."

Harry swore his heart broke as he watched her face fall, tears tingling on the waterline of her eyes as he sat her down on the edge of his bed. The mess of his clothes and fluffy linens shifted as the mattress sunk under her weight, but she didn't seem to pay her little project any mind with the way her eyes were glued to him.

"I'll see you in the morning, alright?"

Harry waited for any kind of response until (Y/N) only gave him a small nod.

He was able to make it out, door shut behind him just before he heard the beginning of her breathless crying.

—————

Waking up in the morning, Harry felt more exhausted than he's sure he would have if he had just stayed upstairs with (Y/N).

Scrubbing his hands over his face, he sat up from where he made an impromptu bed on the couch with the single sheet (Y/N) had left in the closet during her effort to make her elaborate nest. He cringed as he rolled his neck; the throw pillow he had stuffed under his head put a crick in the muscles during the three hours he was able to sleep.

It wasn't (Y/N)'s fault that he wasn't able to shut his mind off or stop listening to everything happening only a floor above him until he finally passed out at three a.m.. She had whined for him for an hour, the cries muffled through the floor separating them, but he knew she was calling for him with every puffed sob. Guilt plagued his every thought as he listened, willing himself to stay just where he was at on the living room couch, no matter how much the alpha in him urged him to soothe his favorite little omega and give her anything she wanted. After she calmed down from that, he listened to the way she darted through his room, her feet shuffling over the floor as she assumedly perfected her nest or whatever she needed to do to fulfill herself without an alpha at her disposal. He tried hard not to think about what the creaking of his mattress could mean the later the night went on. It was only when she seemed to find her own reprieve, quieting for a bit of time, that Harry was able to lull himself to sleep.

Now, at six a.m., his body apparently deciding he didn't need anymore sleep though his brain begged to differ, he figured he might as well check in on (Y/N). If he thought he had a bad night, he could only imagine how the last handful of hours had been for her. He didn't know how much of their conversation the night before was something that would still hurt her in the light of day, but he hoped anything he said that would still upset her sound mind could be soothed with a plate of his cinnamon French toast and that special raspberry honey he found at the farmer's market that she loved.

Stretching out his limbs, Harry caught his bearings. Swinging his legs over the side of the couch, his bare feet touching the hardwood sent an orienting chill up his body. Not only was his neck and back going to hurt for the next three days at least, he'd also managed to sleep in his work clothes, keeping him from getting comfortable in his skin. The best part, he was going to have to shower and change right into another set just like it.

Standing from the couch, he made slow work of folding up the sheet and placing it at the foot of the couch, to be put away when he had a moment. It wasn't until he started towards the bedroom upstairs that he realized there was noise coming from the kitchen, silence filling the upstairs. A pinch pulled at his brows as he slowly woke fully.

While there was evidence of (Y/N)'s perfume everywhere in his house still, the concentration had dropped considerably. The sweetened top notes that he always associated with her won out against the dark merlot-heavy essence that mixed in the night before. Everything was decidedly less frantic throughout the house, less muddled and more in order, even if that was just because the haze of her scent was no longer clouding his judgment.

"(Y/N)?" he called out as he ventured towards the kitchen.

"I'm in here," she answered, her voice decidedly quieter than what he was hollering through the house. She was embarrassed, that much he could tell already, her scent growing demure as if she were trying to shrink herself from the inside out.

Stepping into the kitchen, he found her now dressed in her own pajamas, damp hair pulled up from her neck into a twist as she stood in front of the stove. The entire kitchen had been wiped down from the midnight snack he made for himself after (Y/N) had settled some in the night, leaving only the supplies she'd used while making breakfast on the counter.

"Morning," he mumbled, finding a post at the kitchen island to lean into with his elbows on the surface.

"Morning," she chirped back, trying to hide the demure rose he could smell in her scent. "I'm just finishing up the hashbrowns, but I already made omelettes and everything. It should be ready in a second."

Typically, heats could last somewhere from three days to a full seven depending on the omegas needs and whether or not an alpha was there to fulfill them. Even in the most mild of cases—which hers was not if any of the frantic bubbling and devastated pleas for him to stay were anything to go by—(Y/N) shouldn't be up and caring for him so early in the morning. She even had time to shower and wash her hair, something Harry knew could take her close to an hour depending on how long she felt like luxuriating under the water.

"How are y'feeling?" he tested, watching her for reactions despite the way she had her back to him.

With spatula in hand, she scooped out the shreds of potatoes and doled out sections to each plate. She shrugged as she did so, though Harry could see the set of her spine was anything but nonchalant.

"It was—um—it was a false heat," she murmured, "So, I was able to sleep it off after I calmed down."

"Oh," he sounded, nodding his head. That wasn't too surprising; it's happened before to omegas. If they spend enough time around an alpha, someone they trust but might not be intimate with, it can push them into a false heat with their body running through the adrenaline and the need for a companion, only for the effects to wear off in twenty-four hours.

"Yeah," she affirmed, turning to him with their plates of breakfast in hand. Silence settled over them as she rounded the island and picked a stool near where Harry was leaning, his plate being placed just at his side. Taking the invitation to sit, Harry waited as he watched her, noting the way she seemed tightly wound and unable to look at him for longer than a second before her eyes were focusing on something else.

"Y'feel alright now, though?" he gently prodded. Something was wrong and she wasn't sharing it with him.

"Yeah, just tired," she simplified, nodding her head before she poked at her omelette with her fork.

"Gonna stay home today, then?" he asked, cutting off a bite of the hashbrowns with the side of his fork.

"Kind of have to since I don't have my car," she breathed out, attempting to make herself laugh in spite of the obvious discomfort surrounding her.

"Right," he smiled, the curl nothing more than a facade that he wanted so badly to ease (Y/N).

Every word that came out of her mouth was a chirp, nothing more. No explanation, as if to avoid any kind of conversation with him. This wasn't at all how he saw the morning after, especially not after he tried so hard to keep things from getting messy between them.

"Harry?" she asked after a beat, looking to him though her eyes were stationed on the countertop under his hand. After Harry hummed an acknowledgment, she paused as she took in a deep breath, flitting her eyes to his where he found a sheen covering them. "I'm so sorry," she peeped.

In an instant he was off his stool with open arms, moving to collect her and soothe her, "Oh, (Y/N)."

"No, no," she shook her head, her fork clattering to her plate as she waved her hands in front of her. Harry stopped in his tracks, wanting so badly to soothe her but knowing that she wasn't going to let him. "What I did last night wasn't right, and it wasn't fair. I tried to force myself on you after you said no so many times, and then kicked you out of your room all because I couldn't calm down. It's not f-fair"—now the sniffling began with tears running over her waterline—"that I went th-through all of your stuff without asking, all because I wanted to ne-nest. I'm so, so, so sorry. I can't be-believe I did all that to you and you were still so nice to me."

By then, she couldn't contain the sobs that puffed her chest and stunted her lungs. Harry couldn't hold himself back as he saw her hang her head in her hands, palms to her eyes as she cried her heart out in the middle of his kitchen. As carefully as he could manage, he wrapped her in his arms, giving a moment's time for her to push him away if she wanted her space, but it was her that snuggled deeper against his chest once the warmth was offered.

"'S alright, (Y/N), really," he crooned to her, dropping a kiss to the top of her head before smushing his cheek in the same spot, "I know that wasn't you, okay? You're such a sweet girl, I knew y'weren't being yourself as soon as y'started talking to me like that. I don't blame you, okay? Heats and ruts can make us do crazy things, especially when we aren't prepared." A smile quirked his lips when he felt her nod her head against his chest, tears smattering his shirt as she clutched the fabric in her fists. "And I offered to sleep on the couch, remember? I knew y'needed your space and I didn't mind that y'needed m'things or m'bed to feel comfortable through it all. Besides, it was a wonderful little nest y'made, no reason for me to complain."

A hiccuping laugh was muffled against his chest as she nuzzled her nose into his top. "Th-Thank you."

"I wish I could have taken care of you, so y'didn't wake up feeling like this. I was so worried, I jus' didn't know how to help you, (Y/N). It scared me," he murmured to her, the words sinking into the strands of her hair.

"I didn't mean to."

"I know, sweet girl, I know. Not your fault at all, remember?"

A beat passed as she melted into his arms, the scent of her curling and flourishing the more she let herself relax after the morning she'd had. With her face still tucked against his chest, the tip of her nose skimming his skin through his top, she whispered, "Can I ask you something?"

"Course, sweet girl." He liked the way her scent peaked in contentment, roses blooming and strawberries flowering anytime he dubbed her his sweet girl.

"Last night, I know I was kind of out of it, but I remember you telling me you loved me," she started, "It didn't feel like when you usually tell me, though. I-I think you told me you've loved me for a long time... What did you mean when you said that?"

Now it was Harry's turn to go dry-mouthed as he fought to formulate an answer. He had almost been hoping she wouldn't remember something like that.

He must have floundered for a second too long when (Y/N) pulled away from his chest, looking up to him with glossy, red-rimmed eyes before she tried to backtrack. "If I'm totally wrong, that's fine, I'm sorry I brought it up. I don—"

"You weren't," he cut her off in a rush, the words falling from his mouth before he could control them, "You weren't wrong."

Harry watched as her eyes widened with a glimmer sparking through her irises. The smallest curve plucked at the corner of her lips just as her scent went even sweeter—a sign of sticky, sweet joy dribbling into her system.

"I'm not?"

Taking in a deep breath full of her fruited scent, Harry shook his head. "No, I did say that," he started, shifting his hold on her to land with his hands on her waist, "And I meant it differently than when we usually say it. I meant it."

The hands she had bundled in his top tightened, the fabric hers now with how hard she gripped it. "You meant it like—like—"

"Like 'm in love with you."

The way she perked up in his arms with a quiet gasp had all of Harry's worry draining from his system. She looped her arms around his neck, mimicking the position he found himself with her the night before but with much more clarity and less squirming. "Are you being serious, Harry?" she bubbled off, bouncing in her spot with her eyes bright and smile big.

Seeing her get so excited made his heart race. "Why wouldn't I be?"

"Because, you're—I—," (Y/N) couldn't contain herself as she pulled herself to his chest with a bubbly squeal, "You like me!"

"I do," he cemented with a breathy laugh, ducking his head down until the tip of his nose was skimming hers, "Can I take it that y'like me back?"

She nodded her head, hair fluttering around her face that had escaped from her clip, "So, so, so much!"

"Yeah?" he murmured, voice low and cooing, "Enough to let me kiss you?"

All it took was the bubbling nod of her head, nose nudging his in the process, before Harry stamped his lips against hers. It was clumsy with the way she struggled to keep from smiling, stop from squirming in her excitement, but Harry wouldn't have it any other way. She was his sweet girl, through and through.

"Will you stay home with me today?" (Y/N) peeped in between a slew of sweet pecks he dotted over her mouth, sipping on her taste, "I-I don't want you to leave when we just figured all this out, H."

"Give me one more kiss, then I need to make a phone call and tell someone 'm sick." The way (Y/N) smiled into their one last kiss had him running through what kind of faux-illness he could use to buy him a long weekend with her.

It was only made that much better when he heard her giggling laughter as he left the kitchen in search for his phone. Her scent bloomed around the house, imprinting her deep enough he hoped she'd never leave.

—————

this is def a little bit different for me ngl besties! I've never branched out into this kind of fic before so I really hope everyone enjoys! thank you all sm for reading and sorry for any mistakes! if you have any ideas or requests of your own please send them in!!

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headspace-hotel · 1 year

Note

I really like your posts about nature and plants. I live in a big city, and I would like to be more connected with the natural world around me, as limited as it may be. I wanted to ask if you might have any advice. So far I know a good portion of the types of trees, wildflowers, and birds. And I like to visit the parks and public gardens. But I would love to take steps to learn even more. What would you suggest? Thank you for your time :)

Once you know what some of the plants and animals are, you are in a good place to pay attention to what they do. What they teach. Their ways, their work. That sounds fanciful. It's not—they are not objects, things, they are creatures. Even plants have ways of living and growing, responding to their environment, and belonging to a community.

Pay attention to the plants that no one planted—the plants that popped up on their own. Pay attention to where they thrive and where they struggle. When you see a sad and frail plant, ask why is it sad? When you see a flourishing plant, ask the reasons for its success. Pay attention to their behavior.

This one creeps across the ground like a shaggy rug, and this one shoots up tall and straight. What does this mean?

When you see a plant growing in an unusual place, ask, How did it get here? Maybe it was the wind? Maybe it was water, or a bird?

Consider first the plants you see everywhere, in cracks in the pavement and in the seams between brick pavers. The brave dandelion, the tenacious goosegrass, the low-creeping spurge, perhaps. Maybe say hello. I say hello to plants. Become familiar with where they grow, their companions, and what hardships do them harm.

It takes repetition to notice how many living things are around you. Look again—there are more plants in the shoulder of the road or the little neglected patch of mulch than you could see before! (Hello, hello, hello, hello. Hello! hello!)

You will start to realize things. It will seem to fall out of the sky into your head. The apparent randomness of the plants that grow in the neglected places disappears. There is an elegance to the ways of weeds: some arrive first, and some come after their companions; some tolerate the harsh baking sun and some cling to shady crevices; some are found in only a specific place...and some are surprises you never would have expected.

Look closely at patches of grass and roadsides and parks, and sooner or later it will happen: Oh. That's not a weed or a wildflower...that's a baby tree.

I got started with growing plants by gently pulling them up from pavement at the shoulder of the road in my neighborhood. It took two months to figure out how to help them survive. The method I worked out was to punch holes in the bottom of red solo cups and use them as pots, keeping them outside in the shade of the Virginia creeper vine, elevated about 2 inches above the porch on some metal shelves I fished out of the trash. Their roots need to be moist, but they can't be soggy—good drainage is vital. I like to mix sand and half-rotted leaves in with their potting mix.

The red solo cup is about as small as you can go without exposing the roots to too much temperature and moisture change. You should not get the plant's leaves dirty or wet if at all possible—bring transplanted is quite a shock, and you can introduce rot and sickness at such a delicate time.

You don't have to grow any plants for yourself, but it is awfully tempting, because for the most part, no one can stop you. That's the thing that was so life-changing to me. Even in a highly controlled human environment, even amidst traffic, extreme conditions, and herbicides, the plants have not given up on us.

I didn't start in the woods, I started on the side of the road, paying attention to the tiny seedlings that were trying to return my home to forest. It was in the world of pavement and lawns that my first major realizations came—oh. Nature is on our side, fighting back. Nature has not left us. They are so brave and so, so tough, and we can take care of them.

And it is true that the diversity and robustness of the forest or the grassland or the bog or the canebrake is incredible compared to the human world, and it makes me sad how few of those incredible living things can survive close to our inconsiderate ways...but the straggling weeds and brave seedlings that emerge are typically here because they are the pioneer species. They are the first: they are adapted to begin the healing after destruction. Admire them for their bravery and aggression. I admire even the kudzu and Bradford pear, even though I also feel sorry for them and the other invasive species as I rip them out of the ground. It's like someone in a zombie movie pulling the trigger on a loved one who has turned, except the monster is even more clearly a result of our own folly.

I could write forever about this, but your journey is your own. Listen to them and they will show you. Behave contrary to the expectations of our world; view other life forms as your neighbors instead of mere objects.

This is the way to unlock the shackles of helplessness. You may think to yourself: Our world is dying, and I can't do anything to help. But you are not alone.

Notice, notice, notice how many more living things can live in the presence of a single tree, how the unkempt areas shelter and protect life. Notice where life is and where it thrives.

And you, a human, can be a caretaker too, protecting life where it reaches out to you. Oaks give you acorns and flowers give you seeds, trusting forces beyond their control to bring them to places where they can thrive. Wildflowers grow in the grass, asking nothing from us except mercy.

Hello Yarrow, who dressed the wounds of Achilles. Hello Dandelion, who resists annihilation, food for insects and humans. Hello Virginia Creeper, who shades my window, shelters my saplings from the sun, and feeds birds on their migration. Hello Pokeweed, giving us your brilliant pinks and purples as dyes, desperate food of the poor and enslaved. Hello American Burnweed, who sequesters atmospheric nitrogen polluting the air. Hello Frost Aster, breaker of cycles, surviving roadsides and lawns, blooming at the first frost with incredible abundance to feed the butterflies and bees. Hello Horseweed, first to evolve resistance to Roundup. Hello Crabgrass, ruiner of lawns, brought here by enslaved people as food.

The pioneer species make shelter for the others. They shade the ground, their scrubby growth catches the leaves and gathers them to rot over the winter, and their roots and dense foliage hold the slowly building topsoil in place and keep it moist. They are weeds, tough as nails and twice as mean. Many are useful, edible, medicinal.

Where plants grow without being planted, that is a sign that the ecosystem we are part of still works to restore it. We do not have to save the world all by ourselves. We have help. The rest of Nature has not abandoned us.

There is no clearly defined answer. It is a journey and a conversation. Listen, pay attention, ask questions of even the humblest little moss and bug and flower. They will teach you.

#nature #plants #plantarchy

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cowboyfromh3ll · 6 months

Note

So, hypothetically speaking,

If the reader gets so drunk, maybe at Sean's welcome home party, or when jack is rescued

And this is hypothetical...

She's in a relationship with arthur... and he's away from camp, or sleeping.

And hypothetically,

John as feelings for her, and she stumbles into John's room thinking that its Arthur's.

Again, this is hypothetical.

AND HYPOTHETICALLY, john takes a chance and pretends to be Arthur because he's just SO jealous of their relationship, and they end up having sex.

Taking What’s Not Yours

(John Marston x Fem!Reader Smut)

THIS WAS SO GODDAMN FUN RAHHH. John is a fucked up individual in this, I put a lot of thought into how I wrote his line of thinking.

Warnings: Dead Dove Do Not Eat, noncon, dubcon, drunk sex, smut, infidelity

Your first thought was that Shady Belle had never looked so bright.

From a distance, the camp might have appeared as a glowing orb of orange light in the woods; an inviting incandescent illumination. A large, brightly lit campfire served as the heart of a celebration, and here and there was the blurry green blinking of fireflies. The occasional oil lamp littered around camp to unveil the darkness, acting as checkpoints in the path towards the doors of the house. But for every bit of light there was the accompanying joy and laughter and bliss.

The alcohol coursing and spreading warmth through your body eased you into a state of content relaxedness. Your consciousness was heavily veiled, a cotton like feeling resulting in a comfortable haziness. Every nerve and chemical in your body telling you to relax, and every movement felt somnambulant. The lively chatter and inebriated song of the gang seemed so close yet so far, as if you had just stepped out on the front porch of a house party and the music continued to boom from inside. Dimly, you remembered the reason for the celebration was Jack’s safe return to camp; you had planted a maternal kiss to his forehead in welcome before he was thrummed away at the center of the celebration. Life was good, and all your other troubles didn’t matter right now. Though the cool condensation of the bottle collecting in a small ring of water around your thumb and pointer as you firmly grasped it seemed to matter. And it mattered more with every swig you took. Your lover blithely wrapped an arm around your lower waist, an invitation to release most of your weight onto him. Your crown felt as though it had a weight tied to it, your head falling nearly supine on your sternum before lolling to its side and onto Arthur’s broad shoulder.

“You enjoying yourself, darling?” Arthur asked, planting a kiss on your temple. You smelled the familiar bitters of alcohol on his breath, and it was almost as comforting as the deep drawl of his voice. You hummed out a yes, every movement feeling slowed down. Your mouth felt glued shut by the sour film of alcohol, your mouth opening in a wet click as your dense saliva smacked against your tongue and palate. In a delayed response, you said, “Yeah, honey. I’m having a real good time.” Your words slurred together like smeared paint on a canvas; a feeble attempt at forming something coherent.

“Don’t you think you’ve had too much to drink?” He chastised playfully. You scrunched up your nose jokingly.

“It’s just one night. I don’t usually drink like this.”

“Yeah exactly, you don’t. I’m scared you won’t be able to handle yourself.” You waved your arm dismissively at his concerns. “I’ll be fine. I have the gang here to take care of me. And most importantly I have you.” You reassured him, stumbling forward and giving him a kiss.

“I was thinking of turning in for the night.” Arthur told you, wrapping both his arms around your waist and turning him to face you. You pouted your bottom lip, whining petulantly. “Awww, hon, come on. Keep celebrating.”

“No, no… I’m drunk enough. And I’ve had a long day. Plus, I ain’t going anywhere else but my room. Don’t you wanna come up with me?”

You shook your head profusely. “I’ll be fine down here. Like I said, I wanna keep celebrating. I also ain’t going nowhere.” You giggled and kissed the tip of his nose. Arthur’s nerves in leaving you downstairs seemed to calm significantly when he looked around the campfire at all the welcoming faces, especially the women, who were more than likely going to keep an eye on eachother. He gave it a thought for a moment longer before nodding in acceptance.

“Alright. Just be careful. I’ll stay awake just in case.” Arthur’s lithe hands began to smooth down your back and over the curve of your ass, his fingers digging into the flesh in a nascent squeeze. “I’ll be waiting for you.” He smirked before leaning forward and kissing you once more, his tongue swiping over your bottom lip. You sloppily accepted the kiss, the exchange lasting only seconds before he bid you farewell by slapping your ass. You giggled in anticipation for what your lover was suggesting at once you got upstairs to him, your red face turning even redder. You watched Arthur’s back as he walked off towards the front entrance of the house, smiling warmly when you saw him say goodnight to John and Abigail, who were sitting together by the foyer.

Time seemed insubstantial the longer you celebrated, passing by in warped increments the more you drank. You had decided it was finally time to up and leave when the only way you evaded vomiting everywhere was from staring at the flickering embers of the fire. When you stood, the world spun around you, and you remained stationary as you tried to figure out which way you were supposed to walk to get to the house. Your body lagged behind your mind, each movement slowed and blundered in confusion as if your body was deliberately working against itself. Several of the women and men offered to walk you up towards your shared room with Arthur, but you refused, insisting in your mind that you wanted to walk into the room, alluringness turned on in your best attempt at seducing Arthur. The gracefulness of that action would be mere afterthought, not taking into consideration the possibility of you embarrassing yourself.

You lugged your body towards the double doors, feet stomping up the steps of the front porch. You caught sight of Abigail sitting alone in your peripheral, who was seemingly startled by the loudness of your steps.

“Hey, (Name). You okay? You seem real drunk.” She gave you a look of concern, making a movement to stand up from her seat. You waved off her concern dismissively as well.

“I’m fine Abigail. Just had too much to drink. I’m headed up to my room.” You reassured. You wiped your mouth with the back of your arm, cleaning off the frothing drool forming at the corners of your mouth. She gave you one last look of concern before planting herself on her seat again.

“Alright then, I suppose all you have to do is go upstairs anyways. Goodnight, (Name).”

“Goodnight.”

It was an arduous task to push open the expansive mahogany doors of the building, your footsteps echoing as you trudged across the floor and up the creaky, wooden steps. You leaned against the railing at the top of the stairs, threatening to retch but resulting in nothing but excess saliva. You bordered on sickness but that would not stop you in your pursuit of copulation with Arthur. Your vision tunneled, and you let your body take the lead ahead of your mind. It felt as though you were dragging your body along the floor to safety from some unknown threat you were too hammered to classify. You swallowed hard, finding amenity in the cool, metallic feeling of a door knob as you clumsily turned it, only to find the door was already ajar. You practically stumbled inside, trying your best not to trip on your own feet. You heaved your body up against the door frame, beginning in a series of sultry laughter.

Unbeknownst to you, you hadn’t actually crawled into the room of your lover. You hadn’t made it down the hall completely, instead stumbling into another room. You hadn’t even paid any mind to the soft snores that were scarcely audible from behind Arthur’s door.

“Heyyy, Arthur.” You cooed, followed by more giggles.

John sat up from where he lay in his bed, his eyes registering a sense of bewilderment for who was at his door. Only moments ago he had been deep in thought, contemplating what it was he wanted in life, and moments before that he had engaged in an argument with his wife downstairs before storming up on his own; and now, before him, stood the object of his desire.

“Are you surprised to see me so soon?” You said playfully.

John felt a strange duality to the question. How even though the question was meant for Arthur, he felt equally as entitled to answer it. John looked down at himself in near disbelief, as if he had somehow embodied Arthur and his own body was replaced. He asked himself if you were really that drunk, to mistake his frame and face for your lover.

“(Name)?” He said hesitantly, looking around the room as if he were expecting a group of the girls to jump out and announce a prank.

“Well you shouldn’t be that surprised, you saw how drunk I was.”

That seemed to confirm John’s suspicions. Obviously, you didn’t mean to walk in here. You were supposed to be down the hall, at Arthur’s door. His mind blanked when he saw you begin to saunter over towards him. He sucked in a breath and held it, straightening and stiffening his body as if he were preparing his body for some sort of grand, painful impact.

“Well, I’m here now. You said you’d be awake for me…” You giggled darkly, swaying your body. You settled down onto John’s lap, wrapping two arms around his neck and leaning forward to put your lips to his ear. You felt John’s rigidity as you sat on him, still under the belief that it was Arthur; so your confusion was palpable when he didn’t automatically wrap his arms around you.

“Relax, Arthur… Why are you so tense?” You ran your tongue along the shell of John’s ear before planting a kiss on his lobe, nipping it with your teeth before sucking on it slightly. The crescendo of John’s shame reached its peak when you cupped his crotch, delivering a squeeze before rubbing your palm back and forth on it, again and again. He bit his lip, clenching and unclenching his fists in an act of contemplation.

John put his hands on your shoulders, nudging you off and moving you to sit next to him on the bed. He moved your body effortlessly, your whole being pliable and docile as he settled you on the mattress. You furrowed your brows and pouted your lip in confusion, not used to this level of resistance from Arthur.

“What’s wrong?” You asked, the words slurring together sloppily. It only served as another reminder for how drunk you were to John. He continued to hold on your shoulders, his hands digging into the supple skin, grounding himself in the feeling of your bones. He studied your face: flushed red and sclera tinged pink from the excessive drinking you had done that night, your hair was wild and messy and all over the place, and there was a line of drool that had gone down the side of your cheek, beginning to dry. Part of him was tempted to stick his thumb in your mouth and run it over the dried spots to clean them off. Your eyes held a sort of puppy-eyed look of confusion and sadness, as if he had dangled a treat over your head and he promptly put it away in his pocket. Though in the same vein, your eyes were glazed over and unfocused, glassy the same way a person who was fighting off unconsciousness would look. He noticed the way your torso continued to sway uneasily despite him holding you up.

“I”m not…” John began, but he did not continue. His mouth hung open in anticipation of what he may say next, as if he were expecting some force to conjure up the words for him. But unlike you, he was in full control of what he might say, or what he might decide to do next. His mouth closed, his face hardening. He felt a strange concoction of emotions spread inside him, like a bottle of several intoxicating alcohols mixed together in one glass had just been knocked over accidentally. It made him feel cold and warm all at the same time, and at once, his body began in an unexplainable tremble. Whether it was made up of excitement, shame, or paranoia, John couldn’t place his finger on it. You looked at him expectantly, waiting for an answer. Your patience wasn’t exactly part of the equation, partially preoccupied with clinging onto any semblance of comprehension skills you were left with; realistically, John could’ve spent hours sitting there thinking and you would’ve kept sitting there, waiting.

“I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be so anxious, darling. I was just scared someone might hear us.” John said. John felt that same sense of duality, that foreign feeling of embodying something or someone he wasn’t, taking their place when it wasn’t rightfully his to take. He buried any feelings of shame he might’ve felt from his conclusion, ignoring the morbid implications and possible grave impacts it would have on his relationships and life. He tied all those thoughts and feelings up like an ornately wrapped parcel and tossed it out the window; the possibility of those feelings being discovered once more was a question for a later time.

“No one’s gonna hear us, everyone’s outside celebrating.” You reassured, a smile returning to your face. John felt like an imposter in his own room, his own body. Like he walked into an intimate scene and surreptitiously took the place of Arthur while you weren’t looking. It was a moment of sick exultation for John. The knowledge that in his bed, he had something so near and dear to Arthur. Likewise, he also had something near and dear to him in his bed. His jealousy for Arthur’s relationship with you became a point of one sided contention in John’s head. It was something he’d never voice, not to anyone, and especially not to Arthur or you. But now that the opportunity presented itself to him, seemingly serving itself on a silver platter, he discovered a new variation of what it felt like to be in control.

For one night, he’d be able to forget the envy he felt in seeing Arthur kiss or hold you; to forget the way his chest panged whenever he watched the two of you run off upstairs or into the woods, hand in hand, giggling while he was left to imagine all the lascivious scenes between you two; to forget the crushing shame he felt after having touched himself to the thought of you, so unbearably roused by watching you run off to engage in those aforementioned carnal acts, imagining himself in Arthur’s place. And he’d be able to entomb the feeling of remorse he felt when he thought of pillaging you while Abigail lay beneath him, who was left to wonder where all the passion he was exerting was coming from; oblivious to the fact that he was pretending she was you.

“Yeah… You’re right…” John whispered, swallowing hard. He managed a shaky smile, letting his hands slide down your shoulders and rubbing soothing circles; with the amount of rubbing he did, it appeared as though he were doing it to calm himself down.

“Now c’mon! Before someone does walk into the house!” Your playful remark nearly cemented a feeling of paranoia inside John, egging him on to act fast; lest he be forced to come up with some shoddy excuse as to why you were half naked in his bed.

He looked at your hands as they made quick work of your button up shirt, part of him wanting to help but the other part of him remaining persistent in the thought that it wasn’t his place to. To calm his own nerves, he began fiddling with the buckle of his belt, halfway between undoing it and keeping it in place. You were hardly in the right state of mind to be paying his dallying movements any thought, tasked with the complicated act of undoing the final buttons of your shirt which was made harder tenfold by your clumsiness.

“C’mon, help me out, Arthur!” You urged. John looked behind his shoulder to check for anyone, then around the room as if that aforementioned prank was still on the table. He reminded himself of the time crunch he was under, and skillfully undid your buttons before hastily sliding off your shirt.

John’s own refusal to shed his clothing was rooted in the feeling of vulnerability. Despite the fact he planned to have you barren before him, he did not want to risk being caught naked with you. The feeling of exposure would cause him to imagine all the painfully cringeworthy scenarios where someone would walk up the stairs and see his naked body above yours through the gaping hole in his wall. It allowed him some sense of security in knowing he would only have to scramble to dress you and not himself.

With John’s assistance, you shimmied out of your skirt, the fabric pooling on the floor close to the bed. Only your heavy breaths and the rustling of your clothing was heard, and before long, you crossed your arms over your front and tugged the chemise over your torso and head. John was taken aback by your quickness to shed the garment, but remembered this must’ve been a routine act between you and Arthur; the thought left a sour feeling of jealousy in him. Though that jealousy was sweeped under the bed when he saw your breasts bounce before him hypnotically with each movement. You ran your hands up your sides before stopping to cup your breasts, teasing your own nipples to put on a show for John.

John felt his cock jump in his pants, instinctively licking his lips at the sight. In the first forward act of the night, he confidently moved himself to sit closer before and squeezed your breasts, toying with the flesh with such fascination it was as if he was studying them to keep a permanent mental picture of them. His touches felt like he was trying to memorize what they felt like for the future with the knowledge that he may never get the opportunity to touch them again. He slapped your breasts slightly and reveled in the way the skin rippled with movement, before pushing them together and leaning his head down. He ran his tongue between the valley of your breasts, snaking his tongue between your cleavage and enjoying the sweaty warmth of your skin pressed up against itself.

The sound of your breathy gasp as your body reacted in a full body shudder was the perfect kick in the center of John’s loins—here he was, with you in his bed and perfectly in control. You watched as the pink of John’s tongue flickered out to lick at your nipple before enveloping it fully between his lips. The scratchy roughness of his stubble made you giggle, only furthering your belief that this was Arthur. John lapped at your nipple and teased it with his incisors in an effort to get more whiny moans out of you, each sound a reminder that he was the one doing this to you and not Arthur.

John traced open-mouthed kisses down your torso, every kiss that got closer to the down tuft of hair hidden away under your drawers exciting him the same way a kid would be excited from opening a gift in secret the night before christmas. Your body tipped back slowly, as if someone had nudged an unstable tower of building blocks, and crashed into the mattress, your head landing on John’s pillow. Your hands rested limply on your sides, but your sudden fall did not distract John from hooking his fingers into the cotton hem of your drawers, before pulling them down feverishly.

A bush of hair concealed the squishy skin of your pelvis; the hair littered around your inner thighs and continued inward to your pubis. John wasted no time in nudging your legs apart, revealing the swollen wet rose that was your pussy. He raked two thumbs through the hair on either side, spreading your lips and further displaying your wetness to him. The sight of the shiny, soaked flesh made John’s cock throb, and he began grinding his hips into the mattress as he settled his body between your legs. He bathed your pussy in his warm breath before spitting on it, using his tongue to spread the glob of saliva. He moaned loudly as the taste of your cunt, releasing your lips from the hold of his tongue and allowing it to close around his tongue, effectively sandwiching it. He shuddered in ecstasy at the feeling alone, before he quickly got to work and lapped at you like a dog. You let out the occasional soft moan, going through bouts of silence before starting up again in small sounds. John sucked and ate you out with unmatched ferocity, unleashing years of desire of wistfulness with his tongue and mouth. You feebly bent your knee and lifted it, allowing John better access. But he quickly assisted you, hooking his hand below your knee and pushing your thigh to your chest.

Your moans grew in volume as he sucked your clit skillfully, the small bud throbbing wildly in pleasure as he treated it like some sort of hard candy. The sloppy wet sounds of the act alone were enough to cause a full body blush, and you squirmed your heavy limbs as he continued. John abruptly shoved two fingers inside you, his movements irregular and drawn out, poking and prodding your insides as he ran his fingers along your gummy walls. His fingering was less like fingering and more like being examined by a doctor, like he was trying to memorize how your insides felt with his fingers alone. He retracted his fingers slowly, groaning at the sight of them slowly emerging from your wet hole.

John stood from where he laid and stood next to the bed, peeking outside the hole in his wall before looking back at your body. You appeared spent despite the minimal actions of that night. Your limbs were splayed around the bed, your head resting limply to the left as you faced him. Despite your spinning head, the still moment allowed you to squint your eyes at John. Has Arthur’s hair always been this dark? Or was it a trick of the lighting? Was it the lighting that also made him appear less bulky? These were all questions you asked yourself as you laid there. The stationary moment of silence between you two as John stood over your naked body forced him to butt heads with his worst fear in the moment; a prospect so alarming he had refused to acknowledge it earlier; the possibility that you might recognize him.

In an attempt to push that thought out of your heads, he began unbuckling his belt. The throbbing of his cock was nearly painful as he pulled it out from in between his zipper. John raked his fingers through your hair gently, gripping your roots softly and pushing your head towards the edge of the bed. He got some sort of comfort out of the idea that by shoving his cock in your mouth, it would temporarily disallow you to voice any queries of his identity. He prodded his tip against your lips, watching the pink on pink contact as you opened your mouth and allowed him to slide inside. He slid in slowly, throwing his head back at the feeling of your warm wet mouth hugging his cock. He kept going until his cock clicked past your tonsils and his balls met your chin. You kept your eyes trained on his naval, feeling that by not looking up you might be able to suppress your rising sense of panic.

You continued your ministrations like you usually would, hollowing your cheeks and sucking as you tried your best to move your head in the position you were in. You fluttered your tongue on his underside, laying it flat against his head and teasing his frenulum with the tip of your tongue. John began thrusting into your throat, shoving a thumb in through the corner of your mouth to allow his cock more space to move. You made an effort to squeeze your thumbs and curl your toes, having to alternate your focus between pleasuring him and not vomiting all over his cock. You used your excess salivation as lube, the in and out motion of his cock becoming effortlessly easy with the smooth wetness.

John let out a string of curses as you sucked him off, able to tell that this was a skill born out of practice. Though he couldn’t even be angry at the thought of you gaining this much skill from sucking Arthur off, especially when he got to enjoy it.

John slid his cock out your mouth slowly, looking back down at your face to see if you had any resolve. Your eyes were fluttering open and closed, copious amounts of saliva running down the side of your mouth and pooling on his bed. You looked as though you were barely clinging onto consciousness. A fresh sense of guilt that John had previously been harboring came crashing through as he kneeled before you on the bed. He cupped your face and held it up, watching your glassy eyes as you tried to blink yourself awake.

“C’mon…” You croaked. “Just do it already.”

John swallowed hard at the words. The ambiguity of them left him feeling an uncomfortable sense of dread. Your eyes did not focus on his face, instead looking past him; you weren’t all there. He grabbed the back of your neck and pulled your lips to his, kissing you feverishly as you struggled to keep up. There was hesitance in your kiss, but you did so nonetheless. You had to admit, your mouths fit perfectly against one another, and despite the unfamiliar feeling of his lips as you tried to decipher whether or not this was Arthur, the one thing keeping you on the Arthur side of the fence was that the kiss felt so correct. You opened your mouth more, allowing John to shove his tongue inside your mouth and to memorize your mouth through that method as well. As much as John wanted to, he resisted biting your lip in the possibility that he might bust it and call forth questions from Arthur at a later time.

John settled your head back onto the pillow before turning his sights down between your legs. His cock, still glistening with your saliva, bobbed with each movement mere inches from your pussy. He gripped the back of your knees again and pushed them to your chest, watching the way your core spread like a splitting heart. He released one knee and used that same hand to grip the base of his cock before guiding it to your molting hole. John barely noticed the way your body went limp as he slid inside, too entranced with the tight feeling of your pussy to realize you were bereft of any and all resistance. His eyes remained shut as he began to thrust, trying his best not to move too hard or fast to avoid the loud slapping of skin.

His thrusts were careful and calculated, and his eyes trained on the movement of your body as he fucked you. You would occasionally come alive with a moan or twitch of your limb before dozing off again, but John was far too deep in his own world of pleasure. In your bouts of consciousness, you tried your best to pick your head up and look at John’s face, trying to make his face out in the darkness. Was this even your bed?

Though the realization couldn’t have been any more in your face, as when he brought his sweaty forehead to yours, his heavy labored breaths sounding like he was running from something, you realized your mistake. The recognition was almost sobering, as your eyes flickered around the room wildly without him noticing. You looked back at John’s face, your panic reaching its boiling point when you saw the striking scars across his face.

A particularly hard thrust caused you to moan, A gasp that turned into a whiny wail. “John…!”

There was a cold fear that spread through John’s shoulders, his thrusts slowing but never stopping. John questioned whether or not he had heard you correctly, too afraid to stop and ask you what you had said in fear that if you hadn’t already realized, you would then. Your clammy hands came up to grip his biceps, squeezing softly before nodding. John wasn’t sure what the nod meant, but he convinced himself it was a green light to keep going. He was roused to thrust harder, watching the way your breasts bounced hypnotically.

It was your turn to feel a sense of shame and remorse, thinking to yourself how you could yell at John to stop but opting not to. You held onto a sense of curiosity as John fucked you, not helping the way you compared him and Arthur. John’s touches had been so hesitant initially, but grew in passion. And his skill was undeniable. Your proximity to both men allowed for a comparison between their bodies and highlighted miniscule physical differences that you might’ve not noticed or savored otherwise; the light smattering of freckles on Arthur’s nose and the nearly imperceptible scar on John’s forehead, Arthur’s deep collar bones and the fatty ripeness of John’s detached earlobes.

Your box felt gaping and tender as John continued, wholly aware that you would not cum but enjoying any pleasure you felt nonetheless. Eventually, John pulled his cock out of you, and it was followed by the small slapping sound of hand on skin, the act of John squeezing out the rest of his desires for the night. You watched the way his cock shone in the moonlight as he fisted it, eventually spurting out copious ropes of cum on your belly and naval. His only form of marking you without leaving semi permanent evidence. You continued to lay there, watching John catch his breath in a full body heave. You made no movements to get dressed or even leave, being in no rush yourself.

The only sounds in the room was John’s breath evening out, eventually calming down enough to breath through his nose. Your eyes followed his every movement, and he eventually settled into a sitting position next to you as he tucked himself back inside.

You knew in the sidelong glances of John’s eyes that things would not be the same. He could not pretend that he didn’t know better.

Your last thought was that Shady Belle had never looked so dark.

Taking What’s Not Yours - TV Girl

#red dead redemption 2 #red dead fandom #red dead redemption 2 x reader #red dead redemption community #writing #red dead fanfiction #van der linde gang x reader #john marston x reader smut #john marston one shot #john marston rdr2 #john marston x reader #john marston smut #john marston #dead dove do not eat #dead dove fic #arthur morgan #arthur morgan x reader

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bullet-prooflove · 13 days

Text

Romantic Shit: Ryan x Reader (Yellowstone)

Tagging: @hatersaremymotivators justsimplyme93 knick3rbock3r anticxrrupt

Prequel to Summer (NSFW)

Every morning that Ryan wakes up with you is a gift. He’s thought that ever since you decided to take this cowboy to bed. This morning though, this morning is bitter sweet because he’s leaving in a couple of days for Texas and the two of you still haven’t discussed what that means for the relationship.

When he finds you, you’re standing on the porch of your house, watching the sunrise in the distance, a mug of coffee clasped to your chest. You’re clad in nothing but his plaid shirt and cowboy boots. The tattoo of his name stands stark against your upper thigh, a symbol of your love for him, your commitment.

This thing between the two of you was never meant to have a future.

In the beginning he didn’t see how it could work, you were a deputy in the sheriff’s department and he was a land enforcement agent/cowboy who did some goddamn shady shit. The secrets you kept from one another should have strangled the life out of this thing but instead it had flourished, because there has always been a mutual understanding. He’s got shit he can’t tell you and you’ve got shit you can’t tell him.

“We should talk about it.” He says quietly as he comes to lean against the wooden strut that supports the gable.

You set your coffee cup down on the railing before you turn your attention towards him. His jeans are slung low on his hips, the orange light from the sunrise plays over his bare chest, highlighting the brand that’s seared into his skin.

“I guess I just wasn’t ready for this to end just yet.” You say as you lean against the pillar opposite him.

Ryan wants to tell you it doesn’t have to, that he’ll be true to you out there in Texas but he can’t ask you to wait a year for him, no matter how much he may want it. His fingertips trace over your name, the italic scrawl inked into his inner forearm.

Katalina…

The love of his life.

The woman whose about to become Sheriff of this county.

You can’t go with him and he can’t stay…

“I love you.” He says quietly as he looks out across the landscape. “I will always love you, the distance doesn’t change that.”

“I know.” You say softly as you come to stand beside him. “I keep asking myself what’s one year in the space of a lifetime?”

“And what’s the answer?” He asks you, the back of his hand brushing lightly against yours.

Your fingers capture his, entwining them and for the first time since this conversation started he allows himself to hope.

“Marry you.” You say, squeezing his hand a little. “So you’ll know you’ll always be mine, wherever you go.”

If that isn’t the most romantic shit he doesn’t know what is.

“Are you asking me that honey?” He murmurs, his hands coming to rest on your hips as he backs you up against the strut. He can feel the heat of your body through the shirt, he wants to unbutton it, take it off, fuck you right here on the porch. “Are you asking me to marry you before I head off to Texas?”

Your fingers lace at the base of his neck, fingertips brushing over the light curls. His hair has gotten a little long this season. He’s been meaning to cut it but he likes the way your fingers feel when you tug it just right.

“I guess I am cowboy.” You whisper against his lips. “So is that a yes or a no?”

Love Ryan? Don’t miss any of his stories by joining the taglist here.

Like My Work? - Why Not Buy Me A Coffee

#ryan yellowstone #ryan x reader #ryan yellowstone x reader #yellow stone #yellowstone #ian bohen

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darkficsyouneveraskedfor · 3 months

Text

Forget-Me-Not 3

Warnings: non/dubcon, and other dark elements. My username actually says you never asked for any of this.

My warnings are not exhaustive but be aware this is a dark fic and may include potentially triggering topics. Please use your common sense when consuming content. I am not responsible for your decisions.

Characters: Loki

Summary: You return to your childhood home to put the past to rest.

Part of the Backwoods AU

As usual, I would appreciate any and all feedback. I’m happy to once more go on this adventure with all of you! Thank you in advance for your comments and for reblogging.

You toss another can in the bin. The kitchen is littered with your mother’s addiction. Vodka bottles line the counter and beer cans sit in piles on the tile. In some, you find the putrid remnants of forgotten mouthfuls. You rinse them over the sink and fling them over your shoulder, listening to them land in the tall container.

The house rankles with neglect. The walls are layered in filth, the floor is unswept, and the couch is dingy. You shake your head and mutter.

You’re reminded of the teen girl who trod through her mother’s mess every day on her way to the front door, her room her fortress; the only space she could claim as her own. That sacred stronghold she kept spotless in a measly grasp for an ounce of control.

You drop another can in the sink and back away. You shake the stale dregs from your fingers and flee without a second thought. You stumble out onto the shady porch and gulp in air. Fresh, fertile, and free.

You sit on the highest step and hang your head. Your eyes flick over to the basket of flowers. Your foot twitches, wanting to kick it into the dirt. You sigh and tilt your chin up.

You’re sad but not for your mother. You know you should be. No one else will mourn her. They’ll all whisper about how she wallowed in her filth, how she died lonely and abandoned. But they won’t care. They won’t grieve her.

Neither will you. What they don’t say behind their hands is that she was rotten with the liquor. Bitter to the core. The bottle was her shield and her weapon. Her excuse to be what she was. Vile and venomous.

You don’t miss her, you pity her. You stand and face the house, your eyes tinge as you glare at the screen door. Splinters fill the dents in the frame and rust recedes from the hinges. The birds chirp louder and louder and all at once, the world is quiet.

Paralysed, you watch yourself run up the stairs and stop before the door. Twenty years younger but just as broken. Your shadow listens with her ear tilted. A man’s voice rumbles from inside and your mother croaks in return.

“She’ll be home soon,” she says before she sucks on the neck of the bottle, a loud glug bubbling from its depths. “Plain but quiet.”

Your lip trembles and you falter as if you’ve been struck. The teen girl turns to face you, she’s about to run but the door opens and she’s caught.

“There you are,” your mother’s voice chafes in her throat, “we got company–”

You lunge forward to grab the girl before she’s dragged inside. It’s too late. Your knee hits the step and you shudder. How cruel were those village gossips, to warble about the girl but they never said a cross word about their own husbands.

Your stomach fills with bile as you push yourself to your feet. You won’t go inside. Not this time. You turn away and heave, swiping the tears from your eyes. You swear you can hear the girl screaming and sobbing as you walk away. Just like all the others who ignored her.

Your feet carry you without a destination. Water trickles noisily and lures you in. You sit on the overturned tree and watch the ripples lap over pointed rocks.

You should burn the place down. A pile of ash is worth more than those stained walls. You look down at your hands and shake them out, as if you can shed the memories like snake skin.

Only one person heard that girl. Just the one but he turned out just the same. It was never empathy, only a trick.

Forget him. Forget all of it. You sat in that room, across from that doctor, and you did just that. You’re not going to let it back in.

A twig snaps and you sit straight, breath hitching as you search the shadows between the trees. The sunlight flickers through the leaves and the water reflects the world in warped lines. You stand and go to the river’s edge, looking down at yourself. Not a girl anymore, just a tarnished woman.

“Somehow,” the slither jars you but doesn’t surprise you, “I knew I’d find you here.”

You don’t answer him. You know that’s what he wants. For you to shake, to shriek, to do what you did then. To grovel for him to stop, to go away. Just there, on the riverbed, pebbles jabbing into your stomach, your face soaked with the cold water.

“Offer still stands.”

“I don’t want your money,” you say to his rippled reflection.

“Mm, but we both know you need it.”

“You don’t know anything about me,” you sneer, “you never did.”

He snorts, “I know a lot about you. I know how you feel, I know how you whine and beg and–”

“Are you so pathetic? You cling to the past like some desperate old man. This isn’t high school–”

“No, it isn’t,” he agrees, “yet here we are and hardly a thing has changed,” Loki struts along the river to its narrowest breadth and steps across, “you are still nothing, and I am still me.”

“A big fish in a tiny, dried up pond,” you spit as you sidle away from him.

“I am the same shark–”

You bend and grab a sharp rock. It’s big and thick and just holding it cuts into your hand. You spin and whip it in his direction. It just misses his shoulder as he sidesteps, plunging a foot into the riverbed. He snarls and kicks his shoe up, shaking it like a wet cat.

“Why would you do that?” He hisses.

“I’ll do it again,” you bend to take another stone, “I will bash your fucking face in.”

“Whooo,” he whistles and snickers as he crosses his arms nonchalantly, “she’s found her voice.”

“Fuck you,” you grip the stone and rear back your arm, “I won’t miss again.”

He tilts his head and his nostrils flare. His snakish eyes narrow and he clucks, “neither will I.”

You stand, locked in stalemate, waiting for the other to crack. He drops his arms, hands on his hips as he raises his chin defiantly.

“I waited twenty years,” he snarls, “what’s a little longer?”

He twists on his heel and hops over the river. You squeeze the rock as you watch him stride away. Arrogant and assured. You fling the rock and it bounces on the ground after his heels. He doesn’t look back as he disappears into the forest.

The beast might hide to lick his wounds, but he always comes back.

#loki x reader #loki #dark loki #dark!loki #thor #avengers #mcu #marvel #au #backwoods au #drabble #series #forget-me-not

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who-knew-a-sheep-can-write · 27 days

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What Happens When You're Left Alone: Arthur Morgan x Fem!Reader (NSFW)

Contains: Rapeplay, consensual non!con, rough sex, creampie

You lifted the basket to rest at your hip, turning away from the rickety old porch and stepped inside of the colonial home. You had just watched Charles and Sadie ride off in search of more food, probably towards the edge of this damned swamp for deer, anything but whatever slop Pearson would come up with. Sadie was hesitant to leave at first, offering you multiple times to come along, but you stayed back. You still had a lot to do, and you surely didn’t want Ms. Grimshaw to erupt when she saw everyone had left and that nothing was clean.

Everyone had left, going off into groups to their own places. Who went into town for medicines and quick bounty work, who went off for food, who went off for a ride to clear their heads. It was just you left at camp.

You wiped your forehead at the sweat that had gathered at your hairline. You hated being in the swamp, it was horrible. It was constantly hot and humid, you were constantly bitten by bugs and kept awake at night by croaking frogs and chirping crickets. You sneered at the thoughts of what laid out in the mud and murky pools in the swap, what reptiles and fish were just waiting for you to just cross by and drag you through to kill you.

You found your refuge in the Shady Belle from the balmy heat, padding through the house and climbed the stairs to start putting your clothing away in the old wooden dressers you and your husband used, folded the freshly dried clothes before putting them away in the drawers. You were halfway through the basket before you realized you had somehow grabbed the wrong laundry from the makeshift clothesline you had set up when you and the other women in camp had washed clothing earlier this morning. You cursed to yourself softly and hoisted the half-filled basket before turning around on the creaky flooring and started your way down the stairs. You had turned the corner, aiming to leave through the large wooden doors when you stopped out of shock and fear.

You had dropped the basket of clean laundry, the wicker and wood cracked against the hardwood floors that were just swept and the laundry piles spilled out.

There was a man, a stranger in Shady Belle, in your camp’s hideout. His back was turned to you, he was crouched down and was rummaging through a chest on the floor, its contents were pooled on the floor. You could tell even with him crouched down that he was big and broad.

His head shot up and he turned to look at you as soon as he heard the basket crackle on the ground. You froze in his gaze, you wanted to just shrink down and hide. You felt like prey, especially when he started to stand up and turn to face you fully, you felt the colors drain from your face. The sweaty balm on your body made your skin feel icy and made your hair want to stand up straight.

He was tall and very broad, definitely an imposing figure that could easily snuff you out if he wanted to. His cornflower blue shirt was rumpled, the sleeves had been bunched up at the elbow to show off his strong forearms. Dark pants hid tall and strong legs that he could catch up to you should you run. He wore a black cavalry hat, the lip nearly hiding his eyes in shadows, a black bandana was wrapped around his nose and mouth, obscuring his face from you. Your eyes fell to his waist where you saw a holster strapped to his hip, a customized cattleman revolver sat heavy in the holster. Alongside the gun was a heavy knife tucked into his belt, the blade looked freshly cleaned and sharpened. A lasso wound from thick rope and leather was fashioned to his other hip.

You shivered under his direct gaze, taking a small step backward. You nearly whimpered in fear when he took a step towards you. Your heart was pounding in your ears, your breath was stuttering, you felt your eyes stinging with tears of fright.

He was going to kill you.

“Well look at you,” the intruder drawled. “I thought this place was empty, sure was a surprise to see yer still home.” He took another step closer to you, you took another step back. “And what a surprise you are, darlin’.”

The dress you were wearing suddenly felt like it weighed one hundred pounds. It was a gift from your husband, a light floral printed dress he had gotten it in Valentine as a surprise for you. You loved wearing it, but now, you felt disgusting in it.

“Please, take whatever and leave. I won’t stop you,” you pleaded. He stepped forward again, unimpressed by your little attempt to be brave. “Please, I-I won’t report you, I won’t tell anyone you were here.”

“Oh, I know what I want now,” he growled from behind the bandana.

You felt absolutely sullied being in his sight, your heart dropped right into your stomach.

You didn’t even have a chance to take off, you were able to turn around and take a run a few steps before he was upon you. You were slammed into a wall, his large meaty hands were pinning you against the wall by your shoulders, your front and face hit the wall. You sobbed, turning your head to the side as tears had started to fall down your cheeks as the man pressed himself up against your back. He reeked of cigarettes and whiskey, his hot breath hit the back of your neck. He pressed fully up against you, one of his hands leaving your neck to grab at you, a big calloused hand running down your hips to your waist and soon to your-

You strike behind you, your elbow collided with his ribs and catching the intruder off guard and causing him to stumble back from you. Taking the opportunity, you managed to squirm out of his iron grasp and fumbled through the house. It didn’t take him long to come right after you, heavy footfalls were right behind you, his booming voice threatening you. You turned on a corner and tried for the stairs, slipping over the low hemline of your dress, your knees collided with the hard wood and you cried out.

You were yanked back, his hand had snatched at your ankle and dragged you down, tearing the low hemline of your dress as you tried to dig your heels into the wood to stop him. Your nails dug into the wood, cracking when he dragged you down until you were beneath him.

“You ain’t goin’ nowhere, darlin,” he growled as he grabbed onto your wrists. You thrashed in his grip, trying to kick at him, wriggle your way out again, something other than just letting him win. He snatched at the lasso from his hip, quickly weaving it around your wrists, binding them together so tight that any movement burned your skin. You desperately tried to push him away, your trembling fingers managed to snatch onto his bandana and jerk it down, revealing his rugged face. He was stunned for a split second before rage washed over his face. “You fucked up, little miss.”

He snatched at the torn hemline of your dress, completely ripping it off of your dress and stuffed the torn garment into your mouth to silence your cries and pleading. He hoisted you up the rest of the way, his heavy feet threatening the old wooden stairs below you as he threw you suddenly over his shoulder. He didn’t even flinch with your weight now on his broad shoulder as he stomped up the stairs and threw open the first door he could find.

Your room.

Without a care, the intruder hoisted you off of his shoulder and tossed you carelessly. You landed on the bedframe with a sob, the gag muffling your cries. You twisted around to see him kick closed the door, the wood slamming echoed through the house. You trembled as you stared at him with wide eyes.

He blocked the entire door with his broad body, he loomed over you, a horrible scowl on his face. He was furious, hands clenched into fists and he was breathing heavily.

“You really fucked up now, darlin’,” he sneered. You cried into the gag when he stomped over.

He grabbed at your ankle with a harsh grip and yanked you to the edge of the bed. Your scream was muffled, you were trembling worse than a branch in a storm. Your eyes were wide and full of tears as you stared up at him, dreading what his next move would be.

He grabbed at the shoulders of your dress and knotted his fingers in the collar, tearing the material with his bare strength. The fabric tore down your neck and past your breasts, revealing your brassiere to him. His rough hands went right to your breasts, calloused hands cupped your breasts and groped you through the thick material. His hands were dirty, covered in gunpowder and dirt and soiling the white material of your brassiere. He slid his hands beneath the hard wires and caressed the sensitive skin of your breasts. You whimpered into the gag, trying to push it out of your mouth with your tongue as tears started to stream down your cheeks.

“You feel so soft,” he purred. His touch was strangely soft now that he was violating your personal space after nearly killing you just moments ago. He eyed the wedding band on your finger and a spark really seemed to light in his eye. “How’d yer husband feel if he walked in here to see me touchin’ his wife?” You cursed him out behind the gag, barely managing to get words like ‘fuck and ‘kill’ and ‘bastard’ out through his howls of laughter. “Yer husband’s gon’ kill me? Think he’ll be stunned when he sees me fuckin’ his pretty little wife, don’t you?”

Your blood ran cold, your heart stopped for what felt like eternity. You shook your head, eyes dripping with salty tears, pleading with the man behind the gag as he grabbed onto your brasserie again and ripped it off of your body, the fabric tearing cut through the still and thick air. He looked at your naked breasts with a ravenous hunger in his evil green eyes, hands grabbing them and started to squeeze your chest with vigor. You whined and tried to kick him off, but the man’s strong stature denied you completely. Instead, he straddled you at the knees, hunching over you slightly to toy with your naked breasts. Dirty nails scratching your skin, calloused fingers squeezing your nipples, strong hands grabbing at your chest to try to get a noise out of you.

Seeing that you weren’t giving him what he wanted, he stopped violating your breasts and grabbed onto the remaining scraps of your dress and yanked again, completely tearing apart the rest of the dress and leaving you only in your white panties. He did away with them as he had done with your dress and brasserie, tearing it off of your body and now leaving you completely nude to his eyes.

One of his hands trailed down to your womanhood, hand caressing your sensitive flesh before parting you open with one finger. You winced, his calloused finger scratched at your skin uncomfortably as he plunged it deeper into your passageway. You cried when he started to finger-fuck you, his eyes trained on your body, ramping up the speed at which he tortured you. He soon added another finger, starting to open you up, enjoying what he was dragging out of you.

“Gettin’ wet from another man? Boy, I’d bet yer husband would be pissed,” he mocked as he fingered your slick walls.

You whined and tried to wriggle loose. The man laughed, taunting you, loving every second of the torture he put onto you.

He had stopped suddenly and sat back, large hands going right to his belt where he fumbled with it. You pleaded once more, eyes wide with terror as you shook your head. He had pulled out his large cock, fully erect now in his hand. He sat back up and dragged the head of his dick over your slick entrance, barely passing it through your walls to tease you before lining himself up.

You screamed when he roughly thrusted into you, your back lifting off of the bed to try and ease the pain he was causing you only for him to push you back down flat onto the bed.

He groaned lowly as he tried to get adjusted to how tight you were, fighting you back down when you tried to move and squirm with both hands now on your shoulders. He sank into you until he was fully hilted before he started to move. He started slow, trying to ease you open more, hissing at how tight you were still even after he finger fucked you open. His hips soon started to piston like a well-oiled machine, dragging his cock nearly out of you before plunging back in. The moans and words that left his mouth were vile, surely to haunt you for the rest of you life. He was quick to ramp up the speed, the bed creaking with every thrust, the mattress moving and the floors beneath squeaking.

You cried into the gag, eyes wincing and your hands balled into fists as the rope around them burned. He smirked, moaned, and laughed at you.

You moaned when he thrusted against a bundle of sensitive nerves inside of you, earning a howling laugh front him as he relentlessly pounded into you.

“Look at you,” he sneered as he pounded into you from above, “moanin’ as another man fucks you. What would that husband of yers think?”

You had somehow loosened the rope around your wrists just enough to squeeze out of them, opting to grab at the sheets rather than grab onto him. The gag was still in your mouth covered in your spit, still muffling your whimpers and now unfortunately your moans too.

You felt pressure build up inside of you, like hot metal in a forge right inside of your core. Your arousal was coming fast, and you couldn’t do anything about it. All you could do was just lay there as this man violated you.

You came with a cry, sobbing as your body was wracked with both arousal and shame. The man laughed at you, taunting you as he continued to fuck you.

“Cummin’ ‘round another man’s cock, now that’s somethin’ else, sweetheart.” You felt his cock twitch inside of you not too long after, your mind hazy from your climax and your body wanting to go limp. His groans were getting heavier and his thrusts were more sloppy. “Wonder how yer husband’ll feel knowin’ you got fucked by another man? Knowin’ that yer leakin’ my seed?”

He kept thrusting into you, his grip on your shoulders was bruising. He was getting sloppy, slowly losing control of his hips, he faltered and hunching over you, spilling his seed right into you, cumming with a heavy groan. He stayed that way, cock still inside of you until it had grown flaccid and leaned over you, riding out his high inside of your throbbing womanhood until he had finally got off.

He stood from the bed and stalked out of your sight and you rolled to your side, starting to sob to yourself quietly, afraid of the man that still lurked in your bedroom until he came into view once more.

“You say anythin’ to anyone, and I’ll come back, ya hear?” he threatened down at you as he fumbled with his belt.

You heaved, your legs trembled as you clenched them together. Your entire naked body was drenched in a cold sweat, your inner thighs sticky your horrid arousal and his sticky cum that was still dripping onto the sheets still warm. He pushed himself off of the bed, you could barely see him through the strands of hair clinging to your tear-streaked face. You saw him for a brief moment, and the next he was gone without a sound, leaving you alone to curl up into a ball and sob to yourself quietly.

He was quick, rushing out to his horse behind the house and rummaged through her satchel bag for a small leather satchel before turning on his heel and rushing back into the house. He had made sure to grab a tin cup from a nearby table and dunked it into the bucket of fresh water nearby before disappearing into the house.

He was quiet when he entered the house, slowly taking the stairs one at a time as to not spill the water, wincing as the wood creaked eerily under his weight. He came up to the tall door that was partially open from when he slammed it at his exit, nudging his foot into the doorway and poking his head in.

His heart was pounding in his ears, his heart nearly stopped when he saw you still on the bed. You were sobbing softly, you had rolled over onto your side and faced away from the door, the gag had been spit out and had fallen to the floor. You were trembling still, trying to breathe calmly between sobs. His eyes rolled over the bruises and marks he had left on your body from thrashing you around and his eyes stayed on the ruined scraps of your dress on the floor. He would have to buy you a new dress soon.

He licked his lips and looked back at you.

“(Y/n)?” he called softly. He stepped into the room and carefully approached you. You stirred, your trembling had nearly stopped and your sobs had been cut short. “(Y/n), sweetheart, are ya alright?”

“Arthur?” you whimpered.

You wiped your face with the back of your hands before turning to look at him.

Arthur moved to set the cup and satchel down and sat next to you on the rickety bed. His large hands rubbed calming circles into your back.

“Darlin’, I didn’ hurt ya, did I?” he worried, combing his fingers through your hair.

“N-no,” you had finally caught your breath and your sniffles had quieted down some. “I-I liked it, I just need a minute.”

Arthur breathed a sigh of relief and sat up.

“I love ya, sweetheart. I got ya somethin’.”

Arthur grabbed at the satchel and put it in front of you for you to open. You fumbled with the latch and slipped open the leather to find three bars of chocolate as well as some other sweets stuffed inside of the leather.

He reached across and wiped away the stray tear that had started to roll down your cheek.

“I should head on down, clean up the mess I made,” Arthur hummed.

Before he could stand up, you stopped him, wrapping your hand around his wrist. His brilliant green eyes met yours. God, he loved looking into your eyes even when they were rimmed red from crying.

“Stay with me? Please?” you pleaded softly.

“Always.”

#red dead redemption #rdr #arthur morgan #arthur x reader #arthur morgan x reader

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slicznymartwy · 9 months

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stand by your man

You’re not sure how much time passes, but it’s certainly been long enough for your selfish cat to have had its snack and returned.

tags: first meetings, cannibalism, thomas hewitt wears a face in this one guys, canon-typical violence, misogyny, slut shaming, fluff and angst, ambiguous/open ending, i mean to me its happy but yk, bad guys win sort of ending notes: second person pov – cis fem reader with some defined traits (tall, midsized, long hair). everything else is up to interpretation. i'm sorry if this fic seems really cruel towards thomas :( i love him i promise

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Humid felt like an understatement on a day like today. Walking inside your little wooden shack felt like swimming in pond water, thick and stagnant. The morning wasn’t so bad but, before lunchtime, you had thrown open every window on the chance that a breeze would sweep through, even if it was only for a moment.

But there’s no wind today, which leads you and your old orange cat sitting like panting dogs out on the front porch. Your stomach growls, but you can’t imagine getting up and cooking for yourself like this. You want some soda fountain ice cream, but downtown is a long walk and the drugstore has been closed down for a few months anyhow.

Groaning, you roll onto your side and daydream about frothy root beer floats. You’re so deep in your fantasy that you hardly notice when your cat scrambles onto her feet, faster than summer lightning, and books it out the dusty yard on the heels of a field mouse.

“Goddamn it, Peanut,” you say to nobody, watching her go with a disappointed sigh. She must’ve been starving to run like that in this heat. You watch her go and go until she runs into the grass. Then you don’t see her at all.

You’re not sure how much time passes, but it’s certainly been long enough for your selfish cat to have had its snack and returned.

“Peanut?” you call out, sitting up. She’s nowhere to be seen, not even in the shady live oak a stone’s throw from the house. You stand up and walk out towards the grass, feet burning on the sun-exposed dust.

“Here, kitty kitty!” you call out, looking for movement in the fields. There is none, so you cup your mouth and try again, louder. “Here, kitty kitty! C’mere, Peanut!”

Nothing but the buzzing bugs.

Your little housecat wasn’t made for the Texan wilderness. She was getting old and preferred to spend her days napping in whatever spot was the coolest.

Wading into the tall grass, you almost want to forget about ever having a cat, but you know you could never. You love Peanut, even if she gets on your nerves.

The fields are droning with critters that you can’t even see. It’s like they’re all complaining about the heat, and you find yourself agreeing with them. You wish you had grabbed some shoes before heading out, but you’re already this far – besides, if you return home now, you’re sure you won’t want to keep looking.

You don’t know how long you walk, but the sun is high over your head when you find an old wooden fence. Trees line the property on the other side, and it sure is tempting to hide under those pretty green leaves for a while, but you’re getting more worried the longer you look for your cat. Maybe a dog or a snake got to her first.

You hop up onto the fence and swing a leg over, then the other. Standing on the bottom rung, you hold onto the post for balance. Cupping your mouth with your free hand, you shout out into the field, “Peanut!”

Thomas was bored.

They had guests two days ago, but Thomas was already finished separating meat from bone and cartilage. Before that, it had been almost two weeks since their last visitors, and he thinks he got a little too excited at the prospect of getting to butcher something.

They weren’t even handsome enough to keep. The whole thing felt like a waste.

It’s a hot day, but Thomas doesn’t mind it. It not much, but walking in the shade at least gets the sun off of him. The oaks circle their home, and he can walk in on one end and come out on the other, pretty much in the same place. He’s curious today, though.

No meat at home. He might as well walk as far as his legs will take him.

The leaves sway and rustle together quietly when the wind comes by, but even then the air feels thick. Thomas trudges along, looking for something he doesn’t know about yet. There’s movement in the brush, but he can see it’s just a fat orange cat. It bolts when Thomas stomps past it, running into a clearing of tall grass. Thomas keeps on going, searching.

Hearing a shout, he knows he’s found it.

The noise was far, but not too far to walk towards. The sound keeps repeating, and it’s a female sounding voice; today’s his lucky day since he didn’t bring anything with him. She might go kicking and screaming, but it shouldn’t be too hard to throw an unsuspecting woman over his shoulder and carry her to the basement.

Reaching the tree line, the brush and the tree limbs part to reveal you.

Tall and full bodied, he sees your legs first. They’re pressed together as you stand on his fence, and your dress rides up as you bend forward at the waist.

“Peanut!” you yell, and he realizes it’s what you’ve been yelling the whole time. You curse under your breath and wipe at your forehead. Your hair is long and it’s loose, falling down your back past your shoulders. You’re sweaty and you don’t wear any shoes. Thomas watches your curiously.

You must have given up on whatever you were doing, because you step down from the fence and lean on it, putting your forehead on your folded arms. Thomas stares. You don’t look like the usual kind of guest.

Guests were usually tourists, and although Thomas couldn’t place you, he could tell that you were local. You wore a house dress like Momma, and you didn’t wear shoes outside. You were a Texas girl, Thomas realized.

He’s not sure the last time he met a real Texas girl. Probably not since he stopped going to the doctor in town, and that was when he was still a little kid.

Thomas was torn. He’s never killed townsfolk before. Meat is meat, the annoying little Charlie in his head hollered at him, but his Momma was in there too, telling him that there wasn’t anything left of their town. Shouldn’t he try to keep their town alive? Wouldn’t that make Momma happy?

He’s still debating with himself when you turn around and startle. He’s expecting you to scream and run away from him, but you don’t. You close your eyes, cover your chest, and sigh heavily.

��I am so sorry, mister. I thought it was just me and the June bugs out here today,” you say, opening your eyes again.

You smile at him, and Thomas feels like someone’s nailed his feet to the dirt. You watch Thomas as he watches you. Your smile falls a little bit, and Thomas knows why. He was expecting it, anyways.

“I’m sorry if I’m trespassing, mister, really. It’s just that I live out that way and my cat ran away this morning. I’ve been looking everywhere for her, I thought I could get a better look of the field from up on the fence,” you explain, gesturing behind yourself as you talk. Thomas likes the way your hair moves when you turn, and even though it’s wet with sweat, Thomas's fingers itch to stroke it out of your face.

He's no genius, but he can tell you’re worried. You’re making the same worried face Uncle Monty makes when Uncle Charlie was yelling at him. He was gonna walk anyways, he tells himself, as he gestures for you to follow him.

You look surprised, but you hurry to his side as Thomas starts striding through the trees. You sigh once you’re in the shade.

“Hell of a day, today. Even the shade is hot enough to fry an egg,” you say, walking behind him. You were taller than the other girls that came around here, but still only came up to his chin. He wasn’t gonna bother waiting for you to catch up, one way or another, and strode forward.

Your daddy always used to say that you could talk a gate off its hinges, but walking with this enormous stranger, you found yourself all out of words.

He cut a massive and daunting figure, especially with that dark mask covering his nose and mouth. His clothes were dirty, with brownish reddish stains covering him and his butcher’s apron. His dark curls were unruly and stuck together from sweat underneath the straps and buckles of his muzzle.

There was no better word for what he looked like than mean, but that never scared you off before. Your grandpa was a mean-looking man too, but he was also the sweetest man you’d ever known. You just wished the guy would talk to you too, that’s all. Maybe that would make the twisty nerves in your stomach go away.

Just as your mind starts getting creative about where the stranger could be taking you, he continues past the tree shade to an open field. The grass is still tall here, but it makes rolling waves on top of mounds of dirt.

“Guess here’s a good place to look,” you say, and you trudge forward in the tall grass. The dirt is cool between your toes, and you make little clinking noises with your tongue, interrupted by the occasional, “here, kitty.”

Thomas leaves your side to look on his own. The grass here is thick, and the holes make for some nice shade. Probably pretty nice for a little critter looking to get out of the heat.

You’re bent over, inspecting one of the holes, when you hear a familiar grumpy meow. You shoot back up, glancing down in the tall grass before your eyes land on the masked giant. In his arms is your fat orange cat, looking very displeased about being out in the sunshine.

“Peanut! You found Peanut!” you cry, jumping for joy before running to his side. The man stands there, frozen in place, while you take the cat from his arms and kiss her little forehead.

“Naughty girl, running away from home like that,” you scold, patting the spot above her tail like a faux spank. It barely even lands on her, but she still meows in annoyance. You laugh a little bit and look up at the man who’s already looking at you. Your smile softens as relief makes way for gratitude.

“Thank you, mister. You’ve got no idea how much this little guy means to me. How can I repay you?” you ask, holding on tighter to your cat so she can’t jump from your arms.

He doesn’t answer. You bite your lip.

“You free tomorrow?” you change your question. The man pauses before nodding. “Meet me by the fence again, okay? Same time as today.” The man watches you blankly, but the fact that he’s helped you already puts you more at ease. You smile at him and nod with a sense of finality.

“Thanks again. I’m gonna get out of your hair now.” He stands in the sun, and as you retreat back to the shade for your journey home, you can feel his eyes on you until you’re hidden by the trees.

“He seems nice,” you say to Peanut, who cries out pitifully at being carried. It’s gonna be a long walk home, you realize, as she squirms in your arms to break free again.

Thomas isn’t stupid, no matter what people like to say about him. All things considered, though, he feels pretty stupid standing behind the oak tree nearest to your meeting spot by the fence.

He knew you were coming this time. He could have brought his chainsaw, and if that was too heavy, he could have easily grabbed a hammer or his hook. He could’ve even kept them in his pocket, if he wanted to keep his hands free for the hour long journey.

Instead, he stood weaponless behind a tree, nervous to see you again.

His heartbeat races when he hears footsteps coming from the other side of the fence. He’s finally made up his mind to turn around and leave when you finally spot him. He sees a flash of your smile before forcing his eyes to the dirt.

“Hi, mister,” you say, and just like yesterday, his feet don’t really work. “Sorry if I’m a little late, it’s only ‘cuz I was pulling this out the oven.” He looks over at you and sees the brown basket in your arms, a plaid napkin covering whatever was inside.

Thomas nears you, noticing how your long hair was pulled away from your face into a braid that disappeared behind your back. You wore the same dress, but Thomas liked the way it looked on you. It clung to your chest and loosened around your hips, but the material was thin enough that it stuck to your sweaty legs just slightly.

His attention was forced back to the basket when you put it against his chest. With an empty brain, he grabbed it with both hands from the bottom.

“It’s water pie. My nana used to make it during the Great Depression. Kinda feels like that again nowadays, huh?” you say.

You smile as you say it, but it doesn’t feel like your big smiles, like the kind you gave him when he found your cat, or like how you smiled when you saw him behind the tree.

Thomas opens the napkin to see a still warm pie in the basket, glossy with a mix of white and yellow. He’s never heard of water pie, but Momma didn’t get the chance to make a lot of desserts these days.

He walks to the shady tree, wiping a hand on his apron, and sits heavily with his back to the tree. He has to look over his shoulder to find you, and you’re still standing by the fence.

Annoyed that you’re so far away, he quickly gestures for you to join him.

You give him one of your real big smiles and jump over the fence before sitting next to him, back also to the tree. He watches you take a dull butter knife from the basket and slice the pie up. You look up at him, and he looks down at you.

“Do you eat with that on?” you ask.

Thomas shakes his head. He keeps staring at her.

“Wanna take it off?” you ask next.

Thomas shakes his head again on instinct, but once he stops, he takes another look at the pie. He remembers it being warm still. His head nods once, the movement miniscule like he doesn’t want to admit it.

“I’ll look away if it makes you feel better. Swear I won’t look,” you say. Thomas breathes weird and turns away from her before reaching up to take it off.

You hear the buckles being undone and take it as your cue to turn away from the man.

It’s another hot day today, but you wouldn’t have missed your impromptu visit even if the fields were burning. Sure, the man might be odd, but he was mysterious as all get out and you longed to know more about him. It felt a little bit like you were a school girl again, crushing on a cute boy from your class, but it didn’t matter; you promised him repayment, and you always tried your hardest to make good on your word.

You reach behind yourself blindly for a piece from the basket and accidently brush against his hand.

“Oops, I’m sorry,” you say with a little laugh, eyes trained ahead at the fence.

He takes a piece, then you take the slice next to his.

The filling is sticky and gooey, but it stuck together solid when you picked it up. You eat it slowly, savoring the memories that came with the taste, as well as the gentle breeze that picks up under the leaves.

You debate with yourself for some time about grabbing another slice but, figuring he probably wasn’t looking your way, you reach behind yourself and touch the ceramic pie dish instead. You run your hand in a circle and all you feel are crumbs.

“Well gee, mister, I’d’ve made two if I knew you’d be so hungry!” you said cheerfully, grinning as you brought your finger up to your mouth to lick it clean. It wasn’t exactly true, since you barely had the ingredients for one, but he probably already knew that, the town being in the state that it is. “I’m glad you liked it. An empty pie dish is a great compliment.”

You can hear the buckles of his mask again and keep busy by reaching for the basket behind you, folding the napkin back up. It’s pleasantly quiet before the question that’s been at the tip of your tongue since meeting the man finally springs out.

“What’s your name, mister?” you ask, still not looking at him. He doesn’t respond, and you risk glancing back at him. His mask is on, but he doesn’t look at you. It occurs to you that maybe the guy just can’t talk.

Opening the napkin again, you take out the knife and use the rounded tip to write in the dirt. It’s awkward and it’s none too pretty, but your name is clear enough to read. You look to him with a smile and hold the knife out to him, handle first.

He looks between the knife and your name on the ground before carefully taking it from your hand. You already knew his hands were massive but seeing the difference so plainly before your eyes made you blush. Tearing your gaze away from his appendages, you watch the dirt instead as he spells his name out. He writes it thickly, his muscles gouging out the dirt easily with a dull rounded tip. Thomas.

You glance up at him, and when your eyes meet, it feels like electricity.

“It’s nice to meet you, Thomas,” you say. You don’t expect an answer, but he nods anyways.

The sun was past its peak when you finally stood, brushing off your dress. Thomas met you at the fence after you had jumped over it again, basket swinging on your arm. You asked him if he could meet again tomorrow, promising another dessert.

He told himself to say no. He couldn’t picture hurting you the way he did when he first saw you, but he knew this wouldn’t be any good. He’s not the type to make friends, especially not with pretty ladies. It must be his heart controlling his neck muscles because he nodded instead. At least he got to see that smile again.

And so, he met with you again. And then again the day after. Then even the day after that one.

It was only a matter of time before his uncles and Momma realize he’s been out of the house for most of the day, but only Charlie says something about it during their family dinner. He’s loud in Thomas’ ear, and Thomas keeps his head down avoid looking at him. It makes him feel better to call him Charlie in his head. Not Hoyt. Just stupid drunk Charlie.

“You better focus on your work, boy,” Charlie threatens, steak knife pointing at him from across the table.

Thomas goes down to meet you the next day, anyways.

“Hi, Tommy,” you chirp happily, straddling the fence before hopping onto the other side. Thomas liked that you started calling him that, but he doesn’t let himself show it.

He rubs his hands on his apron to get the nerves out of his system and gives a little wave with his first free hand. You don’t have a basket today, but Thomas doesn’t mind. He’s just glad to see you.

“How’s your day treating you so far?” you ask, like you always do. Thomas shrugs, like he always does too. “Peanut misses you, I think. She wants to come with me, but always stops on the porch.”

Thomas thinks about the orange cat again. He wants to tell her that it probably just misses you, since it had been glaring at Thomas from your arms that day. Instead, he just tilts his head at you, not knowing how to gesture all that with his arms.

It’s easy to listen to you. Even when you leave open ended questions, you don’t make Thomas feel pressured to respond. He’d long since given up on pantomiming since he was a teenager, but people still annoyingly waited for his responses. You talked to him like he was an adult, and you never complained about having to deal with him.

You’re talking now, something about Peanut pushing things off counters, and all Thomas can feel is gladness. It’s been a long time since he felt it so strongly, so innocently. He kind of feels like a little kid again, sitting shoulder to shoulder with you under the shady tree in the summertime.

When he touches your hand, you cut yourself off and look up at him. It startles him a little bit, because he realizes that he had nothing he really wanted to tell you. He just wanted to touch you.

“You doing okay?” you ask him, putting your other hand on top of his. Thomas looks down at your hands and nods. He’s doing better than okay. He wants to keep feeling your soft skin on his hand.

“You sure? Looks like somethings on your mind,” you say, sounding sorry. Thomas struggles with how to tell you, which he’s sure you notice. He suddenly takes your hand in his and flips it so that your palm is facing up and your smooth delicate wrist is visible. With his calloused dirty finger, he starts to spell.

“What are you doing?” you say, standing a little straighter and watching how he made the same shape again and again. “Are you… is that a K?”

Thomas nods quickly, looking at you for a split second before focusing down again and drawing a straight line.

“That’s an I. K-I…” you look at him attentively as he gathers his courage. He writes the next two letters quickly in succession. He does it once more before you look up at him, your pretty eyes wide and shinning. “S-S. Kiss.”

Thomas is sure his face is flushed, but he nods. There’s no backing out of it now.

“Oh, Tommy,” you say, and your confusion melts into a smile. “Of course, I’ll kiss you.”

He’s still hunched over from writing on your arm, so the hand you put on his cheek doesn’t have to work much to guide him towards your lips. You’re ready to lean in when your lip brushes against his mask. You laugh softly, running your hand down from his hair to stroke along his covered cheek.

“Can you take this off?” you ask softly.

Thomas shakes his head quickly, covering your hand with his as if you might try to rip it off of him anyways. He knows you wouldn’t, but he can’t think about risking it. Not when you’re so close.

You bite your lip as you think. His own lips move under the mask, imaging what it would be like to touch yours with his. He wishes he was normal. He wishes he had one of his real masks on.

You guide him down lower and tilt your face higher up, and Thomas can feel your lips on his forehead. His eyes close instinctually. He trusts you.

You kiss the spot between his eyebrows next, and he sighs shakily. His hands move your waist, holding you gently.

Then, you kiss the bridge of his nose, and your bottom lips must brush against the edge of his mask. His stomach turns at himself, but he pushes the feeling away.

Your lips follow along the edge of the mask, kissing on the little bit of skin showing under his left eye. When you kiss his temple, your hand moves to cup the back of his head and he shudders.

“I hope you’ll trust me enough, one day,” you say softly, and he practically bends in half to hide his face in your neck. He doesn’t cry, but his throat feels tight like he might. He swallows it all back. He shakes his head softly in the crook of your shoulder, wishing he could correct you. He would bare himself to you completely today if he didn’t think you would run screaming. He doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to handle that.

Your hands are a soft but persistent pressure on his shoulders. When he straightens up again, he looks down at you.

You lean up suddenly, lip slotting against his mask. Your top lip brushes between his. You taste like sugar and summer air. The kiss is done quickly, but Thomas can’t open his eyes yet. He licks his lips where yours just touched him and commits the taste to memory.

“You still in there?” you ask after a long moment, and Thomas opens his eyes to see you smiling playfully at him.

Thomas smiles when he nods, and stops nodding when you lean in to kiss him again.

He’s never felt so light in his life, having said goodbye to you at the fence after another hour of listening. You even kissed him goodbye, lips touching briefly through the mask as you stood on opposite sides of the fence.

Thomas promised you tomorrow, nodding at your request to see each other again.

His good mood lasts until he gets close enough to the house to hear shouting. He sees Charlie flailing his arms like a mad man by the back of the house, yelling Thomas’s name.

“Where in the ever-loving fuck have you been?” he shouted by the garage, spit flying. Thomas hurried his gait as he neared them. Charlie was bleeding from a wound on his forehead. He steeled himself for what the furious man would sling at him next. “I’ve been screaming for you for the past fucking two hours. Jesus fucking Christ, Thomas! You know, I defend you when people call you names, but maybe you are slow. Just how fucking gone are you up there, huh?!”

Thomas glares at the dirt, imagines pushing his thumbs into Charlie’s eyes until he can’t scream anymore.

“I can’t even look at you, you fucking disappointment. I brought home two stupid as fuck tree-humpers for you, and this is how you repay me? Look at what they did to me. Look!” he grabs Thomas’ apron and shakes him, and Charlie makes him look at the cut on his head. It’s nothing, Thomas has seen him give himself worse when he’s drunk.

“Go get your toy and mow those fuckers down. They’re not getting far, not after what I done to one of them,” he mutters, looking down the dirt road where Thomas can see the distant figures of two limping people. Sighing, Thomas takes off after them, grabbing a hammer from one of the junk piles by the garage.

He didn’t think about you until well into the early morning. He is taking a break from his work, sitting outside while the rest of the family slept in their bedrooms. Blood coated his apron, and he sat on the wide porch with a heavy sigh. He thought about you, wondered how someone so nice could ever want somebody like him.

Thomas was not stupid. He knew murdering people was wrong, just like he knew he was wrong for liking it so much. And he knew he was wrong for liking you.

Rubbing his new face with both hands, he hauled himself up to walk back to the basement. He readjusted the eyeholes as he walked – he had made them too small this time. He’d have to fix that before he did anything else.

Thomas is only one step away from the trees when Charlie hollers his name from the back porch. Thomas sets his jaw and looks over his shoulder to see his uncle gesturing and shouting at him. He can’t make sense of what he’s saying, and he doesn’t really care to. He doesn’t let up, though, so Thomas forces himself to turn back around and trudge back to the house.

He stands in front of Charlie silently.

“Where the hell do you think you’re going?” he demands. Thomas has no way of answering, even if he wanted to. His arms cross thickly over his chest instead.

Charlie glowers at him, and Thomas’ stare is just as dark.

“You listen to me, boy. Now, I’m sorry for what I said yesterday, but I think I had good reason to be cross with you. Your family needs you here, Thomas. We need you to keep us safe. What if something happened to your momma?”

Thomas’ eyes glance at the house, where he knew his momma was resting comfortably. Still, the thought unnerved him. Looking back at Charlie, he sees the self-satisfied look on his face, like he knows he won.

“Be a good guard dog and guard the fucking house. Please.”

Thomas’ jaw tightened. He thought about you, walking from your home to see him. Thought about what you might’ve brought, although he wouldn’t care either way as long as you were there. But Charlie had a point. What if Charlie brought guests and they tried to hurt one of them? What if they hurt Momma?

A frustrated noise left his throat and he stomped away from Charlie back to his basement. He couldn’t think straight. The damn sun shined too brightly, and it made his head hurt. Slamming the door to the basement shut, he welcomes the darkness and sets his sights on his unfinished projects.

He only rises from his basement when the sun starts to set. A walk through the house tells Thomas he’s alone, the other members dispersing to be on their own too.

He’d been sad, passing the time while thinking about you getting stood up. Sadness in his chest, he walked to the fence anyways. He might feel better if he could just look at it and imagine how you look in your pretty dress.

At the end of his trek, he freezes as he passes the last low hanging branch. There you are, laying unconscious by the oak tree. He rushes to your side and hesitates helplessly before kneeling next to you. He holds onto your shoulders and tries to shake you awake, harsher and harsher as you don’t wake up. He’s beginning to panic when you suddenly open your eyes with a gasp. You stare up at Thomas with wide eyes. They shine in the white Texan moonlight.

“Thomas?” you whisper.

“What time is it?” You sit up and Thomas stays next to you, arms awkwardly hovering around you like you might fall asleep again. He’s breathing hard like he’s been running. “Is it nighttime already?”

Thomas nods, sighing finally once he catches his breath. Head low, he touches your arm and drags his hand down past your elbow to catch your hand. His brows are drawn, and despite his size, he seems to shrink as he clutches you like something delicate that might blow out of his hold.

He looks up when you touch his chin, gently guiding him to meet your eye.

“You okay? Did something happen?” you ask him. Thomas just shakes his head, squeezing your hand in his. He carefully turns your arm over, revealing your wrist. There, he writes down four letters. S-O-R-Y.

“Sorry? Oh, bubba, you don’t have to be sorry,” you murmur, smiling at him. “I needed a little nap, anyways. C’mere.” You wrap your arms around his shoulders and pull him in for a little hug. He melts into you, forehead pressed against the crook of your neck.

“Sweet boy,” you murmur, hand rubbing down his spine. “It’s okay. You’re alright.”

“I should start on back,” you say after a few silent moments, your hand still rubbing comforting circles on his back. Thomas stiffens and pulls away, and he won’t meet your gaze. You don’t want to part from him tonight, you realize.

When he glances at you, you’re biting your lip.

“Unless you know somewhere we can spend the night?” you suggest softly. Thomas’s face is blank as he thinks about it, but he soon stands up and holds a hand out for you. You take it and he hauls you up, leading the way through the trees. You like how he holds your hand, all encompassing and pleasantly warm in the breezy night air.

He brings you to a barn, standing alone in an empty field. It looks out of use, but bales of hay still line some of the walls, as well as some common tools for the land. You don’t bother looking around too much – you only have eyes for your Tommy. He stands in the barn, looking around for the best spot to lay down. You know it’s wherever he is, his wide chest looks like it’ll be a softer pillow than what you have at home.

“Tommy, c’mere,” you say, finding a bed of dry hay that looks cleaner than the rest. You sit down first, laying back in the rustling fodder. Your eyes meet his as you stretch your arms above your head.

Thomas stands above you. His eyes are dark.

“Lay down with me,” you speak softly. Thomas glances out the open barn doors for a moment before giving up on whatever battle was going on through his mind. You watch him unfasten his dirty apron and hang it off one of the half stables beside them. He lays down beside you, his heavy weight making the pile unsteady. You fall into him with a little laugh, a steadying hand on his chest.

“Oops,” you say with a little smile. You’re surprised to see Thomas return it. He has such a handsome smile; you wish he would smile more for you.

Leaning up, you kiss him through his mask, hands coming up to hold his face.

He exhales heavily, it almost sounds like a moan. He tries to kiss you back, but it’s impossible through the thick leather. Sighing softly, you kiss his temple and forehead instead, trying not to seem too frantic. It’s difficult, though, as you feel your body make you aware just how badly its craving Thomas.

“Please, Tommy. Please. I wanna kiss you. Please take it off,” you whisper, lips brushing against his tanned skin.

Thomas goes stiff hearing his pleas and pulls away. You watch him go with a pout. He turns away from you slightly.

“Thomas,” you say softly. He turns away further. Sighing quietly, you touch his shoulder. “Tommy. You know it don’t matter to me how you look. Not one bit. I’m always gonna think you’re my handsome guy.”

Thomas shakes his head, but you don’t give up. Kneeling, you hug him from behind, arms wrapping up to his shoulders from underneath his arms.

“I mean it, Tommy.” You put your forehead on his warm back. “I would never think bad about you. Hell, you could kill someone and I’d find a way to defend you,” you say with a little teasing smile. You feel Thomas put his hand on your forearm, gentle and unmoving.

“I could keep my eyes closed,” you suggest quietly. Thomas turns at that and looks at you with imploring eyes. You smile at him, small and secret, and free an arm to cup his cheek. You kiss the bridge of his nose just above his mask before pulling away.

You sit up and turn away from him partially, eyes closing and hands coming up to cover your eyes. “Ok, Tommy. I’m ready.”

In the dark, you rely on sounds. It’s quiet for a moment, and then you hear the buckle of the mask being undone. You exhale shakily, your heart beating near out of your chest. He must have set it down on the ground beside them because you can feel his hands on you, one on your elbow and the other covering your hands just over your eyes.

You’ve never really been described as small, but you feel it next to him. Even without vision, his presence alone towers over you. It should be intimidating, but it only makes you feel safe.

Your lips part and you drop your hands, letting Thomas touch your face directly. It’s even better since you can now put your hands around his back and hold him close.

Despite his size, he kisses you timidly, like he’s shy you’ll shatter into pieces with too much force applied. His touch is so gentle, even as he crowds you. You kiss him back passionately, encouraging him silently with your enthusiasm. You suddenly long to be naked in front of him, to let him blindfold you and use you however he needs. You know he’d be careful with you if this is how he kisses.

“Tommy,” you murmur between kisses, hands fisting in his shirt. “Tommy, I think I love you.”

Thomas can’t answer you, but he kisses you again and again like he’s saying the same.

Weeks pass. The summer turns into autumn, but the heat doesn’t go anywhere. Thomas can’t meet every day, but he wishes he could. Tourists come by from time to time, and everyone in the family does their part to make ends meet.

You’re all alone out here, he knows from your late-night talks. On evenings where neither of you had anything to do the next morning, you and Thomas would walk together to the barn. You always clung to his arm once the building was in sight, glancing up at him from time to time with your shiny eyes. He’s pretty sure you were both a little nervous everytime, but it was a good kind of nervous. He didn’t know there could be a good kind until he met you.

Thomas holds you on the hay pile, more comfortable now with a blanket you brought from home thrown over the mound. You’re naked, and Thomas likes your soft cool skin against his own. Although you’re both covered in sweat, the night is cool and comfortable, and Thomas likes the way you rub your hand slowly across his chest.

When your stomach growls, Thomas glances at you.

“Sorry,” you say. You smile, but it looks sad. “Just hungry. It’s been hard finding stuff to eat with the town being empty.” He knows the feeling well.

He takes your arm from where it’s resting on his stomach and gently twists your wrist towards himself. H-O-M-E, he spells.

“Mine?” you ask softly, head cocking to the side.

Thomas shakes his head and points to himself.

“Yours? What about it?” you ask softly, looking up from your wrist.

F-O-O-D, he spells next. Your eyes go wide.

“Oh, Tommy. You’re too kind to me,” you say softly, and Tommy lets go of your arm so that you can hug him.

His arms instinctually go around your waist, holding you close. He wants to tell you that he’s not just being kind. He would give everything he owns to you if what he owned was worth giving. He kicks himself mentally for not thinking about getting you some food sooner, though.

“Can we go tomorrow?” you ask. He wants to bring you there today, but there won’t be any food this late. He nods, hands running down your back slowly. He can feel his rough callouses catch on your smooth skin, but you don’t flinch or move away. You never have from him. He wants you, more than he wants to butcher, more than he wants to help his family.

“I should go home,” you say. The sky is dark, but the moon is large and bright in the sky, like the sun. Thomas shakes his head.

“No?” you say, laughing a little bit. You lean back and cup his cheeks over his mask. When you smile down at him, he imagines the touch of your lips against his own. On your back, he draws four letters, S-T-A-Y.

“All night?” you ask, pushing some hair off his forehead.

He nods, eyes stuck to your lips, so close but impossible to reach in that moment.

“Won’t your family be looking for you?” you wonder. You rub your thumb along his eyebrow, soothing him into shutting his eyes.

Thomas shakes his head slightly at the question, not wanting to knock your hands off him. He’s sure Charlie will be mad, but he doesn’t care. How could he when he has you in his arms.

“In that case,” you start, moving your legs apart to straddle his hips, “I suppose I’ve got you all to myself.” Thomas watches you closely as you run your hands down his chest and past his stomach, settling just above his open belt. Neither of you get very much sleep that night.

In the morning, he takes you by the hand as he leads you through the front door. The house is quiet despite its size, which makes it seem like it should be teeming with activity and sound. The outside is grey and dusty, same as the front foyer where you stand beside Thomas. You glance around, giving him a nervous smile when you finally hear footsteps coming from the other room.

“Thomas Hewitt, where have you been all night! You had us worried sick!” an older lady says, coming through the doorway. She’s short and plump, with tendrils of her grey hair framing her face, and her glasses make her look like a schoolteacher. She stops when she sees you, clearly surprised. “Oh! You brought company!”

You smile at her, stepping forward as she comes to meet you. She grins at you and takes your hands in her own.

“Hi, ma’am. It’s nice to meet you,” you say, introducing yourself with your name.

“Oh, the manners on this one! Usually, our guests are a little more ornery!” she says to Thomas, laughing. You don’t understand what she means, but you smile graciously as she tries to lead you back to the room she was in. You start to follow her, but stumble against Thomas as he blocks your way. He shakes his head at her.

“No?” the lady questions. She looks confused, but Thomas shakes his head again. He takes your hands from her, and then you feel his arm around your shoulder, keeping you at his side. “Thomas? What on earth is going on with you?”

You’re just as confused, but you don’t want to get in between a family dispute. You look up at Thomas, waiting to see what he does next.

“Is she why you didn’t come home last night?” the woman asks. A cold sweat blooms on the back of your neck with her face falls completely, turning into a blank mask. You’ve only just met her, but you can hardly recognize her from the woman that took your hands.

“I’m Thomas’ girlfriend,” you say, your voice smaller than you intended. You try to clear your throat politely. “I care about him very much, ma’am.”

You gasp when the woman turns on you, her finger pointed at your face as she snaps, “I don’t know how you tricked my son into falling for your tricks, you whore! Hoyt!” Thomas grunts, and the noise startles you – you’ve never heard the man make a sound louder than a labored breath before. Thomas pushes you behind his back and away from who must be his mother.

“No, I’m not a whore,” you say, but your voice is so meek under her disapproving stare. You clutch onto Thomas’ arm, and you can feel his tense muscles.

Someone stomps down the stairs then, an older man in a sheriff’s uniform. Seeing the pistol on his belt, you start to shake.

“And who do we have here?” the man drawls – Hoyt, your mind supplies,

Thomas shakes his head vigorously and stands in front of you completely now, shielding you from his mother and the Sheriff.

“She says she’s Tommy’s girlfriend!” his mother cries, as if she was grieving. The man barks a laugh at that, loud and unbelieving.

“A girlfriend, Tommy! That’s where you’ve been running off to all these weeks! How much he owe you, trollop? Because he ain’t got no money to give,” the man mocks meanly, guffawing as he tries to walk around Thomas to get a better look. You shrink behind Thomas as he does his best to keep you hidden away. “Bet you found her trying to hitch a ride off the highway.”

“I lived in this town my whole life, sir. I swear I’m no hussy,” you say, voice weak and muffled against Thomas’s back.

“Oh, yeah? That mean you two are in love or something?” he says, managing to grab your forearm and pull you out from behind Thomas. You shout in pain as you’re pulled between the two men, causing Thomas to let go of you. Without your shield, you’re faced with the old man and his drunk breath. You cringe away from him when he leans into you, inspecting you like you’re just a thing.

“Just get her out of here,” Thomas’ mother mourns.

“I ain’t no hussy!” you sob, eyes closed as tears start to escape your lashes. The old man laughs in your face, and he shakes you with his grip on your arm.

“Hear that, Momma? She ain’t no hussy! So, you sleep with Tommy for free?”

“I love him,” you sob, face crumpling as you feel yourself finally break. You wish you understood what you did wrong by these people. Thomas tries to break you and Hoyt apart, but the man shoves him away despite being smaller than him.

“Love? You love him?” Hoyt almost screams with laughter. “Does she even know what you do, Tommy? She ever see you without that mask on?

“Why don’t you go ahead and take it off? Take it off, Thomas! Shouldn’t your girlfriend know what you look like?” he turns you in his arms, forcing you to face Thomas. Your heartbreaks for him, and you see Thomas duck his head down low, arms bent by his stomach as he anxiously fidgets his hands.

“Stop it, leave him alone!” you sob, trying to wrench yourself out of the man’s hold.

“Why? Don’t you wanna see what he looks like? Pretty thing like you should have a handsome boyfriend to go along with it, huh?” Desperate, you look behind you to see Thomas’s mother watching the scene unfold with a handkerchief under her nose. You cry out when the man shakes you again, his grip unforgiving for such an old man.

“You know what? Why don’t we give your girlfriend here a tour, huh Tommy? What do you say?” Hoyt asks, but he doesn’t wait for an answer when he starts to drag you out through the front door and down the porch steps.

You stumble down them, almost falling out of the man’s arms, but he forces you upright again before going around to the back of the house. Thomas follows you both, and you can see the frantic way he tries to grab for you but hesitates. Even now, you know your sweet Tommy is afraid to hurt you, but you wish he would rip you out from Hoyt’s grip and stand up for himself.

At the cellar door, Hoyt lets go of one arm to push open the wooden door. You can’t see beyond where the sunlight hits the steps.

“Don’t be shy. Go see,” Hoyt says, before you’re pushed down the steps. You shout as you fall, managing to cover your head with your hands, but your body throbs in pain once you land on the cold concrete below.

You weep at his cruelty, curling in on yourself to hide away from the next blow. Instead, you can hear Thomas’s heavy footsteps down the wooden steps. His thick arms wrap around you, and he holds you tightly to his chest.

“Tommy,” you sob, pushing your face into his chest.

“Tell her, Tommy! Tell her what you do! Share your family pride!” Charlie shouts, laughing at them.

“That’s enough,” Luda Mae says quietly from somewhere behind him.

“Show her who you really are, boy, then see if she loves you,” Charlie says. Then he slams the door to the basement shut, leaving them both in darkness.

“Tommy,” you whimper through your tears, starting to lift your head out from his chest. You’re stopped by Thomas’s large hand cupping the back of your head, keeping you close. You can’t see the room, but it smells like blood and rot, and it makes your stomach churn.

You don’t ask him because he won’t be able to explain anyways. Hoyt’s words echo in your mind, and even if it makes no sense, you can understand that something is wrong here. But Thomas holds you and rocks you like a child until you have no more tears to give.

You wake up when the setting sun turns the sky orange. You rub your eyes and sit up, suddenly aware that you’re in an unfamiliar place. No one is around. Looking around the room, you see it’s a simple bedroom, with threadbare sheets. The only furniture besides your bed is a nightstand and a dresser with a missing drawer.

“Tommy?” you say out loud, but you don’t hear anything in response. You stand up and go downstairs, realizing as you enter the foyer that you’re still at Thomas’s house.

In the kitchen is the same woman from before.

“Oh, hi, darling. I figured you’d wake up soon. I realize I never introduced myself. I’m Tommy’s momma,” she says, like she wasn’t accusing you of something terrible earlier in the day. You smile weakly at her. You want to ask where Tommy is. You want to go home.

“Why don’t you sit down? You missed supper but I’ve got some leftovers still on the stove.”

You hesitate, but finally make your way to the kitchen table. Your stomach growls at the promise of food as you sit.

“Thank you,” you say. “I’m sorry for before.”

“Nonsense. I don’t think any of us understood how much you meant to our Tommy.”

You smile and start to eat when she puts the bowl in front of you.

“Where is Tommy?” you ask, looking up at her.

“Working,” she sighs, smiling at you. “We had guests come by in the afternoon.”

“Like a bed and breakfast?” you ask naively. She laughs at you, right to your face.

“You’re a funny one, girl. I see why Thomas likes you. Pretty and with a good sense of humor.”

You smile, laughing shakily as you eat some of the stew. You can’t tell if it’s pork, beef, or rabbit.

“I want to see Tommy. Where can I find him?” you try again.

“He’s working, sweetheart. He made it very clear he don’t want you in the basement anymore.”

Flashes of the basement make you dizzy, and you shake your head.

“I want to go home,” you whisper, dropping your spoon in the bowl and holding your face with both hands.

She sighs gently and puts her hand on top of your head. She rubs your hair flat gingerly.

“Oh, baby. You are home. Everything’s gonna be alright now. You’ve got us to take care of you.” She lets go of you and gets back to her work from before you came down. “You just let Tommy blow off some steam first. He and Hoyt got into a little fight after he brought you to bed. Nothing for you to worry about.”

You swallow thickly as you look around the grey kitchen. You wonder what kind of work Thomas could be doing in that basement with his guests. You look at the bowl of food in front of you.

You’re so hungry.

#₊*. ⋆༘ — uli writes #thomas hewitt x reader #thomas brown hewitt #thomas hewitt #slasher x reader #slasher x you #texas chainsaw massacre the beginning #the texas chainsaw massacre #slashers

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