Tumgik
#the past few days have been mentally rough for me
Note
Had a terribly great thought! The Ghoul and reader traveling together. She's a brat but loyal as a dog to that man. They get into a pretty bad fight and she storms off and he's too proud to follow after her, struggling with coming to terms that he's actually soft for her even though he's mean as hell. She finds him some days later, with her tail tucked between her legs. He's not surprised, comparing her to a female dog often. 👀 still, he's going to make sure she's sorry. Lots of groveling on her part, maybe some face slapping, boot licking, he gets off, she doesn't. Ends with her in his lap. Hair petting and praise for coming back to who she belongs to.
As A Dog
Pairing: Cooper Howard/The Ghoul x Female Reader
Word Count: 7,085
Warnings: smut (18+), DEAD DOVE DO NOT EAT, Jealous!Cooper, canon-typical violence, intimacy issues, angst, insecurity, slightly fucked conceptions of love and loyalty, pet play-ish activity, hard drug use, forced intoxication, shotgunning, slapping, boot licking, oral sex (male receiving), face fucking, rough sex, riding, cannibalistic thoughts, orgasm denial (female), breeding kink, creampie.
Notes: I had several pieces in line in front of this one and then this prompt reached through my screen, sunk its teeth into my brain, and shook me until this came out. It really is a terribly great thought. Tagging heavy, since the themes/Cooper's mentality may be triggering for some. It is what it says on the can, folks.
I dunno what unholy demon you've unleashed on me here, Anon. But bless you for it. Another Coop POV because I have a problem. Thanks for the patience on this one; I've been doing some admin stuff the last few days, including setting up an AO3 that you can find here, where I'll be uploading all the long-form stuff. Enjoy!
Cooper's trigger finger was itchier today than it had been for a long time.
He was fully aware that he'd never be able to stop every man left in the world from talking to his little vaultie companion, but boy, he sure would love to try. On an average day, he struggled to hold his tongue as she drove away her own sun-baked suitors, standing silently aside until called up to defend her, no matter how badly he wanted to reduce whomever was bothering her to nothing.
Today was a worse-than-average day, and the girl wasn't helping anything, herself.
"Are you gonna be ready to go any time soon, princess?" he asked her acerbically as she passed by him for the millionth time, tossing his current cigarette down to the ground.
He'd intended to stop at this shitty little settlement, little more than a dingy bighorner ranch at first glance, for a few minutes at most, just long enough to unload some things and check to see if they had any vials on hand. Here it was, nearly four hours of glad-handing and chit-chatting and unnecessary gun repairs later, and he was still leaning against the same crumbing wall, still angrily smoking. She was pushing it.
"Oh, be patient." she shot back, rolling her eyes as she turned to saunter back to the little ramshackle counter. "I'm waiting for my gun back and I was having a nice chat with the mechanic. Try to be pleasant for five minutes, would you?"
She was so full of shit, he thought as he snuffed the still-glowing smoke butt out beneath the toe of his boot with just a little more force than necessary. Typically, she shied away from male attention at her most demure, refusing to acknowledge most advances, playing innocent, playing dumb. The big doe eyes and soft voice didn't hurt on that front, but usually didn't deter the more steadfast predators.
He preferred the days where she had a little extra spitfire, when she told them clearly and loudly to fuck off, no doubt emboldened by having the rather intimidating ghoul hanging over her shoulder, silently encouraging her as she did it. In the past, she had proven that she wasn't above evoking his capacity for violence as a threat when the desert trash was persistent, and it gave him a thrill he couldn't identify, one that ruminated deep in his gut.
That same gut feeling was burning him now, eating a hole in his patience as he watched her listening attentively to the third scrawny young man who'd approached her as she waited around the repair hutch to yap her ear off. She nodded and smiled politely, even laughed from time to time (the sound of which made him want to shoot he kid between the eyes just for that), but kept a respectful distance. Clearly, she'd finally learned that the sort of over-friendliness that she'd been raised with in the vaults could be read differently up here. The young buck, however, continued to try and dance into her space as he spoke animatedly, and, eventually, she reached out and quickly touched his chest.
The old cowboy was stomping across the sand to her before he was even aware he was moving.
His logical brain could see very clearly what had happened: the boy had advanced into her space for the half-dozenth time and she'd put her palm out to gently rebuke him, distracting him from the rejection with a laugh at whatever he'd said. But that part of his brain was rather quiet after a long afternoon of watching her rather blatantly flirt with the asshole she was having repair her plasma pistol (something that she would typically have him do, since it wouldn't cost her anything, and he almost certainly could do with equal or superior adequacy), and letting every other little piss-ant farmhand in the next mile radius chat her up.
"We're hitting the road in five. Get your shit and let's go." he hissed to her, ignoring the little scowl she shot him as he interrupted her newest conversation with the willowy, greasy mechanic, who was sliding her her pistol back across the knotted wood of the semi-exposed countertop. Flashing him that brilliant smile, the one that he wanted to be only for him, she checked the thing over before tucking it back into the holster she kept on her hip, pushing a stash of caps in a metal tin back his way. The old cowboy watched with inflamed indignation as the fucker opened the box, dug out a massive handful, and tucked them back into her hands, letting his own linger across her skin as he placed them back into her palms.
Frankly, he was impressed he was able to let her drop the things back into her bag before he grabbed her by the arm, none too gently, and wordlessly began to yank her back down the road, back in the direction they'd originally been heading in. He could've shoved the damn things in himself and just dragged her along; it wasn't like he was unfamiliar with where she put them. The long, sleepless nights could be boring, and early on, he'd been curious enough about her to nose through her things once or thrice. That, like this, had been quite illuminating.
"Oh, you're being such a prick today!" she yelled, yanking at his grip in an attempt to free herself. He humored her, dropping her arm and turning to face her, unpleasantly surprised as the last farmhand she'd been chatting with, the one she'd touched, came running up.
"Hey, leave her alone!" he yelled. Or, he would have, if he'd had a chance to finish.
The sound of Cooper's rifle butt cracking into the kid's face was incredibly satisfying, collapsing him into a limp, useless pile on the ground, deep crimson pooling around where he lie face-down in the dirt. The girl didn't scream, probably surprised that he hadn't outright shot him, but her hands did fly to her mouth in a quick moment of silent shock before she kneeled to quickly check his pulse, rolling his ugly mug to face the sun. Blood poured from his obviously broken nose, leaving the old ghoul wiping at his face to cover the smirk it sent twitching across his lips.
"What did you do that for?!" she demanded, frustration clear in her voice.
"Oh, my apologies, sweetheart. Your little boyfriend there was trying to join a party he wasn't invited to." he replied, though she was clearly ignoring him in favor of turning the boy onto his side and examining him.
His little companion let out a huff, casting a look between the body on the ground and the little cluster of buildings they'd just left. After a moment, she grabbed him by the fabric of his shirt the best she could and began to drag him back towards where he'd come from. The ghoul watched her pull him about five feet, red and huffing by the time she made it there, rolling his eyes deeply.
"Leave him. He'll be fine."
"He won't be if no one comes over to collect him soon, and you know it." she snarled, and her tone sent him seething, snatching the kid up over his shoulder like a sack of spuds and stomping ahead of her, depositing him unceremoniously against the ranch's handmade sign before yanking her along with him once again.
"Y'know, if you'd have just gotten in and out like I told you, that wouldn't have happened." he said eventually, dropping her arm once more.
"Oh, fuck you!" she hissed. "I was trying to see if I could talk him down on the price. And sometimes people know useful things, you know!" she yelled, exasperation clear in her tone as she threw her arms up in the air.
She pretended to be ignorant, but clearly knew what he was upset about before he specified. Interesting.
"Oh, I'm sure. Y'know, I'd wondered how long it was gonna take you to start sellin' that little ass of yours. Figured it would be for something nicer than a pistol repair or some bad intel, at least." he sneered. He could feel himself slipping further from rationality.
"What are you talking about? It wasn't even like that!" she insisted, an edge of something more worrisome creeping into her voice.
"Quit playin' dumb, doll. You make it seem too easy." he said, watching her entire face light up bright red in frustration. She was tersely quiet for a minute, the gears in her head clearly turning hard and fast as she worked to contain herself and formulate a response at the same time.
"I'm sick of you getting pissed off and treating me like I'm the stupidest person you've ever met." she spat, eventually, madder than he'd ever seen her. "I'm sorry that I haven't spent enough bitter fucking years walking around the desert and killing things and being an asshole to know everything like you do, Coop. I'm sorry I still have human emotions and desires. My sincerest fucking apologies."
That was it: the argument had officially become about...something else.
Honestly, he'd assumed that she was going to leave him a few days back, when they'd stayed in a rare hotel room waiting for a bad dust storm to settle, the little thing getting just a tad too tipsy on some whiskey he'd given her before trying to kiss him. He'd rebuffed her, though not as gently as he wished he had, and, feeling bold, she'd pushed back with surprising fervor, basically demanding to know why he wouldn't kiss her more, why he wouldn't sleep with her.
True, he felt closer to her than he'd felt to anyone or anything in a long while, and he thought she was the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen, but, as embarrassing as it was, the idea of being expected to perform sexually so suddenly made him feel a seizing sense of panic that he wasn't sure he'd ever felt before.
What he'd wanted to say was "I care about you so much, but I'm not sure I'm ready to take that step." Instead, what had come out was "Why are you buggin' me about this? I said no. Fuck off." followed by him storming out to spend several hours smoking in the decrepit, junk-walled-in parking lot.
When he'd returned, she'd been asleep, her poor face tear-swollen and red. He'd waited for her to rouse and hash it out with him, but she'd slept through the night, and, the next morning, didn't bring it up or seem amenable to discussing it. She hadn't seemed angry, necessarily, perhaps a little sad, but in the few days that had passed since, she had definitely been colder, poutier than usual.
It seemed, to him, that she was punishing him now for not doing what she'd wanted, and it was pissing him off.
It didn't matter that he hadn't fucked her yet, that he didn't feel ready to expose the most vulnerable parts of him, inside and out, so openly. She was his; she belonged to him and she knew it as much as he did. The fact that she was even still traveling with him after all this time, after what happened at the hotel that night, was proof. She proved it every single time she came back from one of her little stomp-offs every time he ticked her off, lacking the wherewithal to ever even move fully out of sight before slinking down to pout awhile, inevitably peeking out from whatever she was hiding behind to see if he was still there. Despite her lack of proper training, she was a loyal little bitch.
The fact that she suddenly didn't want to act accordingly sat entirely wrong in his mind, wriggled under his skin like when his stash ran low.
"All's I'm saying, princess," he growled, throwing out the nickname he knew she loathed once more, "is that you're too fucking friendly for your own good, and you shouldn't be shocked when it gets people hurt."
"Why would you give a shit who I'm friendly to, anyway?" she spat, suddenly pushing her way right into his bubble and sending him baring his teeth.
"I wouldn't. Didn't I made that clear enough the other night?"
He knew that this particular barb would hurt her, but he genuinely didn't expect what she did next.
"Alright, then." she said; her voice was trembling noticeably, as was her lower lip. With that, she snatched her backpack up from the ground, jammed her arms into the straps, turned, and began to walk back towards the way they'd come from. He watched her silently, waiting for her to duck back into the ranch, but she didn't; instead, she kept walking, as long as he could watch her, until she disappeared over the hill that fed into the horizon.
The old man watched her go, dumbfounded as she actually continued to walk instead of stopping as she always did. For a while, he hung around, waiting for her to come huffing back, but she still hadn't by the time the sun had fully sunk out of the sky. Eventually, he resumed moving himself, stopping after about a mile in their original planned direction, settling down for a grating night of looking out over the road at every little noise.
She'd never even looked back. He couldn't shake that thought from his mind as he sat there resting overnight. It was basically the only thought he had for hours, plaguing him as he puffed his inhaler and watched the world around him brighten with the rising sun.
When the next day started in full, he'd resolved to hit the road, to resume his travels as he would be resuming his existence before the girl had come along. Compared to how long he'd been exploring the desert solo, she'd been but a brief blip in his life, and there was no reason to fret so much over where she'd gone or what could happen to her without him around.
For some reason, he only covered about half the ground he would typically cover on a day like this, and he found himself beyond unreasonably frustrated...with himself. Nothing about the conditions was slowing him down; he didn't run into more trouble than usual, and he was fine on supplies, vials, but for some reason he found himself hypervigilant, looking for any excuse to move up high and scan the road with his binoculars.
By the time it was too dark to safely continue, he was seething once again, but at his weakness, at his cowardice. After he chose a tucked away little corner to settle down in for a few hours, he quite literally couldn't dig into his stash fast enough, doing line after line, hit after hit of whatever he had on him, until the horrible pain he felt behind his breastbone melted away into a familiar, soothing numbness.
But his numb mind liked to wander, and soon he found himself thinking about the softness of her voice, her skin, her lips against his that night...
And, quickly, he was back to pain and anger, but an irrational anger fueled by a far-more than reasonable dose of basically every kind of stimulant known to Wasteland man. This pain, too, was chased away with more and more chems, until he was so fucked up that he could barely keep his eyes focused and open.
She truly did plague him now, just as she had all the months she'd traveled with him. She plagued his thoughts at all points in the day, plagued his worries about the future, and even as he attempted to snort and huff himself free of the thought of her, she plagued him, dancing up along beside him in a quiet, stalking creep, watching him daintily from the end of the rotted log he sagged himself on, his back wedged against the large rock cluster behind him. At some point, he'd tugged his gloves off and shucked them somewhere nearby, leaving him feeling quite naked as his hands fretted with themselves absentmindedly. Against his will, he thought about running them through her hair like he'd wanted to for so long, and the unpleasant flip his stomach did made him sigh.
"I'm sorry." came a voice on the breeze, so much like hers. The visions of her were persistent, annoyingly so, the one staring hauntingly at him from the side really starting to unsettle him. He was no stranger to visual and auditory hallucinations when he was this far gone, but she was so solid-looking out of the corner of his eye, watching him so close. Judging him and what a fuck-up he was.
He squeezed his eyes shut hard, willing her away, willing himself to go back a few days and redo this entire thing differently.
"Aren't you...gonna say anything?" came the soft, timid voice once more, this time from beside him. Firmer, realer.
He narrowed his eyes in her ghostly direction, focusing as best as he could on her blurry, swimming visage.
"Huh. Didn't know that was really you."
When had she arrived, exactly? Fuck, he was dangerously gone if she'd been able to sneak up on him like that.
She frowned at that, leaning close and sizing him up with worrying eyes. Gingerly, she placed her palm on the back of his bare hand.
"Jeez, Cooper. How fucked up are you?" she asked, her tone sincere, almost apologetic.
Her glaring worry burned into him as judgment, harsh and stinging, and he struck out in response, yanking his hand away.
"Mind your fuckin' business." he slurred, forcing himself to sit up straight enough to point his full anger in her direction, growing with each passing moment. "Think you're better'n me? Hmm?"
He'd fully expected this to ignite another yelling match between the two of them, but she didn't scream back; instead, she quietly dropped her head, avoiding his eyes as she gazed around where he'd chosen to bed down. Truly, he was quite impressed she'd managed to find him at all, let alone in the dark. Turns out he was rubbing off on her even more than he'd thought. The idea left him bitter.
A big part of the anger he felt, the ugliest, most violent part, was the Jet; he knew this. The stuff had gotten him into more than his share of scuffles through the years, making him even meaner than usual, his sharp tongue exact and piercing. However, beneath the amphetamine fog, there was a nugget of true bitterness, an open wound of insecurity that pained him into lashing out when she tried to come close. He'd lashed out in such a way that night at the hotel, despite how hard he'd tried to hold back his sour words.
There was a fear there that he'd felt before, but never so strongly as when he'd watched her disappear over that hill. If she'd tried to leave over that relatively small argument, when would she try to leave again? He wasn't a pleasant man to be around, even when he actually tried to be, a lot of the time. Hell, he wasn't even pleasant to look at; if he'd been a giant prick in his old life, at the very least, he had been handsome.
Increasingly, since she'd come into his life, he tried to reach deep, deep into himself and pull out whatever remained of the old him, the one who was kind and hopeful and actually knew how to talk to women, but the process was infinitely more difficult and painful than he'd imagined.
She clearly wanted and needed intimacy from him, on more than one front, and the pressure of feeling like he couldn't give her what she needed was increasingly getting to him in a way that embarrassed him more than he could possibly say (not that he'd ever say it out loud). Centuries of time had passed, and yet, here he was, still dealing with the same anxieties and feelings of inadequacy that he had before, just dressed up in a new, uglier face.
When would he finally succeed in pushing her away, in frightening her away from him 'for her own good'? The walls around him had never failed him before, for better or worse.
Things were quiet between them as she fidgeted in her spot, the tension of an inescapable conversation in the air, but the desert's constant score, the hiss of sand across corroded asphalt, the soft rattle of the wind in the rocky hills, played on. His muddled ears played tricks on him, making him hear murmurs and distant gunshots and the crack of his rifle butt into that farmhand's face, but he tuned them out, focusing on her steadying, but increasingly heavy breathing, his eyes unable to leave her mouth..
He let himself drink in the fact that she really was there, sat on her knees in the dirt before him and already begging him for his forgiveness, for his acceptance; corporeal, flesh and blood and her sweet smell and that wet, warm place between her legs. Only in his drug-induced private fantasies had he felt it, but he knew he wanted to bury himself there, as deep as possible, and never let her pull away.
"I really am sorry, Coop." she whispered, those big, round eyes brimming with big, wet tears. It wasn't difficult to see her sincerity, even as he struggled to focus. But that hot coal of bitter anger still smoldered in his gut; not replaced by the lust he felt, but fed by it.
Slowly, his own movements labored under the weight of too many substances, he reached out and ran the thumb of his sullied glove along her smooth, smooth cheek. Smearing the trail of wetness there until he was tracing the outline of those pouty lips, he pushed it into her mouth.
"Prove it."
She let out a pitiful little retch, though whether it was from the taste of the incredibly filthy material, or because he was shoving her tongue back in her throat and gagging her with it, he didn't know. What he did know was that the sound made his cock twitch, which was already more blatant sexual desire than he'd felt in ages.
"How?" she asked, wiping at her mouth with the back of her hand as he pulled his own away. The wetness that trailed from his thumb, from her lips, made him feel feverish, and he quickly knotted his hand into the thick, soft hair at the back of her head, yanking her so close that their noses would've been touching, had he still had one. When her wide eyes met his, not so much as a sound escaping her lips at the sensation in her scalp, he finally gave in and harshly mashed his mouth to hers, swallowing the sigh that escaped her as he did.
Cooper was unsure how long they kissed, how long he plundered her swollen, eager mouth with his tongue before she stumbled onto her knees, pulling back slightly to pull air into her lungs. As she hovered there, eyes closed as she attempted to gather herself, he dug deep into the pocket of his duster and withdrew a Jet container, giving it a shake to prime it as she righted her breathing. Once she was steady once more, he cupped the back of her head again, bringing her to him and lifting it to her mouth. There was hesitation in her eyes, then disgust as the chem filled her lungs. It touched him with a twinge of amusement, knowing how badly the stuff tasted, watching her retch harder than before. He let her cough for a few seconds, allowing her a few half-cocked breaths of air before shoving the thing back between her lips and holding it down even longer.
By the time she managed to stop sputtering and drooling, he'd had a hit of his inhaler and started stroking his increasingly hard cock through his pants, watching her closely as she raised her now bleary, glassy eyes towards him. He waited for her to mouth off, to complain, to remark on anything that had happened, but instead, she sat there, unmoving, waiting for his instructions. She was the picture of obedience, but nevertheless, he could still see that glint of outrage behind her gaze, waiting to argue with him the moment she sensed an opportunity.
It pissed him off more than he thought possible, and, before he could even think to stop himself, he lashed out and slapped her across the face, the blow landing squarely in the center of her cheek and making her head turn away from him slightly. Surprising him again, she didn't make a sound, but she also didn't correct her head to look back at him.
Pulling a long drag off of the Jet inhaler himself, he held it deep in his lungs as he grabbed her by her long hair to kiss her again, exhaling the stuff right down into her lungs. She kissed him back until she choked on the sensation, leaning away to spew and cough more.
"Wanna prove you're sorry?" he hissed, his brain buzzing with the fresh hit as she leaned against his knee. "Clean my boots, vaultie. Show a little humility for once in your life."
His words were mean, meaner than he should be right now, but she didn't seem to register their full weight as she struggled to focus her eyes on the boots in question. When she lifted those dark, glassy pools back to his, he could see she knew what he meant, a heavy blush staining her cheeks and neck. Of course she knew what he meant; she was a smart girl, and her brain worked so much like his, even if she wouldn't freely admit it.
She looked up at him so dreamily through those thick lashes, though whether it was real affection in her eyes or simply the haze from all the Jet he'd forced down into her lungs, he couldn't tell.
In truth, his boots weren't as filthy as they could've been, as he'd cleaned the farmhand's blood off of them the night she'd taken off to get rid of the smell. But it wasn't about cleanliness; no, she'd humiliated him, her and her spoiled, entitled vault-dweller attitude, when she ran off, and he wanted to see her humiliate herself a little in kind.
The woman kneeling before him didn't hesitate as much as he'd thought she would, the red outline of his palm and fingers seeming to glow on her cheek in the dying firelight as she cast a vaguely-seeing glance around her, measuring her space before pulling herself into a sort of downward dog position, her round ass in the air as her marred cheek rested softly on the sandy ground. There was a moment of quiet tension as she seemed to study it, planning her approach before rather timidly leaning forward and running her tongue along the side, swiping a clean stripe across the tarnished black material from ball to toe. She gagged at first, likely from the dryness of the dust, but, again, she didn't complain.
He didn't have to tell her to clean the other boot; she did it with no prompting as soon as the first was finished, gagging less as she ran her pretty pink tongue all along the sullied, scuffed leather, and he couldn't believe how much it turned him on while equally failing to quell his indignation, his disappointment. Before she'd really finished her work, he yanked her up by her hair again; this time, she let out a slight yelp of surprise as he dropped her onto her ass, gesturing to her shabby, scavenged armor with one hand as the other began to wrestle his ammo belt, then his actual belt, open.
"Take that shit off."
Again, she did as he asked with only a moment's pause, placing all the little pieces of boiled leather and metal off to the side, her eyes flitting to him for a heartbeat before she proceeded with the rest of her clothes, quickly exposing herself completely. He could see her well in the moonlight, but not as well as he'd have liked, leaving her standing there, vulnerable and shivering ever-so-slightly as he took a good, long look at her. He was painfully hard at this point, desperate to have at least some minor relief from the confines of his trousers, but he was also uncharacteristically nervous at the idea of exposing himself to her this way. Beckoning her forward, he used her distraction as she kneeled once more to pull his cock free, grateful for the darkness and her weaker eyes.
"Suck me." he growled.
While he wasn't exactly pleased at how entirely fucked up he'd been going into this, he was sort of grateful that he couldn't feel almost anything with any vivid detail across the expanse of his body; the visual of her wrapping her dainty little fingers around him and obediently leaning down to take him into her mouth alone would have been enough to finish him if he'd have been able to feel her properly.
The way she went about it also seemed to indicate she wasn't entirely experienced, simply sliding her mouth down over his cock and setting to finding a pace that she could handle, as everything was surely spinning for her. For a while, he let her do so, fingers knotting into her hair again, before his patience wore thin and he began to push her head downwards, the sound of her gagging once more sending a thrill up his spine. Even with the numbness from the most recent hit seeping through him, he wasn't able to keep it up long before he yanked her back, taking in the drool hanging down from her swollen lips.
Cooper gave his spit-slicked cock a few firm tugs, hissing from between his worn teeth at her as he sat back, making room for her on his lap.
"Now get up here and show me you know who you belong to."
She didn't even look towards her bag, towards the condoms he knew she kept tucked deep inside her little toiletry pocket, as she quickly and sloppily pulled herself up into his lap. A part of him knew that he'd have stopped her if she did try to put one on him.
He tried so hard to not think of Barb as the pretty young thing on top of him began to sink down and envelop his cock in her heat, tried so hard to not feel guilty for giving himself to another, and he failed miserably. She felt heavenly, tighter and warmer and sweeter than he could've ever imagined, and he hated himself for how much he loved it, for how alive it made him feel when for so long he'd simply been existing. The choked noise that left his dry throat as the aching head of him fully breached her wasn't a sob, but he wouldn't have known what to call it.
It must've seemed to her, he thought, that he was forcing her to do all the work out of anger, wanting her to fully prove that she wanted him, that she was his; this was true, but he was also terrified, deep down, of how he would react if he allowed himself to freely touch her the way he wanted. He feared he would literally rip her limb from limb in his intoxicated state, sink his teeth into her pillowy flesh until it bled, tear a chunk off of her and swallow it so that she could be part of him forever.
He couldn't tell if the way she huffed and whimpered her way down his length was because she was high and hypersensitive or because she'd never been with a man this way before. That thought was quickly and harshly banished from his brain, however, his hands finding the plush fat of her hips, fingertips digging hard into the soft, supple flesh.
"Good pup." he breathed out when he eventually felt her ass rest on his thighs, fully sheathing him inside her.
The whimper she let out in response, her tight little clasp quivering around him as she clumsily reached out and braced her hands on his shoulders, made him throb hard, leaving him at least slightly grateful for his intoxication once again. If his numbed brain and body had been able to feel her fully, he knew he would've absolutely shot his load already.
Cooper struggled to stay still as she moved experimentally on top of him, lifting and lowering and grinding herself a few different ways before she found a rhythm that made him let out a throaty moan, the ghost of a smile flashing across her sleepy face as she rode away at him for a while.
What he really wanted, deep beneath all the unwanted feelings and unanswered questions about things he didn't want to think about right now, was to knock her up. For so long now he'd thought of her as his, and now that he'd claimed her, he wanted nothing more than to see her round and full to the brim of him. He wanted her to need him, to be completely dependent on him to provide for her and keep her safe.
He wanted her too vulnerable to get away from him.
On top of him, her movements were rapidly losing all coordination as her glossy, heavy eyelids drifted shut, her head nodding violently as she struggled to maintain her pace. He'd given her too much for someone who didn't use regularly, someone her size, and she was crashing out, falling asleep against her will right there. Poor thing.
He slapped her again, the sound ringing out across the vast, empty desert, watching closely as she startled back into a fully upright posture, her hips stilling for a moment before slowly beginning to churn again, her gaze unfocused.
"Mmm." she murmured groggily, leaning forward and placing her forehead against his shoulder, her arms winding around his neck as she tried her best to keep in some sort of motion.
This gesture, the way she cuddled up to him and sought comfort, support from him, even after the way he'd treated her, the fact that he'd literally just slapped her awake, was the only thing she'd done thus far that truly quelled the ugly, raging anger inside him.
"Thought this stuff was s'posed to wake you up." she sighed into the crook of his neck. She was entering the peak of her high, her body pitifully liquid against his chest as she clearly struggled to stay upright.
Personally, Cooper was reaching the un-fun part of his comedown, where everything started to feel grating and the mind began to uncloud, providing an increasingly painful level of clarity, but the senses remained muddled in a way that provided more discomfort than relief.
"Usually does. You had too much, baby." he responded, the mild chastisement in his tone doing a poor job of hiding the guilt behind it. His naked hands stroked reverently at her back, at the long, wind-swept hair that flowed down it, mindful to hold her so that she wouldn't lilt too far to one side as he attempted to soothe her.
Familiar with the unpleasant swimming sensation too much Jet could give you, he let her relax fully against him, the small sigh she let out one of gratitude as her whole body sagged even further. But she didn't stop grinding against him, probably out of some sort of pleasure for herself, he figured as he could feel her greedy insides tugging around him. He hid his grin again, this time in the crook of her neck as his hands found her hips once more, easily lifting her a few inches before dropping her down again, bouncing her on his cock as she rested.
Things went on like that for a spell, him bobbing and rocking her naked, lax body on top of his as she curled up on his shoulder, cooing and nodding off from time to time. As his high wore off, the sensitivity in his body was returning, and it made her feel more and more overwhelming as he continued to fuck her, her hot, wet little cunt leaking all over him as he continued to use her body to get himself off.
She seemed to be more conscious now than before, though barely, jostled awake by the increasing force of his thrusts up into her, bare breasts heaving with the movement. For a brief moment, he allowed himself to trace his lips down her chest, sealing them around her puffy, erect nipple and swiping his tongue along her slightly salty flesh. In response, her arms tightened around his neck, holding him on her breast as she clenched around him hard.
"Cooper." she whimpered, and that single little sound pushed him right into what felt like the most powerful orgasm he'd ever had, his fingers digging into her hips far too hard as he dropped her full weight onto him, grinding her down onto his cock and yanking her against him. His head dropped back, dead weight as he let out a feral snarl, tapering off into a throaty moan.
As he throbbed his gift up inside her, she squirmed at the feeling, tucking her bright red face into the side of his neck in what read as slight embarrassment, giving little huffs and whimpers as he continued to fill her. Another, smaller wave of guilt nagged at him as she clung to him, as he held her as close as he possibly could, struggling to regain control of his breathing; even if she'd had sex before, she'd never done this.
He held her as long as she could tolerate, her grip around him loosening slowly as she moved closer to real sleep. His girl was exhausted through and through, lightly snoozing against his chest.
For a few minutes, he let her rest uninterrupted, scanning her over to assess how badly he'd fucked up. She seemed fairly intact, though certainly more bruised than before. Eventually, he went digging into her bag, knowing (hoping) that she would have Radaway somewhere, and letting out a small sigh of relief when he found some jammed into the bottom.
Only one dose; he would have to find her more, and soon. This would be enough to see her through the next day, though, and he was pleasantly surprised to note that she wasn't showing even minor signs of radiation sickness as he found a vein in her arm, starting up the intravenous line to administer the thick, yellowed solution. Surprisingly, she didn't rouse fully when he slid the included needle into place, but she did begin to stir and groan mildly as the stuff began to effuse. Dimly, he remembered being given it when he'd been in the service, and how shitty it could make you feel.
Softly, he stroked her cheek with the backs of his bare knuckles before setting to jabbing her with a Stimpak from his bag around where she'd stuck some staples in her belly, making a note to ask her what had given her the several inches-long laceration he saw there.
He hesitated, though, when he moved to give her a dose of Med-X he'd dug out from the depths of his saddlebag. Most of the Wasteland's mind-rotting and pain-soothing substances were on the table for him, and in great amounts, but he hated the way the opiate made him sluggish and sleepy, reducing his accuracy in a fight significantly. The pain relief it provided wasn't worth it if he ended up dead anyway.
Smoothskins loved it, though, so he usually kept a few syringes on him for bartering purposes. Never did he think he'd be happy to give so much of his stash away for free.
He knew she must be hurting, or, she would be when she woke up, whenever that was. But he was hesitant to give her anything else, both for fear of how she would react, and, somewhat selfishly, because he knew a proper dose would make her sleep even longer, and he was desperate to actually get to speak with her again.
If she asked for the stuff, he'd give it to her. But...tomorrow. After they'd gotten a chance to discuss everything that had happened with cooler, more sober heads. After he was sure she wouldn't wake up in the morning and hate him for what he'd done to her.
His fingers played softly in her mussed hair as the indigo cover of night faded into the periwinkle of twilight, washing her nearly grey in his arms. She slept hard awhile, undisturbed until the awkward angle of her neck made him gently resettle her into a more comfortable-seeming position, letting her slip down until she was curled up in a ball on her side in his lap, her head supported in the crook of his elbow. Lying this way, he'd have to hold her up while she slept, but he found himself strangely excited at the prospect.
"M'sorry I ran away." she murmured suddenly after a long period of silence, readjusting herself in his lap to curl closer.
"I know, kid. I forgive you." he replied after a moment of hesitation, the words soft and strange as they formed on his lips. He petted her hair as gently as he could manage. "Did a good job findin' your way back to me, pup. Proud of you."
"Mmm. Please don't be mad at me." she echoed his own thoughts softly, so slurred as she finally began into unconsciousness that it was barely intelligible, her face buried in his side.
"I'm not." he said, fully, completely honest for once in his long life. He let his eyelids rest, his hand on his gun, ready to stop anyone who would try to ruin this quiet moment under the fading stars. "I promise. Now, get some sleep, pup. I know you came a long way today."
She sighed at that, as if to say "You have no idea." before flopping loosely into his arms, and was snoring lightly within a minute. He allowed himself a small smile at this, at how earnest and adorable she was.
"Good girl." he murmured.
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colorsinautumn · 1 year
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rodentblood · 9 months
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I really wish I could do more to help my family
I'm so tired of feeling like a nuisance and a burden
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capslocked · 7 months
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KINKVEMBER DAY: 1
[prompt: against a wall window]
male reader x huh yunjin
5k words
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You're not entirely sure where the jacket to your suit has gone.
You know you should know; it’s a rental and you need to return it in a week. But Yunjin told you to take it off, and since then, things have been... a little hazy.
More concerning - or it would be, had Yunjin not also lost some part of her attire - is what her thumbs are hooked into. Like she's peeling out the silhouette to her skin-tight, backless dress - the way she can't keep from leaning against the elevator wall. Your lips have the taste of her red lipstick all over, and her body melts with every little flick of the tip of her tongue against yours, puddles that much further when she feels your fingers curling into the folds of that skin-tight black material.
The motion to push the fabric up and over the rise of her hips is a purposeful kind of thing.
For the past hour, her skirt kept brushing over the fabric of your pants while you went from shaking hands to kissing hands to her placing yours on the hem of her dress, in the quiet space of a balcony the hotel staff had clearly marked as off-limits. A kiss behind the shell of her ear, a suggestion, a shiver.
Now, things are happening in a sort of reverse: from slow and curious, to needing more and wanting less, and suddenly, neither of you want to wait - until her thighs are spread wide apart, with your free hand slid over her smooth thigh, fingers skirting the edges of her lace, cupped over her heat - right, there. The throbbing.
"Do you have any idea what you're doing to me," is what she's asking.
"Something awful," you reply, but there's only a gasp out of her throat to prove your point. No words.
Just the look: desire clouding over the expression. The not-so-subtle display of want, need. Tongue pressing to lips and tugging along the corner. A moan, two, quieted behind the knuckle she can't quite help putting in her mouth.
You consider shoving her panties down the curve of her thighs and spinning her around - leaving her arms to brace the railing and keeping the dress around her waist while you fuck. Quick, rough.
The mental image is too nice to let it go.
You consider how much she might genuinely prefer to that to whatever she'd had in mind when she suggested you really ought see the view of the city from her room - oh, the skyline, it's gorgeous, she offered, lips tugged into a perfectly practiced little quirk that said: the view of me, on all fours, face down into a mattress as my ass swallows down your cock - I can't wait to have you.
You can feel the thought concrete itself to the base of your skull when you roll the flat of your finger over her clit and start sliding up and down between the lips of her pussy - finding her a little wet already, dripping onto the fabric in the most obvious way. When the elevator stops a few floors shy, you try to play it off by squeezing at her rib cage and tugging the fabric back in place, hiding the tell-tale lines between the fabric, just as Yunjin starts that gentle laugh from the very base of her spine. A real beautiful timbre in its sound.
But things get more muddled, admittedly, when the doors ding and the group on the other side piles through.
There's an exchange of glances, where they're asking if this is allowed, is there enough room, can they make room. One of them, in a dizzyingly plunging, strapless blue number that has you pressing your palm into the small of Yunjin's back just a little more than you have been up to that point, considers, carefully.
"Yunjin," she says, fingers brushing through the fringe of a smart-chic bob, prim cut of jet-black hair.
Yunjin shifts her weight onto the other heel. "Chaewon."
"By the looks of it," she says, and the way she looks you over has all the judgmental verve of an older sister, a real cold stare. "You've got a I'll-be-staying-in-tonight kind of vibe."
A deeper laugh now, rolling out across the backs of her teeth. "If it's all the same to you," is what you hear from her, "it'll be an early night for me."
“Don’t make it a habit,” she tells Yunjin.
“We’re just going to go enjoy the view.”
“Yeah.” Chaewon gives you one final, disapproving expression. “I bet he will.”
The elevator isn't totally silent, not for the subtle hum and whir of machinery. But everything is a lot closer now. Especially your thoughts, the way Yunjin pulls herself closer against you by a hand on the back of your dress shirt - her fingernails mapping the ridge of your spine, finding your hip bone, thumb curving back and forth against the curve of it.
The four girls at the corner are just making chatter in their corner of the lift. They've got a reservation - in name, anyway. If things were as simple as getting from the hotel to the elevator and beyond, no need for the next forty floors to pass at a snail's pace.
In fact, the four have this sort of tense, concentrated way to them that suggests otherwise - like maybe they came all this way and made that sort of promise to have the whole night end the way some things ought: alone.
"Don't stop on account of us," one of them says after a while.
Which is enough to set off this glare into the furl of Yunjin’s brows. Not her friend's intention. But they laugh it off.
When the doors scuttle open, finally, the two of you stumble out, feet not catching up to the rest of you before Yunjin has her fingers around your wrist and drags you out. Her heels - red-bottomed and not entirely flat but definitely a lot less heel-ey than others (she’s tall, she says, it makes her self-conscious), are clacking quick across marble tile until she arrives at the door of her room, pulls her keycard out of her clutch and leans shoulder-first into the door after the click and whir of entry.
She takes a step backward.
The door locks at your back when it's kicked into its frame.
The first thing you notice is her dress: pooled on the floor around the arches of her heels, cast off like a cloak or some overcoat - to be tossed aside once the sun goes down.
"Make a habit out of this, huh?" you ask in an effort to keep yourself busy - gawking's never been a good look on anyone, even with your natural gifts, the glint in your smile, all your charm - but the curves of her body are stunning, curves that start where her thighs begin, wrap around her hips, cut in at her waist, bloom from the perfectly-small-breasts that now are showing their dusky pink nipples, firm and on full display.
All of Yunjin, like this, beneath pale moonlight pouring diffuse through the fish-bowl-glass of her hotel room, is nothing short of an invitation.
A good look, is what you're about to say if you don't come up with anything else.
"You do this kind of thing often?"
"What's that," Yunjin says over the sharp line of a grin.
"What I mean to say is: I hadn't pegged you for the," and you gesture, rather elegantly, with the flop of your wrist, "lure-some-poor-sap-away-from-a-party-and-take-advantage kind of type," before managing something like a genuine laugh. "Not to knock that lifestyle or anything."
"There's not a thing in the world you know about me," is what she offers. Which is, unsurprisingly, totally true, and slightly unfair.
Yunjin is walking toward you while you consider it.
Drifting when she comes around. It's that close. You can smell the warmth of her skin, a whiff of that vanilla, an infuriating softness - the room is dark, but the moon is bright and the city is glowing, reflecting its light and the various hues from neon signs below, outside, until Yunjin stops, standing right in front of you, just, waiting.
Then, the steady rise of an eyebrow that, for a second, feels like a challenge.
“So," you kiss into her lips, and that's the first. "Let me know you."
The second is when her hands slip up and over the back of your neck and you can't keep from reaching for her sides, pulling her closer. Her hips and ass and those fucking gorgeous, full, legs that can't decide which direction to take - until she's pressed, warm, soft, and perfect against your body, and she's sighing this sigh, heavy, a moan.
The third time, she's licking into your mouth, tongue rolling in and around the taste of your own.
"Too many clothes," she murmurs, and you can feel the pull at your half-undone bowtie, the collar to your dress shirt. She's working the buttons off their slots with deft, clever fingers.
"That's what happens when I'm trying to look sharp."
"Sharp, and hot."
"Is it working?"
Her eyes are as dark as the hair framing the smile that plays at the edge of her mouth. "I'm taking your clothes off, aren't I?"
"Mm," you reply, a smirk of your own. Pressed right into her jaw, her neck, the column of her throat, where she tastes sweet and salty. Like the sea and the night. Before you can even ask, with your fingers teasing the elastic of her underwear, I'm guessing you want me to do the same.
Yunjin makes a sound like, mm-hm.
The hotel room is quite standard, which is to say, nice. But, for what it is, it's not too fancy. There's a large, king-size bed with the crispest sheets you've ever felt. A little kitchenette. Some counter space and a fridge. A TV hanging opposite the bed, with an armchair and a love-seat positioned to face the screen.
"Do you want me to tell you what to do?" Yunjin asks, and her voice is low. Almost a husk, a whisper.
"What did you have in mind?" you say to her, and there's a hand on the nape of your neck, a fist of soft, slender fingers wrapping the length of your cock.
"You're going to fuck me until I'm cumming on your cock. You'll get me on my knees, first, though."
"That's the plan?"
"Unless you have another." Yunjin grins, a smile so full and bright and genuine. You don't know anything beyond her name and the perfectly sculpted curve of her ass. She could be anyone, an actress, a singer, a model. A girl-next-door. A friend of a friend.
She could be yours.
And in a way, when she's on her knees, her mouth hot and tight around the shape of your cock, those fucking lips pressed into the base of it, sliding easy with the spit she leaves on your shaft, that's exactly what you tell her.
"Yunjin," is all you're saying, a sigh, a hiss. You're helping her get your pants off the ends of your feet while your cock is lathered and bathed in her spit, feeling her slender fingers pull up and down your shaft. "That feels so fucking good, baby. Just like that." It's fast, sloppy, she's taking you in and out of her hot mouth like it's the most natural thing in the world. A slurp, a cough, and she's completely unfettered, sucking down and swallowing another breath - not to mention all that about her tongue. A swirl over the head of your cock and you show how much you like it, letting her read the bite into your lip, inventorying every little wince through your brow.
But see - you have your fingers in her hair, holding the strands away from her face. Away from where Yunjin's eyes are breathtaking and glittering, blinking back up under upturned brows, looking up at you from where she's taking you into the hot wet of her mouth, inch-by-inch. And the part of you, this cruel, twisting sensation, would hate for her to think anything of your hands - how they're at the top of her head, cradled behind, and easing her forward, the head of your cock teasing the roof of her mouth.
The back of her mouth.
The back of her throat.
Fuck, her eyes go wide. She's good. She takes it.
And just from the pretty look she keeps on her face, Yunjin loves it. Loves to be pushed, loves to have her hands running along the ridge of your thigh until her fingers are prying the very bottom, the underside, your balls. Like this, with her kneeling down between your legs, the flexing muscle of her upper arms to her palms squeezed tight on either cheek of your ass, where the heat starts to stir deep - to pull. Bring the full length of you to the back of her throat.
The choked sound from deep in her chest should surprise you.
And for the shortest moment, you're holding still and forcing her head, your hands keeping her perfectly put: just there, right there. Exactly like that - where she could look like the perfect mess and feel a twitch right between those lips that keep asking so kindly, go ahead, fuck a load of cum down my throat, baby, use these lips - the soft swell of these lips until you're cumming for me.
Or something else along those lines.
The thought of it crosses your mind: cum spilling from the corner of her mouth as she tries to take everything you have. The flutter in her throat wringing it all down. The mess that all would make. Not that she isn’t already a perfect sight.
You tug on her hair again.
Yunjin's eyes sparkle.
Her eyelashes go a little droopy, hazy. Dark.
And she starts humming across this wistful note of a sigh as her lips start slipping over your shaft - dragging in that slow, agonizing, blissful way over everywhere sensitive and aching. Taking her time, while one hand goes up and strokes what her mouth can't touch, while you pull her head, those perfect strands, just a touch further down, because if she can't quite deep-throat you then Yunjin can give a goddamn masterful impression.
Her cheeks hollow, and the suction - god.
You could cum right in between the pretty little pout of her lips, over the flat of her tongue. Right down her throat.
But in a turn of events neither of you anticipate, you don't do it; you are, much like anyone else, not without limits. Which is probably how you end up lifting Yunjin back up by the underside of her elbows, asking, "that feels a little one-sided, no?"
It's only fair to pull a smirk, kiss, all the best tricks - all for the best parts of her, full, curving, down from her neck, shoulders, her arms, the palms of her hands, every part of her: that perfect shade of peach, pink. From there, everything else falls away. The slow way Yunjin sneaks away with the kind of saunter you'd expect, hips swaying all the way up, sashaying out this inviting side-to-side before you realize it's working -
And you're asking, "Yunjin?" then telling, "I want you up against that window."
The sun's long set - but it'll come up soon enough, over the edges of skyscraper-blocks and shining up out from the base, until everything is bright and gleaming.
"Which window?" she teases.
So you swat at her ass. A not-so-delicate slap. "I don't care so long as I fuck you into it."
"And if someone sees?" she laughs out, still intent on teasing you, and the small edge in her voice is some combination of excitement and worry.
"Then we better give them something worth seeing."
Yunjin's palms land flush to the glass, fingers spread out - wide, wanting, willing - where the blue, yellow glow of city lights shines in over the curves of her profile, the slope of her cheek, the bright pools her irises turn under the warmth. She's the only thing worth seeing, and there's nothing that could possibly stop you from needing, wanting more, right now.
There's no other explanation. No other reason, really, to explain how you're desperate: to fill her, bury yourself inside her - to where you're promising, coming up behind her and guiding her over - so you can spread those creamy thighs apart, push her shoulders up against the cold surface of the window. Where she'll catch a view of her reflection staring back at her: beautiful, exposed, and hers.
"I'm going to fuck you now," is exactly what she's been begging you to say, is why she ends up feeling, with the deep, twisting need building somewhere, how you'll work your cock so deep into her wanting cunt that the only thing that makes her legs go weak - wobbling, really - is the promise of cock rubbing so close and teasing the slick folds between her legs. Until she's a little more demanding, needy - and fuck, where is all the foreplay you'd promised earlier? That perfect, thick cock of yours is missing. She knows what all this really needs.
"Yeah? You need me here?" and she gets this whine, a little pathetic, but in the cutest way.
Yunjin turns her eyes to you, over her shoulder, just the faintest bit of a sneer. 
Because she needs it, right now - rough, quick, good. 
A gasp catches in her throat when you drag your cockhead through her wet heat, once, twice, and the slide of it against her clit becomes the only thing that matters in the entire goddamn world. 
"Inside," her teeth are clamping hard on her lip now, holding it from trembling as she tries to put words together, "Put," is where she loses focus and you're sucking, and kissing, and biting at her shoulder, "put, fuck. Please, put your, put - that cock of yours in my-" You slip into her hot-soaking-wet cunt, and after you've clenched a fist and brought a palm to the center of the window, so that you could open up your body around her a little easier, her muscles squeeze and grip and milk the first few strokes so tight. So-fucking-good.
There's not even a word for it, how she fit like a glove around the first thrust, but if the expression on your face says anything, it's everything Yunjin wanted and more: the shape, the angle, how you're pressing your fingers so hard into the impossible geometry of her waist, the round of her ass - oh, she’ll be a mess of red marks, shapes and lines, reminders of how good you fucked her - these long deep strokes in and out of her creaming pussy - evidence left where the heat inside her builds and pools.
And god, Yunjin is so, so easy to fuck: you can pound into her as rough and steady and fast as she'd begged - there with your other hand, pulling hard, hard, at the loose, dark locks of her hair. Where it has Yunjin gasping, moaning, the whole nine. She has to look to find her balance - and meets the two silhouettes framed inside the reflection on the window. Two shapes, lost in the blurred shadow and outline of lights outside the hotel window, behind which the whole city and its crowds might have stopped the way they'd started, with the rest of you caught between these strange moments:
First, the mindfulness. The purpose and meaning in movement, sensation. In being alive and young, hot, gorgeous and dumb as you can afford to be be.
Yunjin's murmuring, "right there, I want you," or telling, or begging, "don't, you have no idea, I, no-" until your body presses flush up against hers, hips rocking into her perfect figure - taking you like she was built for it, and everything feels so much tighter now, so much closer. Her palms and cheek against the glass, her knees are all shaking and ready to fold at any moment. "So deep, fuck. Fuck me right there, just like that."
Then as you suppose, the unbridled lust on display: Yunjin's turned to this kind of abandon - she's swearing out loud, saying things that have no name and very little form until you've dragged the roughness of your fingers all over her body and found she needs a palmprint on her inner thighs, her ass. That she's whimpering with every deeper plunge until, finally, she gets what she's after - and the words are falling out of her mouth. All it does is mean nothing now - whatever you've been waiting to hear, the pleas to fuck her harder, the cocksleeve talk, or any other request or order.
It's a small miracle, really, considering how she'd gotten you throbbing and aching with just the press of her lips and the dangerous little curl of her tongue - the tight heat all in the back of her throat - but Yunjin cums first.
Loudly. 
Messily, too, as she rides out the feeling - tightness gathering right into her core. But her head, it's in the clouds and a little far away, the skyline bathing her skin in shades of glittering silver and gold. And god, the heat of her tight, twitching, soaked pussy - pulsing around the thrusting curve of your cock: the sublime kind of place, spot, rhythm.
How her arms give out and she's pressed, flushed, back to chest with you, right there. Her words are soft. Wholly unimaginative: yes and fuck, yes and oh, she wants you, loves how well you fuck. The murmur comes from that gorgeous body of hers, the exact shape of everything that feels good to feel. The jut of her hips and her legs are longer than her height suggests they'd be, flawless from the ankle and foot to her thigh to where your arm wraps around the base of her ribs, hugging her from the back.
It's a perfect fit.
And not in the glass-slipper kind of way that means there is such a thing as a soulmate, no.
"Cum in me," she breathes, and then - all over. That's it. The moment your fingers are splayed back out over the pane of window, she can't hold her gaze steady. Those tears prick up at the corner, where they get caught. Where her voice is too high and pitchy - begging, a whining noise and some syllable. Something inaudible that has pressing these hot, open-mouthed kisses right into the pretty rise-and-falls of her spine. The sloppy-wet sound from your cock slipping back in, and back again, until you're just left fucking these little ragged breathes out of her chest.
The space between her lips and the glass, the white-ghosting breaths of air out between those plump little pouts that have shaped and molded themselves into some version of words, a few half-finished pleads: “kiss, hold, fill, fuck, just," and, "my body, love-
"Your fucking pussy, Yunjin, holy shit, it's - fucking - so, god," you all but growl out.
Pounding into the tight clench of her cunt.
The bed in the other room might be the better choice, the sheets and pillows for more support than the hard wall she's propped against. But the glass, to see the view and take her up against it: it feels nice, cool and comfortable, even when your motion makes it fogged and sticky with condensation. She had, when your first thrust pushed inside the molten heat of her pussy, reached around the corner - fingertips splaying wide apart, up, along the foggy pane, watching the shadow of her palms turn blurry and indistinguishable against the soft glow of neon beyond.
"I'm cumming," you tell her, "I'm cumming - fuck," before shoving her body even further into the glass. Fucking her hard - just short of bending her to the point of where she might break.
That last stroke or two goes a little wild; all that coiled and pressurized want and need, boiling over the moment you fuck your cum deep into her trembling body. This time, your sounds aren't just the thoughtless hum and groan from the depth of your lungs, but some collection of dirty words, grunts. Nasty things. A whole host of obscenities: like how it's for the sake of claiming, leaving something of yourself behind. How you're pulling the smooth, curve of her hips into your body to push as much of yourself inside the gripping warmth of her. How your hot cum is starting to spill from her pink, perfect, hole - all for the better because when you take your thumb and swirl and trace and smear all along her slippery-wet slick, she gets like this: squirming in these lazy, needy little wriggles against your touch.
It takes the two of you sometime longer to move. Not long, but, you know, a little while.
When it is that Yunjin comes back to herself, you feel the smile as the ghost over your arm.
The kind of thing to ask, though you're too fucked to pay attention, are questions about life: where do you go to school, how long will you stay? All of that. There's a quiet moment where your mind plays back, vaguely, a little more intensely, the realization - and regret of it, the waste - of fucking a stranger for a night.
And in a real short moment:
"That was - really good," she says, still not recovered quite enough to walk.
Yunjin sounds all that same: a stranger. Not familiar. That's, like, your last chance or whatever. Before this becomes a one-off.
("Stay for a while?" is what she doesn't manage to ever ask.)
"Have to leave early tomorrow." And she looks at you, shoulders dipping at the ends. She says things like: "my work," and "we have an international flight. Customs is a bitch."
"Oh," is what you say to all that, looking her body over again, drinking down all the small details of her. The ones you'll lose forever after tonight. All of them, you know.
All because that's how it had to be, from the start.
"For sure."
Yunjin's hands are twisting at the end of her hair, stroking and brushing through the silky, black strands. Just for something to do: maybe, optimistically to keep herself occupied with some semblance of a thought that has nothing at all to do with how she can't seem to shake this sudden, cresting wave of frustration - how there's an urgent throb from deep within, pushing into her skin like a force.
You swallow. Try to smile. "It was fun."
-
The hotel's checkout desk is staffed by a cheerful looking man, almost fresh out of high-school. Too cheerful a smile, perhaps, and maybe a little too bright for the time of day. You'd been busy pacing the lobby, trying not to stare at your phone for the third or fourth time since stepping out of the elevator. Your feet have scuffed the ground under the coffee table, around the floral couches - almost tripping over the boutiques lined in the middle of this path. Likely you'd have considered them if you weren't focused elsewhere.
Thinking about how you'd put off any discussion about piecing back together your rental suit.
"Did you have a good stay, sir?" the concierge asks, reaching out across his desk to pick up a card. He's placing a machine in front of him.
Your face warms ever-so-slightly. "Wonderful."
"That's what we like to hear. Just swipe your key here."
The machine's screen flashes and there's another cheerful beep, indicating everything was processed.
"Could you get me my receipt?"
"Absolutely. One second."
And the printer whirs to life: spitting out line-after-line of printed data. Until there are twelve characters of nonsense and garbage, including but not limited to the link to a questionnaire and an explanation for all the boxes marked 'x'. It also indicates your total costs (minimal, really) and lists a detailed breakdown of services: breakfast, in-room bar, laundry, towels - all the necessities.
"There, would you like- wait. Sir? Someone asked me to hand this to you," and after reaching under the desk, "looks like a suit jacket of sorts."
"Oh."
He raises an eyebrow. "From the event, I'm assuming."
It's hard to tell what it's about. But as you wrap your fingers into the cloth of the fabric, tug at it a bit, there's a note that slips and falls to the floor.
You sort of frown, skeptical. Fumble with the note. And the note says this:
In your absence, I helped myself to your jacket, your wallet, an extra serving of breakfast, as well as a large iced-coffee. Promise you I'll get the next one. Call me: (xxx)-xxx-xxxx.
Affectionately, your (girl)friend for an evening,
Huh Yunjin
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vxntagedior · 1 year
Text
protector
summary | the moment bucky fell in love with you
pairing | mob!bucky barnes x fem!reader
warning | angst, arranged marriage, age gap, insecurity, violence, fluff ending
word count | 1.5k
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You didn’t know anyone in that room. Staying flanked to Bucky’s side, letting him parade you around the room as he talked with the other men he did business with. It wasn’t no secret about what Bucky did, it was how you married him. 
Being the only child, and along with being a girl, your father wanted someone to pass down his business to, though offering it to you first, declining immediately because you couldn’t be a part of the mob, Bucky was next pick. 
Bucky came from his own lineage, his own family wealth, already the boss of his family business and now the head of yours. After getting married, you moved into his family estate, far from your father and mother, but having the little words of encouragement from your mother made it a little better. 
“If he ever hurts you physically or mentally, his reputation be damned, I’ll get you out of there.”
Bucky was the opposite of what you expected, he was respectful towards you since the wedding, making sure to put your comfort first even though your marriage was purely transactional. 
Your parents' relationship was the same, but your mother grew to love your father, and the way he worshiped her made her safe. You wanted that one day with Bucky. 
Giving a small smile to all the people you passed, there were a few men murmuring to each other about your relationship, some of the women glaring at you, all the same looks you received once you were married. 
It wasn’t no secret Bucky was handsome, powerful and wealthy, the whole package to women in the room, and they were envious, a little jealous. 
Bucky’s arm was around your waist, squeezing you occasionally, reminding you that he was still looking out for you. Coming up to a group of men, Bucky slid his hand away from you, shaking the hand of everyone. 
“And you all know my wife.” He smiled, reattaching his arm. Smiling behind your champagne glass, you just nodded, glancing over each other before your eyes widened. 
Brock Rumlow. 
Brock was originally supposed to marry you, but once your father heard about what he had done to a business partner's daughter, he cut ties with him. You remembered Brock in your father’s office, the two of them yelling back and forth, hiding behind a pillar, seeing him storm out the estate. 
Looking out of the corner of his eye, Bucky noticed how you tensed you quickly, looking down at the ground, keeping that in his head, he whisked the two of you away. 
“What’s wrong?” His voice was rough, turning so he could fully look at you. 
“It’s nothing.” You shook your head, not wanting to ruin his night. Bucky just looked at you, but you kept up your wall, “It’s fine, I just thought I saw something.”
Bucky knew you were lying but he wasn’t going to demand you to tell him, just nodding, “You tell me anything if somethings wrong, I don’t care.”
You just nodded, agreeing with him. 
Sitting down for dinner, happy that the two of you had a table to yourselves, but seeing as everyone was looking at the two of you, mostly you, waiting for your next move, like they were waiting for you to do something wrong. 
“Don’t worry about them.” Bucky whispered, “They’re just envious of you.”
That made you calm down a little bit, finishing up your dinner, making your way towards the stage. 
Watching Bucky walk up, you smiled, clapping loudly for him. Standing on the edge of the room, you stayed out of eyesight from everyone, well almost everyone. 
Brock had been watching you since the moment you walked in with Bucky. He knew it was you that messed up the arrangement, watching as Bucky came in at the 11th hour, taking all of it from him. 
“Well, well, finally alone Mrs. Barnes.” Tensing up at his voice, you tried to get away from Brock, not being past enough, him grabbing onto your upper arm dragging you away. 
“Let me go!, stop!” You tried to yell but it seemed like Bucky’s speech was ending, and as everyone started to clap, it canceled out your plea for help.
“Shut up, you bitch!” He shoved you against the wall, cornering you. Turning your face away from him, your arm starting to bruise, tears starting to cascade down your cheeks. “You ruined my life!”
“What?” You didn’t understand what he had been saying. Scoffing, Brock brought his hand to your face, smacking you across the face. Letting out a gasp, your hand instantly came up to your cheek, cradling. 
“BUCKY!” You tried to yell, some sound coming out before Brock covered your mouth. You knew what he was capable of, your eyes wide, pleading for him to let you go. 
“You know,” He smirked, his other hand slowly creeping up your leg, “I always wanted something from Barnes, his fortune, but I think I got a better prize tonight.”
Before anything could go further, Bucky had been looking for you since he was on stage, remembering where you were standing, seeing how you were gone. Scanning the room again, he saw how Brock was also gone, assuming the worst. 
Ending his speech early, he darted off the stage, making his way towards the back of the gala, hearing you call for him.
“BUCKY!” 
Eyes wide, Bucky followed the sound of your voice, running down one of the empty hallways, seeing you at the end of it. Seeing red, Bucky stormed towards Brock, shoving him off you, slamming him into the wall. 
“You piece of shit.” He spit at him, his forearm pressing against neck, Brock gasping for air, “You think you come here and mess with my wife.”
“C’mon Barnes, she was asking for it.” He smirked. Bucky’s eyes hardened, stepping away from Brock, before swinging a punch to his face. 
You gasped, your hands covering your mouth, not knowing what to do, if you should pull Bucky off him or go call for help, both a bad idea.
Standing there helpless, you watched as Bucky punched Brock til the point he was unconscious. 
Standing up, wiping the blood from his nose, Bucky turned back to you, seeing the two bruises on you. 
“Are you bleeding?” His hands were soft on your cheek, caressing the bruise carefully, not wanting to hurt you anymore. 
“No.” You whispered, “But it hurts a lot.”
Saying nothing more, Bucky wrapped an arm around your shoulder, bringing you to the car, forgetting about the gala all together. 
“We can’t leave.” You protested. 
“Your hurt, nothing is more important.” He stated, leaving no room for you to argue. Letting you hold his hand the entire way home, your thumb slightly moved over his bruised knuckles, touching it softly like he did when he held your cheek. 
Driving in the estate, barely bringing the car into park, Bucky was already out the door, coming to your side, bringing you into the bathroom. 
Pulling out the first aid and medical equipment he had, setting you up on the bathroom counter, Bucky rummaged through it all. 
“Nothing’s gonna make it go away.” You whispered, not wanting to get him mad, “It’ll go away on its own eventually.”
You didn’t know what caused it, but watching him freeze, his head still looking down, you heard him let out a sob. 
“Bucky.” You said cautiously. Looking up at you, tears now in his eyes, Bucky couldn’t help but apologize. 
“I’m sorry.” He choked, “I’m so sorry.”
Wrapping his arms around you, Bucky cried onto your dress, his head pressed against your chest. Not really knowing what to do, you slowly cradled his head in your arms, running your hair through his hair. 
“It’s okay.” You whispered, pulling him away from you, wiping away his tears. “I never told you about it and you were protecting me, that’s all I could ever do for you.”
It was like a lightbulb in both of your heads had clicked, looking into his eyes, before looking down at his lips before looking up at him again. Bucky seemed to have the same idea, slowly leaning in. 
The kiss was soft, your hands still on his face, slowly moving your lips in sync with his. Pulling away, you rested your forehead onto his, smiling softly. That kiss was the first one since you were married and had been better than you imagined. 
Letting out a watery laugh, Bucky stood between your legs, his hands on your waist. “I wanted to do that for so long.”
“Really.” You whispered, you always thought Bucky never really thought about a romantic relationship with you. 
“And I know that we haven’t really been a married couple, and I didn’t want to pressure you into anything, letting you take the first steps. I know that I wasn’t your first choice, but I promise you, I will always make sure you’re okay, you are my number 1 priority, I didn’t marry you for your father’s chair, I married you because I knew that I could see a family with you.”
Smiling, you caressed his cheek, sighing softly. “I love you.”
Bucky always believed that he didn’t have a heart, he didn’t have any love in his body, never imagining he’d be married let alone being married to one of the most wonderful women he had ever met. 
“I love you too, my love, with my whole being.”
fin.
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AITA for not having time to read my mutual's writing?
Met a mutual on here, bonded through fanfic, have been tight with them for a few years with pretty much no bumps in the relationship, just overall had a really good time hanging around them when I could. We both write a lot and share our writing, and occasionally we talk about that writing/workshop it in passing.
In the past few years I've gone through a ton of life changes. Most notably I went from a multi-person household to a single-person one, and I've been living alone in a prohibitively costly city for a while now working 40 hour weeks and barely scraping by. As soon as the transition started I spent the last of my free income on a shitty little laptop so I could still write, putting down words on my bus/train commutes in the morning and quite literally writing on my breaks at work because I feel insane when I can't create. I bring this up to really stress that I don't have the time for the hobby, I force myself to make the time and even then it never feels like enough.
The only thing I can really stand to do with my 3 hours of free time at night is hang out with my moots online. I'm an extrovert so being around people recharges me. If I don't have designated social time I get super depressed and can pretty much feel my soul withering away. I also feel like I should probably mention that I kinda have a slew of mental issues, personality disorders and PTSD and AuDHD and the works. Point being, shit is rough my dude, but I am a person who likes to work hard and face challenges head on and even though we strugglin, we doing it with a positive outlook.
But! I am an incredibly solution-oriented person and I have found what I personally believe to be a good balance. No one should have to live like this, but I do, and I have found a way to be happy. My writing and my social time is all load-bearing. It is not something I just choose to do on a whim, it's all planned and scheduled and I adhere to those routines very strictly because, I cannot stress this enough, I will go fucking bonkers if I don't.
I'm mutuals with a lot of writers obv, and I sadly don't have time to read their work anymore, unless I get some extra time on my days off or something gets cancelled or like, I end up taking a vacation. I carry a great amount of guilt for this, though, even though I logically know it's reasonable. I try to support them where I can, cheer them on when I see them writing and tell them how cool their ideas sound, hype them up even when I can't actually read & review.
One of the things I do is sometimes I leave a kudos on fic I haven't read. I'm not trying to be ingenuine, and if they asked me I'd tell them like 'Oh I didn't read it yet, just wanted to show support!' but to me it's kinda like ripping a paper tab off a poster so that other's feel inclined to do the same. Plus my pals get a little email and a hit of serotonin.
Except one of my acquaintances, the one I mentioned at the start here, saw that I left kudos on a couple pieces another mutual of mine wrote this year. They more or less blew up my DMs with a ton of accusatory (like, literally presented like a 'GOTCHA!') stuff about how I was selective in who's fic I read, more or less implying that I secretly held some sort of grudge or negative feeling toward them and was making the conscious decision not to read or interact with their writing because of. Something, I don't actually know what they were trying to say. They also told me they vented to their friends about this MULTIPLE times, but they never once approached me to let me know they were feeling paranoid or neglected, they literally just took the most bad faith reading of it possible and then presented that to me like it was something I intentionally did, while the whole time I was unaware.
I tried to explain to them the kudos thing, that I didn't do it to every story, just ones I caught/noticed in my busy schedule. And I laid all this out and asked, multiple times, what free time am I supposed to read with? They didn't answer, and doubled down, kept trying to show me 'proof' that I was shorting them and no one else. Once they started to realize how wrong they were they backed down, but they didn't really apologize, or admit they were wrong, and they tried to end our relationship and left every single server we were in together. Because of some other unrelated stuff going on in my life, I didn't really consider them to be a close friend, but they were someone I really held dear and would've walked through hell for if they'd asked.
I still feel like there is something I'm missing here, and that's why I wanted to ask if I'm TA. I'm a pretty good communicator but one of the things I told myself when talking down my disordered thoughts (guilt about this prior) was "no one in their right mind would use reading fanfic as a metric for friendship." Now that I've had that exact thing happen, I'm starting to think maybe those thoughts weren't so disordered. Maybe this IS a big deal, and I should think about it more, but I don't even know what the solution to that would be. I just. Don't have time to read something lovingly crafted and appreciate it for what it is. All the hours in my week are used up, I'd have to lose sleep for this and with my mental health the way it is that is not an option.
Feel free to be a brutal, my skin is thick. Thanks!
What are these acronyms?
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alwaysmicado · 2 months
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Sink or swim
12.3k | fwb!Joel Miller x f!reader | pt. 8
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WARNINGS: 18+, no outbreak AU, implied age gap, emotional hurt/comfort, flashbacks (toxic relationship, bad mental health), mention of miscarriage & surgery, smut (nothing too graphic), Tommy Miller x f!reader SUMMARY: You reminisce about the late-night conversation that changed your life forever. Joel shares a secret. A/N: Guys, it’s finally here!! This part was hard for me to write, but I’m beyond happy with how it turned out. We learn so much about reader’s past and her relationship with Tommy, and I can’t tell you how excited I am to share it with you. Have fun reading (even though it’s a bit sad) and please let me know what you think! I wanna know all your thoughts!! 🤍 Dividers by the wonderful @saradika-graphics.
series masterlist | main masterlist
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The ocean stretches before you like a vast expanse of liquid silk, its rhythmic waves kissing the shore with a gentle insistence. The sun, now in its descent towards the horizon, casts a warm glow, painting the water and sand in hues of amber and gold.
You’re perched on a weathered bench, sneakers softly tapping against the sand, lost in thought as you watch the waves roll in.
Dressed in yoga shorts and an oversized t-shirt, with an ice cream cone in hand and sunglasses shielding your eyes from the brilliant rays of the setting sun, you blend seamlessly into the serene scene before you.
You appear inconspicuous, just another person soaking up the sun and breathing in the fresh air. No one can see the anguish gnawing at your heart, the tumult in your head, or the pain in your hand that makes you want to scream.
No, no, you look far too calm for that, too composed, too happy.
Besides, what would someone like you possibly have to feel bad about? Seriously. You just love to wallow in your own sadness, don’t you? You haven’t changed at all. You’re still your insecure, annoying, unlovable self. God, even your inner voice is irritating. Do you hear how pathetic you sound? Of course he wouldn’t lov–
Shut up. 
You focus on the waves as they dance and sway, their melodic rhythm a soothing balm to the cruel thoughts echoing relentlessly in your mind.
The ocean’s song, a symphony of calming whispers and gentle sighs you’ve loved ever since you were a little girl, envelops you in its embrace, drawing you deeper into a state of quiet reflection. The cool breeze dancing through the air brushes against your sun-kissed skin, carrying with it the salty scent of the ocean and the promise of new beginnings. 
With a gentle tilt of your head, you take another lick of the strawberry soft serve you bought at the ice cream stand near the boardwalk, feeling the familiar comfort of the cool creaminess dance across your taste buds. It’s been a few months since you last indulged in this particular treat, sharing it with Joel after a rough day at work.
As the cold sweetness melts on your tongue, bittersweet memories of that afternoon flood back with vivid clarity. You can almost hear Joel’s infectious laughter as you scarfed down the icy treat a little too eagerly, his eyes crinkling with amusement at your inevitable brain freeze. But it wasn’t just the shared laughter and playful banter that made this memory so special. 
It was Joel’s genuine interest in hearing about your day, about you, his calming presence grounding you and making you momentarily forget all your troubles. He provided you with a warmth that seeped into your bones, a connection that felt effortless yet profound. Like it could be more.
Reflecting on it now, perhaps that should have been a hint that things were more serious than you wanted to admit right from the beginning. Oh well, dwelling on it is futile now. Because you did finally admit it, didn’t you? And not only that, you basically shouted your feelings from the rooftops last night, laying your soul bare.
Fucking embarrassing.
How are you supposed to come back from that? How are you supposed to ever look into Joel’s eyes again? 
There’s a reason why you stopped psychotherapy after a few months, there’s a reason why you don’t have any close friends beside Tommy, there’s a reason why your dating life has consisted of a series of superficial hookups over the past couple of years.
“Fear of intimacy,” your therapist called it. “A response to sustained trauma.”
You walked out of that session and, fueled by defiance, decided to fuck the first guy who caught your eye, just to prove to yourself, and to your therapist, that you were very well capable of intimacy.
Lying in bed that night, lonely and empty, you couldn’t shake the truth of her words. You hated her guts for forcing you to confront your inner demons, but she did have a point in everything she said.
It’s an uncomfortable truth.
There’s nothing in the world you fear more than people knowing what’s going on inside your head, knowing what you feel, knowing your vulnerabilities and weaknesses—knowing the real you.
And last night, that fear came true.
Your innermost thoughts and feelings were on display for Joel to see, leaving you exposed and raw. The memory of your outburst, of his shocked face, weighs heavily on your mind and heart, filling you with a deep sense of shame and regret.
For a moment in that bathroom, you felt yourself transported back to all the times you’d scream at Simon for whatever he did to fuck with your feelings that day, just for him to laugh in your face or call you manipulative when you’d inevitably start crying tears of hurt and frustration. 
Does Joel see you differently now, knowing the depths of your insecurities? Will he even want to look you in the eye after witnessing what the real you is like? Have you lost your chance with him, and, did you ever even have one?
You sigh deeply and lick around the top of the ice cream cone to catch the drops threatening to run down, humming at the deliciousness.
You haven’t eaten anything else today, too nauseous from your meds and the knot in the pit of your stomach to find food appetizing. You haven’t slept for more than two consecutive hours, too agitated to find any real peace. You also couldn’t stay home this morning, as your apartment suddenly felt like a cage threatening to suffocate you.
Instead, you’ve spent your day off window shopping, aimlessly wandering from one coffee shop to another, your hands now jittery from too much caffeine on an empty stomach. You’ve ambled down the boardwalk, taking in the sights and sounds surrounding you, before finding yourself drawn to the familiar comfort of the ocean.
From the corner of your eye, you catch the display on your phone lighting up with Joel’s name, the device resting on the bench beside you alongside your bag.
You know you’ll have to take his calls and talk to him like an adult at some point. And you will. But this moment, this moment right here, belongs to you and your thoughts alone.
And to the hermit crab making its way through the sand just a few feet away from you. Your lips curl into a smile as you watch the determined little creature, impressed by its resilience in such an unforgiving world. Maybe you would’ve been happier if you’d been born as a hermit crab. Who knows.
As you swallow the last bit of your cone and lean back, feeling the sun’s gentle warmth on your skin, you can’t help but think of the first time you found yourself on this bench, watching the sunset. It feels like that was an entire lifetime ago, and yet, you vividly remember the overwhelming exhaustion that weighed you down, the sense of loneliness that engulfed you—how utterly lost you felt.
You allow your thoughts to drift, captivated by the soothing cadence of the waves lapping against the shore.
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Three years earlier
The sun is down.
Staring into the void, you’re consumed by solitude, the cool breeze coming from the water a thin barrier against the weight pressing on your shoulders. The world seems distant, the murmur of the ocean a mere backdrop to the thoughts swirling in your troubled mind and the beat of your empty heart.
This is it. This is where you were always supposed to be.
You take a deep breath and close your eyes, quietly drifting through the corners of your memory. With each passing moment, you meticulously comb through the fragments of the past few months. They offer no solace, only a stark reminder of how you reached this point.
In the stillness of the evening, you find a strange sense of calm, a numbness that dulls the edges of your emotions. Tears refuse to come, leaving only the echo of relief at the resolution of it all.
You open your eyes again, fixating on the endless mirror of the sky before you. The ocean has always held a special place in your heart. The salty tang in the air, the rhythmic melody of the waves, the laughter of birds mingling with the gentle lull of the breeze—everything.
You dig your naked toes into the sand, relishing the connection to the earth beneath you. The sensation is grounding, peaceful, almost–
“Hey there, sweetheart. Is everything okay?”
A man’s voice, rugged yet gentle, breaks through the silence, interrupting your thoughts. His words dance in the air, pulling you reluctantly back to the present.
Are you kidding me?
With a slow and deliberate movement, you lift your gaze from the horizon, meeting the eyes of the stranger who has disrupted the sanctuary of your thoughts. You rest your elbows on your knees and sigh deeply.
“Oh my fucking god,” you murmur, rubbing your temples in annoyance and disbelief. “The sun’s been down for two minutes, and the first creep’s already here.”
“Wha–” 
You look up at him. “Do you have like a radar or something where you get a notification every time a woman sits alone on a bench somewhere?”
The dark-haired man blinks in surprise, his expression caught between confusion and amusement. His brow furrows, his mouth slightly agape as he processes your words. After a moment of absorbing your outlandish accusation, his lips curve into a wry smile.
“Darlin’, I’m just–”
“Look, dude. If you’re here to murder me, could you at least spare me the whole blah blah you’ve got planned and just do it? Thank you.”
You look at him with a raised eyebrow, his eyes crinkling at the corners. He’s not entirely sure if you’re joking, but your sarcastic tone tells him you’re at least not scared of him.
He chuckles softly, shaking his head. “I assure you I got no such plans. Just thought I’d check in on a fellow soul contemplating the mysteries of the universe.”
You roll your eyes, unimpressed by his attempt at humor. “Yeah, well, I prefer to contemplate in peace.”
When he doesn’t budge and just…stares at you with those big, dark eyes of his, you take a moment to size him up. 
Your gaze drifts down from his eyes, tracing the contours of his muscular chest visible beneath a fitted white t-shirt. It lingers briefly on the obnoxiously large belt buckle adorning his waist, then travels down the length of his denim-clad legs to his cowboy boots. Despite the surreal encounter, you can’t help but notice how incredibly attractive he is. 
God, what’s wrong with you?
“Look, sweetheart,” he says calmly, his voice a blend of warmth and reassurance. “I’m not trying to get into your business or anything, but it’s gonna get pretty chilly out here soon.” He tilts his head and studies your face. “Do you have somewhere to stay?” he asks. “We could go grab a bite to eat if you want, and my place is right arou–”
“How subtle,” you scoff, crossing your arms in front of your chest. “I’m not going home with you, dude.”
“Fair enough, but at least let me call you a cab and wait with you until it arrives, hm?”
His soft voice and patronizing tone are starting to grate on your already frayed nerves. You’ve been sitting here, not taking up any space, minding your own fucking business, and even that wasn’t good enough, apparently.
Okay, world. Hint taken. 
“What the hell is your problem?” you blurt out. 
“What do you mean? I’m just–I’m trying to help you.”
“Why?” The question bursts from your lips like a dam breaking under pressure, laced with frustration. “Do you see me holding up a sign where I’m asking for your help? Huh? Or is this more about you and some, I dunno, bullshit white knight fantasy you’re acting out?” 
Your eyes narrow, fixing on him with a challenging glare, daring him to justify his intrusion into your solitude.
“No,” he responds calmly, his furrowed brow adding gravity to his words. “It’s because I’ve seen enough shit in my life to recognize when someone’s in need.”
The sincerity in his gaze catches you off guard, rendering you momentarily speechless. It’s as if this…stranger is peering into the depths of your soul, seeing past the walls you’ve erected to protect yourself. 
His face softens, the lines around his eyes relaxing as he meets yours. “Mind if I take a seat?”
You shrug indifferently, though a flicker of curiosity dances behind your eyes. “Suit yourself.”
He smiles warmly as he settles beside you. “I’m Tommy, by the way,” he offers, extending a hand. You hesitate for a moment, but eventually, you decide to reciprocate by telling him your name and shaking his hand with a soft sigh.
As his hand envelops yours, there’s a brief surge of something unspoken deep inside you, a connection allowing two disparate souls to briefly intertwine before returning to their separate paths again as soon as he lets go.
“Well, it’s very nice to meet you, darlin’,” he says with a twinkle in his eye, his mustache curling slightly as he smiles at you.
The faint scent of his cologne drifts towards you, mixing with the salty aroma of the sea air. As you gaze at him, your eyes trace the lines etched around his eyes and mouth, evidence of a life fully lived. Strangely, there’s something comforting about his presence, something that makes you feel a little less alone. 
You give him a subtle smile before turning your head back towards the ocean, mesmerized by the rhythmic crashing of the waves against the shore.
Out of the corner of his eye, Tommy watches you silently, noticing the vacant look in your eyes and the way your gaze seems to be fixed on some distant point beyond the horizon. He furrows his brow slightly, a flicker of concern crossing his features as he contemplates how lost you appear in that moment.
“What are you doing out here, sweetheart?” Tommy’s voice breaks the silence, his tone casual yet curious, as if striking up conversations with strange women on the beach is a regular occurrence for him.
Well, it probably is, you think to yourself.
“I, uh, wanted to watch the sunset,” you answer softly.
“Hm. It’s amazing, isn’t it? Should’ve been here and seen it too instead of wasting my time at that damn bar.”
“Oh? How did you waste your time? Can’t have been that bad, judging by the lipstick stains on your face,” you murmur.
“What? Where?” Tommy blurts out, his eyes widening in surprise as he hastily rubs at his lips and cheeks, searching for any traces of lipstick on his fingers.
You stifle a laugh. “I’m just fucking with you,” you deadpan, shooting him a quick glance. 
He stares at you in mock offense for a moment before his lips curl into a wide grin. “Touché,” he says, thoroughly entertained by your dry humor. “But yeah, things didn’t go the way I would’ve liked them to.” 
“What, she didn’t wanna go home with you either?”
“Very funny. But no, things were going well.” He sighs dramatically and rubs his forehead. “But then her husband showed up and kinda threw a giant monkey wrench into our plans.” 
“Wow, tough break,” you scoff, shaking your head in mock sympathy, “not getting to fuck a married woman. I hate it when that happens.”
Tommy chuckles. “Alright, alright, I didn’t know she was married, for the record. She wasn’t wearing a ring or anything.”
“Sure,” you say, your tone dripping with sarcasm as you cast a skeptical glance in his direction.
“What are you up to, then, darlin’? Hm?” he asks with a raised eyebrow.
“Besides not making out with married women?” You hear Tommy’s laugh beside you and wiggle your toes in the sand. “Just enjoying the ocean, I guess. I’ve missed it.” 
“You’re not from here?”
You shake your head. “No, I’m not.”
“Hm. You’re gonna love it. There’s lots of cool things to see and do, especially for young people like you.”
You furrow your brow. “Why are you talking like you’re ninety years old and I’m your estranged grandkid?”
“I dunno,” he sighs, a smile tugging at the corners of his lips. “I guess…turning forty did something to me.”
“Married women apparently still throw themselves at you. You’re gonna be fine.”
He chuckles, a deep, resonant sound that seems to echo across the beach. “Yeah, I guess you’re right about that.”
You’re both quiet for a moment, punctuated by the gentle sound of the ocean and the occasional cry of seagulls wheeling overhead. 
“What brings you here, then?” Tommy asks, observing your profile. You look tired.
“I told you, watching the sunset.” 
“No, I mean what brings you into town? Vacation or family or something?”
You turn to look at him, tilting your head slightly as you study his expression. “Why do you care?”
“Just making conversation,” he says with a smile, a glint of genuine curiosity shining in his eyes. “You don’t have to tell me. We can talk about something else if you want.”
“Like what?”
“Like did you know it’s illegal to own just one guinea pig in Switzerland?”
Your bewildered look amuses him. 
“It’s true. You’re required, by law, to get your guinea pig a little guinea pig friend. They won’t sell you just one. Isn’t that the cutest thing you’ve ever heard?”
You stare at him, shaking your head slowly. “What kind of women do you pull if this is how you flirt?”
Tommy raises an eyebrow. “Who says I’m flirting?”
“Uh-huh,” you say with a smirk, then turn your head back towards the water. “But what if they want to be alone?”
“Hm?”
“What if you get a guinea pig in Switzerland and you have to buy a second one to keep it company but the first guinea pig actually just wants to be alone on a bench and then some other guinea pig with a mustache shows up and asks weird questions? What then?”
“Well,” Tommy starts, happy that you’re seemingly warming up a bit. “I think the first guinea pig would quickly realize that the other, dashingly handsome guinea pig isn’t that bad and just wants to be friends. And then they’d be friends and run around together and eat hay or whatever.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah, and you know, I think us humans aren’t that different from them. I don’t think we’re meant to be alone either.”
You look at him. “Is that why you came to talk to me? Because you don’t want me to be alone?”
“Would that be so bad?”
“I guess not,” you murmur softly, your gaze drifting to the patch of dry skin on the back of your right hand. “And I’m, uh, not here for any special reason. I just…needed a break from home, I suppose.”
“And you have a place to stay, darlin’?” Tommy’s voice carries a gentle concern as he leans slightly closer, trying to see your eyes. 
“Yeah, I booked a hotel room a few minutes from here,” you lie smoothly. “With sea-view and everything. Just haven’t checked in yet.”
“Where did you put all your stuff?” 
“My stuff?”
“Yeah, your clothes and teddy bears and whatnot.” 
You nudge the backpack sitting on the ground next to you with your naked foot. “This is my stuff.”
“Oh.” You must have really wanted to get away if you traveled this lightly, Tommy contemplates silently.
He used to do the same, packing a bag and escaping, seeking solace in the open road. But he learned the hard way that you can’t outrun your problems. They always find a way to catch up with you, no matter how far you go.
He gives you a sympathetic smile. “Have you had dinner already?”
“I had a bagel at the airport this morning,” you say nonchalantly.
Tommy’s brows furrow slightly, his eyes widening in disbelief. “Are you serious?”
“Yup.” If you had even the slightest bit of energy left inside of you, you’d find his shocked face amusing.
“Okay, that’s just unacceptable. Wait.” He retrieves his phone from his pocket and opens a food delivery app. “What kind of pizza do you want?”
You shake your head. “I don’t want pi–”
“Yes, you do. I’m not gonna have you starving on my watch.”
You raise an eyebrow. “On your watch?” 
“Yeah, on my watch. Now, what kind of topping–”
“Pineapple.”
“Excuse me?”
“Pine. Apple.”
“Oh, but I’m the weirdo,” he mutters, shaking his head and giving you the side-eye as he reluctantly adds pineapple as a topping to your pizza. “Anything else? Anchovies? Corn? My tears?”
“Jesus, don’t have a heart attack. Are you Italian or something?”
“No, just not a complete monster.”
You can’t help but chuckle, your smile lighting up your face for the first time in what feels like ages. Tommy’s eyes linger on you a moment too long, captivated by your sudden radiance, before he tears his gaze away as your smile fades once more.
Clearing his throat, he shifts his attention back to his task, fingers tapping away as he types the description of your location for the delivery.
“Should arrive in twenty minutes, the app says.” 
You nod and lean back, fiddling with the hem of your shirt as you watch the waves again. 
“When did you decide to fly out here?”
“Last night.” 
“How? Why?”
“Simple. I took out a map, closed my eyes, and this is where my finger landed. And as for the why…well, home just didn’t feel like home anymore, you know?”
“Hm. I know that feeling.”
You turn your head and look into his warm eyes. “You do?”
“Oh yeah. It took me almost a decade after retiring from active duty to feel home again, or like I was safe, or like I belonged. It’s, uh, not easy to get that feeling back once you’ve lost it. I’m sorry you’re going through that,” Tommy says with a somber tone. He really is sorry. 
You look at him for a moment and give him a tired smile. “It’s okay,” you say with a shrug of your shoulders. “It wasn’t home to begin with. Not really.”
“Whatever your reasons are, you’re brave for leaving.”
You scoff. “Yeah, sure, I’m brave for running away.”
“Sweetheart…”
“Look, it’s okay. You don’t need to try and make me feel better ‘cause I’m not sad. But I’m also not gonna act like I’m not a coward who accepted far too much shit for far too long ‘cause I’m very much not brave.”
You sigh deeply. “I should’ve gotten the fuck out of that miserable town and relationship years ago. But now it’s too late.” 
Tommy furrows his brow and opens his mouth to say something, but you cut him off.
“Are you married?”
“No, darlin’, I’m not married.”
“Girlfriend?”
“No girlfriend.” 
“So there’s no one special in your life right now?”
“Nothing serious, no. No attachments for me.”
“Hm. No attachments,” you murmur. “That sounds nice.” 
Tommy nods. “It is, most of the time at least. But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t miss being in love.” 
“You’ve been in love before?” You tilt your head and look at him with genuine curiosity. 
“A few times, yeah.”
“And the women you were with…they loved you?”
“Yeah, they did.” The soft smile lighting up his face tells you he has pleasant memories of his former partners. How nice that must be. 
“Do you ever wonder why it didn’t work out?”
Tommy’s expression turns introspective, his gaze drifting towards the horizon as if searching for answers in the distant waves.
“I have,” he admits after a pause, his voice carrying a hint of wistfulness. “But I guess that’s just how life goes sometimes. People drift apart, circumstances change, life changes...”
“Do you think it’s possible to hate someone you love?”
Your question catches him off guard, and the look in your eyes concerns him. “Well,” he says calmly, carefully choosing his words, “I can’t say I’ve ever had that experience, but I could imagine that’s how my brother felt about me back when I was spiraling and he had to watch me make bad decision after bad decision. He loved me, I know he always has, but he also hated me for what I was doing.” 
“Sounds like a good brother,” you say, mustering a smile. 
“He really is. Do you have any siblings?”
“Yeah, but I don’t talk to them,” you say, your tone betraying a hint of sadness before you quickly mask it with indifference. “My, uh…best friend was like my sister though.”
“Was?”
“Yeah, you know,” you murmur, the smile on your lips not matching the bitterness in your tone, “that friendship kinda ended after I saw her sitting on my boyfriend’s lap, shoving her tongue down his throat.”
“What the hell? When was that?” 
“Hmm, about a month ago. And you wanna know the real kicker? They’ve been fucking for like half a year. My best friend and my boyfriend. Laughing their asses off behind my back. Hilarious, isn’t it?”
“I’m so sorry, darlin’. They’re shitty people for doing that to you. You didn’t deserve any–”
“How do you know that?”
“Know what?”
“How do you know that I didn’t deserve it? You don’t know me, you don’t know anything about me.”
“I may not know you,” Tommy says gently, “but I know that no one deserves to be treated like that, especially by the people they trust. It’s hard sometimes to see things objectively because we’re our own worst enemies, but I’m telling you, you didn’t deserve that.” 
“I’m not sure that’s true.” 
“What makes you say that?”
You look into his eyes, and the pain he can see in yours breaks his heart.
“Because, I fucking loved it. Everything he did to me, all these years. I loved it. I could’ve left him after he cheated on me for the first time, the second time, the hundredth time, but no. I loved how he came crawling back to me time and time again, promising me the world, telling me he only loved me.”
You pull away, hands resting on his chest as you try to find your words. Simon’s intense gaze has your mind swirling with conflicting emotions, and your heart pounding in your chest. “I can’t do this anymore,” you whisper, your body trembling as he presses you against the wall with his body. “You–you say you’ll change, you say you’ll never do it again, you say you regret hurting me. And I forgive you. Every time. But nothing ever changes. You do it again and again, not caring how much you hurt me.” He places a hand on the wall next to your head, pushing your shirt up around your waist with the other, his touch on your naked skin sending a shiver down your spine. He looks down at you with a hint of amusement, a devious smirk appearing on his face as he searches your pleading eyes. “I’m serious, Simon,” you insist, unsuccessfully trying to convince yourself of what you’re saying. “I’m done.” Leaning in, he traces your neck with his nose, your heavy breathing and the way your tits press against his chest making his cock twitch in his jeans. “Is that so?” he murmurs against your skin before softly sucking and kissing on your flesh. “Why are you doing this?” you breathe, instinctively wrapping your arms around him, your fingers gripping his shoulders as you draw him closer. His leg between yours presses against your core, and you can’t help but whimper desperately at the feeling. “I love you,” he whispers, his warm breath gently caressing the curve of your ear, his words piercing your heart like a poisonous dart. “No, you don’t,” you murmur, your voice heavy with sadness, your eyes betraying the turmoil raging within you. Despite the ache in your heart, a part of you still yearns for the comfort of his touch, the familiarity of his presence, the illusion of affection he gives you. You need him, need to feel him, need him to love you—even if it kills you. In this moment of vulnerability, you surrender to the torrent of emotions flooding your senses, pressing your lips against his in a desperate attempt to drown out the pain, to silence the screams that plague your mind—eagerly drinking his poison straight from the source. Tangling your fingers in his hair, you pull him closer, offering yourself up to him with each rough tug, fervent kiss, and harsh bite to his lips. He matches your energy, gripping the back of your neck with a bruising hold as he hastily opens his jeans to free his cock. “I hate you,” you choke out, the words laced with bitterness and the raw intensity of your need for him as your heart races and your vision blurs. “Whatever you gotta tell yourself, baby,” Simon murmurs with a smirk, his words a cruel reminder of the tangled web of emotions that binds you to him, even as you struggle to break free. With a deft movement, he pulls aside your panties, sliding his hard cock through your wet folds as he holds your leg up around his waist. “Oh fuck,” you moan as he pushes inside you in one harsh thrust, your fingernails reflexively digging into his scalp. Overwhelming pleasure mingles with the anguish of your body betraying you, even as your mind screams in protest. Your walls clench around Simon with fierce intensity, his repeated thrusts against your G-spot having you close to orgasm within a minute. “Tell me, baby,” he pants, his eyes gleaming with triumph and satisfaction as he watches in real time how his poison travels through your entire body, your mind, intoxicating your very being with his essence. “Tell me how much you hate me while you come on my cock.”
You tilt your head and give Tommy a tired smile. “Isn’t that the most pathetic thing you’ve ever heard?” 
“No, sweetheart, you’re not pathetic for wanting to be loved. You’re human and our feelings can be…complicated, irrational, dangerous. But you got yourself away from a toxic situation despite your feelings and that takes a lot of strength.”
“Hm.” You draw shapes into the sand with your toes, your heart heavy in your chest.
“Is he…why you left? You had to get away from him?”
“Surprisingly, no,” you say pensively, lost in thought as you fold one leg beneath you on the bench. “Things weren’t that bad after I decided not to care anymore. You know you can just wake up one day and realize it hurts a lot less to just not care about anything? Amazing. So yeah, that’s what I did.” You shrug and rub your left thumb with your right one.
“Of course, he didn’t like that at all, not being able to emotionally drain me anymore. He even told me I was depressed or some shit, acting like he cared, when all he actually missed was me giving him the reactions he wanted,” you scoff, bitterness dripping from your lips. “Coincidentally, that’s when he and my best friend started fucking.”
“I’m so sorry, darlin’, that’s beyond fucked up. Do you, uh, have someone to talk to about all this?”
You raise an eyebrow. “You mean apart from handsome cowboys in too-tight jeans late at night?”
“Did you just call me handsome?”
“Don’t think so,” you give him a playful smile, then turn your head to watch the waves doing their mesmerizing dance. Despite the light-hearted banter, a hint of sadness flickers across your face. “But no, I don’t have anyone left.”
Tommy’s expression softens, his eyes reflecting a mix of empathy and concern as he listens to your words. He reaches out, but catches himself before his hand comes to rest on your shoulder.
“Why did you leave?” he asks gently.
“I saw her.”
“Who?”
“Laura. My best friend,” you say, shuddering at her name. “I came out of the hospital yesterday, stood at a red light, and then I saw her. Looking right at me from the other side of the street. We hadn’t talked since before I almost died a month ago, ‘cause she never bothered to answer any of my calls or texts…and there she was. Daring to look at me with those fake-ass tears in her eyes like she isn’t a fucking sociopath.”
“What did you do?”
“I just…looked at her, knowing I could never see her again. I walked away, went to mine and Simon’s apartment, grabbed a few things, and went to the airport.”
“And now you’re here.”
“And now I’m here.”
The weight of your experience hangs heavy in the air, casting a somber shadow over the conversation. Tommy nods thoughtfully as he absorbs your words, until he suddenly shakes his head, chastising himself for his own stupidity.
“Okay wait, I’m sorry, but did you just say you almost died? What the hell happened?”
“Oh,” you scoff, a wide smile spreading across your face, its brightness contrasting sharply with the dullness in your eyes, “it’s nothing. One of my fallopian tubes burst ‘cause my dumbass gynecologist failed to diagnose an ectopic pregnancy, so I was hemorrhaging and had to have emergency surgery to get it removed.”
Tommy’s reaction is visceral: his eyes widen in shock, and his mouth falls open slightly, a silent gasp escaping him as the gravity of your words, spoken with horrifying casualness, hits him like a punch to the gut.
“Jesus Christ, darlin’...”
“But hey, the doctor said I’m completely fine at the check-up yesterday, so I guess that’s what I am.” You shrug and smile at him, but your attempt to lighten the mood falls flat.
“Darlin’, I’m so sor–”
“Don’t, please. It’s okay,” you interrupt softly, shaking your head. “My ex told me to have an abortion when I told him I was pregnant, and I wouldn’t have been a good mom anyway, so it’s best for the baby that it wasn’t born into the shitshow that is my life.”
“Dar–”
“I swear to God, Tommy, if you say ‘darlin’’ in that stupid, sexy accent of yours one more time,” you cut him off with a playful glare. 
He smiles at you, though worry lingers in his eyes and tugs at his heart.
“I’ve always wanted to live near the ocean,” you muse, welcoming the breeze cooling your hot face down. “It’s kind of poetic that my journey ends here.”
“It really is beautiful here, I’m sure you’d love livi–” Tommy starts, but you’re not hearing him.
“You know, I have this recurring dream where I drown, but instead of feeling panicked or scared I just feel peaceful, light. Like the weight of the world is lifted off my shoulders. I don’t thrash or struggle, I just…let the water take me under and I can finally breathe.”
Concern flashes in Tommy’s eyes, but he quickly masks it with a calm expression, not wanting to alarm you.
“That sounds intense,” he responds gently, choosing his words carefully. “Dreams can be strange sometimes, but that one sounds like it’s trying to tell you something. Maybe it’s your mind’s way of processing all the heavy things that’ve been weighing on you."
He shifts slightly closer to you, his tone soft and reassuring. “But you know, maybe it’s worth exploring with a therapist or someone who can help you unpack it. Sometimes talking about these things can bring some clarity and relief.”
“Yeah, maybe,” you say absentmindedly. 
“Darlin’, please look at me,” Tommy’s voice breaks through the haze of your thoughts, his gaze penetrating through the fog of your mind. If you had any tears left to cry, the sincerity in his eyes would surely coax them out right about now. 
“About what you said earlier…you–you don’t deserve people treating you badly, or any of the bad things that happen to you. You never did, you hear me? You were supposed to be loved, protected and cared for, but you weren’t, and that’s not fair, and most certainly not your fault.”
You tilt your head, studying his face intently. Why does he care? Why couldn’t he just leave you alone? But hey, he’s trying to be nice, and it’s not like you’re ever going to see him again. So, you’re trying to be nice back. 
“Thanks,” you say softly, mustering a smile. “But enough about me and my dumpster fire of a life.” You shift in your seat, untucking your leg and stretching it out in front of you. 
“I’d rather hear about you and how you get your hair to be this healthy. I can never get mine to look that good. Do you think it’s because I just eat garbage, don’t drink enough water and don’t get enough sunlight?”
Tommy chuckles and nods understandingly, recognizing your attempt to shift gears, and decides to play along until you both hear the pizza guy calling for you.
Your insistence to pay for your own pizza and drink falls on deaf ears, so you begrudgingly accept Tommy’s invitation and thank him for ordering food. Surprisingly, you find yourself ravenously hungry after taking the first few bites of your pineapple pizza—that you originally only wanted to mess with Tommy. But even he has to admit it isn’t half bad after you make him eat a slice.
As you’re eating together and the night deepens around you, the street lamps along the boardwalk spending enough light, you ask Tommy about his life. 
He shares his journey of enlisting in the army as a teenager, grappling with PTSD upon his return, and navigating through troubled times. He tells you about the unwavering support of his brother and how therapy helped him cope with his demons. You delve deeper, asking him about his wishes for the future, about his hopes and dreams.
You enjoy hearing about his life, about his experiences that are so different from yours. It’s comforting to get lost in someone else’s story for a bit. It’s a refuge, a welcome escape from your own tiring existence. 
Pizzas devoured, you sit side by side, enveloped in the soothing melody of the ocean’s whispers. Time seems to lose its grip as you share both laughter and quiet, the minutes and hours slipping away unnoticed like grains of sand carried by the tide.
As tranquility settles between you, the world around you seemingly forgotten, a question gnaws at your insides, its weight palpable in the silence. It’s a question you’re reluctant to voice aloud, knowing it will rupture the delicate bubble you and Tommy have found yourselves in. Yet, it persists, demanding acknowledgment, refusing to be ignored.
You take a deep breath.
“Tommy?”
“Yeah?”
“Can I ask you something?”
He gives you a reassuring smile. “Of course, darlin’.”
“Why won’t you go home?”
Oh. Tommy looks deeply into your eyes, his own filled with turmoil, and finds that he can’t lie to you. 
“I can’t,” he admits softly, turning his gaze towards the distant horizon.
You nod slowly, turning your head towards the water as well. “You know why I’m here.”
“Yes,” he says simply, his acknowledgment laden with a quiet understanding.
You steal a glance at him, your eyes searching for comfort in the weary lines on his face. With a tentative gesture, you place your hand on the bench between you, a subtle invitation for connection.
Tommy, sensing your unspoken plea, catches the movement from the corner of his eye. His gaze meets yours as you turn your head, and in that shared moment of vulnerability, he understands. Without a word, he responds, reaching out to cover your hand with his own. 
His touch is protective, a silent promise that you’re not alone. 
“Do you…do you think that makes me a bad person?” you whisper, your voice trembling as you lay bare the depths of your fears.
“No,” he responds softly, his gaze meeting yours with unwavering sincerity. “You’re not a bad person for feeling the way you do.”
For the first time since your miscarriage, tears glisten in your eyes, shimmering like fragments of shattered dreams under the moonlight. Tommy’s words offer a glimmer of solace, touching your broken heart. 
Silence settles between you two, heavy with shared pain. You sit like that for a while, two strangers finding kinship in the gentle embrace of this summer night.
Gently squeezing your hand, Tommy turns to look at you after a few minutes. “I need you to do something for me,” he says, his voice tinged with urgency. You look into his eyes, finding comfort in the warmth of his presence.
“Please stay with me tonight,” he pleads, his fingers tightening around yours, anchoring you to the present moment as if afraid you might slip away into the night. 
“We can stay here, we can go for drinks, we can go dancing, we can break into the zoo—whatever you want, sweetheart. We don’t have to talk about anything, and I promise I won’t bother you anymore if tomorrow you decide that’s what you want, but please give me a chance to show you that I ca–”
“Okay.”
“Okay?” 
“Okay.”
As the gentle breeze around you whispers secrets of hope and renewal, you find yourself nodding in agreement, a silent promise to give him the chance he so earnestly seeks—to let him show you the light that flickers within the darkness. 
Tommy is momentarily stunned as he searches your face for any sign of hesitation. But there’s none to be found—only a quiet resolve that speaks volumes. A wave of relief washes over him, and he can’t hold back the wide grin spreading across his face.
“So, there’s a place a few minutes from here where we could dance, or there’s the bar I went to earlier, or we could–”
“Tommy?”
“Yes, darlin’?”
“I’m tired. Could we maybe…could we go home?”
Tommy’s face lights up even more. “Yes, yes, of course, darlin’. My place is right around the corner.”
“Great,” you say with a small smile. 
You put your socks and sneakers back on, your movements slow and unsteady after hours of sitting. As you stand up for the first time, your legs wobble beneath you, but Tommy is quick to react, reaching out to steady you with his hands on your waist.
“Sorry,” you mumble, cheeks heating up as you realize your hands are gripping his shoulders for support.
“That’s alright, darlin’. I got you.”
“You’re so cheesy, you know that?” you say with a playful roll of your eyes before removing your hands and taking a step back. 
“Look me in the eye and tell me it’s not working,” he teases back with a smirk.
“Whatever. Can we go?” You raise an eyebrow, a smile tugging at the corners of your lips.
“After you, my lady,” Tommy says with a gallant flourish, gesturing for you to go first. You shake your head with a theatrical sigh, but play along and start walking.
He falls into step beside you, eager to lift your spirits with an array of random animal facts he’s accumulated over the years, and, much to your amusement, with some particularly funny stories about failed hookups, like the one from tonight.
As you draw closer to his apartment, he suddenly sucks in a sharp breath and comes to a halt.
“What’s wrong?” you ask. 
“I’m so sorry, I forgot to ask if you need anything.”
“Like what?”
“I dunno, tampons, make-up wipes, solution for your contacts, hair conditioner, lotion—I don’t think I have any of that at home, but there’s a convenience sto–”
“It’s okay,” you reassure him, touched by his consideration. “I got all my essentials in my backpack and really don’t need anything fancy. Thank you, though.”
“Are you–”
“Yes, I’m sure,” you interrupt softly. “Thank you.”
Arriving at Tommy’s apartment, you’re struck by its elegant yet welcoming nature. It’s spacious and tastefully furnished, with a modern aesthetic that speaks to Tommy’s discerning taste. You can’t help but wonder if his job as a contractor affords him such a nice living space or if he’s secretly a trust fund kid—or a very successful drug dealer.
“Must be nice,” you think to yourself.
As Tommy ushers you inside, you’re enveloped in a sense of warmth and comfort as the space feels distinctly homey, with its wooden furnishings and cozy accents that evoke a rustic charm. The polished hardwood floors gleam under soft lamplight, casting a warm glow throughout the living room.
Tommy assures you that you’re welcome to make yourself at home as he heads into the kitchen to get you a glass of water.
Despite its hominess, the apartment remains impeccably clean and organized—a testament, perhaps, to Tommy’s meticulous nature. Every surface is spotless, every item in its proper place, reflecting a discipline that may well stem from his army training.
As you explore further, you do notice small touches that hint at Tommy’s personality—framed photos of him and his friends, a worn but well-loved armchair and couch positioned opposite the TV, horse figurines on the sideboard, and a few potted plants scattered throughout, adding a touch of life to the space.
Your eyes are eventually drawn to the record player nestled in one corner, surrounded by a collection of vinyl records. The sight brings a smile to your face, appreciating the nostalgic feeling it gives you. You’re pretty sure you used to have the same model in your childhood home.  
“Here you go, sweetheart,” you hear Tommy’s voice behind you as he hands you the glass of water with a knowing smile. “You like Jazz?”
“Thanks. And yeah, I guess?” 
“Okay, wait a sec.” He moves with practiced ease, flipping through his collection of vinyl records until he finds the one he’s looking for. With a gentle touch, he carefully removes the chosen record from its sleeve, handling it delicately as if it were a precious artifact.
You sip on your water and watch in fascination as he places the record onto the turntable, the soft click of the needle finding its groove. As the first notes of a smooth jazz melody fill the air, you can’t help but smile, the music enveloping you in its warm embrace.
Tommy catches your eye and grins, nodding in approval as if to say, “See, I knew you’d like it.”
You roll your eyes and nudge his arm with your elbow. 
“Want me to show you around?”
“Sure.”
“Okay, so this is the bedroom,” he says, leading you down the hallway and into the room where you’ll be sleeping. The bed sits neatly made, its dark sheets promising a restful night ahead. “I’ll change the sheets for you in a bit, okay? And I’ll be sleeping in the living room on the couch.” 
“I, uh,” you murmur, but stop yourself, shaking your head. “No, forget it.”
“What is it? It’s okay, you can tell me.” He searches your eyes as you meet his gaze, waiting patiently for you to answer him. 
“Could you maybe…not change the sheets?”
Tommy’s eyebrows raise in surprise, but he doesn’t make it awkward. Instead, he nods understandingly and immediately assures you, “Sure, I’ll leave the bed as it is then.”
You offer him a grateful smile and as if sensing your need for comfort, he asks, “Do you need a shirt to sleep?” Without waiting for your response, he retrieves one of his shirts and hands it to you.
“Thank you,” you say quietly, taking the shirt from him and holding it close. It’s soft and smells nice.
“And here’s the bathroom,” Tommy continues, leading you through the space. “Feel free to take a shower if you want. Spare towels are here, and there’s a new toothbrush in the cabinet here. Toothpaste is over there. I even got fancy face masks if you wanna try, they’re in here. You think you got everything you need?”
“I think so,” you smile at him before leaving the bathroom to grab your backpack. 
As you’re about to head back, Tommy slips in ahead of you. You watch as he discreetly removes all the razor blades, a silent but clear gesture of concern for your well-being. You understand what he’s doing, and although it stirs a pang of humiliation and shame inside you, you don’t say anything and act like you didn’t see it.
After he leaves the bathroom, you take a moment to compose yourself before closing the door, peeing, taking off your clothes, and catching a glimpse of the small surgery scars on your belly. They appear to be healing well, already looking much better than even a week ago.
With a deep breath, you turn on the shower, allowing the warm water to cascade over your body, soothing away some of your tension. As you lather up, enveloped in the steam and the rich scent of Tommy’s body wash, there’s a knock on the door, interrupting your thoughts.
“Darlin’?” Tommy’s voice sounds through the door.
“Yeah?”
“Just wanted to check if you were okay.”
“I’m okay. But you seriously need to start buying body wash for adults, dude. I’m gonna be smelling like a fourteen-year-old boy now, and I don’t know how to feel about it,” you tease. 
“Ha ha, you brat. Enjoy your shower.”
You smile to yourself and appreciate how clean Tommy’s shower is as, in your experience, that is not something you can count on with men who live alone.
As you lather shampoo into your hair, you close your eyes, allowing yourself a moment of peace amidst the chaos of recent events. It’s all so surreal.
Once rinsed, you step out of the shower and wrap yourself in one of Tommy’s plush towels, the soft fabric hugging your body in a tight embrace. With the steam still lingering in the air, you take your time cleaning your face, brushing your teeth and detangling your wet hair, these simple acts of self-care something you’ve neglected in the weeks prior.
Luckily, your past self decided to pack a fresh pair of panties and a pair of soft yoga pants you can change into now, Tommy’s shirt completing your pajamas for tonight. 
Slowly, you step out of the bathroom, the soft light of the living room floor lamp casting a warm glow on the scene before you. Tommy’s sitting on the couch, bathed in the gentle ambiance of the record player’s music.
With a glass of whiskey in hand, he seems lost in thought, fingers rhythmically tapping against the glass, his eyes focused on the spinning vinyl. As you approach, he looks up, a small smile gracing his lips as he welcomes you to join him.
“Okay yeah, I get it,” he quips, his tone playful as he notices how perfectly his shirt accentuates your eye color. “You look better in my shirt than I ever could. There’s really no need to rub it in.”
Chuckling, you settle into the cushion beside him, feeling the warmth of his presence. It feels oddly comforting to be close to him again, his cologne a familiar scent.
But as you sit beside him now, something shifts in the air, a subtle change that you can’t quite pinpoint. It’s as if a newfound awareness has settled between you, casting a different light on the space you share. And as you steal glances at Tommy, you start to feel restless, your heart rate quickening.
Oh.
The realization dawns on you slowly, creeping in like the first light of dawn, illuminating the depths of your emotions. You find yourself unable to tear your gaze away from him, mesmerized by the way he sits on the couch, his posture relaxed yet undeniably confident. 
Your eyes trail over the breadth of his shoulders, down his strong arms, his sculpted torso, and settle on his spread thighs, the subtle flex of muscles visible beneath the fabric of his jeans. Each movement, each shift of his body, only serves to deepen the intensity of your attraction to him.
You’re in trouble. 
His handsome face holds a certain allure, drawing you in with its rugged charm—especially with those warm eyes and the beautiful facial hair. As you look at him, really take him in, you can’t deny the flutter of arousal stirring deep within you.
A flutter that’s enough to urge your scrambled brain to make a move.
Tommy catches your prolonged stare, and his brows furrow slightly, a hint of curiosity flickering in his eyes. You gather the courage to ask for a sip of his whiskey, unwittingly biting your lip as you wait for his answer. 
“Of course, darlin’,” he agrees, leaning in with a broad smile, bringing the glass closer to you.
As your fingers brush against his on the glass, you feel a surge of electricity pass between you. His pupils dilate ever so slightly, his gaze locked onto yours. You take the glass from him, your fingers lingering on his for a moment longer than necessary.
Raising the glass to your lips, you take a slow sip, relishing the smooth warmth of the whiskey as it slides down your throat. Your eyes never leave his as you lick your lips, the gesture not lost on Tommy as he watches you intently.
The flicker of desire in his eyes tells you that he’s captivated by your silent invitation, but as Tommy accepts the glass back, a faint frown tugs at his brow, his expression suddenly tense.
“Darlin’, don’t look at me like that,” he murmurs, his voice husky with restraint.
You raise an eyebrow, feigning innocence as you ask, “Why not?”
“Because,” he breathes out, “it’s making me want to do things I shouldn’t.”
“Hmm, but what if I told you that I want to do those things, too?”
Tommy swallows hard as you scoot closer to him, his eyes never leaving yours. His pulse quickens, evident in the subtle rise and fall of his chest, his mind racing with a thousand thoughts, unsure of what to do or say next.
When your hand lands gently above his knee, his body tenses at your touch. His lips part slightly, as if he’s about to speak, but all he manages is a heavy breath.
“Tell me to stop,” you whisper, your voice barely audible as you lean in slowly, searching his eyes. You can see the conflict raging within him, desire warring with restraint, and you wait for his response.
With a shaky exhale, his gaze drops down to your lips, his entire being filled with longing and uncertainty. But as your palm wanders up his thigh, drawing closer and closer to his growing erection, his resolve begins to crumble like sand underfoot. 
Unable to resist any longer, he leans in, closing the distance between you, his lips meeting yours in a tender yet fervent kiss. His hand instinctively finds the back of your neck, his fingers threading through your wet hair as he pulls you closer, deepening the kiss with a quiet urgency.
Feeling you so close, feeling your soft lips against his, he surrenders to the moment, to the sweet sensation of your embrace, letting himself be consumed by the taste of you.
And yet, in the back of his mind, he’s painfully aware of the circumstances of your meeting.
“I don’t think…this…is a good idea,” Tommy mumbles breathlessly against your lips as you whine needily for more.
“I don’t care,” you breathe, pulling back for a moment to hold onto his shoulders and straddle his lap. His cock twitches in his jeans as you scoot forward, your warm core putting delicious pressure on it. Smiling, you put your hands on his chest and lean in to kiss him again. He cups your face with his hands, kissing you back deeply before nudging your nose with his. 
You open your eyes and meet his gaze, his pupils so dilated his brown eyes are almost completely black. 
“Let me look at you, baby” he murmurs, his voice barely above a whisper, sending shivers down your spine. With a smile, you straighten up and place your hands behind you on his thighs, giving him a great  view of your spread thighs and torso.
“Is this okay?” Tommy asks softly as he traces your thighs with his palms, his touch sending tingles of anticipation through your body.
You nod your head yes, and his lips curve into a smile as his eyes roam your body and face with adoration. His hands wander over your hips, under the shirt you’re wearing, along your waist and further up, leaving a trail of goosebumps in their wake. 
“You’re the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen,” he murmurs, his eyes piercing yours as his hands come to rest on your waist. 
“I’m sure you say that to every girl willing to sit on your lap,” you tease with a smirk, putting your hands on his chest. You can feel his heartbeat under your palm. 
“Yeah, but with you I mean it.” His words carry a weight of sincerity as one hand reaches out to tenderly caress your cheek, while the other glides over the soft skin of your back. “C’mere baby.”
As you lean in, his lips capture yours with an almost desperate hunger, his kiss rough and deep, as if he fears you might vanish if he doesn’t hold onto you tightly enough. His hands glide to your lower back, hovering just above your ass, hesitant to go further yet craving to pull you closer, to feel every inch of you pressed against him, to consume you whole. 
“You don’t have to be so gentle. I won’t break,” you say softly, leading his hands down to your ass. You hum in satisfaction as he grabs it, feeling the strain of his arousal against your aching pussy.
“Tommy,” you whine quietly against his lips, begging him to understand how desperately you need him.
Lost in the moment, you both sink deeper into the kiss, the world around you fading away until there’s only the heat of each other’s bodies and the rhythm of your shared desire. Your fingers tangle in his hair, pulling him closer as his hands roam your back, igniting sparks of pleasure with every touch.
But as the intensity of your kiss grows, so does the weight of uncertainty. Tommy pulls back slightly, his breathing heavy as he searches your eyes for reassurance.
“Are you sure about this?” he whispers. “We don’t have to…”
“I want you, Tommy,” you purr, your eyes glazed. 
Your hips rock against him, trying to relieve the tension that has grown between your thighs, eliciting a deep groan from him. His hands move to your waist, helping you grind against him. 
“Oh shit,” he pants, reveling in the needy moans leaving your lips. “I don’t wanna hurt you, baby,” he admits with a soft shake of his head, looking at you with wide eyes, still moving you against the bulge in his jeans.
“You’re not gonna hurt me,” you breathe, leaning in to kiss and suck at his sensitive neck, leaving purple marks behind. You feel his grip tighten, his restraint slipping as he responds to your touch with a low groan.
Lost in the overload of sensations—feeling your warm body, your soft lips and wet tongue, your urgent movements on him, hearing your moans and whispered pleas—Tommy is ready to give you what you both want.
But right as he’s opening his belt with deft fingers, he inadvertently turns his head and catches his reflection in the window. Watching you writhe on top of him, clutching his shirt, his own face twisted in ecstasy, a sharp pang of guilt shoots through him.
This isn’t right. He shouldn’t be doing this.
You move to kiss his lips again, but as you do so, you catch the concern in his eyes, and your heart sinks. “Hey,” you whisper, your brow furrowed, an anxious smile on your lips. 
Your fingers trail gently through his hair, seeking reassurance, but when his movements cease and his touch withdraws, panic floods your senses.
“No, no please don’t stop,” you beg, your desperation evident in every word. You press against him, your hips moving with urgency, aching for the connection you crave so deeply. “I need you.”
Your hands gently cup his cheeks, your pleading eyes flitting between his. 
“Please? Tommy?”
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Feeling something bump against your leg, you’re called back to the present.
“Oh, hi there, buddy,” you coo, looking down at the toddler who just faceplanted in front of you. You lean down and offer your hand to help him up. “What are you up to, hm? Just running around?”
He looks up at you with wide eyes, his face breaking into a toothy grin. “You wanna sit up here and wait for your mommy?” You lift him up, putting more pressure on your bandaged hand than you should, and set him down beside you. “Great view, huh?”
He babbles something unintelligible, his little arms flailing as his excited laughter fills the air. “You’re so right, buddy,” you agree, following his gaze to the sparkling blue, “the ocean is beautiful.”
“Benji? Oh, there you are,” a lady in a swimsuit calls out, walking towards you with a relieved smile. “I’m sorry for disturbing you,” she says to you, her tone apologetic. “Benji, how many times have I told you not to run away, hm?”
The toddler giggles in response to his mom’s reproach, his little arms reaching out for her. You can’t help but laugh along with him. 
“Think twice before you decide to have kids,” the lady says with a deep sigh, lifting her son onto her hip. “They’re not always as cute as they look.” 
“I’ll keep that in mind,” you chuckle.
“Say bye to the nice lady,” she prompts, her voice warm and gentle.
Benji turns to you, his eyes bright with innocence, and waves enthusiastically with his chubby little hand.
“Bye Benji,” you coo, returning his wave with a big smile, your heart warmed by his adorable gesture.
You sigh and look at your phone. You have two new messages from Tommy.
Maria says she can’t wait to see you tomorrow. And that she’ll personally drag you here if you decide not to show up. 
You’re family and there’s nothing you can do to escape us ;)
You swallow hard and can feel your puffy, irritated eyes starting to water behind your black glasses. What the fuck did you ever do in your insignificant life to deserve this kind of love?
Your phone lights up with another text from Tommy. 
just accept it <3
You snort and shake your head. You’re so grateful for his friendship. It has changed a lot over the last couple of years, of course it has, especially after he started dating Maria, and more recently since you started…seeing his brother without telling him. 
But the fact that you’re still honoring your yearly tradition to have your late-night talk on this very bench, is a testament to the depth of your bond. It’s a cherished ritual, marking the anniversary of your first meeting. You meet here, under the evening sky, exchanging stories and laughter, and indulging in pizza after sunset.
Two years ago, Tommy told you he met someone before you left his apartment the next morning. 
“Sweetheart?” “Yeah?” “I, uh, I got something to tell you.” “Shoot.” “I met someone.” Your fingers halt as you’re tying your shoes, the world around you suddenly still as his words sink in. You stare at the floor, tension building in your heart. “We’ve only been on two dates, but I–” “Really like her,” you finish his sentence as you tie the laces into a knot, straighten up and meet his gaze. “Yes.” That’s it, then. You’ve been replaced. “Does that,” you clear your throat that feels incredibly tight now, your voice shaking, “does that mean we can’t hang out anymore?” Tears well up in your eyes as you feel a rush of panic flood through you. You look down and try to blink back the tears threatening to spill over. “Of course not,” Tommy says, his tone gentle yet firm. “Nothing and no one in the world could ever keep me from spending time with you.” “Okay,” you manage to choke out, your voice barely above a whisper as you hastily wipe away a tear with trembling fingers. “I’m sorry for crying, I–I don’t mean to.” “Hey, you don’t need to apologize for that,” Tommy says softly, closing the distance between you two. His hands find their place on your shoulders, offering a gentle squeeze of reassurance. “Darlin’, look at me.” You lift your gaze to meet his, your eyes brimming with fresh tears. “I mean it,” he says with a comforting smile, looking intently into your eyes and cupping your face with his hands. “I promise I’m not going to leave you. I will always be here for you.” You study his face and tell the nagging voice in your mind to shut the fuck up. This is Tommy. He deserves love, he deserves happiness, he deserves someone who can give him everything he wants.  And that’s not you. You give him a kiss on the cheek and a sincere smile. “I’m really happy for you, Tommy.”
You did continue spending time together—Tommy kept his word and didn’t abandon you—but as more and more time passed, you would see him less and less as his relationship with Maria deepened.
You expected that to happen, it didn’t hurt any less though.
One year ago, he told you he was going to propose to her, and you spent all night brainstorming ideas on how he could do it. After she’d said yes, they both let you know one day over dinner that they were going to elope, just the two of them, and you were the only person they’d tell beforehand. 
A few weeks ago, Tommy beamed with pride as he shared that they were trying for a baby, the twinkle in his eyes warming your heart. Despite the joyous news, you couldn’t resist teasing him for planting that image in your mind.
After you’d shared your stories, and your pineapple and pepperoni pizzas, he very casually asked you if you were seeing anyone, and you said, “No.” 
“You’re a horrible liar, darlin’.” “I’m not lying. I don’t like anyone except you.” “Stroking my ego’s not gonna get you off the hook, baby.” “Hmm, I’m pretty sure it’s working though.” “The longer you deny it, the more obvious it gets, you know.” “I’m not seeing anybody, Tommy.” “You really wanna play semantics with me?” “Alright, alright. I guess I’m…kinda seeing someone.” “Why just ‘kinda’? Does the guy not realize what a lucky bastard he is?” “It’s not him. It’s, uh…you know me.” “Yeah, and that’s why I know you’ve caught feelings.” “Ew, don’t say that.” “Well, it’s true. It’s written all over your pretty face.” “You suck, you know that?” “Yeah, it’s part of what makes me so charming. Does he know?” “I dunno, probably not.” “Are you gonna tell him?” “Uhh, I don’t think so.” “Why not? All this time I’ve known you and I’ve never seen you in love before. You can’t just…ignore it.” “Tommy…” “Don’t even try it with the puppy eyes, I’m immune to them.” “Liar.” “Give me one good reason why you shouldn’t tell him.” “Easy. If I never tell him, it’ll never hurt.” “That’s not how it works.” “You just couldn’t let me live happily in my delusions, hm?”  “Sweetheart. I know you’re scared, and you have all the reason to, but…sometimes you gotta take a leap of faith, you know?” “I’m not sure I can.” “What does your gut say?” “My gut says he’s too good for me and that he wouldn’t like me if he knew who I really am.” “As someone who does know who you really are, I can assure you that it’s a privilege I wouldn’t miss for the world.” “I just…don’t wanna mess things up, Tommy.”  “Look. Nothing lasts, but nothing is lost if you try. Everything changes and everything is alright.” “Wow, that was beautiful…you’re really starting to feel that rum and coke, huh?” “You know I’m right, baby.”
It’s funny, really. 
You actually entertained the idea that Tommy might be onto something, that perhaps opening up to Joel could bring some semblance of peace, that perhaps you could be happy together. Yet here you are, back where you started, the familiar ache of loss settling in your heart, whispering that everything is far from alright.
As the sun dips below the horizon, the sky transforming into a canvas of vibrant colors,  reflecting off the rippling surface of the water, you take your shoes and socks off. You sink your toes into the soft, grainy sand, relishing its comforting texture. 
Closing your eyes, you take a deep breath, allowing the rhythmic sound of the waves to soothe your racing thoughts. With each exhale, you remind yourself that you’re safe, embracing the tranquility of the moment as the colors of the sunset dance across your eyelids. 
You feel grounded, peaceful, almost—
“Hi, darlin’.”
“Jesus, you scared me,” you startle with a gasp, snapping back to reality as Joel’s voice unexpectedly breaks the silence.
“I’m so sorry, I thought you saw me,” he says with an apologetic smile on his lips, his big puppy eyes looking puppier than ever.
You sigh exasperatedly and take off your sunglasses. “I didn’t.”
“I’m sorry,” he begins, his words stumbling over each other, “I didn’t mean to intrude, I just...I thought I–I mean, I wanted to...”
“Joel,” you interrupt him, too exhausted—physically and emotionally—to beat around the bush. “What are you doing here?”
His brow furrows slightly and his heart plummets as he sees your bleary eyes, a pang of concern settling heavily in his stomach. “I wanted to see you, darlin’,” he confesses softly.
Your gaze sharpens with curiosity and suspicion as you ask, “But how did you know I was gonna be here? And can you please sit down? You’re making me nervous.”
Joel hesitates for a moment, then sits down beside you, his movements cautious as if afraid to spook you. With a nervous glance in your direction, he clears his throat, his voice low and hesitant.
“I, uh,” he begins, his words faltering slightly, “I went to your place after work to see if you’d maybe talk to me in person. But you weren’t there. And then I went to your office to see if you were working late, but I saw Kristen and she said it was your day off. You could have been anywhere at that point, so I went to Tommy’s and…told him.”
His eyes flit between yours, anxiously searching for your reaction. 
You blink slowly, processing Joel’s words with a sense of resignation rather than shock. A heavy sigh escapes your lips as you realize that, at this point, nothing surprises you anymore. With a tired nod, you acknowledge Joel’s actions, feeling too drained to muster any significant reaction.
“How’d he take it?” you ask quietly.
Joel exhales deeply, a wry smile on his lips. “He isn’t too happy with me right now, but I think he’ll get over it.”
“Hm.”
“Darlin’, I’m sorry,” he says, his voice wavering with emotion. “I know you probably don’t want to see me right now, but after last night, I just…I couldn’t bare the thought of you not knowing how much you mean to me.”
As Joel speaks, you keep your gaze averted, unable to meet his eyes, your focus fixed on the sand beneath your feet. You hear every word he says, each one echoing in the silence between you, your heart pounding in your chest. Despite your reluctance to face him, Joel’s unwavering gaze remains fixed on you, his eyes silently pleading for understanding.
In the midst of the tense silence, a sudden clarity washes over you, and your heart speaks before your mind can catch up. Just as Joel opens his mouth to apologize again and explain further, you interject with your own question, the words tumbling out softly into the stillness.
“Do you ever feel like there’s something missing...like a piece of your heart is somewhere else? And no matter what you do, you’re always gonna be incomplete?” 
You meet Joel’s gaze, your eyes searching his, peering into his soul with a vulnerability that lays bare your deepest feelings. 
“I don’t feel like that when I’m with you,” you whisper.
Joel’s brows furrow in a mixture of surprise and tenderness as your words sink in. His lips part slightly, his expression softening with understanding as he processes the weight of your confession.
“Would you, um,” you clear your throat, “would you hold my hand and just sit with me for a bit?”
Joel’s eyes beam with adoration as he gently envelops your hand that’s clutching your shirt, delicately prying it away and intertwining his fingers with yours. With a soft, reassuring smile, he places your entwined hands on his thigh, the warmth of his touch seeping into your skin.
As you both gaze out at the vast expanse of the water, the waves lapping against the shore in a mesmerizing dance, you feel a sense of peace settle over you like a warm blanket.
You still carry the weight of unresolved issues and uncertainties in your heart, acknowledging that they loom on the horizon, demanding attention. But for now, they can wait.
Your hand in Joel’s feels right, and in this shared moment right here, that’s enough.
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Thank you for reading! 🤍
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cmncisspnandmore · 2 months
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One Night Stand Part 7
Pairings: Simon "Ghost" Riley X Pregnant! Reader
Warnings: Medical drama, Fluff,
A/N: Hi loves, sorry for taking so long, i just moved into a new house and its been a lot. And honestly my mental health is trash. This part was also really hard to write for me because I had this happen to me. And i didnt realize how triggering it would be to write about it but the best way to get through the trauma is to write about it, right? maybe? no? well, anyways sorry if it sucks. i'll do better next time.
Word count: 1833...
New to the series? Catch up here: Part 6,
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Your head pounded as you laid across the soft couch, each throb timed perfectly with the beating of your heart. There was no cuteness in pregnancy, not in your eyes at least. The glow that most women talked about was nothing more than a sheen of sweat that collected on your brow from your every move. There was a tiny human playing soccer with your organs, your ribcage the goal. They kicked wildly at the space below your ribs, the feeling enough to make you want to throw up. 
The past few days had been rough, you had a headache from hell and you just felt drained. Simon was concerned but you had chalked it up to the lingering cold you had going on. But now as you lay on the couch your stomach rolling with each passing moment you aren't so sure. Simon was on base today, having to complete some paperwork. He had woken you this morning, his lips peppering your face with soft kisses. 
He had tried to stay home but you had insisted he go, that you would be fine you would call if you needed him. Since he had left a few hours ago he had called you a few times, and you had reassured him each time that you were okay, you were just going to rest on the couch until he got home. You weren’t sure how long had passed since Simon had last called, but you had started to gradually feel worse. You push yourself up onto your elbows, and the world begins to spin around you. A wave of dizziness, crashing into you, as you blindly reach for your phone. 
You swallow trying to will yourself not to throw up. It takes you a few moments to find Simon's name in the phone, and putting it on speaker. It rings longer than normal but right before it goes to voicemail his panicked voice answers. “Hello? Y/n? What's wrong?”
“Simon… I… I don't feel good,” your voice shakes as you struggle to keep the phone in your hand. 
“Bloody hell, It’s alright Love, stay on the phone with me, i’m on my way,” there’s shuffling and the sound of boots hitting the floor in the background. “You’ll be okay, what's going on?”
“I have a headache… I'm nauseous, and I just don't feel good at all, I think something is really wrong,” you mumble, swaying slightly as you sit on the couch. 
“Okay, Love, do you have any swelling in your hands or feet?” The sound of Simon's truck revving filters through the phone. 
“Yeah a little,” You lean forward to the best of your ability and press on the top of your foot watching as your finger makes a light indent in the skin.
“Fuck..” Simon curses under his breath, “Love, go put your coat on, I’ll be there in a moment. Okay? We’re gonna go to the hospital.” 
“Simon?” you whisper, your voice shaking as you push yourself to stand, bracing yourself on the couch.
“Yeah love?”
“I’m scared…” you whisper, squeezing your eyes closed as tears threaten to spill down your cheeks. 
“I know, I'm pulling up now okay, I'm gonna hang up okay? I just parked the truck, I'm coming to get you.” Simon's voice cuts off as the line goes dead. You shuffle over to the coat rack and start to pull on your coat. Hot tears roll down your cheeks as you hold the coat closed around your stomach. A sharp pain under your ribs causing you to gasp, and brace your hands on the kitchen counter. 
The sound of heavy boots stops outside the door as Simon pushes into the apartment. He’s still wearing all his gear, his tight black t-shirt, his cargo pants and skull mask on. His brown eyes are full of concern as he walks towards you, his large hands resting on your hips. 
“C’mon Love lets get you checked out,” He whispers, pressing his lips to your forehead. Simon’s arms carefully pull you into him, resting your back against his chest as he guides you from the apartment and down to the car. Your mind feels cloudy and far away as Simon secures you into the truck. His hands brushing along your stomach as he fastens your seatbelt. You close your eyes focusing on the revving of the engine as Simon weaves the large black truck in and out of traffic. It was only moments later that it came to a screeching halt outside the A&E doors. He barely had the truck in park before he was jumping out and scooping you up in his arms. He cradles you against his chest as he bursts through the sliding glass doors.
“I need some help!” his voice is loud against your ear. The vibrations of it through his chest causing you to groan in pain. Each movement felt like it was sucking the soul out of you. Every breath hurt and you just wanted to sleep, but soon there were nurses and doctors swarming you. Each of them throws questions towards you, only to have Simon reply for you. 
“How far along is she?” a doctor asks as she shines a bright light in your eyes. 
“28 Weeks,” Simon's voice is laced with panic.
“Okay, let's get her up to Labor and Delivery people let's go! Someone call the NICU unit!” the on-call emergency room doctor calls out. It was like a swarm of bees, suddenly everyone was doing something. Someone was poking your arm with an IV while another was taking your blood pressure. You weren't sure whose hands belonged to who or what was going on. But after a few moments there was too much going on for your brain to process, and you passed out.
~~~~~
The beeping of the monitors was oddly familiar to you, like when you woke up after being caught in the stairwell after the apartment building you were living in caught fire. But this time there was an icy chill that ran down your spine when you heard it. The memories of what happened come flooding back.
Calling Simon, him rushing home, being rushed to A&E, the doctors concerned voice. The overwhelming sense of panic, and then nothing. You slowly pry our eyes open, fighting against the heaviness. The first thing you see is Simon's blonde hair, the wild strands sticking up at odd angles as it rests against the light blue hospital blanket. Your hand is trapped under his head. His cheek pressed firmly into the back of it. You wiggle your fingers slightly and he stirs. His head lifting, brown eyes blinking slowly as he came around. 
“Y/N?” He asks softly, his eyes meeting yours.
“Hi,” you croak softly, your throat dry and a little sore. 
“Oh god, baby, you scared me so much,” Simon whispers, his hands coming to cup your cheeks. He was still wearing his gear, minus his mask and vest, his black shirt slightly wrinkled. 
“I’m sorry,” you whisper, your right hand moving reflexively to rest on your stomach. You pause, eyes widening as the once firm bump is now squishy and numb. The world seems to stop spinning, time slowing. Your heart wants to stop beating in your chest but it won't listen. 
 “N-No.” Your voice cracks, eyes welling with tears and a look of confusion crosses Simon's face before he looks at your right hand. 
“Oh! No, love, shhh stop it’s okay. The baby is okay.” He rushes out, grabbing your left hand in his. His face is full of concern, his brow furrowed as he watches you slightly relax. After a moment you let out a shaky breath.
“What happened?” You whisper, looking up at him, his hand still clutched tightly around yours.
“You had PreEclampsia, but a severe case of it called HELLP syndrome. I’m not entirely sure what it means but they said the only way to save your life was to deliver the baby. So they performed an emergency C-Section and had to give you a blood transfusion. The baby is okay, they’re in the NICU. I haven't been able to see them yet, but a nurse came about an hour ago and said that they were fighting like crazy and we should be able to see them soon.” He explains, his brown eyes welling with tears. 
His voice is rough and strained, “I thought I was gonna lose you both.”
Hot tears well in your eyes as he admits his fear. A man as big and strong as Simon looked so small at that moment. He looked like a lost child who couldn't find home. The brave soldier who willingly ran into warzones and fought people with his bare hands had never looked so helpless. It was in this rare moment that you got to see the person behind the hardened soldier. The man who truly thought he was going to lose the person he cared about, and his child. Your heart ached for him, you wished you could take the worry and pain he had felt away but you couldn't. 
Fresh tears spilled down your cheeks, he must've been so scared, felt so hopeless. He was usually able to control some aspect of the situations he was in. He could fight his way out of the worst scenarios, he could plan an escape, and he was always prepared for things if they went south. But he wasn't able to fix you, he had been completely helpless as Doctors worked to save not only your life but that of his unborn child. 
“Oh baby, don't cry,” Simon's thumb strokes the skin under your cheek as he wipes away your tears. 
“I’m sorry I scared you,” you whisper, voice tight.
“It's not your fault, i’m just glad you're both okay.” He whispers, leaning forward and brushing his lips against your cheek.
“Tell me about the baby,” you blink away the rest of the tears, taking a steadying breath.
“It’s a girl, she weighs 1lb 2oz, and she's so small i don't even think she’d fill my entire palm. They aren't sure entirely what her future looks like, but the nurse that came in to check on you said she was a fighter, and she felt really good about her outcome.” He smiles, his brown eyes filled with pride as he talks about his daughter.
A daughter.
You had a daughter now.
The thought alone was crazy to you, you had been so sure the entire time it was a boy. You had a gut feeling but you were wrong, and you weren’t unhappy about it. You didn't care either way, the only thing you cared about was that they were okay.  That they would pull through everything and you would get to bring them home eventually. 
There's a soft knock on the door and a nurse with red hair pokes her head in. 
“Hi, do you two wanna go meet your daughter?”
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Next Part: Part 8
Taglist: @coffeeandtealol, @natashamea18, @itsmytimetoodream @humanities-cutest @ajrfanz @jggykhug09090 @dedicateeverythingtomilkshake @ashreblogsnow
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cutielando · 6 months
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not fair ~ oscar piastri
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Summary: Upon joining Formula 1 this year, there has been a lot of scrutiny regarding Oscar and if he was really up for the challenge. More confident than ever in his abilities with you by his side, he is ready to prove everyone wrong.
Words: 1.1k+
Other works: my masterlist
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Formula 1 was no joke. 
The amount of stress the drivers were being subjected to was sometimes almost ridiculous. Add that to also being a fresh rookie in the business and you're done for.
That's exactly how Oscar felt ever since joining McLaren for this year's season.
Getting the opportunity was everything he had been working towards ever since he was a little boy just starting up in karting. It was his dream to race in the big leagues, and now it was finally happening.
However, the first half of the season hadn't been going that well for your boyfriend.
He had been having a hard time getting a grip on the car, on the new tracks he hadn't driven before. F1 was much more demanding than F2 and it was taking a while for Oscar to get used to it.
You were there for him every single step of the way, cheering him on and supporting him fully. However, there was just so much you could do. 
The thoughts in his head couldn't be controlled and oftentimes he wouldn't let you in because he would think it was something he had to deal with on his own. No matter how many times you asked, he just wouldn't budge.
The summer break had been the one thing both of you had been looking forward to. You had been planning a trip back to Australia so Oscar could visit his parents and you were hoping some time away from the chaos of it all would be good for his mental health.
But of course, Oscar being Oscar, the first thing he did after arriving at his home in Australia was jump in the simulator he had set up at home, practicing different tracks for hours on end.
You would just about convince him to take breaks to eat and use the bathroom.
After 3 days of constantly sitting in the sim chair, you had decided that enough was enough.
It needs to stop.
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"Baby?" you called out, entering his game room where he had been in ever since he woke up several hours ago.
"Hm?" he barely acknowledged that someone else was in the room with him, his eyes trained on the track he was practicing.
"Can we talk for a minute, please?" you stopped behind his chair and put your hands on his shoulders, trying to get him to come back to Earth.
"In a moment, darling. Just let me finish this race and we'll talk, okay?" he quickly looked up and offered you a smile before his attention was back to the screen.
You sighed but mumbled an okay, leaning down to plant a soft kiss on the top of his head. 
Having some time on your hand, you just decided to sit down on the small couch in the corner of the room, scrolling through your phone while waiting.
After a couple of minutes, you heard the simulator turning off and Oscar joining you on the couch, wrapping his arm around your shoulders and pecking your temple.
"What did you want to talk about?" 
You sighed before twisting around to face him.
"You know I love you, right?" the words made Oscar's stomach turn.
Nothing good ever comes out after those words. Still, he decided to remain calm.
"I do. I love you too" 
You nodded, twisting your lips while deep in thought, trying to come up with a nice way to say what you wanted to say.
"I know how hard it's been for you this past few months, signing with McLaren and getting used to the stress and chaos that's F1. And I'm unbelievably proud of you baby, but what you're doing isn't healthy. You're a rookie, baby, you're learning the ropes and nobody expects you to get everything right on your first try. Everyone makes mistakes and the point is to learn from them. I know you've had a rough first half of the season, but it's not over yet. You need to take care of yourself and not let yourself lose sight of the big goal, baby. Obsessing over things and spending every waking moment in that sim while neglecting your health and training isn't helping anyone, my love" you took his face in your hands, cradling it.
He looked at you deeply, knowing that you were right.
He nodded, looking down at your lap so you wouldn't be able to see his lip quivering.
"I just wanted to prove to everyone that I deserve the seat and I deserve to be here" his voice was small, almost like a little child's.
Your heart broke at that.
Seeing your boyfriend fight so hard just so he could prove to his fans that he deserved to be a McLaren driver, putting that huge pressure on his health to prove himself made tears well up in the corner of your eyes.
"Baby, you don't have to prove anything to anyone. You are here for a reason and that is the fact that you are so immensely talented, my love. You've worked your ass off ever since you were a little boy and McLaren saw that, which is exactly why they fought so hard to sign you. You need to give yourself some credit and be proud of where you are, Os" you were caressing his cheek with your thumb, slowly gathering the tears that had started flowing down his cheeks.
"You're right, you're right. I'm sorry" he buried his face in your neck, sobs wrecking his body.
You kissed the side of his head as you held him tightly, grateful that he could finally let out everything he had been pushing down for months.
And you were right there for him.
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Oscar hated being told "I told you so", but he was grateful you got to say that to him in that moment.
Upon returning from the summer break, both McLaren drivers seemingly did a 180 and started absolutely dominating the grid every single race and every single sprint race.
You genuinely thought things couldn't get any better, but then Qatar rolled around.
And Oscar won his first ever Sprint in Formula 1.
To say that you were proud beyond words wouldn't do justice to what you were feeling.
Seeing him holding the P1 trophy made your heart swell and your stomach fill with butterflies like they did when you were just a young teenager falling for Oscar for the first time. Upon seeing him holding that trophy, you found yourself falling in love over and over again.
When the hype after the race finally calmed down and Oscar was finally able to return to his driver room where you had been waiting, there were only 4 words that needed to be said.
"I told you so"
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sadesluvr · 5 months
Note
hi! I was wondering if I could request something angst/fluff where the reader defends Mike to his aunt Jane and the custody case worker about how he gives his all to take care of Abby by himself? I wish someone could have advocated for him during the scene where they discuss the case and his aunt talks down on him a lot :’( thanks so much for sharing your writing!
A/N: Hi Anon, thank you for the ask and being patient! My inbox was a little crazy…It wasn’t specified what relationship they have, so it’s neutral, and can be read platonically or romantically. I hope you like it :) 
When Mike had asked you to accompany him to a meeting with Abby’s safeguarding officer and their she-devil of a relative - Aunt Jane - you’d said dropped your things without hesitation. You knew it was going to be rough, as the woman had been on him practically since the day their mother had been buried, but you never expected to be blindsided. Still, from the moment you’d walked into the room and seen the catatonic man with a briefcase clutched to his chest, you knew it wasn’t going to be good.
“Just look at my nephew — It's not even 10:00 and he can barely keep his eyes open!” 
That’s because he can’t sleep properly. He’s literally on prescription pills, but you wouldn’t know that, would you?
“And this degenerate is who they trust with the wellbeing of a mentally ill child?”
Degenerate was such a strong, vile word. You’d visibly flinched at it, both in disgust and agitation. Mike hadn’t seemed to react, but you knew that deep down he was internalising each and every word that was leaving the woman’s mouth. 
Abby is not mentally ill, she’s just introverted. All kids are different. 
“You’re the doctor, and you're making me feel like I'm the crazy one - and after what he did to that poor man…”
Oh, of course it was time to break out the tears. Luckily no one - bar herself - was buying it, instead producing a deep collective sigh shared between yourself, Mike and Valerie. Even though the display was all fabricated, you knew that there was a darker side to her behaviour. She’d probably grown up entitled; being able to cry her way out of things so she could mould her victim and bend those in her path to her will. You were livid, and you were sure Mike was too.
“I have tried to play nice - but I have to think about Abby now…Enough is enough - Doug —” 
The click of the briefcase and a rustling of papers brought the final blow. She wanted custody, and there was a high chance that - should the case go to court - she would get it. From the corner of your eye, you cast a glance over at Mike, watching as he let out a sigh and straightened his back as he came to terms with what was in front of him. His hands trembled slightly, and he bit his lip, mind likely racing to find the appropriate words. With a cocked brow he looked up at you, and you ran your tongue over your lips before pursing them. 
You didn’t want to hold back anymore.
“Pardon my language, but this is bullshit,” you spoke, and Jane seemed amused by your sudden aggression. Valerie looked at you with wide eyes, but subtly nodded her head for you to go on. “Mike is a good carer, and he has been for the past few years,”
“Have you not listened to anything at all?” the blonde woman scoffed. “Abby is sick. She’s not progressing like her peers,”
“Obviously, sickness runs in the family,” you said pointedly. “We’ll all be damned if Abby has a fraction of whatever you’ve got going on up there,”
“Are you implying that I’m some sort of sociopath? It’ll say a lot when a judge grants her to me instead of him,”
“Can you stop using Abby as some kind of bargaining chip?” you said, rolling your eyes. “She’s a human. A growing girl who’s lost her family at such a young age, and Mike is the only real person she has left! Yes, he’s made mistakes, but what parent hasn’t?”
Mike’s heart swelled slightly at the flippant use of such a strong word. He was always the ‘older brother’, forgetting that he was basically two things.
“Mike was barely an adult when your sister died, but he’s done a hell of a job becoming one. He’s never missed a doctor's appointment, spends half of whatever shit salary he earns on keeping clothes on her back, and he’s even sitting here silently, not acting out because Abby means just that much to him– ” you spat, feeling your heart race as it pumped blood furiously around your body. Pausing, you loosened your jaw and dropped your shoulders. Your voice had certainly escalated, and the last thing you needed was to be detained.
Mike’s brown eyes were wide, and there was a small smile that lay hidden under his flushed face. He didn’t need to say anything for you to know that he’d really fucking needed that.
“--- Take it from someone with experience…You don’t separate those two. They’re a package deal.” you said softly, glancing over at him again, reminiscing on the moment you’d met them. Being close to the pair, you’d seen it all; the good, the bad and the frequently ugly, but you’d never once doubted Abby’s love for her brother. It was evident that your speech, in the grand scheme of things, didn’t mean much, but you knew you were going to fight like hell beside Mike to make it a small part of a larger story.
They were going to get their happy ending.
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candycandy00 · 6 months
Text
The Doll House - A Toji x Reader Fanfic Part 4 (Final)
You’re in love with Toji, even after finding out he trains sex dolls at the Doll House. Taking a chance, you sell yourself to the Doll House so he can be your trainer, and you bet him that you can make him fall for you by the end of the training.
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4
Read Geto’s Part Here!
Read Nanami’s Part Here!
Read Sukuna’s Part Here!
Read Gojo’s Part Here!
Read Choso’s Part Here!
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AU! Each trainer will get their own story! This is Toji’s. If you’d like to be tagged in future parts, let me know! You must be an adult to be tagged! Any feedback whatsoever is adored! I’m keeping the same tag list as Geto’s part. If you’d like to be removed, please let me know!
Note: Consider these parts AU’s within an AU. So you might see Geto with a different doll from the reader in his part, but just consider this an alternate timeline lol.
Smut. 18+. Short Fem Reader. Cock drunk reader. Age difference (Reader is 20, Toji is 38). Size difference kink. Rough sex. Use of aphrodisiacs. Brief attempted rape. Lots of cum. Divider by @benkeibear!
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The next day, Toji takes Megumi to school and makes arrangements for his uncle to pick the boy up afterwards. You’re a little sad to see Megumi go. While he started out a bit rude, he seemed to be warming up to you. Hopefully, you’ll get the chance to spend time with him again. 
You and Toji have breakfast together, then spend the rest of the morning enjoying each other’s bodies. At lunch, Toji orders takeout, and while the two of you are eating at the small table in his room, he says something that makes you totally lose your appetite. 
“So there’s a buyer who wants to meet you.”
The plastic fork in your hand drops to your foam plate. You knew this was coming, you’ve been mentally preparing yourself for it. Meeting with potential buyers is part of the process at the Doll House. It’s one of the things that makes the place so popular among buyers and people considering becoming dolls. Meeting with someone a few times before the purchase gives both parties a chance to feel each other out before making a ten year commitment. Dolls even have the right to reject buyers if they provide sufficient reasoning, though obviously they can’t just reject buyer after buyer. 
But these past few weeks with Toji have been like a dream, like a fairytale. You’ve been so happy spending every day by his side, and now reality is crashing into your fantasy. You definitely haven’t given up on the bet, and you have almost two more weeks, but you realize that you have to play by the rules. You have to meet with the buyer. 
“Okay,” you say, picking the fork back up, “I’ll meet him.”
Toji watches you, seeming surprised that you’re not arguing about this. “I’ll have the owner set things up,” he says after a pause, taking a bite of his sandwich. 
The meeting happens two days later, in the afternoon. You sit in the welcome room of the Doll House, Toji standing nearby, as you wait to meet your potential buyer. Even though you still feel confident that you can get Toji to fall for you, there’s something nerve wracking about this meeting. Knowing this man wants to literally buy ten years of your life, if the meeting goes “well”, just makes you feel awkward and mildly creeped out. 
When the owner walks in, there’s a man walking beside her. He’s younger than you expected, much younger than Toji. You guess his age to be no older than mid twenties. He’s not repulsive, in fact he’s sort of cute, dressed impeccably, and carrying himself in a dignified manner. But he’s not Toji, and seeing the two men in the same room together really drives that point home. 
He sits down on the plush sofa beside you, not too close, and crosses one leg over the other. He flashes you a gleaming smile that probably cost him a lot of money. 
The two of you make small talk. Mostly introductions and generic pleasantries. At one point he asks, “What did you do before this?”
“I worked at a convenience store,” you reply with a smile. 
His nose seems to wrinkle a bit at that. He returns your smile as he says, “I work for a major investment firm. I’m in high demand, so I stay busy. I don’t have time to date and pursue relationships.”
In your mind, all you can hear is that he doesn’t want to put in the effort required to find and keep a girlfriend, but you keep that to yourself. 
“So do you live around here?” he asks. 
“Oh, yeah, I have a small apartment in town. It’s really close to the store I worked at, so I could walk there and save on gas.”
There it is again, that wrinkle of his nose, as if your frugality is disgusting. To be honest, you’re hoping he doesn’t like you, so maybe you’re emphasizing the fact that you’re borderline poor. 
“You might have a hard time getting used to my place then,” he says with a smug grin. “It’s huge, three stories, eight bedrooms, four baths, a pool in the backyard…”
He goes on for a while longer, and you simply smile and nod, with the occasional, “Wow” thrown in. You wonder if he can tell just how much you don’t care about his big house. 
The man moves his hands a lot as he speaks, and you suddenly notice light glinting off the gold, fancy-looking watch on his wrist. It’s quite annoying, and distracting. When he notices you looking at it, he stops and holds his arm up. 
“You like it? I bet you’ve never seen a watch like this before. If I told you how much it cost, you might faint,” he says with a chuckle. 
You give a small laugh of your own. “Actually, the light reflecting off it is blinding me.” Then you hold up your own wrist, where the watch you bought last year at a discount store is sitting. “Mine can catch the light too, and it was only ten dollars!”
Behind the man, Toji has one hand on his mouth, stifling a laugh, the other hand clutching his side. When he meets your gaze, he rolls his eyes in an exaggerated way and shakes his head. You have to fight back a laugh of your own. 
The man looks at you sharply, and for the first time you get a genuinely bad feeling about him. He smiles at you again, but there’s something off about the expression. He looks like he finds you amusing, in a “here’s a toy I can play with and break” sort of way. 
Later, after he’s gone, you and Toji are walking down the hall. “Can you believe that guy?” you ask. “Are all buyers rich assholes?”
Toji laughs again. “Nah, most of them are alright. But this guy? He sure was rich, huh?”
“If there’s one thing I can say about him, it’s that he’s rich,” you reply. 
“Yep. That’s the main takeaway from that meeting,” Toji says, grinning. 
You think the meeting went well for you, but pretty poorly for the buyer. Which is why you’re quite surprised when, two days later, the buyer wants to have another meeting with you. He’s going to have dinner with you in one of the empty rooms, privately. 
“Do I have to be alone with him?” you ask Toji as you get ready for the dinner date. 
“Buyers request private meetings all the time. It’s normal,” Toji says, stepping closer to zip up the back of your dress for you. “But it’s just dinner. He’s not supposed to touch you.”
You turn around to look at Toji. “What if he does?”
He gives you a smile. “I’ll be right outside the door. Call for me and I’ll be in there before you can blink.”
“What if he locks the door?”
Toji grins. “Do you think a locked door would stop me?”
You sigh as you turn back to the dresser and look in the mirror. You haven’t dressed up since you got here. Toji seems fine with you wearing casual clothes, or nothing at all. But tonight you have to look “fancy”. You reach down and pick up the glass bottle of Toji’s cologne and spritz some on your neck. Then you whirl around to face Toji again. You stand on your tiptoes and give him a quick kiss. 
“Okay, I’m ready. But just so you know, I’m gonna be thinking about sucking your cock the whole time!”
Toji’s eyes widen, but then he laughs. “That’s one way to get through a boring dinner!”
You grin at him, sliding your hand down to palm his dick through his pants. “Be ready for me,” you say, “I’m gonna be famished when we get back to your room.”
His hand quickly moves under your dress, groping your pussy through your thin panties. “We have a few minutes, maybe I should fuck you right now, send you on your little date with my cum oozing out of your pussy.”
You gasp as you feel one of his fingers slip beneath the fabric and stroke your slit. “Please do! I wanna feel it dripping out while I sit across from him.”
Toji immediately turns you around to face the dresser, bends you over it, and hikes your dress up to your waist. He pulls your panties to the side and slides himself in, easily going all the way into your slick entrance. It’s a quick and rough fuck, with Toji thrusting fast and hard, making your legs wobble and your pussy ache. It doesn’t take long for him to pump you full of his cum. 
You stay there, leaning across the dresser, trying to catch your breath. You can feel Toji’s cum seeping out and into your panties. Behind you, he uses his hand to press the fabric against your pussy, getting it all messy and damp. “Don’t change them,” he says into your ear.  
“I won’t,” you tell him, finally straightening up and pulling your dress back down. “So while I’m in there, keep thinking about my pussy soaking in your cum.”
************************
Toji watches her walk down the hall in front of him and then go inside the room where the potential buyer is waiting. The door is shut, and Toji stands leaning against it. 
Though he looks calm, inside he’s so riled up, it takes all of his strength to resist tearing down the door and fucking her on the table right in front of the buyer. The fact that she wanted to be filled with his cum while having dinner with another man is so insanely fucking hot, Toji is having trouble controlling himself. He wants her under him right now, or on her knees in front of him, choking on his cock. 
He takes a deep breath and crosses his arms over his chest, trying to calm himself down. No doll has ever made him feel this way before. He enjoyed fucking them, sure, but he’s never felt like he needed them. But this girl… he’s getting dangerously addicted to her. 
Time passes at an agonizingly slow pace as he waits for their dinner to be over. And when the door finally opens, his heart beats faster when she steps out. The dress is a fairly simple one. She probably bought it at a mall somewhere. But on her, it looks stunning. When she walks by him, he smells his own cologne, his own scent. It drives him wild. 
The buyer steps out after her. He doesn’t look very happy despite the smile on his face. She probably made him feel foolish again, or just wasn’t impressed by all his bragging. Either way, Toji feels relieved that the date didn’t seem to go well. He tries not to think about what that means. 
He doesn’t even look at Toji, as if the man training his potential sex doll to please him is beneath his notice. Toji doesn’t care. In a few minutes he’ll be balls deep in her tight little pussy while this asshole goes home alone. 
Back in Toji’s room, she’s giggling as she sits on his bed, taking off her high heeled shoes. “You should’ve seen his face when I told him I love to shop at thrift stores! I thought he was gonna vomit up his dinner!”
Toji smiles as he watches her, noting how easy and comfortable the conversation is between them, as opposed to the stiff and awkward way she and the buyer spoke to each other. “So did you learn anything new about him?” he asks. 
She snorts cutely. “I learned how many cars he has, where his summer home is, and that he only wears clothes from some Italian brand I can’t pronounce.”
“Oh, so you learned he’s rich. Again.”
She laughs and stands up, crossing over to him with bare feet. Having just seen her in heels, he’s struck again by how short she is. But she reaches up and wraps her small hands around his neck, pulling him down closer to her. “I learned that he’s utter trash compared to you,” she says, then kisses him deeply. 
The next day, the owner calls Toji into her office to speak privately. He’s always found her office to be slightly intimidating, with its blood red carpets and decor. The desk she sits behind is made of deep cherry wood, glossy with polish. Her chair is lined with velvet, and she holds a folded silk fan in one hand. 
“He wants to sample the goods,” she says. 
Toji blinks. “Seriously? They’re not hitting it off at all. I get the impression he doesn’t even like her.”
It’s common practice for a buyer to want to “sample the goods”, as the owner put it. What that entails differs from buyer to buyer. Some want to see the doll naked. Some want to watch a few training sessions. Some want to actually have sex with the doll. It’s no surprise that they ask for this, as this is a ten year contract and a lot of money is involved. And so long as the doll agrees to it, which they almost always do, it’s allowed. It’s something that usually happens after a few meetings, and only after the buyer has demonstrated a serious intent to buy the doll. 
“He doesn’t have to like her,” the owner says, “he only has to want to fuck her. You know this. Dolls aren’t wives or girlfriends.”
True, Toji thinks, but in his experience, both parties were much happier with the purchase when they got along. 
“So? What does he want exactly?”
The owner doesn’t bat an eye. “Full sexual intercourse.”
Toji feels a knot in his stomach. His doll won’t agree to that. She can’t stand that guy. And… the thought of that guy touching her made Toji feel sick. 
“Absolutely not,” he tells the owner. “She’s not gonna be willing to do that.”
The owner stares at him silently for a moment, then sighs. “Alright. Sex is off the table. How about I counter offer with some kissing and light touching?”
Toji doesn’t like that either. He opens his mouth to say so, but the owner cuts him off. 
“Fushiguro, you’re one of the best trainers we have. You consistently provide excellent results. But there’s something off here. I’ve asked around, and it turns out you can’t get this doll to have sex with any of the other trainers. That’s a staple of your training! Now you’re bristling at the idea of the buyer sampling the goods. What’s going on?”
Toji suddenly feels defensive. “Nothing is going on. She’s kind of attached to me, that’s all. It happens occasionally, you know that.”
The owner taps her long fingernails on her desk. “So do something about it. Pump her full of your drug and send her in to meet with the buyer again. Give her so much she won’t care who he is. Don’t screw up and ruin your track record.”
Toji scratches the back of his head, thinking it over. “Okay, I’ll try it. But just kissing and light touching, right?”
The owner nods. “I’ll tell him tonight. If he agrees, we’ll move forward tomorrow.”
Later, when Toji tells his doll about this, she’s understandably upset. 
“I have to kiss him? And let him touch me?!”
“Just a little. Nothing under the clothes,” Toji says. 
She’s sitting on his bed, wearing pajamas - a tank top and thin cotton shorts. “But… I only want you to touch me,” she says in a small voice. It makes him want to pull her into his arms, but he doesn’t. 
“Look, we have to show that you’re willing to give buyers a shot. If not, it makes me look bad as a trainer. I won’t force you to do anything, but I will ask. As a friend, can you do this for me? Just give him a few minutes. Let him kiss you and cop a feel, then tell him that’s all you can handle right now. He’ll leave and that’ll be the end of it.”
She looks at him with wet, glassy eyes, her lips slightly quivering. “Okay,” she says. “But only if you’ll stay in the room with us.”
He sits down beside her and puts an arm around her shoulder. “Of course I will.”
The next evening, the meeting is set up. Toji gives her a dose of the “aphrodisiac”. He expected her to reject it, but she takes it without complaint, saying, “I could drink a gallon of this stuff and I still wouldn’t want him.”
Like always, her skin becomes flushed and her breathing becomes rapid. She stares at Toji with lusty eyes even as the buyer walks into the room. He gives Toji a surprised, unhappy look. 
“Are you supposed to be in here?”
Toji nods. “Standard procedure. You won’t even know I’m here.”
The doll is sitting on Toji’s bed, looking small and helpless as the buyer sits down next to her. Her eyes sweep over to Toji as the buyer’s hand moves to her face and pulls her into a kiss. It’s obvious that she’s not feeling it, and Toji thinks the buyer must be able to see that. But the buyer doesn’t seem to care, holding her face still while he sticks his tongue in her mouth, ignoring her whimpers. 
The sight of it repulses Toji on a primal level. He’s watched countless buyers kiss and even fuck the dolls he’s trained, and it’s never bothered him. Maybe because it’s never bothered the dolls. Maybe because this doll is different. 
The buyer suddenly begins groping at her breasts, his hands rough and clumsy. She draws back a few inches, but doesn’t push him away. Her eyes are on Toji, as if she’s asking if this is enough, if she can stop this now. 
For his part, Toji wanted to stop this from the moment the buyer walked in. Every spot the buyer touches on her skin, Toji wants to gently wash for her when they take a shower together later. He wants to erase this entire evening. 
After a few more minutes, Toji gives her a nod, and she quickly pushes the buyer back. “Sorry,” she says, “but that’s all I can handle right now. I’m still in training and-“
The buyer cuts her off, kissing her again, then suddenly pushes her onto her back in the bed, climbing onto her and sliding his hands under her shirt. 
*******************
You thrash and kick, trying to push the buyer off you, screaming out, “No! Stop it!”
Then, all at once, he’s gone. One second he’s on top of you, pawing at you, and the next he’s simply not there anymore. You look over to find Toji literally holding the buyer by his collar, his feet dangling inches from the floor. 
“This isn’t what we agreed to,” Toji says, his voice low. “And she said no.”
Toji drops the buyer, who lands in a heap on the floor. The man scurries away from Toji and then scrambles to his feet, his face red, looking incredulous. 
“Who cares what she says?!” the buyer yells. “She’s just a doll! I’ll own her in a week and then I can put the little bitch in her place! The only thing this stupid cunt will ever be good for is sucking cock, and we both know-“
Toji’s fist smashes into the man’s face, so fast you barely see him move. Blood sprays across the room, and when Toji draws back, you can see that the man is now missing several teeth, his lips bloody and busted. You’re instantly reminded of your would-be attacker in the convenience store. 
The man wobbles, but somehow keeps his balance. He holds a hand up to his shattered face and lets out a garbled scream. Then he looks up at Toji. 
“How dare you!” he screams, the words sounding funny through his broken mouth. You think to yourself that he should just shut up and leave, but apparently a lifetime of getting whatever you want makes you overly bold. “I’ll have you fired for this, you son of a bitch! You’re just a trainer! You’re a nobody!”
That’s when you jump out of the bed, rush over, and kick the barely standing man right between his thighs. “Compared to Toji, you’re nothing!” you scream. “And I wouldn’t fuck you if you were the last man on earth!”
Toji comes over to stand beside you as the man howls and crumples over. “Nice kick, babe!”
You smile proudly at him. “Thanks!”
The man is looking up at both of you with angry, watery eyes. “I’ll sue! I’ll have this place shut down!”
Toji bends down and yanks the buyer up by his shirt. “Yeah, yeah, whatever you say, you sniveling little fuck.” Toji opens the door and drags the younger man bodily into the hall. You follow behind, and the man loudly screams insults, becoming hysterical now. 
The other doors in the hall open as the rest of the trainers step out to see what the commotion is about. Even Sukuna is in the hallway now, watching the unfolding scene with a grin on his face. 
The buyer notices them all and screams, “What are you looking at?! This place is nothing but a whore house anyway! All the women here are filthy sluts!”
Toji pauses in the middle of the hall. Six pairs of eyes suddenly darken and narrow. The man falls silent at the sight. Toji’s voice is dangerously low as he says, “Now you’ve pissed off the last six guys on earth that you ever wanna make angry. You don’t insult dolls in this house.”
The other trainers begin walking menacingly down the hall toward Toji and the man, and they follow as Toji drags him into the parking lot. You decide to stay inside, but you can hear the man screaming for a long while after that. 
When Toji comes back inside, you’re waiting in his room for him. He sits down beside you on the bed and says, “Are you okay?”
You nod, leaning your head onto his shoulder. “I’m fine. I wasn’t scared. I knew you wouldn’t let things go too far.”
Toji looks down at his bloody knuckles. “I wanted to kill him,” he admits, “but I guess giving him a beating he’ll never forget is good enough.”
“Are you gonna get in trouble for that?” you ask, suddenly worried. 
“Nah, he tried to force himself on you. I just stopped a crime. He’ll be removed from the client list so he can never come back here. Not that he ever would after tonight.”
“Thank you, Toji. You saved me again,” you say, snuggling closer to him. 
He glances down at you, then after being quiet for a few moments, he says, “You said before that you wanted me to tell you about any happy memories I have.”
You look up at him. “Yeah.”
“Well I don’t have a lot of those, to be honest,” he tells you. “But the ones I do have… they all involve Yumi. Megumi’s mom. Do you still wanna hear about it?”
You nod vigorously. 
Toji takes a breath, then goes on. “I don’t have a good relationship with my family. I ran away from home when I was a teenager, grew up mostly on the streets, got into gambling, drinking, all that stuff. So I wasn’t the nicest person when I met her. But she burst into my life like a sunbeam. She was chatty and funny and always smiling. And I guess that cheery attitude rubbed off on me a little. We got married, she got pregnant, had Megumi, and at the time I thought, ‘So this is what it’s like to have a happy family’.”
He stops for a moment, smiling at the memory. Then the smile fades. “Yumi got the diagnosis when Megumi was three months old. An aggressive cancer. No chance of survival. They gave her six months. You know, right up until the end, it didn’t feel real. Somewhere in the back of my mind I believed she’d get better. They’d suddenly invent a new drug or she’d go into remission or… or something. I kept thinking we’d get a miracle. But we didn’t. She died five months later. Didn’t even get the full six months.”
Toji’s eyes are clouded with sorrow as he takes another pause, then continues. “I tried to hold it together for Megumi’s sake. I really did. But I just couldn’t. Losing Yumi… it was like losing a vital organ. How was I supposed to live after that? So I went back to all my old habits. Staying drunk off my ass, gambling all my money away, getting into bar fights… anything to keep myself from thinking about Yumi. Then one night I got arrested, and I lost custody of Megumi.”
He notices the sad look on your face and smiles. “It was probably for the best. I wasn’t much of a father to him. And my relatives took him in so he could avoid the foster care system. That was probably my lowest point, but it was a wake up call. I stopped gambling, stopped fighting, got a job… I wouldn’t say I’ve completely turned my life around, because I’m still not raising my own son, but I’m in a much better place than I was.”
“I’m happy for you. That was a lot to overcome,” you tell him, taking one of his hands in yours. 
He looks down at you with a warm expression, one you’ve never seen on his face before. “All this is to say, I have a lot of baggage. I’m pushing forty, I have an unruly kid who hates me, and a dead wife I’m never gonna stop loving. If you still think ten years with me is a prize, I’ll keep you.”
Your eyes widen and your lips fall open. “Does this mean… I won the bet?”
Toji looks a little embarrassed as he looks away from your face. “Ah, well, the truth is, these past few weeks, I’ve been feeling things I haven’t felt since Yumi was alive. And it kinda scared me. So I tried to ignore it, but tonight the truth slapped me in the face. The thought of some other man, any other man, touching you… it’s unbearable. Right now, my biggest fear is losing you.”
Eyes brimming with tears, you crawl into his lap, wrapping your arms around him. “I’m so happy, Toji! I love you!”
He kisses the top of your head, rubbing your back. “I love you too.” 
The words sound like music to you. They’re everything you’ve ever wanted. You rise up to face him, looking into his eyes. “So, am I yours now?”
“Not yet. You have to complete the training, then your contract will transfer to me.”
You kiss him on the lips. “I can’t wait.”
His hands rubbing your back begin to slide your shirt up. “You really in such a hurry to belong to me?”
You hold your arms up for him to pull your shirt over your head. “I’ve belonged to you for over two years now,” you say. “You just didn’t realize it.”
He grins, turning you sideways in his lap so he can slide your skirt and panties down your legs and off your ankles. Then you turn back to face him again, your legs straddling him. You’re completely naked in his lap, your wet pussy rubbing against the soft fabric of his pants as you lightly grind into him. “Toji, please,” you say, arching your back.
“What do you want?” he asks, a bit teasingly. 
“I want you inside me,” you breathe out. “Always.”
His hand moves down to the waistband of his pants, where he pulls the front down. His cock springs free, already hard. He lifts you up slightly so that you can get in position, then you sink down onto it, letting it fill you completely. You moan as you feel the tip hit your cervix. Fuck, if it wasn’t there, he could probably literally fuck your womb. 
You grip his shoulders as you slowly begin to move up and down, enjoying the way your body stretches to accommodate him. It’s like you were made for each other. You were already so wet for him, there’s a vulgar squelching sound coming from your groin. 
After a few minutes of slow and shallow motions to prepare yourself, you slide all the way down again and wait. Within seconds, his strong hands are gripping your waist, and he stands up, holding you onto him. Your legs automatically wrap around him, and soon he’s holding you in midair, fucking up into you while his mouth devours yours. 
He’s going so hard and so deep that you have tears in your eyes, your face scrunching up in pain. But it feels so good, so satisfying, to have the man you love touching the deepest parts of you. Your hands are in his hair, on his neck, your mouth open and accepting his tongue and saliva, your body jerking with his powerful thrusts. 
“I love you,” you murmur after breaking the kiss. “I love you so much, Toji!”
One of his arms circles around your back, pulling you even closer, while his other hand moves to the back of your head, fingers gently threading through your hair. The contrast between the soft, affectionate gesture and his cock roughly pounding between your thighs sends you over the edge. Your upper body collapses against his chest, your arms weakly clinging to his neck as you tremble through an orgasm. His hands are still gently holding you as he thrusts into you, finally shooting his seed into your core.  
Afterwards, he carries you to the bathroom where he helps you shower, then the two of you climb into bed. Lying beside him in the dark, you look at his vague outline and say, “You won’t get tired of me after the contract ends, will you?”
He laughs. “Are you kidding? You’ll be the one kicking my old wrinkly ass to the curb in ten years!”
You sit up suddenly. “Never! I don’t care how old you are!”
He laughs again and pulls you into his arms. “I gotta tell you something,” he says in a strangely quiet voice. “A couple years ago I bought a little house a few miles outside of town. It’s nothing too fancy, but it’s paid for with the money I’ve made as a trainer. I kept thinking I’d retire and move out there with Megumi, finally be a dad, you know? But it just never happened. Now though… I’m thinking a lot about that again.”
You feel tears stinging your eyes again, and you wipe them with the back of your hand, smiling. “That sounds like a dream!”
He leans over to kiss you, his lips hitting your nose in the darkness, and the two of you laugh. You can’t wait for the training to be finished, so your future can begin. 
Tag List:
@suguguro @kaedear @onyxsphynx @poopoobuttsy @butterskyy @collectionofdolls @akaotv @witchbybirth @bloofinntoona @wasurenagusaa @tclbts @tojirin @lucyrocks86 @badbyeyoongi @97britt @aydene @lzaj19 @lyn-lotte @missthatgirl @peachedtv @ladytamayolover @nanam1nx 
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chrisevansonly · 1 year
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Block Out the Noise
pairing: harry styles x female reader
summary: sometimes you just need to listen to your song and love on your boyfriend to make the negative thoughts go away
warnings: mention of past abuse, talks of depression and suicidal thoughts, potentially triggering(?!) very soft and caring harry&lt;3
a/n: i wanted to write something about matilda because it’s a song that I hold so close to my heart. from growing up in an abusive home and needing to take care of my brother from age 6 and up, when i heard matilda i knew it would be a song i’d cherish forever. this is a fic i hold close to my heart because i was that scared and small little girl who didn’t understand why i got anger taken out on me and why i had bruises when other kids didn’t. you’re not alone, you’ve got me in your corner and your stronger than you know, i hope my inner child knows that too<3
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No one asks to be born into a world of chaos and fear, especially not when you’re a child. Wondering why your parents fought, the screaming matches, the subtle bruises you somehow ended up with because you ‘stood in the way.’ As a child you never knew what went wrong or what you did to be treated this way but you still tried your hardest regardless of the war zone you once called home.
you were riding your bike to the sound of its no big deal, and you’re trying to lift off the ground on those old two wheels..
You taught yourself to read, to cook, to take care of yourself and your siblings. Going as far as to teach yourself to ride a bike and even drive, you raised yourself in a world where you wished you hadn’t needed to do that. When you got to high school the insults from your father got worse, the insecurity creeped in and you struggled with self worth and self harm.
nothing about the way that you were treated ever seemed especially alarming til now..
Then came college where you worked three jobs to pay your tuition and fought tooth and nail to get the best grades and work your absolute hardest to get your degree which you did all on your own. Mental illness and recovery was never linear and you battled some of your darkest days throughout college and even towards graduation when you met Harry.
so you tie up your hair and you smile like it’s no big deal
Harry was your world, he was the calm through the storm, the light that helped guide you through the tough times, he truly was your best friend. You’d been together now going on 5 years with no plans of ever separating from one another. He always told you that you provided just as much safety and comfort to him as he could to you.
you can let it go, you can throw a party full of everyone you know and not invite your family, cause they never showed you love, you don't have to be sorry for leaving and growing up
-
Now you were 26 and worked at your dream job, your life was filled with so much love and so much joy sometimes you found yourself needing to take a step back and just breathe, reminding yourself your life was real. Of course you had your rough days, and after the meeting and scolding you’d gotten today, all you wanted was to get home and see Harry.
matilda, you talk of the pain like it's all alright, but I know that you feel like a piece of you's dead inside
When Harry had started working on the album, he’d told you he was writing one very special song he couldn’t wait to share with you. So on the day that he sat you down and let you listen to Matilda, by the second line you were looking over at him with tears in your eyes, bottom lip wobbling ever so slightly and he was quick to pull you into his chest.
You showed me a power that is strong enough to bring sun to the darkest days
When you arrived home you dropped your work things by the front closet, kicking your heels off and dropping your shoulders in exhaustion. Harry wasn’t home yet so you allowed yourself a few minutes to get some water, your headphones and settle on the couch with a fluffy blanket.
it’s none of my business but it’s just been on my mind
On natural instinct almost, you allowed the soft melody of matilda to play through your headphones, eyes closing as you sunk into the cushions. It wasn’t as if you were trying to cower from the overwhelming feelings you had in this moment, but more or less trying to let them flow and escape from your mind
you can let it go, you can throw a party full of everyone you know and not invite your family, cause they never showed you love, you don't have to be sorry for leaving and growing up
You hadn’t even noticed the tears steadily falling down your cheeks, your breathing picking up slightly as you pulled the blanket up further, attempting to wrap yourself in more warmth. It wasn’t until you felt gentle fingertips dancing across your face that you opened your eyes, Harry looking at you in concern. Pausing the song you pulled your headphones off and sent him a soft smile
“Hey m’love…”
“Hi”
Lifting the blanket up you let him cuddle in next to you, the instant comfort you felt just from being wrapped up in his arms was enough to blow the stress and pain from the day away
“You okay y/n?”
Nodding you leaned further into him
“Just had a really bad day…got yelled at and it just made me think of old stuff and I don’t know…f-felt a bit sad”
Harry placed a soft kiss against your temple
“I’m sorry today was so tough, I know it was probably hard to remember what it was like growing up too..can’t blame you for feeling upset”
His hands ran up and down your arm softly, the constant touch helping to keep you grounded and in the present moment.
“You know what I think?”
Looking up at him you furrowed your brows
“What?”
Placing a kiss on your lips he smiled
“I think you are the most beautiful soul, inside and out. Despite everything you’re still here, fighting and working hard day in and day out. You don’t ever have to feel sorry or feel bad about doing everything you’ve done on your own, and allowing yourself to love and experience love despite it all”
“H…”
He was quick to swipe a tear from your cheek before continuing
“I love you so much, you’re my now and my future. Seeing you grow and flourish into the woman you are today has been a privilege to witness and support you through. I admire you so much m’baby, you’ve never let anyone dim your light and m’so lucky to get to love you”
Anything you would have said to him in this moment was caught in your throat, so wrapping your arms around him and holding him tight was enough for him in the moment. Harry was the moon and the stars to you, he was your whole universe and he’d been helping you heal since you’d been together. You’d done the hardest work on this journey, he had just been there to support and love you through it so he says.
“I love you so much H, thank you for letting me start a new family”
“I’ll always be your family, you’re safe with me my darling, always”
Matilda was a song that would forever have its hold on you, and it was even more special knowing Harry had wrote it thinking of you, including you in his album and one of his projects he really loved. The love he’d shown you and continues to show you had only helped you come out of your shell and finally feel as if you’d found your place and purpose in this world.
Harry was your home, just as you were his.
a/n if you or someone you know is struggling with abuse please reach out to someone you know, whether it be a friend, family member or adult you trust. I’d only wished i’d done so earlier, i’m here to help and support you guys in anyway I can. You are loved, you are cherished and you are worth it.
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WIBTA if I broke up with my girlfriend for not taking her meds?
My (24M) girlfriend (28F) has bipolar and BPD. We've been together coming up on 3 years now. For the last half a year we were together it was pretty rough and turbulent, she was unmedicated and was having suicidal breakdowns almost every day, ended up in hospital several times, threatened and got into physical altercations with other girls who spoke to me or she thought were flirting with me, and I was spending almost every single day of my life having to take hours to talk her down from suicide or self-harm. It was emotionally exhausting and as someone who's also had suicide attempts in the past it was also incredibly triggering and damaging to my own mental health.
For additional context as to why I feel the way I do, my last girlfriend also had diagnosed BPD and NPD and when she stopped taking her medication she became fully abusive both physically and verbally and it took me a year of being absolutely beaten down to finally snap and leave her.
(Obvious note: I'm not saying everyone with bipolar, BPD, or NPD is abusive or that these illnesses inherently make you abusive. They were an abuser who just happened to have those things, and that played into how they acted and thought/felt.)
Current girlfriend eventually got medication and has been doing much better for most of the time since then. When she's on her meds she's a wonderful and generally pretty healthy partner - she's supportive, understanding of my boundaries, checks in with me, she's a year clean from self-harm, hasn't displayed any kind of self-destructive behaviour. She's gotten a job and managed to hold it down (got fired from several jobs in the past because of her daily meltdowns meaning she wasn't attending work), she's started exercising and going to the gym, she's picked up new hobbies, made new friends, she's just been doing great in general.
For about the past month though, she started going days without taking her medication and when I reminded her she would say she didn't want to, that she hated taking it, that she doesn't like the way it makes her feel etc. This is something my last girlfriend said too, and I know it's really common for people with BPD (and maybe bipolar too?) to stop taking their medication because they feel emotionally flat in comparison to how they feel off of the meds. I pretty much said that I couldn't handle going back to how she acts when she's off of the medication again and that if she was going to stop taking them then I didn't think our relationship would last through that kind of period again because last time it completely destroyed my mental health, my sleep, my life and several of my relationships due to how much energy and time I was having to put into her vs. myself and everything else. I suggested asking her doctor/psychiatrist/etc. for another dosage change or meds switch again to see if that would work better (though up until recently they have seemed to be working great so I'm not sure how good of an idea switching it up again would be).
She agreed at the time but I was kind of concerned about whether she'd been keeping up with it or not because over the last few weeks I've already noticed things devolving again - her screaming at me out of nowhere and having mood swings, intense jealousy and possessiveness, impulsive behaviour, even a couple of breakdowns again and having to talk her out of self-harm for the first time in over a year. True enough, today I found out she's been pretending to take her medication and throwing them out. When I confronted her about it she admitted she hasn't taken her medication for weeks.
I pretty much withdrew after that and didn't say anything at that moment but after a while she asked me why I was being so quiet and I basically repeated what I'd said to her in the last conversation, that I was honestly rethinking whether or not the relationship would work because I can't handle that kind of emotional exhaustion and constant sacrifice all over again. I don't mind some emotional support and some labour of love in a relationship because of course I'm going to need to look out for her mental health and reassure and comfort sometimes, that's the reality of loving someone who struggles, but I can't do it 24/7 again. I can't once again put talking her down for hours every day and weathering screaming and violent lashing out all the time at the expense of even my own basic needs and my own mental health struggles (for example my c-PTSD from my last relationship).
When I said that she got very very upset and basically said I was forcing her to choose between me and freedom or being able to live a normal/unmedicated life (which I mean, I guess I can't argue with because in a way I am making her choose between me and stopping her meds), and that I couldn't control her like that. I told her I wasn't doing it to control her and that if she's really determined to go off of them she could, but that I would have to make my own personal choice to walk away as a result of it for my own sake.
She said she'd think about it but ever since that conversation I've been going back and forth in my head on how much of a dick move it would be to flat out just do a black-and-white "Either you stay on your meds and regulate your behaviour or I leave"
TL;DR Girlfriend wants to go off of her medication, but when she's off her meds she has almost daily suicidal breakdowns and lashes out at me physically and verbally. WIBTA if I broke up with her if she goes ahead with stopping?
What are these acronyms?
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the---hermit · 23 days
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I have not kept it a secret that this semester commuting has been really rough on me. By the time I get home in the middle of the afternoon even if I only had to sit in a hour and a half lecture I feel like an overcooked noodle. And the mornings aren't any easier, my anxiety has been spiking a lot lately, and that messes me up completly, and it's particularly hard on my stomach. Let's just say it's a very demanding period of my life both physically and emotionally and I have been doing my best to get through it with ups and downs, but most importantly by trying to properly take care of myself. I decided to compile a list of small things that have been helping me, both for future reference as well as for people who might be dealing with similar issues.
Prep everything I can the night before. I don't leave the house until more or less mid morning since my class is on lunch time more or less (and this will come up again), so I do have time to do stuff in the morning, but if I have already put everything I need in my backpack, picked an outfit for the day and checked that I have my bus ticket the night before I can have a much calmer morning. Having a calm morning is fundamental for me on any day, so especially when I have a stressful and energy demanding day ahead I want to make sure I don't have to rush, and here is my second point.
Try to have a morning as calm as possible before I have to leave. I am a morning person so I wake up quite early which means I have plenty of time to take it easy. And this means drink my tea as I read my book, prep the last few things I need, like my waterbottle, eat (on which I'll have a later point). Overall my morning before leaving needs to be slow and mostly made of things for myself so again my precious reading time, listening tocmusic as I get ready to get in a better mood and so on.
Taking my meds regularly. It's the logical thing to do, if I am in a period in which my anxiety is worse than usual the number one goal is to be consistent with meds, they are there to help me even if sometimes I forget that.
Finding ways to enjoy food when anxiety fucks up my stomach. What happens is that as soon as I have an anxiety spike for some reason I get very nauseous, which is terribly by itself and it gets worse when it makes me struggle to enjoy my food. But I found a couple of ways to work around that in the past few weeks. Eating when I am away from home is much worse so what I do is embrace the little hobbit in me and have more meals when I am at home, and just bring some snacks on the road if I need them. That means I have two breakfasts before I have to leave the house, the last being a bit more filling. And then when I get home no matter how tired I am or what time it is I cook something for myself, something simple, but I take the time to make something good that fills me up and makes me happy. Because having a full stomach does improve your mood belove me. When I am on the road I bring some lighter snacks that can help me if I feel like I need to have something but that will also work well if I have a spike in anxiety and correlated nausea. I usually eat some homemade bread while I walk from the bus stop to my uni, and then snack on some nuts while I wait for the lecture. And I always have an emergency sweet treat in my backpack because that is something that I actually do on a regular basis. This thing has been working very well, I have had less problems with my stomach acting up, and I am definitely getting all the nutrients I need during the day, just at times that are a bit different from my normal routine.
Bring tea with me. It's something I never did before but it's becoming the one thing I won't give up. I either make a green tea or an herbal tea that I drink before the lecture, and it's been so good for me both physically and mentally. It's been super cold so the warm treat is really needed, but most importantly it's been very comforting and calming, so shutout to my dad for suggesting that.
Having little things to look out for during the commute. This mostly consists of me listing to podcasts, and re:dracula has been of great company in my commutes last year so it's nice it's become a bit of a tradition. It's just good for me not to associate commuting with negative things, so now I just percieve it as poscast time which makes it much much better. This also includes texing friends when I feel like I can look at the screen of my phone without getting car sick (again when anxiety messes me up I can get random car sickness), that's good to keep my mind off things and make the commute feel lighter.
Total relax when I get home. Which sometimes means lying in bed with a cup of tea and nothing more. If I have enough brain power I might read a comic, or play stupid midless games on my tablet for a bit. Honestly just things that need as little energy and brainpower as possible because by that time I do not have much energy or brainpower left, and it's okay. I normally use up a lot of energy when going out and it this period of time all tasks require I use even more energy. I can't do much about it other than accept it and do my best to tke care of myself.
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gyumibear · 11 months
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💖 create a sim(p)! — 25: rough
synopsis — after stupidly claiming on stream that you’ve been dating popular youtuber choi beomgyu in secret after accidentally creating an identically looking sim, you beg him not to reveal your lie to the public when it goes viral. weirdly, he agrees and you two begin to fool the public. can your lie become the truth or will it eventually catch up with you?
prev / masterlist / next
warnings — swearing + heavy angst, bad coping mechanisms, yn's not thinking things through. allusions to “suicide”, but there’s no suicide. (wc: ~1.4k)
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It was like time had stopped.
Your eyes were glued to the screen in front of you, the blue light reflected in your eyes. Long had the screen gone black, evidence of the ended stream in front of you. You could vaguely feel Yeonjun’s presence next to you, but the ringing in your ears subjected you to only be able to stare forward. 
Why. Why? Why?!
Beomgyu. Why would he- why? It was so hard to fathom; what could he have been thinking? Did he really think everything would be fixed after that? That everything wouldn’t fall apart even more than it already had?! Now, you were off even worse than before.
He was selfish.
So unbelievably selfish. Because he couldn’t ‘keep up the charade.’ No. He wasn’t selfish. He was a fucking liar. A manipulator. Going out of his way to make sure that everything would leave him looking like the victim. The way he worded the stream, blaming everything on you. The fake dating had been your idea, yes, but he was just as involved! He didn’t have to agree! He could’ve fucking said no! No, he only sold you out because… Because… Because?
You didn’t know.
“Hey…” Warmth enveloped your torso, Yeonjun’s strong, assuring arms wrapping around you. “Come on, let’s go to the kitchen.”
You just let him drag you along, not having the mental capacity to fight back.
He released you when you plopped into the barstool of the hotel’s island counter. Crossing behind the other side of the island, he reached into the fridge to find something. You didn’t know what. You weren’t exactly focused on the black-haired model in front of you. You were too occupied calling Beomgyu every negative adjective conceivable in your head.
A crisp bottle of water slid in front of you, your eyes unfocused on its shape.
“You should drink this. Tears cause dehydration, you know…” Yeonjun spoke softly from somewhere in the room.
You were crying? You hadn’t noticed.
“I’m really sorry, Yn…” He kept speaking, barely making it past the ringing. “He’s so… Stupid.”
Stupid was an understatement.
“How bad is it?” Your own strained voice.
“How bad is what?”
“The backlash… Am I trending?”
“I don’t know… Don’t worry about that right now.”
“What am I supposed to worry about then, Jun? My career… Shit, what am I supposed to do to fix it? Everyone thinks I’m a liar. A user.”
“Not everyone.” Arms again around your body, you nuzzled your back into his chest. “We can fix this.”
“We?” You asked. “Jun, you don’t have to help me. We barely know each other.”
“That doesn’t matter. You’re my friend… And this is sort of my fault.”
No. It wasn’t anyone’s fault but Beomgyu’s.
“If I hadn’t gotten so close to you–”
“Can we talk about something else… I just– My head is pounding.”
A lie. You currently felt nothing. But, you didn’t want Yeonjun to have to dwell on feelings that were not his fault. Nobody was to blame for this, but Beomgyu. He was the problem. He was the cause.
“Drink your water.” He scolded you lightly, “I told you tears cause dehydration…”
“We came straight here.” Soobin stepped into view before your vision became obscured.
Kai threw himself at you, his familiar hold making you tear up once again. He squeezed you firmly, but not enough to hurt. Just enough to comfort. He murmured apologies, ones he shouldn’t be making, holding you as you’d disappear into the ground if he let go of you just for a second. You had a feeling he’d be mother-henning you for the next few days if he wasn’t stopped. 
You didn’t think you’d argue against that. Not right now anyway.
“Thank you for taking care of her.”
“You don’t have to thank me for that,” Yeonjun responded in kind, “You must be Soobin.”
Soobin nodded, pointing slightly in your direction. “And that’s Kai.” 
When Kai finally let you breathe, you pulled back enough to see that his eyes were red. Probably matching yours. But his face wasn’t streaked with tears, not like yours. That led you to the conclusion that he probably hadn’t slept since the stream came out. Oh, Kai…
“Ning, have you slept?” 
“No. How could I?” He pursed his lips before speaking again. This time not to you. “What do we do?”
“We go home,” Soobin shrugged. “We kick that… We kick him out. Then you and Yn get some rest.”
You and Kai nodded solemnly, both not wanting to argue.
“I hate to ask, but can I come? I feel like I and Beomgyu have a lot to talk about.”
“Mm.. ‘s up to you.” Soobin shrugged again. “As long as he gets out of my house.”
You felt like the next few hours might take some years off your life.
Coward.
He was a coward. That was what your mind told you when the four of you had made it to your front door. The house was intact, doors locked securely. But… There was a sticky note, most likely from your room, left right dab smack in the middle of the door. It read: I’m sorry. I took all my stuff and I got a motel. I know you don’t want to speak with me, that’s okay. I’ll be going home soon anyway.
“Well, that’s that I guess.” Yeonjun broke the silence, all of you turning to look at him.
“Maybe it’s better off this way.” Soobin turned to unlock the door for you all. “I don’t think anyone was really ready for a confrontation.”
You stumbled into the apartment behind him, Kai and Yeonjun taking up the rear. Everything inside was normal too. Nothing out of place or taken, not that you thought he would steal. However, you thought bitterly to yourself, you thought Beomgyu wouldn’t do a lot of things. Clearly, this time of you getting to know him was a waste. God, you had the worst case of judgment sometimes.
“So what now?”
The boys started chatting, trying to figure out the next move. You tried your best to listen along, but you just… couldn’t. The longer you stood there, the more your mind was being made up. Soon, you excused yourself from the circle, complaining of a headache. ‘Just going to lie down.’ You spoke. Their worried eyes bore into your back as you disappeared into your room.
You were going to crumple into your bed, but your tired eyes noticed something first. A letter. It was laid neatly on your bed, words written almost neatly, but also as if whoever had written them was rushed. You were going to ignore it, but you knew your curiosity would win. It was a human thing.
You picked it up, letting your eyes glide over the words. Face neutral, your eyes took in every word but widened over time as an indescribable rage filled you. You got to the last line of the letter, letting you know who had written you this bullshit of a final letter. ‘Love, Beomgyu.’ 
You crumpled it into a ball, throwing it into a corner of your room. Full of shit. He was full of shit. How could you have ever thought he could’ve really meant something to you? He was nothing.
And soon, /you’d/ be nothing too.
You made your way over to your computer, typing in the website for your streams. Scrolling until you found what you were looking for, your eyes bore into your screen. It was like time was moving slowly again, as your conscious tried desperately to get you to stop before making the worst decision of your life. But, you were determined to finish this. 
You had to. You couldn’t back down. You clicked your mouse once, mind made up.
The recording light lit up, letting you know you were now live.
As your chat filled, you heard an audible sound of confusion come from your living room. You forgot Kai had your streaming notifications on. You had to move quicker than he could get to you. You ran to the door, locking it before your friends could come to stop you. 
You could hear the banger from the door. You could hear them. Soobin loudly asking what you were doing. Kai begging you to open the door. Yeonjun pleading that you stop recording and come out the door. You couldn’t let them stop you. Not this time. You knew you might regret this, but soon /you/ wouldn’t be around to care.
“Hi.” You spoke bluntly into the camera. “Welcome to DigitalGirl’s final stream.”
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a/n — so... how y'all doing? *sips tea* um, i’m not exactly good at writing super angsty stuff, but i hope y’all still enjoyed! anyways, what do y’all think the letter said? and what do you think yn’s gonna do/say in her “final” stream? lmk!
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