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itsgrimeytime · 2 months

Text

like father, like son || Rick Grimes (TWD) x gn!Reader

AVAILABLE ON AO3

request for @zomb-1-egutzz

Inspiration: I Wanna Be Yours by Arctic Monkeys

Summary: Taking care of Carl, was like instinct. Ever since you've met him, you've just cared for him like your own. You don't know why, you just slotted into his side. And you thought that was pretty simple. But, what you had never thought about, was what it would mean for Rick.

TWs: mention of Lori's death, mention of Hershel's death, mention of Beth's death, angst, crying, essentially a panic attack, pent-up emotions, cursing, blood, gunshot wounds, injuries, unrequited love (but not really), and all things TWD.

[[A/N: hey bestie <333, hope you like it. I write as a stress reliever but this one kinda hurt a little bit. And just fyi, Carl is alive and well, (canon is not real, so it will not hurt me). Also, Rick is down bad in this. Terribly down bad. Enjoy :))) ]]

You were a long-time family friend of the Greene's, and when you had nowhere else to go, you went to Hershel's farm. Even before the apocalypse, you helped when you could on the farm, and you knew all of them really well. A little like they were family.

But when it all started... everything went to shit for you pretty quickly.

And you... you had nowhere else to go.

With your family's blood on your hands and visions of unhinged jaws (that you didn't think you'd ever wash away), you ran as fast as you could. You just let your feet guide you and ended up on the Greene farm.

You still remember how hard they hugged you when you showed up, even with the blood (their blood) all over you. They held you then and kept you breathing for a long time. You don't know what you would've done without them.

But one day (after weeks of being helpless and grieving a loss you just couldn't get over, not really), you just pushed it all down with one motto: keep breathing.

You didn't get to enjoy life anymore, how could you? The world was ending, and all you needed to do was stay alive.

You didn't have to like it.

So you asked Hershel how to shoot a gun, and taught yourself how to use a knife. You knew Hershel didn't like it, the violence, but you wouldn't hear it. Because if your family had lost their lives, you sure as hell weren't losing yours.

The Greenes were worried about you, you could tell. Every day that went by where you didn't smile or laugh, and instead, practiced shooting bottles or killing a few walkers for the thrill of it, they stared at you just a little longer. With just a mix of worry and pity.

You didn't want to worry them, but you were just doing what you had to, to survive.

If you thought about your family... you'd probably run into the walkers. Tear the life out of your body yourself. How were you supposed to enjoy life when they got that privilege ripped away? It wasn't fair.

So, you avoided everything else and kept your focus on five things: breathing, shelter, protection, water, and food. That was it. You would even offer to go get things out of your own volition, and all your trips made you good at killing walkers. You did it effortlessly early on, and you're pretty sure the Greenes couldn't decide if that was a good or bad thing.

But everything changed when a Dad showed up begging Hershel to save his kid.

That day had made your head spin, seeing a little boy have a gunshot wound. It made your eyes burn, and your head fill with what plagued your nightmares (unhinged jaws and bloody hands). You avoided the kid at all costs.

You hadn't initially known Rick, or even really wanted to (him, Lori, and Shane were definitely far too much for you to handle) but you were kind of the mediator. Hershel hated the violence that his group had, but he loved you. And Rick's group agreed with your 'violent' ways, so naturally, you sat right in the middle.

You didn't want it, perse, but you got used to it pretty quickly. You truly couldn't count on both hands how many times you had to step physically in between Hershel and Rick. So, somehow, someway, you'd earned his trust and respect.

That being said, you didn't really talk. Rick had a lot on his shoulders, with a pregnant wife, an injured son, and whatever the hell he and Shane had going on (you stayed the fuck away from that). And you weren't really a 'get to know me' kind of person at the time.

But, everything shifted when his kid got better.

You watched him kind of roam around the farm a lot. Rick and Lori had a lot going on, you understood that, and you know Rick tried but he still looked... lonely. And there was something heavy in you that knew he wasn't going to really have a childhood, that he lost something so precious.

There was nothing different that day, at all. You woke up, made sure your knife was safe in your pocket and went out. You did that often, even though Hershel and the girls hated it, just disappeared into nearby neighborhoods or whatever buildings you could get into (you were getting good at picking locks). That day you were looking for anything you could get your hands on, anything.

Endlessly walking through a culdesac, darting in between each house, trying to find anything of value. Food, water, something to help with shelter-

Instead, you found something else.

In the dead grass of one of these classy houses' front yard was one soccer ball. It was dirty, but not too bad for the apocalypse (you had seen far worse, and were probably worse yourself actually). With a thought, you picked it up in your hands, squeezing it, and it wasn't flat either.

You weren't sure why (or maybe you knew exactly why), but that's all you brought back to the farm.

Every day, when your brain would get to be too much, you'd throw it around in your hands or dribble it around the yard. At first, Maggie had looked at you oddly, but now, it seemed to relax her (and Beth and Hershel). It was healthier, or they, at the very least, thought so.

You could pretty much immediately feel his eyes on you though, a little longingly. Maybe that's why, when you'd never kicked it too far in the entire time you had it, you kicked it too far.

It rolled up and hit him in the back of the leg.

He turned to look at you, blue eyes sparkling a little, and then down at the ball.

On instinct, you spoke, "Shit."

The kid looked directly at you then.

"Don't say that, kid," you mended, quickly -maybe even a little awkwardly.

"Carl," he spoke then.

You questioned, "What?"

"My name's Carl," he explained with quite the intention in his voice, "-not kid."

You laughed a little, maybe for the first time in a while. You could nearly hear Maggie's gaze snap to you at the sound. She was always the most worried.

"Well, Carl," you hummed, playfully, "-you gonna pass me my ball back?"

He pressed his lips together in a thin line like he was thinking -the hat on his head wobbled a little. It was endearing.

"Only if you let me play too," he negotiated, a big grin on his face and something in you softened (for the first time in a long time).

You tilted your head, hand on your hip, "You drive a hard bargain, sir."

Carl laughed, and you felt your smile grow bigger. Now, you felt more eyes on you, Rick and Lori. Or at least Rick.

Apparently, you were making quite the spectacle.

"Alright, Carl," you finally replied, "-you've got a deal."

That was when it all started when Carl changed your life. Every day that you could, you'd play a game of soccer with him, eventually it developed more into a chatty sort of game. He told you a lot, and you told him about the things you used to do as a kid.

It felt like you had a hand in helping him keep his innocence. It was nice.

You remember the eyes sort of fading off of you, well. Except for one.

Rick was always watching. You couldn't understand if it was a Carl thing, or a worrying thing, or what exactly. But, you did notice it.

And eventually, Carl convinced him to join too.

"C'mon, Dad," he pleaded, "-just one game."

"Carl, I gotta-"

"Please," he turned on the puppy dog eyes, you laughed a little at how he softened immediately. His eyes shot to yours a second at the noise, you didn't think much of it.

"How are we supposed to play wit' just three of us?" He relented, just a smidge, "-Don't we need equal teams?"

Carl frowned.

Your mouth was open before you could even stop it, "Oh, please, I'm good enough to take the two of you on my own."

Rick's lips quirked into a smile, you had the thought that he was handsome before shoving it far away, "Are ya?"

"I am," you reiterated, just doing what felt natural, "-you too scared to try, Grimes?"

Carl laughed at that, almost giddy, it made something in your chest warm. Mission accomplished.

And with a breath, Rick readied himself -blue eyes solid on yours, "'S see whatcha got, Y/N."

That wouldn't be the last time the three of you would play soccer together, but it would be the first time you really got to know Rick. It remained that way, where you just played with Rick and Carl on days they could or days you could.

You'd found a connection, and it was nice.

But then, you were kind of a friend to Carl. You truly cared about him, yeah, you weren't on the level of a parent for him. Not at all. That just wasn't your dynamic, you didn't want to step on any toes.

Lori's or Rick's.

Before you could stop it, the fateful day arrived.

You were strung between a delicate mix of concern and disbelief. The overthrow of the farm was big, and maybe so was finding the prison, but this... this day was much worse.

You'd known Lori a little bit better then, she talked to you a little (because you were always around Carl). And she seemed nice, really, just in a fucked up situation that she could hardly handle herself. Nevertheless, to handle it for Carl. Plus, the whole Shane situation... He was dead now, and that really couldn't be easy on her conscience. (You kind of gathered the situation a little bit, when you were getting to know Rick. He hadn't said anything, but you understood enough.)

And when she went into labor, you hated that you weren't hopeful. Hated it.

Carl went with Maggie to help deliver, and your heart twisted in your chest (so insanely worried) but you needed to help the others.

When Maggie came out of the room, with just Carl and the baby -blood all over her hands, your heart sunk to the bottom of your chest. Lower, if it could. There was this little spark of hope that Carl was okay, but then you looked at him, really looked at him.

Rick was crying, and belligerent, and he did the very same. Just looked at his son, "No, no, no-"

God, he... he didn't-

You don't think you could ever forget the next moment.

A sob was racking up your throat, heavy and so suffocating as you watched Rick just lose it and Carl stayed steady in place, only looking at the ground. And you felt like you were going to throw up.

Stomach twisting, as your eyes got cloudy.

You hadn't even noticed it, maybe because your mind was reeling, but then you heard the slap of footsteps and then a body running into yours. Carl, Carl-

Hands shaking, your hands wrapped around him, holding him tightly -swallowing back what you could. Your body moved on its own.

You crouched down, you couldn't stop the tears then, eyes skimming over his face. He was just looking at you, blue eyes filling with tears, and before you knew it you were cupping his face and wiping all of them away.

"Oh, baby, baby-" you were whispering, just for him to hear, "-I'm so sorry."

And then, you pulled him into another hug. That time you didn't let go, you would hold him until he did. Tears wetting your shoulder you only squeezed him tighter -kissing him on the forehead when it felt like your soul was crushed into pieces.

That was where it started.

You still went on trips, but you stayed around a lot more. Because, as you were caring for Carl, you also started caring for Rick. They went hand-in-hand. That was much more important than anything else.

It started with going on trips, and getting Carl books and candy when you could. It grew from there though, you started siphoning off some of your food to give him extra. When he would get hurt, even small little cuts, you were immediately there -patching him up. Making sure he was completely fine.

And Rick... well, he was more complicated. It was dragging him away from the farm when he seemed so tired he could barely stand, it was getting him out of bed when he didn't want to even breathe, it was making sure he was eating, and it was sometimes guiding him back to reality when he saw Lori.

He started getting better eventually, and you did convince him to go see the baby. He'd been avoiding her as much as physically possible; you told him he should.

"She's a piece of Lori that you'll always have, Rick. Her and Carl."

He'd look at you a certain type of way you couldn't label then, but eventually agreed. So, you thought it was going well. As he became more conscious again though, similar to his previous self (sometimes you thought maybe even better), he started noticing.

Rick saw all that Carl had gathered, the finger pointed back to you. He was eating candy, the finger pointed back to you. Carl fell and scraped his knees, you were near immediately by his side while Rick watched (the finger pointed back to you).

And when you ate, you'd done how you always did, almost on instinct. Siphoning off some of your food and piling it onto Carl's plate.

You're not sure when Rick caught that, at all, really. But you knew he did.

Because, eventually, he started sitting beside you, and as quick as you'd siphon off to Carl, he'd siphon some of his off to you.

The first time he'd done it, you froze -staring at your plate.

"Rick, you don't-"

He didn't even flinch, blue eyes taking you in -grateful, "I do."

"Well," you reasoned, "-don't do it every day. You need to eat too."

"Don't ya give some to Carl every day?"

"Yeah, but-"

"No buts," he promptly finished, smiling at you in a new type of way, continuing his conversation with Daryl.

He'd done similar things, and eventually, your care spanned over to Judith. It wasn't as pressing as Carl, as Beth usually had her dealt with, but you'd been the one to feed her a few times (sat right beside Carl). And you won't lie you did do the baby voice a few times.

You didn't know it then, but Rick was looking at you in a new type of way.

And then, things happened in rapid succession.

The Governor did what he did, and Hershel died right in front of your eyes. You grabbed Maggie that day so tight, holding her as you both fell to the ground. It felt just like when your family... Your heart was thrown out of your chest and stomped into the dirt.

The fall of the prison didn't give you much time to grieve. You'd escaped with Carl and Rick, Judith had disappeared and you hoped with everything in your chest that she was still alive. God, you had never felt so low in your life.

Those days weren't good, and you had holed yourself up -lock and key. The only person who could through to you was Carl, despite how much Rick tried.

Breathing, shelter, protection, water, and food, but just for a bigger audience now.

The Claimers only proved you right. Seeing Carl like that, the threats of what they were going to do to him? You would've snapped if Rick hadn't.

"He's mine."

That day, you felt yourself come back again.

You held Carl tight against your chest, rubbing his hair over and over. Just before that, you scanned his whole body carefully -looking everywhere for anything at all. You would've killed them again if you could have if there was.

Holding him, you recenter yourself -calming the shake of your hands and the beating of your heart. You whispered, "You're okay, you're okay, you're okay-"

Carl had stopped you then, leveling his blue eyes on you, "I'm okay."

You smiled, maybe a little teary, reiterating, "You're okay."

And then, you saw Rick.

That was the thing about you, you were hardwired to care for them both at this point (for maybe more reasons than one, but you wouldn't admit that out loud). Making sure Carl was entirely fine, you kissed his forehead and spoke.

"Imma go help your Dad, okay?"

Hunting down a rag and a little bit of extra water, you slowly made your way over to him. He still had his eyes closed, and his hands were shaking; you simply sat right in front of him -wordlessly. You hardly even breathed, not wanting to startle him at all, but somehow still wanting to to bring him back.

You waited, patiently, for his eyes to open again, and when they did, you smiled a little.

"Hey, Grimes," you whispered, brandishing the rag, "-Thought you might need a little help, that okay?"

He looked at you in the same type of way he always did, one that you still couldn't label.

Before speaking lowly and a little slurred in his accent, "Yeah, 'at's okay."

You took a careful breath and leaned forward -gently scrubbing the blood off of his skin. Moving slowly, his eyes fluttered shut, and something in your chest tightened. He trusted you so much.

Your heart lept into your throat at the thought, and you took the moment to just look at Rick. How he differed from the first time you saw him, the time in his face. Longer hair that curled, the stubble that climbed up his cheeks, he was so different, but still somehow the same. Your heart stuttered in your chest.

That wasn't new, but it felt like it was.

With a breath, you continued wiping away what you could -pushing all around his face, smoothing over his lips, and dabbing a little on his facial hair. You moved slowly, not wanting to irritate his skin, but it made it take a little longer. As you did so, your fingertips brushed along his skin -just a little. It made your head spin.

You leaned back, satisfied, before grabbing his hands -left one first. You looked at them a moment, eyeing the callouses and the rough skin along his palm. His life was riddled on them, practically written there.

You cleared your throat, blinking back into focus.

Scrubbing away on the back and then flipping it to the front, you repeated the process.

He was looking at you now, blue eyes intently focused. You felt his steady gaze as you curled your hands around his, and for a moment it felt like you couldn't breathe.

Your heart beating heavily in your chest, you tried to stay focused.

When his skin was a sort of pink instead of blood red, you let go of his hands. Decidedly, you patted his cheek with a smile (the buzz of his skin against yours made your head spin).

"All better," you chimed, playfully.

He laughed a little then, and you felt something in you stir. Long ago dormant. Handsome, your mind spoke.

It was suddenly very hard to ignore it now, though. This close to his face, and he kind of looked like he-

With a breath, snapping your eyes from his and clearing your throat. "I'll um, go see if Carl needs me."

He just smiled at you in a certain type of way.

The two of you never talked about it again, but you did find him looking at you more.

And then Terminus.

To think about it now, made your skin crawl and bile rise up your throat. Beth died right in front of you, shot right through the head. She wasn't... There was no way-

You felt part of yourself crumble that you didn't think you could get back. God, she was so young-

You had new nightmares; they made your stomach twist and your sleep come to a relative halt. It wasn't just your family now (although it kind of was), it was Beth and Hershel. They had both been so sudden, your mind was still reeling. The gunshot bouncing through your ears, even now, as you lay on a blanket -Carl just beside you.

Your eyes snapped to him, watching the rise and fall of his chest. Alive, it thrummed along your mind, alive.

You watched it for a few moments, letting your mind settle on that fact. Carl is safe, Carl is fine. Something in your shoulders relaxed, and your breaths weren't as heavy in your lungs.

Alive, alive, alive, alive.

Your stomach twisted because you didn't know if Judith was.

Instinctively, you shot up in your spot, breaths hollowed out in your chest. You blinked a few times, bringing yourself back to the ground beneath your fingers. Chancing a look at Carl again, you found him still fast asleep.

You exhaled a long breath, you weren't going to sleep tonight. Every time you closed your eyes, you'd either see... them or Carl could be hurt, there was no good reason to sleep.

Shaking your hands, you stood up. You stood there a moment, taking in the night -the buzz of the bugs, the shine of the stars, and the (luckily) very distant groans of the walkers.

"Ya okay?"

You startled in place, shit. Rick was on watch duty, you forgot. You tried to volunteer, but he'd refused ("'Aven't seen you sleep a second."). You weren't sure how to feel about how attentively he seemed to watch you.

You bit at your lips a second, swallowing, and wiping your hands down your legs. Your eyes were fogging up, and your throat was clogged. You felt a little like you couldn't breathe-

"Y/N?"

You blinked, deliriously, and your eyes were watery now, and it felt somehow like your lungs were filled. A bit like every breath got stuck in your throat.

"Hey, hey, look at me, sweetheart."

And then, Rick was suddenly in front of you. You hadn't even heard him move, the pounding of your heart was so loud-

With the gentlest of movements, he held your jaw, bringing your eyes to his.

"Hey," he spoke gently, concern flitting through his eyes, "-hey. 'At's goin' on?"

You swallowed, something clawing up your throat (but your heart was softer in your head now), your eyes falling to his jacket, "I just-"

"C'mon, talk to me," he hummed, bringing his eyes to yours again -something heavy in his eyes, worry.

"I just," and you felt your voice catch in your throat, you felt the tears slip out of your eyes, "-I just... I just miss them, and... and every time I close my eyes, Rick, it's just-"

His thumbs rubbed away your tears, gently moving back and forth, "I know, baby, I know. I miss 'em too."

Something in your mind noted that 'baby' was new, but you weren't focused on that. Your mind was running at 100 miles an hour, and all you could see clearly was Rick.

Your body acted on instinct, as you threw yourself into him -digging your face into his shoulder and wrapping your arms around his neck. He seemed slow to react for a moment, but carefully, his hands came to wrap around your waist.

You took a deep breath in, just smelling the woodsy smell he always seemed to carry around with him. It made the tension in your body melt, and he seemed to notice it -tightening his grip slightly.

"I gotcha," he whispered, maybe like he was a little scared to break the moment, "-'s gonna be okay, I promise."

You fell asleep on his shoulder later that night, one of his arms tight along your side. And if he shushed everyone that morning afterward (wanting to keep you close as long as possible maybe), kissing your temple whenever you stirred, looking at you a little like you were the most precious thing in the world, you'd never know.

It was easier after that. Any time you felt it all coming back up, Rick would be right there, hand smoothed along your shoulder, pushing you into his side, or brushing his hand along yours while you walked. You weren't sure if you could get used to it all.

And then, a good day came.

Judith, baby Judith was back.

You felt the sob wrack up through your throat, as you smoothed your hand over her little hair. Your breaths were shaky but you were smiling, and so were both Rick and Carl. All of you were huddled together, crying, and for a split second, it felt like maybe you were a little family.

You bit back the thought but peeked up at Rick just to find him looking right back at you. Something in your chest fluttered.

Finding Alexandria was a little like a fever dream, all of you weren't trusting it, especially since Terminus. But eventually, something in you relaxed as you watched Carl know people his age and find friends. You weren't as scared anymore.

That being said, you had your own home, but it stayed empty. You were constantly in the Grimes' house. Whether for Carl, Judith, or Rick, you were always there. And Rick didn't seem to mind at all. (Sometimes you thought he preferred it.)

That day was a normal one, you'd crossed on over to the Grimes' -bouncing a little on your toes. It was your day to watch Judith, well, it always kind of ended up being a team effort at the end. But, if Rick had something to do, you'd be on baby duty.

Walking in like you always did, the house was eerily quiet.

You pursed your lips, "Rick?"

He called out, from the kitchen you'd guessed (you could hear the sizzle of a pan), "In 'ere!"

You moved with a practiced grace, smoothing around the piles of toys like you lived here (and in essence, you kind of did). Just as you entered the doorway, you started again.

"Hey, where are our kids?"

And then you stepped into the room and got a look at Rick. Clean-shaven Rick. Sharp jawline, blue eyes, Rick.

Your mind went completely blank.

He turned to you then, sort of smiling, "Our?"

Blinking, you cleared your throat, "Sorry, what?"

"You said," he was stepping closer, something shining in his eyes, "-our kids."

It was hard to focus, but you'd gathered what he said.

"Shit, sorry," you started, scrambling a little, "-I didn't mean to-"

"No, no," he dismissed, eyes intently focused on yours (somehow you think his facial hair distracted from his eyes, were they always that blue?), "-you're right, darlin'. 'Ey are as much yours as 'ey are mine."

You took a deep breath in, deflecting a little and motioning to his face, "When did you...?"

"This mornin'," he answered, turning back to the pan (breakfast, you guessed), "-why? It look 'at bad?"

Your head was spinning, but you answered anyway.

"What, no," you answered, instinctively, "-it looks good. Great, actually."

He smiled at you in a sort of way you couldn't read, wearing his pajamas and hair slightly tussled -your mouth went dry.

"Yeah?"

You willed everything in yourself to say something witty, playful, like normal. But he was still looking at you, focused, and all your brain could think was blue-

"Yeah," you answered quietly.

He hummed a moment, hand coming up to rub at his jaw. Calloused fingers against the most certainly smooth skin, you briefly thought about touching it yourself.

You cleared your throat, "Sorry, so where are th- our kids?"

Rick's eyes smoothed over your face a second before he smiled, shaking his head, and dropped his eyes back to the pan, "Judith's still sleepin', and Carl is at a friend's."

"Which friend?" you asked, instinctively.

"He's fine, baby," he laughed a little like he was testing the word, "-ere's no need to be worried."

Baby rattled around your head for a few seconds, especially coming from that face. The last time he called you that, you were on the verge of a mental breakdown. And come to think of it, with how you were reacting to a shaved face, maybe he was onto something.

"Grimes," you leveled, but there wasn't any bite.

"I'm serious," he added, looking at you (blue, blue) -trying to convey it to you.

You pursed your lips, deadpanning, "You forgot, didn't you?"

"Maybe," he smiled at you, almost fondly, and your knees nearly buckled.

God, you needed to get a hold of yourself.

"I'll figure it out later," you remarked -passively, "-What are you making?"

He seemed to pause, eyes skimming along you like he was suddenly taking you in, before stepping to the side, "Come n' see for yourself."

You had the spare thought that he was doing it on purpose, before swatting it away and gathering by his side. Mindlessly, your brain noted his elbow bumping into you and the swarm of body heat that radiated off of him. You blinked it away.

He had a few things going, typical breakfast stuff, but you did decisively notice what looked to be a single portion of your favorite.

"Is that-"

"For ya? Yeah," he answered, unflinchingly, "-'Figured I could be sweet today."

You quipped back, looking up at him, "What a change of pace, Grimes."

He laughed at that, your eyes smoothed over his smile before dropping back to the food. Your breaths felt a little hollow in your chest for an entirely different reason.

You stood there and helped portion of the food, focused on placing plates out for him to then fill. You could feel his eyes steady on you as you did so, just until he started portioning. You promptly grabbed one of the other foods and portioned it yourself.

As soon as you finished, Rick spoke up.

"Did ya mean it?"

You looked at him, curiously, "What?"

"Our kids," he answered, something flickering behind his eyes, "-Do ya really think of 'em as your own?"

"As long as I'm not... overstepping," you clarified, dropping the pan into the sink, "-yeah, of course, I do."

He smiled a little, the flicker stronger now, "Really?"

"Well, yeah," you laughed, a little uncertain now, "-Should I not?"

"No," he echoed out, something heavy in his tone, "-you should. 'Ey're yours."

"Then, why-"

""S just nice to 'ear," he explained, pulling another one of the pans into the sink -sliding in just beside you.

"Why?" you questioned.

Rick looked at you, eyes flickering along your face, seeming to decide on something, "Can I show ya somethin'?"

You quirked a brow, playfully, "What is this something?"

"A gift," he answered, naturally.

You blinked, a little deliriously, "For me?"

"Yeah," he hummed, taking your wrist in his hand (your brain turned to mush) and guiding you through the house, "-'Course it is."

"Where did you get a gift?"

"On a run," he answered, easily, pulling you into his bedroom before letting go. He wandered over to his closet.

"Why-" you laughed a little, "-Why were you thinking of me on a run?"

Rick didn't hesitate a second, hands skimming over some shelves, "I'm always thinkin' of ya."

Your lips snapped shut, as your eyes just followed him around the room.

Since he was so preoccupied, you let your eyes roam over his jaw, the angular lines of his nose, the curve of his Adam's apple, the slight push of his lips, and the curl that seemed to trail down his forehead. You almost adjusted it yourself, but you fought back the urge.

"'Ere it is," he sighed, relieved, before seeming to gather something up in his arms.

You tried to peek over his shoulder, but he decidedly kept them too raised.

"Ya ready?" He chimed, excitingly.

You quipped, smiling, "I was born ready, Grimes."

Rick laughed at that, and you bit back the grin that threatened to slip across your face. There was something so domestic about all of this, it made your breath rattle in your chest, and your heart skip a beat.

And then, he turned around.

Your breath caught in your throat.

He held in his hands, a brand-new soccer ball, still in the package. Your brain buzzed for a moment, it was so sentimental. It made your head spin, making you a little breathless. A grin grew wide along your face, lips curling up.

"No way," you muttered, leaning forward and skimming your fingers across it, "-that is so sappy, Grimes."

He laughed a little, and your eyes flicked to him where a pink dusted up to the top of his ears. Your smile shone even brighter.

"Figured you could let me and Carl try to gain a little on your record," he smiled.

"What was it again?" you grinned, taking the ball into your hands, "-Four to zero?"

"Six," he corrected, instinctively (like he remembered), "-Six to zero."

Wordlessly, you gently took the box into your hands, his eyes steady on you.

"How long did it take to find this?"

"I was lookin' for the past few runs," he answered -vaguely.

"Looking?" You questioned, "-You plan this out, Rick?"

He hummed, smiling, "Maybe."

You quirked a brow, not quite looking at him, "What's the occasion, Grimes?"

He fell quiet then, and you promptly dropped your smile and looked at him. Eyes skimming along his face, he didn't seem upset. He seemed entirely the opposite, actually.

Blue eyes looking at you like they always did.

"Rick?" You asked, concern smoothing through you, "-Everything alright?"

He smiled a little, shaking his head a little, "God, you're... you're... you're unbelievable."

"Um," you flustered a little, holding the ball tighter to you, "-is that a good or a bad thing?"

"Good," he answered, with probably the biggest grin, "-great, it's a great thin'."

"Yeah? Well," you muttered out, a little frazzled, "-um, thank you."

He laughed a little bit, then but it slowly dissipated into the air. Leaving you and him, and his crazy blue eyes (seriously, how have you never noticed that?).

Rick spoke breathlessly then, rushed as if it was just waiting to come out (like it was building, building, building, until it burst), "I love you."

You dropped the ball (and box) right onto your feet. It stung a little.

"Shit," you hissed, before scrambling, "-Wait, that wasn't to you. I... I just I hit my toes with the box, and it hurt-"

He smiled at you even brighter then, eyes dropping to your feet, "Ya alright?"

"Yeah, what," you cleared your throat, "-I'm fine. I'm just... a little in shock, I guess."

"Yeah?" He asked, something lilting in his tone and you almost felt like he got closer to you.

"Yeah," you breathed out, "-I just... I never could've imagined a man like you, um, loving me."

He was definitely getting closer, blue eyes flickering between the two of yours, "A man like me?"

"It's a good thing," you explained, "-You're just caring, and I love your kids, and-"

His face was breath away from yours. Your lips moved before you could think about it.

"-handsome," you finished a little breathlessly.

He grinned then, crinkling at his eyes, and something there, deep in the blue. You couldn't tell if it was mischievous or loving or maybe even teasing-

"Am I?"

Something in you snapped.

You practically jumped forward, arms wrapping around his neck, and lips pressing to his. Rick laughed into it (which made you laugh a little too), but his hands sank to your waist entirely on instinct.

It was a little desperate, as Rick tilted his head just the right way and seemed to pour everything into his lips. Which were very much already good on their own. It made you dizzy, and you nearly stumbled in your steps, but he held you a little tighter and kept you in place.

Before, pulling you forward even more.

It sent a shock through your spine and made the breath slink out of your lungs.

Speaking of breath-

You pulled back, taking a deep breath in -mind a little hazy, "Jesus Christ."

Rick laughed, but still pressed forward, leaving little kisses on your lips -surface level. Again, and again, and again, and again-

Laughing, you moved your hands to his face, pulling him back, "Rick, you need to breathe, yeah?"

"Not as bad as I need ya," he retorted, before pressing kisses along your jaw.

It made your head spin, and maybe you were a little dizzy but you didn't think it was from the lack of oxygen.

"Rick," you urged, laughing.

He mindlessly moved down to your neck, a little like he couldn't get enough. It zapped through your spine again.

"Rick," you repeated, maybe with a little less laughter, "-c'mon, I have to tell you something."

He groaned, before pulling back to face you, blue eyes focused. Rick looked at your smile, and bit down his own.

You took a breath in, and cradled his face again (his skin was soft), "I love you too."

He grinned big and wide then, something shining in his eyes, "Ya don't know how long I 'ave waited to 'ear 'at."

"How long?"

He answered, with ease, "Since I saw ya givin' Carl your food."

"Rick," you almost soothed, "-that was forever ago. Why didn't you say something?"

"Was never the right time," he hummed, kissing you at the hinge of your jaw, "-I was goin' through somethin' and then ya were."

You hummed a moment, finally pushing back the loose curl.

"And I just-" he exhaled a breath, "-I wanted to make sure ya felt the same. Didn't want the kids to lose ya."

"Even if I didn't love you, Grimes," you soothed, trailing your hands along his jaw, "-They would've never lost me."

He just looked at you then, a little like he couldn't believe you were in front of him. Couldn't believe you were real.

"They're our kids," you offered with a teasing smile, "-are they not?"

"Yeah, 'ey are."

And without another breath, he kissed you so hard that it felt like your breath was knocked out of your lungs. But there was no way in hell that you were stopping.

You'd waited long enough for this.

He grinned against your lips, mindlessly kicking the soccer ball out of the way to get closer to you. Whispers of 'Ours' between every press of lips like he couldn't believe it. Or maybe like it was all he'd ever wanted.

And apparently, he had waited just as long.

#rick grimes #rick grimes x reader #its griming time #stuff n' thangs #rick grimes x you #rick grimes x y/n #ricky dicky doo dah grimes #twd #twd rick #rick grimes x y/n fanfiction #rick grimes oneshot #protective!rick

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galedekarios · 6 months

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more gale & tara epilogue stuff

tara's epilogue conversation is so extremely devastating if gale sacrificed himself. since i can't bring myself to play it, i thought i'd look at it in the files and share what i find here.

tara can be found at camp and this is how the conversation with the player begins:

Tara the Tressym: Oh, hello, darling. I was hoping to see you. Withers informed me about this little get-together and I thought I'd show my whiskers.devnote Tara the Tressym: I can almost feel Gale here. Among his friends - in you. Some part of him remains, doesn't it? devnote: Gale has died so she's very sad and nostalgic.

this devnote is repeated for almost every line for tara in this convo.

from here, the player has various options to reply. i'll be going through them in order.

the first is one where the player points out the magically conjured image of himself that gale left behind in case of his permanent death:

Player: Well, his magical ghost is still here, if that's what you mean. Tara the Tressym: That thing's no more than a shadow of the real man. A nonsense. Though it captures some of his more insufferable qualities...

the second option is the player saying that they are feeling something similar, a presence that reminds them of gale:

Player: It does, Tara. I can feel his presence too. Tara the Tressym: A crackling in the air, isn't it? That flair of magic and mischief.

despite the tragedy of it all, i do love tara describing gale's presence as 'that flair of magic and mischief'. it's so very sweet and sad, especially remembering just long she's known him.

perhaps here she remembers the boy who accidentally set the rose bush on fire and cried, just as elminster does. or perhaps the boy who summoned a magma mephit, causing chaos, but also making a lifelong friend.

the third option is to tell tara that you miss gale, too, and this honestly made me tear up:

Player: I miss him too, Tara. Tara the Tressym: That's good. We should miss him. He was such a lovely fellow. Proud as a peacock, but... my little love. Tara the Tressym: Oh, what I wouldn't give to snuggle up on his lap one more time. Just once would do. Player: Would a fuss from me make you feel better?

"He was such a lovely fellow. Proud as a peacock, but... my little love."

PROUD AS A PEACOCK BUT... MY LITTLE LOVE

M Y L I T T L E L O V E

this is obviously completely fine so i'll continue with the fourth option:

Player: You can snuggle up in my lap later, if you like. Tara the Tressym: Oh, I couldn't possibly... unless... well, perhaps it's not a terrible idea. Gale would be quite pleased to know we've made friends, wouldn't he?

it's clear that tara needs some comfort. despite her stiff upper lip approach to most news devastating to her and the thin veneer of control she puts on here.

the fifth option is expressing that you know how she feels:

Player: I know how you feel. Tara the Tressym: Ah, to lose the one you love the most. What a terrible thing.

the sixth option is rather callous and tara's response to it once again heartbreaking:

Player: Alas, you can't. Tara the Tressym: No. Not in this life, at least.

the last option again shows tara's true grief at what happened:

Player: He's gone. We have to accept that. Tara the Tressym: I suppose we do. But I certainly wish we didn't.

most of these different options lead to the end of the conversation with tara, where she invites the player to visit her and morena in waterdeep:

again, the player has various choices to either accept or refuse her invitation. i won't go through them all and you can read for yourself in the screenshot i provided. but i do want to look at these two options here:

Tara the Tressym: Perhaps you'd be willing to come meet Gale's mother, some time? She misses him so - and I know it would do her heart a world of good to discuss her son with someone who knew him as he was. Player: I'd love to, but I'm leaving Faerûn after tonight. Tara the Tressym: Well if you ever come back do look us up in Waterdeep. Surname 'Dekarios'. I'd enjoy the chance to reminisce about the good man we knew.

i'm once more reminded of that one line in elminster's letter and i feel so sad for morena:

Does he live within his mother’s ageing heart, weeping for those roses?

Player: I'll consider it. Tara the Tressym: See that you do. We'd love to have you. Things have been rather quiet without himself cluttering up the place.

which made me think about gale's line that his tower has never been so free of clutter ever since he had to deal with his condition.

anyhow, i hope this was interesting to some of you!

#gale dekarios #gale of waterdeep #tara the tressym #baldur's gate 3 #bg3 #baldurs gate 3 #bg3 meta #bg3 spoilers #bg3 patch 5 spoilers #gale epilogue spoilers #ch: gale dekarios #ch: tara the tressym #vg: baldur's gate 3 #series: baldur's gate #meta: mybg3

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pastafossa · 1 month

Text

Haunted (Matt Murdock x TRT!Reader, Fic, SFW)🌧️

Right, so close to 3 years ago, I had an ask in my box: 'what would happen if TRT!Reader/Jane Hind lost her memory just before returning to Matt after her three months away', aka: just before point where they both confessed their love and got together in mainline TRT. So I wrote up a fairly angsty, no happy ending sort of fic about it, which you can find here. But there just felt like there was more to the story, and the idea of a sequel wouldn't leave me alone, so I've worked on it in little bits and pieces over the past few years and I'm finally ready to unleash that into the world now that it's been edited to my satisfaction.

This will have a happy ending and hurt/comfort, once we swim through a lot of Matt Suffering. <3 Ship: Matt Murdock x F!Reader

Chapter Summary:

Leaving him like that shouldn’t have bothered you as much as it did. You didn’t know him. This man should have been nothing more than a stranger on the street, one you wouldn’t glance twice at, much less feel some ridiculous sense of attachment or obligation to. Yet the memory of walking out of his apartment still left you shaken whenever you allowed yourself to think too long on it. He… shouldn’t have been alone. That was wrong, somehow. There was no memory attached to the thought, no blinking sign you could point to that would justify your growing unease. You just knew it. You knew it in the way you knew how to breathe, how to blink, knowledge etched into your very bones over and over by an unfamiliar hand. And no matter what you did, no matter where you went, you were unable to escape the feeling that… that you’d made a terrible mistake, broken something good, tilted the world on its axis until the whole of the city, the earth, the very sky hung just a little crooked like an off-center painting. Matt was alone. You’d left him alone. It was the right choice, one you’d made dozens if not hundreds of times before. Hell, it should have been even easier this time since there were no memories to hold you back. So… why did you feel so very sick?

Wordcount: 11, 805 words so, hilariously, about 3 times the length of Part 1

Warnings for this chapter: angst, alcohol, matt spiraling fairly badly, he throws some things, LOTS of TRT references and spoilers so I wouldn't do this one unless you've finished the Miami arc in TRT.

Sad Matt gif as a reminder that the angst is pretty heavy here because I'm really going to emotionally beat on this poor man for a bit.

At Ciro’s insistence, you gave yourself one month in Hell’s Kitchen.

A month wasn’t much time, granted, but it would hopefully be enough to see if there was a chance of bringing back the memories you’d lost: memories of friends, of your life here, and of… of whatever it was that you’d had with Matt Murdock. Based on his grief over the loss of Jane Hind—not you, but her surely, the role, the mask you’d worn while here—his attachment to her had been deep and fervent, and those feelings appeared to have been at least partly reciprocated. The dangerously intimate photo you’d found in your memory box was all the proof you needed of that.

Your past self had already been accustomed to his touch when the photo was taken, based on the way she’d allowed him to press his head tenderly to her temple, his dark eyes warm and fond as he'd smiled in her direction even if he couldn't see her, his arm draped over her shoulders. She should have been put off by the proximity, by such a blatant show of physical intimacy, but instead of looking distressed, she’d been relaxed and comfortable where she’d confidently tucked herself up against his side. Try as you might, you hadn’t been able to find any hint of discomfort, any clue that signaled the obvious affection she’d felt was an act, her shoulder angled in a way that made you think she’d wrapped her arm comfortably around his waist, her grin bright and so very real.

This couldn’t be you.

When was the last time you'd looked that happy?

When was the last time you’d let someone hold you close?

And when was the last time someone had looked at you like… like they might…

“Did I… love him, Ciro?”

“I believe that… you might have, yes. Him, and this city. That is why I encourage you to stay, for a time at least. See if the memories return to you. Even should you leave, it would be wise to know of the life you led here.”

Ciro had sent a check to your office, booking you for the month and clearing your schedule. Just like that, you were free to focus on looking for something that might trigger the return of your memories. Though what that something might be, you weren’t really sure. A more thorough examination of the apartment had been your first step. Unfortunately, there’d been nothing there that seemed familiar beyond the same cheap decor and calculated set pieces you’d always used. You’d quickly ruled those out. They were meaningless distractions meant to reinforce the lie of whatever pre-planned identity you’d taken on. In this case, that identity was Jane Hind—practical, professional, detached, likes sailboat paintings and the color grey. Based on the fine layer of dust you'd found coating everything but the kitchen counter and a neat stack of mail, no one else had spent much time here during your months away. That, at least, fit your pattern. You weren’t in the habit of making friends or putting down roots. There was no point in doing so when you’d just wind up cutting them loose and running again.

What had unsettled you far more were the hints of connection you’d found quietly tucked away:

A fleecy stuffed bear holding a plush crystal ball, the threads connecting the two uneven as if hand-stitched. That kind of time and effort wouldn’t have been spent on anyone but a friend, and the bear’s prominent position on the counter lent it far more importance than any of the other decorations.

A tacky ‘Handsome Devil’ coffee mug, the curling red script and clichéd devil horns design bizarrely out of place amongst the rest of the plain white mugs in the cupboard. An identity like Jane Hind wouldn’t have been caught dead drinking from it, which meant someone else was here with enough regularity to have a mug of their own. Further digging revealed a second decorated mug, this one adorned with the name of the law firm co-run by Matt. You could have written off one mug, but two? Two was a pattern.

An entire drawer in the dresser devoted solely to a pile of dangerously soft shirts that clearly didn’t belong to Jane Hind, the fabric threadbare and worn. They looked about the right size to be Matt’s, though, the faint traces of scent a match for him. The fact that they took up an entire drawer indicated he’d visited often enough to need a space for his clothes.

You’d… made space for him in your false life. That wasn’t something you did.

Or had you been the one wearing them?

Maybe…?

You’d spent a long moment holding one of the shirts in your hand, rubbing at the fabric in hopes of stirring something. When that hadn’t worked, you’d even brought it up to your nose to inhale slowly, just in case the traces of scent brought some memory back.

Clean soap. Salt. Copper. Faint cinnamon.

All it had done was remind you of holding a grieving Matt in his kitchen after he’d realized your memories weren’t coming back. It was a gloomy enough memory, but ultimately unhelpful.

You'd tossed the old shirt on top of the dresser and moved on.

While you didn’t know who exactly you’d been here in New York, the longer you searched, the more it became clear what had happened. You’d started to slip, your years of isolation forming a crack in your layers of armor. That fracture had allowed an attachment to form, an insidious connection worming its way in through the open gap like poisonous roots through crumbling pavement. You’d grown weak, and careless. There was no other explanation for why you’d broken so many of your rules, dominoes tipping one by one until it cascaded into a waterfall of mistakes. You’d slipped before, of course—loneliness was natural and expected, which was why you had so many contingencies—but you’d never let yourself get in this deep. Not until now.

What you didn’t know was…

Why?

Why here?

Why these people?

And why the fuck hadn’t you followed your rules and run?

If there was an answer to be found in Jane Hind’s apartment, you couldn’t seem to find it, no matter how hard you look, no matter how many of her belongings you dug through. Even your memory box had failed you, the photo of you and Matt at the back of your stack of pictures an outlier you couldn’t explain, this fruit of an as-yet unidentified poisonous tree. You had no real leads, no faint ringing of memory to guide you beyond a vague sense that, somehow, this started with Matt. You didn’t even know where to begin.

At least, not until some shaggy-haired guy named Foggy—what the fuck kind of nickname was that?—showed up entirely and rudely unannounced at your front door, dressed in a cheap suit and wearing a bizarrely determined look. Despite your doubts, you reluctantly allowed him in. He made it pretty clear he knew you, and if you were lucky he could tell you more about your life here.

“So I know you usually skedaddle when things get uncomfortable, which I imagine they are at the moment. How long are you trying to stay?”

“One month.” You shrugged casually, a cover for just how warily you were watching him as he paced in your—in Jane Hind’s living area. He knew far more about you than you knew about him, a reversal you were uncomfortably aware of. That vulnerability was almost enough to trigger a retreat beneath that cold, brittle shell you’d used long ago, though you quickly caught hold of that instinct and buried it back down deep where it belonged. Still, you couldn’t quite hide the cool clip to your voice, your walls firmly in place. “Leaving after that. Don’t see the point in staying if the memories are gone. Truthfully I’m not sure why I stayed in the first place, especially once it was clear I was getting attached. No offense.”

“None taken, my hopefully-still-friend-when-your-memories-come-back.” He abruptly swiveled on his feet to face you, squinting at you thoughtfully. “How badly do you want your memories back?”

You thought of out-of-place mugs and hand-stitched psychic teddy bears; of faint cinnamon and a worn photo frame; of the way you’d held a broken Matt in his kitchen until he’d carefully pushed you away and asked you to leave, his face closed off and distant despite the tears on his cheeks and yours.

You’d… been someone here. Someone cared for. Someone whose loss was mourned.

Even if you left, you needed to know just who that someone had been, if only so you could make sure this never happened again. Not until you reached your island in the sun.

“Badly enough to stay for the month,” you said quietly.

“Then put some shoes on. We’re going on a memory hunt.”

Over the next few weeks, Foggy took you all over Hell’s Kitchen.

You visited Jane Hind’s office, abandoned warehouses, and empty rooftops covered in thick blankets of snow. He reintroduced you to Karen, to your upstairs neighbors, and to a bartender who didn’t seem all that inclined to be introduced to anyone. You drank crappy beer and slightly less crappy vodka, played pool, and went to the zoo to stare for far too long at penguins, which Foggy refused to explain no matter how much you pressed. He had you focus on sights, on smells, on sounds that might trigger a memory. He joked with you in between, and he was just funny enough, friendly and clever enough, that for the first week or so, you were consistently cracking a smile. Hell, you even laughed now and then, much to your surprise. He really did know you, enough so that you gradually began to relax around him, just a little. He was likely hoping the addition of a friend’s voice would bring back what you’d lost, especially when paired with all the other sensations.

But no matter how much you both tried, your memories remained lost.

God, you hadn’t thought this would… would hurt as much as it did. Yet with every day that you failed to find your way back to who you’d been, the more that fierce ache, that old longing inside you grew. Your smiles became brittle, your laughter fading, until both finally dried up like withered, crumbling leaves beneath a bitter frost. You couldn't help pulling away really, not when your soul curling up in the dark might protect you from the agony of knowing that maybe, just maybe, you’d finally found what you'd always wanted. How fitting that it had been ripped away from your bloodied, desperate hands like so many times before, one more square for the filthy patchwork quilt of shredded lives and possibilities you’d been forced to leave behind. What was worse: even your memories of that seeming joy had been stolen, too, leaving you with nothing left to carry but the tattered scraps of a ghost and the photograph of a stranger wearing your skin.

It shouldn’t have been possible to miss what you couldn’t remember. Yet here you were missing it all the same.

It didn’t help that Matt was avoiding you in every way that mattered. You’d thought about calling him if only to ask him questions about your life here, but you could never quite work up the courage to do it. He must have felt the same since he hadn’t reached out to you, either. And why would he? He knew as well as you did that your memories likely weren’t coming back. It made sense to cut that connection, tear it away like a weed before the roots could do more damage—something you should have done sooner, for both your sakes. What you hadn’t expected was just how good he was at dodging you, somehow absent no matter how many places Foggy took you to, places he swore Matt frequented with you when you’d lived here, as if Matt’s mere presence might be enough to trigger some memory in you. Had he been that important? Either way, it didn’t matter. You hadn’t seen Matt once since you’d walked out, doing your best to ignore his hitched breath as you’d opened the door. You’d forced yourself to ignore, too, the broken, agonized sound of grief that he’d let out as you quietly shut the door behind you, leaving him alone.

He… shouldn’t have been alone. That was wrong, somehow.

There was no memory attached to the thought, no blinking sign you could point to that would justify your growing unease. You just knew it. You knew it in the way you knew how to breathe, how to blink, knowledge etched into your very bones over and over by an unfamiliar hand. And no matter what you did, no matter where you went, you were unable to escape the feeling that… that you’d made a terrible mistake, broken something good, tilted the world on its axis until the whole of the city, the earth, the very sky hung just a little crooked like an off-center painting.

Matt was alone.

You’d left him alone.

It was the right choice, one you’d made dozens if not hundreds of times before. Hell, it should have been even easier this time since there were no memories to hold you back.

So… why did you feel so very sick?

Sympathy.

That was all you were feeling. Matt was grieving a woman he’d cared about, one who’d died and left a cold stranger in her place. It was normal to feel for someone in that much pain, and no one should be alone while grieving. Maybe this was for the best. The sooner you were fully out of his life, the sooner all his friends and family could step in, and the sooner he could move on. He wouldn’t be alone, then. And even if he was, his loneliness wasn’t your goddamn problem. You had more than enough troubles of your own.

Protect yourself.

Protect what you might one day have.

All else was irrelevant.

You just… hoped he was doing alright.

He did his best to avoid you, but that only grew more difficult once your ghost began to haunt his every step.

Even Josie’s quickly became off-limits—something he discovered one night when he stepped through the front door where he was promptly met with the familiar, comforting scent of you floating like a haze beneath the smell of cheap beer and sour sweat. His body went rigid the moment he recognized it, your presence across the room a sharpened knife that only widened the wound carved into him by your death. And if the scent of you was a knife, then your bark of laughter was a cruel twist of the blade, one that left him gutted and shaking there in the doorway. He drank in his apartment after that, waiting for that blessed moment when he would feel nothing, waiting for the very second the glorious shroud of night fell. Only then could he finally escape to the streets and drown himself in a far better kind of pain, taking his rage and his grief out on whatever piece of shit had the misfortune of falling into the Devil’s path.

But Foggy seemed determined to shove the specter of you directly into his face.

“You need to talk to her!” Foggy snapped, his voice only just shy of a shout. Matt ignored him as he headed for his office, desperate to retreat from your scent lingering on Foggy’s clothes. Foggy had taken you to a coffee shop that morning, one you’d frequented when you’d lived here, and now each inhalation was a vicious torment. It felt like breathing in shards of glass, the sharp pain of it throbbing with every stuttered, choked breath he drew in. If Foggy noticed, he didn’t seem to care. “Christ, Matt! You love her and we both know it. If you talk to her, it might trigger something—”

“Stop,” Matt grit out, reaching up to scrub his hand angrily over his face. He stalked his way over to his desk, still desperate to escape somehow, even if it was into his work. “Just stop, Foggy. I did talk to her, and you know what happened? Nothing. She didn’t remember anything at all. She’s gone, and you dragging this out is just making everything worse for all of us.”

“So what, you’re just gonna roll over?” Foggy scoffed, crossing his arms as he planted his feet in Matt’s doorway. “Are you sure you actually loved her? Because I’m pretty sure she loved y—”

Matt slammed his fist down on his desk, the furious crack of it echoing through the office like a gunshot as he shouted, “Don’t you fucking dare!”

Tension hung thick in the air as Matt’s chest heaved, his teeth bared, blood and adrenaline running hot in his veins as if Foggy were some sort of-of threat. Everything in him shook with rage, or maybe unshed grief, the burden of them both impossibly twisted and tangled beneath the sea of his guilt and his self-loathing until he couldn’t tell which was which. He just couldn’t—how was he supposed to force it all down when Foggy had just come so close, so dangerously close to shattering what few pieces remained of Matt’s crumbling armor?

It was bad enough loving you the way he did only for you to slip through his bloodied, desperate grasp like whispering grains of sand. What was worse, this entire disaster was one of his own making, a series of mistakes whose snarled, winding paths led inevitably back to him just like they had so many times before in his life. This loss of someone who’d truly understood him, accepted him, cared for him had already broken something inside him he wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to repair. But that fracturing inside him would surely rise up to consume him if Foggy were right, if you’d truly cared for him that deeply before your memories were taken, so deeply that you might even have…

I miss you, sweetheart.

…loved him the way he loved you.

Abruptly Matt’s surge of rage drained away and his head fell, leaving him feeling all the more empty and broken. He braced his arms weakly against his desk, drawing in a shaky breath as he forced himself to confess, his voice gone hoarse and ragged with grief. “I loved her, Foggy.” He lifted one shaking hand to his face. “God, I loved her so, so much. I can’t… I don’t know what to do without her now that she’s gone.” “I know, Matt,” Foggy said gently. “I know.” “I loved how she always smelled a little like coffee, and the way she always managed to wind up climbing into the oddest places for a case. She had one of the foulest mouths I’ve ever heard, but I swear she could use it to talk her way out of almost anything or to bring someone up out of whatever dark hole they were trapped in. She was… far kinder than she’d ever admit.” His lips quirked, but there was no humor in it, the expression miserable and gutted. You’d have likely argued with him about how kind you were if you’d been here. But there was no chance of that now, no matter how much the scent of you on the air told him otherwise. “Some days it felt like she was the only thing holding me together, like the only time I could breathe was when she held me in her arms. She was always there when I fell apart, or when it all… when it all started to hurt too much. And I tried to give her whatever pieces of me the Kitchen hadn’t already taken, to be there for her like she was for me, to keep her safe. We were finally going to make our relationship official when she came back, her and me, even if there’d… already been something there for a while now if I’m honest.”

And it had, it had been there, this soft, tender thing that had developed slowly but surely between the two of you, a tangling that came by degrees rather than all at once. It had sprouted, grown, and blossomed so gradually that even now he struggled to point to any one moment where it had truly begun—the night he found you in the warehouse, maybe, or that first game of Devil Hunt, or when you’d both almost taken the leap before he’d realized you were drunk. But the question of where it began didn’t matter. All that mattered was that it was there, something nameless yet still so good and warm and perfect, a connection nurtured in the low light and the blood-soaked soil of the Kitchen. You’d felt it just like he had, and you’d been willing to take that chance with him despite the baggage he carried behind him like an anchor destined to drag him down. You never would have agreed to kiss him when you came back otherwise. Now that chance was gone.

“How much did she know before she left?” Foggy asked quietly, leaning against the doorframe.

”She knew that I-that I wanted to be with her, but I never told her that I loved her.” Matt blew out a slow, heavy breath. “I was too scared of chasing her away, I guess. I thought maybe when she came back, if she still wanted me, I would… I decided that I would tell her. But I waited too long. Now she’s gone and I’ll never be able to tell her. All because of me.”

He finally lifted his head, tipping it at Foggy. Neither of them dared mention the wetness on Matt’s cheeks. Even speaking about this—about how much he’d loved you only for him to ruin it—was almost more than he could bear, the edges of the wound still fresh and raw. Then again, maybe he deserved that pain after how miserably he’d failed you, just like everyone else in his life. “I miss her. And what’s worse is even when she’s right there in front of me, she’s not. She’s not, Foggy. Because I-I fucked up. I’m the reason the woman I knew, the woman I loved, died. I’m the reason she’ll never remember what we had, why I’ll never hold her again, and why she’ll leave New York at the end of the month like she does whenever she’s afraid of forming a connection.” He let out a bitter laugh, waving towards the windows, towards the place you’d once held dear. “I couldn’t even keep her here before. She almost ran last summer and the only thing that stopped her was being kidnapped. That was what slowed her down long enough for our thread to turn red, not me. She won’t let that happen a second time, not now that she’s seen what happens to people I care about. Do you understand?”

The door to Nelson and Murdock creaked open, Karen’s voice making its way in first. Her voice was followed only a moment later by another’s, one still so familiar.

“—I mean, winding up in a pool while chasing a kid sounds about right for me, so even if I don’t remember, I won’t argue—”

“I had to keep you here somehow.” Foggy’s voice remained quiet, but there was no disguising the ferocity in it now, the fervent belief. “Get out of your own head and talk to her, Matt. Fight for her. She would want you to.”

No.

No, no, no.

Your body may have been here, whole and real, but the woman who’d known him wasn’t. The song of your voice, your sweet scent, the flames of heat and stirred air currents around you flaring into a familiar shape: all of it was nothing but a lie, a snare for his senses, a ghost of his own making, and he wasn’t about to be caught by it again.

He darted back around his desk, shoving his way past Foggy on the way toward the front door, his heart racing. If he was quick, if he just put up enough of a front, he could get out before they trapped you here with him like they’d planned. He wouldn’t relive this grief again, he couldn’t, not without falling apart. The moment he’d had with you in his apartment had been enough agony for one lifetime.

“Hey, Matt.” You cleared your throat, shifting awkwardly on your feet where you’d stopped by the front door. Your stance was cautious and guarded, almost wary of him. It was just one more reminder of how uncomfortable he made you now. “Are you—”

“Heading out,” he said stiffly, only belatedly remembering to trace one hand along the wall as if his heightened senses hadn’t given him a clear map of the room the moment his adrenaline spiked. That spike was a curse all its own. It made the scent of you so much stronger, the lie of it fresh and present as it twined around him. His chest hitched just once before he forced himself to breathe his mouth. But that route of escape had been cut off, too. All it did was shift his focus to the taste of you on the air, and the taste of familiar fabric once so tenderly given.

You were wearing one of his shirts.

He fumbled for his cane, his hands starting to shake before he finally found it where he’d left it against the wall. He couldn’t let you see him like this. It wasn’t your fault that you didn’t remember him, nor was it your fault that he’d lost you. He’d done enough damage without adding a layer of guilt to what you were dealing with, too. But despite his attempts to hide what he was feeling, his face a hard mask, your fingers still brushed gently against his arm a moment later. It was an offer of help, or maybe an attempt to reach out, to slow him down, to connect. It was a kindness, a sympathy he didn’t deserve. Even now, you read him far too well, this touch the same as it had been that first night he’d met you when you’d gently brushed your hand against his arm. “Hey, do you need… I could walk you home.”

He shied away from your touch, finally managing to roughly unsnap his cane before going for the door. “I’m fine. I just—I have things to take care of. Excuse me.”

He went straight home and showered, but no matter how many times he scrubbed, he couldn’t seem to wash the ghost of your scent away.

You slowly wandered around Matt’s office, taking it in. This was another place you’d supposedly frequented, a place that should have been familiar, and one you'd avoided until now.

Even though Foggy had assured you it was alright, it felt… almost wrong to explore a stranger’s space like this without them present. But you couldn’t help but brush your fingers across the battered desk and the small labels in braille you couldn’t read, run your hands along the chair for clients that you might have sat in once, and trace curiously the small seashell next to Matt’s laptop. The base scents of Matt were stronger here where he spent so much time, only partly erased by the smell of coffee and paper. The room was clean, cared for, and well-organized despite how rundown the office was. Important to him. You could tell that much, even if the scents and sights had failed to spark any memories.

Maybe… knowing his space wasn’t enough.

This was about more than just figuring out who you were, now. For some reason, you needed to know who Matt was, too: this man Jane Hind had cared so much about and who’d cared so much about her. You told yourself it was practical. Matt was your best bet when it came to remembering who you’d been. But some part of you deep down recognized the lie. No, there was something in you inescapably drawn to him, a pull you couldn’t quite explain. Maybe that strange, unnatural gravity was what had started this whole mess in the first place. What was it about him that was so different, that had driven you to break every last rule you’d lived your life by for over a decade?

And why… did you spend so long wondering if he’d ever climbed out his office window?

It had been twenty-nine days, and not a single memory had returned.

Oh, there were beats now and then when you thought that maybe, just maybe something was coming back, but those moments were painfully few and far between. Even in those moments, you couldn’t say remembered anything, exactly. It was more a frustrating sense of deja vu, a fleeting little itch at the back of your mind like you’d forgotten something important, flashing road markers to warn you of the dark, empty gaps in your memory. That sense was probably driven at least in part by Foggy’s growing desperation as he frantically hunted for something that might trigger a return of your memories.

But the rest of that feeling… the rest was all you.

There was no denying a traitorous part of you wanted to remember no matter how ill-advised it might be. You wanted to remember this bizarre little family you’d stumbled into and then lost, just like in Los Angeles. You wanted to remember the love you’d had for this place, this city, this taste of mutual affection that had grown up around you after going so long without. After endless ages and ages of drought, of starvation, you hungered for even these bare crumbs of connection, something to tide you over until you found safe haven on the distant horizon. What a tempting thought it was to slither back into the life of this woman who’d been so cruelly murdered and replaced by a stranger wearing her skin.

Was this what a demon felt like when it took over a body? To walk around with someone else’s face, to speak with the unnatural voice of the dead, tormenting the loved ones that remained?

That, ultimately, was why it didn’t matter what you wanted. Your presence in this city only spread rot and suffering. It would be better for everyone involved if you left like you should have long before now. Then they could all grieve without you tainting the very soil around them.

Especially Matt.

You’d seen him once or twice in passing as your time in New York wound down. Even at a distance, you’d marked the growing circles under his eyes, dark enough to be visible despite the glasses he always wore. The rest of him wasn’t doing much better. It seemed like every time he crossed your path, there was another bruise, another cut across his face or knuckles, a shifting canvas of pain painted across skin grown pale and drawn. He didn’t just look tired—that wasn’t what this was. This was something far worse, a haggard exhaustion, a weariness that couldn’t be solved with sleep, if he slept at all. This was someone being haunted.

Probably because the ghost of Jane Hind kept crossing his path. But that would be solved soon enough.

You’d already packed up your things, not that you had much to take. Just your bag and your memory box. You’d be leaving the next day. Foggy was still convinced he had a few more days, but you had other plans. You couldn’t give Matt back the woman he’d lost, nor could you give him a body to bury, a grave to lay flowers across, but you could give him what Jane Hind had carried with her until her dying breath.

“I thought you might… want these before I left tomorrow,” you said quietly. “I… sorry, it’s… it’s a bag with my—with her things.”

Matt took it carefully from you, the motion mechanical and stiff. He hadn’t really invited you the rest of the way into his apartment, the two of you now stalled out in the hallway just beyond the closed front door. He hadn’t taken his glasses off, either. It made it harder to read him, his face closed off and impassive, a wall of red glass placed firmly between you. Come to think of it, you hadn’t seen his eyes even once since that day you’d first come back, and you didn’t blame him. You didn’t like feeling vulnerable, either, though that was just a guess when it came to what he might be feeling.

“It’s the shirts from her apartment, which I think are yours. And the stuffed bear.” You bit your lip and released it slowly, shifting uncomfortably on your feet. “And the… the mug, which Nelson said was yours, too. The one you used at her place. I also put the hoodie in there, the one she had with her while she was traveling. And…” You reached into your pocket, fumbling for a moment. God, you were bad at this, unsure of just how to do this without hurting him any more than was absolutely necessary. It wasn’t a concern you usually dealt with since your goal was almost always the exact opposite, a precaution meant to destroy any threads of connection they held with you. Unfortunately, he wasn’t giving you much to work with, though you didn’t miss his subtle flinch when you drew the key from your pocket. “I thought you might want this, too.”

You cautiously edged forward, daring to breach the ring of radiant heat that surrounded him, the closest you’d come to him in almost a month. He went stiff as you approached, his jaw growing tight as the gap between you both closed. Another step, and his head cocked as if he were listening to your footsteps, or maybe… maybe he was just waiting to find out what you had to give him. But he wasn’t telling you to fuck off or just set your gift aside, which was a good sign. So you hesitantly reached out and brushed your fingers lightly against his bicep, a signal so he knew you were about to pass him something.

A breath.

He remained absolutely still amidst the sudden, crackling tension in the air as your fingertips skated gently down and around his forearm, stirring all the little hairs, his skin shockingly warm. All you’d intended to do to take his arm and guide it up so you could place the key in his hand, but you quickly found yourself distracted by a ragged scar along the back of his forearm, one your fingers seemingly made their way to on instinct. It was a deep scar, the original cut likely made by some sort of blade, the edges of it rough and uneven from messy stitching. Your curiosity got the better of you, so much so that you missed the way Matt had begun to hold his breath.

“Who fucked up the sutures on that?” You furrowed your brow, your thumb smoothly marking out the jagged line of it. “They did a terrible job. No offense.”

Matt’s face fell and you only realized too late just who it was that must have patched him up.

Before you could blink, he’d yanked his arm out of your grip as if your touch had burned him. “Don’t,” he grit out, his chest heaving as he put a few steps distance between you both. “You can—just put your key on the bench.”

“How did you know—” “Because there’s only one thing left it could be.”

You nodded weakly, taking a few steps back towards the little bench beside the door. That unfamiliar ache, that sense of wrongness was back, the weight of it settling uneasily in your chest like a stone until you almost wanted to retch. It didn’t help that Matt was just barely holding himself together while you were here.

Best to say what you’d come to say and leave him be.

You gently set the key down, and the quiet click of the brass against the wood seemed to echo in the hallway, a graveyard bell tolling with a looming sense of finality. What you were about to tell him would hurt, you knew it would, but maybe one day he’d find comfort in it. This—a sign of what she’d felt—was the real gift you’d truly come to give, the only true token of her you could offer. Your words, when you spoke, were almost as hoarse as his. “I thought you should know I… she wore it. The key. I asked them. She wore your key and she never took it off. Not once. Whatever you both had, she treasured it, and all she wanted was to get back to you. She didn’t leave you by choice, Matt. I hope that… that helps.”

Of all the things you’d said and done, it was this that finally seemed to break him. His face twisted in a sudden wave of grief, and regret hit you all at once. You quickly took a step towards him, one hand out, though you weren’t sure what you’d do if he reached back—it wasn’t like you knew how to comfort him, and you sure as hell didn’t know if he’d tolerate you holding him again, nor whether he was someone that needed some sort of touch when he was hurting. But before you could take another step he’d flinched away from you, retreating quickly back into the darkness of his apartment, his voice ragged. “Just go. Get out.”

“I’m sorry,” you whispered, backing away towards the door. “I’m… I’m so sorry.”

It shouldn’t have hurt as you closed that door one last time. But you cried all the same.

Somewhere within the apartment came the sound of splintering furniture and a hoarse scream wracked with grief.

“Look, Nelson.” You tiredly adjusted the strap of your duffle bag over your shoulder, reaching up to pinch at the bridge of your nose as if it would stem your growing headache. “I know it’s a day early. But another twenty-four hours isn’t going to make a fucking difference.”

“I don’t need another day!” he pleaded, his arms spread wide where he’d blocked your front door, ensuring you couldn’t leave your apartment until you’d heard him out. You’d had no idea he even had a key until today and, not for the first time, you cursed Jane Hind’s apparent lack of common sense. You did not give out keys, or at least, you hadn’t before coming here to this ridiculous fucking city. “Just five minutes. That’s all. I’ve got one last thing to try.”

“Maybe I don’t want to try one more thing!” you snapped bitterly, dropping your hand. That anger was a good cover for the way something sharp and prickly had begun to catch in your throat, the incident with Matt still fresh in your mind. “I’ve tried for a month, and it’s gotten me nothing. Fucking-fucking bars and random rooftops and a shitty little duck, goddamn penguins and keys, and none of it did shit! Jane’s gone, ok? She’s dead. And I’m sorry, I know you all cared about her, but I’m done—”

“Have you climbed inside a thread?”

“...What?” you asked in sudden bewilderment, your rage abruptly faltering in the face of pure confusion. “What the fuck does that even me—”

He let out a whoop, practically dancing on his feet. “Yes! I knew it! I can’t believe no one told you!”

“Told me what?!” You chucked your bag back onto your couch in sudden exasperation. If this was thread-related, at the very least you could stay long enough to listen. “There’s nothing to climb!”

“Ok, so stick with me.” He rubbed his palms together eagerly, a bright light in his eyes. “Because I’m about to get really metaphysical.”

It took you what felt like hours to climb inside the shimmering honey-colored thread that lay between you and Matt—a thread that sang with his sorrow and your reluctant sympathy.

It wasn’t right having your soul constricted like this, all of who you were narrowing down into something so small as you squirmed through a barrier that tasted and felt like dirt and earth, chasing after the sound of trickling water. There wasn’t supposed to be anything on the other side. It was an emotional connection, nothing more.

And yet here you were, standing in a place that had no reason to exist.

“Holy shit,” you whispered in amazement, spinning on your heels to examine your surroundings. “Holy shit, he was right.”

Despite the late hour, the air was full of a muted light that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere all at once, tinting the world a hazy, eerie green. High up above you roiled thick, sullen black storm clouds, silent flashes of red lightning carving their way between swirls of charred smoke. It wasn’t much light, but it was enough to see by.

And what you saw was heartbreaking.

You stood in a dry, stony riverbed. The ground beneath you was cracked and brittle where the water had receded, leaving behind nothing but dust and broken branches. The river itself remained though just barely, the thin trickle of flowing water down the center of the riverbed a far cry from whatever immense force had carved its way through the landscape until the banks were a good ten paces from one side to the other. The terrain beyond the river didn’t look much better, wilted, drooping cattails dotted up the bank before giving way to endless forest that stretched farther than your eye could see. Like the cattails and scrub, the pine and fir trees stood withered and brown, casting their empty branches up toward the sky.

If it had been beautiful here once, whatever had happened to you had destroyed that beauty.

“Jesus,” you whispered.

“Can you hear me?” Foggy’s voice sounded distant and far away, tinny like he was talking through a long tunnel.

“Yeah. Can you hear me?”

“...Ok, if you’re trying to respond, I can’t hear you. But according to Matt, whenever you were here, it felt like memories. So poke around, see what you can find.”

You sighed and started down the riverbed. “Not super helpful, but ok. Let’s give it a shot.”

The water was the most obvious place to start, and you made your way over to the thin stream that ran raggedly across the parched soil. Much to your fascination, you quickly discovered that what you’d thought was one current was actually two, one layered over the top of the other, each flowing in the opposite direction. The first of those currents hiding on the bottom was fairly calm, steady if a little restless, swirls of pale color that almost felt like curiosity, though how you understood that translation was a mystery. The second current seemed far rougher where it roiled atop the first, its section of the stream cloudy and thick with swirls of black and the red of an open wound. You hovered over the second current for a long moment, working up your courage, before you finally knelt and hesitantly brushed against it with one finger. It was just water. How bad could it be?

The moment your skin made contact, your chest seized on a sudden swell of agony. Your mouth filled with the taste of grief, with the sound of an empty home, the lack of some familiar scent that meant affection and warmth and softness and safety, the ache of an old wound reopened just when it had started to heal. Alone, always alone, I deserve it, so many gone, he was right, when will I learn? There was no hope for comfort from that pain, no escape from the darkness into tender arms that could hold you just right when it all hurt. All you had to look forward to was more—

You threw yourself backward, scrambling away from that terrible current as if what you’d felt might rise up and chase after you, snapping its teeth the whole way. You didn’t stop retreating until your back slammed against the dry soil of the riverbank. Only then did you stop, panting, your eyes wide in shock as you cradled your hand against your heaving chest.

Emotion. It’s emotion.

That was what the water was. Matt’s emotion. Which meant the other current—one now shifting back to yellow despite a momentary surge of twisting, roiling black—was… yours.

Right. So you could rule the water out. But if that was emotion, where was memory?

Examining the rest of the river was the most obvious next step now that you’d ruled out the water. Based on what you could see, the original riverbed had been a mix of silt and stones of varying sizes, a firm foundation beneath a once-powerful river. Now, though, the grey, dried-out silt was covered in a strange sea of divots and dips, as if something—a lot of somethings—had been plucked up and removed. You traced one of the indents in the soil curiously, lifting your hand back up to consider the grit as you rubbed it between your fingers. Another glance around revealed the answer.

The stones.

There were still plenty of stones remaining in the riverbed, but the divots in the dry silt told you there’d once been far more. If that was what you’d lost, then maybe…

You rocked up eagerly to your feet, pacing around breathlessly as you searched for a promising stone to start with. Eventually you made your pick, plucking up a stone just small enough to fit in your palm, flat and smooth save for a little groove in it as if someone had run their fingers over it endlessly. Strangely, it smelled like honey and herbs, the surface oddly warm against your hand like the brush of a thumb against your mouth. You waited for a long, impatient moment, and when nothing else happened, you tapped it a few times.

Still nothing.

And something inside you… cracked.

“Fuck!” you screamed, hurling the stone back down the river in a sudden rage. The pain and the loneliness you’d been suppressing for the last month, the last year, the horrible, endless eternity since leaving your family in Los Angeles began to claw its way up your throat, the clouds churning wildly above you in response. A wild rain came next, each droplet sharp and cold and edged like the blade of a knife, bitter and biting as it beat against your skin. You grabbed another stone, one that tasted like shitty beer—Josie’s beer. You threw that rock, too, then another and another, throwing stones that smelled and tasted and felt like your shriek of laughter as he grinned and caught you against his chest, like torn flesh and a needle held by tender hands, like your face nuzzling fearlessly against Matt’s throat as he whispered comfort into your hair and held you close, like synced breathing and hearts and dances between binary stars as you both fell into sleep, fell into safety, fell into one another, phantom sensations that only made the fierce ache in you grow stronger because with every stone you snatched up it became clear that…

You’d been loved.

Not your identity.

Not the image you showed to the world.

Not the walls you’d put up in front of him before he’d found some way past them.

You.

And he’d loved you with every part of him.

You weren’t sure when you started crying, a violent, vicious stream of tears that was just as much a product of rage as grief. Here was someone who’d loved you fully, loved you despite every asterisk and bit of baggage and sharpened edge that came with being a broken hound, with being a former experiment still on the run. But you barely noticed your tears, spitting up at the unforgiving clouds and the howling wind, because you could howl, too, just as violent, just as much a threat as any storm in this place. “I want my fucking life back! I want him back!”

You hadn’t wanted it before, or maybe you had and you’d just been too afraid to ask for it. But now? Oh, oh, now you were furious, furious and hurting and screaming, because you’d denied yourself connection all these years only to find it in the last place you’d expected. That was what this had been—home, family, love. That had to be why you’d stayed in New York, why you’d risked everything for these people, for Matt. You weren’t an idiot. You’d have run the numbers and the math, made your calculations.

You couldn’t bear to lose this. Not… not again.

You threw stone after stone, hunting frantically as your fingers bled dry, desperate fury into the air, reddened drops disappearing before they ever hit the ground. The trickle of water in the center of the riverbed had churned itself into a frenzy, but you ignored it. There had to be something here that would trigger a memory, something that would let you remember being loved again, something big enough, important enough, so you grabbed and you grabbed and grabbed and grabbed and grabbed until at last, you found a stone the size of your fist. You snatched it up with a ragged sob, cradling it greedily against your chest as if doing so might let you carry it out of here, because you wanted it, you wanted him, wanted to remember more than anything in the world.

“Let me have it!” you snarled, snapping your teeth at the howling winds of the storm as if you might catch this place between your jaws and tear it open until you at last found what belonged to you. “Give it back!”

And with a blink—

He tore one of his bloodied gloves off, his hand shaking as he reached out to you.

You stilled the moment his fingertips brushed tenderly against your cheek, so very gentle, affection layered over blood and earth and hurt. And god, your skin was so terribly dry and cold, the beat of your heart uneven as it struggled to pump blood through your body, but he could feel you react to him, the barest parting of your lips as you dragged in a startled breath. He didn’t want to startle you further or risk you fighting him, so he let his voice drop into a whisper, soft as the brush of a feather.

“It’s me. I’m here.”

‘I heard you,’ he tried to say. ‘I heard you. I’m here.’

And your weakened heart… skipped.

He wasn’t sure if he reached for you or if you reached for him. All he knew was it was the sign he’d been looking for. In a heartbeat, he scooped you up off the floor, stealing you back from that dry, filthy cement and crusted blood that had tried to take you from him. He cradled your cold body against his chest, then, held you there where it was warm and where you were safe. You made the softest little noise, the sound choked and dry, but there was no disguising the heartbreaking relief in it. He pulled you in further, pulled you up until you were curled up in his lap, not an ounce of air left between your bodies, your head laying against his shoulder.

He would never let you touch the floor of this place again.

“D…” you mumbled, not one hint of fear in you despite what he’d just done, the blood on his hands and the burning heat of violence that still lingered in his bones. You wearily slid your head over, inch by inch, until you’d buried your face against the sweat-slick line of his throat, nuzzling in against him with a hoarse sigh that only made him hold you tighter. You inhaled slowly then, heedless of the blood and dirt and sweat that coated his skin, your fingers coming up to hook weakly in the collar of his shirt. “You came.”

And you… smiled.

He buried his face against your hair and let out a shaky breath. As he did, he dug down past blood and dust and dirt, dug and dug until he found the sweet, familiar scent of you, a scent he never wanted to leave him again.

The stone fell from your limp hands, a ringing in your ears you could barely hear beneath the sound of the water nearby, frothing and wild.

The increased sensory feedback had been bizarre, and there was… there was no reason he should have been covered in so much blood, his body burning as if he’d been fighting before coming to you. But…

“Hey, you in there?” Foggy called.

“D.” The letter felt strange, and yet… natural, as you cradled it on your tongue. “D?”

And you knew what came after that letter, shaping the word again in your mind.

You knew.

You… remembered.

“Always,” he’d said.

“Always,” you whispered, casting your eyes up the riverbed towards another large stone. “Always, D.”

He didn’t know what you were doing or why you’d climbed inside the thread.

“Always, D.”

All he knew was that it hurt.

“You’re stuck with me, unfortunately for you.”

He’d thought catching your scent, hearing your laugh, being forced to take back the key he’d given to you had been the worst of it. But no. It was far, far worse having to relive these memories of your time with him over and over and over without pause, his senses filled with you: with your touch, with your scent, with the taste of you on the air. He heard you whisper, laugh, and sigh; felt the brush of your fingers in his hair and your body shaking with laughter when he snatched you up during a game of Devil Hunt and the safety of you as you’d held him so tenderly after his fight with Foggy. All of it was a reminder of what he’d lost, what he’d never get back.

“Don’t you give up on me, Matt. Ok?”

He was in agony. There was no blocking you out like this, no escaping your memory no matter how much he tried to push back or retreat, until he wound up trapped and spiraling in his kitchen.

“Kiss me when you come back.”

On and on it went, memories snapping at his heels until all he had left to hide behind was rage. He swept his arm across the counter, glass shattering as he screamed himself hoarse. Eventually he found himself backed up against the wall, sinking down as he hitched out something like an agonized groan, his hands over his ears, his eyes shut tight. “Don’t do this to me, sweetheart, please—”

“Adoringly yours, because I do adore you, you ridiculous man...”

“Leave me alone,” he whispered. “Just leave me alone.”

“...Remember that. if nothing else.”

In hindsight, it was a really bad idea to give back your key.

“Matt!” you shouted, pounding frantically on his front door. “Matt, let me in! It’s me, I swear, I can-I can—”

Silence.

And you weren’t willing to wait any longer. This wasn’t something you could explain through the door, out here in the hall where the neighbors could hear. You needed to get inside. You knew he was in there somewhere.

Red threads never lied.

You wiped the blood away from your nose and took off for the stairs. It was only one flight up to the roof, and sometimes he left the rooftop door unlocked. Even if it wasn’t unlocked, you’d use the key under the mat. You didn’t remember everything. But you remembered that. And if the key wasn’t there? You’d break that fucking door down.

He sat unmoving in his meditation pose on the floor, the sound of your attempts to get into the apartment distant and far away. Meditation had been the only thing left he could think of that would allow him to escape the pain and the memories of you that had flooded his thoughts. Like this, with his mind and his focus withdrawn until it lay deep within himself, he’d hoped he’d be far enough away from the world that the ghost of you couldn’t reach.

Yet even deep in meditation, his instincts were set off by the crack! of his rooftop door slamming open.

He was on his feet in a heartbeat, his heart racing as he bared his teeth, his body prepared to face whatever threat had just broken in. The sensations of you, at the very least, had quieted during his meditation, which should have left him enough space for some small margin of peace as he threw himself into a fight. But that peace was nowhere to be found, because you were here again.

He recoiled from that thought the second it crossed his mind. This wasn’t you, that much had become painfully clear. You’d passed away somewhere far beyond his reach, away from the home, the life you’d lived here. The woman that stood on his landing now was nothing but a ghost, a fading memory and a terrible reminder of what he’d had and lost, what he’d earned by daring to reach for something good. There was no undoing it, no washing away the blood on his hands. If anything, how he felt for you had doomed any hopes of you staying long enough for him to reform that connection with you. He knew how you operated—hell, you’d tried to run on that hot summer night so many months ago after seeing just how much he’d cared, even if you’d ultimately changed your mind. At the time, he’d thought it was Destiny, the hand of God ensuring you remained in the Kitchen where Matt could keep you safe from the Man in the White Coat, here in this place where you both might… might shape something good out of all the broken pieces you’d both been left with. He knew better, now. Even the hand of God couldn’t break the curse Matt placed on those he loved. You would leave, leave like all the others, and he deserved it.

The only question that remained was why you seemed so, so fucking determined to make him suffer.

“Matt.” Your voice cracked as you stumbled down the stairs. “Matt, I—”

“Why can’t you just leave me alone, sweetheart?” he grit out, reaching up to fist his hands tightly in his hair. He’d never known you to be unnecessarily cruel, but there was no other explanation. “God, I-I can’t—you can’t keep doing this to me.”

“Matt, just let me—”

“Do you even care how much you’re hurting me?” He hitched out a broken laugh, something bitter and tormented, the sound absent all humor as you made it down the stairs. “All those months, all I wanted was for you to come back. I begged. I prayed to God, over and over again, that he would bring you back to me. And now that you’re gone, you just won’t leave. I can’t get away from you no matter what I do. Do you know what that’s like? To lose someone you love only for their ghost to haunt you every time you turn around?”

A soft intake of breath.

There it was. Now that he’d said it, you’d leave. There would be nothing more frightening to the You he’d first known than a word like love.

“I just…” His breath hitched again, something thick building in his throat. It was just another sign of his weakness, the same weakness that had gotten you killed.

‘I warned you, kid,’ came Stick’s voice, so smug that Matt bared his teeth. ‘I fuckin’ warned you the night I opened up her eye. But you didn’t listen.’

He started to pace wildly, ignoring your voice as he hunted for some opening through which he could escape, flee from Stick’s voice hiding in the corners of his thoughts, from your ghost. With every step his movements grew more frantic, more furious as his rage built like a rising wave: rage at himself, at God, at the monster who’d taken your memories and the possibility of a life for you here with Matt, and at you, too, because you just didn’t get it. “I just want to grieve, and God can’t even give me that much, can he? Is that what this is? Punishment? Revenge? Congratulations. Job well done. You can go.”

You tilted your head as you watched him pace, the same cock of your head you got when considering your potential routes forward. As far as he was concerned, the only route he’d give was a route out the door.

“I don’t know why you came back, and at this point, I don’t fucking care,” he told you hotly, nothing but burning smoke and thick venom in each word. “We don’t have a red thread anymore. There’s nothing to keep you here. Leave. Now. I’m not asking.”

Your soft response was a single letter, one that struck directly at the open wound inside his chest.

“...D.”

He snatched up an empty beer bottle from the kitchen counter in a sudden rage, turned, and hurled it past you.

You didn’t so much as flinch as the bottle came within inches of your head. Nor did you react to the distant shattering of glass, the sound of it barely audible over his anguished roar.

“Leave me alone!”

And then he froze in sudden horror at what he’d done, his heartbeat almost drowning out the soft sound of your steps. All he’d wanted to do was scare you away, frighten you away so he could break where you couldn’t see, because it had hurt, it had hurt to hear you call him—

Wait.

You’d… you’d called him…

“My Devil Man, my Saint Matthew,” you whispered, the touch of your hands cool and endlessly gentle as you cupped his face. His skin was wet, damp beneath your thumbs as you swiped them across his cheeks, when had he started crying? You brought his head down until you could lay your forehead against his, the taste of salt hanging in the air. Your voice grew achingly tender, so longed for that he swayed helplessly on his feet, wanting nothing more than to be held like you’d held him so often before when he was hurting. “I’m so sorry, D. I’m so sorry I left you alone, sweetheart.”

He closed his eyes tight, his breath growing shaky. You couldn’t know that he was two steps away from crumbling in your arms, fractures widening with every breath. He had no energy left to fight your touch, your misplaced mercy, but giving into the lie was another thing entirely. He couldn’t bear to hope again, not when it would crush him if he were wrong. “Foggy told you to… he told you to call me that, didn’t he? To see if you’d remember. But I can’t—you’re going to leave me, you’ll—” “Do you remember what I said before I left? Because I do.” You swiped your thumb gently against his cheek, your uneven breathing skipping and falling into rhythm with his as his hands shakily rose. They hovered hesitantly a few inches away from your face, terrified that you might vanish beneath his hands like a ghost. “I don’t leave my box behind, and I won’t leave you behind, either. I told you that you were stuck with me after Nobu. I meant it. It’s really me. I know you’re tired and hurting, sweetheart, but listen to my heart. What does it say? Truth or lie?”

…Steady.

Truth.

Could it really be you?

He held his breath as he dared at last to touch your cheek, stirring the fine hairs as he stroked his way along the familiar shape of your face, one he’d traced so often in his dreams. Your skin was damp with tears just like his, another sliding down to bump against his thumb as your lips quirked up into a brilliant smile. And the moment his trembling fingers passed your lips, you kissed the tip of each with a warm fondness, a mirror of that night you’d held his broken, torn body and he’d kissed your fingers and palm.

“How much do you… do you remember?” There was a ringing in his ears as the world beneath him seemed to roll beneath him. “Everything?” “Not everything. Some pieces are still missing, with Foggy and Karen and my job, but I-I remember enough. I remember you, and what I had with you.” Your voice grew fierce and fervent then as you drew in a sharp breath, preparing yourself. “I remember you, D. And I remember that I love you. I love you, Matt Murdock, all of you, so, so much. And I will never leave you alone again.” You loved him.

You loved him.

The weight of it—being forced to let you leave the city, the ensuing months alone, the agony of the past few weeks thinking he’d lost you entirely, and now this, this, knowing you loved him like he loved you—hit him all at once, and with a sudden groan he started to drop. You caught him in your arms, the two of you sinking to your knees as you held him tight and he wound desperately around you in return. Only then did he start to fall apart in your arms, shaking in your hold, his grief, his hurt, his relief spilling out in choked gasps where you’d tucked his head down against your neck. He fisted his hands in your shirt as you both rocked, and a ragged moan tore free from him, spilling against your skin when you lifted your hands to trail your fingers lovingly through his hair. You knew, you remembered just how to hold him when he was hurting, a balm across every last wound. His shivering, touch-starved body remembered your touch, too, drowning beneath the sudden surge of good, warm, safe, soft after months of nothing but pain, so much so he couldn’t help but gasp out your name.

“I’ve got you now, D,” you whispered, burying your face against his shoulder until he could feel the heat of your tears against his shirt, too. “I’m here, now. You’re not alone. I’ve got you, Matt.”

“I thought you were gone.” There was no way for him to truly sync his breathing with yours, not with the way you were both crying, but still his body tried on instinct, tried and failed over and over again. He closed his eyes tighter, burying his face deeper against your throat as he pulled you in even closer, until there wasn’t an inch of space between your body and his, where he could feel every beat of your heart against his skin, as if to make up for the way he’d almost… almost chased you away. “I thought you’d left me and I was alone. I’m sorry. I’m sorry I didn’t try harder, and that I didn’t-I didn’t go with you, but I couldn’t—I’m so, so—”

“Hey, hey, it’s ok.” You kissed shakily at his hair, his shoulder, and whatever other parts of him you could reach, your breath, your tears, your absolution washing over him like rain. “It’s not your fault, D. It’s not your fault sweetheart. None of this was your fault.”

“But—” “Hey. Listen to me, before you get any further down in that hole.” You lifted his head from your shoulder, cupping his tear-stained face in your hands again. For a moment you both simply breathed with one another, your forehead to his, soaking in the contact, the affection that you’d both dearly missed and needed. “What happened to me outside New York, my memory loss… all of that is not your fault. It never was, D. There are-there are a lot of things we’ll have to deal with in the future, things I need to tell you. Consequences of what we’ve done, and—but this isn’t one of them. Never this. You’re what helped bring me back.” “How? I didn’t…” He let out a breathless, watery little laugh. “I didn’t do anything but try to chase you away.” “Some part of me couldn’t help but be drawn to you. I remembered, deep down, I think.” You gave an amused little huff. “And once Foggy showed me how to get into our thread, all your memories are what brought me back, helped me remember, because I could feel it, how you loved me. That was the key. Speaking of which…” You leaned in to nuzzle up against his cheek, your voice lowering to a whisper. “I think I made you a promise, you ridiculous man. And it’s one I intend to keep.”

And with one small tip of your head, and a single slow breath…

“Kiss me when you come back.”

…your lips brushed against his for the very first time, tender and achingly soft, and so full of love that it would have stolen his breath away if he’d had any left at all.

It wasn’t the first kiss he’d envisioned months ago just before you left, something triumphant and wild. Nor was it anything like the first kisses he’d imagined before that, the first kiss he’d thought this journey with you might lead to. And God only knew he’d considered kissing you for the first time more than was healthy.

Your first kiss with him was, instead, shaky and gentle, tasting of salt and tears and the fading shades of grief retreating like streamers of night before a welcome sunrise. Slowly, and then more surely, his lips began to move against yours, finally allowing himself to truly taste you for the first time, his eyes slowly falling closed as your fingers ran fondly through his hair, you, it was really you, you remembered. With a quiet moan, he breathed you in deep, calling your grace, your love deep into him until it settled there against his heart, knowing that, no matter what else might come, he would never lose it again, one of his hands rising to tenderly wind around your throat, his other hand finding yours so he could lace his battered fingers tightly with yours.

It wasn’t the first kiss he’d expected, but it felt perfect all the same.

Because all that was left was him…

And you.

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barcaatthemoon · 2 months

Text

you don't owe me anything ii || ona batlle x reader ||

you give ona a chance to prove herself.

the flight from barcelona to manchester was just enough time for ona to come to the conclusion that she had lost her mind. you had left barcelona not wanting anything to do with her, and this was how she decided to fix things. it was a risky idea, but there was no reward without a bit of risk. she was fairly certain that even if you wouldn't give her the time of day, she could find an old teammate to crash with for the night.

the ride from the airport to your place didn't feel like nearly enough time for ona to formulate a real plan. aside from just showing up in manchester and doing a bit of groveling, ona didn't have a plan. she just knew that she wanted you back and would do anything to have you. hopefully she could string her words together well enough to get that point across.

"gracias," ona said to the driver as he let her out. she had brought along just a single bag, mostly filled with clothes that she had stolen from you. things in barcelona were good on the pitch, but terrible off of it. ona had been unable to reconcile with lucy, both women coming to the conclusion that they couldn't get back together. with that in mind, ona knocked on your door and waited patiently.

"ona, what are you doing here?" ella asked, obviously more than a little confused.

"tooney, who's there?" you asked as you moved to see. you hadn't been expecting anybody, least of all ona. you froze when you saw her standing there in front of you, looking impossibly small in one of your old hoodies. "ona, what are you doing here?"

"that's what i asked!" you grabbed ella by the waist and threw her behind you as you stepped out into the hallway with ona. you noticed the way that ona glanced at your door, both of you well aware that ella was listening with her ear pressed against the door.

"do you want to go for a drive?" you asked ona.

"yes please," ona answered. you opened the door just enough to get your keys, nearly hitting ella with the door as you did so. you told her that you'd be back within an hour or so, doubting that your conversation with ona would take that long. the two of you walked down to your car, ona sitting comfortably in the passenger's seat like she had before.

"you never did answer my question," you reminded her. ona cleared her throat, obviously a tactic to buy herself more time to gather her thoughts a bit better.

"i made a lot of mistakes when i left. i don't regret going to barcelona, that's been great for my career, but i regret breaking up with you to go. i regret telling you to leave me when you came to visit," ona said. she sounded genuinely remorseful, like she had been thinking about these decisions a lot. you were impressed, it wasn't like her to think on the past like that so much.

"do you regret getting with lucy?" you asked. it wasn't a fair question, but you had to know. you were jealous. ona had been the love of your life, you were sure of it, and she had practically sprinted into lucy's bed once lucy and keira had broken up. you knew that ona would have lost her mind if you had done something like that to her while the two of you danced around getting back together.

"the time was wrong, but i think that i needed to have someone close to me. lots of things were changing, and it was difficult, but i didn't stop loving you just because i was starting to love lucy." ona looked over at you nervously. she knew that you wouldn't like her answer to your question, but she needed to be truthful. "we've spent more time apart than we did together at this point, and i still feel the same way about you now that i did before i left."

"then why did you leave me?" you hadn't expected yourself to go to tears so quickly. ona's face dropped as she realized that she had let something loose inside of you. she wasn't quite sure how to comfort you, so she just moved to hold you. "how can i trust that you won't just decide in a few months that the distance is too much for you to handle? because i'd love to be your girlfriend again. i love you so much, but i can't trust you ona. i can't trust you at all right now."

ona was at a loss for words. your tears were staining her hoodie, but neither of you cared to wipe them away. ona let you continue crying in her arms. guilt began building up inside of her to an extent that she didn't even know was possible. she had never thought for a moment that you'd be so upset about the relationship. she didn't want you to feel like this.

"i don't deserve you. i want you so badly, but i don't deserve you yet. let me prove to you that you can trust me again, please. please, mi vida, let me prove myself," ona begged. you weren't sure why, but you agreed to it. you agreed to let ona prove herself that the two of you could make the distance work.

…

"ona!" mary shouted as she booked it towards the defender. you smiled and waved at your girlfriend as she was scooped up into mary's arms. ona had made four trips to manchester in the last six months, genuinely serious about being there for you. "what are you doing here?"

"i missed (y/n)," ona said. mary scoffed as she set ona down, pretending to be offended. ona stood there nervously with her hands behind her hand, waiting for you to let her know that she could hug you. instead of saying anything, you just walked over and hugged her, picking her up a bit off of the ground as you did.

"it's good to see you," you told her. ona blushed as she buried her face in the crook of your neck. this time, it wasn't mary who came crashing into the two of you as more of your teammates filed through the hallway. you let them all have their moments with ona, content to stand by the side since you knew she was coming back with you for a little while.

the two of you went to ona's hotel instead of your apartment, which was a welcome change. you laid down on the couch while ona sat on the floor in front of you, barely paying any attention to the movie. every so often you could see her glance over at you. you knew that the floor couldn't be comfortable, but ona wanted to be respectful and give you space.

"do you want to lay here with me?" you asked. ona bit her lip as she nodded shyly. you smiled as you sat up and grabbed onto ona's hand. you led her over to the bed, and ona looked like a deer in headlights as you wrapped yourself around her. "you know, you can ask for things too if you want them. this shouldn't be one-sided."

"i don't want to rush you," ona said. it was like her own personal little catchphrase when she came to see you. ona hadn't been making any moves aside from coming to manchester to visit. you wanted her to do more when it was just the two of you together.

"you aren't rushing me, ona. you've taken the time to come and see me, even if you won't let me do the same thing. i think that you've proven that you're willing to put in the work," you told her. ona looked at you like you had just given her the best news in the world. "i think that it's past time that we start dating again."

"really?" ona tried not to sound so surprised, but she had been certain at one point that you truly wanted nothing to do with her. however, she had stayed strong and put in the work after giving you a bit of space. she had been upset when you rejected her back in barcelona, but instead of lashing out, ona worked through her feelings and came to the conclusion that she wanted a chance to do things right with you.

"really," you confirmed. ona leaned forward like she was going to kiss you, but she stopped herself. "just kiss me you dork."

"don't insult me," ona muttered as she leaned in for the kiss. you let her push you back against the mattress, neither one of you willing to let up just yet. you felt your lungs begin to burn a little, but you had nowhere to go. you started to push ona back, and she broke the kiss, panting heavily. "sorry. i got carried away. i had been thinking about doing that for a long time."

"it's okay, so have i," you admitted. ona smiled, tugging the corner of her bottom lip in between her teeth as she did so. you wondered if she knew what she was doing, if she remembered the way that used to drive you absolutely insane. a few months ago, you would have doubted it, but now, you were almost certain that she remembered every little thing that used to make you want her.

#woso fanfics #woso x reader #woso imagine #ona batlle imagine #ona batlle x reader #ona batlle

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natti-ice · 3 months

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The Truth Will Set You Free- Tom Riddle.

Pairing: Tom riddle x fem!reader

Summary: a mysterious letter reveals Tom’s biggest secret.

Warnings: angst, written in third person (she/her pronouns) (1k words)

Author’s note: this is a reupload, I wrote this a while ago!

Reblogs and comments are greatly appreciated<3

"YOU'RE MARRIED?!?" She yelled at him, watching the color drain from his face gave her the answer. Tom closed the book he had been reading peacefully as he lounged in a plush chair in his dorm room.

"What are you talking about, dear?" He swallowed, he saw Y/N holding a piece of paper in her hand, confusion and anger in her facial expressions. He had no idea how this could have got to her, barely anyone knew about this.

"I received this letter this morning" she started, showing him the paper she had been clutching onto for the past twenty minutes. "I don't know if this is some sick joke or if you've been lying to me this whole time. Tom, is it true?" She didn't know what to think, when she got the letter she thought it was someone trying to play with her. But as the letter went on it seemed too real

"Tom and I were wed the summer before his sixth year. Once he graduates we shall start a family together, I believe you deserve to know since there are talks of your attachment to him. Just know, this is how it has to be, he cannot be yours."

Reading this brought a sharp pain in her chest, she thought she knew the man she loved. She knew he had his secrets, but she wouldn't think he would withhold this from her. Her emotions were all jumbled into one, she didn't know what to feel.

"It's true," he said in a hushed tone, his head hung low like a dog being scolded. "You weren't supposed to find out this way"

"Like this? Or was I not supposed to find out at all?" Okay, it seems her anger has gotten the better of her

"Please let me explain, Y/N" Tom begged. His usual stoic demeanor had completely vanished, he had never let his emotions show this way, it made him feel weak.

"I don't know if I want to hear it, Tom. How could you do this to me?"

"I didn't do it to hurt you" he raised his voice as he became angry at himself "I figured if you knew, you would want nothing to do with me" he admitted

"You're probably right about that" she said sarcastically

"Y/N, please don't joke about this" he warned "if you'd let me, I'll explain to you everything that happened. Only the truth" his eyes met hers he could see the pain in them, that shattered his heart. When he met Y/N he knew he had found the only person in the world he could truly care for. She broke down every wall he tried to put up with ease, there was no way he could let her get away.

"Fine, go ahead" she whispered as she tried to swallow the lump in her throat

He sighed, calming his brain before proceeding to tell her about something that has eaten at him every day for the past two years. "At the end of my fifth year, my mother put me into an arranged marriage. I fought and fought to get out of it, but no matter what I said I couldn't get out. She paired me with some pure-blooded floozy who couldn't last a day without her father's money, the day of the ceremony was the worst day of my life. My mother expects me to have children with that girl and I honestly couldn't care less about that stupid girl." Talking about her put a bad taste in his mouth, he hated her with every ounce of his being.

"I just don't get why you didn't tell me" Y/N said during Tom's pause

"I didn't tell you because it's a part of me that I hate. Having my name attached to someone who I will never love, isn't something I'm proud of. When I met you, it was like that terrible situation was in the past and you were my future. For years I have been trying to find a way out of this marriage. I plan to divorce her as soon as I'm done with school." He felt slight relief as he finally got this off his chest, it always weighed heavy on him.

Y/N stood a foot away from Tom, as he explained his story her heart broke more, she had never seen Tom in such pain before, and it definitely wasn't a good feeling to watch. "What about your mother?" She asked

"I don't care about that woman! She hasn't a motherly bone in her body, once I'm done with school I'll never see her again" His hatred for his mother ran deep, Y/N knew he never liked his mother. She understood why, if she was her mother she'd probably feel the exact same way.

"Y/N" Tom reached for her hand, wrapping both his hands around her, bringing it up to his mouth gently kissing the back. "I am very sorry I never told you about this, I've never been good at telling the truth but that's no excuse. I promise you, you are the only person I will ever love." This is the truest thing to ever leave Tom's mouth

God, he's so beautiful she thought, searching for any trace he was lying to her. Sometimes she felt foolish thinking about how much she loved him, his hold on her was so strong. But she wouldn't change a thing.

"I'm so conflicted right now" she admitted, "but I believe you, you swear you want nothing to do with her?"

"Cross my heart, I would never dream of being with her" he brought his hand up to Y/N's cheek, slowly stroking it with his thumb. "You are the only person I want to marry" he whispered

"Good, because I don't think I'd like a life without you" she slightly grinned

"What if, when we're done at this tragic place, you and I run off together? We won't have to worry about anyone else, it'll just be us living our life together" Tom suggested

"That sounds like a very thought out plan, dear" she smirked "perhaps I might take you up on that offer" she leaned in, slightly pecking his lips

"You really have to get those papers signed, Tom. I am no one's mistress" she half-joked but he knew she was serious.

"Anything for you my dear"

Join a tag list!

#tom riddle x reader #tom riddle x fem!reader #tom riddle x you #tom riddle x y/n #tom riddle fluff #tom riddle angst #tom riddle fanfiction #tom riddle

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ssahotstuff · 1 year

Note

Hiii! Would you be able to write a Hotch x female reader smut where he has an innocence kink ? Maybe virgin reader as well?

This was so much fun to write! Let me know if I should do a part 2 about reader touching Aaron for the first time! 🥰

Warnings; innocence kink, virgin reader, first time, oral, fem receiving, fingering, unprotected sex, cursing, phone sex kinda, dirty talking

Word Count: 5.9k

Aaron was well aware of the fact that you had never been touched. You had sheepishly told him during a heavy make out session one night months ago, but you had given him the okay to take your virginity whenever he saw fit. The opportunity hadn't arose for Aaron to make it special for you yet, so it hadn't came up, but he was aching to touch you. Given the fact that he'd be the only man to ever have his hands on you, it made his head spin—but the effect you had on him was dizzying nonetheless.

He often thought about using his mouth to spread you open, how you would taste writhing under his touch. He'd day dream about giving you your first orgasm, what you'd look like coming undone under the mercy of his tongue. He'd fuck his fist to the thought of you naked and ready for him, his cock throbbing at the image of him slipping into you, going as slow as possible as he gently eased into you. He'd lost count at how many times he'd had an orgasm thinking about giving you pleasure for the first time.

Aaron had decided he'd try to initiate things when he came home. He was still away on a case for now, missing you terribly. He'd just gotten back to his hotel for the night when he decided it wasn't too late to call you, sitting down on the edge of his bed with a heavy sigh as the phone rang in his ear.

"Hi baby," you greeted him, thrilled to hear his voice. You'd been thinking of him nonstop, and you were happy he'd called, even if it was only for a few minutes before bed.

"Hi, sweetheart. I hope it isn't too late, I just couldn't stop thinking about you," he admitted, the heat rising to his cheeks when he realized how bad he had it for you—he was absolutely smitten, as in love as he could possibly get with no chance of slowing down any time soon.

"You can call me whenever you want, you know that," you assured him, just thankful to hear his voice. You worried more than usual when he was away, often afraid of what might happen to him, and not being able to stop it.

"Tell me about your day, don't leave anything out," he asked, and he listened happily as you told him about the mundane parts of your day and how work had been. Your evening had been more than uneventful as you'd spent most of it on the couch, glass of wine in tow, thinking about the man that you loved. You'd been ready to give your body to him for longer than you wanted to admit, but he'd been waiting patiently for what he thought was the right time. You told him you were ready whenever he was, and until he decided it was perfect, you'd be happy to wait.

Aaron was having a hard time holding back with you. Every time you were in his bed, he wanted to give himself to you in as many possible ways as he could. He'd already decided when it happened, it would be all about you—he'd spend the entire evening making sure you knew what real pleasure was before he ever did anything selfishly. Getting the privilege of touching you was a reward enough in his eyes; if he had anything to say about it, he'd be the only person to touch you in your life—he wanted forever with you.

"Any chance I'll get to sleep next to you soon?" You asked him, holding your breath for the answer; you knew sometimes it took a while to finish up on cases, and you didn't expect this to be any different.

"I hope we can wrap things up in the next day or so. Having you in my bed has been on my mind heavily," he chuckled, and you quickly started to piece together that his words had more than one meaning.

"You can have me whenever you want," you breathed, anxious to hear what he had to say back. Sometimes Aaron didn't pick up on your flirtiness, or if he did, he wasn't sure what to do about it. That wasn't the case this time—he had heard you loud and clear.

"I've got plans involving you and my bed when I get home. But I'm taking you out first, spoiling you as much as I can," his voice had gotten dangerously low, causing a shiver down your spine at the implication that it would be happening, and sooner than you thought.

"Oh? Sounds like I need to buy something to wear," you'd use any excuse to find something to look good for him in, and you'd spied a red dress at a boutique earlier in the week that was dying to be worn, and now you had the perfect reason to buy it.

"Something that's relatively easy to take off, I hope," he joked, but it caused the heat to pool between your thighs at the thought of him undressing you.

"I'm sure you know your way around a zipper," you chirped back, and he laughed, making you smile wide. It was one of your favorite sounds, and he seemed to be doing it more often with you around.

"I'll manage regardless. You know, I don't think you understand how special it is to me that you're letting me be your first," it was more than special to him—it was something sacred that he'd cherish forever. He thought you were the most incredible person he'd ever met—he hadn't been expecting you, but he'd fallen for you so quickly that anything before you seemed irrelevant. You'd been so accepting of him and Jack, loving the two of them unconditionally and becoming someone Jack could depend on as well. Jack had spent plenty of nights at your apartment while Aaron was away on a case, spending time with you, bonding. The two of you were close, and Aaron loved that. It filled him with so much adoration for you that sometimes he wondered how he ever lived so long without you.

"You know, it would make me really happy if you were the only person to ever touch me," you told him, met with a harsh gulp on the other end of the line. Aaron opened his mouth, but nothing would come out—he was stunned into silence, but his mind was running rampant. You wanted him forever, and that was hard for him to process at first. He'd never expected you to say it, although he'd known for a while now that you were what he wanted too. You were the perfect match for him, and he'd do anything in his power to keep you around for as long as possible.

"Do you mean that?" He didn't mean to doubt you—more than anything, he just needed the reassurance of your love, in whatever form you could give it to him.

"Of course I do. Honestly, Aaron... It's all I think about," you felt a bit bashful admitting it, but given your inexperience, when Aaron agreed to be your first, the thoughts of what exactly that entailed invaded your mind and wouldn't get out. In the shower, on the way to work—but especially now, when you were alone in bed late at night. Sometimes you'd think about touching yourself, but you weren't sure what would feel good, and you knew waiting on Aaron would be worth it in the long run.

"Oh, sweetheart... I've imagined it so many times, all of the ways I'm going to make you feel so good," he purred, and you found yourself nearly whimpering at his words, melting at his deep, silky voice and his promise to give you what you'd been craving for so long.

"Me too. I can't wait to feel your hands, what they feel like on my body. I can't wait to make you feel good too—I really want to touch you, Aaron," you were a soaked mess, and hearing him groan on the other end of the line wasn't helping any.

"Sweet girl, don't worry about me. All I want you to concern your pretty little head with is enjoying yourself. You've gone so long untouched...I can't wait for you to know what it feels like, to see what you look like when you have your first orgasm," you released a breath you didn't even know you'd been holding, more than curious as to what it would feel like. You had no doubt he'd be loving, careful with you, and you were excited to learn all of the ways you could touch him too. You'd done some research, so you weren't completely naive, and you were hoping he'd give you the chance to show him what you learned.

"Come home to me soon, please. I don't know if I can go much longer without you," you whined, knowing he couldn't help it, but you wanted him back so terribly, you were willing to go to Ohio to solve the case on your own if it meant bringing him back sooner.

"I know, sweetheart. Going to pick you up as soon as I get back, keep you at my place for as long as I can. I can't wait to kiss you...all over, every inch of you," he told you, making your toes curl up in anticipation at what was to come—you could hardly contain yourself.

"Wish you could feel me right now; my panties are ruined," Aaron's cock throbbed against the hem of his slacks, precum no doubt staining his boxers as he palmed himself without abandon, licking his lips at the thought of dragging his tongue through your center, watching your eyes roll back as he fucked you with his tongue.

"I'm dying to taste you, baby. Going to spend half of the night between your legs; I can't wait to learn your body," you could hear the desperation laced in his words, and you knew he was probably aching to be touched just as badly as you were.

"Been dreaming about tasting you too, Aaron. I want to try everything with you," Aaron was coming unraveled at your words, nearly ready to cum in his pants at the idea of your lips wrapped around his cock. He let his eyes close and pictured you on your knees, his cock in your hand as you looked to him to teach you what to do. He couldn't wait to show you, to guide you through everything for the first time. Your lack of experience was something that Aaron found himself pondering on often. You were gorgeous—plenty of people saw that. People should've been lining up to want their shot at you, and you hadn't hesitated to tell him you'd been asked out a lot, but no one had caught your interest like he did.

He felt like the most special man in the world.

Every time he kissed you, he wondered how he got so lucky. You were a godsend, and he was going to keep you in his life permanently, if you'd let him. He was addicted to you—he had to be careful at work or his thoughts would run wild, trained on you and the things you made him feel. He hadn't loved anyone in a long time, and he certainly hadn't expected it to come so easily. The words had rolled off his tongue the first time, and after a sweet but greedy kiss, you were telling him that you loved him too, and he could breathe a sigh of relief that you wanted to be kept by him.

"I'll teach you whatever you want to learn, sweetheart. I love you so much, all I want is for you to be happy."

He smiled when he heard your cute little breathless laugh on the other end, and he could practically hear the smile on your face as you spoke. These little things you did without even realizing it were Aaron's green light to fall head over heels for you, because it was obvious you were doing the same.

"I love you, Aaron. I've never been so happy in my life," you promised him, yawning into the receiver as you came to lay on the pillows, putting your phone on speaker.

"Sweet girl, get some sleep. I'll text you in the morning, I'm going to try my best to make it home to you soon," he wouldn't rest until they'd put this case behind them and he was on the jet coming back to you.

"I know you will. Sweet dreams, Aaron. I love you," he was quick to tell you back, hanging up the phone and laying back on his bed for a moment, staring up at the ceiling. He knew he'd have to go slow when he finally had you, or else he'd get ahead of himself. He was already going mad at the mere thought, what your soft, delicate body would feel like, the sweet taste of your arousal as he finally had the privilege of tasting you. The thoughts were overwhelming until Derek knocked on his door to tell him there was a break in the case and that they were needed with the Local PD.

✨✨✨

When morning came, your first order of business was to find something that would drive Aaron wild. You got dressed and drove straight to the boutique where you'd seen the red dress, not thinking twice when you swiped your card. You did a little more shopping, deciding on a lacy white bra and panty set that you knew would get him going, and by the time you stopped for coffee, he was calling.

"Hi baby," he nearly melted at your words every time you spoke, that was nothing new for him. He loved your voice, to listen to you talk about any and everything that was on your mind.

"Hi sweetheart. I'll be home in a couple of hours. If you want to be ready, I'll pick you up and we'll go out to dinner," Aaron had already picked the place—it was one of the nicest spots in town, and he knew you would love it. Afterwards, he planned to bring you home, make you as comfortable as possible before the rest of your evening began. He knew you'd been waiting far too long, and he himself had been bouncing off the rafters waiting for the night to come. In just a few short hours, he'd finally have you.

"I'll be ready. I can't wait to see you," you told him, but Aaron was equally excited to see you. If he could will the jet to go faster, he would—a 3 and a half hour flight seemed like forever when he knew you were waiting for him.

"I'm so excited, sweetheart. Remember, all about you tonight. I hope you're ready," you could hear the want in his voice, his eagerness to have your body, it made you feel like one of the most coveted women alive.

"More than ready," you assured him, wishing him a safe flight as he got ready to take off, leaving you to get ready, making sure every aspect of your hair and outfit was perfect by the time Aaron arrived.

You'd checked your appearance nearly a dozen times in the mirror when he knocked on the door, giving you no more time to second guess yourself. You felt silly for ever doubting yourself when you opened the door and saw Aaron's reaction to your outfit. The collar of his black dress shirt grew tight as he reached for your waist to pull you in closer, his lips brushing your jaw before he came in for a kiss.

"Sweetheart, I don't know what to say. I've never seen anything quite like you before," he whispered against your lips, his hand coming to cup your face as he let his eyes trail over your body once more. The truth was, you'd stunned him into silence—no one had ever went out of their way to want to look good for him, and it only solidified his thoughts that you were meant for him completely.

"You look so good, Aaron," you told him before kissing him again, your fingers on his collar, tugging him closer. He let his arms wrap around you, forgetting where you were momentarily as his tongue slipped into your mouth. You whimpered softly, which only made Aaron come closer, his hands roaming your body openly, hidden only by the darkness surrounding the two of you. It took everything in him to pull away from you, wanting to march you inside and undress you before you'd even eaten. With one last kiss, he led you to the car, moving the center console up so you could sit next to him in the middle. His hand found yours, holding it tightly as he navigated you through the city.

Aaron had chosen a ridiculously fancy restaurant, the two of you skipping wine and opting for water. You wanted a clear head and assumed he felt the same. His eyes never left you once, only briefly while he ordered his food. His hand reached for yours across the table and you took it happily, smiling back at him over the table. He was breathtaking in all black, your mind honed in on the idea of stripping him down, kissing every inch of his sexy broad chest and his long arms. You knew by the gleam in his eye that his thoughts were similar, and even though the conversation was light throughout dinner, the sexual tension was heavy and thick enough to slice with a butter knife.

Aaron couldn't stop thinking about how good you looked. He knew from the men who were shamelessly throwing glances in your direction that he was a lucky man, and he'd never do anything to jeopardize his relationship with you. He'd decided early on that he'd do anything he could to keep you, wanting you around more every time he saw you. That still hadn't changed—he craved your presence, uneasy if he wasn't around you.

By the time you left the restaurant, Aaron's palms were sweaty and his mouth was dry. The closer he got to his house, the harder it became to pay attention to the road and not to you—your hand was on his thigh, absentmindedly brushing against him, and it was making it difficult for him to concentrate. His free hand moved to your bare thigh, feeling your satiny smooth skin; he sighed to himself, wondering if you were this soft everywhere. He had no doubt that you were, and it was all for him.

Once you were finally at his house, he led you inside, opting to bring you straight to the bedroom. He closed the door gently behind him, watching you closely as you sat on the edge of the bed. He came to stand in front of you, silently reaching for your foot so he could remove your heels. He let them fall to the floor, his eyes traveling up your legs until he was looking into your eyes.

Aaron was feeling an abundance of emotions all at once. He was overcome with so much love for you that he wasn't sure what to do with himself. He was only a little nervous, but mostly because he was afraid you wouldn't enjoy yourself—he tried not to let the doubt creep into his mind and ruin the evening though. You were both consenting adults, and you wanted this just as badly as him—he knew that for a fact. He was especially eager—he had been since your phone conversation the night before, thinking about it long after you'd hung up for the night.

"You're so gorgeous, sweetheart. I can't keep my eyes off of you," he leaned forward to kiss you, holding your face firmly in his hands as your tongues tangled together; you were squirming in your seat at the thought of him using his mouth on you, buzzing internally at the fact that he wanted to taste you so badly. No one had ever wanted you like Aaron did; he'd went out of his way to show you from the very first day. Aaron was the type to shower you with compliments, to make you feel good about yourself in every aspect as if he'd spoken it into existence. You believed every word that came out of his mouth, trusted him beyond a shadow of a doubt, which was why you'd taken the chance on him in the first place. Unlike with other men, you didn't hesitate to give Aaron your phone number, and you actively kept in contact with him even before you were dating; he'd call you in the morning and before bed, just to let you know he was thinking about you. Becoming his girlfriend had been the easiest decision you'd ever made, and you were proud to be his.

"It's all for you," you told him, watching his cheeks redden as he grew bashful—it was always a sight to see; he often didn't realize how incredible he truly was, and you were quick to remind him. You loved getting dressed up for him, making a spectacle out of belonging to him. You knew he appreciated the effort, though you were glad to do it for him. He deserved someone who would go to any length for him, and you planned to be that person.

Aaron wanted you to be comfortable first. When he joined you on the bed, his hands came to your thighs, his fingers massaging your bare skin just below your dress. He began kissing you, first your shoulder, working his way to your neck; his nose brushed along your jaw as he came to your mouth, kissing you slowly, delicately. It was sweet, your strong, stern man taking things at a new speed, you knew it was taking all of his restraint not to undress you.

You found your way into his lap, arms snaked around his neck as the two of you made out like mad, his hands on your waist. He kissed you for a while longer before he pulled away, toying with the straps of your dress.

"Can I see you, pretty girl?"

You gave him a nod and decided you'd stand up and do the honors, letting him unzip your dress so it could fall to the floor. Aaron saw what you were wearing and found himself struggling to think straight. He wondered if you'd worn white just for him, something about the lacy set made it even better for him, because he knew you'd never worn anything like that for anyone else before. He didn't try to hide the effect you had on him, his cock throbbing wildly in his slacks as he looked at you.

"You're divine, baby. So fucking pretty," he groaned as you laid next to him on the bed, propped up on your side so you could see him.

"You like it? I bought it just for you," you said, earning a nod in response as he came forward to pepper your chest with warm, open mouthed kisses. It covered you in goosebumps, the sensation of his lips on your flushed skin.

"I love it, I think you look perfect, sweetheart." Aaron's mind was reeling now that he was touching you, his hands a bit shaky but overall, he felt nothing but love. He tentatively reached behind you to feel for the clasp to your bra, and after looking to you to make sure it was okay, he was undoing it and letting your bra join your dress in the floor. Aaron's mouth immediately latched on to one of your nipples, his free hand rolling the other between his fingers. You moaned, pushing your chest forward for him. He sucker your nipples until they were puffy and stiff, stopping long enough to pull back at look at you.

"Lay down for me," he instructed, putting a pile of pillows behind your head. You watched with wide eyes as he unbuttoned his shirt, tossing it aside before tugging his T-shirt over his head. Your hand made its way to his chest, feeling the sexy, scarred flesh as he turned towards you, his fingertips trailing up your thigh. He was nearly at your panty line, taking a deep breath as he hooked his fingers in the waistband of your panties.

"Can I take these off?"

You nodded, letting him undress you completely, trying not to be self conscious about being naked around him. Aaron couldn't believe his eyes; he'd never seen a human being so perfect in his life, and he planned to make sure you knew exactly how amazing he thought you were. He couldn't stop staring, his mouth slightly agape as he blinked at you, making sure you wouldn't disappear once he closed his eyes.

"Perfect, every bit of you," he breathed, ducking down to kiss your thighs. Aaron was certain he'd never want another human being again, not as long as you were alive. Every inch of you was spectacular to him, so much so that he was dizzy with lust—he found his gaze lingering on your core, glistening for him, just waiting for his touch. He sucked marks onto your skin, making you wiggle against the bed, letting out a breathless moan as he began to move upward towards your center.

Secretly, Aaron couldn't wait to corrupt you. Teaching you to touch him, and yourself eventually, sparking your curiosity for new things you could try together. He knew you'd get the hang of things easily, but that would come later. For now, he was focused on spreading your legs, getting you to open up for him.

"Relax, baby. I've got you, okay? If you need me to stop for anything, just tell me. I want to make sure there's nothing but pleasure for you," he lowered himself between your legs, the intoxicating smell of your arousal invading his nostrils and temporarily shutting down his senses. He let out a deep breath as he looked to you, laid out on the pillows, watching his every move. He was close enough to see your clit throbbing, your pussy clenching around nothing as he came closer. The heat of his mouth was enough to have you whimpering, your brain going white hot as his tongue dove eagerly into your center.

You hadn't expected it to feel so good. You had no doubt it would be amazing, but you'd vastly underestimated how much. You were a moaning mess, a few swipes of his tongue away from your first orgasm. Aaron knew you were close, and he was watching you carefully. He couldn't wait to see your face as you came, and then he had every intention of doing it again.

Your voice got caught in your throat, your legs shook even under the weight of Aaron's arms on top of them. The euphoria was overpowering, enough to leave you breathing heavily. You looked back at him, a satisfied smirk on his face; he'd stopped long enough to let you work through your orgasm and then he was back at it, lapping eagerly at your drenched pussy. He moaned into you, gripping your thighs possessively as his tongue swirled around inside of you, bringing you over the edge even quicker than the first time. This time, Aaron didn't stop to let you recover, he was sucking furiously at your clit as you rode out your high—you barely had time to bounce back before you were shaking again, a hum of satisfaction leaving Aaron's lips.

"You taste so good, baby. My sweet, innocent girl is making a mess all over my tongue," that was the last you heard from him for nearly half an hour— he stayed between your legs, giving you more than a handful of orgasms, clearly having the time of his life, so you didn't want to stop him. It felt too good, heavenly—he knew exactly what he was doing.

Aaron was so lost in the moment, starstruck every time he was able to make you cum. He was absolutely enthralled by you, obsessed with the way you tasted, wanting to stay between your legs for as long as he could. Your body shook as you came, and Aaron sighed to himself, so happy with the way things had been going so far.

"You're doing so good, sweetheart. I'm going to use my fingers too, is that okay?"

You nodded back at him, propping up on your elbows so you could watch. He was mesmerizing, and you couldn't peel your eyes away from him. His long, thick fingers teased your entrance, coating his digits with your arousal before he slowly slipped a finger inside of you. As soon as you got used to it, you wanted more, thrusting your hips upward as your orgasm rocked your body.

"More, Aaron, please," you panted, his eyebrow raised as he looked up at you.

"You're sure, baby? Tell me if it's too much," he carefully added another finger, staying perfectly still until your body was adjusted; once he realized you were okay, he began to pump in and out of you, his fingers hitting your sweet spot, driving you absolutely wild. Your chest heaved as he sped up slightly, his eyes trained on you to make sure it wasn't too much, that you were alright.

Aaron was still partially in disbelief that he was actually touching you—he'd almost came in his pants twice while going down on you, simply because you'd it so much. Aaron had planned to spend all night giving you the love you deserved, as long as you were okay with it. Now that he'd had a taste of you, he couldn't get enough.

"I want you, Aaron," you said finally, tired of waiting; you needed to feel him, experience what it was like to be touched by someone who loved you endlessly. Aaron gave you a nod, sitting up so he could finish undressing. Once he was completely naked, you wondered how he'd possibly fit inside of you—you hadn't expected him to be so big, but given his attitude, you weren't at all surprised.

"I'll go slow, be as gentle as I can. We can stop any time you need to," he reminded you, lining up with you as he took a deep breath. You tried to relax your body as best as you could, mentally preparing yourself to take him—you'd been slightly intimidated for a moment, but you knew he would take care of you, so that eased your worries tremendously. After what seemed like an eternity, he was cautiously pressing into you, easing into you inch by inch. There was a lot of pressure at first, but there was a lot of him to get used to. He stayed completely still, letting you take as much time as you needed; Aaron knew he wouldn't last long, not with the way you were squeezing him so tight.

Aaron let out a breath, looking at your body laid out just for him—he'd never felt so loved, never experienced anything like the sensation he was overcame with now. He saw his life with you, laid out like he was viewing a scrapbook. He saw a ring on your finger, and a house full of brown eyed children with your sweet smile. Aaron knew his future was with you, and you confirmed it every time you whimpered his name. It was melodious to him; he couldn't get enough of it, of you.

"You can keep going," you told him finally, and Aaron bit his lip harshly, nodding as he began to move. A soft smile rested on your face as his hips rolled into you, steady and precise. It wasn't long before he was leaning down, kissing you with every bit of love he had to give. He stayed close, propped up on his elbows as he took his time with you; you'd never seen a more patient, caring man, someone who would go out of their way to be so loving with you—you hoped he was around to stay. You wanted a life with him, to grow with him.

"How do you feel? Can you handle more?" He was hesitant to speed things up without your permission, but you nodded, kissing the corner of his mouth, bringing your hands to the back of his head to keep him near you.

“Feels so good. You can go faster,” you said, hushed and low, making Aaron kiss you hard on the mouth. You were doing so good, he was so happy things were going well; he’d been nervous that something would go wrong, but it had all been in his head. Now that you were here, everything was perfect.

He started to move faster, making him grit his teeth together as he buried himself deeper inside of you. You were experiencing something foreign—it was like love, but stronger. You’d never felt so connected to anyone, like your entire life had been leading up to Aaron and the happiness he could bring to you.

You were getting close, Aaron could tell by the way your breathing had changed; he took that as a signal that he could go a bit faster, and he was rewarded by you gripping the sheets, letting your eyes flutter shut as the buzz of pleasure took you over. Aaron was in love with the faces you made, how you looked so good when you came—he could hardly control his own orgasm, so he wasn’t surprised at all when he poured into you, groaning your name as his mouth connected with yours once more. His hand brushed your hair out of your face, his forehead pressed against yours as he eased out of you, his arms holding the majority of his weight as he positioned his body to cradle yours. His arms wrapped around you, pulling you closer to him.

“Tell me what you’re feeling. Are you okay?” You could hear the concern in his voice, but it nearly melted away when you leaned up to kiss him, your hands on his face. You couldn’t wipe the smile from your lips, your body buzzing with excitement, your adrenaline pumping.

“I feel great, Aaron. That was perfect—you’re perfect,” he blushed at your words, nuzzling closer to you than before; he was so warm, it was making your eyes heavy before you realized it.

“You’re the perfect one, sweetheart. This has been the best night of my life, I couldn’t ask for anything better,” he sighed, his eyes closing as he settled in on the pillow, kissing your forehead lightly as his breathing began to steady.

“I love you, Aaron. Thank you.”

He let out a breathless little laugh, snuggling closer to you than before, his body going still within seconds.

“I love you. You don’t ever have to thank me; I’m yours whenever you want.”

You were completely content. Aaron had made the night a memorable one, but you knew this was just the beginning. There was so much more in store for the two of you—and you couldn’t wait.

Master tags: @wheelsupkels @periodtcevans @hausofwhores @criminallyobsessedcm @tojithesourcerkiller @fireworksinthesky

#aaron hotchner #criminal minds #hotch #ssa aaron hotchner #ssa hotchner #aaron hotchner smut #hotchner #aaron hotchner x you #thomas gibson #aaron hotchner x reader #aaron hotchner x fem reader #aaron hotchner x fem!reader #hotch smut #aaron hotchner x reader smut #aaron hotchner x fem!reader smut

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morallyinept · 7 months

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Summary: Joel Miller comes back into your life unexpectedly after a gap of thirty years, and stirs up all kinds of memories and longing. Now, as you're stationed on an outpost for five days alone with the man you stupidly let go of all those years ago, you have a chance to confront him about your past life together and all the things you wished you’d said and done.

But Joel’s different now, and you know you need to tread carefully. Joel Miller is not the same man you once knew in another life.

A slow burn romance set in the post apocalyptic world, approx. twenty or so years after the initial Cordyceps outbreak.

Pairing: Post-Outbreak Joel Miller x MatureF!Reader (No name or physical description of reader. However reader is of a similar age range as Joel; in her late forties/early fifties. Joel is slightly older at 56.)

Chapter word count: 4.8k

Series Masterlist

☝🏻See Series Masterlist for full smut warnings & triggers in this story. Chapters that contain smut or triggers will be highlighted in the chapter notes below. 👇🏻

Chapter notes: You and Joel finally - finally! - get close and embrace your feelings. Detailed descriptions of smut.

☝🏻 I WILL NO LONGER BE ADDING NEW TAGS due to some of them not working as they should, despite me tagging, so please ensure you're following me and turn on notifs so you don't miss an update on this story.

Enjoy! 🖤

Previous Chapter

You wake, what feels like an eternity later, but has only been hours, with your head stuffed into the crook of Joel's swamping armpit; the material slightly damp there, from sweat or the possibility of your own saliva pooling in your cheek.

He's asleep, snuffling gently, and the shack is thrust into the pale blues of the night as it carries its silent eeriness with it.

You stir gently so as not to disturb him; your arm numb that’s been crushed under your weight, and stand feeling your legs come back to life.

You step over the wayward bullets scattered on the floor from your panic earlier, transported back to the steady thrum of your heart, mirroring Joel’s movements as you fired at the infected. Keen and unwavering, the world narrowed into single points of focus as you cleared the way for him.

In that moment of controlled chaos, the world reset. A formidable duo against the canvas of the wild, standing as a bulwark against the horrors screeching to get you. A new kinship forged through shared missions and unspoken trust that had never really dissipated, despite the passage of time passing between you.

You felt it then. And you were certain he did too.

The scent of gunpowder lingers on your top, your skin, merging with the organic perfume of the wilderness outside. Approaching the window, you peer out carefully and the valley is still and infected free, aside from the corpses that still litter it from the attack.

Joel’s flooding your line of sight again; shooting at them with a calm rhythm that sends you back into that moment when that unspoken tether between you both convinced you this was all too real.

Funny thing about staring death in the face...

The kiss, God the kiss. You can still taste it on your mouth. Feel Joel’s tongue slip inside and search you out, taste him.

A moment carved out in the brutal landscape of survival, where every ounce of tenderness is a precious commodity and he was feeding it to you, a succinct piece of himself that you'd craved and missed terribly.

The absence of him only amplified now that he's in your personal space.

So many years wasted. So much regret.

So much to say, but how do you even begin? How can you start to tell him that you’ve felt out of sync, incomplete, for over thirty years? It feels like standing on an emotional plateau, the expanse of your failings spread out below. Each step requires careful negotiation over that craggy peak; a perilous dance between intimacy and self-preservation.

You reach for some water, refreshing your mouth and cooling you in the summer heat that still clings to your clammy skin.

Throughout your life, you'd often play this encounter out in your mind with sweet lucidity; something to bring you comfort and cling onto as you shivered in the cold, or maybe some petulant delusion that refused to relinquish its hold from the ledge. Either way you couldn’t have predicted that it would actually birth into fruition through a tiresome and painful labour.

And now that Joel is so within your grasp, reaching out and clutching onto you with two tired, calloused hands, you can’t help but to speculate and ponder on how you can both navigate forward together in this wilderness called living now, despite your mind trying out the slay of convincing you that you shouldn’t question it; you shouldn’t look for holes to pick at and make wider, bloodier.

He’s here and that’s all that matters, right?

A sleepy grunt from Joel stirs your gaze to his direction on the cot, leaving your muddled thoughts to tumble at your feet; a warm mountain of a silhouette unmoved and lost somewhere inside a dream as he clings to the fading remnants of it.

You smile recalling the sincerity of his words. The fact that he still feels it between you both; he never forgot, like you didn’t. You feel it finally warm the cold channels of your veins.

Time is fleeting, a verklempt commodity carrying nostalgia in its blood. Moving at speeds hard to comprehend, and a whole lifetime has almost passed by you both. You wonder how it could be that you’ve got so lucky to have a second chance, when most people in this world hadn’t begun to embrace their first. Their chances were gone, stripped from them and buried in the ground littered with bones.

It only makes you feel some swill of remorse; some ebb of guilt rises up out of the weeds with a small, fluffy head. You shake your head physically as the shadows of doubt recess back into the depths of your cranium.

Too much time has been wasted and you’re determined not to waste anymore. Not now, not when at any moment Joel could be lost to you again through this world digging its feral claws in and ripping him from your clutch.

The heat beads on the back of your neck, a stickiness all over that you feel, more prominently between your legs as it registers.

He’s here and you want him, more than you’ve ever wanted anything.

You swallow the water down, failing to extinguish the burning; the sparks flaring inside your chest full of hunger and need. You make your way back over to him, climbing back on the cot beside him.

His arms gravitate to you instinctively as he wakes.

He smiles in some lazy contentment as you feel warm in his grip.

“What time is it?” Joel murmurs out groggily into the blue fade, a heavy exhale from his nostrils warms your face.

“Late, probably.” You caress your fingers through his hair.

He hums out softly with the smile spreading wider on his lips. He’s so beautiful, even more so in this life now. You examine his aging face in the dying, inky light and take note of all the lines and wrinkles that have set up shop around his eyes and forehead.

He blinks the sleep away, setting his focus on you from curious brown orbs that appear like black glass in the encroaching dark.

“How’s the back?” You query gently. His hand, weathered by life’s challenges, finds a home over yours as you weave through his silvery flecked locks.

“A bit better now.” He says as you peer into him. You're certain he can feel your heart, hear it even, as you rest against the bulky frame of him. “Did ya sleep?” He queries trying to stifle a yawn.

“Mm.” You nod gently.

“Should probably move,” he goes to shift, but you stop him with a gentle palm to his chest, and he eyes you softly; his digits find yours, squeezing gently, when they start wandering over his sternum over the bobbling flannel.

“Don’t you dare.” You shake your head, eyes getting lost and tangled in his own.

A charged stillness hangs between you until you press your lips to his gently, and he doesn’t resist. Melting into you, with a sigh of relief, as his other hand sweeps up your back and clutches you tightly to him.

Joel moans into your mouth, filling you with helium and making you float slowly into the ether. Your head is dizzy, your stomach simmers as his tongue sweeps around yours tasting all your colours.

Joel kisses you as though he's chronically starved of affection as well as nourishment, hungry. He could gorge on you forever, filling himself up on you as his moans and clicks of his mouth confirm these promises to you.

Your heart quickens, you’re convinced you can taste it in your throat, standing on the threshold of a reunion that’s been three decades in the making. Time and the relentless hardships of survival have etched their marks on your faces, your bodies, but beneath the surface, the familiarity of your shared history lingers, burning brighter between you.

The touch, once so familiar, sparks a resonance that reverberates through the years, rekindling the flame that had never truly extinguished between you. It’s very much alive in the way he holds you close, how he gasps into your mouth.

How you know he wants this; wants you just as much.

You shift, straddling over him and then you feel him; excited and wanting as he grows hard between your thighs. Joel growls and delicately pinches your bottom lip between his teeth as you rub yourself against him, the delicious friction winding you up tighter.

“Ya still want me?” He puffs letting your lip go. It’s more a desperate, resounding plea than an actual question. A slight tone of weariness, caution - a faint ebb of fear - laces his voice.

“Always,” you gasp and he grunts. "Always, Joel."

He pulls back, watching you in the shadows and how your eyes find him and pull him under your hypnotic spell. He could never resist you; even with a shot to fuck back and the length of time that has separated you, he’ll find a way to be inside you again. To be at one with you.

To make you come undone and feed him all the pieces of you he’s missed out on for so fucking long - he decides instantly the pain later will be worth it.

“Haven’t even touched ya yet, but ya heart is racin’.” Joel breathes against your face in a coarse whisper.

“How do you know that?” You pant, a catch in your breath.

“‘Cause mine is.” He takes your hand, flattens it to his chest and you feel that thrumming metronome like he said.

“Joel,” you groan. "I want you."

You take his mouth again, smiling. It’s pure fucking bliss; the swirling, sucking and licking of that darned tongue, reminding you of all the ways he knows how to use it. His languorous kiss makes every nerve tingle, every heated shudder birth within your bones, sending you towards the edge already.

His hands, albeit shaky, begin to map the old routes of your body he once knew so well. Trailing all the contours of you, running up your back, down to your hips, squeezing along your ass and thighs. Rising up over the mounds of your breasts where he caresses and squeezes gently as he swallows your pants and gasps as he reminds you of his protective grip.

Your fingers fumble with his shirt buttons, he sits upright with a slight wince as his back cracks, shaking free of the offending item, eager to have you touch him.

You plant kisses over his broad, bruised shoulders, running your hands down the sculpted muscle of his tan arms. His chest is littered with a few moles; whitened scars that you run your fingers over and long to hear the stories of their origin, even if they're painful for him to revisit. You want to know it all.

You scratch your fingers in the soft greying hairs on his chest, tracing patterns in the freckles dotted over him like constellations.

Joel’s hands relinquish you of your top kissing over your skin, and finally your bra, and rather than hide from him, you reveal yourself in your aged flesh and graces.

Breasts that aren't as perky as they once were, skin mottled with your own scars and blemishes. He can see the echoes of the young, wily woman he once knew in the lines of your face, and as he looks upon you now, he relishes the resilience, the tenacity.

The way you can still take his breath away as you hear it dislodge in his throat.

“Ya beautiful,” he husks. And you believe it.

His mouth latches onto your nipple, sucking it into that warm, wet orifice and making you whine as he flicks his tongue against it.

“Mmm,” you breathe out as the hardened nub tingles inside his mouth. You feel it rush over your body, toying with your core as he kisses and licks.

He pushes his hips upwards and you feel him rut against your centre as he gets comfortable on the cot squeaking beneath you both.

You groan out and reach down; your hand sliding down his wide chest and over the swell of his tummy paunch, travelling between you both to feel him out over his jeans.

He audibly grunts as you reach him, squeezing and rubbing gently over him, and your nipple slips out of his mouth.

“Can’t guarantee I’ll last. S’been too long.” He blushes as you palm against him.

You shush him with your fingertips to his mouth, he kisses them gently as they traverse his lips. “It doesn't matter. I just want you, Joel."

“Ya want me, darlin’?” He asks again, heavy gravel plinking out his mouth like gold nuggets.

“I want you inside me,” you whine with so much need strangling your voice that it could be pathetic. But neither of you care right now.

"Always loved bein' inside ya."

He unbuckles his belt as you rid yourself of your jeans and panties, and are back in his lap wholly naked and bare.

His fingers find your bubbly seam, probing at the sticky folds there and he groans out. A delicate exploration, one that tantalises and teases, as he brushes up to your swollen clit and presses against it, watching you react and buck in his lap.

You watch as he tastes his fingers, sucking them clean of your slick and eyeing you as he does so. You instantly melt, your body fizzing.

You pull him into a kiss, tasting yourself on his lips as two of his thick fingers slide up into your pussy; your thighs are seated over his and open for him to whelve.

He sucks on your bottom lip as he slips them in and out, gently curling them against your spot that he finds so easily; muscle memory of your wet cunt that he never forgot.

Once he finds it again, he’s merciless in your undoing.

“So fuckin’ wet for me, darlin’.” He purrs; he’s your complete annihilation as he furrows and strokes deeper pulling those noises out of you he never forgot the sheet music too. "Goddamn..."

“Joel,” you murmur into his mouth feeling him pull you closer to the edge as he fucks you slowly with his thick digits. A fusion of rediscovery and the familiarity of long-lost passion that you don’t ever want to end.

"Aw God… such a beautiful cunt ya've got. Fuck, I missed this." He sighs as he listens to your mewls, your breaths.

The filth from his mouth makes you blind, eyes glazing over as your irises and pupils sink into the whites. Your insides clench around his fingers furrowing deeper in rapture.

"Joel, you feel so good. Oh my God..."

"Just wanna make ya feel good too, darlin'."

“Please, don’t stop.”

"M'never gonna stop."

You reach down and feel the weight of him in your palm, leaking into it as you massage up and down. He hisses and groans, his face running against yours and scratching at your cheeks with his soft scruff as you familiarise yourself with his cock that’s so hard and heavy.

You can feel it throb around your fingers as you work him up; pulsing, he’s a quivering bundle of muscles shaking against your body. Re-discovering all the delicious things that make him whimper, pant and shake like he’s terrified.

“Fuck,” he whines. He remembers this, remembers your touch. Revels in it and craves more as he shudders for breath. His energy, his vibrations getting tangled up in you as you pump him slowly.

“Mmm, Joel,” you pant as he feels you tense around him. Your pussy squeezing as your own grip around his dick falters a little. You can feel it deep in your belly, blooming and buzzing through all your nerve endings; that heat starting to engulf you.

He recognises it; that sweet moment when you tense up fully right before you become boneless flesh in his arms. He’s missed this so fucking much; the feel of your pussy so wet and dripping for him. The way your body shakes like a constant earthquake clacking against his ribs. The tingles on his skin as you moan and pant for him.

The rush he gets when you tell him you’re about to come for him.

“Come for me, darlin’,” he coaxes. “Been so long, let me have it.”

And you do, clenching around his fingers as you soak them; your orgasm peaks through you and makes your thighs shudder.

It’s glorious, fuck it’s like staring into the sun and seeing it for days after when you shut your eyes, burned into the back of your eyelids.

“Fuck!” You caterwaul.

Your body unkinks itself from being coiled up for so, so long. Your eyes water, a silly thing you are, as you feel it bloom and flower; the scents fill your nose with recognition, with remembrance as your orgasm greets you with wide, open arms.

Hello, old friend. I’ve missed you.

His hand grasps yours with an urgency that betrays the years of separation. His touch is electric, sending shivers down your spine. Your palms pressed together, fingers interlocking, squeezing as you come.

“Joel, I need you,” you sigh, begging into his shoulder trying not to drool over it. An unrelenting schism of his name uttered from your lips as you rattle and shake around him. “Please, please…”

And you begging him is his complete undoing.

The head of his cock is swollen and poking excitedly through the uncut skin. He runs his thumb over the gooey bulb; massaging the sticky secretions of glossy precum into it, making his hips buck weakly as he lines it up with your sopping slit.

You feel him, right there on the cusp.

A few pounding beats of realisation that you’re finally both here. Hearing your mutual breathing all around you, echoing like it’s been slowed down and turned up full blast; that laboured hmm-haa as you’re finally connected when he pushes in.

That lingering pause between you both where nothing exists around you anymore. It's just you and him.

The world can burn outside, the horrors and the creatures within can devour it - it doesn't matter. You’re here, he’s here with you.

He’s inside you.

He’s all you need to breathe as you pry your useless lungs from your chest and toss them aside like silk ribbons flying in the wind.

“Ah fuck.” Joel whines out as you sink down fully on him, feeling him stretch you out again after a long hiatus.

He groans out, that choked gasp in your ear as he enters you, flooding down your spine. The cords in his neck tensing; that deep, guttural sound when a man finds his pleasure reverberating out down the valley outside.

He always grunted when he slid inside you. That familiar whine of him escaping him a short, gruff burst sending your skin alight. Every hair on your body responds to him as he claims you again after a thirty year or so hiatus.

Your lips, once a mystery he thought he'd forgotten, are now an irresistible temptation as he kisses you again, deep and with an intensity that burns you up. Savouring it, relishing the feel of it after so long.

You realise he’s not simply fucking you, he’s making love to you.

Tiny pricks of pain are felt deep in your core as he slowly bottoms out and your cunt remembers the shape of him as he fills you fully.

“Ya pussy was made for me to fill it, darlin’. Still so fuckin’ tight.” He groans.

You coo, gripping him as he squeezes at your hips greedily. That single sheath of him into you takes your breath away, and for a moment it’s like you can’t breathe.

All oxygen is stripped from you and floating in a void of nothing where it’s only Joel; the feel of him inside you again at long last and the way he’s staring back at you as though he can’t believe that it’s just happened himself makes your eyes water again.

“Ya feel so fuckin’ good. Mmph… just like I ‘member.” He pants through delicate, desperate pecks at your face.

It’s a collision of pent-up desire, a reckoning of the years you’ve spent apart. The taste of familiarity mingled with the urgency of the present, creating a heady cocktail that intoxicates you both.

“I remember you too, Joel.” You nuzzle into him, clinging onto his broad shoulders. “God, your cock is still so huge.” You gasp with a bewildered giggle. It’s perfectly unbearable as you grind slowly on it.

“Yeah?” He smirks. “So big it’ll rip ya open, huh? Ain’t that what ya used to say?” He teases.

A small, juddery chuckle escapes you and he feels you clamp round his cock as you do. Joel shunts his hips upward once and it hits you, all the way deep in the furthest reaches of your cervix and you cry out.

"Like that, remember?" He croons.

"F-fuck, yes!"

He does it again and you claw at his skin desperately with your nails.

"Joel!"

He does it again. And again, until he settles into a heady rhythm as he fills you with each thrust, your clit grinding against his pubic bone deliciously.

You’re mewling, clutching onto him as you remember his body connected to yours like this and experience it again all over for the first time.

Your hips meet his every snap with a wet mash as you take him in. He packs you out, rubbing against the right spots and you start to see chrome stars gathering under your eyelids again.

“Joel,” you mewl as the tension starts stiffening your vertebrae straight and spreads into your pelvis, locking up around him. Your walls flutter and squeeze and he groans the most delicious sound in your ear.

Every touch, every caress, carries the weight of history - a brutal history that begs to be rewritten. The grittiness of your pasts fuel the fire, and the room becomes a battleground of desire and the utmost acquiescence.

“Mmm, don’t stop,” you plead as he smothers you wholly. Your head feels like it no longer belongs on your neck, your eyes are rolling back as though you're possessed.

Your body snaps back, letting go. You shake; your cunt clenching, soaking. Surrendering wholly to him.

“That’s m’girl," he pants. "That’s m’fuckin' girl!” Joel praises as you flood his throbbing cock.

All gentle masculinity gone as he grabs you tightly, shunting your hips against him; leaving bruises in your skin to bloom into violet flowers as he fucks you through your peak.

You cry out, constricting around him. Feeling it ripple all over your body; punching glitter out of your back in colourful, metallic bursts. You throw your head back taking in a deep, heavy hit of oxygen, but there is none when you’re this far thrown up into the universe.

The feel of his hot breath against your neck and the slither of his wet tongue leave aftershocks flooding through you. His arms crush you closer as he continues to wind and flex.

You look at him when you resurrect from the dead, and he smiles crookedly through those pink lips you need to taste again. He’s not lost it, that ability to leave you absolutely wrecked as though high on some wondrous drug.

And like an addict, you’ll always crave him.

You kiss him deeply and he completely surrenders too.

“M’gonna come,” Joel husks, sweat from his forehead sticking to your face. You want it; you taste it on your lips and lick the salt of it up.

“Come inside me,” you mewl.

“Ya sure?” He queries with weak, desperate trepidation.

You nod. “Fill me up, Joel. It's okay." You assure.

Little breaths of "fuckfuckfuck" puff out of him on a ragged whisper as he feels your pussy milking him until he’s coming deep inside of you; spraying you down with that thick pearly warmth.

His body jolts and his grip tightens further into your hip skin as he releases. Feeling your pussy pulse and rib around him from the sensitivity; those fluttering twitches against his shaft squeeze him further into an utter brain dead mess.

“Aaw fuck.” He whines gently.

You kiss all over his sweaty face until his lips latch onto yours and he groans contentedly into your wet cheek flesh.

You both rock to a slow gradual halt; staying sheathed on him until your centre becomes a faintly ebbing contraction of muscle that eventually stills and leaks him out down his balls.

Joel’s voice is a gravelly whisper finding you in the violet hues of the dark and being strangled.

“Ya kill me, darlin’.”

You stroke through his curls, untamed and damp at the back of his neck. His arms hold you close, pressing you to his chest as he plants kisses along your collarbone.

You pull his head up and look at his face, into his sleepy, dreamy eyes. His beard isn't full, in fact it reminds you of a teenager trying to grow one and being left with patchy fluff. It's greying slightly in some places, towards his ears and chin as you run your fingernails through it scritching gently. But the moustache is thick, despite being short enough to see and taste his pink chapped lips.

So you do; a deep kiss that melds your skin and binds you to his. He kisses back deeply and then plants an amuse-bouche of little tender kisses over your lips and chin to seed and grow.

“I… love you, Joel,” you say as you pull away from him.

You can’t help it, you always have. It just flows naturally, feels right.

And the lesson here is not to let things fester. Seize the moment in this crazy, horrific world. Too long have you spent feeling incredibly bereft of hope. A complete immolation of you as you fight and bolster, endure and survive.

This can't be all there is left in this world. There has to be more. And you found it, you finally fucking found it.

Kelper was right, he was right to bring you back, he was right to breathe life back into you. He knew, that bastard just knew. You smile, thinking of his face when he'll say he told you so.

Joel nudges his forehead to yours and breathes out in sweet relief. “I never stopped lovin’ ya.” He replies. “Not really.”

You sniff trying to stop the tears, but they fall onto his thumbs as he holds your face close to his. He can taste them on his lips, drinks them down as you let them go, free falling to their death as they take some of the grief and suffering with them, lightening the load.

It shifts. You don't know how or why or when. Just dwelling in his energy now, rather than the lines around his eyes.

They're still beautiful, Joel's looks have only gotten better with age, you’ve deduced, but it's not the thing that’ll steal your breath now. No, it's the subtleties. The way he glows inwardly when you catch a rare smile he throws you in the shack. The safety you feel in the weight of his arms right now that stops the worry and angst of his absence for decades almost immediately. It's in the words he doesn't say, because he doesn't have to say them.

And sometimes he can’t, and that will be alright.

You realise that Joel now in this world, is the man you've always wondered what it could be like to be loved by. Joel back then wasn't ready. Wasn't mature enough. He hadn't had everything stripped from him so he could appreciate the small things, the finer details. That comfort in silence, that warmth of a body that just wants to be next to him because they simply enjoy his bruised weight crushed against them.

And as you rest contended against him, slowly allowing yourself to shed some of those crusted layers of pain in salt water tracks, Joel does the same as he contemplates this too.

As he allows himself a moment to see in the opaque fog as it starts to shift and thin out.

He knows he loves you; that he loved you back then, and loves you now.

Love is no longer some massively unattainable thing that needs to be filled with capitalist sentiment to be brought. Love, to Joel, is in the small things unnoticeable by others.

In a world when you have nothing, sometimes forgoing even the basics, like food; love is the thing that will be savoured when it’s found, taken care of. Not tossed around so foolishly or frivolously like before.

Love is to be planted, grown and watered; tended to every day. It's leaves smoothed and rubbed gently between a finger and thumb. Pruned and clipped so it can bloom into something beautiful that he can dare to enjoy in this rotten world that has already taken so much from him.

And he refuses to lose anything else - he can’t. He's just one fucking man, he can't.

“S'never gonna be enough,” he murmurs a little while later as you’re laying in his arms on the cot.

Both naked and he’s running his hand down the length of your spine leaving goose pimples. “But I got as much love in me to give as ya fuckin’ need.” His voice is in the roots of your hair. "I dunno if it’s gonna be easy, if I��m gonna be easy at times… But m'gonna try. I want to."

You smile with wet eyes, and place a kiss just below his nipple. “You’ll always be more than enough, Joel.” You lift your head to find him in the dark. “You’re everything.”

Joel’s arms cradle you so tightly that he could snap your bones.

“M’not goin’ anywhere, darlin’. It’s you n’ me now, okay?”

To be continued...

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Thank you for taking the time to read my story; it really means so much to me. I'd love to know your thoughts, and I'd really appreciate a re-blog so others can enjoy this story too. Thank you so much 🖤

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Tagging everyone who asked to be tagged & who re-blogged my teaser.

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manicpixiefelix · 3 months

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they stare at me (and i stare at you) {18+}

Felix Catton/CEO!Reader

AU of head, heart, hand. but you don't need to have read that to enjoy this.

Summary: In another life, ten-year-old Felix decides against straying from his parents at that function he was dragged along to on a boat, decides against taking a chance and befriending you there, and it changes everything.

Growing up in the shadow of your more than reluctant parents and desperate for affection, you look to find some common ground with them by investing yourself in the family business. Except as it turns out, your father, who'd been made CEO after your grandfather had passed, was more of a figurehead than a real businessman. He's happy to pass on responsibilities to you as time goes on as your growing interest and understanding of the company quickly surpassed his own. At fourteen you're attending board meetings in his place, at sixteen, you're running them, and at nineteen you're essentially acting CEO, about to start your first year at Oxford, if only to bolster your credentials, and yet it's still been years since your parents had been active participants in your life.

The unconventional environment in which you'd spent your teen years shaped you dramatically and violently into the kind of person who could command attention and respect from anyone or any room. There was no room in your life for being underestimated in any circumstance, not with so many people looking to undermine you, to tear you down, so you would never allow yourself to give them the chance. Work hard, party harder; for years you'd forced yourself to keep up with those around you despite your youth, and now it seemed to be second nature.

To the people who knew you professionally, you were a shark; beautiful, efficient, deadly. To the friends you find yourself making at Oxford, the people who can't even fathom the full extent of your world or what you're capable of because of it, they regard you like you're The Sun.

Except, of course, to the boy with a title and a castle and a lifetime of feeling like a display piece for his parents. The only other person who others offer in loving comparison to The Sun in his own right. Felix Catton knows a shark when he sees one, and hates feeling like the only one who does. Even his cousin- even his fucking sister turn out to be the type to be blinded by your light. You are objectively, unmistakably dazzling, and he's starting to really hate you for it.

Everyone around you tells him you're impossible not to love, but they say the same thing about him too. Maybe that's why, despite his best efforts, he still find himself drawn to you, pulled into your gravity, or perhaps you're pulled into his.

Binary stars, destined to crash into each other in one way or another; a supernova, a cataclysmic disaster, he's sure. However this ends, it will be beautiful and terrible, Felix thinks, just like you.

Need to Know: They/Them. Explicitly Non-Binary Reader. Enemies-With-Benefits, Enemies-to-Friends-to-Lovers.

Warnings: SMUT (AFAB!reader), psychosexual (and regular sexual) mind games, reader has sometimes dubious morals, recreational drug use, drinking, smoking, business discussions despite the writer being a theatre&literature major, questionable business ethics, discussions about transphobia in the workplace, discussions regarding reader's parental neglect, awful communication skills all around, Eddie's there.

Felix watches you on the dancefloor, watches the way you move along with the other bodies as they writhed around you, hands all over you. Like moths to a flame, they're drawn to you, looking at you like they're desperate for you to just meet their gaze. He sees the way you shift as your attention does, the subtle way you change yourself for each person you focus on. Soft or bold or teasing or pandering; you seemed to be able to figure out what exactly will entice whoever it is that is lucky enough to receive your attention on any given night.

Which perhaps is part of the reason Felix feels slighted by you; it's like you go out of your way to antagonise him instead. Its not that he's jealous, it's just that he's pretty sure you're doing it on purpose.

[ In Progress ]

you kept your gaze controlled

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If you are already on the taglist for head, heart, hand. you will be automatically tagged in this. If you've found this fic and are only interested in being tagged in it and not the main fic, please feel free to message or comment letting me know!

#felix catton imagine #felix catton x reader #saltburn x reader #saltburn imagine #felix catton x y/n #felix saltburn #manic writer #saltburn fanfiction #jacob elordi x reader #jacob elordi imagine #felix catton x you #felix catton smut

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restinslices · 12 days

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I really liked your post for LKBS parents. Can I request more HC about them as parents?My main idea was what they would be like with a girl or boy who tends to behave quite badly, but you can do it however you want if you decide to answer this :3Thanks in advance. Your blog is very entertaining :D

Here you go bookie. Also I broke a thumb nail and my typing is so off now😔

May the Elder Gods give him strength-

Bi-Han has such low patience and a kid that acts bad would drive him insane

Especially if this child is the first born and therefore has to be the next Grandmaster? Oh boy

Imma be real with y'all, I can see him whooping his kids-

Y'all know how people debate on whether or not whooping your kids is okay? I think he's on the pro whooping side. Not ABUSE tho. There's a line there

“give me my belt” type shit. Very much a black mother-

If his kid wanna act up, then he's making life terrible

He's pulling all the stops. They ass ain't going NOWHERE.

Oh they wanna sneak out? Aight. He's boarding up the window. He's boarding up the front door. He might even take their own door off

Play stupid games, win stupid prizes

He's already a strict dad, so acting out will really get him heated

Kids are assholes but I think there's a difference between regular kid shit and making life way more difficult than it has to be

The type of parent to make his child sit next to him for the whole day. He's not playing with them

He's escorting them to school and escorting them back home

They legit have no freedom until they're over this phase

And cursing at him? Absolutely not.

This man does not argue with children at all. The going back and forth shit ain't happening. If you wanna act like a toddler that needs to be watched, then he'll treat you as such

“I don't wanna be out here anymore” the teenager next to him sulked with their arms crossed and their mouth in a deep frown. Wrinkles spread from their frown and their pulled down eyebrows. How they hadn't gotten a headache yet, he was unsure of.

Bi-Han ignored them, so they repeated themselves louder. “I don't wanna be out here anymore! Did you hear me?!”.

Bi-Han didn't spare a glance at them. He turned a page in his book and said in a dangerously calm voice, “control your emotions before I let mine loose. What you want is irrelevant now. If you don't want to sit, then stand”. The teenager huffed and slouched more in the seat.

“Is there something you'd like to say?” he said in response to them mumbling something under their breath. They knew better than to repeat themselves, and stayed silent.

Not dealing with that shit at all

Do I think he has more patience than Bi-Han? Yes

Does that mean he'll deal with disrespect? Absolutely not

It's not even the rebellious acts that bother him. He knows teens will be teens. It's the disrespecting him that pisses him off

He's also not going back and forth with nobody

Arguing isn't happening. At some point he's just finna start handing out groundings

Since they have so much energy when they're doing all that extra shit, he has them train more

Keeps them incredibly busy so they're too tired to do anything stupid

Not entirely foolproof but it works 99% of the time

Has no problem taking away their door if they're always up to bullshit

Lowkey I can see any of them pulling up to the school if his kid is acting up there too

Will forbid them from seeing any of their bad acting friends

He cannot wait until this phase is over. He is EXHAUSTED

The teenager collided with the hard ground under them and winced. Their breath was knocked out their lungs and they glared at the older man that knocked their feet from under them.

“Again” Kuai Liang said sternly and stepped back. The teenager stayed on the ground and crossed their arms over their chest in defiance.

“So I can get knocked down again? No thanks! And you can't make me!”. Kuai Liang rolled his eyes. He put his hands on his hips and looked down at the teenager, that acted more like a toddler with each passing day.

“You're right. I can't. Well if you won't do this, then I won't give you any of your privileges back-”

“Wait-!”

“No no” the older man walked towards their house with the teenager quickly jumping to their feet to catch up with him. “You can tell me all about what I can't make you do over dinner”

Exhausted

He just wants to live life without hearing bullshit in his ears

Tries to figure out what the problem is but when he finds out they're just being a brat to be a brat, he's at a loss for words

He assumes that maybe he said or did something and the acting out was a result of that

He didn't know they're just in an asshole phase

He has hope that this phase will end soon, so he doesn't react immediately

Once the week is up he's like “they're still going? Damn. Now I gotta be strict”

In one of the dialogues he said his mom was no nonsense and tough as nails so I can see him trying to embody her spirit and do what she would do

It probably surprised his kid that he starts actually being strict with them and raising his voice

He's the most chill parent out the 3 so the strictness is a switch up they weren't expecting

Groundings getting handed out like coupons

They're losing any privileges they have

He doesn't enjoy making life miserable for them but he can't NOT parent them

Hoping the phase ends soon

“What?!” The teen exclaimed. “You can't ground me!”.

“Why not?”. The teen had no answer. They just stammered nonsensical sentences that Tomas didn't care to hear. He kept trying to be patient with them, but everyone has a limit, and he had reached his.

“I keep trying to hear you out but you don't wanna talk-”

“We can talk now!”

“You're right! We can talk after you hand over all your electronics and anything else you've been hiding in your room! Now!”.

By the end of the day Tomas cleared their room of anything that resembled fun. Needless to say, his kid was far from pleased. It was fine though. They'd look back on this time soon enough and be embarrassed by their actions.

Or so he hoped.

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foreludes · 6 months

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Blood on the Side of the Mountain

pairing: young!coriolanus x reader

summary: coriolanus snow, a man known for his charm, his wit, and his passion for power, meets a talented artist in the capitol. she spends most of her days painting portraits for prominent figures and finds herself painting one for none other than coriolanus snow himself. through all the ups and downs, will coriolanus and the artist be able to defy all odds? or is this so-called love merely another version of control and a means to a devastating ending?

word count: 1,806

chapter 1: blood on the side of the mountain

Elitism has always been a terrible thing, but it pays well. At least that's what you told yourself whenever you got hired to paint portraits for the most prominent figures in Panem. It wasn't always easy living in the Capitol, especially when your wages depended on your customers. If someone didn't like your painting, they simply didn't pay. And that's how it had been for years. You painted, people looked at it and then decided if it was good enough. It was an endless cycle of not knowing whether you'd be able to afford rent that week. But, it was better than living in the districts.

It was an early morning when you received a phone call from an unknown individual. At first, it sounded like a prank and you almost hung up. "President Snow is requesting that you paint his portrait," the monotone voice said at the other end of the line. Your heart stopped. President Snow? The most powerful and prominent figure in Panem? You were definitely going to be able to afford rent for a while. "Um y-yeah, I could do that," you stuttered as you shuffled around your small and stuffy apartment for a pen and a piece of paper. "When?" You asked as you finally found what you needed. "Do you have time for this afternoon?" Shit, you thought to yourself. You had other clients, people that needed you. But this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to make some real money, one that you couldn't deny. "Yes, I'll be there." The person at the other end of the line swiftly hung up after giving you details about a specific time, what President Snow wanted for his portrait, and where to enter the President's mansion. You couldn't believe this was real.

Now don't get me wrong, you weren't the biggest fan of President Snow. He had a reputation, one that said he was cunning, cold, and hungry for power. You believed that he cared about the people in the Capitol, but you knew that care didn't go past the boundaries of District One and beyond. At least that's what you were told. One of your friends had been in the academy with him. She had said he was determined and motivated, but heartless behind the eyes. He would do anything to get what he wants.

You gathered your paints, making sure the edges of the pans were clean. You turned to your left and looked at the mess of brushes that were splattered all over your floor. You hastily picked them up, washing them off in a small bowl of water that was sitting on your desk. You didn't usually pay much mind to what your paint set and brushes looked like, but this was the President, someone you wanted to impress.

Rescheduling your afternoon appointments was rough. You figured people were going to be upset. But this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. You had now gathered all your belongings in a medium-sized burlap bag. You had plenty of extra canvas left over that would suit the portrait President Snow was asking for, so you picked one out and began your trip out of your apartment. You closed the door and struggled to lock it behind you. You didn't have the nicest apartment in Capitol, that's for sure. But it was enough. You couldn't really complain either, this was the life of an artist, this was the life you had always wanted.

The President's Mansion was one of the most elegant places you had ever seen. The yard was well maintained, as you expected, but it was like nothing you'd ever seen before. You followed the instructions that you had written down on the notepad that was given to you on the phone and walked towards the entrance. A staff member was waiting at the door for you, it seemed like everyone was always at the right place at the right time. You smiled anxiously and said, "I'm here to paint President Snow's portrait." Fuck, I probably sounded so stupid when I said that. Of course, they know I'm here to do that you thought to yourself as you looked down at the canvas that was shoved between the crease in your arm. "Yes, we've been expecting you," the staff member retorted as she opened the door revealing the inner workings of the magnificent mansion. You stepped inside, feeling out of place. You had been in some nice places before because your job took you there, but nothing like this.

The staff member led you to a room further down the hallway in the mansion. The hallways were dimly lit with tasteful light fixtures, ones that you probably would've picked out yourself if you had a place like this. The woman opened the door and stepped aside, allowing you to enter the room first. "You can set up over there," she said as she gestured towards a chair at the far end of the room. You nodded and began to walk towards the chair that had been set up for you. "President Snow will be in shortly." The door closed loudly, causing you to jump a little bit. You were on edge, this whole experience was nerve-racking. What was President Snow really like? Was he like everyone said he was? Was he going to intimidate you? You placed your bag on the ground, pulled your foldable easel out, and placed it in front of the chair. You began to set everything up.

It had been about ten minutes since the woman who had let you into the mansion had left the room. You were too nervous to sit down, yet too nervous to pace. So you just stood there, waiting for something to happen. About five minutes later, the door opened. A man, a little over six feet tall, with platinum hair entered the room. His eyes, even from across the room were pools of blue that you had probably only seen one other time in your entire life. He walked with confidence, the confidence of a man who had power. You knew this to be, President Snow.

"Are you going to shake my hand?" You hadn't realized you had just been standing there the entire time, staring. The deep voice caused you to refocus as you looked up at the man you had been admiring just moments before. It was hard not to admire such an esteemed individual, especially an attractive one. "Oh yes, my apologies," you said as you reached out your hand it meet his. His. handshake was firm, his hands were soft and warm. "My apologies President Snow," you said once again as your hand left his. "Call me Coriolanus, y/n," he said as he walked across the room to sit down on the couch that was perfectly placed in front of your easel. Coriolanus, you thought to yourself, the name fits perfectly. And he knew your name too, of course he did. He hired you.

You had been painting for some time now and the sun was beginning to set, meaning that the light you had been using for your portrait was no longer pouring in through the windows like it had been before. Pres- Coriolanus had been silent the entire time you had been painting. It was intimidating. He sat still, only blinked when he had to, and never moved a muscle. He was the perfect person to paint. Most people you painted complained about having to stay in one spot for so long, but Coriolanus never did. It seemed like he might be someone who appreciated the arts and knew that in order for you to finish, there couldn't be any obstacles. The last bit of light left the room until all that was left was the light from the light fixtures you had admired before.

"Okay," you said as you dipped your paintbrush into the water bowl you had brought. "We'll have to continue tomorrow when the natural light is back." Coriolanus nodded his head and stretched out his arms. The fabric of his button-down tightened around his muscles as he did so, allowing you to see the curvature of his figure. You stood up and turned around and began to put away your paints when you felt a hand on the small of your back. Your entire body froze at this moment, a shiver running up your spine. "The painting," he said slowly as he looked at the canvas, "it's good." You let out a sigh of relief as his hand removed itself from your back. "It's not finished yet," you said as you stood up to look at the man who was inflicting you with so many emotions. You really never allowed people to see your work before it was done, but who were you to deny the President of Panem that right? "I'll be pleased to see it when it's done," he responded as he began to walk towards the door. "I'll have my staff walk you to the door and I'll see you in the morning." And with that, he exited the room, leaving you with so many thoughts.

After leaving the mansion, you could finally breathe again. It was as though you hadn't breathed the entire time you were painting. This feeling made you exhausted, it made you feel all kinds of things. A part of you was excited to go back in the morning, to analyze the almost mysterious man that was the President.

In the morning, you made your way back to the mansion. It was the same routine as before, but this time with a different staff member. You sat down this time to wait for Coriolanus to come into the room. And when he did, you stood up to greet him. The morning sun cast a beautiful shadow of curly blonde hair across his forehead, his tired eyes meeting yours as he sat down on the couch after the greeting. "There's something about you," he finally said as you began to lay your paints out in front of you. "How do you mean?" You asked raising your eyebrow slightly. "You're quiet, you hold yourself with care, I like that," he responded. You felt a warmness enter your body, a sense of validation. He had complimented you. "Thank you," you said as you sat down on the same chair you had sat in for hours the day before.

After a couple of hours, you were nearly done with the painting. A twinge of sadness entered your body. You liked the time you spent at the mansion. It was more peaceful than your apartment, it felt distinguished, and you liked that. "Would you accompany me to lunch?" Coriolanus suddenly asked as you prepared yourself to take a short break from painting.

Now why would the President ever ask you to lunch?

Hi! This is the first thing I've written in a long time but I was just feeling inspired by the new movie. I'd like to continue this series and make longer chapters, but I wanted to see if anyone was interested in the plot. If so, I'll write a much longer chapter 2. I feel like this chapter is a little bit slow because it's just the beginning of what could be a wild series. If you've gotten this far thank you for reading! Chapter 2, if wanted, will be even better.

Edit: Chapter 2 coming out 12/03/23 thanks for all the support!

#coriolanus snow #coriolanus snow imagine #the hunger games #the ballad of songbirds and snakes #coriolanus x reader #tbosas #tom blyth #snow x reader #coriolanus x you

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petriwriting · 7 months

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Memories - Sirius Black X Reader

Summary: Harry finds an old notebook that belonged to Sirius during his Hogwarts days. In his scruffy handwriting, in an old dusty journal found in Sirius's bedroom is the story of Sirius' first real love.

A/N: Fluff, nostalgia, a little bit of angst if you look too hard. The reader is feminine, using she/her pronouns. Oneshot - blurb is very short but very sweet.

I made a friend today on the train to Hogwarts. She is very sweet and seems very nice. She had a ribbon in her hair, I thought that she looked nice. we talked and she said that she liked my hair too. I also made some new friends. I got sorted into Gryffindor house, it's crazy since my family is all from Slytherin house. I'm sure Mother will be so upset. She is always upset about something.

Harry read aloud to his curious friends, Hermione leaned over his shoulder curiously to look at the small dark grey journal, it was tatted beaten-down bound with leather, covered in dust, but well used.

"Keep reading, Harry," Hermione said gently, knowing that he wasn't reading it with malicious intent, but instead in an attempt to feel closer to his godfather. he turned a few pages until a page caught his eye, and began reading once more.

Reg and I got into a quarrel over some things that didn't really matter. he says I should be more concerned with our family. Reg and I used to be close, but after my third year, he became cold. I love my brother, but I hate to see him hanging around those gits. Malfoy in particular, but I know he is happy now as he has joined the Slytherin team. he's their seeker, but he's no match for Gryffindor this year.

This entry made Harry smile slightly, and chuckle. he continued to flip pages, it was heartwarming. He turned the pages, looking through some messy potions class notes and annotations, and an entry about the marauders map, and how he saw Peter Pettigrew (Wormtail.) sneaking out every night to sneak food from the kitchens. One page, in particular, caught his eye.

I Love Her.

I have loved her every day I've known her. She is brilliant, her eyes sparkle when she speaks, her smile is so bright it lights up the room as if you'd cast Lumos. She's incredibly intelligent, but kind. She's always been gentle with me. I've never met another like her.

I wish that I could make this all go away. All the secrets, the war, the hatred. I wish we could start a family one day, live in a little cottage, and raise children far away from here. We'd visit James and Lily every Christmas, and Remus on halloween. I could give her my mother's ring. I doubt Regulus would mind. We could be so happy. I remember the first day we met. I think i knew then that she was special. She has been unconditionally devoted to me. The night my mother burned my name off our family tree she held me in her arms as i cried and i finally felt what home is supposed to feel like. I wrote her a letter, expressing my yearning for her. I plan to give it to her very soon, along with a locket I picked out. Lily insisted on the dainty silver chain with a locket of our picture from our first year together, she even helped me enchant to image to capture y/n's smile as she sat next to me. she say's it's sentimental, and that girls like this sort of thing.

I never had a home, truly. just four walls surrounding me. My own mother disgraced my name, Regulus has been absent in my life. I'm thankful for my friends but my love for y/n is like no other. i just wish want her to feel the way i do, i hope she does. With everything, she can not get involved it's too dangerous. But I will love her anyway. The kind of love that could break the most heinous curse.

Harry stood for a moment, looking over his godfather's handwriting. it was sentimental. "I wonder if we could find her," Harry offered hopefully. "There's no mention of a last name." Ron pointed out. "I'm sure we could ask someone, if she knew the black family she can't be too terribly hard to find," Hermione said, offering a comforting hand on Harry's shoulder. "I think Sirius would love that."

#my writing #reader insert #hp x reader #x reader #slytherin x reader #hp #sirius black #sirius black x reader #sirius black x you #sirius black x y/n #sirius and regulus #sirius orion black #sirius being sirius #padfoot #james potter #remus lupin #remus x sirius #sirius x remus

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taeyongdoyoung · 7 months

Text

summary: things between you and your mom escalate and you make the impulsive decision to move in with your online friend who saves your life and shines like the brightest star... pairing: seonghwa x reader genre: angst, fluff, smut; online friends to roommates+lovers warnings: swearing, mommy issues, suicidal thoughts, insecurities, crying, pet names, eating out, blowjob, protected sex, praise kink, mommy kink, one (1) bad star wars joke, the nbhd references, subspace (kinda?), lowkey possessive hwa, one bed trope (but there is a couch, they just ignore it) author's note: this is incredibly personal and i felt so vulnerable while writing it but i better post it real quick before i chicken out 🙃 the title is inspired by the neighbourhood's daddy issues (remix) even though reader has mommy issues lol word count: 4.3k

You are cooped up in your room, physically shaking. You have no tears left to cry so you are laughing hysterically at the absurdity of it all. You were so tired of it. You love your mom, you really do. You would never do anything to harm her. But you are absolutely sick of the way she was treating you. Always belittling your interests, not letting you go out past a certain hour even though you were old enough to do so, yelling at you for the smallest mistakes, suffocating you with her unrealistic expectations, saying you were stupid and would never amount to anything if it hadn't been for her strict parenting style, even though you had practically sacrificed your mental health and social life to get high grades. And whenever you brought up all the ways in which she'd hurt you, she would try to gaslight you and pull shit like: "I never said that." "You're being overdramatic." "You're so ungrateful." All your friends said you deserved better. They tried their best to support you emotionally. But words could only do so much. You need out. If you stayed another moment in this toxic environment, you felt like you would do something terrible to yourself. Something there was no coming back from.

The only person you feel like talking to right now was your online friend Seonghwa. You'd met him on a Star Wars forum eight months ago and you'd been talking to each other pretty much every free minute. He was your light in the darkness and brought you so much happiness you couldn't remember what your life before him had been like. He always knew just what to say and comforted you like nobody else could. And when you didn't feel like talking, he distracted you successfully by organizing streaming sessions for the two of you. He is, for lack of a better word, perfect. There is only one downside. He lives thousands of kilometres away from you.

You: Talk to me. About anything. Please? Starshine98: What happened??? You: I don't wanna talk about it. I don't even wanna think about it. Starshine98: Got it. Your mom, right? You: Is my tragic existence so transparent? Starshine98: Whatever she said, you know it's not your fault. You: I know. But Hwa…it hurts so much I feel like dying. I can't do this anymore. Starshine98: Don't say that. You are so important to me. And to your friends. And to your mom, as well, even if she has a messed up way of showing it. You: Still….I need to get out of here as soon as possible but I can't do that without getting a stable job first. And it's so hard to find one. Starshine98: What if you came to live with me? My apartment has enough space for two… You: You live across the world? I can't even afford a plane ticket. Starshine98: Don't worry about money, I'll send you an E-ticket. You: I can't ask you to do that… Starshine98: You're not asking, I'm offering. You're going through something traumatic and you obviously need a change of scenery. I'm not asking you to stay with me forever, just for as long as you need to take care of your mental health. Just say the word and I'll buy the ticket. You: This is far too generous of you. Starshine98: I'm not as selfless as you think. I'm so worried about your well-being that keeping an eye on you myself would help me sleep better at night. You: Sweet. Starshine98: So? What do you say? You: Fuck it. Let's do this.

A couple of minutes later you receive a digital plane ticket from Seonghwa. The feeling of staring at it is so surreal you feel like you might pass out. You quickly pack only the bare essentials into a bag and scribble a letter to your parents. You know your mom will be furious and your dad will be worried sick but still, you want to leave the apartment while she's still asleep to avoid the confrontation. This is the best decision you could have possibly made in this situation. And for the first time in forever, you are finally doing something impulsive, something crazy without asking for permission. And damn, does it make you feel alive.

As you get off the plane, your eyes scan the airport for Seonghwa. You debate turning on your phone but then you would be faced with missed calls from your parents and right now, you are not ready to face the reality of what you've done. Luckily enough, you quickly spot a large sign with your name on it. It's him! You rush through the crowd and directly into his arms. He drops the sign in disbelief and gives you the tightest hug possible. This is insane. You can't believe you're actually here.

"Hi, sweet girl," Seonghwa says and his voice sound even lovelier than during the video chats you've had with him.

"Hi, starshine," you chuckle nervously.

"How was your flight?" he asks.

"Couldn't wait for it to be over," you admit.

"Yeah? You wanted to see me that bad?" Hwa teases you.

"More like couldn't wait to visit Seoul," you joke. "Go sightseeing."

"Sorry to disappoint but I'm taking you home first."

Home. You liked the sound of that.

"This is my room, this is the living room, this is the kitchen and this is the bathroom. Any questions?" Seonghwa inquires after he's done showing you around his apartment.

"Um, not to sound ungrateful but…where will I…you know, sleep?" you ask.

"My room, obviously. I'll take the couch in the living room," Hwa shrugs.

"What? No, Hwa, I can't…this is your apartment. I would feel so guilty I wouldn't fall asleep at all."

"Do you have another suggestion?"

"Duh! I will sleep on the couch!"

Seonghwa shakes his head, visibly distressed by the idea.

"It's pretty cold in the living room. You'll be more comfortable in my room."

"Well…we could share the bed, then? You do have a king size. If…that's okay with you."

"Are you sure?" Hwa wants to know.

You nod without thinking too much into it.

"You're my best friend and I just moved across the world. Sharing a bed with you does not worry me."

"Alright. Let me know if you need anything, I'll try to get it for you."

"Right now I just need a hug."

Seonghwa abides by your wishes and soon enough, the two of you find yourselves cuddling under the warm blanket. Minutes later you are crying and spilling the beans about your latest fight with your mom. When you tell him the whole story, he feels like throwing up.

"H-how could she say that to her own d-daughter?" Hwa stammers in disbelief.

You notice tears falling down his beautiful cheeks and trace a finger against his skin.

"Honestly? I'm kinda used to it. But it was so bad I couldn't take it anymore."

"You're not supposed to. You're a literal angel, I don't understand her behaviour at all."

You give him a sad smile.

"I'm not a saint, either. I mean, I've kept secrets from her and stuff. I just wish things could get resolved by communicating but she always refuses to hear my side of the story."

"The only reason why you've kept secrets was to protect your sanity. She's being unreasonable for not letting you follow your passions. What kind of a parent would say such harmful things?"

"Right?" you laugh bitterly. "You get me like no one else."

Seonghwa strokes your hair lovingly and kisses your forehead.

"My darling girl. You deserve so much better."

"Sometimes I wish you were my mom," in a moment of intense vulnerability, you murmur without thinking but the words are already out of your mouth and it's too late to take them back.

"W-what?" Hwa appears taken aback.

"S-sorry, I don't know what's gotten into me," you cover your face with your hands.

"Say it again. Please."

You take a peek nervously. His reaction is not one of disgust as you feared but rather…curiosity?

"I wish you were my mom," you repeat, your cheeks flushed with color.

"Do you know what I'd do if I were your mom?" Seonghwa asks.

You shake your head, desperately needing to hear what he's thinking.

"If you were my little girl, I'd do whatever I could do to keep you safe and protect you, make sure no one could hurt you, least of all me. I'd let you follow your passions. If you went out at night, I'd be worried sick, of course, but I'd be happy you're having fun with your friends. I'd tell you I'm proud of you no matter what grades you got. If you kept secrets from me, I wouldn't yell at you, but I'd ask myself what I did wrong. You know why? Because I trust you. And I care about you so deeply that I'd like to win your trust, too."

Your vision is blurry with tears. You feel like Hwa just fixed something he didn't break. Whatever he has to offer, you want all of it.

"I'd like that very much."

"You'd let me take care of you? Call you mine?" Seonghwa needs to know.

"Yes, please."

"My precious girl," he purrs in your ear.

"Hwa…just to be clear, what does that make us?" you ask, confused about the line between friendship and…whatever this is.

"What do you want us to be? Girlfriend and boyfriend? Daughter and…mom? Friends with benefits?"

You chuckle at the variety of labels he suggests.

"I think I'd like to be your girlfriend. If you'll have me," you blink, suddenly feeling insecure. You don't have much to offer. But whatever little you have, you're willing to give to him.

"I will. And I'd be honoured to be your boyfriend."

You bury your head into his chest, overwhelmed with positive feelings and excitement for the future that awaits the two of you.

"Let me take you out on a date tomorrow. But first, you need sleep."

"Okay, mom," you laugh wholeheartedly. "Will you sing me a lullaby?"

"Anything for my best girl," Seonghwa promises.

The following day he takes you to a really lovely date at a local restaurant and treats you so well, like no one else before in your life. You feel so blessed and lucky to have met him that there are not enough words to describe how grateful you are to him. Not just for letting you move in with him without expecting anything in return (though that was an immensely generous gesture on his side). The reason you are grateful the most is that he accepts you with all your flaws and scarred past, he shows you such understanding and care you have only dreamed about. He is truly your shining star guiding your path through the dark and into the light.

In the evening, you finally muster up the courage to turn on your phone. You call your dad and with tears in your eyes, explain the circumstances around your latest fight with your mom and why you decided to move in with Seonghwa. Your dad is worried, of course, but he says he gets why you did it, as he has witnessed some encounters when your mom has said hurtful things to you. Though he has not explicitly stood up for you, in your private conversations, he has shown you support and eagerly awaited the day you were independent from her. He tells you your mom was furious at first but now she is just…sad. You promise you will talk to her when you feel ready but for the time being, you need some space. Your dad respects your decision and you hang up.

"You did well," Seonghwa praises you, enveloping you in a warm hug.

"Thanks," you whisper sadly.

"Shall we go to bed?" he asks.

"Aw, man, I was in such a hurry to pack that I forgot my favourite frog plushie!" you exclaim in annoyance. "I can't sleep without it."

"Last night you had no trouble falling asleep, though?" Seonghwa gently reminds you.

"You're right!" you cry out in amazement.

"I'll get you a million plushies tomorrow but for now you'll have to settle for me."

"You know what? You're more than enough. You're my favourite plushie from now on!" you smile, wrapping your arms around his waist.

You've had the happiest week of your life. Seonghwa shows you around the city, taking you to adorable cafés, sightseeing and eating ramen by the Han river. The two of you take tons of pictures together and spend a lot of quality time. He even introduces you to his friend San and convinces him to let you work at his bookshop, which is honestly a dream job.

One morning, you wake up feeling uncharacteristically hot. Something hard is pressed against your ass. Could that be…You freeze at the realization. You wonder whether to rush out of bed. But then you risk Seonghwa waking up and you don't want him feeling embarrassed over something completely natural. You could pretend you're still asleep? But your breathing is too irregular and your skin is practically on fire. What should you do? Before you can make up your mind, you feel Seonghwa shifting behind you and the space has never felt emptier.

"I'm sorry," he mumbles sleepily.

"What are you sorry for?" you ask even though the answer is quite apparent.

"For…you know, getting hard."

"It's fine, it's a normal human reaction."

"I don't want you to feel uncomfortable or objectified. I mean…you are hot and I've obviously thought about you before in impure ways but…I like you so much I don't want you to feel pressured or anything. You're incredibly special to me, baby."

You finally turn around to face him.

"You are the most precious person in my life, Seonghwa," you whisper. "And like, if you want me, I'm all yours. No pressure."

"But…wouldn't you want to wait longer?" he asks cautiously.

"Whenever you want, my star," you smile eagerly, hoping he takes the bait.

"Fuck it," Hwa mutters under his breath and crashes his lips into yours.

You kiss him back impatiently and bury your fingers into his soft hair. He pulls you closer to him by the waist, digging his fingers into your lower back.

"If you want to stop at any moment, just let me know, okay?" Seonghwa breaks the kiss to reassure you.

You are so touched by his words that tears are already welled up in your eyes.

"Okay. Same goes for you."

"Trust me, darling, I wouldn't want to stop," Hwa promises and buries his head into your neck, inhaling the scent of you.

He spends a long time pressing kisses everywhere he could think of: your neck, your cheeks, your hair, your nose, your collarbones, your tummy, your ears, your thighs until finally, he reaches your pussy. Guiding your legs apart with a gentle but firm hand, you are afraid of melting right there. He eats you out hungrily, his ridiculously long tongue doing wonders to your senses. Needing something to hold on to, you tug on his hair, hopeful that you are not hurting him. He starts making circular motions, increasing the pleasure. It does not take you long to finish, completely falling apart.

"I think I just died a little," you admit, laughing.

"Well, the French did call it la petite mort," Seonghwa shrugs.

"Ah, yes. The little death," you smile, fondly recalling your French classes. "I wouldn't be a good guest if I didn't return the favour, no?"

You wrap your lips around the head of his cock, looking up at him to see if you're doing a good job.

"You're not a guest. I want you to feel at home," Seonghwa says and you try to take him deeper into your mouth. "You don't have to- Oh!"

You smirk as you swirl your tongue against his cock, doing your best to bring him closer to the edge.

"Such a good girl. My girl, yes?" he murmurs.

You can't verbablly respond so you nod your head frantically. Your hand is wrapped around the part of him you can't physically fit in and you blink the tears away, attempting to focus on breathing through your nose. You move your head and up down, desperately staring into his eyes to make sure he's enjoying every second of it. Soon enough, he reaches his high, sending ropes of cum down your throat. You try to swallow, not waste any drop of it.

Seonghwa strokes your cheek with his hand.

"You did so great for me," he praises you and you feel butterflies fluttering in your stomach.

"T-thank you," you stutter nervously.

"You don't have to thank me," Seonghwa chuckles in confusion and flips you around so that you are lying on your back. He leans down and kisses you again even more sensually than before but with as much tenderness. "You wanna stop?"

"No, please, don't stop," you are not too proud for begging.

"M'kay, lemme just grab protection real quick and I'll be back," he grins.

"Oh, I feel quite protected with you by my side, but I get what you mean," you tease him, excited to take the next step in your relationship.

True to his promise, Hwa returns moments later, flexing a condom in his hand.

"Protection," he repeats in a cute voice, while he puts it on.

"And here I thought you were gonna show me your lightsaber," you joke.

Seonghwa dramatically places a hand on his heart, feigning offense.

"I already did," he plays along and you can't stop yourself from bursting into laughter.

God, he really is the best guy in the universe. Your thoughts are further confirmed when he slowly teases your entrance with just the tip, making sure you are okay.

"You good? Should I go deeper?"

"Hwa, my angel, you can do anything to me and chances are I'd like it," you reassure him confidently.

"Careful what you wish for," Seonghwa smirks and slides in, making you feel so full and complete.

"Ngh," your sweet little cries are enough to give him the needed push to not hold himself back any longer. He fucks into you with so much vigour and passion you are on the verge of disintegrating.

"My gorgeous girl. You like that?"

"Yes, mommy," the words slip out of your mouth before you could think twice about it. His movements come to a sudden halt, causing you to realize what you've just said. Out loud. Ugh, you feel equally mortified and turned on.

"Mommy, huh?" he chuckles lightly.

"S-sorry," you hide your face behind your palms.

"It's okay, I can be your mommy," Seonghwa grabs your wrists and pushes your hands above your head. "I'll take good care of you, yeah? Wish you could see yourself, my most precious girl."

"Hwa, please, I mean…mommy, need you so badly," you stumble through your words weakly.

"I'm right here, my sweet baby, I'll give you what you need," he plays along. "Does mommy's cock feel good inside you?"

"S-so g-good, mommy, thank you, thank you so much," it hasn't even been that long and you already feel fucked out, utterly and irreversibly at his mercy.

"Don't thank me, dearest, I'm just treating you the way you deserve," Seonghwa vows and before you know it, you are clenching around his cock, while he is spilling inside the condom.

You can't think, can't speak, can't do anything. Nothing exists in your mind anymore. Just him. The universe is completely blank save for that one shining star. You fail to register him leaving the room to dispose of the plastic and don't notice when he returns.

"Honey?" he says softly but his voice feels so distant. Kilometres away. You can't bring yourself to form a verbal response. "Are you okay?"

Seonghwa places gentle kisses on your cheeks in an attempt to bring you back to reality.

"Come back to me, darling, please, talk to me, I'm scared," he mumbles in between kisses.

"Hwa?" are your first words. Like a newborn baby looking for the comfort that only a true mother figure could provide.

"You're safe with me," Seonghwa tells you. "No one can hurt you here."

"I don't deserve you," you are suddenly crying, overwhelmed by how cared for and loved he's making you feel.

"Don't say that ever again, you hear me?" he speaks firmly but kindly, nonetheless. "You deserve to be happy. Am I making you happy?"

"So happy, you have no idea how much," you try your best to convince him for your sincerity.

"That's all I need to know," he nods. "Let me draw a bath for you and-"

You summon all the strength you have left and grip his hand as tightly as you physically can't.

"Don't leave me."

"I'm not leaving you," Seonghwa picks you up with ease and carries you all the way to the bathroom.

Once inside the warm bath, you are more capable to form full sentences and communicate what just happened with a clearer head.

"I'm sorry for springing up the whole mommy thing without discussing it in advance," you tell him.

"I don't mind, honestly. In fact, I think I'm perfect for the role."

You smile fondly and nudge his shoulder.

"Still. From now on, I'll try my best to talk about introducing anything new beforehand. It's only fair."

"Whatever makes you feel comfortable," he kisses your forehead as he rubs shampoo into your scalp. "But just so you know, I could never be mad at you."

"What if I want you to get mad every once in a while? You know…spank me for being a bad girl?" you suggest teasingly.

"Then, I'd be happy to oblige," Seonghwa replies enthusiastically and starts tickling you in a playful manner.

It is true that time heals all wounds and distance makes the heart grow fonder. A while later, you feel ready to talk to your mom again (somewhat influenced by your dad's pleading and Seonghwa's reassurance).

"Hi, mom," you greet her calmly over the phone.

"Hi, sweetie. I've missed you," she admits.

"Me too," and it's true. Even though she hurt you, you still love her.

"Have you been eating well?"

"Yeah, don't worry about that."

"Listen…I'm sorry for saying hurtful things and being so hard on you. I only do that because I think you're so smart and have the potential to do great things."

"Well you have a funny way of showing it," you chuckle dryly.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean…you never praise me for anything. I spent so many years trying to get your approval that I didn't stop for a second to think whether I was doing what I truly loved."

"I understand," your mom says. "I know it might be too late but I'll try to do better. If you'll let me."

"It's not too late. But I'm not coming back to live with you. I've got a boyfriend and a job here. And I'm…actually happy."

"I'm glad to hear that, sweetheart. You will visit eventually, right?"

"I will in the summer. I want us to work on our relationship," you explain patiently.

"Until then…we can Skype or something?" your mom suggests.

"Yeah, mom, we can do that," you laugh. "If you figure how to turn the computer on!"

"Hey!" your mom argues but her tone is amused "I'm not that old!"

"I know, I know," you keep laughing.

"I love you," she says seriously. And this time, you are willing to believe her.

"Love you too, mom," you answer truthfully and hang up the phone.

You look at Seonghwa who was quietly cutting vegetables. His mere presence in the room was giving you strength and moral support.

"I did it," you announce the obvious. "I talked to my mom."

"You did so well. I'm really proud of you, angel," he wraps you into the world's most comforting hug.

"Things won't get magically fixed but…it's a start."

"You did the right thing."

"I couldn't have done it without you, Hwa," you admit truthfully. "You light up my whole dark existence, my precious star."

"Oh, baby," Seonghwa holds your hands. "Stars can't shine without darkness."

Bonus:

You are so happy to have cooked spaghetti carbonara for your boyfriend, your darling, your starshine, your marvellous Hwa. You really hope he likes it because you've worked so hard on it and it's his birthday so you wanted to do something special for him. He has given you so much care and affection so this is the least you could do to express how grateful you are.

"Happy birthday, my love," you kiss him gently, presenting the meal in front of him. "I have other gifts, as well, but food first before it gets cold!"

"Aw, baby, you didn't have to do all that," Seonghwa smiles, touched by your efforts.

"Come on, try it!" you are practically bouncing with excitement to see his reaction.

"It's really delicious, my angel! You did a wonderful job!" he praises you, sincerity clear in his voice.

You can't take it and you burst into tears.

"Why are you crying? Did I say something wrong?" Seonghwa puts the fork down, immediately worried about your well-being.

"No, it's just…the first time anyone's praised my cooking. It feels incredibly special coming from you, considering you are so brilliant in the kitchen."

"The kitchen is not the only place where I'm incredible," he winks, looking at the bedroom.

"Eat, eat! We'll unwrap the gifts later in that other place," you wipe your tears and encourage him to enjoy his meal.

"Oh, sunshine, you are the only gift I could ask for," Seonghwa promises and goes back to the carbonara. And perhaps, this is what having a home feels like.

The End

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