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#it was so good I was crying literally like two chapters in :’)

foulphantomllama · 2 days

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My Secret Desire | AESPA Winter x Male Reader

I decided to post the new chapter today because I was supposed to post something else today. But as you can guess, I did not liked it enough to post it. So enjoy the new chapter!

4. The Package

She send me a pair of her underwear. With a little note on them saying “Make good use of them until i come back and get them.” And she drew a little emoji winking at the end.

But she wasn’t coming over. Neither to school nor my house. She was barely texting me. And when she does, she only makes me horny and disappear completely. I asked about her to one of her friends but they were in it too. I all got for a response was to wait. So I waited. After nearly a week and a half later, my door was knocking. It was her. I looked at the peekhole. I opened the door. She went straight in. Saying nothing. She took off her shoes and jumped to my bed. Getting ready to take a nap. I closed the door and started watching her. After a moment of silence I wanted to check on her. She was sleeping. She literally was gone for nearly two weeks and now she is back sleeping in my room.

But no. This was my time to act. I couldn’t just let her win every time. I sit beside her and woke her up. “What?” she asked me. Her attitude was making me angry. This attitude of her was the main reason I hate her as much as I love her. “What do you mean “What?”!” “You come into my house, crying. You’re not saying a single word. We fuck, you disappear for nearly two weeks. Than you sending me your panties. And after a few days later you appear on my doorstep and pretending none of this happened?” She looked at me. Holding her laugh. “Yes.” She said. Then burst into laughing.

I hold her arms. I mean, I hold them pretty tight. Her laugh was disappearing quickly. She realized that I’m really angry now. But she was not holding back either. “Come on big boy, what do you have in mind?”

I knew her intention. She wants sex again. But no. She needs to know that she does not always get what she wants from me. We fuck when I want to fuck. She grabbed my cock. But my cock was not hard this time. Because I was furious. “Come on, stop resisting. I know you want me.” She was thigtening her grab as she talks to me. I pushed her to the bed. “Okay, now we’re talking.” She said. But the following event was not someting that she would expect. I dressed up, took the keys and locked her inside my apartment. She has no other option to wait for me. My apartment was pretty high up so she couldn’t use the balcony to run away. But also, I had zero worries that she wants to escape. I was confident that she will wait for me. No matter how long I took to come back to my apartment.

I grabbed some ramen from my favourite store. It was just around the corner of my apartment. Then I rented a film from one of the stores that is not far from my apartment. Then I go to my apartment. Opened the door. There she was. Sitting on the toilet without closing the toilets door. “You should at least close the door.” I said to her. She rolled her eyes and answered. “You should be grateful that I did not pissed on to your carpet. You dick.” She was acting just like I imagined she would. “I am hungry. You did get something to eat, right?” I showed her the ramen I bought. “You’re the best boyfriend in the world.” Then she added. “Probably.” I asked her while I put the ramens on the kitchen counter. “What do you mean boyfriend?” She got up and came towards me. “Duh, dude you fucked me and cum into my throat. And I fucking swallowed it. What do you think we are? Study buddies?”

“So, you loved me from the beggining.” I asked. “Both.” She answered. “I fucking love you so much and I hate you so fucking much.” She also said. I can take that. “I love you because you’re the most precious person ever. I hate you because you’re too precious to be real. That you will gone to your own country an forgot about me.”

Her words hurt me a lot. But not in a bad way. I was hurt because I did not see it before. She was never bullying me. She just wanted my attention. Because she was thinking that I will leave her because she was not clever enough. What a bad way to think about yourself. And this was the exact reason I hated her to my guts. She was so hard to get along with. She was meaning the world to me. Yet, whenever I tried to show her this, she accused me by being delusional. Saying she is not enough for me or so. I may be too harsh to say I hated her just for this, trust me this kind of toxicity can kill. But my love for her was always getting the spotlight. It was the same for her too.

“I am so sorry If I ever hurt you with my words. I was never a bully. I just wanted your attention. And you weren’t giving me.” She hit me with your little fist as she talks. I hugged her. “No, I won’t be going anywhere. Not now at least.” She showed me her middle finger. And then she realized the film I rented. She took the dvd and started inspecting it. “I heard that this one is so shit.” She said. “It is pure shit.” I answered. Her response was hilarious, and expected. “Then why the fuck you rented this?” It turns out that this was just the way she communicates. Not exactly helping her with the social life but, kind of makes her hot and cute. Or I was just obsessed with her.

I prepared the ramen and we started eating. “Put the film on.” She said. I put the film on. In under ten minutes our meals were finished. She paused the film and said “Okay let’s agree on something.” I said go on. “If i get bored in the next ten minutes, we fuck. If I don’t we don’t fuck.” I was confused a little. “Why do I get punished for choosing I film that you probably like?” I asked. “Haha. That is how I work, honey.”

She watched that entire film. I can realize that she wasn’t really liked it. But she did it because she wanted to annoy me. But I wanted her. So I started to kiss her neck. “No hickeys.” She said. “My mother will fucking kill me.” Of course I was going to give her a hickey. “If you’re going to give me a hickey just do it on a place my mother wouldn’t be able to see.” She said. I took of her tshirt. I left a hickey on her left shoulder. “Your mother wouldn’t see that, I think.” I said. She mimics me. Then laughs. “You ruined the ending.” She said. “Come on! It was already shit how I could possibly ruined the ending.” I answered. She nodded.

“I’m just going to give you a blowjob, and get the hell out of here. I’m already late. I was gone to buy some rice. My mother still waiting me to bring rice.” She said. “I have an unopened package of rice. You can take it on your way out.” She gave me a thumbs up. Then took off my pyjamas. She was on her knees. She licked my cock over my underwear. Then she took of my underwear. Took my cock inside her mouth. Her mouth was so warm. And I already knew that she is very skilled when it comes to sucking cock. But she was too shy to make eye contact. I did not pushed her to her limits just yet. I just let her give me head peacefully, in her own terms. “Are you going to swallow it again?” I asked. She took it off from her mouth to answer me. “Well, i want to but you bought me a gigantic ramen. I don’t want to throw up the first meal you bought me.” She started sucking it again. I asked her to look into my eyes. She started to look up. She was looking so good with my cock in her mouth. I mean, she was probably the cutest girl I’ve ever seen. And she was my girlfriend.

“I’m going to swallow it.” She said. “Do not pull it out when you’re about to cum.” I pulled my cock out. “What makes you change your mind.” I asked her. “You forgot to buy me beverage. Can I please finish it and go???” “Okay, okay sorry.” I answered. “All yours.” She got faster and faster. Then I came into her mouth. First she showed me her mouth full of my cum. Then she swallowed it and showed me her empty mouth. I pull her closer to me and kissed her lips. “You just kissed your own cum.” She laughed. “But off your mouth.” I answered. “But it makes you gay.” She answered. I looked at her face laughing. “Okay, I’m going. Give me the rice.” I give her the rice I bought the other day. “Hey, mom! I just blowed my boyfriend and he give me a packet of rice.” She was laughing out loud while saying that. “At least you keep the money.” I said. “You’re so very right sir. Goodbye.” She saluted me and went out the door. I followed her. “No kiss goodbye?” She came closer, I was taller than her. She signalizes me to bow down. I did. She put her middle finger into my mouth. “Here’s your kiss.”

God I love her.

#aespa winter #winter #kpop smut #kpop fanfic #winter x male reader #winter x reader #chapter4

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suckishima · 1 year

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Chapter 158 vs. Chapter 298

“I am under no illusions that I could ever beat you on my own.”

(don’t mind me going insane under the cut)

ugh there’s two big things that make me crazy about this and

1 is the surface level of just how yamaguchi’s individual growth keeps going even after the seijoh 2 match—when he gets those run of points and it becomes clear to us that his hard work has paid off—but it doesn’t just stop there! the first panels here are from the shiratorizawa match, the next match after seijoh 2, and i love this bc it’s another example of haikyuu saying “hey so that thing you wanted, you worked hard, you earned it, celebrate!” but then going on to ask “okay so what do we work for next?” and for yamaguchi he’s gone from ‘i just want to be on the court with them’ (deciding to learn jump floats) to ‘i wish i could get my body to listen to me the way theirs seem to’ (failing in siejoh 1 and doubling down during tokyo training camp) to the first panels here ‘i want to contribute/add value to the team’ to then finally the panels from the nekoma match where he can do more than just help, now it’s ‘i want all those things and more. i’m going to get these points with the team and for the team, all with my serve.’ and he DOES! like the GROWTH in his confidence!! aahh

and 2!! this is where i start to really lose it lmao, is his inspiration for all of that! why does yamaguchi play volleyball? because he thinks volleyball is cool. why is it cool? bc tsukki plays and tsukki is cool, and akiteru played and akiteru is cool, right? but is that enough?? by the time high school comes maybe it isn’t, bc of everything that’s happened and he’s a little disenchanted, but then he hears hinata and kageyama’s “as long as i’m here you’re invincible” and he thinks oh sHIT that’s cool! but he doesn’t have that kind of confidence, and he isn’t a setter or really a hitter, he’s barely even a server at this point—the only position on the court where you could gain points entirely alone—but THEN he also sees and understands the significance of a perfectly executed serve and block and he thinks not only is that ALSO super cool, but he realizes if he can get better he can do that super cool thing not just for himself, but for the team and more specifically, for tsukki.

yamaguchi sees hinata and kageyamas totally insane, reciprocal declaration of making the other better and he starts to get mad at tsukki for not trying. because volleyball is cool, making each other stronger is cool, and tsukki is supposed to be cool too!! and instead of giving up, yamaguchi puts tsukki in his place and then yamaguchi just keeps trying even harder!! and his hard work and dedication is perplexing to tsukki. it’s frustrating bc he can’t understand it yet but he also can’t deny the fact that it certainly isn’t lame. yamaguchi’s passion has never been lame, and then tsukki starts to get inspired too. slowly it begins to cycle, and spiral upwards. yamaguchi took the first initiative to seek out shimada, tsukki joins his brothers practices and agrees to train with the gym 3 boys, yamaguchi has his ‘moment’ when he gets all those points in seijoh 2, tsukki has his when he stuffs ushijima (and neither of them is surprised by either of those moments!! of course they work they’ve been watching has paid off), and then by the time the nekoma match comes up yamaguchi’s confidence has grown tremendously, he gets an ace immediately after those panels and thennn he and tsukki execute their first successful serve and block. the volleyball equivalent of a perfect play.

we never see yamaguchi and tsukki practice together, and yet separately they’ve been working toward this, silently inspiring each other over and over. individual work but not only individual growth. tsukki tells kuroo he never ever thought he could beat any of them on his own. in his own way, yamaguchi’s actions have made tsukki invincible too. and kuroo and tsukki also both acknowledge that yamaguchi is already a step ahead once again, planning how he can do even more, starting the cycle another time. they keep passing the inspiration back and forth, connecting one volleyball moment to the next to drive the other to keep working, keep trying for even more!!!!! aaaaaahh

#hq!!#hq!! manga spoilers #tsukki #yamaguchi #hq #hq manga spoilers #one step ahead #oh look im crying over chapter 298 again lmaooo #actual tears in my eyes why am i like this #i was like 'oh i'm feeling good i'll just start up my long abandoned hq reread again' and two chapters in #im already finding growth moments i had forgotten about and i promptly lose my mind #its just *clenches fist* the way furudate does this connect thing about making characters integral to each others growth #solely through their own actions where one characters growth cant happen without the others #and its so perfectly intwined with the concepts of the literal rules of volleyball and aaaAAAAHHH #ive talked about it a lot with kageyama and hinata but tsukki and yamaguchi have aspects of it too okay!! it just works differently #and they both make me unstableee #2021 reread #x #connect #hq meta #tsukkiyama #what more do you need

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dycefic · 1 year

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Tom Saves The World

Everyone knows that it’s super-heroes who save the world. They fight the aliens, or the monsters, or the bad guys. And mostly, that’s true.

But not always.

I’m a psychic. The thing is, my range isn’t that great. I don’t have much detail more than about 36 hours out, 48 for something really big. I’d had a nebulous sort of bad feeling for about a week before this one finally hit, and it was big. Something very tough and very supernatural was going to come up out of the harbor of Nova Roma, and the death-toll was going to be high. Crazy high.

I did all I could. I told the Unaligned Supers Job Placement Agency, and they put the word out to everyone on both sides of the Line. The Henchman’s Union don’t like natural disasters any more than anyone else, and they’re often quite helpful against eldritch horrors and stuff like that. Things that don’t hire henchmen and ruin the property values.

The trouble was, nobody big was around. The only really big team of heavy hitters on the West Coast were away dealing with some sort of doomsday cult - I never was clear on what that was about - and Guarde and Dog Fox were out of touch and even Mx Frantique was out of town at someone’s wedding. It was going to happen in less than two days and we couldn’t find anyone to help and I was seriously considering calling in some kind of bomb threat or something to get people away from the docks, at least.

And then, about eighteen hours out, it just… went away.

Which never, ever happens.

My powers might be short range, but they’re reliable. I don’t get stuff wrong, and I hadn’t been able to find any way to prevent what was going to happen, or even been able to identify anyone who could. But someone did. Someone had done something to stop the threat, something that happened literally while I was opening my car door. When I reached for the handle, thousands of people were going to die. By the time the door was open, there was no threat at all.

At first I thought it must have been a ranged thing. Like, whatever I’d been seeing (all those teeth, I saw them in nightmares for months after) had been distracted by something tasty on its way here and gotten off track, that it’d come up somewhere up or down the coast. My range isn’t that big, either. Anything outside about thirty miles might as well be on Mars for all I know about it. So we kept a watch out, and warned the chapters of the Union and the Agency in other cities.

But nothing happened. Nothing at all. I couldn’t explain it, and I was really unpopular for a while. Supers do NOT like people who cry wolf. There’s enough freaky shit we have to deal with without someone panicking everyone with a dire prophecy that fizzles out.

Thank all the gods that Tunny showed up. Nobody’s really sure what Tunny actually is - sentient fish creature, some kind of really mutated human, an alien, or what. She changes her story a lot. But she’s pretty friendly, especially for a twenty-foot-long horror-movie-mermaid-thing with four arms, so when she came into harbor to pick up some supplies a guy from the Agency went out to tell her what I’d seen. I’d gotten a wharf and dock number, so she went down to check.

I don’t think anyone had ever seen Tunny scared before. Her English wasn’t good enough to really explain what she’d found hibernating down there, but it was something very old and very powerful and very dangerous, and if it’d been woken up my vision would just have been the start of the crisis.

She rounded up a bunch of whales to help her move it, once she was sure it hadn’t been agitated and wasn’t likely to rouse if moved carefully. They towed it out before dawn, not wanting to scare the civilians, and when I saw the footage from the helicopter the Union sent up, when I saw how big the swell was, how many whales were pulling, I swear I nearly crapped myself. No wonder I’d been getting hints a week in advance. Somehow we dumbass humans had built a whole fucking city almost on top of some kind of Ancient Old… THING, and eroded the sea-bottom until it was exposed, and if someone hadn’t done whatever it was we’d all have been dead long before Tunny arrived. And not just all as in ‘all of Nova Roma’, it could have taken out half of the continent... or all of it.

It took me years to find out what happened. YEARS. It turned into a kind of hobby, tracking everything that might possibly have come into contact with Wharf 38 on that particular day.

And what I found, eventually, was a city employee named Thomas Briggs.

I’d found out early on that 38 wasn’t in good repair. Not that bad, but not great. It was old, things were getting a bit saggy in a few places, but there’d been no sign that anything was likely to fall off on the day. It had sat there for a couple of years after the crisis that never happened,, doing its job without problems then been rebuilt without any drama at all.

Entirely, completely, and totally because of Thomas Briggs.

The story, when I finally pieced it together, went like this.

There’d been some project or other to build some sort of high-budget science project over on the other side of the harbor, hanging it off’ve Pier 8, the furthest out on that side. Something about tracking sea-life or ships or something. My conversational English is near perfect, I’ve been here for years, but I don’t speak science nerd in ANY language. It’d all been approved, some university was covering most of the cost, it was all gonna be fine. And it was gonna be over on 8 because that side of the harbor is the shallow end. It’s where the sailboats go. All the big stuff that would block visual sensors and deafen the thing with engine noise was over in the thirties, in the real deep water.

They were almost ready to install the thing when a bunch of rich dudes suddenly got their panties in a bunch over having a big sciency tower thing ruining the view from their yachts, and tried to get it moved.

To, and I’m sure you guessed this, Wharf 38.

Which was completely insane. It wouldn’t be able to do its job over there, it’d be way more in the way, and (although they couldn’t have known it) the installation would definitely have woken up the Thing sleeping by the wharf and we all would have died. But rich dudes with yachts don’t care about that stuff. They’d bitched out and bribed up their friends on the city council, and those friends had done their thing, and the scientists had been left in the dark, and it’d almost gone through. They’d figured to install it right away, so that when the science guys found out it’d be too late and they’d either have to pay a lot to move it or just use it where it was.

Enter Thomas Briggs.

Mr Briggs, Tom to his friends, didn’t give a crap about the yachts or the science. He was a senior money guy for the commercial wharfs, the one who figured out things like how much money they’d take in in a quarter, and what the repair budget should be, stuff like that. He found out about this thing two days before the disaster would have happened, and sat down and did the math.

Then he sent out an email to the guys trying to push this through, and he ripped into them like they’d threatened to knife his mother. I got my hands on that email, and I didn’t understand a lot of it any more than the council guys would have. It was ALL numbers. But at the top he wrote it out in plain English. Pier 8 was new, and rated to handle the weight of the thingy. Wharf 38 was going to be scrapped in a few years, and it was NOT rated for that kind of structure. Pier 8 had plenty of room around it. Wharf 38 was already a tight fit for the big commercial ships, and adding a structure sticking out on one side would block off at least half of the wharf to those ships completely.

Bottom line, putting the thing on Wharf 38 would cost the city hundreds of thousands of dollars more per year than putting it on 8, AND the city would have to eat the cost if 38 collapsed under it which it could easily do, AND the city would have to pay to move it in a couple of years anyway when 38 was due to be rebuilt.

And he cc-ed every important person he had an email address for, including the mayor, the anti-corruption people, and several reporters.

He must have sent that email right when I was opening my car door.

The whole plan collapsed right there, and some people got fired. There was no news story because the whole plan got killed before the reporters even got to the right office. The installation was started on Wharf 8 a few weeks later and I never connected it to a commercial wharf on the other side of the harbor.

One email, and a man who I never could have located in time, a man who had no powers at all, a man who was just conscientiously doing his job looking after the city’s money saved the city, and the continent, and maybe even the world.

Who could have predicted that? Not me, that’s for damn sure.

I can’t deny that I went home and got drunk off my ass that night. Just thinking about how close that had been made my hands shake. One man. One honest man who’d done the math.

I put the word out, once the hangover wore off. What had happened. That Thomas Briggs was the reason we were all alive and everyone better make his life real nice from now on, because he’d done what none of us could do and nobody but the supers would ever even know it.

He’s got a lot of luck coming to him, I can tell you. We don’t forget debts like that.

And I knew that’d freak him out, because honest men don’t like it when people start doing them a lot of favors for no apparent reason, so I tracked him down at the little bar where he likes to have a quiet beer on Friday nights before he goes home. Hell, I was the one who’d gone through it all, back then. I should get to tell him.

I sat down beside him at the bar and looked at him. I saw a thin, small, balding man who looked like he worried too much and didn’t get enough sleep, with lines around his eyes. Yeah, he looked like a man who’d do the math. “Thomas Briggs?”

He blinked at me through his glasses. “Yes? Do I know you?”

“No, you don’t. My name’s Barkhado Omar, and I’ve been looking for you for a long time.” I offered him my hand and he shook it, still looking confused. Which was fair, ‘cause I doubt a lot of seven foot tall Somali women came up to him in bars even when he was young. He’s got to be close to retirement now.

He frowned. “Looking for me? Why?”

I smiled at him. “Tom, let me buy you a drink and tell you about the day you saved the world.”

It’s usually us who save the city, or the world. We have all the intel, all the advantages, all the powers.

But sometimes it’s not. Sometimes it’s someone like Tom Briggs, doing the right thing at the right time and never knowing that he changed the course of history.

Wild, huh?

This story is a direct result of me and my ex chatting about how different the entire Marvel Universe would have been if Jean’s first ‘resurrection’ - being found in a life pod under a wharf, IIRC - had happened at like... any other time. Earlier. Later. It would have changed SO MUCH.

And we speculated about how it could happen, how someone just puttering around in middle management might have unknowingly saved countless lives, prevented Madelyne’s corruption, the legacy virus, all of it, just by postponing that particular set of repairs a bit longer.... and I couldn’t resist writing a version of the story in which Tom does, in fact, save the world.

#short fiction #dyce's supers universe #comics inspired #sometimes something just goes right #horseshoe repair

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going-to-ikea-for-the-fries · 3 months

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It's a Match! || 141 x reader

[ Chapter 8 ] || [ Chapter 10 ]

Pairing: Ghost x gn!Reader || 141 x gn!Reader Words: 1.2K~ Summary: While overcoming recent heartbreak, you decide to join Tinder in search of a rebound. Your friends advise to just Swipe Right indiscriminately... What happens when 4 soldiers from the same squad match with you? a/n: i think Ghost always steals Soap's hygiene products bc he cannot be arsed to buy some for himself.

Chapter 9: Drinks?

The moment the helo touched down, the soldiers descended, each of them parting ways as they went about their regular business, returning their gear to the armory, debriefing, showering, eating…

Almost a whole hour after their arrival, Simon threw himself down onto his bed, his skin dewy from the shower, his hair combed to the front and dripping over his face.

He popped open the top drawer of his nightstand and fished out his phone and charger. He set the charger up and turned on the phone as it charged up.

Simon didn’t often use his iPhone. Sometimes he forgot he even had it. The only times he did was to check Soap’s and Gaz’s insta/snap stories (because he liked being up to date on what they were doing) and when they were all on leave and had parted ways, so he could check the groupchat.

Once the phone turned on, he immediately beelined for Tinder and opened the app. The app lagged a bit at first but, open loading up, he saw it.

99+ likes, 99+ messages.

The big majority of them were girls, too young for him, thirsting for him, even with his face being hidden. He always knew he could attract people, so it didn’t exactly surprise him.

Rolling his eyes, he flicked his finger over the screen until he found your chat and clicked on it.

Simon: I’m back and in one piece. Simon: I think you need to wish me luck more often.

He didn’t expect you to answer him immediately, even if it was only 6 P.M. on a Tuesday and you’d likely be at home and free, considering the job you listed on your profile.

However, the Read notification popped up under his text almost immediately and your dm came right after without the app even announcing you were typing.

you: omg i was literally JUST checking to see if you had said anything you: welcome back!

The text made a smirk take over his scarred lips before he bit the bottom one and typed out a reply.

Simon: Have you been waiting to hear from me for 3 weeks? you: noooo Simon: That’s frankly adorable. Simon: Didn’t think I’d have gotten in your head that strongly. you: oh piss off simon. you: ur not that great. Simon: You’re still texting me. you: sooo???? Simon: So, I can’t be that terrible. Simon: Got your attention, didn’t I? you: oh piss off you: ur so cocky and for what Simon: Not cocky. Just sure of myself. you: no Simon. No? you: no 😤 Simon: Okay then. Simon: Suddenly not sure of myself because you deemed it so. Simon: I’m very insecure now. Simon: Is that better? you: stop being such a bloody smartass 🙄🙄🙄 Simon: You’re breaking my heart, sweetheart. Simon: I can’t take this. Simon: Going to go hug my pillow and cry some more. you: oh no you: i’m making the giant cry? 😱 Simon: Is that a dig at my height? you: YES Simon: My God, I’m going to cry even more. Simon: I’m being bullied. you: good!!! 😤 Simon: I’m making you pay for my therapy. you: pay for it yourself!!!! 🙄 Simon: How about I pay for dinner for the two of us one of these days instead?

You didn’t answer immediately after that. You always did that whenever he flirted with you and spoke about taking you out.

Simon had a shit-eating grin on his face, imagining that you were all annoyed at him behind the screen. He was right in guessing you were shy about going out, he assumed.

you: no. you: but you can buy me a drink tonight.

His jaw dropped and his eyebrows raised just a bit.

Simon: It’s a Tuesday night, are you sure? Simon: You know going out for drinks on a Tuesday is usually a sign of alcoholism? you: ur backing out now? you: wheres all that bravado of yours? Simon: Oh no, sweetheart. I’m not backing out, I’m asking if you’re sure. you: if i wasnt i wouldnt have invited you. Simon: Fair enough. Simon: Where? you: the same pub i met up with john at maybe? Simon: Rog. Simon: 30 minutes. you: i need longer to get ready. Simon: That’s fine. I’ll still be there in 30. you: are you going to be wearing the mask? Simon: 🤷‍♂️ you: SIMON you: YOU CAN’T BE PULLING OUT THE EMOJIS LIKE THIS you: YOU STARTLE ME EVERY TIME. Simon: Good. Simon: See you soon.

Setting the phone down on the mattress, Simon got up from bed and took off his towel, tossing it over the back of his desk chair before opening the top drawer of his tall dresser, grabbing a pair of black boxer briefs and putting them on.

Then, he rummaged through the other drawers looking for his one ‘going out shirt’™️ (which was actually a black long-sleeve compression shirt) which he put on along with a pair of dark jeans. It was a simple outfit.

Then he slipped on some black boots. He threw on a leather jacket over that and tucked a black neck gaiter into the neckline of the t-shirt, hiking it up to cover his mouth and nose.

Barely a minute later, he was making his way into Soap’s room and across the small space that separated him from the bathroom.

“Going somewhere, L.T.?” Soap probed from his spot at his desk, eyebrows raised and his eyes locked on the older man’s with intrigue. He rarely saw Ghost in civvies and even more rarely did he see him without a hoodie.

Unlike Ghost, Soap had made his officer’s quarters into his own living space, having brought in a gaming computer and chair, a small beanbag, and had plenty of knick-knacks around.

“Going out.” Ghost said simply as he grabbed Soap’s hair gel and squirted a glob of it into his hand before lathering them and using them to run through his blond locks which were exposed without the hoodie or signature balaclava.

“Out? On a date?” Soap asked Ghost as he quickly jogged up to the bathroom door, watching as Ghost fiddled with his hair.

“No. Just drinks.” Ghost replied as he tugged a bit as his hair to make it stand up straight.

“Is this someone you found on Tinder…?” Soap probed as he leaned his shoulder on the bathroom door, a boyish grin on his lips.

Ghost looked over at Soap out of the corner of his eye as he finished fiddling with his hair and rinsed his hands under ice cold water in the sink.

Soap took Ghost’s silence as an affirmative response. “Pro’lly a shag too, hm?” He joked, earning him another glance out of the corner of his eye. “Bloody hell, L.T. tell me all about it later, yea?” He laughed.

“Fuck no.” Ghost added as he grabbed one of Soap’s cologne bottles and raised it up for a sniff before scowling at the scent and setting it down again.

“Aw, c’mon L.T.!” He pleaded.

“Get your own date, MacTavish.” Then, he just made his way right out the door, forcing Soap to move out of the way, looking a bit like a wounded puppy.

“I’m not getting anything interesting on there!” Soap lamented with a sigh.

“No? Well, I’m sorry for you, then, Johnny.” Ghost quipped as he opened the door again and stepped out into the hall, leaving Soap behind.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

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#ikea writes 💚#it's a match! fic #cod modern warfare #cod fanfic #captain john price #john soap mactavish #kyle gaz garrick #simon ghost riley #text story #cod x reader #call of duty x reader #cod smut #simon ghost riley x reader

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doitforbangchan · 4 months

Text

All Bark and No Bite 08

Another early chapter to celebrate my birthday 🥳 i am now a 25 year old child 👧 please enjoy and let me know what you think 💕

Masterlist

Series masterlist

Chan x reader (y/n) x ot8

ABO!Nonidol!SKZ Alternate Universe

Previous - Next

Series Warnings: Fem reader, Smut, verryyyy nsfw, chan x reader, OT8 x reader, A/B/O, m/m/f smut, possessive! SKZ, possessive! Reader, anxiety and depression, reader is a CRYBABY, fluff, angst, virgin!reader, cursing, violence, pet names, dom/sub dynamics, Sub reader x mostly dom SKZ, misogyny and sexism, Ateez are depicted as terrible people (sorry Atiny!)

Chapter Warnings: Smut, oral (f receiving), fingering, Hard dom! Chan, suggestive, kissing, dirty thoughts, cursing, fluff, mild dissociation, traditional gender roles, crying (as usual)

WC: 4.1k

MDNI 18+

Hyunjin could, in fact, carry you up two flights of stairs. Now you know better than to doubt his physical prowess. It seemed almost effortless to him to make the trek up with you on his back. The whole time he had you hoisted up you were able to see the muscles in his arms rippling.

It honestly made you see him in a different light. You had thought he was an attractive man- of course you did- but knowing how strong he was… It made you want to ravish him. See what other muscles he has hidden from you.

Good thing you were behind him or he would be able to see the gears turning in your mind and the flush in your cheeks.

He took you right to the closed door of your room. It was concealing whatever your ‘surprise’ was. Hyunjin gently set you down on your shaky legs, grabbing your hand once your feet touched the floor. He lifted your hand up to his mouth, placing a kiss to your palm, then leaning in close as if he was going to kiss you. Your heart was thumping out of your chest, anticipating his next move. Instead he only kissed your cheek and whispered smugly, “Don't ever doubt me again, Baby.”

You had a look of ‘wtf’ on your face but he just ignored it, choosing to turn on his heels and head back down the steps.

Before he went down he turned to you one last time.

“Oh, the surprise is from Min.” With that he gave you a wink and descended the steps.

From Minho? That felt slightly odd to you. You had gotten a feeling the beta didn’t care for you much, but maybe you were wrong. Maybe it just took him a minute to warm up to someone. Either way you weren't going to dwell on it, he had gotten you a surprise after all.

Opening the door to your room you saw many bags sitting on your bed. Not just any bags, they were bags from Euns shop! Walking into your room and closer to the bags you noticed that there were many more than the 5 bags you had before your.. Mishap. There now appeared to be at least 10 bags.

‘Did Minho get me more clothes?’ You wondered, suddenly overcome with gratitude. While you loved wearing your alphas clothes it would be nice to have some of your own, especially after Chan had literally destroyed your original outfit. You looked through the items left for you, and half of them you definitely didn't pick, but you loved each thing he had grabbed for you. You had been so worried when you were shopping that you would spend too much money, that you didn’t get all the things you had wanted. Looks like Minho paid you great attention though because he had picked things you had desperately wanted. So many pretty dresses and sets. And lingerie?

Looking at the matching bra and panty sets you just knew there was a dark red blush on your cheeks. What was new though. There were also a few strappy numbers you would usually be way too shy to buy for yourself. It made you remember that you were expected to be shared amongst the pack.

‘Did Minho want to see me in these racy outfits?’ You might actually have a heart attack at the thought.

After looking through each bag you sped yourself down the stairs to find Minho. You went down to the second floor where you remembered his room being, finding the door open and him not there.

You did take a moment to peer inside, though. His room was decorated in deep purples, and had a thick shag rug that almost surrounded the entire room. The space felt very mature and had a lingering scent of the beta.

Your eyes were starting to close at the intense smell of him, a musky spice that was almost intoxicating. You snapped yourself out of it before you fell too deep into a subspace. No time for that you were on a mission! Next stop was the kitchen.

You barreled down the next flight of steps, almost tumbling a few times due to your still weak legs, and onto the main floor. You could hear a few soft voices coming from the living room but none sounded like the man you were after. There was a smell of something cooking coming from the kitchen, and when you stepped into the large room there was Minho. He was there stirring some vegetables on the stove.

He seemed to have heard you enter but before he could greet you, you launched yourself at him pulling him into a hug and smothering your face against his shirt. He seemed stunned for a moment- putting his hands in the air like he was afraid to touch you. It took him a second before he felt himself relax in your hold.

“Fank you fo the clofes” Your words were almost incoherent against him but he managed to understand. With one hand he patted your head while the other leaned past you and continued stirring the food he was preparing.

“You needed them. It’s no big deal.” He responded evenly, as if his heart wasn’t beating wildly.

You pulled back from him with those signature tears “No big deal? Of course it is! You went out of your way for me! And got me even more! I am so grateful to you Minho! I don’t know how to thank you for your kindness.”

He gave you a small smirk, “You know how you can thank me?” You looked at him with hopeful eyes, shaking your head no.

“Wipe those pretty tears off your face.” He responded with a small pat to your cheek before turning his attention back to the food.

You sniffled one more time before nodding and using your palms to wipe your face. It was then that your omega brain noticed he was cooking. That was your job!

“What are you doing?” You demanded. “I’m supposed to be cooking for you!” You then tried to shove him out of the way but he wasn’t budging. He was surprisingly sturdy. All he did was laugh in response.

Your lips curled into a pout and you crossed your arms angrily, giving him your best evil eye. It did not phase him at all, instead he just laughed again shaking his head and continuing to cook. You wouldn’t give in though! If the glare wouldn’t work you would try being sweet.

Unfolding your arms you clasped your hands out in front of you and gave him your best puppy dog pout.

“Please Min.” You stepped closer to him and rested your head against his shoulder. “It makes me feel useless if I can’t provide something for you guys.”

Minho felt himself tense up when you touched him again. For some reason your touch was making him nervous. That is until he registered your words.He turned to you with a sternness on his face.

“Don’t say that.” His voice was borderline harsh. You looked up at him shocked when you heard it. He continued a little softer after seeing your expression, “ You’re not useless, you provide enough”

‘Or you're going to start soon enough.’ He thought to himself.

“I like cooking, it's calming to me. If you really want we can split it up and I’ll let you make breakfasts and the occasional dinner.”

Your eyes shined at the prospect of being allowed to contribute, nodding your head rapidly. You would take anything you could get. “Yes! Thank you Minho!” You hugged him again quickly before skipping out of the kitchen, happy with the agreement.

The beta called out after you “Tell everyone 5 minutes til’ dinner!”

“You got it!”

Wandering back into the living room Felix and Jisung were still lazily strewn on the loveseat but now Changbin and Jeongin were also in there, the group playing Mario kart on the switch that was hooked up to the tv. You stood in the entryway for a moment watching them play.

It brought back memories of you playing games with your siblings, back when things were simpler. It felt like they were, anyway. You had a pretty normal childhood all things considered. You had a good relationship with your siblings, you had friends, you were doing well in school- fuck, you were even planning on going to college to become a zoologist. You were happy.

That all changed for you the second you turned 16, when you presented as an omega and had to forget about ever having a normal life.

You must have been stuck pretty far in your own mind because you didn’t hear Changbin calling your name until he touched your arm in concern.

“Huh?” You asked as you snapped out of it.

The alpha had a look of worry etched on his face, “You’ve been standing there in a daze for a few minutes, Baby. Are you ok?” His rough hand cupped your cheek and you leaned into it comfortingly.

You nodded, “Mmhmm. Sorry, just thinking.” Then you looked past him at everyone in the room, “Minho said dinner was about done.” As you said Changbins stomach let out a loud gurgle, causing the other boys present to burst into chuckles.

Changbin released your face with a wide grin, “Why didn’t you say so!” Then he cupped his hands over his mouth to project into the entire house.

“DINNER TIME EVERYONE!”

You giggled at his antics and everyone made their way into the dining room to enjoy a meal together.

---------------------------------------------

Dinner was a quieter affair, it seems like everyone was still mellowed out since the joint nap you all took, the tiredness still present. That's not to say it wasn't full of jokes, that will never stop. By the time you had all eaten and cleaned up it was now quite dark outside, the light completely disappearing behind the mountains.

Even though you slept away most of the day you could still feel the drowsiness behind your eyes. You were sitting in Chan's lap with your head resting against his chest while he joked with the other guys, the tv on in the background but no one was paying any attention to it.

Your alpha had his hand on your thigh, rubbing slow circles into your warm skin. He could sense you slipping away every now and again, and had decided it was time to take you to bed. You had a big day tomorrow, anyways.

“Are you ready for bed, omega?” He whispered against your hair, placing a kiss there.

You gave him a slow nod, “Mmhmm.” He scooped you up into his arms and stood from where you were both seated on the recliner.

“Say goodnight to the boys, baby.”

You lightly lifted your hand and gave them a wave, “Goodnight boys.”

“Goodnight, Baby!” They chorused, with Jisung adding in a little “I’ll miss you!” there at the end.

The tired giggle you let out almost made their hearts stop beating. It was so cute. “Miss you too Ji.”

Chan carried you up the stairs and into his room where he set you gently in his bed. You immediately nuzzled yourself into his comforter. He spoke softly to you, “Before you fall asleep there's something we have to talk about, Baby.”

There was a sudden inkling of anxiety in your stomach. Have you done something wrong? Were you being too much? What if he- You were brought out of your thoughts by Chan placing a chaste kiss on your mouth.

“I can almost see your brain running a million miles an hour, nothing is wrong Omega.” You felt yourself relax at his reassurance. “I was actually going to check in with you, about how you are feeling about the pack. And about what we had discussed a few days ago.” His hands were back on your thighs, the heat of his strong hands igniting something inside of you. “The other boys are quite fond of you, you know that baby?” He was staring deep into your eyes, smirking as if he could see how his hands were making you feel.

“I-I like them too.” You stuttered. you kept your answer vague, scared if you revealed how they make you truly feel it would upset the Alpha.

He hummed, his hands hiking up even higher-inching closer and closer to your core. He paused his movements, “ How much do you like them, my love? Do you like them enough to let them touch you like this?”

You were apprehensive to answer him, so he pressed further. “You know, if you're worried I’d be mad or jealous, that’s not something you have to be concerned about. In fact, I would prefer it if you wanted them like they want you.” He smirked at the hitch in your breath.

“And how do they want me, Alpha?” The words were almost a whisper as they left you, your tone breathy.

Chan let out a purr, “ They want you in all the ways I do.” His hands inched up ever closer but still not reaching. He leaned in close, his mouth almost on yours.

“Will you let them have you? Will you be a good omega and please your pack?”

The hesitancy was gone from you as you rapidly nodded at his questions, desperate for him.

“Yes Alpha. They can have all of me. Whatever they want I will give to them.”

“Good girl.” He praised, slotting his mouth over yours and finally letting his fingers find your core. The rough pads of his fingertips lightly rubbed over your (his) underwear, feeling the accumulating wetness that was making a dark spot. You let out a stuttering moan at his touch, hips instinctually raising to meet the touch.

He hummed, grinning devilishly “ Does my sweet omega like that?” He pressed harder against your pussy, pushing the fabric between your folds.

Nodding quickly you responded “Yes Alpha.”

Chan then placed his lips back on yours, his hand pulling away and finding the band of the underwear. He hooked his thumbs under each side and slowly dragged the garment down your thighs, his tongue running along the inside of your lips begging for entrance. You gave it to him gladly.

Once he had completely pulled the boxers from you he pulled his lips back slightly, still touching but not kissing. “You’re still too sore to take me, but I just have to reward my baby for being such a good girl.” His lips starting trailing wet kisses down your throat and continuing down your stomach where he lifted his shirt to reveal your breasts to him.

You were squirming in at his touch, eager to feel his mouth on you where you needed him most.

The alpha settled himself between your legs, spreading your thighs to make room for him. You were absolutely leaking. The crystalline liquid drips out of you causing the room to fill with the scent of you.

“Who made you like this, Baby?” He asked in between sloppy kisses to your thighs.

“Yo-you did, alpha.” You responded, panting in anticipation.

“Hmmm just me?” His eyes found yours, as if challenging your words. “ Are you sure about that?”

You paused, trying to find an answer. “Umm..”

He nipped at your soft thigh skin, leaving a red mark in his wake. “ You can be honest with me, omega. Have you thought about any of the other boys this way? Thought about any of them putting their mouths on your wet little pussy?” His tongue stuck out and he gave your clit a teasing lick.

“Alpha please.” There was no way you could answer that. You were too mortified at the prospect.

He growled at your avoidance “ Answer me, omega. You will get nothing if you don’t tell me what I want to hear. Do you think about them eating you like this?” He gave you another bite on the opposite side.

“Yes!” You couldn’t take it anymore. Morals be damned. “Yes, Alpha I have. m’ sorry!” Hands gripping the sheets below you.

At your honesty Chan licked a long strip starting at your hole up to your clit. The moan you let out was otherworldly, your hands finding his dark hair and yanking on the strands.

You tasted divine. Like the sweetest nectar from the ripest fruits. Chan felt his eyes roll to the back of his head at the taste.

“Please, alpha.” You begged, wanting- needing - to feel him again. At your pleads he dove into you, his tongue shoving its way into you looking for more of your sweetness. His lips found the little bundle of nerves and wrapped around it giving it a harsh suck.

“FUCK!” You bucked your hips, shoving him further into your pussy.

In retaliation he nipped at your clit and let out a deep growl, a glare in his eyes as they found yours. “Stay still or I will stop and leave you here with nothing. Do you understand me?”

You let out a quiet “Mmhmm” and his fingers came up to replace his mouth, rubbing tight circles on you.

“Tell me who you’ve thought about this with, baby?”

Your own hands left his hair and covered your face in embarrassment. “I can’t. It’s too much.”

Chans other hand that wasn't on your core reached up and roughly yanked your hands from your face, him now gripping the underside of your chin to turn your head to face him. Your eyes now locked on his as if he was seeing into your soul looking for answers.

“You will tell me, omega.” He was using an alpha command on you, since you were bonded to him you couldn’t refuse no matter how much you wanted too.

“Jisung.” You cried. “Was t-thinking about it earlier, Alpha.” More slick was leaking out of you at your admittance. This display of dominance shouldn’t turn you on as much as it does.

Chan gave you that predatory grin, pleased with your answer. “Sungie huh? How did

I know it was gonna be him. Good omega.”

He returned his mouth to you, this time with renewed vigor. His finger found its way inside of you, rubbing your walls with the calloused digit while his lips sucked you into the next dimension.

You were squealing and moaning, unable to contain the animalistic sounds that escaped you. The knot in your stomach was starting to form, all you needed was one push and you would be a goner. As if he could sense it, Chan slipped another finger inside of you causing you to topple over the edge.

You came with a long drawn out moan, Chan not letting up for even a second until your convulsions ceased. He wanted to drain you dry and that's what he had done.

Once you stopped shaking and were finally able to catch your breath Chan pulled away from you- his face soaked with your essence. “You taste so good, omega.” His fingers slipped out of you and he lifted them to your mouth. “Go on, taste yourself.” He urged. Your mouth opened wide enough for him to stick the digits in. Your tongue swirled around them, collecting the wetness. He couldn't help himself, he shoved his fingers further down your throat holding them there while you gagged around him. You didn’t fight him though, and just let him do whatever he pleased with you, like the good little doll you were.

Chan pressed a sweet peck to your stomach before removing his fingers from your mouth and crawling up to be face to face with you. When he was at eye level you grabbed him forcefully, connecting your lips with him and tasting more of your juices that lingered on his mouth.

He was the first to pull away after a few seconds, nuzzling your noses together and just breathing each other in.

“You did so good for me, baby. Thank you for being honest with me.” He was running his hands softly along your sides.

“You’re welcome alpha.” You responded quietly. “You’re not mad are you?”

He would have scoffed if you weren't so fragile right now.

“No baby of course not. It makes me happy you want him like that.”

Your shining eyes looked hopeful, “It does?”

“Mmm yes baby. You are theirs just as you are mine. Soon you’ll come to see it that way too.” You nodded at his words, the exhaustion now taking over. “Let's get you tucked in. You have a big day tomorrow. We have a few things to do in town tomorrow.” You nodded once more and let him tuck you in under his blankets. He placed a delicate smooch on your lips then forehead, and you were out like a light.

----------------------------------------------

Once you were asleep Chan sent a group text for a pack meeting out on the back patio. It was a warm night and he didn’t need you snooping in on this conversation if you were to wake up. He watched you slumber for a moment, taking in your peaceful features. He really did feel so lucky to have you. Everyday you proved yourself to be his dream girl.

He gave it another moment then made his way down the steps and outside where the other members were waiting for him, lounging on the outside furniture.A few of them gave the elder sly smiles, they could all hear exactly what the alpha had just been doing with you. Chan just rolled his eyes and smirked at their looks.

Chan took a seat on the ottoman by the sliding door, “Alright, I was wondering if anyone had any more problems we need to work through.” He scanned everyone's faces, “ I know it hasn’t been the smoothest of sailing the last few days but I think from here on out it will be better for everyone.” There were nods of agreement at his words.

Changbin was the first to speak, “How is she settling in? I hope we haven't been too.. Abrasive.”

Seungmin snorted, “That's rich coming from you.”

The alpha looked at him incredulously, “I am not that bad! Not as bad as your other fellow betas!” and pointed to Felix, Jisung and Hyunjin who all looked at him in disbelief at being called out.

“Hey, that's not fair! We’re a sensitive bunch and she's a sensitive girl! She needs us!” Hyunjin protested, the other two nodding furiously in agreement.

“Yeah she likes our kisses!” Jisung chimed in, then looked to Chan for confirmation. “Right hyung?”

“That’s another reason I wanted to call you all out here. Turns out she’s not as innocent as she lets on. She’s been having quite naughty thoughts about you boys.” Chan's smirk never left his face as he spoke. He watched each one of them have a reaction at his words.

Jeongin sputtered out “Is-is that okay with you Chan?” He was nervous his leader would change his mind and now be mad about it.

“Oh more than ok Innie.” Chan reassured him. “I have a feeling soon enough our little omega is going to be pretty insatiable and to be honest it would be a lot easier for me to have others to help take care of her needs. I mean, fuck, especially during her next heat it will be nice to have some help. My dick is still raw from that little minx.”

There was a collective groan at the prospect. They would have given anything to be there for the first one.

“While we’re talking about it there are a few things i want to discuss. As far as a claiming bite goes, it would be ok with me if you did bite her. Just not on the neck. And no cumming in her until we get her on some non-harmful birth control. I’d like to have time with her before we bring kids into the equation.”

They all nodded in understanding, agreeing with the alpha.

“Has she said who she's thought about, Channie?” Felix questioned with a dark flush on his face.

Chan tosses his head back and forth as if pondering the question, before answering teasingly “I may have gotten one out of her.” The beta looked hopeful. “Buuuuut I think I’ll let you guys figure it out.”

Felix pouted, crossing his arms. Minho was sat next to him and pinched his cheek, cooing at the younger beta.

“Aww lixie don’t pout. You know it's probably you.”

The red in Felixs’ cheeks darkened even more as he smacked Minhos hand away.

“I think it’s me!” Changbin boasted

“Nah, you should have seen her face after I carried her up the stairs earlier. Gotta be me.” Hyunjin said convincingly.

The boys just went back and forth, all trying to figure out who is the first one to catch your attention, not knowing it was literally all of them.

It was pure entertainment for Chan and Minho as they watched the others bicker.

Comments and reblogs are very much appreciated!

©doitforbangchan

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fyorina · 2 months

Text

ᡣ𐭩 YOUNG GOD

FEATURING: dazai osamu

SUMMARY: after an agonizing two weeks, dazai finally returns to you and a much needed conversation takes place. {wordcount: 11.6k; fem!reader, sfw, romance}

AUTHOR'S NOTES: WOW I CAN'T BELIEVE WE'RE AT INSTALLMENT 5 ALREADY!!! this is so bittersweet i'm literally about to cry, i hope you guys have enjoyed badlands and i hope y'all join me for unreal unearth next week!! i got to add one of my favorite quotes in this chapter hehe you guys get extra points if you spot it. reblogs definitely appreciated!! i’ll reblog with the taglist as soon as it decides to show on the dash & in the tags!

WARNINGS: explicit mentions of past suicide attempts + past self harm & scars

SEE: BADLANDS SERIES MASTERLIST READ: UNREAL UNEARTH SIDE B

Dazai is exhausted. His ears ring and his bones ache, his feet are unsteady beneath him and his body pleads for him to rest. Around him, the other members of the Agency are ecstatic, he thinks he’s gotten more hugs in the past hour than he’s gotten in his entire life. A part of him feels warm—he feels like he belongs, and his place in the Agency has always been one that he’s questioned. On bad nights, he used to think that the last place he truly belonged was on one of those three bar stools all those years ago, that being a member of the Agency—more than just in name, actually being a member—was nothing but an unattainable dream, because how could he possibly belong amongst people who are so unfailingly good that it makes his tainted heart stick out like a sore thumb?

But now, Atsushi cries in relief at the sight of him and Yosano wraps him in a hug so tight that his already brittle bones threaten to snap; Kunikida’s throat spasms as he squeezes Dazai’s shoulder and Kenji and Kyouka throw themselves into his arms. Naomi and Haruno cling to his hands, while Tanizaki tears up in front of him with balled fists as he tells him that he’s missed him. Ranpo shoots him a wild grin and a salute and Fukuzawa pats the top of his head telling Dazai that he’s proud of him, and Dazai thinks he might cry because he feels like he’s finally found a home.

An incomplete home, but a home nonetheless.

Because even as he recounts his side of the story, watching hazily as Kunikida writes it all down, his mind is barely connected to his own body. His body feels prickly and his mind is muddled with fatigue, his brain throbs so painfully that he thinks he might actually be dying. He’s overwhelmed and anxious—the strain that the constant games of misdirection and manipulations with Dostoevsky has placed on him is finally becoming too much for him to handle. He’s on the verge of collapse and he needs to be somewhere he feels safe before that happens, and there’s only one place—one person—that fits that criteria.

You.

He doesn’t even register what’s happening as Kunikida, Yosano and Atsushi help Dazai out of the office and into the back of Kunikida’s car. Atsushi sits with him in the back seat as Kunikida and Yosano take the front—they’re driving him somewhere, but Dazai isn’t even entirely sure where, and his tongue feels too heavy in his mouth for him to even ask. Atsushi is talking to him, he might even be telling Dazai where they’re going but the words sound like a distant hum and as he tries to read the boy’s lips, it all just seems blurry and unfocused.

He doesn’t even know if you’re okay.

Queen captured.

The words ring in his head over and over again as they have since the moment Dostoevsky uttered them aloud, but he doesn’t know what Dostoevsky’s capture of you entailed. He doesn’t know if you were killed. You could have been killed. If Dostoevsky had a lover, a weakness that Dazai could target, then they would have been the first person that Dazai aimed to take out to throw the Russian off of his game, and he would show no mercy. You could be dead, for all he knows; no one in the Agency had mentioned whether or not they knew if you were okay, or if they had, Dazai hadn’t heard it.

You could be dead.

Dazai’s vision spins again, his stomach lurches as Kunikida takes a turn too wide—he can’t keep himself grounded no matter how hard he tries. He wants to tell Kunikida that he needs to see you, he needs to get to your apartment complex and make sure you’re there, and if you’re not, he needs to talk to your neighbors and make sure you’re at least okay. Until he does that, he can’t rest, no matter how much his body begs him to give in.

He loves you. He’s sure of it now. He knew it before he left you two weeks ago. He thinks he might have known it all the way back then on the night you rescued him at the shore, when you woke up in the middle of the night and sat with him on the couch after making him hot chocolate. He thinks he fell in love with the bright smile that lifted to your lips when he took a sip of the drink you made him and you realized he enjoyed it—no one has ever looked so happy to see him happy with something before, no one has ever cared enough about him for that.

He is so completely and irrevocably in love with you that Dazai doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to live in a world without you. The thought alone makes his skin crawl and his chest cave in. Before he met you, he had long accepted that he was destined to be alone, that he wasn’t a human but instead a thing caught between monster and man—he had accepted that he was incapable of loving, and even more so, that he was incapable of being loved.

You had changed his perspective on everything, you had changed it so absolutely that Dazai doesn’t think there’s any going back to how he once viewed the world, how he once viewed himself. He’s started looking forward to sunrises, if it means he could watch them with you. He’s found himself looking around Yokohama and seeing places to take you rather than scouting out places for possible attempts. God, he’s even saving his money—Dazai Osamu has never saved money in his life because he hoped that each day would hopefully be his last. He’s blow it on alcohol and food and stupid trinkets that he didn’t need, but now, he’s caught himself putting aside some of his paychecks so he can save up for a nicer apartment that the two of you can live in together.

Dazai thinks that he can’t breathe, his throat feels swollen and he brings one of his hands up to tug at the collar of the white sweatshirt he’s wearing, tugging at it as if it’s the reason that he can’t breathe properly.

Dazai can’t go back to a world without you. He can’t.

Next to him, Atsushi is reaching out to him, as if trying to get him to calm down and Dazai doesn’t even want to know what the expression on his face might be right now. Everything is crumbling and tunneling around him—Atsushi, Kunikida, and Yosano are all dissolving, the car doors are fading away, the buildings and the streets and all of the scenery is just disappearing.

Shit, he thinks, trying to figure out how the hell to ground himself. Shit, shit-

The car comes to such an abrupt stop that Dazai would have gone flying into the seat in front of him were it not for Atsushi throwing an arm across his chest to stop it from happening, the brakes screeching loudly and the car skidding. Yosano is pointing wildly, shouting something and Kunikida is shouting something back, something along the lines of her nearly causing him to get into an accident, but Dazai can only follow to where Yosano is pointing too, gaze dragging across the woman’s arm in the direction of the beach to the left of the car.

He wonders if he’s hallucinating.

His fingers are shaking violently as he reaches out to push open the car door, squirming out of Atsushi’s protective hold. He flings himself out of the car desperately, nearly crashing hard onto the concrete—the fresh air is almost dizzying as he inhales it, pushing himself to his feet as quickly as possible. His broken leg screams in protest, but Dazai ignores it, vision blurring for the sparest moment before it focuses in on the figure standing on the beach in a familiar long, tan coat.

His lips part to call your name but no words leave them—he’s not sure if it’s because he’s still half out of it or if it’s because he’s scared that if he calls your name and you don’t respond, it’ll confirm it’s just a hallucination.

But he doesn’t have to say your name, whether it’s just by chance or if you heard the brakes of the car screeching, you turn in his direction.

You’re wearing his coat; it’s too long on you—the tan edges are dragging against the sand and whipping around you as the wind picks up. But you’re wearing his coat and you’re beautiful; your expression shifts into one of recognition and then shock as soon as you see Dazai in the near distance, the sun is starting to set over the horizon and the soft orange glow casts an unearthly glow over you, and Dazai thinks everything about this is entirely unreal. He thinks that you might be some sort of angel, or some other type of divine being, and he thinks that he doesn’t even deserve to look at you, much less consider you his.

As he makes his way toward you, he can’t even put together all of his thoughts in a coherent manner. You’re alive is the first thought that rings through his head, the relief is almost debilitating. All of the days he spent with his heart in his throat, unsure of whether or not his decision had gotten you killed, have finally come to an end. The next thought that runs through his head is god, because he’s imagined this moment dozens of times since he first had to leave you. He’s imagined running to you, scooping you into his arms and swinging you around, holding you close and refusing to let go because Dazai doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to let go of you again.

Except that’s entirely how it doesn’t go.

Dazai barely makes it to you before his legs are giving out on him, as much as he tries to ignore the pain, it evidently becomes too much for his body to handle. He’s collapsing into you the moment he makes it to you. His head is still throbbing, his leg is screaming, his body is aching, but your hands are instinctively grabbing him to break his fall, his knees crashing against the sand, and Dazai just can’t bring himself to care about the agony. He doesn’t care that his body is coming apart at its seams, he doesn’t even notice as you lower yourself down into the sand with him.

“Osamu.” His name leaves your lips in a breathy whisper, one that’s riddled with disbelief and longing—something else too, but Dazai can’t decipher it in his muddled state. “You’re here.”

He tries to say your name, but he’s pretty sure it comes out garbled and unintelligible. Distantly, he can feel his fingers twisting into the fabric of his jacket, trying to clutch onto you as best as he can in spite of the numbness that still threatens to consume him. Then, your grip on him shifts from the instinctual grab into your arms wrapping around his waist, one hand splayed across his back and the other sliding up to cradle his head to your chest as you hold him close, and Dazai thinks all is right in the world again. He doesn’t want to move, he doesn’t want to think, he doesn’t want to do anything but just let himself melt into you.

The feeling of your touch for the first time in weeks is enough to chase away the creeping numbness and anxiety, and everything still hurts but all of it dulls in comparison to being in your arms again. Dazai’s breath is shaky, he teeters over the edge of collapse now that he’s finally with you, his weary brain betraying him as it uses the comfort of your arms as an excuse to finally surrender. His vision swims—he’s not sure if it’s from relieved tears or exhaustion, maybe both—his nose is flooded with the scent of you, the scent of home.

“You’re here,” you whisper again as if you can’t believe it; Dazai can’t even blame you because a part of him still fears that if he lets go of you, you’ll disappear, a cruel trick on him played by his treacherous mind. You pull away from him and Dazai’s fingers instinctively cling to you harder, trying to get you to stay in place, but his body is far too weak for it to be effective.

You lean back and bring your hands up to cup Dazai’s cheeks and it takes all of his willpower to not just let himself fall limp. Your expression twists a bit, he’s not sure what you see—nothing good, definitely. Yosano splinted his leg and cleaned up the wounds on his face, but his ability canceling hers prevents him from getting the wounds healed quickly, so his face is bruised and swollen, cuts litter his skin from when the elevator had crashed to the bottom floor.

He thinks he must look disgusting, he doesn’t even know how you can bear to look at him. But he supposes that’s not a new thought to cross his mind, he’s never understood how you can look at him the way you do.

“What happened to you?” you breathe out, and Dazai’s lashes flutter as your thumb ghosts over his cheekbone, eyes searching his for an answer to your question. Dazai doesn’t know how to respond, so he doesn’t, leaning into your touch. “God, Osamu, you look like you’re about to drop dead.”

“Are you calling me ugly?”

Even in his objectively terrible state, Dazai is able to croak out the five words, although he’s sure the playful lilt is lost in his fatigue. You stare at him for a moment, as if you didn’t hear him properly, but then your expression shifts into one of disbelief and your hand flies to your mouth to smother the laugh that he’s missed so desperately the past two weeks.

“Can you walk?” you ask after a moment, hand lingering on his cheek before dropping down to his forearm, squeezing gently.

Dazai winces at your words, shaking his head—he barely even made it to you, he’s not going to make it all the way to your apartment complex.

You let out a puff of air caught between a laugh and a sigh. “Guess we’re doing this again,” you say, a teasing cadence dancing in your tone. Dazai’s brows furrow a bit in confusion, but then you’re grabbing his arm and trying to heave him to his feet. “At least you won’t be pretending to be unconscious this time.”

Dazai struggles to help you as you do your best to get him onto your back; a nostalgic feeling sweeps through him as he remembers the first time the two of you met, waking up after a failed suicide attempt to find you cursing and complaining as you try to haul him back to your apartment. He wonders if you knew what you know now back then, if you would have still stopped to help him—but that leads him to a line of questioning that he doesn’t want to approach yet.

Do you know where he’s been?

Do you know his past?

Do you know everything he’s done?

He pushes the thoughts away.

As if the gods above remember the event and want the two of you to reenact it as close to the original as possible, he feels a few drops of rain splatter against his face.

“You’ve gotta be kidding me.” He hears you complain as you finally get him settled on your back. “Keep your gangly legs to yourself this time, I don’t need them knocking into me this time.”

“... I was purposely trying to trip you, you know?” Dazai admits, voice hoarse and weak and the smile curling to the edges of his lips is lazy but it’s real for the first time in what feels like forever. “I thought it would be funny.”

You gasp loudly. “I knew it! You’re such an asshole.”

Dazai laughs, letting his head fall into the crook of your neck—he wants to bask in the light feeling that’s replacing the emptiness in his chest, but a part of him can’t help but feel like this is only the eye of the storm.

Back in the car, Kunikida looks a bit worried as you struggle to get Dazai onto your back.

“Should we go help her?” he asks quietly, glancing over at Yosano.

But Yosano doesn’t respond to him. She has an uncharacteristically soft expression on her face as she watches you laugh loudly at something Dazai says. He finally looks somewhat coherent again now that he’s with you, still in pain but that detached, disconnected look in his eyes that had been terrifying Atsushi is gone.

“No.” Atsushi is the one to respond to Kunikida, smiling lightly as he finally drags his gaze away as he watches a genuine smile twitch to the corners of Dazai’s lips as you nearly trip and fall under his weight. “Let’s head back to the office.”

Dazai has been sleeping for hours.

You let out a soft puff of air as you idly comb your fingers through his hair, eyes tracing his face. His right eye is completely swollen, his lip is split, you can see bruises littering his neck that disappear beneath the bandages he wears, his leg is broken and splinted. Despite all of that, he still somehow looks at ease as he rests in your lap.

You’re not as at ease.

Well, a part of you is, against all of your common sense. Having Dazai back in your arms is far more comforting than it should be, with the conversation that needs to be had looming over you. The sight of him sleeping peacefully in your lap, the feel of his heart thrumming beneath your hand, the sound of his steady breathing, it’s all enough to alleviate your body and mind of the stress and anxiety that has been crippling you for the past two weeks.

He’s alive. He’s okay. He came back to you.

You find consolation in the thoughts—in the few days you were detained by the Hunting Dogs, all you could do was think about Dazai. Your mind raced with worst case scenarios and crippling fears. In spite of all of the allegations placed against him, you still love him—you’d known it well before he left and the relief you felt seeing him again before was enough to confirm it.

You think it’s dangerous, and maybe a bit stupid; a part of you knows that you should run for the hills, the crimes that Jouno Saigiku listed out are nothing to scoff at, and even putting aside morality, his former position as an executive of the Port Mafia should be more than enough to have you fleeing, if only because that puts you in danger too. No one gets to the position that he supposedly obtained without gaining masses of enemies and no one leaves it alive without doubling said enemies.

But you’re not running for the hills—not because of his crimes, and not because of the risk of being with him—and that scares you a bit. You’re having trouble reconciling the Dazai you know with the one you’ve been told exists. Even when you recall all of the times you woke up to find him staring out your window with an unsettlingly detached expression, eyes too still and too black to be normal, as if they absorbed all sound and light around him; when you recall all of the man’s strange idiosyncrasies that just don’t line up with the front he puts up; when you recall that night in Kyoto where he refused to divulge what his previous job was, you just can’t.

The logic fits, your brain can see it and piece it together, your heart just won’t accept it.

Your knuckles graze the side of his face, a conflicted expression crossing over your own.

You don’t know what to do.

A part of you doesn’t want him to wake up, because you know that when he does, you’ll be forced to have the talk that you’ve been dreadfully anticipating since you learned about his crimes and imprisonment. You don’t know what you expect from the conversation, you don’t know how to approach it, you don’t know what you want to know nor why you want to know it, you don’t even know if you should continue with your relationship with him and you don’t even know why that’s still a question in your mind because obviously you shouldn’t continue a relationship with him.

Your brain feels like it might implode.

You take a step back.

As you always do when you’re faced with conflict and feel yourself getting overwhelmed, you try to take a more logical approach. First, you make yourself a chart: pros and cons, always a favorite of yours, centering around Dazai and your relationship with him. Then, you make a list: everything else you need to know to properly weigh into each of the pros and cons.

Pros:

Dazai makes you happy. (An important pro, you think, maybe it’ll outweigh all of the rest.)

Cons:

138 counts of conspiracy to murder.

You pause.

Distantly, you wonder what your life has come to—making a pro/con chart with one of the cons being 138 counts of conspiracy to murder. You press your hand against your mouth, staring ahead as you reconsider every action you’ve taken to lead to this moment. Promptly, you decide to scrap the pro/con chart and move right on to the list of things you need to know.

What do you need to know?

First off, you need confirmation over whether or not the allegations are true—if they’re not, then you’re spiraling for nothing and you can move on happily in your relationship with Dazai.

If they are?

You swallow thickly. You need context—you’re not sure what type of context would justify those crimes, you don’t think there’s any justification for them, honestly, but there must be a reason as to why you cannot reconcile the Dazai that you know with the one you’ve been told exists. You like to believe that you’re good at reading people—although you’re definitely questioning it now—so there must be some context that you’re missing as to how the “alleged Dazai” became the “known Dazai.”

And maybe—just maybe—if you can understand that, then maybe you can still move on in your relationship with him. Because even if his crimes aren’t justifiable, people can change and it would be beyond you to scorn someone trying to do their best to become a better person. It’s not like you’re some squeaky clean, paragon of virtue anyway: your university and grad school is mostly being paid off by your brother’s blood money from the underground rings, and yeah, it doesn’t really compare to being a former executive to the most dangerous gang in Yokohama but it definitely narrows your room to judge.

You glance back down at Dazai.

Your eyes meet wide, tired brown ones that immediately shut as soon as he catches you looking at him, as if pretending to still be asleep.

“Dazai Osamu, we are not playing this game again.”

Dazai reopens his eyes with a sheepish smile but he doesn’t say anything for a moment. Slowly, his expression shifts, the corners of his lips furling downward as a mixture of realization and resignation pools in his eyes.

“You know.”

The two words are so unassuming yet so damning, your heart lurches and your stomach churns. Dazai isn’t looking at you anymore, he’s staring up at the ceiling, waiting for you to speak.

Is that confirmation? Just like that?

“I don’t know anything until you tell me,” you decide to say, your voice a bit tighter than you intended for it to be.

Dazai’s eyes draw back to you, studying you carefully. He looks conflicted—over what, you’re not sure. You think if he tries to blow this off rather than explaining it to you, you might lose your mind. You’re giving him a chance to explain on his own terms and if he doesn’t take it-

You reach out instinctively as Dazai starts to push himself off of your lap into a sitting position, fingers brushing his back worriedly.

“You shouldn’t be moving around,” you tell him quietly.

He only shakes his head, finally speaking, his voice so quiet that it’s barely audible. “Let me take you somewhere.”

S. ODA

The four letters engraved into the headstone before you have been weathered by time, you can see lichen creeping across the slate and stone flaking at the edges—enough for you to put together that whoever has been put to rest here has probably been gone for a few years. Questions itch at the tip of your tongue but you bite them, waiting for Dazai to say something instead so that he can lead the conversation.

He has yet to say a word. From the moment that he slid into the passenger seat of your car, the only words that he’s spoken have been directions to the cemetery. The conflicted expression that had been etched onto his face has finally disappeared, smoothing out into an eerily blank one that you can hardly stand to look at because you know only dark thoughts must be racing through his head.

You wrap your arms around your waist as another chilly wind whips around the two of you, grateful that you’d thrown a jacket on before leaving your apartment. Dazai is only dressed in his trench coat, too thin for the cold but he refused to wear anything else. You’re not sure why, but you have caught him burying his nose into the collar and inhaling, memorizing your scent as if it’s about to disappear.

“I officially joined the Port Mafia when I was fifteen,” Dazai finally says. You raise your eyebrows a bit, wondering just how much autonomy a fifteen year old has to willingly choose to join the Mafia, but you don’t voice your thoughts, waiting for him to continue. “I met Nakahara Chuuya, a current executive of the Mafia, that same year and we earned the moniker Double Black for being the most lethal pair in Yokohama’s underground. At sixteen, I was put in charge of the boss’s personal covert ops unit and I was promoted to executive for all of my accomplishments, youngest underboss in the Mafia’s history. I’d eliminated countless rival organizations, opened numerous new distribution channels for all of their illegal trades, and had a hand in planning nearly all of the major operations both within and outside of Yokohama.”

His voice is void of any emotion, a cold monotone as he speaks the words like a bland recitation of a prewritten speech; his eyes are too empty and far too still as he stares ahead at the grave in front of the two of you. It’s unnerving; somehow, you think you like it even less than the actual matter of what he’s saying.

“Until I was eighteen, I continued to be the driving force behind the Mafia’s rapid growth and ironclad control over Yokohama; while I was an executive, no foreign organization dared to try to usurp control over any of our territory. They’d give up their territory if they knew I was the one heading the expansion operations, because they were scared of me and because they knew it was a lost cause trying to defend against me. Whatever you heard about me, it’s all true and probably way worse than you could ever imagine.”

The silence between the two of you following his words is damning—the wind is too loud and the distant sounds of cars honking and brakes screeching is jarring. You can hear your heart thudding in your ears, you can feel your gut twisting, your fingers tremble from where they’re stuffed in your pockets. Dazai is a statue next to you, his eyes haven’t budged, his limbs are stiff. If you didn’t know any better, you’d think him a corpse

Your lips part to speak but no words leave then. You take a moment before trying again. “How did you end up with the Mafia?” you ask, your voice is much weaker than you intended for it to be.

Because that’s what you need to focus on—the context, that’s what you’d decided before he woke up and that’s what you’ll stick to, not what he’s done, but first how he ended up there and then why he left. You can’t imagine a fifteen year old willingly choosing to join the Mafia, so you think there must be more to the story.

For the first time since the two of you arrived at the grave, Dazai moves—it’s subtle, a twitch of his fingers and a tug at the corner of his lips but it’s gone in an instant, you almost miss it.

“I tried to kill myself when I was fourteen.” Bile rises to your throat almost as soon as his words process, you finally turn to look up at him but his expression hasn’t shifted at all. “The doctor tending to me ended up becoming the new leader of the Port Mafia. I was kept around as an insurance policy, and partly by my own volition, but I joined willingly at fifteen after turning him down several times.”

“Why?”

“I… thought something would happen. For so long, I just… couldn’t feel anything, and I didn’t see the point in living because of it. I thought that maybe the more extreme emotions—violence, death, desire—all of the things that are found in abundance in the Mafia… I thought that if I could be around people who display all of these things so plainly, that I would be able to see and understand what makes humankind human. I thought that maybe it would help me feel more human, and find some sort of reason to keep living.”

You exhale, eyes sliding shut for a second. You feel nauseous—hands lighty trembling as you desperately try to digest the large pill he gave you as quickly as you can because you still have more questions but god, what type of fourteen, fifteen year old feels so empty inside that he turns to the Mafia to try to feel something?

“You were a kid, Osamu. You’re not some incarnate of evil for ending up where you did, you were failed by all of the adults in your life,” you finally say quietly; you’re the one staring ahead now, and you can feel his eyes on you but you don’t dare to turn to look at him because you know that it’ll make you crack and you need to continue. Clearly something else happened when he was eighteen that led to him leaving the Mafia but what? Your gaze trails back to the grave in front of you, a sinking feeling in your chest. You take a deep, steady breath before asking your next question: “What changed at eighteen?”

“I didn’t leave the Port Mafia because I had some great epiphany as to the immorality of my actions,” Dazai snaps. His voice is tight and borderline antagonistic, emotion finally seeping into the monotone, as if he’s trying to convince you that he is what you claim he’s not. “I-”

He cuts himself off abruptly, his voice cracks, you lift your gaze to his face and your throat spasms when you notice the black pits have been replaced with the warm brown you’re used to, a vast array of emotions swimming within them, too many for you to pinpoint a single one.

“He was my friend,” Dazai finally says softly. “My only one, maybe. When he died, he told me that if both sides are the same to me—evil and justice—that I should become a good person, I should save people. So, do you understand? Nothing about me has changed since back then, and the only reason I’m on the side of the ‘good’ is because someone else asked it of me, not for any altruistic reason. I’m still the same now as I was then.”

“... I don’t think that’s quite true,” you tell him after a few seconds of silence, and you can feel him look at you and you can practically hear the bitter ‘what do you know?’ that he’s about to let out, so you force yourself to continue before he can. “I think that if someone had told me all of this a few weeks ago, I would’ve laughed in their face. I never once-”

Dazai scoffs. “So, you don’t understand,” he says, voice reverting back to that empty tone you hate, but his body is tense and he’s looking anywhere but you. “I’m good at putting up fronts, wearing masks depending on who I’m around; it’s how I learned to blend in with people. The man you know doesn’t exist. I’m a fraud, my blood runs black; when I’m pushed into a corner, I invariably fall back into old habits. I’ll never leave the dark and I don’t belong-”

“I think you’re wrong,” you interrupt him, recalling Yosano’s words from two weeks ago—he’ll never believe it himself. “I don’t think you’ll ever see yourself from an objective standpoint. I don’t think you want to believe that you’ve changed for the better, but I think you have. I’m not stupid, Osamu, and I’ve never been one to fall for people’s acts, no matter how good they might be. I’ve known something was up with you since that first night when I woke up and found you staring out the window, and still, I have never once doubted that you were a good man.”

“I killed people to get out of Meursault, I was willing to torture people to get information when the Guild showed up in Yokohama and then again when the Decay of the Angel arrived, I’ll manipulate anyone and everyone around me to see my plans through, I…”

Dazai is still listing off all of the reasons why he’s still a bad person, and maybe you should be listening but you can hear the way his voice is becoming increasingly more tinged with desperation, as if he’s intent on convincing you to change your viewpoint on him. You wonder if he thinks you’ll run, and then, you wonder if he’s trying to make you run—each sentence he speaks becomes more descriptive than the last.

He’ll find himself sorely disappointed, because you’ve already decided that you won’t run. You’re still not convinced that this is the smartest decision on your part; Dazai is dangerous and being with him is dangerous, not because of him himself, but because of the threats that still linger from his past, but you suppose love always drives people to do stupid things in its name anyway. Even now, as he lists off all of these terrible things, you can’t imagine your life without him—you think a life without him will be dull and gray, and you’ll always look back to the time you spent with him as the happiest you ever were, regretting the decision you made here.

You’re not the type of person to live a life full of regrets.

And whether he sees it or not, you think he has changed. You’re not the only one—Yosano, Atsushi, all of the members of the Agency see him in a similar light as you, but he’s so blinded by his past that he refuses to see himself in the present. Even the things he says now, all of it was done in the name of protecting the people he cares about, and that’s not something you’re going to condemn him for.

“I think he’d be proud of you.” You cut off his tangent with seven quiet words and Dazai goes utterly still and utterly silent next to you. “I didn’t know him, of course, but I think he’d be proud of the man you’ve become, Osamu. Change doesn’t happen overnight, you were surrounded by the dark for so long, and from such a young age, that it might take decades to remove its influence over you, but you’re trying and you’re saving people. I wish you could see yourself the same way I see you. I think he would be proud.”

You wonder if you pushed too far, sparing a glance his way. His brows are furrowed so intensely that you can’t hope to try to imagine what might be going through his mind, brown eyes flooding with emotion as he looks down at his friend’s grave.

“I’m not someone that was born to be with people,” he finally croaks out. “Romantically or platonically. I’m not right in the head. Manipulative, constantly trying to kill myself, prone to jealousy, pettiness and casual cruelty. There are so many people trying to kill me that I stashed guns in your apartment when you weren’t home just in case they came after me while I’m there—I don’t care if they get me, but they might go after me when I’m with you, or even go after you to get to me. Sometimes, I regret leaving the Mafia because I feel like it’s the only place I actually belonged because it’s the only place where I was actually good at what I do.”

You don’t speak, instead letting him list off everything that he thinks is wrong with him, laying out bare all of the things that he tried so hard to hide from you over the past few months. He can’t look at you, eyes trained ahead and you can see the way his fists are clenched in the pockets of his trench coats. He lowers his face into his collar again, burying his nose in the fabric before continuing.

“During really bad slumps, I can barely get out of bed even though I can’t sleep; sometimes I won’t eat for days unless someone notices and forces me to and if they do, I usually get nasty with them; and I’ll do just about anything to die. Atsushi-kun has had to fish me from more rivers than I can count, Kunikida-kun has had to drag me to the hospital after trying to overdose on pills or drink various types of poisons, Yosano-sensei has spent days watching over me because she didn’t trust me not to try again once one of them saved me.”

His voice has mostly returned to that cold monotone, but there’s a hint of emotion clinging to the edges that he just can’t wipe away, something caught between desperation and pleading. Your throat feels tight and swollen and you think that your heart might be shattering a bit with how he’s so set on pushing you away and convincing you that he’s simply too horrid to be loved.

“I can’t cook. I don’t clean. I hardly shower. I’m more often drunk than I am sober. I can barely go a week without trying to kill myself at least once. I suck at saving money because I figure I’m going to die soon anyway, so I don’t see the point in it. I have an awful lifestyle and more unhealthy habits than I can count. I've tried to change it but I always fail. I don’t know how to comfort people and when I’m confronted with conflict by people I care about, I’ll avoid them until I can act like nothing's wrong. I’ll be more of a bother than anything else, really.”

“I still want you,” you finally say quietly, watching as a distressed expression sweeps over his face.

“You really don’t,” he protests weakly. You wonder if he’s trying to convince himself of it, or you—maybe both.

“I do. I’ll take care of you.”

“It’s rotten work,” he breathes out, a last ditch attempt to persuade you away.

“Not to me,” you tell him firmly. “Not if it’s you.”

“I don’t deserve this.” Dazai shakes his head, voice so quiet that you can barely hear him. “I don’t understand—everything I told you and you’re still… I don’t deserve it. I don’t deserve you.”

“I disagree, but regardless, that’s hardly relevant,” you say absently, finally reaching out to loop your arm in his, resting your head against his bicep. “Do you want this? Do you want me?”

“Yes.” His voice is so hoarse and so low, as if he can barely bring himself to say the words out loud.

“Then it’s yours. I’m yours.”

Dazai’s jaw is clenched so tight that you’re worried he’s going to damage his teeth, he brings his hand to his eyes as if to cover the upper half of his face. You squeeze his arm a bit, comforting, eyes sliding shut.

“Everything I touch withers and turns to ashes,” Dazai rasps. “Anything I never want to lose is always lost. I’m scared that by being with you, I’m also killing you.”

“I’ll take that risk, if it means I can be with you,” you tell him, watching as he shakes his head, still refusing to look at you.

“You’re so damn stubborn,” he exhales quietly.

“You love me for it,” you tease lightly.

“I do,” he admits, and your eyes shoot open a bit at his words. You glance up at him, but he’s looking ahead, expression downcast. “And I’m sorry about that.”

“Are you apologizing for loving me?” you ask, a bit incredulously.

“Yeah. I am.”

“Osamu…”

Your voice is soft, you’re not sure what you want to say but you falter when Dazai suddenly looks down at you. His eyes are so exhausted, he looks like he hasn’t had any rest in years—his shoulders sag and his arms hang limply at his sides. You think that maybe you shouldn’t have agreed to all of this when he’s still recovering, but you also think that the fatigue is not just physical.

“I’m so tired,” Dazai suddenly whispers, resting his forehead on the top of your head. His voice cracks a bit over the word, you slip your arms around his waist, letting him lean into you.

“Then let’s go home, yeah?”

“... Yeah, let’s go home.”

When you get back to your apartment, it’s still dark but you know dawn will break soon; as Dazai stumbles over to your bed, you make your way to the window. You close the curtains so that Dazai will be able to sleep easily even after the sun rises, and then move over to your nightstand to turn on the dim lamp so you can at least see a little bit.

Dazai drops his coat onto your desk chair before he takes a seat on the edge of your bed, feet planted on the floor as he stares ahead at the wall. He looks lost, conflicted; you don’t know what to say to draw him out of it, so you decide not to say anything. Instead, you make your way over to him and take a seat next to him—your thigh brushes his, arms ghosting each other’s, and Dazai immediately leans over to rest his head on your shoulder, eyes sliding shut.

You lift your hand to cradle the back of his head, fingers idly carding through his dark locks. You feel him let out a shaky breath, the air hot against your skin, and you turn your head to the side, pressing your lips to the top of his hair, lingering for a moment before resting your head against his.

“Lay down and get some sleep,” you tell him softly. “I’ll stay with you.”

Dazai exhales, but he doesn’t budge from where he’s leaning heavily against you. “... I need to take off my bandages,” he finally says quietly. “They’re drenched in sweat and blood, haven’t had a chance to change them since I left… I don’t want to get in bed with them on.”

You pause and then ask, “Do you want me to go grab the new roll I bought? I can step out.”

“I don’t have the energy to put them back on,” he finally murmurs, and then a bit more hesitantly, he adds: “Can you help me take them off?”

You think your heart is in your throat. In the months you’ve been with Dazai, the only glimpse you’ve gotten of his body beneath the bandages was that day he showed up at your doorstep bleeding out and you had no choice but to cut through some of them to patch up the wound, and even then, you only saw the sparest bits of his body, only what was necessary to stop the bleeding. He’s been so careful to keep it hidden from you and now…

“Yeah,” you breathe out. “Of course, I can.”

You shift a bit so that you can kneel behind him on the bed, fingers curling around the hem of his white long sleeved shirt. You tap his arm gently, a silent ask for him to raise his arms, and when he does, you slide the thick cloth off of his body, leaving him in his pants and the bandages that cover every inch of visible skin besides his face and hands.

He was right, they do look disgusting—most of them are yellowed and frayed at the edges, as if they’d been drenched with water and dried several times over. There’s blood staining the bandages on his side and a black tarry substance clinging to the bandages wrapped around his waist. You lean forward and press your lips against his shoulder, over the somewhat clean bandages that are covering the skin there, and you can hear Dazai let out a sharp, shaky breath in front of you.

“Ready?” you whisper, fingers grazing the clip fastened to the bandages on his neck, holding them in place.

He only nods, so you press another soft kiss to him, this time to the crook of this neck, and unfasten the clips to unwind the bandages from around his neck. To your credit, your fingers don’t falter when a rugged, discolored scar is revealed, looped around his neck; it’s mostly faded, but it’s still rough beneath the pads of your fingers. Your eyes linger though, there’s no question as to what caused the scar and your mind instinctively draws back to all of the offhand comments and jokes that Dazai has ever made about ceiling beams and nooses and your throat feels a bit tight.

You dip your head down to press your lips against the nape of his neck, right over where the rough skin crosses. You can hear his breath hitch, you can feel the way he shivers, but you don’t say anything as you continue to unwind the bandages around his chest and torso. You’ve seen most of the scars that litter his back from when you’d had to patch up his bullet wound, but it’s different seeing them without the fear of him bleeding out fogging your brain.

They look much harsher against his pale skin now—the worst is still that deep, jagged one that runs from his shoulder to the corner of his hip, but you can’t help but notice that there are more that you hadn’t noticed that day. Most of them are various types of cuts and slashes, some deeper than others, and healed bullet wounds, your gaze is particularly drawn to the most recent one on his upper back. It’s fresh compared to all of the others, still red and easily agitated—your fingers brush over it for a moment before you lean in to press another kiss to his shoulder blade, right over where the worst of the scars begins.

You shift from behind him to sit at his side, dropping the bandages that had been covering his chest, torso and neck haphazardly onto your bedroom floor before reaching out for his right arm.

Dazai withdraws immediately.

His expression is guarded, you think that his eyes seem a bit glassy but you can’t tell with the dim lighting. You don’t say anything, and you don’t reach out again; after a few moments of him studying you, his shoulders slump and Dazai moves his arm so that it’s back in your lap. Your eyes trace his face one last time, making sure he’s okay, before you lift your fingers to start unwrapping the bandages, starting at his bicep.

The skin of his bicep is mostly clear—there’s one light scar cutting through its side, as if a bullet had grazed him. When you move down to his forearm, Dazai is stiff and you can see the discomfort on his face, but he doesn’t pull away, so you continue.

And you falter, because as you loosen the bandages to remove them, you catch sight of the deep scars lining his wrist and forearm. The skin is uneven and discolored, there’s hardly an inch of visible skin on his lower arm that’s not covered by the vertical scars. He’s staring at you, dark eyes heavy and inspecting your every reaction—he’s looking for something, and you don’t know what, but you just decide to do the same thing you’ve done every other time you finished taking off a set of bandages and lean down to press your lips against his pulse point, moving over to do the same to his other wrist after unwrapping the bandages there too.

Your gaze flickers down to his legs, where you can see the bandages on his ankles peeking out from the white pants he’s wearing, a bit too short for his long legs. You pat his thigh gently and say, “C’mon, let’s get you out of these ugly things.”

Dazai shifts up just enough for you to help him slide the loose plants off so you can toss them off to the side, leaving him in his briefs and the bandages wrapped around his thighs and calves. You move to kneel in front of him, instantly getting to unwinding them, starting at his ankle.

“Do you remember what you told me back then?” Dazai asks quietly, looking down at his lap instead of you. “The day we met?”

“I told you a lot of things that day,” you say lightly as you glance up at him, careful as you unwrap the bandages around his calves. You kiss his knee. “You’ll have to be more specific.”

“You said you’d change the trajectory of my life,” he murmurs, twisting his fingers absently.

Vaguely, you remember the words, smiling a bit in amusement.

“About the hot chocolate?” you question, laying a kiss to his other knee before shifting up to unwrap the bandages on his thighs; you make sure not to let the pain show on your face when you notice that his inner thighs are as littered with scars as his wrists and forearms, all of them dangerously close to his femoral artery.

“Yeah.” He lets out a puff of air akin to a laugh, but when you glance up at him, you see there’s very little amusement on his face. In fact, he looks more wistful than anything else. “You really did, you know? Not with the hot chocolate, obviously, but just… you. You did.”

You sit back on your heels as you look up at Dazai, taking his hand into yours before lifting it to your lips, kissing his knuckles softly. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” he agrees quietly. When he continues, his voice is hoarse, bordering on a plea, “Don’t ever go somewhere I can’t follow.”

“Somewhere without you?” you ask, a teasing lilt to your voice as you kiss the palm of his hand before letting go so you can move to unwrap the bandages from his other leg. “Sounds dreadful, I would never.”

He lets out a noise as if he doesn’t entirely believe you, as if it’s some inevitable fate that the two of you will face. So when you finish unwinding the bandages and push them off to the side with the rest of them, you lean up on your knees to cup his cheek, pulling him down a bit to you so you can press your lips to the corner of his.

“You’re stuck with me.”

“I think it’s the other way around,” he croaks out, and the wry laugh he lets out falls flat.

You squeeze his hand again before you rise to your feet, and when you do, Dazai’s throat spasms as you stand in front of him, looking down at him. He’s stripped bare in front of you now—physically, emotionally, and he looks at you with an expression that lets you know that you have the power to utterly ruin him. He’s trusted you with his heart, handed it over to you on a platter after having guarded it so desperately and carefully for so long, and you can see the vulnerability in his dark eyes as he watches you restlessly, waiting to see what you’ll do with it.

You lean forward again, pressing your lips against his forehead softly and then to his own, a chaste, innocent kiss that lasts no longer than half a second.

“I love you,” you tell him quietly.

Humans cannot live without a heart, so if he’s to give you his, it’s only fair that you give him your own—though realistically, yours has already been his for a long time. Your heart beats in his chest now, and his in yours, and you wonder if he understands the gravity of what that means but you think he does, if the way his expression crumbles has anything to say about it. His hands fly to your waist, dragging you down onto his lap. His fingers bite a bit too deeply into your skin for it to be comfortable, but you only wrap your arms around his shoulders and let him bury his face into the crook of your neck.

“I think I might’ve been born just so I could meet you,” Dazai admits, words thick and throaty, muffled against your neck.

You smile lightly, toying with the hair at the nape of his neck, turning your head to the side to kiss his temple. “I feel the same,” you whisper, because there’s no way anything but destiny led you to Dazai Osamu on that beach—one way or another, you were fated to be with him.

Dazai pulls his face from where he’s had it tucked in your neck to press his lips to yours; he kisses you desperately, hands rising to cup your cheeks. In one swift motion, he has you pinned down on the bed, hips and chest flush to yours, hand slipping behind your head to tilt your head so he can deepen the kiss, and you’re reeling at his sudden switch up, struggling to keep up with him. His tongue traces the inside of your lip, deceptively gentle compared to the way he has body pressed against yours.

Your hands fly to his waist, sliding over his bare skin, over all of the rough ridges of his scars and his body shudders against yours violently, unused to the feeling of someone touching him without his bandages as a barrier. He pulls back, tugging at your bottom lip softly before moving just far enough away for your lips to be brushing, sharing the same sliver of air. You can feel his breath fanning across your lips, it smells of the peppermints you have littered across your desk and distantly, you can’t help but wonder when he managed to steal one, but the thought is only fleeting. It’s dizzying, hot, so intimate that you think your heart is about to fly out of your chest.

“I don’t think I’ll ever get used to this,” Dazai breathes out, dark eyes searching yours as he speaks.

“Me neither,” you agree, and then you smile, leaning up to steal another kiss from him, and then another, and then another. “Good thing we have the rest of our lives to try.”

Less than a week later, you stand in the chaos of the Armed Detective Agency as they argue over a new case—and by they, you mean Yosano and Kunikida with Dazai occasionally making antagonistic comments to try to make Kunikida blow a fuse. You don’t really know what you’re doing here, you suppose the Agency doesn’t really care and you have nothing better to do anyway —you lost your internship at the Ministry of Defense, obviously, with all of the chaos that went down and classes have yet to start up again, and Dazai begged and pleaded for you to come with him to work because he ‘can’t stand having to look at Kunikida-kun’s ugly mug all day,’ but you figure it’s only because he wants to sneak off to you whenever Kunikida is distracted.

Like now.

Dazai has flopped onto where you’re lounging on the couch as he watches Kunikida and Yosano go at it, head resting on your chest, giggling to himself as Kunikida’s face goes red and Yosano looks increasingly more entertained. You’re idly playing with his hair as you scroll through your phone, distantly listening to the argument that you’re pretty sure Dazai instigated just so he could slink away from his desk.

It’s only a matter of time before Kunikida notices Dazai’s scheme and drags him off of you, but it’s nearly the end of the day anyway and you and Dazai are going to the theme park in the Kanagawa prefecture once he can leave work, so you’re excited. You think you’re going to ask Atsushi, Kyouka and Kenji to come along with the two of you, even if Dazai pouts and scowls over it, because they’ve spent most of the day talking to you when Kunikida was forcing Dazai to actually do his work.

“Ranpo will be here soon,” Yosano goads Kunikida. “We’ll see what he says.”

Kunikida’s eye twitches and he parts his lips to speak but before he can, the door to the Agency flies open and a familiar dark-haired man comes bounding in, snacking on a bag of sweets. Tanizaki follows behind him, looking exhausted if not a bit relieved to be back.

“Tanizaki got us lost three times,” Ranpo complains, making his way through the reception area toward the interior. Tanizaki looks disgruntled, as if he doesn’t entirely agree with Ranpo’s statement but is beyond arguing about it. Ranpo pauses next to the couches where you and Dazai are lounging. “It’s you.”

Your eyebrows raise a bit when you notice the thinly veiled irritation in Ranpo’s voice. Dazai looks up, eyes a bit narrowed, and both Yosano and Kunikida pause from where they were about to bring their argument to Ranpo, sharing a look with one another.

“Ranpo-san, don’t be ru-” Dazai starts to complain, although you can tell there’s a hint of tightness to his voice.

“First, everyone in the Agency ignores me when I tell them not to take this case; then, I go out of the way to warn you about the Hunting Dogs and instead of listening to me, you throw yourself into the heart of Yokohama and make yourself easy pickings for them,” Ranpo rants. “I don’t even know why I try.”

Realization strikes fast, your face feels a bit hot. Dazai sits up from where he’s laying on you, looking between you and Ranpo, a bit confused.

“... You were R,” you realize sheepishly, wondering how you hadn’t put it together sooner.

Ranpo all but sneers. “Aren’t you supposed to be an honors student at Waseda? I swear, sometimes I think I’m the only person in my life with brain cells.” he says snidely, pointedly raising his chin and looking away from you as he adds: “I suppose your arrest wasn’t entirely a bad thing, though—made the police force more willing to open their eyes with their wives and family members going off the deep end about the Hunting Dogs. But still, after all the effort I went through to get that warning to you…”

He finishes with a loud scoff, but you’re more focused on the aghast expression on Dazai’s face as he looks at you, and you brace yourself for the conversation that’s about to come, wondering how the hell you’re going to get out of it.

“You got arrested?” Dazai blanches, eyes wide and face a bit pale.

You wince, laughing a bit sheepishly. “Yeah… ha, look at us, in jail at the same time! Couple goals, huh?”

Dazai doesn’t look half as amused—a mix of disbelief, guilt and a hint of anger all visible on his face. You don’t know where the guilt is coming from, but you figure he must blame himself for it somehow, which you think is a bit ridiculous because it was your choice to let yourself get arrested when you had the chance to flee. You think that your trip to the amusement park is going to be tainted now, because you know that as soon as Dazai gets the chance, he’s going to bully you into an interrogation over what happened, so to salvage the night and spare yourself the headache, you finally make your move.

“Atsushi-kun, Kyouka-chan, Kenji-kun, Osamu and I are going to the amusement park later, you should join us!”

The look Dazai gives you is nothing short of betrayal, but luckily, Atsushi, Kenji and Kyouka, who’ve all lit up at your words, excited, can see it from where they’re sitting. You smile sweetly up at Dazai, leaning up to steal a kiss; he is disgruntled, narrowing his eyes at you.

“Oh? The one in Kanagawa?” Yosano suddenly asks, interested. “We’ll come too.”

Dazai buries his face in your chest, letting out a muffled groan. Yosano tosses you a wink, seemingly having forgotten about her argument with Kunikida as she throws her arm around the man and gives him a sharp look.

“Won’t we, Kunikida?” she asks with a terrifying smile. Kunikida looks as if he’s going to protest but before he can, Yosano’s arm around him tightens. “Won’t we?”

“Fine,” Kunikida bites out, looking none too pleased. “I need to hurry and finish this report then, so let go.”

Ranpo points at you. “You’ll fund my cotton candy for the night as an apology for the unnecessary headache,” he declares and you let out a huff of laughter in agreement.

“Can Naomi and I come too?” Tanizaki asks, a bit hesitant as he glances at you and notices the way Dazai has slumped into your chest, defeated. “We’ve only been once when we were kids. It’d be fun to go back.”

“‘Course,” you agree easily. “Dazai and I are gonna head out now though, I have to run to the store before we go.”

Kunikida only waves you off—he probably doesn’t even register what you asked, too focused on getting his report done—so you push Dazai off of you and rise to your feet, stretching because your back has become a bit sore from lounging around all day. Dazai nearly topples onto his ass, shooting you an accusing look before standing up straight.

You hold your hand out to him, he takes it, looking a bit mollified.

“See you in a bit,” you tell the Agency, and you get various different goodbyes as you leave the office.

As soon as the door shuts behind the two of you, Dazai is scowling at you. “You’re devious,” he claims. “Inviting them all to avoid a much needed conversation. Diabolical.”

“Learned from the best,” you coo, leaning into him and nudging his arm with your shoulder. He rolls his eyes, you grin. “Please, you and I both know you would spend the whole night trying to talk about it if we go alone and it would piss me off. We can talk about it when we get home.”

“And now.” The smile that Dazai gives you is all teeth, you grimace. “How did you get arrested?”

You just shrug. “They asked me for information, I refused to give it. I figured if they were going to come after me one way or another, it’s better that it happens in public—people don’t really take kindly to watching someone get arrested for associating with an organization that they’ve all associated with at some point or another because they’ll get scared that they’re next.”

Dazai looks at you, distinctly impressed. “You are devious.” He sounds proud, your cheeks heat up a bit, but then his expression drops again. “But still reckless. You could’ve been killed.”

“But I wasn’t.” You wave him off and then absently bid goodbye to the cafe owner and his wife as the two of you leave the cafe and make your way down the street to where you’d parked this morning.

“But you could’ve been,” Dazai stresses the words, he’s a lot more tense than you expected, his jaw is tight. He catches the way you’re looking at him and shakes his head, letting out a puff of air. “I’m sorry.”

“For what?” you ask, brows furrowed.

“It’s my fault,” he tells you, and you immediately scoff, rolling your eyes. “It is, you don’t understand—I was with Dostoevsky in Meursault, I had to make a decision-”

“Shut up,” you tell him, irate. His mouth shuts instantly. “Stop acting like I have no autonomy. I knew what I was walking into, I chose to do it anyway. That’s the end of it, stop blaming yourself for every little thing that goes wrong, Osamu. You’re only human, you can’t control everything.”

You can tell that Dazai doesn’t believe you, but that’s an argument for another day. Luckily, Dazai doesn’t look too keen on pressing the subject anyway. Instead, conflict sweeps over his face as he studies you.

Finally, he asks quietly, “You never doubted the Agency?”

You let out a sharp laugh. “Are you kidding? There’s no way anyone’s going to convince me that the people in that office building are terrorists. That’s absurd, I figured there was something supernatural going on, just didn’t know what.”

Dazai looks at you, disbelief painted on his face. You’re not sure why until he lets out his own laugh, shaking his head. “The Decay of the Angel had a reality altering book,” he explains, eyeing you as the two of you continue down the sidewalk. “And you managed to somehow subvert the reality they created with it.”

You can’t tell if it’s a question or not, and for some reason, you feel distinctly seen as he looks down at you with an indecipherable expression. So you just shrug. “They shouldn’t have written such a ludicrous reality, then,” is all you say, a bit awkwardly.

Dazai only laughs again, slinging an arm around your shoulder. You lean your head into him, smiling softly. You bask in his presence, letting the warmth of the setting sun wash across your face as you share a few moments of silence.

As the two of you reach the parking garage you’d parked in, Dazai suddenly stops, looking down at you. “Do you believe in fate?” he asks quietly, uncertainty in his eyes as he watches you for a response.

“Yeah,” you tell him. You’ve always believed in fate, and you believe in it a bit more after meeting Dazai, because somehow you know that you were always destined to meet him, that your fates have been intertwined since the moment the two of you were born. You simply cannot imagine a life without him, not in this world or any other. “String theory, multiverse, I think the world’s a lot bigger than just ours. Why?”

You glance up at him curiously. “You do?” he asks a bit distantly, leaning down to ghost his lips against your forehead. Then a bit more hesitant, he continues, “If you think there’s more worlds like ours… do you think we’re together in all of them?”

You snort, which is obviously not the reaction Dazai expects from the way he jolts, but before he can take offense to your reaction, you speak.

“Definitely,” you say so confidently that he almost looks taken aback. “I’ll find you in every universe, you can count on it.”

You think he looks beautiful right now as the sun finally sets over the horizon, the pale orange tints of the coming dusk making his skin glow, his eyes soft and fond, full of longing as he looks down at you. You’re struck with a distinct urge to kiss him, but he looks so divine in this moment that you can hardly bring yourself to move, spellbound as you admire him.

“Yeah,” he finally breathes out, “I will.”

i don’t even really have words guys 🥹 i’m literally about to weep i can’t believe it’s over

#ᡣ𐭩 carina’s archives #dazai x reader #dazai x you #dazai osamu x reader #dazai osamu x you #bsd x reader #bsd x you #bungo stray dogs x you #bungo stray dogs x reader

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t9fi · 5 months

Text

allure. — ryomen sukuna☆

pairing. True form, lord!Sukuna. Fem!reader.

warnings. Dirty talk. Misogyny. Reader is a virgin. Clit stimulation. Traditional roles. Sukuna being a big meanie. Literally bipolar!sukuna fr. kuna using you. Lil angst

word count. 1.8K

notes. Two chapters in one day? Your welcome. Like ughh, the punishment is gonna be so good guys like foaming at the mouth.

ch. two.

“Good girl”

The endearing nickname sent shivers down your spine. His admiration. His caresses. His words. It overwhelmed you completely.

Sukuna was keenly aware of how your body responded to his every action and word. His hand, once resting on your stomach, now cupped your pussy. Your eyes fluttered as a soft whimper escaped your lips.

"How adorable," he teased, his fingers lingering against your sensitive spot. Your knees trembled under his touch, causing you to lean into his chest. You could feel his warm breath against your ear, thick with desire. "Spread em."

And you obeyed. Your back arched as you willingly opened yourself wide for your beloved Lord. His fingers explored your entrance, teasingly brushing against your sensitive flesh. The sheer wetness that coated your thighs was a sensation you had never experienced before, driving your mind into a frenzy.

His fingertips glided up and down your slick folds, his voice a seductive whisper. "My sweet little pussy," Sukuna murmured.

You couldn't help but roll your eyes in sheer pleasure as his teasing pushed you over the edge. Straddling his lap, your arms wrapped tightly around his neck, Sukuna continued to play with your pussy. "M-my lord," you struggled to say, your voice choking with lust. You wanted him to touch you more, to make you reach that peak of ecstasy.

Sukuna chuckled, looking down at your helpless form. "What is it, wife?" he asked, his voice dripping with anticipation. He wanted you to say it, to surrender completely.

Moaning, you began to grind against Sukuna's hand. "Uh, huh, little one, use your words," he urged.

Whining and pouting your lips, you looked up at Sukuna, your eyes pleading. "Please Lord, please touch me," you begged.

But that wasn't enough for him. He wanted to hear the most depraved words escape your lips, to break you down completely. You could sense his disappointment hanging in the air. "Please, 'kuna, I want you to touch my pussy; make me cum," you finally confessed.

That nickname made something stir within him. "That's a good girl," he praised, his voice laced with hunger.

His fingers found your clit, rubbing slow circles that sent waves of pleasure coursing through your body. Gripping the back of his hair, you let out soft moans of ecstasy. "'Kuna," you gasped.

His dick twitched against you. His breath grew hotter and more uneven, clearly aroused by your pathetic sounds.

Sukuna quickened the pace of his fingers, causing your hips to buck uncontrollably. The room was filled with your cries and he revelled in it. Though he didn't show it, his body spoke volumes.

You trailed your tongue from his neck to his jaw, leaving a gentle kiss. Now face to face with Sukuna, your eyes rolled back in pleasure, your head thrown back. Your hips moved desperately against his hands. "Mm, fuck," you cried out, your mouth hanging open, so close to reaching your climax.

His other hand moved towards your lips, his fingers sliding into your mouth. You were on the edge, so close to that mind-blowing release.

"Beg."

Your mind was clouded with desire, unable to think clearly. The words stumbled out of your mouth, barely audible, "P-please."

"Do you not want to cum for your King?" he asked, slowing his movements. You couldn't help but cry out, "Yes, yes please, Lord."

Sukuna's grin widened from ear to ear. "Then be a good girl and beg for it, beg for me to make you cum."

You nodded fervently, still grinding your hips against his fingers. "Please, Sukuna, I need it. I need you to make me cum, to claim me as yours."

His desire intensified. He wanted you to be completely his, to yearn for his touch, to be consumed by it.

He tightened his grip on your throat. "Cum for me."

And you did.

Your first ever orgasm felt like a euphoric dream. Your entire body trembled, causing your back to arch as you cried out his name. As you rode out the waves of pleasure, your eyes fluttered open, meeting his gaze filled with a dark, lustful hunger.

"You're such a good girl," he whispered softly, his hands caressing the sides of your hips.

For an evil king, he showed surprising tenderness and gentleness towards you.

Wanting to reciprocate the pleasure he had given you, your hand reached for his cock, but he stopped you with a firm hand. "No, you don't deserve that."

Your heart sank, realising that he was merely using you for his own satisfaction. It was predictable.

He pushed you away and swiftly got out of the bathtub, slipping on his robe. He glanced back at you. "Not yet."

The maids had meticulously tidied you up, leaving you in Sukuna's room, which was now also yours. This time, you were adorned in a delicate, light pink kimono adorned with cherry blossom motifs that danced across the fabric. Your hair cascaded down, beautifully styled. Your makeup was subtle yet impactful. However, despite your efforts, Sukuna's hurtful words lingered, making you feel undeserving and unattractive.

"You don't deserve that," his words echoed in your mind. As you sat on the edge of the bed, you couldn't help but feel like a mere puppet, existing solely to fulfil your husband's desires. Even though you had reached your physical climax, it felt as if something was still missing, as if you hadn't truly found satisfaction.

Tears welled up in your eyes, threatening to ruin the carefully applied makeup. You gently rubbed your eyes, trying to hold back the flood of emotions.

Knock. Knock.

"Ma'am, Lord Sukuna requests your presence in the dining hall," the maid informed you. "He wants you to meet his friends."

Friends? Sukuna had friends? The thought surprised you, momentarily distracting you from your inner turmoil.

"Thank you," you managed to say, your voice slightly shaky as you wiped away the tears from your face.

This was going to be an interesting night.

As you strolled through the grand halls of the castle, your eyes couldn't help but take in the sight of all the stolen treasures and weapons that had been amassed by previous sorcerers. A nervous gulp escaped your lips as you realised the magnitude of the power that resided within these walls.

Following the guidance of a maid, you found yourself standing at the entrance of the dining hall. It was a sight to behold. The table stretched out before you, adorned with a lavish feast that seemed to cover every inch. You felt a bit lost, like a sheep in unfamiliar territory.

Suddenly, a voice called out, breaking you from your thoughts. "Wife," Sukuna's voice rang through the hall. Your head instinctively turned, scanning the sea of faces to find your husband amidst the crowd of men. And there he was, looking absolutely dashing. His hair slicked back, with a few rebellious strands falling gracefully. His black kimono exuded an air of mystery and power. He was undeniably handsome.

A small smile tugged at the corners of your lips as you made your way towards him. There was an empty seat next to him, and you moved to take it, but before you could, he grabbed your wrist. "Perform your wifely duties and give your husband a kiss," he commanded. Leaning down, you aimed for his lips, only to be stopped. "My cheek, woman," he snarled. You quickly planted a peck on his right cheek before taking your seat.

Sitting beside him, you couldn't help but feel the weight of all the eyes in the room. They stared at you like curious monsters, their gazes filled with intrigue and perhaps a hint of envy.

Sukuna, seated at the head of the table, spoke with utmost authority. "This is my wife, Y/N," he announced, his voice carrying across the room. Greetings and compliments echoed through the hall, as the other men acknowledged your presence.

One man, with grey hair and mismatched eyes, spoke up. His face adorned with stitches, he gave off an eerie vibe. "She is very pretty," he commented. You glanced over to another man who had black hair, half of it tied up in a bun, and stitches on the top of his head. He too seemed peculiar.

Sukuna simply hummed in response to the comments, his satisfaction evident. "Now, let us eat," he declared, signalling the start of the feast.

You glanced down at your plate, marvelling at the abundance of food before you. It had been ages since you had seen such a feast, and you couldn't help but feel a mix of gratitude and suspicion.

Sukuna leaned in closer, his voice laced with curiosity, "Is there something wrong with your meal, my dear?" His words hung in the air, leaving you unsure of his intentions.

With a forced smile, you played the role of a contented wife, replying in a hushed tone only meant for his ears, "No, I absolutely love it. Thank you, my Lord." He nodded in response, returning to his own meal.

You cautiously began to eat, savouring each bite. However, the atmosphere quickly shifted when the grey-haired man yelled out, “So Y/N, are the rumours true?, is the Sukuna big down there”.

The words caught in your throat, causing you to choke on your food.

Sukuna's anger flared, his voice dripping with menace as he confronted Mahito, "Do you have a death wish, Mahito?" His gaze bore into the man, warning him of the consequences.

Mahito, seemingly unfazed, brushed off the tension with a wink in your direction. This only fueled Sukuna's frustration, leading him to mutter curses under his breath.

You couldn't help but wonder why Sukuna didn't take immediate action. He had the power to punish or even kill Mahito, yet he remained seated, his inaction leaving you perplexed.

There was an undeniable urge within you to check on him, to ensure his well-being. Your hand gently rested on his thigh, giving it a slight squeeze, "Kuna, are you okay?"

That name. Fuck he loved it.

His gaze shifted towards you, seemingly impassive, as if your actions had no effect on him. But deep down, they truly did.

"I'm fine, woman," he replied, his tone laced with annoyance. Leaning closer, his breath brushed against your face. "Now remove your hands before I bend you over in front of everyone in this room.”

Your eyes widened, a gulp escaping your throat, as you quickly averted your gaze back to your food. Your appetite vanished, replaced by a feeling of sickness and being used.

Sukuna and the rest of the men continued their conversation, while you remained silent, afraid to utter a word. The fear of your husband's potential punishment in front of everyone in the room kept you paralyzed. The cursed energy emanating from these men seemed to infect your very being, making you feel nauseous and on the verge of vomiting.

Without a moment's hesitation, you stood up and hastily left the dining hall, aware of the piercing gazes fixed upon you.

Little did you know, you had just committed the gravest error of your existence.

#jujutsu kaisen sukuna #sukuna #ryomen sukuna #sukuna ryomen #jjk sukuna #jujutsu sukuna #sukuna smut #ryomen sukuna x reader #sukuna x you #sukuna ryomen smut #sukuna ryomen x reader #sukuna x reader #Jjk smut #jjk #jjk x reader #jujustsu kaisen x reader #jujustsu kaisen smut

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1989tvcore · 2 months

Text

tied by music. - charles leclerc. chapter one.

summary; in which a songwriter gets in contact with the il predestinato to help her in creating her most personal album.

face claim; taylor swift

pairing(s); charles leclerc x fem! singer! reader, zayn malik x ex! fem! singer! reader. smau.

warning(s); toxic/unfaithful relationship, reader in a very bad mental state during break-up but she’s eventually healed, zayn is the douchebag i sincerely apologise. </3 (most of these are shown in the following parts)

author note; can we please um… ignore the fact that um… this is literally the script for my um… fame dr… ANYWAYS HERE’S COMPOSER CHARLES TO COMFORT YOU! 🤍 this series will have many parts or maybe just two, we’ll see how it plays out.

masterlist | chapter 2

english isn’t my first language, credits to rightful owners.

popbase

liked by y/nayncrumbs, ynphobic and 45,771 others

popbase Song-writer & Musician Y/N Y/LN & former One-Direction & Musician member Zayn Malik have officially broken up after 6 years of being together, TMZ reports.

tagged: youryusername, zayn

view all comments

user6 oh that y/nayn stan account must be crying now that the rumors are confirmed …

y/nayncrumbs user6 i literally just turned suicidal.

ynphobic y/nayncrumbs u know damn well this was long due …

user47 user6 can you blame them?

user58 THANK GOD, that man was insufferable when it came to their relationship

user13 user58 silent like

user0 user58 do y’all ever shut up

user58 user0 just wait until y/n releases a new album x

user99 NO PLS SAY SIKE RN

user33 user99 YES PLS DO I CAN’T HANDLE THIS I’M IN CLASS

user13 user99 girl she’s free???

user1989 wait a sec … remember when we got y/n6 rumors a few months ago?? DID HE CHEAT?? ZAYN IT’S ON SIGHT.

user17 user1989 they might’ve just not announced it when they actually broke up 🤡

user1989 user17 they were spotted together multiple times during y/n6 rumors and he was literally ignoring her while talking to models???

user16 why is nobody mentioning how charles leclerc has literally been helping y/n to make y/n6???

user55 user16 same question right here.

user4 user16 how do you know it’s for y/n6?

user16 user4 y/n has mentioned multiple times that she admires charle’s music and would love to work with him on a project of hers or his

user77 user16 Y/N IS A F1 GIRLIE??

user16 user77 since she was a child 🤧

yourusername just posted a story!

seen by charles_leclerc, oliviarodrigo and 1,403,758 others

user1989 GIRL WE KNOW THAT’S CHARLES’ KEYBOARD

user13 this album will break us all so bad.

user16 hi pls attend the next grand prix tyvm

charles_leclerc you must be in jail for not sending me the first picture.

yourusername charles_leclerc surprise? 😁

charles_leclerc yourusername yeah yeah whatever now send me the picture so i can make it my wallpaper 😌

charles_leclerc just posted a story!

seen by yourusername, f1, landonorris and 997,410 others.

user1989 SHUT UP IT’S LITERALLY THE SAME KEYBOARD

f1wagsource soft launch, no?

user65 CHARLES HERVE PERCEVAL LECLERC IS THIS WHAT I THINK IT IS.

yourusername no bc i’m literally announcing our baby tomorrow

charles_leclerc yourusername I know 🫶🏻

yourusername charles_leclerc i’m so nervous

charles_leclerc yourusername there’s no reason to be nervous sweetheart. whatever happens I’m here.

yourusername charles_leclerc stop being such a good boyfriend you know i’m not used to men like you 😔

charles_leclerc yourusername I really don’t plan on stopping anytime soon cherié.

yourusername charles_leclerc please do not! i love you 💞💓💕💗💝💘💖

charles_leclerc yourusername i love you too babe, now go rest you’ve got many promotions starting tomorrow.

yourusername

liked by charles_leclerc, arianagrande and 13,400,239 others

yourusername Surprise surprise! The first single of my new album “Metanoia” (coming out April 23), “we can’t be friends (wait for your love)” comes out tomorrow evening!

Thank you my whole team for making this album possible. I’m so grateful for all the wonderful and talented artists who took part in the creation of “Metanoia”, truly couldn’t be more lucky to have people like you by my side. Whether that is as colleagues or friends. In addition, there was one special someone who took HUGE part in writing, composing and producing this album with me, someone who I have very close to my heart. @charles_leclerc, the man, the monegasque himself. Thank you for agreeing to helping me bring into real life my deepest emotions and thoughts, you stood by me during very hard times in my life, I will always be thankful for that. Studio sessions with you are my only good memories of the hell I’ve been through last year.

And to the fans, thank you for supporting me always. I hope you’re excited for this project as much as I am. See you tomorrow for the premiere of the “we can’t be friends (wait for you love)” music video!

view all comments

arianagrande congrats!! can’t wait to listen♡

liked by author

yourusername arianagrande my girl 🤍

iamrebeccad can’t wait for tomorrow 🥰

liked by author

yourusername iamrebeccad love you so much. 🥹💗

francisca.cgomes album of the year already

liked by author

yourusername francisca.cgomes tearing up, thank you so much kika. 🥹🤍

lilymhe so in love with you! 💗

liked by author

yourusername lilymhe my #1 gf 🥹💞

alex_albon lilymhe excuse me?

rachelzegler I THINK I’M CRYING??

liked by author

niallhoran Congrats sis!

yourusername niallhoran Thank you Niall! 🫶🏻

user29 niallhoran oh zayn fucked up big time

user32 niallhoran THEIR FRIENDSHIP IS EVERYTHING

ynayncrumbs niallhoran oh it’s really over.

user1989 DID I ACTUALLY JUST MANIFEST Y/N6????

user13 user1989 OH MY FUCK YOU DID

user45 user1989 I think you graduated from tom holland manifestation university!

user16 WHERE’S THE TRACKLIST??

user88 user16 she’ll probably reveal it later

user99 EVERYONE SHUT UP NEW Y/N MV TOMORROW!!?!?

user30 user99 I’ve got a feeling it’ll have a love interest

user99 user30 SAME

charles_leclerc So proud of you! ❤️

liked by author

yourusername charles_leclerc Thank you Charlie! 🥹

ynphobic charles_leclerc I think I’m not breathing anymore.

user49 charles_leclerc I’M CRYING TEARS OF HAPPINESS.

landonorris having early access to this album: it’s good ig…

yourusername landonorris did you think the same when you were crying to the whole tracklist?

landonorris yourusername YOU DID NOT.

alex_albon landonorris get ended nowins 🤣‼️

landonorris alex_albon FUCK YOU

user11 I’M LITERALLY CRYING BC WDYM CHARLES ALMOST GOT A PARAGRAPH DEDICATED TO HIM??

yourusername user11 he deserves it more than anything. 🤍

taglist; @formulaonebuff @ironspdy @sleepybrokenmelle @dreamergirlatpaddock @taygrls

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cherriesformatt · 4 months

Text

sharing the news || matt sturniolo part 2

matt x fem!reader

summary: after a while you decided its time to share the news of your new chapter in life with Chris and Nick

warnings: pregnancy

word count: 1,5k

a/n: thank you for over 100 notes under part 1! I decided to continued the story. I hope you will like it!

It's been a month since me and Matt found out that I'm pregnant. It’s been hell of a ride so far. We somehow managed to talked Chris and Nick out of my little episode and told them I just got my period and was really upset, tired and need Matt to go to the store for me. I spent entire next two days in Matt’s room trying to figure out our situation. I was also constantly sick and anxious. After than I just tried to be as normal as I could so no one would be suspicious.

At first it was like I didn’t know what I should do. But then I found myself thinking about the baby with my hand on my stomach and I knew I wanted to keep it. I also did hear Matt talking to my belly in the middle of night which made me cry so hard in the bathroom because of how cute that was.

Today was my first ultrasound appointment to confirm the situation and check if everything is alright.

“You know… I was thinking that if everything is good I would like to tell Chris and Nick and then we can decide how and when we want to tell the rest of the family” Matt looked at me when we stopped on the red light.

Keeping this a secret form his brothers was really hard for him because they always talked about everything with each other. Which was scary for me at first. Their whole relationship and building my own with Matt but also becoming part of theirs. Now I just admire the bond between them.

“Yes I was thinking the same” I smiled at him and put my hand on his thigh. I was nervous about only one thing.

“What I was thinking… Is that I will literally jump if your fucking triplets genes worked too hard and there is more than one of those” I said what was on my mind recently.

“Oh my goodness… I didn’t think about this” He put his hand over his mouth.

He was clearly scared now.

“We giving one to Chris in that case” I said seriously.

“Please , we are never leaving our kids with Chris, ever” he said.

I only laughed at that and patted his leg.

“It’s gonna be all good Matt, let’s manifest it’s only one for now” I said.

“Baby… I know this month wasn’t ideal for you and we both tried to cope with the fact that we’re going to have a baby but also only us knowing for now is really special” He looked at me for a second and his eyes went back to the road.

That was also exactly how I felt and I leaned forward to him and kissed his cheek.

“I love you Matty… I know this is all hard but you’re right” I said.

“I love you too sweet girl… okay we’re here, let’s do this” He parked the car and took a deep breath.

Our appointment went smoothly. They did my blood test which confirmed that I’m pregnant. They also did bunch of other tests to see if I’m all good and healthy. Thankfully I was. The last step was the ultrasound.

“Alright parents…” The doctor said and I gasped at the cold of the liquid that she put all over my lower belly.

She called us “parents”, that took me by surprise and I felt so weird.

“Ready?” She looked at me and smiled and I only nodded and closed my hand on one of Matt’s hands.

She started the thing and looked at the monitor. We couldn’t see it just yet.

“Okay… I found it… everything looks great. The baby is healthy. Looks like you’re about 6/7 weeks pregnant” She said.

“Only one?” Matt asked and wiggled on the chair.

“Oh my Lord, Matt… He is a triplet and we were kind of scared that you know… there’s gonna be more than one” I laughed and looked back at the doctor.

“Yes there’s only one” She laughed as well and turned the screen so we could see it too.

I felt like my heart skipped a beat when I saw a little thing moving on the screen. Like a dot. But I knew it’s our baby.

“Oh my…” I said and she pushed some kid of button and sound of a really fast heartbeat started to play from the machine.

“Is that?..” Matt gasped as well.

“That’s your baby’s heart beating… it’s really fast that’s normal and that’s actually really good. The baby is really healthy, you guys… congratulations” She said with a big smile.

But both of us were speech less. I caught Matt swiping tears from his cheek with a corner of my eye. That moment was something you can’t explain. You need to experience that yourself to know how much love I felt in this moment.

When we were back in the car I put all of my stuff in the back seat, closed the doors and turned around to go to my doors but I was met by arms of my boyfriend.

“Oh Matt…” I said hugging him back.

He hid his head in the crock of my neck and I run my fingers through his hair. I felt tears on my skin and I couldn’t help as my eyes started to water as well.

“We’re going to be okay. We can do this Matt. Together” I said but my voice broke I couldn’t exactly feel what’s happening.

“I know… y/n I’m just so happy that’s it’s overwhelming” He said pulling back to rest his temple against mine.

“I feel exactly the same way” I whispered looking him in the eyes.

He kissed me and pulled me even closer to his body. I couldn’t imagine doing this with anyone else.

On our way back we stopped by target and some other places to get Nick’s and Chris’s favorite snacks, drinks and some funny, cheesy stuff that had “cool uncle” on it.

At home I put all of it in two boxes and also added a picture from the ultrasound to each.

This situation was so unreal for me and Matt. They were actually filming in the kitchen now. I really wanted to have their reaction on camera, so we told them that Matt wanted to do some kind of unboxing with their eyes blindfolded and they would have to guess what’s in the boxes.

When he texted me they are ready I took the boxes and come to the kitchen and put them in front of them and stood behind the camera.

“Okay you may open them” Matt said.

They started to pull stuff out.

“That’s bullshit it’s clearly Pepsi and popcorn” Chris said.

“Yes and that’s my own lip balm” Nick said annoyed.

“Okay how about this?” Matt took an ultrasound pictures and put into their hands.

“Piece of paper?” Chris said.

“No” Matt said and looked at me.

“Picture?” Nick said and showed it to the camera.

“Yes, it’s a picture” He nodded and smiled to the camera.

“Picture of us?” Chris asked and opened his can of Pepsi.

“No… but picture of someone that is in a room with us” Matt said.

“Oh my gosh you fucking freaking me out right now, what the fuck, are you a medium or what” Nick said an put the picture on the table.

“Okay… maybe just take your blindfolds off and Chris… you might want to wait with that fist sip” I said looking at them.

“I didn’t know you were here…” Nick said and started to undo the bandanna on his head.

I bit on my nails as I watched them taking those off. Then they looked at the boxes and I felt like I stopped breathing for a second.

“What the actual fuck? Is this some kind of prank?” Chris asked as his eyes widened.

“Oh my gosh are you kidding me?” Nick looked at me and stood up.

“Chris you owe me 1000 dollars… I knew it!” He hugged me tightly and I put my arms around him.

“Did you two bet on me being pregnant? What the hell?” I laughed.

My stress went away because how could I be stressed around them.

“I actually forgot that we did” Chris said and gave Matt a big hug.

“You guys… I don’t know what to say” Nick said pulling away from me.

“Well…. To be honest we don’t know either” I said and Matt only laughed.

“Yes… this feels really like a dream more than real life” Matt said looking at his brothers.

“Wait… are we first to know?” Chris asked.

“Of course you are… who else?” Matt looked at him and Nick went closer to them and they three shared a hug and than looked at me.

“Come here mama” Chris wiggled his eyebrows at me.

“Never, ever call me that again” I said seriously while coming into the hug.

They laugh and we stand like that for a minute or two.

“Okay I love you all but all three of you smell like three different colognes and I might throw up” I said stepping back.

This baby will be the luckiest baby in the whole world having them as a family.

#chris sturniolo #matt sturniolo #matt sturniolo x reader #nick sturniolo #sturniolo fanfic #sturniolo triplets

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ladykailitha · 1 month

Text

Paper Hearts Part 1

Remember how my posting schedule was going to be based on strictly vibes from now on? Yeah this is why. I have three chapters of this completed and only two of most everything else because I hurt my right wrist on Wednesday evening (I think I overextended my elbow and it fucked up the tendons in my wrist, because I've done that before on my arm and it feels like that).

So instead of getting more work done on stuff that is literally paragraphs away from the end of the chapter I'm having to tap into my backlog. Which is what it's for. But it is annoying.

I am also aware it's nearly May, but my muse was never one for sense.

Summary: Hawkins High is selling paper hearts to help raise for senior prom. $3 for red romantic hearts and $1 for pink friendship hearts. Steve hasn't dated anyone since the horrific breakup with Nancy on Halloween and so he decides that he's going to send pink hearts to senior girls who wouldn't normally get any hearts at all. When Eddie hears about this he can't help be intrigued. It goes against his very well curated Munson Doctrine. But as events keep throwing them together, Eddie learns there is more to King Steve then meets the eye.

Also a note: the use of the other's last name when it's their point of view is deliberate. As they get to know each other more, the more first names get used.

****

Steve was staring at the huge sign with a sense of dread. In big pink and white letters on a red background screamed the words:

PAPER HEARTS FOR YOUR VALENTINE $1 FOR PINK FRIENDSHIP HEARTS $3 FOR RED ROMANTIC HEARTS ALL PROCEEDS GO TO CLASS OF 1985 SENIOR BALL

Valentine’s Day. That time of year for lovers and romantics. That used to be him. But not since Nancy broke his heart by breaking up with him for Jonathan Byers.

There would be no paper hearts in locker this year. Not even pink ones. Nancy had well and truly blown up his life and she got to walk away scott free.

He didn’t know what to do anymore. He pinched his nosed and rubbed the end. He wasn’t going to cry in the middle of the fucking main hall of Hawkins High.

Just before he was about to start moving again someone shoulder checked him, sending back to the floor and all his stuff sprawling around it like some fucked flower.

“Watch it, Harrington!” the voice growled as whoever it was sped off down the hall.

Steve didn’t even bother looking to see who it was. It could have been anyone these days. His former friends. Billy and his ilk. Hell, even the nerds and geeks got in on the action lately.

He knelt down to start cleaning it up when someone else kicked his books toward the lockers. He managed to get most of it picked up when he reached for the last notebook. Someone stepped on his hand and ground down, hurting Steve and ripping the cover off the notebook, crinkling the first couple of pages.

He shoved it into his bag and cradled his hand to his chest. He looked at his watch and sighed. Lunch was nearly over and he hadn’t even made it to the cafeteria yet.

There was nothing for it, he had to get to his next class. He walked into the class room just as the bell rang, but instead of heading for his usual spot near the front he made for the back of the class. There were always a few empty seats around Munson. The guy was terrifying on a good day.

And Steve hoped it was a good day.

****

Eddie made to class on time by the skin of his teeth. He slid through door just as the bell rang above his head. He was about to lope over to his usual spot in the back when he stopped dead in his tracks.

He looked up at the front at the deliberately left open seat and back at the seat next to his with a raised eyebrow. He wisely said nothing as he flopped into the torture device known as the chesk. Dair? Whatever the hell it was called where some unspeakable horror thought to combine a desk and a chair.

Eddie glanced sidelong at his new companion. The recently deposed king of Hawkins High sat slumped in his chesk, head down, just staring at its surface as if held the meaning to life the universe and everything.

Which if Harrington asked him, he would have been told forty-two.

He pulled out his notebook and noticed that Harrington did not do the same. Curiouser and curiouser. He pulled out a pencil and settled in to avoid falling to sleep today.

He was taking notes and doing the assignment like he was supposed to when about half way through class the teacher called out to him.

“Mr. Harrington!” she shrieked. “If you are going to be sitting in the back, please have the decency to pay attention in class!”

A couple of kids snickered.

“You were talking about how the Fool is used to lighten the absolutely horrific scene above him of Lady Macbeth as she tries to get blood out of her gown,” he muttered, scratching his cheek with his left hand.

That was when the teacher and Eddie noticed the same thing at the same time.

Harrington was cradling his right hand to his chest.

“Mr. Harrington is there something wrong with your right hand?”

“I accidentally hurt it during lunch,” he said with wince.

The teacher tapped her foot and crossed her arms. “And why didn’t you see the nurse?”

“It happened right before class,” Harrington muttered, “and I didn’t want to be late.”

The teacher huffed and shook her head. “I will give you note for your next teacher, but you will see the nurse after class, am I understood?”

He nodded.

“Mr. Munson,” she cried out, shrill. “If you’ll share your notes with Mr. Harrington after class so he does not fall behind.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

He continued to keep an eye on Harrington throughout the whole class but whenever their English teacher tried to catch him out, she would fail every time.

When the bell rang Eddie started shoving his stuff into his backpack. “You sure you even need my notes, Harrington? That was pretty impressive shit you pulled out of your ass today.”

Harrington just shrugged. “Just because I was paying attention doesn’t mean it won’t bleed out of my ears with all the algebra and chemistry stuff I have later.”

Eddie winced in sympathy. “Yeah, I hear that. What’s your locker number and I’ll just slip a copy of my notes in the slots.”

“323B.”

“They got you on a lower locker?” he asked with a grimace. “That’s jacked up. Even Mr. Super Senior here got a top locker. Does the secretary hate you or some shit?”

Again Harrington shrugged. “I’ve got to go. I’ll catch you later.”

Eddie folded his arms at looked at him. “You’re not going to the nurse’s station, are you?”

This time it was Harrington who winced.

“That’s what I thought,” he huffed. “I’m walking you to said nurse’s station because it could be broken and if you don’t get that looked at, you’ll be in more than just a world of hurt, man. You could fuck up your hand for life and you wouldn’t be able to anything in that hand ever again.”

Steve’s eyes went wide as all color drained from his face.

“Shit.”

Eddie grabbed both of their backpacks and headed for the door. “Yeah, shit.”

Harrington hurried to catch up, hand still cradled to his chest.

“How did you know that could happen to my hand?” he asked softly.

Eddie eyed him sidelong, but the kid wasn’t being an ass. In fact he would say Harrington was being earnest.

“My uncle works at the machinist plant up the road,” Eddie explained. “One of his buddies broke his hand on the machine and refused to get it looked at. Guess how well that worked?”

“Was it the plant’s fault?” Harrington asked. Eddie cocked his head to the side. “That you uncle’s friend got hurt?”

Eddie reared his head back in shock that Harrington would even ask.

“No, man,” he said shaking his head. “He was goofing off, being a dick. Uncle Wayne always said that if you knock on every door asking for the devil, one day he’s gonna answer.”

“What happens when the devil comes looking for you?” Harrington muttered to himself and Eddie couldn’t help but wonder what this kid had seen.

Because he knows haunted. And Harrington looks like he has an attic full of ghosts.

Once they got to the nurse’s station Eddie waited for him. When the other boy came out he asked how it went.

“She says it doesn’t feel broken,” he huffed. “But that if it doesn’t improve over the weekend after icing at least three times a day, to come back on Monday and she’ll order an x-ray.”

Eddie nodded. “Right. See you around, Harrington.”

He had barely turned around when Harrington called out to him. “Wait!”

Eddie turned back around to have a piece of paper shoved into his hand. “I got the nurse to excuse us both.”

And before he could even reply the other boy was tearing off down the hall as if the devil himself was chasing him.

And after that comment he’d heard, Eddie couldn’t be sure he wasn’t.

****

Steve was curled up on his bed, icing his hand, staring up at the ceiling, and wondering where the fuck his life had gone so wrong.

Okay so he could answer that one, actually. Demogorgon ate his girlfriend’s best friend while in his backyard. While him and said girlfriend were having sex for the first time.

Yeah... that was all kinds of fucked up.

He still couldn’t believe that Nancy sided with Jonathan about him taking pictures of their first time.

So now Valentine’s Day was two week away and he was dateless, friendless, and unpopular. He wished he could just be called a loner. But a loner was cool and Steve wasn’t even that anymore.

He just had to make until the end of may and then he could graduate, leaving this town in his rearview mirror for good.

Steve knew that he would have to struggle through this fucking holiday and Senior prom then it would be smooth sailing from there.

He had all this money that he would normally spend on his girlfriends, but now he didn’t even have that. He supposed he could blow it all on beer and weed and then he could enjoy the weekend for a change.

Steve sat up suddenly, the ice pack falling from his hand to hit the floor with sploosh!

Now that was an idea.

He still had one thing in the school that was nonpareil and that was gossip. In fact, it was easier to hear all the dirty little secrets because no one cared if he was standing there.

A smile spread over his face.

That could actually work. It would be a great way to spend his allowance and it would be fun.

He got up and put the ice pack back in the freezer. He couldn’t do anything about it right then but once his hand was better he would formulate his little plan.

Steve was suddenly excited for the first time since he dropped Dustin off at the middle school’s Snow Ball.

He was going to make this holiday fun even if he had to manufacture the fun himself.

****

Eddie was pissed. A little at himself, but mostly at how Harrington was being treated.

He had to sit through lunch and listen a bunch of stupid jocks brag about stomping on Harrington’s hand when he was trying to pick up his stuff off the floor in the hallway yesterday.

They had been hoping for an actual break, but the asshole thought he’d only bruised it.

The reason Eddie was a little mad at himself for this was because he was the one that had shoulder checked Harrington. He had only been trying to get the guy out of his daze. Not send his shit flying.

And then to have someone deliberately stepping on his hand. Fuck. Not even Hagan ever went that far.

Stev–Harrington didn’t deserve that kind of bullying. No one did.

But he could see the twisted sort of appeal, though. And fuck if that didn’t make his stomach turn.

To see the deposed king and want to mock that? Want to dig the hurt in as deep as he could? To drive home the lesson that popularity was fleeting and that existence was a curse?

Yeah, Eddie could see the appeal.

But he wouldn’t. He might make fun of literally everyone and everything but his own interests, but to make turn that into actual cruelty? That was were he drew the line in the sand.

He went home feeling sick to his stomach. And of course Wayne picked up on it immediately.

He jutted his chin at the chicken and rice on Eddie plate that he had only merely pushed around with his fork.

“What’s got you so twisted around the bend?”

Eddie put his fork down and hid his mouth with his clasped hands, elbows on the table.

“I fucked up today,” he murmured. “I didn’t mean for it to go as it did.”

“What did you do?”

So Eddie told him. “I wasn’t trying to hurt him, but he got hurt anyway.”

“That does sound pretty bad,” Wayne agreed. “And as you say, you were trying to help only for it to go very awry. And since you didn’t about it until after the fact you couldn’t apologize and that’s what’s eating you up inside.”

Eddie nodded around his fists, his lower lip quivering.

“You’ll just have to find a way to apologize on Monday,” Wayne said wisely.

Eddie sighed. It was the best he could do. It wasn’t as though he could call the guy up or show up at his house. The first because he didn’t have the guy’s number and the second because he’d get the cops called on him so fast by the neighbors.

It would just have to wait until Monday.

****

Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7

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#my writing #stranger things #steddie #ladykailtiha writes

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onewingeddove444 · 1 year

Text

★How the bachelors would react if they accidentally made you cry

word count: 1.1k

Alex:

-would probably not even notice you're crying at first

-his expression would change so quickly

-😀😦

-kind of knew he had it coming though, since a lot of the stuff that flies out of his mouth is....well😇

-would IMMEDIATELY start taking the blame, saying things like "nahhh i didn't actually mean that i lied haha no idea why i said that i'm so stupid" ((starts blaming it on his hormones being affected by working out or something😭😭))

-hesitates at first, but pulls you into the tightest embrace you've ever felt ngl probably hurts a little lol

-his way of apologising to you is saying "you can punch me as hard as you want, i deserve it!!!!"

-starts treating you like royalty for another month, to the point where it becomes annoying

-every time you bring it up, even as a joke, he basically drops to his knees and starts apologising all over again

Elliott:

-if you thought this man was already dramatic as it is....lord🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️

-would try to be cool about it, while in his head he's already pressing a dagger to his neck, saying that he has now betrayed his heart and doesn't want to go on any longer

-the moment he sees tears flowing down your face, the only word able to come out of his mouth is a soft "no, no, no..."

-he'd probably start crying with you😭😭😭

-starts whispering the most loving and kind things about yourself into your ear

-literally compares you to the most breathtaking images you could ever envision

-alternative scenario, where he just drops to the floor and starts begging for your forgiveness, even though what he said wasn't really that bad

-after that, he checks up on you every 5 minutes, to make sure you're not upset with him

-would swear on his life and soul to never hurt you again ((mind you it was never that serious😭))

-writes you so many short poems...atp they just become a whole book

Harvey:

-man....😭

-probably hurts him more than it does you lmao

-you crying would be too much for him already...but crying because of him?? ouuu

-is ready to completely retract what he said, even if he's absolutely right, that just doesn't matter to him anymore

-he just stands there for a good amount of time, since he really doesn't know how to deal with these kinds of emotions

-this might just be the first time this man has made someone cry because...let's be fr☠️

-would do that thing where he cups your cheeks and wipes your tears with his thumbs ((after that he's kinda clueless though😭))

-this literally being his worst nightmare...in his eyes hurting you is the equivalent of failing as a partner...and he's not really allowed to fail too often🙁

-would wait 30 years until you're not upset with him ((it takes you exactly 1 minute btw)), and after that it's flowers delivered to your doorstep every day of the week

-even if it were to be a one-time occurrence, he would NEVER EVER forget it, and he would always justify spoiling you with it ((using the 4 cents he makes from the clinic👎))

Sam:

-he is not that smart when it comes to verbalising thoughts please forgive him

-says things like "aw man you're crying😔😔😔😭😭“

-if he's holding a drink or eating something, he offers it to you, even if there's a single bite/sip left of it

-refuses to smile until he's 100% sure you've forgiven him, otherwise he just looks like this: :--(

-low-key fighting for his life not to pull out his phone and google "how to comfort crying person wikihow"

-once you tell him that it's okay between you two bro gets jolly, running around in circles, giggling, twirling his hair and laying down kicking his feet up

-the thing he did that upset you could've been minor, but that still doesn't stop him from saying "man...😔🤦 i'm so glad this chapter is behind us now.." like okay???😭😭😭 ((bonus points if he describes this as a "rough patch" in your relationship))

-tries making something for you after, fails miserably, resorts to showing you cool skateboard tricks he learned off of youtube

-learns his lesson and actually thinks more before he says something ((to the best of his ability))

-promises to write a song about your love and go platinum ((shows it to sebastian and gets banned from writing lyrics for the band forever))

Sebastian:

-freezes immediately

-literally unable to get a single word out, what is he supposed to do in his situation😭

-manages to whisper "i didn't mean..." and proceeds to go quiet after that

-he's been living a sheltered life for a very long time, so he's really scared that whatever he says it will only hurt you even more

-you can definitely see his expression change...not only does it soften but he looks UPSET upset, mostly with himself

-pulls you into a hug, hoping that it'll help a little bit ((it does, bro seems like a good hugger))

-asks you if there's anything he can do to cheer you up, and let me tell you he'd really do anything

-does not let you go for the rest of the day, having his arm wrapped around you, holding your hand, even if it's just the pinky fingers touching

-you have to keep reassuring him that it's okay now, he literally hits you with the "are you sure you're not mad at me?" every 3 seconds just to make sure you guys are good🙏

-lets you touch whatever you want in his room, i'm talking elementary school pictures, old sketchbooks, it's all yours, no matter how humiliating

Shane:

-um...uh😭🙅‍♀️

-yeah he is PISSED he's made you cry, he might've been mean when he first saw you, but now??? that is just not allowed in his mind idc

-jumps to self-deprecation immediately, talking about how he's an asshole, how he always fucks things up (🙁)

-just takes the whole blame on himself, no problem with that

-kind of saw this happening in the nearest future, that man does not have a very good opinion of himself let's be honest😭

-you could tell him you forgive him and he'd be like "nah don't do that wtf i don't deserve it😔"

-doesn't try comforting you at first, since he just assumes that you might never want to see him again

-but after the dust settles he reassures you that he's going to do everything to make sure this doesn't happen again

-sends you musty frozen pizza in the mail in retaliation (sigh🙁)

-would love to pretend this never happened, but making you cry really took a hit on his self-esteem, however it also made him think about how to be the best partner you can have

#sdv #stardew valley #sdv imagines #sdv headcanons #sdv bachelors #sdv alex #sdv elliott #sdv harvey #sdv sam #sdv sebastian #sdv shane #i use so many emojis it’s actually sickening #sdv fanfic #sdv imagine #sdv headcanon #this is my first time writing on tumblr please forgive me if this looks like garbage🙏

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sl0t4matt · 1 month

Note

hard launch with hector fort 🙏🏻🙏🏻

h. fort | hard launch

love love this trope. thank u, anon!! also added a few more posts than just the hard launch hope u don’t mind :)

youruser kinda in my wag era rn

liked by hctorforrt_ and 679.055 others

random OMG WHAT

random she’s fine af how did he pull her lmao

╰┈➤ random they are both very attractive bro

random did somebody say hard launch?!

yourbestfriend hottest wag

╰┈➤ youruser luv u

random who’s she and why is she with hector

╰┈➤ random prolly his gf

hctorforrt_ i still don’t know what that means

╰┈➤ youruser r u slow i told you like 10 times

lamineyamal thank god i can’t keep secrets

╰┈➤ youruser 🙄🙄

╰┈➤ random lmao lamine knew

random can someone watch my grwm? 🥺

╰┈➤ random no 🥺

marcguiu9 someone took my bitch

╰┈➤ youruser bohoo 🥺

╰┈➤ hctorforrt_ marc 😫🫃

╰┈➤ youruser homosexuals

╰┈➤ random theyre dating atp

╰┈➤ random LMAO i love her 😭

random noo hector 😓

random wha- shocked.

lamineyamal gonna be a long ass era

liked by creator

hctorforrt_ still not sure how i pulled this

liked by marcguiu9 and 308,940 others

youruser ur cute

random hottest couple

random i think we missed a chapter or two

random crying rn she’s pretty tho

fcbarcelona champ on and off the pitch 🤙

liked by creator

random lol this came out of nowhere

random she’s beautiful

liked by creator

random WTH HE HAS A GIRLFRIEND

╰┈➤ random yes and she mogs u

random they compliment each other so well

╰┈➤ random fr both hot af

marcguiu9 i accept i guess

╰┈➤ youruser thank you for your blessing🙏🏼

_ferminlopez my kids

╰┈➤ random daddy

╰┈➤ _ferminlopez come again?

╰┈➤ random oh

random she only wants him for money

╰┈➤ youruser omg you caught me 😰

╰┈➤ hctorforrt_ lmao

╰┈➤ random she’s a model i’m sure she has her own money

433 goat good luck!

liked by creator

random HARD LAUNCH ⁉️

hctorforrt_ added to their story

hctorforrt_ she said she would look “so sexy” pregnant

╰┈➤ youruser bitch why would u post that (i would totally rock being preggo)

hctorforrt_ wym you always look good (only with my children tho)

youruser you flirt 🤭 also i’m totally not letting you get away with this

hctorforrt_ yeah sure

hctorforrt_ i was zipping up her dress lol

liked by youruser and 208.086 others

youruser stop talking big you literally couldn’t do it for shit

╰┈➤ hctorforrt_ i did it in the end tho

╰┈➤ youruser yeah when we were already late

random the last one 😍 she’s so cute

lamineyamal papi when r u posting yourself 🥵

liked by creator

╰┈➤ paucubarsi i miss his face too 😔

╰┈➤ marcguiu9 me three

╰┈➤ youruser ew

╰┈➤ random they are so funny 😭

youruser i’m gonna get revenge for the story wait up

╰┈➤ hctorforrt_ shivers down my spine 😱

╰┈➤ youruser okay bitch it just got worse

paucubarsi i think she has something on her nose

╰┈➤ hctorforrt_ omg really bro 😱

╰┈➤ youruser leave him alone 🙄

random it’s always the models

╰┈➤ random literally stop calling yourself a fan when you say shit like that

╰┈➤ random just let him be happy omg?!

youruser i’m kind of liking this wag lifestyle

liked by marcguiu9 and 469.976 others

marcguiu9 JAJAJAJAJA

liked by creator

random omg haha hector looks so cute in that picture

lamineyamal slaying fr

╰┈➤ youruser ate fr

paucubarsi the pic of hector is killing me

╰┈➤youruser u and everyone else

hctorforrt_ you’re evil

╰┈➤ youruser it’s your own fault 🥱

hctorforrt_ just because i’m in love w u doesn’t mean u can do shit like that!!!

╰┈➤ youruser aw you’re in love with me 🤭

lamineyamal nah deserved after that story

╰┈➤ youruser i know right!

╰┈➤ paucubarsi fr did you dirty with that

╰┈➤ hctorforrt_ you’re supposed to be MY friends?!

╰┈➤ youruser hah! they love me more

fcbarcelona hector always been a culer 💙❤️

liked by creator

random why is no one talking about how good she looks?!

liked by creator

#fc barcelona #barca #pablo gavi #hector fort #marc guiu #lamine yamal #hector fort x reader #la masia #pau cubarsi

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roseyrays · 1 year

Text

# ENHYPEN SMAU RECS 💖

# RIKI

# more time with you! — by @yenqa, it’s very CUTE and the ANGST is scrumptious :))

# love dive — by @tzyuki, RIKIY/N ARE SO CUTE

# love is (not) easy! — by @kynrki, riki smau, THE ANGST RHAHAHA MADE ME CRY BUT I LOVE IT

# shoot! — by @amakumos, again ADORABLE and THE FLUFF (rikiy/n is what i want in an relationship), can’t believe you can find the love of your life in genshin

# cupid’s corner — by @amakumos, ANOTHER GREAT SMAU, ITS JUST SO CUTE & RIKIY/N MAKES ME WANNA JUMP OFF A BRIDGE

# trial and error — by @kyyuri, AGHHHH, again rikiy/n>>the world

# beat the allegations — by @woonierkiz (aka my mutual), it only has two chapters for now BUT AHHHHHHHHH

# don’t date my brother — by @mosinterlude , LOVED HOW YOU ADDED KONON AND THE ANGST 🤌🤌, also love the fact that it has some idol’s sisters (and brother) <33

# soulmate tracker — by @son4taa, i remember reading this a while back but forgot about it im sorry 😭😭, ITS VERY GOOD THOUGH

# 💌 c u p i d 💘 — by @roseyrays (aka me!), yes this is self promoting 🤌🤌

# ( 尤も ) natural — by @ifearjwn, NOT THE PADDLE BOARD, y/n simps 🫵😁, love u riki, can’t wait for more chapters!

# oh, ni-ki you’re so fine! — by @aernx ,made by mutual! ,sooha jumpscare 😟, NI-KI SO CUTE

# JUNGWON

# stuck by glue — by @yyunari, WINX CLUB AU!, me when y/nwon 💖💖

# mint chocolate shirt — by @wonieleles, i love me some one-sided rivalry, won just stop being mean and kiss her already 🙄

# idol crush! — by @enhas-bestie, I WANT TO PUNCH THE ANTIS SO BAD

# whats after like?! — by @haew0nz, i forgot about what happened 😭, will reread but ik it’s good!!

# cat hotline ♡ — by @faelyncore, CATS AND LOVE=FAV

# wr⩇ng r⩇⩇m! — by @soov, SO CUTE SHSJSJSJSJ

# our beloved leaders — by @tzyuki, yes i just binged the whole smau today, f that zira anti fr, Y/NWON 😔😔🩷🩷

# JUNGWON & RIKI

# pick me! — by @urszn, YUUURRRRR

# SUNOO

(i only read one 😭 please recommend me some)

# ykwim? — by @astrae4, still only has a few chapters but i love it already 💖💖

# SUNGHOON

(i only read one 😭 please recommend me some)

# vlive confession — by @starjaeyun, ITS JUST SO AHH, waiting for more chapters 💖💖

# JAKE

# paper rings — by @117luv, the kids are adorable ❤️❤️, when he changed his user 💀

# dad diaries — by @117luv, spinoff of paper rings, cute ☹️❤️❤️

# hey prez!! ✰ — by @yeeunjia, on hiatus but really good ❤️

# rink of love — by @pagesofmiracles, so cute 😭😭🩷🩷

# JAY

unfortunately didn’t read a jay one yet 🫠 will read after i’m done with this

# HEESEUNG

# dear, heeseung — by @jungwnies, will reread ❤️, it’s cute too

# twitter sucks! — by @filmbyjy, the comedy here LMAO, riki in this is literally me

# curious cat — by @heerocks, AHHHH 💖

# JUST ADDED

# don’t date my brother — by @mosinterlude, LOVED HOW YOU ADDED KONON AND THE ANGST 🤌🤌, also love the fact that it has some idol’s sisters (and brother) <33

# soulmate tracker — by @son4taa, i remember reading this a while back but forgot about it im sorry 😭😭, ITS VERY GOOD THOUGH

# rink of love — by @pagesofmiracles, so cute 😭😭🩷🩷

# our beloved leaders — by @tzyuki, yes i just binged the whole smau today, f that zira anti fr, Y/NWON 😔😔🩷🩷

# 💌 c u p i d 💘 — by @roseyrays (aka me!), yes this is self promoting 🤌🤌

# ( 尤も ) natural — by @ifearjwn, NOT THE PADDLE BOARD, y/n simps 🫵😁, love u riki, can’t wait for more chapters!

# oh, ni-ki you’re so fine! — by @aernx ,made by mutual! ,sooha jumpscare 😟, NI-KI SO CUTE

2K notes · View notes

wheresarizona · 2 months

Text

Learning to Live Part 32

summary: It’s the night of his bachelor party, and a sober Javier gets a call from his very drunk fiancée asking him to pick her up from her bachelorette party. Three days later, it’s their wedding day, and Javier hasn’t seen or talked to his bride since the night before—they’d agreed not to see each other until it was time to say ‘I do,’ and his father took it one step further by having her guarded to keep Javier away. Will that really stop him from going to her before the big event (with his eyes covered)?

rating: M (This chapter is very story-driven, BUT there’s a little bit of inappropriate touching. No y/n, alternating POV, age gap (about ten years), Drunk!Reader, bachelor/bachelorette parties, emotional hurt/comfort, dysfunctional family, Javier taking care of you while you’re drunk and when you get sick (it’s very sweet), grief, discussion of pregnancy, WEDDING, getting ready for the wedding, Chucho hardcore not letting you see each other before the wedding, blindfolded Javier sneaking to where you are anyway, tying his bow tie, nerves, panic attack, EMOTIONS, Javier crying when he sees you in your dress, EXTREMELY romantic things said, Javier being cute with kids, you both wrote your own vows (did I mention emotions and romantic things said?), Chucho being a great officiant, (1) bible verse about love with no mention of God/Jesus/anything religious, crying, comedy sprinkled in, a fun and heartfelt chapter)

pairing: Javier Peña/f!reader (no physical descriptions)

word count: 23k+ (Tumblr hates my long chapters and might not let you reblog with a comment. Since reblogs are super important, if you wish to comment, feel free to do it in the comments on the post or send me an ask. 🥰🥰🥰)

a/n: Get your tissues ready; it’s time to get married! 🥹🥹🥹😭😭😭 First of all, Happy Birthday to this story! 2 years old! I just want to thank everyone who’s continued reading this labor of my love. All the comments, reblogs, and likes mean the world to me! They make me want to write more, too. I know there’s no smut in this one, but, in my opinion, I think it’s still really good, and the people who’ve read it agree. There also was literally no opportunity for them to be alone and do anything more than touching—you can blame Chucho for keeping them apart. But the next chapter? Oh, it’s on. It’s gonna be so horny. Lol Thank you to @juletheghoul for betaing. I love you.

Thank you for reading! Comments and reblogs feed me. I’d love to know what you thought!

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In the year 1981, Ronald Reagan was sworn in as the 40th President of the United States and almost assassinated two months later; the Space Shuttle Columbia became the first crewed reusable spacecraft to return from orbit successfully, and the wedding of Prince Charles and Diana Spencer was watched by over 750 million people worldwide.

It also happened to be the year Javier Peña’s life went to shit.

Looking back at all that happened, he could pinpoint the exact moment everything went wrong. It wasn’t disappearing in the early hours on the day he was supposed to be wed; it was six months earlier when he let a pretty girl, who never once acknowledged his existence in the several years they went to school together, buy him a drink—that was the beginning of the end. That was the start of his downfall and had his life veering off course.

By the time his wedding to Lorraine had rolled around in early September, Javier was at the lowest he'd ever been in his twenty-two years of life—so depressed, hopeless, and scared that he became numb and was just existing instead of living. Back then, he still had buddies in Laredo with whom he'd gone to high school, and though Lorraine didn't let him hang out with them much, she approved of them throwing him a bachelor party the weekend before their nuptials were supposed to take place.

He hadn't wanted one.

Who would want to celebrate marrying someone they didn't love or even liked? Marriage to Lorraine was a prison sentence, and his only crime had been dating the wrong woman. It’d also be a cruel reminder that he’d lose what little freedom he had in a week’s time.

His friends had known him for many years, having practically grown up together, and they were well aware of Javier’s dread. They had tried to talk him out of going through with it on multiple occasions, but he always stood firm that he wouldn’t abandon his child and their mother, and that he got himself into the mess, and he needed to own up to it—plus there was Lorraine’s father who told Javier he’d never meet his kid if he didn’t marry her.

To stop his pals from worrying about him, he finally agreed to the party and tried his best to act like he was fine when, in reality, his world was crumbling.

It may come as a surprise, but he was once a very social creature who had a lot of friends in his youth—his three closest had been Benito Esquivel, Salvador ‘Sal’ Soto, and Ken Miller. These were the guys who packed him into Sal’s moss green colored ‘72 Chevrolet Blazer and took him on a road trip to Austin, where they went bar hopping and ended up at a strip club, as was the course for bachelor parties.

Javier drank so much that night his memory was spotty on all that had happened, yet he distinctly remembered a moment when he was completely wasted in a private room at the club, crying while getting a lap dance and the kind stripper comforting him in the middle of it.

His first bachelor party didn’t go so well and wasn’t something he liked to think back on. He wished he could rip that entire chapter out of his life, but it was important for shaping the man he became—it began a chain of events that would eventually lead him to finding the perfect woman he was meant to be with—the one who truly loved him, wanted nothing more than for him to be happy, and filled that part of him he’d always been missing.

Cielito was the love of his life, his soulmate, his media naranja.

And they shared the same kind of love his parents once had, which he’d always dreamed of having but never imagined he’d actually get to experience.

His buddies had tried to keep in contact with him after he ran away, but he was too ashamed of how he left and didn't want their pity. It wasn't until his mother's funeral in '91 that he saw most of them again, and though he appreciated them being there, he kept them at arm's length. Even when he returned home in '93 and '96, he continued avoiding them because he wasn’t the same Javi they once knew, and he didn’t want to see the looks on their faces when they realized how fucked up he’d become.

Now, he was having his second bachelor party seventeen years after the first, and he couldn’t be happier celebrating that he was getting married in a few days.

This time around, his dad planned the party, and there wasn’t any bar hopping or strip clubs. Instead, Chucho got Javier’s tíos (uncles) and male primos (cousins) together for an asada (barbecue) in his backyard.

It was close to midnight, and he knew the party wouldn’t end any time soon. His family were sitting in groups, taking up the picnic table, or sitting with him in lawn chairs around the large fire pit, which was currently ablaze, with the tall flames licking up toward the sky. He’d already eaten and was nursing his third beer over the many hours he’d been there, the bottle in his hand resting on his jean-clad thigh. The fire and his black leather jacket were keeping him warm while he listened to his friend Ken, sitting beside him talking about his four-year-old daughter’s recent T-ball game.

“—so she hits the ball off the tee,” he said, “and throws her bat as hard as she can behind her at the backstop—which, thank fuck they don’t have catchers—and starts runnin’ as fast as her little legs can go, only to stop halfway to first base to pick up the ball and chuck it with all her might out of bounds.”

Javier chuckled and sipped his drink—he couldn’t wait to tell these kinds of stories about his own children.

“Clever kid,” Benito replied, sitting on his other side. “How pissed off was Emily when she didn’t get to stay on first base?”

“You know Em, Benny. That little girl is more fiery than the hair on her head.” Her father had dark blonde hair, and she had bright red, yet both shared ocean-blue eyes.

A few months back, Javier felt like he was finally in a place where he could reconnect with his old friends. He’d gone out for drinks with Benito and Ken a few times to catch up, and they’d shown him pictures of their families; Ken had three daughters, and Emily was his youngest and the only one with red hair. He’d even introduced his wif-fiancée to them and took her to have dinner with them and their wives—it was nice.

He tried to reach out to Sal, but the other man was a part of the Special Forces in the army and had spent more time deployed than at home since Desert Storm—Benito and Ken said he was okay, or as okay as a guy can be after spending so many years in active duty. It made Javier feel like a real asshole for avoiding them for so long when they’d just wanted to be there for him like they were for Sal, who’d been through more dangerous and worse shit than him.

By no means were he and his old friends back to having the tight bond they shared when they were twenty-two or had anything close to his relationship with Steve—they’d grown too far apart and were virtually strangers now. That didn’t mean it wasn’t great to hang out with people who knew him before Lorraine and hadn’t taken her side or were judgemental of the choices he made.

“Big tantrum?” Benito asked.

“A complete meltdown. You’re gonna love havin’ kids, Jav.” Ken patted him on the shoulder.

“They have their moments,” Benito added, “pero, dios mio, mi vida no sería la misma sin ellos (but, my god, my life wouldn’t be the same without them). I love my little terrors.” He had five children; his littlest wasn’t even a year old.

“Yeah,” Javier said fondly. “I’m really fucking excited to have kids and get married.”

The other two men were smiling.

“And that’s how it always should’ve been,” Ken replied. “That’s how we know you’re marryin’ the right girl this time. It’s great to see how happy you are—and Benny and I can tell you’re actually happy.”

“Yeah,” Benito said, “‘Cause you’re smiling this time around and not crying—that stripper, though, what was her name? Diamond? Ruby? Shit, what was it?”

“Jade, maybe?” Ken answered. “You should remember, Benny, you’re the one she took home.”

“I can remember her amazing tits and ass, but couldn’t tell you what the hell she looked like or her name.”

Javier couldn’t remember what she looked like or her name either, which made him frown.

“Do you guys have that one woman you can remember every fucking detail about the first time you hooked up?” Benito asked. “She haunts you—I’m talking her face is burned in your brain, and you can remember everything like what she smelled like or how soft her skin was?”

“Yeah,” Ken said. “That girl, my third year in college.” He raised his beer bottle.

“The one who deepthroated you for the first time? You wouldn’t shut up about her.”

“That’s the one—too bad she wasn’t lookin’ for anythin’ serious. Best sex I’ve ever had; don’t tell my wife that.” Ken and Benito chuckled.

“Mine was Carmen’s roommate.” Carmen was Benito’s wife and someone they went to school with. “We had a casual thing before I started dating Carmen—her name was Valentina, and mi mamá would not have liked her, which was fine; she wasn’t wife material anyway.”

What did he mean by that?

“What about you, Javi?” Ken asked.

“I’m marrying mine,” he answered and took a drink of his beer.

Benito scoffed. “Are you just saying that shit, or do you mean it?”

He met the other man’s eyes.

“I’m being completely serious. She’s it, and I’m marrying her.”

Benito blew out air, shaking his head. “You lucky pendejo (asshole).”

“Now you gotta tell us what she’s like,” Ken said, and this conversation just took a turn in a direction he did not want to go in—even when he was younger, he didn’t like to brag about what went on in the bedroom.

Javier had never been happier for his cell phone to ring, but the feeling only lasted a moment as he pulled it off his belt before panic slammed into him that something was wrong because it was Cielito calling him. She was out having her bachelorette party with her girlfriends at the town bar.

“I gotta take this,” he said, setting his beer on the ground and groaning as he got up from his chair. He briskly walked out of earshot of everyone else.

His heart was pounding a mile a minute. He hit the accept button and answered when the Nokia phone was at his ear, “Hello?”

“Ohhh myyy god,” his wif-fiancée slurred on the other end. “How do you make ans’ring the phone sooo sexy?”

He let out a breath that she didn’t sound like she was in trouble.

“I don’t know—are you okay, baby?”

"Nooo, I miss you, and I wan’ you and I need you to come ge’ me—can you pleeease come ge’ me? I don' wanna be out anymore—I wanna be at home with you and naked in our bed; wait, have I told you how amazing you fuck? If there-was like an Olympics for fucking, you'd ge’ all the gold medals tha’s how good you are.” She inhaled before she continued speaking. “And your face, god, I miss your stupidly han’some face with your big baby cow eyes tha’ Daphne and Velma totally inherited from you, and tha’ gorgeous nose, and your lips—everything on tha’ mug of yours is perfec,’ and I canno’ believe you’re marrying me. Me?! How the fuck did I ge’ so lucky?! Like, you’re too pretty for me, and usu’lly, the pretty boys jus’ wan’ my family’s money—like fucking Daniel,” she fumed. “But you jus’ like me for me, and I’m sooo in love with you tha’ I canno’ stand bein’ so far away from you righ’ now. Javiii, can you pleeease come pick me up?"

Oh, she was drunk and missed him.

With how sloshed she sounded, it had him worried she hadn’t eaten much food or had enough water, and he wanted to go to her right that second to get her home and sober her up so she wasn’t too miserable the next day. He was trying to ignore what she said about her ex, but the more he learned about the guy, the higher the chances rose that he’d kick the fucker’s ass if they ever met.

"Are you sure you want to leave early?" he asked.

"Yesss, pleeease. I wanna go home wit’ you."

"Are you somewhere safe, cariño (sweetheart)?" It didn’t sound like she was inside the bar.

“I’m ou’side the backdoor where people smoke—Stacy and Arleta from the grocery store are ou’ here wit’ meee. Say hi to Javi!”

He could tell she held the phone toward them.

“Hi, Javi,” he heard the two women say. “Are you coming to ge’ me?” Cielito asked.

“Yes, mi amor. I just need to tell everyone bye—don’t hang up.”

He didn't as he quickly walked over to say goodbye and thank his dad, friends, and family for the lovely night, telling them his fiancée wasn't feeling good and he needed to go pick her up—the plan had always been he’d be her designated driver since he hadn’t wanted to drink too much; the rest of the people at her party had their own rides.

His long legs had him striding toward where his pickup was parked.

“Did you have a good time?” he asked her.

His truck door squealed as he opened it and got inside.

“Yesss! There was karaoke and I had a lot of tequila. Like a lot. Like sooo much, I sang “My Heart Will Go On” from Titanic withou’ anyone daring me to—tha’ movie is sooo fucking sad. If we were in the freezing water and you pu’ me on a door or whatever piece of wood, you beh your ass I’m gonna figure ou’ a way to ge’ you on it with me. I’m not gonna be a fucking liar and say I won’ leggo and fucking leggo! You’re gonna be like nex’ to me, or hell, you could ge’ on top of me, and we’d survive—I’d make sure we both survived.”

She made him smile because this wasn’t the first time she’d gone on this rant.

He was already on the road heading toward town.

“I’d make sure we survived, too, baby. I’d use my body heat to keep you warm.”

“Why is tha’ sooo romantic? Honestly, I think you’d figure ou’ a way to ge’ us into one of the lifeboats.”

“Probably.” He shrugged.

“And then we’d ge’ to Amer’ca and start our new life together and have sooo many babies.”

He was still smiling. “Yeah—so many babies?”

“It was ye olden times when the only thing women could do was take care of their husbands and babies, plus there was basic’ly no birth control and you only cream pie, sooo yeah, we’d hav’ a ridic’lous amoun’ of babies.”

“I wanna have a ridiculous amount of babies with you now.”

“God, I know you do, and I wanna have all your babies, all of them, ‘cause you’re gonna be the bes’ dad. Like, the bes’, and our kids will be sooo lucky to have you, and they’re gonna love you sooo much and be so cute—I hope they look like you—you were sush a cutie, and I’d love to have a bunch of mini yous.”

“I want them to look like the both of us.”

“Meh, you’re cuter.”

“Stop that, you’re fucking adorable, and I’d love if our kids looked like you.”

“Fine.”

“Why’d you drink so much tequila, mi amor? That stuff makes us—”

“Horny?” she finished for him. “Our clothes magic’ly disappear.” Her speech was still slurring. “Robyn got us Tequila Sunrises, then Cat—” That was the wife of one of her coworkers at the hospital; they hung out with the couple occasionally. “—got us another round of them, bu’ Alma—” His prima (cousin) and sister of Sebastián. “—got us all tequila shots, and I also got us tequila shots, and I think there was another round—too much tequila, whish is why I called you to pick me up.”

His mouth turned down in a frown.

“Please tell me you had some food, too, and water.”

“Yesss, I knew you’d worry, so I ate a plate of fries and shared mozz-mozzarella.” She giggled. “Tha’s a fun word to say—I shared mozzarella sticks with the girls, and I drank water—had a glass aft’r ev’ry drink ‘cause I was-like, ‘If my Javi were here righ’ now, he’d wan’ me staying hydrated,’ and I couldn’ le’ you down.”

He smiled. “Thank you, baby. I’m proud of you.”

There was someone in the background who sounded just as drunk as her, asking her, “Wha’ are you doin’ out here?” It was Robyn.

“Calling Javi,” Cielito answered.

“Come back inside. You said you were goin’ pee.”

“I wen’ and Javi’s comin’ to pick me up. I’m waitin’ for him to ge’ here.”

“Girl, it’s barely pas’ midnigh’, and your bachelorette party! Leave the man alone and have fun with us! We’ll get pie after here at the diner.” It was open twenty-four hours.

“I need him,” she whined.

“Oh my god, you’re ditchin’ us for dick!”

“It’s really good dick, and I need it!”

“Mi amor?” Javi said to get her attention.

“Yes?” she answered.

“I’m not gonna fool around with you while you’re fucked up…”

“I know,” she whispered. “Don’ tell anyone, bu’ I’m too drunk, and I hate it. I wanna go home.”

“Okay, cariño (sweetheart). I’ll be there soon to pick you up.”

Another voice was heard on her end. “Why are you guys ou’ here?” He was pretty sure it was his prima, Alma.

“She’s ditchin’ us for dick!” Robyn exclaimed.

“I told you it’s really good dick!” Cielito said just as loud.

“Gross!” Alma was slurring her words, too, and sounded disgusted. “You’re gonna-make-me puke!”

“Sorry, Alma,” the other two women replied in unison.

“It’s okay,” Alma said. “You’re leaving already? I don’ wan’ you to go. We’re having so mush fun!”

“Yeah, don’ go!” He thought that was Cat. “This is the only night I can go ou’ alone this month! Le’s keep partying!”

“I’m sorry, guys,” Cielito responded. “Tequila was a mistake, and I need to go home.”

Javier figured she’d forgotten he was on the phone with her.

“I’m horny, too,” Robyn said, “bu’ you don’ see me booty callin’ my boyfriend to ge’ me, and he’s got really good dick, too!”

“¡Guácala (Gross)!” Alma interjected. “No sé por qué salgo contigo (I don’t know why I hang out with you).”

“Because we’re fun!” Robyn said. “Don’ lie, you loved it when I got our bride-to-be to rap “Shoop” with me.” Javier only knew that Salt-N-Pepa song because he’d heard his bride-to-be rap it on many occasions—she was really good, to be honest.

“You are fun, bu’ who wan’s to hear about their brother and cousin’s sex lives?”

“Sorry, Alma,” Robyn and Cielito said again.

“You all can still have fun withou’ me!” his wif-fiancée told them.

“A bachelorette party withou’ a bachelorette?” Robyn asked.

“I think that jus’ makes it a girls' night out—yeah, you can have a girls' night out! Fuck, where’s Javi? Did I tell you guys he’s comin’ to ge’ me? Wait, my phone! Javi, are you still there?”

“Yes, baby, I’m still here.”

“Where are you?”

“Maybe ten minutes away.”

“Ugh, okay.” She whispered the next bit loudly, “Robyn’s mad at me.”

“Damn straigh,’ I’m mad at you!” Robyn said. “It’s your bachelorette party, and you’re abandonin’ us for a man!”

“But he’s like a really grea’ man, and wonderful, and han’some, and the bes’, and I love him so, so, so, sooo, mush and wanna have his babies. So, I’m not abandonin’ you for ‘a man,’ I’m abandonin’ you for the greates’ man alive, and you can’ be mad at me for tha’.”

What she said had Javier grinning.

“Y’all are too disgustingly in love, but wha’ever, nex’ girls' night, no fuckin’ tequila.”

She forgot he was on the phone with her again and listened to their drunken discussion about what they should do for a girls' night, going off topic a few times. Her friends stayed with her until he arrived.

He pulled into the parking lot and stopped at the back of the building where he saw the group of women and some other bar patrons hanging out by the door, the area lit by two lights on the building.

“Cielito?” he said, hoping it’d get her attention. “Are you still there?”

“Oh my god, Javi!” Came her exclamation. “Where are you?!”

The truck was put into park, and he kept it idling as he got out.

“To your left.”

Her head turned to the right, making him snort with a smile on his lips.

“Your other left, mi amor,” he said. He’d walked around to open the passenger door, and her gaze finally landed on him under the orangeish glow of a towering street light.

“He’s here!” she squealed, and he ended the call, putting his phone back on his belt. He watched her shove her own in her purse before she hugged all of her friends goodbye.

Javier had seen the dress she was going to wear tonight; he just hadn’t seen her wearing it. When she turned his way and he got a good look at her, his mouth fell open, and he thought his heart would beat out of his chest like a cartoon character in love.

The champagne-colored mini dress was long-sleeved and covered in sequins, the neckline plunging to accentuate her breasts, the skirt ending just a little above her knees, a white sash across her chest reading in fancy black script, ‘Bride-to-Be,’ and she looked fucking stunning.

His awe ended when he suddenly had to act fast and catch the woman he loved who flung herself into his arms—he grunted at her body slamming into him, her lips crashing into his, wrapping his arms around her back to feel her skin from the deep V down her back.

The smell of booze hit him almost as hard as she did, along with the undertones of her perfume, Javier tensing when she grabbed his ass. With how she was hitching her leg up on his waist, he thought she was trying to climb him like a goddamn tree.

“Mmm… hi, baby,” his muffled voice said.

His hand went to her face, his thumb under her chin, and fingers splayed along her cheek as he gently pushed to separate her mouth from his. Her eyelids were closed, and her lips pursed.

“Hi, baby,” he said again. “Did you miss me?”

She smiled. “Yesss.” Her glassy, bloodshot eyes blinked open, and it was obvious she was utterly blitzed; there was no way in hell she could pass a field sobriety test. “God, you’re sooo gorgeous—look at your cute nose—” She poked the tip of it. “—boop. Your eyes are sooo pretty, and you smell sooo good—you always smell so fucking good. I love you so, sooo much.” She pecked him on the lips. “I’m sooo happy you’re here.”

She looked so cute and it had him smiling.

“Yeah?” He shrugged off his jacket and put it over her shoulders.

“Mmm, tha’s nice and warm. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome, Cielito. You ready to go?”

“Oh my god, yesss!”

“Okay, let’s get you into the truck, hermosa (beautiful).”

He helped her get up into the cab, closing the door behind her. Seconds later, he was in the driver’s seat, with her pressed right against him.

“I’m sooo happy we’re going home,” she said, hugging his arm closest to her.

“I’m happy we’re going home, too, Cielito—let’s get you buckled.”

He leaned over her to grab the seatbelt, getting it over her lap and buckling it in, ensuring it wasn’t loose, before getting his own belt on.

The short drive to their apartment had her in his space, kissing his cheek and neck while telling him how much she loved him, and it was so sweet that warmth spread through his body.

When they arrived, Javier had to keep her steady as they walked with an arm around her waist, making her lean into him. Once inside, he propped her against the front door to remove his coat from her shoulders and her sash, hanging them with the other jackets on the wall. Then, he pulled her purse from her arm, putting it on the console table, and he helped her remove the flats on her feet, kicking off his shoes afterward.

Her eyes were closed most of the time while she mumbled, a lot of it he didn’t understand, but what he did make out was her confessing her love for him and waxing poetic about how attractive she found him—it was adorable.

He wanted to get her sober, so he helped steady her as they made their way to the kitchen, moving past the counters and appliances to the small connected dining room and having her sit in a kitchen chair, pushing her close to the table in order to keep her from falling onto the floor.

Javier’s palm rubbed circles into her back. “Cielito?”

Her head tilted up in his direction, looking at him with red, glossy eyes and a big, dreamy smile.

“You’re pretty.” Her speech wasn’t slurring as much. “And you’re marrying me. I can’t believe you’re marrying me. We should blow this popsicle stand and go back to our place to have premarital sex—gotta do as much of that as we can before we’re married and our sexy times become legal.”

His eyebrows pulled together. “What do you mean by the sex becoming legal?” he asked.

“You know, sex is only legal to God when the couple is married—we won’t be living in sin anymore; gosh, that’s gonna make your dad sooo happy. I love your dad. He’s the fucking best. Let's make him your mom’s flan next weekend ‘cause that dude deserves it—man, I’m hungry.”

“We’ll make him flan, baby.” His hand cupped her cheek. “Can I make you some buttered toast?” That seemed like a safe choice and shouldn’t make her sick.

Her eyes lit up. “Oh my god, toast sounds fucking amazing!”

He smiled. “Okay, mi amor. I’ll make you some.”

Javier bent to kiss the top of her head before padding into the kitchen.

Making her two slices of toast and having her eat them, along with drinking a large glass of water, didn’t take too long—there were a few times he had to remind her about the bread because she was so chatty; at one point she went on an entertaining tangent about how those mythical half horse, half human creatures, centaurs, would wear pants, and even made him tear off a page from the notepad on the fridge, so she could draw him visuals on why the correct answer was the pants would go on the back part of their horse body.

Jesus Christ, he was so fucking in love with her.

He felt better after she finished her snack and drink with how her speech sounded clearer and that she didn’t seem as fucked up as when she called him from the bar—she was definitely still a little drunk since she couldn’t walk without stumbling, and her eyes were having a hard time staying open.

His next priority was making her comfortable. He led her to the bedroom, where he carefully replaced her dress and bra with his olive green t-shirt, leaving her in the shirt and her cute cotton panties she already had on that were covered in red hearts.

He took her to the bathroom, where he sat her up on the countertop and stood between her legs to keep her in place.

“Cielito,” he said, grabbing a wet wipe, “I’m gonna clean off your makeup, okay?”

There was a big smile on her face, her eyelids shut. “Mmmkay, you’re sooo nice.”

He pressed it to her face to begin removing her makeup. When that was done, he used a warm washcloth to dampen the skin he’d cleaned and grabbed her face wash off the counter, which was amongst her other skincare products. He used his fingertips to apply it to her skin, starting with her cheeks, then down her jaw to her chin, and back up to spread it along her nose before doing her forehead last.

He used the wet cloth to wipe away the cleanser when she spoke.

“Did you just wash my face?” she asked.

“Yeah?” He’d finished, and her skin was finally completely clean and looking dewy. Her face wash was put away, and his eyes squinted as he read the labels of the other products until he found what he needed and picked it up. He’d seen her do her skincare routine more times than he could count and had the basics down; the serums and special creams intimidated him, though.

His fingers were massaging the moisturizer into her skin along the same path they’d taken with the cleanser.

“Is that moisturizer?”

“Yes.”

Her breath stuttered, her mouth turning into a frown, and he matched her look.

“What’s wrong, baby?” he asked, leaning toward the sink when he was done to wash his hands. He then dried them with the towel on his other side hanging on the wall.

Her bottom lip was trembling, and it worried him.

“You love me,” she whispered.

“I do,” he said and kissed her forehead. “I love you so fucking much.” His hands rubbed over her bare thighs.

She opened her eyes, and they were welling up, glistening under the lights above.

“You love me,” she repeated.

He held her cheeks. “Yes, sweetheart, I love you—I love you more than anything.”

Her voice was so small. “Why doesn’t my family love me?” With tears rolling down her face, her question shattered his heart into a million pieces.

“Oh, Cielito, baby.” His tone was soft, and he wrapped her up in his arms, hugging her tight, her face going into the crook of his neck. “They’re assholes and they don’t deserve you.”

Her body started shaking with sobs, and it had his chest squeezing tight, his eyes getting watery, wishing with every cell of his being to make her feel better.

She was the strongest and bravest woman he knew, who didn’t like to show any sign of weakness, and ever since her parents’ unexpected and unwanted visit earlier in the week, she had acted like she was fine in an attempt to hide her sadness.

The day after he was offered a large sum of money to leave her, they’d gone over to his father’s to use the fax machine in his office—the office was in its own little building across the driveway from his house—and she faxed Jerry, her parents’ lawyer, a typed letter that conveyed her disappointment in how they acted and also told them to never contact her again which she signed at the bottom. She changed her home and cell phone numbers and discussed with him possibly moving to the ranch earlier than they originally planned.

He’d tried to talk to her about everything, but she’d put on this smile he knew wasn’t genuine by the lack of its usual luster, and she was unable to keep the sorrow from showing in her eyes—it killed him how her usual happy glow had dimmed from her hurt. She’d reassure him she was okay, reminding him that her family made their choice and had to live with the consequences of it, but she also had to live with the consequences of their actions and deal with the emotions of never seeing or speaking to her loved ones again. He was expecting the façade to break at some point, and it took inebriation to cause her carefully crafted walls to finally crumble.

To add salt to their wounds, Javier was served at work the following day after the fax was sent, with a lawsuit for breach of contract from her mom and dad.

What were they trying to sue him for? Going against his word to not tell their daughter about their visit and proposition, thus breaching a verbal contract that was made. He’d laughed as he called Chucho’s attorney because they never fucking agreed with his terms and, instead, had countered with the damn prenup. They didn’t have a fucking case, and it was dropped by the next day.

Javier was so unbelievably pissed off at these people for what they’d done to the woman he loved that he knew there was no way in hell he’d ever be able to have a civil conversation with them again. It was possible it’d turn into a physical altercation, and he’d end up in jail, which he honestly thought would be worth it if he got the chance to punch her dad in his stupid fucking face.

“They’re my family,” she choked out, “they’re supposed to love me—why don’t they love me? Why am I so unlovable?”

“Mi amor, you’re not unlovable—I love you, Pop loves you, my tías (aunts), tíos (uncles), and primos (cousins) love you, Robyn loves you, mi mamá loves you—you’re loved. We love you, baby. Those people you’re related to are shitty and so blinded by their obsession with money and how they’re perceived that they wouldn’t know what unconditional love was if it bit them in the ass. They’re horrible fucking people, and you don’t need them, Cielito. You don’t.”

“But they’re my family!” she cried. Her tears were soaking through his shirt. “It doesn’t feel right that they aren’t going to be at our wedding, and it hurts so fucking much that they don’t support us!”

He kissed her hair, rubbing circles on her back with his palm. “I know, cariño (sweetheart). I know you’re hurt and that it’s fucked they won’t be there.” It was hard for him to swallow around the lump that’d formed, his eyes burning, and he squeezed them shut. “I’m sorry you fell in love with me and that I’m not good enough for them or good enough for you. I’m sorry for causing all this shit and the pain you’re feeling. I’m sorry, baby—it’s all my fault,” his voice cracked on the last word. He had to clear his throat. “But I’d do it all again because you deserve to be loved—you deserve all the fucking love in the world. Your family is supposed to love you because they’re your family, and our kids will love you no matter what because you’re their amazing mom, but me? I’m choosing to love you with every fucking thing I have because you’re incredible and so lovable.” His cheeks were wet from his own tears. “I love you, Cielito—I promise I’ll love you enough to make up for them. I promise I’ll love you so much you’ll get sick of me. I love you, Cielito. You’re my everything, and I hope my love’s enough…”

She sniffled loudly, her head rising, and he opened his eyes to meet her reddened ones, her face streaked with wetness.

Her voice was hoarse. “It’s not your fault,” she said, her hands in the small space between their bodies, clutching his button-up shirt. “You have nothing to be sorry about, and you’re enough—you’ve always been enough. It just hurts how hateful the people who are supposed to want me to be happy are toward what makes me happy.” More tears fell down her cheeks. “You’re what makes me happy, and they don’t accept you.” Her lower lip was wobbling. “I’m mad and sad, and I don’t want them to be a part of our lives, but it feels… it feels like they’ve died,” she said quietly. “It feels weird grieving over people who are still breathing, who are just a phone call or a plane ride away. I’m grieving them like they’re dead—are they dead to me? Why am I grieving what little relationship we had, yet also grieving the relationship we could’ve had? One where they welcomed you with open arms, and even if it wasn’t your favorite thing to do, we visited them once a year—you’d joke around with my brother, we’d fawn over his many children, and my parents would actually be impressed with what you did in Colombia and brag to their friends about their son-in-law who helped take down Pablo fucking Escobar and did take out the Cali cartel. Why am I so fucking sad about living people and a fantasy?”

He stroked his fingers along her cheek to cup it. “I don’t remember much from my mother’s funeral ‘cause my head was pretty fucked up, but there was something the Priest said that stuck with me. ‘Grief is just all the love you had for someone that suddenly has nowhere to go.’ So, it collects inside you, makes your chest ache, and leaks from your eyes—it fills all the places that were left empty by their loss. I’ll always feel my mom here—” He put a hand over his heart. “—but over time, a lot of my grief slowly disappeared, and you’ve made it easier to live with what’s left.” He took a deep breath. “What I’m trying to say is I don’t think what you’re feeling is weird. They might be alive, but you lost the only family you’ve ever known and are grieving the death of your relationship with them—now there’s all that love you still have for them that has no place to go, so it’s filling the emptiness they left behind, and it’s gonna take some time to heal.” He held her face in both of his hands. “It’s okay that you're sad, Cielito, but you don’t need to hide it from me or pretend that you’re okay because I know you’re not, and I don’t want you going through this alone. I’ll be your shoulder to cry on; I’ll hold you or talk things out with you. I’ll do whatever you need me to do to help ease your pain. Just please don’t shut me out.”

She was frowning, her eyes darting away as she spoke softly, “I knew if you saw I was upset, it’d make you sad, and I didn’t wanna make you sad so close to our wedding—this should be a happy time for us, but all I wanna do is lay in the dark and cry.”

“Baby?” His finger went under her chin to make her look at him, their gazes meeting. “Don’t worry about my feelings, and let me be there for you—I’d rather be sad with you than have you suffer alone in silence. Now, let me get you to bed so I can hold you while you cry.”

Her smile was small, and her eyes were glossy with tears. “I’d like that.” Suddenly, she looked panicked, her hand going to her mouth. “Move,” said her muffled voice. “I’m gonna be sick.”

“Shit.” He immediately helped her off the counter, for her to stumble the handful of steps and drop to her knees in front of the toilet, where she did, in fact, get sick.

It took a lot to gross out Javier—he grew up on a ranch, where he witnessed animal births and deaths regularly. Combine that with the horrible things he’d seen in Colombia, someone throwing up was a welcome change.

“Oh, mi probecita (my poor thing),” he said, spinning around to the wall opposite the bathroom vanity to get a small rag from the linen closet before moving back to the sink to wet it with cold water. “Déjame cuidarte, Cielito (Let me take care of you, Cielito). Sé que no te gusta enfermarte (I know you don’t like getting sick).”

She’d told him that when she had a little too much fun at a party playing drinking games with his primos (cousins) and found herself on his old bathroom floor, hugging porcelain with Javier there for support—they’d ended up being too drunk to drive home and spent the night in his childhood bed.

He wrung out the washcloth and walked over to her, a grunt leaving him and knees popping as he lowered himself to kneel next to her. He pressed the cloth to the back of her neck with one hand while the other rubbed comforting circles over her spine.

His tone was warm and gentle. “Get it all out, baby. I know it’s awful, and you hate it, but it’ll make you feel better.”

It didn’t take long for her stomach to empty and her heaving to stop. Her breaths were coming out ragged, and Javier took care of flushing the toilet. He scooted back and pulled her with him, the tiled floor cool underneath them, until he had room to stretch out his legs in front of him while she sat between them with her spine to his chest, her eyes closed.

He held the wet cloth to her forehead, the fingers of his free hand laced with hers, and kissed her hair.

“How are you feeling?” he whispered.

“I’m never drinking again,” she mumbled.

He huffed amusedly and smiled, placing a kiss behind her ear.

“Liar,” he said. “You said that last time you drank too much.”

“I mean it this time.”

“Uh-huh, right.”

“I do—this is embarrassing.”

“I think it’s good practice.”

He knew the look on her face was one of confusion without seeing it. “Practice for what?”

“If you get morning sickness.” He kissed the side of her neck.

“Oh, god,” she whined. “Why can’t we be seahorses?”

His eyebrows furrowed. “Seahorses?”

“Yeah, male seahorses do the whole pregnancy and birth thing—that’s the fucking dream.”

He thought about it for a second, taking into account how badly he wanted kids, and it was really fucking weird to say this out loud, “If I could… I’d, uh, do that for us…”

He could hear her smiling. “You’d have my babies?”

Javier inhaled deeply and slowly let it out. “...yes.”

“I know the scenario is weirding you out, and it’s sweet of you to say you would, but I’m not sure if, given the opportunity, you’d actually do it—which is fine. Pregnancy and childbirth are scary, and it just proves that mothers are more badass than fathers.”

“You’re definitely more badass than me.”

“I appreciate you saying that, man who literally hunted bad guys for a living and had a bounty on his head.”

“You are, and since you’re taking the brunt of everything for us to have a kid, I promise I’ll do whatever possible, so all you’ll have to worry about is growing our baby and working.” She’d made it clear that when she got pregnant, she was still going to work until either the baby was born or the Doctor told her to stop.

“You know, I think we’re gonna crush being married and becoming parents.”

He smiled. “We are because we’re equals, even if you’re more badass than me.”

“We are equals, and thank you for acknowledging my badassery, man who helped eliminate two of the biggest cartels in the world.”

He snorted. “Smartass. How are you feeling?”

“A little drunk, sad, and I’ve got the spins.”

“Do you still feel sick?”

“Not really—just dizzy.”

“Do you want me to help you brush your teeth and then get you comfortable in bed?”

“That actually sounds wonderful because my mouth feels icky, and I’d like to cuddle.”

“Okay, mi amor.”

He started to move, but she stopped him with her hand on his arm as she said, “Javi?”

“Yes, Cielito?”

“You’re worth it.”

“Worth what…?”

“The pain and sadness over my family. You bring me so much love and happiness that I know it’ll outshine the hurt in no time, and this low I’m in is only temporary. You’re worth it and more than enough—your love is all I need. I love you.”

His throat was feeling tight, and he spoke softly. “I love you, too.” His arms went around her middle, and he didn’t squeeze as he hugged her to not hurt her stomach. He still wanted to hold her, his chin resting on her shoulder and their heads touching. “I’m happy I’m worth it to you, and just know that I’m yours; I’m here for you—good, bad, it doesn’t fucking matter because I’m not going anywhere, and we’ll get through anything together.” His lips pressed to her hair. “I tell you I love you a lot, but I hope you understand that I love you more than words can accurately describe—I love you, Cielito. I love you, and I promise I’ll be yours forever.”

Her hand came up behind her to press her fingers into his hair. “Yeah, we’re gonna crush being husband and wife.”

She made him smile. “Less than seventy-two hours, Mrs. Peña.”

“And I can’t fucking wait, Mr. Peña.”

The town of Laredo was buzzing with the news Javier Peña was getting married—yes, the same Javier Peña who left his first bride at the altar, had tumbled in the hay with many of the girls he’d gone to school with, and was apparently some kind of lothario in South America.

It really bothered you how fucking interested and judgmental the townspeople were of his sex life.

Your wedding with him was all anyone could talk about, and the bar was even taking bets on whether or not he’d disappear again, which was fucked up, but Chucho gladly put five hundred dollars on his son marrying you because he knew it was easy money. There was so much interest in how things would turn out that people you either barely knew or had never met approached you both like they were old friends of Javi’s to try and get invites—they were politely rejected with the excuse there wasn’t enough room.

According to Robyn, your wedding had the same amount of hype as your fiancé’s first, and though Javi hated that, you really hoped it annoyed the fuck out of his ex.

When you discussed how you wanted to tie the knot, your husband-to-be agreed the ceremony should be attended by a select few, and afterward, there’d be a big party to celebrate with the rest of your friends and family. Once the date was decided, the planning started immediately since there was so little time.

Chucho and his sisters would make a killing as wedding planners. They sat you and Javi down to get an idea of what you wanted the party to be like, a color scheme, and a budget, then told you guys not to worry and that they’d take care of everything. All the two of you had to do was approve things, hand over cash, and get your rings, which wasn’t too much of a hassle since you wanted simple matching gold bands.

Something you loved about the family you were marrying into was how they were all there for each other and so tight-knit—your fiancé's dad and tías managed to get all that was needed in less than a month with the help of his primos, and by calling in favors from their friends.

Javier and you didn't want anything extravagant. The party would occur in Chucho's backyard, under a giant white pole tent. Tables, chairs, and a dance floor had to be rented, and it was highway robbery how much the local place wanted to charge—Lorraine’s family frequently used them for their events, and you wouldn’t put it past her father to be the cause of such an exorbitant price just to spite Javi for wasting the absurd amount of money he spent on Lorraine’s first wedding. Luckily, on such short notice, tía Lupita’s oldest son, Matías, had a friend who knew a guy an hour away in Zapata who ran a party rental store and could get them everything at a reasonable price.

The tías, along with their daughters/daughters in law were handling food; Anna, who was friends with Javi in high school, had a bakery and was taking care of making the cake and Mexican wedding cookies that were tiny, buttery, ball-shaped, melt-in-your-mouth, powdered sugar-covered cookies, dotted with crushed nuts like pecans, walnuts, and almonds, and traditionally served at weddings and Christmas; tío Ángel and tía María’s husband were in charge of getting alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages, and Ángel’s youngest son Diego was going to DJ, as it was his side hustle and he’d been paid to do gigs at other parties in town and in a couple of big city clubs.

An hour and a half before you were to be wed, practically every family member of Javi's who lived locally was at the ranch. Many had been there all day setting up the backyard or in the kitchen making food, and every time you tried to help cook, you were shooed away, but your presence was wanted outside to instruct those putting things together on how to arrange and decorate everything inside and out of the tent, and that ended up being what you did until it was time to start getting ready.

Most of Javier’s family and you were there, yet your groom was nowhere to be found and hadn’t set foot on the property in a good sixteen hours.

In that time, you hadn’t seen or talked to him either, and your last interaction was the previous night when he dropped you off at his dad’s—that’s where you spent the night, and thank goodness, Chucho had already gone to sleep when Javi helped you get settled in his old room, because he had a hard time leaving and it led to him fucking you slow and passionately in his ridiculously squeaky bed one last time.

Why were you staying at the ranch? The two of you, encouraged by Javi’s dad, made the decision not to see each other on the day of your nuptials. Since your almost father-in-law would be driving you to where the ceremony was taking place, it made sense for you to sleepover and get ready at his house—the moment Javi left you there in his room that smelled like him, under his sheets that smelled like him, in one of his white t-shirts that smelled like him, you realized it was going to be really difficult and a test of your strength to be away from him for so long, and you both knew, if you spoke even a single word over the phone, the resolve between you would shatter, and he’d be back at Chucho’s for you in record time.

That led to the lack of communication and him getting ready alone at your shared apartment.

You were sitting in a kitchen chair you’d brought into Javi’s old bathroom, wearing a white satin robe cinched tight over your clean body, fresh from the shower and the special undergarments you'd chosen for the big day. Robyn was in front of you in her matching black robe as she did your makeup, something she offered to do and you happily accepted due to how good she was at it. She'd already smoothed out your complexion and hid any imperfections; currently, she was working on your eye shadow.

"Between you and Javi," she said, her attention focused on what she was doing, "your kids are gonna have some pretty eyes."

You smiled. "I think his eyes are prettier, and just imagine tiny versions of them; they'll give me the sad puppy dog eyes, and I'll have no choice but to give them whatever they want."

She giggled. "Your babies will be spoiled."

"I have already accepted that fact—hopefully, they'll take after their dad and be spoiled, but sweet, caring, and well-behaved, and not some little assholes." You frowned. "My brother was a spoiled asshole."

She paused what she was doing to meet your eyes. "Hey, now, we agreed not to think or speak about those people today. We aren't lettin' them sour the best day of your life so far."

"I know," you sighed.

It was the right choice to sever your ties with your family, and you had no regrets; that didn't mean it wasn't hard or hurt any less. Especially today, with it being your wedding day—your mom wasn’t there to help you get ready, nor your dad for a father-daughter dance. They should’ve been there supporting you on the happiest day of your life. Instead, they destroyed whatever relationship you had with them, and it hurt a lot. Even suspecting for years that they had no love for you didn't ease much of the pain of discovering it was true. You felt stupid for caring about these people when they cared so little for you, and you weren't sure why you hadn't cut them out sooner. Was it naively thinking they'd change? Or the ingrained notion that even if you didn't like them, you had to suck it up because they were your family?

It didn't matter now because what they'd done and how they treated the man you loved was unforgivable. There was no chance in hell you’d ever trust them again, and you didn’t want the new life you were starting with Javi to be tainted by their toxicity.

Robyn's cell phone was sitting on the bathroom counter next to your open makeup bag, and it started ringing—nobody wanted to bother you while you got ready, so Robyn was made the point of contact to either deal with what was going on or talk it out with you.

She straightened and turned around to pick it up.

"Why's he callin’?" she mumbled, hitting the accept button and putting the phone to her ear. "What's shakin' bacon? Robyn speakin,’" she answered. "...yes," she told them, "I'm doin' her makeup right now... No... No, you can't... Are you fuckin' kiddin' me? No one is supposed to see her before the wedding... You're a fuckin' liar, and Chucho wouldn’t let you in here anyway... You're ridiculous," she said in exasperation. "But if you swear, on your mama's grave, you won't peek, then I'll allow it... Okay, fine. Give us a sec, then quietly knock—I don't want anyone knowin' you’re here... bye."

She set the phone down and the eyeshadow palette, spinning on her heel to face you and grab your hand.

"Was that who I think it was?" you asked.

She was smiling. "If you’re thinkin’ someone annoyin’ who could get me in more trouble than an armadillo on the highway with your father-in-law, yes—come with me."

Robyn tugged you up to stand and led you into the bedroom, where you both came to a stop.

There were two large windows on the opposite wall beside each side of the bed, sitting half a foot above the floor with closed blinds and red curtains over them. A soft knocking sounded on the one in front of you. You followed Robyn and watched her push apart the curtains, pulling on the string to raise the blinds. Her body blocked your view as she unlocked the window and shoved it up.

"How many fingers am I holdin' up?" she asked the person outside.

"I don't know," Javi answered. "I can't see shit with this thing on."

The sound of his voice had your heart beating faster.

"Good," Robyn said, moving out of your way to look at you.

With the window's position, you could only see your fiancé from the thighs up, wearing black tuxedo pants and a white long-sleeved dress shirt tucked into them. Your sleep mask covered his eyes, and there was a loose regular tie and bow tie around his neck that matched the color of his slacks, the ends of each resting over both sides of his chest. Aside from his perfectly trimmed mustache, his face was freshly shaved, and he looked unbelievably handsome as always.

"This annoyin' man—" Robyn pointed at him with her thumb. "—says it's an emergency—he needs you to tell him how you want his hair done and which tie you’d like."

It made you smile because his hair was already how you wanted it—you had given him a haircut a couple of days ago, so the sides looked nice and clean cut down, and he combed the longer top and bangs to swoop over to the other side of his head, holding it all in place with his favorite pomade, that kept his hair soft.

He also knew damn well which tie you’d chosen.

It had you feeling gooey that he couldn't wait any longer to see you.

You walked toward him, and Robyn made herself scarce by disappearing into the bathroom. At the window, you got down on your knees to make it easier to talk to him, Javier still standing above you with his height.

"An emergency, huh?" you asked, and he smiled. Taking his outstretched hand, you guided him closer.

“Are we alone?" he countered

His palms began mapping your body, sliding over your arms and shoulders and along your neck up to your head, where he avoided your face but carefully felt your ears and hair.

"Yep."

“You feel beautiful.”

Air huffed from your nose in amusement. “Well, you look handsome, even without being fully dressed.” You rubbed your hands up his thighs to rest them on his tiny hips. “Your hair looks perfect,” you continued. “Did you really forget which tie I wanted?”

He smirked. “No,” he said, shaking his head. “It was the only way I knew I could get Robyn to betray Pop’s orders and let me see you; well, talk to you.”

Your eyebrows creased. “Orders? What orders?”

“He might’ve made it sound like a suggestion, the whole us not seeing each other today, but Pop is super fucking superstitious like mi mamá was—he doesn’t think he is—believe me, he is, and it made him feel better we agreed to do it. So, he has everyone out here on strict orders to keep us apart, including Robyn. One of my tíos is sitting at the end of the kitchen table right now so he can watch the front and back door; another is on the living room couch to stay close to my room in case he’s gotta intercept me. You’re being guarded like a fucking high-security witness with a hit out on them. I had to park my truck down the road and have Seb hide me in the trunk of his Bronco to get here without anyone seeing.”

“That is insane.”

He sighed. “At least Pop kinda gave us a choice; my mom wouldn’t have. She wouldn’t have let us take any risk of getting bad luck because I saw you.”

“It’s sweet and extremely intense.”

“Yeah, and I can’t see you, so we’re good.”

You smiled. “Gotta love loopholes.”

He was smiling, too. “Yeah. I missed you so much. I just needed to touch you and talk to you.” He grabbed your hands off his waist, stroking his thumbs over the back of them. “I couldn’t sleep last night without you—even when I tried sleeping on your side.”

“Yeah, I didn’t get much sleep either, and I missed you, too. I’m happy you’re here so we can talk. I’ve got butterflies in my tummy, and I can’t tell if they’re nerves or excitement.”

“Maybe both?”

“Could be. Don’t know what I have to be nervous about.”

“I’m nervous about having to say my sappy bullshit in front of other people and have it recorded.”

“That’s actually a good point—if we leave now, we can make it to the courthouse before it closes and skip all of that.”

He huffed out a breath. “It’s too late for that, mi amor. Pop’s excited about being a part of the ceremony and getting to walk you to me.”

There wouldn’t be an aisle per se, just a small trail of rose petals leading you to where Javi would be standing in front of the tree. Chucho cried happy tears when you asked him to give you away.

When your soon-to-be father-in-law heard about your parents' impromptu visit, you’d never seen him so angry—his face had gone red, and he went off in Spanish about what terrible people they were. He was so mad he repeatedly tried to get you to give him their phone number so he could tell them himself how lowly he thought of them and that they were awful parents; he wanted them to know that their loss was his gain and you were his daughter now; you would finally be loved and cherished by a proud parent and that it was God’s will you came into his and his son’s lives. He also needed them to be aware that their pride and greed had turned them villainous, and he’d be praying that they someday realized the error of their ways and saw you for the blessing you were.

His anger toward those who wronged you was fueled by a protective father’s love for their child, and it made you incredibly emotional that after so many years without one, you had a parent who loved you unconditionally, wanted nothing more than your happiness, and would selflessly fight battles for you.

Chucho was the best dad you’d ever had, and you were happy that in less than two hours, you’d share a last name with him, too.

“Ugh, you’re right,” you said, “Pop deserves his moment. Hey, babe?”

“Yes, mi amor?”

“When you’re saying your sappy bullshit, focus on me. It'll just be the two of us in that moment, no one else, and believe me when I say all of my tears will be happy.”

His smile was brighter than the sun. He lifted your hand to kiss each of your knuckles, saying when he finished. “All of my tears will be happy, too, and you do the same thing—it’s just us, nobody else. Will you, uh, tie my bow tie?”

His question had you smiling. “I’d love to.”

He pulled off the regular tie and stuffed it into his pocket, bending his knees and crouching with a grunt to put his neck within reach. You took the ends of the bow tie, your attention focused on what you were doing.

"This is why you had me learn how to tie a bow tie, huh?" You started going through the steps—ensuring one end was longer than the other, then crossing it over the shorter end, bringing it up from under the loop and through it.

"Yes."

The bow tie had taken shape, and you were almost done.

"What was your plan if Robyn didn't let you see me?"

"I would've called you and gotten you to sneak away."

You finished tying it, and it wasn't perfect, but it didn't look too bad.

"And I would've with zero hesitation," you said, patting the bow tie. "You look so good." You leaned out to peck him on the cheek.

"Not as good as you."

You huffed out air. "Obviously, you can't see me because only half of my makeup is done—there's literally eyeshadow on only one side. I look like a mess."

Your hands were on his shoulders, and he rubbed his hands back and forth on your arms.

"A beautiful mess."

"You're ridiculous."

"I'm in love."

"I'm in love, too—madly, as a matter of fact. Oh, your dad took me out for breakfast this morning in the Mustang. He filled up the tank on our way home, and when we got back before everyone came over, he polished it, so I think it’s safe to assume you’re gonna get to drive it at some point in the next twenty-four hours—you can’t see, but I’m wagging my eyebrows.” You were.

His lips pouted, and his hands remained still. “Who drove to and from the diner?”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“I just wanna know.”

“But why does it matter?”

“You’re deflecting.”

“No, I’m just curious why you need to know who drove.”

His shoulders slumped. “I think I have my answer—how many times has he let you drive it now? Was that four or five?”

“Six. He let me drive with him in the passenger seat and Robyn in the back when we went wedding dress shopping.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because you get weird like you are now that he lets me drive it—I can’t help that he thinks my cooking is Mustang-driving-worthy.”

“But you didn’t make him anything when you went wedding dress shopping…”

“No, but he was so touched I wanted him there to help me pick out a dress, he thought the special occasion warranted me getting to drive.”

“He didn’t let me drive the Mustang when we went to find a tux…” he grumbled.

“I’m sorry to break it to you, babe, but my wedding dress I bought and am going to save in case our future daughter wants to wear it one day is a little more special than your rented tux that has been worn many times before you by strangers. Now, stop being jealous, and get excited that you’re finally going to drive it, and unlike me, you’ll be allowed to drive it wherever the fuck you want, so there, you have one up on me.”

He seemed to be thinking long and hard about that last bit.

“That is better…”

“It sure is. Lean in and kiss me. It’ll make you less grumpy.”

“As much as I’m dying to kiss you right now, I, um, wanna wait, so it’s kinda special…”

“I respect that and understand what you mean. Javi?”

“Yes, Cielito?”

“I’m really fucking happy we’re getting married today, and I hope you like my dress.”

He smiled brightly. “I’m really fucking happy we’re getting married, too. I’m gonna love your dress.”

“I hope so.”

“Baby, you could show up in a paper bag, and I’d be blown away.”

“The bar is so low. Do you wanna feel what I’ll be wearing under the dress?”

The pink of his tongue quickly peeked between his lips, and his throat bobbed as he swallowed.

His timbre deepened. “Yes.”

You poked your head out the window to ensure no one was around, then loosened the belt, holding your robe shut. Taking his hand, you started at your shoulder beneath the silk, letting his fingertips graze over the bare skin, trailing them down to the lacy cup of your strapless bra. He couldn’t help himself and palmed your covered breast before you moved his hand once more to continue the journey downward, where he got to feel the smooth, stretchy material hugging your middle; you let his fingers find that the spandex covering the warmth between your thighs, too.

“Not very sexy,” you said. “Well, the bra is cute. The rest is so I don’t look lumpy in the dress or have panty lines.”

He was about to say something, but you spoke before he had a chance. “Yes, Javier, I know you love my natural body, including the bits I don’t, but I wanna look my very best, and that means Spanx.”

He was frowning. “Are they uncomfortable?”

It warmed your heart that he was concerned for your comfort.

"Not really," you answered truthfully. "They're like my bicycle shorts, so stretchy and breathable. Will it make you feel better to know I have sexier bottoms I'm gonna wear when I change into my comfier dress after food and our first dance?"

He didn't know what your wedding dress looked like, but he had seen the one you were changing into after it.

His free hand went to the window frame, feeling along it until he found where the opened window stopped and ducked his head under it. His face was close to yours, one of his palms still between your legs, the other carefully sliding up the edge of your open robe.

"I'd prefer you wear no panties," he rasped, pulling the silk off your shoulder. His mouth pressed to the newly revealed skin, the soft kiss of his lips and tickle of his mustache, paired with his hand on your pussy beginning to rub, had sparks dancing down your spine. "It's gonna make me hard," his words were muffled between kisses as he moved across your shoulder toward your neck, "seeing you in your wedding dress.” Your fingers went into the hair at the back of his head, his spare hand palming your breast. “I'm gonna lose my fucking mind hearing you say 'I do.'" He was kissing and nibbling at your throat now, the added friction of his palm at the crux of your thighs making it hard to think. "It's gonna drive me fucking crazy that you're my wife—my wife,” he repeated against your throat. “And I’ll be your husband—I already want you, but all I’ll be able to think about after we’re pronounced husband and wife is getting you alone, and if you’re not wearing panties, it’ll make it easier for me to lift up that pretty—“

“No, Javier!” Robyn interrupted, and you felt cold water mist against your bare skin, the spray bottle hissing near your ear. “Bad!”

“Fuck!” he yelped, his head narrowly missing the bottom of the raised window as he pushed back from you so fast you’d think he was burned. His expression had turned grumpy as he stood. “What the fuck was that for?”

“I promised your daddy I wouldn’t let you see her,” she said, looking mad. “But out of the kindness of my heart—” She pressed a hand to the left side of her chest. “—I went against my word to your father, and how do you repay me? By wastin’ time gettin’ fresh with your fiancée when I’m riskin’ your daddy bein’ madder than a box of frogs at me for not doin’ what I said I’d do—you’re bein’ real rude Javier Peña, exploitin’ my niceness and I’d appreciate you sayin’ your goodbyes, and bein’ on your way.”

His eyes were covered, but it was visible how his face shifted from grumpy to guilty.

“I’m sorry, Robyn,” he said.

“Apology accepted. Say goodbye, and then we gotta get back to work.”

“Okay,” he replied.

The other woman headed back to the en suite. Leaning forward, you grabbed his hand and pulled him to step toward you.

“Thank you for coming to see me or, you know, talk to me,” you told him.

He smiled, squeezing your palm. “There was zero chance of me waiting to talk to you until the wedding. I love you too much.”

“I’m happy you did, and I love you, too.”

He lifted your hand and kissed the back of it.

“I’ll be waiting for you.”

“I know you will, and I’ll be there.”

Javi sighed. “I better go. Bye, Cielito,” he said and didn’t move.

“You’re gonna see me in a little bit—get going, babe.”

He sighed again. “Fine. I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

This time, he quickly pecked the back of your hand and started quietly walking along the front of the house. You assumed he had taken off the sleep mask to sneak away.

You closed and locked the window, shutting the blinds and curtains, feeling happy that you'd be seeing him again soon.

It took some time to finish getting ready, as you wanted to look perfect. Robyn did a fantastic job on your makeup, and your hair turned out well. When you saw yourself all dolled up and wearing your dress, you almost couldn't believe it was your reflection staring back at you in the mirror.

The white, silky satin hugged your curves as it cascaded to the ground to pool around your feet, the fabric having some stretch to it so your movements weren’t hindered. The neckline dipped in a slight V, your upper back bare from under your armpits up, and thin straps went over your shoulders connecting the two sides.

With how the satin draped over your figure, perfectly fitting the contours of your body, then flared out below your knees, it had a Morticia Addams feel to it—change the color of it to black, add sleeves, and you’d find it in her closet.

Javi was right. You looked so amazing that he was absolutely going to get a boner when he saw you.

And wasn't that just the sweetest thing?

A man so in love with you he gets aroused even when you're fully clothed because he thinks you're that pretty. He was also the kind of guy who sometimes got too excited from a kiss, and you had to wait a little while in the car for him to calm down…

"What do you think?" Robyn asked beside you. She'd put on her dress—a lavender-colored, A-line, floor-length gown with ruffled short sleeves and a V-neckline that, as an added bonus, had pockets.

You met her eyes in the mirror. "That I've never looked more beautiful—if you ever wanted to get out of nursing, you'd be a fantastic makeup artist."

She smiled, her full lips painted in rose-pink lipstick. "Thank you, but I prefer doin' it as a hobby and bein' able to help my friends out."

"Well, thank you for making me look insanely pretty."

"All I did was enhance what was already there, girl—Javi's gonna lose it."

"I hope he does."

A knock sounded from the bedroom door, and without a word, your friend went to see who it was.

"Is it okay for Chucho to see you?" Robyn called from the other room.

"Yes!" you answered, and nerves started fluttering in your belly over what he'd think.

Within seconds, your father-in-law was standing in the doorway, where you faced him with a grin.

"Dios mío (My God)," he gasped, his hand going to his mouth, “eres tan hermosa (you’re so beautiful)!” His dark eyes behind his glasses started to shine.

He was wearing light grey slacks, a white long-sleeved dress shirt, and a tie in the same shade as Robyn’s dress resting against his chest from a perfect Windsor knot at his throat, his camera dangling from a strap around his neck; as usual, his long hair was pulled back in a low ponytail.

“Ese vestido es perfecto (That dress is perfect)!” he said. “Estoy tan feliz de que lo hayas elegido porque te ves increíble (I’m so happy you chose it because you look amazing). Javi se va a volver loco (Javi is going to go crazy)."

"You really think so?" you asked, looking down at your outfit.

"Oh, yes." He nodded. "He's not going to leave you alone. We'll have to get a crowbar to pry him away from you."

You giggled, looking at him. "Yeah, I have a feeling he's gonna be stuck to me all night."

"When isn't he?"

The question made you laugh. "Touché."

"I wasn't sure if you'd want to," the older man started, "but I went through mi amor's jewelry to see if there was anything I thought you might want to wear—it could be your something old—” You hadn’t figured out what to do for something old; your something new was the perfume Javi got you for Christmas that you saved for today so he’d have a scent memory. Something borrowed was Chucho’s land, where your ceremony and party would take place, and something blue was a garter from Robyn around your thigh under your dress. “—and I found this necklace,” he said.

That's when you realized he was holding a large, thin, black leather box in his other hand.

Chucho walked closer to you, holding it in a palm, while the other lifted the hinged top—the necklace was made up of many silver waves connected together, purple sapphires resting in each dip, that you counted seventeen in total. It was stunning, the metal and precious gemstones glimmering beneath the lighting.

"I gave this to mi Antonia on our twentieth anniversary," he told you. "We'd visit her family in Mexico two, three times a year, and always for Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead). On one visit, she saw this necklace and fell in love with it—it's Taxco silver and known for its high quality; many pieces made with it are crafted by hand and marked, so you know it's real. She wouldn't let me buy it for her because she thought it was too expensive for something she’d hardly wear, but the way she looked at it, I had to get it for her anyway, so I did and surprised her with it on our anniversary; she yelled at me," he chuckled, smiling. "Then had me put it on her and covered my face in kisses." He sighed fondly. "I think if she were here today, this is what she would've chosen for you, too—if you don’t like it, we can go upstairs for you to pick something else out..."

"No, Pop," you said quickly, meeting his gaze. There was a lump in your throat at the thought he'd put into finding you this piece of jewelry. "It's perfect, and I'd love to wear it. Can you help me put it on, please?"

"Yes, Mija." He set the open box on the bathroom counter and picked up the necklace with the same care as you would a newborn. Turning so your back was to him, he had an end in each hand as his arm went over your head to get the silver and sapphires around the front of your neck, clasping it at the back. He stepped away, and you faced him again.

There was a smile on his face, and his eyes were soft. "Mi hija hermosa (My beautiful daughter).” The sentence had your breath hitching. “¿Ella es preciosa, no (She is gorgeous, right)?" he asked Robyn. She understood Spanish but had a hard time speaking it.

The other woman was beside him, grinning. "She sure is," she agreed. "A real stunner."

"I'm so happy this day has finally come." Tears were brimming on his eyelids, and he took off his glasses to wipe them away. "I just wish mi amor was here to see our son marry such a wonderful woman."

Your eyes were burning as you held back from crying. He'd put his eyeglasses back on, and you stepped forward to hug him, being careful of your makeup. His arms went around you, squeezing you back.

"I wish she was here, too," you said. "At least we've got you, the best dad in the whole world. I love you, Pop."

"I love you, too, Mija. Thank you for loving my son and making him the happiest I've ever seen. We're blessed to have you in our lives, and I can't tell you how much joy I feel that you've decided to take our last name; I think it suits you better."

"I think it suits me better, too."

“You’re gonna kill the grass if you keep walking back and forth like that,” the other man told him.

They were at the oak tree on the hill, and the sun was getting close to setting. Javier had his whole outfit on: a black tuxedo and bow tie, white shirt, and lavender pocket square—he’d borrowed a pair of his father’s golden cufflinks, and one of his mother’s violet roses was pinned to his lapel. He didn’t have a cigarette to calm his nerves, so he was pacing, but the comment had him stopping with a sigh.

"Are you wearing a hole in the ground 'cause you're being impatient?" Steve continued. "Or are you nervous?"

His gaze went to his best friend, who was standing in front of him holding a small, white, heart-shaped pillow adorned in lace that went around the edges—there were two golden rings, one bigger than the other, secured to the top of it by a satin ribbon tied into a bow. The older man was dressed in a charcoal-colored suit he regularly wore to work, with a new tie provided by Javier that matched his lavender pocket square. Nate was in a carrier on his back; the parents put the one-year-old in a onesie that made him look like he was wearing a tuxedo and some dark pants, the child happily chewing on a football-shaped teething toy.

His hands went to his hips as he frowned. “Both?” Javier answered. “I can’t wait to see her, and I’m nervous about saying shi-stuff—“ He quickly corrected himself with the children present. “—I usually save for when we’re alone.”

Steve was giving him a weird look. “My kids are here. This ‘stuff’ is appropriate for them to hear, right…? It’s not anything… lewd…?”

Javier’s eyes narrowed. “No, it’s not anything like that, you judgemental pri-prude.”

The blonde man’s free hand went up in a placating gesture. “Hey, you said you save it for when you’re alone, and y’all have stayed at our house—any time the two of you were alone, you… folded laundry.”

“Folded laundry…?”

“Javi,” Connie said to get his attention, and he looked over to where she was fussing with the purple bow in Olivia’s hair. “You know when there’s a big load of laundry that requires two adults to fold, and they have to lock the bedroom door so there aren’t any distractions.”

Oh, ‘folding laundry’ was their code word for sex—that was smart.

“Mom and Dad have been folding a lot of laundry together lately,” Olivia added with a quizzical expression. “I didn’t know it was so hard to do alone—the baskets don’t seem that big.”

Javier smiled, his head turning from one parent to the other, seeing they were avoiding his eyes and blushing—good for them, fucking regularly.

“It’s more satisfying to do laundry with someone, so it gets done quicker,” he said.

“Doesn’t seem to get done quicker,” she replied.

Steve cleared his throat before he spoke. “Anyways, enough about laundry—what are you planning to say that’s got you nervous, Jav?”

He stopped smiling and scratched his mustache. “Uh, like, lovey-dovey, romantic crap…”

His best friend’s smile grew into a shit-eating grin. “What, like, super cheesy stuff? Are you gonna read the poetry you wrote about her eyes in your diary or something?”

Javier ground his teeth.

"Leave him alone, Steve," Connie said. "In our wedding video, before I walked down the aisle, you were clearly figuring out where all of the nearest exits were in the church. It’s refreshing and sweet that Javi’s gonna be vulnerable in front of everyone for the woman he loves.”

"I was checking where the exits were in case of a fire!" Steve rebuked. "All those candles they lit made me nervous."

"If that's what you tell yourself." She didn’t sound convinced.

“I was! Why did we need to be here forty-five minutes early?” he asked, trying to change the subject. “I was really enjoying the food your aunties were feeding us back at the house.”

There wasn’t a chance for Javier to respond; the answer to the question was he wanted to show how eager he was to marry the woman he actually loved and avoid any chance of being late—it also was a ‘fuck you’ to the people betting against him at the bar.

"Tío, tío!" The three-year-old Stevie shouted, running up to him; he was holding a Ninja Turtle action figure he'd been playing with in the grass.

Javier smiled, his attention moving to the child, crouching to be at his level. "Yes, mi principito (my little prince)?"

"We match!" His tiny finger pointed at his little light purple bow tie over his white dress shirt. The kid refused to wear a regular tie like his dad, and the only way they got him to agree to the clip-on bow tie was by telling him Javier had one, too.

His friends weren't by any means struggling with money, but Javier and his wif-fiancée, sent them a check to pay for their trip to Texas, which included flights, lodging, a rental car, and clothes for the wedding since they wanted those at the ceremony to match—Olivia got a new dress and so did her mom in the shade of lavender everyone else was wearing.

The family had gotten into town the day before. Cielito and Javier had shown them around town and taken them out to the ranch where Chucho and Connie finally got to meet in person—there was a lot of hugging—and that evening, they all, including his father, went out to dinner. Today, he’d spent more time with his friends before they all needed to get ready, then they followed him out to the ranch to distract Chucho while Javier covertly went to see, or, well, talk to his bride-to-be—the sleep mask was Connie’s idea, and she thought them sneakily meeting without anyone knowing was incredibly romantic.

"We do, bud,” he said. “You look so cool." He gently patted the child's arm.

Stevie was grinning. "I'm gonna walk from Mommy to Daddy and give him the rings?"

The hill they were on wasn’t too steep; Olivia was fine with walking up it from the bottom—she was excited to do it. For her younger brother, it was too much for him, so Connie was going to stand with Stevie a little before the land evened out at the top to signal when it was time for him to walk to his father.

"Yes," he nodded. "You'll walk while holding the pillow with the rings and hand it to your dad."

"It's a special job?"

"It's very special."

"Sissy's gonna throw flowers?"

"Yes, flower petals."

"It's a special job, too?"

"It is. They’re both important. Thank you for helping me, mi principito (my little prince).” He ruffled the child’s dirty blonde hair, making Stevie laugh.

Javier’s primos, Sebastián, and his tía Rebeca's daughter, Angelita, were taking care of the videography and photography, respectively. Seb had the video camera Javier bought, and Angelita had her own gear since she was a professional photographer—when you had fourteen cousins on just your father’s side, the odds were in your favor, one of them could either help with what you needed or knew somebody who could.

Photos were taken of Javier with the Murphys when they all first got there, and then his primos told everyone to pretend they weren’t there while they got candids and views of the scenery—his cousins arrived together in Sebastián’s SUV.

“Hey, Javi?” Seb said as he walked toward him.

"I gotta talk to him, buddy," Javier told Stevie. "I'll be back." He rose up with a groan, taking a few steps to reach his primo. "Yeah?" he answered.

When camcorders first came out, they were big and had to be rested on the operator’s shoulder, but the one Seb was using, he held in one of his hands with the side pulled open to see the little screen that previewed what was being recorded. The younger man hit a button on the video camera to pause what he’d been doing. “Do you want me to interview people?” Seb asked. “Ask how they like the wedding, if they have any advice, that kinda stuff.”

"Uh." He thought about it and Cielito would probably enjoy that. "Sure.”

"Perfecto (Perfect)." Seb nodded, hitting the button to record again.

Javier immediately regretted his decision when the camera was put in his face.

“It’s your big day, primo,” Seb said. “How are you feeling?”

“Um, excited and nervous.”

“The audience would like to hear how you met your bride.”

Javier smiled, heat rising on his cheeks. “At the grocery store, in the produce department—I guess it was obvious I was struggling to pick out a tomato, and she came to my rescue and showed me what to look for.”

“What was your first impression of her?”

He scratched at the back of his neck while looking away. “Uh, that she was sweet for helping me out, and beautiful. I could tell she had a good, kind heart and—” he lowered his voice so the children wouldn’t hear him. “—no fuckin’ clue who I was.” He chuckled. “I was hooked from that first conversation; an instant connection—there was something about her that told me she was going to be someone important to me, and I’d never felt that with anyone else.”

“What’d you do for your first date?”

His immediate thought was what happened after the bar, and his face felt hot. “We, uh, went out for drinks.”

“When did you know you loved her?”

He looked at the camera. “Honestly? Our third date. We were dancing in her kitchen to “¿Y cómo es él?”—”

“Mi mamá loves that song,” Seb said.

Javier huffed, smiling. “All my tías do. So, uh, we were dancing in her kitchen, and I realized she was the woman I was going to marry. I could see us having a future and was picturing what our Sunday mornings would look like—which, they’re exactly how I imagined—yeah, I knew I loved her on the third date and that we were going to get married one day.” He cleared his throat. “When my dad tells the story of the first time he saw my mother, he says his gut told him she was the one, and I always thought he was talking out of his—ass,” he whispered. “But it’s real and crazy to know deep down inside that you’ve found the person who completes you—feeling that confirmed she was it and that I truly did love her.”

“I think I know the feeling you’re talking about, and it’s great.”

“It is, and at your wedding, I’m gonna grill you on camera about it.”

“Hey, your wife is gonna eat this up, and you both want kids; think about your hijos (children) watching this one day and seeing how much you love their mom on your wedding day.”

The thought of sitting on the couch surrounded by his wife and kids, watching this wedding video, made him soften to the point he was putty—he wanted it to be a reality one day.

“What’s something you want to say to the bride before you get married?” Seb asked.

“I love you, and today is the best day of my entire fucking life—”

“—Eso es un dólar en la jarra, tío (That’s a dollar in the jar, uncle).” Olivia interrupted.

She meant the swear jar.

Javier sighed. “Lo siento, mi tesorito (I’m sorry, my little treasure). As I was saying, mi Cielito, I love you, and today is the best day of my entire freaking life. Happy isn’t enough to describe how I feel about us starting this new chapter of being husband and wife, and I’m looking forward to our future full of love, happiness, and hopefully, a lot of kids.” He smiled big. “I love you more than anything, and I will tell you that every day for the rest of our lives. Te amo, mi amor (I love you, my love).” To end the sentence, he blew a kiss at the camera lens.

In order to get to where Javi was, it involved Chucho driving you off-road, and the trip was bumpy; you sat in the passenger seat, and Robyn was in the backseat, and because your father-in-law was probably as nervous as you were about speaking in front of people, he held your hand the entire way.

The previous day, when you brought the Murphys out to the ranch, you’d taken them to where you were going to be wed to do a quick rehearsal on how things would go; Olivia was beyond ecstatic to be a flower girl, and Stevie didn’t really understand what was going on, except that his tío Javi had an important job for him.

Chucho pulled up and parked at the base of the hill with your door opposite it so you couldn’t get a closer look at everyone atop it. The butterflies in your belly were flapping around so hard you thought they might get out, while your mind was racing with what could go wrong like you falling—that was a reason you wore flats, but with how much of your dress touched the ground, there was a chance of it tripping you up. Or what if Javi’s handsomeness made your brain stop working, and you couldn’t speak a single coherent word? Something that has happened before. God, your heart was pounding, and you thought you might be having a minor panic attack due to your vision starting to tunnel—a small silver flask was held up in front of your face, the cap already twisted off.

“Take a drink, Mija,” Chucho’s soothing voice said. “It’ll calm you down.”

The man was a lifesaver.

You grabbed it, taking a big swig, and your face pinched as the whiskey burned down your throat—from the taste and smoothness, you recognized it as Javi’s favorite, which was top shelf, a little spendy, and probably came from the bottle your fiancé gifted his dad to thank him for his help in getting you to give the green light to start your family.

The effect the alcohol had on you was almost immediate, feeling all of the tense muscles in your body relax at the same time. Your father-in-law took the flask from you and knocked it back with a drink of his own.

“Robyn?” he asked when he finished, holding it up for her to reach.

“Don’t mind if I do,” she replied, accepting it from him to take a gulp.

“I couldn’t see Antonia before our wedding,” he said, his head turned your way, “or talk to her. We were kept apart at the church, and I was so nervous that I was shaking like a leaf.” He chuckled. “Not about getting married, but having to stand in front of so many people. It had to be minutes before I needed to go out with the priest that mi amor’s maid of honor, her best friend, found me to give me an opened bottle of tequila and a note written by Antonia that read, ‘Mi amor, un trago para el coraje (My love, a drink for courage). Yo también necesitaba uno (I needed one, too).’ And she left a lipstick stamp of her lips at the bottom, where she kissed the paper. I won’t deny it. I kissed where her lips had been and took two shots.”

The story made you smile.

Chucho had put on a jacket that matched his light grey pants, and you watched as he pulled something from the inside pocket. It was a small folded piece of paper that’d been ripped from the notepad he kept by the answering machine at his house to write down messages. He passed it over to you, and you unfolded it, finding Javi’s scratchy handwriting. You read what he wrote:

Cielito, You said you were never drinking again, but I think this can be an exception since you’re probably freaking the fuck out about embarrassing yourself like I am. I’m worried I’ll see how beautiful you are and forget how to talk, or my brain will stop working. Have a drink to calm your nerves, and know it will all be okay because we’re doing this together. I love you, Your husband

The note was touching, especially since he knew how you’d be feeling.

“When did he write this?” you asked Chucho, whose eyes you met, the man smiling.

“When he met up with Connie and all of them at the house before they came out here. I’d given him the flask when he got there as a gift, but he told me to keep it for you and asked if he could write you a message. It reminded me so much of his mother, I couldn’t say no.”

“Thanks, Pop. I needed it.”

“I know you did, Mija.” He patted your leg.

When Javier saw his father's truck in the distance, his heart rate increased, and by the time they parked at the bottom of the hill, his heart was beating so fast that he was sure it was going to beat right out of his chest.

With where he was standing at the tree and how the land sloped, he didn’t have a visual. Steve was beside him with Nate still in the carrier, Connie and Stevie, who was holding the pillow with the rings, had walked to the top of the hill and were looking down it, probably watching Olivia, who booked it to join the people at the truck. Seb was near Steve's wife and kid with the camcorder and a battery-powered boombox on the ground he was supposed to hit play on when Robyn gave him the signal.

Sweat was forming on his brow and on his palms. He turned to Steve.

"Do I look okay?" he asked his friend. "How's my hair? And the bow tie?" He lifted his chin.

The other man was wearing an amused smile. "Hair and bow tie look as fine as they did when you asked five minutes ago." He put a hand on Javier's shoulder and squeezed. "Relax, man—you look great. She's gonna love what she sees."

"I fucking hope so."

The sun had started its descent on the horizon and was the backdrop for the place they’d be standing; the sky where it met land was lit up in burning orange, bleeding into golden yellow where the sun was positioned, and high above that, it turned into a calming mauve.

The soft, melodic sound of a piano began, and it was Javier's cue to face the others. Christine McVie’s voice floated through the air as she sang the opening to the Fleetwood Mac song, "Songbird:"

“For you there'll be no more crying For you the Sun will be shining And I feel that when I'm with you It's alright, I know it's right.”

Seconds later, Robyn came into view, smiling while holding a small bouquet of sunflowers with a lavender ribbon wrapped around the stems. She shot her boyfriend, Sebastián, a wink as she passed him. She took her spot across from Javier beside where Cielito would be.

When he discussed with his wife-to-be the music for today, she only knew for sure what she wanted them to dance their first dance to, and since Javier didn’t object to it, she left what she’d walk down the aisle to up to him. He knew she’d hate the traditional “Bridal Chorus,” a couple of Elvis Presley songs came to mind, “No Sé Tú” by Luis Miguel perfectly described how Javier felt when they met and was a good option, “At Last” by Etta James would be appropriate, too, and “I Could Fall in Love” by Selena was in the running, because, Selena, but then he remembered this song on Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours—his favorite album, and for good reason with it having some of the band’s best classics like “The Chain,” “Dreams,” and “Go Your Own Way;” it was also seeping with palpable heartbreak of a messy breakup, except for the track, “Songbird.” It was a major tonal shift from all the angst with its pretty piano and Christine McVie crooning her love. What sold him on it were the lines:

“To you, I’ll give the world To you, I’ll never be cold ‘Cause I feel that when I’m with you It’s alright, I know it’s right.”

He loved it when he heard it played live at the band's concert twenty-three years ago—he’d been seventeen and still in high school; he and his buddies snuck off to Fort Worth to see them, and “Songbird” was the last song of their set before the encore.

It was his three-year-old sobrino’s (nephew’s) turn to walk forward, his mom sending him to his dad with the rings—they all laughed at how he ran as fast as he could, making Javier smile.

"Here, Daddy," the child said to Steve, holding up the pillow.

His father accepted it.

"Great job, kiddo—high-five." His friend had to bend a little to gently hit his palm to Stevie’s tinier one, and the toddler turned to Javier expectantly, who, of course, bent his knees and high-fived him.

"You did good, buddy,” he said.

Steve told his son to stand with him, and Connie went to be next to Robyn as everyone watched Olivia walk up, tossing red rose petals from a small white basket, leaving a trail of them behind her. He hum-sang under his breath along with the song:

“And the songbirds are singing Like they know the score And I love you, I love you, I love you Like never before.”

Finally, his bride came into view, her eyes locking onto his, and all the love he had for, all of his happiness, and thanks he had to the universe for making this day happen overflowed from him, falling as tears down his face and made his smile so big, he could feel the dimple in his cheek.

She was breathtaking and better than anything he could’ve imagined; this moment would be seared into his brain for all eternity, and he didn’t think he’d ever felt this happy in his entire life—he almost told Steve to make sure he didn’t float away.

Her bouquet was made up of roses from his mother’s garden, and his heart felt like it would burst. Then the dress—Jesus Christ, the dress was perfect with how it molded to her body and showed off her tits from the neckline V-ing between them. His fingers were itching to see if the fabric was as buttery smooth as it looked, wanting to explore the expanse with his fingertips, mapping out every curve, line, and dip he’d already ventured countless times before but now on a new canvas; He desired to feel her softness under his palms and cradle her beautiful face to kiss those delectable lips he so loved; he wanted to hold her in his arms, her familiar shape he knew as intimately as his own, pressed against him, where she belonged.

All of it was getting him too excited, and his pants were feeling tighter, just as he suspected might happen.

Javier’s dream wedding night would have them partying with their friends and family well into the later hours and holding off on consummating their marriage until they retired to the room he rented at the nicest hotel in town he was surprising her with. He’d been determined to do just that up until he had to spend the previous evening by himself where he was alone with his thoughts and ruminated on how beautiful she was going to look, that she was going to be his wife, and one day soon, the mother of his children; since she wasn’t there to distract him by simply being in his vicinity, he worked himself up until he was rock hard and had to take a freezing shower.

He didn’t see there being any chance they’d make it to the hotel without them fucking at least once beforehand.

God, she was so fucking gorgeous.

He had to wipe at the wetness on his face, his smile continuing to shine.

Telling her his feelings in front of everyone wasn’t all he’d been nervous about; his brain was a real asshole, and there’d been a tiny thread of worry she wasn’t going to show—it was stupid, to have even fathomed something so absurd, yet looking at how shitty his luck was up until they met, he thought it wouldn’t have been too surprising that this time he’d be the one left at the altar.

But she was here! She came! And he was so overjoyed he couldn’t stop crying.

Wait.

Oh, fuck, she was close now—what was he supposed to do? It only just registered that she was walking with his dad, and they were almost to him, and he couldn’t remember what needed to happen when she got to him. His heart was pounding a mile a minute, and he was starting to panic that he didn’t know what his next move was, worried he was going to fuck it all up; it was unbelievable that he’d been in gunfights, had to think on the fly to stay alive many times, and put on press conferences, yet at this moment when there wasn’t any danger or eager reporters, he was so overwhelmed by the woman he loved’s beauty, and that she was marrying him, his brain had ceased functioning entirely, and he was spiraling at embarrassing himself with so many onlookers.

Javi was having a panic attack.

The change in his eyes, how they went from bright and happy to panicked, clued you in, and any nervousness you felt flew out the window because your only concern was helping him.

Unhooking your arm from Chucho, you held out the hand, not holding flowers to Robyn.

“Flask me,” you said. Quickly, she pulled it from her pocket and passed it to you, taking your bouquet in return. You stepped in front of your betrothed as you unscrewed the cap on the container of booze. “Hey, baby,” you said in a soothing tone. “You’re okay.” You grabbed his hand and put the flask in it, pushing it toward his face. “Have a drink to calm your nerves. Everything is gonna be okay, honey. Remember, we’re doing this together—it’s just us.”

The music had stopped playing.

He shook his head once like he was trying to shake the bad stuff out, and he took a drink, or several, with how his Adam’s apple kept bobbing.

“Looks like I’ll be driving us after this.” The adults surrounding you chuckled, and you smiled.

His hand lowered, and his vision focused on you, a pink flush spreading over his cheeks.

“Sorry,” he whispered.

“No reason to be sorry—I freaked out in the car.” You took the flask from him, screwed on the cap, and handed it back to Robyn without looking. “Feeling better?” you asked, smoothing your fingers over his bangs while his eyes were on yours.

“Much,” he answered with a small smile, his palms moving to rest on your hips.

“Wanna get married?”

“More than anything.”

“Good—liquid courage helps.” You leaned in to kiss his cheek, then put your lips near his ear for only him to hear, “Say the word, and we’ll pack up, go party with everyone, and hit the courthouse tomorrow.”

He spoke softly in your ear, “Thank you, Cielito, but I promise I’m okay.” He kissed your cheek. “I told you I’d see how beautiful you are and forget how to function.”

You giggled, pulling back to look at him, taking in the black tuxedo jacket and bow tie over his crisp white shirt and the lavender pocket square and the pinned violet rose for a pop of color—his hair still looked good, and you rubbed away the tears on his cheeks with your thumbs.

When he saw you in your wedding dress, the expression on his face was something you’d never forget—it was a look of pure, uninhibited joy, and you were sure you saw hearts in his eyes with how they beamed his immense love and devotion. The way that it had him crying happy tears made you feel emotional that someone loved you with such magnitude. It’s why your immediate thought when you saw him panicking wasn’t that he wanted to back out, knowing from his note that he was freaking the fuck out about embarrassing himself, and the nerves got him.

“Let’s get married.” His head turned to kiss one of your palms.

“Let’s get married.”

Turning to your almost-father-in-law, you gave him a quick hug, and he kissed your forehead before he moved to give Javi a side hug, careful of the stuff held in one of his hands and whispering something in his son’s ear, you didn’t catch.

The elder Peña went to stand at his place in front of the tree, holding his worn, soft leather bible, with a picture of Javi’s mother stuck to the cover and a note card sticking out from between the pages to mark a spot.

Javier took your hand, and you both walked the few steps to your spots before his father; he grasped your other palm in his once you faced one another, Chucho on your left and Javi’s right.

Your husband-to-be mouthed, ‘I love you,’ and you silently replied with the movement of your lips, ‘I love you, too.’

Chucho cleared his throat, and your attention went to him.

“Welcome, loved ones,” he started, “we are gathered here today in the sight of God and each other to bear witness to the perfect union of Javier, and—” He said your name. “What a joyous day we get to share with them as they embark on this new journey of a life together in matrimony that will, no doubt, be long, healthy, and filled with love, happiness, and laughter.

“Mijo, Mija,” he addressed you both, “I called this union between you perfect, and I meant it. Besides my marriage to my dear Antonia, que en paz descanse (may she rest in peace), I cannot think of two other people more suited to share a life together. It’s clear the good you bring out in one another and how happy you make each other.” His eyes landed on you. “And you truly make my son happy. This might come as a shock,” he said to everyone in attendance, “but Javier is a smiley guy when he’s happy, and I haven’t seen him smile so much in a long, long time.

“He also has never been able to hide his feelings because that handsome face of his tells his secrets—it’s his—” He glanced at you. “—I’m stealing this from you, Mija—it’s his puppy dog eyes, he got from his mother, and she suffered the same problem.” His gaze stayed on you. “I know Javier loves you more than there’s blue in all the sky because he looks at you the same way mi amor looked at me, and as we know, their eyes don’t lie.”

He was right, and it made you choke up that he knew what it was like to be on the receiving end of such honesty and the weight of so much love.

Chucho looked at his son. “Your media naranja (soulmate) isn’t much better.” He nodded toward you. “Her eyes betray her, too, even when she does her damndest to hide behind a mask. When she looks at you, though, the truth of her love is revealed—her thoughts are loud when she stares at you, and sometimes I think I can hear them; the declaration of ‘I love you,’ she’s repeating over and over again. She looks at you like you’re her whole world, and I know it’s true from those looks, how she treats and cares for you, the things she does for you, even when you don’t ask, and the effort she puts into cultivating your relationship.”

He spoke to you both again. “Marriage can be wonderful with the right person, but it isn’t always easy; I want to take a moment and give you some advice that kept my marriage happy.

“Be best friends—talk about everything, even when you don’t want to or it’s a hard subject. Communicate your needs and wants constantly, and don’t stop talking to each other. Be best friends who share everything, and I mean everything, because your relationship needs to be built upon trust, and there’s nothing better than spending your life with your best friend.

“Keep having fun—joke around, cook together, dance in the kitchen, don’t stop having fun. And keep dating each other. Just because you’re married doesn’t mean that the dating stops. Go out, stay in, just have romantic time you dedicate to one another; that way, the spark stays alive. I know it’ll be harder to do when you have kids; you’ll be exhausted and won’t have much energy. Dating still needs to be a priority, and it doesn’t have to be anything exciting; it can be as simple as putting the kids to bed, staying up, watching a movie together, or baking cookies.”

“—or folding laundry together,” Steve interjected.

Javi chuckled, and you were confused. He leaned toward you to whisper in your ear, “It’s their code word for sex.”

“Oh, that’s smart,” you said as he straightened.

A furrow was between Chucho’s eyebrows. “I guess folding laundry can be romantic…” the older man said. “Now, where was I?” He opened his bible and pulled out the notecard, his eyes scanning over. “Oh, yes—anyone can fall in love; it’s nurturing that love, sharing your life with the other, facing challenges together, and growing as one that makes it real love, and what you have is real. The love you share and I had with my wife is beautiful, but it’s also fierce, it’s powerful, and all consuming; it’s not something anyone can get between and will live on even when you no longer walk the earth. I know you didn’t want a religious ceremony, but there’s a scripture I’d like to share that perfectly describes what I mean. May I?” he asked, his bible already open to the page.

Javier and you figured he’d slip in a verse or two simply because he was a devout Christian man. It was nice of him to ask permission first, though. You turned your head to meet your almost-husband’s eyes and shrugged that you were fine with it. He smiled, his attention going back to his father.

“Go ahead,” Javi said.

Chucho had a toothy grin. “Wonderful—it’s in Songs of Solomon 8 and reads: Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm; for love is strong as death, passion fierce as the grave. Its flashes are flashes of fire, a raging flame. Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it. If one offered for love all the wealth of one’s house, it would be utterly scorned.”

He shut the bible with one hand, his notes resting atop it.

“I wish more people got to experience that kind of love—it’d do the world a whole lot of good. Javier—” He looked at his son, then over to you, saying your name. “I know with how you feel for each other, it’s natural to think marriage is the next step in your relationship. I want you to be sure you know what you’re getting into.” His eyes were moving between you both. “This is a lifelong commitment that will have its ups and downs, highs and lows, and you’ll need to challenge yourselves to love the other more completely each and every day. Are you ready to take this step?”

Without missing a beat, Javi and you said simultaneously, ‘Yes,’ your hands still in his.

Chucho smiled. “Wonderful. Javier—” His eyes went to his son. “—do you take—” He said your name. “—to be your lawfully wedded wife? Will you honor her, cherish her, love, trust, and commit to her and her alone, through joy and pain, sickness and health, and whatever else life may throw at you both, for as long as you both shall live?”

“I do,” Javi said.

His father turned his attention to you and addressed you by name. “—do you take Javier to be your lawfully wedded husband? Will you honor him, cherish him, love, trust, and commit to him and him alone, through joy and pain, sickness and health, and whatever else life may throw at you both, for as long as you both shall live?”

“I do,” you answered.

“It’s time for you to share the vows you’ve written for one another before you exchange rings. Who’d like to go first?”

“Me!” you said immediately, and everyone laughed. “I need to get them out of the way before Javi makes me a blubbering mess. Robyn, vows me.” Turning her way, you put out your hand, and she juggled the two bouquets she held to pull a folded piece of paper from her pocket to hand to you. “Have I told you your dress is amazing?” you asked her.

“Thank you—I look good and have pockets. What could be better?”

“Dresses with pockets are a game-changer.” You faced Javi, and heat bloomed up your neck and on your face at remembering you had to say how you felt in front of people.

“Hey,” Javi said to get your attention, and your gazes locked. “It’s just me,” he whispered. “Talk to me—no one else is here.”

“Right.” You smiled, then focused on the lined notebook paper you unfolded that had your writing on it. “Javier Jesús Peña López,” you began, “the first of his name, King of my heart, Lord of our tiny apartment, and Protector of me—”

“Just Javi’s fine,” he said.

You giggled. “Javi, not a day goes by that I am unaware of how lucky I am to have found you. When I think about how much time you spent away from this town—that I both love and hate—all the people you’ve met, the life you’ve lived, and the things you’ve gone through, it’s a miracle our paths crossed, and possibly Divine Intervention or the universe doing me a solid, that after everything that’s happened to you, you’ve ended up here, with me.

“It’s crazy the number of obstacles we’ve had to face together and how many people are obsessed with making your life difficult—this isn’t me complaining. I’m weirdly thankful for it; it’s kept us on our toes and tested our bond. It’s improved our communication and has built a strong foundation for our relationship.

“Something I’m also thankful for is the trust we share. I can count on you. I know you’re true to your word, and I have no reason to worry about you ever being deceitful.

“What’s also reassuring is your star signs back up the faith I have in you—as a Sagittarius, you value honesty, and when you find someone you think is really worth it, you commit, and you commit hard. With Capricorn and Scorpio in your top three, you’re super loyal, a little possessive, and definitely a relationship guy. To sum all of that up, you’re pretty much perfect and an amazing partner.

“You’re a good man, the best I’ve known. My life is better with you in it. Thank you for loving me.” Tears started to distort your vision, the emotion coming through in your voice. “Thank you for loving me unconditionally. Thank you for your unwavering support and for being my rock. Thank you for being my protector and making me feel so safe with you. Thank you for being my best friend and the love of my life.”

You had to take a deep breath to calm yourself.

“Here are my promises to you,” you said, “I promise to love you until the end of time, and if I happen to go first, haunt you until we can be together again.” He chuckled. “I promise to be your protector and to always have your back; I will go to battle for you in a heartbeat, and hopefully, you know that. I promise to be honest, and it should go without saying because, as we’ve established, you’re perfect, but I promise to be faithful. I promise to keep making you laugh and smile. I promise to put you first and to always be your best friend—sorry, Steve.”

“You can have him,” Steve replied, and everyone laughed.

You continued speaking, “I promise to make your mother’s tamales a couple times a year—I promise to make you one of her other recipes on the days you miss her particularly bad. I promise to keep reminding you that you’re sexier and better than Harrison Ford.” That one made him and the others crack up. “I promise to rap “Whatta Man” for you every time it comes on, so you don’t forget whatta man you are. I promise to dance with you in the kitchen every chance we get. I promise to try, keyword here, try, not to recite the movies word for word when we watch Star Wars or Addams Family Values. I promise to always make sure we don’t run out of limes or your hot sauce or side-eye you when you put either on the perfectly seasoned food I made. I promise to always leave you the last of the ice cream because you’re a dirty liar when you say you don’t want it. I promise to tell you I love you every day until the day I die. I promise that you and your love will always be enough, and I’ll always pick you; I’ll always choose you over anyone else.

“Today, the separate books of our lives have come to an end, and we’re starting the next one together—I can’t wait to see what each new chapter will bring. What I know for sure—” You glanced over at Chucho. “—I’m stealing this from you, Pop—” Your eyes went to Javi’s, and his were reddened, his face glistening from crying and flushed from the alcohol. “—What I know for sure,” you said, “is this new adventure we’re beginning, will be filled with love, happiness, and laughter.

“Javi, you are my person. You’re the love of my life, my one true love, mi media naranja, the person I want to go to sleep with every night and wake up with every morning. You’re my best friend and my forever.

“I love you, Javier Jesús Peña López and I am so happy I get to spend eternity with you.”

His smile was big enough his dimple was showing and you hated that you couldn’t kiss him.

Chucho sniffled, putting his bible under his arm to get his handkerchief from his pocket, lifting his glasses to wipe away his tears.

“That was beautiful, Mija. When you’re ready, Javi, go ahead.”

All she said had Javier feeling so unbelievably happy that he couldn’t stop the waterfall of tears streaming down his cheeks, and he thought his smile might be permanently stuck on his face—he was sure the alcohol wasn’t helping him to keep his composure.

His dad’s speech had gotten him, too, especially about how Chucho could see her feelings for him and said their love was real. He always wondered if the intensity of what he felt for her was normal, and hearing that his parents were the same way reassured him that they just had a strong connection. His father’s advice was helpful, too, and he planned on following it.

She looked incredible and smelled amazing; her perfume wasn’t one she’d worn before, but he knew the scent because he got it for her as a Christmas present—it was intoxicating, and he was dying to shove his face into her neck to drown himself in it. With the emotions she was eliciting from him, her beauty, the perfume, and the whiskey he drank, it was a heady combination that had him feeling buzzed, and he was so caught up in all of it that it had completely slipped his mind that he had to speak.

“Shit,” he said under his breath and barely pulled open the left side of his jacket to get into the inside pocket. First, he grabbed his reading glasses, which he put on, then the folded piece of yellow, lined paper he’d taken from a legal pad at work.

“I am literally the luckiest woman in the world,” Cielito said, and his eyes lifted to her. She was smiling, her eyelashes wet, and she looked incredibly delighted.

“The glasses?” he asked with a smirk.

“Oh, yeah,” she answered. “You’re spoiling me. I get glasses Javi in a tuxedo, and he’s gonna say pretty, romantic things about how much he loves me—talk about the best day ever.”

“With how you look?” he said. “It’s my best day ever, too.”

She playfully smacked his arm. “Stop it, don’t make me want to suck—”

Robyn started coughing loudly, and his wife-to-be’s eyes widened.

“—hug you more,” she tried to save and cringed. “Hugs, not drugs, am I right?” She chuckled nervously.

He snorted, shaking his head. “You ready?” he asked.

“Wait.” Her upper body twisted so she could look behind her. “Tissue me,” she said to Robyn, and her friend got a clean one out of her pocket and exchanged it for Cielito’s folded paper. She faced him again. “Okay, I’m ready. Remember to focus on me. No one else is here.”

“That’ll be easy.” He cleared his throat, his eyes moving to what he’d written. It wasn’t something he said often, but he let her first name slide off his tongue, thinking how perfect it was going to sound paired with his last. “—mi Cielito, mi amor, mi alma, mi media naranja, y ahora, mi esposa (My Cielito, my love, my soul, my soulmate, and now, my wife), my life didn’t begin until the moment I met you; what I mean by that, is I was alive, yes, I was breathing, I had a pulse, but I didn’t start living until we met. You made me want to live and be happy—for so long, I thought I would die miserable and alone, and you showed me that I deserved happiness and to be loved.” His eyes were burning, and the following sentence made him choke up. “You showed me I deserved a family of my own.” Fresh tears rolled down his cheeks. “Meeting you is the best thing that’s ever happened to me, and I thank the universe, the powers that be. I thank whoever let you find me because I’ve never been happier than when I’m with you.”

He went off script to look into her beautiful, teary eyes. “Pop was right; I love you more than there’s blue in the sky, I love you more than there’s water in all the depths of the oceans, I love you more than there are stars in the entire galaxy—I love you more than anything, and I mean anything.”

He focused on what he’d written again. “I once told you I didn’t believe in true love, and I didn’t—that was just made-up stuff in the cartoon movies I watched with Olivia. Or at least I thought it was before you, and then, having you in my life, I discovered it was real. With you, ‘media naranja (soulmate)’ isn’t just a term of endearment; it’s an acknowledgment that you’re my other half and that we’re two parts meant to be together. Love with you transcends what most people have; we feel it deeper than our bones, all the way down into our souls, where we’re connected.

“Our love is true love.”

Wetness was dripping from his eyes to splatter onto the paper.

“Those fairytale movies got something right, and it’s that this kind of love would make a person fight dragons and sea witches for their true love. As my father said, it’s fierce, powerful, and all-consuming. It doesn’t end when our hearts stop beating; it continues on—it’s infinite—what we feel for one another is more than a single life can handle, and I’ll follow you when this one’s over; we’ll find each other again, and live another life together because there is no me without you or you without me.

“From the first day we met, I knew you were special. We spent hours talking in that bar, and I’ve never felt such peace or so comfortable with someone; with you, I don’t have to keep my guard up. I can be vulnerable, speak what’s on my mind, and openly show my affection. With you, I’m safe, and from the first night, you were my Cielito, my little heaven—there’s no better name for you, not with how happy you make me, how you make me feel, and how much better my life is with you.

“You’re my little heaven, mi Cielito, my everything. You’ve shown me more love than I’ve ever known—thank you.” His voice faltered, and he had to wipe at his eyes as best he could beneath his glasses. “Those two words aren’t enough to express my gratitude, and I will spend every waking moment showing you how thankful I am for you and all you’ve done.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you,” he said, “it’s not enough, but thank you.”

He sounded gravelly, the words thick. “In you, I’ve found love, a wife, a partner for life, a best friend, an incredible lover, a home, a teacher to show me how to live; someone who makes me happy, makes me laugh, someone to have a family with, who supports me, inspires me, and makes me want to be a better man.

“Thank you for being all of this and more. Thank you for marrying me today and making me the happiest man in the entire goddamn universe.

“Fuck,” he breathed, taking off his readers to hold with the paper while his other hand scrubbed away the tears. “I really hoped I wouldn’t cry this much—it’s embarrassing.”

“I love it,” she reassured. “It just shows you really mean what you’re saying.”

He put the lenses back on and looked at her, seeing her eyes were red from crying, the tissue in her hand stained with mascara—she’d managed to keep from ruining the rest of her makeup.

“I do mean it all,” he said.

She was smiling. “I know.”

Javier composed himself by taking a deep breath and clearing his throat. Finally, he was ready to speak again. “It was hard figuring out my vows because I wanted to promise you everything your heart could possibly desire, but Pop said that was boring.” He frowned.

“And that he needed to do better,” Chucho added.

Javier sighed.

“I would’ve been fine with that vow,” Cielito said.

“No,” he replied, shaking his head. “Pop was right. You deserve the best.” He took another deep breath and slowly let it out, looking at what he’d written and patting himself on the back for making notes—he was definitely too emotional and tipsy to have remembered everything he wanted to say. “Cielito,” he started, “you have all my love and devotion, and I give you myself; my mind, body, and soul belong to you. I vow to never stop loving you, even when this earth is no more and the stars stop shining. I vow to make you feel loved and cherished until the end of my days. I vow to always be your best friend, your confidant, your shoulder to cry on, y un chismoso contigo (and a gossiper with you)—me encanta chismear contigo (I love to gossip with you).”

She giggled, and he smiled.

“I vow to be your equal in everything and give more than I take. I vow to always be there for you no matter what, in sickness and health, when life is easy and hard, I’ll stand by you and be your anchor.” The next one made his smile get bigger. “I vow to treat you like una reina (a queen) and be the best husband you could ask for so when you brag to your girlfriends, they can see their worth and deserve to be treated like queens, too. I vow to be the best father, one you can rely on, and doesn’t call watching my own children babysitting; I’ll pull my weight, I’ll never let you get overwhelmed, and I’ll be an active parent who loves our kids so fu-freaking much.”

“I vow to keep you safe and always make you feel safe; I’ll protect you and our children with my life. I vow to make sure all of your needs are met.” He smirked, glancing at her. “I vow to ‘fold laundry’ with you whenever you ask.” He winked, and she laughed.

“Why are adults so obsessed with laundry?” He heard Olivia ask.

“I’m wonderin’ the same thing, kiddo,” Robyn said. “I’m not obsessed with it.”

“Oh, believe me, you are,” Connie replied.

“I know the stars,” Javier said, “that astrology stuff you love, told you this already, but I want you to hear it from me, too: I vow to be loyal to you and faithful, always—to me, you are the only woman I see, or will ever want; I vow to put you and our family before all else.”

He looked at her with a smile. “I have some more things I’m gonna promise after hearing yours. I vow to always give you my pickles.” Her grin was big and happy as she giggled. “I vow to always let you sing Freddie Mercury’s parts in Bohemian Rhapsody while I do the guitar solo, and I’ll always leave you the last piece of cheesecake because I love you and value my life.” That made her giggle harder. “I vow to try, the keyword here is try, to not, as you put it, ‘creepily watch you while you sleep,’ even though you’re guilty of the same thing.” Her giggles transformed into laughter. “I vow to always dance with you when we’re cleaning the house and in the kitchen while we cook together. I vow to pretend—I mean, agree that you’re the best driver in Laredo and always know your way around, even when you don’t.”

There was a reason he drove them the majority of the time.

“Rude!” she gasped. “I’m an amazing driver!”

“I agree, mi amor, you’re the best in Laredo.” He winked again, folded his paper, and put it back in his inner pocket. He spoke as he took off his reading glasses. “There’s one more thing I vow,” he said, putting the lenses away. His hands were free and he grabbed hers, ignoring the tissue clenched in one of her palms, and stared adoringly into her eyes. “I vow that years from now—decades—after our kids are grown, and we’ve retired, maybe we’ll be living in Florida like other retirees, or we’ll still be here where our family lives and we made our best memories; I vow that when we’re old and grey and can’t hear or see shit without hearing aids or glasses, that we’ll look back on our life together, and we’ll have no regrets.

“Zero,” he said.

“We did everything we wanted and lived the life we shared to the fullest, filled with love, happiness, and laughter.”

Her shoulders started to shake, and she had to let go of his hand to blot at her eyes.

“Javier!” she cried, and he wrapped his arms around her to hold her close. “Why would you end with something so sweet?”

“Para que sepas cómo nuestro futuro será (So you know what our future together will be like). Quería que vieras que cuando me des ese anillo, te daré mi futuro y lo que venga después de eso (I wanted you to see that when you give me that ring, I’ll give you my future and whatever comes after that).”

She leaned back to look at him, and he was impressed that only her mascara had gotten messed up. She poked him in the chest and said, “That ring is going on your finger right this second.” Javier chuckled as her head turned to his dad. “Can we do the rings now, please?”

Chucho laughed. “Yes, Mija, you can do the rings. Who has them?” he asked aloud.

“Me!” Steve answered and moved to stand next to the older man, being careful not to bump Nate, who’d fallen asleep in the backpack carrier. At some point, the three-year-old Stevie had gone over to his mom and was now sitting in the grass next to her, eating Goldfish crackers out of a plastic baggy from the diaper bag near them. Steve untied the ribbon keeping the gold bands secured, then picked them both up, the pillow getting shoved under his arm. “Here, Jav.” Javier turned a little, holding out his palm to his friend, and her ring was set in it. He faced his bride again.

“At this time, they will exchange rings,” Chucho said, holding his bible in front of him with the notecard atop it. “Javier, go ahead and place it on her finger.” She looked adorably giddy, presenting her left hand to him, and he held it in his palm as he slid the band onto the finger with her engagement ring, pressing it against the other. “Now, repeat after me,” his dad said, reading his notes, “‘with this ring, I seal my promise to be your loving husband forevermore, and just as it has no end, neither shall my love for you.”

Javier’s eyes fastened onto hers, and he repeated what his father said: “With this ring, I seal my promise to be your loving husband forevermore, and just as it has no end, neither shall my love for you.” When he finished speaking, he lifted her hand to press his lips to the new addition on her finger with a kiss, keeping his gaze on her watery one.

“I love you,” she told him.

His thumb rubbed over the gold as he lowered her arm. “I love you, too.”

“Mija,” Chucho said, “it’s your turn.”

Javier held his hand out for her to take, and when she did, goosebumps rose on his skin, practically vibrating from anticipation. Her palm was smaller and softer than his, and he watched as Steve passed her the remaining ring. A big smile formed on his face at her not waiting for his father’s instruction, putting the band onto his finger immediately—it got stuck on his knuckle, and she had to wiggle it a little to finally slide it home.

“Repeat after me,” Chucho said, “‘with this ring, I seal my promise to be your loving wife forevermore, and just as it has no end, neither shall my love for you.”

She held his larger palm in both of her smaller ones, gazing into his eyes and smiling as she said, “With this ring, I seal my promise to be your loving wife forevermore, and just as it has no end, neither shall my love for you.”

His breath hitched as he watched her raise his hand to kiss the band, his eyes burning with unshed tears.

His father started speaking to them, “Now that you’ve proclaimed your love for one another and exchanged rings as a seal of the promises you made today in front of these witnesses and myself, by the power vested in me by the great State of Texas, I am so happy to pronounce you husband and wife! Javier, you may now kiss your bride!”

There was clapping and hollering, someone patted his back, and Javier didn’t waste any time—he was told he could finally kiss this stunning woman in front of him, who he loved more than anything; she completed him and made him happy like no one else—ella es su vida (she is his life), su amor (his love), su media naranja (his soulmate), finalmente su esposa (finally his wife), his Cielito.

The fingers of one of his hands traced over the familiar line of her jaw, the other pulling her tight to his chest, finding the fabric of her dress was as buttery soft as he suspected. The sun had barely sunk below the horizon, leaving the sky fiery in its wake, and as it descended, so did Javier’s mouth onto hers, crushing his lips to hers. At the first touch, it felt like electricity was thrumming just below his skin, his heart racing, the press of her fingers into the hair at the nape of his neck making tingles wash down his spine.

It was almost like he was kissing her for the first time, and it started out gentle, wanting to savor this moment with his wife—his wife—they were married. He was a husband and wearing a ring, the metal currently pressed to the warm skin of her cheek. His excitement got the better of him, and he deepened the kiss, licking in her mouth, her soft moan causing arousal to erupt in his belly, feeling blood begin to rush to his groin. She seemed to be just as ravenous as him, their tongues tangling and her hands gripping handfuls of his hair.

Javier didn’t think he could be happier than he was at this moment.

This was the best day of his entire fucking life.

He was a married man with an amazing wife and their lives were intertwined now, becoming one they both shared. What wound him up even more was her taking his last name—not in a possessive way, but because it was another thing they’d share, and Javier wanted to share everything with her. Name, life, home, things, children, all of it, he wanted to have and with her by his side.

His dad’s voice showed amusement when he heard him speak. “We’ll just let them get that out of their system.” People laughed. “It’s my great pleasure to introduce Mr. and Mrs. Peña!”

Mr. and Mrs. Peña.

Nothing sounded more perfect.

They hadn’t stopped kissing, too caught up in each other.

“Why are they trying to eat each other’s faces?” Olivia asked, clearly confused.

Steve shouted, “Cover her eyes, Connie!”