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the-great-lightwood-bane · 2 years

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doubt truth to be a liar

Malec | Rated general | tw implied/referenced cheating but no actual cheating

Day 15: Emotional Damage | Lies | Breathing through the Pain

Summary: “Alec, Magnus is cheating on you.”

Or, Izzy and Jace overhear something at Magnus' loft that makes them think Magnus is cheating on Alec.

A/N: title from Hamlet:

Doubt thou the stars are fire; Doubt that the sun doth move; Doubt truth to be a liar; But never doubt I love.

inspired by a thread on the @malecdiscordserver

Read it on AO3 or below the cut.

“Let’s drop by Magnus’ loft after this,” Izzy suggested, killing the last demon with a slash of her adamas whip. “We need to restock on healing potions at the Institute, and it’s easier to pay Magnus directly rather than going through the Clave.”

Jace agreed, so they took a detour into Brooklyn and climbed up the stairs of Magnus’ brownstone. The door didn’t open when they tried it, though, so Izzy knocked, then listened for an answer.

Rather than approaching footsteps, she heard heavy breathing and the sound of regular movements, and turned to Jace with a smirk. “Sounds like Magnus is getting some.”

“I did not need to know that much about Alec’s sex life, thanks,” Jace said with an eyeroll. “Magnus probably warded it shut so we don’t walk in on them again. You’ll need to ask him for the healing potions tomorrow.”

Izzy nodded and led the way back down the stairs.

Alec glanced up from his pile of paperwork when the fire message came flying out of the air and caught it on reflex.

Opening it, he recognised Magnus’ handwriting.

Sayang—

I’m sure you recall that particularly volatile invention I’ve been working on. A cure for firewort plague is valuable, of course, but I’m really not sure if it’s been worth the time I’ve spent away from you to work on it. But now, I’ve (finally) come up with a reproducible potion, which is sadly going to result in more time without your company.

The Spiral Labyrinth has called an immediate Council meeting to “discuss the importance” of my invention, i.e. try to find fault with my methods and, if they can find none, talk about how they all could’ve come up with it if only they’d had the time away from their Very Important Duties (insert snide comment about the irrelevance of life outside of the Labyrinth). Worse, said discussion usually takes place over two or three days, during which time fire messages (and, predictably, cell phones) are prohibited.

Therefore, I am devastated to admit that I must relinquish the joy of spending time with you in order to attend a wholly unnecessary, ridiculous, and unpleasant meeting which is nevertheless compulsory for the “proper certification” of every invention of such importance. If I end up turning the Council into toads, I trust you will accompany me as I flee from their retribution. If I do manage to retain a fragment of unfortunate self-control, I will return to your arms posthaste the moment I am freed from my torment.

Until that happy time — which I look forward to with all my love for you — I must sadly say goodbye.

Yours, as always,

Magnus Lightwood-Bane

P.S. I don’t need to remind you to feed the Chairman, so I won’t. However, I do need to add that I miss you already, and that I sincerely regret not being able to kiss you before I go. Also, please remember to eat three meals a day; I will know if you don’t. I have spies. EAT FOOD.

xoxo ❤ ❤ ❤

Alec huffed out something between a laugh and a sigh, fondness at Magnus’ writing style warring with disappointment at his departure. He was glad Magnus had finally finished with the potion — the inventing process had been long and Magnus had spent hours working on it, which had meant even less time together than usual. At least once Magnus was back, that would be over; until then, Alec resigned himself to a cold bed and Magnus-less days.

At that moment, Alec’s office door swung open without a knock, which meant it was Izzy and/or Jace. He looked up, eyebrow raised, to inquire why they’d come barging in, but the expressions on their faces stopped him.

“Alec,” Izzy said, something like pain on her face. “We — you’ve been here all morning, Underhill said.”

“I got here at nine,” Alec agreed, looking from one to the other. “Why? What’s wrong?”

“We…” Izzy glanced at Jace, then back to Alec, clearly steeling herself to deliver some unpleasant news. “Alec, Magnus is cheating on you.”

Alec’s held breath huffed out of him in a laugh, tension releasing from his shoulders. “Magnus isn’t cheating on me, Izzy. I thought you had something actually worrying to tell me.”

“Alec, I’m really sorry,” Izzy said, looking near tears, “but he is. We dropped by the loft at around eleven to ask for a refill on some healing potions, but the door was warded shut and we heard sounds like he was having sex with somebody, so we assumed it was you, but if you’ve been here all morning—”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Alec told her. “There’s some other explanation—”

“Do you think we’d tell you this if there were another explanation?” Jace broke in. “Alec, I know you don’t want to believe it, but we heard him—”

“You’re right. I don’t believe you,” Alec said, lips compressed, and tilted his head at the door. His siblings hesitated, then left, but not without casting him a last, anxious glance.

Left alone, Alec huffed, clinging to his certainty that they’d been fooled. There was another explanation; there had to be.

And yet his spinning thoughts couldn’t find one.

Was it possible? Could it be? Magnus wouldn’t — he wouldn’t — but what if—

Alec shook his head, trying to shake free the doubts. Magnus had married him three months ago. Why would he cheat on him? Magnus wasn’t the kind of person who’d do that to somebody; he’d suffered so much from what Camille had done to him. If Magnus wanted to break up with Alec, he’d do so to Alec’s face, not cheat on him with somebody else.

Right?

Frowning, Alec turned back to his reports, trying to focus, but the words blurred, and all Alec could think about were the whispers in his mind: Magnus is cheating on you. Do you think we’d tell you this if there were another explanation?

Magnus wouldn’t cheat on him. Magnus loved him. But there were other words whispering now, hidden insecurities that had wormed their way into his mind: How come you never go out to clubs with us, Alec? You’re such a stick-in-the-mud! (You’re so boring. Why are you like this. Why can’t you have fun for once in your life.)

Maybe your best just isn’t good enough. (Not good enough not good enough not good enough, never good enough, always falling short.)

Dial it down a notch, Alec. — You have a switch that’s always on. (So tiring to be around you when you’re like that. Nobody likes being with somebody so intense. Stop worrying about everything, it’s depressing.)

Stop being so grumpy. (Boring, annoying, a pain to be around, why should any of them put up with you, you’re just unpleasant to talk to.)

Other words drifted in and out like curses. Selfish. Boring. Naïve. Foolish. Weak. All of it was true, Alec knew that, Alec should never have forgotten it.

He’d always known it was far from inconceivable that Magnus might tire of him, might leave him when he realised that Alec couldn’t be all that he deserved. There had been so many times when he’d done something that should’ve been unforgivable — keeping secrets about the Soul Sword, the deal with Asmodeus — and yet Magnus had forgiven him each time. Had Magnus’ patience finally run out? Had Alec done something to make it run out? Or had he simply not been enough for Magnus, failed to meet some unspoken expectation?

No. No. Magnus wasn’t cheating on him, wouldn’t do that. This was ridiculous, as he’d told Izzy and Jace.

But the point remained that Magnus probably would get tired of him eventually. Alec had never been meant for happiness; that had been an incontrovertible fact of his childhood, and if he’d forgotten it when he was with Magnus, that didn’t make it any less true. Pride comes before the fall. He’d let himself believe that he could have this dream of a life Magnus had given him, and this was a wake-up call to remind him of reality. Alec was not meant for this kind of happiness. Even if Magnus wasn’t cheating on him, even if there was another explanation — there was still no reason for Magnus to stay with him for long.

Alec had never been enough for anyone in his life. Why should Magnus be any different?

He thought of the fire message he’d received under an hour earlier, of the endearments in every line. Was it all a lie?

With a shake of the head, Alec pushed the thoughts away. Even if all that was true, he’d already known it all, and none of it meant Magnus would cheat on him.

Maybe Magnus would leave him, but he wouldn’t cheat. That wasn’t the kind of person Magnus was; he’d never intentionally hurt somebody like that, no matter how little he wanted to be with them.

Unless — unless Magnus thought this was the kinder option. Unless he felt bad for Alec, pitied him, didn’t want to hurt him by breaking up with him. By divorcing him. Unless his relationship with Alec meant so little that a lie was better than a clean break.

Alec was mortal; more than that, he was a Shadowhunter, destined to live fast and die young. What hardship was it to Magnus, to let Alec believe they were in love, while he dated somebody else on the side? If it hadn’t been for Jace and Izzy, Alec would never have known, would have gone on believing he was enough for Magnus despite all evidence to the contrary, and then when he was dead, Magnus would be free again.

Then again — Magnus was kind, but he wouldn’t sacrifice decades of his life just so Alec wouldn’t get a broken heart. Magnus wouldn’t stay in a relationship out of pity. If it came down to that, if he didn’t love Alec anymore, he would divorce him; of that much Alec could be sure.

But even if he did still love Alec, to some extent, that didn’t mean Alec alone was enough for him. (Why would he be? When had Alec ever been enough for anyone?) Perhaps Magnus still loved Alec, still wanted him, but wanted more, too. Perhaps he really didn’t want to break up with Alec; perhaps whatever he’d seen in Alec in the first place was still there, only less than he’d thought. Why, then, wouldn’t he simply date somebody else at the same time? If Alec never found out, it wouldn’t hurt him; Magnus could have Alec and anyone else he wanted.

Magnus was bright and beautiful and so much more than Alec deserved. It only made sense that he needed more than just Alec to be properly happy. It was reasonable. It explained everything.

Alec lowered his head on his desk and cried.

He tried to work, but he couldn’t.

Tears were blurring his eyes no matter how often he wiped them away, and his head was spinning with thoughts and worries and wonderings, and his heart ached far more than it ought, seeing as he should’ve known this would happen.

There were reports to do and supply requisitions to file and patrol schedules to organise but Alec couldn’t do it, couldn’t bury himself in work and forget the pain. He couldn’t focus, couldn’t think; his world had slid sideways and he was still adjusting, still unable to comprehend the shift, still struggling with the weight of the emptiness that had descended on him.

It should not have been so unexpected. He should have known. He should have guessed. He should have braced himself for it. He should be able to overcome the heartache, the idiotic heartache because hadn’t he just figured out that Magnus still loved him? He shouldn’t be feeling so upset about this revelation that should have been known already.

His failure to do what he should was just another weakness, just another fault in him that he should be able to fix but somehow couldn’t. Just another gaping hole. What’s one more?

Still, despite all he should be doing, he was not, and sitting in his office crying like a child was unproductive. He’d train; training helped, training would push back the heartache to a manageable level.

Izzy and Jace were waiting in his room when he got there to change, sitting on his bed, Jace’s hand pressed to his parabatai rune. Alec realised that he’d forgotten to mute it, and did so; some of the tension leaked from Jace’s shoulders, although Jace himself didn’t seem to consciously notice.

“I’m so sorry, Alec,” Izzy said, standing up as he entered. “I — I hate that I had to tell you this, but you had to know—”

She was crying, and Alec hugged her instinctively. “It’s alright, Izzy-belle. I don’t blame you for this.”

Comforting her was easier than thinking about himself.

“You shouldn’t blame yourself, either,” Jace said quietly. “The only one at fault here is Magnus.”

Alec flinched at the name, at the anger clear in Jace’s tone. “No. It’s not his fault. I’m just not enough for him.”

Jace’s face creased with sympathetic pain. “Alec…”

Hesitantly, Izzy put an arm around his shoulders and guided him down to sit beside her on the bed. “It’ll be okay, Alec.”

The reassurance was hollow, but Alec nodded anyway.

She paused again, fingers fidgeting with the hem of her dress as she did when she had something to say but wasn’t sure if she should say it. Alec remained silent to let her decide, and eventually, she spoke up. “It’s — you’re so different, Alec, maybe it just… wasn’t meant to be.”

Alec carefully suppressed a flinch. She took his silence as an invitation to continue. “Magnus, he’s — he likes dancing and partying and sex, and you — you don’t, and any relationship like that… it wouldn’t really work out, long-term, you know?” She glanced up at him, comfortingly.

She was trying to be kind, to tell him that he shouldn’t feel bad because their love had only ever been temporary, lasting only until Magnus grew bored and needed somebody more interesting. She wasn’t wrong, but the words still cut like knives. Alec had hoped their love had been stronger than that, hoped Magnus loved him because of their differences not in spite of them. He knew those hopes had been foolish, but it hurt to know that she’d always thought their relationship doomed — that she’d always known he could never be enough. It hurt more than he’d thought he could hurt, anymore.

Jace sat down on Alec’s other side, putting an arm around his shoulders to echo Izzy. The two of them had little practice in comforting Alec; he was their older brother, he was supposed to comfort them, and their attempts left Alec’s heart as aching and empty as before.

He wanted Magnus to hold him, to comfort him, to whisper words of love in his ears, but Magnus wouldn’t want to be saddled with Alec’s heartache, even if he’d been in New York. As it was, Magnus was at the Spiral Labyrinth — unless, Alec realised with an unpleasant lurch, he wasn’t.

All the time Magnus had been spending working on his new invention. The two or three days he’d be away for the Council meeting. Had that been a lie, too? Had Magnus spent all that time with his other lover, with whoever it was he’d found to fill the gaps that Alec couldn’t? Was he off somewhere with them, enjoying the break from Alec’s presence—

He wrenched his thoughts away, back to the present moment. The topic had changed while he’d been off in his own head; Jace was speaking. “I knew he was a bit of a playboy, but I thought maybe his reputation was unwarranted. I should’ve guessed he’d cheat.”

It was clear who Jace meant by “him”. “Don’t say that,” Alec said tiredly.

“Why not?” Jace was standing again, fists clenched, righteous fury on his face.

“He’s not at fault here,” Alec tried to explain.

“He cheated on you,” Jace hissed. “I thought he’d at least have the courage to say it to your face.”

Alec pushed down the ache at the realisation that Jace, too, had always expected their relationship to end in heartbreak. “He’s trying to be kind, Jace.”

“I don’t see how,” Jace said mutinously.

“You don’t need to,” Alec snapped. “Don’t cause an incident by attacking or insulting him. That’s an order from your Head.”

Jace subsided with a sigh, but Alec was already climbing to his feet, shaking off Izzy’s touch. He’d planned to train; that was productive, that would help him get his head back on straight and bury the pointless heartache. Listening to his siblings’ attempts at comfort wasn’t helping anything.

Training didn’t help.

It had always been Alec’s reprieve, the way to beat back the demons in his mind that made confusion rise and blocked out clear thought. Physical pain pushed away mental pain; that had been the way Alec had lived for two decades.

But then he’d met Magnus, and Magnus had showed him another way — had helped him deal with the ache rather than shoving it down, helped him loosen the knot in his chest in his stomach in his head rather than tightening it and pushing it away.

He couldn’t push away this.

Idiot, he told himself, weak, desperate, needy. But none of it helped, none of it allowed him to strengthen himself against the ache. He was falling apart and he couldn’t hold himself together. He was falling apart for no reason because he should have known all this anyway, but the confirmation had somehow shattered him into useless bits and pieces that couldn’t cohere into rational thought.

Every time his fists landed on the punching bag, every time he released an arrow at a target, the broken bits of him fell apart further, rather than compacting together again. He was brittle and he was cracking under pressure rather than merging into something stronger.

He stopped before blood welled on his hands, because that would only make him think of Magnus, and thinking of Magnus was why he was falling apart in the first place.

Alec didn’t sleep that night, but spent the time struggling to focus, struggling to hold in his hurt. Rather than working, he ended up thinking, and that was unproductive but inevitable.

What should he do, when Magnus returned? Tell him that he knew? Offer to divorce him? Pretend nothing had happened?

Magnus wasn’t at fault here, and he didn’t deserve to be hurt because Alec had been foolish enough to think they could have a future together. Alec didn’t want to confront him, to be angry; there was nothing to be angry about, nobody to rage at but his own stupid self. Stupid, stupid, stupid…

He couldn’t pretend nothing had happened. It was weak and unworthy of him, but he couldn’t bear to look at Magnus and imagine that Magnus wanted him and only him when he knew that was false. If he did that, he’d be able to convince himself that nothing had happened, perhaps hours of letting himself believe the lie, and he couldn’t bear to have his dreams shattered again. He couldn’t.

Which meant he had to tell Magnus that he knew, as soon as Magnus got back. Magnus hadn’t divorced him, hadn’t said anything about wanting to divorce him; he might still want Alec, although he wanted more than that as well. If Magnus wanted Alec to stay, Alec would stay, and he would go on loving Magnus with all that he was regardless of what Magnus did.

Or, if Magnus was really just waiting for a chance to leave Alec, then Alec would let him leave, let him find somebody who deserved the gift of his love.

Either way, Alec would need to learn to live with the pain.

The whole Institute knew something was wrong, but Alec had asked Izzy and Jace not to talk about it, and he trusted they’d do as he asked. Nobody needed to know what was going on; they’d misunderstand the situation, like Jace had, try to blame Magnus for something that wasn’t his fault.

So Alec did his best to pretend that nothing was wrong. (Nothing was wrong; this was only a reminder of what he should have known, he told himself, again and again and again.) He’d lived for years without Magnus in his life; this wasn’t any worse than that.

Except that it was worse, because he hadn’t known what he’d been missing, and now that knowledge sat inside of him like a dream of light that he could never touch.

Alec pushed the thought away. He had only a day or two until Magnus returned; he needed to pull himself into the shape of a functioning human being by then.

He still hadn’t succeeded when, in the afternoon of the next day, his phone chimed with Magnus’ text tone.

Magnus <3: i have returned from the hell that is a meeting with millenia-old warlocks !!! 🎉🎉🎉

Magnus <3: i am starved of your presence and require kisses 😘😘😘

Alec stared down at the incongruously cheerful, loving text, and willed himself to stay calm. He needed to talk to Magnus; sooner was better than later.

Alec: omw

The door of the loft swung open at his approach as it always did, and Alec somehow managed to summon a smile as he stepped through it into the familiar surroundings of the loft.

Magnus was waiting for him with a beam, and Alec found himself immediately pulled into a tight hug. For a moment, he breathed in Magnus’ familiar scent, let himself relax in Magnus’ arms as he hadn’t in days.

But then Magnus pulled back, a frown appearing on his face. “Alec? Is something wrong?”

Of course he’d noticed — he always noticed when Alec was upset, even when Alec tried to hide it.

Alec opened his mouth, then closed it, hesitating, and Magnus made a soft, worried noise; Alec realised that he was crying again, tears welling up and rolling down his cheeks.

“I’m sorry,” he said, before Magnus could ask what was wrong again in that voice that sounded like he cared. “I’m sorry I’m not enough for you, I’m sorry for always being so boring, I’m sorry for making you do boring stuff too.” Magnus was shaking his head, about to say something else, but Alec cut him off through the stream of tears that blurred Magnus’ face. “I’m — I know I’m not enough for you, I’m so sorry for that, I’m sorry for — for being so upset, I know I shouldn’t be—”

“Alexander,” Magnus breathed, voice desperate, eyes flicking worriedly over Alec’s face, “Alexander, you’re always enough for me, I don’t understand—”

“Izzy and Jace heard you having sex with somebody else while I was at the Institute,” Alec said, trying to keep his voice steady. It cracked anyway, and he had to choke back a sob so that he could go on. “And I don’t — I get that I’m not enough for you, I know that, it’s okay, I’m sorry for crying all over you, I didn’t mean to, I just—”

“Alec—”

“I was just upset for no reason, but it’s fine, I know I’m not enough for you, you deserve better, if you’re getting that from whoever they are then I’m fine with that, I swear, I understand, it makes sense, I’m not going to force you to let go of them if you don’t want to—”

“Alexander,” Magnus said, eyes wide but firmness in his tone. “I would never, have never, and will never cheat on you. Ever.”

“But they — they said they heard you, the morning you left for the Spiral Labyrinth—”

Magnus frowned, brow creasing for a moment, and then it cleared. “Alec, I was working on the potion. They must’ve overheard me and misinterpreted it. I swear, Alec, I would never do that to you.”

“Oh,” Alec said, and then the tears poured faster down his face in mixed relief and terror and lingering heartache and he was sobbing into Magnus’ shirt, arms wrapped around his husband, holding him as close as he could because even if Magnus did eventually get tired of Alec, he hadn’t done so yet. Not yet. He hadn’t cheated, hadn’t needed somebody else.

Magnus’ arms were wrapped around him, and he was guiding the two of them to the couch, curling protectively around Alec as Alec cried on his shoulder, ugly and messy and desperate.

“I’m right here,” Magnus murmured. “I’m not leaving you, I’m never leaving you, sayang, not ever, I promise. I love you, Alexander. You’re enough for me, you’re always enough, you’re all I ever need, love.” The reassurances washed over Alec in waves of warmth and comfort, and he kept his hands fisted in Magnus’ shirt, clinging too tightly but Magnus didn’t seem to mind.

He cried himself out, eventually, buried in Magnus’ arms, and he was only vaguely aware of Magnus carrying him into their bed. He fell asleep like that, still holding Magnus like a lifeline, and if Magnus left while he was asleep, he came back and resumed the same position before Alec awoke.

Alec’s throat was dry and scratchy, and one night of sleep couldn’t cancel out the thirty-six sleepless hours he’d spent beforehand, but Magnus was holding him like he was the most important thing in the world to him, and nothing else really mattered. He nuzzled in even closer to Magnus, losing himself in the light of his presence and the warmth of his hold.

“Sayang,” Magnus murmured, fingers moving to run through Alec’s hair. “You’re awake?”

Alec hummed in response.

“We do need to talk about this, love,” Magnus said quietly.

That was unfortunate. Alec blinked open his eyes to meet Magnus’ unglamoured ones. “Do we have to? I was wrong, I was an idiot, but everything’s fine now.”

“Is it?” Magnus asked, meeting his eyes. “When you thought I was cheating, your reaction was to apologise for not being enough for me.”

Alec looked away first. “It’s fine. You’re not cheating on me, so it doesn’t matter.”

“It does matter,” Magnus said, running his fingers through Alec’s hair. “You need to understand, Alexander, that I am not going to get tired of you, or leave you, or think you’re not enough. Not ever, love. You are all I want.”

“I…” Alec trailed off, caught between denial and a longing for the promise in those words, the oath on Magnus’ tongue. “I can’t ask you to promise that,” he said weakly.

“You can,” Magnus told him. “You can. Ask me, love.”

“Promise me,” Alec blurted out, the words tumbling past his lips. “Promise me you’ll stay, Magnus, promise me, I couldn’t bear it if you—”

Magnus kissed him, his lips, his cheeks, his forehead. “I’ll stay, sayang. I’ll stay as long as you want me, because I’ll never stop wanting you, I’ll never need more than you. I’ll stay.”

Alec wrapped his arms around him with a half-sob and pulled him closer, trying to breathe through the love rising in him, because he could hear the certainty ringing in Magnus’ voice, the love he didn’t deserve but had received. He might not understand why Magnus loved him, but Magnus did love him, and that was everything.

Magnus held Alec as he drifted off to sleep again, running his fingers through his husband’s hair soothingly.

Anger was burning under his skin at everyone who’d hurt Alec: his parents, who’d first told him he wasn’t perfect exactly as he was; his siblings, who’d supported the lesson, and then told Alec about Magnus’ supposed cheating rather than confronting Magnus himself about it. He would certainly be having a conversation with them — Magnus might have been more generous with them, but Alec had spent two days convinced Magnus didn’t love him above all else, and then he’d spent hours sobbing into Magnus’ chest from the pent-up heartbreak of it all.

But talking to Alec’s siblings could wait, because Izzy and Jace were far from the most important thing.

All that mattered right then was holding Alec close until the terrible pain faded from his features and he could properly believe in Magnus’ love.

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ohhmydyosfics · 1 year

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(Keeung) better together

"Sorry to, uh, bother you. I just, um---I didn't know who else to call."

That, somehow, gets to Jiung. Maybe he's soft, because as much as Keeho annoys him---as much as Jiung's memories of him are tinged-sour, tinted in shades of Keeho's selfishness, his attention-seeking, his disregard for Jiung's feelings---Jiung's instinct is to help Keeho, whatever he's about to request.

Jiung clears his throat. "What's...what's wrong?"

He hears Keeho's breath catch. This must be serious, for him to be genuinely upset. And sure enough, "Is there any way you can take me to the hospital tomorrow?"

https://archiveofourown.org/works/44281216

#better together #Jiung #Keeho #Stephen #P1Harmony #Piwon #fanfic #oneshot #implied/referenced cheating #abortion #mpreg #angsty #Keeung

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hellcheerficdatabase · 2 years

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Meteor Shower

Author: @shroomystar

Chapter Count: 1/1

Rating/Warning: Teen and Up Audiences, Depression, S*icidal Thoughts, S*icide, Blood, Implied/Referenced Child Ab*se, Emotional Manipulation

Description: This is a story about two dead people. One way or the other, no matter how you spin it. It has always been.

Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ghosts, Depression, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide, Falling In Love, Cheating, Tragic Romance, Blood, Implied/Referenced, Child Abuse, Emotional Manipulation, Chrissy POV, One-Shot, Status: Completed

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quality-on-a-patch-of-awesome · 2 months

Link

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: SEAL Team (TV) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Eric Blackburn/Scott Carter Characters: Eric Blackburn, Scott Carter (SEAL Team TV) Additional Tags: Pre-Relationship, Pre-Slash, AU-gust | August Writing Challenge, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Royalty, Swearing, Royalty, Modern Royalty, Implied/Referenced Cheating, Alternate Universe - Bodyguard, in every universe they are just like that, Implied/Referenced Bullying, Mentions of Blood Summary:

Blackburn had known he was special since... Well, since before he could think given that his earliest memory was yelling “My dad’s the fucking King” at some little asshole on the school yard

Blackburn, whose father is the King and whose mother is NOT the Queen, has had a tumultuous time interviewing for the position of his new bodyguard, but there is something particularly intriguing about the latest applicant that already has him wanting to know more

#seal team #eric blackburn #scott carter #metalburn #aalternate universe #rroyalty #bodyguard #swearing #pre relationship #pre slash #AUgust #implied/referenced cheating #implied/referenced bullying #mentions of blood #they will never not be like this in every universe

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youngroyalscatalogue · 1 year

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Cheating & Implied/Referenced Cheating

It's really good to hear your voice sayin' my name Status: completed Rating: T Author: cali-chan (girls_are_weird) Summary: His steps halted in the middle of the hallway when he saw the name on the screen. Simon Eriksson. Wilhelm frowned down at his phone. Why would Simon be calling him this late? Or, really, why would Simon be calling him at all? PG-13, Wille/Simon, drama/romance/slight angst, canon-divergent future fic.

You Make My Eyes Blur Status: Completed Rating: T Author: LovelyLittleLosers Summary: Marcus was nice. Marcus was funny. Marcus had a drunken flush across his face. And Marcus kept looking at Simon over his hand, blushing and smiling and making little quips in an attempt to get a laugh out of him. Simon should have been blushing and smiling too. Marcus was nice. And honestly, with the lights dim, he was close enough.

Simon tries to move on, with very poor results. Based on the song “Four Tequila’s Down” by dodie

One Way or Another Status: incomplete Rating: Author: Mindfilledwithletters Summary: Simon and Wille grew up together until a family feud ripped them apart. Tragedy brought them back together, but is their love strong enough to defy the hatred between their families?

a childhood best friends to family enemies to lovers fic

Our Story is Written on Paper With Smudge Ink Status: incomplete Rating: E Author: Moons_Trashcan Summary: After the tape was released, Simon doesn't want anything to do with Wilhelm. Wilhelm tries talking to Simon the day of graduation but only makes things worse, losing Simon forever, or so he thought. 9 years later Wilhelm stumbles into a bookstore only to be greeted by a familiar face, Simon. The two slowly start to grow closer again but there is a problem. They're both married and not to each other.

The Hallway Incident Status: completed Rating: Author: Onelifetogive Summary: Crown Prince Wilhelm is in the States to attend the wedding of a friend. Who knew he would meet a fellow swede… and in which way?

—

“I swear to God, Marcus, if you don’t open this fucking door right now!” And Wille almost drops his key when he turns to his right into his hallway and sees the source of the banging and swearing and yelling.

ers höghet Status: completed Rating: E Author: septici Summary: “Didn’t you hear?” Simon’s fingers wrapped around Wille’s jaw; he’d done this before, but never quite so rough. Whenever they fucked rough, it was usually Wille doing it to Simon, not the other way around. But Wille closed his eyes and whimpered, giving a soft nod as if to say go on, go on. “I’m married to the fucking crown prince; I’m a fucking prince. And that is not how you address a prince.”

“F-Förlåt,” Wilhelm mumbled, pulling himself closer to Simon. “Please forgive me, Your Highness.”

———

After marrying the Crown Prince, Simon apparently has a thing for his new title

monster on the hill Status: incomplete Rating: M Author: tennisfangirl Summary: anti-hero: a lead character who lacks qualities of traditional heroes, such as courage or morality...

OR: Kristina of Sweden doesn't see herself as a villain. But she's too complicated to be considered a 'hero.'

We Left Footprints When We Passed By Status: completed Rating: E Author: This_time_its_just_me Summary: Wilhelm broke Simon's heart twice.

He really should hate him considering everything he's done. Simon has tried for so long to push this thing out of him, sever this connection and burn it away. He's tried to rip it out of his heart until his fingers are bloody and his chest is open and raw. But it always finds a way to pull him back in. Wilhelm is a deep, vast ocean, and Simon is caught in his current. Caught in the swell of his inner storm. He is a planet in some dark expanse of galaxy and Simon is a moon trapped within his orbit. They continuously circle each other, again and again until one of them breaks. An endless cycle of wishful thinking that always ends the exact same way. Wilhelm turning his back and Simon left to pick up the pieces.

................................................................

It has been eight years since the video. Five years since Hillerska. Three years since Wilhelm disappeared from his life as quickly and as intensely as he had returned. Simon has done his best to move on from his past, but old ghosts are the hardest ones to exorcise.

(Written Pre-Season 2; The Cheating Fic as dubbed by Twitter)

Death of Me Status: incomplete Rating: M Author: wilmonfavs Summary: August decide levar o namorado, Simon, para conhecer a família real que se reune em uma casa de campo por duas semanas para comemorar o noivado do Príncipe Erik. Simon é um garoto sem filtros, gosta de provocar e irritar os outros com sua sinceridade. Seriam duas semanas normais se não fosse pelo fato de que o príncipe Wilhelm, primo de August, não conseguia tirar os olhos de Simon por um segundo.

The Letters That Were Never Sent Status: incomplete Rating: M Author: amy098 Summary: what if simon wrote more than songs for wilhelm? what if he also wrote love letters; letters that would never be seen or read by anyone but him, with the truest and deepest most beautiful thoughts of his heart?

life's a maze (and we've been looking for something to do) Status: completed Rating: T Author: starvalisedham Summary: "Everybody in favour of giving the prize to Wille if he spills the beans on Simon... raise your hand."

"I would love to, but I can't. Boyfriend's honour."

"I call bullshit! Codes of conduct and promises of valour mean fuck all when playing the game."

Our favourite first years hang out and play Never Have I Ever. It goes as well as you'd expect. Secrets are shared, alcohol spilled... and the crown prince couple just couldn't stop flirting with each other.

Part 3 of coast side 'verse

#implied/referenced cheating #cheating #cheating masterlist #implied/referenced cheating masterlist #cheating & implied/referenced cheating masterlist

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luminousbeings-crudematter · 4 months

Text

folie à deux

or: the toxic ex boyfriend Ghost AU

PAIRING: Simon “Ghost” Riley x F!Reader

WARNINGS: || 18+ only MDNI || Toxic masculinity || Possessive & obsessive behaviour || Slut shaming || Groping || Gaslighting || Implied & referenced cheating || Mildly dubious consent

w/c: 5.7k (Read on AO3)

a/n: this was supposed to be like 5 paragraphs, so PLEASE if y'all hate it i dont want to know

It starts with a knock on your front door when you’re only half expecting to see Simon Riley.

He even knocks with a sense of entitlement, and it enrages you. Three hard raps, and that’s it. He won’t knock again. If you don’t open the door, he’ll kick it down to get to you—those were rules you’d learnt the hard way.

You mentally reinforce your motivation when you fling the door open: You’re scared he’ll break your door down, again, and this time, when they try to evict you, Simon won’t be around to terrify them into letting you stay.

How on earth you’d ever found the prick attractive is beyond you in that minute. Except, no sooner does the thought enter your mind do you dismiss it. Of course you had—and still—found him attractive. That had never been the problem.

He wore his military career on his face, much easier to see than the chest candy he bragged about but no less attractive to you–scars and burns, healing and the not-quite healed bruises plain to see on his face, a cacophony of yellows and purples. A nose that had spent more time broken than not, its slight curve most likely a combination of never having been set by a professional nor the opportunity to heal without being broken again. A thin scar dissected his lip, went all the way up the side of his face to his brow, almost like someone had taken a knife to him, carved him up like a piece of meat. You’d never asked, and it’s not like he’d ever volunteered the information.

It just sat there along with the three thousand other things he’d deposited in the chasm that stretched between the two of you.

“You…Jesus,” he breathes, and slams the door shut behind him, making you wince. “Where are you off to, then?”

“N’ wearin’ that?” He prompts again when you don’t answer, motions to your body with his chin.

You roll your eyes when he pulls you into him and plants a hard kiss on your mouth, ignoring your squirming. “Fuckin’ about to spill out, little dove.”

“Spill? Simon, I’m sewn into this dress.” You pluck at his shirt that has deliciously little give where it sits on his hard chest, leaving your palm there as a little treat for yourself. “You would know. You capable of wearing shirts your own size, or does the SAS make it mandatory to have your tits straining against them?”

When he doesn’t respond, you push away from him, and step back, crossing your arms against your chest, definitely not pushing your tits up slightly, and he mirrors your movement. He’s leaning against the wall by the front door now, blocking your exit, and you can only roll your eyes at the foreseeable display of machismo.

“Your stuff’s in the front room. Grab it and go, I have to finish getting dressed. I have plans.”

“With a pimp?”

Back when you were blissfully ignorant of Simon’s penchant for keeping you destabilised at all times, unconditionally wanting the last word, his crass words would have made you sputter and struggle to respond. Oh but you know him so much better now.

Now, the blatant transparency in his delivery just makes you laugh.

You interrupt his next words with a wave of your hand and turn to retreat to your room. “Get your shit and leave, baby.”

You hear his harsh exhale at the dismissal, and once upon a time, the repercussions of dismissing Simon in the middle of a conversation would have excited you. You used to do it to get a rise out of him, instigate him into chasing you around, fucking you silly when he caught you. Now, you just do it because you can.

“No need to be a bitch. I’ll be on my way in a second, just wanted to check on you, little dove.”

Your laugh is breathy, and you have to pull your mascara wand away from your eyes so you don’t end up stabbing yourself with it. “‘No need to be a bitch’ says the man currently being a bitch about me not telling him my plans.” Your laugh is mocking when you turn back to the mirror. “You ever tire of this routine, Simon? Because it’s tiring to me.”

Your words only make Simon’s eyes soften, and he looks at you almost indulgently, patronisingly, as though you were a child throwing a tantrum to get an adult’s attention. “Could never tire of you, little dove.”

“Stop calling me that,” you snap, but he only snorts in response.

It’s all a game to him, you know that. He makes it very clear how much amusement he derives from watching you fumble and fall, how much he gets off on the stress he gives you.

And yet, you’re drawn to him, every single time. Every single time, you play mental gymnastics to find a reason to write off his bad behaviour because, well, it’s Simon. He’s…like no one else you’ve ever known.

Your choices have always been limited between a cruel, mercurial god and inane, paltry men.

Except today. Today you hold your response back, try not to rise to the obvious challenge.

“Come on then, I’ll drive ya.”

“Are you insane?” you screech. “You’re not driving me to my date, you’re not driving me anywhere, what the fuck is wrong with you, Simon?”

A glimpse of his Adonis belt as he stretches his arms above his shoulders and cranes his neck from side to side briefly grabs your attention.

“Don’t be difficult, little dove,” he gently scolds you, and your eyes snap back to his—yours wide with incredulity, his calm and collected in that beautiful, honey brown. “What were y’gonna do, take the Tube with y’tits out like that? If the prick ain’t pickin’ you up, I’ll take ya to him.” He jerks his chin in your vanity’s direction and plops himself on your bed to watch. “Come on, love, finish yer preenin’ then.”

“Preening,” you mutter under your breath as you turn back to the mirror. “Fuckin’ weirdo.”

It’s only when you’re dabbing perfume behind your ears do you catch his eye just as he brings a cigarette up to his mouth, and you squeal. “Simon! The fuck are yo—don’t smoke in my bedroom!”

“Our bedroom—”

“What?!”

“—’n ya didn’t care before. Y’wanna share, ‘s that it, little dove?”

“Oh my god.” You turn around slowly, your hands against your lips, joined together as though in prayer. “Simon.”

“Yeah, baby.”

“You don’t live here anymore. This isn’t your flat, it’s mine. This isn’t your bedroom, it’s mine.”

Simon just continues to smoke as though he hadn’t heard you, dark eyes taking the slow, leisurely route back to meet yours. “Y’look good, baby.” His voice is hoarse, the words slow and deliberate and raspy, and…you can’t deny it. The pull he’s always exerted on you, the undeniably ruinous sirens call—you burn hotter and brighter than accretion, you’re a helpless sailor caught up in his thrall

“Simon”

“Did’ya always look so good?” The way he looks at you as though in a trance…you know he’s not listening, seeming to just be thinking out loud. When he stands up, you take an automatic step back, then cringe when the vanity hits the back of your legs. Nowhere to go to escape his looming presence. “No…not like this. Somethin’s changed.” He puts his hands on your shoulders and turns you around so you’re both facing the mirror.

The back of your neck feels particularly warm as he pushes his entire front to your back, and you can feel him there, hard and insistent against your lower back. When eyes meet in the mirror, he looks at you like you’re a puzzle for him to solve. “Nothing’s changed,” you whisper. “You’re still a dick.”

“Hmm,” he mutters, then lifts your face up with one hand around your neck, and brings his cigarette around to your lips with the other.

Your instinctive inhale makes him shift against you slightly, and your eye twitches from how good he feels pressed up against you like this. How he smells to you—that familiar mix of aniseed and icy menthol, fingers eking that potent hit of nicotine straight into you from where his fingers dig into your skin. “Definitely somethin’ different.” He pulls one strap of your dress down, and you exhale as he places one warm, lingering kiss on your exposed shoulder. “‘S good. Whatever’s different is good, little dove.”

“We can’t—,” you whisper, and his eyes glint at you with interest and arrogance through the mirror. “We can’t do this.”

“You’re so pretty all dressed up like this. Always were so pretty. So soft, and—” he inhales deeply at the spot just under your ear “—always smell so fuckin’ good.”

“You can’t,” you moan in response, but press yourself closer to him, anyway.

“But I can,” he responds gruffly. “‘Nythin’ I like, little dove. And I know y’like it too.”

“Fuck, just—” He interrupts you by giving you another hit, and this time you turn around in his arms to exhale in his face. He doesn’t even flinch. “What are you playing at, Simon? What do you want from me this time?”

Simon continues to look at your mouth as you speak, and almost as if on auto-pilot, slips his thumb into your mouth. You want to bite him for his audacity, you almost kick him in the shin, almost almost almost… But what you really end up doing is accepting it, licking the pad of his thumb and letting him push it into your mouth.

Your initials on the space between the base of his thumb and index finger catch your eye—it’s a new tattoo, and you know this entire game is a ruse to draw your attention to it—but you don’t react. You may be stupid horny for him, but you’re not stupid.

“Always such a good girl for me,” he praises, and it brightens you up on the inside, sparks hot and bright under your spine. “Tell me, love…still me you think about when you touch your pussy?”

Your harsh exhale and slightly narrowed eyes are the only indication you give of having heard him at all. In response, his thumb moves slightly deeper, sitting heavy on your tongue, and you let him.

Your stubborn silence makes him chuckle, and he stubs out his cigarette on the ashtray you (still) keep on your vanity, pushing your dress up over your ass so he can grab your cheeks possessively. The movement is so quick, so fluid that your protest turns to ash on your tongue when he finds bare skin and squeezes hard.

“Forgot somethin, did ya?”

“No.”

“No?” His hands grip you tighter and pull you harshly into him. The angle makes you grind into his cock, and you know that he’s not even half as unaffected as he pretends. “Gonna put out on the first date, then, like a slut? Don’t remember you givin’ me any the first time I—”

“It’s not my first date with him.”

Simon pulls back to look into your eyes, and you’re graced by the first genuine smile on his face all evening—the most brilliant of Rayleigh scatterings put to shame. “It is your first date, love.”

The blunt, matter-of-factness in his words gives you pause, your mind still coming to terms with what he’s just said, your heart starting to race at the barely concealed confidence about your whereabouts. “How do you—what are you saying to me right now?”

“Truth, little dove. Like I promised.”

The casual, off hand remark to one of the most devastating conversations in your life gives you whiplash and you have to physically shake your head to get rid of the feeling of something crawling up the back of your neck. You put your hands firmly on his chest and push him away, and he steps back easily.

“Are you…Simon. Are you having me followed?”

“Don’t need to. I know you, little dove.” He takes another step back from you and cocks his head at your dazed expression. “Put some knickers on. The white ones, y’know ‘em.” When you don’t move, he motions towards your underwear drawer with an expectant expression—as though you’re frozen because you’ve forgotten where they are rather than because you’ve just learnt that your ex boyfriend’s stalking you.

When he crosses his arms, you’re jolted to action. In a daze, you pick up the first pair your hands grab and pull them on. He thrusts your purse at you, and leads you out your front door with his hand clasped tight around yours.

You wish you could say that your ex boyfriend driving you to a date with another man is the weirdest thing that’s ever happened to you, but that’s not realistic for a life lived around Simon Riley.

***

The drive is silent, but one big hand remains on your inner thigh. His fingers are so long that they almost touch the seat on either side of your leg. It feels invasive but it’s also familiar, so you don’t say anything. Classic— he never had to try hard to get what he wanted from you.

When he asks you for a smoke, you light one up for him and stick it into the corner of his waiting mouth, and he kisses your fingertips as they retreat. You still don’t say anything. Instead, your eyes stay determinedly on your initials tattooed on his skin, his warm hand almost a brand on your thigh, and you think about your life with him in the .

The implication that things were normal in the before is wildly misleading, and a genuine disservice to the shit he’d put you through.

Once upon a time, you’d been delusional about your place in Simon’s world; now it just leaves a bad taste in your mouth. He threw special forces and taskforce and lads need me in your face every opportunity he’d gotten, and worse. Simon Riley was not a man who did or could be convinced to do something he didn’t want to—and you’d hardly ever asked for any explanations from him but still, the excuses were on the tip of his tongue, ready to be flung at you at Mach speed.

You’d bargained with yourself for weeks—oscillating between wanting to proactively end the relationship yourself or allowing its inevitable heat death. He was one of a kind. No one had ever made you feel like he had. No one had fucked you like he had.

No one had fucked you over like he had either, but on good days, you show yourself some grace and let that thought slide.

***

You find yourself falling into old bad habits easily—you wait inside the car until he’s on your side, opening your door for you and practically lifting you out of his car.

The warmth of his hands seeps through the material of your dress, through the skin on your hips, superheating the bones underneath. He squeezes the flesh there appreciatively, and though his expression remains hidden to you, you can safely guess the smirking just by the creased skin by his eyes.

“I never want to see you again.”

The words make Simon pause. He considers you for a second, the smirk never dropping. “Go’n, give us a kiss, then, if this is the last time.”

“I would never,” you insist, finger poking at his hard chest, and he retreats from you, puts his hands up in mock-surrender. “You’re a manipulative bastard, Simon,” you hiss at him. “And I’m going on this date.” With your piece said, you walk away from him.

“Never stopped ya, little dove,” he calls out, a hint of an aggravating laugh in his words.

You flip him off without even turning around. “Drop dead, Simon.”

To your great disappointment, your words don’t inspire the heavens to smite him where he stands immediately, and when you quickly shoot one last look back at him over your shoulder, he stands against his car, arms crossed, looking for all the world like he didn’t have a care in the world.

Asshole.

It wasn’t even that Simon was a bad boyfriend to you—though he was certainly the fucking worst—it was the fact that a) he was a bad person and b) you’d become a bad person by osmosis.

Case in point: you wanted to leave your date mid-meal, battling the intrusive thought of just putting your drink down and walking out the front door, but you couldn’t even say why. Your date had kindly acquiesced when you’d insisted on the worst table on the floor. The one overlooking the car park. The window overlooking the only car parked there—the massive black one, with illegally tinted windows and a suspiciously missing owner.

At least the bar was nice. Great ambience, dim lighting and pretty interiors, it should have been the perfect first date. Your date himself was fine too—nice enough with a sweet smile he flashed at you, politely having taken to talking at you when you’d made it clear with your apathy that talking with you wasn’t going to happen.

After just two drinks, you start to have flashbacks—even an hour spent in Simon’s company clearly manifesting as literal madness—which was disconcerting by itself, but the uncharacteristic subject matter has you really worried.�� Every time you blink, you see Simon’s face…or his cock…and when your date asks if you’d like to share dessert, you answer, “Simon…” before hearing yourself, and feeling the heat of shame dance on your cheeks. Your date just looks confused.

A quick glance outside the window shows the empty car park and…nothing else. No car.

Had he fuckin’ left?

The thought incenses you, and the irrational nature of the anger makes you feel even more shame. Why should you care? When had he ever done what you’d expected of him? And when had he ever been there for you when you’d needed it.

Fuck it, you think.

Maybe you were finally free of Simon and his toxic, shameless, unbreakable hold on your life. Maybe it was time to move on.

You allow yourself a satisfied smile when, in what feels like divine approval of your plan, your date offers to take you home.

***

There are cracks in your ceiling that you’d never noticed before.

You resist the urge to wince, then try to moan but give up when it gets stuck in your throat, and your date misinterprets your sigh of boredom and discomfort as one of pleasure, choosing to go down on you with more enthusiasm than before. Things could not be worse for you—the man between your legs is clearly in need of a compass and a map and trying so hard that you feel guilty about the whole thing—but you’re determined to tolerate it. So that the point is made.

When your date finally leaves, your shaky smile and poorly concealed look of relief convinces neither of you of a second date. You suppose you should be grateful that he left without a fuss, but you’re just relieved that he’s gone. You’re contemplating—holding your head in your hands while your elbows rest on the kitchen counter—when you hear him.

“This is pathetic, even for you.” You turn around, and yep. It’s him alright. Sitting at your dinner table, your flimsy chair all but invisible behind his massive frame. “Breaking in, Simon? Seriously?”

“Y’gave me a key, little dove.”

“Yeah. When we were dating. A key that you’d returned?”

When there is neither a response, nor any change to his posture, you turn around and start to pour yourself a glass of water. Then change your mind and grab two whiskey tumblers and your decanter. “Pathetic,” you repeat. “How long were you planning this?”

His sudden breath on the back of your neck makes you exhale harshly, and he steadies your trembling hands by placing his on yours. Together, you pour two glasses of whiskey, but his hands don’t leave yours even when you’re done.

“How was the date?”

“You tell me, Simon.”

“Wasn’t invited, was I?”

“It didn’t stop you.”

He places a small kiss behind your ear in response. “No.” His hands knead at your breasts and your head falls back to his shoulder with a sigh, and he grinds into you. “Feel that? What even your fake little noises do to me?”

“You were listening?” The thought is…unbearably hot, and you stubbornly refuse to examine it any further in your mind.

“You belong with me, little dove, you know this. You’ve always belonged to me. All of you. Every single inch. Where would I go?”

You reach behind you to touch him, and he’s thick and warm to the touch, even through the layers of fabric, and it’s familiar, it’s all so familiar to you.. “This is fucked up. You were here listening when another man fucked me?”

In a quick succession of lithe, almost impossibly quick movements, he’s picked you up and placed you on your kitchen counter, one glass of whiskey shattering on the floor. “Made your point, baby?”

Your robe is off your shoulders and pooling around your waist in a second, and Simon doesn’t even bother hiding his smirk when he pulls off your panties and pockets them. You don’t bother protesting. It even feels like trouble when he runs a single finger over the seams of your cunt—you’re damningly wet and if you had enough withal to curse your body out for it, you would.

“You've got such a pretty pussy, little dove,” Ghost says as he fingers you, his voice half-muffled because he's pressing a possessive kiss to your forehead. “And so wet baby, you’re dripping on my fingers. All of it fo' me? Or was it that twat, hm?”

You're seething inside, raging that your plan backfired like this. “It was him,” you say, before you can help yourself. “You heard him fuck me, yeah?”

“Fuck you?” Simon’s chuckle is dark and ruinous. “He didn’t fuck you, baby. He just stretched you out for me. Good man. Saves me the work, innit.”

Before you can react, before you can breathe, he picks you up and throws you over his shoulder, picks up his glass of whiskey in his other hand, and brings you to your bedroom. Fuck, your sheets are still rumpled, dress and bra strewn on the floor, sandals sitting like a death trap of heel and straps by the foot of your bed. The room even smells of sex and the cologne your date had worn—it’s disorienting. You almost feel bad. Almost.

But…Simon’s presence is all over your bedroom too. The smell of his aftershave lingered in the air, noticeable if you closed your eyes and breathed in deep. Other signs too—the faint bitterness of his cigarette from earlier that evening, it’s corpse in the ashtray on your vanity. When he sets his drink down on your nightstand, he sets it on the coaster you keep there—they’re strewn on almost every surface on your flat. Mementoes from Simon from different countries he’d go to on deployment.

“Told you he fucked me,” you say, cheekily—trying to dissuade your mind from leading you towards sentiment—and get a smack on you ass for your trouble.

“‘Course, little dove,” Simon drawls in response. “‘N you enjoyed it too, yeah? Tryin’ t’make me jealous. Took him to the same place we used to go, huh?” Another smack on your backside, this one hard enough to make you gasp. “Think I’d forgotten, baby? Fucked you in that car park, didn’t I?”

“Were you jealous?”

“Why should I be?” He sets you down gently on the bed so you’re sitting upright, then takes a sip of his whiskey. “Y’want this.”

“I didn’t think you were giving me much of a choice.”

“I’m not.” He takes another sip, and when he leans forward to kiss you, the whiskey floods into your mouth, rich and smoky and bitter. He continues to kiss you and you have to swallow around his tongue, which makes him kiss you harder. He’s a bully in every aspect of his life, and kissing you is no different. His fingers clamp around your cheeks and you have no choice but to kiss him back. Even in this he dominates you, trying to win even where there is no fight to be fought.

When he pulls away, your heart throbs at how he looks through the lights of the street outside pouring in through your window. You’ve seen his face before, you’re one of the trusted few that can say they know what Simon Riley looks like, but it’s been a while since you’ve seen him like this. The harsh lights from outside almost soften where they kiss the harsh angles of his face, where the sharp line of his clenched jaw disappears behind his ears, accentuating his thick neck.

He’s beautiful and cruel and bad for you and every adjective you can think of under the sun.

“Y’want this,” he repeats.

“I want this.”

And then Simon moves so suddenly. There’s no preparing for it, no accounting for speed that has no build up—one second you’re sitting upright looking up at him the next you’re on your back and he’s hovering over you, fingers making quick work of his zipper before, in one push, he’s buried in you. Your breath feels like it’s literally been punched out of your chest. He’s so deep in you, you can feel him in your throat—he allows you one deep breath before he’s got a large hand wrapped around your throat. The one with your tattoo on it.

The thought of it incites something foreign deep in your belly, low and simmering hot—you can’t believe he’s tattooed your name on his hand after telling you that he didn’t think you were what he’d wanted.

You can’t imagine your expression right now, but he tightens his fingers around your throat and it drags your attention back to him. He’s gritting his teeth, his jaw clamped tightly shut while he grinds his pelvis into yours, each thrust driving you further and further away from him and towards the centre of the bed. You don’t even understand the movement of his hips—you’re displaced and jostled from the sheer power of his thrusts—but the motion itself feels like it’s more of an up and down motion, dragging against your walls, punching into your G spot. When your head falls back on a low moan, he jerks your body to alertness just by your throat, and you clench at the feat of strength even when he’s buried in you as far as he can go.

Simon groans in response, the noise sounding like it tears through his throat on its way out, but you’re helpless to do anything at all, just trying to breathe through the foreign sensations inside you right now, clamp tighter and tighter around him, threatening to break. You’ve given up trying to look up at him anymore, the pleasure making you squeeze your eyes shut, one hand intertwined with his by your head, the other clawing at his forearm.

“Shit, baby, hold on, fuck, jus’ let me—” He moves to adjust you, grabbing one thigh to spread you open, push himself deeper inside you, when he freezes.

“Wha—Simon, what—”

“The fuck is this?” His voice is pitched lower than usual, dark and dangerous. You follow his line of sight and he’s transfixed, eyes unblinking, looking at a spot on your inner thigh. You know what he’s seeing, and in the midst of everything that’s happened, everything that’s about to happen, you wonder if you’re seeing the evidence of the existence of a just God.

“You weren’t…you weren’t meant to see it. It’s from ages ago…” He reaches out a slightly trembling hand towards it, stops inches away from it—and oh this is better than anything you could’ve imagined—before he brushes two reverent fingers over the little skull you have tattooed there. “Simon?”

When Simon looks back at you, he seems more determined, somehow. Like the final part of a puzzle has clicked into place, somehow, and a decision has been made.

This time when he moves, it’s deeper, more powerful but equally as deliberate. The hand around your throat moves to your face, brushing sweaty strands away from it, and framing the entire side of your face where it rests. “Got my mark on you, yeah? Want t’keep me, is that it?”

“I want…want to keep you,” you nearly whine at him, and his hips kick up, hammer into you, in and out, in and out— “Want to keep you Simon. Want to be yours.”

He bends over you, his grip on your thigh unyielding, long fingers digging into the tattoo on your skin. “Fuck, fuck, fuck, I—” He uses your neck to muffle his own sounds for a second and then leans to kiss you. But it’s more than that. You feel Simon’s surrender in that kiss—the acceptance of the inevitable, your months of torturous longing for your torturer finding release—and when you come, you bite down hard on his lip.

It feels like your body is hot enough to melt the world into soft, sepia tones around you, and you don’t even understand what he’s doing to your body right now as he fucks you through your orgasm. He readjusts your hips as you come, and the slightest brush of the coarse hair at the base of his cock against your clit makes you vibrate from the shock of what feels like your second orgasm bleeding into your first.

And when he comes, he slams his hips into you like he’s trying to crawl inside of you. His groan is long and tortured, and for a man who’s usually silent when he fucks, the sound is delicious. You never want him to stop. “Fuckin’ shit,” he murmurs, and traps you as he collapses on top of you.

In the aftermath, there is quiet.

Simon lifts his head, once, to try to feel his way to the glass of whiskey on your nightstand, all while kissing you deeply. Turns out, fucked out of his mind Simon is clumsy as hell, and so you grab it for him, draining it yourself before offering him the empty glass.

“Fuckin’ whore,” he mutters, unimpressed, before burying his face in your neck.

“Says the man who slept with the entire British army in a matter of six months.” You kiss his sweaty hair and his grip on your hips tightens. “Bunch of slags.”

“Don’t call my sergeant a slag.”

“Your serg—” you gasp, feeling your restart its pounding in its cage. “Not Johnny! You slept with MacTavish? He fuckin—he fuckin’ offered to meet me for coffee so many times when we were broken up! I thought he was being nice!”

“Was bein’ nice, innit. Lookin’ out for his CO’s girl.”

Your head falls back to the bed as you stare up at the ceiling again. “This is messed up.” His casual tone feels like a barb, reopens old wounds and threatens to ignite a fresh wave of hostility inside you. But before you can stew in your bitterness any longer, he kisses the side of your neck and moves off of you.

“Can’t keep doing this, little dove.” He says, gathering your clothes from where they’re strewn all over your room.

You get up on your elbows and cock your head, feigning innocent confusion. “What do you mean?”

“Gonna have twats all over town stretchin’ you out fo’ me before I fuck you?”

“Why? You offering to put the graft in yourself?”

“Maybe,” he mumbles, and when he stands up to face you, he’s got a cig hanging off the corner of his mouth. “Y’got a light around here somewhere, can’t find mine.”

You roll your eyes, reaching over to the nightstand to grab one and throwing it at him. He catches it deftly, and lights up his cigarette. “What’s next for you then, Simon Riley? Off to the pub to find the next victim for the evening? Send me a recording of when you fuck her in the disgusting toilet?”

“Victim? Shit baby, give me ten, we’ll go again,” he says, exhaling a cloud of smoke.

“You’re staying?”

He leans forward, smushes your face with his large hand. “You got me inked on you.” You squirm away from him and he lets you go.

“It’s just a skull, Simon. Not my initials on your hand.” When his eyes narrow, you gasp theatrically and your hand flies up to your chest. “Or was I not meant to see that?” You lean up to pluck the cigarette from his fingers and take a long drag. “Obnoxious, by the way.”

He leans forward and kisses you, hard. You inadvertently end up blowing smoke in his mouth, but he doesn’t move, kissing you until you melt. “Love you, little dove. You're a massive bitch, though.”

“Pot meet kettle,” you whisper against his mouth.

You know what they say about history repeating itself. You’ve been through this cycle before, you and Simon. And you know what he promised you when he fucked you—he may have asked you if you’d wanted to keep him, but you hear what Simon doesn’t say. And what he doesn’t say is that you don’t have a choice in any of this. Simon operates like a bully, thinks like a bully because he is one. Like with most other things, Simon brute forces your relationship, moulds and bends and twists to his liking, does not care if anything breaks. You have no doubt that in two or three weeks’ time he’ll be across the world from you, bouncing someone else on his cock but it hardly matters. You’ll get your lick back. It’s what he’s taught you, afterall.

#simon ghost riley #simon riley #simon riley x reader #ghost mw2 #simon riley smut #ghost x reader #cod mw2 #lumi writes #toxic exbf! Ghost #simon riley x you #simon ghost riley x reader

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swordsandholly · 14 days

Text

On the Mend

Ao3 | Chapter One | Next

Captain John Price x fem!plus size!reader

Word Count: 4.1k

MDNI | cw: referenced cheating, divorce, implied alcoholism, age gap, blood/minor injury

Summary: Following his divorce, John Price is adrift - strong armed into going on leave, he decides to use the time to renovate a run down family lake house. He finds himself drawn into an unexpected bond with his peculiar new neighbor who seems equally unable to leave him alone.

When John came home to papers and a set of silver rings on the kitchen counter he didn’t feel surprised. No sense of despair at the lack of shoes by the door or empty closet. No betrayal at the slight layer of dust covering the flat. A layer that had accumulated over the course of coming home two weeks later than planned. Just a a wave of numbness. That sick sort of relief when the bad thing you knew would happen finally does. Something that twists in his gut and hollows out his bones. He knew it was coming sooner or later.

Looks like sooner.

It started in the early fall - though, if he’s honest, he should have seen it coming long before then. Nearly a year of cold shoulders and whispers over the phone spoken in the other room during late hours. Passive nudges and snide comments. Nights spent alone more than together. New clothes and lingerie that he only spotted in passing on laundry day. All his time in the SAS and he didn’t see what was right under his nose. Five simple words that spelled out the end.

“I found someone else, John.”

That’s it. The grand finale to thirteen years.

Of course it’s never simple. What followed was weeks of arguing between - and during - his deployments. Months of lawyers sending information and communications back and forth because face to face talks were no longer getting them anywhere. It’s difficult to process so many years falling apart in such little time. It’s harder still to get over the hurled insults and accusations of stolen youth. The insinuation that he ruined her. The allegation that he never loved her in the first place. That this has been broken for a long, long time, John. How do you not see that?

How didn’t he see it?

At the end of the day, John is good at two things: compartmentalizing and work. It’s just convenient that those two qualities happen to go hand in hand right now. John lives on base full time - got out of that flat as soon as the lease ran out. It’s a waste of money sitting empty for most of the year. More often than that, really, considering he spends every waking moment - when not deployed - in his office or running drills. Never mind the fact that he couldn’t step past the threshold without feeling something shatter in his chest.

Now, six months since the final signatures, the walls John carefully built around the issue have started to wear. Coming loose at the seams - all crumbling brick and thinning mortar. He’s agitated. Frayed at the edges. You wouldn’t know it to look at him. John’s uniform remains crisp as always. His belongings placed in exact order - including the ever growing collection of liquor. His hair is perfectly kept. At a glance, he’s the same as always.

It’s those closest to him that can see it. That take the brunt of it.

Harsh, barking orders at Ghost that would have previously been calm instruction. Sharp reprimands that leave Soap jumpy and flinching. Both give him a wide berth when they can. His drills for the newer recruits became far more difficult with tougher punishments for any sort of acting out. Gaz has avoided his growing wrath for the most part - good at keeping his head down and following orders as needed.

Until today, it seems. An accidental, near deadly failure. The perfect boiling point.

While clearing a building currently housing a potential terrorist cell, one man managed to slip past Gaz. All of them, really, but it was his floor to clear. The man got a shot off on Soap after the Scot tackled him - luckily his vest stopped it. Ghost dropped the adversary and Soap won’t have more than a bruised rib and a couple weeks of rest but it could have been worse. Much, much worse.

Gaz knew he was fucked when the Captain went silent. John barely looked him in the eye and didn’t say anything more than necessary on their way back to base. A single grunt of “my office” and the sergeant’s fate became sealed.

“Sir.” Gaz prays that the quaver he feels in his voice doesn’t come through. He’s never been here before, standing stiffly across from the Captain. Not like this at least - waiting for the hand he’s about to be dealt.

“Donnae worry tae much, lad.” Soap had given him a rough slap on the back. “Price’s all bark an’ no bite.”

Right now standing across from The Captain, all he can see is a bite risk.

“You know why I’ve called you in, Sergeant.” It isn’t a question.

“Yes, sir.” Gaz shifts ever so slightly. “I wasn’t successful in clearing my floor-“

“And nearly compromised a teammate because of your carelessness.” John crosses his arms, a snarl in his tone. His nerves are fried - every bit of frustration and hurt that’s been pushed down and allowed to fester over the last several months bubbling up to the surface.

John can’t lose anyone else.

By the time he’s done with his verbal lashing Gaz looks like he wants to run for the hills and never come back. As good as the boy is at masking his reaction externally, just as any military man does, his eyes never hide anything. There’s a sheen over them that has John pausing, stepping it back and sighing heavily. He never raises his voice - doesn’t find it useful long term - but he has a skill for putting together strings of words that stab right to the heart. Gaz is an empathetic kid - a trait easily exploited to pour gallons of guilt on the sergeant.

“Don’t let it happen again.” John mutters, the fire gone. Doused out by the kicked puppy look Gaz wears. An itch of regret stings the back of his mind. “Dismissed.”

Based on the rhythm of footsteps the moment the office door closes behind Gaz, it really does sound like he’s running for the hills. John wouldn’t blame him. He doesn’t want to be around himself either.

John practically collapses into his office chair, finally letting his muscles relax. As much as they are physically capable of relaxing. These days his shoulders are always around his ears - hackles raised and hands flexing. He buries himself in the incident report - pouring hours into filling out bureaucratic red tape that he used to avoid at every turn.

The sun has set when a quiet but firm tap tap tap sounds at his door.

“Come in.” He grunts, knowing exactly who is about to walk through that door based entirely on the perfunctory knock.

“John.” Kate steps in, carefully shutting the door behind her before stepping forward.

“Kate.” He straightens in his seat.

“We need to talk.”

“I’ll apologize to Garrick tomorrow.” John waves her off, turning back to the files on his desk in a last ditch effort to make her leave. It’s a foolish attempt.

“You know that’s not what I’m going to say.” She crosses her arms.

“Do I?”

Kate stands over him, staring him down. It’s a position they find themselves in fairly often whether face to face or communicating from hundreds of miles away. There’s a new weight to it here. A far more personal tension than either are used to.

Kate pinches the bridge of her nose. “I’m coming to you as a friend - not a coworker. You need to take some time.”

The last thing John needs is to ‘take some time.’ He just needs to focus. Get into the new swing of things. He hit the ground running now all he needs is to find his stride.

“I’m fine.” John snaps.

“You’re not.” She fires back. “It’s normal that you’re not but you need to deal with it.”

“I have dealt with it. It’s been dealt with for six months.”

“You know that’s not what I mean.”

John sighs heavily and scrubs a hand over his face. He has plenty of leave, really. About three months worth that haven’t been used. Months he was saving for a long vacation that won’t happen now. Ninety days that are wasting away on his employee profile - a fake number. It’s all bullshit anyway, right? The only thing that’s truly real is what he can accomplish here. Helping people and saving the world here. What good is he rotting at home for nine months?

He’s needed here.

John needs to be needed.

“John.” Kate sighs. Her voice is low - that of a disappointed mother. “Either you take your leave, or I get you sent on a mandatory mental health leave. I already have the paperwork drafted. You need to step away.”

The captain lets out another heavy sigh. Laswell has obviously made up her mind. There’s no changing it once she has the steel like gleam in her eyes.

“Fine. Give me a week to get things sorted.”

John doesn’t miss the slight quirk in the corner of Kate’s mouth. “Thank you.”

As usual, by the time he makes it back to his flat he’s completely worn through. Body and mind equally exhausted - just what he wants. John falls into his routine of pouring a glass of whatever he’s in the mood for, tonight it’s bourbon, apparently, and plopping onto the couch. Normally he’d turn on the television or grab a book or some other shite but all he can manage right now is a staring contest with the wall.

The hell is he supposed to do for three months? He can’t hang around here, that’s too pathetic. It’ll drive him mad. Could visit his mum, but she’s got a life of her own in that retirement community of hers. He wouldn’t want to disturb her peace for more than a week or two. That still leaves at least seventy-six days unaccounted for.

Somewhere during his wall-watching, he thinks it’s while taking in a particularly interesting mistake in the paint, an idea finally comes to him. A flimsy, probably stupid idea. John grabs his cell. It only rings once.

“Hey, mum.” John leans back on the shitty couch of his on base apartment. It’s minimal, but he doesn’t need much anymore, does he?

“Jack, love, how are you?” She says brightly. Always full of sunshine and excitement to hear from her only child.

“Fine.” He lies. As much as he hates lying to his mother and the acetic taste it leaves in his mouth, he just can’t handle her worry at the moment. John doesn’t need another reason to cry right now. “How are you?”

“Oh, lovely!” She replies. “I have the ladies knitting circle tomorrow - apparently there’s new developments about Harold and Linda.”

“Oh? What sort of developments?”

“The salacious sort.” She snickers.

John huffs out a laugh. The old gossip. “Mum, I was wonderin’… do we still have that old family home? By the lake?”

She hums, thinking for a moment. “Oh, yeah, we do. Though, technically it belongs to your Aunt Claudia - the old hag - love her dearly. It’s run down. No one’s been there in years.”

“Alright. Good.”

“Why do you ask?”

John sees no way out of giving into her prying just a bit. “I need a project.”

“A project?”

“I’ve been given some leave. Need something to pass the time.”

A short lapse of silence. “Jack?”

“Hm?”

“Are you okay?”

He sighs heavily, swirling the glass in his other hand absently. The breath comes out shaky and there’s a stinging in the corners of his eyes. “I’m really fine, ma.”

“I wish you wouldn’t lie to me.”

“Wish you wouldn’t call me on it.” He chuckles bitterly.

“You’re my son, of course I’m going to call you on it.” She scoffs.

“I’ll…” John sighs. “I’ll be okay.”

“I know you will. You should talk about it, though. If not to me then to some friends.“

What friends? He wants to snap back. His ex-wife took all their mutual friends with her. The men on base aren’t his friends - can’t be with how he’s been treating them these past few months. There’s no fixing that. They’ll never trust him the same again.

Of course, he won’t tell her that. “I will, mum. I love you.”

“Love you, too. Goodnight.”

“Night.” The silence of the flat feels deafening as soon as the call ends. A reminder of all the things he isn’t - all the things he failed at. Nearly fourty years and nothing to show for it outside of his career. No one else is around to hear the poorly bitten back sobs and shaky gasps that echo through the bedroom until sleep finally overtakes him.

~~~

The home seems about as bad John assumed it to look when he pulls up. Bare patches where shingles have long fallen off spot the roof. The front porch has several posts missing from the railing and a few cracked boards. The steps creak worryingly under his boots but seem solid enough for now. John takes his time working through each room, just as he would on the job. Taking stock of damaged hinges and rusted pipes. At least the water runs and electric seems to be undamaged. Livable conditions even if it all needs a proper dusting and washing.

The interior is just as he remembers right down to the furniture. All family heirlooms with only a few updated pieces scattered throughout. Wicker chairs and heavy wood bed frames. The only truly new addition is the thick layer of dust and grime covering it all. If John were more poetic he may have something to say about that, but as it stands he is not and does not.

As he makes his way to the back, he comes across the majority of the damages to the property. The dock is missing a series of boards all the way down. The back porch has visibly rotting wood and most of the railing seems long gone. Weather battered and use torn. More shingles are missing from this side of the roof. The entire exterior needs a new paint job. Fixable enough with the right materials and some elbow grease. The perfect amount of work to fill the next ninety days.

As he makes his way through the overgrown back yard to look at the dock in more detail, movement catches his eye. A girl walking in the backyard of the house next door - a red, square little cabin that couldn’t house anything above two bedrooms at most. She stomps her way down the slight incline to the lake - carefully carrying a massive easel and canvas under one arm and a rectangular bag of what he assumes are art supplies under the other.

John isn’t sure what compels him to watch her. Maybe it’s the soft curve of her hips or the determined scrunch of her face - either way it takes longer than it should for him to tear his eyes away and head back into the lake house.

It’s easy enough to spend this first day busying himself with cleaning up the accumulated dirt. John ties a handkerchief over his face - more of a formality than a real barrier to keep from breathing too much in. He shouldn’t care. The man sucks down enough cigar smoke that even this dense sort of dust wouldn’t be more than a tickle. He sweeps and mops and throws some bedsheets in the wash. At least enough to last him until he can take the quilts outside and beat them properly.

Even as he climbs into the old but solid master bed he has lists running through his mind. Lists are good. Lists are a distraction. Sort of like counting sheep but more productive.

Needs a new hammer, nails, several lengths of screws. He’ll have to take into account the type of wood needed - might have to order the railing. The small town probably doesn’t have any that would match in person…

~~~

Even without an alarm John wakes at five am on the dot. After so many years of military life he has no hope of becoming a late sleeper. Even on lazy Sunday mornings, he’d wake first, stay in bed and wait for his ex-wife to wake. Often he would try to surprise her with breakfast…

John clears his throat and focuses on dressing for the day. Some old work jeans and a sturdy, standard issue t-shirt. He spends the morning finalizing his list, categorizing what he can most likely get in person and what will need to be ordered. He decides to get a calendar to plan out the repairs over the next three months, starting with the interior and working his way out. Methodical. Controlled. Just like he prefers.

Luckily the hardware store has more than he thought it would. Between the tools already in the lake house’s small garage and the few he needs to pick up, he should be well stocked for at least the first round of projects.

“New to town?” The older woman at the counter asks politely with minimal interest.

“Sort of. Fixin’ up a family home.” John grunts, dropping cash onto the counter.

“Ah.” She nods. “That’s good. So many places around here have been rotting away or getting bought up by vacation companies.”

John just hums in response. He doesn’t have much of an opinion on that. It’s not really his business what other people do. He shoves his change into the small tip jar on the counter and drags his supplies out to his truck.

He drives back in silence, opting to focus entirely on the empty country road. He hasn’t liked music much these days. John frowns as a figure making its way up the side of the road more into focus. The same girl from yesterday, the neighbor, pushes her bike along the side of the road. She’s limping slightly as she walks. Her legs and arms have a solid layer of dirt covering them. The front and back baskets of her bike are stuffed full of reusable grocery bags. She looks downright pissed as soon as he catches her face.

John slows when his truck finally catches up with her, rolling down the window. “You alright?”

“Fine!” You call back, obviously out of breath with a frustrated pinch to your face. You keep your eyes solidly forward. John glances down at your freshly skinned knees, wincing to himself.

“Y’don’t seem fine.”

“I am!” You turn up your nose, speeding up your walk ever so slightly. American. Interesting.

John lightly toes the gas to keep up. “Your knees look pretty banged up. I can give you a ride.”

You stop dead in your tracks. John barely has to touch the break to stop with you. There’s a fire in your eyes when you whirl on him - one that reminds him all too much of Soap when he gets the itch to blow something up. He takes you in piece by piece. He isn’t quite able to gauge how old you are. Younger than him, he thinks. Your face is soft despite the hard expression, body a graceful, continuously curved line. He snaps his eyes back to your face before you can catch him staring.

You raise your hand to point at him and then the little canister hanging from the carabiner hooked to your shorts. “I’m not going anywhere with you, old man! Try to make me and I’ll mace you.”

John blinks. Old man? He supposes it makes sense. To you he’s just a creepy guy trying to coax you into his beat up truck. “I, uh, saw you yesterday. Wait, wait! I’m fixing up the house next door. The blue one.”

That makes you pause your march again, turning to look at him slowly. You squint, eyes raking over the truck, the materials in the bed, and flicking around his face. A slow look of recognition dawns across your expression, the pinch of your lips changing into a gentle part.

“Oh. Yeah. I saw your truck.” There’s still a wariness in your tone, a shifting in your stance. Smart girl. He wonders if you can sense it. The things he’s done, the kind of man that he is. Does it roll off him in waves like he thinks? Would it surprise you?

“It’s still another five miles back. There’s room in the bed for your bike. Can’t be fun walking around all bruised up like that.” John nods to your knees again.

Your lip catches between your teeth, a sigh of defeat relaxes your shoulders. “Okay. I’ll still mace the fuck out of you if you get weird on me.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” John chuckles.

You huff and load up your bike into the back of his truck. You’re stronger than he expected, throwing the bike and groceries around like they weigh almost nothing to you. The midday sun gives you a healthy glow despite the cuts a scrapes from your earlier fall.

“There’s a first aid kit in the glove box.” John says as you load up into the cab with him.

“Thanks.” You reach for it immediately, grabbing some disinfectant wipes and a few large bandaids. They’re still bleeding pretty badly - dripping down your dirt covered shins.

“What happened, anyway?” He asks as he starts down the old dirt road once again.

You hiss at the sting of the wipes. “My - ah fuck - bike chain snapped. Threw me off.”

“Y’don’t carry a back up?”

“Usually, but that’s the one that just broke. Piece of shit. Hadn’t gotten around to replacing it yet…” You keep your eyes down and pick at your confetti nail polish, obviously embarrassed.

John hums. “I might have one laying around the house. If not I can drive you to town to look for one.”

“Oh, no, you don’t have to do that!”

“It’s no problem.” He chuckles. “If you don’t mind an old man driving you around, that is.”

“Y’know, on a closer inspection you’re not that old.” You grin. “Just the old-timey beard.”

“I’ve been told it’s distinguished.”

“That just means old.” You snicker.

A comfortable silence lapses between you - the only sound being that of the truck puttering down the dirt road. There’s a prickle on John’s skin and he glances over only to see your eyes dragging across his arm holding the steering wheel. You think you’re subtle, he’s sure, with the way you keep your face mostly forward and only look out of the corner of your eye. It’s hard to fool a SAS officer.

Who’s the creep now? John smiles and bites the inside of his cheek to keep from blurting it out.

You turn away to watch out the window as he pulls up just between your houses. A two hour walk reduced to all of ten minutes. “Glad to see that house finally getting fixed up. It’s depressing watching it decompose - even if it is kind of cool.”

John nods. “My family is small. Hasn’t seen a lot of use since my cousins and I were kids.”

“Just you?” You tilt your head, staring up at him with big doe eyes. “No wife or kids?”

“No.” He grunts, wincing internally at the harshness of it.

You don’t seem phased. If anything your smile gets just a hair wider. “Well, thanks for the ride. Glad you’re not a kidnapper.”

“Anytime.” He snorts, climbing out of the truck after you. “I’m John, by the way. John Price.”

“Oh! Didn’t even think to introduce myself.” You laugh and hold your hand as you give your name. It’s so much softer and smaller than his. He almost doesn’t want to let go.

Christ, is he really that fucking touch starved?

John clears his throat and sets his hands on his hips. “Need help carrying that in?”

“I can manage.” You look him over again. John can’t help but wonder what you see. Whatever it is, you smile and wave politely before disappearing into your cabin.

He’s still thinking about that as he gets ready for bed, staring at himself in the mirror. All he sees are the bags under his eyes and scars littering his torso. The grey hairs beginning to salt his beard and hair. The rough callouses on his hands from rougher work. A tired, grizzled officer with only work to look forward to. What did you like enough to stare at? He’s strong, sure, but no more than the next guy that works out or does physical labor.

John downs the last of his drink for the night, brushes his teeth and falls into bed. For once, there’s a relative peace as he falls asleep to the sounds of nature outside. No sounds of base to keep him awake, no itching sense of duty. Just frogs and crickets.

A/N: I know I have other stuff to work on but the brain worms are wriggling thinking about sad, lonely John Price.

#captain price x reader #captain john price #captain price #john price #john price x reader #john price x you #price x reader #fem reader #cw alcohol #plus size reader #fat reader #cod #reader insert

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glorious-spoon · 24 days

Text

a miserable pile of secrets [9-1-1 | Eddie Diaz & Hen Wilson | 1/1]

1.8K words | friendship | emotional hurt/comfort | implied/referenced cheating

a miserable pile of secrets [on AO3]

She finds Eddie up on the rooftop, which makes sense, given that Buck is currently working out his feelings on the heavy bag after Bobby finally snapped at the two of them to get their acts together unless they wanted to be benched. Chim's down in the weight room with him, which means that Hen is up here in the warm night air to talk some sense into the other half of their codependent little unit, who is currently perched on one of the folding chairs that they usually leave up here. He's as still as a statue, tense like he's afraid of what his body might do if he lets it move.

"Hey," Hen says, and he gives a jerky little nod of acknowledgement. "Mind if I sit?"

"Go ahead."

"Thanks." She pulls out one of the other chairs and sits down. "So."

"Bobby sent you."

"I sent myself," she corrects mildly, and watches Eddie's shoulders hunch a little. "I don't think I've ever seen you and Buck fight like that."

Though the truth is, she really only caught the tail end of it. Buck's frustrated voice rising on, "Do you hear yourself? How did you think this was going to work out? Have you even thought about Chris? What, you were just going to introduce him to her like—"

"Chris? Since when is how I parent my son any of your business?"

"I don't know, Eddie, you kind of made it my business when you put me in your fucking will!"

"Yeah, well, maybe that was a mistake!"

There was ringing silence in the wake of that. Then Buck said something quieter, inaudible from where Hen and Chim were standing frozen outside the locker room door, and Eddie spat, "Go to hell. I'm done talking about this."

The door slammed open and he stormed out, only pausing for a moment when he saw the two of them standing there. It wasn't until he'd already stomped up the stairs to the loft that Buck emerged, scowling.

"I don't want to talk about it," he snapped, before either of them could speak.

That was six hours ago. Neither of them has said a single word to each other since outside of the bare minimum on calls. The tension in the back of the truck has been thick enough to cut with a knife, and none of Chim's increasingly desperate jokes has done a damn thing to lighten the mood.

Hen doesn't blame Bobby for being fed up with the pair of them. She's caught somewhere between that and worry, herself. This isn't like them. Either of them.

Eddie shrugs again, tense. "I don't really feel like talking about it."

"Mm."

Hen kicks her legs out, relaxes into the chair and waits him out. It doesn't take long. Maybe two minutes before he lets out an angry little huff and says, "Marisol dumped me this morning."

"Oh," Hen says. That explains some of the mood, anyway. "Well, I'm sorry to—"

"I cheated on her. She found out."

She closes her mouth. For a moment she just looks at him: his tight jaw, his hands in fists on his thighs, so tense he looks like he's about to snap. Like looking through a warped mirror to a younger version of herself, and maybe that's why she manages some gentleness when she says, "That doesn't sound like you."

"Yeah. That's what Buck said. Shows what he knows."

"Why'd you do it?"

"It doesn't matter. It was stupid. I fucked up."

"If you're waiting on me to tell you otherwise, you'll be waiting a while." Eddie lets out a sharp, bitter little bark of laughter, and Hen adds. "I've been there, you know."

"Yeah. But it's not—Karen forgave you."

"Eventually, yeah. She didn't have to."

"Yeah," Eddie says, and then doesn't say anything else.

"Is that what you and Buck were fighting about?"

He shrugs again. Like talking to a damn teenager, Hen thinks. Not Denny, with his easy sweetness, but like one of the other kids who come through their home sometimes on temporary placements: already on the defensive, claws out, ready to fight.

"I guess," he mutters finally.

"You put him in your will?" Eddie scowls at her, and she shrugs. "Hey, if you want it to be a secret, maybe don't have your domestics at the top of your lungs in the locker room we all use."

He scoffs, clearly annoyed, but doesn't get up and storm off, so she's counting that as a win. Finally, he says, "Yeah. He's down as Chris's legal guardian if something happens to me. Since—uh, since I almost died in that well collapse a few years back."

Oh. Hen contemplates that for a moment, squares it up in her head with what she already knows about Eddie. It's not, she'll admit, completely out of left field. But still. "And you think maybe that was a mistake?"

Eddie groans, dropping his head back. "I shouldn't have said that. I didn't mean it."

"Maybe you should tell Buck that."

"He's pissed at me."

"Seems mutual."

"Yeah," Eddie says, wry and still kind of irritated. But then he sighs. "You ever do something where you know the whole time you're doing it that it's going to blow up in your face, and somehow that still doesn't stop you?"

"Yep," Hen says, remembering a dark little motel room and the sharp cut of Eva's smile. A whole damn pile of fuck-ups, that relationship was, and she dragged it along with her to almost ruin the best thing in her life.

"I keep thinking I see Shannon. It's like she's just around the corner, like if I turn around fast enough, she'll be there, and I'll be able to go back and make it right. But I can't."

"No. You can't."

"It's been five fucking years."

"No timeline on grief."

"I went on a date with a woman just because she looked like her." Hen raises her eyebrows at him. He slouches lower in his seat. "A couple of dates. It—didn't end well."

"Mm. You mean because she turned out to be a whole damn person who wasn't Shannon, or because your girlfriend found out?"

"Both," Eddie mutters. "Believe me, I already heard it from Buck."

"Oh, I believe it."

"But he's—" Eddie snaps his mouth shut.

"Kind of a hypocrite on this particular subject?" Hen offers.

"That's not what I was going to say. He's with Tommy now. So."

"So?"

"Never mind. It doesn't matter."

Hen would dearly love to interrogate that line of thinking, but she keeps her mouth shut. For a little while, they don't speak. It's a transient kind of peace; their next call could come at any minute. But for now, the city's as quiet as it ever is, lit up and beautiful in the distance.

Eventually, Eddie shifts in his chair, straightens up like he's bracing for something, then says, abruptly, "Can I ask you a personal question?"

Hen raises her eyebrows. "Go ahead."

"Have you ever been with a guy?"

"Excuse me?"

"Forget it," he says quickly, hunching in on himself again. "I don't even know why I asked. You can tell me to go to hell."

She almost does tell him to go to hell. Has her mouth open and everything. But then she takes another good look at his face and lets the words dissipate.

"No," she says finally. "Kissed a couple of boys in high school, but I pretty much always knew it wasn't for me."

"Oh." Eddie's mouth twists. He's still staring a hole in the concrete by his feet, and Hen wishes like hell that this was easier for him, that he could have stumbled into it with wide eyes and open arms without leaving a trail of wreckage in his wake. Buck managed it, but it's not like that for everyone. She knows that.

"Karen was engaged to a man, you know," she says, and she watches him still, watches him turn, finally, to look at her.

"I didn't know that."

"It was a long time ago. College sweetheart. She called it off a week before the wedding. Broke his damn heart, from what I hear. Probably better in the long run, though, all things considered."

Eddie laughs at that, a raw, horrible little sound. "I was a bad husband to Shannon. I loved her so much, and I still could never—and I always thought that maybe, if we'd just had more time, maybe I could have gotten it right, and we could have been a family again, and it would have been okay."

"But she died."

"She asked me for a divorce."

"Oh." Hen takes a breath, lets it out. Careful, careful. "I didn't know that."

"Nobody knows that. I mean. Bobby does. But nobody else. Because she died two days later, so I never had to—to tell anyone. I never had to admit it. I could keep pretending. But it doesn't even matter, because I've also fucked up every relationship I've been in since. So it's kind of obvious where the problem is."

"Mm. You know what my mama used to say?"

Eddie cuts her a look. "What?"

"Get down from that cross, we need the wood."

When he laughs this time, it sounds a little more real. Hen nudges her knee against his, and for a minute they sit there together in silence.

"I fucked up," he says again, but it's calmer.

"Yep."

"What the hell do I say to Buck?"

Not Marisol, Hen notes. Though the truth is she's pretty sure that whole relationship was dead and gone long before whatever went down this morning. Maybe from the very beginning. Eddie's just got a bad habit of dragging those corpses around. "Sorry might be a good start."

"He's gonna ask why. I don't have a good answer. I can't—" He looks over at her, and all Hen can think is that he looks so damn young. "I can't."

"So tell him that. You know he's not gonna push it."

"Yeah, he will."

"He's worried about you."

Eddie scoffs. "Yeah."

That was, Hen surmises what the fight was about in the first place. Unstoppable force, immovable object. Sometimes she wishes she could just knock their stubborn heads together until they showed some sense.

"He loves you," she says, and Eddie flinches.

"I know that," he mutters.

Hen sighs. "Just talk to him. You don't have to tell him anything you're not ready to tell him, but just—talk to him. Okay? For all our sakes."

"Yeah, okay," Eddie says, sounding defeated. "Sorry about that."

"We'll survive," Hen says. She bumps her knee against his again, and they sit there together in silence, watching the city lights, until the bell starts going off below.

#911 #911 fic #eddie diaz #hen wilson #my fic

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devouringdevoutly · 2 months

Text

The Hound of Heaven

Summary: Whoever said that you can't fuck God clearly hasn't met Bada yet.

Note: There is no actual god in this fic, it's just straight up a world ran by the Devil. This is also biblically inaccurate as well so please don't stone me to death. Again, this is a work of fiction and does not reflect real life situations and relationships. Originally posted on ao3. CW: Smut, Church Sex, Confessional Sex, Vaginal Fingering, Fingerfucking, Cunnilingus, Demon Sex, Oral Sex, Semi-Public Sex, Religious Guilt, Catholic Guilt, Catholicism, Cheating, Implied/Referenced Cheating, Lemon. Pairing: Bada/Reader Language: English Words: 1,897

Whoever said that you can't fuck God clearly hasn't met Bada yet.

That was the first coherent thought that had formed in my brain as her long fingers slid in and out of me, my warm and wet cavern welcoming her with so much exuberance you'd think I won the lottery jackpot. It sure did feel like that as I was cornered by her towering height and the wooden walls that the booth was made out of, all the while her snake-like tongue making sure she'd had enough of mine. I should feel disgusted by the way our mouths met. The way our tongues glided so ferociously that it made an obscene amount of wet noises that were clearly bouncing off the walls off the confessional booth. The way that my sap trickled down along my legs as Bada mercilessly continued on fingering me. The booth that was once used to repent one's sins was now used to make one after the other.

I should probably feel burdened by the weight of the situation I was in but who cares? My mind and body was stuck in a limbo named Bada.

Her hands then roamed to my now bare breasts as she had managed to rip off my brassiere and the white sundress that I wore earlier, was now practically holding onto its dear life as it was solely held by Bada sandwiching me between her and the wall. She then squeezed and fondled my left bosom, my nipples were already hardening by the cold air hitting it. I let out an elicit whine that even I didn't know I could make and my back arched against the wall like a frightened cat.

Bada's mouth had now reached my right nipple, her tongue flickered back and forth as I moaned like a bitch in heat and I could feel her physically smirk through it. Both of her hands were more than preoccupied, her left hand was groping my left tit and her thumb was playing with my bud, all the while her right hand was still pumping deep inside of me; making sure that she curls her fingers every once in a while but purposely never hitting the spot so as to deny me of reaching my high anytime soon.

She finally pulled back from tantalizing my sore nipples and she eventually stopped pumping my equally sorely soaked cunt. I whined at the loss of contact as Bada's tall figure leaned onto me.

"I wonder if your wimpy god-fearing boyfriend knows how much of a whore his girlfriend truly is…" She says with a shit eating grin, I swallowed the lump in my throat as I didn't feel any sort of guilt for betraying him… I knew that even Judas did feel a tremendous amount of guilt as he had sold the blood of Christ for a mere thirty silver coins. I knew that the moment I had planted my lips against Bada's, that the Devil had penetrated into every part of my being as he did so with Judas Iscariot.

Nevertheless Jesus had already forgiven him before he even committed his sin, perhaps that idiotically pious of a Christian man will forgive me too if there is anything to be forgiven in the first place. If that is the case then I'll gladly break bread and be consumed by her as his disciples did in the last supper, every intrusion that she had made inside my walls was a carving of our covenant.

I already had my bite of the forbidden fruit and there was no turning back to the Garden of Eden.

"Stop talking about that twat and just fuck me already will you?" I groaned out as my hole clenched and unclenched around her fingers. I knew that my words were as insolent as our actions were. Father, will you forgive me for this rotten curiosity of mine? or will you banish me as you had with Lilith and Eve?

"Demanding much? I'm sure you already know that you're the one at my mercy here, angel." Her cocky tone had only gotten me wetter and my cunt pulsed as fast as my heartbeat did. Bada's smile turned wider, almost menacingly as she had clearly noticed my reaction to her degrading words. My mind was in a haywire, my vision was turning hazy as I could see the face of God in the Devil's body. Why did God make the devil's advocate painstakingly handsomely gorgeous if he didn't want me to dive into the river Styx?

"You like that hmmm?" Her thumb pressed meanly against my clit. She knew exactly what she was doing, the pet name? Angel of all things after calling me a whore? I let out another whine as my cunt's lips fluttered.

"Fuck… if you only knew how much I wanna fuck you on the altar… Fuck you in front of those foolish devotees singing words of praise to their equally foolish god. Make you cum with my mouth as they sing lamb of god or whatever the fuck they cry out in these futile masses." She crooned out as she rested her head against my neck and continuously drove three of her fingers inside my plump sopping cunt. Her staggering breath tickled my neck with every word that she had sermonized. I knew she would've done it if I just didn't have a reputation to keep, as if fornicating in a confessional booth was a last act of mercy on her part.

I knew that I was reaching my peak with every thrust Bada had propelled and she knew it too. The ascend to my peak was immediately put to a stop as Bada had other plans in mind. She quickly pulled her fingers out of me, leaving me with a pathetic gaping hole. My resolve had been long gone and my knees were absolutely weak, threatening to give up on me at any moment.

In a swift movement I was easily lifted by Bada and was placed on the velvet cushion of the enclosed box's seat like some ragdoll.

She seized hold of my feet and placed a chaste kiss on it before kissing the entirety of my legs, from my sole to my thighs. It was an intimate moment as if she was almost offering a prayer of thanks before she started to devour every bit and piece of me.

She stretched out her hands and deftly parted my legs like the red sea, I could see her devious grin as she had finally a closer and more intimate view of my aching fleshy cunt. I knew that I was embarrassingly wet and that I was absolutely sore but I didn't dare look down as I was afraid to meet her eyes and see what she had done to me.

"Look at me." Bada said in a benign but firm manner, quite the contrast as she had grabbed my face forcefully and for a moment I was confused. Why the sudden tenderness? Bada's firm hand let go of my jaw before she dove into my ocean of wetness, her forked tongue slithered inside of me like a snake. I couldn't hold myself back anymore as I moaned loudly within the confines of the wooden booth, both sides of her tongue were able to move on their own accord and it just gave her a better aim at her insistent prodding. Bada didn't dare to cover up the noises I made anymore as the ongoing mass was clearly about to end, the people in their assigned seats were standing to give praise to the Lord.

Her tongue kept on ambushing both my lips and cavern, my tears of pleasure had now mixed with the sweat that I've accumulated with how steamy the enclosed space had gotten. I could smell the scent of sex and oak mixing together creating a musk. Somehow my senses were heightened once Bada had started eating me out, I was now conscious of the noise from the outside almost taunting me that we weren't safe from being walked in on by a random passerby.

Bada's gaze met mine, as if her foxy calculating eyes pierced through every part of my being. My eyes were hazy from my tears and I could definitely feel myself getting there.

And with one last skillful flick, I pressed her further into my cunt by grabbing onto her hair. I came hard on her tongue, filling her mouth with so much cum that it dropped down to her chin. I lustily moaned as the churchgoers outside had finally reached the chorus of the song, their harmonious high pitched singing had covered up mine. Bada had finally lifted her head and I looked at her just with a stupefied yet content daze.

She finally sat up from her kneeling position before grabbing my face and roughly pressing our lips together. She kept much of my cum inside of her mouth before forcefully transferring it into mine, making me swallow and taste myself whole. My eyes widened before accepting my fate as I swallowed all of it without any defiance.

Bada kept our tongues in a languid movement until she could feel that I was running out of breath. Our mouths have finally parted ways and I could feel some sense of shame brewing inside of me but it was quickly interrupted by the clap of unison from the crowd, indicating that the mass has finally ended. I took multiple breaths before gathering the strength to pick up my discarded underwear and fix my dress up as Bada did the same for herself. I stood by the door, hesitating, leaving my hand and heart too heavy to open to unlock the doorknob and end this affair with the Devil herself.

I took a final deep breath before opening it but Bada suddenly grabbed my wrist.

"Where do you think you're going my sweet cherub?" Her voice had a hint of malice and possessiveness in between lines, she raised an eyebrow and looked at me suspiciously. I looked at her a bit dumbfounded.

"H-home?" My voice trembled as I whispered my answer, I was unsure of myself where I was heading to either. I felt absolutely lost as my mind was now clear of any trace of lust and desperation, the realization dawning on me that I had just sold myself to the Devil for a mere exchange of ineffable pleasure that I was only to experience just once in my life.

Bada grinned mischievously as she pulled me to her chest before she pressed her mouth against my ear.

"You're coming with me." She whispered as her voice had dropped and shifted into something a lot more sinister sounding.

I stood frozen in shock, I could feel my breathing pattern falter with each and every second passing by. I had come face to face with the Devil and willingly danced with her.

I was finally faced with the cold hard truth that I had left the Garden of Eden long ago. I had laid with her under the thorny olive branches of Gethsemane. I had fed the evil with every bit of my purity in its wake. I had now buried every living being in me, I was now bound to her for eternity, unable to suffer the fruit of Eve's mortality.

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rel124c41 · 3 months

Text

BITCH CAME BACK. vox

You leave the VoxTek tower at 3 P.M. and return to it at 3 A.M.

Vox likes to think you would never betray him like that.

tags: established relationship, bodyguard, relationship issues, implied/referenced sex, big brother is watching complex, canon typical violence, unhealthy coping mechanisms, & fist fights

word count: 8,626

It is not cheating.

He chooses to believe it is not cheating.

No matter what Valentino whispers about you being unsatisfied in bed; no matter what Velvette teases about how you always leave behind your phone; no matter what his derailing mind starts to image (some muscular hellhound, incubus, sinner, overlord, defined biceps gripping your thighs and –) in his most calamitous moments: Vox chooses to believe you do not leave VoxTek tower to go cheat on him.

Relationships are built on trust. That principle rule is often why relationships fail in Hell. Trust from sinful liars was as valuable as a rock painted gold. In Hell, trust comes from blood signatures and thumping, electric green deals. You and Vox were not bound through these standard demon methods. No contractual deals, you outlined early on, just verbal agreements.

You and Vox did have a certain verbal agreement: three little words. Whispered into the drool spot on his pillow, bleeding from your mouth when you two collided in kisses, breathed on your wrist when you found him hunched and tired in his office, flashing on your cell’s screen, and written on his hand. That was the deal.

Though, Vox muffles a curse into his pillow, you certainly have been saying those words less now.

He moves his monitor off the pillow surface when the rain of the shower ebbs. When you came in, the scent he had picked up on you was thankfully not sex. Instead the scent of metallic blood clung to you like amber honey on a bear’s mouth. Your signature scent. Vark and his hammerhead brother were drawn to how deeply the smell was oiled and shampooed into your skin. Violence: a perfume tailored for you.

A hair-dryer starts up in the bathroom and Vox stops busying himself with sharpening the metal of his claws.

Still, even if sex was not a present scent, that didn’t mean you did not have it. The dark part of him stirs like a hive of bees. Foreplay for you is like a mimic of lions fighting a buffalo to eat her child. His purchases of new screen protectors and bandages increased when you two first kickoffed a relationship. So scent is not a good thing to completely go off on –

The sound of water returns. Ah, the sink faucet. Buried under the first sound, he can hear the tiny scrub of a toothbrush. Light leaks under the closed door. If you kiss him tonight (he hopes you will), he would be grateful for the smell of mint on your teeth. Mint and iron. Mint and iron and the possible burial of body sweat, sex.

You left VoxTek tower at 3 P.M. – in the middle of a weekday before anyone working there would dare to clock out – and then you returned to your shared bedroom at 3 fucking A.M. He should zap the information out of you.

It’s not cheating; it’s not cheating; it’s not cheating.

The bathroom door clicks open. A towel is thrown around your neck. Already dressed in your pajamas, a simple billowing pair of sweatpants and socks, you make your way over. Tiptoeing even though you know he is awake.

At the ping of you entering the building through surveillance cameras, Vox had started to gradually stir. He could not fake being asleep. As soon as the black on his monitor melted away to reveal blue, you knew he was awake. There is no acknowledgement of him from you. No hi honey or night Vox. And his face brightness is not dimmed below seventy percent so you know he is awake. Azure lighting filtering over sheets and floating in the air, you pull back covers to sink into bed, shirtless as was your habit. You turn your back to him, which has regrettably become a new habit.

He tracks his eyes over the canvas of your back. On it, mauve and ebony bruises are speckled. They are like lily-pads in a dark lake or a thousand eclipses lighting up a dark sky. Never an absence of bruises with you. Across the canvas, there are bisecting marks of sharp claws not made by him that cause him some stress.

Vox remembers once connecting all your bruises into constellations, shapes of animals and faces and other things, post-aftercare scrambling up his wires and guiding him do something so sinfully, sentimentally human. He remembers your laughter and whines at his cold claws on warm skin. Remembering not in a human way but in an electronic way, memories always fresh in his mind, recorded.

You were like a virus. The most prominent memories he has are ones with you.

Blue light slimes over your skin. Vox dims his screen in hopes you might turn towards him. No luck. He lifts up one sharpened claw to drag a line shaped like a cleft note from bruise to bruise. He goes to —

“Stop that. It hurts.”

He goes to do nothing. Defeated, Vox returns his hand underneath his pillow. Why are you acting like this? Why were you doing this to him? You must feel his eyes scrutinizing on the cusp of your shoulder. Moving, you do something that takes that dark, calamitous part of Vox and squeezes it like a dog clamping his teeth around a squeak toy, all the ink spilling over and soaping up his systems.

You inch to the edge of the bed, so close to falling off that you might as well leave altogether.

It’s not cheating. Vox rolls over and tries to sleep without dreaming.

You are a hired bodyguard for Valentino. Out of the ten bodyguards employed, you are closest to Valentino. Though you do not flank your boss all hours nor all week, you are seen most in the public eye out of the others employed to protect this pompous moth prince. This is because you are so efficient at your job.

It was that efficiency that drew Vox to even glance in your meaningless, background direction.

For a sinner demon, your physical appearance does not often stir up anything for anyone. Your employer did give you lipstick tubes a few times and perfumes for you to try. If Valentino said you had potential, he wanted you to embrace it. You politely declined but kept your gifts. To be honest, you are very plain. Your hellish form was disfigured to give the mimicking resemblance of an oni, a yokai, but most human features remained.

You had two physical differences that Valentino nettled you on showing off. One: golden spirals running down your arm like kintsugi art; two: a set of heavy, crimson horns growing from your temples. Every first of the month, Valentino mourned your horns.

January first, February first, March first, April first, and so on, you would grind down your horns. Equipped with a hacksaw and then a sander, it was a routine task for you. What could have grown gorgeously into carmine bighorn sheep’s horns were ruined to Valentino’s grief. You snipped them away like a disgruntled gardener. Like two red tree stumps, your horns sat on your head.

You went through with this cosmetic change for two reasons. You could not stand the look of a demon on yourself. Your horns were so heavy that they often disturbed how you moved.

“I could not kill your enemies if I am toppling over due to the heft of my horns,” you told Valentino and he conceded.

So unburdened by that obstructing weight, you did your job remarkably and accidentally captured Vox’s eyes. Sparked him, you joked. And then he came to agree and would say you shocked his heart – which often left you with warm cheeks. A relationship built all because someone grew obsessed over a pornstar and felt owed a performance, thus deciding to take it out on Valentino at one of his clubs.

It was nothing remarkable. You were not intimidated by the demon’s size despite the Vees awe. It was simply your job to do. If someone threatened Valentino, a bodyguard needed to react.

“But a runt like you being able to take down someone like that. What a treat you are, (Name)!” Sharp teeth flirted with you and the moth kissed your bloody cheek when it was all done.

You were not small in stature like an imp. You retained your human height. However, some sinners grew with the hellish transformation. Thus, a 7’ 6” demon was a spectacle against you who was very obviously not reaching that. Though, your hellish transformation had selected a different prowess of your physical form to alter: your strength. Fondly, you reflect on that day.

“Mr. Valentino! Sir!”

Valentino blinks behind his heart-shaped glasses. In front of him, the head of the sinner woman he was talking to gained a third eye. Valentino only blinks because as she slumps lifeless to the ground, her drink slashes on him, causing him mild stress. Then, he blinks a second time as you grab him by the waist, spinning him off the leather booth, a hole suddenly appearing in the exact spot his back was reclined on.

His lips upturn into a smile, amorous pinks and warm amber lighting raining down on his features. How theatrical you are! He mourns when your hands slide off his waist as you jump in from the shadows to do your job.

He distantly hears Velvette curse. She was sitting on his left so it is only natural she would be startled, so close to when the gunshots were fired. Valentino watches as you jump down from the high platform where the three Vees were sitting and watching the night’s performance before being rudely interrupted.

The demon is easy to make out in the crowd, Carmine-manufactured gun raised in his hand, standing at a height perhaps only three feet smaller than Valentino himself. He is not standing for long. You vault yourself over a table, kicking him down to a height you can reach and starting to take care of your job. Now, this is not as good as the performance on the stripper pole but is not half bad.

“Vox. Light,” Valentino says, turning to his right where the television demon is in a similar state as Velvette, but collecting himself. A cigarette hanging from a long cigarette holder is waved momentarily in his face.

“Thank you,” Valentino says and, smoking, watches.

There are a million tools you could be using – glasses from any of the nearby tables, the arm of a leg chair, Valentino knows you are skilled enough to grab the gun laying two yards across the club floor to finish this job. Yet, all you do is punch and punch, enjoying and savoring your job.

Raising your fist by your head, launching it down into the demon’s face. Again and again and again. Valentino watches with great delight how the speed at which the demon’s legs fail miserably underneath you wans off from panicked kicks to tired scuffling. Your knuckles are recolored. You raise back up your fist. You launch it back down into the concave space you are making. There is a nose, underneath that is a gorey sunken mess, underneath that is a disconnected, bottom jaw. The crimson warmth coating and nuzzling into your hand is a welcome feeling. You miss it dearly when the body underneath you eventually stills.

With a push, you stand back on your feet and start towards Valentino. He raises one of his four arms out to you – the upper right one drawing you in as he spins you excitedly on the platform. Valentino dips you and kisses you on the mouth, giving you the courtesy of blowing out his smoke first.

“Well done!” He pulls you back up into a standing position.

“It is my job, Mr. Valentino.” Your voice is monotone which isn’t too entertaining but it does not dampen Valentino’s cheer. “No need for praise.”

Your gaze briefly flicks over to the couch. Genuine scolding burns you up inside while looking at the hole in the leather booth, should have been quicker. You startle when you see one of Valentino’s associates staring at you. Was the television demon named Vel or Vox? Doesn’t matter.

Hating being ignored, a finger on your face tilts your gaze back to the heart-shaped glasses. Valentino leans down, humming at the side of your face when some gore must have billowed up from the mess you were making. “But a runt like you being able to take down someone like that. What a treat you are, (Name)!” Sharp teeth flirt with you and the moth kisses your bloody cheek; all of it done and all of it set in motion.

You will never know Heaven. After some tears, skin punched off your knuckles, and snowflakes of broken glass, you accepted this. You will never know Heaven and its comforts. This is a second Heaven.

Red rivers waterfalling over and down trembling fingers. Warm pain of a bruise kissing into an ankle or wrist like an amorous cat. A crack as the cartilage of bone is split like a pencil. Skin rubbed off like latex on a scratch ticket to reveal bone, blood, and fat. Bitten tongues elongating into red syrup; a black gap in the military cemetery of teeth; an eye rolling on the ground in a morbid game of golf. Blood and injury, a frequent lover of yours. All these wonderful experiences and sensations: backdropped by the sound of sinisterly supportive cheers from imps and sinners.

Your chance of redemption. Smoke billows off your lip and past your bloody nose. This is a chance to feel what Heaven could possibly be like. Redemption and honor made possible through violence, something you have known for a long time. A moral as ingrained in you as the gold rivulets falling down your arms.

Fiddling with your cigarette with your tongue, you busy yourself with wrapping white around your hands. Over the left and diagonal across the right – like a child practicing tying their shoes.

You finish your work, checking your compression is tight, when the door opens and a muscular hellborn demon with defined biceps walks in. “(Name).”

“Yeah?”

“Only three more minutes.”

“Got it.”

Vox will never know Heaven. This is nothing that causes him any grief. During his entrance into the realm – before he set up contracts, set up VoxTex, set up a reign of control – it had been a heavy stone to lay with until erosion crumbled it down to a pebble. He will not know Heaven; so fucking what?

He put so much stock in his business that it would be unfortunate for him to be pulled into heavenly gates. This was Heaven, not a second Heaven but Heaven itself. In the military march of obedient corporate slaves, a hymn. With the simple spiral of his right eye, he could get people to revere him. Proverb 15:3 says: the eyes of the Lord are in every place (every cellphone, house security system, every television and computer), beholding the evil and the good. Alastor gone and probably buried somewhere, Vox was on top of his game. Heaven was perfect until you started acting so strangely.

Something dark stirs in him in his news studio. His brain and eyes are wired to every device in the room. Vox turns from talking with the camera operator, words automatic as if they were pre-recorded. Even when you are concealing yourself in shadows, he can see you and when you step out of them, he wants to watch.

“Sir, is this a correct height for the trucking?”

“No, you’re doing it wrong,” Vox says without even turning his body to check the camera’s position.

His attention is raptured by you. As it always is. Woefully, he watches as you talk with Valentino in the corner, before another bodyguard with defined muscles, puts a hand on your shoulder. Vox does not even try to hide the abhor spark that flicks over him. He could hear everything perfectly from Valentino’s phone but it is nothing of use. You switch out a shift and are letting your boss know that you are clocking out. Simple, quotidian activities. Nothing of use to try and decipher where you go.

This is Heaven, Vox reminds himself, standing in Hell.

“Five hundred, nineteen.”

The room tilts and billows.

“Five hundred, twenty.”

There is something about pain that is so satisfying to you.

“Five hundred, twenty-one.”

If you could stay in pain, it would be as beneficial as a plant in sunlight.

“Five hundred, twenty-two.”

You – You, huh? – You turn your head to the side slightly. Blue light fruitlessly hides from you. Oh, he is awake. Releasing the tension from your muscles, your feet take a slight drop to the ground. You can finish the last of your six hundred and sixty-six pull-ups at a later time, you relinquish.

Just as you grab yourself a shirt, Vox finally decides to speak. It is a tone as if he is trying to gauge which version of you he will receive today: your old self or your new self. “Morning.” He rises up from the pillow and smiles dubiously. “You still have a bit more than a hundred to go.”

You stare at him. In his expensive, personally tailored pajama button-up. Him, with the hesitation in his eyes. Vox. Your Vox. Who despite the distance you have carved out, you are still incredibly fond of. You pull the shirt down over your abdomen and say, “Morning.” Slowly, you take a lazy walk to the side of your shared bed. “How do you feel,” you ask as you plant yourself down.

“Definitely felt better before,” he grins lopsided, trying to flash on some boyish charm. “Think you almost dislocated my shoulder.”

“Sorry.”

“Don’t be. I liked it.”

“Still, it’s not right of me.”

“...” Vox runs a hand up and down your thigh before lifting it up onto the bed.

“What is the agenda for today?”

“Let’s see. Marketing team has a change of manager which is gonna be a bitch to handle; we have a mid-morning segment to do on Velvette’s love potion; I have a 2 o-clock, a 4 o’clock, then a 5 o’clock; today is Friday so another Vox-2-Nite is scheduled. And that is all planned without any wiggling room. So if just one thing goes wrong –” At the mere thought, his voice starts to drop in octaves, prematurely vexed. World never seems to stop spinning, even when being below it.

“Sounds dreadfully long. Are you sure your charge will hold on through it?”

“I scheduled a fifteen minute break in there … somewhere.”

“Ah, yes, Vox’s infamous fifteen breaks. Ones that always get pushed off until the end of the day.”

“They aren’t so infamous when I have you there, forcing me to take company-policed hour breaks … You really have to stop doing that.”

“Well, you’ll have to trudge through today without me or an hour break. Valentino has me booked today, honey.”

“That fucking bastard,” Vox shimmers, cursing Valentino, and you offer a timid chuckle. You trail a calming hand up and down his arm. Throughout the conversation, he and you had fallen into the lotus sex position – just awfully more clothed and less sexy– one of the numerous you two had been tangled into last night.

Last night … your mind cannot help to wander to it and not fun wandering either. Two awful images keep spinning in your mind. One: the image of you grabbing his upper arm in the cowgirl position only to push too hard and hear a sickening crack from his shoulder, his screen malfunctioning. Thank your lucky star, it was just air bubbles. Two: in the middle of your rendezvous, the image of his screen turning black because you had taken talons and dug them amorously into his abdomen, your passionate action almost punctuating his colon.

You kiss under his monitor when Vox rests his chin onto your head, feeling the warmth of electronic currents mimicking a bloodstream long since retired. You let him stay that way for a while, enjoying his presence. It is a little better than finishing up those pull-ups.

“Hey, are we alright?”

Spoke too soon.

You stone up in his arms like a garden statue – ah, his arms. He has thought ahead and wrapped his arms around you, forbidding you from escaping this question. Well, you can still escape as you had no contract requiring you to answer his questions. Avoidant kisses are speckled past his poorly buttoned-up pajama top.

“(Name).”

At the stern tone coating him saying your name, you bite into his blue-tinted collarbone. Vox is expecting this so he does not even groan at the fresh assault on an already bruised neck. He lets you fight shy of this heavy conversation through your physicality. His pride is quite grand when he does not moan as you attack his particularly sensitive spot, just in the space between the vagus nerve and jugular vein.

“(Name).” You sweat cold when you realize Vox’s voice is still controlled and level, absent of a single glitch.

“Yes, honey?”

“Are we alright?”

“Why wouldn’t we be,” you avoid the question with a question and start to unbutton his pajama top.

“Because you’ve been leaving –” his voice glitches, just a slight temperament, but you jump onto the break in his words.

“Hey, Valentino’s working on,” you press a kiss to his dead heart, “on this new segment in his porn. And it’s got,” you bite down lightly on his nipple, “this really hot position in it,” you scold yourself when your fingers mess up on a button, “called the Valedictorian. I think we should try it.” You celebrate when you manage to undo the last button by sucking on Vox’s nipple.

“(Name).”

At least this time, when your name is said, Vox’s voice is wobbling. And, thus the arms around you are less like a steel cage and more like fragile icicles. Honestly, you could have broken out any time but you would rather slip out of his arms with humane strength.

And Valentino comes to the rescue twice in this eventful morning. Mentioned in name and then showing up in the ring of your phone. Vox is in such an amorous state that he only disconnects the incoming call after the third ring which means its presence has been heard and cannot be ignored.

“(Name).”

This time he says your name mournfully. You place a parting kiss to his throat. From his fragile arms, you slip away. “Duty calls,” you say and then leave as you have done for weeks now.

EXPANDING THE VEES REIN.

That is what the agenda for today’s meeting is, highlighted in bold in the most professional serif font, Times New Roman, and thrown up onto screen behind Vox’s chair. He had wrestled with that for a while, foolishly feeling like the intern he once was in the living world. Not that Valentino or Velvette would appreciate it. Crumpled papers littered his personal bedroom, alliterations and homophones scrapped. Absent from his usual sounding-board (your spot in bed empty), he had decided after frying his favorite mug that simple and cut-to-the-point was the way to go.

Expanding the Vees rein: how can they go about that, the next slide asked to a group of two. Well, don’t damage your dead brain too hard by thinking of that alluring question; Vox was already supplying the answers and then the execution. And he readily rambled on about it:

“Now this little beauty is called SPID. It stands for spider parodying intellect-gathering device. Spied and spider, see? The task of the SPID would be to lock onto anybody’s potential target, infiltrating homes and creating a web of information through this lens. If we refer back to slide thirty-three, we can see the previous success of –”

“Vox.”

The Overlord screeches to a halt. Not really paying attention if either Velvette or Valentino were paying attention, his name being said catches him by surprise. His claws pierce gently into the plastic molded around the spider device in his hand. The SPID is just one of the dozen he has brought in, all masquerading under the purpose of Expanding the Vees Rein.

A snarl appears on his screen. “Yes, Velvette?”

“How long have you and (Name) been together?”

It gives the Overlord pause for a moment. Gently, he takes his claws out of the back of the mechanical spider. Letting the tiny creature join the others on the conference table, Vox grumbles, “eight months, one week, three days.”

He onlys that so precisely because he has a detailed timeline of everything since his fall. Give him a precise date and year, no matter how far away, and he could tell you exactly what he had for breakfast. His memory was pristine.

“Isn’t that enough time for you to trust them? And enough time where we don’t have to sit through your spiraling insecure bullshit?”

With a laugh: “As you can see, Velvette, this meeting is the betterment of the Vees. If one does not always expand his monopoly, he leaves himself vulnerable to be subdued by another monopoly. Sooo – as I was saying, this spider is going to help us –”

“He’s just being pissy because he doesn’t have his little bebito/a under contract.”

The spark of electricity that flies over Vox’s entire body is violent. Volatile energy pulses in the air as formidable as a gun. This time (because he had already picked back up the spider) the SPID dies with a crunch in Vox’s claws. All eight legs twitch in the tiny thunderstorm inside Vox’s grasps. Vox is envisioning crushing a different insect though.

“Neither do yOU.”

“I might not have their soul, but I have their loyalty. Do you?” Vox can tell by the grin pulling up Valetino’s lips that he finds this remarkably humorous. Very pleased at himself that he knows something the Vox doesn’t.

“You FUCKING –”

“Hahahaha!”

They never get to go over the additional twenty-seven slides Vox had slaved over the night before.

“Mr. Valentino? Sir?”

The strap of your duffle bag is choked by uneasy hands. When the door had opened in the back alley of Voxtek’s towers, you had admittedly jumped like a startled cat and screamed like a kid on a rollercoaster. Even when greeting the familiar face of your boss, you are still a little nervous.

“Do you need me for something, Sir?”

Though you are off the clock, so Valentino really should not be down here. In the dirtiest part of the towers, in a small sliver of space ignored by security cameras. Which makes your apprehension completely valid.

“Can’t a man enjoy a smoke, bebito/a?” The uneasy wilts out of you as he pulls his cigarette holder from somewhere.

“Of course, Sir. I will leave you to it.”

“No, stay. That other demon is such a sloppy bodyguard.”

“Oh.”

“Light?”

“Of course, Sir.”

You take your place next to Valentino, his shadow. Looking down at the duffle bag, you judge that you can be a bit late. It is not like –

“Dunhill. Refined cigarettes, cinnamon and suet.” Pink smoke billows off tiny fire, slurring up into the air in the shape of sweet Valentine candy. It never fails to impress you with how delicately opulent it looks. “You know, the best cigarette is the first cigarette in the morning. The untouched, virgin cigarette after a night starved of them. Very new. Very Dunhill.

“I do not like owning second hand garbage, (Name).”

You feel your heart beat faster just a few seconds. That tone of voice is one you have never had directed at you. The straps of your duffle bag cry for release as you strangle them in a worried grip. “I’m aware, Sir.”

“Typically, when you get out of the hole, you do not go crawling back to it.”

“Yes, typically not, Sir.”

You two fall into silence. Where Valentino luxuriously leans against the brick wall, you fall back and dig your shoulders into the brick, making sure to feel the pain and burn of a bruise. At this moment, you can feel your heartbeat under the skin of your throat. You are sure Valentino can hear it too with how he is prolonging drags off his cigarette. Typically, you were not so afraid of Valentino – even now, your fear stems from the thought of Vox instead of Valentino. You wrestle with the thought of the repercussions if Vox knew you were crawling back into that hole as your boss said.

“Answer me this.” Smoke waterfalls off his lips and you look up. The Overlord slowly takes off his heart-shaped sunglasses and bends his height. “Are you being summoned there?”

“No, Sir,” you answer with your untethered soul still inside you, pounding away on your ribcage.

“Hm.” Straightening up to his height, Valentino smiles and puts back on his sunglasses. “Good.”

It is not cheating, Vox reminds himself as he hops from television in stores windows to telephone wire to smart watches. Those four words are a fire blanket coating over his damned soul. They keep him from exploding in fiery rage. Even when he reaches a point where he has reached the last electronic he can use, he repeats that … ugh, prayer … in his head. Sparking out of a telephone wire, Vox stands formidable on the ground, energetic from his frustration.

Then, he tries diligently to shrink and draw less attention to himself.

His screen brightness is dimmed to a submerged 16 percent, all of his notifications are thumbed over to off, and a gray hoodie is zipped over his red-and-black striped waistcoat: all the preparations for this espionage set into place. He had done exceedingly well keeping out of your sight while keeping you in his sight. Head down, Vox follows around the last corner you took.

Every city has its bad areas. Pentagram City has managed to exceed the limits for a bad area quite impressively here. He has to side-step some monstrous activities he would rather soon forget. The depth of red liquid staining his shoes would put to shame a wade in a cranberry bog. Violence swims in the air like a body fragrance.

There is a hole in the world like a great black pit and the vermin of the world inhabit it and its morals aren’t worth what a pig could spit. Vox recounts you saying that once; he pulls up the recording in his files, listening to your voice in the back of his head. Perhaps you have meant here rather than Hell.

Waiting thirty minutes inside telephone wires after you went in was painful. He had boiled over with the anxious energy of just wanting to follow you shoulder to shoulder. He knew better. So while watching you go down a flight of cement steps, past a black gate, into an apartment complex’s basement was like water in the wires, away from him, it was necessary. If you knew about his presence before he wanted to reveal it … well, he rather not clean up shit off fan blades.

This is just a simple check-up. An in and out operation. He just … He just needs to know what you are doing.

Vox cannot really wrap his head around why you are coming here. You are so much better than this cesspool – was it a kink of yours to socialize with the lowest of the low? Skirting around the gate and the door, he walks in uninvited.

No security checks? Really is the lowest of the low. Incredulous, Vox analyzes the place.

It is a lobby of sorts — a mock imitation of it and as close to organized as a hoarder’s house — and there is evidently a large gathering around a desk. There are some outliers standing to the sides of the room. To the far left are double doors, guarded by two well-built and muscular figures.

Black, jealous spirals appearing in his right eye, Vox turns back to the crowd to calm himself. This does not look like a sex dungeon but he can never be certain. He watched as people elect to shove knives into throats instead of shoving to move up into line. Receding into his body, he feels around for an electronic he can teleport in and out of.

Hm?

Hm.

No way.

There are zero electronics in this entire place. It gives Vox such whiplash he ogles at the place until he remembers to school his expression. No one even holds a phone in their back pocket. For the first time in his reign of control over technology, he cannot feel a single spark of anything.

Vox is knocked out of his stupor when some sinner pushes him, “fucking move or lose it, flat face.” and melts into the bloody crowd.

Metal claws curl up into his right palm. He schools that whet vehemence in his soul, knowing he sadly cannot cause a scene. No one knows of his presence. Probably the only praise-worthy factor of a town empty of technology. Joining into the crowd, Vox thinks on how he will find that sinner later. Electrocuting him until his eyes pour out of his sockets like rooibos tea is a calming image to feast on. His digital mind plots in great detail as he waits to reach the front.

— according to — the eutectic point, two solids have the same melting point, of the human skin and eyeball is — between 500 to 2000 volts kills — and saline — a sponge moistened with saline as a conductive jelly for electric currents — according to —

Vox is kicked out of his browsing of the internet when a phlegmy throat clears itself. He narrows his eyes in annoyance, finally stepping up to the seat of his mind and away from the waves of databases.

At least he was recording and listening to what others said before him: “I’ll have 80 on number 7.” Vox says, combining the numbers of two separate customers’ statements. Then, he pulls out his credit card from his slacks. Even under poor lighting, the ebony and gold surface shines pristinely.

The demon at the desk raises an eyebrow at him, “We don’t accept cards, newbie.”

They don't — huh! Even the Epirorium down in Cannibal Town accepted credit cards — credit cards were the most effective way to pay for anything! A quick transaction without the hassle of juggling coins and crumbled bills. He cannot help gritting his turquoise teeth in frustration.

“You cannot be serious.”

“No cards or phones. You’re already breaking one of the rules with that fucking Samsung you got as a head.”

“It’s a LG, not a Samsung.” He can feel his teeth grinding.

“I don’t give a fucking shit.” The demon deadpans. “Do you have any cash?”

Waste of space sinner; if his patience (his very small patience) keeps getting tested tonight, something is gonna go wrong. With a grumble, he searches around in his wallet. Credit card 2, credit card 3, credit card 4, a photo of you and him, credit card 5, cred— a measly five dollar bill. Slamming it down, Vox deepens the pitch and echo frequency of his voice, “Here you go. Five on number 7.”

Worthless piece of shit.

The demon clears their throat and then hands Vox his ticket. Knowing that is all he needs from observation, the Overlord makes a swift turn to the double door. What greets him is crowds upon crowds of sinners, imps, and hellborns. A stadium of sorts? Vox walks across the top floor, analyzing the circling structure of seats. No one is sitting in the seats but they cascade down in a cup-like structure into this eight foot drop where he can guess the entertainment is. Off the top layer floor, Vox finds a staircase and sedately starts walking down them. All the while he listens to the crowd:

“Kill them! KillthemKillthemKillthem!!”

“The stomach! Go for the stomach!”

“They’re getting destroyed out there. I bet my left eye on this, if they don’t win …”

“Cheater!”

So he was correct in assessing this was a gambling spot. A fighting arena of sorts … Vox thinks he is starting to get all the pieces put together when a loud voice, unamplified by any technology but still pristinely clear, yells, “THE WINNER!” The crowd explodes; Vox lowers his hearing and disturbs the charge into his eyes. His shoes click measured on the stairs. Metal claws grasp the railing and he leans forward, curious and suspecting.

“Announcing their one thousandth, two hundred and seventy-second win, it is our one and our only (Name)!”

Some skinny demon, smaller than Vox, raises your arm up by the wrist. The golden patterns on your biceps and latissimus glow like a fanning, spiraling wind-chime made of reflective metal. A Jason Pollock of red blood coats your body. Your hands however are thoroughly drenched in red, making the smaller demon’s grip unsteady and slipping. Your expression is tired and unsatisfied. Up and down, your chest rises in heavy pants. And though you look you could really use a nap, Vox thinks you still look stunning.

That is why Heaven felt so far away: in the news studio, in his bedroom, empty from the march of corporate slaves and the clicking keys’ symphony of obedience. Heaven followed after you.

“(Name).”

Like a dog, you growl around the material in your mouth. Why could he never leave well enough alone? Him and his annoying persistence to always be in your business like a second skin! When he starts pounding on the door, you kick it back hard in retaliation. Thump! Wood groans at the assault.

Glaring as your name is called again, you work. You had told him it would take five minutes and it had barely been two.

Forceps pinched between your teeth, you gently continue what you came in the restroom to take care of before your management interrupted. (Fuck, you were always under the thumb of someone, bending yourself to them always). Performing any type suture is vastly different when fake silicone skin was not geysering out a steady stream of blood. Pulling the needle holder towards yourself, you push your non-dominant away to lay the first knot. You watch as the loop of blue thread shrinks inch by inch. When the first knot is laid, you twist your hands to do the second knot.

“(Name)!”

“For fucks sake! I told you five minutes! Not two, not four! Five minutes!” You squeeze the forceps and needle holder in the same hand, harsh metal almost crushing under your grip. You have enough control to not break the tools you need to sew up your thigh. “Am I clear!”

“I don’t care how long it takes for you to get your rocks off. You come out right now. This crazy fan of yours is causing a fucking scene and I won’t have it. It’s either you or nothing.”

“You own the souls of thirty plus fighters! Get one of them to handle it!”

You look back down at your leg, trying to fruitlessly focus on your knots. Were you on the second or third?

Your management bristles and shouts back, door almost leaning into the bathroom with the weight of his frustrated voice, “you don’t think I’ve tried that! I don’t know how they managed to do it but no one landed a single punch on them. Like I fucking said, it’s either you or nothing.”

If you were not so equally frustrated, you would have taken a moment to absorb that information. Instead, only a fourth done with your interrupted sutures, you bite back, “unless they want me coming out there with my sweats down my ankles, tell them to fuck off!” You tried to keep profanity out of your words most of the time but this was too frustrating. Putting the forceps back in your mouth, you end the conversation.

There is a ghastly noise beyond the door. You startle on the toilet seat, the metal hurting your enamels with how your mouth tenses. It is the hollow thumping noise backgrounded by raining sizzles. There is a bloody cough. The raining sizzles billow then fall back, sound momentarily expanding then shrinking. A man’s electronic voice: “I’ve already seen that.” You bite the metal harder in denial.

“(Name),” Vox says.

Absent of your senses, your hands finally get the second knot tied – it is sloppy and unaligned to the first.

How? How did he possibly find this place? It is so off the grid of the Pride Ring that no maps or GPS know the name of it. It is a rumored place, absent of technology, that only the lowest of the low lived in. You have been so careful with triple checking your surroundings. No one on this side of town could afford a phone. No one on this side of town could afford to ever get out of it.

You will never forget meeting Valentino. Long ago, he seemed supernatural and uncanny. Luxury branded cologne burning your nose and pink cigarette smoke irritating your lungs. Everything, the affluent aspects of him, down to his self-possessed smile was something alien and frightening to a sinner like yourself who never experienced the sight of wealth.

Valentino had been right about it being a hole one would never want to crawl back into. Comparing past and present, you were comparing an orphan on the streets to a prince in the castle. It was obviously better to choose the laps of luxury you had fallen into, content and chesired.

Yet home called to you and you, the bitch, came back.

You stare hard at the bathroom door separating you and Vox. Blood runs down your left thigh to floors that have never seen a mop. If there is a way to downsize yourself into abysmal nothingness, you yearn for that ability. To shrink away … you wish you could. Slowly, you take the forceps out of your mouth and hold them tight in your lap. Seems like you are going to have to address the open wound.

“Vox.”

“Can I come in, doll?”

Two things. You wholeheartedly hate two things about his question. The nickname, doll, implying you could be anything like porcelain skinned dolls; then, the fake shyness in his voice, trying to seem meek when Vox is far from that. “No, you can’t. In fact, I think you should leave.” You can smell the mounting violence.

“(Name), please. I just want to know what the problem is.”

“There’s no problem. We’re fine.”

“If we were fine, you wouldn’t be here.”

“Well, I’m fine with me being here, so you’re just going to have to find it within yourself to accept that.”

You surmise this is it. This is going to be the first argument of the relationship. The catalyst of whether you two were going to spark with a negative or positive charge, growing or dying from this verbal fight. Physical fights are your raison d’etre. Now you shift to a wrestling ring. Amputated from the burden of your hands and left with your mouth. Eyes drawn to your lap, you are unsure if you are going to win this.

“You’re obviously upset over something.”

“I’m not.”

“(Name).”

“Vox.”

“Why can’t you – UGH!” You can tell by the start of his sentence it would erupt into volcanic static and electricity. All the hair on your arms and exposed thighs rise as he sends a wave of energy at something beyond the stall. Good. Physicality you can handle. You wait patiently for Vox to knock down the door. “Do you want us to be public?” Your body locks up, spine pressing hard into the manual flusher behind you. Why – Why is he trying to gauge what has you upset!

As you are reeling from his question, your mouth remains shut. Vox, taking silence as a negative, asks, “are you upset about my past with Valentino because we both have a past with him!” He jumps back when the door thumps and bends with the force of your kick. “Okay, wrong choice of words. Just – ugh! Are you upset about my past with Valentino?”

“I’m not upset over that.”

“Sinners don’t just leave their home from 3 P.M. to 3 A.M. unless they’re upset over something, doll.”

“I’m truly not upset over anything,” you insist. You really need to get back to your sutures before anything has the chance of getting infected. “Vox –”

“Okay, I’ll stop hacking into your phone!” He shouts in defeat.

“You'll stop what!” This time you kick without holding back any of your strength. The locking mechanism splinters down the middle like a wafer cracker. You feel a little victorious in this match when the door hits him in the shoulder, his startled jump just a bit too slow to avoid getting hit.

“Unholy fuck!”

“My phone,” you bite at him, eye to eye finally. Vox and his Big Brother is Watching complex is one of his worst traits. “You’ve been hacking into my personal phone like I told you never to do.”

“You told me never to do it because of trust. How am I supposed to trust you when you leave for twelve hours in the middle of random nights like you’re on a booty call schedule,” Vox bites back. His red sclera are pointed down, resembling the shape of orange slices with how deeply cut his glare is. Defensiveness is written into each twitch of his body.

“What, you thought I was cheating on you?”

“What else was I supposed to think!”

That shuts you up. Your temperature on your face rises with each inch of shame that eats at you … well what else was he supposed to think. The image of him, lying in your shared bed alone, head swimming with sharks of queries about your relationship, paints itself in your mind. Eyes down, you concede that that thought of cheating was warranted. Relationships are built on trust. That principle rule is often why relationships fail in Hell. Trust from sinful liars was as valuable as a rock painted gold. Cheating? … Yeah, you cannot blame him there.

“It’s none of that, Vox. I wasn’t upset about any of that and I’m not cheating on you.”

Even when you cannot look at him, he can tell by the frequency and pitch of your voice that you are telling the truth. A few advanced polygraph technology moves into his right eye, scanning you for any sign of a lie. “I would never cheat on you.” In your chest, your heart beats. Eighty-three beats per minute, completely at rest, completely truthful.

Vox feels awful, finishing up with analyzing your heartbeat. He feels like he has just given a public report wrong on live television and he can feel the social media downfall already materializing in the air; he feels sick to his stomach. And yet he is still mad because, “Why did you not talk to me about this?”

“I was ashamed; and a little scared.” You bite your cheek. “I was ashamed and scared about you finding this place for the longest time.”

Vox raises an eyebrow. “You think I would judge you for needing to blow off steam?”

“This place is beneath you. I know exactly what was going through your head when you entered here: this place is the worst of the bad or this place is the lowest of the low.” Vox inhales through gritted teeth and you know that you hit the bullseye. “I couldn’t just bring you here. You would have been disgusted. And … and that would have led to you eventually being disgusted by me.”

There it is. You guess that is all you really can give him. Still, Vox is looking at you like he does not understand you. He is probably deducing that his past self could have overlooked this revolting place like a lover overlooks an ugly birthmark or stretch-marks. This was not a minor impurity.

“I fell here.”

Understanding dawns upon Vox’s face like a gleam on sunrise. Falling … the spot where one fell was sentimental, perhaps not in fondness but certainly in a consequential way. A fool only dares to insult the spot where a sinner has fallen, their second home.

In a sinister way, this is a homecoming for you. And – sending a wary glance to the bathroom door while he leans into the stall – Vox has realized he committed an illicit act on the same par as perhaps punching your brother or sister. Even if you hated your co-workers?, the sentiment remains.

The live broadcast analogy is frivolous. Vox feels like he is an intern who just spilt coffee on the front of his boss’s suit a minute before the higher-up was scheduled for a momentail meeting. The burn in his stomach is paralyzing.

“I-I uh,” Vox stammers. Little sparks are jumping up his body like happy stars. Frustration that mistakenly looks playful. He moans out, “Fuck, (Name).” and leans heavily on the stall’s inside wall.

You chuckle humorously and finally look up. “Yeah. I know.”

“I guess I get … the secrecy now.”

“I’m sorry for not coming clean. Even if this is a really bad hole, it is my hole.” Vox smiles at you, fondly without his previous hesitation. You know by that smile alone that you two are going to survive your first argument. However, you do not want the conversation to shift away from the thesis. Now that you two have finally managed to start it, there is so much that you have to say. “Vox?” He stares in attention. “... We’ve become domestic, Vox.”

“That bad, doll?”

“It’s awful.”

“...”

“I worry – I worry all the fucking time – about hurting you.”

“I’m an Overlord, you’re a sinner. It is a little insulting that you would think –”

“But I do! Every minute, I just worry and worry,” you interrupt, pressing a hand to your chest to emphasize those words. All your hands have managed to do are kill and maim and injure. Fighting quelled your hands. You were positive that if you drained your hands to the point of exhaustion it would keep Vox from getting hurt. “I’ve never been gentle – I’m awful – and I –!”

Vox kneels down on unwashed ground, covered in blood and piss, in his freshly tailored, iron-pressed slacks. Your dead heart pounds at that.

Then, Vox says three little words that you two have decided to put the coin of trust into, paying the fare to a relationship that both of you wanted to keep. “Hey,” he says to snap you out of your thoughts. Then, as he slowly takes the tools out of your hands, Vox says, “I love you.”

“I love you too.”

As he helps you with your sutures, you still remember when Vox and you had finally said those three little words that built up your relationship. Your contract. One that in a way was not really a contract at all.

I love you. He had said that for the first time when you were checking his grammar for a broadcast. Highlighters and colored pens laid scattered on the ruffled sheets. You had been crossing out the tailing end of a sentence. Eight words stretched out when he only needed three to hammer home his point. You crossed out fifteen words in surprise. In Hell, he is akin to a shark and you are akin to a goldfish. Even so. Sometimes I think love and violence are the same thing. You had meant that as warning but he just leaned into you, biting your tongue when you two kissed.

Accepting that part of you.

#hazbin hotel x reader #hazbin hotel #vox x reader #hazbin hotel vox #hazbin hotel vox x reader

186 notes · View notes

onismdaydream · 4 months

Text

JUJUTSU KAISEN

YUJI ITADORI

↦ pervert yuji | drabble, afab reader

↦ pretty sounds | drabble, afab reader, sweet sub yuji

↦ strong and soft | drabble, gn reader, crossdressing, lingerie

↦ begging | drabble, gn reader, needy yuji, slight breeding kink

↦ ice, ice, baby | headcanon, gn reader, hockey player yuji, fluff/sfw

↦ playtime (ft. kento nanami) | drabble, afab reader, puppy hybrid reader, yuji taking care of nanami's puppy

↦ puppyboy | headcanon, afab reader, puppy hybrid yuji, slight breeding kink, yuji in rut

↦ thankful | headcanon, afab reader, stupid joke

↦ smile for the camera (vol 1) | drabble, afab reader, twt porn link, soft smut, handjob

↦ heeled | drabble, afab reader, feet/cock stepping, whipped yuji

↦ competition | drabble, afab reader, pseudo-incest, yuji and sukuna both want you

↦ slip of the tongue | drabble, afab reader, daddy kink

↦ eager | headcanon, gn reader, yuji cums easily and a lot

↦ pulsing | headcanon, gn reader, exhibitionism

↦ stamina | drabble, afab reader, implied multiple orgasms

↦ first kiss | drabble, afab reader, incest, younger brother yuji, no explicit smut

SATORU GOJO

↦ cocky | drabble, gn reader, pain slut gojo, sub gojo

↦ fucked out | drabble, gn reader, trans gojo

↦ teasing touch | drabble, implied afab reader, sub gojo, dildo, twt porn link

↦ free use | drabble, gn reader, sub gojo, free use kink, edging

↦ sensitive | headcanon, gn reader, pain slut gojo

↦ sweet like candy | fic, afab reader, slight sub gojo, gagging

↦ the moon and all the stars | drabble, gn reader, pining satoru, fluff/sfw

↦ just a kiss | drabble, afab reader, stepcest, perv gojo, clothes stealing

↦ needy | drabble, gn reader, sub gojo, slight bondage

↦ sharing | drabble, gn reader, making out

↦ watching | headcanon, afab reader, cucking, gojo's friends mentioned

↦ taking a hit | drabble, afab reader, somnophilia

↦ go fuck yourself | fic, gn reader, implied sub gojo, dildo

↦ wanna see him | drabble, gn reader, discussion of cucking/yuji

KENTO NANAMI

↦ all tied up | drabble, gn reader, light bondage, nanami is the one getting bound, oral (m rec.)

↦ smile for the camera (vol 1) | drabble, afab reader, twt porn link, fingering, soft dom nanami

↦ encouragement | drabble, afab reader, soft dom nanami, thigh riding

HIROMI HIGURUMA

↦ drunk on you | fic, afab reader, piss/watersports, oral (f rec.)

↦ suckle | headcanon, gn reader, cockwarming

↦ patience | drabble, gn reader, oral fixation, cockwarming, mention of subspace

RYOMEN SUKUNA

↦ taking advantage | drabble, afab reader, cheating, dubcon

↦ competition | drabble, afab reader, pseudo-incest, yuji and sukuna both want you

↦ unworthy | drabble, afab reader, mentions of killing/punishment, jealous sukuna

TOJI FUSHIGURO

↦ impatient | drabble, gn reader, riding, manhandling

↦ for the fun of it | drabble, gn reader, size kink/manhandling, slight exhibitionism

MEGUMI FUSHIGURO

↦ smile for the camera (vol 1) | drabble, afab reader, twt porn link, unprotected sex, creampies

↦ saving himself | drabble, afab reader, yandere, possessive and jealous megumi

↦ sloppy head | headcanon, afab reader, oral (f rec.)

NAOYA ZEN'IN

↦ save face | headcanon, afab reader, hate fucking, asshole naoya

↦ little doll | headcanon, gn reader, implied dumbification

SUGURU GETO

↦ just like that | drabble, afab reader, twt porn link, pet names

↦ couldn't wait | drabble, afab reader, prompt, masturbating

RESIDENT EVIL

LEON S. KENNEDY

↦ baby fever | fic, afab reader, breeding kink, soft dom leon

↦ out of control | headcanon, afab reader, oral (f rec.)

↦ here, kitty, kitty | drabble, afab reader, cat hybrid leon, suckling

↦ build me up | fic, afab reader, sweet stepdad leon, stepcest, oral (f rec.), voyeurism, masturbating, daddy kink

↦ breeder balls | drabble, afab reader, leon has big balls, creampies

↦ corruption | drabble, afab reader, implied age gap and daddy kink, corruption kink, power imbalance

↦ handy | drabble, gn reader, handjob, referenced edging, sub leon

↦ birthmarks | headcanon, gn reader

↦ unexpected | drabble, gn reader, sweet sub leon, mentioned bondage, spit, mentioned body worship/oral (f rec.)

↦ must've slipped | fic, afab reader, oral (m rec.), cocky asshole leon, facial

↦ addicted | drabble, afab reader, somnophilia, thigh fucking

↦ everything you got | drabble, afab reader, piss, ab riding, multiple orgasms

↦ only for you | drabble, afab reader, pegging, soft sex

↦ such a mess | drabble, gn reader, edging, cum eating, sub leon

↦ kennel | headcanon, gn reader, puppy hybrid leon, sfw

↦ all dressed up | drabble, gn reader, sissification/cross dressing, mean dom reader, referring to leon as a girl

↦ good boy | drabble, gn reader, sub leon

↦ stolen glimpse | fic, afab reader, older stepbrother leon, stepcest, voyeurism, masturbating

↦ perks | fic, afab reader, older brother leon, incest, handcuffs, creampies, mean leon

↦ casual | drabble, afab reader, fingering, implied overstimulation/mutliple orgasms

↦ marked | headcanon, gn reader, touch starved leon

↦ (more than) fwb | headcanon, afab reader, love struck leon

last updated 4/15/2024

#masterlist.୨୧

273 notes · View notes

outerspacebisexual · 2 years

Text

Until the Chaos is Through - Eddie Munson

Part Two - What Remains in the Wake

Part Three - Blessed Silence After This Mayhem

Part Four - Heinous Regret With No Salvation

Summary: Your boyfriend Eddie is becoming distant. You pray that it's not what you think.

Pairing: Eddie Munson x Reader

Word count: 4.0k

Warnings: angst, maybe steve x reader if you squint, implied/referenced cheating, one tiny blink-and-you'll-miss-it reference to oral sex

a/n: kind of based on complex by katie gregson-macleod and doomsday by lizzy mcalpine. ouch.

Masterlist

Eddie was a good boyfriend.

He did all the corny things that boyfriends do. He dropped you home from school. He bought you flowers for your birthday. He took you on dates.

But sometimes, he was forgetful.

Sometimes he forgot to tell you that he was staying late for D&D, leaving you to stand outside waiting for him, watching your bus out of the corner of your eye as it pulled out of the school, convincing yourself that he would be out any second.

Sometimes he would ditch date nights for D&D campaigns. Which wasn’t necessarily a problem, but it was when you were sitting at the diner by yourself, Benny giving you a pitying look across the counter.

But Eddie loved you. And he always made it up to you.

“I have a deal this afternoon,” he said to you at lunch, flicking through his newest D&D manual.

You looked up from your food. “Oh, I thought you were taking me home from school?”

He chewed on his muesli bar. “Can’t today, sorry. This is a big deal and I need the money.”

“Right,” you said, eyes returning to the table. “Who’s it with?”

Eddie didn’t look at you. “Chrissy Cunningham. Some big party this weekend, so the elite want heaps of different shit.”

You frowned. Chrissy Cunningham was nice enough, but her purchasing history was becoming extensive and frequent. It seemed like she was buying form Eddie every other week, sometimes every week. “Cool.”

You could see Eddie’s eyes on you. “Are you OK?” His head was cocked to the side, hair catching on shoulders where his black t-shirt that you’d bought him a few months ago was pulling slightly tighter. He wasn’t wearing a jacket today, which was slightly unusual, leaving his tattoos on display.

“I’m fine,” you told him, packing up your tray.

“Wait, where are you going?”

“I forgot I had to get a book from the library for Mr. Hauser’s class next period,” you lied.

Eddie nodded. “See you tomorrow?”

“Yeah, Eddie.”

You bit the inside of your cheek as you walked away. You felt stupid, trying to hold back tears as you walked through the halls to your locker. Eddie hadn’t even done anything wrong, but you couldn’t help but think about how a few months ago, he would have offered to come with you to the library.

He wouldn’t have blown you off for a deal like he had. He would have asked you to wait for him while he hastily made the deal, then driven you home or back to his place, or anywhere just because he wanted to spend time with you.

Lately, it seemed like the only time you spent with him was at school, or when you sought him out.

Even then, his mind seemed to be somewhere else. He always brushed your questions off, citing school or his next gig as the reason he was so caught up in his own mind.

You had tried to not let it bother you, but the feeling of doubt and insecurity would creep in when you least expected it; when you were sitting beside him at lunch, or when he was playing at The Hideout and his eyes didn’t try to seek you out like normal.

That feeling would settle within your bones, trying to find a home beneath the love that you felt for him.

And he hadn’t even done anything wrong. That was the worst part.

He just seemed off.

But that wasn’t a reason to be concerned.

Eddie loved you, and he told you all the time.

That afternoon, standing beside the school, you were surprised to see Steve leaned against his car, waving at you.

“Hey,” he said, as you sided up to him.

“Hey, Steve. What are you doing here?”

He gestured to the school with his head. “Picking up Henderson, Wheeler, and Sinclair.”

“Still on transport duty?”

He laughed. “You bet.” His eyes searched the way you’d come from. “Where’s Eddie?”

At the reminder of Eddie’s absence, your mood darkened. “He’s, uh—he’s got a deal this afternoon.” Steve frowned, no doubt picking up on your mood shift.

Steve and you had become better friends in the last year and half since you got caught up in the Starcourt Mall fiasco. You saw even more of each other now that Dustin, Lucas, and Mike were a part of Eddie’s Hellfire Club.

“Do you want a lift?” he asked.

“No, it’s alright. I’ll catch the bus.”

Steve scoffed. “The bus? The bus will take an hour to get to your place.” He stood up straight, spinning to open the passenger door. “The Harrington Hauler is open and operating, and I promise we’ll get to your place so much quicker than that.”

You laughed at the way he was standing, waiting expectantly for you to accept with raised eyebrows and a roguish grin. “Fine,” you conceded. “Thank you.” You slipped into the passenger seat while Steve jumped into the driver’s seat.

“The Harrington Hauler, huh?”

He tapped on the steering wheel with his thumbs. “Yup, you can thank Henderson for that one.”

“It’s cute. You’re like a proper babysitting-slash-transport service now.”

He shot you a look. “You’re funny. I believe that I also drive around high school seniors now.”

“High school seniors who are beyond grateful,” you said, in almost a sing-song-y way, eyes returning to the doors of the school while you waited for Dustin, Lucas, and Mike.

That was when you caught sight of Chrissy, exiting the school with her pink backpack and high ponytail swinging with every step. She pulled her varsity cheer jacket closer as she made her way to the woods behind the school.

You knew that Eddie would be waiting there for her.

The joy you’d been feeling just moments ago was smothered immediately, and you were vaguely aware of Steve talking in the background as you watched Chrissy walk away.

Steve’s hand was suddenly on your shoulder, and you turned to look at him.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, concern evident in the way his brows were pulled together as he glanced between you and the head cheerleader.

“Nothing,” you mumbled, faster than you would have liked. Steve raised a brow, as if to say Really? “I’m fine. It’s—It’s nothing.” Your eyes found his dashboard, and it suddenly became very interesting. “It’s fine.”

Even to your own ears, it was weak. Pathetic.

Steve’s gaze was intense, but you still didn’t remove your eyes from the dash. You knew that if you looked at him, he would notice your watery eyes.

You could feel Steve gearing up to say something, but before he could, the back doors swung open.

“How come Y/N gets to sit in the front?” Dustin exclaimed.

Steve spun to look at him. “Because I said so. Get your butts in the car before I leave you here. I’ve been waiting for twenty minutes already.”

The boys clambered into the car, bags sliding to the floor. “You have not been waiting that long,” Lucas said. “We only just got let out of class.”

“Pretty sure I know how my watch works, Sinclair.”

“Pretty sure it’s wrong then,” Dustin cut in. “Can we get something to eat on the way to Lucas’s? I’m hungry.”

Steve started grumbling about how he wasn’t stopping off anywhere and that they were lucky that he was picking them up at all, as he pulled out of the parking lot.

Even between Dustin, Lucas, and Mike talking about some science fair and Steve shouting at them to quieten down, it wasn’t enough of a distraction to pull your thoughts away from Eddie and Chrissy.

It was fine, you tried to reassure yourself, Eddie loves you.

While he drove, you could feel Steve checking on you, his eyes flicking from the road to you in between the breaks in conversation.

You purposefully kept your eyes averted to the passing houses.

Two weeks later, you were sitting on the edge of Eddie’s bed in your pajamas, watching him pluck at the strings of his acoustic guitar.

He wasn’t actually playing anything, just strumming random chords.

He was lost within himself again; lost to the world that existed only in his mind, the world that you had once been privy to.

Once, he had told you everything. He seemed to never stop talking; about you, about his day, about his campaigns, about his classes, and you lapped it up. You listened as he animatedly explained whatever was on his mind.

Once, you had been so close that you were practically one.

But now, sitting across from him, you couldn’t have been more separate.

You stood, and Eddie looked at you. “I’m just going to the bathroom.”

He nodded, turning back to his guitar as you exited the room.

Closing the door quietly, you stared at yourself in the mirror.

Your eyes that you had been hiding from him were teary, and you could see the desperation in them. The desperation of trying everything you could to keep him close as he slowly slipped further from your reach to some unknown affliction.

Deep within yourself, in that part you kept locked up tight, you suspected you knew why.

But it didn’t stop you from trying to pretend that everything was all right, telling yourself that it wasn’t true.

Eddie loved you.

There was a soft knock on the door, and you jumped. “Give me a second,” you called as you ran the tap and splashed your face. When you looked at yourself again, your eyes were still red, but you could play it off as the water from washing your face.

You pulled open the door, and Eddie glanced at you for a second before pushing past. “I’m going to have a shower.”

You stood there for a second, watching as he removed his shirt.

“Can you shut the door?” he asked.

You swallowed. “Right. Sorry,” you said, closing the door.

You remained standing on the other side for a long moment, hand on the doorknob.

Before, Eddie would always invite you in. Whether it was in jest or an actual invitation, he would always joke about it. There were even times when he would shower while you sat on the counter, just talking because he didn’t want to stop talking.

You slowly dropped your hand from the handle.

He just wants to shower by himself, you reasoned. There was no crime in that. God, you didn’t need to be all up in his business all the time.

But as you crawled into his bed, it still hurt, no matter how many times you repeated it.

The tears still escaped from your eyes as you curled into yourself. Your throat still burned from the sob that threatened to leave you.

You didn’t hear Eddie enter the room.

“Babe?” he called from his desk, and you froze.

You cleared your throat, trying to keep your voice steady as you said, “Yeah?”

“I forgot to tell you that I have a deal tomorrow afternoon.” You heard the clasps of his black lunchbox flick open. “I know you were supposed to come over, but I might swing by your place when I’m done instead.”

Swing by, he said, and that was enough for your eyes to burn again. He was so nonchalant, so casual about spending time with you, like it didn’t really matter if he did or if he didn’t.

“OK,” you managed, but your voice wavered.

The lunchbox flipped closed, and you heard him place it by the door.

He turned off the light.

He slipped into bed beside you, but his arms didn’t come around to rest around you like they used to. He turned away from you until his back was to yours, inches still separating you.

You laid there until you heard his breathing even out.

Only then, once you were sure that he was asleep, did you let yourself cry.

The band on stage was raging, their amps dialed up to the max as they played their set.

Corroded Coffin had already played, and Eddie was plastered.

The Hideout was very relaxed when it came to their service of alcohol, which was the reason that you, Steve, Robin, Nancy, and Jonathan came on Tuesday nights.

You guys also went to support Eddie, of course, but being able to have fun with your friends at a bar underage was also a big bonus.

In the hours after Eddie’s set, you had been watching him out of the corner of your eye as he chatted and drank with his bandmates and other musicians.

He was good at holding his liquor, but tonight he had had way more than normal.

When your attention finally fell back to your friends, you saw Robin waiting expectantly.

“Sorry, what?” you shouted over the music, apologising for zoning out.

Robin rolled her eyes. “I said, are you coming to the Halloween party next weekend?”

You frowned. “What Halloween party?”

“The Roland twins’ Halloween party?” she said, like you should know what she was talking about. When you still looked confused, she continued, “The Roland twins from school? They’re throwing a party next weekend at their place. Did Eddie not mention it? I told him about it a week ago?”

That feeling started to claw its way up. “No,” you said, shaking your head. “He—He probably did and I’m just forgetting.”

You caught the glance the others’ shared with each other, and that feeling buried deeper. You had no doubt that Steve and his big mouth had told the others about the afternoon a few weeks ago, and also about the few other times that he had driven you home over that time.

Those afternoons had been either deal days or D&D days. You weren’t quite sure why Steve had been there on the D&D days when he didn’t need to pick up Mike, Dustin, or Lucas, but he had told you that he was just driving past.

Fiddling with her drink, Nancy opened her mouth to say something to you but was cut off by Eddie slinging his arm around your shoulder.

You jumped, only just grabbing him in time to stop him from falling over and taking you down with him.

“Babe,” he slurred, looking up at you through hazy eyes, “I need to go home.”

“I thought you were getting a lift with Gareth?”

You planned to stay out for a few more hours with the others. It was the first time that all of you had been free to hang out in weeks. You had talked to Eddie about it on the way there and he had promised that he would get a lift home with Gareth if he needed it.

Eddie shook his head, almost knocking himself off-balance. “I forgot to ask, and he’s already gone. I need you to take me.”

You sighed, standing up and placing Eddie’s arm over your shoulder and yours around his waist. You grabbed your bag from the counter.

“I’m sorry, guys,” you said. “I’ll, uh, I’ll see you at the party next weekend?”

Robin sent you a tight-lipped smile, her face falling when she looked from you to Eddie. “Sure. See you then.”

You waved goodbye to the others, pulling Eddie out to where his van was parked on the street. “Do you have your keys?”

Eddie sloppily fumbled for his keys in his pockets, handing them to you. You unlocked the van, helping him into the passenger seat. Once he was situated so he wouldn’t fall headfirst into the dashboard, you shut the door and made your way to the driver’s side.

You were about to get in when your name was called.

You turned to the entrance of The Hideout to find Steve making his way to you. “Hey.”

“Hey, you can drop Eddie off and come back, you know?” he said in a rush.

“Huh?”

Steve shifted his weight from foot to foot, like he was conflicted. About what, you didn’t know. “I just mean that you can drop him off at his place and I can bring you back here.”

“Oh, uh—” You glanced at Eddie who was almost asleep in the van. “—I shouldn’t leave him alone like this.”

“Sure you can,” Steve continued. “He’ll be fine. We were all supposed to hang out tonight, and it’s barely 10:30.”

From over Steve’s shoulder, you could see your other friends through the window, looking at you expectantly. Nancy waved at you to come back in, and you bit your lip.

You did want to stay out—

“Y/N,” Eddie called, slurring and stretching your name out. “Babe, hurry up, I’m tired.”

When you looked back to Steve, he was just staring at Eddie through the windscreen. “I’m sorry,” you told him. “I have to go. I’ll see you next weekend, yeah?”

Steve turned his hard gaze from Eddie to you, and his eyes softened. “Yeah, sure,” he uttered, almost under his breath. “Drive safe.”

He meant it, and you nodded before jumping in the van.

As you pulled away from the curb, you saw your friends through the window again, looking after you with frowns etched deep on their faces.

The Roland twins had gone all out for their Halloween party, with decorations lining every surface, music pounding from both inside and outside.

There were a lot more people that you had expected, all dressed in various costumes. Some were great, but some were barely more than an afterthought.

You sat somewhere in the middle, your Molly Ringwald costume not amazing, but not terrible either. You, Nancy, Jonathan, Steve, and Robin had decided to dress up as the members of The Breakfast Club. Not a super original idea, but you guys had fun.

Originally, you had tried to do a matching costume with Eddie, but he had been quick to shoot down the idea saying, I’m not dressing up.

It’s a Halloween party, Eddie. You have to dress up.

Well, I’m not.

You don’t want to do a couple’s costume?

No, I don’t.

When you had been upset by that, he had apologized in more way than one, both with his mouth.

But as soon as you got to the party, Eddie had ditched you. It hadn’t been intentional, you didn’t think. He just started dealing to people who were drunk enough to pay whatever he wanted them to, handing over cash for less product that they asked for.

They were too drunk to notice, and Eddie took advantage of it.

That’s when you had found a spot on a couch in the living room, nursing your who-knows-how-many-th drink as you watched everyone milling around and dancing.

You hadn’t seen Eddie in around half an hour; he was most likely still ripping people off.

Robin had found you an hour ago, and she sat on the arm of the couch, her Ally Sheedy costume suiting her a lot more than you thought it would. She was also a lot more sober than you were, only on her fourth drink.

“You know,” Robin said, slapping her knees, “I think that we should play a game of beer pong. You want to?”

“I don’t know,” you replied, looking over to where a group of boys were taking turns drinking and then spitting the alcohol back into the cups. “I think we’ll catch something if we use those.”

Robin laughed, leaning back a little too far and almost losing her balance. You grabbed her, laughing as she righted herself.

You were both still laughing as Nancy appeared out of nowhere.

“Nancy!” you shouted.

She gave you a smile, but you could see that something was wrong. Before you could ask, she said, “Hey, Robin, can I talk to you for a second?”

There was something about her tone that had Robin standing immediately. Turning away from you, Nancy began speaking in hushed tones.

Robin’s eyes widened and went straight to you. You knew that she hadn’t meant to, and you suddenly had a sinking feeling in your stomach.

“Nancy?” you asked, standing up.

“Hey, honey,” she said, stepping forward. “You look a little unsteady on your feet. How about we take you home?” There was an urgency to her voice that you didn’t like.

You shook your head. “I don’t want to go.”

“I really think that we should,” Robin cut in, hooking her arm in yours. “I’m starting to feel sick, and I could really use a girls movie night.”

You cocked your head and stared at the two of them. Even drunk, you could tell something was wrong. Robin was trying to pull you to the door, and Nancy had a sad look on her face that she was doing her best to hide.

That sinking feeling grew deeper, and you pushed Robin away. She tried to reach for you again, but you stepped back. “What’s going on?”

Nancy and Robin shared a look, and as you glimpsed their sad eyes, you knew.

You knew.

Pushing past them, you shoved your way through the crowd of people, searching.

Searching for Eddie.

Searching for Chrissy.

Nancy and Robin were calling after you.

When you couldn’t find him on the bottom floor, you made for the stairs.

At the top, you ran into Jonathan.

His eyes widened, hands flying to your upper arms. He looked past you to Nancy and Robin as they ran up the stairs after you.

“Jonathan?” you whispered, and you weren’t sure what you were asking him for.

He opened his mouth, trying to find the words to say.

“Jonathan?” you repeated, and this time, you started to cry.

As he said your name, Steve appeared from down the hall, and like Jonathan, he was shocked to see you. You pieced together that Nancy and Robin had been sent to take you home, so you didn’t see what you knew had happened, despite how much you prayed otherwise.

Stepping away from Jonathan, you stood in front of Steve.

His dark eyes were downcast, and the pity wasn’t hard to miss. You looked over his shoulder to the room that he had come from.

Steve stepped into your line of sight, effectively blocking your view of the door. “Don’t,” he told you.

You tried to push past him, but he stood firm. “Steve.”

He rested his hands on your shoulders. Maneuvering you in your drunk state was easy, even as you fought against him. His tone was hard as he said, “Trust me, Y/N, you don’t want to go in there. Let’s just go, OK? Let’s leave.”

“No, I need to see Eddie,” you cried. “I need—I need—”

“—You don’t need Eddie,” he interrupted you. “You need to leave this all behind, yeah?” His voice had softened a significant amount. “Let’s go.”

As he said it, as you realized that that tiny part of yourself that you kept locked away had been right, that your biggest fear had come true, all the fight left you.

Your knees buckled, and Steve was quick to catch you.

As you got your footing, he guided you down the stairs, the others walking in front of you, throwing worried glanced over their shoulders.

Nancy unlocked the backdoor of her car, helping you in.

In the back of your mind, you knew that they were driving you home. You knew that they would stay with you all night.

They were such good friends.

But it didn’t stop you from wanting Eddie.

It didn’t stop you wishing that he had been the one to take you home.

Maybe you would always wish that it was Eddie. Maybe you would always wonder what more you could have done.

Maybe the answer was nothing, because you had no choice in the matter, and this doomsday was always close at hand.

#eddie munson x reader #stranger things x reader #eddie munson x y/n #eddie munson x you #eddie munson angst #stranger things fanfiction #eddie munson fanfiction #eddie munson one shot #eddie munson imagine #stranger things imagine #stranger things one shot #stranger things angst #steve harrington x reader

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