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macfrog · 6 months

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sweet child o' mine | pt. i

purely just some fun and games putting big grumpy joel miller slap bang in the middle of a romcom. i hope you guys enjoy. dedicated to big sis @mrsmando, who is the light of my life, let herself be completely swept away by this idea into unhinged, whimsical mania with me, and who inspired so many lil details for this story. love u, zhort x

pairing: neighbor!joel x fem!reader

summary: you strike up a deal to attend a wedding with your neighbor as his date. what could go wrong?

warnings: age gap (late 20s reader, late 40s joel), grumpy!joel initially finds reader mildly infuriating, cursing, alcohol consumption, discussion of a car accident (non-graphic) & dead parents, softdom!joel as per, fingering, handjob, comeplay, spitting, drunk unprotected one night stand, creampie, praise kink, one mention of nausea (but nothing happens, my little emetophobic angels), someone falls pregnant and it's not joel miller i'll tell you that much. honk if you love cats!!!

word count: 9.8k

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It’s just gone seven on a Saturday night when his knuckles rap on your door.

The sun casts tall, angled shapes on your living room wall. Lights the pages before you in a glow of tangerine. Refracts through the glass tumbler on your coffee table and bleeds the amber liquid onto the pale wood surface. Everything lit in some variation of gold, everything bowing its head quietly as the day begins to turn its back.

The house is still. The world feels still, as though transitioning. Like you’re sat in a waiting room, leg bouncing, anticipating something you don’t know to look for yet.

Perfect, comfortable, still – until he’s on your porch. And he knocks again.

You snap your book shut and slide it across the table, nudging the heavy glass. The ice clinks, irritated.

“You mind fastenin’ your…delicates to your clothesline a little better?”

His voice shoulders its way into your hallway before you’ve even pulled the door back enough to see him. Not that you need to see him to know who it is. You’ve lived in Austin three years now and met only one person with a voice as low and toneless as Joel Miller’s. Slung in sarcasm, dripping with disdain. All that.

You cross your arms and slant against the doorframe, unable to mask your amusement. “Excuse me?”

He answers by lifting his left hand. From his pointer finger hang a tiny pair of white panties, lace pattern fluttering in the late summer breeze. You glance over his shoulder as you steal them from his grasp, balling them in your fist.

“Uhuh. They were sitting on my back lawn. I have company tonight, y’know. I can’t have women’s underwear just – lyin’ in my damn yard.”

Your head tilts. Ears prick. “Company? You hostin’ somethin’?”

His shoulders drop with a sigh. “No. I am not hostin’ anythin’.”

“Good. ‘cause I’d want an invite.”

“If I were hostin’, you’d be the last person I would invite. And you know that.”

“Ouch,” you pout, “that hurts, Miller. I watered your plants while you were off visiting your brother last month. They woulda died without me there.”

“And I am grateful to you,” Joel grumbles, “but that doesn’t mean I need those anywhere in view of my kitchen window.” He throws a pointed finger to your elbow, where your panties sit scrunched in your fist.

You look down to the froth of frill spilling between your knuckles, and back up to his dark features – his glower casting a shadow over the hazel eyes and deepening the creases between his brows. You smirk, a realization dawning.

Company – that he doesn’t want seeing a pair of someone else’s underwear.

“You have a date.”

Joel’s tongue flicks across the inside of his cheek. He glances over his shoulder and speaks through his teeth. “No, not a date,” he quietly tells the street.

“But you have a lady comin’ over. Or at least – someone you don’t want seeing these.” You unfold your arms and twirl your fist. The gentle wind lifts the lace.

He grunts. A low hmph. Agreement, you think.

“Sounds like a date.”

He hisses, “’s not a date.”

Your stare doesn’t slip from his. Not when his brows tighten, not when his jaw does, too. Not even when he sucks a breath between gritted teeth. Your smile widens.

Finally, with a sigh, he concedes. “It’s…it’s somebody Tommy ‘n Maria are tryna set me up with. Alright?”

“So – a date.”

“If you don’t –” Joel’s head flicks over to his own driveway at the same time his hand lifts, a pointed gesture you read as – shut the fuck up. “We’re just having a few drinks. Just – hangin’ out.”

“Just hangin’ out,” you repeat, eyes widening. “One-on-one. With some woman who – Wait, Tommy’s in Wyoming. How the hell do he and his wife know someone way the hell down here?”

“From before they moved. And – Maria ain’t his wife. Yet. They’re getting married next month.”

Suddenly the sun reappears over the dark horizon. The evening begins to clear up, make sense again. You lift your chin, nodding.

“Right, right. So, she gonna be your plus one, or…?”

The understanding raises his heckles again. Exasperated, he asks, “How many damn questions are you gonna –? I’m only here to – to return your –” He nods once more to the pale fabric in your hand.

A laugh shoots from your nostrils. “What’s the matter? You don’t like – whatever her name is?”

“Laura.”

“Laura,” you breathe.

“And there ain’t nothin’ wrong with her. She just – she…”

“She…?”

“She has, like, five cats, and it’s just…hair, everywhere. And at their engagement party, she spilled an entire margarita down me. Right down my –” He sweeps a hand down his front, balling his fists again once they reach the hem of his shirt.

Your lips turn, amused. “Five cats. Cat lady Laura. Well. Have fun, I guess. Thanks for these.”

He acknowledges your raised fist with a bashful glance. He’s already halfway down your front steps when he says, “Keep an eye on your laundry from now on,” and strides off back to his own place.

Joel has lived here his whole life. In Austin. You’ve no idea when he moved in next door, just that he was here when you did. You don’t know much about him at all – the fact he even filled you in enough to tell you about his date is shocking enough.

The day you first arrived, U-Haul truck squealing to a halt by the curb, he found himself unlucky enough to be stood in his front yard watering the blond patches of his grass. He saw you struggling to open the rear door of the truck, and with a grumble and a glance across the street for a more eager rescuer, he tossed his hose and came over to help.

He unclicked the heavy latch and pushed the door up with enough ease to put you to shame. And he seemed to feel some obligation when he saw the mass of belongings stuffed in the back, to help you unload them. Didn’t seem overjoyed by the thought, mind you, what with the sigh he let slip when you hopped up and held out the first box.

He indulged you for no more than one hour. Answered every question you had about the neighborhood, dodged every one about himself. He told you about the couple across the street with the newborn baby, told you about your neighbor on the other side who pretends to garden just so she can snoop on everyone else’s business. And as soon as the last box thudded down on your gleaming living room floor, he nodded, and paced back over to his own property.

He's a good guy. You know this much. He’s a dick to you most days, but he’s honest, and he’s kind when you catch him in the right light. He takes deliveries for you when you’re not home; he once drove Diane to the vets when she showed up on his doorstep in the dead of night, Fred the Jack Russell ailing in her arms.

He’s observant. Noticed just this summer the three different plumbers who showed up to your house in the space of two days, and came over as the third guy was leaving – his shining bald head low between his shoulders.

‘s the matter? Joel asked, watching the navy overalls sink into the rusted vehicle.

Kitchen sink’s leakin’. Fuckin’ – nobody can fix it.

He shouldered you out of the way with his then-trademark sigh and left twenty minutes later, your kitchen finally free of the dripdripdrip you’d been plagued with for a week straight.

He’s good. He’s a good neighbor. But, man, is he private.

You’ve never seen the inside of his place. His body blocks it anytime you’re on his doorstep. He has a brother, you know that – though, only since last month, when he asked you to keep an eye on his garden – and you know, now, that the brother is getting married.

You know that he likes country music, know he plays guitar – accidentally. You heard him one day in the spring, when he left his window open and you were lounging by your pool. When he looked out and noticed how you’d angled your sunbed to listen, really listen, he slammed it shut.

You know he’s single and childless and has been for at least the three years you’ve lived next door to him.

You know little fucking else.

The words on the curled pages seep into one another. You’re staring through the book now back in your hands, the shape of your living room blurring around you: the brick fireplace, the still, red light of the TV. The lulling sway of the sheer curtains, pushed like the tides by the air through the open window.

You cross your ankles on the coffee table. Your lips purse. Tongue dabs at the smoky-sweet singe of whiskey on the flesh of your cheeks. From here, you can see the street outside Joel’s house. If – when – Laura pulls up, you’ll know. And you’ll be here to watch. Survey. Observe.

See what kind of woman a guy like Joel Miller takes to his brother’s wedding.

It’s nine fifty-two when she eventually leaves.

She’s been in there two hours and seventeen minutes. Her car – a kind of rotten green Chevrolet with one tail light out – sits patiently out front, like even it can’t wait to help her fucking disappear.

You’re hoisting a swollen black bag down your drive when his porch light flickers on and his front door opens. The glossy plastic exhales as it slumps against the trashcan. You dust your hands. Joel hasn’t noticed you yet.

“…so nice gettin’ to properly know you,” Laura’s crooning, sidestepping as Joel walks calmly down to her car. Ushering her. You hold back a laugh.

“Thanks for comin’,” he says, his voice falling flat in the windless evening. He’s a step ahead of her, like a parent leading their child away from the park. She’s still babbling about his six-string.

“Maybe next time I can hear a little somethin’…” she says, and you know from the way he halts that Joel hears the same questioning tone you do, the way somethin’ curls up at its end.

“Maybe,” he says, curtly. His words curl down. And then nothing else, and Laura – who, now that she’s a little closer, stood on the curb by her car door, you notice has sweeping golden hair which flicks away from her plump cheeks, and bright eyes which dazzle in the dusky glow – is forced to cough up one last chance.

“I gave you my number,” she says, then, “I didn’t get yours?” and this time, it’s definitely a question.

Joel pretends to pat down his pockets. “I musta left my phone in the house.”

You can’t help it. A scoff bursts from your lips. But he still doesn’t look over.

“Well,” Laura tugs on the handle, “thank you for a lovely evenin’. I’ll hear from ya.”

Joel smiles but puts a hand on the door, like he might slam it shut for her if she tried to backtrack. But she doesn’t. She swings both legs in, pulls it closed, and the engine spurts to life.

As she pulls off, Chevrolet jolting a little, you notice the bright yellow bumper sticker plastered squint beneath the license plate. You walk silently over to Joel, grass prickly under your socks.

“Honk If You Love…Cats,” you murmur, shoulder brushing off his bicep.

He sniffs. Tightens the grip his arms have on his chest. His eyes are fixed on the one red light, slowly shrinking into the distance. “Don’t even.”

“Good date?”

“I said don’t.”

“She talk much about her cats?”

“Goodnight.”

“Did you ask their names, at least?”

He’s backing up, crossing the dark lawn towards his front steps. He looks you up and down, his lips a flat line. Your sweat shorts. Your bare legs. The tight vest top molded around your breasts. His eyes shoot back up. “No more questions. No more pesterin’ me.”

“Nothin’ about the cats? Seriously, dude?” You lift your arms, grinning after his dark figure, swaggering up the porch steps.

Joel ignores you. He disappears through his front door and the light is snuffed. You slink back up to your house, grateful for the blanket of darkness covering the skip in your step.

Eleven hours later, you’re stood in front of your bedroom mirror.

The day melts against your window. Brilliant blue sky, cradling soft puffs of snow-white clouds. Crows on Diane’s roof cawing, slowly yellowing trees rustling. The bright, hot square across your front where the sun forces her way in.

You turn, taking the loose hem of your sleepshirt in your fingers, and pull it over your body, tossing it to the foot of the bed as you examine the pattern of colors hanging from inside your closet.

You take them one by one, tug them free, slot them back in. Eventually you settle for a gray hoodie, cropped and loose. As you haul it from its hanger, there’s a whine from the wooden cabinet. A squeal. The top shelf rips from either side, dropping to the closet floor and taking the pole with it.

“What the f–? You gotta be fucking kidding me,” you growl, stepping forward to run your fingers along the splintered wood where the nails have ripped themselves free. Four black holes, jagged insides of the closet pricking your fingertips.

The crumple of clothes and hangers sulks up at you pathetically. You fall back onto your bed with a sigh, staring up at the ceiling. The fan whirs slowly, scooping your gaze and throwing it in lazy circles.

The closet was old, anyways. Was here when you moved. It’s probably about time you had some new ones built. But fuck, that’s gonna cost. Ripping the old ones out, building them from scratch. The fan pulls your eyes back around to twelve o’clock.

Joel’s a contractor. He could do ‘em. Might give you a discounted rate, too, for all the times you move his newspaper from his front lawn to his doorstep for him. Either that, or he’d want something in return. And what handy skills do you have? You once knitted a scarf for you grandma for Christmas. Maybe not Joel’s thing. You can cook mac ‘n cheese – though one lousy meal isn’t payment enough for an entire wall of solid wood, two panes of glass and two days’ labor.

A favor, maybe. An IOU. What the fuck kinda favor does Joel Miller need–?

You’re hopping over the tiny burst of hedge between his yard and yours before the thought is finished, bending to scoop his newspaper up and slotting it under your arm. He answers just as you lift your fist to pound on his door for a second time.

You slap the rolled paper into his chest. “I have an idea.”

He squints at you in the summer light. “Wh–? Didn’t I tell you not to p–?”

“I’ll be your date.”

Joel blinks.

“I’ll be your date,” you repeat. “I got a wardrobe needs replacing. You do it, for free, and I’ll be your date.”

“Your wardrobe?”

“Crapped out on me this mornin’. I don’t want to pay for some stranger who’ll overcharge me ‘n do a half-assed job. Fix it, ‘n you don’t have to take cat lady Laura to Tommy’s wedding. And you can fix my kitchen sink, too.”

“I already fixed your kitchen sink.”

“It’s back at it. Drippin’ all through the damn night. Drip drip drip –”

“Alright.” Joel’s palm is up again. He does that a lot when he’s talking to you. “Alright. Wardrobe ‘n sink.”

“We have a deal?” you ask, extending your hand.

His chest fills with a thoughtful breath. His eyes scan you up and down, lingering somewhere a little lower than your jaw for a second. And then, the heavy weight of his palm against yours. The tightening of his fingers around your wrist. One sure shake.

Deal.

Two weeks before the wedding, you’re at Joel’s door again.

He’s in a black tee, dark sweatpants slung low on his hips. His hair is damp, fringe still dripping onto his forehead. He runs a hand through the gray-singed brown and stares at the tangle of fabric slung over your arm. “The hell is this?”

“Do you know what you’re wearin’?”

His eyes roll up to meet yours. “Do I know what I’m wearin’?”

You nod. “You’re the best man. Guessing Tommy has you covered?”

“Black suit,” he says, after a beat.

“That’s it? He ain’t got no theme?”

Joel’s head cocks. “I don’t do themes.”

You roll your eyes, ducking under his arm fixed against the doorpost. He manages three words of protest and then shuts the door in resignation, turning to watch as you take his stairs two at a time.

“You are so damn annoyin’, you know that?” his voice echoes behind you.

“You want this date or not, Miller?” you call over your shoulder, following the route through the identical house to your own bedroom – thankful when you nudge the door and it opens to reveal his bland, colorless decor. “Very…gray,” you note, feeling the shadow of him over your shoulder.

You throw the dresses down on his bed, satin and lace and pink and green swimming between one another on his sheets.

“I’m not wearin’ a dress.”

You glower at him. “Ha. We have to match.”

He rubs the towel against the back of his head, drying the dark hair. “Match how?”

“Y’know, your suit ‘n my dress. If I’m your date, we have to match.”

“Already told you. I’m wearin’ a black suit.”

“Right. But, like – what color tie? And can it be any of these colors?” You hold your hands out, surfing over the sea of shades. “Maybe,” you lift your eyebrows, eyes darting to the pale teal color, “this one?”

Joel entertains you for all of five seconds, lifting his cheeks in a false grin before they deflate. “No. Black.”

“Joel.”

He slings the towel over his folded arms, and looks at you plainly. “Black,” he says again, in a tone of voice which sounds something like a door being slammed shut.

Your eyes thin, and you gather your dresses up in one swipe. “Can you just –? Will you make sure that you match my corsage, at least?”

“Why the hell are you so hung up on this?”

“I’m not. I’m just tryna make it believable. You turned down cat lady Laura, this is what you get.”

He sighs, tossing the towel over to his laundry basket. “I will make sure I match your corsage. Happy?”

“Happy. Are you ready?”

“Give me five minutes.”

You huff, head rolling back. “You are so prima-donna, Joel Miller.”

With a sarcastic chuckle, he shoves you out of his bedroom to get dressed. You saunter down his stairs, drinking in every detail of his home as though it’s the only chance you’ll get to see it.

It probably is, when you think about it. You don’t imagine he’ll be inviting you over for drinks anytime soon.

Your eyes move along the wall as you slowly thump down his stairs, thrown from framed photo to framed photo – a black and white photo of a man with a tousle-haired boy on his lap, the kid’s tongue sticking from the corner of his mouth as he wraps his small hand around the neck of a guitar; an out-of-focus Christmas photo, a family of four sat in front of a million multicolored orbs dotted along the branches of a tree; a kid with skinned knees crouched by a German shepherd, his lanky arms hooked around the dog’s thick neck.

One brown suede jacket hangs from a coat peg at the bottom, Joel’s boots sat loose and unlaced beneath. A dark blue blanket draped over the back of his couch. A painting of a moose over his fireplace. Shelves lining one entire wall decorated with carved-wood animals, with more photographs of times gone and memories made, with books and DVDs that lend your fingertip with a heap of white dust as you drag it across their spines.

Enough to paint a picture, not quite enough to show you the colors. The tones, the depth. Despite your best efforts, the man remains a mystery. You settle with the fact he will never be fully revealed.

The creak of his stairs turns your attention from the guitar on the wall around to his tall figure, fixing the collar of the loose flannel over his shoulders.

“You ready?” Joel asks, bending with a groan to reach for his boots.

“Yep,” you reply, leaning forward to glance into his kitchen while his head’s down. The most you manage to observe are the light drapes, the sunlight shooting through and bouncing off of a white-topped island.

“’s go,” he says, keys dangling from his finger.

It takes twenty minutes to drive to Home Depot.

You chitter in Joel’s ear the entire time, reading from his handwritten list of measurements and supplies needed for your new closet. ‘n how do you know this is all enough? Because I know. What if you get started and it’s not? I won’t; it’s enough. You sound so sure. That’s ‘cause I’ve done it before, kid. You take many closetless girls out on fake wedding dates, Joel?

“What’s our story, then?” you ask in the store, fiddling with hanging packets of door hinges while Joel reads thrice over his note. Your hand dives into the bag of M&M’s he begrudgingly bought you at a gas station on the way.

“Our story?” he mumbles back, the words slipping under the mental math you can see going on behind his eyes.

“Like, when people ask how we met. What’s our meet-cute? Both reached for the same door hinge, our hands touched and lit aflame? That kinda thing?”

He doesn’t laugh. Your smile dampens instantly. You kick his boot. “Joel.”

“’sec,” he frowns, “I’m focusing.”

You lean close, pushing on your toes to study the folded slip. His scrawled numbers, the pencil lines blunt and smudged in the creases of the paper.

“Twentytwofortysixeightyninetyfivesixhundredelevenfourtwelvenineteen–”

Joel’s lips seep a maddened sigh; he glances down the aisle like a store attendant might separate you from him if he demanded with enough passion, or maybe if he slipped them a twenty.

“Do you mind?” he barks, his expression a brick wall for your giggles to fall flat to the floor against.

“Home Depot’s your stomping ground. Why the hell do I gotta come watch you pick hinges and timber?”

“Because it’s your damn closet I’m fittin’. Just –” he swipes two packets from their peg, tossing them into the shopping cart, “– come on.”

Joel makes off down the muck-colored floor, the overhead lights reflecting harshly in the shiny surface. The front right wheel of the cart trembles as it rolls, nervously leading the two of you down an aisle lined with cylinder tins and pamphlets on Choosing the right finish.

“So, are your parents gonna be at this wedding?” you ask, taking the cart from Joel’s hands when he drifts off to study a shelf of wood varnish.

His jaw turns towards you, and then back to the tin in his hand. “Yeah. Why?”

“Do I get to meet ‘em?”

“No.”

“Oh, come on. You’re not gonna introduce your date to your mom and dad?”

He scoffs, stealing a handful of candy. “My fake date?”

“They don’t know that. Let me meet Mr. and Mrs. Miller.”

He holds two tins up, offering them to you like answer to your question. “Matt or gloss? Guess it don’t really matter if I’m painting ‘em after.”

“Stop fuckin’ ignoring me. I hate when you do that.”

He leans in close, lowering the matt varnish into the cart. “You think I’m gonna introduce you ‘n your potty mouth to my mom?”

You smirk, eyes narrow. “Dick.”

“Funny. What color paint you want? You said something about duck egg?”

“Planning on repainting my room that color, yeah. Hey, you could –”

He swats your pointed finger away, taking the cart back. “We shook on new wardrobe. No changin’ the deal,” he mutters, wandering over to the rainbow of paint tins on the opposite side of the aisle.

You follow him over, eyes moving from blue over to green, the tins plastered with the fake smiles of families and fluffy pet dogs on the front. “Where are your mom and dad from?” you ask.

“Austin,” he replies, eyes squinting to read the small print on the back of one vibrant shade. You shake your head and guide his wrist back to the shelf, where he obediently sets the heavy tin back. “Never known anywhere else,” he adds. “What about you? Where’s Mr. and Mrs. Potty Mouth?”

“Uh,” you swipe at your nose awkwardly, “they’re up in Allandale. That’s where I grew up.”

“That so? I got a cousin who used to live that way. Used to take my bike up every Saturday. He lived right by this old car shop, all these old classics they used to fix up ‘n resell.”

“Yeah,” you say, “right next to the cemetery, right?”

“That’s the one,” Joel says, lifting paint tins to the light and setting them down again. “They live nearby?”

Your breathing shifts, starts to claw its way up your throat. Your chest heats, skin lighting with an irritating anxiety. “They’re, um,” you gulp, “they’re in the cemetery.”

Joel pauses, letting the tin slip from his grasp with an echoing thud against the wooden shelf which reverberates in your ears a second too long. “Oh,” he says, set on your expression.

“It’s okay – I don’t mind. It’s – it was a car accident, back when I was eight. I wasn’t in it, or anything. I grew up with my grandma. Really, Joel, I don’t mind,” you add, when his face falls and he begins to apologize.

“I had no idea,” he says, and you break the eye contact before you break a fucking sweat.

“’s all good,” you murmur, lifting paint tins of your own now, focusing on deblurring your glossy vision, “I got to buy a big house with the money they left.”

It thaws him a little. He snorts, and taps the lid of the tin you’re holding. “That one’s nice. You, uh – you okay?”

You finally turn back, the world clearer, colors no longer bleeding into one another through sharp tears. “Yeah. I’m fine. We got everything?”

Joel nods, and wheels the cart around. “You can meet her, if you want. My mom. She’s a little full on, but I reckon you can handle her.”

You smile, following him down the aisle.

A month after he delivered your underwear back to you, you’re back on Joel’s doorstep.

Your hand flicks nervously at your side as you wait for him to answer, petals of your corsage quivering. The clip of his footsteps echoes down the stairs, a deep sound growing louder and louder until the door clinks open and you’re separated only by air.

Joel’s eyes scan down your body at the same time yours scan down his. Black suit, sure enough, just without the jacket, and with his tie slung around his loose collar. You both freeze when your eyes meet again, your lips silently forming the shape of an avalanche of words that refuse to sound until Joel’s do.

“Wow, you –”

“– look great, I –”

“– nice dress, is that –? Sorry –”

“– no, I’m sorry, you were – sorry.” A laugh pushes from your throat. “You look – you look good. Scrub up well, ‘n all that.”

“You too. You – Yeah. That’s a nice color, after all. You suit it.” His eyes linger on your chest, your breasts draped in lustrous silk, decorated with the glint of golden jewelry. You notice.

“Thanks. After all?” You snort, and Joel’s exterior seems to crack a little.

He steps back, ushering you in. “Alright,” he says, taking the tote with your change of clothes from your wrist. He watches across the street as you step over the threshold, his fingertips light on your back as you pass by, like little shocks of lightning up your spine. “You know what I meant.”

Your dress swishes around your ankles, your heels clicking along his varnished floor. Your arms lock around your torso, holding your pashmina in place while Joel totters around, tossing his jacket over his shoulders. His shirt stretches from his tight waistband, fabric flattening against his tummy. Your eyes shoot north again when he speaks.

“You mind doin’ my tie? It’ll end up squint if I do.”

“Sure,” you reply, stepping forward.

He buttons the top of his shirt and lifts his chin, staring at the wall behind you as you tug on the black fabric, the silk slipping through your fingers. You steal glances at the trim of his beard, his pink lips beneath the dark bristles; the slope of his nose, the lines on his worn skin.

He’s rough around the edges, sure, a man in his late forties. But there’s something soft about him, something familiar and…comfortable. The pages of a used sketchbook, the lived-in material of a favorite dress.

You pull the knot higher until it’s sitting in the notch below his Adam’s apple, smoothing it down and giving his chest a light pat before stepping back again.

“Thanks, darlin’,” he mumbles, and a spark lights in your chest. “Oh,” he says, holding a finger up and disappearing into the kitchen. He returns with a little white box, holding it out for you to see.

Your cheeks swell, eyes flitting up to acknowledge the proud look on his face. “Very nice. Good job.”

“You can do the honors,” Joel says, handing you the boutonniere by the stem.

You pin it through his lapel, straightening it with a focused glance. Joel’s eyes are on you, watching the flutter of your eyelashes, the tilt of your head. “There,” you whisper, leaning back.

He extends his elbow, something of a smile on his lips. You don’t see it often. It beckons a mirrored expression.

Arm in arm, Joel leads you out to the truck, where he helps you up and waits for you to scoop your dress into the footwell before closing the door. You watch patiently as he locks the front door, slings both your bags over his shoulder and jogs back to the truck, tossing them in the backseat before joining you in the front.

“How come he didn’t send a limousine? Or a Jag, or somethin’?”

“You think we’re made a’ money?” Joel asks, smirking.

You return the smile, wrapping your shawl over your body. “Can I pick the music?” you ask, earnestly, a tinge of sweetness to your voice.

Joel glances over again, reaches behind your headrest to reverse out of the drive. He runs his tongue along his top teeth. “No,” he says.

Three hours later, Tommy and Maria are married.

The wedding is…big. Joel’s family is big. The venue – a rustic hotel suite, fairy lights draped from the rafters, blooming flowers sprouting from crystal vases, lace tablecloths and tied chair cushions and wax dripping from thick, naked candles – is big.

Joel’s been good about it – that friendly neighbor you see all too little has been kicked into high gear. He delivered you by hand straight to his mom – a small woman with silver hair neatly twisted into an updo at the back of her head – who took your hand and held it tightly all the way to your seats.

Kind and warm, she asked where you were from, how you met Joel, how long you’d been dating. She offered you some tissues before the ceremony started, then winked and nodded in Joel’s direction as the bridesmaids swept down the aisle.

You lingered behind the photographer while he took photos of the wedding party, instructing them to shuffle a little closer, that’s it; ma’am, with the red hair, lower your bouquet a little; alright, now, everyone: big smiles!

You worried that Joel had kept the same placated smile frozen on his face for so long that it might never melt away, might never return to the stoic scowl you’re so used to seeing on him. You didn’t even realize you were staring at him, until he waved you down, flicked his hand, and beckoned you over to the group.

You hesitated. I don’t know if I –

Get over here, girl, Tommy had called, grinning alongside his big brother.

The two Millers slotted you in like a jigsaw piece between their bodies, two arms wrapped around your back – Tommy’s, loose on your shoulders, and Joel’s, tight around your waist. He held you close, squeezing you into his side while the photographer praised the party and snapped photo after photo, the flash burning into your eyes by the time he clapped his hands and thanked you all for your patience.

Drink? Joel had asked, and you’d responded with one thumb up, the other massaging your eyelids. He squeezed your shoulder and disappeared into the crowd of bodies.

He’s still over there – by the bar, a wooden structure draped in ivy and studded by steel bolts. His beer in one hand and your wine in the other. A lean, poised figure stood opposite him – her dress a royal purple, her hair a wave of brown spilling over her bare shoulders.

She’s beautiful – a striking charm which draws your eye to her like an arrow directly through the sea of bodies between here and there. Her languid movements, the slow roll of her neck to sweep the hair from one side of her body to the other.

Her head falls back in laugher, her bejeweled hand falls softly on his arm. Your throat closes sharply. Joel nods, angling as if to make off, but she holds onto him and leans in. He laughs, then, at whatever her full lips whisper into his ear, and he finally breaks off from her and returns to you.

He pushes the glass by its base across the smooth tablecloth. Your fingers brush over one another as you trade, the stem sitting between your index and middle. He’s warm, his knuckles kissing yours.

“How was it, then, talkin’ to my mom?” Joel asks.

You smile, propping your chin on the heel of your palm. “I like her. She’s funny.” And then, when he tosses his head in response, “Who were you talkin’ to?”

Joel follows your eyeline over to the woman in the purple dress. The glint of white crystal on her neck. The drama of dark hair on pale skin. “Uh,” he wanders around your back to his chair, “we used to work together.”

Your nails tap against the glass. “Oh, yeah?”

He sniffs. Doesn’t meet your eye. “Yep.”

“You were talking to her for a long time.”

He watches a blue orb dance over your head on the wall, a spot of light from the disco ball over the dancefloor. “Lotta memories.”

“Why won’t you look at me?”

His eyes plummet. Fall from the string bulbs straight to your face, sparkling in the rainbow lights. “You want me to look at you? There.”

You grin. “’s better. If you stare up there long enough, they might stick.”

“Safer to have ‘em stuck on you, is it?”

“Mhm,” your voice echoes around the curve of your wine glass, “better view. So, who is she?”

Joel shifts uncomfortably. He twirls the bottle in his fingers. “We…we were together for some time. A few years.”

“An ex,” you muse, stain of lipstick left on the rim of your glass. “How many years?”

“Eight.”

You almost choke on your drink. “Eight – eight years?”

Joel nods, waiting for you to catch your breath. Expression never changing. Bottle still twirling. “Haven’t seen her in a while. We were just catchin’ up.”

“Eight fucking years. Why the fuck aren’t you married?”

He scoffs. “That’s a fifth-date question.” He lifts the bottle to his lips, tongue pushes against the glass.

“I don’t need five fuckin’ wardrobes,” you quip, and he laughs. Like, genuinely laughs. His head tips back, his teeth show. Your chest swells, confidence and relief blooming there. She didn’t make him laugh like that – not from where you were watching.

It becomes something of a mission in the back of your mind – tallying up how many times you can make his chest shudder, his shoulders jerk. How many times he leans in closer and repeats whatever you said, eyes closing over and hand hitting his thigh. How many times he looks at you and your stomach flutters, the blood cartwheels through your veins, the bones of your ribcage readjust and make room for the swelling of your heart.

Within four rounds, you’ve lost count.

The thudding beat of the music muffles in your drunken ears, like it’s coming from the next room. Your gaze fixes on the vase in the center of the table, the bouquet spilling over the glass. The wide burst of speckled lilies, the humble blush of tulips between. The colors soften and blur the longer you stare at them.

The jerk of Joel’s shoulders stirs you from your daydream. That’s one more.

“What?” you ask, head rolling to look over to him.

“You still in there?” he asks, one word slurring into the next like waves lapping.

You scoff, looking back to the pink flowers. “You know who has tulips?” you ask him.

He lifts his eyebrows. Who?

“Alice.”

“Brown?”

Your head nods heavily. “One time, she was out getting her mail, and I had just pulled up in my car on the phone to my best friend – he’d just broken up with his girlfriend, it was a whole thing…” You bat your hand. “Anyway. She pretended to tend to her tulips for forty-five minutes while I sat talkin’ to him in the driveway.”

Joel’s head tilts back with a burst of laughter. “She hear every word?”

“Every – damn – word. Stood by the fence listenin’.”

“That woman is som’ else,” Joel says, shaking his head. He stares down at the bottle between his fingers. His thumbs play with the curled corner of the label. “Didn’t I warn you about her?”

“Mhm.” You smile, realizing he has the same memory that you do, locked up somewhere in his mind. The sweat running down his temple, the dark patch between his shoulder blades. His hands gripping the heavier boxes, leaving you to carry the linen, the base of a lamp. Nodding as he wandered back over to his own porch, calling back for you to Holler if you need anythin’.

The high squeal of the Sweet Child O’ Mine intro snaps you back to the wedding reception. Tommy and Maria are playing air guitar on the dancefloor over Joel’s shoulder. You unstick your gaze from his white shirt, unsure how long you’ve been fucking staring.

Joel sits forward, drags his chair across the polished floor closer to you. He fixes the strap on your dress, untwisting it before settling back again. Your eyes follow his fingers as they leave your shoulder and sit back on the curve of his thigh, lifting when his voice breaks through to your eardrums.

“What room number did you say you were, again?”

Your shoulders roll. “Thirty-four, I think.”

Joel nods. Points to himself. “Thirty-six.” And then he glances over his shoulder, watches as Tommy kneels before Maria and rocks his head, his messy mop of hair tossed across his shoulders. The older Miller brother turns back. “Think they’ll miss us if we call it a night?”

“We’re callin’ it a night?”

“Figure if I’m headin’ off then you won’t wanna be sat here by yourself,” Joel says, and he’s right. He stands up, sets the half-empty bottle on the tablecloth and stares down at you. “I’m callin’ it a night,” he tells you. “You comin’?”

The colors in the room spin like the reels of a slot machine. Your fingers sit lightly in his outstretched palm, and you pull yourself up alongside him.

“’s a good girl,” he mutters, looking over your shoulder to the doorway, and your eyes sober up long enough to catch the flicker in his eye.

You totter along the hallway, arm in arm, anchoring yourselves together. Whichever way one sways, the other inevitably follows. You’re laughing, and Joel’s hushing you, warning that there are folks tryna – tryna sleep, we’re in a fancy place, hey, da-rlin’, no – you gotta shhhut up.

“Great party,” you decide, finally docking against your door.

“Yeah,” Joel agrees, leaning a little on the wall. The gentle glow of the hallway lights him perfectly; the strong angle of his jaw, the curve of his cheekbones. The hazel pools that make up his irises, the swollen circles of black in the middle. And the twinkle in them, like the moon reflecting on dark water, every time his gaze lifts to you.

He’s different tonight. Maybe it’s the alcohol. The way it colors everything in a peachy film, all objects softened and rosy and shapeless. But he feels different, too. You suddenly realize, shoulder pressed hard against the cold doorframe, that you’ve never touched one another more than you have today. His elbow in yours, his arm around your waist, his hand through yours as you danced together.

“Are you tired?” you ask, head rolling.

“Tired? No. Drunk, yeah. Not tired.” He laughs again. It’s infectious.

“You wanna come inside?” you ask, words leaping from your giggle.

He takes ten seconds to consider it. Slumps into the wall, steadied only by his forearm pushing him back upright. His watch face catches the light behind him.

“Yeah. Fuck yeah, I do.”

Your hand fumbles in your clutch for the keycard, swiping the handle and pushing down heavily. You spill into the dark room, light sneaking in from the sconce outside your window, and spin back to face him, his hand locked tight with yours.

Joel follows you slowly as you back towards the bed, kicking your heels off and tripping over the skirt of your dress. When your legs hit the plush mattress, his body leans into yours. Your lips ghost across his, your words pushing them apart one by one.

“This ain’t – part of the – agreement,” you murmur, the coarse hair of his beard scratching your chin. You pull apart his tie, loosening the knot.

“Changed my mind,” he replies, collapsing on top of you on the bed.

Your head rolls back when his lips suck into your neck. You wrestle with his belt, with the waist of his suit trousers. “No changin’ the deal, remember?”

“Tell me to stop.”

If you had any intention of answering him, your body overrides it. Words lassoed and dragged back down where they came from, your throat opening only to gasp when Joel’s teeth graze the flesh of your breast. His fingers tug on the straps of your dress, letting them fall from your shoulders until your chest sits exposed.

He drags his tongue along your skin, dipping between your tits while his hands massage them, fingers pinching your nipples. Your back lifts and his hands move beneath, following the curve of your spine to where your dress pools loose around your waist. He pushes down, slinking the smooth fabric from your body.

“You fuckin’…” He clicks his teeth, laughing behind them. Another flush of heat washes over your skin.

You giggle, bending your knees to cover the lace panties he knows all too fucking well. Joel stops you, pushes your legs back down with two heavy hands.

“Don’t get shy now, baby,” he murmurs, opening your body up again. “You were so happy about me seein’ ‘em a few weeks ago, no?”

“’s different,” you reply, tang of alcohol fueling your words, “now I just want you to take them off me.”

He cocks his head, drinking every word you’re handing over like it’s water from an oasis. “Such a dirty girl, ain’t you?”

You pull him closer by the collar and line your mouth against his, the tip of your tongue wetting the inside of his lips. “You got no fucking idea,” you whisper, whipping the shirt from his torso.

Joel growls, flipping you over and pulling you by the shoulders flush against his chest. You hook an arm around his neck, turn to grant him access to your lips. He kisses you like a starved animal, savoring every taste, teeth nipping at your tingling lips.

His hand curves around your hips, pushing beneath your underwear to cup your mound, middle finger pushing on the spongey hood of your clit. Your head falls limp against his collarbone, back arching as Joel holds you steady with an arm around your waist.

“’s alright, baby,” he coos, his tongue licking the shell of your ear. “I’m gonna take good care of ya. Gonna give you what you need, alright?”

A strangled moan unravels across your tongue, echoing into Joel’s mouth. Your hips begin to gyrate, meeting the rhythm of his hand, his finger massaging rough circles into your clit. He smirks, peeling the panties down your thighs.

“Attagirl,” he breathes, “you want it bad, huh? Gettin’ so worked up so fast. Here.”

He removes his hand from between your legs, ignoring your moan of protest and replacing it with two fingers on your bottom lip. “Open,” he instructs, and you obey like a fucking dog. He slips them in, thick and heavy, and waits for you to coat them with your wine-stained tongue.

Joel pushes down, forcing a muffled gag from your throat which lifts the corners of his mouth. He shakes his head lightly, whispering, “You got it, ‘s okay.”

A thread of saliva strings between his fingers and your lips when he lowers his hand again, trailing his fingers through your folds until he’s dancing along the seam of your cunt. You jolt forward; Joel hauls you back.

“Just fucking – do it,” you whimper, your walls clenching around nothing.

He holds his fingers together, curling and inserting them in a painfully slow motion. Your knees widen on the mattress, body sinking down by instinct to meet his fist, to feel his thick fingers and wide knuckles as deep as they’ll go.

You gasp when Joel begins hooking them inside you, nudging against your walls like your heartbeat against your clit. Your hand lowers, slipping beneath his loose waistband, beneath the elastic of his boxers and around his already solid cock.

Joel groans, fucking you harder on his hand. “Fuck, just like that, baby. You feel what you do to me?”

“Uhuh,” you reply, voice wanton and broken.

You squeeze him, your fist moving up and down, his warm skin following the movements of your tight grip. His tip is already soaked, precome staining his underwear, dribbling down your thumb.

Joel uses his free hand to shove his pants down, crumpling on the floor at his feet when they free his cock. You carve your mouth around his, the two of you exchanging breath and flicking your tongues together as you fuck one another’s hands, the room slowly filling with the hot, muggy smell of sex.

Joel’s the first to cave. With a jerk of his hips, he takes you by the wrist and frees himself from your clutches.

“You’re gonna make me come, darlin’,” he murmurs, pulling his fingers from your cunt.

“That’s kinda the point here,” you reply, teeth bumping into his in a grin.

Joel shakes his head, lifting his hand, glistening with your arousal. “Gotta feel this fucking pussy first.”

You smile, parting your lips for him for the second time, suckling on his fingers and licking them clean of your own salty slick. His cock draws sticky trails on the seam of your thigh.

“Yeah,” Joel breathes, eyes fixed on the place where you close around him, “that good, baby? You gonna let me taste you?”

You release his fingers and he pulls you in, tongue slipping against yours with a groan which vibrates against your jaw. When your lips part, you hold your mouth open, your tongue sat on your bottom lip.

Joel reacts instantly, collecting a bead of saliva in front of his teeth and letting it drop into your mouth. You moan and swallow it, a cocktail of beer and whiskey and slick. Joel watches as you lick your lips, the stained-pink coated in a thick, white shine.

“Alright,” he says, letting you fall forward onto the bed. He jacks himself a few times, spitting into his hand and using it to coat his cock.

“Want you to come in it,” you whine, wiggling your ass for him as he lines up at your slit. You can feel the arousal gathered on his tip, dripping down your cunt.

“Yeah, baby,” Joel growls, a smirk on his lips as he watches himself slowly disappear inside you. And then –

You both fall silent, mouths hanging wide open as you each feel the width of his cock and the tightness of your cunt. The way your body opens up to accommodate his size, the direct pain and ethereal pleasure of Joel pushing into you.

“Fuck,” he groans, your pussy drawing him in with a sweet, wet sound. “Been thinkin’ about this all fuckin’ day, baby. So damn gorgeous in that dress.”

You slowly move your hips back to meet him at the base of his cock; dark, trimmed hair bristling against your lips. Joel’s hands lock around your waist, holding you steady with his entirety buried inside, letting you adjust to him.

He’s so fucking big, so wide and deep that your breath tears rugged from your lungs, barreling up your windpipe. Your walls squeeze tight as he pulls out like your body refuses to let him go, like your cells understand better than you do that you were made for this – made for him. Like the only place in the world that he belongs, is somewhere deep inside you.

So big that it hurts, each time he fills you up and stretches you wide open. The pain an eye-rolling, lung-closing, limb-shaking sensation.

Your elbows give, falling chest-first onto the mattress while Joel fucks you hard, his hands gripping your hips. Your cheek and breasts flat against the sheets, your back arched. He slams into you, edging you closer and closer with each meeting of his warm skin against yours, each sopping slap of come and saliva.

The mattress shifts above your head, two valleys where his palms push down heavily, then the weight of his body at the back of your thighs. He towers over you, hips hammering so hard that you’re forced to hook your fingers around his wrists just to stay on the same fucking planet.

“Gonna – fuckin’ – come – baby,” he spits, his jaw locked tight. “You want it in this little pussy? You think she can take it all?”

“Mhm,” you whimper, the edges of your words rounded by the silk sheets. “Joel, I – fuck –”

“Yeah, she can,” he agrees, playing with the hair spilling across your shoulders and taking it in a fistful.

The hazy drunken blur begins to turn over in favor of something sharper, something electric pulsing through your veins. Every part of your body alive, everything rising to meet the same high, the same release. You cling onto him, body beginning to melt beneath his.

Joel’s lips press between your shoulder blades. “Don’t fight it, baby, let go. I got you.”

You moan his name in one last pathetic attempt before the world whitens. You clench around him as a deafening orgasm shocks through your body, curling your back and forcing your nails deep into Joel’s wrists.

“Fuck, baby, fuck me,” Joel gasps. He slams into you one final time before you feel the staggered pump of his come flooding between your walls. “Ahh,” he groans, pushing apart your ass cheeks to watch the trickle seep from your cunt. “Good fucking girl. Take it, baby. That’s my girl.”

He turns you over onto your back and you wrap your arms around his shoulders, pulling him against your body as he thrusts into you again, tenderly pushing his spend deeper inside. It draws a strained moan from your throat.

“’s alright,” he coos, hips slowing against yours, “just feel it, baby. You feel how deep I am?”

“Uhuh,” you cry, nails digging into his skin, damp with sweat.

“So fuckin’ full of me,” he says, more to himself, before collapsing alongside you, holding your thigh on his hip, his tip still sheathed inside you.

You lie like that for a while, listening to the distant hum of music from downstairs, the party still raving in the belly of the hotel while you two lay in content bliss somewhere in its ribcage. Tracing one another’s features, learning the lines on Joel’s face, the flecks of gray in his eyebrows – all the parts you’re never close nor brave enough to get to know.

His right hand massages your plush waist, his left arm a pillow to rest your heavy, dizzy, drunk head on.

“I wanna do it again,” you whisper, the words sneaking out between heavy breaths.

Joel nods. His bottom lip sticks with sweat to yours. His hips push a little neater into you. “I wanna do it again, too.”

“I wanna do it all night.”

He hasn’t stopped nodding. He shrugs, tightens his grip around your shoulders, and tilts his head. “Then let’s do it all fucking night,” he says, and his lips slam back into yours.

The morning after the wedding, Joel drives you home. The truck soars down the highway, the two of you an uncomfortable distance apart. The same sobering distance you’ve kept all morning – the unreal aftermath of sex.

The rolling waves of bedsheets between your bodies; the sun sifting her long fingers through his hair as she peered through the curtains. The way you’d silently pushed yourself from the mattress, fragmenting your movements and allowing the spring to dip a fraction at a time so not to wake him. The spongey feel of the hotel carpet under the balls of your feet as you’d tottered to the bathroom. The sharp shot of the lock sliding into place, echoing like a bullet.

He waited until you finished showering to get ready himself. Sat on the edge of the bed patiently and watched your shadow beneath the door, the to-and-fro of your silhouette breaking the sliver of golden light as you dressed your sticky body. When you pulled on the metal lock again, he was sat on the edge of the bed with his elbows on his knees, pinching the bridge of his nose. His bare shoulders were curved, and tanned. You blinked twice to store the image and turned away as he stood.

He says he feels hungover. You say you do, too. It’s the closest you come to talking about it. You hop out of the truck in his drive, your tote bag hooked on your shoulder. The canvas gnawing at the silk inside. Joel tells you he’ll see his end of the deal through in a couple weeks.

“Real busy with work,” he mutters apologetically, his wrists still balancing on the steering wheel.

“That’s good,” you tell him, nodding. “I ain’t in any rush. I know where you live, so.”

A relieved laugh pushes from his lips. “I will get to it,” he assures you.

You shrug casually. “Whenever, Joel.”

You don’t talk for a few days. A few days bleeds into three weeks. You find yourself stood by his front tires, throwing his newspaper onto the porch and scampering when it lands. The noise like a bomb dropping.

Slowly, as the month draws on, you become braver and braver – daring closer and closer to his front door, until you’re back to marching up the steps like you own the place, depositing the roll on his doormat. Rubbing your thumbs against your fingers to feel the ink like satin.

The door cracks open as you make your way back down his steps one bright morning.

“Hey, kid,” Joel murmurs, reaching down for the paper with a groan.

“Hey.”

“You doin’ okay?” he asks, leaning his forearm against the door.

Your head tilts back and forth, your hand lifting to shield your eyes from the sun. “Think I ate som’ bad, maybe. Weird stomach this mornin’.”

Joel’s chin angles. “Hope it ain’t contagious. Was thinkin’ I could get that closet started for you, maybe tomorrow?”

The offer takes you off guard. You buffer for a few seconds before answering, “Sure. Sure, just, uh – just come over whenever, I guess.”

“Nine work for you?”

You nod. “Nine’s good. See ya then.”

It’s something like nine when you find out.

You wake feeling groggy. Tired, sluggish. A heavy ache pulling on your breasts as you rise from bed, tender and swollen. You stand in the bathroom, milky morning light filtering in through the doorway, and your stomach lurches. Waves of nausea deep in your belly, rocking back and forth, swirling and spiraling.

You’ve a box under your sink. It makes sense. Before Joel was some date from Hinge, who fucked you against the wall of his living room and who snored so loud that you left before the sun came up. Negative. Like always.

But it never hurts to be sure.

The pack tears like it’s liquid in your hands. Peels back to reveal the plastic white test, the bubblegum pink cap – like it’s something fun and sweet to place the direction of your future into this little device. A clinical compass needle.

Three to five minutes. You set it down on the counter and drag yourself back through to your room, lifting your bedsheets, tucking them under the mattress, heaving your pillows back into place against the headboard. An uncomfortable heat boiling under the surface of your skin, a prickle of sweat clinging to the nape of your neck.

A sickly taste harboring on your tongue, you pad back to the bathroom and swipe the test up. Your eyes scan past the result window to the counter as you reach for your toothbrush – and then snap abruptly back to the tiny oval. Your outstretched hand freezes in midair. There’s no fucking w–

Your arm swings back to reach for the light cord. The bulb hesitates – flickers, like it’s unsure whether to reveal the truth to you. It knows something you don’t. It’s seen something it doesn’t want to show you. You stare at the pregnancy test.

Two little pink lines stare back. And Joel knocks at your door.

#forgive me for it not being clm or sof #they're coming very soon i promise #this was too fun an idea not to chase #i have the attention span of my labrador retrievers (nil)#joel miller #joel miller fic #joel miller smut #the last of us #tlou #macfrog #neighbor!joel miller #neighbor!joel #babydaddy!joel miller

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charliemwrites · 3 months

Text

Oooooh I finally did it!! Mafia au part 6! A little bit of that sweet angst/comfort.

Content: Violence, Previous Injury (mentioned), Panic Attack (non-descriptive)

Let it be said: Johnny’s no snitch.

Outgoing (“loud” Simon would grumble) as he is, he doesn’t run his mouth about anything important. Doesn’t talk business over a pint or boast his connections in bar disagreements. Doesn’t drop names, flash heat, throw around the weight of his employer. Has never spilled a single fucking secret, not for knives, acid, a fucking gun to his head.

Oh, and please don’t tell the boss.

Let it also be said: Johnny is loyal.

He would happily lay down his life for any of his comrades, lives and dies for SpecGru – for Price. And even though you’re new, you’re one of them now. You’ve quickly found and secured your place in Price’s inner circle, different as you may be. Johnny would go to war for you, and your silly pink sticky notes.

Still, keeping something – anything from the boss. Even a private matter like this…

It happened on SpecGru property, that makes it SpecGru business. And it happened to you, which makes it Price’s business.

That you don’t already know that is… well, that’s between you and the boss. Johnny’s already too involved as it is. (Not that he regrets helping you. Not a bit. If he had his way, that little prick would have left with his teeth in his pocket and a new appreciation for his remaining thumb).

So now Johnny is stuck. He likes you; he really does. That you trust him with something so personal isn’t lost on him, especially in this line of work. He also has a healthy fear of your wrath. (You may not carry any weapons he’s seen, but you’ve got Price grimacing when you narrow your eyes just so. Johnny knows where his cupcakes are made, and he likes them without arsenic, thank you). So, personally, he wants to be able to honor your request to keep the matter private.

But then there’s Price, and whatever he’ll do to Johnny if – when – he finds out about all this.

Johnny’s solution?

“Christ, Gaz, ya shoulda seen it. Never seen the little miss tell someone off like that. Graves woulda been shakin’ in his boots. Will have to ask security for a recording of it.”

Gaz, unimpressed with Johnny’s volume, rolls his eyes and walks away, muttering about tea for his sudden headache. And Price, sitting at his desk, twitches and reaches for his phone.

Mission: accomplished.

Not the most elegant, but he’s a mafia lieutenant, not a fuckin’ spy. Now, to get those pastries you like before Price sees the footage.

“Luv?”

You glance up from the expense reports you’ve been working through for the better part of an hour. Mr. Price is leaning in the doorway to his office, shoulder to the jamb. There’s… an odd look on his face. You’ve never seen it before, don’t have it categorized in your mental files.

“Yes, boss?” you ask, straightening up.

“A word?”

You blink. That’s… different. You don’t like it.

Price is a steady sort of man. Not predictable, but consistent. That this is new, unusual, unfamiliar, makes you uneasy. Reminds you of your last boss, who could call you into his office with an affable grin, only to spend thirty minutes berating you for anything and everything he could think of.

Price has never done that, nothing even close… but you can’t suppress the slight shake in your hands as you smooth your skirt down. Hide it with a little flick of your wrists before grabbing for your ever-trusty tablet. Hell, you probably don’t even need it, but at this point it’s practically a comfort item. Maybe you should name it, put some googly eyes on it.

“Sweetheart?”

You startle a bit. Realize your feet have already carried you into his office and followed him right to his desk. Except instead of standing at his elbow as usual, you’re facing him across his desk. Like you did during your interview with him, when you were still strangers. Like you used to do for your previous boss.

“Oh, sorry, sir,” you chirp, forcing your usual brightness, “those expense reports, ya know? What did you need me for?”

Without a word, he spins his computer monitor around. Your brow furrows as you process the video playing on the screen. You. Soap. Brandon. Your stomach sinks.

There’s no sound, but there doesn’t really need to be. Even in profile, the expressions are crisp – high end cameras. You feel numb as the scene plays out all over again. You and Brandon snipping at each other back and forth. Your rigid spine, stiff shoulders. Brandon’s sleezy confidence. Soap, getting visibly aggravated as the seconds pass.

And there it is, the moment you spun on your heel, done with the conversation, and Brandon reached for you.

When you see Soap’s hand snap out – just a blur on the screen – you have to sit. Muscle memory collects your tablet in your lap, sweaty hands stacking neatly on top of it. Your heart is beating either too fast or too slow.

Your eyes stay locked on the screen until you and Soap disappear into the elevator, and the video stops.

“Should I play the elevator footage as well?” Price asks, voice low and quiet. “That comes with sound.”

It takes all your years of learned discipline and cultivated poise to resist shrinking in on yourself. It does not, however, stop your eyes from burning.

“Sir,” you say, struggling to keep your voice even, “I am so sorry.”

There’s a beat of tense silence as you gather yourself, throat getting tighter and tighter. Your head is spinning with fear and anxiety. What he’ll say, what he’ll do. How you could possibly damage control this.

“I-I don’t even know how he found out where I work,” you say, “and Soap w-was just trying to help. If I’d known that would happen, I would have taken it outside.”

You can barely look at Price as your voice break midway through, the panic leaking into your tone even as you stay frozen in place.

“Did we – is he suing? Is – is that why—?”

The tears escape despite your efforts, dripping fast and down your cheeks as you shudder in a breath. You can’t pay for a lawsuit, especially not if you’re fired over this. And you don’t want to lose this job. You love this job, you love—

“Oh, darling, what a mess you’ve made of yourself.”

You sniffle as Price rounds his desk and kneels in front of you, plucking his handkerchief from his breast pocket. He tuts at you when you open your mouth to protest, already blotting at your cheeks with a surprisingly gentle touch.

“There now, no need to cry,” he soothes, thumbing away another tear before it can fall. “I know it takes you ages to get your eyeliner right. This is nothing to ruin it over.”

“But…”

“I’m not angry, luv,” he continues, voice still low and quiet. This time, it doesn’t make your shoulders tense. “Wasn’t before and definitely not now. Chin up, there’s a dear.”

“Y-you’re not?” you warble.

“Not a bit,” he answers. “Not at you, at least.”

“Then why…?” You gesture weakly at the computer screen.

He sighs, something almost fond passing over his face. “Darling, you could have been hurt. Imagine if Soap hadn’t been there. All of us on the top floor, waiting for you to get back, not knowing something was wrong.”

He shakes his head, cradling your cheek with the same hand that brushed away your tears.

“You’re one of mine, you understand? Anything that happens to you is my responsibility,” he explains. “And I didn’t… enjoy that you want to keep something like this from me.”

You drop your eyes in shame. Of course. An employee assaulted on company ground, his personal assistant no less. Price would never stand for that sort of thing. He looks out for his own, looks out for you.

“Hey, look at me, luv. None of that now,” he coaxes. “I just want to get to the bottom of why you didn’t want to tell me.”

It occurs to you that that tone you heard earlier might have just been genuine worry and maybe… a bit of hurt. You twist your hands in your lap as you gather your words.

“I didn’t… it wasn’t because of you,” you murmur. “I just… was so embarrassed. And I didn’t want to make it your problem. I’m supposed to make your life easier, not harder.”

He huffs, but you’re relieved to see wry amusement on his face now.

“No more of that,” he orders, as softly as he when he wiped your face. “Am I understood?”

“Yes, sir.”

“There’s a love.” He gently pinches your cheek, then stands. “Stay here, I’ll get you a cup of water. Take a moment, yeah?”

You nod, sniffling again. He squeezes your shoulder as he passes, and you finally let yourself breathe. Not getting fired, not getting sued. And Price isn’t mad at you. Christ, he needs to work on his approach.

“Kyle.”

“Yeah, boss?”

“Look into that knob from the lobby. And the little miss’s last boss.”

“You’ve got it.”

#cod #my writing #fanfiction #reader fic #mafia!au #oddly wholesome for a mafia au #mafia boss price #assistant!reader #assistant reader #john soap mactavish

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keeganbrainmush · 1 year

Note

141 + könig with reader who is terrifying with his mask on + is super tall and intimidating but once he takes the mask off he has like the most gentle and cute face ever as if all the shit happening on field suddenly was never real‼️

headcanons/bulletpoints , gender neutral reader , no nsfw mentioned , Minors DNI Mentions of reader being military.

Cpt. John Price

First time he saw you with your mask off he stared. Hard.

Not in a rude way.

" (Callsign), that you, soldier? "

You shot him a glare you usually did when you wore your mask, confirming his suspicion.

He asked why you wore the mask, listening intently on your personal story.

He has little smiles on his face whenever he sees you without your mask.

Simon ' Ghost ' Riley

Gawked at you.

Didn't even care if you noticed.

" You look like that under your mask? " in the thickest british accent.

He expected an adornment of scars and a mean stare.

Wonders how the things you've seen on the field don't effect the way you look.

But in all seriousness, falls harder than he already had for you.

John ' Soap ' MacTavish

Had a shit eating smile on his face.

" Who woulda known yer the one under the mask, ey? "

Has a sassy lil tone in his which pissed you off.

Toned it down once you gave him your signature glare while looking down at him.

Smiles up at you with a love sick grin everyday when he looked at you after you ' revealed ' your true identity.

Kyle ' Gaz ' Garrick

:o face.

Sparkling eyes when he stared at you.

" What're you looking at? " " Nothing, you just look nice. "

Other than that, he wasn't really affected by your face. He loves you and fell in love with you without knowing what you looked like, the cute face was def a plus for him though.

" You sure you don't got multiple personalities? " He'd tease after you finished yelling orders at rookies, giving him a wink in response.

König

He's fucking shocked.

" (Name)? Is that you? " He'd ask, walking up to you warily.

Its when you turned around to face him he gulped.

You really were fucking beautiful.

It doesn't really change the way he looks at you when your mask is on, he's still scared shitless of you.

But he likes to know that your not actually a hardass 24/7.

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mediumgayitalian · 2 months

Text

———

Twenty minutes later, Solace hurries out of his cabin in cowboy boots.

And jeans.

Nico gapes at him.

“Go go go go go, questions later,” Will hisses, herding him behind the Apollo cabin. “We are on a time limit, we gotta —”

“You’re wearing close-toed shoes.”

“Yes, yes, sometimes I wear the clothes that I own. Wild. Let’s go.” Will tugs, uselessly, on his arm, but Nico’s half-certain his jaw has taken root in the ground, cementing him in place, because what the actual shit.

“Solace, you wore flip-flops to the snow-smothered bus stop in January. I thought you had, like, a condition!”

“I do have a condition. It’s called You Are Not Hurrying, Death Breath, let’s go —”

This time when he pulls, Nico stumbles after him, ducking under windowsills and inching around flower gardens. Every time someone so much as looks in their direction, Will plants both hands on his chest and shoves them into a corner somewhere, craning his neck to watch until they move on. Every time he does, another piece of Nico’s soul breaks away from his body and descends into hell. There is an actual trail of bones and tilled earth and dead grass behind him. Will doesn’t need to worry about being stealthy — the death aura of Nico’s dignity is large enough to scare off anything within a four mile radius.

“In here!”

Undeterred by the death aura, for some reason, Will seizes his bicep and shoves him in a crack between the Hypnos and Dionysus cabins. He slips in a millisecond later, crowding him against the warm bricks, forearm pressed awkwardly next to Nico’s head.

“Hnggh,” Nico gasps, mournfully wishing his last sliver of self-respect goodbye. Rest in fucking peace. “Do you have to be so — close, Will, gods —”

“Shhh!”

“If you shush me again I am going to rip your throat out —”

“Go, go, go!”

Yanked forward again, Nico doesn’t have the time to finish his threat. This time, at least, they sprint the final stretch to the shed without any more hiding and shoving.

Thank all the fucking gods. One more second of Will’s stupid torso — since fucking when does he wear polo shirts, huh, what the shit fuck is up with that — pressed against his and Nico’s bronchitis was going to come back. And this time he’s going to succumb to it.

“Okay,” Will says. He stands in front of a tarp-covered lump, gripping one side and jutting his chin out at the other. “On three, we tear this off and start pushing. We need past Thalia’s tree in under thirty seconds. Got it?”

“No,” Nico says stubbornly, “you still haven’t explained what the rush is —”

“One two three go!”

Will, unfortunately, has been tricking ADHD teenagers into doing things they don’t want to do for years, so Nico’s ripping off the tarp and shoving the chariot out of its stall faster than he can register what he’s doing. He practically sprints to keep up with Will, chariot wheels creaking happily as they rush over stones and sticks and forgotten weapons.

“We’re leaving now, Chiron! Bye!” Will hollers, moving too fast to give him a second to respond. Luckily, Chiron is similarly busy, galloping after a speeding Harley without more than a backwards wave and a sharp don’t die, please!

“That dynamite I gave Harley’ll only keep everyone distracted another thirty seconds,” Will mutters, ignoring Nico’s alarmed the fucking what you gave Harley, “so we need to move, let’s go.”

“Will — slow down a half fucking second, Christ, not everyone is seventy percent leg — we don’t even have pegasi!”

“Will you keep it down.” Will looks back and forth, eyes wide, like he’s worried someone is going to pop up with a pack of the winged animals. “Just — stop asking questions! We’re almost home free!”

“You’ve gone insane. It’s finally, actually happened, after all these years, who woulda thought, fully bonkers at age sixteen —”

“Oh, shut up.”

Muttering his complaints, Nico helps him push the infernal chariot down Half-Blood Hill. Among his grievances, he makes it abundantly clear that 1) this is stupid, 2) he did not agree to physical labour, 3) he would not have agreed to come if he had known about the physical labour, and 4) this is stupid.

“Just a few more yards, then we can —”

“Okay, no, that’s it.” Nico lets go of the chariot, letting the wheel dig into the soft ground and send the whole thing halting. He meets Will’s pout head-on; arms crossed, jaw set, foot tapping, refusing to give into those big blue eyes.

“C’mon, Neeks.” A faint explosion sounds off in the distance. Will’s eyes get more pleading, more hopeful. “We won’t have much time after the diversion wears off…”

“You have three seconds before I turn the hell around, Solace.”

“Please?”

“One.”

He pushes uselessly at the chariot. It spins a sad little circle without someone pushing the other side. “Neeks!”

“Two.”

“Alright, fine! Help me push again and I’ll explain on the way down.”

“Much easier when you just do as I say,” Nico grumbles, starting to push the stupid (horseless and therefore useless) chariot again. “Isn’t it?”

Will, predictably, rolls his eyes, although he can’t quite help the smile that pulls at his lips. Nico tells the butterflies that go buck fucking wild in his stomach to go to hell. This does nothing.

“How much do you know about the chariot?” Will asks eventually, after a couple minutes of shoving the stupid thing past a deep trench in the soil, leftover from the war. (Nico is going to set the fucking thing on fire. It’s a flying chariot — shouldn’t it be lightweight? Why is he suffering?) They’re nearly three quarters down the hill, and it takes everything Nico has not to risk it all and shadow travel the last couple dozen feet. Yeah, it might kill him, but then his problem would immediately go away. Tempting does not begin to cover it.

“Uh, big source of drama, right? Apollo and Ares worked together to seize it, argued over who got to keep it?”

He cuts a careful glance over to Will, well aware it’s a sensitive topic. He knows the question isn’t a trap — Will would never do that to him — but it’s probably best to tread lightly. As far as he’s concerned, this is a sore point that’ll take more than a couple years to heal.

Luckily, there’s no tension to Will’s face. “Mhm. I wasn’t there for much of the planning, ‘cause I was busy in the infirmary and also, like, twelve, but it took a lot of time on both sides. When Michael and everyone seized it, though, it glowed gold.”

“…Ah.”

Will snorts at his awkwardness, nudging his shoulder. “Yeah. Sure made it hard for the Ares cabin to claim, as dicey as it may be. Here, help me park it on the side of the road.”

There’s a thatch of weeds and undergrowth separating the road from the base of the hill, so dragging the chariot over is a struggle and a half. Nico can’t help but think that this task would be very easy if the chariot was harnessed to a couple pegasi and flying over the fucking thatch, as it is meant to do. When he voices this very valid thought, Will does not respond.

He does walk into a thistle, though, so Nico feels considerably better about the whole ordeal.

“The thing about the blessing —” Will grunts, yanking the chariot onto the gravel shoulder with one final tug — “is that it’s not that big of a deal. My dad blesses shit all the time. Our cabin is blessed. The infirmary is blessed. Hell, half my scalpels are blessed, and I throw those things out all the time ‘cause they’re dangerous when they get dull. Just because my dad blessed it doesn’t mean we actually have to keep it.”

“Okay…” Nico says slowly, “then why was it such a big deal?”

“The blessing on its own wasn’t.” Will’s voice gets fainter as he lowers himself onto the pavement, dragging himself under the belly of the chariot. Nico is confused for a full three seconds before a particularly rough patch of asphalt snags Will’s shirt and drags, and wow, are those jeans low rise. His throat is suddenly very dry. “Blessing a chariot on the other hand…”

Will makes a dorky little noise of success, crawling back from under the chariot. When he resurfaces, he’s grinning, carved piece of wood the same material as the chariot clenched in his hand. There’s soot smeared across his left cheek, his curls have tangled themselves into more of a mess than usual, and there are three separate scuff marks on his nice jeans.

Nico ducks his head, hiding a smile. What a dorky loser. Even dressed up as he is (boy, has Nico fallen low, if he’s calling jeans and cowboy boots dressed up), he still manages to look like…Will.

A really, really hot version of Will, but. Whatever. Details.

“The hell is that?”

“This,” Will says grandly, feeling around the wall of the chariot until he finds a specific spot, “is the reason my brother gave a fuck about a dumbass chariot.” He sticks the edge of the wooden tool in a tiny groove, wedging it open to reveal a hidden panel and a small, golden button. Nico meets Will’s grin with raised eyebrows, impressed.

“What do you know about Michael?”

“Uh, not too much.”

“You think he, in any reality, would have had that much interest in a hunk of wood?”

Nico had scarcely met him more than a couple times, but Michael Yew made an impression, that was for sure. For someone who was shorter than Nico when he was ten years old, he sure took up a lot of space. In the few times Nico remembers seeing him, he’d been concerned with his bow, his camera, or showing any given person who so much as blinked at him wrong just how quickly he could turn their ass concave. If Nico is correct, actually, the one time he and a pegasus had been in the same vicinity, they’d hissed at each other. Nico didn’t even know pegasi could hiss.

He tries to find a delicate way to say this.

“He seemed more interested in other endeavours,” he says politely.

Will laughs loudly. “He would rather shove an arrow in his eye than race a chariot!” His bright smile is impossible not to match, and Nico is relieved to find him totally comfortable, relaxed; hell, even excited. Usually, any talk of his siblings, even fond, makes him quiet. He’s glad for this change, however unusual. “Man, I loved my brother more than anything, but he was the most ornery motherfucker I’ve ever met in my life. He taught me every swear in every language by the time I was nine, just because he knew it would drive Lee batty. He didn’t care about some spoil of war.”

He smirks, wide and devilish, and Nico’s knees go weak. Dimples like that should be illegal.

“He was smart, though. And he figured, if dad’s blessing made this chariot anything like his own…”

He reaches out and presses the golden button with his thumb, letting go and standing back once he registers a faint click. After a couple seconds, the chariot begins to glow, soft at first, then brighter, then Nico has to squeeze his eyes shut to avoid the stinging burn, and then when he opens them, it —

He gapes. Will grins.

Where the chariot used to be, is now a shiny, brand-new, black and yellow motorbike, two helmets gleaming on the sparkling leather seat.

“…Then it might be a little more than some lousy chariot.”

Without waiting for Nico to pick his jaw off the floor, Will rushes forward. He tosses one of the helmets to Nico — which he barely manages to catch, still working on processing what the fuck just happened — and tucks the other under his arm. Nico happens to notice how his biceps flex with the action, and then vows to have his father bankrupt the entire polo shirt industry, because he can never be caught lacking like this by any mortal soul. It’s humiliating.

There’s a click as Will unlatches the seat, lifting it up to access the compartment under it. He pulls out a bundle mass of black fabric, and with a flick of his shoulders reveals it to be a fucking leather jacket and oh, gods, Nico takes back the polo shirt complaints, he can live with the polo shirt. This is too much. This is —

“Any time you’re done ogling at me, you can climb on,” Will calls out. He doesn’t even have the good grace to look in Nico’s direction, instead sliding on the seat facing resolutely forward, amused smirk on his face. And because he wants Nico to die, actually, he straightens his jacket, making sure it fits his shoulders right (by the gods does it ever) brushes his hair backwards (there is no genuine reason for someone’s hair to actually shine in the sunlight) and slides his helmet on. When he finally does look back in Nico’s direction, through his raised visor, the combined sight of his sparkling blue eyes and the cut of his face under the angular helmet actually gives him tachycardia.

“I hate you,” Nico croaks. “Not joking.”

Will throws his head back and laughs, baring his long, tanned throat. Nico follows the bob of his adam’s apple like Tantalus does the forbidden fruit. It’s horrible, and what’s worse is that Will is visibly preening like the fuckin’ peacock he is. Someone should remind him he’s basically a dressed up turkey. Or something. Nico’s brain is operating at twenty percent capacity, his ability to metaphor properly is a secondary concern.

“Just get over here, you goober. We’re on a time limit, remember?”

Shoving his helmet on to hide his flaming face, Nico does, sliding on with a healthy four inches of space between them.

“Mm, not gonna work, ParaNorman. This thing’s enchanted, we’ll be going well over a hundred. Hold on properly.”

Praying to seven different gods for strength, at once, Nico scooches the agonizing few inches closer.

“Hands around waist, Death Boy.”

“I’m fucking — I’m getting there, you asshole, gimme a goddamn second.”

“Do you need help?”

“I need you to shut the fuck up so I can focus.”

Maybe it’s the healer in him, or maybe there actually is a god looking out for Nico and they decide to have mercy. Maybe it’s a third option. Either way, Will reaches back and wraps his callused hands around Nico’s wrist, tugging them gently forward and resting them on the narrow curve of his hips. Nico holds them there, along with his breath, until some of the panicky tension starts to loosen in his chest, and he relaxes forward, resting his chest against Will’s back.

“There,” he says quietly, humming with approval when Nico’s arms link properly around his waist. He squeezes his clasped wrists once — a silent you good? — and waits for Nico’s minute nod, face buried in the back of Will’s neck, before starting up the engine, revving it twice before leaning forward, body flush to the bike. Nico can practically feel his grin, it’s so clear in his mind’s eye, in the delight thrumming through Will’s entire body, that he can’t help his own smile, too, can’t help but feel the thrum of the machine, the sharp smell in the air. He tightens his hold and Will lets out a loud, whooping laugh.

“Let’s ride, baby!”

With a push off the ground and a twist of a thrusters, they’re off, leaving behind only the echo of the roaring engine and the joyful, startled sound of Nico’s shriek.

———

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ohbo-ohno · 6 months

Note

I REALLY wanna see Johnny get mad! Like white hot angry at reader. Don’t know what/how it happened but Johnny’s gonna make all of reader’s poor holes suffer🥺

Maybe Simon gets surprised and turned on by his pup’s newfound aggressiveness

3.6k pwp soap drabble 4 u (cw for referenced burning building, angry sex, some light mutual degradation/objectification, and voyeurism since ghost watches)

You fume silently, face hot with rage while you and Soap walk side by side behind Ghost down the base hallways. There's a tension at the base of your neck that you just know is going to become a migraine if you don't get some medicine soon, and your bones ache from going too long without sleep.

Soap's somehow even stiffer beside you, the distance between you two small but intentional. Usually he's impossible to pry off of you, always brushing against you and looking for more physical contact, but since you landed he's kept at least half a foot between you two at all times.

Fine by you. You don't want him touching you right now anyway.

The silence is thick as Ghost leads you two to his room, his shoulders loose and relaxed.

He's got no reason to be tense, you suppose. He's not the one who had a massive disagreement on the field, who had to drag his squadmate back from a blazing fire and deal with his bitching instead of his thanks.

Just the memory of it makes you scowl.

Ghost leads the two of you into his room in rare silence, though it's only rare because usually you and Johnny would already be teasing or flirting at this point. But you don't bother now, not with your anger so fresh in your mind.

Ghost is the only one to get settled once Johnny closes the door behind you. You two stand on opposite sides of the doorframe, both too tense to do much but stew in your own righteous anger, and Ghost starts to get dressed down into something more comfortable.

He lets the two of you stay quiet until he's fully changed into a tank top and sweats, no boxers then sits on the bed with an overly loud sigh.

"You two even gonna look at each other?"

Your lip curls as you glance at Johnny from the corner of your eyes. "I have nothing to say to him."

"'S not what I asked."

Your cheek twitches and you bite your tongue, rolling a sharp canine over it. "Honestly, Simon, I don't even want to see him right now."

Johnny scoffs, loud in the otherwise quiet room, and nearly stomps to your side, leaning in front of you to try and force eye contact. "Oh, really? Ye can't even look at me, huh? Had no problem lookin' earlier, when you were draggin' me away from my goddamn mission."

You want to growl, you want to rake your nails down his face and scream about what a fool he is, what a jackass, and you want to make him remember.

Some of your ire must shine through in your expression, and Johnny mirrors it, eyes sparking as he straightens and stands diagonally from you, chest nearly brushing your shoulder.

"Dragging you away from your death, more like," you sneer.

"Wasn't your place," he bites back, moving forward enough that you can feel the heat of him even through all your layers. "You aren't my fuckin' CO and I'm not yours - wasn't any of your business how I chose to execute my orders."

"It is when you chose to do it in the most lethal way possible! Fuck, MacTavish, had you taken half a second and listened to me-"

"Oh, that's all it woulda taken? Just had to shut my pretty lips and listen to you, jump before you even say how high? Newsflash, lass, you don't get to make those decisions."

"And you do?"

"In this case? Yeah, you're fuckin' right I do. Price said drag the man out, alive, and that's what I was doing."

"You ran into a burning building!"

"Under orders from our CO!"

"You know damn well that's not what he meant, Sergeant, cut the shit. The orders were to bring him back alive, not kill yourself in the process!"

"That's the job, Sergeant. You do whatever it takes to fulfill your orders."

You're both panting as he snarls the words, nose to nose and eye to eye, teeth bared in rage that feels almost primal. His close brush with death, the way you'd had to tackle him to keep him from running after the damn target, leaves you raw and unsteady. Had you been any weaker, any less filled by adrenaline and panic and something deeply possessive, you know Soap would've thrown you off and gotten himself killed. You were hardly able to hold him down until the screaming stopped as it was.

You take as deep a breath as you can with your heart racing, and reach up to wrap the collar of Johnny's shirt tight in your fist, dragging him so close that your noses brush, hot breaths shared.

"You don't get to fucking leave me." You shoot a glance over Johnny's shoulder, to where Ghost sits comfortably against the headboard of your shared bed. "Leave us. I won't let you."

It's the last sentence that has him bristling, that ruins your chance of a settled argument.

The only person who lets Soap do anything is Ghost. The two of you listen to your Lieutenant with no questions, no doubt, no hesitations, but the same doesn't go for your fellow Sergeant. Since the 141 had formed, you and Soap have been fighting for dominance over one another, both of you determined to establish your control of the other like Ghost has for both of you.

The insinuation that you would let Soap do anything isn't something he'll let slide.

Hours later, fucked raw and sated, you can admit to yourself that the wording was slightly intentional. But now, with the fresh wound of Soap's close call with death still stinging in your subconscious, you only mean it as a way to push his anger to the level yours has been at for hours now.

"Let me?" He rumbles, muscles relaxing as he steps forward enough to press his chest to yours, head ducked low so all you can see is Johnny. "You don't let me do shit, lass. Couldn't stop me if you tried."

You can't help the way your lips quirk up into a humorless smile, your fist tightening in the fabric of his shirt. "Had a pretty easy time of it earlier, MacTavish. Had you pinned and writhing under me, like a bitch-"

Before you can finish your taunt, you find yourself pinned to the door, a mouth covering yours.

Johnny's teeth are sharp against your lips as he nips at you, leaving behind a sting and a throb. You dig your nails into his shoulders, raking them down his arms and rumbling in dissatisfaction when his clothes keep him from feeling anything.

You bite back as you push at the hem of his shirt, desperate to get your hands on him and make him hurt. You trace your fingers over his abs as you get his bottom lip between your teeth, pulling him down to your height and smirking at his glare.

You don't kiss so much as fight with lips instead of fists, there's no affection or softness between the two of you right now. You're nothing but your anger, but your desperation, and deep down your fear. You cling to Johnny with something verging on desperation, bite and scratch to make him feel even a bit of the pain you had at such a close call with death.

He leans almost his entire weight into yours to keep you pinned against the door, but you only have to shove at his shoulders a few times for him to get the hint and move backwards.

His lips never leave yours as you walk him back to the bed, his hands coming up to grip your thighs as he falls back and keeps you on top of him. You taste the slightest tang of iron as you shift your knees up next to his hips, squeezing his sides between your thighs and his tongue between your teeth.

"You gonna ride me?" He pants when you pull away for a breath of air, your hips working over the tent in his pants. "Think you're in charge, bonnie?"

You bare your teeth at him, grinding your core against the tent in his pants. “I’m not the one on my back, MacTavish.”

His smile is all teeth as he bucks his hips into yours, knocking you off balance so you’re forced to brace your hands on either side of his head. “I don’t need to be on top to keep you on a leash.”

It’s all too easy to hook your fingers in his throat mic - his collar. His pupils blow wide when you tug harshly enough to pull his head off the mattress, his hips following as he moans and grinds you down onto him with a bruising grip on your thighs.

“Down,” you smirk, leaning your weight back and forcing his hips to the bed, grinding your hips. “‘S my turn, Johnny. Gonna use you ‘til you’re wrung dry.”

His tongue darts out to wet his lips, then rests on his bottom lip instead of settling behind his teeth. You can’t resist the urge to lean down and lick over his lips, covering them in your own spit and groaning when he pulls you back into a proper kiss.

Despite your hand around his throat and your weight on top of his, you’re both equally in control as you strip the other. You can’t be bothered to wrestle his wrists to the bed, far preferring to let him paw your shirt and pants off while you tear the seams in his indecently tight shirt.

You only have the patience to get his pants to his knees, unwilling to help him kick them off for full mobility. Instead you grind yourself against his hard length, the soaked gusset of your underwear dragging wonderfully over both his cock and your clit.

You shift your hand on his neck so your palm is resting on his Adam’s apple, giving him just enough pressure to stay flattened to the bed.

He nearly growls when you push, the head of his cock getting caught in your panties and brushing the crease of your thigh. “Fuck, bonnie, get it on with.”

You blink down at him, cocking an unimpressed brow and shifting your hips so he slips between your folds, tucking your underwear to the side with your free hand. “You’re not in charge right now, MacTavish. I’m on top.”

“Only cause I’m lettin’ ya,” he pants, hips twitching as he tries to find your hole, tries to find a hole to sink into.

You lean down just far enough to bite the air in front of his nose, all feral rage and sexual frustration as you let yourself sit on his cock, holding him still beneath you. “You don’t let me do shit, I do whatever the fuck I want to. And right now, I want to ride you ‘til you stop fucking talking.”

You press your lips to his before he can bite back the response you see waiting on his tongue, letting your hips move in the way that feels best for you as you lick over his teeth.

Johnny’s always loved making out. When Ghost keeps him locked up, or he’s just not allowed to fuck you, he’ll happily spend hours with your lips glued together, dry humping each other and swapping spit. You can’t even count the number of times he’s come in his pants while thrusting against your hip or your side, driven over the edge by just a kiss.

You take advantage of that now, keeping one hand on his throat and the other circling the base of his throbbing cock so you can line yourself up above him. He’s far too distracted with your lips and tongue to remember he could tug you down on him at any moment, could flip the two of you with hardly any effort at all.

Despite the complete lack of prep, your body takes Johnny easily, the familiar stretch making you moan as you sink down onto him with one smooth movement. You blink open wet eyes just in time to see Johnny’s eyes nearly roll to the back of his head when your ass rests against him, his cock buried inside of you.

You don’t let yourself rest for long, though most days you love to just feel the weight of either of your boys inside of you. But that current of anger is still pulsing beneath your skin, and all the hot, sweat slick contact between you and Johnny only makes you feel more desperate.

Your pace is merciless, for both him and yourself. Your knees and thighs scream as you slam yourself to the base of Johnny’s cock, making sure you pull off nearly to the tip on every thrust. Without a hand around his throat, you’d have lost your balance on the first thrust.

Johnny’s pulse thunders against your fingers, so fast and so harsh that you swear you can ever see your fingertips twitching against his throat. His breaths are quick and erratic, and you can’t help but subconsciously match his breathing with your faces as close together as they are.

“So fucking good,” you moan, rolling your hips as you lift yourself off of him, dragging the head of his cock along your walls. Your voice cracks when he bucks his hips up, and you’re relieved that he’s already too blissed out to notice, lost in the tight vice of your cunt.

“Yeah?” Johnny pants, tongue nearly lolling out of his mouth when you pull away fully. “Stuff you just right, yeah, lass?”

You bite your tongue against an agreement, some deep part of you that’s not quite drunk on pleasure yet unwilling to give Johnny that kindness. Instead you shift your weight, so that your hand is more cupping Johnny’s jaw and putting pressure on his head instead of his neck, letting you really push him down and get the proper leverage to fuck yourself on his cock.

“Perfect fucking-” you shudder against the words, moan when he rubs just over your g-spot and repeating the same motion with your hips again and again. “Perfect fucking toy, so nice to ride.”

The sound Johnny makes is purely animalistic, torn between anger and desperation, something rough and low in his throat. You can feel the rumble of it through your hand and can’t help but moan in return, finally nearing your peak even as your legs continue to burn.

Neither of you speaks as you ride him, your head hanging low so you’re eye-level with his nipples and focused entirely on your own pleasure. The way your muscles scream at you only fills you with more need, more desperation, and the pain pushes you closer and closer to the edge. Your clit grinds just right over the rough patch of Soap’s pubic hair, soaking it in your juices and covering him in slick.

You reach your peak with gasping breaths, nearly going cross-eyed as you use Johnny entirely for your own pleasure, using him as nothing more than something to hold yourself up on and a toy to ride. Your muscles go completely lax as your pleasure overwhelms you, leaving you slumped against his muscular chest as you ride out the orgasm with small rolls of your hips.

Johnny’s still rock hard inside of you as you come down, his grip on your thighs tight enough to bruise. Your hand has slipped from underneath his collar to the mattress next to his face, and you don’t have the energy to push yourself up and away, to deny him like you’d intended.

Your lungs feel too small as you try to take deep gasping breaths, only managing a few before your lungs start hitching. Johnny’s chest rises and falls quickly beneath your head, his heart pounding beneath your ear.

You don’t have time to brace yourself before you’re flipped onto your stomach, face down on the mattress.

One moment you’re floating in post-orgasmic bliss, letting your body clench down on Johnny and milk him, the next moment you’re on your knees with your back forced into a deep arch, that same cock pounding into you like a machine.

Your groan is bone deep when you finally lift your head enough to breathe, eyes rolled heavenward as your body tries its best to adjust to the harsh treatment.

“Show you a fucking toy,” Johnny snarls from over your shoulder, his voice sounding distant beneath the blood rushing through your ears. “Think ye can just treat me like fucking nothing, get yerself off then take a fucking nap? Nah, yer gonna take what ye fucking deserve.”

The thickening of Johnny’s accent has you gushing around him, your sensitive channel clenching down so hard that you’re surprised he can pull out at all.

Johnny’s hand wraps in your hair when you try to let your head fall forward again, yanking you back with enough strength to leave you yowling at the strain on your neck.

“Don’t fucking hide,” he hisses, landing a sharp slap on the meat of your ass. “Think ye can just shove yer head in the sand? Let me fuckin’ hear you, lass, sing f’r me.”

“Fu-uck you,” you manage to groan, syllables interrupted on every thrust, your voice cracking. “You’re not- fuck, Johnny, don’t have to listen to you.”

You can practically hear the way he gnashes his teeth over your shoulder, can perfectly envision the angry snarl on his face at your lack of submission.

“Ye will. Gonna teach ye a fuckin’ lesson about yer place.”

You try your best to rear up, whipping your head over your shoulder to glare as best you can despite the grip on your hair. “My place? Who the hell do you think- oh fuck, fuck, Johnny, you can’t- goddamnit-”

“Can’t even get a goddamn word out.” Even from your terrible angle you can see that his smile is mean. “Think ye can be in charge when ye can’t even finish a sentence? Fuckin’ fool.”

You nearly shriek when he shoves your head down to the mattress, clawing fruitlessly at anything in front of you. You only freeze when you feel flesh give way underneath your nails, the hard muscles of a thick thigh under your palm.

You can just barely angle your head enough to glance up and see Simon looking down at you, but you can’t manage to see anything past his general shape with the way Soap is trying to shove you inside the mattress.

Ghost’s hand comes to rest on your head, and when you lean into him he pushes Johnny’s fingers off.

“Watch it, pup,” he rumbles, and Johnny’s hips stutter behind you. “You’re already in trouble. Do you really wanna make it worse?”

Your self-righteous smirk is hidden in the sheets, but you can’t fully muffle your laugh when Johnny’s whines over your shoulder. The sound quickly morphs into a snarl, and he buries his teeth into your shoulder as his hips start to work again, the sound of his balls slapping against your soaked cunt obscene.

Johnny wraps his arms beneath your torso, hooking his hands on your shoulders so he can tug you into every thrust, moving his face up to nose at your throat. You feel covered by him, consumed by him, as he chases his own pleasure.

You don’t quite manage to get off before he empties himself inside you, but there’s a deep satisfaction in your bones that still lets you melt into him.

Johnny’s all heat and power at your back as he goes weak against you, and a small shove to his shoulder from Ghost has both of you resting on your sides, spooning with his cock still buried inside of you.

Your breaths sync with his quickly, matching the inhales and exhales you can feel against your neck and the rise and fall of his chest against your back.

Your eyes flutter shut, relaxing into the bed and Johnny’s arms. You know that you’ll have to Talk later, about what he’d done and how you’d responded. But you know it’ll be an easier conversation after Ghost’s punishment, when all of your consciousness has eased a bit.

“There ya go,” you hear Ghost say, followed by a soft stroke over your head. “Exhausted yourselves, huh? Silly pups.”

You hum and Johnny rumbles behind you, burying his face more fully in your throat. You feel Ghost’s other hand pet over his mohawk, his thumb brushing your cheekbone.

“I guess you can nap.” Ghost sighs, like he’s doing you both a great favor. “You’ll both need all your energy for your punishment, anyway. Breakin’ damn near every rule in the book just cause you got a little worked up. What am I gonna do with the two of you?”

You don’t have the energy to respond, and the best Johnny manages is a small and plaintive whine. Ghost chuckles from above you, and you feel him lay in front of you, his arms wrapping around Johnny’s back and tugging you both to him.

“Yeah, yeah, I know. Just relax now, you’re alright.”

It’s easy to drift off, even if the heat is near suffocating and the stretch of Johnny’s cock verges on the edge of too much. You’re loose-limbed and sated, and Johnny’s safe beside you. There’s little else you could ever want, ever need, and you can’t be much more than grateful as you fall asleep between your men.

#ghoap x reader #nobody saw me complaining about this last night :)#bo writes #soap mactavish x reader #< since it's mostly him #btw i off and on contemplated making this reader male so if their vibes change throughout the fic thats why lmao #2 big military men fighting for dominance over one another while a Bigger & More Muscular partner watches knowing they're under his thumb..#yeah that's the stuff

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britcision · 4 months

Text

GANG I AM SURE IT IS OLD NEWS BUT I HAVE BEEN DOING MATH AND LEMME TELL YOU A FUCKING THING

EXHIBIT A: MITHRUN’S TIMELINE PER THE DUNGEON GUIDE

EXHIBIT B: KABRU’S TIMELINE PER THE DUNGEON GUIDE

EXHIBIT C: MILSIRIL’S COMIC PER THE DUNGEON GUIDE

HYPOTHESIS: Milsiril was bare minimum visiting, caring for, and feeding Mithrun at points in his timeline between year 480 (trying to recover) and 500 (appointed as a captain - this is also noted to have happened immediately when he was fit for work, since they were running out of people)

In the comic, Milsiril specifically references Utaya (year 499, from Kabru’s timeline - it’s the only demon incident in Utaya), as she uses the incident with the demon in Utaya to get Mithrun to eat and get his act together

Kabru lived with Milsiril in the elven capital from year 499 to 510

Milsiril specifically dislikes and avoids other elves… now with the apparent exception of Mithrun, who she thinks she might have quite liked pre-nuking

Milsiril would not want to go to Mithrun’s family estate and deal with his entire family every time to take care of him… and they may not have been keen on her dolls or cooking

The only thing we know about Mithrun and his family is that he hated his brother, and visits him every five years (brother has extended a permanent invitation for Mithrun to visit any time pretty sure Mithrun overestimates how much his brother cared/noticed he didn’t like him)

His parents deadass aren’t mentioned except to note that he’s the bastard child, and his parents ignored his older brother. There’s an implication here that they preferred Mithrun… until they sent him to a death squad

Milsiril has a repeatedly-mentioned tendency to take in strays, usually kids of short-lived peoples, and strong nurturing instincts that may/may not be pretty dehumanizing

CONCLUSION: there is a non-zero chance that Mithrun and Kabru LIVED TOGETHER FOR A FUCKING YEAR post Utaya at Milsiril’s house and just didn’t even fucking notice

I am losing my mind

This is incredible

Mithrun deadass coulda been The Crazy Uncle In The Attic for a full fucking year

He was busy going feral and blaming himself for Utaya cuz it “could have been different” if he’d been there and recovered for the same fucking year THE LAST SURVIVOR OF UTAYA was in the next room

What kind of unhinged interactions did they have

Kabru was fucking SEVEN the state of Mithrun in that comic woulda fucking RETRAUMATIZED HIM any mention of him being a dungeon lord???? NOPE

We know from the changeling incident that Mithrun barely considered Kabru a distinct person so 0% chance he would ever put it together but KABRU

Kabru is an observant little thot and his favourite thing is making assumptions from his observations

Just a MENTION of Milsiril and Kabru shoulda been all up on that

Mithrun FULLY DID mention her as Milsiril the Gloomy when exposing his backstory and Kabru just… tossed every single name in the garbage

(Which, fair. Elves live a long time, the odds of there being only one Milsiril are 0% and she wasn’t all that gloomy with Kabru, and, frankly, he had bigger concerns named Laios Touden)

Ugh too much too many bits Otta’s comic includes them actually talking about his adoptive mom but without names they were SO CLOSE I am going insane

Fanfiction

So much fanfiction

It MUST be post Kabru/Mithrun this ship is all angst and tbh the whole “desiring someone who can’t desire” is only gonna consternate Kabru for so long so once that is done I want a slice of “WAIT A FUCKING SECOND you’re the guy in the attic???????”

#dungeon meshi #delicious in dungeon #dunmeshi #mithrun #mithrun dungeon meshi #kabru #kabru dungeon meshi #kabru/mithrun #but also LORE #milsiril #milsiril dungeon meshi #y’all have no idea i am eating this shit up

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scudevils · 19 days

Text

vienna — CL16

pairing: charles leclerc x fem!reader

warnings: smut, some sad stuff, a prequel to “when it rains it pours”, swearing, just finished this after starting it a whileeeeee ago, google translated french (soz), this is old (as in mid 2023 old), not a good representation of a relationship, not proofread!

synopsis: what really happened the night you bumped into charles at the monaco grand prix [6.0k]

a/n: im backkkk bitches!! jk i don’t wanna jinx myself but who woulda thought it would a charles fic that got me out of my slump. anyway, please be nice, i haven’t wrote in like 3 months properly 😭😭

you stayed true to your words, keeping your distance from charles.

you hadn't seen him in months, not since you'd left him in the kitchen that night. you hadn't been temped enough to check how he was doing in his races or where he was in the standings, not once.

and your friends knew better than to tell you, so whilst you could see they were obviously celebrating something, wether it was a win or a podium, you kept yourself away from anything relating to him.

the way he looked at you when you were in the kitchen was still burned into your memory, the smug and almost mocking expression on his face, as if he didn't believe the words that you told him, as if he knew you'd come straight back to him.

you told yourself after that, that you'd be stronger the next time, that you wouldn't give into his glances or taunting looks he gave you. that you were stronger than him and whatever gave me was playing.

although all it took was a win at one of the most iconic circuits on the calendar to break down the walls you'd so carefully built up.

you'd inevitably learned through a mutual friend that charles was a contender in the championship, that ferrari had been having a 'wonder season' with their monegasque golden boy, a miracle was what the media was calling it. a potential to win the championship since they last did in 2007.

monaco was the next race around the corner, the exclusive circuit de monaco one of the hardest to get tickets to, even for the countries natives, although it did help living basically around the corner from it.

whilst you were with charles it had became some what of a tradition to attend monaco with him, every year of his career, you were with him for your home race. despite the rumours of the curse, wether you being with him was the cause, it never stopped you from going.

you'd ruled out attending this year without a second thought, letting your friends know that too, pierre being the one to offer your entire friend group paddock passes for the three days.

it took days of your friends grovelling, your many no's and them constantly assuring you that the thousands of people attending would be the ones taking over much of charles' attention, before you finally gave in and agreed.

after all he was the home boy, everyone loved him, men wanted to be him and women wanted to be with him, and he revelled in knowing that.

monaco had a special way of bringing out the other side of you, the partying side that never seemed to be able to sit down or the side of you that made the bad decisions, that wouldn't listen to anyone unless they were putting a drink in your hand.

it was a 50/50 coin toss on which one people would get.

the first two days had gone by in a blink of an eye, everything running just as smoothly as your friends had promised and you were actually having fun, the most shocking thing of all.

you had somehow managed to avoid him the entire weekend, and you were about to go three for three when charles had found you watching over the alpine mechanics as they worked on the final preparations of the race day car.

it was obvious to anyone he had came around looking for pierre, although he couldn't say that he was disappointed to see you instead. "was wondering where my number one supporter was," his voice was like nails on a chalkboard for you, a graining sound that wouldn't leave your head and you hated how much you missed it. you chose not to acknowledge him as he spoke, continuing to look at the mechanics and even pretending to understand the data on the screen. "shame you're not in the ferrari garage, we used to have so much fun in there."

"fuck you, charles." standing up from the chair, you moved to walk past him the ferrari driver blocking the way as he tilted his head down towards you. he opened his mouth to say something before an engineer from the ferrari garage found him, needing him for something with the car.

charles removed the cap from his head, placing it on yours, and it felt so right that you wanted to shoot yourself for how much you loved it, he laughed lightly at how quick you were to take it off again. "i'll find you after the race."

just as you'd anticipated, the race too wasn't too action filled, but you couldn't lie and say you were paying it all your attention, the rare occurrence of a red bull strategy error allowing the ferrari's a larger gap to a 1-2. a mclaren crashing into the barrier had brought out a safety car with just under 10 laps to go.

with only 5 laps, it was inevitable who the winner was, the winner who was about to win the monaco grand prix, and break his home race curse in one go.

fans and employees alike gather around the podium, the winning car followed by second and third place displayed in front of them. the drivers came out one by one, celebrate with their teams because after all they're on the podium of the most presidential grand prix, each of them standing at their designated step before charles, accompanied by the cheers of his home crowd, took the top step.

soon they were each awarded their trophies before the monegasque anthem rung out to the crowd. charles stood proud as he took everything in, he had beat the curse and won at his home track.

you watched from afar with your friends mixed in with the alpine engineers and other workers, trying to push down the proud feeling you have bubbling inside of you. each celebrated as if their own team won, it seemed that truly everyone had a soft spot for the ferrari man.

with the majority of celebrations over the fans began to leave the track, all of you going back to your apartments to get ready for what inevitably was going to be a long night of celebration.

you couldn't help the memories flashing in your head of the pictures shown to you just over two years ago, charles' hand on the brunette girls hip as his mouth was on hers. a couple others in the background jeering them on as though it was something to celebrate. you hadn't gone out in monaco since, everywhere reminded you of that.

however, you shook the thoughts from your head. tonight, you were going to go out with your friends tonight, get drunk, then end up back in your own bed.

people were spilling out of the clubs onto the street, different songs blaring out of each one. your friends had settled on one you’d been going to since your teens, the purple strobes hitting you as you got in, memories of every bad decision you’d made in there coming back to you, taunting you.

it was just shy of full, people on the dance floor with a drink in their hand as they danced up against someone, spilling whatever filled their glasses. guys sat in booths with girls around them, their company lasting as long as they had money in their wallet.

a drink was quickly placed in your hand, your simple order one that your friends were used to by now. you were in your usual spot, the leather seats still pristine as the day you first sat on them when one of them had spotted pierre in another booths, the frenchman calling you over before making room for all of you.

one drink quickly turned into two, then three before you were both finally tipsy enough to get to the dance floor, this was the side of you that your friends loved to see, fun, carefree, living in the moment. your body pushed up against someone behind you, long gone were the thoughts of the monegasque who’d plagued your life, the feeling of his hands firmly on your hips had you pressing further back.

his grip on you was enough to keep you to close to him, his breath hot on your neck before his lips began to explore your exposed skin, open mouthed kisses littered across your collarbone. leaning into his touch you wrapped your arms around his neck, bringing the man closer to you, giving into the feeling.

the alcohol flowing through your veins built up the courage for you to turn to look at him, a small gasp falling from your lips as your eyes met the familiar ones of pierre, looking down at you with his arm wrapped around your waist, unapologetically looking over your body. "you know he'd be mad if he saw us."

you hated that you still let him have this control over you, that with another man wrapped up around you, you still thought about how he felt. despite the noise, pierre could hear your words clearly. his lips continued up your neck from your collarbone, reaching just below your ear, teeth lightly grazing your earlobe. "good thing he isn't here," the frenchman placed a small kiss on the soft skin. "charles doesn't know what he's lost."

every inch of your body shouted to give into him, to be the bad guy and fuck his best friend with no remorse, after all where was his remorse when he’d left you in that kitchen, when he’d been in another womens bed?

but even then, something stopped you from letting yourself fall into pierre's arms, something still held you back. nothing could explain what prompted you to step away from him, offering him a quick apology before going back to the booth, the warmth of his lips a long forgotten feeling.

at that point you hadn't even wanted to continue with the night, ordering one last drink before you told your friends you were ready for an early night, an early night for monaco anyway.

the walk from the club was barely 10 minutes to your apartment, the times when you were thankful to live in a small country. you rounded a corner, mimicking the cars that had been on the track hours prior, feeling your body hit into another's as they quickly apologised.

"are you everywhere?" you groaned seeing who you had bumped into, the very person who you wanted to see least in that moment.

charles rolled his eyes at your comment. "monaco is a small place," he looked behind you waiting to see your friends following suit, frowning slightly when he saw you alone. "where's everyone else?"

“dancing and drunk." you gave him a short answer, moving past him to continue home when you heard his footsteps behind you, cursing under your breath, your patience was running thin. "is there something you need, charles?"

"what kind of gentleman would i be if i let you walk home yourself drunk?" scoffing at his choice of the word gentleman, you started walking away from him, already aware there was no hope of him giving up, you’d learned over the course of your life to just accept he did things at his own accord.

the rest of the walk to your apartment was in an awkward silence, although you could see charles was desperate to say something, the way he’d take a breath as if he was about to speak before holding off, and you’d been so close to screaming at him to just get it out before you saw your complex entrance.

"why did you want to walk me home?" the question had been eating away at you; lingering in your mind the whole time he was besides you, needing to know the answer.

"i told you, i don't like the idea of you walking home by yourself." charles spoke nonchalantly, as if it was a daily occurrence for him, seeing his ex girlfriend who he’d so delicately fucked up.

at his answer you let out a sarcastic laugh. "we both know that’s bullshit charles, you don't care about anyone who's not you," you eyed up the monegasque, searching his usually poetically handsome features for any reaction. "you never did care."

that struck a nerve in charles, his voice raising slightly as he spoke. "of course i fucking cared about you, i wouldn't have kept you around just so i could fuck you."

it took all your self restraint not to slap him in that moment, instead hoping the glare you were giving him was enough to kill him. swinging the door to your complex open you heard it slam behind you, wishing that it closed before he was able to get inside.

unfortunately though, your wishful thinking was just that and you could hear his footsteps just behind yours, echoing against the tiled walls, ringing in your ears like a sirens song. "go celebrate charles."

"i want to talk to you,"

"too bad." you replied, throwing him a bitter smile over your shoulder as the door to your apartment unlocked.

"just give me five minutes." no part of you wanted to turn to look at him, knowing the second you saw his eyes you would cave in. ultimately though, he didn’t even need to look at you before you conceded.

the door was opened just as quickly as it closed, charles' eyes scanning the apartment, which looked just as it had whilst you were together. in fact, you still had the miniature helmet he wore for his first win in spa, and the smaller replica trophy from his monza triumph, keepsakes of his success that you hadn’t bothered to throw away.

"you kept them?" you could hear in his voice he was surprised, charles had half expected to see them in a burning fire before he ever saw them in the same position on your mantelpiece.

your eyes drifted to where he was looking, a lump threatening to grow in your throat, part of you forgetting they were even there since they’d become a constant in tour apartment. "i haven't had a chance to clean, not been at home much recently." you would be lying if you said you weren't missing monaco, after all it was your home, your families home and your friends home.

charles silently nodded at your answer, the apartment falling into a deafening silence as you mulled over what to say next. "so anything new with you? any boyfriends?" he prepared himself for the inevitable 'yes' that you would answer with.

however that never came, shaking your head no as you questioned him with a confused look, still not entirely sure on why he was still standing in your apartment, or why you were even entertaining him.

"really? I didn't-"

“charles, is there something you actually want?" you cut him off abruptly, with him you never did have the same patience you did with others in your life.

"i told you i wanted to talk to you," you responded by raising your eyebrow as if to say 'about?' "pierre told me you went on a date and i wanted-"

you were beyond mad at this point, not only had he essentially followed you home but also had the audacity to ask about a date you had. "fuck off Charles, and tell Pierre he can fuck off too."

“so, did you?”

you owed him nothing, you knew that, he knew it too and yet something inside of you wanted to let his know, still felt obligated to tell him. "yes charles, i went on a date, and i'm sure you'll be happy to know it was shit."

"why? what happened?" he was pushing his luck and he knew it, one wrong word, a question to far and he was asking for a slap from you.

a part of you did want to slap him for continuing to ask these personal questions, he was nothing to you anymore, he wasn't apart of you life and he didn't deserve to be. But the other part, the half you'd hidden away the last few months, wanted him to know.

and unfortunately for you, that part won. "he couldn't get me off, there, happy? now can you fuck off?" you walked towards the door of your apartment, about to hold it open when you felt his fingers wrap around your wrist.

before you could think your back was against the wall, charles' body flush against yours, his eyes finding yours instantly and you hated the way your stomach erupted in butterflies when they did.

you tried to wriggle away, charles' grip on your hands to strong for you to even budge. "poor guy couldn’t get you to come?” you responded with silence, not wanting to give nto his taunting. “told you i'd ruin other men for you, didn't i?" the monegasque couldn't hide hide smirk, watching as you rolled your eyes at the implication.

scoffing at his words, you tried to break free of his grasp again, ultimately stopping when you made no progress, his hand held you own two above your head, his other lingering somewhere across your stomach. "you flatter yourselves charles, really, more than anyone else does."

he rolled his eyes, testing the waters as he leant in to press a singular kiss against your neck, a self satisfied smile spreading across his face when you tilted it back against the cold wall, allowing him for access. "always knew you could never stay away for too long. how long was it last time, 2, 3 months?”

truly, in that moment you hated yourself for giving into his advances, but it didn’t mean that you were going to go quietly. "last i checked you followed me, seems you’re the desperate one."

"and who's the one letting me fuck her after her date couldn't?"

"who said anything about you fucking me?" instead of answering Charles bit down into the skin on your neck, a small whimper falling from your lips, quickly shutting you up, as he soothed over the redness with his tongue.

each movement of his was controlled, calculated, he knew where he was going to touch you, when he was going to, almost as if he knew it was going to happen. something about the way he was slightly smiling when he brought your lips in for a kiss made you short of breath, knocking the air out of your lungs, with your skin tingling at the long forgotten play of intimacy. you melted into his embrace, every sense on high alert.

red flags went off in your head. he cheated on you, and you took him back. it was a viscous cycle where neither seemed strong enough to let go.

it was almost like you were drowning in the moment, in him, sinking so deep you were sure to meet mariana’s trench.

at this, you pulled away, your face was red hot, watching as his smug exterior faltered slightly, his cheeks fading a small hue of redness. your hands rested on his chest, his eyes slightly red from the lack of sleep he must've gotten. "you can't keep doing this, charles, it's not fair." your voice was weak as you spoke, not having the strength to look him in his eyes.

"if it's not fair, then why do you keep coming back to me?" the question was warranted, yet there was a slight part of you, deep inside that section of your heart reserved for him that thought this could work, that you would get back together and all would be right in the world.

you had no real answer for him, nothing you could offer him that you hadn’t said already, and you knew he wasn’t bound to change his mind about you now. "because i want to believe it'll work, even when we know it doesn't." charles' lips were millimetres away from yours, able to feel his breath fanning them as your eyes glanced down at them.

delicately, charles slid his hands over your hips before squeezing the skin, noticing the quick look to his lips he longed to kiss you again, to stay like this for a moment, it was easy like that, to forget he had to make a relationship work outside of kissing you. it was when you decided to look up, the memory of your kiss making your insides warm were you leaning forward to place another tender smooch on his lips, savoring it, may it be your last.

you knew you were making a mistake, but if you truly wanted to let him go, it was one you had to let yourself make. this was on your accords, not his.

charles' touch softened at your quick action, a faint blush forming on his cheeks. "I always knew you were the obsessed one" with the sudden whisper you voiced, he smiled sheep it at you. you held off from smiling back at him, allowing him to take you, holding your hand in his when you walked towards your once shared bedroom, nostalgia feeding the delusions that this wouldn’t be the last time.

the nights in monaco were never quiet, the weekends increasing tenfold and for the first time in years you welcomed the buzzing night life of your home country. his hands on your body were a sensation that brought back memories, good and bad, and you didn't even realize how much you had missed him on you.

for the past few months you’d tried to convince yourself and everyone around you that you didn't want him, that you were fine on your own but charles, as always, saw right through it. "i know you missed me, chérie, it's okay to admit it," he punctuated his words with a kiss on your cheek. "tu m'as manqué." i missed you

he had broken you a long ago and the only person who can pick up your pieces and make you whole again, was him.

"shut up and fuck me, charles." your hands found the hem of his shirt, pulling it over his head with no protest from him, in an attempt to get him to speed up.

"thought we didn't say anything about fucking you?" you hated the way the cocky smile on his face made a warmth pool in your stomach, turned you on like no one had before or after him.

you ignored his comment, turning round to let charles unzip the dress you had been wearing. his hands danced across the back of your shoulders, goosebumps rising on your warm skin as he slowly unzipped your dress. he leant in, placing a kiss in between your shoulder blades, undoing it fully and watching as the material fell, black against the stark white sheets.

maybe it was symbolic, yin and yang, sinner and saint, darkness and light, charles and you.

underneath you had a matching red set on, the red lace complimenting your skin tone more than any other colour. "even when i'm not around your still wearing my colour." you rolled your eyes at his goading when he cupped your breasts, squeezing the soft skin slightly.

"red was always arthur’s favourite colour on me." your voice was shallow as you spoke, sighing contently as squeezed your soft skin, thumbs grazing over your nipples. your words were a call back to when you and charles had started dating, the last year of high school, arthur only 15 and you and charles 18.

it was a running joke in the family of his crush on you, the younger leclerc taking after the rest of his family in that he was never shy to let someone know how he felt, especially the girls.

you saw charles' eyes darken at the mention of his name, quick to bring your mouth in for another, much shorter, kiss as his hands ran up and down your body. with each passing minute you melted into him, his lips peppering your neck with wet kisses while travelling further down your body, nibbling on your tender skin downwards. the room was dimly lid, yet you could clearly view his eyes on you, locked on you like a predator with his prey, pupils blown out in a crazed look.

quickly, charles cleared the soaked lace that was in his way, leaving no barrier between himself and your bare cunt. "don't get shy on me now, chérie, open your legs."

you couldn’t you resist him much longer, or maybe you didn’t want to, spreading your legs as he placed himself right in between you, hiking your leg over his shoulder. his lips drifted down from your calf, closer and closer to the inside of your thigh before you could feel his breath on you, hyperaware of everything.

"fuck, you're so wet." your skin erupted with goosebumps with his first of many kisses on your clit, the tingling nerves anticipating further care from him. charles prodded his tongue out, flicking it over your sensitivity, pitiful sounding whines falling from your lips.

"don’t tease me.” you pleaded with him, watching as his eyes flashed up at you, a mischievous smile on his face before turning away again.

charles flattened his tongue against you, licking a stripe up the middle, working his mouth against you whilst also placing his middle finger against your clit. he circled your clit with his tongue, whimpers falling from your lips from the pleasure. your eyes were screwed shut, hands clutching at the bedsheets when you felt him push two of his fingers inside of you.

"look at how good you take my fingers, mon amour, just as you always did." Your thighs shook slightly when he pressed his tongue against your clit again alongside pumping his fingers in and out of you. your significant wetness was coating him, fingers easily moving as you clenched around them.

his mouth explored your every inch, his nose messily bumping against your clit when his tongue wasn't on it, your hand digging into his hair, keeping him there, pulling on the dark strands as groans sounded from him.

in between his taunts were words of praise, every second getting you closer and closer to the release you so desperately needed. your lips slumped into mindless pleading, with charles obliging, knowing full on well what you needed, he always did.

"forgot how good you taste." he made no attempt to tone down his crude language, making your cheeks rise up with heat, to have you writhe underneath him, not to mention with you succumbing to all of his attention on your neglected cunt.

you let out a louder moan, whining as he added a third finger, stretching you out more; more than you had been for at least a few months now. "charles, i'm so close." your pleading was futile, knowing charles was always the type of man to make you wait until he wanted you to come undone.

the clenching around his fingers made it even clearer that you were close, so close you were practically dancing around your release. "cmon, let go for me, chérie.” charles spoke in a low voice, his warm breath tickling your skin.

he help you ride through your first orgasm, his name the only thing on your tongue as your thighs shook around his head, your hands grasping at the grown out strands of his hair, charles letting his eyes glance up at you when you came. your back arched off the mattresses of the bed, the heels of your feet digging into charles' shoulders.

just when you thought he’d stop he didn’t relent, his fingers still moving inside of you, tongue pressed against your clit as he slowly circled it, you could hear the sounds of his fingers moving in and out of you, any other time and you’d be embarrassed by it. “s’too much, charles.”

“too much? one orgasm and it’s too much?” you nodded your head pitifully, hands reaching down to wrap around his wrist but it didn’t stop the movement of charle’s fingers. “what happened to my good girl? used to be able to at least give my fingers two.”

you knew where he was going with this, he wasn’t going to stop till you came again, wether it was on his tongue or with his fingers, and you whined when you felt them curl inside of you, feeling fuller than before somehow. already hypersensitive, it wasn’t long till the familiar rush came back to you, building in your stomach, the coil tightening till it once again snapped.

"never gonna be able to forget how good you sound moaning my name." his voice was tainted with, drawing out sloppy kisses on your belly, then breasts, wherever you let him he left marks in his wake. you let him explore and spoil you, shameless as he tenderly wrapped his lips around the erected nipple while rolling the other one between his fingers.

he puts out his hand for you, bringing you to match his height, moving to kiss you again now that your breathing was less erratic. "i want you to fuck me," you say almost breathlessly against his lips.

he hums against your lips, helping you up so you both can move atop your bed. he lays you back against what once was your neatly set up pillows, still hungrily kissing you, hands running down your thighs, but you move to grasp them. "fuck, i want you so badly right now." you knew it was wrong but you revelled in his confession, that after everything he was still yearning for you.

charles pauses looking at your eyes, still despite everything looking for any shade of regret in them. when he sees nothing he takes the opportunity to make one of his snide remarks. "remember when you told me this wasn't going to happen again? always knew you were a good liar."

you craved the stretch of him, the stretch that no many years together could prepare you for and the burn much like before that lingers in your throat and was so good that it made you forget how to think.

charles pushes inside of you, moving as slow as possible but you encourage him to fill you up completely. your eyes roll back into your head at the feeling of his cock stretching you, your hands coming to grasp onto his shoulders, nails digging in to his lightly tanned skin. charles' breathing staggers as he groans, moving forwards to place kisses along your jaw.

he stills once he's in you fully, but you shake your head slightly. "don't fucking stop charles,” his face stays tucked in your neck, his hips rolling against yours forcing a moan from your lips.

“even wore my favourite perfume, were you planning on fucking me when you got ready, chérie?" he’d just picked up on it there, the same signature scent you had wore throughout your entire relationship being the first one you reach for, a sweet smell that he thought reflected on you perfectly.

"shut up." he swallows a laugh when he hears you cry out, featherlight touches against your skin, gently, enjoying the sounds that rose from you with the way slammed into you.

he held your gaze, your eyes overcome with desire, lust, sensing nothing but your hammering heartbeat on his chest.

his lips slightly parted after every thrust, he knew he needed this as much as you did, taking advantage of the momentary peace to try to catch his breath with your nails holding onto his back, branding his skin with crescent shaped indents.

his little words of praise worked contradictory with his continuous taunts, teasing you as he nipped at your exposed skin.

your hands raked over his taut muscles, earning a grown from the man above you as your nails scratched against his back. charles pulled your hands in his own, placing them above your head before increasing the rhythm on his hips, steadier, deeper, not to mention pushing you closer to your release.

charles bought his face closer to yours, his lips just lightly brushing over your ear. "i want you to ride me, put on a show."

you couldn't help but moan at his words, nodding your head before switching positions, charles staying inside as you straddled his lap, knees locked in on either side of his thighs, his eyes meeting yours and you could see how desperate he was in that moment.

he was sat further up on the bed, your nails raking down his chest, leaving more, deeper, marks sure to last. lips pressed against the side of his neck, biting down on the skin before soothing over it and moving onto another place.

his adams apple bobbed as you took more of the control, setting your own pace despite his hands on your hips trying to make you go faster. charles brought his thumb down to your clit, circling it which had your thighs shaking around him.

charles' name fell from your mouth more than anything else, him and your pleasure your two sole focuses.

he could see the tiredness start to come through in your movements, choosing to take more control wether you complained or not. he began thrusting up into you with his hands on your hips, his thumb still rubbing circles on your clit determine to make you come at least once more.

your thighs tried closing around charles' midriff from the overwhelming sensitivity, although he was there to keep them open, a hand on the top of both of your thighs forcing them open.

clenching around him one last time you felt him release inside of you, the warm feeling of him so deep inside of you making you whine. charles let out a string of curse words, your name at the forefront when he let out one last groan, slumping back against your pillows altogether his hands didn’t stop the movement of your hips.

within the whirlwind of emotions, you desperately clenched around him, with this position your heart was racing, dipping into the mattress with soft gusts of breath departing from your lips. the raw drag of him was somehow more extreme, pursing your mouth when you felt a bead of sweat rolling down your temple.

his own orgasm brought on yours, your bodies in-tune with each other as if he’d never left. you were completely ruined, mind going blank as you felt yourself losing full control of your body to charles, vision a blinding white as your body felt hot all over.

the monegasque brought you in for a short kiss, leaving for the bathroom when you rolled off of him and coming back with a dampened towel, helping you clean up.

you both knew it was the last time you had together, the last time you would ever share a bed together, the last kiss.

and the thought of that had you clutching onto each other in your sleep just a bit tighter.

although before you did eventually fall asleep, you heard charles whisper one last thing in your ear, his confession bringing the smallest of smiles to your face.

"je serai toujours à toi."

tag list:

@irmpyrz @tempo-rary-fix @formulas-bitch @yunnie-f1 @julesandro @itsjustkhaos @janeh22 (a year later and i finally have something to tag yous in!!)

#charles leclerc #charles leclerc smut #charles leclerc imagine #charles leclerc fanfic #charles leclerc fluff #charles leclerc blurb #charles leclerc one shot #f1 #f1 fluff #f1 smut #f1 one shot #f1 imagine #f1 x reader #charles leclerc x reader

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topguncortez · 2 years

Text

Opposites Attract- J. Seresin

pairing: Jake "Hangman" Seresin x female!reader word count: 3.7k warnings: mentions of sex, mentions of child birth, top gun things synopsis: how can Hangman, cocky, arrogant Hangman fall in love with a girl who is so different than him and raise a family completely opposite of him. based on these requests:

He must’ve gotten it from his mother. She was a shy person. Usually choosing situations where she didn’t need to talk to anyone new, where she could just smile and nod and look to her husband to do all the talking. His fellow pilots were confused by them: how could loud, obnoxious, bragging, douchebag Lt Jake “Hangman” Seresin, find someone as sweet and quiet as Y/N. It was one of life’s great mysteries. Her very first interaction with the group of Top Gun aviators had them all puzzled on how Hangman had secured her as his wife and hid her from them all.

“Who’s the babe at the bar?” Payback said, eyeing her from across the pool table. Hangman looked at his line of sight and smirked.

Sauntering over to where one of the pool balls was at, he leaned over, “That” he said, lining up his shot, “Is my wife.” He rammed the cue stick into Payback's gut making him double over in pain.

“Her? The quiet little thing over there?” Phoenix said, looking at her. Y/N waited patiently for Penny to get around to her, not yelling and trying to catch her attention like the other patrons at the bar, “What did you do? Hypnosis? Stockholm Syndrome?”

“Why is it so shocking that I'd be married to her?”

“Cause you’re nothing alike! She’s nice and you’re an ass. She’s pretty and you’re an ass. She’s quiet and you’re-“

“An ass?”

“Precisely,” Phoenix said as Hangman’s wife made her way back over to him. She walked directly to him, her head down not making eye contact with the other pilots. Hangman put his arm around her waist and pulled her in for a kiss, making her cheeks go red.

“Penny is busy, i’ll go back up-“

“I got it, love,” Hangman said, kissing her again.

“You sure? Cause I can-“

“It’s all good,” Hangman smiled at her. She nodded as he stepped past her, but not before giving her ass a light smack. She all but squealed at his action, turning even redder if that was possible. She turned her head slowly, looking at the eyes of his fellow aviators who were all looking at her. She gave them a shy smile, before turning her head and moving out of the way, and back towards Hangman.

“There’s no fucking way,” Phoenix muttered.

Everyone was enthralled with watching Hangman and his wife interact the whole night. It was a completely different side to him than any of his classmates had ever seen. His smile wasn’t a cocky arrogant one, it was bright and full of love as he twirled her around the makeshift dance floor in the Hard Deck. She giggled as he pressed kisses to her neck, singing the words of a song back to her.

“How did we not know about this?” Rooster said, looking at his enemy.

“This had to have happened recently,” Coyote said, taking a sip of his beer, “The whole aviator world woulda been talking about it.”

“Or he never told anyone until now,” Bob said with a shrug causing them all to look at him, “What?”

“It’s Hangman. He brags about everything. We would’ve known,” Phoenix said.

“Never know,” Bob said again.

But Bob was right, as much as Hangman wanted to show her off, and brag about her, he knew that she wouldn’t want that. She was quiet, and kept to herself and that’s what drew him to her. She was the shy girl at the bar in San Diego, his very first duty station, and Hangman knew the second he saw her, she was going to be his. She played hard to get at first, partially because she didn’t really trust him. She had heard the things the other girls around base had said about him. That he was just another pilot with a good smile, only there for a couple weeks before jetting off to the next place. He had a lot to prove, and he would be damned if he left without you by his side.

So he worked his charm over the three weeks he was there. He managed to break down her walls completely, wooing her the old fashioned way. Hangman proved the chivalry wasn’t dead, as he opened doors for her, always greeted her with a kiss on her hand, bringing her flowers for every date and at random times during the day, texting or calling her goodnight, walking her to the door after dates or waiting in his car to make sure she got all the way in the house and turned her bedroom lamp on to let him know she was safe.

When those three weeks came to an end, their goodbye was tearful and painful. Y/N stood in the airplane hangar with the rest of the aviator and naval wives, husbands, partners, kids, families, and hugged Hangman (or Jake as he had become to her) as fat tears rolled down her cheeks. He pulled away from the hug, holding her face in his hands and wiping the tears away.

“Don’t forget about me when you find yourself surrounded by beautiful women overseas.” She said, sniffling.

“Sweetheart, it would take a whole army and then some to make me forget about you,” Jake said, which made her blush. Any sort of pet name he called her had a red hue climbing up the back of her neck, “Just don’t forget about me.”

“I could never, would never!” She smiled. Jake looked at her, her soft eyes looking into his. And for some reason, some spell was cast and Jake didn’t hesitate but to lean in and kiss her for the first time.

That kiss had sealed the deal for both of them. The second Jake had landed back stateside, he went running to her house, finding her out in her garden, dirt and sweat on her face. Jake ran right to her, not having a care in the world, wrapping her in his arms and kissing her.

“Marry me.”

“What?” She said, looking at him like he had grown a second head, “Did you hit your head? Is this from the lack of oxygen? I know what they say about that, what is it, g. . . g-loc? Yeah, g-”

“No, my brain is working just fine, sweetheart,” Jake smiled, “I mean it, marry me.”

“This isn’t world war two, you aren’t going to-”

“Y/N.” He cut off your rambling once again, seeing that glint in your eye was enough to get his answer.

“Yes!”

It was like a fairy tale come true for the both of them. They didn’t even tell their families when they ran off to city hall, getting married in a whirlwind, partially due to the fact that Jake had been selected for the Top Gun program. He had shared the news with her that morning, and he could hardly register when she told them “well we better go get married then.” And they did exactly that. Jake threw on his khaki uniform, and she dug out a white sundress that had been buried in the back of her closet. Once the papers were signed, Jake drove up the coast, finding a small hideaway he had discovered one night while driving around.

That night she had given herself to him fully. She had never been touched the way Jake touched her, and he loved it. He was gentle with her, which was unusual for him. He took his time, letting her know every single thing he loved about her. The way her back arched when he kissed a certain spot, the way his name fell like a prayer from her lips, the way she dug her nails into his shoulders, the way she looked like a complete goddess in the backseat of his 1974 monte carlo. Jake held her tightly as her chest heaved up and down, coming down from the bliss. They didn’t mean for it to happen, but they fell asleep in the back of the small car, waking up to the sounds of seagulls above them.

It was less than a year after they were married that Y/N found out she was pregnant. She was alone, sitting on the bathtub ledge, her head in her hands as she cried. Hangman was out on a mission, something short, and he promised to be home soon. But it didn’t make things any better. She was terrified. They had moved to the middle of nowhere, Lemoore California. The tiny naval base was nice and quiet, but far from the only family Y/N had in the whole state. She was used to being on her own, and being independent. Growing up shy, she had to learn to do things for herself. But raising a whole other human on her own was going to be hard.

The second Jake came through the door, she told him. He stood there frozen in the doorway, duffle back still in his hand as his brain tried to process what she had just said. It scared her even more seeing his face go blank, but the second his duffle bag hit the floor with a loud bang and he was pulling her into his arms again, she felt relaxed. The two of them had spent all night getting reacquainted with each other, and then laying in bed naked, feeling each other’s bare bodies as they talked about their future child. Jake had promised to do the best he could to be there for every single appointment.

The day that Alexander Miles Seresin was born, was the second happiest day of Jake’s life. Y/N had handled the past nine months like champ, and Jake had fallen in love with her more and more every day. Seeing her glowing and growing the child had set something off inside of him, something primal. The sex they had while she was pregnant was some of the best sex he had ever had. He could hardly keep his hands off of her. When her water broke, he went into a near panic, forgetting every single thing they had ever talked about. Jake, the cool, calm and collected naval fighter pilot, who had shot down a plane, felt like he was going to pass out watching Y/N deliver their child. He hated seeing her in pain, but the second their son was placed on his chest, he felt nothing but pure love.

From the day Alex was born, he looked just like his father. Blonde hair, piercing blue eyes, naturally sunkissed skin. Jake loved every minute he got to spend at home with his wife and son. It made it harder to have to go on missions. He had missed birthdays, christmases, and big milestones. Y/N did a good job at recording everything and sending it to him so he could watch them out in the middle of the ocean. Y/N would call Jake almost every night, letting him read a bedtime story to Alex, watching over facetime as the little boy would stare intently at her phone screen at his dad.

“Where dada?” Alex asked one night, his voice thick with sleep.

“I’m on the ship, buddy,” Hangman said, his voice sounding faraway and sad.

“The big ship?” Alex asked, his eyes growing wide with excitement. One of Alex’s favorite things was planes, which was a no brainer considering who his dad was.

“The big ship,” Hangman smiled, “I promise I’ll be home when you wake up.”

“Okay dada,” Alex said, and curled into his mother. Y/N patted his back and said goodnight to her husband before tucking her son in, “Dada flies planes?”

“He does buddy,” Y/N said, making sure he was secure in his bed.

“I fly planes too.” Alex said, clutching onto his stuffed F/A-18 that Hangman had gotten him.

Alex had just turned three when Hangman got the call that he was needed back at Top Gun. Y/N looked at him, and all but ran to start packing. She had missed San Diego and was looking for any reason to go back and visit. But hearing that Jake would be going back to Top Gun made her nervous. She had all sorts of questions, which he couldn’t answer simply because he didn’t know. What he did know was that he was allowed to bring his family, which was his main concern. So, he packed the three of you up, packing his ford explorer (which he got after much grumbling from Y/N when she got pregnant with Alex) and drove his family the eight hours to San Diego.

— — —

The following week, after getting reunited with everyone at the Hard Deck, Jake had come home from training almost every day upset. He would sigh, and flop down on the shitty couch, and watch Alex play with his toy planes in front of him. The training was hard enough as it was but with his counterparts constantly teasing him about his wife that was the total opposite of him, he had had enough. The second Fanboy had seen the polaroid of Y/N tapped to Jake's dash in his plane, the teasing commenced.

“Why don’t we invite everyone over?” Y/N asked one day softly, as she wiped her hands on her apron, “I would like to meet your friends.”

“You would?” Jake said, turning to look at you, “But you met them the other night?”

“More like they just stared at me like I’m some mythical creature,” She giggled. Jake stood up from the couch, walking over to her and wrapping his arms around her.

“You are a goddess and they couldn’t take their eyes off of how perfect you are,” Jake said to her, making her blush and hide her face. He gently grabbed her chin, making her head turn back to him, “Don’t hide that smile from me, gorgeous.” Jake flashed her his perfect, beautiful white smile and then leaned down to kiss her cheek.

“Daddy!” Alex called.

“Yes, my man?” Jake said, and picked him up, groaning loudly as he did so. Alex let out a bunch of giggles as Jake held him upside down in his arms, “What did you do today?”

“Went to the ship!” Alex exclaimed and Jake looked at her confused.

“We went to the Midway museum.”

“Babe, if you want to see some real ships and planes, just come in tomorrow.” Jake said, causing her to shrug, “You won’t get in trouble.”

“Let’s start with dinner first, and then consider sneaking me on to base.” She said, walking back into the kitchen to finish cooking.

By the time the weekend rolled around, Y/N was a nervous wreck. Everything had to be perfect, this was very important after all. She was meeting Jake’s friends, his coworkers, the best Naval fighter pilots in the US Navy. She woke up around six in the morning to start preparing and cleaning their small rental house. She had vacuumed, scrubbed the floors, and washed the windows, restocked the fridge, bought enough food to feed an army (literally), and hopefully enough beer (though she had seen the way these sailors think and was questioning if she should make another beer run).

Jake had tried to help Y/N during the day, but she pushed him away, telling him she would let him know when he was needed. Around five in the evening, she had finally asked him to do something, while he was up off the couch running to her beck and call. He had fired up the grill, and started getting things ready to grill as she was getting dressed in a floral sundress. Alex was in navy blue shorts, a white button up and his birks.

“Do we look okay?” She asked Jake, stepping out into the backyard. She held Alex’s hand and Jake smiled at them. He was wearing almost the same thing as Alex, except he had on a pair of white vans instead.

“You both look great,” Jake said walking over to you. He picked Alex up, setting him on his hip, “You need to stop stressing.”

“I want things to be perfect. These are your coworkers and your boss and-”

“Everything is perfect, they already love you and they just stared at you from afar the other night,” Jake said, taking her hand in his free one, “You are easy to love, which is why I fell for you so fast.”

“Stop it,” She blushed, and looked down at her feet. The doorbell rang, making her snap her head up. Jake saw the look in her eye, the anxiety of having to meet and talk to strangers. Jake kissed her cheek and set Alex down.

“I got it, watch the burgers for me, please,” Jake said, and she nodded, as he ran to the front door.

“Damn Hangman, took you long enough,” Phoenix said as he opened the door, “So how did you get the good shit off base while we are stuck breathing in the scent of black mold?”

Jake just smirked, letting in Phoenix, Bob, and Coyote, “Sometimes, you gotta know people.”

Y/N peeked her head to look inside the house to see who was here, when she felt a tug on her dress. She looked down to see her little boy with the same blue eyes as her lover. He too was full of anxiety about having to meet new people, and it was obvious in the way he held on to her leg and tried to hide behind her. Y/N felt her heart break and knelt down to his level.

“Are you ready to meet some new people?” Y/N asked her son.

“Are they nice?” Alex whispered.

Y/N smiled, “The nicest, come on.” Y/N took her son’s hand and walked into the house, which was already full of loud aviators, cracking open beers and having a laugh. But all eyes seemed to fall on her the second she walked through the sliding glass door, the little boy’s hand in hers squeezed her tighter, “Hi.”

“Hi,” Jake said, and then walked over to them. He picked up Alex, and side by side, they looked like twins, “This is my wife, Y/N, which you guys already know from the other night,” Y/N waved at the group of aviators, who waved back, but their eyes were on the little boy who was burying his head into his father’s neck, “And this is Alex, my son.”

“You have a kid?” Rooster asked, completely shocked by the news, “Since when?”

“Since about four years ago, keep up Rooster, shut your jaw you’ll catch flies,” Jake said and Rooster rolled his eyes.

“Why didn’t you tell any of us this? She must’ve had him when-”

“When you two were both stationed in Korea,” Y/N said, cutting Phoenix off, “You’re Phoenix, right?”

“Yeah. . . Hangman, have you told her all about us?” Phoenix said with a smile, “You let me drown in the testosterone fest in Lemoore and didn’t tell me I could’ve had another female to hang out with!”

She felt like a weight was lifted off her shoulders once the initial introduction of the family was over. Everyone fell into natural conversation. The boys gathered around the grill, as Y/N, Phoenix and Halo sat at the table in the backyard. Jake couldn’t get over how beautiful his wife looked in the setting summer sun. The gentle golden hour glow made her look like a goddess, her tan skin literally looked like there were gold flakes in it, her hair looked shiny. He paused for a second as he watched her laugh at something Phoenix said, he noticed her hand, the hand her wedding ring sat on, resting on her stomach.

“Is she-” Jake asked himself.

“Yo! You're gonna burn this shit!” Payback yelled, snapping Jake out of his trance. Jake shook his head and turned back to the grill, making note to ask her a question later.

It brought joy to Y/N’s heart seeing her little shy boy grow comfortable around the group of aviators. He slowly warmed up to them, still clinging to Jake as he cooked the hamburgers and hot dogs on the grill for the group. But the second Bob had rambled off some facts about the toy F-22 raptor in the little boy’s hand, he had made a new best friend.

Y/N couldn’t help but giggle as Bob and Payback chased Alex around the backyard with toy fighter jets in their hands. Rooster and Hangman seemed to put whatever beef they had aside and were civil to one another. Rooster had easily made friends with the little boy, making him giggle as he walked around the backyard with Alex on his shoulders so his plane could have a proper lift off and landing.

“It must be hard when he is gone,” Phoenix said, as she helped you clean up from dinner. The guys were now sitting in the backyard by the fire pit, breaking into the bottle of scotch Rooster had once been gifted from Maverick. Alex was fast asleep on Jake’s chest as he rocked him slowly in one of the outdoor rocking chairs.

“It was when Alex was first born and he had to jet off to Korea. Those six months were hell, it felt like Jake had missed everything,” Y/N said, drying a plate. She paused a second after putting it away, choosing her next words very carefully. She placed a hand on her stomach, taking a deep breath. The small action didn’t go unnoticed by the female aviator, “He won’t tell me about it,” She looked over at Phoenix, who froze, “It means one of two things, he’s not really doing anything, just sitting in classes and it’s boring, or. . . there’s a chance we could lose him.”

Phoenix sighed and hung her head, looking down at her shoes. She thought to herself a second, closing her eyes. She turned around and leaned against the counter, facing Y/N. Phoenix didn’t have to say anything, Y/N could tell that it was the later option of her statement. Y/N felt tears in her eyes as she looked back into the backyard, seeing Jake’s bright smile as he laughed at some story Fanboy had told. Alex hadn’t even moved an inch, but cuddled deeper into Jake’s chest. Jake bent his head down and placed a kiss on the top of the boy's blonde head of hair.

Y/N bit her lip and looked at Phoenix, “Make sure he comes home.”

“I will,” She said to Y/N.

“Make sure you all, come home,”

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