#Tread carefully buddy
Note
Note from: Doctor Robert Aster
You do not amuse me, Sky.
You really think you can play this game where you know "everything" about me. But you're wrong. How could you know who I am when we never even met?
How did your silly little packages get on my property, anyway? Did you phone the wrong address with those tiny screen devices anyway?
If you think my little "operation" is hurting my children, then a wholeheartedly welcome you to my facility so I can prove that you're wrong. My treatment is helpful. Those children were being delusional and as a good doctor, I gave them the help they needed.
As for the the threat of the movie beforehand: The movie shows a dangerous precedent that a child should disobey their parents and endanger their safety by leaving their homes and hooking up with criminals. I'm sorry you just cannot see that.
Now please, stop shipping your movies to my house or I will personally send you photographic proof that they were burned. You wouldn't want me to scar your "precious" literature, right?
Good little girl.
Dearest Doctor Robert Lucero Aster.
We have met before, though you have never seen me. I advise you to not underestimate me.
I know for a fact that your operation is hurting your children, but I am wise enough to not fight you on this matter. I am well aware that no matter what your real opinion of this situation is, you will never admit it out loud. Therefore, I will save my breath. Just be aware that I know what you are. I know what you've done. Please reconsider before continuing, or I cannot guarantee your safety.
In regards to your view of Tangled, I would like to point out that Rapunzel only ran away because her mother was stifling her. On her journey she learned the truth. That Mother Gothel was lying to her and had kidnapped her from her real parents. Sounds familiar, doesn't it? And the criminal Rapunzel met turned out to be good at heart, which is more than I can say for you.
Robert, I think you will find that I have more than one way of shipping things to your location. And I can ensure they don't come to the front door. I can give them directly to your children if you wish. Perhaps I am already in contact with them.
The bottom line is . . .
You don't understand who you're messing with.
Best wishes,
~ Sky
#Starline you are exchanging letters with one of the writers of this story#I am essentially a GOD :)#Tread carefully buddy#thanks for the ask!#asks#Sonic the Hedgehog#Sonic AU#Tachophobia Expanded Universe#Dr. Aster#Tumblrphobia AU#Heliophobia AU
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sweet child o' mine | pt. ii
hi. this is max's lawyer speaking. please don't get mad at her for this part. she asked me to let you know that she loves you all and hopes that you trust her. sincerely, jimmy mcgill
pairing: neighbor!joel x fem!reader
summary: you're pregnant with joel miller's kid. he's dating someone else. you deal with it.
warnings: reader is literally pregnant so typical pregnancy stuff like nausea (none of the v word, y'all are safe with me), ultrasound scene set in a hospital, anxiety and guilt surrounding pregnancy, description of body change/growth, brief and i mean brief discussion of abortion, joel is dating someone who isn't reader, age gap (late 20s reader, late 40s joel), reader has no physical description save for hair, cursing, genderless use of buddy when referring to baby, joel kisses someone who is not his partner, mention of alcohol, disturbing & semi-graphic nightmare about being involved in car accident, reader has a panic attack, discussion of dead parents, fluff and the beginnings of angst
DISCLAIMER: this series covers some issues which i know may be sensitive and possibly triggering to some. warnings will always be as thorough as possible, but if there's ever anything you feel i've missed, please let me know. feel free to drop by my inbox anytime.
word count: 9.2k
pt. i / series masterlist | main masterlist | playlist | follow @macfroglets w notifs on to be the first to hear when i post 🩵
“I know, I know,” Joel holds a palm up, “it’s nine thirty. I know. But I had to lug all this wood over here, and it – You okay?”
You realize when he pauses that you’re gaping at him, wide-eyed and frozen in place behind your front door. Your jaw hinges shut, a gulp like carpet burn down your throat. You didn’t hear a word he just said.
How does he know? He can’t possibly. Did he sense it, from two lawns away? Dream about the binding of cells, the furnace left lit in your body from that night? The embers still floating, just waiting to catch to life again?
Did he do the fucking math, the way you probably should’ve? How does he fucking know?
The minute the question leaves your mouth, you regret it.
Joel’s eyebrows drop. “How did I know what, kid? That you need new closets? Like you ain’t been nipping my ear about ‘em for weeks?”
Your eyes unlock from his and shift to the slats of wood leaning against the balustrade. The toolbox hanging from his fist. The worn jeans and the white dust marks on his thighs. He doesn’t fucking know, you idiot.
Joel steps forward. Takes your wrist. One grounding, steady hand around your thrashing pulse. “You’re freaking me out. What the hell’s –?”
“Nothing,” you chirp, remembering. The closet. The deal. The fucking – the deal. You withdraw your arm. Hidden up your sleeve, quickly slipping out of his grasp, is the news that his life is about to change forever.
Maybe. You don’t fucking know.
“No,” you continue, blinking the burn of sunlight from your vision, “I just – I forgot. Sorry. Come in. Sorry.”
“Quit sayin’ sorry,” he mutters, eyeing you suspiciously. He lifts a foot and hovers it over the threshold, hesitating. Like the first step across a minefield; instinct telling him to tread carefully.
And you swear an oath to yourself, swear it on your own life: if he doesn’t put the heel of his boot in your hallway, if he turns around right now whether because his instinct is razor sharp, or because he forgot his lucky screwdriver, or purely because he needs to take a fucking leak before he gets started – you will never tell him. He will never know.
If his intuition is that good, he’ll turn around and never show up on your porch again. If he has any sense, he’ll forget any of this ever happened. Deal off.
“How’s the stomach?” Joel asks, sole still three inches from wood.
“What?” you bleat, your heel knocking against the bottom stair. It’s a little more panicked than you intended.
“Yesterday,” a crease forms between his brows, “you said you had a weird stomach. That any better?”
Oh, you think, and as you open your mouth to reply, his foot hits the ground. No answer needed. He was coming in whether you tried to deter him or not.
“Oh, yeah. It’s – Well, it’s better than it was. I think I worked it out,” you grimace, tongue curling under the tinge of anxiety and – well. “Thanks,” you add, noticing the brisk cut of your replies.
The heavy thud of his footsteps follows you upstairs, blunt on the carpet as you lead him up. Joel sets the toolbox down and casts your room a quick glance, snapping back to you as soon as you notice him.
You tug on the corner of the bedsheets, a heat bubbling beneath your cheeks. Something shy and self-conscious, all of a sudden. The reality that you don’t feel close enough to this man to share the anatomy of your room with him, mixed with the knowledge that the two of you are, now and forever, bound by the anatomy of something a little more significant than dirty laundry and dusty wardrobes.
A little closer than most humans get, let’s say.
“You want a coffee or something?” you ask, crossing your arms and leaning back against the window sill.
“You havin’ one?”
“Sure. Wait – actually –” Can you have coffee whilst pregnant? A woman at work quit it altogether when she fell pregnant with her son. Fuck. “I’m – No. I’m good. But let me go make you one.”
Joel shakes his head, amused. Screwdriver burrowing into a door hinge already. He flashes you a tickled grin. “I’m good just now, kid. Wait until you’re makin’ one. Thanks.”
You lift a shoulder. “Welcome.”
His eyes flit from the twist of silver to your hunched shoulders, your arms crossed protectively over your chest. “You gonna stand there ‘n watch me all day? You my foreman now?”
“Sure,” you reply, and he laughs. You sniff, twisting your foot into the carpet. The plastic test itches against your skin; you can feel the two lines ripping into your wrist like tiny burns. “I can go, if you want.”
His lip turns, musing. A quick flick of his jaw. “You’re good company, all in all.”
Metal clanking against metal; fingers knuckle-deep in the toolbox. You can hear the harsh sound across your body, like the point of screws and bite of rust are actually scoring your skin. The groan of a near-fifty-year-old man rising to rip a decades-old door from its home. The creak of wood as it splits.
Everything so heightened that it’s actually painful.
Joel straightens up and pauses, turning his screwdriver between his fingers. “Are we –? We’re good, right?”
“Good?”
“Yeah. You’d tell me if things were weird?”
“Why would things be weird?”
His answer scrawls itself across his face. Your response scoffs from your lips.
“I just,” Joel sighs, “I feel like something might be off with ya. Maybe you just ain’t feelin’ too hot. But you’re quiet.”
“Quiet,” you whisper, palms locking heavily against your biceps. More defensive than convincing.
“Yeah. You usually annoy the hell outta me.”
Over your shoulder, Alice Brown waddles down her driveway, eyeing her flowerbeds. She pauses when Diane’s station wagon pulls up across the street; stands motionless as she watches the round figure climb out and totter to her own front door.
“Just – not in a very annoying mood, I guess,” you offer, staring at the white head of hair fluttering in the breeze. The glint of a trowel in her hand.
Joel’s chin lifts. He studies you, tongue tracing the ridges of his teeth. And then he’s nearing you, turning until you’re shoulder to shoulder, two silhouettes stood against the bright square of blue sky inside your window frame. His arms crossed; his stare fixed.
The words begin to boil in your stomach. Violent bubbles against the wall of your midriff. Rising like steam, fading into nothingness over your tongue, the sting of heat where your voice won’t collect them.
Joel moves from foot to foot. It feels like some kind of merry dance, some choreographed moment between you – like a skit in a comedy show. I know something you don’t know.
“What happened – at the wedding,” he murmurs, addressing the polished gold of your bedframe.
Some small sound passes your lips. An affirmative. You’re on the same page.
“We didn’t use – you know. And with you not feelin’ well, it’s…” A deep breath. Chest full of a ghostly bravery. And then he asks, “Are you –?”
Silence swallows the end of his question whole. You didn’t need it, anyway. The stiffness of his frame, his stare shooting straight ahead. The lack of oxygen between you – both holding your breath for fear that something might tear loose from your lungs. He knows. He knows he knows he knows.
You gulp. “…If I was?”
His head cranes upwards, focusing on the cracked plaster of your ceiling. The realization slowly trickling down over his skin. It hasn’t seeped through, hasn’t bled into his brain yet. “Then,” another breath, “then it’d be a conversation…” His voice is halved, split somewhere between knowing and – what is it? Hoping?
Your eyes slip over to the worn sleeve of his T-shirt, stretched around the swell of his bicep; scaling up to his shoulder, the tight set of his jaw. He’s so much taller, he’s so much older. There’s so much life lived and so many lessons learned behind his eyes that you wonder how much the news I’m pregnant would actually crack him.
Your eyes meet. You whisper, “Then – talk,” and his expression softens.
He blinks away whatever’s left of his trying, his polite attempts to skirt around it. He sheds probably a good three decades – turns back into some doe-eyed boy, wonderstruck and terrified. His voice is quiet, and at the same time, the heaviest with emotion you’ve ever heard it. “Are you?” he asks, and immediately, he blurs behind a wall of tears.
Your sentence gets caught in your teeth. It made no sense to begin with. Tangled between your molars, latching at the back of your tongue. Your hand slowly pulls free from your sleeve, the little white test between your fingers.
Joel’s eyes instantly drop, staring at the pale stick with a fraught expression you understand to mean the message has finally reached his brain. The same words now ringing between his ears: She’s pregnant. She’s pregnant. I got her pregnant.
You hold the test out, quivering in the daylight. He takes it in his thumbs, instantly soothing its tremble. Everything muted, every movement steady and considered. And suddenly the sight of that positive test feels less scary, in his hands. Feels like a smaller problem, if that were ever possible.
And he says nothing, and it’s almost unbearable to watch the shape of his lips thin, the shadow beneath his brows darken. Agonizing to stand here and wonder what the next words over his tongue will be.
He stares at it a moment longer. You count the beats of your pulse in your throat. You wrap your arms tighter around your body, holding your skeleton together.
Joel’s lips part. Your breath freezes. Whatever he says, you don’t want to miss a syllable.
“Are you –” he blinks, “– are you feelin’ okay?”
You stare blankly. His eyes finally lift.
“What?”
“Are you feeling okay?”
Your head jerks. “I’m – I’m fine. I mean, I’m fucking shocked.”
He nods. “How long have you known?”
“Took that right before you showed up,” you say, eyes diving to his hands. “Twenty minutes, maybe.”
He’s still switching between you and the test. Checking those two lines are still there, as if they might fade to nothing, and then checking you’re still there – as if you might, too. Might be swept off if he’s not keeping an eye on you.
His face pales. He sinks back against the window ledge. “Jesus,” he breathes, a hand down the scruff of his chin.
And it feels like relief, like a mirror sat before you, presenting the honest truth: you’re fucked, and Joel thinks so, too. It embeds the shock into the cushion of your brain, the weight of it absorbed and laid bare for every particle in your body to pay it a visit. What the fuck do we do now?
“Yeah,” you sniff, “Jesus.”
But then his arm wraps around your shoulder, reminding you you’re still solid. Still whole. He holds you to his side, and when you turn into him, he takes you in the other and pulls you flat against his chest. His lips to your hair. His breathing slowing yours.
“We’re gonna work it out,” he says into your hair. “We’re gonna – Jesus, I did not expect…We are goin’ to be fine, alright? You are goin’ to be fine.”
You’re nodding, the prickle of tears flooding across your eyes again. They’re doing nothing, his words – blunt against your skin and insignificant to the fear swelling around your heart – but it feels better to be afraid with someone. Feels better to hold onto something stronger, something bigger, while you feel yourself beginning to shrink.
“What do we do?” you ask into his shirt.
Joel loosens his grip, pulls away until you’re staring at one another. “What do you wanna do?”
“I don’t…” Your head’s shaking, lips moving quicker than your voice will offer the words over. “I don’t think I want to get rid of it.”
He nods, a hand coming up to hold your cheek. “Alright. Then you don’t have to. You don’t gotta do anythin’ you’re not comfortable with.”
“But,” you sniff, guiltily averting his gaze, “this fucks everything up. Everything’s about to change.”
Joel takes a long, slow breath. “It complicates some things, that’s for sure.” He looks out to the street; Alice Brown now hauling weeds from the edge of her lawn. In his exhale, he breathes a name.
“V…What?”
He looks down. Eyes dance around your damp cheeks. “Vanessa,” he says, clearer now.
“Vanessa?”
A nod. His nose wriggles with an awkward sniff. You push off from his chest.
“Who the hell is Vanessa?”
Joel lets you go; lets you step back. He watches as you brace yourself against the ledge. Runs a hand through his hair while he fixes the right order of words. He’s thinking. Carefully.
Too fucking carefully. He’s taking too long.
“Joel. Who’s Vanessa?”
“She’s…” He sighs. “She’s my ex. From Tommy’s wedding. Vanessa Hart.”
Your jaw slackens. The purple dress. The hair like silk, a halo around her head where the light kissed her perfectly. Her plump lips; the way her head tipped back to laugh. The amount of air you felt her take up the second you laid eyes on her, the second you saw her, arm on top of Joel’s.
“Vanessa,” you whisper, your eyes descending his frame. The memory feels menacing now: her sweet giggle a sneering cackle, and you’ve no idea why. The bulky jewels around her neck, her clawed fingers on his arm.
Joel’s hand sits inches from yours on the wooden sill. Alice is walking back inside.
“We, uh…we swapped numbers the morning after the wedding, at breakfast. I didn’t think much of it, but we’ve seen each other a couple times since.”
This isn’t the time for another it’s a date, it’s not a date argument. What the fuck does he mean by –
“Seen each other?”
“Mhm.” He owes you better than that. He reckons so, too. “Dates,” he clarifies. “We’ve been on a couple dates.”
“Oh.”
Your heart falls to the pit of your stomach. Plummets, dragging with it your breath and your nerve and any other words you can think of. Your chest gnaws at the edges of the cavity left behind. It hurts. It stings.
Though you’ve no right for it to hurt or sting: as far as you were concerned, as far as you think Joel was concerned, that night was a one-off. It meant as little as the alcohol draining from your glasses, the vacant buzz of love and hope loose in the air. Equally as intoxicating as each other.
Cataclysmic, for the first little while. So heavily awkward that you would wait to watch Joel head out in the morning, clear of your path, before you’d set off for work. It felt like the aftermath of some natural disaster – the cleanup of debris and mistake.
But oh, it feels like a punch to the gut. Low, unexpected; a foul move by someone who never meant to hurt or not hurt you. Someone ignorant to every move he made, right up to this moment.
Your arms wrap around your body again, as though tending to the bruise left by the sucker punch shaped something like that tall woman named Vanessa.
Joel scratches the back of his neck. “We were…we were seein’ about starting things up again. Me ‘n her.”
“Yeah,” you nod, “I got you. That’s – I mean, I’m – I’m sorry, Joel, I –”
“Woah, woah,” he’s stepping forward now, “hey, no. No way. This wasn’t you. Well, shoot – it kinda was you. But it was just as much me, right?”
You smile, your face back in the safe hold of his hands. Tears roll down your cheeks, collecting in the corners of your mouth. His thumbs swipe them away.
“This was just as much me,” he repeats, voice soft and soothing.
“But, you know – if you wanted to – just ‘cause I don’t want to get – so if you didn’t wanna have to – that’d be okay, you know that, right?”
His head snaps back, brows low. It’s the first time he looks like his cool has broken all morning. It’s the first time he looks…downright offended. “Are you kidding me?” he asks, and then, “Tell me you’re kidding.”
“I just – I know this ain’t ideal. It’s even worse if you’re tryna make it work with Vanessa. So if you felt like it was too much, then…”
Joel shakes his head. “Shut up,” he says, edged with some kind of groan. “Stop talking, right now. Stop. You gotta take a deep breath, alright? I’m here, ‘n I mean I’m here. We’re in this together. I am not running out on you.”
“Joel –”
What was a mere crack in his cool before, rips through it now like lightning spreading across the sky. He closes his eyes, a sigh escaping between his teeth. “If you think I would leave you right now, to deal with this on your own –”
“I don’t,” you tell him, his vexation powering your sudden animation. You wipe your tears away, shaking your head. “I’m just saying, it’s a fucking lot. I don’t want you to feel trapped. I’m giving you an out, man.”
“I am not interested in taking it. Enough. Conversation over.”
“And what about Vanessa?”
“What about her?” he asks, the question dripping in something akin to anger. He catches himself, draws it back in. “She’ll just – We’ll talk, I’ll explain it. The hell else can we do? One thing at a time, okay?”
“Right,” you nod, “okay. One thing at a time.”
“Let’s just build these damn wardrobes. I sure as hell didn’t lug all that timber over here to not do ‘em.”
“Okay,” you repeat, making for the door.
“Ah.” He clicks, and you turn back. “Where the hell do you think you’re goin’?”
“To get the timber.”
“I don’t think so,” he says, pointing to your bed. “Sit down. Relax. You ain’t getting a damn thing.”
Joel calls it a day at six o’clock.
The skeleton of the closet is up: a smooth, tan frame lining one wall of your room. Much bigger, much sturdier than its predecessor.
You’re in the same spot he left you in: lying across your bed, admiring his handiwork. He’s good at what he does. You told him twice, and the two of you almost heaved both times. Compliments aren’t something you’re used to handing one another.
He left, maybe, three hours ago. Said he had to shower; said he’d be back first thing to finish the job. You sat up to see him out, got struck by a wave of nausea so bad that you fell back to the bed with one hand on your stomach and the other over your lips, and Joel had insisted – demanded – that you stay where you were.
I’ll be back later to check on ya, he assured, setting a glass of water at your bedside. And then he told you to call him if you felt even remotely off – sick, or panicked, or had a tickle in your throat that you couldn’t clear – and that’s when the two of you realized that you don’t even have one another’s numbers.
And you laughed, the both of you; laughed at the absurdity of you carrying his child when you don’t even carry his contact details in your phone. Laughed at how quickly everything has turned one hundred and eighty degrees in the few hours since you woke up. It felt like some form of release, the only way to clear the blockage of tension in both your throats. So, you laughed, until you felt sick again, and Joel swept the hair from your shoulders to cool you down.
The attentiveness is…new. It’s interesting. It’s kind, in the same way that being told to say hi to whoever your grandma is talking to in the grocery store, is kind. Sweet, the same way that answering the door on Halloween to a bunch of kids you don’t know from a street you don’t recognize the name of, is sweet.
Whatever. It’s fucking weird, alright?
You’ve never seen this side of Joel. You didn’t know or even think, in your wildest dreams, that he existed. Let’s face it: you two have spent the entirety of your inhabitance next door to one another, antagonizing each other. Your favorite hobby has always been pissing Joel off – teasing him for having backache, seeing how far down his porch you can launch his newspaper and he’ll still go get it. Playing the same kind of music you heard him playing on his guitar that one time, full-volume from your kitchen window just to fuck with him.
And, likewise: his favorite hobby has always been…well, ignoring you. Doing everything he can not to engage. If it weren’t for that fucking cat lady and her jittery green Chevrolet, none of this would’ve ever happened. She was a catalyst where one was neither needed nor wanted. You would’ve gone about your life, pinning your underwear only slightly more carefully to your clothesline, and Joel would’ve gone about his, doing – whatever the fuck he does.
Sure, it’s weird. But it’s nice. It’s nice to have him on your side, turning to check on you rather than snap at you for something. Nice to have him talk – actual, rounded words in place of grumbles and mumbles and groans and sighs. Nice to hang out with him and watch him work and ask questions about screws and power tools and pretend to be interested just to distract from the weight of queasiness in your stomach.
Your hands trail down, cupping around your navel. Your stomach still feels like your stomach: still soft, still spongey under your touch. If not for the two more tests you’d taken this afternoon, perched on the bathroom counter waiting for Joel to unstick his gaze from his watch and announce, That’s three minutes – both also positive, by the way – you’d have no fucking clue.
You hold the bottom half of your tummy, fingers rubbing gently over the skin that will soon enough grow and swell and protect.
“Hey,” you whisper, staring at the stationary ceiling fan overhead. A pause. An awkward inhale. “…hey, little buddy. I don’t – know you very well, yet. I figure you can’t even fucking hear me, but whatever. Just wanted to say hi. I’m – Ew, no. I’m not Mom, yet. What the fuck. I don’t know who I am right now, so just…maybe go easy on me until I figure that part out. And after, too. Alright? Are we…we cool?
“You can’t tell me, I know. I just have to assume we’re cool. Okay. Well. Keep growin’. Keep…doing your thing. You’re doing great. We’re doing – we’re doing alright.
“Good job, kid. Good job.”
Joel tells Vanessa two days later. She takes it…about as well as you might hope.
He says they talked for four hours. Three cups of coffee and a drive to Taco Bell later, she agreed to meet you. Properly. Not across the cluttered dancefloor of Tommy’s wedding.
She –? Is – is that a good idea?
I don’t know, kid. It’s the best I’ve got.
Meet me? Like, come kick my ass for sleeping with her boyfriend?
Joel had sighed and deadened his eyes on yours. Not her boyfriend, he corrected, passing you a sweater folded a little slapdash for your liking, and wasn’t her boyfriend when we slept together.
You shook the sweater straight again and fixed his work, muttering to yourself that at least he’s a better builder than he is a folder.
Joel heard you, and let it go. Passed you another – unfolded – sweater to sit in your wardrobe. Let’s just see how it goes, alright?
Alright.
We’re really trying this again. It’s only been a couple weeks.
Okay.
And neither of us have had much luck in that department since we broke it off, y’know?
Joel. I said okay.
He held your gaze a moment too long. Okay.
You’re on your porch when he strolls over, wrist blocking the six o’clock sun from his eyes. Newspaper in his fist, wind licking the corners. “Forget somethin’ today?” he asks, meeting you at the top of the steps.
“Came out to get it,” you brace yourself on the railing, “felt sick. This is me workin’ up to it.”
“You want me to toss it back onto my lawn so you can go fetch me it?”
You smile, eyes screwing shut. “Was coming over to ask what time for tomorrow.”
The reminder snaps him from his happy daydream. He says, “I was comin’ to ask you the same thing. Seven work?”
“Seven’s good. Are we getting food?”
“You wanna get food? I figured maybe you wouldn’t be up for it, what with the, uh…” Joel gestures to your hunched position, your head low between your shoulders, your deep, deliberate breaths.
“Maybe just drinks,” you utter, gulping back the sharp taste of bile.
He nods. “Drinks it is. You okay? You need anything?”
“I’m good. Thanks. See you guys at seven.”
Four minutes early, there’s a knock at your door. You pull it open, and there they are. Picture-perfect, like they might be posing for a holiday card. A bottle in his arm, a bunch of flowers in hers. A timid but genial smile between her cheeks, a twinkle in her eye. That same circle of shining light around her head, brunette tresses curled into bouncing waves.
“Howdy,” Joel says, stepping into the space you create. He dips his head, kisses your cheek, whispers a brief, Y’okay? in your ear. You nod quickly, gently shifting him out of the way.
Vanessa lingers for a moment in the doorway. She glances from Joel to you again, blinking in the porch light. Her pale skin lit in an ethereal glow. She’s prettier up close.
Joel addresses you, hand brushing the small of your back, “…this is Vanessa.”
“Hi,” she says, and pushes the flowers towards you – a small bouquet of gypsophila and eucalyptus. Bright, polite. Each sprig laden with the burden of appearing simpatico, but important. Meaningful, in the airiest sense of the word. “Hi,” again.
“Hi,” you echo, and then feel stupid for having nothing more to offer. You can feel Joel’s eyes on you, hot on your shoulder.
But Vanessa takes the weight from your chest. “It’s nice to meet you – officially. I saw you at Tommy and Maria’s wedding. You looked so beautiful.”
“Thanks,” springs from your tongue sooner than the rest of the sentence. Your brain scrams to find more words. “You looked – you looked great, too. Do you wanna –? I mean – Sorry. Come in. Obviously.”
She clicks over the threshold, her pale dress floating into your hallway like she’s part of a dream. She’s just as beautiful in this light, relaxed form – pastel blue and the glimmer of golden jewelry – as she was in the sleeker, more dramatic form you saw her in before. An aura about her which captures and tends to your attention. Intense, captivating, but not intimidating.
You usher them to the living room, offer them a space on the couch while you take Vanessa’s flowers to the kitchen. Joel follows you through, sets the bottle on the counter.
“Nonalcoholic,” he says, unscrewing the cap.
Your eyebrows jump. “Great. Thanks.”
“She’s nervous,” he murmurs, leaning in. “I know you are, too. Y’all are similar like that.”
You slot the stems into a vase of water one by one, carefully organizing a display. “She seems sweet,” you assure him. “She shouldn’t be nervous.”
“Neither should you.”
“Is this…totally weird for you?”
Joel breathes in deep, filling three glasses. “Yeah,” he says, eyes never lifting from the sparkling peach.
“Sorry.”
He angles his jaw. “Stop sayin’ you're sorry. I’ll kick your ass.”
Your head drops between your shoulders, eyes lifting only to his elbows. “Sorry.”
He scoffs, swiping the glasses and stepping back to let you out first.
“I’m trying not to make it weird,” you offer, slipping by.
“I don’t want you to try anything.” He kicks your ankle lightly and follows you back into the living room.
Vanessa sits forward and clasps her hands around her knee when you sit back down, shifting as though to reach for you before she stops herself. “How are you feeling? Joel said you’re a little…worse for wear, right now.”
“I’ve been better,” you say, smiling. “Just morning sickness. Which lasts – all day.”
She nods sympathetically. “My sister had it rough with her first. I actually…” She twists around, reaches for her purse, fishes out an orange packet. “I brought you some ginger tea. Kate told me it helped her a lot, so.”
She holds it out in almost trembling fingers. Likewise, you steady yours to take it from her, thanking her with a shy nod of the head. “That’s so kind,” you reply quietly, eyes darting to Joel. He’s staring at the pack in your hands, watching as you turn it over to read the back.
“And – listen,” Vanessa continues, the acceptance of her offering clearly fueling her assuredness, “I don’t want anything to be weird – between you and I, between you and Joel. I know this situation is…new. It’s, um…”
“It’s kinda weird,” you say, humoring. “It’s okay. I know.”
She breathes a relieved laugh. “It is. Thank God you said it.” She glances back at Joel, who smiles at her, slips his hand onto her knee. “But I guess,” a deep breath, “I guess it is what it is. And we’re all adults, you know? We can make it work, right?”
Your head switches rapidly between nodding enthusiastically and shaking enthusiastically. “Yeah. Yes. No, absolutely. And, you know, me and Joel – there isn’t – we’re not at all…”
“Oh,” she bats the idea away, “I know. I know that. He told me everything. It’s – You know, it’s just a timing thing.”
Joel’s staring down at his hand locked around her leg. Unblinking. Unmoving. His expression doesn’t shift until the two of you settle back into your seats; until Vanessa asks if he’d mind making you a cup of ginger tea.
You barely notice his absence, the way she takes you up in conversation. Like twirling you off in some kind of dance, each sentence strung safely to the next. There are no lulls, no awkward pauses. She asks about work, asks about your family. She tells you stories about her niece, who’s three now, and compares how you’re feeling to how she remembers her sister feeling.
Then her work, and the IT guy her friend hooked up with, and her class at the gym which she’s trying to convince Joel to come along to, and Kate’s hot yoga class every Thursday night, and the new sushi place which just opened downtown and You gotta try it some day; the nigiri is divine.
And you nod along, and you laugh at her anecdotes and tell your own, and Joel tells her to tell you about the jazz band who were playing at the restaurant they visited a couple weeks ago, and you offer to top her drink up and she says she’ll do it herself and she leaves you and Joel alone for the first time all evening, and – it’s weird.
Because – behind the veil of conversation you’re doing your best to uphold, sits an image of this very night – only, in Joel’s house. In Joel’s house, on Joel’s couch, drinking nonalcoholic wine with Joel’s brother. Joel and Vanessa leant against one another on one couch, Tommy and Maria on the other.
You can’t help it – you’re wondering what Maria thinks of Vanessa. How long they knew each other, if at all, before the breakup. Whether they hung out, whether they discussed sushi and yoga, or the housing market, or their Miller boyfriends and their annoying Miller habits.
Maria would’ve liked her, you think. Would’ve found her as lovely as you do. And the idea, the image of them giggling together at family parties and being Tommy’s Maria and Joel’s Vanessa – presses a firm, bullying finger into the bruise you thought had faded some from the other day.
And once they’re gone, once you’re left alone again – lying in still silence, closed in on yourself by the thick darkness of your room, nothing but you and your thoughts and your unborn child for company – it slips out.
“Fuck her, right?” You hold your hands out, addressing your stomach. “She was so fucking nice. Did you like her? Fuck me, I liked her. I hope they break up.”
And then, realizing who you’re talking to: “No. Sorry, baby, no. I don’t hope they break up. I want your dad to be really happy. But – Goddamn. She was so sweet. I thought she was gonna slap me, and she just – she brought ginger tea! Fuck. They look good together, don’t they?”
It’s just hormones. Just the emotional trip that is being four weeks pregnant. Everybody feels like this when they fall pregnant – sensitive, vulnerable, clingy. Right? Right?
Your words sit stagnant in midair. You swear you can see them, heavy and intruding. Awkwardly lingering someplace they don’t belong. Because none of it even matters – the hormones, the emotions. The weird knot burning a hole in your chest, shaped like a clenched fist, knuckles branded by the heat of longing. It can’t matter.
You’re where you are, he’s where he is. A pillow in your arm, Vanessa in his. Feet apart, bricks and mortar and something like twenty years and two dates too late separating you.
Both staring up at the ceiling, wondering who the other’s thinking of.
“At eight weeks, your baby is roughly the size of a raspberry.”
Your knee bounces, breath coming and going in shaky ripples. The rubber sole of your shoe cries against the sterilized hospital floor. Your chest hums anxiously and your throat catches when you swallow and are the lights too bright? The room too hot? You’re sweating. Why are you sweating? Can you breathe right now?
Joel nudges your arm and your eyes roll to the pamphlet in his hand, his finger tracing the words. “C’mon,” he utters, leaning in, “how can anything the size of a raspberry be scary?”
You squint under fluorescent white. “A raspberry that grows into the size of a watermelon, can break my ribs, make me throw up, make me lose hair, and then tear my vagina apart on its way out? That’s pretty scary.”
He smirks. “Not to me it ain’t. My vagina stays perfectly intact the entire time.”
“Oh, fuck off,” you reply, whacking him.
He laughs, swatting your palm away, keeping ahold of your fingers inside his own. “Speaking of – we gotta talk.” He elbows you, waiting until you’re looking again to speak. “We gotta cut the language.”
“Cut the language?”
“Uhuh. Rein it in. And by we, I mean you.”
“Uh,” you scoff, “I don’t think so. When you do the growing, then you can rein your own swearing in. Leave me alone, asshole.”
“Charming,” Joel says. “You know the baby can hear you? You want it to come out swearin’ like a trooper?”
You grin, tipping your head to him. “If it comes out and says anything, we’re rich. So – yeah. Let it.”
He opens his mouth to reply when a nurse emerges from a nearby room and calls your name.
“You’re up, kid,” Joel says, standing beside you.
You turn back, speaking before your brain settles on words. “I’m scared.”
“Hey,” he says, taking your hand. He squeezes it gently, uses the other to keep you facing him. “This is the easy part, right? We’re just going to meet them.”
“Oh, fuck,” you breathe, and wander over to meet the nurse. Joel’s hand a vice grip around yours.
She leads you into a similarly washed-out clinic room, only slightly dimmer with the lights turned out, and yanks a roll of paper across the bed. Tapping it twice, she smiles. “Hop up, darlin’.”
You settle into the crinkly paper, leaning back until you’re blinking up at the speckled ceiling. Another door opens and a woman in a white coat floats in, and you swear that if it weren’t for Joel’s Evenin’, ma’am when she greets the two of you, you’d believe she were a figment of your imagination. Another character in this fucking insane dream.
“Not often I do these past five o’clock,” she says, clicking her mouse and typing on her keyboard and fixing a hair grip back into her bun. Casual. It’s not even a thing to her, introducing parents and children. She does this all fucking day.
Joel tosses half a glance to you and then realizes you’re not currently in the room. He pinches your hand again. It grounds you for all of two seconds.
“Yeah, uh,” he clears his throat, “work commitment. I couldn’t get away any earlier, so we’re havin’ to do this a little late.”
“What do you do?” she asks, staring at her screen. Her glossy brown eyes and rich, dark skin.
“I’m a contractor,” Joel replies, thumb stroking your shoulder.
Something bubbles in your stomach, something akin to jealousy, an urgency to tell her that right now, in this room, he’s mine. No more questions. Something which quickly dissipates when you remind yourself to quit being fucking ridiculous and that right now, in this room, he’s someone else’s, and the thumb on your shoulder is merely to hold you back from fleeing. Nothing more.
The sonographer nods. Her name badge reads Freya. Pretty name. Stop picturing what your kid would look like as a Freya. You are not naming them after the first sonographer you meet.
“Shouldn’t be too long, then y’all can get home for the night. You live nearby?”
“Twenty minutes’ drive. Not far, are we?” Joel asks you.
Your eyes shoot down to his. “No,” you push your cheeks up, telling Freya, “not far.”
She flattens her lips against one another, lending you a sympathetic smile. “You got nothing to worry about, honey. Promise. Gel might be a little cold, that’s about as scary as this gets. We’re just gonna make sure everything’s looking good, check your dates, check your measurements. You’re doing great.”
“You hear that?” Joel murmurs, settling down into the chair by your side. His hand hasn’t left yours. His voice is low, meant just for you, when he repeats, “You’re doin’ great.”
You huff a laugh, some nervous release from your lungs.
Freya smiles, face lit by the faint glow of the screen in front of her. “We ready?”
You roll the hem of your tee up when she motions, bunching it under the wire of your bra. She squeezes a bottle over your stomach, which tenses solid when the frozen bite of gel curls right below your belly button. Freya smiles apologetically when you wince. Told you, she murmurs, and your breath escapes in a slightly more comfortable laugh. Lighter, easier. Scariest part over.
She presses the probe to your skin and spreads the gel, coating the bottom of your tummy in a slippery slick which tickles with each inch she covers. Two buttons pressed, and a dark image appears on a screen opposite you.
A gray fan, speckled like the ceiling above your head. Dark, black shapes growing and shrinking at the turn of Freya’s wrist. She pauses, two blobs onscreen: the larger, black, round, home to a smaller, misshapen one. Flecked with white and silver and moving slowly, gently, but – right there.
“Mom, Dad,” she grins, “meet your baby.”
You and Joel move forward at the same time, drawn closer to the crunchy image as if by some kind of natural magnetism. Eyes never blinking, lips agape. The shapes flutter, the smaller dipping in and out of view.
“You see right here, right in the center?” A white cross appears over the blob’s middle. “That little movement? The kinda – pulsing?”
You each nod. Your nails dig so deep into Joel’s hand that you risk drawing blood.
“That’s the heart. Ticking away.”
“The heart?” you ask, watching the rhythmic flicker in the center of the screen.
“Yep. Perfect, too.”
She hits another key and suddenly the room is filled with a muffled thudding; a steady, energetic pulse in your ears. It matches the movements onscreen, the tiny throb of the baby’s chest, the shape of your womb moving like waves before you.
And suddenly, it's real – all of it: the screen and the room and the sonographer and you, and Joel’s hand encasing yours, holding your knuckles to his lips, and –
And the heartbeat. Right there, right in front of you. Shy, probably as nervous as you are to introduce themselves. Feeling your eyes on them, curled up somewhere safe inside you. Right there.
You turn to Joel, and his illuminated face is staring straight at the screen. Eyes soaked with tears, blinking as they form, cheeks dappled with wet. He draws his eyes from his child only to look back at you, only to mirror your stunned smile, your disbelieving laugh, more tears dripping down into his beard. He sits up, presses his damp lips firmly to your forehead.
Freya mutes the heartbeat, pauses the scan where the image is clearest, and sits back. “I’ll give you guys a moment to yourselves,” she says, wheeling back in her chair. “Take all the time you need. I’m right outside.”
“Thanks,” Joel mumbles for the both of you, sweeping hair from your face.
The door closes on your little bubble – you, Joel, and the grainy image of your baby. The evidence that – yeah, that night happened, and yeah, you’re forever changed because of it. The evidence that you’re about to become a mom, for real, no matter how much the thought makes you feel like your stomach is kicking around at your ankles.
And the evidence that, no matter how scared you might be, how unprepared and unworthy you feel – you fucking adore that little blob already.
Love it as much as Joel does, stood over you, kissing your hair and whispering words you’re only half-listening to. A quiet thank you, a shaky I can’t believe it. Something about showing his brother. And when you look up at him, blinking at one another, inches apart – he takes your jaw in his hands and lowers his lips to yours.
Different. Softer. No want laced through. No urgency. Nothing needed, nor requested, that isn’t already right here in this little bubble of yours.
He kisses you slowly, eyes closed, holding you until you pull away for breath. His nose bumps against yours and you laugh, heads together, eyes low.
“Still scared?” he whispers.
“Terrified,” you tell him.
“Me, too,” he says, and kisses you again.
You lean back against the bed, relief settling your bones and soothing your heartbeat. The notion washes over you that, if you could, you’d stay in this room forever. Staring at the screen, holding Joel’s hand. Whispering fears into his mouth and letting him swallow them in a kiss.
He hands you some paper towel and helps you drag it across your stomach, your eyes still fixed on the little shape opposite. He hooks his chin over your head – the fresh, woody smell of his cologne infiltrating your lungs and throwing you under the haze of something you’re not quite sure how to define.
“Duck,” he says, voice vibrating into your skull.
“Huh?”
“Start saying duck. Make the baby think we’re saying that, then you can say –” he lowers his voice, “– fuck, all you want.”
“The hell would I have to say duck for?”
Joel stands upright and shrugs. “I don’t know. Think of somethin’. A nickname, maybe.”
“Duck?”
He nods plainly, glancing over to the screen.
The pillow beneath your head sighs as you turn from Joel back to the ultrasound. “Baby Duck,” you offer, and he smiles.
Smiles in a way you don’t think you’ve ever seen him smile. Eyes glistening, cheeks swollen. Something innocent and earnest about it. Something pure.
He agrees. “Baby Duck it is.”
Joel insists that you spend the night at his place.
“It’s been a big day,” he reasons, fixing the bed in his guestroom. “Just – let me run around after you for a little bit.”
You fight your corner as much as you can be bothered – I gotta maintain my independence, I’m gonna be a single mom soon enough, you know – but, truthfully, you’ll take any excuse to have him rush around at your beck and call. Some days you open your mouth and he hears the wet click of saliva between your lips, and grabs a glass of water for you before you’ve even voiced the request.
He orders takeout, settles shoulder-to-shoulder with you on the couch, and lets you pick whichever movie you feel like putting him through until the food’s gone, he’s out of beer, and you’ve abandoned Heath Ledger and Julia Stiles for an argument about the best part of pizza.
You don’t like the crust?
Nope.
What fuckin’ age are you?
If it ain’t stuffed, it’s just not worth it.
At eleven, you bid him goodnight and wander upstairs, falling into a sea of navy-blue sheets to be delivered to sleep by the serene silence of Joel’s home. It takes no time for your eyes to flutter closed, the soft sheen of moonlight painted across the wall, sweeping from your view to be replaced in a whir by –
Lights. Overhead and all around and so bright and so close that you swear they’re etched on the inside of your eyelids.
You’re in the backseat, watching them soar by in blurs of white and red and amber and green, and your pulse is rattling through your veins and throbbing between your temples and you can’t focus on any one object for longer than three seconds, before your eyes roll and your head dizzies.
A word, slung from your lips in a half-wakened attempt to stop it. A word you barely recognize at first, don’t understand the meaning of. It’s been years. Why now? Mom.
You’re not sure why, or who you’re even reaching out to. There are two figures in the front seats, heads facing forward. She’s not turning around. She’s not even fucking moving, not reacting to the speed or the lights or your voice. Mom.
You scream it, the syllable ripping violently from your throat, and your tiny fingers reach for her swirls of hair. You pause, staring at the chipped polish on your stubby, kiddy nails. Mom, I’m scared.
The distorted blast of a horn scoops the car up in one motion, hurtling over itself along the freeway. You’re thrown to the roof of the car, plummet back down to your seat; the seatbelt throttles you, rips a burn deep into the skin of your neck. Back up again; your head hits the spongey roof of the car. Your stomach somersaults.
Mom, please, you wail, swiping for her hand. It’s lying limp by her thigh, dark droplets on her wrist. Mom Mom please Mom I’m scared Mom please I’m so scared I –
“Baby.”
His voice is low, earthy. It chews apart the high-pitched squeal of brakes and screaming. The glass smashing. The metal crunching.
You lift from the bed like it’s ice water, gasping when you finally surface back on Earth. Your chest heaves, it’s not sucking in enough breath; you can’t breathe you can’t breathe you can’t fucking breathe.
Joel whips the cover from your legs and you roll from the mattress, feet planting on the floor. You bend forward to grip onto the sheets, a choking rising up your throat, closer and closer until it tugs on your tongue.
“Icantbreathe,” you pant.
Joel’s body curves around yours. “You’re alright,” he’s telling you – urging you; one hand between your shoulder blades, the other holding your wrist for fear you might collapse. “I’m here, you’re okay. You’re at my place, you’re safe, but, kid – I need you to slow down. You’re hyperventilating.”
You work your breathing to the strokes of his hand up and down your spine: in out in out in and out and in and out and in, and out, and in, and…out…and in…and…out.
“That’s it. Keep doing that. You’re good, baby, I got you. I won’t let anything happen to you.”
In – and out. In – and out again.
The room slowly desaturates back into boring, moonlit blue. Feeling sputters back into your hands, clawing at the sheets once the sharpness dissolves. The cotton pets back, smooth under your quivering touch. Your lips stop tingling, your ears stop ringing. One after another, until your blood settles back to a steady stream and you straighten up.
“Can you sit down for me?”
“No,” you whimper, and Joel nods.
“That’s alright,” he says. “I’m gonna get you a drink, that okay?”
You grab his T-shirt. “No. Don’t leave me. Please. Sorry.”
He cups your frozen cheeks. “I ain’t goin’ anywhere. Just downstairs. You can come.”
He settles you at his kitchen table and shuffles over to the cupboards, rubbing his eyes. You feel the heat of embarrassment and guilt, watching as he settles down with a groan minutes later.
“Ginger,” he tells you, voice rounded by his mug, sliding one of your own over to you.
“Sorry,” you mumble, lifting it with two hands. The smell sharp, cutting up the remnants of gasoline and smoke.
“Many times do I gotta say it?” he asks dryly. “Quit sayin’ you’re sorry.”
You gulp nervously. “You got work in the morning. You’re gonna be exhausted.”
“And if I hadn’t let you keep me up watchin’ chick flicks, I’d be rested. That’s something I can deal with later. I got you to worry about right now.”
You shake your head; the ceramic hits the table with a sharp thud. “I don’t want you to worry about me.”
“Well,” Joel sniffs, “you’re carrying my child. I’ll always worry about you.”
You sit back, the curve of the chair cradling, your heart beating lamely against the wood. Joel’s jaw rests in the cushion of his palm, staring back at you.
“What time is it?” you ask, and he glances over his shoulder.
“Three. Take a sip.”
“I’m fine.”
“Sip.”
You obey, lifting the tea and swallowing harshly.
He watches every move, every shift reflected in his dark eyes, decorated by a tense, stony expression. “Does this happen a lot?”
“Never,” you say. “This never happens.”
Joel cranes his jaw, cracks his neck. “Alright,” he sighs, “that’s okay. Breathe again. You’re doing fine.”
But you don’t feel fine. The dregs of panic sizzle into something thicker, hotter. Anger. Frustration. “Why the fuck is this happening?” you hiss, fingers prodding into your eye sockets. “What the f–?”
“Easy. I don’t know. Hormones? Stress?”
“You sound like my fucking doctor.”
Joel smiles. Amusement, before concern wipes over it again. “Let’s just give it some time to pass, okay?”
You nod, hanging over your drink, the silhouette of your reflection staring back at you. The steam snakes up, seeping into your skin, bubbling under the surface. Wiping clean any memory of freeway or nail polish, like coating over a bathroom mirror. The shapes still visible behind, but blurred. Gone.
“How’s Vanessa?” you ask, an attempt to distract yourself.
Joel adjusts a little awkwardly in his chair. “She’s good. She loved the scan photo. Showed it to her sister. They’re sure it’s a boy.”
“Ha. Joel Jr.”
“Joel Jr.,” he agrees, and then attempts to distract himself. “So,” he says, “Allandale.”
“Mhm?”
“Wonder if I ever saw your mom or dad. When I was there visitin’ Sam.”
You shrug. “Doubt it. I mean, they always lived right next to the elementary school, if that helps. My mom was a first-grade teacher. The two of us used to walk there ‘n back together, every day.”
“First grade, huh? Best one.”
“Yeah. Yeah, and she was the best of the best. She used to go all out for her kids; used to go to Michaels and get all this crafty stuff so they could spend all afternoon making little houses or zoos, or – whatever she could think of. And she’d always keep some aside, bring some home for me to make one, too. One time, she came home with all this blue tissue paper and little foam fish, and we made an aquarium together.”
“That’s pretty cool,” Joel says.
“Yeah,” you say again, nodding eagerly. “She was so cool. And fun, y’know? I just remember her being so much fun. I always felt safe with her, felt loved. I actually used to think she hung the sun every morning, just for me.” You take a deep breath, replacing it with a broken sigh.
“What about your dad? What was he like?”
You frown. “He was…fine. Real quiet, reserved. A little grumpy, I guess. I always got the idea he couldn’t be bothered with me, young as I was. Always wanted to be left alone. I think my mom overcompensated a lot.”
Something flashes across Joel’s face that seems to say he knows – or, at least, he understands. Almost imperceptible, a quick flicker of annoyance. “You miss her?” he asks, switching back.
“My mom?” You almost laugh, gripping onto your mug. Staring at the slow swirl of ginger. A shrug which presents more like a flinch; an animal swatting a fly away. “I miss those parts, when I think of them. The aquarium, the walking to school. Miss the memories. But I don’t think I knew her well enough or long enough to miss her.
“I’ve lived way longer without her than I ever had her. Done everything without her, like –” gesturing down, “– this. But, sometimes…sometimes, I bundle the sheets up behind my back in bed, and I pretend it’s her. Pretend I have a mom, and she’s cuddling me to sleep. I dunno. Maybe that’s what missing her feels like.”
Joel soaks in every word you say, letting the shape of each one settle on the table between you before he speaks again. Letting them be spoken into the dead of night, collected by no one, and letting them fade into silence. Secrets sweeping off into starlight. Nothing you would admit in the daytime.
“What was her name?” he asks, voice timid and gentle in the dark kitchen.
You almost choke on your tea. “Shoot – I’m sorry. That was a lot. Sorry. She, uh – Her name?”
It brings the first genuine smile to your lips; the memory of your mom now clear behind your eyes. Her round cheeks, her fluttering earrings. The deep, dark curls of her hair, thick ringlets twisting and lighting in the sun. The gap between her front teeth, the purse of her lips as she kissed your cheeks, your hands, your tummy.
Her name like a melody in your head; a safe word, a calming mantra when the world becomes too noisy, too saturated, too sharp to bear. Two syllables. Two little beats, like a piece of her still lives in the sound of her name.
“Sarah,” you tell Joel. “Her name was Sarah.”
#*hits post*#*throws laptop from bridge*#joel miller#joel miller fic#joel miller smut#the last of us#tlou#macfrog#neighbor!joel miller#neighbor!joel#babydaddy!joel miller#babydaddy!joel#tw pregnancy
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Pls I want a sub Enmu x dom reader fic so bad⁉️ no one writes for him‼️
yes. . . sure. hes so pretty and unusual. let me know if i mistag anything again! sorry about my last post !
amab sub enmu x dom amab higher-moon demon reader!
^^these are just rambles as usual.. i'll probably keep one of these ideas as a draft and make a short fic of it buddy! sorry for any mistakes!
cw;; exhibition., fucking in public literally.., masturbation, blowjobs?! hints of petplay, calling enmu ur faithful dog, hints of nipple play + blood play i think! murder/cannibalism!
you had a cloaking ability of sorts. something that you often abused, the only downside is that your brightly colored eyes engraved with "higher moon" were on display.. you didnt mind at all, really - in your eyes, your body looking opaque as well as enmu - a lower moon demon who seemed to take a liking to you-! the idea is him sucking yr dick and tonguing your balls as passengers leave and board the train in front of you,,,
something about his freakish ways made you all giddy inside. it made you all the more haughty. lurking around his territory obviously struck him curious, and of course, he probably knew about your likeness toward him... but maybe he didn't. he striked you as a bit of a love-struck moronㅡso faithful to muzan, but so eager to hollow his mouth around your cock in the forest behind the train station. he was almost annoying.
ㅡ"that's my good boy..." humming to him softly as his head lays in-between your fleshy thighs. cock soft in his eager mouth, so careful not to bite your dick off - joking about doing so, but he would never actually go through with it, silly! petting his soft treads, carefully putting it to the side...
enmu, someone who looked up to you, wanted to be you - or with you, looking up at you with those huge matnles etched with his lower moon 1 rank... so pretty! you make sure to tell him that - he often prides himself in looking so pretty! "... you are my good boy, right? my good boy?... hmm?" ever so slightly tightening your grip on his hair, watching in admiration as drool dribbles passed his chin. he couldn't answer you... mouth stuffed full with yr thick, soft cock. hissing softly as his teeth graze - "yess.." his mouth hand hisses. ew freak... you jest, tonguing his hand out at an awkward angle.. "y-your... yours.. good boy." what was with that slurring? what's his problem?
[ also,,, feel like he would be bratty,, like " you dont compare to lord kibutsuji, but you'll do just fine." trying to take control of you,, a higher moon, and be the dominant one but fails miserably.. ]
,,, jerking him off in one of the empty traincarts,, him sitting on ur lap and pinching his nipple with ur free hand while tugging at his veiny ass dick,,,. yeeaahh!!!
dragging him to your territory... "its ours now!" gleefully informing him, ignoring the way he trembled and blushed as you dragged him around, parading around so... forwardly! sharing an offering... offering him the corpse of a young man. so happily tearing into it, watching as crimson smears all on his face before really getting messy with it! rubbing the blood all over his chest and him letting you suck/lick it off. yeeeaaahh!
beautiful. hrnmmm..
#kny =͟͟͞͞★#enmu x male reader#subbot enmu....#x male reader#male reader#top male reader#x top male reader#dom male reader#x dom male reader#kny x male reader#amab enmu#amab reader!
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In love with Oliver saying he wants to tread carefully re: Buddie because he doesn't want to feed into the [predatory] queer male stereotype of, like, a guy coming out and suddenly he's into all his friends. love it especially since some people in this fandom seem fucking obsessed with that idea like ok. maybe i would lay down my life for him in battle.
#Also him saying he's not sure if he wants Buddie to go canon#I would LOOOOVE for him to explore that a little more#I wanna hear his thoughts
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what if i have big boobs and a small heart?
luke hughes x f!reader social media au
warnings: swearing, use of 'manwhore', allusions to sex
fc: steph bohrer
liked by markestapa, trevorzegras and 791 others
ynofficial: j-dog strikes again
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colecaufield: HEART, NOT BOOBS 📢
ynofficial: let's all bow down to preacher jack🧎
colecaufield: he's my summer entertainment
dylanduke25: you'll have to excuse my brother in law's behaviour, he does this sometimes. you just have to reset him by giving his fake tooth a wiggle
ynofficial: 💀
lhughes_06: duker what happened to the definitions?
dylanduke25: 'forgetting' - a failure to recall information
liked by lhughes_06
trevorzegras: i think i just pulled something trying not to laugh
lhughes_06: jackhughes you know it's bad when z points it out
_quinnhughes: i can confirm that was my live reaction
markestapa: my my he's done it again
ynofficial: my friend my pal my buddy
markestapa: YOU TALKIN TO ME? YOU TALKIN TO ME?
ynofficial: well who the hell else am i talking to
markestapa: we're really funny
ynofficial: the pranks? the laughs?
markestapa: between me and you?
ynofficial: ah!!!
edwards.73: YOU'RE ON VACATION WITHOUT ME?????
lhughes_06: you're in nj????? at dev camp?????
edwards.73: SEMANTICS
ynofficial: if it helps it's only duker, gavo, me, luke and mark now
edwards.73: it doesn't
ynofficial: you'll get over it😘
jackhughes: fuck
ynofficial: brace yourself. i'm never letting it go
_quinnhughes: he could do with being taken down a few pegs
lhughes_06: and what better way than a future s.i.l with no contractual obligations?
ynofficial: you make it seem like i'm unemployed
lhughes_06: you know you could be...😘
ynofficial: I DON'T NEED YOUR MONEY OKAY
ynofficial: I DON'T NEED TO RELY ON A MAN FOR FINANCIAL AID
lhughes_06: aid???? YOU'RE MY GIRLFRIEND I LIKE TAKING CARE OF YOU
markestapa: rare otp crumbs 😲
dylanduke25: OTP OTP OTP
liked by edwards.73, jjmccarthy and 873 others
ynofficial: but what happens if i have big boobs and a small heart jackhughes?
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nolan_moyle: immediately that is incorrect
ynofficial: TREAD CAREFULLY MOYLE I HAVE BOOBS OKAY
nolan_moyle: i was in fact ☝️not talking about your boobs
markestapa: i'm honoured to be featured but you're the biggest liar in the world
dylanduke25: THAT GIRL IS A SOFTIE
edwards.73: well spoken
ynofficial: i will have you know that i am NOT a softie 🤨
_quinnhughes: i beg to fucking differ
ynofficial: QUINN YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO HAVE MY BACK
_quinnhughes: then i'm switching sides
ynofficial: 😨
jackhughes: I WAS HAMMERED THEN OKAY.
jackhughes: also you probably have the biggest heart out of everyone i've ever met
ynofficial: shut the hell up i do not
markestapa: to answer your question though, i think you'd just be a baddie
ynofficial: are you saying i'm not a baddie then
markestapa: you're a different kind of baddie honey 💛💛
liked by ynofficial, tyler_duke and 43,183 others
lhughes_06: an appreciation post for the biggest baddie with the biggest heart
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markestapa: you missed the boob part
lhughes_06: dude
ynofficial: mark has a point, do i not have boobs?
ynofficial: ample?
lhughes_06: i don't know how to answer that on social media
dylanduke25: ample: large and accommodating/plentiful
lhughes_06: LET'S ALL STOP TALKING ABOUT MY GIRLFRIEND'S BOOBS
jackhughes: are you jelly?
lhughes_06: you're the last person who gets to ask me that after what you just said
jackhughes: have a little brother they said 😐 you can bully him they said 😐 it'll be fun they said 😐
_quinnhughes: i'm literally living proof of that not being true wtf are you on
adamfantilli: question 🤔
lhughes_06: oh dear
adamfantilli: are cheesy speeches genetic? or was it a fluke?
lhughes_06: i think i'm offended
_quinnhughes: ouch
trevorzegras: LOL 😛
ynofficial: i had that thought and with experience luke usually says 'fuck shit up' and quinn says 'expose their weaknesses, flash luke, i'll point at the ocean to distract mark and then spike the ball. also, if we win, i'll buy you alcohol for the next month'...so jack is probably the fluke
bradytkachuk: i can confirm this is true yes
colecaufield: that does sound pretty accurate
trevorzegras: _quinnhughes YOU BRIBE UNDERAGE CHILDREN WITH ALCOHOL?????
_quinnhughes: i also know a lot of your secrets and i happen to be incredibly persuasive 😬
trevorzegras: was that a threat?
ynofficial: YES LMAO
edwards.73: so in conclusion, y/n is a soft baddie and the boob thing is inconclusive????
ynofficial: i totally forgot about the point of this post
lhughes_06: love to know my efforts go unrecognised ❤️
ynofficial: i don't have to show it on social media 😘
lhughes_06: tis true 😊
rutgermcgroarty: OTP 📣 OTP 📣
markestapa: private but not secret will always have my heart
luca.fantilli: he says swiping at the photos of them making out and shoving them in both luke's and y/n's faces telling them how cute they are and that they should post more couple content
markestapa: how tf do you know what i'm doing
luca.fantilli: there's a groupchat
markestapa: WITHOUT ME IN IT????????????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
liked by ynofficial, jacob_truscott20 and 63,197 others
lhughes_06: this is how we do ☀️😎
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jackhughes: 😎🫣🔥🤝
_alexturcotte: court marshaled
g.brindley4: Behaviour.
ynofficial: hot hot hot
lhughes_06: all you you you
markestapa: flirty flirty flirty
trevorzegras: baby hughes is smooth smooth smooth 😮💨
jackhughes: 🙄🙄
dylanduke25: is pitcure #1 proof that boobs do indeed win?
g.brindley4: YNOFFICIAL WAS TAKING THE PIC SO YES!!!!!
edwards.73: luke hughes boob guy confirmed 🤫🤫
ynofficial: your curls will be the death of me
lhughes_06: 😊😊😊😊
matthewknies: they'll be the death of me too 😔
liked by rutgermcgroarty, nblanks98 and 528 others
ynofficial: just told these 4 goobers that they've all been 'so bf' recently and luke walked away from me, mark literally FROZE and eddy and duker just...got it
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ynofficial: side note: luke heard me tell this to mark and i've never seen the man look so ready to punch his friend before
markestapa: i was about to use my pims to defend myself
ynofficial: channel your inner rocky
markestapa: NEVER BACK DOWN NEVER WHAT
edwards.73: i think sometimes you should back down and go home
ynofficial: 😧😧
lhughes_06: in my defence, i was in the middle of playing golf
ynofficial: which is ridiculous because it was literally dark
_quinnhughes: yeah i don't remember still being there in the dark
ynofficial: that's because...
lhughes_06: no
lhughes_06: stop don't
jackhughes: now that i think about it i don't remember still being there either????
ynofficial: erm
dylanduke25: ew so you and luke were on a dark golf course with a buggy by yourself????? you disgust me
ynofficial: WE WEREN'T DOING THAT
lhughes_06: we were chatting shit but now that you mention it, thanks for the idea
jackhughes: 🤮🤮
_quinnhughes: don't pretend like you haven't done worse mr hot tub time machine 🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮
ynofficial: i can never watch that film again
edwards.73: me and duker are just 💪 that 💪 good 💪
dylanduke25: PERIOD 😤😤
ynofficial: it's true, you are
nolan_moyle: nblanks98 you look so bf all the time
ynofficial: yk what i think you're 10000% correct with that nolan
nolan_moyle: thank you 😊😊
nblanks98: aw 🥰
umichhockey: admin would like to agree with you
liked by ynofficial
jackhughes: have i been 'bf' lately?
ynofficial: you've been more 'manwhore' lately
_quinnhughes: ynofficial you're my favourite non-hughes
lhughes_06: when i marry her will she be the favourite hughes?
_quinnhughes: out of my siblings? absolutely
ynofficial: i'm SO honoured
ynofficial: _quinnhughes also you've been very bf lately, i don't tell you often
_quinnhughes: it's the hoodies isn't it?
ynofficial: and the fact that your cuddles are just *chef's kiss*
jackhughes: i give good cuddles too i'll have you know
lhughes_06: jackhughes you're not coming near her with a ten foot pole
ynofficial: you do jackhughes
ynofficial: what
lhughes_06: what
ynofficial: jack's given me hugs before
jackhughes: yeah
lhughes_06: why
ynofficial: he broke up with his girlfriend????
lhughes_06: JACK HAD A GIRLFRIEND?????
_quinnhughes: WHEN WAS THIS???????
jackhughes: ynofficial thank you for that
ynofficial: i'm so sorry oops
markestapa: you've been so gf lately
ynofficial: thank you bestie
edwards.73: what does that mean?
ynofficial: (i don't know)
lhughes_06: should i be threatened right now? i don't feel it but i feel like i should be iykwim
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The Lady and the Major - Part 1/3 // John "Bucky" Egan x OC
Summary: Major Bucky Egan is on leave in London, and what else is there to do than to drink, sing, have a good time, and... of course, ladies. But then he meets Liz, a Lady of the Court, and Bucky is immediately entangled in her net.
Warnings: Language, teasing, use of alcohol - soldiers being soldiers
A/N: Okay, wow... I thought today: "Uh, I have an idea for a OneShot with Bucky Egan," and now I'm sitting here with a three-part story. Jeeeeeez... Uh, but what you gonna do. (I've only seen the first two Episodes of MotA as of now, but... I just love Callum)
Here is my Masterlist
Tags: @liebgotts-lovergirl, @softly-writes, @mads-weasley, @brassknucklespeirs, @softguarnere
(Sorry mates, you just have to be tagged ;))
The Ritz, London, 1943
The opulent bar of the Ritz in London, brimming with the raucous laughter and chatter of soldiers on leave. The air is thick with smoke, jazz music fills the background, and the atmosphere is charged with the night's excitement.
Major John "Bucky" Egan, surrounded by a rowdy group of fellow American soldiers, is the life of the party. His laughter is loudest, his stories the most captivating, and his gaze roams freely, appreciative of the scenery—particularly the women who add a touch of glamour to the smoky room.
Bucky, with a glass of whiskey in hand, leans back, surveying the room with a smug grin. "Gentlemen," he boasts, "London's no match for a Yank with charm. Watch and learn."
His eyes, however, catch a sight that stops him mid-sentence—a vision of elegance seated across the bar. Lady Elizabeth Cavendish, unbeknownst to him, sits alone, her posture the epitome of grace, a long, slender cigarette holder elegantly poised in her hand. The soft glow of the bar lights catches her blonde hair and the sparkle in her blue eyes, making her seem almost ethereal.
Bucky's usual confidence wavers for a moment, his friends noticing the sudden change. "Well, I'll be damned... Who's that?" Bucky mutters, more to himself than anyone else.
One of the British soldiers, a man who has seen his fair share of high society, leans over, a knowing look in his eyes. "That, Yank, is Lady Elizabeth Cavendish. The Duke of Wellington's daughter. I'd tread carefully if I were you. She's out of your league."
Bucky's grin returns, cockier than before. "Out of my league? Buddy, there's no league I can't play in. Watch me."
With a swagger in his step, Bucky makes his way over to Elizabeth, his comrades watching eagerly, some with admiration, others with skepticism, and some with knowing faces.
"Evening, miss. Can I say you light up this room brighter than the London Blitz," he says cockily, letting his charm play.
Elizabeth doesn't even glance up from her drink at first, taking a slow drag from her cigarette. When she finally turns her gaze towards him, it's with an air of amusement. "And can I say that's the most American pickup line I've ever heard?"
Bucky, undeterred, flashes a grin. "Major John Egan, at your service. But for you... You can call me Bucky. And you are?"
Elizabeth finally offers him a small, knowing smile. "Elizabeth Cavendish. And I'm quite aware of who you are, Major Egan. Your reputation precedes you."
Bucky, leaning against the bar closer to Liz, his confidence seemingly unshaken. "Is that so? And what have you heard?"
Liz, taking another slow drag from her cigarette, eyes Bucky with a mixture of interest and challenge. "Oh, just that you're quite the charmer. A real ladies' man. Or so you believe."
The air between them crackles with a mix of tension and intrigue. Bucky, for once, finds himself having to work to maintain his usual smug demeanor. "And what about you, Lady Elizabeth? Do you enjoy games?"
Liz's smile widens, her eyes sparkling with mischief. "Oh, Major, I don't just enjoy them. I excel at them. Care to play?"
The challenge hangs in the air, a silent dare that Bucky, despite the warnings and his better judgment, finds himself unable to resist. "You're on. Let the games begin."
As Bucky signals the bartender for another round of drinks, his fellow soldiers exchange glances, some shaking their heads, others betting amongst themselves on the outcome. What none of them realize is that in the game of seduction and wit, Liz is a master strategist, and Bucky might have just met his match.
Bucky leans closer, his confidence unwavering. "So, Liz, you don't mind me calling you Liz, right?" he starts, the smug smile never leaving his face, "I've flown some of the most dangerous missions over Germany, you know. But I must say, navigating this conversation with you feels like my most thrilling challenge yet."
Liz lets out a soft, amused laugh. "Major Egan, I've met many men who believe their war stories could sweep a girl off her feet. And maybe it actually does some. But it's going to take more than tales of aerial feats to impress me," she replies, her voice laced with a teasing sarcasm that only someone of her breeding and wit could perfect.
The night progresses, and with each drink, Bucky becomes more audacious, his hand finding its way to the small of Liz's back, a bold move that, in any other circumstance, would have guaranteed success. Liz, however, is not any woman he's encountered before. She plays along, leaning in as if captivated by his charm, her lips tantalizingly close to his, only to pull away at the last moment, leaving him wanting more.
Their conversation ebbs and flows, with Bucky regaling her with his exploits, each tale more daring than the last. Yet, Liz remains unimpressed, her blue eyes sparkling with amusement rather than awe. It's a dance they're both familiar with, but in this instance, Liz leads, her every move calculated to keep him on his toes.
As the night wears on, Liz finishes her drink, placing the glass delicately on the bar. She rises from her stool, the movement graceful and deliberate. "Well, Major, it has been... interesting," she says, her tone implying a myriad of things left unsaid.
Bucky, taken aback by her sudden desire to leave, scrambles to his feet. "Wait, Liz, why don't you stay for another drink? The night is still young, and I feel we've barely scratched the surface."
Liz turns to him, a sly smile playing on her lips. "I'm afraid I have other engagements to attend to, Major. But I must thank you for the entertainment," she teases, her gaze piercing through him with a challenge that silently says she's not one to be easily conquered.
As she walks away, Bucky watches, a mix of frustration and fascination written across his face. For the first time, he's encountered a woman who not only matches his wit but exceeds it, leaving him in uncharted territory. Liz, with her aristocratic poise and undeniable charm, has turned the tables on him, making it clear that if he wishes to pursue her, he's in for a game unlike any he's played before.
Returning to his comrades, Bucky's expression is a mix of irritation and resolve, a stark contrast to the confident swagger he had before approaching Liz. The British soldiers, having observed the entire exchange, can't help but wear smirks of "told you so" on their faces.
"Well, Major, looks like the ice queen has claimed another victim," one of the Brits comments, clapping Bucky on the shoulder with a laugh that's both sympathetic and mocking.
Bucky, undeterred, shoots back, "This isn't over. Not by a long shot."
Another British soldier chimes in, swirling his drink, "Mate, many have tried to climb that mountain. From viscounts to earls, not a single one has reached the summit. Lady Cavendish is... well, she's a fortress."
"Yeah, heard she loves to make sport of men, seeing who can try and fail the most spectacularly," adds a third, his tone laced with a mix of admiration and warning.
One of Bucky's American friends, attempting to find a solution, suggests, "Did you pull the pilot card? Chicks love pilots." The suggestion hangs in the air until another British soldier, who had been quietly listening, interjects, "Her brother's Captain Edward Cavendish, Royal Air Force war hero. Your pilot card might as well be a library card."
The revelation doesn't dampen Bucky's spirits; if anything, it fuels his determination. His jaw sets firmly, the challenge now more personal than ever. "So, she's used to high-flyers, huh? Well, she hasn't met anyone like me. I'm not just any pilot; I'm Major Bucky Egan. And I don't give up that easily."
The group looks at him, a mix of skepticism and intrigue in their eyes. They know Bucky for his tenacity, his charm, and his unwillingness to back down from a challenge. But Lady Elizabeth Cavendish is not just any challenge—she's a high-stakes game that many have lost.
As the night winds down and the group disperses, Bucky's mind races with plans. He knows winning over someone like Lady Cavendish won't be easy, but he's always loved a challenge. The thought of her, with her piercing blue eyes and that untouchable aura, only makes him more determined. He's ready to prove that he's not like the others, that he's someone who stands out, even in a crowd of heroes.
The stage is set for a captivating game of wit, charm, and strategy. Bucky's resolve and Liz's cunning promise a tale of intrigue, where each move could either draw them closer or push them further apart.
In the soft morning light filtering through the hotel's dining room windows, Bucky and his fellow soldiers are halfway through their breakfast, the air filled with the light-hearted banter typical of men who've faced much together. The sudden approach of a concierge, bearing the unmistakable posture of formal importance, silences the table. With a discreet cough to announce his presence, the concierge presents a silver platter to Bucky.
Bucky, eyebrows raised in surprise, picks up the envelope resting on the platter. The envelope itself is a work of art, the calligraphy on the front flawlessly executed, hinting at the significance of its contents. His name, "Major John Egan, US Air Force," is inscribed with elegant flourishes that speak of a bygone era of meticulous attention to detail.
As he carefully opens the envelope, the anticipation among his comrades is palpable. They watch as Bucky's initial confusion shifts to an understanding smile, a silent acknowledgment of the ongoing saga that had captivated them since last night. He pulls out the invitation, and it reads:
Major John Egan,
It is with great pleasure that Arthur Cavendish, Duke of Wellington, and Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Wellington, extend to you an invitation to a gala being held at our family estate, Wellington House, on the evening of this day.
This event will assemble distinguished individuals from various sectors of British and Allied societies in a celebration of unity and resilience in these challenging times.
Date: This evening at 7 o'clock post meridiem
Dress Code: Formal (Black Tie)
Location: Wellington House, Kent
We anticipate the honor of your presence and look forward to an evening of meaningful exchanges and spirited fellowship.
Kindly present this invitation at the entrance.
Sincerely,
The Duke of Wellington
Bucky's grin now spread wide across his face, confirms the unspoken thoughts of his table. "Looks like I've got plans this evening," he announces, his voice a mix of amusement and intrigue.
The soldiers around him, well aware of the story behind the invitation, erupt into a mix of cheers and playful jeers. Bucky's encounter with Lady Elizabeth Cavendish, a tale that had quickly become legendary among them, was evidently far from over. This invitation was not just a call to a social event; it was the next chapter in a story that promised to be as unpredictable as it was entertaining.
As the concierge departs, Bucky's mind races with possibilities. The gala at Wellington House was not just an opportunity to step into the world of British aristocracy; it was a chance to see Liz again, to engage in their game of wits and charm. With a sense of adventure stirring in his heart, he knew one thing for sure: the evening promised to be unforgettable.
House Wellington, Kent, 1943
As Bucky steps into the grandeur of the Wellington estate, the opulence of the gala immediately envelops him. The air is thick with the scent of expensive perfumes mingling with the faint aroma of quality tobacco. The chatter of the high society fills the room, a mixture of refined British accents and the occasional foreign dialect. Bucky, in his crisply pressed formal uniform, stands out—not just for his attire but also for the aura of confidence he carries with him, an unmistakable mark of a man not easily intimidated.
He navigates through the crowd, champagne flute in hand, his eyes scanning the room until they find what they've been searching for: Liz. She's a vision in her gown, embodying the grace and elegance of her status, yet with a glimmer in her eye that hints at her spirited nature. As he approaches, he can't help but admire the way she holds herself, the center of attention yet seemingly uninterested in the adoration she commands.
"Seems like I can't go anywhere without you showing up to steal the spotlight," Bucky teases, offering her a playful smirk as he closes the distance between them.
Liz turns to face him fully, her expression one of amused defiance. "Oh, Major Egan, I was under the impression that an officer of your caliber would know how to read a simple dress code," she retorts, her eyes gleaming with mischief as she gives him a once-over. "But I suppose we can't all have the luxury of choice in our evening attire, can we?"
Bucky chuckles, unphased by her jab. "Well, Lady Cavendish, it seems I'm at a disadvantage here. While you dazzle the room in that stunning dress, I'm stuck in this old thing," he says, gesturing to his uniform with a mock sigh. "But let's be honest, we both know I could show up in a burlap sack, and you'd still find it hard to keep your eyes off me."
The air between them crackles with the tension of their banter, a dance they've both come to enjoy. Liz takes a slow drag from her cigarette, held elegantly in a long holder. "Confident, aren't we? Just don't let that confidence get you into trouble, Major. This isn't the front line, and the battles here are fought differently," she says, blowing out a stream of smoke, her gaze locked with his.
"Then consider me armed and dangerous," Bucky replies with a grin, his eyes never leaving hers. "But I'll admit, this is one battlefield I'm looking forward to navigating, especially if it means crossing swords with you, Lady Cavendish."
Their exchange, filled with the playful yet pointed jabs of two individuals equally matched in intellect and charm, sets the tone for the evening. Around them, the gala continues in its whirl of music, laughter, and conversation, but for Bucky and Liz, the rest of the world fades into the background. They are each other's focal point, engaged in a game where the stakes are undefined but unmistakably high, each moment building on the tension and attraction that simmers just below the surface.
As Bucky and Liz continue their verbal dance, the arrival of a British Captain momentarily shifts the atmosphere. The Captain's demeanor is one of polite curiosity mixed with the protective scrutiny of a brother. When he inquires about Bucky, there's a brief tension, a moment where the social games of the evening meet the reality of wartime alliances and personal connections.
Bucky, with the straightforwardness that military life has ingrained in him, extends a hand. "Major John Egan, US Air Force," he introduces himself with a respectful nod, recognizing the familial resemblance in the Captain's features.
Edward's expression warms slightly at the mention of Bucky's service. "Ah, a fellow pilot then. And where might you be stationed, Major Egan?" he asks, a hint of camaraderie entering his voice upon learning of their shared skies.
"With the 100th Bomber Group," Bucky responds, his answer earning a nod of respect from Edward. The reputation of Bucky's outfit precedes him, known even among the British ranks for their bravery and contributions to the war effort.
The conversation takes a turn when Edward's attention shifts towards his sister, curiosity piqued. "And how did you two come to meet?" he inquires, his gaze bouncing between Liz and Bucky, searching for a glimpse into his sister's enigmatic social life.
Bucky opens his mouth to answer, perhaps a little too eagerly, ready to dive into the tale of their first encounter. However, Liz, ever the master of her own narrative, interjects with a grace that belies the quick thinking behind her words. "We met at a charity event just last week," she states, her voice carrying a tone of casual innocence. "Major Egan was kind enough to share some fascinating insights into his experiences in the war so far. It's not every day we have the honor of hearing such stories firsthand."
Edward's expression softens, a mix of brotherly concern and pride evident in his gaze as he looks at Liz. It's clear he's unaware of the full extent of his sister's adventurous spirit and her propensity for finding herself in the company of intriguing characters. "Well, I'm glad to hear our allies are not just brave but also charitable. It's important, especially in times like these, to remember what we're fighting for," he comments, directing a respectful nod towards Bucky.
The moment passes, and Edward excuses himself to greet other guests, leaving Bucky and Liz alone once again. Bucky raises an eyebrow at Liz, impressed by her quick thinking and ability to weave a story that protects her reputation while not entirely dismissing their actual encounter. "A charity event, huh? You're quite the storyteller, Lady Cavendish," he teases, the corners of his mouth turning up in an amused smile.
Liz, taking a delicate sip of her champagne, meets his gaze with a mischievous glint in her eyes. "One must always be prepared to tell the story that needs to be heard, Major Egan. Besides, I couldn't possibly let you ruin all my fun with the truth, now could I?" she replies, her tone playful yet laced with the underlying thrill of their shared secret.
Their exchange, now even more charged with the thrill of their clandestine understanding, continues to weave a complex tapestry of attraction and intrigue, each moment adding to the layers of their unfolding story.
Next Part
#Masters of the Air#MoaT#John Egan x OC#Bucky Egan x OC#John Egan x reader#Bucky Egan x reader#John Bucky Egan#BoB#Callum Turner#Sorry not sorry
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Why Don't You Stay; We've Got Tonight II (Paul McCartney x Starr!Female!Reader NSFW)
Find Part One Here
A/N: Y'all asked, y'all shall receive. Thank you all again for the support; I love writing for every single one of you.
I would like to also personally thank my Brainstorming Buddy/ Editor @strawb3rri-le. the last three or four fics I've posted, including this one, would not have been possible had it not been for you, so I thank you from the literal bottom of my heart for being the Lennon to my McCartney in this writing journey. Here's to many more wonderful stories to come! <3
Summary: You and Paul get intimate after agreeing to be there for one another.
This is also inspired by Bob Seger's We've Got Tonight, so be sure to listen to that for your own listening/ reading pleasure!
WARNINGS: SMUT, please don't interact if you're under the age of 18, I'll call your mom. Fluffy unprotected sex (Wrap it before you Tap it amirite?) ANGST; this fic gets SAD midway through, mentions of cheating/ exes being stupid, but there is fluff in the end which makes it all better. Swearing is a given, maybe a few typos.
This one is rated 18+ or R, so tread with caution ONLY if you're of age please, I cannot stress that enough!!!
"Are you sure about this?"
"Yes. Are you?"
"I really am."
"Then there's nothing to worry about."
Paul was watching you from what little light was flooding through the window of his room. He could have asked you that question a hundred more times; but he just wanted to make sure you were comfortable.
He opened his mouth to inquire yet again, but you stepped towards him, lips connecting with his to ease his worries. You felt his tension melt away slowly, hands drifting down to hold your waist as you placed one hand on his chest, the other resting on his shoulder.
You pulled away slightly to glance at his sweater, and Paul watched you intensely as your hand slid down the fabric painfully slow, your fingers dipping into every clothed muscle on his torso until they were toying with the hem at his hips.
"... This should go," you suggested in a hushed tone, and after a moment of letting the recommendation settle in both of your minds, Paul let go of you, pulling it up and off him with your help, and the sweater fell to the carpet with a soft thud.
When your hand returned to his chest, now bare, you examined just how toned he was. You had no clue someone of Paul's stature could be hiding such a body under simple knit sweaters and turtlenecks; but it was a pleasant surprise.
As your palm drifted around his skin, feeling the light hairs on his chest, his own fingers couldn't help but drag along the uppermost edge of your own pyjama top. His gentle touch left a trail of goosebumps on you, his eyes following his fingers as his hand slowed to a stop above your heart.
"And, perhaps this, as well...?" Paul asked rather innocently, eyes flitting back up to meet your own gaze. You nodded a little, watching as he ran his tongue against his bottom lip. "Lift up."
You raised your arms for him, and felt your top slide up and off you, his fingers grazing your sides gently as he removed it from your body. Paul held it in his hands for a moment, eyes drifting down a little to look at the sight before him. The top fell to the floor, along with his discarded sweater, and you both stared at each other for a moment.
Paul's eyelids lowered and he sighed at you, hands reaching out to hold you again. He cupped you at the base of your ribs, his thumbs drawing nonsensical patterns on the skin under your breasts as he closed the gap between you again. As your lips pressed together, Paul slowly walked you back to the edge of his bed, where you lowered yourself to sit when you felt the mattress against the back of your legs.
He dropped to his knees in front of you, finally pulling away to look at you again. His hands moved up carefully to cup your breasts, and you shut your eyes. He gauged your reaction to his touch, and feeling his thumbs run gently over your nipples made your head drop back. You whined a little, that familiar, yet longing feeling you hadn't experienced in a while was making itself known deep within you.
His hot breath was fanning against your skin, and Paul asked you in the most delicate tone, a simple, yet effective, "May I?" And all you could do was nod to him.
You whined again when Paul's lips made contact with your breast, his left hand kneading the other carefully as his right squeezed your side in affection. You slid your hands up through his hair, and you felt him moan against your left nipple as his other hand rolled your right one between his fingers.
You both had to try your best to keep on the quieter side since it was so late; and no one else should have known what you two were doing. Unfortunately, Paul's... handiwork... wasn't anything to be quiet about.
"Paul," you choked out, tilting your head up a little, and he removed his mouth from your nipple to look you right in the eyes.
"You like that?"
"Yes," you nodded your head rather frantically, spurring him to get right back to work, but switching sides, lips and tongue teasing your right breast as your left now gained the attention of his fingers.
Your knees fell away from one another as you tilted your head back again, breath ragged as Paul worked his magic. You felt his hand slide down your waist to drag along the band on your pyjama bottoms, but he was in no rush to tell you to take them off.
His hand actually continued to slide down to your thigh, and he squeezed you gently as you felt his tongue swirl around your nipple, and you rolled your hips against his body on reflex, choking out another whine as you tugged at his hair a little harder. He smiled with a pleasant hum before pulling his mouth away from your body.
You huffed at the cool air hitting your wet breasts, but he placed another warm kiss on your lips, one of his hands holding the back of your neck, and your discomfort faded away almost instantly. His other hand was still on your thigh, but slowly trailing back up to the waistband on your pyjama bottoms.
Paul deepened the kiss just for a moment as his finger hooked into the band. When you both separated again, he rested his forehead against yours, heavy eyes opening to look at you.
"Isn't it about time these go, too?" There was something so carnal about his words, yet they still held an abundant amount of respect for you, and your comfort; and, dear God, it turned you on so badly.
You didn't even respond to his question. You just removed your hands from his hair so you could support yourself from the mattress from your elbows, raising your hips off the bed a little so he could pull the rest of the clothes off your body. You watched as Paul did just that, your bottoms relinquished to the pile of clothes building off to the side, your legs not so spread apart anymore.
It looked as if he were in a trance, hands on your thighs as he examined your nude body in fascination. You watched him watch you, still propped up on your elbows, and you felt almost embarrassed under his gaze until he mumbled, fingers kneading into the tense muscles on your legs, "perfect. Absolutely perfect."
You blushed as he tenderly spread your legs open, unhurriedly, and he groaned at the sight of just how wet you were for him.
"Oh, Darling..."
Your face felt so hot, especially when you watched him lick those damned lips of his again.
"I want to taste you, you look so damn sweet." His thumbs continued to massage between your thighs, and you could feel yourself getting even wetter. You felt like you needed to return the favour.
"I... Did you want me to--"
"No," Paul interrupted lightly with a simple shake of his head. It was like he read your mind. "Keep moaning, keep pulling my hair. Those beautiful noises you're making have me feeling the best kind of way right now."
Every word he said contributed to enhancing the pit of arousal you were feeling within, and you were almost speechless. No one had ever spoken to you that way before, not even your ex, the one with whom you felt you shared your most intimate moments with. But after what had already happened in that room, between you and Paul, comparing them was out of the question.
You could feel his breath against your heat, your blood pumping loud in your ears.
"Paul, please..." you whispered, but he just stared at you, fingers still rubbing your thighs.
"Please what, Lovely?" You knew he was doing this on purpose, especially when he rested his head down onto your left leg to give you those alluring puppy-dog eyes.
"I can't give you what you what you want if you don't tell me what it is you need."
Your mouth formed a few shapes without you making a sound. You sighed, breath shaky as you gathered enough composure to groan, "I need your mouth. Please."
"Where?" Paul asked innocently. You were secretly loving the way he was teasing you, but on the other hand, you were beginning to feel desperate for his touch. His left hand reached up towards you, and a single finger rested against the skin between your breasts.
"Here?" He questioned softly, dark eyes watching you as you shook your head. He dragged his finger so painfully slow down your body, stopping at your abdomen to ask again.
"What about here?"
"Please," you were begging him at this point, but Paul continued to take his time, drawing his finger lower, and lower, until he was just above your folds.
"Just little lower," you pleaded to him desperately, and when you finally felt him pull his hand away to hold your thighs apart, you knew he was done playing games with you.
He gave you one more sultry look before dropping his head between your legs, tongue gently lapping away at your arousal, and you cried out his name. He opened his eyes to watch you react from his place as he continued rolling his tongue against you at an even pace.
You lowered your back to the bed, legs instinctively trying to squeeze together at the feeling of Paul's sweet mouth where you needed him most, but he continued to hold a firm grip on your thighs to keep them in place.
His beard scratched at your legs a little, but in the best kind of way. His nose bumped against your clit and your hands found their way back into his mess of locks again, tugging and driving him closer to you. He moaned against you, the vibrations shooting a chill up through your body.
He pulled away a little, mouth shining with your arousal, and his eyelashes lowered over his eyes as he mumbled, "Oh, my dear, you taste better than I ever dreamed you would."
Your heart was pounding against your ribcage, the idea of such a beautiful man dreaming about being between your legs and tasting you, and wanting this had you feeling some kind of way.
"Please, don't stop," you whined gently, and he responded with a quiet laugh.
"Oh, my sweet girl, I'm nowhere near being done with you yet. Don't you worry."
A mix of relief and lust rushed your emotions, and Paul's eyes continued to watch you as he let go of your right leg, hand coming up to his face before putting his middle finger in his mouth.
You stared in anticipation as he pulled his saliva-covered finger out from between his lips before plunging it right into you, and you cried out again, tears of pleasure welling in your eyes as you pushed your hips up against his hand.
It was Paul's turn to stare, and you felt him curl his finger inside of you before adding another and repeating the beckoning motion again, free hand pressing your hip down to keep you from moving so much.
"You okay, Lovely?" He asked in a low tone, watching as your body twitched and writhed with everything he did.
"Yes, keep going, Paulie," you whimpered, encouraging his hand to quicken before he dipped back down, lips wrapping around your nub, and all you could see were stars. Your hips rocked up again, and Paul released your waist a little to let you squirm around.
"Paulie, I'm gonna..." you stumbled over your words as you felt your orgasm nearing quickly, your hands balled into tight fists in his hair still. One more finger curl was all he had to do before you released all over them with a cry. You mumbled nonsensical speech as Paul pulled back a little and admired his achievement, your arousal dripping down his hand as he let you ride it out.
"That's it, do whatever makes you feel good, my angel." His praise was addicting, your eyes rolled back as you revelled in this state of euphoria. It wasn't long before your hips fell back onto the bed, and you sighed out when Paul removed his fingers from you.
You took a moment to fixate your gaze on him. His pupils were blown, staring at you in the face with his lips parted. You relieved some of the tightness in your fists so you weren't gripping his hair so hard, mumbling a whispered apology for being so harsh with that.
Paul responded to you, not with words, but by stalking up your body slowly, silently, as a predator would to its prey; and he pressed a kiss to your mouth, tongue pushing its way past your teeth so you could taste yourself.
You groaned, sitting up slowly as to not break the kiss. You reached down towards the belt wrapped around his hips, undoing it blindly and pulling it from the loops of his jeans. You needed him, and he was strained so tightly in those trousers, you knew it couldn't have been comfortable for him. You parted from the kiss, but keeping the distance close between you two.
"Are you positive you don't want me going down on you?" Your question seemed as innocent as if could have been, and Paul just smiled a little with another head shake.
"Baby girl, as long as you're getting off, so am I."
You hummed at his response. You hoped he wouldn't quit with the pet names. Your eyes glanced down to the jeans you were in the middle of taking care of, and Paul was already popping the button off them.
His eyes trailed back up to your face before he put his palm innocently over your heart, pushing you down onto your back again.
"Just lean back and relax, my sweet thing. You just stay there and look pretty while I take care of you. Make you feel good."
You watched him from your lying position as he moved to stand by the foot of the bed, dropping his jeans to the floor after wiping his hands off on them before he turned back to you. His stare didn't seem all that possessive and dark anymore like it had been during foreplay.
He was looking at you with a type of sincerity that brought warmth to your soul.
You were under a spell, unable to disengage from his stare, even when he climbed back onto the bed, and spread your legs apart again. He briefly looked away from you to position his cock properly, and you watched the concentration on his face morph into mild enjoyment as he circled the head around your pussy teasingly.
Your eyebrows furrowed as your legs crossed around his waist, and he looked up at you through his eyelashes. Those perfect pink lips of his parted, and he whispered to you with one more squeeze to your thigh, "are you ready?"
Your hands reached out for him, fingers clasping together at the back of his neck as you nodded your head. "I need you, Paul, Please."
"Don't worry, my Love. I'll give you exactly what you need."
And with an unhurried push of his hips, he was inside of you, and the most beautiful sound escaped his lips, in limbo between a moan and a whine, and the look on his face was blissful, eyes shut and mouth hanging open at the feeling of you.
You let out a deep, concentrated, pleasing sigh. It hadn't been forever since you last had sex, but it was definitely long enough. The stretch from his member filled you up in the greatest way; and Paul took it real slow for you.
"Fuck, you're so wet. So tight," he mumbled under his breath, exhaling deeply with every roll of his hips. His eyes drifted back open to watch your face, lowering his brow and whispering to you, "my Love, you promise to tell me if I'm ever hurting you?"
Your face flushed red at his words, and you nodded a little.
"Yes, Paulie. Absolutely." Your quiet response was uttered though little moans, a hint of emotion laced in your voice.
You were partial to that specific nickname. You felt you maybe liked it too much, but there was no denying that responding to it felt so right, and Paul, you felt, seemed to think regarding you that way was okay, as well. It made you feel like you were actually wanted, and you'd be lying if you didn't say you hadn't felt that way in a very long time.
Paul leaned down, arms on either side of your head as he kissed your lips, and you kissed back, fingers unclasping so you could once again run your nails along his scalp and through his hair. He groaned at the attention, rocking a little deeper now, and you pulled away from the kiss to whine at Paul's actions.
You arched your back as his movements sped up, and you could hear his breaths quickening as he settled on a steady pace. One of his hands slid in under your back to hold you closer, and he dropped his head into the cook of your neck.
He started placing kisses along the side of your throat, and then on your collarbone. "You have no idea... fuck... how long I've waited for you." He mumbled those words against your skin, and your conscience shot right awake from its besotted trance as you hyper-focussed on his words.
"I have been dreaming about this for so many nights... for so many years..."
You couldn't believe what you were hearing. Sure, you'd known Paul for a while, but never in your life did you think he was even remotely attracted, to you let alone actively fantasizing about the very moment you were both experiencing.
Your chest burned, intensely aware that as soon as this night was over, this feeling of togetherness, intimacy, and affection was going to die out like a candle flame, and you were going to be alone all over again. Your eyes were glassy with tears as you tried to draw Paul closer, opting to remove your fingers from his hair to wrap your arms around his body.
You began to push your hips back against Paul's, recieving a pleased hum from him. Your hands rubbed tenderly over the hot skin on his back as he continued to pour his heart out to you, breaking yours more with every word that left his mouth.
"My sweet Love; to think I've wanted you for so long... and now I have you. I'm the luckiest fucking guy in the world."
"Paul," you whimpered, head resting up against his shoulder as tears streamed down your cheeks from your eyes. You weren't entirely sure what came over you, but before you could even think, you were whispering to him, "please don't leave me."
"Never. My Love, I'll always be right here." His response was so effortless, and quick, and your ears seemed to be ringing again. He put his other hand at the back of your head, pulling you in closer as your bodies continued to rock together.
You could feel another orgasm nearing, and Paul must have known from the sounds coming from your mouth. He pulled his arm out from under your back to reach between the both of you, thumb toying with your clit as you cried out again, hips jerking harder and quicker against him, his own pace stuttering as he could feel the walls of your heat contracting against him.
"I-- I'm gonna..." you choked, and Paul rubbed between your legs even faster.
"Come undone, my Love," he encouraged weakly as he tried his best to keep going for you. You dropped your head back against the pillows and you cried out as another orgasm rushed you, more tears falling down your cheeks, as you returned to that feeling of ecstasy you were in only minutes before.
Paul leaned up, forehead and chest shining with sweat as he continued to pound into you, long hair matted against his skin as his pace fell apart, shuttering as he pulled out of you and came all over your stomach.
His head fell back, eyes falling shut as he called out your name, cum leaking out of him and all over you, but you were far from caring. His breaths were heavy as he gasped for air, and after a moment of allowing the both of you to come down from the high, he slumped back onto his arms, head rolling to the side so he could open his eyes and look at the mess he made of you.
"Oh, Love, I'm sorry about all that. Let me just..." Paul took another deep breath before rolling himself off the bed, wandering on wobbly legs towards the connected bathroom. You could hear the faucet running for a moment as you stared directly up at the ceiling, beginning to wake your body up with a little wiggle your toes.
That was, without any doubt, the best sex you'd had in your life. And as Paul returned to you, two damp cloths in-hand, you figured the intimacy was over; that you'd clean yourself up and be kicked out of the room.
But when he took a seat at the foot of the bed again, and he reached up to your tummy to wipe his ejaculation off your skin, you found yourself falling into another daze.
The cloth was warm, and Paul took his time sliding it over you to clean you up, not a single word coming from his mouth. When he felt he cleaned your stomach well enough, he reached for the other cloth, wiping the sweat gingerly off your neck, and chest.
Every move was calculated, and even when he moved to wipe up the mess between your legs, he was careful of how sensitive you were, free hand caressing your thigh while he remained largely focused on cleaning you up.
You felt the assault of tears burning your eyes again as you watched Paul tend to you, and when he looked up to your face and realized your expression, his own fell to one of worry.
"... you okay?"
You nodded your head weakly, that was until you felt him squeeze your leg again. Your bottom lip began to tremble, and your hands came up to your face as you sobbed into your palms.
"Hey, hey, Darling, what's the matter?"
Paul even sounded worried, climbing up the mattress to be closer to you. You curled up into a little ball on your side, and Paul put his hand on your arm, rubbing it up and down to comfort you.
"I... I..." you didn't want to tell Paul necessarily what you were feeling, because then that would have meant telling him you enjoyed him a little too much. More than you thought was maybe appropriate.
"Please talk to me, tell me what I can do to make this all better," he begged, and you took a while to respond to him.
"Hold me," you whimpered, and Paul, without another second passing, swept you up in his arms, cradling you as you sat in his naked lap. His right arm circled your back as his left coaxed your head onto his shoulder before he began stroking your hair.
Your arms lazily circled around him as you cried into his shoulder, and Paul pressed his lips into a line, tears of his own threatening to fall.
"Did hurt you? Did I do something wrong, Love?"
"Please don't think that," you choked back. "You did everything so right. And that's the problem."
Paul's eyebrows, which were knit together in frustration and confusion, began to relax at the realization of your words. You both knew you were going to have to elaborate a little more at one point, but Paul didn't pry. He just continued to stroke your hair and rock you, soothing you of your negative emotions.
You pulled your head away from the crook of his neck eventually, and you looked Paul in his sweet, doe eyes. "You're so kind. Too kind," you sniffled. "Half of me wants to actually listen to the words you said, but it hurts too much. After what he did to me..."
You thought back to your ex for a moment. That slimy, cheating bastard.
"I can't even pretend to believe someone would love me like that again, because he stripped me of all that trust."
Paul seemed a little hurt at your words, taking a moment to decide what he was going to say next.
"... You don't have to believe it now, but I know everything I said to you was the truth."
You felt your bottom lip quiver again, and he pulled his hand from the back of your head to cup your face.
"Everything. Even when you asked me not to leave. I can't be certain you were being serious about that, but I want you to know that I'm serious. I won't leave you if you don't want me to."
You couldn't help but tilt your head into his touch as your red eyes drifted closed. He placed a kiss on your temple, mumbling into your skin, "please believe me when I say I did have some doubts about all of this. But having you here, in my arms right now... I have never felt so sure about anything in my life. I'm never going to let anything happen to you ever again."
"But how can I be so sure?" Your question was barely above a whisper, and Paul held you tighter, and closer.
"You've occupied a special place in my heart for a long while, now. If anything were to try and hurt you, and I'm there to protect you, I'd be doing everything in my power to keep you safe."
You could feel Paul turn your head towards him, and you opened your eyes.
"I know our last relationships didn't end well. I know we're still hurting from the past... But you make me so happy. Like I have something worth living for, and can think about the future without wanting to look back at the pain I'm wanting to desperately leave behind."
You had more emotions stirring in your heart again, but they were ones that made you feel fuzzy inside.
"... Would it be so wrong of me to tell you I feel the same way about you?" You asked him carefully. You couldn't believe how poetic he could be just talking to you. He had all the right words to say at any given time.
"Absolutely not," he replied easily, one of the corners of his mouth twitching at the relief that the feeling was, in fact, mutual.
You reached up to cup his face, thumb drifting against his beard as he leaned in to kiss your mouth. And you let him. It wasn't to initiate anything, only to project affection unto you.
He pulled away after a moment, breathing a quiet "Please, Darling, stay with me, tonight."
You smiled sadly at his request, but you shook your head a little. "What about Rich? He's gonna find out everything." That was another nail in the coffin, Paul decided, he needed to pry out.
"Well, he's just going to have to deal with the fact that I need you," he responded matter-of-factly, and your heart ached at that.
"I don't think you have any idea just how long I've restrained myself from talking to you, let alone flirt or try anything with you. I used to care so much about what Ringo thought, but all that matters now is you."
Paul removed his hand from your cheek to caress yours holding his own face. He pulled your hand off so he could kiss your fingertips, smiling just a little to try and encourage one on your own face.
"It's just us now. No one else. Okay, my Love?"
All you could seem to do was nod your head, but that appeared to be enough for him. He gave you one more peck and a little hand squeeze before sighing. "Let's splash some water on your face and get us ready for bed, hm? I don't know about you, but the last ten minutes have been an absolute workout for me."
You blushed a little when Paul sent a wink your way, but you shifted off his lap and stood up, as did he. He took your hand in his again and guided you to the bathroom, and as you wet your face with the water under the faucet, he tossed the damp face cloths in the laundry bin next to the toilet.
His attention was back on you, and he tucked your hair back behind your ear, placing a kiss under your earlobe. You smiled a little at the gesture as you watched him through the mirror, turning the faucet off and dabbing your face dry with the towel on the counter. Paul settled another kiss at the crook of your neck, and then one on your shoulder.
"You feel any better?" He asked lowly, his words vibrating against your skin. You held back a chuckle by biting your bottom lip, setting the towel back down next to the sink.
"A little, yeah."
"As long as the answer isn't no, I can live with that." He smiled at your reflection, arms wrapping around your body as he kissed your shoulder one more time. You placed your hands overtop his, which were planted on your hips.
"C'mon, now," he whispered, one of his hands unraveling rom your body to drift to the small of your back and leading you back out into the bedroom. He left you briefly to pop the window open a little, and you climbed in under the covers, him following suit just a few seconds after.
You rolled to your side to look at Paul, and he did the same, propping up on his elbow and dropping his head in his hand, other arm reaching out so he could cup your face again. He looked so happy, having you so close to him. It was such a contrast to how you found him earlier that night, and the difference made you feel rather glad you were still awake at such a late hour.
"Thank you for everything tonight," he offered gently. "The drinks we shared, the dancing, the intimacy, for letting me confess everything to you, for staying... thank you for being you."
"Aww, why can't I say anything that romantic and poetic to you?" You whined a little, and Paul laughed gently, his hand drifting down to squeeze your arm lovingly.
"Y'know, there will be so much time in the future for you to woo me."
"If I can learn to be as quick on my feet as you, perhaps," you argued back playfully, shifting forward a little so you could curl up into Paul's chest. His hand dropped to your spine so he could pull you in a little closer, thumb rubbing gently against your skin.
"You'll get there, Lovely. Sweet dreams." You hummed a little as your eyes fell shut, the feeling of Paul's thumb caressing you, and the sound of the trees rustling in the wind outside, as well as the rise and fall of Paul's chest had you lulling to sleep in no time. He, on the other hand, remained awake for a long while, holding you close to him as if it were his only purpose in life.
He wasn't worried about anything anymore; not even about whether Ringo would find out about the both of you before either of you planned... Despite leaving the evidence of two alcohol glasses still sitting pretty on the coffee table in the den for him to find first thing that next morning.
Paul eventually fell asleep as well, arms enveloping you from the cool night air seeping in from the window leading outside. His heart was feeling fuller than it ever had before, and it was all because of you.
______________________________________
A/A/N: I hope this lived up to your expectations, I haven't written anything NSFW in YEARS, but I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. Don't forget to like and comment, I love reading the comments on these :')
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Medic x reader headcannons????
MINE MINE MINE MINE — mod medic
READER X MEDIC
if you were looking for a extremely romantic and sappy lover, than you are in the WRONG CATEGORY BUDDY, BECAUSE WOOO HES IS NOT.
he does try, really, but in a very unorthodox fashion. like yeah it has a romantic intention when he gave you a beating heart of the enemy soldier saying it’s for you, but you did react quite badly to it.
definitely had to be coached on how to be Normal in a relationship because otherwise he would NOT get it. turns out!! people don’t like organs and guts and murder like he does. it’s just a him thing.
he does delve deeper into your interests but more importantly— your health! dating an ex-doctor has its benefits! he still remember going to medical school and residency so he can still (illegally) perform on you. of course, you deny this advance, assuming you are sane my dear friends, but it’s the thought that counts.
slowly but surely the organs and medication are replaced with flowers and chocolates, it just took awhile to get there. he really is struggling but with a— albeit creepy— smile like that, how could you be mad at him?
his love language is most likely acts of service, which means he does the little things for you. said little things being anaesthesia but details details… you’re doing better off than his subjects teammates, so can you really complain?
and let’s be honest, being a mercenary pays well, you will NOT be going hungry bestie. with this advantage no matter who you are and what your stance is on paying for dinner, he is PAYING FOR DINNER, you cannot take that away from him. good luck trying
i think he uses you as an excuse to get out of things as well. new project coming up in 2fort? that’s too damn bad he actually needs to teach you the complicated anatomy of your central nervous system. it’s a very important thing, engineer! he has to waste.
also heavy hears about you so often he probably knows more about you than you do by the time he finally meets you face to face. i mean the whole shebang, full name, likes, dislikes, little fidgets, that thing you did last week to mess with medic, social security number…/j
he can’t help it, in his eyes you’re the greatest thing since sliced bread! maybe even the greatest thing since hemlock leaves in surgery prep!
…if you even knew what that meant when he said it to you.
all in all, god speed to you medic lovers because you will not get a DAY of rest with this man, he’s either working, causing something extraordinary or reeking havoc in teufort without many precautionary measures. we all saw expiration date. beware and tread carefully you fools (me included).
#mod medic#tf2 x reader#tf2 medic x reader#medic x reader#don’t get caught writing fanfiction by director challenge#(failed)/j
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tenderly (in your embrace)
character(s): takami keigo (hawks)
summary: when it all starts to get to be a little too much, you're there for him, arms waiting.
notes: reader's pronouns unspecified, mostly just a comfort fic!!
word count: 1.6k
Sometimes, the quiet tapping at the glass door of your balcony would interrupt the usual silence of your apartment. You were never annoyed, however; no, how could you be? You couldn't really keep a hold on any feelings of annoyance when you glanced over your shoulder to see the playful glint of the molten gold-brown.
Typically, a few whispers are exchanged as though the two of you were teenagers secretly meeting behind your parents' backs, but nothing more. Your relationship with the hero was an odd one and certainly unconventional.
"What are we?" you ask, delicately tracing the feathers on his back. Hawks breathes out slowly, wings fluttering lightly, his own hand trailing a light path up and down your arm.
"Cuddle buddies?" he suggests with a vaguely amused tone, pressing you closer to him. A motion that causes the bed to creak quietly. Idly, you wonder if you should check for loose bolts or something in your bed frame.
"Cuddle buddies," you echo, lips twitching upwards into a slight smile. "I guess so."
Two touch-starved individuals meeting together to feel the tangible form of someone, of anyone. So that they could keep a grip on reality.
Sometimes, though, there was no glint to his eyes. Perhaps a wry grin playing at his lips to hide his exhaustion, but none of the usual mirth in his eyes.
On these nights, his body language was frighteningly easy to read. Those nights went by in silence for the most part and, rather than Hawks being the big spoon, you would take him into your arms and rub slow circles into his lower back.
You never ask questions on those nights, afraid that the quiet tranquility of your arrangement would all be shattered if you so much as exhaled a little too harshly.
Tonight was one of those nights.
Tap-tap-tap-tap.
The rhythmic tapping of the glass balcony door alerted you to Hawks's presence. It was a familiar pattern; one that you had grown accustomed to after months of sporadic visits from the winged hero.
Placing the book in your hand down onto the coffee table in front of you, your feet automatically bring you over to the door of your apartment's balcony to let him in.
All it took was one instance of eye contact. Eye bags that were deeper than usual, eyes barely lit up with a weakly flickering light, a sagging posture, and wings flapping in agitation. Not even a weak smile to keep up pretences; no, he was just... tired. Weary.
You decidedly don't say anything, instead opening your arms in invitation. The effect is immediate; the man stumbles into your arms and even though you prepared yourself for the weight, you still take a small step back due to his body collapsing into your arms.
Carefully, you nudge the balcony door closed with a foot as you listen to Hawks's slow breathing against your shoulder.
The two of you stand by your balcony door for a little longer, artificial golden warmth of a nightshade the only light during the moonless night. Even as you gently tread your fingers through his hair - knotted in some places, you observe - his body remains tensed.
With all of the gentleness in the world, you tug at Hawks a little to get him moving. He follows as you guide him to your bedroom, never once letting go of your form. Slowly, you sink into your bed with him in your arms and he curls into you.
So, so small.
Hawks was by no means tall, of course – but his presence gave him a sense of command. The way he carried himself as a hero drew attention to him and put him in control. Yet, as of this very moment, the way his hands formed fists into the fabric of your shirt, the way his usually large and showy wings were currently small nubs with only a few small feathers clinging on, he felt so small.
You tighten your hold on him just a little.
Without thinking too much, you press your lips into his hairline, one hand resting steadily the small of his back and another in his hair and slowly combing through it. The closer the hand on his back got to his wings, the tenser he got, so you kept your hand away from them and instead drew formless shapes into his lower back.
The sigh he lets out is almost inaudible and you’re sure that if the night hadn’t been dead silent, you would’ve missed it entirely. Though you had been rather awake despite the odd hours of three in the morning, you could feel sleep pinching at you and your eyes were starting to feel heavy.
“Keigo,” he whispers. You immediately awake from your sleepy haze.
A name, you realize quickly. His civilian name?
You murmur his name in response, testing it out on your tongue. “Keigo.”
It sounded nice. A part of you wondered what spurred him on – why he decided to tell you his name. A name that was hidden away from the public eye. You would be lying if you had never thought about what the pro hero’s name would be – but you never prodded him for it.
Hawks – Keigo – buries his face further into your shoulder as you speak his name in a low tone, body relaxing. His eyes are closed, from what you can see, but you have a feeling he’s not really asleep. He always had trouble falling asleep on these nights.
Distantly, you wonder if he has anybody to hold him tenderly like this. A charming rogue in the face of media, working as a hero that was too fast for anyone to follow, background shrouded in complete and utter mystery–
A hand kneads at your waist and you sigh into him.
These vulnerable moments. Something told you that he didn’t get to be vulnerable often. It wasn’t like he could really afford to when he was the number two hero; people looked to him, to the heroes, for comfort. If the heroes were to comfort the civilians, who were to comfort the heroes?
Their friends and family, presumably. Perhaps lovers. You wonder if Keigo had anybody like that in his life.
Probably not, you think, slowly and gently working your way through a knot in his hair. You didn’t keep up with hero news as frequently as you would like, but you’re pretty sure you’ve never seen Keigo interact with anybody as a close friend. You weren’t even sure if he had family that were alive.
And a lover…
“A lover?” Hawks looks at you in amusement, a mischievous twinkle in his eye. “Why are you asking? Are you offering, babe?”
“Just checking to make sure I’m not, like, going to wake up one day to an angry spouse shouting at me for stealing you,” you reply, ignoring his last question. “Just checking that you aren’t cheating on some secret significant other.”
His face twists at that and you wonder if it has anything to do with you telling him all about your past exes just the night before.
“I wouldn’t ever,” he murmurs resolutely. A more selfish part of you feels upset – would that mean he’d stop visiting you nightly if he ever fell in love with someone?
“Right,” is all you can say. The coffee machine whirls to a halt and you change the topic. “Want some coffee?”
At some point, Keigo’s breathing had evened out and you realize belatedly that he’s fallen asleep. With all of the fondest tenderness you can muster, you press a light and barely there kiss to his forehead before letting sleep take you as well.
The next morning, Keigo wakes up blearily, wings flapping about idly as he takes in the familiar surroundings. A room that was very much you - a room he had become fond of after a few months of nightly visits.
He sits up carefully, doing his best to not disturb you from your slumber. Lord knows you needed sleep as much as he did, with the many odd hours you spent awake and overthinking.
With a large amount of affection that surprises even him, Keigo gently traces your cheek with a thumb. He freezes when you shift a little, burying yourself further into the pillow your head was resting on, and only relaxes when you continue to snore away.
It takes everything in him to force himself out of the bed, wanting nothing but to stay in bed with you and sleep in. The slow bustle of civilians outside of your bedroom window reminds him, however, that he can't afford to do that.
"Love ya, chickadee," he murmurs, pressing a kiss to your forehead the very same way you had done to him last night before slipping out of the bed.
He reaches for a pen and sticky note nearby. You won't miss a single sticky note, he thinks, as he scribbles down a little message in neat handwriting. Keigo's about to put the note down and leave before hesitating - and quickly scribbling down one last thing. He leaves the pen and note on your bedside table before entering the world once more as the second hero Hawks.
That morning, you wake up to an empty space next to you and a little note on your bedside table. The handwriting unmistakably belongs to Keigo - and, even if you didn't recognize the handwriting, the little red bird doodled into the corner of the note was a clear indicator of who left the note there.
Thanks for the cuddles, chickadee. Wanna go out for coffee sometime? xxx-xxxx-xxxx
The empty feeling you woke up immediately fills up with tender affection as you smile amusedly to yourself, pulling out your phone to text the winged hero.
You: so, when are you free for some coffee?
#hawks#hawks x reader#takami keigo#takami keigo x reader#rainywriting#bnha x reader#keigo x reader#mha x reader
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Jealous golden retriever
paring: Rachel Zegler x Fem!reader
Summory: Rachel and Y/N are doing the red carpet for the new movie when suddenly a cute boy tries to flirt with Y/N. Let's say the red carpet becomes a comedy show on it's own.
A/N: it's a bit similar to the one with lucy gray but who gives a fuck, both are just sassy queens and I love a good old jealous fanfic.
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It was a glamorous night at the movie premiere for Rachel Zegler's latest blockbuster. The red carpet was rolled out, cameras flashed, and Hollywood glittered in all its splendor. Rachel, the perpetually bubbly and cheerful girlfriend, bounced around like a ball of sunshine. Y/N, on the other hand, exuded an air of confidence that dared anyone to mess with her.
As they mingled with the A-list crowd, Y/N's protective instincts kicked in. She kept a watchful eye on Rachel, navigating through the sea of people with a no-nonsense attitude. Little did Y/N know that the night was about to take an unexpected turn.
Enter the cute boy, possibly an actor, who sauntered up to Y/N with a smug grin. He started laying on the charm thick, blissfully unaware that he was treading on dangerous territory. Rachel, witnessing this from a distance, felt a pang of jealousy that sent her into action.
In her attempt to shoo away the boy, Rachel chirped, "Um, excuse me, Mr. Smooth Operator. She's taken, and trust me, you're not her type. Her type is more 'I'll break your nose if you mess with my girlfriend' kind of guy." The boy, seemingly immune to Rachel's warning, continued his pursuit.
Undeterred, Rachel turned to Y/N with a faux-sweet smile. "Sweetie, should I fetch the newspaper to swat this pesky boy away?" she quipped, batting her eyelashes. Y/N rolled her eyes, suppressing a smirk.
But the boy, as if on a mission to test Rachel's patience, kept pushing his luck. Rachel's golden retriever charm started to wear thin. In a tone that was more lioness than puppy, she warned him, "You really shouldn't mess with me. I once stared down a raccoon for stealing my sandwich. You think you stand a chance?"
As the red carpet spectacle unfolded, the cute boy persisted in his pursuit of Y/N, seemingly oblivious to the protective force that was Rachel Zegler. Rachel, her golden retriever vibe now hanging by a thread, shot him a look that could have melted steel.
Undeterred, the boy smiled at Rachel, cocky as ever. "Look Sandwich girl, Didn't know I needed your permission to talk to your girlfriend." Rachel's eyes narrowed, but her comeback was ready.
"Listen, Romeo, the only permission you need is to exit stage left before things get Shakespearean," Rachel fired back with a playful yet pointed warning. The co-stars, catching wind of the banter, started chuckling, sensing the impending showdown.
One of Rachel's co-stars, a witty sidekick in the film, joined the fray. "Hey, buddy, just a heads up, Rachel here once arm-wrestled a bear. And won. So, tread carefully." The boy, not one to be outdone, retorted, "Yeah, well, I once beat a cockroach in a staring contest. So, bring it on, Grizzly."
The banter escalated, with the co-stars now taking turns jokingly warning the boy about Rachel's legendary protective streak. Meanwhile, Rachel, still trying to skedaddle the boy away, threw in her own snarky remarks. "Oh, so you beat a cockroach? I've beaten Monopoly in under an hour. Try me."
But the boy, seemingly unfazed, made a daring move. He circled back for round two, confident smirk intact. This time, Rachel's golden retriever patience had run out.
She leaned in, eyes ablaze, and said, "Look, buddy, I've got a black belt in sass, a PhD in sarcasm, and a master's degree in making people regret their life choices. So, take a step back before you become the subject of my next blockbuster – 'The Boy Who Poked the Wrong Golden Retriever.'"
The co-stars, now in stitches, egged on the boy, goading him with laughter. Undeterred, he shot back, "You know, grizzly girl, I thought your job was acting, not barking."
Rachel, now fuming, unleashed her snarkiest warnings yet. "Oh, honey, you're about to witness a performance that won't win me an Oscar but might earn you a one-way ticket to Regretsville. Population: you."
As the banter reached a crescendo, Y/N, thoroughly entertained, watched the showdown unfold. The co-stars, realizing the comedy gold they were witnessing, cheered Rachel on, knowing that the boy had just stepped into the ring with Hollywood's sassiest protector.
the boy decided to up the ante. In a misguided attempt to provoke Rachel, he leaned in to kiss Y/N's cheeks, a move calculated to get under Rachel's skin. The co-stars, now aware that the boy had just taken a leap into a lion's den, exchanged amused glances, silently acknowledging that he was now on his own for this reckless maneuver.
Rachel, witnessing the cheeky move, shot the boy a look that could freeze lava. With a sarcastic smirk, she commented, "Oh, how original. Did you come up with that all by yourself or did the cockroach coach you?" The co-stars erupted in laughter, sensing the brewing storm.
The banter escalated, with the boy making a snarky comment about Rachel being a "pocket-sized powerhouse." Rachel, embracing her inner stand-up comedian, fired back, "Well, at least I can fit into a purse. Can you fit your ego into one?" The co-stars erupted in laughter, their appreciation for Rachel's snark reaching new heights.
But the boy, perhaps fueled by a misguided sense of invincibility, went further. "You must get lost in crowds. How do you even find Y/N?" he jeered. Rachel, her humor now veering into dangerous territory, replied, "Oh, it's easy. I just follow the sound of Y/N shouting my name in bed every night. Works like a charm."
The co-stars, now holding back tears of laughter, watched as the boy's cocky demeanor began to crumble. Frustration and annoyance painted his face. "What's the matter, Goldilocks? Can't handle a little friendly banter?" he taunted.
Rachel, her patience finally snapping like a twig, shot back with a dangerous edge, "Friendly banter is like a two-way street, sweetheart. What you're doing is more like a reckless joyride in the opposite direction of a cliff."
As Rachel warned the boy, Y/N, sensing the rising tension, tried to ease her girlfriend. The boy, seizing the opportunity to throw more fuel on the fire, commented, "Aww, isn't that sweet? Little Rachel has her knight in shining armor."
"Did he just....he did say that didn't he?" Rachel was fuming and ready to actually kill the boy and when Y/N sensed the shift in Rachel she stepped in. "look boy, just go because if mama bear here explodes nobody will lift a finger to help you." Y/N said and actually scared now, the boy backed away.
As the night progressed, the battle became a story in the history books but Y/N could not be prouder.
#rachel zegler#lucy gray x reader#fandom#lucy gray baird x you#lucy gray baird x reader#fanfic#tbosas#lucy gray x fem!reader#lucy gray#lucy gray baird
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okay I just finished season three of 911. I ship buddie I guess but am not wholly there yet. however if the writers decide to go that direction they need to tread carefully and be on their best behavior imo. maybe something changes in later seasons that I’m not aware of, but if buddie happens I fully believe eddie would need to have a Big Gay Crisis. in most of the fic I’ve read he’s very chill about being in love with buck but like. eddie has no idea how to deal with Big Feelings without getting mad. he has probably never closely examined his sexuality. this man is repressed. you know? I want to see him freaking tf out before we get to the kissing stage do yall feel me
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I kinda feel like the great reaction to bucktommy and how great the GP is reacting to them puts them into question for an endgame ship for buck I really don’t think Tommy’s just gonna be a fling and get written off I think it’ll be the exact opposite I’m more worried about Eddie if he isn’t gonna have buck I’m dumbfounded at who his endgame and how the writers handle that
You know what, I’m curious about this too now that you brought it up. As much as I adore Tommy, I don’t think he and Buck are endgame, but let’s flirt with the idea that they are for a moment. First of all, what a beautiful relationship to follow for him and Buck.
But what about Eddie? I guess one point is, would they ever explore his sexuality if they didn’t plan on Buddie being endgame? I would hope so, the man is more demi than I am. Will he be stuck in a revolving door of unsatisfactory romances? I really can’t see a good relationship for himself outside of Buddie, but I probably would’ve said the same for Buck before Tommy came along.
I think the writers would need to tread very carefully.
I’m curious, what does everyone think? Hypothetically, if Buddie never happens, what kind of romance would we be looking at for Eddie?
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Hogwarts Legacy modern AU
-Sharp’s phone rings with an unknown number-
Sharp: Hello?
MC: Hi, it’s MC. Sorry to call you, but, um, I’m in a bit of trouble. Can you come get me?
Sharp: Come get you from where? Are you alright?
MC: Apparently Hogsmeade has its own little jail, did you know that? Anyway, I’m a minor so they’ll only release me to an adult and I was NOT about to call Fig.
Sharp: What did you do?!
MC: I don’t have time to explain, will you come get me?
Sharp: I’ll be there as soon as I can.
-At the jail-
Sharp: Hello, I’m MC’s guardian. May I take her home now?
Officer Singer: Not until she apologizes to the gentleman.
Sharp: I’m sorry?
Officer Singer: It seems there was a scuffle in the three broomsticks. She assaulted a man and called him -looks at paper- a punk ass bitch.
Sharp: MC!
MC: He deserved it! He was leering at Poppy like a pervert! Then he made a gross comment, I told him to fuck off, he said to mind my own business or he’d have me arrested. I said “go ahead you punk ass bitch, you wanna see me get mad? FUCK AROUND AND FIND OUT, BUDDY.”
Sharp: -suppresses his laughter- You need to apologize.
MC: Sure, where is he? I’d loooove to apologize.
Officer Singer: Mr. Jones?
-man comes around the corner-
Sharp: MC! That’s a ministry official!
MC: And a lil bitch.
Sharp: MC!
Mr. Jones: Is this your child?
Sharp: Yes.
MC: -snickers-
Mr. Jones: Then perhaps you can teach her some manners!
Sharp: Perhaps you’re right. MC, it was wrong of you to attack Mr. Jones.
Mr. Jones: Thank you!
Sharp: Instead, you should have recorded his inappropriate behavior as evidence and given it to the proper authorities.
Mr. Jones: How dare you!
Sharp: I’d tread carefully, Mr. Jones. I have many friends at the ministry and I’d be happy to tell them how you were inappropriate towards children. And I’d be willing to bet Miss Sweeting isn’t the first underage girl you’ve made uncomfortable, so I would think long and hard about how you’d like to move forward.
Mr. Jones: That’s unnecessary, this has all been a big misunderstanding. Officer, please let the young lady go.
-officer lets MC out-
Mr. Jones: You’re lucky I’m feeling generous, young lady. I could’ve had you locked up for years!
MC: -leans close- And you’re lucky your head is still attached to your shoulders.
Sharp: OK, time to go, thank you Officer. Come along now, MC. -drags her outside-
MC: Thanks, dad.
Sharp: This is why I never had children.
#hogwarts legacy#fanfic#hogwarts legacy fanfic#hogwarts legacy modern au#professor sharp#aesop sharp
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[a snippet of a fic in progress from my tags on this gifset]
There’s a part of him that knows he’s still trapped in that room in the depths of the ocean. His escape is just another fantasy he’s desperately playing out, hoping the dream doesn’t turn into another crumpled nightmare he rips out of the carriage and tosses into the never-empty garbage can in his writer’s room.
There’s the other part of him that’s happy to indulge in the reality that sits in front of him; an old friend transformed into an almost unrecognizable fair-framed man with now baggy clothes that reminds him of their college days in the nineties. Some things never change, and for Barry Wheeler he’ll always have his outlandish shirts, even tucked into baggy cargo shorts. He’ll always have the faith and confidence in Alan that Alan doesn’t have in himself. He’ll always have an ear to listen, a hand to pat his back, a mouth to make Alan’s crack a smile, eyes to keep him in check.
And perhaps it’s the fact that it’s just too good to be true, that he’s sitting on a couch, drinking beers with his long-lost friend, that makes him worry he never got out. He convinced himself very early on that Barry was a darling he’d have to kill to survive, so the idea of him being here still confuses him, both making him constantly reach a hand to grip his friend, make sure he’s real, but also treading carefully, afraid that the man will just snap and vanish like the shadows on the streets.
“So, these old coots, you should have seen them, Al. They’d get up on stage and I’d argue it was more of a magic act than a concert! It’s like they would lose fifty years, their voices became so…youthful, and I swear to you the effects team they got claim it wasn’t them, but their singing seems to match the projection of those younger selves that they sound like!”
Alan laughs, more to himself than to Barry at the thought, less at the absurdity and more at the reality of their powers.
“Funny, that’s how they were in my musical.”
“Your…what? You know what, quid pro quo it’s your turn to tell me a story from the past thirteen years and this is it, baby.”
“I’m not drunk enough to tell you,” Alan whines, waving his half-empty beer bottle.
“Nah, nah, nah, you’re not getting out of this one that easily. I can just call them up myself you know, maybe those Old Gods remember the time they got zapped into another dimension to play to the whims of a crazy missing’s writer’s words—I gotta write that down, that’s a good idea.”
Alan coughs, at first thinking nothing of it. He clears his throat, takes another swig of his drink. He’s had this cough on and off ever since he returned, figuring it was just a symptom of his body being in a lake for thirteen years.
“Well, since you’re not in a sharing mood and I am, oh brother, you’re gonna love this one, I got involved in this cult called the ‘Bless—’”
Alan sneezes into another cough.
“—you…” Barry interrupts himself. “You alright there, buddy?”
“Yuh-yeah,” Alan beats a fist against his chest. “Got some frog in my throat or something.”
He pleads for the carbonated waterfall to wash whatever it is away, and his stomach seems to threaten impaling Alan’s throat on something to stop the third beer bottle from diving into it.
He coughs again, an effort his body doesn’t have enough power to give. He heaves over, coughing harder and harder because there is something in his throat and he needs to get it out.
“Al?” Barry puts a hand on Alan’s back and Alan pushes into it like backing himself against a wall, still coughing and trying to both reign himself in but still…get it out.
Barry presses a hand to his chest, which triggers another lurch and this time, something wet and sticky comes out of Alan’s mouth and into the palm of his hand.
It’s not blood.
Unless the blood in his body was black.
“Wha-cough-tuh-coughcough-fuck is-cough-that?” Alan continues to cough and Barry is immediately calling the ambulance.
“Fuck if I know!” Barry cries out. “Shit shit shit shit! This is worse than that time I dragged your sorry ass outta the club while you were OD’ing on some shit you got into. You're worse than a goddamn toddler sometimes, Al—Hi, yes, my best friend is-is having…I don’t know what but we need an ambulance now!”
Alan remembers the incident Barry’s referring to, not one of his finest moments. Fighting with Alice, ignoring Barry, putting substances in his body because he didn’t want to be himself. Alcohol, cocaine, heroin, ecstasy, tobacco…he’s done it all.
“I don’t know! All we’ve done is had some beers!” Barry continues to berate the poor operator on the other end of the line because the ambulance hasn’t come fast enough.
It’s not alcohol poisoning, he thinks to himself as the blacknees begins to spread in the palm of his hand. His eyes cross and start to roll up. He feels lightheaded and shaky, but sinks heavily into the couch like a stone.
“Stay with me, Al,” Barry reminds him, and Alan falls back in exhaustion.
Barry bailed him out both physically and mentally from the last overdose. Maybe he can save him from whatever this is.
Barry presses his hand to Alan’s throat, taking his pulse but he seems to fumble over the math when he tells the phone operator that “he’s fucking breathing, okay?”
Alan’s arm feels melted into the cushion beneath him but he wants to hold Barry’s hand, hold on to something as he feels himself fading faster and faster away into oblivion. The lights in the room are dimming. He sees a shadow growing larger, approaching closer. Edges illuminated like the echoes he would see as inspiration. Shitty time for an idea but he’ll hear it out, maybe it has a clue to what is going on…
Unable to move closer, he holds his hand up to the shadow, and his fingers brush up against something solid, but viscous. It grips onto him, draining all of the color out of his body. He tries to pull his hand back but slimy tendrils spread and form a copy of himself right before his eyes.
“Ew gnoleb rehtegot, nalA…”
It sounded backwards, wrong, but it sounded familiar. Scratch. Coming back to haunt him. He may have left The Dark Place but The Dark Place never left him.
“Alan!” Barry’s voice cut through the darkness, his thick form of light inflating and bursting through the black goo-Scratch. He’s not sure if it’s real but he feels a splatter of goo on his face.
He’s dimly reminded of his thick friend dressed in an oversized parka wrapped in Christmas lights, burning away the Taken in front of him and saving Alan’s life. The blurry thin man in front of him now is almost unrecognizable, unarmed, unprepared for this.
“Barry…” Alan groans. “Don’t…don’t leave…”
“I got you, Al, I got you,” Barry comforts him, the phone falling out of his hands and cupping Alan’s cheeks. “Help is coming.”
There are so many people helping you, armies of people.
There’s no army strong enough to come close to the power of Scratch. And there was no ending in sight he could write to escape it.
His final thoughts before passing out, pangs of guilt tugging at every pore in his body because he was taking Barry down with him into the darkness.
#alan wake#barry wheeler#alan and barry#alan wake fic#whump fic#mk.op#mk.fic#i should have a whump tag for alan but i mean#that would be tagging like. everything of him lmao#poor guy is always suffering
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Prompt #9 please!
Oh, Nonnie, this is my last prompt in the inbox and it got me all in my emotions as well! Love an established relationship feelings-fest! (Prompt is "Listen to me.")
~~~~~~~
“Chrissy?”
Eddie taps on the door of their overpriced hotel room and waits. He has a key, but he wants to respect her need to take a moment. After all, it isn’t every day that your wife flees her little brother’s rehearsal dinner in tears after telling her own sainted mother to “just shut up, okay?”
Not that Laura Cunningham’s much of a saint. Still, Eddie’s treading carefully because this is the first significant time they’ve spent with the Cunninghams since the Christmas disaster of ’91, and there’s nothing that can send Chrissy spiraling back into the abyss of her childhood faster than a scathing comment from her mother.
“Hey, Bets,” he says, trying again with a nickname that he only pulls out when the stakes are high. He can’t remember how it started—Christine Elizabeth shortened to Lizzie, Beth, Betty, Bets, maybe—but after eleven years together, eight of them married, and a hundred pet names split between them, what does remembering matter?
Pressing his ear to the door, he waits until he hears a sob before deciding that she’s had warning enough and uses his key.
The room smells like Chrissy’s perfume with an undercurrent of faux-floral toilet scrub. It’s not a place they could ever have afforded alone, which is part of the problem. As parents of the groom (and at said groom’s request), Phillip and Laura are paying for their attendance, which has set Chrissy on a self-destructive path where she has to battle a tornado of tolerance and an earthquake of obligation and yes, sure, Eddie’d suggested they just get a room at the Motel 8 and save themselves the hassle, but she’d wanted to do it for her brother. For Charlie. For his bride-to-be, Addie, who’s actually a cool girl. They’ve been to stay with Chrissy and Eddie in Chicago twice now, and Eddie digs her taste in music more than he’ll ever admit.
(Addie also said she dug Eddie’s band-on-the-side, which is all he needs to love someone forever.)
“Eddie,” comes a plaintive wail from the bed.
Chrissy’s curled on her side with a pillow hugged to her abdomen, still wearing the blue floral dress she’d sported to dinner. It has ridden up her thighs considerably, and Eddie must have grown as a person because he only thinks about that for maybe .02 seconds as he crawls onto the bed behind her and wraps an arm around her waist to pull her against his chest.
“She had it coming,” he says into her artfully coiffed hair, which rests shellacked and sticky against his lips. “Baby. She did.”
“Is Ch-Ch-Addie mad?”
“Nobody’s mad except your mother.” In fact—and he won’t tell her this now—Addie’d been hiding a giggle behind a napkin. Eddie knows for a fact that she feels about Laura much the same as he does. Only, you know, she can’t say that to Chrissy because while Chrissy’s allowed to hate her mother, nobody else can say a word, and God, yeah, families are complicated. Eddie’s grateful that he only has to worry about Wayne, and Wayne never gives them any trouble.
“I shouldn’t have said anything,” she says around another miserable little sniffle.
“Eh.” He shrugs and kisses the spot where her shoulder meets her neck. “She was picking at you, and you snapped. It happens.”
“But I wasn’t going to do it this time! I was… I worked on all those coping m-mechanisms!” That brings a fresh volley of tears. “Sandra’s going to be so disappointed.”
“What, like you’re gonna get a bad grade in therapy?”
“Yes!” She trills the word out on a wail.
Eddie loves her so much, but she’s making a mountain out of a molehill, and while he never minds comforting this particular damsel in distress, he’s also not gonna let her beat herself up when Laura’s the one who threw the first punch.
“Alright, buddy, c’mon.” He pulls away enough to coax her onto her back, where she stares up at him from puffy, red-rimmed eyes and a blotchy complexion. “Hey.”
“Hi,” she says.
There’s snot beneath her nose, so he grabs a Kleenex from the box on the nightstand and holds it to her face. “Blow.”
She blows—honks if he’s honest—and he chucks the tissue onto the table before focusing on her.
“Okay, counselor, facts of the case. Did your mother kick the evening off by telling you your dress was too tight?”
Chrissy frowns. “It is, and—”
“Bzzt!” Eddie digs his fingers into her side, which has the intended effect of shocking her into a squeal. “Irrelevant. Conjecture. Also, bullshit. You look hot. So, true or false, counselor? Did she do that?”
Chrissy nods, mute, pressing her lips into a thin line. But, hey. Not crying, so that’s something.
“And did she, or did she not, tell everyone at the table that they’re paying for us to be here?”
Another nod.
“After which—and correct me if I’m wrong here—she put her hand over your plate so the waiter couldn’t give you any of the lobster risotto.”
Chrissy’s mouth twists into what might be termed a smile, and she shrugs.
“So then I switched plates with you, and she gave me that look she always gives me.”
“What look?”
“The look where I’m a pile of actual dogshit she’s just stepped in.”
“Oh.” Chrissy’s smile widens, and she shrugs. “Right. That look.”
“All of that to say, by the time she gave her little speech about grandchildren and welcoming a daughter into the family… I dunno, Bets, it felt like justifiable homicide to me.”
“But I did it in front of everyone…”
“Yeah, well, so did she.”
“But—“
“No buts. Listen to me. Your mother’s never going to change, but you change every day. That’s why you’ve got me, and Sandra, and all our friends who actually like you instead of the stupid little dress-up doll your mother spent eighteen years trying to turn you into.”
This is not the first time they’ve had this conversation. Chrissy already knows how he feels. However, if the message takes a million times to sink in, Eddie’s willing to keep talking.
Chrissy blinks, sniffs, and rubs her eyes. “Okay,” she says because she’s not so good at acknowledging the truth of the matter. “I should call Charlie’s room. Apologize to him and Addie and—”
“Or,” Eddie says, cutting her off before she can work herself into another lather. “We could call up room service and charge two fucking massive slices of chocolate cake to your parents.”
“Eddie…”
“Best part is, they’re both for you.”
"Eddie."
"I'll have a bite. And you can call your brother, too."
~~~~~~
All the prompts I've answered!
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Competing for His Affections
This is a fill for today's @flashfictionfridayofficial prompt [#FFF233 Imperfect Sign], as well as my @tonystarkbingo KINK: Cock-blocking 'bots and @buckybarnesbingo Humor squares, along with a belated @fictober-event prompt for Day 27: "I don't know if they will accept this."
Fandom: MCU/Marvel
Pairing: Bucky Barnes/Tony Stark
Rating: General
Tags: Tower fic, new relationship, 'bots, Dum-E, cock-blocking 'bots, humor
When Bucky leaned in to brush a kiss across Tony’s cheek, he was a little hurt to have his - admittedly still somewhat new - boyfriend pull away, even as he gestured toward Dum-E and U, who were parked in their charging stations.
“I don’t know if they will accept this, sunshine,” he murmured, waving a hand between the two of them.
Bucky frowned in confusion. “I thought the ‘bots liked me.”
“As a playmate, sure. As competition for my affection?” Tony frowned and grimaced, “Maybe not so much. After all, they never did take very well to Pepper.”
Bucky suspected the opposite was true as well; that Pepper had some level of jealousy towards Tony’s creations. But that was neither here nor there. “Okay - so you’re saying no making out in the workshop?”
Tony sighed. “At least, not for a little while.”
Bucky nodded in reluctant acceptance. “Fair enough.”
However, Bucky discovered it was easier said than done to keep his hands off Tony when they were in the presence of the ‘bots. Sure, they made up for lost time elsewhere, but it still was a hassle.
To be fair, Tony made it clear he was struggling with the G-rated workshop time as well. “I’m surprised I haven’t bitten my tongue clear through with the times I’ve almost let loose with a pet name when the ‘bots are around,” he complained as they were making lunch together in the kitchen.
“I’d hate to have anything happen to that talented tongue of yours, sweet thing,” Bucky purred, pulling Tony into his arms for a lingering kiss.
They froze at the sound of a familiar, somehow disapproving chirp. “Dum-E, buddy, what are you doing up here?” Tony asked, carefully extricating himself from Bucky’s embrace and putting a foot or two of space between them.
The ‘bot aimed his camera first at Tony, then at Bucky before trundling right over inbetween them. “What have I told you about personal space, buddy?” Tony muttered as they both took a couple of quick steps to avoid having their toes caught under an errant tread.
Making a stubborn beeping sound, Dum-E grabbed hold of Tony’s wrist to pull him towards the workshop. “ Hey, whoa, this is not acceptable! Dum-E, stop it right now!”
The ‘bot did as he was told, but didn’t let go of Tony’s wrist. “A little help, Buckeroo?” he asked, half-joking, but half-serious as well. Not that Bucky thought the ‘bot would hurt Tony intentionally, but Dum-E didn’t always know his own strength.
Bucky tapped on Dum-E’s housing with his metal hand to get the bot’s attention before squatting down to meet him eye to camera eye. “Listen up, pal. Tony here has the biggest heart of anyone I know. I promise that just because he’s taken a shine to me doesn’t mean he loves you any less. That goes for U and JARVIS as well - you’re his family.” He looked up to catch Tony’s eyes. “And if I’m lucky, maybe I can be a part of that family someday, too.”
Dum-E hummed thoughtfully for a moment before letting go of Tony’s wrist. “That’s better,” Bucky praised the ‘bot, patting its housing. He stood up and gently took Tony’s wrist, pressing a soft kiss to it.
Dum-E whirred and pointedly turned his camera away. “Okay, okay,” Tony chuckled, “we’ll keep the PDA to a minimum while you’re up and around. That said,” he added, looping an arm around Bucky’s waist, “once you’re in your charging stations for the evening, anything goes.”
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