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silkscream · 1 year

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angel unaware

ꨄ︎ pairing: peter parker x silk!reader

ꨄ︎ synopsis: you’ve known peter since you were fifteen, shortly after you were both bitten by the same spider. it was too obvious that you’d end up loving him. as you drift apart during your first year of college, you’re not sure how much longer you can keep dancing in circles with him.

ꨄ︎ genres: best friends to lovers, angst, idiots in love, slowburn, mutual pining, hurt/comfort

ꨄ︎ tags: rated explicit/18+ (smut), alcohol usage, mention of drug usage, unprotected sex, oral sex (f receiving), characters are 19, mild violence, gun violence (there is a school shooting in the beginning but there aren't too many details)

ꨄ︎ wc: 13.8k

ꨄ︎ notes: omg. happy valentine’s day y’all. i’ve been working on this Big Bertha for literal MONTHS and i’m so happy to finish it and share it with you. thank you for being around even though i haven’t been the most active; this is a gift to you <3

ꨄ︎ listen to the playlist!

The spider bit you first.

It isn’t until you’re fifteen that someone else finds out about it.

In many ways, you should’ve known. The symptoms, the hypervigilance, the strange, gradual transition of filling out your body. You blame puberty first, but this feels more than abnormal. It's almost as if it's bursting through your skin. The only other person who seems to mirror your coming of age is Peter Parker, whose twitchy nature exacerbates the longer high school goes on.

You keep your head low because there’s no reason for you to tell anyone about your powers. Not even the boy about whom you’re positive shares the same curse as you.

But then the videos come out. Red and blue lycra flying through buildings, a blurred figure saving cats from trees, webs shooting and swaying as onlookers stare like it’s a circus act. He calls himself Spider-man and you think it’s awfully corny.

You’d be a fool to think that you were safe from the antics of Avengers propaganda, rubble, and ash blocking your way to school on more days than not. You’d be a fool to think that you could evade the classic tropes of American violence that force the president to lament about "unthinkable tragedies" multiple times a year. At this moment, you’re a fool for getting yourself locked in a janitor’s closet while there’s an active shooter at Midtown High.

Your breath hitches when the doorknob jangles in front of you. On instinct, you stick yourself to the ceiling, far in the corner with your senses on fire. You’ve never actually had to attack anyone before. You aren’t entirely sure how this would play out with a gun involved.

Peter Parker’s labored breaths fill your eardrums, and without thinking, you shoot your webs directly at him. He stumbles, clumsily tripping over an empty mop bucket. He looks up at you in confusion. He’s wearing half of his suit.

"You. You just–"

"Shut the fuck up," you hiss, covering his mouth with your palm. In the darkness, your eyes widen. Someone is near.

It’s a stupid ordeal. The crime happening, this meet-cute, the way your senses feel haywire being this close to him. Both of you are holding your breath, your heart is pounding erratically in your chest, and blood is rushing through your ears.

The day ends with you and Peter making it out of the closet through a vent and the shooter getting subdued by the police. A troubled sophomore who barely knew how to use the gun in the first place made it easy for Spider-man to intercept the weapon the moment the kid raised his arms.

Peter follows you home that afternoon like a stray cat, babbling over a game of twenty questions that you aren’t in the mood to entertain. Somehow, his presence leaves your chest feeling warm and light, and you realize that you don’t mind the company. Twenty questions become routine.

He’s the only one who gets it, of course.

He tells you about the Avengers, ignoring the way you scoff under your breath. Secretly, you’re only a little jealous. Not because you want that kind of prestige or even a fancy suit, but because at least there’s a group of freaks out there who know. "How come you didn’t tell me?" Peter asks you. He looks small on your couch despite his sixteen-year-old sleeper build and the fact that he’s taking up more than half of your space.

"What do you mean?"

"If you knew about Spider-Man this whole time… why didn’t you say something?"

"What, like I was supposed to seek you out on the street with a mask on?"

He gives you a pointed look. "You had a feeling about me. In school. Didn’t you?"

You don’t answer, which, to Peter, is an answer in itself.

"I didn’t want to be any trouble. It’s my burden to deal with," you say slowly, blinking up at him.

Burden. Peter smooths the word over in his mind and watches the way your nimble fingers pick at the threads of your sweater. He suddenly feels guilty for pestering you with questions, especially after the trauma of today.

"It’s not a burden," he says carefully. You don’t protest, but he knows there’s a certain level of repression inside you that won't let you give this part of yourself up. As if his knowing about your powers would only be that — knowing. He keeps staring at your fingers.

"You don’t have web shooters?" He gestures to your hands.

"Comes from my fingertips."

"No fucking way. You gotta show me."

"You saw it today," you chuckle as you take a breath.

"Not really," he pouts. The amber-brown of his eyes is annoyingly irresistible, and you know it because of how hot the back of your neck suddenly feels. There’s a hint of a taunting smile on his face, as if he knows.

You take him to the fire escape outside your bedroom window. It’s barely past five and it’s already gotten dark. Luckily, your bedroom faces an empty alley.

"I’m not some circus act, just so you know," you warn him.

"Please," he tuts. "If anything, we both are. Two arachno-freaks."

"You should rebrand as that," you say with a grin.

You shoot a web to the fire escape railing above you, holding yourself up and swinging like you're in P.E. climbing a rope. You feel ridiculous, to say the least. You quickly shoot more webs after a quick scan of your surroundings to swaddle yourself in something resembling a cocoon. It hangs like a playground swing from the metal above.

"Holy shit! Does it ever… run out? Do you get web blocks? Does it come out of anywhere else–"

"I’m not answering that." Your cheeks heat up at the insinuation.

"Sorry, just curious." He holds his palms up in defense, then reaches to touch a fingertip to the silk holding you together. It feels soft like cotton candy and is much less sticky than what came out of his web shooters.

He asks you to swing with him, and for some reason, you say yes. You don’t like to swing very much, and if you do, you try to look for construction sites or abandoned scaffolding to evade attention. Tonight, however, the New York City lights look warm against the velvety backdrop of the sky, and you decide that flying through the air with someone else feels better than doing it alone.

____

He doesn’t understand your desire to stay under the radar. Whenever he brings it up, you take the opportunity to bring up the New York City disasters that have gone underway before the two of you even graduate. If anything, you’ve been a decent backup, but you refuse to be in the public eye. You don’t want to be Spider-girl.

But you don’t mind swinging around the city in your handmade suit, spun and woven together with the silk that flows straight from your fingertips. It’s one thing that Peter’s jealous of, but it helps him when he needs to patch up a wound when he’s on the go with you.

Peter comes through your window with a red gash on his thigh. You can smell him before you see him.

"Ugh, you broke the streak. Five days without a scratch. That’s a record for you, Parker," you sigh, already rummaging through your drawers for the usual first-aid kit.

"I’m fine." He winces as he crouches down carefully on the floor. You’ve gotten good at minding your business and not asking about his wounds, at least not ones that aren’t too deep into the flesh. He knows it would only hurt you if you knew.

"And yet you’re here."

"I wanted to see you. You know I always want to see you."

You open your mouth to respond, but nothing comes out. You kneel before him, pouring hydrogen peroxide onto the gash as you dab gently with a hand towel. He hisses and grabs your forearm with more force than he intends to.

"You’ll be fine," you reassure him gently.

"Yeah. I could've done it, you know," he says as he carefully holds your gaze.

"‘S’fun sometimes," you reply without looking at him. Carefully, you wrap gauze around his leg. "When I was little, my neighbor and I used to play House, but it always turned into, like… Hospital. And I’d pretend to be a nurse and take care of her, I’d tuck her into bed, and I’d give her lollipops from my Halloween stash for being a good patient."

Peter chuckles. He wobbles slightly as he stands up with your help.

"Am I a good patient?"

"Mm. A very brave boy," you say as you pat his cheek.

"What, I don’t get a treat?"

"Your treat is staying alive." You take him by the wrist towards your living room couch.

He doesn’t know what he’d do without you. It’s not right for him to think of you as an extension of himself, but he often yearns for your presence like a phantom limb whenever you aren’t on patrol with him. He realizes you're the yin to his yang.

It excites him, the images of you two that end up on the Internet. How good you look together. You, on the other hand, dread any semblance of perception by the world.

"People are catching on, you know. Ned found a subreddit on you the other day," Peter murmurs into your lap.

You snort, rolling your eyes the way you always do. You fiddle with the soft strands of his hair. It’s second nature to you. "Ned needs to reduce his screen time tenfold."

"Rabbit."

You sigh dramatically at the nickname. He’d adopted it after the many jumpscares he’d give you when he’d sneak into your room at night. You’d become so accustomed to him that your spider-sense would dull when it came to Peter. He was your source of comfort.

"What, Pete?"

"Why don’t you patrol with me?"

"You know why." It’s too stressful. Too public. Too many run-ins with death that you can anticipate.

"It’s better when you’re around."

"You’re a big boy, Peter," you murmur. Your hand slides across his scalp again, this time with your fingertips settling in the space behind his ears. You aren’t looking at him; instead, you are watching the documentary on the television at a low volume. He crumples at your touch.

"May says you’re my guardian angel. Every time something really bad has happened, it always worked out because you were there."

"I mean, it probably helps when you have another Spider-person as a backup."

"I think she’s right, though."

You don’t say anything. You’re tempted to reply with something sardonic or self-deprecating. You put too much faith in me. But you can’t – he’s looking at you with something that you can’t fathom. Something earnest and entirely too fragile. You have to look away.

He hums, sighing into a tattered copy of Hamlet. "I can’t deal with any more Shakespeare."

"You’re such a slow reader despite being a goddamn genius."

"Did you just say something nice about me?" Peter raises a brow.

"Oh my God, relax, Big Bang Theory."

He scoffs and swallows down a smart-ass remark. A grin lingers in his mouth as he settles back into the book.

____

You’re apart from Peter for the first time since age sixteen. You don’t tell him – you don’t tell anyone – but you decide on an out-of-state university because you don’t want to feel tethered to him. Your friends consider you and Peter a package deal, and yes, he’s probably the first real best friend you’ve ever had, but the gnawing inside of you telling you that distance is needed doesn’t stop.

You, the black sheep, are the antithesis of your hero of a best friend, despite being bitten by the same spider. You’ve always wondered if your story was supposed to play out like some sort of Shakespearean tragedy because of your bond with Peter, so you decide to take your mind off of it. At least it won’t be as painful as severing it completely.

It feels free to be away from all the chaos. In Rhode Island, you can focus on your art and fold your feelings away in a neat little envelope. You’d rather die than let any of that out, especially when Peter insists on such frequent FaceTime calls.

Sometimes, you fall asleep to the sound of his voice. He tells you about taking a train down to Providence in the middle of September to visit you like some kind of long distance boyfriend. The thought makes something in your stomach bloom and stagger in the same way. He doesn’t keep his promise – chem labs are already kicking his ass halfway to Thanksgiving break, not to mention the crime rate in New York City rockets beyond normal.

Thanksgiving comes, and both of you are the same. Peter is exactly as boyish as you left him three months ago, though his brown hair has grown longer and he wears blue-light readers to help with the mild headaches he gets from staring at screens.

He isn't attached to your hip like you expected. Your week off is filled with missed texts and a marathon of TV shows about broken women—the kind with dark humor and falling in love with priests.

The next time you see him, your roommate is out of town. It's not an unusual occurrence given how little she spends time in the dorm, always elsewhere with her new boyfriend.

Peter takes up so much space in your bed that you almost offer to push the two twin beds together, but the feeling of his warmth is too comforting. Propped against the wall, you’re hip-to-hip with him as you scroll through Netflix on your laptop.

You can feel him staring. It becomes routine, or maybe it’s your senses, but you can always tell when he’s merely observing you, watching you carefully like ripples on a pond. You've never really chastised him about it, but it doesn't help that you know he can tell when you're nervous. He has you memorized.

He likes the way you look when you concentrate. Sometimes, when you’re deep in thought, he likes to take his thumb and smooth out the ridges of your furrowed brows even though you end up swatting him away. When he does this now, you look up at him with wide, doe eyes.

"Still as indecisive as ever."

"I have to be, otherwise you’ll just put on Gilmore Girls," you scoff.

"You’re the one who showed me that!" Peter protests.

"And then it was the only thing you wanted to watch to the point where I genuinely considered locking you out of my Netflix account!"

He doesn’t bother to argue, instead resorting to poking you in the side. You squirm immediately, yelping as he continues. He flashes you a leering grin as you whine in dissent, flinching from the feather-like touch of his fingertips dancing across your skin.

"You’re so annoying," you huff, curling your body toward the wall.

"And you love it."

More than you’d ever know.

You pause, rolling your eyes at him. You contemplate kicking him again just to get a rise out of him, anything other than the short silence between you that feels more present than it should be. Your stomach feels warm at his proximity, but then again, Peter’s built like a human furnace anyway.

When you attempt to playfully shove him, he catches your wrist with quick reflexes until the two of you are tangled together. It’s easy to fight with him when you’re both running off the same biological fuel. When he ends up on top of you, you forget how to breathe.

The two of you stare at each other like this, as if frozen in time. It’s you who looks away first, then back to his big brown eyes, settling a palm to his cheek. You can feel how hard he is. You wonder if he knows.

It’s something you’ve only thought about in your subconscious, in dreams, or in moments when you’re bandaging his wounds. How would it feel to have his skin all over yours? It’s a selfish thought, but it rings in your brain without warning at times like these, times of such closeness. The spider bit the two of you for a reason. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.

It’s a curious thing for sure, but there are doors you don’t want to open yet.

"One episode and then I pick a movie," you mumble.

____

You don’t tell him about transferring when you come back for Christmas break. It feels embarrassing, despite knowing that he’d be ecstatic about the news. RISD proved to be too difficult for your one-track mind as you found yourself sleeping in more and more, flaking on the most rigorous of classes due to your mood. You’d successfully gotten into Pratt for the next semester and were fully moved out, thankfully. But when you see Peter in the arms of another, you wish you hadn't left.

You should’ve expected it, maybe. Peter had always had a thing for Michelle Jones but could never quite get past the friend zone. It seems as though your absence has nudged him further.

No, that feels too selfish to say.

But it’s still too difficult to bear in the loneliness of December, knowing that when the New Year’s parties hit, you’re still the black sheep. Even in a shiny little dress.

You don’t see him much over winter break, but he gets you a silver necklace for Christmas with a spider pendant hanging on it. It’s more sentimental than you expect, and it’s the nicest gift you’ve ever received. It certainly beats the Lego set you’d gotten for him.

Now, in your black cocktail dress, you smile dopily at Ned Leeds as the rest of the room counts down at the television, waiting for the ball to drop. It’s bittersweet when you remember last year’s countdown, in which Peter insisted the two of you swung out to Manhattan to watch the ball drop in person. You remember how much you wanted to kiss him then, but you didn’t. Thank God for his hero's anonymity and the impediment of his suit.

"Five, four, three, two, one – Happy New Year!"

Makeshift confetti falls to the ground as you watch him and MJ kiss. There’s enough champagne in your system for your heart to grow warm at the sight of it.

____

January is cold. Desolate. Even if you have your friends around you in New York, the place that feels most like home, you’ve come to realize. But there’s still something missing, something lacking. Like you’re inside a familiar place inside a dream.

You ignore the itch, learning to numb it with champagne. It worked on New Year’s, and now it’s been working for several weeks. You don’t leave your apartment.

Even though Peter Parker is a text or phone call away, you fade into the background of his life, watching him through newsreels and YouTube videos. You’re on his mind more than you’d expect. He doesn’t know why, though he does realize that your absence bothers him in small ways.

Sometimes, when he’s on patrol, he’s frustrated by his loneliness, especially in the dead of winter. You were never one to play the hero – he knew that – but it was still comforting to have someone to patch up his wounds or soften his fall. The webs that flow from your fingertips have always been strong, enough to form hammocks in between the corners of his bedroom or a makeshift suit.

And then there are the dreams. They feel real, vivid, and much too physical for something that his mind could conjure in his unconscious. You had only kissed him once before (in real life, that is), at a stupid basement party in the ninth grade, before the two of you were friends, but shortly after the initial spider bite. Although it’s something that’s only been brought up as a joke these past few years, Peter remembers vividly how hard his heart was pounding when the glass bottle landed on you after what felt like an excruciatingly long spin. He could never forget the feeling. He wonders if you feel the same.

It’s not something he should be thinking about right now. Especially when you’re not his girlfriend. He’d rather die a thousand deaths than have you know what you do to him in his dreams when you’re nothing but a reverie of your own silk-spun webs and soft, bare skin. You treat him like prey. He loves it.

Peter can nearly smell you, that sandalwood-citrus shampoo of yours, and your warm breath over his face. Your little whispers of praise, your tiny whimpers. The image of your eyes struggling to stay open while you’re underneath him is burned into his brain.

"I missed you," you say breathlessly. "Missed you so much."

God, how is this a dream? He can feel you so clearly. Until he doesn't, and he wakes up with a groan, an exhale, and an excess of sweat on his brow. Not to mention a dampness below him.

"Fucking Christ," he curses under his breath.

The ghost of you is on his bedroom ceiling, in the corner of his room. Something nearby smells like you, even though you haven’t been in his room in ages. This makes something in his chest hurt until he decides to get out of bed.

He wants to see you, but he feels guilty knowing what he's just dreamt about. He can’t help that the person that makes him feel the most human is the only other one who shares the venom in his blood.

Sometimes he follows you. It feels almost meditative for him to sit on a rooftop and watch you from the window of your favorite cafe, reading and writing and breathing. The brightness of his phone screen illuminates his face as his eyes scan over your contact. Your face smiles back at him, but there’s a distance considering the lack of texts between the two of you over the past month. He sighs as he zooms in on your location – the two of you had shared each others’ years ago and only found it convenient to keep.

Peter doesn’t know why he’s feeling all this yearning all of a sudden – sometimes he recognizes the feeling in his body and he thinks of you and he thinks of safety. Other times, like now, he knows that it only breeds guilt.

But he misses being quiet with you, misses the mundane intimacies of him poking you and you fixing his hair. All the small expressions you make with your face that only he notices. There’s something empty in the space he usually holds for you in his heart, and he doesn’t know why.

He has to see you. Maybe then, something in his brain will click, or he’ll see you as the old friend you’ve always been, and he can blame the heat in his body on his subconscious.

You’re predictable with your routine, because this afternoon, he finds you in your usual spot by the window at your favorite cafe again. You’re writing in your journal with your noise-canceling headphones on, so Peter’s presence is completely unknown to you. After he gets his coffee, he watches you from afar, just for a little bit.

As if on cue, you already know. The moment you skip a song and a millisecond of silence fills the space in your head, you feel him immediately. You always know when he’s around.

"Peter," you murmur without thinking. Your gaze is soft but carries the surprise of a deer caught in headlights.

"Hey," he smiles. "Mind if I sit here?"

He gestures to the armchair across from you, and you nod.

Peter knows how to coax your warmth from you, because within minutes, he has you talking about school, what’s on your mind, and why it feels better to be holed up in a cafe than sit miserably at home. You do the same for him, though you notice he’s more reserved for some reason – he’s tight-lipped about MJ, and doesn’t delve into the details of his hero work. He prefers to bombard you with questions instead, listening intently to your most recent fixations or the newest movie you saw alone in theaters.

"You replaced me yet, Rabbit?" he teases you.

"Never," you scoff, tipping your coffee cup to hide any embarrassment on your face. You haven’t heard him call you that in so long. "You know me. I’m a lone wolf."

"Pratt seems like your crowd though, no? No one at Midtown High was a match for you. You were way too cool."

"Mmm, true, yet you’re my best friend."

"Hey!"

Your laugh is like a song to him; he can’t help but smile ear to ear when he hears it.

"The only person who talks to me at school is this guy Cam from my ceramics class. He’s actually from Brooklyn so we took the train together to get home and he’s around for break, which is cool."

Peter’s face nearly goes cold at the sound of someone else’s name, though he stays composed.

"Fun. Are you two…" He gestures vaguely.

"We hooked up like, once, but I don’t really know where it’s going." You say it so nonchalantly like it’s an afterthought. You’re not even looking at Peter.

"If he fucks anything up, you know where to find me."

You smile, rolling your eyes in that bashful way you do when you shrug things off, and it’s more apparent to Peter now how much he adores all your little quirks and mannerisms. He realizes that he might have them all memorized.

"We’re actually going to a party tonight if you want to come. A friend of a friend’s birthday party in Manhattan, I think? I think her name was Anna?"

"Oh, my friend Gwen knows her and invited me!"

"Small world." You swallow down the image of Peter at the party with an ESU girl for a second, and it feels rough in your throat. But you’ll manage. You always do. "Is MJ coming?"

Peter shakes his head. "Ah, she’s in Philly visiting family. I’ll probably go with Gwen and her boyfriend Harry, though."

You feel shame in your relief. It’s sickening how much you have to bury your desire and your tenderness because you know better. You know that even though the two of you were bitten by the same spider, it doesn’t mean you’re necessarily compatible. Sometimes you think your attraction to Peter is some biological fluke determined by the cells in both of your bodies. And then you think, God, how can anyone look into his brown eyes and not feel a thing?

You're both warm in your chests as you part ways, waiting for your next meeting.

____

The night of the party, Peter revels in the sight of you wearing your spider necklace, which sparkles under the flashing lights of the penthouse apartment you’re both in. His mood dampens when he notices the tall boy attached to your hip like a guard dog.

It’s a stupid game and he knows it. The way he pretends not to see you or acknowledge your presence is cruel, but it feels safe for now. He doesn’t feel ready. He’s high off some gummy that Harry had given him an hour earlier, and it’s still fogging his senses, and even though he can be cloudy and nonchalant at this party, his paranoia precedes him. It feels like you’re everywhere.

He shouldn’t feel this way. Why does he feel this way? You’re his best friend and you have your own life that’s separate from his – he knew this would happen the moment he found out you were going to different colleges. Despite that, there’s a piece of you tethered to him that he can’t bear to cut off. It makes him feel sane, the parts of you that you’ve given him.

But now, he sees you laughing and swaying your hips with someone else’s hands resting on your waist and it makes his face burn.

"Dude," Gwen snaps her fingers in front of his face. Peter blinks back at her. "Are you good?"

"Yeah, sorry."

"Harry wanted to do a shot, you want to join?"

Peter nods numbly, following the blonde to the kitchen. He watches everyone else in the kitchen pour shots and drinks like they are rehearsed marionettes. Harry snaps him out of his daze once he slams down a shot glass full of vodka in front of him.

"Drink up, Parker!" Harry cheers.

The alcohol burns Peter’s throat, but he feels the head rush and the warmth. It feels good, makes him feel looser. Malleable. Invincible, maybe, if he took two or three more. But he knows he has to pace himself. He hates that his default setting is to look for you no matter where he is. But when he scans the room this time, you’re downing a glass of champagne alone.

Your body feels heavy at the moment, so you don’t register him plopping down on the couch next to you. You wake up to the sound of his voice as you always do.

"Hey, you."

"Hey."

Your glass of champagne is empty, so you take the beer bottle out of Peter’s hand without saying a word, and he lets you. He watches you gulp a bit of it down. Maybe you’re a little too drunk. Maybe you’re imagining the way his eyes scan your body.

You’re drunk enough to feel social, but truthfully, you’re deathly afraid of being alone with anyone right now. Being alone with someone would make you feel much too raw and vulnerable, so you convince Peter to introduce you to his friends that you’ve never met, and you try to cope with the fact that they look like they were cut straight out of a magazine.

"Peter talks about you all the time," Gwen gushes, sipping from her champagne flute.

"He does?" you ask, raising an eyebrow.

"Of course," she nods incessantly.

"Only incredible reviews all around," Harry nods, drunkenly slinging an arm around Peter’s shoulders. The brunette smiles sheepishly, bashfully. You raise an eyebrow at him along with a coy smile.

"Should hope so," you tease. "He wouldn’t have gotten through high school without me."

It’s mostly a lie considering Peter was the star student and you were barely second to him. Maybe fifth or sixth. In a way, your words are true, because Peter’s agreeing with you.

You zone out as he starts a story from junior year and you have half the mind to chime in when needed. Harry suddenly puts a whisky coke in your hand and you don’t want to refuse out of politeness, but you know the mix of different alcohol will have your head banging in the morning. Peter downs half of his within a millisecond.

"What?" he asks when he notices you making a face.

"Since when do you drink so much?"

"It’s a party," he shrugs.

"Peter, when I brought you to your first party, you refused to drink anything that wasn’t a fruity canned cocktail. You won’t go near wine let alone whiskey."

"A semester at ESU changes you," Harry interjects. "He’s still a little fruity, though."

Peter chastises him as you and Gwen laugh. As the boys bicker, Gwen gets your attention. She asks you mundane questions, like your major, your zodiac sign, and what you thought of the season finale of White Lotus. You’re grateful when she beckons you to follow her to the kitchen to make another whiskey coke.

Her glossed lips twist to the side, eyes bright with a teasing glance. She has the ability to make you feel calm, almost excited to be there.

"He is obsessed with you," she sneers.

"What do you mean?"

"He just talked about you so much when we met him that I had to stalk your Insta, and I was like Jesus Christ, that makes so much sense. If I wasn’t with Harry I’d snatch you up myself. And then when I met his girlfriend and I was confused that it wasn’t you. Unless you’re doing that, like, exes-that-are-still-best-friends thing."

You blush and nearly choke on your drink. "Peter and I never dated."

"Seriously?"

You say nothing, only forcing an amused smile. You don’t know where to put her assumptions, but you sure as hell can’t keep them.

"I’m actually, uh, here with someone," you mutter, pretending to look around. Briefly, you lock eyes with Peter on the couch, who’s pretending to listen to Harry's rambling. Your eyes flit away quickly. "I think I might step outside for a smoke and look for him."

You don’t have to turn around to know that Peter’s eyes are following you. Or maybe you’re just drunk and projecting. Gwen’s bubbly nature makes her seem like the type to gossip, and just because your best friend happened to talk about you doesn’t mean that there was anything under the surface. But then you notice his slightly nervous energy tonight, the silver necklace around your neck, and the last time he visited you months before, when his body was so close to yours.

A pair of hands situate themselves on your waist and it makes you jump. The warmth feels different, as does the sudden smell of sharp cologne, and then you feel your heart drop the slightest bit when you hear his voice.

"Was looking for you," Cam slurs. You can smell the beer breath as he exhales on your neck, making you shiver.

"You sure? Because you’ve been MIA for like forty-five minutes."

You try to keep your voice even, sighing when he plants a kiss on your neck. Any animosity in your tone is completely ignored.

"I was catching up with some people that I wanted to introduce you to," he says, tugging you along by the wrist like a child. You pull up a chair to a firepit surrounded by a group of strangers, and the charade of icebreakers returns. There’s no point in remembering anyone’s name.

You think about returning inside to look for Peter or maybe Gwen and Harry, but being on Cam’s lap is distracting you. At some point, a joint a passed around, and the feeling of the boy’s arms around you makes it easy to melt into nothing.

____

You’re right. You always are. Peter Parker doesn’t drink, and he’s never drunk this much in his entire life. He’s been sitting in the bathtub for… how long? He doesn’t know. All he knows is that his senses were dulled to the point of detachment and he needed to get alone to ground himself.

He’s so out of it that he doesn’t realize someone’s knocking on the door of the bathroom, and his reaction time is too slow before Harry barges in.

"Are you hiding in the bathtub?" Harry squints.

"No, I’m just… hangin’ out," Peter stammers.

Harry snaps out of the facade of a confused daze and shrugs, unbuckling his belt with nonchalance in front of the toilet.

"Dude!"

"What? I’m turned around!"

Sighing, Peter looks around his surroundings. Generic brand shampoo and conditioner. A deformed bar of soap. A red solo cup with clear liquid. He remembers suddenly – he’d filled an empty cup he found with sink water before getting in the tub.

His brain swims with dizziness and mild nausea that mix up his stomach. Gulping down the water, his throat burns immediately, only to realize that it isn’t water at all. It’s fucking vodka and seltzer. Harry’s turned around again, cackling before washing his hands.

"Idiot."

"Fuckingshitjesusfuckingchrist," Peter groans, pinching the bridge of his nose. "You should just drink straight vodka at this point, man."

"Oh, I do," Harry agrees. He crouches down, squatting to meet Peter at eye level. A warm palm taps Peter’s cheek. "You good, bro?"

"Mmm," Peter nods. His breathing turns shallow as he hunches over, pulling his knees into his chest.

"Jesus, you need to get home, don’t you?"

"‘m fine. You go home."

"Gwen’s been nagging me to for the past ten minutes, so I might. I’d let you crash on the couch, but we’re getting up early to go upstate. How are you getting home, bro?"

Harry frowns when he realizes Peter is barely listening. "Pete!"

He grimaces at Harry’s constant fidgeting. With an annoyed sigh, he shoos the other boy away with flailing arms.

"Heard you," he slurs. "I’ll– I’ll share an Uber with Y/N."

Harry sighs with exasperation, pulling Peter’s arm forcefully to get him out of the tub and down to the living room of the house. Peter is dizzy in his vision, clumsy in his movements, but finds clarity when he glances towards the couch and sees you sitting there with furrowed brows.

"Peter? Are you okay?" you ask.

"Yeah, absolutely not," Harry says. "Gwen and I gotta head home and we’re leaving early tomorrow so he can’t crash. You guys are like, neighbors, right?"

You swallow a lump in your throat, briefly turning your head to glance back at Cam, then back at Peter. He looks at you with a guilty cadence, though his eyes lull with a tiredness that is unusual for him. He’s corpse-like, still hanging onto Harry’s shoulder like a lifeline. It makes the pit of your stomach stir.

It’s unlike him, to be this drunk. The only other time Peter has been this drunk was once in high school, when he was slurring his words all night and determined to clutch you like a teddy bear in his twin-sized bed. You recall his warmth and how his post-puberty figure appeared gargantuan to your body. Foreign, but warm. Comforting. When you think about taking Peter home tonight, you feel like you aren’t allowed to lay next to a body that doesn’t belong to you.

"Yeah, I’ll take him home."

____

"Coulda swung home myself," the boy mumbles. You hit him on the arm and give him a chastising look. Thankfully, your current Uber driver speaks a limited amount of English, not to mention the radio is on blast.

"You couldn’t have. You’re so fucking drunk, you’d kill yourself," you hiss in a low tone.

"Not if you were with me."

"Well, I wouldn’t be. I wasn’t even gonna go home tonight."

"Ah. Of course. Cam,” he exasperates. “Is he your boyfriend?"

You sigh. "No, he’s not."

"Right, you don’t… you don’t do boyfriends," Peter murmurs, rubbing his face with the palm of his hand.

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing."

The car stops in front of Peter’s apartment building.

"Thank you," you say stiffly to the Uber driver as you drag Peter out of the car. The elevator ride is awkward and quiet, as is the fumbling of keys when Peter tries to unlock the door.

He leans on your body as you coerce him into his bedroom, with him thumping onto his bottom bunk.

"Jesus. I feel like if Richie Rich called you an Uber himself you could’ve easily made it up the elevator by yourself. Right, Pete?"

"Mhmm. He’s such. A worry wart. For some rea–" Peter makes a gulping sound that makes your face pale. Immediately, you grab his trash bin and place it between his feet.

"‘m not gonna puke."

"I think you might, Peter."

He pauses and examines you as you kneel in front of him. He’s so drunk, so awfully drunk, but he has enough sense in him to take the caution that the anxious voice in the back of his head commands. But fuck, you look so pretty. He doesn’t know what to do about it.

Peter takes a strand of your hair in his hands and curls it around his finger. His shallow breaths feel louder than they should be. Or maybe they’re yours. He can’t really tell.

"What?"

"Nothing," he shrugs. "I won’t vomit. I promise."

You sigh.

"I should get going–"

"Can you stay for a little?"

Swallowing, you nod. You get into bed with him, because, quite frankly, you’ve had your fair share of alcohol tonight, and laying down in Peter’s warm bed makes you want to melt off the bone.

"I'm sorry for fucking up your night." Peter turns to lie on his side and drapes an arm carefully around you. His hand is feather-bare on your hip.

"You didn’t."

"You were gonna go home with Cam."

"It’s fine, Peter. I wanted to make sure you were safe."

"Like a chore."

"Not like a chore."

"Yeah, okay."

He does that thing again – holds a strand of your hair in his hands. He runs his fingertips nimbly across your scalp as if he’s handling an injured bird. As if he’s afraid you’d bite.

Your eyes are huge, like flying saucers. He used to say that all the time, especially whenever you came to his apartment after experimenting with any new drugs. You only felt safe with him – you had told him that – and he took care of you and your big eyes and your tendencies toward erratic behavior. He always knew how to calm you down. And now, in your adult lives, you were doing it for him.

You let him keep his hands in your hair and he doesn’t know why. There’s a theory he wants to test – one that he dreams about even when he knows he shouldn’t. He thinks about it in vulnerable moments. He considers that maybe this is a vulnerable moment.

His fingertips trace your face between the edge of your eyebrow and the baby hairs on your hairline. He taps along your temple gently, smoothing across the softness of your skin until he sculpts down your cheek and jaw. He blinks once, then twice. And then he rests the pad of his thumb on the corner of your mouth.

Almost automatically, you part your lips. Your mouth is pink, dusted with a purplish-red in the center from the merlot you’d drank hours before, and he wants to lick it off you.

He feels your heart beating, too, and you can hear his. It's a loud bang that resonates in between your eardrums. It’s that shared venom that makes your bodies so acquainted with one another. You briefly consider whether a human body can overheat and burn away simply by being touched by another. You wonder how human the two of you can really be.

You close your eyes.

"What are you doing?" you whisper. Your voice is gossamer-thin, barely there, but you’re so close to him that he hears it so clearly.

"Whatever you want." His voice is dripping honey.

You shake your head, still with your eyes closed. Peter’s hand descends to your jaw, thumb on your bone, with the rest of his fingers warming up your neck. You feel like you might just choke on the feeling of it.

"No, that’s not fair. That’s not… okay."

"What?"

"You’re drunk, Peter. Don’t do that to me. Please."

"What am I doing?"

Your face scrunches up as your eyes open to look at him with a pained expression. You have to close them again. You don’t want to look at him. You want his hands off of you, so you push them away.

"You’re with MJ."

"I… I know."

Your face is crumpled as you inch out of his bed. You’re back to kneeling on the floor in front of him.

"Please don’t leave," Peter whispers.

"I’m tired. I’ll sleep on the top bunk," you mumble. You try not to let him catch you sniffling.

"Goodnight.” You don’t respond.

He falls asleep shortly after and smells your perfume even in his dreams. When he wakes up, he smells you. But you’re nowhere to be found. There’s only the cold air coming from a crack of his window left slightly open.

____

It’s not your fault, but you’ve broken his heart a million times. The night of the party was the most recent one. To be fair, he had also broken your heart. He was just too fucking drunk to remember most of it.

You’ve become a ghost, barely texting Peter back, and when you do, your responses are short and clipped. You don’t have much time to hang out, and he realizes he doesn’t either, not when he has MJ to spend time with along with his Spider-Man duties.

But he would make time for you if you wanted it. He wonders if you know that. He feels too ashamed to tell you that himself.

It’s been like this before, and he’s been able to cope. The way you’re on his brain and won’t leave —stuck on him like a parasite. It’s his fault, he decides, not yours. He knows he’s not being fair. Not to you, not to MJ, not to himself. But he keeps it all in and hopes it doesn’t boil over.

Truthfully, Peter wants to avoid everyone. He understands now why you abhor winter to the degree that you always have. The desolation is too much to bear when there’s not much sunlight in January to activate dopamine receptors, so Peter sleeps in longer than he should. Late enough for Aunt May to get on his case about it.

"Something’s up with you," MJ accuses him on a Thursday evening. It’s one of their ritual movie nights with pizza and wine.

"Huh? Nothing’s up," Peter shrugs.

"No, I know you. Something’s wrong."

"I’m fine, Em." A lie.

It’s a miracle that Michelle Jones sees through Peter’s bullshit because it means that she has the incentive to protect herself from any future bullshit that may break her later on. Peter is too numb to process any of it. There was the refusal of admission, the attempt to keep up the wall of his emotions, which crashed down soon enough by the time MJ was out of the door.

He thinks he should call you, but he doesn’t.

____

Peter is used to scrapes and bruises. He’s seen more than enough charred flesh than a nineteen-year-old should. You had never asked to be his caretaker, but over the course of years, that was what you became. His guardian angel.

He used to make excuses to come over after patrol, trying to coax you out of your nest of a room for just an evening. He'd always known you were far more talented than you gave yourself credit for when it came to spider abilities, but it felt more like a curse than a gift for you to bear.

Some nights, he dreams of you falling stories beneath him. Your face is covered in rubble and ash, and although his nightmares often start with this, he knows that somehow, it’s his fault. It feels visceral, the burning in his calloused hands. Torn lycra to show the dirt underneath his fingernails. Hot tears dripping.

He starts taking that Ambien you gave him years ago.

After that, each day passes like he’s trapped in a nightmarish purgatory. No, that’s an exaggeration. He’s just a victim of a New York winter, and he misses you more than he wants to admit to himself or anyone else.

"I can take care of myself." And with that, the image of you disappears.

"I know," he murmurs softly. He’s always known. It is insignificant in comparison to how badly he wants to take care of you if you let him. Your voice echoes in the cavern of his room. You get farther away by the second until you disappear completely, and he evidently wakes up.

Even in your worst state, he’s obsessed with your honeyed skin. It doesn’t matter the number of bruises or cuts – he caresses them all with his nimble fingertips, and he’s ready to kiss them until they heal. He thinks about this sometimes, how much he cares for you and your body. What he'd do if you just let him in, let him devour you however he pleases, and it disgusts him.

In his dreams where you’re hurt, he’s willing to sacrifice whatever he can so that you can revert to your clean, unbothered state. I’d never let anyone break you. It’s a prayer for him. One that he whispers in your ear whenever he can, at least in these dreams. In reality, he knows that he has to let you go because he knows you. Knows how much you want to be free and alone. How you can take care of yourself. You’re not a damsel in distress – you never have been. But Peter feels like he was made to care for you. It would gut him all the same regardless of whether you loved him or not, and he was willing.

When it’s real, he doesn’t know what to do. He didn’t ever think the two of you would be in this position.

He’s been in enough battles to know how these things end. Mr. Stark had walked him through it all and been by his side while the rest of the Avengers repaired the other broken bits of the universe.

Right now is one of those unique times, the quiet and wretched ones, where Peter is contemplating breath after breath before imagining the full picture. Shambles of the street he’s in. The ache of his bruised body and the blood that he sees from yours, that he shouldn’t have seen, because you said it yourself. You’re not a fucking hero. So why is your blood streaked on the palm of his hands?

The distance between you and Peter doesn’t matter – it never does. The moment you’d felt a dread stirring in your stomach, there was a sharp pain in your head that refused to leave unless the working adrenaline in your body was satiated. It wasn’t the same adrenaline that circulated within you from a night of debauchery – instead, it felt like poison. A compulsory kind of pain, a sharp jolt to your senses. Tonight, you’d felt Peter in danger, and it would’ve killed you if you couldn’t get to him. He'd been the destination you'd been dead set on by the end of the night because of your spider instincts.

The police broadcast was too muffled for you to understand much of it, but you picked out the parts where Spider-Man was mentioned and followed through on them. Although you didn’t fall into the shadow of his hero work, you still kept enough tabs on Peter to know where he would usually be on patrol. It wasn’t like he knew, or that you’d ever told him, but when he was starting out as another guard dog for the Avengers in high school, you needed to at least know his approximate location in the event that something went terribly wrong.

An explosion blasts in the center of a park, where the two of you would meet in the middle between Queens and Stark Tower. This is where you lay your courage down. This is where you find Spider-Man’s mangled body before anyone else does.

"Peter," you huff. "S’gonna be okay. You with me? I’m gonna make sure you’re okay."

He’s just less than conscious, the stretch of his animated eyes limited by his weakness. When he sees your face, however, his face glows – not that you can see it through his mask.

He says your name with a fervor that surprises you. His voice is raspy.

"‘m fine. I have to stay," he grunts, his pain palpable. You know that he’s telling the truth, but you don’t want to leave him alone in his misery.

"Peter. You’re hurt."

"You go home. I’ll come find you later. Just let me–"

"You’re fucking limping."

You had always carried yourself like a feather-like, lithe ghost. Quiet, whereas Peter was bold, despite the fact that his anxious nature had rendered him a boyish thing all these years. This is why he’s surprised that you carry him easily with your supernatural strength. He forgets that you have the same abilities as him. If anything, he’d think you were stronger than him in every way.

Even with his thick skin, he melts into something malleable, comfortable. The solace of your arms makes him feel better already.

A pang of small guilt rots away within him, knowing the circumstances of your last meeting. You’re too good. He didn’t deserve to be saved by you, to be patched up with your nimble fingers like he had been treated when he was younger and more naive.

"I can make it to my place, it’s okay," he rasps gently.

You don’t have to say anything, because bullshit radiates through the stern expression of your eyes, your mouth in a grimace. You had always been stubborn and today isn’t an exception. With your webs, you crochet a path for him toward your home, lifting and catching the boy effortlessly as you swing.

A gentle sigh escapes his mouth when the two of you crawl into the safety of your fire escape. The night is quiet behind you. When he looks at you, you have to look away, fixing your hair nervously or occupying your gaze anywhere but in his direction. His eyes are poignant in their longing, though you’re unsure of what he could be thinking. If he’s sorry about before. If he’s ashamed.

Your wispy webs wrap around the parts of him that hurt, but you wince when you check on him to see that the white fibers are slowly saturated with the dark crimson of his open wounds.

"Peter, you have to wash up," you whisper. "Shit’s gonna get infected. I can put some gauze on you after you shower."

He nods wordlessly when you ask him if he can manage the shower on his own. He feels vulnerable, and although your presence is always desired by him, he finds relief in the hot steam of your shower, alone with his thoughts. He’s still shaken from the explosion. Not completely catatonic, but tense. As if he isn’t in his body at all.

When Peter emerges from the bathroom, he looks like a stranger. Scars adorn his sides. Your face crumples at the sight of his fresh wounds.

"C’mere."

It doesn’t take you long to fix him up, cleaning his cuts and wrapping gauze around his stomach and chest. His quiet grunts startle you, as if he's a wild animal. Eyes screwed shut, brows cinched in pain. A heavy exhale and a mumbled apology followed.

You forgive him with a soft touch and a hushed whisper. He wishes the ache would stop. He wishes he could lie on your bed and have you whisper in his ear all night until the sound of your voice lulls him to sleep.

There aren’t many words exchanged, and you want to ask him why. If you did something. But then you think about the images on the news and his withered face, and you decide not to probe the sphere of trauma surrounding him. Peter has probably gone through more in the last twelve hours than you have in a week.

You stop him before he tries to make it out of your bedroom door and towards the living room.

"I don’t mind sleeping on the couch, I’ve done it before."

"It’s like sleeping on a rock, Parker. You just gone through God knows what," you chide. "Just… get in here."

As he breathes in and out, he nestles in your shoulder, his clean hair tickling your bare skin. There’s a nasty guilt that lurches from your sternum. As if you were the reason for his pain. For the state of his body. And you think back to the desperate look in Peter’s eyes the night you took him home from the party. Were you too cruel, then?

It’s like he steals the words from your mouth. He beats you to it.

"I’m sorry," Peter murmurs. His amber eyes blink up at you, unfathomable. You flash him a downturned grin.

"For what?"

"I feel like… there’s been a distance between us lately. And I don’t want that, because you’re my best friend. And now you’re taking care of me when you don’t have to. I just wanted you to know that I really appreciate it. That I, um, lo–," he stammers. He chews on his bottom lip. "You’re really good."

"‘m not all that good, Peter."

But of course, you are, he protests in his head. You are the moon and the stars and everything in between.

"I’m sorry for not being around."

"Not just your fault," you shrug. "Phone works both ways."

He knows you better than you think because, within seconds, his palm rests softly on your cheek, where he feels a hot tear.

"What’s up, Spidey?" he asks you. It makes you laugh.

"Shut up." You shake your head, trying to hide your face. The feeling of his thumb rubbing your cheek makes the tears flow even more. "I wouldn’t know what I’d do if something bad happened to you. If I couldn’t get to you. Or if you – if you were gone."

"I’m okay, Rabbit. We’re okay."

"Yeah," you chuckle, trying to hide your tears.

"Couldn’t get rid of me if you tried."

You feel warmer in his grasp. His small breaths fall on your arm as his body curls up next to you. He’s bigger than he’d been before back when you were teenagers. The jaw is chiseled and sharp. Not as soft and boyish as you once knew. With your senses, you can discern the steadiness of his heartbeat as his chest rises and falls into slumber. You fall asleep soon after, dreamless but full of warmth.

____

Waking up next to him is nothing new, but it’s been years. You never thought anything of it when the two of you were sixteen, staying up all night reading creepypastas and watching movies until you’d fall asleep on top of each other by four in the morning.

After a night’s sleep, Peter's sullen face is a bit brighter despite his dark circles. His limbs are entangled in yours, bodies fused together. Yin and yang. You can only assume that this is how it will always be.

You keep mental notes of him like trinkets. The uneven slant in his left eyebrow. The faint freckles dotted along his nose, the one near the corner of his mouth. The faint shadow of hollowed-out cheeks. Peter is still half-boy to you, and half-man, but you didn’t want to come to terms with it. Maybe he was something else. Half-ghost. Half-angel.

Slowly, over the course of a few weeks, he comes back to you again. Sitting together and reading at a cafe. The occasional 3 am swing. Walking around high at the 7-11.

"Did you like Rhode Island?" he asks over a joint one night.

You hum for a second, trying to come up with an acceptable answer. It wasn’t that you hated being in Rhode Island. It was that you hated being away from him.

So instead, you shrug. "It was nice to get away from everything. Providence is still a city, but it isn't as large as all this–”

You trail off, making a vague gesture with your hands. Chaos, Peter presumes.

"Less overwhelming?"

"Sure," you say, nodding. "I missed being home, though."

I missed you.

Peter passes you the joint. His brain feels fuzzy. Warm. He doesn’t know what to do with his hands. He massages your ankle absentmindedly.

"I get it," he says, breaking the silence.

"You get what?"

"Wanting to leave. I've been thinking about it," Peter shrugs, his eyes squinting in the late afternoon sun. "Sometimes I wish we could pack our bags and go to the countryside. See some cows and shit."

We. We. We.

"There are cows upstate," you snort.

"You know what I mean."

"We can do a road trip."

"You can’t drive."

"I am aware and perfectly fine with being a passenger princess. In fact, I’m looking forward to it," you grin.

He yanks your ankle this time, causing you to slip from where you’re sitting on the pavement. Giggling, you swat away his hands, but he’s too quick, untying your shoelaces as you kick and thrash.

"Honestly, it’s probably better for society if you never get behind the wheel," Peter teases. He dodges you when you try to kick him in the shin.

"Oh, but you can be? You get so distracted so easily! Whenever you’d practice driving, you’d miss so many exits or be too anxious to merge on the highway."

"Okay, well, you’re just a force of distraction," he shrugs, throwing his hands up in defeat. "You have that effect on people."

You look at him quizzically, your eyes narrowing. If there’s anything behind his statement, he doesn’t show it on his face. Peter knows his cheeks are burning, however.

There are more moments like these. Ever since you’d rescued Peter that night, he’s grown accustomed to spending hours of his day idly looking for you, learning your class schedule, and following you home like a pet when it’s time to unwind. He stays for hours like he used to when you were kids, and although he always thinks he’s overstaying his welcome, you don’t seem affected.

You curl into him more these days, like a sunflower stretching toward the morning glow. There are more lingering touches, here and there. You have to remind yourself not to get too comfortable, but God, he makes it so easy.

So the burning question pops out during a marathon of Chainsaw Man.

"Does MJ care that we hang out so much?" you blurt out. He looks at you like you have three heads. Also, his mouth is full.

"Um, webrobrup," he mumbles. He frowns as he looks down. Hot Cheeto fingers.

You mock him, of course.

"English, yeah?"

He chuckles as he finishes scarfing it all down. He shyly licks his fingertips, and you have to stop yourself from staring at the way his fingers enter his mouth. Ugh, gross. This is hardly supposed to be hot.

"We broke up."

You keep a straight face. It’s not like you’re excited or anything. You realize you shouldn’t be surprised because… why else would he be so available to you lately?

"Shit. You really fumbled, then."

"Shut up," he laughs.

"Seriously. Who else is gonna wanna put up with you?" You both know the answer to that.

"It was mutual," he says, shrugging. "I’ve got all my Spider-man shit, she’s getting into a bunch of extracurriculars and even a research internship even though we’re literally first years."

"Classic MJ."

"Yeah."

"We’ll get you back on the market, buddy," you tease, patting his head like a dog. A coy smile lights up your features. It makes something inside him melt.

"I’m not a piece of meat."’

You click your tongue.

"Oh, right, you’re an insect."

"Hey, so are you!"

____

You used to think it was a kind of twin telepathy, the magnetism to Peter that you felt. Bitten by the same spider and entangled in the same web. You realize as you grow older that it’s more than a platonic bond. It feels like wanting to share the same skin.

Or maybe it’s the wine talking.

It’s not your job to keep Peter afloat at the party right now, but both of you remember too well how the last party went. He continually sips water in between gulps of whiskey like a paranoid freak, which you tease him about. Maybe it’s just the darkness of his eyes under this light, but his pupils look wide and dilated.

It’s almost March. You’d both endured a proper New York winter, which usually extends until April if you’re lucky, but global warming has other plans. It's warm enough for you to pair one of your favorite dresses with an oversized Carhartt jacket that used to belong to Peter before the bite bulked him up significantly. You fiddle with the black velvet wrapped around your body as you pretend to listen to banal conversations, leaning your head into Peter’s bicep.

You keep picking at loose threads obsessively. You think about your fingertips and their webs. You think that maybe you should take up crocheting to distract your hands from their restlessness.

Peter grabs your hand away from you, squeezing it slightly, not even looking at you. His flushed palm rests against yours. Gently rubbing your thumb between your finger divots

If you were a cat, Peter would imagine you purring right about now. He wants to take you into his lap, stroke your hair while the alcohol subsides in both of your systems. The thought of you on top of him causes his cock to twitch slightly. His rose-colored cheeks are from the whiskey, he reassures himself. An affirmation. He lets go of your hand.

He knows that this isn't the time or place for such thoughts, so he makes an effort to push the desires down. He knows they'll come up again when the whiskey leaves his veins, but at least he'll be of sober mind.

Christ, he feels like he's at a middle school dance. Especially when you run off with a spring in your step to socialize with some girls you recognize from school. The smell of your hair lingers next to him. It's sweet and slightly floral, a scent that makes him think of when you were kids.

His ears perk up like a dog's when you call his name, reaching out to him so that you can introduce your best friend. He has the right mind to be polite, even funny at times, but he knows he pales in comparison to your current charisma, which contrasts with your usual wallflower nature.

Peter likes watching you talk, and you like that he watches you so intently. When you know he's watching, it's easy to deadpan some drunken jokes and elaborate superfluous tall tales from your high school days. His eyes are bright, and his bottom lip is chewed in between his teeth.

Suddenly, he gets to be alone with you in the kitchen. Your scent permeates the air. He could drown in it.

“Rabbit," you whine petulantly. "Swing me home."

"How drunk are you?" he chuckles with adoration.

"Not very. Just tired, s'all," you respond with a yawn. You scrunch your nose. "Can I sleep at yours?"

Peter looks at you with a soft gaze. "Of course, angel."

Angel. He's never called you that before. You decide that you like the sound of it.

By the time midnight comes around, you're barefoot in his bedroom, black velvet spinning loosely around your figure. In Peter's blurred vision, you look like a friendly apparition, one that particularly favors "Champagne Coast" by Blood Orange.

"Come into my bedroom, come into my bedroom," you quietly sing along as you sway your hips.

"You're already in my room."

Your smile beams at him, huge and illuminating, and impossible to look away from. Peter wishes that he could bottle up this moment to revisit it, or maybe live in it for the rest of his life. The sweetest way to exist.

Your body sinks to his level -- no, collapses -- as you roll over his heavy frame and rest yourself on your back. Your hair fans out like you're underwater. Your lips are red and wine-colored, freshly bitten. When you turn your head toward Peter, his hand plays with the exposed nape of your neck, fingertips grazing the creases of your skin.

"You used to be so gangly, you know," you murmur. Your voice is lower than usual.

"Okay, well, I'm not anymore."

"I could totally still take you in a fight." Still refers to the times when the two of you would attempt something along the lines of combat training, if combat training was just you unleashing your hotheadedness with your mutant powers instead of with your fists. If you weren't so agile, maybe Peter would've had a chance of winning.

"I'd like to see you try, angel."

It's decided -- you are on top of him, knees bent around his waist as you wrestle. The fabric of your dress pools around your waist in a way that feels sacrilegious. Peter has his hand on your thighs, and his touch feels white-hot to both of you, so he closes his eyes, tries to focus on swatting you away like a bat instead. When he opens his eyes, he meets your devilish ones, gleeful that you've managed to pin his arms above his head.

It would take two inches to break this spell of separation. He keeps trying to keep this bubble intact because the last time he tried to pop it, the look on your face made him want to dig a hole and lay in it forever.

Peter feels sorry for many things. He feels sorry for the times he's intruded, when he's made Mr. Stark angry, for the times he couldn't be there for you. He feels sorry that you had to take care of him when he wanted to do that for you.

Right now, however, Peter doesn't feel sorry at all. The slight twitch of your pulse, the way you smell, the curve of your bare shoulders -- it's all too tempting for him to feel sorry for. So he kisses you.

He's surprised when you nearly bite him back. You inhale sharply, pressing your body against him as you let go of his wrists and rest your palms on his jaw instead. Your kiss is fervent, desperate.

His brow cinches in confusion when you pull away.

"Wha--"

"Fuck."

"What is it?" He frowns.

"I owe Ned twenty bucks."

"What?"

"I just remembered. At graduation, he was like, teasing me that we were gonna get together, and we bet on who would make the first move. I was just entertaining him, but you know how that kid gets about twenty dollars."

"So you thought you were going to make the first move, then?”

“I mean, yeah. How was I supposed to know that MJ was going to cuff you before I did?”

“You snooze, you lose, I guess,” he deadpans.

“You don’t even fucking deserve me, you little freak,” you taunt, tickling his exposed midriff.

“God, I know. I’ve known that for a while. Too bad I want you regardless.”

He smiles as he captures your lips again, tasting sweet and smoky at the same time. He coaxes you onto your back and you revel in his body heat and the way his large hands grab the plush of your thighs, pushing and pulling your skin taut. It’s so erotic that it almost feels dirty.

You kiss him back like he’s your last meal while you roam your hands under his shirt, then to his protruding collarbones, then experimentally, to the tufts of his chestnut hair. You pull a bit too hard due to your eagerness and he lets out a mewl that you never could’ve imagined to come out of him.

“You like that, don’t you?” you taunt darkly. “Is that why you always want me to scratch your head when we watch movies?”

“I don’t care what you do as long as you’re touching me,” he breathes out, like a confession. “Don’t care how you touch me, s’long as it’s you.”

A tepid blush soaks your face. You shut him up with another kiss. He licks at your bottom lip, groaning softly at the feeling of your soft body against his.

“You’re so pretty, Peter,” you whisper.

“You are.”

Before you can react, you hitch a breath in surprise when you find that his hands have fully reached above the hem of your dress and onto the bare skin of your hip, toying with the elastic of your underwear. You part your legs, bending your knees so that you can pull the fabric off.

He sighs as his fingers tease the slot of your cunt, which grows wetter and wetter with every touch. Your sensitivity makes you squirm a little. He can tell so easily that you’re falling apart for him. He loves it.

You nearly whine when he takes away his fingers from you. Instead, he towers over your body, pulling your legs toward him as he pulls up the hem of your velvet dress and cascades kisses on your knees. He slowly works his way up to your thighs, biting gently, then hard. Meanwhile, his hands roam the perimeter of your chest and your ribs, all soft and pliable for him. You’ll be delighted when you wake up to a bruise on your thigh stuck in the shape of Peter Parker’s mouth.

A shiver lacerates your lower body all the way up to your neck – you feel it, viscerally. All from his mouth. He slots his tongue onto the bud of your clit going slowly just to watch you squirm.

“Please,” you beg.

“Please what?” His eyes are as dark as the sky. As dark as your dress.

“Your– your mouth. I need it. Please. More.”

Peter’s grip on your thighs tightens as his face moves closer to your center, licking incessantly as you cry out. You attempt to muffle your sounds with your hand covering your mouth, biting the skin on your palm. Your blood is hot, pumping hard, all the way down to your swollen clit, and he treats you like a man starved.

“Oh my God,” you gasp. “More, please. Pleasepleaseplease.”

He listens to you, forcing his ring and middle finger into your cunt and curling upward. Your legs shake involuntarily when he does this and it takes everything in him to not stop just so he can see the look on your face head-on. You look so beautiful right now.

“Gonna cum, Pete. Fuck.”

He closes his eyes as he savors your sweet taste. He feels it when you cum as if it’s happening in his body, too. A jolt to the sense. A vivacious rumble. Your mouth is slack, jaw falling open with your eyes screwed shut as you finish, and Peter towers over you to watch. He’s never seen you like this. He wants to keep the image of it forever.

You thank him with a messy kiss, not caring about the remnants of your lipstick. Your hands attack him, teeth nipping at his earlobe as you help him undress. Soon enough, the two of you are naked together, limbs entangled and kissing without paying any mind to oxygen.

You take his jaw in your hand as if he’s a delicate thing. Easy to break. It’s your turn to tease, now.

“What do you wanna do?”

“You’re such a little shit,” he mumbles, but he can’t help but grin.

“Tell me about it, Spidey.”

“Want you, Rabbit, want to make you feel good.”

“And how exactly will you do that?”

“Gonna fuck you. I’ll make you cry if you keep being a little shit like this, too.”

There’s no time for a reaction. He’s on top of you, pinning you down, and he licks your collarbone up to your jaw as you whine like a newborn kitten. He spanks your ass and you have to your bottom lip to keep from being too loud.

“You want it that bad, huh?”

“Yeah,” you respond breathlessly. He melts at the sound of your voice, cooing softly as he playfully bites the skin of your cheek.

You love him like this, a burst of passionate energy focused on you and you only. His little angel. You remember your rabbit heart caged in your sternum fragile and thumping like an earthquake for him.

He pauses to give you another kiss, this time sweet as he licks up the bottom of your lip. You can feel him at the crux of your legs and you can feel the want pumping in your veins. Patience. Patience. Patience.

“You want me to go slow?”

“Of course not.”

You’re so relaxed in his grasp. Gooey with your desire that it might disgust you if you weren’t so enamored. You keep your eyes on him when he enters you – you want to see the look in his eyes.

Peter feels selfish wanting to tease you like this. He’s slow when he enters you, listening to your sweet exhales.

“Easy,” he warns. “‘m gonna take care of you, don’t worry."

Please floods your entire body like a heat stroke. You bend your knees upward and rake the smooth terrain of his back, lifting your hips up at the same time. He thrusts once, then twice, and already, he feels like he’s ready to unfurl completely.

“Fuck,” he groans. You’re so goddamn wet. Soft. Velvety.

“Don’t be shy, Peter,” you murmur. “C’mere.”

You keen into the way he buries his nose into your shoulder, shallow breaths uneven and erratic as he continues, losing control bit by bit as he goes on. His pleasure is the knife you twist inside yourself.

You gasp at the way he can carve you out, the way he knows exactly where to put his hands as he grasps for your body, like he’d molding you from clay. He drinks down your moans with his mouth, eyes fluttering at the impact of your cunt clenching him.

Peter props himself up now, moving his body backward so he’s perpendicular to your core. He holds you by your hips a little too hard, but you’d always liked it rough. You liked it when he would cuddle you or play with you or put his entire body weight on you. To smother was to be encased in something akin to love.

“Fuck,” he hisses, getting the hang of a constant rhythm. His hips slot with yours as his cock thrusts deeper into you, until he can feel the slight tremble of your thighs.

“You okay?” he asks, chest heaving.

“Yes, keep going. Keep going.”

You underestimate how fragile you are. A rough thrust almost has you there, until he pulls out of you like a stolen breath, and it leaves you whining.

“Pete.”

“Shh, I’m just trying to pace myself,” he breathes, jaw slack and glistening with sweat. “You feel too fucking good.”

“Come back or I’ll break your wrists.”

He chuckles, but you’re dead serious. You lift your body to him so you can pull his down, kissing him with a ragged hunger that’s all teeth and lust. He’s quick to match your vigor but with more tenderness than desperation. It makes you melt, how natural it is, how this is how it might’ve felt in a past life. Your bodies entwined in a way that’s proverbial.

He listens to you. Fucks you much rougher than before, giving in to what he wants, because he’s not sorry about how much he wants you. Your broken moans curl out of your throat and into his mouth and the feeling of him deep in you makes you feel like a balloon ready to burst from the pressure.

It’s like Peter reads your mind, because suddenly, his hand is around your throat. You’ve never looked more angelic to him than you do now, eyes half-lidded and your reddish mouth all lax.

“So fucking beautiful, I love you,” he mumbles against his mouth.

I love you. I love you. I love you.

All of Peter’s muscles are tense from holding back. Fuck, he doesn’t want to cum until you do.

Luckily, the way his cock stretches you out has you nearly drooling underneath him. He touches the deepest parts of your insides like he belongs there, like he was meant to be there, as if the way he turns his hips toward you is a vow in itself. You whimper at the feeling of it all and he nearly loses it.

“I’m so close,” you pants. Thank fucking God.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Cum for me,” he coos. “You’re doing so good. Fuck.”

Your gaze lingers on the shape of his mouth. You think about how his voice sounds when he calls you angel.

Your orgasm comes like a flower blooming, like a beam of light in the darkness. He feels it, too, so vividly like he shares your body. It feels strange how much he feels that he hasn’t felt before, and it makes him come undone right after you.

He pulls out of you and spills onto your stomach unceremoniously with something in between a grunt and a whimper. He’s all over you. You want to bury your body into his.

“Peter,” you whisper, your gaze languishing.

“Yes, angel?”

“I think I owe Ned fifty bucks now.”

He looks at you incredulously but you can’t keep the facade, bursting into laughter as he groans in annoyance and flops his body on top of yours.

“Ew, clean me up, at least,” you complain.

“Right,” he says, nodding. And he does, with a spare t-shirt from his floor absentmindedly while he shares a grin with you. “You serious, though?”

“Of course not,” you scoff. “Ned Leeds will never get anything over twenty bucks from me.”

He laughs and it sounds like heaven.

“You said you loved me,” you tell him.

“I do love you. I’ve always loved you.”

You could cry right now. Surely the influx of endorphins in your body is breaking the rest of your brain.

“I love you, too.”

You kiss him again, open-mouthed, teeth sucking slightly as his lips. He takes a fistful of your hair while his other hand caresses your jaw. It excites you when he breaks the kiss by pulling your hair. His cheeks dimple the slightest bit when he smiles at you.

“Don’t do that, you’re gonna get me hard again.”

“You have the stamina,” you shrug, hugging one of his oversized pillows to your chest.

“You’re cute.”

“Hey.”

“Hi.”

“How come you call me angel now?”

Peter shrugs. He rubs his hands on your calves.

“You’re my guardian angel. Always have been. And you’re not allowed to complain about it being corny because it’s true.”

Peter is shy all of sudden as if he hadn’t just fucked you. His brown hair is tousled to bedhead perfection, messy and slightly frizzy, and the warmth of his skin radiates from the way his whole body seems to blush in front of you.

“I have a proposition.”

“Jesus Christ.”

“Come on!” You nudge him, kicking him with your feet. You get off of his bed to rummage through his dresser drawers for an oversized t-shirt, just dodging his attempts to grab you by the waist.

“Okay. What is it?”

“We should use our webs next time.”

He blinks, smirking, indulging you for a second.

“Deal.”

tagging mutuals: @meliapis @cutetomholland @userholland @sparklingsin @tomdutch @userholland @vendettaparker @selfcarecap @simplykenni @uhlxis @cordiformity @sapphicsoie @seolaseoul @honeyspidey @logangarfield @justapurrcat @arachine @cocoamoonmalfoy @ohcaptains @aniqua

#peter parker x reader #peter parker x y/n #spiderman x you #peter parker fluff #peter parker smut #peter parker angst #spiderman x reader #mcu!peter parker x you #tasm!peter parker x you #tom holland x you #tom holland x reader #tom holland smut #peter parker x you

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yuutasprincess · 7 months

Text

Day 1: Yuuta Okkotsu

Word Count: 2.8k Warnings: Noncon, breaking and entering, primal play, Yuuta's sweet but also male manipulating you

The doors are locked, of course they are- every night you make sure to twist the knob. You hold your breath, making sure the faint noise from your phone is muted and all that exists within the house is the sound of your heart pumping in your chest.

There’s a pause, silence. The door is locked, nothing is inside the house except you.

Outside, the street lamps cast their glow across the deserted yard, blocking any view of the desolate neighborhood. There's no one in sight, and the only sounds are the rhythmic chirping of crickets and the periodic rustling of leaves. It's a typical night, with the neighborhood slowly succumbing to darkness as the clock strikes 10. Curtains are drawn, windows are sealed shut, and doors are locked to keep whatever resides out.

Inside the house his shoulders sag. Back pressed to the locked door, how he got inside is no one’s business but his. He stays still for a frozen moment, bleary eyes adjusting to the dark as he watches shadows dance.

No one is outside. The man has found his home for the night.

Yuuta stands tall, lips sealed, he simply watches, taking in all the details of your home: the unfolded blankets on the couch, dishes drying in the sink, and the pair of shoes carelessly tossed by the entrance where he now stands. He thinks it’s a lovely home, he’s never been inside. His chest swells with an odd sense of contentment as he continues to stand motionless, he is inside your house.

The grip of paranoia keeps you awake, your body tightly tucked under the blankets, phone clutched to your chest. Your eyes refuse to shut, and you anxiously await the appearance of a ghost in the doorway. You tell yourself it's just your imagination, but then you hear it—the unmistakable sound of footsteps echoing from downstairs.

Then it’s rushed footsteps, heavy, pounding footsteps and the sound of someone crashing into your walls and shaking the house. You swallow your fear and force yourself out of bed, stumbling into the closet and grasping anything that could be used as a weapon.

He can’t contain himself any longer, his cheeks round and lips pulled as he smiles while marching up your stairs. Yuuta’s far from discreet, his ragged breaths and the slam of your bedroom door echoing, the weight of the doorknob creating a hole in the wall from the force. He’s practically panting in the doorway, hair clinging to his forehead, he raises a thumb to the corner of his tilted lips.

“Anyone home?”

He laughs to himself, flushed cheeks and crinkled eyes unsettling as he makes his way to your bed. He flings the blankets aside, crawling onto the warm spot where your body lay just moments ago, its imprint still visible in the mattress.

"I know you're here," Yuuta whispers into the oppressive silence of the room. He digs his face into your pillows, fingers gripping the material as he sniffs loudly. It's disgusting, the way his eyes roll into his skull and how his hips stutter into your bed at your smell.

The only thing keeping you from screaming is the hand you’ve slapped over your mouth, fingers curling into the skin of your cheek as you watch with bated breath. He makes a mess of your bed, tossing your blankets to the floor and rising with a heavy thud as he runs his hands through his hair. You think you might get to laugh about this in a couple years when telling the story, some creep who broke in but didn’t do anything except lay in your bed.

With knees tucked to your chest you watch him move around the space, fingers tapped rhythmically against various surfaces as he avoids the closet. Your own trembling fingers hover over your phone, help on speed dial, while you clench your teeth, jaw tight, trying to suppress your tears.

Then, silence.

Suddenly, you’re being pulled out of the closet, leaving your phone behind, as his hand firmly covers yours over your mouth. His other hand cradled the back of your head, and for a horrifying moment, you imagined him crushing your skull. Tears welled up in your eyes as you gaze at him, his eyes gleaming in the darkness, hair falling across his face.

He breathes heavy, hot air fanning your face. “There you are pretty girl,” he’s practically cooing at you while you cry.

You're terrified, not sure what he wants but not willing to let him do whatever he plans. Clawing and kicking, you fought to break free from his grasp, letting out sobs as you bolted out of the room. Your feet slid across the floor, thighs burning as you raced down the stairs, taking each step two at a time. He pursued you, eerily silent, and although you couldn't hear him, you could feel his presence, his fingers brushing against the back of your shirt, and his lunging attempts to grab you.

He follows you quietly through the house while you stumble and push things aside trying to reach the front door. Your body slamming into the wall as you cry out twisting the knob.

It’s locked. Of course it’s locked, you lock the door every night. You make sure of it.

Thoughts finally enter your mind as you try to push towards the kitchen, the rack of knives practically reassuring you. He grabs you, not too tight but effective in keeping your arms pinned to your sides. He pressed his body against yours, wedging you between him and the door, gently shushing your cries. His chin resting on your head as you pleaded with him, promising not to reveal his face, not to tell anyone, begging for your life.

He tosses you over his shoulder with ease, hands gripping the meat of your thighs as he grins over his shoulder watching you wail. “I’m not going to hurt you sweet girl, you’ll feel real good in a second.” gripping your ankles he keeps you from kicking at him, the shaky hits against his back doing little to nothing to deter him.

Laying you onto the couch he’s quick to rest his weight over you, knee between your thighs and hands keeping your arms against your head. “Cute” his nose runs up the column of your throat, inhaling your scent and licking at a sensitive spot under your jaw. His touch is dirty, goosebumps rising on your skin as he kisses at your neck and bites the skin softly, not hard enough to leave a mark but enough to make you anxious.

Releasing his grip on you, he rises to his knees, his gaze fixed firmly upon your heaving form. “Don’t move alright? I don’t want to have to force you still.” His eyes never leave you, jaw tight while glaring through fat tears, stomach churning as you watch the way his thick fingers idly tug at his belt.

In that moment, your instincts kick into high gear—fight or flight takes over. Your body scrambles to break free, and you manage to slip your legs out from under him, delivering a hard kick to his side before bolting away. Hands grabbing ornamental decoration on the table and sending glass shattering his way. Your mind races ahead of your body as you reach for the kitchen door, hand instinctively finding the knife left on the counter. Shaky fingers gripping the heavy handle as you glance back to see him rising from the couch with a frown before you’re out the door.

In the dimly lit room, Yuuta's laughter fills the doorway. He stands there, one hand on his hip, a mischievous grin playing on his lips as he casually runs his fingers through his hair. His belt dangles from his free hand as he watches you, the thrill of having you apparent in his eyes. A chase wasn't what he had in mind for tonight, but he can't resist the allure of your determination and the adrenaline coursing through his veins. Tonight, he decides to play along.

The treeline at the end of the block is a promising escape route. Your plan is to cut straight through the woods, finding your way to the main road where you can seek help. The only thing preventing you from pounding on a neighbor's door for help is the unsettling sight of those piercing blue eyes fixed upon you from your own front lawn. He's playing with you, casually biting the end of his thumb, watching you like a predator stalking its prey.

Determined, you rush into the woods, heart pounding as you leave behind any trace of him. You slow your pace to a brisk walk, inhaling the crisp air to soothe your burning lungs and alleviate the ache in your thighs. Feet numb as the lack of shoes settles into your brain, keep going- don’t stop. “Fuck. fuck!” The watery curses under your breath is all you can do to resolve the blood boiling anger you feel as you step over dirt.

To Yuuta, you’re the most darling thing he’s ever seen. The way you clutch the knife like a lifeline and attempt to muffle your breath, straining to hear his movements, is utterly endearing. He could just eat you up. He bites at the skin around his fingernails, eyes unblinking as he watches you start to speed up and waits for an opportunity to have you. As if he can wait.

In the blink of an eye, he materializes at the corner of your vision, deftly disarming you before you tumble into the unforgiving soil. The sensation of sticky leaves and portrusing roots beneath you sends a shiver down your spine, you clench your fists. “What the fuck do you want!” You try to roll over to stand but his converse nudge at your side to force you onto your back. Legs moving so his shoes are on either side of your hips while he toys with his belt.

He doesn’t answer you this time. Only pushes a thumb under the button of his pants with one hand and lets the material slip down, fingers pulling the elastic of his boxers before reaching in and pulling his leaking cock out. You don’t look. Hold your breath and turn your head with shut eyes as you choke on your own cries. Yuuta moves his shoe up to tap at your wet cheek softly, coaxing you into looking at him with the threat of a swift kick to your face. He’d never hurt you, but you don’t know that.

With watery eyes you watch him wrap his fingers around himself, the tip an angry red as he starts to slowly jack off on top of you, teeth tugging at his lower lip while he whines. Giving himself a couple of torturous pumps he teases his slit, thumbing at the pearly beads of precum before squatting down to bring it to your lips. His thumb tapping on your sealed lips before forcing you to taste him, it’s salty.

Yuuta's smile remains intact as he observes your reactions, an effortless "Good girl" slipping from his lips as you suddenly whip your head back, pulling his thumb away from your tongue. The look of infatuation in his eyes never wavers, not even when you desperately attempt to kick his feet away from your hips, or when you unleash a barrage of curses and screams until your throat burns raw. And most definitely not as you lie there, utterly helpless, with his belt securely fastened around your wrists, restricting them above your head.

Picking up the knife he knocked away from you he runs a finger over the dull end before pointing the tip at your collar. “Such a smart girl, my smart girl you really had me worried with this” dragging the knife under your night shirt he sucks his teeth and makes quick work of tearing the material to reveal your soft chest. Tossing the knife aside he falls to his knees and straddles your waist, one hand massaging your tit and other curving to fondle his heavy balls. He whines desperately over your cries, fingers pinching at your nipple until it’s hard and moving to the other one.

Goosebumps spread over your clenching stomach, body trying to sink into the ground away from his touch. “You’re so beautiful, so soft.” Yuuta's hand falls from his aching cock, fingers skimming the cold skin of your abdomen until they brush the edge of your sleep shorts to pull them down. Flipping you onto your stomach with your face in the dirt he adjusts your hips up.

Legs moving to keep yours spread as he rubs at the back of your thighs, pressing a soft kiss to the end of your spine he brushes a hand over your mound, fingers skimming your lips to feel your wetness. “Please- please” he coos at your shaky voice, hearts practically in his eyes as he sinks a finger into your heat, “I’ll give you just what you need pretty girl” Yuuta moans at your warmth, exposed cock twitching as he watches your cunt swallow his finger.

He fingers you eagerly, breath labored as he hears the way you sniffle and bite back a moan of your own. Easing another finger into your warmth his free hand rubs circles into your hip, body hunched over to continue kissing along the expanse of your back. Yuuta fights the urge to rut against your thigh, forearm tensing as he pulls his fingers away to rub at your neglected clit. Tight circles making you writhe in the dirt as he pinches at your bundle of nerves. “So pretty, keep making those noises- my pretty girl.”

Straightening up he admires you for a second, body pliable and dirt sticking to your cheek. God, he can’t get enough of you. The sound of fabric is all you can hear, heart beating quickly before a warmth hits your back. Yuuta fixes his jacket to cover your naked upper half, the chill of your skin urging him to provide you some comfort in a sick way.

Pushing your hair to the side his body rests over yours, cock smearing precum against your thigh as he presses wet kisses at your nape, “So, so good for me.” Thumbing at your puffy lips he collects your arousal on his fingers before wrapping a fist around his cock and bringing to tip to kiss your cunt.

His actions scramble your thoughts, the gentleness that he treats you with while partaking in rough actions makes your head pound. A heavy sigh leaves you when he starts to roll his hips into your cunt. He’s big. Careful as he whispers candy in your ear- his sweet girl, taking him so well. Your eyes burn with a sudden dryness as tears are unwilling to form, fuck, he feels so good inside you. Kisses searing as he rubs down your spine, his jacket and the feeling of his cock kissing your cervix keeping you warm in the dead of night.

Yuuta doesn’t even try to stop the whines bubbling in his chest, lips parted to exhale and lick at his lower lip, eye’s never leaving the way his hips meet your ass and the pretty arch he keeps your back in. It’s addictive, the way your pussy keeps sucking him back in, warm walls clenching down on him and squelching lewdly when he tries to pull out only to bully his way back in. Sweet noises leaving your lax body, hair hiding your face but he can only imagine how hot your cheek would be if he cupped your face in his palms.

“Oh- you’re so good to me, c’mere pretty girl” reaching for the knife tossed inches away he slices up, cutting the tight hold his belt had you locked in and pulls out to flip you onto your back. His jacket keeps your skin from touching the dirt as he shivers at the feeling of cold air hitting him, fingers squeezing your cheeks and making your lips pucker.

The kiss is gentle, lips hovering above yours as his soaked cock rests on your stomach, hand cradling your cheek as he hums into the one sided kiss. “Please princess, one kiss and I’ll take you home,” He’s so evil, moaning deeply when you entertain him, tongue slipping into your mouth and eyes rolling until there’s a dull ache behind his lids.

Keeping good on his promise he forces himself back in his pants, hands moving to slip his jacket onto your naked form before picking you up, arms around your back and under your knees as he runs his nose against your hairline, inhaling deeply. “Let me fuck you in your own bed princess- I’ll be so good to you.”

The walk back is silent. As silent as the neighborhood. The only sound your thumping heart and racing thoughts as you let him carry you home.

#D1 is kind of rough ^^#it gets better from here promise #jjk smut #jjk x reader #okkotsu yuuta x reader #yuta okkotsu x reader #jujutsu kaisen smut #yuuta okkotsu x reader #yuta okkotsu x you #okkotsu yuta x reader #kintober 2023 #yuuta smut #primal play

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stinkyme · 5 months

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Hello! I won't explain myself, yall should've seen it coming at this point 💆🏻‍♀️ I hope you like it and enjoy it! :)

CW/TW: NSFW (mdni), fem!reader, hate sex, reader is Fyodor's subordinate, mutual degrading (dumb slut, bitch, crybaby, etc), usage of (little) girl & she/her pronouns, reader slaps Fyodor, dacryphilia (both), riding, reader teasing Fyodor's mommy issues ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯, oral fixation (?), mentions of blood and marks, if I forgot anything please let me know! :)

I apologize for any mistakes in advance! :) and sorry if this sucks, I haven't been very inspired + got a bit rusty me thinks :/ sorry if you dislike it!

Hate Sex || Fyodor Dostoevsky x Reader

You aren't entirely sure when exactly you started sleeping with Fyodor. Sleeping is probably a soft word to use, better way to put it is - you aren't sure when you became his little sex toy.

Perhaps in-between endless, to you - quite boring assignments and missions he was giving you, he decided to make a full use out of you to which you compiled as a good little subordinate you were. Which, by the way, he would disagree with.

He always had a snarky comment to make, not praising you once, not thanking you once for sticking by his side for so long and flawlessly executing all of his desires.

Without questioning his reasoning, without asking for details - you were a perfect weapon, a perfect executor. Unlike Fyodor, who was far away from a perfect superior, treating you like you were nothing but one of the mere useless pawns he was using as he pleased. You would lie if you said it didn't hurt your ego or that it wasn't pissing you off each time his eyes would look at you with disinterested, even bored gaze after you give details of everything you executed perfectly. Waving his hand at you in a lazy manner as he turns on his chair, not giving you a benefit of a simple praise, a simple acknowledgment of your hard work.

His treatment towards you was beyond unfair, as if he was holding all those useless idiots above you. It was annoying, humiliating and it made your blood boil. There was not a single way to hurt Fyodor, you knew that, but you were also the only person who had him in one of his most vulnerable states.

So, why not use that to your advantage and let out some pent up stress you were experiencing?

"I completed the mission perfectly. Again." you say in a stern tone, slightly sighing as you close the door behind you.

"Is that so?" Fyodor doesn't give you even a proper moment of his attention, voice distant as his gaze remains on the paper he was holding. You silently click your tongue, but quickly compose yourself as you walk up to his desk, eyes swiftly scanning over the paper in his hand.

"Indeed it-"

"Bring me a cup of tea since you are back." he cuts you off in a beat, that familiar feeling of humiliation settling in your tummy again. You remain still, gaze evidently displeased with his request.

There is a prolonged moment of silence, a thick layer of tension filling up the distance between the two of you. Finally, Fyodor looks up, gaze switching from disinterest to slight irritation upon meeting yours that was holding evident annoyance. He drops the paper, fingers elegantly colliding together, hiding his lips.

"Is there an issue with my request?" he says in a serious tone, the usual silkiness of his voice getting lost. His gaze is sharp, shamelessly piercing through yours. You feel your whole body burning, breath short as your remaining dignity gets ruined by him, once again. However, you decide to swallow your pride this time, once more.

"No, sir. I will be back in a couple of minutes." you say sternly as you turn on your heel, closing your eyes once he can't see them anymore, anger boiling inside your tummy.

Your hand reaches the doorknob when Fyodor stops you in your tracks.

"Take your time."

There is a split second of initial confusion.

"Wash yourself up first, I can't have you walking around looking like that. Dirty and unpresentable."

You hear a rustle of papers as you shoot him a cold gaze, the one he doesn't return, too busy with work. As always.

"I thought you liked the taste of blood." you make a dirty remark, lips slightly curling as shameless pride fills you up. Fyodor glances sharply in your direction, sucking his cheeks in, his very discreet way of showing annoyance, but you notice. You hum as the feeling of pride overwhelms you, another remark leaving your lips quickly.

"One more thing."

You pause for a moment, noticing that his gaze slightly softens.

"When you make a request, you usually use the word please. Just for the future reference."

Your face molds from a sly expression to an irritated one, voice sharp. You quickly open the door, not giving him any time to answer you, enjoying the feeling of victory. It's not the full experience you desire, but it will make you satisfied for now.

There are so many more ways you wish to use in order to humiliate him and ruin that disgusting demeanor of his.

Lucky or unlucky for you, either way, Fyodor shared the exact same feelings towards you.

Which is why you got an invitation to his room tonight - to fulfill another of your endless, unappreciated duties and ease up his pent up irritation.

Couple of hours later, you find yourself greedily kissing Fyodor, hands gently pulling on his purple locks. He carefully sucks on your bottom lip, letting his tongue slide over it in a teasing manner. Your hands sneak underneath his thin shirt, fingertips messily exploring his lanky body. He lets out a mellow whimper as his tongue finds yours, sound getting muffled by the kiss.

Foreplay with Fyodor was different than his usual self.

He wasn't the most loving, evidently, but he was holding a certain tenderness during it. That's truly the only part of his that you were looking forward to. The vulnerable, whiny Fyodor that only you get to see. That only you get to ruin.

He swiftly slides his thumbs between your panties and hips, greedily rolling them down your thighs as you undo your bra, allowing him to softly kiss your chest area as the bra falls down your arms. Your hands move to take off his boxers, his hard, needily dripping cock softly pressing into your tummy as his hands pull on your hips, fingernails slightly digging into your skin.

Quickly enough, you find yourself on top of him - as always. He leans his back against the bed frame, hands falling on your hips, fingers shakily pressing into your skin, needy for you to pleasure him. With a slight dissatisfaction in your eyes, you look down on him for a few moments. In those few moments you let all of your anger and hatred towards him settle inside your body, a burning sensation of a desire to humiliate him like no one did before swirling inside your tummy.

You align your dripping cunt with the tip of his cock and slowly move your hips down, each inch stretching you out more and bringing soft moans out both of your throats. Your ass reaches his thighs and you remain still for a moment, purposefully clenching around him, receiving a breathy moan of his in response. You give him a sly smile as your hands rest on his trapeziuses, fingernails slightly digging into the cold flesh as you start moving your hips up and down, in an agonizingly slow manner.

Fyodor keeps his gaze on you, there is a lingering anger behind his eyes, even though mellow whimpers escape his parted lips. You let out a mellow moan each time you slide completely on his cock, its tip reaching the deepest spot inside of you. You remain at your pace, slow and teasing, not taking your eyes off of him. His fingernails dig deeper into your hips, squeezing a light gasp out of your lungs as he kneads on your skin roughly.

"Go faster." he orders, voice cold but quieter. You smile, bending your knees and adjusting yourself into a frog-like position. His face softens at that, he loved when people were obedient to his orders. You lift your hips up, letting only the tip of his cock remain in your needy cunt, holding it like that for a moment, letting the anticipation build up.

Fyodor's lips part in expectation of a heavy thrust, but he only receives a slow slide down on his cock, a sly smile curling on your lips.

"I prefer it like this." you say in a playful tone as you slowly move your thighs and hips up and down, occasionally clenching around his pathetic cock. He lets out a soft grunt, either from dissatisfaction or pleasure - perhaps both. He digs his fingernails more into your skin, receiving a sharp gasp of yours as the burning sensation tingles under your almost ripped skin.

"I said go faster." he says in a cold, almost threatening tone, as his fingernails keep on digging into your skin. You let out a yelp, but keep your pace slow and teasing. There is an evident anger and frustration lingering in your gaze, chest shaky with a desire to hurt him. However, you keep your composure, not wanting to give him the satisfaction of riling you up.

"Only if you say please." you force a teasing smile, pussy clenching around his tip before you slide down in an even slower manner. His grip on your hips becomes painful, a sharp gasp escaping your throat in response as your hands fall onto his wrists. You barely pull his hands away and keep them on the sides, meeting his anger filled gaze, returning the same treatment.

"Say please." your voice is more stern as you keep slowly sliding up and down on his cock, suppressing your own moans each time it rubs over your sweetest spots. Fyodor remains silent, lips parted in pleasure that he was trying to hold back as your grip on his wrists tightens.

"Do you need me to spell it out for you?" you ask in a sharper tone as you let yourself remain still, sitting on top of him as his cock reaches the deepest parts of you.

There was something challenging, dark in his eyes as he finally replies.

"Who do you think you are to order me around? Should I remind you of who you are?" his voice is cold, but his cock slightly twitches inside your warm, dripping cunt as you remain still. Your lips become shaky, grip on his wrists loosening as your tummy burns in a mixture of annoyance and anxiety. He moves his hands away from yours, letting one of them fall on your waist as the other one cups your cheek, thumb drawing small circles on your skin.

"You are a dumb little slut." he says in a condescending tone, a sly smile on his face, but slowly his annoyance takes over him as he finally lets his thoughts out.

"A dumb little slut who is good for nothing but my cock. And can't even do that properly." he spats out, voice becoming more filled with hatred.

"A dumb little slut who thinks she has any say in how I will behave. A dumb little bitch who thinks she can tell me what to do." his voice grows more deep, more annoyed, more everything.

"Disrespectful senseless little girl who expects praise every time she does her job. Is that why you behave like a desperate whore every time you finish a mission?" he continues, his thumb gently caressing your burning cheek. Bitter tears slightly cloud your vision, all the hatred melting away as he continues talking. Your pussy clenches around his cock regardless of your emotions, a soft breath getting stuck in your throat.

"You want me to call you a good girl? Is that what you clench around me for?" he asks in a lower, more gentle tone, eyebrows slightly rising at your pitiful state. You bite your bottom lip, reverting your gaze away from him for a moment. He chuckles, cold thumb delicately wiping away the small tear that was rolling down your cheek.

"Remember that awful feeling, that's what you get for disobeying me. And girls who disobey me don't get to be called good for it." he continues in a silky tone, moving his hand away from your cheek and letting it fall on your bruised hip as his face softens in the feeling of victory.

His gaze remains on your mocking-worthy expression, a soft curl of his lips revealing amusement and satisfaction he was feeling. You let the feeling of defeat and humiliation spread inside your body for just a moment before you compose yourself. Your gaze pierces through him, eyebrows furrowing in faint disgust and frustration as his words repeat in your head.

You hate to admit the fact that his nasty insults make your pussy leak even more precum than before mixed with the pure desire to punish him for it. Almost mindlessly, you start bouncing on his cock in a fast, greedy manner, receiving sharp gasps of his in response. Your hand sneaks into his hair, fingers roughly pulling on his locks and forcefully pulling his head back.

A strained moan escapes your throat as you keep on moving up and down, each full thrust making your head spin as his cock pressures all of your overly sensitive spots. His fingers shakily grab on your skin, unable to make a proper grip as your ass keeps slamming on his thighs in a rough manner. He lets out breathy whimpers as your cunt keeps on sliding over his needy cock, thighs bruising from the force you were riding him with. You swallow your own moans, only a few short whines escaping your lungs as you pull his hair more, exposing his pale neck.

Your gaze falls on how the muscles of his throat strain with each sound he makes before it moves to look him into his pathetic, half-lidded eyes.

"Yeah? You want to know what you are?" you speak in a breathy, heavy manner as you keep on bouncing on his cock. You don't feel a single thing besides anger and the fast pleasure building inside your lower tummy each time he reaches your g-spot. Your hand wraps around his throat, thumb pushing his chin back as your grip on his hair tightens.

"You are my dumb little toy. Just look at yourself, getting used by me like a personal dildo." you let out a strained chuckle as you switch your movement from bouncing to grinding, your hips making quick and heavy rolls on his cock.

You let out a sharp moan as his cock perfectly pressures your sweetest spots. Fyodor lets out a mixture of strained whimpers and grunts of disagreement, clawing his way into your outer thighs. With the way your hands roughly keep him in place it's hard to speak, but you can see an obvious anger breaking through his pleasure-filled eyes.

"You are my slut. You are a dumb little manwhore who needs me. You need my pussy, don't you?" your voice is firm even though faint whimpers fill in the gaps between your words.

You let go of his hair, but your hand remains on his jaw, firmly keeping it in place as you force him to look at you. You speed up the movement of your hips, not letting the soreness of your muscles get in the way.

"Tell me. You need it, don't you? You are a pathetic creature, can't even get off without me." you chuckle as your hand slides away from his jaw, down to his throat. You wrap your hand tightly, resulting in Fyodor's eyes to roll back, heavy whimpers slipping his parted lips alongside a small amount of drool.

He shuts his eyes closed, trying to regain some strength as his fingernails leave deep marks in your skin, making it burn and ache. His cock twitches inside of you, pulsating heavily as your needy and fast grinds become unbearable for both of you. Fyodor's fingernails dig even deeper into your skin as your grip on his throat tightens, a quick gasp escaping your lips as the pain becomes sharp and unbearable. Without a thought, your free hand lands a heavy slap on his cheek, making his head turn as your grip on his throat loosens, hand falling next to your body.

He gives you a frustrated look, lips immediately finding your nipple as he begins sucking roughly on it, almost mindlessly. You let out a sharp moan, throwing your head back as your pussy keeps sliding on his throbbing cock, sending shivers up your spine.

"Yeah? Is that how your mommy used to do it? Slap you around and then give you a nipple to play with?" you give him a breathless laugh before a heavy moan cuts you off as he bites on your nipple in a harsh manner. His fingernails dig deeper into your skin, a small amount of blood rolling down the flesh of your thighs.

"Fuck!" you almost scream out as you throw your head back, both of your hands falling on and tightly squeezing his bicepses as your pace on his cock remains the same. Your cunt starts to clench and pulsate around his leaking cock, heat beneath your skin tingling in a pleasurable manner.

Fyodor keeps on sucking on your nipple, a bit gentler than before, his eyes surprisingly tearing up. He lets out soft snivels and whimpers, hot breath heating up your flesh even more as his tongue relentlessly slides over your nipple. You bring one of your hands to his cheek, rubbing soft circles in a condescending manner - just like he did to you. You regain your focus, even though the heat that keeps on swirling inside your whole body makes it quite hard.

"Ah, don't be a crybaby now. Nobody likes little dumb bitch boys who cry during sex." you say in a teasing tone, wanting to degrade him more, but he starts rolling his hips into yours, barely but enough to make you lightheaded as his cock pressures your sensitive spots more.

He lets go of your practically bruised nipple, mumbling something as he messily moves to your other one and begins sucking on it in a greedy manner. You let out louder moans as your hips keep on rolling into his, your precum leaking and spreading all over his balls. The pain in your thighs from riding him for so long and from the fact he made you bleed becomes overwhelming, but the knot inside your lower tummy urges you to suck it up.

His cock reaches the deepest spots inside of you, perfectly rubbing over your g-spot and making you beyond dizzy as your orgasm slowly approaches. Your cunt keeps involuntarily clenching and relaxing around him each time he makes a harsher suck on your nipple, sending jolts through your whole body. You let out sharp moans and gasps as Fyodor pants into your skin in-between the heavy sucks, his cock throbbing inside your leaking cunt.

You curse under your breath as the knot inside your lower tummy starts slowly unraveling, first waves of your orgasm making your thighs shake. He barely lets go of your nipple, panting and whining in a desperate manner, eyes heavy as you fuck his brain out using only your hips. Your chest feels heavy as your breathing becomes incoherent, loud gasps in and out occupying your throat as your orgasm finally unravels.

Your whole body shakes as you squirt all over his cock and balls, making his own body shake as he gets close to his own climax. The pace of your hips becomes messy, the pain finally settling in and making it hard to move as the jolts of the peak of your orgasm rush through your body. Fyodor's hands fall onto your hips, desperately trying to hold you down as pathetic whines escape his dry throat. You swiftly lift yourself away from his cock and he gasps loudly, whole body shaking as a tiny load of cum drips out of the tip of his cock and slides down his length.

He lets out shaky pants and whines, clawing into his own thighs as his release gets ruined. You quickly put on a shirt, your breathing still incoherent and heavy as you slowly stand up, pulling your panties up.

Fyodor gives you a mixture of a needy, desperate, irritated and pathetic gaze, his cock softening and twitching as your combined releases slide down his balls. He remains silent, but he brings his semi-bloody fingers close to his lips, the tip of his tongue gently licking them. You give him a dirty look, a sly smile forming on your face.

"Remember that awful feeling. That's what disobedient, disrespectful and badly behaved boys deserve." you say in a bitter tone as you pull up your pants, letting out a small yelp as it rubs over the bloody scars on your thighs.

You leave his room, letting the lovely feeling of humiliating him overflow inside of you.

You won...this time, that is.

#fyodor dostoevsky x reader #fyodor dostoevsky x reader smut #fyodor smut #fyodor x reader smut #fyodor x reader #fyodor x y/n #fyodor x you #fyodor dostoevsky smut #fyodor dostoevsky x you #bsd smut #bungo stray dogs smut #bungo stray dogs imagines #female reader

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pedgito · 5 months

Text

𝐌𝐄𝐄𝐓 𝐌𝐄 𝐈𝐍 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐖𝐎𝐎𝐃𝐒 ╳ SERIES MASTERLIST

Chapter One: Decisions

[strangers to friends to lovers, age gap (56/mid 20s), forced proximity, no outbreak]

(Series) Content Warning: a very, very lonely joel miller. copious amounts of lusting, tension, joel is an excellent cook (food, alcohol, ect), hot tubs, impromptu snowball fights, awkward situations, deep talks and tragic backstories (specified within chapter warnings, deeply depraved smut/sexcapades and the inappropriate use of a dining table (also specified within chapter warnings), nicknames of endearment (no use of y/n)

Chapter Summary: The night of your arrival is anything but what you expected, realizing that not only was your cabin double-booked but the unexpected guest is more than willing to leave you stranded to savor his peace. A handful of stubborn talks and a big decision later, you realize that Joel might not be that much of a stranger at all.

Chapter Warnings: (7.2k) no outbreak, grumpy!Joel, fem!reader, weapons of convenience, reader being mesmerized but how handsome Joel is, copious amount of lusting, book talks, age gap, Joel has secrets, reader has a difficult relationship with family, two beds (but that won't last)

You should feel terrible about this. Distraught. Riddled with a crippling sadness over a lie that grew from your own selfishness. But, there’s nothing but tremendous relief as you shove your things into the trunk of your Uber and crawl into the backseat, starting the three hour drive into the deep Piney Woods of Texas.

You should feel horrible.

But, the silence is nice. You’re especially thankful that your driver wasn’t a people person at all, pointedly avoiding any communication outside of a greeting. It feels business-like, transactional. You couldn’t be bothered with the niceties and cheerfulness that surrounded the holidays. It made you sick to your stomach, chewing on your bottom lip without a thought in your mind as you inch closer. A three hour drive turns into two, falling asleep somewhere along the way, only waking up fifteen minutes away, somewhere along a rocky drive down a scenic, winding road that pulls a beautiful cabin into view.

It was lit up, decorated like a fucking christmas tree.

You grimaced slightly, but despite that, it was still everything you expected. It wasn’t too large or spacious, you wouldn’t feel so alone out here for the few weeks you were planning to stay and it wasn’t too cramped either. You felt if you uttered the word perfect it would turn into a jinx, so you kept yourself together and dragged yourself out into the cold, frigid air when the car pulled to a stop. The driver helped you with your bags, you remember to leave him with a big, gracious tip that left him more than satisfied, and he was on his way without a word.

You took a big breath, expanding your lungs and breathing in the fresh air. You didn’t feel suffocated here, something you noticed immediately. It wasn’t because of the lack of city pollution. Dragging your bags up the steps are a challenge, but you manage even with the rickety wheel that snags on a chipped piece of brick, unlocking your phone to remember the code that the owner had sent you earlier that morning, fumbling until your fingers came to life and pressed the code into the lock, a satisfying click of relief in the mechanism and you turned the doorknob.

Finally.

The heat blasts your face like a furnace, thawing out your limbs as you move quickly, efficiently and with too much urgency to escape the nighttime cold. You don’t notice much at first, among the amenities that came with the cabin, a fresh bottle of wine on the table and a note tucked under, something you would guzzle down sometime later. There was a fire going, low and crackling—seems unsafe, but what the hell did you know? It had to be the owners, assuming they came out earlier in the day in preparation for your arrival.

There’s blankets littered throughout, draped over the back of a couch, dark and covered in an unseemly plaid pattern, another stack of smaller blankets placed on a nearby cushion. Freezing to death seemed to be their immediate concern, obviously. You wandered aimlessly in the dark, scoping out both a light switch and the kitchen, noticing the stock of food, things that wouldn’t perish easily, probably for emergencies, but things are even more interesting as you approach the fridge, bathed in the fluorescent light as you look at the also stocked fridge, not fully, more sparsely, like someone who couldn’t decide on what to eat or maybe only cooked one meal a day. It’s then when a thought dawns on you that feels impossible, a lingering suspicious as your eyebrows pull into a taut line, fanning over the marble slab of counter-space, eyes landing on the window that hung over the kitchen sink behind a wretchedly patterned curtain, spotting the old truck parked outside the back of the cabin.

Your mind filters through a thousand and one reasons on why it would be there, but whatever is there in your mind is quickly snuffed out by the creaks of rickety floorboards and a hall light flickering on in the distance behind you—you reach and ultimately fumble for anything nearby to use as a weapon, landing on the single-most deadly thing in your line of sight that you can grasp quickly. There’s a knife block a few feet away and it’s the only plausible thing your brain can think of in a panic, unsheathing and turning on your heels to the person standing several feet away.

He is large, you can tell as much. Still mostly covered by the shadow of darkness that blanketed the rest of the cabin, you could make out the scruff of some facial hair, his tall stature, and the axe he gripped by the neck.

A fucking axe.

You were, no doubt, about to be murdered. It was the only thought on your mind, because despite the hard grip on the handle of the knife, you were no match.

But, then he speaks.

“Got about ten seconds to start explain’ what the hell you’re doin’ in this cabin.” As expected, his voice left little room to argue—but you had paid to be here. Fucking paid. You had every right.

Fuck this guy.

You grip the knife a tighter, knuckle-white grip as you raise it in a feeble attempt to seem threatening, “I booked this place for a month, I’ve got the front door code—who the fuck are you?”

You’re surprised that it works, but the rigidness in the stranger’s shoulder relaxes slightly and the butt of the axe hits the floor as he rests against an adjoining wall.

“Don’t think none of that matters,” He replies with a reverence of annoyance as he flicks on a nearby light and illuminates the living area of the cabin—shit, that’s where it was? Part of you was glad you hadn’t found it, wondering if he had been waiting in the shadows since you stepped inside the cabin, “you need to drive back into town and explain the mix up.”

Drive back? A fucking mix up?

“No.” It’s a steady answer, no quiver in your voice. You lower the knife, but it’s still held tightly at your side. And as the stranger steps into clearer view, you can’t help but memorize his face.

You know, in the case that you might need to describe it to the police if you weren’t already dead by then.

It’s almost unfair how threatening he looks without trying and yet somehow, irreverently handsome. It feels like a silly thought to have, but you weren’t blind. He’s older, much older than yourself. Hardened features, a sharp jawline covered with a thicker beard kept trimmed but still patchy in spots, face worn with worry. He was undoubtedly human and vulnerable, just like you. You can’t see much about his stature beside his height and tanned skin, muddled out by his pajamas, though he seems like he probably does some heavy lifting.

And meanwhile, your staring is noticed. He remains several feet of distance but his eyebrow quirks upwards slightly, arms crossing over his chest and—oh. He is the last person you would want to spar in a fight, biceps pulling taut and bulging slightly.

“Sure you didn’t book the other cabin down the way?” He sounds like he’s questioning a child, such a ridiculous mistake to make.

Oh, how could you be so stupid?

There was no mistaking which cabin you booked, because obviously, the other one was already booked out. This one wasn’t.

At least, it wasn’t supposed to be.

“Look,” The knife clatters against the counter and his eyes track it before averting back to you, “I get that you probably think this is some mistake on my part and whatever grumpy attitude you have, I also get it,” You really fucking did, feeling the beginnings of your blood boil with frustration, “I booked this trip two months ago, I triple checked the address, the owners sent me the door code yesterday morning. There is no way I booked the other cabin.”

He doesn’t even flinch, not a muscle. He’s unconvinced, unamused, and rearing on the edge of throwing your bags out himself just to get you out of here.

“Jesus, fuck—” You rip your phone from your coat pocket and flip through your apps until you land on the email full of information, booking address, dates, and all, and slide the phone across the counter, because despite his willingness to kick you out on your ass, the murderous aspect subsided the moment he dropped the axe.

Now, he just seemed like an asshole.

He approaches slowly, eyeing the phone skeptically before making it seem diminutive in his grip, squinting moderately as he brought the phone closer and looked, expression dropping by the millisecond as the realization settled in. And you start to feel triumphant, like you might’ve actually won the argument. There was still one problem at hand.

He was still here. You were still here.

And neither of you were going anywhere.

So, instead of trying to compromise, he doubles down.

“I was here first.”

“You’re fucking kidding me?” In a world of assholes, he was their all triumphant leader, “It’s below freezing, I Uber’d three hours to get out here, and I have no service. I’m not leaving.”

This, ultimately, had to be your worst nightmare. Double-booking? In the middle of the woods with a complete stranger who obviously had some murderous tendencies if his first instinct was to grab a goddamn axe? And no service?

“You didn’t drive here?” It’s the only thing he asks, bypassing everything else.

“You know, I think I just said I didn’t.”

“You had someone drive you three hours out in the woods with no way of transportation anywhere for,” He takes a second glance at your phone, noting the booking dates, “four weeks?”

Admittedly, it was done on a whim. You hadn’t thought out the fine details, but you knew there was a small store a few miles north that was run by a nice old lady that provided to some of the people who did live out in these woods year round. It was the one thing the owners had added as an addition to the obvious plus of the cabin being so secluded. Plus, the cabin was stocked with some food, or at least, it was.

You wanted no contact. But, obviously you weren’t going to get that.

“Kinda part of the whole getting away for the holidays memo,” You reply sarcastically, “I would’ve managed, mind you.”

Maybe. You would’ve figured it out eventually, but that didn’t matter. Things weren’t going as planned now. You interject again, crossing your arms to match his stance briefly before throwing your arm out flippantly as you waved a hand toward the untraversed hallway.

“This place has two bedrooms, doesn’t it?”

A two bed, one bath cabin. You remembered that much.

He clears his throat, “Yeah.” He sounds so foreboding it makes you ache with an anxiety you had tried so hard to escape from.

“And seein’ as you’re here alone,” You didn’t need to make any assumption otherwise, he seemed like the lonely type, “and I’m here alone—I’m staying.”

“For the night.” He corrects, “Then I can drive you into town tomorrow morning and you can get your refund and find a ride home.”

You fight the urge to roll your eyes, snatching your phone off the counter and stowing it away in your pocket again, finally taking the steps to bypass him and reach for your bags.

The thing was—you weren’t leaving. If there was anything to be learned about you, it was how undoubtedly stubborn you could be. This cabin was just as rightfully yours as it would be anyone else who paid for the time. It was money you had worked to save up, money you had shoveled out to secure yourself a relaxing holiday and it wasn’t about to be ruined.

His voice startles you as he, somehow, had moved closer without you noticing. He was reaching for your bags too, because despite his grumpiness, he was still that guy—of course.

“Don’t. Touch.” You glance at him with a warning, which he takes, thankfully. He retracts and lingers briefly as he snuffs out the fire before he returns to his own room, you can only assume.

And even if you wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt, you still barricade your door that night, suitcase stacked on suitcase, bag on bag, and you’re almost sure he can hear it if he’s still awake. You hope he does.

But, when your head hits the pillow, all tucked away in the bed that would become yours for the next month, you immediately fall asleep despite the lingering threat outside your door.

It all feels like a horrible dream until your eyes open the next morning and again, you’re here.

Then there’s a lingering smell of bacon, breakfast cooking in the distance and the house is warm, inviting, welcoming. Damn.

Fine. You were curious. Still annoyed, but not as much after a night of sleep. You could approach this at a different angle, with a better attitude and maybe work something out with the stranger outside of your bedroom.

You stretch your limbs until the protest and steady on your feet, wrapping one of the spare blankets at the end of the bed over your shoulders and around your body as you trudge toward the living area, connected kitchen off to the side as you round the corner of the hallway.

Your eyes settle on his back first, thankful he doesn’t immediately lock eyes with you when you enter—his muscles stretch as he fiddles with something on the stove, shoulder blades pulling inwards as he shakes the pan gripped in his right hand, still dressed in his clothes from the night before and his hair mussed up in the back from sleep and it feels odd to admire him for a moment, but you really can’t help it.

There was a time when you’d scold yourself, but a lifetime of horrible boyfriends and even worse hook-ups, you knew that you had needs and feelings and you weren’t the type to ignore them or make excuses. Whoever he was, whatever his name may be, he was handsome. It was the first thing you thought about last night, despite the presence of possible murder, and it was the only immediate thing on your mind at the moment.

It had been months. You were giving up a little lee-way to feel bad for yourself.

But, then he’s speaking and it startles you to near death.

“Mornin’.” He greets with a reverence you are not expecting. He sounds relaxed.

The fucker sounds relaxed. Like he hadn’t tried to kick you out on your ass the night before. Your face pulls up in a disgruntled scrunch and you have the gamble to look confused. Because, yeah. This was not the person you met last night—given you were technically an intruder in his mind.

Maybe he wasn’t a complete asshole after all—No. Nope. You barely know him.

“You gonna keep starin’ or eat some breakfast?” He asks a little less polite, but it’s rude enough to elicit a response. Because, yes—you were starving.

So, stare and eat.

You take a seat at the barstool tucked under the island and assess the field, a mix of simple breakfast items: pancakes, eggs, bacon, toasts with varying levels of char, and a small bowl of mixed berries.

This feels…a little too much. But, you dig in with a ferocity that stomps out any current concern.

“Look–” He starts after a long bout of silence, having turned off the burner and beginning to assemble his own plate.

“If this is an apology breakfast for being a complete asshole,” You shake your head, cheeks puffed with the fluffiness of a pancake, slathered and drowned in syrup a few berries swimming in the pooled up sugary mess as you forked them and stuffed them in alongside, “apology accepted. Forgiven. Whatever.”

You couldn’t be bothered to care at that moment. You’d stood your ground, you weren’t leaving.

“It’s…not.” He eventually manages to say, interrupted by your schpiel, cutting his way through his eggs before forking a piece into his mouth, chewing slowly, “Look, I didn’t want send you off with an empty stomach, might not be great at this,” He waves a vagrant hand—Oh, so…talking to people, being accommodating, this last could drag on and on and—”but it’s not your fault, I guess.”

“It’s not,” You quickly retorted, the space between your brow scrunched into a permanent scowl at this point, “are you—You’re still trying to kick me out? No….no.”

“I was here—”

“First, yeah. I heard you last night.”

And part of you hears the echoing of your mother, that pestering and insisting tone she carried.

“Try new things, sweetheart. Meet someone. You never know what will happen.”

Of course, that didn’t apply to complete strangers. She meant it in the context of: find a nice boy, date him, marry him, and give her grand-babies. You were never going to be that person.

You tried. Hard. Dated for a year, then two, and that ended in a mess of tears. You hated thinking about the effort you attempted to put into a relationship that was doomed from the beginning. You both ended up at different colleges and it was all for naught. And through college, you swore off boyfriends, slept around, and it was easier. But, it was less than exciting.

In fact, it was boring.

But regardless, the sentiment stuck around. You weren’t trying to trick this man into falling in love with you, but you weren’t going to let him displace you on a holiday vacation.

Screw this guy.

“This cabin has two bedrooms and plenty of space. I booked this place until the end of the month and I’m not giving it up,” You state matter-of fact, “You’re not driving me back into town and you’re not going to boss me around like you have some authority over me. I don’t even know you.”

The man seems speechless for a moment, chewing silently at his breakfast.

That was exactly what he assumed would happen—that he could, basically, command you into leaving. Thankfully, you didn’t do well with authority.

“Actually, how do I know you aren’t some squatter?” You ask suddenly, fork clanking against the plate as it falls, “Why don’t you show some proof that you paid to be here?”

It shouldn’t surprise you when he reaches for his own phone, taking his sweet, sweet time to scroll until he finds the proof and slots the phone your way. It doesn’t surprise you. You only wanted the proof.

But, you can’t help the way your eyes bug out when you read the dates, matching up almost perfectly with your own, give or take a few days—which is why he arrived before you. He was here until the day after Christmas, just like you.

Your luck, of course.

You slid the phone back toward him and pushed your plate aside, thankfully full up on breakfast, but still frustrated. Things weren’t supposed to go this way. It was supposed to be a month away, a month of seclusion. But, that obstacle was standing opposite of you.

You sigh heavily, shrinking under your blanket and burying your head into cupped hands, digging the heels of your palms in until you see stars, coming up for air only after the plates start to clink against each other from movement.

“Okay,” You take a breath, lifting your head slowly, “I’m guessing you came out here to be alone,” It’s only an assumption, but it seems glaringly obvious, “so did I. So, how about we just do our best to avoid each other?”

“Seems kinda hard,” He argues, “seeing as we’re under one roof.”

“Well, we eat together. Or we don’t at all. I don’t need you cooking meals for me—but outside of that or just some occasional passing by, we don’t have to talk.”

It wasn’t a well-thought-out plan, but…

You’ve had enough roommates to have mastered this skill by now. Just because you were under the same roof as someone didn’t mean you had to get along, though it was ideal. It was a month. You could manage.

Keep your things locked away, doors locked too, always keep your guard up, live the entire vacation with the lingering thought that maybe he might have underlying murderous tendencies—and guessing by the even blanker look on his face as he examines you, your mind really starts to wonder.

“Fine.” He agrees.

Wait.

“You’re serious?”

“Doesn’t seem like you’re givin' me much of a choice.”

You smile triumphantly, a little too eager to gloat.

“Unfair, isn’t it?”

You couldn’t resist. And you brace for a rigid retort, some grumble under his breath. But, it never comes.

Instead, he chuckles. It’s so slight you almost miss it, but his chest shakes with a silent laughter before he’s returning to his neutral state and shaking his head in disbelief.

“Must be used to gettin’ your way.” He’s eyes flick up, hands buried into the dishwater he’s managed to start up under the rumble of conversation—there’s definitely something there, a glint in his eyes.

You feel like you’re imagining things. You definitely were.

“Not at all, actually.” You contradict, tapping a lone finger against the countertop, “So—can I ask your name? Seein’ how we’re going to be around each other for the next…month.” It feels unreal as it rolls off your tongue.

A month with a total stranger. Perfect idea.

“Joel.” He answers simply. You have to take his word for it. But, you don’t sense a lie. You respond with a polite utterance of your own name and that closes the conversation out.

You watch in silence as Joel cleans, his pointed wandering around the kitchen, a purpose behind his steps as he moves. He’s so…broad. So large.

Much larger than any man you’ve come to know, or seen, really. You blame it on the fact that college boys were just that…boys. They weren’t men. Not like Joel.

He carried it in his voice, his demeanor, the age on his face that worked—and so well, at that. You never had a reason to look at men, older men. The type that would complain about you being half their age, how you reminded them of their own daughter. You would wretch away in disgust and flee a million miles in the other direction.

But, Joel. He wasn’t like that at all. He hadn’t given you a reason to think otherwise—and here you were, lusting over someone you knew nothing about. Pathetic.

“Starin’ ain’t polite,” He chides, no malice in his tone but it pulls you away from your quickly fleeting, depraved thoughts, “parents never teach you that?”

“I never listened much,” You shrug, but there’s an urge to apologize given the close quarters and conditions you were agreeing to live under for the next few weeks, “and it’s a bad habit, sorry.” It feels a little less than sincere, but Joel takes it with no issue.

But, there’s a sight you don’t catch as you retreat back to your own room.

Because Joel—his eyes follow you the entire way, wondering just how much of a mess he wrapped himself up in when he agreed.

—

Your eyes dry up with how long you’ve stared at your phone screen, staring at the small letters that spell out No Service and huffing out a small sigh as you rolled over in bed, shifted to find a comfortable spot…nothing.

You shift again, still not good enough.

This was going to be a nightmare if you secluded yourself in the bedroom, cooped up on a bed that, while decent, wasn’t your own.

Maybe booking this trip was a terrible idea.

You shouldn’t have lied to your parents about your reasoning for a spur of the moment trip to the deep woods of Texas—even though you had booked it out weeks in advance.

And that you were taking the trip with a boy that didn’t exist, which was a bigger lie to add to the already rapidly growing web you’d weaved.

“You don’t know him,” You’d told her, “I’m not ready to introduce him.”

Because, really—how the fuck were you supposed to introduce someone who didn’t exist?

You sit with a defeated jolt and reach for one of your bags, the only one filled with things that weren’t absolute necessities. Mostly books, a music player, stuff that would, hopefully, keep you busy if you got bored while you were here alone.

Alone was a foreign concept now.

Somewhere in the fog of thoughts you find a book, covered tattered from years of wear, years and years of rereads that never got old.

You could make yourself disappear somewhere on the couch in the living room, but not stuffed into a corner in a bedroom when you had an entire house at your expense.

Joel wouldn’t even know you were there.

—

Joel wasn’t even here.

When you step out into the hall, floorboards creaking underneath your weight, the silence otherwise is deafening. You traverse further, his bedroom door shut tight.

Well, maybe he had the same idea you originally did, tucking yourself away into your room. You shrug to yourself and continue the path to the couch, noting that Joel had started another fire. The cabin was well-insulated but it was a nice touch, the soft crackling of the burning wood and kindling, the feel—it was very…appropriate.

You settle into the cushion and finally feel that little slice of comfort you were searching for, feet curled up somewhere beside you with a blanket draped over your lap, book flipped open to the beginning.

This felt perfect. Or close to it. You tried to ignore the fact that you weren’t alone, not at all. But, it was damn near close.

And the peace lasts, for an hour, that is.

Turns out, Joel did leave.

To where? No clue. But, he comes in with snow covered boots and a heavy winter coat, cheeks flushed pink and the ghost of his breath appearing in front of him as he stomps his feet out on the doormat. He closes the door before you can offer a protest his way, removing his winter gear layer by layer…

You force your eyes away, rereading the paragraph you were on a few times before you find your place again and continue through the story, face buried in the book as you raise it slightly, left arm slung over the back of the couch as you lick the index finger on your right hand, flipping the page.

Ignore him. It was easy.

But somewhere along the way, Joel appears closer.

“Lord of the Flies?” He looks bemused, puzzled, shocked. Like an expression of—Really? You?

You return the look, even stranger as you tilt the book away from him, noticing the way his hand grips his winter gloves in a tight grasp, eyes shooting up to his face.

“Yeah.” It’s a simple answer, nothing to elaborate about.

He could read—fucking fantastic.

His eyebrows raise in disbelief, but it doesn’t feel antagonizing. “Remember readin’ that when I was young,” He comments, “still holds up?”

“I’d say so,” You respond, offering him the attention he wasn’t inadvertently asking for, “why?”

Joel seems so…lonely. From a glance, at least. He’s got a sadness around his eyes that you never noticed until he had approached you so closely. He was only a few inches away from the back of the couch, just out of reach, and he sways a little on his feet like he favors one leg over the other and he hangs his head ever so slightly.

You weren’t here to question him or even attempt to know him, really—but you can’t help it.

“Just curious,” He settles on, “can’t remember the last time I sat down and read a book, really. Don’t think I’d have the patience for it now either, but y’know…”

You didn’t.

He looks like he wants to say more, but he settles for silence. And, it doesn’t feel weird this time. He retreats a moment later, footsteps echoing throughout the cabin before the question comes to mind, retching itself out of your mouth before you have the consciousness to stop it.

“Wait, how old are you?” You ask curiously, attempting the math on your fingers, back and forth, eyes squinting in confusion as the book falls over your lap and your turn to catch a final glimpse of him.

“Kid, you’re gonna hurt yourself thinkin’ that hard.” Joel jokes lightly, something you haven’t seen before, but then he answers simply, “Fifty-six.”

Oh. Huh.

You nod slowly in response before turning away, burying your head back into the book in an attempt to avoid whatever look comes your way. The click of a door is a sigh of relief as you stop reading entirely, resting the book against your lap as you take a moment.

The snow was falling heavily, blanketing the ground with inches of fluffy white. It beckons the question of why Joel would even traverse out in this weather—or why he would’ve subjected you to this had he forced you back into town and back in a car to the city.

He must’ve liked his loneliness too and here you were, wrecking those plans like he had wrecked yours.

But, maybe this was a good thing.

Maybe you had saved Joel from his own loneliness, unknowingly.

And maybe he had saved you too.

—

As the night winds down, separate dinners aside after Joel allowed you free pickings of whatever was in the kitchen that he brought along with him, you find that the bottle of wine still remained unopened, the note addressed to no one in particular.

Not you or Joel. It was fair game and you’d won.

By now, the sun is long gone and the only light that came through the windows were the twinkling bright lights that hung outside and the flush, orange glow of the never waning fire, like a constant reminder of Joel’s presence in the house. He refreshed it every few hours and you watched as he did so, hunched over as he knelt, sleeves bunched up around his elbows and sometimes shifting completely onto his knees as he replaced the logs or waded up some extra paper to toss in.

You eye the bottle curiously—it was nothing special. A store bought Chardonnay that tasted good enough to enjoy, but it wasn’t something to brag about. If it could get you drunk, it was worth a million bucks.

You rummage around the kitchen until you find an appropriate glass—something wide, deep, and refillable. The tip of the bottle clinks against the glass as you pour, teeth biting as the inside of your cheeks as you decide that…mmm, no, just a little more.

“Bottle ain’t runnin’ from ya.” Joel comments, again to your surprise and it makes you jump, hard. Hard enough that a splash of spirits dampens the front of your shirt and you scowl in the older man’s direction.

“Stop doing that,” You're more than serious, deadly serious. At least, you try to be.

Unfortunately, you’re not at all as threatening as you think you appear to be. And Joel has a glass dangling from his own fingertips, only a sip left of dark brown liquid and you surmise that he had the same idea. A nightcap before bed.

Or, in your case, half a bottle of Chardonnay.

Joel deposits the glass into the sink silently, ignoring how you aggressively dab the front of your shirt with a hand towel to soak up some of the alcohol, like it wasn’t his fault. Inadvertently.

“Are you always that jumpy?” Joel asks after a minute or so, lingering around the edge of the island, tired eyes and even more tired pull of his lips, not quite a smile, not much of a scowl either.

“Forgive me for being a little on edge,” You retort with a sass that, quite frankly, is unwarranted. But, you’re feeling snarky and the moment calls for it, “I’m rooming with a strange man who greeted me with an axe.”

“If I recall, you pointed a knife at me all the same,” Valid point, pointless argument to make against you, though. “And weren’t you the one who put your foot down about stayin’ here?”

Yes, you did.

There’s too long of a silence because, really, you aren’t sure how to cut the tension—and maybe it was one-sided, but you couldn’t help but still retain some anger, some jealousy that you weren’t here alone.

“Alright, so maybe we can’t ignore each other like you want,” Joel explains, in reality it does seem impossible, but you had been hopeful, “doesn’t mean you have to scamper like a cat when you see me.”

Your bottom lip pulls in between your teeth before you’re pressing the glass to your lips and taking a hearty sip, steadfast in your silence.

Joel face contorts in thought, like he’s trying to think out his next few words careful, rubbing a hand through his scruff, speckled with patches of gray throughout, a particular spot just below his ear that his thumb reaches, just at the hinge of his jaw and he rubs.

And, you’re staring again.

Joel doesn’t say anything this time if he does clock it.

“I came out here same as you, enjoyin’ my time alone.” Joel explains, feeling the deep timbre of his voice as he speaks, “I don’t have any intention of tryin’ to hurt you, nothin’ like that. Let’s just…be cordial.”

Even if that meant faking it.

Though, there’s a sincerity to Joel when he speaks that strikes, not often found with the people you’ve met in your life. And you know why you’re being so bitter, so abrasive and biting, but that resolves softens slightly,

Maybe it was the Chardonnay.

When had you finished off the glass?

“Cordial?” You repeat, echoing the sentiment.

“Yeah,” Joel nods, trying to offer up a different definition, “Friendly, polite.”

It’s clear that even despite his aura of loneliness, he seemed to deal with strangers often. You were a stranger to him. It wasn’t the first thing that struck you, so worried about your own safety that you had snuck into his idea of his own territory, now that territory was being shared.

“No, I know what cordial means,” You reply flippantly, a little jaded by the gesture that he felt he needed to explain, “—I just, I was gonna offer you a drink then.”

Even though he very obviously already had his fill of what you can only surmise was bourbon, noting a bottle shoved away on a nearby alcohol designated shelf.

“A gesture,” You lay the sweetness on thick and Joel rolls his eyes half-heartedly, seeing right through you, “of—good faith, I guess. We can forget we were ready to murder each other last night and start fresh.”

“Darlin’, m’not much of a wine man.”

Darlin’. That was new.

You start to realize that when the sun goes down, his regional accent thickens up, forced out by exhaustion but it’s nice, comforting almost. It reminds you of back home, despite your lack of enthusiasm of being around your family, it gives you the hope that maybe you and Joel aren’t all that different from each other.

“Then, just sit.” You shrug, nodding toward the small table for two squished in the corner of the alcove, right beside a cushioned seat buried in the shape of the hexagonal wall, window view as far as your eyes could reach, distance buried in a thick bush of trees but if you squint hard enough, you can see another cabin off in the distance. The cabin you should’ve booked, but couldn’t.

Maybe this was your own personal reckoning.

Much to your surprise, Joel does take a seat.

When you’re both finally seated, comfortable, you ask the first question:

“Where are you from?” You ask curiously.

Forward, that’s for sure. Joel could respect it, but still has a reaction to remain taken aback.

“Come on, you can lie and I wouldn’t know any better,” You remind him, “fine, I’m from Austin, born and raised.”

Joel’s chin hits his sternum as he chuckles, looking away briefly off into the distance and you laugh a little in response, confused.

“What? Is that funny or something?”

“No, no—I’m…I’m also from Austin,” He admits, the likelihood not impossible but it is surely a fucking coincidence, “lived there my whole life.”

Well, maybe you’ve crossed paths before, but Austin was a big city and it seemed unlikely.

Your eyes narrow, attempting to read him. It’s more of a gag at your expense, watching as he looks just as skeptical of you, brown eyes examining your face as intently as he could. You have to ignore the feeling to shrink under his gaze, intense and all-encompassing, it feels suffocating, but not in a way that makes you want to escape.

It wasn’t like that at all. In fact, it was welcoming. Like a safety blanket. He blinks once, twice, speaks when things grow awkward—

“I’m not…lyin’,” Joel admits, “that isn’t a lie.”

“You’re not supposed to tell me, Joel.”

Joel cracks a half-smile, wrestling with the aching joints in his hands as he squeezes his hands together, hands that have been through things, surely: hard work, years of labor, covered with small scars from burns and scrapes, you can only assume.

“The whole idea is that…we don’t know each other. We aren’t going to see each other after this,” You tell him, curled up in the chair, wine glass resting on your knee and a fist nudged up under your chin, “you could tell me your deepest, darkest secrets and it wouldn’t matter because I’m not supposed to know if you’re lying or not.”

“So, if I ask you what someone like you is doin’ out here during the holidays instead of where you should be—with family or kids your age, what’ll you tell me?” Joel asks curiously, taking the bait and returning it with a challenge.

You have no reason to tell the truth. But, you also don’t have a reason to lie.

“My family is suffocating.” You shrug indifferently, “They helicopter my life and I didn’t want to face it this Christmas, so I fed them some story and booked a trip out here for the month.”

His eyes soften and you have to hide your reaction behind a sip of your wine, knowing that any sympathy sent your way was not welcomed. You didn’t want it or need it.

“Am I allowed to ask about the story?” Joel questions.

It’s almost surprising, seeing him suddenly interested in your game.

You giggle quietly to yourself, lips pressed against the wine glass before you pull it away briefly.

“They think I’m out here with a super secret boyfriend that I refuse to introduce to them.”

He can see how cheeky you’re being about the whole thing, seemingly relishing in the enjoyment of torturing your parents. You’ve got your eyes on him too, staring at him again. He’s noticed it one too many times.

Dangerous. It’s dangerous. Again, he doesn’t stop you.

His breathing is calm, solid—he’s settled in his seat and relaxed, something you haven’t had the chance to witness. Joel is so…normal. It reminds you that in any other circumstance, if you had met him at a store or somewhere in town, that you wouldn’t spare him a second glance. He’s handsome, sickeningly so. But, you would’ve passed him up without a thought. He would’ve done the same.

For…different reasons, perhaps.

But, these were special circumstances.

You note how his hair is probably a little outgrown, curling around his ears and a deep, deep brown. Almost black but not quite. He doesn’t seem like a guy who styles his hair, allows it to lay how it pleases and doesn’t fuss much over his looks. But, the longer you look, the more mesmerizing he becomes. There’s a tan line on his wrist from what you can only assume is a watch, but he isn’t wearing it now—he must work in the sun, noting the way he’s sunkissed on just about every other part of his exposed body, up to the beginnings of scruff that starts below his chin, near his neck. His toned arms that could definitely swing an axe without a problem. You don’t linger on his legs for even a second, knowing that even for you it would be too far. But, he crosses them at the thought, like a cue—or a tease. Was he….

No.

You continue idly, trying to mask yourself like you were lost in thought, tracing a finger around the lip of the wine glass, “If they knew the truth, they’d shit themselves all the same.”

Joel chuckles softly, a low grumble that is barely audible.

“Spendin’ your Christmas with an old man, half your age. I’m sure that’ll comfort ‘em well.”

He never asked, only assumed. But, basing it off your evident naivety, he couldn’t be far off.

“Eh..give or take a couple years.” You shrug, resting the glass on the table and crossing your arms. “They’ve always treated me like a kid, always questioning my decisions. I just wanted one holiday without it. Without…anything, really.”

Joel looks away, like the thought of that stings him, burrows at him in a different way. You want to ask, but refrain, no matter how strong the urge.

“Sorry ‘bout that, darlin’.”

And there it was again.

You can’t fight the small smile that works its way onto your face despite yourself.

Joel doesn’t understand, looking at you inquisitively, something he’s become used to around you in the short time he’s been here, “What?”

“Darlin’.” You mock his southern draw playfully, echoing his deep voice despite your differing pitches, “Reminds me of home.”

“Jus’ slips out from time to time,” Joel admits, “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” You assure him with a more welcoming smile, “I don’t mind.”

Joel shakes his head in tired amusement, rubbing his fingertips against the worry lines in his forehead before they shift down his face and you can see the exhaustion in his face. He doesn’t look well-rested at all, not even on a vacation meant for that exact reason. You feel guilty now, keeping him up into the late hours of the night for your own entertainment. He looks away again, off toward something that your eyes don’t follow.

You moved rather silently as you stood, picking up your mess and stowing the bottle away in the fridge returning to bid a goodnight to Joel, who was no longer much of a stranger anymore. But, he’s already asleep—somewhere between the time it took you to clean up and put away the alcohol, he had passed out.

He’d stayed up for you, noting how soundlessly he slept now.

You don’t have the heart to wake him up, quickly assess your surroundings and find the thick hand-woven blanket resting over the back of the couch and pick it up, draping it over him carefully. He doesn’t shift an inch, cheek resting against a close fist, the other hand closed just as tight where it rests in his lap, seeming like he was always on guard, even in his sleep. You’ve never been more intrigued by a stranger, even if this was fleeting and foolish, you wanted to understand him. And as much as Joel was trying to fight it, he wanted to understand you too.

Thank you for reading this to the end! If you enjoyed please extend a like or reblog (with a comment if you'd like, i love reading them <3) to support writers, it helps a ton!

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pathologicalreid · 5 months

Note

could you do a third part to buried alive where the reader finally gets a bit better and goes out into the field for the first time and then the team goes and gets drinks after bc they are so proud of her :) -🌱

back again | S.R.

part one | part two

in which you go back into the field (and kick ass)

who? spencer reid x fem!BAU!reader

category? angst and then fluff

content warnings: established relationship. PTSD undertones. guns and physical fighting. reader is paired with morgan and kicks ass. usual cm case stuff. going to a bar and alcohol consumption. use of 'ass'. reader is referred to as a girl.

word count: 1.8k

a/n: hey anon i love you!!! i never expected people to like this story so much, but im so grateful i hope you enjoy!! thanks for reading <3 don't forget to like and reblog <3333333333

It felt good. Standing outside of a suspect's house with Morgan felt normal to you, having your firearm holstered, felt right.

He was trying to get ahold of the team, but the two of you were far from the town and, apparently, cell service. “The call keeps dropping, but they know where we are. They should be on their way,” he told you, getting out of the car. “If you’re uncomfortable going in, you don’t have to.”

You rolled your eyes and got out of the SUV. “I’ve got your back,” you responded self-assuredly. It was your first case back in the field, and besides, you weren’t about to let Derek walk into the lion's den alone.

Despite your attempt at confidence, you hadn’t planned on going to a suspect's house. The two of you had been on your way back from talking to a victim’s family, meaning you didn’t have vests. “I know you do,” Morgan confirmed, removing his sunglasses and snapping the temples down. “Go around back, I’ll take the front,” he said.

Nodding, you unholstered your weapon and kept it pointed toward the ground, you took a deep breath before wrapping around the white farmhouse.

Paranoid thoughts pelted your brain. Did you remember to shut off your phone’s ringer? What if the suspect had a gun? What if the information you were given was wrong and you didn’t have probable cause?

You shook your head, peeking in through the open blinds, you saw the kitchen. The town you were in was on the smaller side, and the only thing that surrounded you was farmland. You saw movement out of the corner of your eye and wished you had been given more time to prepare, having comms right now would be remarkably helpful.

Approaching the back door, you leaned against the siding before reaching over and turning the doorknob. It was already unlocked, which could either be a good thing or a bad thing. You swung the door open and stepped inside the house, pointing your Glock around the kitchen, you saw Morgan entering the living room in your peripheral vision. “Clear!” You called out, and shortly after, Morgan called the same.

Once you had cleared the main floor, Morgan moved upstairs and you moved downstairs, pulling your flashlight from your belt, you pointed it down the steps.

“Jackson Fike this is the FBI,” you called, making yourself known. You reached the bottom of the stairs, just to see another door, wide open. “Damn it,” you cursed, “Morgan, he’s running!” You shouted, hoping your voice would be able to carry up two flights of stairs.

You pocketed your flashlight and took off running out the door. Distantly, you saw a man fitting the suspect's description sprinting towards the woods. Without a second thought, you followed, expecting Derek to be not far behind you.

Thankfully, it was still light outside, the scent of the damp earth filled your senses, but it didn’t overwhelm you. You wouldn’t let it.

You skidded to a halt in the forest, keeping your back to a tree so you could be attacked from behind, “Jackson Fike, you can’t keep running like this. You know as well as I do that the road ends here.” You spoke loudly, hoping he heard you from wherever he had disappeared into the woods.

His choices here boiled down to giving himself up or being on the run for the rest of his life. Based on the profile the team had put together, he would never be able to leave this town. Not by choice, at least.

The snap of a twig gave his location away, you twisted your body in the direction of the noise. Your ears perked up like a bloodhound. “Jackson, if you come with me and tell me where the girls are, maybe I could see about keeping you close to home. Close to your house, that’s what’s important, right?” You tried to negotiate with him. You didn’t know if he was armed, but you did know that suicide by cop wasn’t in his profile. It was also less paperwork if you cuffed him without a fight.

“You can’t make me that promise, agent,” he responded. His voice was gravelly despite only being in his late thirties. “Why would I negotiate with a fed when I could just kill one instead?” He asked.

His question sent a chill down your spine all the way down to where your handcuffs rested on your back. “You’re right,” you ceded, “You’d be worshipped in prison for killing a fed, but why take that chance?”

In a flash, the UnSub smacked your wrist, causing a misfire into the trees, and making your weapon hit the ground.

That was fine, your marksmanship was good enough to pass your qualifications, but hand-to-hand was where you really excelled. He charged at you, but you jumped out of the way.

Closer to the farmhouse you heard voices, but you didn’t let yourself get distracted. Instead, you used your one boxing lesson with JJ and kicked. The inside of your foot provided enough surface to daze your opponent, he stumbled around, and you made sure to keep both of your feet firmly planted to the ground.

He swung back, but you ducked just in time to feel the breeze of his swing against your face. In response, you swung back, hitting him across the face.

Jackson retaliated, using both hands to push you into a tree, crushing your shoulder but not doing anything to stop you from throwing another hit, striking him on the head, and causing him to fall to the ground. He groaned as you crouched down and pulled your cuffs out, fastening them around his wrists.

As you read him his rights, the local police and the rest of your team approached you. Emily looked at you warily, Spencer was searching for injuries, but Morgan was grinning. He was like a giddy little kid who had heard the ice cream truck turn on his street.

Handing off the UnSub to a local, you eyed Morgan suspiciously, “What are you smiling at?” You asked, rotating your shoulder in a failed attempt to make it feel better.

“You took that guy down,” Derek said, gesturing to where the police officer was now taking the UnSub.

Confused, you shrugged, “Yeah, and?”

He laughed again, “Oh, you are so back, pretty girl.”

A flight later, you were hunched over takedown paperwork, something you certainly hadn’t missed during your time away from the field. At the desk adjacent to yours, Spencer was flipping through a book, waiting for you so you could go home.

After initialing each page and signing the last one, you placed the papers into the confidential file. Going up the stairs to Hotch’s office, you knocked on the door, “Come in.”

You stepped into the office and reached over to hand him the file, “My takedown paperwork for Jackson Fike.”

He nodded, the stern look on his face fading as he looked at you, “You did impressive work today, Y/L/N. By taking the initiative to arrest Fike, you saved the three girls he had captive.”

Shrugging, you fiddled with his nameplate, “I just did what felt right.”

“Other agents would’ve shot him, and it would’ve been justified, but you didn’t,” Hotch said, raising his eyebrows. “It’s good to see you out in the field again,” he told you in that fatherly, parental tone of his.

You looked out the window of his office, “It’s good to be back out, sir.” Watching as the rest of the team gathered back into the bullpen, “I thought everyone had already left?”

Hotch set your file down and stood from his desk, “I believe they were all waiting for you in Garcia’s office.”

Confused, you walked outside of the office and down the steps, “Hey?” You said cautiously, looking around at everyone, “What’s going on?” You looked at Spencer, but he just shrugged like he didn’t know any more than you did.

“We,” Derek said, “are going to O’Keefe’s,” he said, grinning as you reached over your desk to grab your bag and your coat.

Shoving your arms through the sleeves of your coat, you looked at the team curiously, “I’m getting the sense that I don’t have much of a choice in this outing.”

Grinning, Penelope excitedly walked towards you, looping her arm through yours and leading you out of the bullpen, “you don’t!”

You laughed, looking back at Spencer, who was just smiling at you. It wasn’t in your nature to turn down what Emily called ‘team bonding’, so the lot of you went to the familiar bar, a place you hadn’t been in nearly four months.

At the same table as always, standing room only with the eight of you, Rossi paid for all of your preferred drinks. Something you had learned to not protest over the years, as long as he was there, he’d never let you pay for your drinks.

Casually, Spencer had his arm around your waist, the two of you were more affectionate outside of the office. “How’s your shoulder?” He asked, gently skimming the pad of his thumb over the sensitive skin. Naturally, Spencer didn’t say anything in front of the team when you mentioned being shoved into a tree, but behind closed doors, he had asked to take a look at it.

You hummed in response, leaning into his touch, “Better, just bruised a bit.”

He dropped his hand back down to your waist, “good,” he whispered, ducking his head, and pressing a kiss to your cheek, causing you to smile.

Grabbing your attention, Derek cleared his throat and raised his glass in your general direction. “Tonight is about you, pretty girl,” he said, causing everyone else to turn to you. Your cheeks burned, “not only did you kick some UnSub ass, but you threw yourself back into the field after months on the sidelines.”

At your side, Spencer squeezed your hip, you were grinning like a fool.

“It has been an honor to be able to watch you reclaim yourself. I, for one, am proud of that accomplishment,” Morgan continued. “I hope you’re proud of yourself, too.”

You nodded enthusiastically, “Thank you. All of you, really.” You reached forward where everyone was clinking their glasses before taking a sip. Setting your glass down, you turned and looked at Spencer, “I love you,” you whispered to him.

He dropped a kiss to your lips, earning a whoop from Garcia. When he pulled away, he smiled at you softly, “I love you too.”

#criminal minds #spencer reid #criminal minds fanfic #criminal minds fanfiction #spencer reid fanfic #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid x you #spencer reid whump #spencer reid hurt/comfort #spencer reid angst #david rossi #derek morgan #aaron hotchner #emily prentiss #jennifer jareau #written by margot #margot's asks #criminal minds angst

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imamotherfuckingstar-lord · 8 months

Text

imagine being in love with sanji

It was another late evening on the Sunny; nothing but miles and miles of sea to be had and the crew scattered among the ship. There was a light breeze that felt good under the lowering sun and all I wanted to do was go up to the library to get lost in a book for the rest of the day. Walking up the steps to the upper deck, I spotted Zoro taking in the sea and when he turned, he grinned. Immediately he asked if I wanted to train up in the crow’s nest, but I pretended not to hear him. He grumbled and yelled for me as I jogged up the steps toward the observation room. Laughing to myself, I walked into the observation room that served as the library as well as Nami’s office.

The smell of books filled the air, and I walked over to my usual spot on the bench that looped around the library. The book I was reading last was still where I had left it and I made little time picking it up. I got comfortable and leaned back, feet leaned out and crossed in front of me. The bookmark, which was made of a scrap of paper from a mapping mistake from Nami, had been replaced with a note. I looked around before taking the note and placing the book on my lap. It was folded neatly, corners touching perfectly and when I opened the note – perfect penmanship greeted me.

“Meet me tonight in the aquarium.”

No signature but I knew who it was from, and the thought made my entire body flush with warmness. Tucking the note into my back pocket, I grabbed my book with a smile and tried my best to concentrate. My concentration lasted about an hour before I left the observation room and made my way back to the girl’s dorm to get ready for dinner. At dinner, Sanji had made a generous three course meal that even had Luffy feeling full at the end – well, as full as he could get. Alcohol passed around for a few rounds before everyone started to settle for the night. Zoro left to the crow’s nest, Nami to the library while the rest of the men, sans Sanji, went to Usopp’s workshop to see what new weapons he had come up with. Robin and I walked back to the women’s dorm, exchanging book recommendations. We chatted for a while as we got ready for bed and eventually when Nami made her way back to the room – the three of us fell asleep.

Except I didn’t.

I laid awake listening to their soft snores until I felt it was safe to get up. I was still in my sweats and tee shirt when I slowly crept towards the door. My hand rested on the doorknob for a moment but when I went to turn it, a hand came over my mouth. I panicked for a moment but instantly knew it was Robin. I slowly turned to see her sitting up in her bed, smiling.

“Secret lovers. How cute.”

Her whisper wasn’t much of a whisper, but Nami didn’t stir. I begged her to be quiet and she giggled, two hands appeared at my side with my coat I had left in my closet. Then another hand appeared with a pair of my socks. I smiled then and grabbed the items, thanking her with a wave before departing the room. I slipped the socks on in the hallway, shrugging the coat on as I made my way to the aquarium. I wondered how long he had waited and hoped it wasn’t too much, but as I entered the room he did as well – from the kitchen.

Sanji was standing there in a soft blue button up and black slacks; sleeves rolled up to his elbows. He was about to light a cigarette when he saw me and seemed to forget as we met in front of the large observation windows. A few dozen fish were swimming around as he smiled shyly, taking my hand in his.

“You got my note, love.”

“I do every time.”

I leaned into his body, allowing him to pull me as close as possible. His arm slipped around my waist, and he dug his nose into the nape of my neck. I hugged him tightly, rubbing his hand up and down his back. Sanji relaxed under my touch, and he whispered that he had missed me.

“I’ve seen you at least a dozen times today.”

He scoffed, kissing my neck. “We never get enough alone time.”

Sanji wasn’t wrong; no one, except possibly Robin, knew the two of us had been sneaking around for months now. Finding time when the ship was quiet to spend time together – like two teenagers in love. But we were two crewmates in love, and we weren’t sure what that would mean for the entire crew. Would it change the dynamic? It hadn’t so far, but still, it was a scary thought.

“I want to tell them.”

I pulled back from Sanji, shock on my face. “Tell them? Luffy? Everyone?”

He smiled softly with eyes full of admiration, devotion, and love. “Why not? I’m tired of sneaking around, aren’t you?”

It wasn’t like the thought didn’t cross my mind – every time I was near Sanji, I felt like I would implode from the impulse to touch him. To hold his hand or softly caress his hair – to follow him around freely in the kitchen or to lounge together on the grass without worrying about anyone seeing us. All the times I wanted to kiss him on the lips, our eyes meeting across the room at dinner time.

God, all the times I missed the opportunity to be openly his.

“Don’t be so quiet, love, it scares me.”

My eyes looked up at him and I touched his chest. “We should tell them.”

Sanji’s eyes relaxed and he grabbed my face gently, rubbing his thumbs against my cheeks. “Tomorrow then.”

“Okay.”

“I adore you; you know that?”

Moving my arms around his neck, I leaned in for a kiss but stopped an inch from his lips. “No, but you should show me.”

Sanji nearly whimpered, moving me swiftly to the bench. He moved me down onto his lap, fingers moving aside hair from my face; he looked ethereal under the low lights and the glow of the water surrounding us. What a fool I had been for even thinking of hiding that he was mine and I was his. He kissed me, touched me with tender hands well into the night and when the two of us were breathless with flushed skin – we whispered I love you.

#one piece live action #opla #sanji x reader #one piece sanji #live action sanji

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howtofightwrite · 25 days

Note

I don't know if you covered this before, but how does being left-handed effect handling weaponry? I imagine it doesn't impact too much with guns, but I've heard it can alter how using a sword works. How true is this, in the end?

That's sort of backwards. With a handful of exceptions, being left-handed doesn't do much to how you handle most melee weapons. The big exceptions are if you're wielding a shield, and in some medieval siege assault situations. Being a left-handed shooter, on the other hand, comes with a host of considerations, and in some cases, requires modifying your firearms so that they're convenient to use, or in others, it straight up requires learning to shoot right handed.

So, the part about this that is true, has nothing to do with which hand is dominant. Speaking from personal experience, it is much easier to accurately shoot with your off-hand, than it is to wield a melee weapon off-handed.

So, the issue with being a lefty with a shield is that your shield will be on the right side of your body while your opponent's shield will be on the left side of theirs. This means you're mirroring each other, and blocking an attack with your shield (or your opponent doing the same to you) is far more vulnerable to stepping out of line slightly and striking your opponent's weapon arm. This goes both ways, though a left-handed fighter is more likely to be prepared to immediately exploit this opening, simply because there are more right handed fighters, so they'll be encountering this situation more often.

The second exception is architectural. We've mentioned this on many occasions, but medieval castles were designed to favor the defenders. This took multiple forms, but among them were stairways designed so that someone invading the castle would have their right arm pressed up against a wall, while their left hand was free. (This was true both with open stairways, and also with spiral stairways inside the keep.) The assumed word here is, “designed to favor right-handed defenders.” A left-handed assaulter would be able to use their dominant arm freely as they assaulted, because the keep was (accidentally) built to favor them. In some cases, they might even have advantages over the right-handed defenders, such as being able to attack freely from above as they descended.

I'm been mostly thinking about the standard infantry sidearms of the era, but is worth remembering that a left-handed spearman would be a problem in a tightly packed formation (such as the phalanx), because their arm would be running extremely close to their fellow fighter on the left side of their battle line, while leaving a gap to their right.

It's also worth knowing that most lefties train (often involuntarily) some degree ambidexterity. Everything from doorknobs to jars are built for right-handed people, so, you learn to do things with your off-hand that a right-handed individual would never even think about. Hell even just putting on your clothes in the morning will train some dexterity in your right-hand, which a right-handed individual would never do with their left. (Amusingly, the major exception to this would be some articles of women's clothing, which were originally oriented opposite a man's clothes so that a servant could fasten her clothes for her, using their right hand for the more dexterous bits.) (Actually, if you know your Latin, there's a pun in the previous sentence, and I am truly sorry for that.)

Now, when it comes to firearms, being a left-handed shooter can be annoying. It also means you're far more likely to write about firearms in some public capacity. So, that's a weird trend.

The biggest problem tends to be the controls. A lot of firearms will position their controls to be convenient for a right-handed operator. If you're left-handed, you'll find yourself having to reach over the weapon, or break fire position, to interact with those settings, more than a right-handed shooter would. This can include safety switches, fire control groups, magazine releases, slide/bolt catch releases, and even decockers.

It's fairly rare to encounter a handgun where the slide release and safety are ambidextrous. Ambidextrous mag releases are a bit more common these days than they used to be, so that's always nice. But, whenever someone breaks out a 1911, yeah, that's really expecting you to be right-handed.

This isn't just with modern firearms either. One of my favorite handguns is the Colt SAA. The gun is over 150 years old, and if you're left-handed, reloading it will see you dropping spent brass onto the back of your hand. (Or cradling the gun, and clearing the cylinders that way, which is entirely valid.)

Sometimes, you can modify a gun for left-handed use. This will often involve things like replacing the magazine release (and praying that the mags' manufacture considered someone would switch the release button, or cutting new release notches into your mags.) Revering the safety (which in some of the most obnoxious cases, also means replacing the grip paneling.) This is all doable, but you're going to put a lot of work into making the gun comfortable for your left hand.

Though, there are other solutions. The H&K USP's massive slide release leaver, designed for use with gloves, can easily be operated by a left-handed shooter's index finger. (Also, the USP has an ambidextrous mag release, and the safety/decocker is positioned so that you can, at least, safe and unsafe it with the first knuckle of your index finger, though, good luck decocking it, without moving your left hand out of the way entirely), and in other cases, you can flip your thumb over the slide to adjust it.

In the case of most push button releases, you can simply eject it by drawing back your middle finger and pressing the button directly. Though, this does lead to another problem. Your hand is not supposed to be right over that button at all times, and until you learn how to manage the recoil on a gun, it can very easy for a left-handed shooter to accidentally drop the mag after they fire. This is especially an issue for Glocks and SIG P220 series pistols. (Ironically, this is less of a problem with the Beretta 92/M9 family of pistols, given how the push button sits in the grip.)

If you what a modified left-handed pistol can end up looking like, McClane (Bruce Willis)'s Beretta from Die Hard was modified to accommodate his left-hand dominance, with the major differences being the slide release being modified, and the mag release being replaced with one that was easier to reach.

Behind the controls, is the slightly less common non-ambidextrous grips. I still remember this MP5 variant with a contoured thumb rest on the left side. Perfect for a right-handed shooter, but if you're a lefty, it would dig into your palm. This is slightly more common with hunting rifles, and sporting guns in general, but as the MP5 above indicates, it's not exclusive to them.

It's also worth remembering that this last issue can pop up with melee weapons as well. If a rapier is designed to be held in the right hand, it might not be compatible with your left hand. I've never seen this personally, but it's something worth remembering.

The end result is, a lot of left-handed shooters learn to shoot right-handed for situations where the firearm simply isn't compatible with their dominant hand. (Cue: multiple people saying, “hey, I never learned to shoot with my right hand.”) I don't know who those individuals are, but, frankly, unless they've only handled customized, left handed guns, I'm dubious about that one.

So, it is certainly a thing, but it affects firearms far more than melee weapons.

-Starke

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#writing reference #writing advice #writing tips #how to fight write #starke answers #Starke is left handed

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somber-sapphic · 6 days

Note

Hii!! Been a fan of your of your stuff for a while now, could I please request Nat x reader with maybe Nat coming back home from a mission sick or something? using prompts: "Could you pass me a tissue, please?" + “I think I caught something. My head is pounding." + “Let me fuss over you."

Thanks!!

Healing Hours

〖Summary: Natasha returns early from a mission with a bad case of the flu.〗

〖Word Count: 1.3k〗

〖Pairing: Sick Natasha x R〗

〖Notes: I hope you all enjoy this!〗

You sighed and slammed your book shut, unable to on the words on the page. Natasha was supposed to be back from her mission in two days and you were a mixture of excited and nervous. She had been radio silent for days, only sending messages concerning the mission.

That meant no sweet texts to you, only communication with Cap and Tony.

It was standard for a mission like this, she was in a potentially dangerous situation and to minimize any danger they minimized contact. Even though you understood it didn’t mean you had to like it. You had continued to train while she was away, the physical act of hitting something distracting you from your anxiety. If you could keep your energy up you could keep the emotions at bay.

With a frustrated groan you pulled out your laptop, resigning yourself to some YouTube cat compilations. Those usually held your attention, and it helped that cats were adorable. Maybe you could convince Tony to let you have a cat, if you laid out a good enough argument he might let you.

For a while you let yourself be captured by the videos moving across the screen, watching the pixelated cats fall off of things only to get up unharmed, attack humans, and be afraid of toasters. You were pulled out of your feline trance by a slight jiggle of your doorknob.

You looked up from your laptop, staring at the door handle and reaching for your weapon. No one was supposed to come into your room, and you had strict rules about knocking before opening the door. You grasped the smooth handle of the knife under your pillow, tensing your body in preparation for a fight.

There were a million thoughts swirling through your mind, how had someone gotten into the tower? Why hadn’t FRIDAY alerted you? Were the others safe?

A dark silhouette appeared in the doorway, and you threw your knife, the blade sinking into the wood of the door frame beside the person's head. It was a warning shot, you didn’t miss. Your goal was to scare the person off to avoid an altercation that you didn’t want to get into.

“Jesus Y/n, what the fuck was that?” A raspy voice asked, someone flicked on the light illuminating a very grumpy-looking Natasha. She walked into the room and threw her toolbelt onto the dresser, being much less careful than she usually was. She loved that belt; it had saved her life many times and she always handled it with care.

“You fucking scared me! You’re supposed to be in Latvia, not breaking into my bedroom!” You shot back, lowering yourself against the headboard, the tension leaving your body. The adrenaline coursing through your veins began to calm down, slowing your rapid heartbeat.

“And you’re supposed to be asleep, it's 2:00 in the morning.” You scoffed and rolled your eyes.

“Like you're any better,” Your words trailed off as a sharp sneeze cut through the room, leaving Natasha hunched over and sniffing.

“Why are you back early?” Suspicion laced your words as you took in her disheveled appearance. When she was in uniform, she went to extensive efforts to make herself look professional even in a more relaxed setting.

This time her clothes were slightly wrinkled, and her hair was a mess. You didn’t expect her to look picture-perfect after coming back from a mission, but she did try to make herself look stoic coming home to impress the men. She turned to face you, revealing an unnatural flush to her cheeks and red-chapped nostrils, the telltale signs of the flu.

“I think I caught something; my head is pounding. Steve pulled me, decided I wasn’t healthy enough to be in the field. He threatened to come and get me himself.” She mumbled, sniffling again. She rubbed her nose against her sleeve and coughed into the air.

You smiled at the idea, picturing her arguing with Steve who would seriously come and get her if he felt the need.

“Okay love, go get showered and I’ll get some supplies. Do you think you’ll be okay to do it by yourself?” You asked, concerned that she might fall over if left alone. Natasha rolled her eyes, wincing at the motion. She shook her head slightly as if to clear it then nodded.

“I’ll be fine. Just want to get it over with, then sleep.”

“Yeah, I bet you do. It’ll feel really good I promise.” When you heard the shower running you climbed out of bed, getting to work. You rifled through the drawers of your bedside table and pulled out a bottle of Nyquil alongside a thermometer, a box of tissues, and a bag of cough drops, all things left over from the last time you’d gotten sick.

Next, you tiptoed into the kitchen and got a glass of water and one of juice, not wanting to make tea until Natasha asked for it. She rarely drank it and you knew she didn’t like it but you’d be happy if she consumed any fluids.

When you returned to your room you were surprised to find your shivering girlfriend curled up in the bed, her wet hair splayed out over the pillow. You’d only been gone for ten minutes tops, you hadn’t expected her to have showered so quickly.

“Did you enjoy your shower?” You asked, setting the glasses of water and juice on the small table by her side of the bed. She shrugged and sniffled thickly, rubbing her fist against her red nose.

“Could you pass me a tissue please?” Her voice was so stuffy, poor thing sounded awful. And she didn’t look much better, not that you would tell her that. You grabbed a tissue from the already prepared box and pressed it into her hand, turning a way to simulate privacy as she blew her nose weakly.

“Oh, my sweet Natty, you really don’t feel well do you…” You muttered, more to yourself than to her. Natasha nodded and turned to look at you with a pout set on her chapped lips. Barely three seconds later her gaze unfocused and she snapped forward with a rough sneeze that she didn’t have time to cover.

“Okay well that wet hair isn’t going to help. Sit up for me, take some medicine, and I’ll dry your hair while we watch a movie.” The redhead did what you instructed, lifting herself onto the pillows with a wheezy sigh.

You poured out a dose of the medication and watched her drink it, making sure that she got all of it. The gulp of “grape” flavored goop was quickly followed by half a glass of juice. You were internally pleased with the amount of juice she had just willingly drank, usually keeping her hydrated was a chore.

“Get comfy and pick a movie, I’ll grab the hair dryer.” She settled on Jaws for reasons that you couldn’t explain. You knew she loved it but you didn’t exactly consider it a good sick day movie. It didn’t matter, she already looked half asleep. You doubted she’d make it through the first act even with the sound of the hair dryer.

“C’mere baby, let me fuss over you.” You climbed into bed and pulled her into your lap, positioning her so that she was laying back against you with her head on your chest. Just as you’d predicted it didn’t take long for her eyes to start drooping, the sound and warmth of the hair dryer seemed to be lulling her to sleep.

“M’sorry for getting sick.” She mumbled, a huge yawn escaping her lips. You rubbed her shoulder and pulled the blankets up around her, making sure that she was comfortable.

“No apologizes necessary Nat. You just relax, I’ll be right here when you wake up.”

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#sickfic #fanfiction #sick fanfiction #marvel sickfic #fever whump #natasha x y/n #natasha x reader #natasha romanoff #natasha x you #natasha romanoff x reader #natasha romanoff x you #sick fanfic #natasha romanov #mcu sickfic #sick character #fluff #sick fic #avengers sickfic

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lebbys-world · 15 days

Text

Secrets, Soba, & Smiles

Todoroki x gn!reader; teenagers in love, fluff, reader gets caught off guard a bit

notes: thanks for all the love on my last post :) im glad that so many people enjoyed my writing !! the kitchen scene is very artem from tot coded, which makes sense bc ive been obsessed with that game recently. anyways, hope you enjoy !! <3

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You peered down the hall, checking to make sure it was clear, before walking towards the elevator.

The soft hum of the door opening led you to walk inside, pressing the button for the fifth floor.

You looked down at your phone to check the time, quickly noticing you’d received a follow up text from your boyfriend.

Before leaving your dorm, you had sent him a message letting him know you were about to be on your way up.

You smiled to yourself as the elevator made its way up the floors, shooting him back a quick reply.

More often than not, you found yourselves having these late-night dorm dates as a means to compensate for the lack of public relationship.

Throughout the school day, you two were just seen as close friends, allowing any suspicions to just be laughed off. After all, there was no sense in blatantly lying about your relationship to your friends.

But if you both feigned ignorance, it managed to keep their suspicions at bay.

With all earnest, you weren't necessarily trying keeping your relationship with the icy-hot boy a secret from your peers.

You never had concern for them finding out - albeit the barrage of questions and attention may be a bit overwhelming.

If anything, the concern you had was for the general public finding out that two rising heroes had feelings for one another.

You feared the worst case scenario: a villain using your adoration for each other as a weapon.

Maybe you were overreacting, but the nightmare situation it was, you wanted to prevent it in any way you could. So, as a safeguard, the both of you had agreed to just keep things to yourself.

This agreement worked well anyways, as you and Todoroki settled into the awkward ins-and-outs of first time teenage love.

So, yes, for now, things were okay being a sort of ‘secret’.

It was a secret for you two to share.

You were his, and he was yours.

The elevator door opened once more as you reached the fifth floor, stepping out into a familiar, yet different, hallway.

You made your way to your boyfriend’s room, before giving a gentle knock on the door.

Soon enough, the doorknob turned, the door creaked open, and heterochronic eyes met your own.

You laughed to yourself before commenting, “well, I made it here in one piece.”

He gave you a soft smile back, “yeah, you did.”

That was the smile that always managed to killed you.

A smile that you never saw him quite show to anyone but you.

The way his lips turned in adoration, a genuine love and joy meeting his face. His eyes would crease with that smile, and, every time, without fault, you’d melt at that smile.

It was a smile that felt like it was only for you.

Interrupting your star-struck daze, Todoroki tilted his head.

“I meant to tell you before you got here, but I still wanted to grab some snacks from the common room.”

You stood up straight, pulling yourself back together.

“Oh, I could’ve just picked them up on the way.”

“It’s not a problem; I’ll just go now. You can set your stuff down. I'll be back shortly."

He started walking past you to begin his quick mission, when you followed on his heels.

“I’ll come with you! Two people are better than one!”

He paused, gave a nod of appreciation, and the two of you carried on towards the main floor.

The short trip there was spent debating what snacks would be best for this late night excursion, with you insisting that your favorite food was the only way to go.

By the time you'd made it to the kitchen, Todoroki had been pleading his case for soba - per usual.

“Look,” he said, now pointing to a something sat on the shelf of the pantry. “They still have some left over. We could probably make two servings.”

He met your eyes with diligence, looking like a young child begging for a toy at the store.

As much as your favorite snack was calling your name, you thought to yourself that maybe some cold soba would be nice as well.

“Fine, but I’m making the sauce.” You sighed, accepting his pleas. I mean, how could you not when he had given you such a cute look?

He smiled, his invisible tail practically wagging as he pulled out a pot and began to fill it with water.

Nearby, you opened up the fridge and pulled out a few ingredients to start making into a light sauce.

You swiftly put on an apron, and started mixing things together before feeling complete with your makeshift recipe.

You took a spoon and dipped it in, giving it a taste. Having it meet your own liking, you called your boyfriend over, making sure it would suit his taste as well.

Continuing to stir, you thought to yourself how something about this unplanned cooking trip had just felt so right

It was almost as if you two were a married couple, working on making dinner together after a long day of work.

The idea made you blush.

Deep inside, these calm nights were the kind you hoped the future would bring many more of.

You were about to turn around and call to him again when you were suddenly met with two arms wrapped around your waist.

You let out a small gasp of surprise as Todoroki took the spoon from your hand, following through on your request and trying the dipping sauce you had made.

He hummed a tone of satisfaction and let his head rest atop your shoulder.

“It’s really good, Y/N. Thank you, for your help.”

At that moment, you thanked God that your boyfriend couldn't see your overwhelmingly red face.

You doubt you would’ve even been flustered if Todoroki wouldn’t have pulled that hugging-you-from-behind cliché.

I mean, heck, he probably didn't even realize he was doing something that even could catch you so off guard.

Your boyfriend probably just thought he was hugging you, sharing his adoration for your cooking and determination.

And here you were, heart going overdrive all over his simple motions.

Having felt your heart rate spike, he let go after a moment, returning back to the care of draining the pot of soba.

You took a moment and collected yourself a bit, finally giving a delayed reply:

“Yeah, anytime, Sho. It’s what I’m here for.”

He looked at you again, turning his gaze away from the sink, and gave you that melting smile of his.

That smile that makes you feel like everything in the world is okay, even if just in this moment.

Somehow that smile managed to calm your panicked heart, reminding you to take this all one step at a time.

You returned his smile with your own. A smile of your own that you hoped he admired just as much as you did his.

“…”

“...SHOTO, THE SOBA-”

#he dropped the noodles down the drain :(#its okay they probably just ordered in afterwards #shoto todoroki #todoroki x reader #shoto todoroki x reader #shoto x reader #shouto todoroki x reader #todoroki x y/n #shoto todoroki x y/n #bnha x reader #mha x reader

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system-to-the-madness · 2 months

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A Warm Welcome - Dazai Osamu x Reader

Pairing: Dazai Osamu x Reader (can be read as any gender, no pronouns used) Genre: fluff Word Count: 2 493 Warnings: Dazai level of suicidal thoughts, food Summary: Dazai comes home to a warm flat and a homecooked meal A/N: For those who don’t know: kotatsu are those Japanese tables with a heater and a blanket

Dazai Osamu had gotten used to coming home to cold and dark apartment and no one to welcome him. Not that he had ever made the experience of coming home to a brightly lit up and cozy apartment with a warm welcome. Really, he usually was only glad to have a home to come back to in the first place.

Now that he was standing outside his front door, key in hand, eying the slither of orange light that crept through the gap between door and floor, he wondered who had broken into his apartment and turned on the light. He knew that he hadn't forgotten to turn it off. In the morning, when he had woken up, it had already been light outside and at night he barely ever turned it on to begin with, preferring to make his way around in the dark.

So, who was in his flat now? Had one of his enemies found him and was waiting inside to kill him? Honestly, after the day he had had, Dazai would gladly show his murderer-to-be where he kept the kitchen knives, should the other have been forgetful enough to not have brought a weapon.

But what would you say? Would you be sad if he died? Or would you be mad at him, for walking into such an obvious trap? Why did he even care about what you would think? You were his co-worker, nothing more.

Well, his co-worker, who he had been enamoured with from day one, who he had never treated with anything but utter respect, in whose presence he kept his suicide-talk to a minimum, because he had once seen how it upset you. And you were the only co-worker whom he had told about Oda, the only co-worker, who had ever gotten him anything for Valentine's Day.

It had been a cute, light pink box with a heart on it, and handmade chocolates inside. You hadn't signed your name, only a card with the word "Enjoy!" but he knew your handwriting well enough to know the box had been from you; he didn't need Ranpo to figure that one out. And you hadn't told him they were just friendship-chocolates either, which meant they had been the real deal. Valentine's Day had only been last week, so he hadn't yet had the chance to gift you a bag of chocolates back, and he wasn't sure about how to go about it either. He wanted to be so much more to you than just a colleague, but he could hardly ask you out out of nowhere, could he? Well, not that any of this mattered anymore, with his sealed fate waiting behind the unlocked door of his flat.

He sighed. Of course it would never work out between you and him anyway, you were too perfect for a suicidal maniac like him either way. So, he twisted the doorknob and let himself into his flat.

"I'm home," he announced loudly to his intruder, before he even realized that his flat smelled deliciously of food, or that there was soft music playing from the kitchen. What kind of assassin would put on a soundtrack to commit his crime? Oh no, he was going to get murdered by an absolute nutcase, wasn't he?

"Welcome back!"

Dazai startled at the sound of your voice. Why were you here? You were in danger with the assassin around, weren’t you? Or were you the assassin? What had he done to upset you enough to warrant you wanting to kill him? Apart from his everyday behaviour that was. Had you expected an answer to the Valentine’s Day chocolates earlier?

“You’re just in time for dinner! I made curry,” you let him know, poking your head into the short hallway with a grin before disappearing back into the kitchen.

Diner? Curry?

You weren’t here to kill him? What an unexpected turn of events…

Confused, Dazai toed his shoes off in the genkan and slipped past the door into the living area. You had set up two bowls, two sets of chopsticks, spoons and cups on the kotatsu in the area Dazai usually used as his living room. You had even plugged it in already. Dazai couldn’t remember the last time he had used this thing. It had come as part of the flat, but usually Dazai ate in a café, restaurant, or the convenience store, and even when he ate at home, he never had plugged in the kotatsu. It always gave him the feeling that the soft blanket keeping the heat trapped under the table would cause a comfort he didn’t know how to deal with.

Blinking a few times, trying to make sense of the situation, he turned towards the kitchen, where you were standing at the stove, stirring something in a big pot. It smelled delicious.

“I hope it’s okay I let myself in.” you spoke over your shoulder in Dazai’s direction. “Kunikida called and say you had a… well, a day, and I thought it would be nice if you got to eat something proper tonight.”

“Why Curry,” Dazai asked, ignoring his increasing irritation. Kunikida had called you to tell you to look after him? Did he even have time in his so tightly planned schedule for things like such a call? And how had he even noticed? Did this ideal-obsessed former math teacher actually have a heart after all?

“It’s the comfort food, isn’t it?”

Dazai got distracted by the beeping of an electrical appliance on the kitchen counter. A rice cooker? Dazai didn’t own a rice cooker (doubtlessly proof of how much he cooked on his own). Had you brought your own rice cooker just to cook for him?

“Is it,” he asked back, finally remembering to answer your rhetorical question.

“Well, I’ve never met anyone who doesn’t love curry on a cold winter evening.”

Right, cold. His flat wasn’t cold as it usually was when he came home. Instead, you had turned on the AC in the kitchen. Dazai wiggled his toes in the plain black socks he wore. He could actually feel his toes for once.

“I’ve never thought of it like that,” he admitted.

“If you have a different comfort food, I can try making that for you next time,” you offered.

Next time. Next time. He liked the ring of that.

“I don’t really have a comfort food,” Dazai mumbled, almost hoping you hadn’t heard him over the humming of the extractor fan. But of course you had, your movements stopping for a moment and Dazai could already hear you asking ‘Why not? What kind of food did your mother always make for you? That’s probably your comfort food’, but the question never came. Instead, you continued stirring for a moment before you replied.

“Then I’ll just make all kinds of different foods for you, until you’ve found a comfort food.”

Dazai swallowed hard and nodded, even though you couldn’t see him.

“Okay,” he agreed.

It was such a strange idea, such a weird concept, to come back to a home that was not dark, but instead lit up by the gentle light in the kitchen, to a flat that was not cold, but warmed by the AC that had been turned on, to a person welcoming him home, to warm food, the promise of a full stomach. Was that really what other people got to experience every day? This gentleness of someone else, directed only at him? How had he never thought about how nice something like that would be? How much more precious life would feel with someone who cared?

“I’ll- I’ll go take off my jacket…”

Quickly apologising himself from the kitchen, he disappeared into the bedroom. In one quick motion he slipped out of his coat, throwing it into the general direction of the wardrobe, and ran his hands through his hair while pacing up and down. What was going on with him? Why was it so important to him that he had come home to someone waiting for him? No, not someone, not anyone. You. Dazai exhaled with a small sigh, stopping in his tracks. The worrying, the overthinking had time for later, he decided, now all he had to do was enjoy the food you had made for him.

When he came back into the kitchen, you had just scooped some rice into the bowls that had been standing on the kotatsu. Taking a glance at Dazai, you giggled.

“Your hair is all messy,” you laughed, making him run his hands over his hair self-consciously. Oh dear, was he blushing? “How much curry do you want?”

Dazai stepped behind you to the stove, placing one of his hands at your waist, not missing the way your breath hitched. At least he wasn’t the only one out of their depth here. Glancing into the pot before you, he couldn’t help the way his mouth started watering. In a thick, brown sauce, that smelled deliciously of many different spices, he could make out pieces of onions, potatoes, and carrots.

“As much as possible,” he chuckled, brushing his nose against your hair, and pressing a quick kiss to the shell of your ear before he drew back.

Instead of an answer, he received a chuckle that warmed him even more than the warm air from the AC already did. Standing beside you, he waited until you had finished topping the rice with the curry, and handed him a bowl, before he followed you to the kotatsu and slipped in opposite you.

It seemed like he had been right in the assumption that you had turned it on, because his legs, up to where the blanket was pooling around his hips, immediately got engulfed in comfortable warmth. He didn’t even realise he was sighing until the gentle sound of your soft giggle reached his ears.

Blinking his eyes open, having closed them in bliss, he quickly sat up straight, grabbing the chopsticks you had laid out for him and folding his hands.

“Thank you for the meal,” he announced with a smile that was a bit too bright to be quite genuine. He wanted it to be genuine, but how could he ever bring across his gratitude for you taking care of him like this?

“Thank you for the meal,” you replied, and Dazai could feel your eyes on him as he picked up a piece of carrot, covered in the brown sauce.

As soon as the food touched his tongue, his throat closed up. Not in the way it would have if the food was disgusting. Quite the contrary really. The carrot had been boiled soft, the sauce added a rich, spicy flavour to the sweetness of the vegetable. It tasted like heaven. And it had been cooked by you for him. How could he ever find a way to express to you how much this meant to him? His nose was itching suspiciously with the burn of rising tears, but he willed them away, and instead focused on chewing and swallowing his first bite, the food immediately starting to warm up his stomach.

When he looked up from his bowl, he noticed you had also started eating, focusing on your food rather than on his reaction.

“I think, you don’t have to cook different foods each week for me to find my comfort food,” Dazai said, making you look back up at him. Quickly he scooped some more curry into his mouth.

“What do you mean,” you inquired, you head gently tilted to the side.

“I think, my comfort food is curry,” Dazai admitted, “as long as it’s made by you.”

His heart definitely skipped a beat it shouldn’t have skipped at the away you were smiling at him now.

“Is that your way of asking me to cook for you again?”

For a moment Dazai was tempted to answer the way he always would have. Something cocky, something that hid the way you had wormed yourself into his sad heart. But with the flavour of the curry you had made just for him, lingering on his tongue, with the warmth that spread from his stomach, he just couldn’t seem to pull on his usual mask.

“I know it’s a lot to ask, but…”

“It’s okay,” you smiled, and Dazai felt you nudge your food against his knee under the kotatsu. “I’d be happy to cook for you again. Oh! We can make it a weekly date! Curry-Tuesday! How does that sound?”

Dazai nodded, quickly focusing back on his bowl, before you could see the emotions that threatened to overwhelm him and drag him under.

“A weekly date,” he asked instead.

“Yeah, I mean like- oh! Not like that, I mean like a-”

“Why not like that,” Dazai asked. “I think I’d like it better if it were like that.”

“You mean, like-”

“Like you, letting me take you out on days when you’re not making curry, that is.”

For a moment you were quiet, quiet enough for Dazai to fear you could hear his loudly beating heart over the quiet humming of the AC.

“I still gotta make up for the Valentine’s chocolates you gave me, right,” he added.

“So… curry-cooking dates and other dates? That sounds like a lot of fun,” you finally answered, and Dazai couldn’t care to hide the sigh of relief that escaped his lips at your agreement, his heart settling down at least a little bit.

“It does, doesn’t it,” he laughed, finally looking up from his bowl again, meeting your eyes. Even in the rather plain light of his living room, your eyes glimmered brightly as if they were shining from within.

You nodded in agreement, biting your lower lip, before you broke into a giggle.

“What?” Dazai watched you both in confusion and amusement, as you flopped backwards against the floor.

“Just-,” you shrugged, before leaning back up on your elbows. “I’m just happy, ‘s all. Am I not allowed to be happy?”

Dazai stretched out his legs under the kotatsu, nudging his feet against yours and letting you intertwine them with one another.

“On the contrary, my love,” the nickname slipped over his lips without his permission, but he couldn’t be bothered to correct himself at the sight of how bashful you grew. “We’d have a problem though if you weren’t.”

You laughed again, covering your face with your hands as you sat up properly again and shook your head.

A/N: It’s Curry Tuesday, because is Japanese that’s an alliteration (curry = カレー - karee, Tuesday = 火曜日 - かようび – kayoubi), also: this is actual karee-kayoubi footage right here

Dazai kept his eyes on you a moment longer, trying to memorize your flustered and amused reaction before he dedicated his attention to the curry again. There was something so infinitely soft and comforting of coming home to finding you waiting for him. Sure, the food was nice, but it was only meaningful because you had made it for him. Because you had turned on the kotatsu and the AC to warm up the flat. Because you had welcomed him home.

Tags: @un-lawliet

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temptacioun · 6 months

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yandere ! izuku midoriya

pt1?

“oh, bunny.”

his voice rings like poison in your ears ; so sickeningly sweet when he coos that damn pet name. he’s disappointed, you're aware. of what, you're not quite sure — it could be the fact that you’re hiding from him when you should’ve been greeting him at the door. throwing your arms around his shoulders and peppering his face in sweet kisses. but not today.

“you know i’ll find you, right? there’s no point in hiding.” you know that, but that doesn’t stop you from trying.

you could hear the heavy thud of his footsteps outside the door, the key inside the lock a pathetic attempt to stop him for even just a second. when both of you knew he could easily bust down that door without a struggle.

you’re cowering in the closet, legs pulled to your chest with an arm wrapped around your knees — fingers clutching a kitchen knife. your other hand was folded over your lips to stifle your breathing and quieten those cries that spilled uncontrollably.

you could hear the doorknob wriggling, a groan of frustration before his fist thumps against the door and the sound alone makes you flinch. “if you be a good girl and come out now,” he rasps, and drags his nails along the wood. “it won’t hurt too much.”

that's a lie, and you know it. izuku doesn’t even have to get rough for it to hurt ; though rationally thinking you knew it would be better to give up and try to lessen the intensity of his punishment. but the nervous pitter-patter of your heart held you back, cowering in the corner of the closet.

it’s silent then, for what seems like an eternity before you could hear the door break and the wood crack under his strength — just like you thought he would. his steps are methodical, easily bringing him over to the closet within seconds and he nearly rips the doors from the hinges.

you can’t even scream, staring up at those emerald eyes like a deer struck in headlights, clutching the kitchen knife tightly in your hands. he looks almost innocent, like the little boy you used to know ; if it weren’t for that sickening smile on his lips. his eyes flicker down to the weapon clutched in your grip and he chuckles.

“were you planning to hurt me with that, little bunny?” you were, but now it seemed like your body froze, preparing for that promised punishment. his hand reaches out and you flinch, eyes screwed shut, what you can’t see can’t hurt you. but the hit never comes, instead, his fingers trail the curve of your jaw and down the length of your throat. it’s an almost gentle touch and you peek your eyes open carefully.

izuku’s squat in front of you, head tilted to the side and he looks almost hurt by your actions. “why do you hide from me, hm?” his thumb strokes over your pulse point, noting with amusement how quick your heart must be beating ; he loved it when you were terrified of him, it made it all too easy. “i just want you to love me, is that too much to ask?”

it wasn’t, but you’ve come to learn that such questions are never good. he asks them with such a gentle voice and such pretty eyes, you’re almost tricked to think he could never hurt you. but you’re once again proven wrong when his slender fingers curl around your throat and squeeze.

your hands drop the knife instinctively in favor of curling around his wrist, eyes wide in a blind panic when you should be used to this already. he pulls you in with one hand, until you’re on your knees and your face close enough to be touching noses. “now what will you do to make it up for me, hm?” he raises an eyebrow at you, and your heart sinks when you hear the all too familiar sound of his belt sliding out of his pants.

“you’ll have to work for forgiveness, my precious bunny.”

#yandere bnha #yandere midoriya #yandere midoriya x reader #yandere mha #yandere midoriya izuku #yandere x reader #yandere my hero academia #yandere boku no hero academia

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keys-hellscape-1020 · 10 months

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You’re a healer, not a fighter. And yet…

Enjoy more stitch y’all sorry it took me so long. Also the title for this is SO bad I’m so sorry.

Platonic!141 x Medic!reader

Tw: Canon typical violence, cursing, gore, blood, Background character death, explosions, grenades, heavy smoke, reader is dissociating, implied that reader is having a panic attack, military inaccuracies, light angst, hurt/comfort.

You hate, nay despise, when you get separated during missions. If history holds true, and it always does, it won’t end well.

You are currently stuck in a small room, well stuck is a strong word as you do have 2 possible exits, it’s just that neither is very promising.

The slightly more promising of the two is a small rectangular window on the other side of the room, about 6 feet away. You’re not sure if you could get your torso through, and even if you did, if the 5 story drop didn’t kill you the enemy that was swarming the building certainly would.

The other exit was a hallway, leading back the way you fled from. You were crouched in a corner that bordered the door, gripping your gun tightly. There was no cover in the room, simply beige walls and that dammed window.

Suddenly a loud noise crackled from your comms, causing you to fumble to quickly turn it down a few notches. “Stitch! Stitch are you there? We almost have the case!”

You shuddered in a breath, carefully watching the door as you lifted one hand up to your radio to respond. “Sounds good Soap. I’m currently pinned on the 5th story, no visual on the enemy.”

“Stitch do you have any way to get out of there? We are pushing on 7th story.” That was Price, you could hear the sounds of a firefight in the background.

“I’ll find a way around.”

“Copy that, repo quickly.”

You carefully came out of your corner, crouching near the door you grabbed the doorknob, quickly flinging the door open.

The moment the door opened it was filled with bullets. You ducked behind the wall, grabbed a grenade from your gear pulled the pin and hoped.

When you heard a loud explosion paired with a choir of screams you leapt into the doorway, your gun posed in front of you.

You quickly took care of the few enemies you could see between the smoke and rubble. After a moment of no movement you moved forward to the rubble.

Crouching down you looked at the one solider who was still alive from your assault, half buried under rubble. He was a big fucker.

“Fuck off.” He growled at you as blood ran down his face.

You assessed him with a critical eye. His injuries would prevent him from moving very far. If you moved all weapons away from his reach he wouldn’t be a threat. That is assuming he lives.

You leaned over him to grab his sidearm from its holster on his side. As you leaned over he grabbed your arm with one hand and your shoulder with the other.

In any other circumstances he would’ve been able to break your arm, but he was injured and you were on high alert. You quickly tore his side arm from its holster and drove it into the side of his head, knocking his grip off of you.

Pointing his gun at his forehead you growled, “I am showing you mercy. Do not make me regret it.”

Breaking you out of your focused state was your radio, crackling to life loudly on your chest.

“STITCH! DON’T- THE EMEMY- TRAP”

The enemy used your shock to his advantage, grabbing your elbow and attempting to pry the gun from your grasp. You however were still faster despite your shock. You ram you head into his, causing him to let go of your elbow. You then pull your knife from its sheath and drive it home in the side of his neck.

With his blood staining your hands you turned to respond to your radio, ignoring the enemy’s gurgling in the background.

“What about the enemy? Do you have the case?” You asked, concern growing in your chest.

“STITCH” That at least you could tell was Price.

“Captain? Captain what’s going on?” You asked frantically, you had to fight the urge to run to them. If things were going wrong getting yourself hurt would not help anyone.

Suddenly your radio was full of very loud static. You fiddled with the channel, hoping it was just a technical error, but the longer you tried to get a connection the more you lost hope that it was simply a technical error.

You feel the blood drain from your face as the reality of the situation hit you. Your boys were captured. You quickly switch your mic off. Damnit.

Alright think. Your boys still have to be in the building, there’s no way they got them out already. You know they were heading to the 7th floor. The enemy will most likely be taking them up to the roof to lift them out. You just had to intercept them in time.

That is assuming they’re not dead.

But there is no time to think like that. They can’t be dead. If they’re dead you’re going to drag their sorry asses back to the living world and kill them again.

You quickly look around in the rubble, there has to be something here you can use. The corpse of an enemy solider catches your eye. They’re about the same build as you and while their uniform is splattered in blood it would do the job well enough.

You quickly pull on their jacket and vest along with their helmet. You could only hope that would be enough, you had to move.

————

You found the stairwell on the 5th floor, once you executed your plan you would have to move quickly or face loosing your boys forever.

You quickly started climbing the stories, you keep marching forward undisturbed until you got to the 8th story, when you were met with two guards.

“Who the fuck are you?” One of the guards shouted at you, pointing his gun at your head.

You quickly raised you hands in the air, it was vital they thought you one of them. “We- were attacked. 5th floor. Everyone is dead.” You croaked, forcing tears into your eyes and tightening your throat.

The two guards looked at each other, back at you, then lowered their guns a few inches.

“Where on the 5th floor was this and when?” One guard questioned, narrowing their eyes at you.

Fuck. You thought it was on the western side but you couldn’t be sure. No more that 10 minutes could’ve passed since it happened, but how could you be certain?

You couldn’t be, you just had to take a guess and hope you were right. “Western side.” You shuddered, hoping you weren’t overdoing your acting. “It- it just happened. No more then 10 minutes ago.”

“We just lost contact with a group on the eastern side. You know anything about that?” The guard shot you a suspicious glance. The other one fiddled with their trigger, glaring at you.

Fuck it.

You grabbed the one who was fiddling with their trigger and pulled them in front of you, using them as a human shield against their friend who sprayed a wave of bullets at you on instinct.

You pushed one guard into the other, and while they were reeling from the shock of having their friends mutilated corpse pushed into them you grabbed your knife and rammed it into the side of their head, aiming at the lisp of their helmet and angling upwards. So much for the plan.

There were footsteps coming down the stairwell, you had to act fast. Quickly you stash your knife in its sheath before pulling out your gun and firing it at the entry to the 8th floor, shouting expletives.

A team of 6 rounds the corner on high alert, they’re looking where you’re shooting and not at you, good.

“They went that way!” You shout, gesturing towards the door with a nod of your head.

“Move!” The leader barked, rushing towards the door. You pressed yourself to the wall, watching as they filed into the empty floor.

Once the coast is clear and the last of the enemies are through the door you turn around to creep carefully yet quickly up the rest of the stairs.

You manage to move up the next two flights of stairs without difficulty. You make your way to the floor right below the roof and listen carefully, your ear perched right up against the door.

You are met with the sounds of very angry, very Scottish yelling. You let out a shallow sigh of relief. Just as you suspected your boys are still in the building, now the hard part. Getting them out of it in one piece.

You wait at the door a moment longer listening for any clues, you fail to hear any coming from beyond the door, but you do hear one from above.

Carefully, and ever so slowly, cracking the door to the roof open, you are met with exactly what you expected. A helicopter is slowly descending to the platform on the roof, surrounding said platform is at least 5-8 enemy soldiers.

While not great you can work with these conditions, and that’s what you plan to do.

Not that you have much of a choice.

————

You quickly run to the floor they’re holding your boys and in a moment of fuck-it-I-have-nothing-to-loose (you’re lying to yourself you have everything to loose), you charge in, slamming the door to the wall.

You immediately stand at attention, and direct your eyesight to the man you hope you are correctly assuming is in charge.

When no bullets start firing at you you realize they are waiting for you to speak.

“Sir!” You bark out. “The heli is waiting on the roof sir!”

An old, short man turns to focus his eyes on you. You feel the cold sweat gathering on your neck as he fails to say anything, you swear that in the moment you could feel him cracking open your chest and feasting inside. Discovering all your secrets, uncovering all your sins.

Then he speaks, “bout damn time! Have the rest of your team come down. Escort these damn prisoners the fuck out of here!”

You turn to report to the rest of your fake team when a sense of dread hits you like a cold water ballon.

The messenger they would be sending. To alert the old fucker about the heli landing. That you already told him about.

“Stupid, stupid, stupid!!” You hiss out quietly to yourself, two seconds away from stomping your foot and pouting like a child.

Your panic is cut short however when the door to the roof opens. You quickly snap to attention as the solider heads towards you, fixing you with a scalding glare.

“What are you doing?” They question. You feel like they are a priest, pulling all your sins out of you one by one.

“I’ve been assigned to guard here, on account of the enemy solider running amok.” You say stoically, puffing out your chest in a crude imitation of a loyal solider, proud to be guarding their commander.

The other solider briefly stares at you, before gesturing for you to get out of the way. Fuck there’s nothing you can do. Any attempt at taking them out would surly be heard. Fuck it- there’s nothing you can do.

You step aside.

————

It feels like a lifetime as you wait for a sound, a whimper, a pen dropping, an indication of what your next move should be. It feels like a lifetime as suddenly the door you’re standing next to bursts open.

You are guided by instinct as you fire a bullet into the head of the solider who had opened the door. You duck low, pull the pin on a grenade, and throw it into the room.

You are shaken by the proximity of the explosion, and your ears are ringing fiercely. You push forwards anyway, and once you are well hidden by the smoke in the room you duck behind the remains of a pillar. You hear movement and you quickly peek out form behind it, firing wildly. It is only another moment before the smoke begins to clear enough that you can see.

You glance around cautiously, and see that every solider in this room is dead, remarkably there are fewer corpses then you expected. The only option for where your boys could be is behind a door on the other end of the room.

You can hear yelling coming from it.

You can hear footsteps from behind you.

You slam the door behind you shut, amazed it’s still on it’s hinges. You grab a chair and shove it beneath the handle. You hope that buys you enough time to get your boys out because otherwise you’re doomed.

You approach the door, your gun posed in front of you, and kick.

The door holds.

You kick again.

The doorframe splinters under the force with a shrieking groan and the door swings open.

You are met with the man who you had addressed before, holding a pistol to Price’s head. All of your boys are in the room, looking like they had been thrown in haphazardly, their arms tied behind their back and their legs held together by zip-ties.

You creep one foot into the room before the old fucker shouts out, “Stop! One more step and I blow his brains out!” As he speaks he kicks Price, not hard enough to send him to the ground, but he still lets out a small grunt of pain.

“Hands off him ye’ wanker!!” Soap shouts out from one side of the small room. He pulls against his bonds with a groan, but does not accomplish anything.

Suddenly a loud shout and a bang is heard from the farthest door. You are forced to turn around, your gun held high, as you hear the enemy continue to struggle to get in.

“You’ll be dead soon. Surrender and maybe I’ll go easy on-” suddenly his speech dissolves into a blubbering mess of groans and hiccups, all began by the distinct sound of metal sinking into flesh.

You whirl around, panicked, only to see your Captain standing over the fluttering body of the enemy commander, holding a small pocket knife.

He glances at you over his shoulder before speaking, “Hold the door, I’ll get them out.”

You do as he says, moving to crouch behind a pillar, gaze trained on the door.

“Sir,” you call out over your shoulder, “enemy heli on the roof.”

Price makes a noise of acknowledgment and quickly crouches down next to you behind the pillar, an enemy gun in his hands. You barely notice Ghost, Soap, and Gaz moving to shelter on the other side of the room before the door bursts open with a sense of finality.

————

It’s nothing short a blood bath, a mess of bullets and gunpowder framing the centerpiece of organs and body parts. Bone fragments, and limbs, and cries of pain and pleas to merciless gods. It feels like both a century and a moment before soldiers stop flooding into the room.

Price motions for you to move forward, and gestures towards your belt silently. A smoke grenade. You nod in understanding and pose right behind a door, a smoke grenade in your hand. You glance over your shoulder briefly, checking that all your boys are in place.

With a confirmation that they’re ready you pull the pin on the grenade, shut your eyes tightly, and throw it. Once you hear the smoke dispense you desperately push forward.

It feels like a fever dream, moving through smoke and cries of pain. You feel like you’re watching a movie, a compilation of photos as you feel yourself pull the trigger again and again and again. Body responding before you can even think to. You feel every movement so intensely, and yet not at all. Like a puppet you react to your instincts, watching your boy’s backs. Making sure they stay safe. By the time the smoke clears and you’re ready to move to the roof you swear you can feel yourself swimming in blood. You can feel it creeping up your shoes, your shins and your knees, you hips, up and up until it’s entering your throat and your nose- suffocating you- you can’t breathe-

“Stitch?” You’re forced back into your body by a firm hand on your shoulder. Turning your head you see Gaz standing next to you, somehow managing to pull a small, kind smile onto his face. “We’re almost out.” He soothes kindly.

You swallow the blood in your throat before nodding firmly. “Right. We’re almost out.”

————

It was surprisingly easy to take control of the helicopter, but you suppose you should have expected that. Once they’d heard the shooting and explosions beneath their feet they would have almost certainly abandoned their post in favor of helping their allies. It doesn’t truly matter to you though, their lives ended all the same.

After busting through the door, that they hadn’t even bothered to lock in their rush, it was simply a matter of taking out 3 soldiers and the pilot. A laughably easy task considering what you had just accomplished.

You leaned back in your seat on the helicopter heavily, resting your head back against the side of the beast. You feel your weariness in every bone in your body. You don’t think you’ve ever dealt so much death in such a short period of time. While you were no stranger to the feeling of taking a life, you took less than the average solider. You focused on mending, not breaking, whenever possible.

You supposed that today mending life was not in cards as much as tearing it apart. You wonder if you have what it takes to be a solider, if you break at the first sign of difficulty.

You’re broken out of your thoughts by a firm hand on your knee. You open your eyes and sit up to be met with the sight of Soap’s big blue eyes staring at you in concern.

It’s takes you a moment before you notice that he’s handing you something, his field journal. You take it with a confused glance, but he mearly gestures for you to look inside.

You look at the page he was holding open, it contains many small doodles, that despite their small size are still remarkably well done. You see doodles of Ghost and Gaz, who are sitting across from you. He’s sketched how they currently look, Gaz with his head resting on his fist as he stares at the clouds racing by. Ghost as he leans back, his arms and legs crossed.

What really draws your attention though is a question, messily scrawled beneath the doodles. Next to it is a stylized, cartoonish drawing of you, surrounded by several hearts.

The question reads, “You alright hun?”

You look up at Johnny and he blinks at you a few times before suddenly startling, like he had forgotten something, and sheepishly handing you a pencil.

You scrawl down right below Johnny’s handwriting, “I’ll live. You?” You hand his journal back to him, and watch as he scrawls down his response.

“Bit shaken, thought I was done in for a second there. At least until you stepped in <3” Next to the heart he’s drawn a goofy kissy face, equipped with his signature Mohawk and all.

Johnny and your’s silent conversation is cut short by Price shouting over the sound of the heli from up by the cockpit, “We’re landing in 2 minutes!”

“Roger that Cap!” You yell back, handing Johnny his journal back with a ruffle of his Mohawk. He gawks at you in playful insult while you go about making sure you (and your boys) are prepped for landing.

————

Once you’ve got both your feet back inside base exhaustion hits you like a tsunami wave. Now that you’re certain you’re safe the adrenaline is fading like water out of a balloon. Despite the fatigue festering in every part of your person, you’re not in bed. Instead you’re in the armory, cleaning your gear.

You want nothing more than to sleep, but it’s routine for you to make sure all of your duties are accomplished first so you can sleep well. You’re silently taking apart a pistol when you hear footsteps approaching the armory, knocking you out of your thoughts.

It’s only a moment before Price walks through the doors, surprisingly enough he’s not carrying any of his own weapons.

As soon as he sees where you’re sat on one of the benches he B-Lines to you, approaching with a speed and purpose that you’ve only seen him use on missions. The adrenaline from the mission must still be in his system, you muse. He’s been in this industry long enough for it to make sense.

“Go the fuck to sleep sergeant. The actual hell are you still doing awake?” He barks as he approaches you.

“Will soon sir.” You respond nonchalantly. “Just cleaning my gear first.”

He guffaws like it’s the most foolish thing he’s heard all day, (which says a lot considering he has gotten captured today) and gestures for you to scoot over.

You do so, slightly confused by what he intends to do. Once you’ve made room on the bench he sits down next to you and grabs your vest. As he lays it on his lap he goes through the pockets systematically, making sure the vest is perfectly up to code.

As you observe him you’re slightly surprised by his actions, you imagine he must be wanting to go to sleep after the day he’s had.

“You don’t have to help me sir.” You say carefully, tip-toeing around his grumpy outward appearance.

“A good leader always makes sure his soldiers are taken care of before himself. Now finish cleaning that pistol so we can get the fuck to bed.”

————

With Price helping you it didn’t take long for you to finish and finally head to bed. You could feel your feet sticking to the ground with every step, and it took you twice as long as it normally did to walk to your barracks from the armory.

As you approach your door you notice a slumped figure next to it, causing adrenaline from the day to start kicking back up inside you. Feeling your heart start to hammer, yet not having the energy to do anything about it, you continue to approach leisurely.

As you get closer you recognize the balaclava and all black clothing that clings to a large frame. Ghost. When you finally stand next to him you nudge his hip with your foot.

“Come on big guy.”

He blinks up at you wearily, but starts to stand all the same as you unlock your door. You walk in and throw your boots and jacket off as you approach your bed, little care for where they end up.

You flop down on your bed, the scratchy blankets and thin military mattress feeling like paradise after all you’d been through. When you see ghost’s shadow approaching out of the corner of your eye you roll over, facing the wall.

You feel Ghost lie down on your mattress and sling a heavy arm over your waist as you both settle down into a deep sleep.

It had been a hard day, but you would do it all over again for your boys.

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