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onlyseokmins · 8 months

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babymaker • c.s.c

Pairing: choi seungcheol x afab!reader Genres: smut (minors dni!), roommates!au, fwb!au, lil angst if you squint plus gross fluff Warnings: swearing, mentions of past rough/marathon sex, edging, overstimulation, fingering, mentions of oral sex (fem. receiving, male teasing), biting (bc i wrote this), scratching, marking, mentions of car/exhibitionism sex, objectification, degradation, slight choking, tiny obsession w/ cheol's ass + tatts, making out and tons of kithing uwu, reader's a brat and economic major, cheol's a wealthy arrogant bbygorl, creampies <3, breeding kink, light mentions of babytrapping (look at the title lmfao), lots of touching and groping and teasing, sappy stuff ew, messy sex, kinda bulge kink haha, paragraph/word heavy, throwing in some silliness as usual, & lmk if i missed smth WC: 7.9k A/N: i know it's like a month late but this was suppposed to be for cheol's birthday lmfao but it's also meant to be a sequel to Lusty Gallant although it can be read on it's own ig esp since the characters seem ooc </3 also thanks to @hwanghyunjinenthusiast for giving me details on what cheol kithes taste like mwah

Seungcheol and you still live together. And yes, that means you're still committed to fucking on every surface possible in the very nice apartment space comfortable for two.

Roommates with benefits works out well for the both of you — seeming to lean mostly in your favor.

University is a hop and a skip away, close enough for Seungcheol to swing by on his way home from the office with a minor detour. The attractive man's appearance always causes several students to squeal and twirl their hair when he parks next to the sidewalk in a sleek, expensive black and red car. Silver rings that probably cost as much as your tuition adorn long fingers as they tap, tap, tap against the leather steering wheel while he waits.

Seungcheol looks for you over the rim of fake sunglasses perched on the tip of his nose and tongue poking between brilliant white teeth revealed by a smug smirk. Your friends are not subtle — a few in-the-know of what kind of arrangement you have with him and the majority of others not — when they dig an elbow into your ribs or smack your arm in excitement.

You loathe the gawking stares with the same amount of intensity as the tiny sparkle of delight that allows yourself to bask in Seungcheol's showy display of attention that's only partially for you. Aware of what he really loves is soaking up everyone focused on him, brushing back bangs with a pleased grin after checking himself out for the hundredth time in the rearview mirror.

Still, the man is as punctual as clockwork despite a hectic schedule. Deluding yourself is fun whenever he rolls down the window and asks just loud enough for onlookers to hear and swoon over, "How was night class, sweet stuff? Did my luckiest charm learn anything new to advise me on the market's trends?" and receiving an eye roll in return.

"I keep saying you don't have to do this," you remind him every. single. time. because you're sincerely fine walking back the same route you take in the morning.

"Nonsense, it'd be a sin to let a pretty little thing like you walk the city streets in the dark all alone. 'sides it's on my way."

"Of course, as long as it's convenient."

"Convenient?" he repeats with a cocked eyebrow and watches as you slide into the ridiculous car with a cute but sulky pout. An indication that something has ruffled your feathers, if even just a little.

You know not to slam the door too hard when closing it because the one time you did just to be a brat, your battered pussy paid the price. It was very sore for a good couple of days after being repeatedly edged for hours as punishment. First by his fingers during the drive home, next with his mouth on the hood of said car after he'd pulled into the garage, and then teasing touches along the several little pit stops on the way to the bedroom.

All until you were pressed face-down into silky sheets, finally allowed to let go for the first time of the night with his thick girth easing its way inside of your aching cunt to the hushed words of, "Have to touch my baby gently, treat 'em with lotsa care. Always gotta play nice with the things I like, 'kay?"

Safe to say, you learned your lesson. Who wouldn't after being nearly bedridden and limping around for almost two days?

Seungcheol lets out the same kind of disappointed huff when you apologized to him for having to take care of you after that particularly harsh sex marathon — or any time, for that matter. "I've never thought of it as an inconvenience."

"You're a busy man."

"Not so busy that I can't pick you up, 'specially given that we live together."

"Under various terms and conditions. One of them being that I put up with all your inconveniences, not vice versa."

"Then simply think of it as an additional nuisance of mine you have to deal with. You know I won't do anything you don't want, but at least let me have this so I know you're safe." Another harsh sigh leaves his mouth as he adds, "Even if the university was on the other side of town, I'd be there."

"Yeah, okay."

While there's a general love-hate relationship with your sassy behavior, it's in times like these where he extremely dislikes it since the timing is rather improper to fuck it out of you. Alas, he's left to fumble for an alternative that presents him as a man who possesses some semblance of decorum.

"Can drive something else, find a car that doesn't draw so much attention."

"It's not the car," you snap back without thinking. Lips pressing together in a thin line when Seungcheol's fingers that wish they were on your thigh drum menacingly on the console as a substitute, rings flashing under the glow of the passing streetlights.

"Then what is it?" Your name falls from his lips in a soft, commanding kind of plea.

Lucky for you, the short drive is almost over and you can avoid answering for the last couple of minutes. Pretending to mull it over as you focus on steadying the pounding thump of your heart and the erratic breath caught in your lungs.

"It's nothing," you lie fairly easily, already slinking out of the car the minute he brakes in the garage and ignoring the dark brown eyes trained on you because they will make you hesitate. You have to stay firm or end up caught in his trap. "Just tired, 's all. I'm gonna head to bed early, see you in the morning?"

And you don't wait for a response. Gently closing the car door and then sprinting as unsuspiciously as possible into your designated bedroom. Seungcheol won't follow or pry for now. He's always made a point to respect any boundaries you set and the promise to see him when you wake up will keep the man at bay for now. And you sure as hell were going to use all of that to your advantage, curling up under a blanket and trying to figure out what the fuck is going on.

This "roommates with a multitude of benefits" arrangement worked. Chugging along like a well-oiled mechanism. So why were you contemplating the risk of messing it up and throwing the machine off its steady track? For something so fleeting? So emotional? The one thing that always fucks up these kinds of relationships?

Sure, you were in love with the way Seungcheol carried himself. His swagger. His money. Confidence, charisma, oh… and his cock, too. Who wouldn't be? But now, oh no, now you were also in love with the man himself — stupid Choi Seungcheol!

It was a gradual build. Always there in the background. All it took was for you to acknowledge its existence. Perhaps it was meant to play out this way. But you were still going to hold him responsible as an equal in contributing to this mess just as much as you were for falling. Your fingers clutch at the blanket, the poor fleece serving as an unfortunate outlet for your frustration.

When did the crazy marathons dwindle out? By no means had the two of you stopped fucking — absolutely not. It just meant that, well, rather than Seungcheol just fucking you, he more or less made love to you.

You feel a shiver down your spine and scream into a pillow at the worms writhing in your brain.

The sex was still terrific. You habitually muffle your sounds as it is — not ones of pure frustration like tonight — but out of extreme pleasure. The filthy debauchery hadn't changed either. The two of you deeply reveled in your depraved dynamics and more insane acts, maybe even getting dirtier once this subtle shift happened.

Safety. Security. Seungcheol.

Words you would've never thought to use in relation to him.

And then there was the aftercare. A strange new intimacy. He cuddled in bed after taking the effort to clean each other up for a good night's rest. Remaining there fast asleep and quietly snoring long after you untangle yourself from the comforting warmth of his arms to start the day. Mornings were no longer cold because he chose to stay.

Weekends were becoming your favorite too. When he waddles around shirtless, barely awake upon discovering you gone from his embrace. A back-hug immediately when finding you again. Soft gropes at your curves and low groans of contentment while pressing his nose into the crook of your neck, breathing in your scent mixed with his while you prep breakfast. Turning you around for kisses and pursuing long, slow makeout sessions that were quickly becoming the norm. Only for you to accidentally bite down a little too hard on his bottom lip when you realize the toast is burning.

You miss the way his eyes shine with affection as they follow you panicking around the kitchen. When did this big apartment of his begin to feel so alive? Even previous roommates and their loud yammering hardly made him feel at home. Tonguing at the indentation marks of your teeth molded into his lip and the sting that keeps him rooted in the present moment, the man meets your flustered expression with a grand, playful smile.

Ah, he thinks fondly, obviously.

Afternoons no longer consist of being stowed away in respective bedrooms or different rooms. Seungcheol sits at the kitchen table, furrowed eyebrows as he chips away at the excel sheet reflected in the glasses perched on his nose. You sit across from him, dutifully typing up assignments for Sunday night submittal.

He'll ask occasional questions just to learn more about you, your classes, and your dreams. Or if you simply need any help. Meanwhile, you make sure you're both staying hydrated and taking necessary breaks to rest your eyes from the screens. Sometimes you'll even get to assist him by analyzing a report. The real-world example aids as a unique use case scenario to better understand the concepts outlined in your textbooks.

You really were Seungcheol's lucky charm. He often wonders if you'd like to apply to work at the company he's in. But he'd hate to pressure or patronize you. So ultimately all he can do is stare in awe and provide steady encouragement as you formulate calculations, clean up the data, and transform it all into a presentable display of information.

It's usually his turn to cook in the evenings. Constantly getting distracted by your presence that he insists needs to be around to taste-test the vegetables that keep overcooking when he gets too caught up in tasting you. Innocent smooches here and there amid shy giggling that seems far too intimate than if he lapped at something else like in the past when he eagerly devoured your cunt right there on the countertop.

When dinner is served, you honestly never know or care how tasty it is or isn't because Seungcheol himself is the spice in your life. Your plain world now explodes in a bountiful amount of flavor thanks to him. Later, you tidy up the kitchen together — similar to how you move in tandem to freshen up in the bathroom after sex and much like a married couple would act.

And that's why your damn roommate leaves you wanting more.

These nights he kisses you bathed in the moonlight, working up a blistering heat that doesn't just simmer in your lower abdomen but follows the journey of his dedicated mouth. Upwards the wildfire burns, swooping into your chest and underneath the skin of your cheeks until it tangles with the expert tongue poking in between your lips. Seungcheol charts familiar territory with dancing fingertips across your skin, re-committing it to memory while yours sear into his, scratching at the wide expanse of his back and burying themselves in the curls of his unruly hair.

He takes you to bed — not always in a sexual manner — and it really doesn't even matter how you end up there because that is where you'll find yourself anyway. Falling asleep in his arms and waking up to repeat this strange and newly established cycle.

So the fact that you are sleeping alone speaks volumes. What is said, you're unsure but little do you know that Seungcheol continues to fear you might slip out of his hands. The attached-detached battle strategy always lurks around the corner and somehow, it's almost better when he treats you like some sort of fucktoy only.

The gentle sparkle in his eye was shielded by the switch to a mean glint, eyeing you up like you're nothing better than a piece of meat. No longer acting as the sweet yet cocky, handsome roommate you've gotten to know and grown feelings for. But reminiscent of the aloof and arrogant — still deviously attractive — man who propositioned this whole situation a little over a year ago.

Like now, as you kneel on all fours naked. Save for the humble pair of underwear whose innocence has long been destroyed due to the stains of your arousal mixed with Seungcheol's cum. Ruining the fabric that nestles between your legs for the sake of modesty you've thrown away hours — no, months — ago.

The very man sits before you on the poor couch that's seen its fair share of sinful acts. He's reclining comfortably, black t-shirt stretching out across a firm chest and broad shoulders while infamous gray sweatpants strain against thick thigh muscles as he manspreads so casually with a large hand laid over his crotch. Teasingly hiding the thing you so desire and are begging for.

But he wants you to work for it. Harder. A lot more than you already have. Put on a proper show of how much you deserve to have him. And want him.

"Come," he commands and pats his thigh like he's talking to some stray dog. When you go to sit back on your knees to stand, his eyes narrow as they darken. "Crawl."

What you don't know is Seungcheol would easily yield to and for you if you'd just let him. Be honest with him. Tell him your feelings. Unfortunately, it's in both of your natures to be hella stubborn. Too prideful to admit defeat and be completely vulnerable. You've come to an impasse.

But crawl to him physically you do, shamelessness long gone. Because what could be more shameful than how willing you are to be used by him and how wonderful it feels to be degraded?

Obviously admitting how much you like the damn man.

Goosebumps thrillingly cover your skin at how the gaze trained on you never loses its intensity with you coming closer, following all the way until your head is between his spread legs. Because he knows at least this is the most definitive way he can hold onto you for now.

"Kiss me."

And you obey, puckering your lips and tenderly placing them against the growing bulge beneath the gray fleece. Looking up with lidded eyes, blinking slowly as you let out audible smooch noises along the hard length before mouthing at where the tip lies. Leaving an even damper spot than the salty excess seeping through the fabric, suckling around the area to replace it with the hot saliva dribbling from your tongue that laps enthusiastically at the taste.

"C'mon pet," Seungcheol's tone is mocking in its chastisement, but the rough pad of his thumb rubbing your warm cheek is gentle. "Gimme a real one."

"Yes sir," falls breathlessly out of your mouth at the assumed permission, hands quickly reaching for the waistband of his sweats only to retract just as fast upon the disapproving click of his tongue.

"Not like that, up."

Uncertain, you brace yourself with the support of his quads so you're kneeling. Leaning in and tentatively pressing a kiss to the spot where you know at least one vein starts from the bottom of his pelvis and leads up to his abdomen. Tongue poking out in an attempt to feel and trace it, also effectively wetting his shirt just for good measure.

This time, a wistful sigh escapes between the man's pouty lips despite the furrowing of eyebrows because you're still not quite getting the message. The hand on your cheek slides down to your neck, briefly running his thumb tantalizingly across the side of your throat, landing on your shoulder, and grasping at your arm. Tugging up until you follow along with the motion and a bit of a surprised squeak, ultimately landing right where he wants you — straddling his lap.

"Oh," you mutter in surprise, abruptly snapped out of the lust haze that had been clouding your mind.

Center of gravity thrown off balance until your knees finally ground themselves on either side of his spread legs. Your hands hover awkwardly in the air, struggling to find something to hold onto before resolutely settling on the back of the couch. But not before Seungcheol's sturdy hands steady your hips, sporty reflexes acting faster than you can complete any of these actions.

"Oh, indeed. Already too fucked out to think?"

"No… s-sorry."

"You can make it up to me," he teases and you wait for the punchline, "with a proper kiss." It's both amazing and brow-raising when the Choi Seungcheol lets out the lowest of whines at the smallest sign of hesitation. "Don'tcha think it's the least I deserve today?"

Spoiled is what he is — but it is his birthday after all — so, of course, you're more than willing to indulge. Although the trepidation is real, manifesting in the tense stiffening of your body and the acceleration of your heart rate.

"Relax," he says gleefully — a little too gleeful. "I don't bite."

"Most times, not."

"If anyone's the biter between us, it's you so…"

The taunting murmur of, "Go ahead and bite baby," turns into a satisfied groan when you press your lips against his. Contrary to the jest and much to his delight, you're gentle. It's so adorable that he finds himself melting below you into a puddle of goo. Becoming absolute putty, lips readily parting so you can lick into his mouth.

He tastes like cherry chapstick and coffee, flavors so Choi Seungcheol that it hurts with how much they alone can possibly overwhelm you. Your nose scrunches, eyebrows following suit. Unaware of how he observes close-up through heavily lidded eyes because he wants more and more of what he can't get enough of. Afraid you might disappear. Even though you're right here — on his lap, kissing him sweetly. Yet you're still not all there.

So, he works on anchoring you to him — somehow, some way. One hand urges you to release your support on the couch, bringing your arm down to sneakily thread his fingers between yours. Naturally, the opposite one falls to eliminate the odd angle and rests on his shoulder. Seungcheol's other palm shifts to splay across your bare back and push you further into his chest, your sensitive nipples brushing against the cotton material of his shirt.

When that burning hand also encourages your ass to sit on his thighs to nearly smother him into the couch cushion and your damp core effectively presses onto the heated length stirring inside his sweats — he finally gets what he's been waiting for. The wanton moan that bubbles out of your throat is quickly swallowed up by the man himself, who ceases the passive role in the makeout session and kisses you back with a fervor that quite literally steals your breath.

He waits for you to surrender.

Not to be confused with submission. Seungcheol no longer cares about any fucked-up or sexual kind of power play nor does he want to win. He doesn't even want you to yield to or for him. Oh, he wishes you would of your own free will — but if you at least give in to the moment, to the feelings of now, and the warmth shared between you two — that's the most he can ask for and what he's grateful to accept for the time being.

Your fingers slip beneath the neckline of his shirt, inadvertently starting to trace along the same pattern as the ink that decorates his skin. The menace of a man smirks, pausing his assault on your lips to croon knowingly, "Wanna move this to your room?"

It's annoying how Seungcheol can read you even before your mind can think. And it's even more irritating at how your body reacts, thighs betraying you. Viscerally squeezing around his figure today, much like the memory of them wrapped above his waist the other day. Legs spread by him in between them as you clung to his body that had been railing into you like there's no tomorrow. Your gaze locked over his shoulder at the man's pride and joy — his nice ass — reflected in the mirror deliberately across from your bed along with the inked designs of things he held dearly marked across his back. Including the healing scratches from your nails.

"No," you grit out and break the kiss to shoot him a pointed glare, "just take off your stupid shirt."

"Thought you'd never ask."

No one should ever look that sexy taking off clothes, but of course, Seungcheol does. Any snark left in you immediately fizzles out at the teasing reveal and intentionally flexed expanse of his stomach as well as his bare chest. And yet something shifts in the air after he throws the shirt off to the side, covering his torso with his arms and giggling.

"Stop looking at me like that."

"Like what?"

"Like you're gonna devour me whole, it's making me shy!"

It's not like you can stop yourself. Goddamnit, even that weird farmer's tan is drool-inducing. And the boyish smile he dons isn't helping either. You scoff to salvage a fraction of sanity, hands back on his bare shoulders and leaning in close enough for your noses to almost touch.

"Bullshit."

"Bet."

"You love it when people stare at you."

There's a beat of silence. "But you look at me… differently."

"Hey — don't get weird on me, Seungcheol, or your dick's gonna deflate."

Normally he'd bite back at you. Stuff like: "My dick's just fine," or "Baby, it's so easy to get hard around you," and "You'd appreciate if my dick got smaller 'cause it wouldn't make you whine so much," but this time, he doesn't. He just stares at you. Thinking. Long enough for you to start getting antsy, unable to hold eye contact for any longer than two minutes, especially with him so close.

"What?"

"You like me, don't you?"

It's the damn question he throws around all the time and your eyes roll up out of habit. "Yeah, I like you better without a deflated — "

"Forget about my cock for a bit."

"Kind of hard to do," you fire back and try to grind down on the very inflated length twitching needily for the snug cunt it senses between the layers of clothes cruelly separating it from its warm home.

Of course, Seungcheol is a little too familiar with your ploys and swats at your behind before squeezing your hips. "I know it is for a cock-hungry slut like you," he growls out in frustration before reverting back to his original soft tone, "but just humor me for a second."

"… Alright."

"You like me," he states and then repeats it in earnest when you sigh again, "you really like me. I would even be so confident enough to think you're… you're in love — "

"Well quit thinking," you interrupt with a snap, "I know your high and mighty arrogance causes you to believe everyone worships the ground you walk on but that doesn't mean a damn thing!"

Seungcheol's caramel eyes flash — with irritation or hurt, you can't quite place the swirl of emotions. "So that's all it is, huh? Just a figment of my imagination. A totally unfair projection of my thoughts and feelings onto you."

"If you wanted a session so badly on your birthday, then you should've scheduled with your therapist. And if you didn't want to continue fucking, then we could've stopped after the first round 'cause I was fine but you wanted more."

"You and I both know we're not just 'fucking'," he snarls, "and yeah, I do want more and that's why I need to know — with or without the sex, forgetting about the looks I know aren't just lust-filled because I see the ones you think I don't, I need to hear it out loud — do you like me?"

The plea of your name is the doomed cherry on top, heart thudding to the floor. It feels like the breath has been punched out of you. Though his skin is fiery warm beneath your palms it's not enough to thaw the way you've completely frozen over.

"Fine," you eventually wheeze out and Seungcheol relaxes — relieved — despite the crack in your voice, only to tense at your next words. "I'll move out tomorrow. Might take me a few days to get all my stuff gathered though."

"Wait… wait, wait… '' And this is the moment when the two of you find out that the black jujitsu belt he'd earned wasn't all for naught, effectively using a well-maneuvered technique that takes you off his lap and onto your back before you can escape from him again. "Please."

He begs, desperation evident in the way he clings to you and flops his forehead defeatedly onto your shoulder. As if he isn't the one who has you pinned to the couch cushions. He's never tried to hinder you before but honestly, he thinks he's hit the breaking point.

Don't you dare fucking leave me, is what is thought — but what comes out is a broken, "Why?"

"Because… because I… I breached the c-contract and made you uncomf — "

Seungcheol's head flies back up. "Then it should be me who moves out 'cause I'm pretty sure I violated the contract first."

"Wh-what?"

"Look at me," he commands and grips your chin so you can't turn away, "look at me, baby." And when your eyes squint open to stare into his, he fixes you with the most sincere expression you've ever seen. "I'm in love with you."

Tears spring to your eyes at the wild admission. Neither of you are sure if your hearts are mending or splitting to fuse and complete the other's. What you do know is that Seungcheol melts into you with a kiss of elation and celebration, the big man further turning into an even bigger pile of mush when your hands cup both of his cheeks during it and a thumb rubs soothingly at his jaw. He smiles against your lips when you whisper back, "I love you too."

"Took you long enough." Your flustered protests are cut short when he sits up to lean against the opposite armrest, pulling you on top of him like your original positions. "Have a present for you."

"But you're the one who should be receiving gifts."

He shrugs. "I already have the prettiest one right here in my arms… even if I was almost left alone on my birthday."

"Sorry," you stroke his pouty lips, "to be fair, I was going to wait until tomorrow."

"While holed up all by yourself in your room in the meantime. Little shit, you know I wouldn't have let you go, right?"

"Yeah… because you love me!"

There's an extra giddiness to your exclamation that's contagious enough to crack Seungcheol's chagrined expression with another grin.

"And you were gonna leave 'cause you loved me…" He lets out a huff. "Whatever, water under the bridge. Anyways, the gift. It's underneath the couch."

Curious, you lay flat and brush your hand beneath the furniture. Waving it around back and forth in the blind search, subsequently shifting all over Seungcheol's chest — bare skin gliding across bare skin.

You snicker, feeling his cock stiffening once more with your movements. "Calm down, horndog."

"It's not my fault you're rubbing your very sexy body all over me!"

"… Why'd you even decide to put it here?"

"'Cause you never clean."

"Hey! Don't make me bite your dick off." It twitches beneath you. "Freak."

"We'll see who the real freak is when I go ahead and get it pierced with a barbell you'll like."

"Oh, fuck off!" comes your retort and he grumbles at the lighthearted jab while your hand finally bumps against a hard box that you grasp onto tightly. Pulling it out and frowning at the suspicious amount of dust covering it. "Gee, how long was this down here?"

"… Six months."

Your eyes bug out. "Six months?!"

"Told ya you didn't clean under there!"

"Oh yes, because that's the point here."

"It kind of is," Seungcheol teases despite the slightly wistful look in his eyes. "Knew you wouldn't find it there."

All you can do is shake your head, gingerly opening what you assume to be a jewelry box only to abruptly shut it out of pure shock. "What the fuck did I just see?!"

"Do… do you not like it?"

"That's so not the question that needs to be asked right now."

"It kind of does 'cause if you don't want it, I'll buy something else. "

"You've gotta be shittin' me." You fix him with a hard glare though he barely reacts to it. "How much of your bank account did you deplete for that?"

A satisfied, cocky smirk is all you get in return. "'Tis but a bucket of water taken out of the ocean, sweetheart. Trivial."

"Choi Seungcheol."

"C'mon," he takes the box from you with one large hand and pops it back open. You can actually feel the ache in your eyes set in at the sight of the dazzling jewels once again. "Thought it'd look gorgeous on you."

It's easy to visibly melt at his words because he's such a smooth talker along with the knowledge that he's kept this hidden for approximately half of a year. But that still doesn't distract you from the insane amount of delicate crystals forming a beautiful open heart shape linked to two short double-strands of diamond studs on either side that join together with a silver clasp.

"It looks expensive," you correct, "how much was it?"

"Hmm, well it's seventeen carats so… a couple thousand, maybe?"

Your jaw drops, eyes widening as one of Seungcheol's beefy fingers carelessly thumbs at the choker like the piece of jewelry couldn't pay off more than half of your student debt. You likely also get some type of look on your face because he clicks his tongue.

"Now, don't you worry your pretty little head about it. I would happily spend ten times as much to get something that expresses just a fraction of what your worth is — in the world and… to me."

"You're so sappy, what the heck."

"Better not start something you can't handle, love." Seungcheol kindly warns, a little affronted when his puppy dog eyes and babygirl pout aren't as effective at distracting you as he'd like. Well, there are other ways. "You can't return it without testing it first."

"Testing?"

"Mhm, but why don't you give your sugar daddy a kiss of gratitude first?"

You scoff. "The only thing you share in common with a glucose guardian is being filthy rich."

"Not because I'm sweet like sugar?"

"Maybe just a little," you admit and lean in to give him an even sweeter kiss, much like earlier. And like before, the man turns into a puddle of syrupy goo at the featherlight touches of your lips on his.

But it's different at the same time. Kissing your roommate has always been with a bit of restraint. That all fades away as you melt into him — safety, security, Seungcheol, surrender — the both of you addicted to and lost in one another's taste while everything else falls away.

Until the little shit that he is distracts you enough for him to deftly extract the choker from its box and fasten it around your neck. You hiss at the shock of cold metal and gemstones as well as the physical and economically ethical weight around your neck, breaking the makeout session.

"See? Gorgeous, just like I thought. Not that you can look at it right now… maybe next time, we'll test it, heh, in your room."

"So that's what you meant by test…"

The lightbulb finally goes off in your head but all you receive in response is a smug look. Unaware that the grand menace is pondering what position he'd like best to see the choker for the first time in action. Something inside him clicks after absentmindedly slipping a finger underneath one of the diamond chains and watching you attempt to swallow at the increase in pressure constricting your airflow.

It's all bright white teeth when he smiles and whispers, "On your back, baby."

And you shuffle backwards obediently, letting gravity take your body down in almost a mini trust fall, knowing there will be a soft landing and that Seungcheol would never let you fall — unless it's for him.

Indeed, he does fall with you. Bodies pressed close together before he starts a burning trail of kisses starting below where the jeweled collar lays sparkling prettily against your throat. Down between your breasts he goes, an appreciative squeeze to both with warm hands that follow along with his movement.

Little nibbles to your skin and brushes to your sides that first have you squealing at the sharp nips and ticklish sensations. They're accompanied by the upward curl of his lips that only spreads wider when those airy giggles of yours transition to light moans the closer he stakes his claim to the more intimate parts of your body.

He lovingly suckles the skin of your tummy, leaving stinging signs of affection littered around your belly button and right above the band of your panties. There, Seungcheol pauses and lifts his head to look directly at you, not even trying to hide the fiery swirl of lust and adoration in his eyes and it makes you wonder how you've ever missed it before.

But that's neither here nor there, every nerve in your system is lit up in a wave of heat that has your hips instinctively rising as if pleading with him. Enough that his brown irises can't help but flit down to observe with raised eyebrows only to meet your flustered expression again with a totally-full-of-himself stare.

"So sweet and needy," Seungcheol murmurs appreciatively and hooks both thumbs underneath the side wings of your underwear to tug them off. "So fuckin' messy too," he adds in a condescending tone as if someone between your legs isn't licking his lips like a man lost in the desert for days stumbling upon a hidden oasis.

The bold eye contact he gets a kick out of maintaining is broken just to watch how the fabric adheres to your center thanks to the mix of his cum from much earlier and the constant leak of arousal pooling from your heated core. He's slow in the process of removing the saturated clothing. Giddy anticipation building until it finally peels away with a suggestive squelch to reveal your creampied cunt.

A choked groan rumbles in his chest. You're caught in the struggle between snapping your legs together out of shyness or letting them fall open just as he likes, the fear of soiling the couch again no longer even a thought. But still in no rush, Seungcheol slips your panties down one leg and while they hang off the other, supports your heel in his palm to place butterfly kisses along your ankle.

You peek at him in between the fingers covering your eyes and heated cheeks. "What are you doing?"

"Admiring you." Smooch. "Adoring you." Peck. "Marveling at how beautifully wet you get… this all for me, love?"

"Yeah, so… so you should take re-responsibility."

"Oh? And how so? What for?"

"Mmph!" You jolt at how fast he moves to fling your underwear over his shoulder and hover over top of you, whispering naughty words into your ear while roughened finger pads brush against slick folds.

"For knockin' you up? Not my fault this hungry pussy is never satisfied no matter how many times I stuff it. Greedy lil' thing."

"'m s-sorry… I — oh! Ohh…"

"You don't sound sorry."

Seungcheol mocks the shuddering moan that spills past your lips like he hadn't just shoved two chunky digits past those slippery folds and into the suffocating warmth beyond. His pointer finger bears its usual silver ring, the cold metal there and around your neck causing you to break out in a sweat at the chill engulfing your whole body. All from the heat swirling from the neck down, the torturous buildup between your legs, and meeting in a firestorm that explodes in your gut and makes your cunt tighten around his moving digits.

Your right arm snakes behind his nape and clings around it for dear life, nearly slamming the man's face into your tits — not that he's complaining — while the other sneaks between your bodies. Trailing down to where Seungcheol's fingers plunge inside of you, running yours across his exposed knuckles to dampen them with the filthy mix of arousal and cumstains he's playing in before tugging and teasing at your clit right above his vigorous actions.

He clicks his tongue. "Now, what did I say about touching things that belong to me?"

"Don't touch without permission." A warning look that lacks any ferocity is shot your way but the corner of your lips quirks up, eyelashes fluttering, because he's really just full of shit. "And to handle… handle them with care, which 's all I'm doin'."

"Brat."

"You love me."

"Damn right, I do. But if you're gonna use that against me like this maybe I have no choice but to discipline you."

You whimper when he withdraws his fingers, the loss and emptiness a punishment itself. "D-don't be mean."

"I'm never mean to you."

"You're not." You acquiesce with a cute little sniffle, interlocking your hands behind his neck to bring him down nose to nose. "'cept when I want your dick but s'kay, love you anyways."

"Using the L-word on me now, huh? Speaking of which, I never got you back for the little stunt you tried to pull earlier."

"Wha — ?"

The new position you had pulled him into grants Seungcheol the full teasing power he was honored to be blessed with. A dripping cock leaks precum between your bodies and smears your belly with the hot excess. Supported by a forearm beside your head, he languidly strokes his hard length and snickers. Barely wedging the mushroomed tip into your moist outer folds with a noisy squish and emitting a strangled groan from the back of the man's throat. Just enough so you can feel the faint tantalizing burn his girth promises in its efforts to stretch out your cunt, a buzz to the underside of your deliciously sore and engorged clit upon contact.

He's all toothy when you moan in response. Wiggling his hips lets him dip in a little further for the sole purpose of watching your eyes glaze over and threaten to roll to the back of your head. Lips parting wider in an adorable 'o' shape.

"Thought you could just leave like it's nothing. As if I don't fuck you full of enough cum to babytrap you here with me… Oh? You'd like that wouldn't you, pussy tryna gobble me up like the slutty whore that you are."

"Mmph, ah… only yours!"

No one has to be your special someone to read your body so easily but it's the fact that he is the one who's able to make your cunt react and squeeze around him just like so that fuels his ego. A mean sneer chisels his softer face features — less of a reaction towards you and more of him struggling not to plunge his pelvis forward and rearrange your guts. Or even worse (better), to bust a nut inside, painting your velvet walls with a creamy white.

It would be so easy to slide in a little further… you're begging him with slurred words and a steady pulsating grip around his dick — just daring him to ease the rest of it inside.

But then you would never learn your lesson. And if there's one thing Seungcheol loves more than being wrapped up in the tight clench of your cunt, it's making you work for it. Show off how desperate and cock-drunk you are.

"Y'know, all you had to do was tell me. Would've fucked you on every surface of this house, make sure there wasn't a moment that passed where you didn't have my cum dripping down your legs." He relents with the most meager of thrusts forward, widening the spread of your pretty folds suckling around him. "Anything to keep my darling 'lil babymaker satisfied, pump you full every minute of the day and make sure it takes."

"Ch-Cheol… please! Wan' you so bad."

"You'd like that, right? Givin' you a baby so you stay here forever. We'll make as many as you want, I'll even take time off to help." The sudden rush of paternal instincts makes the man pause, chuckling and muttering more to himself, if anything, "maybe you've been tryna babytrap me all along."

"Jus' want, just want your dick."

"I know, baby."

Seungcheol simpers at your pitiful plea but the menace in him victoriously pulls out and away, the departing wet 'pop' as loud as the slight fracture in his heart at doing so.

"No!"

In visible grief, your seizing legs clamp at his side with your heels digging into the dip right before the curve of his ass, clawing at his shoulder blades like a cat. That does nothing though except squish his length against your needy cunt, gliding pathetically against it but not once inside.

He smirks and whispers hoarsely, "If you want it so bad, put it in yourself."

A shaky hand reaches down to grasp and stroke at his dick, inadvertently brushing against your swollen clit that has your hips jumping. You bite down on your lower lip in an attempt to concentrate, blindly guiding his slippery cockhead to where it rightfully belongs. All while Seungcheol watches with amusement and a pained expression of how heavenly your hand feels on him — and even more when you succeed and bully him inch by inch inside of your gummy walls that suction and ripple greedily.

"There we go, yeah fuck… just like that."

Further and further, squelch by squelch until your pussy stretches to swallow and take him all. Only a finger's width between your pelvises kissing one another, knuckles snug against his heavy scrotum. You release him with triumph, clinging again to his neck. Seungcheol takes the final push and you let out simultaneous moans when his balls settle warmly against your ass and the neatly trimmed hairs at the base of his shaft are flush with your pubic bone. The tiny rough strands becoming even more soft and soaked by all of the arousal leaking out of your hole and his slit.

"Mine," he affirms and sticks his pinky through the open diamond heart pendant, nail lightly scratching the front of your throat.

"Yours." You hold onto his wrist, finally feeling so deliriously full and giggling a bit because you're somewhat light-headed. "You're mine too."

"Yeah, all yours, baby."

Seungcheol's beginning thrusts are slow, deep, and concentrated. He barely leaves your warmth, only sliding a little bit back before a harsh thrust forward to nudge his tip against the rougher spot that has some drool dribbling at the corner of your mouth out of sheer pleasure.

That doesn't last long though, the both of you are extremely worked up and super sensitive. It only takes a few minutes before he's setting an erratic pace. Strong forearms cage your head to protect it and keep you somewhat stationary while giving him enough strength to absolutely plow into you without forgiveness.

The couple thousand dollar choker starts to shift against your skin, bouncing ever so slightly in time with each repetition of relentless slams into your pussy. Such a sight delights Seungcheol so much, eyes focused on the glittery accessory and listening for its rhythmic jingle — bruising your tender flesh in ways that his lips don't — that ends up drowned out by the continual slap of the hard fucking he delivers.

"Gonna cum for me, sweetheart? Let me fill ya up?"

"S-soon! 'm gonna cum… so soon!"

"I… know. Oh fuck, I know baby. Let go for me, please. Surrender… ngh 'n give it all to me."

A powerful climax washes over you like a surprise, the setoff finalized by the large hand placed on your tummy. Applying just enough pressure to feel every vein and ridge of the cock against your inner walls while on the outside, Seungcheol lets out a guttural and feral groan at the upward bulge beneath his fingertips.

You let go with a wail that's swallowed by his lips capturing yours. Your nails dig into whatever you're grasping onto, teeth unconsciously biting down on his tongue you meant to simply caress with your own.

He lets out a strangled "oomph!" but the pain is easily sedated by the seductive way you contract and massage his dick in your unraveling — and then unprompted, he's spilling over the edge too. Coating your walls in thick ropes of white that sear your insides, gobbling up the release with repeated clenches as you both pant and wait for the orgasmic bliss to fade out.

"I think you're so sexy." Seungcheol mumbles the words tiredly into your shoulder and the laugh you let out sounds more like a winded wheeze.

"How lucky I am that you think that, has the post-nut clarity hit yet or… ?"

"I'm serious. I love you."

"I love you too. Happy birthday to my perfect sugar boyfriend or whatever."

He snorts, lifting his head to send you a lazy grin. "Yeah, happy birthday to me — the luckiest bitch on the planet to be loved by you."

"Spoiled is more like it but yeah. I'd say I'm pretty lucky too."

Adoration shines in both of your weary eyes, though Seungcheol has the audacity to lick his now very dry and cracked lips. "Say, was I right in picking out your gift or do you need more test runs?"

"What I need is a hot bath — no funky business — and at least twenty-four hours of sleep."

"That sounds good too. Y'know… if we sleep for a whole other day and confirm our relationship then, we can fuck for two days straight every year as an anniversary celebration!" His voice lowers, already acting naughty and unintentionally work himself up. "And then I'm positive you'll be bred properly."

You slap his shoulder. Hard. "Choi Seungcheol!"

"'m just kiddin'," he blatantly lies and gently pulls out of your sloppy pussy. Grunting at the goop and messy wetness that got everywhere. "Think we'll need to get a new couch."

"Great idea! Now, you can spend your money on something practical."

"Love you too."

"God, what did I get myself into." When you roll your eyes, a toothy grin is what you receive in return.

"I dunno, love, but I think this roommates to fuck buddies to lovers arrangement will work out beautifully, don't you?"

You give him another kiss just to shut him up. If you ever admit he's right, well, that would be with a mouthful of cock and a story saved for another time.

onlyseokmins: September 2023 ©

#ez.creates #svthub #svt.smut #seungcheol smut #choi seungcheol smut #smut #svt smut #seventeen smut #kpop smut #scoups smut #I secretly loathe this fic 😭#1k 🌟

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rc-writer · 22 days

Note

rafe x reader

rafe’s reaction to his girlfriend punching a guy that kept on flirting with her because rafe wasn’t near🤭

Warnings:- physical assault, mentions of bl*od & bruises, men being weird 😒, mentions of guns.

“you d-did w-what?” rafe stammers, his eyes wide as he looks straight back at you.

you shrug your shoulders nonchalantly as you run your bloody and bruised knuckles under the warm water in the kitchen sink.

“i punched him” you say with a hint of pride in your voice.

rafe steps towards you, dropping his car keys and wallet onto the kitchen counter.

his soft, gentle and all around lovely little girlfriend punched a guy?

rafe had been working all day, even though you’d begged him to stay home that morning. he apologised more than once before handing you his card to take yourself shopping. “get whatever you want, baby.”

rafe’s eyes move over to the bags on the kitchen island before directing them back over to you, “you punched him?” he reiterates your words.

he steps towards you and gently grips your arm, turning you around to face him. you grab yourself a towel to dry off your hand as rafe examines your knuckles.

“they’re really bruised…” he whispers as he drags his thumb across your knuckles.

you nod in agreement, “i know. it’s fine. i’m fine.”

he shakes his head slowly and brings his ringed hand up to his buzzed head. he rubs his hand up and down a few times before releasing a sigh, “what did he do? did he hurt you?”

you shake your head, “he kept asking for my number and every time i said no he got mad. he got too close to me in the end so i punched him.”

rafe has to refrain from smiling. although he feels a wave of anger washing over him as he thinks about some guy harassing you, he can’t help but feel a sense of pride.

you punched some guy to make him leave you alone.

that sounds like something rafe would do.

he hums and gently brings your bruised hand up to his mouth. he kisses across your knuckles making a soft smile spread onto your lips. he pulls you closer and wraps his big arms around your waist, forcing you to look up at him through your lashes. “you’re turning into me, huh? what’s happening to my sweet girl?”

you grin, “just did what you would’ve wanted me to do.”

he leans in closer to your face with a smirk, “i’m proud of you.”

you bury your face into his chest with a grin, “thank you.”

he presses his lips to the top of your head and you pull away from the embrace. you reach up and press your lips to his with a smile.

you pull back, your eyes falling down to your battered hand. you begin to frown but rafe quickly reacts by titling your chin back up to look at him.

“next time you can take a gun. that’ll scare him off.”

you shake your head, “next time, i want you to be there.”

he nods and pulls you in close again before replying, “deal.”

#rafe obx #outerbanks rafe #rafe outer banks #rafe cameron #rafe fanfiction #rafe cameron prompt #rafe fic #rafe imagine #rafe smut #rafe x reader

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msbigredmachine · 18 days

Text

Power Couple: The Aftermath (Roman Reigns)

When the Tribal Chief falls, no one helps him back up better than you do. Set after the epic main event of Wrestlemania XL.

Pairing: Roman Reigns/OC

Warnings: Excess fluff and of course, smut.

Word Count: 3.3k

A/N: Yes, I'm still in my feelings, and there was only one pairing I could properly convey my feelings with, because this has also been their story all along. For new readers, I strongly suggest reading the first two one-shots before delving into this one. Hope you enjoy!

Banner made by me. Credit to the owners of the pics and gifs

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1,316 days.

All wiped away with three slaps of the referee’s hand to the hard canvas.

Even after Cody rolled away from him, Roman could not move. Hell, he couldn’t breathe. Not when the air had been punched out of his lungs, literally and figuratively. It was only when Dwayne pulled him out of the ring by his pants leg that his body managed to kickstart itself into some sort of motion. And even then, all he could do was turn his head to look back and watch as Cody celebrated in the ring with his wife Brandi, holding his title belt aloft for the whole world to behold as the ultimate symbol of his victory.

It should have been you and him up there. It should have been him. Again. But it wasn’t. Because the one time he got careless in battle, it cost him everything. Throwing years of hard work down the drain.

And it made him sick to his stomach.

The sound of ‘Kingdom’ blaring through the Lincoln Financial Field Stadium was torture to the former champion’s ears. His legs felt like lead as he dragged his battered body up the ramp, ignoring Dwayne’s baseless, performative complaints about nothing, as he put distance to the tableau of triumph of his opponent. The weight of this defeat was heavy, suffocating even, and he was desperate to get the fuck out of there, to get out of Philadelphia, out of Pennsylvania and all its environs. As he reached the top of the vast WrestleMania stage, pain surged through his abdomen, forcing him to recoil into himself and double over in pain.

His Wise Man noticed his plight and paused to observe his charge. "My Tribal Chief, are you alright? Do you need-"

Roman shook his head. "I'm fine,” he snapped, willing himself to keep walking until he made it past the curtain. He leaned against the wall and bent over, resting his hands on his knees.

“What can I do, my Tribal Chief?” Paul implored.

“Just…get my wife on the bus and make sure everything’s ready to go. I’ll be there soon."

“Right away my Tribal Chief,” Paul replied eagerly, scurrying off to do as he was told.

It was a good long minute before Roman managed to pull himself back upright, staggering towards his locker room. Walking was so hard, his body hurt so much, but none of it hurt as much as the gut punch of failure. Much worse than any of the bumps he took was the shame, the disappointment engulfing him; so much so that he couldn’t bear to look anyone else in the eye right now.

Because he had failed everyone who cared about him.

He had failed you.

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

All good things come to an end. That’s how the saying goes, right? The interesting part of that was that on the surface, it was a throwaway little trope, harmless and benign, until something that meant a great deal to you got taken away in the blink of an eye, or in this case, a three-count. The moment the bell signaled the pinfall that confirmed your husband's time as the Undisputed WWE Universal Champion had come to an end, you knew he would never be the same again.

It wasn't unlike Roman to be a little on edge weeks before a big premium live event. And given the nature of the two main event matches he was locked in for the fortieth annual WrestleMania, you expected he would be grouchy. But this time around seemed different, and not in a good way. He’d been surly towards everybody, including you. He disappeared for hours working out obsessively. He’d even thrown out a female member of the press who had dared to boo him at the press conference on Saturday night. Now, despite the final match of the weekend concluding nearly an hour ago, Roman was yet to return to his tour bus. That only meant one thing; he was not taking this defeat well, and it was up to you to lift him up, like you always did.

When you found the door boasting your husband's name, Heyman was outside, pacing back and forth. The Undisputed title, which you had grown accustomed to seeing on his shoulders on behalf of his Tribal Chief, was missing; a stark, prickly reminder of the outcome of tonight’s proceedings.

"That bad, huh?" you asked, reading the Wise Man’s expression in a second. In fact, he looked on the verge of tears, his shoulders sagging with despair. The weekend had taken an emotional toll on him, too.

"He won’t come out," he informed you, his usually confident voice shaky and helpless. “He won’t let anyone in and he won’t speak to anyone…”

You raised your index finger to cut him off. "Correction, he won’t speak to anyone that’s not me," you stated, shooting him a warm smile, one among countless others you had shared with him since burying the hatchet after years of friction between you. "Go be with your family, Paul. I’ll handle my husband.”

“He’s my family, too,” he declared softly, the conviction in what you used to call his beady eyes, palpable and heartbreaking, “Both of you are.”

Touched and at a loss for words, you could only look on as he turned around slowly and made the lonely walk down the hallway. Turning back to the locker room door, you sucked a breath between your teeth and blew it out, mentally preparing to confront this task head-on.

You knocked timidly and stuck your head inside. If Roman was in as foul a mood as Paul let on, even you did not want to be there. It had taken a few unfortunate incidents over the years for you to learn that even a kiss from his wife wasn't enough when he got too stressed. It never stopped you from trying, though. Kissing was one of your favorite things to do with him after all.

"Knock, knock," you called out softly, listening for signs of movement as you stepped inside and closed the door. The room that was bustling just a few hours ago was now stripped bare and cloaked in dead quiet. It was an eerie contrast to the majestic, sweeping grandiosity that encompassed his entrance to the ring tonight. “Babe?”

Venturing further inside the room, you found him on the couch, his strong, broad back to you, his shoulders slumped dejectedly. An open bottle of Jack Daniels sat on the coffee table in front of him. His ula fala was draped over the headrest, where his title belt would surely have been.

This was the reality no one warned you about after a monumental loss. It plunged you into a cold, dark abyss, wrought with biting silence and dreary loneliness now that the show was over and the lights were no longer bright. The what ifs, buts and maybes crooning in your ear like a morbid symphony. It was an experience all too familiar to you unfortunately, and recently, too; you and your husband had traveled down this terrible road following the tragic miscarriage of your son in the summer of 2022.

Stepping in front of him, you wiggled into his personal space and made yourself at home on his lap. Gently wrapping your arms around him, you sighed with relief when he instantly melted into you and his huge arms enveloped your waist, holding on to you like his life depended on it.

“My baby,” you cooed soothingly, the sound of your lips meeting the side of his head piercing through the emptiness of the locker room. “My love.”

The audible hitch of his breath at your soft words was expected. In the course of your lifetime, those two little phrases had garnered a poignant significance. As words of comfort and solace first uttered by your mother when you were a child, you murmured those words regularly to Roman between sweet, playful kisses when he was courting you, basking in the bliss of newfound love, and again as part of your wedding vows as you became man and wife. They were the first words you whispered to Laleia the first time she was placed in your arms. They were the words that you had cried yourself to sleep with as you mourned the baby boy you had lost. You and Roman had seen each other at your absolute best and worst, and now, in the isolation of this room, with just the two of you and nobody else, this was another bad moment you had to overcome.

“On Matt’s birthday, too,” Roman finally spoke, wiping at his nose with a sniffle. “Fuck, man.”

“I know,” you replied, running your hand comfortingly up and down his upper arm. As he met your gaze at last, you saw that his eyes were bloodshot. Seeing him like this broke your heart afresh. You held him as close as possible, willing all his pain and his hurt into your soul, wanting nothing more than to take it all away.

"I fucked up," he breathed, his voice raw and choked with misery, "I fucked up out there, babe...I let Dwayne down...I let y'all down. I lost the title and I'm sorry."

"Sorry? For what? Over thirteen hundred days as champion?" you countered, "Nine WrestleMania main events? Billions of dollars in revenue? A roof over your child's head and three square meals a day? One loss will never wipe any of that away, don't ever get it twisted."

He exhaled tiredly as he hugged you tighter, resting his head on your shoulder. "I really wish I felt that way right now," he mumbled.

"It'll take some time, but you will," you asserted, running his fingers through his loose hair before tugging it lightly, making him look at you again. "Roman, you changed the industry, just like you said you would when we started this. No one will ever, ever forget what you've done these past four years. Be proud of all of it. You've been through so much, you sacrificed too much to not be proud."

Roman nodded in understanding. He just wished he didn't feel so down. "Baby, I...I want you to know how sorry I am. I know how much you wanted this. And I've been such a dick to you lately-"

You kissed your teeth and waved his apology away. "Nah. That don't matter no more. And I don't care that you didn't win. All I care about is you being safe when you're out there. Being healthy for our family and our daughter, who will be very happy to have her Daddy home, by the way. So we took an L. Okay, we'll only come back stronger. We had one bad night. Guess what? I plan on giving you a better morning, if you know what I mean." You rounded off your words with a wink, your heart blooming when he chuckled in response. "See, there's that smile I love so much. Keep your head up, baby. You did so good tonight. I couldn't be more proud of you."

Roman leaned into you, his forehead pressed to yours, breathing you in and filling his head with your scent. It was like breathing fresh air. “I love you, Y/N. I love you with all of my heart. I don’t deserve you, I never have.”

The tears you'd been fighting all night resurfaced, but you blinked them away as you captured his lips with yours, your hand sliding over the back of his neck. He clung to you, a different emotion quickly overtaking him as he returned your kiss with a bit of aggression, his tongue whipping hungrily against yours, savoring your mouth as though he was tasting it for the very first time. You surrendered to his every whim, your other hand raking through his hair then caressing gently down to his chest, resting your palm over the spot where his heart pumped for you. You could feel how much he needed this moment of intimacy, and you had no qualms giving him anything he asked for.

With one quick tug of your legs, Roman had you straddling him on the couch, bringing you chest to chest with your lush backside resting on his growing bulge. He paused for a moment to take a deep breath, then sealed your mouths again, his tongue invading, probing, a moan rumbling in his chest when you matched his energy, the emotions take over this loving embrace. He could never get enough of you, of the passion that overwhelmed him by your mere presence, immersing him in a love and gratitude he would always feel for you no matter what state of mind he was in.

Eventually, you pulled away from each other, breathless, panting, lips glistening with each other’s saliva. His heart raced at the familiar gleam in your darkened eyes. You weren’t done with him, not just yet, and this was confirmed as you slowly slid off him and sank to your knees between his spread thighs, pushing the front of his shirt up to expose his newly honed six-pack abs.

“Do you know how fucking hot you looked tonight, Daddy?” you purred to him, leaning in to run your tongue over the ridges of muscle on his taut belly. “Last night? All week? Do you have any idea of all the nasty shit I’m gonna do to you on the bus?”

Roman’s dick jumped in his joggers as his imagination ran wild. He squirmed in his seat, his bottom lip slipping between his teeth as your tongue lapped at his belly, your mouth warm on his skin, all while you rubbed the fullness of his bulge straining eagerly against your touch. “Baby girl…” he choked out, as your fingers peeled the waistband of his pants, unveiling his big, beautiful brown dick.

“Hmm, commando. I like it,” you commented with a smirk, curling your fist around his turgid length.

“Babe, wait…ain’t Paul outside?”

“I sent him home. Plus, won't be the first time he's seen me suck you off.” Your small hand massaged his blunt, plum-shaped head as you licked a trail along the underside of his dick, enjoying the gasps of pleasure that he made. Licking up the pre-cum that had gathered at the tip, your mouth opened wider to take him in. He stared you down with an intense look in his dark irises, which soon fluttered shut as your lips wrapped tight around his flesh, his stomach tensing as he felt himself slide deeper inside. “Awww, fuuuck,” he moaned.

Pulling back for a second, you held his lust-filled stare and stroked his dick a little harder, giggling when it twitched in your grip. A defiant look clouded your eyes as you licked at his tip before pushing him back into your mouth. It was enough for him to nut by just watching you, the visual of your lips sliding slowly up and down his length, that sexy mouth of yours making sweet love to his dick. It felt so good that he sank further into the plush leather of the couch, his head rolling back lazily against the headrest, his toes curling inside his brand new Air Reigns sneakers. All the pain and punishment his body had endured tonight melted away and was replaced with much more pleasurable sensations.

“I love the way you suck my dick, wifey,” he praised you, forcing himself to observe you through his barely open eyelids. “Mmm, that slutty little mouth is warm as fuck…You so sexy, baby, keep lookin’ up at me like that...”

His raspy growls had you glancing back up at him, batting your pretty eyelashes as you sucked him off. Wetness pooled between your thighs at his famished expression. Completely aroused, you picked up the pace as your hands and your mouth worked in tandem, sucking and stroking his dick, pleasuring him from tip to base. His breathing became heavier as he throbbed against your tongue, his hands finding the back of your head as he got lost in the paradise of your warm, wet mouth.

“Damn, baby. I bet that pussy leakin’ for me right now. You gettin’ wet sucking Daddy off, beautiful?” he taunted, his tongue swishing over his bottom lip at the same time your tongue swirled around the base of his shaft. The little moan that escaped your throat told him he was right. Of course he was; he knew his wife better than anybody else. “Good girl. Keep goin', I want that pussy extra wet. I’ma lick all that shit up when we get on the bus.”

With another soft moan, you crawled closer to his body and bore down on him, bobbing your head up and down that long, fat cock. Scooping your hair up into his large fist for leverage, Roman rocked his hips upwards from his seated position, thrusting in and out of your mouth. You relaxed your throat to take him deeper, moaning around his dick and letting him know how much you were enjoying him fucking your face. You rolled his balls in your hand, caressing the heavy, tightened sac to send him over the edge. It was working, as he began thrusting faster, his husky groans of pleasure amplifying as he neared his release.

“Unnnhh, baby, here it comes…Fuck, open your mouth,” he gasped, not waiting for you to do so as he yanked you by your hair to free himself from your intoxicating mouth. You quickly opened wide as he grabbed his cock and jerked it desperately against your tongue. He caught sight of the glazed-over quality of your gaze, and he knew that your panties were completely ruined, your pussy dripping with your need for him. He planned to take care of that very soon.

It was a show more spectacular than Mania, the sight of his gorgeous face contorted with pleasure, his head thrown back, eyes rolled to the heavens as his orgasm washed over his big body. Your moans harmonized together with each spasm of his cum down your throat, making you swallow every drop he unleashed. His grip on your hair was tight and almost painful, but you were turned on anyway, aroused by the knowledge that no one brought him to this state of paramount pleasure like you did. Licking your lips, you scooped him back into your mouth to clean him up, released him with a soft pop when you finished, and tucked him back inside the confines of his joggers. You giggled as he stared dazedly at the ceiling, licking his lips to catch his breath, his big frame slack and helpless as he recovered from the intense orgasm.

"Goddamn, baby...Shit," he groaned.

Wiping your mouth with the back of your hand, you stood up and sat back on his lap, welcoming the gentle press of his mouth to yours in a sweet, grateful kiss. “You feel better, Daddy?” you asked.

"Much better. I needed that so much. Thanks, baby," he smiled up at you, his stomach doing flips as you smiled back. He truly was the luckiest man in the world.

“Mm-hmm. Luckily, there’s more where that came from,” you assured him with another kiss before getting to your feet and pulling him up to his. “Come on, Daddy. Let's go home. We got a toddler to take care of. We'll figure out all the other stuff when it's time."

He nodded in agreement and squeezed your hand. “Okay, baby. Home it is.”

A new chapter in your story had been opened tonight, and the path ahead seemed uncertain and even scary. But you both took pride in the fact that as long as you kept writing it together, your love story was going to remain as beautiful as it already was.

But make no mistake about it; Roman Reigns was going to rule the wrestling world again. That was one story that was never going to end.

THE END

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

Thoughts? How sappy was this😢Was quite cathartic for me, loved writing it.

Thank you all so much for reading and commenting!

TAGGING: @jxtina-86 @wrestlingprincess80 @fame-ass-ers @southerngirl41 @alyyaanna @squishyguishy @jstarr86 @murrylove @thewarlordsworld @mzv11 @cozyaliensuperstar7 @nayys-world @hunnidmilly @harmshake @cyberdejos2 @papireigns-05 @niknakbucks92 @captainwithoutmakingitlove @sovereigngoth @aisharmi @kennedi0818 @alichesmi @thesamoanqueen @herwickedlittlesins @questionable-behaviour @tribalchiefreigns @2-muchsauce @thatbxtchsblog @raya-hunter01 @marchi36753 @lovelysuccess @christinabae @wooahmiri @thatonecarebear @tabletheofhead @rheaanddamianfan @vebner37 @hanley1577 @princessesareforsuckers @-naturally @joannasteez @bbygirlky18 @lilucey @theninthwonder @melaninsugababy @chocovibesonly @msbluehaz3 @scarlettnoir01 @heerah34 @empressdede @tbmotw @darkangelchronicles @visionarymode @marasdeathnote @aintnorainbows @meggylynnloves @shantinextdoor @harlemblipster @trc-punzel @afterdarkprincess @nbanenefrmdao @sassginaswanmills @purplehairgawdess @holisticcoach @girlwhogaf @royalkay23 @heyitsnajabrinee @stoner2k @reci1996 @catxo @iamimanim @lookmais @ts1mp0ne @shonny09 @lizzyd1ish @m3llowww @skyesthebomb @final1miya @mzv11 @kia1996 @randomuser0711 @yourtribalqueen @caramelcleopatraa @katymae12344 @that-one-anxious-mango @yana3sworld @ajenae @truefant4sy @thetribalqueen @bhjszsdxc

#roman reigns #wwe #roman reigns fanfiction #roman reigns smut #roman reigns fanfic #the bloodline #wrestlemania #wrestlemania 40 #power couple #roman reigns x black!oc #roman reigns x black oc #roman reigns x black reader

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callsign-relic · 8 months

Note

This idea has been my brainrot for months! If you've ever been on reddit, or tiktok lately you might have seen a funny subreddit titled "humans are space orcs". Well I fell inlove with that headcannon, so I wanted to put in the request for poly ratchet and drift with a human reader, reader had stowawayed on the lostlight and was lucky enough that the ship was being supplied oxygen, with occasional stops giving the chance for reader to go out and grab some supplies.

Long story short reader ends up getting caught in the medbay, battered and bruised, and gets stuck in a staring contest with ratchet, who is bewildered.

(I also find the comparison of cybertronians being possible scared of humans, like a elephant is of mice)

And my first request after my little hiatus! I apologize for the wait :) This was a fun idea to work with! This description matched the First Contact AU pretty perfectly so this accidentally became a First Contact fic, sorry if that’s not what you were looking for HAHA. Still though, i hope you enjoy :)

Warnings: SFW, GN!Human!Reader, First Contact AU

“And how did you say you found this creature, again?”

“By sheer coincidence! I was gathering some extra supplies from the crates in the back of the medbay, only to push a box aside and find… this.”

You lay flat against your elbows in the palm of a bright red servo, eyes darting frantically between the two titans above you as they conversed in an exchange of vowels and consonants you couldn’t comprehend. The two aliens were similar in color, yet couldn’t look more different— as if they were opposites, yet complemented one another all the same.

The bot that held you was square in his frame, his default expression a discontented scowl. From the platform of his palm, you could see the aged paint of his plating, full of dents and scratches galore. On the hand beneath you, specifically, you could see the chips of paint around each of his joints. Near-imperceptible to a being of his scale, certainly, but you could see the little splotches of blue peeking out from constant use.

The mech beside him was a completely different story, however. Rather than the square, boxy shape of his companion— this one was decorated with sharp angles. His color palette was like the other’s but reversed, more white with accents of bright red. Despite his triangular appearance, he gazed at you in Ratchet’s palm curiously— while Ratchet appeared more skeptical than anything.

“Have you ever seen a being such as this?” Wondered Drift aloud.

“Not in my years, no,” Ratchet replies with a shake of his head.

Wordlessly, Drift offers up both of his hands cupped before you. You pull back, head flicking between Drift’s face and his offered hands, grimacing.

Despite the language barrier, you know the sound of a scoff when you hear it, and as it echoes out from above you you can feel the platform of Ratchet’s palm start to tilt out from beneath you. You can do little to grab on— the ridges of his joints weren’t wide enough for you to cling to, so you succumb to your fate and tumble down into the samurai’s awaiting servos.

“Ratchet!” Drift scolds, “You could’ve handled them a little nicer.”

“C’mon, I wasn’t going to wait all day for it to hop off,” the medic grumbles. “Plus, it’s an organic. The texture was… off-putting.”

As if to prove his hypothesis, Ratchet reaches out a large digit and pokes at your stomach. In your injured state, you let out a wheeze, and Drift is quick to pull his hands closer towards him and away from his conjux.

“Did you hear that?” He asks, not really expecting an answer. “They almost sounded injured, poor thing.”

“Can I take a look?” Ratchet hums, and the white mech stares at him suspiciously for a moment. The older bot lets out another scoff, “I won’t handle them roughly, I promise.”

Satisfied, Drift nods, and slowly lowers his hands from his chassis to present you forwards. You were holding your stomach now, curled inwards in a fetal position, but even so, one could easily tell you were covered in marks and bruises all over your little form.

Again, Ratchet hums. “Let’s take them to the main medbay, see if our scanners can pick up anything.” As the medic concedes, a smile spreads wide across Drift’s faceplate, and Ratchet has to stuff down the urge to grin himself at seeing him so excited. He occupies himself by starting towards the main scanner, activating it and preparing any systems they may have needed. “With any luck, we can figure out just what this creature is.”

Drift starts to make his way over to the scanner as well, cradling you gently between his two hands. He lifts you up to his face, and though you scoot back up away from it, something about his innocent smile seems… endearing, to you.

“Hear that, little one? We’re going to get you all fixed up in no time.”

#relic writes #Transformers #reader insert #Transformers x reader #mtmte Ratchet #MTMTE Ratchet x reader #ratchet x reader #MTMTE drift #Transformers drift #drift x reader #mtmte #more than meets the eye #MTMTE x reader #Transformers mtmte #lost light #Transformers lost light #lost light x reader #maccadam #maccadams

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mitsies · 10 months

Note

i just read "intrinsic warmth" and it was sooo good ( YOU AHVE AMAZING TASTE). pls give us more gojo recs ao3 or tumblr.

gojo + ao3:

UPDATED

+ intrinsic warmth: my favourite fic of all time. like genuinely. insane writing, fucking amazing in every sense of the term. 2nd time recommending this! reader's character is so sick BUT updates real slow (which isnt a bad thing!! good things take time!!) so i wouldn't read if you aren't patient // 90k words, 13 chapters, incomplete

+ ripverse: not really a series, more like a compilation of fics! it's got a lot of angst and the one titled 'interlude' contains smut i think so beware, and it's also a lovetriangle/poly-but-geto-goes-crazy-so-not-poly moment // 55k words, 8 pieces

+ the witches' brew: super cute fluff! reader owns a cafe, gojo is a regular, it's all around adorable // 2 chapters, 11k words, completed

+ all that is solid melts into air: arranged marriage trope! i haven't read but @/aanobrain loves this one // 7k words, 1 chapter, complete

+ cake batter: established relationship w/ dad!gojo & megumi <33 not much to say, just short n sweet, i am such a sucker for dad gojo so its no surprise there's one of these on the list.. // 2k words, 1 chapter, complete

+ best of luck: initial concept is really unique!! confessions, slight angst, takes place at the beginning/middle-ish of s1 i think? so cute loved this <;3 // 5k words, 1 chapter, complete

+ afternoon tea(se): gojo torturing megumi. classic !! so so cute love the banter // 1.7k words, 1 chapter, complete

+ my apologies, gordon ramsay: god i hate this man. jk. reader is a teacher and a functional human being; gojo is not. loved! // 8k words, 1 chapter, complete

+ a name known only to paper: platonic, angst- beautifully written, such a unique idea. reader is gojo's older sibling. // 3k words, 1 chapter, complete

gojo + tumblr:

+ untitled by @/augustinewrites: actually idk if there's a title and if i just can't find it but... this is so so cute love me a lil drunkass gojo hes so cute and the author writes him so well i am a huge fan LMFAO just check out their whole masterlist if u havent alr!!

+ i could fall asleep or stare in your eyes (you're right by my side) by @/seoafin: hurt/comfort !!! lovely, this author's writing style is so so good i eat this shit UPP

+ growing pains by @/seoafin: another lovely work by this author!! im pretty sure they also wrote ripverse (on the ao3 part) as well? parental gojo again!

+ close combat by @aanobrain: honestly it's taking everything in me to not link all of art's gojo fics so i'm limiting myself to my fav 3, and this is one: love the reader's personality, so so much and NO im not biased bc i helped write it....

+ family photo by @aanobrain: fifteen THOUSAND words of pure mastery. the motifs, techniques, all make an intricate storyline even better- wonderful characterisation and i cannot express enough how amazing this is

+ 10:15 AM by @aanobrain: short n silly. this one makes me giggle. i requested it in return for an aki fic i wrote which is how u know its good. ok bye done w aanobrain art now i dont even know them who is this

+ quiet game drabble by @/moonbeamwritings: so so cute looooove silent treatment fics bc theyre always so silly n this is characterised so well !!

+ no good, very bad date by @sixosix: again i am fighting my demons to not rec all of six's gojo fics........ THIS ONE IS MY FAV THO!!! so so fluffy so sooo fluffy i thrw up in my mouth (in a good way)

+ fan letters by @sixosix: FLUSTERED GOJO............. i was hissing and squirming and [REDACTED] wjen i read this for the first time. short n so so sweet

+ formation b! by @earthtooz: oh god another place where i want to give u the whole masterlist... go check it out if u havent alr but this is a classic i LOOOVE my sillies !! teacher gojo based on that one ending cutscene w megumi its so so sweet

+ untitled by @earthtooz: ok again idk if there is a title i am finding all of these fics bc theyre saved in my drafts but.... THIS IS SO CUTE!! if i were to give it a name i'd call it 'gojo being awhore but only for u'

+ untitled by @/od4saku: hmmmmmmmmm this is cute!!!!! kinda a character study i liked it ;)

okay so... this is as far as ima go because i have been staring at this man's face and name for way longer than is probably healthy!! but if u want more recs i'm sure i can find some because i'm actually insane!! hope i could help !

#gojo satoru x reader #SORRY IM GETTING TO THIS SO LATE </3 im here now!!!#first 4 are compiled from previous posts #at some point i think ill make a masterpost w a bunch of my favs on ao3 #mitz recs #this is only the tip of the iceburg tbh #iceberg #however tf u spell that!

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renegadeguild · 26 days

Text

Edible Book Day 2024

the appetizers

A Commonplace Snack by Daemonluna

A collection of tropes and other ephemera, rendered in nori and rice paper. Sewn with a glass sweet potato noodle, ornamented with cilantro and lime.

This is how we roll (bamboo slips) by anonymous

This is the first book I have made since joining Renegade. I didn't think I'd get to make books and eat them too.

The (Not Actually) Matzah Plague Board Book by Noodle and Noodle's Auntie

10 Plagues by Noodle and Noodle's Auntie. Illustration by Noodle and Noodle's Auntie. Writing and Binding by Noodle. Materials: Gluten Free Matzo Substitute, fruit roll ups, fruit by the foot, sour belts, licorice, fruit rolls, sour sticks, cumin, water.

a fluffy breaduation by Sandy Kitty Bindery

i do not regret anything... except maybe the dentist bills ;)

Pancake Scroll by Zhalfirin

This was a lot easier than I had anticipated. A bit bland because I wasn't sure what I'd do the painting with and therefore didn't season the batter. It goes really well with a side of salmon and soy sauce though.

the mains

the iron chef secret ingredient was lasers by Lark

lasers are friends not food.

6/10, at least I chose turkey this year.

The Count of Monte Cristo by Thunder (Dragon's Thunder Press)

This was my first book bind ever. The case is French toast. The 2 signatures are each made of 3 omelet folios, and they're sewn with mozzarella string cheese strands. The end pages are each a slice of prosciutto, and they're pasted in with raspberry fruit syrup. Finally, the titling was done with black icing.

Sandwiches (And Books) Are Beautiful by Velvetwastaken

The ‘book’ ultimately failed to be readable as such due to a betrayal by the onion binding. But it tasted amazing, and thus I think still encapsulated the spirit of edible book day: good books are meant to be devoured.

and of course… … the desserts!

Mistakes were Marbled by anonymous

I baked a strawberry cake with buttercream icing. The buttercream set a bit too quickly for the marbled effect to work, and attempts to fix it caused structural damage, resulting in ... this. I would like half-points for retaining good flavor, despite appearances.

Brandy Snaps by Lottie

Brandy snaps for the pages, strawberry laces for thread. Complete with two weaver’s knots to tie the strawberry laces together

Book Cookies by six

Sadly not fully functional books - the cases are rigid sugar cookies baked into various open forms. The pages are edible wafer paper marked up here and there w/ an edible ink pen and the frosting quite tasty! Experimented with two different sizes and various page configurations. Fed some of them to various Renegade members. There were no fatalities.

Titles are overrated by Zhalfirin

I'm still baffled this turned out the way it did.

It's a delicious little baumkuchen chonker (app. A6 in size and about 6cm thick) cased in chocolate powdered marzipan.

Don't forget to vote for your favorite! And check out last year's winners here.

#edible book day #fanbinding #bookbinding #renegade guild #renegade events

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sailoryooons · 3 months

Text

Shadow of Mine | Teaser | KTH

☾ Pairing: Demon!Taehyung x human!reader

☾ Summary: As one of the few humans in the world without a guardian angel to protect you, you’ve learned to take care of yourself - until you realize that perhaps you haven’t been as alone as you always thought.

☾ Word Count: TBD

☾ Genre: Supernatural, angst, smut

☾ Rating: 18+ Minors are strictly prohibited from engaging and reading this content. It contains explicit content and any minors discovered reading or engaging with this work will be blocked immediately.

☾ Warnings: TBD

☾ A/N: This was written from this writing prompt by @writing-prompt-s for the Angels and Demons Fest! Hoping to get this out in the next week or so! Happy WIP Wednesday!

Disclaimer: All members of BTS are faces and name claims for this story. This is entirely a work of fiction and by no means is meant to be a projection, judgment or representation of real-life people. Any scenarios or representations of the people and places mentioned in works are not representative of real-life scenarios.

COMING SOON

“How can you harm other people if they have guardian angels, then?” you demand, the spatula in your hand pointed at the man. “What can hurt a guardian angel?”

His grin is wicked and mischievous. He leans forward on the counter and you take a step back, watching as he runs one long, ringed finger through the cake batter and brings it up to his rosebud lips. You stare intently as his tongue snakes out, licking the batter sensually before he wraps his lips around the finger and sucks.

Your stomach flips and you mentally curse yourself, ashamed at how attractive you find it.

“I’m an Arch Demon,” he purrs, a smirk on his face. He looks you up and down. “Guardian angels are only two steps above the cherubim. They’re a match for most things that want to do unseemly things to humans, but certainly not me.”

“What the fuck is an Arch Demon?”

“My mother is one of the Seven Kings of Hell.”

“King?”

“We don’t care so much about gender titles. That’s a human construct.”

“Right.” You hesitate, spatula wavering as your arm grows tired. “What’s your name then, Mr. Arch Demon of Hell?”

“Taehyung.” He eyes your spatula. “And put that down. I cannot harm you any more than you can harm me. I am your shadow, Blue. And you are mine.”

“Blue?”

“The song you like to sing. Blue, oh so lonesome for you.”

Taehyung's voice is beautiful. A haunting baritone that is smooth as velvet and makes your eyes flutter. You hardly expect a demon's singing voice to be so lovely - perhaps crackle and flames - but it's immediately soothing.

Except.

You blink, realizing Taehyung means the LeAnn Rimes song that you put on and sing when you’re feeling more alone than ever. The information makes your throat tighten and you slowly lower the spatula in your hand, staring at the demon who watches you with equal parts curiosity and something that looks like sadness.

If he knows that you like to sing that song…

“Were you always there, then?” He cocks his head to the side. “Since I was a child? You were there?”

“Of course. Your life began, thus did mine. It is the way of the world, sometimes. Many demons are-”

“Get out.”

#taehyung smut #kim taehyung smut #bts smut #taehyung fic #taehyung fanfic #bts fic #bts fanfic #taehyung x reader #taehyung x you #v smut #bts v #demon taehyung #taehyung angst #angels and demons fest #wip wednesday

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mayullla · 3 months

Note

Hiya, hope your doing well. I’m respecting Yandere Thoma 🦋 🌺 for the event please and thank you.

Title: Chocolate favors

Character(s): Thoma (Genshin Impact) Summary: Ayato asked a little favor from you to make chocolate cookies with Thoma. Warnings/tags: Yandere themes, fem!reader, power dynamics, 1.5k words

[ - A little present~! Event - Closed - ]

"Ayaka complimented the cookies you made a while ago. I was wondering if you could do me a favor and make those cookies again," the sharp-eyed man who was your boss asked. "Valentine's Day is coming soon, and I was hoping to give the workers something special. You will be paid extra for your troubles, and I will prepare all the equipment and ingredients necessary."

Lies your mind told you as you looked at the head of the Kamisato clan. The sly smile on his lips and the sharpness in his eyes told you that this was not what he truly wanted.

It was obvious what he wanted, what he wanted to happen with this.

"Of course, making something for so many people would be difficult to do alone. I will also send Thoma to help you."

You stifled all your feelings as you bit the inside of your mouth when you heard that name come from his lips. The name of the person you wanted in your heart to avoid at all costs. You didn't show your boss your feelings; his eyes were cold, unlike his smile, as if telling you to try. You gulped all your feelings down and nodded. "Yes, sir, I will do as you ask."

Was it a sort of amusement to the Kamisato clan? You were never sure. For the longest time, you always tried to avoid him, using every excuse and idea you had to keep him far away. Ever since you took care of him of his injuries when Ayato brought him to the house, stating that he would be working here. The man was weak, with injuries and a heavy fever. You were the one who took care of him, getting him back to health.

Maybe it started around then? You remembered the awkward man who stumbled with his words when he looked at you. A small little crush he had. It was cute back then, his flustered self as he could not handle even you touching his arm when you were patching him up.

When did he become so twisted? How did he fall to become so obsessed with you like this? You didn't want this at all; if anything, you were disgusted, yet at the same time terrified.

Not when you knew that the boss and his sister supported this behavior. A long time ago, you tried to tell them, tried to tell them that his little obsession at that time could be controlled and stopped, yet they pushed all your worries aside, telling you that you were worrying too much. They treasured him, they treasured him a lot, to the point that they would be willing to give him what he wanted.

The smile on his face as he looked at you hopefully when you arrived in the kitchen the next day. The cheerful greeting felt almost fake, genuine yet at the same time, you were sure of the darkness that was swirling inside him. "You are here. I am glad... The young master had told me that I would be helping you today to make cookies for Valentine's Day to give to the servants and workers."

His words were innocent, yet almost hoping. You nodded at his words as his smile became wider; he looked very happy, even more so when your eyes continued to look at him. "Please take care of me. I will try my best to follow you," Thoma laughed.

You didn't really have to do much when it comes to instructing him what to do; he was too talented in many things, and that included the kitchen but also baking. "Got it," Thoma replied as you told him to stir the batter. As you continued to prepare the other ingredients, you could feel his stare behind your back. You acted busy, concentrating on your work to make it more difficult to open a conversation.

You learned how to handle Thoma a bit, in a way that would go unnoticed. You realized early on that it wasn't only Thoma who would be saddened if you just outright ignored him, but also your boss and his sister would be rather unhappy with your actions. You learned a long while ago how to ignore his stares, and even if it took a while, you learned how to ignore him when he appeared a little too often around your vision, yet at the same time act like it was the first time you saw him that day when he approached you.

It was only recently that you figured out that Thoma actually knew all that. At first, you panicked, but then you realized that Thoma wouldn't do anything. His stalking, his obsession, his love, his lust that was so obvious would not tell a word to the siblings of your actions. It had become a game between the two of you, and for him, he could not be any happier that he even had a special connection with you, no matter how twisted it got.

"Hey.... Hey, are you okay?" You were pulled out of your thoughts when a hand touched your shoulder. Startled, you turned your head only for your cheek and lips to be smeared with melted chocolate, startling both you and Thoma.

"!?" "!!"

"Sorry! Sorry!" Thoma placed the bowl on the table as he grabbed a towel, while on his other hand, the one that tapped you, had the wooden spoon he was using to mix the chocolate in the bowl that had gotten smeared on your face. "You weren't answering my calls, and I got worried."

You watched him use the towel to clean your face, rubbing firmly yet not enough to hurt you or cause too much discomfort. He was careful while removing the chocolate from your face. "No, it was my fault," you told him after some time, quietly while he was cleaning your face. His face was red as you continued to stare at his face while he was doing so, watching him, yet you could see the excitement in his eyes, unable to be hidden from his shyness. "Sorry for worrying you. I was thinking for a moment there."

Thoma blinked and then smiled at you, nodding at your words, immediately believing them. Well, it wasn't like you were lying. "You must have been thinking really hard about it." Thoma peeked at your eyes as he removed the last remaining chocolate on your face. You thought for a moment what you should say here before answering, "I was thinking about the past, I guess."

"Oh?" Thoma tilted his head at your words as he pulled away from your face. You thought a bit more, choosing your words. "I was thinking about that time when you first arrived at the Kamisato estate. I remember you were hurt and sick back then, and I had to take care of you."

You watched as his face became redder. If it was long ago, you would have teased him that he looked like a tomato right now. "Ah- haha," he laughed awkwardly, reminded of the awkward past, yet there was also a hint of affection towards it. You knew that he treated that memory like a treasure. "What is the matter? Your face is red like a tomato right now," you teased him like you did in the past.

"Please don't tease me like that," Thoma tried to hide his face with his hand, and the towel that he used now forgotten on the kitchen counter. You laughed at his face, how easily he becomes affected by your words. "If you react like that, it would be difficult not to."

Thoma called out your name in a whine, as his face became even more red. He was trying to hide his face, but you could see how red his ears were. You smiled at him and then looked at the cookie mix and melted chocolate. "Well, that is enough playing," you told him in a light voice, a smile on your lips. Thoma seemed to want to stay in this atmosphere a little more and tried to look for an excuse, but you ignored him.

This much was enough.

This was enough for now. You had given him enough to keep him satisfied, as well as the two siblings. It would be a cycle for how long you could push it. The next moment, it would return to the obsession that you could feel burning in your body. He would watch your every movement and follow you, while you would give him small moments that would keep him somewhat satisfied.

"Oh dear, sorry, I think I missed a little bit again." You felt two hands touch your cheeks, pulling you to look away from the cookie batter. Your eyes met green ones, ones that were desperate, insane, lustful, yet at the same time delighted. A thumb touched your lips, rubbing them a little before releasing you. Looking at his thumb, you saw a smudge of chocolate on it. "There you go." His voice was loud in the quiet house as his hand moved from your cheeks to your arm, wrist, then your hand. He lingered a little while there before intertwining his fingers with yours.

You looked at his hand, surprised at his action, as it was too sudden, and looked up at him. You saw his smile, so full of love for you, so much that you could drown in it.

You could only push it for so long.

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thelightsandtheroses · 10 months

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sing fever to the form | frankie morales x female reader

Summary: Fake dating Frankie Morales seemed the obvious solution to both of your problems, until you caught feelings and now everything is a mess. Pairing: Frankie Morales x female reader Warnings: language and explicit content, 18+ blog - minors do not interact, a little angst with a happy ending romcom style,no physical descriptors, no use of Y/N or specific age mentions for the reader. Word Count: 6.3k Notes: the fic title is from one of my absolute favourite songs which features on every single playlist i ever compile (fever to the form by nick mulvey). I also owe a huge thank you to the lovely @mvtthewmurdvck for her support on this one 💕 i think without her, this would have probably languished in my drafts.

In the cold light of Benny Miller’s bathroom, you come to the conclusion that you’ve made several mistakes. The worst one of these, the one that set the rest in motion like dominoes, had honestly seemed like such a good idea at the time. It appeared such an obvious solution to the numerous questions, interrogations and unspoken pity that you were encountering. You could never have expected this.

You’d moved to Florida for work some time ago and while you had friends and a great career, your love life was definitely lacking. People picked up on it and while no one directly said it, you felt you were continually judged. Sure, it was all well and good that you had a nice job, but if no one’s dating you - well, what’s your red flag?

Between that and the fact your parents kept asking about whether or not you were dating, or if you’d met anyone nice at work, it started to weigh on you. Was there a problem with the way you were living - was it you? Your loved ones seemed so disappointed that you weren’t dating and putting yourself ‘out there in the world’. You tried to tell them the dating pool was not great, that the apps were awful and the only guys you ever seemed to attract came with so many of their own red flags that they could have lined the whole of your street. You’d dated enough bad guys already, you didn’t want to date any more.

You just needed some space.

Frankie was your friend and he was experiencing similar pressures. His friends were asking him when he’d start dating again and he was grappling with a new status as a single father. So, he also needed a break, needed to remove some of the noise from those around him.

Fake dating might belong in the movies, but it seemed an obvious solution to both of your predicaments. For a while, it was perfect.

Frankie is the ideal fake boyfriend, he’s better than any you could have ever imagined. In fact, he is probably the best boyfriend you’ve ever had, which is part of the problem. Most of your previous boyfriends hadn’t been the best, and suddenly here’s Frankie, acting like the perfect man for you?

Of course, you ended up falling for him.

It might have seemed a good idea back then, only now you’re hiding in a bathroom, fighting back tears and berating yourself as the BBQ you’d been looking forward to carries on outside. You’re so stupid. This is a dumb game. It isn’t real.

You’re not supposed to catch feelings.

But you have.

“So, how did we get together?” Frankie asks, leaning his head back against the sofa so you can see all the freckles on his neck above his hoodie.

“Um…” you chew your lip, take a gulp of your drink, “I have no idea.”

Frankie’s house is the sort of home that has comforting chaos and mess to it. His daughter’s things are strewn around the living room, an aviation manual rests on open pages on the coffee table next to you and a pile of battered paperbacks are stacked next to the sofa. The walls are a warm yellow; surprisingly comforting and bright. It’s a stark contrast to how Frankie presents himself outside of his home - cool, collected, a little quiet.

His home feels lived in. You always feel comfortable here.

“We could say that we just realised one day, hanging out, I mean crazier things have happened. A big story would stand out. KISS principles an’ all.”

“What did you just say?’” you ask. “Did you just say kissing principles?”

“Kiss?” He shakes his head. “Keep it simple, stupid! The way I see it, the only way for us to get away with this is to keep it realistic, boring almost so people don’t ask more,” Frankie says thoughtfully.

“Ah, so hooking up with you would be boring? That’s good to know.”

“Oh, carinô, if I kissed you for real that is not the word you’d use …”Frankie trails off, mischievously raises an eyebrow.

“Ergh, you can be so arrogant,” you tease, “Okay, fine. We had a sudden movie like realisation and what - we just got together and then what did we do?”

“Well then, y’know, by that point, you couldn’t exactly walk away.” Frankie smirks salaciously.

You throw a sofa cushion at him.“I think I hate you, Frankie Morales..”

“No, no that’s definitely not what you said.”

“So,” Frankie pauses, runs a hand through his hair. “We should agree what the boundaries are, when we’re with others.”

“Others?”

“Yes, when we’re with our friends. It needs to be believable, right? And I’m sorry, but if we stay like we are now, around my friends, then they’ll know it’s fake in five minutes.”

“Why?”

“I did an online quiz with my ex and um, physical touch is my love language,” Frankie says sheepishly.

“You do know that whole love language thing is bullshit, right?”

“No, it’s not. Jessie said -”

“She’s wrong.”

“Regardless, the quiz said that - ergh, fine, whatever. So, what’s the plan there? I don’t want either us to feel uncomfortable though, okay.”

“We’ve been friends a long time,” you say lightly, “This won’t change that. We can figure this out.” It’s not like you’ve never hugged Frankie or he hasn’t put an arm around you before. How hard can it be - you need people to believe you?

“Also, I am not lying to my kid, or getting her to lie for me. We need to keep her out of it, tell everyone else we’re taking it slow with her until we know it’s serious, okay?” Frankie looks at you with a suddenly serious expression. Oh god, he’s a dad and this is stupid and complicated and you can’t involve her in this and you’ve just been discussing the physical boundaries in this stupid game and this is ridiculous.

It was a pathetic idea of yours.

“Maybe we shouldn’t -”

“It’s fine. We just keep her out of this.”

“Okay, that sounds sensible.”

“So we’re really doing this then?” he asks with a shy smile.

“Yeah, I think we are.”

It’s Frankie. What other choice was there when it came down to it? It’s Frankie with his deep brown eyes that have mastered the puppy dog expression and his shy smiles. You care about him and all of his insecurities, doubts and vulnerabilities you’ve learned over the years. They make him tangible, real, and truer. Perhaps you always liked him and you didn’t know. Maybe you did and subconsciously thought this was the only way you’d have him which is why you’d pursued such a ridiculous idea. Perhaps you had thought this would be like the movies, that he’d confess his love for you and you’d drive off into the sunset.

You’re now accustomed to the way his hands skim your back or waist when you’re with friends, the way he leans closer to you and you can feel his breath against your ear when he whispers sweet nothings in his low voice, smell the laundry detergent on his clothes.

He’s so convincing.

No one has ever questioned whether it’s real with the two of you. You don’t think it would ever cross their mind that the two of you are fake dating.

Your body and mind certainly doesn’t think it’s fake anymore.

You sit on the edge of the bath and try and try and pinpoint when you realised you felt this way. You’ve both been flirting with danger for weeks; the way you’ve let him trace shapes on your side when he pulls you close, how you lean into the crook of his neck, play with the ends of his curls when you’re out with friends. You tell yourself it’s just to make it look real, to make this situation look authentic.

You’ve certainly fooled yourself.

You’re not even sure when you realised this. One moment everything was like normal and then it wasn’t. Perhaps it’s your fault, you have always been a dreamer. You’ve always walked through life fantasising that this will be the moment when everything changes, when you suddenly fit in and someone will like you or fall in love with you. Given the way your mind works, it was inevitably a stupid idea to even try this with Frankie.

It’s been overwhelming at the BBQ today; the gentle touches, the way he looks at you and you almost believe it’s genuine. It wouldn’t normally bother you so much, but now you’re aching for it to be something it can’t be and it’s all too much.

You couldn’t help looking at Frankie throughout the BBQ; wanting to count the freckles on his neck, to run your hands through the curls hidden by his hat as you notice the ends peeking out at the nape of his neck. You’re always taken with the broadness of his shoulders too, his hands.

You’re completely doomed.

You can’t do this anymore. It’s not fair, it’s a betrayal of your friendship with him. It’s a betrayal of his trust because agreeing to do this fake dating was an exercise in trust, one you are failing.

You’ve been thinking about it for days. The reason you feel so safe with Frankie is because it’s not real, because you weren’t supposed to have to give your heart away. It was just meant to distract people so you could breathe again. You’ve seen too many romcoms and movies, you’re too much of a dreamer to have ever let this work without getting messy. You thought you could be detached and objective, but you can’t.

It’s you, you’re the one who has screwed up.

So you go downstairs, make your excuses and leave.

You’ve been fake dating for two weeks and this just might be your best relationship ever. You can’t decide if that’s sweet or perhaps the most depressing thing you’ve ever admitted.

You’re in Frankie’s car on the way to Tom’s birthday, playing with the handle of the gift bag you’re holding. The sun is out, Frankie’s playlist is setting the scene and you feel so happy in this moment.

“Don’t be surprised if they say something about us,” Frankie says casually as he changes gear, “The guys have been giving me grief since I told them about us. Well, since I told them about what we’re saying about us, anyway.”

“I thought the idea was it would stop them giving you grief?”

“Oh, this is much better than it was, trust me,” he says, laughing as he looks at the road ahead. With his sunglasses on, no hat and a loose t-shirt he looks more relaxed than you’ve ever seen him. Frankie strikes you as a tightly wound coil, he’s just got that energy. He’s calm, not something or someone you are afraid of, but you recognise the way he thinks, see the nervous anticipation in his eyes before he smiles at one of his friends on a night out.

You see the same thing in yourself.

“You know, I can’t believe this is working,” you say cheerfully to Frankie, “My mom has even stopped sending me those news articles about people who meet their soulmates later in your life.”

“Your mom was sending you those?” Frankie asks, raising an eyebrow.

“She means well,” you say placidly. “My parents have always had a lot of expectations for me.”

“Shit.” He reaches over and squeezes your hand. “Well, I can promise you that you’re the best fake girlfriend I’ve ever had.”

“Likewise, Frankie, likewise.”

You don’t mean to ghost Frankie after the BBQ. It’s just you’re not sure what to say to him. I’m sorry, but I think this fake dating is getting a little too authentic because I might be falling for you?

You can’t do that to him, can’t embarrass yourself with your stupid crush either. It’s better to just ignore the messages, pretend it’s not happening and bury your head in the sand.

Of course, Frankie knows where you live, so you shouldn’t be as surprised as you are when he turns up at your home.

“So what’s going on? I texted you,” he says with a forced casual voice as he leans against your kitchen counter. He’s wearing a loose t-shirt and jeans, his usual hat discarded next to him. He runs a hand through his hair and looks over at you.

You don’t want to look at him properly, so you focus your attention on your kitchen tiles instead . You really need to mop the kitchen floor later.

“I think, I think this thing has run its course.”

“Oh, really?” Frankie looks surprised, almost sad, when you dare to look at him, “I thought this was working well for us both.”

“A little too well,” you mumble under your breath.

“What was that?”

“Nothing.”

You sigh.

“Hey, cariño, talk to me.”

“It’s just us, Frankie, you don’t have to call me that right now.”

“Why, do you not like it?”

You exhale again with exasperation and shake your head. Just make this easier on me, you think, stop muddying the water. When you meet Frankie’s eyes he looks perplexed though, concerned and his brow is furrowed.

“What’s going on?” he asks, arms folded as he looks over at you. “Talk to me.”

“I think we should stop with this fake dating arrangement. I mean, the idea was just to do it until my friends and my parents were off my back and until your friends were off yours, and they are. So, let’s call it a win and move on.”

“Did something happen?” Frankie asks. “You meet someone?” There’s a strange tone to his voice, almost wistful.

“No, no. I just - I don’t think we should keep doing this. I mean that girl asked you out last week at the bar and because Will and I were with you, you said no.”

“She wasn’t my type anyway and that’s what this is about? Come on!”

“I’m - I’m clearly holding you back and that’s not what this was supposed to be.”

“Is this what you really want?”

“Absolutely,” you lie brightly, smiling as widely as you can. “We’re friends and we’ve helped each other out so let’s bow out of this gracefully. We can say to the others - we can tell them we realised that we’re better off as friends.”

“Right. Okay.”

“Okay?” you repeat, disappointed that he’s just giving up, that this really is it.

A small part of you was holding out hope for Frankie fighting back, for him to declare his love for you, take you into his arms and then for the two of you to have the most passionate, intense sex of your life right there in the kitchen. That’s what happens in the movies and books. It’s all meant to end with a kiss.

Only he doesn’t do that.

He just quietly acquiesces to your demand that this ends now and when he smiles, as though his acceptance will make you happy, he shatters your heart into a million pieces.

You have no idea how your friendship will recover from this. You have no idea how to watch someone else love Frankie in the future, to watch him put his hands on someone else or look at them like he looked at you and know it’s real for them but wasn’t for you.

“I should probably go,” Frankie says, his gaze fixated on the floor.

“Oh, right. Well, I’ll see you around.”

The story of your breakup spreads quickly. Your friends are disappointed, they tell you it’s obvious you both liked each other, they ask if you’re sure you can’t work it out? Your parents are clearly disappointed, but at the same time you catch a glance of relief on your mother’s face when you tell her.

“He’s complicated,” she says, taking a sip from her cup of tea. It’s your mom’s first visit in months, a visit you had originally planned during the fake dating misadventure.

“Complicated?”

“He’s a single father and the job he has? Being a pilot isn’t like a regular 9-5.”

“He makes his hours work for his kid, and none of those things were the reason we broke up”you say defensively. “And at my age, most people have previous relationships and baggage so I don’t think that makes him any more complicated than anyone else I could meet.”

“You don’t, darling, you don’t have any baggage.”

“That in itself is clearly a complication,” you say, rolling your eyes like a petulant teenager. “I mean, you and Dad hated it when I was single. You were always asking if I’d met someone, or if I was looking and -“ you trail off and stare at your hands on the table. Your nail varnish is chipped. Rouge Noir, the classic vampy red you always put on when you’re feeling blue, when you need a confidence boost. It’s not working for you right now though.

“We just want you to be happy,” your mom says, gently taking her hands in yours. “Whatever that looks like.”

“I am happy.” It’s meant to sound assertive but it comes out more like a question as you speak. You’re happy, dammit. Or you were before everything went wrong.

“No, honey, you’re in the middle of a break up and it’s obvious you still feel something for him. Are you sure - are you sure it’s over? You told me you were the one who ended things.”

“Yeah, I did. I don’t think - I don’t think it’s a good idea, mom. I’ll get over it. I have this big work project and then that trip and the apartment move soon, so I’ll be fine.”

You’re not sure of anything now. You thought stopping the arrangement with Frankie would save your friendship, but it didn’t. Now you don’t have him at all and it fucking hurts.

You are so angry and sad and confused. This is all your fault for getting feelings that you’d laughed at the possibility of months ago. You’ve lost him anyway and it’s caused a great chasm in your heart.

How can you be mourning something that wasn’t even real in the first place?

When you became friends with Frankie, he introduced you to some of his friends from his military days. While you didn’t exactly get on with all of them, Tom is aloof at best, Benny and you had become friends over time. In the wake of your fictionalised break-up, you’ve lost those people too. You’ve avoided Benny’s fights, wanted Frankie to have his friends without the bother of you. Besides, you’ve been focused on work. You had a trip away for a few days and then you had a big project, presentations. Work has been something to throw yourself into.

It’s a good plan, but Benny keeps texting you and personally invites you to his next fight.

You and Frankie have both said you’re still friends so what’s the problem?

I don’t know if it’s a good idea.

Just come to the damn fight, would you? Liv keeps asking after you.

You decide you should go at least once to show your face. You can do this, you can handle one night. You like Liv, Benny’s girlfriend, and you can say hello and then vanish quickly after the fight ends. If you’re careful with the seating set up, you might not even see Frankie or have to talk to him at all.

The bar is crowded and while Will, Santiago, Tom and Frankie all greeted you when you arrive, it feels different. Stilted somehow.

It’s almost how it would feel if this was a genuine break up, if this was real. You suppose it is to Santiago, Tom and Will.

You sat with Benny’s girlfriend, Liv, for the fight. She squeezed your hand sympathetically when she catches you looking over at Frankie.

Frankie still looks the same as ever, you think as you cast your eyes over to where he is in the crowd. He’s wearing his usual hat, the one you’ve teased him about for years but can’t picture him ever giving up, with well fitting jeans and a jacket. He looks infuriatingly good.

Before the fight Frankie had moved so he was next to you and he looked like he wanted to say something to you before the fight began. Panicked, you quickly moved next to Liv instead and so you were sitting on the other side of the group to him as you took your seats.

Crisis averted, you thought. Only now, you can’t stop wondering what he might have said to you.

“I can’t see why you can’t get it together,” Benny says, taking a sip from his bottle of beer. The two of you are standing together by the bar, waiting for the rest of the group’s drinks. Benny’s mostly fixed up from his fight, with just a small red stain on his forehead between the steri-strips and bruises. You think the other guy must look a lot worse.

“Wait, what did you say?” you ask.

“I don’t see why you and Frankie can’t work it out. I mean, look at him,” Benny points his bottle towards your friends, to where your attention had just been. Frankie’s standing on the edge of the group, arms folded, hat rigid. He looks uncomfortable.

You shouldn’t have come here tonight.

“We tried and it wasn’t a good fit. It wasn’t going to work out,,” you say flatly, repeating the line you and Frankie had agreed on.

“Look, you might have fooled the others, but you can’t fool me.”

Your stomach sinks. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, I know you guys were fake dating at first.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You could barely keep your stories straight about how you got together when I asked,” Benny says softly. “You kept adding details and I noticed Frankie shake his head whenever you did that.”

“Why didn’t you say anything? Does Frankie know?” You’re mortified for him, you know how embarrassed he would feel if he found out that Benny had guessed all along it was fake.

This really can’t get any worse.

“‘Cause you two obviously liked each other. I assumed that you’d figure it out along the way. I thought you had, but then -” Benny trails off.

“You know when you assume, you make an ass -”

‘Oh sweetheart, don’t even finish that sentence.“ Benny exhales. “How are you holding up?”

“It’s what you said, it was fake and we ended it and it’s all fine now.”

“Bullshit,” Benny exclaims, his southern drawl even more pronounced.

“It’s not.”

“It is.”

The bartender interrupts by finally handing you the rest of your drinks and between you and Benny, you take them and rejoin your friends.

‘Cause you two obviously liked each other.

Benny’s words echo in your mind. He didn’t say because you liked Frankie, but because you both did.

Frankie doesn’t like you like that though, you know this. He’s clearly just a very good actor.

You end up the one handing Frankie his drink, no doubt due to Benny’s meddling. Your hands brush against his as he takes the bottle and you can’t help looking up at him, noticing the unreadable expression on his face.

Will coughs loudly and you quickly take a step back.

“It was a good fight, Benny,” you say awkwardly, hoping he’ll take the change of subject.

“I need a smoke,” Frankie says, hunching his shoulders as he walks away from the group.

The room instantly turns cold.

You awkwardly pull the edge of your jacket down, wishing the ground would swallow you up. Santi, Tom and Will are staring at you and you can’t be here. They hate you, they’re judging you.

This is so fucked up.

“I’m uh, going to go.”

Liv makes a motion as if to stop you, but she doesn’t, and Benny’s looking at you with real disappointment but that doesn’t stop you either. You’re getting good at running away now.

You’re too afraid to look behind you and see whether they’re looking at you as you walk away.

Frankie’s standing by the parking lot when you finally weave your way past the crowds and bloody fighters to reach the exit.

He looks surprised to see you. Just seeing his face makes your heart ache because you’ve lost him, you’ve lost him and you didn’t want to.

“I’m leaving now, so you can go back in” you say flatly.

“I was just having a smoke,” he says defensively. It’s an obvious lie, you both know it.

“Sure, Frankie. Look, you can’t just stomp off like that. You can’t leave me in that position with everyone. It’s not fair.”

“Yeah, well, there’s a lot of things we don’t discuss, lot of things that aren’t fair,” Frankie says bitterly, tossing his cigarette to the floor and stamping on it a little too vigorously.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“What’s going on with you? This wasn’t meant to affect our friendship. I never, ever would have agreed if I’d known,” Frankie says firmly. “You were my friend and I still wanted you to be but you ghosted me and ended our deal. That’s fine, but we didn’t go back to normal after. We just - it’s like you hate me now.”

“I don’t hate you.”

“Just would you tell me what I did wrong?”

“You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Then why -”

“It was too real,” you whisper, folding your arms around yourself and leaning against the brick wall.

“What? What did you say?” Frankie asks, moving closer.

“You know, the faking it thing. It was too real, it was confusing me. And I - I didn’t want to ruin everything but I still ruined it all. Story of my life.”

“Don’t say that. Don’t be so hard on yourself.” You think, somehow he’s going to break your heart even more tonight and you didn’t think that was possible..

“I just - I got confused.”

“How did you get confused?” he asks in a low voice, taking another step closer to you.

“Don’t, Frankie, don’t make me say it.”

“Say what?” he asks, dramatically throwing his hands in the air, “I can’t understand you. I mean, this was your idea and then you ended it and now you don’t even want to be friends? I don’t know what I did but -”

“You did nothing, Frankie. It’s me, not you.”

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me. Clearly something happened. Can’t you just talk to me? I’m fucking miserable here. You were supposed to be my friend and I miss you.” You hadn’t thought that your actions could have hurt Frankie, you thought you were protecting him by doing what you did.

You feel even worse, a sick feeling rising in your stomach.

“It got muddled in my head, okay, it felt like it was real and I couldn’t do that to you, so that’s why - that’s why.” You falter at the end of your sentence as all of the adrenaline and energy from your body fades away..

“It got too real for you? What are you saying?”

“That I like you. That I ended up liking you more than I should, you obtuse jerk!”

Frankie pauses then takes another step closer. “Why didn’t you tell me?” he asks, a slight smile on his face that you can’t make any sense of.

“It’s embarrassing, Frankie. We made an arrangement and I caught feelings like an idiotic teenager. I’m just daydreaming my life away again.”

Frankie is so close to you right now, he braces his hands against the wall as he stands right in front of you.

“You caught feelings, huh?”

You notice a familiar smirk on his face and then he’s kissing you.

Frankie’s kissed you before; it’s been part of the facade after all, but not like this.

This kiss is everything. It sends molten heat down your core, renders your mind completely blank. All the anxiety, all the internal dialogue is gone for once. The silence is blissful as you can feel your heart pounding, take in the soft texture of Frankie’s shirt as you fist it to pull him closer because now he’s with you like this, you can’t let him go.

It’s not an aggressive kiss, it’s not teeth clashing or fury. It’s not exactly gentle either. Frankie kisses you with care; like he’s trying to take you apart right here and now with just a kiss.

In just one minute, he’s ruined you for other people. No one else could kiss you like Frankie does.

“I told you, if I kissed you for real it wouldn’t be boring,” Frankie mumbles, moving his attention down your jaw and neck to your collarbone. You can feel the velvet softness of his lips, the heat of his breath.

“Oh fuck you,” you joke.

”Well, baby, I think I’m trying. Not here though, we can do better than that.”

You both laugh. The tension breaks for just a second as you wrap your arms around his shoulders, laugh into his neck, breathe him in.

“C’mon, you had to know I liked you. I just, I just thought you deserved someone better than me -” Frankie starts.

“That’s bullshit,” you argue. Frankie is kind, thoughtful and funny. He’s also so competent, multi-skilled and as you’ve just learned, an excellent kisser. Frankie has that quiet and collected energy you’ve noticed in a lot of ex-military people too. He flies planes and helicopters for a living. He’s your friend. How could you deserve any better than him?

“Can we get out of here?” Frankie asks, “Talk, not talk, I don’t mind. I just - I want to be with you right now. God, I missed you.”

“Okay. I really fucking missed you too,” you say, kissing his shoulder lightly before leaning back against the wall.

He doesn’t stop touching you the whole way to your apartment. He’s either holding your hand or touching your leg. If he has to temporarily remove himself to make a turn or change gear, he’s immediately back with you as soon as possible. You wonder if he’s worried you’ll leave or vanish if he’s not actually touching you, if he’s also wondering if this is really happening..

His car stereo blares uncharacteristically cheerful music by the latest pop sensation and you raise your eyebrows when he looks over at you.

“It’s her favourite album by her favourite singer and school’s been rough for her the last few weeks so this cheers her up,” he says defensively, flexing his fingers on the steering wheel, “I think I can probably hear it even when it’s not playing now.”

“Sure, but your daughter’s not in the car with us. Is she, Frankie? You could have switched it over.”

“I keep forgetting to change the CD,” he whines unconvincingly. “This car’s old.”

You make your way to your apartment, his arm around you, fingers entwined with yours the whole time.

As soon as you close the front door, he’s pushing your back against the wall, cupping his hands around your face to kiss you deeply.

You move your hands up to meet his and then move one of your hands down his chest.

“Your heart’s racing like crazy,” you mumble as he kisses a particular spot on your neck.

There’s always a moment of fear at a junction like this. What if the sex is bad - what if you’re just not compatible this way? But you need him, you need him with you, in you and the two of you are both too far gone to focus on that now.

Your friendship is changed anyway. There’s nothing more to lose.

He places his hands on your hips, pulls you away towards your bedroom.

“I want you so much,” he says.

“I want you too,” you reply, dazed between kisses as he navigates you to the edge of your bed.

He ghosts his hands down to the edge of your top and you move to desperately pull it off you.

You watch him take in the sight of you in your bra, take in the smile on his face. He looks at you with something like reverence; as if he can’t quite take it in that you’re real and you’re with him. Part of you wants to glow under his gaze and the rest of you fights panic, because this feels different, it feels real. You’ve never been looked at like this before.

You’ll do anything to keep this moment.

He gently unhooks your bra, moves his kisses down from your lips to your neck to your collarbone to the curve of your breasts and then down again.

His hands fumble with the button of your jeans and you’re desperate for him.

“What do you want, baby?”

You, you think, I just want you.

”C’mon, tell me,” he coaxes.

“I just need you. I want you to - ”

“I’ve got you,” he says, calmly lifting your hips to remove your jeans, to touch the hem of your underwear - and could you have not put better underwear on this morning?

You open your mouth to say something but then he comes back to meet your lips as he moves his hand inside your underwear. You’re already slick with wanting him, he slides a finger inside before tracing circles over your bundle of nerves to make you gasp.

“You’re so fucking pretty,” he whispers as he continues taking you apart.

“Frankie -”

“I’ve liked you for so long, I just thought you didn’t want me that way. I’d take anything you give me - friendship, I mean fake dating. I thought it was as close as I’d get.”

“Frankie, how could I not want you that way? You’re - you’re Frankie.”

“Exactly.”

“I’m going to show you.”

You feel your orgasm building and clasp your hands over his shoulders, into his hair. You shut your eyes and then it’s gone.

“Frankie?”

You open your eyes to see him take his finger into his mouth then mischievously smiles as he moves back and off the bed. He moves you so your legs are over the edge of the bed and then. He gets on his knees.

You take a deep breath He kisses the inside of your knee, traces kiss up your thigh until he meets you. You sit up slightly on your elbows as he looks up to meet your gaze with a dazed smile before he turns his attention to you.

Frankie Morales knows exactly what he’s doing between your legs but in case, you tell him how good he is anyway. He takes you apart with expert precision, gets you back to the precipice of pleasure all too quickly and guides you over the line.

“Do you want to -” he asks breathlessly as he comes back to you afterwards and kisses you. You can taste yourself on his lips, can feel his hardness pressing into you.

“Yeah, I do. I have uh - condoms in the bathroom cabinet.”

“Give me a second.” He kisses you briefly and you shut your eyes again as he goes to the bathroom. You try and catch your breath back and get your legs to stop trembling.

Why are the condoms so fucking far away? You still desperately need him, still need to feel him.

When Frankie comes back, he kisses you hungrily before he slides the condom over his length.

“Fuck, to think we could have been doing this the whole time,” he says before he’s sliding inside you.

There’s nothing else at this moment. It’s just you and him and the way you dig your fingers into his back with your free hand and the way your other hands is entwined in his as he moves inside you, the two of you desperately exchanging sweet nothings to each other, groaning each other’s names.

Your heart is racing and the blood is pumping in your ears. You watch the expression on his face just before he buries his face in your neck, sure he can feel the way you’re tightening around him, can surely feel how close you are too and then just as he takes you to that place one more time, you hear the way he moans as he joins you.

The next morning you watch Frankie pacing your balcony as speaks on the phone to his daughter. His hair is still damp from the shower, curling at the ends, and he has a mug of coffee in his other hand. He turns and smiles at you.

Just twenty four hours ago, you never thought Frankie could feel that way about you. You were resigned to your mistakes and your losses.

You were wrong.

He hangs up the phone and you walk over to join him on the balcony, your mug of coffee tightly clasped between your hands.

“Hi.”

“Hey,” he says, putting his phone in his pocket and wrapping his now free arm around you as he takes a gulp of coffee.

You take a sip of your own coffee.

“I was just thinking,” Frankie says, “so, I guess the story we came up with before was true, right? We just realised how we felt about each other one day - and okay, it might have taken some fake dating to get us both there - but no one else needs to know that.”

“No one else needs to know that.”

You definitely need to tell Frankie at some point that Benny has figured everything out, that Benny clearly pushed you two together last night. You probably owe him a thank you, but you’ll never tell Benny that.

“So, what do we do now?” There’s a lot you need to discuss, figure out, but you just want to be with him. Surely that’s enough for now.

Frankie grins. “Well, I don’t need to be home until the afternoon so I’ve got some time right now.”

“I’m sure we can think of some things to fill that time.”

Frankie laughs. “Definitely.”

Tag List

All Pedro characters: @harriedandharassed @pedrostories @hiroikegawa @pedrosaidsheispunk

#frankie morales x female reader #frankie morales x you #frankie morales x reader #frankie morales #triple frontier #frankie morales fanfiction #triple frontier fanfiction

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under-cotton-and-calicos · 5 months

Text

Take Me Back To Eden

Multiple Ghosts x AFAB Reader

AN: It’s been a long while. I’ve been busy [insert unhinged ao3 author life update here]. This has been sitting in my drafts for the LONGEST time jeez. Wasn’t really satisfied with any of the directions it took so I finally sat down and committed to something. May or may not have a sequel. I recommend listening to “Descending” by Sleep Token while you read this. As the title implies, I’m kinda obsessed with the band right now. Enjoy!

tags: cult sex, orgy, heavy dubcon, ghosts, ancient deity, mind manipulation, oral sex, vaginal penetration, rough sex, WEIRD CUM

Word count: 3.9k

With a pathetic sputter, the incessant humming of your old corolla’s engine gives way to silence. For a few moments, you sit in the dark and quiet, a mixture of excitement and anxiety raising goosebumps on your skin. You’ve done this hundreds of times, you’re sure that today you’re going to get your big hit. It has to be.

You slam your car door shut and take a deep breath, a gym bag filled with equipment and cameras slung over one shoulder, your free hand guiding the beam of your heavy duty torch across the entrance of the abandoned bar. The old, faded sign perched above its entrance is unreadable, faintly you can make out traces of looping letters. Its battered and dusty exterior belies the rumours you’ve heard about the place.

You were supposed to come with your posse, but every single one of them had work or family issues that cropped up at the last minute. Not one to be deterred by fear, you ended up making the drive down alone. In spite of the cool night, your skin is warm with anticipation as you cross the threshold and slip into the bar.

Not much is known about its origins or history- it’s a small, rundown lot in a slow and quiet part of town, so no one has ever paid it much attention. It had been a hole-in-the-wall style pub that attracted a small and dedicated group of patrons before mysteriously closing abruptly. Hours of digging through the net gave you enough reason to suspect that there was an abnormal cause behind why it still hadn’t been bought out for decades, though. The reports of ghostly apparitions in the crevices of obscure forums led you down a rabbit hole. Soon enough, you managed to find a video posted online, taken by some teenagers roped in by a bet. You studied it for hours, pausing at every frame.

You can still remember the sweet thrill, the goosebumps that formed on your skin when you noticed the wispy, grey figures hidden behind corners in several frames. Jackpot.

Your friends had told you that they were edited but your gut told you otherwise. There was a genuine fear in those kids’ eyes, you bet on it.

As you manoeuvre through old tables and chairs, you notice that the furniture is still well kept, barring the fact that everything is covered in layers of dust.The retro style bar, stools and shelves are all in good condition, though lacking bottles of booze and the typical drink making paraphernalia. Maybe someone still cares for the place?

You notice a few doors that hadn’t been explored in the video, so you try each handle, one of them leading to an empty storage room, another leading to a kitchen behind the bar, the next to a decrepit restroom. Curiously, there’s a long stairway behind a stuffy curtain going down to what you presume is a basement door. There’s an inlaid symbol on the door, made from burnished golden metal, its fine quality at odds with everything else in the bar. You’ve never seen anything like it before- the silhouette of a tree firmly rooted to the earth, its branches and roots reminiscent of…horns?

There’s something compelling about it. Your stomach dips at the thought of you opening the door, but you want to. There’s something on the other side of it.

When you yank on the handle, it doesn’t budge, breaking you out of your momentary stupor. You shake your head and blink.

Caught up in the moment?

“Damn.” You sigh. Typically, you would leave lockpicking to another one of your friends. There isn’t much you can do about it, so you decide to set up a few thermal cameras overlooking the tables and bar, as well as an REM pod for proximity detection on the countertop.

Kneeling behind the countertop, you turn on your spirit box, its harsh white noise filling the quiet. Through the static, you call into the night.

“Hello? Is anyone there?”

There’s no response, but you introduce yourself and continue. You’re well accustomed to this pattern already, after years of this. The hauling of equipment, meticulously setting everything up, dicking around for a few hours and then packing up and heading home. Keep the time spent idle low, and expectations even lower. Perhaps it’s because you’re alone tonight. There’s a charge in the atmosphere, a certain secrecy and wonder to the ritual.

“I'd really like it if you told me your name.”

“Like.” The artificial, crackly word emerges from the static.

“Yes, I’d like it if you introduced yourself too.” You wait a few more moments before the next word. For a while, monosyllabic words are all you receive. So you dig and prompt until you tag onto something.

“More.”

“More?”

“M…More tha-an.”

“There’s more than one of you?” You say, peering around the empty bar. There’s no sign of the specters from the video, only swirling mites of dust suspended in the air under the glow of your torchlight. “Where are you?”

“H-Here.”

Suddenly, your REM pod flashes green, red, blue against the shadows, signalling that something is close by, very close by. But instead of its typical bleeping, a warbled wail echoes through the empty bar, causing you to flinch from how loud it is. The fuck?

You turn around and direct your torch towards the pod. Your heart falters.

A crowd of grey specters are standing behind the counter, their forms towering over where you’re kneeled on the ground. Their bodies are featureless, rippling as though they could blink out of existence at any moment, at odds with the physical realm. For a second, you can’t bring yourself to do anything. You feel dread, you're stunned, but underneath it all, the irrational, ghost hunting geek in you is baffled. Holy shit, holy shit.

You jump to your feet, backed against the shelves. Their heads tilt upwards, following your movement. And then you’re fleeing, terror driving you to run from the very situation that you’ve been chasing down for years.

The moment you’re behind the steering wheel, you step on the gas, your corolla protesting as it's jolted out of its sleep and forced to shoot down the empty street. You don’t stop to turn and look.

“Wait.” A real voice overlaps with the one coming from your spirit box still clutched in your sweaty palm, but you don’t stop, turning the corner around the countertop and passing through an ethereal, translucent arm reaching out to stop you. You burst out of the bar into the cooler night air and shakily jam your key into your car, cursing as you struggle to get the door open.

Holy shit, you chant over and over again, they’re real, they’re real!

⋆｡°✩⋆｡°✩⋆｡°✩

Your alarm wakes you from a restless slumber, one of many in the past few months. With a groan, you fumble for your phone with your eyes still closed and turn it off.

“Fuck…” You curse at the soreness in your back and slick between your legs. It happened again last night.

Tugging your underwear down, you stare at the sticky mess you’d created in your sleep. Glimpses of your dream, or nightmare, flash through your head, sending a quiver down your spine. Your breath hitches at the thought, you palm your stiff nipples through your ratty old shirt and begin fingering your cunt, warm and dripping wet.

You’ve been tormented by a string of dreams lately, each one leaving you aching in the morning. So much so that you have had to incorporate masturbation into your morning routine. It’s never satisfying though, your fingers and toys don’t come even close to what you experience in the nasty recesses of the dreamscape hidden in your mind. All of them are vivid and realistic, but when you wake, you can only recall little snatches- greedy hands taking their fill of your body and being bent over, being filled…being defiled.

And with your equipment left at the bar, what can you do? There is no evidence of your findings. You can’t tell your friends that you’ve been having wet dreams almost incessantly since that night alone in the bar. You would seem like a lunatic.

But it wouldn’t be wrong to call this a kind of madness. Frantic and possessive. Bodies cast in vibrant colour, shadowed and swaying against you. Cast in the black behind your eyelids is a gold insignia, beckoning you closer and closer.

With a whimper, you cum, body folding over and shaking as you ride out your climax. Temporarily satiated, you slump back into your pillows dramatically, staring at your ceiling. Something from that bar had followed you home. And you want to go back.

⋆｡°✩⋆｡°✩⋆｡°✩

The empty district is just as quiet as it was the last time you were here. It’s a cold night, and you tug your sweater around your shoulders as you lean back in your car seat. It’s undeniable that you’re a little scared- you feel like one of those idiot teenagers in horror movies that get themselves killed for wandering recklessly into danger. Again, something tells you that it’s different. Or maybe you’re just horny.

With your torch in one hand and your phone in the other, you enter the bar. All of your equipment is just as you left it. You trace your finger over the REM pod on the countertop, dusty but intact. It’s…quiet.

What did you expect? To get jumped the moment you came in? There’s no sign of the specters as well. You’re a bit disappointed, because it means that those dreams you’ve been having might not have been supernatural at all, and worse, the specters might have been a figment of your imagination.

Just as you resolve to pack up your things and leave, a sliver of light catches your eye, cast against the dark floor. Purple light streams between the curtains that lead to the locked basement. Your heart begins to pick up pace again, and you rush over, brushing aside the thick, heavy fabric to see the stairway down illuminated. The door is open!

“H-Hello?” You call out, flicking your torchlight off and leaning it against a step. With hesitant steps, you descend, eyes adjusting to the dim artificial light. You know this atmosphere, this tension in the air from the distinctive purple haze of your dreams. Almost instinctively, your core warms and you can feel yourself shiver, a conditioned response.

When you reach the base of the stairs, your breath stalls in your throat and you can’t help the whimper that escapes your lips. The same apparitions that have been haunting your dreams are there, facing you, as if waiting for your inevitable return. Your nervous eyes scan the rest of the room, it looks like you’ve stepped into another realm entirely- gone are the cheap and neon plastics of the bar, there’s a pool of fabrics and pillows, and an altar, carved from stone with tall pillars of candles by its sides.

Dazed, you don’t realise that you’ve been walking until you’re a few feet in front of the specters, their heads following you uncannily.

“I-I…” You sputter, jittery under their heavy, obscured gaze. They haven’t even done anything to you yet, but your head is all cotton and gauze. Slowly, you sink to your knees.

“My dreams. I’ve seen you there.” You say, awe-struck. A delicate voice replies, soft as a gossamer sheet.

“I am glad that you’ve returned.” It confuses you. You’re not sure if the voice is coming from one of the specters before you or if it’s echoing through your head, like you’re on a phone call with someone in the same room as you. Up close, their forms are ethereal, shimmering and tinted purple from the lights, shifting ever-so-slightly.

You can still make out the shape of a mouth and a nose on their faces, as well as outlines of their limbs and hands. One reaches out to you, fitting the curve of your cheek in the palm of their hand- your eyes widen at the touch, it feels real, cold but solid against you.

“Good one…pretty one…” They close around you, clamouring to touch you. A hand combs through your hair, traces the curve of your ear, another slides past the collar of your shirt to the dip between your shoulder blades, and one presses its fingers against your lips.

Strange, you think, opening your mouth obediently for the cold fingers to savour the wet warmth of your tongue. Every cell in your body is alight, bristling with energy and ready to burst at the seams. This is what you’ve been wanting for so, so long.

How could I have been terrified of them before this?

“More, more.” Not enough of you is exposed it seems. You shed your sweater, your hard nipples visible through thin fabric. The atmosphere bristles a bit, you think, as you finally discard your shirt, your breasts and inviting skin on display for them to grab at, their touch growing more hungry.

They whisper, trailing lower and lower. You close your eyes for just a moment, the jostling bodies around you giving way to darkness as you relish in the feeling of hands that grope your chest, firm nipples being pinched and tugged at, your bare body slowly becoming accustomed to their supernatural chill. Something bumps against your lips and you smile, opening your eyes once again to bat your eyelashes up at the specter that has its stiff cock in hand, unabashedly asking for entry.

You open wide, sticking your tongue out for the specter to slide its head against you. You think you hear a whimper, and you’re pleased to feel it twitching as you close your mouth around it, humming as you bob your head and take more of its length down your throat. It’s solid, hard like a human’s, and you can feel the bump of veins trailing down its shaft. Behind you, one kneels down and presses its torso up against your back, a hand cupping your soaking sex and another kneading your breast.

“Here…!” Two more specters hovering over you tug at your arms impatiently, wrapping your hands around their own dicks. Obliging their requests, you stroke them lazily, eyes flitting between all of the spirits that surround you. The ones that are not latched to your body stand a short distance away, fisting themselves, undoubtedly staring at you get busy. Underneath their innumerable gaze, you’re exhilarated, and a thought flits through your mind- they’ll all have a chance to run you through later, and you’ll be able to experience it all in reality.

The specter shoves two fingers into your needy hole, grinding them against your sweet spot. You falter, but the specter that’s in your mouth clamps its hands around your head, sinking so deep that your face is flush with their crotch. The two rut into your tightened grip, gasping and groaning fills your head.

“So good…so good…Ah!”

When a finger flicks at your clit, you cum hard, body arching and thighs quaking. You’re stunned momentarily, and you swallow back the spit pooling in your throat, squeezing around the specter. Suddenly, its grip in your hair grows stronger, bordering on pain as it cums too, cold, thick liquid shooting into the back of your throat and covering your tongue. It tastes like nothing, you note, gasping for air when it detaches from you and releases its grip on your head.

What catches you off guard is the colour of its seed, a thick white substance that drips down your chin onto the floor between your legs, giving off an otherworldly glow. Immediately, another takes its place- the one on the right that had you fisting its cock guides it into your mouth and plugs you up again. This one is less patient, it holds you in place and fucks into your mouth. They use you like a sex toy, taking turns occupying your hands and mouth, grabbing at your chest and fingering your cunt. Any hesitation or endearing nervousness that occupied the specters has disappeared, and you’re elated. You lose count of how many have cum on you, they spill on your face, your chest, covering you in their ungodly semen. It becomes a dizzying cycle, and between your climaxes and theirs’, you lavish them with all that you can give, just as you did in your dreams. What you can take down your throat, you do gladly, an appreciative hum is your reward when you obediently swallow and accept the spurts of cum onto your body.

Suddenly, after a specter smears its cum across your tits, you’re pulled to your feet. Shaky and tired legs unable to support your body, you’re carried over to the altar that you saw earlier and laid upon it. It’s the perfect height, and you groan as a specter grinds its cock against your wet folds. Your legs are spread wide apart, and the empty spaces around you are quickly taken by eager spirits. They pause though, and seem to wait for something patiently. A name is called, something unintelligible, not in the human tongue, not anything you’ve heard before.

They say something in an alien tongue, and look upwards to the ceiling. There is something you didn’t notice before, the same sigil as the one on the door is painted there. In a split second, a collage of memories are made clear in your mind’s eye- you see offerings of wine and food, people kneeling before hulking statues and trees, orgies in secluded areas where hedonism flourishes, lush with the scent of sex and flowers.

The specter between your legs breaks you out of your reverie, and you’re suddenly in the basement once again, fully aware of your dripping cunt, the need. There’s an energy in the room that wasn’t there previously, charged and crackling. You groan when it fits its bulbous head against your entrance, hands kneading the flesh of your thighs as it enters you. And finally, finally you are one with them. You stare entranced at where you are joined, its thick, translucent cock stretching your starved cunt.

“Fuck me, please.” You rasp, throwing your head back when it begins to thrust into you, setting a brutal pace. Again, the specters crowd around you and put you to work. Closing your eyes, you lose yourself in the wave of pleasure, the friction of the heavy cock in your pussy, the numerous hands that guide you and delight in the touch of your skin.

“You…you…” The voice bristles in your head, and there it is again- snatches of that scene and the voice, it’s getting stronger. You can barely focus, between the ghostly bodies all around you and the thread of a connection to It. They’re both equally addictive- the delicious stretch and fill, the wandering hands all over your overstimulated body, and the irresistible draw to something powerful and primordial. Closer, closer, closer.

The specter fucking into you quivers, its pace quickening and its thrusts growing shallower. It’s about to cum inside you, and you wrap your legs around its translucent torso to force it even deeper inside. In response, its hands grab your hips with so much force that you’re sure they’re going to bruise.

“Perfect.” The word is whispered into the shell of your ear, low but with the power of a command. Instantly, you feel like euphoria has flooded your body, too much of it. Every sensation is painfully amplified, the bliss of each thrust between your legs rapturous and overwhelming. You cum, and the specter does too, you can feel its cold seed like ice in your hot, hot cunt, flooding you, seeping into your being. Every cell in your body is screeching from pleasure so high that it hurts.

“Oh. Too much?”

There’s tears streaming down your cheeks. Your thoughts are melting together and no words form on your tongue, all you can manage is a pathetic nod as your body seizes in agony and orgasmic bliss.

“Apologies, it’s been a while.” It says, and just as quick as it compelled you, the euphoria is sapped from your body. The relief is another form of pleasure, and as you relax, you feel a gush of liquid seep past where you’re joined to the specter- you’re squirting, a puddle of it forming on the altar and dripping onto the floor.

“Sensitive, aren’t you?” It whispers again, cool and calm as you gasp for breath. “I like it.”

“What…what-” You’re cut off by the specter dragging its cock out of you, leaving you gaping for the next one in line. You let out a high-pitched whine as the mix of semen and your slick spills out of you. As though to comfort you, one specter cradles your cheek and promptly nudges its dick past your lips. They seem to be oblivious to the conversation going on, or they carry on in spite of it.

“Don’t think. Just let go.” Another cock is thrust into you, barely giving you any reprieve as it pounds into you, intent on getting you filled again.

What are you?

“A vague question gets you a vague answer.” It tuts, “I am the bliss that found its way into your dreams, the cruelty that left you wanting more, and the hunger that brought you back here to me.”

Hands reach out to pinch and twist your nipples and clit, forcing you to let out a muffled yelp.

“It hardly seems fair for you to pay little attention to those who have been fucking you so vigorously. Well, given that you can’t form a coherent thought, the ones that have you speared on their cocks are my most devoted followers. They have been so gracious as to offer their spirits for my perusal.”

And now you understand- it’s a god, an ancient deity on the ceiling looking down upon you, casting its impartial and frigid gaze on this debauchery, orchestrated for its sake.

“And you, my little pleasure, are the first taste of life I’ve had down here in a long time.” Its tone has a vicious bite, excitement palpable. At that, the specters, or puppets in you cum, the elation of their master influencing their own pleasure, no doubt. You choke around the cock forced down your throat, cutting off your breathing until it pulls free from you and you choke down air and seed.

You’re so replete, so tired, you’re not sure whether you can take anymore-

“You will.”

Warily, you sweep your gaze across the hoard of hungry spirits hunched over you.

“After all, isn’t this what you wanted?”

Throughout the night, you’re used over and over, your poor cunt fucked and filled more times than you can count. Just as you think it may end, another specter is between your legs, alternating between lapping up the mess between your legs and pumping its seed into you again. All while some ancient and cruel god speaks to you. With each climax, you feel your consciousness slipping further away, the teasing and praise of the voice in your ear growing ever more distant…

When you wake, you’re exhausted. The specters had disappeared, leaving you on the altar. Despite the throbbing in your core and muscles, you manage to pull your clothes back on and make your way up the stairs, the unpleasant stickiness of your skin urging you to get home as soon as possible so you can take a shower.

A draft sends a chill down your spine, a whisper like a caress brushes past you.

I’ll see you soon, little pleasure.

You’re relieved to see your corolla on the streetside, and as you limp to your car you make a mental note to pack up your equipment the next time you’re here.

#monster x reader #monster x human #terato #monster lover #terato writing #monster nsft #nsft #cult stuff #COTTON HAS FINALLY POSTED SOMETHING #HUZZAH!!!!!#exophilia

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taizi · 2 months

Text

every high and every low

i wrote a tiny little something for @mangogreent, it isnt much but i hope you like ! happy birthday lake ! title borrowed from glad you exist by dan + shay (listen with your platonic nakamaship hat on and dissolve into seafoam with me)

read on ao3

Luffy’s body doesn’t scar easily. It’s one of the many facets of a frankly unhinged healing factor; his body shuffles micronutrients and vitamins around like a circus clown juggling pins, wounds healing so quickly and completely that there is rarely a trace left behind.

There are, of course, exceptions to every rule. The smiling pencil-mark curve beneath his eye is one of them. The cruel, gaping burn across his chest is another.

Sanji and Chopper have spent hours going over dietary needs and goals for everyone aboard Sunny, not just their captain. But it’s their captain whose food works like a miracle in his stomach.

If Sanji thinks too long and too hard about Totto Land—about Luffy’s trembling, emaciated limbs when he handed over a disgusting, ruined bento, the way his skin plumped up and shone with good health within minutes of a meal—there are very good odds that he’ll spiral into a fit of grief or guilt or panic no matter where he is or what he’s doing at the time. So he tries not to think about it, and instead loads his captain with carbs and protein and fiber at every opportunity instead.

Suffice to say, Luffy’s skin is largely whole and undamaged, only a few faint scars scattered here and there that you wouldn’t notice if you weren’t really looking. His rubber body is a marvel, but it burns like a starving furnace, and sometimes it does him a disservice no one could have possibly seen coming.

“You don’t feel that?” Usopp says with a frown.

“Nuh-uh,” Luffy confirms blithely, watching the feather move back and forth across his arm. “If you pinch me or poke me with something sharp I will, but if it’s soft it’s like it’s not there at all.”

For a moment, everyone sits there and absorbs that information. Sanji can feel it settling over his nakama like a blanket of snow; cold and promising to pack in and be a pain in the ass to shovel through. Sanji has to readjust his understanding of the world, too. It takes him a minute.

The only touches that Luffy feels easily are the ones that hurt. That’s true for everyone, in a sense—but just because a slap might register louder and faster than a gentle touch doesn’t mean the latter doesn’t carry a weight of its own.

Sanji wonders, abruptly, if the last thing Luffy felt from him was the fight they had on Whole Cake when Sanji was desperate to free his captain of his obligations to a pathetic, useless cook—when he did everything in his power to drive him away.

Nami and Brook have joined Usopp in the game of poking Luffy’s arms and legs and squishy sides in the name of proving him wrong, finding a spot where he isn’t so thick-skinned. Brook’s phalanges drumming against his ribs make him giggle a bit, but how much of that is real feeling and how much is simply delight at all the attention and affection pointed his way?

It should be cute, but Sanji can see—and feel—it cutting everyone to the quick. Robin has closed her book, watching the scene without a smile on her face. Franky’s hands are unmoving around the great feathered monstrosity he and Usopp have been building at the table together up until this point, as if he’s forgotten he’s holding tools in the first place.

Enough is enough, Sanji decides, and sets aside his pride along with his bowl of red velvet cupcake batter and maryse spatula, moving around the counter with purpose.

“Got an idea,” he says at length and Nami scoots gamely to the side. Sanji keeps moving before he can get in his own way and takes Luffy’s round face in one work-hardened hand.

Luffy, who has been known to use his actual skull as a battering ram, usually fights with his whole chest and carries most of his injuries there, too. His face, aside from an unfortunate unsupervised incident with a knife when he was little more than a toddler with a highly questionable and often day-drunk role model, is unscarred.

Sanji brushes his thumb against Luffy’s cheek, where the skin lays very thin over sensitive nerve endings. His captain blinks up at him, brown eyes wide and trusting, every bit as if he’s looking at someone who has never hurt him before.

The crew present is watching raptly, their disquiet transforming into absurd, single-minded scrutiny. There’s a reason they’re not only living in the New World but thriving there—they’re good at adapting, at assimilating new information, at smacking the curveballs right out of the park on their second swing.

“Feel that?” Sanji asks.

Luffy tips his head curiously, just enough not to dislodge Sanji’s hand. Perfectly willing to sit still and be held when it’s his cook doing the holding.

“Kinda,” the boy says, the barest hint of a furrow forming between his brows. It’s the beginning of an epic spoiled sulk that everyone who loves him is intimately familiar with—because his nakama belong to him, and so Sanji does, and so his hand on Luffy’s face does, and it is rapidly occurring to Luffy that it’s not fair for all of those things to be true and for him not to be able to feel it.

Sanji can’t help but smile, always equal parts charmed and exasperated by the future king in a pout. He leans in and presses his mouth to the same place his thumb was, kissing the soft cheek firmly. He can almost see it when Luffy zings to attention, his overwhelming focus zeroed into that singular point of contact.

By the time Sanji straightens, Luffy is already beaming ear-to-ear.

“I felt that!”

Sanji returns to his dessert prep, perfectly satisfied with the changed world he leaves in his wake. Chopper is already clambering over the top of the table, scattering the bits and bobs of the engineers' project into an irremediable mess in his haste to bury his favorite human in fuzzy reindeer kisses, and similarly everyone else’s eyes are gleaming with promise.

Luffy’s rubber body is both a wonder and a menace, much like the golden soul it houses. But where it falls short and fails him, his friends will pick up the slack. Luffy is probably going to get his cheeks and forehead pinched and poked a lot more when he’s whining or complaining or elsewise being his annoying, incorrigible self.

But he’s also going to get kissed a lot more there, too.

#one piece #opfic #black leg sanji #monkey d luffy #sanlu #nakamaship #my writing #op #mangogreent #it turned into pure fluff 🥺🥺 nakama soup for the soul

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saltsicklover · 6 months

Text

Title: Not a Cyclone, But a Monsoon

Part 2 of 2 - Completed

Find Part 1 HERE, and my Master List HERE

A request based off of THIS prompt, from the lovely @inkandarsenic

Romantic Pairing: Jake "Hangman" Seresin x Fem!Reader Past Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw x Fem!Reader

Platonic Pairing: Beau "Cyclone" Simpson x Fem!Reader

A few uses of Y/N

Word Count: This part: 14k+ Total Fic:20k+

Rating: R

Warnings: Talks of death, minor character deaths, labor, loss of a child in utero, abandonment, drinking, talks of God and destiny, swearing, general military talk and lingo, descriptions of food and eating, coughing fits, talks of violence, actual violence, blood, vomit and throwing up, mention of near death experiences. ANGST

---

I DO NOT CONSENT FOR MY WORK TO BE REPOSTED OR TRANSLATED

Miramar, California. TOP GUN. The weekend before the organization of the Dagger Squad.

A cellphone is tucked between Monsoon's cheek and shoulder, the line trilling. She carries her duffle bags and kit, feeling like a battering ram as she makes her way through the crowd of people. The airport is packed and she can feel just how humid it is form how sticky she feels.

The hallways of the airport wind as she follows the crowd out of the baggage claim. The people around her move just a bit too slowly as they wheel their bags behind them, just begging for someone to trip over them if they dare pass. If there is one thing Monsoon did not miss about being at Top Gun, it's the trip in.

Fuck flying coach.

Fuck PSC Season and all of the families taking all the seats on the military flights.

Fuck the crying lady sitting next to her, who wouldn't stop sobbing at the shitty romcom she was watching, and fuck when she decided to start it over, just to watch it all over again.

But the best thing about coming back has to be seeing her surrogate father, Beau Simpson. Their relationship has only grown stronger since that night at the bar. They have spent countless meals together, drinking at bars when they are in the same place and always sending 'check in' emails. Phone calls have always been a bit dodgy between time zones and deployments.

Neither one knew exactly what they were getting into when the bond between them grew, neither really sure exactly what a parent/child relationship looks like, especially when the child is really an unrelated adult. But as the days went on, and the email chain got longer and longer, things seemed to just make sense.

The pair talked about everything, from work to dating, friendships and recipes. Cyclone opened up about June and their baby, sharing his favorite stories of their marriage. From how they started dating, to the day that June passed, Monsoon heard it all.

Calla lilies were June's favorite, the only flowers that Beau believes should ever be given to a woman, and Monsoon smiles at the memory of her graduation from Top Gun, and the way Cyclone smiled at her with the bouquet of lilies in his lap.

When Monsoon found herself in Vermont she carved out time to visit June and Baby Boy Simpson at the cemetery. She showed up with two bouquets of calla lilies and a speech to give them. Monsoon cleaned their headstones and laid the flowers delicately across their plots, speaking to them the whole time about herself, and Cyclone, and the world they live in.

Cyclone's phone buzzed in his pocket while in a meeting. When he snuck a peak, he was met with a photo of Monsoon, a light smile adorning her face as she sits just in front of the burial plots. The message read "With Mama June and Bubba, thinking of you, Pops". Cyclone had to excuse himself from the table with tears in his eyes.

As the years went on, the surfaces in Cyclone's office slowly began to fill with more photos of the two of them. The collection of frames started out sophisticated, it really did, but as time went on, the frames became more eclectic, more fun.

It's juxtaposes the rest of Cyclones office in a way that is almost comical. As he is shouting at someone for their latest fuck up, there are shelves full of silly frames just a few feet away. Cyclone's favorite just so happens to read "Clown College Class President" while Monsoon's favorite is one of those irregular shaped ones, with an oval opening for the photograph.

There is a photo of the two of them tucked in the cockpit of Monsoon's jet. It catches the mechanics off guard every time, but no one dare says a word about it- mostly out of fear that word would get back to Admiral. The photo depicts the two of them at one of those giant truck stops, posing with the large dinosaur sitting out front. She is sat atop of it, like a cowboy, with Cyclone leaning up against it, his shoulder near her thigh. They both wear larger than life smiles as the sun beats down on them. It was a silly thing, really. Both stuck in at little forgotten Air Base in middle America for a flight test, but the pair managed to make the best of it, remembering to take photographs as they went.

There is a postcard folded up in Cyclone's wallet. Once upon a time, it read the catchy saying "Why Not Minot?" printed across the front of it, with a cute little photo of a town square, a little forgotten town in North Dakota. It's one of those bases that people dread being stationed at, that much has always been true, but the little photo on the front of the post card sold a different tale. It wasn't the cutesy saying or the photo that made him keep it, the edges now worn and fibrous. On the back, written in neat blue ink, underneath a little blurb about how there is absolutely nothing to do in North Dakota, the sentence "I love you, Pops" sits next to a scribbly little heart.

The staticky, tolling, phoneline picks up after a few rings as Monsoon pushes around a family with one too many screaming toddlers. They have on those little backpack leashes and Monsoon almost gets close lined as a little dark haired child bursts in front of her without warning. She dodged, but she catches one of those damn rolling bags with her toe. Monsoon barely notices the glare the lady sent her way, but the lack luster wrath of a stranger isn't going to stop her.

"Hey, Kid," Cyclone greets over the line, the smile on his face evident through the sound of his voice. There is no need for an official "hello" to begin the conversation, both knowing full well that Cyclone had been watching the flight itinerary like a hawk to make sure Monsoon wasn't going to be delayed. The call upon landing is just expected at this point, though neither of them have mastered the cool,casual, its good to see you.

"I just landed," A woman walks right into one of the duffle bags hanging off of Monsoon's shoulders, throwing her completely off balance. She hikes the bag higher up on her shoulder, trying to rebalance the hefty weight she is carrying. Monsoon sways like she is at sea, attempting to get her balance back. There is something so familiar about the way she sways a bit, just like the jet carriers do as the waves bash against the metal of the hull.

"Fuck" she curses under her breath, steadying herself once again. For a Seaman, one might think Monsoon would have better balance. Cyclone rolls his eyes on the other side of the phone. "I'll be over for dinner tonight, if that's still the plan,"

"Sure is, I'm making your favorite,"

"Steak and potatoes are your favorite," Monsoon corrects.

"You can correct me without the side of guilt, you know," Cyclone is chuckling through the phone, earning him a roll of the eyes.

"I only meant to tease," There is a nonchalance to her voice, though she is the furthest thing from cool. Cyclone isn't either. His kid is coming home and they get to sit down for a meal for the first time in months and he is beyond excited.

"I'm going to drop my stuff off at my rental, then I'll be headed your way, you better be ready for me to eat enough for a small village," Monsoon heads right for the exit, ready to look for a taxi. "And Pops, maybe think about adding a-" The word "vegetable" fails to make it's way out of her mouth as Monsoon looks up as the double doors in front of her slide open. Cyclone is standing on the other side, a large sign reading "WELCOME HOME KIDDO" sits loosely in his hand, the other holds his phone up to his ear.

It's like one of those cheesy scenes from a movie, both wearing matching grins and laughing. Cyclone knew the whole thing would be a surprise; he took a leave day to make sure he would bet there to pick her up.

"Pops!" The name still makes Cyclone's heart swell, even if he had been responding to that very name for the past few years. It's funny, really, how easy it was for the pair to adjust to the name, though Monsoon waited for him to acknowledge it first before she actually said it.

The acknowledgement came from a recorded phone message, shortly after her first move after her Top Gun Graduation. Cyclone got stuck in on the highway with a dead car and no cellphone. The call came in from a payphone, an unknown number. Cyclone left a message, "Hey, kid, it's Pops, my car died and I am stranded. I could use an assist. Do you know anyone in Missouri?". That message is still saved on Monsoon's phone to this day.

"Hey, Kiddo!" And then Monsoon is stumbling closer, her bags swinging her center of gravity all over the place. He reaches a hand out to take one, ready to throw it over his shoulder, but instead, each one hits the pavement with a hard thud. Monsoon is quickly wrapping her arms around his body, one over his shoulder, one under his arm, meeting around his back and squeezing him hard.

The hug is returned in kind, both damn near trying to squeeze each other to death. It's playful, as they share "good to see you's" and "I've missed you's" .

"I hope you don't mind, Kid, but I invited another one of the recruits to dinner tonight," He speaks the words into her hair. Monsoon pulls back to look up at her Pops with furrowed brows. She doesn't have to say a thing, he already knows exactly what is going through her mind.

"I know it's unorthodox, but, Kazansky said it might be a good idea, and when the good Admiral says something like that, you set another place at the table,"

"Yeah, unorthodox is definitely a word for it," Monsoon is pulling out of Cyclone's embrace, dipping to grab her discarded bags from the pavement. Cyclone grabs one before she can, which earns him a roll of her eyes.

"Be nice, would you?"

"To you or the mystery guest?" Her words are dripping with sarcasm.

"Preferably both," Cyclone chides, poking her in the side with the welcome home sign. She swats it away with a quick hand, both laughing.

"I'll see what I can do,"

---

The sun is setting over the horizon, painting the sky orange with wisps of pink the lower it sinks behind the curve of the Earth. Monsoon is spread out on one of the lawn chairs, relaxing, well, more like waiting out her Pops' little outburst. She had opened the grill to check on the steak, making sure the edges wouldn't be too crispy, and Cyclone all but snapped the lid shut in the middle of her investigation. He banished her to the other side of the patio to wait for the food to finish cooking. Then, and only then, would she be allowed to touch the grill again.

If there is one thing to be true, Cyclone has a method when it comes to grilling. Monsoon had it all explained to her the first time he grilled for the pair of them. He has it down to a science, all from the temperature and the kind of charcoal to use, to the length of marinating time and spices to make even the worst cut of meat from the Commissary the most perfect dinner.

And Monsoon couldn't exactly tell him he was wrong. After all, every single thing Beau had ever placed in front of her tasted delicious, delectable even. Not only that, but Monsoon really couldn't have done it better if she tried. Her Pops wouldn't let her try, either, but that is beside the point.

Soon, everything is pulled off the grill and the pair are inside, Monsoon tasked with setting the table. All of the windows are open, the evening breeze cooling the inside of the house. As she places another fork down, Monsoon takes in the way the breeze dances across her skin. Goosebumps threaten to crest over her exposed arms at the chill the air carries. In that moment, she is thankful for the California air, the smell of the freshly made sides sitting in the center of the table, and the fact that she is setting the table in her Pops' house.

It has been too long since the pair got to sit together and share a meal. Cups of coffee over video chat were no where near as nice and Monsoon couldn't lie, she missed Cyclone's cooking. As she sets down the last knife, Cyclone is bounding down the stairs. His causal jeans and t-shirt have been replaced by a nice pair of brown slacks and a cream polo shirt, tucked in with a belt. He's even sporting loafers.

"Hey Pops, there is something I want to talk to you about tonight," Monsoon shouts down the hall. She tries to shake the bit of nerves rumbling through her chest like a handful of loan bees.

"Okay, kiddo," Cyclone calls back as he is rounding the corner into the kitchen, "Is everything okay?"

"Everything's fine, promise,"

"Okay," It's a simple response as he walks further into the kitchen. He pats her on the shoulder as he passes, a loving gesture.

"Got a hot date?" Monsoon chides as she looks him up and down. She sets the bundle of flatware down on the table, crossing her arms over her chest.

"No," Cyclone is shaking his head, fighting the urge to roll his eyes at her words. "We are having company tonight, remember?"

"Oh, I remember, but I didn't think some random Lieutenant, that is only coming over because the good Admiral all but ordered him to, was someone worth dressing up for."

There is a shrug of her shoulders as her head sways down nonchalantly. Cyclone crosses his arms, mirroring his kid, with a stern look on his face. It's a look that Monsoon isn't used to seeing out of uniform. Maybe it should worry her, but the vein that would usually protrude from his forehead is nowhere to be seen.

"Remember, kid, you too are just 'some random Lieutenant'" Those words stir a bit of anger within Monsoon, but it dissipates as fast as it came.

"Well then, Admiral Simpson, sir," Monsoon stands up a bit straighter, dropping her hands to her sides, "Let me find something more presentable to wear for the strange man who's crashing out family dinner," She grimaces a bit, but they both laugh. Beau is just laughing, in that way that make's his whole body shake, his eyes scrunched closed while whole hearted giggles escape his lips.

"Go on, kid," He waves in the general direction of the hallway, towards the front of the house where she dropped her bags by the front door.

The zipper of her duffle bag slide open easily, the separation of the teeth vibrating her fingertips. Monsoon fishes out a sun dress and a cropped sweater, something to keep her warmer as the sun sets below the horizon. It's a nice enough combination, something that will surly look like she gives a fuck about her appearance without looking like she planned too much. Monsoon changes out of her sweat shorts and t-shirt in the half bath, emerging looking like a brand new woman, though the feeling of the plane still lingers on her skin.

Just as she is stuffing her travel clothing back into her bag, the doorbell sounds throughout the house, the bells tolling just a bit too loud.

"Jeez, Pops, could that doorbell be any louder?" Monsoon is yelling just as she reaches for the door. She pulls it open with a swift movement, a smile on her face. Then it falls as soon as she sees who is standing on the other side of the threshold.

Clad in a button down shirt, one with a pattern that would rival any rodeo clown, with one too many buttons undone stands Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw; a man she hasn't seen since a deployment five years ago, about six months after she graduated from Top Gun.

There is a gold chain hanging around his neck. It's just long enough to graze over the tops of his collar bones. His shirt is untucked, the bottom a bit wrinkly, like he has tucked and untucked it a couple of times trying to decide which looked better. He made the wrong choice, by Monsoon's calculation, the patterned shirt covering the top of his dark khakis. He looks a bit silly, really, from the chain down to his boat shoes. The thing that catches her the most off guard though, is the fucking mustache he has decorating, no, vandalizing his upper lip.

Her own mouth hangs open just a bit, her hand tightening it's grip on the door handle. Bradley shoots her that mega wat smile, that million dollar, dentist office poster smile- the one that made her swoon all those years ago. But now, now it makes her fucking angry. Or maybe it's resentment that she feels boiling up inside of her, steaming her insides with a sort of sick feeling that she hasn't felt in years.

The last time this strange, queasy feeling flowed through her she was wrapped up in the white sheets of her mattress on an aircraft carrier, somewhere out in the pacific. Her naked body feeding off of the warmth of spot that Rooster once occupied. When she awoke, there was a feeling of contentment that spread over her skin, until she reached over to find the spot next to her cold.

Their deployment relationship ended with a fucking post it note, "Duty Calls" is all it read, scribbled down in a mess of black ink, the pen itself skipping. Hell, the pen couldn't even bother to work long enough to get a complete message through- their relationship simmered down to nothing more than steamy nights together in a twin size bunk while the ocean waves rocked against the carrier.

The contentment drained from Monsoon faster than than the anger could take over, and for a moment there was nothingness in the spaces between her ribs.

And now, Bradley fucking Bradshaw is standing on her Pops' front porch, smiling at her like nothing has ever happened between them, holding a bottle of wine, and somehow she is just supposed to let him in!

"Hello," He scratches at the back of his neck, his brows pinched together just the slightest bit. "Is this Admiral Simpson's house?"

Words are caught in the back of Monsoon's throat, each individual letter sticking her in the esophagus. Monsoon stands there looking at Bradley, each growing a bit more uncomfortable as the seconds go by. But, she is on the inside of the doorjamb, she has the upper hand. Just as she goes to slam the door in his fucking ugly mustache, Cyclone catches the door.

"Mr. Bradshaw!" Beau booms, his tone friendly as he sends Monsoon a what the fuck look. She pinches the bridge of her nose with her thumb and forefinger, though it does nothing to relieve the rapidly growing headache that's taking over her skull.

"Come in, come in!" Cyclone practically ushers Bradley into the house. "This is my daughter, Y/N Mitchell, she is in the new Top Gun class as well!"

Beau is doing his best to defuse the tension in the room, between Monsoon's anger, and Bradley's overall discomfort from being in an Admiral's house, the vibes are askew. Bradley crinkles his brows at the information and Beau quickly jumps in with a chuckle, "No relation, but I claim her anyway. Introduce yourself, Son,"

"Brad-"

"We already know each other,"

The pair speak at the same time. Monsoon's tone is full of distain, like the words taste bitter and unforgiving on her tongue. She pushes past Bradley's outstretched hand and past Cyclone. Bradley can't help the fact that his face twists up in confusion as he wracks his brain trying to figure out where exactly he knew her.

The woman's definitely too upset to be a recent fling- hell, Bradley hasn't even managed to bring a girl back to his place in such a long time. Deployment really limited his prospects and she sure wasn't on the mission he just finished.

"Please, this way," Cyclone guides Bradley back to the kitchen, taking the bottle of wine from the younger man. They follow the path Monsoon took, down the hall and back to the large kitchen. She is standing at the sink, her hands braced on the counter top.

"Make yourself at home, Mr. Bradshaw. If you'll excuse me, I have to speak with my daughter for a second." Cyclone is moving before Bradley can acknowledge him. So, Bradley pretends to be very interested in the view just outside the kitchen window.

"What the hell, kid?" Cyclone carefully grabs Monsoon's elbow, leaning in just a little bit closer to fake some sort of privacy. He sets the bottle of wine on the counter. With all the tension blooming in the air around them, Cyclone decides alcohol is the last thing they need.

"It's complicated, Pops, just leave it be, okay?" Monsoon is running a hand through her hair, a shallow attempt to ground herself. "I can play nice for one dinner,"

"What the hell happened between you two? And it's not just one dinner, it's the next few weeks."

That fact is met with a grumble from Monsoon. It took her only a few seconds to convince herself that she would be able to make it though a dinner, but the idea of having to see Bradley fucking Bradshaw every day for the foreseeable future had a mixture of nausea and frustration swirling through her.

"Pops, trust me, this really isn't something you are going to want to hear about, nor do I feel like discussing it in your kitchen, at a whisper, while the man who doesn't even seem to fucking remember me is only a few feet away! No thank you," Monsoon pushes past Cyclone once more, picking up the bowl of salad from the kitchen island and bringing it over to the table. Cyclone is hot on her tail, speaking lowly after her.

"Y/N" That gets her to stop, Beau never uses her first name, "We are not finished discussing this,"

"After supper then," The words leave her tongue sharp, but they are met with a nod of approval. Then Cyclone is moving, ready for the night to move on as planned.

"Mr. Bradshaw!" Cyclone is turning his attention back to their guest, a makeshift smile plastered to his face, "Please, take a seat, I am just going to grab the food off the grill,"

And then Cyclone is disappearing out the back door, leaving Monsoon and Rooster alone, the room already threatening to burst from the rapidly accumulating tension. Monsoon chances a look at Bradley as she finished setting out the flatware that had been left abandoned earlier, suddenly a little bit glad that her Pops hinted at her to change clothes. She looks good, that much she knows, if only it mattered at this point.

Maybe, if it mattered, Bradley would look at her and realize just how much he walked out on. Maybe he would see the way Cyclone cares for her, and their little family that they've created and know that he threw away his chance to be apart of it. If only he could see just how happy she is now- yet he doesn't even fucking recognize her, and that makes her heart burn like cheap kerosene. It's like gulping down saltwater, the feeling of being forgotten, drowning right out in the open for everyone to see.

As Monsoon is drowning in thoughts of Bradley, he is just trying to remember her.

Bradley takes in the slope of her nose and the freckles that are smattered across her legs. His eyes wander over the frizzy bits of her hair, down the line of her shoulder and ending at the tips of her fingers. The way that she glances at him, her face still turned down as she adjusts the table settings, strikes him as familiar- but in a far off sense of the word. Familiar in the way his own face is reminiscent of his father's.

His father, Goose, and Maverick... Pete Mitchell... Mitchell!

"Mitchell?" Bradley breaks the silence, his gaze a bit wider, still locked on her downturned face. Monsoon's eyes shoot up at the name, locking with his dark brown eyes. They bore into her the same way they always had and a part of her aches.

"Are you-" The breath he sucks into his lungs burns a bit with hazy memory, "Are you Pete Michell's kid?"

An audible, pained groan leaves Monsoon's throat at the question.

"Not anymore," Are the only words she can manage, the flames of anger licking at her legs.

"But you were, once?" There is almost a ribbon of hope laces somewhere in his tone, but Monsoon pays it no mind. She walks away from the table, keeping her back to Bradley as she attempts to calm the heat of rage that's licking at her legs.

Why couldn't Bradley just ask her about normal things? Why aren't they talking about work, their partners, their friends. Hell, he could hit on her at this point and it would go over better.

If he wanted to talk about Maverick- Pete Michell, there were countless times when they were tangled up together in blankets, in the dark save for the crack of light breaking into the room from under the doorway.

He could have asked as they scurried up the stairs of the carrier, their gear smacking against their chests as they ran. Bradley could have asked then, as they bounded out into the early morning, salt soaked air.

Hell, Bradley could have asked over coms, high in the air as the wind whistled past their wings. They were just test flights after all, no enemy to contend with. He could have asked her then.

But he didn't.

"That was a very long time ago," She's turning to the fridge, pulling a pitcher of lemonade out. The sigh that leaves her lips is nothing but tension attempting to escape from the confines of her chest. It doesn't work, and Bradley doesn't catch the hint to just shut the fuck up and leave it be.

"We knew each other, right? When we were kids?" The question catches Monsoon off guard, almost as much as his initial presence did. She wants to laugh, really she does, at the ridiculousness of the situation.

He didn't remember that fact when they met on the carrier five years ago, and Monsoon tried not to let that bother her, especially when he was buried inside of her, moaning filthy things into her ear. But now? Now he remembers. But somewhere, the memory of their torrid love affair escapes the great mind of Bradley Bradshaw.

"Oh, for fucks sake,"

Though the whole thing is laughable; Bradley isn't laughing. He's holding his breath, too caught up in the scene in front of him, in the soreness of his chest and the way his heart thrums against the backside of his ribcage.

Fuck how his chest aches.

There is this part of his past, this piece that he once knew like the back of his hand, that's just in reach now- again, and Monsoon is laughing at him. The memory of her was erased with the sounding of artillery, the three volley's fired into the air. And now, he craves this memory like he craves the memory of his father, the pieces of his innocence having crumbling into his hands like ash.

It still stains his hands that sickly blackish gray, gritty against his skin, though he is the only one that can see it.

The sliding door opens once more and Cyclone is slipping though, holding a large platter of steak in his hand, the meat is grilled to perfection and he looks proud. Bradley looks at Monsoon with furrowed brows, questioning the words that she let slip past her lips. Cyclone steps between them, setting the plate of meat down on to the dinner table, more than enough food to go around.

"Please, Y/N, come and join us," Cyclone is pulling out a seat right next to Bradley, offering it to her. Reluctantly, she pads over, taking a seat next to Bradley who can't seem to take his eyes off of her face. He runs his hands up and down his pant legs, more out of anxiety than anything else. Cyclone takes a seat across from the pair, a tight smile on his face.

In any other world, it may look like a child introducing their significant other to their father, the way the tension hangs in the air between the trio. Cyclone awkwardly dishes himself servings of the food before passing it to Monsoon, who does the same before placing it down next to her, leaving Bradley to fend for himself. It's petty, that's true, but to Monsoon, it's a small act of defiance. A small fuck you for not remembering her, or the nights they spent together.

The Admiral knows something is going on right under his nose, just out of his understanding. He can see it in the way Monsoon shifts awkwardly in her seat while Bradley's gaze gets overly friendly with the plate in front of him. There's a question on the tip of his tongue, "kid, is Bradley your boyfriend?" but he knows better than to ask it. As he observes longer, he takes in the way his daughter tilts her shoulders just a little further away from Bradley, the arm closest to him resting elbow down on the table. The moment Cyclone notices the unpassed dishes sitting between the pair, he just knows.

"So," Cyclone clears his throat, "Are you two excited to be back at Top Gun?"

It's a reasonable question, very middle of the road. Monsoon opens her mouth to answer, but Bradley beats her to it.

"Yes, sir. It's good to be back stateside. Hell, it's good to be back on solid ground. I've been stuck on a carrier for the past nine months and I was beginning to lose my mind!" He's chuckling now, and Beau joins in right along side him, the deep chuckles of the men filling the air. "But you know how it can get on the carriers. It's hard to pass the time, no going to the bar with friends, no dating,"

Then, Monsoon's fork hits her plate with a metallic clank against the glass. No dating, yeah, right. Out of all of the things Monsoon pegged Bradley to be, a liar was not one of them, but then again not much could surprise her after the way he left.

"How about you, kid?"

"To be determined, Pops," The answer is genuine, spoken through grit teeth.

Maybe she shouldn't be so upset with Bradley's lack of remembrance for her. After all, it's not always the wrong time with the right person. Or the wrong place. Sometimes it's wrong, maybe he just didn't like her that much- more a deployment fling to get him through the lonely nights than a future.

"Well, I am excited you're back," Cyclone returns her direction, but Monsoon just shoves a fork full of salad into her mouth.

"Sir, can I ask what exactly they called us back for? And are there more of us?" Bradley asks between bites, his fork and knife busy against his plate.

"I am not obliged to share much, but I can tell you that fifteen of you have been called back, from varying Top Gun classes." The explanation leaves something to be desired, but both recruits are nodding on the other side of the table. Bradley eats another bite of steak, complimenting Cyclone on his grilling; Monsoon is just pushing the food around on her plate with the tines of her fork. It's easier than finding the appetite that was lost somewhere between the front door and the kitchen after Bradley's arrival.

"Are you teaching us this go around, Pops?" Monsoon's question is spoken quietly, in the middle of Bradley's sentence about his own grilling technique- there is no remorse for the interruption.

At her words, Cyclone visibly stiffens, his fork stilling on his plate. Then he's setting it down, eyes still locked with his plate. With a huff and a lick of his lips he looks across the table, met with two pairs of curious eyes. He knew this was going to be hard, but he didn't expect it to be quite like this.

"No, I'm not teaching," Cyclone takes another breathe, unsure who to make eye contact with, knowing the words he's about to say are not going to be received well, by either one of them. "We- Top Gun has decided to bring in-"

The doorbell is ringing loudly through the house, startling Cyclone in his seat. It breaks though the tension like a fucking bullet, the whole thing blasting apart on impact. The trio trade glances that last milliseconds, like someone just knows whos going to be standing on the other side of that door.

"I'll get it, Pops," Monsoon is already pushing out of her seat, placing her napkin next to her plate. She is a bit too eager to get away from the tension surrounding that table, not only from her question but from the way Bradley is basically staring out of the corner of his eye. Though she can't exactly see it happening, she can feel it- the way his eyes are boring into the side of her head, almost burning. She will take anyone being on the other side of that door if it means she doesn't have to sit in Bradley's swimming gaze any longer.

"No, you stay, I'll get it," Cyclone corrects, "You stay and chat,"

Then, Cyclone is pushing away from the table, heading right for the front door. He gives his daughter no time to protest. Cyclone leaves the slowly rebuilding tension behind him, and Monsoon is stuck having to sit back down, next to Bradley, left to simmer in it.

"We did know each other, right?" Bradley is quick to ask the moment Cyclone rounds the corner. It's a speed he's not used to- too used to sitting and waiting for the perfect timing that just doesn't come. But this isn't something he's willing to wait on, it's just something he has to know.

"Yes, Bradley, we knew each other. But that was a long time ago," Monsoon is shrugging, avoiding his eyes. The words should have hit him harder, from the way they all but flew from her lips, but the impact is almost gentle, like the comfort of them bore the brunt of it all.

"Do you remember my father?" The question is so innocent that it almost hurts; and Monsoon knows just how much throbbing pain there is inside Bradley. After one drunken night while on the carrier, he poured his heart out about his father, about how much he missed him and how he wished- hoped that Goose would have been proud of him. Monsoon sat and listened the to the whole thing, through the tears and drunken hiccups, reassuring Bradley that Goose would be proud of him.

After all, she knewhim, even if that was a million years ago- even if Bradley didn't know it.

She knows he would have been, because Goose was a good man.

A trait that seemed to have skipped over Bradley.

Good men remember their lovers. They remember their old friends. They remember the people who showed up to their mother's funeral- and have the decency to show up to their friends' mother's funeral.

Good men don't leave women in the dead of night, a break up message scrawled on a sticky note. They don't leave their friends to grieve alone. They don't forget.

"Yes, I remember him," Monsoon chances a glance at Bradley, unintentionally meeting his eyes. God, he's looking at her like she holds the fucking secrets to the universe and all she can feel is a sort of twisted up sickness, like her sternum is bound together with poisoned ropes. Bradley can see the stars that cling to her fingertips, the secrets to the cosmos, but can't seem to find the words to beg for their translation.

Cyclone is walking back into the room a second later, accompanied by another set of footsteps. Neither Monsoon nor Bradley look up when they walk in, both too busy staring at each other. Bradley looks curious, Monsoon looks hurt.

She looks away first.

A tall blond walks in behind Cyclone, his gaze focused on a set of files in his hand. He's reading over the top file carefully, running his free hand through his cropped hair. There is a toothpick in his mouth, resting between his teeth. Dressed in his tan uniform, his biceps are straining against the cuffs.

He's a Stetson model type, clean cut and masculine. The line of his jaw accentuated by the clean lines of his uniform. His jaw ticks with frustration as his brows furrow at the paperwork. There appears to be a word on the tip of his tongue by the way the toothpick bobs between his plump lips.

"Hey, guys, sorry for that, this is-" Cyclone swings his hand, introduction interrupted by twin gasps.

"Jake?!"

"Hangman?"

Hangman isn't sure who to look at first, but his eyes meet Bradley's form first, his eyebrows knitting together at the familiar face before shooting to his hairline when his eyes land on Monsoon sitting next to Bradley.

"Y/N, Doll! What are you doing here?"

Cyclone is whipping his head around in the way he might flip a jet. And Monsoon is pushing out of her chair again, ready to round the table and throw herself into the arms of the strong, blond man who just walked in, but her eyes meet the bewildered look on Cyclone's face, causing her to halt her movements. Hangman sets the paperwork down on the kitchen island, his eyes still locked on Monsoon, that damn smirk of his playing on his lips. Monsoon can tell he is holding himself back, fully aware of exactly who's house he is standing in, and the relationship between Monsoon and the Admiral.

It's been months since they've seen each other. Their goodbyes were said on the front porch of his little rental outside of Lake Hurst. Neither of them relished being in New Jersey, but they had each other and that's all that had mattered. They fostered a brand new relationship over a year, neither of them brave enough to label the nights spent together in that house.

Then new orders came down the pipeline, on a TS Need-To-Know. The pair were being separated with the flick of a pen. So, they labelled their year long relationship through tears standing on his stoop, the night the orders came down the channel.

They packed Jake's small house, and Monsoon's apartment, neither one knowing just what was to come. In the name of a temporary duty station, they got storage units next to each other, the closest thing to living together they'd be able to swing.

That was six months ago.

Monsoon did a little time in Pensacola while Jake got sent to Oak Harbor. Thousands of miles apart, their dates turned from late night dinners to quick conversations over the phone just to hear the other's voice.

Neither of them expected their reunion to be here, in Admiral Simpson's kitchen, with Bradley Bradshaw and the Admiral watching the whole thing, confused expressions written into their features.

"I got recalled to Top Gun!" Monsoon giggles a bit, her gaze still trapped with Hangman's.

"Me too!" The words leave Jake's lips and the pair are smiling. It's taking everything for them to hold themselves back from embracing each other, after months apart. Then, Cyclone is clearing his throat.

"Pops," Monsoon begins, clasping her hands in front of her, "God, this is weird. Remember earlier this evening when I said I wanted to talk to you about something?"

She had fully been intending on telling her Cyclone about her relationship with Hangman, in fact, she had been working up the courage for the past few weeks. But, Jake comes with a record, a reputation, and a respect problem, things Monsoon knows her Pops won't approve of.

"What's going on? Is everything okay?" The words are leaving Cyclone's lips almost too quick, but Monsoon is quick to reassure him that it is.

"Well, this isn't exactly how I saw this going, but, Pops, I'd like you to meet my boyfriend, Jake Seresin," Monsoon is gesturing to Jake now, a worried smile on her face. The pair know each other, of course they do. They had met the first time Hangman went through Top Gun. Cyclone was on instructor duty and Hangman didn't take overly well to being instructed; though he did finish top of his class.

Monsoon bobs up and down on the balls of her feet, the nervous energy flowing through her body. If she could push all the energy out of her and into the floor she would. Her soles grounding the electric current flowing through her, unapologetic and lightning hot. Monsoon would stand there in front of the three men who have played such a large roll in her life, back straight and eyes forward like the Navy trained her to do, if only she could coral that fucking energy and send it straight through the floor.

Monsoon bounces instead.

If she had the time, she could have prevented the look that crosses Cyclone's face. That look of you're not good enough for my kid that is so evident on his features. She knows that Jake saw it, clear as day from the way he almost winces. Everyone in that room knows the reputation that Hangman wears like a neon sign. The "voted biggest player" social life with the stellar callsign, the pilot known for leaving his wingman hanging, acting alone- selfish.

So much for putting off telling Cyclone; so much for easing him into the news.

Bradley is watching the whole exchange from his seat with his eyebrows raised, like a fucking soap opera but the whole spectacle's happening in real time. He lets his eyes shift from person to person, taking it all in. Monsoon looks hopeful, though she is waiting with baited breath for her Pops to blow a fucking gasket. Jake, on the other hand, looks absolutely cool. Though he is the reason for the interruption, and for the impromptu introduction, he is impossibly collected. Then, Bradley's eyes shift to Cyclone, who has backed up a few steps. He keeps looking between Monsoon and Hangman, like he is playing some sort of invisible game of connect the dots.

Hangman and his fucking reputation are courting his daughter, and Cyclone really isn't thrilled about the news.

Though Bradley isn't exactly thrilled to see Hangman here either, he's taking the whole thing in stride, as opposed to Cyclone, but the younger man can't exactly blame him. If it were Bradley getting this major bomb dropped on him, he wouldn't be sitting pretty, either. Bradley is bringing his glass up to his lips, his eyes still flashing between the trio.

"Monsoon-" Cyclone starts, but the sound of coughing interrupts. Bradley is coughing, choking on his water. He attempts to wave a hand, letting everyone know he's okay, but in reality, he's far from it.

Monsoon. The woman he left asleep in her bunk five years ago stands next to him now, and not only that, they fucking grew up together, at least for a little while. And she remembers his Dad, and she's Maverick's kid. And fuck, she's dating Hangman!

Things are moving just a bit too fast, and Bradley can't quite catch his breath between coughing fits.

The glass is quickly set back onto the kitchen table, but is sent over the edge as Bradley reaches for a napkin. The glass falls in faux slow motion, the liquid flowing from the cup as it hits the hardwood, shattering like a pinprick galaxy upon the floor. Bradley, still coughing, searches the new formation of cosmos on the floor for the answer to all the mixed up bullshit he has found himself in.

"Rooster?" Monsoon pats him harshly on the back, right between his shoulder blades. Then, she is rubbing his back, her hand full of warmth through the thin fabric of his shirt. His skin burns under her touch as he struggles to return his breathing to normal. There's still a knot in the back of his throat made of unsaid words and new revelations that he can't seem to swallow down.

"Rooster, are you okay?"

Hangman and Cyclone are quick to circle around the table, Hangman taking a knee next to Monsoon, his hand quickly finding her lower back. Cyclone is on the other side of Bradley, the glass crunching under his expensive leather loafers. Bradley is red from all the coughing, but an embarrassed blush still floods his skin from all the attention.

"Mons?" The nickname comes out all scratchy as Rooster wipes a newly formed tears from his eyes. The concerned expression morphs to hold a bit of shock before settling on some sort of mix of frustration and downright sadness. Monsoon tries to school her expression but her eyes still swim with emotion as they are locked with Bradley's.

"Yeah, Roos," Monsoon shoots his nickname right back, a confirmation that all but shakes the world around Bradley. She brings a tender hand up to squeeze his shoulder before pulling back, subconsciously leaning closer to Hangman, into the warmth of his hand on her back. She finds safety in her boyfriend's touch, the warmth of his skin pooling against her through the fabric of her dress.

The lack of contact makes Rooster feel cold, but the feeling is short lived as Cyclone is grasping at his other shoulder. A swivel of his head and Bradley is met with the furrowed brows of the Admiral.

"Are you okay, Mr. Bradshaw?"

"Yes, sir," Bradley responds, adjusting the collar of his shirt. "I'm so sorry about the glass, please, let me clean it up,"

As Rooster stands, he is pushed back down gently by Cyclone, his hand still on the younger man's shoulder.

"Don't worry about it. I'll take care of it, please," And so Bradley is sitting again, in the center of the standing trio, feeling completely out of place. "As for the two of you, take a seat, we have some things to discuss,"

The sound of chairs being pulled out against the hard wood floor is accompanied by the intense ringing of the doorbell once again. The group look from person to person, once again looking for any clue as to who could be at the front door this time. Cyclone is padding over to the door, the crunching of glass less evident the further away her gets.

Bradley attempts to clear the lump in his throat, now without the luxury of his glass of water. Monsoon takes her untouched glass and slides it closer to Bradley, a barely there smile on her face. Her expression holds more sympathy than anything. Bradley takes the glass with both hands, a little too careful as he brings it up to his lips.

"Let me get you a plate, okay?" Monsoon speaks to Hangman, her smile clearly wider, brighter, more full of life when it's directed his way. "Pops will give me so much grief if he comes back and that spot isn't set,"

So, Monsoon excuses herself from the table, leaving the men sitting in apprehensive silence.

With a strong tug from Cyclone, door swings open and there is no time for a 'hello' as the man on the other side is pushing in, a wild look in his eye, a vein on his forehead bulging with frustration.

"We need to talk Simpson," The tone holds misplaced authority. Beau runs cold at the sight of Pete "Maverick" fucking Michell standing in his entryway, looking pissed off enough to catch a charge.

"That's Admiral Simpson to you Captain," Cyclone's teeth are grit so hard they might crack under the pressure of his jaw. "You cannot be here right now,"

The raised hand does nothing to stop Maverick from pushing further into the house. There's a folder in his hand, wrinkling under the closing of his fist. Sweat clings to the Admiral's brow, a vision of the crown of thorns, droplets running down the side of his face. It might as well have been blood from the way his stomach twists as Maverick steps closer to him, pushing the paperwork, right against the center of his chest.

"Do you know who got recruited for this mission, huh?" The words are dripping with venom, "Do you realize who you've chosen for this fucking death wish of a goddamn mission?"

Captain Michell's tone is all accusatory and full fury. He's pushing into Cyclone's chest harder, his knuckles white under the pressure. Cyclone grabs at the older man's wrist, his own knuckles paling as he squeezes.

"Captain, I will not repeat myself, you cannot be here,"

"Who is it, Pops?" Monsoon is calling from around the corner, her voice full of curiosity. Cyclone isn't a praying man, especially after what happened with June and their sweet baby boy, but now Cyclone is praying to every god, every deity that crosses his mind, even those who's names he cannot recall, that his daughter will not walk around the corner to see Pete Mitchell standing in his entry way.

"Nobody, kid, I'll be there in just a moment," He calls before turning his attention back to the man in front of him. He tightens his grip on Pete's wrist before he's wrenching it away from his chest. He pushes it back into Pete's own chest, leaning in close, "My daughter is not to see you here, leave. Now."

One might think Maverick would get the hint, since he pulls his hand from Cyclones grip. But then, Maverick is throwing open the file, pointing at the first page's photo. There is so much frustration in the action, it bounces between the two men like they're sounding boards, building and building.

"See this? Jake "Hangman" Seresin? You really want to send somebody in the sky who has a pension for leaving their wingman? You want to send someone into the air with a guy like him when the mission is already guaranteeing a loss of life?"

That catches the attention of the trio in the other room. All motion stills as they strain to hear more.

Wide mouthed, pointed tongue, Maverick is yelling without a care in the world. It doesn't matter who hears as long as Cyclone is hearing it too.

"And how about this," The paper tears as Maverick turns the page, "Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw. You know about his father. You damn well know about Goose and you want to send his son to an early grave too?"

Jaws tick, fists tighten. Cyclone breathes deeply, thinking- choosing his words carefully as the older man continues to scream. It's not beautiful or noble like books would describe. There is no gift from God, no blessing, no one anointed with the ability to see into the future, to see just how this is going to play out. Instead, it's just words exchanged between mortal men, both too damn stubborn to back down with knives to each other's throats.

"And check out these two," Maverick is laughing now, leaning in closer to Cyclone, his breathe reeking of whiskey. Cyclone can see the way Maverick's eyes are bloodshot and weepy as he pushes him back. Sweat coats his skin leaving him clammy to the touch.

"Natasha "Phoenix" Trace and Robert "Bob" Floyd," Another strangled laugh escapes Captain Mitchell, "You really think this scrawny kid and a woman are up to the task at hand? Really? I can think of at least five better pilots and Wizzos who are better qualified than these two. And look! She's the pilot! Hell, I don't even know how they made it through Top Gun the first time around! The fucking Navy is getting soft."

"It's time for you to go, Captain Mitchell. Sober up. We will discuss this on Monday," Cyclone puts a hand to the older man's shoulder, attempting to usher him out without too much force. Cyclone can't risk Maverick being in his house any longer. He has already been gone too long and his guests are likely getting curious. "Time to go, Pete,"

"But, Cyclone, you haven't even heard the best part," Maverick can barely get the words out through drunken laughter. He's turning the page with clumsy fingers, the paper tearing under his touch.

The trio, Rooster, Monsoon, and Hangman round the corner as Cyclone is attempting to usher Maverick out the front door. They watch as the Maverick stumbles out of Cyclone's grip and further into the house.

"Pops?" Monsoon speaks as the strange man hits the floor, laughing as he does. The file has fallen open, scattering pictures of the newest Top Gun brain child called The Dagger Squad. They sit scattered all over the entry way like freshly fallen snow. Her eyes go to the paper that falls near her feet.

"Well if it isn't the prodigal child," Maverick speaks, pushing himself further off the floor. "How many strings did you have to pull to get your own daughter onto the squad? Are you trying to send this kid to an early grave like the last one?"

The three Daggers stand speechless. Monsoon is quickly folded under Hangman's arm, her face pressed into his chest. Rooster stands just off to the side of them, his eyes flashing to Monsoon.

The arguing doesn't stop.

"Shut your mouth," Cyclone spits, "You don't know a goddamn thing,"

Maverick stumbles to his feet, standing up at straight as possible to get into Cyclone's face, just to taunt the younger man.

"See, Admiral, that's not true, now is it? You and I both know that she isn't actually yours and this would be an easy way to get rid of her, right? Send her back to-"

His words are met with a swift punch to the face, the cartilage of his nose crunching under Cyclone's knuckles. The punch feels good, like it had been coming for a long, long time. Like it had been building within Beau Simpson for years, every single time Maverick missed out on a celebration of the amazing life Monsoon is leading. For every birthday, every graduation, every reenlistment and promotion ceremony, Maverick missed it all, and the rage built inside Cyclone. Now, it finally came out, popped like a Champaign cork, blood instead of the fizzy alcohol dotting itself over Cyclone's entryway.

A warm hand slips into Monsoon's; Bradley stepped closer, clutching onto her. He recognized Pete Mitchell the moment he got a clear view, both his anger and anxiety flaring. Bradley squeezed her hand once, nice and strong, before dropping it once more, stepping in front of her and Hangman.

"Captain Mitchell," Bradley begins, his voice firm, full of hurt.

The words make Monsoon's head spin. She leans away from her boyfriend's chest to get a better look at the bloody faced man and it sends a chill down her spine. Her Dad who she hasn't seen in years is now standing in a room full of people who can't fucking stand his existence. It's a fucking miracle that all he has is a bloody nose.

"Bradley," Pete spits a little bit of blood as he speaks, looking up at the younger man. He reaches a hand out, but it's dodged. "It's good to see you, son,"

"I'm not your son. It's time for you to go," Bradley is ready to grab Pete Mitchell by the collar and haul him out of the house. He's ready to throw him onto the lawn and leave him there to spit blood and sober up enough until he can walk himself home. Bradley has his own selfish reasons, his own grudge against the Captain, and now would be as good a time as any to feed into that frustration that he's been stewing in for years.

"I'm calling Admiral Kazansky," Cyclone declares to the room, then he's spinning on his heel the moment Bradley takes a step closer, clearly putting himself between Maverick and Monsoon.

The Admiral is ordering Hangman to move, to take his daughter anywhere else so that she doesn't have to see any more of the disaster that the night has turned out to be. He doesn't want her to see him throw Maverick out- hell, he didn't want her to see him punch the older man, but there's no going back in time.

As much as Cyclone wishes he could have protected her from this, he couldn't. One can't stop a speeding bullet, as they say, and the shot had already been fired the moment he pulled open the front door. And as much as he doesn't want to, Cyclone has to trust Hangman with his daughter, he just has to, now.

So, Hangman is all but carrying Monsoon away as she fights to stay put. She misses the order from her Pops, her blood thrumming too loudly through her ears. Hangman takes her through the house, dodging the pile of glass still glittering on the hardwood in the kitchen, hauling her out the backdoor and right to his truck. Monsoon flights the whole time, though it's unclear as to her reason to want to say behind.

The pair are pulling away from the house as Bradley and Beau are hauling Maverick out to the front lawn, his nose still pouring blood.

Jake drives in the direction of his apartment, holding onto her hand the whole time. He squeezes it reassuringly though there isn't much he can assure her of at the moment. Neither of them know what's going to come of Maverick, or of Cyclone's heated action against him. They don't know if Bradley is going to get caught in the crossfire, or if they are going to get called into the MP's office sometime in the middle of the night.

There is no clear answer, so, Hangman squeezes her hand and drives.

And drives.

As far away as he can get from that house, that situation, the feeling in his chest spurred on by the broken look in Monsoon's eyes.

He drives until the sun crests over the horizon. Pulling off onto the side of the highway, Hangman kills the headlights, the world around them just beginning to come to life. That's when the tears come, falling fast and hard from the pools of Monsoon's eyes. Hangman just holds her there, inside of the truck.

The world around them awakens as Monsoon's falls apart, crumbling like unquenched Earth between her fingers. Maybe that's what the whole situation is, after all, how many times have the great authors related relationships to gardens, to plants, to life. Without nurture, without care and tending, the soil dries out, the plants die. The whole garden becoming a wasteland for the decaying plant matter; the soil turning to clay as the days roll on.

But isn't decay an unescapable fact of life?

Miramar, California. TOP GUN. Two weeks after the organization of the Dagger Squad.

Hangman had completely expected to pretend like the whole fight at the Admiral's house didn't happen when he met up with the other recruits at the bar, save for Monsoon. He took a little too much joy ordering drinks for the team on Maverick's tab- the older man not seeming to remember him from the incident, even after Hangman sent him a wink and a "thanks, Pops,".

When Bradley strutted in like the world was full of golden promise, Hangman took it upon himself to act like it was the first time they had seen each other in years. Bradshaw was quick to get the memo: last week didn't happen.

There's no surprise that Maverick got thrown out of the Hard Deck that night, either. Hangman sure as hell wasn't expecting to be the one to throw Maverick out of the bar, but that part gave him a sense of pride that he can't quite put words to.

The feeling bloomed in his chest as he watched Maverick hit the sand. A wide smile spread across his face as he yelled for him to "come back anytime," if that meant getting more free alcohol and the chance to throw him out again. Then, as Hangman closed the doors behind him while Rooster began one hell of a rendition of "Great Balls of Fire", everything felt like it was going to be okay.

Oh boy, how wrong he was.

Tensions are high now, Hangman and Rooster's rivalry is back and stronger than ever. They have been at each other's throats since that night at the Hard Deck, though the reason wasn't the mission or the usual dick measuring contest, even if the other recruits would say that it is.

They have been battling it out over a woman. Monsoon, specifically. The team doesn't know about her involvement with Hangman, and the pair try and keep it that way. So, she sits in the back of the classroom, right behind Yale and does her best to pay attention. The mission seems more impossible by the minute, the deadline has been moved up, and nobody has been successful.

Rooster and Maverick argue about the plane vs the pilot and how he had been the only one to make it to the target, though it was a minute late.

Then, Hangman opens his fucking mouth, living up to that reputation of his. "It's no time to be thinking about the past,"

"What's that supposed to mean?" Rooster's expression is unreadable, though his brows twitch.

"I can't be the only one that knows Maverick flew with his old man!" Hangman continues through Maverick's pleas, "Or that he was the one flying when-"

Rooster is out of his seat in a matter of seconds, launching himself at his fellow Lieutenant. Hangman took it too far this time. Rooster gets one good push in before the rest of the squad are separating the two hot headed men from each other, everyone yelling for the fighting to stop.

Everyone but Monsoon, who sits in the back staring at the fight in front of her and can't seem to make herself move.

"You son of a bitch!"

"Hey, hey, I'm cool, I'm cool," Hangman reassures, pulling out of the arms of his teammates.

"He's not cut out for this mission, you know it... You know I'm right." He gets up into Bradley's face, a fucking smirk on his lips. The others are still holding Bradley back as he calms down, but it's that fucking smirk that spurs him on.

Bob's hands slip from Rooster's shoulders as he gets into Hangman's face. "You think you can talk shit about my family when it's your girl that's got the most fucked up situation of all," Bradley keeps his eyes trained on Hangman, but the blonde's eyes tick to the side, in the direction of Monsoon, who is still in her seat. It's Bob who notices the way Hangman's eyes shift, and he's the first person to look in Monsoon's direction. Then, Bob's nudging Phoenix.

They watch as Monsoon tenses in her seat, her jaw ticking. Her hands grip the arms of her chair, knuckles white. Then, Bob and Phoenix turn their attention back to the men as the screaming match continues.

"I'm not the one who broke up with her on a goddamn post-it note, Rooster," Hangman points out with a raise of his brows, that stupid little smirk still evident on his lips. Rooster is bringing his hands up to his temples, his expression scrunched.

"You son of a bitch," Rooster is cursing at him through grit teeth, his voice low.

The crowd of Aviators are still gathered around the two men watching them fight, Maverick's eyes flicking between them as words are exchanged. His mind flashes back to two weeks ago, when he broke down the Admiral's door and saw them standing there with Cyclone. He suddenly flashes his eyes back to Monsoon, only to be met with her piercing glare.

"What? Was taking her father for yourself not good enough for you? Did you have to break her heart too?" Hangman questions, watching as Bradley's face contorts, "You're just pissed because not only could you not keep your shit Rio of a father around, you couldn't keep the girl, either,"

"That's enough!" Monsoon shouts, her eyes finally leaving Maverick. The Daggers' eyes are locked on Monsoon at the back of the makeshift classroom, anger evident on her features. Then, with her hands firmly planted on the table in front of her, she is pushing up from her seat.

"Seresin," Monsoon begins, turning her eyes to him, "First, you will not speak about my uncle that way. Goose was a good man and a damn good Rio. Uncle Nicky would have moved the fucking Earth for Bradley, or for Maverick, or for me and my Mama, don't you dare think anything different."

Monsoon is moving closer to the group now, taking each step slowly, methodical as her words. There is a large, yellow envelope tucked under her arm as she approaches. She had been sitting with that envelope since their first class, no one having even the slightest idea what's tucked inside.

"Secondly, Rooster, my relationship with Jake is not your business, not now, not ever. What we had was over the moment you wrote that post-it and walked out the door. You didn't even remember the fact that we grew up together, for fucks sake. I get it, I was your little deployment fling, and that's all. Now, you get to live with the fact that's all I'll ever be. Hangman put you in your place, now say in it."

The crowd is too stunned to speak, but there is a rumble of laughter that escapes Maverick. He doesn't even try to hide it, thinking the tension in the air would be enough to cover it. But then, Monsoon is turning her pointed gaze to him.

"Finally, Captain Mitchell," There is a sick little smirk on her lips as she says his name, "I wouldn't be laughing if I were you. After all, Bradley had to get his pension for forgetting women from somebody."

Monsoon is standing toe to toe with Maverick now, eyes locked in on his, "After all, I've been in this class for what, two weeks, and I know you have had the roster for longer than that, considering that little stunt you pulled at my Pop's house. You think it's funny to forget someone when your own flesh and blood is standing right in front of you?"

Maverick furrows his brow, head cocking to the side. Monsoon can practically see the gears turning in his head with the way his eyes move across her features. She breathes deeply a couple of times, letting his mind piece the puzzle together.

"I asked you a question, but go ahead, take your time," Monsoon leans in just a fraction further, "After all, I'm told I look more like my mother, anyway," Wide eyes from the man in front of her stir out a strangled giggle from her chest.

"Wha- bu-" Maverick flounders, his mouth opening and closing, no words forming on his lips.

"Hi, Dad," The name is said with so much venom as she pushes the envelope against his chest with enough force to make him stumble. Monsoon doesn't wait for him to recover before she is turning to walk down the aisle of the makeshift classroom, paying no attention to the stares, the eyes burning holes into the back of her head. Instead she focuses on the momentary feeling of lightness that washes over her as she leaves the hanger.

It isn't until Monsoon rounds the corner that the tears begin pricking at her eyes. She takes off running as soon as the first one hits her cheek, the only thing she can hear over the rushing of blood in her ears is the thunking of her heavy boots on the pavement.

The Daggers stand looking at Maverick. He's holding the envelope to his chest, unsure of the emotions wracking though his body. Then, with a quick hand, he's crudely tearing at the envelope. The contents pour out over the floor of the hanger, looking just like that night at Admiral Simpson's house. Maverick tries to push that thought from his mind as his eyes focus in on the papers covering the floor.

Birthday Cards. Children's birthday cards.

The same ones he wrote to her for her first ten birthdays. He can't even get himself to bend down to pick one up, his neck aching from the way he stares down at them. He notices the little circles of wrinkled paper from long dried tears and his heart fucking breaks.

The image of Monsoon at four, at seven, that he can see clearly in his mind, but there's a gap missing. Still, Maverick imagines her sitting and rereading the cards at seventeen, at twenty-two, crying over them and the father she could barely remember. Tears prick at Mavericks eyes and he lets them, making no attempt to wipe them away.

It doesn't take long for the Daggers to figure out that the pile of cards is noticeably small, no more than nine or ten cards on the ground, though no one is near brave enough to say anything.

Moments like this remind Maverick he's still just a mere man. No matter how many records he breaks, aircrafts he tests, or brushes with death he encounters, Maverick is nothing more than a man with a skill set. He has flaws. He makes mistakes.

That fact is almost too much for him to take.

The memory of Goose flashes through his mind, the moments leading up to the failed ejection birth the feeling of ocean water weighing down his flight suit, soaking into the padding of his helmet as the water washes over them. So much blood where there should be none. And then Maverick is thinking about cleaning the scraped knees of his daughter, the blood bubbling up through the road rash. The tears, then, were hers as she begged, "Daddy, not the ouch-y cleaner, I don't like it,". But Maverick cleaned her wounds with the alcohol anyway, only to end up holding her against his chest in the same way he would hold Goose in less than a year.

Maverick's mind is a patchwork quilt of shit memories; stuck reliving them all, fragment by fragment.

"Class dismissed," Maverick manages, his eyes still glued to the floor. The sounds of fourteen pairs of boots, first loud then quieter as they go, leave the hanger, leaving him standing there, looking at the past he threw away illustrated simply in faded and forgotten birthday cards.

The hands of the clock circle once before Maverick moves. He walks right over the pile, his boots leaving angry, dark tread marks across the colorful paper. He doesn't look back once, not at the pile of cards, not at the hanger, not at the base.

He drives straight for the Hard Deck. It's the only thing he can think to do, and after all, maybe Penny has some sort of advice. She's the only person he actually knows with a kid- a daughter.

Maverick only makes it half way before he has to pull over. Quickly, he throws himself off his bike, his knees hitting the dirt as he empties the contents of his stomach. As a pilot, he should have a stronger stomach than this, but a choice he made almost eighteen years ago is coming back to haunt him.

He can still see Monsoon's eyes in the forefront of his mind. They haven't changed a bit from when she was a kid, Maverick realizes, as he's sat back on his haunches trying not to puke again. He wipes at his mouth with the back of his hand, grimacing at the feeling of his swirling stomach.

Maybe he should have stuck around, or at least circled back when he wasn't on deployment. After all, Maria left messages on his machine for almost two years after he up and left. It started with her begging to call which slowly turned into begging him to at least send a fucking birthday card. So he did.

Then, she stopped calling, and he stopped writing. Monsoon grew up.

It would be so easy to blame Maria. When she stopped calling, he stopped remembering. Between deployments and missions, flight tests and ceremonies, Maverick could pretend that it all got lost in the shuffle. But then, he remembers Maria and the way she always seemed to flawlessly manage her Naval carrier with raising their daughter, how she could juggle it all without his help when he was deployed and it was all okay. At least that's what he told himself.

So, he thought if she could do it alone already, no harm could come from putting in for extra duty. That turned into extra deployments, more time away from home. He knew it was all a lie, but he had to tell himself something to justify it.

It did get easier after a while, as his daughter slowly slipped to the back of his mind. It wasn't until one day, six years after he left that the realization hit him. Maverick hadn't thought of his daughter in months. He should have felt more guilty; he drank himself sick at the thought.

Two years later Maverick didn't even realize he missed her eighteenth birthday.

Or her twenty-first.

Over the years he convinced himself he did the right thing. That part of his past became a distant memory that he told himself he didn't miss. Maverick would be lying to himself if he still believed that to be true in this moment, sat on the side of the road after having been faced with the consequences of his long forgotten actions.

Maverick kept one constant reminder playing on repeat in his mind all those years, You can't be a bad father if you aren't there to be one at all.

And for the first time since he walked out, Maverick thinks he may have been wrong.

He sits on the side of the road until the sun sets, stewing in his misery. When he manages to pull himself back up onto his bike, he heads for home, knowing that if Penny knew the whole story he would be on the outs with her, too. And so, he drives slowly, back to an empty house, wishing for the first time in years that it wouldn't be empty when he got there.

---

When Monsoon finally reached Cyclone's office, eight blocks from the hanger, she almost collapsed in the entryway of the building. But, she pushed through the crowd, ignoring the calls of his assistant who insisted that Cyclone could not be interrupted while he was in a meeting. Monsoon couldn't find it in herself to care.

When she pushes the door to his office open, she is met with three pairs of eyes. Iceman, Warlock, and Cyclone's eyes meet her frame. She is breathing heavy from the mix of running and sobbing, though it's unclear as to which is causing the redness in her cheeks.

"Excuse me, recruit, but you can't-" Warlock starts, closing the file sitting in his lap. There is an edge to his tone, not taking too kindly to being interrupted.

"Hey, kid, what's wrong?" Cyclone is cutting off Warlock without a second thought. The moment he moves out from behind his desk, Monsoon is throwing herself into his arms, her barely contained tears now overflowing. Without a second thought, Cyclone is folding her into his arms, doing his best to hold her shaking form.

"I'm sorry, sir, I tried to stop her," Cyclone's assistant huffs, running a hand through his hair. Cyclone waves the younger man off, the door closing behind him with a click. Then, Cyclone is wrapping his daughter tighter in his arms, one hand coming up to rub between her shoulders while the other is wrapped securely around her waist.

"I'm sorry, gentleman, but the meeting will have to be continued another time," Cyclone speaks, his tone clear, unwavering. Warlock shakes his head but gets up to leave anyway. Iceman follows after him, nodding a sort of good luck to his fellow Admiral before closing the door behind him.

"Tell me what's wrong, kid," Cyclone is pulling back, his hands squeezing at her shoulders. Monsoon is rubbing at her cheeks, smearing her tears over the expanse of her face. It's the same ugly cry she had when they first met, and the connection make's Cyclone's heart twist.

"I-" She starts, sentence interrupted by a hiccupping gasp, "Everything is falling apart,"

Monsoon tries to wipe at her face again with her hands, but Cyclone plunges a hand into his pocket only to offer her a green pocket hanky a second later. She takes it with unsteady fingers, her heart still thrumming a mile a minute.

"Hangman and Rooster got in a fight in class. Jake said a shitty thing about my uncle Nicky, Goose, you know?"

"Bradley shoved Jake, which isn't exactly a surprise, but then he told everyone that my family situation is all kinds of fucked up, which it is, but it's nobody else's business. God, Pops, I know now that I made a mistake when I started seeing Rooster while we were on deployment together, but God, that was five years ago! It's in the past!"

Cyclone nods at her, listening intently while trying to keep calm. So much new information is being thrown at him with each sentence that leaves her lips and it makes him angry.

"Worst of all, though," Monsoon wipes at her nose with the hanky, "Maverick knows,"

"He knows?"

"I told him," She confirms with a whimper and a nod, not daring to meet Cyclone's eyes. If she managed to meet them, she would have been met with nothing but rage boiling behind his irises, red hot flames behind the dark brown of his eyes.

"I had to, everything was already coming out anyway," She laments.

"What did he have to say for himself?" The question is asked through grit teeth as he pulls her body tighter against his, a move meant to feel protective but does nothing to quell the flames burning Cyclone from the inside out. All Monsoon can do is shake her head "no" as she sobs against the denseness of his chest.

"I'm gonna kill him" is all Cyclone can think as he rests his chin against her hair. His jaw ticks as the flaming feeling overtakes his body. If he could, he would strip Maverick of every single one of his achievements, his medals, his rank. He would cut the older man down so far that he was nothing more than a civilian with a dishonorable discharge.

But he can't.

So instead, he holds his daughter as she cries. He lets her tears soak the tan fabric of his uniform top, the buttons scraping against her skin. He rubs her back and whispers into her hair, promises that everything will be okay.

---

Somewhere in the Pacific. The Uranium Mission. Three weeks after the organization of the Dagger Squad.

Moments after the Uranium mission is completed, the team piled on the aircraft carrier, all grateful to be alive. Monsoon and Hangman got sent up to shoot down the enemy aircraft, saving Maverick and Rooster. The whole thing left nothing but swirls of confusion and gratitude in Monsoon's heart.

On one hand, she is so thankful that everyone made it back home. There will be no funerals, no folded flags and no Taps to be played. Instead there will be celebrations, beer and cheering and one too many speeches for a job well done. The whole thing should be liberating as their impending doom has been starved off for the time being, however there is still a feeling of anxiety sitting heaving in her chest.

Now, Monsoon is stuck watching the pair climb out of the museum piece that they managed to land on the carrier. The wind is whipping past them as she watches the team embrace the two men. Her strangled feelings clog her chest as she makes her way into the fray, first approaching Bradley.

"Glad to have you back on the ground," Monsoon shouts over the crowd.

"It's good to be back, even if it's not quite the ground," Bradley attempts to joke, "But seriously, we owe everything to you and Hangman,"

"Nobody left behind," Monsoon holds her hand out to Bradley, a gesture of good will.

"Nobody left behind," Rooster echoes, taking her hand in his own.

As they shake hands, a sort of understanding forms between them. They share a look, one that reads no hard feelings and Bradley almost tears up. Then, they are pulling back from each other, sharing one last smile.

Monsoon watches Bradley disappear into the crowd, his tall frame quickly swallowed up by the sea of uniforms. She catches him shake hands with Hangman a moment later, the scene bringing a small smile to her lips.

Then, Maverick catches her eye, standing a few yards away. There are tears shining in his eyes, but he makes no effort to move forward. They share eye contact for a moment as people move between them. Monsoon offers him a half smile, her brows lifted just slightly. Before Maverick can return it, she nods at him. He nods back, then it's his turn to watch her disappear into the crowd.

It's not quite an understanding, but maybe it's a truce.

At the risk of breaking her own heart, Monsoon chances a look over her shoulder. She watches as Maverick pulls Bradley into a hug, or maybe it's the other way around, it's hard to tell with the swarming of bodies. Either way, the pair wear bright smiles as they embrace and Monsoon doesn't even try to fight off the tears that make their way to her eyes. They aren't tears of anger, no, they are tears of gratitude. Grateful that they all get to live another day, grateful that Maverick and Bradley are giving each other a second chance, and grateful that there isn't a looming cloud hanging over her head anymore.

She no longer has to wonder about her father, because now she knows he's exactly where he is supposed to be, and both of their lives are better for it. Instead, she has Cyclone, the best father she could have ever asked for, and that is more than enough.

Cyclone breaks through the crowd, pulling his daughter into his arms, more than thankful for her safe return. He shouts at her, over the crowd, about how well she did and how happy he is that she made it back. The pair hold each other tight for another few moments, neither ready to let go.

Maverick takes one more look at Monsoon, who's now folded into Cyclone's arms. It's an unfamiliar sight but not an unwelcomed one, for Maverick. One thing's for sure, she is exactly like her Pops- disciplined and talented in the cockpit of a jet. Even more, though, beyond being a good aviator, she is a good person and that's something that Maverick can't regret.

---

Miramar, California. TOP GUN. One year after the completion of the Uranium Mission and the organization of the Dagger Squad.

A year later, Cyclone and Monsoon find themselves sitting in The Flight Line Bar, her hand thrust out in front of her, ring glittering under the amber lights.

"You're going to give me away at my wedding, right?" There is a sort of apprehension to her voice as she sips on her beer.

"It would be my honor, kid," Cyclone slings an arm around her shoulders, pulling her sideways into him. He holds her there for a second before letting her sit back upright, a large smile on her lips.

"Y/N Seresin has a good ring to it," Cyclone adds, bringing his beer up to his lips.

"About that," Monsoon starts, causing the Admiral to set his beer down, "Jake and I had a conversation, and we thought that having two Aviators in the same squad with the same last name would get confusing, so it's going to be Y/N Simpson, if that's okay with you,"

The Admiral's eyes flood with tears before he can say a single word. They quickly spill down his cheeks and all he can do is look at his daughter, tears of her own overtaking her eyes.

"I take that as a "yes"?" Monsoon chuckles, wiping her eyes with a shitty bar napkin.

"Of course it's a yes, kid," Cyclone grabs her hand, holding it on top of the bar.

The pair sit, hand in hand , tears still wet on their faces and all Cyclone can think about is how fucking lucky he got, how blessed his life is. He finally has a daughter who is happy and in love, a daughter that he will get to walk down the aisle on the most important day of her life.

When he chances a glance over to her, Cyclone can see the frizz of her hair highlighted by the neon sign buzzing behind her, her cheeks bright red. For a moment, he can see June in the roundness of her cheeks and the brightness of her eyes. Cyclone thinks back to all those years ago, when he and Monsoon first met sitting in this same bar, but he doesn't entertain the memory very long, after all, he has so much to look forward to. So instead, he squeezed her hand.

"I love you, kid," Beau tells her earnestly, smiling though a few stray tears.

"I love you too, Pops," Monsoon returns, leaning her head on his shoulder, "Now and always,"

TAG LIST

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coolprettyleo · 1 month

Text

talk of the town - will smith

tw: lowkey cringe. if ur not into it lmk lowk...

wc: 1.4k

will smith x influencer/ d'amelio sister

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dylan couldn't believe the shit day she was having. she had woken up late and missed her pilates class, then she spilt coffee all over her laptop, and right now she was fifteen minutes late to her music class. it was her first ever day of college too.

even though she was having a horrible day, she was still dressed cute. she decided she wanted to start taking her school more seriously. and that meant actually going to class.

the thing about dylan though is that she didn't need school. she had over one hundred million followers on all platforms. she was what someone would call an influencer.

influencers usually didn't continue with school if they didn't need to so when dylan decided to still attend college it was a shock to a lot of people; including her family.

her family were all also influencers and didn't decide to attend college; rather deciding to work on their brand instead. a brand that dylan opted out of, she had decided to enter marketing at boston college.

she entered her music class to find that there was no less than twenty five students inside. thats what happens when you attend a private college! dylans strategy her whole life was to always sit in the back of classes. (it was easier to skip class and just lie to the professor and say you were there)

there was one seat left where three other boys sat. she set her stuff down. the boys giving her an odd look, not thinking anyone was going to take that last seat between them or probably trying to figure out why the hell she looked so familiar. dylan got that look often.

the professor though was deep in lecture about their upcoming assignment and dylan was too busy trying to find a top for her upcoming brand dinner in New York. she was pulled out of her own little world when the professor noticed she was not listening and had missed the introduction part of class and decided to call her out on it.

she felt a tap from the boy next to her getting her attention because it seemed the professor had been calling her.

"oh my gosh im so sorry what" she said removing an AirPod and sheepishly looking at the class who all seemed to be either smiling at her or giving her dirty looks.

"since you decided to grace us with your presence introduce yourself please" she said pointing to a slide that stated what exactly to say.

"uhm... im dylan. im from connecticut but I've been living in LA for the past four years, and im a marketing major" she said awkwardly feeling like everyone was judging her.

"alright thank you miss dylan. I want to see the title slide of the assignment done before I dismiss you guys" she said.

the three boys she sat with seemed to be life long friends and she was feeling a bit left out. she had zoned them out till she heard them whispering to each other.

"ask her"

"no thats weird"

"ill ask"

"your tiktok famous huh"

she looked up to a freckled boy her while the dark haired boy giggled and the blonde haired boy cringed.

"uhm, yeah... I guess" she said awkwardly. she really didn't know what to say.

"nice" he said going back to working on his assignment.

she smiled awkwardly and looked at the other two boys. who looked like they were cringing about their friends actions. the dark haired boy seemed to let it go and work on his assignment while the blonde one spoke up.

"im sorry about him, ryan doesn't know how to talk to girls"

"yes I do! if I didn't how would I of pulled frankie" ryan says.

"she basically pulled you" gabe quipped back.

dylan just giggled along to their battering. they seemed funny.

"he's fine. a lot of people don't realize its me in real life but instead just stare at me trying to figure out why I look so familiar, and thats creepier to me"

"well we knew it was you because everyones been saying you go here" ryan told her.

oh god it was a hot topic?

"people talk about it?" she said grossed out.

"yeah, but like no one ever sees you for some reason"

"I did online classes and lived in LA last semester" she told them. it was true, her family was filming their Hulu show and it didnt make sense for her to leave mid-way through filming.

"do you live on campus?" the blonde one asked her again. he seemed like the quiet and calmer one of the three boys.

hes hot

"no, I live in beacon hill, the city"

"why didnt you dorm" gabe nosily asked.

"I didn't think it would be too fun to share an apartment with random girls at first but now I regret it, because I have no friends here" she honestly told them.

"oh my god! my girlfriend has no friends!" ryan said loudly. which made will, gabe, and the people around them to laugh.

"im telling her you said that" will smiled mischievously at him.

"shutup smitty. we have a game tonight and she usually sits alone or with my parents but they're not coming tonight so she'd probably like the company!" ryan said. he was honestly just trying to do a nice thing. he knew frankie struggled with the fact she had no girl friends; even though she said it was fine, and dylan seemed nice.

"game?" Dylan said confused.

"oh ya! we play hockey" the freckled boy answered.

"oh thats cool!" dylan said. she had attended a couple games recently due to the fact her sister was dating an NHL player.

"im will, thats gabe, and ryan" the blonde one said pointing the dark haired boy and the freckled one.

"im dylan. and what's your girlfriends number, id be down to go" she said to the freckled one.

"here" he said writing it down and handing her a crumpled paper.

"her names frankie by the way"

"okay, ill text her after class" she said smiling getting back to work.

"what's your major?" will asked her. he didn't want the conversation to end for some reason. she was lowkey his celebrity crush since he was like fourteen and they first started getting famous.

"marketing. you?"

"communications"

"your quite the communicator then" she said.

oh my gosh dylan you sound pathetic what the hell even is a communicator?

what didnt help was that will looked clueless and Ryan and gabe seemed to be biting back a smile acting like they weren't listening.

"im sorry?"

"like, you like communications- like the major" dylan said, trying to save herself but digging an even deeper and awkwarder hole, turning as red as a tomato.

"uhm ya, I didn't really know what major to pick coming in" he said smiling at her. a smile that dylan liked to see.

"well what do you want to be?"

"a hockey player."

"oh... too bad hockey isn't a major huh" she said chuckling at her own joke while ryan and gabe gave her funny looks except will of course, who was laughing at the joke like it was the funniest thing ever said. (thats what your supposed to do when your crush tells a joke)

"and what do you want to be"

"honestly, I dont know. I just want to have the degree so I can have more of a say in the brands I deal with, and all that"

"so you want the knowledge" gabe said, since he's been listening.

"yeah, basically" she said. making eye contact with will who looked to be studying her a bit.

he knew she wanted to say more but seemed to be putting up a wall which was understandable seeing as she just met these boys twenty mins ago.

"well im all done." she said closing up her laptop and standing up.

"maybe ill see you guys later!" she said waving to them.

"look for 6" will said to her.

"six what?" she said confused.

"what?" he said equally confused now

"six of what" she said cluelessly.

"like the number six" he said smiling awkwardly.

"oh!! omg I knew that! okay!" she said grabbing her bag and waving bye to them.

gabe and ryan gave each other a knowing look before immediately chirping will.

"you are such a flirt"

"that was painful"

"and he said I dont know how to talk to girls"

"shutup guys" he said packing his stuff away before leaving. hoping to see her in the stands tonight. her personality was even cuter.

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im so sorry for not uploading! I just keep overthinking everything so I end up just deleting it! but thats just a me problem lol. but I hope u guys like this au. I plan to the it all together.

#nhl imagine #ryan leonard #gabe perreault #nhl imagines #will smith hockey #bc hockey #hockey fic #will smith x reader #gabe perreault x reader #ryan leonard x reader

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devilfic · 4 months

Text

❝small favor❞

V. the christmas special.

parts: previously / next plot: it's the most beautiful time of the year. pairing: mcu!peter parker x gn!reader. cw: christmas shenanigans, alcohol mentions, harry gets drunk for norman osborn related reasons, peter is a little ball of anxiety because he likes you, can I share with you what jobs I think ned and mj got after graduation. words: 8.4k.

a/n: this was gonna be a two-parter but I thought. no. so instead it's just super long :D

Peter has started visiting more.

There were the surprise visits on weekends. Something was just too important to wait a week, and too important to give you a call, and you liked that he made a note of bringing you food for the trouble. Then he was popping in on Wednesday nights—sometimes Friday mornings—because he'd forgotten to tell you this or he just couldn't wait to tell you that.

And he has texting you more, too. Not super serious things either, and after a few days of it, you had worked the fight or flight reaction to his ringtone out of your system. At some point, you had started feeling like this was becoming... a genuine friendship.

"I mean... I... yeah. We talked about it, didn't we?" Peter stops pouring, brownie batter dribbling off the lip of the bowl, "Friends. I- I think of you as a friend. If you think of me... as a friend."

You gnaw on your pen as you study him. It's another weekend surprise visit, and this time he's brought you boxed brookie batter as an olive branch. You'd actually been busy this time, and so you'd put him to work baking it while you made your vacation list, "It's just... crazy. I mean, we went from being strangers to only seeing each other once a week—purely professionally—and now you bake me things. And we hang out."

"What's wrong with that?"

"Nothing! It's just weird," he continues to pour as you talk, "I used to see you as this unattainable hero. I couldn't believe you trusted me, felt comfortable enough to tell me your name, to care enough that even EDITH knows who I am. And now we're friends."

Peter's nose scrunches at that, and you've never wished more than now that you could see the rest of his face. He starts placing balls of cookie dough in the batter, "You talk about me like I'm Beyoncé or something."

"You're the Beyoncé of superheroes."

"Hey, that is not true. That title goes to Captain Marvel."

"Not to me."

"Well, of course not to you. You're my biggest fan."

"Wow, demoted to a fan already."

Peter slides the pan into the oven, "You know what I mean. You're biased."

"You're starting to sound like Jameson now."

He kicks the oven door closed and hops up onto the kitchen counter next to you, nudging your knee with his knee, "Oh, you haven't heard my Jameson impression. Watch this." Peter clears his throat, clenches his fist, and shakes it in the air, "Spider-Man is a menace and should be charged with domestic terrorism!"

You giggle, "Do more."

"5G isn't giving your kids cancer, it's Spider-Man leaving his webs all over the city!"

"More!"

"Spider-Man is laying eggs in our city's sewers so that one day, all his freaky spider children will rise up and take over New York!"

"Please, keep going."

Peter groans. You see his head tilt toward the notepad in your lap, "How's the vacation going? Or vacation planning, I guess."

You sigh. Your list to pack kept getting longer, and yet, anytime you tried to focus on what to bring, you would just remember something else you needed to do before leaving New York. "How do you think, based on my utter lack of excitement?"

Peter raises a brow, "Whaaat? You're not excited for Miami?"

"I was, but... everything in the world is happening at the same time. Jameson wants me to get two more articles out before I leave and my family wanted me in Florida three days ago. At this rate, I'm just barely going to make it there before Christmas. Not to mention..." You trail off as you look to Peter, whose mask eyes have gone comically wide in interest, "I don't want to leave you all alone."

"You know I've been Spider-Manning since I was like, 14, right?"

"Well, yeah, but- wait, 14?" Peter grimaces. You gloss over it before he can worry himself about it, "Anyway, I just worry. I mean, with Fisk turning the PR tide and God knows what he's planning, I don't wanna just fly to the other side of the country. It feels wrong."

Peter smirks, "Nah, nah. It's fine. I can take care of myself."

"Don't make me remind you about how all of this," you gesture between Peter and the oven, "started." He looks away from you, sheepish. "You know what I mean, right? Maybe I'm overestimating my worth to you, but-"

"You're definitely not. You have no idea how much you mean to me." That stuns you. It stuns both of you, clearly, if Peter's frantic peek at your face was anything to go by. His mouth gapes like a fish out of water for a moment, "I just mean that... you've made being Spidey... easier on me. It's nice knowing someone's actually on my side in this city. So yeah, it will feel really weird without you being just a swing away."

"You can still call, Peter. I won't mind."

"And when your family asks who's bothering you while you're sunbathing on the beach?"

"I mean, my little cousins will be impressed if I name drop Spider-Man."

He smiles. He kicks his feet out, heels bumping the cabinet doors beneath you while silence settles. You take this chance to examine a slight fraying on the fabric of his suit, a hole beginning to form on his upper thigh that you could just fit your pinky through. You remembered a time when his suit was made out of sweatpants and a dream.

He was 14 when he first started all of this. When you were 14, you were stressing over high school essays and alien invasions. You couldn't help but think that maybe he'd lost his youth to this thing. This thing that brought you together.

Spider-Man who, back then, was really a kid. He'd had to grow into it. You couldn't imagine having to grow into that. "Well, that's enough about my holiday plans. What about you?" Peter prepares to answer, then deflates. "What's up?"

He bites his bottom lip, "I don't... have any."

Your heart sinks, "What? Why not?"

"No, no, it's fine. I'll probably be out on patrol making sure everybody else is having a safe, criminal-free winter break."

Sliding off the counter, you come to stand in front of Peter with your arms folded, "Absolutely not."

"Okay, before you say anything-"

"It's Christmas, Peter! You're supposed to take time off! Be with friends and family. If you never take a break, you'll wear yourself out."

"Just hear me out-"

"No! I won't have it. You're not the only hero in New York. You're taking Christmas off. I don't care if I have to stuff you in a carry-on and take you with me but you will not be working-"

One hand clamps around the back of your head and the other silences you, turning your complaints into mush, "If you would let me finish..." you huff indignantly against his hand, "you'd know that a friend of mine is throwing a Christmas party and I was invited. There. I have plans."

Your face softens. "Really?" You ask, but the sound is muffled and it comes out more like, "Will-ee?"

Peter laughs, hand slipping from your mouth, "Really. I'll at least take a few hours off. Maybe more if I fall into a food coma."

Peter's other hand is still cradling your head, but you don't bring it to his attention. "You promise? I won't have to fly back early and check up on you, will I? 'Cause I'll do it."

"I wouldn't stop you." You glower, making Peter's mask eyes squint with amusement, "I promise."

"Sometimes I think you like making me worry over you."

"Would you believe me if I said that I'm just this awful all the time?"

"Yes, but that would make me worry even more."

The hand at your neck gently curls around the side of your throat, Peter's thumb angling your chin up to his own. The brush of it makes you tremble just slightly.

Was he trying to make you dissolve into a puddle?

"I'll be okay. Just... come back to the city, will ya? Don't fall in love with Miami."

You place one of your hands over the hand on your throat. The other hovers somewhere near his knee on the countertop, unsure of yourself. When you admire his exposed mouth, you think of Peter. Parker.

You remember you hadn't actually talked about that since it happened. It was Peter's intention to skirt around Parker, regardless of how certain you were that they were the same person. It was all in jest, sure, but some small part of you (some incredibly small, minuscule, microscopic part of you) wondered if your reporter brain just fit the two pieces together because it wanted them to fit.

Perhaps he wasn't Peter Parker. Perhaps this really was all a coincidence, and perhaps aliens didn't fall from the sky and gods didn't save the world.

You wouldn't push him on it. You wouldn't look into it either, because reporter brain be damned. You cared more about the Peter you knew than the Peter you didn't.

You smile up at him, "How could I? Miami doesn't have you."

"Nice to see you could finally make it, kiddo." Jillian is grinning at you when you arrive, her baby tucked at her hip and her wife entertaining the little monster over her shoulder. She sees the winded look on your face and immediately motions you over, pressing a hand to your cheek, "Did you crawl out of a snowdrift? You're freezing!"

You lean into it, chasing the warmth in hopes that it would restore some feeling to your skin, "The storm's getting awful out there."

"Came outta nowhere, didn't it?" Jillian's wife snorts, booping the baby's nose. "We almost didn't risk coming with the little one, it was so bad."

Said little one looks perfectly warm wrapped up in her blanket, an envious sight as you shiver and shuck off your coat to hang. You would offer the kid a boop on the nose yourself, but with your fingers frozen solid around your offering—a plate of sugar cookies—you don't want to make her cry. You give her a smile instead.

"Oh, and would you believe it?" Jillian whispers, sidling up to you, primed for gossip, "We've got a real treat here tonight. Take a wild guess who decided to show up."

"Jonah's wife?"

Jillian cackles, "God no. The stalker."

As soon as she says the name, your eyes zero in on him.

He's wearing that plaid shirt again, but the collar and cuffs are all that peek out from underneath a wrinkly blue sweater. His hair is free and gelled back, revealing his nervous expression more clearly. Nursing a cup of apple cider, he just barely looks like he wants to be here. But then he catches your eye across the room.

And he waves.

"Oh my," Jillian teases, "you must've left quite the impression if he came all this way just to see you."

"He did not come just to see me." You reply in a hushed tone, but she laughs at you all the same.

"Sure. And that's not him heading over right now, even though he's been hugging the wall all night."

You jerk your head to where Parker was standing, and, sure enough, he's pursuing you.

You part from Jillian before she can get the chance to embarrass you (she accepts your cookies as payment), and so you all but jog to meet him halfway.

He doesn't get the chance to be polite before you're interrogating him, "Where did you go?"

"Uh... What?"

"At the gala. When I ran back inside the ballroom, I couldn't find you anywhere."

Peter's eyes slowly widen, "You went back inside?"

"Answer the question, please."

"Wh- I... I was there. You didn't see me?"

"No, I didn't."

"It got crazy after Fisk rushed the stage. I got swept up in the crowd. You must've missed me."

"Really? 'Cause I was with the crowd, you know. In front of the building? Where Fisk was giving his big speech about how he saved the day? I didn't see you anywhere."

Peter blinks, then gasps as if he'd just remembered something important, "You know what? That's right. I went to go find Harry. I wanted to make sure he was alright, and then I couldn't find you in the crowd so I just assumed... I'm sorry for leaving you back there all alone." You watch as he fumbles for something convincing, "I texted Spider-Man about it, though. He said you were safe."

You fold your arms, "...Is that all he said about me?"

"Well, that. And something about your conspiracy theory?"

"Conspiracy theory."

The topic change gets some of the tension in Peter's shoulders melting away, replaced with a smile faint enough to not pass as overtly smug. He waits for one of your co-workers to move out of earshot before continuing, "You think... I'm Spider-Man."

Your jaw tightens. You know that anyone would draw the same conclusions you did after that night. You also know that no matter how logical your reasoning is, you sound highly illogical when you admit to it out loud. If you brought up the same accusation to Jillian or Jameson, they'd both laugh you out of the office.

You have to stand your ground, though. If there was one thing you were learning about Peter, it was that he was easy to fluster, "And if I do?"

"I'm flattered, really, but I don't really have the hand-eye coordination."

You know it's bullshit. He should know you know it's bullshit. If it hadn't been for his quick thinking, you and Harry would've been trampled under the masses at the gala. It's bullshit and he's waiting for his checkmate that will never come.

You do not give it a second thought. You toss your phone at Peter's head.

And he catches it. Of course he does. He stops it mere inches from his face.

If anyone saw you try to give him a concussion, they don't come over to question you on it. "Can you..." Peter starts after a breath, a bit dazed, "...can you stop trying to hit me?"

You go to defend yourself because, at the very least, you hadn't meant to try to punch Peter—which meant it didn't count—when someone barrels right into you.

And, to prove you right twice in a row, Peter is quick to catch you. He scoops you up into his arms before you end up a reporter pancake on the floor. One of your co-workers, already blitzed off spiked eggnog, had bumped you on their way to the drinks table for what looked like the umpteenth time tonight, and didn't have enough marbles to apologize before bumping someone else.

Peter is careful in how he holds you. There's that unmistakable strength behind his grip, but also... he was gentle. He felt safe.

You don't make to escape just yet, all your bravado knocked right out of you. "Jesus, you okay?" His eyes dart over to your co-worker and a scowl turns his expression sour, "Jonah should put a cap on the drinks."

You feel more than embarrassed stumbling to your feet, even more so when Peter still coddles you after you're standing upright. "I'm fine. Thanks." Peter's looking at you, brows drawn together, with so much concern it makes that second thought from earlier come in hot with a sizable topping of shame, "Talk about instant karma."

Then it's gone. Peter laughs and... it sounds just like your Peter. Undeniably. You can't help but give in. For a fleeting moment, the question of secret identities has melted away and it's just the two of you, giggling about something silly.

You're ashamed enough to apologize for throwing your phone at his head when the laughter dies down. You succeed in stealing it back and lead him over to the windows, far away from any more drunken disasters, "It's alright. I've had worse thrown at me before."

You raise an eyebrow, "Oh? Like what?"

His voice catches in his throat at first, "A... carton of expired milk. High school bully, Flash Thompson. We were both on the same academic decathlon team but he never gave up on his dream of professional baseball."

"Flash Thompson? You mean, Silicon Valley, MIT grad, tech startup millionaire Flash Thompson?"

Peter winces, "The one and only."

You frown at the distant look on Peter's face, aware of some regret there at the mention of Flash. "You and Harry went to ESU together, right? Is that where you always wanted to go?"

Peter shakes his head, but a smile comes to his face regardless, "MIT was my first choice, actually. But... even with a scholarship, I just couldn't imagine leaving New York behind. So I stayed. Went to ESU. Helped my Aunt May with the mortgage on her first house since my... my uncle passed. And now I'm selling pictures of Spider-Man to pay my rent."

You can't help the way you soften. "I'm so sorry about your uncle, Peter. Your Aunt May is lucky to have you around."

His eyelids flutter closed for a breath, and his smile grows wider. If it were even possible. "I'm lucky to have her."

You stand there together in silence after that, but it feels more comfortable than before. All the scrutiny and speculation you'd come in with had faded away, and now you were left wondering more about Peter. His hopes, his dreams, his life before all of this. What would it have been like if he'd gone to MIT? Where would you be? Or Spider-Man?

Peter's eyes peel open, "So, what about you?"

"Oh. Well, I took a shine to my school newspaper. After... everything in 2012, I knew the world would never be the same. So I had dreams of becoming a journalist, covering the street, being the first on the scene. Took my ass to college on part-time jobs and a dream, and interned at nearly every newspaper in the city before Jameson gave me a shot here. As much as I can't stand the way he talks about Spidey... he's not that bad of a guy. All things considered."

Peter agrees, "He did hire you, so..."

"Yeah, well," you lean your cheek against the window, glass cooling your blush, "At least Spidey doesn't hold it against me... but, I have to ask: why the Bugle? I mean, with photos like yours, you should be fighting off every publication in the city. Instead you turn in these... absolute masterpieces, freelancing, for a guy who can't even give you due credit, and you only stop by for a paycheck."

Peter looks to the window, the wind howling over a crooner's cover of Santa Baby. The storm was still raging on outside, and you dreaded the thought of having to walk through it to get back home. The taxis wouldn't have much luck either from the looks of it. "I... like my job, but it's not what I wanna do forever. I don't care about fame or Pulitzer prizes. It's always been about taking care of me and my Aunt May, and Jameson is a lot of things but he's always understood that. He pays me enough that I can have a place of my own and a little leftover for my aunt, and he doesn't ask questions.

"I don't need to be seen. And that's the whole point, isn't it?" His expression gradually warms as he recalls something, "It's not who's behind the lens that matters, but who's in front of it."

Your expression warms too, "I can see why Spidey likes you."

A notification disturbs the moment. Raising a finger at Peter, you check the latest notification... and your stomach drops.

Peter takes a step forward, sensing the change in atmosphere, "What? What is it?"

"My flight's been cancelled. I was leaving tomorrow for Miami but the storm..."

"Oh. Man, I'm sorry."

"I should've left sooner, I should've left when my family..." You lose the motivation to even finish your sentence, feeling exhausted all at once, "It doesn't matter anymore. I'm stuck here for Christmas."

Peter stuffs his hands in his pockets, rocking back and forth on his feet as he searches for something to say. You're about to tell him not to worry about it when he speaks up, "You know," he starts, the uncertainty in his voice giving you pause, "it's no... Miami, but my aunt throws this Christmas party every year? For Christmas Eve. We invite a few friends over for dinner. She'd love it if you came."

"Oh, Peter, that's sweet but... I don't really want to intrude on a friend thing-"

"No, no, it's okay! Anyone can come. It'll just be my aunt, some of her co-workers from F.E.A.S.T., a few of my friends, my ex-girlfriend-"

"Your- what?"

"Oh. Well, I mean, we were friends before we dated. Well... technically? She sort of just... hung around me and Ned in high school and then we started dating for a while but then we broke up in university. But we stayed friends. Became better friends, actually. So, she's my ex but also a really good friend. I promise it's not weird or anything. She's super cool about it. And I am too! Her name's MJ. I think you'll like her."

You stare at Peter. You think you see a bead of sweat twinkle on his forehead underneath the Christmas lights above.

He insists that you're welcome to come, and staying home alone for Christmas would be pretty hypocritical after your argument with Spider-Man.

Spider-Man.

"...and Spider-Man will be there."

Spider-Man?

You abruptly lock eyes with Peter. "Spider-Man?"

Peter's smile is tight-lipped, "Yeah." His voice cracks. "I mean, he's just stopping by real quick, but I invited him. He might not come. But... he also might."

Was this the friend of his throwing a Christmas party? Why in the world would Peter (Parker) invite you to the same party Spider-Man would be at, unless he could stand in the same room as him at the exact same time? There'd be no other way to convince you otherwise, and you'd be forced to accept that they really were two completely different people.

Yeah, right.

You'd go to this party and suss it out for yourself.

And it wouldn't hurt, would it? Peter was nice, if not the most awkward person you've ever met. To offer you a place at his aunt's Christmas dinner not long after hurling an object at his head was a sign of true Christmas spirit. You could learn a thing or two from him, "Okay. You've convinced me. What's your number? You can text me the address."

Peter blanks for a moment, "Um... yeah, um..." You watch him flounder, growing increasingly suspicious, "Can I see your phone?"

You drop your phone in his hand. His fingers move quickly across the keyboard before returning it to you. Peter Parker is now in your contacts. You check the number against Spidey's but there isn't a match. "Thanks," you glance at his wobbly smile, "I sent you a text."

Peter gestures behind him, "Oh, cool, awesome. Will you excuse me for a sec? I gotta use the restroom." And he doesn't wait for you to affirm before he's rushing down the hall and out of sight.

A full minute passes before you receive a text back from Peter.

15 Amfan Ave Forest Hills, NY 11375 7pm :) Hope you can make it! He never shuts up about you *I *shut

Hm.

So... I hear you're throwing things at people now Who told you that? You lose one phone, then you try to bludgeon an innocent man with another. I should lock you up and throw away the key I wasn't trying to bludgeon him, because I knew he'd be perfectly *fine*. And he helped me prove a point Which was... That the chances of him being you are more likely than either of you would have me to believe Could it be that you just have a thing for attractive, masked men? That is That is irrelevant to the conversation HA you so do Literally nothing to do with anything I just said It's okay. The mask makes it really easy to project one's ideal man onto me. Or so I've learned through Twitter I'm not projecting *anything* onto you Do you picture Ryan Reynolds when you talk to me? It's okay if you do Peter, shut up Maybe someone more boyish like Timothy chalet Timothee Chalet Timothee Chalamett I'd say you just like hearing yourself talk but this is a textual conversation I like that we can talk like this :) I like it too :) What about Tom Holland? We've got the same jaw If you think me accusing you of being Parker is me projecting a handsome man onto you, I can only assume you think he's hot. Which means I can assume you have a thing for him. Because I can also make things up Like Batman and Clark Kent? Are you saying Parker is the Clark Kent in our fictional relationship? More like Superman and Jimmy Olsen And you're my Lois Lane? ... Goodnight, Peter

Aunt May's home is beautiful. There's a lovingly sculpted garden out front that has since given into the snow, but you can tell it's a sight in the spring. For now, the Christmas garland lining the doorframe—wrapped in a rope of rainbow lights—brightens up the porch. As does the collection of little striped sweater-wearing gnomes gathered around the front door.

There's a commotion of voices behind it as you approach. You shift your plate into one hand, pressing the doorbell with the other, and the voices get louder. You swallow down your nerves when the door is ripped open by a stranger.

The stranger in question is staring out into the dark at you like they weren't expecting you. Your eyes quickly dart to the plaque beside the door and see a bold "15" emblazoned there. Nope. This is the house.

Their eyes zero in on the plate in your hand. Smiling, they open the door wide and step back, "Sweet! Peter said you'd bring dessert."

You kick the snow off your boots before stepping inside. The stranger shuts the door behind you before any more of the cold could get in. "It's peppermint bark," you explain, returning a smile of your own, "but I hear May's making a cake."

"May and Peter. May's great with everything but the oven- don't tell her I said that. I'm Ned, by the way." Ned holds his hand out for a shake.

Ned is really talkative, you find out. He holds your peppermint bark as you undo your boots and coat at the door, rattling off about how Peter and he had been friends at Midtown. He tells you about his job as a cybersecurity specialist, a job he'd naturally floated toward after graduating from MIT, and how he'd stayed with the Parkers for a few months after moving back to New York. It's how he knows that the downstairs bathroom door won't close unless you lift up when you shut it. You only remember about half of what he says by the time you get to the living room.

There are considerably fewer people than you expected, one of which makes his way over the minute you catch his eye.

"Hey," Harry grins. Unlike the nice suit he'd worn to the gala, he's dressed down in jeans and an ugly sweater with "I've been naughty" printed in big letters across the front, looking a lot less tense than when you'd first seen him, "Fancy seeing you here."

"I could say the same." You can't help but ask, "Don't the Osborns host Christmas Eve at Oscorp tower every year?"

Harry's good mood fizzles out right before your eyes. You feel pretty awful about it. "Uh, yeah. Norman does. But it's more business than anything, so I dipped. I'd rather be here watching Pete fuck up a perfectly good cake."

"I heard that!" Peter's voice calls from a room away.

Harry's good mood returns, "Well, it's good to see you at the annual Parker holiday celebration. And I'll forgive you for poking into my family business if you hand over those treats."

Bashful, you let Ned pass the plate into your hands before passing it to Harry, "Sorry. Reporter brain."

Harry's nose scrunches up, "Don't apologize. Unless these taste like ass."

"I promise they taste better than ass."

"Good enough," he backs away, turning his head to shout down the hall, "Peter! Get in here already!"

When the redhead is immersed in a game of UNO, you turn to Ned, "And that doesn't... feel weird? Having Harry Osborn at family dinner?"

"There are weirder things about Peter. Speak of the devil."

The ugly sweater is the first thing you notice. A companion to Harry's, it is nearly the exact same design, except for the "I've been nice" where the "I've been naughty" had been. He's dusting his hands of something when he comes around the corner. His eyes soften when he sees you with Ned, "Hey, you came." He says in a much too gentle voice. Harry and his opponents nearly drown him out with their cheers and boos.

Unlike at the office party, you notice, Peter's hair isn't tamed by hat nor hair gel. Instead, it curls incessantly around his flushed cheeks. He looked like a damn Keebler elf. It was frustratingly adorable. "Of course. I heard there'd be cake."

"How is that cake, Peter?" Ned pulls on a piece of the ugly sweater as he walks by, and you realize that some of the red had been singed. You follow Peter's frantic gaze from the hole to you.

"This was unrelated to the cake."

"You burned something else?"

"No! One of the stockings fell into the fireplace and I-" Peter trails off as you begin to smile, "you don't get to laugh at me if you didn't bring sweets."

"I did! Harry stole them." You nod over to the coffee table where the group is devouring your peppermint bark with reckless abandon. At least you knew they didn't taste like ass. Peter rushes over to steal the plate before they could polish off the last handful, much to their protest.

"Dinner's almost ready, I swear. You've met Ned, uh, Harry..." Peter scans the group, using his free hand to point out people, "...that's Yolanda, Katie, Lexie, Eduardo: all May's friends. May's in the kitchen but I'd stay out of her way until the ham comes out unharmed."

You notice that out of everyone gathered in the house, he does not mention his ex-girlfriend. "And MJ?"

You wait for an answer. Instead, something heavy shakes the house from above. It doesn't sound like it came from outside, but rather somewhere in the house. Not quite above your head. Weirdly enough, only you seem to be concerned about it.

Peter just glances at the ceiling, "And MJ."

MJ is tossing an empty storage bin to the side when you crawl up through the floor behind Peter. She's crouched on the balls of her feet, shoulders slouched, the sharp bones of her back poking through her tight graphic tee. Her head snaps toward you both when she hears you grunt up the last rung of the ladder. Her eyes narrow on you, then Peter, "I can't find it."

Peter offers you a hand to hoist you further into the attic, "Did you check the-"

"Yes. And I checked the one next to it. And the one next to that."

You look at Peter for an explanation, but he doesn't provide you with one. He walks over to where MJ has now fallen back on her ass, rifling through one of the bins. His mouth twists to the side. "Maybe she meant the box next to her old CDs?"

"There's like 15 boxes in here, Peter."

Off to the side of the room, where MJ was currently facing the mysterious dilemma, were about nine—not 15—storage bins in disarray. Two were off to the side, emptied of their contents: there were piles of men's clothes, women's clothes, baby blankets, and more. The third box that MJ was poring over had Halloween decorations in it.

"Well, you're getting close." Peter encourages.

The way MJ grumbles resentfully has you squirming. As time ticked on, your presence unannounced, you were starting to feel like an intruder. You clear your throat and MJ looks over at you for the second time, "Maybe I could help?" You offer.

At this, MJ brightens. "Finally! Someone cares about my plight. I don't know you, do I?"

You crawl over to where MJ is sitting and Peter gestures to you, "MJ, I told you about the reporter from the Bugle, right?" You give your name for good measure, and MJ's eyebrows raise. She gives a quick, indecipherable look to Peter. He returns it. Then she examines you.

After a moment, she dusts her hand off on her khakis and holds it out for you to shake, "Michelle Jones. Call me MJ." You repeat her nickname warmly. "Peter never shuts up about you."

Peter chokes on his spit.

"He... he does?"

MJ continues shaking your hand for longer than necessary, smiling secretively now, "Oh, yeah. He's got your blog bookmarked too. Post notifs for your Twitter, the works." You cut your eyes to Peter, appalled that he'd ratted you out to someone else, but MJ is quick, "I figured it out on my own ages ago."

"Is it really that obvious it's me?"

"No." And she smiles wider.

Peter is about to cut in with something when a woman's voice rings out, shrill and clear despite two layers of flooring in between you. He's needed with the ham. He looks between you and MJ, reluctant, "Look, if you can't find it-"

"We will." MJ's reply is confident, leaving no room for failure. You feel a little pressure applied to "we".

Peter nods. He mouths an apology at you and skitters out of the attic.

Left alone with MJ, you notice that she is staring at you now. You feel like you've been left alone with an oracle, prepared for your innermost being to be laid bare before you: past, present, and future. She looks like the type to know what makes people tick.

"What are you looking for?" You try to break the silence, though your voice comes out meeker than you'd have liked.

She doesn't look away from you as her fingers grip the container in between her legs, "Uncle Ben's favorite Christmas sweater. All I know is it has a reindeer holding a beer on the front."

Reinbeer. You almost laugh at it. You imagine it would tickle an uncle pink too. "Then I'll get to looking."

You've only just crawled over to a bin of your own when MJ asks you outright, "You like Peter, right?"

Your hand stills as it pries the top off. You feel her eyes burning into your back. "He's... nice, yeah."

You can hear how unimpressed she is with that, "I don't know if it's obvious, but Peter isn't exactly popular." You think that's kind of a cruel thing to say about someone you consider a friend, but MJ keeps going, "All he had was Ned back at Midtown. And me, eventually. I've known him since high school and he's made maybe a handful of friends, maybe less. The last time he invited someone new to Christmas dinner was Harry."

And that had been at least a few years, judging by how long Harry had been away at Oxford.

But why was she telling you this?

"He likes you." You yelp when you realize MJ's voice has gotten close. You turn, and she's kneeling behind you with no interest in your fear. "But do you like him?"

In her hands is a faded, toy Iron Man mask. "I... I think he's nice. I mean kind," you correct yourself when MJ frowns, "but I... I don't really know him. I mean, I don't think I do. I've only actually spoken to him twice and one of those times, there was a gun involved. Everything I know about him is through his pictures and Spidey, and I trust Spidey. So, I trust Peter."

"And Spider-Man?"

"What?"

"Do you like Spider-Man?"

You swallow. Like didn't really sum up how you felt about him. He was a hero, an inspiration, a friend, and also... yeah, you felt something more there too.

You think about why she would ask. Why it would have anything to do with you liking Peter or not. You look at her and it feels like she hasn't really asked you that different of a question at all. Your answer is much more definitive this time, "I do. I like him more than I know what to do with."

MJ leans back on her haunches. She appraises you, "He's pretty great, isn't he?" Her tone is considerably softer.

"Yeah. He really is." You smile.

MJ hands the mask to you and you take it, admiring the chips in its paint and the lovingly worn edges. She scoots between you and the bin you'd been looking into and pops the lid off. Almost immediately, she swears in relief. Sitting folded on top is the most gaudy sweater you've ever seen. A deformed reindeer is embroidered on the front, and sure enough, holds a can of beer in its hoof. When MJ shakes it out, little specks of dust fly everywhere.

This, too, she hands to you. You look at her in bewilderment. "You'll wanna make a good first impression with May," she advises, "just be prepared for the water works."

And there are water works.

May throws her arms around your neck and just about sobs her thanks to you, squishing the sweater between your chests. You note that she smells like candy canes. When she draws back, her glasses are all askew, "And I'm so glad you could make it! Peter wouldn't shut up about you. Isn't that right, Petey?"

Peter's eye twitches. "I'm gonna set the table. Ned, you wanna set the table?" And he scoots past you and May without waiting for a response.

"Don't mind him, he gets testy when he's cooking. Did Petey give you the tour?" You shake your head and May kisses her teeth in Peter's direction, "Okay, this is the kitchen, around the corner here is the dining room. You've seen the living room and the attic. The bathroom is by the front door, and the bedrooms are upstairs. If someone's in the bathroom down here, do not use the bathroom by the stairs. That's Ned's favorite when he gets bubbly guts, and he will get bubbly guts."

Ned complains under his breath as he walks by.

"If you need somewhere to get away from the festivities for a bit, backyard's that way and my room's upstairs, first door to the left. All good?" She pets your shoulder. Then, she looks down at the sweater still in your hands and takes it from you, tenderly. "I'm gonna go change into this and then dinner is served. Help yourself to anything, okay?"

May leaves you in the kitchen with that. Around the corner, Peter and Ned are fussing over where to put the ham and sides. Around the other corner, Harry is drunkenly singing Christmas carols with Yolanda. MJ watches on from the corner of the room, recording on her phone. She catches your eye and mouths, "For blackmail."

You peek into the dining room and Peter is worrying over one of the chairs. You can hear Ned scold him, "Sit next to them. You don't wanna talk over the ham. It'll kill the mood."

"But how do I... subtly get them to sit in this chair and not next to MJ or something?"

"Tell MJ not to sit next to them."

"But what if-" You jolt a little when Peter suddenly spots you eavesdropping. He straightens up with a death grip on the chair he'd been messing with, "Hey! Hi. This is your chair by the way." And he tops it all off with a smile.

It's warm in May's home.

You don't even register the cold at first. You do register Harry's frenzy, the way he grabs far more napkins than he needs to, pressing them to your stomach where the majority of his spilled drink had gone. When you finally do comprehend what just happened, you place your hands over his, "How long have you been plotting your revenge?"

Harry is red-faced. He lets you hold the napkins there while May rushes to find a towel, "Sorry. I wasn't looking where I was- sorry."

You don't get to dwell on the déjà vu of it all. May is ushering you up the stairs with a beach towel pressed to your front, muttering about how she'll have to put Harry on ginger ale for the rest of the night. She guides you into what you're certain is Peter's old bedroom.

It's been cleaned out, and most of his personal belongings must be at his own place, but there are still old posters on the wall, and a calendar dated in April, two years ago. His bed is ruffled like he'd slept overnight. It's neat, and looks like it usually is neat, but there are traces of him everywhere, like picture frames with Peter and May and a man you don't recognize.

"Peter probably has something here you can wear. It's all stuff from college." She digs through the top drawer of his dresser, finally stopping on a sweatshirt with Empire State University in college block across the chest. "Here! You think this'll fit?"

She stretches it out and you nod, thankful, "Yeah, thank you so much, May."

She smiles, "Okay. Bathroom's across the hall if you need to wash off. I can run your shirt through a wash while you're here if you'd like. Just let me know, okay?"

May is, perhaps, the sweetest woman on earth. She leaves you with a thumbs up and shuts the door behind you, reminding you to lock it after she leaves.

Your shirt had absorbed most of the drink, and you're relatively unscathed besides some sticky residue. You wipe at your stomach with the towel she'd given you and slip Peter's sweater on. It feels... odd, wearing it. It smells like May's house with little traces of Peter.

Your eyes drift back to the picture frames.

One such frame sits on top of the dresser, a photo of Peter and the man who you assume is Uncle Ben. He holds Peter in a headlock but they're both smiling at the camera. You smile too, tracing a finger around the wooden edges.

Another picture is of Peter and MJ and Ned, standing outside of MIT with their fingers pointing at the school. Another is of Peter and MJ sharing cotton candy at Coney. Another is of Peter as a little boy, with two people flanking his side that you do not know. You realize you'd never asked about Peter's parents.

There are other photos of him around that age with May and Ben, and as you piece together what feels like an undoubtedly tragic story, you catch something outside the window.

A person. Hanging onto the side of the house.

Your heart hammers in your chest as a hand pushes the window up, and then, "Did I scare you?" Spider-Man perches on the sill with what you can imagine is a shit-eating grin.

You stomp over to the window and shove at his shoulder, but he doesn't budge in the slightest, "You almost gave me a heart attack! Were you watching me get dressed?"

The mask's eyes blow open, "What? No! I swear I just got here."

"Do you ever use the front door?"

"Not if I can help it," he crawls in, staying planted by the window, "don't tell me you're snooping through Parker's things."

"I was just... looking. At the pictures. And Harry Osborn spilled his drink all over me so I had to borrow Parker's shirt."

"Hm. ESU looks good on you."

You look up at Peter, who keeps his hands tucked behind his back, leaning against the wall by the window. "Aren't you gonna say hi to the party? Make Parker look cool?"

"Eventually. Maybe. Might just watch from afar."

"No, nuh-uh. You said you had holiday plans and that you were going to a party. That doesn't count if you're watching from afar."

Peter's head sways to the side, "I never said this was the party I was going to."

"Is there another?"

"Well... maybe. Maybe not."

"Peter-" You whine, but he cuts you off.

"I'm not a party guy! Sue me."

"Well, then Parker's got you beat two for two. Unless you're lying, since I haven't given up on my conspiracy theory."

Peter presses himself off the wall, sauntering toward you in a zig-zag. Your eyes follow him, back and forth, back and forth, until he's a step or two away. His hand reaches out to play with one of your sleeves, its seams resewn with mismatched thread, "Leaving a party as Peter Parker to come back as Spider-Man. Give Parker some credit. That's the kind of plan you come up with in high school."

You shrug, trying not to act like Peter playing with your sleeve wasn't giving you goosebumps. "You never know."

Peter nods, "Yeah, you're right. I mean, he was really excited to see you."

"Oh yeah?" You swallow.

"Yeah. Was kind of pathetic, actually."

Peter shoots a web at the ceiling and twists, catching the web between his feet so he could hang upside down. The suddenness makes you stumble back with a breathless laugh, "That's not a very nice thing to say about a friend."

"Weren't you the one who said he'd be shaking and crying if you yelled at him?"

You sigh, "I was... I was teasing you."

"Because I'm Peter Parker."

He says it matter of fact. You stare at him, "Yeah," you whisper, "that's right."

He pulls himself up the web until he's face to face with you, "Then that wouldn't be very nice to say to a friend, would it?"

"No, it wouldn't. If you were Peter Parker, I guess I'd have to apologize to you."

"Yeah? How?"

You breathe deep. Everyone is still laughing downstairs. You become hyper-aware of the fact that you hadn't locked the door. At any moment, someone could walk in and...

Peter waits, curious.

Your fingers trace the lines of his jaw, pressing into the fabric of his mask, feeling over the ridges where black lines broke red. You know what you want to do. And you also know that there is no going back if you do it.

Your fingers reach the place where the mask meets the rest of his suit. Hooking two fingers under the fabric, you pull.

Your fingernails trace over the curve of his Adam's apple as it bobs, over the jut of his chin. Peter's breath is heaving. One of his hands releases its grip on the web and you see it glide toward yours out of the corner of your eye. You just feel the skin of his bottom lip under your finger when you realize how this might look. What he might think you're trying to do.

Mask in hand, questions of his identity hanging in the air, your curiosity and his vulnerability. You release the mask, awash with worry. You want to get it out before there's any misunderstanding, but as your hand drifts back to yourself, his catches it. You would give anything to know what he's thinking right now.

Peter lets your fingers fall. Silently, he drags the mask over the tip of his nose and leaves it resting there. An invitation. "I trust you." He promises. And kisses you.

He has to stretch a little to reach you. You understand this and press closer, taking the back of his head in your hands and holding it steady for you, but you know you're trembling. You curse yourself for how much your body reacts to this, how uncool you must look, how you shake with all the excitement and terror of this. You kiss him and feel silly about how you claimed to know his lips so well before now. That was nothing.

This is everything. So many things. Each time you go back in for more, you lock away some new little detail about him.

Peter places a hand against your neck and tugs you even closer, but the momentum makes him swing a little bit so his nose bumps your chin. You're too stiff to laugh, but he does, "Sorry," his voice is raspy, "this looked cooler in my head."

You lean into him, dizzied, "Was this... did you plan for me to kiss you? When you got up there?"

"I've wanted to kiss you plenty of ways." Peter's admission is followed by a sigh. He presses a hand to your chest and nudges you back a step before he's dropping to his feet and advancing upon you once more, bumping you against the dresser as the picture frames rattle. Your fingers sneak under his mask at the back of his head so they can sink into his silky hair.

He probably kisses you a hundred more times after that. Every kiss you think might be the last, but then you feel a tug in your chest and go in for one more. An itch that no scratch can soothe.

Peter's mask starts to slip and you feel one of his hands leave your waist to fix it, but the warmth your fingers had snuggled into disappears and-

You keep your eyes screwed shut, "Peter." You gasp against his mouth. Your fingers twitch in his hair, finding no resistance.

"It's okay," he nudges your nose with his, still pressing kisses to the corner of your mouth, "it's okay."

"But-"

"Don't you wanna know if you were right?"

You squeak when his lips find the underside of your jaw, "I don't need- you don't need to-"

"You're always right," Peter interrupts you, kissing down your neck, "I was never fooling you. You're so smart, you know that?"

"Peter." You say his name with no real plans for it to do anything, letting your head fall back.

"Please." He says back. Urging.

You lift your head, heart hammering away, and meet the eyes of Peter Parker.

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#peter parker x reader #peter parker scenarios #peter parker fic #peter parker fluff #peter parker #spiderman x reader #spiderman scenarios #spiderman fic #spiderman fluff #tom holland peter parker #marvel #mjwrites #if you see any mistakes in this no u didn't #this has gone through a few revisions and uh. i'm sleeby

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