#but between those weeks and sometimes months pass

[stxrvel]

tis the damn season

a season of sadness wanted to come to an end. 'tis the damn season and you thought maybe you could go home and live with your mate the way it was meant to be…

pairing: azriel x f!reader

wc: +3.5k

warnings: pure angst, cuss words and slight (or light? soft?) unprotected (wrap it up) smut. no happy ending, sorry

note: hi guys! :)- i wrote and published this one some time ago, but i deleted it because it was poorly received and that disappointed me a bit. but now that i was able to read it again, i feel it's a good job and that should be enough for me. i hope you guys like it :). see u next time!

Azriel was your mate. You had known for a couple of months. He knew it long before that, too. The bond snapped first for him, but he never tried to get close to you. You didn't know if it was out of fear or if he never agreed with what was chosen for the two of you by the Cauldron. 

Likewise, you never had time to ask. The battle against the King of Hybern almost cost you your life. You didn't know what things had been done outside of your consciousness to keep you alive, you didn't know what boundaries Rhysand had crossed to bring you back to life, and you never wanted to ask either. You never asked anything, living in that ignorance gave you a sense of peace you didn't want to get rid of. 

But things were never the same after that. From the day you woke up, everything felt different. During that time, you didn't allow yourself much time to delve into what the recent bond between you and Azriel meant, and he always agreed to give you your time. 

However, one day, out of nowhere, it all became too overwhelming. And you decided to run away.

You never said anything to anyone, and you closed the door so Azriel couldn't feel you. You knew it must've been painful for everyone, especially your mate, but being with all of them after everything that had happened was unbearable. You lived under a constant reminder of suffering, violence and blood. You couldn't stop seeing your hands full of blood every time you closed your eyes, guilty for the lives they had taken as if you had had any right to do so, but having to know daily that it was all justified. Velaris and the permanence of the rest of Prythian justified it.

So, you went far away, to the other side of the world, to the east. To the Continent. 

And life was not easy at all. You knew Azriel wasn't having a good time. After a while, the wall you both had built around the bond was beginning to crack and his emotions were seeping through those tiny cracks. You could sometimes feel his sadness, his pain… his anger. After a couple of minutes of heartbreaking grief, the pangs of anger would appear. You could tell what he was going through and, selflessly, you tried to think that your decision was for the best. 

Rhysand wrote to you almost daily. Paper with his handwriting constantly appeared around you and, although you never answered him, he always made it a point to let you know everything that was going on in Velaris. 

The first few days were the hardest. 

There was a heavy snowfall on the Continent when you arrived, something that had never been more than a welcome, tearing at your skin. The cold was so deadly and the gales so lethal that you couldn't leave the apartment you were renting for a whole week. Apparently, at that time, that was normal. The cold that fogged up the windows, that froze your limbs, and that made all signs of life disappear. 

Where are you? Azriel is very worried

Please, answer me 

Y/N 

WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU???? 

Cassian and Azriel are flying over Velaris. Can you just tell me, please? 

Y/N, we are very worried. Please.

Please.

You had a lot of tugging on your bond from Azriel. You could feel his desperation even through the walls of silence. Those were difficult days. The cold days were not comforting at all. 

However, as the months passed, with the cultural difference and the harshness of reality outside of the family you had known for as long as you had memories, so many hundreds of years ago, you gave in to Rhysand's wishes to return to Velaris on the night of the Starfall.

And that night… well, you hadn't told anyone you were going. 

But as you expected, Azriel was the first to know you were there. 

You heard the flutter of his wings before you saw him, towering in the moonlight against the dim lighting in the city in anticipation of the biggest celebration of the year. He stumbled as he fell, being one of the few times you had seen him unable to control his strength, staggering with his feet and hands to get to a safe distance from you. His breathing was rapid, almost erratic and his eyes were bright, crystallized. The stirring movement in your chest brought tears to your eyes. 

Azriel was there in front of you from the moment he had the slight feeling, because he knew the bond wasn't wrong. And his gaze reflected everything. Everything he wanted to say and everything he preferred to keep silent. You had never felt so strongly the need to be close to him; you hadn't even accepted the bond, but you felt as if you had just done it. His eyes roamed the features of your face, his expression contracting as if he was slowly processing that you were really there in front of him. 

You saw him raise one of his hands, the hands that had so often held you in the darkness and through the sadness. If you focused really well, you could almost notice how his body trembled at the closeness, with anticipation, just as your body shuddered at his presence. 

The effects of the bond were powerful. But that hadn't been what made you fall in love with him. 

Azriel took a tentative step forward, reaching out his hands as if in a trance, seeking to touch you to make sure it was really you in front of him and not some kind of hallucination. Your voice stopped him on his feet. 

“Hello, Azriel,” you could barely speak, that suffocating feeling of being close tightening your throat. His eyes moved quickly back to yours and watered once more, his breathing quickening again. You didn't know what you had awakened in him just by speaking to him once more after so long without seeing him, but it must've been the same thing that ignited in your body when he spoke. 

“Y/N,” he elongated your name, like a plea or a prayer, you weren't sure. Electricity coursed through your body in a matter of seconds and you felt your feet move before you could stop them. The emotion rising in your chest matched your mate's expression, nostalgic because it had been so many months since you had last been so close and yet more pained and suffering because you had been the reason all that pain now surrounded you both. 

You stopped just inches away from him, your hands itching with the need to touch him, to feel him close, to once again have that warmth that would warm and thaw your soul. His huge, beautiful wings were taut behind him, being that all his attention was focused on your every move. You saw him hold his breath as you approached, struggling hard to hold back the tears that welled up in his eyes. 

“Are you okay?” you whispered the question, the air stealing your confidence, perhaps feeling a little silly and embarrassed about it. Suddenly, you felt too small under his gaze. 

“Okay?” the change in his voice was hardly imperceptible, sending shivers throughout your body, the panic of fear making its way into your chest, the bond tightening as if both ends were being pulled at the same time. “You left for a year without telling anyone. We went months without knowing if you were okay. I couldn't… I couldn't… feel you.” 

His voice became shaky, each word brimming with a tinge of suppressed anger. 

“Do you think I'm anything close to okay?” 

Yes, it was a stupid question. The knot in your chest grew rapidly, the back of your throat burning with pent-up tears. 

“I can't even enjoy the relief of seeing you now because… I'm so angry.” 

“I know…” you barely mumbled, lowering your head. How could you look him in the eye? Why did you think you had the right to go back as if nothing had happened? It was clear that things weren't going to be like they were before. You weren't sure about the others, but it seemed you had taken some of Azriel with you by disappearing like that. Proud you weren't of your actions, but you didn't know how to explain to his shattered features and cheeks wet with tears that, at that moment, you believed it was the right thing to do. 

The tears in his eyes prompted your own and you sobbed unable to contain the feeling. You tried to regain your composure, because you had no right to show such sadness when you had created it all. But Azriel was faster and you didn't even manage to put your hands under your eyes when his arms wrapped around your shoulders tightly. His wings also surrounded you and, although you had hardly noticed it because of the darkness, you felt his shadows dance around your feet. 

The warmth of his body was automatically welcome. How many times had you imagined that scene in your cold bed on the Continent, all alone and devastated from time to time, with memories invading your mind. Not many times did you regret your decision, except when you thought of Azriel. 

He sobbed too, his hands tightening on your arms, as if he was afraid to let you go again. He probably was. 

“I don't understand what made you think you'd be better off away from us… away from me, but I'm sorry.” 

His words surprised you, but a flood of feelings greeted you from the other end of the bond as Azriel let go and you couldn't think too hard. Crying swirled in the back of your throat. The level of pain and sadness that your mate was handling and had hidden from you for so long was so uncontainable that you almost doubled over, leaning over Azriel's body as you felt it rushing through you. 

“I thought you needed space. I know what happened with Hybern was too much for you and I didn't want to overwhelm you. But if I had known that decision would've made you decide you'd be better off away from me…” Azriel gulped, his voice full of feeling breaking off between words. “If I had known I promise you it would've been different.” 

You couldn't believe Azriel was telling you that. And the feelings coming from his end through the bond confirmed it to you. Azriel felt guilty about your departure. From moment one, when the panic and fear dissipated, Azriel never stopped feeling that it had been his responsibility that you decided to leave. And he couldn't have been more wrong. You loved him, had loved him long before the bond appeared, but the things that happened after Hybern, that affected you, had nothing to do with him. 

“Azriel…” 

“I'm supposed to be your mate. I'm supposed to support you, help you when you're down. I don't understand how I could fail at that. I'm sorry,” his voice was muffled as he spoke with his face hidden in your neck. At no time did he let go of you and his wings kept you warm. At that moment, that was home. 

“I promise it's not your fault,” you managed to speak, your face pressed against his chest. 

“I was supposed to be with you, accompanying you, but I-” 

“Azriel, you didn't do anything wrong,” you fought against his tight grip so you could look him in the eyes and the tears running down his cheeks broke your heart once again. 

“Then why did you leave?” 

You didn't have an answer for that and Azriel realized it when your lips pursed. He sighed, as best he could, and drew you back into his arms. Maybe he didn't need an answer at that moment, just having you by his side was more than enough. 

With the others it wasn't much easier. 

Rhysand and Feyre almost wept at your feet. Cassian, on the other hand, didn't hide it and deliberately filled your shoulder with tears and saliva. Mor lifted you into the air and almost didn't let you escape when Azriel started begging her to let you go already. Everyone cried. Possibly even Feyre's sisters shed a tear or two. 

You felt calm for a while. Complete, as if you were back in that house, in that home, before Amarantha and Hybern destroyed everything for you. 

But things couldn't be perfect. After the Starfall, you began to feel that anxiety again. Azriel could only tell by your body language, because you still kept your end of the bond completely closed to him and he couldn't feel the swirl of emotions coursing through your body. You had barely had time to get used to the familiarity of the situation when all the memories came flooding back. Perhaps you had blocked them out during your absence living on the Continent, you weren't sure, but the cries of war began to haunt you from the back of your mind. 

Azriel's shadows were also restless and that was another way he could tell something was going on. He was almost glued to your side all night, watching you out of the corner of his eye when you stepped away to talk to some friends. He never let you out of his sight. You knew where this behavior was coming from, but it never occurred to you to comment on it at any time. 

So, by that time, Azriel knew what was going on and you were sure you couldn't escape him. When he approached you and extended his hand in silent invitation, with the sound of conversations and drinks in the back of your head, you almost didn't hesitate to take it. His darkness enveloped you and, within seconds, you appeared in your room at the Town House. The party was now an imperceptible murmur. 

“Would you like to rest?” Azriel spoke, after spending several seconds standing facing each other. One of his hands ran over your face barely perfunctorily, but the warm sensation ignited too many things in your body. He arranged the strands of your hair that hid your face behind your ears with delicate, almost invisible movements. 

You only moved your head in response, up and down, under his watchful gaze. 

He almost crawled away, moving to your old bed that didn't have the same sheets as when you left. In fact, when you took a quick glance around the room, it looked too neat considering the amount of time that, presumably, no one used it. 

You shrunk at the thought of Azriel coming in regularly to clean it. 

With crystallized eyes you watched him move the comforter to make way for the clean white sheets waiting to be used once again after so long. 

Azriel turned to look at you, expectant. You didn't know if he was waiting for you to move to lie down or to ask him to leave so you could change into comfortable pajamas, but you did neither. Not when the emotions in your chest moved you, when they were more uncontainable now that you shared your mate's. Not when he opened up to you in such a vulnerable way, when he let you know that which for so long he kept to himself. Not when he gave you to understand that he was always waiting for you, even though it hurt him terribly that you had decided to spend all that time alone. 

So, for some reason, whether it was feelings or rationality, you approached him. You let yourself be carried away by nostalgia, by the silent desires of your heart, and you approached your mate with long strides. 

His expression went from neutral to confused as you got closer and you only remembered seeing it turn to surprise when you cradled his face in your hands and kissed him. 

It was rough and awkward at first, because your mate was completely transfixed for a few seconds. Maybe out of anxiety you counted ten. But, whether he was born from the same place as you or not, Azriel melted under your touch and as soon as he came to his senses he was kissing you back. It was just the kiss of an unaccepted bond, of a separated couple who held too many melancholy memories in their chests to bear on their own. 

Azriel wrapped his strong arms around your waist and bent his head to kiss you more deeply. You could feel the desperation and desire hovering tentatively in his demeanor, but he held back to give you a sweet, soft kiss; a kiss that said welcome, a kiss that urged you to stay by your side and never be separated from him again, a kiss that made you wonder why you had left in the first place. 

The softness of his movements were a direct contrast to your own. You cradled his face tightly, moving your lips over his as if second nature. Then you circled his neck, pressing him against you as if somehow you could hold him that much closer. You wanted him closer. 

But Azriel broke away, breathing in and out between gasps, and looked up at you with dark, glowing eyes. 

“Do you want this?” 

His hands on your skin burned. 

“Yes,” you answered quickly and tried to move closer again to kiss him, but he broke away again. 

“And are you going to stay after this?” 

Your eyes met his worried expression, thinly disguised. Ever since he'd opened his end of the bond for you, shedding any obstacle on his part that wouldn't allow him to feel you, everything you'd seen from him had been genuine. So you knew that concern was genuine and the mere conception generated pain in your heart. 

“I will stay,” you assured him, forcing your lips into a tight smile. 

Azriel studied your face trying to convince himself of your words, for he was an expert at knowing your body language, and you had no idea what he saw that convinced him and led him to pounce on your mouth once more. 

When the lightness settled into the bond, you were thankful you had never lowered your wall. Guilt suffocated you. 

But you kissed him back and followed your heart's desires, if only for one night. 

Azriel moved his hands along every curve of your body before removing your dress. If you hadn't stopped his movements, he would've surely ripped it off. His eyes followed every part his hands had explored and then his lips were on every inch of skin. Against the soft mattress and with your wrists held by his hands, you could only sigh and moan slightly at the way he explored your body. And yes, Azriel took his time. 

Before long there wasn't a single cloth separating the two of you and your mate simply couldn't keep his hands and lips still. Not that he wanted to, either. You moved your hands along his back, trying to avoid his wings, and moving your lips down his neck when he would let you because it seemed like all he wanted to do was eat you up with kisses. 

It wasn't long before he had you panting against him, with the sound of bodies colliding being the only thing your head could process at that moment. The tingling that coursed through your body was like no other you had ever felt; the wonders Azriel was doing with your body were unparalleled. He was panting too and every time he met your eyes it seemed to you that they were darker than the last time, but he never stopped holding you at any moment, never stopped hugging you as if his whole life depended on it. Maybe it did. 

The feel of his body against yours was indescribable, the movement and rhythm almost unbearable. You had never felt pleasure even remotely close to what he was making you feel at that moment. 

“Azriel…” you moaned his name, gripping his shoulders tightly, burying your nails as if it were your only stability. 

He cursed between gasps, increasing the pace and the force with which he held your waist. 

You were never going to get to touch the sky like you did that night, that much was clear. Even though your head was split in two, you looked into his eyes as you went through the most shattering, sweeping orgasm you'd ever had, reveling in the sounds that came from his mouth as he followed you to paradise. 

You thought it was going to be hard afterwards, but you fell asleep almost instantly. 

When you opened your eyes again, your mate's arms and legs were wrapped around your body and one of his wings was covering your nakedness and keeping you warm. You were facing him, chest to chest, and just looking at his peaceful sleeping face made you want to cry. Life was here, next to him, why couldn't you accept that? 

Getting out of bed without waking him up was quite a battle. Not as much as it was to sit at the foot of the bed, watching him rest, completely unaware of what would await him when he woke up. This time you were being selfish, you knew it, it was too cruel. But in your head there was nothing but disaster, pain disguised as stability. You couldn't have a good life with Azriel now and you didn't know if you could bear to see him to tell him after you promised to stay. You shouldn't have told him that, but how could you tell him otherwise? Maybe if he woke up at that moment you would stay… maybe that's why you sat there for so long. 

But finally you left, just like last time, in the middle of the silence, with his shadows following your feet and trying to keep you company. You felt a deja-vu as you stood in front of the door, thinking about how on both occasions you were thinking about what would happen if someone showed up to stop you. 

It didn't, in either case, and you knew the next day the exact moment when Azriel realized you had done it once again. He didn't try to hide his pain, he didn't have to, you deserved to know how you had made him feel. 

On the ship, on the way to the Continent, you fell to your knees as his pain stole your breath. 

#azriel x you #azriel fanfic #azriel shadowsinger #azriel x reader #azriel acotar #azriel #azriel angst #azriel spymaster #acotar fanfiction #acotar #azriel smut

[captainofthedauntless]

Integration

Bayverse Donatello x Reader imagine

Info + Warnings: Donatello finds himself all over your life. No gendered language, pronouns, or Y.N used for Reader, but they use Spotify. Friends-to-lovers type beat. Set a few years after OOTS.

Commentary: While it's not strictly necessary reading, this is the sequel to Glow in the Dark, and is set to this playlist.

Donatello has always prided himself on his observational skills.

He notices things other people don't. He recognizes patterns, he collects data, he observes.

It's why Leo turns to him first for mission analysis.

It's why April sends him documents to proof-read.

It's how he fixes codes that refuse to work and reverse engineers biological weapons and is able to turn scraps into functioning gear.

He sees.

Especially when he's already interested in what he's looking at.

Which is why, in the middle of the night, he glances at your activity in his Spotify sidebar.

It's just in his nature.

He does it every now and again- well, okay, every time he opens Spotify- and it's become a bit of a game for him, to try and hone in on your music taste and then casually send you very casually considered recommendations.

He's the most casual turtle alive, everyone knows that.

Sometimes, he spots you playing a song he's given you, and he gets a dorky little smile on his face as he alt-tabs his way back to work.

This time, it's a song he'd given you months back- StarWaves, off of the Oblivion soundtrack, by M83- and just as his lips quirk up and his fingers find his keyboard, he notices something else.

Just below the song, he spots the playlist title.

It's a purple heart emoji.

He hesitates, hand over keys, eyes lingering on his screen.

His timing is fantastic, because the song changes. Little Dark Age by MGMT, which he'd sent you when he last updated the surveillance system- still on purple heart emoji.

This is why science is such a comfort to him- it ties all of those constant observations to something concrete, makes them matter. Observation alone means nothing; study gives him structure.

This means nothing.

But further study- tabbing back and forth between his latest project and Spotify every three-or-so minutes, noting song after song that he remembers giving you- suggests that the purple heart emoji means him.

It makes his heart do something dizzy in his chest, to think that you've tucked his suggestions somewhere safe. That you've taken them with open hands and set them in a display case.

That you make use of them.

It's not even a week later when you come into the lair with a smile and your computer bag over your shoulders and bags of take out in your hands. You set your phone and keys on his desk, both tangled in your headphones, and head off to dole out food, and he can hear a Phantogram song heavy in the earbuds.

Another one of his, he notes happily.

You come back a few minutes later, a tired and amused expression on your face as you offer him his food.

"I take it Mikey found you," Donnie says in wry, fond amusement, and he's rewarded by a little snort of laughter.

"He did," You respond, setting your own food on the desk- next to your things- and shimmying your bag off your shoulder. "I swear, it's like you all let that guy starve when I'm not here."

"He does a lot of things when you're not here. Starve is not one of them."

He almost misses your response- "Tell that to him, he nearly tackled me for his lo mein!"- because something green catches the light of his computer and, in turn, catches his eye.

It's a little piece of circuit board.

One you'd helped him pull out of a haul of scrap tech, and once he'd deemed that piece useless you'd made a joke about it making a cute keychain.

He'd taken an old soldering iron and melted a hole in the corner, threading a keyring through it, and passed it to you before you left.

It was mostly a joke. You'd been joking. He'd just tapped in and taken the bit to the next level.

And the joke was somehow still in one piece, hanging off your computer bag.

It makes his heart do something fluttery in his chest, to think that you carried that silly (warm, safe, delightful) memory around with you.

It's nearly two weeks after that when he climbs in your window in the early part of the night, a little earlier than he should probably be out, with a bag of snacks hanging from his elbow.

You're in front of your TV, flicking through movie options, and he intentionally scuffs his shoe in the doorway to make sure you know he's there.

He somehow still isn't prepared for the way you tilt your head back to smile at him in greeting.

"I know it's kinda warm out, but I made hot cocoa," You say sweetly. "I got marshmallows on sale, so..."

"I brought those chips you like," He responds, slipping the bag to his palm and holding it up as though you can see through it.

"You're the best!" You chirp, slipping off the couch and leading him to the kitchen.

You already have two mugs set out, filled to the brim with marshmallows- he assumes there's cocoa beneath them somewhere, but has little proof from just looking at them.

One mug is your favorite, the one you've been using as long as he's known you.

The other is new.

It's dark purple and large, with an oversized handle. About the same size as the one he probably left on his desk when he left the lair. Large enough to comfortably fit his hand, he suspects.

It nearly stops him in his tracks.

"What is it?" You ask.

"Is this new?" He asks in place of an answer, nodding at the drinks.

"The mug?" You're using that carefully nonchalant voice you use whenever you do something nice. The one that usually obscures a lot of time and effort. "Yeah, found it at that antiques place I told you about. The one with the iron giraffe by the door?"

He remembers.

"It's- pretty," He says haltingly, trying to keep himself in a logical, reasonable headspace.

It isn't a big deal. It's a mug.

(It feels big. Feels huge. Feels like he's going to suddenly collapse under his own emotional weight and leave a black hole in your kitchen where he had been.)

(It's you adapting to his- and his brothers', he reminds himself sharply, trying to stay in the realm of reasonable and unimpacted- quirks and needs. It's you accommodating him in your own home. It's his color. He thinks his unwieldy feelings for you grow a size right here, standing in your kitchen.)

"I thought so," You agree lightly, your back to him as you grab bowls. "Thought you might like it. Thought maybe it would be nice to have one here. For you."

Reasonable is rapidly becoming less and less realistic as his heart skips a beat. There's weight in your words, despite your best efforts- he's more sure than ever than you'd set out to find this mug, that this had been a mission for you.

You never act this casually about something you're actually casual about.

"Vank- er, very nice," He stumbles over his words, slowing down to enunciate. "Thank you."

You shrug, turning to him with the bowls, eyes trained on them. "Since I like having you here, might as well, like, make it easier for you, huh?"

He's glad, in a way, that he's green. When he blushes, it's a lot more subtle on him than it is on somebody like Casey.

(He hopes you're not feeling particularly observant.)

"Being here is easy," He says quickly, a confession he hadn't really meant to make.

It's simultaneously huge and just-the-surface.

Being around you is easy.

You look up now, eyes meeting his with a searching look, and you smile. "I'm glad," You say, that weight still in your voice, some extra, unknown thing just beyond his ability to figure out. Then it shifts, and you're more smirking than smiling, and the air shifts from uncertain warmth to a familiar playfulness. "That means you can easily pick a movie. I'm sick of looking."

He stays long after the credits roll, listening as you look up tidbits about the movie and the cast and how the effects were done. He's on your couch, one leg crossed beneath the other as he angles his body to you and rests an arm over the back (staying very carefully on his side, thank you).

He chimes in as you read out trivia ("I'm pretty sure that should be lucis, but my Latin's a little rusty." "You're right, according to this. Wonder if that was an error or a stylistic choice?") and laughs as you stop mid-sentence to re-read twice because something is so littered with typos that you can't immediately tell what it's saying.

Neither of you look at the clock.

You finish the chips he brought, and you make popcorn, and the two of you finish that, too.

The movie trivia gives way to a story about your friend's dog, and the laughter from that flows into him telling a similar story about Mikey as a child- because apparently, chewing on skateboards is a more common behavior than he'd thought- which shifts into you showing him the meme Mikey had sent you earlier in the day.

Mikey'd sent it to him, too, but he didn't mention it. He let himself lean into your bubble to half-look at your phone, just to be near you.

When he finally gets home- late, very late, the sun's already planning its ascent- he's grateful that everyone seems to be asleep.

Until he hears a throat clear behind him and he winces.

"Hi, Donnie," Leo says, knowing and smug and making Donnie stifle a groan.

Leo asks how you are.

"Good," He says simply, turning and holding his oldest brother's gaze. "We had lots to catch up on."

"Clearly," Leo says, a clear undertone of teasing.

Donnie resists the urge to roll his eyes.

"I'm glad you had a good time," Leo says, teasing fading from his voice, leaving an earnest tone in its place as he bumps a fist into Donnie's shoulder. "Just let me know next time movie night turns four movies long, yeah? Keeping your dinner safe from Mikey isn't my idea of a good time."

Don can feel the blood in his cheeks again. He hadn't meant to stay so long- disrupting your sleep schedule isn't his idea of a good time- but it just... was easy. "Yeah. Will do."

Leo nods and smiles and takes his mug- strong green tea, if Don's nose is to be believed- towards his room.

Donatello exhales softly. He'd expected worse-

"Oh, Donnie," Leo calls playfully, "Mike's come up with several new songs including "k-i-s-s-i-n-g", so I'd brace myself for a musical breakfast."

This time, Donnie does groan, not bothering to respond as Leo chuckles and leaves.

He eats the dinner Leo'd kept guarded- pasta with meatballs, cold, because Donnie thinks that if the microwave wakes either of his other brothers and he has to deal with them before he sleeps he's going to ask you if he can just live on your couch- before shuffling into his lab and flopping into the chair at his workbench.

He leans back into the chair, stretching his neck out with a soft groan before his eyes land on the little glass sun hanging above him.

He watches it for a moment, a soft smile creeping onto his face.

Then he stretches out- too lazy, too tired to get up- and flicks the lights off.

The sun glows, and it looks almost as bright as his heart feels, and he feels himself sink fully into the chair and memories of you and the unwieldy, bright feelings you spark in his chest.

After a few minutes in comfortable, sweet silence, he shifts forwards and boots his computer up.

Just for some music.

Work will have to wait until he gets some sleep. You'd be livid if he jumps in now.

He pulls up Spotify and his eyes go to the sidebar out of muscle memory more than conscious effort.

Your username is the first on the list, right above a purple heart.

He lets out a little laugh, a you-shaped feeling turning bubbly and warm behind his ribs.

Deciding you have the right idea, he pulls up Random Access Memories and hits play on his favorite track, letting the bass softly fill the room and enjoying the feeling of it beneath his fingers as he quickly types out the few ideas he'd had while at your place.

He's asleep before the song ends, face buried in his forearms on the desk.

#tmnt x reader #tmnt imagine #donatello #donatello x reader #x reader #tmnt 2014 x reader #2014 #bayverse x reader #*writing

[canisalbus]

I noticed you've been making more art of Machete and Vasco after they met again as adults - is this canon? Do they get to rekindle their friendship after all, or is it still brief and bittersweet? (I love your characters and art, btw!)

Thank you! I'm glad you like them!

It's canon, I believe. After their confusing and apprehensive friends-to-lovers involvement ended in their early 20's, their paths end up crossing again unexpectedly in their mid 30's and things gradually grow from there.

#answered #kf-tea #it's not the steadiest alliance #Vasco has been stuck in a forced lavender marriage for nearly a decade but he's out of the closet to his wife by that point #their union is more like close platonic friendship than that of a husband and wife and they're largely comfortable like that #they've agreed to see other people for the common good #they're great parents and keep up the appearances well I don't think anyone suspects anything #in that day and age divorce simply isn't an option especially if you're a public figure and have a family reputation to keep up #Machete obviously isn't permitted to have sentimental or intimate relations of any kind #the two of them live in separate cities so it's more like a sporadic long distance thing #Vasco is a politician and an ambassador so he takes regular business trips to Rome which is convenient #maybe Machete gets to visit him in Florence on occasion but usually it's the other way around #but between those weeks and sometimes months pass #if their relationship lasts until the end they get a good 8-9 years in so I'd say it counts as a committed long term thing for sure #or at least that's the current idea and order of events #Vasco #Machete

[ceilidho]

prompt: reader is hired as a live in house cleaner because ghost is always away and he only comes back on leave and he insists she stay in the guest room. Over time he increasingly acts like she’s his live in girlfriend or something. Very confusing for reader lmao.

-

The job comes at the exact right time. 

The way you stumble onto your new job is a bit dicey, if you’re being honest. You’ve been meaning to get out of the waitressing life for a while—the tips are shit and the number of times that you’ve had your backside pinched has slowly but steadily climbed into the double digits. You just haven’t had direction; somewhere to go. 

Your savior comes in the form of a six foot plus soldier. Oh, he doesn’t tell you that, but his body language speaks for itself. 

At first, even the sight of him makes your belly clench and palms sweat like when you watch rock climbing documentaries or parkour videos online (all moist and clammy and you have to wipe them on your jeans before shaking his hand). He’s a one-time customer at your little roadside diner that gradually becomes a repeat offender. 

He comes at odd times, sometimes disappearing for a month or two before he’s back to sitting in the booth at the back of the diner with his back against the wall. You smile shakily when you pour him coffee after coffee. He never eats. Always sits in the same booth, dressed in the same black hoodie that does nothing to hide the sheer size of him and a black surgical mask that he never removes. He has a sixth sense for when you’re watching him from behind the counter, waiting for him to take a sip.

You never do catch a glimpse of his face. Not completely anyway. You know him only by the faint smell of gunpowder and metal that clings to him like a second skin, and the feeling of his calloused hand against yours. 

Like ice slowly chipping off a glacier that one day cracks, a huge chunk splintering off and crashing into the sea, you know nothing about him until you’re suddenly in his house. Simon, he tells you, and the sound of his name awakens something in you. He needs a housekeeper and you need a reason to leave. 

You quit the diner; barely even put in a week’s notice. 

The day you drive up the long beaten road up to his property, a cabin deep in the English countryside, clear blue skies follow you. Clouds crisp, delicate even. Simon takes you through the house, showing you to the guest room where you’ll be staying while he’s away. He never directly confirms your suspicions, but the faint tightness around his eyes when he mentions his job tells you all you need to know. No wonder he needs someone to keep the house in order. Never around to do it himself.

Then he’s gone, swift as a ghost. You wake up in the guest room to a hastily scrawled note on your bedside table and a faint feeling of loss. 

You scrub tiles and dust the top bit of the fan that everyone always misses; you mow the lawn, clean the gutters, and sit under the shade of a poplar tree with a glass of lemonade in the early evenings. If you look up into the tree, you’ll see spiders and squirrel nests. It’s almost therapeutic. 

Weeks pass at a time. Simon reemerges like clear skies between periods of rain. Sometimes even before you wake up, you can feel the change like lighting sizzling in the air, crackling hot under your fingertips and then stumbling into the kitchen to find him leaning against the counter, coffee already brewing. You blush into an apology that he waves off.

Good soldier. Better boss. 

You fall into a routine, something of a cadence that is only interrupted by Simon’s hands on your hips when he moves you out of the way to grab a mug from the top shelf. His finger brushing over the curve of your cheekbone to wipe away flour smudged on your cheek. Then he’s gone again, passing through like a ghost. 

Perhaps he’s a more tactile man than you originally assumed. Something about the way he held himself in those first few weeks in the diner suggested otherwise, the way he seemed to radiate a latent hostility. Do not get close. You read this in the general slope of his eyebrows and the scars across his muscled forearms up until he reaches out to touch you, growing more and more comfortable with you around.

“You alright, love?” said into your ear on a warm night when Simon materializes onto the couch beside you, practically out of thin air. Your heart almost bursts in your chest. 

When you turn, he’s as beautiful as ever, honey burnt eyes staring out from behind a balaclava this time. Still dresses in his standard issue tactical pants, the faint smear of grime and gore around the ankles. There’s a lump in your throat when you smile. 

He smells richer now. Deeper, like the forest floor. Like crawling through mud and spider webs and a thick, cloying miasma of desperation. 

“Sorry—I didn’t know you’d be back,” you apologize, going to rise up to your feet. It feels wrong to commandeer his house when he’s on leave, even though you live here too.

A heavy hand on your shoulder pulls you down, settling you to his side. “Off your feet now—there you go, atta girl. No sense getting up; show’s not even done.” 

He angles you back to face the TV and tugs you into his lap almost effortlessly. You do not look back, even when you feel him slip the balaclava off, hot breath fanning over your neck. Not even when fingers play over the thin line of skin where your shirt rides up. You blink like your eyes are gummy and try not to shudder when his thumb dips underneath your shirt.

#cod mw2 #ghost cod #cod x reader #cod simon riley #simon ghost riley #simon riley #ghost/reader #simon ghost riley x reader #ghost x reader #simon riley x you #ceil writing #house cleaner au

[writethrough]

I Know Better

(Billy Hargrove x Female Reader)

Synopsis: You've heard every rumor about Billy Hargrove—from the girls, the guys, the teachers, the parents—it never interested you all that much. Until one of those pesky rumors involved you.

Warnings: Language, slut-shaming

Word Count: 1396

A/N: This is the first stop on the apology tour for everyone who's sent me in a request. It's been a year for some of you, and I'm so sorry and grateful for your patience.

I had a really hard time starting this in the sense that I had so many ideas, but none of them fit with this prompt. So, it took me a while to settle on the story I wanted to tell. I had to stop thinking about this as a “Billy is mean to everyone” fic, and start considering it a “You are Billy’s soft spot” fic. It had to be a “How is he different because of you?” And then it sort of clicked.  

This is a sort of soft-launch to a larger something. I'm not sure if it will turn into a full multi-part fic or just spontaneous additions in this little fanfic universe.

And to the anon who requested this, Tumblr ate your request when I tried saving it to my drafts, so I really, really hope you come across it.

I hope you enjoy!

Anon Request: “Another Billy request idea is “he’s mean as fuck to everyone but me

"Like??? Maybe I need to go to therapy but the hard as stone exterior on that boy and the thought of him being sweet as pie to his girl makes me mush” 

Billy Hargrove never scared you. 

Not even in high school when all you heard about was his bark and bite and overall terrible attitude. 

You didn’t cross paths often, surprisingly so with how small Hawkins was, but sometimes you’d get glimpses of him against his locker or waiting by his car. 

You still remembered the time he pulled in beside you as you were shutting your door. 

Max had waved at you before rushing off to the middle school. Then, Billy had slowly risen, lighting a cigarette in the process, and locked eyes with you. 

He greeted you by name, a lazy smile spreading across his lips, and sauntered away. 

You had replayed that morning for the next two weeks, stunned that he knew your name let alone gave you the time of day. 

It was a month or two afterward when you actually witnessed Billy at his worst. 

You weren’t there for the start, but you had turned a corner in the halls and were met with other students gawking at a fight. 

You shoved your way between teenagers, intent to get to your class before the bell rang when that mullet stopped you. 

Billy had been looming over Roger, the school’s very own sleazy douchebag. 

In your mind, whatever that prick had said or done, he absolutely deserved the consequences Billy was doling out. 

You were about to continue walking when Billy leaned in closer to him with a tilt of his head. And until that point, you didn’t know that gesture could be so menacing. 

“Wanna say that again?” 

Your brows pulled in confusion. 

What could Roger have said that made Billy so furious? 

It must have been some insult, something that cut right to whatever insecurities Billy hid from the world. You really couldn’t imagine what he’d be self-conscious about. To you, Billy was the epitome of confidence. 

Billy’s eyes caught your shoes, and you swore his shoulders tensed. He trailed up your body and met your gaze, grinding his teeth. 

He slowly straightened, and without another word, stormed out of the building. 

Mrs. Click finally arrived and disbanded everyone and helped Roger to the nurse’s office. 

Your last class was full of whispered theories and passing notes. 

I heard he keyed Billy’s car. 

No, Billy definitely slept with the chick Roger was eyeing up. 

Could’ve sworn I heard Roger call some girl a slut-in-the-making. 

The day couldn’t have been over soon enough. 

At least it was the weekend, and in a month, you’d be graduating. 

You were walking to your car, sun in your eyes, and didn’t see Billy leaning against it until you were too close to pretend you forgot something to head back inside. 

“Hey,” he said, putting out his cigarette. 

“Hi,” you said slowly, gripping your backpack strap. 

“You okay?” His hands slipped in his pockets. 

Your furrowed your brow. “Shouldn’t I be asking you that?” 

He chuckled. “Fair enough.” 

He pushed off your car and took a few steps toward you. 

It was really the first chance you had to take in how blue his eyes were. And while normally you’d look away as you held each other's gaze, something planted you where you stood. 

He had the barest of smirks, so slight that you’d dare call it a smile. 

“If I said I wasn’t alright, would you agree to hang out tomorrow?” he asked. 

You let out a surprised laugh and glanced down. This was the first conversation you’d ever had with Billy, and he was asking you out. 

This was probably how he operated. He’d set his sights on some girl, give them that eat-you-alive smirk, and you’d wake up alone Sunday morning without even a note saying “bye.” 

But even with all that, your curiosity won out. So you made a deal. 

“Tell me what that was all about, and I’ll be there.” 

There was a flash of anger, but you didn’t think it was toward you. Leftover feelings for whatever happened no doubt. Then, he softened in a way you had never seen before. 

“I’ll pick you up at six,” he said, beginning to walk away. He turned around before he could get too far. “Don’t bring a jacket.” 

“Why?” You couldn’t help your smile. 

“You’ll have mine.” 

The cocky grin would’ve been irritating with anyone else, but Billy’s was endearing. 

You drove home with a stupid smile plastered on your face, and you stayed that way until Billy rapped on your door. 

— 

That Saturday night, he tried to breeze past his altercation. Until you leveled him with a sincere look and said his name. 

He had leaned back in the booth, ripping his remaining fries in pieces to distract himself. 

“He pissed me off,” Billy said, still maintaining his gruffness. 

“I figured as much,” you said gently. You knew if he sensed anything else, you wouldn’t get any answers. 

He huffed, glancing at you before returning to his basket of food. 

“The prick said somethin’ he shouldn’t have.” He shrugged. “I told him as much.” 

You nodded slowly, narrowing your eyes in thought. Billy wasn’t know to beat around the bush. He said what he thought, and you kind of admired that about him. Even if that got him in trouble. But the way he wasn’t maintaining eye contact when that was his favorite way to throw someone off guard was suspicious. He was hiding something, of course, but it felt more than hiding something from you alone. 

You took a shot in the dark. 

“Are you…Are you not telling me what he said because it was about me?” 

His jaw clenched and hands stopped. 

So, that was it. Roger had said something nasty about you, and for whatever reason, Billy took it upon himself to…defend your honor? 

But why? 

And what could it have been to make Billy react like that? You hardly knew each other. 

You inhaled deeply. “Okay. Tell me what he said.” 

“You don’t need to hear his bullshit.” He met your gaze, steady and stern. You wanted to slap your chest to keep your heart from skipping. 

“Billy,” you started, “I promise whatever he said isn’t going to affect me. I just want to know why you had him on the ground.” 

At this point, you had dissociated from high school and the people in it. All that mattered was graduation. 

“What does it matter?” His tone came out more harsh than you anticipated, but the way his face pinched told you he didn’t mean for it to happen. 

You leaned on the table. “Because I’ve had a really nice time so far. And as much as I appreciate you standing up for me. If you wanna continue this,” you gestured between you both, “you can’t beat the shit outta people.” 

“You wanna go out again?” His eyebrows rose slightly, and your cheeks warmed. 

Of course, that was what he took away. 

“Billy,” you warned playfully. 

“Alright,” he sighed. “He caught me starin’ at you a few times. Said your legs were locked shut, but I could probably get them open.” 

You scrunched up your nose. You knew Roger had to have said something vulgar, but you were more surprised it was about you then the actual content. 

“Okay. Was that all?” Sure, it was gross, but that didn’t seem like something Billy would lose his shit over. 

“That happened last week,” he admitted. “Told him to shut the hell up, and I thought that was that.” He shifted in his seat. “Guess he saw you lookin’ at me and he started callin’ you names. And then I hit’im.” 

Names.  

You could hazard a guess what names he called you. Probably the same ones he called every other female who didn’t wanna sleep with him. Ones that would describe him more than you. 

You reached across the table and grabbed his wrist. 

“Thank you for telling me,” you said. “And I need you to know, I don’t give a single fuck what that dipshit thinks.” 

He chuckled, putting his hand on top of yours. 

“So, that mean a second date is in the books?” he asked. 

“Like I said, only if you don’t punch someone when they say something you don’t like,” you said, hoping your face conveyed how serious you were. 

He leaned his elbows on the table. 

“I was thinkin’ a movie for next time.” 

Taglist: @bookshelf-dust, @steph-speaks, @nix-rose, @ballerina-orchid, @realmermaidariel

If you’d like to be added to any taglists, please comment or message me with the character you’d like updates on. 

#billy hargrove #billy hargrove fluff #billy hargrove angst #billy hargrove x reader #Billy Hargrove x female reader #Billy Hargrove x fem!reader #Billy Hargrove x you #Billy Hargrove one shot #Billy Hargrove oneshot #Billy Hargrove fanfic #Billy Hargrove fanfiction #Billy Hargrove imagine #Billy Hargrove imagines

[awritesthings1]

All The Things We Don't Say

Pairing: Tommy Shelby x Female Reader

Summary: An anthology of your life with Tommy, from friends to strangers to lovers, and all the little moments in between.

Warnings: 18+, implied DV, substance abuse, childhood trauma, ptsd, overprotective tommy, swearing, brief smut, longfic oneshot, feminist themes (motherhood & being a wife in the 1920s).

ao3 link

-

Smash!

“Pick it up!”

Your daddy was a drunk. You remembered the fact since you could walk. He stayed home while the working men left for the factories, then disappeared in the late hours of the morning until his eventual return when the slam of the front door woke the household up. Mother used to hold you at night as she curled up in your bed. She was sick a lot. Always sniffing into the back of your neck when you were asleep. Sometimes the sleeve of your nightgown would get soaked while she muffled her hiccups.

She looked sad, too. In the morning, she kept the curtains drawn and stayed away from the outside world. She told you it was to keep nosey Mrs. Gretel away from her family affairs. But Mrs. Gretel had left Birmingham two months prior.

By seven years old, you were the 'man' of the house. You had gone to sleep one night, and when you awoke, your mother had vaporized into the air like a rabbit in a hat.

“She left because of you,” your father slurred at you.

You hated him.

She left behind her long-sleeve dresses, scarves, and wicker hats that covered nearly every inch of her skin. They were far too big for you then, but when your father came home at the end of the week with a stack of cash, you ran to your mother’s closet, which had remained untouched until then, to find only cobwebs. Gone. Every single one of her dresses. You looked out at the moon in those early hours of the morning and swore to it that when you were bigger, you would get him back so much worse.

And so you were left to clean up his smashed glass bottles and scrub the alcohol out of the gritty carpet. Your little hands struggled to pluck the glass from the floorboards. In a year’s time, they were covered in little scars.

On your tenth birthday, you decided you were grown enough to take matters into your own hands. When he was passed out on the floor from whatever he managed to fill his pipe with, you grabbed the small bottles he hid under a loose floorboard and poured them into the gutter at the back of your house.

You turned to run back to the door when the contents of the bottle were empty, but a ball almost tripped you over. You gripped your tattered skirt before you could lose your footing and snapped your head around with a fierce pout.

“That’s my ball,” pointed a young Thomas Shelby.

You put your small hands on your smaller hips. “You kicked it my way on purpose!”

You weren’t entirely sure, but you suspected it.

“Maybe I thought you were pretty,” he grinned.

You noticed his two front teeth were missing.

“Ewwww! I would never go out with you!” You squawked.

At ten years old, you knew better than that.

Seemingly unaffected by your distaste, he continued. “Do you live there?” He nodded to the house whose roof was falling apart.

“What’s it to you?” You frowned stubbornly, not wanting to admit that, yes, that was your house.

“The curtains are always drawn,” he answered, walking over to pick up his ball from your feet. He was the same height as you were at the time. “My brother Arthur said it’s haunted. He saw a ghost in the window once. He said it was a woman and that she starved to death.”

Your nose scrunched up. "Well, he’s a phony!”

You ran inside said house and slammed the door shut.

He kissed you down by the docks that winter. It was your first kiss, and a clumsy one at that, so you didn’t remember much of it.

By thirteen, you had given in and sold the rest of your mother’s belongings to support yourself. You hated yourself for it, and that nagging voice inside your head told you that you were no better than your father. Oh, and your father? Your father lost vision in his left eye from a bar fight. Too bad it wasn’t both.

Sometime later, a boy two years older than you saw your wandering hand in someone’s bag at the fair and threatened to teach you some manners ‘the hard way’. You bit anxiously on your nails and pleaded with him because he was bigger than most boys his age, when Tommy’s brother Arthur (who you’d seen hanging around the Garrison) came passing by and threatened to ‘toss him about’. The other boy, not all believing in Arthur’s temper, rushed forward, and the two ended up rolling in the dirt, but by then you were gone with a stolen pocket watch in your fist. Nearly two legs and an arm deep in poverty, some quick cash, or a hero complex? You’d take the penny.

At fourteen, a lady knocked on your door. It was a lady of the night who had come to inform your father that he had fathered a son with her. You were glad it was a boy. A girl wouldn’t have stood a chance in the slums of Birmingham. Life was hard, but Birmingham was harder. Your father had refused to listen to the young woman and shooed her off. You never saw her teary-eyed face again.

At fifteen, your father attempted to wash his hands of you by marrying you off to the highest bidder. There was no real auction, but just about anyone who suggested a handsome sum of money did the trick.

“His name is William,” you exhaled, kicking your legs over the edge of the dock.

Tommy laughed. “You won’t marry him.”

“What choice do I have, Tom?”

Your finances were getting tight, and the gloomy pressure to take up working at night like many young ladies was beginning to loom closer and closer. You hated being a woman. Boys would never have to worry about selling themselves to survive.

“I’ll put a gypsy curse on him,” he decided, squinting his eyes from the bright reflection dancing across the water.

You hit his shoulder.

“No, you won't, because then you’ll be cursing me.”

The severity of your situation began to dawn on Tommy. No amount of pestering Polly for change to spare would relieve you of your burden any longer.

“That’s it, then?” He gulped, shifting his glassy eyes to the harbor.

You sighed and followed his gaze.

“Maybe it won’t be so bad. I’ll never have to see dad again, and William promised to take care of me.”

Tommy scoffed.

You frowned at him. “What?”

He shook his head.

“What! Tom—”

“Don’t marry him.”

You rolled your eyes. “Oh, here we go, why?”

“You know why.”

You were engaged to William on the eve of your seventeenth birthday. He was a very proper man and never dared to go any further than hooking an arm around yours on formal occasions. You were never attracted to his thin mustache nor the thick lenses he wore. In fact, he was incredibly awkward at social occasions, always checking his pocket watch and avoiding eye contact with whichever circle he stood in.

Tommy began to fade out of your life around that time. Margaret—a lady who had taken you on to help with the sewing of her family’s tailoring business—told you that Tommy was spotted arm in arm with another girl that week. You expected to feel jealous, but you felt nothing. You knew love would never be your right. Love was for the more fortunate.

You spent that year learning how to be a wife. Surprisingly, it wasn’t too different from what you did as a child—cooking and cleaning up like you did when your father came home, that is. It was comforting to have a routine in place. It meant finality—no one walking in and out of your life as they pleased, and certainly no more growling stomachs. Perhaps being a wife was a skill your mother never learned. You were grateful for William’s mother, who seemed to be more than enthusiastic to show you the reigns.

After a year-long engagement, you caught your fiancé, William, locked in a compromising position with another man.

“Oh,” was all you got out before leaving his house.

You lacked the special ingredient that marriages needed: love.

You sat down at the fountain across the street. William and his lover’s silhouette were visible behind the blinds he had drawn on the second floor, which peered over the sidewalk. You watched their shadows fluster their feathers around the room like headless geese, and for a moment your head surfaced above water and laughter frothed out between your sealed lips. Perhaps Birmingham made you a little mad.

You didn’t go through with the marriage. You suspected William was relieved.

That week, your father left. You never knew whether he left on his own accord or just never made it home one night. Either way, you never really cared to find out.

With nothing left to lose, you knocked on the Shelby family’s door at Watery Lane. Finn appeared around the other side of the door a moment later.

“Is Tommy home?”

Finn nodded, spinning on his heel to alert his brother. When Tommy did appear, his shoulders were tensed. Disheveled hair never looked so stylish on him. When you saw his suspenders (which were hastily thrown on), you wanted to ask who he expected to be at the door that he planned to answer dressed in such fashion but then thought better of it. He peered down at you, then checked over his shoulder before ushering you inside and up to his bedroom.

“It’s… smaller than I thought,” you landed on, taking in his room.

After all these years, you had never stepped foot into the Shelby home. You weren’t the type of person to come door-knocking.

You turned around to face Tommy after hearing him click the lock on his door.

“Are you hurt?" were the first words he had spoken to you in a year.

“No.” You pressed your lips together, eyeing everything from the bed to the view out the window.

Silence followed closely after.

“Then why are you here?” Tommy sighed.

Your vision began to blur then. “I don’t know,” you said honestly, trying to stop your bottom lip from trembling.

Desperately, you pushed your hair back and straightened up, attempting to hold yourself together. You must have looked like a puppet being held together by a string, given how poor you looked.

Tommy’s boots pad across the wooden floor. “You love me?”

Did that word truly exist? How could you answer if you never knew what it meant to love?

You don’t meet his eyes. He licked his lips, pushing your head up to meet his with his thumb. His eyebrows rose expectantly.

“I don’t know what to do, Tom,” you breathed, avoiding his question. “I’m all alone now. No William, no father…”

His lips parted, and you watched with fascination as the cogs turned in his head. “Yes… that is a problem." His breath fanned over your face.

You gagged, a reaction you yourself had not expected, before rushing to his door, only to remember that, yes, he had locked it, before turning to the nearest silver bucket in the corner to empty your guts.

The first thing you heard when you caught your breath was, “are you pregnant?”

No, but when you stand so close to me and I can smell the cigarettes you smoke and your freshly washed skin, I can imagine a future where we are married, and I see your face growing more disappointed as we age together because you married a woman who never knew how to be a mother to your children nor a wife who knew to tend to you with affection by your bedside when you’re ill.

“No,” you choked, spitting out the vile taste in your mouth. “We never did anything.”

You wanted him to know that. You wanted him to think that you never let William touch you because you never loved him, not because William wasn’t interested in girls.

A moment later, Tommy sat beside you on the floor and quietly combed your hair away from your wobbling lips.

“So, if you’re not pregnant and you don’t love me, why are you here?”

You wiped your mouth with the back of your hand. How were you supposed to answer that? After letting your guts loose in his room, you thought he would surely have booted you out the door.

A knock came on the door: “Tommy?”

“A minute, Finn!” Tommy growled at the door, refusing to back away from your trembling frame.

You were so hungry. Margaret had to cut back your hours ever since her husband fell ill. She spent more time by his bedside than keeping the store open, which meant you were making less than usual. The imminent closing of the store hung over your head like a taunting crow, gouging your insides like you were Prometheus. Birmingham your chains, a woman your fate, and the bird your punishment for thinking you deserved more.

“I should go.” You shivered at the draft inching towards your skin from the open window.

Tommy’s intense gaze stuttered, falling to your lap, where you picked at the dead skin around your nails. He cleared his throat, fishing out the key from his pocket. Although it was dull and muted from the years, it gleaned brightly in your eyes as if it were the reward you came for. Flushed, you grabbed it out of his hands without sparing a glance. Electricity sparked in those precious seconds, igniting a deadly fire in your belly.

“You’re cold." Tommy flinched at your touch.

You retreated as soon as the key slid into the hole and unlocked with a click. In your haste, you left the most valuable thing you owned there in his room.

Your heart.

The months went by, and summer arrived. The stories your mother told you left you expecting a bright gleam of air that would wash over the streets and paint each tree and every patch of grass a frighteningly bright green that would even encourage grumpy Mrs. Gretel to come out to preen her stubborn roses that would just not grow. Birmingham left less to be desired. The summer days never came, and that persisting bitter bog thickened, albeit with slightly less rain. There were gray clouds, smoke from the factories, and a shivering north westerly, which pushed said clouds at breakneck speed as if they had somewhere to be. You looked to the sky one day and said a prayer for blue breezes and sweltering sun, but the sky was empty.

Sometime later, men marched the streets armed with guns in their ‘dashing’ uniforms. A war, they said, a great one. Queues lined the street for the post offices and grocers. Rain rivaled the bustle of the city. What did it feel like to love someone so much as to stand in the pouring rain next to the gutter? You wanted that kind of love. Not the love you could only give yourself because even you didn’t want your own love.

One of the soldiers decorated in medals stood on a crate at the port, yelling something supposedly inspiring that captured the attention of many young men. The words honorable and patriotic were tossed in there like a delectable salad, enticing them in the way farmers held a carrot to a pig’s snout.

You pitied their mothers. Their daughters were married off, and then their sons were swooning over the idea of dying. Birmingham was filthy, rotting, and disgusting. You needed to leave.

You kissed Margaret goodbye on the cheek one Tuesday morning. Ever since your pockets turned out empty, you had been working as a bedside nurse for her ill-stricken husband. They were good to you, and they were probably the only people you could consider family.

She patted your cheek and said, "you're doing good to serve this country.”

You hadn’t had the heart to tell her you were leaving because the city was marring your flesh, so you slipped her the sugarcoated lie of wanting to join the war effort so that you might help others who were bedridden, just like her husband.

At the train station, you stood with your suitcases held tightly in both arms. You had to set one down to hold onto your hat as a train full of men waving their caps out the window pulled into the station. Some children weaved between the crowd, wagging a newspaper above their heads, hoping to make a quick penny. To your side, women wept for their brothers, husbands, and lovers.

“Who are you wishing off?” asked an elderly woman who was clutching her cane.

“Oh, I’m not. I’m boarding the next train.”

She laughed, and you wondered how old your mother would be now. Would she have grown wrinkles and settled into a deeper laugh like this woman?

“My dear, you have a bright imagination if you think they will let a woman on any of these trains.”

A sudden anger filled your blood. “Why not?”

“These men are heading straight for London, where they will be shipped away to France to fight,” the woman explained as if it were any other day.

“I’ll catch the next train then.”

She shook her head, and her frail hand curled tighter around her cane. “They’ve stopped the trains so they can transport soldiers to London.”

You frowned. “Then how will I leave Birmingham?”

You’ll never forget her dismissive laughter.

“My dear, you won’t.”

Men boarded the train, clapping each other on the back with a wink and a laugh. When a line of men on the platform thinned, the train whistled, and you looked over just in time to see Polly, Ada, and little Finn standing with their hands crossed over their hearts as they waved to the train.

No. It wasn’t possible.

But it was because you caught the gleam of the razors sewn into their peaky caps. Tommy, Arthur, and John all stood aboard the train, sticking their heads out and waving to Polly and Ada with a grin that wrung your stomach like a wet cloth.

Those countless daydreams you spun, the intricate webs you wove, began breaking down to thin fibers. In one pathway, you stayed there in his room and told him the truth you always denied yourself. You loved him. In another, you stood next to Polly, close to tears, as you begged him to come home safely. There was a resounding click in that moment as your breath stuttered. You had been the person who wiped away those futures, thinking it was nothing but an annoying spiderweb. Oh, how wrong you were!

“Tommy!” You left your suitcases behind and stepped around the old woman as you ducked under hugs and tearful goodbyes.

“Tommy!” You cried again with the gusto of someone who certainly shouldn’t be as concerned as they were considering you left him in his room that day.

Thankfully, his eyes eventually found yours as you pushed through the last line of people. You stood there and stomached all your regrets head-on. It was funny how, up until that moment, you managed to squash every seed of doubt. Why was it that you only realized what you had when it was slipping out of reach?

He never called your name back. He just stared at you blankly as the train pulled away, unlike you, who clung to the image of his frame even as the train disappeared from sight and the crowd began to disperse. You stood there unblinking, hoping to soak up the last of him before you forgot the intensity of his eyes or the humming rumble of his voice. Because the idea of something you held dearly becoming a memory meant that it could as easily be forgotten, and that terrified you. Your eyes were watering now, against your best wishes.

You overheard Polly ushering Finn and Ada off. Finn rushed home without protest, but Ada stopped in her tracks when she saw you hunched over your knees in tears. She smiled weakly before chasing Finn home. It was then that Polly’s shadow approached your huddled frame. She didn’t say anything, and for a moment, you weren’t sure if she expected you to stand and apologize for being such a mess. That’s when a penny clattered to the ground beside you. She squeezed your shoulder once before disappearing.

You kissed that penny as if Tommy would feel the power of it across the country, then ran back to Margaret’s, having forgotten your suitcases.

“Oh…” She exclaimed, slapping her tea towel on the counter when you walked into the kitchen. “You missed your train?”

Dread made your stomach tender and your breath short.

“I’m enrolling in the Red Cross.”

-

Throughout the war, you thought of Tommy every day until your stomach lurched. Would it have worked if you had stayed? Would you both have grown old together instead of subjecting yourself to the spray of dirt when a bomb went off nearby?

A day ago, your supply rations never came. It wasn’t like hunger was anything new, but when your mind was too focused on surviving the perilous weather, it was hard to save other lives. You made work with what little supplies you had left. The morphine went stint within hours of its arrival, and the cries of pained soldiers filled the medical tent all night. You did what you could, wiped sweat from their foreheads, and wrote letters to their mothers and lovers with what supplies you could scavenge. Some were written on cardboard from shell packaging, others on torn pages from the bibles they kept over their hearts. Pens were useless—the ink ran in the rain—so you scribbled everything down in pencil.

Before you left for France, you were warned of the bullets. No one ever warned you about the shrapnel, nor the bombs or grenades. They shattered soldiers’ bones beyond repair and left bodies unrecognizable. There wasn’t much you could do when most of their flesh was missing.

Keeping faith became an impossible task. Supplies were depleted, and nurses were dejected. Sally, who had been writing home for news of her brother, recently had her letters returned with the black stamp. Death—return to sender. She spent only an hour sitting on a trunk, letting her tears fall, before she got back to work. Grief privileged those with time, something no one could afford in these conditions.

Then it came—the day Arthur Shelby was carried in on a stretcher. You were making your rounds around the beds when a truckload of yelling men pooled through the entrance of the tent.

“Nurse!” They all yelled, some limping, others setting down stretchers of men on the dirt between the filled beds.

You and two other nurses dropped everything and ran over to attend to the wounded. They were all covered head to toe in dirt, groaning and clutching limbs that were twisted the wrong way. One in particular coughed and huffed while he fought against hands, which were fruitlessly pushing him back down on the stretcher.

“Let me go!” He yelled, wrestling against an older nurse.

“It’s alright, Mary. I’ll handle this one,” you patted her shoulder as you swapped places.

You dunked a washcloth into a bucket of water to wipe away the dirt in his eyes. “Calm down; you're safe here,” you said, starting your usual script of reassurances.

When the striking blue eyes squinted up at you, your blood ran cold. You froze before taking his head in both your hands, despite his protests. “Arthur? Arthur, it’s me!”

He loosened his grip on your wrist. “Huh?”

“It’s me! Where’s Tommy and John?”

He spat blood and gritted his teeth. “Fucking hell, where’s the whiskey?”

You laughed despite the smell of blood encompassing the tent. You quickly fetched the alcohol you had been using to clean wounds and pressed it to his lips. You weren’t sure if it was whiskey or not, but you reasoned he was in too much pain to be able to tell. He drank it with a groan of pleasure. You didn’t try to snatch the bottle away as he emptied it down his palette; you just sat and grinned at the way he suckled it like a newborn baby while you cleaned away his cuts.

“I’ve never been happier to see you, Arthur.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he mumbled, his lips still wrapped around the bottle.

You tried to stay by his side for as long as you could before the second wave of patients came tumbling through the flaps of the tent. One of them lost their grip on the stretcher, and the patient went sliding into the dirt headfirst.

“Fuck!” They all swore, abandoning the stretcher to drag the limp man further into the makeshift hospital.

You rushed to help when a hand gripped the back of your neck. You yelped in pain as your hair got caught in a fingernail when they turned you to face them.

And there he was: Tommy Shelby, covered in a thick layer of dirt, heaving for air.

“Nurse! Nurse!” Voices cried for you, but between the ringing in your ears and the wrath in Tommy’s blue eyes, you were frozen in place.

“The fuck are you doing here, eh?” He yelled over the anguished men.

You suddenly felt stupid standing there in your Red Cross uniform.

“I was looking for you, I—”

His dirty hands cupped your cheeks—something you were painfully aware of from the uncomfortable itch from the mud on your flushed skin—and pulled your forehead to his.

“You think this is some fantasy?” He squinted. “You think there’s any fucking moonlight to kiss under here, eh?” He spat.

His eyes held that haunted look you had seen on many soldiers that passed through the medical tent. Your eyes watered. Perhaps it was from the humidity and dirt being kicked up as nurses and patients scuffled around, not because you could hardly recognize the man in front of you. The blood smeared above his eyebrow worried you, so you reasoned that he was mad because it had been leaking into his eyes. Dutifully, you reached to wipe it with the back of your hand. He grabbed your wrist harshly, bringing it down to your side. He was in shock; you scolded yourself.

“Where’s John and Arthur?” Tommy swallowed, flexing his hands.

You led him to Arthur, who had been left in his corner while the nurses attended to more serious cases. It hurt watching the brothers reunite after their ordeal, so you left them alone no matter how much you feared them being discharged before your return. After all, everything you ever wanted sat in that corner, but it would be selfish to coddle Tommy all to yourself. Still, you couldn’t help sparing a glance when you walked up and down the tent, attending to patients.

Later that night, he came to you under the candlelight of your tent. He cleared his throat upon entry. You were lying face-up on your cot when he cleared his throat and peeled back the entrance to enter. The candlelight painted the mountain peaks of his face in a dull amber and the valleys in a frightening shadow. You sat up, pulling the thick cover over your shift.

Tommy kneeled next to you, resting on the heels of his boots. He licked his chapped lips and itched his nose. “You don’t belong here.”

Your grip on the cover loosened. “Huh?”

Nothing prepared you for when he swung his brooding stare towards you. He exhaled loudly before running a hand over his face.

“You should have stayed in Birmingham.” He said it like a warning.

“And done what?”

Vulnerability never looked good on Tommy. His head hung and his fingers itched at the back of his head—a tick you used to love; now you weren’t so sure. Because your Tommy was never afraid, but this man in front of you was alarmingly tense despite the clear efforts to mask it.

What have they done to you, Tom?

Under the dim light of your tent, you barely recognized him. A stranger’s eyes were blown wide in a frightening state of shock, something most soldiers mirrored. War washed out the sweet blue pair you knew, refitting them for a steely weapon. You hated seeing him like this, so still, so unsteady, cocooned into the corner as if afraid to take up space.

You feared you looked no better. Having worked till the point of exhaustion, you usually found yourself awakening against a wooden crate or trunk to the cries of patients who demanded your attention despite your body not having the strength to stand. Today you had been lucky and found yourself crawling distance to your private tent when your knees started wobbling and your head lulling.

The wooden reinforcing of your private tent fought in vain to shelter your bodies from the elements; it still flapped and whipped about, sometimes rocking your cot. Yet Tommy remained still like those life-size stone statues you’d find outside an important building, brooding at the dirt and locked in an internal battle. You shifted to the edge of your makeshift bed and leaned close enough that you saw how the top buttons of his dirtied uniform were missing and most of his clothes were torn.

His arm, which was breaking out in goosebumps, lay heavily across his knee so that he could rest his forehead there limply. He looked in a bad enough condition that you feared the possibility of him succumbing to the wasteland threatening him outside your tent. You wrapped your arms around the scruff of his hair and pulled his face into your stomach, where he could hide from the terrible world. On instinct, his arms wound around your waist, and you felt his warm exhale against your skin through the thin fabric of your slip.

His tin water bottle clanged against the satchel he wore, which made you wonder if he had any time to rest at all if he still had all his equipment tied to his uniform.

“I didn’t…” His voice was muffled by your slip. He cleared his throat again, shaking his head.

When he dropped the thought, you spoke up. “Have you eaten?”

He slapped your thigh haphazardly. “No, do you have a cigarette?”

You resisted the urge to roll your eyes, instead gently pushing him away so you could kneel beneath your bed and fish a cigarette from your satchel. You pinched one from its tin case, then thought better of it and tossed it on Tommy’s lap. Gratefully, he collected one from the case and lit it with a nearby candle. You watched his chest rise and fall as he took an especially deep drag. His eyes shut as the nicotine rushed to his head.

“Fuck, that’s good,” he muttered under his breath.

“How are you here, Tommy? One of the night nurses should’ve been on watch.”

“Oh,” smoke puffed out of his mouth, and he raised his eyebrows, “there is.”

“Then how—”

“I had to see you.”

The butterflies in your stomach dove. The blue in his eyes appeared translucent as they hazed over like a ghost. His shoulders were slumped dejectedly, and he had a hand pushing through his greasy, unwashed hair to relieve his neck from the weight of his thoughts.

He pointed to you then, with the cigarette nursed between his fingers. “I need to know why you changed your mind.”

“About what, Thomas?”

His voice slurred and slipped into a deeper register from the lack of sleep. "Why you came back. Why you came to France.” Tommy shook his head lazily. “You expect me to believe you had a sudden change of heart? What? You a patriot now?” An amused exhale curled out while he took another drag. “Well I don’t believe it.”

You began shivering despite the way your body flushed.

“How’s Arthur?” You tried to avert the conversation.

“Bloody drunk off his ass.”

“And you?”

Tommy held your stare and swallowed dryly. “Trying.”

“You can go join him if you wish.”

He looked at the entrance of your tent as if he were weighing his options, then shook his head and took another drag before clearing his throat. “It’s different now.”

Naïvely, you sank to the ground beside him and rested a hand on his shoulder. “It doesn’t have to be.”

He sighed.

“I wish that were true.”

-

The next time you saw Tommy, you were working a shift at the hospital. After the war, you received a medal for your efforts, which easily got you a job in Birmingham. You pleaded with them to send you to any other hospital—London, Manchester, Liverpool—you didn’t care. Anywhere but Birmingham.

“You should be honored to work for me!” Exclaimed the head nurse at Birmingham Hospital, who didn’t seem too pleased with your distaste for the city.

You thought the job would be the final nail in the coffin, but you surprisingly got along well with the head nurse once you had put your animosity aside. So much so, she offered to lease you a room upstairs from hers.

Then came that dreaded night where you were finishing the filing of some documents when a patient was being rushed in. Your ears perked up, and you looked through the blinds of the office to see a man being rushed by. Something small and round had fallen off the stretcher while the nurses paid no attention, pushing him around the corner and down towards the operating theater. Curious, you exited the office.

And there on the ground was one of those peaky caps Tommy and his brothers used to wear. You knew this because you picked it up and nearly cut yourself on the blade that was sewn into the seam. You spent the next hour gnawing on your nails. Your imagination sparked ideas about the beaten man who was lying in an operating room two doors down in surgery. Was it Tommy? Arthur? John? The shadows under your eyes darkened at the thought. No, it was probably some other Peaky Blinder. The Shelby brothers were too careful. Still, you knocked over your coffee in a mad dash to the bathroom, where you heaved up your dinner.

You volunteered to stay until the morning, but the head nurse on duty for the night refused and sent you home. You didn’t sleep at all that night.

The next morning, you arrived early and made a beeline for the emergency ward. You grabbed the admission form and scanned the patient list. There were only two emergency patients who were listed under the final hour of your shift, a woman and a man, which made it easier to narrow it down to the man who was admitted at quarter to midnight in ward four, room seven.

When you peaked through the crack in the door, you knew you had been worried for a reason. Tommy lay under the covers, battered and bruised, with a swollen eye and a nasty scar where he had reportedly received surgery for trauma to the head.

You slipped inside quietly and closed the door. Tommy’s eyes were closed, and his mouth hung open, stealing miniscule amounts of air into his lungs. He looked as good as a ghost.

“Tommy…” You clutched his peaky cap (which you meant to return) between your fingers.

He didn’t move an inch, so you set the cap down by his bedside table, carefully watching the rise and fall of his chest.

What have they done to you, Tom?

On the second week, he woke up while you were cleaning the windowsill. He coughed, and you whipped around in shock.

“Nurse?” He asked hoarsely, blinking away the blinding light.

You rushed to his side, tears bursting like the fountain you passed on your way to work.

“Don’t move,” you urged when he tried to sit up.

“I have to get to London,” he slurred, only half awake.

You weren’t upset that he didn’t recognize you. You weren’t upset that he didn’t recognize you.

“Tommy… it’s me.”

He shrugged your hand off his shoulder with a hiss. “Fucking hell.”

Don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry.

“Please don’t move; I don’t want you to hurt yourself.” You couldn’t hide the way your voice broke.

He looked up at you, then, through bloodshot blue eyes. You wished you knew what was going through his head. Happy or sad?

“Am I dead?”

“No,” you smiled weakly as a tear fell.

“Can I have a smoke then?”

-

“I don’t know how to love, Tommy!”

“Yeah? Yeah? That’s bullshit! Why do you keep coming back then?” He pinched your chin, glaring furiously into your eyes. “Eh?”

He stood so close that he blocked the light from the chandelier, which mournfully hung from the ceiling. You shivered in his shadow.

“I shouldn’t have come tonight.”

“But you did!” He accused, pointing in your face.

“It was a mista—”

“You fucking did!”

“Tommy!”

“I’ve had it! If you want to leave, then fucking leave; otherwise, don’t stand there all righteous waving empty threats over my head because I know you won’t leave.” He shook his head with a wild look in his eye. “No… You won’t leave. You won’t leave because you love me. You keep coming back,” he pointed matter-of-factly.

Tommy’s eyebrows danced between being terribly furrowed and alarmingly raised during his passionate monologue. It was rare for him to emit so much emotion these days. The war changed men, and Tommy was no exception. A chilling stillness framed his presence, which even you weren’t excused from. No more laughter, no more dreams of working with horses, because he was above all that now, wasn’t he? It was ambition that ground his teeth together and hollowed his eyes. Still, you couldn’t forget that the anger came from vulnerability, because it took a lot for someone to get under Thomas Shelby’s skin.

You moved to grab your purse, to make good on his word, but he halted your movement by grabbing your shoulders, roughly at first, before loosening his grip. You softened at his frantic demeanor. He was scared—oh,  so afraid of you walking out that door again. But how could you ever explain it to him? You were never born for love. You would never know how to love him properly the way wives were supposed to because what you felt for Tommy was sickeningly deep. So much so that the mere impression of him sealed off your ribcage and ruined any chance of your heart beating for any other soul, so much so that you carried the weight of him in your bones because you could never shake him off.

When you looked back at life, all you saw was the absence of love. You used to imagine yourself growing up and falling in love with a handsome stranger, then getting married in a proper white dress to go live in your proper house. But when you looked in the mirror, you saw a ghost. The pathway of your life was laid out before your eyes once, and what you saw didn’t match the reflection. The man you were supposed to marry couldn’t even look at you, even if you cleaned and cleaned and cleaned until your fingerprints turned white and pasty.

Because what it all came down to was simple. You never got to become the person you envisioned. Instead, you were cursed to live as a blank slate and be consistently reminded of what you were supposed to be and of who you were: no one.

Tommy exhaled in a quick huff, pressing his forehead to yours so that he saw you clearer, without all the tension and bullshit in the way.

“Here it comes, Tommy.” You took a shaky breath. “I love you, but I could never be the perfect wife to you, and I would be a terrible mother.”

There, in all its ugly colors and shades, you hung yourself with the truth.

He shook his head as if he too couldn’t believe your words.

“Fuck’s sake! Forget about all that." His eyes watered out of frustration, but he was still puffing in anger. “I need you. You. Not some whore.”

You bit your lip to muffle the god-forsaken cry ready to erupt from the volcanoes you suddenly found roaring in your stomach. An earthquake overtook your hands the more you fought the inevitable eruption. You grabbed both his hands to stop yours from shaking.

“I have to be cursed; there’s no other way!”

“No!”

“My life slips through my fingers like grains of sand—”

“You’re not cursed!”

“And I can’t stop it, Tommy!”

“You’re not fucking cursed, and I’ll tell you why." Tommy cut you off. He leaned in, licking his lips, which had turned dry from all the shouting, and squeezed your hands. “Because my ancestors charmed dogs with their magic, they didn’t scare little girls with curses,” he paused. “But you… You waved a hand over my head, and now I’m no better than a dog.”

He closed the space between you, pressing his forehead against yours, and stroked both your cheeks, wiping at your tears. You held him there in a meek attempt at reciprocation.

You wished the world were ending so then you could grab Tommy’s hand and say, ‘I’m ready, Tom. The world is ending, so let’s kiss and love each other under the flames without any fear because the world is ending.’

But you were never good at expressing yourself with words, so you sealed it with a kiss, hoping he could taste the unspoken words on your lips the same way you tasted the tears. He responded in earnest, gripping you roughly by the scruff of your neck to seal the promise laden between your lips; no more running.

-

It was just your luck that you would bump into your ex-fiancé, William, while visiting a bar in London with Ada. You were buzzing from the warmth of three sweet liquors and whatever else Ada insisted you try, and everything was starting to seem a little funny by the time he approached you.

He engaged in pleasantries, swishing his wine around the glass and sniffing it occasionally, like many pompous older men tended to do. There was only so much smiling you could afford before you caught your reflection in the freshly wiped bar and realized how poorly your acting skills were. Ada was no help, muttering something about finding a phonebooth and then slipping into the belated and boozed crowd. It was then that the supposed nectar in your glass began to taste like the cleaning products—that nose-scrunching stench. Thankfully, William was too involved in some tangent to notice you muffle a gag into your palm.

The dazzling hum in your ears muffled out all his words. In your drunken state, William appeared to be more confident than what you remembered, but you were unable to decipher whether it was from a change of heart or if he was trying to fall back in your good graces. Otherwise, you were blinded by the roaring bustle of the bar and the delicious swell of music that seemed to reverberate across your being.

Growing a little bored with William’s story, your attention wandered over his shoulder, still being sure to nod every now and then as if you were deeply pondering his words. Not far away from his side, a man seemed to linger—a man who was careful not to reach your eye. You must have laughed a little harder than usual because William turned sharply to the man at his side, gave him a quick once-over, then returned his attention to you, but by then it was too late, and you knew exactly what William’s relationship was with this man and where William’s confidence had come from.

“You’ll make a fine wife and a finer mother someday,” William quickly added.

You cursed the witch inside you, who laughed from her stomach and used his shoulder to steady herself. Once upon a time, that was all you longed to hear, but now, with a half-spilt martini in hand, you couldn’t care less. Both of you had found happiness despite your unconventional circumstances, and there was no more to it. You could close that chapter without any loose threads.

A little drunk, you thanked him, disappeared, and never thought of him again.

-

“I can’t do it, Ada,” you stressed, beginning to feel uncomfortable with the baby in your arms.

Motherhood came rumbling into your life like a rusty engine spitting out oil. ‘Instinctual’, the mothers down the lane from Arrow House had said, ‘it’s like your body has been preparing for it your whole life.’ How awful, you thought, and by the time one of them finished speaking about their experience with their first, your nose was so scrunched in disgust that you would need an iron to flatten out the wrinkles. It wasn’t until now that you longed to be in their shoes, because nothing came naturally to you.

“He’ll latch eventually; he’s just a little fussy,” Ada reassured.

“Is it supposed to hurt?”

“It’s perfectly normal.”

Then, after an hour of rubbing your sons back on the verge of tears, he finally began feeding from you. Ada soothed your back the whole time and cooed softly to calm both you and your unruly boy. Sometimes she brought Karl. He would obediently sit on her lap, playing with his wooden horse, while your little Charles fussed.

One time in the early morning, when you were up attempting to feed Charles, Tommy rushed in alert with disheveled hair and sunken eyes.

“Sorry,” you mouthed, deflated your hardworking husband had been disturbed from his sleep.

He ran his hands over his face and sighed. You mistook his action for frustration and desperately tried to hush your baby. Tommy moved over to the rocking chair where you sat, trying to feed little Charles in your arms.

“Don’t be sorry,” he whispered into the crook of your neck. “How is he?”

You flushed under the moonlight, suddenly embarrassed that your husband had caught you in this vulnerable position with the top of your slip peeled down. Your exposed skin hissed when he pressed a kiss against your pulse.

“I don’t think he likes me very much.”

Tommy inhaled sharply against your neck before resting his chin on your shoulder to peer down at Charles. Charles had settled since Tommy walked into the room, acutely aware of his father as his little hands made a grabbing motion for him. Diligently, Tommy relieved your arms of Charles and cradled him close to his chest. Within minutes, the little baby was gurgling happily and blinking in a way that suggested sleep was on the horizon after all.

Your husband didn’t dare make any sudden noise as he gently set Charles in his cradle. Once he was surely asleep, Tommy guided you up from the rocking chair and into your shared bedroom.

“See?” you hissed, still maintaining a soft voice, “he only wants you.”

Tommy wouldn’t hear any of it, pulling you into his arms as he sat on the edge of the mattress. Your slip was still pooled around your hips, so he took the opportunity to plant a kiss above your breasts, where your heart was.

“He loves you,” he drawled in that husky voice of his. “I know he does because I do.”

Your head ached, but you couldn’t help the way your body reacted to his words and touch. Tommy’s wandering hands teased the silk fabric that clung to your hips as you felt his nose trail down to your breast, where he kissed one of your aching nipples delicately. Suddenly hot, you hummed in delight, the back of his shorn scalp pleasant beneath your nails. A grunt, bathed in that musk of his devours your senses. Inhaling sharply, he took the bud between his full lips, sucking, licking, and nibbling gently while his hands explored further down. Your head lulled back from the pleasure, gasping and withering under his skilled tongue.

The next thing you knew, Tommy was tugging the rest of your silk slip off and reminding you of just how much he loved you.

-

“Charles! Come here!” Tommy called.

Your little boy loved to play in the backyard of Arrow House. Much like his father, Charles adored horses. Big ones, small ones, black ones, white ones—but most of all, he favored his Shetland pony. Tommy had brought it for Charles before he could even walk. He said something about it being important for his son to be raised around horses from a young age. And while you didn’t necessarily disagree, it still stressed you out to hold your baby so close to such a large, muscular animal. You knew the Arabian breeds spooked easily, so you steered clear of them and were able to keep Tommy and Charles happy.

But now he had grown up so fast and was able to run around on his own two legs, climb trees, and bruise his knees on the way down. The sun beat lovingly on the apples of his cheeks as he dirtied his trousers, kneeling by the fence to feed his Shetland (affectionately named Biscuit) hand-picked grass through the gaps.

“Charles! We’re leaving!” You called when he ignored his father.

Stubbornly, Charles spun around to pout his lip and cross his arms. He glared at you as threateningly as a five-year-old could. You bit your lip to hide your smile because he really did look like a little Tommy with those big blue eyes. It would only be a matter of time before he perfected his father’s stare. With a sigh, you shifted your daughter into Tommy’s arms before approaching Charles, who was picking angrily at the grass.

You reached a hand out toward him, "let's go.”

“No!”

“All right,” you said decisively, spinning around, “Ruby will have all the fun then.”

“No!” cried your little boy.

You stuck a hand up in surrender and started walking back to Tommy. “No, it’s all right.”

“No, no no no!” Came his protest, chasing behind you as the gravel crunched beneath his boots.

You paid no attention to him, keeping your eyes trained ahead, silently relieved that your ploy worked. Tommy watched on in amusement while Ruby suckled on her thumb, curiously watching her brother storm closer.

“You hear that, Ruby? We’re going to spoil you,” a short smile played on Tommy’s face as he adjusted her so that she sat comfortably on his hip.

“And me!” Charles added and gave his best pout.

“No, Charles, you said you didn’t want to go,” you reminded him, raising your eyebrows.

“I do! I do!”

“Hmm,” you thought aloud, and held a finger to your chin while looking to the sky in exaggerated contemplation. “Very well, but only if you get in daddy’s car right this instant.”

He climbed into the backseat of the Bentley without further fuss.

When all the bags were neatly packed in the back for the day’s festivities, Tommy came around your side to sit Ruby on your lap. Quickly, he leaned in to kiss you and pinch your cheek, which swelled into a glowing grin.

He smiled back and whispered low enough for only you to hear, “got him wrapped around your finger, eh?”

You laughed. “Him and a few other Shelby’s I know of.”

-

The thundering sound of music could be heard from outside the theater on the corner of Old Pauls. Inside, patrons mused between champagne, dancing, and making a display of their wealth by bidding on little trinkets. It was one of the many charity galas Tommy had to attend because of his new move into politics. Usually, you enjoyed dressing for those sorts of things, but tonight you simply weren’t feeling up to it. Maybe it was the drape of your dress not sitting right or the new leather shoes that still needed breaking in.

Your shimmering smile faded into the crowd as you snuck through the back door in your satin bordeaux dress. Old Pauls sat perched above the cemetery it was named after. Conveniently across the street from the buzz of the theater, it was airily quiet and stuck out from the rest of industrial Birmingham. Your heels clacked across the pavement as you wandered up and down the garden, glimpsing at stone angels and silver plaques. All you had to light your path were the streetlights and the moon.

Your diamond wedding ring twinkled under the stars as you stopped to trace a name. It was the same as your mother's, but with a different last name. Still, you always wondered what happened to her. Had she gotten married to another man and taken his name? You expected to shiver at the idea, but you found that thinking of her no longer unnerved you. She packed up the title of mother when she left you all alone in that cramped house.

Light spilled out onto the pavement across the street when the entrance to the theater swung open. A few men flew down the steps and split off in different directions. Thinking it odd, you remained crouched until they disappeared around their respective corners. That’s when you saw Tommy exit through the same doors, throwing a cigarette and wiping at his brow while he looked up and down the street. Quickly, you stood and waved your arm to get his attention. When he noticed, he stormed down the steps and stalked across the street and through the gates of Old Pauls over to you.

“I needed some air,” you spoke up before he could get a word in.

His eyes wildly flickered back and forth from yours in a frenzy. Under the moonlight, they looked almost translucent, and, save for a ghost of blue, his pupils were wide.

“Why the bloody hell are you out here, eh?” He demanded, gently shaking your head between his hands for emphasis while his eyebrows rose expectantly.

“It’s quieter.”

When he tilted his head to the sky and exhaled, your stomach dropped at the sight of blood. Your ears, which had been tuning out the music, flinched when a shrill cry from a woman rang out the theater doors. The music was gone, now replaced with screams as all the patrons rushed out, tripping over each other like it were a race. You turned back to Tommy, now as worried as the others.

“What the hell happened? Are you hurt?” You urged, gripping his white collar, now red, to inspect where the blood was coming from.

“Not mine,” he cleared his throat, grabbing the hand on his collar to tug you down the street.

The frame of your world stretched a little wider, like light pouring in through open shutters. Car doors slammed, and drivers honked at the agitated crowd who ran this way and that across the road.

“Where’s the fucking ambulance?” Shouted a man who took no care to avoid bumping into you.

You stumbled back, your hand slipping from Tommy’s on impact. Rage flickered across his features briefly, having noticed the man push through you, but he reconnected your hands and continued walking fast. When he reached the Bentley, he urged you inside, holding your hand the whole way until you were seated in the passenger seat.

“What the hell happened, Tommy?” You repeated as he slid into the driver’s seat.

“Someone got shot.”

Your eyes widened. “Are Polly and—”

“They’re fine.”

You sank back into your seat as the engine roared to life. Peaky Blinder’s followed the frenzied crowd, moving together like a pack of wolves onto the streets. They only parted to let Tommy’s Bentley through. Out the window, people were fighting and throwing fists as they all tried to escape the mayhem.

“Why aren’t they letting people through?” You asked after witnessing a Peaky Blinder block the road and refuse to let a car pass.

“Doesn’t matter.”

He never told you anything when it came to business. And although you suspected this was much more than the doing of the Shelby brothers, Tommy’s face never betrayed him. Simply put, if he didn’t want you to know, you wouldn’t.

“Would anyone want to follow us?”

“No.” He exhaled deeply, cleared his throat, and then reached to give your thigh a squeeze.

You knew it was a lie when his eyebrows rose. He only did that when he was worried. Your tongue remained pressed to the back of your teeth the entire ride home.

-

The howl of the wind whistled down into the valley of the gypsy camp Tommy had brought you and the children to.

“Pack your things,” he had said one night after storming through the front door of Arrow House, “we’re going on a trip.”

Charles and Ruby cheered, but you suspected something sinister beneath his intentions.

So, there you were, picking at the grass by your feet while you perched on the bottom step of the gypsy wagon Tommy parked beneath a tree for shade. He kept quiet for most of the ride, absorbed in leading the horse around loose gravel and stones, or rather, he led you to believe he was lost in concentration. Because, when it came down to it, you knew Tommy better than to assume nothing was wrong.

The past week, he had been acting different, jumpy even. He ran into the nursery during the early hours of the morning on edge, as if expecting something to be amiss. You tried interrogating him, but he brushed it off, insisting things were fine. Fine—you began detesting that word. Fine this, fine that, but if things were really fine, then why was he on edge?

Then came the bloodshot eyes and the slamming of his desk drawer when you entered the office. Only this time he couldn’t deny the unmistakable jingle of a bullet, which rattled in the wooden compartment like some sort of airy death chime.

A black hand. One for each Shelby. And since you were now one too, that meant neither you nor the children were subjected to any special treatment. A week, he said, a week for his family to clear up the business while he stayed here watching over you like a shepherd to his flock.

And watched he did, standing next to where you sat, he found peace observing Charles and Ruby as they chased each other around the overgrown field. There he remained for an hour or so, frighteningly still, the only motion being his sharp jaw chewing on a mint leaf, somewhat reminiscent of the soldier in your tent all those years ago. Next to him, tied to the tree, the black steed filled the silence with snorts and grazed favorably on the loose roots and grass patches.

“Ruby was crying this morning. She’s scared, Tom." You sighed.

Tommy hadn’t been there when you woke up that morning in the caravan. He returned shortly after, ominous as ever, just as Ruby had begun to settle.

He tossed the stalk of his mint leaf into the grass and offered you his hand. You looked up at him in question for a moment, slightly suspicious of his intentions. Nevertheless, you slid your hand into his, and he stood you up, sat down on the higher step, and pulled you between his legs to sit on the lower step. He hugged you from behind as he slouched to rest his head on your shoulder, then exhaled deeply.

“We will be home soon,” he whispered in your ear, brushing your knuckles tenderly.

“For how long? Until we get another bullet in the post?”

Tommy’s throbbing forehead found solace in the warmth of your neck.

“You’ve never been one to run,” you continued, “what’s bothering you? We took a vow that we would share everything.”

He nuzzled his nose deeper into your pulse.

Frustrated, you tried to get up, but he held you firmly against his chest.

“Italians.”

“Italians?”

“Italians sent the black hands.”

You waited in silence for more information, but more did not come.

“Speak to me, Thomas.”

“I don’t want you any more involved than you are.”

“They’ve sent death knocking on our door; how more involved could I be?”

Tommy moved methodically, licking his lips and clearing his throat. He squinted his eyes up at the glaring sun.

“It’s nothing you should be concerned about. I’ll keep us safe.”

“Nothing I should be concerned over, Thomas? Just how many people are we at war with?”

He didn’t answer, so you turned your head away from him. Charles and Ruby had since settled by a patch of flowers. Charles was crouched over, helping his sister gather all the yellow flowers for her yellow dress.

The tension broke the surface then.

“Why are you still fighting, Tom? Is this,” you nod to your children and breathe in the fresh air, “not enough?”

You pictured Arrow House and its lavish garden, one to compete with all the wealthy families down the lane. You thought of Arthur, John, Polly, Ada, and all his family that lived to see his success. Everything, from the thoroughbreds in the stable to the fancy cars. The money itself was a testimony to his drive. What more could the gangster of Birmingham want when he already had everything?

You had gone and worked yourself up now because the world seemed blurrier than before.

Tommy, still on his guard, guided your chin to your shoulder so he could kiss the tears away. “It is enough.”

“Then make it enough. You’re respectable now, so stop the fighting.” Your voice broke at the end.

He hung his forehead on your shoulder. Like a flower sheltered away from the sun, Tommy wilted when he was away from his business. Usually, you were a strong enough light to keep him going, but whatever business he had gotten himself into was poisoning him, and ever the addicted flower, he kept running out to the fields, continuing to drink in the sunlight until it was too much and turned his leaves brow. Because business was what occupied his mind day and night, he was unable to turn the cogs of the engine off and let the air out of the tires.

A hand brushes your hair away to kiss the spot beneath your ear, airing out the destructive thoughts.

God, you loved him anyway. An overpowering feeling that ruled over calculating minds like Tommy’s and faint hearts like yours. You were no better than him—both addicted to a little sunlight.

-

The framed photographs on the wall shook as your third-eldest slammed the door to her room closed.

“I hate you!” She cried from the other side.

Your husband, Tommy, sighed to the ceiling, then stalked past you to his study, no longer interested in anything your daughter had to say. They had been at it for the last ten minutes arguing over some boy she was seeing, and your ears were just about ringing having witnessed it from the sidelines. You were left there in the hallway, an unwilling participant in the unspoken feud between father and daughter, and you understood that whoever you went to console would take it that you were siding with them, even though you just wanted to keep your family together.

Going to your daughter was the instinctive answer, but you knew she needed time to cool off. Tommy was the only reasonable choice.

You knocked on the door to his office before letting yourself in.

“Come to lick my wounds, eh?” He mused while smoking a cigarette.

Your lips wormed into a thin line. “This needs to stop, Tom.”

“Yeah,” he said, tapping the ash into his tray, “it will fucking stop.” He points with his cigarette, “I’ll make it fucking stop.”

You sighed. “You know that’s not what I meant.”

The chair screeched as he stood. “I’m her father, and if I say she can’t see that boy, she can’t. It’s only a childish fling; she’ll get over it.”

He poured a whiskey and downed it by the time you walked around his desk so that you were face-to-face with him.

“They’re in love, Tommy.”

“Yeah?” He scoffed. “Well, that can be undone.”

You held his glare, a challenge lighting in your own. “So easily, you think?”

He paused mid-drag, catching onto the underlying meaning in your words. “No,” he said, setting the cigarette down in the ash tray and grabbing your shoulders. “Don’t act like that.”

“Act like what?”

“Like you’re threatening our love over some fucking boy that’s charmed our daughter. They’re too young.”

“He’s sweet.”

“Oh, sweet and nice, I’m sure. But he’ll have no place in this house.”

“Why?”

“Why? Because I fucking said so!” He spat.

“Don’t yell at me.”

“Or what? You’ll leave me?” He huffed in amusement. “You won't; you love me too much.”

“You’re so certain?”

He paused for a moment and stared at you as if he couldn’t believe what you had said.

“Yeah, because we still fuck like two people who love each other, eh? And you’ve not told me no before, so if the day comes and your body no longer wants mine, then I’ll be worried. But until then, don’t test me with empty threats." His face hardened.

He knew you like the back of his hand. All bark, no bite. You loved him inexplicably, even after all these years, gray hairs and all. His face, body, and soul nourished you until you were satiated and full. And even if his eyebrows furrowed at times, you were willing to bet that it was for aesthetic, a shapely shadow gathered over the years from being the stoic leader the Peaky Blinders and Shelby family needed. How could you fault him for it?

Because, at the end of the day, you were a team. Even if he played the role of an overprotective father a bit too convincingly, he only ever wanted what was good for your daughter. Everything he worked for, ultimately, was for his family. A family man. And that came with its virtues and vices because, despite what Tommy thought, he wasn’t perfect; no one was.

Shrinking under his hands, you breathed a sigh and appeased him. “End this feud, Tom. Find peace with her. I don’t care what you do, but by the end of it, I expect to be able to sit down at the dinner table without having to beg my husband and daughter to look up from their plates.” You stroked his hands, which held your shoulders, and finally blinked up at him.

A haze of softness swept across his glare and melted the glaciers to a thin sheen of blue. The seams of exhaustion frayed one by one through his muscles. He nodded, licked his lips, and leaned down for a kiss of absolution. Not entirely prepared to surrender, you tilted your head so that he found the corner of your mouth instead.

“It will be done, love.” He brushed the apples of your cheeks tenderly. “And by tonight,” his voice lowered, “I promise you’ll forget all about it.”

Only then did you accept his kiss, eager to put the grievance to rest. Tommy, on the other hand, had other plans and stepped forward so that you were pinned between his desk and hips. He quickly began to gather your skirts above your waist, but you pulled away just as fast at the hiss of air against your exposed skin. An unsolicited gasp escaped his mouth when your knee brushed him there, and you sucked your bottom lip between your teeth, looking deep into his eyes.

“Promise me you won’t break her heart. She might not be old enough now, but I don’t want you to put her off love forever,” you caressed his jaw.

“No,” he agreed, breathier than usual, flexing the hands that were still caught up in the fabric of your skirt.

“And our Daisy may never say it, but I know she loves you dearly. So please, Tom, be gentle with her. I don’t want her to grow up despising you. Tell her you love her, kiss her forehead, hug her.”

He deflated, and you watched him swallow his pride. Cogs turned against the sweltering lust, threatening to deplete the clever thoughts in that powerful head of his in favor of your careful touch. Please, please, please, you begged without uttering a word; agree with me on this, Tom.

Tommy leaned back down to rest his forehead on yours; his face gave nothing away. You were sure he had found something to say, which would make you feel like a fool for asking. However, when you embraced those faint subtleties of emotion flickering across his face like candlelight, so miniscule you might blink and miss it, you found nothing of the sort to suggest any hostile nature. Because Tommy loved you.

“I will.”

-

A/N: Tried doing a long one shot, what does everyone think? Yay or nay? Comment to be added to the tag list!

Taglist: @maliceofwonderland , @fairytale07 , @goblinjnr , @ilovepeoplesdads , @multidimensionalslut

#tommy shelby x reader #tommy shelby #thomas shelby #cillian murphy #thomas shelby x reader #cillian murphy x reader #tommy shelby x you #thomas shelby x you #tommy shelby smut #thomas shelby smut #tommy shelby fanfic #thomas shelby imagine #tommy shelby imagine #peaky blinders #peaky blinders x reader #peaky blinders imagine #peaky blinders fanfic #peaky blinders fanfiction #tommy shelby fanfiction #thomas shelby fanfic #cillian murphy fanfiction #cillian x reader #cillian x fem!reader

[assassinsblade]

Forget Me Not | 4

You confuse healing with hurting others; Azriel's ready to let you hurt him anyway.

WC: 3.5k

Warnings: TW: SA!!! Please do not read if this is triggering for you. Angst, feelings, my poor boy Azriel is sad.

a/n: I'm so thankful for all the support and kind comments for this story! There will still be at least 2 more parts. Sorry for this one being a bit shorter.

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 5

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

Azriel hadn't interacted with you much since lending you his dagger.

He was always there, sure, but he seemed to be letting you lead wherever your friendship would go. He did not try to force you into speaking with him or being around him, but you did notice his nervous energy when you were around.

When you'd pass him in the House of Wind, run into one another in the library, or sit across from each other at dinner, you couldn't help but study how he'd changed. While he had been quiet before, he had always held a certain peaceful arrogance about him. Now, his silence seemed more insecure and anxious, as if he was not quite sure of himself in his own place of residence.

You hadn't had anyone stay the night with you since that night with Azriel either.

You noticed that he kept his bedroom light on every night, though. You weren't sure if he did this to pretend he was still awake, so you'd be less embarrassed if you needed to wake him, or if he did this to reassure you someone was aware and ready in the house during a time of the night you felt more vulnerable. Either way, you tried not to let it effect you too much.

Some nights when noticing the change between Azriel and yourself got too much, you would cry until your eyes became swollen and burned with exhaustion, finally allowing you to fall asleep. Other nights, every noise in the house caused your anxiety to skyrocket, and you found yourself heading to the library to read as a distraction, knowing you would have to try to rest the following night instead.

Nightmares came every now and then. You had mentioned this to Rhys, assuming that he might have experienced something similar with how much he had gone through, and he suggested a sleeping tonic from Madja. You took it nightly, and it seemed to help the majority of the time.

It had been two months since that night, and while your progress was no where near finished, and your trauma would forever be a part of you, you felt less fragile than you did in those previous weeks. You had started showing up to group events again with the whole inner circle, laughing had become more of a consistent part of your days with the help of Cassian and Mor, and the House had even helped prepare food you could keep down until your appetite was back to normal.

The only thing that didn't seem to be getting any better was your relationship with Azriel.

He tried to help in his own way. He left books out in inconspicuous locations that he thought you would like. There would be a box of your favorite pastries on the kitchen counter in the morning, as if anyone else in the household liked their tart flavor. Sometimes you would even notice shadows slinking into your room at night, tugging at the window locks and blinds to ensure everything was secure.

And you knew he wasn’t trying to be noticeable with these things. In fact, it seemed like he was doing everything in his power to not draw attention to himself. He would instead scan through the pages of the books to see if you had made any notes, check the pastry boxes to make sure you had eaten something, or have his shadows close the window when the cold air was beginning to wake you up.

The fact that it all helped only made you angrier.

The inner circle noticed your frustration around the shadowsinger as well, especially during Winter Solstice celebrations.

You had felt good enough to join the rest of the group at the River House, but it was obvious enough how tense things were between you and Azriel:

Friends exchanged gifts, hugs, and laughter, but Azriel kept to himself the entirety of the night, only occasionally sending one of his family members a small smile or taking a sip of his drink.

He had gotten everyone very thoughtful gifts, and he seemed genuinely touched at the presents he received in return. You tried not to flinch at the gardening book he had gotten Elain or the decorated sheath she had gotten him for one of his daggers.

Azriel and Elain didn't speak much that night though, as much as you tried not to notice. You really did try not to notice Azriel so much, but it was as if your gaze was being pulled to him by some unknown force, demanding that you acknowledge that he was here, close to your side, his attention all on you.

And you felt that attention more than ever when Feyre handed you a box wrapped in midnight blue, the wrapping paper glinting from where you sat by the fire.

Swallowing, you refused to look up at Azriel, knowing it would only make the feeling in your stomach worse.

You heard Rhys making conversation in the background, trying to ease the tension and take some attention away from yours and Azriel's exchange.

The shadowsinger also tried to give you privacy, chiming in here and there to add to Rhys’ conversation, but you still felt his eyes keep moving to you.

Fingers fumbled with unwrapping and pulling apart the box before finally revealing what lay beneath.

Underneath a layer of tissue paper sat a delicate piece of glass about the size of a piece of paper. It was transparent, but somehow held some light and color at certain angles, adding a sort of whimsical iridescence to it. It was stunning, and your careful fingers felt unworthy of holding such an awe-inspiring thing. Your only problem was you had no idea what it actually was.

Azriel cleared his throat, and you couldn't stop your eyes from floating to his.

"It's a translator." He fidgeted from the chair he sat in. "From the Day Court. If you place it on a page of writing, it will translate the text to whatever language you request. I thought you might want to expand some of the books you have access to."

Your heart pounded in your chest. He knew you loved reading. He knew you loved studying. He knew you and had gotten you a gift that made you so excited you had to actively scold yourself to loosen your grip on the glass.

His hazel eyes were filled with so much emotion as he tried to gauge your reaction, you felt something physically crack in your chest.

You tried to will your tears down.

"Thank you," you whispered, unable to make your voice louder. Azriel accepted it all the same, giving you a small nod before clasping his hands together and averting his gaze back to Rhys.

You hadn't gotten anything for Azriel.

You didn't have much to give him anymore. He knew that, despite the sadness that surrounded him that night.

Maybe it was because you would have gotten him a solstice gift before. Not only would you have picked something out months in advance, you would have teased him about it, gone giddy with excitement over the surprise.

After what happened, there hadn’t been a gift in that pile addressed to him from you, and it only served to show the damage that had been done to your friendship.

You tried not to let what he had done damage you further, continuing to build up your walls both physically and emotionally.

Cassian’s training was great for the body and mind, and you put all of your focus into that.

Training had allowed for you to channel some of the agony harbored in your chest into exercise. Every night around 9pm you would meet the general up in the training ring, going over anything from conditioning and weight lifting to actual battle tactics like sword training and hand-to-hand combat.

You knew that Azriel normally came up to train late at night, but it seemed like he pushed his time later in order to give Cassian and you some privacy. You tried not to think about how little of sleep he must be getting if he wasn't coming up to train until midnight. It wasn't your problem.

At first, you were scared both intrusive thoughts and your body's memory would hinder your sessions. You had been hesitant and nervous, but Cassian had quickly made you feel at ease. You knew he had trained Gwyn, and Cassian was a trusted friend, so you shouldn't have been surprised when the sessions went swimmingly.

Cassian was such a steady presence, someone you knew you could always rely on. He made sure to check in on you every night, casually asking questions that seemed nonchalant enough to not be overbearing or annoying while still showing he cared. That didn't stop him from overstepping at times though.

Hours ago, Cassian had been sparring with you in the training ring, his steps circling your own and hands raised ready to strike. You had followed his movements, trying to remember everything you had been taught while silencing outside noises.

You weren't sure if he had said it to get under your skin, to win the upper hand, or if it was something he had actually been pondering for a while.

When you had taken a step as if to attack, Cassian had eyed the dagger in your hand — Azriel’s dagger —and had bluntly asked, "Do you think you'll ever forgive him?"

You had nearly stumbled in your stance.

The inner circle had been very careful to tiptoe around you and Azriel. They didn't ask about your relationship or where you stood, never tried to force interactions or situations upon the two of you, and you had gotten used to the peace of their feigned ignorance.

You had to shake off the shock of his question before it festered in your chest.

"What?" You had decided to ask instead, buying yourself some time to think.

You didn't know what you were doing with your body anymore, if you were still on physically guard, fighting, or if all of your energy was being put toward guarding your emotions.

"I'm not saying you should," Cassian had quickly amended. "But I am wondering where your head is at."

Only staring at him, your eyebrow arched in challenge. "Should it be somewhere specific?"

Cassian's sigh had been near silent in the large room, and the large warrior seemed to deflate at your answer. "No. Of course not."

"Good," you had only replied, voice hard and final. "Then let's keep going."

Cassian had gone right back to his teasing, difficult self, but he left not too long after that sparring round ended.

That had been hours ago, but you were still there, knives and daggers lined up, throwing them at the boards across from you. Each throw had you huffing, and with your strength depleting, your aim became further and further off through the night.

Your arms were sore and numb, both from throwing the weapons and from sparring with Cassian earlier. But it felt good, knowing your muscles were being used, knowing you were growing stronger, more powerful and less vulnerable.

Sleep should have found you about an hour ago, but you knew you wouldn't be able to get any tonight. Cassian's words flowed nonstop through your head: Do you think you'll ever forgive him?

I don't know Cassian, do you think he'll ever stop being such a fuck-up?

The question made you angry, because this situation was never about him, and you didn't owe Azriel anything.

You knew Azriel was Cassian's brother. You knew everyone wanted your family to be whole again, to stop seeing each other hurting. But you were angry at the expectations placed on you by your friends to offer forgiveness, you were angry at Azriel for being too late in every area of your life, and you were angry at yourself for missing him.

Gods, you wanted to scream, to thrash, to hit yourself until you could force yourself into just minutes of peaceful rest.

Do you think you'll ever forgive him?

Do you think he deserves forgiveness?

You paused, breathing heavily as you thought over your own words and reaction. You knew he was trying, but you also knew some things didn't change. And some people weren't worth getting hurt over again.

Before you could pull the dagger in your hand back and launch it forward toward the wooden board, you noticed the shift in the air.

Shadows danced along the floors, curling and floating around training equipment.

You knew Azriel moved back the time he would come up here to train independently so that you and Cassian could have privacy. You knew that you were technically the one infringing on his claimed time and peace now. That didn't stop the wave of frustration that rolled over you, though.

Azriel's presence mimicked that same wave shoving you under. You were sick of it. Sick of feeling like you couldn't breathe, like you couldn't fight back, like every single inch of your body wouldn't listen to you anymore. You were sick and tired of feeling worthless, like you would never be loved, like you would never be someone's priority. And you were so fucking tired of being sad.

Fire burned within your veins, but it wasn't because of shame or hurt. You were angry again. You had deserved better, and you had gotten left in the dust like a piece of trash. And he thought a pretty present could fix things? Could fix you?

As if the iridescent glass sheet could blur the memory of the male's tongue on your neck, the feeling of his fingers touching where they shouldn't, translating the history written on your body into something more pleasant, more beautiful, like a tale of a hero rescuing the dame and whisking her off to safety.

Before you knew what you were doing, you took the dagger Azriel had lent you and turned with a speed and strength you had never aimed at another person, heaving out a noise of frustration and sending the weapon flying toward Azriel's form just inside the doorway.

You saw red. The red of the male's blood in the alleywall, the red of your own blood, the red of Azriel's blood now beading along his bicep, the red of pure unfiltered rage.

"You are a piece of shit, Azriel. A fucking selfish, cruel, shallow bastard. Do you know that?"

Your chest heaved as you tried to control yourself, your fingers already itching for another weapon. It wasn't enough to see you had nicked his skin. You wanted him to fight back, you wanted to hurt him as badly as he had hurt you.

"Is that why you go after damaged females? In an attempt to find something redeemable about yourself? To act like the hero, like some sort of protector?"

He flinched at the words but otherwise remained unmoving. You hated him for it.

"You're no hero. You're a joke."

You watched as the blow landed, and a wave of adrenaline rushed over you. You deserved this. You had been bleeding for months, crawling up the well of your depression until your fingertips were raw and worn, and these attacks against him felt like a hand reaching down from the heavens, like an extra surge of energy to keep yourself going. You didn't want to be the one bleeding, it was someone else's time to bleed for once.

A step toward him, but he didn't move.

"Do you know what the priestesses tell me?"

He blinked, swallowing harshly.

"They say it's not my fault, what happened to me." You shrugged, letting out a bitter chuckle. "I guess they are partially right. Because it's your fault too. And the male's. But I'm not completely blameless here. I mean what in the Cauldron's name was I thinking, putting my trust in you?"

That got him. Eyes squeezed shut suddenly, eyebrows furrowing as if he had actually been stabbed. Good.

"After all," you continued, beginning to pace around the training area, languidly taking small steps as if you were telling your own tale. "How many of those close to you have you let down before? Mor, Rhys, Gwyn, Elain, your mother... I really should have expected to get hurt because of you."

You could see wetness on his cheeks, but you still did not back down. And he did not move from his spot, his hazel eyes not even hardening at the onslaught.

You'd just have to go harder.

"Sometimes in my nightmares, your hands are the ones hurting me in that alley. I can feel your scars as you pin me to the wall, as I'm violated." You let out a humorless laugh. "I think my mind keeps trying to tell me that's all you're good for: inflicting damage."

A drop of blood from his bicep fell to the floor in a perfect circle.

You stopped your pacing, only about fifteen feet in front of him, and dropped your hands to your side. With your head held tall, you looked him directly in his eyes, pausing to memorize the broken look of him.

His chest was hardly rising and falling. He stood completely and utterly still. Hazel eyes on your own, jaw clenched, cheeks wet.

He was a beautifully broken portrait. And you had just torn him to shreds.

Summoning the rest of your courage, you spit out the thought that had been tormenting you, curling its way around your heart until you felt it would be strangled.

A thought, and a promise.

"You may have thought me worthy of being forgotten, but I will make sure you never forget what you have done to me."

Breaking eye contact, you walked past him out of the training ring, refusing to turn back. If you thought you heard a wounded noise travel softly from his lips, you ignored it.

Maybe you were a bad person, maybe deep down you were a sadistic, cruel being, but saying those words finally lifted something from your chest. Air came easier, and some part of you felt vindicated after unleashing yourself, despite the shaking that immediately overcame you in your retreat.

You might have been confused. Your chest might have been swarming with overwhelming, conflicting emotions and adrenaline. You were filled with so much love and hate, so much yearning and anger, but you at least felt like you had a release, the swirling poison in your chest no longer sitting so close to your heart.

Do you think you'll ever forgive him?

It was cathartic. The sharp words, watching them pierce him down to his core, seeing as he cried over what you'd become. And for once, as you let the cool breeze wash over your overworked muscles, you felt tears build in your eyes not from sadness but from relief.

Like a fire burnt out, you dragged your weary body back to the House of Wind, barely making it to your bed before collapsing.

You imagined Azriel standing where you left him, bleeding from where you had slashed him. He hadn't even said a word — he had just let you tear him to pieces.

Was it his own way to punish himself? Was this about him all over again?

Do you think you'll ever forgive him?

Maybe if you knew what was coming in the days following, you would have said yes. Maybe you would have wanted to be around him more, to actually try, instead of pushing him away. Maybe you would have realized that you weren’t just punishing him but yourself as well.

But you didn’t know what was coming. So you pushed the image of his wounded expression, the way he had physically flinched at your words, away from your mind, closed your eyes, and went to sleep.

If you dreamt about his scarred hands scooping you up in that alleyway, bringing you close to his chest and keeping you safe, you'd never admit it.

#azriel x reader #azriel angst #acotar #acotar x reader #acotar fic #azriel x you

[tropes-and-tales]

Dyin' for a Taste

Day 11:  Face Sitting (Johnny "Soap" MacTavish x F!Reader)

(For the 2023 Kinktober event that I created on my own because I am boring and basic and am trying to keep it simple this year...found here!) 

CW:  Idiots in love; pining; smut (oral, f!receiving); 18+ only.

Word Count:  4096

AN:  This was requested by an anonymous person!

AN2: When I say this is not edited, please know it is NOT EDITED. Full of typos and sloppy typing. Tropes is a fat-fingered old crone.

It starts with a joke.

The 141 is on a covert ops in the mountains.  It’s cold—the sort of cold that burns, that makes the bones ache.  You’re posted up in a perch, your sniper’s rifle at the ready if shit goes south.  The rest of the team is in the square below, waiting for the drop.

“My bollacks are gonna freeze off,” Soap complains over the comms, and you snort at the whining tone in his soft Scottish brogue. 

“Shoulda dressed for the weather,” you reply.  “Ghost probably has a spare balaclava.”

“And cover this handsome face?”

“Won’t be so handsome when your nose turns black from frostbite.”

You hear the tsch noise he makes over the comms, the very Soap, very Scottish noise of dismissal. 

“You’ll have to sit on my face then, hen, and warm me back up,” he says.

You’re rarely stunned into silence—you and the guys are always making off-color jokes—but when you open your mouth to reply, you only gape wordlessly.  The silence over the comms grows, expands, until Gaz—fucking Gaz—chimes in.

“I think she’s into the idea, bruv.”

And you can’t respond to that fast enough either, which leaves another long beat of silence over the comms, which likely seems like enough of an answer.

-----

The mission goes smoothly.  The team splits up as planned to avoid drawing attention.  You don’t see Soap again until a few days later when you regroup at HQ.

You think, perhaps, that he’s forgotten.  Maybe that’d be better.  You and Soap get along well, and sometimes he flirts with you, but he flirts with everyone.  It means nothing. 

And yet…

And yet, it’s Soap.  You might be able to lie to others, but you can’t lie to yourself:  you’ve spent many a lonely night with your thoughts drifting to him.  Turning him over and over in your mind. 

Soap MacTavish.  Handsome, almost unbearably so.  He could be a cocky asshole, be the sort of man who knows he’s hot and be insufferable about it, but he’s gregarious.  Friendly.  He’s a happy-go-lucky sort of man—or as much as someone in the One-Four-One can be.

-----

“Been avoiding me.”

It’s a statement, not a question.  Soap corners you in the mess hall, his blue eyes peering at you without guile.  He looks almost concerned.

“I haven’t,” you reply.  You try to shift past him, but he puts a hand out against the doorway, bars you with his arm.

“You have.”  He peers at you closer, his blue eyes somber.  “What’s wrong?”

“Why would anything be wrong?”

You thought, perhaps, that he’d forgotten…but those somber eyes crinkle at the corners as he smiles, then smooth out as he schools his expression.

“Maybe you think my offer was wrong,” he says.

“I never said that.”  You duck under his arm, but he lays his hand on your shoulder and stills you again.

“You’ve never said anything about it.”  You don’t look at him, but you hear his gentle snort of laughter.  “Your silence is deafening.”

You feel your face start to heat up because he’s not wrong.  Too much time has passed now to address that moment in the mountains.  You should have said something then, spat out some rejoinder to signal that it meant nothing to you, that it was just another dumb joke between you and Soap.  But something about that dumb joke conjures up the mental image of you and Soap, and your face burns in embarrassment.

So you duck from his light grip on your shoulder and it makes him laugh again, then call out to your retreating form, “the offer still stands, hen.”

-----

A month passes, then another.  You get leave for a few weeks and go someplace warm, a beach with golden sand and soft breezes where you can relax and forget the horrors of what you see every day.

Then you’re back on base, then another mission.  Over and over, the same routine.

Through it all:  Soap MacTavish, the team’s Golden Retriever.  Always with an easy grin on his handsome face, a laugh, a joke.  He teases Ghost, he does a passable impression of Captain Price.  He gives Gaz a hard time about their rival rugby teams, but it’s always good-natured. 

He jokes with you, but that joke—the one about sitting on his face—becomes just a joke between the two of you.  You don’t know if the other men have forgotten it, but Soap only brings it up when you’re alone now.

At the barracks, in the rec room, he’s sprawled out on the couch and half-dozing, half-watching a rugby match.  When you walk past, he notices, sits up.  Beckons you over, tells you to have a seat…then thoughtfully strokes his face with that damned smirk and comically waggling eyebrows.

“You’re a jackass,” you call out as you leave the room, but by now, it makes you laugh…and it lightly stokes that ever-burning flame low in your belly.

-----

Another time, he sidles up to you at the range as you study your targets with their tight formation of bullet holes.  He points out one shot, high in the corner of the paper, off of the concentric circles of the bullseye.

“Missed one,” he says.

You scoff.  “One out of….many.”

He matches your scoff with one of his own.  “Might be losing your edge.”

“I’m not.”  You know he’s winding you up, but that missed shot galls you. 

“Maybe you’re stressed out.”

You set the target down on the wooden railing.  “Maybe you’re stressing me out, MacTavish.”

It’s the wrong thing to say.  His blue eyes light up in glee, and he only gets out the first part of his retort—You know what’s good for de-stressing—before you drop to one knee and start disassembling your sniper rifle, ducking your head and hiding your burning cheeks from him.

“…nothing wrong with it,” he finishes as you shut the rifle’s case, and you realize you’ve missed part of what he’s said.

“There isn’t,” you agree.  You stand up and lean a bit on the courage that sees you through each mission.  You look him square in the eye and add, “but you’re just flirting.”

He gazes back at you, a soft smile on his face, only a little teasing.  “Not just flirting.”

“Sure.”  You roll your eyes.

He makes his Soap-branded tsch sound, then he loops his arm around your shoulders to pull you in close.  He smells like…well, he smells like soap, clean with a hint of something herbal.  It’s nothing he hasn’t done a hundred times—in safe houses after a mission, walking out of a bar on a night out with the team—that companionable way he pulls you against him.

“It makes me sad when you don’t believe me, hen,” he chuckles, and it’s low, right by your ear, his warm breath fanning over you. 

You’re not sure what spurs your next move.  You’re a natural-born sniper; you take the measure of everything around you—the curve of the earth, the speed and direction of the wind—before you squeeze your trigger.  You’re the same with people, cautious and feeling out every angle of their intentions before you make a move.  But you know Soap, and the question around his joke is the only uncertainty.

Something makes you act without much thought.  Your rifle case in your hand, your other hand tucked in your pocket, and Soap’s arm slung around your shoulders…the moment is crystalized, will be an easy memory to recall in the years to come because this is when everything between the two of you changes.

“You know what?” you ask, and you don’t allow him to hazard a guess.  Instead, you gaze at him levelly, straight into those bright blue eyes of his and add, “alright, let’s do this.”

It’s comical, how the smile drops from his face, how his mouth makes a little “oh” of surprise.  His eyes scan your face, quick, like he’s trying to find the joke, trying to find proof you’re just having a laugh at his expense.

“Bonnie,” he starts to say, and his voice has a rough edge to it.  His voice is missing its usual teasing edge, and he pauses to study you.  You don’t know if he realizes it, but the tip of his tongue darts out, licks against his lower lip, like he’s really thinking of it now that it could be a reality.

“Bonnie, are you just…are ye fer real?”  His voice is lower and his accent gets thicker, and it sets a frisson of heat shimmering through your lower belly.

You refuse to blink.  Refuse to look away.  “I’m for real if you are.”

“I was never joking about that.”

“Then I’m not joking either.”  You swing your rifle case towards the barracks, playing at bravery but willing the fluttery feeling in your stomach to calm.  “So let’s go.”

Soap—gregarious, convivial Soap—says nothing else on the walk back.  He keeps his arm around your shoulders, though, and his hand settles against your bicep, rubs you briskly before gently holding you there, like he’s proving to himself that you’re real, that the moment is really happening.

-----

Your nerve wobbles a little when you get back to quarters.  Soap’s nerves must have a similar wobble, because he turns to you and his usual boyish grin is gone, replaced by a grave expression.

“You dinnae have to do this,” he says, “if you don’t want to.”

Part of you wants to back out, chuck him in the arm and say it was just a joke.  You could still back out.  Soap is flirty and gregarious, but hooking up would irrevocably change your easy relationship with him.  It could change the tenor of the team.  And yet…

…don’t you both face death every day?  Don’t you see the absolute worst of humanity?  Don’t your bodies bear the scars of your hard, unrelenting lives—countless scars, visible and invisible both?  Don’t you all operate in your own bubbles of loneliness, sleeping alone night after night but crowded out by the ghosts you all haul around?

Is it too much to ask for even a moment of connection, of not feeling alone?

You gaze back at him.  Sweet Johnny MacTavish.  Handsome but not vain, smart but not aloof, funny without being cruel about his teasing.  Is there anyone you’d rather be with?

“I want to do this,” you tell him, and there’s no hesitation in your tone.  “If you do.  If you really were just joking around, then no harm, Johnny.”

His somber gaze softens at your use of his real name.  “Wasn’t joking at all.”  Then he opens the door to his quarters and turns to you, invites you in with a sweep of his hand, and when you walk past him, he lays his palm on your lower back to guide you.

-----

In truth, you’ve never actually sat on anyone’s face.  It’s one of those funny sex acts that you joke around about but have never gotten around to, like sixty-nine (always seemed more complicated than necessary) or food-play (always seemed too messy). 

Soap, it turns out, has never actually had his face sat on.

And it’s adorable, how he sheepishly runs his hand through the longer stripe of his short-shorn hair and admits as much.

“Figured it cannae be that complicated though,” he says.  He huffs out a breath, and you realize how nervous he must be, and it gives you courage to take charge.

“Kiss me first.  Then we can figure it out from there.”

The tame command makes his face light up and he murmurs, “yes, ma’am” in his brogue, and then he does as you say.

If Soap MacTavish is generally the team’s Golden Retriever, bouncing around with a wagging tail, he kisses with far more finesse.  He cups your face gently, reverently and leans forward, brushes the lightest of kisses against your lips like he’s testing the waters.  Like he’s waiting for you to pull away, and when you don’t, he kisses you again.

It’s awkward at first, but only because you’re both so tentative.  It’s uncharted territory.  He must be aware that you’re crossing a line in doing this, you think, and he must not care either.  But the awkwardness melts away quickly because Soap is a damned good kisser, skilled in how he moves his mouth against yours, his tongue against yours.  One of his hands stays on your face, cupping you gently and steering you, but the other hand touches your waist, your hip, slides around to squeeze your ass gently before returning to the dip of your waist.

He tastes like something warm and spicy, like cinnamon or nutmeg.  Everything about him is warm, really:  the way he cups your face but runs his thumb over your cheekbone, the way his other hand holds you steady as he kisses you.  And the way he looks at you when he breaks the kiss, the almost-shy way he tugs at the hem of your shirt and asks if he can take it off.

He’s warm too—his body, his skin as you bare it with each article of clothing shed.  You strip each other in tandem, and the sight of him leaves you breathless.  He’s like something carved by a Renaissance sculptor, but when you smooth your palms over the dips and swells of his muscles, you find that he’s warm to the touch, wonderfully so, and a wave of lust almost takes you out at the knees by how much you want to feel his body against yours, under you or on top of you, every inch of you pressed against him.

Soap must feel the same way about you—he touches you just as gently as before, almost reverent, but his goddamned eyes practically shine when he looks at you, then groans out, “fuck, but you’re stunning, hen.”

He maneuvers you both towards the bed, and then he stretches out across it, and this is precisely why your sexual repertoire has always been lacking:  when a brutally handsome man is stretched out in front of you like a damned buffet, your mind singularly focuses on one thing, and you rarely remember that there’s other, more adventuresome things you could do.

You’re already turned on.  Ever since the two of you walked back from the range, you’ve been on a low simmer of lust, and the desire has ratcheted up with each kiss, with each little grumbling groan of Soap’s, with each sweep of his big warm hands along your body.

So you’re already turned on, so why sit on his face when his beautiful cock—perfectly sized for you, the ruddy tip already leaking precum—is also an option?

And Soap is no dummy.  He must guess at your internal battle because he says your name softly, pulls your gaze back to his face where he smiles that brilliant Soap-smile at you.

“Alright then?” he asks.  He pats his upper chest.  “You can sit right here, to start.”

It hits you all at once how intimate this is.  Fucking, hooking up—that’s one thing.  But sitting on your teammate’s face feels like you’re taking a further step into the unknown.  Oral sex, to you, is already more intimate than regular ol’ intercourse, but sitting on his face feels…even more intimate.  There’s a lot of trust on both ends:  he has to trust you not to hurt him, not to put too much weight or force on his face or neck.  And you have to trust him too, since you’re basically smothering him you with your pussy, and many men are precious little babies about eating pussy.

“I could just…”  You trail off and gesture vaguely at where his erection strains and bobs against his belly, and Soap snorts before he replies, “we could do both, hen.”

When you don’t say anything, when you don’t move, he adds, “c’mon, sweet girl.  I’m dyin’ for a taste of ye.”

The accent is unfair, you decide.  The accent is not fighting fair.  Soap’s Scottish brogue is charming in the best of times, but his bedroom version is thicker, at a slightly lower register, and it’s entirely unfair.  It easily dismantles the rest of your meager defenses, so you nod and then kneel on the bed.  But when you start to awkwardly clamor on top of him, he stills you for a beat and taps his mouth, says, “give me a kiss first.”

And the kiss is unfair too because it reminds you that it’s just Soap, one of your dearest teammates, a man who often holds your life in his hands and whose life you hold in your own.  His now-familiar taste of spicy warmth on your tongue, and his lips curving in a smile against yours when he whispers, “climb on up, hen  Don’t keep me waitin’ anymore.”

There’s no sexy way to climb on top of him.  Do you just kneel by his chest and throw a leg over him?  Do you straddle him lower and scoot up?  You split the difference, try to straddle him on his lower chest and scoot up, but then his one arm gets pinned.  Any other man?  It might be a deal-breaker being so clumsy, but Soap laughs underneath you—a genuine belly-laugh full of warmth that makes you giggle too.  He wrangles his arm free, then lays both hands on your hips and guides you the rest of the way.

This is unbearable intimate too, being so exposed to his bright blue-eyed gaze. You probably have tons of issues around previous men who didn’t eat pussy, who were grossed out by it, but Soap’s eyes practically glitter black with how blown his pupils are.  His face rarely hides its emotions very well (he’s a shitty poker player), and there’s no disgust in his expression at all.  There’s only desire, naked and apparent.

“Tell me,” he says, and his voice is a low growl that sends that frisson of heat straight to your core.  “Tell me what is working for you, yeah?  Don’t go quiet on me.”

You nod, and you wish you could think of something cool or funny to say, but Soap lifts his head a little and presses a plush, open-mouthed kiss to the inside of one thigh, then the other, where both are splayed in front of him, and before you can even beat yourself up for failing to think of something cool or funny, his mouth is on you in earnest.

Soap, a damned good kisser.  It translates to this, his skilled tongue and lips licking at you, suckling at you, swirling against you before he breaks up the pattern with an outright kiss, then resumes his routine.  He traces the tip of his tongue around the firm bud of your clit, the perfect amount of pressure before he snakes it lower, lapping at the arousal leaking from your entrance.  He’s unabashed about it, groans against your feverish skin, and you love him in this moment—love that he wasn’t joking after all, love that he had led you here, where you sit perched on him while he feasts on your cunt and seems to genuinely enjoy it as he does. 

Any other position, you’d lean down and kiss him, or pull him to you and kiss him.  Now, as he groans against you again, you reach down and run your fingers through the longer stripe in his hair.  He must like that, because he groans a third time, and his grip on your hips spasms tighter.

You remember what he asked of you, so when he purses his lips and suckles against your clit, you gasp out a startled “oh!” but then add, “fuck, Johnny.  Just like t-that.”

“Good?”  It comes out muffled against you, and he pauses his mouth long enough to gaze up at you with a smile.

“So good.”  You shift your hand, cup his stubbled chin slick with your arousal—a gentle movement that makes his smile soften too. 

“Like when you call me Johnny, hen.”  Now he sounds a little shy, like he’s edging close to something beyond a random hookup with face-sitting.

“Keep using your mouth like that and I’ll call you Johnny all the time,” you tease.

“Deal.”  And then he’s on you again, laving your sensitive folds with his tongue, his bit of stubble raising a warm burn against your inner thighs.  His hands on your hips pull you closer, and he encourages the slow, careful rhythm when you start to actually ride his face—a languid back-and-forth, mindful of his need for oxygen, while he eats your pussy with the fervor of a starving man.

Your orgasm approaches faster than you thought; you thought you might have to fake it, since you rarely come from oral alone.  But there’s something about this position.  You feel powerful in a benign way, in charge, but mindful of the man underneath you.  You run your fingers through his hair and Soap preens at the touch, just as he preens when you pant out praise for him, tell him how good you feel. How good he is making you feel.

He must sense it because his grip tightens on your hips, but his tongue moves faster and focuses solely on your clit—teasing with the tip of his tongue, then laving it with the flat of his tongue, then wrapping his lips around it and sucking.

“F-fuck,” you choke out.  “Johnny…fuck…I’m gonna…” but you don’t finish the sentence, you keen out a garble of nonsense as you come.

The heat in your belly pools over, spills over in a brilliant wash that courses through your veins, into your trembling legs and up through your body, makes your vision shimmer and crackle with sparks.  Your heartbeat, your panting breath are loud in your own ears, and you hear Soap groan but he sounds faraway.  He teases your orgasm, prolongs it by licking against you until you grip his hair tighter and hold his head still while you clumsily dismount, then flop gracelessly onto the bed beside him.

You feel boneless.  You feel heavy, sleepy, like you could sink into the mattress and sleep for days.  You close your eyes and feel the bed shift, and Soap disappears for a moment.  You hear running water—he must be cleaning his face, you think—but then the mattress dips again and he’s curling his warm body around yours, wrapping his arms around you as he pulls you to him, then settles the blanket over both of you.

“Good, yeah?”

You laugh.  “Yeah, that was good.  Especially for someone who’s never done it before.”  A beat.  “Give me a moment to catch my breath and then I can help you out.”

Soap chuckles above you, and you feel him press his lips to your forehead before settling again.  “No need.”

“But I—”

“Already came.”

The gears in your head turn slow when you’re sated from sex.  Coming makes you stupid.  “Huh?  When?”

Another chuckle, another kiss to your head.  “When I was eating you, hen.”

You turn your head and try to peer up at him.  He looks comfortable and sleepy too, content and sated.  “Seriously?”

“Mmm-hmm.”

“Wait, seriously?”

“Told ye I was dyin’ for a taste.”  He shifts a little, pulls you closer to him.  He tugs the blanket more securely around your shoulders.  “If ye want a second round, I’ll need a few minutes.”

You appraise the situation:  the warm scent of Soap, the feel of his naked body pressed to yours, the warm little cocoon he’s created here in his bed.  Of course you want a second round, but you’re sleepy too, and the thought of sleeping with Soap doesn’t seem nearly as terrifying as it might have seemed before he had his mouth on your pussy.

“Or we could sleep,” you offer.

“Sleep,” he agrees.  “Round two tomorrow.”

The doubts from earlier start to surface in your mind, but they seem tiny and inconsequential when you’re wrapped up in Soap’s arms.  You feel sleep tugging at you—he’s already asleep, you think, breathing deep and even against you—so you chance to brush your lips against the bit of him you can reach and whisper good night to him.

But he’s not quite completely asleep yet because he kisses you back, another press of his lips against your head, and he whispers back, “g’night, hen.”

#john soap mactavish #soap mactavish #johnny mactavish #johnny soap mctavish x reader #soap imagine #johnny mactavish x reader #johnny mactavish imagine #soap x reader #call of duty modern warfare #kinktober 2023 #tropes and tales

[f1byjessie]

SUGAR, SPICE, AND EVERYTHING NICE ━━ FA14.

being the wife to a formula one driver is hard, especially when they're far away.

( fernando alonso x wife!reader )

━━ one shot.

When you were ten, you baked with your grandmother for the first time and fell in love. With the flour up to your elbows, an apron two sizes too big looped twice around your waist, and your grandmother's sweet voice crooning along to Sergio Endrigo, she taught you the differences between a teaspoon and a tablespoon, that a pinch sometimes means two, and when it comes to cinnamon you can never have too much.

“My angioletto,” she called you, her little angel, “it doesn’t have to look pretty when it’s done. When I was younger, I made my husband, your nonno, the ugliest cookies you could imagine. But I put my love in it, and he loved me very much, and he ate every single one and for the rest of his years claimed they were the best cookies I ever made for him.”

She’d lifted you onto the stool at the counter, so you could peer down at the mangled mess of cinnamon rolls. “It may look odd on the outside, but it is just as delicious as the others, and you know what? It’s even more special because it was made by my granddaughter.”

She’d wrapped you up in her arms then, pressing a kiss to your forehead and laughing loudly and warmly when you tried to squirm out of her arms with a giggle of your own.

“One day, my angioletto, you will find someone who loves you with their entire heart, and it won’t matter how pretty your baking is, because they will eat it, and to them it will taste like heaven.” She’d pulled apart the cinnamon roll, looked you in the eye, and smiled— “Until that someone gets here, I will stand in.”

You ate the whole pan together, and neither of you cared that it ruined your appetite for supper or gave you a stomach ache a little while later.

She’d driven you home that night after the sun had set, and when you got to the little shop on the corner of the market square, a little storefront overgrown with ivy, she’d slowed to a cruise and pointed out where the old sign used to be— where there was just an off-color splotch where the walls around it had been bleached by the sun.

She had regaled you with another story of her time as a girl in the kitchen baking bread with the owner, as she did every morning before school in exchange for a few dollars a month, and then she told you, as she always did, that one day she’d buy it for herself and turn it back into the best bakery Italy had ever seen.

When you were twenty— a law school dropout, struggling to find your place in a world that didn’t seem to have any room for you— you bought the small shop on the corner of the market square, turned it into a bakery, and named it after your grandmother.

It was all on a whim, a result of what you're pretty sure was some quarter-life crisis brought on by feeling as lost as you were. Still, you were living out the lingering ghost of a pipe dream from your teenage years that your father's harsh words and mother's disapproval had shattered to pieces, and following in the footsteps of the woman who inspired your passion for creation.

You’re nearly thirty now, and you still don’t regret buying the bakery. It’s your home away from home now— your home when your heart is halfway around the world and waking up as you go to bed. You love what you do, and you feel grateful that you’ve lucked out in being able to spend your days doing something that makes you so genuinely happy.

But that doesn’t mean that every day is easy.

Today is one of those hard days. Valentine’s Day is just a week away which means orders are coming in like crazy, and on top of the hecticness it’s also the thirteenth anniversary of your grandmother’s passing. Even though you’ve made it these thirteen years without her, the reminder of her legacy— her dream, which you now live for her— is no easier to deal with now than it was all those years ago when you’d just lost her.

The smell of fresh bread from the kitchen and the deep lull of Sergio Endrigo over the bakery’s speakers do nothing but remind you of her and the afternoons you spent in her kitchen, kneading dough and icing cookies. You feel like a little girl again, laughing over old stories of your mother and flushing bright red when she’d bump her hip against yours and ask if there were any boys at school that had caught your eye.

You’d give anything to hear her talk about her days at the bakery one more time, have her guide you through another recipe, or listen to her sing along to old Italian classics.

“Are you okay, Y/N?” Beatrice asks. She’s a young American woman you met a few years back when she was studying abroad. She hadn’t known much Italian back then, and you were the first person she’d met who could speak English, so she’d asked you for directions to the nearest bus station and you had walked her there to make sure she wouldn’t get lost, which had led to you both talking, trading contact information, and eventually you offering her a job at the bakery when she announced to you months later after continued talking that she’d be staying for the foreseeable future.

You wipe your hands against your apron and offer her a smile. It doesn’t come as easily as it normally does, and you feel like it shows. “Just being a bit nostalgic today,” you admit, turning your gaze to the picture of your grandmother that hangs on the wall across from the display case.

There are other pictures hung up with her— you in front of the bakery on the day you bought it, the bakery back when your grandmother still worked there nearly sixty years ago, you and your husband the day you got married, and Beatrice with her three dogs to list a few, all things and places and people you love and want to remember.

“My grandmother, who I named this place after, have I ever told you about her?”

Beatrice hums, thinking back to the many conversations you have both shared you imagine. As she does so, she reaches for a cloth to start wiping down the front of the display case. “I don’t think so,” she finally answers, rounding the counter to the glass front. “I knew the bakery was named after her, and that she taught you to bake, but not much else. You don’t really talk about her much.”

You frown, “I guess I don’t.”

“But it’s okay,” Beatrice adds quickly. “I know family can be a touchy topic. If you’d rather not talk about her, I understand. I’m not very fond of talking about my brother, to be honest.”

The only time Beatrice does talk about her brother is when she’s drunk, which she usually tends to be when the two of you sit down over a bottle of wine and gossip about the happenings of your lives. You’ve heard plenty of stories about him, and thinking back to the most recent one in particular startles a laugh out of you.

Beatrice seems relieved when you glance back over to her with a soft smile.

“My grandmother was the greatest woman I ever knew,” you start. “Do you mind if I talk about her?”

Your employee— your friend— smiles gently at you and continues polishing away the smudges on the display case. “I would love it if you talked about her.

“She used to call me her little angel…”

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yourusername i’ll leave a piece just for you, nonna.

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user that looks delicious!!

user it’s actually my dream to visit y/n’s bakery 😍

↳ user no cuz literally same, idk anyone else who makes smth as simple as bread look so amazing

↳ user it’s like how irl some foods don’t look that good but somehow in cartoons they make it look like it’s the most appetizing thing in the entire world i would actually cut off my own arm and leg just to get to try a single bite

user così carino!! ❤️❤️

user how is it possible to make food look heavenly 😳

user every time she posts food it makes me want to marry a husband that can bake bc there’s no way i could ever do this myself but i do in fact want to live a life like this so very badly

↳ user FELT THIS OMG

user what a beautiful way to remember someone 🫶

user she’s gorgeous aND SHE CAN BAKE???

↳ user she’s really the most wag of all wags 😩

↳ user fell down a rabbit hole of wag interactions throughout the years and y/n’s introduction into the group is so iconic bc she baked them all cookies and brought them when she first met them all

↳ user i read that in an interview that she knows all their favourites and tries to make them all throughout the season when she goes to races

↳ user she’s actually such a sweetheart irl too, i visited the bakery before i ever knew who she was or what f1 is and if i hadn’t already seen that ring on her finger i would’ve shot my shot no joke 😔😔

↳ user what’s alonso’s secret??? where can i find me a wifey like that???

user this is gorgeous

user using food to celebrate a loved one is one of the most loving things a person can do in my opinion. so much love goes into food, but especially baked goods which take time and patience and practice. this is a really touching and beautiful way to honor someone, and i hope she’s watching down on you and thinking the same thing ❤️

↳ user didn’t think i was gonna be crying today but here we are ig 😭

fernandoalo_oficial mi vida, she would be so proud of you 💛

↳ yourusername i hope so, i am who i am because of her 💛

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yourusername arrivederci 💛

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fernandoalo_oficial and may it be soon, mi vida 💛

user obsessed with the way fernando is obsessed with his wife

↳ user the fact that he calls her mi vida every time he addresses her has me walking into oncoming traffic 🙃

↳ user “my life” in spanish 😭😭 i literally fucking can’t when is it my turn to get a man that loves and cherishes me like this

↳ user honestly i think it’s just time to accept we’ll be alone forever cuz if he don’t treat me the way fernando treats his wife then i don’t want him

user for the ppl asking, arrivederci means until we meet again in italian, it’s a pretty common way to say goodbye in italy

↳ user AND FERNANDO SAID AND MAY IT BE SOON OH I AM ILL

user when will he return from the war…

↳ user it’s only february the season hasn’t even started yet so why isn’t he with her??

↳ user aston martin’s hq is in the uk and fernando has to be there for the car reveal, testing/sims, training, promo content, etc. it’s the logistical pr side of formula 1 that makes the season start a lot earlier than what ppl might think

↳ user AND OVER VALENTINE’S DAY TOO??? 😭😭😭😭

user mama y papa

user i want to grow old with someone and have pictures of our vacations to look back on and remember and i don’t think that’s too much to ask for

user she’s posting like he’s dead or smth 💀

↳ user i mean i would be too if my husband was missing valentines day bc of work tbf 🤷‍♀️

user i can’t believe fernando alonso bagged a baddie who ain’t even 30 yet

↳ user i can have you SEEN fernando alonso?? 👀👀👀

↳ user have you SEEN y/n?? 👀👀👀

↳ user two baddies bagged each other guys there’s not a lot to try and comprehend

Fernando being gone has never really mattered to you much. You miss him, of course. He’s your husband and ideally, you would be able to travel the world with him on a whim without needing to worry about who’s in charge of the bakery, but despite how perfect your life seems with Fernando by your side, there are a lot of things that don’t go according to plan and Fernando’s hectic work schedule is one of them.

The constant traveling across the season is exhausting for both of you, even though you’re not the one doing the majority of it. You attend his races when you can— usually when Beatrice forces you to, which is more and more recently as of late, with the logic that you should get the chance to see the world while you’re still young and while Fernando is still racing— but even when you’re home in Naples, the worry that you feel for Fernando as he flies around the world and races in a dangerous car takes its toll.

You wouldn’t even think of ever asking him to give it up, but not being by his side is hard and you cannot afford— for the sake of the bakery— to follow him wherever his sport takes him. So for now, you will always worry and stress about the toll it all takes on him as well.

You honestly hadn’t given much thought that he’d be missing Valentine’s Day this year, but it occurs to you now as you scroll through the comments on your post.

It’s by far the first time he’ll be gone for the holiday, but something about this year just feels different. Maybe it’s the stress of the extra workload you’ve taken on at the bakery to make up for the extra orders this year and the employees that have had to call out, or maybe the anniversary of your grandmother’s passing is hitting you harder this time than it has in the past, but whatever it is, the idea of Fernando not being here to celebrate with you has your eyes filling with tears as you sit curled up in bed.

Alone.

As you have been for the last few weeks now.

Fernando is in Silverstone, preparing for the launch of the new car and getting back into the swing of things before the new season starts, and this is part of the job you understand. You’ve been his wife for many years now. The racing may start in March, but the real season begins much sooner, and to a certain degree it never truly ends.

There’s always a push to be staying in shape, eating healthy, and staying up to date with all the up-and-coming news. Fernando has worked hard to try and find the middle ground, to enjoy his break while he has it, and take a step back from the Formula One world if only to de-stress from the sport’s particular brand of pressure.

And you’ve worked hard to accept that he will always be thinking like a race car driver.

Nonetheless, though you have enjoyed the interview clips and photographs of him being posted around on social media, and you love even more the pictures your husband’s teammate has been sending you and you alone, you can’t help but want to be selfish. You want to have him with you, in your home, cuddled up beside you instead of 1700 kilometers away in another country.

But that’s the way of things.

You’re about to turn off the lamp and, maybe, cry yourself to sleep while ignoring the very cold and very empty other half of a bed that’s too big for one— a bed you haven’t slept in the middle of since before you ever met Fernando, too used to occupying one side and finding another body on the other— when your phone lights up with an incoming call and his contact image flashes across your screen.

It’s late in Italy, nearing midnight now, and the UK isn’t too far behind. With the strictness of his daily schedule and the importance of a full night of rest, he should already be in bed by now. He should’ve already been in bed hours ago, if you remember correctly from past seasons.

“Fernando?”

“My love,” he greets, soft and sweet and sounding like just hearing you say his name has left him breathless. You can practically hear the smile in his voice. “I am sorry that it’s so late. I hope I did not wake you up, but I am calling because I simply could not bear to fall asleep without hearing you.”

You sniffle, wiping away at the tears in your eyes, but the quiet noise must’ve been enough for him to hear because he makes an inquisitive sound.

“Mi vida,” he calls to you, concern seeping into his words. “What is wrong? Are you okay?”

“Mhm,” you hum back to him, shifting around in bed to face the window and the scenic view that lies beyond. You can see the ocean from your home— the dark water pulling in and pushing out and glittering with the reflected light of the moon, and the boats docked at the marina, still, silent, asleep. The moon’s glow paints the cityscape in an ethereal haze, like something from a fairytale. “I’m okay. Just a bad few days. I miss you, Fernando.”

“I know, my love,” he coos. “But we will be together soon. Do you remember what I told you when I left?”

As if you could possibly forget. The morning he left, a fog had rolled in from the sea and you’d swathed yourself in a shawl to chase away the early, damp chill as you stood on the stoep to see him off.

Fernando had wrapped you up in his arms, an embrace so warm and safe that the feeling had lingered for hours afterward still, and he’d whispered in your ear that he would move mountain and sea to get back to you if you ever needed him.

“But I always need you,” you’d teased. He’d chuckled and pressed a gentle kiss to your lips, a promise, and then pulled you in even closer, tucking your head beneath his chin and letting his fingers run through your hair and comb through the remaining bedhead tangles.

You would similarly move earth and sky to be with him again now, just to feel his arms around you, or in the bed beside you.

“I meant what I said,” he says over the phone, drawing your attention back.

You hum again, “I know. But sweetheart, you have a job to do. It’s a very important job, too.” You curl the blankets around you tighter. “Pay no mind to my musings, okay? It’s just been a rocky start. The bakery has lots of orders to get through for Valentine’s Day, and I am short-staffed now.”

“What has happened?”

“What hasn’t?” You joke, heaving a sigh. “Rodrigo broke his hand in a biking accident this past Sunday, and the doctor says he’ll be out for a month at least. I can have him work the register and do minor cleaning chores, but we really need him in the kitchen because Andrea hasn’t yet been trained to use the equipment. I am trying to have Beatrice help with that, but it will take time we don’t have. On top of that, Samuel’s wife is having her baby so he has taken paternity leave, and Gemma has gone back to France for her mother’s birthday.”

Fernando makes a noise of understanding. “You are so stressed, mi vida. I wish there was more I could do. I am sorry.”

“Don’t apologize. You have no reason to. In fact, I should be thanking you because I’m feeling so much better just hearing your voice,” you answer. Feeling the tears dissipate as your husband’s joyous laughter trickles into your ear from the phone’s speaker.

“And I am better just hearing yours,” he says. “But I will leave you to sleep now. It’s too late for you to be awake. Te amo, mi esposa.”

“Ti amo, marito mio.”

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lance_stroll i’m really only here to take pictures for his wife

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fernandoalo_oficial the heart is for her only

yourusername and i appreciate you very much for it lancino 🫶

↳ lance_stroll at least someone cares about the work i put in 😔

astonmartinf1 Breaking News: Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll challenges Aston Martin’s social media admin for their job

↳ lance_stroll thanks but i think i’ll stick to driving fast cars. it’s less stress.

user FERNANDO MAKING FINGER HEARTS FOR HIS WIFE 😭😭😭

user if you look closely you can actually see me about to jump off the roof in that last picture 🫠

↳ user real

user why is the first one so cute??

user lance is really just fernando and y/n’s kid at this point, he’s the disgruntled son who reluctantly takes pictures of his dad to send to his mom, and he complains about it, but he secretly loves doing it

↳ user i mean have you SEEN what y/n does for his birthday each year??

↳ user no????

↳ user she specifically learned how to make bannock and a bunch of other traditionally canadian desserts and baked goods for him

↳ user i bet lance’s trainer hates that lmao 😂😂

↳ user you all are talking about them like y/n isn’t just a few years older than lance himself is 💀

↳ user leave fernando and his controversially young wife alone

↳ user guys?? he’s literally only 42?? y/n is almost in her 30s, it could definitely be worse. at least they’re both well into adulthood

user nobody talk to me for the rest of the day this is all i can think about now

user HE MAKES LANCE TAKE PICTURES TO SEND TO HIS WIFE PLS OH MY DAYS

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fernandoalo_oficial throwback thursday, as they say, except it isn’t thursday and i just wanted a reason to post my beautiful wife. te amo 💛.

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yourusername i love you more mio carissimo 💛

↳ fernandoalo_oficial impossible, i love you the most

user adding “posts me just bc he can” to my list of standards for men

user SCREAMING CRYING SOBBING

user “just wanted a reason to post my beautiful wife” oh my god fernando alonso the man that you are… 😩😩

user guys he’s the blueprint

↳ user she’s so lucky

user WHEN IS IT MY TURN???? CAN I NOT BE HAPPY TOO????

user she’s actually so beautiful omg 😳😳😳

↳ user they’re such a power couple

↳ user super excited for y/n to be back in the paddock this year (fingers crossed it happens more) cuz she’s actually so stunning and her outfits are always very classy and fun to look at

↳ user is there a reason she doesn’t go to many races?? they don’t have kids iirc, so idk why she wouldn’t be able to attend more 🤔

↳ user she owns and runs a small bakery in italy, which means she can’t just travel for 9 months out of the year. she shows up when she’s able to, don’t get me wrong, but it’s definitely less frequently than some of the other wags

user gen imagine being fernando alonso’s wife

↳ user i think i would cease to exist

user cuando es mi turno 😭

Valentine’s Day arrives and with it comes the added stress of knowing you’ll be stuck in the bakery all day helping last-minute patrons sort through pastries and treats for their partners. This in and of itself is not a problem, you’ve always liked helping people and baking is your passion after all, but the idea of rising before the sun and being on your feet until long after it sets is not the most appealing, and even worse, your usual happiness is still overshadowed by the cloud of gloom that’s been following you since last week.

Ever since his first late-night call, Fernando has been good about making sure to ring you in the morning before he heads into the factory, and at night when he leaves. It’s helped, certainly, but nothing ever compares to the real thing and that thought makes you feel guiltier every day that you think it.

He has a job to do, a job that he loves. Neither of you should be forced to give up your passions, and that just means needing to make a few sacrifices every once in a while.

He doesn’t call you that morning, however, and though you hide it behind as much of a cheery grin as you can manage, it stings and you’re disappointed.

But throwing yourself into your work is always something you’ve been good at, so you focus instead on kneading dough, mixing pastry filling, and icing cupcakes.

Beatrice finds you back in the kitchen an hour before the bakery is scheduled to open, and the look on her face tells you she knew it’s where you would be.

“You shouldn’t be working today,” she says in lieu of a greeting.

You shrug, sliding a pan of bread from the oven. “We are too short-staffed for me to not be working today. Plus, what would I do anyway? Sit at home alone pretending that I’m not? At least in the bakery, I can put myself to use and be distracted.”

All she does is sigh.

The morning goes well. There’s a bit of a rush when you first open, the most notable of customers is a disgruntled older gentleman who you consider to be a monthly regular. He explains a long-winded story about his daughter’s boyfriend breaking up with her over text last night, and needing something to help cheer her up. He leaves with a box of cannoli, and an extra loaf of bread you threw in for him on the house.

Near the afternoon is when it starts to pick up, but in a lull between customers just after lunchtime, Beatrice corners you in the back. Her arms are crossed over her chest, her eyebrows are furrowed, and her mouth is set in a line.

“Go home,” she orders.

You huff. “Beatrice, I am the boss. Not you.”

She raises an eyebrow.

“I am not going home! The rush will get busier later this evening and we are short-staffed—”

“Rodrigo’s coming in to work register in—” she checks the watch on her wrist, “—fifteen minutes. I ran Andrea through kitchen duty the other day and I’ll be supervising her the entire time, and Marco and Silvia both said they could pick up a shift. I also have a text from Samuel’s wife saying if we need even more help she would gladly get her husband out of the house if it means he’ll stop hovering over her, and I’m prepared to take her up on that offer should the need arise.”

You blink at her. There’s a reason she’s the one you leave in charge when you travel, but whenever you’re reminded of just how good she is at managing the bakery you’re always left a little shocked. She orchestrated everything in the span of a morning and you didn’t even notice.

“Why do you want me to go home so badly?” You ask her, shoving your hands down into your apron’s pockets. “Nothing is waiting for me there anyway. Even if we weren’t short-handed, I would’ve still been here.”

“You sure about that?” Is all she says before turning on her heel and exiting back into the front of the bakery.

You don’t pretend to understand what she’s talking about as you hang your apron up and head for home. Beatrice shoots you a wink as you wave goodbye, and it feels like some sort of foreshadowing for whatever awaits you.

Nothing, however, looks any different than it had when you left. You park your car in the empty driveway, collect the newspaper from the stoep, and unlock the door.

Your keys and the newspaper are both tossed onto the counter just inside the kitchen as you toe off your shoes. You hang up your jacket on the dining room chair as you make your way into the living room, and then you pause.

There, resting on the couch is a stuffed toy bear and a bouquet of your favorite flowers. In the bear’s arms is a little sign, and the handwriting is already enough to have your eyes filling with tears.

“Fernando?” You call out to the silent house.

You check the ground floor and find no other sign of him, so you take to the stairs and begin the ascent up to the next, continuing to call out the many different pet names you have given to him throughout the years.

You peek into the bedroom, “Mia vita?”

Stood in the center of the room, a big grin on his face, is your husband. Fernando looks mighty proud of himself, a glint in his eyes that tells you he’s had this planned for a while and he’s smug that he’s managed to keep a secret from you. He opens his arms wide when you just continue to stand in the doorway, and like a flip has been switched, you rush into him when a sob of happiness.

He wraps himself around you, and the feeling of his arms holding you so firmly in his embrace is warm and comforting, and everything you had missed in the weeks he was gone. Your face is pressed into the crook of his neck, and the smell of his cologne has you sagging even further against him, sinking as far as you can into his hold.

He presses a kiss to your head and sways the both of you back and forth.

“Mi vida,” he murmurs. “I’m here, my love. I’m here.”

“I didn’t know you were coming home,” you cry against him, voice muffled from where your face is still pressed against him.

He runs a hand through your hair, scratching his nails against your scalp in the way that always calms you down, and hums. You feel it in the vibration of his chest more than you hear it. “I wanted to surprise you after you told me how stressed you were. I told you, no? I would move mountains and seas to be with you whenever you need me.”

“Ti amo,” you whisper against his skin.

“Te amo,” he whispers into your hair.

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yourusername to the luce dei miei occhi, i love you more than life itself 💛

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fernandoalo_oficial mi vida i'll love you in this life and the next, until the very end of time itself 💛

↳ yourusername ti amo mia vita

user LUCE DEI MIEI OCCHI = LIGHT OF MY EYES

↳ user oh my days 🫢

↳ user i’m actually ill that is too cute

user they ARE that couple and they have every right to be

user WAR IS OVER

user i need them to adopt me right tf now it’s not a want it’s a need

user GUYS HE WAS JUST IN SILVERSTONE LIKE A DAY AGO??? FOR THE CAR LAUNCH??? THAT MEANS HE FLEW ALL THE WAY TO ITALY LAST MINUTE JUST TO SEE HIS WIFE FOR VALENTINES DAY

↳ user fernando alonso once again proving why he’s the best husband on the grid

↳ user i’m obsessed with them a totally normal amount

lance_stroll every time i saw him he was talking to someone about how he had plans to surprise his wife, i’m so surprised he didn’t end up ruining the secret somehow

↳ fernandoalo_oficial have more faith in your padre

↳ lance_stroll well i’ve seen my “padre” make the most cartoon heart eyes at a picture of baked goods so i don’t think faith is really gonna cut it. you’re whipped man 🤷‍♂️

↳ yourusername lancino you must put up with so much from this old man

↳ lance_stroll you know what? i really do

━━ tags: @maih23 @urfavnoirette @casperlikej @pear-1206

━━ a/n: this is the longest fic i've ever written, coming in at a whopping 5.4k words! and it's also the first request i've written for! so, cheers to that. this is my little valentine's day story, because i'm actually a big sap and i really do love good fluffy romances, so writing this distracted me from the fact that i'm actually very alone at the present haha! anyways, hope you all enjoyed! i also wrote this in under 24 hours, and it's a lot, so if there's any editing mistakes please ignore them, i genuinely could not bring myself to re-read all of this looking for every single mistake.

#formula 1 #formula one #f1 #formula 1 imagine #f1 imagine #formula one imagine #f1 x reader #formula 1 x reader #formula one x reader #f1 fanfic #f1 fic #social media au #fernando alonso #fernando alonso x reader #fernando alonso imagine #fa14 #lance stroll

[yuujispinkhair]

We never go out of style

The thing with Sukuna and you is that it's fun. It's fun to kiss him at parties and to take him home and sleep with him. It's fun to just have this casual little on-and-off romance with him because, after all, you both know that you will always come back to each other.

Aka, I listened to Style by Taylor Swift and got the biggest butterflies when I pictured a modern College boy version of Sukuna to this song.

Pairing: Sukuna x Reader (female) Genre: fluff + smut, College AU Word Count: 2k Warnings: 18+, smut, mentions of sex at semi-public/public places. Reader and Sukuna have an on-and-off fling, but both develop feelings over time. During one of their breaks, they both kiss other people and get jealous about it. All characters are of age. This story is 18+. Minors don't interact.

You aren't even sure how you got into that on-and-off fling with Sukuna. It was supposed to be just a little fun at a frat party. A few heated kisses in the kitchen while you were sitting on the counter, and he was standing between your legs, one large hand cupping your chin and tilting your face up to kiss you in a way that made your head spin.

Just a little fun. Just a few sexy kisses with a sexy boy who had too many tattoos, too much confidence, and a reputation that should have sent you running.

You never planned to go home with him. But somehow you did, and somehow you ended up in his bed with him on top of you, in all his naked glory, tall and sexy with all those toned muscles and tattoos. And somehow, your hand was caressing his undercut and tangled in his slicked-back pink hair, ruffling it in a way that made him look almost cute. And somehow, the way he was grinding against you and fucking you into his mattress was the best sex you ever had.

Maybe that's why you walked over to him when you saw him on campus on Monday morning, leaning casually against a fence with sunglasses pushed up into his slicked-back hair, smirking that boyish smirk at you and lifting a large hand to wave you over with one long tattooed finger.

Maybe it was a combination of his skills in the bedroom and his confidence and boyish charm that made you agree to meet him again. Maybe it was the way he flashed you such an attractive smile when you said yes that made your knees feel strangely weak when you walked to your next class.

No matter what the reason was, ever since that day months ago, you have been in this little on-and-off fling with Sukuna.

Never quite the real thing, but also never not a thing.

Sometimes it's a few drunk kisses at a party, where you suck on his tongue and moan when he lifts you up to set you on the kitchen counter. Sometimes, it's loud, excited laughter and a fluttering pulse when he takes tequila shots where he licks the salt off your neck, letting his tongue-piercing glide over your skin. Sometimes, it's a wink and a flirty greeting while passing him in the hallway. Sometimes, it's a passionate hour spent in his bed, forgetting all the College stress when he dicks you down so good you almost cry.

Sometimes, you go weeks without talking to each other, both doing your own thing. But then you'll receive a text message at 3 a.m. asking you how you're doing.

"What's up, princess? Wanna meet up? I kind of miss your laugh."

You meet him every time. And it's always the same after a few weeks of not seeing each other:

A racing heart and a loud laugh when he stands in front of your door with a bottle of cheap wine and a single red rose. Needy, hungry kisses when you pull him into your apartment. Impatient hands tearing at each other's clothes as you stumble to your bedroom.

Your friends start to notice and ask you if you are dating Sukuna. You deny it, laughing and shaking your head. Who would be stupid enough to date him? You know this is something that only leads to a broken heart. No, Sukuna isn't someone for a relationship or anything serious.

But he is fun. So much fun. The bad boy with the charming grin. The arrogant asshole with the sweetest sweet talk you've ever heard. You know he is dangerous. A heartbreaker, a big flirt. Everybody wants him in their bed. He could have a pretty girl or boy on each finger.

You make sure not to get too invested. You keep it casual. A little fling when you feel like it. When you feel like getting fucked so good, you forget your own name. You make sure to push him away a little bit when things seem to become too intense.

You tell him you won't have time for him during the following weeks because you have to study. He doesn't have to know that, in reality, it's because you can't get his stupid charming smile out of your mind or because you catch yourself rolling over in your bed one night and sighing "Kuna" when you think you can still smell his cologne on your pillow where he slept a few nights ago.

This is dangerous territory. It's best to keep your distance for a while. You go out with your friends. You go to bars and clubs Sukuna doesn't frequent, meeting new people, flirting with someone new, maybe kissing one or two others just for the fun of it because you are young and free and you can do whatever you want. Or maybe it is to convince yourself you aren't falling for a pink-haired bad boy with the world's most charming smirk.

Your dormmate asks you if you and Sukuna broke up because lately, she hasn't seen him leave your room in the mornings with his hair ruffled and hickeys adorning his neck.

Another friend of yours approaches you with a sympathetic look and gently informs you that they saw Sukuna with some other girl last night, kissing her against the wall at a party.

You smile through all the comments, shaking your head and brushing it off.

"Oh, that's fine. We aren't dating or anything like that. He is just a little fling. It's not that serious!"

You try to ignore the uneasiness those comments cause. You smile and buy a new sexy outfit, and go to more bars to kiss more strangers, and Sukuna does the same.

Until you bump into him at another party. You turn the corner after grabbing a drink from the kitchen, and suddenly, you run into his tall, muscular figure, your face practically knocking against his chest. And he laughs and raises an eyebrow at you while his maroon gaze trails lazily over your body.

"It's been a while, princess. How was the studying?"

"It was good..."

"What were you studying again? Making out with strangers in bars?"

His eyes glitter challengingly, and his velvety low voice is carefully playful and teasing, but you can hear the edge in it. You glare up at him, 

"Oh, you mean the thing you were studying too? I heard you were hanging out with some other girl."

For a long moment, no one says a word, and you just stare deeply into each other's eyes. But then Sukuna laughs and cocks his head, 

"Well, it's true what you heard, but it was only two or three times. I'm not interested in her. Especially not now, when you seem to have time for me again."

You know he is leaning down on purpose, knowing full well how hot you find your height difference. You know he is brushing his lips over your ear with the intention of making you weak. You know he is calling you princess in that low sexy voice to make you come home with him tonight and forget all the dumb shit both of you did during the last few weeks.

You know now would be the right moment to tell him it's over for good. But you don't do it. You don't want to.

What you want is to put a hand on his toned chest and grab the front of his white shirt to pull him closer. 

"I have time for you, Kuna. I have time tonight and maybe tomorrow, too."

You can feel his smirk when he kisses you, and his muscular, tattoed arms wrap around you and pull you against that tall, strong body that feels so fucking good against you.

"That's good, princess, since I couldn't stop thinking about you and me those last few weeks. It's more fun when you're with me."

The two of you are back at your typical shit again. Passionate kisses at various parties, loud moans, and entangled sweaty bodies in either Sukuna's bed or yours. Once a week, twice, maybe more often. Sometimes, he stays the whole night and makes your dormmate complain about him using up all the milk in the fridge.

The occasional late-night texts turn into nightly calls. Lying in your bed in the dark with a racing heart as you listen to Sukuna's low voice telling you random things he did today, smiling when he tells you to sleep well.

You go to parties together and make out on kitchen counters. You go to clubs and dance and kiss and make it look so dirty that strangers come up to you and tell you to get a room. You give Sukuna a good luck kiss in the morning before his exam and laugh when he walks around with your red lip print on his cheek. 

People start commenting again on your relationship status, but you just laugh and roll your eyes.

Just like you roll your eyes when Sukuna pulls up at your place on a Wednesday at quarter to midnight, his car window rolled down, long fingers casually flicking off the ash of his half-smoked cigarette as he smirks at you,

"Wanna go on a ride, princess? Jump in. Let's drive to the beach."

"It's almost midnight, you idiot!"

"So what? I didn't say just for tonight, did I? We can stay for a few days, check into a hotel, have some fun tomorrow at the beach, go swimming, sip sweet cocktails at a shabby little bar, fuck in the warm sand, things like that. I know you want to."

You do.

You know you have an exam next week and really shouldn't miss any courses, but what can you do when Sukuna is here in front of you with his sexy smirk and that enticing sparkle in his maroon eyes, offering you the chance for a spontaneous adventure you will probably never forget?

You get into his car. You let him rest his large hand much too high on your thigh, and you let him kiss you breathless at every red light, giggling when he misses the traffic light changing, and the cars behind you honk. But Sukuna just grins against your lips and keeps kissing you while he lifts his hand to flip the guy behind him off in the rearview mirror.

You listen to him complaining about his teammates and his coach and make sure to nod understandingly and do the "Oh, no, he didn't!" and "Ah, that sucks!" at the right moments, earning you a smile and a kiss on the cheek.

You check into a cheap hotel down at the beach, feeling your heart beating like crazy because it feels like you are a criminal couple on the run in some noir movie. Or maybe two forbidden lovers meeting here in secret, far away from the cruel reality where everything is too serious, and people expect you to be a responsible adult.

Sukuna fucks you like he's starved for your body. Hard, deep thrusts and bruising kisses. Passionate sex that makes the old bed creak loudly while the sound mingles with your gasps and moans of Sukuna's name. Rough fucking that turns into surprisingly gentle lovemaking later that night, and Sukuna's soft moans against your neck and sweet little nothings whispered in your ear.

You return home two days later, feeling lightheaded and a bit sore from all the sex you had with Sukuna during those two days. On the hotel bed, in the shower, at the beach at night, on the drive home in his car.

His hand is on your thigh, slipping a bit under your short skirt, caressing your skin while he kisses you thoroughly in his parked car in front of your dorm. Maybe his hand tightens a bit on your thigh, not wanting to let go. Maybe you do the same, your fingers tangling in his soft pink hair, pulling him closer instead of pushing him away and saying goodbye.

When you finally exit his car, he grins at you with lips that are swollen from all the kissing and smeared with your lipstick. The red one that he likes so much on you.

"I'll call you when I'm home, princess. And let's meet again on Tuesday or something. I heard there's a party at Choso's dorm."

"Alright… or you could just stay the night."

The smile that lights up his face is enough to make your breath quicken. He is out of his car in a second, a large hand on the small of your back, steering you towards your front door. And you are grateful for the darkness of the night that helps you hide the stupid big grin on your face.

You don't know if you will ever be more than this on-and-off thing. You don't even know whether you would want it to be more. You don't know if you ever want to date Sukuna for real or if you ever want to call him your boyfriend.

But you know he is your boy, and you are his girl.

It doesn't matter how long your little fling will last this time, just a week or maybe a month. It doesn't matter if you'll go your separate ways for a little while again at some point. In the end, you will always come back to each other. Because one thing is for sure: Whatever the two of you have will never go out of style.

I HAD SO MANY BUTTERFLIES WHILE LISTENING TO THE SONG AND WRITING THIS AAAHHH!!! College boy Sukuna is my weakness. I'm so in love with him!!Help meee!!

So yeah, I decided that 1989 is a great College Sukuna album, and I will now go back to listening to it again and daydream about him.

I hope you enjoyed this little story and that it could give you butterflies too, maybe!! Please tell me how you liked it.

Comments and reblogs would be sweet.

#sukuna x reader #sukuna #sukuna smut #sukuna fluff #jjk x reader #jjk smut #jjk fluff #sukuna x you

[soov]

HOW TO PARTY ㅤ. . . ㅤ﹫ lee heeseung ★

꒰ 💭 ꒱ frat boy heeseung & fem reader, +1100 words. ㅤg fluff, hcs. ㅤw suggestive, pet names, kissing.ㅤ🎧 ㅤlibrary

met you at the college’s cafeteria when you tried to get a bag of chips from the vending machine and it got stuck

he was just passing by with his members, but you caught his attention immediately

he was baffled by how much effort you put into trying to get the bag

shaking and kicking the poor thing just because it stole your money

heeseung let his fraternity brothers go ahead and went up to you, placing his palms firmly to the glass and giving the machine a single shake

he could have the fame of a jerk, but he wasn’t heartless

the bag of chips immediately fell down, and he glanced at you when you crouched down to grab them

he was already planning when your wedding would be and how many children you’d have together

his mouth was slightly agape and he couldn’t stop staring at you

you were the prettiest girl he had ever seen in his life

and when you smiled and thanked him, heeseung was a goner

the only thing he managed to do was nod and watch you walk away

hee kept thinking about you for the rest of day

and week

and month too 😓

whenever he managed to catch a glimpse of you in the hallways or lock eyes with you, he cockily smirked at you, bottom lip trapped in between his teeth

he wanted you to think that he was cool!!

as you walked past him, he’d giggle to himself and stare at the floor to tone down his blush

after a month and a half of pining, shamelessly flirting with you, and teasing from his friends, heeseung gained courage to ask you out

and since he had no idea of how to court a girl that wasn’t a spoiled daddy’s girl or a cheerleader

( that only wanted to be around him because of his looks and popularity )

he decided to go for the old-fashioned romance tips that he got from jay, the biggest romantic in the fraternity

the boy bought a giant bouquet of red roses and combed his tousled hair

but still showed up to your last class with his usual loose, oversized clothes

“i just wanted to know if you wanna go out sometime? yeah, yeah! like a date. i mean... wait, what–? you do?! o-oh! okay, perfect!”

heeseung was over the moon when you agreed to go out with him

his face was just as red as the roses he picked for you

dipped a kiss to your cheek with the goofiest grin and scratched the back of his neck awkwardly as he gave you his number

when you two started dating, he began to use your dates as an excuse to not go to the frat parties he used to attend

he never really enjoyed them

loud people trying to shove a bunch of drinks down his throat weren’t his thing

the beginning was nice, but he got tired after two hours into the party and his social battery died out

so a reason to not go was an early christmas gift

“yeah, sorry. my girl and i already have plans. we’ll have a skincare night.”

does not care if people think he’s lame for suddenly being all romantic and sappy with you

“bro... you weren’t like this with your past girlfriends.” “...okay?”

when one of his friends insists on having you and him around, he won’t leave your side

constantly has a hand on your hip as you walk to tug you closer, or on your thigh, rubbing comforting circles on your bare skin

pulls you to his lap when there are no empty spots left on the couches, lazily kissing your shoulderblades with a smile as his friends joke around

heeseung knows how crazy the guys in those raves can get

he doesn’t want anyone making you uncomfortable

won’t ever drink if you’re also drinking! he’ll just chuckle and watch you get drunk and deflate his compliments

“stop flirting with me... i have a very handsome– [ hiccup ] boyfriend. i’m so lucky to have him...” “oh, yeah? i think he is the lucky one to date a pretty girl like you.”

loves to flirt with you ( kinda obvious by now )

if you start the banter first, he’ll be shocked for a moment and fastly go back to his infamous teasing demeanor, firing back a flustering remark

but god forbid if you reply to one of his pick up lines

his brain shuts down and he doesn’t recover from it for a while

‘doll’ is his trademark pet name for you, though, sometimes, he uses ‘baby’ despite saying that it is “too mainstream”

heeseung’s main hobby is pestering you and ( lightheartedly ) embarrassing you

which is something that you wouldn’t expect from a chill and laid-back guy like him

so don’t be surprised if he suddenly shouts something stupid while you walk ahead down the hall

“whoa! you just gonna walk around looking this sexy, baby momma?!”

cue everyone from the frat laughing, but stopping in the same nanosecond because heeseung gave them his blank face

calls you things like ‘hot stuff’ or ‘baby cakes’ whilst pressing his lips to your face, just to hear your giggle because

1: it tickles

2: his pet names are so awfully corny that the only thing you can do is laugh at them

has to kiss you at least once an hour

his definition of kissing, however, is making out with you for hours, until something comes up and you have to stop

holds you by your waist and jaw when doing so, pushing your body into his

you’re pretty sure that his fingers are about to drill their way through your skin

he’s an impatient and desperate kisser; he kisses you as if you were going to leave him

during the rare moments where he pulls aways, he traces an imaginary path down your chin, to your throat and collarbone with his swollen lips

playfully twirls a lock of your hair on his finger while nipping on your neck

grins nonstop when you two manage to fit a quick kissing session in between class breaks

when you have study dates together, he’s only focused on your beauty

his tongue darts between his lips as he eyes every single inch of your face

he already memorized where every mole is, the curve of your nose, the shape of your eyes — everything

and when you scold him for not paying attention to your explanation, he shrugs and smiles with a quick apology

back hugs, breathy whispers in your ear about how gorgeous you look, fleeting glances across the hall, and having his fingertips to trace random shapes on your skin are all common in your relationship

so good luck on keeping up with him 😁

⠀ ⠀ SOOV © 2O23

ㅤ𝗿𝗲𝗶’s notes ⪩⪨ first work on the new acc with my fav ramyeon lover 😊 slowly joining the hee cult watch out

#ㅤ𝓡. #k-labels #k-films #enhypen x reader #enhypen fluff #enhypen scenarios #enhypen headcanons #enhypen heeseung #enha x reader #enha fluff #enha headcanons #heeseung x reader #heeseung fluff #heeseung scenarios #heeseung headcanons #lee heesung x reader #lee heeseung fluff

[soullessdianthus]

𝐏𝐞𝐫𝐯!𝐋𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐥𝐨𝐫𝐝!𝐊ö𝐧𝐢𝐠

A/N: I picture him in his early 40s in this, daddy is a state of a mind, no? Can you imagine having such an older man as König taking care of you? UNDER THE SAME ROOF??? I WOULD UGH-- (´ཀ`」 )

Also, my requests are open again! You can send it here!

Warnings: manipulation, slight yandere?, naive!reader, dear jesus bunch of nasty smut (voyeurism, somnophilia, fingering, spanking, daddy kink)

Poorly translated German, correct me if needed!

RENDER BY DWISESZ ON TWITTER

✧°.  König’s schedule throughout the months was irregular. Sometimes he would stay at home for a few weeks and then go on a three month deployment. Another couple of days at home and another “work trip”.

✧°.  And his home was left behind unattended, food in the freezer going to waste, dust covering his favorite armchair. König had a guest bedroom, so why wouldn’t he rent the spare room to someone, who would keep an eye on the house while he’s gone?

✧°.  The price and location was tempting, so you reached out to the landlord for more details – you were a college student, who wanted something more independent than living with her parents. 

✧°.  König took a quick look at your profile picture and accepted the deal, because girls like you shouldn’t cause any problems, right? No parties, no boys invited over. You seemed to be a well behaving girl.  

✧°.  But his struggles only truly started when you finally moved in. König would find the return to the house more thrilling than ever.

✧°.  To show your gratitude to the man who took you in, you kept the house clean with no sign of dust or webs. On a regular basis you were baking cakes or cookies, so the aroma of the pastry filled the rooms. Little did you know that it only fed the housewife fantasy of your landlord.

✧°.  König would take less hours at his work and preferred to fill the reports (or any other documentation) from the home office. Just so he could observe you shuffling through the house wearing those sweat or biking shorts. Skimpy material rolling up the curve of your plump, young ass.

✧°.  Each time you passed the living room where he was working, you sent him a cute smile. You were just trying to be polite!

✧°.  König would try to spend as much time with you as possible, even if that meant you weren’t able to finish your homework on time. :( You would watch some movies together or go grocery shopping. Quickly this thing between the two of you became more than just landlord and tenant dynamics. Although you were quite clueless, it was your first ever rental!

✧°.  One evening, when you came back from late classes, you saw him sitting on a couch holding a glass of beer. Large thighs spreaded open as he kept watching the football game on the TV. And before you knew it, König pulled you onto his lap. He wanted you to watch the game with him!

✧°.  “Sit nice and pretty here, ja?” 

✧°.  He pulled you so roughly against him, that you had to prop against his muscular chest, before your face was pushed into it.

✧°.  “König, but I have to –”

✧°.  “Sush, none of that. Now, show some gratitude to your host, schatzi.”

✧°.  König certainly had more than one beer that evening, but you had none of the alcoholic beverages. You were highly aware when he started rubbing your hip and thigh and found it… really nice. Although, nothing more! It was just a friendly gesture, right? 

✧°.  You were so oblivious to his attraction towards you that his hardened length underneath your ass was a pair of keys in your naive mind. 

✧°.  Later that night, when you fell asleep in your bed (technically his), wearing only a shirt and panties, he came into your bedroom and jerked himself off right by your bedside. 

✧°.  König could only imagine how your pretty lips would wrap around his fat shaft, drool dripping from the corner of your mouth. And do you know what fueled that imagination? You sucking on a cherry lollipop right in front of him earlier that day.

✧°.  During the next week, he kept peeping at you when taking a shower or changing your clothes with the doors kept ajar. How silly of you, standing just in sight of such a perverted man as König.

✧°.  It would only fuel his fantasies, when he continuously pumped his hips into his own palm covered in precum and his spit. König’s cock would twitch each time, when he imagined how divine it would finally feel to fuck your tight pussy sensless. His special, little guest. 

✧°.  König would welcome you with open arms, when you came back from the university one day, crying, because you didn’t pass one of your classes. But you were working so hard and you felt poorly about yourself now! :( 

✧°.  He would offer you to lay on a couch with him until you calmed down and you accepted, because König was such a good landlord!

✧°.  You didn’t even protest when this innocent act of affection turned into dirty desires. He laid beside you, one hand stroking your wet cheek and the other wandering under your panties. 

✧°.  You gasped loudly, when he slid one finger inside of you, explaining to you it will help you relax. It shouldn’t, but it felt so good! You wanted to press your eyes together in shame, but König patted you cheek with his hand.

✧°.  “Hey, hey, look at me, schätzchen. Yeah, that’s right, you feeling better now, yes?”

✧°.  And you nodded your head, thoughts focused on that pleasurable feeling between your legs, when he added a second finger. 

✧°.  König wouldn’t talk much about what you two did on the couch, but he definitely became more open about his desires. Since you allowed him to fuck you with his fingers, König would place his big hands all over his precious roommate – shoulders, hips, thighs or a playful slap on the ass, when you were removing the cookies from the oven. 

✧°.  One night, you came back really late (definitely after the curfew) and really drunk. He had to help you walk to your bedroom, because you were stumbling all the time, you could have hurt yourself in that state!

✧°.  You mumbled that you wanted to sleep, when König removed your clothes gently (only leaving you in your lacey, pink panties). He couldn’t believe how lucky he got, when you clung to his chest, searching for stability (in his eyes it was a reach for his attention).

✧°.  König helped you get into your cozy bed and slipped under the covers beside you. This time, he didn’t need to do much as your drunken form quickly found the way to his bulky chest. You nuzzled your spinning head onto his warm body and dozed asleep. 

✧°.  König had to take a few deep breaths, when your plump, naked breasts got squeezed between your and his chest. He didn’t want to jerk off right then, perhaps, you might help him, when you wake up?

✧°.  The next time you wanted to go to a club or simply for drinks with your friends, he stood there in the hallway with a strong hand placed onto the doors. König wasn’t letting you anywhere, you were supposed to spend time with him! :( 

✧°.  “I can take care of myself, you know.”

✧°.  “Oh, like the last time? When you pulled me into your bed, schatzi? Naked?”

✧°.  Your extremely tall and large landlord scolded you, twisting slightly the truth about your drunken state. But it was for your own good, why would you seek fun out there, when you had him in the reach of your hand?

✧°.  Despite your age difference, older and more experienced König would definitely take his time with you.

✧°.  “I–I…”

✧°.  You let go, as embarrassment burned like a flame inside, then furiously went back to your room. 

✧°.  Later, König would come to you and offer a bear hug, which you politely accepted, because he was your good host. But still was a bit mad at him for refusing to let you have fun outside the house.

✧°.  Soon enough, when he went for another deployment, you split on unclear terms. The colonel noticed you began acting bratty, disrespecting his house rules. But nonetheless left the home in your hands.

✧°.  When he came back, unexpectedly a few days earlier, you were still at university. You were such a smart girl. <3

✧°.  König couldn’t help himself but to rummage through your stuff. He sniffed your currently worn pajamas, looked at your books and then he opened the drawer with your underwear. To his surprise one specific object caught his attention. Could this be…?

✧°.  You were surprised to see his massive, trekking shoes on the shelf, when you returned home that evening. You were even more surprised, when you noticed your landlord sitting in his armchair, playing with something between his thick fingers. 

✧°.  “My, my… I leave for a few weeks and you already behave so… shamelessly. I thought of you better, schätzchen.”

✧°.  “I–I don’t know, what your talking about, I–”

✧°.  OhmyGod

✧°.  He was holding your bullet vibrator that was so small in his grasp!

✧°.  “You didn’t even bother to hide this thing.” 

✧°.  He lied on purpose, but you played along that lie. Perhaps, because you were so embarrassed that he found your toy! How could you be so silly and leave it on display? 

✧°.  You rushed to take it out of his grasp, but he acted quicker than you. König pulled you into his wide lap, forcing you ass in the air. The hem of your tennis skirt rolled up, exposing your bum to your landlord!

✧°.  “Seriously, a toy, schatzi? Were you really this needy? Maybe that’s why you failed your class, hm?”, he mocked your vulnerability. 

✧°.  Before you could even explain yourself to him, a loud smack echoed in the living room and a stinging pain on your bare ass blinded your thoughts. König continued to spank your plump bum until it turned red and you were sobbing incoherently. 

✧°.  He said disappointedly, “And I thought you were a grateful guest… All I did was for your good, you know that?”

✧°.  He rubbed your irritated flesh for a minute, before continuing the punishment. König licked his lips, already knowing how you would show him how much you missed your caring landlord. 

✧°.  “Are you going to be a good girl for me, ja?”

✧°.  “YES! Yes, I will! ‘m sorry!” 

✧°.  You agreed, face flustered in shame, when you felt how wet your panties had become. The Austrian bear lifted you up from his lap and made you straddle his large bulge, pressing onto the fabric of his cargo pants. 

✧°.  “Ride daddy nicely and I might forgive you, okay? Do you remeber what I told you, when you moved in? If you ever need anything, come to me. You’re a smart girl, you know I’m gonna take care of you, no?”

✧°.  “Y-Yes, König. I know.”, you sobbed, his big palm wiping your tears away. 

✧°.  Quickly you forgot about all of his alarming and obsessive behavior, when he filled you with his fat cock. The delicious feeling of him stretching your little pussy, dwarfed all of your worries.

✧°.  He was merciless that night, König didn’t even give you time to adjust to his size. Colonel’s strong hands gripped your hips and guided them to start moving. So you swayed your hips under that slutty skirt, you bought just for him. <3

#konig mw2 #konig cod #konig #konig x reader #könig mw2 #könig cod #könig x reader #König #perv!könig #perv!konig #perv!roommate!König

[theweasleytwinsownmyjuicyass]

Wait for you | L.N.

Lando Norris x reader

Summary: Nothing can stand between true love. But what if said love is taken from one's memory?

Warnings: angstt, some fluff:3

Word count: ~2,3K

Lando had been told since he was very little, how time passes slowly when one is not enjoying themselves. But good God, no one could have prepared him for the agony that the past two months have brought into his life. And how it was entirely the play of no one else but the woman he loved that was becoming his ruin.

To put it easier, today marked the start of May, which meant that it has been exactly two months since you were cursed with amnesia following a minor car accident.

How it happened and more importantly why, not even the doctors could tell.

Lando was told that you’d get back most memories in the first few weeks and if that did not happen then the time can be extended into a month for the return of life as they’d known before the accident.

It was only a day later as your eyes set upon your visitor and without any introduction you knew exactly who it was.

“Oscar!” your voice held longing and excitement.

Your best friend was standing in the doorway smiling with all his might, while a certain someone was clearly overlooked. Lando thought that he could burst out sobbing just that moment as your eyes passed over his as if he were only a stranger. And to you he was. Now at least…

That’s how the past two months have been. Lando looking at you looking at Oscar…

You did still spend most of your time in the garages with the McLaren team, but you were there not for Lando and he didn’t know how much longer he could go without telling you all about your past.

‘Screw those damn doctors’, Lando thought. Maybe if he was allowed to remind you, you would be sitting next to him right now, gracing him with one of your brightest smiles and asking him about the car and not Oscar.

Sometimes when Lando is exceptionally tired he forgets that now is a different you than his you. He plops down on the sofa beside you and lays himself down on your thighs. How is it that you always smell so good? Touching you has always held a relaxing nature to Lando and now it was just as splendid. Almost as splendid… Now your hands did not lovingly engulf him in your warmth, there was no kiss on his head, there was only a stiff hand petting his shoulder. Lando felt internal cold radiate from your touch.

Your hugs have gone cold too.

Lando knew that blaming you was wrong as it was in no way your fault. You didn’t choose to forget him but still remember your best friend Oscar. But God, that did not lessen the pain.

Two months. It’s has been two months and Lando has almost no hope left that you’ll ever look at him with a loving gaze again.

He has done it all. Repeated his actions from the past, when he was trying his best to ask you out. It worked last time, it made you fall in love with him, but now it was a dead end as he could see you force a smile on your face each time...

If Lando’s life was not reduced to an absolute nothingness, he also had to watch his teammate and friend win his first title before him. Although that didn’t hurt half as much as watching you, watching Oscar in the same way you used to watch him standing on the podium.

His heart was screaming at you. No! Look here! Just a bit to the right! I’m here! Please see me…

Your eyes did drift to Lando and you did offer him a thumbs up, but the look in your eyes had also drifted, to a new look altogether. Your eyes were no longer reserved only for him and that thought alone took living out of life and turned it into mere existence.

Lando still remembers (how could he ever forget really) the way your soft gaze spoke louder than words could. Your eyes were love personified. And now they were on Oscar, not on him...

If Lando thought his heart broke the moment he saw you in that hospital bed and you had no recollection of whom he was, now it fucking shattered into tiny, tiny pieces.

As more days flew by Lando started losing it. Too early to accept that he’s lost you, too late to get you back… Those were the only thoughts roaming around in his head.

You on the other hand knew nothing of the boy’s torment. To be honest you knew nothing of that certain boy.

If it was not for Oscar, you feel like you would have never even looked twice at someone like Lando Norris. Yes he was gorgeous and had eyes the sweetness of a morning blue sky, but he was also a guy who had everyone’s attention and he drank it up like a thirsty man.

Since you waking up in the hospital, Oscar has been doing everything to acquaint you with Lando. He was never too forceful with making his two friends a pair of friends as well, but he was relentless, never fraying from the task.

Oscar told you things about Lando that were hard to believe at first. Like yes, Lando was a good guy, just as Oscar said, though you could feel how the older man was holding himself back in most occasions as if to not overwhelm you. It made you confused.

Lando Norris confused you.

He’d watch you while you were with Oscar without saying a word, then some other time he could not shut up about something when it was only you and him, which didn’t happen much.

Lando was also a very touchy person, he’d hug you, put his hand around your shoulders or rest his head on your lap after a session.

It was sweet how he seemed to like you so much, but sometimes it felt like there was something more and you were missing that all narrative.

So to repeat, Lando Norris confused you. Intensly.

But you also confused yourself.

It confused you how your own hands would naturally find their place wrapped around his torso or resting on his back whenever he touched you. How your fingers would thoughtlessly tangle themselves in his curls whenever his head rested upon your thighs.

It was all very confusing yet strangely relaxing.

 “Osc?” you looked up from your place on the counter to find your friend wiping sweat away from his face.

“What’s up?” Oscar’s voice was out of breath.

“Is Lando okay?” you watched the older boy stomp out of the garage. His eyes a beautiful storm.

“Agh.. he’s pissed at himself for the mistake on the last lap, heard he was talking himself down on the radio and the interviews,” Oscar let out a sign of concern.

You’ve always been empathic towards other people and you’ve begun caring about Lando even if he was weird at times, but he was Oscar’s friend and certainly really nice to you.

“I feel bad for him… he beats himself up a lot,” your head stayed turned at the direction Lando had just walked out.

Oscar seeing the opportunity decided to use it wisely, “Maybe you should go talk to him?”

“But we’re not that close, I don’t want to make him more upset by prying information from him,” you quickly turned back to your friend.

“But do you want to talk to him?” Oscar held eye contact with you as if trying to prove you something important.

“He’s sad and he’s alone. I just don’t want him to be alone…” you pick at your nails, not clearly understanding where this care for the older boy came from, but Oscar knew and he knew that he’s done it, he has paved the last tile for you to take the first step towards your Lando. He could see it in your movements, just like the first time all those months ago.

“Then go, don’t let him suffer alone for longer than he needs to,” Oscars words meant more than you could understand in this moment, but all you could think about was the sweet boy who was now beating himself up alone in his room.

It didn’t take long for you to jump off the counter and set of in the same direction Lando had just minutes ago.

“Lando?” you knocked on the door, peeking into his driver room, something about the scene feeling too comfortable as if you’d done it time and time again before.

“Oh he’s not here hun, he went outside to cool off a bit,” you came face to face with his PR manager, a sweet woman indeed.

“Have you any idea where?” you inquired, you wanted to find him as soon as possible.

“I’m not sure dear, but I’m sure you’ll find him.” she gave you an encouraging smile before exiting the room, leaving you alone to rake your brain for a place where Lando might be.

So you went to the only place where you knew no one would go to, simply because there was nothing to see, unless you looked up.

There he stood, leaning on the railing, lone as the first star in the night sky, and then you heard it, his heartfelt cries echoing in the perimeter, filling the lonely space with sounds of pain.

You slowly come closer to him.

“Lando?” you put your hand on his shoulder.

Lando’s hands are wrapped around you in a crushing hug before you could even finish your sentence, his face buried into your neck as his tears pooled into the crevice of your collarbone.

When you snap out of the shock, you barely graze his body with your hands and he remembers that it’s not you. At least not the same you that used to be his and detaches himself from your warm hug apologizing profusely.

“I’m so sorry” he cries more as he looks into your eyes and the look in your eyes haunting him, you don’t look at him like that anymore. He turns away from you and slumps down on the bench crying with his whole body which makes your own tears build.

You could feel his pain, that’s how prominent it was.

“Lando please don’t cry like this. It’s just a sprint not a grand prix even, and that one mistake was nothing, you still finished on the podium. Please Lando you should not beat yourself over this.”

His cries do not lessen so you take the matters into your hands, literally.

You put your hands on his face, wiping his tears with your thumbs while telling him all the best things that he is.

“You - are certainly too good of a driver to worry about such a thing and you are too good of a person to hurt yourself so much over a mistake. Lando Norris you are not allowed to beat yourself up over a mistake in a race! You cannot. I’m taking away your right, the only person that can tell you anything bad about your driving is me! Understood? From this moment on you’re the greatest man on that track unless I say otherwise!”

Lando now noticed how he stopped crying because he was focusing on your voice that was all directed at him and no one else.

“Don’t you think Oscar is better than me?” Lando’s voice was small with uncertainty.

“Oscar is great and he knows it, you on the other hand seem to forget it at times… I’ll make sure you never forget. Deal?”

“Deal,” he let out a breath holding your hands close.

You freed one of your hands from his grip making him open his eyes, terror in them, up until you ran your hand through his curls, fixing his hair a bit before your eyes travelled back to his.

“What?” you asked perplexed by his gaze.

“You are a really good person Y/n,” Lando’s eyes glided upon your face as if he were kissing your skin with his gaze.

“You deserve to have good people around Lan,” your voice softened further.

There it was. That word. His nickname. Lan.

The last time he heard you say it was the last time you were his you.

Before you forgot him…

“Let me take you out to dinner,” when would he ever shoot his shot if not now.

“Are you seriously using this time to ask me out?” you chuckled as you held his hand firmly.

“You can’t say no or I’ll cry again,” Lando gave you his best puppy eyes and you positively folded in his touch.

You chuckle at him,“But only because I hate seeing people cry,” you try to convince yourself as your heartbeat had picked up due to the unbreakable eye contact from the man. And it did physically pain you to see him cry.

When you walk him back to the garage where the team is beginning for a debrief you stop him, before he can go in, with a whisper in his ear.

“Just for the record, I wouldn’t have said no,” you kiss his cheek and give him the eyes, the eyes he’d been waiting for, for months now.

You were coming back to him and Lando knew he’d give anything up just to have his girl’s eyes gazing back at his…

^^

A.N. ... there most probably will be a second part... hehe..

#lando norris #lando norris fluff #lando norris imagine #lando norris x reader #lando norris x reader fluff #lando norris x reader imagine #formula 1 x reader #formula 1 x y/n #formula 1 imagine #mclaren formula 1 #mclaren #ln4 x reader #ln4 #ln4 imagine #ln4 fluff #lando norris angst #lando norris x y/n #lando norris fanfic #f1 #lando norris fic #f1 x reader #angst with a happy ending #light angst

[m3talmunson]

It started with babes. Babes is completely platonic right? Nothing out of the ordinary there. Eddie was known for being over dramatic, why would nicknames -or in this case, pet names- be any different?

Babes wasn't even that over the top, so why was Steve blushing like a school girl after it was said in passing?

Steve definitely knew why, although, he was going to pretend he didn't. But he knew, about himself, about Eddie. A couple months after spring break '86 Steve had a very enlightening talk with Robin about his feelings. Towards Munson. Those completely and totally platonic feelings.

And a couple weeks later, as though Eddie was so in tune with Steve's discovery, Eddie came out to Steve at a campfire with Robin and Nance. Those two had wandered off, Eddie made some comment about "Good for Robs," before realizing his mistake. That was, until Steve said "Yeah, good for Robs," and Eddie just had to ask.

"You know about her? Y'know..."

"What? Eddie? Of course! She's my best friend."

"And you're ok with it?" Eddie was kind of shocked. Great 'King' Steve wasn't going to sick the dogs on Hawkins Local Lesbian? And it seemed like he had known longer than Eddie?

"Yeah, when you survive hell and back enough it's pretty hard to hate anyone for being gay." Steve left off the part where he was also into guys. He knew Eddie was ok with that, clearly ok with Robin, but Eddie might not be ok with being the guy Steve was into.

"Oh. Well," Eddie didn't know if it was the couple beers he had downed, or his newfound safety with this big ol' group of misfits, but he was comfortable asking Steve, "What if I was like Robin too?"

"Are you?" Steve asked. He wasn't going to get his hopes up over hypotheticals, but he could admit he had feelings for the older boy. He wasn't sure what feelings to be honest,but he was figuring that out as he went. He just knew they were more than platonic.

"Well, technically I'm the opposite of Robin, y'know. Not attracted to women. But yeah, I am." Eddie stared into the camp fire, torn between hoping that it would eat him alive, or that it would simply stare back.

"Okay, thanks for trusting me." Steve responded, plain as day.

He had asked Robin, if someone were to come out to him (granted they were not just drugged by Russians), what would she have wanted to hear. And he finally got the chance to use it, seeing the way Eddie's shoulders dropped in relief.

"So you're like actually ok with it?"

"Like I said, been to hell and back with you, who you love doesn't mean a thing over that."

" Yeah," Eddie said,"But most straight guys don't like it when gay guys flirt relentlessly with them."

"We'll keep that one between us then, won't we?" Steve wasn't entirely ready to correct Eddie on the straight thing, so he just didn't acknowledge that part. He chose to ignore the blush rise on his face, blaming it internally on the heat of the fire.

He also tried to ignore that at that point, the nicknames picked up.

It started with babes. Then baby, which made Steve's brain flutter. Then sweetheart. Eddie only used that one when he wanted something, and yet Steve still loved it. Stevie was one of the fan favorites. Not really a pet name, but used just as lovingly as one. Sometimes Eddie held out the end, in a sing-song voice. Made Steve weak in the knees. Eddie knew what he was doing.

It was babe that made Steve do something about it. Eddie used sweetheart, baby, Stevie, around everyone. In front of the kids, on his various trips to Family Video (whether to buy or annoy, who knew). But babe. Babe was just for Steve and Steve alone.

So of course, the only logical order of events was for Steve to start using them back.

It started with babe, the obvious choice. Fight fire with fire, or whatever. The meaningless pet names ended with babes too.

Because after Eddie kissed Steve to shut him up, they suddenly had meaning.

#short n sweet cause ive been gone for too long #in more personal news! just got cast as one of my lifelong dream roles in theatre yesterday! #steve harrington #eddie munson #steddie #steve stranger things #eddie stranger things #steddie blurb #steddie drabble #steddie fanfic #steddie ficlet #pet names

[ceilidho]

prompt: ex special forces ghost working as a “travel companion for hire” and reader hires him because she’s too nervous to go solo travelling

-

It’s not the first time you’ve been somewhere on your own, but it’s the first time you’ve realized that maybe solo trips aren’t for you. 

It’s in Germany, three drinks in and stumbling back to your hotel room, paranoia gripping you every time you pass a dark alleyway or take a right onto a deserted street. It’s the man walking your way on the same side of the street that has you stuffing your hand into your purse, clammy fingers gripped tight around your keys. 

On the flight home, you’re wiped. Beat. Finally untethered from a week’s worth of anxiety slowly reaching a boiling point. You’ve traveled on your own before, but it’s the first time you can remember being acutely aware of your vulnerability. Granted, before this trip, it’s not like you’d traveled all that much on your own, especially outside of the country. 

Ghost comes as a recommendation from a friend of a friend. You’d hemmed and hawed about the whole ordeal the Monday after getting home from your trip—working the front desk at an auto-body shop means that there’s no shortage of people to talk to. The guy picking up his car (fender bender, a wicked crack down the front that’s since been fixed) listens to you gripe with an absent look on his face, but you’ve learned to tune those out. People will listen to you even in spite of their indifference when there’s nothing else to do. 

“Y’know, I know a guy that does stuff like that,” he says, cutting you off halfway through another half-baked rant about airline fares these days. Your mouth puckers into something quizzical. Tell me more, it says without saying. “Ex-special forces. Left because of some medical thing, I think. Dunno. Anyway, he’s been all over the world—built like a brick shithouse, that one—and last I heard he was, uh, renting out his services.”

“Services?” 

“Like, he’d go with you, hang back while you do your thing, but basically the muscle. There to back you up if someone fucks with you.”

You’re just fresh enough off your vacation (an entirely miserable week, lest you explain the whole thing all over again) to give him your number. He promises to put you in touch with the friend of a friend who’ll put you in touch with one Simon Riley. He then gives you shit about the price on his bill and you knock ten percent off begrudgingly because the piece of paper with your number written on it is still crumpled in his palm.

No good deed goes unpunished or whatever.

“He’s not actually in the country right now,” Laswell, the friend of a friend, explains over coffee, Biscoff cookies spread out on a little tea plate between the two of you. “Or the continent.”

“Where is he?”

“For the rest of the month? Indonesia. He’s supposed to be back on the ninth. Should I let him know that you’re interested in his services?”

It’s a toss up at first. The thought of sacrificing your dignity (he would be more or less your babysitter) for adventure is tricky. With the way the dates line up—when you plan on traveling and when he gets back to the UK—you also won’t have much time to make his acquaintance before setting off. 

But there are places you want to go, sites you have scribbled down in a pocket-sized notepad folded up in the inner lining of your backpack. So you give her your permission and promise to join her and her wife for dinner sometime (repayment, and also it’s only been a few months since you moved, so you currently have a dearth of friends in your life anyway). 

The first time you see him when he stops by your workplace, you can’t help the double take. It just doesn’t seem possible. You know from Laswell and the guy at the body shop that Ghost is ex-military, but you’d been expecting some buzz-cut, slightly smarmy army reserves guy, maybe six-foot and decently muscled. What you don’t expect is the tatted beast that’s near twice your size. Only the top half of his face is exposed, the rest hidden beneath a black mask; you think briefly of asking him about it, but chicken out under his withering stare.

He doesn’t seem impressed when he meets you. “What’s your list?”

“Um…just around Europe. I haven’t thought about it too much.”

He stares down at you. “You wanna hire me just to run around the continent?”

“I haven’t thought about it!”

“Well, best give it a think fast, doll. Haven’t got all day for you to figure it out.”

You do have to think fast. He doesn’t leave until you’ve spelled out exactly where you want to go, until he’s watched you book plane tickets over your shoulder, heavy at your back while sweat beads at the nape of your neck. He’s entirely too intimidating to be looming over you like that. 

You watch him whip out his phone and fire off a couple of texts; your phone pings with an email telling you that you’ve been reimbursed for his flight and when you protest, he brushes you off by saying that he’ll invoice you for everything at the end of your trip.

Then what was promised falls into place. Free of burden, free of anxiety or restless energy, new possibilities open up to you: countries where you don’t speak the language; countries where the sites you want to see are spread out across a wide enough area that it warrants having a man packed beside you in a too-small taxi, his thigh a hot line against yours; hiking trips through national parks, where you don’t feel like you might slip down a hill and twist your ankle, stuck without water or cell service. 

You only have two weeks worth of vacation, so you use them wisely. A week traveling across Switzerland and Austria, and then a week in Cairo to see the pyramids. 

Ghost hangs back most of the time while you traipse around and do your own thing. You can feel him at your back when you approach the stands where the local vendors have set up shop, perusing silver trinkets and jewelry, only returning to your side when someone stands too close to you. 

He fists a hand in a pickpocket’s shirt when they try for your purse, giving them a shake and sending them off. 

“You didn’t have to do all that,” you mutter in his direction as you watch the young man scurry away. Not sure if you’re blushing or sunburnt. 

“You hired me to deal with this shit my way. Don’t get mouthy now.”

You think it might be the former because while you might not be the best at reapplying sunscreen, Ghost has been gentle-parenting you this whole trip. He pulls you off into corners and growls down at you while squirting a dollop of sunscreen into the palm of his hand to spread across your face. You close your eyes when his rough hands trace over your face and breathe out heavily when he spins you around, big hands engulfing your shoulders and spreading down your back.

You don’t think it could get worse. It gets worse. 

He won’t spring for his own room. You stare at him in disbelief in the lobby of the two star hotel where you’ve booked a room with a single bed. There’s a vending machine in the corner of the lobby that only sells coke (all of the other buttons are broken). One of the ceiling lights flickers on and off, an ominous buzz filling the room. Ghost doesn’t so much as blink.

“You didn’t tell me—I didn’t know that was my job,” you rebuff, anxiety a fist in your throat. You’ve already asked the front desk for another room, but they’ve been sold out for weeks, the woman at the front desk informed you with no small amount of pity. It’s the busy season; even two-star hotels get booked up in the dog days of summer. 

He cocks an eyebrow, unimpressed. “Never had to before. My job isn’t to book shit.”

“I sent you my itinerary.” 

“That’s not how I work, love. Where’s your room?” 

It’s nothing short of humiliating to have him follow you back to your shabby little hotel room. Your hands shake when you unlock the door, opening it to something no bigger than a closet. You’d purposefully gotten a smaller room than you usually would, anticipating the cost of Ghost's invoice at the end of your trip. No good deed goes unpunished. 

He ushers you into the room with a hand on your back, shutting the door behind him. You flick on the only light in the room, a bulbous thing hanging from the ceiling. No bedside lamp. 

When he settles on the end of the only twin bed in the room, the bedframe groans under his weight. Your hands are already clammy. He’s already making himself at home, unbuckling his belt with a single hand; it makes you almost dizzy to look over at him so you try desperately to avert your eyes.

“At least wait until I’m in the other room,” you hiss, rifling through your suitcase faster to get your clothes for after your shower. 

“Quit moping, love,” Ghost scolds, resting back on his elbows and toeing off his boots. “We’ll make it work. Just gonna have to get comfortable together.”

You scurry off to the bathroom with your pajamas clutched tight to your chest, paying no attention to the fact that he doesn’t sound as upset as you thought he might.

#cod mw2 #ceil writing #ghost x reader #simon ghost riley #simon riley x you #cod simon riley #cod x reader #simon ghost riley x reader #ghost/reader #ghost cod

[httpknjoon]

surprise, surprise | jjk

plot | When you asked what your boyfriend wants for Valentine's, Jungkook challenged you to surprise him. But when you did, he wasn't the only one surprised.

words | 2.1k+

genres | fluff,  secret relationship au, established relationship au, friends to lovers au

pairing | jungkook x reader

warnings | none

note | another part will follow :)) enjoy reading!

main masterlist  |  drabble series masterlist

It was a late afternoon, during a warm sunny day, you and your boyfriend finally went on with your picnic plans after weeks of talking about it. Under a lush shade tree, Jungkook laid out your classic red gingham picnic blanket. He also has pillows from his place, knowing that you would love to have one while chilling. On the flip side, you brought out the food from your basket which includes various colorful sliced fruits, sandwiches, chips, orange juice, and a bottle of chocolate syrup if ever your boyfriend wants to put it on his fruit.

It has been past an hour since you arrived at this spot in the park, half an hour away from the city you and Jungkook live in. So, with no worries about seeing your friends around, you two were free to basically do whatever you wanted on the grass. Jungkook brought his digital camera and you were already sure that half of the photos he took today are Bam’s. You were just giggling when you saw Jungkook trying to make your pet stand still with his green toy ball and sounds he learned from The Dogist, a dog photographer who posts every dog he meets online.

“One more, Bam. Stay…” he commanded as he closed his left eye to focus on his camera’s viewfinder. 

Your pet, eager to have a treat and his toy, heeded. Followed by a shutter sound, you hear a satisfied chuckle from your boyfriend. He handed Bam a treat and then threw the ball for your pet to run after.

“How was it?” you asked, sipping on your glass of orange juice.

Jungkook turned around in your direction and instead of answering immediately, you found him staring at you. Used to him dazing out sometimes, you just smiled and took another gulp from your glass. Jungkook took this opportunity to point his camera lens to you. He moved around, finding the best angle where the light makes you glow from your greenery background. You were an angel before his sight. He clicks for your candid shot. When you hear the first shutter sound, you realize what he is doing.

“Wait! Take another one.”

This time, you smiled for the camera, making him smile behind the lens. After a couple more shots, he sat next to you to show you the results. By the small sound of awe you made, he knew you loved them.

“You’re such a great photographer, babe,” you told him.

“I just have a very beautiful muse,” he replied.

You looked up at him and he laughed when he saw your eyebrows scrunching together. Perhaps it was too corny and sweet. But your scrunched expression softened up before giving him a peck on his lips. He was about to lean in for more but you pulled away with a smile.

“You used to get girls with those lines?” you teased and laughed.

And before Jungkook can defend his game, Bam runs back with his toy in between his teeth. Half an hour passed, and the camera was now in your hands while Jungkook lay his head on your lap, scrolling through his phone. Bam is napping on the grass beside you two, tired from playing. The weather was not too hot since there was still wind blowing from time to time, perfect for a midday nap. With no more energy to take pictures, you settled his camera down. For the next few minutes, you spent the time running your fingers on Jungkook’s hair and appreciating the peace of the place. You can feel your heart feeling at ease.

“I can’t believe we’re already in the second month of this year,” your boyfriend suddenly spoke, eyes still glued on his phone.

“I know, babe. It seemed like yesterday when we celebrated New Year’s Eve at Dara’s and our anniversary,” you replied. “Then, we told Blaire about us.”

He put down his phone with that, looking at you, “We didn’t tell her, you did.”

You just rolled your eyes since you know you cannot really defend yourself. You were too drunk that night, Jungkook had to tell you what you shared with your friend the morning after. And after a whole-day conversation with Blaire, she agreed to not say anything about it and simply called you two “sneaky rats” in a teasing way.

“Anyway, Valentine’s Day is next week.” Jungkook brought up the topic, sitting up. “Do you want to do anything or go anywhere?”

“Well… we already did this picnic.” you clicked your tongue as your eyes traveled away, thinking. 

And after a few seconds, an idea pops into your head. An activity you saw online that you found cute and perfect for you two. You beamed as you told him about it. Jungkook nodded as he listened intently, eyes traveling down his tattooed knuckles.

“I love that, we can do that! That’s wonderful, princess.” He smiled, eyes crinkling. “Do you already have any ideas about the design?”

You shook your head, “Oh, not yet.”

“Okay, okay.” he nods again,

You squeeze his hands, “How about you? What do you want to do?”

He looked up at the leaves on the tree as he sighed, “I don’t know… Really. That’s why I asked you. What you want is what really matters to me.”

You raised an eyebrow, “Really? Nothing?”

He nodded his head but not a second after, he spoke again, “Okay, I have an idea.”

“Okay, spill.” 

“Surprise me,” he said like it was a challenge.

“Surprise you?” you repeated.

Looking back at your relationship, you were a little weak at doing surprises. You cannot really lie well and always see his reaction when you get him something meant for a surprise. But maybe you can try again.

“Okay, babe.”

“Isn’t this sad?” Wooshik sighed in between the film playing on the television. “It’s the day before Valentine’s. We are both single straight guys, watching Meryl Streep boss around people because we don’t have any plans tomorrow,” he added.

I do, Jungkook said in his head. Today is the thirteenth. It has been days since you two went on that picnic and he has been secretly waiting for your surprise. You didn’t want to give him a spoiler about it since you both know how bad you are at lying. So, you didn’t give him even a single clue.

And since it’s the day before that day, you and the girls in your friend group went out for your Galentine’s Day. You told him your activities for the day, which included going to a baking class and pampering yourselves in hair and nail salons. So, in return, he and Wooshik are pretty much shooed away when the latter begs to come with them.

“It’s for girls only! Go hang out together,” Jenny laughed. 

So, they did. Initially, they planned on playing video games in Jungkook’s place. But after two hours of playing and having succeeding losses, they got exhausted and opted to watch a movie. The streaming service recommended a lot of chick-flicks so that’s what they settled for.

“This is fine. The girls are single too. A lot of people are spending tomorrow single.” he noted, focused on the film.

But Wooshik exclaimed, “But love is in the air! I don’t want to be lonely. Maybe we should pull up at a bar or something. Maybe we can have dates tomorrow.”

“I told you, I’m not into those things anymore.”

“Those things?! It’s called dating, JK. So you’re not into dating now?” Wooshik asked his tone in disbelief. Jungkook just laughed at his dramatic reaction. His friend continued, “What happened to my friend who used to introduce me to his new girlfriend every two weeks?”

Jungkook tossed him a pillow, smacking it right to his face, “Hey, people change!”

“You used to hold the record for most partners in a year in our friend group, JK.” Wooshik snickered.

“And now, I don’t. I’m happy where I am right now.” 

“Blablabla. That’s something a person with a great high-paying job or a nice love life would say. And I don’t think your job pays you that high for you to say that.” Wooshik quipped while watching the movie again.

Jungkook laughs. He’s right. But Wooshik is not aware of how fun he is having with you. Your friend doesn’t know how much you made his life more than nice. You made his days a lot more warmer and brighter than it has ever been.

“And the girls are not really single. Jenny said she will be busy tomorrow–”

“She is. She works as a head chef in a restaurant. Tomorrow is like a festival in her workplace.” Jungkook cuts him off. 

His friend snickered, “Okay, but she’s going on an occasional date with that same guy she met at a food convention. Blaire is having an on and off and on relationship with Grace. Dara is dating–”

“She is?” Jungkook asked.

Wooshik nods like it’s something he has known for a long time, “Yeah… and YN, I just know that one is seeing someone.”

Something in his stomach dropped when Jungkook heard that, “Yeah?”

“Remember when I stayed for like a week in her house when I had something renovated in my place? I swore I saw her sneaking out a guy one early morning.” his friend shared, clueless about the guy who was now sitting in front of him.

“Are you sure?” Jungkook asked.

“Yeah, I just didn’t see him properly since the lights were off. But I heard YN talking to him.” 

Yeah, it’s him. 

Not wanting to talk about it anymore, Jungkook said, “You know what? Maybe we should go out.”

It’s like Wooshik’s ears perked up when heard that, “Where?”

“Just out. Maybe get something to eat or… I saw this new bowling alley opening up around the corner. We can walk there from here.”

Originally, Jungkook wanted to take you there first. But with his best friend being bored and talking about you and your relationship, he just thought of going to that place.

“Oh, okay. Maybe fate can find me a date there.”

Jungkook chuckled, getting up, “Okay, I’ll just take a quick shower. Then, we can go.”

Wooshik nodded and Jungkook walked away. Left alone in the living room, Wooshik reached for the almost-finished bowl of chips on the center table. He rarely watched chick flicks but he really liked this one. Maybe because of the lead actress. But nonetheless, he enjoys the story.

“I just don’t get why she has to leave her great job for Nate. I mean, he did not even support her when she was having growth in her work and she was in Paris!” Wooshik exclaimed as the screen showed Anne Hathaway walking away from her boss, portrayed by Meryl Streep.

The credits were rolling in when he heard the knock on the door. He was about to call his friend when he heard the distant trickling from his shower. Wooshik got up and opened the door, dusting off the cheese powder from the chips. A delivery guy stood in front of the door, holding a box of pretty flower arrangements.

“Delivery for Jeon Jungkook.” the guy said.

Confused, Wooshik had his mouth slightly open before answering, “Oh… uh, he’s in the shower. But I can receive this for him.”

“Okay. Please, sign here.”

The guy handed him a paper and Wooshik followed. After the flowers were handed to him, he said thank you and closed the door. His eyes scanned the whole arrangement filled with various flowers. A white folded card sat on top of it. As he carefully placed it down on the table, one question stayed in his head.

Who the hell would send flowers to his best friend?

So just like what any nosy, curious person would do, Wooshik flicked the card open.

Blooms for the best person I know. 

I was with B in the flower shop and he helped me pick the flowers. I hope you’ll love them.

Know that this is the first of other surprises I’ve planned for tomorrow ;)

But firstly, let me ask you for the first time,

Babe, will you be my Valentine?

-Princess

Princess? Who the hell is Princess? Who is B? Is B a person? Did his friend have a baby and didn’t know it?

“Hey, let’s g– Oh, where did that come from?”

Jungkook came in, hair damp. His eyes land on the bouquet of flowers. Wooshik is frozen in place. His hand is still holding the card as he stares at him.

His eyes gradually squinted, “Who is Princess, and why is she sending you flowers?”

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