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ohtobeleah · 5 months

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Was It Over? // Jake Seresin

-> Chapter One: [The Diagnosis]

Summary: The last thing you ever expected was to be diagnosed with breast cancer. To make matters worse? You’d been separated from the love of your life for just shy of a year. How do you tell the love of your life you might be dying? It’s simple really— You don’t.

Warnings: Mentions of Cancer Diagnosis. Jake Seresin x F!reader. Separation. Marriage issues. Mentions of death.

Word Count: 2.1k

Author Note: I've put so much love, passion and time into this series. I'd love to hear all your theories and concepts as each chapter is released.

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December 31st

Jake Seresin tried his best to hide the wet tears that fell down his cheeks as he sat with his kids on the lounge of the home that he had tried his best to keep as tidy as he could. There was a lot of uncertainty, a lot of frustration, a lot of fear and unbelievable sadness that surrounded Jake and your three small children. The unknown was truly tragic, terrifying and treacherous, but Jake wasn’t about to let his kids see the way he so desperately wanted to cry. He didn't want his kids to know how truly broken he was.

“What did mum get you for Christmas daddy?” Little Lenny asked cautiously, knowing the emotions were still raw for them all. He was just six years old but Lennox Seresin knew his life had changed forever. That something had been ripped from his heart never to be returned.

Jake held the small present in the palm of his hand, the present he had yet to open. The present he wasn’t sure he wanted to. It felt like something he’d held before, the weight felt all too familiar. It haunted him the more he carried it around, held it in the palm of his hand and contemplated the inevitable.

“I dunno buddy, you reckon I should open it?” Jake asked as he kissed his son's head. “S’not Christmas anymore.” The Naval Aviator had recently shaved his head, it had been the closest to a number one he’d ever had. It was in solidarity, union. A decision he made in the blink of an eye but one he did not regent or ever would.

“We haven’t taken the tree down yet.” Lucy added her two cents into the conversation as she laid her head on her father’s thigh. “Mum would be upset if you didn’t open it dad.” Jake knew that much was true, you probably would be pretty bent out of shape if he never opened it.

“Alright, I better open it then huh?” Jake shook the small perfectly wrapped box he could hold in the palm of his hand. He heard what sounded like a rock rattle inside. His heart nearly exploded inside his chest.

Fuck….Jake knew what it was and he really didn’t want to open it.

But before we get to that we need to go back a little. So settle in, grab your tissues and emotional support water bottle and hold on for dear life. Because this Christmas isn’t your average festive Christmas fic: No—this one’s something much more heartbreaking.

***~***~***~***~***~***~

November: 2nd

“I need you to take the kids for Christmas—“ It was the first thing Jake heard come through the phone as he held it up to his ear. It had been a few days since he’d last heard from you, not that you owed him daily check ins or regular updates, you owed him nothing, after all the two of you had been separated for just shy of a year now. January had been the start of his new beginning, Lieutenants Jake Hangman, soon to be divorced, couldn’t hack it as a husband, Seresin. The title was pretty long winded and riddled with self pity, but Jake wouldn’t ever let himself forget how much he’d let you down as a husband. As a father, as best friend.

The two of you had been college lovers. The star crossed kind of lovers with Jake being the very definition of Mr Popularity and yourself being the well mannered and reserved library dweller. You’d only stumbled across each other's paths one day in the unlikely event that Jake needed to borrow an actual hard copy of a Douglas A Howard book on the Ottoman Empire.

He ran right into you—and to this day had never stopped loving you. His Honey.

“Are we not splitting it between my family and yours like we said?” Jake frowned as he stepped out of his truck in the car park on base. You could hear the familiar jingle of his car keys as he shut the door of that black F150 he loved so much behind himself.

Your contact remained unchanged, it was simply Honeybee. That term of endearment that illuminated his entire phone screen never boded very well in Jake's favour when it came to his meaningless conquests. Hard Deck Badge Bunnies were a dime a dozen, but they were never you. Never the woman he longed for the most. Never the woman Jake let down more than enough times to count on two hands.

They were never you, because you left him January seventh at approximately four thirty in the afternoon. Jake would never forget that moment, that unimaginable heartbreak of finally coming to the gut wrenching conclusion that you had a limit. Hearing your voice through the phone as he pulled into work made him remember that you were across the country with his three kids in tow. You weren’t his anymore, he’d loved and lost you and didn’t know how to fix what he’d broken.

“I thought we were gonna—“

There wasn’t an easy way to explain to your ex husband how you were sitting in the doctor's office as you spoke to him looking at your last mammogram results. Aggressive Breast Cancer, Stage three A, triple positive grade three invasive doctoral carcinoma. Merry fucking Christmas. So, you interrupted him with a quick explanation, one so out of character and born out of pure panic to keep your newfound diagnosis of stage three breast cancer that needed to be treated as soon as possible before it could progress.

“I’ve been invited on a friend's trip, we’re going—“ Jake pretends not to hear the slight pause you took in your explanation, he decided it was because you feel guilty for dumping the kids on him like this. He knows you're not a bad mum, that’s why the kids he loves so dearly and with all his heart spend more time with you in Rhode Island than they do with him in North Island. “To Banff, yeah they booked a few rooms in the Sunshine Village but it’s a no kids trip.”

“You deserve it.” Jake doesn’t want to argue, it’s what ruined your marriage to begin with. The constant arguing back and forth over everything under the sun. But what Jake knew now that he didn’t back then was that over ninety percent of the time those arguments started because you were just begging him to love you the way you deserved. He’d never put you first a day in your marriage even though you’d selflessly followed him across the country to whatever posting, away from your family and friends, birthed his children, twins with heads just as big as his. You gave him love and support and thought he’d do the same in return.

But the reciprocal love in the form of equality never came no matter how long you waited or gave Jake, the love of your life, your best friend, the father of your children, the benefit of the doubt. It was you who cooked and cleaned and took care of the kids. It was you who stayed home night after night wondering when Jake would be home. It was you who stayed up riddled with anxiety that his last mission would be just that. It was you who heard the rumours about your husband in every city or small town you moved to. That he was a lady killer, a smooth talking guy with a cock sure attitude. He was the prize at the end of any lucky ladies night.

Except for you. But you never questioned your husband’s loyalty, never once asked or believed what everyone told you. That’s just who Jake was—a charismatic man with a heart of gold that was often overlooked. He was the best of the best and he’d stop at nothing to get where he wanted to go, to the very top. If Jake Seresin had to move a mountain to achieve his dream of becoming Commander of the Pacific Fleet then he was going to move that mountain. It was one of the reasons you’d fallen in love with his very closested dorky self.

You just never expected him to drop that very mountain on top of you and bury you alive under the pressure of keeping three beautiful kids alive, working, making sure there was food on the table for breakfast, lunch and dinner. The endless hours of housework that went unnoticed or the constant stress of being the default parent while deployments passed and new assignments came around.

Love sometimes isn’t enough, and Jake, despite the endless love you had for the man who made you a mother and a wife, wasn’t enough. He didn’t love you the way you loved him. Endlessly and without hesitation. Jake had always been your number one priority along with your kids, but you weren’t even on his list.

Jake knew he messed up when you told him you were leaving, he begged you not to, begged you on his knees to stay, that’s he’d change for you, be a better man for you and the kids. That he would do better, be better, be the man you fell in love with. But it was too late.

He wished he’d listened to you all the times that you had begged him to, so now? He didn’t want to argue, not with the woman he loved so dearly and missed so badly.

“I’ll take the kids, no problem, just tell me when I need to be at the airport and I’ll meet you guys there.”

You’d expected a fight, some sort of push back or argument to come from the other end of the phone call as you sat in your doctor's office with eyes trained heavily on your mammogram. But it never came and that made you sure that your ex husband had well and truly fallen out of love with you the way you wished you could with him. At least he cared enough before to argue, now? It was just passive stupidity.

“Okay, will do.” You pressed your lips together in an effort to not blurt out that you had asked your doctor if you were going to die and she had told you that she couldn’t answer that. In your mind that was a yes, yes you were dying and you felt like you couldn’t tell the one man you’d ever loved that you were taking that one way ticket to the place he’d once told you he wished you’d go in one of your long winded arguments. Hell. “I’ll uh—I’ll get the kids organised and explain what’s going on and I’ll text you all the information, sound good?”

“Sounds like a plan, Honeybee.” Jake had yet to kick that old habit. He cringed as the terms of endearment left his mouth and stilled in his tracks. “All good on my end.” His attempt to stumble awkwardly through his mistaken term of endearment didn’t go unnoticed by you in the slightest bit. Your stomach filled with butterflies at the terms that had slipped past your ex husband's lips on the other end of the line.

You missed him, you missed what the two of you used to be before things got so complicated. You missed the gentle nature of Jake's charisma before he fell so deep into the persona he played up for his colleagues and country. The Hangman. Always leaving people hanging, including his wife.

Jake was just and always would be simply Jake Seresin to you. Your now ex husband but still and forever the love of your life.

“Okay, I’ll talk to you soon, bye Jake, have a good day.” You hung up before your tears could spill from your lower lash line and left out a heavy sigh. As you closed your eyes and imagined what it would be like to be held in this moment by the man who promised he’d be there for you in sickness and in health, you reminded yourself why you left. You weren’t good enough for him to love you the way you deserved. How could you expect him to love you now when he couldnt even fix a fucking faucet when you asked?

“Okay, so what’s the next step?” Your doctor just looked at you with sympathetic eyes that told you this wasn’t going to be easy. She took a deep breath and handed you a treatment plan that was in her opinion, the best case scenario for your specific type of cancer.

“You fight for your family, Mrs Seresin.”

***~***~***~***~***~***~***~***

Tags: @blindedbythelightt @starset21@tayl0rhuynh @mamachasesmayhem @marvelogic @itsmytimetoodream @maverick-wingman @kodzukenmaaa @eternalsams @seitmai @nota-professional @jessicab1991 @hardballoonlove @senawashere @lafrone @fanficfandomlove @withahappyrefrain @dizzybee03 @maisie-rebloging-blog @goldenseresinretriever @a-reader-and-a-writer

#was it over? // jake seresin #jake seresin #tw: cancer #tw: breast cancer #jake seresin x reader #jake seresin x female!reader #top gun fan fiction #top gun fandom #jake hangman imagine #jake hangman seresin #jake hangman seresin x reader

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auteurdelabre · 9 days

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SO MUCH TO LOSE part 10 - dark!Joel x f!reader

rating: 18+

words: 7.5k

TW: HEAVY EMOTIONAL CHAPTER. MENTIONS OF TRAUMA. Allusions to oral sex, m receiving, allusions to f/m penetrative sex.

a/n: I told y'all this chapter's a doozy. Well it is, but maybe not for the reasons you think. . . To me its one of the most important chapters of this whole story.

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REBLOGS, COMMENTS, ENGAGEMENT ARE WHAT KEEP US FIC WRITERS GOING. PLEASE REMEMBER THAT IF YOU ENJOYED THIS.

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

SO MUCH TO LOSE CHAPTER 10

You visit Maria the following week with a plate of cookies in hand. She’s the one to answer the door and you are relieved when you see that she is showered and dressed. Things must be improving. She brings you into a tentative hug when you arrive, urging you inside out of the fresh dusting of snow.

“Tommy has Douglas out for a little walk. I’ll make you a coffee.”

“I’m fine,” you insist. “Just came to drop off some baking. I’m heading to Ellie’s later this week and needed to get some practice in. I haven’t done much baking lately and wanted to make sure I wasn’t rusty.”

You join her on the couch, watching as she wraps her hands tightly around her coffee mug. She takes tentative sips between munches of cookie. At the first bite she literally moans.

“This is so good.”

“Thanks. They were Charlotte’s favorite.”

Maria licks the crumbs from her lips before leaning back on the sofa. She’s always been slender and she looks almost as she did back before she gave birth, except for the small pouch at her lower belly. You think she looks better with it.

“Was Charlotte your daughter?”

“Oh no. I never had kids.”

“We’re you ever married?”

“Me?” you almost laugh. “No.”

“Oh,” Maria blinks and her mouth tugs to the side. “I thought you might be. You have a nurturing quality about you.”

“I think you give me too much credit.”

Maria grins, taking another bite of cookie. The two of you chat amiably a bit about the changing weather, of the way the inhabitants of Jackson City get along so well. Of how she feels the pressure of being Jacksons’ ‘First Lady’. Of how the bandits that fuck with the dam that supports the city stresses her daily.

“It’s a fucking nightmare some days,” she cites with a grumble. “Thank goodness for Tommy.”

“He’s a good man,” you tell her.

“He is,” she smiles indulgently before shooting you a lingering look. “What do you think about Joel?”

“How do you mean?”

“You do patrols with him, right?”

“Can’t say I was always his biggest fan,” she says, taking another sip from her mug. “But he’s grown on me.”

“Yeah.”

You hold in the scoff that’s already begun in your throat.

“My friend Jennifer seems to think he’s pretty wonderful,” you offer instead. “She was delighted to help him repair the window last week.”

“She the blonde one? Used to do textiles?” Maria knows everyone thanks to her position.

“Yeah.”

“Not his type,” Maria insists with a shy grin. “She’d eat him alive.”

Jennifer doesn’t seem like she would eat anyone alive.

“Joel is all harsh edges,” she explains when she sees your confusion. “He needs someone soft to balance him out. That Jennifer girl is hard.”

You don’t think that you would consider Jennifer hard and you don’t fight Maria on it because the conversation quickly turns to Jackson’s continued increase of population, the place swelling with new life.

“Plenty of single men,” Maria says with a quirked brow in your direction. You give a soft laugh.

“Not really interested.”

“Single women too.”

“No no,” you laugh again, cheeks pinking. “I like men, I just . . . I don’t think I’m the partnering type.”

You think of Luke and his sweet features and his muscled forearms. For him you could perhaps be the partnering type. Perhaps. The thought of romance appeals to you; it just doesn’t seem realistic at times. A crush feels fun and safe.

“You must have had your share of dates,” Maria insists. You can see her relaxing and you think she must be enjoying what she views as girl time. You think she must not have had much of it lately.

“Normal crushes and stuff,” you shrug. “But I was a late bloomer and then the outbreak started when I was a teenager so I didn’t have a chance for a lot of firsts back then.”

“Sex,” Maria nods.

“Uh yeah… that…” you say, trying to appear nonchalant. “And uh, kissing, dating, all that stuff.”

“But you did eventually,” Maria cites smiling.

“Sex? Oh yes,” you nod. You weren’t a monk or anything in your time before Jackson City.

“What was your first time like?” Maria settles back against a cushion, nibbling at her cookie looking at you eagerly. “I remember mine was all fumbling in the backseat of his truck before curfew.”

You laugh and think Maria must be starved for company to be intrigued by your limited romantic experience.

“Uh… fast,” you say with a laugh before allowing yourself to be transported back to that time. “He worked at one of the bakeries that I assisted in. I remember he had the longest eyelashes I’d ever seen on a man. They were so blond you could only see them if he turned at a certain angle. He made me laugh. One night he invited me back to his apartment and… that was that.”

“How old were you?”

“Uh, twenty two, twenty three?”

“And you didn’t date after?”

“Nah, my family left that QZ kinda in a hurry.”

You aren’t expecting your voice to hitch on that last sentence, but it does. Maria grows somber, her dark eyes expressive.

“Can I ask why you left?”

You blink back the sheen of tears starting and gaze around the room, trying to land on something that will steel you. You find it in the small carving of a horse on the bookshelf nearby. You tell your story to that delicately made creature instead.

“We moved east through the QZ’s for about ten or eleven years. Stayed in a few of them before we’d pick up and keep moving to the next one. Hard to make connections and date with all that. I didn’t trust that I’d have the time.”

Maria looks like she wants to ask more when the door is opened and Tommy’s cheerful voice rings out announcing he and Douglas are home and ready for lunch.

“We have company!” Maria says cheerfully.

Tommy turns the corner to see you and he greets you. He wears Douglas strapped to him with fabric, snuggled under his large jacket. Jackson is sleeping soundly and barely notices when Tommy unwraps and hands him off to his mother.

Douglas squirms, his tiny head burrowing into Maria’s neck. She smiles and for the first time you’ve known her it looks sincere. There is a lightness in the house you realize, something that had been missing before.

“He enjoyed being out in the fresh air,” Tommy announces. “Everyone who saw him wanted to kiss him.”

“Tommy!” Maria looks horrified.

“But I didn’t let ‘em,” Tommy finishes, pressing a gentle kiss to his wife’s worried brow. “I’m gonna make some soup. You two want a bowl?”

“I’m alright,” you say. “I just brought by dessert. I’m actually heading over to Ellie’s to do some baking.”

“Joel’s letting you use his place to bake?”

You still, brows raised. “Uh… yeah. Is that… should I not be?”

“No, I’m just surprised,” Tommy admits after a pause. “I don’t think he’s ever let anyone in that house aside from me and Maria. Think the only reason he and Ellie don’t kill each other is ‘cuz she’s in the garage.”

“Oh.”

You don’t know what else to offer besides that.

Tommy nods and for a moment you see something in his expression, a pinched look when Maria looks away from him. You realize that Tommy looks harried, running a hand through his glossy curls.

“What’s up?”

“Nothin’,” Tommy replies too quickly.

You see the panic in his eyes as his gaze darts from his wife back to you. You understand immediately. Maria is doing well, if there’s something stressful in Jackson City he doesn’t want to bother her with it.

“Thanks for the tea Maria, but I better head out,” you inform them both.

Maria wraps you into a side hug, one arm around your shoulders, the other holding her son. You run your knuckles down his spine gently.

“Come back soon,” she whispers.

“I promise.”

“I’ll walk you out,” Tommy says, feigning manners. The two of you walk to the front door around the corner. As you toe on your boots you look up at him expectantly.

“Well?”

Tommy looks over his shoulder anxiously before dropping his voice to a conspiratorial whisper only you can hear.

“Rumor is Raiders were spotted by A Patrol this week,” Tommy says with a sigh. “Up by the traps.”

“Fuck,” you breathe. “Really?”

“Not positive. A Patrol isn’t always the most reliable. They spook easy and are overly cautious. But I’d rather that than the alternative.”

“Of course.”

“Just make sure you and Joel are extra cautious,” Tommy says. “I know you’re both responsible but, you know…. Just be extra responsible.”

You nod, feeling your heart thrumming in your chest as you make your way to Rancher Street.

///

You didn't really want to go to Joel's house today. But Ellie had found you last night heading home from The Tipsy Bison and had guilted you into it when she told you that Joel had brought back all the supplies needed.

You'd tried to sway her into baking at your place but only the burners on your oven work. You'd never really considered getting the main oven fixed, since you take most of your meals in the dining hall.

But in moments like this, you heavily regret that choice.

You feel like even your footsteps sound timid as they make their way up the wood steps.

Ellie is at the door, pulling it open before you can even knock. She must have been looking for you at the window, counting down the seconds until your arrival. The thought warms you. She gives you a broad smile that lights up her face.

"I got everything set up!"

She takes off down into the kitchen and you venture into the Miller home tentatively, still anxious about what happened last time.

A sound to your right draws your attention and you take in the tall form of Joel coming into the room. He's dressed in jeans and a sweater, obviously feeling the chill despite the cheery fire that roars behind him.

"Mornin'," he greets.

"Morning." You lick your lips nervously. "Thanks for letting me bake with Ellie."

"'Course. She's been looking forward to it for weeks. Can't stop talkin' about it.'

Joel gives you a whisper of a smile but the thing that really throws you about this interaction is that he looks almost nervous. You've never seen Joel look nervous.

He'd been so stiff after last patrol, not even saying goodbye to the group after you'd all disembarked off the horses.

It had been embarrassing. Him storming off like you'd all done something wrong. Only Jennifer seemed to still be under Joel's spell citing that watching him hammer the window would fuel her fantasies for months to come.

You're still really irritated with him but it's lessened slightly because his greeting isn’t hostile. You could almost relax if it weren’t for the intense way he’s staring at you.

You hear your name being called by Ellie in the next room so you toe off your shoes and head into the kitchen. She's got an apron on, borrowed from the kitchen or Joel because it's far too big for her small frame.

"Alright," you give her a warm smile as you enter. "You got everything?"

"Yep."

You place the bag you brought on the counter. You remove your own apron, baby blue with ruffles on the end. A recent gift from Jennifer who told you “since you’re a real chef you need your own apron”. You tie it as you speak to Ellie.

"So what I like to do is set up all my supplies on the counter just to double check I have everything. Nothing worse than being halfway through a recipe and finding out you you’re missing ingredients."

The sentence isn't even out of your mouth before Ellie’s opened up her cupboards and ice box and begun to take everything out. Flour, eggs, bowls, milk and more, all the items you gave Joel on the list. She places them on the counter before looking at you like a proud student.

"You'll need measuring spoons."

The two of you turn at the same time to see Joel standing by the entrance to the kitchen, lingering. His hands are in his jean pockets, standing like a chastised student outside the classroom.

"I brought some," you inform him, trying to hold in your irritation. You pull them from your bag, putting them next to the eggs.

You feel Joel's eyes on your back and you're sure he's silently judging you, eager to point out what you're doing wrong. You stiffen under the perceived scrutiny. Ellie must sense the change in the room because she whips around to shoot him a jeering look.

"Joel you don't need to supervise," Ellie says rolling her eyes. "We won't break the damn stove."

Joel looks at his feet mumbling something about needing to do stuff upstairs anyway before he's making his way out of the kitchen.

You go back to your lesson with Ellie who turns out to be a very focused student.

She asks smart questions, measures everything perfectly and takes her time. It's only when you put her in charge of cracking three eggs into the bowl that she gets frustrated.

"Fuck, it cracked wrong. Shell got in."

Her fingers pinch into the egg bowl, trying to grasp the fallen eggshell. Of course the viscous nature of the raw egg makes it impossible and it’s not long before she pushes at the bowl angrily, her face is set into a deep frown.

“S’fucking bullshit.”

"Happens all the time," you tell her kindly. "Don't stress about it. I’ll show you a secret my mom taught me and my sister to get ‘em out."

Ellie watches as you take the empty shell half still in her hand. Her brows knit in confusion as you lower it into the bowl, using it as a scoop. Unlike with her fingers, the egg shell piece floats easily into the makeshift scoop. You pull the shell from the bowl, tossing the mess into the garbage.

“Holy shit that actually worked.” Ellie smiles at this and it transforms her pale pinched features into that of a warm, approachable teenager.

You smile, feeling strangely proud. You’ve never baked with anyone else before, aside from the kitchen. But that was following the same boring recipes given by the head chef. You were usually boiling rice, cutting onions or apples. Baking is a different beast, a calmer, more relaxing one.

After that hiccup Ellie is more patient with herself. She's keen to learn about baking but she's very eager to talk to you about you. When you pop the formed pastries into the oven and set the timer she decides that now is the time to chat.

"What kind of music did you used to listen to before?"

Memories of Joel’s warning float in your mind. The reminder not to tell her too much. To make her long for a life that he can’t give her.

"Enough about me,” you deflect. “I want to know about you."

At this Ellie balks slightly, the smile wavering just a fraction before the mask is replaced and she nods. Her mixing increases but now her eyes are on the batter.

"Whadda you wanna know?"

"What was your life like before Jackson?"

"I was in the QZ back in Boston,” she says slowly, as if she's trying to make sure she doesn't give too much away. "Hated it."

"Parents?"

"Never met 'em."

"What brought you to Jackson City?"

"Joel."

She doesn't offer you more or less than that. You understand it, you don't push it.

"How'd you end up here?" She asks, mixing the dry ingredients.

You realize the stupidity of you asking her those questions. How easily you opened them to be doubled back on yourself.

"You asked me what kind of music I listened to before?" You smile, hoping that this will distract her. "I remember I saw Chicago about a billion times," you laugh. "I was obsessed. I listened to the soundtrack over and over."

"Chicago," Ellie says slowly as if trying to recall before a light seems to go on. "Oh, I've heard of Chicago. Joel likes ‘em."

Them?

It takes you a minute to understand what she's talking about. You finally answer giggling.

"Chicago the musical, not the band. The musical had great songs. And dancing."

"Do you dance?"

"Not very well."

Your dual laughter combines and you can't help but enjoy the sound. Ellie really does make you laugh. She reminds you of how life was before. When everything seemed new.

You can tell Ellie wants to know everything about your life before the outbreak. And you want to indulge her but Joel's words rub their imprint on your the inside of your skull.

"Hey I promised your D- Joel that I wouldn't keep talking about this stuff with you," you explain quietly. "He's worried it makes you want stuff you can't have."

"Jesus," Ellie says rolling her eyes. “Overprotective much?”

"No he's right," you insist truthfully. "I mean, I get where he's coming from. He doesn't wanna keep disappointing you."

"Joel could never disappoint me."

The timer goes off and you peer into the oven. The pastries are a golden brown. You smile before taking them out with the oven mitt. Ellie closes her eyes, inhaling.

"They smell so good."

"Just wait until you put icing on them," you encourage with a grin. "Delicious."

The two of you get to work making the icing while the pastries cool.

"It's gonna snow," Ellie comments out of nowhere as she peers out the window, mixing idly.

"Hate to break it to you, El, it's already snowing."

Ellie gives you a smirk along with her side eye. You don't know if it's from your sarcastic comment or the fact that you called her El.

"I mean I think it’s gonna snow a lot." She explains. "I heard some of the other kids talking about it at school."

"Huh," you offer noncommittal as you look at the consistency of the icing. "Wonder how they can tell."

"They said they could smell it," Ellie says with a grin, pushing up the sleeve of her shirt so that it doesn't drip into the icing bowl. "They said tha-"

You can't hear anything she's saying after that. All you can focus on is her now bared arm and the ugly bite mark. Blood rushes in your ears and you cry out before giving a blood curdling shriek.

“No!”

Ellie jumps, startled at your sudden screams. She throws herself back against the wall, eyes wide and glancing around as if she expects hordes of infected to come streaming in.

"What? What is it?"

You know she's never seen you be loud, never seen you scream and the sight must terrify her.

But all you can focus on is the clear outline of bite marks on her forearm visible after she rolled up her sleeves. The clear sign of an infected’s mark. She’s going to turn into a clicker before your eyes. She’s going to become soulless and inhuman and you need to go. You need to get somewhere safe.

Joel. He’ll be so devastated.

You can hear the heavy footsteps of Joel approaching the kitchen but all you can think of is escaping and getting yourself safe. You have to warn the town. You run towards the front door, your socks slipping over the smooth floor.

You're still screaming incoherently, your voice cracking as you lunge for the doorknob, tears in your eyes. Your hand closes around the brass knob just as two muscled arms go around your waist, pulling you back harshly. A hand covers your mouth and a deep voice is at your ear.

"Quit," he repeats, shaking you slightly in his arms. "Stop screamin'."

There's an increasingly paranoid thought that believes this was all a trap. A way for Joel to get his daughter fed. You feel it, Joel's arms wrapped around your entire body, pinning your arms to your sides. His body is warm and solid behind you, terrifying in its strength. It takes you to a time you've tried to forget.

"Get the fuck off of me!" You shriek against his palm, trying to wriggle out of his grip but he holds firm. You're screaming expletives, trying to kick out. You shake his hand off your mouth. "She's bit, Joel! I saw it!"

Ellie hasn't moved from where she stands cowering in the corner of the kitchen. But you can only imagine how soon it will be before she turns. You can't be here for that. You can’t watch that sweet girl turn into one of them.

"I know," Joel rumbles against your temple, hands still gripping you tightly.

"You know," you repeat and now a dread begins in your feet and floods the rest of you.

Joel knows she is bit. Joel welcomed you into his home knowing she was bit.

You are going to die.

"Let me go!"

High on fearful adrenaline you give a frantic kick backwards, elbowing into Joel's abdomen at the same time you thrust the ball of your foot onto his socked toes. Joel gives a strangled grunt and his arms loosen in pain momentarily allowing you a chance to break free from him.

You tug open the door and speed out without your boots. You feel the snow on the porch under your feet, freezing your toes immediately. You throw yourself down the porch stairs, feet slapping the wood as you hold back sobs. The street is deserted; the houses all empty as they usually are on bright Saturday afternoons. You go to cry out for someone, anyone, when Joel's arm bands around your waist.

You give a devastated howl of defeat before Joel is dragging your struggling frame back into the house, telling you to calm down.

Ellie is by the sink, her eyes on the ground.

But you still struggle, trying to get away from this house. Joel gives a frustrated growl before he pushes you up against the wall, pinning you there with his hips. His hands hold your wrists on either side of your head, pressing them into the wall.

"Stop fuckin' strugglin'," Joel seethes when you jerk against him, his chest pressing you so tightly to the wall you can't breathe.

"Please let me go," you beg brokenly as you continue to struggle in his arms. "Please I just-“

"She's immune," he rasps in your ear. "She's fucking immune! Stop!"

Immune. Immune.

"What?" You stop your screaming just long enough to twist your head to face him. "Immune? That's not possible."

But you’ve stopped struggling as hard.

You take a closer look at Ellie’s arm from where you stand, noticing that it doesn’t look particularly fresh. In fact it looks scarred. And yet something in you is still terrified. So terrified that you yelp when you feel Joel's wide hands go to either side of your face, forcing your face up and eyes to his.

"Everything is okay," Joel tells you in a husky rasp. "You're safe, I promise. I've got you. You're safe."

His eyes are locked with yours as he says this and you don't know how those words work their way into your body, but they do. The same way they wind around you as you allow yourself to get lost on patrols with your mouth on him. That sense that someone else is in charge, someone else is protecting you.

You're safe.

Your entire frame goes boneless in his arms and when he finally releases your face your head drops to your chest. He continues to press you gently against the wall with one heavy hand holding you there.

"What if it's slow acting or -" you whisper quietly, "or what if you can still pass it on with saliva or-"

"The dogs don't detect it," Joel tells you, his hold on you not lessening. "Ellie and I've shared drinks plenty a' times. She's immune."

You stare at the girl at the table, her entire countenance shifted. You can see the devastation, the fear and anger floods out of you immediately, like a deep sigh. You sag in Joel's arms, feeling as he slowly loosens you.

"She's had it for months," Joel tells you, no longer pinning you to the wall.

"Months?"

You're still stunned by the developments but it doesn't stop your eyes from traveling over to Ellie. You see now that tears are slipping off the end of her nose as she silently cries. She’s pulled her sleeve back down, covering the scar.

Your heart immediately breaks because it's you who did this to her. This girl who trusts so few. You treated her like she was a monster.

"Ellie I'm sorry, I just..." You trail off, your heart still beating wildly.

But Ellie has tears in her eyes, her neck blotchy. She's raced to the garage, slamming the door after her. You flinch at the sound of it.

Then it’s just you and Joel in the quiet kitchen.

"How long have you known?"

"Since I met her," Joel explains quietly. "Was bringing her to the fireflies with a friend in exchange for a battery. Rumor was there was a cure."

"Guess not if you're both here," you say absently, missing the pain in his dark eyes when you say it.

"Not a lot of people know about it. We'd like to keep it that way."

You nod, your mind whirring. You realize you've never seen Ellie in anything but long sleeves. Never seen her wearing bracelets or anything that would draw her attention to her arms. She’s been hiding in plain sight. You think of the friendships she hasn’t made, the way she keeps to herself, the hostile way she is with most and it all clicks into place.

"We were thinking of gettin' her a tattoo to cover it up,” Joel continues. “Haven't found anyone to do it yet."

You nod again, eyes falling on the pastries now lying squashed on the floor, the warm berries oozing out onto the wood.

“I’ll take care of this stuff,” Joel mutters, dropping to his knees and starting to pick up the supplies you brought. You think of how excited Ellie had been to recreate the pop tarts, how devastated she’ll be when she realizes they’re all ruined.

"I- I think I should go talk to Ellie."

"She doesn't wanna talk. Trust me."

"Just lemme try."

Joel looks as if he's about to protest but you're already walking quickly until you've reached the door to the garage. You knock gently.

"Ellie? It's me. Please don't be upset ... I was just startled."

There's a pause, then a sniffle that makes your heart lurch.

"Can we talk? Please, Ellie?"

You hear shuffling and then finally the door to the garage is opened a crack and you see Ellie peering through. Her eyes are swollen and red, the end of her nose pink. She glares at you through the small slit in the door.

"Fuck off."

"I just want to explain. Just let me explain and then I promise I'll leave."

She doesn't move, doesn't attempt to close or open the door. She just stands there like some sentry.

“Five minutes. That’s all I need.”

"You think I'm a freak."

"I don't," you insist, palm on the door as if you could transfer your emotions by osmosis to her. "Ellie I was having fun right before all this. I really was. Can we talk? Please? I want to explain properly."

Ellie’s glossy eyes scan your body and with a labored sigh she steps back, opening the door and allowing you entrance.

"Come in."

You follow her into the warm space, watching as she drops onto her made bed. Ellie hugs her knees to her chest, wrapping her arms around them as you look at her. Ellie's eyes drag from the floor up to your face and you see her chin trembling as she holds in tears.

“Can I sit?” you ask motioning to beside her on the bed. She nods, shuffling to give you room to perch there.

“I know you’re not gonna come back after this,” Ellie says, eyes wide with a quiet pleading as you look over at her.

“Of course I am.”

“No you’re not,” Ellie says shaking her head and rubbing angrily at her eyes. “You’ve seen my arm. You think I’m a fucking freak.”

"Ellie I swear I don't think you're a freak," you emphasize as you shuffle on the edge of her bed. "I was just... That bite took me back to a really scary time."

"Yeah," Ellie says with her chin balanced on her kneecap. "No one wants to think about... All that stuff."

You see the desolation there in her eyes. She's hurt and even though you didn't mean to do it you did. You feel responsible for her sadness. Your eyes go to her closed door, wanting to make sure you have privacy before you turn back to her.

"Ellie, can I share some stuff with you?"

"Yeah.”

"It's not happy stuff," you tell her.

"Figured." Ellie shrugs again like it doesn't matter. Like she's seen it all. Maybe she has, but you doubt it. She doesn’t make eye contact with you.

“It’s just. . . I’ve never told anyone this stuff before. Ever.”

Ellie’s eyes go to your face now. She can see how serious you are and she straightens slightly. She goes from being hunched and holding her legs to sitting cross legged across from you on the bed.

"Okay..." You take a sharp inhale. “So, I was about your age when Outbreak Day happened. I was with my Dad and my sister. My mom was visiting my Aunt in Wyoming-“

“How come?”

“Ellie you gotta let me get this all out quick okay?” you say gently. “No interruptions.”

“Okay.”

“Okay,” you breathe deeply again. “She was visiting my aunt because my aunt was getting a divorce and my mom wanted to support her. Anyway, about ten years ago my dad and my little sister and I were travelling between QZ’s. We were looking for my Mom because my Dad was convinced she was still alive and she’d be out in this direction.”

You swallow; hating talking about this but knowing that Ellie deserves this truth. So far she looks intrigued, her eyes wide.

“So one night we were exhausted. We’d been travelling for days and we were low on food and water. We see this old cabin and it looks like it’s abandoned. We figure it’s a good spot to hunker down and get some energy before we keep going.” You exhale a shuddering breath.

“Except it wasn’t abandoned. It was a trap set up by this group of Raiders. I called them The Group. They killed my dad and they were gonna kill me and my sister when one of the guys had the bright idea that they could use us as bait.”

"Bait?"

Ellie seems to remember she’s not supposed to say anything because she ducks her head slightly.

"Yeah. they made us go into new places first," you explain detached, as if you’re talking about another woman in another life. "So if there was anything dangerous it would get us in enough time to give The Group a chance to escape.”

Ellie is staring at you wide-eyed, all her teenage ambivalence lost as you detail the most terrifying years of your life. You omit lots of the more gruesome details and you definitely don’t tell her about Rock River.

"Once they hung me from a tree," you tell her, trying not to sound emotional. It's not hard. Years of hiding how that part of your life affects you makes you good at it. "They tied me to a rope and hung me on a branch to attract clickers."

"Jesus."

"Yeah," you nod. "It worked really well. There was a big group and they piled underneath me, trying to grab at me, their mouths all black and their teeth gnashing and...” you stop yourself when you see Ellie’s eyes widening. “Anyway, The Group got ‘em all and managed to get some good supplies in the town because of it. I just... It just left me kind of..."

You wince when you realize you’ve trailed off, your focus blurred.

"The point is that when I saw your arm it just all came flooding back and I reacted out of instinct. Not because I think you're a freak. I could never think that about you.”

Ellie is quiet, digesting all that you've told her. You think you hear a creaking outside her door, but you're not sure. Your attention is drawn back to the girl who’s eyes hold such a myriad of emotions; pain, empathy, fear, anger.

"How did you end up here?"

You think about not telling her. But it feels so good to be getting some of this information out, like you’re coughing up a thick black piece of flesh that’s been festering in your lungs for years, making it so you can now finally breathe.

"One guy, Chiyo, he joined up with our group a few years after I was taken. He owned a shooting range before everything.... You know…. Well, he'd broken his ankle in a recent raid and couldn’t really move much. If we hadn't come upon him when we did he probably would have been killed by another group of raiders. But as it was he had this giant stash of weapons and The Groups ranks were thinning so..."

You trail off, thinking of how you'd come upon him first when you and The Group got to town. How the leader you thought of as Red due to his hair (you never learned their real names), shoved you brutally by the shoulder.

Always the bait.

But after what had happened only the week before you didn’t care anymore. Red pushed you and you entered willingly, your feet not even dragging as you walked. It was either be shot by one of The Group attempting to escape, or see what resided inside the shop with the boarded up windows.

Chiyo’s gun was trained on you the second you walked in. The way you held your hands at your eye level when he told you he was going to shoot.

“I’m gonna blow your head clean off if you take another step.”

And suddenly you’d decided that you were done. You were so tired. And at least this way it would be quick and it would be away from The Group. And so you’d taken another step towards Chiyo, hands still raised.

You can still recall the furrowing of his thick brows and the lowering of his weapon as he stared at you.

"You want to die?"

You hadn't answered him but that had been answer enough for Chiyo. He'd hobbled over to you, dragging his lame leg, dark eyes fixed on your face.

"I'm not gonna hurt you."

And when he'd said it, you'd believed him.

You remember the way you'd convinced the rest of The Group they needed someone like him. A crack shot, you told them. You'd had no idea of knowing if it was true. But there had been warmth in Chiyo's eyes that was missing from the rest of The Groups. Something that you clinged to in the coming months.

"Thankfully he was a really good shot,” you explain. “He joined up and we stripped his shop of his guns and eventually his ankle healed thanks to the medic in The Group and he was suddenly part of the team.”

“Was he nice to you?”

“Yeah. He was really kind. Whenever they used me as bait he insisted on going with. He said it was so we could save me for really bad missions, but I knew it was to protect me. They let him get away with it because he was such a good shot, I think. Everyone liked him. When the rest of The Group was asleep we'd talk by the fire. Chiyo was afraid of horses," you tell Ellie with a small smile. “Was about the only thing he was afraid of.”

You don't tell her everything. You don't tell of the tender way he fucked you in the wee hours of the morning before The Group rose most mornings. How he whispered that he missed his dead wife and would never dishonor her memory by kissing you. But you hadn’t minded, you understood and you’d both been gentle with each other.

You’d enjoyed getting lost in the sensation of him. Of his cock in your mouth, of your cunt stuffed full of him. The rhythmic sensation of sex that took you out of your body and away from your every day horrors.

You remember how he would hold you, tears sliding onto your collar as he spilled himself onto your belly whimpering his dead wife’s name. How he would thank you over and over with your hand at the base of his skull, mouth against his shoulder while you quietly sobbed your own gratitude.

"After a few months he told me he was escaping. He'd heard about Jackson City and that's where he was headed. He wanted to bring me to see if we could find my Mom."

"Holy shit,” Ellie breathes. “Where is he now?"

"He didn't make it," you tell her tightly.

And now the shield is back in your voice and eyes and she must sense it. Ellie doesn’t press this, seems to understand that there is more there. With a teenagers’ sensibilities and a teenager’s romanticism she asks you her next question.

"Were you in love with him?"

Chiyo is a faint memory, a watercolor blur if you think about him in too much detail. When you try to recall things like the scar over his left eyebrow or the dragon tattoo on his inner thigh. But these are just pieces of him. They aren't him.

When you think of Chiyo there is a warmth. But it's the warmth that comes from having a benevolent savior. One who never told you that you were in his debt. Yes, you cared for him. Of course you did. He was gentle and he was kind and his heart was soft.

"No," you say firmly. "He was nice though and I cared about him. Probably as close to love as I'll ever get."

You and Ellie are quiet for a long time.

“I tried saving a bit boy once,” she finally offers. “His name was Sam. Tried rubbing my blood on him. Thought it would save him. It didn’t. He turned and his brother had to kill him before he killed himself.”

You don’t allow yourself to cry. You know that isn’t what Ellie needs right now.

“I’m the reason so many people are dead,” Ellie explains when you say nothing in return. “My Mom died having me. Riley… Tess… Sam…Henry... Ellie’s voice is doing that same detached thing yours does. “Sometimes I honestly think it would be better if I was never born.”

You can’t help the way your arms leap out in front of you to gather the girl into your arms. She tries to fight you on it, flinching from the contact before your unrelenting arms pull her into a tight squeeze, tugging her into your lap. Angry tears slip down her red cheeks, her cries breaking free as you wrestle her into a bear hug.

“I’m so glad you exist, Ellie.”

And then all the fight is gone from her body and she’s sobbing quietly into your shoulder, her tiny frame shaking. You hold her against you, wanting your adoration and affection to move through your body into hers so she knows how much she’s wanted.

“The world would be so much worse without you in it,” you assure her honestly. “You’re special, Ellie. And not because you’re immune. Because you’re smart and brave and funny and you make people like me feel like we’re worth something.”

Her arms wrap around your neck, face in your shoulder and she allows you to continue holding her, rocking her gently in your lap as if she were your own teenage daughter.

“And yes you’re stubborn and you can be annoying,” you add, trying to lighten the mood. “But there’s no one I like talking to as much as I like talking to you. You made me look forward to breakfasts in the dining hall because it meant I got to speak to you.”

“You’re just saying that,” she sniffles, arms loosely circling your neck.

“You don’t like liars, right?” You remind her. “Well I’m not lying. Plus, I know Joel loves you and he doesn’t seem like the kind of guy that loves many people so you must be pretty great.”

Ellie gives a shallow huff of amusement in your shoulder.

“And I know Maria and Tommy adore you just as much if not more than I do. And if you opened up a little more with the kids around here I know they’d love you just as much as we do because you’re a wonderful person. The world would be so much worse without your light, Ellie. You bring light to the darkness.”

You continue rocking her for several moments, waiting until her sobs turn into hiccups and then gentle swallows. Finally she pulls back from you, almost embarrassed at the emotional display. She shuffles back onto the bed, picking at the loose string hanging from her pillow.

“I think I’m cursed.”

“Hey now that’s not true,” you insist. “I’m here aren’t I? How is that a curse? If anything it’s a blessing.”

She gives you a weak smile that you return.

“C’mon, let’s go and finish the pop tarts.”

“We’ll have to start all over again,” Ellie almost whines.

“Then I guess I’ll be staying here a little longer.”

Ellie wipes at her blotchy face, running her hands down her cheeks before nodding and standing abruptly. You two make it back into the kitchen, surprised to see Joel standing there. His broad shoulders ripple as he works on something in front of him, his back to you.

Ellie sails over to him, her eyes wide when she sees what he’s done. “Wait are those the pop tarts?”

“Yep.”

“I thought they were ruined.”

“Yours were,” Joel shrugs, spreading icing onto one of the homemade pop tarts. “Mine went okay.”

You feel as if you’ve been physically pushed.

Joel baked?

Ellie snags one of the still warm pastries from the plate as Joel starts running the cloth over the counter and wiping the crumbs into the sink. You look at the joy on Ellie’s face as she takes a bite.

“Holy shit, Joel, these are so fucking good.”

“Language,” Joel admonishes over his shoulder, though there’s nothing harsh in it. He turns around, hip resting against the counter.

“I’m gonna have you do all my baking,” Ellie continues as if she hasn’t heard him. “I’ll just be your taste tester.”

You want to grin at this but all you can do is stare at Joel and the soft way he’s smiling down at Ellie. This open look of adoration you so rarely see. Like there’s this secret Joel inside the mean Joel shell that the privileged few witness.

Joel could never disappoint me.

Joel seems to feel your eyes on him because he blinks over at you, dark eyes darting around your face. His expression is unreadable, but there’s nothing cruel or cold in it. He’s just looking at you, almost as if he’s trying to figure you out as well.

“Well looks like we’re all set here so I should go,” you start awkwardly, suddenly feeling strangely light headed. Joel steps towards you, brows rising.

“You could stay for a dr-“ Joel begins, but you’ve already made your way to the front door, pulling on your boots and jacket.

Your hands are trembling for some reason and you think it must be all this emotional turmoil you’ve shared with Ellie. It has you feeling vulnerable and exposed and you want to escape home to the safety of your bed, away from soulful brown eyes and soft smiles.

“Ellie you wanna grab breakfast before patrols?” you ask, studiously ignoring Joel who stands next to her looking at you. You don’t want her to think you’re rushing off and forgetting about her.

“Sure,” Ellie says brightly before motioning to the plate of pastries. “You want any of these to go?”

“Nah, you enjoy them,” you insist with a flash of a smile. “You worked hard.”

You don’t look backwards as you rush out the door of their home and down the sidewalk of Rancher Street, convinced you can feel Joel’s dark gaze on you the entire way.

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

secondary a/n: The other parts I wanted to include in this chapter were gonna bloat this installment into over 10k and I wasn't even finished so I had to break it up!

CHAPTER 11 SPOILERS BELOW THE JOEL

in chapter eleven there be smut.

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mtmpossession · 3 months

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A New Perspective: Part II

Part I (Here)

In the kitchen, Joseph sits down at the table and looks around. His father's body feels so different from his own. He reaches up and touches his cheek, feeling the roughness of his father's stubble. He glances at Douglas, who is watching him intently.

Douglas takes a deep breath and says, "Joseph?" His voice sounds strange coming out of his own mouth. Joseph looks at him, wide-eyed, as he continues, "I'm sorry. For... everything. I don't know what happened last night, but I hope this gives us both a chance to understand each other better."

Joseph nods, still looking shocked. He takes a deep breath and says, "Me too, Dad. I never thought I'd want to be you, but now... I just want to understand why you're so against my modeling. I love it, and I'm good at it. I want to make something of myself."

Douglas listens intently, feeling a pang of guilt in his chest. He's always been so focused on protecting his son, on making sure he has a stable future. But he realizes now that he hasn't been giving Joseph the freedom to choose his own path.

"I want you to know that I'm not against you, Joseph. I just want the best for you. I want you to have a normal life, to go to college, to have a family of your own. I don't want you to be defined by your looks, by the way people see you. There's more to life than just that."

After their conversation during breakfast, Douglas and Joseph decide to live out each other's lives for a while until they can find a way to swap.

The day passes quickly for Joseph as he takes over his father's role at the fire protection specialist firm. He finds that he enjoys the work more than he thought he would. The job is challenging and fulfilling, and he feels a sense of purpose helping to protect people and property from fires. His father's colleagues treat him with respect and admiration, recognizing his intelligence and work ethic.

As for Douglas, he spends the day at the family farm. He finds that his son's body is more resilient and capable than he ever imagined. He puts it to good use, finishing tasks that he had been putting off for far too long. He is able to complete these task early , leaving him with some extra time to play with the farm equipment. He climbs onto the lawn mower and takes it for a spin around the property, enjoying the rush of wind through his hair and the vibration of the engine beneath him.

After mowing the lawn, he decides to try out the dirt buggy. He drives it through the muddy fields, feeling the power of the vehicle beneath him. The sun is setting, painting the sky in hues of orange and pink, and he can't help but feel a sense of peace and contentment wash over him. As he drives, he begins to think about his life and his relationship with Joseph. He realizes that he has been too strict with him, not allowing him to explore his interests or pursue his dreams.

Meanwhile, after finishing a day's work at his father's business, Joseph decides to go to the gym. He finds that his father's body is more muscular and toned than he expected. As he works out, he realizes that his father must have been diligent in maintaining his physique. The gym is filled with men and women who seem to know his father, nodding respectfully as he passes by.

After working out, Joseph feels invigorated and more confident than ever. He decides to take a quick shower before heading home. As he stands under the hot spray of water, he can't help but notice how different he feels in his own body. His father's muscular frame seems to radiate confidence, and it's intoxicating. As he soaps up, he finds himself becoming increasingly aroused. He reaches down, taking his growing erection in hand, and begins to stroke it slowly.

He tries to fight the urge, knowing that he shouldn't be doing this, but the sensations are too overwhelming. With a shuddering breath, he lets go, allowing himself to cum.

Afterward, he feels a mixture of relief and shame. He knows that he has crossed a line, but the release was so intense, so satisfying. He quickly finishes his shower, drying off and dressing in clean clothes.

He catches his reflection in the mirror and is surprised to see how different he looks from his usual self. His father's features are strong and confident, and he carries himself with an air of authority. He takes a deep breath, feeling a new sense of self-assurance wash over him. Before leaving the gym, he takes one more picture of himself in the mirror, capturing the look of confidence and power on his father's face.

When he gets home, he finds Douglas doing pulls up using the corral panels of the farm. Seeing his own body in action is both exhilarating and disconcerting.The sun is setting, casting a warm glow over the scene, making Douglas's skin glisten with sweat.

"How'd it go today?" he asks, still breathing heavily from the exercise.

Joseph takes a moment to compose himself before responding. "It was...interesting. I guess I underestimated how much work you do here. I had no idea how much it takes to keep everything running smoothly." He pauses, feeling a little guilty for not appreciating his father's efforts before. "I'm sorry for not being more understanding."

Douglas nods, wiping the sweat from his brow. "I'm sorry too, Joseph. I guess I've been so focused on what I thought was best for you that I didn't take the time to see things from your perspective." He looks at his son and smiles, genuinely. "I'm glad we had this talk. It's made me realize that I need to be more open-minded."

They spend the rest of the evening cooking dinner together, chatting and laughing as they prepare a meal that reflects both of their culinary preferences. As they sit down to eat, they clink their glasses in a toast. "To understanding," Douglas says with a grin. "And to learning from each other."

After dinner, they clean up together, washing dishes and putting away leftovers. Joseph feels a newfound sense of closeness with his father, one that he hadn't experienced since he was much younger. As they work side by side, they continue to chat about their day, sharing stories and experiences.

Later that night, they sit down on the couch, each with a laptop in front of them. Joseph shows Douglas how to access the files on the computer he'd been using, and they begin to dig into the research on body swapping. They spend hours poring over articles, scientific papers, and message boards, trying to find any information that could help them figure out how to reverse the process.

Despite their best efforts, they find very little concrete information. Most of the sources they come across are either anecdotal or speculative. It seems that body swapping is still a relatively new phenomenon, and not much is known about how it works or how to undo it. They mutually agree that for now it's best to just continue living each other's lives until they can find some answers.

6 Months Later :

Douglas has been living as Joseph in New York City, working as an influencer and enjoying the glamorous lifestyle that comes with it. He has traveled all over the world, attending fashion shows in Paris, partying on yachts in the Mediterranean, and even gracing the covers of magazines. The experience has been exhilarating, to say the least.

As he walks down the streets of New York, he can't help but marvel at the energy and diversity of the city. People from all walks of life bustle past him, each with their own unique stories and aspirations. He feels a newfound appreciation for the opportunities that Joseph has been afforded, as well as the hard work and dedication that it takes to succeed in this industry.

Joseph on the other hand, has adapted quite well to life on the farm. He finds himself enjoying the physical labor and the simple pleasures of living off the land. The sunrises and sunsets are breathtaking, and he relishes the peace and quiet that comes with being away from the hustle and bustle of the city. He's learned how to drive a tractor, tend to the animals, and even fix some of the equipment when it breaks down. The locals have taken him under their wing, treating him like one of their own, and he's made a few friends along the way.

He's also become more involved in the family business, working closely with his father to manage the finances and plan for the future. It's given him a newfound respect for his father's intelligence and business acumen. They've had many long talks about their experiences living each other's lives, and Joseph feels that they've grown closer as a result.

Seems like one fateful night has brought about significant changes in both their lives. As they continue to exchange stories and experiences, Douglas and Joseph can't help but wonder what the future holds for them. They've both grown in ways they never expected, and they're beginning to understand that there's value in embracing change and stepping out of their comfort zones.

#body possession #body swap #body switch #bodyswapper #gay possession #male body swap #male possession #male tf #male transformation #jock #male body theft #male takeover #dad and son

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postmodernbeliever · 11 days

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little darling- fox mulder x female reader (SMUT OH MY GOD…)

fox mulder knows how badly you want to be touched, to be taken care of, and he is obsessed with being the first and only guy to do it.

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my ao3 | word count: 6,071

content tags: smut, smut so good in my brain it came out poetic?, loss of virginity, virginity kink, dom fox mulder, protective gentle extremely horny fox mulder, embarrassment, sexual fantasy, plus size reader gets sooooo much love, im blushing just posting this aaaaaaa, oh some religious bits bc catholic girls are freaky and also his sex is THAT good, cross-posted on ao3

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fox knew it was wrong, and he didn’t care. he knew how he thought about you, how he touched you in his mind, how he wanted to possess you was culpable- but then again, how shameful could it truly be? how bad was it to want to take care of you, to teach you the right way, to want to show you how good love is supposed to feel? well, maybe it wasn’t completely pure, because he nearly came untouched just thinking about you sometimes, but he just couldn’t help himself. he wanted to. he wanted to be the one you chose to give yourself to. the only one.

it was always in the most mundane moments, like this one, that he needed it most, which played into his guilt. soft moments where you were unaware of what you were saying or doing, clueless as to how you were making him feel. now, as you sat watching the sex scene from basic instinct while fox pretended to be filling out a case file at his desk, was one of those moments. you squirmed in your seat with a sweet blush on your cheeks, watching the slight caricature of sharon stone on top of michael douglas, pupils blown wide and trying to hide your interest. fox was doing his best not to move a muscle, but he felt like a vein would pop if he didn’t turn around to look at you. his stomach was twisting itself into hot, trembling knots just wondering what the scene was doing to you.

you’ve been dating him for a few months now, and upon meeting him, you fell in love in a way you still didn’t understand. he did, too. he idolizes you, he holds you up above everyone else to his detriment. after the first few dates, you told him that you wanted to take the physical aspects of the relationship slow because you had personal obstacles to overcome; he promised to do so, because when you look at him, his entire world glows, and he refused to jeopardize that heaven you unraveled. but he’s learned a lot about you since then simply through deduction. the few risqué movies you’ve watched with him proved through the surprise on your face that you hadn’t seen much video porn, let alone been touched; the books you tried to hide in your purse had absurd covers with the lustful silhouettes of cowboys and prairie girls, corporate bosses and assistants, big looming over small against some dark backdrop– all of it meaning that when you were alone, you fantasized. but the most telling was when fox himself touched you, albeit innocently. it was like you’d never been touched by anything before. when fox’s fingers ghosted over your knuckles as he held your hand, you’d giggle like a schoolgirl, hiding your face in your shoulder. even better, when he brought those same hands to the soft, warm apples of your cheeks, you’d shudder, melting into his touch like you’d lost your volition. it didn't matter how he did it- if his hands were on you in some capacity, your breath hitched in your throat like a fool.

you wanted to let him touch you. there wasn’t a thing in the world you wanted more than to let him give you all of the things you’d dreamed, all of the things he must be aching to, but it was difficult for you. it seemed no amount of love was enough to break down your walls– you’d never let anyone that close. you’d always struggled with your body and your worth, and the little dating experience you’d had wasn’t much to boast about. you weren’t what people wanted, even if you were deserving. you knew fox was different, and that to him you weren't too big or not pretty enough, but you had just about every anxiety about physical affection. he had no idea you were a virgin on top of it all, which only made the pressure greater. you just couldn’t get over the fear. but you yearned to have it, so much so that even the smallest instances set your body aflame. you had the most lewd things running through your head when fox did just about anything. once you watched the man reach for the cereal box on the top shelf in his kitchen, and his sleep shirt rode up to reveal the dark happy trail that disappeared down his pants, and you felt so dizzy you could’ve dropped dead. and whenever he was close, it was unbearable. you replayed the sensation of his strong, lean hands resting protectively over your hip at his friend’s house. you thought about the way his lips felt on your forehead so often you could’ve written a book based solely on the texture. it drove you insane, the way you wanted him, and you drove yourself insane every time you didn’t act on it. but what did you know of hands, of mouths, of letting someone see what you shroud in fabric every day? what did you know of making him feel good, too, of being worth the wait for him?

now, as you curled up on his couch, you watched michael douglas’ hand grip sharon stone’s leg. it was big, but not big like fox’s. you imagined it was your boyfriend on the television, dark and brooding, as you saw how the man dove between the blonde’s legs, starving; her back arched, propelling her hips forward into his face, and she let out a soft moan. in your head, you saw yourself on that bed, and fox as hungry. you squeezed your thighs together and gathered the blanket draped across your legs in your palms, trying not to look as overwhelmed as you felt. but the agent who listened to the heavy breathing on screen saw exactly what was happening to you. he saw the blood rushing to the tips of your ears, tinting them the color of your bitten lips; he saw the way you shifted rhythmically beneath the blanket, almost undetectable, but absolutely undeniable. fox looked up at the ceiling as if to thank the god he didn’t believe in for playing basic instinct on cable, and he stood up from the desk, stalking over to sit beside you on the couch. as his body made the cushions dip, you smiled nervously. through a cracking voice, you said, “i didn’t know this movie was all… y’know.”

‘oh, yeah, it’s pretty heavy,” fox nodded, attempting his best unassuming expression. “still good, though, huh?”

“i mean, sure,”

“yeah, i think so, too.”

fox sighed just a tad too loudly and let his hand fall on your thigh. nothing but the blanket was between his palm and your skin. you looked to him with a pleading pair of eyes, though you didn’t really know what you were pleading for. the moaning from the television got louder, and you felt so warm, and his hand wasn’t going anywhere. you had no idea what to do. fox grinned at you and let his head tilt back over the couch as he swallowed thickly. you stared at the curve of his stately neck, how his adam’s apple bobbed, and every inch of your body pined in his wake. fox gazed at you, lounged wide like a lion, and his hand slowly traveled up your thigh to the crease of your hip. he slid his fingers across the soft crevice, and you were still at a statue, stuck between craving the friction and terrified to feel it.

“can i ask you something personal?” fox’s voice was gentle. husky.

“...mhm.”

“has anyone ever, uh,” you followed his gaze to the tv, where michael douglas was doing things that made your hands sweat. “have you ever done it like that?”

you prayed that a black hole would open up in the floor and suck you in, so you never had to admit the truth. but his hand was still in that soft spot, and his minty eyes were made of looking glass, and the image of him that fucked your mind was so boggling you were on the edge of giving up.

“just out of curiosity,” he added, lips curling into a cheshire smile.

you ran a hand across your burning cheeks and murmured, “uh, no. no, i haven't.”

“it’s interesting, y’know, how they can make it look so real,” fox pursed his lips, pushing his hand back down your thigh to rest on your knee.

before you could bite your tongue, you confided, “i wouldn’t really know.”

fox’s hand paused at the crest of your kneecap, a chill running down his body. he thought of you, his pretty, quiet, gentle girl, and he never once stopped to think why you were so reserved. he always blamed the little silver cross that hung from your neck and some guy from your past, but he neglected other options. but now, his mouth watered.

“really?”

you tugged the blanket up to your face. “is that a bad thing?”

the man turned to face you, pulling your hands away to reveal the flushed face beneath. you were breathing so heavily. a need rattled his bones, one he wished he could stifle. pictures flashed in his brain- you, writhing beneath him, the feeling so new, making pretty faces as he did what the people in movies do. him, defiling you, ruining the girl you’ve been, clutching to your cross as your mouth bled with his name. maybe he was a monster, but his cock twitched in his dress pants at the humiliated expression you bore.

“no, baby, of course not!” he chuckled, “no, that’s– that’s a good thing.”

“but i-”

“everyone does things at their own pace,”

“but…”

“but what, sweetheart? i don’t expect anything from you.” fox sweetly lied. he wouldn’t force it, but he wanted it. badly.

“i just wish that, uh, that i had by now. sometimes. i guess.”

your eyes darted between the television screen and the way his nimble fingers encased both of your wrists. it only took one hand for him to hold you down… what a career he could make with his other hand free.

“have you ever tried?”

“...no.”

“do you want to?”

you let out a nervous hum. something came over you like it always does, and you leaned over to hide in his shoulder; in a way, that was better than letting him see your face. his hand rested at the nape of your neck as he cooed, “awh, baby, it’s okay.”

“it’s not really okay,” you mumbled into his shirt. “it’s embarrassing.”

“i don’t think it is. i think it’s cute.”

you felt his hand run down your back, and you pushed yourself a little closer, so you could rest against his neck. fox kept talking since you were at a loss.

“nothing embarrassing about that, i promise. truthfully, you’re better off. so many guys out there just wanna take advantage, y’know?” he reasoned, tracing little things at the small of your back, fingertips like pens. “probably would’ve wished you didn’t, because you’re so hard on yourself… i would hate to know you lost your virginity to some guy who didn’t care about you. not the way i do.”

the heat of your breath against his neck was maddening. everything about you was maddening. how you curled into him for protection, for reassurance, how your palms tugged at the wrinkled cotton of his work shirt because you didn’t know where to put them. the little nods of agreement you made with every opinion he voiced. he wanted to knock you on your back and fuck you right there, but he couldn’t. he couldn’t spring it on you. you had to want it, you had to let him. and he knew you wanted to let him because it was all over you.

he asked again, “baby, do you want to?”

he raised his wandering hand to tuck your hair behind your ear, and you felt this urge inside you, an indulgence just begging to be released. acting selfishly, you pressed a kiss to the side of his neck, and beneath your lips, you felt the vibration of a little growl. fox tangled his palm in your hair, and as gently as he could, he pulled your head back so you had no choice but to look at him.

“is that a yes?”

your stomach churned. “yes.”

“good. come on.”

fox rose from the couch and tugged you up with him. he watched the blanket fall from your legs to see that your sleep shorts had ridden up and tucked themselves in the chub of where your thighs and legs met, that sacred spot he’d touched before, and he rolled his eyes in ardor. with your shaky hand in his, the man led you into his bedroom, where he motioned for you to sit at the edge of the bed.

“fox, i…”

“what, love?”

“i… i don’t know.”

you watched him walk over to his closet and open the doors, revealing the shuffled-around mess inside. with his back turned to you, you saw his hands disappear to unbutton the dress shirt that crumpled on his shoulders from a day’s work. as he pulled it over his head, the spotless skin of his sculpted back smiled at you. your hips were warm.

“you’re nervous,” he said, still facing away as he threw the shirt into the basket. “i know you are. but it’s not so scary. plus, you’re with me. i’m nice, aren’t i?” “you’re very nice,” you smiled, “but you’ve done this before. you… you know so much more than i do.”

“are you sure?” fox’s laugh rumbled low in his throat, “because i’ve seen the books you read. bet you’ve got all kinds of ideas i’ve never even tried before.”

you shifted on the bed, tucking your legs into a crisscross. “w-well, that’s different!”

“no, it’s not!” the man teased, shaking his head like you were hopeless. he crossed the room, back to you, where he stood like a pillar before the bed. when you didn’t meet his gaze, he tucked his finger beneath your chin and made you. “you’ve been thinking about it for so long, haven’t you, sweetheart? about me? must be so lonely, just thinking, never doing.”

he passed his thumb over your trembling chin, admiring your starry eyes, how they reflected so much love. you were so pretty, a pretty he couldn’t have imagined if he’d seen all the most beautiful women in the world. none of them could hold a candle to his girl. “you’re so smart, so good at handling things when they’re hard. but you never let anyone handle you, do you? not even me, baby, and i could be so good at it.”

you couldn’t control how you let him sway you. you gave yourself over, basking in the rush. he settled on his knees, so you had to look down, and he pressed his hands to where your love handles dipped, passing the skin over in his hands.

“i’ve wanted to let you,” you sighed, “i’ve… thought about it.”

fox’s eyes, eager as a puppy’s, looked up at you as he asked, “well, when we’re in your head, where do i start?”

you shivered. “you kiss me first.”

the man decided that you deserved to have your fantasies fulfilled; if in your pretty mind you’d dreamed up a routine, then he’d follow it, and he’d prove to you that nothing was as good as the real deal. he pushed up on his knees and leaned in, thankful for his low-set bed, as he pressed his lips against yours. you disassembled against his touch; he moved with a cadence that had your head spinning, fingers behind your ears, tongue swiping against your bottom lip. you’d kissed him plenty, but never like this. never so messy, so desperate. he tasted warm, and kind, sunshine in a mouth. you let out a soft whimper as he caught your bottom lip between his teeth.

“i think you’re a bad girl in that head of yours, angel,” he mumbled into your mouth. “what do i do next up there?”

you were too afraid to say it, and you didn’t want to pull away from his lips, so instead you reached for the wrist that held his hand to your face. fox’s throat tightened as you guided his hand down to your stomach, a place you didn’t let him touch often.

“so pretty, baby,” he admired, knowing exactly what it is you needed from him. he paraded his kisses down to your neck, where he got so much sloppier. he licked a stripe over your throat, nipping at the soft skin of your jaw, and he passed the chub of you over in his devastating hands. you keeled forward, resting your forehead against his shoulder, and he littered your ear with little pecks. “so soft. i love your tummy, y’know. how it looks when you wear those pretty dresses, and how when you wear my shirts i can see the shape. fuckin’ adorable, you have no idea. prettiest girl i’ve ever seen.”

“fox,” you whined. he was barely even touching you, but the weight of his words anchored your lungs to the floor.

he took a little liberty and leaned down to tug your shirt up, and began brushing his lips over you, spit for paint. you let your hands wander to his hair, and your stomach flipped at the noises he made.

“now what, sweetheart?”

“y-you… agh,”

fox pulled away, and you swooned at the sight of his pretty lips already swollen. “forgettin’ already?”

“well…” you trailed off, feeling a mental fog roll in.

fox stood up and pushed at your shoulders, tilting you back onto his bed. laying down, he had more access to pushing your shirt up and seeing you for real. he sucked at his teeth, handsome face overtaken with want; you curved like a muse beneath him, and he wondered why you hid all this body beneath clothes. you felt his hands like a compass, mapping the cascading mountain ranges and slow, dipping valleys of your hips and thighs, as if his whole world was discovering you, as if his purpose existed within the endless confines of your flesh and bones. and his hands roamed freely, nomadically, through your land, committing every road that made you shiver to memory.

“where do you touch yourself, princess?” fox smiled. you whined, and he clicked his tongue. “come on, show me.”

your hand shook, but you rested it over your shorts, and you curled your fingers in to prove you knew how.

“good girl. bet you know just what to do, huh?”

“mhm,”

“but your fingers aren’t enough, are they?” fox pouted playfully as he hooked his thumbs beneath the elastic band squeezing your waist.

“no,” you wheezed, “never.”

“fuck. you sound so pretty when you need me. let me see you.”

trying to stop himself from rushing, the man clambered on top of you and grabbed you by the back of your knees, pushing you up the bed a bit. when your head hit pillows, he tucked them behind you, and he crawled back down to your legs with a mission. gently, he tugged your shorts down, and beneath were little black boyshorts that cut into the skin of your thighs. he looked about as starving as michael douglas as he flattened his palms against your hips, adoring the sight.

“y’know, most girls hide lacy things,” he teased, “i like this so much better.”

breathlessly, you said, “lace is itchy.”

“god, you’re just dying for it, aren’t you?”

you pushed up into his palms and whispered, “please.”

“please what?”

“do it,” you heaved, “i need it, fox.”

he didn’t need to be told again. he slid your panties down in one sweep and practically drooled over what you had kept from him all this time. he could’ve cried. this must be what people felt when they saw the mona lisa for the first time, or had a prayer answered. this was his very own da vinci original. this was god’s divinity trapped in your lower half. you were an irritated pink, your pussy plump as the rest of you; as he pushed your thighs wide, he found a sheen already coating your skin. “fuck, sweetheart, is this from the movie or me?”

“y-you.” you kicked yourself for all your stammering, but the glow of his cheeks soothed the embarrassment.

“oh, yeah?”

you didn’t know how easy it would be to let yourself be touched before you just tried it. here, with the one man who might be the direct work on god on earth, you wanted to spill every secret now that you knew something of hands. your heart beat against your ribcage relentlessly as you admitted, “was imagining it was you on tv, fox, you and me,”

“jesus christ,” fox grunted, eyes dirty and dark. “i can fuck you better than he ever could.”

fox pressed his thumb to the bundle of nerves that throbbed between your legs, and just the pressure alone drew a dangerous moan from the back of your throat. he relished in the sound as he began to circle his finger, leaning down to kiss the searing skin. you rolled your hips against his touch, begging for more friction, and he wordlessly rewarded you with a new motion, one that needed two fingers for rubbing. you grabbed at his forearm as it came into reach, and he felt like he could explode from how you tugged at him. you held onto his arm like it was a lifeline. any other girl would’ve grabbed the bedsheets or touched her body, but your inexperience meant you were acting on instinct, and that quite possibly was the best thing he’d ever seen. watching you feel so good for the first time in your life had him panting like a dog. you were all his now, his pretty girl under his spell. an angel who knew only one name.

“good, baby?”

“mm-nngh,” was all you had to say.

“what a pretty girl.”

“fox…”

“good girl. only i can make you feel like this, right? not those guys in your books, none of those movies. just me, my hands, baby, my mouth,”

you used your grip on his arm to try and get him to go faster, but he refused. he wriggled free from your grasp and left a ghostly kiss on your stomach, tutting, “oh, no, angel. i’m gonna make this last. want you out of your mind when i’m done.”

you’ve felt powerless all your life, and you do even now, but this is the first time you’ve ever needed more. you were engrossed in being taken. you’d been too afraid to pray for this because you weren’t sure how the man upstairs would feel about you breaking his technical rules, but you had to have yearned to let fox take your virginity every night since you met him. you knew he’s done this before, but you didn’t know he was so gifted; but even he could tell you that it wasn’t so much his experience as it was how he wanted to ruin every other guy for you. and how could you want another when his hand– that which wrapped around the neck of a pistol, that which choked the air of men’s throats– circled your clit so gently, working a new kind of love into you that you never thought imaginable?

“been dreaming about this, y’know,” fox drawled, leaving stinging kisses on your waist. “been thinking about how our first time would go. and you’re doing so good, you’re taking it so well right now.”

you couldn’t speak. every word got caught in your chest. so instead you tugged at his hair, trying to get him to kiss you. he giggled, hovering over you and slowing his fingers so he could give you what you wanted. you moaned into his mouth, lips gnashing against his teeth in your eagerness, and just when you felt like you were starting to have some control, you felt two of his fingers push between your folds. they went so much deeper than you’ve ever gotten your own, and as he curled them inside you, your entire body shook. gasping against his cheek, you exhaled, “oh my god,”

“be careful, baby, you don’t want him to hear you,” fox warned, voice thick with lust.

you grabbed at his chest, fingers running through the little curling hairs that grew in a thicket over his heart, and you felt it beating, keeping time with his hand. you wondered if sex felt like this for everyone the first time around, but then again, how could it? unless fox was there for them all, they could never have had it this good.

“you’re so pretty,” fox cooed, “so pretty on my fingers. d’you feel pretty, baby?”

“mmm,”

“tell me you feel pretty,”

“i- i feel pretty.”

“mhm. what about me, love, you think i’m pretty, too? my hands feel pretty?”

“fuck,” you squeaked, “fox!”

“i know you do. say it.”

“you’re so pretty,” you droned, trying to catch his lips in a kiss, but he rerouted to your neck.

you ground into his palm over and over again, and he felt you burning up on his fingertips, contracting, squeezing, shaking. he moaned into your shoulder, “do you wanna cum, baby?”

your hands scratched at his arms, and to his surprise, you shook your head violently. “not yet,”

“really?”

“mm-mm. not… not time yet.”

fox’s pupils swallowed the green of his eyes. the man licked his lips and slowed to a stop, letting his fingers rest inside of you, and he asked, “what comes next, then?”

even in a position so lewd as this one, you were too embarrassed to explain. so you reached up to his mouth, swiping your thumb across his slick bottom lip, and with pretty little doe eyes, you popped your finger into his mouth. you watched as he wrapped his lips around it, swirling his tongue over the salty taste of your skin, and you whispered, “i need you.”

fox pulled off your finger with a pop. “how?”

he followed your lidded gaze as it traveled down to the bulge in his pants, and he nearly passed out.

“you sure you’re ready for that?” his eyebrows knit together in true concern, but he knew he was the one who had to answer the question, too. he wanted to do right by you– you couldn’t regret this, he wouldn’t know what to do with himself if you did. “i can wait, you know. this is about you.”

“no. i’m ready,”

“positive?”

“mhm,” you sighed, “just… don’t hurt me.”

the man above you melted like putty, and the hunger he’d touched you with went soft. you saw that toothy grin again, the one that gave you butterflies, and he promised, “i’d never hurt you, angel.”

the scruff of his jaw even tinted a lovesick pink as he kissed you. your fingers scratched at the back of his ears like you would a dog’s, and you confessed between breaths, “i love you, foxie.”

his hands flew to his waist and he rushed to undo his belt and shimmy the slacks down. he wanted to scream, he wanted to stand at the edge of the world and tell every soul about the way you coated his entire existence in sugar, but right now, it was just you. he was alone with his girl, and if he couldn’t tell the world, he could at least make you sick of hearing it.

“i’m so fuckin’ in love with you,” he swore, marking your face with invisible prints of his mouth. “i’m all yours, princess.”

“oh, god,” you groaned, watching how he spilled out of his boxers with glazed eyes. you had no idea where he was hiding all that. you felt a little dorky for the surprise, but who could blame you?

fox was too far to reign in. he grabbed your wrists and pulled you up, and he made you scoot up against his headboard; you pressed your back against the cold wood, and you yelped as he raised you in the air, pinning you to the wall.

“fox, i-”

“you’re not too heavy,” he stopped you, knowing what you were going to say. “you’re perfect.”

you couldn’t complain- truthfully, you didn’t even get the chance to think about it, because he was all over you. with one hand holding you up by the leg, and the other gripping the headboard with white knuckles, he pushed himself between your legs, and you knocked your head into the wall at the way he stuffed you.

“fuck, fox!”

it didn’t hurt, but god, was he big. pinned to the wall like this, you had no bearings. he had you suspended, stapled down by his sheer strength; you never thought you could be fucked like this, some little ragdoll he could throw around, but clearly you underestimated how much he could handle. you felt the wind leaving your lungs as he pulled out and snapped back in, pelvis rolling hard against your swollen clit. he moved like a wave crashing down, managing to soak every part of you with his skin.

“fuck, sweetheart, so much better than i imagined,” he croaked, “feels okay, right?”

“s-so… so big…”

“oh, baby, i know,” he babied, leaving pinprick kisses on your jaw. “you can take it, pretty girl.”

his big hand tangled itself in the hair at the base of your neck as he fucked you into the creaking headboard. you were an endless machine of moans and profanities, head lolling, trying to keep your eyes open to watch the way his lips parted at the feeling of you encircling him. he tugged at your hair, and a guttural groan escaped your lips.

“always wanted to get fucked like this, huh, baby? you’re such a good girl, you deserve it,”

“fox, please,”

“such a pretty girl,” he moaned, “jesus, you sure you’ve never done this before?”

as you bucked your hips against his swelling length, you offered a drunken grin. “only in my… dreams.”

“oh my god. you’ve got no idea how hot you are.”

he was everywhere, he was heaven, he was the pounding in your head as you collapsed against his body, letting him use you like a toy. you scratched at his shoulders, mouth all over his sizzling skin, and he flooded your ears with pretty praises. you hoped to god that by the time he was done you’d have the print of his hands tattooed on your hips, or that he’d never be done and you could float on by in this bliss forever. but his hips were thrusting hard, and falling out of time, and you felt your tummy squeezing like it was running out of air. he drowned in you, mouth full of dirty whines and strings of i love yous, and you knew you couldn’t hold back.

“f-fox… oh- oh god…”

“gonna cum for me, princess?”

“i… i’ve never…”

the feeling in your stomach was foreign and hot, and it was backing up all the functions of your brain. all you felt was fox between your legs, terrorizing this little spot that short-circuited all your nerves, and you wrapped your arms around his neck, trapping his mouth with yours– and when he hit it one last time, with eyes rolling back, and you let everything go. fox felt the warmth of you spilling over him, and the silent scream you let out had him unraveling in seconds. his hands were all over your face, fingers on your teeth as he came inside you, feeling himself mixing with you, and nearly bursting again just knowing he was.

“oh, baby,” he fussed, “good girl, atta girl!”

pulling out slowly, so you didn’t feel too shocked, he slid you down the headboard softly and helped prop you up against the pillows again. you couldn't see straight, and everything twinkled, but you did catch a glimpse of him sneaking back down the bed. the man admired the mess he left behind. the smallest dribble spilled out of you, and all of a sudden he was lapping it up with his tongue, thirsty as a castaway. your entire body buzzed with overstimulation, and in what felt like screams but only came out strangled, you exclaimed, “fuck, oh my god!”

his tongue split you open, collecting all the juices between your hips and smearing the inside of your thighs, the pretty little mound of your pussy, making you shimmer like an angel. he sucked, and he swirled, and he dug his tongue between your folds like a freak, and you grabbed at his sweaty hair, so full of him you wanted to thank your angels for sending you someone so perfect.

“come on, i know you’ve got more,” fox coaxed, “one more, baby, one more.”

black spots crossed your line of vision as you watched his face disappear in your legs, and the tidal wave rose again, drowning you in a feeling that had you bucking against his tongue like a rogue horse. you’d never been able to make yourself cum, but all it took was fox mulder to pull two loads right out of you. you felt disgusting, you felt drunk, you felt so good you could’ve died this way. you didn’t ever want to leave the bed. fox made his way back up, heaving, and he kissed you with milky lips. you tasted yourself on his tongue, and you needed his palms to pin your hips down as you trembled, stuck on your high.

“good girl, didn’t that feel good?” kiss. “you did so good, baby,” kiss, “so good for me,” kiss, “m’so proud of you, sweetheart.”

“mm… agh,”

“i know, love, take a deep breath.” you felt his hand press against your warm tummy, and he told you again, “take a deep breath for me.”

you smiled, trapped beneath him, and you breathed like he wanted you to. anything he wanted, for the rest of his life, he would get. through fuzzy vision, you saw his glittery eyes, the grecian curve of his face, the little white strip of teeth behind his handsome smile, and you felt so in love you didn’t know what to do with yourself. he started to blush under your gaze, so he laid down on top of you, resting his head on your chest to listen to your racing heartbeat.

“foxie,” you whispered.

“hm?”

“m’not a virgin anymore,” you giggled, the joy bubbling out of you.

his warm laugh echoed in your ribs. “not anymore.”

“all yours now,” you swooned, “are you happy?”

you felt his hand slither behind your back, and he scratched at your spine, making you squeal at the ticklish feeling. then he attacked your neck and shoulders, mercilessly going after all the spots he knows are most sensitive until you lost your breath again from his innocent touch. “stupid question!”

“ah!– fox– agh, stop!” you swatted at his hands, a blissful wreck.

“‘course i’m happy,” he chuckled as he relented. “are you?”

in a huff, you rested your spinning head on his pillows and blushed. “mhm. very.”

“worth the wait?”

“definitely. thank you.”

“my pleasure,” he teased, flopping down beside you and lacing his fingers with yours. and when a comfortable silence fell, he couldn’t help himself: “you know i’m never gonna stop thinking about this, right? i’m ruined for life.”

“shut up,” you laughed.

“no, seriously. get ready for a life of me drooling over you doing absolutely nothing.”

“i’d like that life, i think.”

you curled up in his side, and he drew you close, letting you hide in the crook of his neck the same way you did in what felt like a lifetime ago on his couch. there was still a little devil on his shoulder, applauding him for taking a piece of you that no one else could have now, but more than anything, his heart ebbed and flowed in his chest, blossoming each time he looked down at your pretty face. he meant it when he said he was ruined. you ruined everything by letting him fall in love with you, and he has never felt so lucky.

✮ ⋆ ˚｡𖦹 ⋆｡°✩ ✮ ⋆ ˚｡𖦹 ⋆｡°✩ ✮ ⋆ ˚｡𖦹 ⋆｡°✩ ✮ ⋆ ˚｡𖦹 ⋆｡°

inspired by this ask ;)

#Spotify #fox mulder #x files #spooky mulder #the x files #fox mulder x reader #fox mulder x you #domestic fox mulder #soft fox mulder #fox mulder x reader fluff #fox mulder fluff #fox mulder smut #catholiscism #loss of virginity #virginity kink #plus size reader #embarrasment #god bless the freaks

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endless-ineffabilities · 9 months

Text

tongue in cheek - four

Tom Bennett x f!reader

masterlist ▪︎ part one - part two - part three

The reader and Tom continue to dance around other, flirting and sharing stolen moments. But where is it all headed?

You don't get to finish the words.

The door opens, and Lois barges into the room. Balancing two saucers of tea in her hands.

"Oh!" She exclaims, sheepishly, noting how close her brother is to you. "Sorry, I just - "

"Aw, Lois, come on." Tom nearly whines at his sister.

"Sorry," she says firmly, not having any of Tom's attitude. "I just thought that y/n might want some tea as well. You can get your own." She hands one saucer to you with a knowing smile.

You sit down on your bed, and take a nervous sip, scanning the wallpaper patterns to distract yourself. Tom is still watching you, his eyes intently looking at your lips.

"So... what were you gettin' up to?" Lois' eyes twinkle with mischief. Obviously she's deduced what was about to happen.

Oh nothing, it's just that your brother was going to kiss me. You raise your head, and meet his eyes. He simply smirks at you, and you can't help but feel warm inside. And it's not because of the flippin' tea.

"Y'know," Tom shrugs, then gestures to you. "Just getting acquainted with this beauty here."

You narrow your eyes at him. Try me.

"Riiight," Lois eyebrows rise as high as they possibly go. "Well, I guess I could - "

"I'll head downstairs for a moment. See what Douglas is up to." You stand abruptly, your teacup rattling as a result.

Tom calls your name, telling you to "Hold on, doll."

God, I can't bear to look at him right now, otherwise I just might snog him in front of Lois.

"I need some air," you glance at him briefly, before slinkering out of the bedroom door, and out of Tom's bloody reach.

You take a deep breath, and try to compose yourself while at the top of the staircase.

Tom's and Lois' hushed voices could be heard from the room, and you catch hints of what could be - "Bad timing" - "Don't be a fool!" - "... my friend" - and of course a lovely contribution from Tom - "Bloody cockblock."

Douglas spots you after you descend the staircase. He kindly asks, "You alright? You look flushed. Tom wasn't being rude or anything, was he?"

Rude? Maybe he's rude for not kissing me fast enough.

"Oh, not at all," you smile sweetly, joining him at the table.

"That's good. I know he can be..." Douglas trails off, and you shrug in understanding. Tom can be a lot of things, alright. Is he a good snog though? I almost found out.

"Well, I was just makin' dinner," Douglas points to the steaming pot on the stove. "Should be ready in a few minutes."

Heavy booted footsteps come pounding down the stairs, and Tom materializes in the kitchen. He stands beside your chair, hand resting on the back.

"Alright?"He throws out a nonchalant greeting. Douglas merely hums in response. When Tom notices that you barely acknowledged his presence, he leans in close to your ear, "Alright, doll?"

He's so close that if you turn your head to the side, your noses might bump into each other. You give him a sideways glance, before dryly saying, "Oh, I'm just dandy, sweetheart."

He's making your heart race, and he knows it. Enjoys it even.

This prick. This... handsome prick.

Tom, due to his godforsaken lack of shame, quickly presses his lips to your cheek. The resulting kiss is fleeting, and lasts for but a millisecond. But you still feel him, even when he leans away, the lips that just grazed your cheekbone stretched wide in his enduring cheeky smile.

He jumps back on his heel, as if nothing out of the ordinary has just occurred.

"Quit pesterin' her, son," Douglas scolds, then gives you a look of sympathy. You wonder if he caught that little kiss Tom gave you, but you know it wouldn't matter to Tom either way.

"Need a beer," Tom simply says, as he walks over to the fridge. His prize in hand, he brings it to his lips and expertly uncaps it with his teeth. You can't help but watch him with intent, wondering why he even thought to kiss you in that moment.

"Call when dinner's done," Tom heads back to the staircase, and you twist in your chair, and mouth what the fuck at him.

He gets the message, but true to form, opts to answer you with a bloody wink. His expression remains smug even when he reaches his bedroom.

Tom - 1, You - 0

For now.

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

For the next week, the tension is heightened, each and every moment you're around Tom.

In the room you both share with Lois, he always makes sure to give you lingering looks when she's not looking. Or purposefully initiating skin-to-skin contact whenever he brushes past you.

A gentle hand on your shoulder. On your back. Once he even claims to spot an eyelash on your cheek, so his brilliant solution is to grip your face with both hands and gently blow on the supposed spot.

For a long moment he just stays in place, even with the rogue eyelash gone. You feel his strong, callused fingers moving against your skin. His bright blue eyes land on your lips, then back to your wide-eyed stare.

"Like a pretty little deer in headlights," he hums.

Well, he isn't wrong. If only Lois... wait, Lois!

That realization renders you alert, and out of your Tom-induced haze. You quickly step back from him, and with a nervous laugh, and a glance at Lois who sits by the boudoir, you make sure to raise your voice to say, "Gee, well, uh, thanks for that, Tom."

Tom merely gives you a nod. You notice his usual smirk is not in place, and his brows are furrowed as he examines his shoes.

"I've got to go," Tom mumbles near incoherently. He seems careful not to touch you as he walks past, giving you as wide of a berth as he can.

The bedroom door shuts behind him, and you slump down on your bed. It's just never the right moment, is it?

"You fancy my brother," Lois nonchalantly declares, as she skims her book.

"What?" You swivel around to look at her, appearing shocked at her observation. "I... I don't - "

"Come on," Lois throws you a meaningful look, and you know for certain that you can't deny the truth to her. "We both know that if I weren't sharin' the room with you two, then you'd have bloody bonked each other already!" She laughs towards the end, and you can't help but mirror the gesture.

"Okay, well," you sit up cross-legged on the bed, as if preparing to have a discussion. "What do you really make of all this?"

"I think," Lois leans in, like you're schoolyard friends sharing a secret, "that you've caused my brother to go insane."

"Lois! Be serious," you groaned.

"I am serious!" she insists. "He's never been like this. Around anyone. And I've seen him with plenty of dames before."

"He likes me," you repeat, your tone unsure. "This isn't all just some cat and mouse game?"

"Mhmm," Lois happily asserts.

Tom - 1, You - 1

But where did that damn rascal go?

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

Much later, in the wee hours of the night, Tom wonders what you would think of him in the present moment.

Whether you would care that Suzy Collings from down the road is perched on his lap as they're necking on the couch in the concealed back end of the pub. If you would simply glare at the sight and walk off, or if you would grab Suzy by the collar and drag her away.

Tom thinks of how your lips would feel, as Suzy nips at his neck. He imagines how soft your hips would be, as Suzy grabs his hands and presses them to hers. His mind is occupied with the image of your face and how he adores every feature of it, as Suzy smiles at him with rouge-stained lips.

He thinks of you, when he shouldn't be. It's you every time.

Why does this all feel wrong? Tom realizes that he does not feel the slightest bit aroused even with Suzy clad in only her brassiere on top of him. The sight of your bloody knees when your skirt rides up an inch would do a much better job. What the fuck is wrong with me?

Tom thought he just has a mere infatuation with you, and he has those all the time, doesn't he? And isn't like most dames are shy about their affections towards him either.

He thought he could just go on with usual antics, and shake off this weird feeling - one that he can't quite point his finger on.

But he keeps thinking about you... you... and the two of you are not even together.

I haven't even bloody kissed her yet!

And yet... It's as if I'm already hers.

"Sorry, doll," Tom turns his cheek, avoiding another kiss. "I'm just not in the mood right now."

"Are you kidding me? When are you not in the mood, sugar?" Suzy responds, in a honeyed voice, tracing patterns on Tom's face.

"Now," Tom lifts her from his lap, and props her to the side. He then makes a flippant comment, saying, "You should get dressed. Might catch a cold and all."

"Prick," Suzy calls out as he walks away with no further explanation.

Tom leaves the pub with no clear destination intended, but he only has one thought running through his head.

You.

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

In celebration of Tom Bennett's brief return in World on Fire S2!!! A regrettable 3 minutes of screentime, but even that is a damn miracle knowing how rare it is to be granted a look at our Iceberg 💙

series taglist: @greenowlfactif @schniiipsel @tssf-imagines @aemond-secondson @ahdushenka @bat-revival @mefools @mischiefmanaged71 @svtansdaddyx @chainsawangel @tinykryptonitewerewolf @yentroucnagol @nightdiamond8663 @bookwyrmsblog @rwdkarla @saminalloxo

#world on fire #tom bennett x reader #tom bennett imagine #tom bennett #ewan mitchell #tom bennett fanfiction #tom bennett world on fire #world on fire bbc #ewan mitchell imagine #ewan mitchell x reader

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soulless-computerbug · 3 months

Text

Toby:

Oak, birch, aspen trees, sunlight filtering through the leaves, the rush of the north wind. Babbling brooks and creeks, a trout jumping and splashing on the surface. Campfires, woodsmoke, ash and dust rising from a glowing plume into the starry night. Bonfires. House fires. Dumpster fires in the cold icy streets. Car exhaust and drunk drivers on empty lonely highways, flat energy drinks in the cup holders. The sound of splitting wood, cracking ice, falling stone. Granite sparkling in the dusk light. Icy cold fingertips pressed against your palm, nails gently biting your skin.

Kate:

Stale cigarette smell in old musty carpet. The clack of billiard balls against each other, quiet chatter and laughter, low blues music crackling through old speakers. Blues, classic rock, hard rock, headbanging to old punk music in the car with your friends, parked in the lot after a highschool game. Smiling so wide your cheeks ache. Pounding throbbing feet on concrete, the rough grooves of brick and mortar under your nails. The chokehold of terror in your chest, the moon through douglas firs and redwood trees. February breeze at 3am, cold air seeping under your jacket, the flannels of your pants. Cold fingers, cold toes, steaming hot water that stings like pure bliss. The taste of medicine that follows the ringing of an alarm.

Cody:

Larks and robins at 5am. The smell of black coffee and old books, the rustle of papers and shuffle of feet. Linoleum tile under leather doc marten soles. Rye grass and blue river water, stormy gray skies. The thwap of latex gloves against your wrist like a second skin. Bubbling, fizzing, foaming, colors shifting from green to gray to blue to orange. Apple slices as you scratch note after note onto old notebook paper. Losing your voice after screaming for hours, dull migraines and illusory palinopsia. Lyssavirus, crutzfeldt-jakobs disease, marburgvirus, all neatly labeled in perfect little vials. Lying in wait.

#creepypasta #ticci toby #toby rogers #kate the chaser #kate millens #cody mccaffrey #x virus #my posts #scb stuff #my writing #liam mccaffrey

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mercurytojupiter · 3 months

Text

the labyrinth - prologue

a/n: i'm going through an archie madekwe phase no one look at me

warnings: farleigh being farleigh, which includes underage drugs, drinking, cigarettes and sex 18+

fic summary: ariadne gavin and her childhood best friend turned enemy return to saltburn for the last time

Ariadne Gavin wishes she could say the first Catton she met was Felix or even Venetia. She would have loved to explain to people how she had tripped into Venetia at the airport when she first landed in England, or how she had been greeted by Felix's already tall, grinning face.

Instead, the truth was, the only reason the Cattons held their arms open to her as they did was because of Farleigh fucking Start.

Ariadne had met Farleigh when she was seven. Her father, Laurence Gavin, was a new money tech mogul who was making a name for himself selling computers. He had dragged her along to a fundraising gala, and it was there that Ariadne found herself forever enamoured with the Cattons.

Ariadne had never met another child before. Her upbringing was limited to her Nanny, Lilian, the house staff, Douglas, Marcus, and Tyrone, and her mother, Vienna. Ariadne had only even known that white people existed because of her storybooks.

"Hello," She whispers politely. "My name is Ariadne Marie Gavin."

"I'm Farleigh." The little boy shrugs.

Ariadne tilts her head. "How old are you?"

Farleigh looks at her strangely. "Seven and a half."

Ariadne pouts. "Oh. I'm just seven."

Farleigh's eyes widen in panic. "That's okay! Don't be upset! It's okay to be smaller than me! Normally I'm the smallest person."

"Youngest." Ariadne corrects.

"M'kay," Farleigh says, but makes no move to say the sentence correctly. He jumps down from his chair and squishes her cheeks. "Do you want to play hide and seek?"

"Won't the grown-ups be mad we're gone?"

"They never notice." Farleigh smiles.

That smile got Ariadne in more trouble than she could count over the next thirteen years.

At some point between seven and a half and fourteen, Farleigh stopped being her only friend. Or, more accurately, Farleigh began to make friends and it meant that Ariadne was going to be alone unless she made some of hers.

Or, that was, until Saltburn.

Ariadne didn't like the person Farleigh was becoming ever since they'd become teenagers. He'd been mean, and flaky, and worst of all, he kept hitting on her friends.

And yes, perhaps she was a little jealous, but she had always been territorial, and Farleigh was hers, not Ashley's or Jessica's. Besides, Farleigh grew like a beanstalk, and all her friends only liked him because he was tall. They didn't spend Sunday evenings conditioning his hair or laugh at his terrible -and slightly mean- jokes.

Overall, they had begun to drift a tad, but a crack was not a canyon, as her father liked to say.

But that didn't mean Farleigh wasn't still the only person her age she truly trusted, so he still came over to her house every Sunday to do homework and complain.

"Did I tell you my mom's family wants me to come to England over the summer?" He sighs, stretched out on her floor.

Ariadne has her nose tucked into her copy of Pride and Prejudice for her book report and looks up suddenly. "Excuse me?"

"I know, right? Like, why would I waste my summer-" Farleigh starts.

Ariadne shushes him. "Shut up, Far. Doesn't your mom's family pay for all your mom's shit? And yours, for that matter?"

"I mean, yeah, but they always said I'm out after eighteen." He shrugs.

Ariadne grins. "Because they don't know you. But if, say, you went to England in the summers, made connections with them, flashed some puppy dog eyes," she trails off.

Farleigh raises a brow. "You want me to go to them like some kind of homeless kid asking for spare change on Alameda Street?"

Ariadne kicks him. "No, I want you to use your brain. You're going to be my business partner once I inherit, obviously, but it's going to be obvious that we're only working together because we're friends if you don't at least have a college degree. Now, imagine, we get into some fancy British university, we network with like a billion people, and suddenly we have investors lining up at graduation."

"All it'll cost me is my pride." Farleigh grumbles.

Ariadne purses her lips. "Not if I come with. Then, it's just going to be us, two rich kids, going and being rich on a different continent over the summers."

Farleigh sits up. "I'm going to hate this, aren't I?"

"Not in the long run." Ariadne grins.

Ariadne wishes she'd never suggested going to Saltburn. She and Farleigh were one change in conversation away from escaping the Cattons and she'd never forgive herself for it.

Maybe it's the new money, manifest destiny, red-blooded American in her, but she never liked the look of Saltburn. She missed her modern, sleek home in Bel-Air, and from a single look, she knew Farleigh did too.

Saltburn was cold and ancient. There was no carpet, only million-year-old Persian rugs. No many-buttoned showers, only antiquated tubs. They didn't even have a bidet, which Ariadne thought was borderline uncivilized.

But they adjusted, slowly but surely, to the famous, trademark brand of Catton Madness that had sent his mother running for the hills all those years before.

Farleigh hadn't known that Felix and Venetia were their age, but they certainly were, and they were wilder and more English than anyone Ariadne had ever met.

She also found that they took to calling her demeaning, patronizing pet names like "Pet" or "Girlie." Farleigh got about the same treatment, only, in her opinion, worse, because there was no way to spin "Boy" or "Dog" as respectful.

Vee liked to call her "Newmo", short for "New Money" and Ariadne knew this was an insult, but bit her tongue.

She did that a lot, after Saltburn.

She starts at St. Mary Magdelene's Secondary Academy for Girls with Venetia that year, and Farleigh attends St. John's Secondary Academy for Boys with Felix. Twice a year, the adjoined schools have huge dances and dinners where they exercise their best manners.

The Gala is poorly chaperoned, as it is also the only time the faculty gets to mix and mingle. The dinner is mostly manner-based, but by the time the dance begins, most adults turn their heads away from the teenage drama and illegal activity.

When their first Fall Gala comes around, Ariadne looks around excitedly for Farleigh, peering through the crowd of white faces. She wants to tell him everything that's happened since they separated at the start of the school year.

Unfortunately, all she gets is Felix's stupid face. "Where's Farleigh?"

Felix rolls his eyes grinningly. "Smoking outside. Again."

Ariadne blinks, takes a step back, and laughs disbelievingly. Farleigh had gotten more rebellious since they'd become teenagers, sure, and maybe England was rubbing off on him, but he never smoked. "Are you kidding?"

Felix snickers. "He said you'd be pissed off."

That was another thing Ariadne hated about the Cattons. Everything was a fucking joke to them.

"No fucking shit!" She whisper-shouts. "He can't- He's going to ruin his lungs! This is my fault, I knew it was a bad idea for us to go to different schools!" She bites her lip, flicking her wrists in and out.

It was a terrible nervous tick. Lilian had always said it was unbecoming. Ariadne couldn't shake it.

Felix steadies her by the arms, charming doe eyes staring right into hers. "Farleigh will be fine, everyone smokes once in a while. Besides, he's finally letting loose, isn't that worth something?"

Ariadne wants to spit that it is not something, because Farleigh doesn't need to let loose, he needs more structure. He'd already been let loose his whole life and Ariadne had spent most of hers cleaning up the debris.

She doesn't yell at Felix, just shakes her head mutely.

"Well, maybe you need to let loose too. Vee's got weed or shrooms or something in the bathroom, go try that."

And, shockingly, Ariadne lets Felix lead her to the door of the Girl's bathroom, where a small puff of fogged-up air escapes.

"Have fun, Pet!"

He shoves her inside and lets the door swing closed.

Vee offers her a joint, grinning, and for the first time, Ariadne's thoughts cease.

After Ariadne is introduced to weed for the first time, she no longer worries about Farleigh. Still, the worst does not come until the Spring Gala, when she walks in on him losing his virginity to Arabella Vaillancourt.

All the jealousy she had felt in middle school hit a breaking point then. This wasn't flirting or even a kiss on the cheek. Arabella had claimed Farleigh in a way Ariadne would never be able to compensate for.

Ariadne turns her head away from the sight of them, sweating and naked and wholly consumed by each other and goes back to her dorm.

Vee sees her tears and offers her a line of coke, and from that point on, Ariadne and Farleigh are no longer friends or even allies.

When the summer break retrieves them again, she hardly looks at him in favour of making jokes with Venetia and walking Felix through the process of getting girls to like him. While Felix was pretty, most of the girls their age couldn't stand him because he was so boring to talk to. She pierces his eyebrow so he has something interesting to talk about. Felix is horrible at flirting, too. Not like Farleigh, she thinks, recalling the many girls he had wooed bitterly.

Soon, everyone at Saltburn forgets that Ariadne and Farleigh were ever even a pair. Or, in their respective cases, at least pretend to forget.

#saltburn smut #farleigh start x reader #farleigh start #farleigh start smut #farleigh saltburn #saltburn x reader #farleigh start x oc #farleigh start x original female character #farleigh start x black!oc #farleigh start x black!reader #black reader #poc!reader

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dmercer91 · 10 months

Text

rookie love, sc26

seamus casey x devil! reader

yourusername

liked by nicohischier, dougieham and 12,744 others

yourusername: my cat and i adopted a seamus!

welcome to jersey roomie <3

view 1184 comments..

nicohischier: you’re looking like a what

yourusername: a whore, nico. i’m looking like a whore.

nicohischier: his mouth is way too close to your mouth

→ yourusername: captain dad back at it again

→ yourusername: he is kissing my cheek nico

→ jackhughes: alternate captain dad stepping in to say i agree with nico

seamuscasey26: thanks for letting me crash <3

→ yourusername: of course shea

→ dougieham: …. captain dad keep doing your thing i don’t like this

→ yourusername: DOUGLAS

→ dougieham: i’ll tag pally. don’t even try me

edwards.73: welcome to the devs partner 🫡

→ seamuscasey26: 🤭 glad to have you back

pally_18: who took that, y/n

→ yourusername: … luke is a little too observant for my liking

→ lhughes_06: you’re lucky i chose not to capture what happened next

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→ yourusername: lol nothing uncle haula we just had a nice lil conversation about the ot from the sens game

njdevils: our rookies 🥹

seamuscasey26: oh btw that’s our cat now

→ seamuscasey26: she woke up on my chest this morning it’s only fair

→ yourusername: she was actually trying to lay on my neck and when i moved she landed there so you’re only getting 23% custody

→ dawson1417: what was that about your head on his chest

→ yourusername: idk what you’re speaking of dawson

tmeier96: oh would you look at that this axe just slipped out of my hand and created a six foot hole in your front door

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→ yourusername: what timo

→ tmeier96: it slipped again!! i killed him.

→ seamuscasey26: i am deeply afraid

view more comments..

#e's edits!#seamus casey #seamus casey x reader #hockey imagine #nhl imagine #new jersey devils #umich wolverines #umich hockey

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queenshelby · 10 days

Text

The Law Student (Rewritten)

Part sEVEN: Mother

Pairing: Cillian Murphy (20) & Reader (30)

Note: This plays in 1996, just before Cillian drops out of law school.

After thinking about Cillian all night, on the following morning, at around 9 o'clock, on your day off from work, you found yourself sitting in your favorite coffee shop, sipping a cup of coffee and skimming through some legal theory, desperately attempting to focus on the work at hand.

However, try as you might, you couldn't shake Cillian's face and the worry lines that creased his forehead from your mind, prompting you to do the polite thing and check on him. After all, he had taken quite a beating for you and, if anything, you considered it necessary to at least make some form of contact or another to ensure that he was recovering.

In addition, you felt the need to talk to him, to get your stories straight as, during last night's incident, a lot of students and bystanders saw what could be perceived as inappropriate behavior between a teacher and a student.

Thus, as you sipped your lukewarm coffee, you contemplated driving to his house in Douglas to see how he was doing. Being his teacher and all, you did not consider this to be inappropriate, but rather considerate in light of what had occurred.

As you arrived at Cillian's house, which was a stunning but modest three-bedroom residence, you felt butterflies churning in your stomach, wondering how he was doing and if you were overstepping any boundaries. But nonetheless, you screwed up your courage and knocked on the heavy wooden door.

After a moment's hesitation, you heard a young woman's muffled voice call out, "Coming!" and the door swung open to reveal a young girl, no older than 15, standing there in a pair of worn-out jeans and a tank top. She looked at you curiously. "Can I help you?" she asked politely.

"Um, yes, hi," you smiled at her nervously. "I'm actually here to see Cillian. Is he home?"

The girl's expression softened. "I think he is still asleep. Hang on," the young girl said before calling out his name. "Cillian! There is someone here to see you!" she shouted , cupping her hands around her mouth to amplify her voice while his brother Paddy scooted past with a bowl of cereal in his hands.

"Oh hey, the law school teacher," Paddy greeted, nodding in your direction. "Cills is still passed out in bed," he told you and you quickly glanced at your watch, seeing that it was almost 11 o'clock. "Maybe I should come back another time," you suggested politely before explaining to Paddy that you just came to check on him.

"No no, wait, I'll go wake him up," Paddy said, before disappearing behind a closed door, leaving you to wait patiently in the hallway and, minutes later, Cillian appeared.

His hair was tousled, and his eyes were half-closed, still adjusting to the brightness of the hallway. "Y/N?" he murmured, rubbing his eyes sleepily. "I mean, Miss Y/LN," he corrected himself and even despite his slightly disheveled appearance, Cillian managed to look incredibly attractive, causing your heart to race a little faster than usual.

He wore a pair of grey sweatpants and a worn our Frank Zappa t-shirt, accompaied by a pair of grandfather slippers.

"What are you doing here?" he asked, scrubbing his hand over his face, and trying to mask his surprise.

"I just wanted to check on you," you told him, feeling the heat rise to your cheeks as his eyes locked on yours. "I hope I didn't wake you up," you added nervously.

Cillian blinked and shook his head. "No, no, it's fine," he murmured, taking a step closer to you. "I'm just surprised to see you here," he told you, silently inviting you into his home.

"No, I won't come in. I just wanted to make sure you are okay after last night's events, you know," you replied, trying to keep things professional despite the intimate scenario.

Cillian nodded, understanding your apprehension. "Yeah, I'm okay. Just a little bruised and sore," he said, gesturing towards his face. "But I'll live."

"Good. That's good," you responded, smiling softly at him. "And listen, Cillian, I can't pretend that last night didn't happen. People saw us together, some might assume that there's something inappropriate going on between us. We need to establish a clear boundary, to clarify some facts," you explained, your voice steady and calm, belaying the turmoil that bubbled within you as you spoke quietly so that no one else could hear you.

Cillian nodded solemnly. "Relax. If someone asks, I will tell them that I just did the right thing, you know, looking after my professor in a time of distress," Cillian assured you, his voice carrying a sense of sincerity and conviction. Despite your efforts to maintain a professional demeanor, a small smile tugged at the corners of your mouth at Cillian's earnestness.

"Thanks Cillian, I appreciate that. Honestly, I do," you replied, trying to put your thoughts into words just as you saw Cillian's mother walk into the house through the backdoor. She carried a bag of groceries in her hand, eying you curiously for a second before a warm smile lit up her face.

"Oh hello there, dear," she greeted kindly as she walked towards Cillian, setting the groceries down on the kitchen counter and greeting him with a spontaneous hug and kiss, causing Cillian to blush. "Good morning sleepyhead," she told him affectionately as she ruffled his hair.

"Mum, this is my law school professor, Miss Y/LN," Cillian introduced, gesturing towards you still standing in the hallway, keep watching the wholesome interaction between mother and son with a small chuckle.

"Oh, what a pleasure to meet you," she said, walking up to you with her hand extended, which you shook politely. "I hope my boy isn't in trouble," she added, casting a concerned glance towards Cillian, who shook his head quickly.

"No, Mum, I promise. I just had a bit of a run-in with someone at the pub last night," Cillian explained hurriedly, avoiding eye contact with his mother.

"Well, I'm glad you're safe, dear.

No harm done, I hope?" Cillian's mother asked, her gaze shifting between Cillian and you.

"No, ma'am, everything is fine. I just stopped by to check on Cillian after that incident last night. He helped me out when I got in trouble, so I just came by to thank him and to make sure he was doing okay," you replied, feeling a pang of guilt for worrying his mother.

"Oh, that. Yes, Cillian mentioned something about it. Terrible, isn't it?" she said, before turning her attention back to Cillian. "I am glad that nothing worse happened. You never know these days . There are so many bad people out there," Cillian's mother said, shaking her head in dismay.

"Yes, unfortunately, that's true," you agree, feeling a sense of sadness wash over you. Despite the initial reason for your visit, you cannot help but be drawn into the homey atmosphere that Cillian's family exudes.

"Well, I best be off. I have a lot of work to catch up on," you announce, reluctantly tearing yourself away from the scene before you.

"Don't you want to stay for a cup of tea?" Cillian's mother invited warmly, her voice full of kindness.

You hesitated for a moment, torn between your responsibilities and the desire to spend more time in this cozy environment. "I really should get going," you said, with a hint of regret in your voice. You turned to Cillian, "But thank you again for last night. I won't forget it."

Cillian smiled, a twinkle of appreciation in his eyes.

"I am sure he won't either," Paddy chuckled as he overheard the tail end of the conversation, causing Cillian to mumble the words "ejiit" under his breath.

"Well, I should be heading off then," you announced, eager to leave before the conversation turned uncomfortable.

"Thanks again for stopping by, Miss Y/LN," Cillian called out as you made your way down the path towards your car.

"No problem, Cillian," you replied, throwing a final wave over your shoulder.

As you drove away, your thoughts turned to Cillian and the uneasy feelings that surfaced as a result of the incident.

Tags:

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#cillian murphy x y/n #cillian murphy x you #cillian murphy imagine #cillian murphy x reader #cillian murphy smut #cillian murphy

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viktuurishipper96 · 14 days

Text

Humanized Douglas (my very first design)

This is Douglas (one of the Scottish twins).

He is 27 years old and is about 5’7 , he has heterochromia eyes (violet on the left and brown on the right), has a beauty mark on his right cheek.

He’s the most beautiful person and the most elegant out of the two ( and he knows it)

He’s happily married to Oliver and has toad as their child.

He maintains his weight, constantly brushes his hair every single day.

He is the serious, intelligent and the emotional of the two.

He prefers to be called dougie by his twin Donald.

He’s close friends with a few.

He’s a biromantic ace

Ref used by sailor moon ikuko itoh design.

I was inspired by @asktrio516 ( go check out her artwork, it’s amazing) to make my own Douglas so I did and I’m happy with the results. Thank you so much and your the best artist ever.

#ttte human au #ttte douglas #douglas x oliver #ttte humanized #my art

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assortedseaglass · 11 months

Text

The Seamstress & The Sailor - Chapter Seventeen

Tom Bennett x OFC

[Masterlist]

Warnings: Strong Language, Smut, World on Fire Spoilers

Word Count: 4.8K

Notes: Thank you for waiting so patiently everyone! Let’s just get on with it, shall we?

In the dwindling evening light, window open and net curtain flying before the dreaded blackouts were installed, Tom read the letters Bess had written him in those months he was missing.

Bess’ naked body tucked at his side, he read pages about Cora slow yet sweet romance with Roger, Fergal’s job as an air raid warden and his increasing reliance on alcohol, the little polish boy Jan, which was accompanied by a photo of him posing in Tom’s own football jersey, and of course, the aftermath of Albie’s death. Throughout it all, the letters were peppered with Bess’ increasing declarations of adoration. The moments she thought about Tom (at the Palais, her cigarette breaks at the hospital, cycling home with Douglas), her despair at not seeing him off and the fear that he wouldn’t come back, as Albie hadn’t. What she missed (their late nights in the kitchen, they way he’d gently tease her before winking, that smile), and how much she longed to see him. Throughout his discovery that Bess had always longed for him too, she had disappeared from his side just once; to pin a note on the door telling her friends that she had caught a bug at the hospital and not to come in.

Occasionally, Tom passed Bess a letter, coaxing her into reading it aloud with tender fingers at her cheek and whispered praises of her voice that made Bess shiver. It was during one such reading that she found herself with the offending letter pressed against Tom’s chest as she fought to keep herself upright.

“Fuck,” she moaned as, with a sudden jerk of his hips, Tom bucked into Bess’ heat.

“Keep reading,” he demanded through gritted teeth, fingers digging into the plump flesh of her thighs. A sheen of sweat coated the plane of his stomach, and Bess watched entranced as the muscles beneath the letter she held flexed. Through the haze of sex, she could barely make out her own handwriting, let alone read the words out loud. A hand smacked her bottom, and she cried out as it found its way back to her thigh and dragged her across Tom’s hips. “Keep. Reading.”

Opening her eyes just a little Bess saw, beyond the knit of his eyebrows and focus of his eyes, a smirk fading at the edge of his mouth. She’d missed that fucking smirk. Her cunt clenched around him and he groaned. “I won’t ask again, love.” Bess’ eyes flickered back to the letter held at his chest below her and continued to read, her voice hoarse with concentration.

“‘On the bus to work, or in the-the-’” her head fell forward as Tom used her thighs to slowly rake her body over his cock. “‘Or in the hospital, I get scared that people can read my mind. They have paintings of St Agatha and the King on the wall, and I can feel them judging my shame. I think of you each morning, Tom.’” At the hearing of his name, Tom’s eyes snapped open and he ran a hand along Bess’ thigh to her waist. She took a shuddering breath before continuing. “‘The first thing I do when I wake up, before I remove the blackouts or put on the kettle, is read your letter.’ Tom, please don’t make me continue.”

With great willpower, Tom stopped the lazy jerking of his hips and lay still. The hands that were working their way up her naked form came to grip her hips. Bess huffed needily and tried to grind herself against him, only to find she could not; the hands that held her against him prevented her from moving. Once more, her pussy quivered around him as she tried to move. Only Tom could be fully seated inside her and still be a tease.

“If you don’t keep reading,” Tom whispered. “I won’t keep fucking you.” Bess huffed again, bouncing a little in her lust-induced tantrum and Tom had to fight not to immediately go back on his word as the movement made her breasts bounce above him.

“‘I set it against my bedside table, next to your photograph, and imagine it’s you instead of my fingers.’ Oh, Tom-” he had begun his slow torture once more, guiding her hips up and down his swollen length. “‘Imagine your mouth, your fingers, your cock, as you said in your letter. No man has ever used his mouth on me before, Tom. You’ll never know how many times I’ve seen stars, dreaming of your head between my thighs, grinning at the thought of being the first man to do so.’”

“Fuck, Bess.” Tom laughed proudly, his head against the pillow. He smiled freely, cheeks dimpling, and Bess ran her hand from the letter to the smooth skin of his chest and back. She wondered how he’d react to being called beautiful, as he was in this moment. Feeling she knew the answer, Bess resolved instead to roll her hips and continue the sultry reading of her letter.

“‘Your body on mine isn’t the only thing I think of in those shameful early hours, or at night before I drift off into a you-filled sleep. I come undone by another thought. You said you think of my fingers, of what they can do’ -fuck,” The mention of her fingers made Tom buck messily upwards and hiss out a controlled breath. He lifted his head from the pillow to gaze at Bess. First, at the delicious fat of her hips that pillowed around the hard grip of his fingers, and the delicate dip of her waist. The light through the open window lit half her body and cast the other in shadow, accentuating every rounded, scintillating curve. Just a dirty thought from where his hand lay, Bess rose slowly up from his cock and he watched, mesmerised, as he appeared and disappeared within her, his length glistening with the slick of her sex. He licked his lips, not knowing that this was the reason Bess’ movement above him increased. Blocking his view, just a little, was the hand that held her letter against his chest, straining with the other to keep herself atop him. She leant forward on her locked elbows, the angle helping her to work her tight heat over him, and her breasts, swollen and pink with arousal, heaved with her shuddering breaths.

“Fucking hell, Bess,” One of his large hands left her hip to squeeze one of her breasts and she moaned as his fingers gently passed over one of her delicate nipples. “You’re a fucking goddess.” The praise went straight to Bess’ cunt and she brought her hips down on Tom harder than she had before, the slap of their skin making Tom swear under his breath. Pushing her auburn hair away from her face, Bess raised her hips and did it again. Tom’s head hit the pillow in bliss.

“‘You said you think of my fingers, of what they can do. That you imagine my mouth on you,’” She paused and looked down at him seductively through her thick eyelashes. “‘I imagine it too.’” Bess couldn’t continue. Tom wrenched the letter from her hand, threw it from the bed and pushed her hands from his chest. Instantly, they gripped at his shoulders, his own flush on her back as he sat up. Holding Bess in place, he swung his legs out from the bed so that he sat at its edge, his head level with Bess’ chest. Her legs wrapped tightly around his small waist and this, combined with the newfound position, caused the tip of Tom’s cock brush against the spongy spot within Bess’ walls that made her wail out in pleasure. Using his hands to pull her repeatedly against him, Tom fucked Bess’ dripping heat, each thrust harder and deeper than the last.

“You feel, fuck,” Tom stuttered as Bess’ hand harshly wound its way into his hair. “So. Fucking. Good.” He punctuated each word with a sharp snap of his hips. Bess could do nought but nod frantically in agreement, her mouth agape. “Say it, love.”

“It feels so good,” she panted out and he drove himself upwards and into her at a shattering pace. Bess’s grip in his hair tightened painfully and he loved it, fighting with himself not to smirk as he lathed his tongue in hot kisses across her neck and collarbone.

It was when he took one of her breasts in his mouth, flicking his tongue over her hardened nipple with a mutter of “your tits are fucking incredible,” that Bess pushed at his chest and begged him to stop.

“Tom,” she whispered against his ear as he continued to suck at her breasts. “Tom, please. Stop.” His blue eyes fluttered up to look into her dark ones. There was no hint of worry in his eyes, for he knew she adored him, and this, but his eyebrows quirked as he rested his chin against the soft flesh of her bosom.

“What is it?” The tenderness of his voice almost drove Bess to fuck him harder.

“I don’t want to-” she steadied her breath and fought to get the words out, her mind clouded with images of their lovemaking. “I don’t want to finish yet,”

Tom beamed. “Enjoying it that much, are you? Bess Vaughn, you dirty little-” Bess silenced him with a hard yank to his hair, pulling his head back and exposing the strength of his long, elegant neck. His mouth fell open as she ran a tongue from his sharp collarbone to the nibble at his ear, all the while drawing her hips slowly across his. She felt his cock twitch within her and power sizzled in her veins.

“Don’t you want to know what my mouth feels like around you? Isn’t that what you said in your letter?” Bess whispered in his ear and Tom whimpered. When he didn’t answer, she pulled his hair again. “Well?”

“Yes.” Tom hissed, impatience peppering his lust-laden voice.

Satisfied, Bess rose from her position seated in Tom’s lap, gripping the base of his cock as he slid out of her. Her heart lurched at the emptiness she felt, her body wanting nothing more than to sink back onto him. The awe-struck gaze she saw in his eyes when she looked at him, the way those beautiful blues followed her every movement, however, spurred her on. Slowly, never once taking her eyes from his, Bess lowered herself onto her knees. The lace curtain lapped at her naked back and she shuddered, drawing level with Tom’s swollen and desperate length. He was painfully aroused, that Bess could tell. Leant back on his elbows, Tom’s eyes were hazy and dark as he watched her. In contrast to the pale stretch of his abdomen, his cock was pink, angry and weeping at its gloriously swollen head. Bess still held it at its base, and tentatively ran her hand along its shaft.

“Bess,” The nerves that had scratched at her stomach dissolved the moment Tom whispered her name. He watched, transfixed, as she brought her face to the nest of curls around him and licked her way from the base of his cock to its tip. When her tongue languidly ran over his slit, licking away the her slick and the precum that gathered on his head, a fire lit in Tom unlike that which any other woman had given him. It was no longer imagination, a dream. Just like he had done in his lonely bunk aboard ship, the image of Bess with her mouth around him swam into his mind. Only this time, it was real. “Please, Bess.”

She almost laughed. Oh, to be able to make Tom Bennett beg. Queenie Warren could never. Swallowing her chuckle, Bess took Tom full into her mouth instead, marvelling at the salty taste of him and the scent of their mingled arousal. One of Tom’s hands tangled in her hair, and she half expected him to fuck her mouth as so many other men had done; roughly, and without warning. Instead, he held her hair away from her face, pulling the sensitive strands at the nape of her neck. She moaned and the hand that wasn’t holding Tom to her mouth flew to her sensitive clit. Tom didn’t miss the action and groaned in pleasure.

With each welcoming thrust into her mouth, Bess took Tom deeper and faster. The sounds of her greedily lapping at his cock filled the room and with one fist in her hair, the other at his mouth, it took all of Tom’s (little) restraint not to cry out. It would be just his luck to have the boarding madam appear at the door and turf him out while he was balls deep in Bess’ beautiful mouth. A delicate hand came to cup his taut balls and it was Tom, this time, that begged Bess to stop. Only, as Bess had pawed at his shoulders and begged to use her mouth on him, Tom gripped her arms and tugged her away from his cock.

“What are you-” Bess’ question ended with a shriek of surprise as Tom took hold of her and spun her round, pushing her body into the bed with his. Forcing her legs open, of which they easily obliged, Tom lined himself up at her dripping entrance and forced his way into her heat. Bess whimpered with pleasure, and Tom stilled as he pressed every inch of himself into her. With the languid roll of his hips, Tom made love to her, his mouth coveting every inch of skin he could. He lapped at her full breasts as they bounced beneath him, nipped at the sensitive flesh of her collarbone over and over as it made her arch into him, and tightened his hold around her neck as with relentless desperation, he fucked her.

“Tom, please.” Her hand clung to his shoulder, the other his arse as with all the power she possessed, Bess held his sex within hers. Their abandonment of worry at the kitchen table prevailed in Bess’ bedroom, for with harsh thrusts and mewled praises, Tom spilled his hot seed inside Bess, crying out filthily as he did so. Fire flared in Bess once more and, at the sight of Tom’s open mouth, scrunched eyebrows and wild, bright eyes, her walls spasmed around his cock, holding him in place as he spent himself within her.

Tom collapsed on Bess’s body, one hand tenderly brushing hair from her shoulder to place a kiss there. In no time at all, Bess was giggling, fighting to hide her face in Tom’s scarred chest.

“What’s the matter with you, woman?” Tom chuckled and nuzzled at her face so she could hide it no longer. Bess brushed some sweat-slick hair from Tom’s forehead and ran her hand along his cheek.

“I can’t remember the last time I was happy. And now, I think I’m happier than I’ve ever been.” A tear creeped along her face and Tom wiped it away.

“Don’t be soft,” he whispered against her lips, but brought his arms around her waist to hold her close. When her giggles and tears had subsided, Tom rolled onto his side and retrieved the letter from the floor. Bess tried to take it from him, embarrassment replacing her fucked-out stupor, but Tom dashed from the bed and stood at the window. Backlit by the evening light, he looked like a sculpture, all hard lines and soft flesh. His arousal still stood proud, and Bess licked her lips. She thought she had been caught in her admiration when Tom whistled lowly, only to see his eyes roaming over the remainder of the letter.

“Don’t think James would have been too happy if he knew you were writing this filth to lowly old me.” His voice was cocky, but beneath it all Bess could hear Tom’s long held jealousy.

“I’m surprised you care what James thinks,” Bess countered, watching as Tom’s jaw hardened. “I saw him today. He asked me to dinner.” Tom’s eyes stayed on the paper but Bess could see he was no longer reading.

“Your dates with the invalid going well then?” Tom bit back, trying to sound casual through his defensive cruelty. Bess laughed at him, and a flicker of fear flashed on Tom’s face. Rejection. Sighing genially at the man before her, Bess stood from the bed and sauntered into the small kitchen. Tom’s eyes followed, watching the sway and jiggle of her plump bottom as she bent over the apron he had discarded in their first act of passion. She pulled something from its pocket, a small piece of paper, and returned to him. When she was nose to nose with Tom, their naked bodies mere inches from one another, she turned the paper to face him. His own sullen face stared back at him, and Tom’s eyes flickered from his own to hers.

“I’m never without you, Tom Bennett.” A feeling unlike any he had known bloomed in his chest, and instinctively, Tom placed a hand beneath his Dunkirk scar. Bess watched with a smile, taking a step closer and looking up at Tom’s handsome face. His hand curled at the warm flesh of her waist, and he kissed her. No sooner had their lips parted, was Tom too making his way into the kitchen, retrieving his abandoned slacks and pulling something from the pocket. From the kitchen, he grinned at Bess, revealing her portrait.

“I’m never without you, Bess Vaughn.” Eyes bright and hand outstretched, Bess beckoned him back to her side, and the bed. Swept up in his arms, laying on the wind-cooled sheets, Bess placed her portrait and Tom’s with the stack of letters on her bedside table, before kissing each of his long fingers in turn.

“He was nothing compared to you,” she whispered, placing his hand on her chest. “I ended it with him after Albie died, and you went missing. He just wanted to see me today before he goes back.”

“I can’t blame him there.” Tom smiled as a blush creeped across Bess’ cheeks. “Are you blushing, Miss Vaughn? After you let a man have his way with you?”

“Twice!”

The sun had set now, and a chill filled the little flat. Tom gripped the threadbare quilt that lay over Bess’ bedframe and draped it over them. They were silent a while, content to revel in each other’s vulnerability, as they should have done so long ago, when Bess spoke in a whisper.

“I didn’t want my heart to break again. Not even a little,”

“Could James have broken your heart?” Bess laughed at this.

“Not even a little,” she repeated. “Not in the way that Albie and you did.”

Tom rolled onto his side, bring the quilt across him and running a lazy hand over Bess’ curved hips. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, his eyes following the movement of his hands. “About Queenie, I shouldn’t have shouted at you the way I did,”

“It’s not about Queenie.” Bess cut across him. “I was wrong, we both were. But I shouldn’t have let my anger at you stop me from saying goodbye.” She sniffled and Tom swept a thumb across her cheek to catch a tear.

“No more of those,” he said quietly. Bess nodded and swallowed back a sob, heaved a breath and continued.

“You broke my heart when you went missing. I had such thoughts of you in some labour camp, or alone and scared in God knows where. Or worse, buried somewhere I could never reach you, like Albie.” Her body shuddered and Tom brought her close.

“I’m too stubborn to die,”

“That’s exactly what I said to Lois! The first time you left,” A smile graced her face and Tom let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding, tense at the mere thought of Bess’ sadness.

“Did you tell James too?” He said with a wink.

“No, though I did enjoy the thought that you’d ‘kill any man that got in your way’ of me,” she quoted the letter once more to him. Tom rolled Bess onto her back and pinned her in with his hands.

“I knew you were a strange one with wicked thoughts, but wishing someone dead?” Tom raised an eyebrow with glee.

“Oh hush,” Bess brought her legs to wrap around his waist and pull Tom towards her. He groaned as his cock grazed at her still sodden entrance. “They were your words.”

“I wish I’d known I could pleasure you with just my words sooner,” Tom ground into Bess’ body, teasing as the tip of his length jutted at her cunt. Bess moaned.

“I used to think of you beating Walter Watson, that night at the dance. God, you looked like a wild animal.”

“Was James wild?” Tom rolled his hips again and Bess whimpered.

“He kissed me once and it was all teeth and bad breath,”

“Poor boy. It takes more than a fumble to please my girl.” A hand ran up her side and he graced a thumb over one of Bess’ pert nipples. She sighed and her hold around his waist tightened.

“There were women for you,” Bess thought of his letter. I can’t kiss another woman and pretend it’s you, calling them by your name. She couldn’t bring herself to be angry nor jealous, for he was with her now. Tom shook his head a little and kissed her deeply before answering.

“Only one, and I called her by your name.”

Bess laughed against his mouth. “You really did that?” Tom grinned. “Poor girl.”

“Poor girl.” He echoed, running his tongue along Bess’ neck and delighting in the breathy moan it produced. “To think, all those men lining up for you at the dancehall, and not a one but that poor, bastard James got to touch you. These lips were made just for me,” Tom kissed her so slowly it made her head swim, but the reality of his last words sunk in and a whisper of embarrassment prickled up her neck.

“There was someone else, actually-” Tom devotions stopped abruptly and Bess scrabbled to reach him as he made to roll away. “But it was nothing, please believe me.”

“What happened?” Tom’s voice was hard with possessiveness and despite her embarrassment, heat pooled at the apex of Bess’ thighs. Best to get this over with, and quick.

“Well, I went round to your dad’s one day. You know we’re very alike, quiet and all that, but you are too! You and your dad, I mean. Anyway, he was so upset with missing you, as was I, and he did this thing where he scrunched his nose, just like you do and-and-” Bess shot a tentative glance at Tom. His eyes were unreadable as he listened and she hastily continued. “And he looked so like you, and I missed you so much, that-fuck, I don’t know what came over me, but I kissed him.”

Silence. Tom stared at her with questioning shock. Then, as if moving in slow motion, the corner of his mouth curled upwards.

“You kissed my dad?”

Bess nodded.

“Oh my God, you kissed my dad!?” Tom fell onto his back and roared with laughter. “The sly old bastard. Always wondered if he really could be my dad, we’re so fucking different, yet here we are going after the same girl.”

“He didn’t go after me!”

“Well, no. You went after him!” Tom eyes scrunched with mirth as he teased her, his laugher filling the small bedroom. “Here I was thinking you’d tell me about some dashing pilot friend of Roger’s, and it was my dad.”

“Do you really think I’d forget you so quickly, Tom Bennett?” Bess smacked his belly and his laughter subsided into giggles.

“I can’t wait to tell him,”

“You’ll do no such thing!”

✼　　✼　　✼　　✼　　✼　　✼

By mid-morning the next day, Bess and Tom were finally on the bus to Longsight. Bess planned to leave early and make the most of what was surely to be the last sunny Saturday until spring. Her plans were waylaid however, the moment Tom Bennet woke up and saw Bess at his side.

The bus moved through the city, and though there were no raids the previous night, evidence of the last still lingered. Groups of now homeless people were buffeted along by wardens, nursed and other volunteers, and Bess tried to spot her father in the crowds. He must already be home. Please, let him be home. Reading her thoughts, Tom squeezed her hand from the seat beside her.

Within half an hour, Tom and Bess were walking hand in hand along the pavement of their childhood home. Mrs Flaherty, Mrs O’Connell were stood chatting to Mrs Mason in her doorway, her children playing in the street. At the sight of Tom, Mrs O’Connell hurried to him and kissed his cheek. Dennis Warley cycled past on his postman’s bike and tipped his cap.

“Good to see you home, lad.”

“Nicest thing he’s said to anyone in ages,” Bess whispered in Tom’s ear and he laughed. A voice called out to them from across the road.

“It’s about bloody time!” Lois was pushing a pram towards the Bennett house, smiling as she watched her brother walking hand in hand with Bess.

“Keep the littlun awake, I’ll be over in mo,” Tom shouted back, and Bess felt herself glowing with adoration at his affection towards his niece. “Got something important to do first!”

“What is that, might I ask?” Bess gazed at his aquiline profile. He merely grinned at her, before stopping outside her house. He dropped her hand to knocked on the red door. It opened instantly to reveal Dot, her hair freshly curled, and holding a cup of tea.

“Hello you two,” she winked mischievously and moved away from the door, letting them in. Bess tutted at her little sister. Tom winked back and Dot giggled. In the cosy kitchen of their home, Cora stood at the sink, washing dishes from the morning’s breakfast that Fergal was finishing by the hearth.

“Hiya, dadda.” Bess gave him a gentle kiss on the top of his head. “Glad to see you safe.”

“Thank you, my girl.” He looked up with tired eyes, taking her in before moving to the man behind her. “Tom,” he stood from his seat and shook his hand. “I can’t tell you how happy I was when Dot told me you were home in one piece. Your dad was near bursting when I saw him at the pub last night.”

Bess watched Tom try to hide his pleased smile. “Thank you, Fergal.” The older man sat back in his armchair. “I only wish Albie had come home with me too. I’m sorry-”

Fergal waved his hand. “Don’t you be bringing our sadness to your good news.” Bess’ eyes found Cora’s, and they smiled sadly to each other.

“Actually, Fergal,” Tom cleared his throat and all eyes turned to him. “I’ve come looking for a bit more good news of my own.”

“Is that so?” Fergal’s voice was measured, but Tom saw something in the gleam of his eye that told him he knew what was coming.

“Yes, sir.” Dot shuddered with anticipation when Tom addressed Fergal thus, and Cora smacked her on the arm. Fergal sat a little straighter, and Tom took a deep breath. “I came to ask your permission to court your daughter.” At this, Dot actually shrieked and Cora hissed a warning to her. All the while, Fergal kept his eyes appraisingly on Tom. After a moment’s silence, he looked to his daughter, stood behind Tom.

“And what do you say, my girl?” Her dark eyes shining, Bess simply nodded. Looking back to Tom, Fergal winked with a smile. Before Bess could even reach a hand out to Tom’s, Dot, bursting with happiness and no longer able to contain her excitement, hurried across the room and buried her face in his chest.

“I thought it would never happen.”

Notes: St Agatha is one of the patron saints of nurses. So pals, the next instalment will be the last for this volume of The Seamstress & The Sailor. When the next series of World on Fire is released, I fully intend to revisit these characters and/or rewrite how Tom’s story ends (please don’t make him die), for the second volume.

Going camping over the weekend so I’ll be offline for a few days, see you soon!

Tags: @aemonds-wifey @multiple-fandoms-girl @jessssica1234 @babyblue711 @anditsmywholeheart @exitpursuedbyavulcan @myfandomprompts @allthefandomtherapy @valerie977 @bookwyrmsblog @phantomontheinternet @chainsawsangel @greenowlfactif @thelittleswanao3 @yentroucnagol @beiigegalx @skikikikiikhhjuuh @just-emmaaaa @mefools @aquakaris @its-actually-minicika @whoknows333 @arcielee @honeymaltgelato @girlwith-thepearlearring @fangirlninja67

#ewan mitchell #tom bennett x reader #tom bennett x ofc #ewan mitchell x reader #world on fire #the seamstress & the sailor

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myfandomprompts · 1 year

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𝐆𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐖𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐑𝐞𝐠𝐫𝐞𝐭 | 𝐓𝐨𝐦 𝐁𝐞𝐧𝐧𝐞𝐭𝐭 𝐱 𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫 (𝟏)

Synopsis: You are a French girl that had the opportunity to teach in Manchester, and you had been lucky enough to be granted a bed at the Bennett’s place. As Europe is on the brink of war, you start to worry for your family back at home, and you are surprisingly consoled by the one man of the house you would never have thought capable of landing you an ear. It’s not that you like Tom, is it? Masterlist

Tags: fluff, angst, little slow burn, next part will include more tags (wink)

It was late, and you were in the Bennett’s living room, unable to sleep and because you didn’t want to bother Lois who was already sound asleep upstairs with your light, you had chosen to read on the couch, literature distracting you.

It has been three wonderful months in Manchester. The place was lovely, the people welcoming, the school you had begun to teach at everything you hoped for, and the Bennetts were absolutely adorable with you. Douglas was sweet, and had many stories to tell, Lois was kind and funny, and you two had got along pretty quickly. Even Tom, when he was around, was making efforts to be as delightful and troublesome as usual.

You had found the place by your connections, your brother playing in a band with a trumpeter named Eddie, whose wife happened to be Lois’s best friend. And now you were sharing the bedroom upstairs with her, having taken Tom’s bed as he now slept on the couch. He had not complained once about it.

The first time you met him, he had entered the house mere minutes after you had arrived, having just finished introducing yourself to his father and sister. You heard him before seeing him. “So, the reason I have to sleep on the couch from now has arrived, eh?”

His tone was playful, but you still felt guilty nonetheless as you turned around to see the infamous Tom, slightly blushing when you saw the tall blond-haired man in front of you, his blue eyes widening faintly as he met yours.

“Tom, be nice,” Lois had said. “This is Y/N.”

You had greeted him shyly, not sure how to act with him as you jokingly apologised for the loss of his bed, but his grin had just grown wider and he had chuckled.

“Christ, are they all this pretty in France? I should pay them a visit, I would be a very happy lad there.”

Douglas had sighed while Lois rolled her eyes, and you had not known how to react back then watching him laugh again before going upstairs with a wink to his sister, satisfied with the way your cheeks had turned pink.

But now that you had been his flirtatious self for over three months, you had grown used to his witty remarks and knew better than to take them seriously. You got along pretty well in fact. One day you had stumbled upon him in the kitchen as he played with a deck of cards, and had offered to teach you how to play. You had never seen someone as skilled with his hands as he was, and you wondered now if this particular talent had anything to do with the two weeks he had spent in prison lately. Regardless, you had spent a wonderful afternoon with him that day.

It was a stark contrast with your current situation, reading late and laying on the couch with the oil lamp as sole light, finding the activity the only efficient distraction from the thoughts that prevented you from sleeping at night. You were quite the anxious person, and since the news that Poland had surrendered and that Europe was on the brink of war, you had grown concerned for your family back in France. The word out was that Western Europe would be next and your family was living too close to the German border for you not to be concerned. The fact that you had not received any letters from any members of your family in a whole week did nothing to appease that worry. So instead of sleep, reading it was, and you were so focused on your book that you did not hear the front door open softly and you jumped when you saw a figure standing in the threshold of the living room.

“Mon Dieu… You scared me!” you gently scolded as you brought your hand to your chest, steadying your heartbeat.

“Sorry love, didn’t mean to,” came the quick response of Tom, fully dressed with his overcoat, his cheeks slightly pink from the cold he had just escaped from.

“Where do you come from this late?” you inquired, shivering as you felt the draught reach you as he took his coat off.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?”

“Are you still scrapping for metal, Tom? Can I finally have that tin man you’re building?” you teased as you echoed Lois, watching him as he made his way to the chair across from you, lazily dropping in it and lighting a cigarette between his lips.

“Lois talks too much,” he answered, smoke coming out of his mouth as he spoke. “And you won’t find me doing that again. Don’t plan on going back in a cell this soon.”

He winked at you, but the only thing now on your mind was what Douglas had announced to you this morning. “I heard… Conscientious objector, uh? Your father must be proud, you already have the genes for pacifism.”

“I doubt that. I’m not really into what he believes in so…” his voice was low, contemplative. “Sooner or later, I’ll still be a disappointment. No surprises there.”

“Don’t say that, I know he is proud of you. At least he is glad you’re not on the mend any more. Or in the army.”

“Yeah…I’m a real hero.”

You frowned, saddened by his words but you found nothing to say as he reached for the ashtray next to him. You hoped that one day the man before you would see his worth.

“So, can’t sleep?” he kept on, putting an end to the topic as you stared at the way the smoke passed his lips. “Why are you in the cold like that?”

“I just… thought I would have some reading done,” you half-lied, raising the book in your hands. “But don’t let me keep you from a good night’s sleep. You look like you need it.”

Tom’s demeanour shifted at that and a grin appeared on his lips, looking you over. “Well, I would, but since you’re sitting where I sleep…”

Your eyes widened as you suddenly remembered that he had taken the couch because of you. And now you robbed him of it as well. “I’m so sorry, I don’t know why I hadn’t thought of that, I was just enjoying the living room... I’ll leave you be,” you said with slight embarrassment, closing your book and moving to get up.

“No, stay, you're warming up my bed so nicely already, you're not going to abandon me now, are you?" he teased, a sly smile on his lips as his face lit up. "There is enough space for both of us on this couch if we keep close."

The stern look you gave him at his inappropriate proposition amused him for a moment, but soon his anxious and serious expression returned, "No, honest, despite what you think I look like, I'm not tired. So stay. Please."

You hesitated, sensing that like you, he might use the company, but you still did not want to be a bother. He talked again before you could come to a decision.

“I know you read when you’re anxious, so tell me what’s bothering you. Why you can’t sleep.”

You were surprised for a second by the fact that he knew this about your personality, feeling something in your heart tingle as his blue eyes examined yours, waiting for your answer. "It’s nothing, it’s just, passing insomnia.”

He took another puff of smoke, not believing you for a second, “Worrying about your folks, are you?” he said as you lowered your gaze at your hands and nodded. You didn’t know Tom could be this perceptive, or that his eyes could have that softness you've never noticed before. “They’ll be fine. These Nazis won’t be able to do much if we have a say in it,” he stated, looking at how your pretty eyes had suddenly turned morose.

He didn’t want that. “What if they do anyway? Look at Poland, we weren’t prepared and now here we are. They don’t look like they are gonna stop there. Finland is-”

“You listen to the wireless too much. It’s always bad news nowadays, no point in listening to it if it makes you sad.”

You gave him a sorry smile, internally touched at his simplistic way of seeing things. “Stop listening to the news won’t make Germany stop invading its neighbouring countries Tom,” you replied softly, trying to ignore the way your heart ached at the thought. “What has happened is already so horrifying, I can’t even begin to imagine what it would look like if they really go all the way through with it.”

You felt tears come at the rim of your eyes against your will as you let the words you dreaded to say come out loud. Your lack of sleep was making you prone to strong emotions, and you had kept them hidden for a little too long. “It’s just… so scary. What if I can’t go back, or something happens while I’m here? They feel so far away! What if I end up never seeing them again? What if I have made a mistake coming here?” you went on, voice cracking and barely holding your tears.

Tom had straightened up on his chair. “Of course you’ll see them again,” he firmly said, but when he saw your teary eyes his voice turned soft, and he stood up at once. “Hey it’s alright. You’re alright love. C’me here.”

You watched him come over and sit beside you before wrapping an arm around your shoulder, pulling you gently against him. You blinked at his sudden display of affection but did nothing against it, leaning into him as he pulled you closer, allowing you to rest your head against his chest. You could hear his heartbeat, and you clung to the sound.

“Nothing will happen to them,” he whispered. “If they are half as smart as you are, nothing will get them. Trust me.”

His breath was tickling the side of your face as he talked. You giggled softly, now finding pathetic the way you had reacted due to your lack of sleep. “Thank you, Tom. You’re sweet when you want to,” you whispered, feeling your eyelids slowly flutter from the fatigue.

“I’m always sweet. You’re just not around often enough to witness it.”

“Then I am clearly missing out...”

Then it went dark, and you fell asleep in Tom’s arms. “Not as much as I am, Y/N.”

Tom watched you as your breathing became even, hand itching to prevent a strand of your hair from falling over your pretty face. Had it been anyone else, he would have woken you up and made you go to bed to be more comfortable, but as the minutes passed, he gradually abandoned the idea of moving even an inch as you felt amazingly warm over him. He gently took your book away from your lap before putting the cover over your form and leaned back against the couch, finding a comfortable position of his own.

Your peaceful expression suited you, he thought.

Sunlight filtered through the windows directly into your eyes, and you blinked yourself awake, the smell of smoke and sandalwood tickling your nose. It was nice, but as you realised from where, or from who it came from. Your face was resting against Tom, his chest rising up and down softly as he breathed and you straightened at once, the motion making him shift and blink in turn beneath you. You stayed still while you forced your memories from the previous night to come back. Tom lazily stretched his arm over him before dozing into sleep again. Oh no no no.

“Réveille-toi espèce de-” you scolded, hitting him on the shoulder to urge him awake. “Why didn’t you wake me up! We would both have been better off in our own beds!”

“Hey, easy!” he protested with a giggle, now fully awake and trying to take a hold of your wrists to stop you from punching him. “You’re the one that fell asleep on me, in my bed, and I’m not the one complaining here, love!”

His amused expression annoyed you more than it should have and you cursed in frustration, realising that you had to get ready for work very soon. You were glad that neither Douglas or Lois had woken up early to see you like that.

“If I’m late for school, it’s on you,” you warned, getting rid of the covers he had apparently put over you during the night and pointing an accusing finger at him, standing up to walk upstairs.

“What, I don’t even get a cup of tea as a reward for being your pillow? I clearly deserve it,” he taunted, taking his jumper off and looking at you expectantly.

You sighed, “Fine. But stop guilt trapping me. You still should have woken me up, I’m sure your muscles are killing you right now. No, I hope they are."

“My muscles are fine, thank you. And I would never have dared to wake you up, you seemed so relaxed in my arms, I didn’t want to ruin it for you.”

His grin was enticing but you escaped it by fleeing into the kitchen and processing to make you and him some tea, taking care in adding milk, a thing you had learned British people liked, and you brought one of the hot cups back to him. He was now comfortably laying under the covers, ready to fall asleep again, but he straightened up to take the beverage from your hands, satisfied with the way your nose flared in frustration. But even though you seemed vexed, it did not reflect your thoughts in the least

“Thank you. For listening to me last night.”

Your words made him arch his brow in surprise but his sweet smile quickly came back as he sipped his drink happily. “Anything, Y/N.”

You gave him a half a grateful smile in response before turning on your heels, heading upstairs to ready yourself for the day. Tom smiled at the way the covers were now infused with your scent, and he was glad to fall back to sleep in it.

It was your turn to buy groceries, and you had taken your time in the market today, strolling through products before heading back to the Bennett’s.

Nearing the back door, you were put face to face with a furious looking Tom, storming out of the kitchen and almost bumping into you as you set down your bike against the wall of the small alley. He barely apologised and disappeared into the street. You stayed stunned by the encounter for a moment before cautiously making your entrance in the house where Douglas was sitting at the table, a dismayed expression on his face while Lois was ironing.

“What was that?” you asked, looking between the two. They looked at each other before Douglas spoke.

“Tom enrolled in the Navy.”

You dropped your bags of groceries on the floor. “The Navy? But… what about civil work?” you asked, stupefied.

“Yeah… He is not doing that any more. He changed his mind.”

You glanced at Lois who gave you a sorry look. No wonder Tom looked so upset and Douglas so sullen. “I’ll… find him.”

It had not been very difficult to find Tom. You had strolled around the neighbourhood before deciding to head to the local pub, almost certain that you would find him there. And it did not fail.

As you entered, immediately noticing his back turned to you, elbows on the counter at the front. You made your way to him across the crowd and settled yourself beside him, looking at his now almost empty glass of beer.

“Can I please have the same thing but smaller?” you called out to the barman, making Tom acknowledge your presence for the first time.

He examined you briefly before reporting his gaze on his glass. “Did Lois send you?”

You shook your head. “No, I came on my own. You should not be alone.”

He nodded, taking his glass of beer and emptying it in one gulp.

“So… the Navy, uh?” you tried.

He licked his lips and proceeded to play with the edge of his now empty glass, jaw clenching a bit. “What, are you gonna tell me I made the wrong choice too? Didn’t know you were this much into pacifism. With your folks and all.”

“No, it’s not like that Tom, it’s just a little difficult for your father at the moment. I don’t want you to leave, but it does not mean that I don’t understand your choices.”

His eyes shot up at you as you were handed your drink, not noticing how Tom didn’t draw his gaze away from you as you ingested the cold liquid, warming your throat in the process. When you put down your glass, Tom was still looking at you, a triumphant grin on his face.

“My my, are you saying that you’ll miss me or do my ears deceive me tonight?”

You blushed, opening your mouth to try to think of a witty response. You found none. “Just… Be serious for a minute and listen to what I have to say,” you managed, and he groaned in frustration, ordering another drink as you continued. “Your father loves you, that is why he is so upset. He just… doesn’t want his boy to go away. He lived it himself, he knows how it is, he is scared for you.”

He only made an annoyed sound as he took a sip of beer again, a defiant expression on his face. You try not to question why your eyes had been briefly drawn to his Adam's apple as he drank.

“If you leave things as they are with your father, you’ll regret it. I know you will,” you kept on, willing to not let his pride take the better of him. “When do you leave?”

“In a week,” he replied. “First to Liverpool for training and then off to wherever they send me.”

You bit your lips. You had not known Tom for very long, but you knew that it was unfair that he had to go. You were terrified that war would take away all that liveliness and light he carried around. You liked that about him, even though you didn’t show it.

“At least you’ll get to travel,” you shrugged jokingly, but your heart was not in it. Tom however, seemed to find his humour back.

“That’s true. Maybe to France, who knows? Always dreamed to see if they are all like you there, or if you're some miraculous exception. I hope they are not as serious as you, though, I would be very disappointed.”

You let out a fake scandalised sound. “Me, serio-! That’s not very nice of you to say, Mr. Bennett! I have my moments.”

“What, is the demoiselle jealous?” he smiled, leaning closer, and you could smell the same scent you had woken to several mornings ago in the living room, but this time mixed with the smell of beer.

“No, you’re just being rude,” you replied, forgetting to move away from his ever-closing face. “And your charming smile won’t be able to get you out of my wrath if you keep depreciating me like that.”

He arched a brow, and you knew you had made a mistake. “Charming smile? Well, that’s a first. But do go on, what else do you find charming about me?”

You scoffed, unable to stop the blush from creeping onto your cheeks and chose to hide behind your drink as you took a long sip.

“C’mon, I’ll even let you say it in French, if that’s easier for you,” he pleaded, eyes glittering in mischief as he leaned closer to your ear. “I like when you speak French.”

“Tu peux toujours courir, mon beau,” you said, shaking your head with a smile. You can forget about it, handsome.

“Mhh… What does that mean?”

“It means that you, sir, have drank too fast, and that you should stop there,” you replied, ignoring the way he was now looking at your lips as they moved. “I won’t say anything, but please remember what I said. Don’t avoid your father, don’t make that mistake. Oh, and don’t come home too late," you said, dropping a few pounds on the counter.

“You’re leaving me already? It was just starting to get interesting.”

You could not repress a smile as you internally agreed. “I’m hungry, and I am cooking tonight. Maybe if you behave, I will leave some for you.”

And you turned your heels, letting him there with a lost expression as you made your way to the door, satisfied and your body a little bit too warm. Mere metres from the exit, however, you collided with someone.

“Oh, I’m sorry sir, I wasn’t paying attention,” you apologised, even though it was him that had not been paying any attention to his surroundings as he was talking to his group of friends.

The man turned with an annoyed expression on his face at first, but it quickly disappeared to be replaced by a cheeky smile at your sight, “No to worry miss, no harm done,” he reassured you, touching your arm in a playful manner. “Where are you from? Don’t recognise your accent.”

“Oh, I’m from France. I… didn’t know it was that obvious,” you confess, uneasy at his sudden interest and secretly wishing that you were already on your way home.

“Nah, I just have an ear for it. Staying long?”

“I work here actually. School.”

“Wonderful, it means that we will cross paths again, won’t we? I believe in fate you see, not a coincidence we met like this hon’,” he said, leaning in closer and making you take a few steps back.

You knew it had been no coincidence when his arm collided with yours harshly a minute ago, just plain inattention on his part. Your desire to escape him grew wider by the minute. “Uh, I guess we’ll see about that,” you said, trying to give him a genuine smile. “Now I’m sorry but I must go. Maybe next time!”

The tall man nodded, and you now noticed how gruff he looked. “Alrigh’, to next time then, dove.”

You shyly smiled at him before hastily opening the door and exit the pub, the cold attacking your already shivering skin.

“I work here actually. School.”

“Wonderful, it means that we will cross paths again, won’t we? I believe in fate you see, not a coincidence we met like this hon.”

Tom’s gaze had not left you for a second as he watched you leave, seeing you struggle to reach the entrance of the pub across the crowded place, and he did not miss the way you collided with loud guy either.

The man was a regular named Larry, but Tom usually called him ‘the loud guy’ as he never seemed to ever shut up. The fact was, that lad had already challenged Tom's nerves a couple of times, and his legs were now making their way to the two of you on their own. He had only heard the end of your conversation before he could get close and as you left, reassuring him, Tom was about to make his way back to the counter when he heard Larry’s boisterous voice.

“Pretty this one, and a teacher at that. She could teach me whatever she wants any time, eh?” he said to his red-haired friend next to him. “I’ll bet you she touched me on purpose, the naughty thing. She must get laid pretty easily.”

He then proceeded to have the fattest laugh Tom had ever heard, his friend on the other side only giving him an unimpressed glance, and Tom felt his blood boil.

“You want to repeat that, mate?” he defiantly said, staring straight at Larry who froze and turned at his voice.

“Repeat what? Don’t you know it’s rude to listen to other people’s conversations?”

“Well you’re not really whispering there, are ya? You wouldn’t be able to have a private conversation even if you wanted to, with your ugly mouth of yours. Or do you lack the brains to understand that?”

You were right. Maybe he had drank too fast, and maybe although he was as tall as Larry, the fact that he was twice his size did not bode well for him. But he was very crossed right now, and it wasn’t the first time he had got himself into a situation like this one. He could take it.

“Watch it lad, wouldn’t want to damage your pretty face, don’t think your mum would be happy about it, yeah? Now piss off.”

“Big words for someone who talks about women like that. Did your mum forget to teach you some manners?”

Larry’s expression turned dark. “So that’s about the French lass, huh? Frustrated she took interest in a man rather than a boy like you? You wanted a taste, am I right? Well too bad. Let the big men play and piss off.”

Tom didn’t know why this particular sentence had infuriated him that much but it did, and the next moment his fist had landed on Larry’s face, making him reel backward and growl as his nose started to bleed. Rage took him and he punched Tom back in the stomach, making him huff and gasp for air as people started to yell around them, rushing to stop the fight.

“Stop this! Or take it outside!” yelled the barman as someone held Tom back, preventing him from punching loud guy again.

“Gladly,” sneered Tom, but Larry’s friend had another opinion.

“It’s not worth it. C’mon Larry move. I said move,” he insisted, pushing his nose-bleeding mate out of the pub. Tom had tried to follow them, still enraged but the hands retaining him did not let him go until the two men had disappeared into the night.

“You’re alright lad?” asked a man to his right.

“I’m fine,” he growled, shaking the pain from his hand and feeling his torso aflame by the blow he had received.

He didn’t know why he had reacted like that, but as he returned to the counter, he had definitely sobered up.

@enchantingcupcakecollectionfan

Part 2

#tom bennett #wof #world on fire #tom bennet imagine #tom bennett x oc #tom bennett fanfiction #oneshot #ewan mitchell #world on fire 1x02 #wof gif #mygif #angst #short story #fluff #smut #aemond #Tom bennett X reader #gone with regret

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