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irisintheafterglow · 6 months

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(⁠◍⁠•⁠ᴗ⁠•⁠◍⁠)🌷✨🩷🍪 Greetings Author-nim

Can I please request (⁠^⁠_⁠^⁠メ⁠)

(OPLA Zoro x You) Where Reader is an Assassin or Ninja and is a Pirate hunter, When Zoro used to be one too, they would always compete who gets the target first. Sometimes Zoro wins, sometimes reader.

So, imagine Reader's reaction when they saw Zoro with the crew.

And also, Luffy, somehow by some miracle with his own style of talk-no-jutsu managed to convince reader to join them(⁠≧⁠▽⁠≦⁠)

(⁠ ⁠˘⁠ ⁠³⁠˘⁠)⁠♥. Hope u have a great day and it's okay if u don't want to do this. I'll understand.

baby, let the games begin

wc: 2k (surprise, shawty)

cw/tags: gn!reader, swearing, canon-typical violence, mentions of drinking and alcohol, pining pining pining pining PINING

note: hi love, thank you so much for your request!! i hope you like this because i certainly love writing for this stupid himbo man

likes, reblogs, and replies are always appreciated <3

Honor be damned, you really wanted to kill him.

“Dirty play, demon,” you huff irritatedly, scowling at the asshole who skewered your target before you could. In a single clean slash, the head is relieved of its body and unceremoniously kicked into a bag. “We both know that one was mine.”

“Better luck next time.” Asshole. Stupid, selfish, infuriatingly attractive asshole. A million different ways you could end his life flashed through your mind and, with his back turned to you, became more of a possibility the longer you sat in your disappointment. The dock creaks beneath his receding footsteps and you spit a curse under your breath. The head now bouncing around in the pirate hunter’s hand would have had you living comfortably for months, not to mention buying some shelter for the stray dogs wandering your home island. Monsoon season was coming and you didn’t have nearly enough space to keep all of them dry. Finding food that wasn’t old bread and horse balls was hard in itself and shelter was just another task added to the to-do list. “You’re not gonna try and take it from me?”

“Why would I? You killed him; you get the bounty,” you reply scornfully, praying that whoever came up with the idea of hunter’s honor is torn to shreds by an octopus. “Guess it is your turn,” you concede reluctantly and take note of the blood dripping from the dirty fabric sack as he reapproaches. You’d have to clean your shoes when you were done. “I did take that guy from you in Flamingo Village, last week.”

“The one with the big, ugly hat,” he confirms and you don’t budge when he stands right in front of you. He had pretty eyes, you’d give him that. Too bad you wanted to slam your fist into his nose. “I was mad about that one.”

“Well, you got this one. Aren’t you gonna cash ‘em in?”

“I will. I’m just curious,” he says and his expression is unreadable. It bordered on amusement and suspicion with a little bit of awe. “You could have killed me a million times since I killed the target.” Already thought that, buddy. “Why didn’t you?”

“Like I said, hunter’s honor–”

“No,” he shakes his head decidedly and you narrow your eyes. “You’ve been following this guy for four days, watching other hunters fail to bring him in. My question is, why do you need this bounty so badly, and why aren’t you willing to kill me over it?”

“Technically, that’s two questions,” you deadpan and your heart does an unwanted little stutter when he scoffs, the tiniest smile pulling at his mouth. “If you really wanna know why I need it, it’s ‘cause I need to take care of some friends back home.” It wasn’t a complete lie, but you also didn’t need the most feared hunter in the seas knowing that you needed the money to buy squeaky toys and dog beds.

“Those friends aren’t worth killing for?”

“It’s sounding like you want me to kill you,” you fire back incredulously. “Do I need to worry about you, Zoro?”

“Look, all I’m saying is, all other hunters would be leaping at my throat as soon as I take their kill. I just don’t understand why you won’t, especially if it’s worth four days of stalking.”

“Maybe I like playing this little game,” you admit. It’s no secret to you that your job becomes incredibly boring at times. All the other hunters you come across take their jobs too seriously and believe that they’re purging the seas of evil. You, however, knew that the real evil was pacing around ivory towers and putting up the wanted posters. When you first met Zoro, it seemed like he didn’t take his job seriously at all. He killed like it was breathing and remained unamused at the melodramatic theatrics of flashier hunters. You ran into each other often because, besides being the only ones who survive their hunts, you were the top-earning hunters of your generation and ended up following the same pace every time. “I take a bounty; you take a bounty. I try to beat the pirate hunter at his own game; he throws a fit when I’m faster than him.”

“But, today I was faster than you,” he corrects and you stick your tongue out at him in defiance. “Who’s throwing a fit now?”

“Get out of my sight, demon,” you frown but you can’t hold it for long. It becomes a tired, melancholy smile and you start to make your way back to the town to book passage home. “Hope you enjoy all that Berry.”

“Let me buy you a drink with it before you go,” he calls after you and you freeze where you stand. “Consolation for kicking your ass this time around.” You shoot him a scathing look over your shoulder and take the bait.

“I did all the dirty work for you, asshole, so it better be three drinks at the least.” He chuckles softly under his breath and you roll your eyes, letting him catch up to you before heading to the nearest bar together. “I hate you so much.”

“No, you don’t.”

As time passed and you ran into him more during your hunts, that hatred turned into something different, an annoying feeling of excitement every time you heard a sword unsheathed or spotted someone with green hair. You found yourself checking your watch when you were ahead of him, counting down the hours until he caught up. You knew the sound of his footsteps and the rhythm of his breathing and memorized how the sun hit his eyes down to the iris. Sometimes, you’d work with him directly and split the bounty evenly once it was completed. During conversations to kill time, though he never admitted it, he liked being around you as often as he was. Eventually, you told him about your furry friends back on the island and started marking the places you’d been with a hasty drawing of a dog. It became part of your routine and the time that it took for him to catch up to you decreased exponentially as a result. You’re easier to follow, is what he said. On a particular mission where you were unusually behind, you were delighted to find his gross attempt at mimicking the mark scratched into the wooden bar counter.

You lose touch with him after a year or so of working together and you don’t expect it to hurt as much as it did. Word floated around that he was captured by Marines and posted up in Shells Town, but the same mouths reported that he escaped with pirates the following day. None of it sounded like him and it reminded you that you really didn’t know him at all. Still, you marked that silly dog into every barstool and backdoor you came across as you fell back into the same boring routines.

Taking a rest day at a floating restaurant called Baratie, you think you’ve found the perfect spot to scratch into the counter when you realize that someone has already done it for you. It was horrendous and nearly incomprehensible, but you choke back a sob when you run your thumb over the mangled wood. There was only one person who could have drawn the little dog so badly.

And it’s like your body senses him before your mind does.

In an instant, you’re hyper fixated on the familiar rhythm of his boots and the soft noise as his swords clank together with every step. There are four others with him, but you know his approach like the back of your hand. A boy in a straw hat whom you recognize from wanted posters rushes the bar, loudly requesting a glass of milk for himself and the finest rum for his swordsman companion. When he slides into the seat next to you, you can barely look at him, rendered defenseless from the conflict of emotions stirring in your mind. Thousands of questions were screaming to be answered but you couldn’t even open your mouth. The alcohol in your half-finished glass is all you can see.

“You found me,” he murmurs, flagging down the bartender and asking for a bottle of whatever you’re drinking.

“I wasn’t looking for you,” you reply just as quietly, watching his hand carefully replenish your glass before filling his own and downing it in a few swallows. You stop him from pouring another with a light hand on his shoulder and he wordlessly sets down the bottle, making you smile softly. “You still drink too much.”

“I don’t have you to slow me down,” he replies without hesitation, glancing at your fingertip as it traces the mark he made on the wood. “I’ve been putting those everywhere since I joined up with Luffy. Figured we’d run into each other at some point.”

“Luffy,” you echo. “That’s your pirate captain?” The irony of your situation escapes neither of you. If you were smart, you’d have every single one of them dead and bouncing around a burlap sack, just like the pirate all those years ago. But, just the same as the first time, you were stopped by a profound desire to be closer to Zoro.

“He’s not like other pirates. Not like the ones you and I know.”

“I’ll let the Marines know next time I bring in a head, then,” you laugh humorlessly, feeling the rum burn down your throat when you take another sip. You feel his eyes watching you carefully but you don’t look back at him. “I’m sure they’ll be thrilled to hear that.”

“They don’t have to hear anything,” he says in a low tone, one that sends goosebumps up your spine and has your heart beating a little faster. “They don’t have to hear anything from you ever again.”

“You’re not saying…”

“That's exactly what I’m saying.”

“You want me to just switch sides like it’s nothing?”

“This job has been nothing to you from the beginning, nothing but a way to feed strays that, thanks to you, have loving homes,” he reminds you and you exhale deeply. He was right, but part of you wanted vengeance for all the times you secretly wished he was still with you. “So, come with me.”

“Zoro, I–”

“You know, I’ve missed you so much I can’t sleep,” he shakes his head and sighs in defeat. “Every time we dock at a new city, I’m hoping you’re on a hunt because, as much as I care for them, they’ll never know me the way you do.” He looks back at his crew with something like sad fondness in his eyes. They wouldn’t ever know him the way you did, as a bounty hunter with no real place to call home and no real people to call friends. “It gets lonely when you’re not forced to be alone anymore.”

“And it’s lonely when you are forced to,” you add. “It’s lonely either way–”

“But I’d rather be that way with you,” he concludes. “It’s not bad when I’m with you.” You pause, collecting your thoughts and calculating how much money you’d have if you suddenly abandoned your current line of work. It was risky, sure, but something about risking it on Zoro made it feel a little less dangerous. “Your silence tells me I convinced you.”

“I’m not the one you need to convince; it’s your captain you should be talking to.”

“Trust me, he’s the least of our problems.” As if to drive home his point, a choir of cheers rises up from behind you as a loud belch sounds through the harbor.

“‘Our’ as in the crew, or ‘our’ as in you and I?”

“It’s always been you and I, hasn’t it?”

“It always will be,” you promise, letting your head fall onto his shoulder. He’s warm and safe and everything you were needing. “But, I need to teach you how to draw a better dog.” He hums in agreement, downing another glass contentedly.

“Yeah, you need to teach me how to draw a better dog.”

if you enjoy my writing and would like to support me, you can buy me a coffee on my ko-fi! you can also check out my full masterlist here :)

#zoro x you #zoro x reader #zoro x y/n #roronoa zoro x you #roronoa zoro x reader #roronoa zoro x y/n #opla x you #opla x reader #opla x y/n #one piece x you #one piece x reader #one piece x y/n #ask iris!

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gabigabigabby · 7 months

Text

back to papaya | l. norris

part one / two / three

lando norris x sainz!reader

the landosainz saga

a/n: landosainz is back! i think that is the perfect name for them

synopsis: into landosainz's first day in qatar + carlos kidnaps y/n for a couple hours and lando begs of him to bring her back

face claim: sophia weber

—

ynsainzzz

Lusail International Circuit

liked by carlossainz55, mclaren and 588,152 others

ynsainzzz hello hello qatar 🧡

tagged: mclaren

view all 85,857 comments

mclaren Hello, hello indeed. 🫡🧡

ynsainzzz liked mclaren's comment

landonorris Tings that are peng

ynsainzzz landonorris fanks lad

francisca.cgomes flying to qatar as we speak!!! 😆😆🤍

ynsainzzz francisca.cgomes MINHA KIKAAAA [my kikaaaa]

pierregasly francisca.cgomes this means i don't have a girlfriend anymore

carlossainz55 Where's the Ferrari?

ynsainzzz carlossainz55 i told you to airdrop the photo to me 🙄 and of course you didn't

pierregasly Your feed is now really nice to look at

ynsainzzz pierregasly damn so it wasn't nice to look at back then? ☹️

username mister lando.jpg is quaking as we speak

ynsainzzz he better be

carlandoooo these pics are too good y/n. care to make em wallpapers?

ynsainzzz carlandoooo sick idea bestie. i'll take more tonight and post them on ze stories 😚

username will carlos be in the qatar photo dump

ynsainzzz trust me bestie, he warned me ab it as soon as we landed. guess that means i have to stop by ferrari later

ynsainzzz's story

landonorris

liked by carlossainz55, georgerussell63 and 409,999 others

landonorris it's toasty ☀️

tagged: ynsainzzz

view all 36,882 comments

ynsainzzz thank you for ze credit kind sir

landonorris ynsainzzz am a huge fan m'lady

ynsainzzz also there are other girls on here can u stop bc i took these pics for fuckshit

landonorris ynsainzzz but they're too good 😭

carlossainz55 Tell your gf to drop by Ferrari later

landonorris carlossainz55 why

carlossainz55 landonorris because I want to appear in her Qatar photo dump

charles_leclerc carlossainz55 I want to join too

ynsainzzz carlossainz55 can we stop terrorizing my bf i am literally on my way to ferrari 🙄

username lmao this entire chain is too funny

alex_albon Look at him

landonorris liked alex_albon's comment

lewishamilton Game face on 👍🏾

ynsainzzz lewishamilton yep, had to force him to look like that

ynsainzzz's story

oscarpiastri's story

ynsainzzz's story

#lando norris #ln #ln4 #lando norris x oc #lando norris x reader #lando norris x sister!reader #lando norris x y/n #lando norris x you #formula 1 #f1 #formula 1 social media au #formula 1 fic #f1 fanfic #f1 social media au #f1 imagine #f1 x reader #f1 fic

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mysteryshoptls · 3 days

Text

R Ace Trappola - Luxe Couture Vignette

"My perception just lagged hard"

[Fairest City – Crystal Galleria]

Ace: Alright, it's finally the free roam time I've been waiting for! That brand-name shop looks good, and so does that one… But I think I'll have to pass on 'em!

Azul: Oh? You don't plan on visiting those stores?

Ace: I mean, I'm not anywhere close to being able to afford all those high-brand clothes. But you already knew that when you asked, right, Azul-senpai?

Ace: But it's not like I've completely given up on doing any shopping, though. I'm thinkin' about checkin' out some of the secondary line shops.

Azul: Ah, yes, there are many high-end brands that are developing products aimed at the broader marked instead of just their main audience.

Ace: Yeah, yeah. I did some digging after heading back to the hotel yesterday, and…

Ace: Looks to me like those secondary line shops have fits that suit me better.

Azul: Hm. And what sort of look do you tend to like, Ace-san?

Ace: I guess my likes reflect my usual getup. I dress pretty casual.

Ace: I like clothes that are easy to move around in, and aren't really high-maintenance. And I can't really deal with looks that are too stiff.

Ace: I'd probably say that most of my outfits have a splash of the current trends, but also have a bit of an edge to it.

Ace: On the other hand, I can only imagine you wearing pretty stiff and formal stuff.

Azul: I suppose. Of course, it does depend on the time and occasion.

Ace: Maaan, I know you got some real good sense about these things. It'd be greaaat if you could tag along and pick out some clothes for me～

Azul: Well, let me see… I do have some interest in how those secondary line brands develop their merchandise.

Azul: There's no reason for me to not join you as I observe their establishments. HOWEVER! You will, of course, be paying for yourself.

Ace: Tch. Guess he saw right through me. Suuucks.

Ace: Oh well, let's go, then.

Ace: Hmmm, where's the store I was checking out yesterday…? Oh, found it. Azul-senpai, it's over here.

Azul: The store does seem to have a grand appearance, yes… But I can see that the designs here are rather different from the signature line.

Ace: Looks pretty good, huh? Let's go in!

Ace: Woah, check out this stylish sweater! The shape's pretty good, and I bet it'd work with all sorts of outfits. And the price…

Ace: ONLY 30,000 MADOL [300 Thaumarks]! THAT'S SO CHEAP!

Azul: Calm yourself, Ace-san. Is 30,000 Madol for one sweater considered cheap to you?

Ace: ACK, WAIT, NO, THAT'S NOT CHEAP! WHEW, THAT WAS CLOSE～

Ace: After seeing all those Luxe prices set for the rich and famous, I guess my perception just lagged hard.

Ace: But I think I should be able to buy at least one thing from this shop with my pocket money.

Ace: Azul-senpai, I'm countin' on you to pick out something nice for me.

Azul: What do you think about that black blazer on the mannequin over there? It has a stunning silhouette.

Ace: Ooh, you're right. It's got a pretty slender and sleek profile!

Azul: Underneath it… How about this collared white shirt? It would probably look good with a striped tie, as well.

Azul: If you combine it with these center-pressed slacks and leather shoes, you would do well in any establishment that requires a dress code.

Ace: Cool, I woulda expected nothing less from something you've selected, Azul-senpai. Pretty formal and mature.

Ace: It's a pretty different look than what I normally would go for, but I guess I should at least give it a try.

Azul: I am pleased you like it.

Ace: If I were to buy everything that you chose for me… Urgh, that's over 100,000 Madol [1,000 Thaumarks]!

Azul: Well, this might be a secondary line, but it is still a brand-named shop.

Ace: Hrrrngh, maybe I'll do just this blazer… It's not really something I already own or anything.

Ace: And black pretty much goes with anything, so it makes it easy to come up with outfits…

Ace: It's a shorter style, too, so it might actually go for a casual look with my hoody and jeans.

Azul: That is a combination that hadn't even crossed my mind… Yet, I agree, I'm sure it would suit you immensely.

Ace: So that look would be like a combination of our two fashion senses, then.

Ace: If it's just the blazer, I think I could just barely afford it, but… My funds when I return to campus'll be pretty low…

Ace: Ooh, I have an idea! Can you let me work some hours at the Mostro Lounge?

Ace: I can be pretty good with my hands. You've seen that before, right, Azul-senpai?

Azul: Yes, of course. And we have a mountain load of tasks to be done. I look forward to your wonderful hard work, Ace-san.

Ace: …Shoot. Did I just put myself up for something I shouldn't have?

Ace: Uhhh… Hope you'll go easy on me～

Requested by @ordinaryanon.

#twisted wonderland #twst #ace trappola #azul ashengrotto #twst ace #twst azul #twst translation #twst tapis rouge

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kiwisbell · 15 hours

Text

helen ; chapter five

be seeing you

Si vis pacem, para bellum. Or, the choice.

series masterlist | my masterlist pairing: joel miller x f!reader tags/warnings: 18+ (MDNI), john wick AU, hitman!joel, husband!joel, established relationship, artist!reader, love as worship, sacrilege in the name of romance, flashbacks, graphic violence, guns, blood + injuries, tess cameo, childhood/religious trauma, criminal underworld, secrecy/lies, betrayal, ANGST, bamf miller bros, smut, fingering, joel is an emotional munch, shower sex, unprotected PIV, handjob, male whimpering, conflicting emotions, orgasms aplenty, Big Angst and Big Sad but also Big Epiphanies, ambiguous ending, i'm getting emotional writing these tags, it feels so final, the typical alcohol/smoking/profanity, dividers by @/saradika word count: ~ 9.3k a/n: hi, friends. i can't believe we're already at the end of the main story, and tbh if i think about it too much i'll probably cry. i want to thank @cavillscurls for beta reading this chapter as always and giving me the guidance and support i need. we'll have an epilogue after this chapter, so there's still more to look forward to, but nonetheless, i hope you enjoy and thank you so so much for reading. xoxo prev | next

Her eyes are so sad, you think, stepping back to take in the full scope of the canvas. It’s doused in paint from corner to corner, still wet to the touch, the woman and her lover intertwined so thoroughly that it’s difficult to tell where they both end. It’s in shades of glum blue and flecks of angry red and brown where his eye watches you. But it’s her eyes that cannot lift to meet yours. It’s her lashes that fan across her cheeks as she casts her gaze toward the bottom edge where the canvas is wrapped taut around the wood.

The sun will soon rise, but you haven’t slept. The contours of the sky are washed in a haze of greys and pale blues and light pink and the air smells warm, heavy—a storm about to roll in. The clouds on the horizon are thick with a blackening rage. You sit in the alcove by the window and put your temple to the cool glass. You yawn. Joel does not come back.

“Do you think it's true,” you asked him one night, your head on his chest, hand on his heart, “that art makes nothing happen?”

Joel, drawing shapes on your back, dozing off in the golden light of the sunrise, frowned. “Someone tell you that?”

“It's something my art teacher used to say,” you told him. “No matter how much it moves people, it doesn't do anything.”

“Your art teacher sounds like a fuckin’ downer.”

You laughed, hiking your thigh up over his hip and playfully biting his jaw. “So it's bullshit?”

“I think,” said Joel, tucking his chin to kiss the top of your head, “that your art makes people feel. It brings ‘em together. It's important because it's yours.”

You propped your head up on his chest and threaded your fingers through his too-long hair, overdue for a trim. A curl draped over his forehead, his beard patchy and soft under the pads of your fingers. “Sometimes I wonder why you chose me,” you said. “I wonder why the universe brought you to me.”

Joel shook his head, guiding his rough, callused fingers up your arm, curling them around your wrist, gently prodding your veins. “Wasn't the universe,” he said quietly. “Wasn’t a choice. I was yours the second I saw you. So, I guess it's your fault.”

You just rolled your eyes and kissed him, mouth to smiling mouth.

Your paintings may be yours, made with life and energy and colour, but when they are finished, they don’t move. They are stagnant as a heavy rock beneath a cliffside, washed over and over again by the cresting waves, its salt stolen for the water, eternal damnation to a fate of non-movement. And sometimes an artist will walk under the cliff, shove their easel into the fleshy ground the way a man erects his country’s flag in the earth he has stolen, and paint the rock. The artist is moved by the breathtaking colours of the shore and the way the wind flutters through the grass. But the rock does not budge. It never will.

Your art will never erupt from the boundaries of the canvas and tell you what it means. The lovers in your painting will not tear open their mouths like the seams holding a wound together. They will not tell you what they want, need, crave. They are you, and that is what you hate—because dimpled flesh and lustful fingers and the press of his mouth to her throat cannot tell you what you’re supposed to do.

You had become complacent in his love for you. You had let him press his worn hands to your body and pull your soul out through his mouth and you had been a wife, while all the time there was a stranger who occupied his heart, a spirit in an abandoned body. All the time, he'd been haunted. And although you had loved him, your love had not been enough to exorcise the guilt and trauma, pecking at him, an eagle at his liver.

Crossing the room and sitting back down in front of the easel, you press your fingers to the corner of the canvas. The paint is cool to the touch, and you leave behind fingerprints where your signature should be. Pulling your hand back, you examine the accumulation of colour, the blues and reds swirling into the deep purple of a bruise, the bodies on a canvas that may only ever mean something to you, and you wonder, Is this all I am? A cautionary tale, a love lost? A fucking footnote at the end of a clause that reads: “See, for example, the one who never loved deeply enough to make it count”?

You bring your hand to your face to wipe away the tears beneath your eyes and blink hard at the sting, realising you’ve smeared paint across your cheekbones.

In the bathroom, you scrub furiously, the cloying scent of it clinging to your throat and your tear ducts, washing away the evidence of their entwined bodies, their love, your pain.

Once, you tried to get Joel to paint. You sat behind him on your bench, your legs bracketing his hips, your paintbrush in his hand.

“I don’t know where to start,” he said.

Your lips brushed the shell of his ear as you spoke. “There’s no rulebook.”

He tried to turn his head and kiss you, but you nipped his ear in reproach. “Remember when you took me out driving at the airstrip because you wanted me to feel the road? Think of this like feeling the canvas. Go on, cowboy. Make nothing happen.”

Joel’s painting still hangs over your shared bed. The intruders never found it, or never cared enough to destroy it. It’s a candle, just a candle, its lines imprecise, the paint unevenly applied in places, the shine of the flame more orange than yellow. But it’s a painting, so the candle always burns. He titled it Love.

The pain still sits low in your chest, pulling down your heart as if tied to it by a string. But Joel is still out there, fighting his way back to you, the way he always has, always will. You look down at your left hand, clutching the edge of the marble vanity, and decide to clean your wedding ring.

“I’m sorry, brother,” says Tommy, turning the gun on Joel.

“What the fuck are you doing?” growls Joel, struggling against his bonds. The clip rattles faintly in his brother’s hand as a tremor courses through him.

“He’s following my orders,” says Cabrera, clapping his hand down on Tommy’s shoulder. “Fascinating what a man will do when he must consider his family’s well-being.”

Joel sucks on his teeth, his eyes not once leaving his brother.

“It's my son,” Tommy says through his teeth. “It's Maria. If I don't do this—”

“Yeah? You gonna kill me, Tommy? Is that why your hand’s shakin’?”

“Shut your goddamn mouth,” his brother snaps. “You think I want to do this? I gotta save my family, Joel. You know what that's like.”

“All I’ve done for you,” says Joel, his hands curling into fists behind his back, “and you put a bullet in my head?”

“Not just your head, Joel,” says Cabrera. “When we're done with you, we’ll take your pretty girl as payment for my son’s life.”

Joel growls like a dog, blood roaring in his ears. “Kill me yourself, you goddamned coward. Kill me yourself and don’t you mention my wife again, or I swear to Christ—”

“You take His name in vain a lot for a nonbeliever,” says Cabrera, pulling his sleeves through his coat and setting his teeth as he looks toward Tommy once more. “Do it.”

“Yeah, brother,” Joel says darkly, “do it.”

Tommy nods once, planting his foot and pivoting. Five distinct sounds of handguns cocking echo throughout the warehouse as Tommy points the barrel between Manuel Cabrera’s eyes.

“Now that I’ve got a gun to your head,” he says evenly, “you can go ahead and pull that contract.”

Joel at last twists his wrists free of the ropes that bind them and shucks down the sleeves of his jacket to rub the raw skin. Not one soul does a goddamn thing to stop him as he rises to his feet. His chest heaves, his open lungs coarse and wet with a brittle rage, his exposed heart throbbing red, transparent as the stained glass windows of the church.

God does not tolerate anger, said the Sisters, again and again, bringing down the whip across his back. Sinew and bone and skin peeling back to lay bare some tender part of him they sought to rot out. Put your energy into His worship.

Slowly, Cabrera lifts his hands, sneering. “Your wife,” he warns, “and your unborn son—”

“Are family,” says Tommy. “Just like my brother. Now tell your guys to put down their guns and I won't kill you where you stand.”

Joel joins Tommy at his side. “Took you long enough,” he says under his breath.

“Got held up,” he says. “Your wife’s a good artist.”

“Yeah, whatever. You bring me a gun?”

“I’m sure you can find one yourself.”

“Jesus, Tommy. I’m too old for this.” Joel turns to Cabrera and glares at the same stubborn arrogance that once gleamed in his son’s eye. “You pull the contract, and I’ll leave for good.”

Cabrera’s laugh weans out in the air like rings of smoke. “You think you can really leave, Joel? You think that there won't be consequences for what you've done to my son?”

“Yeah,” says Joel, “I think I’ll take my chances.”

“And you?” Cabrera’s lip curls up at Tommy, whose gun no longer wavers in his grasp. “I promised your wife and child security. You’re willing to throw that away?”

“My wife and child are safe because I don’t take deals from men like you,” says Tommy. “You trusted a Miller to turn on his own blood, Manuel. That was stupid. Now pull the contract.”

“So this is your great suicide mission.” Cabrera smiles, a man who knows he has lost or a man who still expects not to. “A man who has seen Hell does not willingly descend back into its depths—not unless he likes the taste.”

Joel feels the corner of his mouth twitch, a wound on his cheek reopening. “Maybe I do,” he says plainly. “Maybe it’ll taste even better when I take you down with me.”

The gleam in Cabrera’s eye shifts as his gaze flickers behind Tommy. Night has since descended, and yet the predator’s eye glints in anticipation of the hunt. Joel turns and shoves his brother out of the way—just as the shot rings out.

He hears Tommy’s breath punch out of him as they both hit the concrete hard. Joel tears the handgun from his brother’s grasp and puts a bullet between each of the two men behind them. He rolls behind one of the hulking bodies and holds up his weight as a shield against the incoming bullets. Tommy takes the dead man’s gun and fires at the remaining three assailants. Only one shot misses, but Joel sends his brother a look anyway and finishes the job.

“Rusty,” grunts Tommy, pushing himself to his feet.

Joel grimaces as he accepts his brother’s outstretched hand, his wrists bleeding from the relentless rub of the ropes. “He ran,” he says, grinding his teeth. “Goddamn coward. Just like his son.”

“Yeah, you’re welcome, by the way,” says Tommy, giving Joel the dead man’s gun and snatching back his own. “Saved your ass.”

“And he got away.” Joel kicks his chair, and the clattering echo of metal reverberates like a choir off the cavernous walls. His hands flex, open, closed, open, closed, until they make tight fists and he can see nothing but red and the silver moon mocking him through the broken windows high above.

“Joel…”

For a moment, he hears the young boy his brother once was, whispering across their shared bedroom to him in the middle of the night when they were both meant to be asleep.

Joel… Are we going to be okay?

“I gotta finish it, Tommy,” he says quietly, his hands shaking loose. Parts of him bite and sting, touched by new and old wounds alike, and he wants to come crawling home to you. He wants to curl into your side and wash away the blood in your cleansing pool, daisy and honeysuckle, some faraway field where you are the warden, where he knocks on the door to be let in, to be gathered, covered in white, buried, unearthed.

“Was he right?” asks Tommy. “Do you… enjoy this?”

Joel casts his eyes toward the ground, his trembling hand, the gleaming band on his ring finger, his skin speckled with blood but the metal pristine. “I don’t know,” he says.

This is who you are, Cabrera would tell him. The Sisters: Your place is here, under God, under His word. And God Himself, silent as the air, the ringing in his ears only ever quieted by the soft brush of your knuckle across his cheek, the whisper of My Joel in his ear.

“Think hard on it,” says Tommy, “because you may like it, but you’ve gotta consider if your revenge is worth more than what you’ve already got. And if you choose wrong, Joel, you’re gonna lose no matter what.”

A figure leans stone-still against the wall by the hotel room door, the gleam of a blade in the soft light the only indication that it is not a mere shadow.

“Hey, kid,” says the apparition.

Joel nods in greeting. “Tess. Could get in trouble with that knife out in the open.”

“You expect me to keep your girl safe with just my fists?”

“You make it sound like you couldn’t.” Tess snorts, and Joel places fifteen gold coins in her waiting palm. “I appreciate you doing this.”

Tess peels away from the wall. “You and your brother are paying me good money to babysit a door. I think I can live without the thanks.”

“Still,” he says, “you did us a solid.”

Tess, who itches at the prospect of gratitude as much as any other gun-for-hire, shrugs. “Everyone’s saying you’re coming back. That true?”

“Just visiting,” says Joel. “On my way out soon.”

Tess flips one of the coins and turns it over and over across her knuckles, evidence of a restless energy that’s always made Joel’s eye twitch. “One way or another, huh?” she says.

“One way or another.” He shakes her hand and watches her retreat down the hall, still twirling the godforsaken coin, before he turns toward the door. Joel presses his forehead briefly to the cool wood and turns the key to seek the field that awaits him.

A key rustles in the door and Joel steps through, closing it gently behind him. Judging by the quiet click of the lock, he expects you to be asleep, but you jolt upright from your seat in the alcove and cross the room toward him.

He meets you halfway, his right hand flexing at his side. You inspect him: the gash on his cheek, the bruise on his jaw, the blood splattered on his white shirt. He makes no footfalls as he walks but you can hear every stride like thunder between your ears. You feel his hand at the back of your neck, cool from the night air, rough as the underside of a shark’s belly.

The moment coils taut between you as your hand reaches up to grab the lapel of his jacket, and he smells of iron, cologne, Joel, some paint. Maybe that smell is you, stuck underneath your fingernails, embedded in your blood. Maybe this is a mistake, maybe you could never help but fall, maybe it never mattered anyway, and you’re already snipping the final thread, unwinding the spool, and kissing Joel Miller like it’s the first time.

He let out a small groan, tasting the first drop of water in a drought, steadying you with his arm around your waist, his hand cradling your head. He’s gentle, exploratory, careful not to jostle, to shock you out of it. You feel his heartbeat thud, strong, calm, steady behind his clothing and skin and muscle, and your body caves.

It’s coming home, you realise, your arms snaking around his neck, fingers tousling the messy curls on his head. It's the warm press of his hand to your spine where it begins to curve inward. It's a soft mouth, a plush lower lip, made for slow mornings and black coffee, for the aching release of a thumb pressing deep into a muscle knot, a wound. Old aches soothed in the space where bodies meet, beginning to colour the slate-grey world.

It’s the exchange of gasping breaths when you pull apart, his mouth still vaguely chasing yours, opposite charge.

You hold him tighter, swallowing the lump in your throat, your hands squeezing his shoulders. "Are you…"

Joel inclines his head. "Yeah."

"Did he..."

"Yeah."

Need pulses. Supernova. Bright as the moment of obliteration. "Can you—"

He nods vigorously. "Yeah."

Joel’s kisses are like raindrops: velvet-soft to the touch—his hands bringing the hem of your shirt up over your head, his fingertips scorching, branding, grazing the supple swells of your breasts—before the crescendo roars in your ears and he loses himself to the storm. He always does.

There is nothing reserved about the way he shows his love. Lightning crackles across your skin where he touches you, baring you to him, his lips making a map of you, mouthing at your jaw, your throat. You hear yourself hum at the press of his lips to the spot beneath your ear, detaching from your own body, absconding with the pleasure of being close to him and leaving the fucking world behind.

Joel staggers forward so he can press you to the wall and begins to sink to his knees. Your breath catches as he pulls down your ratty bottoms, your cotton panties, his mouth burning into your hips and your belly and the ring on your finger.

“Joel,” you say brokenly as he clutches your fingers. Tears prickle, pressure building behind your nose, and he shakes his head, unfurling your palm like a bud in bloom and kissing its heel. Wordlessly, you watch him, your eyes shuttering, blood singing.

Don't hurt me again.

He understands even though the words cannot come alive on your tongue. He squeezes your hips, his thumbs dumpling your flesh, his forehead falling to your belly.

“I’m yours,” he says. “I’m whatever you want.”

Your legs haven't forgotten the way they part so easily for him, one thigh on his shoulder, opening the core of you to his waiting mouth. His lips part, his tongue wetting them, glistening, and your stomach tightens at the sight of his eyes so black.

You could easily cower. His hands are stained with blood. His knuckles are split. But your terror has become an arid thing, no kindling to burn, no oil to ignite. Watching him now, as eager to please as he always has been or maybe more so, on his knees like a supplicant, the hairs on your arms do not rise in apprehension. Your body does not squirm in fear. You see a broad horizon, the sun outside spilling its golden blood over the city, and you see all of him in a way you never did before.

He’s Joel, who grew up in darkness, lashed and beaten for not believing in a false god. He’s a man who has lied and killed and yet he is no liar, no killer. He holds you as he always has, your body liquid in his hands, your mouth proclaiming the word he will follow. You're the truth he's always told.

It still unsettles you to see the dark eclipse that warm brown, to watch his desire consume the hypnotic shapes in his irises, and wonder if that cavernous black was the last thing so many men saw before he snuffed out their lives. But there's nothing of the death shudder in the way you guide your fingers through his hair and beg him—

“Please.”

He brings his mouth to your core and parts your folds with his thumbs, slowly gliding his warm, wet tongue through your slit. You die a hundred little deaths in the split-second of that first touch, that first agony.

You sigh, your head thudding against the wall as he licks through you, his hands holding your hips in place, keeping you from writhing. Joel flicks his tongue over the sensitive pearl of your clit, the pleasure searing, and you tug at his curls to push him away even as you cry out, More, please, please. God, I need more.

He obeys you as easily as breathing, though you suspect he can barely hear your pleas, opening his mouth and flattening his hot tongue to your clit. You gasp, your core pulling taut, your eyes locking with his as the muscle undulates over, over, and over again.

“Oh,” you whimper, your hips bucking to meet his face. He groans, his mouth working your clit, closing his lips over it and sucking. You cry out, your leg kicking, the sounds of the world muffled in his stifling closeness. Your thighs begin to ache, tensing and relaxing a hundred times over in the throes of his attention.

And his fingers are gliding across your hip, seeking the warmth between your legs. You gasp his name, your hips flexing, as he collects your wetness on two fingers.

“Let me in, baby,” he says softly, pressing a kiss to your puffy clit. It relaxes you enough to welcome the press of his fingers inside you, sinking to the knuckle, curling up against the spot he would know in his sleep.

You whine, your body keening toward him, tugging his face back toward your pussy. He obliges with a quiet moan, and you think he needs this just as badly.

The obscene squelch of his fingers inside you rings in your ears as he licks and sucks at your clit, his free hand grabbing desperately at your ass to keep you fixed to him. You’re crying, “Yesyesyes, Joel, please—fuck, that's it,” the pleasure stuck in the grooves of your brain. Absentmindedly, you reach for his hand and clasp it tight, your engagement ring digging into his palm. He holds you with the same fervour as he coaxes you higher, his face buried in your pussy. He grunts and groans like it's his own pleasure he seeks, his battered knuckles stinging.

“Joel… Joel, oh, I’m…”

He knows, of course, from the telltale squeeze of your thighs around his head, the relentless crushing of his fingers in your own, your body tightening for him, cavitating, unwinding—

You come with a shout, your throat raw, writhing in his grasp as he keeps sucking, keeps licking, rubbing, pressing. You're dizzy by the time your head lolls to the side, your muscles twitching, eyes glazed, and Joel is there, pulling his fingers out just to place them on his tongue and swallow you down.

Your breath rattles through your lungs. Joel presses his lips to your inner thigh, beard soaked in your arousal, moustache glistening. His mouth soothes your sore muscles and your eyes begin to droop.

“You need a shower,” you say, your tongue like lead in your mouth. You gently pass your thumb over a cut on his cheek and frown. “You're all bloody.”

He nuzzles his face against your thigh, inhaling you. “I know.”

“You were gone so long.” Your voice quivers, pressure prickling behind the bridge of your nose. “I thought…”

Joel rises to his feet, his hands cradling your face. “I’m all right,” he says. “I’m here, and I’m safe, and I’m so goddamn sorry.”

You shake your head, pressing your lips together so the sob will not escape. Tracing his face with your fingers, broken in places, healing in others, you see the echo of a boy who didn't know his place in the world. You see the haunt of days gone by. A ghost still occupies the cage of his ribs.

“I think you should tell the little boy that still lives here,” you say, putting your hand on his chest. “Tell him he’s alive. Tell him that he made it.”

Joel lowers his head, watching the way your fingers splay over his heart. He puts his hand on yours and pushes, and you feel the strong thump-thump-thump of his heartbeat.

“He knows.”

You lean forward and put your mouth to his temple. “Shower, Joel,” comes your whisper in his ear.

He nods, wrapping his arm around your waist and guiding you into the bathroom. The water hits you both true, scalding, the drain circled with red. He’s naked, his back to you as he sets his hair and lets his wounds bleed what they need to.

You lift your hands and trail them down his broad shoulders, your forehead dropping between his shoulder blades where your name is inked into his back. Joel’s muscles idly flex, his palm flat against the shower wall. His body shudders when you press your lips to the name on his back.

Wordlessly, you bring your arms around him, caressing his side, careful of the new bruises. Your other hand drops to his steel-hard cock and you begin to slowly stroke him. The noise that wrenches free from his throat is half pleasure, half agony, his hips bucking into your fist. You bump your nose against his back, your years-old sign to Just relax, and Joel hides his face in his bicep as you work your hand over him.

“G—fuck,” he grunts. “Goddamn… honey, I—”

You squeeze him at the base and twist your hand up and down the length of him, the weight warm and heavy, your thumb coaxing out a bead of precum. Your cheek is warm on his back, your arm struggling to reach around the width of him, your chest humming at the sound of his gruff moans.

“Let me…” He cuts himself off as you speed up your strokes, and you can feel his abdomen tense. “Fuck, let me make you feel good. Shit… let me…”

“Joel,” you say, “for once, stop trying to be my hero.”

His head falls back and you press your lips to his throat, nibbling the sensitive spot behind his ear: the old scar, that tiny circle, that hairless patch. He groans your name, and you’re smiling despite yourself, your mouth curling against his warm, tender skin.

“Inside me,” you whisper, the pace of your fingers over his length slowing to a crawl. “Remind me how it feels.”

He turns his head to look into your eyes, his lashes dewy, blinking hard to flick away the water, brow furrowed. His moustache bristles as his lips part in a question he does not (or maybe cannot) articulate, and you’re fractured into pieces by the intricate curve of his nose, the freckles on his jaw, the silver strands in his beard. A rough hand cups the back of your neck and another takes you by the waist, and you’re flattened to the wall, your hand braced on the glass next to you as he kisses you deeply.

Consuming, heady, warm—you give in, your hands avoiding the delicate skin of his wrists where he’s been bound, helpless. Sighing softly into his mouth, you let his kiss humble the part of you that still needs the walls you’ve built from the marrow of your anger. It circles the drain, lead-filled paint, as you remember under his hands how it feels to live.

You reach between your bodies, your leg wrapping around his waist, and slide the head of his cock through your weeping slit. Joel sucks in air through his teeth, the water lashing his back like a whip, and he surges forward, grasping you by the waist and sinking his cock into your tight hole.

You cry out his name, burying your face in his throat and baring your teeth. Your name leaves his mouth in kind, an apparition, sounds you barely recognise anymore. As you take him inside you, the memory of who you were with him pounds at your ribcage, begging to be let out. And you covet them, selfish as you are now for fucking him this way, needy and impatient, your fingers tugging his wet locks.

You see no point in scooping out the marrow; there is still sweetness stuck to the bones of your old life with him. Instead, you coat your teeth in this, the slow drag of his cock, the depths he reaches so easily, so knowingly. His fingers prod the bruised flesh of your hurt and yet you still guide him inside. You still pull his hair and kiss his throat where his Adam’s apple bobs and you still let him hold you close enough to splinter.

He’s grabbing fistfuls of your ass and sucking on your throat, his thrusts sloppy as he tries to hold back, to make you come first, but you tighten, clenching down on him, making his groans pitch up into whines.

“Joel,” you gasp, your needy fingers prickling his scalp where you pull his hair. His teeth graze your throat and you want him to bite, you want him to sink in deep, you want his jaws to latch onto your skin. You want him never to leave again.

He comes hard. His hips buck, pushing so deep he disappears into your body, and you see the blues, browns, reds of your painting as he empties all he has left inside you.

Panting, he drops his head to your breast, his open mouth still scattering weak, worn kisses over your skin. Your lungs expand under his palms, fingers stuck in the grooves between your ribs, his body an offshoot of yours, not the other way around. In the ringing afterlife of your pleasure, you vaguely feel him mouthing words you cannot hear. You run your fingers through his hair and enjoy the battering of the scorching water as it melts you both into one.

Later, in the sticky, humid silence of the bathroom, steam still swirling around your heads, fogging the glass, you trim Joel’s hair.

"Do you ever get scared?" you ask him, the shhhick of the scissors gliding across a chunk of his hair. "Do you ever go out on a job and think to yourself, What if I slip? What if this is it?"

Joel huffs. "It's not so much about myself as making sure the other guy goes down first."

“I think I’d be scared.” You twirl a lock of hair around your finger and let it fall over his forehead. “I don’t think I’d be able to look into someone’s eyes and take their life.”

He casts his eyes to his lap, flicking off some hair from his thigh. “One time, I thought it was over. I wasn’t quite seventeen yet, runnin’ drugs for some gangster. He sent me to El Sauzal to discreetly transport a couple kilos out of the city; someone had snitched and he didn’t want any rival gangs to find his stash. But the people there, they… They didn’t know any better. There were mothers, kids. Innocent people, y’know? Just strays. I decided I’d come back for ‘em.”

Your stomach twists. “What happened?”

A muscle in his jaw ticks. “I was too late. By the time I got back, the whole goddamn city was on fire. The people were either dead in the streets or close to it. They didn’t do anythin’ wrong. They didn’t ask for any of it. But they were weaker, slower. I couldn’t walk ten feet without seein’ some kid wrapped up his mother’s arms, burned to a fucking crisp. So, I came back with weapons, marched into the gang’s territory, and I killed ‘em all.”

Days ago, you’d be afraid of the man whose back warms your belly where you stand just behind him. You would hesitate to reach out and put your hand on his shoulder the way you do now. But you curl your fingers over the muscled curve of his arm and his head falls back against you, spidering open, his gooey molten centre bared for you.

Joel. Just Joel.

“Did you see the painting?” you ask him quietly.

“I see everything you do,” he says. “It's beautiful, baby.”

You drop your gaze from his face in the mirror and set down the scissors on the vanity. “I can't pretend to understand what you've been through, Joel, and that makes things even harder. All I've ever wanted is to love you, to take your pain, and all this time there's been so much I never even knew about. And I’m sorry.”

Joel’s hand comes to cover yours, clasping your fingers. They’re warm, rough, but you do not sense the phantom blood. “If I’d told you from the beginning,” he says, “maybe I never would've hurt you in the first place. All those years I thought I was protecting you from myself, I was hurting you—the one thing I swore I would never fuckin’ do.”

“Joel…”

“Baby, don't apologise to me,” he says firmly, putting his lips to your knuckles. “Never apologise to me. And don't you let me off easy.”

“Have I ever?” you say with a halfhearted smile.

“Yeah,” he says, “the day you let me marry you.”

You scoff. “Oh, please. Wedding planning was hell on earth for you.”

“Just because I didn't like the photographer—”

“You didn't not like the photographer, Joel. You wanted to draw and quarter the photographer.”

He huffs like an angry dog, frowning at you in the mirror. “He kept puttin’ his goddamn hands on you.”

You laugh, brushing your thumb over the patch in his beard to indicate you're finished. “He was posing us, cowboy.”

Joel rises to his feet and closes the scissors away inside the drawer. “Posin’ you, sure.”

“He was afraid to touch you. Probably thought you’d take off his hand. And the pictures turned out great.”

“Yeah,” he says, a smirk twitching at the corner of his mouth. “Way the sunlight caught in your hair, your eyes… I don't know. Beautiful.”

He was so shy the first time you kissed him. Cheeks flushed, eyes cast toward the ground, the wind ruffling his curls where it blew over the water. He was made in an artist’s image, you thought that night, the details pored over like paperwork, the sparkle in his eyes something the painter covets. But the portrait has never wilted in the years you've known him. It's grown older, sure, but it is not old. He's still shy sometimes; he still looks down when he smiles, and he still turns his cheek when you tell him he's beautiful.

“Do you…” He rubs his palms over his thighs, looking up at you through his lashes. “Do you wish you could go back?”

It's your turn to sit. You drop into his chair, your arms curling over the back of the seat, and watch him on his journey to his knees. “I don't know, Joel,” you tell him. “I think about that day and part of me wants the magic of it back. I want the breeze and the sun and the white canopy and I want you sliding this ring on my finger. But knowing what I know now…”

“You wouldn't have married me,” he says like it's the only answer. His eyes are wet and sad and they sparkle so bright in the day.

“I wish I’d known,” you say plainly, bringing his hand to your cheek and resting it over the cool wedding band. “I wish you would have told me everything. I wish you didn't make me question your love, even for a second. I wish you could have spared me all this anger I have—all this pain.”

He’s stone-still, a figure in a portrait, and you brush your fingers across his cheek. “But killing isn't what you are, Joel. It’s what you do. And I’m so tired of being angry.”

You say it fiercely, your tongue sticking to the roof of your mouth, your throat tightening. You swipe your thumbs under your eyes and meet your husband’s eye. “I love you more than my anger and my hurt have room for. And if I can love you this hard, if I can feel all this pain and still be that same girl who fell for the guy from the restaurant, then I can let myself get hurt all over again.”

Joel shakes his head, cupping your face in his hands as his eyes brim with tears. “Oh, baby…”

“I know it's never been an easy marriage,” you say, your voice breaking, “and I’m always travelling, and I know that I can get snippy and we bicker, but I wouldn't go back to that day, Joel, because I wouldn't change anything. Even if I have to feel all of this again, I wouldn't take it all back.”

His inhale shudders through him and your heart lurches out of your chest. “I don’t deserve that,” he whispers, his thumb stroking your cheek, catching a tear that falls. “I’ve hurt you too much to ever be worthy of what you've given me, sweetheart. I ain't a good man, or even a decent one. But fuck, if I can be good for you, I’ll pray to whatever God they want me to. I’ll scrape my knees and put my hands together and fake it ‘til I’m someone you want. I swear it, baby.”

“Joel.” You gently pry his hands away. “The life you've lived, the things you've been through… I can't change any of it. I can't be what you need all the time, and fuck, I want to be. I do, Joel. But this life is something you have to figure out yourself. Nobody should force you to believe in something that's only ever caused you pain.”

He never told you about the tattoo; you had to find it yourself. Shucking the hem of his shirt up over his head, two weeks separating the last time you’d been able to indulge in his body, you trailed your fingers up his back and paused at the sound of him hissing through his teeth.

“Easy, cowboy,” you cooed. “Are you all right?”

Wordlessly, he turned, taking your hand and lifting it to the reddish skin around the black ink. You gasped, your fingers jolting backward as if struck by a feeler of lightning.

“Joel,” you said tremulously, “please don't tell me you were drunk and this was an impulse decision.”

“Guys in the Marines would get tattoos that meant somethin’ to them. Easier to carry around with you when you're away.” Joel met your gaze again, your tearful eyes, and brought your knuckles to his mouth. “Tell me you want it gone, and it's gone.”

You shook your head, a laugh snaking past the lump in your throat. “Selfishly, I think it’s very sexy.”

He chuckled, kissing the breath from your lungs.

The memory is heavy in your stomach. It's something you'll have to roll around in your mouth a thousand times before the taste begins to dissolve.

“I need time, Joel,” you tell him. “I need to wrap my head around things. I… I can't be the girl you want right now.”

Joel brushes his thumb over your chin. “You have always been the girl I want,” he says. “If you need time, you have it. If you need a warm body, you have it. I’m whoever you want me to be. And if it ain't a husband, then… then that's okay. But I can’t promise you that I won't stop tryin’ to get my wife back. That’s not who I am.”

You sniffle, twirling the ring on his finger. “You’ll get sick of it. The waiting.”

He smiles so softly that you can feel a bud begin to bloom in the core of you, nourished by the way he keeps his hand on your thigh, absently rubbing the sore muscles there. “I waited my whole life for someone like you to come along—someone who could give me the purpose I’d been lookin’ for. I can wait another lifetime. I can wait a thousand.”

“You’ll resent me. You’ll start to hate me.” You don't know why it comes pouring out of you, but the gates are brittle wood and they snapped in the torrent. “I’m an angry drunk. I smell like paint half the time. I travel for work.”

Joel just studies your face, some inexplicable calm etching out the agony. “You take your coffee with milk and sugar and you can't stand it black, but you make it that way for me anyway. You sleep until noon when you're jet lagged and I sit up in bed just to watch you dream. You lie in my arms on the couch at home and ask me about my day even when you're noddin’ off. You dreamed about love when you were a little girl, the way it happens in books. You told me in your wedding vows that you'd found it with me. You think I could resent a girl like that?”

He smiles like it hurts and heals all at once, like it's a foregone conclusion, like you were meant to be loved by him.

“Time doesn't mean a goddamn thing. I know the girl I see in front of me now. Time won't change how much I love her.”

Flipping through the list of potential venues, Joel tucked into your side, you said, “We’ll have an outdoor ceremony. No churches.”

“Baby, I won't burst into flames if I step inside a church.” Joel playfully flicked his tongue over your nipple, obscured by his T-shirt. “Tommy, on the other hand… things he's done…”

You laughed, gently pushing at his head. “No churches,” you said again. “I don't care how much more we’ll have to pay or travel to get around it. You're my husband. You're my comfort, and I want to be what's comfortable for you. Understood?”

He looked up at you, his lips parted as if on the precipice of speech. You beamed, bringing his face to yours and kissing him deeply.

“But if the wind knocks over the gazebo, you're not getting your dick inside me on our wedding night,” you said against his mouth. Joel shook his head, yanking you on top of him and tearing the shirt from your body. Your binder landed with a flutter of loose pages to the floor.

“You didn't kill Cabrera.”

Joel lowers his eyes. “No. He got away.”

“So there's still a contract on your head.”

“For now.”

“So,” you say with a sigh, crossing the room and digging through your bag, “you have to go.”

“I have to go,” he echoes, following you like a shadow. “No matter what… I’m finishing it. Tonight.”

You pull the switchblade from your bag, open Joel’s fist, and place the cool wood hilt in his palm.

“Goddammit, Tommy,” he says under his breath. “He shouldn't have…”

“But he did,” you say. “He said I should be the one to have it. I think it should be yours.”

He curls his fingers over the hilt and flicks open the blade. It's light, but it seems to weigh him down. You rest your hand over his.

“Do what you need to do.”

He drops his forehead to yours and closes his eyes, soaking in this final breath exchanged between your silent bodies, dipping his fingers in the sanctified waters and coming out unscalded.

Bill calls Joel not a moment after he steps onto the street outside the Continental.

“That's a heavy price on your head.”

“Yeah, Bill, I know.” He breathes in the cool air, like cigarette smoke, his nostrils stinging. Trash and a new, fresh breeze carried into the city. Nothing that stays here ever thrives. “Stayed alive so far.”

“So I hear,” grunts the Manager, “and leaving behind a hell of a lot of cleanup.”

“I won't stick you with the check,” says Joel. “It's my business.”

“I don't conduct business inside this hotel,” says Bill, “which is why I won't tell you that a certain helicopter at a certain helipad is refuelling as we speak.”

Joel smirks, flicking out his cuff to check the time. “Any reason why you aren't tellin’ me this?”

“I like you, Joel. Despite myself.”

Silent, he waits for more.

“Besides,” Bill continues, “we live and die by honour. And you've saved my ass more than once.”

Joel snorts. “Which time are you thankin’ me for?”

“Just take my goddamn advice and leave this world. For good this time.”

“I will,” says Joel. “One way or another. Thanks, Bill.”

High above the ground, sitting in the alcove by the window, you watch storm clouds gather over the city, darkening the sky, the sun, and your Joel, so far away, slouching calmly toward whatever end he will choose.

It's raining.

The first time you kissed him, a downpour suddenly swept up the both of you and you'd scrambled underneath a bridge by the water. You both laughed until your ribs were sore, holding hands as you ran, a soaking wet playbill above each of your heads for cover.

“At least the show was good,” you shouted over the roar of the rainfall.

Joel was mesmerised into stillness by the colours of the traffic lights in your eyes, how they shifted over the planes of your face. Starting to think like an artist, you'd tease, and he'd lean into it, a planet circling its sun.

“It was all right,” he said, taking the playbill from your hand. “You could catch a cold. We should get a cab.”

“Always my hero.” You grinned up at him, your eyes scanning his face in that particular way they did, as if ingesting the sight of him to later put the lines to a canvas. “Did you have a good time, Joel? I mean, really. You won't offend me.”

He grimaced. “I, uh… well, see, I’m not the best judge, and… I guess—”

“Joel.”

There was a gleam in your eyes that could have been amusement or could have been hunger. He doesn't remember. He only saw you tilt your chin and lower your eyes to his mouth, to that one place the Sisters always called vulgar, obscene, a place meant only for His word—

“Can I kiss you, Joel Miller, or will you keep being all heroic?”

It was soft, gentle, exploratory. Your mouth opened his like a wound, setting the scorching blade of your lips to the gash, staunching the blood. You healed and burned him, one hand on his back beneath his jacket, the other cupping his face. It reminded him of the statue that lived in the theatre underneath the church where all the boys and girls trained. An angel cast in white marble, cradling the face of Saint Eustace. The statue was chipped where his eye was meant to be.

He remembers the way he shuddered when you touched him like that. He remembers the chill that started in his feet and crept up his spine. Something like coming alive, settling back into his own body—no longer a spirit haunting the shell of a home but a man.

You pulled back, but Joel curled his hand around the back of your neck and kissed you again, deeper, maybe a little too eager, too inexperienced—but you gasped, fingers curling in his hair, your body curving into his. Your noses bumped when you separated, and he remembers laughing.

The rain is nothing like that night. It's the lash of a whip across his face, seeping colour from the world instead of infusing it with light and movement. The water by the docks slaps against the concrete and boats rock and groan against their mooring. The lights of the city are distant now.

Joel steps out of the car.

He marches toward his target, cocking the pistol in his hand, and calls out a name. It gets lost in the roll of thunder across the sky and lodges in his chest.

Cabrera waits on the landing pad, looking wraithlike in a long black coat and a pair of leather gloves. His pilot fuels the helicopter nearby. Neither of them hear Joel’s voice in the air. The rising sun is what gives him away—or maybe the gunshot, as he lifts his arm and pulls the trigger.

It does not pierce flesh. It ricochets off one of the rotor blades. He had aimed slightly to the left.

The pilot scampers off into hiding, but the slash of the bullet through the rainfall is enough to get the attention Joel wants. Cabrera reaches inside the lining of his jacket and fires a single shot. Joel can feel it tear through skin and muscle, but it doesn't hurt.

“Joel,” greets Cabrera.

“Manuel.”

His chest heaves, his jacket soaked through, the cold sinking bone-deep.

“Let's finish this.”

The glimmer in those depthless black eyes is the panther at the hunt, relentless in its hunger, licking its chops at the sight of a challenge. For all the coward’s blood in his veins, it still pulses at the prospect of winning.

“Like men,” says Cabrera, tossing his gun aside at the same time Joel does. “With honour. No more guns.”

And it's laughable: the thought that there is any honour left in a world like this. A world where children are beaten and lashed and trained to hold a weapon too big for their hands. A world that burns villages, butchers families, and still claims that without rules, we live with the animals.

A world as unruly as this cannot be ruled. He never truly considered it until he saw the sad gleam in your eye, felt the empathetic touch of your hand on his face, and began to realise that maybe he should be furious.

But because he already knows he's going to win, Joel lets his opponent land the first blow.

The blood is tangy, near-sweet, as he swipes his forearm over his mouth and smears crimson on his shirtsleeve. It tingles faintly on his lips and crackles, warm as the melt from a late-winter snow. He feels it settle in the grooves of his palms, the hairs of his beard. He’s drowning in it.

Cabrera hits hard, but he’s slow. He’ll take five punches in the time it takes to wind up for one. Joel brings his arm up to block the next and delivers a blow to the sternum with his knee as his opponent’s guard drops. Wide open, Cabrera stumbles a few steps back, choking down the telltale wheeze of being winded. Joel marches forward, relentless in his crusade, grasping him by the scruff of his neck, teeth bared like a mad wild dog, and bears his skull down on the side of the railing. Around them, the wind howls and lashes at his clothes, but he still hears the pained scream as if it were poured into his ears.

Cabrera drops to his knees, and Joel grabs him again, bashing his head repeatedly against the steel bar, the lapel of an Italian leather coat bunching between his fingers, tainted by rainwater and the fist of the man who's come to take his life.

And fuck, Joel wants to make it last.

But there's a knife in his opponent’s hand, conjured from the darkness of his coat pocket, and Joel must release him to avoid the lethal slash of the blade. Blinking blood and lashing rain from his eyes, the man lunges with a snarl, and Joel recovers from his lost victory, stopping him with his fingers curled around his opponent’s wrist. He brings his hand to the crook of Cabrera’s elbow and uses his leverage to snap the bone.

Yowling, Cabrera drops to his haunches, the knife clattering to the ground. Joel, chest heaving, stands over him, flexing his fingers as he readies his fist for the killing blow.

His name leaves Cabrera’s bloodied mouth, accompanied by a mouthful of crimson-tainted saliva spat on the ground at Joel’s feet.

“Joel…” He lifts his head, cradling his broken arm, and sneers. There’s a chilling glow of satisfaction in it. “Did you get your perfect life, Joel? Do you really think you’ve won? It won’t ever stop. Not after you’ve killed me, not after you’ve killed all of them. Is that what you’re going to do? Kill them all?”

He could. He has done far worse. He has spilled blood for gold coins and superficial alliances and someone else's revenge. He has stalked, stolen, lied, killed, and he could finish this now, so easily, with the flick of a blade.

But the song of death does not call to him now.

For so long he had trudged, unmoored, through heavy crimson blood. Like pulling at the seams of velvet, he'd sewn more lives into the sea of red and he never looked behind him to see the souls trying to pull him down at the ankles. He didn't know purpose until he saw the way the candlelight flickered in your eyes, until he tilted his head to the side and realised your smile was a new kind of beautiful from each angle.

The rain sticks to his lashes and he thinks of an old song of prayer the Sisters used to chant. He remembers curling his fingers around one of the rosaries that hung from the large cross in the cathedral and wincing in anticipation. He thought he would burn—that the metal would leave a red stain on his palm. It never did.

Maybe that's why he never believed. Surely, if there was a God, Joel Miller would have burned by now.

He thinks of shopping for furniture and date nights and lazy mornings, tangled in bedsheets. Your mouth, smiling against his, whispering I love you across the breakfast table. Dancing—or swaying, more like—under the kitchen light. Loving easily, never feeling as if he must grab hold of the cross and burn himself upon it just to feel.

Joel turns the switchblade in his hand, lurches forward, and plunges the knife into Cabrera’s chest.

There is no noise but a faint gurgle from his mouth, his hand weakly rising to grasp the hilt. Joel drops to his knees and fishes Cabrera’s cell phone from his pocket.

“The blade is stuck in your aorta,” he says. “If you pull it out, you’ll bleed out and die.” He puts the rain-slick screen in front of Cabrera’s face. “Pull the contract.”

A few feeble taps are all it takes, and Joel Miller is no longer a target. His name glares back at him on the screen, from two million to nothing, not the boogeyman any longer but something akin to a civilian. Joel tosses the phone into the water and turns to leave.

“See you in hell, Joel,” Cabrera chokes, still grasping the shiny wooden hilt of the blade.

He barely hauls himself into the car, which chokes to a rumbling start. There's blood seeping through his shirt where Cabrera shot him, and his fingers shake as they pull away from the wound, the red so bright, so alive. Joel grits his teeth and squeezes his eyes shut.

If there’s a God, he thinks, I hope you fucking hear me now.

Tell me that we don’t get what we deserve. Because there is nothing I deserve in this world if I cannot keep what I’ve found.

His fingers trembling, smearing blood across the screen, he makes a call.

And your voice on the line, soft, sticky with sleep, whispering his name—just his name: Joel?—is what wrenches the first sob from his throat.

Joel, you say, like it means something, like it's precious. A jewel pressed from dusty black coal. Come back to me. Come home.

So he does.

#fic: helen #kiwisbell's fics #pedro pascal #joel miller #joel miller x reader #joel miller smut #joel miller x you #the last of us #the last of us hbo #tlou fic #joel miller angst #joel miller au #joel miller x female reader #joel miller x f!reader #joel miller fic #john wick au

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081314 · 3 months

Text

Cater Diamond - Platinum Jacket (Voice Lines)

Following is my translation of the voice lines for Cater Diamond's platinum jacket card.

Spoilers after the cut.

Summon

♦️: Woah, hard to believe this place's been around for 100 years already. I bet there's tons of cool stuff to check out. Come on, let's go have some fun!

♦️: Lemme get a quick shot of the museum before we head inside. Let's see, I'll tag it #reportingforduty and #museumPR… Kay, and we're good!

Home Lines

♦️: It's the museum's 100th anniversary. That's insane!

♦️: From what I've heard, the country the Queen of Hearts ruled over was super photogenic. Gotta make sure our dorm looks just as good.

♦️: I saw Jamil-kun standing by that painting of the golden scarab over there. He looked pretty freaked out.

♦️: Huh, looks like they don't allow flash photography indoors. Lemme change the settings on my phone real quick before I forget.

♦️: I always thought museums were really stuffy, but today's actually been a lot of fun so far. The building's got a cool vibe to it, so there's def gotta be some cammable spots around here.

♦️: Honestly, I wasn't expecting there'd be a whole lot to talk about when checking out art, but me and Ruggie even chatted about makeup of all things. It was really fun.

♦️: You're curious about my art grades? The teachers tell me all the time I got a good eye for composition and color.

♦️: Check it out, I bought some mini-stickers of the great seven from the gift shop. They were too cute to resist. Maybe I'll put 'em on my guitar case or something.

♦️: You saw a painting where the Thorn Fairy's servants were dancing around a fire? I heard there's, like, a tradition or something like that in Briar Valley. You should ask Malleus-kun about it.

♦️: Jack-kun said he really likes it when the King of the Beasts looks all regal and stuff in artwork. Personally, I like the ones where he's just chilling out.

♦️: How come you keep staring at me like that, huh? Oh-ho, lemme guess. You couldn't resist how cool I looked checking out all the art, could ya? Hah! jk, jk.

♦️: Ta-da! Formal Caycay is on the job. Now come over here and take a selfie with me. Not everyday we get dressed up like this, ya know.

Groovy

♦️: Poor thing, sent adrift to sea like that. But I mean, you reap what you sow.

Duo

♦️: Look good for me, Ruggie-kun!

🍩: Could ya put yer phone away already, Cater-san!

I've summarized this vignette on my Twitter account here.

#cater diamond #twst #twisted wonderland #ruggie bucchi #twst jp #twst spoilers

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letstalkaboutfandomsbaby · 7 months

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Hey sunny, idk if ur doing requests but if u are, could you do bully!satosugu? I’m tired and I just wanna get bullied sooo bad 🥺. If ur not doing request pls ignore.

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Oh just think about it. The two strongest sorcerers in the world bullying you 💕

Gojo is very forward with his bullying. He pokes your cheek, pulls your hair, flips your skirt constantly. He's straight to the point, teasing you for how you look, for what you do.

"Your hair looks dumb today. Did you try to style it differently? It looks stupid. Why bother trying something different if it just looks weird anyway? You might as well just never change from your boring self."

Geto is a little different, much more passive aggressive than Gojo. He'll scold Gojo for making fun of you but in the same breath bully you himself.

"Now, now, Satoru, you shouldn't call them boring. Uninteresting and lackluster, sure, but not boring."

They always tag team too, barely acknowledging you're there as they talk about you right in front of your face, commenting on your appearance, your personality, anything and everything they can.

But guess what? They wish they could bully you another way too, wish they could wedge you between them whichever way they want. They want to share a kiss while they're both inside you, in any hole you'll let them use (which will be all of them). They may even fight over who gets to try you first. Regardless, they want to bully you even more, hear those sweet whines and squeals slip past your lips every chance they can get. They're so greedy for you and you don't even know it. You just think they like to see you miserable. If only you could hear the dirty thoughts they whisper to each other as they jerk off.

"God, did you see what they were wearing today? Fuck, I just wanted to bend em over and take em right there."

"Did you see how they almost cried earlier? How their pretty little eyes teared up? Imagine what they'd look like crying from how we fuck them."

"Bet they'd look so good with their legs up to their ears."

"I wanna see em from behind, feel their ass bounce against me while I fuck em."

"I'll take their mouth first, make em gag on it."

"Fuck, I bet they sound so cute when they moan."

You'd never guess that they cum on each others' abs while thinking of you, moaning your name, staining each others' fingers. Why would you when they're always so mean to your face?

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#ask #smut #gojo satoru #geto suguru #gojo satoru x reader #geto suguru x reader #gn reader #☀️ asks

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heartbreakgrill · 7 months

Text

stiles stilinksi: breakable heaven; pt. 6, “i’m always waiting for you just to cut to the bone. it’s cool, that’s what i tell ‘em. no rules, in breakable heaven.”

a/n: angsty chapter for u. prepare to be frustrated and emo.

tagging: @ariianelle

stiles: i’m glad to know you. just wanted to tell you that.

y/n: :) that made my day, thank you

y/n: i’ve got to get to work, but i’ll text later :)

stiles: have a good shift!

stiles: not sure if you'll see this, but dad wanted to go out to dinner, so i guess i'll see you soon. try not to picture me naked when i'm ordering ;)

–

"y/n, finish up that table, then i'm cutting you. too many people on tonight, okay?"

y/n looked up from the pile of silverware she was wrapping. she was excited by her manager's words, so she smiled- though, in the restaurant business, false promises were often made. she was skeptical.

so, she asked,"really?" he nodded back at her before moving along. y/n was ecstatic.

it was a saturday night, and, usually, when she got off, it was nearly 11pm. she never liked going anywhere that late. so, getting out this early meant she could head over to danny's. her friends had texted in the groupchat about watching a movie. now, she could include herself in the plans, too.

y/n's table was waiting for their food still, so she went into the kitchen to check on it. luckily, it was all done. she loaded it all onto a tray, before balancing it on her palm, and taking it out into the dining room.

as she walked through the restaurant, y/n just so happened to lay eyes on none other than stiles stilinski and his dad, the sheriff. she nearly tripped over her own two feet at the sight. she clearly hadn’t gotten stiles’ text. he met her eye and smiled awkwardly, his hand waving in a small, shy manner. the sheriff was ordering his food, so he hadn’t noticed the interaction.

y/n smiled, half-heartedly, and unloaded the tray at her table. she was thrown off just a little. he seemed to do that to her, quite often- throw her off balance. "i'll be around if you need anything else, alrighty?" she glanced over at stiles a few times throughout her cadence, "okay, enjoy your food! thank you so much."

she bee-lined for the server station and dropped her tray off. then, looking back up, she met stiles’ gaze again. she felt tingly with anticipation, excitement, especially he met her gaze again and grinned.

he had a devilish quality to his smile. it was something about how his lips creased his cheeks, something about the glint in his dark eyes. it was mischievous and taunting.

y/n jerked her chin towards the back of the restaurant, where the bathrooms were. it was an empty area right now, even though it was a saturday, and offered them an out-of-view spot for a quick greeting. stiles nodded and excused himself from the table.

y/n leaned up against one of the booths, a confused, yet delighted expression on her face. she watched stiles round the corner, grinning, now, fingers nervously tugging on the sleeves of his hoodie. that smile made her heart beat quicker.

she hadn't seen him much this week because they were both busy- y/n studying and working, stiles fighting off the supernatural and struggling to keep himself sane.

of course, they'd still found time to see each other. like, on wednesday, when stiles came over after school. they had sex, and then he actually stayed. he stayed and held her until the sun set. and, they talked, though half asleep, about whatever came to mind- his mom, her plans for college. private things that only close friends- possibly more- would discuss. there was a moment where stiles felt so secure and trusting of her that he almost slipped, almost told her about everything with scott, lydia, everyone. but telling her meant dragging her into his mess.

and, she was becoming somebody he could not lose.

so he was still torn on that decision.

instead, he talked about his friends in a distant manner, one that left out any big plot lines. y/n still tried not to feel insecure when he brought up lydia. she noticed, when he revealed more and more, that stiles hung out with lydia a lot more than he hung out with y/n. it was a small detail that she shouldn’t have even lingered out in her head- but, especially since last sunday, y/n felt any and all defenses had fallen down. she was attached, so deeply now. she was reading between every line, analyzing every detail.

but, she couldn’t be mad about who he hung out with. she couldn’t feel jealous- even if she was- because it didn’t matter what feelings y/n had. that wasn’t what they had agreed. no matter how many of his sweet gestures and words, they had still not established any kind of relationship, label, anything.

he just wasn’t hers to lose.

eventually, that wednesday evening, the soft light and lowered volume of y/n's television hazily drew them to sleep. when they woke, it was 5am. school would start in just three hours. they headed, barely awake to be aware of themselves, to the front door- y/n adorned in stiles' lacrosse hoodie again. she didn't have enough consciousness to stop herself from hugging him goodbye.

or to even process the fact that he kissed her on the forehead.

later in the day, in the middle of english, the moment clicked in her brain. she couldn’t think about anything else for the rest of the week.

y/n wanted to tell danny about it- but he’d instill a fear in her, or maybe even a hope that wouldn’t bring any good. because, it was moments like that where y/n was sure she had him.

moments of tenderness, connection.

but, alas…

"i texted you," stiles kicked his shoe against the carpeting of the restaurant.

y/n raised her brows, "oh, yeah?"

"to warn you," he shrugged, "i didn't want you to think i was stalking you."

y/n replied with a giggle, "you'e one of the few people i'd be okay with stalking me."

stiles chuckled, glancing, up and down, at his shoes, cheekily. "listen, uh, i don't know what you're doing after this...but would you wanna hang? i know your parents are home, but my house is free. we wouldn't even have to slum it in the jeep. my dad has to go into the station.”

y/n straightened her back, perked up by the plans he was making. "yeah, that's actually...yeah. i'd love to."

screw watching a movie with her friends; she'd rather see stiles.

"i actually get off as soon as this table leaves. don't know if i told you, but my car's in the shop, so my mom has to come get me. would you mind picking me up from my house later?"

stiles glanced back at his dad. "yeah, uh," he met her eye, his smile morphing into something nervous, "that works. i know you've probably met my dad, but you should come over and say hi. he'd love it."

y/n's mouth dried out a little. she swallowed thickly, "oh, maybe. yeah. that would be nice." meeting his dad.

he wanted her to meet his dad.

that was, sure as hell, a clear sign of attachment.

"no pressure," stiles set his hands out in the air between them. "sorry if that was weird. i know that's not- that's not...yeah. just, forget it. i'll see you later? text me."

“wait,” y/n grabbed his forearm, “i want to.” she met his eyes. it was a firm decision on her part.

meeting stiles’ dad shifted things just a little bit further. she was growing more distressed about everything going on between them. she needed answers, but didn’t even know what questions to ask.

but, then stiles moved his hand, slid his arm up till his fingers were in hers, and she relaxed a little. “okay.”

she had to drop his hand when they turned the corner because y/n didn’t want to get in trouble with her boss. immediately, her skin was cold. stiles led her to their table in the back corner of the restaurant. she didn’t notice, but he flexed his fingers, feeling the ache of the loss of her in his hold.

“dad,” stiles patted his shoulder as they walked past the sheriff, settling, on their feet, across the table.

the sheriff looked up from his phone and immediately smiled, the expression morphing his face to look almost identical to his son. y/n grinned at the resemblance. “hey, who’s this?” the sheriff stood on his feet, and shook y/n’s hand heartily.

“i’m y/n, i’m-“ she glanced at stiles’, her smile dropping. what was she to him?

what was this to stiles? there was a question, finally.

“we go to school together,” stiles simply said. he didn’t know what to call it.

though he knew what he wanted to.

y/n tried not to give much depth to the statement stiles made. she knew as well as he did that there wasn’t much else he could say without blurring lines and throwing things off. she put a pin in it.

“well, it’s nice to meet you, sweetheart,” sheriff patted their joint hands with his other one.

y/n nodded, “you, too. i’ve heard a lot about you.”

sheriff shot stiles a look, “all good things, i hope?”

“always,” she assured him with a gentle laugh.

“how long you been working here?” sheriff proceeded to ask one of the basic questions all dads would inquire about.

“about two years. i was the hostess before i turned 18 a few months ago,” y/n explained, motioning to the entrance of the restaurant.

sheriff shoved his hands in his pockets, “oh, i recognize you now. me and the deputies used to grab food here a lot. things are a bit busier now, so that’s not really a possibility, anymore.”

“i remember that!” y/n nodded. “you’re a rowdy bunch!”

sheriff laughed, “oh, don’t i know it. they let you eat on shift? stiles, why don’t you buy this young lady some dinner?”

stiles raised his hands defensively, his dad’s tone a playful offense towards him. y/n set a hand on stiles’ wrist, laughing, “no, you’re okay! i get off soon, actually.”

“how soon? why don’t you join us?” sheriff continued. he probably wouldn’t leave the poor girl alone until he bought her something.

y/n glanced over at her table, who looked to already be finishing up. “probably here in, like, ten minutes?” she looked to stiles, to see if he’d permit the change of plans.

he shrugged, “don’t let him pressure you.” while y/n didn’t know what he was thinking, stiles was aware of the flustered feelings flurrying in his mind.

y/n giggled, rolling her eyes, “i’d love to join you guys. i’ll be back, okay?”

sheriff asked, before she could leave, “well, what’re ya eating?”

she thought for a moment, then gave him her usual food order. sheriff forced stiles to go find their waitress. y/n offered to lead him to the server station, where she was probably doing something.

“he likes you,” stiles murmured as he followed y/n. he pushed the sleeves of his jacket to his elbows, feeling warm for some reason.

y/n turned back to him with a smug expression, “i’m likable.”

stiles snorted, a light smile taking over his face. “you are.”

they shared a flickered look, for just a short moment. it was interrupted by y/n’s coworker, who had a question about something minuscule. she excused herself, smile now tightened by her lips.

the gaze they had exchanged soaked across their skin longer than it had lasted. the air between their eyes was heavy with anticipation and questioning.

still, confusion lingered.

but, dinner ended up being a lot of fun. they sat there for two hours, laughing, chatting about school, especially y/n’s plans for her future. the sheriff was quite interested in her education, like any good parent would be, and supportive of the dreams she shared.

y/n told them how she wanted to go to seattle, how she wanted to study psychology and one day become a forensic scientist. it was something silly that she was sometimes insecure to bring up with some, but the sheriff was fascinated.

stiles, however, was shocked by this. it was a piece of information he had yet to learn about her.

he watched her talk passionately about the subject, her eyes glazed over in excitement. sheriff told her a lot about the schooling process, since most of his deputies had gone to school for something like that. and, he’d been in the business a long time. he gave her helpful advice that she was more than grateful for.

the sheriff listened intently to y/n, but still noticed how his son’s eyes lit up with absolute adoration.

the entire evening was wonderful. it left both of them feeling full, happy.

y/n was nearly sure that, after this dinner, stiles would say something. he would do something. he’d confess that he wanted her in every way he could, he’d ask her to be his, and the fairytale ending would come. he had to.

oh, how wrong she would be.

later, after she went home, showered and changed into something a little more comfortable, y/n texted stiles that she was ready to leave. he replied, immediately, that he was on the way.

y/n waited patiently in the entryway of her house. she heard her parents upstairs, who were drinking wine and watching television. yesterday, they’d finally been able to go out to dinner as a family. she resented them, sometimes, for how little their presence was in her life. but, in moments like this, right now, she was just happy to listen to the distant muffle of their favorite show, to their laughter and love pouring down the hallway and stairs. she didn’t feel alone. the house didn’t feel empty. love felt like it was pricking at her fingertips.

stiles' headlights arched across the windows as he pulled into her driveway. y/n grabbed her bag- packed this time with overnight items, just in case what happened wednesday happened again. she at least hoped it would.

she locked the front door behind her. as she neared the jeep, stiles hopped out and walked around to open the passenger side for her.

y/n smiled up at him, happy to be standing so close to him again, "sorry my hair is wet still. i didn't have time to dry it."

stiles looked taken aback by her apology. he gently took the bag off her shoulder as he replied, "there's no reason to be sorry. you look...pretty, still."

she blushed, "thanks." she was now positive something was going to happen, something good. it filled her with the kind of energetic hope that gave her a head rush.

as she climbed into the jeep, her hair brushed near stiles' face. the smell of her shampoo was so prominent because she had just taken a shower. it made his knees weak.

stiles shut her door behind her, then went to his side of the car. he put her bag in the back seat.

carrying it, he realized that she was planning on spending the night.

this fact, combined with her smell, and the way she looked sitting in his jeep- it all brought elation to his already heightened mood.

tonight, he would tell her.

he would tell her everything. about scott, lydia, allison, isaac. about the supernatural, about the strange town they lived in.

he trusted her. he cared for her. and he could not protect her how he should if she didn’t know. (sure, he’d forced scott, lydia, and allison to each drjve by her house every once and a while to ensure things seemed calm. but that wasn’t good enough.)

most importantly, he was going to tell y/n of his feelings for her.

once they settled in at the stilinksi residence, stiles finally got to show y/n around his bedroom. this, he was most excited for. his room was a proper display of his personality, decorated by his life’s blood and growth.

y/n was mostly enamored by all of the red string he had pinned up in the walls, at the many piles of casework he probably should not have access to laying around his desk and floor. even though it was hectic, the layout made complete sense, because it was stiles. she felt like she was seeing a piece of his soul that he kept tucked away.

and he was- stiles didn’t usually have people over. just scott, lydia once or twice. she was special.

he’d been forced to clean up before she came, in order to hide away all of the evidence of the supernatural- like the pictures of dead bodies now stuffed underneath his bed. it was still messy, and he kept apologizing, breathlessly shoving things away. but, she didn’t mind. she told him to stop. stiles liked that y/n never really minded any of the things he thought were obvious flaws about himself.

soon after, they settled into his bed to watch a movie. y/n begrudgingly agreed to watch the first halloween, much to stiles delight. he nearly kissed her with excitement once she finally gave in to his badgering. y/n noticed this.

though they were watching a slasher film, it was peaceful. they leaned back against headboard, shoulder to shoulder. though they usually ached to touch one another, both were comfortable with the warmth radiating between their parallel bodies.

thirty minutes into the movie, though, his phone started buzzing, rapidly, with text message after text message. stiles didn’t even read the screen. he knew it would be scott or lydia with some dead end lead that he just didn’t want to follow right now. the week had been long. he needed to be human for two hours. he needed to bask in her radiance.

stiles turned it on silent, mumbling out an apology.

y/n,shrugged him off. at first, she didn’t think of anything. but, then, her skepticism started when, ten minutes later, he started checking his screen, with his phone tilted away from any prying eyes- her prying eyes.

“everything okay?” y/n shifted on the bed, crossing her arms over herself.

stiles flinched at the sound of her movement, worried she would glance over and see words that would probably send her running. lydia was messaging him about another dead body. throat slit. scott was also sending texts about the alpha pack. not anything a teenage girl would be too into.

“yep,” he set his phone down, accidentally loudly, on the bedside table. stiles tried to get comfortable, again, though now his heart was pumping with anxiety.

stiles reached out his hand and set it on her thigh. he glanced over at her, grinning. touching her helped draw him back down to earth. y/n met his look, relaxed a little, and leaned her shoulder into his.

stiles turned to her completely, then, gently took her face into his hands. he kissed her.

she responded immediately, arching her body up into his. y/n wrapped her arms around his neck, tangling her fingers into his hair, touching the side of his neck. she felt his heartbeat there. it was so fast. she just assumed it was because of making out with her, but it also because of the threat lingering in the air of beacon hills. as they continued to move against each other, he calmed down more and more.

stiles hand slid his other hand up her leg and around her hip, just under her shirt. his mind wandered, for just a moment, as to where his lacrosse hoodie that he had let her borrow was. then, an image of her, cradled in it, sleeping softly in her bed, flashed through his mind. the romantic thought intensified the passion in his touch. y/n felt the electricity burn hotter.

this time was so different than the rest. there was a tenderness in stiles, in his lips, that y/n hadn't ever felt before. it was fueled by something other than just lust, more than a want- it was a need. a need for her, like she was a drug, and he was an addict. she both sobered him up and brought him to the best high of his life. stiles felt it- the ache in his chest when she was away, the whole of it stitching back up in moments like this.

the encounter was borderline love-making.

after it was over, stiles tugged y/n into his arms, holding her closely to his chest. she let him pull her wherever he needed her to be, curling into his body easily.

he ran his fingers through her hair, gently brushing out tangles. the caresses nearly put her to sleep. then, stiles’ spoke, his voice low and close to her ear since his cheek was pressed against her head, “i’ll get up in a second and get you towel.”

she hummed in response, “can you grab me some water, too, please?” her mouth was dry.

stiles nodded, “anything, baby.”

it was just two words, barely an entire sentence, but it meant so much to her. it shocked her nervous system. woke her up.

and it solidified everything for the both of them.

y/n cleaned up once stiles got her a towel. then, he went down to the kitchen to grab her a water bottle as well. while he was gone, she slipped into another one of his hoodies. she sat on the edge of the bed, legs dangling. she hadn’t noticed before, but stiles phone had continued to buzz. it broke her peace.

y/n looked at it. the phone stared back, dauntingly.

she shouldn’t- it wasn’t her place.

she wasn’t that type of girl.

she couldn’t let what sam had done to her be the baseline for every single relationship for the rest of her life. she couldn’t let his stupid decisions ruin her trust for every other guy she’d meet.

especially not stiles. he meant too much to her for sam’s mistakes to demand behaviors from her that would surely ruin it.

but, then it buzzed again. the taunting anxiety and fear washed over her.

what if he was like sam?

she had to know.

y/n looked around, ensuring she really was still alone in his bedroom. she reached out a hand that was beginning to shake and turned the phone over. it was screen down- another giant, waving, teasing red flag.

she retracted her hand like she’d touched a flame.

the screen was black. she stared, blankly, waiting for something to happen. it buzzed again, stirring the silence, lighting up the home screen, and she flinched. the picture behind the notifications was of stiles and his dad. the grin on stiles’ face almost made her smile. but, then, a series of texts popped up.

lydia: where are you????

lydia: need you

lydia: please

ten other texts sat beneath these. she didn’t need to open them.

they were ten texts from lydia.

ten texts in a row from lydia.

y/n’s throat felt tight. she quickly flipped the phone back over, stood from the bed, and started getting dressed, in her own clothes, this time. she was determined to get out of there as quick as she could. she texted danny in the process.

her shirt had landed on stiles desk. she picked it up, tugged it on like a layer of protection against everything. she noticed it had knocked over the picture frame stiles had on his desk. y/n touched it, carefully situating it upright. as she did so, y/n saw lydia’s signature on the back of the drawing.

tears welled up in her eyes.

of course she’d been right again.

stiles came back as soon as she started to pull her shoes on. he paused at the door, clutching her water between his whitening fingers. he was nervous from the pace at which she moved. his eyes followed her around the room as she collected her bag. he attempted to decipher her behavior. what had happened?

“hey,” he called out. she didn’t look up. she didn’t reply. “here’s your water.”

“danny’s coming to get me,” y/n murmured. she shouldered her bag, finally. it overflowing because her things were stuffed messily inside.

“what?” stiles stepped towards her, dark eyes and brows furrowing.

y/n barely met his stare before looking away, “he’ll give you your hoodie back.” she was afraid that if she looked for too long, she’d give in.

“i want you to keep it-“

“monday, probably.”

then, y/n walked right past him, out the door of his bedroom. he turned as she went through, wanting to stop her. but, stiles’ phone started ringing on the bedside table. her steps faltered. she glanced back. stiles glanced at his phone with a distant look. he quickly grabbed it, eliciting a sickened chuckle from her lips.

stiles was completely and utterly confused. he didn’t know what he’d down wrong.

he denied the call, but scrolled through the messages as he chased her down the stairs, hoping answers lay there. stiles was having trouble processing all of the information being thrown at him. he was overwhelmed.

but, from what he understood, he needed to get to the school. lydia was in trouble. he couldn’t ignore the problem this time. they needed his help.

before that, though, he needed to stop y/n. he needed to tell her everything. he still didn’t understand what he’d done to majorly fuck things up right now, to chase her away- but maybe telling her how he felt would help.

“y/n, let me take you home. we can- we can talk about things-“

“don’t,” she had reached the front door, and was ready to run. but, she had turned back to interrupt him as he stumbled over his words. she didn’t want to hear his pathetic excuses.

“don’t what?” he was breathless. “what did i do? what are you talking about?”

y/n’s tears were spilling over her eyes. stiles frowned and reached out a hand. he needed to comfort her, needed to wipe away her tears. his fingers nearly touched her cheek. y/n snapped herself out of leaning into his wanting embrace. she slapped his hand away. stiles flinched back.

“i’m not fucking stupid. don’t play that game with me.”

stiles’ shoulders slouched. he clutched his phone, knuckles white. it continued buzzing. y/n looked down at it. she rolled her eyes and turned back towards the door. her hand clutched the doorknob.

“i’m not playing a game,” stiles stepped forward again, voice lowered from the fear that it would crack. “please, talk-“

y/n was about to turn back to face him, just to argue and fight him, but his phone started ringing. she did look up at him, just to give him an expectant glare, brows raised.

this would answer everything for her, if he took the call, if he chose lydia over her.

he stared back, juggling the device between his hands. stiles didn’t want to answer the phone call from lydia because that would end the fight. he would have to stand there and watch y/n walk out of the door. he needed to fix things with her before she left.

but, then, though the last call had ended, lydia started calling again.

stiles huffed, an apologetic look in his eyes as he answered, “hey, lydia- yeah, i’m on my way.”

he maintained sickening eye contact with her as he hung up the phone. a breath choked out of her throat. she turned on her heel, slammed the front door behind her back, just as danny pulled into the driveway.

stiles had seen this movie before, and he didn’t like the ending.

and, y/n had tried to change the ending this time around, but peter always lost wendy, and wendy had always had to leave neverland.

#derek x stiles #stiles stilinksi fanfiction #stiles stilinksi imagine #stiles stilinksi x reader #stiles stilinski #stiles x lydia #stiles x reader #teen wolf #teen wolf stiles #teen wolf x reader

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pajarinwrites · 8 months

Text

you could ask

➳ fem!reader x Dino

➳ wc: 2.7k

➳ TAGS: pwp; fluffy smut, smutty fluff MDNI, my dudes; it's so sweet tho kjsdiasejnasd

➳ WARNINGS: fucking(?) it's super fluffy though; fingering (f receiving), kissing, marking, petnames (babe, baby for her)

➳ AN: i continue to surprise in that dino is my least biased member except now that i wrote this, he might not be anymore; he's such a cutie ugh; also this RAN! AWAY! FROM! ME! it started as a drabble but 2.7k can under no circumstances be classified as a drabble. also there initially was supposed to be piv sex but then it got too long. i'll definitely write a continuation one-shot for this ugh. anyway, ENJOY!

also that's my fave photo of channie

You look up from your phone as your friend enters the lobby. He has his duffel bag thrown over his shoulder, wearing the usual cap, mask, sunglasses combo in public, in an effort to remain unrecognised.

“Hey,” you greet with a soft wave. He pulls off his sunglasses to reveal eyes crinkling with smiles. “Hey!” He replies back, pulling you into a short hug before calling the elevator.

“How was practice?”

“The usual. Except Hoshi-hyung was hungover.”

“Huh?” You ask, sure you must’ve misheard him. Chan laughs in reply.

“Yeah, he filmed that program with Youngji yesterday that you like watching.”

“And he didn’t tell me?” You ask in mock affront, one hand resting on your chest dramatically. Chan shrugs. “I guess he assumed I’d tell you. But I forgot.” He sticks his tongue out to you as you follow him to his apartment.

You pass Vernon and Dokyeom in the kitchen; they wave to you in greeting before you follow Chan into his room.

“Leave the door open, children!” Dokyeom screams after you, prompting your friend to scream a dry hahaha back and slam his door all the harder. “They’re not even funny,” he pouts, dropping onto his bed where you’ve already gotten comfortable.

“Ugh,” he groans as the climbs up to the headboard next to you. “What’s wrong?” You ask, looking at his tense expression.

“It’s fine, practice just kicked a little harder than I thought.”

“Are you still up for movie night? We can just move it if you’re too exhausted.”

“Of course not! I always have energy for you.” He smiles softly, scooting closer, resting one arm on his headboard behind you as if it did nothing to him. You cleared your throat, trying your hardest not to shuffle so he wouldn’t feel obligated to move his arm away again.

“What’ve you got saved on your laptop?” He asks as you pull it up and open Netflix.

“I mean, I’ve been dying to watch the Scream remake for a while…” You know his stance on horror movies. As expected, “ugh! Can’t we watch something cute and cozy that won’t make me pull a muscle from jump scares!”

“Unfair argument! First you say you’re up for movie night and when it comes to picking a movie you bring up the issue of your sore muscles!”

“Well I can’t just make ‘em magically disappear.”

“But you got to pick the movie the last, like, three times!”

“I’m not saying you can’t pick. I’m just saying pick a different one!”

“Nuh uh, I want this one.” He groans again, rolling his head.

“Okay, then what will you do about my sore muscles?”

“Me? Do you want me to massage your sore muscles for you? Since when are your sore muscles my fault or problem?”

He grins, and with how close his face is to yours, it’s doing all kinds of things to your heart. “If you want to watch Scream so bad, it is your problem…”

Oh, so that’s how it is, you think, realising he never expected you to make good on any muscle relief. Lee Chan knows damn well you hate massages unless you’re on the receiving end. The amount of times he’s given you one eclipses the times you have returned the favour, a grand total of zero times.

“Sure,” you smile sweetly, setting your laptop back down on the floor next to Chan’s bed. He stares at you, eyes wide as saucers. “Huh?”

You remove his arm from your shoulders and get up, motioning for him to lie down. If your best friend wanted to play a game of chicken with you, he absolutely could.

“Also, you obviously gotta take your shirt off.”

Instead of moving, Chan is sitting still as a statue, still staring at you as if your hair had spontaneously changed colour. You wondered if this was really all it was going to take but eventually he shuffles down on the bed. He shrugs off his tee and you pretend like you aren’t surreptitiously looking him up and down.

“Okay, but you gotta do it properly, “ he states as he rests his head on his arms.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” You inquire as you get into position, positioning your left knee beside Chan’s body and swinging the other over so that you are straddling his butt.

“Just that you can’t quit after five minutes, and you can’t do it all softly.”

“Hmm,” you hum in agreement, “elbow grease.” Chan giggles in response, but it turns into a groan as soon as you dig your thumbs into the tops of his shoulders.

“You really aren’t holding back, huh?”

“I’ve been ordered to give it my all,” you reply, bearing down on one especially tight trapezius. Chan’s breath stutters under your ministrations and you’re glad he can’t see your face heat up. As your hands wander lower you feel like he’s tensing up more instead of less.

“Hey, relax,” you instruct, “this was your idea.”

Chan grumbles something into his pillow in reply but it only takes him a few more minutes and a few sounds that veer suspiciously into moan territory before he shrugs you off forcefully.

You let out a yelp of surprise as you flop down on the mattress next to him. “What was that for?”

“You did enough, we can watch your silly movie now.” He avoids your eyes and you can see that his face has turned red, but you try to blame it on the heat of the room and the fact that you just treated him like bread dough for fifteen minutes. As he sits back up against the headboard, he pulls the blanket over himself, his hands in his lap awkwardly.

“What are you doing?” You cock an eyebrow.

“Preparing to be scared to death,” he replies with a chuckle you believe was supposed to be light-hearted.

“It’s okay, I’ll protect you. You can hide behind me if you get scared,” you offer graciously. Chan rolls his eyes. “Just start the movie.”

You pull up your laptop and snuggle into your friend’s side. Chan fluffs up his pillows, one behind your back, one in his lap, and welcomes you into his arms again. You’ve watched movies in this position before, but today you’re restless. Chan seems to exude extra body heat today, and maybe it’s your wild imagination but his workouts have really started to pay off, and the feeling of his biceps pressing into your side distracts you more than you’d like to admit.

You stopped watching whatever is going on on screen several dozen minutes ago when you finally clear your throat. You’d been sneaking glances over at Chan for a while, his uncomfortable shifting, the suspiciously placed pillow. You had a hunch when he shrugged you off him earlier but the longer you sat next to him, having to endure his endless shuffling, the more convinced you were. Of course, you weren’t entirely unbothered by his presence either. The glimpse of his naked chest and back hadn’t left your mind, although you were hard-pressed to admit, that that sight had been the reason for your inability to focus.

“It’s a little boring, isn’t it?”

“Huh?” He asks, turning his frightful eyes from the screen. You hit pause.

“The movie, Chan.”

“Boring isn’t the adjective I’d use, but sure. We can definitely watch something else.”

“We could do something else.” You smirk, shifting so you can face him fully. Bless him, his expression betrays nothing but confusion. He opens his mouth to ask what you’re on about but you beat him to it.

“Chan,” you sigh, “is this going to be a repeat of Seungkwan’s birthday party?”

“Huh?” He asked. But the fact that he had turned a shade redder let you know that he was very aware of what you were talking about.

“You know, when we were in the kitchen alone and you leaned in and I was waiting for you to finally kiss me? But then you chickened out the last second and pretended you had just wanted to grab the vodka from behind me?”

Chan blinks at your, your words evidently not quite processed yet. “You wanted me to kiss you?” You rolled your eyes.

“For someone with such a big head, you can be pretty stupid, you know that?”

“Well, how was I supposed to know? I can’t read your mind.” You lean in closer - resting your hand on his thigh - and take delight in the way his breath hitches.

“You can always ask.” You whisper. He moves in even closer, the pillow sliding off his lap and letting you see that you were right about your prior assumption. You bite your lip at the sight of the obvious tent in his sweatpants.

“Can I kiss you?” Chan asks, bringing your attention back to his face. He’s gorgeous, you think, in the half-light of his bedroom, his hair unstyled, his eyes shining. But he really isn’t going to budge if you don’t answer, it seems. “Yes, please,” you breathe.

His lips are on yours, softly, as if he can’t quite believe this is happening. His right hand is cradling your cheek. It makes you smile, wrap your arms around his neck, and pull him down with you. Chan let’s out another groan, catching himself with his left hand next to your head instead of letting his full weight crash into you, which coincidentally happens to be exactly what you wanted. You nudge his hand away, hoping for him to get the hint. Much to your chagrin, he pulls back, panting against your lips.

“What—“ you mean to ask but don’t get around to it when you see the dark, almost desperate shadow in his eyes.

“I can’t believe you’re real.” His gaze drops to your lips, he’s nipping at your lower lip, making his way down your jawline. You manage to hold out on him until he reaches your pulse point, attaching his lips to the sensitive skin and nibbling at it in a way that’ll definitely leave a mark makes you whimper. Right now you couldn’t care less.

“Chan,” you moan, “please…” You can feel him smirk but he complies with your unspoken wish, continuing his way downward.

“Can I take this off you?” He asks, tugging at you shirt. You look down at his eyes, blown out and looking at you like you created the universe.

“Only if yours comes off too,” you say, meaning to tease him. His shirt’s over his head and at the other end of his room before you can blink. “Better?” He smirks, usually you’d be careful not to stroke his ego too much, but right now all you can think about it tracing every ridge on the expanse of his body with your tongue. It’s so much more fun when you can look freely. It must show on your face because Chan leans forward, whispering, “You can eat me up later, baby. Right now it’s my turn.” You have half a mind to hold back your whimpers at the tone of his voice but at the end you’re just a human, not some saint, so you stand no chance against the carnal vices of the flesh.

Chan takes off your shirt so skilfully that a very unwelcome thought of possessiveness flashes through your mind but with how he looks at you (very much not like you threw on your oldest, most comfy sport bra) the evil little voice in your head stands no chance. There can’t be any lingering doubt over his feelings with the way he undresses you slowly, deliberately, with all the care in the world, makes you think he mistook you for a fragile piece of art. His eyes say the same, casting glances at your face again and again, questioning; like he’s ready to drop everything if you so much as breathe a word. You have to commend him, especially with how evident the tent in his sweats has been for the better part of this evening.

“Chan,” you whine, ripping him out of the worship of the skin on your tummy. He looks dazed already. “Please stop teasing.”

He smiles, “Am I teasing you? Sorry, baby, I didn’t mean to. You’re just so beautiful.”

You want to tell him off for being a sap but he starts kissing a straight line downwards from your navel and your words are caught in your throat.

His hands skitter up your thighs, making you shiver as he finally presses a digit to your core. He groans, “So wet for me already, love, you’ve soaked through your panties.”

“Looks like you have to take them off, then.” You smile and he obliges easily. It seems he’s really had enough of the teasing because he presses his thumb to you clit immediately, circling it. You moan his name as he slides one finger through your slick, “wanna touch you too.”

“Later, baby. Let me focus on you for now. Can I keep going?”

You mumble a pathetic Ohmygod yes please, that earns you a soft chuckle from him. He wastes no time in sliding a finger into you. Chan moans at the feeling of you wrapped around his fingers.

“Shit, babe,” is all you get out of him before his mouth is back on your skin, kissing up the insides of your thighs as he stretches you out on another finger. “Wanna come on my fingers, love?” You don’t trust your voice right now, so instead you nod vigorously. He stops testing the waters as his fingers and thumb speed up, spreading a familiar warmth in the pit of your stomach. He shifts his weight upwards and is hovering over you, never ceasing the motion of his fingers.

“Can I kiss you?” He asks softly.

“If you don’t, I’m leaving right now,” you barely manage to breathe out between pants. From the way Chan smiles at you, you can tell you must look at least as fucked-out as you feel. He chooses not to tease you and you silently thank him for it. Instead he just leans in, meeting your lips in a manner that is nothing like the soft, innocent kisses from before. He pushes his tongue past your lips, exploring your mouth as if he wanted to taste all of you. Just at that moment his fingers find that spot inside you that makes you see stars. You moan into the kiss, prompting him to mirror your sounds. Chan doesn’t let up on that spot, speeding up and hitting it again and again and again until the pressure becomes to much and the knot in your stomach snaps. He fucks you through your orgasm, leaving soft pecks all over your face until you’ve calmed down.

“Feeling better?” He asks. You’re forced to watch as he retrieves his fingers from your pussy, putting them in his mouth instead and licking them clean. He hums comfortably, “you taste so good, babe.”

You’re still staring at him, wide-eyed, trying to make sense of why the sight of your best friend licking his fingers clean of your essence is the hottest thing you’ve ever seen. He notices your state and his brows furrow.

“Hey, are you okay?” There’s real worry in his voice, so you nod in reassurance.

“I was just thinking that if this what I get for massaging your sore muscles a little, I’m definitely gonna start doing it more often.”

His eyes widen. “You wanna do this more often?” The disbelief in his voice makes you laugh in earnest. “Of course, in case you couldn’t tell, I had a lot of fun.” You’re unsure of your next sentence, but if you don’t say it now, you fear you’ll say it never, “and I like you. A lot.”

He has the dopiest grin on his face as he leans back down, giving you another sweet kiss. “In that case, let me take you out on a proper date before we do this the next time.” You cock an eyebrow.

“Chan, do you wanna be my boyfriend?” The man in question blushes, avoiding your eyes. “If that’s something you also want…”

You look at his expression, hopeful gaze lifting to catch yours. There’s a blush lingering on his cheeks, his hair all mussed up. You’ve never felt more comfortable with another person.

“Of course,” you reply, snaking one arm around his middle and pulling him close, “I’d love that, actually.”

#lee chan #dino #dino x reader #lee chan x reader #chan seventeen #dino seventeen #svt dino x reader #dino smut #dino fluff #lee chan smut #lee chan fluff

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