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criminallawdubai · 2 years

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5 Common Problems Addressed by Family Lawyers in Dubai

Family lawyers in Dubai are often asked multitude of questions regarding personal status matters in the UAE. These relate to marriages, divorces, custody of the children, visitation rights of the parents, maintenance and related matters.

In this article, international divorce lawyers will answer some of the issues related to family law.

1. Can spouses divorce by mutual consent?

Yes, spouses can mutually consent to divorce in the UAE. According to the divorce lawyers, the spouses may agree to divorce by entering into an amicable settlement agreement which will contain the agreed positions on crucial post marital rights and obligations between the parties.

2. Does the Settlement Agreement have to be Signed by the Parties?

Yes, the settlement agreement has to be signed before the family guidance department of the family courts. For this, you may:

· Open a family guidance file in the family courts.

· Finalise the agreement and have the draft in agreed form.

· Sign the settlement agreement before the judge.

· Have the court grant you divorce based on the settlement agreement.

3. Who will have custody of the children?

According to family and divorce lawyers, mothers may usually have custody of the child (unless she is unfit) till the daughter completes 13 years and the son, 11 years. After the child crosses these ages, the father may claim custody of the child. However, the laws related to custody are not so simple and there are many conditions and circumstances which should be given due importance.

For example, Article 143 of the UAE Personal Status Law mentions that a custodian should:

· have sound judgement and attained the age of majority;

· have the ability to raise the child and provide for his maintenance;

· have fidelity;

· be safe from dangerous contagious disease; and

· not be convicted for a crime against honor.

Additional conditions apply if the custodian is a woman.

4. What about maintenance?

The wife may claim maintenance during the divorce proceedings, for her and the children. She may claim the following:

· Back dated expenses. If the husband has not provided maintenance support. However, claim would be barred if it is for more than 3 years, unless agreed by the parties. Financial support may also be claimed without filing for a divorce case.

· Maintenance during Iddah period. Iddah is a period that the wife must mandatorily spend without marriage after separation to confirm if she is pregnant.

· Dowry: Deferred dowry, payable at the time of dissolution of marriage through death or divorce may be claimed.

· Maintenance for the children: The wife may also claim maintenance for her children, as well as fees for acting as a custodian.

These are only some of the claims which can be raised. For more advice on financial claims during divorce proceedings, you should get in touch with divorce lawyers in Dubai.

5. What about the visitation rights of the parent?

If the spouses have agreed on the visitation rights of the parents under the settlement agreement, then the agreed terms will be followed. However, in cases where no such agreement has been made, the judge is entitled to decide on the maintenance for the children, right of visitation of the parent along with the period of visitation, place of visitation, amongst others.

Source: https://criminallawdubai.blogspot.com/2022/10/5-common-problems-addressed-by-family.html

#family lawyers in dubai #family and divorce lawyer #divorce lawyers in abu dhabi #international divorce lawyers

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femmeconomics · 9 months

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i really do enjoy studying economics i like knowing how things work and it makes sense to me which is nice and it’s gonna be relevant to my intended career and all that. but. it is truly so excruciatingly painful to go to class every day and be like ah yes this is Good because of the Net Profit despite the horrific consequences to all workers and consumers and inhabitants of a country. it makes corporations money tho. a win for the economy 🤍

#still fun to learn tho #and i’m not going into international econ anyway #i’m going to be a divorce lawyer

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somirejinish · 6 months

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The Best Law Firm in Dubai for Diverse Legal Needs"

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Navigating Legal Waters with Expertise: Your Legal Advisor in Dubai

Somi Rejinish goes beyond the traditional role of a law firm by serving as your trusted legal advisor in Dubai. Our team takes a proactive approach to understand your needs, offering strategic counsel that ensures you make informed decisions in legal matters, whether related to business, family, or personal affairs.

Best Legal Consultant in Dubai: Excellence in Every Case

As the best legal consultant in Dubai, Somi Rejinish is dedicated to upholding the highest standards of professionalism and integrity. Our commitment to excellence is reflected in the successful outcomes we achieve for our clients across a spectrum of legal areas, including corporate law, real estate, family law, and criminal defense.

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expat-lawyer-singapore · 11 months

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A Comprehensive Guide to Navigating International Divorce in Singapore:

International divorce cases can present unique challenges, requiring a deep understanding of both family law and cross-border legal considerations. Singapore, with its reputation as a global financial and expatriate hub, frequently handles international divorce cases.

In this article, we will provide a comprehensive guide to navigating an international divorce in Singapore, covering key aspects such as jurisdictional issues, cross-border assets, and child custody matters.

Jurisdictional Considerations

Determining the appropriate jurisdiction for an international divorce is crucial. Singapore follows the principle of "habitual residence" when determining jurisdiction. It means that either party must have resided in Singapore for at least three years before filing for divorce, or both parties must have last resided in Singapore and one of them continues to do so.

Choice of Law

The choice of law in international divorces can be complex. Singapore primarily applies its own laws when it comes to divorce proceedings. However, if there are foreign elements involved, such as foreign assets or foreign marriages, the court may need to consider the laws of those jurisdictions as well.

Cross-Border Assets

One of the significant challenges in international divorce is dealing with cross-border assets. These may include overseas properties, investments, or businesses. Singapore's courts have the authority to distribute both local and foreign assets, considering factors such as contributions made by each party, needs, and the welfare of any children involved.

Child Custody Matters

Child custody disputes can be particularly intricate in international divorces. Singapore follows the "welfare of the child" principle when making decisions regarding custody and access arrangements. The court will consider factors such as the child's best interests, existing relationship with each parent, and the ability to provide for the child's well-being.

Recognition of Foreign Divorce Decrees

Singapore recognizes foreign divorce decrees under certain conditions. If a divorce has been obtained in another jurisdiction and meets specific criteria, it may be recognized and enforced in Singapore. The court will examine factors such as jurisdiction, due process, and compatibility with Singapore's public policy.

Mediation and Alternative Dispute Resolution

Singapore encourages mediation and alternative dispute resolution methods for international divorce cases. Mediation can offer a more cooperative and amicable approach, allowing parties to negotiate mutually beneficial settlements while reducing costs and emotional strain.

Conclusion

Navigating an international divorce in Singapore involves understanding the intricate legal considerations that arise from cross-border relationships and assets. By considering jurisdictional issues, choice of law, cross-border assets, child custody matters, recognition of foreign divorce decrees, and alternative dispute resolution methods, individuals can navigate the complexities of international divorce more effectively.

Seeking professional legal advice from experienced family lawyers who specialize in international divorce cases is highly recommended to ensure the best possible outcome and protect the rights and interests of all parties involved.

#international divorce #expat divorce #international divorce lawyer

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lawgical-alliance-ind · 1 year

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Adoption is a legal policy to adopt a kid, but sometimes it becomes irritable and unexplainable. It is a very long procedure, with home and reference checks, and much paperwork involved. Not only that there are many factors that make the adoption process hard, long, and tedious for you.

#Best NRI Divorce Lawyer In Delhi #Best International Divorce Lawyer in Delhi #Best Child Custody Lawyer in Delhi

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summitlaws · 2 years

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International Family Lawer | Asset Division Lawyers

In The Family Law Disputes, Summit Law Group Has Different Property Settlement Lawyers At Queensland And In Case Of Child Abduction We Provide Child Abduction Lawyers.

#international family lawyer #Asset Division Lawyers #divorce lawyers brisbane #divorce lawyers melbourne

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hotchfiles · 5 months

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ˏˋ°•*⁀➷ ❝ on my mind since the flood ❞ ─ a darling, in any life blurb

pairing: aaron hotchner x reader. summary: the red thread between two people destined to be together may stretch and tangle, but those ties will never break. or: a 45min train ride makes two 43 year olds feel like teenagers. content warnings: divorce babes, divorce. kinda spoiler-ish. watch the 3rd season before. the reader has a backstory and a job, if that bothers you grow up don't read. word count: 960+

Your hair was different, that was the first thing he noticed.

Much like himself, you had soft wrinkles beginning to show up on your forehead and around your eyes, a gift from your late thirties that kept on giving. Your eyes were the same though, he could recognize those anywhere at anytime, even if it had been decades since the last time they stared back at his. Your nose, your lips. Your smile. The way his name sounded coming from your tongue. It was all extremely familiar, as if he was fifteen again.

"You're staring, like a creep, airhead." The old nickname rolls out like you had spent merely seconds apart and it makes him laugh, it has been weeks, maybe months since he last laughed genuinely like that, with his whole face.

"I just got lost—" In your eyes. "In my memories for a bit. You look so much the same."

"Well, my pay check won't allow me any plastic surgeries so—"

"Wise ass." And there it was, like a reflex, his own nickname to you leaving his lips before he even thought about it, if he did think about it he probably would've held it in, a 43 year old FBI agent using childish nicknames not being the best look, but it didn't feel like that with you, at all, it felt natural. You both laugh at it for a second and a comfortable silence follows it, but Aaron couldn't keep it like that, he needed to know more, where have you been, what were you doing... Have you been in Virginia for long? He kept it as casual as he could considering his curiosity, "How have you been?"

"Alright, good, yeah. I’m teaching at Scalia, started this year, I want to keep practicing though, but I’m gonna settle down in Virginia first." You shrug, taking a sip of your coffee. You were purposefully leaving details out, you had seen him on TV a lot since coming back to the states, FBI, profiler. You wanted to see how much could he get from you without words. "What about you, mister FBI hotshot?"

If you two were still teens the way your teasing came out would've made him blush, and quite frankly if he wasn't so self controlled maybe he would've blushed right now, he did feel warm, but instead he just let a chuckle out of his throat, "Well, FBI hotshot just had his divorce finalized, not that glamorous being in these shoes." You already knew what he was doing with his life, it made sense to give the only actual news he had, "Scalia? Law degree too, then." Aaron clicks his tongue, not holding back the instant smirk the realization brought. "Your mother used to say we were so similar we shared the same brain, remember?"

"Welcome to the club, then! Meeting every Friday, membership perks only after the second one, though." His eyes went straight to your fingers, seeing the lack of any rings he nods to himself. Twice divorced. Dark heavy coat, makeup accentuating your features, red lips, hair pulled back. You care about being seen, and desired, but don't want to be approached, a teacher-lawyer, no time, a lot of perfectionism. "Yeah, I stay far away from criminal. Civil and International Law cases mostly. Families, divorces, cross-board custodies." A child of divorce trying to save other children of divorce. Very typical behavior.

Aaron felt like he could stay like this for hours on end, sitting by your side uncomfortably on the train after fate pulled you two to one another again, hearing you tell him about your life in London, your divorces, your time in college. You made him feel young, like you were still his childhood best friend who he fell for. Like if he were to kiss you like he did when you were both thirteen you would still blush and grip tightly on his shirt. Nostalgia was indeed a bittersweet thing.

"I think when you moved away was the last time I openly sobbed." He shakes his head, the thought leaving his brain in a quiet, hushed voice tone, like a secret he wasn't supposed to be telling. It had been years, you were both fifteen when your parents got divorced and you were taken to England with your father. 28 years since the last time he saw you, and he still can feel the same pain if he thinks too hard about it, the way his heart felt like was being sliced apart, getting smaller by the minute as your father's car got further and further away. His mood soured in a way his feelings were only able to function normally again after meeting Haley.

Your hand softly touched his with the confession, your thumb going to his palm and drawing small comforting circles, "I cried myself to sleep a lot that year." Aaron glued his eyes on the way your hands touched, and you thought he might reject it, find it weird after so many years, but instead he just closed his around yours tightly, a silent thankful prayer to the universe, mixed with the warning that he had no intention to let go.

You both stay like that as you talk the rest of the ride, cellphone numbers and e-mails are exchanged, along with longing glances beginning to make you shy like the school girl you once were, when you fell for him the first time. You often wondered what would've happened if you stayed in Washington. Before Jack, Aaron wondered it too from time to time, but truly, he wouldn't do anything different now, he wouldn't choose any alternative ending that would take Jack from him.

But at least now he had a second chance, right?

#lari writes sometimes #yes im in love with him alright #aaron x reader #aaron x you #aaron hotch x reader #aaron hotch imagine #aaron hotch fanfiction #aaron hotch x you #aaron hotchner x reader #aaron hotchner x you #aaron hotchner imagine #aaron hotchner fanfiction #criminal minds x reader

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tropes-and-tales · 2 months

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Ten Months as Yours

Colonel Horacio Carrillo x F!Reader

CW: Angst (reader is CIA and has feelings about it; failed first marriages; talk of Catholicism); smut (oral, m! and f! receiving; PiV, unprotected); 18+ only.

Word Count: ��10,951

AN: This was from an "Arranged Marriage" prompt list. An anon asked for it, and it was supposed to incorporate dates where the couple gets to know each other. I, an idiot, didn't remember that until nearly the end, but if you kind of squint, you can see it.

AN2: Not edited. Not even a little bit.

AN3: Sigh. I dunno, folks. It's whatever.

Horacio Carrillo’s first marriage was standard Catholic fare: the reading of the banns beforehand, then the long wedding Mass. Heavy on the incense, crowded church, a red-faced priest droning through the Gospel. Juliana, his blushing bride in a heavy lace veil, clutching a bouquet of lilies already wilted and brown at the edges in the Colombian heat.

Then, years later, the dissolution of that marriage. Papers signed separately in the presence of lawyers after an ice age formed between the couple. Then more years of Horacio being single again, but the time slipped by like water. He was so busy with work, he hardly registered the empty house he returned to every evening.

Horacio Carrillo’s second marriage is something else entirely.

It’s not, strictly or spiritually speaking, a real marriage. It’s a bit of maneuvering on the part of the U.S. government, logistical choreography as part of a larger plan. To the world at large, Horacio Carrillo is dead: murdered by Escobar’s men in a trap. Only a handful of people know the truth—the doctor and nurses at the American hospital who healed him under a temporary alias. And this man, Johnson, a U.S. Marshal and handler for the U.S. Witness Protection program

Johnson is the sole witness to this so-called marriage, if one could even call it that. It happens on the cargo plane from Bogota to Atlanta. Johnson sits in the jump seat across from his two charges: Horacio…and you.

Horacio doesn’t even learn your real name. There’s no exchange of vow and certainly no incense or bouquet of lilies. Instead of a blushing bride, there’s a silent one. Your mouth is set in a thin, straight line as you listen to Johnson’s rundown of your new life, and every time Horacio chances a look at you, he only sees the tension in you. Grim-set mouth, clenched jaw…and the white edge of a bandage on your temple, mostly hidden under the sweep of your hair.

Horacio wonders if you’re dead to the world too. You aren’t DEA or CIA, at least not in the Colombian theater, but that doesn’t mean you weren’t nearby. The U.S. agencies have their sticky fingers all over South America.

The broad strokes of the situation: you and Horacio are newlyweds. You met in Spain and are returning to the U.S. Horacio is dead, but he’s been replaced by Davide, and Johnson hands over a thick packet of official documents—Spanish birth certificate, Spanish passport, U.S. green card.

You are also dead, but you’ve been replaced by Gwen. Another thick packet of documents detailing your fake life as an ex-pat American in Spain.

Each packet also contains a simple gold band for each of you. Horacio turns it over and over in his hand, contemplates the little twist he gets in his gut to put a ring back on his finger after years of being divorced.

You slide yours on too, but you fuss with it the rest of the flight, twisting it around and around your finger.

“You’re going to Vermont, of all places,” Johnson tells you. “There’s a mid-sized college there with a lot of international folk coming and going, so you’ll blend in. The house is handled, and you’ll get a stipend every month, but we expect you to find jobs as quickly as you can.”

Johnson doesn’t even attempt to say how long it will be. Horacio knows he has to wait out Escobar before he can return to Colombia. You? Who can say?

The rest of the flight is silent except for the low roar of the engines and the creak of the netting holding the cargo in place. Once you land, you stand and follow Johnson and Horacio off of the plane to transfer to a smaller passenger plane that will take you to Vermont.

The final leg of the journey is silent too.

When you deplane in the small regional airport in Vermont, you stumble on the step down from the fuselage. Horacio catches your arm, keeps you upright.

“Watch your step,” he says softly.

“Thank you,” you reply.

It’s the first words you exchange, and his hand on your clothed arm—that’s the first time he touches you.

-----

Horacio has never been to the United States before, but when he thinks of it, he thinks of what he’s seen in the movies: New York City, perhaps, with the traffic and skyscrapers and Statue of Liberty. Or Miami with its white beaches and turquoise water and neon-tinged nightlife.

Vermont is something else.

It’s green. Everything is so green. The rounded mountains in the distance, the old trees with huge, spreading branches. The grass of the lawns in this college town. Even though it is near twilight, even the shadows are green-tinged as the sun sets.

“At least we arrived in the spring,” you say. You glance at him, explain that New England winters can be brutal.

The house is small, trim. It’s a simple ranch but well-built. There’s a fair amount of land, and the nearest neighbors are far enough away that there’s privacy.

Of course it’s awkward. You don’t know each other at all, and you’re both in hiding. Horacio is out of habit with living with another person, and he has to guess you are too.

That first night, the first moment of awkwardness: when you arrive at the house, there’s two bedrooms, and you both hesitate in the hallway that leads to both. You’re married on paper (kinda) but who would expect you to share a bed? But you’re also both exhausted, and Horacio takes in the dark circles under your eyes. The larger room has a full-sized bed, but the guest only has an uncomfortable-looking daybed.

“Take the master bedroom,” he says. “I’ll take the guest room.”

“You sure?” Your words, Horacio notices, are slightly accented, like you’ve been around people like him who speak English as a second language. He wonders about your past and what landed you here with him.

“Of course. Take the room. We’ll talk in the morning.”

You nod, and he glances down at where you twist that gold band over and over around your slim finger. It’s here, he’ll realize later, that he starts to feel something for you, but at the moment, it’s only sympathy. You’re trapped in the same miserable situation as him, so sympathy is an easy emotion to access.

“I appreciate it…Davide,” you reply, and you give him a nod, then turn in for the night. He hears the quiet click of the bedroom door as you shut it, and he turns in too. The daybed is cramped, and he can’t stretch out completely, but he’s so bone-tired that he’s asleep the minute his head hits the pillow.

-----

The first month, April.

It’s awkward. It’s more awkward for Horacio; everything in the U.S. is familiar, but just different enough to make it seem like he’s dreaming. You’re already an American, and life in an idyllic New England college town is easier for you to settle into.

Living with another person is strange. Horacio finds that the two of you engage in a civil, stilted dance each day that first month. You each tiptoe around the other, defer to each other in a painfully polite way. When Horacio catches you singing along softly to the radio one night, you snap the music off and go quiet. When you walk in on him in the bathroom once—he was only brushing his teeth, so it is hardly salacious—you apologize and refuse to meet his eyes for the rest of the week.

The two of you don’t really talk, not that first month. You aren’t supposed to share details about your real lives with each other, so neither of you know how to converse in the weird liminal space you find yourselves. Your conversations are limited to menial topics. The weather, the house and yard, what you each want for dinner that night. You trade off chores, you drift around each other, and it’s like living in purgatory with another ghost.

Sometimes, Horacio swears he can hear you crying softly through the wall that separates your room from his, but you never offer any insight into your feelings and he doesn’t ask.

-----

The second month, May.

Johnson told each of you to find work, and you land a job first: you get a position at the college. You ask him, a bit shy, if you can take a certain portion of the monthly stipend to buy some new clothes for your office job, and Horacio’s gut does that twist again. Of course you need new clothes. You left wherever with nothing, the same way he left Colombia with nothing.

“Of course,” he says. “You don’t even need to ask.”

That makes you smile a little, and you make a weak joke about not wanting to be the sort of wife to spend frivolously. It makes Horacio chuckle. It breaks the uneasy tension in the house a bit, and he ends up going to the mall with you that weekend as you shop.

There’s nothing like a mall to encapsulate American culture, and Horacio tries to play it cool at the conspicuous consumption on display. The giant building, the icy air conditioning, the cacophony of sound echoing around the marble floors and walls. There’s so many people and only a handful of security guards. When Horacio studies them closer, he sees that they don’t even carry guns—they only have walkie-talkies as they saunter around at a lazy pace.

His life now is a far cry from his life as the leader of the Search Bloc. And when he glances over at the woman walking beside him, he realizes how far this second marriage is from his first.

But the thought leads to him ruminating about his first marriage and all the little ways he failed Juliana. This situation with you isn’t a marriage, of course, but it doesn’t stop him from wanting to be better.

So once you are done shopping, he pulls you into the Sam Goody and insists that you buy an album to celebrate. He catches you singing all the time in the house, listening to the radio, humming or singing along. When he imagines your mysterious life before now, he imagines an apartment filled with a big stereo and shelves of albums.

“Seriously?” It makes you smile again, and Horacio thinks you have a nice smile, though he wonders how often people ever get to see it.

“Well, it’s our stipend,” he clarifies. “It’s not like I’m treating you, really. I guess it’s not really a gift if it’s ours.”

Another smile, and he stands back and watches as you rifle through the stacks of vinyl records and CD’s, as you pull one out and read the list of songs, then replace it. You finally settle on one, and the two of you check out, and Horacio pulls out his wallet and pays.

And even if it’s your shared stipend, you thank him and smile again, and it feels like something that he can’t quite name.

-----

The third month, June.

You leave the house every weekday for work. Horacio finally has some firsthand knowledge of what Juliana must have felt when he left each day. He had always prided himself that he was able to provide for both of them, that she never had to work.

He had never considered how bored she must have been.

He wakes up early out of habit, but you do too. In the soft pre-dawn light, you go out for a run every day. Part of him remains Search Bloc; he stands at the living room window and watches for you until you return, panting, your t-shirt ringed with sweat. He finds he can breathe easier once you’re in sight.

While you shower and dress, Horacio makes you coffee. The two of you sip at your coffee in companionable silence, and then you’re off.

It leaves him with a full day with little to do.

He cleans the house, but that takes no time at all because both of you are fastidious and neat anyway. He maintains the lawn, trims back the unruly rhododendrons. He bought a weight bench and a set of free weights from a yard sale a few weeks after you moved, and he spends some time lifting in the garage.

That takes him to noon, if he’s lucky.

His afternoons are when he thinks of Juliana the most. Is this what her life with him was like? Back then, he used to scoff at the claim that women needed a life outside of the home. His mother had seemed happy to be a housewife and mother, and he had always assumed that Juliana was the same. Except the children never came, and Juliana had a degree in fashion design from the university—yet when she broached the idea of a job or even an internship, Horacio had dissuaded her.

He had thought he was being a good husband. Now, as he sits and drowses to “Days of Our Lives,” he wonders how he had missed the obvious.

But if he’s Juliana in this situation, you are no Horacio. For one thing, you return home in the late afternoon—he’s never left to eat dinner alone in a too-quiet house. For another, you immediately kick off your shoes and pad over to where he’s cooking dinner, and you fall into an easy rhythm of helping him finish it off.

Halfway through June, you get comfortable enough to start calling out, “honey, I’m home!” each time you return.

Which makes him smile, every time.

And he’s only a passable cook, but you praise every meal he puts in front of you. You joke once, say “I should have gotten a husband a long time ago,” and that makes him smile even wider, and it is easy to fall into the fantasy that this easy domesticity is real. The fantasy only falls apart at night, when you each retire to your separate rooms, as you do every night.

-----

The fourth month, July.

The easy domesticity cedes to something deeper and darker right at the start of the month.

Horacio has never been to the U.S. before, so he hasn’t experienced the usual Independence Day celebrations. When he asks, you grin and tell him that a good old-fashioned U.S.-style barbecue might be nice, and that’s what the two of you plan. You and Horacio as Davide and Gwen: patriotic Americans.

The day starts off great. The weather is hot and humid enough to feel like Colombia, and Horacio will admit that you look nice in your cut-off shorts and cotton tank top. He will admit that if you were really his wife, he might never even make it to lunchtime before taking advantage of a quiet house set apart from its neighbors.

The barbecue is nice. It’s all-American fare: hot dogs and hamburgers, corn on the cob steamed over hot coals. You buy an apple pie from a nearby farm stand, and you also make some trifle type dessert, and the two of you wash it all down with ice-cold beer. By the time dusk rolls around and lightning bugs start to flicker across the lawn, Horacio is pleasantly buzzed.

The town puts on a fireworks display, and as the sky turns a velvety black, the light show starts. Your house is in the perfect place to see it, slightly set on a ridge, and blossoms of red and white and blue sparks explode across the sky. Horacio, tipsy, watches the first few minutes, completely mesmerized…but when he turns to say something to you, he finds you missing.

He finds you in the house. More specifically, he finds you in the bathtub, hugging your knees to your chest, forehead pressed to knees.

“Gwen?” he says, and he feels stupid saying the obviously fake name, but he doesn’t know your real one.

You don’t answer anyway, and he steps into the bathroom. Studies you closer. Sees that you are shaking, and between the muffled booms of the fireworks, he can hear your panting breath.

He moves without any real thought. He knows—or can guess, at least—at what is happening to you. Horacio has led enough men through enough battles to recognize a panic attack when he sees one, but you aren’t one of his men and this is no battle, so he puts a gentle hand on your shoulder to alert you that he’s there. Then he climbs into the bathtub with you.

“Scoot forward a little,” he orders softly, and you do. He maneuvers himself behind you, then pulls you closer to him. Your back pressed against his chest, and his arms wrapped around you, he holds you close despite the heat and humidity of the day.

“Just breathe with me.” He takes a deep, slow breath, feels his chest push against you. He does it again and again, and after a long while, you start to mimic him.

The fireworks end, and eventually you stop trembling. Tucked this close to him, Horacio can see the edge of a thick scar disappearing under your hair, and he remembers the bandage on the plane from Bogota.

He wonders if the moment that caused that scar is linked to this moment now.

After you calm, and after you sheepishly untangle yourself from him, he urges you to do whatever you need to. To take a cool shower or go to bed. That he’ll clean up. You gaze back at him a long moment, like you’re trying to decide something, and then you nod. You leave the bathroom and disappear into your bedroom, and he hears that quiet click of the door closing.

The rest of the month is uneasy. The panic attack seems to have dredged up the muck in your past, the trauma of a life that has resulted in you being in Witness Protection, injured enough at some point to have a thick scar on your head.

Something about this feels like an echo from his first marriage. Juliana went silent on him too, but for different reasons. Your silence is driven by an inner turmoil that he can only guess at, and he feels powerless to help.

So he only does what he can. He makes you coffee each morning before work. He makes you dinner each night. He asks gentle, tame questions about your work day, and when you don’t have much to say in that quarter, he tells you that day’s drama on “Days of Our Lives.”

“Stefano DiMera is back,” he tells you one night. “And Marlena is possessed by el Diablo.”

That’s the sole smile he is able to coax from you all month. You pick at the dinner he made, pushing it around with the tines of your fork, and repeat, “the Devil?”

Horacio nods.

“Like, Lucifer the Devil?”

“Yes.”

You smile. “That’s the dumbest shit I’ve ever heard.”

He nods again, smiles back at you. “It really is.”

-----

The fifth month, August.

Horacio finds a job with a state nursery, and when he applies, he nearly despairs at the cliché of it: a South American immigrant becoming a landscaper.

But it’s not landscaping at all. It’s a quiet, peaceful job. The summer interns have already left for the year, so Horacio is hired on to help the old-timer, Lawrence. Lawrence has a thick Yankee accent, says little, but Horacio finds the job a revelation. He walks the rolling grounds and checks on the saplings that will one day be planted across the state. They’ll go into parks and line city streets, and it knocks something loose in him. A job where he’s nurturing life that will potentially live on long after him. The oak sapling he waters and feeds today could live hundreds of years when he’ll be long forgotten.

With him working now, you and Horacio switch off on meals. You teach him how to use the most American of small appliances, the slow cooker. You make him the most American of working class meals, the one-pot dish. He makes you the comfort food from his childhood, and together you find an egalitarian balance.

But something about July and your low mental health…it makes Horacio want to do better. Who knows how long the two of you will end up living like this? He wants to understand you better, and he wants you to know him, because the two of you exist as the sole inhabitants of this weird, unlikely life as Davide and Gwen.

“Let’s each say one true thing about ourselves,” he proposes over dinner one night. He’s bone-tired from work—he spent the day mulching rows and rows of tender little Eastern Hemlocks (and he knows the difference now between them and a balsam fir and a spruce). You look tired too, but at his suggestion, your eyes light up. Maybe you’ve been wanting some familiarity with him too and just were waiting on him to suggest it first.

So August is this: getting to know each other. Dumb stuff, usually. Favorite colors, favorite songs, favorite foods. Most embarrassing memory. Best memory. Age of first kiss.

-----

The sixth month, September.

The weather starts to turn. The nights grow cold, and the leaves transform from all that green to a riot of reds and yellows and oranges. Work at the nursery slows way down, and Horacio spends long hours following Lawrence’s lead, which means an hour or two of paperwork, then lunch, then quietly reading a book at his desk.

You’re busy with the new academic year, but the weekends are spent doing day trips. You’re six months into this, and you’re both braver, more willing to travel afield. You go into the mountains to look at the leaves from a different angle than what you see from your house. You go to pick apples, and you spend a weekend cooking them into pies, cobblers, and apple sauce.

The dinner-time “one true thing” game ends, and it turns into natural conversation. It’s so comfortable now. You chat and laugh and joke, and sometimes he teases you, and it makes you duck your head to hide your pleased smile. You like being teased, Horacio finds. You like being the butt of gentle jokes, so he obliges you as often as he dares.

It’s a revelation to find that he has a sense of humor after all.

Over one dinner, he mentions his first marriage, his first wife. You ask him questions, and he answers them honestly, and then he asks if you’ve ever been married.

“No.” You shake your head to emphasize the point.

“Ever engaged?”

You hesitate, then nod. “Yes. A long time ago.”

“What happened?”

You shrug, lifting one shoulder up before dropping it back down. “Life. Expectations. It’s hard to say.” You take a sip of your water, then settle your gaze somewhere past Horacio, like you’re looking at the specter of your failed engagement.

“I was young and very career-driven,” you add. “And not many men want that in a wife.”

“I’m sorry.” He is, of course, and he’s doubly-sorry because he was arguably one of those men. He kept Juliana at home, stifled her own career aspirations. A flush of shame courses through him at the memory of his own failings.

Another shrug. “It was for the best.”

“And now here you are, married to me,” he teases, and yes—you duck your head, but he catches the shy little grin, the curve of your cheek as you smile at the joke.

-----

The seventh month, October.

It’s the first time you’ve actually ordered him to do anything, so Horacio finds himself busy each weekend, decorating the house for Halloween. There’s ghosts strung in the trees in the front yard. Fake gravestones jut from the lawn like rotting teeth. Purple and orange lights are strung around the windows and banisters of the porch, and the two of you set to carving more pumpkins than Horacio thought possible.

But it’s worth it, because your town goes all out for the holiday. You bought him a costume weeks ago, and when he dresses after dinner, he’s surprised to find you openly checking him out. Your gaze sweeps from the hair on the top of his head—longer than Search Bloc reg, curling at the nape of his neck—to his shoes, and you take in his vampire costume.

“You look handsome,” you tell him, and he tries not to ogle you in turn and utterly fails, because you’re dressed up like a witch but the black dress hugs your curves, and the ridiculous hat, complete with a floppy brim, does nothing to detract from how sexy you look.

Horacio finds himself sitting on the front porch with you, handing out candy to the children that come by. And it charms him, how much you get into it, how you guess at what each child is supposed to be. You read the kids perfectly—you’re sweet with the scared little ones, but you play up the witchiness with the older ones, crooking your fingers and cacking at them.

When there’s a lull in the crowd at one point, he catches you as you shiver, so he pulls you close to him and wraps his cloak around your shoulder. He never touches you much, but this is blatant, and the moment feels heavy with intent.

You lean into him. A moment later, he feels your arm wend its way around his waist, under his cloak, so he holds you closer.

The evening continues like that. The two of you play it up more and more, comfortable with pretending. Not you and Horacio, and not Davide and Gwen, but a vampire and a witch, and the more you cackle and scare the children, the more Horacio flashes his fake teeth and hisses at them.

Who ever knew handing out candy in a cheap drugstore costume could be so fun?

When another lull happens, he pulls you back to him, and the motion takes you off balance a little. You hold him back but lean away from him, searching for your equilibrium, and it bares the smooth column of your neck to him.

Horacio forgets himself. Davide forgets himself. The vampire he’s pretending to be dips his head, and he presses the plastic points of his fake teeth into your pulse point, and you give a squeal of surprise, but when Horacio lifts his head to study you, he sees you staring back at him, your eyes wide and dark with obvious desire.

“That’s a good way to get a hex on you,” you warn, but there’s a smile on your red lips, and you don’t release your own hold on him. You don’t shove him away.

“I enjoy a good hex,” he replies.

The stream of children eventually dies off. The bowl of candy has been replenished multiple times, but you fill it one last time and set it on the porch for any stragglers.

Inside the house, you go from room to room and check the locks on the doors, turn off the lights. Horacio lingers near the hallway, and when you turn to make your way to your room, he stills you. He puts his hand on your waist, lightly, and he doesn’t say anything. The moment hangs suspended as you both stand there, silent.

What does it mean for Horacio Carrillo to take you to bed?

He has always tried to be a good Catholic (the killing of narcos aside). He’s never been with anyone other than Juliana, and he feels a tinge of doubt. Guilt, too. He’s always prided himself on his fidelity, and post-divorce, he took a perverse pride in the fact that he never took a lover. That he still honored his vows despite the legal fact that he was no longer married.

He doesn’t mourn Juliana anymore, and he knows that something is growing between the two of you now, but what does it mean? Would it be right to sleep with you, knowing that this is just circumstantial? That it may end at any moment? That if you both weren’t in WitSec, you’d have never met, and might have never liked each other if you had?

Is this thing growing between the two of you only the result of being flung together by circumstances out of your control?

All of those questions rapid-fire through his head, and you seem to see the doubt in his eyes because the moment deflates. The energy and anticipation sour, and he sees it on your face. Your soft smile falls, and then you nod to yourself, as if you knew it would happen like this.

Then you smile again, thank him softly for his help handing out candy. You stretch towards him and brush the lightest of kisses against his cheek, and you step around him to go to your room.

When Horacio goes to bed, it takes him a long time to fall asleep, and he swears you must be awake too, separated only by the wall between you.

-----

The eighth month, November.

Your department at the university puts on a wine and cheese social, and spouses are encouraged to attend.

“We never really practiced our cover story,” he says as he bends over to tie his dress shoes. “Do you remember all of it?”

“I have a eidetic memory.”

“Yeah?” He glances up at you. “You’re full of surprises.”

“Don’t sweat it. It’s a bunch of tenured professors. They love to talk about themselves and nothing else. They are all narcissists of the worse variety.”

But you aren’t entirely correct. The party is at the house of the department chair, and Horacio finds himself cornered by a pair of fellow lecturers. They are older women, charming and gregarious, and they sing your praises…and his own.

“I can see why she’s kept you hidden away,” says the taller of the two. “She said you were handsome but—”

“You make a gorgeous couple,” the shorter one cut in. “And she’s brilliant, you know, she planned out this—”

On and on they go, cutting each other off, redirecting each other, not letting Horacio get a word in edgewise. It’s not far off base from how you explained it would go, and when he catches your eye from across the room, you smile but mouth, “you okay?”

He nods, smiles back at you.

The evening is halfway over when he realizes with a start that he hasn’t cased the room once.

He hasn’t counted the exits and windows, hasn’t studied the egresses and any obstacles to them. He hasn’t scowled at each face to try and determine what dirty secret they held, if Escobar or one of his men had compromised them or their family. He hasn’t studied the lines of their clothing to see who might be hiding a piece.

What does it mean for Horacio Carrillo to lose his edge?

It’s another question he ponders at night, since the minor disaster of Halloween. He knows he hurt you by hesitating in that moment in the hallway, but it’s a subtle hurt. He can see it in your eyes each morning, the way they study his face as if you could perhaps read his thoughts if you watch him closely enough.

More and more, these questions plague him because there’s no easy answers. Horacio is used to solving problems, but he’d be the first to admit that many of his solutions were just brute force. Displays of power. The Search Bloc has a problem? Send in men, armed men, men with guns and night-sticks, men with flint in their souls, men with hearts cased in granite. Send in Colonel Carrillo himself to a clandestine meeting place where a suspect is strung up. What’s a little light torture and murder when the fate of a country hangs in the balance?

That man is dead now. Horacio Carrillo received a state funeral, and his empty coffin lies in the mausoleum. Davide, his replacement, spent the week wrapping tender saplings in burlap in anticipation for the coming snows—all the while considering his place in the greater world and what his legacy may be.

At the end of the evening, Horacio finds you, brings you your coat, holds it out while you shrug your way into it. When the two of you leave, you pass the pair of lecturers who had cornered him, and their exchange is like a Greek chorus that follows him home.

“He is handsome, isn’t he?” says one. “She’s a lucky woman.”

The other one scoffs lightly. “He’s the lucky one.”

You must not hear them because you don’t react. You only let him lead you to the car, and when he brushes away the light dusting of snow with the snow brush, his eyes find yours through the windshield—and you smile at him.

-----

The ninth month, December.

The university shuts down for most of the month, and Horacio is on an abbreviated schedule a the nursery.

The two of you have so much time together.

Horacio has seen snow before, but never like this. Vermont, so green when he arrived, is swaddled in thick layers of white like cotton batting. It absorbs and reflects sounds in weird ways, and a hush falls over your little home.

Being Colombian, he should hate it. He should curse the cold and the snow and the quiet, but it does something to his soul. It soothes him in a way he never would have guessed. True, the cold is difficult at first, but you take him to the mall one weekend and load him up with sweaters and thick woolen socks, and he’s better after that.

Everything is so calm. Peaceful. Horacio has never slept so well in his life, bundled under layers of blankets, even on the uncomfortable daybed. He sleeps, he doesn’t dream, and he wakes up naturally, in slow measure, to a soft light creeping across his bedroom floor.

Being on break, you still wake up early. Earlier than him, some days, and when Horacio wakes to the scent of brewing coffee and something delicious baking in the oven, he wishes sometimes that this was the afterlife. He wants to freeze the moment in time and never let it slip past him. He wants nothing more, in this moment.

He’s always half-asleep those mornings, but the smell of food draws him out. One morning, he pads out to the kitchen in his thick socks and startles you when he grumbles “good morning.” You shriek, then swear, then lightly try to swat him with the spatula in your hands, but he’s still half-asleep, still incredulous that this is his life at the moment, and he takes the spatula from you and pulls you into a big bear hug.

“What’s this for?” you ask. Your words are muffled against his chest, but after a beat, you wrap your arms around his midsection and hug him back.

“Just because,” he replies.

You spend your days doing puzzles, reading, listening to music. You watch “Days of Our Lives” with him and you both laugh at the bad cosmetics and even worse acting on the demonic possession storyline.

Your evenings are spent cooking dinner together. You make the trip into town every few days, and you rent movies and watch them too. You watch everything together—old Hollywood classics, campy horror, meandering romances. The two of you sit on the couch side by side, and it takes all of a day before you’re tucked in against his side, his arm firm around your shoulders.

Sometimes he glances down at you and sees your face in profile lit by the flickering light of the television. Sometimes he can make out the edge of your scar, but he doesn’t linger there. Instead he takes in the whole of your face—the curve of your cheek, the sweep of your lashes as you blink. When something funny happens on the screen, you smile, and it makes Horacio’s heart stutter in his chest to see it.

What does it mean for Horacio Carrillo to fall in love?

Another question to ponder. Another riddle to solve. He’s losing sight of the man he was. Maybe that man is completely lost already. The thought doesn’t unnerve him; he thinks he likes the man he is here. He likes the man he is with you, the job that coaxes life into being instead of snuffing it out. He likes wearing cable-knit sweaters and thick socks and eating the banana bread you bake on mornings you don’t have to work.

He likes sitting on the couch with you and watching a rental VHS of “Beetlejuice.” He likes the feel of your body pressed against his, and he likes looking down to see you smile.

That’s the night he dares ask for more.

After the movie, you do your usual pre-bedtime sweep of the house—locks, lights—then brush your teeth and go to your room. The usual quiet click of your door closing. Horacio, as usual, goes to his room, peels back the layers of blankets, prepares to tuck himself into the cramped bed….then doesn’t.

Instead, he returns to the hallway. He taps a finger on your door, a soft staccato, and he hears you call out, “Davide?”

“Yes.”

You tell him to come in, and you’re sitting up in bed. Your eyebrows are furrowed together.

“What’s wrong?” you ask.

He shakes his head. How can he begin to explain it? He’s fluent in English, Spanish, and Portuguese, and his Italian is passable, yet not a single language he knows can capture the maelstrom of emotions roiling through him. He loves you, he wants you. He’s afraid you don’t feel the same for him. He’s afraid you do feel the same for him. Is this just situational or are you truly the woman he was meant for all along? Has he gone mad? Is this some tame mental breakdown, the result of coming close to death and then finding himself, improbably, in Vermont with a woman who also was near death?

From your “one true thing” game, he knows you’re a polyglot too—English and Spanish and Russian—but that shake of his head to your question seems to transcend the need for language. You seem to read it exactly, the turmoil in him, and you climb out of bed slowly, make your way over to where he stands by the door.

You reach down and take his hands in yours, and the touch bolsters him. Reassures him. He’s Horacio and Davide both, and you’re both Gwen and yourself, and he doesn’t need to parse the two. He can be both with you. You’re both complicated people with complicated pasts, but none of it matters right now because the world is swathed in layers of snow, and the two of you are the only two who exist in it.

Neither of you say much else for the rest of the night. When you turn your head to peer up at him, Horacio tilts his head to kiss you, and it’s like a bolt of lightning when he does. Maybe he fell in love with you by small moments, but this is the moment that seals it forever: this first kiss, his mouth on yours, writes your name—your real name, even if he doesn’t know it—on his heart like a line of fire.

You each lead the other back to bed; you tug him, he pushes you, and you fall gracelessly back on the rumpled covers, but each kiss, each searching touch peels back another layer of reserve. Horacio slides his hand under your shirt and cups the softness of your breasts, pinches lightly at your hardened buds. You slip your hand under the waistband of his flannel pajamas and grasp his growing erection, stroke it into full hardness as he groans into your mouth.

There’s no art to it. No seduction. You’re both starving for each other, ravenous, and you both kiss the other as you each strip out of your layers. He kisses down your neck, nips at your pulse point like he did on Halloween. He licks against the hollow at the base of your throat, draws the sweetest goddamned moans out of you, then returns to kiss you, to lick against the inside of your mouth so he can feel the sounds you’re making too.

If he’d known how vocal you were in bed, he would have summoned his courage months ago.

Your mouth is on him too. It’s another line of fire, each press of your lips on his bare skin. He finds himself on his back and you astride him. He reaches up to touch your bared breasts, but you don’t even notice because you lean down, focused only on him. Your mouth on his neck, along his stubbled jaw. You kiss his collarbones, his chest. You bite lightly against his nipples, your teeth making him huff at the sensation, and then your warm tongue laving him. Further down, a trail of kisses across his belly, which is less firm than it was in his Search Bloc days but you make a pleased noise as your mouth places wet, lingering kisses there.

Then even lower, and this is uncharted territory. Love-making with Juliana was only ever for the purpose of making children, and while Horacio had convinced her a time or two to go down on her in the interest of foreplay, he never has received head in his life. Juliana had called it dirty, and he had left it at that.

He doesn’t even register it until he feels your hand grasp him at the root of his cock, then feels the smallest, most kittenish little lick of your tongue against his leaking tip.

“Dios,” he groans out, and then he feels the rest: your tongue tracing a pattern along the length of him, then a teasing rhythm where you work him into your mouth. First just the tip. You lavish him with attention there, suckling against the most sensitive part of him, lapping up the pre-cum that leaks from him. Then more and more and more; you work him into your warm, wet mouth, and he feels your breath tickling against his groin, feels you breathing carefully through your nose as you take him as far as you can, and then you swallow against him, you hum against him, and it’s nothing like he’s ever felt before. You press your tongue against the underside of him and you hollow your cheeks, and when your warm palm reaches up to lightly fondle his balls, Horacio’s orgasm breaks around him like a tidal wave. His hips judder once, twice, and he thinks he warns you, but you don’t move. You only hold yourself there, and when he comes, you swallow every drop of him, and he wishes he could explain this feeling to Juliana: that it doesn’t feel dirty at all. It feels like a sacrament. That it feels like love.

It's only fair that he shows you his love for you in turn.

Once he recovers, he flips you onto your back and repays you in kind. He kisses his way down your naked body, makes a note of all the spots that you moan at. Make a note too of all the scars that speak to a life a lot like his was in Colombia. He kisses your scars, presses his lips to each raised ridge as if he can take away any lingering pain.

Then he settles between your legs. There’s no shyness he can detect; you spread your thighs eagerly for him. You allow him to put a pillow under your hips to tilt your pelvis into a more agreeable angle.

He’s not especially skilled at this. The handful of times with Juliana had been a race against the clock—a sprint to coax her to orgasm before she gripped his hair and made him stop. There’s no clock now, so he takes his time. He settles your legs on his shoulders and he bends his head to your gorgeous pussy, and he takes his time.

He licks against your folds, then reaches down to part them with his fingers. Licks a slow, tortuous route from the firm bud of your clit to your entrance. Over and over and over until you squirm underneath him—then he slides a finger into your clenching heat, then another, then a third, and he feels how your pussy twitches against the intrusion, how you grab against his fingers like you’re trying to pull him deeper into you.

He fingers you in a lazy rhythm, and he circles his tongue against your clit. That does something for you; you whine out a curse, and a moment later your hand is on his head, your fingers tugging against his hair, so he purses his lips, suckles against your clit, and that turns your whine into a wail.

He wishes he could tell Juliana this too, that this isn’t dirty either. When you come, he feels a flush of pride at drawing pleasure from your body—your thighs tight against his head, your pussy clamped down on his fingers, and the slick cum that pulses from you, that coats his tongue and lips in the taste of you.

He’s hard again, but he wouldn’t press his luck. This is more than he ever dared hope for. He’d be happy to curl up with you now, to fall asleep beside you, but when he lifts his head from where he’s perched between your thighs, he sees you gazing back at him.

“Please,” is all you say, and he knows what you’re asking for because he wants it too.

If there’s an argument about this being two people pushed together because of circumstances beyond their control, there’s also an argument about the two of you fitting together so well. Because you do. Your body seems like it was made for his; you fit together like two jagged puzzles pieces. Horacio settles over you, lowers his body onto yours, and it’s like magic: his cock bumps against your inner thigh, but he moves half an inch and he finds your wet heat, and then he’s pushing into you, feeling your feverish flesh part and mold to the shape of him, and then your legs are around his waist, holding him to you as he bottoms out inside you.

He stills for a long moment. He’s unable to move. It’s not because he’s afraid he’ll come too soon but because he’s afraid he might cry. Horacio Carrillo is not a man who cries (maybe Davide is), but gazing down at your face, seeing the stunned love written in your expression, he nearly cries at how lucky he feels. How blessed. That shootout in the Medellín alley should have killed him, yet here he is.

Eventually, you give him the faintest of nods, and he starts to move. He’s gentle at first. He warms you up to the feel of him, and him to you. You lay one hand on the side of his face, cupping his cheek as he thrusts into you, but the other hand settles over his heart.

He could love you like this forever. He coaxes a second, then a third orgasm from you, and he watches your face during each one—the way your eyes go wide, then close tight, the way your mouth takes a hitching breath then goes slack as you breathe through it. The look on your face as it ebbs away, your eyes shiny with tears, and happy little smile curving your lips.

“I want you to come,” you whisper to him. You must feel the tension in him, and you bear down on his pistoning cock to urge him along.

“Where?” he pants out.

“Inside me. Please. Come inside me.”

He knows you’re safe. He’s lived with you for nine months now, and he’s run enough errands with you to know that you have that little plastic compact you pick up from the pharmacy once a month. He sees you swallow the same pill each morning with your vitamin. But still—he’s a man with his history, so he doesn’t register your contraceptive use in this moment. The thought comes to him that if he comes inside you, he may make you pregnant, and Horacio is surprised by how quickly the thought urges his orgasm forward.

“You sure?” At your words, he’s amped up his thrusting, driving forward in deep, strong strokes until he swears he can feel the crown of his cock nudging against the end of you, and the thought takes hold: you round with his child, the two of you in this bedroom with a child in the guest room converted into a nursery. At this moment, it’s the tamest of breeding kinks, but in the morning, he’ll realize it’s just more of this perfect life extrapolated. You not as his pretend-wife but as his real wife. A child as tangible proof that this isn’t just an incongruous moment in time.

“Yes. Please.” You lick your lips, blink up at him. “I-I want to feel you coming inside me.”

It’s only fair that he obliges you. You ask so nicely, so he does: he thrusts three, four times more, then feels his pleasure snap and spark up his spine as he fills you.

Then he collapses on top of you, and a moment later, he feels your fingers combing through his hair, lightly running over his back.

“You can sleep here, if you want.” You say it shyly, like you think this might just be a physical release for him, so he lifts his head to kiss you and reply that he wants that very much.

Horacio never sleeps in that cramped daybed again.

-----

The tenth month, January.

What does it mean to Horacio Carrillo for the lines between real and pretend to blur?

It means that through Christmas and into the new year, you live as husband and wife. You live as newlyweds. You make love in every room in the house, and you spent lazy days tangled up together. It means you draw straws to see who has to drive into town for provisions, and it’s all a joke anyway because you always go together. It means your world collapses down into the most basic of human needs: feeding and fucking.

It means that between love-making, the two of you share more about your real lives. Horacio learns about your family life. He learns that you’re CIA, and you’ve been stationed in Panama post-Noriega. He learns that it was an explosion, a car bomb outside of your headquarters, that left you with that scar on your head.

You learn about the Search Bloc and Escobar. You learn about his childhood as the son of a great military leader, and how that legacy shaped his own life and career.

But what does it mean when that line blurs?

It means that when Johnson returns to your lives, everything ends abruptly.

“Everything is all clear,” he tells you when he turns up one Saturday in the middle of January. He sips at the cup of coffee you made him, and if he notices the stunned silence of both of you, he doesn’t remark on it.

“Escobar was gunned down early today. It hasn’t hit the wire yet.” Johnson glances at you. “And the group that bombed your HQ has been cleared out too. You’ve been safe for a few months, but we didn’t want to upset the situation here.”

“So now what?” you ask, and Horacio feels sick to his stomach as Johnson explains that your old lives are waiting for you and that it’s time to go.

-----

The end comes that day, but not the way Horacio thought it would.

You gesture to Johnson after he gives the rundown on the logistics, and the two of you go outside. Horacio watches from the kitchen window as you cross your arms against the cold. You talk, Johnson listens. Then Johnson talks, you listen. Back and forth, and by the end Johnson shakes his head, shakes your hand, and returns inside.

“Okay, so change of plans,” he says, and he rubs his hands together briskly to bring the warmth back to them. “It’s just you and me now. Go pack and say your goodbyes, and I’ll be back in an hour.”

He leaves, and Horacio watches him pull out of the driveway, and when he turns back to the interior of the house, he sees you standing there. Crying openly, tears cutting tracks down your face.

“I can’t go back,” you explain, your voice thick with tears. “I won’t.”

Then you break down into sobs, and it’s second nature to stride over to you, to pull you into his arms. He tries to soothe you—rubs your back, holds you to him—as you choke out the words. That you have had a crisis of conscience. That you wonder if your work in the CIA did more harm than good. That you think it’s the former, and how you want to spend the balance of your life not doing more harm than good. That you want to live in a quiet town that is green in the summer and swaddled in white in the winter. You want to teach, you want to come home to a house with….and you catch yourself at the last minute. You don’t say it, but Horacio can guess it.

You want to come home to a house with him in it. You want to come home to him.

“I love my life here,” you amend hastily, but you push away from him, aware he’s leaving and that your life won’t be exactly the same either way. You mumble something about not wanting to say goodbye, about wishing him the best, and then you disappear down the hallway. He hears the click of the door and your crying, and it doesn’t abate while he packs.

When Johnson returns, Horacio taps on the bedroom door, but you don’t answer and he doesn’t push it. He’s sleepwalking through the moment, numb, so he leaves. He doesn’t say goodbye. He only climbs into Johnson’s rental car, and each mile that Johnson puts between you and Horacio only makes the numbness grow.

“Women, huh?” Johnson says as they near the airport. “That’s why I said they should never take field work. They don’t have the stomach for it, in the end.”

Horacio grunts a non-reply, but he thinks Johnson is off the mark. It’s not that you don’t have the stomach for it. It’s that you don’t have the heart.

-----

February.

He goes from Vermont to Miami, this time around.

Horacio is given a hotel room, and he’s given the orders to just chill for a bit. Johnson has extricated him from his fake life as Davide, but his old life as Colonel Horacio Carrillo isn’t quite ready for him yet.

There are mountains of paperwork to bring a man back from the dead. There’s talk of giving him a cushy role in Madrid. There’s talk of commendations, medals, a comfortable pension to retire on. He’s done a lot for his country of Colombia, and Colombia wants to reward him.

He sleepwalks through this liminal space. The not-Davide, not-Horacio time. He wanders the streets around the hotel and picks at the food he orders in restaurants, and each time he hears a woman speak, he looks up expecting to see you.

I don’t even know her real name, he thinks.

Gwen, his one-time pretend-wife. Gwen, who had a panic attack on her country’s birthday. Gwen, who questioned the harm she may have caused to another country, another people. Gwen, who only wants the chance to do a little good now, or at least to do no more bad. It wasn’t Gwen at all, but he has no other name to use, so he runs through all the lovely little moments he had with Gwen.

Watching for you to return from your daily jogs. Walking through the falling leaves of autumn with you. Making you coffee, pressing the steaming mug into your hands each morning. Handing out candy to the children at Halloween, tucking you under his cloak at the autumn chill. Watching movies with you as the snow fell outside, then curling up in bed with you, slotting his body against yours, giving you pleasure and taking pleasure from you in equal measure. Threading his fingers through yours as he arched over you, his eyes falling on the glinting light in the gold band in your ring finger, it’s twin on his own.

What does it mean for Horacio Carrillo to finally make a choice?

Of course he’s made choices before. Every day, he made a million choices, large and small. But the big stuff, the giant stuff, the life-shaping stuff—did he have much choice? His father’s military career pretty much guaranteed his own career in the Search Bloc. His family’s status pretty much guaranteed he’d marry a Catholic girl from a family of similar standing. And when Juliana chose to leave him, he really had no choice then, either.

Same with his pretend life of ten months. He had no choice in being paired with you, no choice in ending up in New England, little choice in working as a man who tended trees.

He imagines you in your shared home, alone. Johnson explained on the plane that you’d be able to buy the place, that WitSec only rents homes across the U.S. He explained that this has happened more than once, and that it’s actually not too difficult to let a witness slide into their pretend-life permanently.

The choice comes down to the most mundane thought. Horacio stands in his hotel room in Miami and wonders, who will make her coffee in the morning if I’m not there?

*****

Winter always loses its charm by the time February rolls around. The fleecy white snow turns into grey slush, and everything is cold and soggy and depressing.

Davide leaving doesn’t help at all.

You knew it would end eventually. You didn’t have much insight into his situation, but you knew that the cartel targeting you would be easy enough to neutralize. They were only there because of the power vacuum left behind by Noriega, and they were poorly organized.

You just thought when it ended, you’d have more time. Which is one of your fatal flaws, always thinking you’ll have more time. Your father died from a heart attack when you were in high school, and your mother died from a car crash when you were in college. You, more than anyone, should realize that time was never a guarantee, yet you always think you have a surfeit of it.

It's not your proudest moment, those final minutes with Davide. Not falling apart in a wash of tears, and not fleeing to your room. You should have committed to one extreme or the other. You should have either calmly explained your decision and bade him farewell…or you should have given in to the emotion of the moment and spilled everything.

Why do you never learn your lesson? You never had a chance to tell your parents that you loved them before they died. Why didn’t you tell Davide you loved him before he left to return to whoever he was before?

You know you could find him. You’d caught his lightly accented English and guessed at South America. Colombia, if he was hiding from Escobar. He told you about the Search Bloc. You knew some people in that theater. You could find him and tell him that you loved him, but would it do more harm than good? Doesn’t he have the right to return to his previous life without any baggage from this one?

February, then: grey, cold. You go to work. You teach your classes and hold office hours. Political science can create real monsters, so you gently try to steer your students towards the path of diplomacy and not war. Maybe this is how you make amends, if such a thing is even possible.

You go home each evening and pull together a sandwich for dinner. Sometimes you get take-out, and you eat over the sink. Sometimes you watch T.V. and sometimes you read, but you always sleep alone with Davide’s pillow clutched to your chest, the lingering scent of him fading away within days.

-----

Then March. The snow starts to melt a bit, and under some of the trees in your backyard you start to see the little purple and white jewels of budding crocuses.

You resume your runs in the mornings. The campus shakes off its doldrums too and the students seem livelier.

You made the right choice to stay. You go to the bank with your real name and get a mortgage. You buy the house under your real name, and you go to the university human resources and hand over the paperwork Johnston gave you, and it’s weird at first, explaining why you’re not really Gwen, but it shocks you how quickly people adapt to using your real name.

-----

March is still fresh when there’s a knock at your door one Saturday morning.

Your first guess is that it’s a delivery. Johnson promised to ship all of your stuff from your apartment in Panama City. Not that you have anything valuable, but it would be nice to have your record collection back. You don’t want to have to rebuild that from scratch.

You’re already out of practice from your prior life. You don’t bother to check who it is, don’t look out the window before you open the door, and so it’s a shock to see Davide standing there, his fist lifted like he’s about to knock again.

He drops his hand and opens his mouth, but nothing comes out. You are speechless too, but you don’t need words to because as he drops and unfurls his hand by his side, you see the way the gold ring on his finger catches the morning light.

He’s still wearing his wedding ring, you think, and your body moves towards his, you leap into his arms and he’s there to catch you. You breathe out his name, but he chuckles, pushes you gently away from him.

“No, cariño,” he replies, shakes his head. “Not Davide.”

“Well, no. I mean—”

“I’m Horacio,” he interrupts. You reply with your own name, and he repeats it, almost to himself.

“Everything else was me,” he adds. “Everything but the name. What we had…” He trails off, fixes you with that dark-eyed stare of his.

“Everything else was me too.” All of the bare facts of your fake life as Gwen hold little weight to that nebulous everything else: every joke and shared laugh, your Fourth of July panic attack. The feel of his hand on your waist when you went apple picking. The way his hair curled after a shower, and how you loved to run your fingers through it when he fell asleep beside you. All of it. Every stupid little moment that most other people would have already forgotten.

Horacio holds up his hand to show you the ring you’ve already noticed. “I never took it off. It didn’t even occur to me to.”

You hold up your own hand. “Me neither.”

He looks away, squints his eyes as he looks off into the distance, but you swear you can see tears there. He clears his throat, but his voice comes out rougher than usual.

“I’d like to see if I’m as good a man as Davide was,” he says. “I’d like that chance, but only if you…” Another cough as he clears he throat, then continues. “Only if you’ll have me.”

You reach out and take his hand in yours. You touch the warm metal on his finger, then the thought comes to you. You slide the ring off, and you feel Horacio watching you. On the plane, you each put your rings on yourselves, but that wasn’t how it was supposed to go, was it?

Now, nearly a year later, you take his wedding ring off. For a long beat, you study it—it’s a simple thing, nothing elaborate. WitSec wasn’t going to waste money on an expensive ring for a fake marriage, and it already has a shallow scratch in it, likely from his job at the nursery.

Then you lift your head and gaze at him, and without breaking eye contact, you slide the ring back on his finger. The smile that spreads across his face when you do is enough of a promise as any vows recited in a church, and he repeats the motion with your own ring—takes it off, then slides it back on with intention.

And then, because there’s no priest there to give the order, Horacio bends down and kisses you for the first time as himself, and the first time as yourself, and perhaps you learn your lesson about time after all because the moment you part, you whisper, “I love you” to him.

And perhaps he needed to learn the same lesson because he sighs, pulls you closer to him, and whispers “I love you too.”

#colonel horacio carrillo x reader #colonel horacio carrillo #horacio carrillo x reader #horacio carrillo imagine #horacio carrillo #colonel carrillo #colonel carrillo imagine #colonel carrillo x reader #narcos #tropes and tales

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boobo13cambridge · 1 year

Text

Send That Picture Promise I'm A Keep It | Kylian Mbappé

Pairing: Kylian Mbappé x f.Reader

Warnings: Fluff, sexting, masturbation (m.)

Summary: What’s it like texting when your husband is a really busy athlete?

A/N: Hello, everyone! I’ve been trying to finish up all my old requests before I get to the new ones. I was actually supposed to post this May 5th, and its now June, oops. I’ve seen all your prompts for the new Kylian smut, and I love all your ideas. I’ll try my best to get them done because for once I have nothing to this summer except find a job, lmao. I swear having a job ready for when you graduate is not easy at all. Uni should’ve prepared us better for the post-grad life. Anyways, as always don’t forget to like, comment, and repost! Enjoy, lovelies ❣️

Kylian: bébé

Kylian: bébééé

Kylian: bééébééé

Kylian: béééébéééééééééé

Kylian: Arrête de m’ignorer 😢 (stop ignoring me)

Kylian: jte veux (i want you)

Kylian: j besoins de toi (i need you)

Kylian: envoie t seins (send your tits)

The incessant buzzing of your phone that was conveniently located in your back pocket was proving to bea major distraction as you were trying your best to follow what your boss was trying to say. You knew who it was without even having to look, the culprit - a certain brown-eyed professional athlete who was called away on international duty.

While you wished you could be there to cheer him on as France played against Gibraltar in Faro, you were unfortunately tied up at work as you had to deal with an important client. As a divorce lawyer, you were constantly surprised to learn just how selfish and idiotic some people could be. You’d think a firefighter would be too busy trying to save people to have two mistress with three children each. Alas, humanity never failed to disappoint. To add fuel to the fire, this particular client absolutely refused to comprise on anything and insisted that he still loved his wife despite being a piece of shit.

Seeing all these cases, you were grateful that Kylian wasn't like that. To be honest, in the beginning of your relationship, you were very self-conscious as footballers were known to be cheaters. A few people (who were no longer in your life) warned you that your husband would inevitably turn out like most people in his profession and leave you for a model. Kylian, on the other hand, turned out to be nothing like that. He was consistently loving, truthful, and patient with you. The media's attempts to tear your relationship apart still pained you deeply, especially the heartbroken look in Kylian's eyes as you shouted at him, accusing him without even giving him a chance to explain.

But returning to the present, your boss finally released you from the conversation as her secretary reminded her that her husband was waiting on the line. Your boss, an intimidating woman whom you respected greatly, was the only one who hired you straight after graduation, despite most law firms turning you away. You suspected they viewed you as nothing more than a trophy wife destined to retire after having a few kids. Céleste Beauregard was the only one who gave you a chance, and for that you would be eternally grateful.

Walking back to your desk, you pull out your phone and look at the messages Kylian send you. Letting out a snort at his antics, you reply.

You: t’a pas un match à jouer toi? (don’t you have a match to play?)

Kylian: c koi le rapport bb?? (what’s the correlation baby??)

You: tu c ke chui au travail kyky (you know I’m at work kyky)

Kylian: allez bb juste une photo 🥺 (cmon baby its just one picture)

You: ds t rêve (in your dreams)

Kylian: fais pas ca (don’t do this)

Kylian: arrête de faire ta difficile (stop being so difficult)

You: t un gros pervert Mbappé 🤢 (you’re a big pervert Mbappé)

You: j d’autres choses à faire ds la vie ke de t’envoyer d pics de mes seins franchement (I have better things to do than send you pics of my tits seriously)

You: t’a pas déjà d pics? (don’t you already have some?)

Kylian: j’en veux d fresh svp (I need new ones pls)

You: tu m’énerve (you’re annoying)

In moments like these, you couldn't help but appreciate having a private office with tinted glass. Glancing around cautiously to ensure no one was present, you carefully unbuttoned your dress shirt, unveiling a seductive, lacy red push-up bra. With one hand, you delicately squeezed your breasts together, your cheeks flushed crimson as you quickly snap a picture and send it to him.

Buttoning your shirt, you feel a mixture of excitement and anticipation, as you nervously bit your lip, holding your breath as you observed the three blinking dots in your message thread. You couldn't help but giggle at doing something so risky at your workplace.

Kylian: putain bb chui bandé 🤤 (fuck bb i’m hard)

Kylian: si tt là ça serait parti en branlette espagnole 😏 (if you were here I would’ve fucked your tits)

You: t dégeulasse 🙄 (youre disgusting)

Kylian: tu m’aimes pareille ❤️ (you love me tho)

You: vrm pas (not really)

You: envoie moi t seins toi (you send me your tits)

Kylian: jpeux tenvoyer qq chose de mieux 😘 (i’ll send you something better)

Your heart raced with anticipation, a symphony of palpitations echoing in your chest, as you waited impatiently for your husband to send you a picture of himself.

As the picture popped up, you felt liquid heat pool in your panties as your breathing deepened looking at the nude Kylian had sent you.

The dim lights showed his hand wrapped firmly around his throbbing cock. Your gaze was fixated on the engorged head of his member, a vibrant hue of crimson, as a drop of precum bubbled on top. You could feel yourself throbbing as you feasted on the photo. Waves of pleasure surged through your core, causing your body to pulse with an insatiable hunger.

You: merde kyky ta pas le droit de m’envoyer sa quand tu c ke jpeux rien faire (shit kyky you can’t just send me this when you know i cant do anything about it)

Kylian: enjoy bb 😘

You: ??

You looked at his message confused, not really sure what he meant. A few minutes later, he sends you a video that ignited a blush so intense it flushed the very roots of your hair.

In the video, he moved with tantalizing slowness, his strong, veiny arms caressing his length with deliberate, seductive strokes. Each movement of his arm drove your senses ablaze. The air around you thickened with the sound of his sinful moans, weaving a symphony of pleasure that sent shivers down your spine.

Your eyes were fixated on the mesmerizing sight, unable to tear themselves away from the erotic scene playing on your small screen. Your breath hitched as he swiped a bead of precum, his fingers glistening with the essence of his desire.

It was when a primal groan escaped his soft, pink lips with the sound of your name on the tip of his tongue that sent a blast of ecstasy through your body, electrifying every nerve ending with longing.

Unable to contain the building heat within you, you instinctively pressed your thighs together, seeking relief from the persistent throbbing that radiated from your slick core.

The video was two minutes long, and you were burning up so fast. As you continued to watch the captivating video, your senses became heightened, every nuance and detail etching itself into your memory. The sheer eroticism of the scene, the raw sensuality exuding from his every movement, unleashed a whirlwind of desire within you.

With every gasp and moan that escaped his lips, you felt the reverberations deep within your core. His sinful utterance of your name was like a symphony of passion, intertwining with the symphony of your racing heart.

As his fingers swept across his velvety skin, spreading the intoxicating precum, the ache between your thighs intensified. The throbbing in your core demanded attention, aching for release. The tension built, and with every second, you grew closer to the precipice of ecstasy.

It was almost a bittersweet torment, because as much as the video set aflame your desire for him, it also intensified the ache of longing for his physical presence. With a final, lingering stroke, the video came to an end, leaving you breathless and craving more.

You: t vrm cruel kyky (you’re so cruel kyky)

Kylian: 😘😘 mmmhhh jte vois samedi? (mmmhhh see you saturday?)

You: non, viens mtn 🥺 (no, come now)

You: jte veux trop (i need you too much)

Kylian: hahah, tu c ke jpp princesse (hahah you know i can't princess)

Kylian: mais jvai marquer un but pour toi bb (but i’ll score a goal for you bb)

You: t mieux ❤️ 🙄 (you better)

You: jtm booboo ❤️ (ily booboo)

Kylian: jtm fort mon coeur ❤️ (ily so much my heart)

You: tu veux que je t’amène qq chose bb? Je c ke tu vas rester à l'hôtel avant le match au stade (do you want me to bring you something bb? I know you’re staying at a hotel before game at the stadium?)

Kylian: ouii, t seins 🤤 (yess, your boobs)

You: ugh bye 🙄

Your playful exasperation was evident as you bid farewell to the teasing suggestion. The exchange left a lingering sense of anticipation and passion in the air, as you both were eagerly waiting to see each other again. The thought of being in his arms, of holding him and kissing him, made you long for him so bad. Looking at the time, you quickly packed your stuff and rushed home, excited to be with him.

#kylian mbappe #kylian mbappe fanfic #kylian mbappe smut #kylian imagines #kylian mbappé #kylian mbappe imagine #kylian x reader #footballer blurb #psg #footballer fanfiction #kylian mbappe x you #kylian mbappe x y/n #mbappe #footballer x reader #footballer imagine

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yrluvjane · 2 years

Text

A Perfect Fit

James Potter x lawyer! muggle reader / Part 2

Note: (Mature sexual content in bold!)

Tired and exhausted, James Potter returned back to his house with the mind to peacefully fall asleep in his lover's arms. It was way past midnight and there wasn't a sound in the air. While normal jobs allowed you to return home at a decent hour being an Auror didn't.

He softly unlocked the door of the fairly large, two story house, hoping that the sound didn't wake any of the inhabitants.

He walked into the house, quietly slipping off his shoes and placing them by the door. He squinted his eyes trying to adjust to the darkness in the room before feeling his way for the light switch on the wall.

With a soft click a soft, yellow lamp illuminated the room, making his dress change much quicker and convenient. James took off his Auror robes and hid them in a secret compartment behind the fireplace after using a quick cleaning spell.

James didn't like secrets, he didn't like lying to the person he loves but he couldn't exactly tell his muggle girlfriend about magic or about the Wizarding world without breaking The International Statute of Secrecy.

The lies and the secrets tore him apart, from secret missions and fumbled up excuses, he knew that Y/n knew they were lies but still trusted him enough to not ask. And the amount of trust she had in him is what made it horrible and heart-breaking.

This is why he and Lily broke up, they fell out of love and lied to each other trying to make their relationship work, they were too young and Lily didn't want to have a child at 21.

A few months after Harry was born he and Lily signed their divorce and she had gave him full custody over Harry, she now lives on the other side of the country with some Artist with a weird French name.

James would be lying if he said taking care of Harry was easy; he was eternally grateful for his friends and parents and all their help. It was hard and exhausting, he stressed and worried over every little thing, balancing life and work and there were moments were he felt like he was being pulled in so many different direction he didn't know which way to turn.

It was on the one blessed day, that he met Y/n on, did he truly felt at peace.

Harry was two and James had a day off at work, so he had decided to take Harry out to a park a little further than the local one.

One moment Harry was in front of him throwing sand everywhere and giggling with the other kids, the next he was panicking all over the park desperate to find the little raven-haired boy.

He was running around like a bird, lettering his parents, screaming and shouting. He almost gave them a heart attack considering the fact all he wrote to them was 'I lost Harry' making them assume the worst of things.

He only calmed down and took a deep, thankful breath, when he heard his young son's adorable little laugh, he immediately rushed towards its direction only to see the boy on a beautiful woman's lap, coloring on a blank piece of paper.

James had sighed and walked over to the two, ready to take Harry home and apologies to the lady. Though when the lady had looked at him, it was as if his brain froze.

She was utterly gorgeous, her hair was slightly disheveled from the breezy air and she didn't have much make up on but the mascara and liner she did have on on was slightly smudged under her eyes.

He remembered her putting her hand out and introducing herself, him stuttering, making a fool of himself and her apologizing for worrying him about Harry.

She had invited him to sit over and just like that all of James's plans were thrown out if the window. They couldn't talk long because she had a busy schedule and swamped for the day. It was by sheer luck did he manage to man up and ask her out by the end of their meeting.

And James has been thankful for that day ever since.

James slipped on a pair of sweatpants and a loose sweater that were folded with the rest of the laundry on the couch.

He softly walked up the stairs to the main bedrooms, avoiding any creaking steps and checked Harry's first. "Hey Prongslet." He whispered, smiling as he kneeled down at his son's sleeping figure.

When Harry had officially turned four, James allowed Harry to completely remodel his room to his liking. It had red walls (thanks to his dad and uncle's) and had golden snitches painted on, which Y/n didn't understand but still admitted was cute.

He's bed had blue sheets and was decorated with four animal-shaped pillows that were made after the four infamous animagi.

Harry was wearing little red pj's with small deer’s imprinted on it, that was a gift from Y/n, and it melted James's heart more than it should. Harry had absolutely loved them and refused to take them off; Y/n had actually bought two more pairs just so Harry could be happy and wear them again.

He adjusted the blanket the small toddler slept with before bending down and kissing the boy's forehead and ruffling his messy hair.

He tipped-toed out the door and softly closed the door, making his way to the master bedroom, where Y/n would be asleep

The master bedroom was huge, almost three times bigger than Harry’s; it had its own bathroom. a walk in closet and its own balcony.

It was decorated in soft grey, black and streaks of good ‘ol Gryffindor gold. Some of the windows were opened, letting in some cool air as Y/n slept soundlessly, unlike James, on the large bed. All of her - except her head - was covered under the duvet, giving James an adorable view.

He quietly slipped under the covers, immediately enveloped by warmth and comfort and raised Y/n head into a comfortable angle. As if sensing his presence, she turned around so that she could lie on side.

He took off his glasses and placed them on the nightstand not before seeing her eyes flutter for a moment, still heavy with sleep.

“Good day?” She asked her voice hoarse and quiet. James hummed, wrapping his arm under her waist pulling her into his chest. “You?” He questioned, brushing her hair out of her face.

She sleepily nodded; she raised her head and kissed his throat, “Sweet dreams, James.” She whispered before falling asleep once more and it was small things like this that turned the Gryffindor into a puddle of love. He wished her a good night and kissed her head before drifting into darkness.

The next morning James woke up at around eight, which meant he had around an two and a half hours to get to his work meeting. He turned to his side, wishing to find his girlfriend but it was empty causing him to groan.

He pushed himself off the bed, put on his glasses and made his way to his son’s room, where he expected Y/n to be; trying to get the toddler to wake up.

The door to the room was ajar giving James the opportunity to peek and spy. Y/n lied on Harry’s bed, the latter snuggled into her side as she tried to wake him up with a story. “…And then your dad spilled the tea all over the table!” She said as Harry giggled.

A very embarrassing story, James noted. “Daddy’s clumsy.” Commented Harry.

“Yes he is.”

“I thought you were on my team! Way to sell me out buddy.” James said as he pushed the door and revealed himself. “Daddy! Were you spying on us?” Harry questioned as he sat up and narrowed his eyes at James, glasses slightly askew.

“I’m going to have to second young Mr. Potter’s question, James. Were you spying on us?” Y/n joined in her professional voice with a raise of her brow.

“Me? Never!” James defended as he walked over to his son and sat next to him on the bed. James grabbed the giggling boy an attacked him with tickles. “No! S-t-oo-p!” Harry pleaded between hysterical laughter. James let the small boy go. And Harry didn't waste a second grabbing his stuffed dog and burying himself into Y/n’s side.

"Traitor." James whispered.

The elder man got up and walked around the bed towards Y/n, leaning down and bringing her lips into a sweet kiss. “Eww..” Harry commented. James pulled out mirroring Y/n’s smile, “You need to brush your teeth.” She said.

“And to take a shower.” Harry added, his voice muffled. Y/n let out a laugh as James gaped at them. “I can’t believe this.”

“You go and get ready, while me and Harry make breakfast.” Y/n said, running her hand up and down the four-year old's back. Harry raised his head and stared at Y/n with big, green, hopeful eyes. ”Can we make waffles?”

“What’s the magic word?” James asked.

“Please?” Harry added, sheepishly.

Y/n chuckled as she ruffled the boy’s already messy hair, “We can make whatever you want.” She said. Harry stood up and pulled Y/n’s hand, “C’mon!”

“Why don’t you take out the ingredients and I’ll follow you in a sec?” Y/n suggested as Harry nodded adorably and frantically, his stuffed dog still in his arms as dashed out the room. “Don’t run down the stairs!” Y/n shouted warning the boy.

“Okay!” Harry yelled back.

Y/n nodded and got up, robe falling all the way down to her ankles. She faced James and smiled, “Morning.” She greeted.

“It’s a great morning.” James whispered as he wrapped his arms around her waist, leaning down and kissing her neck.

Y/n chuckled, running her fingers in his hair making James groan. "I don't have to go to work day, all I need to do is review some transaction documents; so I can stay and watch Harry till Sirius and Remus pick him up."

James hummed into her neck as one of his hand's slipped into her robe and slid up her thigh, pushing up her slip nightdress.

Y/n's fingers comb through the mess of James’ brown hair, getting thick curls out of his face as he tucks his head into the crook between her neck and shoulder, inhaling her scent deeply and leaving open-mouthed kisses on her skin; allowing her to let out a breathy moan.

"Y/n! Dad!" Harry's voice shouts as James groans into Y/n's neck, forcing his hand away and back to his side. "Sometimes I can't wait till he leaves for school." James jokes, standing up, arms still wrapped around Y/n's waist.

"I'll meet you downstairs." Y/n said leaning in and giving him a small peck on the lips before the two departed into different areas of the house.

Walking down the stairs, Y/n heard Harry's incoming patter of feet. She chuckled, when he stopped right in front of her, panting, his stuffed animal in one arm.

Knowing what he wants, she knelt down and grabbed from under his arms, picking him up and hoisting him at her side.

"Got everything?" She asked as she walked to the kitchen, one arm holding Harry and the other picking up her bag.

"Couldn’t reach the flowers."

"It's 'flour' not 'flowers'. Same way of pronouncing but different meaning."

"Flour." Harry said with a big smile, showing his baby teeth.

She placed her bag on a far away counter to avoid it getting dirty and sat the boy on the counter, opening the higher cupboards to get the missing ingredients.

"What's that?" Harry asked from behind.

Y/n turned to face him, his finger pointed at a hidden object. "That is a gift." She said with a grin placing down the bag of flour and watching as the toddler's eyes widened behind his glasses.

"Is it for me?"

"Maybe..." Y/n teased, she grabbed a bowl and began cracking the eggs.

"Can I see it, please?" Harry pleaded, pouting.

"Well you have to do somethings first: brush your teeth, wash your hands, comb your hair, have breakfast and do your homework. Then I'll give it to you." Y/n said, looking at the boy, who stared back with narrowed eyes then crossed his arms and pouted.

"But I don't want homework."

"I have homework too, and the trick is to not think about homework. Think about getting to open the present later on; we can even bake cookies if you finish early." She tempted with a raise of her brow.

The younger boy, bribed with cookies and presents, ran out of the kitchen with lightening speed eager to finish his part of the bargain.

One cold shower later, James slipped on a pair of trousers, red shirt and a black leather jacket (Gifted from Sirius). He shook the towel through his hair trying to dry it out enough to stop dripping. He ran his finger through the curly locks, watching as they fell and stuck to his forehead.

He gathered his worn clothes and threw them into the laundry basket before jogging down to the kitchen. There he saw Y/n with Harry on one hip and a whisk in the other, teaching him how to make waffles.

James let a smile tug on his lips as he walked over to the duo, wrapping his arm around Y/n’s waist. “Daddy, Y/n got me a pre-pra-”

“Pre-sent.” Y/n said breaking down the words, so that Harry could pronounce it correctly. “Oh, do I get a present?” The elder, male, brunet asked looking down at woman. “But daddy, you’re too old for presents.”

“Old? You’re never too old for presents. I’ll have you know, Prongslet, Y/n gives me a present every night; just after you go to sleep.” James said, winking and ducked when Y/n made way to hit him with a whisk causing Harry to giggle.

“You don’t get waffles.”

“I’m sorry, love. It was just a joke. I’m sure I can make it up to you in other ways.” James teased.

Y/n placed Harry down on the counter and chased James around the kitchen island with a drying cloth.

Harry giggled watching the two, he leaned over, opening a drawer and grabbing a hidden camera that his father stashed after a failed camping trip with his uncles that ended with Sirius drunkenly threatening a bear.

Harry raised the camera and snapped pictures of his dad and Y/n and some of him and ‘stuffed Padfoot’.

“Okay, you got me, I surrender, your honor.” James said swiveling around last minute and trapping Y/n in his embrace. “You don’t sound as though you feel guilty.” Y/n said narrowing her eyes, she turned her head to face Harry, who seemed to be playing with a drawer.

“Harry, do you think daddy feels sorry about his actions?”

James smirked at the nickname before giving his son a pouting look. “No presents!” Harry declared, Y/n let out a laugh that grew once met with James’ shocked one.

“I object.” James began, "Overruled!" Harry shouted.

Y/n let out a suprised laugh, turning and grabbing Harry's face in her hand, shaking it as she peppered his face in kisses; the smaller boy giggled.

“You heard him.” Y/n teased and in that moment James couldn’t feel anything but happiness and love. Seeing Y/n and Harry laugh together, it made James think of what a family looked like.

Harry, Y/n, Remus, Sirius, Peter and his parents, that was his family. This was his family.

Waking to Y/n in his arms, reading Harry a story to sleep, making breakfast together (Even if James almost never helped due to his rushed work) and laughing with eachother.

James let a large smile take on his face, he walked over to Y/n and hugged her from the back. “Hey! You can't try and butter up the judge. That’s illegal y’know.” Y/n joked.

He buried his face in her neck and inhaled the floral smell of her hair. “I love you.” He said, his voice muffled.

“It would be quite awkward and weird if you didn’t.”

“Dad, Y/n, I finished, can I play for a little, please?” Harry asked, eyes wide and green. His mouth smeared with cream and crumbs.

“Sure, just wash your hands first and get ready for your uncles today, they should be here in an hour or two.” James replied.

Not a second later, Harry disappeared out the room. Y/n chuckled holding onto James’ hands that were wrapped around her waist.

“Something wrong, James?” she asked, after a moment of silence rang.

“Y/n...” James moaned against her neck, turned around and pushed her against the kitchen island.

He moved his hand under her thighs and sat her on the table, silencing her gasps with a heated kiss; pushing his tongue through her lips and parting her thighs with his hands.

In quick motions he undid the robe, letting it slide down Y/n’ shoulder, revealing her red slip. James groaned at the sight, one of his hands cupping her breast, the other rubbing her thigh. She grabbed his shirt and pulled him closer.

Breaking the kiss, Y/n moved her lips to his jaw and trailed her kisses up to his ear, sucking spots behind it, granted to leave marks.

"So wet..." James teased, as he lightly bit her bottom lip. His fingers made their way to her clit, causing her to moan into his mouth as he started to move his fingers.

“James.” Y/n warned.

"We should stop .." She said as she trailied down kisses on the unbuttoned spot of James' neck.

His only show of response was thrusting a finger into the muggle, eliciting a moan out of her.

James kissed her one last time before he got down on the marble floor, getting down on his knees and placing Y/n's legs over his shoulders; spreading her open for him.

His tongue ran up and down her soaking cunt making her moan and run her hands through his hair pushing it out of his face.

James’ lips suctioned around her clit as she tugged at his hair, making him groan. The vibrations sent waves of intense pleasure through Y/n, making .

"Jamie...so good." She praised as he let off her clit with a pop before removing his finger and fucking her with his tongue as his free hand, started circling her clit.

"Fuck, James!" she huffed out, her eyes closing and back arching; the hand in his hair slipping to the back of his neck, rubbing delicate circles and pulling at the small hairs.

James’ lips sucked on her clit once again moaning against it, he moved his hand once again, his middle and ring finger moving in and out of her as he lapped at her clit.

"James, please- James!" She cried tugging on his hair with one hand while the other clenched the tablecloth, scrunching it in her palm.

James raised his hand, playfully pinching Y/n's nipple causing her to moan and buck her hips against his mouth making him groan.

"Let go, love." He said pulling away, before sucking on her clit again. He could feel her clenching around his fingers.

"James! I'm-I'm gonna-" She cried out, pressing her cunt against him trying to make him go deeper before releasing into his mouth and on his hand.

After a minute he let off her clit and gently pulled his fingers out of her, as tried to catch her breath while staring down at him with hazed eyes.

James teased her one last time before getting up and licking his fingers clean. She narrowed her eyes at him playfully.

"When will you be back?" She asked, watching James as he walked to the storage closet and got a towel, running water over it.

He spread her thighs and wiped them gently, "Around one, maybe two." After he cleaned her up, he threw the towel into the washing machine and stood between her legs, his arms wrapped around he waist as her hands layed around his neck.

"I love you." She said, flicking one of James's dark locks back and running her fingers through his hair.

"I love you too."

@morwap

#james potter x reader #harry potter #harry potter x reader #marauders era #james fleamont potter #james potter x fem!reader #james potter x you #James potter x y/n #james potter smut #james potter #james potter x reader smut #james potter x muggle reader

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ashwhowrites · 1 year

Text

I need help! Are we wanting a happy ending with them getting together or them not ending up together? Let me know your thoughts

Here is part 2- not much that has action. More internal thoughts on both sides of the situation :)

never proofread

Eddie found himself back in a hotel room, again all over. His hands burned whenever he looked at them. The hands he put on his own kid. He was spiraling out of control. He did exactly what his wife was praying he would never do. And then added fire to it all when he lost control with Jake.

She told him to get a lawyer and he didn't know where to start with what she meant. Did she mean divorce? Fidning for custody? Was she going to turn him in him for putting his hands on their son? His brain was going a million miles an hour.

He should have known he couldn't just stop. He heard the story about Liam, he heard about the aftermath and how fucked up he became. Why did Eddie think he could easily avoid the addiction? That he could spend many nights getting high and just turn it off in a day?

He hates what Liam put Jake through, and he hates himself for doing it to him and Aria. He knew Y/N didn't deserve it either. She lost someone she loved to drugs before, and now it was happening again. He felt so damn guilty for putting her through this again. He can't imagine the nights she spent crying when he was at parties and blowing his life away.

She loved him and supported him with everything and he betrayed her in a way that was too close to home.

Eddie knew in his heart that his family was more important than the drugs. He knew he wasn't that far gone that he would choose the drugs over them. He just did a horrible job at showing it.

But he wasn't going to just give up. He had the time to get clean, he had places to go if the withdrawals were worse than he planned. He wasn't afraid to throw himself in rehab if that's what she wanted. He was going to get clean and stay clean.

He knew he had to make it up to Jake as well. All the games he missed because he couldn't get out of bed.

He wasn't going to be in any of Aria's birthday pictures, and one she will ask. He owed to make that up to her too.

And Y/N? He didn't know where to start with making it up to her. She welcomed Eddie into Jake's life and he put Jake in danger. That was unforgivable in many ways. And Eddie wasn't sure if that was something he could exactly "make" up to her. But he knew he'd never make his family feel scared of him again.

~~~

He called every morning, and every night. Sometimes she'd pick up, tell him about Aria's day but that was it. She never said a word about Jake and Eddie understood that. It's been a week since the fallout. He knew that he didn't deserve to even get to call her so he took every minute she gave.

Jake had a game this afternoon, Eddie was nervous to show up, but he refused to miss another game. He wanted to be better and this was a shitty step in the right direction. It wasn't much but he hoped it showed he was serious about being there.

He found Y/N and Aria on the bleachers, he respected their space and sat on the opposite side. He didn't want Jake to be distracted by him. He didn't want to upset Jake in a place he always felt positive in.

As the game went on, the more Eddie got invested. Kicking himself for missing so many games. He tried to keep his cheering low and to himself. Not wanting to alert anyone that he was there and make them all feel uneasy.

Jake's team won and he watched as the boy ran to Y/N, hugging her and talking all about his hits. Eddie craved to be there with them, and it hurt knowing he messed up. It was a reminder that even the little things were different because of his mistakes.

~~~

Y/N was used to being alone since Eddie was distant the whole time he was on tour, but this was so much worse. Knowing he was just blocks away and she couldn't feel him. It was like when she was being tortured, he was dangling right there, but everything was different. It wasn't easy, he messed up and it hurt her to make sure he was held accountable. She wanted her husband back and wanted to fall asleep in his arms. She wanted him to make Aria breakfast, and drive Jake to school.

She just wanted it to go back to the way it was before he left for that damn tour. Before he ruined everything and put them in this tough spot.

She almost felt like she was seeing him places. She felt like he was at that baseball game but when she looked he wasn't there. She shrugged it off and took Jake for his celebration ice cream. Aria blabbing happily in her arms.

~~~

As she got Aria settled for bed, she heard her phone ring. She set Aria down and pulled out her phone. Eddie's name and face flashed across her screen. She took a deep breath and answered the call. Allowing him to say goodnight to their daughter.

Once Aria was set for bed, she moved out of the room. Eddie nervously asked if he could talk to Jake. Eddie felt disappointment settle in when Y/N said that Jake refused. But Eddie accepted his answer.

"Thanks for answering, I love you." He held his breath as he waited for her to say something back. A tiny whisper of "I love you too," traveled through the phone. He felt himself smile as she hung up. It was small but it was something.

She got herself ready for bed, Eddie's side still left untouched. She wanted her husband and her family back. But there was a ton of damage done. She was worried they might not be able to come back from this. Would she look like a fool for forgiving him? Would she be a horrible mother for allowing him near Jake again? She had so many questions and hated she was the only one with the answers.

~~~

Jake tossed and turned in his bed. The picture of him and Eddie framed on his desk was taunting him.

He knew what Eddie did was wrong, but he missed him. He never saw his real dad and barely missed him. But Jake has missed Eddie since he left for tour. The Eddie that came home from the tour wasn't his dad, and he missed that version of Eddie.

He believed that version of Eddie was still there, inside him. How did he know?

He saw Eddie on the bleachers during his game. He still cared and he wanted to make up for his mistakes.

Jake wasn't scared of Eddie, he missed his dad.

~~~

Eddie was seconds away from passing out when he heard his phone ding. He blinked open his eyes and adjusted to the brightness on his screen.

"Thanks for coming today, dad"

Eddie smiled at the text from Jake.

He has a lot of work to do fixing himself for his family. But he knew he wouldn't stop until he did.

Tags!

@bmunson86 @mxcheese @ladymunson @michaelfuckinglangdon @z0mbie-blah @biittersweet @mirrorsstuff @slightlyvicked @micheledawn1975 @ago-godance @magnificantmermaid @tlclick73 @hargrovesswifee @cityofidek @manyfandomsfanvergent @silky-luxe @lokiofasgard616 @loving-and-dreaming @eddiemunsonsbitch69 @thegemaqua @ashlynnkennedy @strangerthingsstories5255 @harringt8ns @pleasinghellfire @whoscamila @dylanmunson @livsters @stylesxmunson @sinczir @monanight @daydreaming-mood @bibieddiesgf @eggo-segual @andrearose89 @how-doing @funny-username-idk @tomorrowseverything @starslibrary @bl4ckt00thgr1n @squidscottjeans @spenciesprincess @hcneyedsstuff @siriuslysmoking @multitargaryen @plant-108 @scarletwitchwhore @dotheyevenknowmars @knowitsforthebetterr @prestinalove @inesven @psychobitchsthings @caravelofthesun @slutfornatty @lofaewrites @corvusskid @cryingsince2005 @g4ys0n @heasorax @hamm3tt @itswormtrain @f0rgggg @munsonmoonshine86

#eddie munson x reader #eddie munson #eddie munson fanfic #eddie stranger things #eddie munson x female reader #eddie munson request #eddie munson angst #eddie munson fluff x reader #eddie munson angst x reader #drugs or me

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themaclean · 2 months

Note

hi i just came from ao3 and firstly, i have read ur vaultghoul fic probably 20 times already it’s just so good with spot on characterization and amazing writing, thank u so much 🙏

secondly, i was reading the comments on it and came across one abt wanting to see a pre-war au where cooper and lucy start an affair and immediately my ears perked up like 👀 all i could imagine is her being cast as his love interest, her being a big fan of his already, and them having a wedding scene where they fuck in her wedding dress after they call cut

n e way so sorry for rambling haha but unfortunately ive got the brainrot now

I MEAN HYPOTHETICALLY -- I'm mobile (and somehow wrote 2k words still wheeze) so I'll finish this when I'm on my PC but I played around with the idea a bit thanks to this ask. :)

...

Summary; Cooper Howard x Lucy MacLean, 2077 AU where Lucy and Cooper star in a movie together.

...

There's a whole host of ways that Vault-Tec could have cracked down on Cooper. Given the infringement of their security protocols and the divorce and the way they choked him out of all the good roles...

It wasn't such a far stretch that he'd have to take place in the biggest circle jerk of a film production where his super-fan shoved his daughter into a starring role using Cooper's connections.

Because, so far as the public knew, he was still a supporter of Vault-Tec and he'd do just about anything to sell that delusion.

Cooper crushed the heel of his palms against his eyes, a limp cigarette hung between his teeth.

The girl was a nightmare.

Stiff, picky, absent-minded. No emotion, either, no semblance of self-awareness. It was like some Disney Princess popped out of the cartoons in the worst way, quick to parrot the lines she was meant to say with perfect diction but nothing more than that.

And it was somehow his fucking job to coach the girl -- Lucy -- into a leading lady. The idea was that she was the daughter of the Overseer, played by her actual father, and Cooper was some vault dweller from another section.

The whole thing was convoluted. He did cowboy flicks and the sort that had a showdown at the end. This sci-fi garbage went right over his head, this future projection of the what-if. He didn't have time for the what-if.

He had a daughter he needed to vy for custody of and an expensive divorce on the horizon. And Barb had the best lawyers money could buy and he'd never thought they'd end up like this. There was no pre-nup and nothing to protect him.

And he didn't have a goddamn lighter.

"You shouldn't smoke."

Cooper near growled around the butt of his cigarette, only just keeping himself civil at the last moment. He turned towards Lucy, unable to mistake her for anyone else. There was something about her vacant, pretty face that irked him, those giant goddamn eyes.

"It's bad for you. I read an article about it."

"Maybe you'd be better off reading your lines again," Cooper said with a wave of his hand. He dug in his jacket pocket, the one he'd worn to set.

Bingo.

Lucy crossed her arms and leaned against the vault railing. It was strange to do the filming down, a hundred feet or so beneath the surface, but it made for impressive sets. They were around the corner from the rest of the camera crew and cast.

And they were alone for the first time since shooting. Most times, Cooper had a few stage hands or interns at his heel. And he didn't see Lucy around much, except for scenes. Didn't chase her down, didn't much think of her.

Except now he's aware she's still in the wedding dress she'd been in earlier. Stage blood soaked the stomach of it, thick streams of blood from where she'd been stabbed. But he'd saved her and they'd shared a chaste kiss for the camera.

And then he hadn't seen her.

"I thought you'd be a better kisser."

Cooper didn't withhold the glare, couldn't bring himself to give a fuck. "Pardon?"

"Just -- the kiss. Didn't really..." Lucy narrowed her eyes at him. "I grew up watching your movies. My dad is a big fan. I always figured you'd be a good kisser, but you aren't."

"You ain't much yourself, either," Cooper said with a raised brow. "Like a fish, sweetheart. Cold."

"I'm not a fish," she snapped back. "That's very mean. I -- I know I was mean first but I just thought you could do better."

Cooper couldn't help but laugh to himself at this miserable brat who'd sought him out to complain about an on-screen kiss. He took a long drag, his gaze slanted across the backs of his knuckles.

"You're here 'cause your daddy yanked some strings," Cooper shrugged a shoulder. "My only obligation is to make a movie for the studio. I'm not your damn boyfriend-for-hire, trying to get you off for the cameras."

Cooper was a professional and on his best behaviour -- usually. But the long days of filming for a corporation rooted in the exploitation of the country he'd fought for... That patience wore thinner with each moment he was alone with this brat.

"I'm here as an actress -- "

"You can act?" Cooper asked, mock surprise as he pressed a hand to his chest.

Lucy had the gall to look offended.

Cooper took another drag, his hip notched against the railing. "It's a movie, darling. I've been doing this shit for years. They ain't gonna let people tongue each other to high hell."

"That..."

"That is exactly how it works," Cooper said as he ashed his cigarette onto the grate beneath his feet. "It's not about you, it's about the shot."

Lucy looked at him like he'd slapped her. "I know it's about the shot."

"Could've fooled me." Cooper huffed out a breath. He'd kissed plenty of women for his films and he was a consummate professional. If the audience bought into it, that was all he needed. He didn't give a damn if his co-star got butterflies over it.

Especially not the daughter of some jackass at Vault-Tec, for a project that was nothing more than an empty propaganda piece. But he didn't have much choice.

"I'm here because it's important to my father. Vault-Tec wanted to keep as many roles as they could within the company -- "

"Nepotism."

"To promote the culture they want within the movie, which is carefully curated -- "

"Cultish."

"To their... Could you stop doing that?"

Cooper crossed his arms, his cigarette nearly finished. The vault had good enough ventilation that the smoke disappeared but the smell lingered. He pushed away from the railing, his expensive smile slack across his lips.

"I had my fill of the Vault-Tec propaganda, sweetheart. Don't make a difference if it's from a pamphlet or a pretty girl, I'm just doing what I'm being paid to."

"Wasn't it your wife -- ex-wife -- who brought you in originally?"

Cooper's neck twitched as he looked down at Lucy, as she smart-mouthed her way right into some shit she didn't know anything about. He tipped his head to the side, the annoying collar of the vault suit biting into his jawline.

"So you believed what Vault-Tec thought originally." Lucy toyed with the stain on her white dress, her fingers tugged at the frayed edge. "What changed?"

"Nothing," Cooper said, his voice flat.

Lucy met his eye, her head tilted to contrast the angle of his head. She settled a hand on the railing, uncertainty replaced her uppity edge from before. "I'm not trying to spy on you or get information. You just -- had your life together, and then you're getting divorced."

"It happens," Cooper said, aware now that she was between him and the crew. The vault split into spidery webs in all directions, though. He could leave her if he wanted. But then he'd end up who knows where, deep in the belly of this steel nest.

But they were alone, and she'd inched closer to him.

Cooper saw the leading ladies he worked with as colleagues. Sometimes they'd have to kiss or imitate gentle moments or intimacy -- but for the most part, he could compartmentalise it. But Lucy didn't act. She couldn't. She was an atrocious leading lady and she read everything as if she were saying it herself.

Like a porn actress, saying shit to get through to the action, rushing through the writing like it didn't matter.

It wasn't her fault. He had the sneaking suspicious she had no interest in acting or in this movie; that she was only doing it because her father asked her to do it. Maybe even so she could have an excuse to meet him, he realized dimly as she looked up at him with wide hazel eyes.

That separation -- of leading lady and of a romantic partner -- muddled with her. Because he didn't even like her. He didn't want to get to know her. He hated her father and he wanted nothing to do with this company.

And she was closer to him than not, and they'd kissed a handful of times, and she'd said he sucked at it.

Cooper rolled his jaw as Lucy didn't have the guts to do more than she had. Her moony eyes fixed up at him like a challenge. And then he felt his resolve snap because it wasn't like he had much to lose. This wasn't a real acting gig and she wasn't a real leading lady.

His hand snapped out, fingers and thumb dug into her cheek. He brought her close, to see what she'd do. The answer was -- not much. She didn't shout or push him away, their mouths inches apart as he hovered close to her, examining her beneath his lashes.

"Bad kisser -- that what you said?"

Lucy swallowed hard enough to nudge his hand. "Well, you were. I'm not going to lie to you to spare your ego."

Cooper made a soft sound from the back of his throat as he kissed her. The distant crack and shift of the crew as they moved their cameras from one vault room to another should be a deterent but Cooper doesn't care.

He's single, isn't he. Has been for a few months. He'd not acted on it, hadn't felt the urge to, but he's as trapped as ever in the shadow of what Barb had done to him. It's only fair he make use of that shadow to indulge, even if it's just to prove a point to this girl Lucy.

There's some inherent amusement to how she melted into the kiss. She wanted it far more than she'd let on, that soft mewing, moaning neediness as he stroked her long brown hair out of her face. He threaded his fingers softly through her hair, hand on either side of her face, fingers combing through her hair.

Her back was arched over the railing as he gave her the kiss she'd probably expected earlier, the one he wasn't about to throw out on camera. There's standards for cinema and he didn't want to waste film or time.

But then her fingers were on the zipper of the stupid fucking vault suit. He didn't stop her, even as she yanked it down and slipped her hand along his stomach.

If anything, he pushed harder against her. The fluffy white skirt of her wedding dress made it hard to get much for himself. But with a yank of her knee and the shift of her weight, he had her seated on the railing. Her shoulder caught one of the metal frames, to keep her pinned in place.

If this were any other job or any other actress, he'd give a fuck.

But it's Vault-Tec, through and through.

#anonymous #my writing #vaultghoul #answered

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izzytheloser12 · 1 month

Text

~~~~dcmk incorrect quotes parents addition~~~~

Yusaku: Hey, do you know the password to Shinichi’s computer?

Yukiko: Fuck you, Yusaku.

Yusaku: Rude.

Yukiko: No, you misunderstood, the password is "fuckyouYusaku".

Yusaku: Oh, no numbers? Not very safe.

~~~~~~~

Toichi: This date is boring! Yusaku: This isn't a date. I said I was going to the store. Toichi: Then why did you invite me? Yusaku: I didnt, I specifically said "don't come with me," then you said, "fuck you Yusaku I'll do whatever I want!

~~~~~~~~~

Toichi: Ginzo, I screwed up, big time. Ginzo: Toichi, given your daily life experiences, you’re gonna have to be more specific.

~~~~~~~~~

Korogo: Ran is off at an appointment, so while She gone, I’m going to cut the sleeves off all of my shirts. Shinichi: Why? Korogo: Shes like 90% of my impulse control.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Yukiko, when Yusaku walks in: Oh, hey, I'm just making pizza.

Yukiko: *accidentally smacks Shinichi in the face with the baking sheet*

~~~~~~~~

Kaito: Well, Shinichi and I finally did it! All of thier parents: gasps, shocked expressions, etc. Kaito: That's right… We kissed!

~~~~~~~~~~

*Megure and Yukiko are teaching Shinichi how to drive*

Megure: That's a pothole. To the left!

Shinichi: Take it back now y'all *Drives into pothole*

Yukiko, sticking their face into the front over the center console: Cha Cha real smooth.

Shinichi: I don't think that's how the song goes.

Megure, crying and gripping the handle: Please just take me home.

Shinichi: Country Roads.

Yukiko: To the place.

Shinichi and Yukiko in unison: I Belong!

Megure, crying harder: What the fuck

~~~~~~~~~

Yukiko: Remember! Curiosity killed the cat!

Yusaku: Yes, but you forget that satisfaction brought it back. So yes, Shinichi, go find out if that thing can catch fire!

Yukiko: You're a bad influence.

Yusaku: And you don't know your sayings.

~~~~~~~

Kaito: You’re alive. Toichi: No need to sound so disappointed.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Shinichi: Can we go out to get lemon pie?

Yusaku: Did you ask mom?

Shinichi: she said no.

Yusaku: Then why did you ask me?

Shinichi: She not the boss of you.

Yusaku, internally: It's a trap, it's a trap, it's a trap.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Kaito: Mom, I got suspended from school… Chikage: WHAT?!?! What did you do? Kaito: My teacher pointed at me with a ruler, and he said “there is an idiot at the end of this ruler”. Chikage: And…? Kaito: I asked which end… Chikage, unable to contain her laughter: Okay, you just made my day.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Chikage: Okay, but what if we went to dinner not as friends this time? Yukiko: AS ENEMIES?! Chikage:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Conan: Go ahead, Ran. Let it out, cry. If you don't, your tear ducts will get blocked up, and then when you get old, you won't be able to cry. Korogo: Just when we thought it was safe to let you back into the conversation.

~~~~~~~~~

Toichi: It’s nice to be wanted, you know? Ginzo: Not by the law!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Yukiko: What are you getting Toichi for the holidays? Yusaku: I don't know. It's kind of hard buying a gift for your partner when they already got everything they could've ever wanted when they married you. So I'm not sure yet. Chikage: I'm getting Toichi a divorce lawyer.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Chikage: Why are there little handprints all over the walls? Toichi, whispering: Why are there little handprints all over the walls? Kaito, whispering: Because I have little hands. Toichi: Because he have little hands.

~~~~~~~~~

Toichi: You've been given a new job to do, but I'm worried it might make you angry. Kaito: Just say it quick, like ripping off a band-aid. Toichi: You have to teach Shinichi how to drive. Kaito: …put the band-aid back on.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Korogo: It’s funny how well you and Shinichi get along. Didn’t they hate you at first? Ran: Shinichi hates everybody at first. It’s his way of reaching out to people.

~~~~~~~~

Shinichi: Do you cook? Yusaku: I made a cake once. Yukiko: Yeah, it was good. Yusaku: Really? Yukiko: Don’t make me lie twice, Yusaku.