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secretsandwriting · 10 days

Note

heyyyy ryyyyy <333

since ur requests are open i thought id go ahead and ask if you're mayhaps open to anything for batmom? i don't have a completely solid idea but maybe smn like batmom has been getting threats or maybe hate or smn from somebody and everyone's reactions and how they get hella protective?

obv no pressure and you definitely do not have to write this

hope you have a great day bb

Heyyyyy, so this grew hands and wrote itself, I hope you enjoy it. It did end up with a lot of backstory.

Earned Position

5.3k words

You knew this would happen. Once your relationship with Bruce got out there would be an influx of love and hate. You also knew that everyone else knew that as well. It was common knowledge than anyone around a celebrity of sorts would experience that.

Of course you did the normal things, turned off most notifications and only looked through areas online you knew would mostly be safe. You blocked tags and and only followed people you knew or ones who didn’t post about drama.

When you did stumble onto hate, you moved on. If someone kept sending you nasty messages you blocked them, when they made other accounts to keep sending the same things, you changed your settings so only those you followed could message you.

It wasn’t something you wanted to deal with but it was something you could handle. Something you started mentally preparing yourself for when Bruce’s attention on you lasted more than 4 dates, even more so when you caught yourself daydreaming about him.

You were not going to let random bitter people on the internet destroy your happiness like they did their own. Your family however, wanted to destroy what was left of your haters' happiness. Something you were trying to curb, but trying to tell a family of vigilantes who considered you the best mom in existence not to destroy your haters was like talking to a brick wall. Over the years, you had gotten used to it. It barely even registered anymore. But there had been a recent influx of the hate and while it didn’t bother you, it bothered the rest of your family. None of them could stand people talking bad about their mom.

While you hadn’t been there while the older ones were young, the second you had introduced yourself to them, you had taken a very important role in their lives. None of them realizing it at first. All of them had gotten used to the random women Bruce brought home that it took a little while for them to realize how important you were.

Dick wasn’t sure at first. Thinking you were just another girlfriend that wouldn’t last long. So he didn’t really interact with you much. Ignoring your existence when it wasn’t too rude, or at least obviously rude. Until one night when he was staying at the manor and had a nightmare about his parents death.

Bruce had an open bed policy. As long as there was still room for him, his bed was open. A policy he had started when Dick had gotten old enough he was worried he wouldn’t be allowed to go when he had a nightmare. Bruce had always reminded all his kids, that nightmares don’t go away just because you’re older and that needing comfort wasn’t something they would outgrow.

The thing was, you were there. Girlfriends didn’t mind when children did it but they never liked it when his adult kids did it. The shaking in his hands and the way he saw them fall in the darkness of every blink told him the only way he was getting any sleep was with someone.

Hopefully he could just slip into Bruce’s side and leave before you woke up. That was the plan until he found Damian on Bruce’s side and you had been pulled closer to Bruce taking up what was left. You moved a little and Dick took that as his sign to deal with it himself until he heard you whisper his name. He hummed so you knew it was him and not some random stranger standing over Bruce’s side of the bed.

“Nightmare?”

“Yeah.”

“Come on.” You lifted the blanket next to you, “Bruce told me you guys come here when you have nightmares. There's plenty of room over here for you.” Dick hesitated for a second before giving in. He needed sleep anyway. You weren’t when you said there was plenty of room, Dick had most of your half of the bed. Once he had settled on his side, facing away from you, he felt you pull the blanket over his shoulders.

“Night Dick, sleep well.” For some reason, that was what did it. Once the tears started they didn’t stop. Silent sobs made him shudder and he felt one of your hands gently rubbing his back. “Oh Dick.” There was no pity in your tone and he found himself rolling over and curling into you. Your chin resting on his head while you rubbed his back.

The next day, he followed you around like a puppy. Your side of the bed became his favorite when he had nightmares and it wasn’t long before he turned to you for general comfort over anything.

Jason met you at his grave. Neither of you exchanged words, but he caught something in your gaze he didn’t quite understand. He also wasn’t sure why you were at his grave either, he didn’t know you when he was younger.

When he saw the Gotham News post about Bruce and Your 2nd anniversary, it brought more questions than answers. Why were you at his grave alone? Let alone longer than a few seconds. It was an odd way to gain more of Bruce’s affections.

Every Tuesday you would be there, leaving flowers and talking softly to the stone. Every time you left, you would smile and nod, the look in your eyes he couldn’t figure out was still there. Every time he would strain to heat what you were saying and only be able yo a few words here and there.

6 months into it, the routine changed. You brought a blanket and Basket with your usual flowers. You did what you normally did with the flowers but instead of talking to the stone you waved him over. When he didn’t move, you stopped what you were doing and looked at him.

“Jason Todd, I have been keeping your secret for 6 months. Helping me spread this blanket and having lunch won’t change it.” He stared at you while you waited expectantly. Eventually when he could get himself to move, he came over and helped. He sat down where you motioned for him too, all while trying to figure out how you knew.

“Bruce mentioned this used to be your favorite when you were younger so I asked Alfred to teach me how to make it. I hope it's up to your standards.” He looked at the plate of food you handed him. It was almost overflowing with food, all of which reminded him of the good times back at the manor before he died. “Alfred also sent your favorite cookies when he heard I would be eating at your grave.” The bag of cookies was placed next to the basket, within easy reach.

“Why?” Was all Jason managed to choke out around the lump in his throat.

“I decided early on in life, no matter who I was with, I would love their family as my own. My grandfather hated my grandmothers side and it caused a lot of pain in all the generations. I decided I would never do that to another family.” Jason found himself back in control enough to start eating.

“So when I started dating Bruce and he told me about you, I decided to treat you like you were my own. Even though I had never met you and you were dead. Most of what that meant was keeping your grave clean and always making sure there were fresh flowers. While I did that, I would tell you everything that was going on.”

“How did you know it was me?”

“Your eyes, they may be a different color but they looked too similar. So I did a little digging and found pictures of your biological pictures to place the face shape it matched. I think however you look more like Bruce then either of them.”

“Are you going to tell them?”

“As much as I would love to. It’s your choice. You’ve been keeping this to yourself for a reason. If I can help you get to a place to tell them, I would love to. But I won’t say a word until you're ready. However, I would like to keep having lunch with you.”

A year later, Jason reintroduced himself to the rest of the family a lot calmer than originally planned and was glued to your side anytime he felt overwhelmed that night. Every Tuesday after that, lunch was scheduled.

Tim was nervous when it came to you. He was still living in the manor so he saw you more than the older two. You always seemed nice and respected his privacy but Bruce was always with you so you obviously would.

It was when he wasn’t around that worried Tim. Bruce attracted golddiggers and they were always mean when Bruce wasn’t there. When you were given a copy of the key, Time braced himself.

Of course he knew that if he told Bruce anything that happened like that, Bruce would break it off. He had always told them that they came first. But he also knew that Bruce liked you a lot. All the other ones Bruce liked a lot that turned out to be horrible, he broked it off. Tim had seen how it had made him upset and he really hated doing that to him. Maybe he could deal with it for once.

So when Bruce left for a business trip, Tim was Expecting the worst. What he didn’t expect was for you to knock on his door and ask if you could join him. When he agreed and stepped back so you could come in. He expected you to go to his bed or his desk chair not, the oversized bean bag on the floor.

“I have a question for you but you can’t tell Bruce yet.” Here it comes. “What would a funny way to tell him I know he’s Batman?” Tim wasn’t expecting that one. “I was thinking a lot of batpuns but his paranoia is too bad for that.”

“How did you figure it out?” You walked him through your process and didn’t say anything as he wrote parts of it down. Once you finished explaining the process for Bruce, you explained any way it was modified in figuring out their identities.

“Who do you think I am?”

“Red Robin.” Tim found himself getting excited.

“You know those notes you leave him in his office?” You nodded. “You should leave those in the Batcave.” You considered it but your thinking was interrupted but Tim shouting.

“No! One night when we’re all in the cave, you could bring some snacks!”

“You just want snacks when he’s lecturing you don’t you?”

“Maybe..”

“Alright, but you have to tell the others so they can tell me what snack they want.”

So Tim slowly and carefully went through all his siblings, letting them know you figured it out, Bruce didn’t know, and what the plan is. Every time he relayed a snack to you he’d watch how carefully you’d write it out to make sure you had it correct or look up recipes if you couldn’t find it in stores.

Two weeks later, Tim was the one who sent the signal in the middle of a lecture everyone was receiving and he got a front row seat to see Bruce’s face when you walked in and handed out snacks before giving him a kiss and telling him to be nice and leaving.

Any other worries were left in the dust when you helped him win the nerf war for the best seat in the home theater. He thoroughly enjoyed his spot next to you while Bruce swore revenge from the other side of the room.

Damian treated you politely but that was it. His mother was still alive and he didn’t want another one, one was more than enough. Not only that, but you were weird.

One time when you were over, you found one of his report cards. Immediately you were praising him. He didn’t understand why, he had basically failed one of his classes with an A-. You should be disappointed like his mother would be, not hanging it up on the fridge and telling people not to touch it. Definitely not taking him out for ice cream and calling him so smart. He definitely shouldn’t be feeling any pride when he walked past it, but he still was.

When he was practicing his violin and Messed up, you were supposed to tell him to stop failing, that he should be better. Not smiling at him and telling him he’s making good progress. You should be telling him that he should have memorized that piece in a day. He shouldn’t be feeling any pride when he finally does memorize it, it took him 4 days to learn it.

When he was struggling to learn a language, you were supposed to tell him to work harder. He could do better, after all, he already knew so many. Instead you just smiled and recommended a break to refresh his mind.

When he snapped at you in Arabic, he expected you to be upset since you didn’t know what he said and it was obviously not something nice. Instead you set the rule that if he was going to use Arabic to speak to you when upset, that he had to teach it to you and if what he said wasn’t something you had learned yet, he had to tell you in english. When he told you what it meant, you didn’t even get upset. He definitely shouldn’t be as excited as he was when you actually started learning.

So many more little things piled up, leaving Damian confused. The differences between how you and his mother treated him was so big he didn’t know how to process it, he liked you and all the little things made him happy in a way he hadn’t really felt. But he still loved his mom, When he had enough of it, he asked you to stop. He still wanted to love his mom. Once again, you did something you weren’t supposed to.

“Oh Damian, I’m not trying to replace your mom nor am I trying to make you feel like you can’t love her or she doesn’t love you. Your mom and I show our love in different ways and its ok for you to love or like both of us. You mother loves you and she will always be allowed in your life if thats what you want.” You weren’t supposed to do that, but Damian was really glad you did.

Barbara wasn’t sure how you would react to her. She wasn’t just Bruce’s kid. She had a loving family she went back to every night. Most people weren’t really a fan of that, one of Bruce’s past girlfriends had some strong and hurtful things to say about it.

When you took her for a day out, she found herself warming up to you but still waiting for the other shoe to drop. One of the new places you had planned to go, didn’t have wheelchair access. Like all the other girlfriends who had done this, she expected you to be annoyed that your plans had to change or you would just leave her outside while you shopped.

You didn’t seem to notice her hesitation, just looking at what was next on your list and starting the trip there. When Barbara stared a little longer at a new movie that was in theaters, tickets and snacks were bought and you listed to all the lore she told you about before it started.

While it had been a nice day, Barbara wasn’t convinced. One day was easy to fake. Sure she had lots of fun, but Barbara was used to fakes when it came to Bruce’s girlfriends. Of course she wasn’t complaining about you being nice, she just wasn’t sure how long it would last.

“Did you hear about that boutique?” She looked up from her food to look at her dad. “That new one that you tried to go to with Bruce’s girlfriend? Well there was a report that it didn’t meet the Americans with Disabilities act and the boutique is in trouble. People are speculating they’ll have to close down.”

Later that night, Barbara looked into it. They were in trouble, pretty big trouble from the looks of it. Towards the end of the article she found the name of the person who reported it, she wasn’t sure who she was expecting. Not you for sure but the Name Y/n L/n took her by surprise and filled her chest with feelings she couldn’t describe.

The boutique ended up closing but a new one opened. Once it was open, you were the first to ask her to go. That weird feeling came back when she wheeled herself up the ramp and through the door you held open for her. Later that night, in the privacy of her room. She decided she liked you.

Steph seemed like she liked you, she acted like she liked you, she didn’t really like you. Sure you were nice, Bruce loved you, the others were warming up to you, but she wasn’t sure how to feel about you. So she stuck with not actually liking you but pretending to.

So when she was around you, it was all smiles and jokes. She wasn’t a big fan of it all but she did it because she knew you were important to Bruce and that was enough of a reason for her. She knew Bruce and the others could see through the act but as long as you couldn’t, that was enough.

When Bruce announced he had to leave for a business trip right before she could hand him the parents visit for one of her AP classes, something the new teacher liked doing. She tucked the paper away. When Tim gave her a questioning look, she shook her head and later swore him to silence.

Every time she heard someone mention their parents were going, she felt a pang of jealousy in her chest. Every time Tim mentioned bringing it up to you, she swore him into silence again. It wouldn’t be the first time no one showed up for her. She was however thankful you wouldn’t be at the manor as much so she didn’t have to pretend to like you.

When the day arrived, Steph was not having a good day. School dragged on slowly. Slower than normal. When school finally ended, she had to sit in the classroom and watch everyone else that was in her class leave and the parents of her classmates show up while no one was there or coming for her.

Someone sat in the seat next to her, she expected another family member of one of her classmates. Definitely not you. She couldn’t return your smile, too unsure of how you found out, the fact you actually showed up, and how she felt about you being there. You leaned a little closer so that the others in the room wouldn’t easily overhear.

“I know I’m not your parent and someone you just pretend to like so if you want me to leave I will. But I figured someone was better then no one. Oh, and Tim wanted me to tell you he didn’t spill. Your teacher called the manor because no one had RSVPed for you and I answered it.”

That night, as Steph showed off all her hard work to you, the charade fell. She actually enjoyed her time with you and the boost of pride as you oohed and ahhed over all her projects and listened to her explain all the little details. That night, Steph realized, she didn’t need to keep pretending. She liked you, until she found out you didn’t like her favorite show but a nerf war solved that.

Cass could tell you were different then the other girlfriends, your body language as you interacted with all of them showed it. However that didn’t mean she knew how to interact with you.

She had learned that she was fairly hard for new people to interact with. She also knew she had trouble interacting with people she wasn’t fighting. So it wasn’t a surprise when it started rocky.

What was a surprise, was when you found out she was still having trouble reading and writing, you stepped in to help. Well, that wasn’t the surprising part, a lot of girlfriends did that. The surprising part was the amount of patience you had when it was only the two of you.

When one method didn’t help, you tried another. Never once did you snap at her or call her a name. Everytime you got frustrated you would stop and look at her, say something along the lines of “If I had as much trouble with this as you do, I wouldn’t want to keep trying. You're doing absolutely amazing! I’ll keep looking for other ideas, but for now, lets take a break and get a treat.”

Cass wasn’t sure why that always made her feel better, but it did. Every treat you brought was something you made just for the tutoring sessions and it always reminded her of what Alfred had told her once. “Something made with love for you will always taste better.”

And when a method that made it a little easier to learn was found, Cass found herself smiling along with your cheers. Bad days where she couldn’t seem to make any progress were always met with the same excitement, cheers, patience, and treats that all the others were.

Cass still wasn’t sure of what to think of you exactly, but she knew she liked you and that you cared about her.

So when Tim saw the new rise in hate, a sibling meeting was called. They all went through each site, blood boiling as they saw what people were saying about their new parent. Plans were made, declarations of war were ready, and anger fueled all of them. Bruce could tell something was going on, but he wasn’t sure what it was and as long as it didn’t get out of had, he wasn’t sure if he had the energy to deal with it.

War was declared in an interview by Steph. The lady was asking questions when the topic switched to Bruce, then you. The reporter was clearly trying to subtly find some dirt on you and Steph was not going to stand for it.

“Oh yeah! Y/n! She’s the best!” She put on her best press face. Trying to hide her anger over the hidden intent. She didn’t have to lie or act when talking about you but the change in the lady’s face going to disappointment when she didn’t get anything she wanted was making her look very punchable.

“She’s always showing up for us and making sure we’re doing ok. If Y/n and Bruce were to break up, I think most of us would go with Y/n.” The way the lady kept trying to get anything really got on her nerves and Steph decided she needed to get out of there before she started using the lady’s face for target practice. You wouldn’t like that.

Cass was the first one to resort to violence. They had asked a thinly veiled question, basically asking if you were a golddigger. So she punched him in the nose and leaned down to flip the camera off. She hated interviews already but that made it so much worse. She hoped you wouldn’t be too upset with her punching the guy though.

Jason, surprisingly enough. Did not get violent… physically. He did however curse one out and threaten him when the reporter implied you were forcing them to say nice things. When the reporter kept pressing Jason broke his mic and told him if he ever heard him talking bad about you again, a broken mic would be the last of his worries. Jason knew you would be disappointed but he had held back, he didn’t shoot the guy like he wanted.

Tim threw his coffee at one reporter because he heard them say you were nothing but a regular person who didn’t deserve any attention. He then took over her segment, threatening the company to air it or he would make sure they went bankrupt. Once he finished his threats, anything he said was praising you name. Telling everyone how amazing you were and how much they all loved you.

Barbara made it a point to bring up everything you did for the community when they tried to throw some shade at you in an interview. She had documents to prove it and hacked their systems to add them into the interview so they couldn’t claim it was fake. She also made sure to run over his foot when she left.

Dick punched a reporter when they tried to ask him what you were really like behind closed doors. He told them the truth, that you were just as good, kind, patient, and loving behind closed doors as you were out in public. He didn’t throw a punch until the reporter disregarded that as asked again because she couldn’t be that good. Dick knew a lecture would be coming once you saw, but he would rather sit through a lecture then let anyone tarnish your name.

Damian spent 10 minutes cursing and threatening a reporter in Arabic when they asked him if you had ever hurt him. When he was done, he told them in english, that if he ever got asked that question again, he would impale them. He knew you were going to make him sit down and translate everything and the general response you would give but he didn’t care, no one speaks bad about either of his mothers.

Bruce figured out what was going on after Steph’s interview. He saw the ones where they assaulted or threatened the reporters and made sure his lawyers were on standby to keep the kids out of trouble. After all, he had seen more than they had.

He had watched as you tried to connect with Dick early on, how you worked hard to try and get somewhere. He had woken up before you when Dick had come in that night and heard how you handled it. He had woken up the next morning to find you holding Dick close, like you were trying to protect him from the nightmares. He had seen how you never turned Dick down when he wanted comfort, no matter how serious or silly the matter, and he had heard your excitement when you told him Dick liked you.

Bruce had seen the way you never missed a visit to Jason’s grave, on a visit of his own, he saw how much care you showed the stone marking it as his lost son. While he hadn’t been sure why it was alway the same time on Tuesday, he didn;t mention it. He felt the way you would sob in his arms after each visit, a year after the tradition started, you always said you had promised not to tell and he watched as you kept that promise even if it tore you to pieces. Once the shock and tears wore off for a little bit, he could see the trust that Jason had in you.

He heard the way you questioned if you should have a key to the manor, you didn’t want to make Tim uncomfortable in his own home, or how you questioned if you should visit while he was gone. Not wanting to stress Tim out when there was no reason too. He saw the way you and Tim grinned at each other when you brought snacks down for all the kids he was currently lecturing. He head the excitement in your voice as you told him about the tour Tim had given you of the Batcave and the shared laughter as you and Tim worked together to win the nerf war.

Bruce saw how you worked to give Damian the affection he didn’t think he needed. He felt you crying in his arms upset over the fact Damian thought you would be angry because he made a mistake or struggled in a class. He heard you practicing your Arabic as you got ready for bed and he watched as you stress paced over whether or not you said the right thing to him about his mother.

He saw how angry you had been when you came back from your day out with Barbara. He had heard your call with your lawyer as you tried to figure out what to do. He saw you going through the laws and making a list to make sure your lawyer didn’t miss any. He heard about the movie you didn’t particularly care about and the lore you remembered in case of another because you wanted Barbara to have someone she could tell all of her favorite things too.

Bruce saw the pictures you had taken from the school night. He heard all the details from you as you praised Steph’s work. He saw the way Steph stopped acting around you and the silly arguments the two of you would get into for fun. He heard the way you would listen to her as she verbally worked out her problems. He saw the way Steph looked for you in a crowd, the way she knew you were there but not where you stood exactly, the thought of you not being there never crossed her.

He saw the way you stayed up late, researching different ways to teach reading and writing. He heard the patience and kindness and you worked with Cass. He saw the way you always made a treat just for Cass to have after each lesson because you wanted to reward her hard work. He heard the way you cried for Cass when she had a bad day and got frustrated with herself because you knew she was smart and you wanted her to see it too. He heard your celebrations when Cass made any progress, no matter the size.

Bruce heard, saw, and felt the way you worked hard to have a relationship with his kids. How you had mourned for their losses, celebrated their wins, and felt their pain. He saw the way his kids blossomed under your care, growing to be better and more confident in themselves. The way you cared for them as if they were your own flesh and blood. So when he was asked about his kids behavior, he said as much.

“Y/n has worked hard to be accepted by them. She’s given so much of her time, effort, patience, and love and never wanted anything in return. She always shows up for them, no matter what the occasion is, big or small, it doesn’t matter. If they want her there, she’ll be there. Everytime they need or want her, she’s there. She never judges them and treats them as if they were her own blood. Of course their upset and lashing out, people are insulting the woman who has cared for them more then most of their biological mothers.”

Later, a clip of you scolding Bruce and all the kids went viral. While you were scolding them over their behavior and making the kids who had reacted with violence or threats write apology letters because asking mean questions does not make it right to respond badly especially when its someone just trying to start drama. Everyone one noticed that there was no actual bite to your tone and no anger when they all refused to stop acting like that. In fact, there was a small soft smile on your face as you shook your head at your family.

#dc #jason todd #dick grayson #tim drake #fem reader #batman x reader #bruce wayne x reader #Damian wayne #cassandra cain #stephanie brown #barbara gordon #batfamily x reader #batmom reader #batmom #request #cipheress-to-k-pop

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kooahae · 8 months

Text

AFTER LAST NIGHT

Summary: After catching your current boyfriend cheating on you. You do what you always do- run to your childhood best friend Jeon Jungkook to ask him about a way to confront your partner, What you don’t know is that Jungkook has been thinking about something( someone) a bit more than usual and this couldn’t have been better news for him, for both of you. MINORS DNI

Pairing:best friend to lovers, Jungkook X female reader

Warnings:cursing, arguing, cheating (not JK), a little angst, fluff, some self-reflection, toxic partner, Oc, and Jk are very raw and honest with each other. SMUT Oral ( f. Receiving) Unprotected sex (pls don’t this, just don’t.) F*ngering, praising, big d!ck JK, overstim, tummy bulging mentioned, he finishes inside, sq***ting…tbh you’ve been warned it’s pretty smutty but it’s super sweet.

word count:9,656

Read the next part/drabble here

“Hey, honey I will be home late tonight after work, Don’t wait up!”

Seojun yelled from outside your bedroom, which means yet another morning waking up alone in bed. It’s always like this. Seojun and you have been together for a year and a half but he feels more like a stranger than ever.

How?

Time changes things. There were just way too many problems and it felt like all of them came from him. You know you played your part, but it never amounted to the same weight of issues he caused. He never tried to meet you halfway. You simply compromise, or you both argue until someone decides to take the couch. Again, it wasn’t always like this. He used to take you on dates, take photos of you, and invite you to his company dinners. He was really a good guy at first.

The two of you started dating towards the fall semester of your junior year in college. He was a year older, so he was always showing you around in your prior academic years before you started dating. Your mutual friend Namjoon, helped the two of you grow close. Interesting that now it feels like the most distant you’ve been with anyone in your life, and that says a lot because you’re not the most extroverted person. Somehow, you let him in. You thought you had so much in common and it turns out you were wrong. Everyone around you could see how stressful and draining being with him was for you as time progressed, yet you always defended it.

So, as you readjusted the pillow and looked up at the ceiling, you thought about how living here was becoming one of the worst things you’ve ever decided to do. The ugly truth? it was second to being in this relationship. This is not for the weak, especially when the person you love, isn’t the person you lay next to every night, and that’s if he’s even home. It’s not that Seojun is a bad person, he just isn’t him.

Your childhood best friend, Jeon Jungkook. Bless him and those sparkly eyes. He has always been a sweet soul. Simply put, He was your everything. If you had it your way -and didn’t feel like it would jeopardize your relationship as friends- you would’ve acted on it a long time ago. It’s not that you didn’t love Seojun; quite the contrary you loved him, but you weren’t in love with him anymore. You started thinking about the first time you knew you’d rather be with Jungkook. Yes, you always liked him but this was different. Last year’s beach trip with your friends, Seojun made the BIGGEST FUCKING SCENE. It was all over you having a drink-no you weren’t drunk - Yes, he’s controlling. He ended up leaving early because Jungkook stepped in. It was nice to have someone defend you like that, he always has. That’s when you realized you were falling out of love with Seojun, and that your heart still longed for Jungkook. You tried everything in your power to spice up your relationship but it just kept declining and now..here you are.

As you got up to brush your teeth and wash your face, you felt a little bitter. You lived with Jungkook up until you moved in with your boyfriend, You used to love walking into the kitchen, breakfast being cooked, and Bam waiting for you. You even liked the mornings when it was you who had to do the cooking, just to see that smile of his.

You walked into your kitchen with no Bam or Jungkook in sight- but you knew what you gave up when you moved here. You just didn’t know how much you would miss it.

As you take a look into the fridge you notice he apparently forgot it was his turn to go grocery shopping. Go figure. you decide cereal for breakfast it is. You scoffed grabbing the cereal first. You can’t believe Seojun is a milk-first person, like Seriously? What do you even have in common with him at this point?

Your phone’s ringtone ripped you out of the ‘Seojun and I: pros and cons’ battle you have found yourself doing in the morning. You flipped your phone over to see who it was and happily answered the incoming phone call.

“There she is!”

“Jiminie, why are you always this excited in the morning?”

“ I’m not, you and I both know this. I happen to like my bestie though. Go shopping with me and Hobi!” Your older brother, and best friend in one person... He’s being annoying but it’s honestly Jimin, there was no harm done here. Your older brother always cared for you too, which is why you’re so close to him. He is and has always been one of your comfort places, along with Jungkook.

“I don’t have anything else better to do, What time?”

Jimin pursed his lips as he contemplated what time he should pick you up. “The next hour, so be ready!”

“Okay. Is Jungkook coming?” You said trying not to sound too defeated.

“No, he thinks you hate him because you haven’t texted him back these last two weeks. I’ve talked to your best friend more than you. I know Kook is a family friend, but speaking to him this much about you in particular is killing me.” Now this one- again, no harm done here. A little bitter feeling from your side, but only because you knew he was right.

Damn, that might be a new record for you. You’ve only ignored Jungkook four days straight before- and at that time you were in the eighth grade. He still apologizes to this day for breaking your snow globe. Even buys you one for Christmas every year now because he felt so bad. Have you really not said anything to him in two weeks?

‘Seojun could never be better than JK, you would not have to choose’ Jimin had once said. Again, he was right.

You eventually freed yourself from your thoughts.

“Jimin, you and I both know, I do not hate him.” You said to your brother.

“Then text him back.” And with that, he hung up.

You decided to get dressed in a basic crop tee, some baggy jeans, and your favorite pair of sneakers. You made sure to put your hair into a half up, half down with your claw clip. Grabbed your purse and then pulled it across your body. Checking for touch-ups and spraying your favorite perfume- the one Jungkook bought you seven of because it’s just ‘soooo hard’ for you to find. Another pinging sound ripped you from your thoughts. The doorbell chime going off nonstop. why are Jimin and Hobi so extra?!

“Hi. I heard the doorbell the first time” You said as you pulled the door open to be greeted by two bright smiles.

“These are for you,” Jimin said, as he handed you flowers.

“Tiger lilies, Really?” The confusion on your face lasted for all of three seconds. You could guess what they were for. Still, you asked. “You know it’s not my birth flower, What are these for?”

“Duh. Jungkook made us bring them, he said ‘Please stop ignoring me’ or some shit like that.” Hobi stated. Jimin nodded his head to agree.

As your finger traced a petal you spoke “He is Mr. Please love me. Fitting”

Looking at the flowers reminded you of something his mom used to say to you ‘Never underestimate Jungkook’s ability to make you feel special, Never underestimate his ability to make sure you think about him either. That’s the type of person my son is.’ You miss her too. You Should ask when you can grab lunch soon. Once you stop ignoring her son, the person who you love more than anyone else. Yanno…your best friend.

“I’m gonna go put these in some water and we can go.” You said as you tried to calm down your heartbeat.

How can he make you blush and he isn’t even here? Why can’t Seojun make you feel like this anymore?

You walked back out to your brother and hobi. Trying to

act as normal as possible. You’re really missing him right now. You know you do and apparently so does everyone around you.

“You’re incredibly down bad for each other. Losers.” Hobi just had to be the first to say something about it.

“Aren’t they hyung? It’s so cute.” -and apparently Jimin just had to follow up.

Annoying.

“Ooh that one, Jungkook would like that one! Wouldn’t he Chim Chim?” You asked. Your eyes bright as ever, as you looked at the light projector.

“____ he already has how many of these?” His eyebrow raised at you.

“But does he have this one?! I don’t think so. Hobi you agree right?”

“You know what happened last time we brought Jungkook on a shopping trip? He wouldn’t stop running his mouth about you either. Which is why, you have to stop before we no longer invite you.” Hobi said as he teased you.

“Whatever, you guys are being haters. I’m gonna buy it!” You said flashing a smile, as you made your way to the purchasing counter.

Once you were all checked out and got it gift-wrapped for him you smiled proudly to yourself. “I’m the greatest friend ever.” You said rejoining them

“You are but…you’re also a simp, just a cute one.” Your older brother grinned, patting your head.

“Anyway, we should go to the food court! I want some sprite.” Hobi said and you agreed- mostly because that bowl of cereal just didn’t do it for you this morning.

As you sat with them at the food table, you noticed them both staring at you.

“Can I help you?” You asked raising your eyebrows

“How’s your relationship?” Hobi asks you out of nowhere.

-and that’s the question you always hate... Not because it’s going well but because your response is always a lie when you say

“Going good.”

Jimin rolled his eyes and scoffed. “You’re lying and we know… because we know you. What’s going on? And yes I know something is up.”

“Well, it’s just that, when it started I thought it was great but now…”

“Now?” Hobi said as he leaned in more to pay attention as much as he could.

“Now I feel like I’m just sleeping with a shell. We don’t hate each other or anything. We just don’t go on dates or cuddle and it’s because he’s busy. I don’t want to be a brat about it. So… I’m just trying to be supportive.” As you stare at the people listening to you, you know you have to make it sound as good as possible. “But SeoJun will be back to normal I’m sure of I-“

“No. No. No…What do you mean you don’t go on dates? Isn’t he off every weekend? just like you.” Jimin did not look happy as the words poured from his mouth. You get it. You’re Jimin’s younger sister so for him, this is personal.

“Exactly, Who doesn’t take a hot girl like you on a date whenever they can?” Hobi asked as he chomped down on his fries in front of him. Jimin would have said something to his friend, but he’s been dealing with having a baby sister everyone likes forever. Plus, it’s Hobi. He’s what Jungkook is to you, to Jimin- minus the whole ‘madly in love with each other’ thing. Really good childhood friends.

“Guys, he is just really busy. That’s why.” You don’t even know why you’re defending him but again, it’s routine at this point.

“Busy doing what?” Hobi questioned.

“I don’t know. Work or something. He just says don’t wait up. And I don’t. No hard feelings, yanno?” As you went to reach for your drink. You noticed Jimin had already pulled it away from you.

“When’s the last time you slept on a couch ?” Jimin asked angrily. Jimin just like Jungkook, sometimes didn’t hold back. Today was one of those days.

“Jimin!” You raised your voice slightly and snatched your drink back.

“The fucking couch??!” Hobi just gave you that look he always gives Jungkook when he is being ..well when Jungkook is being himself, but you know when you get that look-He’s shaming you.

“Hobi, it’s not me who usually takes the couch, I don’t take it all the time. I took the couch like 4 times.” You couldn’t even make eye contact with them. It’s probably been double but you’re the type to remove yourself if he won’t. You hate yelling. It isn’t effective communication, but neither is the couch so you’re not sure why you just scaled it down like that. You just don’t want to worry your brother and Hobi.

“Shouldn’t be dating a dumbass who would have you there instead of himself.” Jimin just wouldn’t let up. You knew it came from a good place, so you redirected the conversation.

“Guys, let’s just continue shopping okay..” you asked but somewhat told them so that they backed off. Seems they both got the hint.

“Thanks again for inviting me guys. I needed some outside time, oh and I’ll drive next time!” You say as Hobi gives you a thumbs up.

“I’m walking you to the door, Come on.” Jimin must want to talk. You loathe when he does this. A Jimin lecture for you is worse than him yelling at you because this means he’s absolutely right about something and he knows that you know it too.

Once you have arrived at your door, you feel Jimin staring into the back of your skull. In his defense-You’re a big part of his heart. A sister and a best friend. One who always cares about people, and expects nothing in return. You’re pure that way. So watching you be okay with this just isn’t, and hasn’t been sitting well with him. He’s tried not to get involved because he understands his baby sister, isn’t a baby. But this is getting out of hand.

“Listen, I didn’t mean to out your business ____ but you have got to stop letting him treat you like this. Even if some people don’t know. I do, Hobi knows, hell even Yoongi asks if you’re still together and why. You know he doesn’t like to pry. That should say something on it owns. You know who else knows? that person you keep dodging. Maybe texting him would do you some good. You know Jungkook has wanted nothing more than you happy his whole life. ” Jimin said, his face extremely serious. Why is he acting like you don’t know this already?

“Jimin, SeoJun is trying. I promise.” You exhaled and put your hand on his shoulder. Youre not doing good with your attempt at reassuring him. You can tell.

“No, he isn’t. If he was explain to me why today- a Saturday- he couldn’t spend time with you. Does he usually work Saturdays? Because this seems new to me. You know Namjoon works at the same office as him? No one is there today but magically he is. I know you may not want to be with Jungkook anymore or gave up on your crush. We know it sucks, and life takes us in different directions - but at least find someone who treats you closely to how he does. You deserve it. I love you.” He said as he planted a kiss on your forehead.

You nod and hug him and as he makes his way back down the stairs he makes sure he yells “Text him!”

“Love you too chim.” You sighed as you unlocked your apartment door.

Maybe you should go check on Seojun, he could be under a lot of stress and you’re sure with the way you two have been bickering it’s not helping. Maybe you play a bigger role in this than you think you do.

You decided on bringing him some food, checking the time to see that it was 2:45. If you start now you could have his food to him by 4:00, which is still a good time.

As you pack the Tupperware with all the food you’ve made, you end up taking time to check social media before heading out.

Jungkook posted a picture of his video game screen. That was it. You check in every time you get a chance. Just to see that he is well. Maybe Jimin and Hobi are right, Just text him, he didn’t even do anything wrong. Your boyfriend is just insecure about you and Jungkook’s friendship, but surely he didn’t deserve to be ghosted. Especially when you would rather be with him anyway. You would have told your brother and friend this earlier while out, but you just couldn’t.

You grabbed your keys and headed to your car. The drive to his workplace felt unfamiliar. Has it really been that long? The question Jimin asked earlier still burning in your mind. When would he make time for you? Why is he working on a Saturday? You had way too many thoughts about him at this moment- all of them unsettling.

Finally, you arrived at your destination -SeoJun’s office. you can’t help but smile seeing more than one car. Maybe Jimin was wrong. He could really just need to catch up on work.

You approached the door, entered your boyfriend’s entry code, and walked towards the elevator. with each ting of the elevator, you felt a bit more excitement. Seojun hopefully would be happy to see you too. That would motivate you to try to do this more often, you thought to yourself. That would motivate you to put more into falling in love with him again.

The elevator finally stops on his floor, and your feet lead you closer to his office space. From where you’re standing, The door looks cracked which is different for him. He’s always been the type to need absolute silence and space, but then again there’s just one other person here.

Wait a minute… Is that moaning?

He does say he works with interesing people, but porn at work is just absurd. There’s no way anyone could be that bold. Insanity…

exhaling deeply, calming yourself, and continuing walking. Just to see your worst fear once you approached the door.

“Right there… seojun!”

Is that his assistant ??

The same one he allegedly fired MONTHS AGO. The same one who you told him was mean and wouldn’t allow you entry before saying “Seojun wouldn’t be with anyone like you.” The reason you had even been given the entry code incase she gave you attitude It all made sense. The late nights at work were simply not late nights at work. They were late-nights spent cheating. All the times you waited up, because you were trying to save your relationship. How the fuck could he do this to you? He even wore the blazer you purchased for him when he first got employed to work this morning. What about you? What were you doing wrong? Matterfact, Why the fuck are you blaming yourself?

You dropped the food in your hand as your tears began to well up. So much for Saturday’s at work, So much for trying on your end. Scratch what you said earlier, Seojun is a bad person. You needed to get out of here and so you turned kicking the food as you did, hearing your partner’s mistake speak once last time while you hurried and moved from his sight line.

“Is someone in the office Seojun?” Her voice irritating the life out of you.

“It’s probably just the janitor and it’ll make him think twice before looking at my girl if he see’s me fucking her. Won’t it?” you could hear the chuckle underneath his voice.

HIS GIRL?!! Where is she when he doesn’t feel good and starts acting like a damn toddler? She doesn’t wake up early on Mondays to iron his clothes and prep his food like you do. Has she met his mother and had to deal with her bullshit? That woman is a drag. Staying with him is a drag. All the things you’ve endured..for this. For nothing.

His girl…that’s the last thing you heard, and It fucking sucked that everyone was right about him.

As you stepped into the elevator your tears just wouldn’t stop flowing down. Maybe it’s because you know you’ve been playing happy for no reason. To be betrayed. He didn’t have one bit of decency about it either. He could have broken up with you by now…how could he continue to watch you try and make you feel like you weren’t good enough just to do this to you?

You need a hug.

You need Jungkook.

You made your way back to your car, unlocked it, and put your phone on hands-free to dial Jungkook’s number. Except he didn’t answer. You have done it this time. Ignoring the one person who cares about you for what? Seojun?

You finally reached your house and put your keys on the kitchen counter. You walked further inside to wash your tear-stained cheeks, and that’s when you heard a specific ringtone come through.

My #1 🥳🩶 : Did you really call? Did you like the flowers? Do you still hate me? For whatever reason you hate me? Without explaining? Were you calling to curse me out and finally tell me why? because I’m not ready for that. You’re kind of scary when you’re angry. I love you tho. I miss you. Im sorry for whatever i did

You hadn’t replied in over two weeks, you deserved however many questions he asked at this point

You couldn’t help but smile as you felt tears welling up, yet again. He is your superhero, you know you shouldn’t have ignored him.

Then your phone began to ring. “No, I don’t hate you. No you didn’t do anything !” You yelled as fast as you could. Jungkook needed to know he wasn’t the problem. You made sure you told people when things weren’t their fault. Unlike someone you know you don’t mind letting people know things aren’t their fault .

“Good, that’s literally the one thing in life that would destroy me!” Jungkook’s smile and calmness can be felt through a phone. That’s also something you love so much about him.

“What? Someone hating you?”

“No- you hating me. I couldn’t live with myself like that.”

“I’ll never hate you, and I never hated you. Can I come over? I know I owe you an apology”

“Of course, you used to live here. You used to pop up randomly too. You don’t have to ask.” His sweet soothing voice spoke through the phone.

“I never know if you could have company or anything and I-“

“I’d make them leave even if I did…” He said cutting you off. “You’re more important to me.”

There goes your heart doing somersaults.

“I’m sorry kookie, I shouldn’t have just ignored you for two weeks.”

“You drove me insane, I’ll admit it but I’m just really fucking happy to hear your voice. Bring a bathing suit. Let’s have food, watch some bad documentaries, and swim in the hot tub. Like we used to.”

Another thing about Jungkook that’s so special. That sheer excitement to be bored with you as opposed to being bored alone.

“Can I stay the night?” You ask, not knowing you have just made Jungkook’s heart flutter 10X the speed it does on a normal day

“Yes of course ___ ! Bam is gonna be so excited! We will see you when you get here, yeah?”

“Yeah.” You say back and then you hear the line disconnect.

Once you’re done packing your stuff, you make sure to grab the gift you bought him earlier and head to Jungkook’s for the night. You contemplate texting Seojun but decide not to. He just shouldn’t be in the way. He shouldn’t be in your way any longer.

The drive felt like forever as you tried to keep your composure but every red light felt like more time to think about what you saw, and with that comes realizing although the cheating hurts and feels like hell- nothing feels worse than the fact for the last two weeks, 14 whole days you put Jungkook on the back burner. All because Seojun asked you to. You listened to everything he said without considering yourself- just to walk in on him fucking someone else. You also start thinking about how you fell in love with the idea of him. You have been denying your happiness for someone who was pretending to be the hardest worker of the year. Probably presented himself as single to his coworkers besides Namjoon, who would have told your brother. Sneaking behind your back for that relationship with his little personal assistant Emma the whole fucking time. -Personal assistant my foot!

You finally reach Jungkook’s place and walk to the door of the penthouse, entering the passcode- it’s still your birthday for the code. Jungkook always said he chooses things he likes as passcodes, no matter how silly you told him it was.

The door opens and you hear barking, meaning you need to get a treat for someone else you’ve been neglecting. Bam immediately found you as soon as you reached for one but instead of trying to get to the treat he just whined at your feet. You’ve been a bad friend to him too.

“Hey hey, I’m sorry boy! I didn’t think about how this would be for you. How is my favorite dog!?” You said squatting down to pet his head and behind his ears.

“Geez and here I thought you came over for me…What the hell are your eyes so red for?” Jungkook said tilting his head.

You swallowed and shook your head no. So, he held out his arms. “Come here princess, what happened?” He asked once more.

“He’s a fucking cheater, and the worst part is- I didn’t confront him.” You said as you let Jungkook wrap his arms around you. You’ve missed his warmth not just physically but his aura. He’s your sunlight in a sense.

“Fuck, that’s rough. I’m sorry. I’ll do my best to cheer you up today. Today you’re the only person who matters, not him, not whoever he was cheating with. You want to talk about it?”

You nodded your head yes “Let me change first, You said we were getting in the hot tub?”

He nodded once more and kissed your forehead. Why does it always feel so good when he does that?

Once you’ve finished changing, You pet Bam one more time and make your way outside. Jungkook is shirtless in front of the grill cooking what smells like the most delicious meat ever. You realize you’ve missed coming here after a long day of work and watching movies with him. You’ve missed someone even taking the time out of their day to do something for you.

“Steak, Ramyun, veggies, and Highballs!” He says grinning at you.

“You are the cutest person alive.” You mumble. Not knowing Jungkook heard that too and he hurriedly turned around so you didn’t see him blush.

He closes the top of the grill as the meat cooks climbs onto the bench surrounding the hot tub, and looks directly into your eyes.

“You wanted to talk, and Therapist JK is here to listen!” He says

As you start to recap the events of your day with Jungkook, He feels absolutely horrible. How could he have not been there to protect you? What person cheats on you anyway? Seojun is a fucking dumbass.

“..And the worst part is too, I tried even when I Knew I was falling out of love with him because I just couldn’t see myself giving up on him. I’m such a dummy.”

“You’re not dumb for trying to see the good in someone, maybe the act of looking for something that doesn’t exist in him was dumb- seeing it in him of all people. You know I never liked him - but you’re not dumb.” He says and takes a sip of his drink and you do the same.

“Why are you being such a good friend to me?” You ask.

“Because I always want to be good to you. Even if you ignore me,” then gets up to check on the meat he prepared.

You and Jungkook have been outside for hours just talking and watching the sun go down til he decided you should actually get in the hot tub.

“The water feels so nice. Relaxing. Why would I ever have moved away when you got this damn hot tub?” You ask and look at him through your half-lidded eyes. The highballs slightly affecting you

“The hot tub should be the last reason you want to stay here..”

Jungkook pulled you by your arm closer to him and you wrapped your arms around his neck due to the speed in which he did. This wasn’t unusual just because Jungkook has always been touchy with you, but there’s so much tension.

“Oh yeah, Bam should be reason number one. You’re right.” You giggle and Jungkook just smiles. He loves the sound of your laugh. He always knew how to get one out of you too. That made him feel really good about himself, Every time he hears it, he swears he wants to reach into his chest and hand you his heart, that still wouldn’t stop it from beating for you.

“Say I’m reason number one.” He says looking at you and you shake your head no and try to move away but he repeats himself. This time slower.

“_____…Say, I’m reason number one.” He is piercing through your soul with that gaze of his. So you do what he asks and tell him the truth.

“You’re number one.” Which causes his frown to turn into the prettiest smile you’ve ever seen. The little bit of light that has decided to shine hits his lip piercing. Who made him so pretty? Why the hell are you staring so hard at him? You know why but usually you would be able to look away, and right now it feels like you can’t. He isn’t holding onto you anymore but you feel stuck. He’s so…cute.

“Let’s drink some more!” You say and he nods.

“A little more but not too much more, The last time we got drunk bam probably wished he was human to tell us to stop laughing so loud.” He smiles at you, a slight little nose scrunch. God, you really wish he would stop doing that.

“Hey since you’re my number 1 reason, can you play some music for us?” You ask and he nods

“As long as I’m your number one, you can have whatever you like.” You can’t help but chuckle. Only if Jungkook knew what he was doing when he said stuff like this.

“You look like you’re foaming at the mouth,” he says to you as he sits across from you on the outside furniture. You’re now wearing his t-shirt over your bathing suit since the air is a little chillier. Jungkook cuts up extra meat since he’s taken notice of how hungry you look.

“Hobi ate most of the fries earlier.” You say

You should see yourself, a little tipsy, in his tee, face a little puffy and reddened because you’ve been drinking.

Jungkook thinks you’re cute.

“Eat as much as you want, I was just playing anyway.” He pushess a plate to you.

You smile and continue to make small talk until you ask him a question he didn’t see coming.

“Kook? How do I confront him ?”

Jungkook isn’t a violent guy, he swears! He tries his best not to resort to physical violence, but when you ask him this and he thinks about how red your eyes were when you walked in…the love of his life crying her eyes out, he simply states…

“You let me beat the fuck out of him.” As stone cold as can be.

You giggle “That is so mean! Seriously Kookie, help me?”

He raises an eyebrow “I’m not fucking joking.” His tone is more stern and serious than before, making you stop the slurping of your food and look at him.

“Kook..I’m not worth you fighting someone.” You try and argue.

“You’re right, you’re worth more than that. Which Is why you should let me beat the fuck out of him.” You don’t know why but it’s kinda hot watching Jungkook feel the need to protect you like this. Always has been.

For some reason, your mouth closes and you have nothing else to say. you try and think of a way to break the silence but nothing comes out.

“Can I ask you something that’s been weighing on me?” He asks looking at you from his side of the table.

“Sure. Anything. “ you say and reach for the highball.. but yet again today, someone has snatched your drink before you can even bring it to your mouth.seriously? Whats with everyone today?

“Didn’t you think that bam and I missed you? I know I’ve seen and heard from you, but you used to live here, why don’t you visit as much? And why did you ghost me for two weeks? You drove me insane. I know I said I was over it but it just…it just didn’t feel good.”

You swallow and it feels like the tension in the air has reached an all-time high.

“He doesn’t like the idea of me being here for too long. I don’t know …he was complaining and I thought I was fixing it.” You say looking down at your lap.

Jungkook is trying to remain cool but that just struck a nerve. He’s been here through everything. How could you do something like that? Instead, he asks another question.

“Do you miss living here____? You should move back” Your eyes meet his and you chuckle.

“He wouldn’t like that either, plus I haven’t even confronted -.”

“Stop,” he says and you drop your utensils onto your plate and look at him. He looks serious…Jungkook is pissed. You know it. You know that face anywhere.

“Stop what?”

“Defending or redirecting when we all mention him. It’s annoying as fuck actually. You caught him cheating on you today. Stop defending him and just …just answer my damn question.”

Ouch.

“Jungkook please don’t..”

“Don’t what?” He questions you as he sits back folding his arms. Then he decides to continue. “ If he is cheating on someone as beautiful as you, He’s the biggest fucking idiot in the world. I’d never do anything that dumb.”

Maybe he has had too many highballs.

“Duh Kookie! You’re not an idiot.” You say as you try to play it off.

“Stop playing dumb and Move back in.” He states and you can tell he wants you to but…

“Kook I can’t. That wouldn’t be something he would like. I told you already.”

“What do you like?” He’s really catching an attitude with you right now. You thought this night was going to be confrontation-free besides your apology, but you also know Jungkook hates being ignored. You did this to yourself.

He starts biting his inner cheek waiting for you to answer. So you decide to look up and question him instead.“Damn Jungkook, Why does this feel like an interview?”

You know that wasn’t fair, but Jungkook won’t let you escape. He’s made it clear he is the one asking the questions and getting answers tonight.

“Just because he suggested it doesn’t mean you have to do everything he fucking says. I miss when you were okay with being yourself. You’re prettier that way.” Jungkook sighed as he sipped the highball in his right hand. He still isn’t raising his voice either. He just won’t budge.

“I am okay with being myself!” You retorted.

Why is he so ballsy tonight?

“Nope. Lately…you aren’t. I haven’t seen you act on a single thing in that damn brain of yours in like 6 months. Especially if that dumbass of yours has a say.”

“Jeon Jungkook…you’re pushing it.”

“What? Mad someone is honest with you? I used to be able to do that.” He inched closer into your space and started to read your face. You knew he was right. So did he.

“How the fuck would you know what I’m thinking anyway?”

“I’ve known you your whole life. Why the fuck wouldn’t I know? You’ve also been eye-fucking me this whole time, In case you’re wondering what else I know. If it makes you feel better I wanna fuck you too. Really. Fucking. Bad. ” he said, taking another sip of his drink, raising his eyebrow and smirking.

What. The. Actual. Fuck.

“Stop choosing someone else when we both can choose each other. “ he continues.

“Jungkook I’m sorry but I don’t want to fight with you. I’ll just go. At least the fights at home, I know what I’m expecting.” Your breathing eratic because of how bold he is being. You stand to get up but Jungkook rushes to block the door that leads back inside the condo.

“You are home. ”

“Jungkook…” you say as you search his eyes.

“I’ll let you leave if that’s what you really want, I am not, however letting you leave this late, this dark, into the arms of a fucking cheater when I’ve been right here this whole fucking time!” He snaps some more at you looking into your eyes.

“You’re so..” You can’t even figure out where to begin. You know he is right…wait he’s been here the whole time. He is right.

“Fuck this.” He says and leans his head back. You watch his Adam’s apple bob and then when he looks back down at you, his tongue poking his cheek.

“Jungkook I’m sorry.” You reach to grab his face but he just uses his right arm to pin your arm above your head still holding you against the door.

“Nuh-uh. Tell me what you want.” He presses on and you damn near melt when he licks his lips and tilts his head while waiting on your response.

“You..” You finally say. Your eyes are glossy as you search hiss and since he hasn’t said anything, even though it’s only been a few seconds since you revealed the truth, You continue.

“I will never want anyone as much as you and I shouldn’t have even left. You’re right! You’re right! I’m so fucking sorry-“

Before you can even finish your apology, Jungkook lets your arm drop that he has been holding and places his hand on your neck bringing you closer to him and his lips envelope yours. So soft. So gentle but needy. Why do you feel like you’re on fire right now? As his tongue begs for entrance and you oblige, he pulls away just to say one thing to you.

“Thank you for apologizing. Now, let me show you how much I love you. ”

Jungkook never imagined your lips would be this soft. He’s thought about it, but this was better than any analogy his brain has come up with. This is better than any kiss he has had his whole life, it’s the same for you. This is what it’s like when it’s the right person.

All your moans and hums into his mouth that he desperately swallows. You’re perfect for each other. You feel it throughout his kisses.

“Jump.” He says

So you do. Wrapping your legs around his waist as he leads you into his condo.

“Say you’re coming home, and say you want me.” He won’t take no for an answer and you’ve confessed so you’re not really in a position to lie to him.

“I’m coming home, and I want you kook. Really. Fucking. Bad.”

He chuckles and kisses you some more. “ You definitely didn’t deny the eye fucking.” He says and you pull away.

“Take me to your room , and actually do it.” You whisper against his ear.

Soon you feel Jungkook placing you on his bed. The way he looks at you makes your heart stop, but you like it as much as you like him. You’re really in love with him.

Jungkook joins you. Climbing his way up to you. Watching your chest rise and fall, as you both stare into each other’s eyes. He wouldn’t want anyone more than you. He never has. You open your mouth slightly and Jungkook tilts his head in concern.

“I want you.” Your voice, barely a whimper.

He smiles slightly before saying “Took you long enough, I’d make you beg…but I want you too.” The way he has been so confident all night has been leaving you soaked. He resumes his assault on your lips, then makes his way down to your neck, finding your sweet spot.

“Fuck, that feels so good.” You moan out and he slides his hands up the borrowed tee that you have on. He makes a mental note to give you whatever it is of his you want, the shirt, him, he likes the way they both look on you.

You sit up slightly to help him remove it. He looks at you one more time asking for permission. “Touch me.” You say and that drives him mad. The way you sound for him- so needy.

Jungkook is quick to start kissing your collarbone and undoing your bathing suit top at the same time.

You’re not sure why you feel so nervous and vulnerable, but maybe it’s because his touch has you completely drenched and you’re trying not to make it obvious.

He grabs one of your breasts in his hand and brings his mouth to it, sucking and licking it over and over. His teeth lightly grazing every now and then just before he lets them go with a pop. You could cum from this alone, you’re sure especially when he looks up at you the way he is right now.

“By the time I’m done with you, you would have been convinced to stay anyway.” He says kissing your lower belly. You moan out and suddenly feel his fingers at your hips. He places kisses on each side as he begins to slide your bottoms down your legs, and sits on his knees to make sure they come off completely.

You can barely breathe at a normal rate. Everything he is doing is so effortlessly sexy. You feel a little shy just because it’s something you’ve always dreamed of. it’s been a while since you’ve been intimate with anyone. Your relationship eventually deprived you of that too, due to you both barely sleeping in the same room. You try to close your legs, but he is holding your ankle. He takes his time kissing his way from there up to your thigh.

“Don’t hide from me. I won’t hurt you, I’m here with you. Okay?” He says and you nod, smiling at him.

Jungkook is thorough in making sure not a space on your skin feels neglected, your moans and breathy exhales indicate that you’re enjoying this and getting worked up.

His fingers gently work up toward the area that craves him most and he parts your folds, then licks his lips, turning you on even more.

“Fucking hell___, Your pussy is so pretty.” He moans and gently starts rubbing circular motions on your clit.

“Kook, do something. I’m so wet.” You speak honestly and he has to stop himself from fucking the life out of you right there. He removes his hand and brings the finger that was circling your clit to your lips.

“Suck.”

You wrap your lips around his fingers and make sure to look in his eye as he is now slightly hovering over you, between your legs.

Jungkook’s mouth has fallen into an O shape and you hear him moan for the first time besides your kisses. The way you suck his fingers, He’ll be sure to have your lips wrap around something else, not today though. He wants to make sure you feel what he means when he says “I love you.”

He removes his finger and bites his lip then brings it back down to your clit and resumes his circular motions.

“Kook please do something. You’re teasing me.”

“Enjoying my view, that’s all. Trust me…I’m going to fuck the shit out of you.”

He slides a finger in and you moan as he bends down to kiss you.

“Can you take another?” He asks in between kisses.

You nod and pull away from his lips as the other one is inserted. “I can take whatever you give me, whenever you give it to me.”

You’re driving him insane. Voice so sweet but eyes gazing at him with lust.

“I want you to look at me the entire time.” He says as he removes his lips from yours and hears you moan out.

You don’t answer so he pushes his fingers deeply inside. “Yes. Fuck!” You moan out and he chuckles as he crawls lower onto his stomach, lifting your legs on each of his shoulders. Still managing to pump into you.

. Jungkook removes his fingers, replacing them with his tongue to taste your juices, then flattens his tongue while his eyes roll back. He looks so pornographic and then he makes eye contact with you. His eyes are sexy and smoldering.

“Jungkook! Oh my god!” You moan out. He loves the way his name sounds coming from you. He loves that he’s making you feel good. He loves everything about you.

He begins flicking his tongue up and down your clit, open mouth kissing you in between. He takes his time fucking his tongue into you, watching you grasp at the bed sheets as you try to keep your focus on him. The way your eyes roll back when he rubs his face in it as he eats you out looks so good to him. He feels drunk off of you. You briefly close your eyes as you moan, but that’s when he inserts two fingers again and you both moan. Him because of how you taste and how you are doing so well for him. You, because of how full you feel, How amazing this feels for you. You know you’re close and Jungkook seems to know too. He curls his fingers and rubs you right in the spot that’ll have you coming undone, then he starts spelling his name with this tongue on your clit as your prop up on your elbows still looking at him, like he said. The pleasure becoming so much.

“Such a good fucking girl.” He says and you feel your breath hitch.

“Oh fuck! Jungkook I’m gonna cum!” You moan out and your head falls back, causing Jungkook to pinch at your waist with his other hand, to get you to look at him.

“Cum for me then.”

And you do, making a mess all over his hands. You’re so fucking pretty to him, that he doesn’t stop there. He keeps going enjoying the way look so fucked out. You sound sweet too. He wants to see you like this for him, only him, as long as he can. He’ll make sure it’s forever by the time he’s done.

Jungkook continues eating you out and watching your legs shake and quiver. Your mouth is slack and you’re saying things, but they all are pretty incoherent due to all the moaning you’re doing in between. This is exactly what you’ve wanted, better than you’ve imagined.

“Kook.. I’m gonna cum again. You have to stop. I want you to feel good too.” You say between your moans.

“I’m worried about you baby. You just need to let me worry about you.” He responds.

The pet name sending you over the edge as you feel a ton of pressure in your pit, you can feel your release coming.

“Oh, my J-Jungkook!” You have to stop moaning his name like that. He’s been trying his best not to split you open and take his time with you. He remains as patient as he can as he feels how close he has you again. He pumps the fingers he has in you just a little faster, as you squirt all over him. You can’t believe how turned on it makes him. His lips slightly opening

“Damn, thats so fucking sexy.” He says as he makes sure to pull his fingers out and slide his fingers into his mouth.

“You taste. So. Fucking. Good. “ he says as he moans while cleaning your juices off his hand. Looking at you before his brows furrow and his eye roll again. He knows exactly what he’s doing.

“Kookie. Lay down. It’s my turn.” You try but He shakes his head no as he props himself on his knees.

“Help me with my shorts, then lay your ass back down. I’m not in the mood for you to be defiant about it either. I keep telling you it’s about you.”

Oh. He’s that type in bed. You’ve hit the jackpot.

You follow the instructions given to you and help undo the strings on his shorts, then you lay back down. What you don’t expect is for him to be that big. You easily could tell he was a nice size but not this big.

“Holy fuck.” You say and he chuckles. he strokes himself in his hand. He was easily the biggest you’ve seen. Both in length and thickness. The tip of him, so red, swollen, and plump. His Head falls back just a little before he shoots his eyes back at yours.

“But you can take it, right baby? You said you can take whatever I give you.” He says as spreads the pre cum around his head.

You nod your head, yes and he smirks.

“Good.” He spits on your pussy and then decides to reach toward his drawer but you catch his hand.

“I trust you. I want to feel you. All of you.” You look up at him through your lashes as you say and he nods.

He kisses you and whispers against your lips. “If it’s too much say something.”

You shake your head no. “No, I told you I could take it all.”

He lines himself up with your entrance and slowly pushes in. You both moan at the contact.

“You’re so fucking tight. Jesus baby.” He says as he bites his lip, inching further into you.

“Jungkook, more. ” You moan out and you both make eye contact. He kisses your forehead and then you lean up a little for a kiss. He obliges and slides further into you. He’s finally in. You fit so snugly around him, you’re so wet and warm too.

Jungkook cups your face and looks into your eyes as he starts bottoming out of you. Missionary was a great choice he thinks to himself. You’re so beautiful underneath him. You love the way he looks at you. He moves some hair out of your face and whispers.

“I choose you. I chose you so long ago,” As he pumps into you. Jungkook looks slightly down and can also see himself. Your tummy bulging as he pumps into you. You can’t believe it either. He’s so thick and long. Reaching places you’ve never been touched before.

“Look at how well this pussy is taking me.” He says eyes blown out and piercing between his teeth as he bites on his lip.

You’re a moaning mess underneath him, but you look into his eyes and pull his face to yours for a kiss. He feels so good inside you. Your walls contract whenever he slides out slightly. He loves every part of you and you love every part of him.

“Kook you make me feel so good.” You say moaning more into the kisses you’ve both been stealing.

“Good, that’s what I want, for you to feel good.” He continues pumping in and out but he leans up from the kiss and pushes your knees to your shoulders as he continues to pump into you.

“Just. Like. that.” You say as your arms reach for his bicep. He loves how well you take him. You love how deep and passionate each thrust is.

Jungkook watches as you cream all over him, he knows he won’t last long with the way you’ve been moaning his name. He needs to make you cum again first, it’s easily the sexiest thing he’s ever seen.

You motion him back down to you and he smirks. “Can’t stop kissing me?”

You nod your head no. “I can’t. Your right…Oh fuck! Please don’t stop.” You moan the last part out.

“I won’t, not until this pretty pussy cums for me again.” He makes sure you understand and kisses you, just like you want.

You start to feel that familiar buildup in your stomach and moan his name some more, you’ve damn near been chanting it now.

“You’re close.” He says and you nod.

“Then be a good girl, and make a mess on this dick. It’s yours anyway.” The statement has you whimpering and Jungkook starts circling his thumb on your clit as he pumps in and out of you.

That’s when you break and he watches everything ooze out of you onto him. You have cum three times. That’s a record you think to yourself -and he still has to cum.

“You think you can be a good girl one last time and cum with me ?” He asks.

Jungkook is going to be the death of you, but you nod yes. You just want to make him feel good too. He’s been praising you and giving you ownership this whole time. Of course, you can be a good girl for him.

Jungkook starts going a little harder with each roll of his hips. It’s still slow and sensual, just deeper-you’re not sure how he’s even managing to do that.

“ Yes, oh my god. Jungkook.”

He chuckles. You’re so cute. Taking him like he’s always wanted.

Your cum slicked walls are tight and clenching him perfectly. just about send him over the edge. He leans into your ear and whispers “Ready?” You shake your head fast.

“Yes baby, I’m ready.” You say. Jungkook just heard you return the pet name he’s been calling you. You’re in absolute heaven, creaming his dick, slightly running down his thighs.

“Who does this pussy belong to?” He asks and you moan out your answer.

“You!! Kook please… cum with me.” You moan out every single word.

That’s when you feel both your orgasms collide and kiss some more. Jungkook makes sure to watch you as he pumps more, you both ride out your highs.

Then he collapses beside you pulling you into his chest.

“That was so good, that’s the best sex I’ve ever had.”you say and he smirks.

“Yeah, it was. Let me get you cleaned up and get new sheets.” He says kissing your lips one more time

You spent the rest of the night asleep on his chest, but when you wake up Jungkook is missing-that’s when you smell breakfast. Just like you remember. You go brush your teeth and wash your face seeing the gift you were supposed to hand to him in your bag. You make a mental note to give it to him this morning. once you’re finished, you then walk out to a shirtless Jungkook flipping pancakes and smiling at you.

“HI.” He says and you see Bam walking over to you.

“Good morning to you both!” You say patting Bam on the head and walking over to the person preparing breakfast.

“I got you a gift.” You say and he raises an eyebrow. You slide it across the counter and he immediately smiles when he unwraps it.

His smile says enough. He loves it. You know he does.

“You have perfect timing, I think I broke the one I’m currently using! Thank you, princess.”

“You’re so welcome, I’m really sorry about how I treated you. Plus this reminded me of you,” you reply and then you get up to stand with him.

He winks at you. It’s nice to know he was on your mind. You promise to tell him every time he is now. He’s a priority and you want him to know that.

“Listen, we should talk so just listen to me.” He says as he watches you wrap your arms around him from behind, but he turns around facing you.

“I think Jimin, Joon, and Hobi can go get your stuff from your apartment but I want to tell you the truth. After last night, I can’t keep being your friend. I want you to know I meant every word about loving you and no- you don’t have to say it back but let me prove it to you ____ because you deserve more than your getting at h-“

You realize, It’s now your turn to cut him off and you hurry and put your lips on his to kiss him.

“Jeon Jungkook, I love you too. After last night, I don’t want to be your friend either.”

“So...Can I be your boyfriend?” He asks you and you nod your head yes so fast earning a laugh, as he leans down to kiss you.

He smiles at you and wraps his mouth around yours. Your arms around his neck as he explores your mouth.

“ Breakfast in bed?” You question and he immediately picks up on what you mean.

Jungkook pulls you closer, then whispers on your lips “After last night...

Anything you want."

Author's Note: This definitely went in a different direction than planned, but I just want to say thank you so much for reading, all feedback is welcome! I may start a Drabble series for this couple, so stay tuned.

Taglist:@kimber-koo @taesungx @jennafromhome @diorh0seokie @joyfulwobblerhoagiee

#jungkook smut #bts smut #jeon jungkook #jungkook x reader #jungkook #jungkook x y/n #jungkook fic #bts #jungkook fanfic #jungkook angst #jungkook fluff #jungkook x you #jeon jungkook x reader

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backwardsbread · 27 days

Text

Hazbin Hotel Characters:

~First I love you~

Warnings‼️: use of pet names, a dash of angst for Adam and Lucifer (I’m sorry), swearing, GN!Reader, Lucifer doesn’t really say it but it’s still cute I think.

A/N:Okay I’m VERY into fluffy scenarios with these characters rn- MY HEART- thank you guys for all the love towards these and I hope you enjoy! This is sorta rushed because I’m TIRED and working on TOO MANY THINGS.;-;

~not proofread~

Vox:

I’ve mentioned this in previous headcannons with Vox, but dating someone was most definitely not part of his plan.

He views himself as this big bad overlord who would never go soft for anyone.

Dude thinks he’s too good for anybody, even Vel and Val sometimes. He’s very proud of his work and what he does and doesn’t like anyone getting in the way of that.

You’re only a slight exception.

Who he would literally do anything for

He tries to keep your guys’ relationship very much under wraps. He understands how dangerous of a person he is to be around.

Sharing your relationship to the public would basically be an open invitation for anyone who has beef with Vox,

Including a pesky radio demon

To target you.

So while he denies your guys’ relationship to anyone and everyone, it’s understood between the two of you what you guys truly have.

However, Velvette and Val are able to see right through Vox’s bullshit when he starts getting feelings for you. They see how he reacts to your messages, your affections, and your presence.

They know Vox has a soft spot for you, but since they like their heads attached to their bodies, they keep their mouths shut.

As his feelings for you grow, it became more and more obvious to anyone with common sense what was going on.

The man literally relaxes at the mention of you.

Unbeknownst to Vox, literally EVERYONE knows about your guys’ ‘secret’ relationship.

Vox doesn’t realize how easy he is to read. He’s an impulsive liar, and a good one at that, but his actions very much contradict the lies he spits.

He could literally be screaming at one of his employees for who knows what, and if you walk into the room, his eyes soften and his attention is on you.

He’s straightening out his posture, trying to look as if he wasn’t about to murder one of his employees.

(He would deal with them later)

Despite how obvious his and your feelings are towards one another, Vox still doesn’t make anything public, letting fans and overlords alike to speculate.

It was a poorly kept secret but one the two of you mutually agreed to keep.

You are in Hell afterall. Saying you were the TV faced overlords significant other was like sticking a paper on your back that says ‘Kick me’

Vox does his best to balance his life with you and his work life. Work was all he ever knew, so when you entered his afterlife, scheduling became a huge issue.

He would love to spend every moment by your side but he’s work too hard. His empire is too important to him.

So while the two of you didn’t go out too frequently on dates or outings,

(But trust me when you do, it is luxurious. He makes the limited time you spend together worth it.)

Vox was always making a way to communicate with you.

Whether that be via phone call or through text messages, he’s always making sure to make an effort to spend time with you. Even if it was just hearing your voice and seeing your words through a screen.

On your off days, he keeps you on an ongoing call in his TV room at all times. Unless you have something planned of course, then it’s back to the texting.

He would be in and out of his screen room frequently between meetings and whatever other things he had to do. The little lair of his was where he spent a lot of his time catching up on paperwork, checking up on the latest releases, and working through the insane amount of work emails he received.

All while talking to you. Whether it was ranting about his day or yours, or if it was talking about what your guys’ next date would be or even just enjoying each other's silent, distant, company.

That brought you to now; listening to your significant other rant about his overlord associates who had sprung a last minute meeting on him.

You listen to him shuffling around his office, grumbling as he put on his suit jacket.

He rambled on grumpily while you listened with an amused smile. He swore under his breath as he looked at his watch.

"Alright doll, I'll be back in about an hour."

"Boooo."

"I know, but once this bullshit is over, I just have paperwork so I'll be all yours, I’ll talk to you later."

"Alright, see you in a bit, I love you.”

“Mhm, Love you too.”

Vox hurries out of his media room without a second thought, zapping into a nearby security camera and appearing into the meeting room in a bolt of electricity.

He begrudgingly sat in his chair slumping into himself and mentally preparing for the chaos his coworkers were about to create.

As Velvette and Val went at each other throats, his mind drifted to the thought of you.

God, he would give anything to just be next to you instead on enduring this Hell within Hell.

He zoned out, thinking about how you were sitting on call in his office, waiting for his return. You were so loyal to him.

He thought about you, your company and your voice, the way you sounded when you said you loved him.

Realization hits him like a freight train, his screen glitching out a bit and his fans kicking into high gear as he replays the conversation the two of you had before his abrupt departure.

He kind of stays in stunned silence for a moment, in complete utter shock. Was he dreaming?? He said it back so casually! Too casually!

He whips out his phone, shooting you a quick text:

~“You said you loved me??????”

It takes a few seconds for you to respond, but it feels far too long for Vox.

~“Yeah? You said it back”

~“I didn’t realize I did.”

~“Oh. Did you not mean to?”

~“No!”

~“Fuck that came out wrong. Hold on.”

Vox went into panic mode, his screen glitching in and out. Velvette and Valentinos arguing becoming muted background noise.

He tried his best not to blue screen or shut down completely, taking a deep breath to regain composure before he texted you back.

~“I do. I love you too.”

And boy are you glad Vox can’t see your right now because you are sure he would be soaking in your embarrassment with that prideful grin on his face.

You knew you said it first and honestly it felt natural coming out.

But knowing Vox felt the same, hearing him saying it, or well, seeing him say it.

Seeing that he got over his own pride to just say it by himself meant a lot to you.

It made your chest feel warm with joy, your stomach fluttered with imaginary butterflies, and your face burned red from those words that somehow meant more coming from him.

But of course you couldn’t let him know how giddy he truly made you.

Please don’t boost his ego more-

So instead you respond with;

~“That’s pretty corny, flat screen.”

Your reaction to his admission completely catches Vox off guard. He finds himself smirking to himself, somehow feeling better with you not taking him too seriously.

He couldn’t even hear his coworkers screaming at him, wanting his input on the subject they were arguing about.

He just chuckles to himself, tucking his phone into his pocket. Giving fake hums and nods of acknowledgment. Replaying those three little words in his head over and over and over.

Adam:

Holy shit, this man is too up his own ass to realize how bad he’s got it for you.

Don’t get me wrong, the man’s stuck up. He’s selfish. But whatever you ask?

Yeah you’ve got it or it’s at least getting done by the end of the day.

He’s got it bad.

He usually denies your request at first. He’s ’above such things’.

But whatever request it may be, whether it be him stopping to get food or requesting a late night cuddle session. He’s a sucker for you.

And everyone knows it but he will deny it to no end. No way is he soft for you. Nu-uh.

Because of his status and massive ego, it stops him from acting how he wants to around you for a long time.

Like, he’d love to hold your hand, be with you 24/7 in the streets of heaven.

But deep down he’s super self conscious about getting into a relationship. Man lost not one, but TWO wives that’s were MADE for him.

You’re good at getting him to show his true colors though. Straightening him out when he’s pushed too far.

He definitely made a big show about asking you out as well. Mostly to make himself less nervous about doing it.

According to him ‘it’s an honor he’s even asking you’

Which lead to you giving him a death glare and ignoring his ask the rest of the day until he asked you genuinely.

(He then surprised you at the end of the day with chocolates, a romantic dinner, and a huge blanket fort, where you guys cuddled and watched movies until 2 am. Where he asks you again to be his partner properly this time, not letting his ego get the better of him.)

But that aside, you’re one of the few people who can see through Adam’s egotistical exterior.

I hc that he’s a big softie. So oh boy, when you utter these three little words to him, they gain so much more meaning.

I mean we already know the man loves praise. Hearing it from you is a whole different level of euphoria.

It was the morning of an extermination, and while you weren’t meant to know, Adam couldn’t keep anything from you. You ended up finding out about his yearly activities in killing sinners.

The two of you didn’t speak of it often. It’s not like Adam was supposed to speak on the matter anyways.

But when you heard about the exterminations now coming twice a year?

You couldn’t help but feel nervous for your significant other. Sure Adam was strong, but who knew what the hell spawn were capable of?

Adam had finished getting dressed, walking out of his room with his mask in hand.

He seemed like a giddy child, muttering excitedly how he ready he was. It was a way to get the adrenaline flowing and get him hyped for the big day.

Despite how gruesome it was, he did love his job and the praise he received for it.

You’re laying on the couch watching Adam, hearing only your heartbeat in your ears. You watch Adam put on his mask, looking towards you and giving a small wave.

“Alright babe! I’ll see ya later. Hey, you should order from that one kick ass pizza place tonight! Celebration dinner after I wipe out those fuckin’ hellspawn!”

You’re quick to blink out of your panicked daze, swinging your legs over the cushions and nearly tripping over yourself as you go over to him before he can get out the door.

You let out a breath, brushing off nonexistent dust off his pristine war outfit.

“Just.. don’t be stupid. Alright? Don’t go biting off more than you can chew.”

“Uhh. Babe. You do realize who you’re dating right?? I’m fucking Adam! The original-.”

“Original dick, first man, yes yes I know.”

He looked at you through his mask, his grin faltering at the edges when he saw your eyes drowning in worry that you hid behind a nervous smile.

You avoid his gaze, continuing to try and find things in his outfit to straighten out before he can leave.

If you’re lucky, you’ll find something bad enough causing him to have to stay home.

Where it was safe with you.

Adam puts a hand over your own, stopping you from brushing imaginary fuzz off the front of his shirt.

You meet his gaze, and despite his mask being on, you see a genuine soft smile. One of adoration and reassurance.

One that made you let out a breath you didn’t even know you were holding in.

You press a quick kiss against his mask where a projection of his lips were.

He always hated when you did that. You depriving him of your real soft lips against his own.

Just ask him to take the mask off, he would do it if it meant he could kiss you.

Before he can complain, you gently squeeze his hand, letting out a whispered voice. Almost sounding too nervous- no, too scared- to speak.

“I love you.. please be careful..”

You go to let go of his hand so he can be on his merry way. But he’s quick to process your words.

He tightens his grip on your hand, pulling you in closer to him. A look of shock is evident on his face.

He squeezes your hand, pulling you against his chest. He moves his face, almost uncomfortably close, with his mask causing forced distance between you.

“Say that again.”

Now you were a little confused.

What did you even say again?

Did Adam suddenly get cold feet with the whole extermination?

He kept your body in a sort of pose that looked like you were going to start dancing.

His one hand in your own, holding tightly while his other arm wrapped around your torso, hand pressed against the small of your back to keep you close.

Your body pressed against his, it seemed he only wanted you closer, keeping a firm arm wrapped around your torso while you waited for you to repeat your words.

You look up at Adam, repeating your own words in your head. The realization of what you said and, what he wanted to hear again from you, made your face flush from light shades of pink to dark hues of red.

Adam has a smug grin on his face, keeping his tight grip on you. Refusing to let you go until you give him what he wants.

You see the look on his face and roll your eyes a bit while smiling. In a sudden rush of confidence, you kiss his mask again, wiping that smug smirk off his face.

“I love you.. be careful.”

You repeat, once again before Adam can complain about your teased kisses.

Part of Adam is glad you can’t see his face, which was burning red from your actions and words. You speaking sweetness enough to make him melt in your arms.

Those three little words that seemed so cliche before you uttered them.

He lets go of your hand so he can lift his mask off over his head. As soon as it’s off, he’s leaning in to kiss you. Just before his lips reach yours, whispering back a small:

“I love you too, babe.”

And just like that, he’s kissing you in the most soft and genuine way Adam can be. How he always was with you.

You didn’t know that would be the first and last time you would get to utter those words to your partner.

You didn’t know Adam wouldn’t be returning back to heaven after his expedition.

You didn’t know you’d only be able to hold his empty halo, whispering the lost words you never got to say to him.

Adam never planned to leave you alone questioning your faith.

You didn’t know, but at least Adam knew you loved him before it was too late.

Lucifer:

Another big sap despite his title.

Of ya know. The devil.

He met you a few months after Lillith left. So you saw him at rock bottom.

You met him at rock bottom. Wallowing in sorrows and self pity, waiting for his wife to return.

You never did pry at the king, one because he was your superior, and two because he was never in the right mind space to listen to you.

You offered an ear when he needed, an occasional shoulder to lean on when Lucifer had downed too many bottles.

You made sure the king stayed fed and physically stable. Forcing him out of bed on bad days.

(Well i wouldn’t say forcing. You’d sit beside him, rubbing his back while he lets gentle tears fall down his face. Whispering reassuring words and asking what he wants to eat so he would get up and get his desired meal you serve)

(It’s more of convincing and encouraging)

Lucifer had spent his eternity with Lillith. Having been with someone so long, he couldn’t imagine his life without her.

He was angry. He was grief stricken. He was confused. He was sad.

Her departure tore him and the family they had made apart.

You made him feel normal again. Like he wasn’t a failure of a king, husband, and father. You made him feel okay about himself.

Slowly over the years, Lucifer was recovering. It was painfully slow, but you had patience. These things took time overall.

He would never truly be over his wife’s leaving, not really knowing the reason why she had gone, only blaming himself for it.

A part of his heart was torn out that day, but you worked to fill it with new hope.

Lucifer is completely blind to your doing for awhile. I mean he spent a couple years disassociated from everything.

You provided everything for him and he barely knew anything about you. What was your intent in the first place?

He did ask you this once, why you were helping him. Why you did what you did.

Your reason was simple but struck a chord with Lucifer.

You said he deserved to be loved.

Loved.

He had half the mind to burst out in tears right then and there

After that admission, Lucifer set a goal to become a sort of equal to you. To provide for you as you had for him.

The newfound determination to basically serve you got the king of hell up and moving again.

What the two of you had felt so domestic. Cooking and cleaning together, tending to the garden Lucifer had made with Lillith. He couldn’t bare to step foot in it after she left.

But when he saw you out there in the garden covered in dirt and mud, yanking pesky weeds from the ground.

He couldn’t help but go out there. He didn’t even know you had been tending to it.

Most life had died in the garden with Lucifer’s marriage. Painful and sad

It became a midday chore for you while Lucifer grieved indoors. You caught eye of the gardens beauty one day and thought to spruce it up a bit.

When Lucifer was on his feet again, he joined you in this chore. Trimming away dead branches, pulling weeds, picking fruit that had ripened enough.

While he could just use his angelic power to grow these things, nurturing the plants from the start and watching them thrive and bloom was something he enjoyed ever since creation started.

It was something so special to him. So pure and a reminder of home.

The two of you grew closer with this shared chore, it didn’t quite feel like a chore anymore. As it was something the two of you looked forward to now.

Lucifer could feel himself falling. It was what he was prone to doing. But he couldn’t bring himself to be that vulnerable again.

Everytime he had fallen it left him bruised and lost. And if he lost you, he didn’t know if anyone would come pick him up again.

He could only get so lucky so many times.

He was currently looking at an open space near the center of the extensive garden. Where several paths met up in the middle of the garden. Where large trees formed a sort of dome shape protecting anything beneath them.

Lucifer hummed to himself, sleeves pulled up to his elbows. He tapped his chin thoughtfully, spreading the dirt on his fingertips to his face.

He glanced at how much space there was in the center of the garden. He always thought the center was bland. Sure you could lay down and look up towards Hell’s blood skies, but after centuries of seeing nothing but red above him, the sight got boring.

Besides, his creativity was bubbling in him. Begging for something new.

With a point of his finger, golden hues shot out, a large fountain forming in the middle of the gardens. It wasn’t quite tall enough to reach the trees above, but it did challenge them.

The white cement water fountain had edges to sit comfortably, three tiers, with little ducks on the middle layer spitting out water into the pool below.

Gold accents decorated each layer of the fountain. The pool to hold the water having a ruby red color, making the water appear like blood when it sat at the bottom.

Lucifer walked around the fountain, looking over every detail of his work. Making sure it was pristine and perfect.

He enjoyed it for the smallest moment, leaning his hands against the base of the fountain, leaning in to look at his reflection.

He then grew frustrated, not able to enjoy his own creation. It wasn’t good enough, not if it was made from his hands.

He growled, slapping his hand through the water, causing it to splash out. He gripped the edge of the fountain, gritting his teeth.

“Goodness..”

Your voice made him quite frankly jump into the air, falling onto his butt. His head snapped in your directions.

Your eyes were blown wide while you stared at Lucifer’s newest creation. Hands gripping a basket of freshly picked produce from the garden.

The king sits up, stuttering over himself as you move closer to get a better look at the fountain.

“You made this?”

You ask quietly, gently running your fingertips against the designs of the sides of the fountain, feeling the smooth detailing.

“Yeah I know.. it’s uh.. it’s-..”

“It’s beautiful.”

Lucifer visibly tenses at your words, looking up at you with eyes wide in shock.

He was dumbfounded, he looked like a child sitting on the ground just staring at you like this.

You look down at him, seeing his eyes wide and his jaw practically hanging on the floor. You can’t help but chuckle, deciding to take a seat next to him.

You set the basket between the two of you. Picking up a peach from the basket.

“The produce is growing lovely this year.”

You compliment the gardens hard work. Lucifer blinks out of his daydream, looking at the basket between the two of you.

His heart swells with joy. A sense of accomplishment that his creation, something he made, you thought it was beautiful.

His eyes trail to you. The light peering through the branches above you casting perfect rays on your skin.

Your company felt like home. It felt warm and comforting.

And in this light, in the garden, you looked just like…

“I love y-..”

Lucifer starts to speak before his mind can stop him. When you meet his gaze, his voice catches in his throat.

His face flushes golden colors when he caught himself almost daring to say that to you.

He lets out a comedic laugh, awkward and loud.

“..youuurrr COMPANY! Hah! Wow what a nice day! Gee golly, can’t imagine it any other way haha!”

You stare at him for a moment. Of course you were use to Lucifer’s occasional awkwardness behavior, but often times you had to read between the lines to understand what he truly meant/wanted to say.

You kind of got at what he was trying to say, your heart starting to beat fast in your chest at the thought of it.

But it wasn’t the right time. You knew Lucifer wasn’t ready.

You offer her a small smile, handing the fruit to Lucifer. You reach a hand up to wipe the dirt off his chin.

“I love it too. Any day with you.”

Lucifer’s face flushed gold once again, shoulders relaxing. He instinctively leaned into your touch, looking up at the fountain.

Patience. So patient with him.

#hazbin hotel #hazbin hotel headcanon #hazbin vox #hazbin #vox #hazbin hotel x reader #vox x reader #hazbin lucifer x reader #hazbin adam x reader #hazbin adam #hazbin lucifer #hazbin x reader

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remuslupinslittleslut · 2 months

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No, like this

Anon asked: I need more of the teach me dynamic like that was so hot. The way Remus helped Sirius ate you out using his hair holy fuck that was hot. maybe it’s like Remus gets jealous cause it’s close to the full moon so he shows the boys how to properly fuck a girl and it’s super rough maybe and then James and Sirius are just there jerking off like super turned on by the scene cause wow Remus is really good at making reader be loud.

And YES! I love this dynamic and this ask was so very lovely and gave me so much inspiration THANK YOU BABE <333

Here's a very jelly remus, pre full moon, showing his friends how to fuck his girl hot damn

Masterlist. (Teach us part one. And part two. Though it can easily be read on it's own, just the same dynamics <3)

“No, you’re doing it all wrong,” Remus growled.

You were laid out on your back, James on top of you, hips moving against yours at a steady rhythm. It was good, really good. But the full moon was getting closer, and Remus was aggravated, jealous and very territorial of you.

James whined at the harsh words, and you kissed his nose telling him, “You’re doing well darling, keep going.”

He did, though not quite as confidently as before. His head came down to rest in the crook of your neck, and you felt his cheeks were heated from embarrassment. You and Remus had taught both James and Sirius a lot since your first night together, and they’d both made great progress, all the while Remus was perfectly okay with sharing you – as you also did share him with his friends.

James had just started to get it right with each thrust again – making you moan and whine, telling him what a good boy he was being – when Remus interrupted yet again.

“No, move,” he said, standing up and pushing James off of you, making all three of you gasp (Sirius wouldn’t miss this show for anything in the world), “let me show you how to fuck her properly.”

It was, to put it plainly, rude. You would have to talk to Remus about it later, that he can’t act that way with your littles, but he was so sexy, towering above you, hands tugging at his buckle, trying to free himself for you. You knew what was to come would be life changing-ly amazing, and you did not want to get in the way of Moony when he was tearing at the seams of Remus like this.

Remus was finally naked, standing next to the bed, where James still lay, “I said move.” James did, shying away, trudging toward Sirius’ bed.

“Arms above your head, darling,” he said, steadying his body above yours. You did as you were told, knowing not to argue at this moment. “See, you’ve gotta tell a slut what to do, she’s too dumb to think on her own.” This wasn’t really true – though you loved letting go of all your common sense to let Remus take full control, so you did.

He didn’t give any warning before he pushed himself into you, widening your tight little hole, taking your body from you. “Little sluts like this don’t need to be warmed up, she can take it, right love?” You nodded, knowing you hadn’t been given permission to speak.

His hips snapped against yours at a brutal pace, it almost hurt, you knew it would later, but the way the head of him pushed against your walls felt too good. While he was fucking you, he kept narrating the whole thing, “yeah, that’s right, touch your little cocks to my girl, hear that? My girl. You’ve gotta move faster, harder, like this.”

It was so hot, having your life fucked out of you by your boyfriend while your other two partners watched, touching themselves. You could finally show them the Remus you knew, the Remus who could make sure you didn’t walk straight for days – he’d been so nice and soft since you invited James and Sirius, but now he was back, with his back-arching, toe-curling, orgasm-giving sex.

You hadn’t been quiet for a while, and when your orgasm washed over you, the sounds coming from somewhere deep in your throat only got louder. “There you go, see this, this’s how you make a girl come.”

Pulling out of you, Remus kissed you once, deep and hard and dirty, before he flipped you over, pulling on your hips to make your ass stick out. Leaning down over you, he kissed down the back of your neck, biting and pulling at the skin, hard teeth scratching soft skin. “You ready, little one?” He asked, almost softly, and when you nodded your head he pulled back and pushed in, in one sweeping motion. The angle from this position was even better and you felt your eyes roll back as you dropped your head against the pillow, feeling another orgasm come creeping.

Holding himself up with one hand on the headboard, the other kept a tight hold on your hair. “Now this is how you fuck a girl real good, she won’t be able to think straight when I’m done with her, shame you’ll never be this good,” the cockiness could be heard in Remus’ voice as his hips kept pushing against yours, your ass shaking with every thrust. “Go on then, come, all over your hands from watching my girl take my cock, go ahead… You too, princess, go ahead, let go f’me…”

Somewhere in the back of your mind you registered some grunting from the other bed, though most of your senses were filled with Remus, the wet sound of him thrusting in and out of you, the smell of him on the pillow, of both of your juices mixing somewhere further down on the bed, the taste of him left on your tongue, the sight of a veiny arm holding him up, the feeling of him all over you, against your back, the hands in your hair, his cock inside you, pulsating and ejaculating, filling you up with white, hot spurts of cum, the feeling of it running out of you, the wet patch on the bed between your legs.

And then… nothing.

When you woke up, it was to a hot, wet rag on your face. “Hi, love,” Remus said, kissing your forehead, hand holding your cheek still. “Welcome back, you went out for a bit, but don’t worry, I’m gonna take care of you now, okay baby?”

Smiling, you reached your hands up – not a small feat, considering your arms felt like boiled spaghetti – and took a hold of his face to pull him back down to you, pressing your lips against his.

“And now this is how you perform proper aftercare, don’t ever skip that,” he said, a pointed look directed at his friends, who he was about to treat with some of the same love that you’d received.

Tagged: @remussbitch

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twinfools · 1 year

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I’m 3 years post phalloplasty and I realized I’ve never really made a post about how things are going. Phalloplasty is a hard surgery to talk about because, bottom line, it’s not part of common conversation to talk about yo dick. That being said I think it’s really important for me to talk about this procedure to help break stigma and misinformation— both inside and outside of trans and non-binary communities.

I had ALT phalloplasty, glansplasty, scrotoplasty, no urethral lengthening (UL) with vaginectomy. This means that tissue from my thigh was used to create my penis, my urethra was not extended or moved (so I don’t stand to pee) and my vagina was closed. I feel like this detail is important because this is one of many variations for this procedure and what I opted for/out of were decisions made according to trade-offs between personal benefit and risk.

I opted out of UL because I do not tolerate catheters well and, due to my very active lifestyle, was not willing to risk longer term catheterization or bladder spasms which would impede my quality of life. This risk, for me, outweighed the benefit of standing to pee.

I opted for ALT knowing that I would likely need debulking (which I didn’t end up needing but opted for anyway out of preference). Debulking is a procedure to make the penis less girthy as ALT phalloplasty is more girthy because of the nature of tissue on the thigh. I chose ALT because, first and foremost, I did not want scarring on my forearm. My ALT scar is covered by clothing most of the time which I appreciate. I also chose ALT because I have skinny forearms, which wasn’t ideal for forearm phalloplasty (RFF).

Vaginectomy, for me, was a no brainer. I have never used or connected with that part of my body so I wanted it gone.

Glansplasty is a procedure to make the glans (head) of the penis and was a short procedure done after my initial stage of surgery. I may get it redone but I’m still undecided on that. Scrotoplasty creates a scrotum, I was ambivalent about this procedure but have grown to more appreciate it over time.

I am considering further surgeries: erectile implant (which creates the ability for the penis to “get hard”) and testicular implants (fills to scrotum with testicle implants). But I’m undecided and want a break from surgery while I finish my degree and focus on work. I’m also considering phalloplasty tattooing to help enhance the contour and coloring to make it appear more like a cis penis.

Whew! Lots of info, right? These are big procedures completed over multiple stages and are very unlike chest surgery, hysterectomy and other surgeries I had completed prior. When I was first considering this surgery I didn’t know there was flexibility in terms of tissue donor site and UL. I waited to have this surgery and am so happy I did because the information I gained from research and consulting with professionals and folks with lived experience was so valuable.

Was surgery hard? Yes. This surgery was the hardest thing I’ve ever been through. I’ve never been so uncomfortable for the first 2 weeks after recovering. I had to re-learn how to walk. I couldn’t sleep. Peeing hurt… but would I do it again? Yes. It was worth it for me but I can’t underscore enough that that doesn’t mean I didn’t have moments where I felt regret while recovering because post op depression is a thing and I was in pain while adjusting to a new body part that was also a healing surgical site… LOTS going on there!

3 years on I feel really at home in my body. Just having a penis is such a comfort to me in ways I didn’t anticipate. I’ve had a feeling my entire life that I was missing a body part and this was it. The quiet gender euphoria of just sitting and feeling my body and for once feeling complete in that is something that’s hard to articulate.

I’m thankfully back to full mobility and got back to full mobility about 3 months post op. I was grateful for this since a long term recovery wasn’t what I wanted. There are still weird twitches, pains and feelings, especially around my donor site (thigh) from time to time but nothing that inhibits me. Just interesting when it happens (usually when weather gets colder?).

What is one thing I would want to go back and tell myself before surgery? Well:

Your penis will feel HEAVY. Like it will fall off. It won’t fall off and your body will adjust to the weight in an area you didn’t have it before. Until then it will feel like you need to hold it at all times.

Hopefully this helps someone as an overview of what an experience with this procedure may look like. Again, my goal is to put information out there and have frank conversations— because it’s these same things that greatly benefitted me in my surgery journey.

Finally— my inbox is open for anyone that has questions. I am in a privileged position to feel safe talking about these things and I feel comfortable doing so. Not everyone does, so please don’t assume that this invitation applies to other folks who have accessed surgery unless they say so.

Thank you for reading :)

#ftm #phalloplasty #surgery #trans #transition #transgender #trans man #trans guy #gender affirming surgery #phallo

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cuubism · 2 months

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touch-starved dream in a universe where any human who touches the endless falls to ruin. 6k. E.

Hob had always felt that his stranger was untouchable.

He was too beautiful, for one. The kind of face you imagined when you were young and dreaming of marriage (or, less respectably, when you were young and jerking off). The kind of face that didn’t appear in reality because real beauty had flaws—that was kind of what made it real.

Hob’s stranger’s beauty was a fall of light easily dashed by a hand. Impossible to touch.

For another thing: it was a bad idea to touch him. You didn’t go around offering yourself to strange beautiful things you met in the woods (or in a tavern). That was how you ended up a not-so-virgin sacrifice, or a meal, or a soul traded for riches. That sort of beauty was a lure. That was just common sense.

Hob had never had much of that. Hob very much did go and offer himself to a strange and beautiful thing he met in a tavern. A thing which never touched him, it must be said, but only offered an enigmatic smile, and a promise of a later meeting.

And then Hob dreamed of him. In his dream they were touching, in his dream Hob pulled his long robes away from his pale, slim thighs and took him in his mouth. He touched him a lot in that dream. Lips spread over his cock, hands wrapped around his thighs, his stranger’s nails scraping over his scalp.

In 1489, his stranger didn’t touch him, though the twinkle in his eye suggested their late rendezvous may have been slightly more than a dream.

In dreams that night, Hob had him as close as two creatures could possibly be, his stranger thrusting into him, one long-fingered hand wrapped loosely around Hob’s cock, the other around his throat, and it felt strangely like approval. Like appreciation.

In 1589, Hob didn’t expect his stranger to touch him, and he didn’t.

His dreams were absent, too, but for a flash of starlight eyes, a hushed growl, the ghostly, erotic drag of claws up his spine and over the back of his skull.

In 1689, Hob wondered if, maybe, his stranger would extend a hand. He didn’t, but for the first time there was a hesitant curl to his fingers.

In dreams, Hob was held, and sobbed with the lack of shame inherent to dreaming, because it had been so long since he had been touched kindly. And the dream repeated, in subtle variations, for many years after his stranger had gone again.

In 1789, Hob thought he’d be pinned against a wall. To be bitten, or fucked, or have his throat clawed out, he was really unsure. His stranger’s gaze held teeth. Disapproval. Heat. Appreciation of Hob’s swift if unneeded defense. A war of emotions, and Hob felt appraised, wanted, derided, devoured, and would have accepted any pleasure or pain his stranger saw fit to deal out, would have taken it gladly, on his knees, over a table, against a wall. Again, his stranger did not touch him, but his eyes were hot as coals.

In their dreams, he had his stranger on his back, fucked roughly into him, and it felt like judgment. Does that make you feel powerful, Hob? But his stranger’s moans were loud and his body tight and hot and his gaze haughty, and Hob knew he was enjoying himself.

Afterward, he combed his fingers through Hob’s hair, like Hob might still be redeemable. Hob didn’t know, but at least his stranger was touching him.

In 1889, Hob tried to touch him.

Just to lay their hands together on the table. Just to say, I know there’s something there between us and whatever it is, I’m telling you that I see it. Hob reached.

His stranger yanked his hands back.

He stood up, eyes flashing. Hob understood how colossally he’d fucked up before his stranger spoke a word. Before he stormed out, taking Hob’s hope that this might be anything with him.

He had the strangest dream that night. The only one of his stranger that could not actually be of his stranger. It must have been a fabrication of Hob’s mind, that time. A way to provide himself with closure that he wasn’t going to get otherwise.

In the dream, they were sitting again in the White Horse. Hob reached out his hands, palms up. His stranger hesitated. He did not look offended, this time. He looked—afraid. And wanting.

Slowly he reached out his hands, and laid them in Hob’s. Hob tangled their fingers together. Squeezed. And his stranger smiled.

His stranger didn’t come in 1989, and Hob didn’t dream of him either, no matter how much he wanted to. No matter how much he wanted to tell him, I won’t touch you if you don’t want. I think you do want, but it’s no matter. Just come back to me.

No matter. Hob would wait.

No human had touched Dream in many, many years. The last to try had been his captors. Burgess’s guards, as they tried to move him into his glass prison. Even with Dream’s magic bound, they had met the same terrible fate Dream had expected.

One could not look directly into the sun without burning one’s eyes. One could not stare into the swirling core of all dreams and nightmares without going mad.

The guards had clawed off their clothes, torn out their own eyes, scratched at their temples until broken nails pushed through bone to blood and brain matter and the knowing, the seeing, finally stopped.

It was not for living things to touch Dream while waking.

Thereafter the living guards had chased him with cattle prods to get him into his prison. Dream had held his ground for a long time, staring into their eyes as they coursed electricity through his nonhuman body, just to see their resolve weaken, to witness their terror. For them, he was the uncanny, the rabid dog fearing nothing, whose touch meant death. Still, they eventually maneuvered him into his prison.

No matter.

Dream was now free. Dream had his tools again, and his realm. And still he felt like that feral animal, poisonous to touch.

Worse that it was true.

He almost did not follow his sister’s suggestion to find Hob again. He did not trust himself. He no longer knew how to maintain a safe distance. After how Hob had touched him in their last shared dream, after Dream had fled from him, held his hands and later his body against his chest, Dream did not know how to keep his hands away. But he must. For Hob’s sake, he must.

Eventually, he found himself at the New Inn. Hungry. Starving. Cold. Would Hob welcome him back? Even if only in dreams?

At least in dreams, Dream’s touch could not burn him.

Dream found Hob sitting in the inn, like he had been waiting there all that while. The smile that graced Hob’s face when he saw Dream was beautiful, was terrible, for it bore the care Dream had not allowed himself to see, and the danger that care put Hob in.

And then Hob got up, and came around the table, and—before Dream could move away, or perhaps Dream just stood and watched it happen, awaited the immolation—Hob hugged him.

“No,” Dream whispered, and Hob chuckled, one arm wrapped around Dream’s waist, the other cradling the back of his neck, over his collar.

“I know, I know, you’re touchy about being touched—ha. Indulge me for a second, won’t you? I’ve been worried about you.”

“Worried?” Dream repeated at a whisper, for Hob had yet to run screaming, clawing out his own eyes.

“Haven’t seen you for a hundred thirty years, yeah, I was a bit worried. Even if I can imagine you taking that long just to think something over.”

He released Dream, then, and gestured for Dream to sit down. Which Dream did, still awash with confusion, and then realized:

Oh. Hob had only touched his coat, not his skin. Dream’s clothes were made of dream stuff, and, as was true of his tools, could cause madness or eternal sleep when possessed by humans for any significant duration. But a brief touch would not harm them. Not like touching Dream himself.

Hob had not come into direct contact with him. Dream hated that he felt disappointed, and not relieved, as he should.

Hob deserved an explanation, though. At least to be sure he would not try to touch Dream again.

“It is not that I wish for you not to hug me,” he said. Indeed, he had thought of their nighttime rendezvouses often, in his prison. Hob kissing him. Holding him. As no one had for many, many years. Perhaps, if Hob truly forgave him, they could have it again in dreams.

But he would first have to explain what he was, would he not?

“You don’t?” said Hob, looking surprised, but pleased. And then, with typical audacity, he took Dream’s hands.

“Do not!” Dream’s voice cracked with power, with desperation, but it was too—

Hob was standing on a vast field of black sand. A vast, empty field, glimmering and iridescent, the sky an utterly blank white, like light shining through an empty monitor. Like a blank sheet of printer paper, missing ink. The air was utterly still.

And standing before him was his stranger.

This was not the stranger Hob had met in dreams, that he had held and bedded in sheets of silken dream stuff, or sat across from in the inn. This version of his stranger was… magnificent.

He was robed all in black fabric that draped in illogical swirls and lines. He was tall and thin and angular, with hands sharp like claws, his hair blowing about without wind, and his eyes were terrible. Bottomless black void that made Hob feel like he was falling upwards into the sky.

He was beautiful.

“Hell of a place for a date, stranger,” Hob said, nervous despite himself. But at least he wasn’t here, wherever here was, alone.

“I am sorry, Hob,” said his stranger. Now Hob recognized the look on his face. It was grief. He had seen it once, in 1689.

“Why?” Hob asked, and then his stranger took his hands. The movement had an inevitability to it: Hob had done it in the inn, and now his stranger was bidden to do it, too, here.

He took Hob’s hands in his, those soft, fragile hands that Hob had always longed to hold when out of dreams, at their meetings. Hob ran his thumbs over his knuckles, and his stranger’s expression cracked, an iridescent tear slipping down his cheek.

Hob raised his stranger’s hands to his lips, and kissed his knuckles. And—

Oh.

There was his stranger. Hob could see him now. Truly.

The strange being before him, his stranger, not so strange anymore—he was… everything. He was stars, Hob could see all of them wheeling, and he was music, a collision of notes all upon each other, and flowers in bloom, and children playing pretend, and meticulously typed memoirs, memories held by trees, and root networks, and insects singing. He was proposals, he was invention, and flickering film reel, and dance. And not only that, but shadow, and all of Hob’s fears of being left, and a bite to the throat, a claw to the chest, a haunting memory, and he was beautiful.

Hob came back to himself, to that blank, open space, head full of infinite visions, heart full of his stranger. His stranger was still looking at him with that grief. Did he really hate being seen that badly?

“I missed you,” Hob whispered, voice thick. He squeezed his stranger’s hands. He could still feel it. The massive everything of him.

His stranger’s eyes widened. “You… are not mad.”

“What, in general? I’m certifiably mad, I’m sorry to tell you.”

His stranger stepped forward, sudden as a flicker of light, and took Hob’s face between his hands.

“You should be ruined,” he said, staring into Hob’s eyes, that endless void of him.

Hob laughed nervously. “Should I?”

And then his friend threw himself at him. Hob could never have expected him to move so ungracefully. He clawed at Hob’s shoulders, pressed their bodies together, shoved his face into Hob’s throat. The clawed points of his fingers ripped holes in Hob’s jacket, drew blood from his skin, but he didn’t care.

Hob wrapped his arms around him, rubbed his back. “Is that all?” he said gently.

“All,” croaked his stranger, and then suddenly they were sitting in the New Inn again, but his friend had crawled into his lap and had his face pressed into Hob’s throat, just as in the dream.

Hob shook his head, working out the dizziness, then looked down at him. “You okay, love?”

“Hob Gadling, you are a marvel, and you do not understand.”

Hob definitely didn’t understand anything, but it wasn’t the end of the world. Not for now. He had his friend back, after all.

“Does that mean I get to touch you now, for real?” Hob asked. “Now that I’ve beheld your magnificence? Is that how it works?”

His friend pulled far enough away to look at him. He wasn’t crying, but his eyes looked raw. “Your dreams were real,” he said. Even though Hob had always known that, had felt it.

“Good.” He took his friend’s face in his hand, ran a thumb over his lower lip. Beautiful thing, him. “Hell of a waste not to be shared, those dreams.”

His friend’s eyes were blue here, but as deep as in the dream. “Indeed.”

Hob leaned in to kiss him. They were making an absolute scene here in the inn, with his friend in his lap, but Hob couldn’t care less. He drank of his stranger’s mouth, head tipped back, taking of those soft lips, that giving mouth, that wanting tongue. His friend whimpered against him, fingers wrapped loosely around the back of Hob’s neck.

“No humans can touch me,” whispered his stranger, pressing their foreheads together. “Not while waking.”

“No humans can live forever,” Hob pointed out, and his stranger gave a small laugh.

“Truly.”

“I always wanted to do this,” Hob confessed, stroking his hands over his stranger’s back. “Always wanted to touch you—outside of dreams. Just wasn’t sure you would want that.”

Tears beaded along his friend’s eyes. So much feeling from him today. “I did not, but only because it should be impossible. I am Endless, Hob Gadling. I am not a creature for humans to come so close to. You all visit my realm, but to perceive this concentration of my being—it can only harm you. It would drive you mad.”

“I’m quite mad already,” Hob reminded him, but his heart hurt for his friend. No one could touch him? Could hug him? Or bring him pleasure, like they had done in their dreams?

“I have seen men claw out their own eyes after seeing me,” said his stranger, with the inevitable intonation of a storm. “I have watched them crack their own skulls, take Death’s hand, so they would no longer have to know. And you wonder why I would forbid you to touch me.”

“Why wouldn’t I want to know you?” Hob asked. Yeah, yeah, the forbidden knowledge of the universe and so on. Hob still wanted to see it. Whatever writhing power existed at the heart of his eternal friend. Wanted to know it. To touch it.

“Thing is,” he continued, when his friend merely stared at him incredulously, “I wouldn’t claw out my eyes, ‘cause I want to see it. See you.”

“Even if I were to blind you?”

Hob gave him a cheeky grin. Not unlike the one he’d given him in a fourteenth century tavern, when for a moment he’d really thought he could charm the strange creature he’d encountered into his bed. “Darling, I was blinded by you the moment I saw you.”

His friend kissed him. Desperate enough that his teeth dug into Hob’s lip. Hob laughed. “Can’t believe that terrible line actually worked on you.”

“It is working,” said his friend, face still pressed tight to Hob’s, hands gripping his shoulders, sharp fingertips digging in.

“Wanna touch you more,” Hob murmured, and his friend nodded feverishly. “But they don’t love exhibitionism in this day and age.”

His friend looked up and around at the inn, as if suddenly remembering where they were. He did not seem embarrassed, but perhaps startled to have forgotten himself.

“Besides, I don’t want to share you,” Hob said. “Come upstairs with me?”

He held out a hand. His friend—lover?—took it, and they disentangled themselves, and Hob led him upstairs.

In his bedroom, Hob pushed his friend’s coat off his shoulders. In disbelief this was happening. His stranger, really here, in the soft lamplight, looking at him with wide, dark eyes. Looking like he had been starved. Recently I have seen men driven mad, he had said. Who had tried to touch him? Why?

“What’s your name, darling?” Hob asked. Just a bit choked up. “You never did tell me.”

“Oh.” Under the coat, he was wearing only a t-shirt. Hob wondered if he was cold. “I am Dream.”

Dream. Look into the heart of dreams and know it. How could that drive you mad? Wouldn’t it be brilliant?

“Dream,” Hob sighed, and kissed him again. This time it was soft, a meeting of lips in the semi-dark. Dream’s hands found his jacket, pushed it off, then stole under his shirt to press flat to the warmth of Hob’s chest. His fingers were cold. Hob pulled his shirt off entirely and tugged him close, wrapping Dream’s arms around himself, tucking Dream’s nose into his throat. He let out a low whine that reverberated through Hob’s chest.

“Come on,” Hob murmured. “Come.” He got both their shoes off, and maneuvered them up onto the bed, where Dream pulled him down to drape Hob’s body over his.

It was not like any of the times Hob had been with him in dreams. Their dreams had been ephemeral, diaphanous moments spun of longing, where ultimately Hob woke aching and hard and lonely.

This was present and physical. Dream’s body was bony and real under his, each moment forced to connect in linear time so he could not miss or forget any touch of his old stranger’s.

Hob kissed him again, hungrily. He thought he would never tire of it. Dream’s long fingers skated up his back to tangle in his hair. He moaned into Hob’s mouth. Shivering. Oversensitive.

“Okay, love?” Hob asked, and Dream nodded.

“Do not stop.” It would have been an order were it not for the thread of desperation wound through it.

“I’d be mad to want to stop touching you. Madder than I am.”

“Be no more mad than you are, then,” Dream said. “Please.”

So Hob laid his hands on Dream’s body, held his narrow hips, pet his hard flank, pressed down on his soft, concave belly. He dipped his fingers under the waistband of Dream’s dark jeans to feel the bend of his hipbone and the sensitive crease of his thigh. He kept expecting to feel something strange, or wrong, a bone that bent the wrong way, something to mark Dream’s otherness, but for now, it seemed, he was human. Nor did he feel again the vastness of him that he’d seen on those sands, though he knew, somewhere in the back of his mind, that it was still there.

“Take it off,” Dream breathed, and before Hob could, he let his jeans dissolve back into whatever dream stuff made them up.

“You’re showing me up,” Hob laughed, as he wiggled out of his jeans and briefs the normal, awkward way. Then he was naked with his stranger, and while they had been so before, in dreams, it had never felt so physical, and Hob had never been able to see all of him, only impressions, fleeting glimpses and sensations.

Hob was shocked by how much he just looked like a person. An otherworldly person, true, but a person all the same.

“Christ, you’re gorgeous,” he breathed. He thought Dream might have blushed, though it was too dark to really tell. “Truly no one’s been able to touch you like this? At all?” Hob couldn’t possibly imagine anyone not wanting to, so it must be a matter of ability.

“Not in this realm,” confirmed Dream. “You… are new to me.”

Hob didn’t like the idea of Dream held at a remove, unable to get even a hug, but he did, selfishly, like the idea of being new. Of being special, the only one to have Dream like this.

He’d have to be sure to do right by him.

He kissed his way down Dream’s chest and stomach, watching his skin jump at each press of his lips, each skim of his teeth. Dream wrapped his arms around him even as he moved, as if to pull away from Hob would see him cast away from a temporary warmth, into the cold.

“Won’t let go of you,” he promised as Dream kept clutching at his shoulders. Dream only held him tighter at that, fingertips digging in. Hob didn’t mind. Let him hold tight, it was what Hob wanted anyway.

He relished in the feeling of Dream’s legs wrapped around him as he kissed the jut of his hipbone, the vee of his pelvis, the soft skin of his inner thigh. Nuzzled the tender skin at the base of his cock, as Dream pleaded above him, hands in Hob’s hair, “Hob, please—”

So much for the domineering creature that had once taken Hob to bed in his dreams; this was a wanting, needy thing, a man desperate enough to beg for he hadn’t had in so long, or ever.

Hob hushed him, stroked his thighs. Dream was shivering now, though Hob had barely touched him. His fingers shook in Hob’s hair. But Hob did not think he wanted him to stop.

Instead, he devoted himself to making Dream fall apart. He wouldn’t have to go without, not with Hob around. Hob would touch him so much his skin would burn.

He licked up Dream’s cock, an echo of how he had once pleasured him in a dream, but this was a different kind of worship. Dream made a mewling sound above him, so Hob took him in his mouth, bobbed his head, swirled his tongue over the slit. Silent stoic stranger, if you don’t cry for me I won’t have done my job right. Dream would cry in pleasure and never know what it was to lack it again.

Dream’s hips thrust up, bumping the back of Hob’s throat, a jerky motion that felt involuntary as he tripped over into pleasure, but Hob hummed and encouraged him to do it again. To take what he wanted, what made him feel good. Dream groaned but did, thrusting into the back of Hob’s mouth, legs twisted around his shoulders. Hob greedily took the heft and pressure of him, the knock of Dream inside him. He felt only more euphoric the less control Dream’s motions had.

But. He did have other ideas, too.

He pulled off, crawled up his body to meet him in a kiss, turned Dream’s face to his and swallowed his whine, which was so high and sweet. Dream’s kiss was soft and pliant, his eyes closed. When they were close, when Hob broke the kiss but kept his hands on him, their faces together, he looked at peace. Blissful. Languid and warm, as of a late morning spent pleasantly sleeping in. Just from closeness, he looked that way.

Hob turned him on his side and pressed their bodies together, back to front. Like this, they could touch from ankles to hips, bellies to chests to shoulders, and Dream sighed into him, going boneless.

Hob held him close, Dream’s head pillowed on his arm, kissed marks over his shoulder and up his throat. Worshiped his skin. Meanwhile he slipped a hand in the tight space between their bodies and pressed an exploratory fingertip to Dream’s entrance.

Dream shivered all over and pushed his hips back against Hob’s hand. Thrilled, emboldened, Hob pushed the tip of his finger inside him. Much more and he would need to get lube, but that would require moving, and he did not particularly want—

“You need not,” murmured Dream and, as if Hob didn’t understand what he meant, pushed himself back on Hob’s fingers with another groan. “I. Can take you.”

Hob was inclined to take his word for it. Not least because he himself was desperately hard, and to be so close to Dream, to be inside him, was too enticing to resist.

So he lined up and slowly pressed in, still with Dream held tight to his front. Dream sucked in a gasp but his body gave to Hob’s. So easily and so beautifully. By some presumably dream-logic, Dream was already loose and wet for him, like he had been waiting with held breath for just this moment. Hob slid into him like he’d spent ages prepping, and it wasn’t until he was all the way in that he took a breath.

“Feel so good, love,” he breathed.

“Hob,” Dream croaked, a broken sound. He clutched desperately at Hob’s hand when Hob laid it flat on his stomach. If he pressed down he could feel himself inside Dream—oh, Christ.

“I have you,” Hob promised, his own voice shaky. “You okay, love?”

“I am,” said Dream, still squeezing Hob’s hand. “I am. Overwhelmed.”

Hob knew he had done this before—he had fucked Dream himself in his dreams in the past—but this world seemed to be so much louder for Dream. Each touch was like a scream—but Dream did not pull away from him. He held Hob to him and submitted himself to the maelstrom.

“It’s okay,” Hob assured him, kissing the back of his neck.

“I do not know if it is,” Dream confessed. “I am used to it not being.”

Hob kissed the hinge of his jaw, leaned over him to speak there. “It is. I want to touch you, remember? What could be wrong with that? Nothing bad’s going to happen. You believe me?”

“I trust you,” Dream whispered, which was not the same thing, but the more meaningful for it. Hob’s heart hurt to think of him so uncertain it was okay to have such a simple thing as touch.

But perhaps it wasn’t so simple after all.

“It’s okay, love,” Hob said. You can have what you want this time, please believe that.

“‘Love,’” Dream repeated, and released a long shuddering breath that drained the tension from his body. He took Hob’s hand and brought it close to his mouth, kissing and nuzzling at his fingers. “Please don’t stop.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

Dream chuckled. It was a lovely sound.

And so Hob started moving in him. His first few thrusts dragged a strangled groan from Dream’s throat, so he increased his pace, Dream’s impossible magic slicking the way, like a dream where there were no barriers to touching him. He lost himself to the heady feeling of having him in truth, the addictive heat of Dream’s body and the even more delicious moans pulled from his lungs, louder as he grew bolder in his pleasure. Hob spoke to him mindlessly, praise and sweet nothings against the nape of his neck, you’re doing so well, darling, you’re so beautiful, does that feel good? When he caught the right angle to hit his prostate, Dream’s body went tense and he let out a ragged cry. Hob smiled against his neck. Perfect, you’re perfect, everything about you is all I’ve ever wanted.

“Hob,” Dream moaned, “Hob, please—”

Hob redoubled his efforts to break him apart. He would have taken him in hand but Dream seemed more inclined to keep Hob’s hand in his own grasp. So Hob squeezed his hand and kissed a bruise into the side of his neck, and moved within him until Dream was writing and pushing back against him, torn between pulling away and desperately grabbing for more.

“I’m—” he gasped, then broke off in another moan. There was nothing better, Hob thought, than hearing his eloquent stranger broken into gasps of pleasure.

“Close, darling,” Hob panted against the back of his neck. The sight of Dream so wanting, combined with the heat of his body, had him balancing on the edge, holding on only because continuing to touch Dream was more delicious than letting go.

“Please,” Dream breathed, tears pooling along his eyes.

To reduce his once-stranger to such base expressions of emotion was too much for Hob, and he came inside him with a groan. At the feeling Dream clutched at his hand and came untouched, crying out.

And then he truly did cry, tears spilling over and streaming down his cheeks.

Hob clutched him tightly, arms around his middle, still coming down from his own climax. But he recognized the crash Dream was feeling. He’d experienced it himself, coming down off of certain drugs, collapsing in a war camp during a lull at battle—the absolute plummeting drop of adrenaline, of dopamine, after something so very intense. Dream hadn’t had anything in so long, and now he’d thrown himself on the fire of it, and that he wasn’t human didn’t matter when it came to getting burned.

Hob turned him, gathered him close, tucked Dream’s face into his throat, ignoring the mess between them. Dream sobbed raggedly as Hob pulled out, but still went, tangling his legs in Hob’s, tucking his fingers between Hob’s body and the mattress.

“Sweetheart,” Hob murmured, stroking his back as Dream shook against him.

“Help,” Dream whispered. A frightening word to come out of his mouth, truly. “I— I cannot—”

“Shhh. You’re okay.” Hob drew a blanket up over them. “You’re okay, my love. It’ll pass.”

He did know the feeling of that adrenaline crash, after all, though not how it felt for someone like Dream. Nor how long Dream had gone without any touch. A long time indeed. His heart, his throat hurt at the thought, and at the feeling of Dream shaking, even though he knew that, ultimately, this was good, a good thing, a cathartic thing. “I am not,” Dream insisted, but Hob shushed him again.

“You are, you are, sweetheart, I promise. Just breathe.”

He felt Dream, whom he was fairly certain didn’t need to breathe, take a breath. Then he let it out shakily. Then another, more slowly.

“There you are,” Hob soothed. Perhaps that had all been too much, too fast. Perhaps he should have eased him into it. Hob had never been very good at moderation.

Dream didn’t seem displeased, though. Merely overwhelmed. He was still clutching at Hob. And Hob was more than happy to hold him as long as he wanted. Forever, even.

“Breathe,” he reminded him. “There’s a love.” And finally Dream seemed to slump against him, his body unsticking from itself, and he let out a heaving breath, like a great animal finally allowing its massive lungs to rest.

“Alright, love?” Hob asked, and Dream nodded against his neck. “Bit overstimulated?”

“Yes,” Dream replied, quietly.

“I’m sorry.”

“No. It was—” he contemplated. “No,” he finally said, minimally verbal again.

Alright, then.

“Hope you’re staying a while,” Hob said, instead of asking if he wanted to. “Might need to pry me off you otherwise.”

He felt a tiny smile against his throat.

“Yes,” said Dream. Hob dragged his fingers through his hair. A fully body shiver ran through Dream at the touch.

“I would not care to give up this succor,” Dream continued, when they had lain together for some more minutes, apparently having recovered his voice. “I am too selfish to let it go, after all that has happened.”

“After all that’s happened?” Hob echoed, and Dream stiffened, realizing all at once that he had let slip something he had not previously revealed.

“No, don’t go,” Hob begged, desperation rising as he clutched Dream close before he could melt himself away. “Stay. Tell me what happened?”

Dream was silent for what felt like several full minutes as he thought. Hob waited.

“I was imprisoned,” Dream said at last.

Hob stiffened, holding him tighter, nails digging into his skin. Dream hummed in a way that suggested he found this pleasurable rather than painful.

“You were—” Hob repeated, choked. “What?” But he had heard him. He had heard.

“It kept me from our meeting,” Dream continued, too matter of fact for Hob’s comfort. “And reminded me once more of what happens to any man who comes too close.”

Hob felt ill. he didn’t even know the details, and he still felt sick. Dream, caged.

“Dream…” he didn’t know what to say.

“It reminded me, too, that to most humans in the waking, I am… a terror.” This, quieter. “So you see my astonishment that you should even want to touch me, never mind be able to, and how I will not be able to take my teeth from your throat now that I have tasted blood.”

That... sounded more appealing to Hob than Dream had probably meant it to. He recalled the eerie, otherworldly Dream of his past, the awesome Dream that had met him on that strange desert. If that Dream wanted to feed on him, he didn’t think he minded.

“You say that like it’s a bad thing. Dream... God.” Imprisoned. “You say that like I could possibly want you to go.”

Sharp teeth pricked at his throat. “You will.”

“No.” Imprisoned. I am a terror. What happens to men who touch me. “I won’t.” He squeezed Dream tighter, wrapping a leg around the back of Dream’s thigh. “I won’t.”

“You would keep me, then.” Half desire, half threat.

“Yeah. I would.”

Finally, Dream’s teeth left his skin. “Good,” he said, almost a growl, almost a purr. Then pressed himself in closer, more demanding now than needy.

“Imprisoned,” Hob echoed, at last.

“In iron and glass,” Dream agreed. “I have known… only hardness, this century. Before that, I suppose, nothing.”

“But our dreams,” said Hob.

“I am dreams. I cannot have, or experience them as you do.”

Didn’t that hurt. “Experience it now, then.”

Dream seemed to agree, for he kept his body tucked against Hob’s. His tears were now dry, but Hob could only imagine the well of pain within him. Held at a remove for so long.

He could not fix it all in one moment, though. Especially not for a being as grand, as magnificent, as eternal as Dream was. So he kissed the top of Dream’s head, tucked his nose into his hair, and like that, Hob tried to warm him, at least for a time.

Dream was untouchable. Until.

Dream was lying upon a fire. Every nerve in his affected body sang in pleasure and pain both. He wanted more. He could not handle more. Still he wanted it.

Until Hob dared to find him in dreams.

Hob was still holding him, and it was… everything. The most privileged balm after a century on cold glass. He had ceased crying, recovered, mostly, from the wave of stimulation that had swept through him, but still he was nearly overcome with the wealth of touch. And so easily bestowed.

Dared to chase him.

How much more might he be allowed? Was there truly an infinite depth of it, as infinite as his very being?

Dared to welcome him, hug him, see him.

“Hob?” he murmured. The King of Dreams should not be so needy, and yet.

Dared to know him.

“Yeah, darling?”

Dream had ruined men, burned away eyes, unmade neurons, made those who looked on him bleed as they clawed themselves apart. Had witnessed the annihilation of small worlds caused just by his wanting.

“Truly you wish me to stay?”

Hob could not be clawed apart, not even when Dream got his talons in him. Hob had proven resistant to annihilation.

Hob took his hand, and kissed his knuckles, the way he had done in a dream.

Now Dream himself was burning with hands on and in him and skin pressed everywhere to skin, and he knew why others were ruined. How he, himself, had already been in ashes.

“More than anything,” Hob said.

He suckled the blood of Hob’s veins and the succor of his fingertips. The grounding warmth of his skin. He sank into the bliss of being wanted.

“Very well, then,” Dream murmured, and laid his head back down on Hob’s chest.

Dream did not truly have blood, or fingertips, or warmth or skin, but. He was not meant to experience bliss or wanting, but. He was a terror, a nightmare, an ephemeral thing, and he could not be touched, could not be held, could not be kept.

But.

#dreamling #my writing #dream of the endless #hob gadling

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chxrrybcmbs · 5 months

Text

Pas de Deux

Summary: You and Bucky find solace in each others shared experiences. (Bucky x Female Reader) Warnings: 18+ smut and mentions of brainwashing Note: I do not give permission for my work to copied or translated anywhere but this blog. Word Count: 1.9k

Bucky stalked alone back to his quarters of the compound. Stark had thrown another party and he’d sat through it begrudgingly. Tucked away in the corner with a drink clutched in his hand like a security blanket. Steve had thought it would be good for him to be around others but it only made him feel more alone. He wasn’t like everyone else, especially not Steve. He wasn’t adjusting as well to the transition as Steve had. He was still fighting Hyrdra’s manipulation and trying to keep his head above water. Something Steve or the others would never understand. Bucky didn’t fault them for that. They we’re trying their best but their best wasn’t working for him.

With his hands tucked firmly in his pockets, he entered the common area and was intending to keep on his path across the way to his room when he heard faint music. The lights were out and he didn’t see anyone around but the unmistakable sound of Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake wafted through the room like a ghostly waltz. He moved further into the common area thinking the music was coming from someone leaving a radio on but there was no one around. Then he realized, it wasn’t coming from the common area but the room above it. When he entered the stairwell the music was clearer and as he ascended the stairs it became louder.

The floor above the common area was just an empty room, it was used for various reasons. Meditations, yoga sessions or just a place to be away from everyone in total quiet. As Bucky entered the room, the lights were dim but there you were dancing across the floor. In the pointe shoes that had been your only request from Tony when you agreed to stay at the compound. He had thought it an odd request but it was important to you. You were so lost in the music at first, you hadn’t noticed Bucky watching you with awe. With a heaving chest you turned the music down,

“Hello, Barnes.” You said without turning to see him collect himself after being caught.

“I didn’t mean to disturb you.” He apologized. You reached for the little towel on the stool where the speaker was and wiped the sweat from your face and neck.

“You didn’t.” You turned around to look at him. His hands were shoved in the pockets of his jacket and he averted his gaze in embarrassment.

“Shouldn’t you be down at the party with everyone?” You asked, tossing the towel back onto the stool. He looked up at you briefly before looking back to his shoes,

“Yeah, I was for a bit. Not really my thing.”

“Is your thing sneaking into rooms and watching women dance?” You smirked and his face flushed a little.

“I heard the music and-I’’m sorry, I’ll leave you alone.” He turned and opened the door to leave,

“Wait, I didn’t mean for you to go.” He stopped and looked back at you.

“You like Tchaikovsky?” You asked, he took his hand off the door and stepped back into the room.

“I don’t know, I haven’t really spent a lot of time listening to music.” He replied.

“Oh.” You nodded.

“But you-you like to dance?” He stuttered and you smiled.

“I don’t know why but it keeps me sane. Even though I was never a ballerina, something about it makes me feel at ease.” You answered, he furrowed his brows.

“Never a ballerina? Could’ve fooled me.” He joked.

“Yeah, when Hydra plants false memories of being a ballerina into you for years, you cling on to the only good memories, y’know?”

Bucky’s face fell,

“Hydra? You mean?” You could see the confusion written on his face mixed with the pain. You knew Hydra had had their way with him too. You nodded.

“You didn’t know?” He shook his head, Steve had kept this from him. They all did, When you had been recruited, he was told you were just an ex spy that defected and S.H.E.I.L.D took you in. A moment of silence passed,

“How do you cope with it?” You started, “All the memories, real and fake.”

He took his hands from his pockets, he looked down at his left hand that had a black leather glove on.

“I don’t know.” He muttered. Slowly, you walked towards him. Closing the space between you, you reached for his left hand and he pulled it back. You looked up into his blue eyes, swirling with unspeakable pain.

“I’m not afraid of you.” You reached for his hand again and he let you. You took off the leather glove revealing the silver metal. You traced your fingers across his palm, enjoying the chill of it. Bucky was tense and he wasn’t quite sure what was going on but he didn’t feel like running. For the first time there was someone else who knew what it was like. To have been manipulated and controlled.

“Come.” You took his hand and guided him to stand in the center of the room.

“Take off your coat.” You ordered, and he nervously obliged. You stepped over to the speaker and turned the music on once again.

“I-I don’t know how to dance. I can’t-“ He made a gesture to himself as he tossed his coat aside.

“You don’t need to dance. Just-“ You gripped his hands and guided them to your waist. “Lift me when I say to.” He looked into your eyes, as if looking for reassurance which you gave with a subtle nod. Slowly you propped yourself up on your toes and began to spin, his hands anchoring you at the waist. You stretched your arms up to the ceiling, moving your fingers to daintily. With your back facing him and your arms still in the air,

“Now.” You whispered and you felt the squeeze of his hands against your body. He lifted you up his and you kicked your legs out. He set you down and you commanded,

“Again.” Up you went, moving your legs and arms into an elegant pose.

“One more time, this time set me down slow.” Into the air once again, you threw your arms up over your head and spread out your legs, you turned your head to face him. Your noses barely inches from each other. Gently, Bucky began lowering you. Your bodies pressed against each other, you could feel his heart beating against your back. When your feet touched the ground you turned to look up at him, placing both hands on his chest. His hands still lingering on your waist. He wasn’t even aware of himself anymore, it was like something else took over. The man in him that desperately needed human contact, affection, intimacy. All things he had been deprived of for decades.

It was similar for you, being a covert spy with mixed up concepts of self didn’t aid in the dating pool. Here it was, two people so desperate for affection, so terrified of putting their faith in others.

“How long has it been?” The question was bold but you knew your next move would be even bolder.

“Since what?” He asked, his voice was breathless at the proximity of you. His forhead just barely grazing yours as he looked down at you, dark strands of his hair forming a shield to the outside world. You snaked your hand up from his chest around to settle on the back of his neck, he twitched at the touch.

“Since you kissed a woman?” You pressed your lips to his before letting him answer. His breath caught in his throat and you felt his lips tremble ever so slightly against your own. You pulled away but not too far, still close enough to ghost your lips across his own.

“Since 1943.” He whispered before initiating another kiss. He kissed you with confidence and his hands roamed your body freely. His flesh hand came up to cup your head while his metal one pulled you flush against him.You deepened the kiss, your tongue colliding with his. For someone who hadn’t kissed in 70 years he was doing very well. You could feel the heat starting to emanate from between your legs and the sign of his obvious arousal pressed against your front. Breaking the kiss, you brought your hand down to caress his cheek and he softly brushed a strand of hair from your face.

“If we do this there won’t be any turning back.” You said, he smiled and let out a small chuckle.

“Maybe I shouldn’t have followed that music.”

“I’m glad you did.”

“I don’t want to be alone anymore.” He confessed, and you felt your heart break. You felt the same.

“Then lets be alone together.” You guided his lips to yours again, simultaneously pulling down the sweats you were wearing. He started fumbling with the clasp of his pants which you made quick work of, he kicked them off and they slid somewhere across the floor. His metal hand was ice to your skin as he helped you pull down your panties. For a moment you stood there, naked and taking in each others appearance. His chiseled abs, the uneven skin around the flesh that connected to his metal arm. And when you came back together, your back crashing against the wall, his arms hoisting you up to wrap your legs around his torso. It felt like the stars aligned, like the universe was created in that very room with the two of you at its center.

Your hands raked through his hair, grabbing and tugging at it. He held you as you positioned yourself to take in his length. A wordless glance before he thrusted in, audible gasps left both your mouths at the shock of it. You reveled in it, breathing heavily against each other before he started. A slow, smooth rhythm but each beat felt like heaven. He buried his face in the crook of your neck, the soft moans of his adding to your own pleasure. You let your head fall back against the wall, your hands dragging down his back. Feeling the muscles move as he continued his pace. He lifted his head up to look at you and you kissed his swollen lips fiercely, drinking in every moan and sigh like it was sweet honey spilling into your mouth.

You felt him start to tense and twitch and his breathing became more ragged, as did your own. With foreheads pressed together, you each met your ends with breathless moans. Gently, he set you back down onto your feet and you noticed you were still in your pointe shoes. You couldn’t help but laugh and he along with you. Bodies glistening with sweat and the room steaming from the encounter, you gathered up the clothes scattered on the floor.

“I’m not sure that is what Stark intended for this room.” You joked and Bucky smirked, as he fastened the clasp of his pants. He looked over at you and you met his gaze, both of you thinking the same. Grateful for the intimacy, the unspoken understanding now between you.

“What Stark doesn’t know won’t kill him.” Bucky commented, you finally took off your pointe shoes and held them by the ribbon, letting them swing beside you as you walked closer to Bucky.

“I could always use a dance partner, Barnes.” You said, and he smiled shyly. Neither of you were quite sure what this was or what it would become but maybe it could help you both on your path to heal from your pasts. No one else here or anywhere could ever understand what it was like.

“Anytime, doll.”

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thefandomdirtymind · 7 months

Text

Shiny offering

OPLA - Vinsmoke Sanji

Sanji Series - NSFW The small favor

A/N IMPORTANT: I am the little weirdo who's like crows and though that a pirate with a crow would be really cool. So, I'm really sorry if you're scare of bird, but I hope you will find the story funny because I have a lot of fun with it and my new obsession for this man.

* English is not my first language, I tried really hard to correct myself but, I hope you will excuse me if some mistakes are still there.

If you enjoy my story please let me know.

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Sanji never had a particular interest in birds. At least not living ones. Once featherless, beheaded and ready to be cooked. He, of course, has a lot of thoughts and recipes about how to prepare them, each idea more delicious than the other.

But, as the Crow expanded his wings and flew above him for the fifth time that day. He started to wonder if the black bird meat would taste more like chicken and then, be better in a rotisserie kind of dish, or would it be surprisingly more delicate, like the duck.

A mystery he would probably never know even if he could. Or if he did, not with this precise bird. Because, even if the blond never had a thought about the feathered animal, he has a lot of interest in you and, as irritating as it is, your crow seems to dislike him as much as Zoro does.

He didn’t attack him directly of course, you would never let this happen.

Yet, if Sanji is too close to you when you're all on the deck or if you share a moment alone with the cook. The damn winged dinosaur never missed a beat stealing his, lite or not, cigarette that was in his hand or between his lips.

The bird has often even tried to take his ring, but, to this day, never succeeded. However his favorite target was his blonde hair. Golden straw that he could pick few at the time between his beck before flying away as quickly as he could.

Everytime, as you tried without success to not laugh. Biting your lips in that charming way he liked so much. You assure him that Deimos didn’t really hate him, he was just a little bit too protective or attracted to the shiny thing on his person. Like humans he needs time to adjust to new people.

“ I understand Madam, but I don’t see stealing Zoro shinny earring neither and that be a show I would love to see “ He once replied, trying to repress the bitterness in his tone, massaging the sore spot on his head where Deimos had took three of his hair.

“Well, Zoro didn’t have hair similar to pretty rays of sunshine, that’s for sure and I honestly don’t know, they seem to already be best buddy that kinda funny “ You said, your gaze fixed on the strange duo that was Zoro and your pet, napping in a hammock between two Tangerine trees.

“ That because they have something in common, they both hate me that’s why”

“ You know, Crows love to collect things who shine and offer them to their partner or their favorite human. Once a crow trusts you, he or his children never forget you, they have a memory that they extend to their children for generations and they will always return to you. It’s amazing”

“ Then Madam it seem that I will be hate for generation “

It has been almost five months now that you were a member of the crew and the relentless animal didn’t stop. Although, Sanji couldn’t forget that conversation that you had about those damn birds offering shining things to the person they affectionate. The way you smiled, the gleam in your eyes as if you were sharing that fun fact like if it was a romantic story. Even if it was an anodin moment, he couldn’t forget how perfect you were. Relax, your arm crossed on the railing of the upper deck in the soft light of the morning.

It wasn’t a secret that the blondie fell for you at the minute that he saw you. He had tried to flirt as much as he could, challenged your taste buds by making you his best dishes and even switched his generic “Madam” for a warmer nickname “ mon coeur”. A sweet name he uses, usually as often as he calls himself the Best Cook of the East blue.

“ Mon coeur, do you want a kind of food in particular for supper ?”

“ Be careful Mon coeur, the tea is hot”

“ You see Mon coeur, one day I will see the All Blue and I will explore it with you ”

But, nothing had seemed to enlighten your comprehension about his intention. Of course, a more direct approach would give him an immediate answer, still, like in his cooking, Sanji liked a more slow and progressive approche.

It was when thinking about his next move that the strange event occurred.

Busy in the kitchen, peeling potatoes for his famous beef stew, the man suddenly heard a metallic noise, like a utensil falling on the floor. As a chef, it wasn't uncommon, but since he was alone in the room and all his instruments were in front of him, it was indeed, really strange. It was only after his gaze had scanned the room that he finally saw it.

Perched on the side of the table, under the open window, the dark bird, a spoon in his beck, was watching the floor where a solitary fork was laying.

“ Oh no sir, this place is my domain you will not ruin it, get out” He exclaimed, not without thinking of how ridiculous he must look, talking at this bird like if he was a rude client of the Baratie.

For answer, Deimos only croak once, jumps between two potatoes just in front of him, turns his onyx head on the side and then, under the blue glare of the men, drops the polished spoon.

The eating tool in itself wasn’t really special, unless the fact that it had been lost two weeks ago, along the fallen fork of course.

“ Oh so now you steal my utensil. My hair and my smoke wasn’t enough ?” Sanji sighs before reaching for the discarded silver instrument.

For answer, the crow slowly approached his head to the metallic object and started to admire his own smaller reflection before taking his fly, exiting the kitchen.

Coming back after less than five minutes later, this time with a shimmering shell and one of Nami small hair clips. Same as the spoon, he gently drops them in front of the blonde man, tilling his head, like he is waiting for something.

Like said before, Sanji never had a soft spot for birds, but he had a fond memory of that conversation with you about the way they express their affection. So, little by little, as he watched one by one the glittery, polish, shimmery stuff your crow just bought him, two realizations struck him. First, the damn feathers dinosaur has finally taken a liking for him and second he finally knew how to show you how dear you are in his eyes.

“ Well, I almost regret now that I imagine you many times in my oven. I admit that you don't seem that bad alive now…thank you” Sanji smiled, putting the stew on the stove, letting it cook and before starting collecting the item for his new plan.

It was only a long time after dinner that he could put his said plan in action. With a little help from his now winged friend.

As the Going Merry was lazily crossing the water, Sanji was still again in the kitchen, preparing diverse elements. To citrus marinade for supper the next day, to dry leaf for future recipes.

Nevertheless, he was ready when the flap of the wing followed by footsteps could be heard near his area.

Deimos was the first to enter the kitchen, taking his now usual place in the left corner of the kitchen island, your bracelet still on his beck. Close by a few steps, you enter at his pursuit, stopping only when you seen the strange show that was the gorgeous chef ,slowly busy pressing a lemon and your large pet, sharing the same space without apparent bickering.

“ Hi Sanji, sorry to barge in there like that. Deimos feels apparently playful today, he stole my bracelet. But look at you both, you finally bound as I can see” You joyfully said, taking a seat in front of the kitchen island.

“ Hello Mon coeur, well as you can see we came to an arrangement if I can call it that. " Sanji replied, pulling an almond from his pocket and giving it to the bird as he rescued your bracelet “ But I’m grateful that he bring you here now, I also had something for you, a special dessert”

Turning his back from you for a minute, missing the long glance you give to his perfect ass in his tailored pants, you smile. You weren't stupid, in fact, you were particularly smart. Even if you didn’t understand why Usopp had taken a habit of joking about the fact that you seem blind to love.

You had noticed the blonde chef the first day on this boat and since then, had developpe what Nami had called a “crush” on him. What’s not love about him ? You like the way he calls you Mon coeur making yours fluster, the way his smile reaches his eyes every time he talks about food and of course the fact that he was always so kind with you. But never you would push those thoughts on him, no, it seems that all his love was for food and as long as you live you will respect that.

The first thing you saw after the blondie had put the bowl in front of you was the beauty of the presentation. Served in a plain white bowl, a delicate pale lilac ice cream was piled, decorated with colorful berries that automatically make your mouth water.

However it wasn’t the berries who’s most caught your eyes. Coating there the side of a raspberry, there in a few pieces the side of the cold cream, there floating lazily like if it were on a river, small gold flakes was highlighting the sweet, giving it the allure of a masterpiece.

“ Homemade lavender ice cream with berries assorted with flakes of edible gold “ Sanji proudly present, your favorite smile on his lips. “ I had the idea when we were talking about crows and their habit of giving their partner or…favorite person…shiny things” He lied. Never would he admit to you that your bird, trying to fancy him, gave him the idea. Never on his chef corpse.

“ Sanji, that’s almost too beautiful to eat. The colors, the sweet smell , the…glittery gold” You admiratively said, your joy suddenly catching up with the realization of what he had just said.

You were his favorite person.

Lifting at the same time your gaze and the spoon, you take a small amount of the ice cream and taste his declaration of love.

Just like him it was amazing. Sweet, refreshing and addictive.

“ So...is that to your liking ? “ He inquired after a small moment, unsure if you taken your time to enjoy the dessert or trying to find a delicate way to put him down.

“ It’s the best thing I ever tasted, here take a bite “ You offer, lifting the silverware at the level of his mouth.

Taking your offering, your gaze lock on each other, you both couldn’t repress your smile as he let slip the head of the spoon out of his mouth.

“ Definitely one of my be…” He couldn’t finish.

His tie caught on your fist, his torso inclined and supported by his strong arms above the kitchen island. Your cold lips had suddenly crashed against his, taking him off guard and at the same time his breath away.

Sanji, still ,quickly catch up. Adjusting his position to support the back of your head with one of his hands. He slightly brushes his tongues against your sugary lips, savoring them like a peculiar delicacy. But, as your tongue met, exploring and dancing against each other in a french ritual. He became more and more greedy of your lips, throwing away his usual self control at the first hearing of your panting breath.

Still trapped in the warm embrace of his lips, enjoying the contrast of his warm tongue against your ice cream cold one, you suddenly heard a groan pronounced by none of you.

“ Great, now the waiter will stop looking like a love sick puppy. But did you really have to expose us to that ?”

Breaking the kiss, you gave a glance at the door where Zoro, his arm crossed on his chest, was rolling his eyes, clearly already done with both of you.

Biting your lips of embarrassment you still couldn’t prevented, neither Sanji at it seem, to smile.

“ Nevermind. Come on black chicken “ He calls your bird, who, now used to it ,goes perch himself on one of his shoulders. Before quitting the doorframe to disappear into the ship “ I have to clean my blade and I know they are not clean enough until you watch your reflection in it. “

Laughing at the incongruous friendship of the Swordsman and your pet. You returned your attention to Sanji, another tea spoon of ice cream in his hand.

“I’m sorry” You apologize, still laughing.

“ No need to be embarrassed Mon coeur “ He smile, regaining as it seem, his composure

“ No, I mean, now I don’t know what I prefer between the dessert or your kisses “

Taken aback, Sanji slowly smiles, deposing a small kiss on your lips.

“ Then why not enjoy them both together…I will gladly supply it every time you ask for it”

Smiling you then proceeded to enjoy the delicious cold dessert and the body warm contrast for the rest of the day and more.

Bonus :

Not that Sanji was ashamed to tell you, no. But, even after a year after the event of the offering silverware et other shiny knick-knacks.

He still had, hide behind a pile of pots, the many items brought to him, along the years, by Deimos. Because, even after all this, he was still the reason why you were finally in his arms at night and yes, he had to admit it, he had kind of come to like it, that damn bird.

#sanji x reader #OPLA Sanji #OPLA #vinsmoke sanji #OPLA Vinesmoke Sanji #OPLA Vinesmoke Sanji x reader #Vinesmoke Sanji x reader #Sanji x Y/N #sanji vinsmoke #opla!sanji x reader #one piece #one piece netflix #one piece live action #Opla sanji x reader #taz skylar

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justagalwhowrites · 8 months

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New in Town - Ch. 2: First Date

Joel takes you on an actual date. A continuation of New in Town Ch. 1 found on Tumblr here.

Pairing: Best Friend's Dad!Joel Miller x Female Reader

CW: Smut. Just... all the smut, OK? They fuck. They're fans of that. It's why we love them. Mild violence. No use of Y/N. Age gap (reader is 35 Joel is 47, not a focus of the fic). Minors DNI, 18+ only

Length: 7.9k

AO3 | Previous Chapter | Next Chapter

A/N: Hi all!

So yeah, this was originally intended as a one shot but here's the thing... people really liked it? I got a lot of requests for more on Tumblr so y'all are getting more :)

This will be a relatively short series but a series none the less. I hope you enjoy it!

You didn’t have a great reason to be nervous. You felt pretty stupid for feeling nervous, in all honesty, but your stomach was in knots all the same.

You were going on a date. A first date.

A first date with Joel.

Your best friend’s dad.

Who, it seemed, had done nothing but fuck you senseless in the two weeks since you’d met the man.

And that’s all it had been. Fucking. Just ridiculous amounts of fucking. Like it was a miracle that you could walk amounts of fucking.

Not for lack of trying to do other things. Joel had come back the next day with the intent of actually fixing your sink. Which, he did. And then he fucked you on your couch.

You invited him over for dinner to say thank you for fixing the sink but the steaks sat out on your counter while the two of you ripped each other’s clothes off. You’d gone to his house to watch The Room and you’d made it all of five minutes into the movie before the two of you were naked on his living room floor, his cock stretching you open and making you gasp as he filled you.

Finally, he came to your apartment to pick you up to go for drinks and to listen to live music. You opened the door in the short, tight dress you’d picked for going to bars and he damn near growled before he grabbed you and kissed you. You pulled him into your apartment and, before you knew it, you were naked and entwined on your bed.

“Next time, I’m not bein’ a gentleman and comin’ to your door,” he said, panting for breath, your leg still over his hip. “You’re meetin’ me at the damn car. Only way we’re gettin’ out of the damn house is if we make it so I can’t just take your clothes off.”

He was picking you up in five minutes and you’d realized that, since you’d started fucking Joel, you’d hardly spoken to the man. Your mouth was usually otherwise occupied. And so was his, for that matter. Because fuck, that man could do amazing things with his mouth.

So you were nervous. Butterflies in your stomach, pacing your living room, checking your phone every 15 seconds nervous.

Because what if he didn’t like you once he actually talked to you again? Once you were in a place where you couldn’t just get naked and you had to rely on conversation to keep him interested, would he still be interested?

Sure, the night you’d met had felt… Well, unlike anything you’d ever experienced, really. If you had, you wouldn’t be single that was for damn sure. You’d never been able to just talk with someone the way you could with Joel. It had been electric. He was so smart and funny and kind.

The thing that stood out to you most was that he noticed things about people. In a way men - especially men who were the strong, physical type - didn’t really seem to. He was worried about one of the guys on his team at work who’d been having problems at home. He’d noticed that the guy wasn’t laughing the same way he usually did at the joker on the crew.

“I’m so bad at that shit,” he’d taken a sip of beer, shaking his head. “Not like I can talk anyone through marriage troubles. Kid troubles, maybe. But these guys never want to talk about their shit, you know? So busy tryin’ to handle it themselves they fuck their lives up.”

And you’d had so damn much in common. The love for terrible movies and rock music and spicy food. You could have talked to him all night.

You just weren’t sure if he felt the same way.

Your phone dinged in your hand. Because you were so nervous and excited you’d actually taken it off silent for the first time since you’d had the thing.

“Here,” he texted. He was two minutes early. You smiled.

Another ding.

“Very weird not coming to your door. Not a fan.”

You texted back.

“Me either. See you in a sec!”

Joel had planned the whole day, only telling you enough that you knew what to wear and what to bring. Which apparently required a change of clothes.

“Promise you can get changed somewhere I can’t just jump you,” he’d texted. “Going to do my best to keep my hands to myself.”

“That’s a damn shame,” you’d texted back. “I like when you don’t keep your hands to yourself.”

“Fine woman,” he’d replied. “I’ll keep them to myself until the end of the date. Would like to actually get you out in the world at some point. Sound fair?”

“That’s better,” you smiled as you typed it out.

“You drive a hard bargain,” he replied.

“Not the only hard thing I’m interested in.” You’d added a winking emoji to that one.

He texted back immediately.

“Dangerous for me to be distracted by you with hard things while I’m at work so I’m going to stop this before I hurt myself… See you in the morning.”

He’d told you that you needed good walking shoes and something you’d be comfortable moving in for the morning and something that made you feel good for the afternoon and evening. You tried to be smart about it, picking hiking boots with jeans and a t-shirt for the morning and just changing the shoes and the shirt for the rest of the day. Like maybe if you kept your pants on it would keep you from jumping into bed with Joel.

At least right away.

“See, this is why I can’t come get you at your door,” he shook his head as you climbed in the passenger seat of his truck. He was half smiling, his head propped against his hand and you had to fight the urge to kiss his damn dimple.

“Oh really?” You asked, brows raised, as you buckled up. “Why’s that?”

“You got no business looking that damn good in jeans,” he said. “Couldn’t risk getting you behind closed doors right now, we wouldn’t get anywhere.”

You rolled your eyes and smiled, shaking your head.

“You’re insatiable.”

“Just with you,” he winked.

Joel took you to a park in town, grabbing a pack out of the back seat of the truck and leading the way to a trail.

“Said you liked hiking,” he said. “Figured this way you’d have a place you’d know if you wanted to come back. But only if you want.”

He was watching you like he was waiting for you to reject the idea but you just smiled.

“This is perfect hiking weather,” you said, starting on the trail before looking over your shoulder back at him. “You coming?”

“Lead the way, Beautiful,” he smiled. “I’m just enjoying the view.”

The trail was a loop that went out to a lake with a nice overlook. On the way out to it, you told Joel about camping with your Girl Scout troop as a child, how you’d found a sense of peace in nature ever since. Joel told you about camping with his brother, Tommy, as a kid and taking Sarah when she was little.

The trail was quiet - almost shockingly so considering the weather - and the overlook was empty when you got there. Joel picked a spot and sat down, opening his pack and pulling out a few paper bags, bottles of water and bottles of iced coffee.

“Not sure if you’ve come across these yet,” he handed you a bag. “They’re kolaches, these Czech pastry things. Don’t ask me why they’re popular here, couldn’t fuckin’ tell you, but they’re damn good. I’ll trade you flavors if you want, wasn’t sure what you might like…”

“I’m not picky and these look incredible,” you bit into one of the sausage ones. You were right, eyes rolling back in pleasure as you chewed. “Fuck, that’s good…”

Joel smiled, looking a little proud.

“Yeah, Sarah told me you’d be finding the best restaurants in town real quick so I only have a few weeks to impress you with shit like this,” he said, taking a bite of his own roll before he frowned a little. “Not weird if I talk about her, is it? I’ve never…”

“Fucked one of your daughter’s friends?” You finished for him, smirking a little, when he went quiet for a moment.

“I was gonna say dated one but,” he laughed. “Both are true. Generally don’t go for younger women. Believe it or not.”

“It’s not weird if you talk about Sarah. Well, it kind of is, but it would be weirder if you didn’t. We both love her, just in different ways. Pretending she doesn’t exist is just… not the way to go. And I’m not that much younger,” you elbowed him lightly. “Besides… you’re kind of my exact type.”

He looked surprised by that.

“Really?”

“Yup,” you smiled a little and opened the iced coffee, taking a drink. “If I redownloaded my dating apps I could show you my age range preferences and you are right in the sweet spot there, Miller.”

He just looked at you for a second, a crooked smile on his lips. The damn dimple.

“What?” You laughed, taking another drink of coffee. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“You deleted your dating apps?”

You felt your eyes go slightly wide. You hadn’t meant to admit that.

“OK let’s pretend I didn’t just say that, alright?” You winced. “This was going so well…”

“Why would I pretend you didn’t say it?” He frowned a little.

“Because it’s weird,” you looked back out at the lake, needing to look away from him for this conversation. “And I don’t want to put any pressure on you or anything, I really don’t want to make it weird. I just… I’m not trying to get you to be in a relationship or anything, I just didn’t really feel like trying to see anyone else after I met you so I deleted them and…”

“I like it,” he cut you off.

“Yeah?” You smiled a little.

“Yeah.” He leaned in, smiling back. “I like it a lot.”

He kissed you, soft and almost chaste at first, but that didn’t last long. One hand moved to the back of your neck, pulling you close, the other to your waist, sliding down toward the hem of your shirt, seeking out your skin. You moaned into his mouth, a familiar needy ache settling inside you. His tongue dipped into you and you pressed closer to him, trying to put your body against his when someone cleared their throat from behind you.

The two of you jumped apart and you looked back over your shoulder to see a man, a woman and two kids standing there, staring at you. You pressed your lips together and tried not to laugh out of the sheer embarrassment of it all, your face getting hot.

“Morning,” Joel said, clearing his throat a bit.

“C’mon kids,” the woman said, glaring at you. “Quick look at the water, then we keep moving…”

You cleared your throat awkwardly and took a drink of your iced coffee while the family spent a minute at the overlook before the parents started herding their children away.

“Mom, why are leaving so quick?” The little girl asked.

“Because honey,” the woman glanced your way as they headed back down the trail.

The second you couldn’t hear their footsteps anymore, the two of you burst out laughing, you grabbing Joel’s thigh to keep from falling over with it.

“Oh my God!” You gasped for breath, almost crying laughing. “What the actual fuck is our problem? We’re adults! This isn’t what adults do!”

“This is your fault!” He was trying to stop laughing and failing. Miserably.

“My fault? How is it my fault!”

“Those damn jeans,” he kissed the delicate skin behind your ear, making you laugh even harder. “How am I supposed to resist you when you’re lookin’ that good?”

He kissed you again, making you moan for a moment before you pulled back from him.

“I thought you were keeping your hands to yourself until the end of the day?” You nipped his lower lip. “It’s not even noon.”

“Argh,” he groaned, his forehead falling to your shoulder. “You’re right Beautiful, I’ll behave. Or try to, feel like I should get at least some credit for makin’ it this long.”

Joel made you drink an entire bottle of water before you left the lake (“Can’t have you runnin’ on just iced coffee and kolaches, we got three miles back to the truck…”) and he seemed to be OK letting the dating app comment lie. Which worked for you because you were vaguely horrified to actually have that discussion.

Because you had deleted the apps. And you were really hoping you wouldn’t need to download them again. At least, not for a while. You were pretty sure that you were crazy about Joel. Like could fall head over heels for the guy in a way you hadn’t since you were 21 and a stupid college girl kind of crazy about Joel.

But it was so early that it seemed immensely stupid to feel that way about the guy. Even though you felt like you’d known him for years, even though you thought about him all the damn time. You’d still only known him for two weeks.

And if you wanted a relationship - an actual, honest to God relationship - you’d have to reckon with the fact that you’d met him through your best friend, his daughter. This was a conversation you’d need to wait to have, until you had some sense of certainty that what you were risking was worth that risk. There was no way you could actually be that certain after two weeks. Even if you felt like you might be.

There was a small hitch in Joel’s plans for the day, though. The bathrooms at the trailhead were closed and he sighed.

“I promise this ain’t a scheme to get you back to my place and out of your clothes,” he winced a little.

“I can just change in the car,” you winked and patted his chest. His broad, strong chest. Goddammit. “Just keep your eyes on the road while I do.”

You climbed in back and waited for Joel to start driving (“Not getting arrested for indecent exposure at the park because you just climb in the back seat to feel me up, Miller. Now drive.”) before you took your t-shirt off. You may have left your shirt off and only been in your black lace bra for longer than you really needed to, letting your hair down from its loose bun and touching up your makeup before pulling the black, deep v-neck silk top you’d grabbed for the evening from your bag. At a stop light, you felt eyes on you and you looked to the rearview mirror, catching a glimpse of Joel watching you before he quickly looked back at the road. You smirked, tugging the shirt over your head and climbing over the center console and into the passenger seat, kissing Joel on the cheek on the way.

“Told you to keep your eyes on the road, Miller,” you smirked, leaning over the console to wipe your lipstick off his cheek with your thumb.

“You try focusin’ on the road when there’s somethin’ as pretty as you in the car,” he smirked a little. That fucking dimple. “I’m doin’ a damn good job, all things considered. Seat belt.”

You smiled and buckled up.

“Whatever you say, Miller. Whatever you say.”

***

Joel briefly considered making himself come in the restaurant bathroom.

There was no way in hell he was making it to the end of this fucking date, he didn’t know what the fuck he’d been thinking, planning something that was a day long with you. A whole day where you’d be right next to him and he couldn’t properly touch you. That was a stupid thing to do. A damn stupid thing to do.

Because holy shit you were pretty. So fucking pretty. And sexy. So goddamn sexy. So pretty and so sexy that looking at you - knowing just how damn good you felt, knowing he could just have you if you were in his bed or he was in yours - was torture. Fucking torture.

He knew a whole day was a mistake the second he saw you. He should have known before that, too, but sometimes he was a fucking idiot.

Like when he decided to fuck his daughter’s best friend to begin with.

But you looked so damn good just in jeans and a t-shirt - v-neck deep enough that he could see the soft flesh of your breasts as you climbed into the truck - that someone ought to make it illegal. And then walking behind you when the trail narrowed, wanting nothing more than to grab handfuls of your ass and pull you against his aching cock so he could find some damn relief.

As soon as the concept of a date came up though, Joel knew he’d need to start it in the morning, plan a whole day. He didn’t want to stay away from you all day just to only get you for a few hours in the evening, not if he could help it.

And it’s not like he only wanted to fuck you. Not that he didn’t love fucking you. God himself could strike Joel down while he was inside you and he’d die a happy man but he wanted to spend some time actually talking with you. He wanted to know you - desperately, longingly wanted to know you - but doing that when you were there, perfect and tempting, was no easy thing.

Even you changing out of hiking boots and into some cute, girlie shoe was somehow sexy. How was he supposed to keep it in his pants when you looked that damn good doing anything at all?

“OK we can’t both get the ghost pepper wings,” you looked over the top of the menu. “We need to split one order and get an order of something that isn’t going to potentially melt our tongues off.”

“You’re no fun,” he smirked a little.

“No, I’m a great time,” you replied. “I’m just also not insane.”

The two of you shared the wings - both agreeing that they weren’t nearly as spicy as the menu led you to believe - and Joel took you to the next stop on his plan for the day.

“Are you kidding me?” You jumped out of the truck looking practically giddy. “An escape room? I’ve always wanted to try one of these!”

“Yeah, I keep seeing this one, thought I should see what all the fuss was about,” he smiled a little, putting his arm around your shoulders and kissing your temple.

Joel was a little surprised at how much he liked the escape room thing. He’d googled it when trying to come up with something to do with you besides the cliche dinner and a movie shit and it seemed more like the kind of thing Sarah might try to get him to do. But, as it turned out, you and Joel made a great team. And he loved watching you gleefully shout the answer when you figured out a puzzle. You did a happy little jump when something unlocked or pieces fit together and shrieked and threw your arms around Joel’s neck when the room was solved in less than the two hour time limit.

“You seriously planned even more than this?” You asked, brows raised, as the two of you got back in the truck.

“I promised to keep my hands to myself until the end of the day,” he winked. “Can’t expect me to do that without something to distract me.”

He took you to a winery tasting room in town next, the two of you each sampling a different variety of wines.

“This one has a nice bouquet,” you said, nose in the glass. “Definitely smelling… um… rich mahogany?”

Joel choked on the sip of wine that was in his mouth, trying not to shoot it out of his nose.

“I’m sorry!” You laughed. “I really like drinking wine but I don’t know much about it at all!”

“That’s OK,” Joel smiled. “I don’t know shit about it either.”

“But it would sound cool to know about it, right?” You said. “Like, you take a sip and know something about it besides ‘oh yeah, that’s good and it is the color red.’”

“OK now we just have to learn about wine together,” Joel set his glass down. “So we can sound cool.”

“Together?” You raised your eyebrows.

“If you want,” he shrugged, only realizing then that he was getting ahead of himself. “I want to…”

You smiled a little.

“I want to, too.”

At dinner, you excused yourself to the restroom and Joel checked his phone for the first time since he’d picked you up that morning, only to see a text from you come through as he checked his other messages.

“Need your help,” it said. “Last door in the hall.”

Joel frowned, pocketing his phone and went to find you, knocking once on the door before you opened it, grabbed a fistful of his shirt and pulled him inside, locking the door behind him.

“What are…”

“I figure if our clothes stay on it counts as keeping our hands to ourselves, right?” You pressed yourself against the front of him, kissing him.

“Definitely,” he said, already breathless.

He pushed you back into the wall and put his knee between your legs, his cock - at least half hard for the entire goddamn day - against your hip. Your arms went around his neck and you kissed him. His tongue slipped into your mouth and he moaned into you as you started to rock your hips against his thigh.

“Fuck Beautiful,” he groaned as he kissed down your jaw to your throat. “You been needy all day?”

“Since you picked me up,” your head went back against the tile wall of the bathroom, voice breathless and wanting.

“Fuck, me too,” he nipped your throat and pressed his cock into you, grinding against your body like a goddamn teenager. “Think you can come from just riding my leg?”

He pulled you down on him, making you groan. He could feel the wet heat of you, even through the fabric. Fuck, he wanted to feel you there, wanted to bury himself inside you there.

“Yes,” you managed.

Joel’s hands slid down your body to your ass, his fingers sinking into your flesh, pulling your body tight to him as he cursed the fabric between his skin and yours, fucking up against you. You rode his leg, breaths coming in stuttering gasps, working your pussy against him harder and faster, your body pressed flush against his own.

“Joel, fuck,” you fingers tangled in his hair as he buried his face in your neck. “I’m going to come, I’m going to fucking…”

“Good,” he groaned, his cock leaking and achy and all but ready to spill into his fucking jeans. “Do it, come for me, come on my fucking leg…”

You obeyed with a desperate moan and he clutched your body to him as he felt your pussy pulsing against his thigh, the heat of your pleasure, the soft give of your skin pushing him over the edge as he came, his cock throbbing against you.

“Fuck,” you panted, breathless, your body limp.

“Not sure it still counts,” he dropped his head to your shoulder.

“No, it does,” you nodded. “Definitely counts, we’ve been very well behaved all day. We’re basically angels.”

Joel laughed before he kissed you and the two of you sheepishly made your way back to your table, no one at the restaurant seemingly any the wiser that the pair of you had all but fucked in one of the bathrooms just feet away.

The not-quite-fucking in the bathroom made it so Joel felt like he could actually survive the rest of the evening, finally taking you to a bar to listen to live music like he’d been wanting to do since the night he met you.

The place was loud when you arrived, the band just getting started, and Joel found an open table toward the back. You held it while he got drinks and he could see a hint of the lace of your bra whenever you leaned over to tell him something over the sound of the band.

After the two of you made it through a drink, you put your hand in his, tugging him toward the crowd clustered around the stage.

“C’mon,” you smiled. “I feel like dancing!”

He followed you - starting to feel like he might just follow you anywhere - and put his hands on your waist as you pressed your body against his, moving in time with the music, the whole crowd pulsing with the same energy.

When the band slowed it down, you looped your arms around his neck and smiled, your eyes bright with the lights from the stage.

“Can’t believe you actually planned all this,” you shook your head a little. “I don’t know that a guy has ever put this much effort into… damn, anything at all for me.”

“You’ve been dating the entirely wrong kind of men then,” he replied, wondering how the fuck someone wouldn’t try to do anything and everything for you, just for an excuse to see you all the time.

“Probably true,” you laughed a little. “Or you’re just a breed unto yourself, Joel Miller.”

“It’s for the best,” he smiled, trailing his fingers up your arm. You kissed him, all soft and sweet, different from every other kiss he’d shared with you so far. It was the first time it felt like he was kissing you just to kiss you, not because it was leading to your bed. He liked it, the gentle intimacy of it.

The song ended and the band said they were taking a break but would be back up soon and you pressed your lips a little firmer to his for a second before pulling back from him.

“Why don’t you go hold down the table for a second?” You smiled. “My turn to get the drinks.”

“But…”

“I insist,” you cut him off. “Not letting you into my apartment later any other way.”

“You drive a hard bargain,” he kissed your cheek. “But I accept.”

Joel went back to the table and watched you from across the bar, not much different than the night he first met you. Except now he got to go home with you. He smiled to himself and shook his head a little. How the hell had he gotten that lucky?

Sarah had texted him at some point in the evening, asking what he was up to the next week. He texted her back, still not quite sure how to broach the subject of you with his daughter. He’d have to at some point. He wasn’t about to give you up, he’d have to talk to Sarah about it eventually. The both of you would. He sighed and put his phone back in his pocket, looking up to find you at the bar as you stared down some guy who was almost Joel’s size, the man’s hand on your lower back. Your mouth was drawn low into a frown and Joel was half way across the bar before he fully realized what he was doing.

He reached you in what felt like a second, pulling you back from the bar and putting himself between the man and you.

“Hey man…” the guy began but Joel cut him off.

“You botherin’ my girl?” He snapped. His blood was hot, he could feel it moving through his body. He’d looked away from you for a minute, just a minute, and some guy had decided he could just touch you when you didn’t want it.

“Sorry, she didn’t say she had a boyfriend…”

“Don’t matter. She say you could touch her?” Joel shoved him. “‘Cause sure didn’t look like she appreciated that shit.” Joel shoved him again. “You like bein’ touched without permission?” Another shove. “Not so fuckin’ nice when it’s a man doin’ it to you, is it?”

The guy was either stupid or drunk. Maybe both. Either way, he telegraphed his next move by a fucking mile, pulling his fist back to take a swing at Joel. He dodged it, easily, before punching back, catching the man across the jaw and sending him sprawling to the floor.

“Joel!” Your voice snapped him out of it. He relaxed his fist and shook some of the stiffness out of his hand, turning to you and realizing for the first time that the whole bar was staring. Shit. The guy on the floor groaned and started sitting up.

“Why don’t you go on home before we need to call the cops,” the bartender said, his hand balled in a fist on the bar top.

“Come on, Joel.”

You looped your arm around his and tugged him along toward the door, the two of you going to his truck in silence.

“I’m really sorry about that,” he said after he’d been driving in awkward quiet for a few minutes.

“What happened?” You asked. He glanced over at you. You didn’t look pissed, at least.

“Saw the look on your face,” he focused on the road, flexing the hand with the sore knuckles. “I just looked down to check my phone, text Sarah back real quick and the next thing I know that fucker’s got his hand on you and it sure as shit didn’t look like somethin’ you wanted…”

“It wasn’t something I wanted,” you said.

Joel nodded.

“Just saw red,” he ground his teeth. “Don’t know why some men think they’re just entitled to… Look, not exactly proud of it, but if something pisses me off in just the right - or wrong, I guess - way, I just…”

“It’s OK, Joel.”

“Need you to know that it’s never happened with a woman,” he said, glancing at you again before looking back to the road. “Not someone I was seein’, not Sarah, not anyone else. I’d never react like that to you no matter what you did, never…”

“I said it’s OK, Joel.”

The knot in his stomach relaxed just a bit.

“Didn’t freak you out?” He asked, looking your way just long enough to catch you shaking your head as you answered.

“Didn’t freak me out.”

“Because I really don’t want to…”

“Joel,” you cut him off. “I’m not afraid of you because you lost your temper on an asshole at the bar who deserved it.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” he could hear the hint of a smile on your voice. “It was… actually, it was kind of nice. I dated a guy for a bit in Seattle and he literally watched a guy grab my ass when we were at a baseball game and he didn’t do a damn thing, didn’t even back me up when I handled it myself. It… it was kind of nice to not have to handle it myself.”

“Shouldn’t have to handle it at all,” he said. “Assholes need to learn to keep their hands to themselves. But you definitely won’t need to handle it if I’m there.”

You looked at him for a moment when he didn’t park the truck outside your apartment, instead pulling up to your front walk.

“Thought the whole point of earlier is that we were leaving our clothes on until this point of the night,” you said. “Makes it a little difficult if you’re in a different house.”

“You really still want me to come inside?” He raised his eyebrows.

You rolled your eyes.

“Get in my house so I can take your pants off, please.”

He smiled a little.

“Yes ma’am.”

Your front door had barely even closed behind you before you were pulling at Joel’s shirt, his mouth on yours, his cock already hard and aching for you.

His shirt wound up somewhere on the floor of your living room, yours in the hall. He left the bra on for a bit, your nipples firm against the lace. His pants wound up in the doorway to your bedroom, yours next to your bed as he pressed you back against the mattress. You fell onto it before crawling back, putting yourself in the middle of the bed and he followed, his mouth on yours, tasting the cocktail from the bar on your tongue.

He kissed down your throat to your breasts, his tongue dipping between the gaps in the lace to find your skin, your back arching below him when he licked closer to your nipple before he gave it a sucking kiss. He trailed his lips over your breast bone to your other breast and gave you the same treatment there, your breaths starting to come in gasping little pants. Your bra clasped in the front - thank fuck for that - and he opened it, revealing your soft flesh. He cupped your breasts, the heavy weight of them silk against his calloused hands, before he traced down your body with his mouth and fingers to your hips. He took a second to appreciate just how fucking pretty your pussy looked in your black lace panties before he hooked his fingers around the top of them and tugged them down your body, casting them aside and crawling between your legs.

He put a thigh over each shoulder and pressed a kiss to your clit and you took a deep, shuddering breath before you spoke, your voice sounding almost strangled.

“You don’t have to do that,” you were practically squirming below him.

“I know,” he ran his tongue slowly from your hole to your clit. “But I want to. Been wanting to, shame I haven’t yet, taste so fucking good…”

You moaned and he smiled a little before dipping his tongue into your wet heat. He moaned too, couldn’t help it. He hadn’t been lying, your pussy tasted good, heady musk with a hint of sweetness to you. He clutched one of your thighs against his head with one hand and teased your clit with the other, making your hips rock into him and your back arch.

“Sorry,” you panted, going still. “I’m… fuck, sorry…”

“For what?” He pulled his mouth away from you just enough to look up your body and properly see you. “You think I don’t want your perfect fucking pussy coming all over my mouth? Think I don’t want you riding my fucking face? Want you come all over me, Beautiful, want you to do whatever it takes to make you come all over me.”

He went back to eating at your pussy, devouring you as you moaned and arched below his touch, your sex getting wetter and wetter as his tongue worked you open. He added a finger to your tight, slick hole and he felt you start to contract around him, your breath picking up, your fingers clutching at your bedspread. He pressed harder against your clit, hooked his fingers into your inner wall, his tongue pushing deep as you came around him with a strangled cry. He smiled against you as he worked you through your orgasm, not easing up on you until you went limp below him, whimpering as you did.

“You can’t seriously think I didn’t enjoy that,” he panted as he trailed his mouth back up your body, his lips still wet with you. You just laughed, breathless.

He went to reach for the drawer where you kept the condoms but you grabbed his wrist.

“Wait,” you said, breath still heavy. He frowned but obeyed, his fingers lacing with yours. He gently guided your hand with his to your breast, holding you gently. You moaned slightly and closed your eyes before you gave your head a small shake. “Sorry, trying to focus…”

“Want me to stop?” He smirked.

You glared at him.

“No. But… I was thinking… I’m not… I haven’t been sleeping with anyone but you and I don’t know if you’re sleeping with anyone else…”

“I’m not.”

You smiled a little.

“You’re the first person I’ve been with since I tested last and everything was clear,” your voice was hesitant. “And I’ve got an IUD…”

“You asking me to fuck you bare?” He asked, his eyes searching yours. You bit your lip and nodded. “Fuck Beautiful…”

“Assuming you don’t have anything I should know about,” you said, a little hesitant. “And if you’re OK with it…”

“More than fuckin’ OK with it,” he brushed your hair back with his free hand and held the crown of your head in his palm. “Love the thought of that, of bein’ that close to you.”

He pulled his hand from yours and slid it between you to your dripping slit, making you gasp. He closed his eyes for a second, trying to focus on something aside from the thought of sinking into your body with nothing between you.

“Want to feel you that way,” you said softly, reaching up and running your fingers through his hair. “Joel…”

He kissed you then, sliding a finger into you and making your hips rock against him. He gathered your slick and brought it to his cock, coating himself in you. You already felt good - fucking exquisite - when he brought the head of him to your tight, grasping hole.

Joel pushed inside you slowly, gently, easing you open as you arched into him and your hands splayed over his back.

He licked into your mouth softly as he pressed into you, trying desperately to focus on something besides just how incredible it felt to be inside you bare.

Because it was incredible. Beyond incredible. He hadn’t been inside someone without a condom in years, no relationships lasting long enough for him to trust someone enough to fool around without one. Knock up one woman by accident and you learn your lesson real damn quick.

But you were different. You were you. It was safe to want you this way, have you this way. He could trust you, he could feel that. More than that, he wanted to feel you this way, feel you from inside, feel the very core of you as you took him into yourself, vulnerable and wanting.

He sank into you and you were so fucking wet, so fucking soft, so fucking warm. He’d never felt anything as good as this, didn’t think there was something that could feel as good as this. But it made sense that he’d find it within you, perfect fucking sense that something so exquisite would be found inside of someone so fucking exquisite in every other way. Your laugh, your skin, your way of thinking, of course being inside you would be almost painfully incredible.

“Fuck, Joel,” you panted as he bottomed out in you, his hips flush to yours. He could feel every detail of your muscles stretching around him, the way your body seemed to cradle his own. “Fuck you feel… you feel…”

“I know baby,” he kissed you, holding himself inside you as he gave your channel a moment to adjust to the size of him. “Fuck, I know…”

He kissed you again when he started moving in you and you moaned into his mouth, your hips rocking up to meet his own.

Joel started slowly - he had to or he’d come far before he was ready to, you felt too damn good - savoring at how acutely he could feel every part of you as he thrust into you.

But he gave in before too long, thrusting into you harder, faster, swallowing the delicious noises you made as you clung to him, your fingers pressing into his back, your legs entwined with his. He could feel you starting to tighten around him, your movements getting faster, sloppy.

“Not going to last when you come,” he managed, pressing his mouth to your throat before continuing. “Where…”

“Inside me,” you panted, desperate. “Please, Joel…”

He nodded into your neck, fucking into you harder and faster and your fingers clung to him as you came, your back arching into him. He looped an arm below you, holding your body tightly to his own as his cock pressed deep inside you.

“God, fuck, that’s right, come for me,” he said, inches away from coming himself, your walls pulsing around him harder and tighter than they ever had before. “C’mon Beautiful, doing so good, taking me so well…”

He managed to hold out until your orgasm began to weaken and, with a tortured moan, filled you, pumping rope after rope of come into your desperate, aching core. Your hand flew to as close to his lower back as you could reach and you somehow pushed him deeper into you. He was already leaking out of you, spilling onto his balls and legs before he was even finished coming.

He collapsed onto you, his head over your shoulder, your hands running in little trails up and down his back as you both panted for breath. The moment he had the energy, he lifted his head enough to kiss you and then rolled you so you were both on your sides, facing each other. He tucked a stray hair behind your ear.

“Fuck that was incredible,” you smiled a little at him.

He smiled a little back.

“You’re stuck with me now,” he said. You laughed. “Can’t recover from sex that damn good, it’s impossible.”

He held you like that for a long time, the two of you eventually disentangling from each other enough for you to fall asleep on his chest, Joel’s hand splayed wide across the soft skin of your back.

He woke up before you in the morning, feeling more well rested than he remembered feeling anytime in the last decade, at least. He’d never slept over before and you’d never slept over at his place, always going your separate ways after sex. He didn’t think he could let that keep happening either.

Joel gently extracted himself from you and you made a groggy little sound but he shushed you, kissing your temple and urging you back to sleep, giving you a pillow to wrap around. He went to your dresser and grabbed a t-shirt from a drawer you’d tossed him a shirt to wear home before. He looked at it and smiled a little, the shirt from a Halloween-themed 5K you’d done with Sarah in Seattle. He remembered her gushing to him about it. He pulled it on, grabbed his jeans and the keys to your place and his truck.

You’d mentioned a coffee shop down the road, how you liked their skim lattes, a few times and he thought he found it. It was early enough on a Sunday - church still in session - that the place was pretty quiet. He pulled up a picture he had of you on his phone - a selfie you’d sent from the office when he’d asked to see you one afternoon when his job was being particularly shitty - and asked the barista if she knew you and what coffee you usually got. She did know you and smiled a little at Joel before making you an Irish cream latte. He got a cappuccino for himself and breakfast sandwiches before going back to your place and letting himself in.

You were still in bed, asleep but not deeply. He set your coffee and sandwich on your side of the beg, kissing your forehead as he brushed your hair back. You smiled.

“Thought you might want coffee,” he said quietly.

“Mmmm, always want coffee,” you smiled and opened your eyes, looking him over. You smiled wider. “That shirt fits you a whole lot better than it fits me.”

“Probably looks better on you though,” he smiled, climbing into bed next to you.

“Did you really go to my favorite coffee place?” You gaped at him as you sat up. He shrugged. “Joel, I swear, you’re going to ruin me for all other men…”

“Don’t mind that one bit,” he smiled.

He’d only gotten a bite of his bagel sandwich in when he felt his phone vibrate against his leg. He frowned, pulling it out. Sarah was calling. His frown deepened.

“I’m so sorry,” he began, showing you the screen.

“Don’t be, of course pick up, it’s Sarah,” you said, picking up your coffee cup, your eyebrows knitted together.

“Hey baby girl,” he said after he answered. “Everything OK? Never mind hearin’ from ya but it’s awful early out by you…”

“Where are you right now?” She asked.

He frowned.

“Home,” he said, not thrilled about lying but…

“No you’re not,” she said.

He frowned deeper.

“What d’you mean ‘no I’m not?’”

“I mean,” he could hear the smile on her voice. “I’m in your living room and neither you nor your truck are here, what the heck Dad?”

“You’re in Austin?” He looked at you and your eyes went wide. “What are you doin’ here!”

“There was a cheap last minute flight deal so I figured why not surprise my favorite old man,” she said. “So where the heck are you! I need a Dad hug, it makes getting to the airport at like 4 a.m. worth it.”

“Shit!” You whispered. Joel winced.

“I’m on my way back home after runnin’ some errands,” he said quickly. “I’ll be there in just a few, I can’t believe you’re here baby girl! Missed you so much!”

“I’m going to make coffee,” she said. “And then drink it all before you get here so you can’t have any. See you soon!”

Your eyes were still wide when he hung up the phone.

“Have you…” you began. He shook his head. “Yeah, I haven’t said anything to her, either…”

“We can try and figure it out but I have to go,” he kissed you, deep and desperate, the only thing that could possibly pull him away from your bed right now coincidentally being the person who just showed up in his living room. “I’ll text you, I’m so sorry but…”

“Go,” you kissed him again, a quick but soft kiss. “Go home, see Sarah, keep me posted?”

He nodded, grabbing his coffee and his sandwich and going to the door before turning back to you.

“I had…”

“Joel, I swear to God if Sarah finds out about us because you were standing here too long I will never fuck you again,” you laughed. “Text me about it when you have a minute. And I had a great time, too.”

He smiled.

“OK. See you soon.”

He half ran to his truck, jumping in the driver’s seat and flooring it back to his place.

He totally forgot about the shirt.

Next Chapter

A/N: OH NO NOT SARAH! Even though we love Sarah. But this will be a wrench in things. Wonder what will happen now???

I hope you all enjoyed a cameo by Feral!Joel because I love him.

Thank you so much for being here and for reading! Love you!!!

#joel miller x female reader #joel miller x reader #joel miller x you #fanfic #smut fic #joel miller x reader smut #joel miller smut #joel miller x oc #bfd!joel

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xxnghtclls · 4 months

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A little spontaneous analysis on Sukuna and his view on love and rejection that I blurted out while reading about Heian Era marriage this morning 🤓

That Sukuna panel came to mind with him saying, he’s “a cursed, unwanted little wretch”. (I was told “hated” was another way to translate it, but it’s the same in the end).

Disclaimer: These are just my thoughts using this specific translation. However Sukuna is a complex character and nothing is black and white and I’m probably heavily cherry picking here or reading way too much into this more than I should or would be necessary. 😆 WELL

Somehow it struck to me that one of the FEW things we know about Sukuna, is that he never married or bore any children. This is even more interesting, considering the fact that in the JJK verse, we do have a few absent wifes/lovers to name, that we know little to nothing about. Be it Megumi‘s mother, Kaori or a nonexistent wife of Sukuna. People often claim that Sukuna is a virgin, cause he didn’t marry or had kids. This is a whole other discussion, but this claim kept lingering in my head and made me think about marriage in the first place. Marriage and children often being a wholesome concept of love in our modern understanding, I first thought the marriage thing to be in connection to his claim to love being useless, that he not even once had interest in love. I think there‘s more to that.

(although I do think that someone who claims that love is worthless kinda sounds heartbroken, but yeah anyway)

But then I thought „wait we’re speaking ancient times, did love play any role in marriage anyway?“

We still don‘t know the social status in which Sukuna was born in, but in regards to heian era, marriage was first and foremost a thing to secure and show social status. Marriages out of love weren‘t common, even seen as unrealistic.

Marriages were mostly arranged, often when they were still teenagers even. And this is what caught my attention. Sukuna says he was born a cursed unwanted little wretch and I first assumed this claim purely focuses on his parents and his early childhood.

But given the social norms in heian era, what if it also meant that he was literally unable to marry later on, that he wasn’t just unwanted by his by his parents, but by a possible spouse as well? Him saying he was “cursed and unwanted” indicates that it was a state he was put in, not a state he sought out to be. You could even argue, that him saying he was “unwanted” or “hated” even required him not wanting to be treated that way. Which child would want that? Which makes it even more interesting that he says, that he never thought about needing someone else to fulfill him. In connection to what I said before, it could almost sound hateful. As well as this moment here, which always occurred to me as if he said it from own experience.

Because when you grow up in a surrounding that hates & repels you, it makes sense that you grow indifferent to society, but it doesn’t necessarily mean it was always that way. Him being unwanted makes so much sense in connection with him saying, that he focuses solely on himself and that he has complete disregard to others. Which makes sense, when it’s a result of not having anybody who wants or loves you. It leaves you with yourself and yourself only.

I know a lot of you really wanna fight the thought of Sukuna having a hard childhood but who cares honestly? I don‘t think it would make him less of a strong character. Every human is the result of their surroundings and as stated, Sukuna is human too. Based on that, you could even argue that the only kind of love he knows and sees as the real love, was an aggressive one. This would explain why he sees the slaughter of those who fought Kashimo as love.

Ok back to marriage! When I read about marriage, there was another thing that caught my attention and that was poetry! We know Sukuna is a little nerd, who is eager to learn and it’s indicated that he even enjoyed poetry. (His immediate reaction to Yorozu‘s Haiku being that it lacks the seasonal word.) Back then, when someone was about to apply for marriage, what did they do? Yeah right, they wrote letters to someone.

As I stated above, you could assume that there was a time, where Sukuna was not utterly hateful and indifferent to social contacts (I know that’s a reach, but that’s up for interpretation as long as we don’t know his backstory.)

If we assume, that Sukuna was born looking the way he looks, then it wouldn’t surprise me if there was a lot of rejection involved in the way the proposal was practised as described above. I don‘t wanna paint Sukuna as the poor rejected here, but idk maybe he was.

We all eagerly await Sukuna‘s backstory and I‘m so excited to learn about him. This suddenly turned into an analysis of Sukuna and his view on love and whatnot, but please remember, I’m not saying that any of this might have actually happened.

It’s just some connections my brain made while reading about marriage and thinking about some of the stuff that Sukuna said. I just had to write it down.

Here‘s the source: click

#nighty talks #theory #sukuna #true form sukuna #jjk #jujutsu kaisen #jjk 237 #jjk238

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heliads · 10 months

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Ink Stains

Moving from Amity to Dauntless was quite the lifestyle change. Still, nothing rocks your boat more than meeting Eric Coulter for the first time, especially when he seems to like you more than he should.

masterlist

Creativity does not flourish much in Dauntless, nor art for that matter. It is strange, then, that you, so fully borne of both, would choose this bloody faction as opposed to any other. Your birth faction, Amity, is better suited to your temperament and interests, but you had hardly realized that when you underwent the Choosing Ceremony. All of us must leave our homes when we grow up, and only very few can return.

Dauntless seemed like the furthest place you could run, so of course that was the one you chose. You missed it later, only after loathing it, blaming it for your troubles, and finally admitting that it might have been a good home to you, but only after far too long.

Sometimes, you think that’s why the city decided to force its inhabitants to choose their home faction when they’re so young. At that age, all you want to do is escape, so you pick something strange and foreign, a faction that your family would hate so you could fight back against them. When the dust clears and you realize that the past was not so terrible after all, you are in the middle of a strange place with no way of returning, so you have no choice but to fight to stay there.

It would instill a truly fascinating sense of dedication in its transfers, to say the least. Or perhaps no one is like that at all, and it is just that you have made a mistake with no way to fix it. Maybe you should have stayed in Amity after all, been content with familiar nothingness and learned to fake your smiles at least as well as your mother, or save your anger for when no one can see it, like your father.

You don’t think you were meant for Amity, though, not really. It vexed you to no end, the simplicity of it all. You did enjoy the painting, the artists that sprung up in every corner, common as dandelions, but that wasn’t the end of it. The rules were chafing yet vague, the expectations ever-changing. It should have come as no surprise that you would leave.

Besides, you did well in Dauntless initiation, to the great surprise of just about everyone there. They saw your brightly colored clothes when you leapt from the roof, but soon enough you blended in with the lot of them and people would double take when you told them you hadn’t been born in Dauntless proper. The thought that you could be from Amity of all places was insane, and had it not been for the fact that you still remember the waving gold of the fields, the high flying birds that soared above your head, you would have believed it as little as your new friends.

Despite your best attempts to immediately separate yourself from your former faction, you couldn’t shake the memories completely. That’s why you didn’t shoot for one of the top jobs or security positions. Those were snapped up by the really good kids, the ones who aren’t just not carefree but genuinely heartless.

You ended up taking a position among the ranks of tattoo artists and quickly soared to the top. Amity had taught you clarity and control in your art, and soon you were known for your original designs. More often than not, Dauntless looking for a new pattern would ask you to draw something directly as opposed to just using one of the countless templates already printed out.

It gives them a sense of originality, for one thing. No one tattoo is ever the same when it comes to your works. It saves members of the faction from the embarrassing experience of showing off a new tattoo just to see the guy across from you roll up his sleeve to reveal the exact same thing.

Soon enough, your name has spread far and wide across Dauntless, and you get more and more customers by the day. That’s how you know that you ended up choosing the right faction and way of life after all, and it’s also how you meet Eric Coulter for the first time.

Eric is somewhat of a mixed bag. He only graduated from initiation a year or so before you, so he didn’t lead your training when you first joined the faction. You’ve heard he’s a total killer, both in the fighting ring and at every other moment of the day, so you were more than a little uneasy when he first darkened the door of your shop.

You’re not really sure what you expected when he showed up in the beginning. That he’d yell at you, maybe, like you’d heard in whispers. Apparently he’d go off on anyone if he felt the need– someone taking the wrong water glass in the mess hall, or an idiot trainee who didn’t get ready in time– or he could have just been there to complain about some failed regulation you didn’t know about.

Instead, he was nice, actually, which was somehow even more unsettling than if he’d just been the harsh training leader he is to everyone else. He’d spent a lot of time admiring your works, even offering up a rare compliment here and there. At last, he’d decided on an initial design, and taken a seat on your chair.

Most clients talk at least a little while you’re tattooing them. New initiates usually rattle off their difficulties, grateful for an ear that won’t judge them or try to use their weaknesses to gain a position or two in the rankings. Experienced Dauntless sometimes swap gossip or discuss various pieces of information they’ve heard from contacts in other factions. Others just stay silent the whole time, thinking through ideas they’ll barely even hint at to you.

One of your friends has tattooed Eric before, and they told you he’d been absolutely icy the whole appointment, hardly even saying a word except to point out which tattoo he wanted. Maybe he’d just had a bad day then, because you and Eric actually end up talking the entire time.

He complains about the initiates being unable to so much as tie their shoes without needing his directions, and laughs when you counter his stories with what you’ve seen outside of the scheduled training hours. Eric asks you about how you started tattooing and seems genuinely stunned that you grew up in Amity.

“It doesn’t seem possible,” he tells you over the hum of the tattoo needle, “you’re, like, normal.”

You laugh at that. “The Amity are normal, Coulter.”

He narrows his eyes. “They’re weird. Happy-go-lucky strangers. Not you, though,” he adds quickly, “you’re tough. A real Dauntless.”

“Don’t worry, I won’t take offense if you insult the Amity,” you grin, “I left for a reason, believe me on that.”

Eric frowns. “What was the reason, if you don’t mind me asking?”

You sigh, staring at the design you’re working through for a moment before getting up the strength to continue. “I clashed with the higher-ups a lot. If you weren’t totally happy and living life all the time, you felt like you were disappointing them. Everyone there claims that they’re only ever nice to them, but the faction leaders told me I was a screwup more times than I could count. Even my own parents.”

When you risk a glance up, you notice that Eric’s expression has twisted down into something colder, something almost like rage. “They were wrong. They shouldn’t have said that.”

“I know,” you laugh to yourself, “I did well in initiation, obviously they should have guessed that.”

After a while, Eric is convinced to laugh a little alongside you, but the anger doesn’t erase itself from his features for some time. “Yes,” he mumbles almost to himself, “they should have.”

The rest of the session passes without incident. The next day, you find yourself waiting at your empty station. He was supposed to come back to finish the piece, but he’s a few minutes late, and you can’t help but wonder if it’s on purpose, that you said or did something to chase him off. It could be nothing, of course, but you never know.

He ends up hurrying in soon enough, the slightly quickened beat of his walk the only sign that something is on his mind. You look up when he arrives, allowing yourself a small smile. He did come back, then. You were not too much.

“Glad to see you,” you say, “I was worried I scared you off with my inherent Amity-ness. I’ve heard it’s bad for Dauntless. Ruins the whole stoic demeanor if we smile too much.”

His lips twitch upwards briefly, but whatever had been bothering him before tamps that forbidden emotion down soon enough. “No, not your fault in the slightest. Some initiate was using the wrong kind of gun during today’s drills, nearly put another kid’s eye out. I don’t even know where he got the thing, but it happened anyway.”

“Ah,” you say with a knowing look, “Initiates.”

“Always initiates,” Eric grumbles, but he allows his smile to stick this time, and you think that maybe he isn’t as bad as the rumors allow.

The rest of the session is just as good, if not better. Eric is kind to you, says things that grow increasingly apparent to be jokes. It’s funny, you’d always heard that he was this terribly cold guy, but everyone else must have gotten him at a bad time. Either that, or that’s the Amity in you seeing the best of everyone. Still, you’re certain that his good attitude whenever you’re around isn’t faked. It can’t be.

There’s silence from him for a while. You don’t take it personally, or you shouldn’t, anyway– Eric’s a busy guy, you know that from his words alone if not from always seeing him rush around the compound. He’s a Dauntless leader, he’s not going to be hanging around a tattoo shop unless he’s actively getting new ink.

Then, about a week or so later, he comes back in. Busies himself with looking at the patterns for a while even though you both know he’s not going to get something anyone else could have. This time, he talks to you, asks what you wish you got to draw more often. When you answer, he has you put that in his latest design. It makes your stomach tie itself in tight knots, more intense than even when you’d thrown yourself off the roof on your first day on Dauntless earth.

Confusingly, Eric stops you when you’re about halfway through, says that’s all the time he’s got and that he’d like to continue tomorrow, if that’s alright with you. You ask him if he minds having an incomplete tattoo on his arm and he just laughs, tells you he’ll pull his sleeves down or something. It’s a terrible excuse, but it’s what he wants and so that must be what you want, too. It’s good business. You can tell yourself that when you’re lying awake at night, wondering just what you’ve gotten yourself into.

Eric comes in almost every day, demanding increasing progress on his tattoos. You don’t know why he insists on doing them piecewise– it’s not pain tolerance, he’s got more of that than anyone around and it’s not like Dauntless Leader Eric Coulter would ever admit to something pathetic like pain. It must be something else, then. It must be.

The tattoos spiral and change as they spread across his skin. They’re a mess, to be honest, no cohesive pattern, like he’s picking the templates with his eyes closed and only the goal of covering as much flesh as possible.

You tell him his tattoo sleeves aren’t as coherent as they could be; he laughs, asks you to use your Amity artistry to make some sense of them. He seems unruffled by your accusations of poor taste. Later that same day, Eric punches someone’s nose in because some drunk fellow stumbling out of a party made the mistake of questioning the inked patterns. The idiot said the same things you did, more or less. One of you received a rare smile, the other, a broken bone. It makes no sense.

At some point, he’s going to run out of skin to tattoo. You warn him of this and he grins, flashing dagger-sharp teeth at you. Says that’s why he’s asking you to go so slowly with it. Inch by inch, he cedes control to you. You want to question what that means, but some part of you is scared to ask, scared that he’ll change his mind and leave, or worse, ask someone else to do it.

The last day comes, and this time you know it’ll be the end with certainty. Eric asks you to ink his throat in thick stripes, almost like you can see the angles of his spine through the skin. You sit there, trying to focus on your needle, finishing the design, instead of anything foolish like his head in your hands, his eyes resting quietly on you. He can’t talk while you’re working on his neck like this, but the weight of his gaze says enough anyway.

You finish the last stroke and allow yourself to sit there for one final moment, waiting for it all to be over. Your fingers rest on the smooth expanse of his cheekbone, and Eric raises his hand to cover yours.

“Well,” you say at last, trying to keep your voice light, “it’s been an honor to tattoo you, Eric.”

He smiles. The brief, unwelcome thought that this might be the last time you see him do that flashes through your head, and you banish it just as quickly. That’s not something you want to think about right now, if ever.

“I’d say I’m the one who’s been honored,” he returns, “you’ve got the best work in the faction and everyone knows it.”

You feel some small surge of pride in your chest when he says it, hot and bright like the Dauntless flames. “Thank you.”

“You can thank me in a different way,” he offers, “Drinks tomorrow night, maybe? On me?”

You smile back at him. “I think I’d like that.”

“Good,” he grins, standing so he can look down at you. “I’ll pick you up then. It’ll be fun. Maybe you can teach me some of that Amity optimism.”

You can’t help but laugh at that. It would suit him, you think, smiling more, trusting you so he can let down his guard. Looking at him, at how his eyes brighten when he laughs, you think it already does.

divergent tag list: @dindjarinneedsahug, @poisonmenegan, @ozyynka, @rogueanschel, @with-inked-solace, @gods-fools-heroes, @23victoria, @manyfandomsfanvergent, @imwaysthelastchoice, @drinking-tea-and-be-obsessed, @crazyhearttragedy, @alex-1967s-blog

#eric coulter #eric coulter imagines #eric coulter x reader #eric coulter oneshot #divergent #divergent imagines #divergent x reader #divergent oneshot #divergent eric #divergent eric imagines #divergent eric x reader #divergent eric oneshot

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supernovafics · 5 months

Text

𝐏𝐄𝐀𝐂𝐄

pairing: exboyfriend!steve harrington x fem!reader

word count: 3.2k words

summary: in which you and steve run into each other at a party. it’s been months since you two last talked— which was during a conversation that had ended on the sourest of notes— but now here you both are at a party that neither of you really even want to be at. just for a moment it feels okay to pretend that everything is fine between you two, but then it gets too hard. and instead, it’s unspokenly decided that perhaps this is the chance for you both to get that closure that neither of you got all those months ago

warnings: steve’s pov, explicit language, cigarette smoking, mentions/slight descriptions of a toxic/bad relationship, brief mentions of cheating (not reader or steve), brief mentions of stancy, lots of angst

author’s note: i really really enjoyed writing this and it made me realize that i would love to do more stuff in steve's pov,,,, also now that this is up that means that the folklore series is finally finally done! thank god! (full "folklore" album series masterlist here!)

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。

“our coming-of-age has come and gone. suddenly this summer, it's clear.”

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。

He told her that he was going to find the bathroom.

What Steve didn’t tell her was that it wasn’t because he actually needed to use it, but because he just wanted to use any excuse to get away from her for a bit.

Jill was really nice, but this first date proved that they had absolutely nothing in common— the dry conversation during dinner and the disagreement on the movie choice when they made it to the theater were prime examples of that disconnect.

Steve had assumed that after the movie she would want this date to end as much as he did. But then they were exiting the theater and she was saying that they should go to this party, and he said, “Sure, why not?”

Now he wasn’t sure if said the right thing.

She knew a ton of people at the party, and so did Steve, but the difference was that there was no one that he wanted to engage in any sort of conversation with. It had barely been two months since he graduated, but a part of him hated going to parties now.

He wandered around the house— he wasn’t even entirely sure whose house this was— and pretended to search for the bathroom even though he was actually headed nowhere in particular. In his mind, he told himself that he would walk around for five minutes and then go find Jill again.

He walked upstairs, following the quietness and letting the loud sound of music and never-ending conversations fade away. All he wanted was silence and a moment to himself, maybe to think of some excuse to tell Jill about why he was going to head home and she should stay and keep hanging out with her friends if that was what she wanted to do. He was very well aware that the guy he used to be in high school would call him a loser for leaving a party on a Saturday night when it wasn’t even ten o’clock yet. But, Steve didn’t care, and that was what he would call progress.

He opened the door to the first random room he spotted and immediately saw someone sitting by the open window in the corner. He didn’t even give himself a chance to see if he recognized the person before he started closing the door. He quickly figured that if someone was sitting in a room by themselves during a party, it was probably because they wanted it to be that way; it was what he wanted right then.

“Shit, my bad,” Steve mumbled half-heartedly.

Your quick and unbothered, “It’s okay,” came out loud enough for him to hear before he could fully close the door and it made him stop midway.

It had been so many months since the last time he saw you, since the last time he even heard your voice, but he was still able to recognize it immediately.

He looked at you again. You were slightly illuminated by the moonlight and streetlights outside, and he was surprised that he didn’t notice it was you from the moment he opened the door.

Your name fell from his lips in a whisper, but you heard him almost too clearly.

“Steve,” You breathed out, turning your head and squinting at him in the darkness. He noticed your demeanor change; you sat up in the chair you were sitting in and pulled your legs off of the one that was across from you. It was easy to tell that you were surprised to see him. “Hi.”

“Hey.” Steve wasn’t sure if he should walk over to you, he was feeling the same way you were in that moment, but he did so anyway.

He sat down in the chair that was now empty across from you. He noticed the cigarette in your hand and watched you take a quick drag of it.

“Um, can I bum one?” He asked. He had quit smoking months and months ago, but he was perfectly okay with bringing the old habit back for a night if it meant getting to talk to you for a little bit longer; although, maybe that was something that he shouldn’t have wanted to do.

“Mhm,” You nodded at him and pulled your pack of cigarettes out of your jacket pocket.

Steve grabbed one from the pack and then took the lighter from your outstretched hand as well. “Thanks.”

Right then, everything somehow seemed easy, normal even; the silence that filled the room didn’t feel unbearably awkward or weird. Just for that moment, it felt okay to pretend that everything was completely fine; like there wasn’t such a messy past between you two.

It was easier to do that than to talk, or even think, about the last conversation you two ever had with each other, which happened days before you left to spend Spring Break with your Aunt in Texas. It was a conversation that could more so be described as an argument— the worst one you two had ever had— and it led to the most tense and abrupt ending to your relationship.

You left early for Texas the next day and never came back. Steve had to find out from one of your friends that you decided to stay and finish out the last few months of your Senior year there.

Maybe it actually wasn’t so easy to not think about the past and pretend that everything was normal.

“I, uh, I didn't know you were back in Hawkins,” Steve said, taking a quick look at you and then going back to staring out the window.

“Yeah, I just got in this morning. My mom wanted me to come back for the Fourth of July fair thing this week,” You quickly explained and then took another, longer drag of your cigarette before continuing. “I’m also, um, not leaving again… My mom knows someone that’s opening a bookstore at the new mall, so I’ll be helping out there for the time being. She really wanted me to come back here and I think she knew that books would be the only way.”

I also really wanted you to come back. Steve wanted to say that, but he didn’t; it would’ve only shifted the conversation in a direction that wasn’t at all lighthearted.

“I also work at the mall,” He told you instead. “The ice cream parlor; Scoops Ahoy.” Right as the words left his mouth, he immediately wanted to take them back. Just for a second, he forgot about how completely embarrassing his current job was and once he remembered, he wished that he never brought it up. “Actually, please forget that I just said that.”

“Why?”

He sighed. “Because I have to wear a sailor’s outfit as my uniform, and I don’t want you to ever see me wear that.”

You let out a laugh, and Steve forgot how much he missed hearing that sound; he loved it.

“Okay, when’s your next shift? I wanna make sure to see you in that outfit as soon as possible.”

Steve shook his head and instead of answering your question, he changed the subject. “Anyway, I’m surprised you decided to come to a party on your first night back here.”

“I was dragged to this by Ally, and then was promptly ditched by her when this guy started flirting with her,” You told him, leaning back in your chair and crossing one leg over the other. “What are you doing here?”

“I'm actually on a date right now,” Steve answered. For some reason, he decided not to mention that the date had been bad.

You nodded at him after a moment of letting his words linger in the air of the bedroom. “Cool. That’s nice.”

Hearing you say those words in this moment, immediately reminded Steve of the first time you two had ever talked, because those were the same words that you had said to him at a completely different party. And in this moment, they even sounded the exact same as they had back then too.

That night all those months ago on New Year’s Eve, Steve sat down next to you on the couch in Kyle Thompson’s living room and said, “This is one of my favorite movies;” Risky Business was silently playing on the TV in front of the two of you. You simply looked at him for a second before saying, “Cool. That’s nice,” and things probably should’ve ended there. There was something about your entire vibe right then that made him think that you didn’t want to talk to anyone, but that only made him want to talk to you more.

And somehow him changing his approach and not trying so hard to be charming— and instead simply being honest and nice and just himself— worked. You and him ended up talking the rest of the night; both of you had just gone through break ups so the conversation almost immediately went to that. Your breakup— which involved you catching your boyfriend cheating on you in the library at school— happened only a few weeks earlier and it was the reasoning behind your melancholy at the party. You hadn’t been in the mood to talk to anyone, let alone a guy.

But, Steve noticed how your sadness and cold demeanor managed to fall away as you two kept talking; being vulnerable in ways that usually never happened between two strangers. But, the fact that you two could relate on something that had happened so recently in your lives made you not feel entirely like strangers.

When the clock struck twelve, signaling the start of a brand new year, you softly kissed his cheek and he did the same to yours. He had desperately wanted to slot his lips against yours, but in that moment that kiss on the cheek felt like enough.

That night was the first time that he truly felt happy since he and Nancy broke up barely two months earlier.

Now you were cold again and that probably meant that this conversation by the window should be over. But, just like the last time, Steve still wanted to talk to you. He wanted to spend the entire rest of his night with you instead of Jill, and he knew exactly how much of an asshole that made him.

“How was Texas? The new school and everything,” Steve asked, he was both curious to hear about it— there were so many moments over the past few months where he would wonder how you were doing there— and he also just wanted to keep talking to you right then.

“It was really nice, and it felt good to have a fresh start for a bit,” You started. “My Aunt works at the high school in town, so that made it a lot easier for me to enroll and finish out my last months there. And the school was pretty much the same as it is here. Much to my surprise, not everyone was wearing cowboy hats and boots everyday to class.” The joking tone in your voice was very evident and it made Steve smile. You looked at him just for a second before focusing your eyes out the window again. “How were, um, things here?”

For some reason, that was actually a hard question for Steve to sum up in one easy answer. Mainly because the completely honest answer was a long and complicated one.

During the entirety of his Spring Break, which he spent mostly at home and going to one stupid party, Steve thought about how he could fix things between you two once you came back— he didn’t believe that the way things ended that night, that argument, truly marked the end of everything forever for you two.

And then those first few days after Spring Break when you didn’t come back, but he still thought that maybe, hopefully, you would, were absolute hell— he was confused and upset, equally at himself and at you. Once he finally found out that you definitely weren’t coming back, he convinced himself that maybe you and him were something that wasn’t supposed to be fixed.

And forcing himself to accept that actually made things feel a little bit better for him.

“Good. Pretty boring. But, overall, good,” Steve finally said, deciding to keep his answer short because it just felt easier to do so.

You took a final drag of your cigarette and then flicked the butt out the window before looking at him. “We’re both happier now, right?”

Steve considered your question for a moment.

He definitely knew that he was a better person now than how he was before, he was definitely healed from all of that past shit— what happened between him and Nancy and what happened between him and you. But, he wasn’t exactly sure if he was happy that you weren’t in his life anymore.

Before anything had even happened yet between you two all those months ago, you both had kept telling each other that you were better off as friends and that you both shouldn’t rush into another relationship so soon. But, neither of you listened to one another’s excuses, even though perhaps you both should’ve.

He was kissing you only three weeks after the new year’s party— standing outside the front door of your house, the prettiest smile on your face when he pulled away— and days later, you were calling him your boyfriend and he was the one smiling so damn happily.

Steve finished off the rest of his cigarette and then met your gaze. “I think things are better now, but I don’t know if that really makes me happier.”

“I think I missed you a lot while I was gone. Even though I kept telling myself that I shouldn’t,” You told him and he was a little surprised by your honesty right then. “Sometimes I would wish that I didn’t run away from you. At least, not like how I did. I’m sorry.”

Steve hated that you were saying sorry to him in that moment because he felt like he was the one that had more stuff to be sorry for. Or, at least, he was equally at fault with how quickly everything fell apart between you two.

“I'm really sorry too,” He said softly.

That relationship that you two had, as brief as it was, was something that probably should’ve never happened in the first place. Neither of you were remotely ready to be in something serious again. But, Steve thought that this time and this relationship would be different— better than the past ones— and so did you.

He was so convinced that he didn’t need to worry or even think about really processing everything that happened with Nancy, the heartbreak he felt from that, because he was going into something new that felt as if it was simply meant to be.

However, that was almost immediately proven wrong. At times, the relationship was worse than your previous ones. He’d get jealous over the littlest of things, and you couldn’t find it in you to fully trust him about almost anything.

Breaking up was inevitable and it definitely was for the best, you both were inadvertently hurting each other. But, what made it all so much harder was that the feelings you had for each other were real; he loved you and you loved him, so much, so deeply— you both just had shitty ways of showing it.

You stood up from your chair then, breaking your gaze from Steve’s. “I’m gonna go.”

“Wait,” He stood up too and followed you to the shut door.

You turned to look at him again. You didn’t give him a chance to say anything before you started speaking. “And what I said to you that night during our argument, I didn't mean it.”

Steve couldn’t help but look away from you then because being reminded of something that he had tried his hardest to forget about made him inwardly wince.

Before tonight, your last words to him had been, “I hate you. I can't do this anymore.” Those eight words had hit him so fucking hard, they felt like the worse punch to the gut. But maybe the comment was warranted because he had just accused you of flirting with some guy at a party the two of you had gone too earlier that night.

“I know. I didn’t mean what I said that night either,” Steve responded. You were about to turn around again, but then he asked, “Can you stay? Can we talk some more?”

He wanted to ask you more about Texas. He wanted to hear about even the most mundane things you did there. He wanted to playfully make fun of the fact that he could hear that you now had the tiniest hint of an accent.

Steve wanted to do a lot of things right then, but he especially wanted to ask you when you were starting your job at the bookstore because maybe that would mean he’d get to see you again after this moment. And he didn’t even care that if he saw you at the mall, it would probably mean that you’d see him in that dumb fucking sailor’s outfit.

For a second, you just looked at him, before saying, “You’re on a date right now.”

He reluctantly nodded at your words. “Yeah.”

“She’s probably looking for you.”

“Maybe.”

“You should go find her.”

“I should,” He nodded again and then shook his head as he softly said his next words. “But, I don’t want to.”

You were so close to each other right then, and it seemed as if you both realized that at the same time. Sitting in the chairs had been different, you were still somewhat close to one another but also far enough that the thought of crossing any lines wasn’t on either of your minds.

Now there was barely a foot of space between you two and it almost felt like second nature to touch one another.

Steve took a tentative step closer to you, gauging your reaction for a moment, and you seemed okay. And then it was almost like a ping pong match started, both of you going back and forth with making some sort of move. You closing the rest of the distance between you two, Steve’s hands gently finding your hips, and then yours circling around the nape of his neck with your fingers running through the grown out hair there. Somehow that small touch felt amazing to him, he missed the feeling of your hands in his hair.

At this point, he wouldn’t have been afraid to admit that he missed everything about you.

And maybe it was dumb of him to think, but he also found himself even missing the relationship. The communication between you two had been bad at times, horrible even, but everything else was always so good.

He still loved you, he was realizing that now, and now he wondered if that would ever change. A part of him didn’t feel entirely scared to say that to you either, even if you no longer felt the same.

Steve tilted his head down a bit, letting your noses brush and ghosting his lips over yours.

Your mouth was just a breath away from his and he could’ve sworn that you were gonna do it and press your lips against him. But then you were pulling away and slipping out the door. Your voice was soft as you said your last words to him.

“See you around, Steve.”

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。

“no, i could never give you peace.”

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。

let me know ur thoughts<333

#steve harrington x reader #steve harrington fic #steve harrington fluff #steve harrington x you #steve harrington imagine #steve harrington x fem!reader #steve harrington smut #stranger things fluff #steve harrington fanfiction #steve harrington x y/n #steve harrington x reader smut #stranger things fic #stranger things imagine

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pink-sparkly-witch · 6 months

Text

Just Like This

Summary: Working a second job in a bar to help pay for Sammy’s education, Dean finds a kindred spirit in bar manager Y/N. When a drunk Douchebag gets too handsy with her, Dean quickly jumps to her defence but faces harsh consequences.

Pairing: Bartender!Dean Winchester x Female!Reader

Rating: Teen

Bingo Square: Getting Fired for @j3bingo

Warnings: tw: sexual assault (groping), fluff, angst, fighting, minor violence, Chuck is a complete and utter asshole in this, getting fired, quitting in solidarity, first kiss, friends to lovers

Word Count: 3k

A/N: Okay, it feels like an age since I’ve written anything that’s just pure floof. I hope you enjoy this fluffy, protective, besotted Dean fic. Please be kind. I’ve had my angst hat on for a long time, and though this was really refreshing, it’s also a little daunting!

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It wasn’t the best job in the world, but as part-time work went, Dean knew it could be a hell of a lot worse than this. He worked with his dad in the garage during the day and worked four nights a week and two shifts at the weekend in Shurley’s Sports Bar. His wages and tips went to his dad to help pay for Sammy’s education. Sure, the kid had a full ride to Stanford; however, he still needed to pay for accommodation after freshman year and the thousands of books he needed for his coursework. And at least this way, his dad didn’t put himself in an early grave by working all the hours God gave him. Lord knows he’d done enough of that when they were kids.

Shurley’s was a decent bar. It had a prime location between the University of Kansas campus and downtown, so it always has a steady stream of customers. It quietened during the summer when the students went home or on their travels, but the locals still made trade steady enough. The owner, Chuck, was a bit of a dick, but he barely showed his face around the place, and the other staff were decent, making it a great place to work.

“Hey, Dean,” Y/N said as she came out of the back office. Y/N was the bar manager and a great girl. They had a lot in common; both lost their mothers when they were young and looked after their younger siblings while their fathers worked three jobs to try and make ends meet. Y/N’d had to drop out of college when her father took unexpectedly sick, having to take care of him and her little sister. Now that her father had passed and her sister had a full ride to another prestigious college, Harvard, Y/N lived in the tiny apartment above the bakery where she worked four days a week and in the bar four nights a week and every Saturday night. The rest of the time, she studied part-time to finish her college education and sent every spare cent she had to her sister in Boston.

“Hey, Y/N,” he smiled at her. She was pretty, too, and Dean wasn’t afraid to admit that he had a massive crush on her. Not that anything would ever happen because she was her, and he was… well, he wasn’t good enough for a girl like that. “How are ya, sweetheart?”

“I’m good, Dean. How are you? Oh! Did you manage to get Sam’s apartment sorted?” Y/N asked, and he smiled that she’d remember such a thing.

“Yeah, it’s all good now. We managed to get the rest of the deposit together,” Dean said. “Thanks for the extra shifts, by the way.”

“Don’t mention it,” Y/N smiled. “I still can’t believe landlords can actually do that,” Y/N shook her head as she headed behind the bar and started filling the refrigerators with bottles of beer and wine to prepare for the busy Friday night shift.

“Yeah, us either. But it’s done, and he has somewhere to live,” Dean said as he put the last menus and condiment buckets on the tables. “What needs to be done next, boss?” he asked, smirking when Y/N chuckled. She hated being called that, but he seemed to be the only one she didn’t scold for it.

“I could use a hand changing over the barrels if you’ve got time?” she said, breaking up the cardboard that the bottles had been housed in.

“Sure thing, sweetheart.” Dean headed into the storeroom and started shifting the beer barrels behind the bar as Y/N continued putting bottles in the fridges and replacing the almost empty spirit bottles with full ones to accommodate the busiest night of the year: Friday night football and Freshers Week.

The bar was packed with customers, the warm, sunny weather drawing even more of them in than usual, and of course, Chuck had decided tonight was a good night to show face and ‘help’, putting the staff on edge. Dean had gone with the head down and get on with it attitude, glad it was three deep at the bar so he had an excuse not to have to entertain Chuck for very long.

Y/N had been running around after Chuck all night, finding this paperwork and that invoice and the employee payroll for the past six weeks. Eventually, when he couldn’t possibly ask for anything more, she’d escaped the office, having brazenly told her boss that she was needed front of house to help serve customers.

“I swear,” she’d said as she tied her little black server’s apron around her waist, “It’s like he fucking knew tonight would be the busiest night but still came to check months old paperwork! God, that man is insufferable!”

It wasn’t often that Y/N showed her annoyance, and Dean couldn’t help but think it was cute. Though, admittedly, that could be his crush talking, her furrowed brow and tiny pout were adorable.

“What can I do to help?” he asked as she took her place behind the bar.

“I should be asking you that question!” she giggled. “What do you need me to do?”

“We could do with someone collecting and cleaning the empty glasses, if you wouldn’t mind?” he responded, smiling as she picked up a basket, cleaning spray, and a cloth before he’d finished his sentence.

“You got it,” she winked and headed onto the floor to clear and wipe the tables down. And that, Dean thought, is what makes a good boss. Someone who works with the team to achieve the same goal. Someone who isn’t afraid of stepping in to help by doing the most mundane tasks that are below their pay grade.

Y/N was a breath of fresh air for him in so many ways. She was bubbly and caring, and no matter what was thrown her way, she responded with an air of calmness and dignity that he admired.

“Hey, man. What can I get ya?” Dean asked the next patron, finally taking his eyes off the girl slowly taking over his every thought.

“Be careful,” Dean said as Y/N headed back onto the floor to clear more glasses and tables. “It’s getting rowdy out there. You know what those college boys can be like.”

“Thanks, Dean,” she smiled. “I’m sure I’ll be fine.”

He knew she would be. He’d seen her handling every kind of drunk customer. Still, he’d watch her closely because he was more worried than usual. The crowd tonight seemed even more enthused thanks to the local sports team playing. It still surprised him how often the female staff got touched inappropriately and had the most vulgar things said to them by too drunk and far too confident men. More than once Dean had had to step in and stop something from going too far, and he’d do it as many times as he needed to for Y/N or any of the other female staff.

Y/N managed to get around most of the bar unscathed, but there was a particularly boisterous table of men who only frequented the bar when the Chiefs played. Dean had been watching them all night because they seemed to have forgotten their age and tried to out-drink their much younger counterparts. They’d already run their mouths off to the bar staff, and now one of them in particular had their beady eye on Y/N as she moved from table to table, collecting empty glasses and bottles.

Swapping her tray out for an empty one, Y/N made her way over to their table, and the second she got close enough, the balding guy with the beady eye was quick to rear his hand back and smack her ass. Dean’s hackles rose, and he was on high alert as he watched her give the douchebag a piece of her mind. But he didn’t stop. Douchebag wrapped his arms around her waist and tried pulling her onto his lap. All the while, his douchebag little friends laughed and cheered him on like he’d won a fucking prize.

Dean saw red as he ran around the bar and strode purposely over to the group of middle-aged men amid a mid-life crisis and pulled Y/N from his hold, dragging her behind him to protect her.

“The lady told you to leave her alone. I suggest you do that,” Dean fumed, only getting angrier at Douchebag’s smirk.

“Oh, ladies and gentlemen, we have a jealous boyfriend trying to protect his girl! You know, if she were my girlfriend, I wouldn’t let her out the house wearing something so…” he paused as he leered up and down Y/N’s body, “revealing.”

“Listen, asshole, you don’t want to piss me off right now. Why don’t you and your buddies call it a night and go home? You’ve clearly had too much to drink, and we don’t take kindly to people assaulting our staff here,” Dean’s jaw was clenched, but he’d somehow managed to keep his voice steady.

“Sorry, man,” Douchebag smirked as he stood. “Just can’t help myself when I see a pretty girl showing off half her body like a Goddamn little tease. She’s asking for it, really.”

That was the last straw, and as Douchebag made one final (and unfortunately successful) attempt to get his hands on Y/N, Dean pulled his fist back and punched him square on the nose. The resounding crack as Dean broke the guy’s nose was satisfying, as were the synchronised grimacing ‘oohs’ that the audience this little corner of the bar had attracted.

“You broke my nose, asshole!” Douchebag spluttered. “I’m reporting you for assault!”

“You do that,” Y/N said, “and I’ll have you arrested, too. This whole bar and the CCTV saw you grope me twice and clearly saw me trying to get you off me! What he did,” she pointed at Dean, “was save me from being sexually assaulted!”

“Come on, man,” one of Douchebag’s friends said, patting him on the back. “Let’s get you to the hospital. It’s not worth it.”

“Damn straight it’s not!” Dean yelled. “Any way you spin this, he doesn’t win, so get the hell out and don’t come back!”

Tail between their legs, Douchebag and his friends left the bar. The second the door shut behind them, Dean was next to Y/N, checking her for injuries.

“I’m fine, Dean,” she insisted, but her eyes told a different story. The encounter had shaken her up, and Dean wanted to fix it, needed to fix it.

“No, sweetheart, you’re not. You’re–” Dean began but was interrupted by the shrill voice of Chuck.

“Winchester, my office, now! You too, Y/N.”

Seeing Y/N sitting beside him on the other side of the desk was strange. This was where she did all the paperwork, payroll, ordering, and invoicing, so to see Chuck on her chair was disconcerting. And not good.

“I don’t know what was going on out there–” Chuck began, and Dean scoffed in disbelief.

“You’re bar manager was sexually assaulted by a customer. That’s what happened!” Dean sat forward on his chair, raising his voice. He only calmed when Y/N placed her hand on his forearm.

Chuck pursed his lips at his outburst and continued speaking as if Dean hadn’t interrupted.

“I don’t know what happened, but whatever it was, sexual assault or not,” Chuck looked pointedly at Y/N before he continued. “It’s no excuse for my staff to behave violently.”

“You have got to be kidding me!” Dean fumed. “That… scumbag… touched her ass and her breasts and tried to force her into his lap! You see those bruises, right?” he asked as he pointed to the dark purple fingerprint marks on her arms.

“Inappropriate comments, slurs, even touching, is to be expected when you work in a bar–” Chuck was interrupted again, this time by Y/N.

“There are no touching policies in every strip club in the country for a reason, Chuck! You cannot expect it to be any different in a fratboy sports bar! No one should go to work expecting that being sexually assaulted is okay!”

“For God’s sake, Y/N! So what a guy touched your ass and tits! You should be flattered!”

“It was sexual assault, Chuck! That guy,” Y/N pointed behind her in the general direction of the bar, “touched me without permission, and I could have him charged! You too with how you’re behaving!”

“Oh, stop being so dramatic! I feel sorry for your boyfriend if this is how prudish you are!”

“Hey, that is–” Dean interjected, but Chuck kept talking.

“Dean, you’re fired. I cannot, and will not, allow a violent brute to work in my bar.”

“You can’t do that!” Y/N protested.

“Watch it, or you’ll be gone, too!” Chuck threatened, but Dean knew it was an empty one with her. He needed her too much. The bar would burn to the ground without her in charge.

“No need. I quit. Effective immediately. I cannot, and will not,” Y/N glared at Chuck as she repeated his words to him, “work in a place where I’m expected to be sexually harassed and assaulted and ignore it. I cannot, and will not, work for a man who fires a good person for helping someone in need.”

Standing, Y/N took off her apron and name tag and threw them on the desk. She unhooked the keys from her belt and pulled the cash box towards her, opening it and pulling out two brown envelopes, handing one to Dean and putting the other in her pocket. Once she’d locked the cash box, she tossed her keys down on the cheap metal desk with a satisfying clang.

“Really? You’re going to quit over him?” Chuck scoffed.

“Yes. Dean is worth a thousand shitty bar jobs like this one, and I’d choose him over any of them in a heartbeat,” Y/N said with her head held high. “I hope you know you’ve just lost your two best workers on the busiest night of the year. Come on, Dean. Let’s get out of this shithole.”

Dean didn’t protest. He stood up, smirked at Chuck because he just couldn’t help himself, and followed Y/N out of the bar and onto the street.

“Sweetheart, you didn’t need to do that. I’m a big boy, and I can look after myself,” Dean said after walking in silence for a few minutes.

“I know you can, and yes, I did. That was unfair and undeserved. Especially because it was my fault,” Y/N responded.

“Hey, don’t ever… it wasn’t your fault. Things like that are never the woman’s fault, you know that, right?” Dean couldn’t believe she’d ever think something like that would be her own doing.

“I know, but if I’d listened to you and let Marcus clear tables instead of me, none of this would’ve happened.”

“No. I won’t hear it. You didn’t ask to be groped by a balding douchebag going through a mid-life crisis, sweetheart. Don’t ever apologise for someone else’s wrongdoing,” he reassured her.

“So, what do we do now? We both kinda needed that job,” Y/N chuckled, but it held no humour.

“Well, I might know a guy who owns a wine bar downtown. A classy establishment, so the tips are better. And we’d be treated right,” Dean said, thinking of the bar Cas had tried to get him to work in for months.

“You have a buddy with a bar, and you chose to stay working in that shithole?” Y/N asked in disbelief. “Why? What would possess you to stay there? Willingly?”

“It wasn’t all bad,” Dean smirked. This wasn’t where he envisioned this conversation going–if it ever happened at all, that is–but the perfect opportunity had presented itself and he’d never forgive himself if he didn’t take it. “I got to see you almost every day.”

“Come on! You did not stay there for me!” Y/N scoffed, and Dean shrugged his shoulders, his lips tugging upwards in a shy smile.

“I did, actually. Can’t think of anyone better to spend so much time with.”

“Dean Winchester,” she grinned. “Are you flirting with me?” The teasing tone in her words was one he’d never heard before, and he liked it.

“Do you want me to be flirting with you?” he’d asked, needing to hear her say it before he did something stupid because he’d misread the signals.

“Yeah… I think I do,” Y/N giggled, stepping closer to him, bumping their arms together as they stepped in sync down the sidewalk.

“Yeah?” he asked, checking again because, quite frankly, she was her and he was him.

“Yeah.”

Dean stopped walking and gently grabbed her forearm to stop her from walking ahead. Feeling brave, Dean placed his hands on her cheeks and dipped his head, slowly lowering his lips to hers. Every inch closer he got, he switched his gaze between her lips and her eyes, making sure this was what she wanted.

When there was no hesitation and nowhere else to go, he closed his eyes and pressed his lips to hers. They were as soft as they always looked, softer even, and tasted as sweet as he’d imagined they would.

Y/N pressed herself closer to him with a low hum and slid her arms up his chest, resting one hand on his pec and the other curling around his neck. Dean licked her bottom lip, encouraging her to open her mouth and let him deepen their kiss.

He failed to hold back a groan when his tongue met hers, the feeling so much better than anything his mind could’ve conjured up. Dean couldn’t remember how long he’d wanted this, and now that it was happening, he knew he’d do whatever he could to keep her in his arms, just like this.

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#j3bingo #just like this #au dean winchester x reader #bartender!dean winchester #dean winchester x reader #au dean winchester #dean winchester #dean winchester fluff #fluff

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whataperfectwasteoftime · 1 year

Text

Spring Fling

(gif by @pedropascalsx. I've given up using Tumblr gif search)

Pairing: Marcus Pike x virgin f!Reader

Rating: E (explicit smut, 18+ only)

Word Count: 19,228. Oops.

Warnings: Significant age gap (almost 20 years), college-age reader, sexual tension, mentions of: strained familial relationships, divorce, unhealthy breakups, stalker(ish) behavior (PAST), therapy. Virgin/inexperienced reader, fingering, oral sex (f! receiving), unprotected PIV sex and a lot of it, comeplay if you squint, Marcus’s filthy filthy mouth, happy ending

Summary: When you and your friend, fellow pre-Law student Emma, plan to go to Washington DC for spring break instead of the typical beach destination, she makes plans for the two of you to stay with her estranged father for the week to save money on lodging. You never expected Emma’s father, a man she says she’s barely seen throughout the years, to be so sweet, so troubled, and so unfairly pretty. Neither did you expect for what you'd thought was a one-sided attraction to turn into a spring fling... or maybe something more.

A/N: I got an ask asking about 'Best Friend's Dad' Marcus Pike, so I now post a question to you, dear reader: What if Marcus Pike had a college-age kid from his first marriage, one that he'd entered into at a very young age because of an unplanned pregnancy? Anyway to find out the answer read this almost 20k fic LOL

Masterlist

"We should go somewhere for spring break."

Your friend and fellow pre-Law student at the University of Texas, Emma, laughs. "Go somewhere? Like what, the fucking beach? And with what money?"

"No, no beaches. Somewhere cool. Somewhere unusual."

"Like what?" Emma asks, shoving another handful of chips in her mouth.

"I've never been to Washington, DC," you comment thoughtfully.

"I thought every public school in the entire country went to DC at some point," Emma remarks.

"I had the chickenpox."

"Ew."

"Do you think that would be fun? Going to the Capitol for break?" you ask.

"I guess," Emma shrugs. "It's better than going to writhe on the beach with fifty thousand wasted twentysomethings."

"There's still the issue of how to pay for a trip. For any trip. I think I could cover airfare, but a DC hotel? Ugh," you say with a groan.

"I could put the hotel on my credit card and work a bunch of extra shifts at Pizza Express afterward to make up for it," Emma says. "But that would pretty much max out my card."

"I can look up the cheapest spots outside the city," you suggest. "And we can take the metro in."

"Outside the city isn't going to be much better," Emma remarks. "We could… nah."

You look up, curious. "We could… what?"

"Well, my uh, my dad actually lives in DC."

"Your dad?" you repeat incredulously. "You've literally never mentioned your dad. I thought he and your mom were estranged?"

"Sorta," Emma says. "The official story is that they married too young and eventually separated."

"...And the unofficial story?"

"My mom found out she was pregnant at nineteen, and my dad wanted to do the right thing, so he married her. But I guess they weren't right for each other, because they were already divorced by the time I was two."

"Do you see him much?" you ask.

"I used to," Emma says quietly. "But my mom was never really enthusiastic about spending much time together, so it wasn’t very often. And then he moved to DC when I was a junior in high school, and I haven't seen him since. He always sends me cards on my birthday and Christmas, though. And…" she suddenly blushes, looking down and away.

"What?"

"Nothing."

"What, Em?"

"He pays for my tuition."

"What?!"

"Yeah, I've barely had to take out any loans. It's just for housing and stuff."

"You ass, you never told me that!"

"It's not common knowledge," Emma mumbles. "Besides, no one wants to admit they've got an absent, divorced father paying the bills."

"But you'd want to contact him for this? For a place to crash over spring break for a week?"

"He's nice," Emma says quietly. "I always got the feeling that he wanted to do his best by us."

"I mean, if you're cool with it, it kinda sounds fun," you admit. "Better than Galveston, anyway."

Emma laughs. "Yeah, way better than Galveston."

"Holy shit, Em, you can see the Capitol from here."

The two of you had emerged from the underground tunnel of the metro station, trailing suitcases behind you, into what feels like the middle of the city itself. The busy street is flanked with large condominiums on both sides, with--unbelievably--a view of the Capitol building in the distance.

"I think it's this one," Emma says, squinting at the address on her phone and back up at one of the buildings.

"How do we get in?" you ask.

"He just said to text him," Emma answers. "Hang on." She taps out a message on her phone before sliding it back into her pocket. "And now we wait."

You barely have time to check your email before the front door opens and a man emerges, striding quickly toward the two of you. You think he's about to envelop your friend into a crushing hug, but he stops short, eyes wavering with uncertainty as he looks his daughter up and down. His hand reaches toward her arm, but he hesitates just short of touching.

"Emma," the man breathes, the emotion evident in his voice making you want to duck your head and turn away from the scene.

"Hey, uh, Dad," Emma says, giving him a sheepish smile. "Been a while."

"It's been six years," the man says emphatically.

"Yeah."

You watch as Emma's father's fingers twitch toward her. "C-Can I–"

Emma shrugs. "'Course."

The man carefully steps forward and wraps his arms around her, pulling her to his chest. His eyes close, his eyebrows pull upward to reveal a deep crease in between them as he holds his daughter for apparently the first time in six years. This time, you do look away from what feels like surprisingly tender and private moment.

"I'm sorry I wasn't there for your graduation," you hear him say softly. "I was undercover for a case, and… Anyway, it doesn't matter. I'm sorry. You don't know how badly I wanted to be there."

"S'okay," Emma says cooly. She steps back, and, for the first time, her father seems to notice you.

"Hi," he says brightly, and his pained, heartfelt expression melts into an easy smile as he extends his hand to you. "Marcus."

You don't know what you had been expecting. Maybe someone older. Maybe someone less… attractive. Not this frankly gorgeous man, with his boyish smile, pretty eyes that crinkle around the edges, slightly mussed brown hair that falls over his forehead, and the light smattering of facial hair that only seems to soften his features further. Not that he needed any help, in that respect. Slightly stunned, you step forward and take the man’s hand, trying not to trip over the syllables of your own name.

Marcus’s smile widens, and he repeats your name, which does nothing to quell the sudden burst of butterflies in your stomach–and are your palms sweating?

"Thank you for allowing us to stay for the week," you say politely, forcing yourself out of the trance.

"Not a problem," Marcus answers. "What a great destination for spring break! Whose idea was that?"

"Mine," you say with a little laugh.

"My kind of girl," Marcus jokes. "Keeping my daughter out of trouble."

"Dad," Emma groans. "I'm not a kid."

"Well, last time I saw you, you were fifteen," Marcus says pointedly. "You're gonna have to let my brain do a little catch-up, here."

"Well, to start with, I'm not a beach party kind of person," Emma says. "I'm a nerd–y'know, being pre-Law and all."

Emma's father beams. "So I've heard. Well, I'm happy to host two nerds while they do a little sightseeing in the nation's Capitol. I can even," he adds with a conspiratorial smile, "give you a tour of the J. Edgar Hoover building. If–If you want," he finishes awkwardly, appearing hesitant and unsure again.

"Oh, cool!" you exclaim automatically, without thinking.

Marcus grins widely at your enthusiasm, and you find yourself staring at your shoes, biting your lip as you flounder under his attention. You're being weird. Stop it.

"Y-Yeah," Emma adds, nodding hesitantly. "That would be nice... Dad. Thanks."

“C’mon,” Marcus says, grabbing both Emma’s bag and, before you can protest, yours. “Come on up. I ordered some pizza for everyone. You can get settled tonight and… go do whatever you two want to do in the morning.”

The two of you follow Marcus through the lobby and into the elevator. You can’t help but keep stealing little glances at him–the way his shoulders fill out the maroon henley he’s wearing over jeans, the way those shoulders taper down to narrow hips, the way he’s got the top two buttons of his shirt casually undone, showing you a hint of collarbone that has you damn-near salivating. Snap out of it. Oh, God, snap out of it. You’ve known the man for five minutes, and you feel like you’re losing your mind. It’s gonna be a long week if you don’t pull it together.

Marcus opens the front door and gestures the two of you in before him. You stand awkwardly in the living room, looking around at the furniture and at the decor on the walls, looking anywhere but at your best friend’s dad, whose very presence seems to fluster you beyond all reason.

“I just have one spare room, hopefully you two don’t mind sharing…?” Marcus asks.

“That’s fine,” Emma says good-naturedly.

“It’s just through here,” he says, walking past you. “I’ll set your bags down in there and show you around.”

The room is clearly his workspace–there’s a desk and a chair shoved into a corner to make room for a comfortable-looking guest bed. The side wall is covered with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, and you subconsciously step toward them, eager to see what titles this man keeps on his shelves.

“Sorry, it’s kind of an… all-purpose room,” Marcus says sheepishly. “Bit cluttered.”

“I like it,” you murmur absentmindedly, still scanning the spines.

“‘Gardner’s Art Through the Ages’” Emma reads, crinkling her nose. “How many editions of this book do you have?”

Her father laughs. “It’s work stuff, mostly. Although there’s a few thrillers here and there. And some classics.” He approaches the shelves as well, and you can feel the hair on the back of your neck start to stand up on end at the sensation of his body hovering just behind you. You’re so… aware of him. You don’t know if it’s because Marcus seems to naturally command every space he’s in or if there’s something electric that’s pulling you toward him, but either way, your entire body feels as though it’s on high alert.

A sharp buzzing makes you jump comically, making Emma snort.

“That’ll be the pizza,” Marcus announces. “Be right back.”

You glance over at Emma, who is still staring disinterestedly at the bookshelves. “It’s a nice place,” you say conversationally.

“Mmmhm.”

“You okay?” you ask softly.

“Oh, yeah,” Emma scoffs, waving her hand. “Just been a while. It’s weird. You know.”

“He seems nice,” you say.

“He is,” she remarks. “I told you he was. I just… don’t know him very well. Like he said, I haven’t seen him in six years.”

“Maybe this will be good, then,” you suggest. “Get to know him now that you’re an adult and all that.”

Emma shrugs. “Maybe.”

You look back at the shelves. Emma was right; Marcus does have an alarmingly large number of editions of Art Through the Ages. You furrow your brow.

“What does your dad do in DC?”

“Oh, did I not tell you? He’s in the FBI.”

You feel as though you’ve swallowed your tongue, but before you can garble out a response–something like, “Mmmgnnbbllgffnhh?”–you hear Marcus coming back.

“Get it while it’s hot!” he says cheerfully. “You guys must be hungry after traveling all day.”

“Oh wow, Dad, that’s… a lot of pizza for three people,” Emma says, her eyebrows raising in surprise and confusion.

She’s right–there are five boxes sitting on the small kitchen island, along with several options of drink.

“I had no idea what either of you liked,” Marcus reasoned. “So I got a few different options. Cheese, pepperoni, supreme, hawaiian, and some kind of vegan thing, just in case.”

“You know, you could have just texted,” Emma remarks, at the same time that you whisper, “Thank you.”

Marcus looks sheepish. “Wanted to surprise you. Anyway, dig in–there’s obviously a lot.” He laughs quietly to himself, grabbing three plates and setting them down on the counter. You grab three different kinds–supreme, hawaiian, and the vegan option, out of curiosity–and sit on one of the barstools opposite Marcus. Emma grabs two cheeses and sits down next to you.

“So,” he says after a few minutes of surprisingly companionable silence. “I know Emma is pre-Law. Are you pre-Law too?” he asks, looking at you with a friendly, curious smile.

“Mmmhmm,” you nod, tight-lipped. You hate this conversation–the college-age version of ‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’ Everyone asks the question with good intent, but it always leaves you in an anxiety spiral, an existential crisis, because no matter how many times you’re asked, you have absofuckinglutely no idea.

“What kind of law do you want to go into?” This question is addressed more to Emma, who immediately launches into an explanation of Environmental Law and the impact of climate change on public health. Marcus nods eagerly, giving Emma his full attention as she talks, watching her with a small smile.

“What about you?” he asks when she’s done, turning to you.

You gulp.

“I don’t—I don’t really know. Not yet, anyways.” You brace yourself for the judgmental eyebrow raise, the well-meaning advice.

“That’s okay,” Marcus says, smiling. “No one says you have to have it figured out at… how old are you?”

“T-Twenty,” you mumble, feeling more naive and inexperienced than you ever have before.

“Nah,” Marcus says, shaking his head playfully. “No one has it figured out at twenty. And the people who think they do? They change.”

His eyes go far away for a split-second, and you wonder what he must have been like at twenty. Did he already have Emma at that point? Did he just find out that his girlfriend was pregnant? Was he panicking, trying to figure out how to make things work? You wonder what it was that he had wanted to do, and what he had sacrificed for Emma and her mom. You wonder if he had wanted the divorce, or if she had been the one to suggest it.

“Anyway,” Marcus says, casually waving a slice of pepperoni as he talks, “I mostly work with criminal lawyers. If that’s something you’re interested in, I could arrange a chat with someone this week.”

“Oh,” you say, too stunned to say anything else. “Yeah, maybe.”

Marcus shrugs good-naturedly. “Think about it,” he says, giving you another crooked grin. His eyes crinkle around the edges when he smiles, and it makes your stomach do somersaults.

“Yeah,” you say again, a little breathlessly. Your next bite of pizza misses your mouth entirely, and you manage to stab yourself in the cheek with your slice, transferring a glob of tomato sauce onto your face in the process.

Emma laughs, and Marcus’s eyes glitter with amusement as you frantically reach for a napkin.

“So you do, um… FBI stuff?” you ask him clumsily, trying to break the silence.

“Yep. FBI Stuff. Says it on my badge and everything.”

“Why do you have a bunch of art books?”

“I lead an international task force dealing with art crimes,” he answers patiently.

“What constitutes an art crime?” Emma asks, her mouth full.

“Theft,” Marcus lists, “forgeries, black market sales, dealing in antiquities, looting of archaeological sites…”

“Oh, wow,” you breathe, a dopey smile on your face. Emma shoots you a funny look.

“So it’s like, nerdy FBI stuff,” she says.

“The nerdiest,” Marcus agrees, smiling.

“Do you still have a gun and stuff?”

“I do,” Marcus says carefully, frowning slightly. “It’s in the safe for the week, though, while you’re here.”

Your stomach flip-flops at the mental image of Emma’s dad holding a gun, those warm brown eyes dark with focus as he stares down… an art thief. Or something.

“Enough about your old man,” he says with a self-deprecating chuckle. “What are you two looking to do tomorrow on your first day in DC?”

“Think we’ll hit the museums,” Emma says. “Get them out of the way first. We want to see the Library of Congress, obviously. Plus walking around to all the monuments and stuff. Oh, and the zoo!”

“Do you want my advice?” Marcus asks, and you both nod. “It’s supposed to be unseasonably warm tomorrow, and sunny. I’d do the monument tour or the zoo tomorrow if I were you. Save the indoor stuff for the end of the week, because it’s supposed to rain.”

“Monuments it is!” Emma exclaims. “Hey, can I… can I use your shower? I feel kinda gross from the travel day.”

“Absolutely.” Marcus hops up, leading Emma over to the guest bathroom. You listen as he points out a stack of towels intended for the two of you during your stay, the extra shampoo he’d bought, the spare toothbrushes just in case… Eventually he returns, hands stuffed in his pockets, looking hesitant again.

“Thank you,” you say again. “You went through a lot of trouble, and–”

“It’s no trouble,” Marcus says quickly. “No trouble at all. I–I have to admit I was surprised when Em–when she called, but I’m–I’m more than happy to host you two for the week. It’s no trouble at all,” he repeats.

“Okay,” you say dumbly. You’re staring again, unable to help the way your eyes are drawn to the way his arms fill out the shirt he's wearing when his hands are in his pockets like that.

"You alright?"

Your eyes flit up to his at the question. He's looking back at you, his head cocked to the side as he watches you. And suddenly, you can just tell–you can tell that he knows how flustered you are in front of him.

You nod rapidly up and down in response, not trusting yourself to answer.

"Good. Had enough pizza?"

"Mmhmm."

"Anything else to drink?" he asks.

"Got any beer?" you ask with a quirk of your eyebrow.

"You told me you were twenty," Marcus reminds you.

"Oh."

"And I work for law enforcement," he says gravely.

Oh.

"Oh, f-fuck, I um… I was kidding. Holy shit. I'm sorry. Seriously, I'm not a-a bad… student, or anything. I swear, I–"

As you continue to frantically backtrack, you realize that Marcus’s shoulders are shaking with laughter.

"Oh, you're funny. Real funny. Ha. Ha."

"Next you'll be saying I should quit my day job," he says, his eyes sparkling.

"I'm not sure what kind of art… crime… solver… you are, but I have to believe you're a better agent than you are a comedian," you deadpan.

"You can come to my stand-up show on Tuesday and see for yourself."

Your jaw drops before you realize Marcus's lips are quivering with the effort of keeping a straight face.

"You're on fire, tonight," you say, rolling your eyes.

"You'll have to forgive me," he says, a gentle, more wistful smile gracing his lips. "I don't have company often, and it's been even longer since I've seen–" his eyes flick to the bathroom door, and he looks troubled for a moment.

"Strictly off the record, if you do want a beer, I happen to have some," he says, changing the subject and smiling back at you again.

"Nah, I'll save that favor for later in the week," you tell him.

"Noted," Marcus replies. He's looking at you again, still. He seems to be one of those people who gives all of his focus to someone when they speak, and the attention is starting to overwhelm you.

"Hey!" Emma calls from the guest bedroom. "I wanna get started early tomorrow. Those monuments aren't gonna monument themselves."

You laugh and roll your eyes. "That's my cue," you say with a little smile. "Gonna grab a shower myself and call it a night."

"If you need anything, I'm a room away," Marcus says, but it only serves to remind you that this man will be sleeping in the next room.

"Got it," you say, nodding thickly. "Um, good night."

"Good night," he answers softly.

When you reach the bathroom door, you turn around again–you can't help yourself.

He's still looking at you.

"Get up!

"Get up!"

"GET–"

"Okay!" you whine, throwing an extra pillow in the general direction of Emma's voice. "Fuck. I'm up."

You throw on a pair of jeans and a faded tee, scrubbing your hands over your face as you stumble out of the guest room and into the kitchen, where Marcus hands you a cup of coffee, which you accept with a grunt.

"Emma warned me that you weren't a morning person," he says.

"God, it's both of you, isn't it?" you grumble. "Morning people."

"I guess we turned out alike after all," Marcus says with a soft smile, watching as you take a grateful sip from the mug. "What's the first stop on the list?"

"I dunno, she's got it all planned out," you murmur. "Of like, seeing the farthest place first and working our way back."

"Sounds like a plan," Marcus says. "You two have fun."

"What are you doing today?" Emma interjects, coming into the kitchen, grabbing a bagel off of the counter, and stuffing it into her mouth.

"Well, it's Sunday, so… grocery shopping," Marcus says. "Any special requests?"

"Filet mignon," Emma says.

"You got it. Want some lobster tails as well?"

"Mmhmm."

"I was thinking more along the lines of spaghetti and meatballs. Anything else you ladies would like?"

Emma shuffles her feet, and you frown slightly. You've never known her not to immediately say what's on her mind–and clearly, something is.

"What is it, Emmie?" Marcus asks softly.

"Do you remember that one time that we came to your family's for Christmas–I think I was maybe twelve?–and you made…"

"...Tamales?" Marcus asks, his eyebrows shooting upward.

"Yeah," Emma answers, her voice smaller than you've ever heard it. "I still remember those. They were really good."

"Jesus, I haven't made those in…" he shakes his head. "I don't even know. But uh, sure. We can do that. Tamale night. It's a deal."

"Thanks," Emma says, smiling. "And… really? 'Emmie?' Dad, I'm not seven anymore."

"My mistake," Marcus says with a playful wink in your direction–which might make your heart stop. "You girls stay safe. Text if you need anything."

Marcus was right–the weather is beautiful today. It’s perfect for walking endlessly from monument to monument, which you do all morning. You try to stay focused–thoughtfully reading the names on the Vietnam War Memorial and not thinking about Emma’s dad, in the plain white t-shirt he had been wearing this morning, in the produce section picking out apples. Even worse, you try not to imagine the sight of him cooking tonight.

He’s becoming a bit of an obsession for you, you can admit it. You want to know everything about him–what his job is like, what he does on the weekends, what he likes to read, what he did in the past to alienate the mother of his child enough that he’s barely seen his daughter–who he very clearly cares deeply for…

As you walk around the Washington Monument, you can’t stand it any longer.

“Sooooo. It seems like things are going well between you and your dad,” you say conversationally.

“How do you mean?”

“Less awkward, I guess.”

“It’s not that we don’t get along,” Emma says with a shrug. “We always used to. Like I said, I always thought he was nice. My mom…”

“She didn’t like him?”

“She didn’t want to be around him. I don’t know why. They tried to protect me from the messy parts of divorce, but part of that means that I have no idea what their history is. She never talked about it. Neither did he.”

“Huh.” You stare in silence at the large white obelisk. “I wonder what happened.”

“I thought about asking my mom,” Emma says. “Lots of times, but I never got up the courage.”

“You should ask him,” you say quietly. “I get the feeling he needs to tell the story.”

Emma gives you a funny look. “That’s a weird thing to say.”

You shrug. “I’m weird.”

“Fair.”

The two of you walk until it feels as though your feet are going to fall off.

“My feet are going to fall off,” you announce. “Surely there are no more monuments in the entirety of Washington, DC.”

“We’ve still got the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.”

“Uggghhhh, how important can he be? He’s unknown.”

“This was your idea,” Emma points out. “Go to DC for spring break! Stay with my best friend’s estranged dad! Walk around and see all the monuments and shit!”

“Too many steps,” you groan. “They should all be concentrated in one square mile of land.”

“One more,” Emma promises. “And then spaghetti.”

“And laying on the couch watching TV,” you counter.

“And laying on the couch watching TV,” Emma agrees. “...And tomorrow we go to the zoo.”

“No!”

Marcus chuckles as you stumble into his condo just after six. You immediately collapse onto the couch with an exaggerated groan.

“I’m staying right here for the rest of the week,” you announce.

“It’s been one day,” Marcus points out.

“My phone’s step counter measures over thirty thousand steps,” you mumble. “I’m done.”

“That’s a lot,” Marcus concedes. “Hopefully that means the two of you are hungry this evening.”

“Fucking starving,” Emma agrees, crashing onto the couch herself and nearly colliding with you as she does so.

“Well, since everyone is so tired,” Marcus says, the playfulness evident in his voice, “I’ll make spaghetti and meatballs tonight. Tamales are a group effort, so you two better be ready to work for your food.”

“I shall endeavor to do so,” Emma remarks with an exaggerated accent, causing you to laugh giddily.

While Emma’s eyes are closed, you take advantage, watching Marcus–still with that same fitted white shirt–in the kitchen, boiling water, heating the sauce, and adding the meatballs. He must sense your gaze, because he turns, a characteristic crooked smile on his lips as he acknowledges you.

“I know they’re frozen,” he admits, speaking of the meatballs, “but they always taste the same to me anyway.”

“I can’t wait,” you say, truthfully. “It’s been a long day.”

As if to demonstrate the fact, a loud snore emanates from the body next to you, making you grin.

“I’m glad you guys came,” Marcus says softly. “I don’t often have the opportunity to cook for… more than one.”

“No girlfriend?” you ask conversationally.

Marcus laughs. “I’m… in between things, I suppose.”

“In between,” you parrot with a laugh. “How long have you been ‘in between?’”

He huffs. “Too long,” he murmurs.

“How come?” you ask quietly.

Marcus frowns, thinking. “I dunno. No one recently has been… exactly what I’m looking for.”

“And what are you looking for?” you ask breathlessly.

“Spaghetti,” Emma mumbles from the couch.

“Spaghetti,” Marcus repeats, giving me a slightly melancholy smile. “Exactly. Come and get it, you two.”

Emma stirs, stumbling into the kitchen where two giant bowls of spaghetti and meatballs are awaiting the two of you.

“Holy shit,” she remarks. “Thanks for this.”

“Of course,” Marcus says. “I would never agree for you to stay and then not…” he trails off, unsure of himself.

You’re starting to realize that the bulk of Marcus’s most emotional statements go unsaid. I would ever agree for you to stay and then not take care of you, is what he hadn’t said.

“Still doing the zoo tomorrow?” he asks, changing the subject, as always.

“Yup,” Emma answers.

He huffs, smiling wistfully. “Been ages since I’ve been to a zoo.”

“D’you wanna go?” you ask, before you can determine that it’s a bad idea.

Marcus looks at you, indecisive for a few seconds before he seemingly comes to his senses. “Nah,” he says, grinning. “You two have fun.”

“Are you sure?” Emma asks. “Apparently there’s a new panda baby.”

“That’s a hard bargain,” he admits.

“You should come with,” Emma decides. “It could be fun.”

“All right,” Marcus agrees hesitantly.

“It’s Monday,” you point out. “Don’t you have to work?”

“I’ll call off,” he answers quickly. “Not everyday one’s daughter is in town for an impromptu zoo trip.”

“Look at the little lad,” Emma gushes.

“The what?” Marcus asks.

The three of you are staring at the panda enclosure, watching the newest addition to the zoo cause chaos.

“The chonky boi,” you agree.

“I have no idea what you two are saying,” Marcus admits.

“The baby panda is cute,” Emma offers.

“That I can agree on,” he decides.

The three of you, you’ve decided, make a good team. You try not to think about how your heart burns whenever Marcus looks at you, how your stomach does flips whenever he laughs. If you’re going to be a good friend to Emma–and you are–you’re going to have to put this silly crush aside and accept the fact that he’s a package deal with your best friend.

That doesn’t stop the way the man looks at you, though.

You think you’re imagining it, at first. After all, Marcus seems to be the type of person who focuses completely on whatever anyone has to say. The more you’re with him, though, it’s hard to deny that he seems to look at you just a tiny bit longer.

You start to notice it all day–when you’re looking at the exhibits, Marcus is looking at you.

He’s watching your reaction to them–smiling when you smile, laughing when you laugh. You can’t parse out the meaning behind his actions–does it mean something? If so, what? What does it mean?

You can’t admit the truth to yourself until you’re in the insect house. Emma is giddy with interest, and you… are trying.

“Are you okay?” Marcus asks softly in your ear–and you try not to shiver.

“Great,” you squeak. “Just don’t love the bird-eating spider.”

“I don’t like them either,” he confesses with a smile. “Do you need to leave?”

“Idunno,” you mumble, slurring the words together.

“Emmie,” Marcus announces, “we’re going to take a little break, okay?”

“Mmm.”

You and Marcus escape into the bright sunshine, and you let out an awkward laugh. “I can’t believe they have some of them loose in there–without glass or anything!”

“I’m not going back in that building,” Marcus agrees, laughing with you. “The giant orb weaver was the last straw.”

“That was awful,” you say, nodding.

“Come to think of it, I might be more of a baby panda guy, myself.”

“I’ll take the snakes over this,” you agree.

You sit down on a nearby bench, still giggling together as you wait for Emma.

“Is it weird if I say I’m glad you came?” you ask quietly.

“I’m glad I came, too,” Marcus says beside you.

“I think–” you begin, but Emma emerges from the insect house, grinning ear to ear.

“You think… what?” Marcus asks, but you shake your head and shrug.

“I dunno,” you mumble. “I just… think.”

“Hey, wimps,” Emma shouts. “They let me touch the tarantula.”

Marcus takes the two of you out to dinner at a casual burger spot near his place. While the tension between him and Emma has lessened significantly since the first day, it feels as though it’s been replaced by a thick cloud of tension between the two of you.

There’s something about the man that speaks to you, something within him that seems to vibrate on the same frequency as something within you. Twin souls, you’d say, if you were in a mind to be romantic, except… it can’t be. He must be nearly forty–and almost twice your age. There’s nothing you have that he would want–nothing you could offer a man who has his entire life together while yours has barely started.

Still, the way Marcus laughs at your jokes and gives you knowing glances–as if the two of you are sharing some type of inside joke that you’ve had for years–keeps you flustered and breathless throughout most of the evening.

The glass of wine he offers when you arrive home doesn’t help, either. You watch the red liquid swirl in your glass and wonder how it would taste from his lips, instead. And, when you’ve reached the bottom of your glass, the fuzzy-headed feeling you get from the alcohol combined with the way your stomach swoops in its place every time Marcus’s eyes meet yours has you feeling dizzy and enraptured in equal parts.

When he locks eyes with you over the rim of his own glass as he drains the last sip, you freeze, afraid that you’d been caught out–that he can read every dumbstruck expression on your face and knows exactly what he does to you.

But all he does is shoot you a little smile, announce that he’s going to bed– “Back to work for me, tomorrow”–and leaves you in the living room alone with Emma, trying not to look as though you’re checking out her dad’s butt as he leaves the room.

The next day, you and Emma spend most of the day at the Library of Congress while Marcus is at work. As a result, neither of you are too tired to help when Marcus suggests making the tamales tonight.

“I’m going to preface this by saying I’m not very good at making these,” he says with a laugh as he struggles with the dough. “My grandma only made these on special occasions, and I’ve done it myself approximately two times without her.”

“Well, the good news is that I’ve got no frame of reference,” you tell him. “So as long as they’re edible, they’ll be the best tamales I’ve ever had.”

Marcus chuckles and ducks his head; you can see the pink tinge on the tips of his ears as he continues to stir the mixture.

“Emmie, do you want to do the dough or the filling?” he asks.

“Filling.”

“That leaves you with the fun part,” Marcus says to you with a playful wink. “You get to spread the dough out on the corn husks like this–” he frowns as a glob of dough gets stuck to the spatula. “I told you I’m not very good at this. But you get the idea.”

You really don’t; cooking has never been your strong suit. You do your best to spread the dough out, but after just a couple of repetitions, your fingers, your shirt, and the counter around you are sticky with dough.

“This is not going very well,” you mumble.

Marcus looks up from the tamale he’s currently folding and laughs joyfully. “That’s part of the process.”

“I really don’t feel like it is,” you shoot back. “It’s sticking to everything but the corn husks.”

“Here,” Marcus chuckles. And suddenly, he’s right behind you, his chest nearly touching your back as he reaches around you to gently guide your hands himself. “Like this.”

You can’t possibly focus on your task, not when you have to remind your body to keep breathing while Marcus’s hands are on you. Your eyes stare unseeingly down at the corn husk until he releases you.

“Better?” he asks.

“Mmhm,” you hum, abnormally high-pitched.

“You’ve got some on your cheek,” he remarks with a soft smile. His thumb gently swipes across it, catching the stray dough and wiping it on a towel.

In the end, the tamales are hideous, but they taste incredible. They might be the best meal you’ve ever had–or maybe it’s just the way Marcus had smiled proudly at you when your technique improved after his intervention.

After dinner, the three of you sit on the small couch and watch a movie.

“It’s in black and white,” Emma remarks, wrinkling her nose.

“Double Indemnity? It’s a classic!” Marcus protests.

“Old movies are always so boring,” Emma says.

“It’s not boring,” he pouts. “The unhappy wife of a wealthy oil baron starts a dangerous, illicit love affair with an insurance salesman, and they hatch a plot to murder her husband and collect the insurance money.”

“That’s wild,” you laugh. “How have you seen this before?”

“I’ve always been told I’m an old soul.”

“Are you sure you’re not just old?” Emma teases.

“Hush. Watch the movie.”

The film is engaging, but all of the walking around of the past few days starts to catch up with you about halfway through. Before you know it, your eyes are drooping, and your head tips back on the couch cushion as you start to doze off. When you wake, the credits are rolling, and you’re no longer upright on the back of the couch.

You’re drooling on Marcus’s shoulder.

You startle, sitting back up with a frantic gasp and wiping your mouth in horror.

“Shh,” Marcus whispers, placing a calming hand on your forearm. “Emma fell asleep, too.”

“Fuck. I’m sorry,” you babble, taking in the little wet spot on his shirt.

“Hey, it’s okay,” he assures softly. “You’re tired. You needed the sleep.”

“Still,” you say. “I didn’t mean to…” you trail off awkwardly.

“It’s okay,” Marcus repeats, even quieter still. His hand still rests on your forearm, his thumb subtly moving back and forth across your skin.

Neither of you speak for what seems like an eternity, until finally, he breaks the spell.

“Should go to bed,” he murmurs. “I’ll wake up Emma. Go get some rest.”

“Marcus,” you whisper shakily.

“Go,” he whispers back.

He squeezes your arm once, then releases you, and you reluctantly get up from the couch and cross to the guest bedroom door. You turn again, watching as Marcus gently smooths Emma’s hair back from her forehead as he rouses her from the couch. There’s so much tenderness in his eyes, and you wonder how much different he might be if Emma had been a more constant presence in his life. He seems so lonely–does he have friends outside of work, you wonder? Does he ever date?

Emma sits up blearily and pads across the living room, walking past you and collapsing on the bed. You take one last look at Marcus, and follow her.

The next morning, you feel as though you could cut the tension between you and Marcus with a knife. There’s something there–and you both know it. He seems to be doing his best to ignore it, avoiding eye contact with you, and busying himself with pouring a thermos of coffee and messing with his tie absentmindedly as he gets ready to leave for work.

“Where are you off to today?” he comments lightly.

“Smithsonian,” Emma answers.

“Sounds fun. I’ve got a deposition this afternoon that’s probably going to run late, so go ahead and grab something for dinner while you’re out. I’m not sure when I’ll be home.”

The only time Marcus’s eyes fall on you is in the moment just before he steps through the front door. He pauses, hand on the doorknob, and glances back in your direction, dark eyes watching you for a moment before he nods subtly and leaves.

It’s funny how just a simple, seconds-long moment of eye contact with this man can turn your insides to jelly. Your breath stutters as the door clicks shut, and you try to gather yourself again.

“What’s first?” Emma asks. “Natural History or Air and Space?”

You put Marcus out of your mind for most of the day, although he’s never far away; you’re able to call up the feel of his hand on your forearm at any given moment. You can imagine the burn of his eyes even as you walk through exhibit after exhibit.

True to his word, he’s not home for dinner. You and Emma grab sandwiches from a shop around the corner and eat them in the living room in front of the TV. It’s nearly seven when Marcus finally gets home, opening the door and greeting the two of you with a tired smile and a heavy sigh.

“How did it go?” Emma asks.

“Shit,” he answers, shooting her a crooked grin. “But I’ve got leftover tamales to look forward to, so the day is looking up.”

You watch another movie–Emma’s choice this time, and something a bit more current. You don’t fall asleep this time; you can’t, not with the way your body feels on high alert tonight. Marcus is sitting beside you again, as he was the night before, and all you can think about is how much you want to sink into his arms again–and this time, intentionally. You want to lay on his chest and have him wrap his arms around you; you want him to slowly turn and press you down on the cushions, to feel the weight of him on top of you, the light scrape of his beard on your neck, his breath in your ear.

A wave of arousal washes over you, heating your skin and sending a little trickle of damp into your underwear. You wonder if Marcus can feel it–feel the elevated warmth of your skin from where he’s sitting. You wonder if he can tell how much he affects you.

When the movie ends, you can barely meet his eyes as you bid him goodnight, following Emma to your room. You can’t turn around to see if he’s watching you; you can’t stand another glance at that deep, burning gaze of his.

Sleep evades you. You’re too hot, so you kick off the covers. Then you’re too cold, so you cover up again. You flip over the pillow, turn from your back to your stomach, and back again. The fantasy plays once more in your head: Marcus’s hand cradling the back of your neck as he kisses a path down your neck and to your chest. You want to feel the weight of him between your thighs, feel him pressing against your core. You’re dripping for him, and he doesn’t even know it.

No one has ever done this to you, but he has. And he hasn’t even touched you.

You wonder if he’d be bothered by the fact that you aren’t exactly sure what you’re doing in that department. You wonder if he’d be put off by your inexperience, or if he’d be happy to guide you in the act of pleasure.

You’ve had a couple of fumbling encounters, rushed, frenzied moments as a teenager with boys who haphazardly stuffed a finger or two into you, but it didn’t feel like anything to you. Not really. No one has ever made you cum–just you, in the safety of your own bed at night, your fingers seeking relief that no one else has been able to provide.

Could he give it to you?

Your past experiences have been with boys; and Marcus is a man.

Your legs shift, rubbing your thighs against each other as you try to find a more comfortable position.

You can’t find one.

Eventually, you give up–getting out of bed with a sigh. Maybe if you grab a drink of water and sit on the couch for a while, sleep will win out in the end. You pad into the kitchen, filling a cup in the sink and taking a few long sips. The cool water is a relief, so you run your hand underneath the water next and scrub it over your face. Finally sated, you set the cup down by the sink and turn.

To see Marcus sitting on the couch, dimly lit by the glow of his laptop screen.

You nearly double over with shock, the unexpected sight causing a spike of adrenaline to course through your body.

“Sorry,” he says apologetically. “Couldn’t sleep, so I was… catching up on work.”

The mirror image of a popular news site reflects through the glass picture frame behind the couch, exposing the tiny lie.

“Yeah, me neither,” you admit quietly. “Thought I’d sit out here for a while and see if that helps, but… sorry, I’ll leave you to it.” You make to turn back, to retreat to the room again, but Marcus speaks softly behind you.

“Come sit,” he says. “I don’t mind.”

Breath caught somewhere in your throat, you hesitantly sink down on the couch beside him. Marcus closes his laptop and sets it down on the coffee table, and the silence stretches out between you.

“So, are you liking DC so far?” he asks.

“Yeah,” you answer eagerly. “I’m having a great time. I’ll… I’ll be sad to leave,” you admit. “Is that weird?”

“It’s weird if you’re talking about missing the Washington Monument,” Marcus teases. “Or the traffic.”

“I’m talking about the metro, obviously,” you joke. “The rest of the country could stand for some public transit options.”

“I’m not sure they should be taking their cues from DC,” he chuckles.

“Pssh, I like it.”

“The novelty wears off, believe me.”

You lapse into silence again. You’re sitting close enough to Marcus that you can feel the warmth from his skin, even though you aren’t touching. You want to sink into him, to have him envelop you, consume you.

You feel yourself unconsciously shifting closer to him.

Is it just your imagination, or did Marcus subtly lean closer to you?

The pull is inevitable; your eyes flick up to his, and you can almost feel the point of no return pass the two of you by.

You lick your lips, and his breath catches in his throat.

“I wasn’t talking about the metro,” you say breathlessly.

“I know.”

And suddenly, his lips are on yours.

It’s not fast, not rushed or frantic; he doesn’t surge forward to take you. It’s simply that the two of you are close enough that at one moment, Marcus Pike is not kissing you, and then the next moment, he is.

As with everything this man does, the kiss is soft and tender. His hand comes up to cup your cheek, and he gently tits his head as his lips move against yours. His mouth opens ever so slightly, and you feel a wave of pure want rush through you at the light flick of his tongue against your lower lip.

You make a ragged sound in your chest as your lips part for him, and your tongues slide against each other for far too short of a time before Marcus pulls back, suddenly, his eyes full of worry.

“Oh, shit,” he murmurs. “Shit, we… we shouldn’t.”

This time, you kiss him back. The neck of his soft t-shirt crumples in your fist as you pull him closer, opening your mouth to him, and his protests die at the feel of your lips on his. Instead, it seems to light a fire within him; one hand curls around the back of your neck and the other grips your hip and you gasp softly into his mouth at the feel of his hands on your body.

Marcus breaks the kiss again, but instead of pulling back to give you more reasons why you can’t, this time he kisses a path across your cheek and down your neck. You’ve imagined the way his light beard would feel against your skin so many times over the last couple of days, but nothing compares to the reality of having him gently scrape his teeth against your neck as you arch your back to him.

“Fuck,” Marcus whispers. “So sweet, honey.”

You whimper at the term of endearment as Marcus gently starts to shift positions, turning and guiding you down onto the couch, just as you’d imagined.

Now that you’re horizontal, the kisses that started out tender and sweet start to grow more and more lascivious. You can feel the weight of him between your legs and his hot length pressing against you, his hips rocking slightly as he lazily explores you with his hands and his mouth.

One hand creeps up your inner thigh and slips under your thin sleep shorts and underwear, gently grazing your folds and feeling the obscene amount of slick that’s already gathered there.

“Shit,” Marcus hisses softly, reverently. “You’re so wet. How are you so wet?”

“You,” you answer earnestly, staring up at him with wide eyes.

He laughs breathlessly in response, his eyes raking up and down your body, taking in your nipples peeking through the threadbare material of your tank top. His finger explores deeper, slipping inside your tight channel and immediately finding… something… that makes you gasp raggedly.

“So responsive,” he murmurs playfully. “I’ve barely touched you.” He starts to slowly pump his finger in and out, his thumb pressing on your clit as he rubs against that little spot inside of you every time, and all you can do is squeeze your eyes shut and cling to him as this one little movement threatens to take you apart.

“Honey,” he whispers disbelievingly as he feels you start to tighten around him. “Already?”

“I–”

Whatever you had been about to say dies on your lips as you suddenly fall over the edge, shaking as the pleasure overtakes you. Marcus soothes you through it, whispering in your ear as you come down from your high.

“Wow,” you murmur. “Holy shit, that was amazing.”

Marcus pulls back and gives you a funny look. “What’s going on?” he asks, frowning slightly.

“Heh–you’re going to laugh,” you say, giving him an awkward grimace.

He raises his eyebrow, waiting for you to continue.

“I’ve–kind of never done this before,” you admit, pressing your lips together sheepishly.

“Oh shit,” Marcus breathes, sitting up fully as his eyes frantically sweep over you. “Oh, honey–no. I can’t–we can’t do this.”

“Why?” you ask, wincing internally at how whiny it comes out.

“It can’t–it shouldn’t be me,” he says softly. “That’s more than I deserve to take.”

“You’re not taking anything,” you protest. “I–I want it to be you.”

Marcus shakes his head again, but you can see the cracks in his resolve, the way his eyes are searching you, devouring you with his gaze.

“I don’t want it to be some boy at a frat party back home,” you tell him. “I want you. I want it to feel good. Please?”

Marcus’s expression is inscrutable as his eyes rake over your form, disheveled and sated, underneath him. Your heart sinks when he stands up, shame sinking down into the pit of your stomach, but then he extends his hand to you, and you look up at him, questioning.

“I’m not going to let your first time be a quick fuck on my couch,” he says quietly and resolute. “If we’re going to do this, we’re going to bed.”

Wordlessly, you accept his hand and allow him to pull you to your feet. You wobble slightly, still shaky from the orgasm, and Marcus draws you into his side, steadying you. He guides you forward, keeping you close as the two of you walk to his bedroom.

Despite the fact that you were more than ready to let this man take you right there on the couch, the change in venue has your heart hammering in your chest. Now, it feels real. It feels intentional.

“C’mere, beautiful,” Marcus murmurs when he feels your steps falter. His hand slides up your arm and across your shoulder until it curls gently around your neck, causing goosebumps to rise to the surface of your skin. He presses a couple of soft, chaste kisses across your opposite shoulder, and your lips part of their own accord.

“I need you to tell me if you don’t want to do this,” he says softly in your ear.

“I want–”

“I know, I know,” Marcus interrupts. “I want you to tell me if that changes.”

He gently guides you onto his bed, one hand on the small of your back to keep you from going too fast.

“I wanna know what you like,” he murmurs as he hovers over you again, his hand coming up underneath the thin material of your top. “I wanna know what you don’t like.”

“I–I don’t really know–”

“I know,” Marcus grins wolfishly, his eyes sparkling with amusement. “That’s the idea.”

He starts to push the material of your shirt up, up, up, until your nipples are pebbling in the cool air of his bedroom. He gently pulls it over your head and casts it aside, looking down at you with undisguised hunger. He trails the backs of his fingers down the side of one breast and underneath. “I get to find out what you like,” he says. He circles one areola with the tip of his finger, making you shiver. “And I get to be the first to do it.”

He gently drags the pad of his finger across the little bud of your nipple, and you gasp for him as if you’d hit a live wire.

“I’m gonna take a guess and say you liked that,” he teases.

“Marcus,” you whine.

“Shh,” he whispers again, just before his mouth engulfs your nipple. Your hand darts out unconsciously, tangling in the hair on the back of Marcus’s neck as you squirm under his hot tongue. You can’t tell whether you want to pull away or push toward him, but in reality all you do is whine and take what he gives you. He switches to the other one; lathing and flicking his tongue and pressing down until you whimper.

“So… fucking… responsive,” Marcus murmurs in between kisses as he starts to mouth his way down your belly to the band of your sleep shorts. His fingers dip underneath, poised to pull them down over your hips, but he waits–eyes flicking up to yours to gauge your reaction.

“Can I taste you?” he asks quietly.

“I-If you want,” you laugh shakily.

“If I want?” he parrots disbelievingly. “You’re saying that like it’s not a given–like I haven’t been thinking of burying my tongue in that sweet little pussy all night. If I want,” he chuckles to himself again, slowly dragging your shorts and underwear down your legs. “I need to taste you. I need to feel you fall apart on my tongue. The first one was kind of a surprise, and all I want is to feel you shaking again.”

You’re bare before him, but you don’t have any time to be self-conscious, because Marcus is laying back down on the bed, his face inches away from your pussy. He gently guides your legs over his shoulders before lowering his mouth to you.

You aren’t sure who groans louder at the first touch of his tongue through your folds.

Marcus makes a pained noise in his throat before murmuring, “So sweet, honey–fuck, you’re so sweet.”

His tongue is delicate, but precise; he flicks it back and forth against your clit, then dips down to lap at your entrance until you’re trembling for him. He’s tireless and patient, cataloging every whimper and moan he pulls from you as the pleasure slowly builds inside of you. In no time at all, you’re dangling on the precipice, your hips locking into place as you start to reach the point of no return.

“I–I–” you stammer, trying to warn him.

Marcus hums enthusiastically in agreement, concentrating his efforts on your clit until you fall apart with a gasp.

He groans again, licking you through each little aftershock of pleasure until you’re boneless.

“You squeeze me so hard,” he croons. “Can you feel that? You’re so tight around my tongue.”

“Shit…” you murmur. You’re too fucked-out to say anything else.

“Gonna have to open you up a bit with my fingers,” he says softly. “So I don’t hurt you.”

You look up at him with half-lidded eyes. He’s still clothed–wearing sweatpants and a shirt, while you’re completely naked, and you frown slightly at the disparity.

“Everything okay?” Marcus asks, seeing your expression.

“Can–Can I see you? You’re so… clothed,” you say with a little pout.

He laughs, smiling widely so that the corners of his eyes crinkle, and your heart soars.

“Of course,” he agrees, stripping off his shirt. “Of course.”

You raise up on one elbow, gazing up at Marcus’s broad chest, the light smattering of hair, and the soft swell of his belly. You can’t help but reach up and touch him, pressing your palm to his sternum and trailing down, tracing the little path of hair until it disappears under the band of his sweatpants. Your fingers curl underneath the band, looking up at him with wide eyes.

“These, too?” he asks with a teasing chuckle, smiling wider when you nod eagerly.

His cock bobs free as he pushes his pants down his hips, and your eyes widen at the sight of him, thick and hard and heavy with want. Curiously, you wrap your hand around him, and you’re rewarded with a little ‘hnnngg’ of pleasure and surprise as you touch him.

You gently trace the little ridges on his shaft, traveling up to the flushed, purple head, where the skin is even softer, and back down again.

“F-Fuck,” Marcus muttters. “Can’t do that too much, honey, or I’m gonna lose it before we even get started.”

“I like it,” you say with a little giggle. “I never realized they were so… soft.”

Marcus makes a broken, choked sound. “Jesus. You’re gonna be the death of me.”

He falls onto one elbow, giving you a messy, passionate kiss before sucking his fingers into his mouth and gently sinking one finger into you again. His lips stay close to yours, noses almost touching, his eyes watching your face intently as he slowly opens you up. His fingers are so thick, and just like before, he seems to know exactly where to press up inside you to make the pleasure spark inside of you. He adds a second finger, and you whimper–you're already so full.

"Little bit more," Marcus murmurs. "Doing so well for me–fuck–so tight."

He gently starts to slide a third into you, the heel of his hand pressing against your clit to offer some relief.

“Is it greedy if I say I want you to cum for me again?” he asks softly. “I want to feel it again. Can you do that for me?”

You nod dazedly–wanting to do anything, everything this man asks as long as he keeps making you feel like this.

His fingers press up against your walls again, and you sob loudly into the room.

Marcus immediately muffles the sound with a kiss, swallowing your whimpers and cries in an attempt to keep the sound from carrying across the apartment.

“Gotta stay quiet for me,” he whispers against your lips.

“S-Sorry.”

“No, shh, don’t be sorry,” he murmurs. “I wish you could be loud. Wish I could make you scream for me. Just–fuck, honey, you’re right there, aren’t you? I can feel you squeezing me–fuck, you get so wet. Give me one more. One more, and I’ll give you my cock. That’s it, that’s–yes–”

Marcus breaks off on a groan as you clamp down on his fingers. It’s so much, you’re so full, and you buck against his hand, your lower back rising up off of the bed as he pulls it from you.

You slump back down, breathing heavily, as he carefully withdraws his fingers.

“Hey,” he says quietly, trying to get your attention. “Hey, I should have asked this sooner, but–are you on birth control? Do you want me to use a condom?”

“I-I’m on the pill,” you tell him. “If you… you know, if you didn’t want to. That would be–I’d like that.”

“That’s perfect,” he whispers, giving you a tender kiss. “I’d like that, too.” He pauses, and mutters a soft curse under his breath. “I wish I had some lube,” he remarks. “Just to be sure I don’t hurt you.”

You watch as he spits on his cock and takes himself in hand.

“This will have to do, though,” he says as he slicks it over his cock and crawls over you. “And I’ll just go slow.”

He cups the back of your neck with one hand as he lines himself up with the other. His lips are inches from yours, but he doesn’t lean down to kiss you–no, he seems to want to watch your reaction as the tip of his cock notches at your entrance.

“Don’t want to hurt you,” he whispers again.

“You could never hurt me,” you say confidently, and you watch as his lips part in surprise. “Marcus–” you add, as you shift your hips impatiently. “–just do it.”

Your eyes widen as you feel him push into you, his girth splitting you open. It can’t be much bigger than three of his thick fingers, but still, it just feels like more. It’s longer, certainly; he keeps pushing in, and even when you’re sure he’s reached the end, there’s still more.

“Oh wow,” you hear yourself murmuring again and again. “Oh, Marcus.”

“I know,” he returns, kissing your cheekbone, your forehead, your nose, and then finally, your lips. “I know, honey.”

He starts to rock his hips, slowly undulating them, letting his cock drag back and forth against your walls. It feels incredible–you never imagined how fucking good this would feel–and you know beyond a shadow of a doubt that it’s because it’s him. It’s Marcus–a man you’ve admittedly only known for a few days, but you feel as though you know him already–and you trust him completely.

“Does it hurt at all?” he rumbles softly in your ear.

“No,” you answer emphatically. “It feels–holy shit.”

Marcus laughs breathlessly. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. Can–can we do this again?”

He chuckles. “We’re currently doing this.”

“I already want it again.”

He starts to go a little harder, his thrusts a little deeper. His hand grips your hip for leverage, the other still cradling the back of your neck. He kisses you, a deep, messy, passionate thing, before burying his face in the crook of your neck and sucking a gentle mark into your skin.

“Feels so good,” he murmurs. “I’m not gonna last, not when you feel like this.”

“Like how?” you ask, smiling widely.

“So fucking tight,” Marcus groans. “And wet, and hot, and–” he brings his thumb to your clit and starts to rub little circles around it. “I need you to cum again,” he says. “Fuck, you–you feel too good, honey, I’m not gonna last.”

“I—I don’t know if I can,” you murmur.

“Please,” he says, a hint of desperation in his tone. “Please, baby, you’ve gotta do this one last thing for me. Let me feel it, let me make you feel good. Let me–let me–”

Your mouth falls open as you feel it wash over you. This is better than anything you’ve ever felt before, any relief you’ve been able to seek with your fingers–the drag of his cock along your walls only serves to prolong your pleasure, making each little aftershock feel like a new wave of pleasure.

“Oh, fuck,” Marcus groans. “Fuck.” He buries his face in the crook of your neck as he shoves his hips into you one more time, emptying himself within you with a deep groan.

The aftermath is quiet. After gently, tenderly cleaning you up with a damp cloth, Marcus collapses on the pillows and pulls you to him, wrapping his arms around you as you settle with your head resting on his shoulder.

“Was this a bad idea?” you ask quietly as you trace little shapes on his chest.

Marcus huffs a laugh. “Probably,” he answers.

“I don’t care,” you say resolutely, causing his hold on you to tighten. “...Do you regret it?” you ask, feeling unsure of yourself again.

“No,” Marcus says immediately. “No. I was drawn to you from the beginning. I’m sorry, I–I should have tried harder to prevent this, but…”

“I felt it, too,” you murmur. “Maybe we weren’t meant to prevent it.”

The two of you bask in the afterglow, reveling in the feel of your bodies pressed together. You can’t help but think of how tender, how loving he is–not just with you, but with Emma.

“Can I ask a personal question?” you ask, breaking the silence.

Marcus shrugs. “Sure.”

“This is probably weird to be thinking about right now, but… why does Emma’s mom not want you around?”

Marcus sighs, his lips pressing into your forehead–not really a kiss, just a caress of your hairline with his mouth.

“That story doesn’t exactly paint me in the best light.”

“I want to know. I just… don’t understand.”

“What don’t you understand?” he asks.

“You’re… you’re such a good dad–a good man. I don’t understand how her mom wanted nothing to do with you. I just don’t get it.”

Marcus nods, pressing his lips together. “I wasn’t always a good man,” he says quietly. “I tried to do the best I could for the both of them–for Emma and her mom–but I’m afraid I fell very short, in the beginning.”

“What happened?”

“We were in college when we found out she was pregnant,” Marcus says with a sigh. “She was nineteen, I was almost twenty-one. We hadn’t been together long; maybe a couple of months. She was terrified, of course–and so was I, but never told her that. I asked her to marry me because I thought it was the right thing to do.”

“Did you love her?”

“I cared for her, very much so. And even if we weren’t quite right for each other, knowing–” Marcus swallows thickly, “–knowing our child, my child, was growing inside of her made me feel deeply connected. If you had asked me at twenty-one, I would have sworn up and down that I was in love.”

“But not now?”

Marcus huffs softly. “I know a little better, now.”

“What happened?” you ask, tracing the line of his collarbone with the tip of your finger. “What did you do?”

“Well, the first thing I did was drop out of art school,” he says with a little laugh. “Didn’t think it would pay the bills, especially not with a wife and a baby.”

“You were an artist?” you ask, surprised.

“Wanted to be,” he chuckled. “At least at that time. So instead, I applied for the FBI. Joined the Art Crimes division. And shortly after I completed training… Emma was born.” His eyes are far away, a small smile on his face as he remembers. “And she was perfect. And I remember thinking, all the struggling, all the hardship, all the times Denise and I didn’t get along… it would be worth it, in the end. No matter what happened; because I had her.”

You swallow past the lump in your throat. “What went wrong?”

“Nothing in particular, at first. We struggled to make ends meet. We were two young parents with no idea what we were doing, and even though I might have known deep down that we weren’t right for each other, I just wanted it to go right. I wanted us to be happy, but in the end we were just too different. We didn’t work–and while I might have been blind to it at the time, Denise wasn’t. When Emma was barely even two, she filed for divorce, and I–” he sighs heavily again. “I went a little off the rails.”

You tilt your head and look up at Marcus. His eyes are stormy, and you can see the remorse etched into the lines of his face. You don’t ask how, you just wait patiently for him to continue.

“I didn’t want to be divorced at twenty-three. This wasn’t–it wasn’t the life I had expected for myself, not what I would have chosen, but because I had Emma, I didn’t want anything else. I always knew I would want a family, and so what if it happened… a little out of order?”

“What did you do?” you whispered.

“I tried to convince her to change her mind. She took Emma and went to live with her parents, and I’d call them every day, asking to talk to her. I wanted to persuade her–I thought that if she could just see that we had plenty of time, we could raise Emma and be good parents and still… still have time for whatever we wanted. That we could still build lives.

“When she never returned my calls, I started stopping by,” he confesses, his voice even quieter. “They’d always tell me she was out, so I started showing up at odd hours, trying to… trying to just catch her one time–I thought if I explained that she could do whatever she wanted, as long as we could just stay together and raise Emma, she’d agree. But the more I tried to contact her, the more she pulled away, and rightly so, honestly. I was badgering her. I tried to justify it at the time, said I was doing it all for Emma, but I, uh… It took me until much later to admit I was actually doing it for me. I was so scared of being a failure, and scared to be alone.

“Anyway, the court didn’t look very kindly on what looked to everyone involved like stalking behavior, and Denise was afforded full custody.”

“M-Marcus,” you murmur, unable to help the water gathering at the corners of your eyes.

“Broke my heart,” he whispers, his voice full of emotion. “And I was angry about it for a while, but when it comes down to it, I was just angry with myself. It was my actions that lost me my daughter, and… well, I’ve had twenty years to come to terms with that, now.”

“How did you finally… come to face all of that?” you ask quietly.

“Therapy,” Marcus says with a genuine laugh. “And that is another story for another time.”

“God, what else happened to you?”

“Nothing,” he chuckles, “just another relationship that I fought way too hard for.” He playfully runs his finger down the bridge of your nose before tilting your chin upward for a soft kiss. “And you,” he murmurs, “need to go back to bed.”

Your emotions still running on high alert after Marcus’s emotional confession of his past, you surge forward and throw your arms around his neck.

“I’m sorry,” you whisper.

“I’m okay,” he promises. “It was a long time ago.”

“You should tell Emma,” you say softly. “She never knew why her mom didn’t want you around.”

“Not really something you want to tell your daughter,” he says with a sad smile. “That you basically stalked her mom.”

“She’s grown up. She’s older than her mom was when–”

“Believe me, I know,” Marcus groans. “Don’t remind me; it makes this feel very… wrong.” He gestured between the two of you.

“Just trust me,” you murmur. “She’d want to know.” With herculean effort, you extricate yourself from his arms, grab your clothes, and redress. Feeling unsure in the way the conversation ended, you tell yourself not to turn around again when your hand lands on the doorknob.

“Honey,” Marcus calls out softly from the bed. “Good night.”

“Good night,” you whisper back, and then you’re gone.

“Where are you two off to, today?” Marcus asks conversationally over coffee. He’s made it stronger than usual today, and it makes warmth pool deep in your stomach at the reminder of your very sleepless night last night. You’re grateful for the extra boost of caffeine as well, of course–the morning seemed to come far too early after being up half of the night. Sleep had still been hard to come by when you finally returned to the guest room, after all; the conversation about Marcus’s past was still swirling around in your head, and every time you closed your eyes, you could still feel his hands on you.

You never knew it could feel like this, never knew how good it could be with someone who really knew what they were doing. Someone so giving, so gentle and yet so ruthless in pursuing your pleasure. Someone brimming with passion, capable of both the softest prase and the most depraved filth in the same sentence.

If you had thought your thirst would be sated after finally getting what you’d fantasized about and more, you were a fool. The flame burns hotter than ever this morning, and the sight of Marcus in a suit with not a hair out of place only makes you think about how he had looked between your legs last night–that devilish smirk as he teased about wanting to taste you.

You wonder if you’ll ever see him that way again, or if last night was a fluke.

Had he noticed when your fingers had trembled around the coffee cup he handed you?

He had given you a soft, tender stare when you had first entered the kitchen, but that’s the only evidence you can find so far that Marcus is even half as affected as you feel. You can still feel him this morning, a subtle ache between your legs when you sit down, and you wish you could see some outward sign on him that this actually happened.

“Not really sure,” Emma answers Marcus’s question. “Kind of ran out of stuff to see.”

“Impossible,” Marcus chuckles. “Well, you can hang out here if you want, or if you're really looking for a distraction, you can come to the office with me.”

“The fucking FBI office?” Emma asks. “Are we allowed?”

“Yeah, why wouldn’t you be?” Marcus shrugs. “Plus, I might be able to set up some time for you to talk to someone in Legal,” he says to you. “Are you still interested in that?”

“Oh wow,” you breathe. “Really?”

“‘Course,” he replies. “I said I would.”

You nod, smiling up at him beatifically. “I’d like that a lot.”

“Perfect,” he grins. “Well, if you’re coming, we’re going to need to leave soon. Are you almost ready?”

“I’m ready,” Emma announces, shouldering her bag.

“Yeah, me too.”

Marcus winks at you, and you try not to let yourself react to it.

“Let’s go, then.”

You had assumed that you’d spend most of your day at the FBI holed up in Marcus’s office, doing nothing. You had imagined that, out of necessity, you’d be barred from attending any meetings or hearing about his department’s day-to-day activities, but when you arrive, his team seems enthusiastic to have you and Emma there. Much to your surprise, they even let the two of you sit in the back of the room while Marcus conducts a briefing.

You listen, enthralled, as he discusses a recent forgery case that the team is working on. His demeanor, as it is at home, is good-natured and easygoing. He’s easy to smile, and engaging when he talks, and as a result, he utterly commands the room. His style of quiet, unassuming authority has you subtly squirming in your chair. Even though you have no idea what’s being discussed, you can tell simply by listening to his cadence of speech that he’s incredibly knowledgeable, and fucking good at his job. It’s clear he loves the work–and when you think back to the night before and his whispered confession that he had once dreamed of being an artist, you find yourself beaming with happiness that he’s clearly found something he loves to do.

“People change.”

You suddenly recall his words the very first night you were there–his assurance that it didn’t matter that you had no idea what you wanted to do at your age, because there’s no promise that you’ll still want the same things in ten years. After last night, you realize that he was talking about himself in that moment.

You hope he’s happy and fulfilled.

He deserves it.

You watch him wrap up the meeting–delegating work to each member of the team and asking for updates–and every so often, as his eyes sweep around the room, they always seem to land on you.

As he promised, Marcus introduces you to Kimberley Alexander, the lawyer that his department works with most of the time. You’re nervous at first–you aren’t sure what you’re going to talk about, but you end up staying in her office through lunch, spending almost an hour and a half longer than you had intended, talking about potential jobs with the FBI.

Not because you suddenly have the desire to return to Washington, DC as soon as you can, nope. It does interest you–quite a bit, actually–but you can’t pretend that you aren’t excited at the prospect of living in the same city as Marcus. Would he want to see you again? Is he really interested in you, or is it just the forced proximity–because you’re convenient and available? If you had your own life here, would he be interested in a place in it?

When you find Emma and her dad again, they’ve clearly just come back from lunch. Emma thrusts a container into your hands, which you discover, with an exaggerated moan of satisfaction, is pad Thai.

“Must have been a good talk,” Marcus remarks.

“Yeah, you were there for two hours,” Emma adds.

“It was good,” you nod. “Talked about, y’know, internships and stuff.”

“You wanna live here?” Emma asks, looking surprised and curious.

You try to shrug noncommittally. “Sure,” you say lightly. “It’s as good a place as any, and it would be kind of fun to work for the FBI, right?”

“I’m afraid I can’t give you an unbiased answer to that,” Marcus says with a wry smile, “but I think you’d be a great fit.”

Your heart swells at his words. “Really?”

“Absolutely,” he says earnestly. “And I hate to do this, but I’ve gotta run to do a witness interview, and you guys have to stay behind this time.”

You watch as Marcus gives Emma a quick kiss on the forehead, and your eyebrows raise in surprise at the action. They’ve gotten more comfortable around each other in the time you’ve been here, but neither of them had seemed to be very comfortable with physical affection. Marcus, for his part, is always so hesitant–wanting to reach out, but seemingly afraid that he doesn’t deserve it, or worse, that it won’t be received well. You still remember the first day you saw him–when his hand twitched toward his daughter, seemingly desperate to wrap her in a hug, but he hadn’t allowed himself to do it.

What changed?

Marcus glances at you, and gives you a slightly awkward, stiff nod before leaving for his meeting.

You busy yourself with eating lunch, digging into the container they brought you.

“Tomorrow’s the last day, huh?” Emma says conversationally.

You gulp. You’ve purposefully been putting the fact that your time here has an expiration date at the back corner of your mind. Whatever you have with Marcus, it’s temporary by its very nature, and you know it.

You just don’t really want to think about it right now.

“Yup,” you agree, mouth full of noodles.

“What do you wanna do? I’m kind of out of ideas.”

You shrug. “We could ask Marcus if there’s anything he recommends seeing that we haven’t already been to.”

“I think we should go as far out as the metro line goes,” Emma says.

“Why?”

She shrugs. “See where we end up.”

“Whatever you want,” you tell her. “Last day is up to you.”

“How’s the pad Thai?”

“Good,” you nod, mouth full. “What’d you get?”

“Calamari,” she answers. “Never had it, wanted to try it.”

“How was it?”

“Chewy.”

You laugh, taking another bite of noodles. “Think I’ll stick to my favorite.”

The two of you huddle together on the small, two-seater couch in Marcus’s office, watching YouTube videos and laughing together until he comes back near the end of the day.

Your eyes automatically brighten when you see him return, drinking in the sight of him–the crisp lines of his suit paired with the slightly unruly hair. You discovered last night how soft it is, and how much he loves it when you thread your fingers through it and tug gently.

He meets your eyes, but quickly drops his gaze, and you try not to sink in disappointment. Did it not mean as much to him as it did to you? Or is he just better at hiding it?

“You two hungry for dinner?” he asks, putting his stuff back in his messenger back and throwing it over his shoulder.

Emma groans loudly beside you. “Gonna be honest, I’m not really feeling dinner.”

“That was a lot of pad Thai,” you agree.

“Good,” Marcus says with a smile. “Me neither. Let’s go home and have a lazy night eating popcorn on the couch.”

The moment you arrive home, though, Emma makes a beeline for the bathroom.

“She okay?” Marcus asks you.

You grimace at the faint sounds of retching. “Doesn’t sound like it.”

When she emerges again, Marcus hands her a glass of water with a concerned expression. “Everything okay?”

“No,” she mutters pitifully.

“Was it the calamari?” you ask.

“Please don’t say that word ever again,” Emma groans, flopping down on the couch. “Fuck. Everything hurts.”

“What do you need?” Marcus asks, looking a little lost.

“Distraction,” she mumbles. “Long movie or something.”

Emma takes up the entire couch, so you and Marcus have to sit in opposite armchairs while you watch Lord of the Rings. It’s almost unbearable to you, being so close to him and yet not being able to touch, not being able to look at him for fear of giving everything away. If you two were to lock eyes, you know that you wouldn’t be able to hide your reaction to him. So much so that even Emma, who’s still alternating between running to the bathroom and collapsing on the couch, would have no choice but to notice.

The pull to him feels overwhelming; the only thing you can think of doing is crossing the living room and sinking into his arms. It makes you feel guilty–your best friend has food poisoning, Marucs is trying to help by refilling her water and encouraging her to drink, and here you are, with nothing to do but yearn for your best friend’s dad.

When the movie is over, it’s late; Marcus brushes Emma’s hair back from her forehead and suggests she go lie down. As she’s stumbling toward the guest room, Marcus touches you for the first time since last night–lightly wrapping his fingers around your wrist while Emma isn’t looking.

Your eyes meet, and he gives you a coal-black stare, trying to communicate without speaking. He nods subtly, and his meaning is easy to understand.

Come to me tonight.

You come to him in the dead of night. You lie awake, listening for Emma’s breathing to even out, and then waiting another thirty minutes after that, just to be safe.

It’s nearly midnight when you slip into Marcus’s bedroom, but he’s still awake; his lamp is on, and he’s reading a book.

Waiting for you.

The moment the door creaks open, Marcus casts the book aside without even marking his place, and rises to his feet. He strides forward and you meet him in the middle, a clash of mouths and hands as you come together desperately.

“Fuck,” he whispers against your lips. “All fucking day, all I could think about was this.”

“Me too,” you mumble hastily in between kisses.

“No idea how hard it was to concentrate on giving that meeting this morning,” he confesses, “with you in the corner looking at me with those eyes of yours.”

He grabs your top and pulls it over your head in one swift motion and ducks down to lathe his tongue against your nipple, making you arch against him.

“Ah!–Really?” you gasp. “I didn’t–you looked so… calm the whole day. Like it didn’t affect you the same way it affects me.”

“Doesn’t affect me?” Marcus repeats incredulously. “Honey, I am out of my mind with wanting you.” He pulls back, his palms cradling your cheeks as he stares at you with a disbelieving smile. “Do you not have any idea what you do to me?” he asks softly.

Stunned, you shake your head.

Marcus laughs breathlessly, as he reaches down to encircle your wrist with one large hand and brings your hand forward to press against the front of his pants, where you can feel him, hard and straining against the fabric. “You feel that?” he rasps. “Do you fucking feel what you do to me?”

He shoves your flimsy sleep shorts down your legs and all but tosses you onto the bed. He strips off his own shirt and follows you down. “I’ve been half-hard all day,” he confesses. “I had to fuck my own hand in the shower this morning and still,” he groans. “As soon as I picture your face as you fall apart for me, I’m done for.”

“You thought about that?”

“All fucking day,” Marcus promises.

“That all you thought about?” you ask, your voice turning coy as you gain more confidence.

He chuckles darkly. “Thought about a lot of things,” he murmurs.

“Such as…?”

“Just–all the ways I want to have you.”

“Show me,” you demand.

Marcus chuckles again. “Show you what, pretty girl?”

“All the ways that you want me.”

“That would take a lot more time than we currently have,” he says wryly.

“Then show me how you want me most,” you say.

“Let me get you ready first,” Marcus murmurs, starting to kiss a path down your body, intent on his destination.

“No.”

“Hmm?”

“I want it now,” you say frankly.

“Honey–” he protests softly.

“Consider the fact that I’ve done nothing but think about what happened last night and fantasize about what’s going to happen tonight foreplay,” you tell him. “I can’t–I can’t wait. I don’t want it to be slow. I need–I need—” you trail off, searching for how exactly to find the words for what it is that you need.

Marcus nods slowly, his eyes darkening as he watches you plead for him to take you now.

“You really want me to show you?” he asks quietly.

You nod.

“Then get on your hands and knees for me, honey.”

You comply with a shiver, your heart in your throat as you turn around and put yourself on display for him.

Marcus mutters a soft curse behind you as his palm strokes up the skin on the back of your thigh and up over the swell of your cheek.

You hear him spit in his hand, and you know he's coating himself in it behind you, easing his way in. He does it again, and this time you whimper softly as he cups you, transferring more wetness to your folds.

"Already so wet," he teases softly. "Tell me if it's too much."

He slides forward, sheathing himself in one fluid motion, and your elbows nearly buckle at the overwhelming feel of it.

Marcus doesn't wait for you to adjust, this time. He starts thrusting right away, his hands grasping your hips for leverage. He's pressing right on the spot that makes pleasure sing throughout your entire body. Once he's sure that his pace isn't too much for you, he starts giving it to you harder, snapping his hips into you over and over.

Last night was overwhelming in its own way, but this–this is devastating. You thought last night was the most pleasure you could ever feel, but you had no idea that this could wreck you so completely.

You're crying out with every thrust, each punishing snap of his hips punching little pathetic noises past your lips as you take what he needs to give you.

"Shhh," he reminds you. "Gotta stay quiet, honey."

You drop to your elbows, burying your face in the pillows to try and muffle the involuntary sounds, but you can tell it isn't enough.

"M-Marcus," you whimper frantically. "I can't."

"Do you want to stop?" he asks (making you shake your head rapidly), "Or do you want me to help you be quiet?"

You nod frantically, although you have no idea what he means. You'd do anything to keep feeling his cock like this.

Marcus’s hand wraps tightly around your mouth, quieting your cries and forcing you to breathe through your nose. Something about the action makes your pussy clench violently, and Marcus makes a quiet groan of pleasure above you.

He fucks you harder and faster, one hand sliding underneath you to rub tight circles over your clit.

"Cum for me," he rasps brokenly above you. “Fuck, please–”

The soft plea is enough to end you. You wail into Marcus’s hand as you come undone, and he tightens his grip, muffling the sound.

It doesn’t take long for him to follow–just a couple more minutes of brutal thrusts that have you whimpering into his hand, oversensitive from your orgasm. The minute he stills, his cock slips from you as he immediately collapses on the bed and pulls you into his arms. You’re both still breathing heavily, but he smooths the hair back from your forehead as he looks you over.

“Are you okay?” he asks softly. “That was a lot, I’m sorry.”

“‘Re you kidding?” you slur. “That was… amazing.”

Marcus laughs and pulls you close again. “I’m glad,” he whispers, and you can hear the smile in his words.

“Can I stay here for a little longer?” you ask. “Just a little.”

Marcus pulls back again and looks down at you with an amused smile. “It’s cute that you think I’m done with you, honey.”

Your eyes widen. “You’re not?”

“Mm-mm. Don’t think I’ll ever get tired of the way you look when you come undone,” he murmurs, tracing the tip of his index finger down the side of your cheek. “You didn’t think I’d be satisfied with just once tonight, did you?”

You giggle. “I guess not.”

He fixes you with a fiery look. “Do you trust me?” he asks quietly.

“...Yeah?”

He raises one eyebrow.

“Yes,” you answer, with more conviction this time. “Yes, I trust you.”

Marcus kisses you tenderly before sitting back on his heels beside you. His fingertips trail down your chest, over the peaks of your nipples, and down your stomach, as though he can’t get enough of the feel of your skin. One hand travels further down, stroking the soft patch of hair on your pubic bone before he slips one finger gently inside you.

You cringe slightly at the wet squelch of your combined release, but Marcus shushes you gently. “Love how wet you get,” he teases affectionately. “And I like knowing I’m there inside of you.”

You clench involuntarily at his words, your lips parting as you exhale shakily.

He chuckles. “You like that? You like knowing that I get off on the idea of you carrying a little piece of me with you?” he asks, as he starts to slowly fuck you with one finger.

“What if I told you that I was thinking about it during that meeting this morning?” he continues. “I kept wondering if there was still a little in there from last night, leaking into your underwear as I talked.”

“Shit,” you mumble. “Marcus.”

“Wanna fill you up again tonight,” he remarks casually. “So it’s still there when you’re walking around tomorrow.” He groans softly. “Fuck–Can I–Can I give you my number? I–I want you to text me. Tell me you can still feel me.”

“Oh my god,” you murmur. “Yes.”

“Good.” He adds a second finger and presses the heel of his hand against your clit, working you up to another orgasm exactly how he now knows gets you off quickly. When you start to clench around him, though, he doesn’t stop. He starts to rub quickly back and forth on that little spot inside of you until something else starts to build.

“M-Marcus,” you murmur. “W-Wait, I–something is–”

“Shhh.” He keeps going, rubbing harder and faster until he suddenly rips his fingers from you as you gush around them, soaking his hand and the bed.

“Oh! Shit,” you cry out, panicking. “What the f–”

“Fuck, yes,” Marcus groans, the sound coming deep from within his chest. “Oh, fuck, do that again.”

When he notices your expression of utter shock, though, he pauses, a slow smile of understanding spreading across his face.

“Honey,” he says soothingly. “Was that the first time?”

You stare up at him, mouth hanging open. “I… I kind of always thought that was a myth,” you admit, ducking your head in embarrassment.

“Oh, baby,” he breathes softly. “No, it’s definitely not.”

He lays down beside you again, gently tucking a wisp of stray hair behind one ear. “That was so good,” he praises softly. “So good to me.”

You smile shakily, but something is starting to nag at you.

“What’s wrong?” Marcus asks, noticing your hesitant expression.

“I just… feel really inexperienced,” you admit quietly. “You know all this stuff, and I–it must be tedious, having someone who doesn’t know what they’re doing, or–”

“No,” Marcus interrupts, his voice full of sincerity. “It’s not tedious at all. On the contrary,” he says with a little laugh, “the fact that I get to show you… that I’m the only one who can get you to do something you didn’t even know you could do–Well, shit,” he says with a crooked grin. He reaches down and palms his cock, which is hard and weeping again. “Look at what it does to me, huh?”

“Does that mean you’ll fuck me again?” you ask eagerly.

Marcus chuckles at your enthusiasm. “I did say I was going to fill you up one more time, didn’t I?”

When you wake up (in your bed, next to Emma, after sneaking back into your own room after Marcus was finally finished with you in the wee hours of the morning), your travel companion is decidedly not ready to go.

“I feel like I’ve been run over by a train,” she grumbles. “And my stomach is still in fucking knots.”

“We can just stay around the house,” you offer.

“I don’t want you to lay around being bored just because of me,” she protests, flopping down on the couch with a groan.

“Not feeling any better?” Marcus asks, coming into the living room.

“No,” Emma pouts. “I’m gonna stay here and rest.”

“What are you going to do?” he asks, looking over at you.

You shrug. “I don’t really know. Stay here too, probably.”

“How about this,” Marcus says carefully. “I’m supposed to be going to the National Gallery of Art today to give a little talk about forgery detection. If you wanted to come, we could… walk around the museum a bit, afterward?”

You try to keep your face neutral at the prospect of spending a day with Marcus. Alone.

“Sure,” you say, hoping it sounds nonchalant. “Could be fun.”

“Great,” he says lightly. “It’s a d–it’s a plan.”

It’s a date.

You’re giddy as you wave goodbye to Emma–who’s watching daytime TV and holding a bottle of Gatorade–and follow Marcus out of the door.

As soon as the door shuts, he rounds on you, taking your face in his hands and kissing you soundly. “So glad you said yes,” he says breathlessly.

“Why wouldn’t I say yes to that?” you tease. “Spending the day with you.”

“I don’t know,” Marcus murmurs playfully, capturing your lips again. “Good question.”

“Is this a date?” you ask coyly.

He pauses, lips parting in surprise. “Do you want it to be?”

Taking a big leap of faith, you nod.

Marcus’s expression softens, and he threads your fingers together. “Then it’s a date.”

After his talk–which you listen to with eager eyes and rapt attention–the two of you stroll slowly through the galleries, talking. Marcus occasionally stops, taking in the artwork, and tells you little tidbits of information about each piece. He seems to be using the quiet setting as an excuse to keep you as close as possible; his arm wraps around your waist as he leans down and talks quietly in your ear, making goosebumps rise on the back of your neck whenever he speaks. He seems to know the effect on you–you had no idea art could be described so sensually.

You lose the afternoon to each other; having lunch in a small cafe and then walking down the National Mall, hand in hand.

You pick up a sandwich for Emma, just in case she’s feeling better, on your way home. As you get closer and closer, every step starts to feel heavier and heavier. You never want this to end.

Just before you arrive at his building, Marcus stops and spins you around, cupping your cheek and pulling you to him for a soft kiss.

“Today was–” he starts, but breaks off, shaking his head.

“Yeah,” you agree.

“Listen, I don’t–I don’t know what your plans are after you leave tomorrow, but–”

“I don’t know.”

“Okay.”

You’re both dancing around something big–both of you afraid to say what you really mean, and you know it, but you can’t bring yourself to take the leap.

You had been hoping that Marcus would.

“It was nice,” you say lamely.

“It was,” he agrees softly.

Emma is looking a little less green when you arrive back home, and accepts the sandwich eagerly.

“Sorry about today,” she says, her mouth full. “I don’t know what the hell that was.”

“It was the cal–”

“Don’t fucking say it.”

At first, when you hear Emma start to fall asleep beside you, you're paralyzed. You want to go to Marcus. This is your last night; if you want to say goodbye, you need to go to him this one last time.

You just don't know if you can face goodbye.

You don't know if you can face him.

You aren't under any reservations about what this is. Marcus is a man, and you're nothing special. You're also nearly half his age. You gave him 'fuck me' eyes for three days, and he when he gave in to the temptation, you came willingly. But this was never meant to be a long-term arrangement.

It was never meant to be in the first place.

You just wish your first time hadn't been with the total package. Marcus is sweet, kind, attentive, and can apparently make you cum like it was a competitive sport. How are you supposed to go back home, back to being around boys your age, and expect them to measure up?

You debate staying in bed. It would be the easiest thing to do. You could begin tonight: stuffing your feelings down and burying them deep, never letting them see the light of day again. You were on spring break, and this was a fun romp. A fling. You could leave it there and never give Marcus the goodbye he probably deserves.

On the other hand…

What's the harm in delaying for one more night?

You slip into his room for the third time in three days, and carefully close the door behind you. Marcus is shirtless in bed, and he beckons you over with a crooked, affectionate smile.

"Fancy seeing you here, beautiful," he says, drawing the covers back with a playful raise of his eyebrow.

Despite your heavy mood, you can't help but grin back and enthusiastically hop into bed beside him.

He takes advantage immediately, grabbing you and turning you, and pulling you back against his chest with a playful growl. You're caged tightly in his arms, and there's nowhere you'd rather be.

"This is nice," you hum contentedly.

"Oh yeah? This all you want? Just a little cuddle?" Marcus teases, nipping gently at your shoulder.

"What if it was?" You wiggle your hips playfully against his hardening cock.

"If that was all you wanted? Then I'd think really hard about dead puppies and my childhood neighbor Mrs. Fitzwilliam in order to calm myself down a little," he answers.

"Mrs. Fitzwilliam?" you laugh. "Why?"

"When I was a little boy, I was convinced she was a witch. I couldn't so much as talk to her for years."

"Stop it, no you did not."

"I wouldn't joke about that," he laughs. "I was really scared of her!"

"Do me a favor and don't think about her," you tease. "I like how it feels against me."

"Would feel better somewhere else," Marcus says darkly.

"Have somewhere in mind, do you?"

"I've had it on my mind all day," he says softly.

"Show me," you murmur. "Show me what's been on your mind all day."

"Wanna know what I was picturing while I was giving that little forgery talk?" Marcus asks.

"Obviously."

"Then sit up, pretty girl."

He loosens his hold on you and you sit up, unable to keep the grin off your face. He sits up too, gently taking hold of the hem of your shirt and drawing it up over your head. He hooks his thumbs under the waistband of your shorts.

"Help me out with these," he commands quietly.

You shimmy them down your hips and kick them off, still kneeling before him, now completely bare. Marcus sits back on the headboard and pats his thigh suggestively, giving you a wicked smile.

"C'mere."

You giggle and bite your lip nervously as you crawl forward and straddle him.

"Wanna see you just like this," he murmurs.

"I–I've never–"

"I know," he interrupts with a wry smile. "I've got you. Just wanna see you like this," he confesses, palming your jaw and rubbing his thumb across your cheekbone.

Your eyes start to flutter shut as you feel the tip of him breach you as you sink slowly down.

"Eyes on me, honey."

With a shaky breath, you open them again, holding Marcus's intense gaze as you impale yourself on his cock. Your lips part, eyebrows pinching together at the stretch of him–you don't think you'll ever get used to the feeling of being broken open for the first time.

"That's it," he whispers. "Just like that."

You slowly rock your hips, rising up and sinking back down again. You feel so full like this; your lips part and a breathy gasp escapes you as you feel the drag of Marcus’s cock inside of you.

This is the first time you've chased your own pleasure with him like this; Marcus's eyes rake over your form greedily and as you ride him, you start to feel overly conscious of his scrutiny.

"Do I look okay?" you ask shyly.

Marcus makes a disbelieving noise and surges up, his hands starting to guide the movement of your hips as he kisses you messing, trailing from your mouth to your neck as he flexes up into you.

"Are you kidding?" he asks softly. "You're ethereal. A fucking goddess in my bed. And if you're thinking about that, I'm not fucking you right."

"That's a lie," you say with a lazy smile. "You're very thorough."

"Oh yeah? You like how I fuck you?"

"Mmmhmm," you hum. "Liked what you were doing last night."

Marcus chuckles deep in his throat. "Is that so? Cum for me like this, honey, and I'll put you on your knees again."

When his thumb presses into your clit, rubbing in small circles, it doesn't take you long to start to feel the pleasure growing in your core. You start moving faster, bouncing on his cock, no longer caring if your body is jiggling too much or that your face might look silly contorted with pleasure; all you can think about is chasing that feeling that’s building inside of you. Marcus helps you along, thrusting up into you, and you swear he must get deep enough to feel the very end of you.

He whispers little praises and encouragements in your ear in that deep, raspy way his voice gets when he’s drunk on pleasure. You can recognize all his little foibles, now–the way he wiggles his wrist back and forth when something’s on his mind, the way he talks with his hands when he’s passionate about a subject, and the way he sounds when he comes undone.

You’re going to carry all of those things with you, now–the way his eyes crinkle when he smiles, the way he raises one eyebrow when he’s being playful, and the way he sometimes mouths along to the words of his favorite old movies.

Is it possible to miss someone so completely after just one week?

You’re so deep in your emotions when you cum, you barely even realize that you’re about to until you’re clenching hard around him, grinding down on his cock as he works you through it, guiding your hips with his fingers pressing hard into your skin.

You’re still in a daze as Marcus flips you over, depositing you on your back and then turning you over onto your stomach on the bed. Rather than pull you up to your knees like the night before, he straddles you like this and sinks back into you, draping himself over your back as he starts to really fuck you.

Oh. This might be your favorite position yet–it’s the same angle as it was last night with the added bonus of getting to feel the weight of this man pressing down on you. His chest is against your back, his ragged breaths in your ear. His elbows cage your face and he entangles your fingers together over your head. It’s a sensory overload in nearly every way, and you’re drowning in the feel of him.

It’s so good that you feel your core start to tighten again.

“So soon?” Marcus teases breathlessly in your ear. “Fuck, I can feel you shaking. How are you so fucking perfect, hmm? You always feel like you were made to take me.”

His words inexplicably cause a lump to build in your throat. Made to take him, but this couldn’t, by definition, last. The statement only makes you wish that your compatibility didn’t have to be so fucking temporary.

You’re teetering on a precipice–on the verge of both an orgasm and inexplicable tears. When Marcus gently brushes the shell of your ear with his lips and murmurs one last, soft sentence, you finally succumb to both.

“You can let go, honey. I’ve got you.”

You convulse with a wet sob, pleasure and sorrow overtaking you simultaneously. Blessedly, with your face buried in the pillow, Marcus doesn’t notice yet; he starts fucking into you with abandon until he lets go with a deep groan in your ear.

When he finally stills, and he starts peppering kisses across your shoulder blade, you can feel him stiffen when he realizes that, mortifyingly, there are tears on your cheeks.

“Shit,” Marcus breathes. He carefully slips out of you and turns you over underneath him, quickly brushing the tears at the corners of your eyes. He kisses them away, whispering softly to you.

“Did I hurt you?” he asks frantically. “Honey, look at me.”

“No!” you exclaim emphatically. “No, I–I don’t know why I’m doing this.”

“Talk to me,” he demands softly.

“I don’t–I don’t want to go home,” you whisper. “I don’t want this to end.”

“Oh, honey,” Marcus whispers. “Really?”

“Sorry,” you mumble. “I’m sure this is exactly what you’re looking for–for some girl to get attached to you after one whole week of knowing you…”

Marcus smiles and brushes his thumb against your cheekbone. “Attached to me?”

“I didn’t mean for it to happen,” you say. “You’re just really nice, and you’re gorgeous, and you’ve been so good to me–”

“Don’t cry,” he whispers. “Please don’t cry.”

"Sorry," you say again.

"Hey," he says softly, still stroking your cheek. "You know something? You're wrong. You're not 'some girl.' You're sweet, and funny, and cute, and maybe having this girl right here be attached to me after one whole week of knowing me is exactly what I'm looking for."

"What are you suggesting?" you ask bluntly.

“All I’m suggesting is that we stay in touch,” Marcus answers. “No pressure, no expectations. We talk, and we get to know each other better, and when you graduate, Miss Pre-Law,” he teases, lightly touching the tip of your nose, “if you still feel the same way, come back to me. Go to Law School at Georgetown. Get an internship at the FBI. And whatever it is that you do, I know of a place you can stay.”

"You'd really want that?" you ask, a slow smile starting to spread across your face.

"I'd be a fool not to grab onto this with both hands," he murmurs, stroking his hand down your side. "A damn fool."

"What about Emma?"

Marcus pauses, biting his lip. "She's a grown woman," he says carefully, "and I haven't had much of a place in her life growing up. I would hope that… once we see where this goes–if it goes anywhere–she'd understand."

You nod slowly. "Okay."

"I've rushed into things in the past," he says softly. "More than once. But I'm not in any rush right now. I want to take my time, get to know you, and if you're still looking at me the way you're looking at me right now in a year, I'll consider myself a lucky man."

Your smile is brilliant. "I'd like that."

"I'd like that, too. And that means tomorrow isn't goodbye, anymore."

"No?"

"Nope," Marcus says with a grin. "Just 'see you later.'"

"Can I still get a goodbye kiss?" you ask.

He shakes his head playfully, but his lips descend to meet yours anyway.

"Not a goodbye kiss," he teased.

"A 'see you later' kiss," you correct.

"A 'you are so goddamn beautiful that I can't help to kiss you' kiss."

"You're making this too complicated."

"An 'I'll call it whatever I damn well please' kiss."

"An 'everything's gonna be alright' kiss?" you ask hopefully.

Marcus smiles and kisses you long and deep. "Especially that."

– – – – –

One year later…

“May I present: the graduating class of 2024.”

Along with Emma and the rest of the seniors in the auditorium, you throw your mortar-board hat into the air, shrieking happily as someone else’s crashes down on your head, instead.

“Fucking finally!” Emma shouts beside you, and you grin widely.

The last year has been a whirlwind for the both of you, and you know it.

After reconnecting with her dad, Emma made an effort not to lose touch again. Eventually, he had opened up about his past and the circumstances surrounding his divorce, and at her urging, even began the process of making peace with her mom. They even had Christmas together, for the first time since Emma was two.

And how do you know all this?

Well, Marcus hadn’t lost touch with you, either.

True to his word, you both took your time and got to know each other from a distance. Talking to him was still as easy as breathing, and you’d spend entire nights at the beginning staying up far too late and talking well into the wee hours of the morning.

It wasn’t hard to see that the something that was between you was still there and not going away any time soon. And the only thing you’ve found so far that rivals the strength of your friendship is the passion that you continue to have for each other in the bedroom.

Marcus would make trips when he could–some visits ostensibly to see Emma and other, more secret trysts where his only aim was to see you. (And see you he did; on most occasions, he’d barely let you out of his hotel room.)

Your beginning may have been a meteoric collision–two people forced into proximity that had no choice but to fall into each other–but the growth of your resulting love was slow and careful.

Eventually, you’d need to tell Emma, but it didn’t feel like the time was quite right, yet. Of course, when she visits you at Georgetown next year and you give her not your own address, but her father’s, the two of you will have to come clean.

Right now, though, as you and Emma weave through the crowds of people looking for Marcus, you’re content to keep things the way they are. Everything is slowly falling into place, and that piece of the puzzle will fit into the rest when it’s ready.

“There she is!”

Emma beams as she hears Marcus call out, waving his hand frantically to catch your attention among the sea of people.

She lets herself be crushed into a hug, her father grinning proudly and murmuring something unintelligible into her ear. After a few minutes, he releases her and turns to you.

“Congratulations,” he says–perfunctorily, but warmly.

“Thank you.”

After a couple of beats, Emma rolls her eyes.

“Would you just kiss her already? Honestly, it’s more weird that you’re not.”

Two sets of eyes swivel to her in alarm.

“You… you knew?” you exclaim.

Emma gives you a disbelieving look. “Okay, the fact that you two both think you were being subtle means you might actually be meant for each other. Wow.”

“How?” you choke out.

“Are you serious? You two had bizarre energy when you met, and ever since, I see you smiling at your phone all the time,” Emma says to you. “And after that week, whenever he’s come to visit, you both act weird around each other.”

“Oh,” you say dumbly.

“Plus, you had a hickey on your neck one morning,” she says, rolling her eyes. “Real subtle.”

Oops. You shoot Marcus a look, and notice that he’s as red as a tomato.

“Em,” he starts, looking pained.

“It’s fine,” she interrupts. “Look, it’s not like we had the closest of relationships when I was a kid. I'm getting to know you as an adult, and it just feels different than it would be if you had raised me. I’m not going to say it doesn’t make me feel fucking weird, and I don’t ever wanna know details about your sex life and I am not calling you ‘mom,’ but I guess I’ll just say… I get it. You two are oddly similar, and I wouldn’t want to stand in between you and happiness. Because I… you know. I love you.”

“Emma,” Marcus says, his smile turning watery for a moment.

“Don’t… make a big deal out of it,” she grumbles.

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” he laughs, and gives her a sweet kiss on the forehead. “I love you too, Emmie.”

He pulls back and looks at you, his eyes sparkling, and you feel your insides start to heat up just from his gaze alone.

Those words are still new, between you–the first time was whispered softly in his ear in the darkness after spending all night wrapped around each other just a couple of months ago. Marcus whispered them back immediately after; he was achingly patient and careful to take his time with you, even though you’d felt that emotion emanating from each of you for months prior.

It was just–you didn’t want to rush things. Love was new to you. Everything was. And if Marcus was going to be your first experience with all of it, you had a feeling that you were going to want to savor it.

You know he feels the same.

Stepping forward, Marcus gently tips your chin up to meet him in a gentle kiss. The shape of his lips are so familiar now, you could probably draw them in your sleep. You know the way they move against yours. You know how it feels when he smiles against your mouth–which he does often, and right now.

“Congratulations,” he murmurs again. This time, the word is dark and full of underlying emotion–love, affection, friendship, pride–and you grin back as you kiss him once more.

“What now?” you ask with a little laugh.

“I have a few ideas,” he husks in your ear, inaudible to anyone else, before pulling back. “But right now?” he shrugs. “Anything you want. Everything.”

“What if I said that all I wanted was you?”

Marcus’s eyes soften. “Well, honey,” he says gently, “you’re in luck, because that’s the one thing I can give you.”

The end.

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