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subbmissivesuccubus · 7 months

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Bully- Part 1

Summary: Your bully's, Gojo and Geto, find out an embarrassing secret of yours and will never let you live it down. But maybe, you don't want them to.

Disclaimer: 18+ fic. Gojo X Fem reader X Geto. Humiliation kink. Free use kink. Gojo and Geto being mean. Bully Geto and Gojo. Dub-con warning. It is subtly implied that reader wants and enjoys what's happening to her, but the boys don't care to ask for consent.

a/n: Sorry it took so long wah but here's part one to the series. I plan to write many more cause damn it is so fun haha. I promise, the next part will have all the gratuitous smut and ruthless fucking this premise deserves. Consider this an appetizer <3

Taglist: @bisexuawolfsalt @candycandy00 @nekonanamii @sirimiripetrichor @collectionofdolls @dreamsxmerci

You sighed as you walked towards your classroom, dragging your feet, knowing full well what was waiting for you. It was the end of the day and it was your turn to clean up the classroom and just your luck- you were paired up with the two people you couldn't stand.

Gojo and Geto. The two 'strongest' sorcerers of your school. Their reputation preceded them. One of them was the prodigal son of a famous family with a deadly technique while the other had an incredibly useful and powerful skill as well. Everyone disliked them to some extent, but nobody could deny that the Jujutsu world would be worse without them.

Which is why it always confused you as to why these two powerful men seemed to love bullying you.

They were never malicious but damn if they weren't annoying. They loved to tease and prank you, joking about how weak you were and how you couldn't do anything by yourself. Forget the fact that you were actually quite strong and capable- but compared to them- everyone was weak.

But they seemed to enjoy bullying you especially even if there were classmates who were of lower grade than you. Stealing your drink right before you were going to take it from the vending machine, taking unflattering pictures of you and distributing it, embarrassing you in front of strangers by treating you like a dumb baby in front of them, making loud sex noises if you were on the phone with someone, tossing away your books and stealing your money-

Gojo spanking your ass casually a few times, Geto licking off some chocolate that was smeared next to your lips like it was a normal thing to do and even that one time when they cornered you in the hallway and convinced you to let them grope your boobs:

"If you let us squeeze your tits, we'll leave you alone for a week~" Gojo had said, wangling his fingers comically as they both stared at your chest like perverts. The offer was too good to give up which led to them squeezing your clothed tits for ten second each before they left, laughing at how easy it was to use you. And of course, they continued to bother you anyway.

You could have made a complaint to the higher ups about their behavior, something your friends have told you to do but you refused. You didn't want to be the wuss who was running to the elders over something so childish when everyone has an important job to do. Dealing with some bullying was easy compared to fighting to the death with some curses.

Besides, if you reported on them...

You steeled yourself before opening to the door to the classroom, met with the sight you expected: Gojo and Geto, lounging around, not doing any work as they waited for you to do it for them because, in their words: 'the weaklings need to put in more effort'.

But what you were not expecting to see was your phone in Gojo's hand using earplugs that he had connected to the device. You knew you left your phone in the locker assigned to you in the hallways which meant these two managed to pick the lock and take it. But the anger over that was dwarfed by your sudden realization:

The way they were looking at you as you closed the door, giving you a shocked look but you could tell there was an underlying hint of pure glee.

Uh oh.

"Give me back my-"

You yelped as Geto suddenly grabbed your wrist and pulled you towards him, barely giving you a second to collect yourself before he wrapped his arms around your neck, catching you in a choke-hold. Before you could even react, he pulled your back against him and manhandled you as he sat on a classroom bench and forced you to sit between his legs, wrapping said legs around you. You were completely caught, your nails doing nothing even as you dug it into his arms.

"Holy fuck!" Gojo explained, eyes wide and a huge grin on his face as he continued to listen to the audio on your phone, looking over at you and Geto opposite of the table he was sitting on, "You're a perverted freak, aren't you?"

"Give it back!" you snapped, grunting in annoyance as you tried to break out of Geto's hold but the man simply laughed as he held you tighter, his legs not budging.

"This is some nasty stuff!" Gojo continued, "Who knew a weakling like you would be such a masochistic slut~" he removed the earbuds from the socket and increased the volume as he confirmed what you had feared:

"Yeah? you like that don't you? Little slut~" a man's voice echoed throughout the room from your phone speakers, "Everybody looking at you as I fuck this sloppy little pussy~ Oh this cunt is dripping for me- did you like being spanked in front of them so much?"

It was an erotic audio you had saved on your phone, one of many that you enjoyed in private. You had even saved it under non-suspicious names which meant that the boys were digging through your files to find something- and they did.

"This isn't even the only one we heard, you know." Gojo explained as he dangled the phone in front of you mockingly, "What was it again? A girl getting humiliated by her teacher in front of her classmates-"

"A girl getting groped by her boyfriend on a crowded train." Geto recollected, his lips so close to your ear you could feel his hot breath dance against your skin.

"Being used as a free-use toy by a group of guys~" Gojo said, a giant shit eating grin on his face, "Seems like this one has a humiliation kink~"

"I'm not surprised." Geto said, leaning into your ear and blowing into it, making you gasp and jump, "No wonder she never reported us to the principle for all the times we preyed on her. She was probably enjoying it."

"Oh!" Gojo said like he just realized it, "Was that why? Was your pussy growing wet every time we bullied you, little slut?"

"Fuck you." you spat out, both of the men laughing in response.

"Yeah, I bet you wanted us to fuck you." Geto growled into your ear, your shiver not going unnoticed by him, "You're fucking loving this~"

"Why don't we check?" Gojo suggested, cutting off anything you might have said, his hands inching towards your belt, a dangerous gleam in his eyes, "Let's see for ourselves if we made your pussy wet~"

"Gojo-"

"That's a great plan!" Geto interrupted, laughing as he tightened his hold your your neck, making you gasp, "Take those pants off. So baggy and loose- what a waste of a nice ass."

"I agree." Gojo said, finger now running over the metal of your belt, "it hides so much. With what I felt everytime I've spanked you- your pants do you no favors."

"Don't you- fucking dare!" You choked out, face turning slightly red from the lack of air and from Gojo slowly starting to fiddle with your belt.

"Oh, what are you gonna do about it, little slut?" Gojo teased, licking his lips as his long, lithe fingers started to tug at the leather of your belt, "Look at your fucking face- that look in your eyes? You're loving this."

"No- I'm not- fuck-" you sputtered out, failing to convey your frustrations. You couldn't stand these two assholes. Constantly picking on you and thinking they were so high and mighty- treating you like a bug on their path. So smug and narcissistic and not caring about anyone but themselves-

But as much as you'd hate to admit it, you couldn't deny that your body was throbbing. Everytime they bullied you, you felt that heat. Your heart-rate quickened and your pussy would grow wet, leaving you a confused mess every-time you got bullied. When it first happened, you didn't understand what was happening. Through some internet searching, you found those audios and realized you weren't the only one out there.

A masochist with a humiliation kink.

And without them knowing, the two guys you hate were fulfilling those fantasies for you.

Well now, they were more than aware.

"Come on, little bitch~" Geto cooed into your ear, his silky voice making you shudder, "Why settle with these audios when you can experience the real thing?"

"I...I..." you panted, heat rushing to your face and your heart pounding in your chest. You could feel your pussy dampen and had no doubt that if Gojo actually took your pants off, they'd see you be wet and needy.

"Too slow~" Gojo suddenly said, unbuckling your belt in a matter of seconds before ripping it off of you just as fast, throwing it aside. You yelped as you instinctively struggled, Geto laughing behind you as he tightened his hold on you even more, rendering you helpless. Gojo laughed as well, his bright blue eyes peeking from behind his glasses as you could see the gleam of excitement in them.

"You excited, little bitch?" Gojo cooed, licking his lips as his hands started trailing up your leg, running over the fabric of your pants as he inched up higher and higher. Everywhere he touched felt like it was on fire, a rush of heat coursing through you.

"He asked you a question." Geto said, clicking his tongue as you refused to say anything, "Weren't you taught any manners?"

"Fucking- i'll kill you-" you gasped out, face growing redder as you heard Geto's growl of annoyance, feeling the vibration of his chest against your back. "Don't worry about it, Suguru." Gojo said, smirking as he started undoing the buttons of your pants, "We can punish her later for her disrespect. For now, I just want to get at this pussy~"

With a big grin, Gojo ripped your pants off of you in one fell swoop, making you squeal as he tossed it away. You shivered as your bare legs were exposed to the evening air as well as their lecherous stares. You could see Gojo's eyes trail up your legs before zoning in on your clothed pussy, the man letting out a snort as he took in your panties.

"Pink with a bow on? Really?" he joked, "how plain and not sexy."

"I think they're cute." Geto chimed in, also shamelessly staring down at your clothed cunt, "But it doesn't matter. It's not going to be on her for long, anyway."

"True." Gojo said with a nod as he hooked his finger into the waistband of your panties and pulled it out before letting go, allowing the elastic to slap back against you, "but next time, wear something sexier."

"I hate you- so much!" you snarled, face bright red, biting your lower lip as the white haired man looped his fingers back into the waistband of your panties, this time, very obviously wanting to get it off of you. You gasped, unable to stop your shivers as Gojo leaned forward and placed a kiss on your tummy, his tongue peeking out to lick at your skin as he slowly starting pulling your panties down. He laughed as you tried to squiggle out but your movements only made the slide of your panties all the more easier for him.

"Look at that~" Gojo gasped as your cunt got exposed, practically drooling as he stared like a pervert, a twinkle behind his blue eyes, "You might be a weakling but atleast you have a pretty pussy."

"Atleast she's good for something~" Geto teased, shuffling behind you and in that moment, you felt it. Something long, hard and thick pressed up against your back and it didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what that was. You gulped as you felt the imprint of Geto's cock against you, unable to help yourself as your eyes darted towards the front of Gojo's pants and sure enough: His erection was straining against it.

They were too focused on your cunt to notice where you were looking and you were too focused on their dicks to notice that your panties were now completely off and that Gojo had tossed the fabric aside. Geto immediately hooked his legs over your own before forcefully spreading them apart, leaving you wide and exposed to their perverted gazes. Gojo let out a whistle as he dragged a chair over before sitting on it, his face now right across your bare cunt.

"Fuck- fuck you- fuck you!" you gasped out and cursed, feeling lightheaded from the situation. "How does she look?" Geto asked, both of them ignoring you and you could hear the hunger in his voice and the sensation of his cock twitching against you. "Oh, she's perfect~" Gojo responded and you knew they were referring to your pussy as its own person- somehow giving it more praise and respect than they've ever given you, "And oh so wet~"

"I want to see." Geto demanded, not having the same view as Gojo, "Can't let you have all the fun."

"Sure thing, pal." Gojo said, not taking his eyes off of your pussy as he continued to stare, hand reaching into his pocket to pull out his phone. "Gojo- don't you dare-" You barked out, understanding what he was going to do- but what you hoped sounded aggressive came out soft and subservient. The man simply snorted in response, ignoring your pleas as he opened up his phone camera and started taking pictures of your pussy. You shut your eyes and squealed everytime you heard the shutter of the camera, trembling body still held tightly in Geto's arms.

"Her hole clenches every-time I take a picture~" Gojo cooed, bringing a hand up to thumb at your pussy lips before spreading them apart even more, making your back arch against Geto, "And look at this little clit! So fucking cute!"

"Just show it to me already!" Geto snarled, impatient. "Alright, alright." Gojo responded with a roll of his eyes, standing up before turning the phone towards the two of you, a shot of your spread pussy on screen. You turned your head away and closed your eyes, ears ringing at how humiliated you felt-

and pussy dripping at how good it was.

"Oh, she does look delicious!" Geto praised, gripping your chin as he forced you to turn your head back towards the phone, making you look at the picture, "You have such a pretty cunt and you hid it from us for so long?"

You whined cutely as you looked at the picture- a closeup shot of your spread cunt with a clear view of your clit and hole, your cunt glistening with slick.

"Seriously!" Gojo barked as he started swiping, showing off the various photos of your pussy that were now in his possession, "If we knew all you wanted was some fucking, we'd have pounded this pussy ages ago! I've always wanted a sex toy."

"Don't you have like a dozen already?"

"Yeah, but I'm sure this bitch's cunt will feel way better than some silicone~"

"I hate you-" you gasped out, any and all fight leaving your bones (not that there was much to begin with) as you leaned your head against Geto's shoulder, "I hate you both- so much-"

"Yeah?" Geto asked, the tone in his voice clearly indicating that he wasn't taking you seriously, "Well, this pussy says otherwise."

He let go of your chin and snaked his hand down quickly to cup your pussy, making you yelp. You didn't know if what you felt was shame or relief that there was finally a hand on your cunt- finally some friction against your dripping womanhood. You tossed your head back, eyebrows furrowed and lip trapped under your teeth as Geto's long fingers started gliding through your pussy lips. The slick sound of him rubbing circles over your hole and collecting your wetness echoed through the room, the sound making your ears burn and your chest feel like it was on fire.

This is was so...so...

so fucking fun...

"She's loving this~" Gojo predicted accurately, eyes darting between your blissful expression and Geto's fingers toying with your body, "Fucking whore- slutty bitch- oh, we are going to have fun with you~"

"Her pussy is growing wetter by the second." Geto noted, cock fully erect and throbbing against you, his other arm slowly letting go of the hold around your neck, confident that you were going to stay right there like a good little girl. You gasped as the head spinning pressure was finally off of you, taking in a few deep breaths but choking on it just as quickly as the man started using his slick covered fingers to run circles over your clit.

"You're dripping all over the table, little bitch~" Gojo teased, taking a couple more pictures before pocketing it, "Fuck- let me feel too- or- actually-"

He sat back on the chair, pulling it closer before gripping your thighs, an eager grin on his face:

"I'm gonna eat~"

"Get used to this, little bitch." Geto growled into your ear, pulling his hand away from your cunt and snickering at your whine of disappointment, "You're our toy now and we are going to do whatever we want to you, understand?"

His hands came upto your chest, lithe fingers starting to undo the buttons of your shirt one by one, revealing a patch of skin before the peeks of your bra. Gojo licked his lips and moved forward, his hot breath fanning against your slick cunt.

"Whatever. We. Want."

#subby writes #jujutsu geto smut #jujutsu gojo smut #jujutsu kaisen smut #jujutsu kaisen #jujutsu gojo #jujutsu geto #jujustsu kaisen x reader #gojo x reader x geto #gojo x you #gojo smut #gojo satoru smut #gojo x reader #geto suguru smut #geto x reader #jjk fanfic #jjk smut

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brighteuphony · 2 months

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On the way back from Tea Country with Chakra-poisoned Kakashi tryna "casually" fish for some info before Sakura comes in with the one-hit KO on accident.

So she's got some complicated feelings for Kakashi as well, though they're a lot milder than what she feels about Sasuke.

There's a moment in my AU where Sakura goes through a deep reflection ritual, in which she has to face Inner Sakura -who is representative of all the ugly truths her day-to-day self hasn't been able to face- and come to terms with who she is.

During that time, she's got to face the music.

The music:

Sasuke is the last prodigal son of a clan that was brutally butchered. He's a genius with one of the most powerful dojutsu out there (that he has no idea how to use) and is coming in hot with more baggage than an airport terminal.

Naruto is not normal. She doesn't know what he is (as in-canon, she finds out after the time-skip and the Sakura from above is right on the cusp of Shippuden), but there's nothing normal about a kid who can pull wild orange chakra and who can fight Gaara's tailed beast and come out on top. He's got the personal attention of the Hokage, but the entire village has banded against him for some reason. He's special.

Kakashi is a war veteran turned Jounin and an infamous ANBU captain (I headcanon that some ANBU names are leaked specifically to generate a healthy level of fear/caution among other villages- which is why we know of Itachi/Kakashi/Shisui very publically) and is ALSO the last prodigal son of an old noble clan.

(No way a bookworm like Sakura didn't consume every publically available scroll on Konoha clans).

It doesn't take the big brains to figure out that he got team 7 specifically to help deal with Sasuke's trauma/teach him about the Sharingan, and put a leash on Naruto (and in the future, when she finds out that Madara was able to control the Kyuubi with the Sharingan as well as the knowledge that Kakashi was Minato's student it becomes even clearer why he got the Sasuke/Naruto combo.)

And Sakura? Sakura is a civilian. No clan, no dojutsu, nothing to her name except great chakra control. She's the literal meat in the meat-grinder of the military machine of Konoha, the acceptable sacrifice in a group of otherwise invaluable shinobi. She's just a...girl. (And it doesn't help that she was obsessed with Sasuke instead of training, furthering the gulf between her and Kakashi.)

Kakashi was absolutely not built to handle her- in fact, Kakashi has NO idea how to relate who hasn't gone through a mountain's worth of trauma or someone who hasn't been ingrained in the shinobi-as-a-tool lifestyle, and even then, he's not fully equipped to handle people who have (lmao Sasuke). Not to mention the man is a prodigy- he has no idea how to teach people who have to work hard to get somewhere in life. How do you teach someone if you've never had to 'work hard' to get there yourself?

So, Sakura understands that Kakashi was put in one of the most ridiculous situations of his career- a situation he had NO idea how to handle. She can forgive him for that. BUT, she can't forgive him for not trying his best.

Sakura spent a lot of time coming to terms with the fact that she rushed into the Chidori/Rasengan combo without a single idea of what she would do, but...Kakashi was a big reason for that.

She was HIS responsibility, and he fumbled that bag. Whatever his reasoning, whether it was to 'protect' her, or whether he thought she was worthless, whatever: he should have TRIED.

Kakashi was an adult with resources aplenty. He recognized that she had stellar chakra control but never bothered to teach her genjutsu or direct her to teachers who could pick up the slack.

And after the accident, he abandoned her again. Being forgotten in lieu of Sasuke and Naruto hurt...but she could heal. Being abandoned as some kind of martyr to Kakashi's failures as a teacher? It's gonna take a while for Kakashi to make that up to her...if he can muster the courage to face her.

Sakura finally understands why he preferred the memorial stone to the living. He already failed the dead, and it's easier to wallow in self-flagellation than it is to try and step up for the living.

Sakura stopped being a coward some time ago, and when Kakashi finally does the same, she'll forgive him.

Thank you so much for sticking with this wall of text! And thank you so much anon for the question! Once again, I really appreciate all the kind words people have been throwing my way. <3 <3 <3

#naruto #haruno sakura #kakashi #Blind!Sakura #Her teachers in order:#Chiyo: Medicine and Chakra control #Saeko: Genjutsu master who lives with Enji #Enji: Ninjutsu specialist and general cheerleader #Aren Uzumaki: Pirate captain and Fuinjutsu specialist #her necklace is a western style evil eye pendant - the last thing Enji gave to her before he passed away #coven!Sakura

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proxima-writes · 18 days

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the harder the rain, the sweeter the sun

pairing: storm chaser!joel miller x storm chaser!female reader

rating: explicit (18+ MDNI)

word count: 6.5k

summary:

Storm chaser-turned-weatherman Joel Miller hunts down his old crew in an effort to serve his wife with divorce papers. When a storm interrupts his efforts, he finds himself falling back into old routines and old feelings.

A Twister (1996) AU

author’s note: are you someone, like me, who was fucking obsessed with the movie twister and at one point made it your entire personality (maybe even at too young of an age)? then this fic is for you! this may be one of my favorite fics ever and i hope you enjoy it, too. please consider reblogging or commenting or even dropping into my ask box if you like the fic, i would love to hear from you!

amazing title art by @atinylittlepain

tags/warnings: explicit sexual content (18+ only, minors do not interact), explicit language, undefined age gap, able bodied reader (actions include running, lifting, climbing), no reader physical characteristic descriptions, dual pov, established relationship, estranged marriage, mentions of divorce, alternate universe - movie: twister (1996), not a direct rewrite of the movie but pretty close, storm chaser!joel, storm chaser!reader, natural disaster action scenes, mild angst, mention of reader’s parent’s deaths, praise, dirty talk, pet names, oral (f receiving), unprotected p in v, cum eating, minor character death.

masterlists: all characters | joel miller

support for palestine

The first person to notice Joel’s truck pulling up to the makeshift weather station site is his brother, Tommy.

“Look what the cat dragged in!” He says, hands on his hips. Joel gets out of his truck and Tommy envelops him in a strong hug. “Had no idea you were comin’ out here.”

“I didn’t plan on it,” Joel admits. He waves the envelope in his hand. “But I can’t get her to sign ‘em unless I track her down myself.”

The expression on Tommy’s face drops and he nods, clearing his throat. “She’s around here somewhere.”

“Probably hiding from you,” another voice chimes. Tommy’s wife, Maria, jumps from the back of a nearby pick up truck where she had been fixing a satellite. “Welcome back, Joel.”

“I ain’t back,” he grumbles, giving her a quick hug. “How’re you, Maria?”

“Sweaty,” she replies. “Heard you got yourself a nice channel gig. Must explain the suit.”

Joel looks down at his outfit of tan slacks and a matching suit jacket over a white button up shirt. He tries to think of a response, but another familiar voice calls out his name.

“The prodigal son returns!” Tess shouts. Her short hair has grown out since the last time he’s seen her, but the ever present camera around her neck remains the same.

He notices movement from the back of one of the vans. You emerge, wiping your hands on a grease stained rag and for a brief moment, a bolt of longing courses through him like a lightning strike.

“Joel,” you say, a smile on your face that doesn’t reach your eyes. “Wasn’t expecting you out here.”

“You won’t answer any of my calls,” he replies. A tense silence falls over the group until Maria nudges Tommy in the ribs and drags him off while Tess mumbles an excuse about checking the radio and escapes in the other direction. “Have you looked at the papers?”

“Yeah.”

“Is there a reason you haven’t signed them?”

“Been a bit busy,” you say, gesturing to the camp. “I got something you’ll want to see.”

You brush past him and Joel sighs, rubbing a hand across his face in exasperation before turning to follow you to one of the trucks. You pull yourself up into the bed and stand beside a large metal container.

“She’s here, Joel,” you say proudly, hitting one of the buttons. The lid on the unit pops open. “ELLIE.”

“No shit?” Joel asks, climbing onto the truck for a closer look. He picks up one of the spherical sensors, holding it up for inspection. “I’ll be damned. You really did it.”

“We did it,” you respond quietly. The expression on your face is painfully familiar, that combination of pride and sadness that he’s grown accustomed to in the last few years. He murmurs your name, tries to think of something else to say, but a shout interrupts his efforts.

“We’ve got action!” Tess yells.

The camp explodes into a flurry of movement. Equipment is packed away with speed and efficiency while anything else that isn’t fragile is tossed into the nearest truck or van. Joel watches it all and remembers when he used to be part of this machine, calling out orders and getting on the radio for coordinates as he hit the gas and peeled out in a cloud of dirt and dust.

He’s so caught up in it all that he almost forgets why he was here, and when he remembers you still haven’t signed the papers he curses, running for his truck and taking off after you down the rural roads.

“You comin’ with, brother?” Tommy’s voice crackles over his truck radio.

“She didn’t sign!” Joel says back.

“Keep lying to yourself, Joel!” Maria calls back.

It’s a race against time and God, the storm clouds overhead dark and churning ominously. The air is filled with static, lightning striking in the distance. Joel can feel it all in his veins, the adrenaline thick as he keeps speed with the rest of his former crew. The honk of a horn draws his eyes to the rearview mirror, where a gleaming black Surburban is gaining speed on him.

“Son of a bitch,” he snaps. He grabs the radio. “We got company!”

The Surbuban pulls up beside him, a woman in the passenger seat that refuses to look his way. Marlene, once a lab mate of yours and Joel’s in the early days of your career, is now the face of FEDRA’s corporate sponsorship. Sold out for shiny toys, Joel once said.

“What’s Marlene doin’ here?” Joel asks.

“Bet she’s wondering the same thing about you!” You chime in.

The convoy of uniformed vehicles speeds past him, the old trucks his crew still uses no match for them. In his distraction, he narrowly misses a fallen tree limb, careening off the dirt road with a loud bang.

“Fuck!” He shouts. His tire has gone flat.

This is the last thing he needs.

You watch Joel through the window of the little diner you’ve all made a stop at once the storm broke up on the radar as you had been driving to catch it. He’s across the street at the mechanic to get a new tire, having driven in on the spare that Tommy circled back to help him put on. You twist the plain gold band on your finger, lost in thought.

“Hey,” Tess says, sliding onto the stool beside you. “How are you doing?”

“Fine,” you reply quickly. Her keen gaze makes you fold. “Weird. It feels weird.”

“Yeah, I know. He’s in a suit.” She takes a sip of her drink. “Never thought I’d see the day.”

“He looks good.”

“Sure, if you like ‘em with a stick up their—“

“What’s channel four doing here?” You ask, cutting her insult off. The news crew is unloading their gear from their van as the anchor speaks to Marlene, who’s gesturing to a piece of equipment that looks suspiciously similar to the culmination of your life’s work sitting in the bed of your truck. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” you snap, racing for the door.

“This is ABBY, the first unit of its kind. It’s built to give us a look inside of the funnel, allowing more precise storm prediction that could mean a world of difference for preparation and survival,” Marlene says proudly. “Inside are hundreds of sensors that, once deployed, will spiral inside of the tornado and report back real-time, accurate measurements.”

“Hey!” Joel barks, coming up to the scene from the opposite direction. “What the hell do you think you’re doin’?”

“Cut!” The anchor yells as Joel crowds in close to Marlene.

“You really think you can get away with rippin’ off our idea?” Joel snaps.

“I only took your idea and made it a reality,” Marlene responds, holding her hands up placatingly. “Face it, Joel. Your team doesn’t have the same resources to get this idea off the ground. Literally.” She laughs. “Besides, what are you doing here? I thought you retired.”

“That’s where you’re wrong. ELLIE isn’t just a dream anymore. We’ve got her here.”

Marlene’s smile falters. “Is that so?”

“Yep,” Joel says. “And she’s going to be the first in the air.”

“We’ll see about that, Joel.” She steps back, addressing her crew. “Pack it up. Let’s hit the road.”

You stand there together watching as they pull out of the parking lot and back onto the two lane highway. When they’ve disappeared from sight, you give Joel’s shoulder a tentative pat.

“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” you tell him. “Hopefully you’re right.”

The look he gives you is serious, a furrow between his brow that you used to smooth with your thumb, back before things fell apart. You smile at the memory. The tension eases from his shoulders and his lips curl up the slightest bit, as if in response.

“Sorry to interrupt,” Tommy says, breaking your attention from his brother. “But we got another development on the radar.”

“Alright, let’s get her,” you reply, breaking away from them to get to your truck. Joel is still standing there when you chance a look over your shoulder. “You just gonna stand there, or are you coming?”

“You still haven’t signed the papers!” He shouts back.

“I can sign them in the truck!”

He curses but jogs after you, coming up behind you and beating you to the driver’s door. “I’m drivin’,” he says.

“No,” you argue. “This is my truck.”

“You think I forgot how to drive this thing?”

“I think you’re out of practice!”

“You’re wastin’ time, just get in the fuckin’ truck,” he snaps. You roll your eyes and do as he says.

Some things never really change.

“You have to get ahead of it!” You shout. Hail pelts the roof of the truck and bounces off the windshield as Joel drives down the dirt road. Wind whips through the trees and lightning flashes in the fields while the clouds churn and peak at threatening speed.

“I know!” He shouts back, both hands tight on the wheel. “I can’t fuckin’ see anythin’!”

“Just cut across the field!”

“I can get us further ahead on the road!”

“We’re going to get stuck alongside it!”

“Do you want to drive?!”

“I’d love to!”

Joel huffs, accelerating faster. The clouds gather more tightly, stretching from the sky towards the earth. He glances out of his window and catches a glimpse of the storm, his heart pounding as he watches the funnel organize. He watches it for a moment before slamming on the breaks, the truck fishtailing as it comes to a screeching halt.

“What are you doing?!”

Marlene’s team speeds by with angry honks of their horns, but Joel’s attention remains fixed on the tornado. “It’s goin’ to shift its path.”

“Are you sure?” You ask, squinting.

“Look at it, it’s a sidewinder. It’s headin’ left,” he confirms. He throws the truck in reverse, speeding back towards the road they passed. The rest of the team has caught up and follows them down the one lane road.

“There it goes!” You shout, smacking the dashboard in your excitement. You grab the radio. “Alright, tell us what you’ve got, Maria.”

“F2, shifting south. Repeat, shifting south. This thing is unstable,” she says, voice crackling over the speaker. “You guys have a shot but you’re going to be cutting it real close.”

You look at Joel, and he sees that spark in your eyes, the determination he’s always admired, even loved, and he knows he can’t say no. Not to you.

“Let’s get it.”

“We’re running out of time,” you tell him, binoculars held up to your eyes. “We’re not going to make it.”

“We will,” he insists. Joel brakes after another half of a mile and you’re out of the cab before the truck even comes to a complete stop.

The rain immediately drenches you, soaking through your clothes and wrapping you in an icy chill. You’re removing the tethers that hold ELLIE securely to the truck bed and turning the unit on when Joel joins you.

“We have to get it on the ground!” You shout, barely audible over the wind. One of the tethers is stuck, strap not coming loose from the buckle no matter how hard you pull. Joel jumps into the bed and tries to help but with the rain and wind, both of your hands keep slipping.

Joel looks up, eyes going wide. His hand wraps around your bicep, pulling. “We have to get out of here!”

“But ELLIE—“

“Now!” He shouts.

A sound similar to a freight train reaches your ears and panic courses through your veins. Joel pulls on your arm again and this time you follow, jumping from the truck and running as fast as you can. He reaches an arm back towards you, grabbing your hand and tugging you along. He veers to the left, the two of you sliding down a muddy embankment and landing in a ditch.

“Get up,” Joel urges, helping you to your feet. “We gotta get down over there by that bridge, come on!”

Together you trudge through the mud, wind picking up speed around you as the cyclone draws closer. You have your arm held up to shield your eyes from debris and your other hand in front of you, gripping Joel’s jacket tightly.

You make it beneath the cover of the bridge, a slight reprieve from the wind and rain. Joel squeezes his body tightly to yours, pressing you against the dirt and shielding you from the storm. You open your eyes, peering past his shoulder to where you can see the edge of the wide tornado base and the debris it kicks up in its wake.

Suddenly, the world grows quiet. The air goes still, the rain slows from a downpour to a shower. You can feel Joel’s chest heaving with breath against yours, cadence of it matching the pounding of your heart. He backs away slowly and lifts his hands, gently cupping your face.

“You okay?” Joel breathes, eyes searching. You wrap your hands around his wrists and nod. His thumb strokes across your cheekbone, slowly, before he releases your face. “Good. That’s…good.”

“Hey! You’re alive!” You both look up to find Tess at the top of the embankment, hands on her hips. “Tommy owes me twenty bucks!”

“He should know better than to bet against me,” Joel says. His attention returns to you. “Come on, let’s get out of here.”

Back at street level, you assess the damage. Your truck has been flipped, the ELLIE unit dented but still intact. More notably, the sensors didn’t deploy.

“Fuck,” you curse. “All of that and it didn’t even open.”

“There’s always next time,” Tess assures you.

“You know…we could all use a shower….and a meal,” Tommy says. You shoot him a look.

“No.”

“Come on,” he needles. “You’re covered in mud. We’ll need to get your truck towed somewhere for repairs.”

“I said no.”

“We haven’t had anything but shitty diner food and granola bars for four days,” Maria adds.

“You must really want a hot a meal if you’re willing to face Uncle Bill.”

“That a yes?” Tommy asks. Everyone watches you expectantly.

“Fine,” you sigh. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Joel rides in the van with Tommy and Maria while you go with Tess in her truck. It doesn’t take long to reach the familiar ranch style home that sits on four acres of farmland, complete with a barn that’s become more for show than for function in your Uncle Bill’s older age.

When the van pulls up to the house, Bill’s husband, Frank, is outside on the porch, sitting in a rocking chair with a drink in hand. He waves as Tommy honks to announce their arrival.

The front door opens, Bill’s large frame filling the doorway. His beard has grown since the last time Joel saw him, and it seems as though his ever present frown has too. Joel watches you run up the porch steps and wrap your arms around both men, though Bill is quick to shove you off when he sees the state you’re in. Despite the reaction, Joel can see the ghost of a smile on his lips.

Joel stays towards the back of the group as they approach. He won’t go so far as to say he’s hiding, but it’s a near thing. Handshakes and hugs are exchanged right up until Bill catches sight of him.

“Joel,” he says, crossing his arms.

“Uncle Bill,” Joel replies.

“Just Bill is fine.”

Joel clears his throat, avoiding the man’s gaze. you appear behind him, breaking the tension.

“I’m going to take a shower and then I can help you with dinner,” you tell Bill.

“Who said I was feeding you?”

“Frank did.”

“Sorry, honey!” Frank yells from the kitchen.

Joel escapes Bill’s attention with your distraction, darting into the kitchen to join the others. He helps Frank peel and dice potatoes while Maria and Tess make biscuits and Tommy helps Bill grill up a towering plate of steaks and burgers. Despite his outward show of annoyance, your Uncle Bill is a good guy who always takes care of the crew when they come rolling into his driveway, half starved and exhausted.

“Didn’t expect to see you back,” Frank comments, tone light.

“Didn’t expect to be back,” Joel replies.

“What brings you here, then?”

“Got tired of waitin’ on her to sign the divorce papers.”

Frank hums in response and Joel braces himself for a speech but a minute passes in silence. Then two minutes. Frank sets his potato peeler down and leans his hip against the counter, facing Joel.

“It’s a real shame,” he says, shaking his head and staring out the window to where Bill and Tommy are laughing together. “You two were really good together.”

Joel doesn’t reply, because what is there to say? Frank is right. You and Joel were good together. Where Joel was hotheaded, you were calm. Where Joel took things too seriously, you were more carefree. But perhaps the greatest difference between you two was where Joel let fear stop him in his tracks, you let it drive you.

It’s what started the arguments in the first place. He started feeling like he was getting too old, too worn out for chasing storms. He wasn’t as sharp as he used to be, not as quick, and it was starting to hang heavy over his head. Thoughts of retirement came to him more frequently and each time he brought it up, it would ignite an argument until he just didn’t have it in him to fight anymore. It was just easier to walk away.

“Shower’s free,” you announce as you enter the kitchen, no longer caked in mud.

“My turn,” Joel says. Frank gives him a sideways glance but doesn’t say anything about his silence and swift exit.

Dinner is ready when he's finished with his shower and he takes a seat in the open chair beside you. The whole scene, the normalcy of it, makes Joel feel like a ship returning to port after rough seas. He missed this -- the inside jokes, the playful ribbing, Bill's annoyed huffs and Frank's wide eyed stare as he listens to you recount the events of the day. You even pat his knee when you notice his leg bouncing beneath the table, like the gesture is second nature, even though you haven't done it in the two years since he's left.

He helps with the dishes after everyone has finished eating and puts away what little leftovers remain. Tommy and Maria decide to go to bed in one of the guest rooms while Tess remains in the living room, watching a rerun of Jeopardy with Frank. Joel notices that you're nowhere to be found, but he has a feeling he knows exactly where you've gone.

He leaves the house through the back door, heading through the field towards the barn. The sun is setting, casting everything in an orange glow as the sky begins to turn shades of purple instead of blue. The old wooden doors creak as he pries them open and steps inside the building, the smell of hay hitting him in the face like a wall.

There's a loft, accessible by a ladder, that he knows you've made your own. It's been your escape ever since you were a kid, when you came to live with your Uncle Bill after a storm that destroyed your home and ripped your parents from you. He climbs up to the loft, hoisting himself onto the platform.

You're sitting on the wood floor, a quilt from the house spread out beneath you. You’ve brought a lamp up with you, warm light beating back the rapidly oncoming darkness. You look up when he stands.

“Hey,” he says, stepping closer. He kneels onto the quilt with you.

“Hey.”

You shift your weight until you’re lying on your back and Joel does the same beside you, his shoulder brushing yours. You’re both quiet for a long moment, sounds from the field drifting in through the cracks in the wood.

“When will it be enough?” Joel finally asks. You sigh.

“Not this again,” you complain.

“What is it about retirement that scares you so damn much?”

“Retirement doesn’t scare me. I could take the easy way out, too. I could make a pretty little weather woman for some local news channel, but that’s not what I want. It’s never been what I want.” You take a deep breath. “So stop acting surprised that I won’t change for you or anyone else, for that matter. And if that’s something that you can’t love about me—“

“It ain’t about not lovin’ you. I love you. I have always loved you. I will always love you,” he interrupts, lifting himself so that he can look at your face. Your eyes are glassy, streaks of wetness stretching from the corners to your temple. “But I can’t ever be enough for you.”

Your expression changes, shifting from sadness to surprise to anger. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“I’m gettin’ older, I’m not as good at this gig as I used to be.”

“That’s why you left? Because you think you’re…what? Holding us back?”

“Wasn’t I?”

“No! You big fucking idiot,” you snap. “I can’t believe this.” You sit up, shoving his shoulder and knocking him onto his back. You throw your leg over him, settling over his lap. His hands settle on your thighs, a reflex that hasn’t faded. Your expression is stern as you stare down at him. “You will always have a place with us. With me.”

Joel lets your words sink in, the light of them illuminating the dark parts of his mind that had convinced him you were better off without him. He slides a hand up your belly, over your chest, curling it around the back of your neck and urging you forward.

You come to him easily, your lips finding his.

It feels like coming home.

Joel’s mouth is eager as he kisses you, devours you, hands hot on your skin and leaving goosebumps in their wake. You missed this, the feeling of being consumed by him, from your body and down to your soul.

He rolls the two of you over, easing you down onto your back and hovering over you. You gaze up at him, noting the deeper creases by his eyes and the grey that has started to become more prominent in his hair and the only thought that comes to you is how beautiful he is.

Joel leaves wet kisses on your neck in three spots — just below your ear, right over your pulse, and just above your clavicle, a pattern he established years ago. The warm air chills the spots he’s left behind as he moves lower, down your chest, pushing up your shirt to give the same attention to your belly. It makes your stomach flip, the way he peeks up at you with dark eyes when he reaches the waist of your jeans.

Instead of moving lower, his focus returns to your breasts. He moves the cups of your bra down to reveal your tight nipples, warm tongue circling each bud in turn. You squirm beneath his weight, cry out when his teeth scrape the sensitive skin. You can feel the smile that graces his lips.

“Still so sensitive,” he says. You gently whack his head in retaliation. “Quit it. Be a good girl or you won’t get your reward.”

“Yes, sir,” you murmur.

“That’s it, knew you could be good for me.” He squeezes your breast in one large hand. “Just needed the right motivation.”

He sits back on his heels and makes quick work of unbuttoning your pants, tugging the zipper down before curling his fingers into the waistband and dragging them down your thighs along with your underwear. Barrier discarded, he settles on his belly between your thighs, face close enough to your core that you can feel the quick brush of his breath on your needy cunt. You wiggle your hips, hoping to spur him into action, but a strong arm holds you still and you let out a low whine.

“What’s the matter, pretty girl?” Joel asks, fingers lightly tracing your skin. “Somethin’ you want? Somethin’ you need?”

“You,” you mumble.

“Louder.”

“You, Joel.”

He kisses your inner thigh, stubble scratching the sensitive skin and making you shiver. Your breath catches in anticipation as he draws nearer to your heat.

The first swipe of his tongue through your folds is like a bolt of lightning to your system, every nerve ending lighting up and your blood coursing hot in your veins. He starts off slow, just the way you like it, broad circles over your clit until you’re squirming in his hold. Then he dips lower, thrusting the tip of his tongue inside of you while his nose continues to nudge your aching clit.

He brings you to the very edge of release before backing off, just enough that you don’t tip over before he’s ready for you to. It drives you crazy, has you cursing his name and begging for him in equal measure, but he’s nothing if not stubborn, generous yet greedy.

“Joel,” you cry, his name a plea. “Are you going to let me come?”

“Of course, sweetheart,” he says. His chin is shiny with with spit and slick when he looks up, eyes a little wild and hair messy from your fingers. “But not yet.”

“Fuck!” You snap, head dropping to the wood floor with a thud as he presses two thick fingers inside of you, curling them with each drag from your body. His mouth rejoins the effort, lips wrapping around your clit. It’s too much and so good, that wave of pleasure finally coursing through you as you shatter from his ministrations.

He works you through it, tongue gentle and fingers stilling inside of you, your cunt pulsing around them. When your muscles finally relax, he sits up, holding his hand up to your face and pressing his fingers to your lips. You open your mouth obediently, the earthy taste of your release exploding across your taste buds as you lick the digits clean.

“Missed this,” Joel murmurs, watching you intently. “Missed you.”

“Missed you,” you reply. You reach your hand up, running it down his chest until you’re cupping the prominent bulge in his jeans. “Missed this, too.”

He laughs, shoulders shaking with the force of it. It pulls a smile from you, your beautiful man so carefree, no sign of that troubled wrinkle between his brows and his cheeks flushed with life, the same way they are when he’s coming down from the adrenaline of a chase. He unbuttons his jeans, shimmies the denim down just enough to free his cock.

Joel grips himself at the base, flushed head peeking from his fist. He teases your entrance, slipping his length through your wetness and bumping your still sensitive clit. Your back arches and a moan escapes your lips, one that Joel echoes himself as he slowly, slowly, slowly pushes inside of your tight heat.

“Joel,” you whisper, fingers curling tight into the quilt beneath you. “Joel.”

“I know,” he says. “God, I know.”

When his hips are flush with yours, he leans forward, elbows on either side of your head propping himself up. His cock fills you so perfectly, the stretch almost too much to bear as he starts to move. Each purposeful thrust has you seeing stars, has you gasping and moaning his name. He silences you with his lips, so messy and uncoordinated it can hardly be called a kiss. You clench around him, desperate to keep him inside of you with each drag from your body.

“Feel so fuckin’ good,” Joel groans. “Can you come for me, baby? One more time?”

“Mhm,” you hum. He picks up the pace, quick strokes that hit your g-spot with impressive precision. You feel the knot of your release grow tighter, tighter, until it finally unravels, every nerve ending lighting up like you’ve been struck by lightning. You wrap your arms around his shoulders, holding him close as he presses deep, cock twitching and spilling inside of you.

Joel presses his forehead to yours as you both catch your breath, sweat cooling on your skin as minutes pass. When he lifts his head and stares down at you, it’s with a smile on his face.

“That was—“

“Yeah,” you agree. “See? You still got it, old man.”

“Nevermind, I still want a divorce.”

You laugh, loud and carefree. For the first time in years, you feel a sense of peace.

A sense of home.

The two of you get caught in an unexpected downpour as you leave the barn and Joel follows the sound of your laughter as you run through the field back to the main house. Inside, you press a kiss to Joel’s lips, water dripping to the floor beneath you. You’re smiling and he swears he’s never felt more alive, even when chasing the biggest storm.

When you break apart, you whisper that you’re going to take another shower and change. Joel tells you he’s going to clean up the mess to avoid Bill’s wrath. Another kiss, and another, until you finally break away and shut yourself in the bathroom down the hall. He stands there for a moment, lost in thought, until the sound of the shower running spurs him into motion and he goes to search for a towel to clean up the water that’s pooled in the hallway.

As he passes by the living room, heading for the linen closet, he notices the TV is on, the room illuminated in its flickering glow. He stops in the doorway and Frank looks up at him, a knowing smile on his face.

Joel smiles back.

For now, it’s their little secret.

The next day, Bill deems your truck operational. It has a fresh new set of dents and scratches, but it’ll otherwise drive despite the abuse. You spend some time inspecting the unit and determine the lid latch is a little too secure, which explains why the sensors couldn’t deploy. Joel helps you loosen the bolts, the simple task taking twice as long with how often he distracts you when your crew members aren’t looking. You replace the latch with another tether strap that can be quickly released on deployment.

When all is said and done, everyone takes turns saying goodbye to your uncles. Frank tells you to be safe and Bill tells you to not be stupid, which is essentially the same thing. You watch as Joel receives a handshake from Bill that’s a tad too firm, if the grimace on his face is anything to go by.

“Alright, let’s head out,” Maria says, eyes scanning a computer screen. “Radar’s got something forming about twenty miles north of here.”

“What kind of something?” You ask.

“A big something.”

Joel catches your eye and gives you a wink.

“Let’s go get ELLIE into the air.”

The sky ahead of you is pitch black, clouds churning ominously. There’s a certain liminality when you’re driving into a storm that never ceases to amaze you, the image in the rearview mirror bright with sunlight but a foreboding darkness ahead of you.

“You okay?” Joel asks, drawing your attention. His hand rests on your thigh, fingers tapping against your knee. “Not gettin’ cold feet, are you?”

“About this?” You nod towards the sky. “Never.”

“That’s my girl.”

“Guys? You won’t believe this,” Maria says over the radio. You grab the transmitter.

“What is it?” You ask.

“There’s two cells. Radar maxed out.”

“They’re funneling back,” Tess adds. “This isn’t looking good.”

“You saying we can’t do it?” You ask.

The radio is quiet for a moment before Tommy says, “If anyone can, it’s you two.”

“What are we up against?” Joel asks.

“Cell one is measuring at the cusp of a three, cell two is reaching four,” Maria continues.

“Joel.” You tap his arm. “Look.”

A funnel has formed ahead of you, still teetering in the air and not quite making contact with the ground. It’s only a few miles ahead and Joel hits the brakes as he takes it in.

“What’s the trajectory of this?” He asks.

“Northeast.”

It’s heading your way. You both scramble from the truck, climbing into the bed to prepare ELLIE — Joel removing the tethers while you turn the unity on. The wind picks up speed as you work, dust from the road whipping around you and making it difficult to see.

“Let’s get her down!” Joel shouts. He jumps to the ground and together you ease the equipment onto the ground, removing the lid tether. After what feels like ages, ELLIE is ready and you both return to the truck.

Joel turns the truck around and drives in the opposite direction of the cyclone’s path. He stops and you can hardly breath as you watch the storm tear across the landscape.

“This is it!” Tess shouts through the radio.

You grab Joel’s hand as the funnel nears ELLIE, the wind making the unit shift and sway. You swallow nervously.

“It’s too light,” you murmur.

“No it’s not,” Joel says confidently.

Closer and closer the funnel moves, but ELLIE doesn’t lift from the ground. You’re biting your lip so hard that the taste of copper blooms across your tongue.

“We’ve got a shift!” Maria says. “We’ve got a shift, due north. Due north.”

“Fuck!” Joel shouts, slamming a hand on the steering wheel.

“Guess who just showed up?” Tommy adds.

Far across the field, a familiar caravan of black vehicles speeds towards the cyclone.

“What channel are they using?” You ask. There’s a brief silence until Tess calls back, “Six. Why?”

You switch the channel. “Marlene, you have to anchor the unit.”

“I’m a little busy right now,” she calls back. “Trying to make history over here.”

“Listen to me. Unless you manage to position your unit right under a touchdown, it’s not going to get picked up. And if it doesn’t pick up, it doesn’t deploy.”

“Maybe that’s just an issue with your unit. I can assure you ABBY will succeed where ELLIE failed.”

“Goddamnit,” you snap, tossing the transmitter down.

“Can’t fix stupid,” Joel says. He hits the gas, bringing the truck back to ELLIE. “Let’s load her back up, maybe we can catch the second cell.”

Pack loaded once more, you return to the cab. Joel is about to put the park in drive when you place a hand over his chest.

“Do you see what I see?” You ask.

Joel watches the twister, then Marlene’s team. He grabs the radio.

“Marlene, listen to me. That monster is going to shift and if it does, you’re in the path of destruction and that base is too wide for you to get out of there. You have to hang back now.”

“Radar isn’t showing a shift. I’m not missing this chance,” Marlene replies.

“You gotta look at the funnel action, too. Not just the radar. You’re goin’ to get yourself killed!”

“Clear this channel, Joel. I’ve got work to do.”

“Fuck!” Joel snaps.

Sure enough, the cyclone shifts its path, a minute change with dire consequences for Marlene and her team. The twister barrels toward the caravan, vehicles lifting from the ground.

“Oh my god,” you whisper, bringing a hand up to cover your mouth.

“I know,” he says. His throat bobs around a pained swallow. “We did what we could.”

Joel switches the radio back to your team’s channel, a flurry of panicked voices filling the cab. Maria’s voice snaps your name.

“Do you read me? The second cell has organized, five miles east moving north along 80.”

“Copy that,” you say as Joel drives in her suggested direction. “What’s it looking like?”

“Too soon to tell but the cloud base is massive.”

Joel drives parallel to Maria’s path suggestion, racing to get ahead of the storm. The funnel begins to form, dropping down from the restless clouds. It’s one of the biggest you’ve seen, more of a column of wind than a tapered cyclone. The strength of it grows as it hits the warm air, touching down with a contact point as wide as the funnel base.

“Wind speed is measuring at an estimated 270 miles per hour. We’ve found ourselves an F5,,” Maria says. “She’s slow, but strong. Movement only measuring at ten miles per hour, still heading east.”

Joel changes direction, heading towards the storm from the back, rather than trying to get ahead of it.

“ELLIE needs an anchor,” you remind him.

“I know,” he says, looking over at you. “I’m giving her one.”

“We’re using the truck?”

“You got a better idea?”

“No, no, go ahead. Can’t wait to explain this one to insurance.” You unbuckle your seatbelt and take the radio one more time. “We’re sending the truck up with ELLIE. If this works, get ready for the best data in history.”

“Roger that,” Tess replies. “Ready for the feed.”

Another mile ahead, Joel gets the truck speed up to fifty miles per hour before setting the cruise control. He unbuckles his seat belt and you follow suit, throwing the passenger door open and holding onto the grab handle.

“One,” Joel shouts. “Two!”

“Three!” You finish, jumping from the cab. You hit the ground hard, rolling through your landing, the air punched from your lungs. When you’ve caught your breath, you get yourself on your hands and knees, frantically searching for Joel.

He’s kneeling in the road, watching as the truck continues to barrel towards the twister. You crawl to him and he pulls you close, an arm around your waist to hold you up beside him.

“Go, go, go!” He shouts.

The sound of brakes squealing has you looking back over your shoulder to see your team has arrived. They gather behind you, Tess snapping photos at rapid speeds, Tommy recording video, and Maria’s eyes glued to her computer. You look ahead, just in time to watch the truck disappear into the swirling mass of debris.

Everyone is silent for a long moment, waiting. Watching. Hoping.

“I’m getting a read!” Maria shouts. “She’s up! ELLIE is flying!”

“Oh my god,” you murmur. “Joel, we did it.”

“You did it, baby,” he says.

The twister doesn’t last long. Its power wanes, the cyclone breaking up and retreating back into the sky. You have no idea where your truck has landed, but you don’t care. You and Joel stand up, your legs shaky from the rush of adrenaline. He takes your face in his hands, pulling you into a kiss.

“You owe me one hundred dollars, Tommy!” Tess shouts.

Joel pulls away with a laugh. “What did I tell you about bettin’ against me?”

“Does this mean you’re back?” Maria asks.

The arm around your waist tightens, pulling you closer.

“Yeah,” he says, smiling. “I’m back.”

#joel miller x reader #joel miller #joel miller fic #joel miller x female reader #joel miller smut #joel miller fanfiction #joel miller x you #joel tlou #no use of y/n #joel x reader #joel miller fanfic #joel miller tlou #joel the last of us #tlou hbo #the last of us hbo #joel miller the last of us #the last of us fic #the last of us fanfiction #pedro pascal character fanfic

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danny-chase · 1 year

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Not to obsess over Dick and Tim's brotherly relationship again but the way Tim time and time again sees Dick at his lowest and still falls into the childlike hero worship makes me chew on cardboard. Tim was there on Dick's failed wedding day, he was there in the aftermath of Dick being passed over for the mantle in Batman: Prodigal, Dick told Tim about his percieved failure with Two-Face, Tim had to pull Dick off the Joker after he murdered him, watched him apparently quit the hero game after War Games, and after all of that still has complete faith in Dick. It's that moment as a toddler cemented in Tim's head, watching Dick perform as a Flying Grayson, but also all those small moments years later, when he needed someone to talk to and Dick picked up the phone when he called, the promises of never letting anything happen to him, and the gift of one of the original Robin costumes, the consistency and the certainty, the fooling around and goofing off, and Dick proclaiming Tim his brother years before Bruce adopted either of them as sons.

#anyways I'm just forever screaming about them #dick grayson #tim drake #batfam #momo don't look #I'm forever salty that fanon gets their relationship so wrong :/

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arminsumi · 7 months

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📂 GOJO さとる [2]

↺ back to library | Other m.list

— 🔞 'Cause I'm Sagittarius

Birthday boy sex! You're the gift he's unwrapping :)

— 🔞 I could do this for hours

Making a cheeky comment leads to a long, steamy session in the bedroom with your husband, who's got a point to prove

— When is daddy coming home ?

You're at home with your little girl, dialing your husband's number over and over but he doesn't pick up.

— I want to kiss you : MASTERLIST / original / one / two / three

You and Satoru falling in love despite a language barrier.

— Sakura

You're married into the Gojo clan, whose prodigal son is afflicted with the Hanahaki disease. Satoru needs you to reciprocate his love to overcome it.

— Breakfast fluff

Waking up to Gojo making breakfast and fussing over the kids on a typical Sunday

— 🔞 Shibuya Fling ft. Enemy!Gojo

Enemy Gojo having fun with his favorite toy enemy in Shibuya!

— Running in a downpour to give you an umbrella...?

— 🔞 The Horniest

— 🔞 Professor Gojo

— 🔞 Who is she?

A Kyoto student gives the Six Eyes a run for his money during the tournament. Are they really fighting or just flirting?

— Camcorder memories

— 🔞 He's got a ring on his finger

— "I'm your baby boy, right?"

— The spring I met you

— 🔞 Horny breeding drabble

Please do not copy this layout.

#gojo #gojo satoru #gojo x reader

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kat-rose-griffith · 1 year

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Don’t mind me I’m just rewatching prodigal son and getting furious all over again that it was canceled and no one picked it up despite how groundbreaking unique and artistic it was on every level, but no they’d rather reboot the same dull bull shit that’s already been made over and over again than do anything worth anything at all… absolute fucking bull shit

#prodigal son #Harry Potter and twilight can get remade into hell when no one wants it but prodigal son can’t even get a couple more seasons fuck right off #and yet I still hold my breath in hopes that someone might pick it up

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shakespeareanwannabe · 2 months

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As You Wish, Chapter 6

Summary: When arriving at Camp Silver Star, Abby Floyd was anticipating a summer of adventure with an ocean separating her from the three people she loved most: her mom, her Uncle Bob and her Aunt Natasha. But after a run in with Charlie Seresin, an extremely familiar looking and irritating camper in a different cabin, her summer plans take a turn that neither girl ever could have expected.

Potential Trigger Warnings: reader's children are described as being blond with green eyes because genetics are wild and Jake's genes are strong, reader is canonically Bob's sister (but biological relation is never discussed), reader goes by Buttercup and is tattooed, angst, sadness, reference to divorce, kids doing sneaky things, references to babies, swearing, references to the hospital

Sharp Memorial Hospital, almost 12 years ago

The skies were painted shades of lilac and rose, golden hues dancing just above the horizon as the sun played peekaboo with the clouds, not quite willing to give up the daylight just yet. Jake watched through the small window in the private hospital room, two small, warm weights resting against his bare chest. His wife of less than a year slept soundly in the uncomfortable hospital bed next to him.

Bob and Natasha had left a few hours before to get dinner, the WSO arriving the second he was invited to meet his new nieces, his partner following close behind. The two were never far from each other, and Jake knew that they preferred it that way.

“Knock, knock…”

Jake looked up and immediately rolled his eyes. Under his arms, Javy had two massive teddy bears, one pink and one purple. Behind him, Rooster stood with a bundle of balloons, looking like he’d rather be holding anything else.

“Hey fellas,” Jake whispered.

“Jesus, Hangman, don’t you ever put on a shirt?” Rooster scoffed playfully.

“It’s called skin to skin contact, dipshit. It’s supposed to be good for them,” he retorted, shifting Abby (or was it Charlie?) in his arms as she cooed softly.

“Easy with the language there, papa bear,” Javy laughed, depositing the two bears beside the side table and moving to stand behind Jake’s chair. “You’re gonna have to watch the swearing with these two little angels around.”

Jake chuckled softly. “Yeah, I know. Buttercup’s already given me sh—lip for it.”

“That’s why I love that girl,” Rooster nodded. “She knows how to keep Bagman in line.”

“Just for that, Javy gets to hold them first,” Jake cocked an eyebrow at his friend and rival.

“But there’s two of ‘em,” Rooster complained. “Why should I have to wait?”

“Because I’m his best friend? Because you can’t keep your mouth shut? Because I’m superior in every way?” Javy laughed, tugging the other chair in the room over and plopping down. “Alright, little ladies, come to Uncle Javy!”

“Better pick just one, or the Prodigal Son over there is gonna start pouting,” Jake smirked in Rooster’s direction, cradling his daughters closer when he flipped him off. “I can give you neither of them,” he reminded.

Rooster huffed. “Fine. Just gimme.”

Jake handed Charlie (it was definitely Charlie, he remembered now: Charlie was on his left side because her name has an L in it) over to Javy, who immediately started cooing at the infant as he cradled her head in his big hand.

“Hey there, girlie,” he whispered to the sleeping infant. “I’m your Uncle Javy, and we are gonna drive your old man nuts together. You just wait until you’re a little older and I’ll teach you all the different ways to make the vein in his forehead pop.”

“I regret everything,” Jake muttered, handing Abby over to Rooster. “Watch her head, man. Hold her like a football.”

“I know how to hold a baby, Bagman,” Rooster gripped, looking slightly awkward as he cradled the newborn.

“Coulda fooled me,” Jake returned, standing with a groan and pulling his shirt on. “Don’t hold her like you’re afraid of her, dumbass.”

“Dude, she’s like…fresh,” Rooster grumbled, tucking Abby a little closer to his body. “I’ve never held anything this new before.”

“You get used to it,” a quiet voice yawned behind them.

“Hey mama,” Jake grinned, swooping down to kiss his wife’s forehead. “How you feeling?”

Buttercup groaned and stretched, her joints popping. “Like I just went through 27 hours of labor and pushed two of your giant kids out of a 10-centimeter hole in my body?”

Javy shuddered. “A little graphic, Buttercup.”

“A little accurate, Coyote,” she shot back, leaning down to fiddle with the controls of her bed, raising herself higher. “Anyhow, its time for me to try feeding them again. And, before you ask, no. You’re not allowed to watch,” she glared playfully at Javy and Rooster.

“We have to go?” Javy pouted but handed Charlie back to Jake to deposit in his wife’s arms.

“Sorry, man,” Jake grinned. “But whatever she says, goes. I won’t be arguing with her for a long time after what she just went through.”

Buttercup smiled at him, exhaustion shining in her eyes as she accepted her daughter into her arms. “Thanks, baby,” she whispered. “Rooster? Can we get Abby back please?”

Jake turned to see Rooster standing stock still as he stared down at the sleeping baby. “Do…do I have to?” he whispered.

Jake chuckled. “Who woulda thought that it would only take my daughter to shut down Bradshaw’s attitude?”

Rooster shot him a glare as he handed Abby over to her father. “I’m with Javy…I’m gonna enjoy working with these two to turn that blond hair grey.”

“Sure, Rooster,” Jake laughed, cradling Abby to his chest as he waved them off. “Whatever you say.”

Clifton, Texas, Now

Bright sunlight streamed in through the small gap in the purple curtains, slicing across Abby’s face as she yawned and stretched before sitting up.

It took her a moment to remember where she was. The furniture in her bedroom was supposed to be walnut, not grey. Her window was certainly not east facing, and she did not have that many plaid shirts hanging in her closet. It was only when she heard Rooster’s heavy footsteps above her that she remembered. She was home, technically. Home in Texas, with her father and her uncles, as she had been for the past few days.

Abby’s cheeks ached as a wide smile tugged at her lips. The last few days had been so wonderful. Her dad was everything she ever could have dreamed and more. She’d spent the previous day just hanging out with him in the ranch office, eating sandwiches that Rooster had made for lunch and making each other laugh. The day before that, she’d tagged along with her dad to one of Javy’s football practices. She may not completely understand football yet, but she’d had a great time watching her dad and Javy coach the team of high school players. Every night, she hung out in the kitchen with Rooster, helping him make dinner and prep lunches for the ranch staff and the guests staying in the cabins. Each day had been better than the last, and she couldn’t wait to see how the rest of the week played out.

That day, she knew, would be the best day of all. Her dad had promised to take her out on a trail ride through the forest that bordered one side of the property. He had said that he had something important to talk to her about, and that phrase had sent her heart racing. She didn’t think that he knew about the swap (mostly because Charlie had reassured her in a late-night call that nothing about her dad’s behaviour seemed out of place), but she wondered if maybe he would tell her about her mom and sister. Maybe he was going to share the news that she and Charlie had been waiting to hear from their parents.

Anxious to hear whatever it was that her dad needed to talk to her about, Abby raced to get ready and made her way downstairs, only pausing when she heard an unfamiliar voice in the kitchen.

“But sugar…”

“I know, baby, I’m sorry. But I promised that I’d take Charlie out on a ride today, and I swear, I’m going to tell her today.”

“That’s what you said yesterday. And the day before that. And the day before that,” a high pitched, southern drawl responded, and Abby poked her head around the corner to sneak a peek at whoever was speaking. All she could see was her father, his hands cradling the hips of a tiny woman with bleach blond hair and painted on blue jeans.

“I know, baby,” Jake sighed. “I planned on telling her last night, but she passed out early. And I was definitely going to tell her about you the day before that, but Javy waylaid me and invited us to football practice. Rooster’s been keeping her busy in the kitchen after work too, so it’s been hard to get a moment alone with her.”

“Hard to get a moment alone with your own daughter? In your own house? On your own property?” The pout was clear in the woman’s voice.

“Savannah, don’t start,” Jake sighed again, removing his hands from her hips and turning. Abby pulled her head back around the corner before he could spot her. “You know that Rooster, Javy, and I own the place together. And she’s known them since she was born, so they’re as entitled to spend time with her as I am, especially when she wants to spend time with them.”

“I’m sorry, sugar. I’m just so excited for her to know.”

“I know, baby. Me too. I’ll tell her today, I promise.”

Abby poked her head back around the corner in time to see Jake kiss Savannah, and she felt her heart sink.

Turning on her heel, her feet pounded up the stairs and she launched herself onto her bed, scrambling for her cell phone.

A: Does dad have a girlfriend?

The answer came almost immediately.

C: LOL no he’s got no game

C: Why??? 👀

A: Because there’s a random blond lady hanging out in the kitchen and he’s calling her baby

C: You sure it’s him and not Rooster?

C: Uncle Roo has lots of hookups 🤢

A: Pretty sure I know what he looks like, thanks 🙄

C: You didn’t until a couple of weeks ago, smartypants

A: Thanks for the reminder

A: Are you sure he doesn’t have a girlfriend?

A: He wants to talk to me about something

A: What if it’s her?

A: Charlie?

C: Sorry, gotta go! Mom’s taking me to one of her book signings, and then we’re going to dinner and a show! Good luck!

Abby threw her phone onto the mattress and groaned, watching it bounce.

“Super helpful, sis…” she muttered, burying her head in her hands.

Her dad wanted to talk to her about something, and that something seemed to be a pretty, tiny woman with a grating voice. And, for all of Charlie’s reassurance, they had seemed pretty friendly and familiar with each other in the kitchen. The memory made her stomach churn.

What if he wanted to tell her that he was dating this Savannah lady? What would that do to their plan to make their parents see each other again? They had always known that their parents getting back together was a long shot, but they had hoped. And what if Savannah didn’t want her dad to change the current custody arrangement? What would they do then?

Abby felt her heart crack a little in her chest. She couldn’t imagine going back to the way things had been before, not now that she’d gotten a chance to love her dad and be loved by him in return. Not now that she’d gotten to cook with Rooster and coach with Javy and watch the three men barbecue while she swam in the pool. It was both fresh and familiar, terrifyingly new and heartwarmingly recognizable. She couldn’t go back to live in London, no matter how much she loved it, not when she knew that Seresin Ranch was waiting for her in Texas.

But what if her dad decided that he wanted Savannah more than he wanted her? It would be too much for her to bear.

Abby shook her head. No. That wouldn’t happen. No matter what happened, or why their mom decided to take her, and their dad decided to take Charlie, her dad loved her. She knew that as surely as she knew her own name. Once her dad found out that it was her, not Charlie, he’d want to make sure he saw them both an equal amount of time. He just had to.

A playful knock sounded against her door and her dad stuck his head inside.

“Hey, punk,” he grinned, the lines around his eyes and mouth deepening into crevices that spoke of a lifetime of joy. “You ready to go?”

She grinned back at him, the burden on her heart lifting instantly. Her dad loved her. If she was sure of anything at all, it was of that.

“Yeah, dad. I’m ready.”

Her backpack weighed down with sandwiches, apples, carrots, and enough water to feed a small army, Abby trekked into the stable, where Charlie’s paint mare, Lovebug, was standing, already tacked up. Her dad’s horse, a large grey gelding named Firewall, stood behind her as Jake finished cinching up his saddle.

“Hey, Charlie-girl, you all ready?” he called out, patting Firewall’s flank.

“Yeah, dad. Just give me a second!”

“More than a second, you two,” Rooster called, strolling in behind her. “Dude, there’s an issue with the AC unit in cabin 5. You want me to handle it like normal?”

“Cabin 5? You mean the same cabin that’s been giving us holy hell since they got here?”

Rooster nodded, a large hand reaching out to ruffle her braided hair as he passed her. “That’s the one.”

Jake sighed and rubbed at his forehead under the brim of his white cowboy hat. “Nah, shoot Toni a text and let her know to head in there and double check it. If there’s no issue, she can read them the riot act about wasting our time.”

Rooster grinned. “I wish I could be a fly on the wall for that conversation.”

Abby tuned out their conversation as she slowly approached Lovebug. According to Charlie, the mare was an easy ride, but loyal as all get out to Charlie, never allowing anyone else to mount her. Charlie had gotten her as a gift for her fifth birthday and the mare hadn’t allowed another rider since. Hopefully she looked and smelled enough like Charlie to be able to fool the mare.

“Hey Lovey…” Abby murmured; her eyes lowered as she held one hand out for the mare to sniff. “Easy girl…please let this work…”

The mare’s eyes widened, and her nostrils flared as she anxiously pawed at the soft stable floors and whinnied, tossing her head back and retreating as far as she could, almost bumping Firewall.

“Whoa!”

“What the hell?”

Jake grabbed Firewall’s reins as he surged backwards to grab Firewall’s reins before he could retreat too far. Rooster leapt forward to grab Lovebug’s reins, easing her head down and petting her muzzle gently.

“Charlie, are you okay?” Jake called, clipping Firewall onto a long lead attached to the wall so he wouldn’t wander.

“Y-yeah…I’m okay,” Abby replied softly as her heart sank. She’d known that tricking Charlie’s horse was going to be one of the more difficult parts of their plan, but she’d never thought that the horse would react like that to her. If she couldn’t get Lovebug on her side, their plan was as good as done.

Rooster clipped Lovebug onto the wall and stared between horse and would-be rider curiously. “I’ve never seen her react to you that way before, kid. Anyone else, sure. But not you.”

“M-maybe she smells Champ on me,” she offered weakly, remembering how Charlie had taken a shine to the palomino at camp. “I…I don’t think I’ve washed this shirt since coming back from camp.”

Jake approached, cautiously patting Lovebug on her withers as he passed her. “Could be. Six weeks is also a long time for her not to see you. Maybe she’s trying to readjust. She’s always been a sensitive horse. Here…let’s try again.”

Calmly, Jake took Abby’s hand in his and slowly approached the mare, extending their hands for her to smell. Cramming her other hand in her pocket, Abby anxiously crossed her fingers and held her breath.

With a twitch and a nervous tapping on the floor, Lovebug extended her graceful neck and sniffed the tips of Abby’s fingers. After a tense minute, Lovebug released a long, almost weary sigh and nibbled on Abby’s fingertips with her velvety lips.

“There,” Jake said happily, releasing Abby after gently squeezing her shoulder. “She just needed a minute to forgive you for leaving her for six weeks.”

“Yeah…” Rooster murmured, staring at Abby and Lovebug with a piercing gaze. “I guess that’s it.”

“Thanks for the assist, Rooster,” Jake called over his shoulder, unclipping Firewall and leading him out into the bright sunlight. “We’ll see you around noon, alright?”

“Bye Uncle Roo,” Abby waved timidly, all too aware of the way his heavy gaze rested on her.

The green grass swayed in the cool summer breeze as the horses strolled among the trees, birds singing a sweet song as they flitted from branch to branch.

Everything was perfect…or it would have been if not for the burden on Abby’s mind. The image of her dad kissing that blond lady was running through her mind on a loop, burning itself behind her retinas, churning the scarce remains of her breakfast in her stomach.

“You okay over there, Charlie girl?”

Abby glanced quickly at her dad before turning her eyes back down to the pommel of her saddle. She’d been grateful that the trail was wide enough to ride side by side when they’d set out, but now she was wishing that it was narrower.

“Yeah,” she sighed quietly. “Why?”

“You’re never this quiet on a trail ride. Usually, you’re talking my ear off about something or another. That’s kinda why I wanted to go on this ride with you. Rooster and Javy have kind of been monopolizing your time since you got back from camp. I wanted some daddy-daughter time before you go back to school and realize how uncool your old man is.”

“I thought you said you were always cool,” she sniffed.

“Oh, I am,” Jake grinned at her. “I’m very cool. But 12-year-old girls don’t always recognize that.”

“I’m not 12 yet,” she mumbled.

“Trust me, I know and I’m very grateful for that. You turning 12…” Jake sighed. “I can feel the grey hair popping up.”

When she didn’t laugh at his joke, they lapsed into silence. All that had happened that morning had left a sour taste in her mouth and, try as she might, she couldn’t seem to shake it.

It’s not that she didn’t want her dad to be happy. She did, just like she’d always wanted her mom to be happy. But she couldn’t help feeling like she’d just gotten her dad back, that her dad owed it to her and Charlie to give their mom a chance. They deserved to be a family, especially after the almost 12 years of not even knowing about the very existence of the other half of their family.

“Do you remember the day I was born?” she asked suddenly, looking over at him.

“Of course I do, darlin’. Hard to forget the best day of my life.”

“Then you remember my mom?”

Jake reined Firewall in sharply, urging his horse to a stop as he stared at her. “Charlie, of course I do. Where is this coming from?”

“You never talk about her,” she replied simply. “I’m almost 12, dad. I think I deserve to know about the woman who gave birth to me.” She watched as his Adam’s apple worked in his throat, his eyes skimming over the terrain, the sky, anywhere but over in her direction. “What, was she not a good person? A one-night stand? What?” she pushed, knowing none of it was true but the image of Savannah dancing in her mind was turning her anxiousness into anger.

“Charlie, your mom…” Jake sighed, his free hand rubbing at his eyes under the brim of his Stetson as he lapsed back into silence. Abby clenched the reins in her hand tightly as the silence dragged on, but she refused to push. Even though it had only been a few days, she knew Jake well enough to know that he would fight back when he felt cornered. It was the military man inside him, the pilot who knew how to stay on objective, and if his objective was to keep his daughter in the dark, Abby knew that not even God himself would be able to convince Jake to change directive.

After what felt like hours, she peeked over at her father to find him staring down at the reins in his hand as he chewed on the inside of his cheek. He looked…old. Now, Jake Seresin rarely looked his age; the deepening lines near his mouth and eyes, and the sparse sparkle of grey that decorated his thick hair and trim beard like tinsel being the only things that really gave the impression that Jake Seresin was anything other than eternally young. Charlie had shown her photos of her father in his flight suit, in his dress whites, in his khaki uniform, and the man in front of her looked like a shadow of that man. He wore no confident smile, no cocky raised eyebrow, no green eyes sparkling with a challenge. He just looked…sad, and Abby felt the last smoldering ashes of her anger sizzle out.

Reaching out carefully, she grabbed her dad’s wrist, and he looked up in surprise, like he’d forgotten she was there.

“Never mind,” she whispered. “I…I’m sorry.”

Before her eyes, her father transformed, building a cocky smile and heaving it into place. “Don’t be sorry, punk. You’re allowed to be interested in your mom. But right now, all you need to know is that she loved you something fierce and that things between me and her just…didn’t work out. Boring adult stuff that you don’t need to worry about, alright?”

Abby sighed. “Alright. Thanks, dad.”

And suddenly, he looked like he was on the right side of ageless again, flipping his grip to squeeze her hand. “Hey…I know I should tell you about her, and I promise I will eventually because you deserve to know. But for now, don’t worry about it, okay?”

“Okay. Thank you.”

He squeezed her hand once more before releasing it and urging Firewall forward, Lovebug following suit easily.

“There is something we do need to talk about though,” Jake added in a quiet voice as they crested the ridge they were climbing and came to a beautiful lookout, the ranch and all its grounds laid out below them.

Abby’s blood froze in her veins even as the sun shone down upon them, and the memory of the conversation in the kitchen hit her full force. Savannah had been pushing her dad to talk to her about something, something important, something that left a dark feeling in the pit of her stomach.

“I’ve been meaning to talk to you about it since you got home, but you’re a pretty popular kid around here.” Jake sighed. “Listen, Charlie girl, you know you’ll always be my girl, but…I mean, it happened pretty quickly, so it’s not like I meant to keep it from you…I just…”

Blinking against the harsh sunlight, Abby zeroed in on a truck just pulling into the ranch and the words flew out of her mouth before she could stop them.

“Uncle Javy’s back from practice! Race you to him!”

Before Jake could react, Abby kicked Lovebug into action and the mare surged forward, following the steadily declining path down the ridge back to the ranch.

“Charlie!”

She could hear the rapid hoofbeats of Firewall as he galloped after them, but she didn’t slow or turn to look where her father was. Ducking low on Lovebug’s neck, she urged the mare even faster, half wishing she could run her all the way back to London and her mother’s loving arms. She had been so deliriously happy the past few days, getting to know Seresin Ranch and the men who ran it, the men who were her family by birth. But now, with this Savannah person encroaching on her newfound happiness, she found that she missed her home more than ever. She wanted both worlds, Texas and London, her mom and her dad, and she didn’t want to share it with anyone but Charlie.

So, they ran, each hoofbeat bringing her closer and closer to the sanctuary she had come to call home.

After years of ranch living, Lovebug seemed to know the unwritten rules of the land and slowed to a canter, then a trot, and finally to a walk as they passed by the paddocks and came to a stop beside a red truck branded with the Seresin Ranch logo, Javy pulling a gym bag from the bed as they finally came to a stop.

“Whoa, girlie! Where’s the fire?” Javy exclaimed as she dismounted and bounced towards him, all too aware of the cantering hoofbeats following her.

“Nothing, Javy! How was practice? Do you need a hand with your bag? Do—”

“Charlotte Delta Seresin, what the hell was that?” Jake huffed as he hopped down from Firewall.

Abby felt herself flush. “I…I saw Javy, and—”

“I know, but I was trying to talk to you!” Jake sighed, handing Firewall’s reins to a ranch hand who had scurried out of the stable. “I’ve been trying to talk to you since you got home, but we keep getting interrupted. Baby, this is important.”

Javy groaned. “Jake, man, I told you that—”

“Coyote, all due respect, I’ve heard your opinion on the matter, but this is between me and my daughter,” Jake shot a look at his wingman, a look that clearly told Javy to stay out of it, but Javy refused.

“I know, man, but—”

“What on earth is goin’ on out here?” a sugary sweet voice called from the back door of the ranch house, and Abby watched as both her father and Javy bit back a groan.

“Can’t a man have five minutes of privacy around here?” she heard Jake mutter to himself before turning and pasting a wide smile onto his face. “Nothing, Savannah. I was just trying to talk to Charlie when she spotted Javy.”

“You mean you still haven’t talked to her?” Savannah pouted as she crossed the yard to stand a few feet away from them. “Sugar, you promised…”

Abby bit back a giggle as Javy rolled his eyes behind her back.

“Savannah, I know I promised, but this is a delicate situation and I want to ease my daughter into it.”

“Why is my kitchen a mess?” Rooster hollered, stomping across the yard to join the mini congregation that had now formed.

Jake rolled his head and groaned. “Five minutes…I swear, all I need is five minutes.”

“Oh, sorry, Brad,” Savannah smiled saccharinely at him. “I was just bakin’ a cake to celebrate my welcome into the family.”

“It’s Bradley. Brad-ley.”

“Savannah…” Jake hissed in warning, his eyes flashing.

“I’m sorry, Jakey, but I’m just so excited to be marrying you!”

In an instant, everything seemed to freeze. Abby could see her Javy moving, could see her father’s lips moving as he spoke to Savannah, but it all seemed to be in slow motion.

She had expected to learn about a relationship, to have her father come to her about the new girl he was seeing and discussing it with her. But marriage? Her stomach churned and her vision tunneled, red seeping in on the edges of the landscape. Sound returned with a roar, and she found her lips moving.

“Marrying you?” she was finally able to choke out. “You’re getting married?”

Jake sighed and turned his back on Savannah, who was still smiling despite the dressing down she had surely received from Jake.

“This isn’t how I wanted you to find out, but…yes. Savannah and I are getting married.” He reached a hand towards her with a bittersweet smile.

Every muscle in her body trembling, she stepped back from her father. “How could you?” she whispered.

Jake’s eyes slid closed, and he crouched down to her level. “Charlie, I know this will be an adjustment, but—”

“An adjustment?” she barked out a laugh. “You think that this is an adjustment? Springing some random woman on me and saying she’s going to be your wife?”

“And your stepmother, honey,” Savannah added, smiling brightly at her from over Jake’s shoulder.

“Like hell you will be!” she snapped, the slight British lilt to her natural voice almost slipping through the cracks. “You won’t even tell me about my real mom, but you think that you can just shove whatever woman looks your way into her spot in my life? That’s crap!” Abby dashed her eyes before stepping back again. “Is she even old enough to be my stepmom? Because she looks like she would’ve been a kid herself when I was born!”

Javy and Rooster both ducked their heads, their shoulders shaking slightly, but Abby could take no joy in their amusement, not with the betrayal stinging in her heart and the look on her father’s face.

“Charlotte Delta Seresin, I taught you better than to speak to me like that,” her father snapped, raising himself up to his full height and staring her down, shaking off Savannah’s hand as she tried to grab his arm.

“You didn’t—” Abby cut herself off before the rest of her sentence could escape. “You didn’t raise me at all.” That’s what she had wanted to say. This man, the man she had wanted to meet for her entire life, hadn’t raised her at all, either by accident or by design. He had left her and her mom behind, taken Charlie, and never looked back. It wasn’t fair. None of this was fair. “You didn’t think about me at all, dad,” she whispered, tears choking back any other words she may have wanted to share before she turned and fled, racing towards the stables.

Jake stepped forward, ready to chase after her, his heart sinking in his chest, but a firm hand on his shoulder stopped him.

“Just leave her be, man,” Rooster sighed, his eyes following his niece over the landscape. “She’ll come around.”

“Will she?” Javy scoffed. “Way to break the news, man.”

“I…I should talk to her,” Jake murmured, all too aware of Savannah retreating back into the house. “I should explain.”

“Let me talk to her first,” Rooster offered. “Let me test the waters before you boil yourself alive.”

Running a hand over the back of his neck, Jake finally nodded. “Alright. Thanks, man.”

“Don’t thank me, man. Not yet.”

Abby huddled in the office in the stable, the door locked tight against her and the outside world. A wave of shame washed over her as she remembered how she had spoken to her father. She never spoke to any adult that way, her mum had taught her better. Her mum…

Abby’s heart clenched with homesickness. She ached for her mother’s arms to wrap around her, for the sound of her Uncle Bob’s laugh or Auntie Nat’s teasing.

She fumbled for her cell phone, tugging it clumsily out of her pocket before opening the little green app and dialing the now familiar long-distance number.

“Hello?”

“Dad’s getting married!” she nearly shouted down the receiver, despair coating every sound she uttered. “He got engaged to some blond woman who looks like she’s half his age!”

“Abby?” Charlie yawned. “What are you talking about?”

“I told you! The blond woman from this morning is wearing a rock the size of my head and hanging off of dad! She said that they’re getting married, and he confirmed it!”

“Wh…what? No! It…it’s not possible!”

“Except that it is! He told me it was happening whether I liked it or not!” Silence greeted her claim, and she felt that red hot rage start to creep in again. “Would you say something, please?”

“What do you want me to say, Abby?” Charlie whispered, and Abby could hear the tears in her voice. “Dad’s getting married, and he didn’t bother to even introduce her to me.”

Abby sighed, the anger dissipating as quickly as it came on. “I know…”

“But he loves mom!” Charlie groaned. “I know he does! You don’t shut down that often about a person if you don’t care about them!”

“He shut down on me today too,” Abby agreed. “But it’s not like I can just tell him that he loves her. He would never go for that.”

“Can you find something to prove it?” Charlie’s desperation was clear. “Something to remind him?”

“Like what?”

“I dunno…a photo? Their marriage license? Anything that might remind him of her?”

“Where would I even find something like that?”

“In the office in the stable.”

Abby looked around. “I’m there right now, I don’t see anything.”

“In the safe under his desk. Or in the filing cabinet. I don’t know the code to the safe or where he keeps the key to the cabinet though.”

Abby sighed. “I’ll figure it out. I’ll let you know what I find.”

“Thanks…I’m sorry you have to deal with that while I’m having fun with mum.”

“It’s okay. Do…do you think mum still loves dad?”

“Abby, all her adult books are about a military guy falling in love with the woman of his dreams and the obstacles that keep them apart.” Abby could practically hear the eye roll in her sister’s voice. “She either loves him or she doesn’t know what else to write about.”

“What if you’re wrong?”

“I…I don’t want to think about that. Find proof. I’ll find proof too. Then we’ll tell them about the switch.”

“Okay.”

“Okay. Good luck.”

“You too,” Abby hung up the phone with a sigh before turning to face the little black safe that was tucked under her father’s desk.

“Alright, you…what could your combination be?”

She cycled through the obvious choices first: Jake’s birthday, her and Charlie’s birthday, her father’s military employee number, her great-grandfather’s number. With a wish in her heart, she even tried her mother’s birthday, but no such luck. So, she tried less obvious combinations. Javy’s birthday was a no-go, as was Rooster’s. Her grandmother and grandfather were also a bust. And it turned out that Jake Seresin was not the type of guy to use 1-2-3-4-5-6 as his combination.

“C’mon…c’mon, what are you?” Abby grumbled.

“Try 02-14-19.”

The sudden voice made her shriek and lurch away from the safe, turning to see her uncle chuckling from the doorway.

“Uncle Roo…you frightened me!”

“I frightened you, huh?” He sauntered forward, kicking the door shut behind him. “See, two months ago you would have said ‘You scared the crap out of me’ or ‘I’m gonna get you back for that, Chicken!’ Not, you frightened me.” He perched himself on the edge of the desk. “My girl Charlie doesn’t talk like that. She knows the words, smart as a whip that kid is, but being around a bunch of air jockeys on a ranch didn’t exactly lend itself to 20-point words like frighten.”

She felt the blood rush to her cheeks. “W-what do you mean? I’m Charlie. Did you hit your head or something?”

“See, now that is something Charlie would say. You almost had me. But Lovebug doesn’t shy away from Charlie. Never has, never will. And Javy could almost make Charlie an assistant coach with how much she helps him out with his playbook…but not you. You don’t seem to know the first thing about football.” He fixed her with a stern look. “You’re not Charlie…are you, Abby?”

The dam inside her—the one that had been holding back all her fears and anger about her father’s surprise engagement, and the ache of her homesickness—broke and the tears burst forth. Quickly, she buried her face in her hands and sobbed.

She heard a heavy sigh before she was wrapped in a hug, strong arms pulling her against a lean body.

“S’alright, kid. I’m not gonna tell anyone.”

She pulled back slightly, trying to meet Rooster’s eyes but he kept them firmly on the ceiling. “R-really?”

He shrugged. “I figure you and Charlie have your reasons for this insane switch. Where the hell did you two meet, anyway?”

“Camp…” she hiccupped. “P-Penny invited both of us at the same time.”

Rooster sighed, but there was the slight twang of a chuckle hidden inside it. “Yeah, that sounds like Penny. She was pretty pushy about me mentioning the camp to your dad. Shoulda known she was pulling a Maverick level stunt.”

“Y-you’re not mad?”

“Nah…” he shrugged, releasing her and sitting back on the edge of the desk again while Abby straightened in the desk chair. “Just, tell me one thing. Is Charlie okay?”

Abby nodded. “She’s in London with my mum, Uncle Bob and Auntie Nat. She’s having a grand time.”

Rooster nodded thoughtfully. “So, what is the plan?”

Abby bit her lip. “Get to know our other parent, tell them about the switch at the end of the week, force them to meet to switch us back, and have them fall in love with each other again so that we don’t have to live with an ocean in between us again?”

Rooster sighed; his eyes drifting shut as his head rolled back. “Jesus…”

“Are…are you going to tell dad?”

She held her breath as his eyes opened again, this time turning to her with a fixed determination that sent a shiver down her spine.

“No…I’m not.”

“Really? But…why?”

Rooster shrugged. “One, because making your dad’s life a living hell is still one of the greatest pleasures of my life. Two, I always thought that the way your parents handled the divorce was wrong. Hell, I think they never should have gotten divorced at all. And three, Savannah pisses me off and I don’t think I’ll be able to keep living here if your dad actually goes through with it.”

“So…what does that mean for me?”

“It means, I’m gonna help you. And so will Javy.”

Tags List: @mamachasesmayhem @jessicab1991 @waltermis @buckysteveloki-me @allepaula @yuckosworld @seresinsbrat @ahopelessromanticwritersworld @kim-stark @cierra715 @high-speed-r @helpmepleasethanks @starsrfun @tomanyfandomstrash @averyhotchner @the-blueatlas @princessliz86 @dashes-dizzydisaster @a-girl-who-loves-disney @boiolay @djs8891 @torimcc @tgmreader @kmc1989 @landpiranha-blog @sydthekid1518 @lynnevanss @hello7442 @mackenzieblair @minejungwoo @starset21 @ssa-sadboi @tgmavericklover @dempy @rockbottomphilosophies-blog @lovemarvelousfics @starkleila @magical-spit @whatislovevavy @simplyreading96 @vivalas-vega @itsdesiree86 @inky-sun @books-are-escapes @abaker74 @devil-angel-winchester @mrs-perfectly-fine

#jake seresin x reader #jake hangman seresin #jake seresin #top gun maverick #top gun fanfiction #parent trap au #glen powell #as you wish fic #jake hangman fic #jake hangman x reader #jake hangman imagine #jake hangman x you

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nanamimizz · 7 months

Text

𝐂𝐇. 𝐅𝐈𝐕𝚬: 𝐒𝐌𝚬𝐋𝐋

tags: wc - 2.9k, fem reader, cleric reader, reader worships lathander, features the battle against cazador, nudity, reader washes astarion after the hardest day of his life, gore and violence mentioned. finally a love confession !!let me know if i missed something !

synopsis: after the defeat of cazador, you are there to pick up the pieces and astarion finally learns how it is you smell so sweet.

taglist: @allright @ghostinvenus @ghostbeam @dottores @evergreenren let me know if you would like to be added !

taglist: it is with a heavy heart that this series comes to a close as this is the final addition to the five senses ! fear not i will still be writing for astarion and the rest of the baldur's gate when the opportunity presents itself! thank you all for your love and support for this series it has meant the world to me ! see you all on the other side of kinktober(jjk)!

Never had you been further away from Lanthander’s blessings than now, deep in the underground palace of Cazador Szarr. The brick, stone and marble all reeked of blood and decay. Echoing down each hall was the squeaks of rats, the scattering of their claws and the drips of water from the pipes. This is undeniably an ugly place - Astarion peeks at you from the corner of his eyes as you are all led to the great hall of where the ritual is to be held. A frown tugs at his features at the sight of your stiff posture and frightened eyes.

He would have never wanted you here, to bear witness to the ugliness of his past. Astarion thinks of you on the road - from the woods to the springs where you would pray to bless the day, you belong where the sun shines and the water runs clear. His boot steps into a puddle of watered down sewage and remains of whichever poor sod was once there. The growl that pulls from his lips can’t be contained, and it bounces off the walls until the party stands in a room he remembers all too well.

It was where he was held down as runes were carved into his flesh, his screams so loud he wondered if he almost deafened himself that day.

Astarion can feel it, the all too familiar weight of his master’s presence, the thread in between his eyes that pluck with the command he has over him as he stands before a great hall as his fellow brothers and sisters pinned in the air. Each step feels heavy and with each breath he takes, the smell of this place digs him deeper into the “pathetic memories'’ of his past - his words not yours. Astarion feels something warm being pressed against his hand, red eyes digging down to see that it’s your hand. You, soft and warm, that the scent of the sun clings to even here, even in this place. You don’t go to touch him, in fact all you do is let the back of your knuckles graze against his and it’s enough.

Astarion is almost tempted to stop walking altogether, to tug you into an embrace as to bury his nose into your hair and let the smell of it erase all memory of this place. But it is not to be as the great Cazador Szarr is there all proud in his putridness. His eyes stay focused on Astarion - which he is thankful for, he doesn’t want your image to be tainted by the visage of the vampire master of Baldur’s Gate. His staff glitters in unnatural light, hair sleek and immaculately dressed, he addresses him and you and the rest of the party.

“Who stands before us? Is this truly our prodigal son?” Voice high and mocking,as it was then it is now, all it does is make Astarion scowl and lean forward in clear agitation.

“Do not slouch before me boy! Have you no respect for yourself?” A similar scowling look paints the vampire lord's face, his voice now rough with utter detestment at the sight of one of his seven creations. Astarion feels his lips being peeled back at the sound of his grating voice. It grinds and creeks, the snow-haired vampire thinks you’ve spoiled him by the soft way you speak to him that he can’t stand when he has to listen to others. Which is why his handsome face is scrunched into a venomous scowl as his master continues.

“Look at you, crawling back after abandoning your family. You should be begging for our forgiveness.”

You stay back, but he can see your hand twitch against the pummel of the legendary mace - The Blood of Lathander. When he says the word, Astarion knows you will give the vampire lord a punishment worse than death for the wrath of the sun is not to be trifled with. And it is with that assurance he scoffs at the words that ring through the hall.

“Forgiveness? You’ve never forgiven anything.” The words are cancerous in his tongue as he spits them out. “Every mistake, every slip was punished!” Memories too painful to speak are spoken into every syllable of the words that leave from his lips. Feeding off of rats. Trapped in a coffin. The knife in his back and his screams echoing off these very walls. Retching up blood and dirt.

“I strove in perfection in all things - even those imperfect as you,” Cazador sneered. “A pity you amounted to so little despite my efforts.”

“No! No, fuck you and fuck everythig you’ve ever done to me.” Whatever Astarion wanted to say was caught off by you speaking in turn, your voice as soft as the wind in his hair when he first awoke to the sun warming his skin. Even in this desolate place you are a pillar of strength, a shining beacon so perfectly crafted by the Morninglord.

“We are here for justice. You will pay the ultimate price, by the Morning Lord’s blessing.” You speak, every word promising a radiant, golden death. The sneer of Cazador’s face only becomes more severe.

“I will not speak to cattle. This is between me and the boy.” Astarion hisses, tense at how Cazador dared to look at you, to speak to you and to call you such a thing. Fangs bared and eyes like slits, nothing could have filled the vampire you love with anger, bitter like bile as he rushed at his master. A swear on his lips, his fists raised, the fight began with the room doused in red light - the red of the Hells. From where Astarion was raised and pinned in the air the room was filled with the flames of Avernus but none did burn as bright as the radiance from your mace or from your blessed spells.

There was a bitter satisfaction to the victory of the battle, to being on his own two feet as he dragged Cazador out of the coffin and threw him to the blood covered marble. To see the creature of his nightmares squirm so pathetically, like a worm in the dirt, brought a smile to his face, one that fell when you pleaded with him not to take the power that so sweetly presented itself to him. Red eyes looked at you, truly looked at you and found that even like this, in this disgusting place he wants you.

Astarion thinks of you, all of you.

The smiles, the jokes and the way you have trusted him all this time since you first met. You’ve always hoped for him, saw the best and gave him that in return. Never did you use him, never did you see him as an object - something to be used. How could he do to you what you were always warned he would do? No, he can’t bring himself to do it, to use the souls of his siblings and the unfortunate souls brought here by his hand. The radiance of your heart has touched him, changed him and molded him from a spawn to a man. Asatrion will not deny himself, indulge himself in the pleasure of ramming his knife into his master’s gut again and again but he does so in part of a greater plan. To become the man you’ve always believed him to be. Sooner than he could believe his master lies beneath him, covered in blood and his own organs cut to shreds to the point he could not recognise his liver from his stomach.

The weight of it all, of his decision brings him to his knees and among the stains of blood on his face the silver of his tears are like moonbeams on his pale face. Once again, for the final time his cries echo on the walls filled with tragedy, filled with rage, filled with grief. Your touch is a relief, a gentle reprieve from the shitshow of his life, the tough and smooth skin of your palm curving into his shoulder as your thumb rubs back and forth.

His gaze meets your eyes and finds the promise of a golden future, one burning anew if he just returns all that you feel for him. He uses the hand on his shoulder to help stand, to rise rather than fall into the deceptively sweetened path of power and to do what you have done all this time without faltering.

To do the right thing.

The spawn are released, and his siblings off with a warning to live as they please but the consequences are their own now. Cazador’s staff is slick with blood in his palms, the metal cold now with the death of its master and Astarion wonders if his heart is the same now that the burning anger in his heart is quelled by the blood that decorates his hands. Your thumb has not stopped rubbing his shoulder, your palm cupping all that he is and staying there when he turns to his companions - all of them there with pride and understanding on their faces as they congratulate him on his newly taken freedom. Karlach is the most proud, he can see the embers dancing in her hair as she fights the urge to hug him to the point his bones creak and crack.

A smile is tugged at his lips, twitching before dying as the grief and the end come crashing down. Like always you tug him, leading him and the others into the light of the upper city, Astarion looks up at the stars with vague new found delight. Everything is clearer than it once was, now that the weight of the chains have been broken off, and replaced by the spare cloak you have in your pack that you wrap around him oh so gently with a tender smile. You all settle in an inn, and Astarion’s mind is half gone by the time he notices that the room is different - bigger, more ornate with a big washroom. When he asks you only to hum, looking back at him from the corner of your eye as you strip out from your armor.

“It’s been a hard day, I wanted to treat you to something special.” You say, voice soft as the night while you peel off the last leather piece that protects your form. He only blinks softly, confused and delicate in the night like a blushing maiden. Wide red eyes look at you with only confusion as you come closer, outstretching your hand with the gentleness of the dawn and just as warm too. He eyes the scar from across your palm, the one you got from touching the wrong type of plant in the Emerald Grove - a consequence of your terrible case of sticky fingers. The memory makes him smile and he nods, taking your hand and leaving the cloak behind on the bed. You lead him to the washroom and he gapes at the sight of such a huge bathtub. Not made of wood but of proper marble and plain, filled with pleasantly warm water and the scent of lavender wafting off the soapy water. Astarion turns to thank you and is only met with how you look at him, all soft with tenderness and worry lacing through the flecks of color in your iris.

“When did you do this?” His voice is soft, like this is a dream and a wrong move will have him waking up in the cells of the Szarr palace again.

“When you were sitting in the room. I used runes to keep the water warm but you best get in. It won’t last for so long.” You say like it’s no trouble, like doing nice things are as easy as breathing for you but that’s what your nature has been the whole time. Astarion thinks of the time you two had embraced for the first time, how the goodness you see and act upon are not naivety but purposeful and intentful. This, this is a small gift in comparison to all that you have done for him, one that began with your blood and ended with lavender oil.

It almost makes him weep.

“I’ll be outside if you need me, please don’t hesitate to call for me.” You say softly, holding his fingers in a relaxed grip, one that he could so easily break free of when he needs to, when he wants to. Astarion shudders a breath, eyes crinkled under the weight of your goodness; something you’ve been carrying for oh so long he can’t believe you are mortal and not a god of some sort. His fingers tighten to a hold so tight you can’t help but bite the inside of your cheek to stop from gasping out.

“No…please…please stay. I don’t want to be alone.” His voice is soft, filled with so much emotion you understand him completely with a single breath. You confirm that you won’t leave and ask him if he wants you to turn away while he undresses.

Astarion nods and you listen, turning your back and Astarion traces the shades of your hair in the candlelight when you move so fluidly. He is in the tub when you turn back, his scarred back to you as he sighs at the silken feeling of the water against his tired body. You ask if you may wash his hair to rid the snowy curls of the veil of blood that mars them and again he nods in confirmation. Your sleeves are tugged back, rolled at the elbow as you carefully sit outside the tub and scrub at his hair with an all too familiar scented bar of soap.

A sweet silence fills the room, only the burning of the wicks and the splashing of the water when it moves can be heard. It's nice, he thinks, letting his eyes shut as your fingers work tenderly into his scalp with all the care one would use when holding water cupped in between their palms. The suds of the soap are foamy and thick, out of curiosity he sniffs it and realizes when he recognizes the notes of the scent.

Lavender, sunlight and dawn’s dew.

“Did you realize it was my soap?” You ask, voice soft and teasing as you grin from behind him.

You feel him nod and amidst the tragedy of the day there’s a smile tugging at his lips as he turns to look at you with the familiar mischievous shine of his eyes. When he speaks you catch a glint of his fangs, milky in the warm light of the candles and you smile as he speaks to you for the first time since returning from that awful palace.

“I hope you know this means you’ll be running out of the soap twice as fast.”

“I don’t mind that at all.” You hum back, face ever serene as you raise a smaller bucket to douse the warm water through his hair, carefully detangling the curls with your fingers as he turns again to look at you with wide, glittering eyes. There’s a smile on your lips, it grows softly as the setting sun when you reach to swipe at a particular cluster of stubborn suds that do not wish to depart from his alabaster skin. Not that you could blame them, your Astarion is beautiful through and through - you’d have to be dragged to the pits of the 9th Hell before you ever willingly left him.

“I like the idea of you wearing me on your skin all day, for me to embrace you at the end of it only to realize where it is my soap has gone.” You say looking at him so warmly Astarion wonders if he is to melt under your loving gaze. He can’t help but laugh at your words - pale features pinkening from his recent feeding as he lets your words wash over him like the tide on the banks of sand.

“You’ve certainly developed a tongue for sweetness haven’t you?” A weak comeback but it’s all he can think to say back when faced with all the sweetness of how you regard him.

“I’ve had the most impressive of teachers.” You say back, voiced filled with such tenderhearted fondness Astarion can feel warmth fill the points of his ears as he turns his back to you to try to hide how it is he smiles at your exchange. He sighs dramatically, his bones relaxing under the turmoil of the day as his neck bends to the curve of the bath, posture a little more free as if the weight of his choice finally has settled into the cracks Cazador caused.

“Alright enough of the flattery and poetry - I’m still not done with my bath.” Tucking a stray curl away from his brow you lean over to murmur a small “of course Astarion”, in that soft and spoiling tone that never fails to turn him pinker than he’s been in a decade or so. Before you grab either soap or water bucket you lean over to press a kiss, a mere chaste brush of your lips against the skin of his cheek that now smells of your soap; of you.

“I love you. You don’t need to say it back - but let it be known to you.” You say so softly that the bubbles of the soap don’t pop under the weight of your confession. His nose brushes against yours, full lashes wet and clinging to each other as he looks at you - you see the curtains plea back and you see him for what he is.

A man who loves you back, though he can’t utter the words just yet. That’s okay, your smile says - “I’ll just make a bigger batch of soap next time.”

#lamb.writes #astarion x reader #astarion x mc #astarion x tav #astarion x you #baldur's gate 3 x reader #bg3 x reader

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dickgraysonsbitch · 6 months

Text

prodigal son

in which you and bruce bond over the worst day of your life (gn!doctor!reader)

warnings: swearing, injured jay, angst, no use of y/n, allusion to a story in which the prodigal son comes home to the lights all on, symbolizing that he was never ousted from the family

When you got the call, it was safe to say that you were scared. Shit. Fucking. Scared. Nothing in all your years of medical training could have prepared you for the sight of Jason Todd, the undisputed love of your life, (and his second, as he would often quip), bleeding out onto the dust-covered ground of the Bowery.

The phone call came in the dead of night. You’d just come off of a 36 hour shift, and while you were getting ready to relax and melt into your bed, your phone rung.

Jason’s burner phone. The phone he specifically stated would be used in emergencies. The phone that alerted Bruce of his location, something Jason despised, and wouldn’t use unless—no. You couldn’t let yourself swirl into despair. Not before picking up the phone.

“Jay?” Your voice quivered, and there was a pause on the other end of the call, a heartbeat that seemed to stretch into an eternity. Finally, a voice crackled through the line, a raspy, desperate voice on the other end, one you'd know anywhere, no matter how distorted it sounded through the speaker.

His voice sounded nothing like the confident, cool, and collected man that you knew. He sounded tired, wounded, and hanging on to every last breath, something you’d heard all too well at the hospital. “Baby,” he choked out. “Baby, I need you.”

Those four words were enough to send your heart into a frenzy. You had heard them countless times, whispered in intimate moments, but never like this. This was different. This was a cry for help.

“Where are you?” You whispered, attempting to cling onto your last strand of placidity. “Please, hold on, just for a minute.”

His breathing became more labored, his words slower. “The alley behind the Italian restaurant. San… San Maroni’s. It was an ambush, baby, I…”

“I’m coming, ok? Hold on for me, please.” You were begging, begging to not lose your person, not again.

Without hesitation, you grabbed your medical bag, your hands trembling as you rushed to the address he'd given you. The drive through Gotham's dark streets was a blur, the city's underbelly a place you'd only ever visited on Jason's arm. Now, it was a nightmare, and you were alone.

You turned the corner, terrified. The stench of blood and the dim glow of a flickering streetlight illuminated what you would come to call the most horrific scene that you’d laid eyes upon. The person that laid there, to you, wasn’t the Red Hood, the most fearsome man in Gotham.

It was your Jason. The man who woke up with you at three in the night when you got home from work to help you make Kraft Mac and cheese. The man who held you in his arms when you sobbed after having to admit a child, just five years old, into the ICU for a cancerous tumor.

Your voice came out a strangled gasp. This wasn’t him. It’s couldn’t be him. How could the strongest man you know lay there, his body stained crimson? Sprawled on the ground, his chest heaving, a pool of his own blood spreading around him? Multiple gunshot wounds riddling his body?

Tears welled in your eyes as you knelt beside him, carefully assessing the damage. Jason's voice was hoarse as he whispered your name, his face pale, but still, a faint grin tugged at the corners of his lips. He was conscious, thankfully, though his injuries looked serious.

Your mind immediately remembered your chapter on Trauma Care in medical school. Stabs, slashes… gunshots. Bleeding was solved by aortic clamping, and tourniquets.

"Hi, baby. You really know how to make an entrance," you said, your voice trembling as you began to work on stabilizing him. Your fingers moved with the precision of a seasoned surgeon, your training kicking in even as your mind was a whirlwind of fear and emotion.

Jason chuckled weakly, wincing in pain. "Couldn't let you forget that you're dating a walking disaster, could I?"

A few moments passed, each second passing all too slow, yet all too fast. It was minutes, hours, an eternity of trying to save the man you loved more than yourself, seeing him like this, but each second ticking with the speed of a bullet train.

“I received your distress signal, Jason.” A man, 6 feet tall, perhaps more, emerging out of the shadows, a long, dark cape billowing behind him. “What do you—” the man stopped short, but you forced your eyes back on Jason, trying to carefully mend a wound on his forearm.

The man, (who, though you were still in your haze, you had identified as Bruce), was still gaping, and slowly knelt down next to you. That’s funny, you thought, trying not to distract yourself from removing bullets from your lover, Jason always said that if he ever died, Bruce would walk away.

“Is he… conscious?” This voice, this voice wasn’t Batman. This voice was Bruce Wayne, discovering that his child, whom he failed to save once, was on the brink of death once again. “Was he responsive?”

You nodded. “He was conscious when I found him. I gave him a relaxant from my bag, just to… numb the pain, even if it was just a bit.”

The man nodded solemnly, his hands find their way around Jason’s injured forearm. You thought you could perhaps see his eyes watering, or even perhaps a tear beneath his cowl.

Jason’s breath stirred, and his heart rate picked up, (at least according to the portable heart rate monitor you hooked him up to). His eyes fluttered open, and for a tenth of a second, perhaps less, the glowed a bright, neon green. Then his heart rate dropped, and picked up again, like a morbid roller coaster. “Dad?”

He groaned, and you moved to stabilize his pulse, while simultaneously attempting to make sure the stitches you’d meticulously placed wouldn’t detach from his torso.

Bruce nodded, holding Jason’s hand tighter. “I’m here, son,” he seemingly choked out, before turning to you once again. “Is he stable yet?”

You nodded. “He’s speaking, which is a good thing, but I think he’s in the stage of pain where he’s experiencing hallucinations. It would be better to bring him to a secondary location, preferably one with more medical equipment. I don’t know if you own a hospital or something, but—”

“Bring him to the cave.” He said, abruptly.

“What?” This was shocking. Jason had told you how secure the Batcave was, and how vigilantes or other superheroes were the only ones even brought into its vicinity.

“It’ll save him. State of the art medical equipment, and my butler is a former combat medic. And you’ll be able to get some rest as well.” He nodded, solemnly. “Since he’s in a stable position right now, he and you can get in the Batmobile.”

“How did you—”

The Batman looked at the ground solemnly, all while picking up Jason in his arms. “I’m not a detective for nothing. You’re clearly a doctor, or a nurse of some sort, one with a connection to Jay, which is the only reason he was allowing himself to be treated. Your eye bags indicate that you haven’t slept in at least thirty hours. You also know my identity, so there’s no harm in bringing you to the cave as well. Jason is also more likely to cooperate with Alfred with you there.”

Wow, he’s good. You nodded and swallowed in awe, but more in admiration of his unexpected understanding. It wasn’t something you anticipated, after Jason’s tales of his father’s stoicism, but you couldn't help but admire the mysterious caped crusader, who had just invited you into his world, albeit indirectly.

Just before he got into the Batmobile, he turned to you, a single tear streaking his cheek. “Thank you,” he whispered. And in that moment, you knew that Bruce Wayne did not hate his second son.

The lights would always be on, for Jason Todd, prodigal son.

#jason todd x reader #bruce wayne #batman #red hood #jason todd #bruce wayne x reader #dc batman #batdad #batfam #batfamily

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when-pigsfly · 2 months

Text

WITCHING HOUR, CH 2/3 — [18+]

(18+) - MARKED FOR EVENTUAL SMUT, MINORS DNI!

fem!reader x arthur morgan

summary: the prodigal son returns tags: marked 18+ for smut in later chapters, reader has a backstory kinda (but now a little more than kinda), original side character(s), does arthur count as a tag, he needs his own warning, its more exposition please don't leave

word count: 4.9k

a/n: HERE! DAMN! (i'm so sorry this took so long)

<< previous chapter

you can find a link to the playlist here! tag list (look how crazy. i have a LIST.): @photo1030

The subsequent mornings are painted with varying shades of gloom. It was smeared over the sky in thick coats, and if it was just a little thicker, it might be able to keep out the spears of light.

Sometimes, they tickle. Sometimes, they recoil from the rigid mounds of snow and blind you and anything else unfortunate enough to get caught in the line of fire. Pain in the ass, really. A particularly nasty pain in the ass flickers in the cloudy metal of your spoon one morning while you’re shoveling grits into your mouth.

“You planning on eating the table too, kid?”

Your eyebrows shoot up, as does your spine once you lower your spoon back into the chipped bowl.

“My apologies,” you gulp. “You’ll uh, have to forgive me, Mrs. Campbell. Seems the winter air’s gotten to my head.”

Mrs. Campbell was a wiry, dark-haired woman of 63, and had spent more time rearing cattle than children. She was rough, tough, and at present, leveling you with a stare so doubtful that you wonder if the look you often catch on the livestock is embarrassment.

After holding your gaze for a few moments more, she resumes the rocking of her chair from the corner and returns to her darning. A large red sock, the same one she’d whacked Mr. Campbell over the head with after she’d found it on the floor of the living room only thirty minutes ago.

“No, no, you’re alright.” Mrs. Campbell pauses, though her hands continue to work. Under, over. In, out. Not a single finger pricked. “Think that’s the most I’ve seen you take down in one sitting, is all. You bite like a bird.” She makes a funny chewing motion with her mouth—or, at least you think it’s supposed to be funny. It seems to amuse her well enough; most strange things did.

She then asks how much horse feed is left, and you tell her enough to last for the next two weeks. You ask how her daughter’s baby boy is doing, she tells you he’s been picking his nose, and the two of you return to your respective distractions: the pulling of thread and a spoon fishing around a now empty dish while you consult silently with the peeling floral wallpaper.

Arthur Morgan’s appearance had set you on edge, loathe as you were to admit it. The fact that there’d been no sign of him since you’d first spoken only hastened the growing dread, more so than the lack of response after your father’s men had been so kindly disposed of.

Contingencies had been thoroughly accounted for, leaving you mildly inconvenienced at best and dead at worst. There were other conclusions you’d drawn up, of course, but dealing in extremes had its benefits.

You press your thumb absentmindedly into the corner of the dining room table. Could the Campbells have heard your exchange? No, they couldn’t have, too old. And that was excluding the fact that the main house was rather far from the cabin. Given the time frame, it would have been well beyond what was reasonable for your…situation to have been brought up.

Besides, this was important. Better to sort this out now than when—if—he showed up at your doorstep again.

“I have a question.”

Mrs. Campbell snorts. “I presume you’re lookin’ for an answer.”

You set your spoon down, and stand to clear the table. “Do the two of you get…stray cats often?”

This time her hands waver. “During the warmer months, sure. But in this weather? I mean, if it had the guts to get through all that ‘winter air,’ I don’t see why not.” Her eyes flick up. “Would have to be real hungry, though. Or stupid, which I doubt, ‘cause cats ain’t stupid—sonuvabitch!”

You jerk as her needle clatters to the floor. She lets a curse slip as she hunches over to retrieve it; another follows as she tugs the string loose, just a little, and her fingers trip over themselves before falling back into a steady rhythm.

Her brows pinch in concentration. “Never met a stupid cat,” she repeats.

“I…I see.” Moving around to the other side of the table to collect what's left, you frown when you catch your warped reflection in a bent spoon. You pick it up, and your fingers brush over the bump unconsciously. “I saw one,” you say slowly. Mind fumbling over any disastrous outcomes. “A cat, I mean. He’s been hanging around my cabin for a while now. I was only asking ‘cause he’s been spooking the chickens.”

When Mrs. Campbell doesn’t answer, your mouth gets the better of you. “Only, he turned up again a couple nights ago. Acting real docile, you see.” Not docile. The farthest thing from it. “Nearly shot him then and there, but—oh, he just looked so pitiful! He’s real mean looking, all scratched up and such, but I was tired, so when shooing him off didn’t work I let him in. Didn’t hiss, didn’t bite, nothing. But, I think I may have scared him. Skittered right out the door, quick as lightning. He’s been pissin’ me off—pardon my language—but, I just don’t see why he’d go through all that trouble to show up if he was just looking to leave the moment I raised so much as a finger.”

You only cease your rambling once you realize that you’ve bent the spoon too far in the wrong direction. “I…should turn him away, shouldn’t I? If he shows up again?”

Mrs. Campbell lets out an exasperated exhale, smooths out her apron, and sets her mangled sock down in her lap. “He kill any chickens?”

“No, but—”

“You feed him?”

“No?”

“Well, I think you should. It’d be real funny.”

Funny. Funny, she’d said.

You look to the silverware for consolation, but they can only produce a weak gleam.

“Quit making faces at my utensils, I hate when you do that. If you got something to say, say it now so I can finish this damned sock.”

Instead of making faces at the spoons, you reserve them for the tablecloth. “I just—don’t think it’d be wise.” A wanted man, with a lofty bounty at that, and you were comparing him to a mangy feline. Attempting to see him as anything other than what he so obviously was would be disingenuous.

And maybe Mrs. Campbell wasn’t the right person to be speaking to about this, because her nose crinkles with such distaste that you have to remind yourself that you’d remembered to bathe. “You’re grown,” she says, “and you work here. I’m inclined to believe that you have enough know-how to keep yourself from doing anything too dumb. If not, oh well.”

“…Right.”

Sometimes you wonder if her daughter had moved out not for marriage, but to escape Mrs. Campbell’s dreadfully indifferent way of speaking. Still, you take her words with relative care and pray that the “feeding” portion of her advice can be altered into something much more metaphorical.

When you attempt to bring the dishes to the water bucket, Mrs. Campbell’s head snaps to you and she clicks her teeth. “Drop it.”

“I was just—”

The sock finds its way into a basket of other half-finished projects at her feet, and she pushes herself up to stand just as tall (if not taller) than any tree before snatching the dishes from your hands. “I don’t pay you to do my dishes, girl.”

You smile. “I don’t believe you pay me at all, Mrs. Campbell.”

“Precisely. Your Pa pays me. And enough with that ‘Mrs. Campbell’ mess; makes me sound like an old crone. Told you to call me Fran, didn’t I?”

Shrugging past the bitterness in her tone at the mention of your father, you turn to the doorway and pull your coat off of the hook you’d tossed it on the night before. It’s only slightly warm from where the sun has touched it.

The beams have softened their assault on the curtains; it’s still fairly cloudy, but there’s no sign of incoming snow. Chores would be alright, if only for today.

“I’ll work on it, Mrs. Campbell. But, I do have one more question, if you don’t mind.” You wait for a nod while you pull on your boots with a wince. “How come you don’t take on any other help?”

Like most of her responses, Mrs. Campbell doesn’t give much away. Nothing remarkable that you can discern, at least. She merely winks and carries on with her washing. But just as you set a foot out the front door, she calls out to you.

“Hey, kid?”

You turn.

“If the worst you can call him is a spooked cat, he can’t be all that bad, can he?”

You freeze. “Pardon?”

She looks up at the ceiling, as though her next words will appear if she gets her eyes to narrow enough. Glasses had been the first of many neglected suggestions you’d offered upon your arrival. You’d even offered to buy them yourself, with what little you’d been able to bring with you. But Mrs. Campbell, being Mrs. Campbell, had simply laughed.

Squinting, she returns her focus to the bucket and reaches for a cake of lye soap. “Ah, and tell that idiot if he slams my doors, I’ll send my foot so far up his ass that them science folks won’t have any animals left to call him.”

Illusory warmth finds you a few weeks later.

It isn’t quite spring yet; winter is a stubborn mule, and though the snow has receded into the dirt it still stamps its hooves into the wind. In the water, too—freezing rain taps its fingers onto the windows. Soft and melodic, it nearly puts you to sleep from your place on the floor before you remember the annoyances it’s dragged along with it.

There’d been no sign of trouble tonight, and the chicken wire had been reinforced a few hours prior. That’d mostly been the work of Mr. Campbell, though. He’d chirped about some promise he’d made to his “lovely wife,” and went on his merry way after leaving you with some choice words from the wife in question about the importance of rest.

The rain had started not long after. Which was great, for someone out there. But, bad for you. Pretty bad. Ugly, messy bad—because it was cold, dark, and the dirt hadn’t the moral backbone to keep itself together for any longer than two blinks before your boots were practically swimming in it.

The trudge back to the cabin was only slightly humiliating, considering the fact that the sole witnesses were the owls you knew were hiding out in the safety of the trees.

Scampering from the uneven path to the front porch, however, was another story. Although the pliant (no good, backstabbing) earth was quick and eager to drag you to its depths, you were aggravated enough to be slightly quicker, and your palms shot out to catch you just before your chin could meet the full wrath of the wood.

But the word “just” was a pebble cast into a pond, and the first ripple was the metallic tang that flooded your mouth. Diatribes were spat onto the ground alongside the blood, tongue throbbing with a vengeance before you drove the heels of your palms down to push yourself up. The second ripple was a little less red, but just as irritating. The rain had pulled the wet fabric of your work shirt and trousers tight over your limbs, and it had begun to border on painful when water droplets struck like one might strike the skin of a drum.

“I’m grateful, I’m grateful, I’m oh so fucking grateful…” It was a mantra you often found yourself repeating whenever nature’s pranks sought to drive you mad. Rain was good. Rain was fine, actually, so you’d ignored the creaking of your knees and hobbled your way inside.

And here you sit: back propped up against the wall, shivering like a fool with your knees tucked into your chest. The mud crusting between your fingers barely registers while you work on releasing yourself from your wet clothing.

Which, of course, is when the light tapping on the window takes its cue to crescendo. It’s a rather flimsy cloak for the uneven thunks outside that make no attempt to conceal themselves. But your bones know better.

Awful timing, that man.

You feel the weight of his fist against the door before he makes contact.

(One.)

You shoot up.

(Two.)

You lunge for the table.

You decide against greeting him with the rifle, which is a significant improvement. It’s a revolver. But you did have the good sense not to kick the door again; the rusty hinges were fragile enough without your meddling. Instead, you let it creak open with one hand on the doorknob.

You’re met with a bruise, planted right atop a cheekbone. A swollen bottom lip, blood threatening to split it wide. He’s got a button missing from his rumpled jacket, and the caving of the porch underneath his feet clues you in on the fact that he’s favoring his right leg. He’s been fighting. Fighting, and he looks about ready to keel over and die. Or pick another fight. Probably both.

Part of you unwinds at the sight of him, battered as he was. Present as he was. But the more logical part of you senses that he’s here for something, and the even more logical part of you remembers exactly what it was that stood at your doorstep.

It’s then that the stench of alcohol hits you, and the familiar smell of mud sweeps in not long after. Arthur is completely covered in it, save for his face. And—

There. There it is again.

That look.

Your pulse trips in your throat, and you pray that he’s inebriated enough to ignore it. “You’re on my porch. Why?”

Bright blue comes back into focus, and his hands fall to his hips. “I can go where I damn well please.”

“That’s all well and good, but why are you on my porch?”

He sniffs. Peers just over your shoulder. “...House call.”

You step to block him. “Now that’s two chances. I have it on good authority that one is just fine these days, but I’m feeling generous.” And confused. Extremely confused.

His face contorts into a heatless grimace, and the doorknob squeals. You’re suddenly reminded of the odd tales of shapeshifters you’d stumbled upon as a child: one moment a man, the next a bloodthirsty predator. Not a particularly helpful development—especially since your talk with Mrs. Campbell—but it was a development nonetheless.

Arthur rattles off the courtesies typically extended toward esteemed guests while you look him over again, and your eyes lock onto his hair. Another familiar connection—doe brown strands, streaked with mud and nearly plastered to his head from the light downpour. Much less ferocious than the rest of him. But, tonight, if you have to pick, he’s a wet dog. A wet, potentially drunk dog, who was missing his hat.

And suddenly, the natural chatter of the trees comes to a halt.

“What’d you just call me?”

…You idiot.

“I didn’t call you jack shit,” you lie. Arthur gives a loose smirk, and your next protests become nothing but bluster. “What, the little girl that hit you knock your ears shut?”

“Figured I’d let her get a hit in, out of the kindness of my big ol’ heart.” Arthur sways on his feet a bit, peering down at you through the water that he hasn’t bothered to wipe from his lashes. Gravity finds eventual triumph, and he leans into the post before eying the revolver still in your hands. “Don’t suppose you’re plannin’ on pullin’ that trigger any time soon.”

“What’s it to you?”

Arthur’s face begins to harden, and he crosses his arms tight over his chest. “You know, last time I was here I said you were lucky. Well, I’d like to make an addendum: lucky and stupid, lady.”

You cast a disbelieving look at the leg he’s been keeping his weight off of. “And you’re drunk. The fact that you got here without your horse cracking your head open is a miracle.”

His brows draw low, and he rubs the heel of his boot against the muddy spot where you’d fallen earlier. Blinks at the ground. Then, with the vigor of a child caught sleeping in church, wipes angrily at a speck of mud on his thigh. “M’not drunk,” he finally mutters, flicking the offending dirt out into the yard and crossing his arms again. “And I’ve got enough trust in my horse to fill at least half of that barn y’all got.”

“Just half? Not the whole thing?”

“Whole thing would be two horses.”

You almost laugh. Almost. When you don’t reply, his eyes drop back down to the gun, gaze contemplative. “You got any idea how easily I could’ve knocked that flimsy thing outta your hands?”

“Why of course I do, Mr. Morgan.” The dampness you’d been struck with pulls at you, bones heavy and patience now worn thin. You give the revolver an exaggerated twirl, the metal snatching what can be seen of the moon through the rain and reflecting it at him. “I’m real lucky you’re here to tell me so, ain’t I? Matter of fact, why don’t you go and fetch me my chair before I topple right on over? ”

“That ain’t what I meant, and you know it.” You think he sounds somewhat regretful. But somewhat isn’t enough.

“Do I now,” you say dryly. “You seem to ‘not mean’ an awful lot.”

Arthur pushes himself off of the post with his shoulder and shoves his muddy hands into his muddy pockets. “I just don’t see why you people are so eager to act like you got your life for dog-cheap.”

“You people?”

“Yeah, you heard me. You people.” He’s looking at everything but you now, eyes wild but body frighteningly still. “You’ll look trouble right in the eye, and lie right through your damn teeth till it gets you laid out cold in a ditch somewhere.” Arthur gestures to the embarrassing height your shooting arm has dropped to in the time that he’s spoken. “I can tell each time you open that door that you won’t shoot. Can’t, I’d argue, ‘cause if you didn’t have my big head within one inch of that barrel, you’d be some deep shit.” His words are a forlorn echo amidst the rain, now nothing more than a light haze.

You could shut the door and go back inside, you think. Tell him he’s wrong, because he most certainly was. Peel out of your damp clothes, because standing outside in the chill spelled nothing but trouble. Arthur wouldn’t push. He was just as prone to bluffing as you were.

And yet.

“I could say the same about you. Don’t think your kin would take too kindly to the fact that you’re hangin’ around someone that knows your face. Who you are.” You steady your aim. “That’s a loose end, Arthur. You don’t seem like the type of man to keep many of those around.” It’s the first time you’ve said his name all night; you’re only sure because the moment it leaves you, his entire body tenses before he sags back against the wooden post.

The way he looks at you then might be considered cruel and unusual punishment. You think of butterflies, embroidered into blankets from childhood. Tacked to the wall of your father’s study. The only difference between them and you is that you’re free to leave.

If only you possessed something to sweeten the deal—whatever deal you could come up with in the next five seconds. To mask the returning waver of your voice, now laden with inconceivable realities. “Am I a loose end, Arthur Morgan?”

He opens his mouth to speak. Closes it. Untucks a hand from the arms he’s wrapped around himself to scrub at his beard and finally wipe at the water you’ve been eyeballing from his lids. He opens his mouth again, now on the precipice of what might be an explanation.

“S’dangerous,” is all he says.

You see red.

The arm holding the revolver is dropped so you can poke a finger into his chest. “You’re not making any sense!” Each word is enunciated with a jab, and you cringe at the feeling of rain rewetting the mud underneath your fingernails. “You cut and run, turn up drunk and beaten half to death, practically beg me to let you inside, and then you get upset when I say I won’t pop a bullet into your head?”

Arthur pinches the bridge of his nose, voice beginning to escalate. “Now if you would just listen for more than two seconds—”

You cut him down with a harsh whisper. “Listen? Listen?” Your eyes momentarily check for any sign of a light being turned on in the main house. Nothing. Your finger falls away then, and a violent chill wracks your body from head to toe. “No, you listen. I don’t know you. You don’t know me. You said your piece the last time we spoke, and you left, so why are you on my porch!”

“I don’t know!”

Something cracks, and your vision blurs when you whip your head to recheck the lights. Still nothing. The crack fizzles out into nothingness, and you return to find Arthur close. Awfully close. And your hand is warm and—oh.

It seems his pluck is rather contagious. The noise you’d heard wasn’t thunder, but the sound of your treacherous hand clapping right over Arthur’s mouth.

Time stills. Or speeds up, more like. The only thing you can be certain of is that ring of greenish gold around his pupils. The brush of his lips against your palm. Humid air being released in slow, steady clouds. You briefly wonder what else this warmth has dominion over, save for your cupped hand. Who else.

The speed of the exhales increases, and envy wriggles in the dirt of your heart like unearthed worms. Did his mind wander, as yours often did? Surely not as emphatically. It no doubt ambled from one thought to the next, attention snagged only when he had the energy to do so. Had you been interesting enough to snag his?

The spell is broken by a lamp flickering on in the distance.

“Shit!”

Sheer panic sinks its claws into you before rationality can, and you’re curling a hand around Arthur’s wrist and yanking him inside before he can protest.

You’re both panting ragged breaths once the door shuts behind you, in spite of the mere two steps it’d taken to cross the entryway. Tangible confusion permeates the air, and Arthur looks at you expectantly. It’s only fair that the (secondary) perpetrator speak first.

But words are tricky, tricky things. And as much as you partook in your fair share of falsehoods, finding the right ones when you didn’t feel that your life was on the line was an unfamiliar practice.

Voice quiet, you blink at the muddy footprints on the floor. “You left my door open.”

“I remember,” he replies. Simple.

The silence returns, eerily reminiscent of your first encounter. You consider telling him about the warning Mrs. Campbell had wanted you to relay to him. But then you think about all of the other things he’s missed since he’s disappeared, and your mind becomes saturated with just about everything, and somehow nothing at all. But Arthur’s voice, once again, cracks the fragile quiet.

“God damn it!” He begins to pace, rubbing at the shadows under his eyes. You’re thankful that he’s finally lowered his voice to a whisper, though the close quarters don’t seem to help with the intensity. “I ain’t supposed to be here. Not like this.”

“Not like what? Arthur what do you—”

“This isn’t how this was supposed to go,” he says, voice edging on the side of desperation.

“How what was supposed to go?” You look at his hands, fumbling with his belt loops. He sucks in a brittle gulp of air when he catches you looking, like he’s surprised you’re looking at him at all.

And then, miraculously, the pieces of the puzzle fall into place.

“I’m to kill you. Ideally this evening.”

Until it all promptly falls apart.

You turn away. Begin to work open the half done buttons of your shirt. Arthur turns to face the door. You decide to humor him. “Who.”

“Some man, your Pa, I presume,” he says. For the first time in what feels like eternity, his voice is devoid of any feeling. It sounds small. Not defeated, not yet, but oh so small. “Willing to pay big bucks to get rid of a ‘financial thorn’ in his side. Knew ‘bout my business in Blackwater, which I assume you’re also aware of. Said he’d had some bonds on that boat.” Blunt fingernails scratch lightly at the curtains. “He said I could sniff things out, see if I wanted to to his dirty work.”

Shirt falling to the floor, you allow yourself some time to stew numbly in your naivety while you get the fire going; you could be disappointed all you wanted once you were warm. You can hear Arthur scrubbing at his beard again when you begin to drag a chair in front of the fireplace. You sit, or collapse rather, and shuck off your boots with little care for where they land. Where the mud splatters.

“How’s Marlene?” You ask.

Rustling. He’s turned around. More frantic rustling. He’s turned back to the wall. “I’m sorry?”

“Marlene. Chicken. ”

“Ah. She’s uh, good. Eating good. Still pecks like hell, though.”

And, once again, more silence.

You bark out a dry laugh. It hurts—hurts like hell, but it tumbles out of you with a sharp snap. It snowballs into pure, unadulterated laughter. Bouncing off the walls, the drinking glasses, the mud, right into the fire and back out again. It continues until you’re left with nothing but a pathetic wheeze rattling your lungs.

Settling into the back of the chair, your head lolls back till you can see an upside down version of the bewildered Arthur you’d turned away from. The angle is awkward, and the blood rushing to your head makes him look all warm and fuzzy, but it’s precisely why you’ve chosen it.

“Didn’t think finding all this out would be so funny.” He speaks as if poking a tiger.

Another half-hearted chuckle slips out of you. “Good god, I thought you were trying to proposition me.”

“Proposition you?” He scowls. “What on earth would I—”

Arthur stops. Blinks one of his blinks. Gives his eyes another rub. Blinks again. He’s been doing that a lot, lately. This “blinking” thing.

“Oh.” He frowns.

Frowning right back, you push yourself to stand and toss some old papers from your table into the fire. “No need to seem so put off by it, gosh. Should’ve told me you were out for my head from the start. Would’ve made this a hell of a lot less embarrassing.” Disappointment had beat out the warmth.

You wait for an apology, or a joke. Or something. Anything. But you’re met with nothing. The paper eventually crumbles into nothing, too, smoke tickling your nostrils alongside the smell of rain.

His voice sounds from the back of the room.

“I didn’t say that.”

You whip around.

“Say what.”

He speaks as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “I didn’t say I wasn’t. Interested, I mean.” When you point to yourself, he rolls his eyes. “No, the couch.”

There was no couch.

The two of you watch each other for a bit. Then Arthur finds another annoying spot on his thigh to rub at, and you’re watching him.

“You’re drunk,” you conclude, voice flat. You pull on a blanket, suddenly conscious of the bareness of your shoulders. “You’re drunk, or tired, or both. You weren’t here. I didn’t see you, you didn’t see me. Am I clear?”

You stand on wobbly feet and motion for him to leave.

“You don’t think I’m joking, do you? I meant what I said.” He brushes past your outstretched hand to clunk into the chair, mirroring that same awkward position you’d found yourself in earlier. Strong neck arched, fire light catching the water that’s begun to bead on his cheeks. “I don’t do charity. Don’t think I have the money for it, actually.”

“How kind of you.”

“I mean it. Truly.”

“Then come back tomorrow,” you blurt.

Fuck.

What the hell were you doing? “You come back tomorrow night, sober, and we’ll see.” No, we would not.

But it’s too late—Arthur is rebounding off of the chair, straightening out his jacket (he’s noticed the missing button, finally), and striding to the door before you can retract your mistake. Even so, you follow after him like a besotted moron, only stopping when he turns to face you once the door is back open.

“Tomorrow, then,” he says. Eyes dark. Searching.

And then he’s stooping down. Reaching for your hand. Pulling it to his dry lips, and pressing a chaste kiss right to the top of it. He chuckles when you shiver, still clutching the blanket tight around your shoulders.

You’re released soon after. And Arthur gives you one long look, tells you to lock your door, and leaves.

#arthur morgan x reader #arthur morgan x female reader #arthur morgan x you #arthur morgan #red dead redemption 2 #rdr2 #rdr2 fanfic #ao3 #archive of our own #fanfiction #witching hour

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wordywarriorwrites · 23 days

Text

Feels Like Home

Feels Like Home | AO3 | Rating: M | Main Masterlist

Pairing: Javier Peña x F! Reader

Summary: They say you can't go home again, but maybe for you and Javi, home isn't a place - it's a person.

Warnings: NSFW. Smut. Language.

Getting Chucho Peña back up on his feet after a bad fall from the hayloft – that was all you’d been tasked to do.

But you hadn’t considered the prodigal son.

You hadn’t thought about all the ways dark, earthen eyes – eyes that had seen too much – could be so compellingly, devastatingly, hauntingly preoccupying. Hadn’t really thought of how the stories of this larger-than-life individual would pale in comparison to the actual person. Hadn’t really believed that this man and this town would get to you, become so much a part of you that you’re thinking about rejecting a career-changing offer that would see you moving on to bigger (though perhaps not exactly better) things.

Four seasons have passed, and yet, you haven’t felt the itch to pack a bag and hit the road. And because you stuck around, Javi, Chucho, and you have become los tres amigos. Reading books and watching Cheers. Exchanging cards and gifts on birthdays and at Christmas. You host dinner at your place once a month. Javi occasionally pops in during your meal break at the hospital to bring you something decent to eat. And sometimes, his dad will call you nenita – a term of endearment that feels far too precious to be directed toward a drifting, wayward soul like you.

It’s hard not to mull over the what-ifs – especially with how Javi looks beneath the sparking lights of the convention center. Exuding confidence, chit-chatting, and mingling with your coworkers like a pro, all understated power and authority. He stays still while everyone else gets pulled into his orbit, revolving slowly around him, like planets circling the sun. He steers you in that way, too, pulling you into his atmosphere, making it painfully impossible to keep your gaze averted from the fine figure he makes in his charcoal gray suit.

This isn’t the first fundraising event he’s escorted you to. In fact, he’s graciously played the role of plus-one several times. Haughty conversations, dry chicken dinners, watered-down drinks, and office politics – he’s been there and done that. And for a man who says he hated it, that he’s left all that bullshit behind, he’s really good at it, reading the room and owning his space within it better than most of your puffed-up peers.

It’s difficult not to admire him. Get attached to him. To feel as if you’ve made a real, true friend. You don’t have many of those and neither does he. It’s as if you’ve somehow been chosen. That out of all the people in the world, he’s picked you.

Bowling on Thursdays. The little snort that sometimes escapes when he laughs. His gentle manner with horses. The scent of his cologne; a blend of leather, wood, and oakmoss. The way he always refuses dessert, but somehow, ends up finding room for two servings, especially if it’s your homemade peach cobbler. His shoulder – the one you lean on when you nod off during a football game. His arm – the one you grip during scary movies. His ear – the one he lets you talk off when the day has been too hard and too bloody, and you can’t fall asleep.

If you leave, you lose it all. You lose him.

“Is it just me,” Javi prompts with a slight nudge, turning away from the inner circle and leaning in close to speak directly into your ear. “Or are all the doctor jokes really fucking terrible this year?”

His voice – low and amused – cuts through the chatter and clinking cutlery, guiding you out of the spiral of dark thoughts and back into the present. You glance up at him and wonder if that inquisitive, clever mind of his has worked out how you really feel and uncovered what you really think. And if he knows, has he just been too polite to say anything? Even if it’s only to let you down gently?

“Maybe you should teach them a thing or two,” you manage to quip, burying your emotions by taking a rather undignified gulp of merlot.

Javi snorts and shakes his head, “With their egos? Not likely. Look, can we get outta here? Go get some real food?”

You nod, placing your now empty wine glass on the tray of a passing waiter, and snagging your purse up from the table. Javi is quick to take your arm and the lead, guiding you both through the throng and a seemingly endless stream of polite farewells. The elevator, the parking garage, the drive-thru – none of it really registers. It’s not until you’ve fallen into the cushions of your couch, a heavy bag of tacos in hand, and two beers on the coffee table in front of you, that your brain gradually starts to come back online.

“M'starving,” Javi announces, snatching up the takeout bag and plopping down next to you. “Remind me next time to eat before I pick you up.”

He peels off his jacket. Kicks off his shoes. Wriggles his sock-covered toes into the plush carpet and sits forward on the cushion just far enough to reach the table. Large, deft hands drop napkins – one onto your knee and one onto his own – and then, he’s unfurling paper and distributing a half dozen oversized carne asada taquerias onto two paper plates. A brief pause. A rather ferocious bite. A long, low groan.

“Fuck me, that’s good,” he mumbles, cheeks puffed out and comically overfilled.

“Emily Post would not be impressed,” you teasingly chide.

Javi grins and juts his chin, “Hey, get my tie? It’s the one you got me for my birthday, and I don’t want to ruin it.”

Once his messy hands are out of the way, you do as he asks, working the knot free and slipping the silk off with a careful tug. You pop a few buttons for him, too, and he gives you a nod of thanks before digging back in with renewed gusto, washing it all down with long pulls on his beer.

You don’t know how he does it, but his steady, calm demeanor always manages to soothe you. You unclench your jaw. Relax your shoulders. Even eat with him. Once the food’s devoured and the mess is cleaned up, you offer him a nightcap that promises to be better than what he’d been served at the fundraiser, and he happily accepts.

With tumblers in hand, the two of you migrate out to the patio. Javi is quick to indulge in his after-dinner smoke, bringing flame to paper-wrapped tobacco with a practiced flick and inhaling deeply. He fills his lungs with nicotine a few more times before turning his attention to his glass, bringing it to his nose before taking a slow sip.

“Dios mio,” he appreciates aloud. “What is this?”

“Macallan,” you tell him.

“That’s damn good whiskey.”

“It ought to be for five grand a bottle.”

Javi chuckles and lets out a low whistle, “You lift it off a truck or something?”

“It was a gift,” you admit, taking a seat on the outdoor bench. “From Brad.”

He blinks slowly, “Your ex?”

You nod and shrug slightly, “Bastard always did have good taste.”

Javi doesn’t pry – he just smokes and paces, seemingly content for you to either share or plead the fifth. You take a sizable gulp for courage and finally tell him about Alaska, about the brand new, state-of-the-art facility, and what an opportunity it is. You explain the position. Tell him it offers better pay and an extremely generous housing stipend. A year there, maybe two, and you’ll have your pick of any hospital you want to work at going forward.

Brad’s presence, his role as department head, his status as your ex-fiancé, the wholly inappropriate “welcome gift” he supposedly sent on behalf of the entire staff – a gift you’re certain was pilfered from his dad’s private collection – none of it matters. You’re going there for work because you go where you’re needed, nothing more.

“Got the papers inside,” you say quietly. “Just gotta sign ‘em.”

Javi curses. Drops the butt of his cigarette into the remaining inch of whiskey. Sets the glass down a little too hard on the window ledge. It’s tense now, the air between you, the atmosphere filling with acridness neither one of you is accustomed to. He rolls his jaw. You tap your nail against the tumbler. Javier runs a hasty palm over his mustache and then, much to your surprise, he sits down next to you.

Your glass is taken and hastily put aside. Slowly, carefully, as if giving you the chance to pull away, Javi slots his fingers between yours. When you don’t protest, he holds on tight and brings your knuckles to his lips. His palm pressed to your palm; he lowers his head until his furrowed brow meets the back of your hand. It’s so achingly, intimately tender, so unexpected and jarring, that makes your eyes well.

You swallow hard and clear your throat, “Look, Javi, I’m –”

“Don’t,” he interjects with a slow, purposeful shake of his head. “Just… Don’t.”

The moment stretches, unbearable with the weight of the unknown, all nerve-wracking and heady at the same time. Javi eventually looks at you – eyes searching and examining and questioning. Head slightly tilted, a wayward chunk of his hair tumbles out of its’ carefully coiffed place, and you don’t consider your actions when you take back your hand to carefully brush it off his forehead.

“I don’t want you to go,” he murmurs.

You frown and stroke his cheek with your thumb, “I don’t want to, either.”

Javi’s fingertips brush your forearm, and when he leans forward, you meet him in the middle. Your mouths join. Lips brushing, breath stolen and returned. The two of you are traversing unmapped and uncharted territory, but it’s so easy. It's as if you’ve been touching like this, kissing like this, for such a long time.

All languid and unhurried until he licks into your mouth, coating your tongue in hints of vanilla, nutmeg, and smoke, and then, you’re both in pursuit of more. Tripping over each other to get back inside. Both of you going for his belt, and then, your underwear – no finesse or thought of the bedroom just steps away because the couch will work just fine.

Knees sunk into the cushions and cheek mashed into an armrest. Heels kicked off and the skirt of your ankle-length dress tugged up over your hips. Javi explores and discovers you from behind, tongue tasting the unmistakable evidence of your desire, and fingers stoking the flame until you’re begging him to put you out of your misery.

“Condoms,” you croak, gesturing blindly. “In my work bag.”

A low growl. Nips and licks and sucks to the back of your thighs, the curve of your hip, the rounds of your shoulders. You’re melting to the floor, rolling into your back, eyes barely able to focus as he snatches up your battered canvas tote and upends it, the contents spilling out messily and noisily across the carpet.

“Preparing for an orgy?” he teases, letting the line of rubbers unfurl above your head.

“Shut up,” you sass, nudging his thigh with your foot. “You know I had to teach that sex ed class today.”

“Did the hospital supply bananas?”

“Actually, it was cucumbers.”

Javi laughs. Tears open the package. Rucks up his shirt. You watch, gaze hooded as he slides the rubber on. You toss out a compliment to his technique, and he flushes, all hasty to push your legs apart and make room for himself between your splayed thighs.

“It’s been – I haven’t done this in a while,” you admit, bravado lessening slightly.

Javi clicks his tongue, thumbs making small circles on your kneecaps, “Me, neither, cariño. Been saving myself for you.”

Your spluttered laugh brings out his hidden dimples, and then, he kisses you. Smiles gradually fade, amusement giving way to urgency, prompting you to reach for him, guiding him until he’s slowly sinking into you, filling you. And it’s a snug fit, but it’s just right, and when Javi rocks his pelvis, you’re remade. Suddenly cast adrift, in search of an anchor, you dig your fingers into his hair. Seek out his shoulders with your hands. Follow the curve of his spine and twine your legs around him just so you can feel the way flexes and stretches into your touch.

“Don’t stop,” you whisper against the shell of his ear. “Javi, please… Please, don’t stop.”

“I won’t,” he promises against your throat. “You feel so good, mi corazón. Feels like you’re mine. Like you’ve always been mine. Fuck.”

His words thrum through you, wreaking havoc, curling your spine, bringing even more heat to your cheeks. There’s no hiding the way your legs are trembling, no stopping your body from bearing down, from clenching hard, from trying to keep him deep inside for as long as possible. His name spills out from your lips like marbles on a wooden floor, the reverent mantra smothered only by his mouth seeking yours.

“Say you’ll stay with me,” Javi demands, teeth nipping your chin.

You nod frantically, “Yes. Yes, I’ll stay with you.”

In possession of you, of your agreement, Javi’s hold becomes unforgiving – fingertips digging into the meat of your hip and the nape of your neck. His thrusts turn pointedly devastating – retreating and surging forward, all precise and measured, purposeful in the way he seems to take control, bringing you to orgasm for the third time with a broad, self-satisfied smile that isn’t as humble as he probably thinks it is.

When he finally comes, he buries himself to the hilt, hips stuttering, stubble rubbing against your cheek as he muffles his groans of pleasure into the crook of your neck. As the two of you lie together in the afterglow, his head pillowed by your breasts, your arms and legs wrapped around him, breaths slowing until they match, the truth of you, of him, becomes undeniably clear.

Home isn’t a place. It’s a person.

And you’ve finally found each other.

#javier pena fanfiction #javier pena fanfic #javier peña narcos #javi pena x reader #javi pena x you #narcos fanfiction #javier peña x reader #javier pena x reader #javier pena x you #javier pena smut #javier pena narcos

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yandere--stuck · 8 months

Note

I just read your yandere bulkhead and it gave me an idea.(This is all platonic btw)

What if, after a little while, the autobots get attached to the kids, so much so that they start seeing them as their sparklings.

They slowly make more adjustments for them at the base. Then they start getting more protective of them. All the sudden the autobots are hesitant to let the kids leave more and more. They start pushing away from Fowler and June. And finally, the autobots refuse to let the kids outside of their care because in their mind they are just sparklings.

This could work with or without reader, and it can be a big oneshot or a full on story. It's really your choice.

Basically all together it's platonic yandere autobots.

REAL REAL REAL SO REAL I LOVE FAMILIAL/PLATONIC YANDERES. Clawing the walls of my enclosure rn

I've thought about this so much watching tfp THEY'RE FAMILY. They love their kids ;w;

This isn't a straight up fic just spouting ideas I've had because so I hope you enjoy anyway! ^^;

---

No Cybertronian was left unaffected by the pain of war. Friends, family, allies… All of Team Prime had lost at least someone to the horrors of war. Who wouldn't be changed by that? Who wouldn't become invested in the little family of allies they'd made? Who wouldn't want to protect and care for these kids? These kids they've grown to know and love and want to protect so badly? Is that not what family is?

It started off slow. Just the bots getting closer and a bit more affectionate with their charges. Bulk picking up the kids to (carefully!) hug them. Extra hugs and hair-ruffles from Arcee. The 'bots working in 'I love you's to their goodbyes or goodnights.

They'd be smart enough to keep up a facade about their intentions around Fowler, but it's much harder with June. She won't allow Jack to stay over or stay longer than usual, and is hesitant about letting Rafael and Miko stay, too. June argues that the kids miss too much school already because of this, not to mention Jack flaking on his shifts! But, she just won't listen to reason! The autobots can learn human curriculum to teach them! And Jack was so young, why did he need a job? Sounds like *someone* isn't good enough at providing for their young. They don't want to hurt June, just… Turn over custody of Jack and allow them to do the same with Raf and Miko without contacting the families or police or Fowler!

They'll get a consistent supply of food and drink, beds, books and games, more comfortable pieces of furniture for organics... The children take it in stride and are excited and thankful. Just as Optimus predicted.

With the trap set, the kids alone, Fowler distracted, and June secretly locked up within the base until she would come around, they're locked in. They don't even realize anything wrong until they asked to be dropped off at home, only to be met by refusal. Stern explanations and consoling reassurance.

But the kids are anything if not crafty, and will likely put their heads together to come up with a plan. Jack would be their man on the inside, so to speak. Pretend to go along with the Autobots' wishes and accept them as family until he gets enough freedom or the opportunity to call for help or make a break for it. Because as smart as the Autobots were, they were obvious.

Even Optimus.

It was obvious that Jack was the favorite. Why else was he given the key to Vector Sigma?

"The prodigal son," as Miko put it.

It was easy for Jack to lean into Arcee as his mom. Because he'd be lying if he didn't see Arcee as a maternal figure, yeah, but he already had a mom. He had the dynamic down. But what was hard was being alone with Optimus.

Optimus gently held Jack in his hands, telling him how overjoyed he was that Jack saw him as a father. That he adored him, his son. That there's nothing Optimus wouldn't do for him. And Jack breaks. He cries. He let's Optimus hold and soothe him as he cries, asking his Dad why he left and pleading with him to never leave again, and at some point Jack couldn't tell whether his words were directed to a metaphorical father he never met or Optimus.

Either way, he couldn't bring himself to continue the plan. He was sorry, but he hoped Miko and Raf would understand.

Miko is Bulkhead's sparkling. There is no question. Don't get him wrong, he loves Jack and Raf, too! All of them are the team's sparklings, after all. But, Miko is special to Bulk. He wants nothing more than for her to ditch her host family and realize her so-called 'actual' family clearly didn't care for her enough to want her around! But, Bulkhead did. He loved her. And he'd do anything for Miko if she'd just call him Dad.

Rafael couldn't have known, but it was probably a bad idea to tell Ratchet about his large family and how loud and busy it is at home, now the medic is using it as a reason to keep Raf at base. Rafael's 'family', if he could even call them that, clearly didn't care about him enough to know where he went at all hours of the day, so they likely wouldn't notice if Rafael stayed there permanently - and more importantly, with those that actually loved and cared for him. His real family.

While Ratchet is probably the most stern out of the kids' caretakers, he's also the most likely to coddle and baby them. Because by the AllSpark, the eldest of them had only come into existence sixteen years ago! Compared to Cybertronian lifespans, their human sparklings were nothing more than infants!

He loves picking up the kids and carrying them around, held up against his chestplates like he did with his child and grandchildren, but unfortunately Rafael is the only one who consistently allows him to do so.

—

If the team is able to convince themselves that the kids are their biological-sparklings somehow (separation after incubation? Maybe crashing onto Earth in pods and taking on human altforms to survive?), they are quick to turn on June, especially Arcee. How could she call herself Jack's carrier? Jack was Arcee's kid!

Arcee would be incredibly apologetic to Jack, even as he tried to make her see reason. How could she have been so stupid? How couldn't she recognize her own sparkling right in front of her? She'd lost so many… She couldn't lose him, too.

Bulkhead would assert that he and Wheeljack were Miko's carrier and sire (not necessarily respectively). He'd have to catch Jackie up to speed, but Bulkhead was sure Wheeljack would come to remember the child they almost lost. He'd have to.

He knew Miko would be mad for a long while, but it was only because she didn't understand and didn't realize that they were really family. She'd come around and things would go back to normal - better than normal. He'd hold and hug her often, for as long as she allowed before she starts kicking and squirming.

It hurt seeing her angry at him. It hurt so deep when she shouted that she hated him. But it made it all worth it when she finally broke down into tears, realizing that Bulkhead did care about her. No matter how bad it got. He wouldn't throw her away. Bulkhead was more of a Dad than her actual father. Maybe going along with things would just be easier. Less sad.

Ratchet claimed Rafael as a grandchild. He thought he lost his child and all her sparklings, but… No. No, one managed to escape whole in protoform, somehow. And that was his dearest Rafael. Something about the look in his eyes and the rusted color of his hair… His spark still aches from the pain he'd brought unto him, before Ratchet knew. How he had nearly failed him. Had almost lost the last of his family. How could he have been so blind?

But, no. Not anymore. Not ever again.

Ratchet would somehow be even more coddling than if he thought the kids were completely human. Would try to scruff them, hold them while bundled up in blankets they had snatched, never allowing them to be out of his sight when under his sole care.

I think Bumblebee would either side with the kids or just be so glad that Raf and the others wouldn't be leaving again that he wouldn't want to help. It's like Rafael said, they're family. Brothers, right? Family doesn't leave each other behind.

Optimus is definitely the most restrained out of the Autobots, but still as endlessly loving. They are not just the hope for their people, but for him and his friends, as well. Optimus thanked his lucky stars every day that he somehow stumbled upon their sparklings and their family could be reunited.

At least, that's what he'd think when he's able to keep away bouts of regret and lucidity.

#platonic yandere #familial yandere #yandere transformers #yandere transformers prime #yandere autobots

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