#walking on sunshine [fry] | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

softlyspector · 10 months

Text

Honeyed

Summary: You hate being touched, but you might be willing to put aside your discomfort for a tattoo from Joel.

Pairing: tattoo artist!Joel Miller x f!Reader

Word count: ~11.7k

Warnings: slow build, no outbreak tattoo!au, reader has issues with touch and is mostly touch adverse, tattoos and getting tattooed (the reader only has one tattoo that is described in any detail), description of a past abusive relationship and a bad experience getting tattooed, insecurity, anxiety, loneliness, implied undefined past trauma with men, Joel gets to have both his daughters in this

A/N: We're ignoring canon and pretending like Joel can draw for this fic, thank you. I love this fic with everything I am and hope you all like it too. I'm trying something new with this header because none of the gif were giving me what I wanted, so I hope its not too cringe as I am not an aesthetic girlie. Thank you for reading! As always, I would love to know your thoughts! Please please please, be sure to leave feedback!

Summer is at its peak when you first happen by Joel Miller's tattoo studio.

The sky is a jewel bright, cerulean blue, the shining yellow saturation of the sun blurring the air around you in a washed out haze that reminds you of childhood summers past.

Main Street’s sidewalk is hot enough to fry an egg, hot enough to boil soup. It sends shimmering waves up from the asphalt. Blinding sunshine pierces through the tired trees that line the road, undulating waves of emerald green and twinkling golden light shifting over the pavement. The leaves wilt in the heat. A single cloud floats on the sky’s horizon.

The sun feels nice, maybe a little like you’re baking alive, but you don’t mind it. When you suck in a deep breath of that sun warmed air, you feel at home—it tastes like dust and heat and the slightly floral desert bloom.

The town, just a couple hours outside Austin, already feels more like home to you than the city ever did. It’s idyllic, lush with shaded parks, an ice cream parlor and a coffee shop, plenty of restaurants and food trucks, a walkable little main thoroughfare not far from your apartment above a bookstore.

It’s more than idyllic; it feels like a town straight out of a novel. Quiet and quaint and safe.

And, apparently, it has a tiny tattoo studio that you’d somehow missed on all your walks through town.

The shop looks a bit rustic—all raw wood tones and metal—but the art that hangs in the front windows is beautiful. Paintings that seem to be for sale hang next to artfully taken photos of healed tattoos.

You step closer, pressing a hand over your brow to block out part of the glare that rains down from the sky in glimmering waves.

The lone cloud in the sky slides over the sun in what feels like a moment of divine intervention, just for you, so you can see the displayed art properly.

It’s lovely, and your skin begins to itch and tingle with a need you know well. You know exactly what you’d ask for, from the hand of the person who’d created that which hangs in the front window.

You want—need—another tattoo. You need this person’s art to live on your skin, to make a home there.

You step back from the glass as the cloud drifts on and the sun reveals itself again, perfect golden rays slipping over your exposed skin. The world seems to filter back in to you then. The heat of the day, the hush of the breeze that does nothing to cool the air, the sweat gathering at the base of your throat.

Children shriek at the park a block over, splashing in the fountain at the center of it all, parents reclined on benches in the sun, cold lemonade close at hand. The scent of sugar and sun and fried food burns through the air.

The buzzing need only increases as you note the name of the shop and move on to the record store and then the clothing boutique, your mind still hovering in front of the studio.

As much as you would have liked to just burst in, you want more than what a walk-in appointment could probably get you. That, and you needed to do some research about the place before you decided, no matter how much your skin itched with want.

To your dismay, the tattoo shop seems to only have one artist, though it shouldn’t have surprised you, considering the size of the shop. It’s tiny and you doubt there was room for more than one artist to comfortably work there.

A fairly new instagram account lists his name as Joel Miller, owner of, and soul artist at, the studio you had passed. The shop doesn’t seem to have a website, but the few google reviews that it does have are all glowingly positive.

Bookings appear to be wide open according to the instagram bio, but a different kind of itch crawls under your skin at the thought of being tattooed by another man. Your stomach goes foamy, gives an uncomfortable lurch, at the thought of any man at all having to touch you.

You scroll through the few posts that have made their way onto the account, the last dated two days ago. And, for the first time in years, you feel the need for this person’s art on your skin begin to outweigh your aversion to touch.

There are no pictures of Joel Miller, just his art, though some of the posts give glimpses of strong hands and thick forearms. Despite yourself, arousal pools in your belly at the sight. A few scars run beneath the wiry black hair on his arms, thick veins snake beneath his skin to collect in rough, strong hands that speak to hard labor. It makes you wonder if he’d always been a tattoo artist or if he’d made a career change at some point.

Some of the captions on the posts make you snort and you have to wonder if he runs the account himself. You somehow can’t picture the owner of those hands typing out the cheesy, often pun filled, lines.

You ruminate on it for weeks, passing by the shop anytime you have to walk through town to admire the ever changing line up of photos and art pieces hung in the windows. The second week a drawing of a doe appears among the photos and paintings—big eyes wide, ears alert as she looks over her shoulder, surrounded by a thick forest bright with sun and shadow. Bumblebees hover around her alert ears.

She looks familiar but you can’t quite place why.

Sometimes you go out of your way to pass by, just to check out the new photos, even making a day of it, buying yourself an expensive iced coffee and lingering far too long in front of the window, just looking, pretending like the small shop doesn’t take up your every thought.

You spend each evening hoping for a new post to the shop’s instagram page, hoping, too, that the new post contains glimpses of more than Joel Miller’s hands.

The man remains an enigma, a mystery, and if he’s ever in the shop when you stand in the window, you never see him. You convince yourself that if you could just get a glance at him, you’d know. You’d know if you could handle being tattooed by him.

You find yourself rolling your eyes at yourself often. You avoid hugs with friends, cringe your way through having anyone unfamiliar do your hair, tense at casual accidental touch. Phantom echoes of pain and want twin themselves around your heart, slide thick and cloying around your chest, breaking your breath from your body.

It’s inexplicable, how much you crave touch and fear it. It’s terrifying, how you wonder what Joel’s hands would feel like.

Probably it would feel like everyone else’s touch always has. Like your skin is too tight, like your heart might stop beating, like there’s something wrong with you for feeling like prey near capture, like the soft press of another person's hand might start burning.

One hot afternoon, you finally find out what Joel looks like.

The heat is relentless that day as it has been for weeks, the ice cream you’d stopped for at the local parlor rapidly melting as you completed your, now weekly, routine of stopping by the tattoo studio. As unbearable as the heat is, you somehow still find it blissful. On this day, a young woman stands outside the shop cleaning the front window. The door is propped open, frigidly cold air swirling out onto the street.

“Sarah?” A voice calls from within, graveled and gruff and warm. “You ‘bout finished up out there? We need to get goin’. Tommy’s waitin’.”

The girl, who could only be Sarah, turns away from the window, swiping a few errant strands of her hair away from her forehead, her opposite hand anchoring on her hip as she answers back.

You don’t catch her response, too distracted trying to glimpse the man just inside the door.

All you’re able to see for a moment is a crop of dark hair laced with a fine sprinkling of gray before his broad shoulders that test the strength of the t-shirt he wears comes into view. Dark wash jeans fit snugly around his thighs and narrow hips, worn but well kept boots on his feet. He’s certainly handsome and looks rugged, and that both scares you and thrills you.

When you glance back up to his face, you meet his eyes. The slash of sun, a spinning shard of light falls over his gaze when he pokes his head out the door. In the warmth of the Texas sun, his eyes are cast in honeyed tones. The man you know must be Joel Miller smiles at you, one forearm lifting to brace against the doorway, the lines by his eyes crinkling up. His beard is threaded with that attractive gray too.

“Howdy,” he says and he looks like he means to say more, but something seizes your throat and you avert your eyes and keep walking, barely managing to nod back politely. You don’t dare to breathe until you’re well past his shop.

It takes you two blocks to realize the ice cream in your fist had melted over the edge of the cup and dripped over your fingers and that the man whose art you’ve been lusting over for weeks is just as pretty as his hands.

Joel noticed you the first day you lingered outside his studio.

He’d watched you cup a hand over your eyes, squinting against the glare of the sun. Your nose had scrunched up too as you gazed in at what was hung in the window.

A curl of nervousness that he couldn’t exactly place had settled hard in his gut. But you just looked, eyes filled with wonder as honeyed sunshine fell in drafts around you. He half expected a colony of bees to buzz around you, like some long forgotten god.

You’d reminded him then of a deer caught by surprise, big eyes and searching gaze pulling him in, something skittish and troublesome looming around you.

It wasn’t in Joel’s nature to bother folks on the street anyway, but he suspected if he even cracked the door open you’d go flying down the street in a cloud of warmed sun, just like a deer that hears the first snap of a branch under a hunter’s foot.

Eventually you’d moved on, and he’d tried not to feel too bad about it, not that he had any real reason to.

His hand had itched as you walked away, to pick up a paint brush or a pencil or a whittling knife.

To his surprise, you start coming back all the time. A least once a week, and sometimes it seemed like you came by just to come by, like you didn’t have any other reason to be out.

His girls notice, too, when they visit because of course they do.

Sarah is kinder about it than Ellie who tells him to man up and talk to you.

He just tells her to mind her own business, watching you look at the things he’d created with wonder and reverence. It flatters him, really, makes an embarrassing blush he’ll never admit to heat his chest. He considers himself a pretty average artist.

But each time he thinks about following Ellie’s advice, he sees your doe eyes and knows he’d frighten you.

There’s a drawing that hangs in the window now—several actually—of a doe with wide, curious eyes, not necessarily afraid but cautious. He can’t seem to stop painting, drawing, whittling deer.

One deer really, a very particular doe that bees seemed to want to follow.

He wonders if you know that that painting in the front window is of you, if you recognize yourself. You surely don’t, because you keep coming by.

“Since when are you so obsessed with deer?” Sarah asks one evening. The light has faded from the sky in an orange and red blaze, the close blanket of night wreathing the street outside, street lamps buzzing haloing yellow light in patches down the sidewalk.

“Always liked deer,” he comments, mumbling it more than anything.

Sarah rolls her eyes. “Sure.”

He’s right not to disturb you though. The day he finally gets the chance to say hello to you, when Sarah had insisted on washing the front window free of the accumulated summer dust despite his protests that he would do it, fear darts behind your eyes, nervousness seizing your shoulders. You don’t so much as look at him, head ducked, feet carrying you swiftly down the road away from him.

A thread of worry that you’d stop coming by wrapped around his chest until the next week when you’d again lodged yourself in the window, peering in at the ever rotating catalog of his work.

He figures that’s fine for now.

He’d rather you be there, unreachable on the other side of the glass, than have you disappear entirely.

You are a creature of distrust. Of longing and starved skin, of loneliness and want. You aren’t sure where those things begin and you end, you aren’t sure where it started. Maybe you had been born that way, shoved onto the Earth and into existence with a mistrust of the world that shaped you into an infinitely lonely thing, an incredibly wary thing.

There’s always been something missing inside you, that might let you bridge that chasm inside you, climb to the other side and put yourself in someone else’s hands and hope they didn’t burn the path behind you.

Maybe you are skittish and adverse to touch by nature. Maybe it started when you were a kid, with your parents who have never been tactile, not even when you were a child, not even when you were hurt or in pain.

But you aren’t sure, you have never been sure.

What you do know is that it's left behind a raw hole, aching with a loneliness you can't figure out how to battle.

The times you had slipped your heart into someone else’s palm, wet and sticky with blood, the viscera of who you are, admitting to the pain that vibrated always at a low level frequency below your skin, you regretted it.

Mostly because you’re never able to explain it. It just is. You just are.

It’s who you’ve always been, and sometimes one step forward necessitated two steps back with how much you could handle.

Touch wasn’t even always bad, sometimes it was just too much. And no one wanted or tried to understand that sometimes it just felt too good, overwhelmed you to the point of exhaustion, and sometimes to pain.

You’ve always wondered if there would ever be anyone who’s touch felt safe, felt like it belonged.

The aversion you have to touch and the deepening trust issues that grew wilder every year were only solidified by your last boyfriend, by the tattoo he carved into your skin. He confirmed everything you ever needed to know about yourself, that you were not worth cracking the code on, that no one would ever be willing to try to handle you with care, to expose you slowly, to meet you halfway. To know when you asked not to be touched that you weren’t mad or punishing them.

If he wasn’t willing to put up with you, he’d said, to figure it out, then no one else would be.

You swore off having a relationship, content in the loneliness that you were destined to have claw at your heart, at least in that way.

But with that tattoo came too a deep mistrust, an aversion to anyone getting too close to you, a swearing off, a final nail in the coffin of trying for things to be thrown back in your face. He’s the reason you moved to this tiny town, away from Austin and all the memories that he’d left in you like jagged shards of mirror, reflecting everything you didn’t want to see.

Before he tattooed you, you’d been tattooed several times before. The experience had always been good, one of the few ways you didn’t mind being touched. It had always been the making of a happy memory for you. And he had taken that from you.

He hadn’t just stolen something you loved from you, but shut the door on vulnerability or intimacy with almost anyone.

Joel Miller’s tattoo studio, his stupidly attractive hands, the deep drawl of his howdy, and most of all the beauty of his art in the front window of the shop, captures your mind, ensnares your every thought. It’s woven a net around all the thoughts and worries that normally flutter around your head and calls for them to be silent.

“All I do is think about this damn tattoo,” you say to a friend back in Austin one evening, phone squished between your shoulder and your face as you cook dinner. “Is that normal? Like, I can’t just go get one somewhere else, by anyone else.”

No one knew about the sharp fanged demons that lingered in your past. The distrust and loneliness that ate out parts of your heart, bite by bite, year by year. But Leah does know about your ex, about the tattoo on your shoulder that still aches with long healed pain.

“You said it looks like he does walk-ins, right?” She asks, not unkindly. “Why not just go talk to him for a bit,” she eases you into it. “See if it might be the right fit. I know. . .things in your past haven’t been easy. But he might be alright. I can go with you, if you think that might help.”

And that doesn’t seem so bad. Just talking to him doesn’t seem so bad. You find that you want to. Then you would know if you couldn’t be tattooed by him, no matter how much you admired his art. Leah reminds you again of the nice google reviews, the funny little captions on his instagram posts, that he is not your ex even if he is a stranger.

“He’s running a business,” she says gently. “It isn’t like then.”

She’s right, you know she is, and you miss the experience, you miss getting tattooed.

So, the next morning you brace yourself and make the now familiar walk to the little studio, picking up an iced coffee to sip on the way so you hopefully won’t be too sweaty in the early morning sun that blooms rose pink on the horizon. It gives your hands something to do too, and you fidget with the rim of the plastic lid as you walk.

When you push the door open, Joel is standing at the counter. He has glasses perched on the end of his nose and is paging through a leather bound appointment book that sits next to an ancient computer that looks as though it hasn’t been switched on in a decade.

Something about the sight makes your shoulders loosen just a bit. You certainly hadn’t expected him to look like that, domestic and relaxed and calm. His pen scratches across the paper, a landline phone slotted against his ear.

He glances up at you in the still open doorway, surprise pulling over his features for a brief moment before he makes a hasty end to the call. It makes heat crawl up your body, the way his attention latches onto you and sticks. “Hey,” he greets when he sits the phone back into the cradle, sliding the glasses off. “I’ve been wonderin’ when you’d finally come in.”

There’s something light in the rough, drawling timber of his voice, like he’s trying not to startle you, like he’s inexplicably glad you’re there.

You stiffen and he chuckles, cold air pulsing around you in the doorway before you finally step fully into the shop and let it swing closed behind you. You remain there, just inside the door, trying not to feel like a fish in a barrel, easily caught, even more easily killed. “Caught me, huh?” You try to keep your voice light, waiting for a striking arrow that would never come.

“S’alright. Thought maybe you just walked this way a lot but you always stop to look,” he gestures at the front window. “My daughter is the one that’s always changin’ it around.”

“I appreciate her efforts,” you say, taking a hesitant step forward. “I look forward to seeing the changes. Best part of my week.”

He nods, looking just a tad embarrassed, and then closes the appointment book, giving you his undivided attention. “Lookin’ to get tattooed?” His eyes trace over your exposed skin, noting the few you already have.

“Maybe,” you answer, giving a half-shrug that you hope comes across as nonchalant. “I saw on instagram that you’re, uh, taking appointments.”

“That I am,” he answers easily.

You swallow and glance around the studio. It’s as tiny as it seemed from the outside, but homely and comfortable. The walls are a deep green that remind you of forests you’ve never seen. The walls are covered in photos and art, both created and bought, the styles too different to have been made by the same person.

When you squint closer, you see that a few of them have tiny plaques beneath them, etched with names and dates. Shelves line the walls filled with knick knacks and children’s drawings in frames, and what appear to be family photos. One shelf is stacked with records and coffee table books, an ancient turntable perched precariously on top. A door is propped open behind the dark wooden counter, through which you can see the actual tattooing space, clean and sterile looking.

A lone guitar is hung on the wall, and you wonder if he plays. Your imagination conjures up hands that you’ve been studying for weeks softly plucking at the strings, curling around the bridge.

It’s shameful, the way your body flushes at the thought, the ghost of strummed notes floating in the air around you.

“Darlin’?”

Joel’s voice pulls your eyes away from the guitar and back to his face. Embarrassment drops like hot coal into the pit of your belly. You like the shape of that word in his mouth.

“I just wanted to stop in and see if maybe we’d be a good fit,” you explain hastily, not thinking about the words before they fall like broken promises from your lips. “If you’d be interested in tattooing me.” Before he can open his mouth to respond, you continue, “That wasn’t what I—I don’t mean to take up any of your time. Just if you have a moment. I should have messaged maybe—”

Joel waves you down and gestures around at the empty space. “No, it’s alright, hardly got anyone comin’ through here. Next appointment ain’t ‘til this afternoon.” He reaches below the counter, callused fingers catching on another notebook which he sets on the counter with care.

You follow the motion of his hands, your eyes snapping back to his when he continues, “What are you lookin’ to get done?” The knot of anxiety in your chest loosens a little when he seems to take your nerves for concern over the piece you want done.

Joel’s hands are ones that are familiar to you now after all the times you’d spent looking at the spare pictures of them online. That want, the heat, crawls back up inside your lungs and curls up to stay, making a home among the throbbing tendon and muscle. Though you’d glimpsed him that day on the street, it's a very different experience to stand for an extended period in front of him. His voice paired with the broad set of his shoulders, the cut of his brown eyes focused on you, all adds up to something devastating.

Another vinegary squirm of nerves in your gut is accompanied by your treacherous heart squeezing tight in your chest, battering something long abused, long closed off.

“You can show me reference pictures if you’ve got ‘em,” he offers when you don’t respond again, instead just looking at him, his presence calming in a way you can’t really explain. You blink and pull out your phone, approaching the counter slowly. The ice in your half finished coffee rattles as you set it on the counter, away from the appointment book so the condensation won’t accidentally get on it.

Joel unsettles you, but not in a way that people usually unsettle you. Not in the way your ex-boyfriend had from the very beginning. Instead of feeling the need to flee, you feel the urge to stay.

You show Joel the inspiration pictures you’ve been collecting the last few weeks, swiping slowly through what you have saved in your camera roll and describing what you imagine as best you can. When you lean closer to show him, the scent of clove and cinnamon and leather washes over you. The smell makes you a little dizzy, runs circles around your head.

His brow is furrowed, concentration etched into his features. “I’ll need some time to work out some designs for ya.”

“That’s alright,” you nod, watching those rough fingers sketch broad lines in the notebook he’d pulled out.

“Sorry, sweetheart, don’t know where my manners went. I didn’t get your name,” he says, and glances up at you. “I’m Joel,” he holds out a hand.

Sweetheart. You’ll be hearing the low timber of his voice whispering that and darlin’ in your dreams, you’re sure of it.

You find yourself smiling, your mouth involuntarily pulling up at the corners. You take his hand without thinking. His hand is warm and firm; his fingers engulf yours.

He hums as he takes his hand back, pencil already between his fingers again, and you’re left feeling chilled, like there’s an empty space in the middle of your hand that needs filled. “Real pretty name y’got.”

Oh. You like the hum of pleasure in your chest that chases the nerves below your skin. It’s a pleasant kind of warm.

“You can send ‘em on to me on that. . .app,” he grumbles. And you have to laugh. Between the landline phone, the physical calendar book, and that app he sounds just like the kind of cranky that you find endearing. “Uh, just so you know if you get a reply that don’t sound like me, it’s because my daughter runs it for me.”

“Sarah,” you guess, thinking of the young woman you’d seen cleaning the window.

“Ellie, actually. She thinks she’s a goddamn comedian.” He rolls his eyes, but you don’t miss the affection lodged in his gaze. He gestures at one of the pictures framed on a shelf where two teenage girls are slotted on either side of him. “Got two of ‘em,” he clarifies. “Sarah—she does the window. You saw her that day you passed by, the taller one there in the picture.”

You tilt your head, Joel’s eyes following the motion. “They help you run this place.”

“They’re my marketing team,” he grumbles. “Self-appointed, if you couldn’t guess.”

You find yourself leaning on the counter, watching Joel’s pretty hands sketch absentmindedly. “That actually sounds like fun.”

“They seem to think so,” he agrees, glancing up at the same time you do. A touch of pink colors the high points of his cheeks. The delicate little shading makes something warm curl into your gut. “Anyway,” he clears his throat. “We don’t get a lot of foot traffic around here, you might have noticed. Ellie’s thinkin’ that account might lure people up from Austin.”

You nod. “It’s a good idea. People have traveled further for tattoos. And we aren’t too out of the way up here.”

“I take it you live around here,” he glances down again, like he finds looking at you hard.

“Not far,” you confirm. “That’s how I found you.”

He goes silent for a moment, fingers continuing to twitch around the pencil before he looks back at you. “I’ll, uh, have somethin’ to ya in a couple a’ days. You can let me know if you want any changes and we’ll set a date.”

You straighten, feeling only slightly dismissed. “Oh, yeah, sure. Thank you.” You start to turn when you remember yourself. That’s not really what you came here for. “Actually, listen, I don’t want to waste your time. You don’t need to start on anything. Not yet. I’m not sure just yet, I just wanted to meet you. I really admire your art.”

You leave it at that. Pouring out all your other issues would just make you look insane.

Joel raises a curious brow at you, waiting, a question in his eyes that he doesn’t ask as you take a step back. “Alright,” he agrees. “I won’t start on anythin’ just yet.”

“Okay,” you back further away, trying desperately not to turn and run, aware you must look odd. “I’ll see you around.”

“I hope so, honey.”

Though the tattoo shop is cold, heat that rivals the temperature outside dissolves the bones in your chest from the way his eyes linger on you.

But that want—need—is within reach now, and something tells you that you can trust him.

At least with this.

Joel sees you more often after the first day you actually come into the shop.

Well—

He supposes he sees you about the same amount, but now you actually come inside. You always pause in the doorway for half a second, those watchful doe eyes going wide, like your instincts always kick in a second too late.

But once you make it inside, you talk to him, share snippets of your life as you watch him draw, eyes focused on his hands.

You breakup the monotony of his days, those times between appointments and the few walk-ins that he does see.

Sometimes, most times, you bring him coffee from the shop at the end of the road, and he hates that you feel obligated to bring something for him. “For letting me hang around,” you always say.

Most times he feels like he’s trying not to scare you away, like one wrong move will send you bolting right back out the door. But he comes to rely on your presence, the sunshine earthy smell you bring inside with you, the cautious questions and wide eyes, the way you dart to your feet and disappear the second a sign of work for him appears, even if he wouldn’t mind you waiting, taking up room in the tiny front room.

Joel has to wonder what happened to you, if anything, or if you’re just a nervous person. Maybe it’s just in your nature to be distrustful. He doesn’t mind you coming in all the time, in fact he likes it, hates the empty spaces you now leave behind. The studio seems impossibly empty and cavernous without you around now, asking about the guitar on the wall, about where he learned to draw, about his girls.

Still, summer passes by slowly, like a jar of molasses catching sun in a window. He watches you come and go, watches you get to know him through tiny encounters that loosen your shoulders more each time you stop in.

He doesn’t tell you that he spends most evenings working on a design for that tattoo you may or may not get, that he has a dozen different versions of it clogging up his notebook.

He figures if you don’t end up getting it tattooed then he can just give you some of the sketches to keep.

Like he’d ever find a damn way to do that without feeling like a fool.

Toward the end of summer, with heat still burning up all the air in Texas and showing no signs of abating, you push the door open with your chin lifted and a smile on your face. Heat, like the rush of burning air from an oven, whips around you and into the shop.

He tells himself the heat is why his mouth suddenly feels dry. He tells himself it has nothing to do with how your ass looks in those jeans you always wear or the curve of your hips in the snug fit or the tank top that shows off your shoulders and arms and chest. All topped off with you smiling at him.

“Hey Joel,” you greet, crossing the studio in a couple strides where you deposit a cup of coffee onto the counter next to his hand. He likes the way you say his name, breathy and quick. “I think I’m ready.”

“Ready?” He questions, bewildered.

His mind takes a moment to catch up to what you mean. The tattoo. You’re ready to get your tattoo.

And Joel becomes aware that he is distinctly not ready for that. Because then what excuse will you have to stop by so often? “Right now?” He asks.

You smile. “Not at this exact moment, obviously,” you say with a roll of your eyes. “Just…generally. Whenever you have time for me. I know you’ll need time to work on a design. I’ll send the inspiration photos to the instagram account so you can look at them again.”

“Yeah,” he agrees, the notebook with your designs tucked under the counter burning a hole in the corner of his vision. “Shouldn’t take too long.”

Your smile widens. “Thanks. I can’t hang around today.” You wave a hand back in the direction of the front window, “Errands to run. I just wanted to say that I really love the new painting.”

“The—”

“The new deer. She’s beautiful. More confident than the other ones. I think, or maybe it’s the same. I really like the new one though. You’ve been doing a lot of deer lately.”

He swallows and nods. “Yep.”

Your head tilts to the side before you take a step back, anxiety pulling at your face. “Okay,” you say, your voice noticeably smaller. “Well, I’ll see you around. I’ll message Ellie.”

Before he can stop you, you’ve bolted out the door.

He sighs and rolls his shoulders back as he watches you walk down the street in the honeyed sunshine. When you’re finally out of sight, he pulls the sketchpad out and starts on yet another design.

“Dude, you’ve got it baaaaaad,” Ellie accuses as she sets a platter of fried chicken on the dining room table. “He didn’t even ask for a fucking deposit!”

“No deposit?” Sarah asks, adding a bowl of salad next to the plate. “That’s just bad business practice, dad.”

Joel rolls his eyes. “Not everyone takes deposits.”

The girls glance at each other. “Yeah, but you usually do. You told me not to ask for one!”

He grumbles under his breath, settling at the table, just glad that his girls were there at all. He’d half expected the standing weekly dinner to fizzle out once he moved out of Austin, but they always made the drive up, or he went down to them each Friday.

His girls had their own lives, Sarah still in college, Ellie still trying to find her footing as an apprentice at a tattoo studio in the city.

“Did she seem interested?”

Joel assumes Sarah is asking about the tattoo.

You seemed exactly as he’d thought. A little nervous and wary, but mostly curious and eager. He’d been blushing like a kid, the warmth you always tugged along with you into the shop no match for the air conditioning.

“Yeah,” he answers, shrugging. “Ellie’d know more than me—”

“I mean does she seem interested in you?”

Joel glances sharply up to find both his kids grinning at him. “I’m talkin’ about the damn tattoo,” he says, exhaling sharply through his nose before he reaches for a plate.

“Well, that’s obvious,” Sarah mutters with a roll of her eyes.

“Yeah, c’mon, man,” Ellie leans back in her chair. “Isn’t she there, like, every fucking day?”

Joel frowns at her. “Manners,” he reminds her.

He gets an eye roll from her too, before she tilts her chair back down onto all four legs.

“Watch it,” he says, “Your eyes are gonna get stuck like that.”

“Joel—”

“She’s nervous enough as it is,” he grumbles. “Never met someone s’damn skittish.”

“What, like a horse?”

“Like a deer,” he corrects. “She don’t need me makin’ passes at her. I think she’s just now comin’ around to the idea of trustin’ me so don’t say something stupid to her.” He directs the last bit to Ellie. “Clear?”

She spears a piece of chicken. “Clear,” she grumbles.

“I think she likes you dad,” Sarah says, primly cutting into the chicken on her own plate. “I don’t think she’d mind it.”

Ellie sends you scans of a couple designs two days after you abruptly tell Joel you’re ready to get tattooed. It’s accompanied by a message that makes something in you squirm in such a pleasant way that you worry there might be wrong with you.

the old man told me you know i manage the account for him. he’s really excited about this one and can’t wait to tattoo you. he worked on the design for weeks - ellie

Another message pops up almost immediately after the first.

don’t tell him i told you that

A warmth that has nothing to do with your open balcony door and the heat pouring into your apartment floods your veins. He’d said he’d need to work something out for you.

The two designs she sends are beautiful, and it's easy to see not only the talent but the time he put into them. Clearly he’d been working on a design since you first talked to him all those weeks ago.

Your whole body goes awash with heat, warming you pleasantly from the inside out.

You message her back to figure out the day and time, before flopping your phone face down on the couch, a nervous thrumming centering in your body. It folds your veins up into anxious little knots. The phantom echo of his low, drawling voice reverberates around your brain, the casual little sweethearts and darlin’s he throws your way kicking your heart into overdrive, a skittering pounding knocking against your ribs.

A thrill goes up your spine. At the prospect of a new tattoo, at the thought of spending so much uninterrupted time with Joel, of his hands on you.

The last thought jolts you a little.

That that’s something you’re looking forward to.

You aren’t expecting another message, not after finalizing a date only a few days in the future. But your phone buzzes again, yet another message waiting for you.

just a heads up - joel said you’ll have to sit for two or three sessions. he doesn’t want to wear you out.

Well, at the very least he was more considerate than the last man to tattoo you.

A rare rain splashes down the morning of your appointment, driving away the humidity that had curled in the air like a choking wraith the last few days and cooling the temperature down to something mild. It’s the first false start of what will always turn out to be a warm fall.

You take your time getting ready just to ease your nerves, hydrating and eating a bigger breakfast than you normally do.

In the afternoon, the walk to the studio is dreary. The street smells like petrichor and summers long gone. The gloom only makes the interior of the shop feel more cozy.

And more intimate.

When you push the door open, Joel’s daughter, Ellie, is standing at the counter complaining loudly about how old fashioned Joel is as she slowly pages through the leather bound appointment book that seems to never leave the side of the ancient computer you suspect is rarely, if ever, switched on. She seems to be logging appointments from her phone into the book.

Her eyes snap to you the moment the door swings shut, then glances at the clock. “Early,” she says. “Joel is still setting up.”

“That’s okay,” you say, pointedly sitting down on the leather sofa that takes up most of the floor space of the front room. “I can wait.”

You snap your mouth shut to avoid the waterfall of words that want to cascade from your lips. Nerves tingle under your skin, buzz lowly just beneath the surface.

Waiting makes you hot, makes heat rise from your skin in painful waves, as your anxiety continues to crest.

At the counter Ellie snaps the appointment book shut, now grumbling about Joel’s chicken scratch, when you peel off your sweatshirt. “Oh,” she says, surprised. “I didn’t know you had tattoos already.”

You jump a little, eyes flashing to the woman leaning on the dark wooden counter. Her chin is propped in her hand. You aren’t quite sure what to make of that, that she thought you didn’t have any.

“Yeah,” you stand and move closer to the counter. Maybe she’s just trying to distract you. “Why is that such a surprise?” You smile and offer her your arm. “I not look like the type?”

“Joel just said you were nervous,” she says, turning your arm in her hand, inspecting the tattoo on the top of your shoulder, and then the one that wraps around your bicep. “So I figured it was your first.”

Joel had talked to his daughter about you.

Maybe he talked to her about all his clients; she did manage the instagram account for the shop after all.

“I’m always a little uneasy beforehand.”

Your excuse is weak but Ellie doesn’t call you on it. Her eyes are latched onto the tattoo over your shoulder, the one your ex had done. You know what she’s seeing, how a few of the lines are blown out, how it healed badly.

She releases your wrist with a nod, her eyes more knowing than you would like. “Scared of the pain?”

“No,” you shake your head. “It doesn't hurt much, usually. It's relaxing more than anything.” You nod to the tattoo on your shoulder. “But, that one was the last and it did hurt and, uh, it put me off getting more for awhile.”

She looks it over for a minute, brows furrowing at what you know is shoddy work. Your gaze slides to the tattoo on Ellie’s forearm. “You don’t have to worry about that with the old man,” she informs you and releases your arm, her tone serious. “He might not look it, but he’s got a light touch.”

Before you can respond, Joel emerges from the back, rubbing his hands together as he glances between the two of you, his eyes wary. “Ellie,” he says, his voice that low gravel. “You stickin’ around, kiddo?”

“Nope.” She stabs a finger into the top of the appointment book, “Get fucking rid of this.” She grabs her jacket and hops up onto the counter, swinging herself over it, as Joel snaps at her not to. “Too late,” she chirps already out the door. “See you Friday.”

When you turn back to Joel, those splotches of pink and cresting red are back in his cheeks and neck and you have to wonder if he heard what Ellie had said. “That girl,” he grumbles. “Come on around here, darlin’,” he gestures with a roll of his eyes. “You don’t have to climb over the counter like a wild animal.”

You round the end of the counter and follow Joel into the back room where he’s already meticulously prepped everything. He sits on a rolling stool and gestures you in front of him. “I take it you already know the drill?” He asks.

You hum in affirmation and try not to jump when his hand brushes yours. “Easy,” he mumbles, almost to himself. It doesn’t stop a flare of heat from spiking in your blood. “You already decided on your left forearm, right?”

“Yeah,” you answer, holding your arm out to him.

You wonder what it is about Joel that makes him so magnetic, that makes him feel so safe. His hand, already in a sterile glove, slides around your wrist to hold you steady while he cleans your skin thoroughly. The sharp scent of antiseptic blooms around you, chasing away the clove and leather scent that usually lingers around Joel. “You alright?” He asks, glancing up at you to watch your face.

“Yep,” you answer tightly.

“Alright,” he agrees warily, like he doesn’t quite believe you. “I’m gonna haveta shave the area.”

You nod, you already knew that, and watch him pick up a disposable pink bic razor from the tray to his left. Despite having gone through this whole thing more than a few times before, this feels different, it feels more intimate and reserved.

He drags the razor over your skin slowly, carefully, then sanitizes your skin again when he’s finished, the cool flush of the moisture against your skin almost shocking. You go back and forth about the placement of the stencil. Your body tenses when you waffle for what feels like too long. You expect him to get frustrated with you but he doesn’t. His voice remains unbothered and patient.

Maybe your standards are in hell, maybe he’s just being a proper tattoo artist like all the others that had tattooed you before your ex, but it still makes a knot form in the back of your throat.

Eventually Joel presses the stencil into your skin when you give the go ahead. He rubs at it gently, warming your chilled skin, before he peels it away. The warmth of his touch is surprisingly soothing, the loss of it leaving you cold. “If it ain’t right, we can do it again,” he says, jerking his chin at the mirror in the corner, the picture of calm. “Go on and take a look and let me know.”

You both agree the placement looks good, and then comes the moment when you have to climb onto the table and put yourself in his hands. You will have to lie there and let another person touch you, albeit professionally. It doesn’t make it any better, any easier.

Your skin is so empty, so hungry, and Joel’s attention makes you feel like wax held too close to heat.

It already feels like too much and he’s barely touched you.

A cold prickle of fear slides down your spine too, pulling your shoulders in tight. The last time you did this you—

“You comfortable?” Joel is watching you, his eyes shaded and attentive.

You nod, aware that you are the picture of uncomfortable as Joel changes his gloves. Your hands are in fists, your spine hard and tense. All the air seems to have been sucked out of the room, cold and sterile and icy in your lungs.

“I ain’t touchin’ you until you relax,” he says when he turns back to you, settling next to you on a stool, hand hovering over the tattoo gun on the tray by his elbow. “You don’t gotta—”

“I am relaxed,” you interrupt in a bite, harsher than you mean to. You grit your teeth, your hand only curling into a tighter fist.

“Sweetheart you’re as taut as a bowstring,” he says gently. “Take a couple breaths.”

You do and your heart rate slows. Now isn’t like then. Now is different. “Good,” he says and the praise slides warm against you. “I’m gonna touch you now.”

You nod and the buzz of the tattoo gun starts, his free hand curls over your fist, warm and reassuring and so present it makes tears sting at the backs of your eyes. You realize then that Joel has been touching you quite a lot, and that you haven’t exactly minded.

“Relax, I got you,” he reassures. “You’ll tell me if you need a break,” he says and it’s not a question.

You nod anyway, not sure which part you’re agreeing with.

Joel talks while he tattoos you, mainly about his kids, his two daughters who are clearly his entire world, the point that his life hinges on.

The pride in his voice, the love there, makes you smile.

Joel is much chattier than usual.

Normally you talk his ear off while he works as he silently listens and nods along. Joel is the gruff quiet type, not that you much mind. You’d expected to sit in relative silence, to listen to the rain still drumming against the roof and the low hum of the tattoo gun.

Listening to his voice is a welcome change. You would listen to him read from a dictionary.

Sarah is from his first marriage, Ellie adopted. Sarah is going to college— “Gonna be a doctor someday,” he says proudly. “For kids. Pediatrician.” Ellie is following in Joel’s footsteps, apprenticing as a tattoo artist. “Hope it's what she wants to do,” he says, equally as proud. “She’s got some art out there on the wall—well, I’ll point it out later, much better than mine—it took me long enough to make this switch.”

“What did you do before?” You ask as Joel swipes a damp paper towel across your skin. Ellie had been right, he does have a light touch, a gentle touch.

“Carpenter,” he answers, and you can’t decide if the way he squeezes your wrist is conscious or not. “Long hours, hard work.”

So you’d been right about the look of his hands. Hands that so carefully held yours as his other drew over your skin. “Mm,” you hum distractedly. “What convinced you to take the jump?”

“My girls convinced me. Gettin’ outta Austin helped. Havin’ the money to finally slow down.” He chuckles to himself. “That’s why the marketin’ is a little ridiculous. Moved all the way out here just to complain about the foot traffic.”

You find yourself smiling, watching the flex of tendon in his forearms as he works. His mouth is set in a concentrated line, a divot between his brows. “Looks like you’re doing alright.”

“We manage,” he says with a groan, straightening from his position hunched over your arm. Something in his back creaks and then cracks before he goes back to work. “Although I regret not startin’ a little younger. My brother, Tommy, manages our business now.”

“Carpentry business?”

“That’s right,” he hums, leaning in closer to your arm, his breath ghosts over your arm, goosebumps racing across your skin. You swallow and your hand clenches reflexively beneath his. “You doin’ alright?”

You wonder if he knows his hand is still cupped over yours, if he can feel the racing of your heart beneath his fingers. Maybe he did that with all his clients, just a way to steady himself and you.

You don’t expect him to be looking at you when you lift your eyes back to his face.

Heat blooms in your chest, the flutter of wings beating against your ribs. “Mhm,” you give a nervous hum, trying not to show the feathering thoughts that float like down through your mind, swirling and impossible to bat down.

“Y’have to tell me if you need to take a break.”

“I don’t,” you say quickly, wondering if you should explain yourself a little, if it would be better or worse for Joel to know exactly how fucking nerotic you are.

It shouldn’t matter if he thinks you’re crazy or not.

But it does.

“Just…I’m not so good with touch,” you admit. “I never have been and my last tattoo was…”

You aren’t sure how to phrase it, so you stop and look at his hands again. His hand swallows yours, barely any of your skin visible beneath his touch. You wait for your skin to prickle, for the urge to rip your hand away to swim up the back of your throat, but it never comes. “I’m fine, really. I’d tell you if I needed to stop.”

“I know it,” he says, not blinking, watching you carefully. “I’m just checkin’.” He looks back down, adjusting his grip before he continues, his thumb sweeping over your wrist. “Was it the one on your shoulder?”

“What?”

“The tattoo that was a bad experience?”

You suck in a deep breath through your nose and look away from the top of his head, away from the graying brown that makes your belly clench and the butterflies that live permanently in your chest swing back to life.

The breath you pull in does nothing to steady you, instead flooding your senses with the clean woodsy smell of him. It’s dizzying. “That easy to tell?” You sigh.

“Just a few of the lines are blown out,” he says, not unkindly. “Thought maybe an apprentice did it or somethin’.” Joel’s voice is mild, only lightly prying, an extended hand that you could lie a pearl truth in if you wanted to.

The nerves subside a little. “Apprentices aren’t usually that bad,” you joke.

“No,” he agrees. “Ellie’d never get ya like that. Shouldn’t be tattooing on people yet if you’re gettin’ ‘em like that.”

He doesn’t ask what actually happened, but you find yourself answering anyway. You find that his hand still securely over yours acts like an anchor rather than a weight.

“I had bruises for a couple weeks after,” you admit. “It hurt. He wanted it to hurt. And it healed really badly.”

Joel’s hand pauses, the needle lifting away from your skin, but he doesn’t look up. A long moment passes, and his voice comes out in a forced calm. “Who wanted it to hurt, honey?”

“My ex,” you say and Joel leans back, dark eyes flashing to yours. “He wasn’t my ex then, obviously. He wanted to tattoo me, but he wanted it to be his name. I wasn’t going to do that. He wanted to compromise for initials but I just…couldn’t. Something about it felt wrong. I let him—” you wave your free hand at your shoulder. “—do that. And…I don’t know what happened,” you say. “I think he wanted to brand me. He wanted to leave a piece of himself on me, whether I wanted it or not.”

Joel doesn’t say anything for a while, just blinks away from you and slowly leans over your arm again to continue working.

The tattoo your ex did is the only one that ever hurt, but Joel is gentler than you remember. Or, maybe you simply can’t remember the other times as well, pain of the most recent one blotting out the memory.

“I don’t want you to think about this like that,” Joel says eventually, not looking up. “I don’t.”

“What do you mean, Joel?”

His hand stills, his fingers flexing around your wrist, thumb subconsciously sliding against the side of your wrist. “I mean—I’m not puttin’ something of mine on you,” he says. You frown and open your mouth to protest. “I made it for you. This is yours,” he says adamantly.

You watch him for a long moment, not sure what to say, an emotion you can’t name welling up into the back of your mouth, swollen and trembling.

“I want you to think about it like that,” he says, looking up at you from beneath his lashes, his mouth a hard line. “I’m not markin’ you, because it's not mine. It’s yours. It’s for you.”

You just nod, not trusting yourself to speak.

You avert your eyes, blinking away the water that crests against the edges of your lash line.

Though you’ve been bothering Joel for the better part of the summer, you don’t really know much about him. Today is the most he’s talked, about himself or otherwise. All you know is that he makes you feel oddly safe, that he has gone out of his way to try to make you feel comfortable. You can hear the words he doesn’t say, the quiet anger that vibrates under the surface of it. What happened to you was wrong, I would not do that to you.

He wants you to believe he’s gifting you something, and you suppose he is.

You remember Ellie’s message, how she’d said he’d been working on the design for weeks. You think of every moment you spent hanging around his shop for the last few weeks while he worked on a design for you, never saying a word about it, knowing you might decide not to get tattooed.

“Joel,” you murmur, carefully lying your free hand on his shoulder. Muscle flexes beneath your hand, thick and warm. “I know you wouldn’t do that. And you know I wanted to do this, right?”

Joel’s hand squeezes yours again. “I know it,” he shrugs and leaves it at that.

Something unspoken passes between you though. He would not do that to you, but you also sense he would never let anyone else hurt you like that again either.

You watch the feathering of his lashes against his cheeks, the firm set of his mouth, the way he keeps sliding his thumb over your wrist. You study his nose, the line of scar on the bridge, the hard ridge of his brow, the wrinkle that pulls at the skin of his forehead.

“You don’t have to be mad about it,” you say. “I already have that covered. I think I’ve been angry for a long time.”

The room is quiet, the sound of rain on the roof having abated in the hours you’d been there. Joel doesn’t say anything for another long moment, the only sound his breathing and yours, the sound of the tattoo gun buzzing its familiar tune. “I could, uh, fix some of it for ya,” he offers, eventually, leaning back to study the progress he’s made on your arm. “The lines where they’re blown out, we could think of somethin’ to blend it into.”

You look away again, not able to answer around the thick knot braided into your chest. You try swallowing around it, trying desperately to think of something to say. His hand is starting to feel a little heavy on yours. The aching clawing that is two steps back begins to threaten you.

This time, unlike the others, you aren’t quite sure if you want him to stop touching you or for the feeling of his hand to melt into yours, if you’d just rather he became a part of you instead.

You decide to try to ignore it, to focus on the nice parts of it all — how warm his skin is, the calluses you can feel, the scent of his skin and hair, so close you could press your nose into him if you leaned forward a little.

“You have really nice hands,” you comment, entranced by the flex of muscle and vein and sinew even through the black nitrile gloves.

Joel glances up, his face close to yours. You can see the threads of honeyed gold and warm hazel in his eyes, almost sun-spotted “That so?” He asks with a quirk of his brow, fingers tightening over your hand.

You swallow, glancing away from his eyes to focus on anything else, and give a nervous hum.

“You still alright?” He asks, his thumb slipping back and forth over the back of your hand. “Still comfortable?” When you just nod, suddenly too anxious and warm to do anything else, he leans back and releases your hand to strip off his gloves. “Let’s take a break.”

The loss of his touch is—you aren’t sure what it is.

You just know you hate it, and that has never happened before.

“I’m alright,” you protest.

“You’re startin’ to shake, which means you’re goin’ into shock. I’m sure Ellie told you this’d take more than one session,” he says, matter of fact about it.

“She did,” you breathe.

He grunts and offers you a hand down from the table. “Let’s get you wrapped up and then I’ll take you to get somethin’ to eat.”

“Oh,” you say, surprise and that spark of warmth flooding you again. “And you do that for all your clients?”

“Just the ones I like,” he deadpans, fitting a second skin over your tattoo before giving you the usual spiel about how to care for it once the second skin was removed. You hardly listen, thinking only about how Joel said he likes you. “But I assume you know all a’ that,” he says, twisting your arm. “And ya know where to find me if somethin’ ain’t right.”

“Mhm,” you hum, trying not to let the disappointment show when he releases you again. “I’m something of an expert with tattoo care, I think.”

“Three tattoos makes you an expert?” He asks, not looking at you as he meticulously cleans up.

“Well, three that you can see.”

He turns, eyes sliding over you. You’re awash in that warm feeling again, the one that is an anchor and not a weight. “You got more than three, honey?”

You just smile and make a show of looking over the work he’d done on your arm, ignoring his question.

Joel chuckles, “What else do you have?”

“If I told you I’d have to kill you.”

He laughs again and herds you out the back room when he’s finished cleaning up, keys jangling in his fist. “Shouldn’t I pay—”

“Nope. You’ll do that when it’s done. Should just need one more session.”

“Joel really—”

But you’re already out on the street, the door firmly closed behind you. You watch him lock up and then gesture you down the street with a jerk of his head. It’s dark outside, the sky still tinged with dark blue on the horizon. The road smells like heat and rain, like damp dust and lightning.

“You really ain’t gonna tell me what other tattoos you got?”

“You really ain’t gonna let me pay?” You ask, imitating the gruff cut of his voice.

He rolls his eyes. “Alright, fine.” He walks away, leading you down the street, light from the streetlamps cartwheeling over his face, throwing his jaw and eyes into sharp relief and then plunging him into shadow. “C’mon now. You need somethin’ in you.”

You’ve never ventured into the center of town after dark. You’re always at home long before that, curled on your balcony with something to read.

Cicadas light the air with sound, the crisscross of wired lights spear butter yellow onto the pavement below where a bar is serving drinks and a local food truck still idles.

Someone has set up a speaker that folks twirl each other around to, old country music, the good kind. Others park themselves on benches, chatting and eating. It’s nice.

It makes you feel incredibly lonely, reminded of all the gaps in your life, all the places people should be, all the places love and familiarity should be.

Before you can sink into that mire, Joel’s guiding you into line with a careful hand against your back.

His palm is broad and warm, heating you from the inside out. It rivals the warmth pulsing around you, the leftover heat of the day leaching into you.

“What d’ya want?”

“Shouldn’t I get you something?” You offer. “You worked all day, I just laid there.”

“I drew a nice picture,” he retorts. “You lost blood. Pick somethin’ sugary.”

“Bossy,” you comment, feeling alight with nerves as his fingers flex against your spine.

“Mhm, that’s what Sarah and Ellie are always sayin’.”

You glance at him—at the rough cut of his jaw, the thick tendon in his throat—and swallow, nerves pinching at your belly in a way you haven’t felt in a very long time. You press back, so his hand rests more firmly against your back and hope he doesn’t notice. If he does, he doesn’t say anything, just humors you by tracing his hand up and down your spine. “Maybe they’re onto something then.”

“Definitely are.” He glances back down at you, “Pick somethin’ yet?”

You look over the menu as the line inches forward, and pick something to drink. Something sugary, as Joel had demanded.

But when he orders he makes a show of not letting you pay and ordering something for you to eat too.

“You should after sittin’ for as long as you did,” he argues when you settle at one of the picnic tables. “You don’t gotta, just thought I’d offer it.”

You and Joel face each other, one leg on either side of the bench, knees brushing. With each tiny touch, lightning zings up your spine, settles in amongst your bones and blood. You have a feeling you could lie all the bones and blood and viscera of yourself right at Joel’s feet and he wouldn’t so much as flinch.

“Right,” you say, picking at one of the tacos he’d ordered. “I can see why you have such nice reviews on google if you’re taking your clients out on your dime after tattooing them.”

“I wouldn’t say you’re that,” he scoffs.

“Mm,” you nod, not sure exactly what he means by that. “What does that make me then?”

You glance up at him and Joel just stares at you for a long moment, something unreadable passing behind his eyes. “You really not gonna tell me about your other tattoos?” He ignores your question to go back to his own.

“Nope,” you take a sip of the lemonade you’d ordered. Despite what you said to Joel, you are exhausted, muscles still trembling in little starts, and the sugar does help. “But you can guess.”

You know he won’t try to guess. He’s too gentlemanly, too mindful of his manners to go around pointing at body parts and guessing if there might be something inked there.

Joel raises a brow, taking a bite of his own taco. “Are you using my manners against me?”

You shrug, smiling. “Maybe.”

“That ain’t playin’ fair,” he accuses, leaning in, the inside of his jean clad thigh brushing against the outside of yours. Your belly clenches, the center of you suddenly aching.

“Who said anything about fair?” You manage. “Do you have any hidden tattoos?”

He shakes his head and glances briefly up, like he’s asking for patience from the stars. But he doesn’t answer your question.

It makes you smile. “Fine, you can keep yours a secret. I won’t pry,” you tease.

“Mhm,” he grumbles again, ignoring your jibe. “You’re mighty brave tonight.”

And suddenly your teasing feels dangerous, falls flat against the stone shore of Joel. The air seems to go frosty, a shiver raking down your spine as you shuffle back a little, suddenly aware of how close you are, how very brave you’ve been. You aren’t sure when Joel started to feel familiar to you.

Since you first met him, you suppose. You’ve carved out a place on that rocky shore whether he wanted you to or not.

“Sorry,” you say, starting to stand, thinking of how annoying you must have been all evening, all day, every single day you’ve taken up his time. You let him comfort you, plied him with trauma you’ve barely touched yourself, let him buy you something to eat against your better judgment when clearly it’s his manners that made him do so. “Don’t know what’s gotten into me. I’ll message Ellie to figure out the second session. Thanks for everything. You didn’t have to—”

“Your hip,” Joel says, curling his hand around your wrist so you can’t move any further away than you already have. You pause, your mind spinning as he clutches you gently.

His voice is steady, like you’re a spooked animal that might dart away at any moment.

“What?”

“I bet you one of your other tattoos is on your hip,” he drawls.

He squeezes your wrist again, now familiar and comforting. You fight the urge to pull your hand away, and instead let the feeling of his skin sink into yours, no cheap plastic gloves separating you now. You can properly feel the calluses on his fingertips, the catch of them against your skin, the soft center of his palm and the lines carved into his skin.

“No,” you lower yourself to the bench again, a tentative smile tugging at the corner of your mouth. “None on my hip.”

“How many other one’s you got?” His hand stays around yours.

“Two, not including my new one,” you say, laying a hand over the ink, your skin warm under your hand. “That’s my prettiest one, for sure. And it’s not even done.”

Joel ignores your compliment entirely, like he always seems to. His eyes rove over you, trying to guess the places you were inked, trying to picture it you would guess. It makes you squirm, the thought of him trying to imagine your bare skin, all the hidden places you might be tattooed.

He nods, his gaze heavy on you.

“I’ll just have to keep guessin’ then,” he says, taking a long sip from your cup of lemonade.

You glance away and bite the inside of your cheek. “You’ll be guessing a long time, I think.”

“I’ve got time.” He releases your arm when you start to squirm under his attention, chest burning, lungs compressed into too small a space. Your chest doesn’t seem large enough to contain the feelings beating to life in your heart. “So long as you keep comin’ by.”

A smile pulls at your mouth again, feeling unreasonably charmed. “Okay, fine, I’ll tell you what they are, but not where they are.”

“I ain’t askin’ you to,” he says, even as a smile tugs at the corners of his lips, mustache twitching, like this concession is the only thing he’s ever wanted for.

“One is a honeybee,” you answer. “The other is antlers.”

Joel goes still and doesn’t say anything for a moment. “A bee?” He asks, like he’s never heard of the creature before. “And…antlers. Like a deer?”

“Yeah, like a deer. With flowers and vines and moss all tangled around it.”

“Huh.”

“What? Don’t like deer?” You smile. “Funny isn't it? You’ve been drawing them a lot the past few months.”

He eyes you and then shakes his head, “Don’t like ‘em? Jesus Christ, no. I think I’m gettin’ to be real partial to deer.”

💞 Thank you for reading! Comments and feedback are so appreciated. 💞

#joel miller x reader #joel miller x you #tlou fanfiction #the last of us #the last of us fanfiction #joel miller #pedro pascal #pedro pascal characters

2K notes · View notes

prentiss-theorem · 8 months

Text

The Ex Factor

Melissa Schemmenti x fem!Reader

Your ex girlfriend starts working at Abbott as Melissa’s new teachers aide.

Content Warnings: past abusive relationship, mentions of trauma, cheating, manipulative and toxic ex.

Genre: hurt/comfort, some fluff

Word count: 3.6k+

A/N: this one got a little out of hand ngl, i hope you like it tho! covers a square of my bingo. Kinda unedited.

You woke up to the sound of your alarm, the soft rays of sunshine lighting up the room as you reach to your phone attempting to stop the dreadful tune. A hint of sadness flickered within you as you glanced to the other side of the bed, feeling the cold emitting from it hinting that Melissa has been gone for quite some time now.

You reluctantly left the warmth and comfort of your sheets, the cold air hovering over your exposed skin as you slowly stood up. You reached for your robe, pulling it onto your body to shield it from the morning breeze. Your bedroom was always cold, Melissa had a terrible habit of leaving the window open throughout the night, no matter what time of the year it was. She always claimed it helped her sleep better and you didn’t complain, just another excuse to snuggle up closer to your girlfriend, seeking the warmth of her body.

Just as you started heading downstairs the sounds of Melissa clattering around the kitchen filled your ears, the clicking of the plates combined with clanging of pans in a typical for her manner. You continued to walk down the staircase, stopping in at the kitchen door to take in the sight of the redhead in her element.

A slight worry overtook you as you saw the distress painted across your girlfriend’s face, she didn’t even notice you at the door, too preoccupied with whatever she had cooking on her stove. Putting in all the effort at making sure everything she served you for breakfast was perfect, hoping that would relieve some stress she was under while she was teaching two grades at the same time.

“Good Morning” you said through a yawn, standing in the doorframe of the kitchen.

“Mornin’ hon.” The redhead replied as she kept her attention focused on the pancakes frying in the pan. “You’re up early today.”

“The bed was cold without you in it.” You replied with a pout on your lips.

“Couldn’t sleep, sorry I woke you up, you can go back to sleep if you want, I’ll put the food in some containers so you can have it a bit later.” Melissa shrugged. You always started work later than Melissa, most of the time opting for getting a bit of extra sleep when she was getting ready for work.

“You didn’t and I couldn’t miss out on a morning with my favourite girl, could I?”

“Please, I’m hardly a girl anymore.” She replied with a sigh, her gaze still focused on the stove.

You took a few steps in her direction, wrapping your arms around her as your head rested on the back of her shoulder “Oh but you are my girl, aren’t you?” you said, kissing her neck.

“Mhm” the woman chuckled softly, turning her head to leave a kiss on your head. “the pancakes will be ready in a few minutes; would you mind setting the table?”

“On it, boss.” You replied with a sarcastic salute and did as she asked, taking all the necessary dishes and cutlery to the table. You made your way back to the kitchen to take the bowls filled with delicious looking toppings that Melissa prepared earlier, leaving a quick kiss on her cheek as you were heading into the dining room.

It didn’t take long for the redhead to join you with a plate full of delicious looking pancakes, every single one made to perfection. You eagerly reached for them, taking a few onto your plate. You topped half of them with maple syrup and butter and the rest, much to Melissa’s distaste, with lemon juice and sugar.

“You’re a degenerate, you know that right?” she said side-eyeing your pancakes.

You playfully rolled your eyes at her comment “Stop it, I like them like that!”

She just chuckled and shook her head, you always told her the lemon and sugar combination reminded you of the year you spent on an exchange in England, but despite that she didn’t let up on teasing you about your choice of pancake toppings.

The rest of the meal passed in comfortable silence. When the two of you finished eating, you got to cleaning the dishes and Melissa went on to get ready for the workday ahead of her. She returned roughly half an hour later, wearing her leather pants and a pink top she knew you loved on her, which also gave her a little confidence boost she felt she could use today.

Just as Melissa was leaving the house, you shouted back to her, running up to the woman with a Tupperware container in your hand, she had a habit forgetting her lunch and getting all snappy when she had to order it instead of having her own food. You kissed her once more before she got into her car and left for work.

***

Melissa got to Abbott Elementary with 20 minutes to spare, she decided to head to the teachers’ lounge but before she could make her way down the hallway, she heard her name being called from Ava’s office.

“Schemmenti!” the woman exclaimed “C’mere, got a surprise for you.”

She rolled her eyes and turned around, taking a few steps towards the principal’s office. “What do you want Ava, I’m not in the mood for you trying to sell me any of your face masks or whatever that was.”

“What? No! That was last week, I’m selling foot massagers now.” The taller woman pointed at a stack of boxes stashed in the corner of her office.

“Is this why you called me here?” the redhead sighed, visibly annoyed at her boss trying to sell her new useless products at any given occasion.

“I got you a teacher’s aide!” Ava finally exclaimed.

“I told you I don’t wan-… Wait? Say it again? A teacher’s aide?” the redhead said in disbelief. She did request one what seemed like months ago (in reality, it was just last week, but with teaching the two grades Melissa completely lost the track of time).

“The one you requested duh! She’s gonna be here any minute.” Ava said, looking extremely proud of herself for actually doing what her job required her to. “Her name is Abigail; I’ll direct her to your classroom when she gets here.”

“Thanks Ava!” Melissa said as she left the principals office.

Her new aide arrived just a few minutes later, confidently entering the classroom. “Is this Miss Schemmenti’s room?” she asked. She was just a little taller than Melissa, younger, but according to Melissa “not a kid”. The woman had dark hazel eyes and long brown hair, tied up in a ponytail.

“Yeah, you must be Abigail.” The redhead replied, greeting the girl.

“Abby is fine” she smiled as she shook the redhead’s hand.

The two of them got talking, despite Melissa’s usual apprehension towards the younger teachers, she got along with Abby just fine, the younger woman was a huge help in her classroom and even if it was just for that, she was willing to put up with some rookie TA in her classroom. But aside from this, the girl seemed competent enough to know how to handle third graders and not step on Melissa’s toes whilst doing her job.

***

You got home from work a little later than usual, being stuck in a corporate meeting that, in your opinion (as well as many other co-workers), could have been an email. You entered the house you shared with Melissa, ridding of your outerwear you moved to the living room. The redhead was sat of her couch, absorbed into her current read. She lifted her head with a smile when she saw you, immediately standing up from her seat and making her way towards you.

“Hey hon!” she cheerfully exclaimed, greeting you with a kiss, which you gladly reciprocated, relieved to see her in a way better mood than she was in the morning.

“Someone’s in a good mood” you said smiling at her “I assume the little demons were behaving today?”

“Even better than that, Ava got me an aide.” She smiled and you immediately cheered at the news. You knew this would be a huge relief to your girlfriend, not having to constantly worry how to handle the extra kids in her classroom while simultaneously teaching both sets of kids.

“That’s amazing Mel!” the relief was visible on her face, as well as her whole body, you could immediately tell she was more relaxes than during the past weeks.

“C’mon, I ordered our favourite takeout” she said reaching for your hand “we can just have the rest of the evening to ourselves, seen as I don’t have to make two separate lesson plans anymore”

After enjoying the food, combined with Melissa telling you about her say, the fact that the new aide seemed competent enough and that she didn’t even get the urge to hit her with the baseball bat she had stashed under her desk, you spent the rest of the evening trying to watch a TV show you started a few weeks prior. Trying meant that Melissa had to pause it roughly every 5 minutes for your rants on how inaccurate the details portrayed there actually were. She always laughed at your frustration with the writing and how quickly you could tear apart the aspects that would never even cross her mins. In your defence, the correct information was not that hard to look up after all.

***

You woke up to Melissa running around the house in a frantic manner, you looked at the time and it showed 7:25, way past the time the redhead usually leaves for work. You dragged yourself out of the bed, catching her right when she was at the door, leaving a kiss on her cheek before she rushed off to her car.

Just as you made your way to the kitchen you spotted a Tupperware container sat on top of the island, laughing to yourself at the thought of Melissa forgetting her lunch once again.

You made a plan for the day, it was your day off, so it mostly consisted of doing some house chores and taking the food down to Abbott for your girlfriend to enjoy during her lunch break.

The few hours passed faster than you thought and before you knew it, it was time for you to leave, after all you couldn’t risk missing the allocated slot and leave your girlfriend starving and stuck with school food.

The drive to the elementary school wasn’t long, fortunately (for you) you passed a Starbucks on you way there, making a stop to pick up a few drinks, one for you to keep your caffeine levels on the higher end throughout the day and one for Melissa, to do the exact opposite, provide the taste of coffee without the zoomies attached. You went through the drive through to gat said drinks and continued on your drive.

The cold air hit you as soon as you got out of your car, the weather today was chilly, but the sun provided some warmth as it was shining through the clouds. You grabbed your bag and the coffee cups, proceeding to walk in the direction of the entrance of the school.

You swiftly made your way through the hallways, always examining the emptiness of the walls at Abbott. You got to the end of the hallway, ready to enter your girlfriends classroom.

“Hey Mel, you forgot your lunch again I thought I’d bring it for you,” you said with a smile as you entered the room. The smile immediately faded from your face when you saw it wasn’t your girlfriend sat at the desk, but the woman you wished to never see again. “Abby? What the hell are you doing here?”

“I could as you the same question” she said with a smirk “Missed me so much you had to track down where I work?”

“What do you mean work? You’re not saying you’re Melissa’s new aide, right?”

Before you could ger an answer to the question, Melissa walked right through the door, a smile appearing on her face when she saw you in the room.

“Hey hon, what are you doing here?”

“Oh um, you forgot your lunch, I thought I’d bring it for you” you said passing her the container as well as her coffee.

“You’re a godsend.” She said as she kissed your cheek, gratefully accepting the food. “This is my new aide, Abby, you could stay so we have the lunch together?”

“Oh I actually have to go, have a few errands to run, I’ll see you at home tho.” You quickly added before rushing out of the classroom.

***

When you got back home you tried to occupy your head with anything and everything in order to distract yourself from the fact that Melissa’s new aide was your ex-girlfriend. The way the two of you split your ways didn’t make things any better, causing you to spiral in your thoughts of what this whole ordeal meant.

You knew you were being paranoid, the thoughts telling you that she would take Melissa away from you the same way she took all your friends when you split were irrational and completely insane. But you went through it once and you knew how manipulative and persuasive Abby could be.

The reason you broke up with her was her cheating on you throughout the whole length of your relationship. You’ve had many attempts at leaving her, but each time she managed to talk you back into staying, saying you’d be nothing without her.

And for the longest time, you believed it. Your breaking point was finding her in your bed with one of your best friends. You kicked her out after that, but she didn’t go down without making a whole scene you were sure the whole neighbourhood could hear. Making a promise that you’d regret it. And you did, more or less. She managed to turn your whole friend group against you, painting this portrait of you being the manipulative and toxic asshole that tried to control her whole life, which left you with nobody to turn to.

The sound of the Melissa’s voice broke you out of your thoughts, now realising you were gone for longer than you thought.

“Hon, what’s wrong?” she questioned with a concerned look on her face.

“Nothing.” You smiled at her. “Why would anything be wrong?”

“Well for starters, I’ve asked you that question 3 times before you replied.” You felt the couch you were sat on dip a little under her weight, as she took a seat right next to you, placing her hand on your thigh.

“Sorry, I was just thinking.”

“Care to share?” she raised her brow. You took a deep breath, letting it out with a sigh before turning your head to face her.

”Abby is my ex.” You sighed again, this time tensing your shoulders. “The ex I told you about before. I guess seeing her today brought some memories back, memories I’d rather not think about.” Melissa’s eyes widened at the statement. She knew exactly which one you meant and just how broken the relationship with her left you. She pulled you closer to her, wrapping her arms around your body, placing you in a comfortable and safe embrace.

The topic remained persistent throughout following conversations, each time ending in Melissa reassuring you just how much she loved you and promising that she was not going anywhere. She allowed you to cry your feelings out, making sure to hold you all throughout it until you were so exhausted you fell asleep on her during a movie she put on.

***

A morning shift meant you found yourself extremely bored during the evening, you deep cleaned the house as well as baked some of Melissa’s favourite cookies. You were trying to come up with more stuff to occupy yourself with when you remembered it was another parents evening at Abbott, meaning your girlfriend wouldn’t be back home for the next few hours.

Melissa always complained how boring those things got, most times no parents came to see her, so she would just spend the whole evening sitting in her classroom, and there were definitely much better uses of her time. After finishing off the cookies and leaving them to cool down on the kitchen counter, you decided to get ready and join Melissa at school, you knew other teachers would sometimes bring their family or friends to at least get some quality time from the otherwise dull evenings.

You put a minimal amount of makeup on, just some eyeliner and mascara, as well as some casual, but not too casual clothes before you left your house and drove to the school.

When you arrived at Abbott it was starting to get dark outside. The setting sun painted the clouds were with pink and orange that blended beautifully with the blue sky behind them. You walked into the school, making your way down the corridor and greeting all the other teachers on your way. You stopped for a little chat with Barbara, the older woman telling you about a new restaurant her and Gerald went to recently. You made a mental note of the name, as you were sure it was also right up Melissa’s alley. When a parent approached the two of you, you bid Barbara a quick goodbye, promising to catch up more in the future before you continued walking further down the hallway right to Melissa’s classroom. You heard muttered voices coming from behind the not fully closed door, figuring it would be her and another teacher you decided to come in regardless.

“Hey! I thought I’d come round so you-“ you stopped in your tracks before you could fully enter the room. Melissa was perched at the edge of her desk with Abby’s hand, what seemed to be cupping her cheek. “Melissa what the fuck?”

“You wouldn’t by chance believe me if I said this is not what it looks like?” Melissa said, horrified at your sight in her classroom. It was, indeed, not what it looked like.

You stood in the doorframe, eyes wide, not being able to comprehend what you just saw. There was no way Melissa would do that to you, right? Not after everything you told her, and definitely not after the promise she made just a few days prior.

“Oh, fuck you, both of you.” You turned back around, leaving the room in a hurry before the redhead could get a chance to explain what actually happened.

Melissa was left in the room, trying to figure out the best way to approach the situation. She wanted to follow you but was stopped by Abby, who grabbed her hand in an attempt to prevent her from running after you. The satisfied smile was very prominent on the aide’s face, which made Melissa’s blood boil.

“The hell are you doing?” the redhead shot back at the younger woman.

“Oh, come on, she’s not worth it.” The giggle that followed the sentence further angering her. Abby did not loosen her grip on Melissa’s wrist, trying to pull the older woman closer to her body, almost leaning against her. “We could just stay here and give her a real reason to be angry.”

The teacher snatched her hand out of the other woman’s grip, turning to face her. “You must be joking right?” she almost couldn’t believe what she heard, but the expression on Abby’s face made it clear she was completely serious. “I think I’d rather put a campfire out with my face.” She hissed, turning around to follow you.

By the time Melissa made her way out of the school you were nowhere to be seen. There were still a few hours until the end of the parents evening. She sent a quick text to Ava, stating her early departure was caused by a family emergency, before getting into her car and driving home, hoping to find you there.

Fortunately for her, Ava replied quickly saying she would inform any potential parents that could come to see her of the situation and set a new date for the meeting.

When Melissa got home, she heard shuffling that came from your shared bedroom, making her way to the room as quickly as she could. You were sat on your bed with your face buried in your hands.

“Y/n, hon” a barely audible whisper accompanied with a gentle sigh left her lips. “It really wasn’t what you’re thinking.”

“Then please enlighten me what it was, Melissa” you didn’t look up, not sure if you were ready to face her without bursting into tears.

“She said my eyeliner was smudged. I said I’ll get it but before I could even reach for the tissue, she reached out to wipe it herself.”

“Well it certainly didn’t look like you were opposed to it.” you sighed, this time lifting your head to look up at her. Your eyeliner was smudged, the mascara forming dark pathways down your face.

“Tesoro” this was another hit for her, she never wanted to be the reason you cried. “I didn’t even had time to react before you came into the room, you know I would never do that to you.”

“I know, it’s just… I’m scared, that’s it”

“Hey,” she lifted her hand to cup your cheek “I’m not her. I would never do anything to purposefully hurt you in any way, hell I’d kill anyone that tried to! You know I know a guy that could help me get rid of a body if needed.” You laughed at that; she did indeed have a guy for everything.

“Promise?” your whisper was quiet as you looked into her green eyes also filled with tears.

“I promise. I love you, only you.”

Taglist:

@nightmarish-fae @storiesofsvu @maybe-a-humanbean @geekyandgay98 @opheliauniverse @lisaannwalterstan @bratty-subby-girly @esposadejoyhuerta

join my taglist here!

#melissa schemmenti x reader #raeswritingbingo #abbott elementary #melissa schemmenti

469 notes · View notes

the-record · 10 months

Text

when emma falls in love

synopsis: ellie might be in love with you, and you might just be in love with her too… if only you could admit it

pairing: college!ellie x fem!reader

warnings: too many tlou references, food, not proofread!!!!! also using angel in place of y/n bc it makes me cringe a little!

a/n: lets play a game called “how many references can kate make in her fics?”

‘IM JUST PRETTY GREAT WITH MY FINGERS’

when emma falls in love, she paces the floor closes the blinds and locks the door when emma falls in love, she calls up her mom jokes about the ways that this one could go wrong

ellie couldn’t keep up.

she felt like every time dina came over, there was someone new in your life, and she couldn’t understand how. you were perfectly nice and even prettier.

but here she was, yet again in her dorm, listening to dina rant about the latest endeavor.

“and he was just a total dick! like, how are you going to say you’re busy tonight with family and then go to a party? like are you stupid?” dina sighed. “i love her, but god does she picks some idiotic ones. you remember the beach girl?”

oh she remembered the beach girl.

on an annual beach trip over spring break, some blonde had caught your eye, and you caught hers. you had invited her to join them for dinner, and how could anyone say no to you?

you hit it off with the blonde, abby, and she spent the next couple days with the group, constantly flirting with you. ellie had felt a sort of dread fill her stomach. why her? she was obviously playing in to what you wanted and she knew you were smart enough to see that.

the trip wrapped up and you made plans with abby, excited she only live a town over. but when the time came, you spent 3 hours at the park waiting for her, only to receive a text saying she wouldn’t be able to make it.

you were upset and crashed at dina’s, and ellie had heard about it all the night.

“yes, god, i remember her. what a douche.” she rolled her eyes, standing up to grab her bag for class. “i’ve gotta go, but are we all still going out tonight?” dina nodded with a smile. “cool. don’t do anything stupid. and lock my door before you leave, please.”

“says you. and i’ll think about it!”

shes walking out the door when she hits something, or someone.

“shit.”

“fuck, sorry my bad.”

when she focuses back, she sees you. “hey, what are you doing here?”

“oh, dina told me to come over. are you going?” you leaned in the doorway. “dina, come on, stop invading people’s space. lets go!”

she groaned, “but ellie said we could smoke here!” she got up nonetheless, heading to join you. “thanks anyways els, have fun in class!”

“bye ellie!”

she sighs as she watches you two walk away. why does air fill her head whenever shes around you?

she waits and takes her time ‘cause little miss sunshine always thinks its gonna rain when emma falls in love, i know that boy will never be the same

“so, angel, how’s it going with you and that girl?” jesse felt a kick at his leg and turned to dina. “what? am i not allowed to ask questions?”

“no, no, it’s fine. we didnt work out, but thats okay!” you smiled brightly at the table. “i think im gonna take a break anyways. im kinda sick of it.”

they all shared a knowing look. “hey, no! i promise, this is for real.”

“hun, its not that we don’t believe you.” ellie started. “iits just that… we dont believe you!” you groaned and stole a fry from her plate. “look, we’ve just heard that a lot, and we dont wanna see you get hurt.”

“but im not going to! because im taking a break.” you kicked ellie. “you dont have to believe me, but can you at least pretend to?” they gave in and cheered for you. “thanks, now who wants to share a brownie?”

“okay, so its c minor sharp, f sharp, b, e, repeat?” you and ellie sat on the dorm room floor, her guitars in both of your laps.

“yea exactly, just on the third repeat, its a g sharp minor instead of a b.” you nodded at her and plucked the chord. “exactly. and i pluck for it so just… just watch?”

she played the song slowly, speaking her pattern as she went along. you nodded at her when she finished, figuring you knew it well enough. “okay, play it together?”

“yep!”

she counted down before starting, making you smile.

“talking away, i dont know what im to say. ill say it anyway, todays another day to find you shying away. ill be coming for your love, okay.” you hummed a harmony as ellie sang the words.

“are you sure you don’t usually play? youre a total natural at this.” ellie marveled as you let the last chord hum out.

“i guess im just pretty good with my fingers.” you felt your cheeks blaze as you heard back what you said.

dina chuckled, “damn right!” she stood up, going for the door. “gonna grab a bottle of water. play more for us beautiful ladies!”

ellie taught you the rest of the song, both of you more awkward than usual. you really came along it so fast, ellie was amazed.

“okay, seriously, you have to be messing with me because you are way to good at this.”

“i promise! i only took piano lessons.”

‘cause shes the kind of book that you cant put down like if cleopatra grew up in a small town and all the bad boys would be good boys if they only had the chance to love her and to tell you the truth sometimes i wish i was her

ellie had a thought that she might be, maybe, just could be a little in love with you.

she couldnt be though. right?

sure, she knew all of your favorite foods, and knew the words to your favorite song, knew your favorite books like the back of her hand, could tell anyone how you took your coffee.

but that was friendly. you guys were friendly. friends.

she guessed you guys hung out a lot, but thats because they always hung out as a group. she might’ve gotten excited when you joined, but that doesnt mean anything.

and of course she had noticed you were pretty. gorgeous, even. but so had everyone else. its not like she had purposefully memorized your features. every line and mark.

she could draw jesse from memory perfectly, its not like she liked him.

it was normal.

totally normal.

fuck.

“where’s angel?” ellie asked, looking to dina.

“not coming.” she sighed, digging around her purse for a pack of gum. “said she was busy, but she wouldn’t say why.”

“i think we all know why,” jesse teased. they all gave him a look, but he leveled them with one of his own. “im not insulting her. its just that, this isn’t exactly out of her nature. i mean seriously, who actually took her promise seriously?”

ellie excused herself to the bathroom, dialing you before she even reached the door.

“hello?”

“hey, where are you?” she picked at the already chipping nail polish she had on.

“uhm, im out.” you sighed. “look, im kind of busy. did you need somet-“

she had to cut to the chase. “are you on a date?”

“excuse me?”

“are you on a date?”

“thats none of your business.”

“oh fuck off, you know it very much is. so. are you?”

“fine, yea i am. now can i get back to it?”

“we are talking later.”

she joined the group back at their table, but couldnt focus back in on the conversation.

“you okay, ellie?” she looked up at dina, nodding with a hum.

“yea, sorry, got lost for a second.”

when emma falls apart, its when shes alone she takes on the pain and bears it on her own ‘cause when emma falls in love, she’s in it for keeps she wont walk away unless she knows she absolutely has to leave

she didnt even bother to knock, just walked straight through your dorm room door.

“ellie, what the hell?” you were in bed, a book in hand and music playing from a speaker. “what happened to knocking?”

ellie b-lined for your bed, taking a seat at the foot of it. “why were you on a date?”

“dude, seriously, what if i was naked? so not okay!” you placed a bookmark on your page and set the book to the side.

“okay, fine im sorry!” she groaned and found your eyes. “now why were you on a date? what happened to taking a break?”

“what do you want me to say, els?” you exhaled and looked down at your hands. “that i cant keep anything? that i cant keep promises or partners?” ellie felt bad as she saw your eyes were glossy and the frown on your face. “im sorry im such a screwup and that i cant do anything right. anything else?”

ellie ran her fingers through her hair. “im sorry.” she crossed her legs on your bed and looked at you. “really im sorry, this was so uncalled for. youre right, its not my business. im really sorry. i just wan-“

she froze.

surely you couldnt be kissing her right now.

before she could even think to reciprocate, you pulled away, a deer in headlights look on your face.

“im so sorry.” you whispered moving away from her. “god, im so so sorry. you should go. im sorry.” she opened her mouth to try and say anything, but you beat her to it. “ellie, please, just go.”

she saw the tears well and felt compelled to stay. but her body went against her, forcing her feet to walk out the door to her own room.

e: you cant ignore me forever. read

e: please angel, just talk to me. read

e: you kissed me, not the other way around. stop making this my fault. read

e: millers, noon? just coffee, i promise. read

a: im sorry.

ellie tossed her phone at her bed.

“whats up with you?” dina probed. “youve been… peeved this week. whats up?”

“who the hell says peeved?” she tried to joke but was met with dinas serious face. “im fine! seriously!” god that face made her break. “okay fine, just… dont tell anyone.”

dina nodded excitedly and sat down infront of her.

“angel kissed me, and then she freaked out and made me leave, and now she wont even talk to me!” ellie fell back onto her bed.

“SHE KISSED YOU?” dina squealed. “OH MY GOD, HOW COULD YOU NOT TELL ME SOONER!”

“did you hear nothing else that i said?”

and shes the kind of book that you cant put down like if cleopatra grew up in a small town and all the bad boys would be good boys if they only had the chance to love her and to tell you the truth sometimes i wish i was her

e: please, im begging you, just talk to me. read

a: what do you want me to say ellie?

e: literally anything. read

a: i messed up els, okay?

a: i shouldn’t have kissed you. im sorry.

e: but you should have. and you did. read

a: what?

e: meet me at millers? read

a: ellie…

e: please. read

a: omw.

e: thank you omg. read

a coffee was waiting on the table for you when you arrived. you sat across from ellie, hesitantly taking the drink. “you wanted to talk.” you talk a sip, finding it tasted like your usual order. “so talk.”

“okay look… i’m just as confused and nervous as you are.” she laughed nervously and fiddled with her own cup. “but, im glad you kissed me.”

“what?”

“yea i know.” she took a deep breath before continuing. “i only recently, like very recently, realized my feelings were misplaced. i really dont wanna be friends.”

you groaned, “and you couldnt have just texted me that?”

“fucks sake, just let me finish!” she pleaded, picking back up when you sat back into your chair. “i like you. like, a crazy lot, and it freaks me out. so please, let me at least take you on one date. if not, its fine, we just cant be friends. i wouldnt be able to stand it.”

you chewed at a nail as you took in what she had said.

“say something.”

a beat of silence before.

“okay.”

“okay?” she whispered.

“yea, okay. you can take me on a date.”

well, shes so new york when shes in l.a. she wont lose herself in love the way that i did ‘cause she’ll call you out she’ll put you in your place when emma falls in love, im learning

“hey, hurry up, im waiting downstairs for you.”

ellies voice rang through your room as you placed her on speaker.

“nuh uh, im not done. you asked me out, now deal with the consequences. ill be down when im ready.” you pulled out your outfit, throwing it on as you spoke. “just scroll on insta or something if you’re that bored.”

“fine.”

she hung up and you couldn’t help but laugh. you had been so nervous in the days leading up to this, but suddenly felt much better as she yelled at you like normal.

you finally met her at her car, hopping in the passenger seat and connecting your phone.

“the hell are you doing?” ellie squealed.

you scoffed and rolled your eyes. “passengers princess gets aux. suck it up loser.” you queued up songs as she pulled out and onto the main road. “where are we going anyways?”

“you’ll see.”

“god you are so annoying.”

and yet you smiled at her.

“an arcade? really?” you looked at her with eyebrows raised.

she shrugged and unbuckled, opening her door to get out. you shook your head, shocked still you were on a date with ellie williams. at the arcade.

she pulled you through the maze of a place to some own machine. “mortal kombat? what even is this?”

she smiled so bright, you couldnt help but smile back. “just wait, its so fun.”

emma met a boy with eyes like a man turns out her heart fits in the palm of his hand now he’ll be her shelter when it rains little does he know, his whole world’s about to change

“it was totally fun right? c’mon, you can admit it!” she pushed your shoulder, seeing your smiling face.

“okay yes, fine it was fun, i had fun!” you laughed, staring at her face. “i never really noticed you had this many freckles.”

you traced a finger across her cheeks. down the slope of her nose. across her eyebrow, stopping to poke the scar running through the left one.

“you’re pretty.” you whispered.

she blushed. “i think you’re gorgeous.” she whispered back.

her eyes were so pretty.

“can i kiss you?”

“please.”

yeah, between me and you sometimes i wish i was her

#! what would you do… !#ellie williams #ellie williams tlou #ellie willams the last of us #ellie williams x you #ellie williams x reader #ellie williams x female reader #ellie williams fluff #ellie williams x y/n

210 notes · View notes

urfriendlylocalidiot · 1 year

Text

Um so… enjoy whatever this is

Sundays w/ Blackpink

Sundays were simple, really, just a nice and relaxing day with your one and only.

Jisoo

Jisoo is definitely the type to sleep in until like noon at least. However, you are not. So instead you do what any good s/o would do and make her brunch. You wake up at 10am, every Sunday, like clockwork. When you get out of bed though, you always make sure to tuck Jisoo in next to you. You can’t have your baby cold now.

After you freshen up in the bathroom and put some rice down in the rice cooker for the day. You take Dalgom on a walk around the block. As you make your way around the block, you can’t help but smile to yourself at how picturesque your life is. You’re walking the cutest dog on a Sunday morning with the most amazing sunlight.

Eventually, though your walk with Dalgom ends, so you head back up to Jisoo and your’s apartment. You unleash Dalgom so he can run around the apartment and you can get started on breakfast. You decide that easiest is best, especially for lazy Sundays. So you fry up two eggs and put them atop two bowls of rice. You also prepare a plate of kimchi and seaweed. Nothing like an easy breakfast. When you walk into your bedroom with Jisoo, however you find her awake and playing a game on her phone. You give her, her bowl and sit down next to her to watch her game. ‘Thank you jagiya’ she says with a kiss.

Jennie

Goofy mornings. You and Jennie would wake up around the same time and probably get ready together as well. But cuddles first of course, with Jennie being the little spoon. ‘God this is so nice’ you think to yourself. Eventually though when you go in for a kiss, she stops you, “Not before you brush your teeth.” With a groan you roll out of bed and head to the bathroom, Jennie following.

You brush your teeth together, smiling and eventually laughing at each other in the mirror. After you both get cleaned up though, and properly brush your teeth. Jennie gives you a peck on the lips, which you quickly turn into a real kiss. Then you head to the kitchen to make breakfast together, hand in hand.

In the kitchen, Jennie gets started on making your drinks. Coffee for yourself and green tea for her. She will never understand why you need coffee when you have her to energize yourself. However, she’ll make it for you in the mornings anyways, just the way you like it. While she makes the drinks, you get started on breakfast. You decide on a simple breakfast, toast with scrambled eggs. After you put the toast down to start toasting you get started on the eggs. You crack them into the stove and season them. Jennie leans over to give you another kiss, which you turn into a make out session, however soon you both smell a burning smell in the air. “oh no, the eggs!”

Rosé

Cozy, like Rosie. In the best way possible. You’d get up a little before her, and do your bathroom routine. Then, as you were leaving the bathroom to get started on breakfast, she’s just waking up. “Morning, sunshine. I’ll be back with breakfast in a second.” It’d be an easy breakfast though, neither of you are ones to eat too much in the mornings. However it’d still be delicious, since she is Foodsé. Therefore strawberry jam on toast with tea is the perfect breakfast for lazy Sundays in with Rosé.

As you in walk into the bedroom with breakfast, as promised. Rosé is in your shared bed, playing a melody on her guitar. “Babe, what do you think of this?” She plays a short melody on the guitar before turning to you, “It sounds lovely baby, and you could build on it by adding filler strumming if you needed to. I brought you breakfast in bed, babe.” You respond, handing her the breakfast and stealing a kiss.

She continues to play more melodies on her guitar and writing in her lyric book for the rest of the morning. Often turning to you for suggestions and even inspiration. Eventually after you put the dishes in the sink, you pull out your guitar as well and harmonize with her on some of the songs. Sunday mornings with Rosé are filled with music and good food, naturally.

Lisa

“Jagiya, let’s stay in bed a little longer.” “But we need to feed your cats.” Lisa pouts as she attempts to keep you wrapped in her long arms. However she eventually relents when Lily jumps into bed with you guys, clearly hungry. With a smile you lean up to give her a kiss, “I’ll go feed the cats and Love if you want a few more minutes in bed,” you offer. She doesn’t say anything and you make your way out of the bed, to go feed her pets.

As if she was going to just let this moment pass her by though. She grabs her camera off the nightstand and prepares to take the cutest pictures of you feeding her pets. However when she gets to the living room, she finds you in a tug of war with Louis over the cat food box. After snapping a few pictures, whilst laughing at the sight in front of her. She eventually moves Louis off the cat food box and finishes feeding the rest of the cats.

As she does that, you head to the kitchen to cook breakfast, since she can’t. You make Korean pancakes, since you were a little hungry after wrestling with Louis. As you cook, Lisa comes up behind you and wraps her arms around you, giving you a kiss on the cheek. “Thank you jagiya” You smile under her praise, after you finish cooking, you quickly plate it up. While you two eat, you decide to make plans for the day and week ahead.

219 notes · View notes

shady-tavern · 1 year

Text

Part 2 of this short story.

You magicked some blood splatters away after teleporting home, stretching your fingers until they cracked in dark satisfaction. You were getting closer and closer to figuring out just where the Brotherhood had its headquarters.

To your dismay, you had to realize that this infernal organization had grown very, very big. Big enough to have kings and queens on their side, being supported by other royalty and even a thieves guild you had done business with in the past. And here you had thought their leader was one of the smart ones.

A brief glance into the kitchen showed that Melina was working on an advanced healing salve. She looked incredibly focused and one of your constructs was lingering nearby, ready to be of aid should she need it. The girl had things well in hand, however and you couldn’t help but feel that warm curl of pride filling your chest.

You had never thought that having a student was like this. You yourself had probably been more trouble than you were worth growing up and you knew your former teachers were all collectively horrified by what you had done, both to yourself in order to become a lich-mage and everything afterwards.

You ducked out of the kitchen without disturbing Melina, closing the door quietly. She’d be done soon, you had come back just in time to avoid worrying her. The skulls you passed by were silent and empty, devoid of a certain ghost’s presence. You had no idea where Mortimer was, but sometimes he just seemed to be…somewhere, doing whatever ghosts did.

You entered a separate study room on the ground floor, one you had repurposed for the task of keeping track of the Brotherhood. You marked off another camp of theirs you had left in ruin and set down the stack of papers you had liberated. Sadly, those guys had been small fry, but at least you had another name of a high ranking member now. Soon you’d have enough information to take them all down.

It was tedious but necessary work if you wanted to root this organization out root and stem. Such nastiness was not allowed to come back while you weren’t looking. Melina’s life would never be threatened by the likes of them again.

A crackle along your wards made you pause in surprise. A visitor? And one so brazen as well. Ah, there was only one person who walked into your home fearlessly. Or rather, two, now that you had Melina living here.

You stepped out of the study just as the front door got thrown open and Priscilla swept inside in all her powerful sunshine glory. She easily could have become a lich-mage herself, but she had the unfortunate habit of taking deep breaths and making rational decisions. Most of the times at least.

Priscilla had taken you under her wing when the two of you had been students and she had remained a steadfast, loyal, annoying and kind friend over all those years. The world would shatter before you would not aid her should she ever need or want your help.

She had been there the day you had become a lich-mage and had stood guard over your prone body for twenty days and nights. Forgoing sleep and food, she had kept herself awake and standing with magic alone, willing to drain herself down to her last dredges to defend you.

She had also woken you with incessant poking and a lot of cackling laughter when you had flopped around like a wriggly fish, having to regain control of your body. The moment you were reasonably stable on your feet, she had promptly passed out.

"Oh, you’re home, how lovely. How are you?," she asked cheerfully, forgoing any sort of greeting, but her smile did not reach her eyes.

The way she asked made you narrow your eyes at her. The upside to knowing each other since being eleven was that you were aware of all her tells and habits. And right now she was burning to ask you something and yet, for some reason, held back for the moment.

It must be important if she had come to visit. The two of you saw each other often enough, but since you both weren’t tied to the whims of time, months or even a year could pass until one checked up on the other.

"I am pleasantly well, I suppose," you answered, still eyeing her. She looked as well as ever, dressed in shimmering finery and jewelry.

"So you haven’t been burning things and people down left and right," she remarked offhandedly.

"How did you find out?" You hadn’t been subtle in the least, but it was surprising that she had noticed. You had once razed an entire warrior clan to the ground and she hadn’t known until you had told her about it over a cup of tea.

Similarly, Priscilla had once gone hunting a dangerous order that tried to crack the world open like an egg and free some kind of ancient god or evil or whatever without you being aware of it. Which you had learned over that same cup of tea.

You waved her into your study, gesturing at the table with the large map and the research strewn about. "I’m hunting down the Brotherhood."

"Yes, I could gather as much," she said and you tipped your head as you watched her skim over your notes. You knew that glint in her eyes.

"Did they piss you off as well?" you asked and she hummed softly in agreement.

"They tried to recruit me yesterday, did you know?" she asked and it was a purely rhetoric question, since you did not know and you both were aware of that fact. If you had known she had spoken with these cretins you would have kicked down her door at the ass-crack of dawn. "They said there was a lich-mage they might have to take down to get at a cursed child."

At her words, any kind of easygoing mood evaporated immediately. You felt your magic curl up, an unspoken threat, not for Priscilla, because she’d never do anything to harm you, but to the monsters out there. Monsters wearing human skin and convincing people that there were terrible, cursed, awful children that needed slaughtering.

They were not going to touch your student, no matter what. You would burn the world to the ground before that happened.

"I may have used a teeny-tiny bit of a truth serum, entirely unintentional of course. Followed by an absolutely accidental stasis spell," she added and you felt your magic settle again as dark amusement found you. "The fellow is still in my cellar, by the way, in case you want to interrogate him as well."

You couldn’t help but chuckle. "You are my favorite for a reason."

She snorted. "I’m your favorite because I snuck out with you when we were thirteen and let you stand on my shoulders in a stinking bog, all to help you collect the nastiest sap I have ever seen in my damn life."

Now you did laugh. "Yes, so you keep reminding me. And thank you, I would love to speak with your guest."

"Just don’t leave any trace behind once you kill him," she said, leaning back against a small table. "I don’t need those fanatics knocking on my door again." Her gaze briefly slid over the map and settled on you. "What did they do?"

It was a fair question. For all your power, you didn’t often bother to go to such lengths when someone angered you. The people you interacted with generally knew not to fuck with you and if they didn’t, they were swiftly and easily taught otherwise. You had more important things to do than topple monarchies every other year or wade through the underbelly of a city to take care of something.

You were powerful enough that people did not, generally, make an enemy of you. Besides, many desired your aid and wanted you and your power at their fingertips. There was only a tiny handful of mages even willing to perform the sort of spells you liked to play with.

You just had no idea how to tell her you had a student. The last time the two of you had spoken about such things, you had both snorted derisively at the poor fools who burdened themselves in such a way.

Well. You had never shied away from a challenge. You opened your mouth, about to answer, when a knock at the door made the two of you pause. Melina poked her head in after a moment, her excited smile slipping into a hesitant, questioning expression.

Right, she hadn’t met many people since she had come to live with you. You certainly hadn’t introduced her to any other mages, since most of them were annoyances anyway.

"Melina, meet Priscilla," you said, gesturing at your dearest friend. Who was simultaneously also the only person alive who’d mock you without hesitation if you were being an idiot. It was strangely reassuring sometimes. Though, you could do without her and Mortimer teaming up. "We’ve been friends since we were young."

"It’s nice to meet you," Priscilla said, sweeping into an elegant bow and Melina clumsily tried to curtsey back, a jar clutched in her hands.

"Let me see," you said and she quickly handed it over. It took a single glance to know she had brewed it perfectly. "Good work," you said.

Melina perked up, a smile appearing back onto her face. You were also glad to see her less wary around other people. She had used to hunch down, trying to become invisible through sheer force of will, when you had first visited a market together.

"I’ll join you in a moment," you told her when handing the jar back, only realizing your voice had gone and done that soft and patient thing again when you finished speaking. "Please wait outside."

Melina nodded and quickly ducked away, closing the door again. When you turned back to Priscilla, she had her palms pressed together in front of her face and was squinting at you over her fingertips.

"I wasn’t gone so long that you went and conceived a child, right?" she asked with the sort of sceptic hesitancy that told you she was genuinely unsure. For just a brief moment you considered fucking with her, but you ended up rolling your eyes.

"We saw each other a year ago," you reminded her, but that only made her squint harder.

"You do a lot of questionable stuff," she said, a fact that had never bothered her. Priscilla had about as many morals as you did, which was to say, very little. "You still have that jar of strange flesh."

Ah, yes. You would not explain where you had gotten that. Or why it was still alive.

Then realization hit and her face brightened. A wide grin swept across her face and you resigned yourself to relentless, if kind, teasing. "Wait here!" she gasped and disappeared in a small shower of sunlight sparks.

Blinking, bewildered, you had no idea what that had been about. You were about to go and join Melina, when Priscilla reappeared. This time, she wasn’t alone.

"Tada!" she exclaimed, gesturing grandly at a reed-thin girl, dressed in all black. The girl’s slim shoulders hunched up uncomfortably and she inched closer to your friend, hugging a book anxiously against her chest. "Meet Caitlin!"

"Hello, Caitlin," you said, offering a polite bow of your own. The girl hesitantly returned it. "Welcome to my home."

"She and Melina should meet," Priscilla said. "Remember when our teachers introduced us?"

You mostly remembered years of mayhem and giggling in hiding spots and lying for each other and helping each other. And a pet toad that had died an unfortunate death and you had held Priscilla as she had cried.

"Of course," you said. Actually, this wasn’t a bad idea. If the girls got along, Melina would have a friend. You had worried a bit about that recently. It wasn’t healthy to be cooped up inside so much, even if the girl accompanied you to the nearby town to buy supplies.

You motioned for them to follow you and you found Melina waiting in the hallway, fiddling with her jar. She looked up and paused when she saw who followed you.

"Melina, meet Caitlin," you said, gesturing at the girl who still tried to do her best to either turn invisible or somehow fold herself into a tiny shape. Though now she seemed hesitantly curious as well. "Why don’t you show her around a bit?"

"Alright," Melina said and Caitlin stepped away from Priscilla, glancing back once worriedly. Priscilla smiled encouragingly and calmingly, shooing her onward with silent gestures.

You heard the girls starting to talk as they disappeared around the corner. Slowly and cautiously at first and then with a bit more confidence. Priscilla nudged you.

"So, you got a student, huh?" she said with a grin and you cast her an unimpressed side-glance.

"Pot, meet kettle." She laughed at your words and briefly bumped your shoulders together, before noticing your curious look and growing solemn.

"I found Caitlin in a ditch," she said quietly after a moment and you saw dark anger burn in her eyes. "Her parents were the sort to think magic was nothing but evil temptation and they decided to get rid of her."

Those parents were no longer alive, you were willing to bet your eyes and tongue on that.

"I did find out where the Brotherhood’s headquarters are," she said suddenly and you felt yourself turn still and dangerous, a side effect of becoming a lich. A very wanted and welcome side effect at that. "We could go check it out once we’re sure the girls get along."

You tipped your head in agreement and after some looking around, you found the girls in the gardens. It was a warm, sunny day and you saw that Caitlin no longer clutched her book as tightly and was smiling hesitantly at something Melina said.

Mortimer had shown up as well in the meantime, since you could see the purple glow filling the eye sockets of a nearby skull. The skull you kept outside for whenever he wanted to look at the gardens. When you glanced at him, the skull dipped the slightest bit in answer, the glow darkening in a way that promised he’d look after the girls.

No teasing today, not when you could already feel hot blood dripping off of your fingertips. You’d never tell him, but Mortimer really was the best housemate. Even if he sometimes got on your very last nerve.

Melina was talking animatedly, something that had taken her a while to do around you. She had been so careful for so long. Afraid even, at first. You found something soft and happy unfurling within you, almost like weightless wings, whenever you saw her happy. Whenever she could simply be herself, healthy and at ease, knowing she was safe.

A glance at Priscilla revealed a soft expression on her face, a small smile gracing her lips. You had no idea what your own face looked like, but you were certain some of your emotions showed. Especially since there was no reason to hide anything around your dearest friend.

The two of you watched the girls a moment longer to ensure they’d be comfortable in each other’s presence for a while longer. When Caitlin made Melina giggle, both of them examining poisonous plants, you saw the first bloom of a beautiful friendship right there. You nodded at Priscilla and she smiled, bright and cheerful.

"They’re going to be menaces when they’re grown up," your friend said with great satisfaction as you stepped back inside.

You couldn’t help but laugh. "If they’re raised by us, they better be."

This, you decided, would be your greatest legacy. Not your spells and magic nor how you had given up your mortal body, letting ancient, dark magic change it forever. No, your greatest legacy would be helping Melina grow into a competent, confident woman who had the power to make the world tremble at her fingertips.

And, well, you had no intentions of dying anytime soon. If anyone gave her any trouble, you’d gladly offer your aid to squash those fools.

"The Brotherhood is after Melina, isn’t it? That’s why you’re on a rampage," Priscilla said and you hummed in a low tone in agreement. Priscilla looked at you and you saw her magic start to glow beneath her skin as though her veins suddenly filled with light. "Want to destroy them together?"

When you grinned, you knew it was the sort of teeth-baring, awful smile that had sent your old teachers skittering back frightfully when you had seen them last. "With pleasure."

#my writing #fantasy #part two of a writing prompt #in all honesty I never expected to continue their story #this is very much a spontaneous thing #I hope some of you might like it!#and that I managed to find all the spelling mistakes #I hope you have a fun read!#edit: please forgive that I forgot the 'read more' thingy #brain was afk for a moment there

204 notes · View notes

tuliprry · 2 years

Text

sparks - h.s.

summary: y/n meets harry, a much older man while she's on vacation in southern spain.. somehow 45 minutes are all it takes to fall in love

warnings: smut, unprotected sex (wrap it before u tap it), cursing, divorce, DRAMAAAAA, age gap, sort of a daddy kink?, lot's of fluff

clover's notes: for some reason tumblr changed my paragraph structure and the little symbols i had to differentiate the moments 🥲 i'll try and fix this

word count: 8.5k

y/n’s pov - august 1st

the sun shined through the hotel curtains and i groaned, i tapped my phone's screen and read 8:35am, it's so hot right now i can actually feel my brain frying, i turned on the air conditioner and closed my eyes. i have been in marbella for a day, i work at a hotel in london and in a hotel get together last month i won a week at the exact same hotel but in marbella. i could've invited a friend or even a cousin but truth be told i need this week away from everyone, my job, my family, school, seriously everyone and everything back in london. i groan once more, 8:39am, fuck this shit i'm getting up. i took a short cold shower in hopes the spanish weather would not eat me alive as soon as i stepped foot outside, i dressed a white dress with little white flowers and beige sandals with a semi decent heel, i grabbed my tote bag and threw in a book, my airpods, sunscreen and my wallet. I grabbed my sunglasses and my room card and was out my bedroom, to be honest i didn't want to go out of the hotel and visit, my entire body is honestly needing a piñacolada and a sweet calming time reading my book, which consists of beach reach by emily henry.

the pool area isn't too packed, likely because it's only 9am, i walk over to the bar area and i must've looked desperate ordering that piñacolada because the barman looked at me like i'm some sort of weirdo, maybe its the drinking alcohol at 9am on a tuesday but you see, being 23 and struggling with a master thesis, strangers and a job and your family trying to set you up with a guy you despise from your high school years you might end up just like me. as he prepared my drink i walked over to a sun lounger that hid completely in the shade and dropped my bag on top of it, only taking my wallet back to the bar, "the gentleman already paid for you", i read the name tag on the barman's t-shirt, miguel and almost repeated it out loud to ask him who the gentleman was but miguel was already talking to someone else. i look over the round counter of the bar and there's a very nicely put man with whiskey in a cup in front of him, yikes, must be having a harder week than me. "enjoy your drink" he spoke loudly enough for me to understand it, "thank you for paying for it", i reply taking a sip through the brown paper straw, "ah you're british?" he questions as he plays with his glass, "yeah, are you?" i ask, keeping an eye on my bag, "yeah i am, i come to málaga often so i've got a nice tan", he's sounds so smooth, his words aren't slurring after each other like i do, he speaks slowly but in a sexy way which gets me mentally slap myself. "if you don't mind, i left my bag over there and i have a romance waiting for me, thank you once again for the drink... that was very kind" i announced getting off the high stool and walking away before he could give me a response.

i felt weird the rest of the morning, i couldn't focus on my book nor listen to music, my brain remained stuck on the man from the bar, jesus, i came here to get away from trouble and i'm definitely just burying myself in a big one that happens to dress nicely, my eyes scanned the book one more time, oh this is ridiculous! i have read this sentence a thousand times today and i can’t seem to wrap my head around it. i looked over the book, just to take a peek at the man one more time but he wasn’t at the bar counter anymore, i pout and grab my phone, scrolling through instagram.

"margarita?" a large shadow covers the little sunshine that was warming my body up, "huh? oh! hi mr british man", i smile to him and my stomach feels bottomless for a second, i sit on my sun lounger as i grab the glass, "so... will british man finally tell me his name?" i ask sipping on the margarita, he sits on the lounger next to mine as he sips on something that definitely isn't a margarita, "i'm harry, you?", "i'm y/n!" i sound way too excited but he smiles at me, "and what does beautiful y/n do in marbella all by herself?", his eyes look like they're undressing my soul, dead ass staring me, "well um, im a masters student and i'm under a lot of pressure so i won this free week at the hotel... and you?", i try to stare him the same way but i end up looking like what my dad calls, angry puppy, "i own a winery and a wine cellar and my wines are very well loved so they also offered me a week over here" he takes another sip of what i now assume it's wine disguised in a margarita glass, "oh! i wouldn't take you as a wine owner" i blurt out, "no?", "well you look like a young writer and you're here to get inspired! or maybe it's just the plot of the book i'm reading" i point at the book and play gently with the little paper umbrella on my glass, "i'm not a writer nor young but i'm glad i still look interesting" he seems genuinely content that i just thought he was just a little older than me, "before you ask.. i turn 39 in february", i almost immediately reply "god thats so hot" but i swallow my words, "i'm 23 and i'm far from being interesting harry, look at me im a 23 year old reading romances hiding from glorious spanish sun and im a masters student in theatre arts that is currently doing a thesis in contemporary musicals and performance.. god i need a sip" he's smiling at me, i don't know why because i feel like i just said the most boring phrase for regular people, "that is very interesting, y/n, at 23 i had no prospects for my future so... you're doing good", oh that was it, my stomach felt even more out of my body with that small praise, i feel my cheeks burn and i try to look away from harry, feeling like a shy child.

it's been 45 minutes and we're still talking, i can't help but stare at him more than i should, so much so i immediately said yes when he asked if we could have lunch together on his boat, didn't even have the decency to think for a minute before getting back to him, truth is sometimes my mind slips to my ex boyfriend, we broke up a month ago and when i opened instagram on the airport yesterday, there he was, spending money on a hotel with a beautiful girl and i had to hold my tears from crying on my first day of vacation and now here's this man.. man... a man! asking me to have lunch on his yacht and it gets my brain so intoxicated with dopamine making a little gentle smile pop up in my lips.

on a small boat, a spanish man took us to harry's yacht, that read "brisa parisina" (parisian breeze), i had never been this close to a yacht ever, my times at the sea were always a month in cornwall with my dad after him and my mum got divorced and we stayed back in london so my siblings and i wouldn't have to change schools, but i had never been so close to such a big boat, harry thanks the man and hands him a 50 euro bill and i gulp looking at the big tip for a 5 minute trip from the deck to harry's yacht, but it’s his money so i try to not show my shocked face as he steps out of the small boat to the ladder that leads to what i assume the deck of the yacht, he reaches his hand out for me and i say “muchas gracias” to the man and get on top of the boat with harry’s help. the immediate thing i see is the light brown flooring that has grey cushions on top on the right and left, leaving a small path towards the helm station that controls the boat that has sofa looking like cushions on both sides and a small table. harry keeps walking through that and gets down the most tight staircase i’ve ever seen and been on, there’s a table, a big tv, and more sofas and even art hanging in the walls, a kitchenette with lots of storage place, four oven tops, a microwave, a sink bigger than mine at home and a small fridge and freezer, my stomach starts to hurt, i had realise this man was rich.. but like not i have a huge yacht rich, right after the kitchen (that even has a small wine compartment and a huge cooking space that has me speechless), there’s another small door that leads to a suite, a huge bedroom that i would not say was behind the tiny door and a very decent sized bathroom. “you can leave your bag here” harry points at the bed and i nod, “there’s another two bedrooms and bathrooms on the other side of the yacht but they’re pretty much the same, just smaller”, not one but two bedrooms? i take my phone out of my bag and type in the brand of the boat on google, 1 million pounds, i almost let a scream out of my mouth as i read the price and then the costs of maintaining a boat like this and my asos dress suddenly feels like a potato bag. i can see harry from where i’m standing, he’s opening a bottle of red wine and i’m tempted to google the price of it too.. but i don’t, i locked my phone and threw it to the bed along with my stuff and walked back to him.

“okay you have to try this wine, it’s a cabernet sauvignon from my winery in italy, it has a black cherry and black pepper flavour but i think you’ll enjoy it” he hands me a glass, “do you like mushroom paté? i have some we can snack on as i make lunch” i take a sip of the wine and god, i’ve never had red wine this good, in fact i think i’ve hated all the times i had red wine, “i’ve never had wine this good.. nor mushroom paté.. sorry” i can feel my cheeks flush and i look out the small window above the sink, staring at the blue ocean, harry gets closer to me and he looks way taller when he’s this close, “good thing there’s a first time for everything, right?” he whispers but almost melodically, “can i kiss you?” his tone remains the same, give me goosebumps that led to a broken “yes” and placing the wine glass on the kitchenette counter. his hands met my face, both his thumbs on my cheeks, he firstly gives me a peck and then proceeds to kiss me with more passion this time, his tongue in sync with mine, one his hands that was holding my face drops to my waist, pulling me closer to him, i can feel him smile in between the kiss and i open my eyes, “what’s so funny?” i ask trying to make an angry voice, “you taste good that’s all”, “oh yeah?”, “taste very good” he then kisses me again, this time shorter. “what do you want for lunch?” harry opens one of the cupboards over my head and takes a cream coloured saucepan with a brown wood handle out, “you invited me harry i don’t know”, “what about truffled macaroni with smoked haddock and then i let it bake for a bit?” i’m pretty sure i’ve never had haddock in the first place, “harry.. sorry to ask, what’s.. a haddock?”, i feel embarrassed, telling a 38 year old man i’ve never had.. whatever he mentioned, “oh! it’s a fish.. i can always make it vegetarian if you prefer?” i smile to him, “how did you know i want to be a vegetarian?” i furrowed my eyebrows, “i didn’t but i’m a flexitarian so i have tofu in here”, i’m starting to believe this man is too good to be true, “you know i have to follow the times and eating less meat and fish is a way to help the planet”, okay i need to get into his pants now this isn’t a joke, “wow”, “what?”, “nothing, i’m not used to hanging out with men that are educated on these things” i say honestly, he gives me a shy smile and points to the oven, “want to help me cook?”, “yeah of course”.

after lunch that was paired with a white wine that i honestly couldn’t pronounce, harry sailed the boat to further from the dock, i wouldn’t say we were in the middle of nowhere but we weren’t exactly somewhere i could pin point, my phone even says my location is the mediterranean sea. i’m laying down on the deck sofa’s in the shade as harry is now coming back upstairs wearing only black and white swim shorts and flip flops, “why aren’t you catching some sun, y/n? it’s a great day” he sits next to me, grabbing my legs and putting them on his lap, “i’m terrified of getting a sunburn, i got one a few years ago in sandymouth and i couldn’t sleep for two weeks, i don’t need that again” i sighed closed the book i’m yet to read properly, “oh you’re from cornwall?” harry asks, “my dad lives in plymouth but i’m actually from london, i mean i was born in romford but yeah… you?”, “well i’m from a small town near manchester but i live in london for.. 20 years now”, 20 years… god he was 18 when he moved to london, i was 3 when he was 18 oh my god, “i’ve actually never been to manchester” i admit, i don’t know how is that any interesting but it’s the truth, “whenever you want to, i’m more than happy to show you around” he offers as he stars to rub my legs.. gently, i honestly feel like moaning and he’s not even doing anything too special, “do you mind if i work a little bit next to you?” he doesn’t stop the massage on my right leg, “shouldn’t this be your vacation, harry?”, “it should but-“, “no buts! let me get up lets find something to do” i say enthusiastically, i sit next to him and grab his hand, “do you have any games? we just ate so i don’t think swimming in the cold water is good for us”, “i think my goddaughter left a unicorn cards game when she was here with me” he affirms, “GREAT! let’s play”.

“unstable unicorns, build a unicorn army, betray your friends, unicorns are your friends now” harry reads off the box, to explain quickly, you start the game with one baby unicorn of your choice, and then the deck is shuffled and u get 5 cards, those can be basic unicorns, magic unicorns, magic cards, upgrades, downgrades or a neigh (that stops the other players play), i explain exactly the same to harry, i had played this game with my friends and harry didn’t fully remember how to play, “i pick this baby” i say grabbing a rainbow coloured baby unicorn card, harry picks a pink coloured baby unicorn and says, “this is my god daughters favourite baby”, i smile at the thought of harry with children, “how old is she?”, “she’s 8, we spent her 8th here actually” he observes as he shuffles the deck and places 5 cards in front of each of us, i grab my cards and i try to hide the little smirk on my face, “y/n start you’re the one wearing a colourful bikini” he looks over to me and i place a basic unicorn next to the baby unicorn, “look harry it’s you” i point at the unicorn with a beard, “oh are you calling me basic y/n?” he fakes an angry tone, “no! i’m just saying this very cute unicorn is you because of the beard!” i reply pretending to be offended he thought i was offending him, “don’t be upset, little girl, i was just messing with you” oh good grief i can feel my stomach doing flips, he plays a basic unicorn as well and the came continues, with actions and neighs and yelling at each other over downgrades that made me sacrifice one of my unicorns which led to me stealing harry’s baby unicorn, “HA!” i scream, “I GOT YOOOOOU” she giggles as she places the pink baby on her stable, “y/n! not the baby!” he pouts and stares at his game, i didn’t know he was a sore loser but he seriously looked very upset, i got up and stood next to him, “harry i didn’t mean to upset you it’s just a game, i’ll give you your unicorn back” i affirm, “harry c’mon” i squat so i can look at his face from under, “i’m sorry” i place my hand on his thigh and he looks to me, “don’t be” i don’t even have time to process his words because his lips crash in mine and when i realise we are kissing again, i get up and he follows me, going back to my lips immediately after, running his hands through my shoulders and then my arms. “you scared me” i say in between kisses, “sorry.. it was just sweet to see you that worried about me” he whispers against my mouth, “i didn’t mean to upset you, h”, “you didn’t”, he gives me a little peck, “want to finish the game, unicorn robber?”, “HEY! and yes”.

i ended up winning the first game and harry the second so we were even but i couldn’t stop thinking about those kisses, i was putting the cards back in the box and harry was making us gin and tonic, “we could go for a swim don’t you think?” he suggests as he’s finishing the drinks, “i’m scared to swim without feeling the sand or ground harry, i’m not exactly tall like you” i admit, “don’t worry, i got you” he says as he places one of the cups in front of me, “i wouldn’t ask if i had intentions of not being there in case you need me, plus it’s 4pm the water must be so great now” he sits next to me and gives me a small forehead kiss before sipping on his gin, “sooooo”, “fine! but don’t let me go”, “i could never”. so we did end up swimming for a bit, mediterranean sea was warm and it felt good to swim with harry, i ended up sitting at the edge of the boat as he swam a little more, “you know you don’t look 38 right” i think the second glass of gin is making me too honest, “i don’t?”, “god no, you look max 28, i swear i was eye fucking you when i saw you sitting at the bar this morning”, “oh.. you were eye fucking me?” he furrowed his eyebrows as he swam back to me, sitting on the small space next to me, “tell me more” he emphasises on the more, “harry…”, i try not to sound worried, “yes?”, i get up and show him my hand so he can follow me, i sit on the sofa right next to the wheel, “i feel like i need to tell you this, i broke up with my boyfriend a month ago, he didn’t have time for me and he barely talked to me and it reached a point i was doing everything alone and i felt like i was the one fighting for my relationship and without me there would be nothing so i broke up with him” i vomit the words, “yesterday when i landed in malaga, he was posting stories on a hotel room with this girl i had seen comment his instagram posts and it really got to me.. and i don’t want to do anything without you knowing this” i breathe out and i feel relieved but worried about what harry could possibly say, “that fucking sucks y/n, i’m really sorry he did that to you, a real man would never do that” he cleans the tear off my cheek, “and i’m glad you told me, gives me more reasons to treat you like a lady deserves to be treated”, oh god here comes the butterflies again, “harry…can i kiss you again?” i ask and he nods, not waiting for me to make a move and kissing me again, salty from the sea and the small drips from our hairs falling onto our faces, “want to go downstairs?” he asks, “yes, please”.

“harry we’re wet you sure you want to do this now?” i ask mid kiss, “i need you so bad i don’t care”, his hands grab my face, “i just want to make you feel good, bunny”, harry purrs, i immediately press my thighs together to his words and especially the new nickname out of his mouth, “lay down for me, please” he murmured and i laid back as fast as i could, almost desperately harry’s hands meet then my pink high waist bikini bottoms, pulling them along my legs and throwing them to the ground, his hands separated my knees, giving him full view of my vagina, “fuck” he blurted, “can i taste you?”, my legs immediately feel like jell-o when he asks, “yes, yes please” i cried out. he licked his lips and proceeded to kiss my inner left thigh as his free hand massaged my right thigh tenderly, his index finger brushed against my slit, making me whimper to his touch, "god damn y/n" he breathed, "your pussy is so pretty, bunny, all wet... just for me", a couple of words and i was basically melting in front of this man, without warning his warm tongue flicks against my folds, i bucked my hips up and grabbed the sheets, holding onto them, my brain was fuzzy at this point, “harry… harry please” i cried out, i needed him so fucking bad, “hush bunny” i look down and his eyes are filled with lust as his lips part from my pussy, his middle finger slid right in, he eyes me and his mouth finds its way to my clit, gently nibbling on it as his finger thrust inside me, “harry..” i moan as my vision literally starts to go black, “cum for me, bunny” he grunts and i let go of the sheets at the same time i cum in harry’s finger. he removed his finger at the same time his free thumb keeps stimulating my clit, he sucks his finger and then looks at me with a grin on his face, “you taste so fucking good”, but i don’t have time to reply, he’s cleaning the cum off my already so sensitive cunt.

he moves his body up to kiss me, there’s saliva running down his chin and falling onto my chest, “see how good you taste, y/n? fuck you’re driving me insane”, he untangles the straps of my bikini top, that ends up on the bedroom floor as well, “your tits are perfect”, he hungry says as he pinches my nipples, a hint of pain all over my body when he does that but it feels to good, his mouth is busy getting to know my other nipple, “i love that you taste like the sea” he admits. in a swift he takes his swimming trunks, his cock is pressed against my pussy and i’m so close to begging him to fuck me, hard. “harry.. i need you, please”, he kisses my lips one more time as his cock pushes in inside me, slowly, inch by inch, i was already so sensitive that whatever game this man was trying to play was making me dizzy, speechless. once he was all in, his thrusts became more rapid and in sync, hitting my g spot, his index finger was back on my clit rubbing it frantically, he kissed me and i could feel my heart racing and my pussy clenching around him, “harry, harry i’m gonna cum” my legs start shaking, “fuck fuck wait for me” he pleads and i hold onto his back, pressing my nails against it, my eyes roll back as he collapses inside me with one last thrust. shockwaves through my entire body feeling his warmth inside of me.

“has anyone ever told you..you give the best orgasms ever? fuck, you’re such a good girl” harry cooed, making my already flushed cheeks burn even more, “actually i.. i had never had an orgasm with anyone if not… myself”, harry looks at me dead serious as he carefully removes himself from inside me, “a day of firsts, huh, bunny?” he kisses me, “if you keep calling me bunny i fear i need you to fuck me again” i blur out, “oh yeah, bunny? how about we talk about it in the shower?”

by the time we were done in the shower it was too late to come back to the port deck so harry ended up giving me one of his t-shirts and briefs, “what do you want for dinner?”, he asks, grabbing the already opened bottle of red wine, “is it bad that.. i want to say you?”, “okay i know you said i don’t look old but twice in a day almost put me on cardiac arrest, little girl”, i giggle to his response and hug him from behind, “sorry! i think i’m intoxicated by you, i just need you so fucking bad”, he looks at me, pensive, “jesus christ, y/n…you’re a filthy slut aren’t you?” he turns around, looking me in the eyes, “you’re probably ruining my briefs just by thinking about me fucking you, am i right?”, i stand immobile, i can’t even find any words to describe how wet i am or how he’s completely right, “aw, did i make my princess speechless?”, he gets his face closer to mine, “if you behave like the good little girl i know you are..maybe just maybe, daddy will take care of you before bed” he turns around getting various vegetables out of the fridge, “care to help me, princess?”, i gulp and quickly reply, “yes of course”.

i woke up to harry’s typing on his laptop, i groaned as i stretched my arms and legs next to him, “harry… you told me you wouldn’t work c’mon” i sit and place my head on his shoulder, “sorry, my ex wife sent me an email saying she wants the yacht for the 21st of august and i was telling her no because i got the yacht on the divorce”, my smile fades and it’s like i’m close to throw up, ex.. ex wife.. he was married? oh. “oh.. your ex?.. wife?”, he closes his laptop and places his hand on my thigh, “yeah, we got divorced 5 years ago” he squeezes my thigh as he speaks, “you don’t need to worry y/n.. 24 hours with you made me feel more alive than 2 years with her”, he kisses my forehead and i smile to myself, god what is this man doing to me, i’m here jealous over an ex wife and happy i won something she’s not even in the race for, “harry” i say, “yeah?”, “can we go back to marbella? i really want my clothes” he laughs and nods in agreement.

back at the hotel, harry is sitting at the edge of my bed, “harry i’m not sure i should join you to golf.. you’re golfing with santiago hernandez, my literal boss!”, “and have u ever met him?”, “no he has never been to the london hotel in the 2 years i’ve worked there but that doesn’t mean it’s not weird” i turn my back to him, “zip my dress up, please?” i ask, he zips the yellow sundress up carefully, “y/n just join me, princess, if he asks just say you work for me”, “yes, because i’m a great wine expert!” i mock him as i gesture my hands, indicating that harry is insane. “i can always say you’re my wife, my very sexy wife”, he pulls me closer and buries his face in my boobs, “i can even mark you up, so he knows you’re all mine” i feel my panties soaking already, “harry.. fine! but just because it’s a very good argument” i try to hide the smile on my face, “but care to explain how are we married without wedding rings?” i raise his chin up, “we can always buy them”, “harry i have £64 on my account, i can maximum buy a claire’s ring that will turn my finger green” i give him a gentle peck, “oh no no you’re MY wife, i’m buying you a wedding band… if he asks your engagement ring is getting cleaned”, “you really thought this through, huh?”, “when it comes to you, i don’t see money, princess, i’m spoiling you for as long as you want me to” he kisses my neck, “about those marks… can i please?” i let out an “mhm”, i loved how harry constantly asked me for consent but at the same time was assertive and a couple of words would literally make me ruin a pair of panties.

i looked in the mirror before leaving, noticing the hickey on my left boob, i tried to brush off my thoughts but i just couldn’t. harry was matching me, yellow pants and green polo, looking way too good for my thoughts to go away, i can’t play golf, in fact i think i’ve only played mini golf my entire life, “sweetpea, do you prefer gold or silver?” harry asks, looking at a collection of wedding bands, “i personally like gold more” i say, looking at a pair of golden hoops with daisies dangling from it, “do you like them?” harry looks over my shoulder, “yeah they’re pretty…. don’t even think about it” i give him a “mean” look, “fine! just choose the band you like the most” he says pointing at the golden wedding bands, “that one is pretty and simple”, “then that one it is”. he’s purchasing the wedding bands and i stand next to him just staring, “it’ll be those daisy earrings too”, he points and i gasp, “harry no?”, “y/n yes.. it’s my money, just let me get them.” he hands in a black card to the salesperson and i hold his free hand, still a little upset. harry drives us to the los naranjos golf club, before we get out of the car, each of us puts the wedding band, i feel so weird at first, i’ve never been a good liar and this was a big fucking lie. at the reception harry shows his membership to the club and then points at me, “she’s my wife”, i press my lips together so i don’t say something i shouldn’t and i stand there eyeing the red haired woman, “oh we can put your wife down for a membership”, she points at a computer screen, “maybe later, would that be okay?” harry’s arm is wrapped around my waist, tightly. “yeah of course, mr. styles, here’s your wife’s pass for the day”, she hands me a laminated pass that proves i can he there for the day and we make our way in, harry gripping onto my waist still, “oh hello harry” a tall man with brown hair a beige hat speaks up as he walks in our direction, “santiago! hey man”, i gulp, to be totally honest i had never seen the man that pays my paycheck so i just hold harry as well, hoping he does all the talking, “you got remarried?” santiago asks laying his eyes on me, “yeah dude, it was a very spontaneous thing but i couldn’t wait any longer”, harry smiles at me, “this is y/n.. y/n this is santiago” he introduces us and i reach my hand but santiago comes in for a kiss on each cheek, “it’s how we do it in spain” he exclaims. “will y/n be playing with us?” before harry can reply i let out a laugh, “god no i’ve never payed golf”, “play with us sweetpea, i’ll teach you”.

“i’ve only ever played mini golf with my nephews”

“you have nephews?”

“yes two and they always lose”

“it would be bad if you lost mini golf to children don’t you think y/n?”

“oh yeah? i bet u a thousand kisses that i win mini golf back in london”

“you’re on, princess”

it’s been an hour and a half, i’m sitting on the golf cart, drinking a mojito as i wait for my turn to play, a woman that i assume is santiago’s wife is also sitting here, she’s not playing though, she’s on the phone talking about pta meetings and dentist appointments, she sometimes glances at me and does a very disgusted face, “y/n! baby! it’s your turn” harry screams, i place the mojito on the cart and i run to him, “help me?” i kiss him and he places himself behind me, “i know exactly what you are doing y/n and it’s not funny” he whispers in my ear and puts my arms in the correct angle, “be a good little girl for me, yeah?” harry then kisses my cheek and moves my arms so the club hits the little white ball. “i think santiago’s wife hates me” i mention it to harry, grabbing his hand, “what? why? did she say anything to you?” his relaxed expression is now a worried one, tensing his eyebrows, “no.. she just looks at me weird” i sigh, “is she.. friends with your ex wife?” i regret the question the moment i ask it, “yeah.. she is, i’m so sorry y/n, i didn’t even think about it when i asked you, she usually doesn’t even come to our games.. i’m really sorry, princess” i frown as he explains, his lips kiss my forehead, “it’s okay” i lie, walking back to the cart, drinking the rest of my mojito.

harry’s pov

after the game y/n ran to the bathroom, the mojito really took a toll on her bladder, so i’m outside with santiago and phillipa, i feel tense just thinking that phillipa could’ve possibly mentioned lauren to y/n or mentioned y/n to lauren, “so harry, santiago told me you got remarried… i asked lauren and she had no idea” phillipa says with a cynical tone, “that’s because lauren is my ex wife, she doesn’t need to know what i do with my life” i snark back, “and isn’t your new wife.. kinda young” phillipa strikes again, santiago touches her arm and i breathe in, “she looks like she’s still university… oh wait she is! isn’t that weird, harry? marrying a woman that is maximum 24?” her words ringing in my ears, “phillipa mi amor, don’t” santiago says sternly, “what? santiago she’s much younger than him, would u go for a younger woman?”, “he’s divorced he can do whatever he wants, pipa, c’mon!”.

and then i see her, with two ice cream cups on her hand, “they had the absolutely disgusting mint chip” y/n hands me the cup, “yuck” she exclaims, “oh.. sorry guys i didn’t know what flavours you liked”, i don’t know how this woman does it, has me grabbed by the throat, completely whipped when i’ve known her for a little over 24 hours. “oh that’s okay y/n” santiago says, “pipa and i were just leaving… i’m sorry harry” he says as he shakes my hand and leaves, semi yelling at phillipa. “what happened?” y/n asks, grabbing a scoop of her pistachio ice cream, “nothing, want to go back to the hotel?”.

the next 5 days fly by, y/n moved her stuff into my room and we have been doing everything together, so much so we have not taken the wedding bands off, y/n asked if we could keep wearing them and i couldn’t say no, i could never say no to her. so we are now at the málaga airport, y/n is going through a romance section of books in english and telling me how she has read at least 90% of the books in there, “harry my tummy hurts, do you have any paracetamol with u?” she asks and i get out of my daydreamy state of mind, “i think i do, what’s wrong?” i open my tote bag and hand the tablet to y/n, “my period must be starting soon”, “oh nooo my sweet princess, do you want a kiss?” i don’t wait for her reply and start kissing her face, “are you sure you want to.. continue this back in london?”, “what? y/n, i’m so sure of this.. of us.. i’m still wearing a fake wedding band for you..i’m 100% sure.”

y/n’s pov

life back in london has definitely been special, minus the fact that whenever i say i’m sleeping over at willow’s i actually mean i’m staying at harry’s and i use the name of his cat.. but other than that, things are good, harry presented me to some of his friends, goes to musicals with me, ended up meeting my younger sister milly, to drop off a christmas gift at my house, making my youngest sister jane force me to facetime harry on christmas day so she could meet him too, a very persuasive 15 year old.. and god the sex, i don’t think i’ve ever had this much fun in my life ever, this man just knows exactly how to treat me right, driving me completely insane at times.

6 months later

today is harry’s birthday, i spent my morning in class and basically prayed the tube would be fast as fuck so i could be at harry’s house by lunch time, i got there around 2:13pm, starving, i opened harry’s apartment door and was greeted by willow, “oh hi my sweet girl” i say enthusiastically, “where’s your dad” i chase willow to the kitchen, harry is naked, only wearing an apron as he cooks what i bet it’s his tomato and beans pastry, “i don't know what looks better, my husband naked or your famous pastry” i giggle as i put my bags on the floor and run to kiss him, “happy birthday my love”, i kiss him again, “to your question, both are great things, second, thank you, princess” he kisses my forehead, “okay! i have your gifts, do you want to open them now?” i ask grabbing the bags i put on the floor, “three bags? y/n i told u to not spend money on me” his tone is demanding, almost mean, and i can’t help but love it, “oh one of these i have to put on and you take it off, ya know?” his eyes widened, “oh i do know” he smirks. harry’s gifts are an intimacy card deck for us to play on our stay in date nights, the lingerie set with hearts that he said and i’ll quote “would love to fuck you in this” so..i got it and an electric wine opener, personalised with his name, “fuck princess, you treat me so good” this kiss is more passionate than when i got home, “do you want me to put this on?” i question him, innocently, “yes fuck yeah baby please”.

sex with harry is always a religious experience, doesn’t matter if it’s morning, afternoon or night he always finds a way to exhaust the life out of me… in a very good way, harry is on his laptop looking for the same lingerie set, because even though i asked, he ripped the bra trying to get it off, my legs still feel wobbly, i check the time on my phone and it’s 5pm, our dinner reservation is only at 8pm so i have more than enough time to rest, i look at myself in the bathroom mirror, god i look like i’ve been through a tornado, i take my eyeliner (or the rest of it) off and brush my hair putting it on a ponytail, i pee and i go the bedroom to get a new pair of panties, “harry where’s my care bears robe?” i ask mid yawn, “behind the bathroom door, love” i nod and put the fake wedding band on my finger, i see harry smiling to himself, “oh shut up” i say walking into his bathroom again and putting on a dark pink robe with various care bears drawings that matched the care bears slippers, this was one of harry’s christmas gift to me, he said he had never met anyone that loved care bears as much as me, i smile at the memory. the doorbell rings and i get out of the bathroom, “get dressed harry it’s likely a friend of yours to wish you a happy birthday”, “oh when did you get so demanding”, “c’mooooon get dressed old man!”.

i run downstairs and i open the door, “..you’re not harry” the woman grunts, “no….i’m his-“, “oh you’re the new wife.”, “um.. i’ll go get.. harry” i’m so confused by this woman i just rush upstairs again, “there’s a woman at the door” i sit in bed, petting willow, “a woman?”, “yeah.. mid 30s.. brunette.. brown eyes, gucci bag” i try and describe her, “oh” that’s all he says. “oh? why oh? who is that- oh” i put two and two together, i had always told harry i didn’t want to know who his ex wife was and that came right after me, “come with me, please, i don’t want to be with her alone” harry lets out a loud sigh, “of course harry” in reality i’m shitting myself. he goes ahead of me and she has made herself at home, sitting on the sofa, “what do you want, lauren?”, she gets up and goes to hug him but harry immediately stops her, “oh is that how you greet your ex-wife?.. didn’t take you for a rude person, harry. i guess your new wife has changed you” bitch, bitch, BITCH, is all i can think, my blood is boiling so hard, it feels illegal to be angry in care bear clothing. “you’re my ex wife for a reason, can you please tell me what the fuck do you want?” harry puts himself in front of me and i clench my fists out of anger, “came to wish you a happy birthday, baby”, “my god lady will you please get the fuck out” i yell, i don’t know where that came from but i feel angry and upset and close to beating her up if she doesn’t leave my home, i mean, harry’s home. “what? are you gonna let her speak to me like that?” she looks offended, good. “yes, get out of our home, now”… our home. our home.

harry and i don’t talk about what happened until we’re at the restaurant, he’s wearing a white shirt that isn’t buttoned all the way up, black pants with golden buttons and black loafers, he had a big heavy black coat on top that is now on the back of his chair, i’m wearing a ruffled light blue dress with spaghetti straps, the dress reaches my mid thigh and it’s freezing in february so i have tights on, my white doctor martens and a puffy jacket that is on my chair as well. he holds my hand on top of the table, “y/n.. i only love you, please know that.. well you and willow”, “i love you so much harry, i’m sorry this day isn’t your best birthday”, “don’t be silly, i spent 38 dreadful birthdays, i’m glad 39th is with the love of my life.” harry orders the wine for us, as usual, we both happen to go for pasta dishes… which let’s be honest is also the usual, “harry i’m gonna go to the bathroom, okay?” he nods as he’s munching on garlic bread. as i get out of the bathroom i see my older brother, angus, standing in front of me, “angus??? what the fuck” i whisper-yell at him, “y/n? what are you doing here? did mum and dad invite u?” that question almost made me die in front of him, “mum and dad are here?? fuck no! angus, angus do not tell them i’m here please! i’ll babysit jacob and matthew anytime u ask me to, u don’t even have to pay me anything” i’m desperate at this point, “heeeeeeeeey okay that’s a very big promise y/n.. oh good lord are you here with that older guy? IS THAT A WEDDING BAND” he just yelled that to the entire restaurant, “angus shut up!” as i yell back to my brother. i see my dad staring at the both of us causing a scene in a restaurant, my dad just recently got remarried…to his husband… paul and things in the family haven’t been easy, especially between him and my mum, which led him to flee the table looking for my brother for some peace, “y/n cookie, what are you doing here?”, “dad i’m here with my boyfriend but can u please, please not tell mummy?” i hope he can sense the panic in my voice because i’m literally about to throw up. “okay cookie, breathe love” my dad side hugs me, brushing his fingers through my cheek, “angus and i won’t tell mummy okay? go enjoy your dinner, cookie” i breathe out the air i was holding in and go back to the table. “i was going to look for you, y/n, i was getting worried” harry sits back down, “why are you shaking, what’s wrong?”, “my brother, my dad, my nephews…and my mum are all here..we are so fucked harry, my brother saw the wedding band and i’m pretty sure my dad did too but he promised not to say anything to my mum………..that is walking in our direction right now” this is it. i’m fucked. i’m so fucked, i don’t even know why i’m fucked at almost 24 but i’m fucked because i hid my relationship with a man 16 years my senior from my entire family but my siblings and i’m fucked. “y/n y/s/n y/l/n why are your brother and your father trying to lie to me? who is this?” oh god, i only have time to hide my hand under the table and breathe in and out. “hi mummy… um i.. this is harry” i’m stuttering, “hello ms y/l/n” harry gets up and stares at her, not knowing exactly what to do, “and what are you to my daughter?”, “i’m.. her boyfriend”, “y/n what is this?” i try to speak but nothing comes out of my mouth, i had nothing planned, i was thinking of maybe introducing harry to my family on my birthday party so it would be easier, “um.. uh.. well.. you know.. he..” i take my hand from under the table and hide my face in both my hands. bad idea. “oh my god, you got married to this man? how old are you? 50?” she starts yelling and i feel small, if i didn’t have words before now i just don’t want to be here anymore, my brother is trying to calm her down, harry is explaining they’re promise rings and he’s 39 which in my mum’s head is now 50 and my dad is holding the twins by the hand.

what. a. fucking. birthday.

i’m sitting on a bench, crying, harry is talking with my brother and my nephews and my parents are sat, one on each side, “amelia, let me do the talking, okay?” my dad snaps at my mum, “we just got expelled from a restaurant because of you, let ME do the talking” i had never seen my father this mad, “cookie, i understand your mum’s point by seeing you with a much older man, but i don’t understand why you didn’t come to us”, he’s now doing the cheek thing again, “because mum would make the exact same scene and harry would just see me as the stupid little girl that still needs her parents approval though she’s 23” i pout, i truly feel like a child with my reactions, “listen y/n.. i didn’t mean to cause a scene, bubs, i saw the rings and you know harry looks much older than you and i thought he was trying to hurt you” i swallow my tears, “how.. how long have you been dating this man”, “since august”, “AUGUST?”, “yes i’m so sorry”, i let my tears out again, “no, y/n don’t say sorry.. i feel so hurt with myself that you didn’t felt like it was safe to tell us for 6 months.. do milly and jane know?” when she mentions my younger sisters my expression changes from sad to guilty, “angus, milly and jane all knew… but only milly met harry”, “milly met harry?”, “yeah harry dropped off my christmas present at home and milly was the one that helped him…remember my friend willow.. the one i sleep over a lot and got me the care bears robe.. well willow is the name of harry’s cat” i just sat there in silence, i looked over at harry and the twins and i was no longer listening to my parents, “harry” i call out, “please come meet my mum and dad”.

i get up and stand next to him, “mummy, dad, this is harry, my boyfriend” i hold his hand tightly, playing with his wedding band.. i frown my eyebrows, i had never realised, his band was engraved with our initials.

the end (or not)

taglist: @psicostyles@behindmygreyeyes@your-local-lesbian-on-lexapro@mvaldez7821@tiktokandtvismylife @silvermistwannabe @harrysgoldenhome @subbbyharry @buckybarnessimpp@gabshouse @sassqwn @thegirlnextdoorssister @theanxietyqueen17 @michellekstyles

945 notes · View notes

classificationhell · 1 month

Text

Sneak peek of the fourth chapter of Mon Ange.

Vox sat in his chair as he watched the monitors with rapt attention. The moment Alastor left the perimeter of Cannibal Town, all street cameras and three different drones were already watching him. Usually, the prick would only do some minor glitching with his powers, but the fucker was almost frying his cameras right now. Of course, this only made Vox more interested in what he was trying to hide, so he sent out a few guys along with more drones. Hoping Alastor would miss just one just long enough for him to catch a glimpse of whatever the old bastard was trying to hide. Was he somehow injured? No, then he wouldn't leave the hidey hole of his pal's.

The moment his men approached Alastor, they began disappearing into shadows. Vox was more than slightly annoyed as those chumps were likely soon to be double dead, and he'd have to find more simpleton to take their place. One of them, through the use of their squid like camaflouge was able to get really close, so close that Alastor was momentarily caught off guard though he didn't appear to be as he simply used a tentacle from the ground to impale the sinner and kept walking hand in hand with someone. The blink and you'll miss it half a second of footage was caught in many angles, and Vox gave up watching to see if Alastor would actively slip up in for of analyzing the shot. Alastor was holding hands with a smaller Sinner dressed as what cannibals were usually dressed as in a color matching the radio demon's. Vox stared at them from every angle. They were cute, he supposed, but he'd seen many men and women fawn over the radio demon, and he hadn't given them the time of day, so what was so different about you? And why was he, himself, getting suckered in as well?

That's when he heard a soft coo from his monitor that he instinctually knew was from an Omega. He couldn't tell why you cooed from the camera feed, but when you did, Alastor stopped to reassure you everything was fine, and he heard your sweet, little voice say, "Alright, Papa."

Vox just knew this wasn't some kind of odd perversion of a Daddy kink. No, it made since now why Vox looked at you on the half second images he got, and it made so much sense. You were not even just an Omega. You were a Little.

"Holy shit, Alastor is a Caregiver?!" Vox himself was sure, but he never suspected the old prick was.

Now that Vox knew what you were, though, he found himself doing what he oft does with Alastor, coveting. Whether it be his status, power, or ability to work around almost any situation and still come out on top, Vox coveted almost everything that Alastor had. Sure the idea of a Hotel to rehabilitate Sinners was a fucking awful idea and he wouldn't let himself be caught dead supporting such an endeavor as the sheer ridiculousness could ruin his brand's integrity, even if it worked a program designed to get rid of his customer base was something he'd never support. However, he could envy the way it gave Alastor a perfect in to eventually make a deal with hell's own resident bleeding heart Princess Charlotte Morningstar. Now his sights were set on you, sweet little you, with those lovely doe eyes and adorably small stature. He let a finger trail along your image. He decided then and there that he wanted you to be his. He'd keep close tabs on you and Alastor. The old prick had to let his guard down at some point, and when he did, Vox would swoop in and take you as his own. He'd be a much better option for a Caregiver than that old fossil anyway.

"Don't worry, Sunshine, you'll be home soon enough~"

#sneak peek #fanfiction sneak peak #classification hell au #classificationhell #thank you #mon ange sneak peek #vox may pop up from time to time and get more and more obsessive each time #the little glimpses he gets of Reader just simply are not enough

21 notes · View notes

angeltxqrs · 8 months

Text

our little diner date (jjk)

Jungkook had graduated high school but he decides to come visit you, and to take you out on a date

Paring: 80’s Popular Guy!Jungkook x Fem!Reader Theme: Drabble; Sugesstive, fluff Word Count: 796 Warnings: swearing, get’s a little sugesstive towards the end but nothing happens

The sunshine peeks through the window of Jungkook’s 1980s muscle car. His lips smack together as he chews on his bubblegum. He patiently waits for you to get out of school. He wanted to surprise you by picking you up and taking you on a date, but little did he know you had already known about his plan. He had his tattooed hand on the steering wheel and the other on the door handle. He looks around for you, but once his eyes land on you, he smirks. He notices your signature short white tennis skirt, which you always wear when you're around him. You walk towards his car as you softly smile at him. You then get to his car and open the passenger door. "Hey," you say in a casual/excited tone. You get into the car seat and put your school bag in the backseat before putting on your seatbelt. You then turn to look at him; he looks nice. He’s wearing a denim fleece jacket with a white tank top, a black tie, a belt, matching denim jeans, and some black boots. Plus, his hair is longer than usual, making it look like a bob. "What?" He asks, noticing your eyes on him. "Nothing so… How about that date?" You softly smirk at him as he almost mimics your smirk. "You’ll see," he says before putting his car in drive and beginning to drive off.

You guys soon pull up to a cute diner that’s around town. You both get out of the car and walk inside with Jungkook’s hand on the small of your back. You walk up to the waitress as Jungkook asks for a table for 2. The waitress then leads you two to an empty booth and hands you both the menu when you are seated. She then leaves you two alone, and you look at the menu, deciding what to order. You continue to look at the menu to see what you're craving when you notice Jungkook’s eyes on you. You softly chuckle before saying, "I didn’t think you would take me to dinner." "I was hungry," he replies as you nod. Once you two have both decided on what you want, the waitress comes back and gets both of your orders in. You two then hand back the menus to her as she leaves once more. You then look back at Jungkook from across the table and smile. "You look pretty today." He says leaning over and tucking some of your hair behind your ear. You softly chuckle before nodding. "And you look handsome today." You reply before smirking and winking. He smirks back at you, saying, "I look handsome every day." He says this while taking a sip of the Coca-Cola that the waitress just came out with. "That’s true," you agree while nodding before taking a sip of your water.

It was the end of your date. You and Jungkook both got your meals; both had hamburgers and french fries. You were only down to the last of your fries, and you agreed to share them with him. You dip a fry into the side of ketchup on your plate and look at him. "You know, if you still weren’t so goddamn popular, I would have already asked you out." You eat your fry, and Jungkook chuckles, "Sorry, I’m just too popular with the ladies." He smirks at you before eating a fry himself and crossing his arms, resting them on the table. "You are" You sigh as I look at him. The same smirk was plastered on his face as his tattooed hand moved over onto yours. He took it, and his thumb gently caressed your soft skin. "But that’s okay because you're already mine." He brings your hand up to his mouth and leaves a soft, tender kiss on it. You softly blush at his touch, and you get a tingle down your body. Your hand is still in his, and he rests it on the table. He looks at you and says, "How about we get out of here?" He cocks his head to the side. You nod, and you both get out of the booth. Jungkook paid for the meal and left his cash on the table, plus a tip. Jungkook’s arm wraps around your shoulder as you both walk out of the diner. "Oh, and I may or may not have planned something for you once we get back to my car." He smirks, looking down at you. You look back. "Like what?" You raise your eyebrow in curiosity while you both walk to his car. "You’ll see," he says in a low, suggestive tone. He leans down and presses a soft kiss on your lips.

76 notes · View notes

lil-demi-boy · 9 months

Text

Since Dan's the crew's nurse, he's gotta hang around the bestie!

#my art #futurama #dr. zoidberg #philip j fry #walking on sunshine [fry]

25 notes · View notes

billlydear · 1 year

Text

figure you out - billy hargrove x reader x steve harrington

summary: billy thinks he has you all figured out. he knows what makes you tick. but steve harrington has discovered a symphony of sounds, not just the one beat billy picked up. // word count: 884 // masterlist | inbox (please request) | WIP list

based off of 'figure you out' by voila, though the concept has been changed slightly. i recommend listening before or during reading

reblogs and comments are greatly appreciated! your feedback motivates me to write more, so thank you for your support :-)

You’re different with Harrington than you were with him, Billy notes. You’re softer around the edges, all sweet smiles and sunshine. With him you’d been a storm cloud, charged with a lightning bolt that struck his heart one too many times. It was fair, though, because he bit back, hard.

Most of your relationship had been fighting. Not the cutesy kind, over the remote, but not the crazy kind either, throwing plates. Somewhere in the middle, swear words thrown around without any meaning, sneering and scoffing at one another.

Most over jealousy, others over little things that got under your skin. Billy hated the way you left puddles of water on the counter and the floor when doing dishes, and you hated the way he chainsmoked and got the whole house smelling like the inside of a chimney.

You’d throw a few ‘fuck you’s out there, roll your eyes, then drop down on the couch and fuck like rabbits. That was the beauty of the relationship; everything was fixed with sex.

Billy thinks that Steve’s hand looks awkward on your thigh. He’s sitting two tables away, watching the man fumble through a subtle-leg-squeeze maneuver, and remembers how he used to do it. Hand on thigh, thumbnail marking a crescent into your skin, pinky dangerously close to your core. Steve’s hand is timid, halfway up your thigh, and stiff. He’s doing it all wrong.

Billy could hold you with his hands tied. He could kiss you with a blindfold, love you with his eyes closed. He knows every inch of your body, from the spot you like scratched on your back to the stretch of your thigh that makes you shiver if he bites just right. He knows you, he’s figured you out, and Steve’s walking in blind. Blind and bumbling, as you shift your thigh so that Steve’s hand falls off of it. Billy turns back to his lunch with a rueful sneer, hoping that you’d be done with Harrington soon so that he could have you back. After all, didn’t you like the way things were? You had your moments, a late night cuddle, a heartfelt conversation in the camaro, But most of it was sex, steamy, aggressive, glorious sex that had you screaming into the couch cushions. Harrington can’t possibly provide the same level of carnal, lust-driven sex that Billy had- oh.

With another glance back up at you, purely reflex, Billy spots Steve’s hand around your shoulders. You react much differently this time, leaning towards him and tucking your head onto his shoulder. You look comfortable, and Billy watches as your hand sneaks down your side to hook a finger through Steve’s belt loop. It’s nothing you’d ever done before with Billy, at least, not if you weren’t tugging him close for a quick fuck.

Billy watches Steve figure you out, eyes burning a hole into the back of that insanely large mop of hair as Steve charts all the stars in your constellation that Billy’s telescope had been too weak to see. Blinded by the most fiery, apparently he’d lost track of the clusters of softly glowing ones just beside them, like the way you knock your foot into Steve’s under the table, or how you steal a french fry from him by biting off the half that’s still between his lips.

Maybe he hasn’t figured you out. He’s known you forever, Steve only for a month, but maybe he’s only figured out Billy Hargrove’s Girlfriend, not Y/N Y/L/N.

To be honest, he had never bothered to care about the difference. But now that Harrington has the newest model, the one that comes with sweet kisses in the lunchroom and shy glances from across class, he wants it, too. He wants to figure you out all over again, which flowers make you smile the biggest, and what happens when he traces the lines on your hands. Maybe you’re missing out on hate sex now that you’re with Harrington, but you’d been missing out on love with Billy, and something deep in the pit of his stomach twists with worry at the thought that you might not want to give up love. He wasn't ever sure he was capable of it, he’s always thought he might be permanently dead in that part of his brain. But the things he’s feeling aren’t very aggressive now, aren’t lust-ridden and desperate, they’re soft. They’re the glint in your eyes, they’re the wind in your hair, they’re the butterfly on your nose.

He can’t believe it took Steve Harrington to kindle the fire of love inside of him (a sentence he doesn’t want to think too hard about), but now that it’s been sparked, it slowly burns, singing away at his insides and smearing dark, ashy guilt over his guts.

If, by any chance, you look his way again, Billy Hargrove promises himself this: He’ll figure you out. He’ll untie his hands, smooth them across your shoulders and dig into your neck after a long day. He’ll take the blindfold off, watching for the shine in your eyes as he presses his lips to your forehead. He’ll open his eyes, and make sure the love in yours matches the love in his, even if his is warped from mistreatment and disuse.

He'll learn. He’ll treat you better.

#billy hargrove x reader #billy hargrove fanfiction #billy hargrove oneshot #billy hargrove headcanons #billy hargrove hcs #billy hargrove x you #billy hargrove x y/n #billy hargrove imagine #billy hargrove fluff #billy hargrove angst #steve harrington x reader #billy hargrove drabble

220 notes · View notes

tallseaweed · 1 month

Text

Relinquish Your Burden: Chapter 6

"The Sun Will Shine On Us Again"

Word Count: 3.9k

Relinquish Your Burden - Chapter 6 - tallseaweed - Loki (TV 2021) [Archive of Our Own]

"Again."

"Let's go faster this time."

"My Variants are already out there."

"Nothing survives, Loki. Not even the Sacred Timeline."

"You cause a war that kills us all."

"What good is free will if everyone's dead?"

"You're replacing one nightmare with another."

"I know what kind of god I need to be."

"You do know yourself."

"A villain."

Loki awoke with a gasp, his limbs tangled in sweaty sheets. A soft light was filtering in through a small leaded window on the far wall. Where was he? He needed to get back, the timelines needed him—

The scent of a familiar cologne surrounded him, soothing his panic.

Mobius.

It all came rushing back.

Sylvie.

Thor.

The Watcher.

Mobius's eyes and the dancing lights…

Loki rolled over, finding the other side of the bed vacant. Muffled voices were coming from the other side of the door.

He pulled himself from bed, bare feet padding toward the window. Outside, a grey spaceship with purple and turquoise stripes sat in the snow. The low-hanging clouds made it difficult to tell, but it must have been close to midday.

Mobius's laugh carried over the hum of voices in the other room, and Loki couldn’t help but smile to himself. Raking his fingers through his sleep-disheveled hair, he went to open the door.

The scene that greeted him made Loki do a double take. Thor was frying up some sort of egg dish on the stove while Love chatted with him from a barstool. Sylvie was on her tiptoes rummaging through one of the cabinets, and Mobius was chopping something on a cutting board. It all looked so ordinary, but the circumstances that had brought them all together were anything but. Loki felt as if his two worlds were colliding.

Across the room, Mobius's eyes met his own. Immediately, he set down his knife and smiled. "Mornin' sunshine."

Thor and Love's conversation tapered off, and everyone turned to face Loki. He gave a halfhearted wave as Mobius made his way toward him.

He and Mobius had fallen asleep in the clothes they'd been wearing the night before, but the latter was now clad in a brown knit jumper and denim trousers. If the luggage in the corner was any indication, he'd used Sylvie's TemPad to go retrieve some essentials.

"How'd ya sleep," Mobius asked, leaning up to give Loki a brief kiss on the cheek.

"As good as can be expected," Loki sighed, running his hand down the side of Mobius's arm. He could feel a blush creeping up his ears from the weight of everyone's attention.

"You owe me 5 units Aunt Sylvie," the young girl's cheery voice piped up.

Mobius rolled his eyes and took Loki's hand, leading him toward the table. "Do you want some lunch? 'Fraid we both slept through breakfast."

Loki caught Thor's eye from across the kitchen island. His brother looked surprised by the exchanges of affection but recovered himself quickly. He shot Loki a warm smile. "I've made a Midgardian dish called an omelette, Brother. Would you like to try?"

"Sure. Smells lovely."

Loki hadn't realized how hungry he was until he put the first bite in his mouth. When was the last time he'd had a proper meal? He honestly couldn't remember. Three generous servings later, Loki began collecting everyone's dishes and bringing them to the sink. He was stopped by Thor's hand on his shoulder.

"Would you come for a walk with me, Loki?"

Loki turned to face him, meeting Thor's earnest gaze. "Alright," he replied, though his palms began to sweat. The last time Loki had truly conversed with Thor, he'd been attempting to rule Midgard and secure the Tesseract for Thanos. Safe to say, they hadn't exactly left on good terms. Making matters even more complex was the fact that this Variant of Thor had watched him die. Had clung to his body after the Mad Titan snapped his neck. Truthfully, Loki had no idea what to expect from the interaction.

As they made their way to the door, he conjured himself a Midgardian outfit, similar to what the rest of them were wearing. When they stepped outside, Loki was clad in a forest green turtleneck and dark denim trousers. He was glad he'd included thick black boots when Thor led them off the main path and into the snow.

They walked in silence for a minute or so, the cold wind biting at their exposed skin. Thor was dressed much warmer, but made no comment on Loki's choice to forgo a coat. Even before they'd learned his true heritage, the two of them had discovered that Loki could withstand the cold much better than Thor.

"So… you and Mobius…" Thor smiled suggestively.

"Yes," Loki huffed a laugh. "I'll have you know it's a very recent development, but…" The corners of his lips twitched, and he found himself unable to fight the ensuing grin. "Would you believe me if I told you I wanted to kill him when we first met?"

Thor let out a booming laugh. Until that exact moment, Loki hadn't realized just how much he'd missed that sound. "Actually Brother, I can. You've never exactly been quick to open up."

Loki clicked his tongue but conceded the point. Prior to meeting Mobius and Sylvie, he had been slow to warm up to people. Taking Thor's lead of stating the obvious, he said, "Your daughter is a force to be reckoned with."

Thor smiled fondly. "That she is. Do you know how I came to adopt her?"

"More or less."

"Then you'll likely already know that she was Gorr's daughter first. He was a mortal, but when Love emerged from the Altar of Eternity, she had the powers and vitality of a goddess." He paused. "Selfishly, I'm quite glad for that. Until yesterday, she was the only family I had left. If I were to lose her so soon—"

Loki was a bit taken aback by the display of vulnerability. He supposed he shouldn't be after their emotional reunion the night before, but still, he wasn't quite accustomed to it. Open communication had never been their family’s forte.

"I think Mother would have liked her," Loki said quietly.

"I'm sure she would have," Thor agreed.

A beat of silence passed. "When I first learned she'd died, I—" Loki broke off, a lump forming in his throat. He swallowed. "I'm not envious of you for having to go through that."

Thor let out a deep sigh. "Be grateful you didn't. Though I can imagine the way you found out was horrible in its own way."

"You're not wrong there," Loki murmured quietly. He paused, choosing his next words carefully. "If it's any consolation, I've seen countless timelines where Mother is alive and well. Jane too, for that matter."

Thor drew in a deep breath, simultaneously swiping a stray tear from his cheek. "Good. I'm glad.”

They began trudging up a small hill when Thor broke the heavy silence. "Mobius and Sylvie told me how they came to know you, but I'm curious. What is it like? This TVA?"

Loki thought for a moment. What a complicated question . "It's— horribly bureaucratic and stifling. And honestly, a bit terrifying at first. They use Infinity Stones as paperweights."

Thor halted in his tracks. When Loki turned around, his brother looked aghast. "By the Norns, I— I knew that place was powerful, but I did not imagine…" he breathed.

Loki nodded grimly, standing still while Thor took a moment to process. "They kidnapped me from my timeline right after New York because I managed to escape with the Tesseract. That particular act took me off of the Sacred Timeline, my predestined path . When I managed to regain possession of the Tesseract at the TVA, it wouldn't work. All of the Stones they keep there are rendered completely useless." Thor's expression was somewhere between horror and sympathy. Loki wasn't sure he could stand it. "At first, I wanted to burn the whole place to the ground." Thor chuckled. Good. "Sylvie did too. She might still want to, honestly."

They began walking again before Thor asked, "Was it strange, finding out there are countless different versions of you out there?"

Loki cringed. "You have no idea."

They had arrived at a large rock near the cliffside, overlooking the sea. Thor frowned at the snow blanketing its surface. Loki shook his head with a small smile and cleared the snow off with magic. Thor flashed him a grin. "I had forgotten how useful you are to have around, Brother."

Loki rolled his eyes and gave Thor an exasperated smile. "Glad I can be of service, Your Highness."

Thor laughed as they sat down. After a moment of taking in the view, Loki continued. "I suppose I grew somewhat partial to the TVA once I learned that all its workers were brainwashed Variants. It's not like they'd asked to be kidnapped from their timelines. And, well, by that point, I was becoming rather fond of Mobius."

Thor smirked at him and Loki narrowed his eyes. The desired effect was lessened by the involuntary smile pulling at his lips. He broke their eye contact and sighed, looking back out over the water.

"In time, I started viewing a handful of them as my friends. If we're being honest, I—" Loki hesitated, glancing over at Thor. "I never really had true friends, back on Asgard."

Thor looked like he wanted to protest, but seemed to think better of it. Loki was pleasantly surprised. He almost hadn't said anything, but decided he was curious as to what Thor's reaction would be. If he were being honest with himself, he was waiting for Thor to jump to the defense of the Warriors Three and Sif as he'd always done.

After a weighty pause, Thor murmured, "I'm sorry that I never noticed."

Of all the things Loki had thought his brother might say, the last thing he'd expected was an apology. Completely taken aback, Loki swallowed the lump in his throat, dipping his head into a shallow nod.

Suddenly, the sun broke through the clouds, and Loki couldn't help but tip his face toward it. It had been so long since he felt the warm caress of sunlight, let alone took the time to enjoy it. He glanced over at Thor, squinting against the brightness, and was alarmed to find tears streaming down his brother's face.

"Are you alright?" Loki asked gently, turning to face him.

"Yes, I'm sorry, it's just—" Thor took a shuddering breath. "Before you died, you assured me that the sun would shine on us again." Thor chuckled wetly, shaking his head. "I assumed it was one of your rare moments of misplaced optimism, but, well… here we are."

Loki couldn't help the surge of remorse he felt for the man beside him. This Thor had lost his brother, and Loki was just sitting here, acting as if he could fill the chasm his Variant had left behind. "Thor… I'm so sorry."

"You have nothing to be sorry for, Brother," Thor said, wiping the tears from his eyes. "We're finally together again."

Loki's heart constricted painfully. After a moment, he said, "Do you truly still claim me as your brother, knowing I'm not the Loki you lost? After all the destruction I wrought on Midgard? On Jotunheim?"

Thor turned toward him, his eyes sparkling with sincerity. "Of course I do, Loki. You will always be my brother. Nothing could ever change that." He glanced back toward the horizon, the smile slipping from his face. "After facing Thanos myself and witnessing your terror when you recognized his ship…" He trailed off, a dormant rage flitting over his features. "I can only imagine the horrors you went through under his command." Loki closed his eyes, resisting the memories threatening to resurface. Thor went on. "Thanos was after the Tesseract and sent you to Earth as his pawn. I no longer blame you for what happened in New York, I— I blame myself for letting you fall into that monster's clutches."

Loki's heart twisted painfully. "The events preceding that were hardly your fault."

Thor turned back to him. "Was I not the one that instigated war with Jotunheim? Got myself banished from Asgard? If I had been there for you—" his voice broke with emotion, "perhaps you would not have let go."

"Thor…" Loki sighed, "that decision had nothing to do with you. It was impulsive and brash, and no one's fault but my own, but—" He drew in a breath. "I was irrevocably upset with Father. At the time, I believed he saw me as no more than a political pawn."

Thor made to argue, but Loki held up a hand. "It was not my most sensible conclusion, but none of it was your fault. Hel, I was even the one that goaded you into attacking Jotunheim in the first place."

"You warned me against it—"

"I knew you wouldn't listen. I never planned for us to get past the Bifrost— but I was playing with fire. With all that happened afterward, that scheme was undoubtedly one of the worst decisions I've ever made." He snorted derisively. "Though I suppose if I hadn't made it, I would have ended up at the TVA all the sooner."

Thor was silent for a moment, processing. "The circumstances of how it all happened may have been awful," he began slowly, "but not everything your scheme led to was all bad. I gained humility on Earth, and Father and Mother finally got around to revealing the truth of your heritage."

Loki made a face. "If you call Father finding me panicked and turning blue in the weapons vault 'revealing the truth,' then yes, I suppose he did. Midway through that conversation, he ever so conveniently fell into the Odinsleep."

Thor grimaced in sympathy. "I cannot imagine."

"No, I suppose you can't," Loki sighed.

They were silent for a moment, letting it all sink in. "Before you died, before Thanos—" Thor took a steadying breath. "In your final words to me, you reclaimed yourself as an Odinson. I know you're not the man I lost, but even with less shared history between us, nothing changes the fact that you're my little brother." Loki met Thor's gaze, shining with emotion. "And that I'll always love you."

Suddenly, it was all too much. Loki couldn't control the tears flowing down his face as he braced his elbows on his knees. Thor's warm, steady hand rubbed comforting circles against his back.

It was a while before his shoulders stopped shaking.

"You know, I'm actually your older brother now," Loki said after a while, attempting to sound lighthearted. Thor raised his eyebrows skeptically. "I spent centuries attempting to fix the Temporal Loom before I learned it was a useless endeavor. It took me longer than I care to admit to realize I had to hold the timelines together for the Multiverse to survive. It was all quite poetic, really; Eternal servitude to repent for my sins. Or so I thought. But, uh— I've got at least two or three centuries on you now."

Thor just watched him solemnly, his piercing blue eyes missing nothing. "You don't need to sacrifice yourself to be a hero, Loki."

Loki looked away, willing the tears not to fall again. He took a shaking breath . Since when had Thor become so perceptive?

"I've had to mourn you more times and more often than any other. No sacrifice is worth losing you again I—" Thor's voice dropped to a rough whisper. "I don't think I could bear it."

Before Loki even realized what he was doing, he was pulling Thor into a hug. Immediately, Thor squeezed him back, firmly gripping the back of his neck. "I missed you so much," Loki whispered through his tears.

"You'll stay?" Thor murmured into his hair.

"As long as you'll have me, Brother."

---

Left to their own devices to clean up what remained of lunch, Mobius and Sylvie settled into a comfortable rhythm. Clad in yellow rubber gloves, Sylvie carefully hand washed each dish before handing them off to Mobius to towel dry.

"I— I know this might seem out of the blue," Mobius began, "but, I'm really sorry for all those millennia I spent hunting you down." Sylvie turned to look at him, and he quickly clarified. "I don't expect you to ever forgive me—hell, I probably wouldn't—but I just… wanted you to know. You deserve to be happy, and— and you and Loki made the right call in freeing the timelines." He sighed heavily. "Even with all that happened afterward."

Sylvie set down the dish she'd been lathering and turned off the sink. "Thank you, Mobius, I appreciate it." She turned to face him. "You're a good man, you know that?"

Mobius looked down, shuffling his feet. "I'm not sure I'd go that far…"

"Well I'm not going to waste time arguing with you about it, but like I said yesterday, I'm sorry for keeping Loki's location from you." She looked out the window, lost in thought. "I was so caught up in finally having true freedom—so grateful for Loki's sacrifice, that it took me a while to see the bigger picture."

"We're all just doing the best we can to get by," Mobius said gently. They stood there in comfortable silence for a moment before Sylvie went back to washing the dishes.

"Ya know, in light of recent events, I might have to demote you to ' second favorite Loki,'" Mobius teased. "A certain God of Stories might not be too happy with me otherwise."

Sylvie threw her head back and laughed. Mobius didn't think he'd ever heard her sound so carefree. "As if I were ever truly in the running," she smirked, eyes twinkling.

After finishing the dishes, Mobius and Sylvie sank onto the couch. It was just the two of them since Love had slipped into her room with a book on Astrophysics once Thor and Loki left.

"Mobius?"

"Yeah?"

"I think I'm going to leave— once Loki and Thor get back."

Mobius sat up, turning to face her fully. "Really? Why?"

"I'm really happy with the life I've built, and now that Loki is free, I— I've done what I set out to do."

"Can I at least convince you to stay for dinner? It'd be a nice send-off. And Thor loves a good party."

Sylvie looked hesitant for a moment, but eventually conceded with a small smile. "Alright. One more night."

The sun dipped toward the horizon, painting the sky in vibrant hues of pink and orange. On the front porch of the cottage, Mobius's fingers carded through Loki's ebony curls. He didn't know how the God had wound up with his head resting in his lap, but he'd be lying if he said he didn’t enjoy it.

"You know, I was right about you all along," Mobius smirked. "You really are just a little pussycat."

Loki huffed indignantly "I'll have you know that I'm a prince , Agent Mobius, and I will not tolerate this abased slander." Despite his words, he made no effort to move away.

"Whatever you say, Your Highness," Mobius chuckled.

As their banter subsided, Mobius's mind couldn't help but wander back to the night before. Although he couldn't fathom how Loki could ever want someone like him, the hours they'd spent under the aurora had done wonders to ease his anxieties. Despite this, there was one more thing nagging at the back of his consciousness. He knew it would sound ridiculous and irrational to voice it out loud, but he wanted to clear the air, and hopefully ease his mind.

"I'm not gonna lie Loki, I didn't expect this turn of events." Loki tilted his head up, giving Mobius his full attention. "This might sound kinda dumb, but I coulda sworn you were head over heels for Sylvie."

Loki hummed in acknowledgment, gently stroking Mobius's knee as he seemed to gather his thoughts. "Perhaps at one point I was, but for me, that was all centuries ago. She never felt the same, so those feelings didn’t last.” He huffed humorlessly. "She kicked me through a Time Door, remember? She was set on killing He Who Remains, and I wanted us to consider the consequences. I tried appealing to her emotions, and in turn, she manipulated mine." He looked up at Mobius. "I'll always care about her, but I assure you, I harbor no romantic feelings." His eyes sparkled, "Except, of course, the ones I have for you." Loki reached up and tucked a strand of Mobius's hair behind his ear. Mobius's heart stuttered in his chest.

"And how long have those been around," Mobius teased, before realizing it was a somewhat vulnerable question.

Loki rolled his eyes before they softened. "Unwittingly? It’s hard to say. I’ve been drawn to you ever since you told me you’d seen my entire life and didn't consider me a villain." Mobius raised his eyebrows incredulously. To his delight, a light blush began coloring Loki’s cheeks. "But knowingly? Since my 134th attempt at fixing the Loom."

"134th huh?" Mobius laughed. "And why's that?" Embarrassingly enough, he couldn’t help but feel a twinge of jealousy toward the version of himself that had been there. Which is ridiculous, he chided himself. That Mobius had been wiped away in a Temporal Meltdown.

Loki looked a little bashful. "I was, er, having a rough moment, and you just… made me feel safe. It sort of all just clicked into place."

Mobius couldn't help but squeeze Loki a little tighter. He leaned down and kissed his forehead. "Keep saying things like that, sweetheart, and I'll never let you go."

Loki flushed even more, but Mobius caught a glint of mischief in his eye before he pushed himself up, positioning his lips centimeters away from Mobius's.

"Then don't."

A thrill raced up Mobius's spine. He pulled Loki into a deep, possessive kiss.

By the time the last rays of sunlight dipped below the horizon, Loki had made his way into Mobius's lap, chin resting atop his head. After a few minutes of quiet embrace, Loki pulled back, looking a bit concerned.

"Earlier, I told Thor that I'd stay here with him. I never asked you if you'd want to go back to your life in Cleveland. I wouldn't be selfish enough to presume you'd want to uproot the entire life you've built to stay here in Norway with us, but—"

Mobius placed a finger against his lips. "If I'm welcome here, I'd be more than happy to stay." He let out a derisive huff. "The so-called 'life' I built? That was just me trying to keep myself distracted from your absence."

Loki gave him a bittersweet smile and squeezed his hand tighter. "Well, I can't imagine my brother having any objections."

Mobius smiled back, brushing a stray curl behind Loki's ear. "Earlier, Sylvie told me that she's gonna go back to her timeline. I convinced her to stay for dinner."

Loki hummed in acknowledgment. "I can't say I'm surprised. She's been uprooted too many times to leave it all behind again."

"I'm glad she's finally found some peace." Mobius sighed. Suddenly, he noticed two approaching figures in the distance. Loki took note of his distraction and followed his gaze. Thor was walking toward the cottage with a fierce-looking woman with long flowing micro braids—the King of Asgard herself.

"Well, looks like my brother brought a dinner guest," Loki observed, elegantly rising off Mobius's lap and offering a hand. "Shall we go greet them?"

-----

Notes:

Hey everyone! I'm so sorry this chapter took so long to get out. Life got quite busy this past month, and I wanted to make sure I took the time to do Thor and Loki's conversation justice. They have quite a lot of baggage to unpack.

I'm currently working on a oneshot prequel about when Loki realized the true nature of his feelings for Mobius (during his 134th attempt at fixing the Loom). When it's posted, you'll be able to find it on the 'Relinquish Your Burden' Masterlist :)

Reblogs and comments are always appreciated 💞

taglist:

If you'd like to be added or removed from the taglist at any point, please leave a comment or send me a message :)

@loopsisloops @muddyorbsblr @superficialdomina @infinitystoner @unlucky-number-13

Previous Chapter | Next Chapter | Masterlist

#the sun will shine on us again #loki and thor reunion #thor and loki #brodinsons #lokius #loki #loki fanfic #fix it fic #lokius fic #mcu loki #loki marvel #mobius #mobius m mobius #mobius mcu #loki series #loki season 2 #mcu #marvel #relinquish your burden

16 notes · View notes