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#want to put this thought out in the world
gremlingottoosilly · 3 days
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Bimbo!Reader that doesn't really care Mafia!Konig is part of the mafia, usually tries to send him lunchboxes she made or just tries to support him, whether it's just that she's too dumb to exactly understand what's happening or genuinely doesn't seem anything wrong with it is unknown to König's henchmen
Konig just emptied a mag into the head of a dumb fuck who thought he could mess with the family. Just as he was ready to dump the body in a river and decide what he wanted for dinner, he heard your voice. Your precious, cheerful, adorable voice. Voice of a woman he loved - the one that he chose to marry out of all, significantly brighter, options. You look adorable in that flowery dress he bought - buying out the shop was certainly worth it. Now he can stop worrying about his pretty dumb wife messing up her new dresses and being upset - she has a whole collection of those free things now. You carefully step over the dead body, your hands balancing the tray of cookies you baked. The best ingredients money can get you, immense help from world-famous chefs working in his kitchen - and you still managed to make them a tad too sweet and crumbly. Konig fucking loves you. He sweeps you off your feet in a hot kiss, his lips pressing all over your face as you squirm - you whimper that he is too forceful and that he is going to spill all of the cookies out. He doesn't care, just winces at the sound of your whining - you're not allowed to be like this, not now. He can't have his pretty wife being upset, and so he carefully puts the cookie tray on the table. Then he calls someone to pick yup the body of a fool who thought he could feed his false info about whatever the fuck Price was doing with that new strip club he bought dangerously close to Konig's territory. British asshole better be fucking the strippers and not edging on his turf. But now he just kisses you, his pretty wife, and tells you to come and wait for him in the bedroom. He knows you want to talk to him, and that you miss him so, so much - but he needs you to rest and
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helenanell · 22 hours
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A Breath of Life || Challengers
Pairing(s) : Reader x Patrick – Reader x Art – Reader x Tashi (sort of.) 
CW: MDNI - 18+ : smut, rough / manhandling. Infidelity. Angst. A lot of yearning. (They all want each other, badly.) Manipulative behaviour. Minor spoilers for the film.
Notes: Female Reader (AFAB Reader) - Absolutely no use of y/n, (because I despise it, sorry)
Wordcount: 9.7K
Summary: You met Tashi in your final year of high school and were more than happy to have lost a tennis match against her. Afterwards, the two of you become inseparable and you find yourself feeling for her in a way that you don’t quite understand.And then things get even more complicated when Patrick and Art burst into your lives. As the years pass, desire, love and hatred all get tangled together...and so do the four of you.
━━━━∙⋆⋅⋆∙━━━━
The idea of meeting Tashi Duncan had been much more intimidating than the actual event itself. It was an odd thing, to idolise someone who was the exact same age as you—a girl not yet out of high school and still so chronically unsure of herself and the world—but it was impossible not to. 
You had watched every single match of hers that you could, staring for so long at the way she moved, that you were left with the afterimage of her burned into your eyes: She was in your thoughts constantly and always waiting behind your eyes when you closed them hoping for sleep. 
You were brilliant at tennis, you knew that you were. But Tashi played like it was the only way she could take oxygen into her lungs; each serve and shot an inhalation and exhalation. You understood, because you felt something similar.
For a long time, you had been ignored or dismissed in every aspect of your life, by everyone. But then you had found tennis, and you were really fucking great at it. 
 Tennis saved your life by making you undeniably tangible. Your existence could not be disputed when someone had to react to your movements, to receive something you had offered. 
It was no wonder then, that for as long a match lasted you were unhealthily obsessed with whoever it was that you were playing against. They made you real. 
But then you played Tashi. You had lost, of course, but it had been a close match, neither of you dominating for long before the other gained the upper hand once more. The gasps from the crowd had been the swelling of some great tide, breaking against your flesh and reinvigorating you like freezing water. 
Once it was over, you felt bereft of something vital. You felt as though you had slipped back into non-existence, only this time it was worse than ever, because your connection to Tashi Duncan was gone. 
But your body remembered. It ached and throbbed, rebelling at all you had put it through- no. All Tashi had put it through. You were desperate to feel it again. 
And your prayer was answered. 
She appeared before you like an angel.
Tashi jogged over to you as you gathered your things after the match, flushed and with beads of sweat glistening on her skin like crystals. And her eyes…they had been wide and dark and enrapturing. And then she had said the words that would change the trajectory of your life: 
“So, when can I play you again?”
━━━━∙⋆⋅⋆∙━━━━
Ruah is the Hebrew word that means God’s spirit, but it is also breath or air and is widely understood to be God’s presence in the world. 
You couldn’t remember when you had learnt the word, but you knew that in the Bible, God had created Adam by breathing life into him. Which was why, when anyone joked about Tashi Duncan being some kind of deity, you could not dispute it, because that is what she had done to you. 
Tashi had breathed life into you.
 Her presence in your life has allowed you to come alive even off the court: you finally felt like a real person. Thanks to her, you knew that when you put your racket down, you did not simply disappear. 
Tashi saw you, on and off the court, and you loved her for it.
But, by the time you were both accepted into Stanford, over a year after you’d first met, you still wouldn’t let yourself delve into that love, and work out the ways in which you felt it. Not only because, you’d only ever been drawn to guys in any romantic or sexual way, but also because you felt undeserving of her.
 How pathetic would it be for you, who crawled at your best friend’s feet, to look up and whimper out words of desire to her?
 You were blessed to have her in your life, let alone to be as close with her as you were. Love was so many disparate things; you could love her as a friend, and hold that carnal aspect deep down. Just having her in your life was more than enough. She was enough.
Or so you thought. 
At the party celebrating Tashi, the two of you had not yet left each other’s side. You were dancing together, close enough that you could feel the ecstasy of victory buzzing beneath her skin as she held your hands and pulled you close. Her hair was silken and flowing down her back and as you were tangled up with her, it tickled against your own exposed skin. 
“They’re still staring.” You whisper into her ear, laughing as she answers by twirling you around and then pulling you back in. 
You practically fall into one another, having to steady yourself by placing your hands on her hips, the beaded fabric of her dark blue dress digging into the palms of your hands. 
“Good.” Tashi answers, wrapping her arms around your shoulders.
She turns you enough that with your chin resting on her shoulder, you are looking right at the two boys who had been gawking all night. One dark haired with confidence coming off him in waves, the other more reserved, a different kind of potency bubbling beneath the surface.
The blonde’s eyes meet yours and he tilts his head, offering a delicate but untethering smile. 
“You’re going to have to talk to them.” You offer, still held in Tashi’s arms. “Otherwise they’re going to follow you around like lost puppies all night.”
You gasp and squirm away as your friend playfully pinches your side.
 “Do you really think they’re just looking at me?” Tashi questions incredulously.
You laugh at her shock. “Of course they are.” You say, gesturing up and down her form as she continues to sway to the music. 
“Oh my God!” Tashi exclaims, grabbing your hand and pulling you close again. “You’re such a fucking idiot! They’re looking at you, too!” 
You roll your eyes, but can’t help feeling a little buoyed at the prospect of being desired. “Yeah, right.”
Tashi shakes her head. “It’s a good thing you’re so oblivious, I like having you all to myself!”
Heat floods every part of you, acutely aware of the sweat trickling down the back of your neck, your skin uncomfortably warm. 
Only when the two of you have stopped dancing do they come over. 
Art Donaldson and Patrick Zweig saunter needfully into your life and had you known then all that would ensue, you still would have welcomed their approach. 
━━━━∙⋆⋅⋆∙━━━━
The four of you had wandered down to the beach. 
Art and Patrick were sitting on deck chairs that sat side by side, their legs stretched out and their gazes lustful, both of them looking at Tashi who was perched on a rock opposite them. In that moment, the moon seemed made only for her, the silver light lining her form. 
You sit on the sand near her, your legs pulled up to your chest. The waves softly hit the beach behind you, lulling you into an even more incorporeal mindset. All that exists to you, is Tashi and the two boys who so clearly want her. 
Despite how desperately you want to engage in their conversation, you’re exhausted and distracted by the knowledge that your parents will already be looking for you. 
You’ve rested your chin on your knees, your eyes drooping shut, when a voice calls out to you. 
“Hey, are you okay?”
 Art is crouching beside you, his hand on your back, his knees sinking into the sand, shifting the surface beneath you. You jolt at the contact, scrambling to your feet as Tashi chuckles.
 Patrick’s gaze flits between you and Art and then over to your best friend, his cheeks dimpled with a smirk. 
“I’m fine.” You reassure with a shaky smile, brushing sand off the back of your dress. “I should go though, my parents will be waiting.” 
“You can’t leave!” Patrick protests playfully, placing a hand to his chest. “You’ll break my heart.”
You grin, spurred on by his own smile and shrug. “And why should I care about that?”
Patrick’s mouth drops open in feigned hurt as Art chuckles, shoving his hands into his pockets and stepping away from you. 
You turn to Tashi, meaning to say goodbye, but she’s already up and hugging you. She often kisses your cheek as a form of goodbye, but this time she gets so close that her lips tease the corner of your mouth as hers make contact. You are electrified by it.
You know that she isn’t doing it for you, which is confirmed when she pulls away with her eyes flitting giddily between Art and Patrick who have both gone utterly still as they watched the display. 
 Despite the jealous ache that blooms, you play into it, because another part of you is excited at the thought of working the two boys up. You pull Tashi back into a hug, your hands resting dangerously low on her back as you squeeze her. She giggles into your ear. 
“You already have them wrapped around your little finger.” You say it quietly, but loud enough that you know the boys will hear. 
Over Tashi’s shoulder, you see Patrick smirk again and Art runs his thumb over his his bottom lip with a small smile on his face.
When you do finally pull away, Tashi smacks you on the ass. 
“It was great to meet to you!” Art shouts after you. 
“I miss you already!” Is Patrick’s shouted offering.
You just shake your head and continue on your path away from the beach.
Unbeknownst to you, three sets of eyes follow you until you’ve disappeared from view.
When you get home, you still feel the touch of Tashi all over you. But when your hand dips under the covers, something has changed. Because when you close your eyes, it’s not just Tashi you see. Instead, multiple people are fighting for dominance in your midnight fantasy:
You see Patrick’s licentious smirk.
You see Art’s coy smile. 
They’ve both invaded your mind, corrupted your thoughts that for a year had been so gloriously void of anything but Tashi.
And from that moment, you know part of you will always hate them. For so long, even knowing you can’t have her, all you’ve needed to sate yourself are thoughts of Tashi. But they’ve changed that.
You hate Patrick Zweig and Art Donaldson because they’ve made you want more. You want….one of them. You don't know why and you also don’t know which one of them it is. 
But what is clear to you, is that a new itch has arisen within you, and it comes with panic, because unlike with Tashi, you’re certain there’s a possibility that one of them might actually want to scratch the itch for you.
━━━━∙⋆⋅⋆∙━━━━
Had he known how furious you were going to be with him when you arrived, you doubted Art would have been so eager to invite you to have lunch with him in the cafeteria. 
Even when you slam your tray down and drop into the seat opposite him, he still looks happy to see you. He always did. It was infuriating.
“What are you playing at, Art?” You struggle to keep your volume down. You hadn’t wanted to yell at someone in a long time, but he had managed it.
Concern flashes in his eyes, but his lips press together in a way that tells you he knows exactly what you’re referring to. And yet he still asks:
“What are you talking about?”
“You’re fucking with Tashi’s head.”
“I would never do that.”
You scoff, stabbing the flimsy plastic fork into your salad. “Except you are, and I know that you’re doing it on purpose.”
Art pushes his own tray to the side and settles his elbow onto the table, resting his chin on his hand. “Yeah, how’d you figure?”
“Why else would you tell her that Patrick doesn’t love her?”
“Because I don’t think he does. Do you?”
You ignore his question, instead opting to pick up your apple and throw it at his head, hard. He catches it, that damnable little smile still on his face. 
“For fuck sake, Art!” You erupt. “She needs to keep her head on straight. Don’t upset her just because you want her for yourself!”
He tilts his head, blue eyes sparkling as he takes a large bite out of the apple. He chews for a bit before holding it back out to you, speaking through a mouthful:
 “You should have the rest of this, you haven’t been eating enough.”
“Fuck you!” You snatch it from his hand and shift in your seat, easily throwing it and landing it right in a nearby trashcan.
“Well that was a waste of perfectly good fruit.” Art licks some residue off his thumb and then leans across the table. 
You fail to snatch your wrist away before he grabs it. He’s gentle but firm, and as his thumb rubs along your pulse point, you feel the residual moisture from his own mouth he’d left behind, transferring to your skin.
“You don’t have to fight this hard to protect her,” Art presses. “She’s a grown woman.”
“She’s my best friend and I don’t want you to hurt her.” 
Art’s thumb stills, but he tugs your wrist a little closer. “Do you really think I could?” 
You scowl, pulling free of his hold. “You know, the way you and Patrick worship her isn’t the compliment that you both seem to think it is. You’re putting her up on a pedestal, practically deifying her, but she’s not invulnerable. She feels more strongly than anyone I’ve ever known and tennis is her life. If you get in her head and fuck up her game, It will break her and then I will break your fucking hands.”
This time when he’s smiles, it’s rife with fondness for you and it makes you want to punch him for the fluttering it causes in your stomach.
“You didn’t answer my question.” He says simply.
“What?”
“Do you think Patrick loves her?” Art repeats patiently. 
“Do you love her, Art?” 
“Can you please just answer my question?”
“I don’t know!” You throw your hands up in exasperation. “I’m not even sure I would know love if I saw it. All I do know, is that you both lust after her and definitely for each other too, even if you’ll never admit it. You’re all totally fucked.”
Art’s jaw clenches, the muscles ticking, but instead of irritation or anger at your outburst, his gaze softens. When he speaks, it is soft and achingly tender:
“You do know love. Because you love Tashi.” 
You let out an embittered laugh. “Of course I do. I tell her all the time.”
“But she doesn’t love you, not in the same way.”
You really didn’t know if he intended for that to sting, especially not with how gently he’d said it, but if he had, he’d failed. You came to accept that fact a long while ago, and while you would always want Tashi in some respect, it was not the all consuming desire it had been. The lust was gone. She was important to you. She was your best friend and you wanted to protect her. 
Unfortunately, the two men you wanted to protect her from, were the ones who had usurped her as objects of desire in your mind.
“Are you trying to find yourself a catchphrase before you go pro?” You sneer at Art. “I’m not sure how great that would look on a billboard for Adidas.”
“You deserve to be loved.” 
You had picked up your cup to take a drink of water, but upon hearing his words, you slam it down again and rise to your feet. He tracks your every move, as calm as ever.
 “I can’t talk to you right now, Art. You’re being cruel.”
You storm away from the table, only making it a few steps before you hear the scrape of his chair against the floor as he rushes to follow you.
 You’ve only just pushed open the door when he crowds up behind you. 
Art’s hand lands on your back as he guides you outside, his other hand rests on your arm and even after he turns you to face him, his touch remains.
 His hand is wrapped lightly around your arm, the other keeping you close- his palm pressed against your lower back. Anyone watching would think he was drawing you into an embrace. You almost shudder at the contact.
 Patrick has always been handsy, touching and caressing you under the guise of teasing, but Art has always moved around you as though you’ll disintegrate at the lightest touch. The way he’d held your wrist back in the dining hall and how he cradles you now, is the most he’s ever touched you.
 Your chest heaves as your flesh tingles.
Art’s head drops, his eyes on his own hand on your arm, as if he can’t understand why he’s holding you. His voice is strained:
“Patrick isn’t good for her.”
And just like that, you’re slammed mercilessly back down to earth. 
Art wasn’t touching you with tenderness or affection, you were just someone he was holding in place so that you had to hear him out. So you had to hear how much he wanted Tashi. 
“Oh, but I deserve to be thrown at him as a distraction so that you can have her?” You snap at him, more hurt than you’ll ever admit.
“You deserve whatever it is that you actually want.” 
Art sounds frustrated now, not at you…but perhaps at what he knows you won’t say. You do want Patrick. But you also want him. You had just never considered that he knew that.
But that’s not what you say. Instead you say–
“Go fuck yourself.”
“Do you want to know why he isn’t good for her?” Art presses, entirely unaffected by your fury.
“No, but I’m sure you’re about to tell me.”
The hand on your back pulls you a little closer, one errant blonde curl falls down from his forehead and brushes your temple. His breath is hot against your cheek. 
“Patrick’s not good for her-“ Art begins, his tone becoming embittered. “Because he wants you. He always has.” 
You rip free from Art’s grip with such force that the friction of it burns, his fingerprints leaving red marks on your arm. “You are unbelievable!” 
“I’m not lying. You know I wouldn’t, not to you.”
“You will say anything to have her won’t you?” You laugh nastily. “What’s the plan, Art? Do you think that I’ll try and seduce Patrick away from her now, leaving a space open for you to swoop in?” 
“Ask me how I know.”
“No.” You spit back at him. 
But you don’t move. 
Your body waits for words that your mind doesn’t think it can handle hearing. Something feels so close to breaking and you can’t help but feel like it’s to do with whatever force binds the four of you together. 
Art steps forward, closing the distance again, he raises his hands and rests them on either side of your neck, his thumbs pressing onto where your pulse is ratcheting beneath your fragile skin. 
“I know he wants you, because the night after he won our match- when he won Tashi’s number- he told me that I should fuck you.”
“Art.” You warn, frustrated tears bringing horrible pressure behind your eyes.
A small group comes out of the dining hall and have to split down the middle, because neither of you move a muscle. Art’s hold tightens, like he’s trying to leave a permanent imprint behind without it hurting you. 
He whispers now. “Patrick told me to fuck you. And I know him. He said that because when he couldn't have you, it excited him to think that I would. That I'd tell him about sleeping with you.”
“That was such a long time ago.” You say shakily, coming completely unmoored.
But Art won’t let it go.
“He still looks at you the same way, and that’s not fair to Tashi. You want to protect her, right? Well what will it do her when she finally notices the way her boyfriend is constantly eye-fucking her best friend?”
You hit out against his chest with a closed fist. The shock more than the force makes him stagger back. 
“You are so fucked in the head! You and Patrick are both pathetic little leeches who want the same girl, but can’t cope with the way it’s made them realise that they also want each other. You know what? I actually think so much would be solved, if you and Patrick just fucked each other!”
You start to back away and Art darts forward, trying to grab you again, but you smack his hand away and turn your back.
“Leave me alone, Art! And leave me out of your shit!”
He calls out your name with ragged desperation, but he does not follow. And even though he’s truly made your skin crawl, something about that makes you even more furious. 
Why won’t he follow you? 
Why do you still want him to?
━━━━∙⋆⋅⋆∙━━━━
You hadn’t spoken to any of them since your argument with Art. 
You couldn’t cope with the realisation that if any of them ever did feel any desire for you, it was only because they saw you as some sort of vessel through which they could access parts of the person that they truly wanted.  
You couldn’t even be said to exist in Tashi’s shadow anymore, you had simply been subsumed by it. Those two men, who you both despised and wanted desperately, would never see you, not really. To them, you were just part of her. But you would not let them ruin your friendship with Tashi. You just wouldn’t.
You knew when you arrived to watch her match that something wasn’t right. She was upset. You could see it in all the minutiae of her: in the way she took off her hoodie, in the way she picked up her racket. Something was really wrong. 
You walk through the stands until you come across Art. 
There are two free spaces to the right of him, so you sit down on the one furthest away, leaving a gap in the middle for Patrick to take up when he arrives. But then time passes and the match approaches and he still hasn’t materialised. 
You feel Art staring long before he makes his move. The air shifts as he shuffles over into the seat directly beside you.
“That seat is taken.” You intone harshly. Your eyes are fixed on Tashi as she prepares. 
“If it was, I wouldn’t have been able to sit in it.” 
“Sorry, I should have been clearer. I don’t want you anywhere near me, so I want Patrick to sit there instead of you.”
Your name is a tentative as he speaks it. “Will you please look at me? I can’t handle you not looking at me.”
Your gaze remains set on Tashi, she looks up and finds you in the crowd. The furious divot between her brow eases for a moment before her eyes snag on the way that Art is leaning into you. She turns her back on the entire crowd, but you know the gesture is meant for you alone. 
Fuck. What the hell had happened overnight? If it was Art’s meddling, you’d kill him. 
“The match is about to start.” You say coldly. 
 Art’s hand lands on your knee, but when you flinch, he immediately pulls it away. 
“I know I hurt you and I’m sorry. I- I need you to forgive me.”
You grit your teeth at his audacity. “Why do you need me to, Art?”
“Because I can’t stand the thought of you not being in my li-“
The match begins and Art never gets to finish his sentence. 
In fact, you don’t speak to him properly for almost a decade after that. Because Tashi gets hurt. Her sporting career ends in the blink of an eye and takes your friendship with it.
━━━━∙⋆⋅⋆∙━━━━
Both you and Art had sprinted down onto the court, your heart breaking in your chest as you fell to your knees beside your best friend, tears gathering in her eyes as she whimpered in pain. 
What had hurt the most though, was the way Tashi had shoved your hand away when you had tried to comfort her.
“Don’t touch me!” She had barked on a ragged breath. “Get away from me. Get away!” 
The hatred had dripped from her words and landed on you like a corrosive liquid. And as it had burned down to the bone, you had looked at Art and the apologetic agony with which he’d regarded you—even as he’d cradled Tashi’s head in his hands—told you what he’d done.  
He’d not only told you about Patrick’s supposed lust for you, but he’d also told Tashi. He had told her that even after her now boyfriend had won her number, he’d apparently been thinking about fucking you. Art had also definitely shared his little insight that Patrick didn’t love her either, which you quickly worked out had contributed to his absence.
So Art got what he wanted: he finally had his hands on Tashi and he’d done it by carving you and Patrick away. 
Art Donaldson was an attentive, gentle, even needy man, but you had been so stupid to think that meant he couldn’t also be calculated and cruel. Because of course he was. What else could win the heart of Tashi Duncan but brutal passion? It was part of what she loved about tennis: the unforgiving force of hits that once you met them, somehow felt like affection.
When Patrick had tracked an injured Tashi down, still waiting to be taken to hospital, he had been ordered away by both her and Art.
You knew that because he’d just told you. It was the first thing he’d said to you when you’d let him into your room fifteen minutes earlier.
Now, you were both sitting on the scratchy carpet of your dorm, passing a bottle of vodka between the two of you. 
You felt bereft. Your body wracked with sympathetic pain for the grief in your mind. You’d lost Tashi today, you knew that. And the man that had caused it, was a man you’d spent years yearning for. 
Art hadn’t only taken Tashi from you, but he’d violently ripped himself away too.
“Art wasn’t lying.” Patrick grumbles after taking another hearty gulp of vodka. 
“Please, don’t.” You beg wearily, taking the vodka from his outstretched hand and pressing it to your lips. Not even the burn of the spirit going down your throat registers.
“I wanted- want, both of you. You and Tashi.” 
He isn’t drunk, only tipsy, but he’s getting there, and his words are sluggish, laced with fury. 
“Shut up, Patrick.”
You fall down onto your back, resting the vodka bottle on your stomach, holding it by the neck as you stare up at the ceiling. 
Patrick has been sitting opposite you, but he moves languidly forward, crawling up over your body. He braces one knee beside your hip as the other slots between your legs. 
You blink up at him as one of his hands rests beside your head and the other falls over your own where it still holds the vodka bottle. You let him take it from you, placing it beside your body before the hand then moves to rest on the other side of your head. 
You’re now trapped beneath him, his lithe body hovering just above yours.
When he leans in, his alcoholic breath almost sears your skin as his lips brushed the shell of your ear. 
“Sometimes, when we were fucking I would imagine that you were with us.” Patrick’s teeth nip at your ear. “I asked her once, you know, and she slapped me. Called me a pig. I think she was just mad because she liked having you to herself. You were such a devoted acolyte, kissing the ground she walked on—“
Fury bursts within you like a solar flare, red-hot and ruinous. He was talking about her in the past tense, as if she was dead to both of you already.
Art groans in pain when you knee him in the balls. You use the chance to shove him off you and he falls to the side, knocking the bottle of vodka over. 
As you stand up, you feel the alcohol seeping into the carpet at your feet. 
“You are a pig.” You hiss down at him.
 It’s your room, but you find yourself storming towards the door. 
You don’t get far before Patrick recovers, clambering to his feet and easily closing the distance with his long legs. 
You groan in frustration as he presses you into the door, one hand above your head and the other wrapping around your torso, his fingers dangerously close to brushing your breasts over your tank top. 
“If I’m a pig, why did you let me in?” He pressed his face into your neck and breathes you in.
 Some of the vodka has evidently soaked into his shirt, because the scent seizes you with the same violence with which he had. It’s a secondary intoxication. 
You words come out weakly, and you hate that it’s because you’re using so much energy fighting the urge to press back into him:
“I felt sorry for you.”
Patrick laughs. 
The smug bastard actually laughs right into your skin, the vibrations travelling all the way down to where your body has begun to ache the most. 
“Oh, sure.” He coos patronisingly. “It definitely wasn’t because you’ve wanted to fuck me for years.”
You should fight him, but you don’t want to. 
You should protest when the hand that he has pressed to the door moves to pull down one of the straps of your tank top. But you simply don’t want to.  You want him. 
Art had been right about both of you.
No sooner has the thin strip of fabric been removed from your shoulder, than Patrick is clamping his teeth down on the exposed flesh. You yelp in surprise, the pain a burst of sordid pleasure. 
Patrick laughs again, the hand he has pressed to your stomach pulling you flush against him. You can feel his need for you pressing into your backside, but in case you had somehow missed it, he bucks his hips up into you. 
You gasp and he laughs again, his tongue now running over the aggravated skin where his teeth have left a dent.
“We both know what this is.” He goads.
“And what is it?” You ask teasingly, your head now thrown back and resting against his chest. He groans into your neck as you grind yourself back onto him. 
“Inevitable.”
“Are you just doing this to get back at them?” You ask, not daring to speak their names. 
An angry grumble you can’t quite make sense of tears out of Patrick’s throat just before he is forcefully spinning you around. 
You get barely a glimpse of his feral smirk before he is easily picking you up again and throwing you over his shoulder. The slap he delivers to your ass is punishing and stings furiously as he practically throws you down onto the carpet.
The bed is right next to you, but the asshole apparently wants you on the scratchy carpet and with a wet patch where the vodka has soaked in.
“I’m doing this, because I have wanted to fuck you, from the moment I saw you dancing at that party.”
 You’ve barely got your breath back after being thrown about, when he is grabbing your calf and yanking you down so that you’re laying completely flat beneath him. 
“But you only ever pursued Tash-“ 
He cuts you off from saying her name by leaning down and pressing his mouth to your still clothed breast. His tongue swirls over the fabric, your nipple growing pert. 
When his knee presses up between your legs, parting them forcefully, your head falls back, strands of your hair wetted by the spilt alcohol. 
When Patrick bites down on your chest far too hard, your hand instinctively comes up to slap the side of his head.
 You’re so shocked by your own burst of violence that you go still at exactly the same time as Patrick, both of you breathing furiously. When he does peer up at you, his dark curls slick against his increasingly sweaty forehead, menace dances in his eyes. 
“Do that again.” 
You wish you could have feigned confusion or indignation for even a moment, but your blood is pumping to all the right places to urge you to make terrible, delightful decisions.
 Your second slap connects cleanly with his cheek, your palm tingling with the force as his head spins to the side. 
Your handprint is already a pink mark on his skin when he wraps his arms around your torso, lifting you up just enough so that he can pull your tank top off and throw it to the side. Your chest is left bare to him and he wastes no time before peppering kisses to your sternum, to your breasts and your neck, his arms still wrapped around you, his nails digging into your back. 
The throbbing ache between your legs becomes far too much to bear, so you curl your fingers into his hair and forcefully tug him away from your chest- a bead of saliva stretching between your flushed skin to his swollen lips. 
You lean your head forward, taking his bottom lip between your teeth and biting, pulling at it until he groans pathetically. You let him go, beyond pleased when you don’t have to tell him what you want next. 
You don’t want to wait any longer. You haven’t slept with anyone since you met him and Art. 
Art.
 Is it wrong that as Patrick pushes your back into the carpet and pulls down your sweatpants and underwear in one clean tug, that you close your eyes and briefly imagine that it’s Art instead?
You might have found an answer if you had more time, but when you open your eyes, Patrick is over you, his shorts and boxers already discarded alongside your clothes. His shirt is still on, but neither of you have the patience for the second or so it would take to get it off him. 
Patrick smirks down at you before pressing two of his fingers into your mouth, you open gladly, your eyes locked onto each other as he swirls them around. When he’s satisfied, he pulls his fingers out, and then licks his own hand, mixing himself with you. 
He swipes his wet hand over your already slick core a few times before he’s pressing himself inside of you. Your arms curl around his neck as you wrap your legs around his waist. 
“Fuck.” He groans, his tongue licking up the side of your neck as his hips begin to move. 
“Patrick.” You plead, your fingers digging into the nape of his neck. 
He knows what you want, nipping at your neck before he is driving into you with bruising force. 
In that moment, as you’re joined in the way you’ve wanted since the moment you’ve set eyes on him, you realise thar Tashi isn’t the only person that can make you feel real. 
As Patrick drives into you–his lips and teeth leaving marks on your flesh that will be wine-dark by morning, and the horrible fabric beneath you leaving carpet burn on your back– you finally know more than tennis can make you feel alive. 
The sex is forceful and punishing, but fuelled by a genuine passion. Nothing but your intermingled breaths and the sound of your joined bodies fills the room. 
If the two of you hadn’t been so lost to your pleasure, you might have heard Art knocking on your door. But you didn’t. 
He did however hear the two of you, so he walked away. 
You wouldn’t speak to him or Tashi again for over ten years.
━━━━∙⋆⋅⋆∙━━━━
You weren’t in New Rochelle to compete. You didn’t need to. You were on the top of your game, ranked the third best female player in the world. 
No, you were in New York because despite your better judgement-- and the many years that had passed since you’d last seen him--when Patrick Zweig had called you, you’d answered. 
You hadn’t heard his voice since you had told him that for your own sanity, you couldn’t see him anymore.
For the two years you had been together after Tashi had banished you both from her life, you had let Patrick consume you. And you had never played tennis so poorly in your life. 
You hated what that said about you, that you had willingly discarded someone you had genuinely cared for to improve your ability to hit a ball. But hitting that ball was what kept you alive, not him. 
Not only that, it hadn’t taken you long to realise that you didn’t love Patrick enough to let him affect your career.
And yet when he had called, you’d answered. And when he’d told you that Art Donaldson had entered the Challenger as a wildcard, you both knew that you would come. 
From the moment you had booked the flight, to the first step you’d taken into the hotel, you had lied to yourself that you were only coming for the closure that you hadn’t received as a twenty year old. 
But when you stepped into the hotel lobby and saw Tashi disappearing into the nearby elevator, your self-deception shattered. 
You were here because still, after all the time that had passed, you ached for the way that you had felt when she had been in your life. You missed her. And you had missed Art. 
It was a sickening truth of your life, that while no one had fucked with your head or upset you as much as Art had ended up doing, no one else had ever been so attentive to you either. 
Art had watched you—watched out for you—even when you weren’t playing tennis. In fact, in moments of utter stillness, when you had been doing nothing even remotely remarkable, was when you had always caught him staring. He never shied away, or broke his gaze when he was caught, he’d just smiled as if he wanted you to know he would never feel shame for being found looking at you. 
And that had not changed.
You have been sitting at the hotel bar for ten minutes, feeling sorry for yourself and nursing the same glass of gin and tonic, when you feel someone looking at you. 
You turn your head cautiously, your shoulders sagging as your eyes meet Art’s. He’s sitting on one of the small leather couches tucked into the far corner of the darkened room. 
It had been an inevitability, but things would have been so much easier if you never came across him. 
You know you shouldn’t move- part of you had come for closure and you could get that just by watching him compete tomorrow, so you don’t need to talk to him. 
But then Art tilts his head and smiles at you like no time has passed and pats his hand on the unoccupied space beside him on the couch. 
You get down off the barstool.
 As you approach, he watches unflinchingly.
The last time you had heard Art’s voice, was when Tashi had suffered her injury and he’d been permitted to stay by her side when she had ordered you away.
And yet even after so much time, when he greets you with a quiet ‘hello’, the pathetic girl who had pined after him returns.
You don’t respond as you come to a stop right in front of him, the tips of your heels right against the toes of his shoes, but you make no move to sit down. 
It’s of course not the first time you’ve seen him since college, or been at the same event, or even in the same room- you’re both highly successful tennis players, you couldn’t help but overlap sometimes. But neither of you have ever allowed yourselves to get close, or to even speak. 
It has been over ten years of your eyes connecting through crowds and across rooms that felt much larger than they were, simply because there was distance between the two of you within them. 
Art sits forward, his forearms resting on his knees. He’s fiddling with his wedding ring and you can’t bear to look at the familiar way his fingers carry out the gesture. 
When he looks up at you, it's so open and wanting that you almost turn right back around. But then you hear his voice again.
“Can I ask you to sit with me?” 
“I don’t know Art, can you?” 
He smiles, sighing softly as he runs his hand through his hair. It’s short- much shorter than the curls he’d had at college. You like it. It suits him. 
You shift on your feet, crossing your arms across your chest to cover up your nerves. Perhaps you can protect yourself if you look like you’re closed off from him and from…whatever this interaction is about to be. 
Art doesn’t say anything else, but he surprises you by rising to his feet. You stagger back, but his hand reaches out and lands on your side to steady.
His touch lingers for a moment too long, but he does eventually pull it away.
 But he’s still close, too close.
Your hands have fallen to your sides, so it is too easy for Art to reach out and brush his fingers against yours. He doesn’t intertwine them, but he’s doing enough to let you know that it’s what he wants to do. 
He whispers your name. “Will you please sit with me?”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Art.” 
“When have you ever known me to have one of those?” 
You smile ruefully, but take a step back. His hand chases you, his fingers brushing against yours again as he tries to take your hand. 
“It’s been a long time since I’ve known anything about you.” You say, hating how sad it sounds. 
You should be angry at least. His meddling and his desire for Tashi is what ripped you all apart. And he has her now. They have a daughter together.
He doesn't get to ask you for anything, not even if it’s just to sit with him. 
You can’t trust yourself to sit next to him. 
“You do know me. Time can’t change that.” He insists, quietly but firmly. 
You scoff nastily. “I knew Art Donaldson when he was in college. The world famous tennis player who does AD campaigns for sports cars with his wife, is a stranger to me.” 
“Yeah.” Art laughs darkly. “He’s a stranger to me too.” 
You frown at him, growing angry. He seems exhausted and down-trodden. He’s clearly hurting and you hate that you know that—you hate that you‘d been able to tell that even from across the bar—because it means that he’s right: you do still know him. 
“It’s late, Art. You should get some rest. Big day tomorrow.”
You turn away from him and while he doesn’t reach for you this time, he does call out. You keep you back to him as he asks his question. 
“Who do you want to win, me or Patrick?” 
“Tennis can’t decide a victor between the two of you, Art. It’s never been able to.”
When you walk to the elevator, you feel a physical strain as you stop yourself from looking back at him.
━━━━∙⋆⋅⋆∙━━━━
You were right, tennis couldn’t decide on a winner: it was as fickle and incomprehensible as the human heart. Which was fitting, seeing as Tashi had always described tennis as a relationship. 
You had sat only two places away from her during Patrick and Art’s match, and you know she had seen you. But there had been no reaction, her face had been impassive and set on the court, her eyes hidden behind a large pair of sunglasses. 
Now, the match was long over and a result had been given. And yet there hadn’t been a victory for anyone. Just like you knew there wouldn’t be.
Something had happened on that court between the two men, some silent, inexplicable exchange that had altered the very fabric of them.
This time, when Art knocks on your door, not only do you hear it, but you answer. 
You feel almost shocked when you pull open the door to reveal him, dressed in a grey t-shirt and flannel pyjama trousers. You’re surprised at the sight as if you hadn’t known he was coming- as if you hadn’t readily offered up your room number when he had messaged and asked for it.
You’re also somehow certain that Patrick had given him your number, but you didn’t want to dwell on what sort of exchange had led to him handing it over.
Without a word, you step away from the door, self-consciously tightening the cord that holds the silk robe around your body. You stop and face the windows.
The curtains are drawn, by you stare forward as though the whole skyline is on display to you. 
The door to your room clicks shut.
You hear Art take off his shoes before his feet are padding towards you. 
When his arms wrap around your waist, you close your eyes and savour the sensation. He nuzzles his face into the crook of your neck, so you lift a hand and rest it on the side of his head. 
“I want to retire at the end of this year.” He says and you can feel his exhaustion in the slow breaths that coast over your neck. 
“So retire.” You answer softly, your eyes still on the curtains. “You’re tired.”
You know you don’t need to clarify. Thanks to the grateful press of his lips against your neck, you know he understands what you mean. 
Art is weary of all that he has to be when he’s playing tennis; he’s tired of the effort it takes to play the sport for not just him, but for Tashi too. His wife has been living vicariously through him. He’s been living for two people, taking the strain of two professional athletes combined. 
You know there had never been any point in competing with Art or Patrick, because Tashi would always love tennis the most. 
A shiver wracks your body as Art’s hand reaches for the bow that’s keeping your otherwise bare body concealed from him.
 “Can I?” His request is whined into your hair as he presses his face into the back of your head. 
Instead of answering verbally, you nudge his hand away and untie the robe yourself. Then, you take hold of both of his wrists and guide his hands onto your skin. You let out a sigh of relief when Art finally touches you the way you want him to. 
Your hands are still on him as his fingers move to cup your breasts, but he is the one guiding his movements now. He squeezes, his thumbs brushing over your nipples. 
“Art.” You rasp, pressing back into him wantonly. 
“Can I have you?” He asks, pressing open mouthed, hot kisses to your neck as he palms your breasts. “Please, let me have you.” 
“Stop fucking asking me and just do it.” 
You feel him grin against your neck just before he backs away, pulling back your robe and tugging it from your body.
The fabric has barely had time to pool at your feet when he’s grabbing you by the hips, his fingers digging in as he turns you. 
When Art’s lips finally claim yours, you moan unashamedly. His kiss is gentle but assured, you struggle for breath as he refuses to release you. Then, his hands are cupping your ass and he’s lifting you up. 
With his lips still moving hungrily against yours, Art settles you onto the edge of the bed. When he draws back, your lips chase after him and he smiles, grasping your face in his hands and giving you one more brief but searing kiss before he’s dropping to the ground.
 His hands press into your knees, forcing them apart as he begins to kiss and lick up your inner thighs. 
You prop yourself up on your elbows, watching where his mouth ravenously meets your flesh, tracing his path as he works his way closer to where you want him most.
When he reaches the top of your thigh, Art peers up at you through his long eyelashes, already looking drunk on you as he presses another kiss to your burning skin. 
“Lay back.” He instructs gently. 
But you’re too transfixed to listen- too desperate to see the moment his lips land on your core to look away.
He smiles at the realisation, delighting in your shudder as his tongue darts out and licks a line up your centre. 
“Oh my- fuck!” Your head falls back, already lost in the feeling of his mouth's devoted ministrations. 
As Art pleasures you, one of his hands skates up your stomach and gently presses down, asking rather than forcing you to lay back. This time you oblige, your eyes closed as your hands fist in the sheets. 
“You deserve so much more than I can give you.” 
You smile to yourself. Only Art could grovel as he gives so much pleasure.
Tightness begins to coil in your lower belly, but the moment he adds a teasing finger to his tongue’s movements, you realise you can’t wait. 
“Art- stop.” You gasp out, sitting up and resting your hands on his head. 
He halts immediately but doesn’t remove himself from between your legs. 
“Are you alright?” He asks, his hands rubbing soothingly along your thighs. 
“It’s not enough.” You say, tugging on his hair, trying to get him to come to you. “I need you.” 
Art doesn’t have to be asked twice, but he also doesn’t rush. He presses one last kiss to your now very sensitive folds before he’s climbing over you. 
You shuffle back, settling yourself onto the middle of the bed and even as Art takes off his clothes, he watches you. It’s as if he’s afraid that you’ll disappear if he so much as blinks. 
Now completely naked, he lays himself over you, his arms braced beside your head. He positions himself so carefully thar it’s almost as though he’s trying to fit himself to the shape of you- every divot and curve perfectly aligned sp that you’ll be fused together forever. 
As Art sweeps hair out from your face, his blue eyes bore down into you with an adoring intensity. 
You smile up at him and he rewards you by cradling your face in his hands, he lowers his head, his nose brushing yours as he gently takes your lower lip between his teeth.
Only when you understand what he wants and you open your mouth, does he kiss you again, his tongue delving in deeply.
As he seeks to consume you, your hands run down his back, squeezing his sides with your thighs. 
Art’s still kissing you as one of your hands reaches the curve of his arse, you dig your nails in and he jolts, his mouth moving away from yours and travelling down your neck. 
Tentatively, you move one hand around and down between his legs and when your hand wraps around him, he falters, his kisses stopping. 
“Is this alright?” 
Art moves again, licking the sweat slick expanse of skin between your breasts.
“Anything you do will be alright.” He assures, his lips brushing a nipple and making your back arch. 
“Do you want to have sex, Art?” You ask, barely restraining yourself.
His breaths are hot against your sensitive breasts when he answers. “Please.”
It is a joint effort as he slides inside of you. You gasp, arms wrapping around his neck as he presses kisses into yours.
Art groans as he begins to move achingly slowly, his hips rolling over yours with precision. 
You're happy like that for a few minutes, both of you revelling in your closeness after years subjected to absent desire for one another. But eventually, you want more.
You yearn for more force and luckily as you buck up into him, Art gets the message.
 As one of his hands moves behind your head, cradling it so that he can keep kissing you, the other wraps around your thigh, and pulls your leg higher over his hip, allowing himself to get even deeper. 
“You’re so beautiful.” He says in-between sloppy kisses, moving rapidly as you moan and whine. “You’ve always been so beautiful.”
Even with him inside you, making you feel more desired than anyone ever has, your mind drifts to that first night you had met him. The first night you had met Patrick. 
“You stared at Tashi.” You say.
You aren’t accusatory or upset, if anything the acknowledgement if it turns you on more. All four of you have always had a desire for the other, and it feels powerful to finally acknowledge it.
“-That night on the beach, you couldn't take your eyes off her. Neither of you could.” 
“I wanted you.” Art asserts with a particularly powerful thrust. “I- I wanted you so badly, but you went home.”
You nod, pulling him in for another kiss as you meet his thrusts. 
You understand his thinking. You’d often wondered how things might have changed had you not gone home early that night. If you’d stayed on the beach and then gone to their hotel room along with Tashi. 
Entirely content with just moving as one, you both fall silent and somehow Art curls over you even more tightly, like he wants his whole body to hide yours from the world. 
After you’ve both found your release he takes you into the shower and cleans himself off of your sensitive skin, each swipe of the washcloth accompanied by a kiss.
It ends up being time wasted though, because when you return to the bed, he takes you twice more.
━━━━∙⋆⋅⋆∙━━━━
You wake up with Art’s head resting on your bare chest. He’s laying on his side, one arm stretched out on the pillow above your head and his other hand resting on your hip. 
You’re sore in the most pleasant of ways as you sit up. You try to move slowly but Art stirs anyway, his head turning to press open mouthed kisses to your sternum. 
You rest your hand on his cheek, meaning to guide him away, but he moves so that he can kiss the palm of your hand instead. 
It’s only when you sigh into his touch, his eyes still closed as his other hand delves between your legs, that you realise why you had woken up int he first place. 
Someone was knocking on your door. 
And then you hear her voice. 
Tashi is calling out your name, sounding almost panicked.
 “Please, open the door, I know you’re in there.”
This time when you push Patrick away, he obliges, but far less quickly than you would have liked.
 In the time it takes for you to throw on your silk robe and gather up all of his clothes from the floor, he has barely got himself to stand up. He’s naked and blinking sleepily at you. 
When you shove the bundle of his clothes into his arms, he rushes to press a passionate kiss to your lips, holding the back of your head with his free hand.
You aren’t sure you want to know whether he’s truly still half asleep and genuinely hasn’t realised what is happening, or if he just doesn’t care that his wife is outside the door.
Flushed but furious at his casual demeanour, you push Art into the bathroom and close the door, just as Tashi knocks again.
 The repeated request for you to come to the door tumbles from her lips like a prayer.
You brace your hand against the door as you draw in a fortifying breath and smooth out your hair. You swear you can feel her through the door. 
The moment you open the door, Tashi is bursting in and closing it behind her. You step back, waiting for her to make the first move, for her to shout of attack or go charging into the bathroom. But she does none of those things. 
Instead, Tashi pulls you into a crushing hug. You go still, shocked but healed by it at the same time.
She pulls back, taking your face in her hands.
 “You’re a phenomenal tennis player.” Tashi says it rapturously. 
If you weren’t burning up at the feel of her hands on you, you might have laughed at how ridiculously perfect it was that those were her first words to you after over a decade. 
Tashi communicated and connected through tennis. She loved through tennis.
All you can muster is a very sincere: “Thank you.”
Tashi brushes your hair out of your face, tucking a stray piece behind your ear. You find your hands lifting, resting atop hers where they hold your cheeks.
“You need to let me coach you.” Tashi demands almost possessively.
“I have a coach.”
“They’re not me.”
“No, they’re not.”
And just like that, you were snared again. 
You had gone years without any of them, and with one word, you had allowed all three of them back into your life.
 Only this time, you know it might actually kill you if any of them leave. And perhaps it would kill them too. 
Only time would tell.
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erwinsvow · 19 hours
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knocked up too young and wearing a glittery diamond ring on your left hand, you had settled nicely into the role of mrs. cameron. it wasn’t tough, not a hard position to play in the slightest—rafe, or rather your husband—made everything nice and easy for you.
it seemed like it was his biggest desire come true, making sure you and his little girl were taken care of. he liked it actually, more than he admitted, knowing the two of you were fast asleep in bed when he left for work in the morning, doing nothing but relaxing throughout the day.
in fact, he had decided the second you had tearfully confessed that you were pregnant that this was the sort of life you were meant for, the kind of life he was going to give you. you were so scared, he can remember it like it was yesterday—your watery eyes and wet cheeks, the way your hands shook when you pulled out the test to show him.
“i-i-i’m so sorry, i, i thought the pills were enough, everyone says it’s enough-” you were stammering and crying your way into exhausation, something he definitely didn’t like. 
“s’okay, kid. nothin’ to cry about.” he was formulating his plan already, being proactive in all matters, thinking ahead to marriage licenses and car seats while you stared down at the positive stick in your palm.
“you’re.. you’re not mad, rafe?” the way you look at him, the world stops spinning. why would he be mad?
“hey, s’done,” he says, hands on your shoulders to steady you, bringing you to the edge of the bed to take a seat. he takes the pregnancy test from your hands, looking down at it himself. “it already happened. can’t take it back. no point in cryin’ over it.” 
when you look up with even more tears in your eyes, he’s half convinced he’s said the wrong thing—but it doesn’t faze him, he keeps going.
“hey, hey. what, you thought i wouldn’t take care of you? this is my kid too.”
“i know, i just, i thought you wouldn’t be okay.. with it. having it.” that’s the first and only time he got stern with you through this whole pregnancy.
“hey, don’t talk like that. this is our baby. there’s no question ‘bout havin’ it.” you nod up at him, tears drying as you steady yourself, regain a little composure knowing rafe’s not mad about this little accident. “y’okay now?” you nod again. “good, call your parents. tell ‘em we’re getting married soon.” 
“wh-rafe!” 
but, like how most things were with rafe, he called the shots and you listened. the two of you got married shortly after, before you were even showing. anyone who even attempted to comment on the hastiness of everything shut up the second rafe stared at them.
you’d be a liar to say you didn’t like it, a fool if you didn’t appreciate how rafe was to you.
he stepped up in every way, better than you could have even tried to put together in your imagination. a place was purchased and had slowly started to become home, with a crib that rafe assembled by himself—though it had taken hours and ended up with the instruction papers all crumbled up in a corner—and baby proofed cabinets and sockets. you laugh watching rafe try to install the baby gate on the staircase.
“you know that’s for when they start crawling, right?” you giggle, a hand on your very pregnant belly.
“shut up. m’being proactive. gonna have no time once she actually gets here and we’re runnin’ around changing diapers and makin’ formula and shit.” 
you’re only a touch surprised with how well-versed he is with all the baby stuff, though you appreciate it more and more since you’re still a little confused and overwhelmed. he makes it all easy, from the pregnancy cravings he runs around to find for you to the pretty pink walls in the nursery. he even satisfies all your other cravings, like around month six when there was nothing you wanted more than rafe's dick in every position you could think of.
when his daughter actually comes into the world, the two of you are a mess of emotions and thoughts, but there’s only one rafe really cares about. when can he give you another one?
it doesn’t take long for him to start trying again—trying to convince you that the two of you can handle two, that little kids need siblings their age. the baby’s only six months old but he’s convinced it’ll be better to have them all young at the same time rather than waiting—at least that’s the line he feeds you.
“no, rafe, they’re gonna be like irish twins. it’s so embarassing,” you say next to him in bed, staring up at your husband. 
“what’s that?”
“when you have two babies that aren’t even a year apart.”
“oh. that’s a thing? good, at least there’s a name for it. i’ll get you a book on it, since that’s what we’re doin’.”
and try as you might, even you can’t resist rafe for long, not when he’s taking such good care of you and just wants to give you another baby with his blue eyes and your pretty hair. you end up in the same position that got you into this whole situation—your knees folded to your chest and eyes rolling back while rafe slams into you. 
“don’t worry, baby,” he breathes into your ear, low and quiet since the baby’s sleeping in the other room. “i’ll get y’knocked up again. won’t have to think about a thing in this world except my kids.”
it’s a shame you get pregnant so quickly—rafe was so fun when his only thought revolved around fucking you full of his cum. 
“well, s’not gonna be irish twins. too far apart,” rafe says, looking at the photos from the doctor’s appointment.
“no, it’s just regular twins.” you don’t think you’ve ever seen rafe so happy.
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i-am-hungry-24-7 · 3 days
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[Hey, how are you?] Simon Riley*F!Reader
Ten years ago, Simon lost you due to his mistake, and he meets you again after these years of regret.
Hurt and comfort, Happy Ending
“Are you married?”
He always be asked when others see the ring on his finger.
“No.” He answers while taking another sip of his wine, letting the person realize it’s a topic they don’t have the authority to dig in.
He still remembers the vow he chanted as he put the ring on your finger.
The memory is as clear as the day you left the house, and he never saw you again.
It’s his fault, you didn’t shed many tears when he yelled at you, saying that you will never be able to free him from his nightmares, who do you think you are? a fucking philanthropist?
He knew he screwed up everything the moment his taunt escape his mouth.
No, No. I didn’t mean to say that, I need you, I love you, please don’t leave me.
He watched you lower your head, trying in vain to hide your sadness, but your heart was already shattered into pieces, by him, the man who promised to protect you by any means.
I’m sorry.
The words stuck in his throat when he looked at you stepping out the threshold with your belongings.
Please stay.
The greedy wish was buried inside his heart when you stopped for a second. “Bye, Simon. Take care.” you whispered, and disappeared into the aisle.
Ten years, he’s still unable to move on.
He brainwashes himself repeatedly, she will have a better life without you.
Yet he still opens his phone every time he finishes his therapy sessions, looks at your number, and just stares at the screen for minutes.
His thumb lingers on the “call” button but never dares to press it.
Hey, are you doing alright? I’m sorry, I want you back. I went to therapy after that day. I’m not the same person caged in his past anymore.
I miss you so much.
but how selfish he is if he interrupts your life now? Such a nice person like you deserves someone to cherish you nicely, and treasure you with their whole heart.
That’s why he now stands afar from you, watching you behind the veil of autumn’s breeze.
You’re still stunning, time doesn’t deprive your beauty even a bit.
He gazes at you for a long while, and when you turn around and spot him, it’s obvious that you’re in shock and come to a halt.
The world keeps moving, but the time seems frozen between you two, as you both set eyes on each other and never dart.
You head towards him as he starts hesitating to take the first move.
“Hey.” You look at him with a shallow grin on your face.
“Hey.” He mumbles.
The silence fills the air, but no awkwardness, he’s just too indulged in your presence, which he has been dreaming of for years.
Sorry for that day. How are you doing now? Have you married? Have a partner?...
He has too many things he wants to ask, but his thoughts are like matted wool, until his eyes land on the ring on your finger.
“You’re marrie—“ He questions without a second thought, but the words get cut off instantly due to his realization.
because the ring is paired with the one on his finger right now.
It’s not until you chuckle that he’s back to reality.
“Yes, I’m married, about ten years ago? to an idiot man.”
“Why did you marry him? he’s a bloody dork.”
“Good question. or maybe that’s the reason why I married him.” Shrugging, you then meet his gaze with a smile “How about you? Are you married?”
“Yeah, ten years ago, to a woman that’s too precious for me, so I lost her.”
“If you meet her again, what do you want to tell her?”
“I’ve improved. I’ve reached for help and now I’m not the same man anymore.”
“Anything else you want to say?”
“I miss her every single day, and I hope I can have her in my arms again.”
“Well, I don’t know about her.” you step closer to him. “But I’m sure she will love to have some tea with you as her first compensation from you, what do you think?”
He blinks at the hand you reach out at him, and slowly, he takes it into his palms, that’s befitting to drive away the chill.
Your hand fits well in his, like it’s made for him to serve it with all his warmth, and he’s sure that he will never let go of it again.
“My pleasure.”
a/n: lemme give Simon a fucking punch/j
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BTS fic recs
I wanted to do this a while ago, but felt like I hadn't read enough, until I checked my likes and got a shock to the face lol. I wanted to give some recommendations of some fics (and a series) that I quite enjoyed reading, plus leave a small review because I feel like it's very underrated to comment on what you like something (people, comment more, I swear it makes a writer feel so much better than a like). There's the occasional spoiler in the reviews, so I recommend you read it carefully or just skip the comment ^^.
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Dawning by @wintaerbaer JJK
summary: He’s never invited into your world during these late night sessions. You always push him away or ignore him. This is new. warnings: heavy depictions of depression and panic attacks, a brief line where taehyung worries oc is s**cidal. I really loved this fic. For a moment I thought it was some kind of two shot or something, but it only has this one part. Still, I felt the author captured the emotions very well. It felt so realistic that even I was worried when Y/N disappeared lol.
Bottle up old love by @wintaerbaer KTH
summary: Jungkook may have broken up with you a year ago, but that's not going to stop him from coming to your rescue when he sees you being cornered by a creep. warnings: language, a short harassment scene at the beginning (nothing too intense), explicit content including: unprotected sex (DO NOT), fingering, praise kink, biting, marking, spanking, cum eating (sort of?), big cawk soft dom jk, cowgirl (yeehaw), creampie, cockwarming. This fic made me remember why I love the exes to lovers trope. I loved seeing Jungkook as a tattoo artist, it's like, I don't know, so him, anyway, I loved it. I just found this account yesterday in the wee hours of the morning and I'm already loving it <3.
Cat-astrophe & Cat-enaries by @dumpywrites MYG
Summary: Your pet cat keeps going to your neighbor’s apartment and it’s a problem.  I fell in love with this Yoongi like you have no idea. When I just read the first part I was so eager to keep reading, seriously, I loved it, it deserves so much love.
Two Days by @dumpywrites JJK
Summary: He just wants you to give him two days. He'll take you on a few dates and you'll decided if you actually like him? Or not? I live for Jungkook being simp of the reader, I feel it's so real lol. This fic made me feel so warm inside, it was too cute to read. It's kind of like my comfort fic.
S'more than friends by @borathae MYG
Warnings: subby!Yoongi, switchy!Reader, consumption of beer, so much awkward tension, jealousy, sex in a tent, mutual masturbation, handjob, fingering, making out aye, Yoongi loves her boobs and she loves his butt it’s a win-win, sex while other people are sleeping, public sex, she has a thing for his hands (but what’s new lmao), fluffy post-orgasm talks because I’m soft. I read it a while ago now, but I remember when I did I felt so soft. This Yoongi is just too cute.
Please don't go by @httpjungkookcom JJK
Summary | Jungkook’s never kept anything from you, ever. Not even the time where he tripped and accidentally kicked your dog, or when he fucked the most popular girl in high school and couldn’t make himself cum (poor guy was embarrassed for weeks), or when he accidentally rubbed all of his acceptance letters in your face without realizing. To put it short, Jungkook is an open book to you. So when he suddenly disappears, there’s a lot to question. Even more to question when he finally gets back and won’t tell you anything, going as far to avoid you. You’re on a mission to figure it out, even if it kills you. Index | Jungkook is so smart, but so stupid at the same time. Jungkook is not sly in the slightest. Kind of angst, fighting, arguing, bickering, etc. Criminal activity, it’s a Spider-Man fic. Injuries and mention of blood. College setting and age, reader and Kook share the same major. Some cute fluffy moments in between all of the action. Aunt Yoon is essentially Aunt May in the Marvel story line.  Spiderkook, is more needed to read this fic? It was the first one I read about this au and I was WONDERED. God, you can't imagine how much I loved it. I thought it was so cute the way Jk approached reader being in his suit….
Accidental roommates by @jjkeverlast JJK
summary: moving apartments is stressful and difficult enough as it is. all the planning and packing and multiple moments of rearranging furniture; all you crave is peace. yet it seemed like peace was far within reach as the owner of the apartment had left out one tiny crucial detail from the ad — a ripped tattooed adonis, coupled, with a tiny baby daughter will come as your roommate. warnings: second hand embarrassment | jungkook's abs | annoying antics | suppressed feelings | both of them are stubborn and petty (it's gets tiring lmfao) | mentions of past relationships | a lot of time stamps | sexual tension | ft. namjoon 👀 | !constant change of perspective between reader and jungkook. I have a tremendous weakness with dilf, no matter who it is, I just love them. I think this was the first one I read by Jungkook. It was so fun and easy to read that the 14.7k words flew by for me.
Silk & Stones by @taegularities KTH
Summary: “Taehyung was a writer… he was a writer indeed.” Kim Taehyung knows his way around words – they cast a spell on your heart and mind, leave you gasping dangerously fast. Until the mystery behind his persona unveils and his touch, along with his words, becomes a vivid memory. warnings: writer + violinist tae 🥺 who’s a gentleman in the 19th century, brief mention of injuries/a mental institution, misunderstandings, heartbreak, secrets, grief, much poetry (and my attempt at writing a poem, pls spot), much disgoosting fluff, flirting and lots of sexual tension; explicit sexual content: 2 sex(y) scenes, fingering on a boat, choking, teasing, begging, praising, soft dom!tae, big dick!tae, tiddie fondling/sucking, some manhandling, dirty talk, they’re just so cute :((, oral (f. and m. receiving), some masturbation, oc is into neck kisses, some biting, fingering, hair pulling, asking for permission :(, multiple orgasms, unprotected sex (it’s the 19th century...), aftercare; there’s quite some angst ok; lmk if i forgot smth !! This was a work of art for me. I felt so immersed in the story, so confused by the time changes and everything surrounding Taehyung, but I loved it, one of the best stories I've read of Taehyung since I joined tumblr.
17 going on 27 by @hansolmates JJK
summary; one second, you’re sobbing at prom because the most popular guy in school dumps you due to your relationship being a little prank to break your heart. the next? you’re a creative editor at Ego, the hottest young adult fashion magazine. as you try to figure out what’s the deal with this sudden time skip into adulthood, you come across relationships and friendships that are made to be cherished and made to be broken. genre/warnings; fluff, crack, future enemies to lovers, teenage and adulthood angst, time skips from high school!au to late twenties!au, 13 going on 30!au, all your romantic movie tropes come to life! a really big mess honestly, various movie and music references, mentions of sex, use of alcohol, everyone give jin and jimin a big ol hug, language, a surprise guest from the queen of england. I love adaptations, especially ones that add their own touch, and the writer did it so well. She made me hate Jungkook, and then love him, and then hate him again, in the end I ended up resenting him, I wanted reader to stay with Jin lol, but I still loved it. Definitely my favorite part was having Jimin as a best friend, I loved watching him take on Jungkook in the car. We all need a friend like him.
Hot Bot by @httpjeon JJK/PJM/KTH/JHS
JJK: You order a sex robot online after getting a coupon for half off. however, there’s something strange about yours. PJM: Fear is primal and causes one to make stupid decisions. KTH: Your parents have a gift for you, however, there’s been a mistake. JHS: As a product tester, you have one of the most sought after temporary positions in Hot Bot Inc. This is a series that has smut, I think the name gives it away. It's rather sad that the writer is on hiatus, but he left the gems of his works open to the public. The series is pretty good, I fell in love with Jungkook (and Yoongi kskjdsksjds). Highly recommended.
The proposal by @hansolmates JJK
summary; Jeon’s the editor-in-chief for Big Hit Publishings, a closet romantic with a penchant for antagonizing his assistant on the reg. When his work visa is in the process of being renewed and he takes a trip to Norway, his eligibility to stay in America is on the line. However Jeon Jungkook doesn’t go without a fight, and in order to save his job he offers you a proposal you can't refuse. genre/warnings; the proposal!au, fake marriage au, enemies to friends(!!!), friends to lovers, bouts of flangst, dry humping, slight blood but not too bad, lang, alcohol, poor jjk discovers he has the ability to feel emotion, poor y/n is in the middle as always. I was looking for an adaptation of this movie for so long that when I found this one I almost cried with emotion. I LOVED the movie and the concept it had, and I was so happy to read this fic that captures that very romcom essence that the movie has. I loved it.
Marshmallows and report cards by @untaemedqueen KTH
Warnings: Impreg Kink, Marking, Cunnilingus, Fingering, Birthday Sex, Spitting, Begging, Praise, Fellatio, Face Fucking, Big Dick!Tae, Multiple Orgasms, Unprotected Sex, Possessive!Tae, Cock Warming, Creampie. I already confessed, this kind of fics get to me. I remember reading it and melting with the ending. I read it a long time ago, so I can't give a longer opinion, but I do remember that I loved it and came out internally squealing after I finished it.
Orange tulips by @kainks JJK
Summary: You’d remember Jungkook with every life you lived. Only he’d never remember you, never recall how your fates were written in the stars since the beginning of time. Genre: Angst. Fluff. Light Smut. The anxiety and helplessness I felt reading this fic are on another level. This scarred me, I read it once and I was never the same person again. It was wonderful, I felt so many things and I was so nervous during the whole reading that I almost didn't even realize when it was over. It is a very enjoyable fic.
What if I love you too much? by @taleasnewastime
Summary: Jungkook. It’s only a name you learn after your son kicks his ball over the fence. Before that you only knew him as the hot new neighbour who mows his lawn topless. And though you have no intention of getting to know him anymore than that, inevitably you do. You don’t necessarily fall, it’s too slow for that, but you definitely develop feelings you don’t intend to feel. Because you know men like him, and you know that whatever you’re feeling, he’s probably not feeling the same. All the same, however hard you try, you can’t help yourself. Warnings: Single mum, small fights, explicit sexual content, oral (f receiving), safe penetrative sex, reader thinks Jungkook is cheating/playing the field, angst, but also fluff, child gets injured (though not seriously), talks of cuts and a small amount of blood. This fic left me feeling bad, it even made me question some future decisions regarding my relationship with my future partner and the necessary communication that must be had in a relationship from the beginning, especially if there is a child in the middle. It was something I really enjoyed reading, and even though I had my internal dilemmas with Jungkook, the drabbles in the story helped me a lot to let go of my grudge (I swear I have nothing personal with him sksjkajskajsj).
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sunsburns · 21 hours
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kiss of life (iii.)
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pairing: luke castellan x aphrodite!daughter reader
masterlist
summary: you have never doubted aphrodite when it comes to soulmates, she's the goddess of love, she knows what she's doing and you're getting pretty sick of people telling you she's made a mistake with your soulmate, specifically. you refuse to believe that she could be wrong, but luke castellan is making it really hard for you to have hope.
—or: you and luke are off on your quest you're totally not having second thoughts about choosing him, he's your soulmate after all... right?
word count: 3.2k
warnings: filler chapter (sorry gang), reader's pov, reader is lowkey unreliable and is hiding something, pre-tlt, luke's character is kinda inconsistent but whatever, angsty fight with luke and reader, low-key happy ending
a/n: everyone might've moved on but i'm still here 😔… gang i think i’m coming back to my active era (no one cheered) anyways there’s so much i wanna write for this series so enjoy this little filler!
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You'd always been a fan of bad ideas, but choosing Luke Castellan as your companion for the duration of your quest had to be your worst one yet. You felt a pang of doubt, questioning your choice, especially after witnessing the outcome of his quest—a failure that seemed impossible to shake off from the whispers of other campers. A failure your siblings wouldn't let you forget.
"I was there when he came back. I know what happened," you muttered, frustration creeping into your voice as you stuffed clothes into your bag.
Your siblings meant the world to you. You cherished the bond you shared—the familial camaraderie that bound your cabin together. As the eldest, you revelled in guiding and nurturing them, relishing the role of guardian and friend within your cabin's close-knit circle. Yet, like any family, they can sometimes be suffocatingly overbearing.
Alexis, your brother, ever ready to smack a reality check, had been the first to warn you against choosing Luke Castellan, and now he spearheaded a group of your siblings, all urging you to reconsider with reason.
"But that's just it. You don't know. Not really. None of us do." Alexis told you, reclining against the shared vanity in your cabin. The absence of the younger kids, off with Chiron for a lesson on constellations, offered you some peace of mind, sparing them from witnessing the escalating intervention.
As Silena sifted through the clothes strewn across your bed, her soft humming filled the room, a stark contrast to the weighty silence that hung over the conversation. "No one but Chiron and Mr. D knows what happened on that quest. He refuses to talk about it." she mused.
"There's not a lot of glory in that." Alexis shrugged, a smirk playing at the corners of his lips.
"He's been so weird and different since he returned," Silena added, "I remember he used to smile. It was such an attractive smile. And he used to talk... He barely ever talks anymore."
Alexis snorted, "That's called depression, Silena."
"It's just so sad." She frowned and sat on your bed, her gaze distant, "Pretty people don't deserve to be depressed."
"Amen to that."
You couldn't help but roll your eyes at their melodramatic exchange, a fleeting smile tugging at the corners of your lips as you focused on folding another pair of pants. 
"He still talks." You said.
"But it's not the same," Alexis countered, his expression grave. Deep down, you knew he was right.
"And the way he's treated you," Silena scoffed, "constantly icing you out..."
"Avoiding you for months..." Alexis added, stepping closer to you with a solemn expression. "Refusing to even talk to you."
When he tried to put his hand on your shoulder, you couldn't help but shrug it off, not wanting his sympathy.
Their reminders, well-intentioned though they may be, served only to deepen the wound already festering within you. Like a knife twisted in your back, the memories of Luke's avoidance and unanswered questions pierced your thoughts with relentless precision. You vividly recalled the disappointment etched across his face in the infirmary, a silent testament to his dismay upon discovering your role in his fate. The weight of his unspoken words hung heavily in the air, a haunting reminder of the rift that had formed between you before it even started.
Your siblings were very careful with their next words: "Do you think that maybe... just this once... Aphrodite got it wrong?"
With a heavy heart, you stormed out of the cabin, your mind reeling with conflicting emotions. You swore up and down to Alexis and Silena that you were fine, that you only needed air. The need for clarity drove you to seek solace in the quiet embrace of nature, the gentle flicker of a breeze offering a touch of comfort amidst the turmoil raging within.
Throughout your life, your unwavering loyalty to your mother, Aphrodite, and the Gods has been a source of solace and guidance. You found comfort in the subtle manifestations of them, from the celestial dance of stars to the gentle caress of sunlight filtering through the trees. Even in the casual interactions of everyday life, you sought traces of your mother's hand guiding your path.
As you gazed into the dancing flames, the remnants of fruit smouldering in their fiery embrace in a tin can, you found yourself caught between hope and despair during your offering for your mother. Silena's words echoed in your mind, a harsh truth you were reluctant to confront. Maybe you didn't have a soulmate. Maybe it was a mistake. Maybe you're unlovable.
Yet, amidst the cloud of doubt, a flicker of defiance ignited within you. The mere thought that Aphrodite could be mistaken in matters of love seemed impossible to you. You had witnessed firsthand the intricate tapestry of fate woven by her hand, guiding souls to their destined counterparts with unfailing precision. 
The yearning for that connection, that soul-deep bond, burned within you like a beacon in the darkness of uncertainty. It was a desire as old as time itself, the longing to find solace and belonging in the embrace of another.
As the flames dwindled to embers, their dying glow casting flickering shadows upon the ground, your prayers went unanswered. 
The weight of your impending quest pressed upon you like a heavy cloak. Questions tumbled over one another in a relentless cascade, each one a dagger aimed at the heart of your resolve. Where would you need to go? Would you need to defend yourself? Would monsters come after you? Should you choose someone else? Could it be that Luke was nothing to you but a mistaken thread tethered into your life?
Your shoes stepped over twigs and dry leaves on the ground until you stepped out of the forest. Passing by the armoury, you forced a smile upon your lips. You forced yourself to be excited for your first quest rather than dread it. It was a rare privilege bestowed upon a child of Aphrodite, you should honour it.
As you approached the heart of camp again, the familiar clang of sword meeting dummy rumbled through the night air. The rhythmic sound, though commonplace in the realm of demigod training, carried an ominous weight under the cover of darkness. You would have assumed that all campers were asleep.
Luke Castellan, a boy who had become synonymous with the darker days since his return from his quest, stood amidst the training grounds, his silhouette illuminated by the pale moonlight. The sight of him, bathed in the ghostly shine, was haunting. With each precise strike of his sword, a muted testament to the rage that plagued his restless spirit, he seemed to exude an aura of both determination and despair.
No wonder you were so exhausted.  
You dared not meet his gaze, instead keeping your head bowed as you navigated the familiar path through the training grounds. Every fibre of your being screamed for you to move faster, yet the pull of his presence was undeniable. Despite your best efforts to remain unseen, Luke's voice cut through the night, calling out your name with a sense of urgency that sent a shiver down your spine.
Shit.
With a sinking heart, you felt his hand land on your shoulder, stopping your escape. You couldn't avoid him now. Turning to face him, you were met with a sight that mirrored the restlessness within your own soul. His features, etched with lines of weariness and frustration, betrayed the weight of the burdens he carried.
You were distracted by the way he was looking at you. Brows furrowed, his lips turned and pulled into that permanent frown that had you wondering if he had ever smiled since he came back. Yet, despite the weight of his solemn expression, there was a flicker of something in his eyes – a glint of warmth, of familiarity, that almost stirred a faint glimmer of hope within you.
Almost. 
"You're making a mistake." He insisted. "You need to choose someone else for your quest."
You tried not to seem too disappointed. "I can't pick anyone else." You protested, and he raised his brows at you, doubtful. "The Oracle told me to choose you."
"She told you to-?" A scoff escaped him, "The Oracle doesn't tell you who to choose. She doesn't say anything about who you should bring-"
"Luke-"
"The Oracle tells you what your quest is, then a weird riddle about something that will happen on your quest that will put you on edge the entire time."
Luke had stepped closer to you as he spoke as if his words would've sunk into your head clearer if you could hear them better. He spoke to you a lot that way, hoping you'd cling to every word he had to say; good and bad. Mostly bad.
The Oracle's cryptic words lingered in your mind. She had not revealed much about your quest, offering no subtle hints or insights into Eros' whereabouts to make your life easier. Instead, her assurance that success hinged on bringing Luke Castellan along had left you grappling with uncertainty. "He has all the answers you seek," she had urged, her words echoing with a weight that you struggled to comprehend.
"It has to be you."
"What else did she say?"
You hesitated. "That's it," you replied, your words falling short.
"That's it?" He didn't believe you.
"Just a few hints of where Eros might be, I guess." The lie slipped from your lips effortlessly. 
He caught it quickly but never urged you to admit it. Luke remained silent, his expression unreadable as he mulled over your words. 
You sort of wished he fought you over it.
You wished he'd do anything with you. At least try to.
"If you don't want to come with me, that's fine," you conceded, "I'm leaving tomorrow morning, with or without you."
"Really? You'll just leave?"
The bitterness in his tone was unmistakable. Yet, despite the resentment that coloured his words, there was a flicker of something in his eyes – a glimmer of regret, perhaps, or maybe resignation. It only annoyed you further.
Luke Castellan was possibly the most confusing person you've ever met. He didn't want to join you on your quest, but you couldn't leave without him either? What's his fucking deal?
He intrigued and frustrated you, like some curse had been placed upon you, and you wanted to understand every part of him while he wanted nothing to do with you. Perhaps Aphrodite was being cruel when she chose him as your soulmate, but you weren't any better when you put him in the position of joining you on your quest.
"I don't know you." You admitted the words hanging heavy in the air between you. "You've made a really good effort to make sure that I don't know anything about you. I did my part. I picked you. If you don't want to come, that's... fine."
It pained you to say it. You did not want to go alone, but you weren't going to force someone to accompany you who clearly didn't want to be there. However, the uncertainty of what lay beyond the safety of the camp walls loomed large in your mind. You haven't left the protection of the camp in years, you weren't sure of what was out there other than the stories the summer campers would tell you, of their close calls and near misses. 
Luke Castellan was the perfect example of what leaving camp does to someone.
Despite the weight of your decision, you held your head high as you turned on your heels. You doubted Luke had anything more to say; he was a man of few words, after all.
You left him there, just as he left you by the docks for months. And then you lied to yourself, clung to the belief that your mother, Aphrodite, would safeguard your journey and that your brother, Eros, awaited your rescue.
And so, the next morning, after bidding your tearful goodbyes to your siblings and friends and earning a proud pat on the back from Chiron, you swallowed your pride and left.
The Oracle's words were etched into the very fabric of your being, a relentless mantra that monopolized your thoughts as you trudged toward the top of the hill and left the safety of campgrounds. Each step forward was a testament to your determination, each footfall a declaration of your unwavering commitment to the quest ahead.
As you climbed, you couldn't help but imagine the faces of campers upon your return. You pictured the awe in their eyes, the pride in their voices, and most of all, the look on Luke's face when he realized the extent of your lone success, his disbelief mingling with a begrudging respect.
"Hey-"
The sound of your name startled you out of your thoughts. You were trudging through the grass when you spotted a body sitting under a pine tree, shaded from the sun by its leaves.
Luke looked up at you, frowning, "Took you long enough."
His dishevelled dark curls fell over his eyes, a stark contrast against the vibrant greenery surrounding him. With a resigned sigh, he rose to his feet, his movements fluid yet tinged with an air of impatience Luke picked up a bag by his side, tossing it over his shoulder. It wasn't until he emerged from the tree's shade that you noticed the subtle changes in his attire. Gone was the signature orange camp shirt, replaced instead by a more subdued navy tee that hugged his frame. His old cargo pants remained the same, but different nonetheless.
Eyeing his bag, you could spot smaller daggers strapped to the sides, prepared for anything. It took you a few seconds to process why he was there. You squint at the sun as he steps out from under the tree. "You came."
He huffed, "Obviously."
You let out a breathless chuckle, maybe one of relief since honestly, despite everything you'd been trying to convince yourself of, you were terrified to leave on your own. 
"Why?" you asked, your voice betraying a hint of uncertainty as you adjusted the straps of your own bag. The question hung in the air, unanswered. Of course. You almost rolled your eyes as Luke began to descend the other side of the hill. With a fleeting glance over his shoulder, he wordlessly beckoned you to join him by tilting his head to the side impatiently.
You grinned then, wide and bright. "I know I said I didn't care if you came or not, but I'm glad you're here."
He showed no sign of acknowledgment of your sentiment, his gaze fixed ahead as he continued to walk once you joined his side.
As the minutes stretched on in silence, broken only by the rhythmic crunch of leaves underfoot, you found yourself lost in thought. It was only when the distant hum of passing cars reached your ears, their blurred forms darting through the forest's fringe, that you were jolted back to the present.
Drawing to a halt near the forest's edge, you felt the weight of uncertainty settle upon you. With a hesitant pause, you turned to face Luke, the question that had been gnawing at your mind poised on the tip of your tongue.
"Why'd you stop?" He asked.
"I just..." Your voice wavered, uncertainty lacing your words as you struggled to articulate your thoughts. You worried that if you said the wrong thing he'd leave you stranded right there and return to camp while the two of you were still walking distance from it. It annoyed you a little; how much you had to walk on eggshells with him.
You couldn't help but wonder how different things might have been if you hadn't chosen him. You were being stupid when you picked him, you decided. You already regret it. Maybe Luke was right, the Oracle was just trying to get into your head.
"What made you change your mind? About coming on the quest?" you finally managed to voice, your eyes meeting his in search of answers.
He looked at you, brown eyes flitting over your expression, before licking his lips and simply stating: "If you break an arm, so do I."
That had been the closest Luke Castellan had ever been to admitting he had a soulmate.
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queenxxxsupreme · 3 days
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At the End of the World (Cooper Howard x reader)
(Part 2)
A/N: So I don’t know how much I like this, but I think after this piece I’m going to try to follow some of the show but just add my own little twists into it :) I hope you guys like it! Enjoy!!
Warning: nothing outside of canon, mentions of bad dreams and of child loss, a twisted ankle
Word Count: 4.3k
Summary: Sometimes Lucy doesn’t know when to stop asking questions. Here is Part 1 in case anyone missed it :)
You jolted awake, eyes opening wide and lips parting with a soft gasp. Your heart beat so hard against your chest that it actually hurt.
“Easy, doll.”
You furrowed your brows as you looked up at Cooper. Your head rested in his lap, his hand gently brushing over your hair.
You pushed yourself into a sitting position, rubbing your hands over your face.
“Shit.” You cursed.
”Everything alright?”
”Yeah. Yeah, um…. Just a bad dream, I guess.” You looked over your shoulder to him. You moved to sit against your backpack, your leg brushing against Cooper’s. You bent your knees slightly, bringing your hands up to rub your face. “Do you have my smokes?”
He reached into the pocket on his jacket for the carton of cigarettes and a lighter. You took the carton and pulled out a cigarette. His eyes watched you put the stick between your lips. With a flick of his thumb, a flame appeared over the lighter. You leaned over to light the cigarette, taking a small breath.
“Heart’s racin’.” He commented.
You leaned back, blowing a cloud of smoke out of your mouth.
Your hand falls down to your lap, the cigarette dangling loosely between two fingers.
You try to fight the feeling, to fight the scratchy lump forming in your throat. Your right eye stings with tears and your chest tightened as if you were being suffocated.
“I miss her so much, Coop.” Though your voice was weak, he could hear your words just fine.
“I know ya do, doll.”
You hastily brushed the tears off of your cheek. Your gaze fell upon the Vault Dweller that laid fast asleep just a few feet away from you.
You raised the cigarette to your lips, the stick trembling just slightly in your grip.
“My Gracie would be about her age now.”
Wordlessly, Cooper reached over to place his hand on your knee. He didn’t know how to comfort you, how to make you feel better. As a parent himself, he knew what it was like to lose a child. Though for him, there was the smallest chance that his girl was still alive. He just wasn’t sure.
”Finish that cigarette, doll, then you need to try to go to sleep.”
You stiffly shook your head.
“I don’t want to sleep. If-If I have to see her again….” You trailed off.
Cooper let out a soft sigh. You were one stubborn lady.
Silence fell between the two of you. Your eyes seemed glued to Lucy but your gaze was blank. Even though you sat right next to him, you were a thousand miles away.
***
When the sun came up, you, Lucy, and Cooper were back to trudging across the Wasteland. You walked a few feet ahead of Lucy and behind her was Cooper. His eyes continuously scanned the Wasteland for any signs of danger, one hand resting on a handgun on his hip. He had bound Lucy’s hands before the three of you started your journey. He didn’t trust her.
“You’ve been awfully quiet.” Lucy spoke as she jogged to catch up to you. You glanced over to her for a few moments before looking back to the path ahead.
“I’m not feeling too chatty today. Didn’t get a lot of sleep.”
”Are you okay?”
”Yes, I’m fine.”
”I’ve been having a lot of bad dreams lately too.” Lucy sighed out. “There’s just…. There’s so much death and-and blood. I don’t know how people do it.”
”We don’t have any other choice.”
”Yeah, I guess.” The vault dweller shrugged her shoulders.
“Some of us have had to go through so much that the thought of giving up now seems…. It seems pointless. We just….” You paused for a moment. “We just have to keep finding the next thing to keep us going.”
”Like what?” She looked over to you. “Icy, I-I can’t imagine what you’ve been through. You had a family, a whole family and-and now…. I wouldn’t be able to keep going.”
You pressed your lips together. You wanted to be angry with her, to be upset with her. If she thought that everything that had happened to her in the short time she’s been on the surface was bad, she was in for a nasty surprise.
“Sometimes after such loss…. It takes finding someone else who has been through similar things to keep you going.”
Lucy glanced over her shoulder to the Ghoul that traveled a little ways behind them.
The vaultie followed you down a slight incline, but she stepped the wrong way and twisted her ankle. Immediately, she fell to the ground from the pain.
“Ah! Ow! Ow, ow ow!”
”Quiet down, girly.” You knelt down beside her. She clutched at her ankle, groaning in pain. With your cybernetic left eye, you could see that she had overstretched the ligaments.
”What the hell happened, Vaultie?” Cooper looked down at the two of you.
“She sprained her ankle.” You sighed, untying her boot.
“Course she did.”
“Wait, what-what are you doing?” Lucy furrowed her brows.
”Your ankle is going to swell and if you leave it in your boot, it’ll only do you more damage.”
”Oh. O-Okay. Yeah, that makes sense. I guess.” Lucy breathed. “Are-Are you a doctor?”
You looked at her for a couple moments. Sometimes you weren’t sure if she was being serious or joking with you.
You put the boot into your backpack and stood up.
“She’s not going to be able to walk much longer, Coop.”
”Well she don’t got much of a choice, does she?”
You looked to the west where the sun was beginning to set.
“We’re about four hours out from Alma’s.” You looked to Cooper. His jaw went slack as he brought his hand up to rub his brow.
“Damn it.”
”Who’s Alma?” Lucy started to try to stand up. You held your hand out for her to help her to her feet, then you cut off the rope binding her hands together. It would make it easier to help her walk with her hands not stuck together. “Thanks.”
”She’s a friend.”
”A friend ain’t what I’d call her. She tried to kill me last time I saw her.”
”Well she isn’t exactly your biggest fan, Cooper.”
The Ghoul held your gaze. He didn’t want to go all the way to Alma’s. It was out of the way and would just tack more time on to the trip. Not to mention, he didn’t want Alma involved. But with Lucy’s new injury, you really didn’t have a choice.
”I reckon we’re goin’ to Alma’s.”
”Come on, Lucy.” You moved to stand on her right side to provide her support while she walked.
***
Six Hours Later
It was dark by the time you arrived at your destination. It was in what used to be a suburban neighborhood but many of the houses had long since been abandoned. You passed by one derelict house after another, eyes carefully scanning broken windows and rubble for any signs of danger. You knew the danger would be limited as Alma was in charge of most of the raiders in the area, but sometimes the raiders were a little rowdy and eager to attack.
There was one house that stood a little better than those around it. Its windows were mostly boarded up and there was a barbed wire fence around it. The siding of the house had long since lost its original color, instead taking on a more rusty brown color. The right side of the roof to the front porch had fallen in and it made the house appear unsafe to enter.
You stopped at the fence and let Lucy go.
“You two stay out here for just a moment.” Your eyes flickered back to Cooper. He nodded once in acknowledgement.
You slipped between the barbed fencing and then climbed the creaky wooden stairs. Just as you were about to knock on the door, it was pulled open.
An older woman stood in the doorway, a shotgun by her side. Her dark but graying hair was put up in some sort of high mess atop her head. Behind large lensed wire framed glasses were two big brown eyes.
“Icy May. Ain’t no way in hell I thought I’d be seein’ you again.” The shotgun in her hand was leaned against the wall on the inside of the house.
“Hello, Alma.” You smiled, embracing her tightly. “It’s good to see you.”
”You too, dear. So good to see such a pretty face.” She pulled away to get a better look at you. “You look all in one piece. What brings you all the way out this way, darlin?”
”I have a huge favor to ask you.” You stepped aside so that Alma could see the two who traveled with you.
Alma leaned forward, eyes squinting as she struggled to see whoever it was even with her glasses on.
“Oh hell, Icy May.” She shook her head, adjusting the old cardigan that she wore.
“Well ain’t it my favorite old maid.” Cooper spoke, giving Lucy a nudge to go through the fence. Lucy slipped between two of the barbed wires and nervously started for the stairs.
“Shut the hell up, you old bastard. I still haven’t gotten over what you did last time you was here.” Alma nodded her head to the side of the porch that had fallen in.
“I happen to think it made this place look better. More welcomin’.”
”Well I ain’t trying to be more welcomin’.” Alma put her hands on her hips. Her eyes followed Lucy as she struggled to get up the stairs. “What in the hell is this, Icy? A vault dweller?”
”It’s a long story, Alma.” You shook your head. “We just need to rest for the night.”
Her eyes flickered up to you, hesitating. A vault dweller could mean big trouble.
”Aw, what the hell.” She threw her hands in the air and turned to go into her house. She picked up the shotgun she had left by the door.
You offered Lucy your shoulder once again and walked with her to the living room.
The house wasn’t as bad on the inside as it was on the outside. Wallpaper was peeling off of the walls and in some places, it was missing all together. There was a fireplace that had been filled up with rocks. A sofa, which had definitely seen better days, was in the living room. Beside it was a rocking chair and a little end table. It appeared as though the end table was a combination of two different tables put together.
“You have a lovely home.” Lucy complimented.
Alma shook her head, swatting a hand at the Vaultie.
“There’s food in the pantry and water in the washroom down the hall. You’d better get cleaned up and settled for the night. It’s already late.”
”Thank you, Alma.” You offered her a little smile. “We’ll be gone when the sun rises.”
”Better be. Don’t want Howard fuckin’ anything up anymore than he got to.”
“Missed you too, ya old bat.” Cooper muttered.
You took Lucy to the washroom and left her there, then you went to the kitchen. Cooper was already helping himself to the pantry. He sat at the kitchen table with a can of some sort of nonperishable food.
“There’s the couch in the living room and there’s two rooms with mattresses.” Alma told you. She moved around the kitchen, gathering up a canteen and a pack of cigarettes.
”Where are you scurryin’ off to?” Cooper asked her.
”I ain’t scurryin’ nowhere, asshole. It’s past my bedtime and you bunch look worse than the backside of a feral hog.” Alma stopped at you to give you a one armed hug. “We’ll talk in the mornin’, honey.”
”Good night, Alma.”
”Night, girly.”
You watched her leave the kitchen then listened to the floorboards creak as she disappeared down the hallway.
“You should eat somethin’.” Cooper spoke. You rubbed his shoulder before moving to pull a chair up beside him.
“I will.”
It felt nice to finally be able to sit down. Your feet hurt and you were exhausted.
Cooper leaned forward to give your knee a squeeze. Your eyes flickered up to meet his gaze.
***
A little while later, Lucy had retired to the room she was going to be staying in. You and Cooper would be sharing the other mattress in the room across the hall from Lucy.
You made your way down the hallway, doing your best to be as quiet as possible. You didn’t want to disturb Alma.
You came to a stop in the doorway of Lucy’s room, watching her as she sat on the edge of the mattress . She was in the process of eating a can of peaches when she noticed you were standing in the door.
“Oh, um…” She quickly swallowed a peach and held the can out towards you. “Do you want a peach?”
”No, thank you.” You shook your head. “Alma is a good friend of mine.”
”Oh, yeah! She’s incredible. Super nice person.”
”Can I trust you to be here, Lucy?”
She stopped eating the peaches and directed her attention to you.
“She’s taking a big risk letting us stay here for the night. If anything happened to her while we were here….” You trailed off. “Alma’s one of the last few good people out here.”
She nodded her head softly, understanding what you were telling her.
”So do I have to keep an eye on you or can I trust you?”
”You can trust me.”
You weren’t sure you completely believed her.
“Good.” You turned to leave but she stopped you.
“Thank you, Icy. For…. For everything.”
You leaned against the doorframe, crossing your arms.
“You need to stop thanking me.”
“You’ve practically saved my life by showing up. Who knows what that man would’ve done with me if you hadn’t come along.”
You gazed at her for a few moments, her bright blue eyes still filled with some sort of kindness. It wasn’t often that you came across those kinds of people.
“Good night, Lucy.”
“Oh, uh good night, Icy.” Lucy was confused with your sudden ending of the conversation. That seemed to be a trait of yours.
You moved down the hallway, your quiet footsteps still making the floorboards squeak.
Cooper was in the room the two of you would be sharing. He had taken off his bandolier, holster belt, and duster coat. All items had been placed in a pile at the foot of the mattress. The ghoul was lounging across the mattress with his breather in one hand, a cigarette in the other, and his shoulders leaning up against your backpack. One knee was bent and that was where his hat rested.
His eyes watched as you took off most of your layers. First it was your jacket, then the old flannel, and tattered sweatshirt. You were left in cargo pants, boots, and a thin brown tank top that had definitely seen better days. You pulled your hair out of the ponytail it was in to fix it up for the night.
“My, my, my. Ain’t you a sight fit for kings.”
I tried to bite back the smile that crept across your face but it was no use.
“Keep the charming to yourself, old man. We need to get some sleep.” You sat down on the mattress facing the ghoul. You leaned your torso against his bent leg, picking up his hat and placing it on your head.
He offered you the cigarette, which you gladly took. His breather was discarded on the floor beside the mattress.
You inhaled and held the chemicals in your lungs for a few moments. As you exhaled, Cooper brought his hand up to cup your face. His thumb, calloused and rough, traced your bottom lip.
You let him do so, your eyes steadily watching his face.
He traced the curve of your bottom lip, then used his fingertips to trail along your cheekbone and your temple. He brushed a few pieces of hair back out of your face.
”So what’s your big plan once we get to Hank MacLean?”
The ghoul paused for a moment, pulling his hand away from your face to rest it on his chest. You passed the cigarette back to him and he took it.
”I want to know what happened to them.” He was quiet as to not let his voice carry throughout the otherwise silent house.
You nodded your head. Cooper waited for you to speak. He waited, and waited, and waited. But you said nothing. All you could do was gaze down at one of the buttons on his shirt. The original button, which had been a light shade of brown, was torn off some time ago but you recall sewing a dark green button in its place.
“Say somethin’, doll.” He urged you, tapping the side of your leg gently.
You bit the inside of your cheek, finishing off the cigarette with a deep inhale.
“I hope you find the answers you’re looking for, sweetheart.” You put the cigarette out on the soul of your boot and started to move, wanting to reposition yourself. Cooper stopped you from moving, his hand grabbing yours.
“I just…. I have to find out, Icy.”
”I know.” You murmured softly with a nod of your head. “I’d want to know too, if I was in your place.”
It wasn’t like the two of you were in a full fledged relationship where one of you had asked the other to commit to you, but it also wasn’t casual. Cooper Howard didn’t do casual. It was far too hard to trust someone enough for that sort of thing.
”Haven’t been able to stop thinkin’ about it.” He put his head back, his hand steadily rubbing your leg as he directed his eyes to the ceiling. “I mean, if MacLean has been able to live this long, then there’s a chance…. even the smallest of one…. that they could be out there.”
You smiled a little, though it was sad and didn’t reach your eyes. If you believed in a higher power, you would pray to them to make it all true, to make his hopes and desires a reality. It was what he deserved after all that he had been through.
Though you wanted to be happy for him, your chest tightened a little with the idea of him finding his family. What would happen to you if he found his wife and his daughter?
You reached out to take his hand away from your leg, clasping your fingers together tightly.
“I hope they are.” You brought his hand up to kiss the inside of his wrist.
Cooper watched you kiss his wrist once, then twice before holding his hand in your lap. He didn’t let you linger in your thoughts for too long. He pulled you down towards him, making you lay down beside him.
“It’s nothin’ but wishful thinking.” He thought out loud.
“Sometimes that’s all that keeps us going.”
***
The Next Morning
Lucy made her way out of her room, using the wall for support as she limped down the hallway. She peered into the living room and found it empty. Her next stop was the kitchen.
The Ghoul sat at the kitchen table, which was covered in an assortment of junk. He was wiping off one of his hand guns.
Lucy looked around the kitchen, hoping and praying she’d find you or Alma.
Cooper glanced up at the vault dweller, very briefly meeting her gaze before looking back down at his weapons.
“Oh, um…. Good morning.” Lucy greeted him in an attempt to be friendly, but friendly wasn’t Cooper Howard’s thing.
He stayed silent.
Lucy leaned against the doorway to take her weight off of her ankle.
”Is Icy up yet?”
”She went out with Alma.” His answer was short and stiff.
“Oh, okay.” Lucy nodded her head.
She stood there for a few moments awkwardly. Should she just go back to the bedroom and hideout until you and Alma returned?
Oh, what the heck.
Lucy limped over to the table and pulled out a bulky wooden chair to sit in. She sighed in relief as she sat down. She examined the amount of junk on the table, curious as to what exactly everything was.
It wasn’t long before Lucy became bored and found herself watching the ghoul that had taken her hostage.
“So…. Is your name Cooper? Or is it Howard? Because, well, I heard Icy call you one and Alma called you another. So I guess I’m just a little confused.” She chuckled nervously.
”My name don’t matter to you, Vaultie.” He sat the handgun down on the table then picked up a shotgun.
“Well I’d like to have something to call you when I talk to you, to have a conversation like real people do.”
”Ah, but who said I wanted to have a conversation with you?”
Lucy pressed her lips together. This man was awfully hard to get along with.
”That’s fair, I guess.” She nodded.
Silence fell between the two as Cooper continued to clean the gun. Once he was finished cleaning the sawed off shotgun, he began to load it.
Lucy sighed, bored out of her mind. Cooper wasn’t entertaining at all. She messed with the cuff on her suit to try to keep herself occupied and to try to keep her mouth shut for a little bit longer.
“Do you love her?” The question kind of just came out without Lucy really realizing what she had said.
Cooper dropped the bullet that he was trying to shove into his gun. It made a loud banging noise as it hit the floor.
“What in the hell did you just say to me, Miss MacLean?” He looked at her, his eyes dark and sharpened.
The use of her name made Lucy feel on edge. He had always just called her Vaultie.
“I-I was just— I just see the way you guys are with each other. I didn’t mean it in-in a bad way, you know?”
The ghoul was silent as he held her gaze. He leaned forward to retrieve the bullet from the ground. He shoved it into the gun and placed the gun on the table.
The front door to the house creaked open. Lucy turned her head to see. You and Alma walking in.
“How’d you sleep, honey?” Alma put her hand on Lucy’s shoulder. The vault dweller opened her mouth to answer but Alma spoke over her. “Howard, if you don’t get your damn guns off my table, I’m gonna beat the piss outta you.”
Cooper didn’t offer any sort of smart comment back. He just picked up each gun and tucked them into their appropriate holster.
“I slept well, thank you. Where, uh, where did you guys go?” Lucy asked, turning her attention to you.
“Had to make a run early this morning.” You placed your backpack on the table, pushing some of the junk back so you had space. You rummaged through the bag before pulling out a stimpack. ”How’s your ankle feeling?”
”Really bad, actually. It’s super sore and looks very bruised.” Lucy eyed the giant needle at the end of the stimpack. “What’s, um, what’s that for?”
”You’re ankle. You can’t travel with a busted ankle and we can’t stay here.”
”But what is it?”
”A stimpack. It will heal your ankle up enough to get you back on your feet.”
With no warning, Cooper stood up and left the room rather hastily. Old floorboards creaked beneath the weight of his worn boots.
“What crawled up his ass?” Alma pushed her glasses back on to her head to hold her hair back out of her eyes.
“I don’t know.” You hummed. You listened to him move around in one of the back bedrooms.
He wasn’t a chatty person by any means, but surely he would’ve greeted you and Alma with some sort of witty remark. And you were very positive he would’ve given Alma an asinine remark about his guns on her table.
“What happened while we were gone?” You turned your attention to Lucy.
“I-I was just trying to talk with him.” She put her hands up, shaking her head.
“And…. Boy is he difficult to have a conversation with.”
You sighed heavily. Why couldn’t the vaultie get it through her head that sometimes she needed to shut up?
“I’ll be back in a second, Alma.” You looked over to your friend before going down the hallway to the bedroom Cooper was in.
He stood leaning against the side of the open window. He was fidgeting with his breather, replacing the empty vial with a full one.
”You leave me with that girl again, woman, and you’re gonna be scrapin’ what’s left of her brain off of Alma’s walls.” He grumbled.
You pulled a pack of cigarettes out of the pocket of your jacket.
“She’s got a way of getting under your skin.” You put the cigarette between your lips and tucked the carton away, then pulled out a lighter. “What’d she say?”
”Don’t matter.” He took a puff of the breather. You held the cigarette out to him and he gladly took it, crossing the room and closing the space between the two of you in just a few strides.
You watched as he put the cigarette in his mouth and took a deep drag from him.
“I’ll fuckin’ gut her like a pig next time she tries to talk to me.”
”You don’t mean that.” You shook your head gently.
He exhaled the cigarette smoke right into your face, then took another quick puff of it.
”Like hell I don’t.”
You took the cigarette from between his fingers.
“She means well.”
Cooper watched you, his gaze still hard and angry. You inhaled the cigarette.
“What did she say to you, Cooper?” Your voice was quiet.
He looked down at you for a while. Then let out a breath and adjusted the hat on his head, casting his eyes downward to his boots.
”We need to be leavin’.”
Without another word, the Ghoul slipped past you to go down the hallway.
taglist: @green--beanie @mack-attack420 @miniemonie2001 @eykismyfav @fallout-girl219 (I think I tagged anyone but I’m so sorry if I missed you!)
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loversmantra · 2 days
Text
LOCK YOUR PHONE!
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synopsis. a secret relationship. a fantasy.
content. itoshi sae x cisfem!reader. aged up characters (+20). fluffy but suggestive. implied sexy times. profanity. secret relationship. sending and receiving nudes. sae's kinda possessive in this but there's nothing crazy. lowercase intended.
wc. 1.3k
message from noe. i adore him i fear... listen to billie nossa nova by billie eilish for a better experience. been wanting to write something based on this song for a while and i thought sae fit perfectly! enjoy.
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there’s a warm body in sae’s bed.
his still asleep brain takes a second to make the connection; the softness of you under him is no longer a feeling he’s used to. he puts two and two together, eventually, and wraps his arms tighter around you. awake, but unwilling to let the moment end, he buries his face into your neck.
too late. you stir, push yourself away from him. he can’t bring himself to blame you: it’s hot in the room, hot under the sheets.
there will be no more sleeping for him, but it isn’t too late for you — with that thought in mind he too rolls away, blinking once, twice, context coming back to him as his surroundings do.
the bed is neither his nor yours, though he could have put that together himself — the satin sheets gliding on his skin in such an alien way.
creams and soft pinks blur before his eyes, pale under the early morning’s light. paris. the hotel room he booked for you in a haze, almost feverish in his longing for you.
the downside of keeping a relationship under wraps, he supposes: his noose-tight schedule and the hawk eye of the public force meetings to be few and far in-between, the secret protected like crown jewels. he knows you’re tired of it; he knows because he is, too. it’s exhausting, constantly looking over his shoulder when taking you to his place, or on his way to yours. it’s exhausting, always having to find a different hang out spot, for fear of the media figuring him out. it’s exhausting, waking up and wondering: is today the day the world sinks its teeth into you?
sae’s never cared to keep secrets, at least never willingly — he says things as they are, does things as they need doing, full transparency, if it’s up to him.
it’s exhausting, it is. but that’s just one more thing on the list — and it’s so. damn. worth it. every downside comes with an upside, or else itoshi sae wouldn’t ever bother.
these hidden moments sae shares with you, no one else is privy to them. only he gets to know you like this, love you like this, warm and soft underneath him. no one knows because no one needs to know. just you and him.
no one gets to see you in your entirety: the shine of your eyes when they land on him; the loving curve of your mouth as you smile at him.
everything that belongs to you. for him only.
the face you made when you first entered today’s suite will stick with him for a while, he thinks. the pure delight and adoration shining in your eyes. your lips parting in wonder. all for him. all because of him. your princess room, that’s what you’d called it. a child’s dream, delicate in its simplicity, crushed and torn apart by the cruel world’s sharp, sharp teeth. stitched back together by him.
he knows how it feels, to be ripped to shreds. he’s glad he can do this for you, at the very least.
the world awakens and so does he; slumber slipping through his fingers as he rubs it away from his eyes, tiny sand grains leaving a small sting behind. he slept well. better than usual.
his phone is still on do not disturb. he doesn’t bother checking the time.
sae sits up, covers dropping to his thighs. beside him, you stir again, whine a little. maybe you can feel him leaving, even now in your sleep, feel the shadow of his absence. maybe you’re just bothered by his movements rocking the mattress. either way, you sleep. finding his pants in the mess of the suite bedroom, without the aggressive light of his phone’s flashlight to aid him, proves to be no easy task, but he manages eventually. he slips them on and slips away, closing the bedroom door softly.
it isn’t much brighter in the living space. the lazy sun is barely rising, only the idea of it permeating the gradual brightening of the sky.
phone still clutched in his hand, sae lets himself drop on the abnormally large leather couch, massaging the tender spots you viciously bit into his neck. with just a few swipes, he’s opened his camera roll. time to collect the prize: the surprise you leave for him after every passionate encounter.
the first time you did it, he didn’t even notice until a few days after the fact, when he went browsing through his pictures for a home screen-worthy photo of you.
there it was: a beautifully crafted souvenir of the time spent together. the flash of his phone camera punctuating every shot, barely noticed in the heat of the moment. the red of the set you wore that day.
selfies of you before, and after. your lingerie still intact — and the canvas of your chest painted purple by his loving mouth. not a single video, but at least a dozen pictures: of you, of him, of the two of you together.
a gift from you to him — one that had his blood boiling, had him flushed, aching, yearning all over again.
he sent you his favorite of the bunch — a mirror selfie of you, chest painted purple, a teasing finger pulling your bottom lip down — followed by a question mark. a wordless interrogation.
finally, thought you were never gonna see them, 11:22pm
-is the answer he got.
want more? 11:23pm
and he did. and he got more.
it’s been a while, since then — long enough for it to become a tradition, a little present left in his phone after a secret rendez-vous. so you don’t forget me, you joke.
but how could he?
he’s learned a lot, since that first time. the most important: you’re a fucking tease. lighting, cropping, outfit, pose, it’s an art form to you, down to the time it is for him, when you press send. more often than not, he gets the pictures in the middle of the day, when he can see but can’t do anything.
you’re decent enough to warn him beforehand, at least.
you better lock your phone ;)
and then the raunchiest picture he’s ever seen — you outdo yourself every time — is all over his screen. he’s had many, many close calls. you don’t stop. he never asks you to. he loves the damn pics.
always pictures, never videos — they’re not your thing, he’s learned. not that it matters.
sae would’ve never guessed you’d be such a great soft porn photographer.
the couch’s leather sticks to his skin as he moves, trying to get just a bit more comfortable. he’s about to open his camera roll, ready to unwrap his present, when shuffling near his head startles him out of his reverie.
“why’d you leave?” you murmur, voice still rough with sleep.
you’re completely wrapped in a thin sheet, the only barrier between his hungry eyes and your soft, soft skin. the only glimpse he gets is that of your ankles. a small golden chain rests there, snug. his name is spelled out among the links, hidden. for his eyes only. his chest constricts, almost painfully.
he doesn’t answer; only opens his arms so you can take your rightful place tucked against him. you lay down, covering the both of you with the sheet.
the sun finally peeks from below the horizon, warming your face. it’s peaceful.
“i didn’t want to wake you,” sae decides to say.
you shrug. “more time with you.”
he feels the same — still, your sleep and your comfort take precedence over anything, for him. over anything.
you look so beautiful, like this. waking the sun, blessed by its gentle glow. for his eyes only.
it won’t last. he knows it won’t — secrets never stay secret for long. but for now, simply living like this is enough, more than enough. enjoying the sun. enjoying you.
sae slept well. better than usual. you’re warm on his chest, traces of you warm on his skin. there’s a present waiting for him in his camera roll.
it won’t last — but it won’t hurt to enjoy it while it does.
you fall back asleep quickly, lulled by his steady heartbeat. he follows easily. his dreams are swaddled in creams and soft pinks, and the warmth of the sun on his chest.
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LOVERSMANTRA © 2024, all rights reserved. do not translate, crosspost, or copy. steal my work and i'll steal your kneecaps. bitch.
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leaderwonim · 3 days
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unconditional love. ✧ park sunghoon x fem!reader genre: bittersweet fluff, coming of age angst
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you liked park sunghoon, you truly did. he was kind, intelligent, and had that soft introverted persona on the outside.
when you got to know him, he became the most funny and loudest person to ever exist, which had your heart doing backflips.
it wasn’t him that was the issue. it was you. you always had commitment issues, never being able to settle down because of your past pulling you behind. i mean—how could anyone ever like you? you felt as thought you were too loud, too annoying, too irritable, just too much.
despite your brain constantly bringing you down, park sunghoon loved you. he loved every single piece of you, the way you’d blow your perfect hair out of your face as you concentrated on the textbook in front of you, the way your eyebrows would furrow when you didn’t quite catch a question or answer, the way you’d prop your head onto your knees as a way to comfort yourself.
god, park sunghoon swore you were the one. he didn’t care that his friends warned him about your earned title of being a ghoster when it came to relationships, he didn’t care that it felt like he was constantly putting in more effort than you.
as long as he’s got you, he doesn’t care. so how did the two of you end up in this situation?
“i don’t get it,” sunghoon frowns, “what did i do wrong?”
“you didn’t do anything wrong,” you say exasperatedly, “in fact, you were perfect sunghoon. you were everything i wanted and more—it’s just me.”
park sunghoon hated the classic it’s me not you excuse when it came to situations like these. but because it’s you, he lets it slide, even though he already feels the tears coming.
“i don’t want to hurt you any longer, hoonie. you have to understand i’m ending this because i care about you too much to put you through hell.”
sunghoon solemnly nods, knowing whatever he’ll say won’t change anything, that it’s already too late and you’ve already made up your mind.
it’s cruel, he thinks. life. how it could be so depressing and meekly all at once.
it wasn’t until a year later that sunghoon and you crossed paths again. you two were now sophomores in college, and had even attended the same university.
you had gotten a boyfriend, finally deciding to settle down after maturing and realizing how much of a piece of shit you were to all the boys at your high school.
his name was heeseung and he had treated you like a princess, reminding you of how sunghoon used to treat you back in senior year.
now here you were, sitting on one of the university steps with your head hung low. your parents had given you the call about them divorcing, right in the middle of your sophomore year. you were miles away, and was heartbroken knowing your family was splitting in two without you being there physically to support them.
“hey, you okay?”
you knew that voice better than anyone.
“hoon?” you sniffle. “i’m sorry—why am i even calling you that.”
“it’s okay.” he reassures you, patting your back as he takes a seat. “what’s wrong?”
“parents are getting divorce,” you scoff. “guess thats karma for all the things i put you through.”
“don’t say that.” sunghoon gently wipes away your tears, frowning when he sees more appear.
“you shouldn’t even be comforting me, i treated you like shit sunghoon, i got a new boyfriend right after i said i couldn’t settle down with you.”
“who cares?” sunghoon says, and for the first time, you don’t see the romantic love he used to have in his eyes for you. “we’re young! of course you’re going to find other people.”
you’re in awe at the maturity sunghoon is displaying. you knew it took a lot of courage for him to do so.
“why are you being so nice, sunghoon?”
“the world is already cruel, yn.” sunghoon sighs. “so therefore, i won’t be.”
and although his words won’t stop the divorce of your parents or the sadness filling your chest, it makes you feel a tad bit lighter, knowing that you had someone like park sunghoon in your life.
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ilypaigebuckets · 2 days
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I Hate it Here
pairing: paige bueckers x reader
plot: based off of the tiktok trend from taylor swift’s new album ttpd. in which paige sees the tiktok you made about her.
also posting on my other acc! @kenzlovesyou
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paige returned home from practice to find you asleep in your shared room. she was sweaty and tired but the sight of you looking so precious made her face soften. she noticed you had a tendency to do that; make her soft.
paige put her bag down and walked up to you, kissing your forehead. “hey y/n, baby. i’m back,” her tone was sweet as she shook you awake, “i’m home!”. you groaned a bit as your eyes fluttered awake. “paigeyyy” you said, still half asleep as your arms reached to hug her. she smiled and reached down to hug you. you nuzzled into her neck, you’d missed her a little extra today. she stood up fully and you got out of your bed, hugging her tightly once again. “babe i’m sweaty. let me shower, then we’ll spend some time ok?” she lightly unhooked your arms from around your neck and gave you a soft kiss on the cheek. you sighed, already missing her touch.
you decided to go on to couch and watch a show while you waited for paige to finish showering. after finally settling on a show you spaced out into it, watching intently. paige finally finished showering and came out of the bathroom onto the couch with you. she saw the show you chose and wasn’t particularly interested, but still wanted to spend time with you. you laid your head on her shoulder and snuggled close to her. she looked down at your precious head and kissed the top of it.
she decided to scroll on tiktok while you watched your show. she scrolled past videos on her for you page, not finding anything entertaining enough to like but not boring enough to scroll past without watching. she then switched to her following feed. she watched the dancing video she and kk had made earlier in the day, before practice and laughed to herself. then she stumbled upon your account. you weren’t too active on social media, so it was always a treat for her to view something you’d posted. it was one of those slideshow tiktoks, with a new song from Taylor Swift playing in the background. the first picture was a cute picture of you azzi had taken of you with your hood on your heading, looking grumpywith the words “i hate it here so i will go to”.
paige quickly realized what trend you were participating in and was excited to see what you thought your “secret garden” was. she assumed it would be Uconn, as you’d mentioned how happy going to school here had made you and how it’d brought you out of your shell. she slid to the next photo. “secret gardens in my mind” she read and saw a mirror picture of the two of you. nobody else. just her. she was your secret garden. she mattered most to you. she felt like tearing up. she’d never meant this much to someone. even though it was just a tiktok trend, she was overcome with emotion. “baby?” she looked over at you.
“hm?” you hummed over at her, still immersed in your show.
“hey, welcome back to the real world. i saw the tiktok you made about me. i love you so much. ” she lifted her arm up and put it around you.
“you like it?? it’s not too annoyingly coupley and cringey?” you asked.
“no, y/n. it’s perfect. i wish i could be with you all the time. i love spending time with you.”
you looked at her and smirked. she wasn’t this soft when she first met you. you’d changed her.
“going soft on me, bueckers?”
“OK MOMENT RUINED” she jokingly pushed you off her even though she knew she’d be holding you again not even 2 minutes later.
my first one shot 🥳🥳 ik it’s short but i felt like writing something!! feel free to send in fic requests, dialogue prompts, song lyric prompts, etc! hope you guys like this, ik im not the best writer but i just like to do it for fun!! have a great day/night <3 :)
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amongemeraldclouds · 22 hours
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But Daddy I Love Him
Mattheo and the Slytherin boys rescue you from your father who held you captive one day before your wedding.
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Mattheo Riddle x f!Reader ft. The Slytherin Boys
Warning: fluff, one use of y/n, cursing, the boys being chaotic. Inspired by the Taylor Swift song with the same title.
✿ Masterlist | 872 words
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“Can’t this bloody car go any faster?” Mattheo asked gripping the leather seats, straining against his seatbelt as if he could steer the car faster out of sheer will.
Draco scoffed, “it’s the latest model of flying cars, of course it can. The car is not the problem.” He was insulted that Mattheo would even question the calibre of cars they kept at the Malfoy Manor. They borrowed it from his father without asking, but he didn’t think he would mind.
“We already went over this,” Theo grit his teeth, trying to hold on to the last dregs of his patience. He drove the car over the roofs of buildings and clouds blurred past them. He was going as fast as he could without compromising their safety. “If we let you behind the wheel, you will drive us all straight to a tree. You can’t have a wedding if your corpse is busy rotting in a tree, huh?”
“I’m not some foolish Gryffindor who would do that!” Mattheo argued.
Blaise sucked in his breath, tired of having to play peacekeeper. “Arguing would not get us to her any faster, okay Matty? When has Theo ever let you down?”
Lorenzo chimed in, also eager to diffuse the tension. “What’s next, mate? You just roused us all out of bed to rescue your girl the night before your wedding, what happens when we get there?”
Mattheo narrowed his eyes, “I only roused Theo then Draco offered his father’s car when he overheard us. The rest of you tossers invited yourselves.”
“That’s besides the point,” Enzo continued knowing Mattheo would do the same for any of them if they ever needed help. “What’s your genius plan?” 
“When we’re close enough to the estate, I’ll signal y/n. She says she has a plan to escape and we’ll swoop in as the getaway driver.”
“Sounds simple enough when you say it like that,” Enzo mused.
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“But daddy I love him!” You declared, losing track of how many times you’ve had to defend your fiancé to your father.
“He’s the Dark Lord’s son-” he begins, his favorite line whenever he tried another argument to dissuade you from you marriage plans.
“Father, I’m having his baby!” You spat out, tired of his same old lines. That shut his mouth.
Your news drained the color from his face as he opened his mouth again to say something and closed it. This was going to bring shame to the family name. He was too stunned to speak.
You tried to hold it in, but burst out laughing. Your father was a man hardened by business and the ways of the world. He was not easily shaken so this reaction was priceless.
“Oh father!” You held your stomach to control your laughter. “You should see your face! I was just joking! See, there are worse things that could happen? Father, I promise this is not as bad as you think. He is nothing like the Dark Lord. He’s doing his best to be better than him.”
Your father mumbled incoherently as if holding back a string of curses. “Dear child, you will send me to my funeral! These white hairs will turn even whiter than snow.”
“Please,” you approached him, holding his hand. Trying to appeal to his affections, the way you did when you asked for a pony when you were younger. “He’s the one I want, if you could just give him a chance and get to know him.” “What about our family name? It will put us to ruin, think about us,” he responds coldly.
“I’m taking his last name, father. You won’t have to worry about that. My name is mine to do with as I please.” You were losing hope, nothing was getting through to him. You just needed to wait for the signal.
As if you summoned it by your thoughts, you saw a light flash three times and you grabbed your wand from a hidden compartment in your dress. That’s on your father for underestimating you, he couldn’t just lock you in - you were no longer his little girl. You saw the car approach the window and withdrew the wand.
“Well father, I wish you would come around. Come to the wedding tomorrow in peace, the cake is fantastic,” you bid him goodbye with those words and you cast an explosion with your wand, bricks flying and dust spraying through the air. You took one last look at your father as he stood to catch you, but you moved faster.
From the clearing that once formed the east wing of your father’s mansion, you grinned at Mattheo and your friends. 
“That’s your escape plan?” Blaise broke through the silence when the car was near enough.
At the same time, Mattheo cheered, “that’s my girl!”
You shrugged, running towards them and taking Mattheo’s hand. You sat on his lap in the front seat of the car as there was no other vacant seat. But you could hardly complain at the chance to snuggle with him.
“It worked, didn’t it?” You simply said as Theo drove you away from the mansion.
Theo just chuckled and shook his head, “you two are really meant for each other.”
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✿ Masterlist
A/N: I was listening to TTPD when this whole scene came to mind. It’s the fastest I've written and uploaded a fic so far.
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plutoispurplw · 1 day
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Fresh Out The Slammer
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Summary: You're going to see Spencer after he spent three months on the prision.
Couple: Spencer Reid x Fem!Reader
Warnings: Little angst, mention of prision and murder.
A/N: Hi everyone, guess who is back to write like is running out of time! Someone has to take TTPD away from me, now this is an addiction.
Sorry if this doesn't have to much to do wuth the song and remember, english is not my first language, so please tell me if I have an error.
Plss reblog it
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When Spencer was being held in custody in Mexico, you were anxious, you visited him and he was completely different from who you were accustomed to.
It was like he wasn’t mentally there, he looked like a mess and his mental stability was almost inexistent, you almost broke down when you saw him in that state.
After that visit, he didn’t let you go again to see him, he didn’t want you to see him in that state and was worried about your mental health even if he was worse in that matter.
You felt hurt at that moment but you decided to understand him and didn’t visit him again but you sent him letters, the first few letters he didn't respond to you, after some time he started to respond to your letters.
You have been feeling down all the time, being in your apartment made you feel miserable knowing he wasn't there, it felt lifeless there without his presence.
Your bed that once was your favorite place in the world became the worst place to be without his arms around you holding you and protecting you from all the things that happen out there.
You were cleaning the apartment when your phone started to ring, you took it to check who it was and when you saw his name you let out a scream. You quickly answer the call.
“Spencer, are you okay?” You said immediately when the call started, your voice was full of worry for him.
“Yes, I’m already out and I’m alright, don’t worry angel.” His voice sounded reassuring, even if he wasn’t alright he wouldn’t have told you but something inside you told you to believe him.
That calmed you instantly, knowing he was alright made your mind at peace, and the overthinking in your mind stopped even if it was for a moment.
“I’m going to be there in a couple of hours.” His voice sounded tired, knowing him you know that he hadn’t slept more than two hours or less in those three months
Now you were waiting for him in your apartment, sitting on your couch trying to read a book, but that task seemed impossible right now, your mind was only focused on the clock in the living room, checking it every few minutes.
It felt like the minutes were slowly becoming eternal, your heart was beating like it was going to get out of your chest, and your mind was running through a million thoughts at the same time.
Then you heard the door opening and you ran towards the entrance just like a little kid, when you saw him you just hugged him while tears began to spill from you’re eyes.
“I missed you so much.” You whispered against his neck, your voice breaking with every word you spoke. His hands were rubbing your back in a calming notion.
When you pulled back enough to see his face, you noticed that his face had tears spilling from his beautiful eyes, you removed them with your thumbs while you held his face in your hands.
“You don’t have any idea of how much I thought about you, All those nights, you kept me going. I read every letter you sent.” He pulled you towards him for a kiss. When his lips touched yours it was like being in heaven again.
You pulled away a little and put your head on his chest “I’m sorry that you had to go through all of that.” Your voice was weak and filled with sadness thinking about all the things that he had suffered, you looked to another side.
He pulled away a little and took you by the chin to make you see him, he started to speak again. “Even if I go through all of that, knowing that you were here is enough compensation for all the things that I had suffered in my life.”
You kissed again but with time it was more slowly and gently, the kiss was filled with the love that the two of you had for each other. You were sure that the love would never end between you two.
He was the one who you want to spend the rest of your life with him.
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milf-murdock · 3 days
Note
Hi!! I love love love your writing! Especially your 141!Reader series <3 I don't know if you take requests, but your last post about Simon and baby Joseph made me so angsty and I would love to read more angst from you. Could you please write about Simon thinking 141!Reader was KIA on a mission? Thank you!!!
Anon....who....who hurt you???? I’m kidding 😆 mostly 👀 But for real, this one HURT. Like. OUCH. This man has been through so fucking much…but let’s put him through a bit more 😈😈😈 also, I did very much hurt my own feelings with this one. So I’m thinking we might need a part two reunion because I don’t know if I can leave our Ghosty boy in shambles like this
Drip. Drip. Drip. 
The rain patters against the window in a steady rhythm.
Simon watches the fat raindrops roll down the small window pane, one foot anxiously tapping against the concrete floor. He didn’t know why he was called to Price’s office, but there was an ominous charge to the air. Call it a premonition, or maybe an instinct, but he knew in his bones that something was wrong. 
The click of the door handle pulls Simon from his thoughts as Price enters the office, a heavy silence filling the air. 
“What’s happened?” Simon's voice has a hard edge to it, cutting straight through the bullshit. Watchful eyes appraise every detail of Price’s body language, and Simon notes the deep sunken look of his captain’s eyes accentuated by a somber expression. 
Price avoids Simon's gaze, staring down at the oak desktop before him as he takes a seat. The captain wasn’t one to mince words or beat around the bush, but even he was having a hard time wrapping his mind around the situation despite his many years in the service.  
Simon's heart hammers in his chest, every second in the unknown feeling like an eternity. This isn’t right, he thinks to himself. 
Price steels himself with a deep inhale, pulling his gaze from the desk to face Simon head on, looking past the mask, speaking to the man he knew laid beneath. 
“I wanted you to hear this from me, son. You…deserve to hear this from me.” 
Simon stops breathing. 
With practiced determination, Price continues his speech, having rehearsed the words in his head the entire walk down to his office. 
“Reconnaissance mission, Operation Blackout, suffered multiple casualties after a long-range detonation by enemy action. There’s been no contact with the team, and rescue attempts were unsuccessful due to the extensive damage caused by the explosion. All team members are presumed KIA. The official course of action…”
The rest of Price’s speech is drowned out by the dull roar in Simon’s ears; his blood runs cold, his rigid body barely breathing. 
This can’t be happening. Not again. Never again. 
Simon's thoughts grip him by the heart, squeezing painfully. 
I can’t do this again.
He had already lost everyone once. Had built impenetrable walls, designed to protect him from this type of pain. 
But you. You and your goddamn charm, and your soft smiles, and your relentless fucking attitude. You broke down those walls brick by brick, made Ghost–no, made Simon– feel more like a man than he had in years. You slipped past his ironclad defenses and took his heart without him even realizing it. 
And just when he had finally opened up, just when he had finally convinced himself that maybe he could be happy–that you could be happy together. It all came crashing down. 
In the distance, Ghost could hear shouting. A chorus of denials piercing the air, heavy ragged breaths filling the silence between. 
A heavy hand fell on Ghost's shoulder and he found himself back in his body, looking up at Price, voice raw. 
With a stark realization, Ghost realizes it was him. He was the one shouting, the one gasping for breath. 
The world tilted out from under him. 
____________ 
Ghost left Price’s office a different man–a mere shell of the man who entered. With every step he took, he felt himself slipping further and further into the familiar safety of Ghost, an unpierceable facade moving through the world. 
Everything felt wrong. Every step. Every breath. He felt like he was moving underwater, every action taking twice the effort it should. 
The next few hours pass in a blur. The official order that he was being sent on leave. The ensuing argument with Price over the orders. He eventually just gave up. Leave, no leave, it didn’t fucking matter. 
None of it fucking matters. 
Johnny tries to see him before he leaves, meeting Simon on the tarmac. He tries to be there for his lieutenant, his friend. 
The red rim around Johnny’s eyes reminds Simon that he wasn’t the only one who had lost you. They had all lost you. But even that which should have been a comfort, a sort of kinship in the grief, meant nothing. Simon didn’t give a singular fuck. He turned away from Johnny mid-speech, leaving the Scotsman to sit in his grief alone as he watched Ghost disappear into the aircraft. 
____________ 
It takes every ounce of strength Ghost has to make it through the flight. To make it through the drive back home. To make it through that door. 
Keep it together, soldier. Don’t you dare fucking lose it, Simon Riley. Just a bit longer. 
His belongings crash to the floor as the door slams shut behind him. He doesn’t even bother turning on the light, instead using the faint glow of the moonlight through the curtains to guide him to the cabinet. 
Ghost pulls the bottle of bourbon from its resting spot, not even bothering with a glass as he pulls off the corked top and takes a hearty swig. 
The burn of the liquid is invigorating, filling Ghost with a quiet simmering fire. 
He takes another drink. And another. 
He walks through the flat in a daze, the amber liquid dulling his senses, sending him even deeper into the haze of his grief. 
Ghost finds himself in front of his dresser, staring at the wooden drawers. 
Taking another drink, he steels himself as he yanks open the top drawer. Rummaging beneath the pile of socks and t-shirts, Ghost digs out the small velvet box. He grips it tight in his hand, the small object groaning in protest as waves of rage and pain overtake Ghost, threatening to pull him under. Hot tears slide down his face, but he doesn’t even notice. 
With a roar he throws the velvet box across the room, the impact fracturing the drywall. Ghost’s knees go out from under him and he crashes to the floor, his heart shattering into a thousand pieces. There would be no repairing this. No amount of time could heal this type of heartbreak. 
You were dead. 
And as far as Ghost was concerned, Simon Riley died with you. 
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alicewritez · 1 day
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A Place To Call Home - Aaron Hotchner
word count: 886
summary: you were caught in an explosion on the last case, you told Hotch and the team that you were fine to go back into the field even though you hadn’t officially been cleared. Cue a worrying Hotch.
Aaron Hotchner x Reader
authors note: mentions of guns and violence, injury to reader but nothing too life threatening, mostly fluff. sorry it’s so short but after nearly a month of not posting anything, i’m trying to get back into the flow of things. hope you enjoy anyway! 💞
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“Y/N, hey - look at me.” Hotch murmured, his hands cupping each side of your face in an attempt to get you to concentrate on him and his voice.
A few weeks ago you’d been caught in an explosion on another case. You’d told the team you were fine and that you were ready to go back out into the field, but you hadn’t been cleared to yet. As a result of the explosion, your eardrum had burst, so with every loud noise, your ear would ring.
And it hurt.
Morgan was beside you and had just shot the unsub, the gunshot being enough to cause the ringing in your ear to begin again, your hand firmly placed over your ear as you winced. Hotch was more than worried.
“Easy, Y/N..” he murmured, “come here..” he gestured for you to move closer to him, pulling off his jacket and offering it to you. You wrap the jacket around your shoulders, suddenly feeling cold as you let yourself collapse into the safety of his arms.
“Hey, hey - you’re alright..” Hotch murmured, his hands moving to your hair, softly running his fingers through it as he tried to comfort you. “Don’t worry.. I’m here..” he whispered, hoping the sound of his voice would be, at least, somewhat soothing to you. Which it was.
“If you put your head on my chest,” he murmured, his other hand moving to your chin, turning your head so that he could look you in the eyes, “I’ll tell you stories- distract you from the noise..”
You rest your head on his chest. “If you could go anywhere in the world right now, where would you go?” You ask quietly, the ringing in your ears making you wonder whether or not Hotch had heard you.
“Mmm..” he hummed as he thought, his hands moving through your hair as you placed your head on his chest, him adjusting his arms around you as you settled into his embrace, moving into something more comfortable.
“To go anywhere,” he mumbled, the hand brushing through your hair moving to brush your hair back from your eyes, “If I had the opportunity to travel..”
“I would go to..” he pauses as a playful smirk crosses his face, “your bedroom - you want to know why?”
You playfully nudge him in his side but nod nonetheless. “Why?”
“Because I want to see you in your bed,” he murmured, his voice low in a subtle whisper, “You - in one of my t-shirts, sleeping..”
“Hotch,” you warn, “Not when the team are watching..”
“Mmm,” Hotch murmured, the urge strong - but you were right. He couldn’t let the rest of the team know.. “Fine..” he sighs. Though he did continue to rest his hand where it was, and he couldn’t help making his thumb graze up against your skin, making small circles around your thigh.
“Can we go home?” You ask quietly, burying your face further into his chest, relishing in his comfort.
“You want to go home?” He asks gently, one hand resting softly against the side of your head, his other resting against your thigh again as you shifted your head further into his chest. “We could..” he murmurs softly, leaning his head back, so that he was looking down at you, he gently ran a finger along your cheek. “Or..” he spoke softly, his voice more of a whisper, “Want to go to my place?”
Your eyes are closed as you speak softly. “That’s what I mean… home.”
A smile spreads across his lips as he realises what you’re saying.. his home. “You want to come to my place?” He mumbles, his hands beginning to shift, the hand on your thigh beginning to trace soft patterns into your skin.
“Yeah.. your place is home..”
“You’re calling my place.. home?” He murmurs, his hands still trailing along your thigh. He wanted to keep you close to him; wanted to kiss you. “I didn’t you felt that way..” he reaches out a hand to adjust your hair behind your ear.
He hums, shifting his hands back back around your waist, his grip being just enough to keep you close to him, moving his hand on your waist towards your lower back, shifting again so he could rest his head against yours.
“You’re going to be coming over more often then.. if my place is your home..”
You smile softly. “You’ll never be able to get rid of me.”
“Never want to,” he murmurs, a hint of a playful smile crossing his lips as he speaks, “You’re going to be my.. constant visitor,”
“Always making yourself comfortable whenever you want,” he continued, his voice becoming lower as he spoke, “You’ll have a key.. full access to my home..”
“Good,” you nestle further into him.
“You’re going to make yourself too comfortable..” he murmurs, his voice a whisper, “Be moving in with me.. before you know it..”
“Be sleeping there every night.. showering there every day…” he murmured, the hand on your waist tightening its grip.
And he was right. Not even three months later you had officially moved into his place, your belongings slowly mixing in with his around the house. You finally had a place where you felt safe and comfortable. It was a place you could always call home.
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nervoushottee · 2 days
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More | John Price x Fem! Reader
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Summary: You’re stressed out of your mind and John knows exactly what you need to relax
Warnings: Explicit 18+, just sex, just porn little plot, you’re getting fucked from the back babes
Notes: Y’all this is literally a pattern. I’m ovulating… I’ve been reading a lot of 141 fanfiction and I just needed to write about my big man Price. Enjoy hottees
*this is unedited and probably doesn’t make any sense. Sorry not sorry*
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“Fuck John-” you mutter out. You can hardly hear yourself with how loud and filthy he’s fucking into you. Your brain fuzzy, all the contents of worry and stress slowly easing out of you with each thrust.
Your cheek pressed against the soft sheets of his bed, your hands placed on each side of you as your fingers softly curl into the linen. You back arched as your ass hits against his lower stomach and pelvis. His thick cock making your insides clench when he hits that certain spot. You don’t even notice the small amount of drool slipping out of your mouth onto the mattress.
“This is all you needed isn’t it? Just need me to fuck the stress out of that pretty head of yours. My sweet girl, fucking look at you.” John explains. You whine at his words, clenching at the way he calls you his sweet girl. You were, you were his good girl. His. His. His.
Hours before, you were stressed out of your mind with everything that had been happening. You couldn’t even imagine how John manages to handle everything with being Captain. The small amount of work compared to his big load made you feel like shit for complaining, stressing and crying over it to your lover. But you should’ve know better, because John Price would never think your stressors were lesser than his.
You were his world, his everything. If you asked him to jump, he would ask how high. If you need ice cream that was only made in Italy, he would be on the next flight out. If you need comfort from your stressors, he is going to give it to you. And he thought the best way to give it to you this time to fuck your brain dumb.
“It’s been a while since I’ve fucked you like this love.” The sound of his voice grounding you from your haze. His hands sliding against your ass, gripping softly before releasing. He wasn’t wrong. Usually, your sexual rendezvous were soft, intimate and saccharine. An intense love shared between you two after a long day on base. Slow and pleasurable that you loved all the same. But when the was time for this, you loved every minute of it.
“More.” you whine into the sheets. Your words were muffled, but you knew John heard you all the same. You feel his dick slow down inside of you, causing you to whimper, feeling the weight of John’s chest against your back. “You sure love?” he whispers against your ear. You push your ass against him, ushering him to move. Wiggling and making an effort to show him you wanted more. You hear him groan against your ear, peppering kisses down your neck.
“Yes sir. Please.”
The last bit of contact you got from him was a soft kiss against your shoulder before he got back into his position and started to ram into you. This time at a deafening pace than before.
You gasp at the sudden change of pace and cry out loudly. Fuck this feels so good. The way he pushes his thickness in and out of you so quickly. Making you feel winded, numb and so fucking blissful.
“Fucking love when you talk to me like that. My good fucking girl. You’re so good to me, letting me fuck you like this.” You feel your lips turn up into a small smile as you grip the sheets tightly into your hands. You knew your words would put him over the edge like this. He’s always calm and collected, always catering to your needs and wants. But sometimes, most times, you wanted him to let loose. To go all the way with you, and lose himself. He didn’t always need to be this perfect captain he tries so hard to be. He was perfect in every way to you. But you wanted him to make you his, to unwrap his fantasies on to you and let you take care of him.
His hands gripping your ass firmly, moving you so you can match his thrusts. He wasn’t stopping his rhythm. If anything he was going even faster, chasing his own pleasure as you simply take what he gives you. “Thank you sir- thank you, please don’t stop- please.”you cry out. You hear him chuckle at your words.
“Oh love, I’m just getting started.”
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lovelyjj · 23 hours
Note
hey! Can you write insecure reader who stops eating and her boyfriend JJ finds out?
I love all your works btw! 😽🫶
Insecure
jj maybank x reader
a/n: thank you and thank you so much for requesting!
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It was hard not to compare yourself to other girls. When you were at the beach all you could think about is the bodies of the other girls. They had tiny waists and long legs. Their hair was perfect and you just wished you looked like them.
The fact that you had to wear a bikini to the beach made you not want to go. Showing off your body is quite possibly the last thing you would ever want to be doing. So you would ether not go or wear a sweatshirt and say you weren’t tanning or swimming.
It was also hard to see the same girls at the beach flirt with your boyfriend. JJ would blow them off and reassure you that that you were the only one for him. JJ didn’t even glance in their direction. He was completely devoted to you. Yet you still felt like he deserved better.
All you could think about is how horrible you looked. You were far from how the girls at the beach looked, and you couldn’t help but think you were ugly. You were deeply insecure and you didn’t know how to fix it.
You felt uncomfortable in your own skin and not good enough for anyone or anything. You were tired of feeling this way, it was draining. You were also feeling hopeless. Your mind was your worst enemy. Every time you looked in the mirror you cringed. So, you tried to avoid doing that at all times.
When food was placed in front of you you would almost gag. You didn’t want to eat. It was too much. You thought maybe if you stopped eating you would become thinner and look like all the other girls with tiny waists.
You didn’t mean to it just sort of happened. You thought you were just not hungry, but then you were skipping meals. a lot of meals. You have stopped eating all together and you were hoping that you would get good results out of it.
JJ wasn’t stupid, he knew something was wrong he just didn’t know what. He noticed that he hasn’t seen you eat in a long time. He also noticed that you’ve lost some weight. Of course your weight didn’t matter to him but he was concerned for your health.
The chateau was busy with all the pogues in it. They were all getting ready to go in the hot tub. You were having a dilemma because you didn’t want to get into a swimsuit. So you decided you wouldn’t go in.
“What’s up buttercup?” JJ asked.
“Nothing just chillin,” you spoke.
“How are you, seriously?” JJ asked. He was concerned about you. He was watching you decline and he hated it.
“Um m’fine,” you replied.
“I think we need to talk,” JJ put forth.
“what about?”
“I haven’t seen you eat in a long time and I’m worried about you,” JJ confessed.
You let out a deep sigh. You did not want to have this conversation right now.
“Don’t worry about it JJ,” you instructed.
“No I will worry about it because i worry about you. You’re my girl and I care about you. I’m concerned. Please baby, talk to me.” JJ begged.
“I just want to feel pretty,” tears filled your eyes but you didn’t let them fall.
“I thought maybe if I stop eating, I would loose some weight.” You looked down on the floor avoiding JJ’s eyes.
“You know I think you’re the most beautiful girl in the world right?!”
“Baby please look at me.”
You did as you were told, reluctantly.
“I want you to listen to me when I say this. You’re perfect just the way you are. I love you and I love your body. I think you’re gorgeous. It breaks my heart that you don’t see it. I wish you could see yourself through my eyes.”
You gave JJ a sad smile.
“Come here,” JJ opened his arms for you to get into.
Once you were in JJ’s arms he kissed your cheek. Then he kissed your forehead. He then kissed your temple. “My beautiful girl, love you so much!” Then he kissed your lips.
“How about I order a pizza?” JJ suggested.
“I don’t know jayj,” you shrugged.
“Come on please baby I need you to eat something for me. I don’t want you to wither away. I care about you and your health.”
“I’ll eat with you, I will even help you. If you want me too,” JJ shrugged.
“Jayj…”
“No come on, I’m ordering the pizza, end of story.”
You gave JJ a small smile silently thanking him but you were more so just done protesting. You knew JJ meant well you were just stubborn. It meant a lot to you that he cared so much about you. You thought it was sweet. You just really didn’t want to eat.
The pizza was delivered and you were dreading eating it. JJ took the pizza to his room so you could have some privacy.
“I know you don’t want to eat but i’m right here I’m not going anywhere and I want you to nourish your body.”
“okay jayj.”
JJ sat with you and helped you eat. He was understanding and considerate. He wanted to be there for you during this hard time. With JJ’s help you were able to eat something.
“There you go baby, good job! I’m proud of you,” JJ praised.
“Thank you J.”
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