#ETERNAL PINING HELL | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

ohbother2 · 3 months

Note

Tha hazbin hotel brainrot is so strong, your writing is so good im kicking feet hsujsjsn

May i request a Lucifer X reader where they are pining so badly for each other and ends up in a situation where they are very close to one another? Like the classic " oh shit we're stuck in a small space together and so close" or "whoops tripped and fell now I'm pinning you down and panicking" kind of thing but it's really all up to you <3 and then they end up just full on making out lol, cause yearning,,

(I simply need making out fics with the short king he's taking over my brain😭)

Thanks for requesting!! I had a lot of fun with this one :) Hope you enjoy! Also, I only realised when I went to post this that this ask didn't specify a f!reader, but I thought it did so just a warning for you guys. It's not too specific but... not entirely gender neutral.

This probably borderlines smut, so... minors DNI.

Lucifer x f!reader

PART II

You had been Lucifer's secretary for many years now, joining him just after the disappearance of his ex-wife Lilith when he had decided he needed more help with his duties. You had been there for some of the worst years of his life, assisting him through the highs and lows of being the King of Hell, had seen him at his worst, and at his best. You had helped guide him from the deepest depths of depression, and for that he was eternally grateful, batting away the darkness with a smile enchanting enough to light up the dingiest corners of Hell. He truly didn't know what he would do without you, and today that was evermore apparent.

It had been a long day, and Lucifer found himself sat at his large desk, dark bags sitting heavy underneath his tired and bloodshot eyes, jacket and hat discarded and head resting in his hands as he tried to focus on the mountains of paperwork scattered along his ornate desk. He had been stuck in this position for hours, and he could feel his back creak and something in his neck twinge whenever he shifted. He truly desired nothing more than to crawl into bed, but he had duties that he couldn't just abandon.

A soft knock at his door signals your presence, and only his gaze lifts when you enter, tray in hand and that familiar comforting smile adorned on your rosy lips. Your smile morphs into something more fond as you approach the hunched man, who runs his hands through his disheveled locks and leans back in his plush chair, hands rubbing at the tiredness of his eyes and dragging down his cheeks. He looked tired, he looked weary, his waistcoat unbuttoned, his shirt wrinkled and rolled to his elbows, blonde locks falling across his forehead. You always loved when he looked a little disheveled, appreciating his strong forearms that flexed as he clenched his hands into his hair. It was more rugged than he ever let himself look in any other situation, and you couldn't get enough. You had to fight a frown at seeing how utterly exhausted he was, however, not enjoying the darkness encircling his bright eyes. He didn't hide these things from you, he had no need to; you wouldn't threaten his power at seeing this display of weakness, you would just smile and offer reassurance, appearing with a cup of steaming tea to quell his nerves.

"Good evening, sir." You place the tray against the edge of the desk, trying not to disturb any of the numerous documents that lay strewn about, though you doubted there was any system to the disarray.

"'Evening." He leans further back in his chair, watching you tiredly as you shuffle some of his papers to the side. "How many times do I need to tell you not to call me that? We're good friends, 'Your Royal Highness' is more than fine.''

"Apologies, 'Your Majesty'." You attempt a curtsy, though that was hard with the tight pencil skirt you had chosen to wear today. He laughs at your efforts, taking the steaming tea from your hands with a grateful nod, sighing as the scolding liquid reaches his lips.

"You're marvellous, you know? I don't know what I'd do without you."

"I brought you some tea." You back-hand his compliment away, as you always did, gaze turning to try and decipher some of his scrawling writing. You always found it easier to fight away the blush rising to your cheeks by confusing yourself with his work, that method hadn't failed you yet.

"You're here on a Friday night, looking after some tired old sod, when I'm sure you had many potential plans to go to." His gaze travels up from your hip that you had propped against the desk to tidy some books, up past the curve of your waist, the swell of your chest, gaze lingering a little too long on the collarbone that peaked from beneath your blouse, before finally resting on your face. He stares again, sipping slowly from his cup, far too long for a boss to appreciate an employee, mapping the curve of your brows, the light downturn of your lips as you tried to read something on the desk, the way your hair cascaded around your features. He was tired, he usually controlled himself better. "I wish you'd take a weekend off some time."

Your gaze finally returns to him, satisfied with the state of his desk and you lean back, both hands gripping the desk ledge. "Hypocritical coming from you, don't you think? When did you last have a weekend off?"

"Hmm," He hums, finishing his drink and placing it onto his desk. He rolls his neck in an effort to rid of the crick that was increasingly bothering him. You notice, you frown. "If I am nothing else, call me a hypocrite. You should be out - I don't want to see you here tomorrow night, I want to see you on Sunday morning with a horrendous hangover and stories to tell me."

You laugh, the King of Hell instructing you to go and shirk off your responsibilities and get smashed? Only Lucifer would tell an employee that.

"We both know that won't happen." You grin, taking the opportunity to reach forward and push some of his blonde locks back from his forehead, attempting to push them back into their usual immaculate style. He swallows tightly as you do, having to fight himself from leaning into your touch. You were so gentle, and that fond smile remained etched onto your face as you did so, and God he wanted you to keep caressing his face until he fell asleep right then and there. "Come on now Luci, this place would fall apart without me."

"I can cope one day without you." He bluffs, leaning heavily onto his right armrest and closer to you, legs crossing as he fully relaxes - work didn't matter right now, you did.

"You're so sure?" You shift your stance, and he notices in his peripheral how your tight skirt lifted slightly, exposing more of your milky thigh.

"Not at all." His confidence in the statement has you laughing lightly, the King of Hell grinning up at you and admitting how royally screwed he would be without you. "In fact, I'd probably be dead the next time you walked into work. But wouldn't that be a fun story?"

"I would much rather you be alive." You slowly leave your position leant against the desk, deciding enough was enough as he winces again and rubs at a sore spot in his neck. "I do quite enjoy your company, you know."

Your hands suddenly fall against his shoulders, and he lurches in his seat, shrinking away from the cold pads of your fingers that pressed delicately against either of his shoulder blades.

"Uh-" His voice is uncharacteristically high pitched, and he has to clear his throat to stop it from breaking embarrassingly. "Y/N, what are you-" His fingers grip at his thighs as your fingers move, pressing firmly against his worn muscles. Oh heavens, that felt good.

"You've been rubbing your neck since I walked through the door." You explain, completely focussed on your task at hand and unaware of the red hue that was steadily growing on Lucifer's rosy cheeks. "You need to give yourself a break."

This was rather a bold move from yourself, but you were nothing if not opportunistic. That's how you landed this job in the first place. Your hands work steadily, finally reaching the centre of his back and gliding your thumbs up his spine, up the centre of his neck, and directly into the base of his skull. His head rocks forward lightly at the movement and he groans at the action. You continue to work at his neck, and he remains sat, eyes closed tightly, clawed hands nearly tearing through his own trousers, bruising his own thighs, feeling as though he were back in Heaven. He could feel how close you were, the heat of your body wafting across his neck and shoulders as you worked, and he had to concentrate immensely to control the sounds that wanted to escape his throat. He had nearly combusted on the spot when he had audibly groaned, but you hadn't commented on it, for which he was eternally grateful.

After several minutes, that both felt like an eternity of torture and mere seconds of bliss for Lucifer, you pull your hands back, finishing with one final carding of your fingers through the short tufts of hair at his nape. His eyes open blearily at the loss of contact, blinking heavily as he watches you gather the tray into your arms, adorning his empty cup, and a stack of paperwork.

"Y/N what are you- absolutely not, leave those here." He reaches for the papers now stacked on your tray, and you lift it higher out of his reach unless he stood. He realises his dilemma, firmly rooted into his seat unless he wanted to make an incredibly embarrassing and inappropriate reveal.

"It's only the menial stuff I do sometimes." You step away from the desk slowly, heels clicking as you go. "Besides, it's barely made a dent. I'll have them finished and with you tomorrow morning."

"You should be sleeping." He warns, leaning his elbows against his desk and watching you leave.

"No no." You mock, pausing with a hand on the handle to the door. "We should be up and having fun, making embarrassing stories to share tomorrow. I, for one, can't wait to hear about the hilarious tales of Lucifer and his mountains of paperwork. I'll make sure my story is juicy, these accounting papers are always full of gossip." You lie plainly, and Lucifer shakes his head with a grin.

"Thank you." He calls as you open the door. "I mean it."

"I always have you to thank for a wild Friday night." You grin, finally leaving through the door you had entered from with a bow of your head.

Lucifer sinks into his seat, sighing heavily as the room plunges into silence once again. He stares at the papers that still littered his desk - you had lied, you had taken a sizeable amount. Your presence had helped, and your fingers had fully relaxed the tight muscles in his back and neck, and he felt immensely better than he had mere minutes before. However, you had created an entirely new problem. He shifts at the uncomfortable tightness to his trousers, hands dragging through his hair as he thought, hard. There was no point sitting here if he wasn't able to focus. He raises from his seat, cursing his inability to man up and just tell you how he felt.

Bathroom first, and then he would focus on his paperwork.

---

A month later, Lucifer had been in charge of organising a fancy ball with some incredibly important guests - the 7 Sins of Hell and a smattering of other Royal households, as well as general persons of influence from all 7 rings. The event was to be held in the Pride ring, and as soon as it had been organised he had practically pleaded with you to attend. You hadn't been able to go to the previous events, being stuck in the Pride ring due to your human-soul. Lucifer had been ecstatic when he realised you could attend, and had nearly cried when you had agreed to go with him. Not as a date, no, definitely not, but as friends.

"We're late!" Your voice shouts as you hurry through the door to Lucifer's office, heels in one hand and your purse in the other. Your eyes land on Lucifer, who was stood fiddling with his tie in front of a mirror on the wall, forked tongue stuck out as he concentrated. "Luci, the driver's outside."

"I know, I know." He stresses, finishing off his tie and attempting to smooth down the lapels of his jacket, finally turning towards you as he arranged his cuff sleeves. "It's fine, he'll w-wait-" He stutters as his eyes finally land on you, pupils widening significantly as he forces out "for us."

You never really dolled yourself up that much, usually wearing typical office attire, and sometimes even wearing casual clothes if you were in the office particularly late. Tonight, you had gone full out - you pretended it was because of the nerves about being around such powerful figures in Hell, in reality, you wanted to impress Lucifer, you likely wouldn't get another opportunity to doll yourself up so much again, and you wanted to make the most of it. Even if nothing happened, you wanted to prove you could be just as beautiful as the Overlords and Royalty he frequented.

As you stand, hesitantly, reapplying your rouge lipstick with your small compact mirror and fluffing your hair, Lucifer stands star-struck, eyes glued to your figure. You wore an elegant black velvet dress that clasped around the back of your neck. The elegant midnight coloured dress hugged your torso tightly, and Lucifer's gaze hovered heavily. The fabric was tight and emphasised your curves, with the neckline dipping down sinfully low and exposing the rivulet between your breasts, a beautiful ruby jewel hanging from a silver chain right between the valley of your breasts, the dress cinched tightly at your waist and fell elegantly from your hips. He could see one of your smooth legs from a slit in the side of the dress. You close the mirror and pop it back into your silver purse, smiling brightly at the stunned man.

"My- Y/N you look stunning." Lucifer compliments, leaning back against his desk as he finishes clasping his cuff links. "A vision. Dare I say, I'll be having to fight away the suitors all evening."

You blush furiously, thankful for the makeup that covered your cheeks. He pauses, swallowing thickly as you bend down to begin fastening your shoes.

"Please stay away from Asmodeus."

You laugh as you continue to fiddle with your shoes, glancing up at him as you tie the clasp. "You flatterer. Should I expect to see you pulling these moves on all the girls there tonight?"

You jest, but Lucifer is so enraptured by you he cannot help but feel insulted you would even think he would entertain the notion of other women. He speaks quietly, watching you struggle to gain your balance as you try and put on the other heel. "Not at all."

He didn't know what compelled him to do it, maybe it was the way you wobbled as you tried to get into your second shoe, likely it was the fact he'd already had two glasses of wine to quell his nerves, but before he realises it he's kneeling in front of you and grasping your ankle in a feather-light grip.

You freeze as his hands replace your own, sliding your foot easily into your heel as your hand comes to rest on his shoulder to regain your balance. He works slowly, gently fixing the clasp of your elegant heel, head turning up towards you and smiling up at you. Your breath catches in your throat, Lucifers hands resting against your ankle and calf, disarming you with a charming smile and lidded eyes, and kneeling directly in front of you. His hand slides up your calf as he lets you go, standing back to his full height easily, now a little shorter than you with your heels properly on.

"T-Thank you." You breathe, fixing the slit of your dress that had become creased. Your own hands reach forward, straightening his tie and smoothing down his collar. "You look very handsome yourself."

He smiles, self-satisfied, as you fix his collar, and then immediately schools his expression to hide his awe-struck grin when he realises you were actually looking at him. "Thank you, thank you." He chirps, cane materialising in his left hand and twirling it, trying to distract himself from how close you were, and how absolutely beautiful you looked. "I think we'll make quite an entrance. Don't you?" He offers you his right arm, and you take it with a grateful nod as you both leave the office and head towards the taxi. "That is, if you manage to walk down all those stairs with those stilts under your feet."

"I'm excellent in heels." You defend, rather enjoying the way your arm brushes against his chest as you walk, the smell of his expensive cologne reaching your nose. "We'll have a problem if you start drinking, you can barely stand straight after a bottle of wine, and I certainly can't carry you home in these heels."

"Oh? You're insulting my drinking skills? What about the time I had to come and collect you from a party I wasn't even invited to, to teleport you home? I could barely understand you through the phone." He clears his throat, raising his voice high and slurring his words mockingly. "Luci- I-I'm not drunk, BUT-"

You whack his shoulder, remembering the night perfectly, and utterly mortified he had had to guide you home after you'd had a few too many. "Shut up, you're no better at holding your drink."

He laughs, and you feel the rumble of his chest against your forearm. "I suppose we'll have to wait and see."

---

It had been several months since the party, and Lucifer was growing increasingly frustrated at his inability to make any sort of move on you. Hell, he hadn't even kissed your hand, which was something he had had to do to more people than he could count. He was desperate to make his feelings known, and yet was utterly paralysed whenever the opportunity arose for him to express them. It didn't help that ever since his stunt with your heel, you had become more emboldened with your flirting attempts, but he always doubted whether your words and actions were actually meant flirtatiously, or if he was just romanticising all of your interactions in his own head.

The party had been... uneventful. True to his predictions, Lucifer had been having to whisk you away from attempted suitors all night, and at one point had grown so irate at a particular demon's attempts he had placed a hand at the small of your back and refused to remove it until the demon had thoroughly gotten the point and left the conversation. The event had only made him realise his feelings more for you, being positively furious that he couldn't just tell the other demon's you were his, and to piss off back to whatever Ring they had come from. The next passing months had been nothing short of torture as he grappled with whether to confess, or not.

Despite his wishes, things had carried on as normal, and it was absolutely maddening. He had even spoken to Charlie about his dilemma, but she hadn't been much help, just shrieking at him excitedly through the phone. He had been so desperate he had nearly asked Asmodeus for help, but he had quickly decided against that after remembering some of the stunts he had pulled in their younger years.

Now, he sat back at his desk at 2am, frowning after realising he didn't have all the documents he needed. His hat and jacket were once again discarded, and his sleeves pushed up to his elbows in his signature 'I am having a bad day' fashion.

"Y/N!" He calls, and your head pokes out from a filing cupboard you had been tasked with organising. He smiles at you, a hand running through his hair as he sits back. "Can you please find me the letter we got from Wrath about the expenses for that new armament shop? I think it was sent by a Mr. Pennine."

"Yep!" You chirp, disappearing back into the cupboard with the sounds of shuffling papers increasing. Lucifer scans the document in his hands, patiently awaiting the file.

He hears a thump, and a groan, and he straightens in his chair, trying to see what you were doing.

"I've found it." You emerge, rubbing the base of your spine with a wince. An airy laugh falls form his lips.

"What did you do?"

"It's on a high shelf that I can't reach - I fell trying to climb and get it."

Lucifer laughs properly this time, already beginning to stand from his seat and head towards you, shoulders shaking as he does.

"It's not funny."

"I think you'll find it's hilarious." He grins, walking past you and into the small storage cupboard. "Right, where is it?" He glances around the cupboard with an eyebrow raised. He hated this kind of menial work, and was frankly terrible at locating things within this jumbled mess. "I have no clue how this system works."

"Hmm, filing has never been your strong suit." You hum, appearing behind him, having to press close in the small space. A hand appears in his peripheral, motioning over his shoulder to a shelf even he would have to climb to reach. He sighs, releasing a breath as he places a foot against an unsteady shelving unit.

"Yes, another one of my many limitations. Thankfully you're so good at finding things for me." He grins over his shoulder at you, hauling himself up until he's at eye level with the correct shelf. You stand beneath him, arms outstretched tentatively, just in case.

"If I fall, I fully expect you to save me." He comments, brows furrowed as he sifts through the files, looking for a 'Mr Pennine' to catch his eye. When he does find it, he wafts the document about his head, calling down to your worried expression. "Seems I'm doing a better job than my own assistant."

You cock your head at him, taking a small step back as he readies to climb down. "Truly, don't even know why I'm here sometimes-"

You hear a worrying creak as his foot lands on the next shelf down, and his gaze locks with yours for a mere moment before the shelf breaks and he plummets to the ground. He lands on you with a yell, flattening you against the floor and opposite wall and sprawled across your lap in a heap. The whole cupboard shakes with the fall, and the door slams shut with surprising force, plunging the room into darkness.

Lucifer groans, pushing himself back up onto his knees, rubbing an elbow tenderly as he attempts to stand, back smacking into another shelf as he tries to back up. You groan as well, hunched against the wall and thoroughly winded, not entirely sure what had happened.

"Y/N! I'm so sorry, are you alright?!" Lucifer attempts to bend down to reach you, glowing eyes staring at you through the darkness, but his back smacks against another shelf. He stands there, half-hunched, useless as you try and push yourself to your feet, clinging onto a shelf to haul you upright. He can feel you moving against his legs, the cupboard really not meant to house two bodies, and when you finally stand your body presses far too close to his for comfort. He smacks the cupboard door harshly, hoping that the lock hadn't fully sealed from the outside, but the hinges remain firm. "Oh, fuck." He groans, leaning back against a shelf and staring down at you, one hand still pressed pathetically against the door. "Looks like we're trapped."

You, on the other hand, are unable to see anything except the glowing pair of amber and ruby eyes staring down at you, not possessing the enhanced vision Lucifer did. Your hands search the walls aimlessly, and you attempt to press yourself back into the opposite wall to try and create some space. Despite both of your best efforts, you can still feel the heat emanating from his body, barely inches of space between you. "Can you portal us out?" You question desperately, blinking furiously to try and see more of your surroundings.

"There isn't enough room."

You both plunge into silence, and you wring your hands together nervously. Who would find you? When was the next person scheduled to meet Lucifer? It was 2am, who else would be awake at this time? God, he was so close, you could feel his breath fanning across your forehead and hair. You rub at a saw spot near your temple, having smacked into a shelf during Lucifer's rapid decent.

A hand lands against the side of your face without warning, and you jerk at the unexpected contact in the darkness.

"Sorry!" Lucifer draws his hand back as quickly as he had placed it, returning it to his side and flexing his fingers. "I forget you can't see as well." His hand approaches much more slowly, fingers carding your hair away from your face. "I was just trying to check your head, you hit it pretty hard when I fell on you. When I said I expected you to save me, I didn't mean to sacrifice yourself as my landing pad."

"That's what I'm here for." You joke, missing the contact as he withdraws his hand, satisfied that the skin hadn't broken. "I'm fine, don't worry." You smile despite the darkness, knowing he could see.

"We'll be fine." He assures, though he wasn't sure if he was talking to you or himself, he laughs to himself, trying to dispel the anxiety in his chest. "Someone will find us soon."

You hum, doubting him very much. All you could do was wait.

God-knows how long you had spent in that closet, but it didn't take long before you were unbuttoning the first few buttons of your blouse and complaining about the heat. Lucifer hadn't been his normal chatty self, and instead leant heavily against the shelves behind him, hands gripping at the shelves that ran along either wall to prevent himself from reaching out towards you. You were so close, so warm and smelling so sweat pressed against him, all it would take was an inch of moment, barely a lift of a finger, and he'd be able to pull you close, to draw you towards his chest just like he had dreamed about for years now. It didn't help that you kept shifting your weight from foot to foot, feet aching from the amount of time you had just had to stand still, seemingly completely unaware of the way it made your hip rub against his pelvis.

He was a sweating, panicking mess, and he had twisted his torso uncomfortably, back hunched, to prevent the effects of your movements on him pressing against you. He could see your innocent expression through the darkness, the way your eyes searched blindly in the cramped space, and he wanted nothing more than to reach forward and press his lips against your neck, and not stop until someone found you the next morning.

But, he was a gentleman, and he had control, despite what his body was doing of its own accord, and so he gripped the shelving either side of your head and tried desperately to think about other things.

That was until you tried to lean against the shelf to your left, causing your thigh to rub the slowly growing bulge he had been desperately trying to hide. Lucifer's breath hitches in the darkness.

"Are you okay?" You ask, having picked up on his quickened breathing. You couldn't see him at all despite the amber eyes that flicked around the room incessantly, but you could feel his legs pressing against yours, and you could faintly feel the presence of an arm close to your head. When his amber irises land on you, you have a perfect view of the way they dilate, and you furrow your brows. "Is there something wrong?"

"God, would you stop moving." His voice was tight, straining in his throat as he tried his best to remain composed. He was fully aware you weren't even doing anything, but a love-sick pining man pressed so close up against his crush for so long? Who could blame a man for growing flustered.

You shift, attempting to lean towards him to see what was wrong, but two hands are suddenly on your hips and pushing you away from him and back into the shelf behind you, grip vice-like over the fabric of your trousers. You can feel his ragged breath against your forehead. "Heaven, please stop."

"What are you-" You go to argue, but the way his grip tightens against your hips has you halting. You stare for a moment, and it takes you far too long to put the pieces together in your mind: the dilated pupils, the shaky breaths, the way he pushes you away from his hips. Oh.

"Sir, it's okay-"

"Please stop talking." He practically begs, face a fiery red and really wishing for death right about now. "I'm sorry. It's inappropriate. You keep moving and you're so close. You don't have to work for me again after this, I'll understand-"

"Lucifer," You interrupt his rambling, hands coming to rest atop his own on your hips, sliding them up his forearms and resting atop the junction of his elbow. "you know you're the densest man I've ever met."

No response greets you for a moment.

"I said I'm sorry, you don't have to insult me too."

The hurt in his voice has your face twisting into a sympathetic smile. He really was oblivious.

"I'm insulting you, because there's an opportunity right in front of you, and you're not taking it."

You can hear the way his breathing deepens. "What do you-"

You lean forward, impossibly closer, chest pressing against his own. You can feel the way he gasps at the contact. He still has a hold of your hips, pining them away from him like a man burned.

"I'm going to die." He suddenly blurts, his breaths short and panting. His composure was slipping. "You're going to kill me if you keep doing that."

"I'd much prefer it if you didn't die." One of your hands slides up from his arm to his shoulder, burrowing into the fabric there. A high sound catches in Lucifer's throat, and you grin. "In fact, I'd prefer it if you kissed me like I've been inviting you to for the past few years."

His mind runs blank, nothing but the sound of his heart beat ricocheting between his ears. You wanted this? You wanted him?

"I don't think you understand." He stutters out, arms beginning to end their fight and allowing you to inch closer to him. "I don't want this, I want you. D-Dates-" He falters as your hand travels up his neck to the tufts of hair at the back of his head, gently scratching at his scalp. "and cheesy stuff, not just... filing cupboards."

He'd die if he got to have you only for a few hours, and then had to live the rest of his life returning to mere friendship. He would starve to death.

"It's about time you asked."

"You really want this?" He asks, voice small. His breathing was getting harder.

"Yes." You breathe. "I have for a long time."

That was all the indication he needed, and his lips crashed against yours as his hands enveloped your waist and dragged you flush against him. You gasped at the suddenness, enjoying the feeling of his soft lips atop yours in a delicate, passionate, kiss. One of his large hands remains at the small of your back, keeping you pressed against him as the other travelled up your spine, cradling the back of your head and holding you steady as he presses into you. He groans as your fingers tighten in his hair, both of your hands winding around his neck as you push up into him.

He pulls away for breath, his hot breath fanning your cheeks as he pants. You can see his eyes, half-lidded but impossibly bright, pupils the largest you had ever seen them, staring directly into your own. "Do you have any idea how crazy you've driven me over the past years?" He asks rhetorically, voice low and husky. You don't have a chance to answer before he's kissing you again, a hand gripping at your jaw and neck as he tilts his head, his brows furrowing as he pours all his concentration into the kiss. He kisses like a man starved, like a man who depended on your lungs for oxygen, like a man who would die if he separated for a moment too long. His forked tongue slides against your bottom lip and you open your mouth without question. He licks into your mouth with giddy enthusiasm, groaning into you as his tongue finally slips into your mouth, groaning louder as you submit, tugging at his hair and allowing him to push you back into the door with a thud.

His hand falls from your neck, resuming its place against your hip, thumbs pressing dangerously into your hip bones and pinning you against the wall. You gasp against him as his fingers inch their way beneath the bottom of your blouse, pressing harshly into your supple skin as he sucks the air from your lungs.

You feel dizzy when he pulls away again, and as you catch your haggard breath he ducks his head to graze his lips against your throat. He peppers kisses beneath your ear as a hand slides down to grasp the curve of your ass, the other continuing to pin your hips against the door as he presses his hips flush against your own, rolling his hips lightly. He delves down lower, tongue snaking its way down towards the junction between your neck and shoulder, his fangs nipping at your skin as he presses hot open-mouthed kisses against your pulse point.

"Oh-" You gasp, hands clinging onto his broad shoulders as he corrals you against the doorframe. You tilt your head up and to the side, exposing your neck to him as he hums happily. He finds the spot he wants and presses his teeth harshly against your skin, suckling hungrily and lapping at the bruising skin with his tongue. You groan, a hand gripping his hair as he rolls his hips up, biting into your shoulder as he moans. He grinds against you, continuing to lavish your throat with his eyes closed happily, moaning and groaning into your skin. His breath catches when you roll your hips down to meet his thrusts, and he whimpers when you tug at his hair painfully when he abuses one spot on your neck too much.

"Sir-" You gasp, and suddenly his lips are withdrawn from your neck, and his wide lidded eyes are staring directly into your own. Both of your breathing is ragged as you anticipate his next move, heart in your throat.

"How many times have I told you to stop calling me that?" His hips still against your own, and you whine trying to rub against him, but he pins you in place and rests his lips against your ear, whispering, begging, against your ear. "How many more times do I need to?"

You shudder at his hot breath, hands uselessly clinging to the collar of his ruffled shirt. "Just once more."

"Say," A kiss, pressed heavily against the underside of your jaw. "my" Another kiss, hot against the column of your throat. "name." Another, lavished between your collarbones right at the hollow of your throat. You gasp at the staggering sensation, his tongue wet and hot across your collarbone.

"Lucifer." You gasp, voice high and airy. He rewards you with a grin and a fierce kiss against your lips, pressing your head back into the doorframe. You moan his name again, and his hips rock up into yours involuntarily.

"It's unfair, the effect you have." Lucifer whispers, hands sliding up your sides and beginning to unbutton your blouse. He presses a kiss at the corner of your lips as you help him with the unbuttoning. "That massage you gave me?" You can feel his breath against your lips, and you have to fight not to lean forward into him as he gently pushes your blouse from your shoulders, warm hands sliding down your arms and the fabric bunching at your elbows, not quite falling all the way. "I had to take care of myself afterwards." He tuts against your lips, each purse of his lips pressing a ghost of a kiss to your own, but not quite giving what you wanted. A knee presses between your legs as he delves his tongue into your mouth, and you're too distracted to notice until he rolls his hips into your leg and pushes his thigh up against you. His claws dig at the tender flesh of your sides, leaving light scratches as he returns to your lips, grinning against you as you gasp and whine.

"You're not so innocent." You gasp as he leaves your bruising lips to return to his path down your neck, know able to reach your shoulders and chest, which he takes full advantage of. A hand grasps your thigh firmly and hikes your leg up and around his waist. "You constantly unbutton your shirts around me, stare at me with those eyes, leave your hand on me the entire ball and don't do anything about it. How could I resist?"

"Well, I'm doing something about it now." His voice was infuriatingly giddy, his hand grabs at your thigh through the fabric of your trousers, and he internally wishes you had chosen to wear one of your skirts today. His hips roll into yours at the new angle, and he stutters at the pleasure.

"The ball was not my fault." He presses a bruising kiss against your lips, biting down gently as he pulls away. Murmuring against your ear, you can feel the smile on his lips as he talks. "You have no idea what was going through my head that night. If I had my way, I wouldn't have gotten up from my knees for hours."

The way his silky voice hissed at the last word was downright sinful, and you're too distracted by your own thoughts to realise he had ducked his head back down to your chest.

"Luci." You gasp as he travels lower, peppering kisses down the valley of your breasts, murmuring against your skin, hands sliding lower and lower and tongue chasing them down to your naval. A finger pulls playfully at the front of your bra. Oh no, he couldn't win the upper hand that easily.

Gaining confidence, and determined not to let him be his usual cocksure self, you grasp him by the collar of his shirt. "Don't be unfair." You reprimand. He doesn't protest when you lower yourself to the floor, pulling him beneath you and straddling his hips. The cupboard was just big enough for him to lay down if he bent his knees, and you grin down at him as his hands grip your thighs tightly.

Your hands rest against his chest, and you can feel the heavy rise and fall of his chest as he stares up at you, his fingers flexing against your thighs when you refuse to move. He tries to roll his hips up into you, but you lift yourself just out of his reach.

"Don't do this." He whines, but you only grin down at him, leaning impossibly closer until your chest presses against his. You wish you could see the blush to his cheeks, the parting of his mouth around those little gaps, but instead you settle for staring into his blown pupils.

"Whatever do you mean?" You feign ignorance, shifting lightly and revelling in the way his eyes widened and his claws dug painfully into your skin. You press a kiss against his forehead, his cheek, the corner of his mouth.

A noise traps itself in his throat, you kiss against his jaw, his chin, the other corner of his mouth.

"Sweetheart," He moans, trying to tilt his head to catch your lips with his own. You roll your hips to distract him, and he hisses unhappily. He stares up at you with big puppy-dog eyes, a world away from the confidence he had felt at having his way with you earlier. "please."

"Good." You purr, and he whines when you finally kiss him properly, hips lowering onto him and palms sliding up his chest. You pull away and immediately begin kissing at the underside of his jaw, leaving your own trail of hickeys down the column of his throat. He squirms beneath you, breathing heavy and voice high-pitched as you kiss down his chest, pulling his collar to the side and grazing your teeth along the top of his peck.

One of his hands guide your hips against him, and he jerks his hips, the buckle of his belt biting cooly into the hot skin of your stomach. The other hand lies flat against your back, caressing your spine and sides and pulling you closer, trying to guide you back towards his lips.

He had thought he was in heaven before, but with you above him, he could barely contain himself.

Your hands pull at his hair, tugging at his scalp as you bite into the tense muscle of his shoulder. He closes his eyes painfully tight, muttering incoherently as his fingers flex against you. Your pace was beginning to quicken, and you moan against his shoulder as he whimpers and whines.

"Ngh- wait, stop." His voice breaks around the syllables. He grasps your hips tightly, knuckles white as his claws dig dangerously into the skin at your hips. "Not too fast."

"Another one of your many limitations?" You grin against his neck, feeling the way his chest heaved beneath your hands.

"Hmm," He hums, bleary eyed and uncomfortably hot, warm hand cupping your jaw and bringing your face up to meet his. "You have a way of exposing those."

You give in to what he wants, allowing him to slip his tongue back into your mouth, a hand cupping the back of your head and tangling into your hair, pulling you close and making sure you couldn't get away. You rest against him, revelling in the moment, losing your breath and humming against one another's lips.

Just as you go to move your hips, a hand planting itself against his chest to help your movement, light spills into the cupboard, and you freeze, lips detaching and staring wide-eyed at the shadowy figure stood in the cupboard doorway. You blink furiously, trying to readjust to the harsh light, but Lucifer is quicker to recover and pulls you flush against his chest, attempting to hide your bra from view.

He glares at the worker who remains standing dumbly with a hand on the door handle. Lucifer's hair was a mess, sticking out in every conceivable direction, his cheeks flushed a flaming red, shirt tugged halfway down his chest, with a smattering of lipstick across his lips and jaw, and blossoming bruises dancing across his neck and chest. You weren't in a much better state.

His eyes blaze red.

"Come back in an hour. Close the door."

The worker immediately slams the door shut, plunging the cupboard back into darkness.

Your shoulders begin to shake, laughter bubbling from your throat as you tuck your head into Lucifer's chest. He sighs, resting his head back against the floor and eyes returning to their normal complexion. When you finally compose yourself, you push yourself up with your elbows, grinning down at Lucifer with a cheeky smile.

"Maybe I was too harsh." He mutters, a hand coming up to cup your jaw. He grins cheekily, eyes shining in the darkness. "Where were we?"

#hazbin hotel #hazbin hotel Lucifer x reader #hazbin hotel lucifer #hazbin hotel x reader #smut #hazbin hotel x reader smut #Lucifer x reader smut #x reader #lucifer x reader #lucifer #lucifer morningstar

4K notes · View notes

forlix · 1 month

Text

𝐚𝐜𝐞・h.h.

— volleyball superstar and your personal hell hwang hyunjin proposes a trade-off you can't refuse: his matchmaking services for a passing anthropology grade. the plan is foolproof in theory; in practice, it is something else entirely.

words・15.2k

pairing・volleyball player!hyunjin x tutor!reader (gn)

genres・college!au, sports!au, fake enemies to friends to lovers, fluff, humor, hurt/comfort, slice of life, mutual pining, slow burn. two polar opposites sharing one soul. a seungjin fic if u squint. loosely inspired by the manga/anime haikyuu!!

warnings・mentions of anxiety, fear of failure, heartbreak, loneliness, and self-image. course language and callous banter (as always) ft. suggestive flirting and one kms joke. some of the referenced players and coaches are real; this fic is not.

playlist・collision by stray kids・value by ado・waiting for us by stray kids・eternity by bang chan・dreaming by smallpools・fly high!! by burnout syndromes

a/n・writing this felt like returning to my roots tbh. i love volleyball and i love sports aus and i love, love hwang hyunjin. thank u to my sahar for bringing this fic to life with me, as always; i can no longer write for him without also writing for you. i hope u guys enjoy reading this as much as i adored writing it. happy late birthday, our jinnie, our hyunjin, our forever ace; you are so unbelievably loved ♡

“Not a word out of you,” you say, tossing your backpack onto the floor of the lecture hall with a heavy-handed flick. “I’m serious.”

Hyunjin glances up at you with a frown. “When did people stop saying good morning?”

Your lack of an immediate comeback tells him the situation is dire. He observes you for a moment, his mouth falling open, hanging still, then curving into a slow, serpentine smile.

“Look at me.”

“No.”

“Look at me.”

“No.”

“Please, angel.”

“No! Leave me alone.”

Hyunjin slumps back into his seat, thinking hard. The solution occurs to him with a poke of his tongue into his cheek. “Coffee on me for a week.”

At this, your hands stop rummaging in your bag. You cock your head, your interest piqued. Got you.

When you finally humor him and turn around, you’re flinching like you’re in pain, eyes closed and breath held and all. He giggles and leans in for a closer look. Tendrils of your body spray reach him from here, floral and light like a tropical coastline. He could’ve counted your eyelashes if he wasn’t so flummoxed by the state of your forehead.

“What the hell did you do?”

“Tried to cut my own bangs,” you sigh. “It didn’t go very well and now I look like Rock Lee.”

Hyunjin lets out a forceful laugh. “You’ve seen Naruto?”

You open your eyes. Only then does Hyunjin remember how little distance he left between your faces, when he’s staring straight into them and all the strange, starry speckles they hold.

The air between you curdles like sour milk.

Things are awkward between you often, he’s realized recently. What’s more, he didn’t think he was capable of being awkward with anyone anymore until he met you. It was your ill-fated seat that he chose to sit next to on the first day of ANTH 111, your ill-fated lap onto which he chose to spill his Americano, and the rest was history (or, in this case, anthropology). His tongue ends up in sailor’s knots with every smart-aleck comment and pitiful laugh you’ve given him since. Maybe there’s more to it, maybe there isn’t—Hyunjin doesn’t think about it much. He doesn’t like thinking in general.

You pull away from each other in unison. You clear your throat, glancing elsewhere.

“Of course I’ve seen Naruto,” you quip, and everything is normal again. “Why do you seem surprised?”

“Because you’re so scholarly.”

“I am not scholarly.”

He raises an eyebrow. “You go to a park to play chess with old people on weekends.”

“I need to get my steps in somehow.”

“You didn’t know what Urban Dictionary was until I told you to look up—”

“God, I learned so much about you that day."

“Your favorite social media platform is Quizlet,” he bursts, exasperated. “Quizlet.”

“It is not.” An introspective pause. “Or is it?”

“I wouldn’t be surprised.” Hyunjin throws his feet up on the chair below him, jabs in your direction with a bandaged finger. “There is no way you enjoy watching 2D men beat each other up in your free time. I don’t buy it.”

“Honestly, I thought you’d have more to say about my current appearance than my hobbies.”

He does, though. Matter of fact, he’s been curating a list since this conversation started: Vector from Despicable Me, Dora the Explorer’s hot older sibling, Spock. You face-planted into a lawnmower. You mistook a paper shredder for a hat. It goes on.

But then his head turns. Your eyes meet again. He’s reminded that it’s hard to sustain an inner monologue and look at you at the same time, Vector resemblance and all.

He reaches up, nudges a lock of your hair over a centimeter or so, and gives the patch of forehead a gentle flick.

“Watermelon,” he mumbles with a sickening smile.

You divert your attention to your lecture notes with a disappointed click of your tongue. “You’re getting soft.”

He spends the entire lecture daydreaming about tropical coastlines.

“I only get coffee from that one place on the east side of campus, by the way,” you say as you’re strolling out the building together, “and I get it a very specific way. Can you handle it?”

“Your faith gets me out of bed in the morning,” Hyunjin deadpans. “I’ll handle it, love. Text me your order.”

All of a sudden, you position your hands close to your stomach, the lapels of your jacket casting them in shadow. Your fingers begin to move in a sequence that he’d recognize anywhere.

“Body flicker jutsu,” you whisper, and then you’re scurrying off without another word—but you do glance back at him to gauge his response. Your smile is purely effulgent, your laugh but a faint sigh against the main quad’s busy thrum.

Hyunjin gapes at your retreating figure for so long that phosphenes start prancing around his field of view. Then he heads to the gym. His heart is pounding against his ribs like a battering ram.

“Hwang, I need you in my office.”

Hyunjin stops lacing up his shoes to see Coach Bang standing on the court’s sideline with a grim air about him. He glances at his captain, confused.

“Don’t look at me,” Minho says mid-stretch. “Godspeed.”

“Thanks, cap.” Useless.

Head volleyball coach Christopher Bang’s workspace reminds Hyunjin of a morgue. It’s all fluorescent lights and spotless white walls, the only decorative fixture a picture of his siblings, parents, and dog in front of the Sydney Opera House, framed and facing him atop his desk. Hyunjin once snuck the thing into the bathroom, an innocent plot to satiate his curiosity, and promptly discovered the man’s propensity for violence. He’s packing beneath those dry-cleaned polos, by the way.

Hyunjin closes the door and takes a seat. Bang taps a knuckle against the tempered glass of his monitor. “You can read, right?”

“Yes, coach,” he sighs. Everyone’s expectations for him are subterranean.

From: Park Jinyoung «[email protected]» To: Bang “Christopher” Chan «[email protected]» Subject: Not good See email from Hwang’s antopology professor below . He submitted the complete script of the Trolls movie instead of his mid term paper and now he’s failing the class . Not good . Sort out ASAP JP Sent from my iPad

Bang snatches up his mouse and scrolls, his ears turning scarlet. “Wrong email.”

“Yep.”

From: Kim Kyeyoung «[email protected]» To: Park Jinyoung «[email protected]» Subject: Regarding Hwang Hyunjin To Director of Athletics Park, I am writing to inform you that, as of yesterday, Mr. Hwang Hyunjin has a D- (64.9%) in ANTH 111: Cultural Anthropology, due to his submission of the complete script of a kids’ movie instead of his midterm paper. It is disappointing to see Mr. Hwang trivialize and ridicule my class to such a degree. Please see to it that he reorganizes his priorities lest his Student-Athlete Participation Agreement do so for him. Regards, Kim Kyeyoung Professor of Anthropology

“That’s bullshit!”

“We’re in agreement there.” Bang folds his arms over his chest, throws his foot over his knee. “Do you know what your Student-Athlete Participation Agreement says?”

“Does anyone?” Hyunjin scoffs. Bang whips out a form and brings it to eye level, the thing covered from top to bottom in microscopic Times New Roman. “No way you just had that.”

“I had it delivered ten minutes ago,” Bang confesses, then clears his throat and begins to recite. “All student-athletes must complete the academic term with a C or higher in all courses, should they wish to continue their participation in athletics thereafter.”

Hyunjin stiffens. “What the fuck? I’ve never heard—”

“If any Department of Athletics personnel,” Bang continues, raising his voice, “have reason to believe that a student-athlete will not be able to satisfy this requirement, they are encouraged to utilize resources such as academic advising or peer tutoring in guiding said student-athlete back onto the correct path.”

He shoves the piece of paper across his desk. “Read that name aloud for me.”

Hyunjin stares at the signature at the bottom of the page, scrawled so carelessly that most of it deviates away from its designated line. There is a rare hollowness in his chest that he recognizes as anxiety. With it comes a glimpse of a life without volleyball, the question of what little of him would remain.

“Hwang Hyunjin,” he says under his breath.

The office goes silent. Bang tucks the form back into his drawer. It closes with a gentle click.

Then comes the yelling.

“The Trolls movie? Trolls?! Are you fucking with me, Hwang?”

“It was a cultural reset! The pinnacle of modern media! How’s that for anthropology?”

“BAD!” Bang explodes, gesturing to the email emphatically. “VERY, VERY BAD!”

Hyunjin slumps over, dejected.

“You’ve never had trouble with school before.” He leans over his desk imposingly. “What the hell happened this semester? What changed?”

Nothing is the first answer that comes to mind, but Hyunjin’s pulse spikes like a lie detector. Upon the inside of his eyes replays a scene of a certain someone with watermelon bangs doing teleportation jutsu at him from a few yards away, wearing a smile made of some kind of space dust that astronomists haven’t discovered yet.

He grits his teeth, annoyed. This is what happens when he thinks.

“Beats me,” he fibs. “Typical junior year stress, maybe.”

“Does any of it have to do with Piazza?”

Hyunjin shudders.

It just might, actually.

Modesty has no place in the career he’s had: high school national champion turned ace hitter in both the South Korean U21 roster and regular rotation for Seoul National University, the best collegiate volleyball team in the country. His name has lived at the top of ranking lists and the center of gold medals since he turned old enough to qualify for them; the press believes him the instigant of South Korea’s imminent volleyball revolution. It’s a mouthful, he knows.

It was never a question that he would go professional; the question was who he should talk to and where he would go.

At the start of the school year, Bang, acting in place of the agent he was advised to find and never bothered to, gave him a list of people to reach out to. On the very top was none other than Roberto Piazza, the chairman and head coach of Allianz Milano, one of the most eminent club teams in the world—and current home to Hyunjin’s personal idol, outside hitter Ishikawa Yuki.

Hyunjin thought his poor coach had finally succumbed to his old age. The thought of stepping onto the same court as Ishikawa felt sacrilegious, let alone donning the red, white, and navy blue of Allianz Milano with him. But Bang slapped him on the back of the neck and reminded him that going professional was equal parts preparation and opportunity; he was never going to know the answers to questions he didn’t ask. Hyunjin was coerced to fire off an introductory email despite his reservations.

Piazza replied within the week.

For the last five months, Hyunjin has been fighting with tooth and nail to manage his expectations. He scrolls past the team’s social media posts like they burn his eyes. He replies to Piazza’s emails right before working out with Changbin under the assumption that whatever the shredded libero does to him will eviscerate his brain. If his world is made of dreams, this is the one at its very core, imbued with destructive potential the second it became attainable.

But that’s the last five months. The last five weeks have been you kicking him in the shin because he’s laughing (or trying to make you laugh) and the professor is staring; you listening to him rant and rave about volleyball when he knows you couldn’t care less about the sport; you relaying the contents of your class readings like hot gossip, your eyes wild and hands flying around because you can’t contain your excitement. You, you, you.

He cards a hand through his air, regaining focus. “You know how I feel about Piazza.”

“Expect the worst, hope for the best.” Bang’s chair skids backwards as he stands up. “I think it’s a good approach.”

Suddenly, he is directly in front of Hyunjin, low enough to meet his eyes. His hands rest upon his shoulders firmly.

“But hope is hungry, and it will consume you if you let it,” he says. “Do not let it, Hyunjin. I’m not asking.”

Even while being squeezed to a pulp and regarded with the cold intensity of a statue, Hyunjin can’t help but feel anchored, somehow, to the floor of this miserable office. Protected.

Bang lets go of him. “I’m not asking you to find a tutor by the end of the week, either.”

Hyunjin groans. “Yeah, yeah. I’m on it.”

A set of bandaged fingers appear in your periphery to place a paper cup onto your laptop. Accompanying the smell of fresh coffee is that of smoky rose, as decidedly douchey as ever.

“I thought you said your order was complicated.”

You look up from your phone to see Hyunjin plop into the adjacent seat. His long, caramel-colored hair is damp and unstyled in the aftermath of a morning shower, droplets of water pearling on the lapels of a navy blue windbreaker, layered over a white long sleeve. You recognize the outfit by now as game gear.

“Was it not?” You ask.

“It was an Americano, love. I walked up to the cashier and placed an order for an Americano.”

“Well, I wasn’t sure if you could handle that much.” He flips you off as you squint at the cup. “Someone wrote their number on the lid, by the way.”

“What? Really?”

“No.”

He shoves you hard enough for your upper body to drape over the opposite armrest; you’re still cackling by the time you’ve straightened up again.

“Why did you get this, anyway?” Hyunjin grumbles. “I thought you had a sweet tooth.”

“I do, but you don’t.”

Only then does the fool understand that you had no intention of charging him in coffee just for a haircut reveal. He takes back the coffee hesitantly.

“Thanks,” he says at last. “Nice of you.”

“I know, right? Hated it,” you respond, and he almost chokes on his first sip.

You almost choke on nothing when Kim Seungmin materializes in the aisle adjacent. He holds out a hand in Hyunjin’s direction. “Yo.”

Hyunjin dabs it up mid-sip. “I fully forgot you were in this class.”

“Well, I’m due for my weekly appearance.” Seungmin slips into the seat directly below you, glancing at you over his shoulder. “Hey, Y/N.”

“Hi,” you say, somehow managing to stumble over the single syllable the word has. You thank your lucky stars that you fixed your hair yesterday.

You like Kim Seungmin. Not just in the cutesy, crushy way, but in the “I would relinquish all of my rights for you” way where you spend every waking moment cursing out whatever stroke of misfortune placed Hyunjin in the seat next to you instead of him. He’s funny, gorgeous, and talented—a vocal performance major with a student-athlete contract—and you think your infatuation is more than justified. Hyunjin thinks it’s hilarious.

You side-eye your blonde adversary, prepared to see one of three things: a suppressed laugh, a dramatic eye-roll, or a mature kissy face that usually results in the first option. You’re met with something far more worrisome.

He’s thinking.

That can’t be good.

Suddenly, his phone screen lights up with a text that temporarily wipes the conspiratorial gleam from his eye. Hyunjin scans it over and groans. “Can this guy do his fucking job?”

“He wouldn’t have to if you didn’t quit,” Seungmin answers. “I’ll never forget you, Manager Hwang.”

“Shut up.” You peer at Hyunjin, silently requesting an explanation. “Our captain is forcing us to help him look for a new team manager. We need one for playoffs because of some stupid U-League rule—Seung, why do you look morose?”

“I’m mourning.” Seungmin does look morose indeed. “Hyunjin committed larceny last year and our coach punished him by making him our team manager for the rest of the season. It was so funny.”

Hyunjin slides down his seat. “It was the worst experience of my life.”

Neither man seems inclined to elaborate on the mention of larceny. You choose to digress. “Can I ask why?”

“He had to be responsible,” Seungmin whispers. “For other people.”

The top of Hyunjin’s head stops right next to your armrest. You reach over and pat his hair in faux sympathy. “Poor thing.”

“Hardass refused to do it again this year, so now we’re recruiting.” Seungmin props an elbow upon the back of his chair, looks at you contemplatively. “I don’t suppose you have four hours to spare every day.”

Hyunjin scoffs from below you. Loudly. “This one? Team manager?”

“I can see it.”

“I can see killing myself, maybe.”

The next time you reach for him is to hit his forehead. A crisp smack resounds around the barren lecture hall. Hyunjin cusses into his seat cushion.

“Seems like a great candidate to me,” Seungmin muses, and the warm smile he gives you mirrors onto your face before you can think better of it. God, it’s pretty. You wonder how it would feel pressed against your own.

Hyunjin is now completely out of sight and halfway onto the floor. “I miss when you didn’t come to class, Seungmin.”

Eighty minutes later, you’ve just emerged from the classroom when Seungmin calls out to you. You come to such a sudden halt that Hyunjin almost trips over you, but you barely notice him stumble, utterly enraptured by the hand Seungmin brings to the strands of hair by your ear, the fingers that dust your cheek as they pluck a small piece of lint from out of the tresses.

“Sorry.” He flicks it away with a sheepish smile. “I couldn’t unsee it.”

You manage to thank him just before your whole body ceases to function. Hyunjin sidesteps the two of you, yawning.

Seungmin excuses himself not too long after you reach the main quad. You also turn to leave, sparing Hyunjin a curt farewell in the process. He hooks his pointer finger around the handle at the top of your backpack and lugs you backwards with infuriating ease.

“I didn’t like that at all,” you say.

“I don’t care. I have something to tell you.”

“You have a kid, don’t you?”

“Wha—huh? Who do you think I am?”

“The one-night-stand’s poster child. The champion of the contraception industry.”

“Yeah, contraception industry. It’s right there in the name.”

You can’t argue with that. “What do you have to tell me?”

A shadow of hesitation flits across Hyunjin’s face. Your smile falters. Is it possible that you’re about to have a serious conversation with him for the first time? Maybe you should’ve saved the secret son bit for another time.

“I’m failing anthro.”

So much for a serious conversation.

“Come again?”

He repeats the mystifying statement.

“You’re joking.” The look on his face says otherwise, though, and your eyebrows disappear into your hair. “You’re failing anthro?”

“I just said that, yes.”

“You’re failing anthropology?”

“Mhm.”

“Just so we’re clear—you’re failing Introduction to Cultural Anthropology?”

“Yes. I’m glad you’re having fun.”

This is the best day of your life. “I didn’t even know that was possible.”

“Yeah, well, our professor has no media literacy,” he mutters.

“What?”

“Nothing.” Hyunjin clears his throat. “Anyways, I was thinking—”

“Wow! Congratulations. That’s a big—oomf—”

Hyunjin puts his entire hand over your face. Your mangled noises of protest go unacknowledged.

“I was thinking,” he continues, pushing your head around like a stick shift, “you and I can work out some kind of deal.”

You shove his wrist off you with a revolted groan. “I think I just ate some athletic tape.”

“Happens. You wanna hear the deal or not?”

“Does it involve ingesting more sports equipment?”

“Do you want it to?”

“Just tell me the deal, boy.”

“Alright.” He takes a deep breath. “If you help me pass this class, I’ll set you up with Seungmin.”

Your head performs a triple-axel on your neck. You are unable to respond for what feels like multiple hours. Finally: “I’m gonna need you to elaborate.”

“On which part?”

“All of them. Everything.”

Hyunjin sighs, then scans the courtyard. His gaze settles on the student union a little ways off. “Are you hungry?”

You pick up a sandwich and a smoothie in a state of nervous stupor. One would think it’s the prime minister you’re about to have lunch with and not an imbecilic left-side hitter eating from three different entrees at the same time.

He’s chosen a table a few yards away from a planter of flowering cherry blossom trees. You feel jealous eyes on the side of your face as you take a seat across from Hyunjin, but they don’t know that his telephone pole legs still bump against yours even with them drawn as close to your body as anatomically possible. Or that he’s drawing up a literal Ponzi scheme on your sandwich wrapper. You wager you’ve had better company.

“You like anthropology. I like listening to you talk about anthropology.” He traces over the wrapper’s left corner. “And I kinda want you to boss me around. That weird?”

“Yes, definitely,” you mumble around a mouthful of bread. “Go on.”

“Conclusion one: you should be my tutor.” He taps in place as if applying a finishing touch, then swaps to the opposite side. “You also like my teammate, but he’s neck-deep in volleyball and music this semester, which makes him hard to get a hold of—for most people.”

“Let me guess. Not for you.”

“Ten points to Ravenclaw.” His British accent is nightmarish. “Seung and I live in the same building. We get dinner when we go back from practice together. Conclusion two: you should come with us.”

“To dinner or to practice?”

“To both. Which brings us to my third and final conclusion—”

He slams a fist onto the center of the wrapper.

“—you should manage our team.”

“I knew it!” You slam the table as well, your smoothie wobbling upon impact. “You’re trying to swindle me! You can’t pay for my labor with more labor. What do you take me for?”

“It’s not labor, dumbass! Ask our last manager! He didn’t do shit!”

“Yeah? Who was your last manager?”

“Me!”

Oh, right. “But you hated it!”

“I hate everything that isn’t playing volleyball. Try again.”

You fold your arms over your chest. “You said you’d kill yourself if I managed you.”

Hyunjin starts balling up your sandwich wrapper. “It’s true. I thought about you and my coach getting along and promptly got a rash. But it makes so much sense: you do whatever you want during practice, tutor me afterwards, and then you and Seung can eyefuck over ramen or something. My coach hops off my dick, you hop on Seung’s—”

“STOP!” A girl drops her receipt not too far away, startled by your outburst. “Stop right there. I get it. Stop.”

“It’s a good plan.” He slings the paper ball towards the nearest trash can. It drops into the hole without so much as a brush against the rim. “You know it is.”

You’re loath to admit that you do. “When did you even come up with all this?”

He flicks a thumb in the direction of your anthropology class. No fucking wonder he’s failing.

“What is this, mock trial?”

The owner of this voice is the third man you’ve seen today donning that navy windbreaker, white long-sleeve combo. He has a face that reminds you of your neighbor’s cat from back home, sleek and sharp and only slightly sinister. There’s a dash of humor in his expression as he approaches your table like he’s enjoying the company of a court jester.

“Slamming tables like fuckin’ tariff lawyers,” the cat-man hums, lifting a hand in Hyunjin’s direction. “I could see it from all the way inside.”

“Captain!” Hyunjin crows, dabbing him up without missing a beat. They really do that like breathing. “Just the man I was hoping to see.”

“Really? I thought you’d be avoiding me like the rest of our homunculus team.”

“I would never.”

“You did. Yesterday. When you saw me and started running in the opposite direction.” He pauses for emphasis. “As fast as possible.”

“Well, that was yesterday. Today is a new day.” Hyunjin tosses you a proud glance. “And today, I bring you a new team manager.”

You stiffen. “I haven’t—”

“Is that so!” When the stranger smiles at you, you feel the same satisfaction you did every time the cat let you scratch her on the chin. “Music to my ears. What’s your name, cutie?”

You catch Hyunjin’s eye across the table; he nods enthusiastically as if saying go on, then. You briefly picture yourself strangling him with his own athletic tape. You then picture yourself hopping on Seungmin’s—

Rigidly, you throw a hand out to the cat-man, your face aflame.

“Y/N,” you grumble. “I’m looking forward to working with you.”

He shakes on it heartily. “Likewise. I’m Minho. Welcome to the team.”

“Yes, welcome to the team,” Hyunjin parrots, looking positively jolly. You gnash your teeth together so hard your jaw throbs.

He’s lucky that his proposal holds so much water. He’s lucky that you don’t plan to strangle him until after you try that eyefucking thing.

You do kick him under the table, though.

The team has five weeks to prepare for the Korean University League, the biggest college-level volleyball tournament in the country. You have five days to learn how the hell athletic tape works. You can’t tell which is the bigger endeavor.

“I’m going to cause him irreversible skeletal damage,” you tell Changbin.

The team’s libero is twice as kind as he is talented, a full-time sweetheart working part-time at the university’s sports medicine clinic. Only your first week on the job and you’ve already decided he’s the only person on Earth you would permit to usher you through the gym at 6:45 A.M., a roll of athletic tape pressed to your back like a pistol.

“You will not,” Changbin answers. “One, because this won’t involve his skeleton, and two, because I wouldn’t ask you to help if it did.”

“You’ve misunderstood me,” you return as the two of you stop in front of an examination room. “I want to cause him irreversible skeletal damage.”

“Oh.” He opens the door with a frown. “Oh dear.”

Inside, Hyunjin is sitting cross-legged on top of a taping table, fitted in a loose gray tee and athletic shorts. He watches in pessimistic silence as you enter the room and beeline straight towards the shelf on the right. You slip a thick binder into your hands and bury your nose inside it without so much as a greeting.

“I am going to get maimed,” Hyunjin tells Changbin.

“Have some faith, both of you,” Changbin replies sternly. You find the pages you’re looking for and begin poring over them like you’re cramming for an exam. “You’ll be fine, Jinnie. Y/N studied.”

“Studied?” He repeats. “For this?”

“I’m pretty sure Quizlets were made.”

“Three, to be exact," you interject, sticking out your hand. “Now tape me.”

Hyunjin mouths the words tape me in baffled silence. The latter obliges your request with a smile. “See? What could go wrong?”

The answer to that, actually, is a lot. Especially after Changbin gets called away to help stretch out a teammate named Felix who allegedly “sprained his ass,” leaving Hyunjin to you and your binder.

You detect no smoky rose in the air around him today, just the subtle smells of cedar and cypress—laundry detergent or shampoo, maybe. Figures he doesn’t wear that insufferable cologne to practice.

“Go easy on me, yeah?”

While Hyunjin’s tone is teasing, yours is downright somber.

“I can’t promise anything.”

With that, you turn your palms face-up in a silent request for his hand.

A few strands of hair fall into your face as you lean in for a better look. It’s the first time you’ve seen his fingers untaped; they’re pretty, long and slender and surprisingly manicured, but also battered in their delicacy, the veins running over the back of his hand and forearm prominent, his bottom knuckles discolored from the healing bruises they bear. His hard work is palpable upon the smooth skin as evidently as if tattooed.

Hyunjin says your name in close proximity. You respond with an absent hum.

“You’re not nervous, are you?”

“No. Maybe a little.” You let his hand fall free and go to rummage for supplies. “Fine, yes. Very.”

“But you made Quizlets. You’re prepared for anything.”

“That’s what I’m saying!” You realize only after spotting the gentle smile on his face that he’s making fun of you. “I hate you.”

“Actually,” he hums, “I think you care about me, love. That’s why you’re nervous.”

“Nonsense—I care about disappointing Changbin. That’s it.”

“And me. And hopping on Seungmin’s dick. All these things don’t have to be mutually exclusive.”

You try to tackle him. Hyunjin catches your hands a few inches away from his face, fingers closing around your wrists with obnoxious agility.

“Have you lost your mind?” You whisper-shout, your face on fire. “Don’t bring that up here. I’ll maim you for real.”

The laugh that explodes out of him throws his entire body backwards, turns his eyes to crescent moons and his mouth into a little rectangle. You hate that you don’t hate when that happens.

“My bad, my bad. It slipped out. I won’t—”

One incremental shift of Hyunjin’s body later, you find that you’re precariously, alarmingly close to one another.

So much so that you notice the mole beneath his left eye for the first time, that you're nearly cross-eyed looking at it. That the tip of your nose actually brushes against his before you pull away with a quiet intake of breath.

Things are awkward between you often, you’ve realized recently. You’re both professional yappers, always quick to digress, quick to find a new topic to bicker about before the awkwardness marinates. But hours later you’ll look back on the interaction and still remember how the air shifted: like a layer of dust had been blown away and something untouched and unknown was discovered just underneath.

Since you’ve met him, Hyunjin has spent more time on your nerves than on your mind. You’re not exactly losing sleep over such a circumstantial acquaintance; you know that his presence in your life will end the way it began, naturally and anticlimactically and inside the ANTH 111 lecture hall. Still, it doesn’t go unnoticed when your heart and stomach launch into an elaborate gymnastics routine in the wake of something he says or does, just as they’re doing now.

Hyunjin glances into your right eye a moment, then your left. The mole just below his left eye disappears when he smiles, the expression soft, saccharine, and sincere. How anyone casually looks the way he does is beyond your abilities of comprehension.

“Thank you,” he murmurs.

Your face continues to burn, now perhaps for different reasons. “What for?”

He lets go of your wrist, sweeps the lock of hair that keeps getting in your eyes behind the cuff of your ear.

“Caring about me.”

Then he flicks your forehead. You recoil with a quiet ow.

“Now stop stalling and tape me, dumbass.”

“Okay,” you mutter, rubbing the injury tenderly. “No need to get violent.”

It turns out the arduous taping procedure described in the instruction manual is for serious hand injuries. Hyunjin splints his fingers together for support, not rehabilitation, so it takes all of five minutes for him to talk you through his process. You finish taping both of his hands with nineteen minutes to spare. So maybe the Quizlets were overkill.

As you’re walking him down to practice, you take his hand and lift it to eye level, scanning your craftsmanship dubiously. “It’s not too tight, is it?”

“It’s perfect.” He swivels the hand around and grabs onto your entire face, the sensation by now eerily familiar. “Want another taste?”

You shove him down the stairs that remain. Unfortunately, there are only two. “You are truly grotesque.”

The gym has come to life since you arrived earlier this morning, now illuminated by shining ceiling lights in addition to the sun spilling through high, narrow windows. Most of the team has yet to step onto the court, still stretching or jogging along the sidelines: Minho and Coach Bang are talking strategy on the bench, the coach taking notes on a handheld whiteboard every now and then; Changbin is leaning over a recumbent Felix below the scoreboard, presumably trying to fix his ass.

The only one already with a ball in hand is Seungmin, setting to himself by the net. Once, twice, thrice straight up in the air, and then he glances in your direction and sends the fourth towards the left side of the court in a buoyant arc.

You only glean bits and pieces of the next few seconds. Hyunjin is at your side one moment, making a break for the net the next. His arms draw backwards in perfect synchrony. Feet hit the floor with laserlike intent. His entire body unravels like a fraying chrysalis as he rises to meet the ball, pounds it over the net and into the ground at an angle so clean that the sound of its landing resounds within your ribcage. It rebounds over the railing of the second floor and barely misses the doorway of the examination room you just emerged from.

Hyunjin drops lightly back onto his feet, following the ball’s tumultuous trajectory with proud eyes. A leftover breeze tosses a strand of hair over the bridge of your nose, and time starts moving again.

“Oi, this isn’t your backyard! Go pick that up!” Their coach booms, though his words lack their usual bitterness after what he just witnessed his ace hitter do.

Hyunjin swivels towards Seungmin first. “Crazy bitch. What the fuck was that?”

“Lower and faster. Further from the net too,” Seungmin returns. “How’d it feel?”

The grin on Hyunjin’s face reminds you of a wildfire, untamed and all-consuming and frightening in its fervor. “Like we just won everything.”

He tousles your hair as he jogs past you and back up the stairs to fetch the volleyball. Seungmin waves at you with one hand and palms another ball into his other. His face is warm and bare, his slim build flattered by his volleyball gear. You’ve witnessed few people so nice to look at and even fewer things as elegant as his setting form. But you are still thinking about Hyunjin—and you can’t move.

It is debilitating, watching somebody do the very thing they were destined for.

A little less than a week later, Hyunjin is approaching hour three of spewing hot garbage into a Word document when he decides to give up and call you.

“Hello?” He immediately starts laughing. “Where the fuck are you?”

You poke the top of your head into the shot of your ceiling, gesturing to your headband. “My face is preoccupied at the moment.”

“Oh, you have to show me. Please.”

You flip your phone up for no more than half a second. A camera shutter goes off, followed by a shriek so loud that it peaks your mic.

“Motherfucker!”

He basically sprints to his camera roll. His prize: you with your face slathered in cleanser, hair pinned back by a Miffy headband, looking like the abominable snowman if he liked cute merchandise.

“Thank you,” he says earnestly. “I’ll treasure this forever.”

“You’ll be punished, Hwang.”

“Don’t threaten me with a good time.”

You brandish your middle finger at him in response. He props his phone up against his computer screen with a chuckle.

“Aaanyways, I have a thesis statement to run by you.”

The first thing you did as Hyunjin’s tutor was help draft an email to Professor Kim, begging her to let him resubmit the two essays he royally botched. She replied with a lengthy quotation from her syllabus, specifically the section that talked about (and prohibited) resubmissions, but ended up making an exception for Hyunjin on account of the “truly piteous timbre” of his email. You fell out of your chair laughing when he read you her response.

“You should’ve opened with that.”

“I tried, hello? Someone distracted me!”

“Read. It. Before I change my mind.”

You spend a few minutes at most on the thesis itself, advising him to avoid passive voice, answer the prompt, establish a refutable argument, the works. Then he asks you a question about the research topic itself, allusions to the afterlife in Ancient Egyptian artwork, and the tutoring session takes a turn into what feels like a podcast episode.

You talk about the God of Death, Anubis, and his connections to the underworld; the elaborate, lavish funerary rituals intended to ensure the souls of the dead traveled safely; the vibrant murals that flanked their final resting spots as pictorial requests for divine protection. And you talk about them all with such confidence, such eloquence, that it’s as if you’re leading him through a history museum rather than talking to your phone as you do your skincare. He could listen to you for hours. He does, actually.

Around 1 A.M., Hyunjin stops typing mid-sentence when you come into frame for the first time, collapsing into your bed with a sigh of relief. Your eyes are soft and sleepy as they blink at your screen, strands of damp hair clinging to your cheeks. He feels his heart physically shift inside his ribcage when your mouth stretches into a yawn. It is the same sensation as the time you shot him a smile over your shoulder and he couldn’t move for ten minutes.

With that, his attention span has run its course.

“Baby,” he interrupts gently. “Let’s stop here, okay? You seem tired.”

You open your mouth as if to protest, only to yawn again.

“I suppose I am. Will you keep working tonight?”

“I think so. I hit my stride.”

“Text me if you have questions, then. I’ll respond when I wake up.”

“Okay.”

Your lips curve into the smallest of smiles. It copies onto Hyunjin’s face incurably quickly.

“I had my doubts about this tutoring thing, you know.”

“Why is that?”

“Well, you told me this class was the closest thing to daily naptime you’d experienced since preschool.”

“It really is.”

“You also told me you would rather slam your tongue in a car door than read more than three sentences in one sitting.”

“I really would.”

“And you once referred to academia as ‘Virgin Village.’”

“Didn’t you come up with that?”

“No, hello? I live in that village.”

He grins. “I know. I just wanted to hear you admit it.”

“Fuck you.”

“Ah, don’t threaten me with a good—”

“What I’m trying to say is that I didn’t think you would take this seriously, but I’m happy to be proven wrong.”

Hyunjin leans back. “Well, turns out I might give a fuck about anthropology after all.”

“Really?”

“No.”

You pretend to punch him through the screen. It’s so cute that he forgets to think before he opens his mouth next.

“But I do give a fuck about you.”

There’s nothing crazy about the statement. You’re friends, sort of. You manage his team. It would be strange if he didn’t. But the seconds that follow are terrible, a silent prophecy of something disastrous, like a cloud of rubble before an avalanche, the standstill during a star’s final breath. And Hyunjin’s heartbeat is hounding against his ears like a performance of traditional taiko.

He says good night in a haste. The call ends. He stares at the wall of his bedroom in a muddled haze for who knows how long.

Then he opens his texts.

Hyunjin: We have team bonding tomorrow btw Hyunjin: Don’t forget Y/N: i forgot. Y/N: pick me up at 6:45? Hyunjin: 🫡

He picks you up at 7:53.

You approach his car with your fists balled and your eyebrows knitted together like a mean old curmudgeon and he’s walking too close to your lawn.

“His fault,” Hyunjin says before you start yelling.

Minho simpers at you through his open window. “Hey, you! So glad you could join us!”

You fix the man with a judgmental glare as you slide into the backseat. “Aren’t you the captain? Why are you this late?”

“Whoa, okay. I would’ve scheduled this for earlier if I knew right now was honesty hour.”

“You did schedule it for earlier,” you say. “You scheduled it for way earlier.”

“Yeah, well, you’re fired.”

“You can’t fire me, Minho.”

“I can too. Tell ‘em, Hwang.”

“I want nothing to do with this.”

When you step through the doors of the arcade, you’re met with a surge of sensory input that you haven’t experienced in years. The air hangs thick with the smells of greasy concessions; everywhere you look are flashing screens and neon signs, stuffed animals and fading posters; clamoring against your ears are the sounds of games being won or lost, of balls being pocketed or launched, and of a horde of fully grown men spectating a match of Dance Dance Revolution so passionately (and loudly) that they’ve scared everyone away from that side of the room. You recognize the current competitors as Changbin and Jeongin.

“I’ll go pay,” Hyunjin says. “How much time do we want?”

“Infinity,” Minho answers. Hyunjin doesn’t move. “Two hours.”

He flashes him a thumbs-up. “And you?”

“I’m okay, I think.”

“No you’re not,” the two men answer in perfect unison.

You glance between them warily. “I don’t mind watching, seriously. I don’t even know how most of these games work—”

“There’s Tetris,” Hyunjin cuts in.

You purchase an hour.

One would imagine the point of the evening is to break the SNU men’s volleyball team, not to bond them. You’ve never seen so many strained blood vessels in your life. Nor have you heard of half the insults they spew at each other as the night goes on. Felix has to pay a fee for lodging an air hockey puck in the side of the MarioKart machine. Changbin loses at skee-ball and has to down an XL slushie like it’s a shot. It’s a scary amount of boyishness expressed in scary ways.

But they’re happy. You’ve picked up on it when they’re on the court, noticed the raw elation they emanate just from playing together. Yet, their closeness has never been more evident to you than tonight. The men are either laughing or making someone else laugh, arms draped over each other at all times, equally happy to celebrate victories as they’re eager to punish losses. It dawns on you at some point that you’re glad to be here with them, grateful to be a part of something so special—especially because there’s Tetris.

“Have you ever considered going pro?” Hyunjin asks over your shoulder.

You waited until most of the team was distracted to slink off to your beloved machine. Hyunjin tagged along, undoubtedly with the intention of making fun of you, only to be rendered speechless by your mastery. He’s been watching in a state of stupor, forearms propped against the back of your chair.

You don’t respond for a while, too focused on a precarious patch to even blink, let alone partake in conversation.

“I already did,” you finally answer.

“Sorry, what? You played professional Tetris?”

��In middle school. Then I got bored and switched to backgammon.” You pause. “Then I got bored again and switched to chess.”

“How do you look like this with these hobbies?”

Your run ends a few minutes later with a somber sound effect. You turn around in your seat with an anguished groan. “I think I’m washed.”

He looks at you like you’ve lost your mind. “You just set a new record by three hundred thousand points.”

“It’s a small pond,” you say, and an idea occurs to you. “Do you wanna try?”

“I get the feeling I don’t have a choice.”

“Then you’re smarter than you look.”

“Well, you look—”

His eyes move between your shoes and your face, and then his voice is an inaudible mutter as he sinks into your seat. You think you hear something along the lines of unfair.

“What was that?”

“Ugly. I said you look ugly.” He cracks his knuckles. “Now let’s break some fuckin' blocks.”

When Hyunjin learns that the pieces can be rotated (so six or seven attempts later), a man walks into the arcade.

He has hair the color of dark chocolate, the face of a fairy prince—and he’s with someone. The two of them appear arm in arm, laughing at something he said. He looks at this person the way astronomers do to the sky.

Something shatters inside you like old porcelain.

Your hands loosen around the back of Hyunjin’s chair. You can’t watch. You can’t think. You can only feel a void of disappointment rip open, stretch over you like an elongating shadow.

“Seung!” That’s Jisung, you think. “You made it!”

“Yo, sorry we’re late.” That’s Seungmin. That is undoubtedly Seungmin. “Dinner took longer than I thought.”

“Min, are you sure I’m allowed to be here?” You don’t know who this voice belongs to and you’re not sure you want to. “I feel like I’m intruding—”

“Hwang,” you say suddenly. “I have to go.”

He turns around, confused. An unattended block falls into a terrible spot on the screen behind him. ”Already?”

“I forgot I had an important call to make.” You turn away, training your eyes on the patterned carpet. “Sorry. I’ll see you around.”

You have touched Hyunjin’s hands many times. He’s asked you to tape his fingers every day since the first; he likes the way you cut off his circulation, says it helps him hit harder. But you never hold his hand so much as you examine it, the act stiff and unfeeling, cordoned within the professional pretense of athletic treatment.

Now, Hyunjin catches your hand like a gardener repotting their favorite flower: delicately, careful of leaving its roots intact and petals untouched, but firmly, securely, so the flower continues to stand tall even when it’s been extracted from the soil, not even a speck of dirt slipping through the cracks between their fingers. That is the image you conjure when he slips his between yours, his metal rings cold where his fingertips are warm.

He says your name. There is a pinch of pain in the word, and you know that he knows.

“Do you want to be alone?”

You have never been asked such a thing—you have never asked to be asked such a thing—but, for some reason, the question brings tears to your eyes.

“Yes, please,” you whisper, and you pull your hand away.

When you stalk past him, you hear Jisung notice you, call out to you, a note of worry in his question. You also count three pairs of eyes on your back: one concerned, the next confused, and the last you are wholly incapable of meeting.

Unknown to you is the fourth pair fixed upon the top of the Tetris machine, where you’ve left your phone.

You emerge into the parking lot. The frigid air stills your mind for a fraction of a second, the last moment of mental quietude you will allow yourself that night.

Hyunjin’s right; the team manager doesn’t have to do much.

Coach Bang allows you to come to whichever practices and games you feel like, during which you might at most lug around a ballbag or fill someone’s waterbottle before holing up somewhere to do your own thing. But you like the people you work for too much to do so little for them, so you attend everything your schedule allows.

Last week, you could be found helping Minho put up the volleyball nets before practice, your laughter echoing throughout the spacious gym as he complained to you about his biochemistry professor’s distinct “cabbage scent.” Or running to grab materials for Changbin as he treated his teammates’ injuries like you were assisting an orthodontist giving someone a root canal. The dinner invitations you extended to Seungmin were always turned down, but his teammates were more than happy to assist you and Hyunjin in your quest to establish the best kimbap joint in the area once and for all. You even had a heart-to-heart with Coach Bang during one of the team’s water breaks, in which you managed to get half a smile out of the guy; Hyunjin was convinced that was his way of asking you to elope. You spent more time in the gymnasium those ten days than you had your entire college career.

Then came the arcade.

Five days have come and gone. You haven’t attended practice since, but you still see Hyunjin every morning at anthropology. The two of you sit in uncharacteristic silence for most of the lectures. You’ve taken the best notes of your life. He doesn’t mention the previous weekend; he doesn’t mention much of anything.

In person, that is.

That Friday afternoon, you’re reading on the terrace of the library when you receive a text. It’s from Hyunjin, a two-minute voice note. You hesitate for a moment, stick a pencil into the gutter of your textbook to save your place, and slip your earbuds in. You listen to it.

Then you listen to it again.

And again as you wrap up your study session and go home. Again as you cook yourself dinner and load the dishwasher. Again as you shrug on a jacket and pocket your keys, setting off on the familiar trek to the gym.

As for what you plan to do there on a Friday night, long after the team has finished practice, you haven’t the slightest clue. You continue to move regardless, fueled by the feeling that there is where you need to be.

Coach Bang is leaving the building just as you’re approaching it. He halts in his footsteps and raises his eyebrows when he notices you. The man has always been difficult to read, but his face is exceptionally opaque now. Maybe it’s the shadowy landscape; more likely it’s the uneasiness that began to mount within you once you noticed the lights in the gym were still on.

“It’s been a while,” he greets.

“Coach,” you return, lowering your head. “I want to apologize for—”

“Save it,” he says, not unkindly. “There’s nothing to apologize for, alright? The team is lucky to have you.”

You manage a grateful smile. “I’ll be back starting next week.”

“I’m glad to hear it.” He starts to walk away, stops himself, and glances into the illuminated building. “I would give him some space, by the way.”

Your uneasiness morphs into anxiety as you watch his broad back retreat into the shadows. You remain outside the gym for a few minutes more, accompanied by the distant melodies of cricket chorales and the muffled squeaking of shoes against laminated hardwood, the harsh sounds of flesh meeting leather.

Briskly, you walk home, rummage around, and return to the gym ten minutes later with your textbook tucked beneath your arm. This time, you unlock and enter the building without a moment of hesitation.

Hyunjin is positioned multiple yards behind the service line, rotating a volleyball in his hands. A high toss, two resounding steps, and a collision like the crack of a whip. The previous ball has barely landed in the furthest corner of the court when he’s picking up the next, retreating to the same spot to do it all again. His tank top is the color of charcoal over his sweaty skin, his hair auburn where it’s plastered to his neck. He’s alone.

You only catch sight of Hyunjin’s face when you descend the stairs. His expression is crystalline, hardened with concentration and fortified by courage, but fragile all at once, rendered delicate by fatigue and fear, spilling from his every seam and splintering off his person like a broken vase. You recognize it as clearly as if you were looking at a picture of yourself from the worst years of your life.

“I was told to give you space,” you call out, and Hyunjin drops the volleyball he’s holding.

His lips fall apart. Nothing comes out of them. The only sounds to follow are your footsteps as you make your way towards the bleachers, a vertical wall of plastic now that they’ve been retracted for the night. You fold your legs into a criss-cross as you take a seat at their base.

“Is this enough space?”

More silence. You gesture to the volleyball nervously.

“Don’t make me go further, please. I’m not ready to die.”

Finally, this earns you a smile. It’s not much, but it loosens the nervous coils in your heart, permits your lungs to contract once more, and it remains on his face as he swipes the ball back into his hands. You open your textbook.

The rest of the night elapses in turning pages and soaring volleyballs. You don’t care for minutes or hours; you give him all the time in the world, as he did you.

The only time you glance at the clock on the wall is around midnight, when Hyunjin hobbles to the middle of the court and collapses. You’re worried at first. Then he rolls onto his back and releases a guttural groan into his hands, and your held breath comes out a laugh. You set down your book and stand up.

There’s a lake of perspiration forming around him. You pay it no mind and flop onto the floor, your eyes instantly narrowing beneath the fluorescent lights.

“How do you see under these things?”

“I don’t,” he returns. “I complained about it to Coach once.”

“And?”

“He made them brighter.” Sounds about right.

Hyunjin spends the next few minutes catching his breath, his chest rising and falling in your peripheral vision. You sift through your mind for phrases of consolation or gestures of support and come up empty. You wish you had Hyunjin’s way with words.

But you think about the way his smile reached his eyes as he thanked you for caring about him, the tenderness with which he caught your hand at the arcade, the I give a fuck about you he blurted before ending the study call. You think about the voice note. It’s not that Hyunjin has a way with words; it’s that he’s brave enough to break the silences that you can’t, like he perceives your anxiety for the aftermath, shouldering the responsibility so you won’t have to.

This cannot be his burden alone.

You inhale. “What’s on your mind?”

Hyunjin doesn’t answer right away. You give up on squinting and close your eyes. The lights are still bright enough to dance around the murky darkness.

“I don’t think I know how to put it into words.”

You nearly laugh; you know how that feels. “Don’t think, just talk. I’m here.”

The same advice you gave yourself seems to work on him as well.

“Do you remember Ishikawa Yuki?”

His role model.

“He’s currently playing for a club team in Italy called Allianz Milano.” He blows out a deep breath. “I’ve been talking to their coach, Roberto Piazza, for the last six months.”

The gears in your head creak in their effort to process the implications of these words. “Holy shit, Hwang.”

“He emailed again, this morning. Said he was coming to the tournament later this month, he’s excited to see me play in person, whatever. And it hit me, finally, that this is all real. Like, this is actually happening to me. I spent all of today freaking out and asked Coach to let me stay back after practice. Usually, it wears out my brain if I tire my body, but it only half-worked today. I couldn’t wrap my head around anything. I still can’t.

“I am who I am because of that man, and now…I have a shot at playing with him. I keep asking myself why I’m not—not happier. I should be bouncing off the fucking walls, no? If I told my past self that this would be happening to him one day, he—he would—”

You open your eyes, confused by the sudden silence.

Hyunjin is sitting up next to you, staring intensely into the bleachers. You first notice the tip of his tongue prodding into his cheek, then his shuddering breath. He lifts a hand to his face, pressing against his eyes.

You stop thinking after that.

You sit up with him. When you settle your fingers around his wrist, he allows you to pull his hand back to his side. But he turns away as if trying to hide from you; he squeezes his eyes shut as if that would obstruct your view of his pain.

You reach to cradle his face, bringing him back to you. The cuff of your sleeves wipe at the saltwater on his cheeks, push the hair off his forehead with gentle sweeps. The two of you are close, close enough that your lips would meet the space between his eyes if you so much as lost your balance. His gaze traverses to your face, but you resolve not to meet it. You know you will traipse into uncharted territory the moment you do.

“Don’t fight it.” You trace over the hill of his cheek. “Healing becomes easier if you let yourself hurt. Trust me, Hyunjin.”

His first name should feel foreign on your tongue, yet you suspect the syllables have accompanied you all your life.

“You don’t have to continue if you can’t.”

“S’okay.” Hyunjin lifts your hand away from his face, presses a kiss to the base of your palm. “I want to.”

You feel yourself stumble ungracefully into the uncharted territory from before; does he do the same?

“I used to play volleyball on this expanse of cracked blacktop, behind my primary school. It was pretty brutal on my feet—I blew through so many different pairs of sneakers my mom almost made me quit.” He smiles at the memory. “But every time I came close to quitting, I’d go home and rewatch the same USA vs. Poland match from the 2008 Summer Olympics I asked my dad to record, and I’d promise myself it would be me on some other kid’s screen someday.

“That kid would tell everyone who’d listen about how cool I am. That I’m a secret superhero. That I’m living proof humans can fly if they really, really try—just like I talked about the volleyball players I grew up watching on my TV.

“The other day, Coach told me that hope would consume me. I thought it was just some senile drivel at the time, but..I think I get what he means now. I would do anything and everything to make that kid proud—even if it meant losing myself.” He lowers his head, auburn strands falling into his eyes. “That’s what’s on my mind.”

Amidst the ensuing pause, a storm approaches. It does not come in the form of rain or snow, sleet or hail, no; it is a gathering of words unsaid and emotions unacknowledged, all emerging from the deepest chambers of your heart in synchrony. The same entities you used to scapegoat for all the times things were awkward between you and Hyunjin when you were the culprit all along. You and your blind cowardice.

The storm tears open the seam of your lips. You do not resist; it’s long overdue.

“Every time Changbin sees you, he turns into a smitten schoolgirl,” you say. “He is physically unable to contain how endearing he finds you. He told me so himself.”

Hyunjin looks at you with widened eyes. You think you can see your own reflection in them, and you are the spitting image of a lighter dropped into gasoline, unstoppable in your vehemence.

“Jeongin comes to you for advice before anyone else,” you continue, “even for things related to school—which I still find hard to believe, I’m not gonna lie. But you have his best interests in mind, and it shows in everything you do for him. Of course your opinion matters more than anything in the world.

“I know you think he can’t stand you, but you are the reason Coach Bang loves this job, why he loves this sport. It’s written all over his face every time he calls you something mean, every time he makes you run another lap, every time he looks at you. You’re like a son to him. Everyone sees it but you.”

“Then there’s me.” You pause to catch your breath. “When I think about what my life used to be, I remember a lot of things. I remember loneliness. Insecurity. I remember my books and my backgammon boards and the way I taught myself to disappear inside them so the world would never find me. I remember avoiding mirrors like a vampire because I didn’t like seeing my own reflection. I remember feeling like I had to put on someone else’s personality every time I left the house because nobody would want to know me for me. All I ever wanted was a place where I could be myself, love myself, without consequence. I have yet to find that place.

“But I found a person. Someone who wouldn’t know time and place if they kicked his dick into his body. Someone who thinks instant ramen is high in nutritional value because it comes with dried vegetables. Someone who sweats the same amount of rain the Sahara Desert receives yearly—your body is not normal, by the way.”

Hyunjin giggles; it is soft and short, a small, tearful huff into the quiet air that makes you feel like you’re flying.

“Don’t get me wrong,” you say. “Your sense of humor sucks and your taste in coffee is so boring and you are the one with no media literacy, not Professor Kim. But I love spending time with you. I love who I am when I’m around you. And none of that has to do with volleyball.”

The next time you blink, you discover that he’s not the only one with tears in his eyes. How long has that been going on?

“There’s so much about you to be proud of, Hyunjin.” You give him a watery smile. “That kid will be spoiled for choice.”

When Hyunjin pulls you into his arms, you fall into each other like going to bed after a long day. Your face burrows into the crook of his neck in your embarrassment; he is laughing and crying at the same time when he mumbles something into your shoulder: “I knew you cared about me.”

You are so happy for the comedic relief you could sob. It helps that you already are.

“How the fuck are you still sweaty?” You choke out, and you think you like his cologne after all.

Six days later, Hyunjin opens the door of his apartment.

A fun-sized flurry of black and white barrages into the hallway outside and almost runs headfirst into the figure waiting there. You fall to your knees like you’ve just been gravely wounded, emitting an ear-piercing wail to match. All it takes is a few good head scratches for Kkami to stop yipping bloody murder and start whining for attention instead.

Upon minute five of watching you and his dog cuddle in the hallway directly outside his home, Hyunjin sighs.

“Can you come inside, please? My RA will think I’m doing some freaky shit again.”

You side-eye him as you walk into his apartment, Kkami perched happily in your arms. “What, exactly, does freaky shit entail?”

He smirks as the door falls shut. “You want me to tell you or show you?”

You turn to Kkami, disgusted. “Your owner’s a bit of a pervert, my dear.”

Kkami licks you on the chin. Hyunjin’s eyes narrow to slits.

“Traitor.”

Naturally, Hyunjin’s parents chose the eve of his final anthropology exam—and the week before the tournament that will determine the trajectory of his career—to ask him to look after Kkami for a few days. He nearly canceled their plane tickets himself, but his impromptu roommate is currently ransacking your face with kisses on his couch, and he thinks your laugh complements his studio better than any decoration.

“Do you want anything to drink?” He calls from the kitchen area.

You meander over, Kkami (still) perched happily in your arms. “What do you have?”

“Alcohol.” He opens his fridge far enough so you can peer over his shoulder. “Americanos.”

He stops speaking.

“Is that all?”

“Yes. Wait—and apple juice.”

“You are about to be a professional athlete.”

“What the Italians don’t know won’t hurt them. You want apple juice, don’t you? I can see it in your eyes.”

“Maybe. Can you open it for me? My hands are full.”

Hyunjin does so with far less reluctance than he feigns. You thank him jubilantly, popping the straw into your mouth.

“Let’s get this over with.”

At 10:32 P.M., all is calm. You are sitting on the floor, your back against the side of his mattress. Hyunjin is where the universe intended: curled up in bed, both him and his laptop lying on their sides. You have studied eight out of ten units in only two and a half hours, and the night is still young. Kkami is but a fluffy, sleepy Oreo by your waist.

At 10:33 P.M., the Oreo begins to retch.

You startle a foot into the air. Hyunjin is out of bed and on his feet in the blink of an eye, the very image of a dog dad on duty. He grabs three different things off the kitchen counter with one hand and scoops up the long-haired chihuahua with the other, and then he’s kicking open the door.

Seungmin appears out of thin air carrying two heaping bags of groceries. Hyunjin nearly knocks him and a month’s worth of fresh produce down four flights of stairs.

“Hyun—Kkami?” Seungmin swivels. “Yo, what the fuck is—”

Hyunjin is already out the door.

A few minutes later, Hyunjin squats off to the side, pouring fresh water into a portable dog bowl. A little ways away, Kkami is throwing up ebulliently; a set of footsteps approaches.

“What is this thing?” Seungmin squats down next to Hyunjin, picking up the piece of patterned fabric lying on the grass.

“Kkami gets sad after throwing up,” he sighs. “His blanket makes him feel better.”

Seungmin watches the chihuahua for a few moments, a soft flinch crimping his features. “He ate too fast again?”

Hyunjin rakes a hand through his hair. “I don’t get it. Nobody’s gonna take his food from him.”

Seungmin laughs. “I didn’t even know he was on campus.”

“I picked him up last night. My parents are traveling for work—they say hi, by the way.”

“I say hi back. I miss your mom’s cooking.”

“Me too,” Hyunjin says, smiling. “She would love to cook for you again—she’s always saying you’re too skinny.”

“She really is.”

A beat passes; it is then that Hyunjin has an epiphany.

Seungmin was the one who put a volleyball in his hands for the first time. Back then, Hyunjin was the lesser troublemaker between the two of them—a concept that neither of them can wrap their heads around to this day. Seungmin suggested they use the clotheslines in Hyunjin’s backyard as a makeshift net, despite Hyunjin’s dissuading; half of Hyunjin’s father’s wardrobe caught on fire, Seungmin had a black eye for a week, and nobody knows what happened to that volleyball. The two of them have been attached at the hip ever since.

It is a crazy thing, having your best friend as a teammate; a singular flick of the wrist or a point of his shoe and Seungmin will know exactly Hyunjin wants the ball down to the net’s fraying fibers; Hyunjin will be exactly where Seungmin needs him down to the flecks of paint on the volleyball court. Hyunjin has always been Seungmin’s hitter—Seungmin, always Hyunjin’s setter. Nothing will ever change between them so long as that remains the case.

At least, that’s what Hyunjin used to think.

Learning that Seungmin was in a relationship was as much a wake-up call for Hyunjin as it was for you. At first, he was just fucking pissed; how could Seungmin be so stupid as to turn down someone like you, especially when Hyunjin had shot his mouth off about his wingman services? More importantly, how long had his best friend of eighteen years been in love, and why was he the last to know?

Only now, as they wait for his nine-year-old chihuahua to finish barfing, does Hyunjin realize that he can’t remember the last time he and Seungmin talked. Not “talked” as in a brief exchange inside the locker room or the lecture hall, about a new approach he wants to try or what Seungmin got on number four or if he wants a ride to practice—“talked” as in talked, about Hyunjin, about Seungmin, about the eighteen years they shared, about all the years yet to come.

Hyunjin sees his setter every day; he stopped looking for his friend a long time ago.

“Yeonwoo, right?”

He senses surprise in Seungmin without having to look at him. But he also senses a smile, a subtle show that Seungmin recognizes what he’s trying to do—and forgives him.

“Yeonwoo,” Seungmin affirms. “We’re in the same songwriting intensive this semester.”

“Also a singer?”

He shakes his head. “Piano player. Performed at the Carnegie Hall in the United States at, like, seven years old. I don’t think I’ve ever met someone so talented.”

“Wow, that’s—hi, old man. You done?”

Kkami walks over with his head hung low and tail between his legs, and Hyunjin hurries to drape the pup in his favorite blanket, pulling the bowl of water in front of him in tandem. Seungmin runs a hand over the top of Kkami’s head as he hydrates.

“You’ve suffered,” he tells him solemnly, and Hyunjin snorts.

“As I was saying—that’s crazy to hear, coming from the most talented person I know. You guys looked so good together.”

“Thanks. It’s weird. I’m happy.”

“You deserve it. You really do, Kim.” They exchange smiles, and Hyunjin gives Seungmin a playful nudge. “When are you introducing us?”

“The arcade wasn’t enough?”

“Don’t insult me.”

“Whenever you want, then.”

“Dinner with my mom, dinner with Yeonwoo,” Hyunjin recounts. “I’m holding you to it.”

“Bet.”

They shake on it. If Hyunjin wasn’t already reassured by Seungmin’s smile, he knows by his clasp around his hand that they’ll be okay.

“What about you?” Seungmin asks. “Are you together yet?”

Hyunjin knew this was coming. “What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean.” Seungmin strings his hands together, letting them dangle in the space between his knees. “Someone you have questions for that you’re too scared to ask. Someone who’s lived in your mind since the day you met. There’s someone like that, isn’t there?”

Hyunjin pokes his tongue into his cheek.

Ever since that night on the gym floor, Hyunjin’s been having these dreams. By the time his alarm goes off in the morning, every detail of the dream has eluded him, leaving behind only a ghost of emotion, akin to the breeze that grazes your face moments after walking past another person.

But then he’ll get out of bed, and walk to that café on the east side of campus, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. There, he’ll order a vanilla latte with extra sweetener, then turn around to see you standing five feet away, holding an Americano and trying not to laugh. And he’ll just know, with everything in him, that you are where his head goes when he’s not keeping watch.

He still addresses you by the pet names you hate. He still finds any excuse to be close to you; he still pesters you like a child with a crush. But now, he calls you his baby like one wishes on a star; his eyes drift to your lips every time you’re within two feet of each other; he makes fun of your likes and dislikes only because he’s happy to know about them at all. Ever since that night on the gym floor.

It’s impossible for nothing and everything to change at once. Two people teetering on the precipice of something cannot withstand a gust of wind so powerful. He’s already hanging off the ledge, losing his grip; where are you?

Next to him, Seungmin lets out a soft laugh. “There is.”

Hyunjin doesn’t know what to say.

“It might’ve been me, at some point,” he hums, returning his hand to scratch the back of Kkami’s ears. “But it has always been you, Hyun.”

Four floors above them and inside Hyunjin’s place, you are pacing between his fridge and his bed, nervously awaiting his and Kkami’s return.

Something catches your eye, wide and flat and hung on the wall by his bathroom door. You approach it curiously, your lips pulling into a fond smile the moment you realize all that’s in front of you.

Many of the photographs are of Hyunjin: him in his preteens, dead asleep in bed while dressed head to toe in volleyball gear, braces visible because his mouth is open; an action shot taken at what must’ve been a U21 match, the South Korean flag stitched into the shoulder of his jersey; him with half a birthday cake in front of him and the rest smeared all over his face. There are headlines, too: Underdog team earns district’s first high school volleyball state title; Hwang Hyunjin proves himself worthy of “ace spiker” label at South Korea V. Croatia U19 match; Coach Bang “Christopher” Chan leads Seoul National University to second consecutive KUL championship. There’s one—Who is Hwang Hyunjin? Meet the twenty-year-old instigant of South Korea’s imminent volleyball revolution—beside which he’s written the singular word “mouthful.” You laugh; you agree.

But pinned to the corkboard is also a photograph of Minho, surrounded by stray cats in the alleyway outside a K-BBQ restaurant; his parents cradling Kkami in an apple costume; his high school volleyball team silhouetted against a pretty sunset. Him and Seungmin as kids, covered in grime and scrapes but beaming nonetheless; him and Seungmin at age nineteen, stadium lights on their backs, unadulterated elation on their faces as they charge towards each other, beaming still. Changbin piggybacking Felix through the hallways of the gym, neither of them wearing a shirt; Jisung offering Coach Bang a beer while the latter looks direly unamused (you make a mental note to ask about that one later); what looks like a Rock Lee cosplayer grimacing in the middle of your anthropology classroom.

You rush forward as if decreed by gravitational force. Not too far away is another picture of you, in which you boast a Miffy headband and a face full of foaming cleanser. Then another, your eyes narrowed like that of a sniper taking aim as you’re playing Tetris; you with so many volleyballs piled into your arms that you can’t see your own face; your cheeks squished by a bandaged hand after you lost a bet about pandas (they can swim); you clutching your stomach on the library floor, brought to hysterical tears by Professor Kim’s email. You, you, you.

You bring your pointer finger to this last image, tracing it over the curve of your own cheek. You see a dimple on your face you didn’t know you had. You realize it only comes out for him.

It has always been him.

The front door opens. A man with telephone poles for legs and a long-haired chihuahua in his arms appears behind it. You sense in him that something has changed since you last saw each other. The two of you lock eyes.

It’s not awkward this time.

Multiple yards behind the service line, Hyunjin is rotating a volleyball in his hands. It feels solid and sentient, an extension of himself held in cotton-clad fingers. He knows how this story will end.

He moves his eyes to his best friend’s back. Four fingers flash back at him twice, signaling a high lob set to the left, the very play they’ve practiced tirelessly for the last five weeks. The breath Hyunjin blows out of his cheeks seems to crystallize in the air, almost solid in all its exhilaration.

He bends low and throws high. His arms drop behind his body like a spread of feathered wings; his feet fall into place below him like a meteor shower, two consecutive strikes against the earth that fissure its mantle. The lights overhead are bright. His palm pulls taut when it slams into leather. He knows how this story will end.

The volleyball tears towards the ground. It trembles as if scared by all that it holds: the guarantee of a flawless denouement, the catalyst of a radiant future. Hyunjin’s heart is beating hard enough to crack his ribs when he lands back on the ground, when the volleyball lands in the furthest corner of the court. He’s not scared at all.

He balls his fingers into fists.

“JUST LIKE LAST YEAR, BACK TO BACK ON AN ACE—”

An arm seizes Hyunjin’s neck; another drags him onto the floor. His head thuds onto the hardwood with a sound he hears over the whole world detonating. His vision fills with the faces of the people he cares for most, some covered in tears and others rivaling the ceiling with their blinding smiles. He can’t feel most of his body; his sweat drips into his mouth. He doesn’t care. He doesn’t care.

“—DEFENDING THEIR TITLE FOR THE THIRD CONSECUTIVE YEAR—”

His eyes find Seungmin’s among the fray. Their hands clap together with such force that Hyunjin cusses at the impact. Seungmin’s gaze burns into his with a ferocity that Hyunjin plans to take to his grave. His setter. His best friend.

He says something inaudible, but Hyunjin reads the words off his lips, and his eyes fill with tears: we win everything.

“—YOUR NATIONAL CHAMPIONS: SEOUL NATIONAL UNIVERSITY!”

Hyunjin’s post-game interview is a lawless affair. He is allowed at most half an answer before a new teammate is barreling over with an animalistic screech or a new friend is screaming congratulations from out of frame.

The reporter is visibly agitated by her final question, unpursing her lips to ask: “Is there anyone you’d like to thank?”

Hyunjin exhales. “You want the short answer or the long—”

Changbin seizes him by the head. Hyunjin bursts into a peal of high-pitched laughter as the libero litters kisses all over his face, nearly crumpling to the floor in his attempt to escape.

“Love you,” he yells before hurrying off.

“Love you too, Bin.”

Hyunjin turns a sheepish smile to the reporter.

“The short answer,” she deadpans.

He starts counting off his fingers. He thanks his family—his first and last teammates, his eternal anchors. His other family, his actual teammates, the best boys he’s ever known. His coach, who will let him call him Chris someday. His best friend and setter, Kim Seungmin, who set a clothesline on fire once and changed his life forever.

In the distance, a figure emerges from the locker rooms. There’s a navy blue SNU banner draped over your shoulders, two overflowing duffel bags in your hands. Jisung and Jeongin run over to take them from you, and the smile you give them is wide and flushed, a remnant of the elation you shared from afar. The three of you start walking out of the gym.

Hyunjin thanks you.

You didn’t ask for the position, he tells the reporter, but some idiot roped you into it, and they’re all so grateful that you decided to stick around. You know the team better than they know themselves—it’s hard to believe you’ve been with them for five weeks instead of five years.

What are you like? What aren’t you like, is the better question. You’re caring, smart, strong; you see so much goodness in the people around you, all while unaware that it is your warmth that brings it out of them. Flowers only bloom in the sun’s doting radius, and so did he.

You have the sort of soul that incurs the scorn of the stars. They are the only ones to deserve you, they'd argue; you’re wasting your potential among humans when you belong to the sky, and they’d be right.

Hyunjin pokes his tongue into his cheek, suddenly annoyed.

“Why the fuck am I still talking to you?”

“Pardon?” The reporter returns, but Hyunjin is already vaulting over the bleachers, making a mad dash for the exit. She gives her cameraman an affronted glare. He shrugs.

He explodes onto the concrete, looking around in a frantic haze. He finds the blue banner heading toward the team bus and flanked by his teammates with ease.

He calls out to you.

You glance backwards. Your smile is purely effulgent, your laugh but a faint sigh against the area’s busy thrum. His heart is pounding against his ribs like a battering ram again, but he’s used to this feeling by now. Jeongin and Jisung make themselves scarce.

You’re beautiful. God, you’re fucking beautiful. That was the first thought to enter his mind when he spilled an iced Americano on your lap all those months ago and you looked at him like he hailed from another planet. And it is the first thought to enter his mind now, when he runs up to you and cradles your face in his hands, his touch infinitely, impossibly gentle, and you look at him like he’s everything that has ever existed, everything that ever will.

Tendrils of your body spray reach him from here, floral and light like a tropical coastline. He could’ve counted your eyelashes—if he didn’t have something far better to do.

“Tell me now if you don’t want me to do this,” he whispers.

A stupid smile crosses the face of the smartest person he knows. “My lips are sealed.”

Hyunjin kisses you. He kisses you until the banner around your shoulders is wrinkled under his touch, until your hands are tangled in his hair and aching his scalp, until the breaths you take are breaths you share, passed between your mouths like a puff of smoke before they’re colliding again.

He kisses you until he’s crying, again, until he’s no longer tasting your lips but your grin, and he kisses you only harder when those scornful stars start to dance before him, for you are his, not theirs, and he’s really won everything, now.

“Hwang, I need you in my office.”

Six months later, Hyunjin sees Coach Bang standing a few yards away with a grim air about him. He stops in his footsteps and glances at his captain, confused.

“I know nothing,” Seungmin says, walking away. “Good luck!”

“Thanks, cap.” Hyunjin swears he’s had this exact exchange before.

Head volleyball coach Christopher Bang’s workspace still reminds Hyunjin of a morgue. But there are two picture frames on his desk now: one of his family in front of the Sydney Opera House, the other of a band of boys clad in navy blue, draped over one another in exhausted bliss. The latter lends the room a much-needed sense of vitality. Too bad it still houses a rusty cyborg.

Hyunjin closes the door and takes a seat. Bang taps a knuckle against the tempered glass of his monitor. “Read.”

From: Nicola Daldello «[email protected]» To: Bang “Christopher” Chan «[email protected]» Subject: Re: Allianz Milano V. Pallavolo Perugia practice game Christopher, Allow me to apologize for my delayed response as I shared your request with Chairman Piazza. It is my great pleasure to inform you that we would love for Mr. Hwang Hyunjin to participate in our practice game versus Pallavolo Perugia. The match is scheduled for Monday, October 7th, 5-7 P.M. CET in the Giurati Sports Centre in Milan. Mr. Hwang will be playing for Allianz Milano as an outside hitter alongside Mr. Matey Kaziyski, Mr. Osniel Mergarejo, and Mr. Ishikawa Yuki. Please let me know of your availability to call regarding Mr. Hwang’s travel logistics. His transportation and lodging costs will be paid for by the club. I’m looking forward to speaking with you and welcoming Mr. Hwang to Italy once and for all. Yours, Nicola Daldello Assistant Coach, Allianz Milano

“I told you, some opportunities just present themselves,” Bang says, turning his monitor back around. “As for next steps, I need a holistic calendar view of your entire month of October, including social ev—Hwang, is that foam coming out of your mo—NOT ON MY CARPET! HWANG!”

In a park about a ten minute walk away, a small crowd of elderly people are scattered across a few stone tables, hunched over the fading chess boards painted into the granite surfaces. Mrs. Choi whisks away Mrs. Baek’s king with a triumphant yelp.

“I knew it, I knew it, I knew it! That opening is unbeatable!” She swivels towards you, shaking a fist threateningly. “You! Get over here. Your reign is over.”

You are sitting cross-legged in the shade of a broad magnolia tree, clearing out your storage. You tried to take a picture of a particularly rotund pigeon to send to Hyunjin earlier and couldn’t even do that. It was then you decided you couldn't live like this anymore.

“As excited as I am to beat you again, Mrs. Choi, I need ten more minutes,” you call back.

She presents you with an unpleasant hand gesture. You turn your attention back to your phone, grinning. Two new notifications sit at the top of your lock screen.

Hyunjin: Omw now. Sorry had to talk to Chris Hyunjin: Same park? Y/N: yes Hyunjin: Who’s our opponent today Y/N: mrs. choi Hyunjin: Not that bitch again Y/N: ?

He’ll be here in eight minutes.

You return to the task at hand. You’ve already cleared out your apps, your documents, and videos; all that’s left is the audio files. You conduct a quick mental review. Surely you’ll live without your downloaded music and accidental voice memos.

Instead of hitting the “delete” button, you extract a pair of tangled earphones from your jacket pocket.

You go back to your texts with Hyunjin, open the shared attachments tab, and scroll for a long time before you find the voice note he sent you seven months ago.

He finds you a sobbing mess.

“Hey, hey, whoa.” He’s on his knees in an instant, gathering your hands into his, a world of concern in the brown of his eyes. Your earbuds fall out and clatter onto the cement below. “Baby, what’s happening? Are you okay?”

“Yes,” you say in a flustered haste. “Yes, I’m okay. I don’t—I don’t really know what’s happening.”

“Did that hag do this to you?” He asks this question so seriously. “I’ll beat up a senior citizen, I don’t give a fuck—”

“No!” You let out an ugly laugh through your tears. “No, no. Leave Mrs. Choi alone.”

“Then what is it? What’s wrong?”

Eventually, your vision clears enough for you to look at the man kneeling in front of you. His roots grow out longer every day, his hair by now nearly equal parts gold and black. A spot of sunlight infiltrates the magnolia leaves and lands on his left eye, turning it the hue of melted bronze.

Your fingers drift to the sides of his beautiful face as you lean in close; he smells like a combination of smoky rose and tropical coastlines.

“I’ll tell you later,” you murmur, pressing a kiss to his hairline.

He is dissatisfied with this, hooking a pointer finger beneath your chin, guiding your face back to his. He laves the saltwater from your lips, your tongue, and then you’re smiling again, barely able to remember why you cried in the first place.

You rest your foreheads together. “Have I told you that you look like a bumblebee these days?”

He smiles. “Does that make you my flower, then?”

“Because you’re irresistably drawn to me?”

“No, because I wanna put my pollen in—”

You shove him away. “You are grotesque.”

He returns in a flash. “You love me.”

You kiss him again. And again. And one more time for good measure, during which you mumble I do against his lips, and then you remember something.

“Why did Coach hold you back, by the way?” You pull away, tuck a strand of hair behind his ear. “Are you in trouble again?”

“No, no. The opposite, actually.”

Your brow furrows. “The opposite? What—”

“In this lifetime, please,” Mrs. Choi hollers from the chess tables. You roll your eyes. Hyunjin smiles helplessly.

“Duty calls, my love.”

“Tell me your thing later too?”

“Of course.”

You dust yourself off and stand up, making your way to the battleground. But not before you whisper to Hyunjin, “now watch me beat up a senior citizen.”

He laughs with his whole body, his eyes the shape of crescent moons, his mouth a little rectangle.

“Hypocrite.”

Hyunjin: [1 Audio Message]

This is my seventh take and I’m not recording an eighth. What you get is what you get. I don’t care anymore.

I understand if you don’t wanna talk about what happened at the arcade. I wouldn’t, either. I just wanted to say that you don’t have to do this tutoring thing anymore. I won’t be able to fulfill my end of our deal, so…yeah, it wouldn’t be fair to you. You’ve already done so much for us. For me.

As for team manager, you’ll have to talk to Minho and Coach Bang if you wanna quit. Doesn’t sound like a fun conversation, I know—but if that’s what you decide, I’ll have your back. They don’t scare me. Well, they do. Sometimes.

You’ve been…distant, this week. I’ve known peace and quiet for the first time since we met, and I fucking hate it. I realized I couldn’t care less if you’re my tutor or my team manager or whatever—I just don’t want you to be a stranger. Maybe that’s selfish of me to say, but I’m tired of pretending the idea of losing you doesn’t terrify me. It does. It truly fucking does.

I’m gonna end this here, because I almost just stopped recording on accident and I would’ve committed first degree murder if I had to do this all over again. Sorry that this got so long, and…I’m sorry about everything. You deserve better.

Come back to me whenever you’re ready, okay? I’ll be waiting.

🔖 (send an ask to be added)・@astraystayyh・@like-a-diamondinthesky・@fire-08・@starsandrqindrops・@txtxlz・@laylasbunbunny・@strayghibli・@nuronhe・@seungminsapuppy・@vivisoni・@moon0fthenight・@sweetpickledjins・@svintsandghosts・@nhyunn ・@ur-boyfiend・@liknws・@hotgorloikawa・@randomwimp・@automaticpersonabatpaper・@aceofvernons・@linos-kitten・@newhope8・@weedforthoughtz・@hyunverse

2K notes · View notes

itsphoenix0724 · 8 months

Text

Promises (Rhysand x Reader)

Summary: You don't argue with your husband often, and never anything as serious as this. However, some things may be too hard to come back from.

Warnings: ANGST, mentions of Rhys' trauma from under the mountain

Word Count: 1.7k

Part 2

A/N: Hey everyone! This is my first time writing for Rhys, but I apologize; this isn't the happiest thing! This takes place during ACOMAF, and I tried to keep it canon accurate. I may have diverged a little though! I really just needed to get some angst out from first week of school stress lol. If you ever want to interact with me my requests are open! As always constructive criticism is very welcome! I tried to makes this a realistic portrayl of real feelings and emotions. I hope you all enjoy even if it stamps on your heart a bit <3

You’re sitting at the dinner table in the Townhouse, nursing a glass of wine, when you feel your Husband’s power rumble into your bones. It normally feels comforting to you, but now all it does is further the knot of anxiety growing in your stomach.

It’s been a long week.

It was the first time that Rhys had called in his bargain with Feyre. You’ll always be eternally grateful for what Feyre did for your family, for your court, and the entirety of Prythian. It still didn’t stop the ugly jealousy that clawed at your insides at Rhys spending the week away from you with her. Especially after you learned about the dancing. You knew why it had to happen, you really did. He had explained everything to you in the tearful reunion after he returned from under the mountain.

You hope Amarantha burned in whatever hell she crawled out from.

“How was your first week,” you take another gulp of wine, trying to drown the spiders crawling up your throat.

“I think she’s making some progress. Tamlin isn’t even teaching her how to read! Can you believe that? Even after he saw it almost kill her and his supposedly beloved emissary.” He rubbed out the crease forming between his eyebrows, maneuvering around the kitchen as he poured himself a glass of whiskey. “She was paper thin and so so pale.” he shook his head as he knocked back the liquor.

“You didn’t come home the whole time.” You tried your best to keep the venom tamped down in your voice, you weren’t even really angry just confused. Judging by the way the muscles in his back tensed your endeavor had not been successful.

You knew he would have to call in this bargain eventually you just didn’t expect him to ignore you the entire time she was here. He could’ve taken you with him, you had even expressed interest in meeting Feyre. You had wanted to thank her personally for everything she did to you and extend an olive branch for her time in your court. Rhys had shut down the idea immediately because he thought she might have been overwhelmed.

“What is that supposed to mean?” he turned around and looked at you from his spot leaning against the counter. You didn’t look at him, staring straight at the grooves on the table. You sensed the defensive tone immediately. Rhys almost looks like a cat with all the hair raised on its back. Feline eyes sizing you up like he’s about to pounce on you.

“I just don’t understand why you couldn’t have come home to even sleep. When I tried to reach you mind to mind your shields were up.” Your nails dig into the wood, leaving crescent marks in the pine. Rhys doesn’t have an answer for that when you meet his eyes. It almost looks like he’s looking through you instead of at you.

“I didn’t want to leave her alone in case she tried to jump out a window.” He says the answer matter-of-factly. It’s the same tone you heard him use during the conferences he held with the citizens. He wasn’t exactly brushing you off, but it didn’t feel like he was listening to you either.

“Why couldn’t you have just told me that?” Your voice cracked. You have been married to Rhys for almost one hundred years. You could tell when he was being shifty, and you couldn’t shake the feeling that he was hiding something from you. Judging from that regretful look in his eye you were correct.

“I thought you would react poorly. Clearly, I was correct.” The clipped tone is enough to send a white-hot bolt of anger through your body.

“Do not blame your poor communication skills on me Rhysand.” The glare you fixed him with could have brought the monster that lurks in the bottom of the library to its knees, but Rhys just met your eyes with a steeled look of his own.

“She needed help. She was begging somebody to come rescue her. She was withering away in the Spring Court! You know how many times I’ve been pulled from bed because she’s vomiting during the night-” Rhys sounded exasperated. But you were tired, so tired.

“You’ve barely come to bed since you’ve been back.” Your voice was hardly more than a whisper, but the deafening silence that followed your words made it sound like an explosion. You knew it was a low blow. Rhys sometimes couldn’t stomach sleeping in your bed after what Amarantha did to him. After he was startled awake one night a bolt of his power shot your sleeping form out of the bed because, in his nightmare-filled haze, he had mistaken you for her. He had felt awful, and now mostly slept in one of the guest rooms in fear that he would cause serious damage to you. You had tried to convince him, but he knew how powerful he could be, so you relented.

“You don’t get to throw that in my face right now.” The growl that came from your husband sounded like cold black death. “She needs to be trained. She needs help-” all the pent-up emotion started to boil over inside you. Your airway got smaller, white noise was sounding through your head, and your eyes couldn’t focus on a spot infront of you.

“I DO NOT CARE WHAT FEYRE NEEDS!” the boom in your voice surprised even you. Rhys took a step back, you rarely even raised your voice, let alone yelled at him. His eyes widened, but his flood of emotions quickly matched yours.

“SHE SAVED ME! I PROMISED TO KEEP HER SAFE!” The way Rhy’s voice ricocheted off the walls made you flinch. The pure night-kissed power had stolen the warmth from the room and all the air from your lungs.

“You made promises to me too. Do you remember that?” your voice echoed out with calm fury as you slipped your ring off your finger and held it up to the light. “Do you remember the promises you made to me when you put this ring on my finger?” You didn’t even know where the rage was coming from, You weren’t angry, but it grabbed ahold like cold unforgiving ocean waves and kept pulling you farther into the eye of the hurricane. “You pledged to me your undying loyalty, your faithfulness, your honesty.” That last word coated your tongue in acid.

It burned you and Rhys as it left your mouth.

“Do you truly believe I have been unfaithful to you?” his voice grated out like shards of glass. However, in your current state, it seemed more condescending than questioning.

“I believe you are not being honest with me. I have been married to you for practically 100 years, and have known you even longer. Do you think I don’t know when you’re not telling me something?” You shot up from your seat and slammed your wedding ring on the table. His violet shield slipped for just a moment to see the hurt flash in his eyes. You haven’t taken that ring off since he gave it to you.

“You are being irrational.” Rhys tried to step towards you, but you only backed away from him, shaking your head as tears welled up in your eyes.

“Why are you being so secretive about Feyre? She is engaged Rhys-you took her from her wedding. If she truly needed help why not bring her to Velaris? Why not let her meet me? Why not let her be happy with Tamlin?” The questions kept pouring out but the protective growl Rhysand made at your last statement had you recoiling. He had given himself away. He obviously knew it too, as he tried to step towards you. The tears kept pouring out as you shook your head. “You need to tell me what’s going on. Right now.” Rhys finally hung his head in defeat as he slumped into one of the chairs. He rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands as he stared at your trembling figure from the other side of the table.

“She is my mate.” Your eyes widened in horror. It felt like the dinner you made earlier tonight was going to make another appearance on your kitchen floor. “She is my mate and I don’t know what to do.”

“What do you mean you don’t know what to do?” Your voice was shaking with scarcely contained fury as you stormed up to the table. “I am your wife. I am your people’s queen. What more is there to think about? I thought you loved me.” A new wave of tears washed over you, and you swear you could hear your heart breaking. It was so loud. You wonder if Rhys could hear it too.

“Of course I love you!” he looked at you with desperation and pleading in his eyes. “It’s just more complicated.” You shook your head at him as your sobs finally flowed out of your body.

“It shouldn’t be complicated,” you heaved out through the tears “You promised to choose me every day. If you can’t do that I can’t be here.” You turn from the table and march up the stairs. You distantly hear Rhys get up and follow you to your room as you shove clothes inside a bag.

“What are you doing? You’re not leaving, are you?” His eyes widened in horror as he tried to grab the items out of your hands. “Darling-”

“Do not call me that right now.” You manage to sniff out the words behind the tears. “I just can’t be here if you cannot choose me. There shouldn’t even be a question.”

“Where will you go?” He at least had it in him to sound concerned about your well-being.

“I don’t know, anywhere but here.” You shoved the last thing in your suitcase and winnowed away without another word. You left Rhysand in your house, with your ring sitting on the table. He found himself sitting at the kitchen table for the rest of the night, nursing a bottle of whisky and running over the cool sapphire with the pad of his thumb. He didn’t know if you were ever coming back. He didn’t know where you went.

What the fuck had he done?

#acomaf #acotar #acowar #acotar imagine #acosf fanfiction #rhysand #rhys acotar #rhysand x reader #rhys x reader #rhysand imagine

1K notes · View notes

fangirl-dot-com · 1 month

Text

Incorrect Quotes - Part 2

All of these were taken from Pinterest - again, I am not this funny

Special thank you to @sinfully-yoursss for asking for another one!

Max: Do you ever do anything except whine like a little bitch? Y/n: Sometimes I whine like a BIG bitch

Arthur (propping his feet up on a table): So, I heard you like bad boys Y/n: What? No??? Arthur (immediately taking his feet off the table): Oh thank God, that felt terrible

Christian: Where’s Y/n and the child? Toto: Y/n is teaching him how to drive Christian: Y/n never learned to drive??????

*Meanwhile*

Y/n: So there’s two pedals. Sometimes three but you can ignore the left one Kimi: I don’t think…. Y/n: the lines on the road are more like suggestions than anything, like the speed limit Kimi: Are you positive that… Y/n: I’m not sure how to turn on the blinkers. Ready? Kimi: Uhhhhh Y/n (shouting): GO GO GO GO Kimi (screaming) *floors it*

Nurse: I’m sorry sir, we can only allow family to see Miss L/n at this time Christian: bold of you to assume I won’t legally adopt her right now Y/n (sleepy, inside the hospital wing): you tell ‘em dad!

Max: Your honor, my client is ready Judge: And what does the defendant plead? Max (mouthing the words): not guilty Y/n (squinting at Max): hot milky Max (facepalms): take her away

Y/n: Deck the halls with crippling depression Charles: Fa la la la la, la la la la Y/n: ‘Tis the season for emotional suppression Arthur: Fa la la la la, la la la la Max (passing through): what???

Y/n (on the phone): Hey Lance, can Arthur and I borrow $5000? Lance: Why the hell do you need $5000?! Y/n: For an escape room. Lance: What kind of escape room costs 5 grand?? Y/n: Y/n: Jail.

Max (answers phone): hello? Y/n: It’s Y/n Max: What did she do this time Y/n: no, it’s me, Max Max: what did you do this time

Y/n (on the floor): Go on…without me! Lando (crying while kneeling beside her): No! We can get through this together, just like we always do! Y/n: There’s no time! You must defend our honor. Don’t let my death be for nothing! Lando (sobbing): I can’t do this without you! Y/n: Goodbye, old friend….(goes limp) Oscar (whispering to Max): They do realize this is just a dodgeball game, right? Max (aiming at Lando): Oscar, this is war. Show no mercy.

Oscar: One day, someone will think about you for the last time in eternity. You will be forgotten by the world Y/n: not if I eat the Mona Lisa

Yuki: I’m small but knowing Y/n: You don’t be knowing what the top shelf looks like Yuki: Y/n: Yuki: Bitch

Y/n: Go big or go home! Vito (tears in his eyes): I am begging you, Y/n. For once in your life, go home. Just this once. Go. Home. Y/n: I’m gonna go big

Y/n: I will do a lot of thing. But admitting I’m cold to Max after he told me to bring a jacket isn’t one of them

Max: I sleep with a knife beside my bed Carlos: I have a machete under my bed Logan: I have a gun under my pillow Arthur: Weak. Pathetic. All of you Max: And what deadly weapon do you sleep with? Arthur (putting on shades): Y/n

Arthur: I will speak French between your legs Y/n: That is the hottest thing I’ve ever been told Lando: I’m just imagining someone screaming “Bonjour” to a dick Daniel: SACRE BLEAU MADEMOISELLE HON HON HON TITTY CROISSANTS Logan (wheezing): TITTY CROISANTS Max: None of you should ever be having sex

Y/n: Hey do you know anyone who can teach me how to play the trumpet? Alex: Why? Y/n: I wanna wander around the paddock and annoy Esteban Logan: Technically, you don’t actually need to know how to play it for that Y/n: You have opened my eyes Logan

Max (not looking up from his book): what did he do now? Y/n: HE SMILED Max: At you? Y/n: No, at Oscar and Ollie but HE LOOKS LIKE AN ANGEL Max: go away Y/n: shut up, I watched you pine over Charles for months – let me have this Max: carry on

Arthur: I came up with a brilliant idea for a prank Y/n: Ooh, what is it? Arthur: We should kiss. Y/n: …I don’t get it Arthur: Think about it! Imagine Max and Charles come into the garage, only to find us making out, hands all over each other. You can sit in my lap and we’ll really just go to town. Max will be like “WHAAAAAAA” and Charles might even faint! Y/n: Oh, that’s hilarious! We totally should

Esteban: The math problem isn’t so hard, it’s just a simple repetition of- Y/n (frustrated): You’re a simple repetition Esteban: Y/n: Charles: Did Y/n really just hurt Esteban’s feelings Max: I’m so freakin proud

Y/n (googling): snake bite leg what to do Google: elevate and apply pressure Y/n (lifting the snake really high): apologize or else

Y/n: with all due respect Y/n: Y/n: which is none

Toto: If you took a shot for every time you made a bad decision, how drunk would you be? Kimi: Maybe a little tipsy? George: Drunk. Y/n: Wasted. Lewis: Dead.

Esteban: Could you at least try to be nice? Y/n: You’re still breathing. That’s me being nice.

Oscar: Hey do you have a bag I can borrow? Zhou: The only bags I have are the ones under my eyes, and they’re specifically designed to carry the burden of my existence Oscar: Literally all you had to do was say no

Max (at Y/n’s funeral): Can I have a moment alone with her? Arthur: Of course *leaves* Max (leaning over the coffin): Now listen, I know you’re not dead Y/n: no duh

Y/n: Ow! Oscar: You dislocated your shoulder. Want me to pop it back in? Y/n (grimacing): Yeah…okay Oscar: All right, on 3….0, 1 *pops shoulder back in* Y/n: MOTHERFU- WHO THE HELL STARTS AT 0

Yuki: Hey Y/n, did you eat all the powdered donuts? Y/n: …No? Yuki: Then what’s that white powder on your pants Y/n (panicking): cocaine

Y/n: Max, I think you should play the role of my father Max: I don’t want to be your father Y/n: That’s perfect. You already know your lines

Lando: Can I be frank with you guys? Y/n: I don’t know how changing your name is going to help us here, but sure? Charles: Wait, can I still be Charles? Oscar: Shh, let Frank speak.

Lewis: I have a bad feeling about this. Y/n: What do you mean? Lewis: Don’t you ever have that little voice in your head that tells you if something is going to get you in trouble? Y/n: no Lewis: That explains so much

Y/n: What do you call a fish with no eye (i)? Oscar (not looking up from his book): myxine circifrons Y/n: Y/n: fsh

George: Do you have any skeletons in your closet? Y/n: Figuratively or literally? George: Y/n, honestly, the fact that I have to specify

Mitch: I know you took the last Red Bull Y/n Y/n (internally): play dumb Y/n: Who’s Y/n? Y/n (internally): not that dumb!

Y/n: Big mood Fernando: What does that mean…big mood? Y/n: Uh well, it kind of means like, me too, I guess Fernando: Thanks

*1 week later before a race in the rain*

Oscar: I’m kind of worried about this race guys Fernando: Big mood, Piastri, big mood Oscar: Y/n what did you do?

Charles: What’s worse than a DNF at a home race? Y/n: realizing that dragons can’t blow out their birthday candles Charles: Charles: mate

Y/n: You know what? Underneath it all, you’re actually quite nice Max: Repeat that disgusting slander and you’ll be hearing from my lawyers

Carlos: Now that I have explained the answer to this problem to you for ten minutes, do you understand? Y/n: Yes. Carlos:…Are you lying to me? Y/n: Yes.

Christian: Y/n, it’s your turn to give the pre-race talk Y/n (claps hands): Fuck shit up, hit some barriers, run Charles off the road, don’t die Max (proudly): succinct and informative

Max: The FIA really seems to hate us Charles: Maybe they’re homophobic Max: We’re not a couple Charles Charles: We’re not Y/n: You’re not?

Vito: Why is Y/n in the bathroom on the floor crying? Max: She’s drunk Vito: And? Mitch: She heard that Arthur has a girlfriend Vito:…but she is Arthur’s girlfriend Max: Yeah, we know that

Max (wears lighter skinny jeans and a brighter blue Red Bull polo) Y/n: I see you’re busting out the spring colors

Oscar: How do you two normally get out of these types of messes? Lando: We don’t. Y/n: We just make a bigger mess that cancels out the first one

*Valentines Day*

Arthur (reading Y/n’s texts): Y/n just said she’s going to give me 102 minutes of pleasure tonight Max: Oh wow

*Later watching Cars 2*

Y/n: You look disappointed

Y/n: Chillax! Oscar: that’s not a word Y/n: Sometimes the ones who deny “chillax” are the ones who need to chillax the most

Y/n: You know, water is pretty crazy. It can boil you to death, freeze you to death, drown you, or spin your car out of control, throw you into the barriers and kill you. But you still need it to survive Max: Y/n, I love you, but its 3 AM

Christian: Y/n, a word. Y/n: BALLOON

Max: I have the sharpest memory! Name one time I forgot something Y/n: You left Charles in a Walmart like three weeks ago Max: I did that on purpose, try again

Vito: Y/n isn’t answering her phone Arthur: I’ll call Vito: Max and I have both tried, along with everyone else on the grid. What make you think she’ll answer? *Calls her anyway* Y/n: Hello?

Y/n: Oi, where’s your boyfriend? Max: Who? Y/n: Charles, where is he? Max: He’s not my boyfriend Y/n: Have you told him that?

Fan: Max, what motivates you? Max: My ambition and desire to push forward no matter what Fan: Y/n, what about you? Y/n: An unhealthy mix of spite, pettiness, the thirst for vengeance, and pure, relentless rage. That and a Red Bull in the morning

TAG LIST: @fionaschicken @glitterquadricorn @laura-naruto-fan1998 @treehouse-mouse @sam-is-lost @kagatinkita @fangirl125reader @megatrilss1885 @myxticmoon @angsthology @cmleitora @fly-me-away @graciewrote @ashy-kit @slutofmultifandom @aexitizen-ln4 @sugarvibez @vellicora @thatgirlthatreadswattpad @33-81 @hoetel-manager @xcharlottemikaelsonx @jayda12 @ilove-tswizzle @justme2042 @itsjustkhaos @nikfigueiredo @stopeatread @cha-hot @sadg3 @iloveyou3000morgan @s4turnsl0ver @alessioayla @torchbearerkyle @leptitlu @awekbachira @shreks-sugar-daddy @v1naco @stan-josie @mellowarcadefun @badassturtle13 @beskardroids @callisposts @poppyalice2001 @juniper-july19 @lizzypiastri

958 notes · View notes

bby-deerling · 1 month

Text

zoro + pining

masterlist || commissions

tagging: @stsgluver @eelnoise @cloudzoro @willowbelle @atanukileaf @kibblz-n-bitz @kaizokuniichan

it was a quiet sort of admiration, the kind that covertly ingrains its roots underneath rough and weathered skin, green sprouts and tendrils entangling with red and blue nerves and vessels. by the time tiny stems begin to poke through, it was far too late for zoro to pluck them out without simultaneously pulling his guts out.

somehow, he finds himself not minding.

zoro is no stranger to love. he would spend an eternity roaming through hell for any one of his crewmates. he had loved his dear friend kuina. he loves each one of his three swords as if they were extensions of his arms.

and yet, the way he feels about you is different.

maybe it's the way you quietly sit by his side while he meditates, or the way you bite your cheeks while deep in focus. perhaps it's your dedication and drive that mirrors his own, or the way you seek him out when you're feeling a little sleepy, leaning against him and drifting off into a peaceful nap.

whatever it may be, zoro isn't quite sure what he wants to do about this deep current of affection, and he's in no rush to figure it out; for now he's content to simply spend time with you, with a ghost of a smile spread across his face whenever he thinks you aren't looking.

#one piece x reader #zoro x reader #roronoa zoro x reader #zoro x you #zoro x y/n #roronoa zoro x you #roronoa zoro x y/n #zoro fluff #zoro fanfic #one piece fanfiction #one piece drabble #one piece scenario #roronoa zoro #x reader

416 notes · View notes

hischierswhore · 19 days

Text

eternal pining | jack hughes

pairing: childhood bff!reader x jack hughes

warnings: major angst // unrequited pining // slight cursing // probably other stuff that i missed

author’s note: this might be the longest fic i’ve ever written??? anyways i’m backkkk and hopefully i’ll start being consistent soon. i have so much planned and this has been in the works for quite a while now.

You were sitting on the couch at the Hughes lake house as you discussed your plans for the day. Well, more like you were listening to Ellen & Jim as they told you that they would be leaving on a trip for a few days and Jack was just there. He was on his phone, typing aggressively like the world would end if he didn’t finish whatever he was typing.

A sigh left Ellen’s lips when she realized that her middle child wasn’t even paying attention to what she was saying. You looked at Luke & Quinn, who both also saw that he was just not focusing. Quinn extended his arm to hit Jack’s knee in attempt to get his attention.

You said bye to Ellen & Jim, wishing them a safe trip before helping them carry their bags to their car. As you made your way back inside, you plopped right back into the same spot you were in before.

Moments passed and you turned your phone off, sparking conversation with Quinn & Luke about what the groups plans were for today.

“What do you guys wanna do?” You asked, hoping someone would come up with something fun.

“Boat day?” Luke suggested and you nodded in agreement.

“Are you gonna join us, Jack?” you questioned as you turned around to look at your best friend. His eyes didn’t shift from the device in his hands, causing you to roll your eyes.

You were annoyed, so you moved off the couch and walked to your room to change into your swimsuit.

"Where are you guys going?" Jack asked as you, Quinn & Luke walked towards the deck, his phone now off and on the couch.

"Boat day. We were talking about it but you were too indulged in your phone to even contribute to the conversation" Quinn stated as Jack's mouth formed an 'o' shape.

"Are you joining us or not?" Luke asked, waiting for his brother to respond so he could finally get some sun.

“Oh uh yeah. I'll join y'all. Just give me a few to change" He hopped up from his spot on the couch and went to his room to change while you made your way outside, the other Hughes brothers following.

10 minutes passed and Jack had not yet come outside. You were all getting rather impatient and annoyed with the boy.

"Can we just go without him?" Luke sighed, beyond frustrated with his brother. Just as he said that, the boy trotted out of the house and down the dock to where you all sat. You all immediately noticed his lack of swim trunks and rather a button-down shirt & some jeans.

"Hey guys. Sorry to bail on you all but I've got a date in like-" He looks down at his phone for a moment to check the time. "20 minutes so I've gotta get going. See you all later" Jack waved as he hugged everyone goodbye.

Your heart shattered the moment you heard "a date". You had been hopelessly in love with your best friend since you were kids. You'd known the Hughes brothers since you were 6, and you'd all been inseparable since day 1.

The ever-growing crush you had on Jack was evident to everyone around you except for him. Quinn and Luke would relentlessly tease you when you three were together. Hell, even Trevor and Nico would join in on the teasing whenever you saw them.

You faked a smile at his words, hoping he couldn’t see the tears welling in your eyes. You looked around at Quinn and Luke, who had already been looking in your direction, knowing damn well what you were thinking.

"Have fun, J. See you later" You said as you looked down, seeing as your mood had now been more ruined than it was before and you didn't want to deal with all your emotions, or rather the cause of these emotions, right now. You knew that if you made eye-contact with the boy, you would have a breakdown.

Jack jogs back up to the house and shuts the patio door, leaving you and the two other Hughes brothers on the boat for the day.

2 pairs of eyes immediately found your figure as you curled into a ball on the couch and let it all out. Both boys immediately came to your side for comfort, knowing how difficult this must be for you.

Luke rubbed your back as you sobbed while Quinn held you in his arms, holding you ever so carefully.

Hours passed before you all decided to head inside.

“I’m gonna head up to my room. If he asks, I'm out. I don't want to talk to him right now" You told the remaining brothers before going into your room and locking yourself away.

— later —

Jack arrived back at the lake house.

“Hey, where’s Y/n?” He asked as he wandered into the living room, noticing his brothers sitting on the couch watching a movie but you were nowhere in sight.

“She went out” Quinn simply said, not feeling the need to give his younger brother details.

"Out? What do you mean she went out?"

"She's not here, Jack. She wanted to go out so she did" Luke shrugged, trying to focus his attention back on the movie.

"And you both let her go by herself?!" Jack was practically shouting.

"She's 22 years old, Jack. She can make her own decisions" Quinn paused the movie to turn his attention to his brother. Jack let out a huff and sat next to his brothers to watch whatever movie they had put on, still ever so slightly upset that you had gone out without him.

20 minutes had passed since that initial exchange when Luke's phone got a notification. He glanced down at it and immediately got up and excused himself to the kitchen with a simple "I'll be back".

“What’s up with him?” Jack whispered to Quinn, who shrugged and paid no mind to his brother's curiosity. Moments later, Luke emerged from the kitchen and raced upstairs quickly.

You had texted Luke asking him to bring you some medication for the growing migraine you had from crying nonstop. He quietly knocked on the door to avoid attracting Jack's attention. You slowly unlocked the door and let the boy in as he handed you the pills and a bottle of water.

"You good?" He asked as you had a hand on your forehead and your eyes were red & puffy.

"I'll be fi-" The words got lost in your throat as you heard footsteps ascending the stairs and you saw the one person you did not want to see: Jack.

You muttered "shit" as you tried to hide behind Luke's tall frame, which was to no avail.

"Y/n? What're you doing here? Aren't you supposed to be out?" Jack asked as he made his way to your doorway.

"I uhh, came back early. Didn't feel too great" You lied through your teeth.

"How'd you come in? And when did you even come in?" Jack questioned you as he leaned against the door frame.

"Came in through the back door. Didn't wanna make too much noise to interrupt the movie" You slowly tried to push your door closed, but Jack was blocking the way.

Luke was stood there, watching the encounter unfold.

"Oh what's that Quinn? We need more popcorn? I'll grab some" He shouted down the stairs to remove himself from the extremely tense conversation he was witnessing.

“What’s wrong?” Jack's voice was low as he slowly pushed the door open and grabbed your hand.

“I’m fine, Jack. I just don’t feel good” You were on the verge of tears as you pulled yourself out of his hold.

“You look like you've been crying, Y/n/n... did someone say something to you?" Jack's anger slowly increasing at the thought of someone hurting your feelings.

"Nobody said anything. More so what you did. But I'll be fine, I'll get over it" Thankfully, he had back up enough to give you space to close the door, and his reflexes weren't fast enough to grab the door handle before you shut and locked it, leaving him on the other side of the door.

Your words left Jack extremely confused. More so what you did. What in the hell did he even do?

Once you had locked the door, you slid down the back of it as more tears spilled freely onto your cheeks. Why did you have to fall for your best friend?

Jack stomped down the stairs, confusion & frustration written all over his face as he threw himself onto the couch.

“What the hell did I even do?” He screamed into one of the cushions. Quinn & Luke exchange a look before ultimately deciding to tell him bits of the truth.

“You went on that date” Luke said quietly, praying that Jack has heard him the first time so he wouldn’t have to repeat himself. Fortunately for Luke, Jack lifted his head up as soon as the words left his mouth.

“What does that have to do with anything?” Jack was more confused than before. He didn’t understand what was going on.

“How is it that we all see it except for you, dude? She’s in love with you. She’s been in love with you for years now, and you’ve never once noticed or acknowledged her feelings. It’s evident to everyone in our lives except for you. You leaving on that date today made her feel like shit” Quinn spoke.

“Well, it made her feel more like shit than she already did before. You neglected her all morning because you were on your phone and then when we all agreed to go on the boat, you bailed on us and she felt more forgotten than ever before” Luke added onto Quinn’s speech.

Jack sat there in shock. There’s no way that you, his best friend of 16 years, were in love with him. He couldn’t fathom the thought, but slowly the realization sank in and now he felt horrible for his behavior. He didn’t mean to hurt you. He never knew.

He didn’t say anything before he raced up the stairs and knocked on your door but received no response.

“Y/n please let me in. I want to talk to you. Please hear me out” Jack pleaded as he rested his ear against the door, listening closely in hopes of hearing movement on the other side.

Silence. All that could be heard was the sound of the fan circulating air throughout the room.

Quinn & Luke had followed him up the stairs and watched as Jack slowly fell to his knees infront of your door. They’d never seen him like this before.

“J, she needs some space right now. Let her get some rest and talk to her in the morning. It’s the least she deserves” Luke suggested as he placed his hand on his brother’s shoulder.

— the next morning —

You woke up to a massive migraine, probably from all the crying you did last night. You felt uneasy as you stood from your bed and made your way to the connected bathroom.

You knew you’d have to see him again. You couldn’t avoid him, hell it was his house.

You braced yourself for the day as you washed your face and changed into something more comfortable before heading downstairs for breakfast.

You overheard a conversation taking place as you silently made your way down the stairs, in hopes of not alerting anyone of your presence quite yet.

Just as you turned the corner and entered the kitchen, silence filled the room. You chose to not acknowledge it, just as Jack had not acknowledged your feelings for him.

You felt multiple pairs of eyes on you as you grabbed yourself a bowl to pour some cereal. You slowly carried your bowl to the dining room, where everyone was seated.

It was only then that you had noticed the extra eyes staring at you. Seated at the table included Quinn, Luke, Jack, Trevor, Cole & Nico. The latter 3 must’ve flown in early in the morning because they weren’t here last night when everything happened.

You softly wave at the 3 boys before placing your bowl on the table.

“Morning” you quietly said as you sat on the bench between Quinn & Luke, which was ironically as far away from Jack as possible.

Small talk is made and you barely speak unless you’re spoken to. You quietly converse with everyone except for the middle Hughes brother. He hasn’t said a single thing to you this morning except for stare at you occasionally when he thought you didn’t notice. Of course you did, you always noticed.

Breakfast finished & you kindly collected everyone’s dishes and headed towards the kitchen to clean them.

You stood infront of the sink on your own for about 5 minutes when you felt a presence behind you.

“Can we talk?” You knew that notice all too well. You placed the plate in the sink as you turned around slowly, resting the plane of your hands on the edge of the counter.

You took in his appearance for the first time since he left for his date yesterday afternoon. His eyes were swollen, much like yours, and his hands were fidgeting at the back of his neck.

“Sure” You simply spoke, not wanting to be the one to bring up the elephant in the room. Jack cleared his throat before he spoke.

“Could we maybe go outside? I’ll get Luke to do the dishes or something so we can talk in private” He suggested as you nodded your head.

Jack led the way to the backyard before holding the door open with a simple “After you”.

You sat on the couch next to the fire pit, leaving Jack to sit next to you.

You sat in silence for a moment, enjoying the calming breeze the morning had brought. That peace was interrupted when Jack cleared his throat and turned to face you.

“I want to start with an apology. I genuinely had no idea that you even felt neglected yesterday. I was a shit friend and I shouldn’t have ditched you for someone else. I know I messed up. And I’m sorry that it’s taken me til now to realize how you feel towards me. All this time I thought it was just you being friendly, I never knew you liked me. I was so confused by what you meant yesterday that the realization didn’t click until Luke & Quinn said it. I couldn’t believe the fact that I had been the one to hurt you and I will forever be sorry for that”

Jack looked into your eyes, and he swears he could see your heart shatter into a million pieces at every word. God, how he wishes he wasn’t the reason behind it.

“I’ve been in love with you since we were 6, Jack. I’ve spent years pining after you, only to watch you pine after every other girl on this planet. This summer was different though. You paid no mind to other girls and you treated me like I was yours, and I stupidly believed that things would change between us. That was until yesterday. You act all lovey with me one second and then suddenly I’m nonexistent the next” You watched the frown grow on his face as you spoke.

“I’ve never been in a relationship because I’ve been holding out hope for you, Jack. Hope for you to finally come to your senses and see that I’ve been here waiting for you this whole time, stupidly thinking that my chance will come” Jack stayed quiet as you let it all out.

“I’m in love with you, Jack. I have been for the longest time and I really shouldn’t be” You cried into the hands as he stared at you in silence.

“Y/n/n…” Jack was at a loss for words. He didn’t know you felt that strongly about him, or that you watched everything unfold from the sidelines of his life.

“I didn’t mean to hurt you, Y/n/n”

“It’s okay, Jack. I’ll be fine, I’ll get over it. I just don’t know if I handle anymore heartbreak” You sobbed as Jack brought you into his embrace, holding you in his arms.

Despite you feeling this hurricane of emotions, his arms still felt like home to you. He felt like home.

“I hope I’m not too late” He whispered softly, causing you to remove yourself from is hold, a look of confusion spread across your face.

“Huh?” You sniffled as you wiped your nose.

“I’ve been in love with you from the moment I met you. Not even, the second I saw you holding that little bear of yours as you walked into your new house, I knew you were someone special. Someone who would be the only consistent person in my life besides my family. I always thought you saw me as a friend and never anything more, hence all the failed relationships. I’ve tried to get over you so much since I thought you’d never return the feeling. I looked for you in other girls, but none of them were you, so they never lasted. You have been the only person I have truly wanted since we were 6, Y/n/n. I now know that you’ve felt the same this entire time, and I have somehow misread everything for 16 years. The timing of this is horrible and I’m afraid I may be too late, but please know I do love you, Y/n/n. I always have & I always will” Jack confessed as he held your hand in his.

You searched his eyes for some sign of this being a sick and twisted joke, a prank that would forever haunt you and ultimately be the end of your friendship with the boy.

But you found none of that. You found love & hope & sadness. He hoped that the love he had for you was enough to fill the hole of sadness that he had accidentally burned into your heart. He hoped that you would forgive him and give him a chance to redeem himself.

A shy smile appeared on your face before you removed your hands from his to wipe the tears on your face, and the tears that were slowly trickling down his.

“I love you too, J. You’ll always have a chance” A goofy smile took over your face as the boy brought you into a tight hug, holding you there for what felt like an eternity.

After who know how long, he finally pulled away and let you breathe.

“I’m so happy right now that I could kiss you, but I won’t solely because we just made up and I’m not trying to ruin my chances & lose you again”

“Oh shut up” You placed both hands on the sides of his face & pulled him for a kiss.

The world felt like it had stopped but like it was also spinning simultaneously. The butterflies you got in your stomach when his lips touched yours felt heavenly.

Jack, who was a little taken aback by the kiss, immediately kissed you back once he realized what was happening. One of his hands found its way to your face and the other at your hip.

You wish you could live in this moment forever, and you genuinely believed you could, that is until you heard cheering coming from behind you. You both pulled apart to see Quinn, Luke, Cole, Trevor & Nico all cheering from the patio.

“THEY FINALLY DID IT!!!” Trevor shouted as he jumped up and down.

“Hurt her again, Hughes & you’re gonna regret it” Nico said before making his way back inside the house. You looked back to Jack to see him gently caressing the back of your hand.

“Wouldn’t even think about it” he smiled as he pressed a kiss to your temples, holding you closer than ever before.

#✎ natalie writes #jack hughes #jack hughes fluff #jack hughes angst #jack hughes imagine #jack hughes fanfiction #jack hughes x you #jack hughes x y/n #jack hughes x reader

324 notes · View notes

captainfern · 8 months

Text

Morning After Dark

Kyle "Gaz" Garrick x fem!reader

["Morning After Dark" by Timbaland]

[18+]

•º•º•º•º•º•º•º•º•º•º•º•º•º•º•º•º•º•º•º•º•º•º•º•º•

• summary - after a mission gone wrong, gaz is very happy to see you lol. • rating - 18+ • wordcount - 4k • warnings - fem!reader, heavy pining from gaz, sub!gaz? yeah, oral [f!receiving], unprotected piv, begging, praise, fingering, this man is in love with you, strong language, a bit of violence at the start?

decided to break the writers block by writing for GazFest - go check out @glitterypirateduck and read through the other works !!

enjoy the smut lol

•º•º•º•º•º•º•º•º•º•º•º•º•º•º•º•º•º•º•º•º•º•º•º•º•

The entire mission was a complete and utter disaster.

You don't even know what really happened. One moment, you had split up from your task force to clear an enemy compound. The next, the building was collapsing around you.

You struggled to get out in time. Insurgents kept you busy, emptying their mags as you sprinted down the dark hallways, alarms blaring, lights flashing. You dodged bullets that flew hot past your head, the ceiling crumbling behind you and blocking the rest of the hallway.

Your legs were burning, lungs straining, heart hammering painfully against your ribcage. You could taste dust in the air, copper coating your tongue. Black particles flew around in the air in flurries, your vision becoming increasingly blurred.

You spluttered, squinting through the flashing lights and long shadows. As you ran down the hallway, you checked each passing doorway in search of your task force. You found nothing.

The compound rocked again, another explosion sending you off your feet. You flew forward, skidding along the dust-covered floor, the air being pushed from your lungs. You took a gasping breath, crawling back to your feet as the ceiling above you fell through. You scrambled out of the way just in time, a slab of concrete slamming into the ground with an ear-splitting thud.

"Oh my god..." You breathed, shuffling backwards. You pressed at your communication collar, trying to get through to anyone.

The only voice that filled your ears was your own as you called out for your comrades. Your comms were cut, buzzing with static.

You cursed, continuing down the hallway as the compound shook and shuddered around you. You could smell smoke now, the narrow hall filling with an acrid grey cloud that made your stomach churn.

You needed to get the hell out of there.

A surge of adrenaline taking hold of you, you kicked down the nearest door. It flew off it's hinges, and you ran inside. You swept the small room, finding it clear, before you rushed towards the window. As you ran towards it, you fired your gun, the bullets shattering the glass. Then, crystal fragments of the windowpane still falling like snowflakes, you leapt out the window just as flames began ripping down the hallway behind you.

You hit the grass and rolled, slicing your arms on the shards of glass. When you stopped rolling, you lay flat on your back and took several deep breaths.

But there was no time to lay down. With adrenaline still coursing hot through your veins, you got up and ran.

•º•

You searched everywhere. For hours, you searched through the debris of nearby compounds, also returning to the one you escaped from, combing through the chunks of concrete and steel. You couldn't find any signs of your captain, lieutenant, or fellow sergeants anywhere, dead or alive. You weren't sure if that gave you hope or not.

After what seemed like an eternity, you decided to fall back from the area. You knew there was a safe house a few miles out, and you just hoped that some of your task force had made it there.

So you ran.

Usually, you would never have willingly ran that far. But your body was drunk on adrenaline, your heart pumping so fast you felt as though it'd explode out of your chest at any second. So, clutching your assault rifle, you sprinted as fast as you could continuously for several kilometres in pure darkness.

Once the adrenaline wore off, your body would be not be happy with you.

You reached the safe house in the early hours of the morning. It was still pitch black in the area surrounding the house– shadowed woodlands to one side, dark farmland to the other.

You could still taste smoke and blood in your mouth as you climbed up the front steps. Coughing, you stumbled inside, and was immediately met with a gun to your forehead.

"What the–?" You stuttered through a cough, the muzzle of a pistol pressed between your eyes.

Behind the gun, Gaz let out a loud, relieved sigh. "Sarge, oh my god." His sentence was full of disbelief and shock. He lowered his gun and took a good look at you, his eyes widening. "Oh my god..." He repeated, more relieved this time.

He wrapped his arms around you, crushing you to his chest. Your face was pushed between his pecs, and you didn't have the heart to tell him he was literally suffocating you.

"I was... oh my god, I was so worried about you," he said, letting you go and closing the front door. "You weren't answering comms, and I was scared–"

"My comms are fried," you grimaced, yanking your collar off. Meanwhile, you kicked off your shoes and put your gun down too. "Where're the others?"

Gaz nodded behind him. "Soap got hit, so he's resting in the back room. Ghost is with him. Price's asleep. I was meant to be on watch–"

Your mouth dropped open. "Is Soap okay? Let me–"

You went to move past Gaz, but he stopped you with a hand to your shoulder. "Hold on, sarge, he'll be asleep. You can see him in the morning."

You released a short breath, nodding. Gaz smiled sympathetically, squeezing your shoulder. He continued to hold your shoulder as his eyes scanned your face.

You turned to him, frowning. "What?"

"You're a bit cut up," he whispered, bringing his other hand to your face. He pressed his thumb to a cut on your cheekbone, and you hissed in pain. He retracted his thumb. "Sorry. Let... let me clean you up."

"I'm fine." You yawned, shuffling away from him and sinking onto the couch. A cloud of dust lifted when you sunk down onto the cushions, making you sneeze.

"Bless you," Gaz said, appearing in front of you with a first aid kit. Where'd he get that? "And you're not fine, sarge. Just let me clean you up, eh?"

He situated himself beside you, opening the kit and producing some antiseptic wipes. You peered at him suspiciously as he tore the packaging open and held the small white cloth towards your face.

You jerked away. "Do you even know what you're doing?"

He smiled. "Not really."

He pressed the wipe to the cut on your cheekbone and you hissed out again, cursing beneath your breath at the sting. The pain was sharp, but his touch was gentle– one hand holding your face while the other wiped the dirt and dried blood away from the wound.

"You're not supposed to use antiseptic wipes on cuts, Gaz." You mumbled as he pulled the wipe away, your skin tingling.

Gaz tossed the wipe aside. "Why didn't you bloody tell me that?"

"Forgot," you told him. "And, hey, don't blame me! You've been in the military longer. Haven't you learnt this already?"

Gaz was now fishing some saline solution from the first aid kit. He uncapped the small bottle, then proceeded to flush the wound. The solution was cold on your cheek, and you shivered when a droplet rolled down your jaw and neck.

"Probably," Gaz said, a small smile cracking across his face. "But I wasn't really paying attention."

With his thumb, he smeared the small streams of saline across your cheek, inspecting the wound. He put the bottle back in the kit, producing a small plaster and tearing off the plastic backing. Carefully, he stuck it over the wound on your cheek, his other hand still cupping the side of your face.

Gaz's eyes fell across the rest of your face, darting between your features. His expression was soft as he held your face, his thumb rubbing along the edge of the sticking plaster. Dark eyes trailed the shape of your face through the semi-darkness, and you could feel the warmth of his hands against your cheeks.

Your heart was pumping, remnants of adrenaline lingering in your veins.

"Is this why you weren't paying attention during your med training?" You joked with a coy smile. "Got distracted?"

His eyes fell to your mouth briefly, before darting back up to your eyes. His brows furrowed slightly, giving him an expression of puppy-like confusion. "What?"

You laughed lightly. "Nevermind."

You could visibly see his heart rate pick up by the way his breathing quickened and the way his pupils began to slowly expand. You couldn't help but feel warm with the way he was looking at you, the way he was cradling your face like you were made of porcelain. You imagined you looked a mess with blood and dust across your face, sweaty and frazzled from your sprint through the forest.

But the way he was looking at you... your stomach was fluttering.

"Gaz..." You whispered, and his mouth dropped open a fraction, a breathy whine escaping. That surprised you, and you couldn't help but smirk at him. "What're you doing?"

He looked you in the eyes, whispering, "Sarge..."

"Yeah?"

"I really want to kiss you right now."

You almost choked on your inhale. That caught you off guard.

"What?" You blinked.

"I really want to–"

"Okay, no, I heard you, I'm just–"

"Gaz, mate, have you–? Oh."

You and Gaz's heads snapped over to the hall leading to the bedrooms, Price strolling into the room and immediately pausing. You and Gaz jumped apart, with you smoothing your hands down your face in an attempt to refocus yourself. Gaz dropped his hands nervously into his lap.

Price raised a brow. "O...kay. Are you two alright?"

"Yep." You and Gaz both answered at the same time.

Price gave you both another skeptical look, before he was picking up his own assault rifle from a nearby table, fishing a cigar out of his trouser pocket.

"Right, I'm going on watch for an hour, so I'll be outside if you need me," he said slowly, inching towards the front door. "And... the side room's free if..." He stopped himself, shaking his head as he opened the door. He glanced back over his shoulder. "Just keep in mind that Soap and Ghost are asleep."

"Bloody hell, captain." Gaz grumbled as Price closed the front door behind him.

You couldn't help but laugh, Gaz's head dropping in embarrassment. You shuffled towards him, placing a hand on his knee, and his body responded immediately, jolting beneath your touch.

"Gaz?" You prompted softly.

He looked up, clearing his throat. "Hmm?"

"You can kiss me. It's okay."

•º•

Gaz kissed you all the way down the shadowy hallway. He kissed you as he backed you into the side bedroom, closed the door and guided you back onto the bed. He kissed you as you whispered his name into his mouth over and over again as he pulled your dirty clothes from your body.

Everything about him was so warm. His lips against yours, his tongue in your mouth, warm and solid. The whispered whimpers he released into your mouth as your tongue met his were warm, too, heating your body up.

His hands burned a scorching path down your bare skin, smoothing down your sides, down your waist, circling your hips. His fingers pressed to the curve of your arse, forcing your hips up to grind against him. He was warm against your bare core, the material of his boxers damp with pre-cum.

When did he take his pants off?

You don't know. And you didn't care. You were focused on the way your body sweltered beneath his touch as he pulled and pushed the flesh of your arse and thighs like dough. The way he lifted your hips to press into his made you arch, your tits snagging against the tight compression shirt he had been wearing beneath his outer shirt.

Gaz finally pulled away from your mouth as you mewled, a string of saliva following and snapping as he sat back on his heels. His hands moved, massaging along your thighs and legs as his stare raked over your body. He let out a low moan, before he was ripping his shirt off and rolling down beside you. You gasped when he snatched your hips off the mattress, dragging you with surprising strength to sit you across his upper chest.

"Gaz?" You whispered down at him, and he moaned. You giggled, placing a hand to his mouth.

He could feel your bare cunt against the swell of his pectoral muscles, and he moaned into your hand again. You were throbbing against him, slick pooling against his burning skin.

"Ssmm-uhmmm-mmhmm."

You giggled again as he tried to speak into your palm. You tentatively lifted your hand. "What was that?"

"Sit on my face." He said a bit too loudly, and you were slapping your hand back across his mouth again.

"Gaz!" You scolded in a whisper-shout. "You have to be quiet."

His brow furrowed, before his hands were coming to grasp your arse cheeks again. He began grinding you against his chest, getting a full view of your face and tits directly above him. He moaned against your palm, eyes rolling as he felt your slit drag against him, warm and wet. Your mouth dropped open in a gasp, your swollen clit moving against the smooth mound of his muscle. The grip he had on your arse was vice-like, and you wondered whether you'd feel it in the morning.

Well, it was the morning.

Soft, orangey-pink hues filtered through the thin curtains, bathing you in the colours of the sunset. The pigments shimmered against your skin, making you look like an absolute dream. Gaz clearly agreed, because he moaned beneath your palm again, eyelids sinking low.

He continued to grind you against him, listening to the soft pants falling from your lips. You opened your eyes and looked down at him, finally moving your hand. Instead, you placed your fingers around his neck. You didn't squeeze, but the obvious pressure made Gaz whine out your name, hips bucking behind you.

"Sweetheart, please, fuck, please let me–" He grit his teeth as a moan bubbled up your throat, your core throbbing against his chest. "Please sit on my face. Please, baby, please, just let me... ah fuck, just let me taste you, please."

You shushed him gently, removing your hand from his throat. You smiled down at him, beginning to lift your hips so that you could move your hips over his face. But he beat you to it– hands against your arse, he pushed you forward so quickly you lost your balance and had to grab onto the headboard. He pulled your hips down, licking a stripe up your dripping slit before he was shoving his tongue into your hole, burying his face against you.

Now, he could be as loud as he wanted with his voice being lost inside you. He moaned against your folds, the vibrations making you keen. Gaz moaned again, his tongue pressing deeper inside you, in and out, in and out.

You bit your lip to stifle the sounds threatening to spill out. You were hyper-aware of Soap and Ghost sleeping across the hall. And your captain somewhere outside.

But Gaz couldn’t care less. He was whimpering and moaning as he tasted you, dragging his tongue through your folds until he found your clit. He circled it, before sucking it into his mouth.

Your thighs clamped around his head, and he felt his cock twitch in his boxers, pearls of pre-cum staining the fabric. Fuck, he was so hard.

One hand still on one of your arse cheeks, he moved one down to grab his cock out of his boxers. He fisted it, tongue stuttering against you. He was so sensitive, so needy for you. His pace resumed, and he dipped his tongue back into your throbbing hole, pairing the movements of his fist with his tongue.

"Gaz," you whispered down at him, waiting for him to look up at you before you continued. His dark eyes were glassy, pupils blown. He whimpered against your cunt when you flexed the muscles of your thighs, tightening around his head. "M'gonna come, Gaz." You whined, rocking your hips against his mouth.

"Please, please, please." He mumbled against you. You had no idea what he said, but he knew. He knew he was begging you to come in his mouth and he wasn't embarrassed to admit it.

You put a hand to your own mouth as you came, a moan falling from your lips and muffled against your palm. Your entire body shuddered as you came around Gaz's tongue, and he was disappointed he didn't get to hear you properly. He licked up your release, the loudest thing in the room being the sound of his lewd slurping.

It made your brain short-circuit as you came down from your high, and you managed to lift yourself away from his mouth. He tried to pull you back onto him, but you resisted, shakily climbing back down his body. He immediately sat up and chased you– slamming his mouth to yours and stuffing his tongue past your lips. You could taste yourself on him as you straddled him.

"Want you so bad, sweetheart," he said against you as he somehow managed to pull his boxers the rest of the way down his legs, tossing them across the room. "Need you. Come on, baby, please."

Gaz had one hand on your hip, the other around the base of his cock as he guided it up and down your slit. He collected your arousal against his sensitive tip, and he breathed out your name. You braced yourself with your hands against his shoulders as he clumsily knocked the weeping head of his cock against your hole.

"You have to be quiet, Gaz," you whispered into his ear, sucking a mark beneath the lobe. He whimpered, hips bucking, tip prodding at your sopping cunt. You smiled against his skin. "Can you be quiet for me?"

"Yes, yes, yes, fuck, yes, please." Gaz babbled quietly, squeezing your hips, circling the head of his cock against your hole.

You sat up, tits pressed flush with his chest.

"Kiss me." You whispered and he did. As he rushed upwards to place his mouth on yours, you sunk down onto his cock. He removed his hand, grabbing both of your hips, moaning your name into your mouth as you kissed him.

You took him all, and he whined the entire time you sunk down onto him. When you stilled, pelvis against his, clit pressed to the dark hair at the base, he whispered your name into your mouth and rubbed circles on your hips.

"You okay?" You asked, lips brushing his.

He had his eyes closed, panting. You lifted a hand to cup the back of his head, and he opened his eyes. When he saw your face, how pretty you looked, his head dropped back and he released a whiny moan. Your other hand was quick to slam over his mouth.

"Gaz," you whispered sternly. "You have to be quiet if you want to fuck me, okay? Can you do that?"

He nodded quickly, trying to rock his hips against you. The sensation made the both of you whimper. Even behind your palm, his sounds of pleasure were still louder than yours.

You slowly lifted your hand.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'll be quiet, baby, I promise," he panted, slowly beginning to rock up into you. "Yeah, I'll be quiet, baby. I'll be good... fuck, I'll be good..."

He was muttering beneath his breath as his steady pace began, fucking up into you and nailing that perfect spot over and over again. You trapped a moan between your teeth, clutching at Gaz's shoulders as he fucked you. He watched you the entire time, eyes never leaving your face as his cock filled you. His cock making you feel so good.

The bed creaked lightly, the colours of the sunrise washing over the both of you as your bodies melded together. Gaz panted and whined beneath you, sucking kisses along the swell of your breasts and the curve of your neck and shoulders. You whispered his name, too, over and over again. The days extremities suddenly gone, the cuts on your face and arms suddenly painless.

All you could feel was Gaz.

He was doing so well.

And you wanted him to know it.

You looked down at him. Unsurprisingly, he was already gazing up at you, eyes misty and full of adoration.

"S'that feel good?" You whispered, bringing a hand down to stroke his face as he continued to thrust up into you. "Is this what you wanted? Yeah?"

Gaz nodded, humming his approval behind closed lips. If he opened them, he was scared he'd moan too loud. You were so warm and tight around him, so wet– sucking him in so well. It felt like you were made for him.

"Yeah?" You repeated again, cupping his cheek and pressing a kiss to his lips. It was over quickly, and he whined in the back of his throat.

"You're being so good," you whispered, meeting the thrusts of his hips and fucking yourself back down onto him. "You're such a good boy... being such a good boy for me, Kyle."

The government name.

His eyes rolled, and his mouth dropped open. He moaned your name loudly, before his words stretched out into breathy whimpers. His hips stilled, and you felt his cock twitch once, twice, before he was coming inside you. Your eyes widened as he filled you, string after string painting your insides hot. He whimpered through it, face now buried between your tits, hips rocking desperately as he rode out his premature high.

"Gaz..." You whispered, continuing to rock yourself against him. You were full of him, his cock semi-hard inside you, but you were so, so close.

"Fuck, m'sorry," he uttered into your skin. "M'sorry, baby, I didn't mean–"

"It's okay, Gaz, it's okay," you reassured him. "You did so well, it's okay. Just– ah, fuck, m'so close–"

With a groan, he pulled out of you and sat you back on his lap. He took two of his fingers and eased them back into your cunt. He plugged his cum back inside you, thrusting his fingers deep, curling against your walls.

It was your turn to moan loudly, and Gaz had to stifle the sound with his mouth. He kissed you as he added another finger. Three of his digits moved in and out of you, wet sounds echoing around the room, mixing with your breathless pants as you struggled to maintain a kiss.

"Come on, sweetheart, come on." He whispered against your mouth. Your orgasm built quickly in the base of your tummy, and you felt your thighs begin to shake, your cunt fluttering around his fingers.

"Kyle." You whimpered, and Gaz felt himself beginning to harden again.

"Come for me, baby, please." He whispered, and your body listened straight away.

You came around his fingers, walls clamping around him. You managed to keep your moan lodged in your throat– the only thing escaping being a whisper of his name. Your entire body trembled as you fizzled down from your high, and you slumped against Gaz with a content sigh. He caught you, lowering the both of you back into the mattress, removing his fingers from your cunt.

You stuck them all in his mouth, and you whined, slapping him lightly on the chest as he hummed around them.

"So good." He murmured, and you tapped his chest again.

"You're impossible." You mumbled tiredly.

He grinned. "Thank you."

"Oh my god–"

•º•

An hour or so later, the task force regrouped in the living room, gearing up for the evac. Gaz helped you fasten your tac-vest to your torso, running his fingers along your waist as he did so. You couldn't help but smile at him, and he winked. You could still feel him inside you.

Across the room, Price cleared his throat. "Alright, you lot, let's get moving."

Soap laughed from beside Ghost near the front door. "And don't worry, you two, we'll walk slow. Since, you know, you didn't manage to get much rest."

Gaz's eyes widened. "Well, wait–"

Your mouth dropped open. "Soap, you fucking–"

The Scotsman laughed again.

You and Gaz clearly weren't quiet enough.

•º•º•º•º•º•º•º•º•º•º•º•º•º•º•º•º•º•º•º•º•º•º•º•º•

remember to go check out @glitterypirateduck and the other gazfest works !!!!

#captainfern #call of duty mw2 #fem reader #kyle gaz garrick #kyle garrick #gaz smut #gaz call of duty #cod gaz #gaz mw2 #gaz x female reader #cod smut #captain'stimbaland #gazfest

845 notes · View notes

joelsgreys · 1 year

Text

a safe haven l four

Post Outbreak! Joel Miller x Female Reader

series masterlist l previous chapter l next chapter

summary: After a few weeks, Joel finally realizes that he can’t stay away from you and he gives into his desires; Ellie and Dina start getting closer; you give Joel a special gift that once belonged to your father.

warnings/tags: 18+ ONLY, MINORS DNI. (TW) THIS CHAPTER CONTAINS A SCENE OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE, EMOTIONAL AND VERBAL ABUSE. reader gets slapped. PLEASE HEED THE WARNINGS. infidelity, implied infertility (reader), mutual pining and yearning, Ellie and Dina interaction.

Word Count: 7k

July, 2024

About twenty three and a half days.

That’s the longest that Joel Miller can stand to bear without seeing you again, and even then, he’d found that amount of time to be too goddamn fucking long for his liking—each and every single minute of those twenty three and a half days felt like an eternity to him. Joel had lost count of the number of times he had almost caved, almost scratched that overwhelming itch he had to seek you out, to satisfy his craving as if he were a recovering addict going through withdrawals and all he needed was a good fix to feel better again. Hell, the more he thought it over in his mind, the more he’d started to realize that wasn’t all that far off. You actually were something of a drug to him, and even though he’d only had a mere taste of what being with you could be like, he was already hooked on the feeling. One hit of you was all it had taken and now he’s a fiend and he wants more of you—he needs more of you or he’ll surely lose his mind.

Exhaling a labored breath, Joel reaches up as he wipes at his damp brow with the back of his hand. The sun is sweltering, beating down on him hard.

July had arrived, and with it came along the most unbearable and unforgiving heat. Winter had been cruel, but summer had decided she wouldn’t be all that much kinder. While Joel appreciated not having to trudge knee deep through the snow, he wasn’t too sure if he would prefer that over the way his denim shirt stuck to him uncomfortably, clinging to his skin like cellophane. He’d been used to it in his first life, having been born and raised in Texas—twenty one years later, he had discovered that he was no longer accustomed to these kind of blistering temperatures.

After returning from his early morning patrol shift, Joel had stopped by Main Street, popping into the market to pick up some vegetables to make dinner—he’d also gotten some fruit for Ellie. As it turned out, she had quite the sweet tooth. She had gone through about a week’s worth of apples and berries in just a couple of days, but luckily he had enough food rations left over for the week to pick up some more for her. Once he’d finished and left the market, he found himself walking over towards the horse stables instead of heading back to the house like he should have. He really should have gone home, but after twenty three and a half days of fighting his temptation as best he could, Joel realized it was useless.

Most, if not all, of his thoughts began and ended with you.

Sure, Ellie would mention you here and there over their shared meals together, and even though she had assured him that you seemed to be doing just fine, it wasn’t enough for Joel. It wasn’t even close to being enough. He had to see you for himself. He needed to talk to you, even if it meant running the risk of Tommy finding out. He wouldn’t be too happy about it, but if anything, Joel could use the excuse that he’d just stopped in to check up on Ellie. She had become something of your little helper, taking on the role of a stable hand after Maria had assigned one of the other hands to work in the mess hall. You’d needed the extra help and Ellie had been willing. She had to contribute and she liked being around you, so it worked out in everyone’s favor.

In reality, Joel trusted you with Ellie and he didn’t need to check up on her knowing she was in safe, capable hands—but the opportunity to use the kid as leverage presented itself and he’d be a fool not to take it.

He walks into the stables and starts making his way down along the open stalls, peeking into each one until he finds you—alone—in the second to last stall with his brother’s horse, Ranger. You’re leaning forward slightly, a look of complete concentration on your face as you firmly press the diaphragm of the stethoscope you’re using to the animal’s side and listen. After a minute, you hum and gently tug the earpieces, draping the instrument around your neck as you stand upright and pull out the wooden clipboard you’re holding underneath your arm.

Joel’s breath audibly catches in the back of his throat, an intense, fiery blaze burning deep in his belly as he drinks the sight of you in. The heat isn’t being any kinder to you than it is to him—you’re sweating profusely and your pale pink camisole is drenched and clings to your body, accentuating each and every curve. Every inch of exposed skin is beaded with drops of perspiration that you’d all but given up on trying to wipe away. You let it drip freely, allow it to run down the sides of your face, neck—it trickles down your chest and between your soft, supple breasts.

He swallows dryly, trying painfully to ignore the way his cock twitches against the zipper of his jeans as devilish thoughts begin creeping into his mind. Shoving them away, Joel enters the stall and says your name.

You look up at him, eyebrows raising.

Though you seem oddly surprised to see him, you still offer him a kind smile. “Well, hey there stranger. Long time no see.” You pause briefly, shifting your attention back down to your clipboard. Taking a pencil from the back pocket of your faded blue jeans, you start to scribble down your findings on the piece of paper attached to it. “You know, I was starting to think that maybe you were avoiding me or something, Miller.” Although you’d said it in a joking manner, he detects the hint of seriousness in your tone.

Joel shifts his weight from one foot to the other, a sheepish expression on his face. “M’real sorry ‘bout that, darlin’. I just had a lot goin’ on over the last couple weeks. Got real busy,” he fibs, feeling like nothing short of a complete jackass for lying to you. “I, uh—I had to do a whole lotta fixin’ up around the house, for starters. Between that, workin’ patrol, and takin’ care of Ellie, I had both my hands full for a minute there.”

“Well, if you’re here to check up on her, she’s outside in the paddock with Dina right now. They’re hand walking Luna for me,” you say, jabbing your pencil over towards the open stall window. Squinting, he sees the two teenagers out in the paddock, walking along on either side of a white horse, both girls observing the animal’s movements carefully with every step that she takes. You smile once again, though you keep your eyes fixed on your clipboard as you continue jotting down your notes. “Funny enough, if I weren’t so thrilled those two ended up being such good friends, I would actually feel kind of offended that Ellie’s spending a lot more of her time with Dina than she is with me. I guess I have officially been replaced.” You feign a look of hurt, causing him to chuckle. “She’s doing fine, but you’re more than welcome to go out there and check on her. I’m guessing that’s the reason you’re here.” It’s a statement, not a question.

“Actually, I came down here ‘cause I wanted to see you,” Joel blurts without thinking. Heat suddenly prickles at his ears.

You stop writing and your head snaps up in slight shock as you repeat in disbelief, “You wanted to see me?”

He nods in admission. “Yeah. I did. Besides, the stables are on the way to the house from the market. Figured it would be the perfect time to stop in and say hello,” he explains, unable to hide the slight nervous edge to his tone as he steps closer towards you. Joel’s closeness prompts a curious little sniff from Ranger, whom he would borrow for patrol from time to time when Tommy was on a different rotation. His brother wasn’t all too fond of anyone taking his beloved horse, but he’d made an exception for Joel. He pats the stallion on his thick, muscular neck. “Hope that’s alright with you.”

Nibbling on your lower lip, a strange feeling blossoms inside your stomach, a fluttering feeling—as if a kaleidoscope of butterflies had just taken flight inside of you. “Of course that’s alright,” you finally reply. Peering at the canvas tote bag slung over his forearm, you ask, “Did you get anything good at the market today?”

He shrugs. “Just some carrots and potatoes for dinner. Oh, and some fruit for the kid. Apples, berries—even got some peaches for her to try.”

Your mouth falls open slightly and there’s an excited glimmer in your eyes. “They have peaches?”

Wyoming hadn’t really been known for its peaches due to the extreme frigid temperatures during the winter months that would often lead to what you’d learned from Martha was called a spring freeze. It didn’t affect all of the plants and trees in Jackson, but there were a few species that simply could not survive the damage caused by the cold, bitter frost—peach trees happened to be one of them. You had seen a couple of the trees that were planted around the community, but only once had you ever seen them come into fruition. The first and last time you had seen peaches available at the market had been three summers ago.

Joel nods. “Yeah. Martha mentioned a couple of the trees survived the freeze durin’ the bloom period. Pointed me towards the bin and said they were picked fresh earlier this afternoon.” Digging his hand into the bag, he pulls one out to show you. He then offers it to you, holding it out in the palm of his hand. “Here, darlin’.”

Shaking your head, you politely decline. “No, I couldn’t. I know they’re meant for Ellie—”

“Relax, peach.” A small grin tugs at Joel’s lips as he continues holding it out to you. “I got plenty for her. Go on, take it.”

You flash him an appreciative smile. Setting down the clipboard on the two step mounting block behind you, you turn back to him and accept it, your fingers brushing his open palm as you take it from him. You eagerly bite into the fruit, groaning loudly as the sweetness of it coats your tongue and sends your taste buds flying into the clouds. The peach is perfect, right in between being too firm and too ripe. “This is amazing,” you say incredulously through a mouthful, prompting Joel to laugh. “It’s so good.”

You take a second bite and gasp when it pops in your mouth, its sticky juice trickling out of the corner of your mouth and down the side of your chin. Before you even have the chance to lift a finger, Joel reaches out and he gingerly wipes the juice away with his thumb.

Freezing momentarily, your eyes widen as he continues to sweep his finger across your bottom lip.

“Had a little somethin’ there,” Joel murmurs.

Nervously, you finish chewing your mouthful of peach and swallow harshly, as if the fruit had turned into glass. You thought he would withdraw his hand by now, but instead, he moves it and cradles the side of your face in his palm. You can’t help but wince—his touch is gentle, but you haven’t been touched there like this in a long, long time. In fact, any time that a hand met your cheek lately, it was in a rough and painful strike.

“Joel,” you shakily breathe out his name. Your eyes momentarily flutter closed and you tilt your head to the side, sinking right into his large hand.

Push him away, you silently urge yourself. Don’t be stupid. Push him away.

But you can’t bring yourself to do it.

You stand there and continue melting into his touch.

He echoes your thoughts. “Tell me to back off,” Joel whispers, grazing the soft, delicate skin of your cheekbone with his thumb.

Your eyes fly open, lips parting slightly when you meet his gaze. When you speak, you hardly recognize the timid little voice that comes out of you. “What did you say?”

“You heard me, darlin’. Tell me to back off.”

He’s standing closer, much too close. So close that you can count every single gray that’s speckled in his beard—so close that you finally notice the small scar on his right temple.

Your chest heaves as you struggle to take an even breath.

He waits, but you say nothing.

Joel leans down, bringing his face closer towards yours. Still cradling your cheek in his hand, he lightly starts skimming the other side of your face with the tip of his nose. He trails it down your jawline, drawing closer and closer to the corner of your mouth—that’s where he pauses. It’s only for a second, but to you, that one second feels like an eternity. He pulls back slightly, giving you one last chance to push him away, to tell him that you’re not okay with this—to tell him to stop. When he’s met with nothing but a small, needy whimper, he moves in to close the remaining gap of space between your bodies. Heart pounding, he takes the final leap and captures your mouth with his in a tentative kiss.

He tastes the sweetness of the peach on your lips mixed together with the saltiness of sweat and you taste something else too—something he can’t quite put his finger on, but it’s heavenly. He yearns for more, nearly aches for a chance to explore every inch of that pretty little mouth of yours. He wants something deeper, something more, but when he remembers that you’re in a public space in broad fucking daylight, he has no other choice but to pull himself away from you.

“Joel,” you whisper his name, wanting nothing more than for him to kiss you again. You almost find the guts to ask him when the sound of Ellie and Dina calling out your name startles you both, causing you to jump apart and tear away from each other.

The girls enter the stall just a second later.

They’re both sweating, their faces flushed from the heat.

“Joel? What are you doing here?” Ellie asks him, confused. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen him around the stables.

Joel shrugs, nervously touching a hand to the back of his burning neck.

“Just came in to check on you, kiddo. S’all.”

Ellie glances between the two of you, arching an eyebrow. There’s a strange glint in her brown eyes that tells Joel she knows something had just happened and he’s certain the only reason she isn’t confronting you both about it is because Dina’s standing right beside her, seemingly oblivious to the air of tension in the stall.

“Did you girls need something?” you offer in the steadiest voice you can possibly muster.

“We just came to tell you that Luna is back in her stall. She did really well on her walk. Her back leg doesn’t seem to be bothering her anymore,” Dina informs you. “We also finished with all the grooming for today. All the horses on the list you gave us are all squeaky clean, at least for now.” She smiles. “Is it okay if we call it a day? Ellie wants to come over to my house and hang out for a while.”

“You know Talia likes for you to give her some kind of a heads up when you bring company over,” you remind Dina of her older sister’s house rule.

“Yeah, I know auntie. I asked her permission this morning and she said it was okay.”

You glance at Joel. “As long as it's alright with you.”

“‘Course it is.” He nods and points an index finger at Ellie. “Make sure you’re home in time for dinner, kiddo. That’s my only rule. Understood?”

Before Ellie can respond, Dina beams and takes her arm. “Great! Come on, let’s go!” she exclaims as she all but drags Ellie out of the stall.

Joel waits until he’s sure the girls are gone and turns to you, clearing his throat. “I should—I should probably get on home now.” Pausing, he asks, “I’ll see you around?”

All you can do is give him a tiny nod of your head.

“Okay,” he says, sounding relieved

He turns on the heel of his boot and leaves the stall.

Joel was playing with fucking fire.

And so were you.

“So tell me, does this town have some kinda weird ass rule that says every teenaged girl’s bedroom has to be fucking pink?” Ellie questions as she takes a glimpse around Dina’s bedroom. Her small nose wrinkles in disgust. The walls are painted a light pink color and it looks similar to her own room—but at the very least the previous owner of her space had thrown some green accents in here and there that made it a little less horrendous.

“What? Is pink not your most favorite color?” Dina teases her with a giggle, shutting her door behind her. She kicks off her boots, setting them next to her closet door.

“Totally,” Ellie deadpans, rolling her eyes at her. She gestures to herself with her hand. “Isn’t it just so obvious?”

Throwing her head back, Dina laughs again.

Ellie’s stomach somersaults. Dina might have been nauseatingly girly, but hell, if she wasn’t one of the prettiest girls Ellie had ever met—smooth golden skin, wide brown eyes, and long black hair that falls all the way down to the small of her back. Ellie had noticed the way several boys around the town would stare at Dina and she couldn’t help but wonder if she had her eye on any of them. Of all the fucking things that Ellie didn’t have the fucking balls for, it was asking her friend if she had a boyfriend or not.

Not that it matters if she does or doesn’t.

Right?

“Make yourself comfortable,” Dina offers, waving a hand around. She grins. “Feel free to snoop.”

“Don’t mind if I do.” She turns towards her writing desk, noticing a yellow flower beside a pile of notebooks. “Well, well, well,” she says, picking it up. She gingerly pinches the stem between her fingers. “A flower, huh? Who’s it from?” Ellie inquires, her back still to her.

Sheepishly, Dina replies, “Oh. That. Um—my friend gave it to me the other day. His name is Jesse.”

Ellie feels a twinge of jealousy stir in her belly. “And who’s that? Your boyfriend or something?”

“No. I don’t have a boyfriend.” She briefly pauses before adding, “Or a girlfriend.”

Freezing on the spot, Ellie holds the flower in a deathgrip. “Oh,” is all she can get herself to say. Throat bobbing, Ellie sets the flower back down on the desk and then turns to look at Dina. The girl flashes her a small, shy smile, causing her stomach to flip again. Awkwardly, Ellie tears her gaze away from her and her eyes flit to the bookshelf in the far corner of her bedroom. “Can I check out your stash?”

“Go for it,” Dina encourages her.

Ellie nods in thanks and pads over to the bookshelf, their shoulders lightly brushing up against each other as she does so. She starts looking at all of her books and one title immediately stands out and catches her attention. “No fucking way!” she exclaims loudly as she plucks it from the shelf. “No Pun Intended: Volume Tree. I can’t believe there’s a third one! Are you fucking serious?”

“Ah, so you’re familiar with Will Livingston and his hilariously terrible puns?”

Ellie grins as she walks over and takes a seat at the foot of Dina’s bed. She flips to the first page and runs her index finger down the list of jokes until she finds one she likes best. “What did the grape say when it got crushed?”

“Nothing,” Dina replies with a casual shrug, taking a seat beside her. “It just let out a little wine.”

She cackles and turns to the next page. “I don’t trust stairs.” She pauses for a dramatic effect and then continues with the punchline. “Because they are always up to something.”

The girls lose themselves in a fit of giggles.

As Ellie continues thumbing through the pages of the joke book, her smile fades slightly—memories of everything that had happened to her in the last year, everything she had been through, the people that she’d lost, it all comes flooding back to her in a huge wave that would have drowned her had Dina and her sweet, gentle voice not come to the rescue.

“El? You alright?”

Ellie turns to her. “El?”

“Yeah.” Dina’s face flushes red. “Is it okay if I call you that?”

Riley used to call her that.

When she’d still been alive.

Realizing that she was still waiting for a reply, Ellie carefully nods her head. “Yeah. It’s okay.”

“By the way,” Dina starts to say, scooting to sit a little closer to her. “About what happened back in the mess hall all those months ago when you first got here—I feel bad about it and I just wanted to apologize for staring at you the way I did. I honestly didn’t mean to upset you.”

“I’m sorry too. You know, for snapping at you. I got an earful from my old man about it afterwards. He gave me a lecture on manners.” Ellie chuckles and shrugs, her shoulder brushing Dina’s again. She had to resist the sudden urge to lean into her, just like the way she would always lean into Riley. “It’s just that I was so fucking sick of everyone looking at me like I came from another planet. Maria told me it was because I wasn’t like the other kids. She said I was different.” She pauses, nervously chewing her lower lip before asking, “Is that why you were staring at me? Because I’m different?”

“Yeah,” Dina admits. She notices the expression on Ellie’s face and quickly adds, “But that’s not a bad thing, El. Sometimes different is good, you know?

“Nice save, but that still doesn’t make me feel any better,” she mutters sourly.

Dina nudges her in her ribs with her elbow. “Well, would it at least make you feel better to know that I was also staring because I thought that you were cute?”

Ellie’s eyes widen as they meet Dina’s. “You did?”

“I did,” she confirms. She then corrects herself, saying, “I do.”

Dina smiles and leans in, softly brushing a kiss against her lips. It’s gentle and it’s quick but still enough to make Ellie’s heart race inside of her chest.

“Sorry,” she murmurs shyly as soon as she pulls away. She clasps her hands together nervously in her lap as she fixes her gaze on the floor.

Ellie reaches out, placing her hand on both of hers, causing the girl to look back up at her. “Don’t be. I’m sure as fuck not sorry about it at all.”

Relieved, Dina smiles again.

Ellie squeezes her hands and goes in for a second kiss. “I should probably get home before my old man gets too worried and sends out a fucking search and rescue team for me,” she mutters against her lips, causing her to giggle. She pulls back and stands up, handing the book back to Dina who shakes her head.

“Take it. It’s all yours.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah.” She nods. “There’s just one catch to it. I expect you to tell me a joke every single day.”

Nodding, Ellie grins and says, “Fuck yeah, I can do that.”

Several hours later into the evening, you can still feel Joel’s lips on yours—his touch lingers on your skin. It had been burned right into you and it didn’t really matter how hard you tried not to think about it because you had crossed a line that there was no coming back from. His touch, his kiss. You would never find the ability to forget how Joel had made you feel. Not that you’d wanted to forget it.

You didn’t have any regrets about what happened back in the stables. There wasn’t a single ounce of guilt or shame in your bones over it. That terrified you. You had so easily and so willingly let a man who wasn’t your husband kiss you, and you found yourself wanting and needing so much more.

You stand in the shower, allowing the ice cold water to beat down against your back and shoulders. You’d normally prefer a scalding hot shower to help ease the soreness that came after a long day of tending to the horses, but after today, what you had found yourself needing was a frigid shower to cool off.

And it had nothing to do with the staggering summer temperatures.

You shut off the water and grab a towel from a steel towel rack mounted on the wall right next to the shower. Wrapping it around yourself, you carefully step out of the shower and then reach for a second towel from the rack. You dry yourself off before padding into the bedroom where you’d laid out your clothes at the foot of the bed. You tug on a cotton gray tank top, dark denim blue jeans that you’d cut off into shorts yourself, and a pair of old, faded black low top sneakers that were extremely worn out, but much too comfortable to throw away. After haphazardly towel drying your hair, you pull it back into a ponytail.

In a futile attempt to take your mind off Joel Miller and the feeling of his lips on yours, you decided to preoccupy yourself with menial tasks around the house until it was time to start cooking dinner. The fact that you always kept the place clean—damn near spotless—made finding chores to distract you from your thoughts a much bigger challenge than you’d anticipated. God forbid that Luke ever found an unwashed dish in the sink or a speck of dust on the counter—his perfect little wife just had to keep the perfect little home. He wouldn’t allow it to be any other way.

After gathering the load of laundry that you’d had drying out on the clothesline in the backyard, you dumped it all into the large, woven hamper basket and carried it inside and upstairs to the bedroom. Within ten minutes, it had all been folded and put away. Looking for the next thing you could do to keep yourself busy, you noticed a big cardboard box sitting over in a corner of the bedroom. It’s packed with the rest of your winter clothes—it had been several weeks since you’d asked Luke to take it down to the basement and he still hadn’t done it for you.

Rolling your eyes, you pick it up, a labored grunt escaping you when you find the box to be much heavier than you’d remembered it being before. It nearly slips out of your grasp a couple of times, but somehow you manage to make it downstairs without dropping it—or falling. You carefully make your way down into the basement, the old wooden staircase creaking underneath your sneakers with each and every step. Once you’d made it down to the bottom, you haul the box over to the corner of the basement where you set it down with about half a dozen others, most of which were filled with your late father’s belongings.

Luke had been nagging you to get rid of everything to clear up space in the basement, but the thought of getting rid of your father’s things made you sick to your stomach. They were all you had left of him, after all.

As you glance around the dimly lit basement, an object nestled against the pile of cardboard boxes catches your attention. It’s a black leather guitar case. Letting out a curious hum, you drop to one knee and lay it flat on the ground, opening it only to find your father’s brown, classical Gibson he’d been gifted the year before he’d died by members of the town. He’d always been fond of music, and before the outbreak happened, he would play his guitar for you and your younger brother almost every single night, right after supper. When word spread that his illness was terminal, the kind folks of Jackson surprised him with the instrument, hoping it would bring him at least a little bit of joy in the time he had left. And it truly had. Even as a woman nearing your thirties, you’d found yourself sitting cross legged on the floor of your dad’s living room staring up at him in wonder as he would play his old favorite songs for you on the acoustic guitar—in those moments, you had felt like a child again.

You’d felt happy. Safe.

You brush the guitar strings lightly with your fingertips.

Suddenly, you remember the night of the party and how Joel had told you he enjoyed singing and playing the guitar in his life before the outbreak.

You chew your bottom lip, thinking it over in your mind. The decision comes quickly, and you close the case and pick it up, ascending the basement stairs with it in hand. It’s half past five—you still had some spare time before you needed to get started on dinner. You figure you won’t be too long. Besides, Luke had mentioned to you earlier that morning before heading out that he’d be staying late at the clinic anyway—one of the women in the community had just given birth to a premature baby boy that he’d need to keep a close eye on for the next few days.

Leaving the house, you start down the road towards Joel and Ellie’s place, remembering it was the brown and green unit just a couple doors over from your own place. You make your way up the porch steps and knock lightly on the front door. You try holding the guitar case behind you, but it’s fairly obvious what you have in your hands.

As you wait, you shift nervously from foot to foot. A few more seconds pass by and Joel answers the door. His salt and pepper curls are damp, and the scent of clean soap wafts in the air around him, slowly making its way over to you. He’d traded in his dirty denim shirt from earlier for a navy blue t-shirt that fits snug over his broad chest and wide shoulders.

He says your name in surprise. “What are you doin’ here?” His dark eyes flicker to the guitar case behind your back. “What’s that you’ve got there?”

“Oh, just a little surprise for you and Ellie.” You toss him a cheeky, mischiveous smile. “Do you mind if I come in for a minute?”

“‘Course not.” Joel steps aside. He shuts the door behind you and beckons for you with his hand to follow him down the hallway and into the living room. For essentially being a single father, he knows how to keep a nice, clean home. Knowing Ellie, she sure as hell isn’t the one who tidied up after eight hours of mucking out horse stalls.

“Where’s Ellie?” you ask him.

“Upstairs. She just got in the shower a minute ago, but she shouldn’t be too long,” he tells you. Placing his hands on his hips, he peers curiously at you. “I’d ask what the surprise is, but just by lookin’ at the shape of that case, I think I might already have a hunch.”

“Jeez Joel, you could have at least acted surprised, you know,” you remark with a giggle. You set the case down on the antique coffee table in the middle of his living room and open it, revealing the guitar to him. “Surprise!”

Walking over to the case, Joel delicately picks up the instrument by the neck and pulls it out, giving it a once over. He lets out a long, low whistle as his other hand runs down the smooth, cherrywood body. “This is fuckin’ gorgeous,” he states. A playful look flashes in his eyes as he asks you, “Now, who did you go and steal this from, darlin’?”

“It belonged to my dad,” you reply softly with a smile. “I thought you might like to have it.”

Joel’s jaw drops in shock as he hisses, “What?”

“Hey, I wasn’t lying when I said we’d have to find you a guitar,” you laugh. “I’m a woman of my word, Miller.”

“Darlin’ I can’t accept this, there’s no fuckin’ way—” He tries handing the instrument back to you, but you take a step back and hold your hands behind your back, shaking your head. He tries again. “Listen, I appreciate the thought, but I can’t take this. It was your dad’s and I really don’t think he’d want some stranger to have it.”

“Please take it,” you request, sweetly. “It would mean a lot to me if you would. He really loved this thing and I just know he would be devastated if he knew that it’s been sitting in my basement collecting dust for the last two years.”

Joel’s momentarily rendered speechless.

“Please,” you repeat, adding an innocent bat of your eyelashes to finish winning him over. “Do it as a favor to me, Joel.”

He sighs in defeat. “Jesus, darlin’. Why’s it so fuckin’ hard to say no to you?”

You shrug, trying to mask the look of sheer triumph on your face.

He takes a closer look at the guitar. “Gibson. Y’know, I always wanted one of these back in the day, but I just could never bring myself to drop that kinda cash. I wanted real bad and now here I am with one in my hand.” His gaze meets yours and he smiles softly. “Thank you.”

“There’s no need to thank me, Joel. But don’t you forget that we made a deal,” you remind him as a teasing grin spreads across your lips. “You owe me and Ellie a song.”

“Speakin’ of Ellie, she’s gonna lose her mind when she sees this thing,” Joel realizes, giving it a single test strum. “I’ve really been wantin’ to teach her to play for some time now. Guess now I can.” He shoots you a look of sincere gratitude. “Thanks, peach.”

Peach.

As you recall what had happened in Ranger’s stall earlier that day, you let out a nervous, breathless laugh. “That my new nickname or what?”

“Only when I feel like it,” Joel replies jokingly as he carefully places the guitar back in its case. “Which might be all the time.” Closing the case, he turns to you. He hesitates for a second, but then takes a careful step closer towards you. He cups your face in his hand, just like before, his eyes flitting to your parted lips.

Lifting your hand, your fingers curl around his wrist.

You’d do just about anything for him to kiss you again—but the both of you had almost been caught by Ellie once already and you weren’t trying to make it two for two. It takes all the strength you have inside you to drop your hand away from him and step back.

You lightly clear your throat. “Um, I should probably get home and get dinner started before it gets too late. Will you say hello to Ellie for me?”

Nodding, Joel assures you, “‘Course I will.”

He walks you to the front door. He places a hand on the small of your back, his fingers brushing against the patch of smooth skin peeking from between the waist of your shorts and the lace hem of your tank top. Once he opens the door, Joel withdraws his hand from you to be safe. He doesn’t want anyone who might have been passing by the house to see any kind of physical contact between you and him and get any ideas. “Have a good night, peach.”

You smile at him. “Have a good night, Joel.”

You return home within seconds and head straight to the kitchen. When you walk in and unexpectedly find Luke standing there leaning against the counter with his arms crossed over his chest, you stop in your tracks and let out startled little gasp. “Luke,” you say his name, hoping he can’t detect the nervousness in your voice. “You’re home early.”

He stares you down from where he’s standing.

“Where were you?”

You can tell by the expression on his face that now isn’t the time to even think about lying to him—not unless you wanted things to go a whole lot worse for you. “I, um—I was over at Joel and Ellie’s place,” you admit to him. “I was only there for a couple of minutes, though. That’s why I left the door unlocked.”

“What were you doing over there?”

Luke sounds calm, but you know him better than that.

The clouds are coming in—the storm is brewing.

You swallow, your throat dry. “Just talking.”

“To Ellie?” Pushing away from the counter, he slowly saunters over to you with a dangerous look in his eyes. “Or to Joel?”

“Luke, please. Let’s just talk about this calmly—”

“When I ask you a question, you fucking answer it,” Luke hisses as he grabs your arm, his fingers digging roughly into the soft flesh right above your elbow.

“Luke, stop. You’re hurting me,” you manage to tell him through gritted teeth. As you squirm, his grip only tightens. “Seriously, you’re hurting me. Please, let me go.”

The panic is beginning to creep in, your body ready to go into flight mode, but you will yourself to remain grounded, to stay as calm as possible—dealing with him and his temper is frightening, but becoming emotional and showing him that you’re afraid of him always makes things so much worse in the long run.

“What the hell is going on between you two?”

“What? Nothing! I hardly know him,” you try to tell him. You let out a small, painful yelp as he continues to dig his fingers deeper into your arm. “Luke, I need you to let me go. You’re really hurting me—”

Finally, you lose your nerve and look away from him, trying to avert his furious gaze.

Letting go of your arm, Luke reaches out and takes your chin in his hand, forcing you to look at him.

“Do you honestly think I’m fucking stupid? Or are you just that fucking stupid?” He spits out in a venomous tone that sends an unpleasant chill down the length of your spine. He squeezes your face, hard. “Do you really think that I didn’t notice how the two of you had come from behind the barn that night during the party? How you were out there alone together, with no one else around?” He lets out a loud, bitter laugh. “Do you really think that I didn’t notice how that man fucking looked at you even when you were at my side?”

Luke releases your face, shoving it away harshly.

Taking a moment to catch some wind, you look up at him and sputter out the most coherent explanation you can come up with “We don’t even know each other, Luke! I don’t know Joel—the only reason we talk to each other is because Ellie’s his daughter and she’s gotten really close to me since she started working down at the stables. He only talks to me when it has something to do with Ellie. His kid. That’s it.” You’re now lying straight through your teeth and all you can do is pray he won’t pick up on it. “Today was the first time I’ve talked to or even seen Joel in weeks. The night of the party, he’d told me that he wanted to teach Ellie how to play the guitar so I went over to give him dad’s old Gibson. You’ve been telling me to start getting rid of his stuff, so I started with his guitar. That’s all.”

It’s difficult to be certain whether or not he believes you.

“Ellie,” he repeats her name with a scoff. “What, you couldn’t bear any of your own so you just go around adopting feral little strays now? Is that it?”

The words leave your mouth before you can stop them. “Screw you, Luke.”

He smirks. “Hit a nerve, sweetheart?”

You know better than to shoot back at him.

Still, you foolishly do it anyway.

“First of all, don’t talk about Ellie like that. In fact, I don’t ever want to hear you say her name again so keep it out of your mouth,” you warn him, your voice low, seething. “And second, don’t you pin our lack of a family all on me just to make yourself feel like a real fucking man.”

You see it coming before it even happens and brace yourself for the impact.

The sound of his hand connecting with the side of your face bounces loudly off the kitchen walls.

“Listen and listen good because I won’t repeat myself,” Luke snarls. He backs you against the kitchen table and grabs a fistful of your hair at the nape of your neck, yanking your head back roughly as his face inches closer to yours. “Don’t you ever disrespect me like that again. You are my wife—you honor and you obey me, especially in our own home. The next time you run your fucking mouth like that, you’re going to be picking pieces of your jaw up off the floor. Do you understand me?”

Chest heaving, you nod meekly.

He pulls your head back further—harder. “Say it.”

“I understand,” you squeak, momentarily feeling like he might actually snap your neck.

“Good.” Luke releases you and stalks out of the kitchen, calling over his shoulder, “I expect dinner to be on the table in an hour.”

#joel miller x f!reader #joel miller x you #joel miller x female reader #joel miller series #joel miller story #fic: a safe haven #fic: ash #joel miller x reader #joel miller x y/n

1K notes · View notes

dott-de-la-torre · 8 months

Text

I really don’t like that theory going around that says Aziraphale and Crowley will end up living together as mortals.

I mean it would make a lot of sense for the story to go in that direction because they are more human than supernatural, they’d finally have true free will and be free from heaven and hell, bla bla

But they did not spend at least 6000 years pining for each other to only get a few years together and then die. They desearve eternity together. And it makes me sad how possible the theory seems

#good omens #good omens season 2 #ineffable husbands #good omens s3

550 notes · View notes

deepouterspacecandy · 10 days

Text

Next of Kin

The pregnant reader requests are so sweet, I swear I'm not ignoring them. All of your messages and requests have been great and they mean a lot to me. I'm under the weather right now so I apologize big time for the slow updates and responses. I hope this drabble scratches the itch until I'm back. 18+ only.

What if Abby's girlfriend is the pregnant one in TLOU2?

Oh, there will be no more running from the infected or putting yourself in harm’s way. This comes to an end immediately.

She’ll be reluctant to let you lift anything, even when it’s safe to do so and even when you’re capable. Abby knows it drives you nuts, and it’s the one thing she doesn’t compromise on.

However, not all her doting bothers you.

Your heart swells with tenderness for Abby as she reaches out to grasp your elbow while you climb the stairs and drops to her knees to tie your shoes when bending becomes more challenging. Her duty is to make sure you get the nutrients you require, and she tirelessly hunts for any pregnancy related books she can find.

When Manny tells her that orgasms can trigger labour, she blushes furiously and groans at him to knock it off.

“It’s not like that,” she mumbles.

It is like that. Abby is deeply in love with you.

I don’t think she takes you back to the Stadium, though. I imagine she quietly settles beside you, observing your peaceful slumber, while wrestling with the weight of her actions as the renowned Scar hunter. Memories of her dad resurfacing to remind her of the dreams and aspirations he held for her. As she defects from the WLF, a small crew of soldiers joins her, eager to fight for a new cause.

In the beginning, she might feel too self-conscious to sing to your belly, but once your baby bump becomes more noticeable, she will seize any opportunity to touch and connect with you, as long as you are comfortable with it.

She is hell bent on finding a community with a medical team.

I see Abby as the girl who is by your side for every ultrasound.

The moment she experiences the baby kick, her eyes meet yours in disbelief, as if she’s overwhelmed by the extraordinary gift bestowed upon her by the world. When she lays eyes on the growing life inside you, her role as your protector becomes an eternal vow.

It’s not often that she cries, but if she misses an appointment because her assignments run late or there is an unexpected problem, it would be one of those few occasions. Trying to hide her emotions from her squad, she will steal a glance at her watch and clench her teeth, struggling to keep her lip from quivering.

The next time she cries will be the night your son is born, and she cradles him in her arms for the first time.

Abby surprises you by building a crib with her own two hands, meticulously sanding, and staining the wood. The day she finally confesses her love out loud, you can’t help but notice the pine chips tangled in her hair and the dust that coats her threadbare shirt.

“You’re a mess,” you say, brushing the remnants of her project from her shoulders and watching the particles float gently to the carpet. “I can’t believe you did this for us. It’s beautiful, Abby.”

“I want to be a part of this,” she says, breath catching in her throat as she lifts your hands to her chest. “I want to be yours.”

“You already are,” you murmur.

Although the labour theory that Manny suggested scared her to death, the minute she notices your libido is returning in full force, she goes all in, making the subsequent sexual experience fun and romantic.

She finds beauty in the soft curves and stretch marks that adorn your body, especially when you cannot see it yourself.

Is she a little obsessed with the way you looked during pregnancy? I don’t know, you’ll have to ask her, but she sure as shit adores your body as it is now.

Below the surface, Abigail Anderson may be gentle-natured, but nobody fucks with her son and wife.

#abby the last of us #abby tlou #abby x fem!reader #abby x reader #abby x you #tlou abby #lesbian #abby anderson

152 notes · View notes

syrupfog · 11 days

Text

Need to read some fic where Law is the one who falls HARD and instantly, while Luffy takes a while.

Law full on pining from day 1 while Luffy’s like “haha you’re so weird but your bear’s cool”

Law convincing himself that just being close to Luffy during their alliance is enough, treasuring every moment bc he knows Luffy doesn’t feel the same. All the straw hats pitying him and/or outright hostile towards him bc he’s transparent as fuck

Luffy being like “I’m busy becoming the pirate king traffy’s cool I like him but he’s not my crew” and law accepting that and thinking it’s for the best, he doesn’t have a good track record keeping loved ones alive anyway.

Law devoting himself mind body and soul to luffy after Dressrosa, knowing even then that Luffy’s going to be pirate king and law will do anything to make that happen because he wants luffy to have the freedom law’s never felt

And luffy, despite what everyone seems to think, he’s not dumb. He knows how law feels. He doesn’t GET it, just like he doesn’t get why Boa Hancock feels that way, or why he has a fan club, but he does know how law feels about him.

And maybe it’s not until after egghead that something changes. Maybe it’s when Luffy realises that Teach HAS Law, and he gets more upset than people expect. When he goes after Black beard with a fury even he doesn’t understand

And I dunno, maybe Luffy’s never felt love this way before, can recognise it in others but not in himself because it’s all new, but when he gets law back, beaten and tortured in the name of the eternal life surgery, Luffy can’t let him out of his sight.

Almost maniacally, carries law all around the sunny like a soother, law barely conscious as chopper is desperately trying to tend to his injuries but luffy just feels WEIRD without law in his arms. He’s being petulant and stubborn about it because he’s not processing WHY he feels this way.

And law comes back to himself slowly and is equally confused. Feels undeserving for this weird questionable kindness of being dragged all over like a favourite stuffed animal while, again, chopper is BEGGING luffy to leave law in the infirmary

It goes on for days, until law finally tells luffy to for the love of god put him down, and luffy says “I WON’T I CAN’T something BAD will happen again” and Law has to stiltedly assure him that no, it really won’t. He goes on a tangent about compulsions that luffy clearly ignores

And to law this is a special sort of hell because he LOVES this. Knows this is the luffy version of being doted on,and feels entirely undeserving. He’s knocked luffy off course of becoming the pirate king, his one dream. Law can’t be the reason that doesn’t happen

But Luffy keeps not letting him go, until Law has to FORCE the issue “STRAW HAT YA PUT ME DOWN” only for luffy to say “NO I FEEL WEIRD YOU’RE MAKING ME FEEL WEIRD AND I DON’T GET IT, YOU’RE MAKING ME NERVOUS”

he’s throwing a whole mini tantrum on the middle of the deck on the Sunny where everyone is pointedly looking away as if they can’t hear. And Law, equally unable to understand the situation, says, “WELL HOW DO YOU THINK *i* FEEL”

And maybe that’s when it clicks for Luffy. Ohhhhhh this is how law felt all that time? Like uncomfy bad nervous and upset tummy? THAT’S what this is?

“Traffy is this LOVE?”he asks, VERY loudly.

And law, turning beet red, says “no!! It’s not!! Put me down!!”

Because law has known luffy in some form or another for three years at this point and law has loved him for all of it and therefore he is WELL AWARE that luffy doesn’t love him back, so this is clearly something else. PTSD, probably. OCD, definitely.

But then , because all of the straw hats ARE there, Franky yells, “don’t listen to him, little bro! That’s definitely love!”

And law chokes, starts struggling to be put down, ears BURNING and face in flames. “No it’s NOT” he yells.

“Traffy,” Luffy says, a deep frown on his face as his arms wind again and again around law’s middle. “I think franky’s right.”

“He’s not,” law seethes, struggling against the rubber boa constrictor arms. “ You CAN’T like me, you’re going to be PIRATE KING.”

Luffy looks up at him. “So what?” He asks, genuinely confused

“You can’t TIE YOURSELF DOWN to THIS,” law says, furtively motioning to himself. “You’re the freest man in the world, you can’t be tied down to someone who couldn’t even beat black beard.”

Luffy studies him. He thinks REALLY hard, tilting his head and observing law’s expressions go through the five phases of grief. Then he says “that’s dumb, Traffy. Being free means I can choose whatever I want, and I want you.”

Which is, like, something law never let himself think about. So he doesn’t know how to respond. It doesn’t make SENSE. Luffy is everything, is freedom and joy, and law is a man who’s failed every important person in his life.

But luffy IS free to choose, is the thing. And law long ago vowed to do whatever he could to make him pirate king, so.

“…fine, straw hat-ya. I think you will change your mind, but I won’t stand in your way.”

Luffy laughs. “That’s a weird way to say you’ll be my boyfriend, traffy,” he says.

And then he gives law the worst, most wet kiss in history. All the straw hats in the vicinity cover their ears in embarrassment.

#lulaw #lawlu #my writing #im slowly crossposting all these from my twitter

175 notes · View notes

okay-babe · 2 months

Text

Fallen - A Lucifer Morningstar x Reader Series Preview

Synopsis: Reader is a specific type of angel called a heavenly virtue, who was created around the same time as the fallen seraphim, Lucifer Morningstar. More than friends and less than lovers, our Reader feels betrayed by the decisions that her dear friend makes that later lead to his banishment, though she finds a few hundred years later that flying might just be harder than falling after so many centuries of grief. Tags: lucifer x fem! reader, lucifer x angel! reader, friends to almost lovers to strangers to lovers??, angst, pining

It hurt to admit, of course it did, but in truth, it was impossible to deny.

He had been everything.

The two of you had come to be together, grown up at one another's side in the closest thing two angels could have ever gotten to a childhood.

Created for good, created for more, there had been so little time to become someone before you had both been thrust into being.

And for the longest time you had believed so truly that this fact was what bonded you together, what made you feel whole when in his presence.

Until of course, you learned the truth.

That being forced into being had not bound you to Lucifer, and he to you...

But rather, it had damned you both to an eternity of suffering -

One quite literal in a fiery pit called Hell,

And the other something that your God had not, and would not have ever given,

The silent and agonizing torture of longing.

But you supposed it was fitting, in a way.

Lucifer had given man free will,

And an angel of virtue an emotion that their God had never intended for her to feel -

Loss.

His final gift to you, wrapped up in the memories of agony you could not escape.

His hand in yours, unyielding,

His lips on your skin, curious and yearning,

His warmth at your back each night for eons that were never enough.

And of course,

His laughter in Eden, unending,

His lips on hers, confident and eager,

The look on his face as they served him his sentence, eyes finding yours before averting again and again, as if unknowing, as if ashamed...

And from that day forward, you had known deep down that something had been taken from you, something essential yet unnamed that lived on within every other angel.

But to think that it might have lead to your own expulsion?

Well, you supposed that idolatry was a sin, wasn't it?

And what was your Lucifer to you if not a God?

Did he not hurt you so casually as a God would?

Did he not vanish as a God would?

Did he not love you as a God would?

"It does not have to be this way,"

The booming yet gentle voice called out, that desperate edge to it the only tell that its owner knew you as well as she did,

"Remember, dear remedial one, who made you. Who gave you life and embodies through you our eighth heavenly virtue, that which tips the scale away from a balance between us and those seven deadly sins, and instead allows us to exceed their damning weight."

The Seraphim's warning was clear, speak incorrectly again and you would surely be banished, and in turn Heaven, the land you had been created for, would lose it's unspoken eighth virtue, casting things back to the original seven that had been customary before your time, none of which had ever known a world where they and sin had been equally matched.

But even still, you were not a liar, and with every passing day you felt less and less like you could step up to the very virtue you were meant to embody, your persisting grief a constant reminder of what you could not do in spite of what you had been made to represent.

In spite of what you had been made for.

"Now, let me ask you again, loved one,"

The voice spoke up, eyes seeking yours all the while as if trying to sway your answer before you could give it.

"Who do you love more than any other?"

The grand jury of lower seraphims, ophanims, cherubims, and virtues watched on silently, eagerly awaiting your answer with baited breaths they had never truly needed to take.

The answer was meant to be God, of course, and you knew it.

But you suddenly found that it wasn't true, and perhaps it never had been in the first place, for you had not felt as if you had been touched by God since your creation, and even still, it was not his divine touch that you longed for each evening, but another entirely.

One that you supposed was divine no longer to anyone who was not you, anyone who had not held the face of the seraphim before his fall.

No, he was divine to them no longer, but to you...

Well, you had already admitted long ago that he was everything,

And you could lie no longer.

"The Lightbringer."

You began, the room growing tense in an instant, the silence somehow growing more thick the very moment those words passed your lips,

"Lucifer Morningstar."

The high seraphim frowned, the weight of what she had to do to one she'd called a friend for so long acting as a burden she wished she did not have to carry.

But alas, not all angels had been made defective, so it seemed.

She did as she needed to do.

"Then today I'm afraid that Heaven loses it's eighth heavenly virtue to the pits of Hell."

You flinched at her words in spite of yourself, the knowledge of what was to come causing your heart to hammer within your chest.

Angels were meant to fly, not fall, after all.

The seraphim stepped forward, her eyes slightly clouded with a grief you knew all too well. You hoped she would not miss you as you did him.

She placed her hand upon your shoulder, bringing your full attention back to her once more,

"It is a shame that God made you as he did."

She spoke gently, each word she uttered drenched in pity.

"He does not deserve this betrayal."

You nodded solemnly in response, and bowed your head, waiting.

The high seraphim took a deep breath.

"I hereby banish you, our eighth heavenly virtue, Forgiveness, from Heaven forevermore for your treasonous acts against our holy father. May you repent forever in the fiery depths below."

And with that, your halo disintegrated completely, its golden shimmers falling all around your head as you looked around at those you had been created with one final time.

Your eyes flickered back to the seraphim, mouth opening just as the ground began to split at your feet.

"Goodbye, Sera."

You said gently, watching a stray tear fall from your dear friend's face before suddenly, all light seemed to vanish, and you found yourself hurdling into the abyss so fast that the wind almost felt as if it were burning you alive the whole way down.

And yet, all that you could think about was how ironic it was, truly,

That your Lightbringer had only ever led you into darkness.

#lucifer x reader #lucifer imagine #hazbin x reader #hazbin hotel x reader #hazbin hotel x you #lucifer x you #hazbin x you #hazbin imagine #hazbin hotel imagine #hazbin hotel #requests #lucifer morningstar x reader #lucifer magne x reader #hazbin lucifer x reader #.writes

220 notes · View notes

flowersforjude · 1 year

Text

𝐌𝐞𝐞𝐭 𝐌𝐞 𝐈𝐧 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐖𝐨𝐨𝐝𝐬

𝐏𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠 | Joel Miller x Fem!Reader

𝐒𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲 | It’s just a job, nothing more. Until it isn’t.

𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐂𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭 | 3,008

𝐖𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬 | Canon typical violence, Injuries, Mutual pining, Joel is like the reader’s personal bodyguard.

𝐀𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐫'𝐬 𝐍𝐨𝐭𝐞 | Reluctantly protective Joel sure is something. Something I need in my be-

masterlist | read on ao3

This was supposed to be an easy one. Get you from place to place, unharmed and alive; get paid; and then that was that. Easy.

Except it was anything but.

Joel’s first impression of you was that you were meek and quiet. He was honestly pleased, thinking this made his job a lot easier. He thought you would follow his orders and just let him take the lead. Cut and dry, right?

How wrong he was.

He certainly wasn’t expecting your hidden fiery spirit. It only took a few days for your soft-spoken nature to disappear. He got used to your sharp tongue real quick, and while you knew when to really listen to him, he got used to your defiance as well.

Things started to go wrong as soon as you left the Q.Z. His original plan went to hell, and you were forced to take the long way around. Infected swarmed the short path, and the thought of making this trip even longer set Joel on edge. Bad luck already setting the precedent for the whole trip made him regret taking the damn job in the first place.

Before the trek even began, he put his walls up with you. He makes it clear he doesn’t do small talk, but that didn’t stop you from asking him a million questions. He answers some of them that he deems logical, but he shuts you down when you ask anything too personal. He doesn’t want you to know him. Doesn’t want to know you.

But then the inevitable happens.

You take a hammer to his walls and make the first crack. He’s unable to put his finger on the exact moment you began chipping away at his resolve.

Maybe it was the night under the stars when he actually allowed himself to hold a conversation with you. The first real one you guys had, nothing like your endless questions and his short, clipped answers. He learned that night that you had a real good sense of humor.

But then again, it just as well may have been the day you came upon a deer in the woods. He wanted to keep moving, but you were adamant about staying and watching the animal. Joel supposed he understood. He didn’t know how long it’d been since you’d left the Q.Z., so it’d been an eternity since you laid eyes upon anything other than a rat. The longing in your expression hit something in him. He didn’t know why. The world was the way it was. And it wasn’t changing, so why waste your time missing something you could never have again?

Though Joel ate his own words when he realized he wanted to give you what you yearned for. A scene of normalcy, something to ease the sting of your lost life. He couldn’t give you the life you had before the outbreak, but some part of him wanted to try his hardest to give you something close to it.

That’s why, even when you both had a close call with a few Clickers, he fought his hardest to get you out of there and to the place you were headed. His only hope was to deliver you to something close to normal.

The Clicker comes out of nowhere; it tackles Joel and slams him to the ground. He goes down with a crack and knows his back will be screaming later. The thing claws at him, ripping the shoulder of his shirt. He’s holding it back as best he can while trying to reach for his knife. Before he can grip the handle, though, a shot rings out.

Birds fly from the trees, the sound of their wings meeting his ears over the rushing of blood. He shoves the creature off him and pulls himself to his feet. The first thing he sees is you. You stand a few yards away with your gun still held up. Your arms seem to be trembling, and Joel is momentarily stunned. He knew you carried a gun, obviously, but he didn’t know you were such a good shot. He’d never seen you use it, always letting him take care of any threat.

He’s about to call to you, to say something like, ‘good shooting.” But before he can even open his mouth, another Clicker springs from the treeline. You go down with a shriek, but you're fighting to get free. Joel doesn’t think as he pulls out his gun and starts running. As soon as he’s close enough to guarantee a kill shot, he fires. A second shot rings out, and this time the only sound to be heard are your terrified gasps.

He’s next to you quicker than he realizes and pulls you up. Your eyes are frantic, zooming around until they land on his face. Relief floods them, and all of a sudden your hands are gripping at him. You take his jaw and turn his head back and forth, your eyes searching him for injuries.

“Are you okay?” You ask, your voice holds a slight panic. Your hands leave his jaw and trail down his neck, checking there for any bites too. “Did it get you? Are you hurt?” Your worry and the feeling of your hands still on him send tingles through his skin.

“I’m fine.” He assures you, trying to keep his voice from sounding too gruff. He peels your hands from him but doesn’t let go of them. He conducts his own search of you, checking for any bites or injuries from your fall. “Are you alright?”

“I think so.” You answer breathlessly.

He goes to retrieve his pack, which had fallen off in his struggle with the Clicker. You're hot on his heels, putting barely any space between your bodies. When he bends down to pick up the bag, his back screams at him. He winces as he straightens up, a hand going to his lower back.

You're worrying over him again in an instant. “What’s wrong?” You fret, putting your hand over his. He brushes you off and assures you once again that he’s fine. Your quick-witted attitude comes out in full force as you put on a stern expression. “Well, we should find a place to hunker down for the night. Something’s clearly wrong with your back.”

He can’t argue with that. It’s easy enough to find a suitable place, barricading yourselves in an old garage of some house. It’s a cold night, though, and even the closed-off garage doesn’t provide enough warmth to keep you from shivering. Joel contemplates moving outside just so he can build a fire, but the threat of more Clickers being in the area stops him. Being cold is better than being dead.

You're sitting on your bed roll, wrapped up in your blanket, blowing on your hands and rubbing them together. The slight tremble of your form doesn’t go unnoticed by him.

“Here,” he offers, motioning for you to slide over a little. He lays his own bed roll right next to yours and sits down. He brings his blanket up over him. “Come under here.” He held the edge of it up. You don’t have to be told twice as you press yourself to his side. With both blankets covering you, and your shared body heat, that should do for the night.

You fall asleep with your back facing him, your hands tucked under your chin. Joel finds himself staying awake, rationalizing it as keeping watch. He watches you as you breathe in and out. You hum every now and then, like you're talking in your dreams. Soon those peaceful hums turn into frightened gasps. He leans over you, watching your face. You don’t wake up, though your brows are furrowed and your lashes flutter, but your eyes don’t open.

After a moment, you roll over, facing him. Your hand shoots out, gripping the fabric of his shirt in your fist tightly. Joel doesn’t dare move as you shuffle closer to him, like you’re seeking him out in your dreams. Your face presses itself to his chest, your hand losing some of its tension but still keeping a hold on his shirt.

That’s when he hears it.

“Joel.”

Everything he thought he knew came crashing down with the barely there mumble of his name from your unconscious lips. It’s just his name, it shouldn’t startle him so much. But it came from you, whispered from the deepest recesses of your sleeping mind.

“Joel.”

There it is again. A murmured confession that you're looking for him. Searching for him in your rest for a reason Joel can’t decipher. It’s laced with yearning, so much so that he can’t stop himself from winding his arms around you.

“I’m here, sweetheart.” He quietly answers when you call his name once more. His voice must have reached some deep part of your mind because you finally settled down fully. Sighing a little as you burrow yourself further into his warmth.

He doesn’t say anything the next morning. Even though you woke with your head resting in the crook of his neck and his arm still caging you to him. He doesn’t say anything about your nighttime hunt for him. He can’t even imagine how that conversation would go. He pictures your flushed cheeks as you stammer your way around an explanation, and he almost changes his mind. But he decides it’s better this way.

This is just a job.

He doesn’t even believe himself at this point.

For the rest of the journey, it’s clear something has shifted. Some unknown knowledge hangs between you, but neither of you brings it up. Content with just letting it simmer until it eventually bubbles over and you're forced to deal with it.

You still glue yourself to him, never leaving more than a few inches between you both. If it had been anyone else, Joel would’ve already barked at them to back up. But it was you, and he found himself relishing in your closeness. He knew soon enough you would reach your destination and be forced to part ways. So, he was going to soak up as much of this as he could. He lets himself indulge in you and your endless sunlight.

On the last night of the trip, you and he sit across from each other with a fire between you. It was silent as you busied yourselves with eating decades-old canned fruit. The sound of the spoons clinking against the cans drove him crazy. He tried to think of something to say, something meaningful. After all, it is your last night together. But he can’t come up with a damn thing. He’s seriously about to comment on the weather just to fill the silence when you save him.

“What do you remember the most from before?”

This is breaking his rule of no small talk. He already knows that if he answers this, things are going to get personal. He answers anyway. “Football games on Sunday. Summer barbecues. My brother and I swimming in our grandfather’s lake.”

“I didn’t know you had a brother.” You're surprised, and there’s no reason you shouldn’t be. Joel hasn’t exactly been open with you about anything regarding himself.

He nods. “Yeah, a younger one. Tommy.”

You seem to peer closer at him over the fire. The orange glow of the flames enveloping your features. “Is he back in Boston?”

Another question that he wouldn't have answered before. “No, we haven’t talked in a while actually. I don’t know where he is.” He can see the sympathy taking over your face, so he directs the attention away from him. Not ready to open that door with you yet. “What about you? What do you remember the most?”

This brings a smile out of you. “My family going to this cabin by the lake every Fourth of July. Me and my grandma going apple picking.”

“I was never a big apple fan,” he remarks.

Your smile grows, and he thinks he’d keep talking all night if you smiled like that again. “Oh, I was. Especially apple pie, my grandma and I would make one every time we went picking.” The light in your face fades a little. You take on this faraway look as you gaze into the flames. Joel gives you time to speak again because he can tell something is on your mind. “Do you think the world will ever be somewhat the same again?”

That’s one question he absolutely knows the answer to. No. The world is the way it is now, and there’s no going back to what was before. Your only choice was to adapt. But the sorrowful expression on your face made him answer something completely different.

“I sure hope so.”

When you finally reach your destination the next day, you find out the person you were meeting was a no-show. You were still welcomed with open arms, though. The people even gave Joel somewhere to stay for the night. Offering him a room to rest his head and supplies for his trip back. He plans on leaving at first light, not wanting to chance seeing you in the morning. If he saw you, it would make things harder than they needed to be. He let himself enjoy your warmth for a while, but the job was done. It was time to get back on track, he told himself.

He’s stocking his bag when there’s a knock at the door. He’s not expecting to see you standing on the other side, but he’s not surprised. He steps back to allow you to come in, closing the door once you pass him.

“You need something, sweetheart?” He questions, kicking himself for the nickname. He hadn’t meant for it to slip out. Then again, he hadn't meant for this whole trip to go the way it did.

“I don’t want you to leave,” you say quietly.

“What?” Joel demands.

“I don’t want you to go.” You repeat, your face is alight with that fire that surprised him so much.

He can’t help but laugh. He falls short when your face drops. “You know that’s not possible,” he sighed.

“Why not?” Your voice cracks. He wants to bring you to his chest and make your sadness go away. But he was the cause of your despair, so the sooner he was gone, the better. “Why can’t you stay and just be with me?” You look down at your hands, now knotted together in a nervous tangle.

“You don’t want me, sweetheart.” He rubs his hand over the back of his neck. “I’m not good for you.”

“Don’t you think I should be able to decide what’s good for me?” You roll your eyes, your face challenging him. His fierce, spirited girl. His girl. He shoves the thought away. You weren’t his, and you never would be.

“I’ve got too much—I’m too screwed up.” He crosses his arms over his chest. He doesn’t know whether or not he does it to protect himself, but it’s something he does when in a confrontation.

You laugh outright at this. “We’ve all got baggage, Joel.”

Hearing you voice his name again takes him back to the night you called for him in your sleep. This was harder than he expected, harder than he wanted it to be. He didn’t want to cause you pain.

He’s about to disagree when you reach for him. Your fingers curl into the flannel he’s wearing, just like when you clutched his shirt that fateful night. He lets you bring him closer to you, letting your eyes bore into his without looking away. His hands take on a mind of their own and plant themselves on your waist.

“Stay, Joel.” You're so close he can feel your breath hit his lips. It makes his head spin. “Please.”

He can’t find his words; he can’t find it in himself to argue with you. He knows he’s no good for you. He knows he doesn’t deserve you, but everything screams at him to agree. To stay and keep you close to him for the rest of your lives.

“Y/N.” He whispers as a final stance against your magnetism.

“We don’t have to stay here. We can go wherever we want.” You offer, your nose brushing across his. Everything feels warm, and it's almost intoxicating in its intensity.

“Went through hell just to get here.” He points outs, trying to give you a small grin.

“I don’t care.” Your hands move up his face to hold his cheeks, forcing him to look at you. As if he wants to look anywhere else. “I’ll follow you anywhere, as long as we’re together.”

“Sweetheart-”

His protest is lost to your mouth. You kiss him with the same fire that burns inside you. Joel lets the flames consume him, and he thinks as long as you keep kissing him, he’d happily let himself burn in you forever. His hands tighten on your waist as he returns your kiss with equal fervor. He feels himself falling deeper and deeper, like he’s spiraling down the depths of something he’s blocked off for so long. When your arms throw themselves around his shoulders to pull him closer to you, clinging to him like he’s your lifeline, he’s positive that he’d follow you to the ends of the earth. He pulls his mouth from yours to trail his lips over your neck.

“Please don’t go,” you breathe as he presses a kiss to your pulse point. “Please, Joel.”

He nods against the column of your neck, nipping at the sensitive skin behind your ear. “I’m here, sweetheart,” he sighs out. “I’m not goin’ anywhere.”

This was just meant to be a simple job, but it turned out to be something so much more than that. It was like an expedition to discover something you both had lost a long time ago. Peace. Companionship. Call it what you will, but he felt damn lucky to have found it again.

First Joel imagine! I honestly didn't mean for it to be over 3k, but here we are.

#joel miller #joel miller imagine #joel miller x reader #joel miller x y/n #joel miller x you #joel miller fluff #joel miller angst #pedro pascal #pedro pascal imagine #joel the last of us #the last of us imagine #the last of us hbo #tlou fanfiction #tlou hbo

849 notes · View notes

zanarkandskylines · 2 months

Text

Hollow Heart { chapter 3 - choke }

『♡』 pro-hero fem!reader x pro-hero bakugo ╰➤ ꒰ pro-heroes au | friends to lovers ꒱ ♡ katsuki bakugo masterlist ♡

summary: you have zero clue where you are after your abduction. white walls, medical instruments, the smell of rust, and hazy memories are all that keep you company during your time in the mystery lab. the horrors that lurk between these steel walls are going to give you nightmares for an eternity. all you can think about is getting home to your best friends and family, back to the life you sorely missed. tags & warnings: mentions of blood/violence, eventual & mild smut, kidnapping/abduction, experimentation, physical & psychological torture, PTSD, implied/referenced self harm, cursing, talks of trauma | angst with happy ending, emotional hurt/comfort, regret, mutual pining, friends to lovers, insomnia, eventual romance a/n: To all of you who have stopped to read this fic, thank you so much! This was my jump back into writing after almost a decade. I appreciate every single one of you!! ꒰ Ao3 version | word count; 13,885k as of ch.3 ꒱ Main Post Chapter 1 | Hurricane [5,092k] Chapter 2 | The Ghost of You [4,799k] Chapter 3 | Choke [3,995k] Chapter 4 | The Grey Chapter 5 | The Good Left Undone Chapter 6 | Tourniquet Chapter 7 | There is Fear in Letting Go 『♡』 this fic has a playlist! ✩

CHAPTER THREE: CHOKE

Day One (?)

Metallic rust.

That's all you could taste when you awoke from your drugged slumber, the world stuck in a haze as you hummed in discontent.

Where the hell am I?

The thought muddled in your head as you attempted to gauge your surroundings. The numbness in your limbs from earlier had been replaced with a new sensation - your body feeling too heavy for your bones to carry.

Did someone strap a weight to your shoulders and ankles?

You rotate your head sluggishly to see an all white and gray room, one singular door directly ahead of where you sat. There's a metal table in the corner with a few machines - you can't seem to determine what their purposes are. On your left, a surgical instruments table sits ominously, a few bloody bandages and an empty syringe splayed across it.

There's a sudden pulse in your head that rattles your brain, the train of thought you had derailing instantly. Glimpses of memories begin to spark in your mind - Bakugo's anguished expression as you drifted out of consciousness, an unknown number of hands removing your hero suit and belongings, cold steel of an operating table touching your bare skin, the ungodly amount of poking and prodding of your delicate skin with needles of all shapes and sizes, and a glass enclosure.

How are you remembering all of this if you weren't even conscious for the majority of it?

As if to answer your silent question, a doctor enters the room - what you presume is a doctor, anyways, by the looks of his white surgeon coat and stethoscope around his neck.

"Good morning. Would you prefer the use of your hero name or first name?" He asks, paging through the file on his clipboard.

What the fuck?

"Uhh...hero name?" you slur as you answer, voice cracking with exhaustion. You're not able to think straight in the moment and have zero adrenaline to be combative.

"Noted. How are you feeling?" His tone is dry, like every other doctor you've met in your life.

"Shitty."

He quirks an eyebrow. "Can you elaborate?"

God, this is so annoying. Why the hell are you being interrogated?

"M'everything feels...funny. Heavy but also...fuzzy?"

He scribbles down notes on a few different pages, flipping back and forth through the stack on his clipboard.

"Is it my turn t'ask a question?" you quip, snickering at your own request.

He approaches you hastily and slaps the ever-loving shit out of you. You let out a sharp yelp, the sting of his palm radiating on your cheek.

"Subjects only speak when spoken to."

A chill runs down your spine when he uses the term "subjects." Just how many of you are there?

"Return her to containment," he orders, signaling to someone behind you before turning to exit the room. Another man enters as the doctor leaves, dressed in white scrubs with mint green latex gloves. He approaches you, latching a pair of handcuffs around your wrists while turning off a device nearby.

"C'mon, move it," he scolds as he yanks on the chain of the handcuffs. You stumble forward to your feet, wobbling on jelly legs as he's dragging you behind him. Looking down, your wrists were littered with bruises in varying shades of yellow, purple and green. Had they cuffed you earlier and roughhoused you? A few raw spots on your arm lead you to believe they had taken blood from you at some point, too. You have zero inclination to how long you've even been wherever the hell you are - anything is possible.

The mystery worker drags you down multiple corridors of dimly lit metal hallways and various steel lacing the walls. There were no windows in sight as you maneuvered your way around the labyrinth of never-ending laboratories, holding cells and various medical exam rooms. He stops in front of a frosted glass cell, swiping a keycard in front of the mechanism on the door. It opens with a high pitched beep and he pushes you inside, whipping you around by the shoulders to face him. He undoes your restraints before slamming the glass door shut, locking it with another beep of the keycard.

With the silence comes the realization of your current predicament, crashing down around you like a tidal wave. It's intense, the surge of emotion that cascades through your entire body as if someone flipped a switch inside you.

One lingering thought pulls at your heartstrings - Bakugo's face as you slipped away from him, his panic and desperation as he failed to save you.

And to top it all off, you told him you loved him.

In the heat of the moment, it felt right. But now? It feels selfish. You admitted your feelings just in time for them to be ripped away from him. You don't even know if you're going to see him ever again. What if you die down here?

Oh.

What if you die down here?

Alone and scared.

Away from your family, friends...Katsuki, your best friend - the secret love of your life.

You never got to kiss him, properly express your affection for him - the experience was stolen away from you.

You're left to your own devices inside an unknown cell, blubbering on the tiny cot in the corner, frustration burning in your chest as you're heaving sob after sob. It triggers something in you never felt before - an unfamiliar violent rage. Launching up from the cot, you snivel as you face the wall and punch it with all the energy you can gather.

"Fuck!" You wail, failing to recollect the memory that your still under the effect of the quirk suppressant. The sound of your knuckles smashing against the steel wall reverbs as it sends lightning bolts of pain up your arm, dissolving as the adrenaline makes its way through your entire being.

And then something terrifying stirs in your guts as the blood drips from your knuckles onto the floor.

The pain was satisfying.

Day Nine

Days have passed, that much you knew, but how many? That answer remained unclear, no matter how many times you begged various workers around the compound. No one ever answered you with words, just violence. You’ve lost count how many times you’ve been slapped, kicked, and pushed around for engaging in minimal conversation. There’s other prisoners here, too, but no one is allowed to communicate. You see each other sometimes in the hallways but never long enough to speak, even if you wanted to. It was like everyone was a ghost, all haunting the same burial ground.

Shockingly enough, they keep you fed and allowed one shower per day. It's a confusing system, considering how inhumane things have proven to be, but you're convinced it's to keep their subjects "healthy" for their fucked up experiments.

Your schedule consisted of a hellish rotation of broken sleep and taking whatever drugs they forced upon you. The amount of times you were pulled from your cell varied for their trials that they had planned for the day. Whether it be once, or four times, you never knew how many hours you'd be stuck under surveillance in a catatonic state.

You desperately tried to turn your emotions off to protect your psyche at any chance you could. As much as you hated to admit defeat, the endless stress and over dosage of unknown substances was more than enough to keep you underwater, sinking further toward rock bottom with each passing moment.

A guard stalks up to your cell and bangs on the glass to grab your attention.

“Y/H/N, your cooperation is needed for test 15. Up and at ‘em.”

Your body is burdened with all the medical trauma you've endured over the last few days, slowing your pace to a sluggish limp as you make your way toward the cell door.

"Hurry it up, subject. We ain't got all day!" he shouts, startling you with his sudden command.

Fuck this place.

Day Fourteen

"Test 23, Y/H/N - Forced kinetic energy release. Begin testing."

You don't have time to react before the IVs hooked to you begin to force various fluids into your veins. The competing sensations flood through you in rough currents - hot, cold, burning, stinging in cycles. A well-known tunnel vision begins to cloud your sight as you squirm in the steel throne you've been restrained to. You're body is on the verge of passing out when an intrusive illusion appears before you.

"Hello? Sweetie?"

Your mother appears in front of you, outstretching a phantom hand to touch your shoulder.

What the fuck...mom? How is she here right now?

"Are you coming home?" she asks, her face settled in a deadpan expression. Her voice resembles a computerized AI, as if someone is programming her dialog.

"Mom?" you speak aloud, frightened by how real this looks and feels.

"Honey? Are you coming home? Katsuki and Izuku need you."

"Mom, I'm right here. What do you mean?" You're becoming more and more disturbed as she continues to drone on the same question.

"When are you coming home? Katsuki and Izuku need help."

She's not real.

She's not really here - this shadow knows nothing.

Snap the fuck out of it, they must have drugged you with a hallucinogenic.

But why? What the hell does this have to do with quirk suppressants?

"You're not here," you growl, screwing your eyes shut, refusing to entertain anymore of this apparition of your mother.

"Oh, but honey, I am!"

What?

A force squeezes at your throat, cutting off an anxious breath as it leaves your lips. You scramble to grasp at the hallucination, forgetting you're trapped in the testing chamber and can't move. Your hands are flexing repeatedly under the shackles as energy is collecting in your palms, unable to control the emotional response racing through every nerve in your body.

They must have not given you the suppressant...or mixed it with something more deadly.

"No!" You croak, your scream choked out by the pressure on your neck.

Your vision turns white, a sudden surge of energy expelling from your palms, pulsing intensely over and over again. You can feel the impact against the chair beneath you, the sound of shredding metal filling your ears as kinetic energy is forcibly pouring out of you in succession.

"Cease testing, inject sedation."

The pain in your hands dissipates immediately upon hearing the doctor's orders, followed by the prick of a thick needle penetrating the crook of your neck. The white cast in your vision fades, reality returning to you as your eyes glass over. One of the scientist walks around the chair and stands before you with another goddamn clipboard.

"Y/H/N, please describe how you feel and what you saw."

That familiar fire returns in your chest from your first night here - the aggressive urge to lash out. Was this a side-effect of whatever serum they've been loading you up with?

"Fuck you," you snarl, lip quivering as you're attempting to bury the ferocity thrashing inside you, begging to be set free.

He approaches you and snatches your cheeks in a rough hold. His grip tightens around your jaw as he repeats his question.

"One more time - Y/H/N, describe how you feel and what you saw."

The flame burns hotter as your fists are trembling, the emotion becoming overbearing.

Before you can stop yourself, your palms shoot up into an offensive position, sparking with the remaining collective of kinetic energy as it bursts forward, striking the scientist and sending him tumbling backward. The bonds on the arms of the chair must have broken and freed your hands during the test - you didn't even notice until you attacked the guard.

Shit.

"Quirk handcuffs and solitary - stat," orders the doctor over the surround system.

The door to the room slams open and three more scientists scramble inside as they're rushing to surround you. One shoves you down harshly into the metal chair, bouncing your head off the back of it.

Black…everything goes black.

When you come to, you’re in a new room that you don’t recognize. It’s different from the one you’ve called “home” since your arrival. There’s a mirror in the cell they’ve thrown you in and you catch a glimpse of yourself for the first time in...you don't know how long. The reflection shows you someone you don’t recognize - the girl staring back at you isn’t you. It looks like you, but her vicious predatory grin is bone chilling. This doppelgänger glares daggers at you, tilting her head menacingly as she mouths, “get out of me.”

You throw a punch at the mirror and shatter it as a blood curdling scream erupts from deep in your gut. Stumbling to the floor, you lay on the cold concrete and stare into the blank space of the solitary prison cell. You can’t even will yourself to cry.

I wanna go home…I wanna go home…

The thought recycled on loop, taunting the strength of your mental state.

I want to go home to mom, to Izuku, to Katsuki…anywhere but here.

You need to survive...

No. You will survive.

This will not kill you.

Day Twenty Five

"Y/H/N, we are going to proceed with a psychological evaluation."

Like you had a choice in the matter.

“Can you describe your experience from test 23?”

“Horrible,” you groan, the vision of your mother flowing to the forefront of your memory. “I saw a hallucination of someone that could physically touch me.”

You’ve learned in your time here not to ask further questions - answer as plainly as possible and move on.

The scientist clacked the keys on her laptop obnoxiously. “And it felt real?”

Unfortunately, yes.

“Yes.” You turn your eyes to the floor as she proceeds to type whatever nonsense into the database. She retrieves a clipboard from the bag slung on the back of her chair, sliding it across the table to you.

"Can you confirm this report is accurate from your initial intake?"

You begin to scan over the form when the words "if you want to get out of here" catch your attention.

Y/N

Y/H/N

Subject 57 - Kinetic Energy

Do not speak or react this note, until specified, if you want to get out of here.

...What?

I'm an undercover hero from the United States. I've been here for six months, waiting for an officially ranked hero to come through the facility. I haven't been able to leave since my arrival and communication has been cut off from my agency. You're the first non-civilian they've captured.

Blink four times if you had a cellphone on you when you were taken.

You look up at her and blink four times - she shoots her eyes back down to the form, signaling you to continue reading.

Can you contact outside help? Could be the agency you belong to or co-workers.

Tap the table twice for yes and three times for no.

You tap the table twice, pretending to point to specific information on the page your reading. If you could get access to your cellphone, you might just be able to send your location to initiate a rescue mission.

"Thank you, Y/H/N," she says, grabbing the clipboard and returning it to her bag. "I'll take you back to your cell, follow me."

Following the standard protocol that you're used to, she slaps a pair of handcuffs around your wrists before exiting the room. Once you reach your cell, she steps inside with you, removing the cuffs and motioning for you to come closer.

"I can look in the evidence chamber for your phone, more than likely it's in there with the other belongings after your decontamination process. Workers aren't allowed any communication devices, but they keep all of the captor's personal items guarded in one place."

You don't have time to ask her all the questions you're dying to know the answers to - how'd she get here, how did the USA know of the lab, what her undercover work consisted of, why no one came to find her...a plethora of unknowns.

But right now? She's willing to help you, that's all that matters.

"If you can conjure up enough energy with your quirk, can you charge it?" she asks faintly.

You nod in response, confirming the answer silently. Similarly to your classmate from UA, Kaminari, you were able to charge devices by converting kinetic energy into an electronic wavelength - a trick Eraserhead taught you back in Junior year.

"Here's the plan - In five days, I'll be the guard on night shift. I'll give you an empty shot of the suppressant to make it look like a realistic dosage. Once the others have dissipated to their quarters, I can lead you to the evidence stash and let you rummage through the bins while I keep watch. You grab the phone, I'll hide it in my uniform, bring you back to your cell and toss it to the floor. I'll patrol the hall while you get things set up and make contact with another hero or your agency."

She peers out of the glass cell and sees another guard making his way down the hall.

"Don't say a word. I'll be back in 5 days, and I'm sorry for what I'm about to do," she apologizes as she cracks you on the jaw with a hearty slap.

You know she had to fake it in front of the other guard to keep her cover - it still hurt like hell.

She shuts the door with a noisy clang of the door's mechanism, a high pitched beep locking it in place.

And thus, the countdown to freedom begins.

Five days until you finally make contact with the outside world - with someone.

Someone? No, you already knew who you were sending the information to - like it wasn't obvious who you'd choose to signal for help.

Day Twenty Nine

You've come this far, you can't back down now.

All you had to do was make your way back to the evidence room with the undercover hero lady, find your phone, and sneak back to your holding cell.

And force your quirk to activate.

...and not get caught.

The suspense of the plan succeeding was enough to keep you on edge as the nightly sedations were distributed. She appeared, just like she promised, and administered a fake injection to your arm. You put on a front for the other guards, fooling them into thinking you were properly medicated.

The plan's been set in motion - she'll be back in a few hours.

Day Thirty

You could feel the liberation in your grasp - the victory of sneaking your phone back to your cell filling you with exhilaration. All you had to do was wait for lights out to attempt your escape plan. You have no idea how deep the lab sits under Sector 42 and if you'll even be able to obtain a signal in your cell.

Focusing all of your willpower into the tip of your pointer finger, you hold it closely as sparks of energy softly crackle into the charging port of the phone.

Just a minute to charge, that's all I need. Enough battery to turn it on, send a call and a text and turn it back off.

You're beginning to feel lightheaded as your phone successfully powers on with a soft vibration and the logo appearing on screen.

Holy shit, it worked!

Hurriedly, you flip the silent switch before notifications begin to pour into the device, catching up on all the missed communications over the last month. Multiple calls, text messages, e-mails, the standard amount that you expected. The battery hovered at 7% and the time read 3:05AM. You glance at the date underneath the time - it's been an entire month since you disappeared.

A whole goddamn month.

There's no time to spiral over that right now!

Hunched over behind your cot, you proceed to open your messages to keep your plan on track. You're not shocked by the amount of missed texts from everyone; Midoriya, Jiro, Uraraka, Kirishima, Mina...and Bakugo.

You had 127 unread texts from him, the last coming in less than ten minutes ago.

One hundred and twenty seven.

You freeze, a mixture of guilt, excitement, and panic surging through you. Shoving all that down - you've gotten too good at doing that - you clicked on the thread, catching the last dozen or so of his messages.

[2:45AM] i don’t want to say this in a fucking text of all things [2:45AM] especially under these circumstances [2:46AM] but i’m scared i’ll never get to say it to you [2:46AM] i’m a fucking idiot for not telling you sooner [2:47AM] god dammit [2:48AM] i love you [2:48AM] like a stupid fucking amount [2:49AM] i convinced myself i didn’t and that you wouldn’t feel the same [2:50AM] and when you come home [2:50AM] i’ll tell you every damn day to make up for all the times i didn’t [2:51AM] that’s a promise [2:52AM] i love you lite-brite

Tears are silently falling from your eyes, wide with astonishment at the words you're reading from him. There's no way this is real - you've got to be strung out from the quirk-drugs they've forced upon you. A delayed side effect of some sort? They've given you delusions in the past, it's not that farfetched.

He convinced himself not to love you? He's always loved you?!

He said 'I love you,' twice.

Twice!

You don't have time to read the rest as much as you're dying to catch up on all the potential sweet nothings he's sent to you over the last few weeks, but you do have time for one thing.

Before you chicken out, you click the "Call" button next to his name. The phone suddenly feels like a cinderblock in your hand as you shakily hold it to your ear. You think he's not going to answer until you hear faint rustling sounds on the other end of the line.

"H-hello?! Y/N!?" You can't say anything - your body straightens, goosebumps covering you from head to toe. All of the misery you were holding on to, the trauma and terror, evaporated at the sound of those two words. Those two measly words wrapped around you and offered a warmth you haven't known in weeks.

You click the "End Call" button, hating that you probably gave him a heart attack, but you selfishly needed to hear his voice.

Before you forget your initial plan, you send a pinned location to Bakugo. You know he'll come running - blasting, rather - as soon as he can pinpoint exactly how to break into the lab. You have zero doubts that he can't figure it out.

[3:11AM] *location sent*

One last thing for good measure? You send an orange heart emoji.

Right as you're about to scroll up and read his past messages, your phone powers down with the empty battery symbol displaying on screen.

Your heart is racing, threatening to beat out of your chest as his words reverberate in your mind.

I love you like a stupid fucking amount.

You can't help but chuckle at the sentiment - that's so Bakugo of him to say.

At least your plan was a success and you were able to accomplish the small goal. Now all you have to do is play the waiting game - knowing Bakugo, and presumably Midoriya? That won't be long at all.

You lay back in your cot, smiling for the first time in ages, relishing in your triumph.

And for the first night since you've arrived, a peaceful rest welcomes you with open arms. You dream of home, running in the park under the glow of the sun and finding Bakugo under the shade of a nearby tree, waiting patiently for you in the summer breeze.

next up, we wrap back to the boys as they plan their rescue mission! and they're not going alone as they recruit their closest friends in their crazy plan to get you back. and don't worry, it won't be easy. tags: @bakugouswaif @k1tk4tkatsuki @bells2319 @st0nedbitch @deftonianfr ✩ if you’d like to be tagged when updates are posted, message/comment to be added! ✩

#bakugo x reader #bakugou katsuki #bakugou x reader #bakugo angst #bakugo x you #katsuki bakugo x reader #bakugo fluff #bakugo x y/n #katsuki bakugo #my hero academia #bakugo katsuki #mha bakugou #☆.rei writes #✩.hollowheart

125 notes · View notes