#and would any of you REALLY have left your father drowning at the bottom of the ocean? | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

erenoir · 10 months

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𝐟𝐚𝐝𝐞 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐨 𝐲𝐨𝐮

💿 𝚗𝚘𝚠 𝚙𝚕𝚊𝚢𝚒𝚗𝚐: 𝚏𝚊𝚍𝚎 𝚒𝚗𝚝𝚘 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚋𝚢 𝚖𝚊𝚣𝚣𝚢 𝚜𝚝𝚊𝚛

genre: single father!toji, slow burn, angst then fluff, nsfw, MDNI

warnings: 18+ dark content, alcoholism, breeding kink, daddy/mommy titles used, unprotected sex, oral sex, verbal fighting, discussions of abandonment, initial toxic relationship, light gun use.

featuring: toji x fem step-mom!reader

summary: you and toji had met each other at your worst, twin flames fueling each other’s bad habits. you spent weeks upon weeks as on-and-off fuck buddies, manipulating and using each other before throwing one another to the curb again. nothing could save the turbulent relationship of a touch-deprived woman and a man afraid of love, never daring to wave your white flags to one another… until the night toji dropped a bomb that would make or break the two of you forever. | find it on ao3: [☆]

word count: 14.9k

a/n: tell jesus that the bitch is back- i’m kidding! no but really, its been a long year (or more?) of me being away from this blog. i haven't done this in a while, but i have too many delusions and thoughts to not make them into stories, i missed writing too much. anyways, if you like this: reblog, comment, check out my other stuff, etc! luv u xx send toji thirsts in honor of szn 2

“Okay now Megs, daddy and I will be back tomorrow morning, okay?”

Your knees pressed into the cold floor as your fingers tangled themselves in your stepson’s wild, raven locks. The little boy stuck his bottom lip out in protest, your heart swelling at the sight of it. Your thumb met his velvety skin as you stopped a tear from rolling any further down his rouged cheek.

“I don’t want you and daddy to go!” He wailed, a tiny voice strained with big emotions. The glum boy ran into your open arms, clinging to you like velcro. The creamy silk of your blazer swept across the nape of his neck as you enveloped him into a cozy embrace.

“Oh Megumi, you’ll be alright! Your father and I will just be away for the night. Then tomorrow… I can make you all the pancakes in the world for dinner!” His eyebrows knit together and his rosy nose scrunched up as you shook his face in your hands. Little Megumi's messy, toothless grin punctured your heart so deeply. You adored the boy endlessly, even if he wasn’t your son by blood, a connection so spirited manifested itself between the two of you.

“Really mommy?! Do you really mean all of the pancakes in the world?” You let a gentle fingertip feather itself across the tip of Megumi’s nose as you rose to your feet to ruffle the boy’s hair, “Of course I mean it baby! Daddy will do whatever it takes to get you every last drop of pancake batter in the whole, wide, world… isn’t that right, honey?”

You shifted your weight to your left foot to get a good look at Toji, Megumi’s father. He planted himself in his usual crushed velvet armchair that rested in front of the fireplace, thighs sprawled out across the plush cushion. His cheek sunk into the palm of his hand as he ogled at his precious family.

All mine, Toji thought, all fucking mine.

The brooding man sauntered up to you two with ardency, his husky arms snaking around your waist, pulling your backside into his chest and placing a wet kiss to the crook of your neck. Toji rested his hand atop of Megumi’s hair, nearly drowning your little one’s head with its size. You gazed on dotingly as your lover’s biceps contracted when he picked up your son, cooing him into a comfortable silence. The fireplace illuminated the quaint living space an intimate shade of orange, fractals of light bouncing off of the most hidden corners of the room. The shadow of your lover danced across the walls as he rocked the raven-haired child to sleep. You massaged red fingernails into his burly shoulders, feeling the fabric of his black t-shirt ripple between your fingertips.

“We’re so lucky, aren’t we?” You purred into Toji’s neck as you two caressed the light of your lives, sound asleep in his arms. Toji peered over his shoulder to catch a glimpse of you, watching your maternal instincts consume your body as you outstretched your soft hands to the boy. Something within Toji burst in that moment, seeing his lover care for his child as if he were her own.

“Let me take him to bed, my love.” Dark eyes trailed your steps attentively, watching your hips sway as you cradled his son in your nimble arms, your tender hand nurturing the back of his head, holding it tightly to your chest. His pupils dilated when you started whispering lullabies into Megumi’s ear. A series of “Mommy loves you,” and “I’ve got you my baby,” made Toji’s jaw clench and every part of him swell with adoration.

—

You once arrived in Toji’s life as a fiery little creature. Wild, uncaring, and foaming at the mouth for attention. He didn’t see you as anything other than a friend with benefits. It was a fair exchange, Toji satiated your need for unhealthy attention as a girl disowned by her distant parents, and you satiated his need for a little rag doll as a hitman with a severe lack of emotional intelligence. He needed a woman that would do most anything to please him and receive the gratification she so desperately craved in return. Room 4C, that was the room you two would run away to every weekend.

It was a malignant relationship you had, you were unabashedly toxic to one another. Toji would show up drunk on most occasions, and you would allow him to do whatever he wanted to your feeble little body and enjoy every second of it. You would fight just to see who could scream louder, until the misty light from the sun rising sliced through the cracks of the thick curtains. The old motel would’ve kicked you two out if it weren’t for how much business you brought them. Your eyes stung with crazed tears, both of pleasure and pain, and Toji was the one that induced them every time. Every smack to the cheek was met with a tender kiss, and every “I hate you,” was met with a chorus of apologies. You loved each other in wicked ways, but you loved each other nonetheless. You pushed as Toji pulled, never could either of you find a moment of peace to let your fragile emotions rest.

That was until one night where you asked Toji to meet you in your usual room, at your usual time, 8 p.m. Only that night had you two finally waved your white flags and extinguished your venomous behavior to one another.

—

Your toes were painted a wine red as they ran through the fuzzy carpet below you, feet swinging over the twin-sized motel bed. Rain rushed the windows with fervor, the storm warning you had received this morning not clicking in your brain until that very moment. The muffled voices of the news anchors suffocated your eardrums as they grew louder. The silence in the room was painstaking and you didn’t know how much longer you could last solely listening to the rhythmic drips of the leaking bathroom sink. Your eyelids began to droop as the neon leds of the plastic alarm clock flicked from 8:59 to 9:00. The stiff sheets felt like royal silk at that moment, sleep threatening to consume your body. The room around you shut on and off, eyelids blinking slowly, and your mouth dipping into the slightest “o” shape. the cotton of your t-shirt rode up your thighs as you slid yourself under the covers. Toji isn’t coming tonight, truthfully, the thought grazed your mind when it had only been ten minutes after 8, Toji was never any more tardy than that. But as you watched the clock now switch from 9:04 to 9:05, the hint of betrayal that had felt like a pin prick before now felt like you’d just been gutted.

Your body was swallowed in the darkness of the motel room, though you did leave the news on, maybe the late night anchors could keep you company in your lover’s absence. In your dream you saw the dark eyes that taunted you into submission. How pathetic was it to dream about a man who couldn’t care less about you besides what you had underneath your underwear? In your dream you were running, your earthly body was riddled with cold sweats and shivering into oblivion, you heard pounding, it grew rapidly with every step you took, the beat of your heart staying in time, though the pounding felt too real to be fabricated through your imagination alone.

Then your body jolted awake to a vigorous gust of wind, and suddenly the banging became real, and whoever demanded that kind of attention from you at midnight was about to receive a pounding to their face. With your eyes cloudy and vision blurred, you tried to adjust to the dark blue of your surroundings.

“Ah, shit!” The stark yellow light of the bedside lamp blinded you, a shaky hand rested on your forehead to act as a shield to the harsh, artificial rays. The comforter of the rigid bed you laid on grew wet, rainwater dripping from the dark figure that stood above your tired body.

“T-Toji?” You stammered into the abyss, you had no courage to look up and see who had woken you up from your restless slumber. After all, you didn’t want the last thing you saw to be your murderer.

“No, it’s Megumi,” your hand snapped to your side to see from whom such a soft voice was emitted. Above you stood a small boy with porcelain skin and raven hair, he couldn’t have been more than 6 years old.

My god, you thought, he looks just like-

“Toji is my dad, he said to wait in this room while he- while he got m-more of his happy juice… s-so he pushed me through th-that window a-and n-now my knee is bleeding!”

The young boy who tried to remain stoic eventually broke into a fit of relentless tears. He's a child, he’s a- he’s Toji’s… Toji has a child. Your brain went through the motions, trying to ride every wave of the ocean it was thrown into.

Until one of those waves truly hit you- and you realized that there was a fucking child in your room.

And all of the sorrow you felt for the boy had turned into pure, unadulterated rage for his poor excuse of a father.

You peeled yourself from the bed and tripped over the legs of your jeans as you tried to shrug them on while making your way to the door. Your hand stopped at the knob before turning to the kid.

“Fuck… don’t go anywhere, okay kid?” You mumbled as you fished the pack of Marlboro's from the back pocket of your Levi’s and jammed one into your mouth, busting through the door and into the rainy parking lot… search frantically- ferally, for the one person you were dying to see most.

“Where the FUCK are you?! You asshole!” You screamed, voice cracking. “Show your fucking face you… you coward!” You were speechless, running to the middle of the parking lot, and scanning every dark car for someone hiding out- hiding from you. The rain sunk through your tank top, goosebumps pricking your skin, and then next you felt the tears. He was the last person you wanted to cry for, he didn’t deserve it, the fucker would probably enjoy it if you didn’t know him any better.

“Fuck you!” You seethed, bare feet taking you in circles around the flooded lot. “Fuck! You! I hate you!” The tears finally poked through, staining your cheeks with old mascara.

“You always do this shit Toji Fushiguro! I hope you’re fucking dead! You fucking deadbeat father!”

–

After twenty minutes of your parking lot charades, the motel manager had to nearly drag you back to your room- a freezing cold, screaming maniac. The boy- Megumi, was sitting next to you cross-legged on the bed with a patched up knee and an ice cream sandwich from the vending machine three rooms down. He hummed to the tune of the children’s show that played on the television, swaying back and forth in contentment. The fact that you were babysitting the child of the man that you were fuck buddies with amused you as you scoffed to yourself.

“You know… your dad didn’t tell me had a kid,” the little boy’s attention remained fixed on the screen, ignoring you completely while his dark eyes memorized the flashes of color and cartoons in front of him. Hm, he really is Toji’s kid.

“How's your knee, Megs?” Your fingers ran across the pink bandaid you’d stuck over his scrape, making sure the adhesive wasn’t lifting off of his damp skin. Vanilla filling seeped through Megumi’s tiny fingers. Chocolate crumbles littered his plump cheeks as he stuck the final bite of his ice cream sandwich in his mouth, stuffing his cheeks full.

“My knee is fine!” He mumbled through a full mouth, patting his sticky palm over his wound. Your mind toyed with the idea of whether or not now was a good time to mention his father again, but knowing Toji, if you didn’t mention him he wouldn’t even bother coming back. So keeping the boy’s best interest at heart, you casually brought up his father’s name for a second time.

“Megumi… can you tell me where your dad is?” You folded your hands in your lap as you awaited his response. Tears pricked at the boy’s gloomy eyes, a storm just as tumultuous was raging in him as it was outside. Messy palms wiped themselves across his white race car shirt, before they came up to wipe at his face.

“I-I told you… he s-said he was going to get more of his happy juice… he said to wait here with a lady named ___. Th-that’s what he said to do!”

Megumi’s quiet words turned into an erratic tantrum. Tears flooded his eyes as he snorted up a wad of snot, the race car on his shirt slowly starting to drive on wet roads. You were going to kill Toji. You didn’t give a crap about the way he treated you anymore, he had a child who was helpless. And god knows the child was helpless if the person Toji decided to leave him with was you.

The docile boy leaned sweetly into your arms, begging for some form of comfort, it was evident that he’d never received any from his own father before. The sleeves of your sweater moved hesitantly to wrap themselves around Megumi’s shaking body, afraid that if you were to embrace him fully the dam that’s been holding back all of your emotions would suddenly break. It wasn’t your place to nurture this child, it wasn’t your place to offer him another outlet for parental guidance. But as you sat at the edge of the motel bed with the little boy, it felt as if you were sitting at the edge of a cliff, and you could either sink or swim with Megumi’s life in your hands. The moment you felt his frail arms hug you back, the dam fell, and you were in too deep to stop giving a fuck now.

You brought a hand to his wild hair. It stuck up in all directions, he told you earlier that he stole some gel from his dad’s bathroom, and that Toji let him do it however he wanted to. You remember laughing at that, seemingly because it sounded like something Toji would say. Your cheek felt cool against the top of his head, his hair still drying from the torrential storm that brewed just outside the window. Every string inside of you that was holding your emotional state together at the seams had ripped in two as Megumi began to sob more violently than before. His red cheeks moved from right to left across your sweater, wiping snot, drool and tears all over you. With thoughts clouded and the slightest knowledge of how to take care of a child flying out the window, you began to panic. Toji had left his offspring, his flesh and blood, with you, his emotionally corrupted, immature, and attention deprived fuck buddy.

Why?

With tender hands you tuck the covers under Megumi’s petite body. Your heart crumbled completely when you saw how the tears dried on Megumi’s cheeks, how his breathing was congested with mucus, and how his swollen eyes twitched in his sleep. He was having a nightmare. The bed dipped in as you sat beside him and ran fragile fingers over his forehead, sweeping his long hair out of his eyes. For the first time that night you let tears fall from your eyes, as you gazed at the broken child with an instinct to care for him, to help him grow, if Toji wasn’t going to be there to do it. You watched as Megumi’s body relaxed under your touch, his breathing smooth, and his eyebrows drooping. A small smile formed on your face, it was time to fake happiness for this boy, if it meant that he would be okay.

“He’s a g-good kid r-ight?” Your head snapped up as Toji’s overbearing body stumbled through the window, his hand desperately grasping for some kind of support from the wall. God, you really needed to lock that fucking window or god knows what other Fushiguro would trip through it.

An animosity so intense boiled within you, clawing at your stomach, dying to be taken out on the drunken man stood in front of you. The tears returned to your eyes, his silhouette doubled as your vision blurred.

“D-don’t you fucking come near me you asshole,” you whispered, there were no words in the world that could’ve described how badly you wanted to scream at Toji until his eardrums popped. Alas you couldn’t… you couldn’t let Megumi see his father like this.

“Exc-use me but I'd l-like to see my-my son,” words slurred out of his wet lips, a line of saliva falling out of the corner of his mouth.

“Toji… don’t even think for a second I’d let you near him,” your delicate hands pushed against his steel chest, helplessly punching into him to stop him in his tracks. His strong hands wrapped themselves around your wrists tightly as he looked you in the eyes with an intoxicated heat.

“Toji… why? Why wouldn’t you tell me you had a fucking child? Is this who you ran away from every weekend we spent together?” Your hand shakily pointed to little Megumi’s sleeping body, “Do you understand how fucked up that makes me feel? How fucked up that makes you? God! I knew you were a piece of shit but Toji… this is rich, this is- this is the icing on the fucking cake… you disgust me!” You whispered as Toji’s hands repositioned themselves to cup your cheeks, his calloused thumbs coming to wipe the lines of mascara running down your face. Although blank and empty, his stare alone spoke a thousand words.

It told you that he was broken, that he was filled to the brink with regret, that he hated- no, absolutely loathed himself. Toji knew he was a piece of shit, he knew he was wrong for hiding his son from you, and he knew he was wrong for hiding you from his son. He had lasted long enough pushing everything under a compact rug until it couldn’t hold much more, and now every fucked up thing in his life was catching up to him, and you were watching it happen right in this depressing, wet, and cramped motel room.

“I-I didn’t know wh-where else to bring him, I-I mean look at me I can’t be with him right now…” Toji fell to his knees and gripped your calves with his hands, crying into the damp denim of your jeans. You stood stiff, frozen in place and in disbelief at what was happening. The brazen man that you knew so well, that dripped with confidence, with ego, with a sense of security, had shattered completely. Toji’s back muscles contracted as he dry heaved onto the floor, the contents of his stomach just missing your feet. He looked up at you with an empty expression. Snot was dripping out of his nose, his jaw was trembling and his face was littered with tears and red splotches.

“Toji-” You reached for him.

“No… please hear m- me out…”

“I'll listen to you… outside…” You fired, “I’m not- I refuse to do this here when your son is sleeping right there!” You hoisted his body up off the floor as the two of you staggered into the storm. He leaned his body up against the door to 4C as you closed it, boring holes into your head, desperate for you to say anything. You wrapped your sweater around you tighter as rain propelled towards your shivering bodies. You two must have looked mad… drenched, drunken and depressed, in the middle of a storm, enveloped in darkness, hugging yourselves as if that would be of any help. Only the light of the moon and from the other motel rooms made it possible for you to see Toji’s face. The sounds of his rabid sobs mixed with the intensity of the rain pelting the ground, the freezing winds icing over his face sobered him up a bit. Toji began speaking as you looked down at your bare feet once again being swallowed by the wet pavement.

“I don’t trust anyone else,” Toji burns a hole into the parking lot with his stare, watching it flood slowly, he didn't have the guts to look at you, not yet. The single traffic light across the street whipped back and forth in the wind, streaks of light painting the foggy air. You leaned up against the door next to Toji, your tiny body being engulfed by his large, shaking one.

“…I didn’t trust a-anyone else w-with Megumi, I’m a threat to my own fucking kid, can you believe that?” You thought about it for a second, and you could completely believe it, the fact that Toji hid his son from you for this long should’ve spoken for itself. Your somber silhouettes shivered against the outside of the motel, both of your minds racing to deliberate how you would work yourselves through this mess. You almost wanted to laugh, the last people on this earth you would expect to be parents were you and Toji. With the breath kicked out of you, you slid down to the pavement and let yourself hit the ground. You hugged your knees with your shuddering hands and watched the cars slowly maneuver their way around the dimly lit parking lot. Toji’s hand navigates its way to the top of your head and smooths his fingers over your hair.

“Toji… I just have so many questions-”

“So ask them,” for once you looked at him with soft eyes, his voice trembled every time he spoke, you could try to fill the shell of a fractured man with love, with empathy, but everything you could possibly give him would just seep through the cracks of his ego.

“…I keep my circles small… so I didn’t have many options of who to leave the kid with… you’re the only person that I’ve allowed myself to get close to…” He ran a hand over his face, his body began to sink down next to you, extending his legs flat to the ground as his pants soaked with rainwater, “and you haven’t rejected me yet so I threw one more thing on you… is that okay?”

Was it okay? Of all the fucked up things you and Toji have done together, you scoffed in disbelief as your hands began to trace circles on the flooding ground beneath you, swirling rainwater in between your fingers.

“…and his mother?” Your voice cracked as your heart sank at what you could only predict his answer would be. Toji's jaw stiffened, grinding it back and forth as he reached for a pack of soggy cigarettes from his back pocket.

“Shit,” he muttered. He rung out the pack of smokes in his strong hold, the damp paper pushing between the cracks of his fingers. You looked at him and he looked straight ahead, watching small ripples form in the puddles of water upon impact from the rain.

“She’s dead… died when he was just born,” your chest weakened at his words, eyes overwhelmed with sorrow. Toji's lips began to tremble as he tried to bite back his tears. He was tired of crying, tired of not being strong anymore, and tired of not being a good father, for that’s the strongest thing a man could ever be.

“…So the kid got stuck with me… he- I don’t deserve him, I don’t deserve to be a father to a kid as good as him…” In his most vulnerable state, you chalked up the courage to take his hand in yours and rub your thumb over his scarlet knuckles. You sat like that for a while, legs sprawled out over the drenched concrete, the ends of your feet grazing each other ever so softly.

“Toji…” your voice came out barely above a whisper, “…don’t say that… Megumi needs you,” Toji’s breath hitched in his chest as he coughed back the urge to cry anymore, “Megumi needs you to get better for him… that kid- he looks up to you so fucking much. He sat next to me for an hour talking about you alone.”

You pulled your knees into your chest and buried them under your sweater to shield your icy legs from the cold. You felt Toji’s blue eyes burn holes into the side of your head, he was desperate for any taste of guidance.

“You’re lying… the kid barely knows me, he”-

“So help him know you! Toji you can’t fucking give up on that kid… and you sure as hell can’t dump him on me and expect me to make up for the years you neglected him! I won’t fucking do it, not without you…” Your screams broke into a whisper.

You wanted Toji. You wanted him a month ago when he was just an asshole without a kid, and you want him now that he’s just an asshole with a kid. You shifted your body to sit closer to his, his silhouette swallowing yours in size as you curled up next to him on the concrete. Resting your head on his shoulder, he inched his hand towards yours to lift your knuckles to his lips and kiss them gently, one by one.

“Toji…” you continued, your eyes not leaving the ground, “I want to be with you, I want to love you- and if Megumi comes with you I’ll love him too… that’s what you’re asking of me, yeah?” You lifted your head to look at him, leaving your faces only inches apart as you gazed into each other’s eyes. Toji nodded his head slowly, he never asked for help, it was a sign of vulnerability. But the kid was the only exception for Toji, he always has been. He'd always absorb everything like a sponge until he physically couldn’t hold any more dirty water, tearing every time he had to ring out all of his baggage.

“You wanna know why you’re an asshole?” You’re probed, finally striking a light on one of his gnarly cigs and blowing the smoke onto his face. The scarred corner of his mouth twitched upward, enough for only you to notice.

“Pray tell, doll.” He chuckled in a husky voice, his calloused hand reaching for the cigarette you held before you smacked it away. He scoffed, “That came from my pack, you know?”

“The least you could do for me is bum me a cig, no?” You jabbed, the burning cherry hanging from your fingers as your hand bounced around with your words.

Silence.

“Well… you’re an asshole Fushiguro…” You continued without any more permission, hesitant to tell him what you wanted to. You feared you’d opened up too much already. Your tongue dragged over your teeth as you worked out your next sentence.

“You-“ You took a long drag, “You are a raging dick, actually. Because-” you paused to look over at him, and surprisingly enough, you had his complete attention. And his eyes weren’t hardened but- soft. And his breathing was less ragged than it was ten minutes ago. You swallowed hard as his eyes dropped to your mouth.

“You know you could hop on the next train out of here with no intention of seeing me again…” You whispered. “And I’d fucking love the shit out of that kid regardless, right?” He smirked at your choice of words, Toji tried hard not to love things, in the end everything he gets close to fades away and dies. But he believed that he loved you, and he loved the way you were prepared to drop everything to nurture the most secret part of his life. All he could do was stare at your face, gentle, warm, and glowing in the rain. Though it felt like the whole world was after him he felt safe next to you, and he despised the feeling, for it meant that he was prepared to give himself to someone for a second time, and he wasn’t ready to lose another.

“And that’s why I left him with you,” he smirked. He winced as you smacked him across the face, your eyes wide and feral.

“Yeah I know, I know that’s why you did it you fuck!” You scream-whispered, still mindful of Megumi just behind the door. “But don’t expect me to be- h-hot shit at this mother thing- I won’t hesitate to throw you under the bus if it means protecting him!”

You were standing now, and you were pacing, and reality was hitting you, and the adrenaline rush you were riding for the past thirty minutes was wearing off and you were scared. Your hand shook as you rose the dwindling cigarette to your lips, your body shaking from both the rain and the kiss of reality. Struggling to inhale from the damp bud, Toji cut off your train of thought.

“I know you won’t, that’s why I left him with you,” he said sternly, his figure now towering over yours. He grabbed his face in your hands, and it was just as much a loving act as it was a ‘I need you to get your head on straight and focus’ act. He pushed your cheeks in and shook your face ever so slightly, “You listen to me- That. Is. Why. I. Left. Him. With. You.”

He spoke roughly, dividing every word with a quick pause so you could get it through your head. He pressed his forehead to yours so you were eye to eye. “Hey,” he brushed some matted hair away from your wet forehead. You knew he saw the tears welling in your eyes, and you wish you could push him away so he could never see you cry again. But you couldn’t, you felt that you loved him far too much to do that. Your shoulders shook as you let them fall, you cursed yourself for letting it happen.

“Fucking listen to me,” Toji jabbed, “I left him with you because you- you don’t fear me. You will throw me under the bus, you’ll push me in front of a fucking train, for that kid,” he actually laughed at the thought, “I know no other person that will hold me accountable- even if it meant my bloody death.”

You shook yourself out of his hold, throwing your burnt out cigarette on the ground between you two, setting an imaginary border so you could think clearly away from him.

“Are you sober enough to hear me out?” You asked quietly but not lacking any ounce of aggression.

“Since you slapped the living shit out of me? I’d say I’m pretty okay,” Toji took one step towards you before you stopped him in his tracks.

“You stay over there and you listen to me,” you growled. You nervously rung out your hands, pulling on every knuckle and joint while you spoke.

“… I hope you don’t… run away.” You paused, “No- actually, you will not run away,” Your words left your mouth like you were prophesying commandments to a lost disciple. “He needs you with him, Toji. He is tired of you disappearing.”

Toji listened to you like your voice was the last thing he’d hear in his life, yet he wanted you to stop talking. The more you spoke the more bound to the tracks he felt, and he had never been bound to anything before, he did as he pleased, always. So Toji prayed you wouldn’t utter another word that would keep him here. He had to leave, if he stayed you would get hurt, that’s how it always went. But with every word that left your mouth you pulled him in and glued him to the ground he stood on.

He let out an exasperated sigh as you wrapped a hand in his hair, using it as leverage to push your foreheads back together. He was speechless, there was so much he could say to you, to convince you to kick him to the curb, but his words were stuck in his throat.

“I am tired of you disappearing,” the ropes that kept his body bound to the tracks drew tighter, and in the distance he saw the headlights of a train inching closer by the second.

“I know you think it’s hopeless, that it’s not even worth trying, but your son having any shot at living a normal life is worth fighting for… Toji, please-”

And then the train struck him, just as promised, this wouldn’t be the last one you pushed him in front of.

Your grip on Toji’s hair loosened as his lips crushed themselves onto yours. He pulled you closer, needed you closer, hugging you into his chest as you caressed the sides of his face with your hands, thumbs rubbing at his scarred cheekbones. You tasted like salvation. Toji knew deep down that you were his salvation.

“I’m not asking you to fix me, I’m way past that- I'm just asking you to be patient… for the kid.” He whispered against your lips, the tears that littered your cheeks dampened his. “I care…” he swallowed his words, “...I care about you- alot.”

“Jesus fuck, did it kill you to say that?” For the first time that night you laughed genuinely, and Toji’s mind was clear. It was carved in stone, he had claimed you and now he’s responsible for your life now, alongside Megumi’s. He raised his hands off your hips as if you were a fragile porcelain doll, too afraid to hurt you now that he’s held you- truly, held you. You looked at him questioningly, already missing the feeling of his skin against yours.

“I don't want you to get hurt… I don’t want Megumi to lose anyone else, he needs something I’m afraid I can’t give to him-”

“Shut up,” your eyebrows furrowed together as you shook his head gently, “Don’t go there… you dumb fuck,” bringing his lips to yours once more, he finally released under your touch, the feeling of you safe and in his arms put his restless thoughts to bed.

“I'm here, Megumi is sleeping soundly inside… we’re gonna be okay. Everything is a fucking mess. Because you did kind of fuck it, but we’ll figure it out,” you insisted, taking his hands in yours and placing them on your heart. Toji dropped his head to the crook of your neck and closed his eyes as the soft thump of your heartbeat grazed against his fingertips.

“Do you feel that? I’m alive you asshole… I’m not dead yet.”

—-

Toji knew you would stick around for a while.

He was right, because here you were, two years later, with Megumi cradled in your arms as you carried him up the winding steps of your Victorian home, placing soft kisses on his forehead and lulling him to sleep. Today was the anniversary of that night at the motel, when you met Megumi for the first time and decided to help Toji care for him even when you were entirely lost yourself. You haven’t been back there since, you three left the next morning on a train and never looked back. You told Toji that if you did it would be bad luck, so he kept moving forward for you and his son, to finally give him a life he deserved. But tonight you two thought it would be nice to visit one more time, on your anniversary, just for old time’s sake.

Toji watched as you tiptoed back down the steps and gave him a gentle thumbs up, signaling that Megumi had finally fallen asleep. Toji wrapped his arms around your waist and lifted you up into him, peppering kisses all over your blushing face. You placed a sloppy kiss onto his lips before jumping down and giving him a little twirl.

“C’mon baby, let’s go!” You wrapped your hand in his and dragged him to the door. His face relaxed into a content smile, after all this time, his little bird was still as free as ever.

—

Around your neck you donned a good locket that Toji had gotten you for your birthday, it moved up and down against your chest as you took deep breaths standing in front of an old friend. The door to room 4C looked just as you left it, with a few more cracks here and there. Your body shuddered as you looked down at the ground in front of it, still feeling the presence of your younger self clad in a drenched sweater, curled up next to a younger, drunken Toji. A warm smile spread across your face as you remembered how scared you two were, unsure of the world and without a plan, shivering in the pouring rain as you thought about your futures together.

Tonight the sky was clear, the only thing that surrounded you was the sound of cicadas singing. You looked up to your side as you felt Toji’s fingers intertwined with yours, holding onto your hand loosely. He looked down at you and smirked, although you two were much more mature and cared about whether you lost your lives or not for Megumi’s sake, deep down you two would always be the notorious fuck-ups that happened to fit perfectly together.

“Wanna wreck some havoc one last time?” he asked you. You giggled as your hand twirled the brass doorknob, entering the room that you and Toji made love in more times than you could count, the room that you got high in, got drunk in, the room that you fought in, that you threw television remotes at each other in… the room that you eventually fell in love in.

Your fingertips grazed the stiff blankets, the cherry red countertops, the cheap coffee maker, as you took every detail in. Everything was left just the way it was on the night. You let out a chuckle underneath your breath as you sunk your fingers into the mattress, remembering how Megumi’s body slept here soundly as you and Toji decided what the fuck you were to make of yourselves just outside.

“I'm glad you pushed Megumi in here that night…” you whispered as you lifted the blanket up, they could never remove the stain of his chocolate ice cream sandwich from the white sheets. Toji watched as you reminisced, taking in every inch of you, before your eyes finally met as you dragged your gaze across the tacky flower paintings that decorated the walls. Your eyes rested on his face as you drank the sight of him in. Toji was happy, he was at peace with what his life had turned out to be.

“The way it all happened was absolutely fucking ridiculous I hope you know that…” You rolled your eyes at him as he crossed his arms and leaned up against the kitschy wallpaper. “...but I wouldn't change a thing, it happened the way it did for a reason.”

He watched as your hips swayed back and forth underneath your black slip dress, his heartbeat speeding up as you draped your arms around his neck and leaned him further back into the wall. Toji, the hardened man that could effortlessly punch through anything that looked at him the wrong way, softened immediately when he was with you. You were his biggest source of strength, but his ultimate weakness nonetheless.

“Hold me, Toji,” you whispered as you brought your lips to his, feeling his brute arms tie themselves around your tiny waist, “…I love you baby,” you murmured as your lips moved against his.

“Thank you,” Toji had spoken for the first time since you two entered the room, too enamored with you to form any coherent words until this point. He watched as the orange light from the bedside table illuminated the back of your head, the halo of light framed your face like an angel.

“What?” you continued to pepper kisses all over his face, gently alternating back and forth from each cheek as your fingers played with his dark hair.

“For saving me… for loving Megumi… you didn’t have to fucking do that… you could’ve been free but you chose this life,” he pulled you up into him, shoving his face into your neck and taking in your scent. Toji was deathly afraid of losing you, so when he held you, he held you like it was going to be the last time he’d ever get to. You were his second chance at life, and if he could, he’d have you by his side forever.

“And I wouldn’t have chosen any different.” You croaked, your fingernails grazing the back of his neck.

“I wanted you then Toji and I still want you now, heaven and hell would have to meet on this earth to get me to stop loving you…” Your words were barely above a whisper, making sure they were for him and only him. Toji’s lips began to move against your neck and his hand tugged your head back by your hair, giving him more room to mark you.

“Toji, plea-“ You whined breathlessly, eyebrows furrowing together as everything inside you became bubbly and grew more sensitive with every touch.

“Have you ever thought about…” His lips paused against your neck, his grip on you tightening before he let up, “Fuck it, nevermind.” He shut himself down before he could even finish his thought. You nudged his head out from where it was hiding on your shoulder and forced him to look at you. You always found it funny that you held such a threatening man like putty in your hands.

“No… say it, tell me please,” you rested your hands on either side of his face, letting him know it was okay, you gleamed up at him as the flashes of the television reflected in your eyes, his heart swelled at the sight of you. Toji broke his eye contact with you, anxious of how you’d respond to his question. Toji was anxious. And you could feel it. And then his jaw clenched before his grip on you tightened once again, even now he couldn’t let the fortress that he hid inside break.

“Have you ever thought about… having another kid?” His eyes were dark, and a grin almost devious teased the corners of his mouth, and all of a sudden you felt how you did two years ago. And the Toji you fell for was standing there and he was so close to you and you were in his arms. He was teasing you like you were helpless teenagers in love. And though you loved Megumi so deeply- he was safe with the nanny at home… and you and Toji were just you and Toji again. You wanted him as fiercely as you did two years ago, and you wanted him to make love to you the way he did two years ago. Everything had been so gentle since you two were last here, and you watched Toji grow into an amazing father. You understood that he treated you like glass because he didn’t want to lose you like he has everyone else. And he was so good to you. But fuck, he was too good sometimes and you wanted that asshole back.

You pushed yourself into his chest and nudged his face in your direction with your nose, smiling softly as you watched a storm brew in his eyes alone. Your breasts nearly spilled out of the neckline of your dress as you pressed your chest to his. You felt him tense as you licked your way up from his neck to his ear, placing a kiss on the sensitive skin behind it.

“Toji… I think about it everyday,” you whispered, his grip around your waist tightened as he exhaled sharply, as if he was holding himself back.

“Do you think about a boy or girl?” He teased, beginning to trace his fingers on your thighs just below the hem of your dress. Your body instinctually moved into his, your words caught in your throat and your eyes lost in his. Toji smirked down at you, watching the way you curled around his finger so easily.

“Hey,” he snapped, taking your chin in a firm hold, “What did I ask you, princess? Stay with me.”

His other hand that remained just underneath your ass rose a few inches to give it a taught squeeze. He chuckled softly watching you twitch at the sensation. With your chin still in his hand he snapped your face to the left, pressing his nose against your cheek and inhaling deeply, before placing a hard, sloppy kiss to it.

“Tell me.” He pushed your face back so it was an inch away from his, “Do you want me to give you a boy or a girl?”

The stench of lust stained the walls, the carpets, the bedsheets, your clothes… it stuck to everything. This fucking room made the two of you feral. Toji had you melting in his hands and you wanted him to mold you to fit perfectly to him. Your hands traced down to his chest, feeling the muscles that pulled underneath his fitted black shirt. You took handfuls of the fabric into your fists as you smashed your lips to his, and he reciprocated immediately, like he was a robot built to respond to your commands. His hands flew everywhere, feeling every inch of you. They traced your thighs, slipped under your dress and up your spine, they traced the curves of your breasts and trailed up your neck, before stopping at the back of your head, bringing your face impossibly closer to his. He wanted you to mix together like a forbidden cocktail, whiskey and vodka, dark and light, never to be put together but when they are, they can be deadly.

You pushed from his unforgiving hold, to look up at him, the two of you breathing heavily, gasping for air like all that was left in the room was sucked out of it. You stumbled backwards as he watched you quizzically, wondering why the fuck you weren’t glued to him right now. You wanted him to see you, fully. So you stopped walking backwards until your legs hit the end of the bed.

Slowly, your fingers toyed with the hem of your dress, your cheeks heating as Toji smirked and crossed his arms. He watched you with a tilted head and his tongue poking at his cheek, in disbelief that you were his. But his smile dropped when you took hold of your dress and inched it up your soft skin, revealing the lace panties you had been wearing. Then you pushed the silk fabric past your belly button, and Toji could only imagine how that stomach would look big and swollen with his child. You stopped there, and slowly dragged your hands around your stomach, before they rested on top of your womb, your eyes never leaving one another.

“I don’t care about the gender of the baby… as long as it’s our baby and we take care of it together,” you whispered as you fixed your gaze on Toji’s chest, too nervous to look him in the eye. A primitive feeling ignited within him as he witnessed those words leave your mouth. Someone wanted him, not for dirty work, not to be used, but to love him and share a love with him, he never thought himself capable of feeling compassion for another like this in his life. He wanted to claim you in every sense of the word, fill you up, and burn his name onto your heart.

“You wanna give me a baby?” He growled from across the room, his shadows reached you from six feet away and enveloped your body, the vibrato of his voice shooting straight to your core. The idea of Toji marking you permanently made your insides curl, wet at the thought of it. Your eyes filled with lust and need, begging him to take you right here. He lost all of his senses as he looked at you turning into a needy little thing for him, breasts supple and on display as they heaved up and down. He imagined how they'd swell and fill with milk for his child, his gaze shot up to your lips, wet as you bit and licked at them, stains of the dark lip liner you had put on before you left, remaining on your skin like a ghost. Then they shot to your eyes, nearly tearing up with need, need to be touched and his completely. Something in you shifted when his gaze softened and his stance relaxed.

“Fuck… I wanna give you a baby Toji.” You whispered as you felt the first tear roll down your cheek, and within seconds Toji was up against you once more, lips molding to yours and his hands tangled in your hair. The weight and force of him pushed you back as you prepared to hit the bed. You took one of his hands from behind your head and placed it on your stomach, pausing from the kiss to look at him, saying all you needed to tell him with the one stare.

The rubber band inside of him snapped in that moment, he was madly in love with you, and the way you cared for Megumi so tenderly drove him up a wall. Watching you rock him to sleep, cook him breakfast in the morning, dance carelessly around the living room with him in your arms- he wanted to do it all over again with you, and start at the very beginning this time. He nodded frantically and wordlessly as he laid you back on the bed, pulling the heels off your feet as he crawled over you until he’d pushed you to the head of the bed, eyes never leaving yours. His lips met your collar bone, sucking on the skin that peaked beneath the strap of your dress, you wrapped a hand in his hair and pushed him into your chest as you whimpered, desperate for more.

He pulled his lips from your skin, placing a chaste kiss on the fresh bruise he mouthed onto your chest before placing a strong hand on your stomach, the other bringing itself to your head to make you look at him.

“Fuck, princess… tell me what you want again.” He whispered, pushing down on the soft skin of your stomach and tracing circles around your belly button with his thumb. Something about that movement turned you feral, as Toji hit all the right spots within you with his words. You crashed your lips into his as you growled into his throat, staking your claim on him. Toji was yours, and you wanted to make sure he knew it.

“M’hm…” You hummed as you rotate your hips into his thighs, “I wanna have your baby,” Toji squeezed your thighs before he pushed the rest of your dress up above your head, nearly panting as he watching your breasts spill out. He took one nipple into his mouth and the other in his hand, your body arching at the sudden change of pace. He sucked and twirled his tongue around the sensitive bud, the other hard and taught between the rough pads of his fingers. You always loved the way Toji could handle you, he was the only man that was ever able to give you exactly what you needed. It had always been that way, just you and him, becoming experts in each other’s bodies, memorizing every curve and trigger that made one another sing.

He lifted himself up from your breasts so that his face was hovering above yours and your head was trapped between his arms, he looked at you… and for a second you could’ve sworn you saw sadness wash over his face.

“Tell me what you want me to do to you and I'll do it, tonight you have me completely,” Toji whispered, tracing the contours of your face. You hid in his shadows, unsure what to make of that statement. Your breathing was ragged as you searched his face for the cause of the sudden gloom he casted over the bed you two occupied. You reached up to trace the dips of his jaw and cheekbones, back around his head before your fingers lingered over his lips.

“Toji, what’s wrong?” You asked wearily, “Don’t I have you completely every other night we spend together?” His gaze saddened, and this time it definitely had. You grew incredibly nervous, because despite the fact that you had Toji for two years… deep, deep down, you knew that he was a force that couldn’t be tamed.

“I don’t want to lose you,” he whispered, his forehead dropping to your shoulder. He laid his body weight on top of you, caging you into him as if to protect you from an impending doom.

“And because I can’t lose you…” Your breath hitched in your throat at his next set of words. You couldn’t let him finish.

“Toji… no.” You whispered, wrapping your arms around his back and hugging him into you.

“I’m sorry, I have to.” He shook in your hold, his hand wrapping around the back of your head and pushing it into his neck as you began to sob. You struggled to escape his grasp, you needed to fucking breathe.

“Toji… get the fuck off of me.” You bit through tears, but he wouldn’t budge.

“Let fucking go of me!” You pushed, squirming away when you felt him loosen up. You tripped your way out of the bed and hid yourself in the corner of the room, between the big TV and the bathroom. You sheltered your naked body by crossing your arms over your chest and your sobs became uncontrollable. You burned holes into his back as he knelt on the bed with his hands unfolded in his lap, he stared at them, empty and without you in them.

“I have to leave-“ He began.

“Shut up.” You whispered, begging him to stop.

“It’s the only way you and Megumi will be safe.” He pushed.

“I don’t fucking care-“

“You don’t care about my son?” He screamed into the void of the bedsheets, the palms of his hands digging at his weary eyes. The statement shook you, it clawed at the deepest parts of you and ripped them out. Left you gutted.

“How f-fucking dare you…” You choked, his back was still turned to you. You looked around the room in frantic disbelief, fists punching at your head. “You can at least turn around… and fucking LOOK AT ME… While you tell me that I don’t care about MY SON!”

You were towering above him now, for once in the years you had known this man the power dynamic had shifted. What was different was that you’d experienced another kind of love, and that love left you with a reflex that would cut anyone that threatened it. Toji had been training you up for this moment, the one where he would finally say he was leaving again, and you’d have to be there for Megumi on your own.

You shoved at his back and he didn’t budge, so you shoved again, and again he didn’t budge.

“He’s my son too….” You seethed, “ And I will not let you sit there with your back turned to me…” You continued as you rounded the bed so you were facing him. “Just so you can fucking tell me that I don’t care about him!”

He kneeled as still as a statue, the silence surrounding him almost sickening. And the more you stared at Toji, the more you wanted to laugh. You were not going to fall for his bullshit game again, because in the two years that you’ve loved him you’ve also learned him.

“You’re a coward, Toji…” You shot to kill. “If you meant what you said you can look me in the eye and say it again.”

Knowing he wouldn’t budge, you crawled onto the bed and kneeled beneath him, forcing yourself to look up into his eyes. They looked empty.

“Go ahead and tell me that I don’t love my son, Toji,” you smirked, eyes wild and alight as they were when Toji first set eyes upon you years ago, when he knew he had to have you. You grabbed his chin and tilted it upwards as you crawled into his lap, straddling him so he had nowhere to go, nothing else to look at but you, nothing else to feel but you. You put your lips to his and growled, nothing but heat laced in your words.

“Be a man… be a father… and tell me that I don’t love my fucking son.” A tear slipped down his cheek, and you could see mountains move in his eyes and you watched the walls of that fortress crack after two years. His hands fell to your hips, locking you in.

“I can’t,” he whispered, “I can’t tell you that.” Sorrow held heavy in his gaze, as he tried to kiss you with your lips on his. You wouldn’t let him, pushing his face back into place.

“Then tell me… why you would lie to me Toji,” you asked softly, your sadness, your embarrassment returning. “Why would you leave me again? Have I not been good enough-“

“No,” he cut you off, “No, never.”

“Then what is it! Tell me why you’re leaving- again!” You sobbed, your vision of him blurry now. Your hands wrapped around the back of his head as you pulled his body into your bare chest, feeling the wetness of his cheeks against your breasts. You dropped your head into the crook of his neck and sobbed, “What haven’t I done to make you see how much I love you?”

“It’s not what you didn’t do,” he resolved, “It’s what you did do.” You shook as his fingers kissed up and down your spine. “You have done everything- I could’ve asked for. I am scared of the way I love you… and I am scared of the way you love me.” He tried to pull your face from his neck but you were the immovable statue this time.

“Look at me,” He says sternly, forcing you from your hiding spot. He places a tender kiss to the corner of your mouth. “I have never loved someone so much. I can’t stay away from you and I think that’ll be our downfall if I don’t leave now. My plan was never to stay, I was going to leave you with Megumi… but god, you’re like a fucking magnet. Of course I stumbled in after him and when I saw you sitting on that bed with him… my fate with you was set in stone, princess.”

You were a blubbering baby, your hands holding his face as your thumbs rubbed his cheeks back and forth, like they were trying to memorize every scar and curve. You kissed his cheek as he continued, “It is everything you have made me… that’s the reason I have to leave. My work isn’t safe, once they know how soft I’ve become you will be the first people they target.”

“Toji, I d-don’t care!” You blurted out, “I don’t care… I can take care of myself, I can take care of Megumi. Teach me then, huh? Teach me to f-fight o-o-or use a gun… please Toji… I need you here.” You weren’t even sure of what you were saying, you were just saying anything to keep him here longer.

“You are all I have left-“ He pushed.

“As you are to me!” You bit back.

“Toji, you are all I have… please… please can we try?”

You practically begged, “What about our baby? Was that all just shit to get me to sleep with you one last time? Hm?”

“No, of course not!” He shot back, words fiery and filled with passion.

“So you were gonna what? Toji? Knock me up and leave?” You asked silently, holding your eye contact with him. “Because I really wanted- I really wanted to have that with you.”

He bit back tears, swallowing deeply as you drilled into him. He just shook his head, if he wanted to keep you in his life he had to do this. He had to let you go. He gently pushed you off of him one last time, wincing when he felt you reach for him, your hand gracing his.

“N-no Toji… no, please,” you begged, his heart tearing as he walked closer to the door, gathering his things slowly. He jolted when he felt your small body press into his back, hugging him from behind and shaking. It took everything in him to fight the urge to place his hand over yours. But feeling you slide to the floor behind him made him turn around to look at you. He had done it, he had broken you, and for the first time in his life he was disgusted that he had done that to someone.

“Get up,” he choked.

You refused.

“Get. Up!”

“No.”

“I’m not leaving you on the floor like this-“

“Then don’t fucking leave! You asshole!” You screamed at him wildly, smacking at his legs with weak jabs, the picture of a child throwing a tantrum.

“If you ever loved me or Megumi you would stay!” You cried, “You would stay… and you would try for us…”

“You can’t say that-“

“Yes I can because it’s true,” you shot your words at him like bullets leaving a gun, short and quick, one after the other.

“When I agreed to take Megumi under my care… I said I would do it only if you stayed with me. I said I wasn’t going to let you run away. And if you think for a second that I didn’t mean it then you really are fucking dense Fushiguro.”

Toji’s mouth quirked at the sound of you using his surname, you haven’t done that for a while. He set his sights on you for a reason all those years ago, he knew you were strong, he knew you were unwavering. He just never thought he’d meet someone as stubborn if not more stubborn than him. That’s why he knew you were the one he was going to leave Megumi with. And even now as he looked down at you he knew he made the right decision. You would chase him into the parking lot naked if he made a run for it and he knew that. No one was better for his family than you. His heart dropped when he felt your hand reach up to his, releasing him from his train of thought. You were beautiful. And he was sorry. And stupid for thinking that this wasn’t going to go over without a fight. He tightened his grip on your hand and knelt down to kiss it. Every knuckle. Every fingertip. And he knelt into your touch when you cradled his face.

You saw him make a swift movement from the corner of your eye, and you couldn’t move fast enough when you felt a piece of heavy metal weigh down your hand. In it Toji had placed a gun, you knew he always carried one but he’d keep it concealed around you. So you’d never actually seen it. To be holding it right now… you didn’t know what to do. You watched him as he moved to kneel behind you, his hand never leaving yours that held the revolver.

You gasped as he brought an arm around your waist, fixing your posture so you were upright. And he adjusted your arms so the gun was pointing at the door of the motel room. His hands laid loosely over yours and his head rested in the crook of your neck. Your breathing grew heavy when he traced from your hand all the way back to your upper arm, fixing its position and propping it up at a 90 degree angle.

“It’s like a dance, you see.” He whispered into your ear.

“If you hold it properly, and give it room to move,” he loosened your grip on the trigger.

“Not too tight, princess…” You let out a breath you hadn’t realized you’d been holding.

“It’ll hit all the right steps…” His finger covered yours on the trigger and you felt your heart stop, “and you’ll shoot ‘em dead.”

“Bang!” Toji mimicked the sound of a gun as you jumped backwards into him and screamed, eyes squeezed shut. But you didn’t feel the reverb of the gun, you didn’t hear anything piercing the wooden door, only the vibration of Toji’s low chuckle in his throat. You turned around to see him propped up on both arms, staring at you in amusement while you stared at him in shock.

Your hands shook as you examined the gun in your hands, before looking back up at his smiling face. His hands covered yours as he slowly took it out of your grip.

“What the fuck, Toji?” You whispered, scared as if you’d actually shot something.

“Safety’s on, sweetheart.” He teased, wrapping an arm around your neck and bringing you into him to place a wet kiss on your mouth. “I’ll let you do the real thing once you start getting good.”

“What?” You stared at him in disbelief, but he didn’t miss that glimmer of excitement in your eyes.

“I’ll teach you how to use a gun, I’ll teach you to fight, I’ll teach you whatever you want to know… so we can keep our kid safe.” He whispered, looking down at you with a warm smile on his face.

“Yeah?”

“Yes…” He whispered, “…I love you.” He added.

“I love you too,” you almost didn’t believe it.

“I mean it… I love you.” He repeated, like he could read your mind. But you were still hurt, and angry, and everything bad you could feel you felt.

“I- prove it to me… that you mean it… I’ve proved myself to you enough tonight Toji… and I won’t stand to be made a fool,” your words bit, and you hope he felt them draw blood. Toji pulled you back into his chest and buried his face in your hair, taking in your scent.

“You want me to prove it?” He whispered. His hands start to trail up your thighs, his mouth begins to place kisses on your neck. You sighed at his touch, placing your hands over his on your body.

“Mhm,” you whimpered, leaning into his chest, your body becoming overly sensitive to his movements again. Toji’s hands pushed at your thighs, “Open up for me, princess.” You did as you were told, sliding your feet slowly so they could meet his boots on the carpeted floor, putting your clothed heat on display for him. He continued to draw circles on your thighs, more forcefully now, inching your legs open wider.

“T-Toji, please,” you choked out, growing impatient.

“Tell me what you want,” he whispered in your ear, sliding his hand under the waistband of your panties, his cold fingers scorched by your hot skin, “Come on… tell me, pretty girl. Had no problem biting my head off a moment ago.”

“Fuck you,” you seethed through gritted teeth, trying to amass any pleasure from rutting your hips upwards.

“Suppose I deserved that,” he chuckled, you could feel his chest shaking against your back. You leaned back into him and swung either of your legs over his highs, opening yourself up wide and demanding he touch you. “Dirty girl, that’s how you got tangled up with me in the first place- were just too damn needy…” His hand slipped under the crotch of your panties and you jerked as he placed his palm flat against you. Toji hissed at the wetness that met his skin, grabbing a handful of the slinky lace into his fist and tearing the cheap fabric off your body, “I’ll have to get you new ones.”

“Please, Toji, please,” you were practically whimpering, begging for him. Jolting as he slapped your waiting cunt once, catching you off guard as you hissed at him. You placed your hand around his forearm and guided it as he massaged the sting of his strike out.

“Tell me-“ He began again, letting his fingers slide up and down your folds, collecting all of the wetness before bringing them up to your mouth. You looked up at him behind you and he simply raised a brow, silently suggesting that you knew what to do. You took his hand in yours and dipped your mouth down onto the two fingers he pulled from beneath you, licking and sucking your arousal off of them.

“Good girl, now tell me…” He pulled his fingers from your mouth and shoved them back down to your weeping heat, this time pushing them in and curling them upwards, holding you in place as your body contracted.

“T-oji my god!” You gasped at the sudden movement. He shushed you, pressing his lips to your ear as his fingers writhed inside of you, “Shhh… tell me about how you’ve dreamed about giving me another baby,” Toji insisted, a glimmer of that ego shining through as he continued his ministrations, more aggressively this time, beginning to pump two fingers in and out of your cunt.

“Mph-fuck, Toji please-” His fingers continued, pushing in and out of you, kissing your ear when your head dropped back onto his shoulder.

“Tell me, pretty girl, and I’ll give you more,” he began to speed up, wrapping his spare arm around your torso to hold you flush against him, spreading his thighs further, ensuring that your legs spread with him. You moaned at the action, rutting your hips up into his hand as you gave him what he wanted.

“I- I’ve dreamed about it since we first bought the house together…” He began to place chaste kisses on your neck, sucking on the supple skin, adding a third finger inside of you. “Fuck… that’s too much To-”

“I think you can take it, how could you have my kids if you can’t even take three of my fingers, princess?” He started to pump slowly, letting you adjust to the size. “Now, go on.”

Your breathing was disorderly, your hands grabbing onto his thighs as you felt yourself swallow the girth of his fingers whole. “Ah- okay… w-we bought the house a-and, I think…” You thought back to the first time you set foot in the house after it was officially yours, you were in love with the Victorian architecture and since you loved it Toji loved it even more.

“I think watching you paint Megumi’s room that bright blue… seeing you covered in paint… making sure e-everything was perfect for him.” You hadn’t even noticed him speeding up, until he started circling your clit with his thumb and you could’ve sworn you were gonna explode. “Toji- please, I think I’m going to-”

“Not yet… finish,” he urged and you protested before you felt him land another strike to your clit, “Now.”

“Oh, my god!” Your eyes crossed when he resumed, your abdomen shaking at the sensation, “W-watching you made me realize t-that… t-that we were going to b-be okay-ah!” The arm around your torso made its way up to your breasts, pinching and twisting at your nipples. “...It made me realize t-that I want to be in this- w-with you…hmph… for a long t-time…” You looked up at him with pursed eyebrows and your mouth agape, finding him already staring at you. His face was warm, your entire being felt warm. And then he sped up, fingers pounding in and out of you, his mouth dropping back down to your neck to litter it with hickies, your legs grew stiff and you frantically jutted up into the palm of his hand.

“Toji- fuck! Please, please-”

“Tell. Me.” He growled, not letting up on his movements.

“I-I- oh fuck… I realized that I wanted to be with you… f-forever, To-ji. I wanted to h-have more kids w-with you a-and raise a f-amily…” Your eyes held his and you felt your toes curl and your insides turn. His mouth connected with yours, holding your jaw in place, as he growled into your mouth.

“Cum.”

You saw stars as his grip on your jaw tightened, swallowing all of your moans, all of your cries, and drinking them like they were a forbidden elixir. He held your legs open with his, pumping in and out of you relentlessly as he held your shaking body. You felt his length, hard against the small of your back, and you lost it completely when you felt him needily rutting up into you through his black denim. “Fuck Toji! I’m cumming. I’m cumming- ah!”

You two were a sweaty bundle of bodies, desperately rutting into each other, trying to be impossibly close to one another. You reached an arm around his neck and drew him into a wet kiss, hungrily biting and sucking on his lips, his tongue, any inch of him you could take in.

“More. Toji, please, I need you more.” You begged when his fingers finally released you. You wanted each other in ways you never had before, this time was… different. This time you two were consummating your own version of a fucked-up marriage. In sickness and health. In life and death. You would have each other completely. You felt how needy he was, the scent of your arousal on his mouth, on his hands, lingering everywhere, it turned him into an animal. You turned to face him and helped him out of his clothes. Peeling the shirt off his sweaty body as he kicked his boots off, licking a stripe up his abdomen with heaving breaths, your eyes never leaving him as you panted for him, need dripping off your tongue. Once you got to his neck, you began to leave bite marks along his collarbone, his jaw, your bare cunt rutting into his crotch, growling at the cotton boxer-briefs that kept skin from skin. Toji’s hands grazed over your body, tracing every curve and valley, letting you devour him, take him, do what you wanted with him.

“Take these off,” You breathed against his neck, fingers pulling at the waistband of the boxers, he chuckled, grabbing you by the back of the head and forcing your eyes to meet his, “As you wish, mama.”

Sure, there were partners before Toji, and the sex was fine. But no one had ever made you act the way he made you act. You were a partnership of two antagonists, just prodding and poking at each other to see who could make the other crazier. You were sure that tonight, Toji would win.

Mama.

You saw stars at the word and he knew it. Toji watched your eyes grow as dark as his in seconds, trailing his every movement as he lifted his hips up and slid his boxers down his legs. You watched his cock smack his stomach, so rock hard it looked like it hurt. You needed him in cynical, territorial ways. As did he to you.

“If you don’t put a baby in me right now Fushiguro…” His eyes widened at the vulgarness of your demand. He watched you kneel just feet away from him, observed the way your chest was heaving up and down, the locket he gifted you, the one you never took off, moving with it. He noticed the way your breasts looked heavier, nipples puffier. He noticed your arousal dripping down your thigh, he had never seen you so wet. And lastly, he noticed the way your hands guarded your stomach, as if they were guarding your precious womb until he came around to mark it.

“Get on your back,” he barked, climbing over to you swiftly, not giving you time to follow his directions on your own as he had you laid down against the carpet in seconds. He licked his lips as he watched you draw your bitten lips into your mouth, waiting for him to do something.

“Tonight I am going to fucking worship you,” he growled, smashing his lips to yours, jamming his tongue down your throat and licking you everywhere unholy. His lips trailed down your breasts, your stomach, and he stopped above your thighs, leaving bite marks all the way down. He blew a puff of air onto your sticky heat, before teasing you with a small lick. The second your thighs flew upwards his hands held them down, gripping onto the fat like they were lifesavers. He stuck his tongue in your folds, firmly tracing circles around your clit and following the patterns of your vulva.

“Toji!” You screamed, almost as if you wanted him to stop. But that couldn’t be further from the truth, you needed him to keep going. One of your hands tangled in his hair as the other held onto his, your body writhing like a fish out of water as he continued to suck and pull at your core, groaning into you every time you rode your hips against his face.

“I-I can’t, please I’m-” You gasped for air, desperately moving your body up and down with his mouth, riding out the waves of pleasure he was giving you. Your body was still sensitive from your orgasm just moments ago, you felt like you could burst at any moment. But Toji didn’t stop, he kept blowing air onto your clit, fucking you with his tongue and biting the soft skin around your mound. He reached up to grab hold of one of your breasts, squeezing and pinching as he himself ground into the carpet he laid upon. Your moans and your taste were his jet fuel, and he was getting off to every second of it. You watched his ass flex as he repeated his movements, drawing circles into the carpet with his cock. The sight of him desperately humping nothing sent you over the edge, screaming as you pulled at his hair, your thighs closing around his head.

“TojiohmygodI’mcummingfuck!” Your words came out a sloppy mess, unable to do anything but praise him for being so good to you. He continued to place kisses on your inner thighs until you were done riding out your high, your body finally falling back to the floor.

“Feel okay?” He asked calmly, rising to his knees as your body occasionally twitched in your post-orgasmic euphoria. He ran his hands up and down your torso, gently massaging once he got down to your pelvic bones, working out the knots and work you had just put in to getting off on his face. He knelt down to kiss you deeply, tenderly this time, inhaling your scent and running his hand over your head.

“You’re so beautiful,” he whispered. His eyes searching for answers in yours, “I’m sorry,” he uttered, digging his forehead into the crook of your neck. “I’m sorry I tried to run away, you don’t deserve that.”

“Toji… I- I love you.” He kissed your forehead, his hand hitching themselves underneath your thighs, watching your eyebrows furrow together while he inched your knees up slowly.

“This comfortable?” He asked you for reassurance again and you nodded, and he pushed a little further, until your knees nearly touched your shoulders, you winced a little at the stretch of it, inhaling and exhaling deeply as he waited for you to adjust. When you open your eyes he’s looking down at you, kissing the insides of your calves and massaging them.

“It hurts a little?” He asks again gently and you nod. He chuckles quietly as he leans down to kiss you, you inhale sharply as he puts pressure on your legs, stretching your hamstrings even more than intended.

“If I’m gonna put a baby in you, this is the best way, princess.”

His words ran straight to your core, and you nodded frantically, feeling like a teenager having sex for the first time. So eager to feel him. This time with Toji felt different, call it- fucking with intention. Both of you felt the thickness of the air, you knew how much this meant. He placed a chaste kiss to your lips before whispering against them, “Let me know if you need me to stop.”

Your eyes nearly crossed at the suggestion of him fucking you so hard you’d need to call it in, you just wanted to feel him already, “Mhm… Toji, please.”

His head dropped to your chest as you wrapped your arms around his neck, gripping him tighter when you felt his tip prop itself at your entrance. He laid his body flat against yours, you screamed at the burning in your legs, folded back against you with the weight of his body, but you wanted more. His arms caged your head in on either side and that was when you felt it. Toji watched the way your face contorted, your mouth dropping and eyes squeezing shut as he filled you at an angle he never had.

“Fuuuck,” he exhaled, inching his length into you further and further. He felt you claw at his back, skin sticking under your fingernails as you groaned with him, two animals fucking to conceive. The most primitive state of the human, fucking to reproduce, to bear offspring, to grow a family.

“Toji-”

“Yes, princess,” he cut you off, “Oh fuck,” he gasped, bottoming out inside you, before hoisting your waist up to his and slinging your legs over his shoulders.

“T-Toji I’m so full!” You whined, grabbing onto his thighs folded on the floor as he knelt before you, buried deep in your cunt.

“I know, baby, I know… be good and let me put a baby in you, okay?” He asked, placing kisses to your calves once again. You panted, nodding up at him while he made his first move. You groaned as he pulled himself out, before splitting you back open and bottoming out once again, “Fuck Toji, I need-”

You felt it snap inside you again, whatever it was that made you feral, foaming at the mouth for the feeling of him inside you. “Toji I need you to fuck me…” You ground your hips into his, grasping at anything to give you leverage on his length. He looked down at you wearily, always so delicate, so fragile, “I don’t know if I should-”

“Fuck, Toji! Stop treating me like I’m glass and fuck me!” His eyes grew dark at your words, but still a glint of remorse held him back. You smacked at his chest, then looked down to remember that he was balls deep inside you, he seemed to remember at the same time because his stare turned wicked, “Look at me, Toji... I need you to fuck me baby.”

You felt him begin to pick up his pace, slowly but surely rutting into you, fucking you deeper and deeper with every thrust. “F-uck, Toji!” Your mouth dropped as you watched a string of spit leave his mouth and drip on to where his cock and your cunt met, you gasped for air when he reached down to spread it around, lubing you up and preparing to go deeper, “T-oji, TojiTojiTojiii, please baby.”

“Yes, pretty girl. Fuck yes.” He gritted through his teeth, groaning at the way your tits bounced with every thrust, he reached out and cupped one in his hand, “Fuck, your tits are gonna be so full in a few months…” Your eyes rolled back at the way he groped it, playing with your nipple. Then your eyes fell to where you two connected and his gaze followed, the two of you watching Toji reappear and disappear inside of you, your wetness covering his cock, and his arousal being shoveled deeper and deeper inside of you.

You squealed as he thrusted harder, laying on top of you and rutting down into your heat. “Go ahead and touch yourself for me,” Toji instructed, and so you did. And a familiar feeling began to bubble up in your stomach, and for the third time that night Toji would ruin you.

“Toji, please oh fuck-” He brought a hand up to your sweaty forehead, blowing air on it to cool you down, he then took your hand and placed it on your stomach, smirking as your eyes widened at what you felt.

“Feel that? Feel me inside of you?” He whispered, kissing you swiftly, feeling himself come close. You were a mess of moans and whines and you couldn’t even begin to explain the things that Toji was making you feel.

“Y-yes… yesyesyesdaddyIfeelit!” You cried as you circled your clit faster and pulled him closer, “Fuck yes! Right there baby, fuck me right there!”

Toji growled, his hands now clawing at your thighs, the picture of two animals fucking wildly. Something sent him tipping past sanity as he pushed your legs all the way back, your ass up in the air as he thrusted down into you.

“Call me that again…” He seethed, grinning cynically at the way your eyes glazed over, his hand wrapped itself around your throat, enough to let you breathe. The sensation was overbearing, you started writhing underneath him, squirming and twitching while he kept his pace.

“F-uck,” you choked out, cracking what smile you could with Toji’s hand restricting you, “I want you to fill me up, Daddy.” Toji saw red, and blue, and every color that you helped him see in the past two years, and he fucked them all back into you. He kissed you with tenacity, lips tangled with lips and limbs tangled with limbs.

“I’m close,” he seethed.

“Me too,” you whispered.

“Boy or girl, tell me and I’ll fill you,” he whispered against your lips, saliva, snot and sweat mixing as you two breathed heavily into each other's mouths. Toji’s neck turned red the longer he held in his orgasm, the veins of his arms popping as he held you tightly, maneuvering you so you were in the perfect position to receive him.

“I told you I don’t care,” you whispered back, feeling yourself close to the brink, tears forming in your eyes, “I told you I d-don’t care as long as I raise them with you.”

He smiled, “Pick a wild card.”

You smiled back.

“Girl,” you whispered. With your arms holding him closely against you, Toji began to writhe, his abdomen jerking in and out as he tried to control the strength of his orgasm.

“Fuck!” He screamed, fucking his seed into you, filling you up with himself. You pulled his face to yours and kissed him tenderly while you felt yourself clench around his length, milking him and riding out another orgasm of your own.

“Yes,Toji! Yesyesyes!” You wrapped your legs around his torso and held him there, feeling his body twitch as he continued to shoot loads of himself into you. Your body shook as you took everything he had to give you, placing your hands atop his as he held your legs back, the two of you watching him push every drop that fell out back in.

To think that you and Toji would end up here, there was a time when he was nothing but a fuck buddy to you, and you to him, now you desired something so intimate, so binding to his being. You couldn’t help but laugh breathlessly in his arms, and with that he looked down at you, smiling. Toji admittedly never smiled a lot before he met you, but as he looked down at you, he couldn’t be happier to smile in your presence.

“Do you think we… got it?” You asked him, out of breath.

He raised his eyebrows, “You would doubt my work?” You smacked his chest and pushed him off of you, attempting to stand up but finding yourself weak in the knees. Toji approached you from behind and lifted you up slowly, wrapping his arms around you and pulling you into him.

“I think we should try the bed out next,” he whispered, “See if it’s still any good?”

You looked up at him in disbelief, “You want to do that again?”

“You don’t?” He smirked.

“Well I-” You thought for a second while you melted into his hold, “I don’t not want to do that again.” He emitted a dark sound, while kissing the top of your head, and leading you step by step over to the old mattress.

“Remember the first time we had sex here? I think I tied you to the headboard,” he suggested casually. Your hands tensed around his before you spun yourself around to face him, wanting to smack him, grin and all. He pushed himself into you and grabbed handfuls of your ass, lifting you up into him and taking in the sight.

“For old times sake, princess,” he persisted. Your tongue pushed at the inside of your cheek as you considered the idea. You supposed mother’s had to have fun too.

“...Just this once, asshole.”

“God, I love it when you call me that.”

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ddaz3d-and-cc0nfused · 2 months

Note

Hi!! Can i request a hurt/comfort hotch x reader?

Reader is starting to feel lonely in the relationship cause for the past 2 months hotch has only been home for a week total and she really misses him. They haven’t had time to themselves cause even when hotch is in virginia he’s in the office and him getting called out on a case during his day off happens more often than the both of them want to. and even when they text and call it’s not the same.

anyway hotch comes home in the middle of the night after a case and he just finds reader on the sofa crying cause she just really misses her boyfriend and the two of them finally talk about it.

You have permission to break my heart with the angst and put it back together. I know its long and i have no clue if it made sense so im sorry😭😭 enjoy your day💕

༉‧₊˚. 𝐧𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐟𝐭 || 𝐚𝐚𝐫𝐨𝐧 𝐡𝐨𝐭𝐜𝐡𝐧𝐞𝐫

― pairing: aaron hotchner x plus size!reader

― summary: you knew that being with aaron meant that his job came first, you just hadn't realized how badly it would actually affect you. now, your life and love is on the line.

― warnings: ANGST ANGST ANGST!!! you have been warned!, thoughts of breaking up, established relationship, hurt/comfort, angst with a happy ending, hints of depression.

― wc: 905

⋆ a/n: my first long fic back being angst LMAOOOO. i'm not going to lie, writing this kind of bummed me out a bit but that's how i knew it was going to be good LOL. but never fear, i got a few smutty things in the works, so keep a silly little eye out for that!! i love you guys so so much and thank you for your request!

masterlist | AO3

The room felt melancholic. Empty.

The sounds of laughter that had once bounced off of the walls of your home now rang silently, one of the only people that knew of the joy that once made your house a home was long gone on a case right now.

You don’t know what to do. How could you last like this? How could your relationship? How could Jack?

Jack, the precious little boy that you had taken under your wing even before you and Aaron had ever made it official. You knew he missed his father dearly, but with every large life milestone the boy had completed, Aaron had missed out on. It had gotten to the point where Jack doesn’t bother to ask you if he could call his dad to tell him about it, because nine times out of ten, he knew that Aaron wouldn’t answer.

So now as you sit here on the couch in the dark with your head in your hands, you can’t help but think that maybe this was it, that it was time to consider the very dreaded other option.

You tried your best to make your relationship with Aaron work, God did you try, but having to sit there and endure weeks of radio silence, of not knowing whether or not he was alive was excruciating. When he did have time to text or call you, every conversation was more and more distant.

Hot tears rolled down your cheeks, and your bottom lip trembled. You crossed your arms and placed them on your knees where you leaned on them, staring out into the abyss of your dimly lit living room. You had just put Jack to sleep, and you didn’t want to risk waking him up.

Your eyes solemnly scaled the walls where the pictures of your little family hung, frames upon frames of happy smiling faces.

What happened?

It was the fact you were absolutely drowning in your thoughts that you didn’t hear your front door unlock – something that your boyfriend would deeply frown upon.

Aaron wasn’t surprised to find the apartment quiet, what he was surprised to find was your silhouette illuminated by a single lamp. What really set off the alarms in his brain was your shivering shoulders, which could only mean one thing.

“Sweetheart?” His deep voice pierced the thin air hovering above you. You just shook your head, any happiness that would have left your mouth died in your throat, the words leaving you was, “We have to talk.”

You hated doing this, but who’s to say he won’t get called in tomorrow? No, you had to do this now.

Aaron felt his heart fall into his stomach as he made his way over towards you, gently sitting down on the cushion next to yours, almost as if he was afraid to scare you.

“Of course. Are you okay?” He inquired in concern. You just shook your head again. “This isn’t working, Aaron.” The pain lacing your voice was unmissable. “What?” He’s completely caught off guard, because this was the last thing he’d expected to come home to.

“I can’t do this anymore… unless – unless we can figure something out but even then I-” He rushes to grab your hand, and it lays limp and cold in his warm and calloused one. “Honey please, what’s wrong? Tell me what I can do.” Holy shit, he’s panicking.

“You’re never here anymore! I - I can’t remember the last time in the past two months that we’ve been able to have any alone time together! Most of the time you’re either gone in a whole different state or stuck in the office!” You couldn’t stop the word vomit from leaving, all kinds of emotions that had been kept dormant finally coming up to the surface.

You heaved out a deep breath, your body slumping in defeat. “Did you know that Jack learned how to ride a bike today?” You asked quietly. “No.” Aaron gulped, “I didn’t.”

A heavy silence settled between the two of you.

“What do you need me to do?” Finally, you looked at him.

There were unshed tears in your eyes, “What I want you to do, you can’t make it happen.” His eyebrows furrowed. “You want me to quit my job?”

“No,” You said with a disbelieving laugh. “I just want you to be there.”

“Who says I can’t do that?” His head tilts, his eyes boring into yours, desperately trying to read you. It was like his profiler skills didn’t exist. “Every time you’ve had a day off you’ve been called into the office one way or another.” Your tone is hopeless, like your situation can’t be helped.

With a harsh squeeze of your eyelids, the tears began to fall, but Aaron was quick to swipe them away.

“Honey, look at me,” He cups the side of your cheek, his thumb brushing away the liquid. Hesitantly you did, and you instantly fell victim to the warmness of his irises. “I will fix this, because I am not losing you. My behavior has been completely unacceptable, and I swear that I will be here for you and Jack more consistently, I promise.”

“How do I know if this won’t happen again?

“I’ll make sure of it.”

It was the finality in his voice that fizzled out the anxiety in your gut, setting your nerves at ease.

“Don’t make me regret this, Hotchner.”

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icallhimjoey · 1 year

Note

For your consideration, darling:

Anything with being in the rain with Joey.

Relaxing bathtub moment with Joey.

Dancing in the refrigerator light.

Y/n and Joe are bestfriend, but he secretly has a crush on you since forever, one day y/n's boyfriend impregnants her but he just running from responsibility. And then there is Joe motherfucking Quinn who offers himself to be the father of that child.

Any situation that's so James Bond-ish, ofc y/n as a Bond girl.

sending in 5 ideas so there's a bigger chance of an idea to wake itself up in the back of my head and claw its way to the forefront is a fantastic concept, i love it! i went with number 3! Wordcount: 1.4K

---

Sway With Me

It took maybe thirty seconds for it to register within him. Thirty seconds for Joe to suddenly feel the cold of the room he was in, to pull the duvet up closer, to swipe an arm across an empty mattress that left him confused, because, you'd only just been there, hadn't you? And you'd said something too, Joe knew it. Surely, he hadn't been dreaming, but, if that was the case, then where were you now?

It was still pitch black behind the curtains, not even close to early morning hours and Joe could feel the exhaustion in his bones. His dreams pulled at his consciousness, willing him back into bizarre landscapes where your face hovered somewhere amongst the stars, and you whispered something about pain. Was that what had happened? Had you gotten up because you were in pain?

Joe called out for you, but the strength his body had to muster up to get any sound out faltered, and the sounds escaping Joe were not much more than heavy breaths that articulated the plosives of your name.

Joe shivered, rolled himself up in the covers more, half his face hidden by its soft, quilted fabric and tried his best to drift back to sleep because that's all his body seemed to want from him. But then you took too long, and Joe's limbs were cold which turned into all his mind could focus on. Cold legs, cold arms, cold hands, cold heart. Joe understood it was more emotional than physical; the need to feel you under his touch, to have you in the bed beside him, to listen to your breathing, to feed off of your body heat. You'd always tell him he was like a furnace, but Joe knew it was only that way because you lit the fire that warmed him up from the inside out.

Giving you another minute, because maybe you were just in the bathroom, he opened one squinty eye to the emptiness of the room, blinking into focus to really confirm he was alone. His face crinkled into a puzzled frown as he pulled himself into a sitting position, his arms doing most of the work, his hands sinking into the mattress to push himself up. He stilled himself and focussed on noise, feeling the muscles around his ears tighten, and then he heard it. The faint sound of the refrigerator door rubbers as they pulled away from the cold metal as the door opened.

With a soft groan, Joe swung his legs over the edge of the bed and reached for a throw blanket down the bottom of it. Getting up, he flung the blanket around his shoulders in a bid to bring some of the warmth that was left in the bed with him to meet you in the kitchen. For all the actions that didn't need sight, Joe kept his eyes closed and only allowed himself small peeks through narrowed eyes to make sure he didn't run into doors or walls.

Upon your sight, Joe's shoulders relaxed on an exhale. There you were, illuminated by the blue refrigerator light, just as he predicted.

Still, upon Joe seeing you, you almost caught him off balance. You were wearing one of Joe's T-shirts, an extra old one he had pictures of himself wearing at 17, and he could feel his heart swell at the memory of your face any time you'd put it on. You'd always take a minute to inhale the fabric of the collar, swearing that no matter how many times it would be washed, Joe's scent would linger and you loved it. You could swim and would happily drown in all things Joe, and you had never hidden that from him.

Joe's T-shirt hung dishevelled off your weary figure as you stood with your back towards Joe, your messy hair all tangled up from losing your scrunchie in your sleep. As he carried heavy footsteps towards you with painful hips that took a minute to adjust to moving his body around, he heard you twist a lid back onto a jar and place it back onto one of the glass shelves.

“You sneaking olives again?” he croaked, voice sounding so fatigued, it almost rang painful.

Before you could answer, Joe’s body curled around yours, his chest firmly pressed against your back, knees finding the backs of yours and his chin placed heavily onto your shoulder. He effectively hid you inside his throw blanket, capturing you in there with him. You grinned at being caught, hand still on the small glass jar, taking it back out to open it again because Joe definitely wanted a few, you knew. Judging by the humming that sounded loud in your ear, you were right.

"Did I wake you?" you whispered as you hand fed Joe a pimiento stuffed olive over your shoulder. "I was very quiet." you smiled, your eyes puffy with sleep still.

"You were keeping me warm," Joe tightened his grip on you when a squinty eye noticed the painkillers and glass of water on the counter next to him before opening his mouth for another little snack. You fished another from the jar, reaching in deep, and when your fingers held it out for him, Joe enclosed his lips around their tips, suckling the brine off them. Joe was cute, and to let him know you thought so, you pushed your temple against whatever part of his head it could reach, making Joe hum in response.

You went through the motions of closing the jar and placing it back into the fridge once again, but before you reached to close the door, you felt Joe move. Slowly swaying from left to right, mostly in his upper body, and it pulled you along with him. You turned your head to catch as much of his face you could, but only managed to see that Joe's eyes were still closed. You turned further and fully twisted in his arms, prompting Joe to let go of you only for a second, holding out his arms and in turn the blanket that he was still holding onto. You snuck your arms around his waist and pressed your cheek into his chest and let Joe hug you back into his blanket, the fleece fabric now almost entirely engulfing you.

"How many painkillers did you take?" Joe barely even whispered, and continued his swaying motions which, in the states you were in, felt hypnotizing, like you were in a trance.

"Two," you spoke into the fabric of Joe's T-shirt, and it was so soft and muffled, you thought Joe couldn't possibly have heard it.

"Head?" but Joe had heard it, and you gave a tiny nod.

For a minute, you stood there, swaying in front of an open kitchen door, your face hidden from it's bright light with no real reason to be there still. Maybe it was the sleep in both your bodies that just focused on the sweet tenderness of the moment instead of the rational thoughts that murmured for you to make your way back to bed and back to sleep. With every back and forth, you feared it'd be the last one, because at this point, Joe was holding you up as much as he was holding you pressed up against him, and it was the safest little cocoon that could make you cry if you thought about it too long.

"Come on," Joe broke the silence, and you felt the cold air of the room reach your back when Joe used an arm to close the refrigerator, leaving you in a darkness your eyes had to get used to again. You took another turn in Joe's arms and let him guide you back to your bedroom, and you realised the painkillers had kicked in already. The headache that had awoken you felt far away from you, and curling back up in bed with Joe felt heavenly.

You'd been sensible and had laid down on your side of the bed on your side, ready to drift off to sleep again, entirely unsure of how much more time the night held for you. But Joe didn't like your sensibility and reached for your arms to pull you over to his side of the bed, making you scoot into him as he did the same.

Arms tangled, legs braided and torso's pressed together, you melted into one. You pressed a soft kiss into the part of Joe in front of your face, your lips landing in between his collarbones. Joe shifted a little, and you felt him kiss you back, pressing plush soft lips on your forehead near your hairline before sleep overtook you all together.

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@ghostinthebackofyourhead @kiwisa @jasminearondottir @josephquinned @cancankiki @sidthedollface2 @dylanmunson @munsonsgirl71 @alana4610 @emmamooney @xomunson @sadbitchfangirl @thatonefan-girl @paola-carter @eddiemunsonfuxks @figmentofquinn @haylaansmi @thewondernanazombie @hellowhatthehellisgoingonhere @munsonmunster @kellysimagines @dirtyeddietini @mybffjoe @harrys-tittie @chaoticgood-munson @harringtonfan4 @sherrylyn628 @bdpst-massacre @xeddiesbattattsx @05secondsofsexgods @lovelyblueness @adoreyouusugar @nadixq @prozacandnicotine @munsonswhore86 @alwayslindie @thefemininemystiquee @hauntingbastille @eddie-joe-munson @ali-in-w0nderland - add yourself

#joe quinn #joseph quinn #rpf #joe quinn x reader #joseph quinn x reader #joseph quinn fanfic #joe quinn fanfic #joe quinn fluff #joseph quinn fluff #requested #request #sway with me

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seresinsbabe · 1 year

Text

Just Pretend

Pairing: Rooster x fem!reader

Synopsis: After getting home from a really bad mission, Bradley can't cope with the loss and ends up taking it out on you. Inspired by the song Just Pretend by Bad Omens

Warnings: Character death, mild verbal abuse, mentions of insomnia and not eating, angst, very mild fluff at the end.

Just Pretend

THIS BLOG AND ITS FICS ARE 18+ MINORS DNI

I do not consent to having any of my work shared on any other platform. If you see any rendition of my works on another site know that it has been posted without my permission.

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I’m not afraid of the war you’ve come to wage against my sins

I’m not okay, but I can try my best to just pretend

Rooster had fucked up. God he knew he’d fucked up. You’d always been so patient, so understanding. He had trauma, growing up without a father, losing his mother at a young age and all the things he’d seen as a pilot. He had almost convinced himself that he was too hard for anyone to ever actually love him.

Then you came along.

With your sweet smile, your comforting voice. It was like you knew how to handle each and everyone of his mood swings. When he woke up in a cold sweat from a particularly nasty dream it was you who comforted him. Pulling him down into your arms, holding him while you softly sang. On days when he was angry at the world it was you who always knew how to make him smile.

So will you wait me out?

Or will you drown me out?

This time was different, though.

Bradley hadn’t just had a bad dream or a bad day.

He’d had a particularly bad mission.

Going into the full details of it wasn’t something he’d done or could really do with you. And you’d always understood that. In fact you were okay with not knowing. Seeing the way some of the shit he’d seen affected him, you were more than okay with not knowing. He always ended up telling you, at some point. Even if he spared you the worst of the details.

Nothing had gone as bad as this one had.

It was a risky mission to begin with. When he’d briefed on the mission he was told it was more than likely someone wasn’t going to be returning. Rooster knew it was bound to happen to him eventually. He was bound to lose a wingman in this career at some point.

Maybe it would have been easier if was someone he didn’t know. A pilot that he’d never crossed paths with. One that he hadn’t spent more than a handful of nights at the Hard Deck sharing a pitcher or two of beer around the pool table.

It sounded awful to think about it like that, but it was true. Bradley couldn’t help but think that if it wasn’t Bob that died he wouldn’t be as upset.

That he wouldn’t have pulled away from you. Or said those awful words when all you’d been trying to do was be there for him. To love him in a way that only you could.

I can wait for you at the bottom.

I can stay away if you want me to.

I can wait for years if I gotta.

Heaven knows I ain’t getting over you.

It was hard enough dealing with the fact that he hadn’t been able to save one of his closest friends. Now that he had to do it knowing your spot in bed was empty. Untouched because he couldn’t bear to sleep in the bed without you. Fuck, he could barely sleep as it was. Every time he closed his he was met with the image of Bob’s lifeless body being carted off on a stretcher. Or, just as bad, the image of your tear filled eyes as you left without saying a fucking word.

No screaming. No ‘fuck you’. No ‘I hate you’. Not a single. Fucking. Word. Just pain in those pretty eyes.

I know the pain that you hide behind the smile on your face.

And not a day goes by that I don’t think I feel the same.

“You don’t fucking understand!” You felt your lip quiver. Never in the entirety of your relationship had Rooster ever talked to you like this. “Just stop trying to act like you know what the fuck I’m going through. You’ve never lost anyone. You can’t come close to fucking understanding.”

He had only told you bits and pieces of what happened, enough for you to know that Bob was dead and that Rooster felt like it was his fault.

From the beginning of your relationship he’d warned you that he had been through a lot. But that had never deterred you, because he’d never let things spill over like this. Rooster had always been good at not letting outside forces affect his relationship with you. He’d always caught himself before it got to this point.

Hearing the anger in his voice as he raised it at you for the first time ever stung. You hadn’t even been trying to understand, you were just trying to comfort him like you always had.

“Roos…I-I’m no-” he cut you off.

“Just stop. Okay. I can’t take being around you right now. A hug and a kiss isn’t going to fucking fix this, alright Y/N. You’re not a fucking therapist. You’re just a fucking secretary.” A bitter taste filled your mouth as you listened to his words. Whoever the man that stood before you was – it wasn’t the man you’d fallen in love with. It wasn’t the man who’d proposed to you just weeks before the mission.

No more words were spoken as you packed a bag. You looked at him with teary eyes one last time, hoping he would say something, anything. Nothing ever came and you left for your sisters.

So will you wait me out?

Or will you drown me out?

It was finally the day of the funeral. Rooster showed up in his full service dress. His eyes were dark and sunken in from lack of sleep and bloodshot from the tears he’d cried alone.

The second you arrived he could feel it. Like a change in the fucking wind he knew you were here. Of course you were here. Bob was just as much your friend as he was Roosters.

You looked worse for the wear, but no matter what you’d always be beautiful in Brad’s eyes. As if you could sense him looking at you, and you probably could, you met his gaze. Even from this distance he could see the pain in your eyes. It killed him to know he was partially to blame for the pain.

Something he’d promised both himself and you that he would never do.

Brad knew he had to apologize to you. He’d been thinking about it since the door clicked shut. So many times he’d typed out a message just to erase the whole thing. He could never think of the right thing to say and eventually he realized it would have to be in person. An apology over a fucking text message wasn’t going to cut it. Not when he’d hurt you so bad.

I can wait for you at the bottom.

I can stay away if you want me to.

I can wait for years if I gotta.

Heaven knows I ain’t getting over you.

You so badly wanted to talk to him. You needed Rooster in a way you’d never needed anyone before. Since you’d shown up at your sister’s she’d done nothing but dog on him. So much that at some point you just told her to shut up and walk away.

She was convinced he was finally showing his true colors, but you felt like you knew better.

When you got ready for the funeral that day you couldn’t stop hoping that he would talk to you. Of course there was alway the worry that your sister was right. That even if he did talk to you it was going to be much of what it had been when you’d left that night.

Brad looked like shit. You could tell he hadn’t been sleeping. That he’d been crying and hell possibly not even eating. He tended to lose his appetite when he was stressed like this. It made your heart clench, knowing that he was suffering. You didn’t want that, you wanted to fix it.

We’ll try again

When we’re not so different

We will make amends

Till then I’ll just pretend

“Hey.”

“Hi.”

Your throat constricted and you watched Bradley’s Adam's apple bob. In a split second he was pulling you into his arms. You felt the choked out sobs before you heard them and your arms wrapped tightly around him.

“I’m so sorry, honey,” he finally got out. Rooster pulled away, his hands coming up to cup your cheeks and wipe away the tears that had started spilling from your own eyes. “I-I should have never said that shit to you.” The pain in his voice was loud. “I just- I couldn’t handle it and you were in the crossfire but fuck-” he choked out another sob and it was all you could do to fall against his chest.

This was the man you had fallen in love with.

You pulled back to look up at him, wiping a stray tear away with the soft pad of your thumb. Brad never let himself be vulnerable with anyone but you. He always put on a front, even today it took you pulling him into an empty room at Phoenix’s house for him to have this breakdown.

“You were hurting,” it wasn’t really an excuse but it was the reasoning behind why he’d said what he said. You were sure if your sister heard you right now she’d roll her eyes and call you an idiot. “Doesn’t mean I’m not hurt by what you said, I just wish I’d been able to help before it got to that point.” Bradley nodded dejectedly, sure that you were going to tell him it was over between the two of you.

Sighing softly you pulled him to sit down on the bed. “I love you, Roos, but if that’s going to happen again I don’t know that I can come back.” It was painful to tell him that and you could see that it was just as painful for him to hear it. Even if you knew it was mostly untrue.

Bradley’s eyes went wide at the idea of losing you completely. “It won’t happen again baby, I promise.” He sounded desperate, pulling your hands into his large ones. “I-I called a therapist.” You blinked as you processed the words. It had been something you’d brought up in passing before, but he always insisted he wasn’t that far gone to actually need it. “Baby please don’t leave. I can’t lose you, too.” He was crying again.

This time you climbed in his lap, cupping his face in your hands and kissing away the tears. “I’m not leaving baby,” you promised and you knew it was true. Even when you left you knew you were going to come back to him. “I love you way too much.”

Rooster finally started to calm down and his hands came up to lay over yours. It was then that he felt the engagement ring still on your finger. “You didn’t take it off?”

You shook your head, smiling weakly at him. “Somehow I just knew if I took it off I’d be putting it right back on.” You gave him a weak smile and he returned it. “You’re worth it Bradley Bradshaw.”

He pulled your face down and connected your lips. A sigh of relief pushing through as you kissed.

“Good, because heaven knows I ain’t getting over you.”

Weigh down on me

Stay till morning

Way down, would you say I’m worthy?

#rooster x reader #rooster x you #rooster angst #bradley rooster bradshaw x reader #top gun maverick #top gun angst #bradley bradshaw angst #bradley bradshaw

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florencemtrash · 10 months

Text

The Wisp Between Worlds

CHAPTER TWO: THE GIRL AND THE WOLF

Acotar fanfic/rewrite. Inner Circle x OC. Eventual Azriel x OC.

Summary: Have you ever wondered what you would do (and do differently) if you found yourself trapped in the fantasy world of your dreams? For Nora, this fantasy of hers is about to play out when she finds herself portaled away to the Moral Lands south of Prythian. But all is not as it seems. Feyre Archeron is missing and the deadline to break Amarantha’s curse draws near. Who will save Prythian now?

Warnings: None for this chapter that I can think of, but expect angst, death, and sadness in the future.

Masterlist

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THIRTEEN MONTHS AFTER THE GIRL ARRIVED

The village people still whispered when she passed. With her strange features and unknown origin, coupled with the depressing lack of gossip in their small town, rumors spread like wildfire.

“She’s a high fae that appeared in the dead of night to Jaskiel Klavier,” Edna Evans whispered to her many sons, the youngest of whom still clutched her skirts in the marketplace so he wouldn’t get lost. “She promised him immortality if he would hide her in the moral realm. Can you imagine?! Even the fae are terrified of their own lot. Stay away from the creature.”

Others guessed she was Jaskiel’s bastard daughter, born to a mistress on the far east side of the continent who’d risked everything to reunite Nora with her rich, merchant father. What shame and disappointment the girl must have felt when she found out Jaskiel was penniless.

The only rumor that pleased Nora was the one that labeled her a foreign-born royal, hiding in their small town close to the wall to escape assassins. The people who believed that were the ones most likely to leave her alone.

Still, none of their theories could come close to the ridiculousness of the truth - that she was really a being from another world, an unfortunate accident that had slipped through a rift in space-time and landed unceremoniously in the Moral Lands south of Prythian. As far as interdimensional beings went, Nora was incredibly boring.

The trip through the rift had been brutal. To her it felt like years, maybe even decades, had passed with her body in a constant state of drowning. She’d been stretched into spaces both infinite and infinitesimal in size. When the pressure on her body had finally ceased she’d found herself cradled in silt at the bottom of a pond. With just enough strength and sanity left to emerge from the murky waters, Nora had dug her fingers as far into the loose and wet soil as they could go and promptly passed out. That was how Jaskiel and Dinah Klavier found her - soaking and swampy amidst the katniss plants.

“Ignore them, dear,” Dinah laid a hand on the small of Nora’s back as some of the townie boys sneered. Tommy Blicker, the blacksmith’s son, grabbed her arm roughly as she passed. His sturdy fingers were strong enough to support the dozens of iron rings he sported. His flat lips turned down when Nora didn’t react.

Nora’s frown was deeper, eyes the color of strong coffee narrowed at the boy. Dinah slapped his hand away, giving him a deadly glare before he stomped off to rejoin his friends.

Iron, everyone in town wore it or had it concealed somewhere on their person: iron buttons, iron rings, iron necklaces. Even Nora wore iron in the form of two bracers on her wrists. But that didn’t stop people like Tommy Blicker from harassing her. She couldn’t imagine his disappointment when she hadn’t run away from him screaming. Everyone knew iron burned the fae.

The only ones who didn’t wear any metal at all were the Children of the Blessed.

Dinah steered Nora away as two of their cloaked members stepped into their path, preparing to intercept them.

“May the Mother bless you,” they called out in weak and wispy voices, waving a thin stack of papers in their hands.

The stream of villagers on their way to the weekly market parted around them like water around stone. The shorter one with chestnut brown curls peeking out from beneath her hood caught Nora’s eye and immediately bowed, the other following shortly after.

Nora cast a wary eye towards the Children of the Blessed.

“They’re nothing but a bunch of religious fanatics. No need to pay attention to them.” Dinah’s lips tightened as she saw Nora fold in on herself, ducking her head as they continued on their way to the market. Nora instinctively pulled up her hood, wrapping it tightly around her head to keep the Children of the Blessed at bay. They’d snipped off a lock of her hair three months ago. It was such a small action - she hadn’t even noticed them at first - but more violating than anything else she’d experienced. She imagined them passing her hair around in their secret circles, scheming about what piece of her to take next so they might finally cross the wall into Prythian.

“Have you heard back from the other villages? About my letters?” Nora asked, trying to ignore the Children of the Blessed as their eyes followed them down the road.

Dinah sighed and shook her head. “I’m sorry dear. No one’s heard of your sister, Feyre.”

It was a lie she’d told Dinah and Jaskiel when she first met them - that she’d been separated from her sister after being kidnapped by slavers and taken across the sea from the Continent.

In truth, the only sibling Nora had was an older brother - charming and dead after being struck by a drunk driver 6 years ago. She tried not to think about her parents sitting in their now empty house - it hurt too much.

Where was Feyre Archeron?

Someone must know about her.

She lay awake at night dreaming about finding her and following her to Prythian. Perhaps one of the High Lords or ancient creatures there would be able to send her home.

Nora eventually split off from Dinah, shouldering the potato sack that held her beaver and rabbit pelts while her adoptive mother bought their weekly supply of food and medicine. Whatever money Nora was able to make would go towards buying Dinah a new pair of shoes. The current pair were flat as string and barely thicker.

Moriarty’s shop was as stocky and brick red as the man who owned it. Smoke curled its way out of the chimney, carrying with it the scent of blood and newly cooked meat. It made Nora’s mouth water. Her stomach clenched painfully - a feeling she was growing accustomed to. Gone were the days when all it took to solve her hunger was a walk to the kitchen or a drive to the nearest grocery store.

A stranger stood outside Moriarty’s leaning against the brick wall and fiddling with a thin, iron knife in her hands. Her silver-streaked hair betrayed her age, even though her body was as sturdy and immovable as a mountain. The hilt of her broadsword peeked out from behind her back and Nora tried not to stare at the angry scar that ran the length of her cheek, pulling at her jawline like someone had tried to trace her profile.

“You’re the fae girl, aren’t you?” The woman called out. Her voice held the reedy twang of the western villages.

They’re nothing but a bunch of religious fanatics. No need to pay attention to them.

But this woman didn’t look like one of the Children of the Blessed.

“Excuse me?” Nora froze in her tracks, tightening her grip on the sack.

The older woman pushed herself off the wall, towering over Nora’s small frame and looking her up and down with a dissecting gaze.

Nora jerked back as the woman flung out a leather hand, yanking her cloak down so she could get a look at the girl’s ears. The curve of them was distinctly human. Nora grabbed at her hair, flattening the locks against her skull so they couldn’t be snipped off.

“It’s just as I supposed - not a fae. Not at all.”

The woman’s eyes caught sight of her sharp cheeks - too sharp for a girl as young as her - and the gaunt brown eyes staring back. Strapped to her back was an old, weathered bow, far too large for someone of her size to handle. Concealed within the folders of her cloak was a quiver to match. The woman counted three arrows inside of it, the tips blunt and stained with blood.

“You hunt?”

“...yes.”

“Do you hunt well?” The girl’s eyes sharpened, lips turning downward. They seemed almost designed to frown.

“Well enough.”

“Beavers, squirrels, deer, maybe - if you’re lucky.”

She beckoned her closer, gesturing for Nora to open the sack so she could look at her meager offerings. There were 4 beaver pelts and two rabbits, already skinned - a decent hunt… but would hunts like this help her get through winter? Already the snow was sticking to the ground, covering tracks as quickly as they were made.

“I’ll give you 100 copper for the lot.”

Nora almost barked out a laugh. She was hoping, praying, for 40 from Moriarty - and that was if he was feeling generous. 100 copper… that would last them for a month. If they were careful - and they knew how to be careful - they could stretch it an extra week. A month… another month to wait for winter to come and pass them by. Hunting to save, not hunting to live until tomorrow.

“What, you want more?” the woman cocked an eyebrow.

“No!” Nora blurted out, “I just mean…” she hesitated. No one in their right mind would pay that much, “I’ll take it.”

Her heart pounded like a hammer against her chest as the woman carefully counted out 100 coppers, slipping them into a small leather bag and dropping it into Nora’s outstretched hand. She immediately picked out a metal piece at random, inspecting it for counterfeit marks.

The woman huffed, “My money is true, girl.”

“I’ve been told that before, ma’am.” Nora said, daring to be polite. Her voice was as clear as a songbird. “I mean no disrespect.”

“No. You’re just careful.” Nora handed over her bag to the strange woman, legs eager to run towards the grocers and find Dina. The weight of the coppers grew heavier by the second.

“Girl,” the woman said sternly, hands back to the iron knife, “Don’t go out into those woods any more. It’s not safe.”

Obviously. Beyond those walls Prythian waited like a feral dog itching for release.

“I can’t.”

“Can’t what?”

“I can’t not go.” What choice did she have? With Jaskiel ill at home and Dinah already working herself to death, how could she not? “I’ll take my chances.”

The woman’s eyes narrowed, brilliant blue irises gleaming colder than the air around them. She pulled a single arrow out from her own quiver - paler than any Nora had seen before - and thrust it into the girl’s arms.

“Ashwood,” she said, answering Nora’s unspoken question, “Use it well.”

With the faintest smile the woman walked out onto the main roads and disappeared into the crowd of townspeople.

Nora waited a few moments for her heart to slow its beating before walking as quickly as she dared towards the grocers to find Dinah. Her eyes had grown to the size of dinner plates upon hearing of the money she’d earned. They worked to lessen the weight of coppers in Nora’s pocket, ordering Dinah new shoes from the cobblers and getting an extra supply of medication for Jaskiel before rushing home to hide the rest of the coins in the shredded upholstery of Jaskiel’s chair.

Hunting to save, not to survive.

For the first time in eight months, Nora felt some rush of relief enter her body.

>>>

Use it well.

Nora repeated the words to herself as she stalked through the forest, a slender arrow notched in her bow. Not the ashwood arrow. No, that was far too valuable for her to waste on the doe she’d been tracking for hours now, carefully following its narrow footsteps in the snow before it could be covered over. Normally she preferred to leave the females alone. Killing them now would only make it harder to hunt in the future. But now… now Nora didn’t have a choice in the matter. Jaskiel wasn’t getting any better, if anything the cold was making him worse. He’d never fully recovered from the illness that had ravaged the village three winters ago and his legs remained bone-thin and twisted. Every night the frost seemed to linger at the edge of the door, waiting to breathe death upon the man she’d come to see as an adoptive father in these strange lands. Nora needed to hunt if she wanted them all to survive. It was this fear, this most basic need to live that had driven her further into the woods than she would normally dare go.

It was early morning, the sun’s light beginning to pool over the earth like a bleeding wound. The cold seeped through her coat and her boots - both hand-me-downs from Dinah - and she felt that familiar twist of hunger in her stomach. There had been no time to waste this morning as she set out from the dilapidated cottage on the edge of town, ready to dive into the shadowy woods that called her name. It was hard not to think about where she’d been only eight months ago - sleeping in her own room with central air to keep her toasty in the winter and cool in the summer. There were no such things in the Mortal Lands. She wondered if there ever would be.

Somewhere in the distance a branch rustled, cutting through the crisp, clean silence. The creature was coming towards her. Nora immediately strapped her bow onto her back before clammering up a tree. The bark was frozen beneath her fingertips, cutting through the thin wool gloves she’d saved up money for last month. But still she found every crack and crevice to latch onto, her body moving through the branches with hardly a rustle. She settled into a crouch, knees pressing into the nook between two branches as she squinted her eyes, searching for the doe’s tan coat to appear against the snowy backdrop. She could hear it now, the faint crush of snow being disturbed.

There.

The doe slowly emerged from behind a thicket, shaking off the thin coat of snow that had accumulated on her back. Black marble eyes peered out and, seeing nothing, continued on her way through the woods.

Nora notched her arrow, holding her breath as she pulled back against the taut bowstring. Her breath ruffled the fletching.

Come on. Come on. Just a little closer.

The doe stiffened, head jerking up so that Nora could see its eyes widen. Before it could bolt she let the arrow loose. The doe stumbled as it ran, the arrow lodged in its neck when she’d been aiming for the eye. It bleated in pain, running back into the thicket and disappearing from sight.

Nora cursed, clambering down the tree and taking off after the creature.

It couldn’t have gotten far, but then again if it ran too close to the wall she’d have a hell of a time dragging its body back to the village.

She followed the trail of blood like breadcrumbs, the pull of hunger dragging her legs forward even though the beginnings of a headache flashed behind her eyes. Finally she found the creature laying in the snow, labored breaths slowing into nothing. Her relief was short-lived, however.

There was another hunter in the woods today.

Lurking in the shadows of an elm tree, sniffing the air and licking its lips, was a wolf. Its dusty-gray body was taller than a fully-grown man, shimmering coat catching the light as its tense muscles rippled beneath the skin. Something about it felt… wrong. She’d never seen a wolf before, couldn’t judge whether it was the right size or whether the magic of this world made them different. But a voice whispered in her that it was different, special.

Nora had three options as it stalked towards her, acid green eyes sparkling with power: run and hope she could outrun it long enough to climb a tree, shoot the wolf, or die. Only one of those options would guarantee her a meal and as her stomach clenched painfully once more, her choices narrowed.

She swiftly pulled out the ash arrow and drew her bow, holding her breath as she aimed.

Use it well. Use it well.

Staring down the shaft she saw the wolf gaze at her, a familiar human emotion crossing its inhuman face. It took Nora a moment to recognize it. Relief. Relief flashed across its face. Nora froze as it tilted its head to the left, exposing its neck to her.

This was a familiar scene - the huntress and the wolf. She’d read it in a book once in her old world; a book about a human woman who’d been stolen away to an eternal spring in Prythian.

No. No. This can’t be real. But the wolf didn’t disappear as she lowered her weapon and walked as close as she dared. His sharp, intelligent eyes continued to stare at her.

“Faerie… that’s what you are. Isn’t it?” The wolf snapped his head towards her, green eyes widening.

“Do-do you know Feyre Archeron?”

A flash of recognition and a growl from deep in its throat was all Nora needed in confirmation. Wherever Feyre was she wasn’t here in the human realms to continue this story, not in the way it had been written. A flurry of excitement, strange and fiery, rushed through her body. She didn’t know why she’d been brought to this world, but she did know that whatever answers existed were waiting on the other side of the wall.

She drew her bow. “I’m sorry.” Nora said, hoping it would provide some comfort to the beast, before she let loose her arrow, straight into the wolf’s right eye.

It took her hours to drag the deer carcass back home, even with the makeshift sled cutting trails through the thick snow. The wolf she’d left behind for whatever, or whoever, came for it.

“Nora?!” Dinah rushed out of the house as the young girl emerged from the tree line, sweat lining her skin and slowly freezing there. She gasped at the doe Nora dragged behind her.

The small cabin was a flurry of activity, the scent of blood and flesh filling the air as Dinah made quick work butchering the doe on the kitchen table. They’d dry some to keep in the cellar and sell the rest at the market today.

Nora sat quietly next to Jaskiel, damp hair slowly drying in the heat of the fire, as he sipped his tea and munched on a crust of bread. Her own empty cup lay abandoned on the floor by his seat. It was an old armchair that smelled faintly of mildew with wooden legs that had been chewed upon by all manner of insects and mice, but he sat there like it was a cloud made of the purest silk. Anything that got him off his feet was a welcome reprieve from the chronic pain in his legs.

“Thank you, child.” Jaskiel said, his smile tinged with sadness as he gently ran his fingers through Nora’s hair, untangling the knots. He offered her the remaining half of his bread, which she initially declined.

“Come now, Nora. You need to eat to keep up your strength. I can’t imagine the lengths you traveled today.”

With some hesitation and a bow of her head, she accepted the meager morsel, chewing it slowly so that it softened in her mouth. Even when the bread was gone the taste lingered behind, sweet and comforting on her tongue.

Her eyes remained trained on the door as night slowly descended upon the village.

What have I done?

________________

Author’s Note: And here is Chapter Two! I recently came out with a masterlist for this fanfic because I plan to continue writing this extensively. Here’s to hoping I figure out my work and writing schedule so I can start posting consistently. Thanks for reading! As always please feel free to reach out and let me know your thoughts!

#acotar #acotar rewrite #acotar fanfiction #the spring court #acotar spring court #inner circle x oc #azriel x oc #found family #writeblr #a court of thorns and roses #azriel #azriel shadowsinger #azriel x reader

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thricedead · 2 days

Text

BSCTTD2 CHAPTER 1 YAY

i; Before she calls them to dinner

“Beauty will be CONVULSIVE or will not be at all.”

André Breton, Nadja

“Why? To me killing isn't a matter of such great consequence as you might think. When a woman is captured, her man has to be killed anyway. In killing, I use the sword I wear at my side. Am I the only one who kills people? You, you don't use your swords. You kill people with your power, with your money. Sometimes you kill them on the pretext of working for their good. It's true they don't bleed. They are in the best of health, but all the same you've killed them. It's hard to say who is a greater sinner, you or me. (An ironical smile.)”

Ryūnosuke Akutagawa, In a Grove

"When my father left Ma, she moved away to a more traditional seaside house near Kaštel Novi.”

Faust’s boyfriend lets him know this on an August afternoon, in bed. Pillow talks of the dead are naturally off-putting, but six years with Beowulf have taught Faust to accept sudden bouts of his good mood as they come. He doesn’t only allow Beowulf to speak of his mother, he even asks him:

"What was she like?"

"Two storeys tall with uneven stone walls. Some of the furniture in there was plastic and modern, and some was really old. An elderly relative left it behind. On the kitchen counter, there was an aquarium with no fish."

It takes a moment for Faust’s confusion to subside, a moment for him to realize that Beowulf was talking about the house and not the woman. He replies:

"Any old house on the coast, then."

"Mm. It was built on a crag hanging over a small cove. It would be unfair to call it a cliff. The water down there was shallow and green.”

Faust finds himself at once unwilling to entertain any more ridiculousness.

“Fine, that’s the house. But what about your Ma, Beowulf? What about her?”

The anger in Beowulf breathes in its sleep, periodically swelling and deflating. Finally, he gives up with a sigh:

“Whenever I picture her, she has already drowned. She is now somewhere at the bottom.

CHAPTER 1: MAY ALL MY ATTEMPTS BE FRUITFUL AND TENDER

AS NARRATED BY NEVA S.

I am called Neva. This has been the name on my papers ever since I was born. In my actual lived experience this name is rarely, if ever, used to refer to me, and thus its value and esteem deteriorated with time. It isn’t that “I think nothing of my name”, that “it is only a word to me”, because especially within the context of being a name that Mama chose for me, it degenerates into a far more abstract absurdity than ‘a word that means nothing outside of its coercively assigned allusion to myself’. It isn’t a non-existence but an anti-existence. I am unable to retain that “Neva” is a written/spoken call to action for my own self, and I am also unable to conceptualize “Neva” as the river that flows through Sankt Petersburg or alternatively as Finnish for “poor fen”, a type of wetland. The action of carelessly tacking this name on a baby seems to have taken away this word’s ability to represent anything, yet I am weirdly repulsed at the idea of “Neva” as merely a trivial sequence of sounds and symbols. I cannot, in good conscience, condemn it to a nullified stasis. Perhaps, because I am averse to being “processed” in order to be “rendered digestible”, I am also hesitant to allow my name to mean something that pushes a particular mental image onto another. Be it an enormous river or peat deposit upon a hollow depression in the ground, both of these allude to something slow-moving that chips away at its basin to nestle comfortably within the earth. As one who lacks not only the capacity but also intent to find herself a resting place within the organic world, I consider this water-name and the choice to assign it to me a violent attack on my integrity. I feel glad that none in my vicinity know to differentiate wetlands, nor to point at Sankt Petersburg on the world map.

My family began assigning me diminutives fairly early on. Perhaps they found a river-name too enormous for me. Rather than “Neva”, to this day I am more often called “Nene” or a more common variant, though a nickname that includes repetition of “Ne” is preferable. Similarly to how infants’ babbles of “mama” and “baba” were assigned to the figures of authority over those infants for the feel-good purpose of their baby’s first words being those of recognition, “Nene” may have been something I stuttered while attempting to pronounce my true name, and my parents allowed it to stick around as my first instance of self-recognition. This is, perhaps, why I opt to have my friends call me “Nene” instead of “Neva” even now. I am much more keen on being called some jumbled nonsense I came up with on my own than being called “poor fen” because Mama decided so. Perhaps by continuing to call me Nene after I spoke that word, my surroundings implicitly allowed me to develop into one who cannot peacefully comply with whatever value one is assigned to her by the watchful outside eye.

I’ve got one brother, younger by six years. He is called Beowulf. Much like my own, his name ended up butchered into the diminutive “Wulfie”. Unlike mine, the reason to shorten his name is fairly reasonable, as his is a foreign name (old English) that feels awkward on Croatian tongues due to its softness. Beowulf is a man-name, because Beowulf from the homonymous epic stands at the roots of a long tradition of poetry devoted to national heroes from bygone centuries. On the contrary, Wulfie is an animal-name, alluding at best to a beast cub. I think this name is much more fitting for my brother who has been senselessly driven by nature since the moment he was born. He was pretty simple-minded as a child, so Papa may have thought he’d come to react to the sound of his own name more intuitively if he changed it into something easy to shout. Like a dog.

Having grown up to a point where he could understand reason, Wulfie accepted his animal-name. Perhaps his tendency to bark when wronged and bite when scared could be described as him “growing into it”. I don’t think it’s determinism as much as conditioning - because everyone was satisfied with the bare minimum of humanity from that child, it wasn’t necessary for him to develop any further than becoming “a creature that can attend school”. So long as he could spend five or six hours sitting in relative silence and return home with a satisfactory report card, nobody expected Wulfie to be able to “comprehend what he was learning”. He only needed to be able to apply it during examinations, not in his daily life as a member of society, so nobody particularly expected Wulfie to make friends or find a girlfriend in a manner typically ascribed to teenage boys. I admit I struggle profusely to see Wulfie as male, as though he belongs to an alien species in which sexual dimorphism isn’t particularly prominent. Having stripped him of his man-name, we may have degendered Wulfie to a degree where he was not considered a male because he did not piss the carpet.

At the end of this tangent of mine lies news of someone’s death, a death that I have been intentionally skirting about as the circumstances are somewhat embarrassing to entertain. At some point - I distinctly know it was soon after I found employment (at that point I had already been away from home for seven years or so), Wulfie contacted me in a haste. He asked me to lend some man a bed in my apartment for three or four days, and specified (in this order) that the man was employed, cleanly, and would owe him a favor afterwards. While not an exceptionally charitable person, I agreed to do so because Wulfie never really asked me for anything before, so I may have been somewhat curious. However, if he hadn’t specified those three things, I can’t say I would have agreed. The man spent three nights sleeping on my couch, and though he never said anything that implied such a thing, I came to the conclusion that he was Wulfie’s lover. I didn’t say anything to suggest I was aware of it to either of them, but after that man left, Wulfie never contacted me again throughout the following four years. At the end of the fourth year - on Friday, December 26th - I ended up seeing that man’s obituary in a magazine, so I called Wulfie on a whim to confirm my suspicions.

The phone call with Wulfie leads us to the present point. Even though it’s been over three weeks since his boyfriend went and kicked the bucket, I am unable to stop returning to the four-day period in which I had him as my housemate, nor to the twelve years in total when Wulfie and I lived as siblings under the same roof. The untimely death of Faust S. (that was the man’s name, and he worked as an occasional photographer for a small number of magazines) appears to me as unseverable from the death of my Mama to the point of fervent, schizotypal thinking. Shaped like a willow tree, long and bent, Mama keeps resurfacing into the dark room behind my eyelids, naked and glistening as if she were slathered in oil.

My Mama - who is also Wulfie’s Mama, though less directly so, as she passed away before he developed any communication skills - was named Laura S. If there is such a thing as a woman-name, hers is one. Laura was the name of the muse of Francesco Petrarca the poet, a woman beloved in a way that can only be described as “sublime”, encompassing both meanings of the word: “of unparalleled beauty” and “that which evaporates instantly without reaching an intermediate liquid form”. I feel I loved my Mama in this sense: first as a pinnacle of solidity, and then a gaseous ghost. The lacking central stage in which I would be weaned from her and come to love her as a person never occurred. I cannot claim to know what sort of woman she was. I feel that she was merely “a woman” in her undiluted form. Was this only because she bore a woman-name? She only ever appeared to me as “a mother” or “a wife”. Even after she and Papa went their separate ways, she continued gravitating towards being able to fulfill those roles. I felt that even in the way she signed her divorce papers there was a resigned wifely preparedness, a dignified forfeit to the master of the household. Compared to her, I respected Papa a lot more, even though he is usually described as a no-good who only gets by in life because he injured his leg in the War.

Even though I respected him, I cannot in good conscience say that he was a dignified parent. Two instances stick out of my mundane childhood to prove this, and both are related to Mama’s passing. Once it became inconvenient to withhold the truth any longer, rather than telling us that Mama had died, Papa told me and Wulfie that he wouldn’t be driving us to the seaside on the fifteenth, because we no longer had any family down there. This clunky, implicit confession of death made me crushingly unhappy. He was holding a crooked cigarette in a gentle bite, and a weak wail could have knocked it over and out… but Papa didn’t cry.

Because Papa did not cry, Wulfie and I held back as well, even at the funeral. Mama was the youngest daughter-in-law in our family, five years junior to the wife of Papa’s little brother. She was young, so she didn’t have much in common with any of the aunties and grandmas. The only ones who cried for her were our grandpas and uncles, who seemed to have liked her because of her youth. As they lowered her casket, I suddenly became irritated. Somebody said she was as beautiful as a picture, and another said, God takes the beautiful ones for himself sooner! I decided to blame my lack of tears on that inept lamentation rather than a lack of affection for my Mama.

The real “show” began when Wulfie threw a tantrum as we were about to leave the church. One of the aunties (that little brother’s wife, five years Mama’s senior) had let him know that people don’t come back anymore once you put them into the ground. This was difficult to conceptualize for a child who spent his days soundlessly hypnotized by the TV - he’d probably been expecting Mama to suddenly pop out of the grave as a zombie in a couple of hours or days. He began crying because he was confused, not because he missed his mother, but I suppose some aunties interpreted it as a gut-wrenching display of mourning, and began to cry as well. Papa grew embarrassed because he couldn’t tear Wulfie away from the rack of religious magazines, and smacked the kid twice on his behind in retaliation… It was really unsightly. That may have been my first time going to stand a little off to the side from my father and brother, hoping that my features would not betray our relation.

So you see, being raised (alongside such a brother, too) by a parent who was hardly worth his salt, I developed a strong inclination to assert myself as a “voice of reason”, an “arbiter” of sorts who would function according to some predetermined objective principles. I may be poorly-suited for such a role, being a person distinctly out of touch with what the majority of society considers to be “reason” itself, and yet I strongly yearned for this role within my family. I wanted to become an “arbiter” rather than a “daughter”. This manifested in me most strongly when I would be made to interact with Mama any time after the divorce.

Because she didn’t own any property of her own and her parents died one after the other while she was a student, Papa agreed to let Mama live in our weekend house at the seaside. He probably felt he owed her something, because ever since the start of their marriage, Mama’s life revolved around him to a point where she didn’t really have any friends anymore. She didn’t even have any friendly acquaintances. She had nowhere to go moving forward, and nowhere to come back to. Even though she was apparently looked after by the neighbors, whenever Wulfie and I visited her (on the fifteenth of each month) there would be more dishes and clothing piled up on the shelves and floors of that house. I don’t know whether she was actually depressed or neurotic, but whenever she was around us, Mama presented herself as an exemplary host. For a woman who didn’t have a house of her own nor a husband, she made for a wonderful housewife.

That house was made of rough white bricks as many seaside houses tend to be, and the walls’ insides were intentionally left bare to achieve a rural sort of aesthetic. It was called a weekend house for a reason - while it was equipped with everything necessary for a few weeks’ stay, it wasn’t really built to be a home, and it emanated a sense of transitory hospitality. Everything inside was a muted beige color, and the external AC unit emitted a drone that would become increasingly noticeable and frustrating after several hours. Those underwhelming stimuli blended into a monotony so fatal that Mama would sometimes sing to herself to disrupt it. The year before she died, she would most often sing a folk song called “A mouse has grazed my field”, the faint lilt of her dialect locked in combat with the weight of a fatal loneliness…

She sang, “A mouse has grazed my entire field… oh my Lord, what shall I reap now?”

That was when she noticed me staring, her foot was tangled into a plastic bag from the supermarket. I told her that her performance was a bit sad, so she got kind of upset and told me something odd; told me,

“I’m gonna keep living like this for as long as it’s funny - and then I’ll just stop! I don’t mind what the side characters think. Who are you? And you?”

I tried my best to act as the “arbiter”, to deploy my understanding of societal ethics and force that mother of mine to see some reason in her actions, saying, “This is a farcical song, but you’re making it sound like it’s about a misfortune.” She looked like she was sobering up even though I’d never seen her drinking…

“Who says it's a farce, Little Thyme?” is what she said after an awkward silence had come and gone. “Surely, even at this moment, people on this Earth are losing their fields to infestations. Not to mention the past…”

I found myself suddenly overwhelmed with a need to let her know that they wouldn’t let Wulfie go to school because he was seven and didn’t yet talk like the other kids did, and that Papa attributed it to a hereditary insanity… but I didn’t, because I would have reaped no benefits from it. I wonder if that’s the kind of woman I am? I said “At least pest control will never go out of business,” or some such trivial garbage.

I wonder why I’m thinking about Mama in front of Wulfie’s front door? Is it only because he settled in the weekend house that she left behind, or is it because that photographer is dead now? I startle when I hear a distant scrape and realize that no one has opened the door yet, it’s just my taxi pulling away from the driveway and towards the sole parking spot in the yard. I give the driver a “five minutes” signal, and that same hand balls into a fist prepared to knock. I wonder if Wulfie will look like the last time I saw him, two meters tall with a swimmer’s shoulders to boot, or if a seven-year-old boy might swing the door open and sob into my skirts like they’re a church magazine rack…

I knock thrice, a seasoned executioner at the gallows.

(I suppose I should wrap my narration up by introducing my Papa. His name - a saint-name nonpareil - is Marion S. He is probably still alive today.)

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thatswhatsushesaid · 6 months

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When you’re feeling better, can we please have some fun fish and reptile facts? 🦎

omg 🥹 well i can provide some now even tho i am feeling crappy, because talking about critters always makes me happy

this was my old 10gal set-up for my betta rubra! i had a bonded pair who produced several spawns for me in 2021, and they were a delight to keep. now i just have the male of the pair, as the female died very suddenly (this can happen with wild caught fish unfortunately), and several of the F1 adults from their last spawn. my main pair lived in this set-up on their own, and as their fry grew up, i would separate them out into a 20gal high grow-out tank before taking them down to my local fish store to find their forever homes.

that's the wild-caught male on the right--gomez--holding eggs and fry after spawning with his mate, morticia. (': the little one on the left is one of the fry at about a week old, iirc. a really cool thing about betta rubra as a complex is that they do very well when kept in small groups/colonies, and can become extremely timid and withdrawn and depressed if you keep them in isolation. in my experience, paternal mouthbrooding anabantoid species generally have lower levels of aggression, don't predate their own young, and are much more inquisitive and interested in interacting with humans than bubble-nesters. (this is just in general!! betta macrostoma are paternal mouthbrooders who will nevertheless do fish murder to any other fish that they can reach lmfao)

there's gomez on the bottom again (what a handsome fellow) and some of his F1 offspring as adults!

some other cool betta rubra facts:

like all members of the anabantoid suborder, betta rubra have a labyrinth organ that they use to breathe oxygen directly from the surface of the water. they can in fact 'drown' if not given access to air! this is because they evolved in low pH waters (i keep mine in water with a pH of 6-6.5, but when spawning i lower the pH down to 5.5-6), and low pH water also has extremely low concentrations of oxygen. this is also true of your typical domestic betta splendens fish you might choose to rescue from its little cup prison cell at petsmart, though they tolerate a far wider pH range than betta rubra do.

betta rubra are extremely dedicated parents, particularly the fathers. when holding eggs and fry, it takes the fry upwards of 20+ days to become free swimming, at which point the male spits them out to fend for themselves. but during this time period, the male parent does not eat anything! because he can't! because he's mouth is full with babie. :c that said, newer fathers sometimes, um, forget that their mouths are full, and often swallow their fry a few times before they get the hang of things. gomez was always a very good father tho and never swallowed any of his babies. what a good dad.

they can live up to 7 years in captivity, and are very hardy fish imo.

captive bred populations of wild betta species are super important for the long term conservation of the species given all of the deforestation and pollution that is wreaking havoc on their natural habitat in sumatra.

anyway, there you go, some fish facts 🐟 i'll try to come up with some reptile facts later.

#asks answered #betta rubra #fishkeeping

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juno-box · 6 months

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Hoi! anon again!! so i wanted to ask something abt Dotwd this time. i wanted to ask if you had any "what-ifs" abt twdg & Dotwd. like what if lee & clem went with lilly during episode 3?

Ooooh you don't know WHAT you just asked me o(〃＾▽＾〃)o

[None of this is canon to DoTWD, by the by]

So on a Discord call with my friend, I remember he asked me this SPECIFICALLY. Because we were watching a TWDG "What If" vids on YouTube and one vid was what if Lee went with Lilly. So he asked me, in the context of DoTWD, how would that play out if it were to happen.

Well, not-really-spoilers-anymore but Ben is written to be Rachel's brother. And personally, I can't see Ray leaving Ben permanently in any scenario, that's just not her. Not to mention Lilly doesn't trust Ben at fucking all. So how would that work out?

Lee would have to lie to her. But the minute she realizes, and Clem does, she'd be piiiised. I don't think she'd talk to him for a minute. Hard snub him. Personally, I believe Ray would abuse any opportunity to get back to him.

But the one I wrote for is Lee leaving her with Kenny, Ben, Travis and Chuck. Since Lee isn’t there, neither is Clem. She’d be crushed along with Kenny who’d rightfully feel betrayed. The train would take longer w/o him, meaning they’d put Duck down before leaving, and Katjaa would die just the same as in canon. This also means they missed Christa and Omid.

I think Ben would confide in Travis about what happened, and Travis would be the one to tell him to keep that shit quiet.

They get to Savannah. Molly tolls the bells and they get to the manor. Since there’s only 4 of them, they’d all go together down to River Street and see no boats. They find Molly (after Kenny gets his ass folded) and she helps them get back to the manor with Ray’s convincing. Meaning no Vernon.

So, they’re herd and stuck moping the boat situation. Ray wanders outside to be alone. I should to mention that Ray would be really quiet and reserved since Lee took Clem and left with Lilly. I mean, seeing your father figure literally abandon you and take your surrogate sister with him for someone who tried to kill your brother and killed another member of the group is a lot for a now 9-year-old to fully process. I think like she would feel confused and hurt more than anything. As to how she’d find the boat; she’d probably just open it for no reason, she’s naturally curious. When she finds it, she runs inside and gets the guys (Molly sticks around still).

Kenny inspects it and says all it needs is gas and a battery. Travis suggests Crawford, they go to Crawford. Minus Brie and Vernon, Molly would handle the role of where everything is but it’ll take long due to less people. Ben doesn’t do that dumb thing Telltale made him do for comedic effect but let’s say the walkers banging on the door causes the axe to slip from the handles and it’s go time. Ben, thinking it’s the end of the line, confesses, and Travis has to stop Kenny’s (big) ass from mauling Ben. Kenny says he’s not getting on that boat with them, but Ra says she’s not leaving anywhere without Ben, and Travis is more on the lines of “I know he fucked up royally but we can discuss this when we aren’t about to die”.

They get through to the armory and Kenny gets that shotgun and covers them from behind. The get to the window leading out. Molly, Chuck, Kenny go first.

***

That bell goes off next to Ben and he gets snatched by Oberson like in canon. Travis would be the one to grab him, but he’s struggling. Ben tells him to let go, but Travis won’t hear it. Ray calls for Kenny to help them. Kenny comes back, but the look he gives Ben, it’s full of contempt, malice and disregard as he looks away and descends the ladder.

Travis isn’t strong enough to hold onto him alone. And Ben eventually slips from his grasp, and lands on the bottom of the bell tower. Crack.

Travis just stares until he hears Chuck hurry them from the ladder. Having to drown out Rachel’s gut turning screaming, he grabs her and escapes the tower.

The way home was awful. The time there was worse. Travis could get the girl to calm down even for a second. Throwing every object she could pick up at the fisherman, screaming any insult she could conjure at him until Molly told Travis all the noise was going to draw attention. Travis had to drag the poor child upstairs and lock her in the office until she just stopped. She did, after and hour. When she ran out of projectiles to throw at him, and energy to throw them. After a while, she just wanted to hide, and wanted Travis to go away.

Travis obliges, and he leaves her. He sits at the top of the stairs and just… thinks. He can still feel Ben’s grip around his hand.

He keeps replaying it, over and over. The sound of him screaming as he plummeted to his death, the sickening crack as his body collided with the wood, Rachel’s mortified screeching, and Kenny. Watching. Ignoring. Complicit.

Travis sees Kenny come near the stairs.

T: “Don’t. Don’t you fucking come near us.”

The older man doesn’t argue, and returns to the bottom of the stairs.

Eventually, it was time to leave. The boat was repaired. The choice of who was coming was to be made there and now. Kenny didn’t want to in Savannah any longer.

Molly opted to go on her own. She was always better on her own anyways.

Chuck was still displeased with what happened at the bell tower, but seeing as he had no other plans. He chose to go.

Travis, on the other hand, didn’t know what the fuck to do. It hasn’t been three hours and he’s being forced to chose between staying behind in a dead city or going with the asshole who was complicit in his best friend’s death. At that point, he retreated back into the office with Ray, who’d bawled herself into a restless sleep. He had to think of them; himself and Ray. She’d have another meltdown if he chose to tag along with Kenny in that stupid, fucking boat. Hell, he’d have to make sure she didn’t murder the man or toss him overboard in his sleep. On the other hand, staying in Savannah with no chance to make it out alone was a death sentence.

Travis shook the girl awake. Tiredly, she looked at him, silent.

T: “… he fixed the boat.” R: “…” T: “He said—” R: “I don’t care.” T: “…” R: “…” T: “We can just get on. Ride until we dock somewhere, and go our own way. How’s that sound?” R: “…on our own?” T: “On out own. Anywhere you want.” R: “Anywhere?” T: “Mhm.” R: “… we can’t stay?”

Travis shook his head.

T: “This city’s tapped dry. And it’s full of walkers. I’m not gonna promise anywhere else is safer, but Savannah’s dead. I’m sorry.” R: “… Then mama’s dead, too, isn’t she?” T: “…” Rachel sat up, slumped. R: “…I don’t really care… I’ll wherever you go… just don’t leave me too, okay?”

Travis realized, he hadn't even fully processed that they'd both been abandoned at the same time. Just, discarded. Not even an after thought.

T: “Promise.”

#twdg #dotwd au #ask

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sizhui · 8 months

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Guys i rewrote BEFORE SHE CALLS THEM TO DINNER almost in entirety its here under the cut check itout ♡

Before she calls them to dinner: a family haunted

"When my father left Ma, she moved away to a beach house." says Faust’s boyfriend once they finish. Still in bed, they are all too comfortable for a conversation about the dead - but pacified by the act, his anger seems frayed at the edges, so Faust lets him talk. he asks him,

"What was she like?"

"Two storeys tall, with uneven stone walls. Some of the furniture in there was plastic and modern, and some was old. On the kitchen counter, there was an aquarium with no fish."

It takes a moment for Faust’s confusion to subside, a moment to realize that he’s talking about the house and not the woman. He tells him,

"So any old house at the coast, yeah?"

"Mm. It was built on a crag hanging over a small cove. It would be unfair to call it a cliff. The water there was shallow and green.”

Unable to stand it anymore, Faust gives in to the urge to ask; “Fine, that’s the house. But what about your Ma, Beowulf?”

The anger in him breathes; inflates, deflates. Finally, he gives up with a sigh: “Whenever I picture her, she has already drowned. She is somewhere at the bottom.”

(i) may all my attempts be fruitful and tender

It’s been around three weeks, a day more or less, since that husband of Wulfie’s finally went and kicked the bucket. Wulfie is Klara’s brother, two whole meters tall with a swimmer’s shoulders to boot. When he married a man, it came to the entire family as a great surprise, but not to Klara - he’d always been a strange one, that boy.

Though she spent a considerable amount of time sifting through thought and memory to get them in perfect order, the long willowy shape of their mother kept resurfacing into the space behind Klara’s eyelids, glistening as though slathered in oil. The post-funerary unrest seemed to remind her of the time when Mama passed away - no pomp and no nonsense, the contours of Papa’s face lax in morbid relief as he told them that he wouldn’t be driving them to her place on the fifteenth. More clearly than his expression, though, Klara can recall the cigarette hanging out of the corner of his lips; crooked, heavy. Waiting for the man’s mouth to open in a wail and let it drop.

It never did. The S. family spared little sympathy for this youngest daughter in law of theirs, and neither tears nor ram’s blood were spilled in her honor. Even her two small children shed none! Klara felt pressured into silence, moreso by the idea of her mother’s hungry ghost than the parade of solemnity around her. The grief of a child was just too unseemly, so crude, clumsy and aimless. If they couldn’t mourn her elegantly, Klara felt that Mama would have preferred to be forgotten entirely. When the funeral rolled around, for appearance’s sake, the grandmas and uncles all pretended to be sad - Laura was so young, simply such a raw talent! But that, a posthumous speech, was how everyone talked about Mama even before she was gone, so nothing ended up changing too much, and Klara was glad for it. It wouldn’t have changed much if Klara and Wulfie had cried as they lowered the casket.

Anyhow, right before they left the church, Wulfie ended up making a scene. One of the aunties told him, it seems, that people don’t come back anymore once you put them into the ground. So he really is simple, was Klara’s long overdue realization. It’s not like he didn’t know? People die on TV at home all the damn time. It took a peach-colored church devoted to the virginal heart of Mary and a bumpy graveyard sloping downhill in three layers to drill the permanence of death into that child’s head. Papa’s futile attempts to separate Wulfie from the church magazine rack he’d clung to in the wake of his tantrum embarrassed him, and he ended up smacking the boy twice on the behind in retaliation… It was really unsightly. That might have been Klara’s first time going to stand a bit off to the side pretending not to know her father and brother, hoping that her features would not betray their relation.

For one reason or another, each of Klara’s attempts to reasonably convince herself that she did all she could to help Wulfie growing up ran into the same deadend. She barely forced herself to call when she heard the news last month… so when he picked up they both just silently breathed into the speaker. After five or so distorted puffs she heard Wulfie say, “Klara?” She can’t imagine what he must’ve thought. She held her breath for a while then, listening for movement from the other side of the line.

These days she questions everything. Maybe a depth has always slept within Wulfie, choked out and kept hidden by the harshness of his upbringing. Maybe he’s always been like Papa - no, not their foolish father who could only cling to that which he loved without the drive to know it and die for it - like Mama. But Klara had never been anything like either of them, didn’t even like to think about those things. She was always a practical girl.

A practical girl, that’s about right. A practical woman too, thinking about her mother’s funeral and her brother’s dead husband with such a straight face… Dad once called her machiavellian, but she always liked to believe that she was merely sensible, able to say what has to be said with the kind of face people want to see – please consider hiring me, I like effort and work and mediocre men. I like it joyless and hard. Wulfie wasn’t as verbose as Dad but he had more resolve when it mattered – A stone-cold bitch, he called her once, and she supposed it was fair but…

She's getting put off by this train of thought. She ought to think about something else. Against her will, her thoughts venture to the beach house where Mama lived in early summer, the peeling walls of what must’ve once been a lovely home to somebody else entirely. Muted beige and the drone of the external AC unit blended together into a monotony so fatal that not even all the music that woman played could have disrupted it. Mama’s singing echoing through the rooms, the faint lilt of her dialect versus the weight of a profound sadness -

“A mouse has grazed my entire field… Oh my Lord, what shall I reap now?”

The song told Klara that Mama was in one of her mellow moods, so she rapped her knuckles against the door with utmost gentleness. Laura brought both her palms down upon the piano keys at once, a sonant noise pierced the afternoon like an arrow…

“Well, what do you think? Am I improving?” is what she asked her daughter at that time. Her foot had gotten tangled in the remains of some plastic bag. Klara told her that her performance was a bit sad, and she got upset, told her something really fucked; told her,

“I’m gonna keep living like this for as long as it’s funny - and then I’ll just stop!” she laughed, a startling sound like marbles falling down the stairs. “I don’t care what the side characters think! Who are you? And you?”

“You make even a jokey song sound like somebody died,” Klara tried her best to elaborate, to make that mother of hers see some reason in her actions. And suddenly as though sobering up, Mama shook the plastic bag off of her foot and looked at Klara with a fondness that she hadn’t expected to see that month. “Who says it’s a joke, Little Thyme? Surely, even at this moment, thousands of people are losing their fields to infestations. How unfortunate…”

Klara wanted to tell her that they won’t let Wulfie go to school cause he was seven and didn’t yet talk like the other kids did, and to tell her that she liked painting, and that Papa had called her insane again… but she didn’t, because she would’ve reaped no benefits from that. That’s the kind of woman Klara was. She said “At least pest control will never go out of business…” or some such trivial garbage.

She doesn’t know why she’s thinking about Mama in front of Wulfie’s front door – She knows, she knows, she just won’t admit it – but she is, so deeply that she startles when she hears a distant scrape and realizes that no one’s opened the door yet, it’s just the taxi pulling away from the driveway. Signaling that she’ll take five minutes at most, she stares at the aged door of that familiar beach house and knows it’ll be heavy, that crossing the threshold would be the hardest thing she’d do in her whole life. She watches the door in patient horror, and she doesn’t imagine that Wulfie would look like the last time she saw him, that big young man in a severe shirt. She thinks a seven-year-old boy would swing the door open and sob into her skirts like they're a church magazine rack…

And then she reaches for it, feeling like an executioner at the gallows, and knocks.

(ii) singing - la la - they go

This woman here is named Laura.

Missus S. is a moniker reserved for the bile-filled mouths of adversaries. Mama is the one who cracks jokes while fumbling with the piano for their daughter’s amusement. The death god appears and disappears as the two of them come together, the only hands that can stop the raging god that rests inside his flesh.

Alone with Marion below a dim Zagabrian afternoon, she is Laura. Lau, the way she sits on the barstool, drinking liquor she shouldn't be drinking with half a sardonic smile hanging from her lips, ra, the dirty band-aid on the bruise underneath her right eye. Marion knows what Laura is. He has no interest in his glass of wine, and yet he sips from it with a religious focus. His eyes though, betraying him, slide ever so slightly to the left. Ah -

“My dearest Mary, is there something unseemly on my face?”

The god inside Marion stirs.

“Well… if I do, wipe it off for me, will ya?”

Marion and Laura’s first date had been to a masquerade ball right before Monday of Ash. Laura had come with her schoolmates, and asked him whether he’d disguised himself as a philosophy student, or he really had no money for a better blazer. Marion lowered his glass of beer too quickly and some of it soiled his already filthy sleeve. Laura laughed, unabashed with her own absence of care, thought or ideal. The angel’s wings upon her back shook and shivered.

It's a dim afternoon and they're sitting in a dirty bar somewhere in the neighborhood, and that was almost five years ago. Laura is still laughing.

“Come on. You’re clearly ogling at something.”

„There's nothing,“ Angry Marion, Marion who walks six feet above the ground. Laura crawling in the city shadows, Laura’s fingers dancing across the piano keys like the nonexistent bones in a spider.

„My beautiful eyes?“

Marion who ignores the taunting.

„My blinding smile? You can wipe that off if you’d like, too.“

Marion rips the band-aid off of her face with a sickening squelch…?

“Keep going,” Laura tells him.

So Marion keeps going. The edges of his self burn away as he allows the deity beneath his skin to bloom and flow through his veins. Teeth bared, he shows her his true face: this power to devour, to feed on war and travesty. Old gods desire blood and flesh, and Marion provides. He is hungry, and he wants all their lives to fill the god-sized hole inside him. How corrupt of him, how awful.

Until –

„Already done.“

Slender fingers wrapped around Marion’s wrist so gently that no one would think Laura was capable of it. Against his will, Marion is anchored, pulled along with the tide. Can a suicide be a crime of passion? Yes, yes, yes, Mary, yes. And then Mary-god is just Marion again, stripped of the sentimentality of the immortal, and all his limbs tremble as he collapses into Laura’s arms, limply falling back onto the cheap double mattress.

“You’re so quiet. Could you even be honest if you tried?“ He pauses, feeling the godhood retreat into the depths of his belly.

Laura frowns a little, a phantasm in white sheets. “That hurts,“ she says in a tone most conversational. Then she stands up to get dressed, an undershirt and a shirt and a tweed dress. It's a sight straight out of a horror movie, her bare body, ordinary and clean with nothing to suggest how terrifying it feels to press up against her skin.

"Where are you going?" Marion attempts – and fails – to sound uninterested.

"Oh?" Laura turns around at the doorstep, the barest hint of a smile on her lips. "I thought you were angry with me, still."

"Always am," says Marion, and then adds, "Look after yourself, or else I’ll be the one to kill you."

"What an opportunity! I must see to it, then," Laura pauses to grab one of Marion's hats from the coat rack and places it neatly atop her head. "My, my, as though I’d let myself be killed by just anyone. No one is Mary!"

No one is Mary. Marion wonders, in the hypothetical space inside Laura's mouth, how many versions of that statement exist, to how many people it has been rephrased: no one is Eva. No one is Robin the psychiatrist. No one is -

"Now, now, I can see you’re thinking something mean. Behave and I’ll wake you up nicely." Laura tips the hat’s brim. "Good night, Mary."

Marion spits – red from his split lip – near Laura’s feet. "Don't test me."

“My, my,” Laura simply smiles, the warmth in her voice so strange. "I'll be a dead woman in the morning if I do.“

(iii) the missing rib

“Eve, lend me a match?”

Eva studies the friend on the other side of the booth: Laura’s elbows are on the table, her face squished between her palms. It’s the way a child might sit, and yet everyone knows what she is, what she does. Deathwish Laura, Laura who believes that to live is to devour others.

Eva gives up and slides a matchbox across the table, and Laura’s clawed hand makes a grab for it as though someone has been waiting, as though someone would snatch it away from her.

"Hey," Eva protests. "You said one.“

"I've tried sharing and I've tried caring," Laura smiles sweetly. "Neither has worked out for me."

"I know this of you," says Eva with a somewhat troubled smile. She’s always been too soft when it comes to Laura - she’s not sure what Laura does to her: maybe she put a hole in her, maybe she grew roots in her. Maybe both of those make for the same deadend.

"Besides, Eve," Laura says quietly, like sharing a secret. "What if you die tomorrow?"

"Why would I die tomorrow?" Eva laughs into her glass, but Laura looks grave all of a sudden, an uneasy look that doesn't suit her.

"This is a cruel world we live in," Laura twirls a lock of hair around her finger. "Any of us could die at any time. Don't you know that kings kept skulls in their palaces to remind them of it? Memento mori, I say, memento mori!"

Eva heaves a sigh. "I don't understand you, Laura. You're an amazing person, but you're always talking about death. It's weird."

Laura takes this as a compliment, maybe. "Does that mean I can keep the matches?" she feigns an innocent gaze, spinning the little red and yellow cardboard box in her nimble fingers.

"Sure," Eva gives up. "If you take it I won’t smoke. You’re doing me a favor."

"Perfect!" Laura claps her hands. "Now when Eve dies, every time I go for a smoke it'll be like smoking with her again."

"Laura," Eva rolls her eyes heavenwards. "There you go, being morbid again! I don't want to think about it so prematurely."

"I hope you understand," Laura goes on, "that you saying my name has a unique side effect of pulling me out of a haze and back into the harsh reality where I'm sitting with a matchbox in one hand and a glass of whiskey in the other and confronting my own twisted existence. Which reminds me, I promised Robin a dinner tonight."

"Robin is out of town," used to Laura’s ramblings, Eva ignores her.

Laura shrugs, "Do you really never think about your own mortality?"

"I don't see the point," Eva downs her drink. "We all run out of luck sooner or later."

"What’s your favorite book, Eve?”

Eva eyes her. It’s not like Laura is particularly interested in books, but she likes to ask things like this, just to make you aware of how she knows what’s close to your heart at all times.

“You wouldn’t know of it,” says Eva.

"Ah, the everlasting wish of casket-sleepers to create something immortal!" Laura exclaims woefully, pretending to swoon. "They say that a part of the author always survives in the book. Hey, Eve, do you think I could read that first page you’ve been writing for a month? I'm very interested in your legacy."

"Maybe some other time," Eva humors her. She studies Laura as she tinkers with the matchbox. Open-closed. Open-closed.

"I should be a writer, too," Laura muses. "It's such a creative way to deliver a piece of your mind into this world. Nay, I think I'll stick to music and violence. When you're in Rome..." she gives a graceful little sigh.

"You're an interesting person, Laura. I wonder what you'd write."

"A eulogy," Laura giggles into her palm. "Ooh, or a suicide note."

"You want everyone to believe you're a heartless murderer," Eva studies Laura’s unreadable smile, the one that looks like a barricade or a brick wall. "But you're not."

This seems to surprise her, and she laughs quickly, lifting his eyebrows. "Ah, you're right. I'd say I'm actually an incredibly hearty murderer.”

Laura stands up abruptly and puts on an out-of-place looking fedora hat. "I'm afraid I have to be on my way. Alas, the night is young, and alas I've promised myself."

"Ah." Eva nods. "Take care. See you Tuesday.” But as Laura faded into the crowd, a little knowledge that it would be the last time borrowed itself to her mind.

(iv) lamento

Marion kicks the door shut, and immediately frowns when he turns. Laura is already there, sitting at the foot of his bed and staring into empty space. There’s a whole human skull in her hand, an off-white like the shell of an egg. He spends some time observing how bone is stitched together, stiff and firm, so unlike the tender gore he’s used to.

“Hey,” Says Marion when a minute’s gone by and neither of them has looked at the other, “When’d you return? The seminar doesn’t end till Tuesday.”

He squares his shoulders when no answer comes, none of their usual banter, but he won’t ask Laura what’s wrong. He won’t comfort her. In all these years, they’ve never once exchanged such words.

“I’ll be away for a while. Just wanted t’let you know,” Laura proclaims after a while and artfully spins the skull in her fingers.

“I’ll open a bottle of wine and have a divine night without you.” says Marion. “I’m not in the mood for your mind games tonight, I think.”

“Eve is dead,” says Laura, and rolls the skull across the floor.

Marion stands very still for a moment as he watches it hit the wall, make the pitiful last few inches and then still, “So she is.”

“Tired of life, Mary?”

“I’m sorry that I don’t keep track of the whole pack of humans you keep on a leash for fun,” Marion is suddenly, and inexplicably, mad. “I’ll humor you. So you’ll do what now? Leave this city? Leave our children behind?"

Laura rubs her hands like they’re itching underneath the sleeves, “I’m going to live in a way that honors her thought.”

Marion’s fingers pause around the third button of his vest. Laura could’ve slit her wrists and painted the whole room red, and it would’ve surprised him less than this proclamation. “Good luck with that,” He throws his vest and shirt across the room with enough force to resound in the momentary silence.

“I’m serious.”

“Don’t make me laugh,” Marion watches her through narrowed eyes, this thing splayed across the ornate bed – this bed where they do what humans do: where Laura had once, with playful eyes, strangled a man with one of Marion’s ties and promptly cut him apart in the bathtub. He scoffs. “Laura, you’ve never done a god-honoring thing in your whole piece of shit existence.”

“Eve knew so,” Laura shrugs, and then looks thoughtful. “And she told me to do so anyway. It scared me when I realized she knew what I was. Looked right into my eyes and saw me. It frightened me to the core. What a wonderful feeling, fear. No one’s ever scared me like that before.”

“Bullshit,” Marion spits. “What could she understand?”

Laura laughs, a joyless sound. “You trying to say you understand?”

“Takes a character to know one.”

“You could never understand.” Says Laura, and her voice is cooler than it’s ever been before. “Your head’s so full of things. You’re much above the line of humanity and I’m much below. How could you understand?”

Marion stares at Laura for a while as she crawls across the floor to pick her skull up. Something about the sight finally sickens him to the point where he turns away and towards the vanity, “Then just go. The fuck did you even come to say goodbye for?”

“Would you prefer an honest answer or a poetic one?”

Marion clenches his jaw so hard that it goes white in the reflection contained within his newly cracked mirror. Inside him, the god stirs with a ferocity of a whole night of slaughter. He barks a laugh more than exhales it;“Of all the damn misery in the world, I had to be born as an extra in your story.”

“Now that’s pretty poetic.” Laura tilts her head, “I’m sure you’ll find a nice hill to die on, Mary. Cause that’s all you wanted when you became my lover, wasn’t it? Something worth dying for, anything. Doesn’t matter what thing.”

“Don’t project.”

“I’m not. You’re just the most like me,” In a rare occasion, Laura turns and looks him straight in the eye. For all of this, she can be a surprisingly timid woman. “Eve understood, but you’re the most like me. That’s why I came.”

“Whatever. We stick together because we’re not so easily breakable. Can’t be said for old Eve.”

“I’ll kill you,” Laura’s voice is entirely even. “You think I won’t? I wouldn’t even lift a finger. I’d just have to leave you alone and you’d rot, my friend.”

“I know you would,” Marion spits back. “But would it be easy? Nothing showing on that ugly mug of yours?”

Laura is silent. Silent, silent, not even a shuffle. “You wound me. Of course I’d cry before I sent you off.”

“Get out,” Marion says without turning. “Get the fuck out of here and don’t you come back.”

Marion waits for the creak of mattress springs as Laura stands up, for his hat to be stolen, for her to laugh with a good night – but nothing comes.

He stands perfectly still as the sun sinks into the muddy water outside the window and the room falls dark around him, and doesn’t lap up the contents of the dusty bottle of wine after smashing it against the wall. He feels the god stir inside him, begging to be released, to hunt, to grieve, to take what it wants to take. It hurts. Everything hurts. It hurts – but why, Marion doesn’t know. Why? He thinks. Why is he mad?

What is it that he wants to take back? He would never gain the capacity to figure it out.

(v) stay a while, thou art so -

Wulfie gets into a fight with one of the biggest guys in his class on the first night of the graduation trip, and smacks the teacher who tried to separate them on top of it. All in all spoils the last bleak traces of hope for the future in him, and as he waits to be sent back across the border he furiously taps his foot.

„I have four hundred Euros in my suitcase. Run away with me, won't you?“

The other boy’s name is Faust, and the two of them are nothing akin to friends. They're not even acquaintances. He's almost as tall as Wulfie, his hair long and curled like a girl's. Everyone calls him a faggot, so that's what Wulfie called him too after Faust had slammed a fist into his stomach.

„Or would you rather go back home and have your bitch of a sister yell at you for embarrassing the family? What?“ adds Faust when he notices Wulfie's face is rapidly draining of color, „I listen and know things! Listening and knowing things are the basics upon which the human race evolved… into beasts, that is.“

Wulfie thinks about Klara and her gloomy older boyfriend who drives her to college in a silver car, and feels his stomach make a cartwheel. He and the boy who started beating him first ditch the class and walk around Barcelona until midnight, and then Faust gets them a room in a cheap hotel an hour away from the city center.

Wulfie frowns, already tired of the adventure. He finds that sharing a space with Faust requires a discomforting amount of small talk. Faust is always, Wulfie thinks about it for a moment, trying to fill in all the empty space around himself. Sharing an interesting factoid about the local flora. Chatting about the weather. Wondering what people would think about them both disappearing after evidently beating the shit out of each other – they go back and forth through that one several times like, I dunno, maybe they think I killed you. Haha, Beowulf, good one. At least Wulfie can count on Klara to leave him alone when he made it obvious he wants to be alone. Faust is exhausting and incomprehensible.

He starts talking the very moment the door shuts behind them: „The rooms aren't as run down as the lobby, are they? Oh, we've got a little balcony too. Have you seen my laundry bag? The red plastic one – yes, that one. Do you mind if I shower first?“

It goes on even as Faust returns from the bathroom, looking off in a normal pajama shirt, not tightened into the disgustingly neat navy shirt he'd been wearing. He glances to where Wulfie is lying in the middle of the double bed and arches an eyebrow, „Are you feeling okay?“

And that's when the thread of decency in Wulfie finally snaps, he turns his head and bares his teeth, „The hell are you going on about, ah?“

Faust blinks once, feigning ignorance, „You just seem a bit angry all the time. It’s unseemly.“

Wulfie huffs as he stands up and goes to the balcony to smoke, fumbles with the lighter in the dark. A shuffle of socked feet comes from behind – Faust joins him. The balcony is shit just like the rest of the place, just a stripe of concrete framed in poorly molten rusted iron. Faust leans against the wall; Wulfie leans against the railing. It creaks and bends an inch.

Wulfie exhales the first puff of smoke and says, „So?“

Faust has a piece of gum in his mouth. Wulfie can see him move it around the inside of his mouth. „Nothing,“ Faust shrugs. „We're just hanging out.“

„People don't just do that.“ Wulfie frowns, flicks the gathering ashes into the night. „Hang out with me.“

Faust raises both his eyebrows – they're blond like his hair, look too bright and saturated on his face – and says, „Are you blind? You're the big bully here. You've got half the school at your feet.“

There's a weird accusatory undertone to his words, not quite jealousy, but not far from it either. Wulfie supposes Faust isn't very popular. He doesn't really know. Anyway, it annoys him, the presumption that he's simply pretending not to enjoy the negative attention he gets. He frowns, „They're just curious cause I'm tall. Or cause I don't talk. Or doin' a challenge.“

One time a random girl from year eleven had just snuck up on Wulfie in the hallway and kissed him, and Wulfie flinched and shoved her six feet away on instinct. The girl looked at him all wide-eyed for a moment like, what the hell is wrong with you? before rejoining a group of friends who welcomed her full of giggles, without as much as looking at Wulfie who stood there frozen, staring down at his fist. Can't believe you actually did it, Ema!

Wulfie realizes Faust is giving him a pointed, somewhat expectant look, so he shrugs. „People don't give a damn to get to know me, and that's fine by me. It's whatever.“

Faust joins him in testing the limits of the aged railing – it creaks once more under their added weight, but doesn't cave in. He says, „What are you like, then?“

Wulfie scoffs, „I'd say fuck around and find out, but you already did.“

„You're witty.“

„Very funny,“ Wulfie runs his hand through the coarse hair in the back of his head. It needs a trim. „Just figured, even if I spent time with someone from school, it wouldn't be someone like you.“

„Oh?“ Faust arches an eyebrow. „I'll bite. What am I like?“

„I dunno,“ Wulfie narrows his eyes at him for a moment, trying to gather all he knows about Faust into something concise that separates him from the monotone procession of faces at their school. „You've got good grades. You suck up to adults but you actually think they're more worthless than shit. You probably like books. Or theater. Normal stuff like that.“

„Normal?“ Faust sounds surprised. Pleasantly so or not, Wulfie can't tell. Finally, he seems to give in, „Alright, I'm normal.“

An awkward silence settles once more over the tiny balcony. Wulfie's eyes zero in on the faint colored ring his own lipstick has left on the cig, on Faust's long hair. He remembers the way Faust's eyes would narrow when people stared at him, almost a challenge to point out this or that. Right. Just two normal guys, having a normal smoke.

„You know why I asked you to come with me?“ Faust says out of the blue. Wulfie goes to say, I don't really give a damn, but he is a bit curious, and it's not like he has better things to do. „Why?“ He expects Faust to spill the same old bullshit everyone who sucked up to him said about him being really strong and cool.

„Cause you scared me,“ says Faust. „and that was new. The feeling of looking up at someone who could snap me like a twig. It wasn't like in games, or books. It was more real and honest than anything I'd ever felt.“

Wulfie turns and gives him a long stare, then. Faust goes on rambling, „So I decided to run away and go with you. And it was mostly cause… This might sound weird, but I felt like I could relate to you. It might sound stupid now, but that's what I thought… What are you looking at me like that for? Too normal for your tastes?“

Wulfie frowns a bit, „Nah. ‘s just that… you’re the only one who came out here, so.” He waves his hand around vaguely, too overstimulated to really elaborate.

„Now you,“ Faust elbows him in the shoulder. „I told you something I've never told anyone. Now you do it, so we'll be even.“

Wulfie thinks it over, shakes his head, „That’s not how it's supposed to go. Won't be real cause you forced it out of me.“

„So you're the kind of principled man who values honesty like that, Beowulf?“ Faust's voice is airy, like it's not that important at all. „I don't care what it is as long as no one else knows. It doesn't have to be personal or meaningful.“

Wulfie gnashes his teeth. If he hates talking because he’s bad at saying what he means, he hates talking about himself on principle. What’s there left to say? The truth of Wulfie is evident. They can see he wins his fights. They can see he’s used to doing things he doesn’t like. There’s no need to explain it. There has never been a compelling enough reason to.

He imagines an entirely hypothetical conversation – people talking about his lipstick until they didn’t dare to, putting on Klara’s lipstick like he’s trying for a confession without having to say anything. And he didn’t say anything. He just kept beating the shit out of them.

But Faust never really asked him about any of that, did he? He just asked for something, anything. And Wulfie has already slipped into what was almost a conversation way too easily, maybe because Faust doesn’t really register as other people in his head – other people were Klara and Dad and random passersby in the hallway unlucky enough to have found themselves in his proximity. Faust attacked him first and laughed as Wulfie socked him in the face. Just two normal guys having a normal smoke.

“I like bugs,” says Wulfie flatly. “I know a lot about them. When I lose my cool and need to calm down I say their names in my head.”

„Huh,“ Faust huffs a polite laugh into his hand. „Interesting. Now I can't not imagine those in your head as the soundtrack of you throwing punches. Tell me, do you say them in Latin?“

„Yes. No,” says Wulfie much too quickly, immediately feels like an idiot for it and resolves himself to explain it, if only just part way. „Too far gone by then. I don't mix bugs with fighting.“

„You really like them that much?“

The amusement in Faust's voice can pass for curiosity, so Wulfie admits, „I wanna study biology.“ He knows how stupid it sounds. But he can't help it. It's the one thing untouched by violence and judgemental stares and all else, and it's his alone.

„Thank you for sharing,“ says Faust, with too much sincerity for someone who forced him into it. „Hey, do you want to kiss?“

Wulfie chokes on an exhale of smoke, and stupidly hacks into the cool air. His hand reflexively tightens into a fist shoved into Faust's face as he stumbles back, „You making fun of me now, fucker?“

„Sure,“ Says Faust, looking all too bored. „Relax. I know you don't like me, and I don't like you either. Just thinking about how depressing it'd be to die without doing it. When I was a kid I used to think, I won't die before I have a best friend, but now I think this should generally be enough.“

Wulfie peers down at Faust and wonders what the hell is wrong with him. The guy just confessed that he expected – or intended – for this to be his final wish, that he's been like this for a long time, maybe. But he's still moping about this kind of cheesy teenage dramatics?

„If you don't feel like it, I'll find someone else.“ Faust shrugs.

It's dark outside, and none of the bars within walking distance are any good. The teachers would probably get mad if something bad happened to Faust and Wulfie came back home without him. But it's not like that would happen. Right, Faust could protect himself. He was mean and vicious and violent when they fought, he beat Wulfie worse than anyone before him and his ribs were still bruised. Faust could take whatever Wulfie dished out. If Wulfie shoved him six feet into the room, he'd stand right up and shove him back.

„It's whatever,“ says Wulfie. He turns to awkwardly stand with his elbows against the fence. Faust spits out the gum, steps on the railing and props himself up to reach Wulfie's mouth. It lasts just a second, dry and uneventful. And then a second time, experimental, Faust's tongue finding his. Wulfie keeps his hands on the railing – there's nothing sensual in it, even more so impersonal than kissing a total stranger had been, but it seals a promise anyway, the pretense that no conversation that could be made light of has happened here at all.

Faust steps back down, so there's no need to shove him away. If he did shove him away, Faust would've pushed him over and off the second floor, and there's a strange comfort in it. He seems to think for a moment, and shrugs a little, „That was okay. I forgot you smoked. I'm going to brush my teeth now.“ Then he turns on his heel and goes back into the room, leaving Wulfie feeling like it's all been a part of some bizarre schedule Faust had prearranged just to confess that he's evil and never going to make it home from Barcelona.

It's not like Wulfie cares. He looks down to find his cigarette has burned down to the filter. Sighing at the waste, he flicks it over the railing and wonders if the only person your age you can hang with after beating the shit out of them is your best friend by design

(vi) un, deux

Throughout her childhood, Klara dreamed of romance in the most depraved sense. A love like Mom and Dad's, a man ensnared so thoroughly that the more they beat each other black and blue, the more he'd come back to her. It had to have been utterly addicting, the taste of a forbidden kiss that no one else knows – still, the first time a boy shoved his tongue down her throat was more tasteless than styrofoam, a kiss barely swallowed and forced down her gullet.

There's a picture of Wulfie and his dead husband kissing framed on a cupboard in the hallway. It sends a wave of revulsion through Klara's gut on instinct, and she forces herself to look away from it and into Wulfie's face, the unshaven side of his jaw. He looks her up and down, „The books are in the living room.“

The time they talked on the phone, Wulfie ended the conversation by off-handedly muttering about some of Faust's photography books he doesn't want anymore. The living room is on the first floor. Klara doesn’t know why she expected it to be bleak and spartan, but it’s anything but. A large TV covered in a thick layer of dust, and heaps of magazines and clothing thrown about. On the kitchen counter there’s a terrarium with no bugs.

Wulfie rubs his eyes as he all but collapses into the single armchair. Klara stands at the door frozen and alert until he actually raises his eyebrows and says, “You can sit, if you’d like. For a bit.”

There’s no second seat in the living room, so Klara brings a chair from the kitchen and sits across the small table. “Give me a smoke.”

Wulfie passes her a brand new unopened pack of cigarettes and a lighter that says Barcelona in big red letters. Klara finds it a distasteful trinket. No one moves first to light their cig. No one moves first to reach the ashtray. They sit near each other and Klara thinks about their faces - wide, rough in structure but delicately pretty around the eyes and mouth.

“I wish you could’ve met him,” says Wulfie in the end, eyes fixed on the bright red coffee table that wasn’t there when Klara was young. “He brought life into this place.”

Nah, thinks Klara. All he brought here was more death. But she doesn’t say it. She doesn’t say anything, just lets her brother talk.

“But I didn’t know what to do, face to face with the depth of his unhappiness.” he goes on. “It scared me. Made me lonely.”

Lonely. A brother and sister, lonely for something they can never find in each other.

“When you were a child, I always wished you’d die,” Klara bites the inside of her cheek. “But when I found out you two made a life for yourself, I was relieved. I thought, good riddance.”

Wulfie stares deeply into the side of her nose, and Klara wonders if he knows how much it hurts her, his gaze cold and unyielding like Mama’s as Klara makes her frail unspoken confession: the one who really wanted to die was I all along.

“But at the start,” she says in the end, and it’s perhaps the first time ever that her voice has wavered in such a way. “I really… wanted you to be born, even so. I knew Mama and Papa would only hurt you. I knew we’d be no family… It’s so selfish, but I’m glad they decided to go through with it. You’re the one good thing they brought into this world.”

It’s selfish, but I’m glad you were born - what a cruel thing to say to your brother. And yet, “It’s fine,” says Wulfie, and she doesn’t know what he’s telling her - it’s fine to be sad? It’s fine to forgive yourself? It’s fine to die? They’re not fine – nothing is fine. Even so, Wulfie’s huge body is shaking like a leaf, and more than anything Klara wanted to hear those words, to believe them. Even if they’re a lie. Even if they’re cursed.

They smoke in silence. Wulfie wears lipstick no longer, and the filter of his cigarette is clean. Klara’s is dark red – Mama’s color – she wipes her mouth into the back of her hand, and stands up, “I should go. I don’t want to keep you busy,” she says, though neither of them have better to do.

“Mhm,” says Wulfie, staring straight into the terrarium with no bugs, and Klara wonders if he’ll be fine. She wonders if she’ll be fine, anyone. “Good night, Klara.”

“Night, Wulfie.”

“Hey,” and Wulfie looks like he’s about to do the hardest thing he’s done in his whole life - allow himself to be gentle with her, if only for a moment. “Don’t be a stranger.”

She smiles, or maybe just imagines herself smiling at this.

“Good night, Beowulf.”

As Klara leaves the living room with six photography books under her arm, she wipes off the remains of her lipstick. And then she ties up her hair.

As the driver starts the car, the sun sets, slowly and mournfully as though sinking into a grave it dug for itself.

(vi) maybe I’ll be eaten by Beowulf’s Ma

“Get a move on, sweep the terrace or something.”

Faust’s left eye starting to twitch as he spoke was her cue to remove him from the house. After the old man lost his job, they moved to a two-room shack outside of Zagreb, where it was cheaper to live and she could grow some of the food on her own. Besides the room where they all slept and a kitchenette, there was a terrace and an attic. That attic was by far the more interesting of the two, but they spent one night too many huddled up there to evade drunken sluggishness. Please let him tell you about the terrace instead.

It was a square of concrete, walled up on three sides and open on the fourth towards a street called Naftaplinska cesta - oil and gas road. Nothing in Faust’s childhood was poetic other than his rage. And whenever that threatened to spill out, she would send him to sweep the terrace with a corn broom. That broom was the epitome of everything that enraged him: just like this rage of his, it was something that could be found in every household. Ordinary, cheap. You could sweep the terrace, or you could even beat your wife with it if you liked. Take your pick.

Faust’s mother did not know of the play Faust. The pinnacle of literature for that woman were the paperback erotica novels that one could buy at the newspaper kiosk. Thus, to his great disappointment, she could not name him after it. He was actually named after an inventor. In 1617, a man named Faust Vrančić jumped from a Venice tower wearing a rigid-framed parachute and survived. He would later describe it in his book of machines, calling it the Flying man. But that’s a digression. These are simply the things Faust pondered the most while sweeping the terrace: flying men, jumping men, falling men. Sometimes he imagined them gracefully landing, and sometimes they’d splat against the walls of his mind like overripe tomatoes. One miscalculation was all it would’ve taken for Faust Vrančić, the genius, to be labeled as Faust Vrančić, the suicidal idiot who had to be scrubbed off the Venetian square. But seriously, isn’t the borderline between those two dangerously thin?

As he pondered that, his rage would often subside, and he would then be allowed to come back inside. What’s more, he would even be happy that he did something kind for his mother.

“You sure about this?” Faust raised both of his eyebrows as he sat on the side of the bed and set a small ashtray between the two of them. “I mean, the last time you invited me over, you…”

Beowulf peered at him from under his ridiculous fluffy bangs like, watch your mouth, so he carefully reconsidered his wording: “...ended up screaming at me to get out.”

He almost thought Beowulf wouldn’t say anything. It wasn’t unlike him to leave Faust hanging in the middle of a pointless exchange with himself - and he didn’t mind that much. He’s always liked the sound of his own voice, and anyway, Beowulf’s aloofness made for most of his charms. But a second passed and he said, “Yeah… my bad.”

“Whatever,” It was the closest thing to an apology that he would ever get from him. “I’m done. Give me that.”

Beowulf’s lighter was heavy, ornate silver - not the kind a college freshman should carry. He had another one, a cheap plastic trinket that said BARCELONA, but he never used that one. Faust passed him the joint, and he stared at it for a while before lighting it and taking a hit. It was almost cute, even though there was nothing cute about Beowulf S., all sharp edges.

“Relax, would you?” Faust laughed a little. “It’s not gonna bite you.”

Beowulf’s eyes zeroed in on the smoke rolling out of his own mouth as he exhaled. “I’ve never smoked this shit before.”

They passed it back and forth a couple of times before Faust finally said, “This is the part where I ask you why you cried when I touched you, by the way.”

Beowulf’s dark eyebrows knitted together. He was ruggedly handsome when he did that, nothing like the panicked expression he’d flashed the previous Tuesday. “Don’t,” he said.

“Another question, then,” Faust kicked off his shoes and laid on the bed. It smelled like Beowulf’s cologne, sharp and citrusy. “What’s up with all those scars on your arms?”

He studied the coral red ring Beowulf’s lipstick had left on the blunt before putting his mouth around it. He’d known Beowulf was trouble, what with his torn clothes and his chains and his short fuse. Still, he was surprised when he took his jacket off and found a dozen scars, pale deep scratches down his forearms.

“What? You cut yourself or something?” He nudged him with his foot, just to be mean, but Beowulf just sighed heavily as he slid down the wall until we were lying side by side. “Or something,” he said dryly. “Had enough? I didn’t call you over here to talk.”

Faust laughed at this. “Cut a guy some slack, will you? I like you cause you’re hard to get, but if you never tell me anything… I’m gonna get bored of you, you know?”

Beowulf looked straight at him, and his gaze was unfocused, like he was looking at something behind Faust’s shoulder. He briefly wondered if his words might have hurt him, before reminding myself who it was that he was talking to. Right. Beowulf couldn’t care less.

“Can I touch you a little?” Faust ran his fingers through Beowulf’s hair before he could answer. His hair was dark and fine, curled at the tips and soft to the touch. Faust felt him tense, but he didn’t pull back.

“Where’d you get this, then?” Beowulf said suddenly, and Faust felt his rough thumb trace his own hairline. He was just trying to keep my mouth busy as his hands roamed down Beowulf’s neck and towards his chest, so he was surprised when he spoke, his voice slightly raspy.

Faust’s hands paused around the hem of Beowulf’s tank top, “My old man.‘S fine,” he whispered into Beowulf’s ear, because he seemed uncomfortable. “I manned up and took care of him.”

He wondered if getting high with Beowulf was a bad idea. I wondered if he ought to say, tell me if you want me to stop, if Beowulf was actually more frail than he looks under all that muscle. He didn’t stop, though. He pulled his black tank top over his head and threw it onto the pile of textbooks and empty beer cans on the floor.

“Yeah, we both manned the fuck up,” Faust said as he straddled Beowulf. I “Tell me, is that lipstick your sister’s or your mommy’s?”

Beowulf grabbed his wrist with such force and speed that it very nearly scared him. In the resulting silence, he could hear both their heartbeats, each louder than the last. He said without a hint of humor, “Now you’re making fun of me?”

“No,” Faust laughed to cover up his sudden discomfort. “I like it. It makes you stand out.”

Truth was, Beowulf stood out too much even without his penchant for makeup, too big and too silent. Deep inside Faust’s mind, the alarms kept ringing, back off while you still can, because nothing good could come out of catching feelings for a guy who was all beaten up every other time that you saw him.

Instead he pressed up against his chest and buried his face into the crook of his neck. He felt Beowulf freeze, his hands awkwardly coming to rest on the small of Faust’s back, afraid to move.

“You know, that time I started hitting you… I really wanted to…”

Beowulf finally moved to cup his waist. His hands were so big, they halfway closed around it. “Don’t say it. It feels gross.”

“Okay.” Faust’s shirt joined Beowulf’s on the floor. “ I won’t say it. Then just look at me.”

“Don’t want to,” Beowulf muttered stubbornly.

Faust grabbed his chin. “Look. At me.”

“I said I don’t want to!” Beowulf snarled, something between a child and an animal. One of his teeth was chipped away at the front.

“What do you want from me, then?” Faust was getting tired of playing with him, felt aimless. Beowulf seemed to honestly think about it, and heaved a weary sigh that resounded in the silence. “Just want to feel a damn thing.”

That sort of thing, at least, Faust had always been good enough for. With his giving up, silence fell upon the dorm room.

“Get a move on, sweep the terrace or something.”

Faust was still pretty young when he figured out that he didn’t want to leave any remains behind when he died. In other words, he didn’t want to be Faust Vrančić who fell from the sky. He absolutely despised the idea of people looking at his body without him being present in it. Do you understand his agony? It turned out that not even leaving this world was simple.

He would later learn that autism runs in Beowulf’s family the way alcoholism ran in his. He would later see a photograph of the mother, only twenty-nine when she hurled herself off the cliff by the house they made a home in. When he understood things, he understood them all at once - how and why they got where they got - but by then it was too late. To go back would be to untangle all the knots he used to desperately tether himself to Beowulf.

He drove himself to visit the grave since Beowulf didn’t want to go, five hours to Zagreb and back. The grave had no angel statues, and stood lonelier than the rest. Standing there and murmuring prayers to a god he didn’t believe in, he felt the lines between them blurring. I was her, to you. Was I her, to you?

In 1993, a woman named Laura S. jumped from the cliff by her house and did not survive. And although people remember the inventor of the parachute, they don’t remember her. Faust didn't think that was fair, he truly didn't. He didn’t think that the people who prevailed were worth more than the dead ones.

And it's not my senselessness killing me, thought Faust bitterly, it was you, all of you! Why won't anyone come? Even the voices in his head were silent! Why wouldn’t anyone come for him in the end and tell him it was fine to go on living, not even those he created from nothing with his two hands? Why did he have to go alone, watched only by the silent jury of other souls who fell to damnation here? Ah, I really am a cursed existence. Maybe I'll be eaten by Beowulf's mother.

It was easier once he let go, crossing the point of no return. His hands ceased shaking, and he felt a grim and mortifying tranquility once that brief struggle for life ended, as though someone had held a pillow over his face until he stilled. Though he always imagined death as some kind of an ironic triumph, Faust has always known he wouldn't live a long life. The wind was quiet with its howls that morning, and it was a good day to die.

The dark watery surface vibrated and rippled with the growls and shrieks of the corpses on the bottom, and they grew louder still when Faust jumped in and they smelled fresh meat, almost like the buzz of spreading news, today we feast! The water was cold as a grave as he sank and sank… and realized he didn’t even know how deep the sea went there. He itched to find out. Struggling with the final mouthful of water that filled his lungs, his head fell to the side, unblinking eyes turning towards the sky. And he sank

Beyond that, all memory of death has left him. He doesn’t even remember the snapping of jaws as they bickered for a taste of his flesh.

FIN

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sapphireginger · 8 months

Text

Summary:

Stiles was not a fan of water and hated to swim but his son Sam was like a fish. So, Stiles braved his fear to take his son to the public pool. That was where he met Peter but not in the way one would want to have met a potential partner. Peter’s response however, surprised Stiles and led to something great.

AO3 Link

Stiles has never liked swimming nor has he ever been fond of the water. Not since he was four and his mother tried to drown him in the bathtub. It didn’t help that he got bullied and dunked repeatedly, making him terrified of swimming lessons. He ended up teaching himself because the other kids just kept pushing him under.

So, Stiles taught himself how to swim and he now only took showers. Well, he mainly only took to showers now. Oh, he would take baths occasionally but it was pretty rare and he never swam. He had tried to work through it and he would only ever swim when he was completely alone. It was why he got a private membership at Luna Aquatic Center.

However as he stood outside the public pool with Samuel’s hand in his, he felt sick to his stomach. He idly traced the now bare ring finger of his left hand with his thumb. His wife—ex-wife—was the one who took Samuel, their little Sam, to the pool. Stiles never trusted her enough to tell her why he couldn’t, and the lack of trust really should’ve made finding her in bed with another man less surprising. The only reason Stiles remained as calm as he had upon discovering them was because his son was sleeping. His bitch of an ex slept with another man while their son was taking his afternoon nap.

Since Stiles owned the house, he kicked her out and unsurprisingly ended up with full custody of their son.

That was just before summer started. Stiles realized he probably could have asked for someone to help take his son to the pool but that felt like admitting weakness and it wasn’t something that he could afford to admit. He had already lost his wife. He didn’t want anyone to have any reason to think he was unable be a father to Sam.

“Daddy?”

Stiles looked at his son who held out the sunscreen. “Sorry, kiddo. Daddy was just thinking.” He took the bottle and squeezed it into his hand before covering his five-year-old’s skin with it.

Sam tilted his head. “It’s okay, Daddy. I was thinking too.”

“Oh? What were you thinking about?”

His son pointed. “The slide. I wanna go down but I’m still too little.”

Stiles glanced at the slide and chewed his lip, nerves churning in his gut. He knew Sam could go down if he had an adult waiting at the bottom. “Well, you could go down if I was waiting for you.”

Sam gasped and shook his head. “Daddy, no. You don’t like the water.”

Stiles set the bottle aside and smiled softly. “No but I love you and if you want to slide I’ll do it for you.”

“No. No thank you, Daddy.”

“You sure, kiddo?”

“I’m positive. Guess why.”

“Why?”

“Cause I love you, Daddy and I’m smart cause I know that sometimes growed ups are scared of things. I know you love me, Daddy and you don’t have to catch me from the slide for me to member that.”

Stiles felt tears prick at the corners of his eyes making them sting slightly. Fuck but he loves his son so much. “How’d I end up with such a wonderful boy like you with a big golden heart?”

Sam grinned revealing a gap where he lost a baby tooth and hugged his dad. “I take after you, Daddy. Gampa said so.”

Stiles hugged his son tightly, wiped his face, and cleared his throat. “Well, if you change your mind let me know. I’ll be here when you need more sunscreen in an hour. Okay?”

“Okay, Daddy. I love you.”

“I love you too, kiddo.”

Stiles watched as his son jumped in the shallow and splashed around. He couldn’t help but smile at the sight. He was so focused he didn’t hear a man speaking to him the first time but startled slightly when he spoke the second time.

“I’m sorry. Didn’t mean to startle you.”

Stiles looked up and blinked at the gorgeous blue-eyed man staring at him. “S’okay. No harm done.”

“May I sit?”

Stiles nodded and gestured to the open chair.

The man took a seat and offered his hand. “I’m Peter.”

“Stiles.”

Peter shook his hand and smiled. “It’s nice to meet you, Stiles. Do you have a little one here?”

Stiles nodded. “Yes. You?”

Peter smiled fondly and gestured to a boy and girl not far from where Sam was playing. “That’s my nephew Derek and my daughter Malia.”

Stiles looked and smiled before gesturing to his own child. “That’s my son, Sam.”

“I’m glad to see another father here.”

Stiles quirked a brow. “Oh?”

Peter nodded with a wry smile. “Mhm. Quite frankly it’s a nice change. The first week it was all women with their kids. Which, don’t get me wrong, all the power to them but I don’t know. It’s just nice seeing another dad who actually cares.”

“Hm. How do you know I care?”

“Anyone paying attention can tell you care.”

“Been watching me, huh?”

“Yes and without even realizing it your body is always facing where your son is.”

Stiles took stock of himself and realized that Peter was right. He cleared his throat. “Yeah, well, he’s my world. So, I’m in tune with him.”

“I’d expect nothing less from a father who cares.”

Peter quirked a brow, his smirk shifting to a soft smile as Malia came bounding over. “Papa?”

“Yes, dearest.”

“Um, I was wondering if I can go on the slide?”

“I don’t know. I think you’re too little dearest.”

Derek walked over and smiled, revealing two front teeth that reminded Stiles of an adorable bunny rabbit. “I can take her if that’s okay, Uncle Peter.”

Peter tilted his head and nodded. “Be careful and keep an eye on her. Malia, hold his hand please.”

“Okay. Thank you, Papa!” She took Derek’s hand and eagerly made her way to get in line for the slide. Stiles chewed his lip, noticing his son watching the two older children get in line.

Peter noticed and glanced at Stiles, tilting his head. “Did Sam want to go on the slide?”

Stiles tensed and angled his body further away from Peter. “Yes, but we talked about it and it’s fine now.” Stiles wanted to go, wanted to flee. He wanted to get up and walk away because—

“If you’d like I’m sure Derek would be willing to—”

Stiles suddenly stood up and shook his head. “Look, I’m glad you have someone who can take your daughter down the slide, but I don’t have that and I don’t need it either. I’m perfectly capable of—o-of—” His breathing started to speed up and he started moving his thumb against the bare ring finger of his left hand, spots starting to appear in his vision.

“Daddy?” Peter saw Stiles’s son walking over and watched him gently take Stiles’s hand in his own. “Daddy, can you see five fings?”

“Pool. Ch-Chair. Towel. Ball. Sunscreen.”

“Thank you, Daddy. Smell three fings?”

“Chlorine. Sunscreen. Flowers.”

Stiles slowly lowered himself to the chair and Sam climbed into his lap. “Three fings to hear, Daddy.”

“Laughing. Splashing. Breathing.”

He wrapped his arms around his son and shuddered, pressing a kiss to the top of the boy’s head. “Thank you, kiddo.”

Sam looked at Peter with a small smile. “Welcome, Daddy. I’m gonna go play now, okay?”

Stiles cleared his throat and nodded. “Of course. I’ll be all right.”

“Promise?”

“I promise.” Sam kissed Stiles’s cheek and then jumped back into the pool. Stiles took a deep breath and Peter watched him, feeling protective but he said nothing, simply watching over the man silently.

After a few minutes had passed and Stiles seemed to calm down, he turned to face Peter. “I owe you an apology. You were being very kind and I was very rude. I'm sorry.”

Peter gave him a small and understanding smile. “I accept, but I do think perhaps we simply had a misunderstanding. All is forgiven.”

With a flush of embarrassment to his cheeks, Stiles glanced away from Peter’s intense gaze. It felt like the man saw way more than Stiles wanted him to. “That’s not an issue I experience all the time just um…” he trailed off.

“You don’t have to explain. I’m glad your son was able to help you.”

“He shouldn’t have to. He’s a kid.”

Peter nodded. “He is but he’s also your kid.”

“Yeah. He’s a really good kid.”

“If you don’t mind me asking, how did he know what to do?”

Stiles cleared his throat and turned more towards Peter. “When Sam was two we were at the park and he got bit by a dog. He doesn’t really remember it but he gets panic attacks sometimes. Once we explained it to him, he grasped it pretty well for a four year old. Last year, he had a big one and I helped him through it. When he calmed down, he asked me why I was asking him all those questions.” Stiles chuckled wetly. “I told him why and now he’s always ready to ask me if I get panicked like him.”

Peter smiled. “As much as I don’t wish that on anyone, I’m glad you have him and that he has you.”

“You don’t think I’m a bad father?”

“No. On the contrary, I think you’re what a father should strive to be.”

Stiles blushed and his stomach flipped. This guy was smooth as melted chocolate. After inhaling sharply and clearing his throat, Stiles sent Peter a coy but soft smile. “Thank you.”

“You’re most welcome.”

Stiles gestured towards the pool. “If um…” he trailed off. “When your nephew comes back if the offer is still…”

Peter grinned. “I’m sure that Derek would be happy to.”

Stiles’s shoulders lost their tension and he smiled gratefully. “Thank you. So, how horrible of a father am I that my son has to help me out of a panic attack?” He knew Peter had already assured him he wasn’t, and Stiles wasn’t fishing for more compliments but he didn’t understand how Peter drew the conclusion he had from one example alone

Peter firmly shook his head. “You’re not a horrible father at all. I might not know you well but I have eyes. I saw the way you watched over him and the way he looks at you is like you’re his hero which isn’t surprising in the least. Him helping you with a panic attack just goes to show how much your son loves you and he also knows how to help others who may experience that. That’s all because he’s learned from you.”

Stiles smiled and blushed slightly, his heart fluttering at the compliment.

Peter nodded and his stomach swooped at the blinding grin on Stiles’s face when he watched his son go down the slide. The hopeful look on the boy’s face when Derek and Peter had offered was priceless. Peter and Stiles talked while their kiddos played and found themselves discussing everything under the sun. They meshed well and had zero clashes in personality. In a way, it felt like fate but now what?

As they got ready to go Stiles spoke up. “Peter?”

“Hm?”

“I was wondering if perhaps you’d consider dinner? With me?”

Peter turned to face Stiles and saw how nervous he was but was also impressed that Stiles had still asked despite his nerves. He smiled softly. “I would love to have dinner with you.” He handed Stiles his phone and they exchanged numbers.

Stiles smiled, his heart pounding so loud in his chest that he was sure Peter could hear it. “Great! So, I’ll call you or I’ll text you and we can set something up?”

Peter brushed his knuckles subtly against Stiles arm and nodded. “I look forward to it.”

#teen wolf #stiles stilinski #peter hale #fluff #steter #derek hale #malia tate #samuel stilinski (oc)#panic attacks #ptsd #angst #good peter hale #single parent stiles stilinski #single parent peter hale #young malia tate #malia tate is a hale #young derek hale #adult stiles stilinski

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writerfae · 7 months

Note

Here it is! Sorry for any spelling mistakes, I'm really tired, so there probably are some.

Knights of the Alder: Mermaid au

Aiden lives in a small fishing village. His brother dissappeared years ago out at sea, leaving him to take care of his father. Most say he drowned. Some say that he ran away with a siren in the dead of night, betraying his own kind. Aiden is one of the latter ones. Not about the betrayal! Never! But just like their mother, Henry always had a special connecton to the sea.

One day when out fishing with some other people, something huge was caught in Aiden's net. He rushed to release it, thinking it was a dolphin, but no... It was a mermaid. One with ginger hair (Hela).

She was wild. Angry. Afraid.

The other fishermen start congratulating Aiden. They start debating what to do with the mer. Cook it? What would the meat of mer taste like? Keep it as a pet? No!

Sell it. Their small village will become the richest in the land.

Aiden's just still thinking about how afraid she was.

The mermaid gets tied to the deck between the ships still in the net for the night, bearly able to move within the thin ropes. That's when she hears someone coming.

It's the one who caught her, probably coming to admire his prey. But he CUTS THE NET.

Hela just stares, mouth open in shock, instead of swimming away(like an idiot* as Talon would say).

"Sorry you got caught in my net" he smiles apologetically "I'm Aiden"

"Hela... and don't apologize! It was dumb of me to go that close to a boat, really! I was just curious! But why let me go?"

"Are you serious?! Have you heard what the others said they'd do?! You're still a person, fish legs or not, I couldn't allow them to just sell you like a wild animal!"

Hela was surprised at the answer, but didn't question it. Instead:

"The other humans said the village would get a lot of money for me. Won't you get in trouble for this?" Hela knew trouble. There were two kinds: fun and not fun and this sadly seemed like the not fun one.

"Don't worry I'll handle it. It will be fine. But you should go! It was nice meeting you!"

Aiden smiled sweetly at her then left to where Hela couldn't follow, leaving her not at all convinved that he would be fine.

"For releasing the mermaid, and costing the village an inconceivable amount of gold I sentence you to death!"

Aiden was sentenced to death. Huh.

Hazel and Holly fought hard for him, claiming that he caught the mer, he had the right to to with her as he pleased, but to no avail. In the end with teary eyes that he tried so hard to hide he asked them to look after his father.

He was allowed to see the man one last time. He told Aiden:

"All of you: your mother brother and you all have a connection to the sea. Always had"

And then Aiden was put on a boat that took him out to sea to drown.

They were probably just the words of a grieving man like always, but to Aiden it seemed like his father meant something else.

His hands were tied together and a heavy rock was attached to his ankle. The weight pulled him all the way down to the bottom of the sea. Before he lost consciousness he saw huge fish swimming aroud him happily.

"Why do I go anywhere with you guys?" Talon asked. They were floating in the water way too close to a human village. Way, way too close considering that Hela was caught here not two days ago! Why were they here?

Well, apparently Hela befriended (had one conversation with) a human, and she was worried about him.

"We need to make sure he's ok!" hissed Hela.

"Seriously, we've been here all night, don't you think something would've happened by..."

He was shushed, but to his surprise not by Hela.

Maya was pointing to the docks.

"Something's happening!"

All of them lowered themselves into the water so that only their eyes were peaking out.

A boy, hands tied was being led to a big ship.

Hela gasped.

"That's him!"

Talon frowned. The way the others manhandled "Aiden" did not look very friendly.

They followed the ship, Talon and Maya trying to get Hela to keep her distance when they stopped in the middle of the ocean.

"What are they doing?" asked Hela way too loudly for Talon's liking.

"Maybe they stopped to fish-OH MY GOD!"

Aiden was put on a plank, a giant rock tied to his ankle. One of the humans kicked the rock that fell into the water yanking the boy down with it.

The mermaids started swimming after him as fast as they could. When they reached the bottom Aiden already passed out.

The mermaids here have the power to keep someone alive underwater by singing. The person will be asleep but unharmed.

Hela, Talon and Maya use this power, periodically changing who sings, and take Aiden to a safe place.

Now they are in a predicament. They can't take Aiden back to shore, because the closest human civilization is the one that kicked him out. They can't let anyone know about him, because it would cause a panic, so what do they do?

Well for now, someone always stays with him, singing to him, then someone else takes their place.

Days pass like this.

King Henry even notes one time that the three of them haven't been seen together for a few days now, almost giving Talon a heart attack.

"I'm telling king Callan. He'll know what to do" says Hela one day, far too seriously compared to her usual self.

"No you can't! Who knows what he'll do if he finds out you were almost sold?" argued Talon.

"I don't care! Look at him!"

And Talon did. Though their song kept him alive, Maya gently humming to him now while petting his hair, Aiden was in a coma. He hadn't had food for days. He was dying.

Before Talon could argue any farther Hela swam off.

"Stay with him" he told Maya "I'll see if I can take the brunt of the punishment myself"

Interaction with humans wasn't outlawed. King Henry grew up pretending to be one when Callan found him. But getting caught. Bringing a human here without permission...

But Hela knew that king Callan was a good king. He'd have mercy on Aiden even if she got fired from her job for this.

So she told them everything.

In the middle of her explanation Talon came, trying to take the blame for himself saying that he should've been with Hela.

"Please, you have to help him! He's really nice! He saved me! He's... he's actually from the same village king Henry used to live in! His name is Aiden, and he's my friend! It's my fault that this happened to him! Please-"

"What was his name?" Hela was cut off by her Henry's voice that was full of fear. Like he was starting at a shark.

Talon and Hela looked at each other.

"Aiden, my king" the boy said.

Callan grabbed Henry's hand.

"Take us to him!" He commanded.

Turns out Aiden was king Henry's brother.

Callan used his royal magic to turn the boy into a mermaid, and a tearful reunion took place, half of which was spent convincing Aiden that he wasn't dead, and yes that was really Henry.

Aiden was pretty clumsy with his new tail, but Talon was assigned to guard him, and teach him, much to his dismay (and no, he did not enjoy staring at the boy's golden scales at all).

Oh god I love your idea so much! I think I’m in love with this AU now. It’s really inspiring!

I like everything about this!

I like how Aiden caught but also freed Halea (a very Aiden thing to do!) and how she saved him in return!

And I like the fact that mermaids can keep humans alive underwater by singing! That’s a very neat detail!

I’m really excited and honored you made up an AU for my story. And I adore a good mermaid AU, so this is literally perfect.

Thanks so much for this! <3

#I lack smarter words but know I adore this so do much #writer speaks #writeblr #wip: the knights of the alder

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gashinabts · 3 years

Text

anti-romantic | (m)

word: 4.1k

Pairing: Jungkook x Reader

Genre: Slight Angst, Fluff, Smut

Summary: celebrating father’s day without actually having kids is more fun according to you and jungkook

Warnings: hidden oral sex (fem), blow job, public sex, slight choking, riding, some roleplay (hehe)

a/n: lol this was in my drafts and was supposed to be posted on father’s day but idk if you guys liked this couple...but here it is! Might do more drabbles and stuff with this couple. lemme know what you guys think.

Read this first —> anti-baby fever

“ Happy Father's day!,” you place the bouquet of flowers on the desk before jumping on his body that was peacefully sleeping in the bed. There’s a grunt that comes out and you nuzzle your way into his neck, kissing his moles until he wakes up.

Jungkook's eyes open slowly, yawning loudly before speaking. “ How’d you find out that I have a kid? I thought I did a better job of being discreet,” he smiles when you bite his neck. His large hands hold onto your waist moving you so that you are sitting on top of him.

“ Yeah happy father’s day...because I do be swallowing your babies,” you hold back your laughter as you try to finish your sentence.

Jungkook barks a laugh, shaking his head at the dirty joke. “ I’m surprised to hear that coming from your mouth but I’m also proud,” he brings your head down to kiss your lips. There’s a slight gap when he pulls apart, “ So where is my breakfast in bed?” Jungkook asks, his lips barely touch yours as he speaks.

“ Damn, you're taking this roleplay too far,” you huff a laugh. “ Do you also want me to buy you a barbecue grill?” His eyes playfully roll, bringing you down to kiss him once more.

----

As funny as it sounds your dad is trying to convince Jungkook to buy a similar barbecue as him, they are talking among themselves, grilling some meat as you are with your mother and sister. It's a small gathering and you just want to go back inside your parents house because it is a million degrees outside. “ Auntie Y/N come swim with us,” one of your nephews comes to splash water on you. He laughs loudly when you give him an annoyed look, as the cold water drenched your summer dress.

“ I don’t have any swim suits and if I get in there I will probably drown you in front of your mom,” you feel a pinch on your left arm from your mom giving you a disappointed look. On the other hand your sister laughs, shaking your head as she breastfeeds her daughter. The little brat taunts you sticking his tongue out then swims along to play with his cousins. “ I’m kidding,” you tell your mom.

Turning back to drinking your ice tea, you sigh at the words your mother says next. “ So when are you and Jungkook going to get married? You are not getting anymore younger and it will be hard to get pregnant-”

“ Mom...,” your sister tries to defend you.

The thought of swimming sounds more appealing to you, anything that makes you stray away from this conversation with your mother. “ We actually got married, we just didn’t invite you to the wedding,” you look at your mom, her eyes shooting daggers at you. “ Imma go swimming. My stuff is still in my old room, yeah?” Your mom nods her head, pinching the bridge of her nose, probably at the annoyance of you.

Stepping in your old room feels nice, the cold air hitting your slightly sweaty face, instantly making you cool down. You toss your body on your bed, closing your eyes, taking a breather before going outside and into the boiling pits of hell. “ This brings up old memories,” you hear your boyfriend. Smiling you look to the doorway, his body leaning against your door entrance, his arms are crossed and there’s muscle definition on his biceps.

“ Yeah, because we lost our virginity on this bed,” you hold your hand out so he can come closer to you. Jungkook leans down, giving you quick kisses before giving you a suggestive look.

“ Should we recreate it?,” his eyebrows go up and down.

“ Okay,” you whisper, bringing his head down to kiss him again. “ That means you have to come in the first minute,” you laugh as he lets out a groan. Pushing him away you get up from the bed, and go to the drawers and grab a swimsuit. Putting it on you feel the straps digging into your hips and your top barely covering your boobs. Of course you don’t fit your high school swimsuits.

“ Fuck,” you hear Jungkook sigh. Turning around you give him a confused look until you look down and see a boner. “ You look so fucking hot,” he comes to grab at your ass but you smack it off. Jungkook likes that you can’t fit in your bottoms, your cheeks showing making him want to bite it. Your hips look wider and he wants to hold on to it, feeling your supple skin that spills out from the thin straps. And the way your boobs spill out like they are purposely begging him to suckle on them.

The apple of cheeks blush, your eyes widening at the intense stare. Shaking your head while looking at the door entrance nervously to see if anyone saw this scene. “ We are not fucking here, wait till we get home,” you lift your top up to try to cover more skin.

“ Let me just taste you, baby. I’ll be quick,” his hands hold your hands kissing it, giving you his best puppy eyes. He just wants to smell you and taste you. A whole parade happens in his head when you agree, leaning against the dresser and parting your legs.

Maybe it’s the heat that went to your head, that made you dumbly nod without thinking about the consequences that might happen. It turns you on even more, that you guys have to be careful and aware of your surroundings. Jungkook goes on his knees, pecking the inside of thigh before moving the swimsuit to the side, showing him your glistening folds. Immediately, his mouth is on you, tasting your arousal on his taste buds. One of your hands goes up to your mouth softening your quiet moans. The other hand, holds the dresser tightly, afraid that you might fall down.

His tongue lathers you wetness, looking up to see your chest heavily move and down. Your pretty eyes looking down at his mouth work wonders on you. “ Jungkook,” you moan. His rough hands lift your thighs up, stuffing his face more in, tongue penetrating in and out in your entrance.

Lewd noises are being made by the two of you. Jungkook’s lips smack against your pussy, while your moaning has increased despite your hand muffling the noises. Your eyes widen when you notice your door is still open, anybody can pass by because the bathroom is across your room. “ Pay attention to me baby,” Jungkook smacks the outside of your thigh.

Listening to his words, you look into his doe eyes, his tongue do small licks on clit then sucking it before his lips plop off loudly. “ I don’t want you wearing this outside, because all I want to do is fuck you silly,” his finger goes to your entrance, thrusting slowly with a slight curl. “ I love the way you look in this,” his other finger joins and watches your hips ride them like it was his cock. He blows cool air onto your folds watching your body twitch at the sensation.

“ Yeah? I can barely fit in it,” you say as you toss your head back. There’s a cooling sensation against your heat, pulling your bottoms more to the side so it doesn’t go in the way of his mouth.

“ That’s why I love it, your body spilling out of it and it’s fucking hot. Look at your tits barely covered, your nipples are begging to be sucked on,” he gives you a sloppy kiss on your clit before continuing, “ Your hips look really wide, you know that means you can take my cock better.” His thumb rubs your clit fast, more wetness seeps out of your entrance making his fingers slide in faster. “ I also love it because I got to see you grow into and out of this swimsuit. Just proves to you that I’m always here,” he pecks your thigh.

The words make you blush, insecurities washed away because you never thought that not fitting your swimsuit could be this hot and liberating. More importantly it makes you want to come all over his mouth. “ I love you,” you whisper softly.

His eyes are sparkly, looking like he holds the constellations in his eyes. “ I love you,” he says. Then placing his mouth on your cunt. Eating you up like he didn’t eat at all today. He moans into you, as your hands hold his hair tightly, the vibrations hitting your sensitive nerves making you moan loudly as you come against his wet mouth. Your hips moving against his mouth as you come down your high, finally stopping after a few seconds. Jungkook places your bikini back in place, kissing your hip.

His hair is in his face, you tuck a strand behind his ear, “ Yeah, I’m not going swimming anymore,” you laugh in disbelief that your boyfriend ate you out in your childhood bedroom while your family is outside. Taking off your bikini you return back to your summer dress.

“ Yeah, we don’t want you flashing a nipple when you do a cannonball,” he laughs, getting up and watching you look at the mirror. There’s a slight frown on your face, he comes closer plopping his head on your shoulder. “ What’s wrong?” his hands are placed on your waist drumming his fingers.

“ Do you want to get married?” your eyes meet Jungkook’s. His eyes widening at your question, there’s a couple seconds of silence. His body immediately leaves your, creating a small gap. Turning around to face him instead of talking to his reflection.

Jungkook's eyebrows raise. “ Are you asking me or is it your mom?” When he was talking to your father earlier, he noticed you looking annoyed while talking to your mother. There was a small frown on your pretty face, and he wanted to kiss it off but your father was talking about which charcoal he uses for the grill.

“ It’s better to just get it over with, so she won’t have to keep pestering me,” you shrug. Which is probably not the right choice of words, since Jungkook lets out a disappointed sigh. His hand pushes his hair back in frustration.

“ Seriously, Y/N?” As much of Jungkook would love to get married to you, he doesn’t want to get proposed because ‘you just want to get it over with’, it leaves his heart feeling heavy that you don’t see the problem in this.

The tone in his voice sounds just like your mother, a chastising tone, and you get annoyed.“ I thought you wanted that,” you toss your head back. Not knowing what you are doing wrong.

Jungkook doesn’t want to argue, especially now, since you guys are supposed to be spending family time. “ Not like that,” he rolls his eyes at how unaware you are. There’s a few seconds of silence, his hands push his hair back in frustration. “ Let’s go back out,” he says in defeat. Walking ahead of you, not holding your hand like he usually does.

The slider door is right in front of you, your family are talking among each other. One thing you don’t want is to be on bad terms. “ Jungkook, are you upset?” You grab his hand before he can walk outside to carry on talking to your family.

“ Yes. Let’s talk about this later, okay?” Jungkook turns around giving you a smile. Not the kind of smile that makes your heart flutter, it’s the type of smile that you give when you don’t want to deal with someone. In defeat, you nod letting go of his hand, as he walks to the pool getting splashed by your nephews. He brightly smiles at them, wiping the water off his face before getting a water gun and chasing them with it.

Sighing you walk to your dad who is still grilling meat, he looks at you smiling. “ Something wrong kiddo,” he asks as he flips over the meat. Typically, you never talk to your dad about your problems, only ever going to your sister sometimes but she’s not much help because she’s with your mom.

“ Jungkook and I had a...little argument,” you say, looking to the pool to see him spinning your nephew around. “ I asked if we should just get married because of mom’s bickering. Jungkook got upset,” you scratch your arm. Looking back at your dad whose face is at a grimace, your eyes widening. “ What?”

There is playful screaming and laughing in the background, you ignore it trying to listen to your dad’s words. “ Don’t you think that’s a little harsh? I wouldn’t want to be asked like that,” he chuckles lightly.

Replaying the conversation that you had with Jungkook, you mentally smack your palm to your head. Your mom shouldn’t be the reason why you should marry Jungkook. Jungkook is a hopeless romantic, he likes to be swallowed whole by your love. So of course he wouldn’t want to be proposed like that. Your dad pats your back in comfort before leaving you in your thoughts as you look at Jungkook making funny faces at your baby niece.

Jungkook is back in the house grabbing plates from the kitchen cabinet, you close the slider door quietly, walking behind him as he reaches for the last plate. Wrapping your arms behind his small waist, his breath hitches, exhaling your name. “ I’m a dummy,” you whisper.

Jungkook softly laughs, “ No you're not. I’m sorry for overreacting-“

“ You weren’t though,” you lay your head completely on his back, hearing his heartbeat. “ I wasn’t being considerate,” you kiss his back through his shirt. The plate makes a small clunk sound when he places it on the counter, turning around in your arms. His brown eyes look into your eyes before kissing you on your cheek.

“ Baby, do you want me to talk to your mom?” Jungkook asks, his large hand caressing your cheek. You give him a questioning hum. “ That we don’t have to get married right now. That we are perfectly fine just the way we are.”

The silky strands are gliding in between your fingers, as you push it away from his face.“ Hmm. Maybe she will listen to you better,” you smile. Jungkook can easily make your mom's views change within seconds with his charming smile.

---

Jungkook lifts you up the ground before you enter the house, crossing the threshold as he holds you in his strong arms. “ Why do you keep doing this with every house,” you laugh, holding on to him tightly. “ We don’t even know we are buying this house,” you say as he finally puts you down. Looking around the empty house, you visualize a sofa and tv in the spacious living room.

“Exactly we don’t know, it’s bad luck not to do that,” he also looks around. “ This is nice,” he whistles looking at your hips swaying as you walk to the kitchen. “ The kitchen I mean,” he cockily says.

Turning around you playfully swat him, “ Can you imagine yourself cooking here?” The cold countertops touch your fingertips as they slide against it. You can see yourself cooking here making food for you and Jungkook, his hands on your hips as he watches you.

Jungkook likes the way the set up of the kitchen, the granite countertops and the dark brown wooden cabinets give the kitchen an expensive feel. Compared to the first apartment he got with you in college this place is a thousand times better. His heart flutters knowing that he gets to share the rest of his life with you in this house. He comes closer to you hugging you from behind as you look inside the empty cabinets. “ Mhm, yeah I can see myself cooking here,” his nose rubs against your neck loving the perfume you're wearing. He can also see himself doing other things in this kitchen. “ And eating here too,” he says, blowing a raspberry in your neck.

Laughing in his hold you turn your head to kiss his cheek, “ Let’s go up. Before you act on your fantasies,” you grab his hand. Going up the stairs you guys checked out the three rooms and bathrooms. This house is something that you’ve been wanting for the past year, it’s spacious, has a big backyard to plant your flowers, and two hours away from your parents. “ We can put our bed here,” you point in the middle. “ The dressers here,” you point in two different directions.

Jungkook smiles fondly as you point at random spaces, he’s pretty sure that you pointed at the same area more than once for different furniture going there. “ How about the other rooms? You don’t think three rooms is big?”

You shake your head, “ I think it’s perfect. Our room, your gaming room, and maybe a guest room in case my mom wants to spend the night,” you shrug at the end. There’s a rush of serotonin just imagining getting this house. “ What are your thoughts?” His pretty eyes look around the empty big room and smile on his face.

“ Let’s get it,” he looks back at you. Your eyes meet and you grab his shirt pulling him down to kiss him to show him how happy you are. Pulling away, he holds your chin looking at your silly smile. ‘ Yeah, this is definitely home,’ Jungkook thinks to himself.

---

“ Fuck Y/N,” Jungkook moans loudly his head hitting the back of his seat. Your mouth sucks his tip lightly as your hand moves up and down his cock. His breathing is getting louder, and he wraps your hair around his hand, wanting to see your eyes. “ Couldn't even wait to go inside the apartment,” he shakes his head in fake disappointment. But this was far from disappointing.

Moaning against his tip, you shake your head. Deciding on buying the house turned you on and you couldn’t wait to fuck him. Your lips make a plop sound as you pull apart, “ That wouldn’t be any fun,” you kiss his tip. Causing him to groan at your cunningness. “ We should fuck one last time in this parking lot,” you blow cold air on his tip before going down again.

Jungkook wipes the foggy car window to make sure no one is here looking at you choking on his cock. You're letting guttural noises and your eyes water at his size, your hips move side to side in the air, probably itching to be touched. “ Yeah, choke on it,” Jungkook pushes your head down more, throat tightening around his cock. “ Are you crying on my cock?” Jungkook condescending laughs.

It turns you on how mean he is being, your tears come down even more at the humiliation but you enjoy it. You can feel your panties are getting stuck on your folds and you badly want to relieve yourself. Jungkook pushes your head down one last time before pulling your head by your hair to kiss you. His tongue pushes against your exchanging moans against each other. He helps you move your body over the center console so you are now sitting on his lap. “ Wait Jungkook,” you pull apart. “ I need to take my pants off,” you look at the tight space around you. There’s not enough room to take it off where you are.

Jungkook screams at himself for not owning a bigger car. “ Uhh, just take your pants off real quick outside and come back inside the car,” he looks out to see no one out. The things you do for sex, you hurridely take off your pants and returning back to the position. His hands are on your thighs rubbing them up and down, as he makes outs with you. Your hips move against his trying to pleasure yourself.

Jungkook pulls away staring at you with a lustful gaze, his hands moving up to caress your face, “ Can’t believe we are doing this,” he says, laughing in disbelief.

“ Mmm, same. Something about you signing the papers and paying the deposit turned me on,” you kiss his cheek, while stroking him in your hands.

He groans, tossing his head back showing his bare neck for a quick second, “ Yeah?” He gives you a boyish smile. “ When I saw you walking up the stairs. Kinda wanted to fuck you right there,” he kisses your neck. He moans your name when you insert his cock into your tight entrance.

“ Next time, do it. Take me anywhere in our new house,” you hold his head close to your neck. Feeling him sucking on your skin, probably marking his love for you. “ Are you gonna fuck me like your little housewife?” Smiling to yourself when you hear him groan your name. You breath out heavily, thighs shaking as you move up and down on his cock.

Jungkook's hands wrap around your waist tightly, thrusting up into you. “ My little housewife,” he whispers to himself. It doesn’t necessarily fit your image, due to the fact that you have a high paying job and you guys aren’t even married but it turns him on. There’s something a little demeaning about it and it twisted as it sounds he wants to continue with this little act you proposed. “ Gotta have you wearing nothing but an apron on,” he snarkily smiles up to you.

His hard thrust is making you jostle in his arms, and you cry even more just imagining him fucking you from behind as you cook him dinner. “ Yeah what else would you want from me, my lovely husband,” you put your hands to the car ceiling trying to keep yourself ahold.

His heart does a little jump at the word of husband, he knows it’s only you teasing but he loves the way it comes out of your mouth. “ Mmm, you have to be waiting on your knees when I come home from work,” he says while one of his hands trails up your neck lightly squeezing it. “ Fuck your mouth since you’re a needy slut waiting for her husband like a good wife.”

Your walls tighten when you hear him speaking nothing but filth to you. His thrust hits the spot that makes you drool and eyes rolling back. “ Fuck Jungkook,” you whisper. The car is probably moving from how hard Jungkook is fucking. If someone were to walk by they can obviously tell that you guys are doing the nasty, but you don’t care, this is your last day in this apartment complex.

Jungkook looks at your tits bouncing and his mouth does his best at sucking at them. He moans around it loving the feeling of your nipple in his mouth. His eyes look up at you staring down at him, sucking it hard. His lips plops off your tit, “ Are you gonna come for me, my pretty little housewife?” He watches as you nod your head up and down, holding the car ceiling as your life depends on it. He wants to remember this moment forever. His hand holds your soft tit, fingers pinching your nipple, while his mouth goes back to the other nipple sucking it softly. Your walls squeeze his cock tight as you come around it while moaning his name loudly. He prays that the windows do a good job muffling your moans, but he doubts it.

Your hands come down brushing his hair back, “ Come in your wife,” your body is still shaking from the intense orgasm. “ Make good use of me,” you tell him. His eyes roll back at words. He sucks harder on your nipple and you hiss in pain and delight. He holds you tighter in his arms, thrusting in quick motions as he comes into you.

The feeling of his come in your cunt makes you want him to fuck you all over again. Knowing that you are the only person in the world to have him inside you like this makes you prideful. The breaths die down and Jungkook is now sucking your nipples softly, humming around it. Your hands softly brushing his hair back, letting him do his thing. “ I didn’t know you would be so into the housewife role playing,” you laugh to yourself.

His lips part from your tits, and he laughs with you. “ You're into it just as I was,” he pecks your boob one last time before taking his cock out of you. The semen slowly comes down your lips, his finger coming to massage it into your folds. His mouth waters wondering what you and him taste like together. He looks up, “ Wanna quit your job and I’ll wife you up?” he laughs when you swat his hand away.

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