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criminalamnesia · 3 months

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ok this is the end of the little tolerate it series— BUT I’m writing two different endings!! so here’s ending 1 :)

part one here and part two here

ending version 2 here

when he saw you that day on the street and tried to stop you, you had kept walking. hadn’t even turned your head, as if you knew it was him speaking.

of course you’d known it was him. he couldn’t blame you for ignoring him, honestly— he had been awful to you. he fully recognized that now, after years of being alone and mandated therapy and an honorable discharge.

he recognized how he let the one good thing in his life slip through his fingers, all because he was too damn wrapped up in himself. but he had a right to be.

he had a right to not want to celebrate coming home. had a right to want peace and quiet once escaping from the sounds of war and death. he just should’ve communicated that with you instead of pulling away.

he’s grown. he understands now. and he knows you don’t owe him anything— hell, he wouldn’t be surprised if you slapped him across the face for this, but he needed to try.

he knew it was selfish of him. you’d moved on, surely. years had passed and you’d grown. he’s sure that naivety he once found charming is long gone, most likely from his doing.

he takes a deep breath, fist raised to knock on the door to your house. it’s small and quaint. something he definitely could’ve seen you picking out when the two of you had still been together. maybe not all of you had changed.

he’d gotten the address through Laswell as a parting gift. and he didn’t know why it was the one thing that came to mind— but it was, and now he’s here. standing on your porch with his fist in the air like a fucking creep.

he pushes out an exhale and knocks. all is silent inside the house, and he knocks again, the second one easier than the first.

“coming!” he hears you call from inside. he steels himself. readies himself for attack, for battle. it was something he couldn’t quite shake, even if he’d been retired for a year now. those instincts really never leave you.

the door swings open, and the smile you were sporting instantly drops.

“what are you doing here?” there’s venom in your tone. he doesn’t shy away.

“love—” he begins, but you scoff and start to shut the door.

“actually, I don’t want to know. get off my porch before I call the cops—”

before the door can click shut, he reaches a hand out and blocks you from fully shutting it. you look down at his hand, bewildered.

“move your hand.” you speak through gritted teeth. he stands his ground.

“love,” he starts again, pushing the words out quickly to avoid getting cut off again. “y’don’t owe me anythin’ and I know that. but can I at least apologize? please?”

you stare at him. he keeps his hand in the door, watching your face intently. he can’t tell what’s going on behind your eyes.

you take a beat. two. three. then you shut your eyes tightly as you inhale, open them as you release the breath, and open the door wider.

“you’ve got five minutes to speak your piece, and I hope you know I’m doing this for you, not me. I got over you a long time ago, and because I see myself as a halfway decent person, I’m going to let you do this. then you can leave and never come back. understand?”

he gives a small nod. “understood.”

you step aside and he enters your house, eyes already scanning his surroundings. it’s cute and airy, comfortable and full of you.

pictures of you and friends on the walls. lamps that look a hundred years old on end tables. big windows letting the sun shine in and onto a plethora of plants. colorful artwork and pillows and fabrics. it’s a house full of you, of life, and he finds himself envying it.

he doesn’t know why. maybe because it’s something so normal, and something he’s never experienced. he didn’t get that before he left home, and he certainly didn’t get it in the military. he still doesn’t have it now. he’s still struggling to figure out who he is without a gun in his hand.

“nice place,” he says, and he means it.

you roll your eyes as you walk towards the blue, comfortable looking couch situated to the right. he follows dutifully.

you gesture towards the couch, and he takes the hint. he sits down, sinking into the cushion, and watches as you move to stand across from him. he knows you’re putting distance between the two of you. he doesn’t blame you.

you were never the problem.

he was.

“five minutes, starting now. best believe I’m timing your ass,” you mutter out, pulling your phone from your pocket and tapping the screen. setting a timer, most likely.

best to get on with it, then.

“I owe you an apology, and I ‘ave since y’left. before tha’, actually. I was an ass, and I know tha’ now. you had every right to leave, and you have every right to hate me—”

you gave a mirthless, hollow laugh and crossed your arms over your chest. you were putting up your walls, protecting yourself.

“you put me in therapy, did you know that? years of it. broke me down and crushed me into tiny pieces. made me think I was the problem, that I deserved to be treated that way. ruined my trust and my confidence.”

your tone was bitter. your nails dug into the skin of your arms.

“you were never the problem,” he says, his words firm. he stand then, hands hanging loosely at his sides. “I was. I know tha’ now. I pulled away when I should’ve communicated, or hell— broke things off sooner.”

“so that’s why you’re here then? to tell me you wished you would’ve broken up with me before I broke up with you?”

god, that was not what he meant, and he struggled to find the way to put his thoughts into words.

“no, f’course not, love. I’m tryin’ to say I strung y’along, made things worse, and—”

“and what?” you interrupted.

“an’ im sorry, love. I know it probably doesn’t mean anythin’ anymore. but i am. deeply.”

you didn’t speak for a minute. your eyes studied his face. he knew you were probably taking in the obvious signs of age, of battles he came back from when you were no longer there.

“you going on a suicide mission? is that why you’re here? making amends before you die so you can face the afterlife with a clear conscience?”

he shook his head, taking a small step forward. “no. I— I was discharged. a bit ago, actually.”

“congrats,” you deadpanned.

“tha’s not tha’ point,” he sighed. “they made me go to therapy for a while. unpack all tha’ shit they put me through. and the shrink brought up you once, and it got me thinkin’—”

“so you’re here because your shrink told you to say sorry?”

“bloody hell, love, let me finish,” exasperation was clear in his tone, but he tried to reel it in. he reminded himself that you didn’t owe him shit. you could kick him out right now. he was here because of your allowance, and the second you stopped tolerating him, he’d be back on the porch.

you raised your eyebrows but kept your mouth clamped shut.

“I was an ass when I was with you, and tha’s on me, not you. I was dealin’ with my own shit, and havin’ you celebrate me and boastin’ about my bravery and shit— it didn’t— I couldn’t stand it. you don’t understand, love, and you never will— and tha’s not your fault. s’mine, and I’m still comin’ to terms with all tha’ shit. and I should’ve communicated tha’ with you instead of pullin’ away.”

silence filled the air between the two of you. he could hear the tick of a clock nearby. two ticks. three ticks. four. five.

“what do you want from me, then?” you spoke, and your voice was soft. he could hear the tremble in it— that old you slipping back in, and god he wanted to hold you.

he remembered loving you. he still knew what that felt like, even if was so long ago. and that love was creeping back in, that need to protect you coming back like a tidal wave.

“nothin’.” he said.

“nothing.” you repeated. he nodded.

the timer on your phone went off. five minutes, on the dot.

you clicked it off and looked at him. he was already moving towards the door.

“wait—” you called out to him, and as he turned back to face you, he could tell you hadn’t meant to. it had slipped out subconsciously, and he could see you fighting yourself on what your next words would be.

“I— I don’t forgive you,” you told him. “I don’t know if I ever will. but I— you don’t deserve to be alone. not after all you’ve done.”

he looked at you, the fingers of his hands twitching as he waited for you to speak again.

you took a deep breath and turned your attention to your feet. “I’m here. if you need someone to talk to about whatever. um— I—”

“it’s alrigh’, love. y’dont have to say anythin’ you don’t mean.”

you shook your head. “I do mean it. I admired you when we were together, y’know? you were everything to me— and that’s not something that ever fully goes away. I kinda hate you for everything you did,” you gave a small laugh. “but I don’t want you to suffer, okay? maybe we can— can get coffee or something next week. yeah?”

your eyes were glassy. he resisted the urge to reach for you. he was a protector, it was in his nature. he’d been too wound up in himself back then to realize that the trait he’d showcased on the battlefield should’ve applied to his home life, too. applied to his relationship. to you.

“yeah.” he nodded, his voice soft. he gave you a small smile. “tha’ would be nice.”

you nodded. he looked at you for a moment longer, taking in everything that had changed. but there was still the hint of that naive, youthful you, and that made him smile a little wider.

he turned and walked out the door.

————

author’s note:

muahahahaha ambiguous ending. do they get back together?? no?? do they ever get coffee?? it’s up to you!

this is ending one, keep a look out for ending 2 :)

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twentyfivemiceinatrenchcoat · 4 months

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you’re an angel, i’m a dog ; satoru gojo

synopsis; an upcoming exam has been stressing you out, and satoru’s pleas for you to take care of yourself fall on deaf ears. he takes matters into his own hands.

word count; 4.3k

contents; satoru gojo/reader, gn!reader, yan!gojo, as far as yanderes go he’s very mild i think (im sensitive u can trust me!!), mentions of blood, implied murder (not depicted!!), he threatens your professor w a knife lol, surprisingly fluffy??, gojo is soooo lovesick & smitten, he just wants his baby to live a happy life :( is that so wrong :((, also your parents love him <33 and he calls you honey <333 ideal man.

a/n; i blacked out & when i woke up this was in my drafts… mysterious. @kissxcore here u go alexis <33 one very smitten morally gray yan!gojo just for u!! i completely lost the plot halfway through but i had a lot of fun writing this!! :33 i don’t dabble in yan content at all so it was a fun lil challenge hehe, i hope it ended up . Somewhat .. decent…

satoru thinks you deserve everything good.

”haah…”

— the sigh spills into the air, dripping with exhaustion, a palpable fatigue that has his heart clenching.

just as he feared, you’re here. again. seated on the couch, in the living room, legs crossed and framed by flimsy strings of moonlight; illuminated only by the dim light of the laptop in front of you. carding through your hair, blinking sluggishly.

another sigh. deep, exasperated — from satoru, this time. he keeps a single hand on his hip, brows furrowed in soft disappointment.

”honey… what do you think you’re doing?”

you jolt, the sudden sound breaking you out of whatever trance you were previously in. when your gaze flits to his, craning your head to see him rest against the wall leading up to your bedroom, he thinks you look a little like a kid caught with their hand in the cookie jar.

it makes him smile. despite his disapproval.

”ah — satoru! it’s… um.” a moment passes. he can practically see the gears of your mind turning, searching for a good excuse. ”… not what it looks like?”

he clicks his tongue. ”nice try.”

then he’s walking towards you, in long strides, gliding across the room like a butterfly in search of nectar. from the sweetest flower there ever was.

even when said flower is still awake, past midnight, pulling an all-nighter despite his frequent advice not to. his very frequent, very thoughtful advice not to strain yourself until you just about pass out.

but you just won’t listen.

”’m disappointed in you, baby,” he huffs, just playful enough to ward off any genuine feelings of distress. he could never truly be disappointed in his baby. ”what did we say about studying this late, hm?”

a sheepish chuckle slips past your lips. satoru is standing in front of you, hands on his hips, raising a questioning eyebrow as you squirm. lighthearted, yes, but genuine. it makes you feel a little guilty.

”… sorry,” you breathe, closing the lid of your laptop. knowing he won’t let you stay up any longer. with the loss of light, your face becomes shrouded in darkness. ”just can’t sleep when i’m so stressed.”

at that, satoru makes a tiny noise — something worried, a little sad, from the base of his throat. a soft frown finds its way onto his lips, and he blinks the sleep away from his senses. plopping down beside you.

”i know. i’m not trying to lecture you,” he croons, reaching out to cradle the apple of your cheek. you melt into him like molten honey, easy and sweet. ”just worried. know you’re stressed.”

and he does. he does know — it’s all he’s been able to think about, these past few weeks. to his dismay, he’s even begun to grow used to this sight, used to finding you in the midst of working yourself to exhaustion. fighting the urge to sleep, slumped over your desk, or cooped up on the couch. staring into your laptop like it holds the secrets of the universe.

time and time again, he’s told you to take care of yourself. tried to coax you into relaxing, rubbing your sore shoulders and kissing the puffy skin beneath your eyes. but this exam is important — you’ve told him as much, more times than he can count. he doesn’t doubt that you’re right.

of course you’d be stressed. he gets it.

still, though.

”but you know it’s not good, yeah? that it’ll just burn you out?” his thumb goes to smooth over the dark crescents beneath your eyes, gentle as a feather. ”we don’t want that, do we?”

you bite your lip. trapping it between your teeth. he knows you know. ”… yeah,” you admit, a flimsy little sigh on your tongue. ”it just feels easier to do this at night. don’t know why.”

”my little night owl.”

that makes you smile, a little, but it’s not enough to satisfy him. he curls an arm around your waist, and drags you into his lap; gentle, always gentle, like all that exists under your skin is made of porcelain. like the lines of your face form a string of words, a label of fragile: handle with care. he always does.

with his heartbeat by your ear, his warmth melting into yours, it’s easier to speak. a pressure on your chest that fades away. ”i’ll try not to do it again,” you murmur, biting back a soft yawn. nuzzling into his neck. ”promise. don’t wanna worry you…”

satoru softens.

(always so good to him.)

”it’s fine, honey. i understand.” he smiles, smoothing down your spine, counting the bumps of vertebra that slide along his palm. ”don’t worry that pretty little head of yours over me, alright?”

in return for his comfort, you wriggle away, lifting your head to give him a smile. one of your many smiles, each one fervently cherished by him; the one you’re wearing now is tired, a soft curl of your lips, the kind that makes him want to lull you to sleep. just the sight alone makes the anxiety in his veins feel like a worthy investment.

he doesn’t tell you anything that could cause that joy to diminish. doesn’t tell you that he can’t sleep without you, that he can barely breathe knowing you’re this stressed all time. doesn’t tell you that he jolted awake with a sinking feeling of dread, a gaping pit in his stomach when he didn’t immediately feel the warmth of your skin against his. doesn’t tell you that he always, always assumes the worst.

satoru doesn’t tell you these things. it’s a safety measure, an act of love. a bundle of unvoiced syllables, woven into white lies, silky and sweet. tailor-made to put your aching mind at ease.

satoru thinks you deserve everything good.

it’s a theory, of sorts, a train of thought. a hypothesis made manifest. after many years of pondering, he’s arrived at the following conclusion; you are all that’s good. therefore, it only follows that you deserve everything that’s good, all of it and more. satoru believes you deserve every single thing your little heart desires — and he’s determined to give it to you.

so he’s been worried.

it’s not that he doesn’t trust you. he knows you’ll ace the exam, knows you’ll do your very best, knows you’ll make him proud. you always do. you aren’t the problem, no, never.

he just doesn’t trust your professor.

that unfair, stuck-up, incompetent professor who’d fail his students just for being a couple minutes late, who curates his exams to be as convoluted as humanly possible. you and your friends are starting to suspect he just likes berating people for a living. satoru knows it all, he’s heard it all, of course he has. satoru pays attention to everything, when it comes to you. he knows all about your professor, the man who’s been making your studies pure hell for the past semester.

it makes his blood boil. steady, ruminating, hot and heavy in his veins. a rivulet of lava.

(it was only a matter of time.)

satoru is a teacher too; he knows that type. one that has no business being a teacher, in the first place, one no student deserves to be subjected to. he’s met more of them in his career than he could even begin to count. the thought of one of his own students being at the mercy of someone so incompetent makes his skin itch.

and the thought of you, seated on the couch, crying and sniffling when he comes home because none of the exam questions made enough sense for you to even try —

it makes satoru want to claw his skin off.

it makes that tiny, tiny cavern in his heart extend, widen, like a maw, swallowing up his liver and lungs and sense of morality. an emptiness begging to be filled.

there’s only one way to satiate it.

so he plants a wet kiss on your forehead, ruffles your hair, tucks you into bed and waits until you fall asleep. deep and heavy, a slumber you won’t wake up from anytime soon. he presses his lips to your forehead one more time — for good measure.

then he grabs his coat and slips outside.

the moon is visible through the window.

a thin crescent, nailed next to the dim stars, leaking a dream-like fluorescent shine; illuminating the office, so quiet he can hear those erratic breaths spill out, one by one. a heavy, heavy silence, thick enough to spread like butter over toast.

(ah, that’s right — he forgot to buy the butter you asked for this morning. no wonder he feels so out of sorts. he’ll have to grab it on his way back.)

”who… w — what are — ?”

satoru stays silent. lips pursed, eyes keen, burning into the back of the man in front of him. close, almost chest to back, enough to have him scowling in displeasure.

just being in his presence makes satoru feel a little sick.

he keeps the blade pressed right beneath his adam’s apple, a silver glimmer in an office painted blue and gray. not enough to sink into his skin, but enough to have his heartbeat hammering, enough that satoru can practically feel those rapid flutters of life. brushing against his gloved hand.

he gets straight to the point. voice muffled by the fabric covering his mouth, low enough that it’s barely even audible. he’s careful, about this kind of thing. there’s a delicacy to the ill intent, something he’d be a little enamored with if it weren’t for the compass stuffed into his ribs — the compass that tells him this is wrong.

he just can’t bring himself to care.

”the upcoming exam.” his voice sends a shiver down the man’s spine. satoru can feel it. ”don’t fail a single student.”

silence. pure silence, suffocating them, tangling itself into the air. satoru can practically taste it — fear, familiar, that pang of panic. a ticking time-bomb. the knife stays pressed against warm skin, pushing, sinking, just a little, a drop of red against his pale throat.

it’s enough to get your professor to make a little noise, one that vaguely resembles a whine. like that of a small animal, rolling over on its belly, eager to play dead. no word is spoken in reply, but he nods, just barely, a nervous tremble of his head.

satoru hums, approving. ”good.” he doesn’t loosen his grip. ”there’s a particular student i’m worried about. marked them down in the catalogue... i’m counting on you.”

another noise. a grunt of affirmation, a silent plea — satoru allows that fear to seep into his own bones, just a little, just to get a taste of it. cold on his tongue. he wonders if this is what helplessness feels like.

then he takes a step back. slow, tentative, dragging the knife with him. not before parting his lips once more. ”don’t turn around,” he warns. ”i’ll be back if there are any complications. this’ll be our little secret, hm?”

the man in front of him doesn’t say a thing. frozen in fear, paralyzed, not moving an inch. a fly trapped in his web. it’s a relief.

before he exits the room, satoru puts the final nail in the coffin. just in case. ”i happen to know what school your daughter goes to.” he waits for a flinch, and it comes almost instantly. like clockwork. “remember that.”

it’s an empty threat. your professor doesn’t know that, though. he doesn’t know that satoru knows his daughter, that he walks past her preschool almost every morning on his way to work. that she waves to him whenever he passes by, and that he makes it a point to always wave back. a little troublemaker; the rowdiest of utahime’s preschoolers. she has a bubbly laugh, and just lost one of her milk teeth. she was giddy when she showed him, a bout of giggles spilling from her lips as he cooed and ruffled her hair.

he wouldn’t lay a finger on her.

but your professor doesn’t know that, hasn’t got a single clue, and satoru delights in the fear that must be running through his veins. down his spine, crawling into every narrow of his skeleton, making a home for itself that he’ll never quite be able to root out.

a gulp. satoru hears it, in the quiet of nightfall, just before he shuts the door behind him. good.

the rest of the evening is a blur. satoru gets home, relieved to find you still asleep, and tucks you into his chest. makes a mental reminder to order your favorite take out tomorrow; a little reward for your hard work.

finally, he can sleep easy. knowing you’ll get what you deserve.

three weeks later, satoru places his hand on the familiar doorknob in front of him, dragging his weight behind him. blinking sluggishly.

there’s a sinking feeling in his chest, weighing him down — like an anchor tied to his liver. a compass, tucked between his fourth and fifth rib, one that’ll always stay lodged right there. he’s learned to grow used to it, a natural consequence, a sign that his humanity is still intact.

that doesn’t make it any less bothersome, though.

(ridding the world of a pest shouldn’t make him feel dirty. especially when he felt nothing but contempt for the pest in question, for the way he whistled as you walked by, the words he spewed before satoru met his eye. vile. putrid. why should he feel guilty for wiping a stain off the pavement?

it does make him feel dirty, though. a sinking feeling in his chest.)

there’s nothing to be done about it. satoru swallows the unpleasant taste on his tongue, and drags the door open, closing it behind him with a softness he reserves for you alone.

and there you are.

on the couch, farther away, already looking his way — lips instantly curling up into what he knows will be a smile. this time, it’s laced with excitement. one of his personal favorites. his gaze devours the joy in your features, the glimpse he gets of your teeth, that familiar crinkle of your eyes.

you’re smiling. at him. you smile and his world wakes up, it’s dyed in different shades of blue, it’s brimming with life and love and something too good not to kill for. you smile and everything is right, good, worth it. you smile and it's as if the blood has been washed off his hands.

suddenly, all is well again. satoru exhales a blissful little breath.

“‘m home, honey,” he grins, a light pink dusting his cheeks, hanging his coat up before turning to face you. arms wide open. “did you miss me?”

his heartbeat stutters when you practically engulf him, all giddy giggles and that perfect smile, nuzzling into the crook of his neck. “mhm,” is what you chirp, pressing kisses down his collarbone, and he has to bite down on his lip to stop the shivers trailing down his spine. he tastes iron, but laps it up with a coo. sickly-sweet.

“missed you too, precious,” he purrs. “sorry i was gone for so long — had to take care of something.”

he cups the back of your skull with his palm, large and crafted just to hold you, and marvels at how much you trust him. how you’re melting into his chest, fitting into every crevice of his heart. he wants to keep you there forever. forever and ever, always within reach, always close enough to touch.

but he also wants you to be happy. he wants to see you run away, wherever the wind takes you, if only so he’ll get to feel you jump into his arms again, when you’ve had your fill of the world. when you come home to him, where you both belong.

satoru would never cage you. never, never, never. he wants you to enjoy your life — confining you wouldn’t do any good, would only stifle that pretty smile he loves so dearly. he wants your world to be large, brimming with life, blooming with fervor, wants the air to be clear enough for your beautiful lungs. he couldn’t build a world for you, here, in this apartment. no matter how big or luxurious.

so his only option is to bend the world into a kinder shape — twist and mold until it forms a path good enough for you to follow.

(it’s worth it, he knows, he’ll always know. it’s worth it to see that smile.)

“is that a new coat?” you ask, naive and innocent, and it breaks him out of his thoughts, attention wired to the lilt of your voice.

“yeah.” it’s stylish, expensive, a nice shade of black. he had to throw the last one away. “looks nice, right? i’ll get you the same one, pretty.”

“you don’t have to, toru!” you hurriedly exclaim, knowing he’ll jump at the opportunity to spoil you. “i like the one i have now!”

satoru pouts. a soft huff, right by your ear. “you don’t wanna wear matching coats?” he feigns sadness, scratching softly at your scalp, drinking up the little purrs that bubble up in your throat.

and you giggle. you giggle and all he can think is worth it, worth it, worth it. a stained coat or two means nothing. the blood on his hands is just insurance.

“well, when you put it like that…” you shift a little, curling your arms around his neck, breathing him in. he wonders if you can smell the cleaning detergent. “i guess i wouldn’t mind a new coat.”

and he grins. “right? want me to buy you new shoes while i’m at it? some jewelry?” he peppers kisses down your neck, amusement laced in his voice. “the whole store?”

again, those giggles. again and again. he laps them up like fine wine. “okay, that’s too much.”

“but you deserve it!” he whines, sickeningly sweet. sick to his stomach with love. “been working so hard, my angel.”

and, suddenly — you light up. his little firefly. brightening, inhaling a giddy breath. pulling away, a little, and he does his best to bite back the frown on his face. you’re practically beaming, sunshine personified, eyes glittering with giddy joy.

“right! i almost forgot!”

then you’re skipping away, happily, to retrieve your phone. and he knows what you’re going to show him, but still feigns surprise when he sees the score on your exam, that perfect 100 on the screen. still makes an expression of shock that he knows will get you to laugh, still picks you up and spins you around and tells you how proud he is.

he almost, almost feels bad, seeing you smile so wide; at what you assume to be the fruits of your own labour. almost feels ashamed, knowing that perfect 100 wouldn’t exist without the knife at your professor’s throat.

but, then again, this is how it should be. those numbers are the fruits of your own labour, because satoru is a part of you. and you deserve it, deserve it more than anyone — he knows you would have gotten it, even without his help, if your professor was competent enough to see your brilliance.

satoru smiles. he is proud of you. and this is exactly how it should be. he’s just bending the world into its rightful shape, cutting strings from a wrongly woven web, righting the wrongs of the people around you.

you, you, you. the only thing that exists.

all of him is for you.

”i knew you could do it. never doubted you for a second, baby,” he smiles, so wide his cheeks hurt, and you return it with a kiss to his jaw.

”thank you. i’m just so relieved,” you exhale a breath, heavy, and it’s like he can practically see the stress melting from your shoulders and eyes. worth it, worth it, worth it. ”gosh. i’m gonna sleep like the dead tonight.”

”as you should,” satoru chirps, pinching your side. softly, brimming with fondness. ”but before that, we’re gonna celebrate. all day. and tomorrow too!”

another smile coaxed from your lips; this time, it’s a little bit shy. bashful, at the praise, his endless excitement. so precious he wants to kiss you breathless. give you all the air in his lungs.

so precious that he forgets about everything else.

this is what you always do to him; wrap him up in a blanket of your love, cloud his veins with a nectar so sweet he takes the leap into your arms without a second thought. a foolish, lovesick butterfly, sticking to a single rose; dripping with honey, overflowing. the butterfly is too drunk on love to care.

you’re his flower, his joy, the most useful form of anesthesia. with you in his veins, on his mind, your lips on his jaw — satoru can pretend that his hands are clean. that they always have been.

it all slips from his mind. your professor, the creep who catcalled you, that one classmate you’ve been complaining about recently. he forgets that they even exists, and satoru thinks that must be what love is: something that narrows your world down until you can make a home out of it.

(something worth cherishing, no matter the cost.)

as always, it’s your voice that snaps him out of the trance he’s in. turning around at the sound of your call, the orpheus to your eurydice, too in love to save you from himself. you’re both getting ready to head out, dressing up for a well-deserved date.

satoru feels himself smile. he does the dirty work, and you get to reap the rewards. heaven on earth.

“oh, by the way! would you want to have dinner with my parents tomorrow?” you meet his absent gaze with a tilt of your head. “they’ve been asking about you again. it’s such a headache, seriously.”

satoru giggles, barely containing how delighted he is. raising a playful brow. “oh? grumpy that you aren’t the favorite child anymore, hm?”

“okay, first of all —“ you stifle a giggle, pulling a drawer open, rummaging through it. freshly washed clothes. he washes most of your things. “you aren’t their child. and second of all —“

“— yet.”

a pause.

satoru watches your gaze flick over to him, then back to the drawer, collecting yourself. a cute flush to your cheeks. “… whatever.” you clear your throat. “second of all — i don’t like how much they like you. what kinda spell did you put them under? it’s always satoru this, satoru that!”

a huff fills the air, and you mutter something that sounds a little like mocking, an obnoxiously imitated where’s satoru? that makes him chuckle into his fist.

he shrugs. “i’m just a natural charmer, y’know? and, for the record; i would love to have dinner with them.” he sends you a wink, playful, and you roll your eyes. “are you joining us?”

a bout of laughter pushes past your lips, and satoru thinks he could die happy — just soaking up the joy that spills from out your throat. he wishes he could live in it, paint your house in it, wear it. he wants your joy to be all he ever feels. he feels sick at the idea of ever being out of earshot for it.

“yes, i’m joining you.” your scoff is dripping with humour. ”i’d hate to be the fourth wheel, but it is what it is.”

satoru stifles a grin. ”lucky me. three beauties all to myself,” he drawls, a seductive lilt to his voice, just to hear that little noise you always make with the back of your throat. vaguely disgusted.

”you’re so gross.”

a coo. like the buzzing of a bee. ”don’t be jealous, honey. know you’re my favorite, don’t you?” satoru smiles — more sincere than you’ll ever know. ”could never love anyone else.”

”so my parents are in second place?” you quirk a brow, amusement lacing your words, and he clicks his tongue.

”well, they made you. i’d have to be a fool not to worship artists of such caliber.”

”charmer.”

”yours.” the word is a knife at his throat, a stain on his coat, a love so heavy it’ll burn him alive. ”only yours.”

and again, you smile. all he can think is that you deserve everything, everything that’s good, everything he could ever give you. it’s all he can think as you go about your day, as he leads you outside, as he watches that flicker of joy dance within your iris. as he watches you walk wherever your heart takes you.

the thought remains when you return home, when you wrap yourselves up in blankets and he throws a leg over your waist and you curl an arm around his ribcage. it’s all he can think.

satoru was born to be of service — to someone, to the world, to something or another. he was born to carry a weight on his back.

so why not bear the weight of your burdens?

all he wants is to protect you. all he’ll ever need is that smile on your face. he was always bound to be just this: a dog at your heels, a halo around your head, the watchful eye keeping you safe from everything rotten in this world. he’s the butterfly, the spider, the web itself. and he’ll never let you be tangled up in it.

he was born to be of service to you. so service you he will, until it all comes back to bite him.

“satoruuu — stop stealing the blanket!”

he prays it never will.

#im a lil unsure how to feel abt this piece i feel like it lost its flow pretty quickly 😔👉👈but i rlly did have fun writing it hehe #my baseline for yan!gojo is basically; a kind man who’s so in love w u that he’s willing to compromise his own morals to keep u safe #he’s not particularly possessive or even obsessive?? to him violence really is just . a necessary means to keep u happy #this is almost definitely the only yan piece ill ever write bUT im very fond of this gojo … he’s a tortured little meowmeow <33 #cw yandere #yandere gojo #gojo x reader #gojo x you #gojo x y/n #jjk x reader #jjk x you #jjk x y/n #gojo fluff #gojo satoru x reader #gojo satoru x you #gojo satoru x y/n #tw yandere

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theoldsports · 8 days

Text

SOLUTION.

Art Donaldson x Reader | 5k words

SORRY SERIES LINK.

warnings: pregnancy, implied discussion of abortion, a boy groveling on his knees for his family, there’s a dog (a real one, not just Art), talk about Art’s forced weird athletic borderline disordered eating.

okay, i lied last time. THIS is my best work. this is very out of my brain and i hope you love it. holy shit.

Have you ever sat and listened to a leaky faucet? I mean, really listened?

Steady. Like a heartbeat, if you think about it.

Sometimes, though, if the leak is slow enough, it’s more like the kind of heart rate that sends the nurse with the crash-cart sweeping into the room to shock you out of an AFIB pattern. Or however that worked.

[Y/N] was listening to it. The dripping. The kitchen sink. It hadn’t stopped for days. When it began, it was steady. Now, it was irregular. It started the day Art left

Art had been away at an early season tournament. [Y/N] had an impossible work week, so Art had told her he was happy to go for the better part of the week on his own. They both knew Art really did hate to be alone in situations like that. He had always had one of his people there. His mom, Patrick, [Y/N]; one of them was in his corner at these things. This time, he was truly on his own. Art could not stand to travel alone. He had his team of physios and coaches, but not his family. [Y/N] was going to swing by and surprise him at the end, but her boss had leaned into her for trying to take more days off during release season for the big summer blockbusters. Plus, someone did have to watch the dog.

This context about Art’s being away is important. It’s not that Art was the epitome of a handyman, but he really liked to feel like he was contributing to their home’s ecosystem when a lightbulb went out or a switch needed replacing. The man was incredible with the small things. Yet, [Y/N] sat at the kitchen table with a frown on her face, trying to rough in an outline for an article. With the faucet dripping. If Art were there, or if she was with Art three states over, the faucet wouldn’t be dripping against the porcelain basin.

It wasn’t like the wifi signal was strong enough anywhere else on the property for her to up and move either.

drip drip drip. Said the faucet.

[Y/N] was damn near the point where she was going to run upstairs to the bedroom and get the baseball bat Art kept with the express purpose of running down the stairs in his briefs and cracking up on possible intruders. All she could think about was bringing the wood down against the glass and cheap metal on her kitchen counter.

A new house would have a working sink and a bathroom counter that wasn’t too small and a halfway decent wifi signal.

Instead, [Y/N] set her face down upon the cool blue faux granite countertop. The temperature helped ease the feeling of the hyperbolic corkscrew being driven between her eyes. The dripping kept dripping and [Y/N] wanted to cry.

This agony wasn’t all the sink’s fault, though.

[Y/N] saw on the tennis channel before she even got a call from Art that he’d won that weekend. He still hadn’t called. The lack of a call from made her feel ashamed. Not a soul there to celebrate the success with him. She felt an immense sense of guilt slide across her skin because she wasn’t there to witness that smile he got when he won. Sweaty and angry, but relieved every time. He still got that look when he won. Art was a machine on the court, and a competitor not worth counting out at this point in his career. He still looked surprised and delighted every time he, of all people, hit the winner. [Y/N] loved that look. Art loved how she would celebrate with him after a win, too.

[Y/N] prayed Art made his flight without delay that evening. Selfishly, because she wanted her boy back. Also because Art was mortally terrified of airplanes. Planes made him feel out of control due to lack of trust with the pilot. Without that phone call from him, [Y/N] was scared knowing he was out on his own and that he likely felt anxious enough to give a horse a heart attack. She would have no way of knowing if something had happened between the match end and now.

She did know that the sink was leaking.

She also knew her period was two weeks late.

That, Art couldn’t fix on his own. In fact, it was fairly obvious that the delay was more or less Art’s fault.

[Y/N] hadn’t yet taken a pregnancy test at that time. If she took the time to take one, it would make everything the obvious answer a reality she would have to deal with. She had scares before. Ones that she had never, and would never, tell Art about. She would wait for her delayed—not missed!—period and everything would be fine. Like the other times. It had to be fine.

She checked her phone. It was a blue slidephone with small rhinestone stickers she had applied to the back. Still nothing from Art. He said he would call first right after the match, but he still hadn’t actually called, so maybe it was time to call first. It had been hours since he said he’d ring up. It wasn’t a major concern that Art would blow her off. Ideas of danger and uncertainties flooded her head.

“I’m the one that wants marriage so bad. Not Artie. What if he says no? Or not now…?”

[Y/N] sat on the beach with her back against Patrick’s shins. Art and [Y/N] were completing their first year completely post college. [Y/N] and Patrick were twenty-four and Art was almost twenty-four. His November birthday set him behind.

Patrick’s hands were on her shoulders and his body in a beach chair behind her while they both stared off over ocean as the sun set. “You’re actually stupid if you think he’ll deny you, [Y/N].”

“Yeah, but I don’t want to step on his game, or whatever. The guy is supposed to ask. Isn’t this going to be… emasculating or something?”

“Emasculating for Art? For pretty baby? Yeah, okay,” Patrick teased. [Y/N] threw a fistful of sand at him. “Christ, okay, okay. Cool it.” He spit.

Art had run back up toward to hotel to grab his water bottle, while Patrick and [Y/N] stayed at the dunes. [Y/N] wanted to propose to Art by trip’s end. She thought it would be sweet. Art was extremely forward when it came to her her, but he hadn’t been forward about the whole proposal business. He seemed scared about marriage. [Y/N]he would do it herself.

She was grateful for the time alone with her best friend too. Sitting and doing nothing, or partying. Either was more than welcome. “He’s not going to say no,” Patrick continued. His mouth casually leaned close to her ear. “Because it’s insane how whipped you’ve got him.”

“Don’t say that—“

“He wants to have your babies. Ask him. Trust me, he’ll say yes and he will be all the hell over you.” His fingers worked into [Y/N]’s shoulders, feeling the tension there. He took his hands off of her when Art came running down the beach.

[Y/N] heard a click in the lock. Her head flopped to the left, still pressed against the counter, to glance at the door. Her heart rate increased. She was so tired and the speed of the situation so fast, that she didn’t both moving or attempting to defend herself.

Most fortunately, when the door swung open, it was her Art. The sun was going down behind him. He looked a bit ragged and had a racket bag over one shoulder and two duffels in the other hand. She sat upright sharply on the kitchen barstool. “Pretty baby!”

All Art’s gear hit the floor. The door was left open behind him (taking a big chance that their Labrador mix, Cheese, didn’t run down the stairs and bolt out and away). Art walked toward [Y/N], arms extending. His strong arms pulled [Y/N] in close to his chest. She rested her head against his soft gray t-shirt. Her own arms embraced him back and one of her hands tucked comfortably into the back pocket of his jeans. “[Y/N]… I missed you.” Art said into her hair.

“I missed you… I-I… You didn’t call. How did you get here—“

“Final match actually started on time, so I gambled on moving my flight to the earlier one. I didn’t have time to call if I was taking the early one. I should’ve texted. I got nervous with the-the flight. I’m sorry. Forgive me?”

[Y/N] leaned back to look at him. There was no more welcome sight in the world than Art Donaldson. Irish genetics saw to it that Art was freckled from the spring sun. With shaggy hair boyishly covered by a baseball cap tipping back dangerously, he practically glowed. Even though he looked like shit. His sunglasses were hanging on his shirt. [Y/N/] tilted her head up, signaling for a kiss. Hungrily, Art leaned forward to take as many kisses as he wanted. His lips tasted like spearmint gum. Like always.

Cheese did run downstairs when Art’s hand climbed up the side of [Y/N]’s throat and when her own hand started to squeeze from under the fabric of Art’s back left pants pocket. Art had to pull regretfully away to grab Cheese by the collar and shut the front door.

Delightedly, Art did gteet Cheese with ear-scratches and a belly rub. Art received the customary licks and a tailwags in return. Cheese was always pretty down when the whole family wasn’t together. He walked and played a bit, but when his dad wasn’t around, Cheese kind of deflated. He had spent most of the time laying flat on Art’s side of the bed. It was obvious the dog was grieving the disappearance of his boy.

When Art bent down to pat his beloved Cheese, [Y/N] stood from her chair and bent at the waist. She pulled Art’s hat off and set it on the counter. Gently, she kissed Art on top of the head. With a scratch not unlike the ones he gave to the canine to the back of Art’s neck, the man looked up at her from the ground with a half-smile.

“Congrats, baby,” [Y/N] said. Art cut his eyes curiously from her to the tennis channel on the TV playing in the next room. That had him realizing where she would have gotten the information of his win from so efficiently. “How was the tournament? I’m sorry I couldn’t—“

“Sure, sure, but I bet Cheese here is pretty glad you were home,” Art said and stood up with one final pat to Cheese’s flank. “The whole thing was great. I… I’m kind of surprised I won, if I’m being honest.” Art said, wrapping an arm around [Y/N]’s waist.

Naturally, her hands flattened against his toned chest when he tugged her towards him. “I’m not. You’re fucking good at tennis, Art.”

His ears reddened in embarrassment as he tucked his face into [Y/N]’s neck to hide his face. Art was used to praise and loved it more than anything, no matter where it came from. Every compliment from [Y/N] was worth a hell of a lot more. Art hated thinking about why that was the case. He knew why, though. She had seen he and Patrick play and even then thought Art was good. Art still won the match when it came to [Y/N] and he would never tell her that.

“Hush…” He mumbled into her neck, planting a biting, teasing kiss there. She laughed. He laughed. “I played against an eighteen year old kid yesterday. He played really well,” Art leaned back to look at her again. “You saw, I’m sure,” he indicated the TV with a nod. “He would’ve won this weekend if I hadn’t won that match. Just… I’m twenty-six. Made me feel old.”

“…Glad you won, then.”

“I said if I hadn’t…”

“Well, if you’re sooooo down on your win then congrats on flying home all by yourself like a big boy.” [Y/N] smirked.

“Oh, you’re gonna be like that, huh?” Art withdrew his hands from his wife’s body and put them teasingly on his own hips.

[Y/N] nodded. “Yeah. If you’re old, imagine how I feel.”

“Ancient, probably.”

Art leaned in for another kiss. She pushed him back playfully. “No! You called me old!” [Y/N] laughed.

She leaned one way, then the other to avoid Art’s beautifully wrinkled nose and smiling mouth. “Please? I’m sorry, I’m sorry! You’re-you’re not old!” Art said and attempted to trap her with his arms and give her a kiss.

[Y/N] turned hard over her shoulder and ran up the stairs. Cheese gave a woof from the couch when Art chased after her. Art spent his life chasing after her.

“No! You can’t kiss me! Doghouse! Bad Art! Bad!” [Y/N] accused jokingly. Art jumped up the stairs. He took them two and three at a time.

Art backed her against the bathroom door. Nowhere left to run. His rough hands settled on her hips. “Gotcha. You’re pretty fast for an old lady, y’know. Late for bingo, or—“ Art smirked when he leaned in to kiss her.

[Y/N] shut him up with a kiss. She had missed his stupid boy babbling. His mouth was soft against hers. Art put one of his hands on the wooden door beside her face to hold himself up. The other hand found her belt loop, keeping her body close to his.

“I love you,” Art whispered between kisses. “I love you so much, honey. I missed you.”

[Y/N]’s head leaned back against the door with a soft thud. Her breath caught in her throat. “I love you t—mmh!” Art leaned in for another kiss.

The joy of being Art Donaldson’s wife was that he never got tired of touching her, or being physically close. Sometimes, [Y/N] would look over at him while she was writing, or making dinner, and he would be staring, or slowly extending his hand to her and seeing how long it took for [Y/N] to acknowledge his presence. It never ceased to make her feel beautiful. “Can we…” his fingers danced over the button on her jeans.

“Can we what…?” She asked coyly.

Art blushed, but smirked and lowered his lips by [Y/N] ear. “Can we fuck? Please?” He asked too politely for as dirty as those words were. Like the good midwestern boy that he was.

She tipped her head back further. Art kissed her neck with all the energy he could muster. “Can I not make you dinner first? You-you a cheap whore as well as old now, too?” [Y/N] jeered. Art snorted a laugh. The warm air from the giggle spread over [Y/N]’s skin, causing goosebumps to raise. “I’m never letting you leave home alone again, then.”

Art nodded against her skin, sucking and licking a spot they both new would bruise dark. The sound she let out was absolutely disgusting and Art loved it. “I would prefer to never be let out of your sight, personally.” He said when he pulled away.

“Come on, house boy… We’re havin’ dinner. And you’re gonna eat some bread,” [Y/N] said, pointing a finger at Art’s chest. He started to put up a fight about the ultra-low nonexistent amount of inactive carbs he was eating during the season, but [Y/N] kept chattering. “Stop talking. Your brain doesn’t work right without carbs. Braindead. Come on, dinner.”

“You’re bad for me.”

“I know.” [Y/N] smiled.

Normally, [Y/N] drank a cup of coffee when the pair made dinner. Art knew the pattern. He made her the cup of coffee every time. It sat mostly unfinished that night, though. She found herself heating and reheating it in the microwave as they cooked. She started to space out as he recapped the tournament in full detail, as she requested. If Art noticed, he didn’t let on. [Y/N] noticed, though. Little stood between her and coffee. She didn’t want to drink it. That was violently unusual.

“Hey, I’m gonna go piss. Can you—“

“Watch the sauce?” Art asked, indicating the creamy pesto she had on the stove while Art cleaned and cut vegetables.

“Mhm.” [Y/N] confirmed. Art slid over to take the spoon from her. He placed a hand at the bottom of her back as she walked away. Art fit perfectly into her life. It wasn’t fair how right he was for her.

She went to the upstairs bathroom instead of the downstairs one. She hoped that didn’t set off Art’s sixth sense about the way-things-had-to-be. Once upstairs, [Y/N] wasted no time yanking open the medicine cabinet behind the mirror. It was overflowing, naturally. Makeup, supplements, condoms, hair ties, pill bottles, loose painkillers. It was a disaster. There was also a pregnancy test.

A laughing Art had given it to [Y/N] as a joke the morning after their wedding night and she had hit him hard enough to bruise across the chest. The test sat wrapped and in the box behind the mirror every day since. Just in case.

[Y/N] had officially arrived at just in case.

She gingerly tossed the empty box under the sink so Art wouldn’t see it without looking for it. Then, [Y/N] undid the buttons on her overalls and, well, took the test.

Lacking the time to sit and watch it come back positive or negative, [Y/N] tossed the clean cap on the stick, slid it into the pocket of her overalls, washed her hands and went downstairs like nothing was wrong.

Except she knew something was wrong. Now she felt like she had a loaded gun in her pocket. She was too cautious with her movements due to the fear that the test would slip out of her front right pocket in front of Art.

She was damn near about to step into the pantry and shut the door just to see if the pee stick had one line or two. If he wasn’t already suspicious, that would do it. [Y/N] felt that the anxiety created was easily the worst anxiety she had ever had. Oops.

[Y/N] got quiet. She was talking less and listening more. Not that there was anything wrong with that, but she was a chatterbox. Art would notice her blanched face and wrinkled brow eventually, she worried.

Ever the perceptive bastard, Art did. When he sat beside [Y/N] at the counter to eat a bowl of pasta with more inactive carbs than he had eaten in six months, he kept cutting his eyes at her. His bare foot nudged her ankle. Her dish was relatively untouched. “You good, babe? You’re being weird.”

“I’m not being weird.”

“You are being weird because you’re not being you. I’ve barely asked you how you’re doing with all the excitement. Long day?” Art asked, setting down his fork to drag his hand across the back of her shoulders.

“Yeah, a bit.” [Y/N] said. What she meant to say was I have a pregnancy test and I bet it is positive in my pocket right now and I’m so terrified that I can practically smell my pit stains right now, baby. But she didn’t say that.

Art spun to face her, taking in her expression and demeanor. There was that contemplative knot perched between his eyebrows. The back of his hand landed calmly on [Y/N]’s forehead to check her temperature. “Art…” [Y/N] said, pushing his hand down.

“No, hang on.” Art said firmly. He tried to put his hand back on her face. Instead, not having a clue what it said, [Y/N] reached into her front right pocket and slammed the pregnancy test down between them. Art retracted his hand and flinched back a bit at the sudden movement. The test was face down on the counter.

Art’s eyes cut from the test back to her. His face was suddenly very solemn. “Are you—“

“—I dunno. I didn’t-I couldn’t look. It’s been in my pocket for twenty minutes. No idea.”

“Do you think you are?”

[Y/N] shrugged and looked at her bowl. It looked too green. sick sick sick. drip drip drip said the faucet.

“Do you want to know if you are?” Art asked wide-eyed. “I want to know, personally. Do… Do you?”

Again, [Y/N] shrugged. “If we don’t look, it’s not real.”

“…That’s stupid.” Art shook his head.

“You’re stupid.”

Art sighed. “I’m gonna look. I mean, I’m going to turn it over,” his eyes frantically reached for [Y/N]’s. He grabbed her hand with his to get her attention. “I’m going to look. Is that okay with you?”

“Yeah.” She whispered and it was okay.

And she was pregnant.

Two blue lines stared at them.

“Fuck.” [Y/N] said. She felt both elated and humiliated. She wanted so badly to be a mother. She wanted to cry. How could they keep it? The timing was wrong. She hadn’t agreed to this. The two of them had so many fights about it. She barely understood how this happened. She thought they were being so careful. It didn’t make any sense. Every precaution she could think of had been taken at one point or another.

And the fucking faucet was still dripping. She could hear it. drip drip drip. Over and over.

“Fuck.” She said sliding out of her chair and standing unsteadily. That wasn’t the result one should feel when they get something they have spent so long wanting.

Art ran his hands through his hair. He knew he shouldn’t be smiling when she looked so worried. His face betrayed the wide smile he hoped to hide. That’s exactly what he wanted to see. Fuck.

“Honey… Hey, hey. You’re okay. This is awesome. C’mere.” Art said like he was diffusing a bomb. His arm were wide open to hold her.

“Art…”

“No, uh-uh. Just come here. Please.”

Cautiously, [Y/N] made her way into her favorite pair of arms in the world. “It’s not supposed to be like this.” [Y/N] choked out as Art held her.

“Shh, I know, I know,” Art said calmly. His left hand’s fingers brushed her hair away from her face. “But that’s how it is now. We have to accept that and solve for the next move, right?” It was silent for a while after that. [Y/N]’s arms were tightly wrapped around Art’s shoulders and their bowls of pasta were certainly cold. She felt that she had ruined everything.

She glanced at Art’s face. The small smile betrayed him. “Art… We can’t. Not now.” she had told Art not now so many times that it felt forced and rehearsed. Now that [Y/N] that was actually pregnant, she wanted nothing more than to stay pregnant. The timing was far from good. She had articles that were still very due the next day. She had a husband who very much traveled often for work (who she traveled with too). She had Cheese, who was staring at her weird over the back the couch because he didn’t understand crying.

“What do you mean we can’t?” Art said quietly. “We-We can. We… have. We are… Actively.” He fumbled.

“We can. We did! But… You know now’s not a good time, baby.” [Y/N] countered weakly.

Art’s hands never left [Y/N]’s waist. “Let’s run pros and cons.”

“Pretty baby.” She said accusatorially. Good old analytic Art…

“Let’s run pros and cons.” Art repeated unflinchingly. He sprang up off of his barstool to gather a sharpie and a legal pad from some drawer. Art uncapped the marker harshly with his teeth. Cap between his teeth still, he asked: “Do you want it?” while he found a clean, smooth page.

Before she could respond with her head, [Y/N] responded with her heart. She nodded a yes to him immediately. “Do you?”

Art capped the back end of the marker to free up his mouth. “More than anything ever, I think. It would probably kill me a little bit, actually, if… Yeah. I understand and it’s all up to you, honey, but… Yeah.” His hand created a PRO column and a CON column on the page.

Under PRO, Art added the items he knew would cause no trouble in his blocky capitalized handwriting:

FINALLY START FAMILY

NATURAL/EASY START

SEASON ALMOST OVER

[Y/N] HAS FLEXIBLE HRS

DREAM COME TRUE??

WILL BE GR8 PARENTS

[Y/N] nodded in approval. She couldn’t think of more pros, but Art handed her the marker and she started in on the CON list:

OLYMPICS??

ART’S NEVER HOME

EXPENSIVE

SMOKING/COFFEE

CHEESE JEALOUS?

TOO YOUNG!

Art drew the line at giving up stimulants and assigning the dog human traits and struck both of those off the list with a frown.

Frankly, Art thought the cons list turned out rude.

“I haven’t qualified for the Olympics yet,” he protested. “And if I do, imagine how early on that would be. Before all the hard stuff.”

[Y/N] replied with the thing they both knew was the most real problem. She had waited forever to say it out loud. “No offense… You are never home anymore. You’re busy all the time. Which I get. It’s your job. You’re good at your job. But look how excited the fuckin’ dog got to see you because you were gone so long. You are never here. We can’t put a human in doggy day camp all the time. It would be fucking impossible to raise—“

“I’ll quit,” Art said, wincing. He wouldn’t. [Y/N] felt that this was a bluff. He tried in vain to hide his expression of shame. “I’ll quit tennis.” He said. He wasn’t going to.

“That would worsen the problem. No money.”

“I’ll work at the 7/11. I’ll be a construction worker. I could be a fuckin’ coach. I actually have a degree, y’know, I can use it. I’m more than a racket. I don’t want you to feel alone here. I want to be here for all of it, I can—“

“You know I’m alone here a lot, babe. A lot. You don’t… You’re in a position where you’re unable to help constantly. Because you’re gone. That’s okay. I married you knowing that, right? But a baby, Art? That’s not fair.”

“I’ll bail on a season. I will. I just…” Art stared at her. “Please. I’m begging you. See this kid through with me.”

The sharpie was forgotten on the counter along with dinner. Art’s knees landed on the floor before [Y/N]. Art practically lived on his knees in front of [Y/N]. He gathered [Y/N] hands in his. “Please. It’s your call, but hear me out. Because that thing is part of both us. I don’t want you to hate or resent me or the little stinker forever, but you want it. I know that. Hear me out.” His beautiful two-tone eyes stared up at her.

“Fine. Go ahead.”

“I will give you anything. Please, my world is you. Not tennis; you. I’m telling you, I-I would leave that behind to be anything you need right now. Just ask it. You’re my fucking priority, you got that? I just.. I… Please? I’m not going anywhere.”

“I want to keep it too, but—“

“Then what’s the big deal?” Art asked hopefully.

“It isn’t a good time. It’s too soon.”

Art’s mouth trailed kisses across his wife’s stomach and hips and hands and arms. He let this go on for several minutes. “Please,” Art whimpered pathetically into the skin of her wrist. “Please, please, please. I will do anything, my love. I’m on my knees here,” Art looked up at her through thick lashes. “We can do this. Both of us together. I’ll do whatever you want. You know I will. This can be good for us. I’m really sorry we’re here, but here we are, hon. What time’s going to be the right time? Please. I love you.” Art pleaded desperately.

[Y/N] knew this was going to be a disaster. But she wanted to keep it. What time’s going to be the right time? rung in her ears over and over, like the faucet. They had put so much time into arguing about the time and the place that would be right for a family. Now it was right in front of them. Her hand caressed Art’s face. She loved it when he groveled like that. This time, on his knees and everything. On instinct, he nuzzled his face into her hand and looked up at her through long lashes.

“Will you fix the faucet? It’s been dripping all week.”

“Anything.”

“I’ll… I’ll think about it. I’m going to think about it. The baby.”

“You will?” Art’s teary eyes widened.

“Objectively, this is a terrible fucking idea. We both know that. But if it’s really so terrible, why do I feel, like… happy about it…”

Art’s face lit up. It wasn’t a yes, but it wasn’t a no either. [Y/N], honestly, found it very hard to say no to Art. His arms wrapped carefully around her thighs while his head rested against her middle as he knelt. [Y/N] could feel his silver ring through the denim of her overalls. “God, I love you. I love you, [Y/N]. We’re not going to regret this. Holy shit…”

“Love you too. We’re gonna… We’re gonna try, maybe? This doesn’t feel real. Does this feel real? I…”

“It feels like a dream is what it feels like,” Art mumbled into her clothes. “I love you.” Art said, pressing a kiss to her stomach.

“I love you.”

“I’m gonna be a dad…” Art almost wept. “If you, y’know, but… Shit. I’m sorry.” Which part he was apologizing for was unclear.

At that, [Y/N] laughed and tangled her fingers in his curly blonde mop of hair. “Yeah, you’re gonna be a fucking dad, pretty baby.” She smiled.

[Y/N]’s next instinct was to say: I have to call Patrick. Then she remembered couldn’t call Patrick.

TAGLIST (ask to join):

@diorrfairy @donaldsonsdarling @muthafuckingstargirl @shysstuff @soberbabes @avylanchce

apologies for tag issues. i’ll dm those it didn’t work for!

#art donaldson x reader #art donaldson imagine #art donaldson x you #art donaldson #challengers movie #challengers #patrick zweig #patrick zweig x reader #sorry series #father art

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onlyhuis · 1 month

Text

amateur hour

member — camboy!jun x f reader genre — smut, f2l, idiots to lovers, fluffy ending word count — 8.6k synopsis — the most awkward encounter of your life might just end up being the best thing you and your best friend have ever done together. warnings — descriptions of female anatomy, masturbation (jun), voyeurism & exhibitionism (watching porn together), jun is a big time simp but in a soft way, please lmk if i missed any! notes — huge thanks to @onlymingyus and @highvern for reading this for me to make sure i wasn't insane, and thanks to @cheolism and @duhnova for help with the title <3 this is my longest fic in a while and it took so much energy to finish but i hope yall enjoy! please reblog or send an ask and lmk if you enjoyed this! :)

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"hello? anybody home?"

jun squeezes his eyes shut, throwing his head back with a stifled moan as he cums all over his hand. his grip on his cock tightens, milking every last drop out across his abs as he fights to keep himself quiet.

fuck, he forgot. forgot he'd told you to come over tonight. forgot he'd promised a movie night to cheer you up after your latest dating disaster. he feels like the worst friend on the planet right now, for so many reasons.

the main reason? the fact that he's just finished cumming at the thought of you… and also the fact that he's been streaming the whole thing to thousands of people.

out of breath, he presses a couple keys before slamming his laptop shut. no goodbye to his viewers, no thanking the people who donated. but they're used to his unconventional streams, often barely acknowledging their existence or even not talking at all. not because he cares deeply about staying anonymous, but because he's just so… average.

maybe that's why he's so popular: he's just a regular guy jerking off. people like that amateur stuff. no elaborate productions, no fancy camera work, just a guy with a laptop and a really pretty cock (or so he's been told). he could be anyone: your classmate, your neighbor, the cute guy from the library. he might even be your best friend.

"in here— changing!" he calls through his closed door, rushing as fast as he can to clean himself up and put clothes on. he's mentally praising himself for remembering to make his bed this morning, and after wiping a suspicious looking stain off his desk and fixing his chair, his room looks halfway decent.

he tosses open his bedroom door to greet you, throwing a smile onto his face. he doesn't want you to feel like you're intruding—he loves it when you come over, he wouldn't have given you his house key if he didn't want you to—even though at this exact moment, you very much are intruding. even though he invited you over in the first place. fuck, he's such an idiot.

when jun hadn't answered any of your texts before you let yourself in his apartment, you'd figured he'd forgotten about tonight. you'd hoped tonight would be an exception, but it's not out of the ordinary for him to be forgetful. any other day you wouldn't have minded, even teased him about it, but not tonight. especially since he invited you over in the first place.

but all of your worries are suddenly pushed to the backseat when he comes out of his room looking… well, hot.

like, literally hot. he's sweating, his hair disheveled and his pupils huge as he pushes his shirt sleeves up his arms.

it takes a second for you to take it all in— obviously he'd forgotten about his promise and had started a workout instead. you can't say you haven't noticed lately how often he's started working out, his biceps bulking up and his chest peeking out through his shirts. you'd wondered when he's been finding the time to go to the gym, his excuse for years being that he's too busy or too lazy to leave the house, but it seems like he's been working out at home too now.

you stand awkwardly in the space between his living room and the door, watching the beads of sweat forming at his hairline. “if now's a bad time, i can— leave…”

"no!" he rushes to say, and you pause at his sudden outburst. "no. just... let me take a shower real quick. i'm so sorry, i lost track of time." he runs his hand through his hair, trying to calm himself down while you try not to stare.

"sure," you say after a long moment. his eyes pause to travel over your face with an expression you can't read, but maybe you just imagined that because seconds later he's back to his cheery, usual self telling you to make yourself cozy on his bed and start looking for a movie while he's in the shower.

standing under the cold water, he promises to himself that he's going to get everything right tonight, despite the rocky start. he's gonna bring out the snacks and put on the movie and make you happy again. because that's what he always does, and he may not be the most perfect person in the world but he tries to be for you.

he's been there for every new boyfriend you tell him about that he already knows won't end well, and he's been there when it inevitably doesn't end well. he's been there without a single complaint for every drunk saturday night and every hungover sunday morning. and he's not going to complain this time either, no matter his feelings for you and how badly he wishes you would just date him instead. maybe he's a little biased, but he thinks he'd make a great boyfriend.

you sit at the edge of his bed wringing your hands until you hear the shower start to run, finally letting out a deep exhale and starting to relax with a moment to yourself.

he’ll take his shower, and it’ll be like a reset button for the evening; he’ll come out nice and clean like nothing ever happened, and you’ll snuggle up and watch a funny movie and maybe get a little drunk and forget all your troubles for the weekend. a clean slate, as if you hadn’t had to use every ounce of self control you’ve got in order to avoid ogling him and the way his sweat drenched shirt clung to his torso.

you’ll have such a fantastic time with the movie, you won’t even have time to stop and think about the fact that he probably works out shirtless. no, you definitely aren’t thinking about how you’ve never seen any gym equipment around his house so he must be doing like a crazy amount of pushups or something to get that ripped without any kind of exercise machine. the fact that these are not the kind of thoughts you should be thinking about your best friend is entirely irrelevant.

content with your plan to avoid thinking for the rest of the evening, you stand up from his bed and move to stand at his desk, opening his laptop to find something to watch.

and oh, you find something to watch, alright.

staring back at you on his screen is a porn site, paused on a video of a man laid naked across a worn out looking chair, legs spread wide with his cock tightly in his fist.

oddly enough, your first thought is that the scene looks… hot. the top of the video cuts off at the neck, hiding his face from the camera but leaving his prominent adam's apple exposed. it’s very obviously amateur, but even from just the single frame shown, you get the sense that there’s a certain charm to it. and quite honestly, it’s working for you.

apparently, it works for a lot of other people, too. the video has hundreds of thousands of views, and below it are suggested videos from the same man that boast similar numbers.

jun never struck you as the type of guy to watch solo male videos, but you aren't here to judge his preferences. hell, you've seen way worse yourself. there must be something he likes about it, though, and you’re half tempted to press play on the video to find out if the rest of it is as good as the preview seems to be.

you're about to close the tab and never speak of it again, but something else catches your eye and you pause, finger hovering over the mousepad. something about the guy in the video feels… familiar, somehow.

looking closer you see there's a little mole on his tummy, right by his hip, that reminds you of the one jun has. you've seen him without his shirt on enough times to recognize it—not like you've been staring or anything. just something you've noticed.

but then your stomach flips, and you realize what's actually familiar about the guy in the video. tied around his wrist is a thin red string, a friendship bracelet you made when you first met him and accidentally tied it too tight so he couldn't take it off that he's worn ever since.

there's no way that's a coincidence.

and then everything else starts to fall into place: the posters in the background of the video. the old desk chair you’ve sat in so many times that you’ll never be able to see the same way again. too many pieces fitting easily together like a puzzle.

but by the time you've had long enough to process all this information, the shower has stopped and out walks jun wearing nothing but a loose pair of sweatpants. your eyes drag away from the sight of his wet, naked chest and instantly fix on the bracelet tied around his wrist, unable to stop staring at it.

you distantly hear him call your name, and your gaze snaps back up at him with wide, guilty eyes, caught like a deer in headlights.

he opens a drawer and starts tugging a t-shirt on over his head, turning around to look at you. “did you find something to watc— oh.”

you follow his gaze towards his open laptop, the video sitting proudly on display in the tab you forgot to close.

you both stare at the paused video for a very long moment, the silence stretching on before all the words that were stuck in your throat suddenly come tumbling out all at once.

“i wasn’t— it was just open… i didn’t—”

he stands there in silence, and you stand there in silence, and the evidence sits on the desk between you like a wall that makes you feel intensely exposed, even though he’s the one who’s sitting naked on the open screen.

your first instinct (after panic, of course) is to slink home and hide yourself in your room and try to erase the image of your best friend’s dick from your memory. you’ve never thought they looked very attractive before, but his is weirdly beautiful to look at, and you’re not willing to explore that train of thought. also, way bigger than you were expecting, but it’s not like you thought about it often enough to guess how big he is or anything.

“maybe i should go home and we should just forget about tonight,” you rush to add when he still doesn’t say anything after a lengthy pause.

jun’s face falls, and you immediately feel a pang of guilt for trying to run. “you don't have to go,” he says quickly. “it’s not— um, nothing weird about it, right? i’m sorry, i should have closed it, or…” he pauses, stumbling over his words almost as badly as you are. “i don’t wanna make you uncomfortable. i promise my sheets—and everything in my room—is clean.” he tries an awkward smile, and it makes you feel really bad about making him feel bad.

“it's not weird at all. it's totally normal. i was just… surprised,” you try to smile back, but it doesn't work as well on you as it does on him. “just a shock, i guess. trying to process it. but it's fine. i promise.”

“i won't make it weird,” he says. “you don't have to watch it or anything.” he kind of wants you to.

“i wasn't thinking about it.” you definitely were.

there's another uncomfortably long silence. “so anyway, did you pick out a movie?” he asks at the same time you ask him a question, both trying to keep the conversation going, but you realize you should've kept your mouth shut and let him take the lead because he is way more capable of being normal about this than you are.

“what do you think about when you do it?” you blurt out, and you regret the words as soon as they leave your mouth because you've realized just how invasive of a question that is and you're kind of hoping he didn't hear you, but he definitely did because he's sitting at the edge of his bed with a shocked look on his face, because out of all the things he was expecting you to say it definitely wasn't that.

“don't answer that. i don't know why i said that,” you follow up immediately, trying to mitigate the damage but it's too late.

his eyebrows are scrunched up in thought. “no, i don't care. i—um… i just don't know how to answer that without making it weird.”

“you don't have to,” you say quickly.

he turns to you, but you pointedly look away. “do you actually want to know?”

you look down at your hands, doing everything to avoid his eyes. “kinda.” yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

he laughs a little, and miraculously somehow it manages to lighten the tension, hearing that familiar sound. “you seem, like, really uncomfortable. we can just… pretend it never happened.”

“it's gonna be hard to do that. it's not every day you find out your best friend is a porn star,” you say finally. you force yourself to lift your head, at least in his general direction since you can't meet his eyes. you settle on looking at his mouth instead, but that was definitely a mistake because now you're staring at his lips and noticing for the first time how pretty they are and how soft they look and now you're wondering what it would feel like to kiss those lips and to—

“it's not really like being a porn star… well, kind of, it is. but like, not really, because—” he cuts himself off when he notices you staring. “sorry, i'll drop it. we don’t have to get into it.”

“no, i'm curious now,” you say. somehow you find the will to lift your head, finally meeting his eyes. “tell me how you do it.”

he stares blankly. “like how i jerk off, or… oh, you meant how the videos work,” he laughs as it clicks into place in his mind. obviously you wouldn't mean it like that—as much as he wishes you did.

you didn’t realize it until now but the uncomfortable, awkward tension at the initial shock of finding out that your best friend has a mildly successful porn career, has slowly been melting away into a different kind of tension. maybe it’s the adrenaline, the fight or flight instinct, or something else entirely, but it’s succeeded in making you bolder than you should be. everything in you should be telling you no, drop it, don’t invade his privacy, but all you can think is yes, please, tell me everything.

“is that what you were doing earlier? when i got here?”

he tilts his head imperceptibly at your question, eyes narrowing ever so slightly as he tries to gauge your reactions. there’s something in the air and it’s beginning to affect him too. “i feel like you’ve already guessed the answer to that.”

you can’t help the smirk that tugs at the corner of your lips at his words, gaining confidence with each passing second. “i told you, i’m curious.”

“fine.” he cocks an eyebrow at you. “yeah, i was. what else do you wanna know?”

“you never answered my question earlier.”

“what do i think about?” he repeats, tactfully ignoring the blush creeping up his neck into his cheeks. “trade secret. i can’t tell you.”

clearly you aren’t satisfied with his answer, so he sighs and looks over at you. strands of wet hair from his shower rest across his forehead, and you can’t help but be reminded of how he looked when you’d first walked in, sweaty bangs sticking to his face in a similar fashion.

“it’s not any different than when i do it off camera. same thoughts.” his eyes trail down your body briefly before snapping back up to your face. “most of the time i don’t even remember i’m being filmed. just feels like a normal afternoon to me.”

when he meets your eyes again they almost seem to sparkle with a mischievousness he hasn’t seen from you in a long, long time. “so this is a normal afternoon for you, then? letting people watch you jerk off?” the words are more vulgar than he’s ever heard from you, but they taste good and satisfying on your tongue.

if even a quarter of jun’s brain was functioning normally right now, he might have the good sense to refuse to answer your questions. his side job was never supposed to be found out by friends or family, not because he’s embarrassed about what he does, but because he likes having that space to experiment with himself. it’s true he can try out fetishes and kinks he would’ve never known about before, yes, but more important to him is the fact that he can do whatever he wants, be whoever he wants to be, act however he wants to act.

yet he instantly buckles the second you smile and bat your pretty eyelashes at him without so much as a second thought. for as long as he’s known you he’s always had the urge to tell you everything, to talk for hours and hours about anything on his mind. he’s never felt like he needs to hide anything from you; even with this, his darkest secret, he’s an open book. willing and far too eager to answer anything you ask him.

a small, distant part of him has sort of always wanted you to find out about his alter ego, to question him exactly as you’re doing now. the thought of his secret becoming your secret, too.

“i guess so, yeah.” he grins and glances over at his laptop still sitting open, the image of himself paused on the screen.

you follow his eyes, looking back and forth between him and the video and trying not to find the similarities between the two. “you ever do anything… together? or just solo?”

only after you’ve said it do you realize how that question sounded coming out, and yet again you wish you could take back your words. it wasn’t meant to be an offer—though deep down you really wouldn’t mind that at all—but despite the numerous boundaries you’ve already overstepped tonight, you don’t think that’s a line you’re willing to cross just yet.

being aware of your best friend’s homemade porn and even watching it is one thing, but actually fucking him is completely different. and no matter how bad your feelings are for him, it still feels off limits. unless he suddenly decides to grab you by the neck and tell you he wants you to ride him until your legs give out (which you’d gladly do, for the record), you’re just going to have to keep those desires to yourself.

the implications of your question hang unanswered in the air, and you stumble to explain yourself before he has the chance to outright reject you. “that's not what i mean—not like that. i wasn’t… nevermind.” you cut yourself off, hoping you haven’t managed to dig yourself a deeper hole.

the corner of his mouth upturns in a smile that you find infuriatingly hot. “you weren’t what? and no, i haven’t. never had anybody i liked enough to try it with.” he gets shy again, glancing away from you and staring at his desk chair absently. “i haven’t told anyone about it, so it’s not like i have many options even if i wanted to.”

your cheeks flush in embarrassment, and that guilty feeling in the pit of your stomach from seeing something you shouldn’t have returns. you’re the only person who knows? and you only saw it on accident, so clearly he didn’t mean for anyone to ever find out. fuck, all of this was a mistake and maybe you really should pretend like nothing ever happened.

“i’m sure the people who watch you would be lining up at your door to fuck you if you asked.”

“not interested.” he doesn’t meet your eyes, his gaze lingering on your body again for a moment too long, and for some reason that sparks something within you.

you clear your throat and it grabs his attention, looking up at you in curiosity. “well, anyway. i’ve thought of something for us to watch.”

he perks up a little, and you almost feel bad for what you’re about to do because he seems so excited at the prospect of watching an actual movie. but you’ve endured more than enough of your fair share of his teasing over the years, and part of you is still curious to finally see him in action, so you grab his laptop and sit yourself down on his bed.

he walks closer to you to see what you’ve picked out for the evening, only to find you’ve put his own video on fullscreen, nonchalantly propping his computer up on your lap to watch as if his dick isn’t sitting in front of your very eyes in 4k high definition.

his cheeks turn even redder than they already were as he freezes in place, his eyes fixed on the image of his own cock in hand and toned body on display, waiting for you to press play.

“you coming?” you pat the bed next to you expectantly, smiling such an innocent little smile as if you’re unaware of what you’re doing, though both of you already know exactly what’s going to happen. and it’s driving him up the fucking wall.

he’s so flustered that he doesn’t even laugh at your pun, still standing at the foot of his bed and trying to summon every last shred of his dignity to stop himself from getting hard for the second time tonight. just the thought of you wanting to watch him, showing interest in the videos of him pleasuring himself has all the blood in his body rushing towards his cock, and he doesn’t know how much longer he’ll be able to keep pretending he’s fine with this.

“i’ve never watched them after filming them. i was there the first time… never felt like i needed to revisit it.” he doesn’t mention the real reason he doesn’t watch them is because he’s afraid to see what he looks like when he’s thinking about you— afraid to see how his body reacts in ways that it definitely shouldn’t be without your knowledge.

you bite your lip absentmindedly, looking up at him with an inviting expression. “first time for everything, right?” despite the confidence you’ve gained your voice still ends up coming out soft and shy, as if you’re afraid to admit how badly you want to see how this plays out.

jun’s face flushes as he tries to ignore the way his pants continue to grow tighter. “you wanna watch me? i mean— the video? together?” he’s honored… no, he’s more than honored. thousands of people watch his videos daily, yet the only one he cares about is sitting on his bed and smiling that pretty smile of yours at him.

he rests his palms on the edge of his bed frame, and you can’t help the way your eyes rake over his body in reaction. he’s tall and always has been, towering over you as long as you’ve known him, but he never seems to be aware of just how big he is. or maybe he is and just knows how to use it to his advantage. either way, you can’t hide the shiver running down your spine as he leans over the bed towards you.

he can feel his body tingling with anticipation as he takes a seat down anxiously beside you, your fingers hovering over the mousepad before you finally unpause the video. no going back now.

at first you think the sound isn’t working as you watch him adjust his position on the chair in silence, but when you hear the seat squeak you realize he’s just quiet. your palms are clammy as you keep your hands planted at your sides, waiting for the action to start. just the image of him naked is enough to send you into a spiral, but you force yourself to be patient, knowing there’s better things to come.

you try not to stare at him next to you, but it’s impossible with the way he keeps nonchalantly adjusting his sweats every few seconds. you can tell he’s trying not to let on how hard he is, but unfortunately for him you're way too hyper aware of yourself in this moment and nothing goes unnoticed.

your gaze stays glued to the screen as you watch the recording of jun leaning back in his chair, tentatively taking his cock into his hand with a soft sigh. you don’t notice that you’ve been holding your breath until he starts moving his hand up and down along his length, letting out a shaky sigh that matches the ones from his recording. your cheeks are burning but you can’t bring yourself to stop staring as he brushes his thumb across his leaking tip, smearing his precum around with his fingers.

the muscles in his thighs tense and he lets out a little whine, and it sends a shiver throughout your whole body. you can’t see his face on the video, but you’ve seen his expressions enough to get the picture, and it drives you wild. you need to see it close up, need to see those faces he makes and confirm the way you’ve imagined it.

but even with his beautiful, painfully hard cock right in front of you, you still can’t take your eyes off of the friendship bracelet tied around his wrist, watching as it brushes against his cock with every stroke of his fist. you wonder how long he’s been doing this, how long and you’d never realized. he’d never seemed like the type, but then again, you were learning a lot of things about your friend tonight.

you manage to pry your eyes away from the video but your gaze just ends up back on instead, sitting beside you with the same thin bracelet adorning his slender wrist. you squeeze your thighs together as you stare at it, willing yourself not to think about it, but when another broken and muffled moan comes out of the laptop speaker you can’t take it anymore.

you suddenly stop the video, pushing his computer off your lap and closing the screen. he jumps and looks at you, eyes wide with concern. you'd hated it, didn't you? you thought he was a loser and this was all such a bad idea and he should've pretended it never happened in the first place because now your friendship is ruined and—

"show me."

jun swears he stops breathing for a second. he must not have heard you clearly, but when he pulls his gaze up to meet yours he finds you staring back expectantly, a hint of a smile on your face and a look in your eyes that makes him want to pounce on you and never look back.

"what?" his voice comes out cracked. god, if you're saying what he thinks you are… he's never been this hard in his entire life, including all the times he's edged himself to the thought of you. there's no way in hell he isn't hallucinating right now, because the expression on your face is straight out of his dreams.

your wandering eyes flit down to his bulge. "i thought you said you did live shows."

your heart is pounding, fearing you've finally crossed that last forbidden line for good. who knows when you got so bold, but you couldn't handle watching another second of that video without doing something about it. despite his shyness you know he's enjoying this, with the way he keeps tugging at the hem of his shirt and struggling to hide his painfully obvious boner. it's not like you're doing any better yourself, and you wonder if he can feel the heat radiating off your body right now or if he's noticed the way you can't stop squirming.

you hadn't expected that hearing his breathy whimpers through the laptop's tinny speakers and watching his abs flex on the screen as he squeezes his hand around his cock would have such an effect on you, but it's hard not to when the star of the movie is sitting right beside you. you're afraid to even move, at risk of revealing the wet spot beneath you seeping into his sheets that he was so adamant earlier about being clean. well, you know one thing for sure— they won't be clean after tonight.

so, you clear your throat and choose your next words carefully this time, knowing exactly what you're asking for and hoping, praying it'll be reciprocated. "why would i wanna watch a video when i can see it in person?"

"fuck—" his voice is strained, and your stomach flips at the sudden low tone coming from his throat that you aren't used to hearing. "you want—”

"i wanna see you," you cut him off, jumping on the chance that he didn't immediately shut you down. you look pointedly at the bulge in his pants, making sure he sees you looking. "do you ever do private shows?" you feel the heat in your cheeks burning with shyness, but you press on, your voice soft. "you know… one on one?”

“no— yeah,” he says hurriedly. “i mean, i can now. for you. if you want.” he adds the last part like an afterthought, because even though you just straight out asked to watch him jerk off, he still can’t comprehend that you’re into this. that you, his best friend of all people, is this eager to see him.

your reply comes out choked with desperation, but he’s so lost in your reactions that you doubt he even notices the change in your tone. “please?”

with dazed eyes he nods, moving his hands down to the waistband of his pants, and it feels like time moves in slow motion as you strain your eyes for a glimpse.

your breath catches in your throat as you watch him push his sweatpants down just below his hips, freeing his cock. the thick veins on his hands that you're used to ogling in your free time are nothing compared to the veins that cover his length, and they’re nothing compared to the grainy video from his computer, either. you're so tempted to touch him, you have to physically restrain yourself from reaching over and wrapping your hand around him, to feel its weight in your palm and feel how hard he is.

he soaks up your reaction, his pride soaring at the way your mouth is practically watering for him. he makes sure you're watching, then pushes his sweatpants all the way off and leans back against the headboard of the bed, spreading his legs to get a more comfortable position before he starts.

“you gonna answer my question now?” you ask, your voice soft yet still teasing as he begins to drag his hand up and down his shaft slowly, pumping himself to full hardness as if he hadn't already been fully hard for the last hour.

the look in his eyes when he glances back up at you makes your heart jump, and suddenly the answer seems as clear as day. but you’re afraid to believe in it in case you’re still wrong about everything; even now as you kneel beside him on his bed, his eyes boring into yours as you watch him fist his cock, you can’t let yourself have hope that he feels the same about you. there’s been nothing to suggest that he does, besides the fact that he didn’t immediately throw you out of his house the second you found out about his alternative career.

he doesn’t answer for a long moment, and you feel your entire body growing hot under his gaze. for the second time tonight you feel stripped bare, despite the fact that you’re fully clothed and he’s the one half naked in front of you.

“are you sure you wanna hear the answer?” he says finally, and despite the way his voice comes out choked you can tell he’s just as nervous about this as you are. years of friendship changed by just one sentence, but whether it’ll be for better or for worse, you haven’t figured out yet.

you’re not sure if you really do, but you nod anyway, searching his eyes for any signs of hesitation. he groans softly, bucking his hips up a little into his fist as he opens his mouth to speak. you scoot closer to hear him, drawn to him like a magnet and your heart pounding as you wait for the words you so badly want to hear.

“right now?” he pauses. “i’m thinking about how bad i wanna kiss you.”

and after that it’s like a dam breaking apart, losing every bit of self control you’d worked so hard to maintain for so long as you press forward and meet his lips. his hands jump to your hips, instantly forgetting what he was doing as he gently tugs you onto his lap to get a better angle.

you slide your legs beneath you, straddling his lap with your knees on either side of his waist as your mouth slides against his. kissing him comes as naturally to you as breathing, almost immediately finding a rhythm with his nose pressed against your cheek.

he starts out slow, tentative, but as soon as you kiss him back he’s throwing his own self control to the wind and pulling you deeper into him. you can feel his aching cock pressing into your stomach, and it takes everything in you not to grind down on him and ease the throbbing between your legs.

you finally force yourself to pull away, taking in the sight of him. his cheeks are flushed and he’s panting, eyes darting back and forth between yours in questioning at your sudden pause. “is— is that all you think about?” you ask, but it comes out more like a whimper. if it were anyone else you’d be mortified at how worked up you’ve gotten in such a short time, but if anything jun looks worse than you do right now.

“i think about you every fucking time,” he admits breathlessly. as always, giving up his so-called trade secrets the second you ask, because he can’t hide anything. doesn’t want to hide anything from you. “can’t stop thinking about you, even when i try not to—”

“during your streams?”

“—especially during my streams.”

you push your hips down gently, feeling your soaked panties sticking uncomfortably to your folds at the movement, but it’s all worth it for the angelic moans that fall from his lips in return. “and earlier…?” you pry. you don’t know why you’re so full of questions tonight, but a part of you relishes in his praise and the way he so readily admits his thoughts to you.

he stifles another groan, his hands trailing haphazardly over your body like a kid in a candy store, as if he isn’t sure what to touch first but he does know that he wants to touch all of you. “earlier— got so hard thinking about you coming over, i couldn’t help it…” he squeezes his eyes shut as you reach up to rest your arms around his shoulders. “so fucking lucky that you’re my friend, i don’t deserve you.”

you brush your thumb against his cheek and his eyes shoot open, his hips stuttering beneath you in surprise. “why?” you ask softly. if anyone is undeserving of your friendship, it should be you, not him; the way he treats you like a queen, practically worshipping the ground you walk on and being the best friend you’ve ever had.

“‘cause—” he swallows hard and looks up at you, his fingers shaking a little as they wander across your hips. “fuck, the way i think about you… you’d never say yes to that.”

you smile softly, leaning closer to him until your mouths are just inches apart and you can feel his hot breath on your lips. “you never asked me.” you glance up at him expectantly, nodding your head to give him a chance to say what’s on his mind.

“can i—” he curses under his breath, his mind going haywire at even just the thought of you letting him have more of you. “can i kiss you again?”

and it’s such a genuine request that you have no choice but to indulge him, your lips parting to let him in. it’s a kiss that you feel in your entire body, from the hands that have moved to your back gently guiding you towards him, to the butterflies in your chest and much lower places. you want—no, you need all of him, all at once, need his hands and his cock and his sweet, sweet kisses.

you lean back and press your mouth against his neck instead, feeling his soft skin beneath your lips as you start to suck. he groans in response when you nip at the underside of his chin, beginning to suck harder until you bite down gently and lift your eyes to see his reaction.

suddenly he wraps his hand behind your neck and pulls your head up to meet him face to face, crashing his lips back against yours in a frantic battle of tongue and teeth, filled with a newfound desperation. his eyes are closed and brows furrowed as he kisses you, one hand on the back of your head guiding you into him.

you frantically paw at his shirt, struggling to keep yourself contained. "jun, please— let me see you."

he leans forward away from you and tears his shirt off over his head without so much as a word in reply, quickly settling back and meeting your lips once again. his mind is racing a mile a minute, so eager to give you whatever you want, whatever you ask for, whatever you need.

he's so caught up in pleasing you that the thought of asking you to take off your shirt in return doesn't even cross his mind; you could sit fully clothed on his lap for the rest of the night and he'd still be over the moon. but you do it anyway, just as eager to please him as he is for you. you pull your shirt off as fast as you can, whining in frustration when you tug too roughly and it gets caught in your hair for a half second. but you feel his hand slide up your back and help you, untangling it and balling the fabric in his fist, tossing it across the room before pulling you back to him.

you fall forward and catch yourself on the wall behind his head, forcing you to readjust your seat on his lap and cupping his cheeks with your hands to stabilize yourself. jun shifts his position as well, threading one arm around your waist and pulling you tighter against him. his palm on your skin makes you feel like you're on fire, his hand pressing gently but firmly against the bare skin of your hip.

you can feel his length resting between your bodies, still hard as ever and throbbing from so much stimulation yet so little of it being directed at where he wants it most. you start to rock your hips, slowly grinding against him and feeling your cunt pulse through the thin fabric of your panties, and you wonder if he can feel it, too.

if he does then he doesn’t mention it, too caught up in roaming his hands over your chest now that your shirt is out of the way. you feel shy, not used to so much attention from one person and especially not used to it coming from him. a part of you wishes you’d at least worn a prettier bra, but he doesn’t even seem to notice that it’s the old ratty one you wear around the house. in his eyes it might as well be made of solid gold, with the way he touches it so delicately and looks up at you in a frenzy, begging you to let him take it off.

his palms cup your breasts the second the fabric is on the floor, moaning unabashedly as he pushes his face into your chest. his tongue laves over your skin with his eyes closed in bliss, and he groans into your breast before he finally tears his mouth away from you, giving you both a second to breathe.

"please let me fuck you," he rasps, his arm still wrapped around your waist as he holds your body close to his. "fuck, please— god, i need you so bad. i'll take such good care of you, baby, please, just let me. i'll do whatever you want me to, please—"

you shiver at the desperation in his voice, and if he wasn't still cradling the back of your head in his palm you probably would've fallen backwards with a moan. even from the few minutes of his video that you'd managed to watch he didn't seem like much of a talker, so the way he rambles on and on begging for you feels like a breath of fresh air.

you waste no time in telling him yes, practically falling off his bed in your rush to stand up and strip the rest of your clothes off. he wraps his hand around his cock once more and begins to thrust shallowly into his fist as he watches you shimmy out of your pants, and you whimper at the sight that’s become so familiar over the past hour.

both finally naked, you start to reposition yourself on his lap, but in a split second he flips you over onto your back instead. you let out a yelp as he cages you in with his long limbs, his cock resting against your body as he hovers over you.

“please,” he pants, his expression pleading with you just as much as his words are. you don’t even know what he’s pleading for at this point but you nod quickly anyway, moaning out his name until he silences you with another hot kiss.

he sits back on his heels, kneeling between your legs as you spread them open wider for him. he forces himself to look away from your dripping pussy long enough to position himself at your entrance. there’s so much more he wants to do, so much he wants to try with you, but after dreaming about you for so long and now you’re finally here, he’s not sure he’ll last long enough to find out. another day, he tells himself as he lines up his cock. another time, if you’ll let him.

he looks up at you, waiting for you to give him a signal or to back out if you’ve changed your mind, but you meet his eyes and bite at your lip and give him the tiniest nod.

his hands are shaking as he guides himself into you, pushing just the tip inside and looking back up at you for confirmation before continuing.

by the time he’s halfway inside of you he has to squeeze his eyes shut as hard as he can, every muscle in his body concentrating on trying not to explode at the feeling of your walls fluttering around him. a million thoughts are running through his head and he can barely see straight at this point, his tunnel vision focused on you and only you. if he remembers only one thing from tonight, he wants it to be this sight right here: the image of your face scrunched up in pleasure, your mouth hanging open in a breathless moan as you clench wildly around his cock.

your hand grips his bicep impossibly tight as you adjust to his size, your fingers gradually relaxing as he continues to push into you until he bottoms out with a high pitched whine.

it takes a second for you to adjust, but as soon as you start begging him to move his body starts running on autopilot, his hips pistoning into you with more force than he knew he had in him. he’s stopped talking by now, almost completely silent except for the occasional groan and muttered curse.

you lift your legs to wrap them around his waist, pressing into his back with your heels to get him to thrust deeper until you fall apart in his arms with a cry, burying your face in his chest as your vision goes blank and the wind gets knocked out of your lungs.

he leans down over you, putting his hand between your head and the wall to stop you from being slammed into it from his thrusts as you crest into your orgasm. all you can do is hold on tightly to him, biting at his collarbone to stifle your noises as his eyes dart across your face, desperate to see how beautiful you look when you cum for him. for him, for only him, for your best friend who’s so in love with you it physically hurts.

what finally breaks him is the gentle way you reach up and hold his head with one hand, guiding him down to your lips to kiss you once more. your fingers tremble with aftershocks as you thread them into his hair, using his body to ground yourself as he fucks you into the mattress.

his hips stutter and he barely pulls out in time to cum all over your pussy, his cock twitching as he releases onto your skin with a broken moan. there’s nothing he wants more in this world than to cum inside you, but in his desperation he didn’t think to ask ahead of time, and even his last functioning brain cell isn’t going to let that happen without your permission.

your fingers untangle themselves from his hair, sliding to his neck and down to his chest as he heaves shallow breaths. he blinks rapidly, trying to reorient himself and calm his racing heart.

“jun?”

he barely hears you calling his name, but his head tilts down to look at you before he can process it. you’re just as much of a mess as he is, sweaty hair sticking to your forehead and his cum coating your lower half, your chest rising and falling as you struggle to catch your breath.

and just like that, the fog in his mind is cleared and he’s jumping into action. he’s gonna do what he always does, what he has to do: be there for you and do everything right, even when he has no idea what’s “right” anymore because he just fucked his best friend and the love of his life and that’s not usually what best friends do, so what does that make him now? he doesn’t know and he doesn’t care, but what he does care about is making sure you’re as comfortable as possible in this, probably the weirdest and most uncomfortable situation ever.

your fingers latch onto his wrist before he can get away, and he whips around with such a dumbfounded expression that you can’t help but laugh a little. “jun,” you repeat his name again, and this time it gets through to him and he pauses, eyes wide as he looks down at you.

“huh?”

“where are you going?”

“to…” he trails off, because he doesn’t actually know where he’s going, but his brain knows he has to do something. “uh, clean?”

you laugh. “god, i love you so much. just— c’mere.”

you tug on his wrist and he topples down onto you with a yelp, but you wrap your arms around him until he stops wiggling and just sits still against you.

your bodies are covered in sweat, sticking to each other as you hold him, but it’s the most comfortable you’ve felt in what must be years. “what are you so nervous for?” you ask him with a soft chuckle, pushing his hair out of his forehead.

“because…” he pauses again and looks up at you, worry clouding his gaze. “because you’re so perfect. and i don’t wanna mess this up.”

“you’re not going to, jun. promise.” you exhale and stroke his hair again. “if anything, i’m the one that messed things up. i shouldn’t have found out about your… you know.”

“can i say that i’m glad you did, or is that weird?” he asks with a breathy giggle.

your cheeks flush with heat, but you can’t disagree. “i’m glad too,” you admit, and the dopey grin on his face makes up for all the awkwardness ten times over.

you exhale slowly, finally feeling your body return to normal. you dread standing up—you’re not even sure if you’d be able to, after that—but for now it feels good to just lay here with jun’s head on your chest.

“so what about your channel?”

“i’ll delete it,” he rushes to say. “whatever you want me to do. i don’t care— i don’t want it anymore. all i want is you.”

you tuck a lock of hair behind his ear with a smile, feeling your cheeks glow from his praise. “well, i don’t want you to do that. all your loyal viewers will miss out on seeing you doing more than just jerking off alone.”

he raises an eyebrow at you, trying to understand if you mean what he thinks you mean. “like…?”

“like letting them watch you fuck your girlfriend?” you finish for him tentatively. even after everything tonight you still have doubts that you’ve misread his intentions, that maybe this is just a one-time thing to him and you don’t mean as much to him as he means to you.

he studies your face carefully. “is that what you are?” he asks hesitantly.

you nod slightly, the shyness from earlier suddenly rushing back in at the possibility of being rejected. “unless you didn’t want me to be.”

he shakes his head so fast it nearly gives you whiplash. “no— please. i do. so bad.”

you break out into a smile, cupping his face in your cheeks and leaning in to kiss his forehead. he hums, and the vibrations are warm against your chest . “you could’ve just asked me. like, years ago. would have avoided all the awkwardness of…”

“of you finding out i’m a porn star?”

you giggle, and he thinks it’s the most adorable sight he’s ever seen. lying naked in your arms together, making you laugh. “i thought you said you weren’t.”

he grins. “not really. but it makes me sound cooler when you say it.”

“i think you’re cool anyway, jun.”

he shifts and leans forward to capture your lips in his again, his mouth slow and tender as he kisses you this time. “i never wanna stop kissing you.”

you rub your thumbs across his cheeks, watching his fond expression that you know must be mirrored with your own. “then don’t.”

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catmiemy · 2 months

Text

Not All Change Is Bad (Lia Wälti x Reader)

Summary: Now that you know Lia has feelings for you, you have to figure out where to go from there.

The next morning you woke up exhausted, only having managed to fall asleep for a few minutes at a time. You were weirdly relieved when you checked your phone and it was finally an acceptable time to get up.

A/N: Thanks to the long weekend I actually finished this second part already. You can find the first part here.

This got a bit longer than I thought and I didn't even include most of the fluff at the end that I already planned out. So potentially there could be a third part focused more on happiness with a bit of angst. Let me know if you'd liked to read that. :)

Nadine was still sleeping soundly, so you didn’t have to deal with her seeing the mess you were. You headed straight to the bathroom, annoyed with yourself when you saw how horrible you looked in the mirror. There were dark bags underneath your red eyes, spots all over your cheeks from rubbing away all the tears and your hair resembled a bird’s nest from all the tossing and turning you had done.

You quickly went to work to make yourself more presentable. The last thing you wanted was for Lia to feel guilty when she saw you. You would be damned if you made this any harder for her than it had to be, and if the only thing you could do was pretend you were okay you would do that.

In your noble quest you completely forgot to take into consideration that to Lia’s eyes it would seem like this whole situation hadn’t affected you at all. She almost burst into tears when she saw how put together you looked, the only thing saving her from it, was Ana pointing out all the signs that you were actually not fine that were right underneath the surface of your carefully crafted façade.

The whole camp felt like torture to you and more than once you wished it was finally over. But every time you did you remembered that at Arsenal you would still see Lia, who could barely look into your direction anymore and darted away whenever you were anywhere close to her, almost every day. And back home Jessica was waiting for you.

Your girlfriend and you still hadn’t talked or even texted, which wasn’t too uncommon on Jessica’s part after an argument. Her go to reaction was to completely ignore you, while you usually did everything to get your girlfriend to forgive you, sending long, heartfelt texts, buying her small gifts, apologizing over and over again. You had never questioned if this was okay or healthy, and you didn’t really question it now, you just didn’t have the energy to do it, so you didn’t.

Every once in a while you remembered how you had completely ignored her call after you had asked to talk that night and were hit by a pang of guilt. You should reach out to your girlfriend. And you also should talk to Lia, make things easier for her. You should be fine with all of this, you should communicate more and better, you shouldn’t let this distract you from football, you shouldn’t feel like hiding away for the rest of your life.

As the days passed you became increasingly frustrated with yourself and your inability to do any of the things you should do. The only thing you managed to do halfway decently was keep up appearances well enough. Sure, many of your teammates checked in with you, but they accepted your forced smile and your fake cheerfulness as you assured them that you were totally fine.

Ana was a different story. She tried to push a bit harder, but every time she did, you sent her right back to Lia. “Please just make sure she’s alright, yeah? I’m totally fine, don’t worry about me.”

This did nothing to stop your friend from worrying, nonetheless she always listened to your request, well aware that the only person you really felt comfortable opening up to was Lia. Therefore Ana could only hope that as time passed the two of you managed to find your way back to each other again, maybe even as more than best friends. She still held out hope that you actually returned Lia’s feelings and just needed a little longer to figure that out.

As much as you had often wished camp was over when it actually was and you were boarding the plane to take you back to London, you desperately wanted to stay. Going back home meant you could no longer ignore the whole situation with Jessica and how horrible you’d been acting. It took every ounce of your willpower to force your feet to take you into the plane.

Another thing you dreaded was spending the flight next to Lia, although a small part of you also clung to some hope that the forced proximity would do you good, give you a chance to talk. However as you found your seat all that hope was ripped from you, in the seat that should have been Lia’s sat Noelle, smiling at you sympathetically.

All you could do to avoid breaking down right then and there was to sink down in your seat and blast music into your ears. Thankfully Noelle got the hint and left you alone.

Throughout the flight you did your best to keep your mind occupied with doing at least three things simultaneously. Nevertheless, the closer you got to landing the more your anxiety spiked. Poor Noelle was probably getting annoyed by your constant leg bouncing and fidgeting. Not that the gentle woman would ever say anything.

At the airport when you were slowly heading to the exit to catch a cab back to your apartment you were suddenly stopped by Lia’s voice, “Y/N, wait!”

With a racing heart you stopped in your tracks, turning to face your best friend. Although were you even allowed to call her that anymore?

Lia approached you with a worried face, picking at her cuticles, a clear indication to you that she was nervous. This hurt; you never wanted to get to a place where she was nervous to talk to you.

“I know things are weird between us right now and I really want to move past it, I just don’t know how yet. But…I still wanted to check in. Are you okay to go home? I know you left things with Jessica in a weird place and you looked almost scared on the plane and no matter where we stand I’m still always here for you,” Lia rushed out.

Your heart cracked and all the tears you had held back on this day so far gathered in your eyes, blurring your vision. How very Lia of her to still worry about you and ignore her own emotions and insecurities to make sure you were okay when you were the reason she was so miserable.

You shook your head and blinked harshly to chase away the tears, then you plastered a what you hoped to be reassuring smile on your face.

“That’s very sweet of you, but please don’t worry about me, I’m totally fine, and after all these years I know how to deal with Jessica.”

Pain flashed in Lia’s eyes and you kicked yourself for bringing up how long you had been with your girlfriend. Way to hurt her more!

She smiled back at you and you could only hope that your smile had been more convincing than hers. “Okay, but never forget that I’m still always here for you.”

And with a goodbye Lia walked away from you, leaving you with an aching heart. Now that you had spoken with her again, it was even more painful to go back to this weird place of not talking. You wanted to run after her, share a ride like you normally did, and maybe hide out at her apartment for the rest of your life so you never had to deal with Jessica.

In front of the door to the apartment Jessica and you shared you took a moment to hype yourself up. You could do this, you had done this about a million times. Maybe it had never been this bad, but you would just have to grovel a little more.

You entered the apartment, calling out to your girlfriend. Just as you expected you didn’t get a response. Maybe she wasn’t home! Even if that would only postpone the argument for a little while, you still wanted it to be true.

Sadly you were out of luck. You quickly found Jessica sitting on the couch, staring at her phone and completely ignoring your presence.

“Hi,” you greeted her awkwardly, your girlfriend still not showing any signs of having noticed you. “Look I’m sorry I didn’t pick up the phone and haven’t reached out since. This camp has been absolutely crazy.”

It was a weak explanation, and definitely not enough to get Jessica to acknowledge you again. To even have any hope of getting there you would need to apologize and beg. However when you were searching for the right words, you realized that you didn’t want to do it this time. You were tired of these same old patterns that always left you feeling like you weren’t good enough.

You weren’t someone that got mad often, but now you could feel all the suppressed feelings inside of you rapidly turning into anger.

“Can you just cut this crap out and talk to me like an equal human being?” You snapped at Jessica.

At least you succeeded in getting a reaction. She dropped her phone, turning to you, the surprise on her face quickly morphing into anger just as intense as your own.

“Excuse me?! Who has been ignoring me for the last ten days after not picking up the phone when it was you who suggested we talk that night? I think I have every right to be angry,” Jessica yelled back at you.

“I didn’t say you couldn’t be angry, but acting as if I’m air is just plain childish! I said I was sorry and I also said that things have been crazy, but apparently you don’t care about that.”

Jessica rolled her eyes. “Okay then, what crazy thing happened that stopped you from contacting me at all? Did the monster under the bed steal your phone? Or did aliens project a force field around your camp, stopping all electronic devices from working?”

Her mocking only made you angrier, so without thinking about it if it was wise to reveal this to Jessica, you told her about learning of Lia’s feelings for you.

After that all hell broke loose, everything the two of you had kept inside for way too long spilling out in hurtful words, ending in a scream match that had neither of you even hearing what the other was saying anymore.

In the end it was you who said the fateful words, “I think it’s high time that we break up! Well it was probably high time years ago and we were just too stuck to notice.

“No, I don’t accept that! You don’t break up with me, I’m breaking up with you,” Jessica retorted.

By now most of the anger had drained from your body, you just shrugged your shoulders. “Whatever, I’m leaving.”

Once you were out of the apartment you just started walking; the entire palette of negative emotions fighting for the lead inside of you. Before too long you found yourself standing in front of Lia’s little house. Just the sight of the familiar building that had been your refuge so often in the past was enough to break down the emotional barriers you had carefully constructed over the last couple of weeks, tears beginning to stream down your cheeks.

Lia had said you could still come over if something happened. So despite feeling more than a little unsure about it, you walked up to the front door and knocked. You needed her right now and if she would send you away you didn’t know if you could deal with it.

Of course there was no reason to worry, Lia didn’t miss a bit, ushering you into her apartment and holding you tightly while you cried your eyes out. You weren’t coherent enough to explain what had happened, but from the bits and pieces you managed to get out, she got the gist of it.

Somewhere in the back of your mind was some immense guilt for making Lia take care of you after everything, however it was drowned out by how safe you felt in your best friend’s arms. You wanted to stay there for the rest of your life, blocking out the rest of the world.

After your crying session you were hit by a wave of extreme tiredness, your eyes fluttering shut every so often. Lia gently massaged the back of your scalp, knowing you were prone to tenseness there, and it was making you even sleepier.

“Do you want to stay here tonight?” She offered.

You should refuse, you should pull yourself together and leave Lia be, maybe call Leah to come over and check up on her after you had once again dumped your emotions all over her. You should be a better person and do that, instead you mumbled, “Yeah, I’d like that very much.”

The two of you got ready for bed. Lia insisted on it, you would have happily stayed on the couch in your regular clothes without brushing your teeth if it meant you didn’t have to move. There wasn’t any need for using a spare toothbrush or borrowing some clothes from Lia, you had left this kind of stuff here ages ago. It was just easier this way with all the impromptu sleepovers you had.

The two of you lay down on your respective sides of the bed, facing each other like you usually did to exchange some whispered words before falling asleep. You were already half asleep, not alert enough to stop yourself from mumbling, “I really really missed you, Schätzi. So stupid of me not to realize I also have feelings for you.”

You drifted off to sleep immediately afterwards, completely missing the way Lia went rigid as she heard your words, an onslaught of different emotions hitting her. The hardest one to deal with was the renewed hope she had mostly buried long ago. For years she had dreamt of you telling her that you felt the same way, she had played out hundreds of different scenarios of how it might happen. And Lia thought it would make her the happiest person on the planet.

However now that you had said the words, she was just scared. Scared that you didn’t really mean it, scared that you were merely confused by the emotional rollercoaster you were going through, scared that you were only clinging to her because Lia was familiar and comforting.

When you woke up the next morning the bed next to you was empty. For one blissful nanosecond you thought this was just a normal sleepover until all the memories hit you with full force. Shame and guilt began eating at you for putting Lia in this position, not only had you shown up here and made her comfort you after your breakup, you had also blurted out that you too have feelings for her at the most inappropriate time possible.

Not that it wasn’t true. The realization had been simmering underneath the surface for a while, not something that you were ready to acknowledge yet, but now that you had, there was no doubt left in your mind. So that wasn’t the problem, the problem was that it absolutely been the wrong moment to say it.

With a rapidly beating heart you finally got out of bed, determined to find Lia and apologize. You found her in the kitchen, staring into her cup of coffee. She looked dead tired, almost slumping onto the table. This only made you feel even guiltier. No doubt had your careless words cost your best friend some sleep.

Despite everything Lia still offered you a weak smile and got up to get you a cup of coffee. You tried to protest, but she simply waved away your words. Lia never trusted you to make your own coffee; she knew you had a tendency to make it too strong which then in turn made you a little hyper.

“I’m sorry,” you said at the same time as your best friend stated, “There are some things I need to say.”

You nodded, gesturing at Lia to continue talking; she deserved to go first and get everything she wanted off her chest.

The brunette took a deep breath and when she began talking it sounded rehearsed, making you wonder how early she had gotten up to prepare and practice this whole speech. “I thought about all this for a long time and as much as I want to be the one to support you through this breakup, I don’t think I can.”

“What you said yesterday before falling asleep…It was everything I’ve wanted to hear for the longest time, but I think it’s important that you take your time to figure things out and make sure that you actually mean it.”

You opened your mouth to assure Lia that you did, how could you not? But one pleading look from her was enough to shut you up. She wasn’t ready to hear it; nothing you could say would make Lia fully believe it.

“So let’s just take some time, yeah? This way you can work through your breakup and everything else,” the brunette concluded.

Once again you nodded, even if it wasn’t what you wanted at all. You totally understood Lia’s request for some time apart and you would give her as much as she needed. After all she had apparently been waiting for you for years, so this was the least you could do.

“I don’t want to kick you out, but I really believe this is what’s best for us in the long run. But I can help you call one of our teammates so you can stay with them if you don’t want to go home?” Lia offered.

She was clearly conflicted about this course of action, still worrying about you. Therefore you quickly shook your head, reassuring the midfielder that you were fine and already had a plan. “Please don’t worry about me,” you told Lia more than once.

However the fact that you got up after saying this and walked towards the front door still in your pajamas definitely didn’t help your case.

“You know you can get dressed and even take a shower first,” Lia said, trying to keep her voice light and joking, when in reality your confusion scared her. Would you really be okay?

After taking a swift shower you felt a little more like yourself and managed to convince Lia that you wouldn’t walk right into a disaster if she let you out of her sight.

Saying goodbye was awkward, both of you looking at each other, unsure what to do. You longed to hug your best friend, but you didn’t think that would be welcome right now, so you merely waved at Lia lamely and told her you would see her at training.

During your shower you had come up with a plan; you waited until you were sure Jessica would have left for work, then you went to the apartment and packed a bg. All of your teammates would have happily let you stay with them, but you didn’t feel comfortable going to any of them, so instead you headed to a nearby hotel.

The moment you closed the door of your hotel room behind you, you sank to the floor, breaking down completely. You had thought you had cried yourself all out last night, but apparently there was an inexhaustible fountain of fresh tears somewhere inside of you.

That’s how you spent the rest your day, crying in various places. At some point you moved from the door to the bed, staying there until you had to go to the bathroom, crying on the floor leaning against the bathtub for a good while.

It was a small mercy that you feel asleep pretty early, exhausted from all the crying and from beating yourself up mentally. You were so angry at yourself for how you had treated both Lia and Jessica, you should have been better!

The next morning you felt like you had a hangover, your head pounding. However at least you were in control of your waterworks again, so you were hopeful you wouldn’t start crying during training. After another shower and a quick breakfast you felt a little better, confident in your ability to pretend to be a normal human being for as long as you needed.

And that’s what you did, not only that day but also the following ones. You acted throughout the day like you were fine, when someone asked you how you were, you stated time and time again that you were fine, no matter how much anyone could see that you weren’t.

The biggest challenge to your composure were the sad looks Lia kept sending your way when she thought you didn’t notice. It hurt you on a visceral level that you were the reason she was so miserable. In reality that wasn’t why Lia continued to look at you like this, it wasn’t because you had made her unhappy, but because she hated to see you take so little care of yourself and quietly falling apart in front of her eyes.

Every day as soon as you could you would go home, declining every invite to hangout from your teammates, because as soon as you stumbled into your hotel room, the tears returned, and all you could do for the rest of the day, was lay in bed, cry and berate yourself.

How had you been so stupid and not noticed Lia’s feeling for you? Why were you so weak and pathetic and ran right to her side after your breakup when you knew this would only make it more difficult for her? Furthermore you also felt horrible for how you had left things with Jessica. Sure, your relationship hadn’t been good for a while, but she deserved more from you!

About a week later you were once again laying in your hotel bed, staring at the ceiling, hating on yourself when your phone rang. You planned to ignore it, like you had been doing for the most part lately, but it kept on ringing again and again. With a deep sigh you picked up without looking at the caller ID.

“Hello,” you croaked, your voice hoarse from crying.

“Y/N where the hell are you?!” Ana almost shouted.

Confused you started at the phone. “What?”

“Where are you?” Ana repeated a little slower, “I know you aren’t at home because the lovely Jessica told me as much and after doing some inquires I also know you aren’t with any of your teammates, so where are you?”

All of this could only mean one thing, Ana was in London and you really weren’t prepared to give up your plan of wallowing in misery to face her.

“I’m at a hotel. Happy? Now go and see Lia, I think she could use a friend,“ you replied, praying that this was enough to satisfy Ana.

You should have known that it wasn’t and you also should have known that your friend would figure out the only way to get you to tell her your location.

“You better tell me right now where you are or I’m calling Lia and tell her that you’re hiding out all alone in a hotel,” Ana threatened.

“Ugh fine,” you huffed angrily, letting her know what hotel you were staying at and your room number. Then you hung up the phone without as much as saying goodbye. If Ana was going to be like this, you sure as hell weren’t going to be polite.

You used the time you had until Ana’s arrival to make yourself look a little more presentable. It only worked semi-decently and the traces of your most recent breakdown were still very much visible on your face when you heard the dreaded knock.

“Oh Spatz,” Ana sighed when she laid eyes on you, guiding you carefully over to the bed and basically pulling you into her lap.

To your great annoyance the tears took this as an invitation to start falling again right away, and it took a good while for them to stop.

“Y/N what are you doing?” Ana asked you gently once you had calmed down.

You shrugged your shoulders. “I’m doing my best to give Lia the time she needs,” you explained.

Ana tilted her head to the side, studying you intently. “Time for what exactly?”

“To get over my stupid behavior, to figure out if she still wants to be with someone as horrible as me, to heal all the parts of her heart that I’ve hurt. Take your pick,” you replied, the anger for yourself making your voice harsh, almost hateful.

“Oh Spatz,” Ana said once again, reaching over to tuck a strand of her behind your ear. “You’re being way too hard on yourself, just because you didn’t handle everything perfectly and made some mistakes along the way doesn’t mean that you’re a bad person”

“And I can tell you that that’s not what Lia is thinking at all. She didn’t propose this time apart because she needs to figure things out. She knows exactly what she wants, she has known for years. You on the other hand just got out of very long term relationship. Lia wants you to take enough time to deal with that and process your feelings before you jump into something new. She’s waiting for you to be ready and at this rate you’re never going to be. You can’t just ignore everything, Y/N!”

It took a lot more reassuring on Ana’s part until you could even begin to believe her. Thankfully your friend was very patient and kept telling you the same things over and over again until a small seed of hope was planted inside of you.

She didn’t leave it at that though, Ana also helped you make a list of things you could do over the next few weeks to help you process everything. Journaling was on the top of the list, as ws eating regular meals and not spending too much time in bed. Furthermore you vowed to contact Jessica and figure out how to proceed with your shared apartment, and on Ana’s insistence you promised to talk to your teammates more and spend time with them instead of holing up by yourself all the time.

You actually followed this list meticulously, and made sure to give Ana regular updates. Especially once you got the sneaking suspicion that she in turn informed Lia how you were doing because the midfielder looked more and more relaxed every day. The first time she smiled at you again your heart skipped a beat and you felt like a lovesick teenager. Then slowly Lia stopped keeping her distance, you still didn’t talk just the two of you but being part of the same group conversation became a regular occurrence.

After about three weeks you gathered all your courage and decided to ask Lia if she wanted to have coffee. It was a weird feeling that something that used to be the most mundane thing ever made you want to jump out of your skin. Doubts were flying around your mind as you walked towards Lia. The big smile that appeared on her face as she saw you definitely helped to make you feel a little calmer.

“Do you want to get coffee?“ You blurted out, mentally face palming at your lack of eloquence.

Lia chuckled, finding exactly this awkwardness endearing. „Yeah, I’d love to,“ she replied to your relief.

After training you met up at a coffee shop you had gone to a million times in the past, but this time felt entirely different, you might as well have been on another planet.

Once the two of you had found some seats and ordered your beverages, Lia looked at you expectantly. You had this all planned out, but now your mind was completely blank and you couldn’t think of a single thing you wanted to say.

Dejected you buried your face in your hands. “Man I’m so bad at this. Sorry, Lia!” You moaned.

Lia gently tugged your finger away from your face, holding on a little longer than necessary. “This isn’t a test, Y/N, just start with why you asked me out for coffee and then we’ll go from there. I don’t expect a perfectly rehearsed speech.”

You did expect that from yourself though because you knew Lia would have been able to deliver one. Sadly you were once again a disappointment to yourself, so there was nothing else to do than follow Lia’s advice.

“I guess the main reason is that I missed you. So much that it’s sometimes difficult to breath and if there’s one thing I know for sure by now it’s that I can’t imagine a future that you’re not part of. I can’t believe how stupid I was not to realize that ages ago.”

At this Lia huffed unhappily, she didn’t like the way you put yourself down at all. Despite this she didn’t interject, she didn’t want to stop your flow of words, knowing how hard it would be for you to get back into the mindset of sharing so freely, even with her.

“So often I was happy to get out of the apartment Jessica and I shared to spend time with you. When something good happened or well I guess also something bad you were always the first person I wanted to share it with. Nothing makes me happier than to see you happy and when you smile at me my entire world lights up. I can’t believe that I didn’t realize that you’ve been more than my best friend for the longest time.”

“And I know three weeks probably doesn’t seem like enough time to get over such a long relationship, but the truth is I’ve been finished with that relationship for a long time, and I think so has Jessica. We just stayed together out of habit. And don’t get me wrong, there’s still some things I need to do, like have a long and honest conversation with her, but I really want you back in my life. I completely understand though if you’re not ready. That’s totally valid of course…”

You would have continued to ramble if Lia hadn’t stopped you by gently pressing a finger to your lips, her eyes shining with love and warmth.

“I think we’re ready for that too. Not start a relationship right away, I need more time before that and I think you do too, but just things like this. Spend time together, hang out, slowly figure out together how our new normal is going to look like. Does that sound okay?”

“That sounds absolutely perfect,” you responded.

Not too long ago you had lain in a hotel bed in Switzerland scared because things between you and Lia would never be the same again, now you were filled to the brim with happiness and hope because things would never be the same again. Just the thought of how your relationship with Lia was going to look like made you feel excited. It was everything you’d never dared to dream of.

#woso #woso imagine #woso x reader #lia wälti imagine #lia wälti x reader #lia walti imagine #lia walti x reader

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kiwisbell · 2 months

Text

helen ; chapter three

the red circle

Si vis pacem, para bellum. Or, the truth.

series masterlist | my masterlist pairing: joel miller x f!reader tags/warnings: 18+ (MDNI), john wick AU, hitman!joel, husband!joel, established relationship, artist!reader, love as worship (and blasphemy), sacrilege in the name of romance, flashbacks, graphic violence, guns, blood + injuries, mentions of rape/SA, cars, bill is here, joel is still a bit of an idiot, childhood/religious trauma, hitman!joel finally hitmans, criminal underworld, secrecy/lies, betrayal, ANGST (still unresolved oopsie), we're getting there though, exposition, conflicting emotions, joel's tattoos are sexy but they're also plot-relevant, Sleeping Together, but not like That, the typical alcohol/smoking/profanity, dividers by @/saradika word count: ~ 7.6k a/n: this chapter marks this fic being halfway done already, which is madness. also, can i just say that i'm loving the amount of people who've specifically been watching john wick because of this fic?? this is my agenda!! as always, thank you so fucking much to mya baby @cavillscurls for beta reading this fic and being, idk, generally the loml. i hope you enjoy chapter 3, my friends! i'm sorry it's been such a long time coming, but life lifed, y'know?? prev | next

“How much?”

“Two million. For now, at least. It’s open.”

“Goddammit, Tommy.”

“I told you to be careful, brother. Now look at you. You’re a loose end.”

Joel resisted the urge to toss his phone. The shower continued running in the bathroom, muffled by the closed door.

He couldn't lose you. He didn't know life without you. Love had no name until he knew you. He'd christened it with that first kiss, maybe even in the first breath he'd shared with you.

If there was a chance Cabrera’s kid could come back for you, even if just to hurt Joel, he needed to see this to its end. There was no choice.

“He tried to rape my wife,” said Joel. “He's lucky I’m only tryin’ to kill him.”

Tommy only sighed, and the call ended.

I married you, Joel.

I loved you.

You lied to me.

He rests his elbows on his knees as he watches you doze. The sunlight shines neatly through the break in the curtains, and you squint against it in your sleep, turning over with a little huff and bringing the duvet over your head. You’ve always needed total darkness for a half-decent sleep.

You’ve been crying. The tears leave remnants on your cheeks, a dryness at the outer corners of your eyes, salt seeping moisture from your skin. He’s never known a thing so soft as the drag of his hand down your back.

I loved you.

You lied to me.

You will never understand. There are reasons—too many to count—that civilians cannot know. He may have gotten you to relative safety in the Continental, but there are a hundred dangerous people in this building who have a long-standing grudge against Joel Miller or the man he worked for. A hundred people who would take you as collateral the moment you stepped outside the grounds. But as long as you remain inside, you’re safe.

He just needs to finish the job. He needs to see it through, and he’ll be out. You’ll realise he’s done it all for you.

I loved you.

Sitting on the edge of his bed, he watches the rise and fall of your chest beneath the sheets. He broke your heart last night. He watched you turn in on yourself, your eyes so cold, so far away. He listened to you scream, and inside he pleaded: Keep hitting me, baby. Keep shouting. Be mad. He wanted you loud and furious and spitting fire. If you were angry, you still cared. He could work with that.

And to see you walk away, the fire frozen over, the fight in your marrow sucked out…

The anguish of losing your ire still stirs in his chest. The guilt peels him away in layers. Acid.

She’ll understand, he tells himself, you, anyone who’ll listen. She’ll get it someday—why I did it, why I lied. She’ll forgive me.

Forgive me, baby. Don’t let me live the rest of this life never seeing you smile.

“Stop looking at me,” you grumble, your eyes still closed.

Joel averts his eyes. His throat feels tight. “You sleep okay?”

You haul yourself upright and stretch out your back. Joel studies the curve of your spine and the nape of your neck. You’re the muse painters rave about. The reflections of sunlight on water at dusk. The pond of water lilies.

“You didn’t. Your sheets haven’t even moved.”

“I can’t sleep without you.”

You give him a heavy look, your eyes bleary with sleep. “You managed all those years before me, Joel. Let’s not do this.”

“What if I want to do this?” he says, dropping to the floor next to your bed and taking your hands in his. You try to pry yourself free, but he drops his head and traps you in his rapt vigil.

“Joel…” Your voice is still groggy, but there’s agony in the way you say his name.

“You’re my wife,” he says against your skin. “You’re the only person I’ve ever loved. You’re the girl I saw that night in the restaurant with the pretty eyes and you’re the girl I called every night just so I could hear your voice, and you’re always gonna be the only fucking girl for me. You’re my reason for everything, baby. I need you. Please… please just understand. You have to know that.”

You’re silent for a long while, your legs curled under you as your own husband kneels as if in prayer. Your throat burns with more tears you have little energy left to shed. You whisper his name.

He looks up and you find you cannot meet his eyes. So you stare at one of the patches of skin that disrupt the brown-grey of his beard. “That first night at the restaurant,” you say, trepidation colouring your voice blue, “you disappeared after the second course. When you came back, you told me you had to take a call. Was that the truth?”

Joel’s eyes are frantic in their search for an answer. “Don’t,” you snap. “Don’t lie to me again. Was that the truth?”

“There—” His voice cuts off, his eyes shuttering. “There was a target. That’s… why I was there in the first place.”

Your sob dies in your chest. It doesn’t even make a noise. You wrench your hands out of his, and he lets you, still kneeling at your bedside like a lost sinner. “Love has never been the problem. You might love me, but you’ve never told me the truth. Not from the first day.”

One of his hands wraps around your ankle. “I wanted out. I wanted out my whole life, and you’re the one who made me find the way. Cabrera, he… He gave me an impossible task. I completed it. And I gave you this ring.” He brushes his thumb over the knuckles of your third finger where your bands are still secure. “You said yes. You married me. Doesn’t this mean something?”

The sound of your hollow laugh hurts more than any words you could use to cut him. “It did,” you confess, “when I knew exactly who my husband was.”

He shakes his head, his lips parting in another desperate cast, but you’re standing up and crossing the room, gathering your toiletries for the bathroom. “What happens now?” you ask.

Joel stares at the ring on his finger. “I’m going to talk to the Manager. You have to stay here.”

“Okay,” you say softly. Your back is rigid. “Just tell me something.”

“Anything,” says Joel.

“If I asked to leave,” you whisper, “would you let me go?”

Joel feels his heart crack in two. He remembers the small outdoor wedding, in the heart of May, when he’d seen you walk down the aisle toward him and struggled to find the words, as he always did, that would be good enough.

I vow to love you, he'd said, his hands trembling as he took yours. I vow to be your partner in all things. I vow to show you every piece of my soul, the way you've given me yours, and to be gentle with your heart.

I vow to be the man you want, the man you need, and the man you love.

He’s failed. He knows that. But you smiled at him that day, your eyes brimming with tears that turned black from your mascara, and you kissed him before the officiant said the words.

I loved you.

“I’d do anything you asked me to,” he says, “but not that.”

Joel made a stop at the Continental Tailor before he went to find the Manager in the lounge. He paid the Tailor a bit too much for the new suit, he realises now, the sleeves a bit too tight, the pants not quite tapered. He was dressing a different body than the one he knew all those years ago.

Joel weaves through the darkness as a crooning voice sings something about evil men up on the stage. The band is playing along, a smooth jazz tune, and the bodies around him smell of expensive cologne and perfume and vodka. He remembers with a start why he hated this place so much.

Adjusting his jacket, he finds the Manager sitting in the VIP section on a long curved booth upholstered in crimson velvet, sipping a dry martini.

“Joel,” he says, lifting his glass in toast.

“Bill.”

The Manager doesn't look particularly thrilled. “You know there’s an open contract on your head. Who did you have to kill to end up back here?”

“Just a couple people.” Joel sits opposite him. “I need information.”

“And you're here on more business. Does your consort have anything to say about that?”

Joel curls his fingers into a fist atop the table. “I’m invoking my guest privileges. And she is my wife.”

Bill sniffs in amusement. “So, you did end up marrying the gal. Good for you, Joel. She's a stunner.”

“Fuck you, Bill.”

A short, booming laugh. “Nobody will so much as look her way. You have my word and all it means.”

“Doesn't mean much,” says Joel. “I’m just visiting.”

“Don't be the idiot I know you aren’t,” says Bill, leaning forward and setting his glass aside. “You dip so much as a pinky back in this pond, and you won’t get out so easy. Sometime, somewhere, someone’s going to come to you with another impossible task.”

“And I’ll complete it,” says Joel. “Emiliano Cabrera. Where is he?”

“You really wanna do this, Joel?”

“Yeah.”

“Your wife may be safe now, but she won’t be forever.”

“That’s why I’m going to finish it. That’s why I’m going to kill him.”

The Manager sighs, polishing off his martini. “You know damn well business will not be conducted on Continental grounds, Joel. You may as well go have a drink at the bar, take a load off. I can’t tell you anything while you’re inside my hotel.”

Joel suspected as much. “Then tell me something you can.”

Bill’s nostrils flare and Joel feels some satisfaction knowing he can still push the old man’s buttons. “I’ll tell you what: the game has changed since you left it. Your only chance is to get out now, while you still can. What could possibly warrant the Boogeyman reentering the fold?”

Joel licks his teeth. Your eyes blurring with tears as your skull connected with the ground, your body going limp as he stood above you. The clink of a belt buckle echoes still in his head. If he hadn’t been fast enough—

“It’s personal.”

Bill’s gaze dips. “Well,” he says, “then, unofficially, I wish you the best of luck. But, as a former friend”—Joel snorts —“let me give you a piece of advice. Take your wife home and forget about all of this. I like you, Joel, but for her sake and yours, I’d rather never see you again.”

Joel doesn’t take it personally. “Tell Frank I said hello.”

Bill grabs a full glass from a passing server. “Fuck you, Joel.”

He nods his head, closing the lapels of his jacket and slipping the first button through the opposite slit. As the singer on the stage transitions into the next song, Joel orders a glass of bourbon and watches the bartender slide his drink over on a pristine white napkin.

“On the house, per the Manager’s request,” says the bartender. “Welcome back, Mr. Miller.”

Pristine—save for the small red circle drawn with marker on the centre. Across the bar, Bill raises his glass in another toast, and Joel leaves the lounge, his drink untouched.

It’s a Tuesday night, and the Red Circle is lined up around the corner. One must know someone to get inside, and that someone must be a paying member. Joel had a membership by default, being contracted under Cabrera, but it was revoked along with his other privileges once he had completed his task.

You would hate this place. It’s throbbing bass and flashing neon lights and sweat-slick bodies rubbing up against one another. It’s brick and industrial metal and glass and the people don’t mix, either.

Maybe part of him is hedonistic, too. He doesn’t think he ever used to be. The job gave him wealth to spend that he never cared to; when he met you, he began to understand the pleasure of material things. Gold shone when it hung around your neck and wrapped around your fingers. Diamonds glittered like the jewels in a crown when you wore them on your ears. And when he pulled you close to him for the first time, undressing you slowly, hooking his fingers in the lace panties he’d bought for you and bringing his mouth to the heat between your legs, Joel began to understand the draw of pleasure.

It isn’t that he’d never had sex before you. He’d just… never been interested before you. Bodies always felt… too cold. They were complex. They were things to be followed, things to be killed. They were names on a piece of paper. They would bleed all their warmth and light into his palms and he would return, limping, to a house he never cared about and absolve himself of red. He’d never known the thrill of a body until he tucked his hand under the soft swell of your naked breast and put his mouth on yours and felt your heartbeat bleed into his hands. He never wanted to wash it off.

If I asked to leave, would you let me go?

After the orphanage, Joel visited a church only once.

He hadn’t meant to find it. He’d heard an organ humming from within. The cathedral was taller than it was wide, built for a small gathering. He’d slipped inside during a sermon, delivered by a pastor with white hair and a pair of wilting hands. Joel watched the tremors pass through his face, the agonising pulse of the vein in his throat, the way he would gulp down mouthfuls of water. He spoke with rhythm, with melody, and when he was finished, he grasped the edges of the pulpit, his head bowed in silent prayer. Joel thought he had never seen a more devoted man in his life.

When the sermon was over, he waited his turn to speak with the pastor. He did not know why. He hadn’t felt a stirring in his chest at the word of God; he never had.

I’ve never seen you in here before, my son.

Joel shook his head, frowning at the ground. I… left the faith, in a way. When I was young. I’m… sorry.

Devotion is a choice, said the pastor, taking Joel’s hands in his own. They were wrinkled, speckled with age spots. Joel lifted his gaze to find the pastor smiling. As with all things in life. Devotion, my son, is not a birthright. We must find it. Though it may not be His word, you will know someone’s word. And you’ll find it will move you enough that you choose to follow it. To whatever end.

Joel has been slashed, burned, drowned, whipped, beaten, strangled. He could count the telltale black spots in his eyes like dreamers count sheep. He developed a reputation because he was good at what he did. He was efficient, fast, lethal. He once killed three men in a bar with a pencil, they whispered. A fucking pencil. Word in the Underworld spread of a boogeyman who would take your life in your sleep if you wronged the wrong person, if you were just an unlucky bastard.

Their word never mattered. He’d never knelt in the blood of a victim and prayed for absolution. He would never find it, anyway. His soul was black.

If I asked to leave, would you let me go?

No word has ever cut so deep as yours. How could he wake up every single day next to the love of his life and lie so easily to your face? How could he put a ring on your finger knowing damn well he’d betrayed your trust every second of your time together and you never even knew about it?

How could he wear the mask of your husband and dream of blood on the very same hands that touched you each night?

Joel checks his watch. It’s one o'clock in the morning. You’ve been sleeping since breakfast. You won’t sleep a wink tonight if this keeps up, but it seems you’d rather do anything in the world than speak with him.

He doesn’t blame you.

He found his word that night in the restaurant. He’d followed it, followed you, wherever you took him. And he will follow you, his almighty word, beyond the grave, to whatever end you decide.

He will not abandon his faith. His purpose. He will not throw up his hands and let you walk away. He’s made mistakes he cannot mend. He can’t go back to the day you met and tell you all he should have, rules be fucked. He cannot fix what he’s already broken. You cannot put a piece of tape over fractured glass, a bloodied hand over wounded skin.

He made his fucking vows. It’s time he lived up to them.

Across the street, Joel watches, turning over the knife in his pocket by the hilt. Emiliano Cabrera and his lackeys step out of Joel’s Mustang and toss the keys to the valet. They skip the line, smacking one another around and jeering at the ladies in line, and Joel feels the hunger pull at his teeth.

His first target is posted by the east entrance. Joel takes the alley, stepping aside trash bags brimming with used needles and slipping the Glock from the lining of his jacket. The weight of it is formidable in his hand. Under the cover of dark, he slides into a second skin, black as the names they call him. Bringing the gun to the back of the guard’s head, he watches those huge shoulders stiffen.

“Francis,” he says politely.

“Joel,” says the guard.

“Workin’ late?”

“Why?” says Francis. “You want in?”

“Yeah,” says Joel, “I do. You lost weight.”

“Twenty-seven pounds, if you’ll believe it.”

Fuck.

Twenty-seven guards tasked with protecting the little shit. Joel may have a reputation, but it’s been years. He was ambushed in his own home last night. And after it all, he’d let the bastard slip between his fingers.

“Why don’t you take the night off?”

Francis lowers one meaty hand to the piece in his ear and takes it out. Turning his head, he says, “Can you at least lower the gun?”

Joel does. “Wasn’t sure you’d remember me.”

“Word’s going around. They say you’re back.”

“I’m just passin’ through.”

“Sure, Joel.” Francis offers his hand, and Joel shakes. “You better make it quick. I don’t feel like getting fired.”

“Understood.” Joel slips inside, letting the door click shut behind him.

Even from afar, the music lives in his chest, a writhing thing that seeks departure by way of his throat. He tries to swallow and it wriggles back up again. The bass throbs hard against his ribs.

There’s a bathroom on the VIP floor. As he sneaks by the frosted glass partition that separates him from the public, Joel hears the squeak of locker doors. He puts his palm on the door and pushes inside.

Did you see the tits on that girl? says one man in Spanish. Emil got a pretty one.

Another lets out a booming laugh. Shut the fuck up, man. Good pussy and you tuck your tail and run.

Yeah? And you're in here because you scored?

I’m in here because bitches prefer to choke on clean dick. What's your excuse?

Neither feels the breeze of the shadow slipping behind them. Neither of them sees the man in black lock his arm around one of their necks and squeeze until there's no air left. By the time the other has turned on the porcelain sink and begun to splash his face, the boogeyman has him by the scruff of his neck, fisting the collar of his fluffy white bathrobe. The sink continues running, and he’s choking on the warm water as Joel holds him down.

“Jesus! Fuck!”

“Where is Emiliano?”

“Vete a la mierda,” he splutters. “Let go of me, motherfucker!”

Joel takes one of the man’s fingers and bends it all the way back. His screams are muffled by Joel’s hand.

“Where is Emiliano?”

“The bathhouse, downstairs,” he groans. “Fuck, let me go, pendejo!”

Joel bares his teeth, breaks the man’s neck, and leaves him slumped over the sink, the water still running.

The bathhouse is doused in red and blue. The water is illuminated from within, and the whites in his victim’s eyes glow where he stands half-submerged, toasting a bottle of champagne to his rowdy friends. Joel flattens himself to the wall, listening for the tread of dress shoes. The music pounds too loudly for him to hear, but he can see the shadow before he sees its owner.

“Clear,” says the voice.

When he rounds the corner, Joel drives his knife into the man’s throat and silences his gurgling moans by clamping a hand over his mouth. He slides down the wall, and Joel holds his gaze while the light slowly dims in his eyes.

One.

Two more men are waiting behind the partition, hands folded in front of them. Joel does not recognise them. Their suits are pressed, Italian; it seems Cabrera has made some alliances. Joel lies his first victim on the ground and prowls toward his next two.

They go easily: unsuspecting, they bleed out under his blade, choking on their blood, and he leaves them lying by the foggy partition. Three.

The music is dreamy, the crooning of two voices set to a throbbing track. In the bathhouse, he hears the sloshing of water and the singing of a group of men nearby. They're singing an old folk song, Joel realises. A song about a ghost.

Hurry, fall asleep, or the Boogeyman will come for you…

They don't sound particularly frightened by the spectre haunting them. Joel watches them toast their bottles of champagne and grab the waitresses’ asses. It's Emiliano and his friends, all right. Joel spots another five guards around the waist-deep water and another two by the doors upstairs.

There's a childlike self-assuredness about him—this kid. He thinks he's protected, safe, almighty as God. He sings about Joel and smiles.

A guard leans over him and sneers. “You need to stop drinking.”

“Are you scared of the fucking boogeyman?” jeers the kid. “I’m not! Hijo de puta.”

The guard plucks the bottle from his hand and passes it off. “You wanna vomit while you run away? Or would you just prefer to get shot in the head?”

Emiliano’s haughty sniff makes Joel wonder if a bullet in the head is retribution enough. “Get me another fucking bottle!” he says to his friend.

Joel picks up a bottle of complimentary cologne and tosses it. The glass shatters, potent liquid pooling on the shiny floor. Three guards flank the partition. The music is too loud to let the sounds of his blade in flesh seep through.

Six.

On the other side of the glass, coloured blue and red and slick with humidity, the singing continues.

From the swamp he will come…

He feels the wet splash of blood on his face.

… and take the children that don't behave.

Another man rounds the corner as Joel is tearing the knife from the last guard’s throat. He doesn't have enough time to slash his throat, so he pulls the handgun from his holster and shoots. He crumples to the floor, but Joel’s cover is blown.

“He’s here! Miller’s here!”

The partition explodes. Glass rains on him as he rolls to evade the gunfire, raising his barrel to strike at the remaining guards.

Seven. Eight.

The men by the stairs are shouting some Spanish, some Italian. The music carries on, but the song they're singing has ended.

Joel finds the man he's been looking for: hiding behind a petrified waitress, Emiliano Cabrera looks like a goddamn child. He's wrapped himself hastily in a bath towel around his waist, and his eyes are wide as saucers. Yeah, Joel thinks, I’m going to enjoy this a little.

He locks eyes with Emiliano for only a moment. The guards at the top of the stairs begin to fire at Joel. He ducks behind the wall as shots chip brick from the wall or plunk uselessly in the water. By the time he flanks them around the other side of the wall and brings them tumbling down the stairs—ten—the kid has already run. Joel growls at the loss of the kill and follows him into the club.

With an eruption of deafening music, Joel bursts into the crowd. Behind him, a gigantic LED screen is illuminated with spirals in red and blue and white. Women dance in elevated cages while the crowd below becomes a sea of skin and sequins and sweat. Joel reloads, checks the clip, and resumes his hunt.

Eleven, twelve, thirteen. Joel feels the punch of the barrel into their chests as he fires, again and again and again. The commotion is lost in the din of the music and dancing. Bodies connect and grind and Joel kills.

Fourteen. A guard by the wall. Fifteen. Another lurking by the LED spirals. Sixteen, seventeen—two men rushing him in an attempt to ambush, eyes wild with rage and a bit of fear. Joel puts them down like sick dogs and continues to push through the crowd, his eyes locked on the retreating Emiliano, who's waving a gun about like a white flag.

But it's no surrender. It's a beacon, a sign that the deer is spooked. Joel feels his lip curl. So frightened, he thinks.

Eighteen, nineteen…

Your bleary eyes, blinking through the pain, limbs limp and helpless as he unbuckled his belt above you. A cut on your face, barely bleeding. The red still consumes him.

You were so afraid that night.

Twenty.

Twenty-one.

He's getting closer. The crowd parts down the centre as Joel marches toward his goal. But the music is loud and he does not hear the approach from behind.

The gunshot grazes his shoulder, but he feels the flare of pain ooze its way down his arm. Joel grunts, knocked askew from his path, and turns to forge at his assailant.

The man is fast, though, and rushes him. The tackle brings him down to the ground, winding him just enough to briefly stun, to send his Glock spinning along the floor. He’s taller, broader, madder.

But he shoots one-handed.

Joel knocks the gun aside and it misfires into the gap in the crowd. In the dispersing, he sees more guards closing in his periphery. The only protection he has is the hulking body on top of him. So Joel uses it, bringing his elbow to the man’s throat and bunching the lapel of his jacket in his fist. The guard attempts to reach for the blade in his thigh holster, but Joel reaches down and bends his arm backward until the crunch crackles in his ear. The man howls, and Joel grasps the hilt of the knife.

Twenty-two.

He picks up his gun and fires a shot into each of the three approaching guards, but Emiliano has fled to the first floor. Joel grimaces as he stands, blood on his fingertips where he's prodded the wound in his arm. “Goddammit,” he mutters, following his target upstairs.

The air is dizzying. Hot. Joel never liked clubs. He hated the closeness and the bodies in cages and the way skin felt so sticky, too tight, like he needed to step outside of it. He hated the feeling of being suffocated by strangers, as if any of them could be lurking low in the darkness, waiting to strike.

He didn't understand the lure of the scantily-clad body until he saw you wrapped in a tight black dress. He didn't know the pleasure of dancing until you took his hand one night, his old vinyl player crackling out Frank Sinatra, and lay your head on his shoulder. It felt like stepping over the threshold into consecrated territory. He should not be touching you. But you were touching him.

Joel spots Emiliano running for the back entrance, shoving another guard in Joel’s path.

Twenty-six.

The final man, approaching Joel from the lounge, pulls his gun in time to shoot, but not in time for Joel to notice. The bullet shatters a glass of wine and topples a waiter’s tray. Joel fires.

One to go.

He has no choice but to lunge for the kid before he can run out into the street. Joel’s heart is pounding in his chest, his blood electrified. The take-down is sloppy and his ankle rolls, but Emiliano Cabrera is pinned beneath him and yelping like a kicked dog.

“My father will kill you,” he gasps, his cheek pressed to the floor.

“Your father knows exactly why I’m here,” says Joel, “and he knows how stupid you are.”

“Hijo de puta, it was just a fucking car,” he spits. “I was just going to have some fun with your bitch. I would've given her back.”

Joel isn't quite satisfied. He turns the kid onto his back and grasps him by the jaw, forcing him to meet Joel’s incendiary gaze.

“Everything has a price.”

The knife goes in smoothly, the flat of the blade glinting in his gaping mouth. No light flees his eyes. There is nothing but cold slate-grey. And although Joel feels no happiness feeling the pulse slow to a crawl beneath his palm, he does not pull the knife out.

Your body, sacred, helpless, lying on the floor. A predator’s gaze. The clink of a belt buckle. Joel steps over the body and leaves, limping to the valet and slipping him a golden coin. He slips back inside his Mustang, turns on the engine, and drives back to the hotel.

You’re tucked in the alcove by the window, staring out at the moonlit night. Your chin rests on your knees as you hug yourself close. The lamp between your respective beds colours the room orange.

“You’re limping.”

You haven’t even turned to face him.

“How—”

“I know how you sound when you walk.” Your temple is cool where it rests on the windowpane, your breath frosting the glass. Joel staggers to the small table and braces himself on the back of a chair as he watches you.

You’re as warm and bright as the day he found you that night in the restaurant. Your eyes may be a little older, but the glow is the same. He folds his bleeding hands around the back of the chair. Everything around you curls in, darkens, and wilts when it confronts your beauty.

“I’m all right.” He doesn’t deserve your concern. He’ll swallow any bullet to keep you from worrying.

You stand at last and cross the room to face him. His heart jumps like it’s the first time you asked him on a date. Like the first time he kissed you, his chest taut with tension and nerves and the assumption that you’d reject him.

“You can lie to me about lots of things, Joel, but I know this face.” The pad of your thumb ghosts over the crease between his brows. “I’ve painted it a hundred times. It doesn't lie.”

It's the first time you've touched him in days. Joel closes his eyes. Part of him, the part that jolts back to life under the tender weight of your soft skin, means it when he says, “I’m okay.”

You seem to ponder him for a moment. “This wouldn't be the first time I patched you up,” you say, as if resigned. “Go on. Bathroom.”

He winces. “You don't have to—”

“Go. And afterward, you can tell me everything.”

The pads of your fingers memorise the ridges on the gold coin. The time is close to dawn.

He’s no longer bleeding, and although you have nothing close to the Doctor’s prowess, you’ve managed to disinfect and wrap the wound in his arm. You can’t do anything about his ankle, but it’s a sprain; he’ll heal in time. The mangled black and blue on his tender skin reminds you of a night sky without the stars. It doesn’t seem to pain him. It only makes you wonder what sorts of agonies he’s faced—ones you never knew about.

The hurt has festered in your time away from him. He’s an open wound in the shape of a hand on your back, searing cold through to your heart. The hand sports a golden band, and it reflects in the one you still wear. You don't quite know what to make of it now.

He looks exactly like the man you knew. Not a part of him has changed—he's still scruffy, still tired, still jaggedly gorgeous. You paint him with blurred edges, with blues and greys. Your heart still pulls when you look at him. Your chest still gapes wide open, and he digs his thumbs into the bruises. He lied to you. He broke your trust. And there's still so much of your Joel in him, from the skin to the bones.

“It’s beautiful,” you muse, turning the coin over.

“Technically, it’s not money,” Joel says. “It is currency. They can be exchanged for favours, information, relationships.”

“A hotel room,” you add. “Good to know I don’t have to move any savings around. Where have you been keeping these?”

“There’s a safe in the basement,” he says, “under the floorboards. When I left, I buried all of it. Weapons, coins, contacts, anything I had from the Underworld.”

The Underworld. A fitting name, if you’ve made any sense of it at all. “Do the police know about all of this?”

“Most of them are in the pockets of High Table members. Those are the ones who control how it all works. Rules and consequences,” says Joel, “is how they operate. They're what separate us from the animals.”

You lift your brows. “And who sits at this High Table?”

“Twelve leaders. They're the ones who run most of the major crime families and organisations. They control police, politicians, banks—”

Your shuddering sigh makes him stop in his tracks. He watches you lean back in the chair and bends forward slightly, as if tied to you by an invisible thread.

“So… the girl who serves me coffee on the corner by my office could be part of it.” You frown at the coin in your hand. “She could be a witness, a runner, a messenger. She could be like you.”

“She isn't,” says Joel, “but that is the general idea.”

“But civilians are immune.”

“More or less,” says Joel. “There are… heavy penalties for harming them.”

“Penalties like death.”

“Most of the time,” he says. “And there are rules here, too. No business can be conducted on the grounds of any Continental hotel.”

“Any? You mean—”

“There's a Continental in every major city in the world. It's where we go to remind ourselves we’re civilised.”

“Civilised,” you scoff. “Civilised murder, sure. I’m buying it. And now that you’re back—”

“Visiting.”

You just glare at him, and he ducks his head.

“—there's a contract on your head.”

Joel nods. “Two million.”

You curl your fingers over the coin in your palm as your stomach bottoms out. “That's a lot of incentive to put a bullet in your brain.”

“They won't,” he says. “Cabrera holds the contract, and he only opened it because of Emiliano. He’d pull it the second I agreed to stop looking for his son. He doesn't want me owing him.”

“I don't know if I’d call that a debt.”

“Considering everything I did for him,” says Joel, a bite to his voice, “anything short of killin' his kid is a favour.”

Despite yourself, you open your hand and slide the coin toward him. “Tell me what you did.”

His head shoots up, his brows knitted together. “What?”

“Tell me what you did to get out. Tell me about this ‘impossible task.’”

“Baby, that’s…” He rubs his hand across his jaw, and it strikes you then how deep those half-circles colour the space beneath his eyes.

“Stop,” you whisper. It never used to hurt when he called you baby. “Tell me how much blood you thought I was worth.”

Joel’s jaw ticks. His knees barely touch yours under the table. “You don't wanna hear the answer to that.”

“Then start here. What did you do, Joel?”

The sigh he releases feels heavy. “I came to Cabrera, asking him to release me from my contract. He told me he'd let me out, no strings attached… if I hunted down his enemies.”

Your mouth drops. “Which enemies?”

He picks up the coin and turns it over in his palm. The silence drops an anchor on the ground. Your belly churns with the movement of the golden piece as it catches the light.

“All of them,” says Joel. “All of ‘em, in one night. That was his impossible task.”

The scrape of your chair legs across the floor is grating. But you stand anyway, your head vaguely stirring with the beginnings of a headache.

“Oh my God.”

You barely feel your own hand on your cheek, barely smell the iron tang of blood on him, barely see the red cutting through his pressed white shirt. “How many people?”

Joel shakes his head, his shy eyes lowered, still as the paintings you've made of him. “I… I don't know.”

I lost count, he means. There were too many, he means.

Your throat is just wide enough to let your breath escape. The air you take in feels poisonous. He killed every single one of them. All because he wanted to marry you.

All because he wanted peace.

“Is there anyone in the Underworld who doesn’t know your name?”

Joel’s repentant silence, head ducked as if in prayer, is all the answer you need.

“How did this happen?” Your voice is uniquely quiet.

“When I was a kid,” he says, and your heart sinks, “I lived on the streets. Lived like a rat, mostly, but I survived. You know that much.”

You nod solemnly, lowering yourself into the chair once more. “The Sisters reunited you with your brother.”

His dark eyes reflect the lamplight and it resembles a flame igniting in the depths of the iris. “Found me on Canal Street, runnin’ drugs for a mobster I don't even remember. Tommy was only five, but he must've told them about me. They took me to the orphanage and started my training.”

You swallow, your temples pounding. Deep in your gut, something wild and dry begins to kindle. “They were the ones who taught you all of this?”

“They teach the word of God above everythin’ else, but yeah. They train children to thrive in the Underworld. We were taught knives, guns, hand-to-hand. Hell, they even taught us how to dance—how to move faster than the opponent. I knew how to kill someone before I could read.” Joel chuckles, and part of you thinks he actually thinks it's funny. “Probably why I’m so slow.”

You aren't slow, you want to say. You've never been slow, not from the first day.

The kindling curls and you can feel your mouth pull at the corners. He had only been a child. An orphan. A child had no way to choose, to resist how they were raised. He hadn’t been given a choice—his life in exchange for a roof over his head.

“Those fucking bastards.”

Joel’s laugh is mirthless. “It was a long time ago. I’ve made my peace with it.”

You angrily swipe the tears that warm your cheeks. “No adult should have that power. They should nurture and comfort and protect, not—” Your breath hitches. “You were a child. You didn't deserve that.”

Your fingers have curled into a fist atop the table. With both hands, he gently lifts your hand to his mouth and kisses your knuckles. You expect it to feel foreign, wrong. It just feels like Joel.

“The Sisters were cruel,” he says softly. “But I made myself into a weapon. It was the only way I would survive.” He reaches out as if for a wounded deer and brushes his thumb over your jaw. “They never made me believe, sweetheart. That was all you.”

You sniffle, your head bobbing absently. You don't know what to think. You don't know how to feel. Your own husband has been through the seven circles and crawled back out only to teeter back over the pit once more. There’s an ancient weariness in the black of his eyes, an old hurt, a mansion slowly crumbling at the edges.

“You hid this all from me, and never told anyone,” you say, the ache widening. You find you want to assume, consume, even a modicum of the pain that he's felt.

One of his shoulders lifts in a mild shrug. “I wanted to forget all of it. I wanted to make something of the new life I’d killed for.” He meets your gaze and you swear part of the open wound in his pupils has sealed. “I didn't want any of it to touch you.”

And you remember lying in bed with him that first night, after that first time, tracing a scar on his back. White and ridged, it spread like lightning feelers from the middle of his spine to the dimples in his lower back.

You'd put your mouth to his shoulder blade and felt him melt into you.

What happened?

The silence that followed could have heard the brush of a feather over skin.

I was raised in an orphanage. In a church. They weren't kind.

And that was that. You'd prodded and fussed and he'd said I’m fine. It was a long time ago.

“But that's what you do, Joel,” you tell him. “You hide your hurt and you bury your feelings and you do it all because you're afraid it'll make everyone leave you.”

Sometimes he would wake in a cold sweat, heaving, tossing aside the sheets, but he would never make a sound. You'd see him, pretending to sleep, and place your hand over his chest. His fingers would grasp yours as if marooned on the water, seeking driftwood, his hand suffocating yours. He'd keep it pressed to his heart until the beats slowed.

You regret those times you never pressed. In a way, you were afraid, too. If you opened your eyes, if you asked him to confess, he would close the lattice and turn his back to you. You didn't want to lose him, either.

But you did.

“I’m sorry,” you whisper, but it doesn't hold the weight you want it to. It doesn't blow out the candles in the cathedral. It doesn't pluck the scared little boy from the streets or give him a warm bed. It doesn't stop the beatings and the lashings and the pain.

It does not pry the pain from his heart and bury the shrapnel in your chest instead. It is something he bears, as he always has, and must. It is something you cannot take from him. And you feel more helpless than you ever have.

He shakes his head. “I know we can't go back,” he says, tracing one of the little daisy charms on your bracelet. “But it feels… good. It feels good to finally tell you. Even if we were too late.”

The sound of his voice breaking shakes your heart loose from your rib cage.

“Come to bed.” Your voice is raw and used. “Just… come to bed, and sleep.”

He doesn't dare look hopeful, though you can see the tremor that courses through his hand. He wants to take yours, the way he did the day he proposed, dropping to one knee with your palms flush.

He looked a little hopeful that day, too. With rapt attention, he'd taken hold of you and said, I love you. I love you more than anything. You’re my best friend. Will you marry me? Will you let me be your husband?

You realise now why he'd let himself hope. He'd gotten out. He'd started his new life. With you.

You can see his old scars, even in the dark. You think, in all your time together, you've learned his body as you learn the earth you tread upon. The praying hands of Dürer lie beneath the name inked in small black lettering.

Your name.

You gingerly reach out and place your hand on his back. Joel shudders. He does not turn to face you where you both lie on your sides.

“If you bleed on the bed sheets,” you say to the darkness, “will management make us pay?”

He chuckles. “Strongly worded phone call at best. I’ll take the hit.”

You frown, ghosting your fingers over the tender skin around the makeshift patch job on his shoulder. “Does it still hurt?”

“No,” he says, leaning into your touch, “not anymore.”

“You never told me about this scar on your back.” You touch the edges of the puckered skin. “I never stopped wondering. But I should never have stopped asking.”

“Don't,” he says quietly. “Don’t say any of that like it's your fault.”

The silence bleeds as viscous as an open gash into the dry air. His watch broke the day of your wedding. He told you it was all right, that we've got all the time in the world, and you'd kissed him and laughed. He’d replaced the battery since then, but sometimes the little hand lags behind, as if afraid to chug forward. Afraid to let time, of all silly, trivial things, consume your world.

“Do you remember your vows?” you ask him.

“‘Course I do.”

“Do you remember mine?”

His head bows slightly on the pillow. “‘I vow to be your partner in all things,’” he recites. “‘I vow to protect your heart like it's my own. I vow to take your pain, and to shoulder it so you don't have to.’”

The tears saturate the pillowcase beneath your cheek. You fall asleep with your arm around his waist, your hand next to his, not touching, but nearly.

#fic: helen #kiwisbell's fics #pedro pascal #joel miller #joel miller x reader #joel miller x you #the last of us hbo #the last of us #tlou fic #joel miller fanfic #joel miller fanfiction #joel miller angst #joel miller au #joel miller fic #john wick au #joel miller x female reader #joel miller x f!reader

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short-honey-badger · 4 months

Text

Trouble Sleeping

This is pure filthy smut, that's literally it. I hope you enjoy!

Warnings! Smut SMut Smut! ABO universe as well. It's been a looong time since I've written for it. Pre time skip Law btw!

Pairings: Alpha! Trafalger D. Water Law x Omega! Reader

Summary: You notice that your captain hasn't slept in the past couple of days, so you offer to help him relax.

Part 2 ->

Masterlist.

It’s been what? Two? Three days since the last time Law had gotten a decent night’s rest? If it wasn’t the nightmares keeping him up every time he closed his eyes, then it was his incessant need to plan. To go over the research the alpha had begun to gather about Punk Hazard and Ceasar’s operation. It was all to get closer to Doflamingo of course, but Trafalgar would give anything not to have to deal with the disgusting scientist.

And to get some rest, but the pirate doubted that would come anytime soon.

Law wipes his eyes, pushing away from his desk and closing the thick folder of compiled notes. He needed a break, maybe even something to eat, too. The alpha’s stomach grumbled at the thought of food and he stood from his desk, grabbing his hat and fixing it properly on his head.

As he walked through the walls of familiar walls of the Polar Tang, Law thought about the newest member of his crew. While he wasn’t in the habit of picking up strays, you had piqued his interest when you wouldn’t stop bugging him and his crew about learning medicine. To quench his curiosity, Law had allowed you to come on board, and you have been a dutiful student ever since. And despite what Penguin and Shachi liked to think, it was not because you were a pretty omega in need asking for his help. Trafalgar liked to think he was better than his alpha instincts.

Ah. Speaking of the omega, Law could smell your honeysuckle scent just around the corner. You must been in the galley.

Law spots you at one of the tables in the corner, nose stuck in a medical text and a half-empty plate of whatever the cooks had made tonight. On a whim, he decides to grab a cup of coffee and his own serving and joins you at your table. You jump when he sets his plate down, but your expression brightens the moment you notice that it is your captain sitting across from you.

“Evening, Cap’n,” you greet, and Law finds his shoulders relaxing when he catches your scent again. It is warm and welcoming, soothing his frayed nerves with ease.

“_-ya,” Law rumbles back in greeting and meets your eyes, smirking when he notices you watching him. He isn’t surprised when you speak up, but he doesn’t expect you to sound so concerned.

“Have ya been gettin’ enough sleep Cap’n? Not ta speak out of turn, but you don’t look so good. A-and I’ve seen you roamin’ the halls more than usual,” you’re blushing when you finish, but Law finds your rambling endearing and doesn’t bother lying to you like he might others.

“Not really, little medic, but you shouldn’t worry about me. I’ll be fine,” He assures you and then sips his coffee. He glances over to see that the omega doesn’t look very satisfied with his answer, and his instincts make themselves known when he catches a whiff of hot displeasure in your scent.

Before Trafalgar can do much and possibly make a fool of himself, you speak up again.

“Well, is there anything that I can do to help?” the omega asks, and Law pauses, arm stalling midair, fork halfway to his mouth. Despite the innocent way you ask the question, his mind goes straight to the gutter, and the pirate captain sees you on your knees in his bed, face down and ass up, presenting beautifully for him. Law can hear the way your cute accent whispers his name, pretty eyes glistening with tears as you beg him for his cock.

“Cap’n? You okay, there?” A cool hand on his forehead and your soft voice bring the alpha out of his daydream, and he flushes even more at having been caught zoning out like that.

“Ah, sorry about that, _-ya. Just tired, like I said,” Law murmurs and sets his fork down to hide his face behind his cup of coffee. You assure him that he is fine and tentatively go back to your book when it seems like Law isn’t going to answer your question.

In reality, the alpha is pondering your question. It was a fact that omegas were able to put alphas in a calming state. Usually, Law wouldn’t mention it, but you had asked if you could do anything for him, and your omega pheromones would most likely do the trick and put him to sleep.

“You know what,” Law begins and you jerk your head up to look at him, surprised that he’d spoken up, “I think you can help me out, little medic. If you’re done here?”

Your eyebrows jump up, and then the little omega is nodding, a happy smile painting your lips. Law watches you stand and close your book, tucking it under your arm and then tossing your cleaned plate in the sink at the back of the room. He follows your path, and then Law is leading you out of the kitchen and back to his office.

The alpha keeps going, opening up the door in his office that connects to his bedroom. You tentatively follow after him, and Law’s alpha rumbles in satisfaction at having such a pretty omega in his room. His scent, clean and fresh with a hint of steel, coats everything, and Law quietly hopes that it sticks with you after you leave his room.

Trafalgar doesn’t think twice about tossing his hat to the side and shrugging off his shirt. His jeans are replaced by a pair of soft sweats, and when he looks at you, your face is bright red, eyes wide in shock. Your scent sweetens with a hint of arousal and Law smirks, it’s a surprise, but not unwelcome.

“You’ve learned a lot while you’ve been here, _-ya. So you know that omegas can manipulate their scents to calm down the other sex in tense situations. It works better when they have been near one another for long periods of time. I’d like for you to do that for me if you’re comfortable with that.”

Law watches the omega as you think, but it doesn’t take you long to come to a decision. You set your book aside and give him a shy, unsure smile.

“Got another pair of sweatpants? Jeans aren’t very comfortable to lay down in.”

The alpha chuckles and then sets about finding another pair of sweats. A dark, possessive part of him is delighted at the sight of you standing in his room with a pair of too-big sweatpants, and Law has to fight down the almost overwhelming need to pull you into his bed to scent you. Instead, like the gentleman he is trying to be, Law pulls back the covers of his bed and stands back, offering for you to crawl in first.

“Make yourself comfortable,” the alpha drawls, and watches with lidded eyes as you slip into his his bed. He follows after and cuts the lights with a flick of his fingers and the use of his devil fruit. Law hears you suck in a sharp breath when he settles in beside you, laying on his side and tossing an arm over your hip. He emits his own calming pheromones and blinks at the back of your head when you take deep, shuddering breaths of his scent.

The alpha hadn’t expected you to do that, but the sight of you breathing in his scent made his hold on you tighten, and Law pulled you back into his chest, leaning down to bury his face in your hair. He hums when you lift your leg, and he slips his thigh in between your legs, bringing the two of you impossibly closer.

After that, it is easy for the two of you to relax, honeysuckle and steel mixing to create a unique scent that represents the alpha and omega. Being surrounded by the combined scent leaves Law feeling drowsy, eyes fluttering shut as he shoves his face closer to the scent gland on your neck, desperate for more of that sweet honeysuckle. You squirm for half a second and then settle again, content to help out your captain where you can.

Neither of you expects to fall asleep, but when Law wakes, he feels far more refreshed than he has in a long time. He cracks open his eyes and takes in the new position the two of you shifted to in sleep. Trafalgar lays on his back and the little omega has sprawled over his chest, your face pressed into the hollow of his throat, and arms wrapped around his neck. His arms are wrapped securely around your waist, and Law smiles when you mutter softly and shift in your sleep.

Law contemplates going back to sleep, but then you shift again, and all thoughts of sleep fly out of his mind when your hip brushes against his cock. He fights back a groan, tattooed hands flexing and digging into your soft skin. Fuck. He wants you. He wants your attention, and your pretty eyes and plush mouth on him all the time. The alpha wants to bite you, sink his teeth into your nape, and claim you as his.

He rolls, trapping you under him, and you wake with a gasp, eyes flying open to stare at your captain who looms above you. He looks frightening in the low light of his room, but the way his scent is wrapped around you is nothing but comforting. You aren’t scared of this dangerous alpha.

“_-ya,” Law growls your name, dipping down to press his brow against your own, eyes catching yours and glowing with hot arousal, “You did so well for me. Helping me get some rest. Let me reward such a good omega.”

The way your scent turns hot and sticky with arousal is enough of an answer for Law. He turns his head, keeping himself held up with one arm as the other grips your jaw. Trafalgar’s lips meet your own in a steamy kiss. He smooths his thumb up, catching your bottom lip and tugging it down, pulling your mouth open enough to slip his tongue inside.

You whine under him, hands digging into his hair to the point of pain, but it only makes the alpha groan into the kiss. Law’s dick throbs in his pants, so he moves, grinding up into the welcoming heat between his legs. The friction is delicious, but it isn’t enough.

Law lifts himself up, breaking the kiss and leaving you winded. Your pupils are blown, and your mouth is bright red from the way his facial hair has rubbed against your skin. He shimmies down, hands finding the waistband of the sweats you wear and hooking his fingers under them. He makes sure to catch the other elastic band he feels and tugs the pants and your underwear down in one fell swoop.

“Fuck, you smell so good, Baby,” Law rumbles and shoves his face in the slope of your right, lips mouthing at the minor scent glands there. You cry out and grp his hair even harder, eyes blown wide as you watch him breathe you in, “Like honey and warm desserts.”

“Y-you smell good too, Cap’n,” You whisper, voice shaking as you try and deal with the pleasure that Law smothers you with, “Clean and fresh. I like it.”

A low growl erupts in the room and Law rewards your compliment by flattening his tongue and licking a stripe along your entire cunt. The alpha groans at the taste, your slick is just as sweet as you smell, and Trafalgar regrets never asking you to his room sooner. He grabs your hips, lifting them so that he can point his tongue and shove it deep into your leaking hole.

You wail, curses falling from your lips as you buck your hips against his face, seeking that burning pleasure that only Law can give you. The alpha drinks from you, lewd slurping sounds filling the room until you are bowing forward and pulling him off your cunt.

Law’s face is soaked in your juices, and he bares his teeth at you for pushing him away. He would know if he’d made you come, and he looks at you to demand an answer.

“I want you to fuck me, Cap’n,” You say and it stalls Law in his tracks. Your eyes shine with want and you grip his shoulders, nails digging in, “I- I want to come on your cock, not your tongue.”

The pirate can’t get his pants off fast enough. His lanky legs end up getting tangled in his sweats, but you patiently extract the fabric and toss them to the floor. Your mouth waters at the sight of his cock, and slick leaks out of you to stain Law’s sheets. The alpha’s dick is the perfect specimen, thick at the base, knot looking inflated already. His length tapers up slightly, only to end in a silky head that leaks with precum.

“Get on your knees, Baby. Present for me, yeah?” Law orders and you scramble to obey, brain mush with alpha pheromones that leave you feeling fuzzy.

His omega rolls to their knees, thighs parted in a wonderful display of trust. You bite the pillow under you, whining when your senses are overwhelmed with the scent of your Captain. Tears leak from your eyes and a low cry escapes you when Law drapes himself over your back, cock slotting between your legs and dragging over your pussy.

Law ruts against you, coating his dick in your slick until his member is nice and soaked. He leans back enough to grab the base, angling it up to run the head of his cock through your folds. You sob at the feeling, back arching and hips shaking in search of him.

“Please, Law. I’m wet enough, just put it in,” You whine and the alpha growls at the way you beg him. His tip catches your entrance on his neck stroke, and Law doesn’t stop gravity as he sinks into your warm heat.

You feel amazing around him, walls fluttering and gripping his cock so tightly that Law hisses as he sicks another inch down. His mouth drops, and he sucks in greedy mouthfuls of your scent, leaning down to nip at the gland on your neck where the sweet smell is the most potent.

“You’re mine after this, got it, omega? No one else can have you this way. No one else can feel your tight cunt other than me,” Law snarls and you nod frantically, face still pressed into the pillows.

The alpha doesn’t wait any longer, sinking the rest of the way inside and snarling at the way his knot catches on your walls. It's overwhelming, and Law presses his forehead harshly against your shoulder blades to prevent himself from biting you. Now wasn’t the time to try and forge a mating bond. Not when Doflamingo still threatened everything that Law cared for.

Trafalgar fucks you like a man possessed, hands harsh and fingertips digging in hard enough to leave bruises. He snaps his hips, dragging his cock along your walls as you clench and flutter around him. He changes angles, slowing down only to roughly slam into you, and you shout when his dick catches against that spongy spot inside of you.

Law grins, teeth bared in a feral grin as he focuses on that spot and pounds into your cunt. Your hands grip the sheets hard enough the tear them, tears leaking down your face as Law abuses that spot inside of you. It’s not long before the alpha has you shouting your name, jaw dropping open in a silent scream as you come around his cock.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Law chants when your cunt constricts around him. He wants to come inside of you, pump you so full of his seed that it would be dripping out for the next week. But knotting you means pups, and those aren’t something that anyone needs right now.

So, despite his instincts screaming at him to mark you on the inside, Law pulls out when he feels that tension snap, pumping his dick and instead painting your backside and cunt with his spend. He milks his cock, shaking and whining as he gently massages his knot. Your hips have fallen without Law to hold you up, but that doesn’t stop him from draping himself back over the omega, hand finding your hip and rubbing his cum into your skin. He needed to make sure that you were properly covered after all.

Below him, you settle into the comfy bed and close your eyes. You are content to let your alpha take care of you, and so easily fall back to sleep.

Your captain snickers softly when he notices that his omega has already dropped back off to sleep, and rolls the two of you to the side, snuggling close and closing his eyes. He’d take you to the shower later, but for now, Law was just happy that you were here to help him go back to sleep too.

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nxuvillette · 5 months

Text

“BABY, IT’S COLD OUTSIDE!”

SPENDING CHRISTMAS W/ TR MEN

synopsis: spending the holidays with your boyfriend is like a dream come true.

❥- including : baji keisuke, kazutora hanemiya, chifuyu matsuno

❥- note : decided to write something sweet for christmas coming up !! also new theme.. so new post colors :> ! i hope you guys enjoy, reblogs are appreciated <;3.

content warnings : sfw, fem!reader, ageless + blank blogs dni, fluff, christmas activities, mentions of food (baji + chifuyu), use of pet names (babe , baby , princess), tooth rotting fluff.

♡ BAJI KEISUKE

you were honestly super excited that baji suggested building gingerbread houses together for christmas. you had seen many couples partake in the activity and now that you were in a relationship, you wanted to try it out.

baji came over with all of the supplies you needed. he even suggested that you two make little gingerbread men to live in your little houses together. he honestly thought it was super fun decorating their faces with different gumdrops and drawing on their smiles with delicious frosting. it was fun. both of you were having such a fun time doing it that you made multiple gingerbread men and you had even made them girlfriends to have. baji thought it was a cute addition.

it was all fun and games until you and baji got to the house making part.

neither of you expected it to be so complicated and so.. messy. there was frosting all over your fingers and the parts of the houses kept collapsing or caving in whenever you moved your fingers away. there were a few times that he thought it would stick together, but in the end, he was met with the same fate of the pieces falling apart and onto the placemat on the table.

although it wasn’t you thought it would be, you two were still having fun. you would both laugh whenever a piece of the houses would rip over or when the pieces of candy wouldn’t stick long enough. it was hilarious to both of you, so that’s why you continued trying to perfect the houses. baji kept making the same comment that the gingerbread men can’t be homeless and even if the house was falling apart they needed a roof over their heads. you had to agree with him on that.

after almost two hours of working, you both got your houses into decent condition. it was messy and didn’t look anything like the picture on the box, but you still had so much fun regardless. you two were honestly proud that you didn’t give up halfway through and throw them away.

“well, we did our best!” baji exclaimed, popping one of the many gumdrops into his mouth.

you couldn’t help but laugh at how they looked, but what he said was true. “i agree!” you then came over beside him to take a photo of the houses.

baji snaked his arm around your waist, pulling you onto his lap. he dragged his thumb along the corner of your lip to wipe off the excess frosting. “had a little somethin’ there..” he smiled, pressing a soft kiss onto you.

you couldn’t hide your grin, brushing your fingers through his hair. he honestly loved when you did that. your fingers always felt so nice threaded through his locks, brushing against his scalp. he could fall asleep like that if he wanted to. “i love you..” you whispered, looking into his chocolate brown eyes.

he squeezed your body against him, bringing you closer. “i love you more, baby, don’t you forget that.” he intertwined his fingers with yours, spreading his warmth onto your hand.

♡ KAZUTORA HANEMIYA

it was actually your idea to go out and see christmas lights with kazutora. there was a festival that was planning a lighting ceremony and you decided to go with him. both of you were really excited, considering it was your first christmas together as a couple.

you bundled up in your winter clothes. it was going to be a chilly night, but neither of you minded the cold if it meant you got to be together when you saw the lights. it wasn’t a far drive at all and there were a lot of people who were waiting to see the christmas tree shine. the sheer winter wind nipped at your exposed skin, which brought you closer to your boyfriend. kazutora had a tight hold on your body, making sure that you weren’t shivering. he’d hate to see you feeling any kind of cold.

soon enough, the tree was lit. multicolored lights were laced around the trees branches, making them twinkle in your eyes. kazutora couldn’t help but smile at the sight of you gleaming like a small child at the pretty tree. you looked so cute. he just couldn’t help but admire you in the glow of the lights.

you then walked along the sidewalks, pointing at the different trees and bushes that had lights strung along their leaves. you and kazutora had even taken a few photos along the way. he loved nothing more than to spend time with you, even if that meant his toes were numb. you never failed to make him happy and that’s why spending holidays with you felt so special. you made them just a little more exciting than it usually would be.

kazutora held your hand as you both viewed the different houses in the neighborhood. some people had decorated their houses beautifully. “baby, look! that snowman is adorable!” you pointed at the glowing decor with a smile on your face.

he chuckled when his eyes focused on it. he had an image flow into his head. it was of you and him together in the future when you had your own house together. you’d be decorating the front yard with too many lights to count and you would have the brightest house on the block. he could never say no to you.

“looks cute, princess, just like you.” he kissed your cheek, making your face turn warm from the sudden contact.

you shivered at the sudden gust of wind that danced through the air. the temperature had dropped even lower than it had originally started at during the beginning of the evening. “i don’t mean to c-cut it short but can we go home? i-i’m freezing!” you looked at your boyfriend apologetically.

kazutora draped his arm around your shoulder, pecking your lips in the process. “of course, babe. maybe we can make some hot chocolate when we get home, yeah?” he nodded, to which you agreed eagerly.

♡ CHIFUYU MATSUNO

you were excited that evening to spend time with your boyfriend for a little christmas date. he had been talking about it for weeks. chifuyu planned every little thing and he was so ecstatic to have you come over and be with him. he had even gotten you both matching pajamas to snuggle up in.

when you arrived, you were hit with the aroma of food and you saw what your boyfriend had done for you.

chifuyu had bought an abundance of snacks and drinks for you two. he had quite literally gone all out for you and it made you so happy. there hadn’t been a single man in your life that would do something like that for you. it honestly made you fall for chifuyu even harder than you already had before. he had this smile on his face and he looked so handsome in his pajamas.. even if there was a snowman on the shirt.

the two of you cuddled up on the couch with many blankets and watched classic christmas movies together. the food he brought was honestly great too. pizza, cookies, candy canes, he had even made hot chocolate with those extra large marshmallows that could hardly fit in the mug. it was absolutely perfect.

with the food and how late it was, you found yourself becoming sleepy. you had quite the busy day and relaxing with chifuyu was only making you want to drift off and sleep for as long as you could. he could sense by your hums and droopy eyes that you were indeed exhausted, so he decided to take you upstairs to his room so you could both retire for the evening in there.

“tired, huh?” chifuyu asked, lying down beside you in bed.

you had your eyes closed, but you nodded in response. “yeah.. i was so busy today..” you scooched closer to your boyfriend to feel his arms wrap around your body.

he pecked the top of your head, tucking you underneath his chin so you were resting against his chest. he smiled to himself at your sleepy form. you were so cute. there were so many reasons for him to love you, and this was just one of them. “goodnight, baby.. i love you.” he rested his chin atop the crown of your head.

a light snore came from your lips, making him laugh through his nose. he couldn’t imagine spending christmas with anyone else but you by his side.

#·˚ ༘₊· ͟͟͞͞꒰➳ official work !#tokyo revengers x reader #tokyo revengers fluff #tokyo revengers x you #baji keisuke x reader #baji x reader #baji fluff #kazutora hanemiya x reader #kazutora x reader #kazutora fluff #chifuyu matsuno x reader #chifuyu x reader #chifuyu fluff

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meorb · 7 months

Note

ooo you wanna write about johnny cage sooooo badly please please please THERE SO LITTLE STUFF ON THIS FORSAKEN PLACE FOR THIS MAN I WILL TAKE ANYTHING PUT THIS MAN THROUGH HELL IF YOU WANT 😭

BAHAHAHAH DUDE I GET IT, THE DESPERATION IS REAL

Have some headcannons 😸 (smut+sfw ones hehe) i hope you like 🫶

• He spoils people. Not everyone he meets, but if you're a decent friend expect something new everytime you see him. If you're dating him, expect lots of gifts for the stupidest shit ever.

"Johnny...what is this?" There's an entire new outfit laying for you on your bed, and he's just grinning and peppering kisses to your neck as he hugs you from behind.

"Happy Thursday." He giggles, watching you with puppy eyes to see if you like what he got for you. You like it, obviously, you love it, but why?? It's just a Thursday??

• under the ear kisses all of the time

• cooks almost everyday, either wakes you up with breakfast or you come home from work just as dinner's being finished. (LOVE ME A MAN WHO COOKS)

• won't full on cry but will totally shed a tear when he cums inside

• actually making love (taking it slow and being gentle and kissing each other the entire time) > having shitty, quick sex

• PLEASE cut this man's nails. They're always super long and he always complains when they break or when he accidentally scratches you too hard.

• runs into things all of the time. Going around a corner? Hitting his head against the wall. Going through a doorway? Hitting half his body against it.

• movie night is almost every night. And honestly, it's never one of his movies unless you ask for it to be.

• secret romcom lover + Adam Sandler fan

• hates the beach. Likes being in the water but hates getting sand in his asscrack

• drools in his sleep

• screams if there's a spider. Specifically if it's small. Those little fuckers are fast and he never stopped believing they lay eggs in your ears.

• strained grunts + shaky breaths

• oral fixation to the max. Won't shut up about something when you have a headache or are stressed? Undo your zipper and he's immediately sucking on something. Hell, just stick two fingers out and he gets the hint.

• not the highest stamina in the world, can last about 3 rounds but always cums before you do.

• meat lovers pizza enjoyer

• type of guy to say "wow!" When you get naked.

• will almost never let you shower without him. Will even wait until you're halfway through so he can sneak in behind you and wrap his arms around your body.

#JOHNNY CAGE.#KISSES HIM VIOLENTLY ON THE MOUTH #mk1 smut #mk1 #johnny cage #johnny cage mk1 #johnny cage x reader #gn reader #mk1 x reader #mk1 x gn reader #meorb #johnny cage smut #johnny cage x gn reader

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bby-deerling · 6 months

Note

Could I possibly ask for "don't you judge of my composure, cause i'm bothered every day" and Rosinante? <3

i want you to know that your mind???? perfect <3

this is my first time writing a full length fic for cora so i hope i got a decent handle on him

rosinante/corazon + who is it (nsfw, afab!reader)

18+, mdni, nsfw, wc: 821 masterlist

cw: afab!reader, size kink (duh, he's like ten gajillion feet tall)

The sky was murky and cloudy tonight, softening the moonbeams casting on your partner as he towered before you and shed his feathery coat. Whenever Rosinante returned to you after a mission, a sense of uneasiness bubbled in your veins; despite the way he trusted you with nearly every aspect of his true identity, he was tight-lipped about his trips away, and sometimes you couldn’t help but worry. Anxiety tore you apart when he was gone, worrying if he was injured, if he was even alive, or sometimes, rather irrationally, if there was anyone else. Above all, you simply missed him.

The tides of time inevitably erode at ones’ soul, carving and changing it irrevocably, and it always felt bittersweet to have missed out on the experiences that shaped your lover. Each time he returned to you, he brought back a handful of minute changes; his face was a bit more serious, his hands a bit more calloused, his clothes were a bit more tattered and singed, and making love with him felt like learning a novel variation on a theme that was burned into your memory.

His clumsiness, however, never faded, as he nearly trips over his own feet climbing into bed next to you.

You take the lead, unable to refrain from touching him any longer, climbing on top of him and cupping his face with both hands. His size had the unique ability to render you fragile; the mere sight of just how small your hands were on his face was enough to send a wave of electricity through your body, grateful for the way he was always so gentle with you despite the way he could break you between two of his fingers.

Lips softly pressing to his, long fingers entangle themselves in your hair, pulling you closer and deepening the kiss. A shiver runs through your spine as his other hand finds your waist; his warm palm sprawls across your side, and his fingers reach more than halfway around your stomach, another reminder of just how tiny you were compared to him.

When he sits up to align your hips with his, you feel swallowed whole by his presence; his back bends as he looms over you to hold you gently as he kisses you, and you both let out a shaky sigh when you roll your hips into his.

“You’re trembling.” he notes, eyes full of concern as he gently drags his massive thumb along your jawbone.

“I just missed you.” you whisper, taking a deep breath in an attempt to regain your composure and calm your shaking body.

“I missed you too.” he says, pressing a line of kisses from your cheek to the corner of your mouth, before devouring you once again, this time more desperate and passionate.

His sheer size meant he always took his sweet time with you, easing you into being able to take him. A single finger by itself required a fair amount of teasing in order to prepare you, but it was a task he reveled in, eager to open you up for him. Two of his fingers curling against your sweet spot is nearly enough to split you in half, but his movements are careful and loving. He holds your safety—and your heart—in his hands; in return for your vulnerability, he gives you his soul bared raw on a silver platter.

Grinding against the heel of his palm as he continues to massage you with his fingers, he brings you to your high, walls fluttering around his massive fingers. It’s messy and drawn out, soaking him in your slick; despite the fullness his fingers provided, you craved more.

“I’m ready for you.” you say, still catching your breath, heartbeat in your ears. He nods and frees his cock; it’s impossibly large and thick, and still makes your heart skip a beat in pure shock no matter how many times you have seen it before.

He throws his head back and lets out a deep exhale as you slowly sink yourself onto him. Taking as much of him as you can, you whimper when you feel his cock kiss your cervix, and he rubs gentle, reassuring circles into your hips. You rock against him hesitantly, allowing yourself to adjust to being stretched out this far for the first time in ages. He’s soft with you, rubbing circles into you clit and whispering praises into your ear in between kisses. The anxious whispers that had clouded your mind in his absence melt away, standing no chance compared to the sensation of how visceral and loving the way he unraveled you was.

A beam of moonlight peeks through the clouds and shines through the window, illuminating the two of you melting into each other. The sands of time could keep you apart and change you little by little, but your love existed on another plane, pure and untouchable.

#one piece x reader #x reader #corazon x reader #donquixote rosinante x reader #rosinante x reader #one piece smut #mdni #i hope this isnt too ooc

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short-yandere-stories · 16 days

Text

Based on this tumblr post by @thecuriousquest because I couldn't get the scenario out of my head.

:✧:･ﾟ:･ﾟ✧:･ﾟ:･ﾟ✧:･ﾟ:･ﾟ✧:･ﾟ:･ﾟ✧:･ﾟ:･ﾟ✧:･ﾟ:･ﾟ✧:･ﾟ:･ﾟ✧:･ﾟ:･ﾟ✧:･ﾟ:･ﾟ✧:･ﾟ*:･ﾟ✧*:

TW: Forced imprisonment, mentions of punishments, Nanami uses his cursed technique (on an inanimate object), violence, reader being scared of Nanami etc. mentions of attempted murder, SFW.

:✧:･ﾟ:･ﾟ✧:･ﾟ:･ﾟ✧:･ﾟ:･ﾟ✧:･ﾟ:･ﾟ✧:･ﾟ:･ﾟ✧:･ﾟ:･ﾟ✧:･ﾟ:･ﾟ✧:･ﾟ:･ﾟ✧:･ﾟ:･ﾟ✧:･ﾟ*:･ﾟ✧*:

Follow the Rules

:✧:･ﾟ:･ﾟ✧:･ﾟ:･ﾟ✧:･ﾟ:･ﾟ✧:･ﾟ:･ﾟ✧:･ﾟ:･ﾟ✧:･ﾟ:･ﾟ✧:･ﾟ:･ﾟ✧:･ﾟ:･ﾟ✧:･ﾟ:･ﾟ✧:･ﾟ*:･ﾟ✧*:

“...What are you doing?” The low baritone voice suddenly coming from the door to the apartment made you jump, almost losing your balance in your hurry to look as inconspicuous and non-guilty as you could. You snapped your head around so fast to turn to look at your returning captor with wide, surprised eyes so fast that you swore you could feel the vertebrae in your neck crack.

You hadn’t heard the locks unlatch as the keys were turned or heard the door open. Despite being a decent apartment, the door always made a noise when it was opened past a third of the way. You’d been too engrossed in your escape-attempt to hear it. Usually you were on high alert from the time that Nanami usually returned home from work and onwards. You never knew when he had to work overtime in advance, so most late afternoons and evenings were spent nervously looking between the clock and the door, hoping it would never open.

It had been foolish to try to escape at this hour, you knew that, but you couldn’t help yourself when you’d randomly stumbled upon the weird handle-shaped key that the window needed to twist open when you’d been reorganizing a cupboard in your boredom. It had taken far too long to figure out what it was for, and when the clock passed the usual time Nanami usually showed up, you’d thrown caution to the wind and hoped that he would be held up by work for a long time.

You didn’t need to see his eyes behind his tinted sunglasses to know the disappointment they held as he stared at you from the now open door. Without a word, he sat his brown briefcase down on the floor next to him before closing and locking the door.

When he turned to face you again, smoothing out his suit, the displeasure was clear on his face. You remained frozen, like a deer caught in headlights as he glared at you. In a way, the analogy wasn’t too far-fetched. You were cornered just like prey in the face of a far more powerful predator.

“I said, what are you doing?” Nanami repeated, jaw set in a taut line. He was clearly not happy that he had to repeat himself.

Finally, your body kicked into action and you jerked back and away from the halfway open window as if it had given you an electric shock. There was little point to the action, however. The damage had already been done -- he’d seen you by the window, foot on the windowsill and ready to crawl out. There was no easy way to explain it away to soothe his anger.

At the very least, you had jerked away from the window instead of trying to quickly dive out through it. He would most likely have caught up with you before you could even make it all the way out, dragging you back inside. That would have no doubt infuriated him even further.

Nanami began walking towards you with slow, calculating steps, never once looking away from you. Immediately, your hands flew up in front of you, trying to clear the air as you began to stutter out an apology, an excuse -- anything you could manage to get out.

“I-I’m sorry! It was just so warm today and I just wanted some fresh air!” Both you and Nanami knew it was a blatant and pathetic lie. If you’d just wanted some fresh air, why would you have been standing with your foot perched on the windowsill, attempting to squeeze your body through the opening you’d created? Besides, Nanami knew exactly where the key had been hidden away, and there was no way you would have been able to get the window open without it.

He had to give you credit for managing to not only find it, but also figure out what it was and where to use it. It would seem that he had to move even more items to the storage unit in the basement of the apartment that he was renting. It would be a bother to have to walk down there for even more things as he already had to go there to fetch knives for cooking for example, but it couldn’t be helped. You clearly couldn’t be trusted with much.

Nanami’s frown deepened at your words as he approached. He never liked it when you lied, and had even gone as far as to make that one of the rules in your little “household”. Now, not only had you tried to escape, but broken yet another rule he’d set.

Panicked tears formed in the corners of your eyes as the realization of what you’d just said sunk in. You couldn’t stop your body from beginning to tremble as you began to realize how much trouble you were in.

Nanami was a very strict captor, and didn’t hesitate to mete out punishments when deemed necessary when you averted from his wishes or broke any of his rules. You’d broken a lot of them before, especially at the beginning of your imprisonment, though you’d never done anything this out of line before, and most of the punishments you’d received had made you try your hardest to stick to the rules.

A few were easier than others to follow, especially when punishments had resulted in the removal of certain items from the apartment, such as the time when you’d tried to stab him with a knife that you’d snuck back to the bedroom with you. It was easy to follow the rule of “don’t try to attack Nanami” when there were no weapons to do so with.

The harder rules to follow were the ones that demanded physical contact and affection. Nanami had a twisted view of the relationship the two of you had, and wanted it to feel and seem like you two were a regular couple. This included things like sleeping in the same bed, kissing Nanami on the cheek in the morning before he headed off to work, and telling him that you loved him.

Nanami did not particularly enjoy punishing you, nor hurting you, but he knew that a firm hand was needed to make you follow the rules he set. After the punishment, you’d rarely disobeyed again, so clearly his method was providing the result he wanted.

You had never seen Nanami this angry. You almost wanted him to scream at you in fury instead of this calm, cold anger he was displaying. It was unlike any reaction he’d had to anything you’d tried to do, and that scared you to no end. You didn’t want to know what kind of punishment awaited you this time. You’d broken multiple rules, and big, important rules at that. There was no way he was going to go easy on you no matter what you said.

Still trembling, you dashed towards the bathroom with tears flowing down your cheeks in an attempt to postpone the inevitable. Your bare feet clattered against the wooden floor as you stumbled away, yet you didn’t hear Nanami’s pace pick up.

Breathing heavily, you jerked the door open, slamming it shut behind you as soon as you made it through. You caught a glimpse of Nanami still walking towards you at the same pace as before, slowly stalking towards the bathroom door. Somehow, that was infinitely scarier than if he would have ran after you, trying to stop you from locking yourself away.

But really, was there a reason for him to run after you? There was nowhere you could truly escape from him in the apartment. He was a man of near-endless patience, and he knew that this was but a temporary setback, another minor inconvenience to deal with that would ultimately lead to the same end result.

With shaking fingers, you somehow managed to twist the flimsy bathroom lock into a locked position, thanking the heavens that Nanami hadn’t removed the lock from the door when he’d decided to let you roam the apartment freely during the day while he was at work instead of keeping you chained up in the bathroom.

You knew, just as well as he did, that the lock wouldn’t keep him out for long. You knew that he would get to you no matter what you did, but you were desperate to delay that as much as you possibly could.

Blindly, you crawled into the bathtub, gathering your knees to your chest in an embrace in the darkness. Turning the lights on had been the furthest from your mind when you’d closed the door. The cold of the porcelain dug into your bare skin where it connected, but even that did little to take your mind off the paralyzing fear you felt.

You felt too cold and too hot at the same time. The blue shirt Nanami had made you wear was huge on you, but it still felt like the collar was suffocating you as you rocked back and forth, desperately trying to get air into your lungs in between panicked sobs.

“I-I’m sorry,” you sobbed, clutching your hair in your hands, trying to let the burn you felt in your scalp ground you. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry I’m sorry,” you whimpered, words becoming mumbled and sounding like little more than garbled noise against your knees.

The handle of the door turned, and then you heard Nanami sigh outside the door when it didn’t give way. He said your name, disappointment evident in his tone. “I’m giving you one chance, and one chance only to open the door,” he said with finality.

You shook your head despite knowing he couldn’t see it. “No,” you gasped, tears running down your cheeks as your body shook.

Nanami growled your name again, but even if you wanted to open the door, you wouldn’t trust your body to be able to carry you over there. “I can’t” you whimpered. You didn’t want to be anywhere near Nanami. You wanted to be back at home, living your life the way you had before Nanami had set his eyes on you.

Even if you didn’t know that he was a Jujutsu sorcerer, he was still both taller than and stronger than you were. The door was hardly an obstacle for him. Such a flimsy lock could easily be kicked in with hardly any trouble.

The now-familiar sound of Nanami loosening his tie cut through the silence, and you hugged your trembling knees tighter to your body. The logical thing to do would be to unlock the door before you exhausted whatever remaining patience the man had, but you couldn’t bring yourself to do so despite how terrified you were of the impending punishment.

When you were alone and closed your eyes, you could envision yourself being somewhere else. Somewhere far away from the man who kidnapped you. You could be sitting in a completely different bathtub back home in your own apartment as long as you kept your eyes closed and thought hard enough.

Though even your own thoughts gave you little respite as Nanami once again spoke up, catching your attention by calling your name. “Open the door.” It wasn’t a request.

Stubbornly clinging to whatever misplaced feeling of at least partial freedom you felt by not being face-to-face with him, you gasped out another “No!” hoping beyond hope that he would just leave it alone and leave you alone. You could spend the night sleeping in the bathtub, curled up among bunched up towels, and only leaving the bathroom when you knew he was at work. Alas, that was not to be.

You couldn’t help the shriek that escaped your lips as Nanami’s fist, wrapped in his tie punched straight through the wooden door. Splinters flew through the air, clattering against the tiles, and you buried your face in your knees to protect it from the sharp shrapnel.

Calmly, Nanami uncurled his fist, feeling around blindly for the lock until his fingers brushed against it. With a ‘click’ that felt deafening, the door was unlocked. Slowly, it slid open, revealing Nanami’s silhouette, backlit by the lights in the living room. It painted a menacing picture that made you let out a whimper as you curled in even further on yourself, trying to make yourself as small as possible.

“I asked you to open the door,” Nanami said, unwinding the tie from around his hand. “You refused, making me use my cursed technique, and now I need to buy a new door.” You could hear the frown in his voice, but the prospect of having to replace the door was the least of your worries.

A finger curled below your chin, forcing your teary eyes to meet his. “It seems like someone needs to be reminded of the rules we have here, wouldn’t you say so, dear?”

:✧:･ﾟ:･ﾟ✧:･ﾟ:･ﾟ✧:･ﾟ:･ﾟ✧:･ﾟ:･ﾟ✧:･ﾟ:･ﾟ✧:･ﾟ:･ﾟ✧:･ﾟ:･ﾟ✧:･ﾟ:･ﾟ✧:･ﾟ:･ﾟ✧:･ﾟ*:･ﾟ✧*:

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