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#so yeah she was gone this morning and it just always leaves me On Edge it's never a huge thing bc im not SCARED of her but im not relaxed
neteyamsilly · 1 year
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i will soften every edge, hold the world to its best | 3
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summary ;; Sullys stick together. You learn the hard way what happens when you don't. PART 2 | PART 4 pairings ;; dad!jake sully x reader, mom!neytiri x reader, sully family x reader genre ;; pure angst and family feels notes / explanations ;; descriptions of blood and violence incoming, beware! shout out to the ppl who predicted the stuff in this chapter LMAO so um... i couldnt tag everybody who asked when i said i would... there's apparently a limit to how many people you can tag. please forgive me 😭 im not taking any tagging requests anymore since i cant do it. so sorry about that,,,, seriously also, thank you so much for 1160 followers! i still cant fucking believe it... daddy issues solidarity 🤙🏻🤙🏻
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“Hi there Corporal, you hear me? Yeah, I know you do. As much as I’m charmed by the fatherly love I could give you a big old sloppy wet kiss, we have unfinished business.”
Rain covered the rustling of clothes and the click-clacks of readjusted weapons as concentrated silence hung in the air, thick and heavy like the morning mist swallowing up the forest.
No answer. 
What face could your parents be making right now? Heartbeat in your ears, you tried to hide your shame by looking down, but a jerk on your queue set you straight. the avatar holding you digging his gun sharper in your neck.    
“What, cat got your tongue all of a sudden?” The leader’s stare found yours. “Let me give you a quick remedy.” 
They’d linked your device into another for the sound to be relayed outside and the voice detection range could be wider, in other words, they wanted your father to hear what was happening to you. Your braid was yanked as if the one pulling it wanted to snap it right off your skull, no amount of training could stop the scream torn out of you — all the show just for him. 
The line was deadly still, save for some rustling, crackling static that you could have easily mistaken for hissing.
A ghost of a smile shadowed the man’s face, he extended his rifle to tip your chin up. “Guess we’re gonna have to be louder than that to wake daddy up sweetheart.” 
“Stop!” Father yelled, the unexpected timing of it made you jump. That earned him a group chuckle from the avatars around you. “Stop.”
He talked. He didn’t leave you to fend for yourself in this. Thank Eywa!
“That was fast,” the captor behind you said. 
“Thought you’d have forgotten English by now, playing native.”
“...Quaritch?” 
Quaritch. That awful, awful man from the stories your mother killed? Spider’s father? But… But he was dead. How could sky people know how to cheat death?
“In the flesh.” 
Father’s voice wavered, you’d think he was scared if you didn’t know any better. “That’s impossible.”
“Back from the grave just for you, Jake.”
“Then I’ll just have to put you right back where you belong.”
The squad of avatars openly laughed at that, boisterous, confident, arrogant. 
This was Toruk Makto they were openly mocking. None of them would last for one minute in front of him and yet—
“Quite the teary lovers reunion we’re havin’ here, but you got busy while I was gone, huh?” He looked down at you again, yellow eyes filled with mirth. “I have this tiny bird here we plucked right out of the air. Imagine my surprise to learn she’s yours. Is this the only one, or you got yourself a litter now?”
Silence again. 
“What do you want?”
“Straight to the point as always.” The smug smile momentarily twitched into an unamused, withheld resentment. This man was nearing the end of his capacity to keep taunting. “I don’t think I’ll tell yet. You know I love to be a tease.”
Your ears rotated upwards in treacherous hope at your father's next words. “If you touch one hair on my daughter’s head I swear to god—”
“You exchanged your god for this shithole, Jake. Let’s not kid ourselves now.” Any hint of playing around was gone, now, eyes fixated on something on the ground ahead. “Your daughter will be my guest for a while. Think of it as summer vacation. Don’t worry, unlike the Na’vi, we’re very hospitable.” His thumb brushed over a button. “Until next time.”
“Fucking bastard—”
With one beep, the call was over. Quaritch was touching the band around his neck this time. “Iron Sky, Blue on Actual. We are standing by for extract, over.” 
You began to tussle against the avatar behind your back. “No! No! Let me go!” 
“Be advised. We're bringing in a high value prisoner.”
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“Dad’s really gonna flay her alive this time, I can’t wait.” Lo’ak, positioned just behind the flap of the tent to not be seen from the outside as he peeked with one eyeball just in case, was watching his parents vehemently yell at each other in whispers that started out loud, but got hushed probably to not reach him and his siblings. Aggressive limb gestures were flying in the air, and at one point, his mom had tried to run off somewhere and was forcefully stopped. 
Dad was currently pacing around like a wild animal with one hand permanently stuck rubbing his face, and mom turned away from him, holding her forehead. “They’re really going at it, huh?
Kiri was not amused with his insistence to breach their privacy. “What’s so interesting about watching this kind of thing?”
“Catharsis?” He remarked in English, feeling sophisticated. “You remember Spider talking about it? Purification and emotional cleansing through relief that you’re not going through the horrible tragedy, the character on stage is.” 
“You’re normally so dumb.” Lo’ak bore his fangs at her matter-of-fact tone of voice. “Your brain only comes back on when it’s about chaos.”
“I’m petty, and what about it?” A tilt of his head to dare Kiri to ask for her point, then his attention was thwarted by an incomprehensible cry from his mother. She was pushing dad from his arms, furious like Lo’ak had never seen before as the upset man tried to hold her more. “Look at mom and dad breathing fire at each other! You think they’re discussing how to punish her?”
“Stop spying already skxawng, mom will be angry if she sees you. We’re supposed to be in bed.”
“Shut up, I’m trying to listen here!” His ears were tilting at every angle to make out any words that reached to him as nothing but a cluster of broken sounds. “Why did they have to go far?” 
“Because they wanted to be away from peeping toms like you?”
“And you’re still here too, so?” Lo’ak gave his sister a meaningful look. “I know you wanna see too.”
“Ugh!” Kiri shoved out her tongue at him, eyes dead. “And it’s not funny, by the way! They are fighting. Stop being happy about it.”
He knew they were fighting about his older sister, and that she’d get all the heat and fallout from it the moment she was back. Lo’ak’s head was full of what he could get out of it, or what to ask her for in return for helping her out in her detention. So satisfying to be the sibling who wasn’t in trouble. He should do it more, actually. “It is funny when it’s not about me.” 
“You’re sick for taking joy in another’s suffering.”
“Oh, I’m doomed, then.” Kiri took whatever fat was on his thin arm between her thumb and forefinger, and twisted. Lo’ak had to blink away the tears that rushed to his eyes, snatching his limb away from the displeased girl and pushing her away in return — he was annoyed at how much that hurt, why was that so damaging for no reason? “Yeouch! What the hell?”
“Will it kill you to practice mindfulness once in a while?” 
He raised his voice’s pitch to mock the wobbly, ear-scratching whine of yours, and exaggerated his body movements to match, too. “I hate you!”  
“Gross.” She tried to shove him, he caught her hands in the air, pushing her back and getting the spiteful annoyance of his sister as a result. “Dad was actually hurt by that.” Lo’ak’s eyes could roll down the hills by themselves the way that sounded, but Kiri, as always, was bothered so inexplicably. “I don’t like this. I have a bad feeling.”
That bad feeling was the herald of dad’s upcoming cranky ill-temper and what would follow after you inevitably had to come crawling back home with tail between your legs, Neteyam dragging you from the scruff of your neck. Lo’ak was refusing to sleep so he could enjoy the fight. 
“Me personally, am over the moon, ikran duty is so gonna be off my hands. For months.” He halted at the idea that just went off in his head, tail swishing with the hype. “I wanna tell Spider. I’ll go get him.”
“Absolutely not. You sneak off now and they’ll laser-focus all the anger on you!” Kiri was pointing a warning hand at him, but slowly lowered it, one corner of her mouth twitching up. She was holding back amusement. “Hey, you know what? Nevermind, you can go. I want you to go. I have to see this.”
“Ha-ha.” Lo’ak’s tail stuttered, losing enthusiasm. “Attempted murder, much?”
“Guys, what’s going on…”
Upon the unexpected voice that wobbled its way into their conversation, they both looked down to see Tuk gripping her weaved blanket with one hand and dragging it on the floor as she made her way to them, the other rubbing her eyes one by one so sleep dripping from them would fly away.
“See, you woke her up! What do we do now?”
“You woke her up by yelling, why is it my fault now?”
“I didn’t, you—”
“Did too.”
“Did not.”
“Did too.”
“Did n—”
“Guys…” Tuk pulled on Kiri’s hand, and the foreign object she was clutching the whole time distracted Lo’ak. It must have dug into the older one’s skin that she carefully picked it up to inspect. The ear pieces they took off before they went to sleep. This one was Kiri’s.  “Neteyam’s calling. You didn’t hear…”
Grinning, Lo’ak snatched it up and skipped backwards and put it in his own ear, ignoring Kiri’s hushed yells to give it back now and the groans about ruining it with his stinky, cheesy earwax. He had to keep bouncing around, the girl was chasing him around the tent. “Bro! Tell her she’s sooo dead. Dad’s literally keeping guard in front of the tent—”
“Lo’ak, quit it.” Neteyam’s tremulous answer was harsh. Lo’ak’s smile wavered as he dodged Kiri’s arm and jumped over discarded cups on the floor, knocking over wooden spoons. “I need you to tell me what’s happening over there.”
“Aw, baby’s so scared to come back she needs to make a game plan first?” He laughed, slapping Kiri’s hands away. “I’ll only tell if she gives back my karambit knife.”
His older brother sighed, a bit too exasperated. 
“Yeah, I’m not letting that one go and I’m also making it your problem—”
“Lo’ak, she isn’t here.”
He stopped dead in his tracks. “What?”
“She isn’t here. I couldn’t find her.” Kiri bumped into him, unable to stop herself at the right time to hit the brakes due to how abruptly Lo’ak had stilled. They’d almost tumbled over. “Dad told me to wait until he contacts her and I’ve been waiting for minutes. Now tell me what’s going on over there.”
“Bro, you’re serious?”
“Why wouldn’t I be serious, skxawng!” 
He turned to Kiri in disgusted discomfort, who had damn-near glued her own ear to his to hear better. “Forget months, I’ll be free for years. Dad’s not gonna let her take one step off the camp anymore.”
The girl would stomp her foot if she was a couple years younger. “What’s this about?”
And Neteyam would shake Lo’ak from the neck for ignoring him this long while he was fussing. “Tell me already you—!”
“They’re having a fight bro.” He leaned better to peep outside the tent. “Yeah.”
“She came back? Why didn’t you tell me?”
It was uncommon for Neteyam to completely disregard the previous input he’d been given. Lo’ak didn’t understand this level of anxiety. “Are you having a brain fart? Would we be having this conversation if she was here? It’s mom and dad who are fighting.”
It wasn’t that serious — on the contrary, his sister was quite simple to understand. She didn’t want to be found and had changed her place of hiding. End of story. The golden boy’s worrywart nature was keeping him from reasoning. 
“Don’t be a smartass.” Lo’ak practically felt Neteyam’s want to land a loud smack on his back. “Were they only able to reach her, then? Is that why they’re fighting?”
“You’re asking me?—”
The older boy began to grumble under his breath. “This is why I called Kiri.”
Said girl’s ears perked up over picking her name from the static-surrounded line. Lo’ak snorted. “Ouch, bro.”
Kiri shook him from the elbow. “Me? What about me?”
“Great title for your autobiography.”
Kiri raised her arms to give him a beating and Lo’ak was already bolting away from anywhere near her vicinity. The siblings didn’t even take notice of the line with Neteyam going dark as they focused on their own play-scuffle for a while. 
Until Lo’ak bumped into someone.
It wasn’t Tuk. 
Shoulders pulled into himself, he turned around torturously freaked out to find dad standing there like a ghost, his tactical vest packed to the brim and gun hanging from his back the way they wore their bows. 
The blue of his skin had faded into an ashier tone, amber eyes wide and bloodshot, the veins on the normally put together Olo’eyktan’s forehead were bulging, even a socially clueless person would pick up something was seriously wrong. He commanded cold authority of the battlefield simply by the way he stood, immediately triggering Lo’ak into soldier mode.  
He took a few steps back, chin hanging low at the lightless, unblinking stare his father pushed down on him. “Sir.”
All the sleepiness that had Tuk unresponsive and nodding off through Lo’ak and Kiri’s push-and-pull was knocked out of her at the sight, she was now unnerved and frightened. “Dad?”
The man’s intensity was somehow eased by his youngest’s reaction, but he held back from taking her in his arms like he normally would to comfort her, didn’t even care to remark on how they were supposed to be sleeping — how they’d woken their little sister up, instead focusing on Lo’ak. “I want you all to listen well. Your mother and I are heading out for a minute and your grandmother will be with you soon — Neteyam is Oscar-Mike to come back here. Stay put and don’t go anywhere, understand?” His finger pointed accusingly at him. “Don’t cause trouble. Looking at you boy, what I’m saying here is Marine proof. I’m at the end of my wits here, don’t even think about slipping a tail out of this tent.” 
The potent severity of whatever the hell was making him this agitated to the point of a voice so hoarse it was unrecognizable got the wheels in Lo’ak’s head whirring. “What’s happening, dad?”
“One child!” The thundering shout came down on him with the force of a falling mountain, making Lo’ak jump out of his skin. “I need one child of mine to listen to me without asking any questions today!” Dad’s voice broke when Tuk whined, he shut his eyes as if he was in physical pain, and flexed his jaw, shaking his head and pulling the girl in from her shoulders to soothe her. Still no direct hugging. “Jesus Christ.”
“I’m sorry sir,” Lo’ak said immediately, distraught by the over-the-top reaction, hands unknowingly curling into fists by his sides. Whenever that sky people word ‘Jesus’ slipped from dad not having any control between the border of his two languages, the boy knew it was demanding gravitas. “I heard you CFB.”
“Good.” He thinned his lips. “Kiri, please.”
Lo’ak frowned at dad basically asking for her to play her brother’s keeper in Neteyam’s absence in two simple words.
She nodded. “I know dad.”
He caught a glimpse of his mother running in the distance, her father’s bow in her hand. 
Just what was happening? What had you done? 
Eywa, it had to be sky people. 
Dad saw the realization in his face. “Stay,” he emphasized, one final time before he was also gone with the wind. 
Lo’ak wouldn’t have obeyed if it wasn’t for his grandmother arriving just in time, keeping them busy with a story about the arrival of a wounded ikran with no rider.
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You realized the gunshot wound puncturing your upper abdomen was there the whole time when the avatars put first aid and later slapped a rectangular sky people bandage on it that helped clotting or whatever it was called, the pain simply not being there had played a big factor in it with the body running on pure adrenaline. 
(Crouching close to you, Quaritch had bragged, “We aren’t so bad after all, huh, sweetheart? It’s called civilization. Your daddy ever taught you about that?”
Civilization, your ass. They needed you. There was nothing well-meaning about what they were doing.
And the nickname had ticked you off, sullying the good memories of father, your head slammed into his nose in full power after a hiss.
“Now my daddy taught me that!” you spat in English as other avatars had tackled you. The man claiming to be Quaritch was smiling as he wiped away the blood trickling down his nose.
What was the point in trying to patch you up if they were going to do this, then?)
You were now a part of an elaborate trap to lure your father in. Bait. The worst position to be in. This was the kind of trouble Lo’ak would get himself in. It was too late to go back now, the mess you’d gotten yourself into had made itself known. 
Think, think! How could you get out of this?
Within the unsleeping forest’s nightly noises chirping all around you, a specific call in the air halted your train of thought. 
It was mom. 
Your parents were here. But how? How did they know where you were, exactly? Dread and expectation pooled in your heart, coexisting in a nauseating mix. 
Father must be thinking that you already caused so much trouble, they couldn’t know you were also hurt, you’d never hear the end of it.
But there was no time to think, the pain you should have been feeling was ebbing its way into your body, and she was calling in the night to inform you to get ready.
All hell broke loose when the man who held you tight from your queue was shot right from the back of his head with an arrow, collapsing right on top of you. 
You couldn’t get away in time to not be crushed by his dead body and promptly got squished between the mossy soil and him, his gun was hurting you, the wound on your stomach getting in the way of you using your core to push the body off. 
How many minutes had passed with you struggling to get him off as a hurricane of bullets roared, you didn’t know (it hurt, pain was climbing towards the threshold) — mom was able to break free from the weight of a whole AMP suit, as you’d heard as a child, a Na’vi was naturally strong, but you couldn’t even crawl out. Panic was a rope tightening around your ribcage as your breathing picked up
All of a sudden, the weight was gone, and the only remaining thing from it was the big gun left from the avatar you found yourself hugging for dear life, eyes wide as saucers. Before you could see whoever had done that, you got hoisted up right back on your feet and tried to run, only to be held tighter and pulled behind the trunk of a tree.
“Hey, it’s me, it’s me!” Clumsy, overwrought hands were cupping your cheeks and — and oh, it was your father. 
You didn’t know whether to be afraid or cry from happiness.
Once he was sure you registered it was him by staring intently in your eyes with that edge of the softness you’d missed so much, his hold shifted to your neck and around your shoulders, and he gave you a look-over, checking for any wounds. Too bad what he was searching for was behind the gun you were holding. “Are you hurt?” He shook you when you were too stunned to answer. “Are you hurt at all?”
“No,” you shook your head automatically, it was weak against the explosions of bullets raining down all around you, but father had picked it up regardless, only focusing on you for the moment.
In the darkness, nobody could see the blood running down your body, that bandage had come out at one point. 
“On my mark, we’re gonna run, okay?” He nodded to you, tomahawk axe in hand coated in a dark substance, commanding your full attention. “Follow me. Ready? Ready?”
You weren’t ready at all, stomach feeling like it was being stabbed at every heartbeat, but you couldn’t tell him that. 
Instead, you ran like hell, moored by father’s taut clutch on your forearm pulling you forward to match his incredible speed dodging roots, bushes and branches. 
Things stopped moving only when you were enveloped in mom’s embrace, consciousness almost flying off from the relief that washed over you. Kisses were peppered along your hairline and forehead, her mumbling your name in gratitude blending with your panting. Tears burned bitter in your eyes, but you couldn’t cry, not when father was looking at you like that, chest rising and falling. You instantaneously remembered why you were holding that gun at the intensity he was radiating, tail escaping between your legs and letting mom hold you. 
At least this way he wasn’t able to objurgate you.  
Over her shoulder, you saw three ikrans instead of two. Heart soaring, you were skipping towards him in pure astonishment in a heartbeat. “Hey buddy!”  
His head lowered down towards you in bird-like movements. In this angle, it looked like he was giving you a razor sharp-toothed big grin. 
“He brought us here,” your mother said. The hand you were going to pet the ikran with stopped midway at her dejected tone. “You have passed Iknimaya, I take it. On your own.”
You didn’t know what to say, feeling immense guilt at having made her this disappointed over it. If this was any normal situation, any normal fight at all, you would have shot back with, ‘Well father told me to do it.’
But you were tired. 
Your pain threshold was being threatened, and you needed to get to your grandmother before any of your parents saw the situation you were in and this escalated into the worst fight you were going to get into in your entire life. 
Father’s only response was a dead cold, “C’mon, we gotta get outta here.”
He didn’t talk to you after that. Not one word. 
Squatting on an ikran’s back on a flight with an abdominal gunshot wound you were trying to hide was not an option unless you wanted to pass out midair and was looking for a free dive, so you were all but hugging the poor thing’s neck like a monkey, trusting him to follow your parents while you concentrated on mentally fighting to level out the pain. 
Nonsensical as it was to believe the gun stuck between your ikran’s neck and your stomach was acting as a tampon to lessen the bleeding, you were concerned with how dumb it must have looked to father and mom, how incompetent they must think of you that their daughter didn’t even know how to ride right. 
Got an ikran for nothing. 
Would they be less proud of you seeing how funny it appeared, nevermind that it was to contain your pain all the while not trying to faint?
But no words were exchanged about it. 
Father clamping up right after he’d made sure you weren’t hurt (yikes) had resulted in this awkward trip succumbing in total silence. They had sandwiched you between them, only necessary space for the ikrans to beat their wings freely left, so close that you could discern the scariest look on father yet, deepening the lines of age in his face while simultaneously expressing his barely contained desire to kill someone. 
A ticking time bomb. 
Forget speaking at all, but not only did he never address you until now, he didn’t even look in your direction for once. You knew because staring at him for five minutes straight for him to just acknowledge your existence had proven to be unfruitful. 
And the tears involuntarily streamed down your cheeks with how utterly worthless and alone that made you feel, trapped in this agony you couldn’t help but hide because he’d think you didn’t deserve to complain after bringing it upon yourself. You would rather bite your tongue and bear the pain than stay dreading his reaction. 
Yeah, no, he couldn’t know. 
Mom was looking over at you every one minute to make sure you were okay after her ears picked up on your sniffles, arrows of worry shot from her side sinking down your skin every single time, and you hated to make her this way. 
Your ikran kept comforting you through tsaheylu until you landed.
Father had promptly jumped down, agile and making haste away somewhere, passing you by and giving the cold shoulder. You all but slid off your own ikran, managing to make the gun stay where it should be, as you couldn’t help but weakly call out to him for one drop of consolation. “Father…”
He didn’t stop for you, quickening his steps, but his ears twitched, the tail beating the air ferociously halting and lowering before it returned to the previous motions, and those were the only indications that he’d heard it Lima Charlie.
The man just didn’t want to talk to you.    
And you had to make yourself believe it wasn’t the emotional devastation that had you falling down, but the wound sucking out all your energy now that you had gotten to safety. 
“Ma’ite?” Mom rushed to you. “Ma’ite, what’s wrong? What is it?”
“I’m okay, mom, it’s okay.” You were sitting on the floor, cross-legged. Thank goodness you still had the unbreakable willpower (and not the fear of Eywa put into you by father) to hold your shit together. “I’m okay. Just tired. My knees buckled. Weak, you know?” You swallowed, smiling. “I’m just… Just resting.”
Her gaze full of concern studied you, zeroing in on the gun you clung on for dear life against your stomach. Her hands lovingly brushed your hair, gripped your shoulders and elbows even though you were disgustingly clammy all over. It was grounding, anchoring within the ocean of pain washing over you in waves. 
“Oh, why are you sweating so much? You’re freezing.” You clutched the gun harder in a panic when she grasped it, most likely to put it away. It was the wrong reaction to have, but you weren’t exactly in the position to function healthily. 
Mom, as any other person would, got suspicious from it, her eyes flying up to your owlish ones — blanked out like a frightened animal. “You’re fine now,” she whispered, thankfully attributing it to how disturbed you must be, still not out of survival mode. “You are safe, my daughter. Mom is here.” She cupped your cheek, but every touch to your body hurt now, even when it was away from the gaping wound, still gushing blood, trickling down your hips and getting you scared that it’d be discovered once you stood up. “I’m here.” She searched your soul to know just why you were grimacing at her attempts of comforting. “I will take this now, you do not need it anymore.”
You snapped out of the gradually darkening gray haze mom’s lulling was laying you down gingerly into. “No, please don’t,” your breathing hitched. She was going to see. She couldn’t see. You had to avoid this somehow, as long as you could. Grandmother’s tent. You would make it, you had to.  “I’ll… I’ll just sit here for a while, okay? I need to just… take a small break, and then I’ll… Can you go back? I’ll follow later. Father is angry, I don’t—”
“Nonsense.” Incredulous and enraged suddenly about something you couldn’t put a finger on, and before you could stop her, she tried to haul you up with her by gripping your upper arms — colors exploded behind your eyelids, getting you you to lose consciousness for two seconds, your vision flooding back in a starry kaleidoscope. When mom’s voice reached your ears, it was in staccato exclaims your ears were ringing too much to discern. She was shaking you. 
You weren’t able to sit up straight anymore, leaning forward — mom had caught you, utterly confused and panicked at the same time. And then your head was lying on the crook of her elbow resting on her legs she’d tucked under herself. The moment you’d switched from sitting to straight up lying down was missing from your memories. 
A baby being cradled. Yes, this is exactly what it was like. Gentle arms surrounded you amidst the pulsating sea of agony. 
Your body was letting go, but your arms were vices around the gun, still holding that last line. Don’t let go. Don’t let go. They can’t know. Father will be so mad if he learns. “‘m okay… ‘st restin’…”
When your eyes cleared enough for the surroundings to be only a bit blurry, your mom was looking at the hand she’d just tried to take away the gun with, caked with your blood that had stained it, out of it and perplexed like she didn’t want to believe it. 
Her gut-wrenchingly stunned numbness sent the misery clawing its way inside into overdrive, pulling your consciousness down to the earth from the clouds it was ascending to. “Not mine,” you forced out, but it came out as begging. Everything was falling apart. The plan was so simple, why couldn’t you do anything right? “Not mine. Please. Mom, it’s okay.” 
“No…” Mumbling, she started sharply swaying back and forth, and with one brutally vigorous attack, she ripped the gun away from your arms, and hurled it away — then it was over. Your sob wasn’t due to the motion hurting you, it was all entirely for the broken wail of your mother at seeing the bloodied mess, tears spilling from her eyes as she reached down to press down at the pouring liquid. “No! No! Oh Great Mother! Why did you hide this! Oh, my daughter!” 
“No, mom, I’m fine, it’s nothing. Not my blood. Not my blood, okay?” You reached up weakly and wiped at her cheeks with trembling fingers, your heart got crushed worse than the pain could beat you down at her grief — lungs constricting. Where was all the air?  “I’ll get up. I’ll go to grandmother, don’t cry. Just resting.”
Frantically looking around, she yelled, “Jake!—” but her voice didn’t quite come out, breathy as if she’d been punched in the ribcage seconds prior.
A heartbeat’s worth of nothingness, after which you were full-on freaking out. Only one thought: Father will be angry. 
“No!” You shrieked, and blood swelled in one strong pump against mom’s fingers. She looked down at you in anguish, pupils blown wide, arm tightening around you as if you were a flailing bird. “Don’t tell him! Don’t tell father! He’ll really kill me for this—”
“No, no no no,” she shook her head, frenzied, tone cracked from beginning to end. “Do not say that. Don’t you ever say that—”
But you were struggling in her arms, wanting nothing but to crawl away into a hole, no reason registering whatsoever, only instinct. “He’ll be so angry,” you begged, pleading, pink spit bubbling at the corners of your mouth. The sound of gurgling accompanying the words you forced your whole body to form. “You can’t tell him — you can’t! He already hates me!”
The more you thrashed around and kicked your legs, the more you bled.
“Please, Great Mother!” The more mom lost her mind, hissing and howling hysterically, crazed, hugging you tighter and rocking. “Jake! Jake! Ma’Jake!” She put her temple against yours. “Not my daughter, please, Eywa…”
Why was she being like this? It wasn’t that serious! You were okay!
Delirium claimed you hot as she kept calling his name and her unbreakable hold on you kept you in a cage of a mother’s despair. In your feverish mind, a threat to your life was coming. Weakness spread like wildfire around your body and chipped away at the pain, slowly picking it apart to replace it with drowsiness. “Don’t call ‘im,” you continued to repeat, over and over again. “I’m just taking a break. Don’t call him over. He’s gonna be angry. He’ll hate me. He hates me. Please, mom.”
The sentences slurred together, shortened, wilted away pitifully, your voice died down, tongue deteriorating into only echoing, “He hates me.” A withered away, old flute. 
Your ikran was bellowing in the distance and you looked. The torches on cave walls were illuminating him and finally revealing to you his beautiful color scheme.    
And then your father was here, falling to his knees right beside you, his glistening wide eyes flying everywhere around your body — tracing all the blood, hands hovering above you as if he didn’t know where to start piecing a shattered vase back together.   
It was over.
Fully expecting the chastising you were about to receive to shake the floating mountains so bad the enemy would be able to spot you, you began to apologize — pride be damned, this battle be lost, you’d failed anyway. “Please don’t be mad,” you shuddered, meek and unsteady, tunnel vision flickering at the edges only perceiving him. “It’s my fault—I’m sorry—please don’t be angry—”
“Stop talking,” he ordered, rough and harsh, eyebrows knitted tightly, and out of breath — probably because of how hard he was trying to hold the anger back. You knew. That had to be it. “Don’t speak.”
Ah of course. This was only natural when he had refused to utter a single word at you the whole way, denying you the temporary comfort of a simple glance. 
Even the hand he pressed down so ruthlessly firm on your stomach it might as well be a boulder pinning you down was meant to be punishment, the whines your unbreathing lungs couldn’t stop turned into yowls — you hadn’t even noticed your hands were wrapped around father’s wrist in an effort to push him away, scratching him, but he only added his other hand on top of the other in return.
“Hang on, sweetheart, I got you, please hang on a little longer,” he pleaded, but you were already too far gone, Eywa was cruel to have plugged your ears to the endearment you’d been dying to hear from him for so long, making the last things you were aware father said to you the fact that he didn’t even want to hear you talking. 
And you fulfilled his wish. 
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togrowoldinv · 5 months
Text
Home Again
Natasha Romanoff x Reader
When Natasha gets home from a mission she needs reassurance that she can relax and trust herself around you again
Note: Some soft Nat for y’all. Enjoy!
Natasha Masterlist 1, Natasha Masterlist 2, Natasha Masterlist 3, Main Masterlist
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It’s late in the night when you feel the bed dip next to you. She’s been gone on a mission for almost two months. Now she’s finally home.
“Natasha?” You ask, your voice no louder than a whisper.
“Yeah, it’s me,” she replies. You can hear the exhaustion in her voice. “Go back to sleep. It’s late.”
You roll over and go back to sleep. The next morning when you wake Nat is already up and going. You’re not sure she really ever slept.
After getting dressed, you walk to the kitchen to find her standing at the counter with a cup of coffee.
“Good morning,” you greet her. You go to kiss her cheek and she turns her head at the same time so you accidentally kiss her lips.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Nat says a little shyly.
“That’s alright,” you say with a smile on your face. You kiss her lips properly this time. It’s quick as not to cross any boundaries. “I missed you.”
“I missed you too, y/n,” Nat admits.
“How was the mission?” You ask as you pour your own cup of coffee.
Natasha hesitates before answering. You know she doesn’t want to relive it.
“It was okay,” she says. Nat shrugs and sets her coffee on the island. “I think I’m going to go for a run.”
“If you’re sure you’re okay,” you reply.
“Physically, yes I’m okay,” Nat answers. That’s what you needed to know. “I’ll be back, okay?”
“Okay, babe. Be safe,” you tell her.
“I always am.”
And with that Natasha is out the door. You’ll give her the space she needs. Sometimes she’s like this after a mission. Things aren’t awkward necessarily but she acts different around you.
You go about your morning activities while Natasha is out running. She runs and runs until she can hardly breathe. The thoughts aren’t as loud when she’s running.
Natasha runs so far that she makes it to town. She sees a familiar bakery and makes a stop inside to get you a treat.
“There she is!” The owner says as Natasha walks through the door. You two frequent the place often. He knows you well. “We’ve missed you!”
“Hey, it’s good to see you,” Nat replies. “Can I get two of y/n’s usual?”
“Of course,” the man replies. He bags it up and hands it to Nat. She reaches for her wallet but he holds up his hand to stop her. “It’s on us. Welcome back, Ms. Romanoff.”
She thanks him and leaves the bakery. On her way back, she tries to work through some more difficult memories of the mission. Her motivation is to get back home to you.
It always is.
Natasha opens the door to your home again and finds you in your office. She knocks softly on the door. You jump out of your chair.
“I’m sorry!” She rushes out.
“It’s okay,” you assure her. “Just not used to you being back.”
Nat nods in understanding. She holds out the bag from the bakery. This time you jump out of your chair voluntarily.
“Is that what I think it is?” You ask her.
“It’s double what you think it is,” Nat replies. She hands you the bag.
“Come share it with me,” you say, gesturing to your desk.
Nat sits on the edge of the desk across from where you sit in your chair. The sweets are too much for her taste really, but she indulges and eats half of one.
“What did you do while I was gone?” Natasha asks, trying to get a conversation going.
“Well, let’s see. I worked, worked some more, watched tv, and spent some time with friends and family,” you tell her.
“That sounds nice,” Nat says.
“It was okay. I missed you more than anything,” you say.
“This time was hard for me too.”
“I know,” you say. “Do you want to-“
You stop talking and simply gesture for her to sit on your lap. It’s something she used to do without your insistence, but her boundaries are different after every mission.
Natasha nods and slowly straddles your legs with hers. Her body falls against yours. You allow her to make the next move.
You breathe a sigh of relief when Natasha wraps her arms around your waist and buries herself into you. Hugging her back, you hold her as close as you can.
"I’m here, baby,” you say softly. “It’s okay. I’ve got you.”
You feel tears on your neck as Natasha cries. You’ve only seen this happen a few times. As hard as it is to see it, the level of trust she has for you makes your heart swell. Not many people have seen this woman cry.
Natasha doesn’t move an inch for over an hour. You hold her for as long as she needs. When she pulls away, she looks into your eyes to see nothing but kindness.
“I’m sorry about this,” Natasha says.
“Hey, no don’t,” you say. “I’m here for you. Always.”
She feels her hands twitch as if she has to touch you, but she doesn’t know if she should. Those hands have caused pain and suffering. You see her internal dilemma.
“You can’t hurt me, Natasha,” you tell her. Her eyes widen a bit. How did you know what she was thinking?
“But I could,” she argues.
“But you won’t,” you reply.
“How do you know?”
“Because you’re you, baby. You’ve always been so gentle with me. These hands,” you begin, taking her hands in yours. “Have only served as a way to make me feel good. To make me happy. To make me fall in love with you even more. I trust you. You know I do.”
“I’ve just caused so much pain and suffering,” Natasha says.
“But oh so much more safety and calm,” you remind her. “I’m not afraid of you. I never have been.”
Natasha moves her hands to each side of your face. When you don’t flinch, she sees the truth of your words. She leans forward tentatively. You wait for her to kiss you.
When she does, it’s the most gentle kiss you’ve ever shared. A ghostly touch on your lips that lingers once she’s pulled away.
“I love you,” Natasha says. “I know I have a hard time saying it, but it’s how I always feel.”
“I love you too, Natasha. And you show me how you love me all of the time. You don’t need to say it for me to know it. I promise,” you tell her.
Natasha smiles softly and presses her head to your shoulder. You kiss her temple and rub her back softly.
“I should probably go so you can work,” Natasha mumbles.
“Stay with me?” You ask her.
“Okay,” Natasha replies.
She stays in your arms and even falls asleep after a while. You spend the entire day reassuring Natasha that everything is okay.
You’re so glad she’s home. And she knows she’s going to be okay as long as she’s with you.
845 notes · View notes
theteasetwrites · 1 year
Text
Daddy's Home | Part 1
❧ Pairing: Daryl Dixon x Female Reader ❧ Era: Season 5 (Alexandria) ❧ Pronouns: she/her ❧ Warnings: SMUT (18+)—oral sex (male receiving), dominant-ish Daryl, doggystyle, so much dirty talk, like one tiny spank (just a little one), mutual masturbation, vaginal fingering, oh yeah and DADDY KINK, language ❧ Word Count: 4.3k
❧ Summary: When Daryl comes back home from a week away, he doesn't want to sleep. He just wants you.
❧ A/N: Ok so yes I know the title is ridiculous, but like... what else was I gonna call this oneshot ok? Anyway, here's some major daddy kink. Like a lot of daddy kink. Daryl is just daddy. Sorry but he is. I can't explain it. Actually, yes I can. He's a protector, a provider, a big softie. He's a daddy, and I don't even have daddy issues but just let me have this. Goodbye I am never showing my face here again. <;3 Also I simply cannot get over how hot he is in this gif holy mother of god.
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The quiet was nice, late nights in Alexandria, gentle summer breeze prickling at your skin. It was nice to leave your bedroom window open through the night. Daryl hated it, always going on about how someone could climb the trellis outside your window and sneak in while you slept, but when he was gone, you’d indulge yourself in that one simple luxury.
When he told you that he was Alexandria’s newest recruiter, you knew you’d be in for some lonely nights ahead. Still, you also knew Daryl was the best man for the job—you’d seen him bring dozens of people to the prison, providing them shelter while expecting nothing in return, and then going out the next morning to do it all over again. That was when he wasn’t going out on his hunts to find food for everyone, often bringing home the biggest deer you’d ever seen, until he’d do it again next week, and bring home an even bigger one.
Yes, there was no doubt about it—Daryl knew what he was doing out there, but it didn’t stop you from worrying about him. Missing him. So while the quiet was, indeed, nice, you still could not get used to being alone, in this perfect little suburban townhouse, waiting. 
Your waiting became so monotonous, sitting up in your bed and reading another old Agatha Christie novel, that you decided, at length, to migrate downstairs, the living room. When Daryl would come home, you thought, you’d greet him right away. That was how much you were anticipating his arrival. 
One week was nothing, really, but it was the longest you’d been apart since knowing each other, and with the world the way it was, a lot could happen in seven days. A lot of bad, bad things. 
So you flicked on the lamp, snuggled yourself into a knitted blanket, and curled up on the sofa, book in hand as you let out a quiet huff. “Daryl…” you said to yourself, scanning your book to relocate the exact sentence where you left off. “Where are you, you big meatball.”
Your nervous jitters only worsened with the passing hour, your legs shaking involuntarily, your finger tapping on the edge of the book, your toes wiggling nonstop. All you needed was the sound of that bike, that big, stupid bike. That would ease your fretful heart. Well, what would really make you happy was seeing that man of yours, no doubt in need of a shower, but still, your man nonetheless. 
Speak of the Devil, as they say, and he doth appear.
It started out as just a distant hum, perking your ears and making your spine straighten in anticipation. Still frozen, you listened intently. A rumble, now, mechanical and getting louder with each second your heart began to beat faster. At one fateful moment, the roar of the makeshift machine was at its highest volume, and before you could even stand, a bright beam of white light shone through the blinds of the front window. 
All at once, the light and the rumble ceased, punctuated by a low huff, followed by an exasperated grunt. Heavy footsteps plodded along in a familiar pattern—you even recognized the sound of his no doubt mud-caked boots scraping against the edge of the steps leading to the front porch. You could only hope that this time, he’d take the extra precaution of removing his boots before he stepped over the threshold. 
There was a spring in your step, you wrapping the terry cloth fabric of your robe over your chest as you flitted towards the front door. Finally, you stood just a few feet back, your eyes transfixed on the shiny bronze doorknob. Inevitably, a wide grin made your cheeks swell until they almost ached, but the wait was worth it. 
When he came through the door, his head was hanging low, until he felt your presence. Lifting his gaze, he met your great big smile with a smaller one, though the movement of his body betrayed him. The door shut with a strong thud, just before he stepped forward to let his crossbow fall from his shoulder. With a soft grunt under his breath, he buried his nose in the warmth of your shoulder, his fingers digging into the flesh of your hips. 
For a good while, he stayed like that, only taking in the sensory relief you provided him—your faint scent of rose, your softness, your tender chuckle as your hands rubbed in vertical motions up and down his aching back. Despite the rigidity of his tired muscles, he melted into you, letting himself bask in the comfort you provided him. To hold him like this was nothing short of a ritual between you two, whenever you were apart for long enough to begin missing each other to the point of near grief. 
A man like Daryl—who’d been through so much as he had, who’d seen so much and had still so much room in his heart to give of himself to others—deserved to be held the way you held him. Few people in this world had a heart as big as him, though he did not show it in ways most people would recognize. He showed it in acts of service, in providing for people who could not provide for themselves, in the ones he loved safe. It was what you always adored about him: how he gave of himself, and expected nothing in return. 
“Hey, there, tough guy.” Daryl buried his face deeper into you, now snug in the crook of your neck, where he caught the scent of your perfume, applied much earlier in the day, yet still lingering sweetly. Though you adored how much he clung to you, you longed so much to see his face. Your hands grabbed a hold of either side of his head to lift his gaze to yours. 
As usual, his disheveled hair hung low over his forehead, obscuring one of your favorite features of his—his eyes. Between strips of tattered brown curtains, you could make out the blue-grey hue of his irises. Pushing them back, you smiled again at those deep-set pools of silvery cobalt blue. You always found their mystery to be intriguing. 
“How are you?” you asked, though you knew from the state of him that he must’ve been exhausted. He hadn’t even muttered a word, and yet the more prominent than usual bags under his eyes spoke for him. “You must be tired, hon. Let’s get you in bed.”
But as you turned towards the staircase, a firm grip pulled you back by the wrist, until you were in his arms now, laughing at his sudden burst of energy. Despite your amusement, he did not smile, only looked at you with a heavy, dark gaze, and a lick of his lips.
In your surprise, you hadn’t even noticed that both of his hands were now wrapped around each wrist, so tight that you nearly feared he’d cut off your circulation. 
Something was wrong, had to have been. You’d never seen him so… intense. Of course, Daryl could often be intense, when he was angry especially, but this wasn’t that. Anger was something you could recognize in Daryl. He’d never directed it towards you, but you knew it, and this was something different. 
“Are… are you feeling okay, sweetie?”
Silence, just that gaze holding you hostage, and a heat rising from his body that you could’ve sworn caused a bead of sweat to form on your brow. 
Now he was scaring you. 
“Daryl?” 
Your voice tempted him further. If only you knew just how much he missed you, how much he needed you. A week was too long. A week without you, a week without your touch, a week without your sweet, dulcet voice. And oh, how that voice awoke in him a terrible burning, a conflagration of deadly proportions, a fire that could only be extinguished by the one he loved. 
Entranced by his stare, you hadn’t noticed that he had you pinned against the wall, his strong, heaving chest keeping you there. 
And when he pressed himself against you, you knew. It was obvious, the way he nearly thrusted into you. 
When you realized what he wanted, you felt a wave of relief wash over you: he needed you just as much as you had needed him the past week. From the night he left, you’d not stopped thinking of him, and when you’d turn in your bed to feel for him, and he wasn’t there, the ache for him only worsened. 
There was no way in Hell, though, you were going to initiate sex when he got home. You knew he’d be tired, and a good night’s rest was what he needed before you even thought of asking him to make love to you, but now, with that wild look in his eyes, that hungry snarl in his lip, that flare in his nostrils, that beating of his heart… 
“Oh,” you sighed, your teeth biting back your lower lip as your eyes trailed up and down his body. With your hands finally free, you ran them up his arms, letting them settle on the broad, firm shoulders you loved so much. 
For just a moment, he leaned forward, forehead and tip of his nose meeting yours. With his hardening cock beginning to dig between your thighs, and his vaguely tobacco tinged musk tickling your senses, you could only utter one word. 
A soft, nearly whimpering mewl: “Daddy.”
By the time he got you to the sofa, each of you were already panting, hands moving relentlessly as you both clawed for any part of each other’s body you could get your hands on. Your mouths worked tirelessly, tongues spinning sloppily around the other’s in your haste to finally have each other again. 
When you successfully removed his leather angel-winged vest, you worked on unbuttoning his black shirt, but his hands stopped you. 
“Need your mouth,” he said. 
Leaning back on the sofa with a low grunt, he began unbuckling his belt, while you slotted yourself between his legs, hands massaging his clothed thighs, thick and flexing against your palm. 
When his cock sprang out of its confines, you’d already stripped yourself of your underwear and your robe. In only a transparent silk nightgown, your hips swayed instinctively as you watched his hand begin to stroke himself, up and down the long, thick shaft you’d come to know and love so much. 
“Come ‘ere.” His hands reached out to grab either side of your head, bringing you down to his cock. Panting lips began to drool a bead of saliva down the side of his growing erection. Knowing what he wanted, of course, you took the reddened, swelling tip into your mouth, much to his immediate relief.
“Fuck.” As your mouth slid a little lower, your hand wrapped around the base of his cock. His grip on your hair tightened as his head fell back on the arm of the sofa, a soft breath of your name on his lips. 
Returning to watch you, he lifted your hair into a makeshift ponytail, tilting his head to get a better look at you, your eyes fluttering up to meet his gaze.
“Pretty angel.” Even just the utterance of that affectionate pet name made you feel an overwhelming need to touch yourself. With your free hand, you lifted your nightgown to slot your fingers between warm, velvety folds of aching flesh. “Ya look so good like this… Suckin’ on Daddy’s cock.”
It was somewhat of a tradition now, using that phrase, though only in the context of sex, in your most private, intimate moments. It was silly, you knew it, and he knew it, too, but you both found it excruciatingly sexy all the same. It was sacred in that you’d probably die of embarrassment if anyone else besides Daryl knew of your little… kink.
But neither of you could quite help it, you adoring his strong, protective nature, and him just finding it so alluringly sinful. Guilty pleasure type of thing, with emphasis on pleasure.
And besides, his dirty talk was sex all on its own. 
As your mouth took him in progressively deeper, your fingers moved faster, increasing the friction against your sensitive spot, then slowly dipping down into the embrace of your entrance. 
Not only could he admire your mouth, and your sweet soft moans, but he could watch your fingers enter you, your hand shaking as you penetrated yourself to match the rhythm you knew he liked when he had his cock in you.
“Love when you fuck yourself like that.” He only wished he was the one doing it. “You thinkin’ of me?”
Well, it was hard not to think of him, with his cock in your mouth. 
Taking the opportunity to catch your breath, you answered him. “Yes, Daddy.”
His hands pulled you back down onto his cock, your lips forced open by his tip. “Just don’t make yourself come,” he said. “That’s for me.”
Yes, Daddy. 
Sliding over your tongue, his cock dug deeper, towards the back of your mouth. Going down on him was always a bit of a challenge, given just how big he was, but the weight of him inside you, wherever that may be, was far more rewarding. And when you got to feel that little twitch, his cock moving all on its own as it begged for release… It only made you suck harder, sliding your mouth up and down, taking him in deeper until you were nearly gagging. 
But he liked that, the sound of you struggling just a little to take all of him. Daryl was a sensitive man, yes, but he was still a man—proud of his big cock, even if he was insecure in most other areas. At least he was big, and at least he knew how to use it. 
With his hand on the back of your head, firm, but still gentle enough to let you up if you needed it, he pushed you down just a bit more, hearing your gag become more guttural, more strangled. It did not hurt, though. It only turned you on, your fingers curling inside you to tickle that special spot, and your other hand fondling his balls, tightly drawn to the underside of the base of his cock. 
For several moments, the only sounds coming from either of you were your strained groans, his slipping from between his agape lips, yours muffled by his length filling your entire mouth. Between those sounds of pleasure were the sloppy squelches of your lips soaking him with your saliva. You were always so messy when you went down on him, but how could you not be? His cock provided you no room to lick up your drool, stuffing you until your spit had nowhere else to go but down his veiny, hard length.
Of course, he’d have to tease you about it, how sloppy you were. “Messy girl,” he said, his hand gripping your hair to pull back your bangs. You fluttered your eyes open to meet his, and you were greeted by his crooked smile, with just a sliver of those shiny teeth showing. “Gettin’ Daddy all wet, huh? Nice and wet so I can fuck you good.”
Yes, Daddy.
Eyes rolling back slightly, he bucked his hips up with a jolt, your sucking beginning to tip him over the edge. Just in time, too, for your hand was getting tired of rubbing, and you needed him to finish you off.
“F-fuck, angel. Imma need ya to get that pussy ready for me.”
Whatever he wanted, you’d give him. After all, you were his good girl. Always his good girl. You couldn’t think of a time you’d ever been a bad girl for him. Daddy deserved his good girl.
Yes, you were a good girl, but you could still be… needy.
“Oh, Daddy.” Now straddling his waist, your fingers went straight for the first button on his shirt. “Want you.” He loved when you whined, just a little, and when you were so needy for him that you couldn’t quite make out a completely proper sentence. “Want your shirt off.”
He let you undo just a few buttons, exposing the hairs on his chest that drove you crazy, made you want to feel those wiry hairs between your pursed lips as you trailed your kisses all over his broad chest, made so strong and big by all the manual labor he did, and that heavy crossbow he always used. 
That very same strength pulled at your wrists, then raised you up only to lay you down, sprawled out on the other side of the couch. Now he hovered over you, the tip of his cock hanging down to be tickled by the fabric of your blush pink nightie. He always liked pink on you, matched the color of your cheeks when he talked so dirty to you, made you feel like a whore, but not in a disrespectful way. Never in a disrespectful way.
Besides, you knew you were more than that to him. You knew he loved you. Two years together, through some of the most abject pain and suffering imaginable, would do that. But in moments like this, it felt good to be just his personal whore, whom he happened to love very, very much.
Tenderness blossomed between your lips and his, where he kissed you so deeply, so sweetly. And yet, you still clawed at his shirt, your fingers begging for him to let you see his gorgeous body, after so long away from him.
“Shit,” he laughed into your mouth. Sitting up, he began to undo the rest of the buttons, then peeled off his shirt with his chest puffed up, clearly a bit cocky. When your hands shot up to grasp at his pecs, the faded ink of the tattoo above his left nipple having taunted you, he chuckled again.
“Daddy,” you laughed back, your voice a drawn out, dramaticized whine. “Come on.” 
Now you were testing him, and he held back the rest of his laughter to put on a stern, domineering face. “Hey, now. Be a good girl.”
He felt your thighs squeeze together underneath him, and your hips jolting upwards. He knew what you wanted, and he’d give it to you, but this position wasn’t quite right. 
With a breathy grunt, he grabbed you by your waist, flipping you over, then lifting your bottom until it was sticking out at just the right angle. Lifting your nightie, he licked his lips to watch you move your hips from side to side, as if to taunt him. 
“Cute little ass,” he practically cooed. Leaning over you, his chest pressed firmly to your back, he nuzzled his nose against your pillowy cheek. All the while, you felt his hand slide between your now nearly dripping wet folds. Eyes closed softly, you hummed a soft whimper at the feeling. His hands were always different from yours, so much bigger, stronger, rougher. You’d never felt a touch quite like his, and part of it was because he touched you with such tenderness, even if he tried to manhandle you a little. He was still always gentle, somehow.
In the most honeyed, silky, yet scratchy, voice, he rasped in a whisper, “Did ya miss me, angel?” 
“Yes… Daddy, I missed you so, so much.”
“Mm, I missed you, too. So much.”
Finally, you felt his tip just barely graze your hole. Not only was he torturing you, he was torturing himself, but he loved it. He needed it, otherwise he was sure his peak of pleasure would go away just as fast as it would come. With you, in this moment, he needed to prolong the desire as much as he could. He could feel it coming soon, though, that tensing in his muscles, that tingling in the pit of his stomach, that twitching that made his cock seem to bounce against your folds on its own accord. 
As he slid further into you, you felt his lips find the back of your neck, where he left little kisses the more he sank into you. It felt so good to feel him again, that fullness. It was a feeling only he could give you, his unique way of moving, his cock fitting so perfectly inside you. 
Underneath your nightgown, his hands found your breasts. Tense, strong fingers curled like claws at the soft tissue. Even in his dreams, of which he had many while he was away, he could not recreate that texture—that pillowy soft flesh swelling against his fingers. And the inside of you, the warmth and tightness that hugged his cock and accepted him with each pass, in and out. 
Soon, he leaned back to watch your body envelope his, the shiny, milky coating of your arousal making it easier to slip in and out of you, his hips thrusting in ever increasing speed.
“Daddy…” 
God, he loved being called that. Much more than he should’ve. But, then again, he’d probably find you sexy even if you were calling him “dickhead.” He really didn’t mind, as long as you were calling him something. 
“Mm, angel… Daddy’s here now, sweetheart.” He delivered a harder, stronger thrust, pulling a loud, strangled moan out from deep inside of you. “That feel good?”
“Fuck, yes!” 
As if to praise you, he delivered just a small, weak slap to your bum. That was about as hard as he was willing to spank you, given how much he hated the idea of hurting you, but he knew you liked it, and he liked it, too, the clench of your body from the slap making him jolt forward. 
“Takin’ it good… Real good.”
With one hand still squeezing your breast, the other now drawing tight circles over your clit, he made your lips tremble and your muscles tighten as you began to approach the height of pleasure. You could feel it, just on the brink of release. And he felt it, too, which was why he pulled himself out of you, flipping you over again like a ragdoll. 
You were startled when he pulled you down by your ankles, until you were closer to him. He gave his fingers a good, long lick, then let them sink into you, where his cock had left you stretched wide open and dripping wet. 
Three fingers. Three thick, strong fingers, curling up inside you, making you writhe and groan as your hands shot up to grasp at his shoulders. Through half-lidded eyes, you watched his neck bulge with the strain of trying to keep himself from coming, and it only aroused you more—those muscles flexing and throbbing and burning underneath hot, sweat-dripping skin, tanned by days on end out in the sun. 
What he needed so badly was his own release, after so long of working so hard out there, risking his life for the good of Alexandria. As his forearm and biceps flexed with every push of his fingers inside of you, his chest heaved harder and harder, while you reached between your legs to find his cock. With your hand pulling on his length, and your walls clenching around his fingers as your release reached a tipping point, you both would soon be giving each other much needed relief. 
“Daddy,” you sighed, tugging harder on his cock as frustration overtook you. The closer you got to orgasm, the more you couldn’t wait any longer. “Make me come… I wanna come.”
“Ah, angel… I’m gonna come, too.”
Just moments later, you tensed and gasped and writhed and moaned, rocking your hips upward as his fingers stayed inside you, squeezed by your contracting walls. “Oh, Daddy!”
He leaned forward to lay on top of you, his sturdy weight keeping you in place as you rode out your high, soaking his fingers with your arousal. The heat of your cheek seemed to burn his lips as he kissed you there, then rubbed his button nose in delicate circles to soothe you. “Yeah… Daddy’s got ya, sweetheart.”
With your hand still tugging on him, he gasped a heavy breath, spilling out over you right then and there, his hips thrusting into your hand in desperate, sloppy motions. The orgasm was so strong that he lost his composure for a moment, his head falling into your chest as he groaned your name, over and over and over again. 
And now he freed his hand, using it to rub up and down the sides of your torso, your skin like fine silk under his worn, calloused fingers. In his hair were your hands, massaging his scalp the way you knew he liked, until he lifted his head to offer you a gentle smile. 
“Mm, I’ll never get tired of that.”
You tilted your head with a wide grin. “I didn’t think you’d want to do it tonight. I thought you’d be exhausted.”
He breathed a low huff before rolling over onto his side. You did the same, letting him hold you with his chest pressed firmly to your back. There wasn’t much room on that tiny couch, but you made it work. After all, even if you were in bed upstairs, you’d probably still be this close to each other, clinging for dear life, never wanting to be separated again, though you knew someday you’d have to.
“I am,” he said. “Just… I dunno, needed you, s’all.” Observant as he was, he took notice of your shivering, and reached back to grab the knitted blanket that had been draped over the back of the couch. He covered the both of you, then tucked his chin into your shoulder, where it seemed to fit perfectly. “Missed ya so much, could hardly stand bein’ without you.”
Even now, after you thought you’d be used to his sweet words, he still had a way of sending those butterflies aflutter. “Well, now you’re back home.”
That sounded so good to him—back home.
~
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Masterlist
Part 2 (coming soon)
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romanoffsbish · 1 year
Text
Clandestine Meetings
Natasha Romanoff x Fem!R
Prompts / Request
 “Go and lock the door for me.  I don’t want anyone to walk in while I’m balls deep.”
 “Go get one of your toys.  Let’s make this even better.”
“Is that gonna fit?”  “I’ll make it fit.”
Warnings: Jealousy, Emotionally Stunted Natasha
Smut: Natasha has a penis, Daddy(N), Detka/Whore(R), Nipple Clamps, Vibrating Egg, Oral(R), Unprotected Sex/Breeding, Choking, Edging/Teasing, Orgasm Denial.
18+ | Minors DNI
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"I want love Nat, you just want a quick fuck."
The words you whispered to her over a month ago have been bouncing around her mind the entire time, plaguing her very soul. It got to the point where while away on her mission she couldn't even focus on the objective anymore.
Who were you to just come to a conclusion like that without so much as a conversation?
——
Not a, "Nat, we need to talk," or a "I'm not sure we want the same things Nat, correct me if I'm wrong here," and she would've corrected you. Because you were so far off base, all Natasha wanted was to love you, she just didn't know how to do that outside of worshipping you in deeply passionate moments that usually ended just as fast as they began, and left you alone.
Now here you lay on the compounds couch in your sleep shorts, a sight the redhead would love to see every morning in her own room. Waking up beside you would be a dream new experience, potentially challenging, but she knows that she'd grow to love the situation.
Natasha already loved you—desperately so.
The only obstacle here had been her inability to make her loving intentions clear to you. She'd always been a bit more on the vulgar side, and you seemed into it for awhile, but one random night you shoved her away and that was just it.
As soon as she figured herself out, she was going to make things right with you. But there was apparently a new obstacle, because right now your head was settled into another's lap.  Carol was listening to you ramble on while mindlessly stroking your cheek. Natasha envied the blonde's ability to offer such an intimate moment without any real effort.
When she saw how much the woman enjoyed your presence she felt her heart shattering into tiny, jagged pieces. With her jaw clenched she rushed out of the kitchen and went straight to her room where she allowed a stray tear to fall. Then she reached for her phone, and sent you a text message: Meet me in my room in 5 !
Carol smiled down at you knowingly when she heard the ding of your phone, "I told you to go after her Y/N, she didn't seem very pleased."
"Yeah, and I don't give a fuck," you huffed, arms crossing over your chest, and the blonde cackled wildly at the sign of faux indifference before she returned to a more serious state.
"Y/N, ever since she's been gone all you've done is mope around this place, but oh look, the day she's back you suddenly appear before me with a sunny disposition and expect me not to see right through it? Answer her text and maybe even go get laid, you're insufferable."
"Carol," you groaned, hands flying to your face to hide the mortification in your eyes at the brutal call out, "She doesn't want me," you pouted, "at least not in the way I want her to."
"Did she say that?" Carol asks while lazily drawing circles on your shoulder to calm you.
"She didn't have to say it out loud..."
"Oh Y/N," she tilted your head so you would be facing her, she caressed your cheek then spoke, "Natasha isn't exactly known for expressing her feelings in ways that make sense, so how about you put your big girl pants on, and force her to say the words she couldn't manage to before."
You huffed while glaring up at her, knowing she was right, but in the same breath you snatched your phone up, and read the message while rolling your eyes, a bitter chuckle leaving you as you saw the song that happened to have been softly playing at the time of arrival.
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After a moment of soul searching you took off to her bedroom in a frenzied ball of nerves. Entering her space felt both comfortingly familiar, and extremely uneasy. Seeing her sat on the bed in sweats with her legs manspread, leaning back on her exposed muscular arms as she wore a cami without a bra you felt your body tingle with need, and your mouth go dry.
With a sly smirk, and a crook of her finger you made your way further into the room, but she left you to be blanketed in an awkward silence. It was clear she didn't actually expect you to be here, and now that you were she was weighing out her options, but just like usual, she was not able to articulate the right words like: I missed you, I love you, or please, don't leave again...
"Go and lock the door for me. I don't want anyone to walk in while I'm balls deep," the redhead commanded dryly, and though the thought of her inside you alone nearly brought you to your knees, you rolled your eyes instead and went to hurriedly walk away again.
Natasha ran after you, catching you by the wrist to prevent you from leaving, "Y/N, stop doing this okay," she pinched the bridge of her nose, and softly sighed, "I don't know how to do all of this, vulnerability isn't my strong suit, okay? Just let me show you instead..."
You furrowed your brows, and she sighed exasperatedly, "Give me a chance, please."
Saying no to her would be in vain, because it was all you wanted to finally be beneath her, so you nodded without really much hesitation.
Natasha leaned in to kiss you, the first time in your whole arrangement that she'd done it with any semblance of care present. Normally it's all teeth clashing, and tongues sloppily gliding over the other while she brought you to bliss.
Up until now Natasha has only ever offered you quick moments, with only her hands or mouth diligently bringing you over that glorious edge. Never had she actually shown you tenderness, but more importantly, she had yet to fuck you with the bulge poking you through her pants.
Natasha wasn't ready to give you all of her, it was actually something she'd never done with another person that she loved before. She's screwed girls before, usually as a means to an end, with their faces smushed into a mattress, but she couldn't bring herself to do it with you. No matter how desperate she was for release after hearing and seeing you come undone for her, or how prettily you'd beg to help her out each time, she just couldn't cross that line.
But now, she knew it was all she could do to make sure you understand, that you feel her in every sense possible, and feel her love for you.
"Na-Natasha," breathlessly you stuttered out her name as your hips reflexively canted into hers, "I need you daddy, please, fill me up."
Natasha groaned, pulling away from your lips she smirked devilishly, you could see the flicker of mischief in her gaze as she leaned down to suck a mark onto your smooth skin, "Go get one of your toys. Let's make this even better."
The knob twisted in her hands this time, she watched in amusement as you scurried across the hall to your room in your mussed up state.
"Look at how desperate you already are detka," she slammed you back into the door as soon as you crossed the threshold, the door slammed close with the impact and you moaned weakly.
Surveying the items in your hands she softly chuckled, "Oh, you're in for it now Y/N, gonna give you all of me so you can finally understand what my true intentions with you are."
This time when she kissed you it was with a bit of urgency, her hands contrastingly gripped your hips softly, and without ever breaking the kiss she walked your body over to the mattress. Natasha lowered you down gently, and as she rose back up she collected the nipple clamps and the vibrating bullet from your hands.
"May I?" Natasha gestured to your body, and you smiled gratefully, no matter how quickly she usually took you, she'd always been keen on hearing consent. "Please, do it already."
The sleep clothes were quickly discarded, and her lips latched onto your risen buds instantly. Her tongue rolled around your nipple slowly, causing your breath to shallow as you were overrun with pleasurable anticipation. After a moment she released your nipple with a pop, giving you only seconds to adjust to the chill on your wetted skin before she attached a clamp.
Natasha caught your hand before it could mindlessly tug the clamp off, "It's okay detka," she shushed you softly, tenderly smiling down at you as she slid her fingers between yours, "You're okay," she gently brushed her lips over your knuckles before laying your interlocked hands on top of the mattress. A whimper left you as you were overrun with a overdue sense of comfort from her, then you were moaning when her lips returned to your heated skin.
"I'm going to ruin you Y/N," she growled around your other nipple before she bit into the hypersensitive skin, "No one will ever touch you again after I leave a mark on what's mine."
"Say it," she growled as she hovered over you, but before you could even try she was clamping your sore bud, effectively making you wince.
"Oh shit," you gasped when she gave the chain a harsh tugging to ensure it was properly attached, the accompanying pain was dizzying.
"I asked you to say something," she leered over you, hand now wrapped around your throat in a way that not only intimidated you but left you absolutely dripping onto her expensive sheets.
Natasha watched your brainless eyes searching for a response, it took you a minute, but you were finally about to open your mouth, but all that came out was a lewd moan as she pressed the vibrating egg into your slicked up cunt.
"Come on now detka, you know I don't like to be made to wait," she tightened her hand around your throat, something that only ever adds to your pleasure, and she knew that, it was honestly her favorite, slowly draining the life from you as she brought your body to euphoria, only to spare you in the last second.
She was a bit of a sadist. You didn't mind...
Something about that control was exhilarating, seeing your eyes grow hazier with every second as you harshly choked never failed to make her cock twitch. Maybe it was the underlying way in which you trusted her to never go too far, it had her overwhelmed with unwavering joy.
After allowing you a moment of pure bliss she deemed it enough, so she tore it away from you, ripping the vibe out of you and watching in amusement as your eyes filled with tears, and your lip was now caught between your teeth, "Daddy no, please, I-I was so close."
Your whimpering always affected her greatly, she gets off to the memory of you begging all the time, so it's no surprise to her that her cock was painfully straining against her boxers.
"Whores that forgot how to speak don't get to cum!" Natasha spat, the underlying tone full of pain telling you she meant more than in this moment, your constant distancing hurt her.
"Natty," you tried to apologize, but she only grew angrier, her hand harshly gripped your face, and she hovered over you with a furious gaze, you hated to admit it but it sent a pang of arousal down to your already dripping cunt, "That's not my fucking name slut, try again."
"Daddy," you whimpered, and she softened momentarily as she leaned in to kiss your lips, "Better, but I no longer want to hear you, so lets shut that pretty brain of yours off," she pecked your lips once more before her lips trailed down your body in quick succession.
The sound of buzzing as she now faced your cunt left you with widened eyes, this new dynamic was throwing you off honestly. So used to a quick release this newfound joy of hers spurring from teasing you was alarming. You began to wonder if the loveless sex was better, but deep down you knew it wasn't, especially when she edged you so deliciously.
Natasha held the vibe just out of reach of your clit, a test of sorts that she wanted you to fail. "Daddy's gonna get a taste now detka," she murmured against the lush skin of your thighs as she moved to further mark her territory.
After minutes of torture, where she barely swiveled the egg over your bundle of nerves you finally caved and canted your hips up. Natasha bit harshly into your thigh, blaming you for moving as she moved to hover over your face, "There's a time and a place for your pleasure, and this isn't it, now stay still Y/N!"
"Sorry daddy," you sniffled wetly, drawing her back out of her lust driven haze, and the sight of you so broken was honestly picturesque, it brought a lopsided smirk to her plump lips.
Natasha usually moved only to please you, but in this moment, she wanted you desperate. So needy, hopelessly dependent upon her touch, this way you'll never look for anyone else again. Looking into your eyes now she saw that was already your truth, you were so lost in the pleasure that she was hardly giving, "It's okay detka, you know daddy will take care of you."
Natasha kissed you until you were breathless, then when you were reduced to a heaving mess she returned to your thighs, she placed a few soft kisses there before finally diving into you.
With the vibrator pressed firmly into your clit, and her tongue deep inside you it was all you could do to make a mess of her face, a scream of pleasure echoed off her walls, and Natasha pulled back with an accomplished smile. The sight of her as your slick was dripping down her chin made your body shiver, that unraveled coil started to retighten, and your hazy eyes slammed shut as you tried to calm down.
Natasha teasingly rutted her hips into yours, you could feel her straining against her boxers when she stilled, and you couldn't help but to squirm when she made no move to fuck you.
Natasha chuckled as she felt your desperation, she softly continued to push her sizable bulge down against your slit, the irritating fabric separating your sexes actually brought you a slice of pleasure when it grazed over your clit. It would never be enough though, your hips began to jerk up to meet hers, desperation fueling you, and Natasha could feel it wholly.
She truly loved teasing you, feeling the way your aromatic slick soaked through her boxers, it only became too much for her once you were whining pitifully in her ear, making her twitch without reprieve, so without much warning she jumped up, leaving you to cry at the loss of friction, but the protests died on your tongue when you saw her dick spring free, it was huge.
"Is that gonna fit?" you visibly gulped, wide eyes watching as the tip of her cock hit her abdomen as she slowly sauntered over to you with an obnoxiously hot smirk overtaking her face as she hovered over you, "I'll make it fit."
Her lips pressed to yours, instinctually yours parted, Natasha's tongue slid into your mouth as her tip pushed passed your entrance, and you latched onto her tongue as you moaned. A shiver ran down the redheads spine when your walls simultaneously squeezed her thick shaft making it near impossible for her to fill you up.
The way that your warmth enveloped her cock made her fearful that she'd bust without even thrusting as she bottomed out, "Fuck, you feel so good Y/N, you're taking me so well detka."
Her hand sought yours out for grounding, and when you felt her interlock her fingers with yours again your eyes fluttered open to see her deepened green pair staring back into yours. The eye contact was intense, and arousing, but incredibly hard to keep when you felt her begin to thrust slowly, and relatively deeply into you.
"Keep em open," Natasha panted, your eyes slowly fluttered back open, fighting against the insurmountable pleasure, "Wanna see you."
It was a struggle, but you somehow managed to keep your eyes partially open for the ferocious women pounding into you with strong hips. The brutal pace she set was building you up quick, you never knew how much you needed her until now, she felt too good, the way she stretched you out left you gasping, and with every thrust her bulbous tip drove you wild.
With her hand in yours, and eyes locked you were overwhelmed by a love you were truly convinced didn't exist. The one that pulsed inside you the closer she got to her release, the love she needed verbally reciprocated to finish, "Say it detka," Natasha whispered breathlessly just as she twitched inside of you, "Please..."
"I'm yours Nat," you dopily confirmed with an amused tone, the moment was however short lived as a scream was torn from your throat, your eyes rolled to the back of your head as she let go inside of you, hot spurts of white filled your womb to the brim, and your body trembled without reprieve. "I-I need you Y/N, please don't leave me again, I'll do better..."
"Nat," you managed to squeak out her name in between your pants, "If you don't run, I won't."
"I'll never run again detka," she pressed her lips to your cheek, then trailed them down until she was resting in the crook of your neck, "I promise, we'll learn how to love together."
"Oh, I know how to love," you teased with a deliberate clenching of your walls, "Shit Y/N."
You flipped your positions before she could even recover, harshly grinding down against her as you did, did the trick when you could feel the way her cock hardened once more.
"It's my turn to show you," you winked, and the redhead smirked, a long drawn out sigh leaving her lips as you began to grind down into her.
———
3,075 Words
❤️ Kaitlyn 😏
2K notes · View notes
devils-dares · 2 months
Text
Man's World
summary: a tight championship race, a relationship situationship enemies with benefits that can't take place anywhere but behind the scenes, two drivers pitted against one another. who will prevail?
pairing: f1 driver x f1 driver!fem!reader (written with lewis hamilton in mind, but contains no identifying traits for any driver)
warnings: smut MDNI, verbal fights, driving, strong language, toxic masculinity, women being talked about negatively (in a man's world), being pathetic
wordcount: 5005
a/n: i have been working on this since august. this fic has gone through many phases of life with me, and i have finally finished it. i truly hope you enjoy.
-----
Good God, what had you gotten yourself into? It wasn’t supposed to be anything, if anything you two were bitter rivals to the death. Saying his name was like licking a battery, leaving a coppery acidic taste in your mouth.
So why did you wake in his bed? He, his body shining in the early morning sun, was making a plate from what you imagined was room service breakfast. His sheets, they smell like him, and the memories from last night and nights past come flooding into your head again.
He’s laying it on thick, smiling at you when he sees you sitting up in bed.
“You okay?” He says, the sweetest voice spilling from his lips. You hum, the ache between your thighs and the soreness in your hips delectably painful. He hands you a plate.
Your head spins from the irony of it all. Enemies to lovers, you’d said the night before as a joke. And what did he say in response?
“Lovers don’t fuck each other like this.”
It was true, the bruises on your body spoke wretched stories when they darkened over days, but sung beautifully while you moaned out his name underneath him as he pressed on them. He fucked as hard as he fought on track, the two of you trading first and second place back and forth every race. It’d become a game, riling each other up all week long just to end up on the podium next to each other and the same bed later on. It was a joke around the paddock that the two of you had tension and needed to “sort it out”.
All things had to end eventually, right? It bothered you when his alleged girlfriend was at Silverstone. He’d just spent the night prior making sure you couldn’t talk while his head was between your legs and now Thursday brings rumors of him walking the paddock with a lady friend.
She was beautiful, and that pissed you off.
He came to your room Sunday night after the race, a knock you two have come to create inadvertently. You didn’t bother to open the door, instead opting to lean against it.
“Open the door,” he said, “someone could see. Open the fucking door.” He’s agitated, good, you think. He led the race by a few seconds, but his cockiness came through like always, leading to an ill-timed spin and you taking the win from him. You’re winning the championship by just over ten points, and he’s had a slew of what could be considered amazing races, but losses in his book because he’s a place behind you. He knocks and knocks until you’re sure his fingers go raw, and you wipe a stray tear before opening the door to toxicity personified. He pushes past you to get in and slams the door shut. You sigh and rub your forehead before he pushes you up against the door.
“When I say open the door, open the fucking door, got it?”
“I’m not going to listen to you.” You challenge him, and he puffs his chest out, showing off just how much bigger he is than you.
“You’ve already tried being a brat, remember what that got you?” A night full of edging and no release, that’s exactly what that got you. Your body shudders at the memory.
“Yeah, that’s what I fucking thought.” He laughs.
“Fuck you!” You try to shove him but he barely moves an inch, instead grabbing your wrists and pushing them back against the door.
“What’s got you in such a mood? Back to back races left you a little sex-starved?” He tuts. “I thought I taught you better than that.”
“Who was that girl you were walking around with?” You ask, tears brimming at your waterline in anger.
“You’re jealous! Do you know how pathetic that is? What gives you a right to know, being my whore in private?” Your face turns away from his, but he pulls your hands up to hold with one of his, and he turns your chin towards him with his free hand. He sees how red you are, face burning with embarrassment.
“She’s an obligation. Management, you know.”
“So you’re not-”
“No. I wouldn’t be here if I was. She’s in the room across the hall from me.”
“Oh.”
“Oh? You don’t own me, you shouldn’t be obligated to know who she is.”
“Yet you told me.” He drops his hands.
“You know, if I’m not going to get what I want from you tonight, maybe I should go to her. She seemed very eager to get to know me when we got together for this.”
“Wait, no,” you say, sighing at the words you’re about to say, “just stay here with me, you’ll get what you want.” You’re embarrassed, face turning red. He smiles, and the bared teeth spell out danger for you.
“That’s what I wanted to hear from you.”
He leaves at two in the morning. You know because you lay awake all night, listening to him breathe. The ache between your legs was no longer pleasant or welcome, and you were tired of giving in to him. He gathers his clothes, does a half-assed job at pulling the covers back over your body, and doesn’t even bother to close the door quietly, instead opting to come near to slamming it.
You wish he could just break your heart, leave you to sulking by yourself, but he seems to have that same, sick attachment that you have to him. He’s bad for you, and the both of you would be sick in the head if you had any fantasy of this becoming a real thing. He’s not worried about losing his job if this gets discovered, his name is more than enough to keep the lights on and the paychecks running. You, on the other hand, were not well liked throughout the paddock apart from the drivers. You were a controversial topic, people either hated you or were your fiercest defenders.
You turn over and check the clock, 2:46, it reads. You sigh, squeezing a pillow over your head. This needs to end, for both the betterment of you and him.
—--
That ideal comes crashing down in Qatar, literally. The two of you collide, taking each other out of the race. It was his fault entirely, and that was reflected with the addition of two penalty points to his super license. Unfortunately, the two of you had to enter the media pen at the same time, and the daggers of death he sent your way were not easy to miss.
You were wound up, he hadn’t come into your room since Zandvoort when he’d beaten you by quite a close margin, just a touch over half a second. He hadn’t even spared you a word, driver’s meetings be damned. You were left to hang high and dry.
It wasn’t for lack of trying, though. Almost every stop you had, and weekends in between, you spent time at the clubs, attracting men to bring back to your place, but none of them scratched the itch that he left. You barely even finished with half of them. He was obnoxious, insufferable, yet you found yourself in the bathroom of another hotel room fixing up your hair to go knock on his door.
You looked at yourself. You were attractive, sexy, but it made you feel dirty that you dressed up all for him. Suddenly, the lace in your lingerie felt itchy, cutting into your skin. The silk felt like it was actively pilling against you, and the tendrils of your hair wouldn’t stop sticking to the lipstick that just so happened to be his favorite shade on you.
You had to get your independence back from a man who knew he had it and just didn’t care. You didn’t go.
That didn’t stop you from opening the door when he knocked a few minutes later, though. He smiled when he saw your attire, you didn’t bother to cover up. At least you didn’t fall into the trap of knocking on his door, small victories.
He stayed the night this time, just like the first few times. He actually cared back then, and it feels like that today, with his hand in your hair holding your head to his chest. You woke to his soft breathing, he’s still asleep, and that gives you the perfect opportunity to leave him like he left you.
You throw all of your clothes in your suitcase haphazardly, and drag out the luggage to the hallway to zip it up, in fear that he might wake and try to talk or squeeze another round out of you.
You two ran into each other a weekend later at an event in Monaco.
“You left.” He says.
“What did you say?”
“You left a week ago in Qatar. You weren’t there when I woke up.”
“Did you expect me to be?”
“Considering how-”
“If that sentence ends in some grade school jab against me I’m going to hurt you. You just lost a good thing.” He put his hands up in mock defeat.
“I didn’t know how sensitive you were going to be about this whole thing.”
“And if you knew?”
“I would’ve found someone else to fuck.”
—--
The Las Vegas Grand Prix, if you could’ve skipped it you would’ve. Inaugural grand prix in Sin City, your hands were already shaking on the way over here. He must’ve gotten the idea after Qatar, because absolutely no effort was given in him talking to you other than what was necessary, which seemed like a lot, given every single interview question was framed towards yours and his friendship. Both of you answered the same, there was no friendship beyond what was required in a purely professional setting, and the two of you were excited to put the championship race behind you once one of you was crowned.
Mathematically, there were about six drivers still in the championship race, the thorn in your sides that kept the two of you from being in a truly isolated battle, but realistically it’d come down to the two of you. That idea was currently being drilled into you from your team. Keep a clean race and good pace. Every single scenario was being run through during this meeting, and you only participated when necessary, which wasn’t smart, considering this would be your first time racing this track. You couldn’t help it, your mind was wrapped up in a twisted way, your situationship taking over your mind like a sick grade school crush.
I wonder if I’m on his mind as much as he is on mine. Does he think about me often? Does he think about what happened? About why I left the way I did in Qatar?
Your name was being called and your teammate knocked your leg with his knee. You looked at him, a thankful look in your eyes as you answered a question on strategy.
The start of this race weekend sucked. Practice 1, you’d picked up a puncture from an extra bit of carbon fiber on the track. Practice 2 brought mechanical failures, components overheating from the temperature of the track. Your confidence was shot seeing him at the top of the leaderboard in the sessions leading up to qualifying. And when qualifying came, your bad luck stuck around. You felt a power cut in your last flying lap of Q3, resulting in a measly P6 where your teammate qualified P2 and he got pole position.
With the team breaking curfew to put you in a driveable car for the next day, you were shaken up to say the least. You were in the car, the team doing their last minute checks and holding tire blankets and coolers to the car. The track was lit up beautifully in an elegance that only the night could hold.
Five cars in front of you. Five to pass and then hold the position. That’s all you had to do to secure a good lead into the final race. The clock clicked into position, the track cleared. You took the formation lap to get locked in, butterflies fluttering in your chest when the red lights started stacking.
The timing was perfect. You had an amazing start, picking off two positions into turn one. The start was great, but not much else was. You gained another position about halfway through the race, and a botched pit from another team allowed you to gain second up until an aggressive move from another driver caused damage and relegated you to P3.
But everything about his race was aces. Perfect pit, minimal tyre degradation, he was flying. You would’ve taken him out yourself, he was pissing you off that much. Yet again, you felt a power cut in the straight, and that caused you to lose fastest lap to him. Luckily your teammate was in a position to steal it back, but that was one less point for you in a championship battle for the ages.
You stood on the podium next to him, proud bastard, you thought. He walked past you, a glint in his eyes that was unmistakably lust, but could’ve only been seen as a rivalry spark by anyone else. He took his spot on the podium, and when it came time to spray, he was sure to aim only for you, seemingly rubbing in his victory.
He didn’t knock that night, or the night after that. You waited up for him, willing to bring him inside, but he never came. You couldn’t bring yourself to knock on his door either, saving yourself from the embarrassment of him not answering. You didn’t go clubbing, you couldn’t. If you saw him out with another woman, having the time of his life… you shook your head. It wasn’t worthwhile to think of him like that.
You flew home. Wasting tears in Vegas would do nothing to prepare you for the last race. The only one that really mattered, the championship decider.
You put in the hours at the facility, spending nights there because you didn’t want to go home. You’d sleep in your office, the only place he hadn’t tarnished with his presence. The team was concerned about you, but they still had two cars and two drivers to get ready for the finale.
I wonder if I’m on his mind as much as he is on mine.
If you had to go to one more team related event, you were going to cry. You were squeezed into formal wear and airbrushed to the gods the days leading up to Abu Dhabi. You shook hands with sponsors and promised results over the weekend. You were fucking exhausted.
It didn’t help that he looked amazing every time you saw him, which was often considering you stayed at the same hotel, and he was everywhere you were. Whether you were arriving and he was already sat in the breakfast lounge, or you were with a friend and his gaze lingered just a bit too long on your smiling figure, he was fucking everywhere.
Finally, a moment of reprieve, you thought as you entered the hotel. You were able to sneak past the fans, and took your hood off as soon as you entered, the lobby serene in the middle of the night.
You punched the button to call the elevator, and once you got in you pressed the button for the rooftop terrace, leaning against the back wall. Just before the doors closed, however, a hand jutted between the doors. A few people darted in from different teams, immediately making the cart feel small, and someone came to stand next to you, their body pressed up against the side of yours, pushing you against the wall. You knew that cologne, and dared to peek up.
It was him.
You cursed him in every language you knew. He stayed pressed up against you like that even as staff began to filter out. Soon enough, it was just the two of you, and he seemed like he was heading to the roof with you. As if every holy body hated you at that moment, there was no one else on the terrace when you two got there. You rushed to the edge, taking in a breath with your arms on the railing.
“Been a while since it was just the two of us, hasn’t it?” The man had to be immune to taking hints. You didn’t answer.
“Are you just planning on ignoring me for as long as possible?” Ignored again.
“I just hope you’re doing okay, y’know.”
“Don’t do that thing where you pretend to care just to get into my pants, it’s not going to work.”
“That’s not what I’m doing.” You turned around to face him, a look of disbelief on your face.
“I swear.” He says. You don’t answer.
“What we were doing, it was fun, it is fun, but I’m not losing you over it.”
“Look who’s ready to be the bigger person,” you say sarcastically, “we weren’t friends, you’re not losing anything.” He rubs his forehead.
“Don’t you get tired of all of this?”
“I tire of you.”
“Ouch.” Silence falls on the conversation.
“We’re rivals,” you say after a bit, “we were never meant to be close.”
“So it’s like that.”
“It always was.” The two of you lock eyes, both unwilling to break first. You’ve effectively shut down the conversation, but your heart still aches to hear his voice, his hands on your skin, anything.
“For your sake, I hope you win on Sunday.” He starts to walk away, towards the elevators.
“Why the sudden attitude change?” You blurt out.
“Maybe I realized I lost a good thing.” He turns back to you as he says it.
“You…” You try to start. He steps closer to you, looking at your hands as if he was contemplating holding them. He huffs, deciding on grabbing them and holding them close to his chest.
“You are far more important to me than you realize.” And just like that, he’s got you trapped again. He leans down, letting go of one hand to cup your chin, tilting your head up to kiss you. You curse yourself for feeling a connection to him, even still. HIs hands fall to your hips, squeezing them.
“We shouldn’t… too out in the open up here.” You say.
“My room?”
“We have practice tomorrow.”
“Okay. Whatever you say.” He starts to turn away.
“Just a little bit of time together won’t hurt, right?” You say. He smiles at you.
“I was hoping you’d say that.” He takes your hand, leading you back to the elevator, clicking his floor number.
As it turns out, spending a night with your ex-enemy with benefits does hurt. Your phone was buzzing off the nightstand with your manager asking you where you were. You groaned, rubbing your eyes as you reached over.
“Fuck!” You yell, waking him up with your voice.
“What? What is it?”
“I’m going to be massively late, I have to go.” You scramble to find your clothes, scattered across the floor.
“I’m not going for another hour and a half, you can’t be that late.”
“I also can’t be seen with you, do you know how bad that would be for both of our reputations? If someone were to catch me leaving your room and going back to mine… I knew this was a bad idea!”
“Don’t overreact, we’ll figure this out.”
“There is no figuring this out, I’m going to get caught on the way to my room in my clothes from the night prior, which, may I remind you, I was photographed in. That is going to ruin me publically, who, may I remind you again, already hate me.”
“I’m sorry.” He says.
You get dressed quickly and sneak out, getting to your room with almost no eyes on you.
—--
Friday brings a better showing for you and your team than Las Vegas did, topping both free practices by two-tenths and one-tenth respectively. Everyone was happy about your performance, and you were excited to see yourself on the top of the timing sheets again.
Saturday brought the same results, topping another free practice. It was a bit touch-and-go at qualifying, having to rush across the line with only a few seconds remaining to get your last flying lap, but that was just enough time to push you over him.
Sunday. The day you were simultaneously dreading and looking forward to. Between the two of you, winner takes all.
You sat in your car in the pole box. You glance to the side and catch a glimpse of him, he’s nodding his head to something the mechanics are saying. You sigh. Your mechanics float around your car, fiddling around for anything last second. The coolers blow on you as well as the car, the temperature of Abu Dhabi was nothing to trifle with.
You take a deep breath, feeling secure and quiet in your helmet. You play out the track in your mind, feeling every twist and turn in your body before you drive. Your eyes are closed, but your mind is far from relaxed.
During the formation lap, you become acutely aware of just how much is riding on this race. Not only your reputation, but your opportunities for the next season, and just how much power you can have with negotiations as it was your contract year. You shake your head. No time to think about that if you haven’t even accomplished the first step, winning this race.
You roll into your box, watching in your side mirror as the last of the drivers do so and then your eyes flick up to watch the lights. All you had to do was get the start.
Your timing couldn’t have been better. You were gone by the time you reached the first corner. He’d gotten a good start, but nothing compared to yours. All you had to do was manage the race.
The two of you quickly realized you were both pulling away from the competition, and he had much more grip in the corners, cutting at your lead. Soon enough, you were called in to box.
Time ticked away as you rolled into your pit box. The mechanics lifted the car, but one of the tyres wouldn’t come loose. Your internal timer was screaming at you. You see him enter the box and leave before you get all tyres on, and by the time you exit, he’s got a second and a half on you. You curse out your engineer after learning the pitstop took six seconds.
The race was on, and with him just out of DRS, you had a lot of time to make up. The race was slipping out of your grasp, and you thought of every wrong decision that put you in this position. Did you not slim down enough? Was there an extra gram or two of something on the car? You huff, shaking your head clear of the thoughts. There was no time to think like that, not when there was a slim chance you could still win.
And then it happened.
The screens on the side of the track blinked the letters that turned out to be your saving grace: FCY followed by SC. The limiter flashes on the screen of your steering wheel and suddenly you’re back in the race, seeing his rear end grow closer and closer until you’re right up against him. Finally, after a few laps, your engineer lets you know that the safety car is coming in.
“Be ready,” he warns, “you know he could take off at any point.” And so he does. The exit of turn 16, onto the start straight.
You had him, you didn’t let him slip away, not even for a second. It was close with him for a while, two laps to be exact, before your slipstream and DRS combo took him. Your engineer cheers you on as calmly as he can, his even voice showering you in praise. You breathe through the turns, knowing only a few laps remain between you and this championship. Everything rides on this, everything. Win this last race and your name will be in the history books forever.
And that’s exactly what you did, crossing the finish line with those fireworks going off in the background, nothing could take this from you. You did your cooldown lap, pulling back up to the finish line to do your celebratory donuts, laughing and hollering on the radio with your team. You couldn’t even be bothered that he was there with you, right next to you. You pull into the pitlane, your heart racing as your engineer offers the news that you are not, in fact, the target of any penalties. You sit in your car after pulling up to first place, flipping your visor up and crying, soaking up every emotion possible in this moment. You feel pats and slaps on your helmet, other drivers congratulating you on the win, on the championship. You finally find it in you to leave your car, climbing out slowly and soaking it in, that your name will forever be in the history books. You drop your steering wheel in your car and turn around-
He’s standing right there, his shoulders droop a little more than usual but he stands there, waiting for you. He approaches you slowly, leaving his helmet on.
“Congratulations, you drove well.” He says softly. Interestingly enough, your heart breaks a little for him. You pull him into a half hug.
“Scared me for a minute there, thought I’d lose to you again this year after that pit stop.”
“You underestimate your drive. There’s nothing I could do to stop you in those last laps. Don’t think I’ve ever seen a more beautiful set of last laps to close out.” Your heart races at his words, his praise eliciting a reaction that feels unlike anything you’d ever felt with him. He flicks your visor down as he walks away, getting a small giggle out of you.
Finally, you get to your team. They’re practically bursting over the barricades to congratulate you, chanting your name. You laugh, running up to them, allowing yourself to be bombarded with their congratulatory cheers.
“Go get that damn trophy for us.”
The trophy ceremony was honestly a blur, literally and figuratively. You’re pretty sure you blacked out during it, and tears filled your eyes and rolled down your cheeks. You don’t even remember the party afterwards, the sprays of champagne, the club overflowing with the team’s staff, your teammate getting hammered after helping to win the constructor’s championship as well.
You didn’t remember much until the next morning.
You woke up groaning in the hotel room, your phone buzzing itself off the nightstand. You grabbed your head, this hangover was not going to let you go gently. You snatched your phone off the floor, genuinely surprised that you remembered to plug it in last night.
“Hello?” You answer, your voice hoarse from whooping and cheering all through last night.
“Please tell me you didn’t fuck him, because if you did I’m gonna bury your body where no one will find you.” It’s your publicist, sounding exasperated and also hungover.
“What?”
“Did you fuck him?”
“Fuck who?”
“Friday morning, somebody has a photo of you stumbling out of his room at the goddamn crack of dawn in your dress from the night before.”
“Oh my god.”
“So I’m gonna take that as a yes-” You drop your phone, unwilling to hear the rest as you can just predict how much of a PR nightmare this will be.
“Who knows?”
“It’s a pretty grainy photo, honestly, and it’s posted by one of those deuxmoi wannabe F1 twitter pages… but-”
“But what?”
“If you edit it to make it a little clearer, it’s pretty fucking obvious. It’s circulating pretty fast, but we can put out a statement if it’s not true. So, did you?”
“I didn’t mean to-”
“How many times?” You sigh, rubbing your forehead.
“I don’t know. A lot.” It’s her turn to sigh.
“I’m too hungover to deal with this, but I’ll see what I can do. It… it won’t be a lot, more likely than not we’ll be planning damage control. And of course this comes out the morning after you win the championship, you need to pick your men better.” She hangs up with a click.
You know you shouldn’t, but of course you begin to scroll through social media, seeing everything that’s under your name. Forget the championship, this is the biggest piece of news this sport has seen in a while. And of course nobody’s condemning him, why would they? He’s got a paycheck the size of his goddamn ego and a fanbase that spans continents. You scream into a pillow, throwing your phone across the hotel room. Your phone buzzes on the floor again, and you’re the most sure you’ve ever been that if you dare to check, it’ll be your team principal. He wouldn’t reach out, it’s not his reputation that’s being destroyed. No, he’s being paraded around for hitting that.
Angry tears stream down your cheeks. How could you be so fucking stupid? Of course you were bound to get caught, but they couldn’t let your championship sit undisturbed for one day? The stupid trophy sits on the countertop by the bar, practically taunting you with its presence. The hunk of metal changes from an achievement to an accusation before your eyes. That you slept your way to the top, that he let you have it, that you needed a man to get you to where you are. It makes you sick, and that’s probably why you find yourself hugging the toilet now. It’s not fair, it’s never been fair…
And it will never be fair.
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upsidedownmvnson · 1 year
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the challenge | eddie munson
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warnings: angst, hurt, kinda eddies pov, stupid long & tropey, barely edited
AN: i just love the angst sorry :) also this is the worst trope ever but I LOVE IT. I eat it up. also i know i overuse italics its my fatal flaw. willing to do requests & taglists btw <3
i'm not sure how many words per se but it looks really long so
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"I'll give you a hundred bucks if you can get any of the cheerleaders to go on a date with you."
After band practice, the conversation had devolved into who had school the band thought was hot.
"Please," Eddie tried to scoff off the idea. "When has that idea ever gone well?"
"I'll also give you a hundred," Jeff said, adding to the fire. They probably didn't expect him to go for it. But he could use two hundred bucks...
Eddie rolled the idea around in his mind. Who would he even ask? There was Chrissy Cunningham, she's sweet... but he was pretty sure she was dating Jason, and the last thing Eddie needed was more problems from that guy. But there was you.
You were different. You were still a cheerleader at Hawkins, sitting with the populars and shaking your pom-poms at every game. But you smiled at Eddie in the hall sometimes. And he'd noticed you'll talk to anyone. You weren't mean. So he could probably charm his way into one little date, and then after the date inevitably goes terribly, he'll collect his easy money and you will go on, blissfully unaware.
It's not like you guys would get along or anything.
"What happens if I lose?" Eddie asked.
"You have to put on an embarassing show in the cafeteria," Jeff said. "And easy one."
"Okay," Eddie said after a long silence, "I'll take your money."
The next day at school, Eddie was sitting on the stairs across from your locker like a predator. It was still forty minutes until first bell, so there were very few people in the halls. He had this whole plan in mind. First, he'd wow you with his natural charm, and then leave you lingering in mystery. Easier said than done, when you came walking down the hallway with a skip in your step and a smile on your face.
It made him feel guilty about this whole thing. But you would never know, so what was the harm?
He approached you slowly, slowly panicking about the idea of bothering you. What if you told the basketball team he was bothering you? What if you acted like he grabbed you, or something...
He fears were cut off by you casually saying, "Hey Eddie."
You knew his name? Why did it sound so nice coming from you?
It's because secretly you were always aware of Eddie. There was something about him that always held your attention. After seeing him for a days, you'd become a closeted metal fan. It started to impress him, but you actually did start to like it. You'd always tried to catch his eye, but it was like he didn't really see you.
"Hey, morning," he said, mind focused on his objective. But it was harder when actually looking down at you. You were pretty cute. You had beautiful eyes.
"Good morning," you said, pleasantly confused at the situation. You noticed Eddie had gotten up when you got closer. "Were you waiting for me?"
"Oh, ha, you noticed that," he said, grabbing your locker door as you opened it, and leaned on it, unintentionally making a show of his hand gripping the edge of the locker.
You felt a flutter in your chest, "Well, what can I do for you?"
"I've seen you here early before," Eddie mused, as if he'd ever been here early, but he had his intel. "Thought I could give you a little company."
"That's sweet," you said, smiling like you were hiding a laugh. "I've never seen you around before class. Only coming in late."
"I'm shocked at such an accusation," he said, leaning closer. "It hurts to believe you think so lowly of me." There was a level of teasing in his tone that made butterflies erupt within you.
"You know," you started, "I was supposed to go see Halloween 3 tonight but my girlfriends chickened out..."
"Oh yeah?"
"Well I still want to go," you said. You couldn't hint anymore if you tried. "Are you looking for company tonight?"
"What?" Eddie couldn't mask his surprise. He was supposed to come over here and charm you into a date, but... you asked him?? "Uh yeah, I can take you to the movies."
"What time is your club done? We can go after that," you said, smiling. You were just trying to be considerate, but you were making Eddie weak in the knees. Were you really this aware of him? If anything, he was wondering why you cared more than how you knew.
"I'll see when the late shows plays and make sure we'll be there," he said, "just give me your address, I'll pick you up."
The blush on your cheeks made him smile, but the gentle touch of your hand as you grabbed his arm and pushed the sleeve up, using a marker to write down the street and and number. Eddie was totally at your mercy by this point, but you just had to make worse by bringing his arm up to your face to kiss what you'd written, looking up at him with the devil in your eye.
"Kiss from a maiden has to boost luck, right?"
Suddenly, the terms of the game changed. You asked him out. It was not what he expected. He expected it would take several days before he finally asked you out. He had this whole plan in his mind, and you just... you kissed him on the arm, like it was a normal thing for you to do to him. Now he didn't really want the money, he just wanted you to that again. Feel your soft touch. Anything that would put that look back into your eye.
Everyone at Hellfire could see that Eddie was distracted. His campaign was nothing less than infallible as per usual, but his theatrics were toned down, and he was fumbling over the dice as if he wasn't always paying total attention.
After the session, Jeff and Gareth hung around. Mainly to check on their friend.
"I have to go," Eddie said, fumbling with his bag. He didn't want to tell the guys about you. He didn't want to pop the fantasy of having you all to himself. Not yet.
Eddie still had it in his mind that the date would flop. What chance did he have to impress someone like you? This whole situation was spiralling quickly. And he fucking knew better than to take a stupid bet issued at midnight after a bunch of beers. He should've called it off right there, he should've said it's stupid and objectifying the cheerleaders and that was mean, but he said nothing. He just packed his things, and told his friends he'd see them later.
He didn't have time to go change, he didn't want you to miss your movie because of him. And he was just really anxious to see you again. There was a small part of his brain, a little nagging brain cell, telling him that maybe... just maybe, this date will go well and he can get you to look at him with a sparkle in your eyes.
Your house was right in the middle of suburbia, which had Eddie losing his cool slowly. You were different, and he knew that already, but it was a comfort to remind himself as he drove passed identical, picket fenced houses. Your house was no different. Picket fence, flowers in the window sill, green grass mowed to the same height.
He parked the van and got out, walking through the gate and up the short cobblestone path leading up to your front door. He brought a knuckle up to your door, tapping lightly twice. Maybe you would bail and he wouldn't have to be the bad guy anymore. He looked at the flowers beside the house, and mentally kicked himself for not bringing you anything for you. You deserved flowers.
But you were there, waiting to answer the door a few moments after he knocked. You had counted to ten in your head before he answered, not wanting to seem too keen.
"Hey," you said, dazzling him again with an innocent smile. His voice was stuck in his throat as he looked at you. Eddie hadn't expected your cheerleading outfit or anything... but what didn't expect was a cropped Slayer shirt. It looked like you had cut it yourself, but he couldn't let himself get caught staring at the frayed edges, because that's where the exposed skin was, tempting him to look. Or worse, tempting him to reach out, running his calloused fingers over the skin that looked painfully soft.
"Hey," he say quietly, still trying to wrap his head around what was happening. How had he managed to fuck this up before talking to you for the first time? "Sorry I didn't get flowers or change or do anything all at to impress you. I kinda rushed right from school."
"You want to impress me?"
Eddie's mind was reeling. "Is there anyone out there who doesn't?"
You giggled, and Eddie didn't think he could take it anymore. If he just spilled his guts right now, he could stop himself a world of confusion. After this, he'd probably be stuck with the image of you for weeks. He's probably caused him heartache and pain when this doesn't work out. Or... worse... it does work out and one of his idiot friends tells you how this started, and then he was still heartbroken and fucked.
Eddie said nothing as he led you to the van.
On the way to the movies it was quiet, but not uncomfortable. You asked him about his day, which made him blush because, it's a simple that people never really asked him. Especially beautiful cheerleaders.
He didn't know how he was supposed to forget this. How could he continue to drive Jeff and Gareth around while he's seen you in his passenger seat... with a Slayer shirt on.
"Can I pick something?" you asked, finding a small stash of cassettes under the seat.
"Sure," he said. He's pretty sure he would've let you do whatever you wanted, as long as you stayed beside him in this van forever.
You slipped the current tape out, and slipped in Metallica. Fight Fire with fire came on and you sat back in your seat.
"Why this one?" he asked. He wanted to know. He wanted you to give some cheesy answer so he could figure out an excuse to not like you, to fight all the reasons he was starting to like you anyway. It was just a shirt, maybe you didn't listen to them at all.
"For Whom the Bell Tolls is my favourite right now," you said casually.
"What about Slayer? What's your favourite?"
"You quizzin' me?" you quipped, laughing as Eddie widened his eyes. You cut him off before he could apologize. "Die by the Sword." You drummed your fingers absentmindedly against your jeans. "Always had this fantasy about riding into battle, yaknow, Lord of the Rings style."
"Who are you?" Eddie asked, fingers gripping the steering wheel tighter. "You like Lord of the Rings and Slayer." He said it as a fact, not a question. With every casual answer you gave, a knife was turning in his stomach, reminding him that he was the bad guy. He took a stupid bet, from his stupid friends, and it was keeping him from enjoying this moment fully. There was a little voice reminding him that what he's doing, is shit people like Jason Carver would do.
"Yes, and?"
And nothing. You were just casting a spell on Eddie that he would need a miracle to undo. "So you're a hidden freak."
"Being hidden is lame," you said, "I wouldn't lie if they asked."
"Who is they?" he asked.
"The other cheerleaders, the jocks, anyone at school really."
"You don't get along with the other cheerleaders?"
"No, I do. They're my girls. <3" You smiled, biting the skin beside your thumb. "I just don't talk about fantasy epics with them, they're not really interested."
"I don't know," he teased, pulling into the movie theatre parking lot. "You don't really seem like any cheerleaders I know."
"And how many cheerleaders do you know?"
He laughed, parking the car. He was starting to ease into it a little more. Enjoying your presence while he can. "Fair enough."
"Shaking those pom-poms is going to get me a scholarship, and a scholarship will get me out of here." The words were less airy and playful than the rest had been. He'd taken note of your serious tone when talking about getting out of here. There was hardly a line, most of the movies started a couple minutes earlier, there were just a few Halloween stragglers.
"In a rush out of here?" he asked. He wanted to know everything about you.
"You could say that," you said. "I don't have a problem with Hawkins but my parents are... I just..." you trailed off. "Let's not ruin a good time."
He nodded, not needing to hear anything else. After light squabbling about who would pay for the tickets, Eddie passed his money over to the ticket guy, who had an obvious line of sight to your stomach. Or maybe it was your chest he was staring at, either away, Eddie was finding it really annoying. He used his arm to gently guide you behind him, blocking most of the box office employees view.
He felt protective over you. Which is ironic, because at the start of the day he had a plan to woo you, to take you on a date for a bet. And now, he wanted to protect you from hurt.
The worst kind of hypocrite.
The conversation died when the two of you shuffled into the little theatre. The movie had been out long enough that it wasn't too busy. It was nice, being in the dark together, silently watching the movie. You weren't really scared, but you still liked it. Eddie however, wasn't loving it as much as you.
Eddie was having such a nice time, that he was able to push the bet out of his mind completely.
After the movie, pretty much everything was closed, except the 24 hour diner a little bit down the highway, so that's where he took you. He drove about twenty minutes just to eat greasy cheeseburgers and sickeningly sweet milkshakes because he just couldn't bare for this night to be over yet.
"Guess I gotta get you home," Eddie said after the food. "It's already passed midnight."
"Oh that's okay," you said, leaving money on the table for food. "They'll be gone until next week anyway. I don't they'd care when I got home."
Eddie wanted to ask, but he could tell your parents weren't something you liked to talk about.
"Well, if we've both nowhere to be, maybe we should stick together."
"Why don't you take me home anyway and we can watch another movie."
"I'd like that."
The ride back to your place seemed shorter, or maybe he was just excited to see where you live. He wanted to see your room. He was so curious about you. He just wanted to know everything.
Your house was quiet, pitch black and lonely... like it always was. You let him in, and he awkwardly shuffled in behind you. He copied what you did by taking your shoes off by the door. Your house opened into the living room, with stairs right beside.
"Can I see your room?" he asked, half expecting you to say no but you answered with a quick "sure!" and led him up the stairs. He watched your ass the whole time you walked ahead of him.
"It's kinda boring," you said, opening the door. There wasn't really much to it. A few posters on the wall; a couple were bands he liked and there were a few movie posters too. Your cassettes were all stacked on your desk neatly, and there were vinyls beside that, a small table there to hold the record player. He was talking and poking through them, while you sat on the bed, watching him intently. He was shocked to see you actually had some of the same things he did. And you... you had bands he didn't know. One day, he was totally going to borrow those.
He kept chatting as he poked around. This morning, neither one of you could have predicted being here like this. He stopped talking mid sentence, and you could see him looking more at the desk than the music now. You curiously tried to peak at what he was looking at.
"Is this a dnd character sheet?" he asked.
"Oh!" you laughed, standing and joining him by the desk. "Yeah, it is. I'd been trying to work up the nerve to ask you to teach me, but, I guess I didn't have to."
And just like that, you had him.
You had him totally and fully and he wished he'd never taken that stupid challenge with his stupid friends about the stupid money. His mind was emotional soup.
"You were gunna ask me to teach you dungeons and dragons?" he asked, totally stunned into silence, again.
"Well..." you blushed, turning away from him. He saw it though. "I kind of have a crush on you, Eddie. Maybe before tonight it wasn't like... real, because I didn't actually know you but..." You smiled, so soft and sweet, it made Eddie feel warm and vulnerable. "Now I know it is real."
What was he supposed to do? Look at you while you're vulnerable like that and just tell you what he's done? No shot. No fucking way would he let any of his dumb choices get in the way of, whatever this was going to be.
"I like you, too," he said finally, smiling back at you. The problem was, while it was true, it didn't feel as genuine. He did like you, but that's not how it started.
And what was he supposed to do when you looked like you wanted a kiss? Not kiss you? That would be rude.
Eddie leaned in slowly, and so did you. He brought his hand up, coddling your face and brushing a thumb over your cheek. He said, "you're so beautiful," before closing the gap and putting his mouth on yours. It was small, mouths parted and puckered, moving slowly. It was a short kiss, but a tender first one.
Until you said, "sorry if I'm not a good kisser, I haven't done much kissing," with a blush.
"You haven't done much kissing?"
"Yeah, I'm sorry I'm so... inexperienced."
"No, it's okay! I don't really get to kiss anyone either."
"You can kiss me whenever you want," you said, bounce in your step as you grabbed his hand and led him back downstairs.
You let him pick a movie while you set up the couch with some blankets. He settled beside you one the couch once the movie started, and you snuggled into his side as if you owned it. Which may as well be true already, and passed out within five minutes of the movie starting. He told himself sternly that he would leave when the movie was over, and he did mean it. But he also rested his head on yours and tried to fall asleep before he saw any credits.
Which he did.
Monday morning rolling around was another one of Eddie's punishments. The bliss of his imaginary life came hurdling towards the end, and it was filling him with anxiety. Like, so fucking much anxiety.
At school, he'd be unable to avoid his friends. Eddie had spent much of Saturday morning lounging at your house with you. You two made breakfast, listened to some music, and then watched a movie. He had to leave eventually, since he didn't want to kiss you with morning breath. But he'd called you that night... and the one after that. He just couldn't get enough of you.
Eddie had avoided his best friends most of the morning, mostly by just being late. Unfortunately, that also had meant he'd avoided you. He'd hoped you'd come into the cafeteria first. He was biting his nails, his leg rapidly shaking up and down. You had said he can kiss you anytime... did that mean school, too? He hoped so. He hoped you would come into the freaking cafeteria.
But his fantasy bubble had officially popped when Jeff grabbed him by the shoulders from behind, scaring him.
"Bud, you've been holding out on us."
"What are you talking about?" Eddie asked. Gareth and Jeff sat at the table with him.
"Same thing that everyone is talking about, you and y/n."
"What?" Eddie had been so focused on not talking to anyone that he hadn't heard anything.
"Someone's sister saw you leaving her house on Saturday, and I distinctly remember you rushing out of Hellfire on Friday."
"What are people saying?"
"Some are saying drugs, some are saying you guys have sex. Did you? Did you have sex with her?"
"No," Eddie said, effectively wiping the smile off Gareth's face. "But I may have slept there."
His friends looked at each other, and then at him, and Eddie took one selfish moment to be excited about it. It was his fatal mistake.
"Are you guys gunna go out again?" Jeff asked. Eddie grinned, and nodded.
"Well, a deal is a deal. Here goes all my savings on some dumb bet," Gareth said.
They should've had a sign, some bat signal that Eddie could show above the entire student body that would get his best friends to shut the fuck up because you were behind them, walking closer and smiling at Eddie with that same sweet smile on your face.
You must have slipped in when he was talking to the guys. He tried to shush Gareth without being obvious, but Gareth was being so fucking loud. If he didn't shut up soon you were going to hear him. Eddie's heart was racing. Jeff kicked Gareth, but apparently not hard enough because he just kept talking.
Eddie's heart was going to beat out of his chest... like in Alien...
"I can't believe you got y/n on a date in like, one day." Gareth scoffed. "Maybe you let her in on it for some of the money. Last time I make a bet with you losers."
And it was like watching a star die. Your beautiful smile gone, replaced with a quivering lip and a look in your eye that reflected agony, instead of the little bit of trouble he loved so much. Eddie was going to throw up. For a second you two just looked at each other, Eddie had his hands an inch off the table, he was shaking.
He fucking knew this scenario never worked out for anyone.
And then you were running out of there, and he was hot on your heels. It must have looked bad, you running out crying while Eddie chased you. After rumors of drugs deals and scandalous sex, the fire was most definitely stoked.
Eddie shouted after you, following you all the way outside. Out there, where no one was really lingering, you turned around. There were a few tears rolling down your cheeks, and you chewed on the skin of your lip.
"Please tell me that it doesn't mean what it sounds like," you begged, stepping closer. The hurt tone of your voice sent a dagger into his chest with every word. He did this. "If you can just-" you hiccuped, "tell me that. Then we can go to the diner and we can go, we can go wherever you want. Anywhere. Just tell me that it wasn't what it sounded like."
Eddie didn't say anything. He couldn't.
He didn't have anything good enough to say.
You just watched him with tears in your eyes. It seemed like you were begging him with your eyes. He wished he had anything to tell you. It wasn't what it seemed like, or maybe it was for a good cause. But he didn't have anything.
"But," you cried, "but you said you liked me."
"I do like you," he said quickly, his voice surprisely hoarse. Being able to say something true made him spring into action. "I like you so much. I'm so sorry, I'm really so so fucking sorry, but please. Just let me make it up to you. Obviously I don't want the money, I was going to tell them it's off but I just... I didn't, I don't know why. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry."
"What was the bet?"
"What?"
"What were the terms and conditions of the bet?"
"Is that... really productive..." he trailed off when he looked at you. Eddie sighed, and looked to his feet for some kind of comfort. He found none. "Two hundred bucks for a date with any of the cheerleaders. If I fail I embarrass myself at purpose at school."
"You were right that wasn't productive," you said.
"I'm so sorry," he said, "I can still fix it."
"Do what you want. I'm going home."
"Let me take you."
"No, no... you've done plenty, thanks."
And against what he really wanted, he let you go. If you didn't want him around right now he wouldn't push it. Eddie would just have to fix this. He had a plan to woo you once, he could do it again. But this time it would be because he knows he can treat you right. He can be the guy you deserve. He would bring you flowers. He'd never hurt you.
...this was just a really bad example... that's all.
764 notes · View notes
resowrites · 11 months
Text
Holy Grail - drabble.
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Summary: Henry develops a fixation for a certain part of his pregnant wife’s body…
Pairings: AU!Henry Cavill x Wife!OC
Warnings: fluff, banter/British humour, sexy talk, language, dialogue heavy, nondescript OC body type/appearance, hastily written/lightly proofread.
WC: 635
A/N: My work must not be copied, reposted, or translated elsewhere. Likes, follows, reblogs and comments are thoroughly welcome and appreciated! Gifs/pics not my own. I hope you all enjoy and thanks for visiting!
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Holy Grail - drabble.
"Whoa--"
"Henry, get out, I'm trying to get dry!" He quickly turned around as she grabbed the towel from the bed and clutched it to her chest.
"I'm sorry! I came in here to fetch Kal so I could give him his tea!" But the pooch was still fast asleep at the foot of their bed.
"Well you better get out of here before he wakes up, you know how protective of me he is at the moment."
"I know, the soppy git…"
"He's soppy?! You almost had a panic attack yesterday when you thought I ate shrimp! And he picked up following me into every room from you!"
"Yeah well at least I don't guard you when you're in the shower--"
"Well thank God for Kal, otherwise you'd be leering at me through the glass!"
"At least then I'd get a look at them! Come on, drop that towel, and lemme see if I can't tune in for the news and weather--"
"Out, now! I wanna get dry in peace."
"Then here, let me help…" Henry took a few steps forward only for her to dart under the bed so she could fetch something. "What the hell is the broom doing under there?!"
"I had to bring it up last night to squish a spider on the ceiling and now I'm going to use it to get rid of another pest."
"My lady may call me whatever she wishes. For she is beautiful, rich, and got huge… tracts of land!"
"That's it! I'm not enduring Monty Python quotes. You're banned from my presence the rest of the evening. Be gone!" She tried to jab with the broom only for him to dart out of the way.
"Aww come on, when was the last time we got to knock boots?"
"Last bloody night!"
"Then you should be warmed up by now!"
"God give me strength… anyway I thought you just wanted to cop a feel?"
"Well I'll take whatever I can get--"
"Yeah well by the time I'm finished with this broom, you'll be able to sweep the floor!"
"Charming, all I wanted was to enjoy the beauty of my pregnant wife! Honestly, it looks like you're holding up two ten-gallon hats--"
"God you belong on a bloody list… can't you go one night without being a pervert?"
"No, but I'll tell you what, you flash me lefty and I'll give you a hundred quid."
"A hundred quid?"
"Yeah, would you prefer cash or bank transfer?"
"Is that all you think I'm worth?!"
"Well, it's not like you're giving me a handful!"
"And how much would you pay for that? I was thinking of redoing the kitchen…"
"What? Why? I did a good job of the tiling!"
"Henry, two fell off just this morning!"
"Then let little Henry have a dance in your ballroom and I'll fix it for free!"
"Will you also disappear back downstairs?"
"God, you always want to get rid of me!"
"Yeah, cos you get on my sodding tits!"
"I bloody wish!" She looked up at the ceiling and prayed for guidance.
"Henry, give me one good reason why I should have sex with you tonight."
"I can do better than that, I can regale you with song."
"What?!" Henry cleared his throat.
"Every sperm is sacred, every sperm is great. If a sperm is wasted, God gets quite irate!" She perched on the edge of the bed with her head in her hands.
"I can't actually believe I'm having your child…"
"I can, especially after last night. Now get thee to bed, and let's go for round two--"
"Really? You're reciting Shakespeare now?"
"Well I thought that might do the trick--"
"Fat chance."
"Why not? I can leave the money on the bedside table--" she chucked a pillow at him.
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heyyyharry · 1 year
Text
Night Light (from the Flatmate series)
...in which Y/N never turns off her night light.
"Wait for me in my room. It's the door on the right," he whispered to the girl whose name he'd already forgotten. He'd just met her an hour ago as he was leaving the club.
The girl kissed him drunkenly, and when she was gone, he came into Y/N's room to turn the light off. She'd fallen asleep with her book covering her face, so he removed the book, put it on her desk and left quietly.
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A/N: I always fall asleep with the light on, and ever since I moved in with my boyfriend, it's become a routine for him to go into my room (we have separate rooms) to turn off the light for me. That was how I came up with this :)
.
.
.
She forgot to turn off her night light. Again.
See, this was why Harry hated sharing a flat with someone else. He had reminded her so many times before to turn it off before she went to bed, but every night, she would doze off with her book still in her hands. No wonder their electricity bill last month was so high. He had hoped that this girl would be less annoying when she slept, but she always managed to find a way to get on his nerves.
After a long moment of standing outside her door (which she left open for some reason), he decided to come in and turn off the light on her bedside table.
In the morning, he reminded her again. She promised she would turn off the light tonight.
She didn't.
~~~
Harry came home late, stumbling into the flat with his arm around the girl. She giggled too loud, so he shushed her and gestured to Y/N's door. The living room was softly lit by the warm light coming from her room, but he knew she was too deep in her sleep to know that he was home.
"Wait for me in my room. It's the door on the right," he whispered to the girl whose name he'd already forgotten. He'd just met her an hour ago as he was leaving the club.
The girl kissed him drunkenly and when she was gone, he came into Y/N's room to turn the light off. She'd fallen asleep with her book covering her face, so he removed the book, put it on her desk and left quietly.
~~~
Harry was in Paris tonight with his friends for Layla's birthday.
Y/N had stopped responding to his messages, so he assumed she had fallen asleep. As he sat on the sofa, drinking cheap wine with his friends while a shitty EDM song was blasting from Louis' Bluetooth speaker, he thought about Y/N sleeping with her light on.
~~~
"You're awake?"
Y/N looked up at him from her laptop, face lit by the cool light from her screen. "Yeah, deadline."
"That's what you get for procrastinating," he smirked.
"Can you procrastinate annoying me? I can't deal with you right now."
"Need help?"
"No, thanks."
"You sure?"
She gave him a dismissive wave. "I'm sure. Thank you. Goodnight."
"Goodnight," he said. "Remember to turn off the light."
"I will."
Harry went to his room and lay in the dark for an hour or so. When he came back to check on her, she had fallen asleep and her light was still on.
~~~
Harry was well aware that he was drunk when he entered the flat as the room was spinning. He didn't know how he managed to make it to Y/N's room without knocking over furniture, but he wanted to give himself a pat on the back.
As expected, she'd fallen asleep, again, with the light on. He sat down on the edge of her bed, not because he wanted to, but because he felt so dizzy that standing only made it worse.
"Goodnight," he whispered to her, hesitated for a moment before turning off the light.
Right after he'd left her room, he went straight into the bathroom to throw up.
~~~
He had been avoiding her all day, for reasons even he didn't understand.
It was 1AM when he came into her room to turn off the light. Before he left, he told her something he wasn't brave enough to say when she was awake. He went back to bed, worried that she might have heard it.
She hadn't.
~~~
Harry tried to be as quiet as he could, but when he came in to turn off the light tonight, Y/N stirred awake.
She blinked sleepily at him. "Hi."
"Hi," he said nervously. "Just gonna turn the light off for you."
"Thank you," she said with a smile.
"Goodnight," he said and switched the light off.
"Goodnight. I love you."
The three words froze him when he turned away. They'd confessed their feelings to each other last night, so why did it still feel like the first time?
"I...love you, too," he said, smiling shyly at her. He was thinking of kissing her before he left, but she'd already buried herself under the duvet.
~~~
"Do you want to cuddle before bed?"
Her bed was warm and smelt like her. He gave her a lot of kisses as she read her book with her head on his chest. When she fell asleep, he reached over to turn off the light.
~~~
Harry came back late for a business dinner today and she was still awake.
"It's already midnight," he said, loosening his tie.
She smiled up from her book. "We couldn't go to bed without you."
He kissed her on the lips and then her baby bump. "I'll take a shower and join you both."
When he returned, she'd fallen asleep. Harry turned off the light and carefully slipped into bed.
~~~
"Ria fell asleep with the light on, again," Y/N complained as she returned to bed from her daughter's room.
Harry chuckled, pulling her into his arms. "Like mother, like daughter. I had to turn off your light for you for years."
"I had my reasons."
"Oh yeah? What were they?" he asked, stroking her hair.
She grinned up at him. "At first, I wanted to annoy you. Then you kept doing that so I didn't bother to turn off the light anymore."
"Why am I not surprised at all?" Harry laughed, but he was glad she'd deliberately done it in the first place. "Now could you turn off the light on your side, please?"
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newtonsheffield · 9 days
Note
Cool cool cool cool but having now brought us to edge of collective tears over author Anthony’s plight could you soothe and delight us with a snippet of one of these lunches once they’re actually together?
Oh they’d be so sweet.
Anthony 100% checking with Kate every morning before she leaves for work and asks her if she has a lunch meeting that day.
Kate leans over the bed, already gone for a run and dressed for work and kisses him “I don’t.”
Anthony looked up a little hopefully. “Can I take you to lunch?”
Kate chuckled, “You took me to lunch 2 days ago.”
“I don’t think there’s a law preventing us from eating lunch together again.”
Kate narrowed her eyes, “You owe me pages then. At least another chapter.”
“More fool you.” Anthony kissed her again, “I have many a page you haven’t gotten to eviscerate yet.”
Kate rolled her eyes, as she tugged her heels on. “I’ll use a fresh red pen and everything.” She deposited Newton on the bed beside Anthony. “Be good for Papa Newton.”
Anthony’s always waiting for her at 12:30 exactly. He still buys a fresh shirt and he’s got Newton straining on his leash beside him as they wait outside her office, chatting with Lucy. Kate’s heart flutters in her chest when he waves at her through the glass walls of her office just like it used to every time she saw him. She makes her way out and kisses his cheek and she loves the way he hums contentedly at her presence. This man who wrote the most romantic book in the world just about, wrote it for her.
“Ready?”
Kate reaches out and plucks the Manila envelope from under his arm that she knows contain his pages before she intertwines their fingers. “You bet. You look Handsome today. Purple was a nice choice.”
They sit on the same side of the booth now at a dog friendly restaurant with Newton napping at their feet and Anthony’s arm around Kate’s shoulders as they eat and kate quickly reads his new pages.
At some point Anthony always clears his throat as they sit there.
“I just um… god, I really love you.”
Kate can hardly breathe with it. “Yeah, I love you too. You’re still my best friend.”
And it’s just like he imagined all those times when she kisses him quickly at her office door.
“I love you, Ant. I’ll see you at home.”
“Yeah, yes. I’ll see you at home.”
Home. They both live there and it’s their home.
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peachhflavoredblood · 18 days
Text
Far too gone to get out, Far too sane to disappear.
I wrote this for my lovely friend, Maki (@dazai-ritualist) and her yandere Alastor au which I swear is my favorite thing ever. She's literally the sweetest thing ever and if you like yandere Alastor, you will be in heavan. Please please follow and read the series. I swear you won't regret it!!!
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"I find that the harder you seem to grip, the more you seem to drop, my love."
Alastor had been quiet the past few days. That was…never good. If he was quiet, it meant he needed to be in deep thought…and if he needed to be in deep thought, you were royally fucked.
Today had been no different. You had woken up late, You went down to the kitchen, where your son and Alastor sit in the wooden breakfast nook that you and Alastor had built together before…all of this.
Everything was normal…
That was bad.
“Mama! Hi! Good morning! Papa-” Noah gets up to run over to you like he always would when he woke up before you in the hotel…you smile fondly. It was almost like you were back home…almost like you were normal.
“Alright, Dear. Let’s let mama wake up now, shall we?”
But of course, Alastor just had to crush that. You frown and walk towards your cabinets…the beautiful light green ones you had once taken such care of before…this.
Your husband hands you a cup of coffee, smiling soft enough to not alert Noah but with far too much of an edge to be sweet.
You almost turn as green as your cabinets and throw up. You don’t, though. Not in front of Noah. You’d seen parents argue and you wouldn’t let your son go through that.
Part of you knew it wasn’t arguing, it was survival but that part had long since been silenced.
“The station is having a late start today…something about the end of lent or something to that effect. Never-the-matter, it gave me time to cook this morning. I haven’t had time to cook for him yet.” Alastor gestured to Noah, to which your little boy beamed, just like you had when your marriage had been friendly…platonic…perfect.
Oh how you longed for the days where you’d leave each other alone. Where your house was safe. Where you could do whatever you so wished. Where you could not only not be afraid but also joyful. Where you could be happy.
Because you weren’t happy. Not anymore. From what you’ve read, you were very clearly struggling with depression. However, you knew that seeing a shrink wasn’t an option for you. 
Yeah, no. You weren’t going to give Alastor the chance to say “Mama’s not crazy, my dear, don’t listen to the people down the street…She’s just a little unwell in the head right now. Now smile, she wouldn’t want to see you sad.” To your son. That was not fucking happening.
Alastor looked at you, smiling like the sick, sadistic monster he was.You were stuck. He knew that. He knew that you were in your own head more so than you should, especially when Noah was at school.
He knew you didn’t have anything to keep yourself busy with, hell, he basked in that fact. The fact that you were slowly losing all drive to fight and just accept this was like music to his ears.
You were running out of people to talk to. Running out of neighbors to ask for sugar when you very clearly had a perfectly fine bag in your cupboard.
You were running out of sanity.
Day-by-day, you were slowly becoming more-and-more malleable, more-and-more agreeable, more-and-more lonely, more-and-more unstable. 
You were becoming what he wanted.
And may god or whatever else is out there help you find a way out before it was too late.
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mertronus · 29 days
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Tricks and Stones
Read it on AO3 or keep reading below
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Hermione stood at the opening of the tent and stretched. She had been inside reading all morning and needed to move around a bit. She was feeling stagnant and restless.
She smiled at Harry who was lost in thought, and considered sitting beside him to check in but noticed the locket dangling around his neck.
No, she thought, better to leave him be for now.
So instead she set off to see where Ron had gone. They were situated on some rocks near the edge of a lake. Hermione hoped that they could procure a couple of fish later for dinner.
A flash of red hair near the lake's edge caught her attention and she quickly navigated down the slippery rocks to get to Ron's side. It had been a rough few days with Ron, filled with rows and grumbling. She missed her Ron.
Maybe since he's not wearing the locket, we can have a good moment.
Hermione reached Ron's side just as he swung his arm back and whipped a stone into the quiet surface of the water. It skipped four times before it sank into the water. She smiled at the memories the scene garnered.
“Wow,” Hermione said. “Good one.”
Ron looked over at her and gave her his signature lopsided grin. That grin always seemed to send butterflies swirling around her belly.
“Thanks,” he said, his voice a bit gruff. Hermione figured he hadn’t used it in a while.
He picked up another flat stone and sent it into the lake—it skipped the water three times. Hermione pulled her eyes away from him and faced the water, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath. Yes, stepping out of the tent was a wonderful idea.
“Y’alright?” Ron asked.
Hermione nodded then opened her eyes to look back at Ron. “Yeah. I just…I got tired of reading.” She ignored his exaggerated look of surprise but the corner of her lip twitched as she fought a smile and continued. “I just needed to get up and move.”
Ron looked her up and down, an unreadable expression on his face. “Yeah…I get that.” He stooped, found another stone, swung his arm back, and let it fly across the water. This one skipped the water five times before it disappeared.
“You’re really good at that,” Hermione mused. She eyed a flat stone a few inches in front of her feet and her fingers twitched.
“Want to learn?”
“I—” Hermione stopped herself and a new thought formed in her mind. She smiled and nodded. “Sure. Show me how.”
Ron stooped and grabbed the very stone Hermione had been eyeing. “The trick is to find a nice flat one.” He held up the stone so Hermione could see and she stifled her smile. “Not too flat, mind, but definitely not round. And smooth too.” He took her hand and placed the stone in hers, his fingers lingering for a moment. Hermione looked up and her eyes caught on his, which were bright blue in the afternoon sun.
“Alright,” she forced herself to say.
“Um…” Ron broke eye contact and scanned the ground, finding a stone of his own. “Now…you don’t want to just throw it into the water, you want to flick it so it will bounce across the surface.” Ron demonstrated and they watched his stone hit the water one, two, three times.
“Alright, then,” Hermione said. She rolled her shoulders back, took a similar stance to Ron, and flung her stone into the water. It went straight in with a neat kerplunk.
Ron chuckled. “Needs some work.”
Hermione huffed. She reached down for a new stone. “This one flat enough?”
Ron surveyed it and then looked around their feet. “Here,” he bent and picked up a new stone. “Try this one better.”
Once in her fingers, Hermione swung her arm back in a fair imitation of Ron and threw the stone right into the water. She stomped her foot and pouted, feeling like a petulant child. Ron simply laughed and shook his head.
“Look, try this,” he grabbed a new rock and stood beside her. “When you find your rock, get kind of low and tilted.” She imitated his stance and tried not to feel silly. “Good. And when you throw, don’t just throw it like you’re tossing a quaffle. Toss is sort of sideways and flick your wrist a bit. Swish and flick.”
Hermione stood straight up and scowled at him. “Oh, haha, very funny.”
Ron laughed. “Sorry, couldn’t help it. But no, it’s true, it’s all in the flick of the wrist.”
“Alright,” Hermione toyed with the stone in her hand as she once again copied Ron’s stance. “Like this?” She pulled her arm back and attempted to flick her wrist, but the stone simply dropped into the water.
Ron laughed. “No,” he said shaking his head. He sighed, rubbing the back of his neck with his hand. “Um…” He glanced around. “Let’s try this.” He picked up a new stone and got behind Hermione. He put one hand on her waist and the other hand on hers after he’d handed her the new rock. Hermione had to fight not to close her eyes at the feeling of his warm fingers on her, burning through the fabric of her shirt. Her heart was racing and with his chest against her back, she wondered if he couldn’t feel it. She took a steadying breath, but it didn’t help. His scent was wrapping around her like the very best drug. All she had to do was close her eyes and lean back into him, lean back into the high-
“Y’okay?”
His warm breath on her ear made her jump slightly.
“Yeah,” she squeaked. “Yeah, I’m fine.” She almost turned to face him but she realized that if she did, they would be mere millimeters apart. She wondered for just a moment if he would—
No. No, of course not.
“Alright now bring your arm back but keep it low,” Ron instructed, moving his arm with hers. She tried so hard not to focus on the low, grumbly timber of his voice—and the way it made her body feel. “And when you throw, put most of the movement into the wrist.”
They tried like that a few times with no results. When Ron released her, she fought the urge to shudder from the sudden chill. She missed his warmth.
When she tried on her own, without the distraction of her personal Ronald Weasley blanket, the stone skipped once and then sunk.
“Yes!” Ron cheered. “There you go! I knew you could do it!”
Hermione grinned at his praise.
“Let’s go for two, yeah?”
“Maybe three?” Hermione offered.
Ron shook his head with a laugh. “Don’t push your luck.”
After a few more tries, Hermione’s stone skipped across the water twice and they both erupted in cheers. Ron wrapped his arms around her and lifted her off her feet in a hug, swinging her around once in celebration.
When he placed her down, she looked up at him wide-eyed. He cleared his throat and took a step back. “Knew you had it in you,” he smiled. She smiled back. After a moment, both of their smiles faded in the awkward silence.
Ron glanced at his watch and then back to the tent. “I uh…I should probably go and relieve Harry,” he mumbled. Hermione nodded and sighed as he turned to walk away. Relieving Harry from watch also meant relieving Harry of the locket. She knew her short glimpse of the Ron she knew and loved was gone for the day.
It was fun while it lasted, she thought as he disappeared over the rocks. Hermione turned back to the water and lost herself in thought for a moment. She glanced back to be sure Ron had cleared the rocks and was out of sight. Then, she picked up a flat pebble, toyed with it in her hand for a moment, and swung her arm back sending it flying across the water with a perfect flick.
It skipped the surface of the water five times and then sank. Hermione smiled, thoughts of skipping stones with her dad now intermingled with the fresh thoughts of Ron.
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blackbat05 · 1 year
Text
Peace Offering
Jason Todd x Reader (University AU)
Plot: You and Jason have gotten on each other nerves ever since you knew each other. This time, Jason may have gone a little too far. Does he have a solution?
Genre: PG-13
A/N: The headcanon of Jason studying Literature will go with me to my grave lmao. Not really enemies to lovers but you can see it as the beginning stage if you want! My fics always welcome different interpretations. Wrote this in one shot because I'm so done with my thesis and needed an outlet. Hence I'm sorry for the short fic and lack of brain cells. Hope you still enjoy though.
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"Bird brain!"
"Uh oh, the baroness arrives." Jason dramatically mocks as you marched over.
"What the hell is wrong with you!"
"What's got in your pants?"
"Answer the question." You weren't having it this time. Your paper was due in less than twelve hours and your laptop has mysteriously gone missing when you woke up this morning to attempt to finish the last bit.
"Oh. That..." He gives you a lopsided grin that you want to slap off. If only he didn't look like a model that jumped out of Calvin Klein's front page. "I may have used it to complete my English Literature thesis. Researching the emergence of female writers in the 19th century and their impact on modern literature can take a lot out of you." He states that as if it's a well-known fact.
"My laptop." You had no time for the tiki-taka today.
"Yeah... I may have bought your laptop on a stakeout and it got broken in half by the Riddler..." Jason trails off, actually looking sheepish.
"What. Did. You. Say?" You grit your teeth, unable to process what he had just told you.
"Went on a stakeout."
You exploded. "You're a real piece of work you know that Todd? I'm so close to submitting my final paper and now I may not be able to graduate because of you!"
Before Jason can utter another word, you slammed the door on the way out, leaving him in the dust.
***
The professor signals the end of class, reminding everyone to submit their papers before the lecture hall empties out. You slowly pack your belongings, hesitant to make your way to the formidable woman.
But what must come, will come. You take a deep breath, rehearsing what you had practiced in front of the mirror. You'll beg if you had to.
"Uh, professor?"
What you didn't expect was the woman to smile at you through her silver-rimmed glasses. "Y/N. I'm impressed. You've outdone yourself this time."
"Excuse me?"
"I saw you submitted your paper already. I took a brief look at it, and your conclusion is stunning. I have high hopes for the rest of your paper." She slings her bag over her shoulder. "Happy graduation."
Stunned, all you could do was give a numb nod. You're left alone in the lecture hall, but not for long. The door opens to reveal Menace Number One - Jason Todd.
Jason Todd who's holding your laptop that looks as good as new. He quietly makes his way to you, extending what was meant to be a peace offering. You wait for him to explain.
"I know I've been a dick to you and this probably tops it all. I'm really sorry. None of... everything that I said to you was real. Sorry." Jason repeats his apology for good measure. When he notices you're still keeping silent, he continues.
"You were right, I was an idiot for doing that. I wanted to tell you that Babs was trying to fix it but it was going to take longer than I expected. I didn't expect she was going to have it already. Then again, it's her after all." He chuckles.
Silence. Were you mad that he got someone else to solve his mess?
"I wrote your conclusion. Hope you don't mind. I thought it was the least I could do for being such a jerk to you."
Jason towered over you but yet he couldn't seem to make eye contact. It was only by hearing you huff did he dare to look at you.
"I'm glad you know how much of an arsehole you were to me all this time."
Jason is on the edge waiting for you to continue.
"But thank you for doing all this for me. I'm really sorry too. For everything I've said to you. I don't think you're annoying. You're pretty smart." You give a small smile, causing Jason to break into a bigger one.
"What was that?"
For a spilt second, your smile slides off your face. "Don't push it, Todd." You take the laptop from his hands, making a mental note to thank Barbara the next time you see her. Making your way out of the lecture hall, Jason has become his usual self again. And this time, you didn't feel like your blood pressure was going to skyrocket.
"Aw come on! Say that one more time please?"
"You were a huge jerk?"
"You know that's not what I meant."
"Mm hm, a big baby then?"
"Come on!"
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i'm outta my head over you Pt. 7
prologue (Pt. 1) | Pt. 2 | Pt. 3 | Pt. 4 | Pt. 5 | Pt. 6 | AO3 | playlist
this is the last chap of my steddie week fic!! i have a little blurb i may do for tomorrow's open ended prompt, but for now, here's the last @steddie-week prompt: misunderstandings
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Robin stops him as they’re herding the gremlins into their respective vehicles. You’d think that after nearly five hours of spending the four barely adults’ money would be enough time at the arcade. But no. They’re all fighting them on leaving. As if they all won’t be asleep by the time they get home.
“Once you get it done, you may want to get up early.”
“Uh..what?”
“Steve always goes for a run at like ass o’clock in the morning.” she’s speaking low and fast to try and not draw attention to them, but their normal level of volume with one another is normally 100 times louder than this, so she’s really doing the exact opposite. “If you get up early enough, you can leave it for him while he’s gone.”
“Okayokay, I got it! Now stop making this weird.”
She looks around to find Steve already staring at the two of them questioningly.
“Oh shit… OKAY, YEAH, GOOD LUCK WITH YOUR DATE EDDIE.” she practically yells.
“What the hell, Robin? I don’t have a date!”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m sure it’ll be great!” she’s walking away already, shrugging like even she doesn’t know why the fuck she said that. “Call me when you’re home!”
Eddie smacks his palm against his forehead and turns to his van, not even daring to look at Steve again.
He finally does dare once he’s in his van and has started moving, giving Steve a ‘nothing wrong or weird here’ wave as he pulls away.
The expression on Steve’s face is indiscernible. Somewhere stuck between totally blank, and the most devastated look he’s ever seen.
Damnit, Robin.
He only ended up with Max in his van on the way back, so when they get back, he helps her inside, and resigns himself to staying up all night to finish the tape.
He pulls in next to Wayne’s truck at the same time his uncle is coming out the front door, a dufflebag in hand. 
“You off to work early old man?” and he asks as he gets out of his van, it’s only about 9 PM now and his uncle doesn’t usually go in until near midnight. 
“Yep, gettin’ some dinner with the fellas before we head in. Gotta leave shift early to go visit yer aunt.”
Ah. “That time of year is it?”
“Yep, I’ll see ya tomorrow evenin’, son. Don’t be getting into any trouble, y’hear?”
Eddie just shrugs. “You know me.”
“That’s exactly my point.” Wayne says with a crinkly smirk.
He gives his uncle a short hug, and Wayne kisses the top of his head with another ‘be safe’.
Then, because he’s agonizing about it, Eddie spends the next couple hours cleaning the trailer instead of picking the last two songs that will go on his side (listening to said tape while he does).
He’s still got some ideas from before, but only a couple good ones..and not all of them will fit in the time he’s estimated is left on the B side.
It isn’t until he gets to Be My Baby on his second listen through that he knows which one he’s going to add next.
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After he’s got that one figured out and recorded, there definitely isn’t enough room left for the rest of the picks, so he adds the one he thinks says the most about how he feels about Steve, the one that says everything he needs to say.
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-----
“Robin did say ‘ass o’clock’,” Eddie says to himself, glancing at the clock in his dashboard.
5:13. Yeah, that sounds right.
Eddie lets out a huge cracking yawn. Okay, he’s definitely gonna crash once he gets back to the trailer. He was so wired after finally finishing the tape, he couldn’t sleep even though he wanted to.
He makes it to Steve's street and parks up the road a bit (not wanting the rattle of his van to alert Steve to his presence if he hadn’t left yet), and walks the last leg. The tape in his pocket feels like it weighs a million pounds.
When he finally rounds the bushes at the front edge of Steve’s yard, Eddie feels every cell in his body seize up at once.
Nancy’s car is in the driveway.
What the–
Suddenly, the front door opens. He dives back behind the bushes, peeking through the leaves. You know, like a sane person?
Why the fuck is Nancy leaving Steve's house so early
Why is Steve only wearing those tiny fuckin’ shorts?
Oh no..
Oh shit.
There’s only one fucking reason
This is all wrong! Nancy knows he has feelings for Steve, was that not what that was at the arcade?
She’s with Robin, she didn’t refute it.
Oh fuck, he’s gonna have to tell Robin.
Eddie debates making himself known, let himself barrel over whatever awkwardness may arise, but he’s still got his heart in his pocket, addressed to Steve.. What’s he supposed to do with that then?
“Oh hey Steve, didn’t see you there! Just came by to drop off your very personal property that your best friend stole for me to defile! Nancy? Oh hey, you’re here! What’s up with tha–”
He’s startled out of his thoughts when the door of Nancy's station wagon shuts, the engine turning over. 
She pulls out, thankfully heading away from where he’s hidden.
Eddie watches until she’s out of sight, then jumps again when he hears Steve’s front door close.
Steve does a few hops in place from foot to foot on his front stoop (still shirtless), and starts off on his run the same way Nancy had gone. Had he been able to see shirtless, sweaty Steve whenever he wanted?? He just goes for runs like this every day? Why had no one told him??
‘Oh fuckin’ hell, shut up, shutup!!’ He yells at himself.
Now what?
Eddie sits in the grass in Steve Harrington’s front yard and stares at the back of his mailbox.
Does he still leave the tape? Of course he should, it is Steve’s tape afterall.
But what about the songs? Steve’s not gonna want his bullshit now…
He could go back to his van and re-write the note then come back and leave it. No, he wouldn’t have time now, Steve’s athletic, yeah, but Eddie’s been frozen in his front yard for a while now. He’d be back soon.
Fuck it. 
He’ll drop the tape on the front step, go back home and pack up his shit. Yeah. Good a time as any to get the fuck outta here.
Confessing your feelings to one of your closest friends who very obviously just got back together with his ex not even ten hours after you’d seen him and were very obviously flirting with each other?
Yeah. Not ideal.
Does he have the funds to get the fuck outta here? No. But he’s got enough for gas and he’s got a van. He’ll just load his mattress into the back and be gone before the rest of the town fully wakes up.
Good plan, Eddie’s brain. Thank you, rest of Eddie.
-------
Steve slows to a jog once he can see his house, cooling down from his run on the last little bit of his road, and stopping in his driveway to do some stretches back to the door.
He’s sinking down into his last lunge when he sees the little square of…something…sitting on the front step.
“The hell?”
He stoops down and picks it up, turns it over. There’s a piece of lined paper rubber banded around it.
Peeling off the band, Steve steps inside and unfolds the letter, leaning back on the now closed front door to read
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“...oh no…” Steve looks down at the case in his hand. Now he sees why the rubberband was necessary, there’s another folded wad of papers shoved into the cassette’s case, now popped open without the band holding it together.
His heart, previously calmed down from his run, now beat wildly in his chest as he unfurls the short stack of paper.
He reads the first line, ‘8. I Was Made For Lovin’ You...’
“Holy shit.”
Steve books it up the stairs, he’s gotta get showered, he’s gotta get changed, he’s got one more song to add to the tape.
-------
Eddie’s just finished packing up his clothes when his alarm clock radio goes off, the 7am alarm still set for when he has to get up for school.
“...still don’t believe it, he was just leaving OH there must be some misunderstanding! There must be some kind of mistake…” blasts through the tinny speakers.
Nopenopenope, not dealing with that right now.
He slaps the clock around until it finally shuts off its maniacal teasing, and goes back to packing (and blinking away some wayward tears).
He’s just dropped the second bag of clothes and his sweetheart in her case by the front door and is contemplating if his mattress would actually fit in the back of his van, when there’s a knock on the door.
Eddie’s gut freezes mid-flip.
Oh no. Please n–
“Eddie, are you there? It’s Steve. Can I come in?”
‘Don’t move. Don’t make a single sound. Maybe he’ll think you’re not home and just leave.’
“C’mon man, I know you’re in there. You’re van’s out here.”
“Shit.”
Eddie trudges his way to the front door and opens it.
Even with floppy, just-washed, hair and an inside-out polo, Steve’s still the most beautiful person in existence.
“What do you want, Steve?” Wow. Even he’s surprised at how morose he sounds.
“I uh, I got your tape..my tape? I got your note. I added one more song and I thought, maybe, I could–” Steve looks down. “Are you..” his voice pitches high so he clears it. “Are you going somewhere?”
“Mhm.” Eddie can’t look him in the eye. He stares at the porch.
“Where are you–”
“Just going, ‘kay Steve? No need to worry about me being around anymore.” Eddie practically spits, still not looking up at his friend.
“Eddie, what are you–” he cuts himself off, his voice going soft. “Did you not mean what you said?”
That makes Eddie look up at him. Steve’s gaze is now cast downwards, staring blankly at Eddie’s packed bags.
“...I meant every word. Every song, Steve. But that doesn’t matter now, does it?” he’s truly mad now, who does he think he is, trying to act all glum like he wasn’t the one betraying his best friend.
“B-betraying my best–Eddie, what the hell are you talking about?”
Damn! He said that out loud.
“Just go away, Steve. I won’t tell Robin, but you definitely should.” Eddie moves to close the front door and turns back towards his room. He doesn’t hear it close, but he hears the creak of the floor when Steve follows him in.
Of. Course.
“Tell Robin what, Eddie? I already told her how I felt about you, that’s why she stole you the tape in the first plac–”
“Not that! You–” Eddie clenches his fists at his sides and spins back to face Steve. “That you hooked up with her girlfriend last night.” Steve’s face pales and Eddie continues on. “Yeah. I came by to drop off your tape; Robin thought I could leave it there when you left for your run. But lo and behold, what do I see when I come by? Nancy Wheeler’s car in your driveway at ass o’clock in the morning.
“Now, I may be a third time senior, but even I know what the fuck that means. Especially when, not long after I’ve gotten there, the Lady Wheeler herself waltzes out the door with Tiny Shorts McGee following her like a lost puppy.” he gestures at Steve, who’s still frozen in place by the door.
“So yeah, you can just burn those notes for all I care, I don’t even know why I still left it. Whatever. I’m leaving today anyway so you don’t need to worry about me pining hopelessly after you, ‘kay?”
Eddie’s chest is heaving, his eyes are burning with unshed tears, and Steve…starts laughing.
“I fuckin’ knew it!” There are tears spilling freely out of his eyes now. “You’re really good y’know, had everyone fooled. Even me! King Steve is alive and well, everyone!” Eddie spreads his hands wide and yells to no one.” I can’t believe you got me to fall for your good guy schtick. Get the fuck outta my house, Harrington.” Eddie points to the door, stalking forward.
“Eddie! Eddie, wait, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have laughed.” Steve puts his hands out and Eddie stops, crossing his arms and glaring. “Eddie, please, Nancy was only dropping something off for me.”
“Yeah righ–”
“She was! She came by that early because she’s driving to an interview this morning at a paper in Indy. She knew I’d be up for my run anyway, so she stopped to give me the revisions she made to my–you know what, hold on. I’m calling Robin.”
“Steve, I told you to get the fuck out of my house, not go further into it.”
Steve ignores him and goes to the phone, giving Eddie as wide of a berth as he can while he passes. He picks it up and dials.
“I’m not fucking kidding, Harrington, get the fuck out of here–” Eddie’s anger is multiplied tenfold when Steve holds out a finger to shush him.
“Hi Mr. Buckley, this is Steve. I’m sorry to call so early, but can I please speak to Robin? There was a last minute change to our schedule…thank you.’
Eddie watches Steve’s face morph from his customer service expression, to an admittedly frightening pissed off smile when Robin apparently gets on the line.
“Hey Robin! I found my Eddie tape! It’s the funniest thing, I came back from my run and it was sitting on my doorstep.”
Eddie can hear the muffled sound of Robin’s voice coming through the earpiece.
“I know, isn’t that crazy?” Damn, Steve’s passive aggressive voice is…something else. “He must’ve dropped it off while I was gone..why wouldn’t he give it to me in person?”
Steve waves at Eddie to come closer, and when he stubbornly doesn’t, Steve rolls his eyes and comes to him, stretching the cord across the kitchen as he does.
“Hmmm...maybe.. Or maybe something scared him off?” He takes in an over-dramatic sarcastic gasp. “Or maybe, my best friend and soulmate who stole the tape for him, told him to come by at the exact worst time! When she knew a certain ex of mine and current girlfriend of hers was stopping by before leaving to Indy and it scared him off!”
Steve tilts the handset out from his ear so Eddie can hear..there’s complete silence on the other end.
“That would suck, don't you think? Seeing your crush’s ex leaving their house early in the morning when you’re coming over to confess to them?” He continues.
“Oh. My. God. Steve!! I am so so sorry I–”
“Don’t apologize to me, apologize to Eddie.”
Steve grabs up Eddie’s hand and wraps it around the handset, forcing him to take it, then stomps off into the living room.
Eddie puts the phone to his ear and walks back to the receiver, Robin rambling in his ear the whole way. 
“--ddie, I’m so so sorry! I totally forgot Nancy was dropping off Steve’s paper this morning before she went to her interview! Please please don’t be mad at me, actually, scratch that. Be super mad at me, but definitely not at Steve, okay? I should have remembered, I should have told you, I should hav–”
It’s effective, he feels the anger draining out of him. “Robin, Robin! It’s okay, you’re okay.” Eddie glances over at Steve, who’s pacing up and down the short length of the trailer’s living room. “But now I have a very pissed off Harrington in my house right now…you got any survival tips for me?” he mumbles lowly.
“...Oh! I know, just go over there and kiss hi–her–stupid!” Eddie snorts through his nose, her parents must still be nearby.
“Got it, I’ll try that. Thanks Birdie…for everything.”
She sighs in relief. “You’re welcome, Doofus.”
Eddie slowly hangs up the phone, and turns to where Steve is. Now stationary, he’s got one hand on his hip, and the other is rifling through his hair nervously.
‘Yep. Buckley’s right.’
Eddie takes a deep breath and crosses to Steve in three short strides, grabs his face in both his hands, and kisses him deeply.
Steve responds immediately; he wraps one arm around Eddie’s waist, his large palm centered squarely on his lower back, and one around his arm, lacing his fingers into Eddie’s curls and cupping the back of his head.
Steve pulls their bodies flush and cants his hips into Eddie’s, tugs a breathy moan from Eddie’s throat when the hand in his curls tightens.
Eddie’s nose is pressed uncomfortably into the space between Steve’s nose and cheekbone with how close they’ve smushed themselves together, but Eddie can’t find it in himself to care. 
He’s kissing Steve Harrington. 
There’s a strong thigh slotted between his, and Steve Harrington is kissing him back. 
Eddie moves one hand down to clutch at Steve’s shirt, and pushes the other back, grabbing onto those short hairs on the back of Steve’s neck.
They finally come up for air after one too many teeth clashes, their foreheads coming together.
“Hi.” they breathe out at the same time, chuckling at the absurdity of it all.
“We’re kinda idiots, huh?” Steve says, looking cross-eyed between Eddie’s eyes. The hazel of his eyes sparkling with the movement.
Eddie chuckles. “Dingus and Doofus, remember?” he points to each of them in turn, only lifting his pointer finger out of the grip on Steve’s shirt to do so.
“Can I play you the last song now?”
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and then they low dance in eddie's living room
Yay!! that's it, thanks for following along with this one!!! here's the last tags :o) @hellomynameismoo, @messrs-weasley, @manda-panda-monium
Here's some notes since it's the last part:
this is the most I’ve ever written in such a short time, I literally wrote each of these chapters the day before their day to be posted….most of it while at work lmao
Steve used a Sony C60 tape. i.e. there’s 60-ish minutes of space on it. before At Last, the songs on the tape totaled 55 min 55 seconds, a perfect amount left for Etta James (ending up at 58 min 54 seconds in total according to my spoofy playlist).
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I know that the Eddie half of songs weren’t really…’Eddie music’, but in my head, Eddie likes music for being music. All music is good (like he said to Max in part 5). Plus, he wanted to put songs on the tape that he knew Steve would like/want to listen to.
steve asked nancy to make revisions on his nursing school application essay (he found he quite liked the process of taking care of eddie and wants to go to school for it!)
anyone else just recently realize that Take Me Home Tonight had an allusion to Be My Baby?? anyway, love that, wanted to make that a thing here :o)
and lastly, a couple of little things i LOVED about this fic that i didn’t see anyone else / only a couple people point out:
Steve singing the rubber duckie song to Eddie in part 5
Eddie literally giving Gareth the shirt off his back in part 2 when Tommy threw his pop on him (in my head, this is the same red buffalo check flannel that Gareth ends up cutting the sleeves off of and wears in S4).
that's all!! thanks for reading, friends :o)
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wildemaven · 1 year
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Duality Of A Man
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Pairing: Joel Miller x F!Reader / AU
WC: 1379
Warnings: T; Mentions of food; that’s all.
A/N: I literally woke up this morning and threw this idea at @heythere-mel and @kteague and couldn’t get it outta my head. I’m calling this AU because of the nature of the plot, but there’s canon sprinkled through it still— I really tried to stay true to his character as much as possible. I don’t want to reveal to much and spoil everything. Not beta’d and mistakes are my own doing.
Masterlist / Part 2 / Part 3
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You wake long before his blaring alarm. The fan’s oscillating buzz streaming through the dimly lit room.
You turn to see he is in fact still in his sleepy state. You leave him be, a few more hours will do him good— the long hours at his latest job site really doing a number on his tired body.
You take caution as you slip from the bed. Slow movements as your feet hit the cold floor, a jolt to your waking senses.
You swipe the nearest shirt from the pile of clothes on the floor. A quick once over before you’re pulling it over your naked form— his shirts are always comfier.
The slow pull from your dresser drawer, it’s usual creaking undetectable as you sift through its contents finding your favorite biker shorts.
One last look at your boyfriend, his handsome face cradle by his lumpy pillow that he refuses to replace. His dark curls messy, suitable to his laid back nature.
He looks the most relaxed when he sleeps.
You make your way to the kitchen to get the coffee started. The old machine, another item Joel refuses to replace, takes nearly twice as long as it should to produce the amber liquid, thankfully your jumpstart on the day will get it made before Joel has made it downstairs.
Breakfast will be a quick task this morning, fried eggs and bacon are a regular staple when Sarah is gone for the weekend at a friends house.
Sarah is Joel’s daughter, but you love her as if she were your own. You and Joel got together a few years back and he was hesitant in introducing you to her, rightfully so. You told him to take his time and you’d be happy to meet her when he was ready. It took all of 6 months for that meeting and you had instantly clicked with her bubbly personality.
The low hum of the stereo drifts through the kitchen. The well-done bacon placed onto a paper towel covered plate, draining off the excess grease. The eggs producing their sizzling pops, the edges crisp and yolks just barely done— Joel’s favorite.
Two broad arms find their way around your waist, his face nuzzled into the crook of your neck— you nearly jump out of your skin.
“Jesus Joel! You fuckin’ scared the shit outta me!” Your elbow sending a slight jab into his stomach.
“Ow!” His arms tighten up, pulling you back into him. “Mornin’ Babe.” His voice still raspy and low. A quick kiss to your temple before he starts to move about the space.
“Breakfast is done. Coffee should be ready— we really need to get a new machine” You mention as you set the plates of food down on the kitchen table.
“Nothin’ wrong with it. It’s still makin’ coffee. Ain’t broke, no need to go replacin’ it.” Pulling two cups from the cupboard and pouring you each a cup before making his way to the table to join you.
Your eyes roll in response. The man has a weird fixation with keeping worn out dilapidated items— his other charming qualities are what won you over.
“What are your plans for the day? Sarah should be back by late afternoon. Thought we could go get burgers and ice cream?”
He nods, as he continues to chew, fork preparing his next bite. “Yeah that sounds fine. Just gotta go grab some tools from Tommy. Mrs. Adler mentioned needin’ some help fixin’ a few things. Figured I could go after a shower. Should be done in ‘bout an hour or two.” He looks to you to make sure you’re okay with it.
You lean back in your chair, one leg perched up on the edge, your coffee cup on your knee. “Yeah that will work. I’ll give you that Tupperware container to take back over.” You take a slow sip from the steaming cup. “I swear I could eat myself sick off of her cookies. Those things are dangerous, but delicious.”
His dimple peaks through his grown out beard as he smiles at your statement. Gulping down the rest of his coffee, he places his empty cup on top of his egg yolk covered plate. “Thanks for breakfast babe! Delicious as always.” He says, wiping his greased cover fingers on his sleep pants.
“You’re welcome.”
The dishes clinking together as he sets them into the sink, then moving back towards where you’re still sitting at the table. Quick exchange of “I love you’s” and a sweet exchange of kisses before he retreats to take a shower.
Anticipating Sarah’s arrival in the next few hours, you make work to clean up the kitchen and get a few house chores done— remembering the pile of dirty clothes at the foot of your bed.
It takes you no time to whip through each task before you find yourself relaxing comfortably on the couch. Flipping through the home improvement magazine you’d picked up while grocery shopping the other day.
The house didn’t need much improvement. To an outsider it would seem in perfect order. But Joel being the handy man he is, you seemed to find ways to spruce up areas that needed the help. Just last year he replaced the backsplash to something a little more up to date, less drab and 80’s.
The ringing of the door bell catches your attention. Neither you or Joel were expecting visitors, and Sarah knows well enough to let herself in.
You fold the corner of the page you were on, setting the magazine on the coffee table before getting up to answer the door.
When you open it you’re met with a women you’ve never seen before. She’s beautiful, must be in her early 30’s if you were to guess. She’s looking around outside before she realizes you’ve opened the door.
“Hi. Can I help you?” You ask.
“Um, yes. Hi, I’m Kelli.” Her hand extended out to yours, you politely shake it hoping she’s going to grant you with a reason for stopping by. “I’m hoping you can help me out. I’m looking for someone and from what I’ve been told, he lives here.”
You’re not quite sure where she’s going with this. You’ve never seen this Kelli woman in you life and never once have you heard Joel mention her either. She must have to wrong house, and you’ll gladly point her in the right direction once she gives you this man’s name.
“Um, okay. Who is it that you think lives here?” You question her as nicely as you can.
She begins to dig into her purse, pulling out a worn picture. She looks it over briefly before turning and holding it up to you. “Have you seen this man?”
You were ready to say no you hadn’t. But the truth was you had. The man in the photo was upstairs at this very moment showering in your home. It was Joel staring back at you, just a younger version of him.
Your mind reeling as you try to figure out why Kelli is at your front door looking for Joel. She clearly knows him and sounds like she went through a lot of trouble to find him.
She explains straight away why she’s looking for him. You can’t seem to take your eyes off the photo in your hands. Her explanation making zero sense to you. You get her number and tell her you will give her a call tomorrow, you need to still talk to Joel about it all.
The sound of the water shutting off signals Joel’s finished his shower, meaning he’ll be bounding down the stairs momentarily.
You sit back down on the couch, your fingers tracing over the photo. The sound of his boots hitting the steps break you from your trance.
“Hey, heard the door bell. Who was it?” He says as he enters the living room. He falls into his signature pose, hip cocked out and hands resting at his waist.
You stand, eyes still locked on the photo.
“Babe? Who was— What’s that ya got there?”
“Joel— Who’s Kelli?” His face drops instantly.
“Who’s Kelli and why did she say your name is actually Francisco Morales and that she’s your wife?” You spill as you hold the photo out for him to see.
“Fuck—“ Is all he manages to get out.
next
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geoulz · 1 year
Text
sweet serial killer | PJM.
killer!jimin x f!reader
warnings - dark themes such a murder, smut, unprotected sex, degrading, praising, breeding, slapping, choking, hybristophilia
a/n: i haven’t written in so long but this took me literally forever to write help 💀
The missing posters became a familiar sight for your small town. No matter which corner you turned on, or street you took. There was always a white sheet stapled onto something with the same red words printed on it, just different faces. The faces were always similar to one another, meaning that all of them were girls in their early adulthood to late 20s. You just weren’t expecting to be met with the face of one of your most popular schoolmates on one of these posters when you’d walked inside of school today. Bodies gathered around the few posters that hung, each whispering to one another. You’d spotted out your best friend jisoo in one of the crowds and made your way towards her.
“is safiya actually gone?” You questioned towards the black haired girl as you added onto the many voices around you, her head shaking in disapproval.
“definitely not, this is just some joke someones decided to make up.” Her sarcastic answer only filled the pit of anxiety in your stomach.
You chewed on your bottom lip before speaking again. “i feel bad for her family — i mean for her too yes but, her mom is probably devastated.” You rambled. “have they even gotten any leads on who’s doing this?”
Jisoo shrugged her shoulders. “can’t be too hard for them. there’s one serial killer in this town after like a million years and there’s maybe four thousand living here. as police i’d assume they’ve dealt with harder.”
“so it’s suddenly easy to catch a killer?”
“not easy no, but not as difficult if we were in a larger populated area. i mean there’s no way the killer left zero finger prints on the dozens of weapons they’re leaving around.”
You barley nodded your head before taking out your phone, snapping a picture of the number on the bottom of the paper, just as an attempt to soothe the nervousness you’re currently feeling from all of this. You went to speak before feeling a pair of hands grasp onto your shoulders, quickly jolting back and turning from the sudden touch.
“woah, someones on edge.” the caramel blonde haired boy said before sharing a cheeky smile as he chuckled.
You placed your hand onto your chest, inhaling a deep breath of oxygen. “don’t scare me like that, tae.”
“awh don’t mind her, she’s just scared that the killers gonna get her next.” Jisoo giggled as she teased you.
“the killers not that far in this town, you said it yourself!” You answered defensively.
Taehyung scoffed. “well you’re safe with us, sweetheart. now who’s down to go skating tonight?” He pulled out three tickets from his back pocket, displaying them in the air.
“hell yeah! we haven’t been in forever.” Jisoo agreed. Are they serious right now?
“yeah sounds fun and all but i’d like to live to pass finals on thursday.” You crossed your arms as you stared at the two of them like they were idiots.
“don’t be a wussyyyy” Jisoo dragged your name out as she leaned her head back.
“exactly, when was the last time we all went out together hmmm?” Taehyung waved the tickets around in his hand.
You stood there quiet for a moment, only being able to recall the time you jisoo and taehyung went to a party together back in secondary high. However that was a disaster that none of you liked to talk about.
“fine whatever — sure i’ll go. but we aren’t staying there long. like at all. You agreed, once again defeated. I guess those were the cons of having ambitious friends.
“yay! so we’ll all meet there ok? ok! now we’re gonna be late if we don’t get going.” Jisoo took hold of one of your hands as she began to walk to the first class you both shared, using your free hand to wave bye to taehyung as you all departed.
The weather had gotten colder than it was this morning. Chills began to grow on your revealed thighs as the wind blew. You held your skirt down before quickly entering the skating rink, letting out a sigh of relief as the warmth from the heat inside hit you. The sight of taehyung and jisoo appeared from the corner of your eye, sprinting over to them.
“there she is, almost thought you bailed on us.” Taehyung was holding a cherry slushee in his hand, which has stained his lips a soft red. “want a sip?” He held the medium sized cup out to you.
You nodded before grabbing the cup from him, watching as you swished around the red liquid with the straw.
“eww don’t drink after him, who knows what diseases he has.” Jisoo partly joked.
Taehyung rolled his eyes before turning his attention to her “not any more than you do.” You giggled to yourself at their bickering.
“that’s alright, i’ll go grab another one.” Not sure if they even heard you or not over their own voices. You walked over to the concessions stand where few workers in blue hats stood behind. Just to your luck, there weren’t any straws left placed next to the napkins. You’d looked under the dispensers to see if any sealed straw had rolled under it, only to be left with the sight of the marbled counter.
“need one?” A dark, unfamiliar voice called out to you. You looked up from your frantic wondering to be met with the sight of a man with blonde silverish hair, staring you down with deep piercing orbs that were rimmed with a messy sheer black eyeshadow. You were like a deer in headlights, not sure if you should be focusing on his intimidating stare, or his plump lips that were speaking your way, hell not even the question he had just asked you. Of course you’d seen quite a few attractive men before, but god does he take the fucking cake on that one.
“uhm — i’m sorry what did you — do i need what?” was all that came to your mind in the moment.
“a straw, that’s what you were looking for right?” He spoke once again, his tone not shifting nor changing even though you were visible flustered. He healed out a paper straw as he waited for you to take it from his fingers.
“oh right yeah, thanks.” You quickly took the straw from the man, ripping the paper off before placing it into the slushee taehyung had handed you not too long ago.
“how did you know?” His brows furrowed to your question. You noticed this, deciding to make your dumb sounding words sound slightly more put together.
“that i needed one.” Using your pointer finger to point down to the drink where the straw was now placed.
“saw you over here looking around, then saw the straws were empty. i had one sitting next to me and thought i’d help you out.” He answered as he played with the many rings that wrapped around his fingers.
You awkwardly nodded as you carefully observed the visible veins that webbed up his arms.
“whats your name? don’t think i’ve seen you ‘round here.” He looked up from his hand, interrupting your daydreaming.
You blinked a couple of times before blurting your name out. “and you’re?” You took a sip from the slushee as you waited.
“jimin. and you have a little..” He pointed to the corner of his own mouth to show a bit of the slushee had smudged onto yours.
Slight embarrassment rushed through you as you used your middle finger to wipe where jimin had pointed, which went unsuccessful. A light, sly smirk grew on jimins face before helping you out, using his own fingers to wipe away the excess.
“all better.” You softly traced your fingers over where jimin’s once were a second ago. Before you could even let out a thank you, jisoo was rolling over to you with her skates already on, yours in hand.
“quit talking to — “ She eyed the tall man up and down before speaking again. “very attractive men — and put these on.” She placed the skates in your arms. Jisoo quickly took your place, easily too. She always had a gift when it came to talking to guys, so it probably was better she was going for him rather than you. Or at least that’s what you told yourself as you slid your shoes off replacing them with roller skates.
The rest of the night you didn’t see jisoo, nor did you see jimin. You were left skating with taehyung, which you couldn’t complain about. The both of you always had fun when it was the two of you no matter where you were. Though the nights question were all filled with the possible “what ifs”regarding jisoo, taehyung just assured you that she was fine and probably getting lucky with straw guy.
With sore legs and heavy eyes, walking into your house felt like punishment. You’d noticed a small note on the small round table your mother had left to you which read, “late night shift again. dinner in fridge so heat up if hungry. & lock the doors!!! love u.” A small crooked heart was drawn next to the words she’d written. You set your bags down next to the note before weakly walking up the stairs to your bedroom. Yawning, you slid todays clothes off of your body. You opened the first drawer of your wooden dresser and pulled out a pair of short shorts and a tanktop, getting all dolled up before bed. The bright moon peaked through the blinds of your window as a reminder of the night. You wish you didn’t focus so long on the damn sky, maybe then would you not be in this situation now.
A pair of large, rough hands covered your mouth. Immense panic and fear slapped you in the face. You tried to scream, you really did, but all that came out was a muffled mess of noises. No matter how hard you fought to get this figure off of you, you couldn’t. You were completely overpowered.
“shhh i know i know baby.” His sweet words in such a sweet tone meant nothing to you. Hot tears began to stream down your face as you squirmed in his arms. Sobs still muffled by his hands.
“ ‘m gonna let go and you’re not gonna make a sound understand?” You’re squirming quickly stopped as you nodded frantically. His hands slowly left your mouth as you stood there frozen. “run. scream. fight.” Your thoughts race back and forth repeatedly before it hits you. “you forgot to lock the doors.”
The man turned you around to face him, being met with that same piercing stare from earlier tonight.
“jimin?” Your voice doesn’t sound like your own when you finally speak out.
“missed those pretty eyes.” He tucked a piece of hair behind your ear before wiping your cheeks dry.
“i—is it you?” You ask again, not feeling the need to put context to this question.
He smirked once again, this time maliciously. With his reaction your question seemed pretty obvious. It’s been him behind all the murders, all the missing posters, just this one man has brought so much harm to your town.
“jisoo — where is jisoo” Your tears began to flow again at the thought of her alone with him.
“wanna know what i did with her? where her body is?” Nothing could’ve prepared you to hear these words, your sobs came out louder than you expected — if you had the control to be expecting anything. A harsh slap met your cheek as you jolted.
“didn’t i tell you not to make a fucking noise?” He grabbed you by your throat, pulling you closer to him.
“ ‘m sorry ‘m so sorry” You cried out. “dont — mm don’t hurt me please!”
“look at me.” He demanded, and you obeyed looking up at him with glassy doe eyes. If his looks could kill you’d sure as shit be dead by now. You felt disgusted with yourself for being so vulnerable with him, even more so when you realized you liked it. You liked how much control he had over you right now.
“poor thing, just want me to take pity on you hm? want me to spare you?” Not sure if you should give an answer to this or not, you just nodded. I mean you didn’t want your mother to come home from work, just to find her daughters dead body gruesomely slaughtered by this maniac.
You eyes wondered down his body, trying to get a description of his clothing. It was the exact same as when you’d seen him, except now he was wearing a long black trench coat. The outline of his hard cock was visible through his jeans. He clearly got some sort of sick sexual thrill from all of this, and so were you.
He’d taken notice of where your eyes were now fixated. “how pathetic. i could be slitting your throat right now and you’re looking at my dick?”
“nonono i wasn’t” Liar.
“mhm you were. get on your knees.” He didn’t really leave you much room to do this on your own as he pushed your head down, unbuckling his belt. You already had the unzipping part down as his cock sprung out in front of your face, pink tip already leaking with precum.
You wasted no time in putting the tip of his dick in your mouth, but he wanted none of that. He grabbed your head and moved you down balls deep. You gagged with his back and forth, in and out motions.
“that’s it, such a good girl for me aren’t you.” Tears pricked your eyes as his pace sped up, mumbling nothing but vibrations onto his dick. He slid out of your throat briefly and grabbed your chin, forcing you to look up at him.
“tell me what you want.”
You felt sick with the words about to come from your mouth, but the stickiness in between your thighs spoke otherwise.
“mm — want you to fuck me”
Just with that he already had you standing up before bending you over on the bed, ass arched and ready for him. He slid your shorts off with just one of his finger. You already knew those shorts were completely ruined from your own fluids.
“pathetic little thing’s already so worked up for me.” He traced his fingers down from your clit all the way to your hole before slapping your ass with his other free hand, causing you to flinch.
His hands grabbed the sides of your hips before entering you. The feeling of his dick stretching you out caused you to gasp. He began thrusting himself into you even deeper than he just was. You could feel the tip of his dick hitting your g-spot with each thrust.
Jimin let out a deep groan before grabbing you by your hair, leaning down as his lips were right on your ear.
“tell me how good it feels to get fucked by a killer. by someone soo dangerous.”
“f— hah! — feels so good jimin!” You pleaded. His title of “killer” and “dangerous” only made you clench around his dick even more.
“such a fuckin’ slut yknow that? wanna get fucked by the first dick available no matter what.” His hand made its way back to your throat again, veins popping out more than before as he choked you.
The orgasm building in the pit of your stomach was becoming more and more unbearable. His groans and filthy nothings filling your ears were adding onto him roughly fucking into you like you were nothing but a sex object. A hole he could use anytime he wanted, and leave you with nothing.
“ ‘m gonna cum” You mustered out through clenched teeth.
“that’s it angel, cum around my dick. want you to fuckin’ milk me.”
That was all it took before waves of pure ecstasy filled you. The noises coming from your mouth almost sounded animalistic. It didn’t take long for his thrusts to make a complete stop inside of you, pumping your pussy with all of his cum like it was his reward for turning such a sweet, scared girl into a desperate slut for him.
“you did so good for me angel. gonna clean you all up now.” He spoke through panted breaths as he placed a kiss on your forehead from behind. All you could do was nod, completely drained from your orgasm.
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petertingle-yipyip · 7 months
Text
WORLD CLASS SINNER - FRANK CASTLE
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two - if he had been with me
tags: n/a // one // three // masterlist
Pairing: Billy x Reader (Casual) , Frank x Reader (Platonic)
Word Count: 7,195
Summary: Further and further her humanity goes as Y/N commits herself to Frank Castle's crusade. Small moments threaten to bring her back, but how can she when there's nothing worth it... Or is there.
The next morning, you woke in a start with the same dream. A hand flying to your chest while the other rubbed the nonexistent blood out of your eye. Glancing around while the room spun for moments, you recognized you weren’t in the rubble but in your bed. Although the weight against your chest would’ve argued otherwise. When you got back from washing your face, Billy was awake and sitting at the edge of the bed.
“You still dream about him?” He asked simply.
“Hmm?” Your brows raised innocently. “Dream about who?”
“C’mon, Y/N. I hear you talkin’ in your sleep. Mumblin’ about your precious Matt. It was like that before you left too.”
You shrugged and leaned on the doorframe. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“And you took down some of the pictures. And the painting.”
“You’re starting to sound like my friends, Billy.” You said with a slight edge to your tone.
“That’s a bad thing now?”
“It’s an annoying thing right now.” You countered. “There’s a reason I’m avoiding them.”
“Y/N.. If you need more time-” He tried and you groaned as you pushed yourself up. “Don’t do that!”
“You know where the door is once your pants are on!” You called over your shoulder, waving a hand goodbye while you headed to your kitchen. “Don’t embarrass yourself in front of Miss Fran across the hall. She’ll stop being nice to me.”
There was a quiet commotion while he shuffled around your bedroom, finding the sporadic trail of clothes before he made his way over to you. He leaned against the countertop while you busied your hands and attention on the stove.
“Y/N, I’m not trynna make you talk about somethin’ you don’t want to, alright? Bringing up your guy crossed a line. I’m sorry…” He offered gently. Honestly. And the sentiment made you roll your eyes to yourself. “I just wanna make sure you’re good.”
You sighed heavily and turned towards him. “I’m fine.” You offered a tight, meaningless smile. “Happy?”
He shook his head and sighed inwardly while you turned away.
“So.. How long do I still have you for?” He asked instead.
“What?” Your brows furrowed at the odd question.
“Your words. You can’t work Anvil and your hotshot FBI gig at the same time. When is it official?”
“Oh.. I don’t know. I got my badge before I left so Dex tells me we’re just waiting on the SAC to get the go-ahead. I can work as a freelancer if you need me in the meantime.”
“I always need you.”
“Yeah, okay.” You scoffed. “When’s your next recruitment?”
“I gotta check, b... I’ll let you know.. You wanna come with me later? I gotta go see Curtis.”
“No, I gotta take care of some other stuff.” You brushed him off, knowing you had to devote some time today to finding Frank and Micro. “But I’m going to Curtis’ meeting today so we should cross paths.”
“Then I will see you later.” He nodded before pushing off to get ready to leave.
Once he was gone, you got yourself ready. You took a quick shower and wore an outfit fitting for an FBI agent, given that was the guise you would use to get into her house, and clipped your badge to your belt. You dug through your collection to find one of the pocket devices that came in handy when it came to cameras and signals, for nothing more than your own hunch for an NSA agent’s house. You added your gun to the back of your belt - more to pull the persona together than any sort of threat - and headed out to Sarah Lieberman’s.
As you drove over to the house, Dex called. He asked if you wanted in on a potential investigation, something about Carson Wolf being murdered in his own home the night before. It was an interesting coincidence given the fact that Frank had returned and a separate agent was asking questions about him. You had no doubts that Frank was involved but it did leave a nice chance to find out just how dirty Wolf was to get himself killed. You agreed to throw your name into the pot.
“Hi, are you Sarah Lieberman?” You asked politely and she shifted uncomfortably in her doorway.
“Yes. Can I help you?” She asked tightly and you saw the blur of a child running around behind her.
“I’m Special Agent Y/L/N. May I come in?”
“What is this about?”
“Have you had any sort of odd interactions recently? A man who seemed to have appeared out of the blue.”
“This is about Pete.” She sighed with a nervous chuckle. “I just filed the insurance claim yesterday. I didn’t think it would… Wait, special agent?”
“Yes.” You nodded simply, shifting your jacket to show your badge. “May I come in?”
She nodded quietly and stepped aside, welcoming you in. Once you crossed the threshold, the sharp tone pinged in your ear. You winced inwardly and rubbed the area near your implant, glancing around to find something that would’ve interfered with the signal. There was a camera somewhere, the watchful eye of the ghost of a spouse, and it wasn’t likely to be alone. Your eyes were darting quickly, between corners and other wall decor for the small lens but you couldn’t find anything. Nothing obvious at least.
“Are you alright, Agent?” She asked from your side, offering you the worried eyes that often became the default for mothers.
“Yes, just a migraine.” You gestured vaguely to your head.
“Oh! I have Tylenol. Give me just a second.”
“No, I’d hate to put you out.” “Nonsense.” She smiled kindly and disappeared into her kitchen.
You made a small noise to yourself before pulling that pocket tech. You booted it up and wandered the living room, changing the height and angle as the screen flashed to track down the nearest camera. As you were searching, you noticed a small body on the stairs watching you.
“Who are you?” He asked with lips pursed in disgust as if to say how dare someone be in his home.
“FBI. Who are you?” You answered simply as your device pointed you to a family portrait. You smirked slightly and tapped some buttons, beginning to track the signal. Before you would leave,  you would know exactly where to go.
“I live here.” He stated as if it was obvious.
“It’s a nice house.” You nodded, finally turning to face the disgruntled young boy. “Can I ask you about the man from yesterday?”
“I didn’t see him.”
“Okay..”
“I didn’t!” He insisted.
“I believe you, kiddo.” You chuckled slightly.
“Can I hold your gun?” He asked suddenly.
“Absolutely not.” You shook your head and he frowned. “You get a little older and I can teach you how to use it.”
His eyes lit up before he scampered back up the stairs, and you wondered if that was something Sarah should be concerned about. She came back soon after and she profusely apologized, just in case her son said anything uncalled for. You brushed it off and accepted her offer of painkillers and water. You two spoke about the interaction from the day before between her and “Pete”.
“Mrs. Lieberman, I haven’t been entirely truthful with you.” You confessed, intending to build some sense of trust in case you needed her for information later on. “I’m not just looking for Pete out of coincidence. He’s family… I haven’t heard from him in a long time and the FBI gave me more resources to try and track him down. He’s refused to answer any of my messages across any platform but now I have a chance to reconnect with him.”
“Oh.” She smiled slightly. “Pete didn’t mention a sister.”
“Cousin, actually. All the family I have are just cousins..”
“We exchanged numbers and I can give that.”
“I doubt he’d answer.” You shook your head. “He always seems to know when I’m calling.”
“Okay... Well, my insurance is sending some paperwork that’ll need his signature so I’ll see him again. I can let him know you stopped by.” She offered honestly.
“That’d be great, thank you.” You nodded with a faux sentimental smile. Your tech buzzed in your pocket and you knew you had the source of the signal. “I’d better be going.”
She offered you something to eat, saying you’d be more than welcome to stay for lunch but you brushed off her invitation. You couldn’t waste any more time with socializing and pleasantries. The only thing that stopped you from heading straight over was your prior commitment to stop by Curtis’. The commitment was only made to get Billy out of your apartment without being completely blunt about it, given the fact that you two would still be interacting at Anvil and likely throughout the course of whatever crusade you were riding into. And despite your mild stalling, you ended up walking into Billy and Curtis’ conversation. So you hung back in the hall for a minute to allow yourself to be nosy.
“Mover and a shaker. A man of wealth and taste.” Curtis said and you could hear the smile in his words. “You always knew you were destined to do great things, I’ll give you that.”
The guys both chuckled slightly.
“I can’t tell if you think that’s a good thing or not.” Billy said with a small laugh.
“No, I’m proud of you man.”
“Y’know there’s always a job for you at Anvil... An instructor’s job.”
“Y/N finally make it official then and leave your ass?” Curtis asked and you could imagine the expression he wore. “She ever call you back?”
“No but…” Billy sighed and your brows furrowed. “When it comes to Y/N, I just…”
“Lose all sense in your head.” Curtis teased.
“I do not!” Billy laughed.
“Man, I have never seen you fawn over any woman like that! You’re like a lost little puppy whenever she comes around.”
“Kiss my ass.” He laughed and you waited a beat before walking in. “It’s not about Y/N, alright?”
“Topic of conversation even when I’m not in the room, huh?” You joked with a wide grin. “Nice to see you, Curtis.”
“I was wondering when you’d finally walk through that door.” Curtis grinned and stood to hug you. “How was training?”
“Boring.” You shrugged. “Knew it all.”
“Show off.”
“Yeah, a bit.”
“Y/N, don’t you think Curtis would be great as an instructor at Anvil?” Billy tried, coming to your side to use you in their prior conversation.
“Hell of a corpsman from what I heard.” You agreed. “I bet you would’ve sewn your own leg back on if you had the chance.”
“Hell yeah, you wanna go find it?” Curtis laughed. “You gonna stay? I know some of the guys have just been waiting to try and rile you up again.”
“Yeah, I’ve got some time to kill.” You said with a small nod. “Don’t expect me to come in later this week then.”
“Sounds good.. Wanna help get some of the snacks from the kitchen? Keep you outta trouble.” Curtis pointed a stern finger at you. “C’mon.” You laughed. “When have I ever gotten into trouble?”
“I’ve gotta take off but we still good for tomorrow night?” Billy asked Curtis and you had the itch to be nosy again.
“Yeah, I’ll be there.” Curtis nodded.
“You know making plans when someone else in the room isn’t invited makes people uncomfortable, right?” You said plainly, though it made the boys laugh.
“Tomorrow’s Frank’s birthday.” Curtis explained. “You were his lawyer, right?”
“Yeah, till he blew his top and kamikaze’d my case.” You rolled your eyes slightly as you thought about his outburst on the stand that day. “I do feel bad about the way it all went down though…”
“You wanna come?” Billy tapped your arm. “Just a little memorial thing, y’know, personal.”
“Yeah, I’d love to. Thanks.” You gave a tight, hopefully grateful smile. “I’ll be back with the snacks.”
“Thanks, Y/N.” Curtis nodded and when he thought you were out of earshot, you heard him ask Billy. “Let me guess. You still haven’t told her how you feel.”
That was going to make things awkward.
You stayed for the meeting but didn’t say much. Some of the members welcomed you back and hung around to catch up afterwards. Others hardly noticed but one man, some old white man who’s name you never cared to learn, continued to disregard you and say that you didn’t deserve the seat. You offered to go outside and show him exactly what you thought he deserved, but Curtis was quick to shut that down. Even though the man was practically cowering away from you by that point. Other than the cranky old man, it was nice to be back in that sort of routine.
The next day, you swung by Melvin’s workshop and hung around while he finished the vest. Despite your hesitations, he had utilized a dark red base fabric that was seen between the edges of the plates. There were devil horns that sat level with your collarbones at the center of the chest, matching the horn tattoo near your spine that you got your first night at Quantico as an alleged initiation ritual. There was white stitching along the hem of the collar and a faint stitched outline of an hourglass. When you asked about it, he said that it was a tribute to where you came from but it was white to show that you were better. You scolded him for sounding like Matt, left some money on his bench, and chucked it in your trunk before you decided it was time to find Frank.
You hopped back in your car and followed the route you were recommended. As you drew closer to the location, the scenery didn’t surprise you at all. It was remote, well out of the way of any city traffic. Everything around it seemed abandoned, or damn near it. There wasn’t another soul for blocks, maybe even miles.
Perfect spot for a ghost.
You ditched your car a few alleys over and kept your pocket device in hand, though you took a second to tuck your badge under your seat. As you got closer, you were able to track cameras and their field of view. You had to circle the building a couple times before you caught sight of a blind spot that led right up to an old, rusted out chain link gate. Behind the gate sat an old maintenance door that was practically falling off its hinges. Beside that, a ladder to the roof, where you assumed another point of access would be. If not a door, then the vents.
You hurried across the gap and squeezed between the fence. When you shifted the door, it creaked loudly and the sound echoed through the empty alleys. You cursed slightly and moved it out of the way enough for you to sneak in sideways. It fell back into place with a loud thud and you winced slightly as it echoed in your hollow chest, dense enough to mimic the Midland explosion. In a swift motion, you tucked away your tech and pulled your gun, keeping it aimed downwards but your muscles remained tense. You crept the dark halls, hearing vague voices from a distance.
You kept going, following the voices and the small glow of light, until you were a few feet from where the guys were. Low and behold, Frank Castle. Part of you wanted to scream at him, to curse him out and make him feel bad for never reaching out. You wanted to shame him for ignoring you, for not being there when your entire life fell apart and Matt’s life was taken. But you willed yourself to stay still, to stay quiet.
Screaming about it wouldn’t change the past, so why bring it up at all?
The heat that lived inside of you now made a friend in the Midland echoes and they both danced through your veins. They teetered around the edges of that hole, leaning and pulling away as if to tempt the darkness to swallow them too. But nothing would get rid of those. Nothing would rid your body of their influence. Instead, you kicked those feelings into the gaping chasm in your soul and kept your eyes forward.
There was another man in the room, sitting in a desk chair. Even though his body was angled away from you, you could tell the man was completely naked. Your brows furrowed as to why that would be what Frank chose to do but you shrugged it off as some form of power play, a means of embarrassment and belittlement maybe. Either way, it didn’t change what you came for.
You tucked your gun away and snuck deeper into the room, listening in on their conversation while you thought about when to announce yourself.
“Hey.” He spoke desperately from the chair, dripping water - or maybe sweat - while Frank was unamused. “I’m the only friend you have, Frank.”
At that you laughed and the entire room fell silent.
“What the hell was that?” Frank muttered, turning towards the direction of your sound.
You cursed quietly and crept back into the dark hall. You looked around for somewhere to hide and saw that there was a series of open rafters on the ceiling. With a satisfied smirk, you hauled yourself up and tucked your feet just as Frank had come into the hall.
“I’m the only friend you have, Frank!” Micro tried again and you turned to face him, though you also tracked Frank’s steps. “Hey!”
“Where are you?” Frank said to himself as he stood beneath you.
You focused on the man in the chair and found he wasn’t necessarily afraid, not at that moment at least. He was concerned that Frank wouldn’t believe him, that Frank would kill him. You wondered what he really expected when he chose to instigate the Punisher but you shrugged it off to the male ego. He also felt desperate, that he needed his help more than anything. And while you knew deep down that you shouldn’t get involved, that you needed to keep some distance from vigilantism and fights so you could heal, you felt no necessity to stay away. Plus it was interesting.
“What are you looking for?” Micro shouted, drawing Frank back into the main room. “If someone was coming, Frank, who would it be?”
“You’d be surprised the shit she can get into.” Frank answered vaguely and you tilted your head in agreement. 
“She? Who’s she?”
“You know all this shit about me but you don’t know her?” Frank chuckled. “C’mon man.”
“Like her her? Like Exodus her?”
“No, the Queen of England.”
“Holy shit..” Micro breathed and panicked in his chair. He jerked roughly to try and free himself from the restraints. “You’re joking, right? There’s- She can’t find you, right?”
“I’m thinking she already did.”
The sudden blaring of an alarm drew your attention. You looked over and saw a timer ticking down on the computer screen. You pulled your tech and tried to access it, to override it, but it was too complex for you to do within that time frame. You groaned inwardly while the boys went back and forth as to whether or not the threat that loomed after the timer was real or not. Frank finally turned the chair and Lieberman admitted - and showed - that it wasn’t explosives, but a video feed. If he didn’t enter the code, then that video would be broadcasted to various media outlets.
But that, you could block. You watched the man type in the code and utilize a retina scanner but then quickly got to work blocking any streaming opportunity from the cameras. They would still work and record, but the second someone tried to send that video out of the building, it would crash the whole system. You thought about sending something of your own, something just to toy with Lieberman and show him that he isn’t as smart or as sneaky as he thought, but their next argument caught your interest.
“How many times was Ahmad Zubair beaten?” Lieberman practically yelled.
“Shut your mouth.” Frank warned and the anger radiating off of him rivaled the heat in your own bones.
Could that have been what Madani was so interested in? What was her stake in Zubair’s life?
“How many times was this innocent man tortured? He was a good man! He was an honorable father. He was a cop.”
Frank’s hand wrapped around Lieberman’s throat and that’s when you decided to make yourself known.
“What are you gonna do, kill him?” You called with your familiar accent, stretching your legs to let your feet dangle over the edge. Your voice caught both of their attention and you offered a small smile and wave in return. “You owe me some answers.”
“How did you find me?” Lieberman asked in a panic, shifting in the chair.
“Your wife.” You shrugged. “Once I got inside, the cameras were easy enough to trace.”
“You were in my house?”
“Don’t kill him yet, Frank.” You tried, slipping out from your hiding place and moving to stand beside your friend. “He may prove useful.”
Frank turned to you without letting him go and his eyes darted back and forth between yours. The hard anger seemed to soften when he caught glimpse of whatever he was looking for and he slowly let him go. He backed away and you heard Lieberman muttering quiet thanks. You rolled your eyes slightly and patted Frank’s back before moving around the room.
“I knew you weren’t gonna kill me.” Lieberman announced, as if to provoke Frank some more.
“Does he ever stop talking?” You asked Frank.
“Not yet.” He muttered.
“I know people, alright? I’m an analyst. It’s my job.” Lieberman continued. “I knew you wouldn’t kill me because you’re a good man, Frank.”
“Knowing he’s a good man doesn’t mean you know him so I wouldn’t flaunt that as if it matters.” You commented simply. “And you definitely don’t know me.”
“No… No, I don’t.” He admitted. “But I will.”
“Ha! Daredevil didn’t even really know me so I wouldn’t get any hopes up…” You turned to Frank. “We should catch up.”
“Yeah, a lot goin’ on right now.” He gestured to the room around you. “She tell you?”
Without saying her name, you knew he meant Karen.
“Told me you were around.” You shrugged. “The rest was me.”
“Course it was.” He offered half a smile. “It’s good to see you, Princess.”
“Yeah, you too.” You returned the expression.
“How’s Red?”
You pressed your lips together and gave a small shake of your head, which only seemed to confirm whatever he saw in your face just a few moments before. You waved it off and ignored the pulse of heat at the back of your neck, tracing the outline of your tattoo. The memories of Midland began to flash, that deep opening threatening to swallow you alive, so you cleared your throat to try and clear the memories. You knew it would be obvious that something was wrong and it was directly related to Matt and Daredevil, but you’d never speak a word of it in front of David Lieberman.
“What does Homeland know about Zubair? Where did it happen?” You turned away from Frank, feeling that pound of emotions in your chest. It was bubbling from that hole, sending vibrations through your bones as it begged for release.
“Kandahar.” Frank answered instead. “Why?”
“Does Homeland have the video?” You asked.
“Yeah..”
“Son of a bitch…” You sighed and ran a hand down your face. “Explains that.”
“Explains what? What does Homeland have to do with anything?” Lieberman asked quickly.
“Frank.” You said instead. “Things are a lot bigger than you think. A lot of connecting pieces are falling in my lap… Let me help.”
Frank faced you for a moment and scanned your face again. He was looking for something, maybe the same thing and maybe something else. You didn’t care to ask. You let him look, let him find whatever it was he would find. He sighed and gestured you over. You moved across the room and he took your arm to pull you out of Lieberman’s eyesight.
“I see it in your eyes, Princess.. You’re not alright, are you?” Frank asked quietly.
“He’s dead.” You answered simply, but your voice felt drowned out by the explosions in your heart. “And I did nothing.”
He frowned slightly and pulled you in for a tight embrace.
That seemed to dull the heat as your eyes closed tightly and the tears threatened. You wrapped your arms around him and balled his shirt into your fists. You buried your face against him and he offered quiet, gentle consolations. All the running, the burying your pain and pretending it didn’t exist, all of it swelled into a pressure in your head that escaped as hot tears.
“I don’t wanna do this here.” You pulled away and wiped your sleeve across your eyes. “Not now.”
“Y/N..” He tried but you backed away slowly and he didn’t stop you.
“I don’t wanna talk about it right now.” You shook your head. “I’ve gotta go, alright? I’ll come back tomorrow.”
You had Billy pick you up from your apartment and you two drove to the cemetery together. You followed his lead to the headstone and you hadn’t expected to feel your heart sink. Knowing Frank was alive and in New York with a fake tombstone while Matt was dead under New York and no one was ever going to know, there was no tangible way to remember him other than whatever was left in your apartment, it felt like it could kick your heart down that bottomless pit.
The thought made you shiver and you felt Billy put an arm around your shoulders to pull you into his side.
“Happy birthday, Frank.” Curtis toasted.
“You alright?” He leaned down to ask and you simply nodded, your voice having been swallowed up. “It’s a good thing, getting a stone.”
“Yeah, figured he deserved a marker of some kind, right?” Curtis agreed, passing you the bottle of liquor.
You nodded in thanks and took a drink before passing it on to Billy.
“Frank would’ve hated this, this maudlin shit.” Billy said with a sad laugh. You stepped out from under his arm and took his hand instead, hooking the other one around his arm and leaning on his shoulder. “I wish he’d…”
Curtis leaned around you to see his friend’s face better but you couldn't take your eyes off the stone.
“Why didn’t he… Why didn’t he come to us, man?” Billy continued and you felt genuine regret through your conjoined hands. You wondered, if only for a moment, what would’ve been different had Billy been involved. Maybe it doesn’t go to trial, or maybe Billy’s the character witness rather than Schoonover. Maybe Nelson and Murdock doesn’t fall apart. Maybe you and Matt end up too busy with cases to investigate Midland. Or maybe you meet Billy at a time that you could’ve allowed yourself to feel something. You had to swallow the thoughts down, feeding them to the nagging emptiness.
“He didn’t have to be alone. We could’ve helped him.” Billy continued. 
“He didn’t want any help.” Curtis shrugged. “He wanted to kill every bastard who had a hand in it.”
“I miss him..”
“Me too.” You finally spoke.
“I could see it, before everything. He was finding it harder and harder to come back.”
“He said Kandahar was like nothing else.” Curtis agreed and your ears perked up, picking up your head from Billy’s shoulder. “He said the lines were blurred.”
“When did he say that?” Billy asked and his body language almost felt defensive.
Maybe he was there too.
“When he was over there.” Curtis answered after a short pause and you could tell he was lying. Frank had to have reached out to Curtis after the Kandahar incident, after Ahmad Zubair. “He called me, y’know, to shoot the shit. Said I was lucky not to be there.”
“Yeah..” Billy breathed but it was clear that he didn’t fully believe Curtis. At the same time, he had nothing to accuse his friend of. “You were.”
You all hung out at the gravesite a little while longer, sharing stories and memories of Frank. You told them about in the interrogation room, when you needed a witness and he alluded to Billy. The comment of “you’d like him too much” made Billy laugh. You even admitted that in the short time you knew him, Frank was one of your few real friends and you felt some guilt over his death. Both men assured you it wasn’t on you but that didn’t change anything in your own head.
On the ride back to your place, you decided to try and pry some information out of Billy.
“Can I ask you something?” You asked quietly, making it seem as if you were hesitant to ask.
“Yeah, what’s going on?” He answered simply. “Everything okay?”
“Yeah.. Yeah, I just wanted to ask about Kandahar.”
“Why you bringin’ it up?” He asked tightly, offering a sideways glance that practically screamed suspicion.
You gave half of a shrug and dropped your eyes to your lap, hoping to come off as nervous and uncertain.
“Hey.” He said gently, putting a hand on your leg as a silent apology.
“It’s just.. If Frank didn’t like it and you obviously didn’t like it all that much either, I feel like it was something bad.” You explained carefully, watching the inflections in your voice as you spoke. “Is there anything you can tell me about it?”
“We had orders.” Billy said simply, though his voice was gentle. Definitely one of the more gentler tones you’d heard from him, but he always spoke to you with a certain tenderness. Sometimes it made your stomach lurch, other times it felt safe. This time is was somewhere dangerously inbetween. “You know how that goes.. You don’t always like them or even agree with them but you can’t say shit in the moment.”
“Yeah, I get that.” You nodded, because you did. You knew that all too well. “It was that bad, huh?”
“I’d tell you more if I could but…”
“Classified.” You finished with a sigh. “I figured as much. I appreciate you telling me something though.”
“I think the later parts were the worst for Frankie.” Billy explained carefully, phrasing it as if it was his own assumption but you could tell there was something more knowing about it. “Some intel that didn’t exactly pan out, got us caught in an ambush, and it changed him. Changed the way he saw our unit. He ever mention that to you?”
You shook your head but you had to assume he was talking about the Zubair incident, maybe even the story his CO told on the stand. “All he told me was that it was usually off the books, or that was his impression at least, with all the secrets… But during the trial, Schoonover talked about a mission near the Hindu Kush. Frank didn’t agree, said it was an ambush, but he went anyway because orders are orders… Frank did what he did best and got every man out. I never got a chance to ask him about it but he wasn’t exactly all that talkative anyway.”
Billy gave a small chuckle and it broke up some of the tension in the car.
“He never was much of a chatter-box.” Billy smiled slightly.
“I guess that was your job, huh?” You teased and his smile grew a little wider. “Thank you, for being honest with me.”
“I’m not gonna lie to you if I don’t have to.”
“I appreciate that.” You nodded as he pulled up to your building. “It’d be nice if you could tell me a little more but I get it.”
“You are relentless.” He laughed, turning to face you with a soft expression. “With all your own secrets.”
“Why are you looking at me like that?” Your brows furrowed slightly and you felt the heat under your skin dampening and your stomach started to find its way into a small knot.
You hadn’t realized it until then but you had missed having someone look at you with admiration like that. Of course Matt had his own way of seeing you and he never hesitated to express just how much he loved you or wanted you, but something about seeing it in someone’s eyes felt different.
Maybe you were healing after all… The thought made you want to gag.
“Stop looking at me like that!” You laughed slightly and smacked his chest, which earned you nothing but a smile.
“How about this?” He offered, patting your leg before keeping his hand there. “There’s someone I may be able to introduce you to and if he likes you…”
“He’ll tell me anything I wanna know?” Your brows raised.
“I’ll tell you anything you wanna know.” He chuckled. “Deal?”
“Hmm… I’ll break you yet, Mr. Russo.”
“Looking forward to it.” He smirked before you got out.
You rolled your eyes in amusement as you entered the building. You headed up to your place, checking your phone to see a text from Dex saying Homeland was going to keep the investigation of Wolf’s murder. It didn’t surprise you that they’d want to be the ones to figure out what happened to their own man, but it did leave interesting possibilities. Was the ranking agent only doing it to keep something quiet or were they a good agent? Were they doing it out of loyalty to their bureau and to Wolf or were they doing it for their own interest? But what would knowing Wolf’s attacker serve anyone? It was a lot to consider, but unfortunately not enough to keep your usual nightmare at bay.
The next day, you wore the vest under your shirt - one of Matt’s old Columbia shirts because it fit better over the protection than your own. You had a gun at your back and a knife at the side of your waistband. You thought about just taking the retractable that Billy gave you a while ago but it was shoved in the closet, wrapped up in your suit and still coated in blood. You didn’t think you could take seeing it, expecting a red-tinted mania to accompany it. So instead, with your weapons of choice, you hopped in your car and headed back over to Lieberman’s hidey-hole.
The tension in the room made your skin tingle and sent a shiver down your spine. You rubbed your hands on your arms to disperse the feeling and walked in to find the boys in one of the side rooms, Lieberman untied and dressed and Frank tense.
“I don’t do partners.” Frank said angrily and you made a face to yourself.
You sat beside him and propped an elbow on his shoulder, which earned you a small scowl. 
“How do you keep sneaking in here?” Lieberman asked in annoyance.
“There’s a blind spot in your cameras.” You explained simply. “Leads right up to an old service entrance that isn’t locked and you two are too busy bickering to hear me coming.”
“Blind spot.” He scoffed. “Really?”
“Mhmm.” You nodded. “Anyway, did you turn off your little cameras?” You gestured vaguely to the ceiling.
“Yeah.. How did you know about them?”
You shrugged a shoulder and turned back to Frank.
“If you don’t do partners, what am I?” You asked with raised brows and he squinted his eyes as he looked at your face. “What?”
“You’re different today..” He said simply as he tried to piece together what changed.
“Okay?”
“What changed?”
“Nothing…”
“No, something’s different.”
“Nothing important.” You urged.
“Y/N.”
“Leave it alone, Frank.” You warned. “Now’s not the time.”
“Can we just-” Lieberman cut in and you looked at him with a slight glare. “Can we get back to what’s important?”
“And what exactly is that?” You humored him.
“We’ve all done things we would like to take back, but we can’t. We’re not the bad guys here, they are. Right?”
“Do we know who they are to begin with? Is that why Carson Wolf from Homeland is dead? Someone’s looking into Frank’s unit and I’m guessing it’s about the Kandahar incident. Wolf was part of the coverup for your death-” You pointed to Lieberman, who conceded with a small nod. “-and had to know about their off the books work. If you’re making Homeland your enemy, they’re not gonna back down. Not from a trio of ghost stories.”
“He means the guy who gave us the targets… Called him Agent Orange.” Frank explained carefully.
“That guy still around?” Your brows furrowed and Frank offered a shrug. Could that have been the person whose approval Billy needed before he told you anything?
“That night that my CO told you about during the case, that was the last one I ran with them. I should’ve killed Orange that night but.. Some of my guys pulled me off, said it was to protect me.”
“Who?”
Frank shook his head as if to say it wasn’t important.
“You could’ve ended it all that night.” Lieberman added. “You didn’t, and then they killed your family. You have to live with that.”
“Hey.” You said sharply and pointed a stern finger. “Watch your mouth or the next thing out of it is your tongue.”
He put his hands up in surrender. “This war you’re waging, Frank, it’s the U.S. government. It’s the CIA, and you just got rolled over by one spook zip-tied to an office chair.”
“Yeah, that’s a little embarrassing.” You muttered and Frank elbowed you in the ribs.
“I thought I needed you but you need me just as much.” Lieberman continued. “And now I’m starting to think we’ll need her too.”
“I think I have some connections that could be useful here.” You admitted. “I’ve made a few new friends since I last saw you, Frank. I already got in here twice without you guys knowing. You know I can hold my own.”
“Yeah, I get it.” Frank waved you off. “This isn’t gonna be like anything you’ve done before.”
“You don’t know any of the missions I ran before.” You shook your head. “You give me a team of three or four of my best, and we can take down an entire country’s government in twenty-four hours. I’m not afraid of this and I’m not afraid to die.”
“You’re only saying that cause Red di-”
“And you’re only doing this because your family.” You cut in firmly. “How is it different?”
“Just let her stay.” Lieberman offered. “She’s gonna do it anyway.”
“What about your friends?” Frank asked instead.
“Haven’t talked to them much since it happened...” You shrugged. “New job hasn’t put me on anything yet so it’s not like I’ll miss anything from there. Not leaving any kids or any family behind so..”
“Not even a boyfriend?” He tried, clearly trying to find anything to get you to reconsider.
You paused as you thought and Billy was the first thing that came to mind. But at the same time, Frank seemed to have already forgotten how stubborn you could be.
“No… Look, I didn’t leave you on that first rooftop. I didn’t leave you on that boat. I’m not leaving now.”
“I’m gonna regret this.” Frank groaned before nodding.
“Great.” Lieberman clapped his hands and stood. “I’ve spent months and months hacking every agency and their server.”
“How have they not caught you by now?” Your brows furrowed as you stood and followed him out of the room.
“I’m NSA. It’s my job.”
“Well I hacked into your stuff and you didn’t notice so..” You shrugged.
“You did what?”
“Nothing, continue.”
“Well… Okay, look, anything they can throw at us, right? Phone companies, police departments, it doesn’t matter, because I can throw it right back at them! I’ve been getting ready for you, Frank.”
“What does that mean?” Frank asked, though his worry for you was more pressing in his mind. You took a second to force it to the back of his mind and he shot you a glare as his focus suddenly changed, to which you shrugged innocently.
“What does that mean?” Lieberman repeated as if offended Frank would ask that, but it was a fair question. He hadn’t exactly said what he wanted Frank and got you for. “It means that every missile needs a guidance system. Without me, you’re just a blunt object.”
“You think pretty highly of yourself, don’t you?” You commented and Lieberman rolled his eyes.
“Yeah, go ahead. Blow me off. Go ahead!” He argued and the clatter drew your attention back.
You saw Frank doubled over, supporting himself against a nearby cabinet, so you hurried over to help him. His body language was tense like he wanted to push you off, but the concern in your eyes made him decide against it. Despite your cruelty, your growing neutrality, and overall lack of empathy in your day-to-day life, Frank Castle had a way of bringing back a more human nature. You scanned his body for injuries but saw nothing so it had to have been something systemic. He nodded slightly to say that he was okay but you didn’t leave his side.
Lieberman brought the desk chair over that he was tied to last you saw him but Frank waved him off. Lieberman tried insisting but you kicked the chair away, unintentionally hitting it against his knees but not apologizing for it. He put his hands up in surrender and gestured for you two to follow him back towards the computers. You sighed to yourself and began to lead Frank out.
“All that heroin was just financing for something else.” He explained when you two got closer. “Your operation Cerberus doesn’t exist. There’s no official record. There’s no congressional approval.”
“Yeah, it was off the books.” You answered simply. “We knew that already. Off the books usually equates to illegal so..”
“They turned you into a hitman, Frank.”
“There are worse things to be.” You shrugged.
“Look, I don’t care if we all trust each other. I don’t care to be blood brothers or any of that kids in a treehouse type shit. But right now, we want the same thing… So work with me.”
“One condition.” Frank said lowly, burning with his own anger. His own betrayal. It sparked something sadistically familiar in your chest.
“Yeah, anything.”
“They die.. Every single one of ‘em.” He turned up to you. “No trials.”
“I’m not the one that insists on the justice system.” You answered plainly.
“No bullshit.. They die.”
“Fine by me.” You shrugged.
After a moment’s thought, Lieberman answered.
“Yeah, I can live with that.”
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