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#writing really is like bearing your soul to the world
meiieiri · 3 months
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𝐭𝐨 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐥𝐨𝐬𝐞 [geto suguru]
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synopsis: suguru geto upped and left that day without a moment’s notice and he took everything with him — your heart, your soul — but as you look at the positive pregnancy test in your hand, you realize that he did in fact leave one thing behind.
warnings: unplanned pregnancy, angst, explicit sex.
a/n: i know, i know. i should be writing WE but this concept has been in my head far longer than WE and i just need to get it out there or else, i think i’m gonna go insane. if anyone wants to know the plot of this would have been fic, feel free to let me know lmao, of course it still involves gojo bc i can’t choose between the two of them since they’re both so baby girl—! also happy birthday to the loml, my pookie-wookie, honeybunch, suguru geto!!
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It’s been a year since the happy side trip to Okinawa became a living nightmare that culminated in you, Suguru Geto, and Satoru Gojo on the brink of death and with many more scars than you could have ever imagined. The three of you had very different ideas on how to cope. Satoru spends the past year perfecting his cursed technique, often at the expense of his emotional well-being and energy but then again, after what Toji Fushiguro did to him leaving him with the trauma of being slaughtered without regard, it was only natural.
You and Suguru on the other hand retreated into yourselves; it was hard to believe that just a year before the two of you were a normal teenage couple who enjoyed walking the trendy streets of Shibuya in the weekend sunshine without a care in the world, whose only real problem is to decide where the two of you were gonna have your weekly dates.
Now, things were different. Rainclouds have gathered effectively blocking out the sun. As you sat on the desk reading through your textbook on reverse cursed technique, you glance at Suguru from time to time and you aren’t the least bit surprised to see him sitting by the dorm room’s windowsill, staring at the garden with an empty gaze.
You’ve had enough of this. This eternal state of limbo was tearing you and Suguru apart.
Slowly, you stand up from the desk, softly padding across the wooden floor to where your boyfriend is. It was the middle of the night, last you checked, it’s already nine in the evening. You should be heading back to the women’s dorms now but you couldn’t, not when things were like this, not when Suguru’s losing himself day after day, you can’t help him, you know that, but you could be there for him seeing that’s all you can do.
But even then, it’s never enough.
Your relationship with Suguru is like a lit dynamite stick, you know that it’s only a matter of time before it also explodes in your faces. So, Suguru takes the lead, like he always does, he’s so much wiser and stronger than you in every way though he doesn’t care to admit it, though he pretends he doesn’t know why you’re so dependent on him.
“I think we should break up.”
He says that while holding your hand. You saw this coming but just how long did you anticipate that the love of your life would eventually up and leave you? You squeeze his hand with every ounce of the grief you are feeling hoping it would transcend the confines of your skin and it would reach his heart. “Is that what you really want?”
“No.”
He stands up to meet your gaze, the throw blanket falling to the floor as he does. He leans in closer, his hand cupping your cheek with such tenderness and heartache that you feel your heart rise to your throat. Suguru is normally so gentle like a shower of midnight rain, but he kisses you like this is the last — it probably is. Lost in him, your hands trail over his chest, and he deepens the kiss hoping that you’d also understand that he doesn’t really want to leave but he has to. He can’t bear to drag you into his mess.
He could never do that to you.
You respond with a soft moan when Suguru slowly lifts your shirt over your head. He stares at your plump breasts for a moment, covered only by a thin lace-like material, before deciding that looking at you wasn’t enough. He has to take you, ravish you, fondle you, kiss you. Anything to let you know that he’s not doing this because he’s fallen out of love with you.
“Don’t leave,” you plead in between his soft kisses to your breasts, tears slipping from your eyes as he removes your bra, letting it slip from your shoulders which he was now kissing up to the crook of your neck. How could your hearts be so full yet so empty at the same time?
None of what happened should have caused this much heartache between the two of you. In fact, it should have made you rely on each more, right? It should have strengthened you not destroy everything you had: each other, the future you planned together.
Suguru doesn’t answer as he nips at your neck, sucking on the delicate flesh, as your forms gracefully fall on the bed, he stares at you with such love, such devotion, and you wonder why this should be the last time. His gaze falls to your vulnerable form, his cock hardening at the sight of your clothed pussy getting wet just from that. He grinds against you, sighing at the way you buck your hips to meet his wanting more of him. If this was to be the last time, then, you want to make it count.
“Suguru, I’m yours.” That’s all he needs to hear and he removes your underwear, kissing down your leg as he slips it off of you. He tosses it onto his nightstand, and he leans towards it to grab a condom from his drawer. You catch his hand. “Don’t. I want to feel you.”
Suguru’s eyes widen at your request, his lips eliciting short huffs of breath. He’s never fucked you raw before. “Are you sure?”
You nod against his forehead. “Please. Please fuck me, Su.”
Slowly, his hand guiding his tip up and down your slit, smearing your wetness along the base of his cock before slowly pushing into you savoring the sensation of your cunt squeezing around him as he stretches you with his girth. A deep groan betrays him and his mouth hangs open as your tight walls envelop him as he bottoms out. He takes a moment to collect himself, not wanting to cum right then and there.
“S-shit. Ah, you’re so fucking tight.” He allows himself a small thrust, the tip of his cock already nudging your sensitive spot, having memorized you after many desperate nights of lovemaking. His fingers grip the soft skin of your hips as he pulls out momentarily before pushing back in again more forcefully this time.
“S-su! Mngh—please fuck me—I love you, I love you, I love you,” you beg.
A tear slips from Suguru’s eyes, it was becoming more real now — this final goodbye. He presses a gentle kiss to your forehead, his thumb brushing against your cheek as he slowly builds up the pace of his thrusts, his cock bullying your cunt, driving himself in and out of your pussy, again and again. He brings your leg to his waist, holding it so he could angle himself better. “I love you too.”
You mewl as he pistons in and out of you, his balls slapping hard against your skin. “Sugu—ah! More—n-need more of you—“ You’re crying now, and he is too as he continues to ravage your pussy, his hand finds your other leg and he pushes your knees close to your chest, folding you into a deep mating press, slamming into your cunt.
“I’m yours. Always,” Suguru looks into your eyes amidst your desperate cries, your thighs trembling under his passionate gaze. He grunts when he feels the familiar tightening of your walls. “You’re close—fuck,” he takes this as an incentive to go faster, harder, and he fucks you in a way he never has before.
“So good—oh—“ you fall silent as he suddenly brings your hands to your clit, letting you touch yourself. You looked so beautiful like this, under him, your head thrown back against the pillows, your mouth primed in a silent ‘o’. He pants as he feels his balls tighten when your hips involuntarily buck into him as you climax. “Suguru!”
“Ah, baby…” He groans, the hot breath from his lips tickling your forehead as he rides out his high, spilling his seed into you not caring what the consequences may be. You did want this after all, and he did too. You feel full just from the sensation of his thick cum, he thrusts into you one last time, further smearing his release in your walls.
You sighed as he stays there, your weak and trembling arms coming up to embrace him. He strokes your hair, memorizing each lock, pulling out after a while. Suguru pulls you flush against his chest, the remnants of his and your release sliding down your thighs. “It’ll be okay,” Suguru catches his breath, kissing your temple. “Even without me. You’ll be okay.”
“I won’t…you know I won’t.”
“You will.” He says firmly. “I promise. You know me, baby, I never break my promises.” You feel tears well up in your eyes again and he tenderly wipes it away. “I love you, (Y/N).”
“I love you too.”
By the next morning, you already knew with the way the AC’s cold air nips at your skin without Suguru, your Suguru, there to embrace you that he’s already left.
Without a note, without a goodbye. Typical of Suguru who doesn’t want to stick around to see you cry.
You curl into yourself as sobs wrack your body, the promise ring Suguru gave you gleaming under the rays of morning sunlight.
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A few years later, just as Suguru said, things did get better. You smiled as you arranged the last of the tempura into the bento box filled with soba noodles with nori and small containers of mentsuyu and wasabi. It’s amazing how much she takes after him. You look at the clock and your face pales. You’re running late, so, you head upstairs to speed things up a little. You creak open the door to see the little blessing of your life, the last gift Suguru ever gave you. She’s looking at the picture of you and Suguru which you placed in her room, and since you know it was highly unlikely she’ll ever meet your lover in this lifetime, you’ve decided you want her to know him if by his appearance alone and the stories you tell her.
“Riko? We’re gonna be late,” you gently reminded your four-year-old daughter. You shoot her a funny look when you see the haphazard way she placed her hair in a bun. She pouts as she tries to get it right again, looking at her father’s picture intently. “Sweetheart, are you trying to look like—?”
“Like papa,” she huffs cutely and you chuckle, moving to pick her up and sit her down on your lap. Kissing her cheek, you also gaze at the picture depicting a candid you and Suguru during your first year at Tokyo Jujutsu Technical College. He has his arm wrapped around your shoulder, winking at the camera as he kisses your cheek, a silent gleeful laugh on your face.
You look at her, a little confused, you gently smooth her hair before planting a kiss between her eyebrows. “And why do you want to look like papa?” Riko shyly looks away, her ears turning a little red as she blushes, a trait she inherited from you. You flick her nose, giggling. “Well?” Riko laughs at the playful gesture.
“…So you don’t cry anymore, mama.” Your heart seems to have stopped beating for a moment and a warm, tearful smile appears on your face, wrapping Riko in a bone-crushingly tender hug. “Love you…” she sinks into the warmth of your hug and you kiss the top of her head.
“I love you, Riko. So…so…much.”
At that, your little girl sighs in relief. “School?” she tilts her head and you suddenly remembered the reason you went upstairs. You had to get moving. Your eyes widened and you carry her downstairs, being careful not to jostle her too much. “My hair, mama!” she giggles at her still unruly hair and you grimace in embarrassment. Suddenly, the front door opens and Riko sees who it is, before you could grab the spare brush from your bag, she suddenly jumps out of your arms and makes a beeline for the door.
“Papa, papa!”
You turn around and though the sight pains you to this day, somehow, you’re starting to learn to live with the fact that things are always bound to change with time and that this is what Suguru would have wanted: a loving and complete family for his little girl. You wrap Riko’s bento and place it in her lunchbox before going to greet the visitor.
“Hi, babe.” He turns to meet your lips for a sweet kiss, balancing Riko in his strong arms.
“Good morning, Satoru.”
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sukunas-wife · 4 months
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First, I adore your writing! It warms my soul 🫶🏽♥️
Second, I was wondering if you could do Sukuna x Reader w/ little Yuji asking his dad to help him make a gift for Y/N for Mother’s Day. I think it would be such a cute bonding time between them 💝
Please and thank you if you choose this 🤍
Tysm 🥹 it keeps me warm at night, So does my Sukuna plushie when I don’t knock him off the bed by accident 😭 but Yes! 🥺 I know Valentines isn’t close or far but 😫 The things I’d do for him and Yuji (as a son) on Valentine’s Day 😭😭 I wanna spoil both of them with love🥹 and maybe give Sukuna another kid 🤭
But I hope you like it Little Anon 🤍
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“DDAAADDDD” Yuji came running into the living room crying running with a pair of plastic scissors almost impaling his dad. “What is brat?” Sukuna didn’t look too interested, laid back on the sofa, arms behind his head, eyes closed.
“My scissors won’t cut!” He made snipping motions on the paper he was using and sukuna barely opened an eye to watch. Yuji’s already teary eyes watered up as she trembled and sniffled. Sukuna closed his eyes, “Then fold it and tear it, you don’t need scissors to cut paper.”
There Yuji stood, laying the paper on his dads stomach. Sukuna opened his eyes watching how he was crinkling it while he tried to fold it. Failing and failing until he got it right, and tearing it apart slowly, “I did it!” Sukuna had a small smile, bringing a hand to ruffled Yuji’s hair “After half an hour.” Yuji pouted, “I gotta go!” He ran to his room again and sukuna was left with his hand flopping down dragging on the floor. “Hey!” He yelled after Yuji, Yuji popped his head out the door, “yeah?” “STOP RUNNING WITH THOSE DAMN SCISSORS!” “….Okay daddy!”
Sukuna closed his eyes leaning back, he could hear the tearing of paper before he started to nap. Then there was a really loud tear and he choked hearing Yuji’s small voice “damn it!”
“Pssst… psss… pss daddy.” He tried to swat away whatever was touching his face “ddadddyyyy are you awake?….. daddy?”
“What is it now Yuji?” Sukuna didn’t open his eyes. “I needa go…” “Yu.. you have the short toilet you can go if you need to..” “noooo daddy I need to go to the store!” Sukuna sat him with a huff, “alright let’s go. Go get dressed- are we taking the bike?” Yuji's eyes had stars while he looked up at his dad. “Yeah, we’re taking the bike cmon, get ready.” Yuji ran off to his room where Sukuna heard all the sounds of Yuji ripping open the clothes drawers. Grabbing his own jacket he got ready to go out into the cold.
—————-
“Alright what are we looking for…” Sukuna received silence, “Yuji?” He snapped around and there was no Yuji. “Ah shit.”
There went Sukuna trying to speed walk around trying to find his son who he literally brought into the store a minute ago. Finally he found him, in the seasonal section stretching on his tippy toes to get a white tiger plushie that held a white and silver box with a costume glass pearl necklace and earrings. “…what are you doing…?” “Wan it for mommy.” He gave up looking down and pointing at the plushie. Sukuna sighed, “Why do you want it for mom brat it’s not her birthday.” “Because it’s white day daddy! I have to get something for mommy!” He threw his hands up like it was the most obvious thing, unbeknownst to him the entire world was coming crashing down on his dad at that moment.
“I..it’s what?” “White day Daddy! Now hurry, I need that bear!” He went back to jumping and trying to grab it before Sukuna grabbed it shoving it under his arm, and picking up Yuji stuffing him under his other arm, “We gotta hurry-“ Yuji bounced around under Sukuna’s arm while he ande his way to the register, “wait!” Sukuna came to a stop “what?!” “Can I get candy?” Yuji pointed at the candy aisle and Sukuna turned his side to the aisle so Yuji could get what he wanted, “okay… WAIT NO” he grabbed a second candy, “I’m ready.” Sukuna let out heh noise before rushing back to the register, “I gotta pick something up at the shops so we gotta be fast hold on.”
————-
Yuji was standing on a chair at the kitchen table looking at the white Box his dad picked up. “What’s inside?” Sukuna who was focusing on spilling the glitter Yuji wanted on his card was holding his breath to not blow everywhere. Finally he sat up taking a breath, “a gift for your mom, cmon, you wanted to put your hand on this card right?”
“Mhmm!” Yuji hummed running around the table to his dads side barely peeking over the edge, “got the paint?” … “mm…no, gotta find it” Yuji trailed after his dad on the way to his room where they started looking in the closet, in the toy box, under the bed. “Where’s y/n put everything???” Sukuna was knelt face pressed against the floor flashing under Yuji’s bed with his phone’s flash light.
“Oh oh! Top shelf! Mommy doesn’t let me touch the top shelf.” He watched his push a chair over the book shelf and jump in the chair grabbing a thin box, “I touch it anyways.” He smiled proudly and Sukuna just smirked “Oh you little devil mommy would be so disappointed to know her precious little boy plays with the paint when she’s not home.”
Yuji threw the box up, “Please don’t tell mommy! I’ll never do it again!” Sukuna laughed when Yuji started to tear up, “Don’t worry, as long as you don’t tell mommy we ran that red light earlier, grab em and let’s go.” Yuji nodded like he was on a mission, “Kay.”
——
“Daddy you put your hand on first,” Sukuna sighed but pressed his hand into the Paper Yuji worked so hard to cut earlier. “Now let me see your hand Yu, gonna ink you up.”
Yuji laughed uncontrollably at the feeling of the brush on his fingers and palm which lead to Sukuna tickling him. Yuji was laughing until he turned red and started wheezing. Sukuna tried to brush Yuji’s hair back until he smudged him with paint. He cleared his throat to not laugh at Yuji, when he finally sat up catching his breath.. “My hands dry.”
Sukuna snickered, “alright, do it this time.” He carefully painted Yuji’s hand, guiding him to make the print right in the middle of Sukuna’s hand print. “Done!”
He turned to his dad in his lap and placed his hands on his cheeks squishing his face, “Thank you daddy, i love you.” Yuji was smiling, Sukuna smiled and nuzzled his nose against Yuji’s before pressing his lips to the top of his head making a dramatic muah sound making Yuji go “eewww” while laughing. Sukuna laughed while Yuji stared at his face, “I wanna look like daddy.” Which led to the two spending the next hour painting Yuji’s face to have the same inked lines his daddy did. 🥹
———
When you came home you found Sukuna and Yuji in the kitchen. Sukuna was telling Yuji about his “top secret” frying technique and Yuji was standing on a chair looking at the stove watching every move not wanting to miss anything. “mhm mhm” he had no idea what was going on while his dad was talking. You took their picture before Yuji finally turned around “Mommy!” He got so happy slowly sliding off the seat to run over to you, “Happy White day! We got you something!”
“Aww baby you didn’t have too.” Picking him up and kissing him all over he squealed in delight. Setting him down you walked over to Sukuna, he turned to kiss you when he felt you moving in to kiss his cheek. He had that smug smile when you smiled wrinkling your nose at him.
“Look, we made the bag too.” You watched Yuji’s little chubby legs and hands pop around the bag his face hidden behind the wrinkled tissue paper, “Aww its so pretty.” You took the bag from him, it was a white party bag in Yuji’s hand writing with gold marker “we lov you momy.” Covering your smile with your hand you looked at Yuji, “Did it all by myself.” Sukuna tsked “Sure ya did brat, went to the store too and used your whole five dollars too, hm?”
Yuji stuck his tongue out at his dad, “You didn’t give em back so I did pay!” You shook your head smiling when you opened the box, pulling out a white paper card, Sukuna moved closer resting his chin on your shoulder and Yuji pushed up a chair. The was Yuji’s handwriting “We lov you momy” and a wobbly drawn heart. Under it he wrote his name and Sukuna signed his name with a little note “I Love you more ;).” When you opened it it was so cute that you knew Yuji had to have forced Sukuna to do it. Sukuna’s hands were painted red in the shape of a heart, inside were yuji little hands painted white to make a smaller heart.
There was the note in Sukuna’s Handwriting, “These are my hands and with them I will take yours to have and to hold, to love and cherish till death do us part.”
Then there was Yuji’s cute little note, “I know you wipe some away, but these prints were made to stay, So keep them forever, a treasure they'll be, A special I LOVE YOU for you from me.”
The rest of the card was decorated in gold and silver glitters dots and squiggles. Little hand drawn hearts from Sukuna and Yuji. Most of the glitter ended up on the white tiger plushie Yuji ended up taking to sleep with that night 🥹😭
Later that night when Ryo and You were in the room getting ready to sleep when he spoke up. “Sorry we didn’t take you out anywhere fancy. Kinda lost track of time with everything going on…” he paused and you just turned to look at him, “It’s not an excuse but I did get you this.”
You walked over standing between his legs taking the white box from him. He hugged your waist pressing his face against your tummy, you rested your elbows on his shoulders and he heard your small laugh. “I think this was more for you then it was for me.”
You dropped the box next to him holding up the lingerie set. It was white satin with gold hip and shoulder straps covered in crystals. The back of the panties had been customised to say “Ryomen”, all topped off with one of those dramatic lacey robes with even more dramatic feathery cuffs and edges.
He smiled up at you from your tummy with lidded eyes, “maybe…” he kissed your tummy before squeezing your sides. You out a hand on his head brushing his hair back, he had that smug smile that gave you Yuji a few years ago, “So what do you say we really make this a white day?”
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Tag: @sad-darksoul @cyder-puff @satorisgirl @bontensbabygirl @lupita97lm @queen-luna-007 @sakuxxi @mercymccann @simpforyoubitch @certainduckanchor @domainofmarie @najiiix @bakugou-katsukis-wife @amitiel-truth @souyasplushie @mylovelessnightmare
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fiendishfables · 2 months
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Hiii cookie bookie pookie bear, I was wondering if you could write for my short king again (lucifer)! Babyboy is short but how will he be with a gf/wife that is shorter than him! Rahh so cute ♡
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Lucifer x Shorter S/O! Fem! Reader
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Headcanons
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warnings: fluff, short people jokes, Lucifer being an emotional dork and lover
words: 664
a/n: sorry for the lack of fics, I've been super busy and have had no motivation recently! Thanks for 300+ followers, I love y'all!
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First of all, it's very rare that Lucifer finds anyone shorter than himself, so you'll have to excuse the literal squeal of excitement he emits the moment he sees you
When you first mention your romantic feelings for him, he had a field day
Someone like yourself, being so beautiful AND short, liking HIM?
He swore it was like being back up in Heaven again
Definitely never misses a chance to make a short joke, despite his own height misfortunes
The internet aided him in coming up with originals
"Hey, how's the weather down there?"
"My golly, it really is the little things in life that matter, isn't it darling?
You have attempted to bite his ankles a few times
Don't worry, if his jokes somehow ends up hurting your feelings, he will be quick to apologize and coddle you for the rest of the day
He is usually very ecstatic whenever you ask him to get anything for you off of a high perch; his chest literally swells with pride that he finally has someone who can come to him for that sort of stuff
"Oh, that old thing up there? No worries, my love. Step aside, step aside now."
Ends up having to get the kitchen stool
But by then, more often than not, it ends up with neither of you being able to reach it, not even with the help of his cane or the stool
Results in him having to get either his daughter, or the spider pornstar he usually tried to avoid if possible (mainly result of his intimidations due to his height, but he was a friend of Charlies)
He will physically deflate if he can't fulfill a need/request you have for him; it crushes his spirit
Likes to put his arm on your head whenever he stands next to you
Its a symbol of both his affection for you and his desire to playfully irritate you
Says you make a good armrest
He only got the satisfaction of saying it once though, because you kicked him harshly in the shin after
He thinks you are just the cutest thing when you're mad; he likes seeing you yell at other people, especially Alastor
But if you yell at him instead during these times, he will go wrap himself up in a blanket and have a breakdown on his own time
You wont see him for a good hour or two; he's off sobbing in some random corner
Eventually he will resurface and request your attention, which you gladly provide him with, apologizing and telling him your words were only humor based and not meant to be taken to heart
Lucifer is already such a sensitive soul, he claims you are turning him to mush by just being the cutest thing to ever behold him
He can't fathom the idea of ever making his precious lady mad at him
Loves getting you funny t-shirts and stuff that have short people jokes on them
Almost always insists on being the big spoon when the two of you cuddle
He's finally taller than someone for once in his life, okay?
He gets the chance to feel like he is effectively protecting someone, this time by covering them with his body like a shield; this has never happened before
Let him have this one victory; he feels accomplished, the poor baby
No one can deny that he has tons of fun with you, as he now gets to be the one who feels all high and mighty
Your height is an ongoing topic throughout the relationship
He often forgets that he himself still only stands just above five feet
He once even tried to fight Alastor because you genuinely make him feel like he's a 7ft giant
Safe to say he came back to you with his tail between his legs, feelings hurt, and still a whopping 5,2
But with you, he may as well have been standing on top of the world
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joelsgoldrush · 10 months
Text
swore i heard you whisper that you preferred us like that
joel miller x f!reader / 5,8k words
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summary: you ask joel –the quiet, distant joel– to teach you how to ride a horse. they say the eyes are the window to the soul, and it must be true, because when he really sees you, it´s like he finally understands what you feel for him.
warnings: smut 18+ let’s pretend joel never left jackson, porn with plot, no use of y/n, age gap (reader is in her late 20s, joel is 56), grinding, oral (f receiving), fingering, masturbation, pet names, unprotected p in v (don't try this at home ok), dirty talk, soft!dom joel (sort of???), a bit of angst/feelings, joel gets all babygirl around reader, ellie appears for like a minute, mediocre attempt at recreating joel's southern accent (sorry in advance)
a/n: hello??? well this is my first fic ever so bear with me, i'm still new to all this. also english isn't my first language so i'm afraid there may be mistakes (mostly when it comes to collocations bc i hate them and they confuse me), buuuut i'm learning obviously and if you find anything that should be corrected PLEASE TELL ME thank you :) i'd appreciate if you told whether you liked this story (idk what to call it tbh) but if you don't it's more than fine! anyways thank you so much for reading if you come across this fic, i hope you like it! i've spent a week writing it bc finals season is killing me <///3
here's my masterlist in case you want to read my other works :)
"Oh, my drunken southern star / How you tried to hide in darkness / Slipped from orbit / Now you’re dangerously close / Come out, come out from all your hiding out / We’ll dig in our heels, salute the battlefields / Where our broken hearts were born."
What is it that he has?
You used to ask yourself that question every night as you went to bed. On some occasions, you couldn't manage to come up with an exact answer. There were too many reasons that disclosed why a man like him lingered on your mind, even in those moments that were supposed to be for you and only you. Sleeping more than three hours a day was definitely something you needed tremendously, but still, the not-so-rational voice inside your head kept on bringing his name up without fail, disturbing your rest.
Joel Miller. Was it possible to feel like this? Like you knew somebody without having exchanged more than five words with them? Sure, there wasn't a single person in Jackson who wasn't aware of his existence. From whispered rumors in the streets to stories that intended to give his reserved personality an explanation, Joel became a real talking-point among those in the commune. Years ago, when the world was still just a floating ball in space, he would’ve frightened you, being the kind of person your parents used to warn you about as you started to grow older.
He walked a certain way, as if he were holding the suffering of many lives in his hands. Always on guard, prepared to fight those who defied him. Hidden knives in his pockets, a gun between his fingers, the trigger too tempting to be pulled at any time given. His hair was a mixture of brown and gray, and you swore that the latter was only becoming more prominent as days went by. 
Suddenly, your pillow felt too uncomfortable, your hands fisting the fabric of your t-shirt while you kicked the blanket resting on top of your bare feet. A sigh escaped your lips, the taste of something you couldn't even distinguish on your tongue, your unsteady breath being the only sound to be heard in that noiseless night. 
You were having a hard time figuring out how you felt about Joel (if there was anything to feel in the first place, since he barely remembered your face and there you were, fantasizing about him instead of sleeping.) Maybe you liked how he presented himself, how bossy and persistent he looked the times you caught him patrolling around the zone. Or perhaps it was his character what charmed you in the first place, and the fact that, deep down, a different side from him remained completely unseen.
He was handsome, too. Tall, broad shoulders, aquiline nose. His arms looked majestic in every single piece of clothing he wore, his tanned skin shiny enough to reflect the very same sun. And his legs… you were sure they were muscular like the rest of his body, because of all the physical effort he did. You had  heard that he worked as a contractor before the pandemic, which made a lot of sense. Once or twice you had paid attention to his hands and–
Then, a familiar feeling sinked in. Warm began spreading through your belly, your thighs involuntary clenching together. “Fuck,” you muttered in a low tone, keeping your hands glued to your sides. Another motive not to think about Joel: he made you feel… things. Certain things that you hadn't felt for anyone in a very long time. You preferred to think that it was probably due to the fact that you were touch-starved, and not because you found yourself deeply attracted to him. Never had you ever been a sexually active person, so why now? Why did the mere image of Joel in your mind turn you on? 
He’s strong. I’m alone. I feel the need to find someone who’s willing to protect me. That’s it. No other reason.
Your internal monologue was lacking in arguments, but it was definitely something you could work with. As if on cue, you found it hard to keep your eyes open, your limbs not feeling as if they were yours anymore. Next thing you knew, you were asleep.
That night, you dreamt with Joel.
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
In a small cabin, you taught children how to paint and draw. Maria believed it to be helpful for their psychological development or something like that, and you had agreed to do it. A good way to spend your free time– that’s what it was. Plus, you liked children; some would even choose to include you in their drawings, and that small gesture just warmed your heart.
There, you met Ellie, a teenager whose basic vocabulary consisted mostly of profanities. 
And boy, you loved Ellie.
It was hard not to, actually. She was like a breath of fresh air, with her jokes and instant charm. You two became attached in a short time, and she reminded you of a younger version of you, just a lot braver. Although in this world it brought her benefits, you sometimes wished she wouldn’t have gone through all that shit. Those eyes, which squinted as she laughed if you tickled her sides, were the cemetery of many buried memories. You wondered how she managed to put a smile on her face despite her past and the horrible things she had seen, hoping it was genuine and not a mask.
“Look!” her voice brought you back to reality. Blinking in her direction, you realized the amount of paint you had dropped onto the floor, a red stain already forming on the carpet. “Are you okay? You seem off.”
“I’m fine! Just a bit sleepy today, that's all,” you got closer to where she was lying down, her fingers moving the brush you had gifted her in different directions. Squatting a bit, you placed a strand of hair that didn’t make it into her ponytail behind her ear. “So, what are you painting?”
She smiled warmly, and her teeth catched her lower lip momentarily. “It’s not finished, okay? Don’t freak out. I know you’re a perfectionist.”
“I’m not…” you tried to explain yourself, but ended up choosing to be defeated. “Maybe you’re right. Anyway, may I see it?”
The canvas was in your hands a few moments later. Ellie spoke beside you, her words mixing together in a sign of embarrassment. “It’s for Joel. Figured I could do something nice for him, you know? I don’t– I think I need to start over. His eyes look kind of strange, don’t they? They’re so close he looks like a cyclops.”
“Don’t say that, kiddo. This is… it’s beautiful,” your index finger traced the lines framing his jaw, the shades of his skin perfectly achieved. You held the painting even tighter, afraid of breaking it for a second. He wasn’t frowning like he normally did; Ellie had painted him smiling, and the crinkles by his eyes matched his age. Surely you must have spent more time than necessary staring at it, ‘cause then Ellie continued talking.
“Well, you know what they say: The student has become the teacher.” 
You handed the canvas to her, a smirk taking place on your face. “Yeah, I guess I’ll stop teaching you if that’s the case.”
An hour or so later, someone knocked on the door. As both of your hands were occupied (a more formal way to say that they were dirty with paint), you screamed “Come in!”, and Ellie covered her painting with an old, muddy curtain you used to clean the tables in which the children worked. You were about to ask her why she had reacted in that way, until you turned around and saw him.
Joel was there, as every other Wednesday. In your cabin, standing right in front of you. And you didn’t even look presentable. His hair looked messy, a couple of locks stuck to his forehead with sweat. “Hi,” he said shortly, meeting your gaze and attempting to shake your hand, but you avoided contact.
Showing him your hands, you held your palms in the air as an indication of the still fresh paint on your skin. “Sorry. If I were to accept the gesture, I’d leave you a stain.”
He retrieved a bit, adjusting his glove. “It’s okay. Safety first.”
That was supposed to be a joke, you noticed tardily. The silence in the room persisted until Ellie appeared from behind your back, already putting her coat on.
“You were supposed to pick me up in half an hour, asshole.”
His mouth snapped shut for an instant. “I missed you too. How was the class?” 
Ellie lifted her shoulder in a half shrug, looking in your direction and proceeding to jerk her thumb toward Joel. She didn’t want him to see the painting. “Fine as usual.”
“Can I see what you’re–”
“No fucking way!” she accentuated the word fucking, drawing him closer to the door. 
“Why not?”
“Because it’s not done.”
“But–”
“No more questions, Joel. Let’s go! Say bye!” Ellie handled him like a baby, which made you giggle.
Though you saw Joel raising his eyebrows, so you stopped laughing. 
Soon, they left and the cabin returned to its familiar quietness. A sigh erupted from your chest, and you allowed yourself to fall on top of a chair.
At least you could say you had actually talked to Joel for once.
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
It didn’t surprise you that you wanted to see him again.
Not in the “you-turn-me-on” way, but in the “you-seem-interesting-and-i-need-to-find-out-why” one.
He had something. Something so magnetic and indecipherable that kept pulling you towards him. Something that made you look for his presence in every crew, and not sensing what it was only made your wishes to dissect him grow bigger. There was a tiny probability that he was an idiot with a pretty face. Who knew? You definitely didn’t, and that needed to change. You deserved to know if pining over that man was worth it or not.
That chain of thoughts led you to look for him the next day, almost trembling with eagerness as you asked him the most stupid and unexpected question you could have imagined.
“Would you teach me how to ride a horse?”
He looked at you as if you were out of your mind, opening his mouth a few times and then closing it before he actually replied to you. “You’re tellin' me you don’t know how to ride a horse?”
“Tried it a few times, but failed and now I really want to learn to do it properly,” you swore his eyes were trying to decipher if you were saying the truth or not. “Ellie told me that you could probably make some time to teach me?”
“So Ellie's in charge of my schedule, I suppose?” you froze on the spot, and he must have noticed it because then his expression dulled. “Sorry, sweetheart. It was a joke. I've been told I'm not the best humorist.”
Sweetheart. You could’ve died a happy girl.
“Look, why don’t we meet up tomorrow after lunch? I'm sure it won’t take us much time. Not a difficult task, y’know?” he stroked his beard, apparently thinking you understood what he was talking about. 
“Sure. Thank you, Joel. My name’s–“
He didn’t let you finish. “I do know your name,” and before leaving, he repeated: “I’ll be here tomorrow. You know where to find me.”
To say that you slept without interruptions that night was an understatement. Each hour seemed to become longer the more you glimpsed your watch. Your heart drummed inside your chest violently, and you feared that someone else would be able to hear it if they got close enough to you. 
After having lunch in the same spot as every other mundane day, your legs took you to the stable. You took a shaky breath, expecting him to appear out of thin air, but fifteen minutes went by, and there was still no sign of Joel. Pressing your forehead against the wooden door, you wrapped your arms around yourself. “What was I even thinking?” 
“Hey.”
You looked to your side and– there he was, already getting inside the stable and inviting you to follow him. Joel petted one of the horses, clicking his tongue. His fingers caressed the animal’s back, and when he shot a glance at you, he didn’t ignore your disturbed expression.
“Don’t tell me you’re afraid of horses.”
“I’m not afraid of them,” you laughed awkwardly, eyeing the horse, which stared at you with those big and strange eyes. You raised your hand to mimic Joel, but that just made the animal move further away from you. “I guess it’s mutual. We don’t like each other.”
Joel smirked, guiding you outside. “It’s a damn horse. I don’t think you can tell whether he likes you or not. You gotta change that attitude of yours,” he murmured as he got on top of the horse, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Treat him well and he’ll be nice.”
At first, Joel taught you the basics: how to position yourself for balance, get your legs in the right position, hold the reins properly. A little bit of help coming from him was needed for you to mount the horse. He got down on one knee, patting it as if it were a mounting block. “Come on. Step on it.”
No need to ask me twice, you thought as you did what you were told, and once you were grabbing on those reins for dear life, you observed him with curious eyes. “Now what?”
“Now…” he pressed his hand into one of the horse’s sides, and afterwards, the horse began to fucking trot and you cried out, a high-pitched shriek slipping from your mouth. Joel laughed maliciously, almost hypnotized by the scene. “Now is when you learn how to ride a horse!”
“This isn't funny!” you screamed, the horse still very much entertained with the way you were jerking on top of him. “Stop!”
You couldn't believe how he kept… cracking up. Joel touched his stomach, shaking with laughter. “You’re a natural, can’t you see it? I’m havin' the time of my life here.”
“What I can see is that you’re an idiot! Cut the cackle and help me!”
But he didn’t move a single muscle. Instead, he remained still, that smug look never abandoning his features.
The bastard. “You’re gonna make me beg? In this situation?”
Crossing his arms while teasingly grinning at you, he added: “Wouldn’t hurt to try.”
“Joel Miller, will you help me? Pretty please?” your hair was getting in the way, and you could taste it as you insisted. “Is that enough for you?”
It was, actually. He helped you get down from the horse, his thick fingers digging into the mushy skin of your waist. It shouldn’t have felt that good, but it did. You were supposed to be angry at him for setting you up and still, by touching you for a microsecond, he had transformed you into something malleable.
Sadly, that feeling didn’t last much longer. “Didn’t know you were a man of manners. Should’ve told me beforehand.”
“Didn't know you could scream like that. I hope you didn’t freak anyone out.”
The two of you continued to practice until nightfall. A thing you also learned, apart from horse riding, was that Joel was a determined man. Everytime you tried to quit, he stopped you, making it impossible for you to rest. You stared at him, rubbing the back of your sore neck with a grimace. “I’m tired. Can we go back?”
“One more time.”
“Joel–”
“Trot a couple of meters just one more time, and that’s it for today. Can you do that for me?”
You tried not to pay too much attention to his choice of words, although it was basically non-viable. He looked sinful, and you longed to shut him up with a bruising kiss. Again, a hopeless option. Your hands itched to touch him, to feel his stubble, rough and coarse under your thumbs. How could you stay focused when the man you had been daydreaming with for the last couple of months was bossing you around? 
Despite your inability to clear your head of any of those thoughts, you managed to accomplish what he had asked you to do. “Well done,” he offered you his hand to dismount the horse and you accepted it, sighing as you stretched out your arms. “We should take him back to the stable,” Joel suggested, giving you the impression of being pleased as you told him you were coming with him.
Inside the stable, he relocated the horse into one of the many stalls. Unbelievably, the place didn’t smell like absolute shit, which was what you were expecting from a barn. “Thank you for the lesson,” you told Joel once he was done with the horse.
“Anytime,” he scratched his jaw, the dim light making his dark eyes look, if possible, even darker. “It wasn’t that bad, was it?”
“No. You were right,” your heart thrummed with every word that he blurted. His presence was addictive. You were never the one to have any bad habits, but deep down, you recognized that he easily could develop one. “I thought you were less talkative.”
“So did I,” for an instant, he pressed his lips together, forming a tight line, as if he had said something he shouldn’t have in the first place. “I think I didn’t ask you this before: but why now? I mean, why did you wait so much time to learn how to ride a horse? Everyone in Jackson seems to know how.”
You cleared your throat, his piercing eyes peering at your movements. “I guess I thought it wasn't necessary back then, before all this. It's one of those things that you don't even consider until it becomes inevitable. I used to believe I had a lot of time left when I was younger,” you had never talked about this with anyone else. There was something so intimate about this conversation, how Joel stood seemingly tongue-tied in front of you, as if he were taking notes of what you were confessing to him. “I remember being a kid and not wanting to use my toys sometimes because I kept waiting for the right moment. But then…”
“You realize there’s no such thing as the right moment,” he finished the sentence for you, and you bowed your head. “Life can end at any moment, especially in a world like ours. That’s why you always gotta do what you wish to. We never know what’ll happen tomorrow.”
“Live for today, hope for tomorrow? That’s your creed?” you tried to mock him, the tension in the stable far from evident, but he didn’t move.
“It’s the way I try to live my own life. I don’t like being left with the desire to do somethin’ I could’ve done earlier. Too old for that.”
Maybe you were gradually losing it. Perhaps just a little. It couldn’t be a coincidence, right? Had he noticed how you acted around him? Were you that obvious?
“So, you would advise me to just…”
“Do whatever you feel right, sweetheart.”
That raspy sweetheart made you give in.
His eyes. His penetrating, gleaming eyes scrutinized your face at the same time you closed the distance between your bodies. From there, you were able to see every freckle, every small detail that you hadn’t previously acknowledged. He parted his lips, as if to speak, but no words other than your name came out. One of your hands made its way up to his cheek, cupping it, feeling the warmth his skin radiated. His head immediately leaned into your touch, like a moth into a flame. 
You kissed him, unable to keep waiting. It took him what felt like ages to kiss you back, his fingers tangling in your hair. He absorbed your whimpers, pressing your back against the nearest wall. Maddening– it was the perfect word to describe how being kissed by Joel felt like. When you thought he was going to draw away from you, he just held you tighter until your lungs implored for some air. Your knees had never felt this weak, and you found yourself grabbing onto his shoulders, already feeling the places where his stubble had left its trace in flames. 
“Joel…” you mumbled against his lips, detaching your mouth from his. Your erratic breaths seemed to sync together like a melody, and you tugged at the collar of his jacket. 
He knew, could see it on your features. “Wanna go to yours?”
Joel took you home. The moment you set foot in the cabin, he closed the door behind him, his hand lingering on the handle as he contemplated you from a distance. You took your coat off first, starting to unzip your pants. There was silence long enough to hear crickets in, the moon up in the sky being the only bystander of your meeting. His eyes roamed the newly exposed skin of your legs and you observed him gulp. 
“Did something happen?” you asked him, a flush crepting up your face. Taking a step forward, one of his hands came to rest on top of yours.
“No, it’s just that– Are you sure you want this?”
Crinkling your nose, you uttered: “Why wouldn’t I?”
“I’m just too old for you,” he warned you, running a knuckle down your cheek. “You should be with guys your age, y’know? Not with an old man like me.”
“I want you,” reassuring him, you got rid of your t-shirt, and the fact he was still dressed up from neck to toes lit some kind of fire inside you. His calloused fingers fiddled with the strap of your bra until it slipped off your shoulder. “This is what I want. Please, Joel.”
It turned out that Joel Miller certainly was a man of manners.
You couldn't help but moan as he grabbed you by the waist, dragging you to the couch by the window and straddling his lap, his hard-on finding its place beneath you, pulsing and in need of more. His tongue brushed yours ever so often, and your eyes rolled to the back of your head as his teeth latched onto the skin of your throat. Joel groaned, the sound, low and primal, having its desired effect on you, your hips involuntarily grinding against his in a delicious but tormenting rhythm that already had you on the verge of tears.
“Joel, please,” you managed to plead, not knowing precisely what you were asking for. His hands cupped your ass, imprinting his fingerprints on the soft flesh, forcing your hips to go harder and harder. The harsh fabric of his pants was definitely going to leave a mark on your cheeks, and thinking that helped you realize that you were the only one –almost– naked. You reached for the buttons of his denim shirt, your lips hovering over his. “Take your clothes off?”
He did the rest himself, throwing his jacket to the floor. When he got to his jeans, he cocked his head. “Why don’t we move this to the bedroom, if you’re so goddamn needy?” The few guys you had been with had never been very talkative during sex; there was even this one specific boy who had asked you to not make a sound while he fucked you. 
But Joel wasn’t like them. It was just starting and you had already realized that he had a dirty mouth, an expectant look on his face every time he waited for your reaction to his words. “Now you’re quiet, huh? Thought you wanted me to fuck you, darlin',” one of his fingers pressed down on your clit, stimulating it through your underwear. He sighed, stopping his movements and pressing the damp pad of it against your lower lip, urging you to taste yourself. “You’re wet, baby. So fuckin’ wet. Have you been like this all day? Bet you would’ve let me take you right there in the forest.”
“Oh my God,” you whined next to his ear, your whole body trembling with desire. “Take me to bed,” you begged him, and next thing you knew, he was grabbing you as if you weighed nothing and heading towards your room. 
Not knowing how, you kept your hands to yourself until he placed you on top of the bed. Joel shoved his jeans down and you didn’t think twice– you stroked his length, the fabric of his boxers only making the slow drag of your hand more satisfying. His long fingers circled your throat, and you moaned as you kept eliciting exquisite noises from him. “Let me take care of you,” his dilated pupils carved holes in your being, his grip doing nothing to cease the ache between your legs. “Please, baby. I need to make you feel good. Been thinkin’ about this for so long.”
“What?” you slowed down your pace, looking up at him through your eyelashes. “You wanted me?”
“Why do you think I began to pick Ellie up from your classes, huh? Because I’m a good, generous man?” Joel parted your knees, getting closer to where you required him the most. “I’m sorry to ruin this, but I’m far from good. Just wanted to see you and your pretty face. Didn’t know if we were on the same page until you came lookin' for me, askin' me to teach you how to ride a damn horse,” you hadn’t noticed your bra was missing till he cupped one of your breasts, flicking your nipple between his fingers. “I’m sure there were many other people you could’ve asked to teach you, but you chose me, didn’t you?”
“Don’t want anybody else,” your lips chased his, a drop of sweat already rolling down your temple. “I didn’t– didn’t know you noticed me.”
“How could I not? If you could only look at yourself like I’m doing right now… You’re a sight, sweetheart, all spread out for me,” removing your panties, he kissed the skin where your inner thighs met, his tongue darting out to draw imaginary figures on your flesh. His mouth was just inches away from your cunt, and you had to tell him.
“Joel?”
“What’s wrong?”
“I’ve never– nobody has ever done that for me.”
He seemed to understand what you were referring to. It made you tense a bit, despite the fact that you were completely naked in front of him, basically begging him to tear you apart. Still, the realization that you weren't as expert as him hit you out of nowhere. Yeah, it was all fun and games, kissing and touching probably the hottest man you had seen in your almost three decades of life. But said man was a lot older than you, and he had lived his best years in the real world, not this fucked up version you grew up in. You were sure he had been with many different women, which wasn’t a problem– you two were nothing.
“Nobody has ever tasted ya’? That’s what you’re tryin’ to tell me?” you nodded quickly, shoving a strand of his graying hair back away from his eyes. Joel chuckled languidly, squeezing your hips. “Do you want me to? It’s okay if you don’t. We can try somethin’ else.”
“Please,” you’d have time to embarrass yourself later, thinking about the amount of times you had repeated that word. But certain moments were to be lived only once, and though you hoped it wasn't the case, you had to take the chance. “I want you to.”
Four words. It took Joel four words to disappear between your legs, licking a hot stripe up your folds. You nibbled on your bottom lip, a loud moan filling the void of your dorm. He drew sweet patterns in your cunt, discovering a part of you that no one else ever had, and you couldn’t help but to grind against his face as he dipped the tip of his tongue into your entrance. Breathing wasn’t a necessity anymore. You felt as if all the air in the world was being punched out of your lungs, the knot in your belly growing tighter the more Joel spent his precious time keeping you entertained.
At some point, he focused his attention on your clit, circling it over and over again, making you shudder. Suddenly, the pad of his middle finger tested the waters, and he slowly slid it into your cunt, earning a strangled whine from you. Burying your hands in his hair, your glossy eyes looked for him for a second. You shouldn’t have done that, because as you took in the sight of Joel with his own eyes closed, browns knitted, your nostrils flared, and you wondered if it was even possible to want somebody that much.
“Joel, wait, I’m– fuck,” your jaw went slack and you scrunched up your face, two of his thick fingers nudging that spot that made you see stars. “I’m close.” 
“That’s a good thing, sweetheart. Don’t know why you say it in such a dry tone,” his mouth curved into a smile, his chin and stubble shining with your slick. 
Your chest rose and fell with rapid breaths. “I don’t want to come yet.”
“But you will.”
A thing you also learned, apart from horse riding, was that Joel was a determined man.
“Joel–“
“I’ll make you come with my mouth, and then with my cock,” dizziness was starting to blur your vision, your eyelashes fluttering with every hard thrust of his fingers. You glanced up to the ceiling, tears filling your eyes. “Think you can do that for me, be my good girl and come twice?”
You bobbed your head. It was official: he was going to make you come.
Drawing in a long breath, you could feel the unbearable pressure in your core. His name sounded like a prayer on your lips, chanting it in the same way some people expressed their devotion to a certain God. You had your own personal deity, whose tongue accomplished to push you to the limit, licking every drop of your release as if it were a special kind of forbidden elixir.  
Your shoulders sagged and you relaxed under him. Joel kissed you, an open mouthed and filthy kiss crowning that moment as you panted. Through the cotton fabric of his boxers, you felt his hard-on poking your thigh. Shoving his underwear down, you took him in your hand, hot and just big, stroking him for real this time. You twisted your wrist at the tip, and he slumped forward, almost crushing you with his entire body weight, his breath dampening your neck. “Wanna fuck you, baby,” he croaked, his hips chasing your touch.
Out of all the scenarios you had ever imagined, none of them included being split open by Joel. You had a very vivid imagination, but no amount of creativity would’ve prepared you for what his cock would feel like inside of you. He bottomed out, his arms shaking where they rested on each side of your head. Joel’s breath quickened as he pulled out, just letting the tip, and then thrusting into you again.
“Fuck,” you didn’t recognize your own voice. It was even hard to decipher if you were still alive or dead from how magnificent he felt.
“So good, sweetheart. You’re so good, such a good girl,” he groaned, fucking deeper into you. His cock pulsed inside you, your cunt squeezing him. “Can’t believe how– how tight you are. You’re gonna make me lose my f–fucking mind.”
It was just too much. You hadn’t even recovered from your last orgasm before Joel started pounding into you like his life depended on it, the obscene sound of skin slapping skin ringing out in the room. 
“You gonna come, huh? Gonna make a mess?” you could sense he was also close, his pace faltering as seconds went by, words slurring together. He pressed his forehead against yours, clenching his fists and taking in a sharp breath. “Fuck. I’m not gonna last much longer, baby.”
Come inside, you wished to tell him, to feel his seed dripping out of your greedy hole, painting your walls. But you weren't on the pill; it was also the first time you were sleeping with Joel, and you didn’t know how he would take the… suggestion. “Close,” you yelped instead, tears shimmering in your eyes as Joel’s body hovered over you like the most perfect eclipse. 
His thrusts became more frenzied, if possible. “That’s it, darlin’. Come for me,” your gaze fixated upon him, his eyes flickering with hunger. “Wanna see you when you soak my cock.”
Your body went limp, your orgasm hitting you like a truck. Soreness took place in your throat as you moaned his name through the aftershocks, fireworks exploding behind your eyelids. Going rigid, you let go of Joel’s shoulders. He pulled out, mumbling something you didn’t quite catch. You fisted his cock, trying to give him the release he so yearned for. Joel kissed you, messy teeth and saliva taking part of it. Heavy on your hand, his dick twitched as you squeezed the base, roped of his warm cum splattering your belly. The scene reminded you of a painting; he was the talented painter, and you his blank canvas, waiting to be signed with his name.
It was the turn of silence now. None of you said anything for a while, until Joel used his boxers to clean up his cum from your stomach, smiling apologetically at you. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay,” your fingers delicately traced the contours of his chest as he reclined, enveloping you in the embrace of his strong arms. “Will you stay?”
Please say yes.
“Only if you want me to.”
Moral of the story: learning how to ride a horse can actually be nice if your teacher happens to be Joel Miller.
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inmyloveworld · 5 months
Text
in a world of boys (bradley "rooster" bradshaw x reader)
word count: ~1.5k
synposis: dating was hard. tiptoeing the line between casual and official always had you stumbling. and bradley, in spite of how good he made you feel, was no exception.
warnings: insecurity, allusions to anxiety (spiraling thoughts, disassociating, just a LOT of self-doubt and questioning)
a/n: i have cute fluff ideas i swear! but writing from experience always just gets the words flowing. here's to hoping we all find someone as emotionally mature and empathetic as bradley bradshaw.
bonus note: i looped slut by taylor swift writing a majority of this oops
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The words had always come easy to you. Every conversation was effortless, no matter what the context. Quips and jokes flowed through you as the blood flowed through your veins. It never took careful thought or pondering. But pondering was consuming you as your fingers hovered over the letters at the bottom of your screen.
Bradley and you had been seeing each other for nearly two months. Late-night rides in his Bronco and one overnight at your apartment had filled the weeks since you had first bumped into him at the Hard Deck. His charm and humor lit up your days. His heart and warmth soothed you in moments of weakness. And for once, you had opened yourself to all of it; to all of him.
There was no limit to the dishonesty and complacency you'd been shown in your prior dating history. Bradley was neither of these things, as far as you were aware. Yet, the lack of clarity for what he felt was beginning to plant a sick feeling in your gut.
Things were going so well. Never had you felt more assured in someone's affection and interest in you. Never had you felt more cared for and adored. You loathed yourself to think of gambling that for the sake of your security.
Me: Hey.. not to ruin the mood, but I was just wo
Pathetic. Delete.
Me: Is this just a sex thing?
Abrasive. Delete.
You groaned to yourself in frustration. Judging by your history, this would only end one way. Still, you weren't sure how much longer you could bear the fluttering in your chest under the guise of nonchalance.
Me: I really like what's between us right now. But can I ask where you think this is going?
Here we go.
You hit the 'send' arrow before you could think through it for another second. God, why did this have to be so complicated? Were you the source of all the complications, with your need for control to figure out how everything had to go? Was this the reason no one would commit to you in the past? Or was the dating world simply reduced to nothing but souls too fearful to stick it out, for what could be lying ahead of them? Were you settling? Were you making him settle?
Two buzzes of your phone jolted you in your seat.
Flyboy: I think it'd be better to talk about this in person. You up for a drive?
Oh god.
You sent back an answer and ran your hands through your hair. Tears started to prick at your eyes already as a familiar sinking feeling settled in. Quickly, you were trying to soothe yourself with the small comforts of the situation.
His car always felt musty anyway.
You won't have to worry about accidental pregnancy!
It's face-to-face, at least. Maybe you'll get proper closure for once.
A dozen other weightless sentiments were stacked in your head by the time you heard the purr of a familiar engine outside. You drew in a deep breath, collected yourself as much as possible, and swiped up your keys.
Flyboy: Here!
You didn't even open the text thread, opting to keep your head bowed as you locked your front door. Goosebumps rose along your skin as it met the night air. With much effort, you inhaled deeply. Your feet were leaden as you trudged toward the Bronco.
All the darkness swirling in your head gave way to that bright smile Bradley held just for you. Something in your chest twisted sharply at the show of affection. Every moment of this adoration passing was the last, you reminded yourself. This drive would loop you right back to the somber state you were in before the greatest man you'd ever known walked into your life.
"Hey there, angel," he greeted. The rasp in his voice warmed you the same way a glass of whiskey would. Steadily, slowly, and then all at once.
"Hi," you called back as you hopped in the passenger side. You kept your gaze ahead, hands beginning a nervous pattern of threading fingers. Bradley raised a brow at the action but didn't call further attention to it. His eyes hooked to the road as he pulled the pair of you off into the night.
There was almost an ache in the absence of his hand on your thigh. Both of the worthy appendages anchored themselves to the wheel, no yield in their grip.
Safe driving; he's just practicing safe driving. It's a late night, dark even with the street lamps, and the Bronco's headlights didn't match the brightness of modern LEDs.
But perhaps it's the first thing to go. Bradley needed to take the first baby step away from this.. whatever it was. And he was having you take it with him.
Was there something you did? Maybe the night you spent together had been too soon. Or maybe you had been too forthcoming in your own intent, without clarity on his own.
You never let things simmer. You always had to know, that eternal impatience winning out against the chance of a simple slow burn. But maybe this wasn't meant to take that direction; maybe that's not what Bradley wanted.
Would anyone ever want that? Was it just that they didn't want it with you? What was so wrong with you? Were you so horribly broken to everyone else that no relationship could ever be fulfilled? What were you not seeing in yourself?
"Hey, earth to angel." An empty parking lot surrounded you. The sounds of crashing waves and the warm autumn breeze replaced the storm of neverending thoughts ringing in your ears. Bradley had his hand on your arm, the first touch he'd granted you the whole evening, the touch that broke your trance. His brows were furrowed again in concern as he scanned your sorrow-filled face. Not wanting to startle you further, he kept his voice soft. "Talk to me. What's going on in there?"
You took a moment to compose yourself. Your eyes shut as you drew in another deep breath, letting it out with a drop of your shoulders. And then, you told him.
Each one of your fears and anxieties, a summation of how your heart and body were carelessly juggled in the past, how you found yourself at fault in every instance. How even in that moment, when everything seemed to be right with him, something had clearly gone wrong out of your view and it was all about to crash. But it wasn't on him, you insisted. It was on you.
The waves and breeze continued to sound long after your voice faded from the air. Tears pricked at your eyes slowly in sullen acceptance. You had nailed your own coffin shut with this whole conversation. You should have stayed silent. Being lost on your path was better than taking an exit, wasn't it?
"I'm sorry, I-"
"Look at me." Bradley was an emotional man, you had come to learn. He wore his heart out on his sleeve the moment he felt safe enough. So, the absence of emotion from his voice churned your stomach worse than anything else. You met his eyes sheepishly, preparing for a more brutal "break-up" than you originally anticipated.
He sighed, the hand on your arm shifting up to cup your cheek. The touch warmed you and drew the tears from your eyes at once. Droplets rolled down your cheeks in single strands, yet you could not bother yourself with embarrassment. This would be the last he would see of you.
Bradley chuckled. "I did this all wrong, didn't I?"
What was there to laugh about? Had he meant to be more direct in his lack of intent, or in ending things-
"My mom's yelling at me from up there, I know it."
What?
Bewildered was the perfect word for your changed expression. And Bradley now knew better than to let you sit on coded messages.
He took your hands into his, rubbing soft circles along your knuckles as he told you, "I'm serious about this, angel. About us, you. I have been from the get-go."
A flurry of feelings coursed through you. Shock and relief mixed with the confusion still lingering behind in the wake of this confession. It was as if you didn't believe what you were hearing, because part of you really didn't. The part of you that had doubted a silver lining to your history of heartbreak was incapable of believing in a resolution.
You didn't know how to accept it or respond. Excitement was chomping at the bit to break your otherwise unsettled demeanor, but fear still held a tight grip on the reins. "Are.. are you sure?"
Bradley could've laughed again, the question ridiculous in his mind. Being with you was as clear as day to him. The ways in which you eased his soul, sparked life back up amidst his dreary routines, and made him picture a future ahead was something he knew he could not be without. He now realized his failure in communicating as such to the person needing to hear it most.
So he held back the laugh and held your hands instead. "I've never been more sure of anything than I am of you."
tags: @avengersfan25
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saatorubby · 5 months
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the lakes
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synopsis: you won’t die, not on their watch.
a/n: hi hi, i’m starting to write for jjk too! so i hope to you all like this. and i’m trying a new style? actually putting in effort? I’m actually so ill about these two divorced gay boys who broke up in front of kfc. also bunch of different taylor swift song references, bear with me, it has consumed my soul.
genre: angst to fluff.
pairing: satosugu x reader
warnings: gore (mild), death and murder (in reference to hidden inventory arc), depression (lowkey).
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I: 2008
You were dying. It was the plain and simple fact.
You might’ve tried to convince yourself that it’d turn out fine if it wasn’t for the gaping wound in your stomach. It was less a wound and more a hole.
You think you saw your rib cage poking out.
You were already feeling light headed, on the verge of passing out. If it went like this, you reckon you don’t have more than half an hour.
You pull out your phone, taking a minute to linger on the photo set as your Lock Screen. It was of you and your lovers, Gojo Satoru and Suguru Geto, often dubbed as the strongest. If you’d had a dying wish, it would be to see them once more. But the world was a cruel, cruel place.
You slumped back on the wall as your mind flashed back to when everything went so wrong.
You were sitting in the backseat of the car, which was being driven by one of your old friends, ichiji, making small talk with him. Lately you hadn’t had time to devote to your friends. It had been a busy year.
“y/n-san?” Ichiji called after he saw you zone out, looking outside the window of the car, absent-mindedly admiring the scenic view of the countryside Tokyo. “We’re here.” He stated.
You zoned back in and nodded to Ichiji, thanking him for taking you out on this far, almost a half-day trip. You stepped out of the sleek black car.
You faced the apperent ‘haunted’ house. It was fairly big, could’ve passed as a mansion, if it wasn’t in such a shabby shape.
It was battered as if no one had lived in it for decades, which they probably hadn’t. The wood that would’ve been previously stately, were now rotten and unsightly.
You scrunched your nose in disgust, the smell of the dead never really leaves the house.
With a heavy sigh, you entered, ready to get this done and over with so you could go back to your stupid dumbasses and give them the date you promised.
You entered, the creek of the door was as ominous as ever. It was surprising that it was even hanging from from the hinges, judging by the condition. The inside of house was no better.
The walls were mossy, damp, and rotting. There was rubble in the ground from some places, with no roof, indicating the fallen ceiling.
This is one of the worst place you’ve worked in. But you’ve worked in worse. So you closed your eyes and sensed for its cursed energy. Everyone leaves residual, some people can hide it -like Suguru- but most can’t, and considering it’s a first grade, it probably can’t.
And bingo, you found-
A splatter sound was heard and something collided with your head, you pushed your arm, towards your head, and there it was, the red sticky substance of life, pouring out of your head
You turned around, eyes widened in surprise. It was not just the first grade.
Shit.
Now, you’ve somehow managed to defeat it, slumped on the same mossy and damp wall the one you scrunched your nose at earlier, with your legs splayed out, one hand clutching on your wound -the one on your stomach- holding it tightly, and in the other hand, your phone, displaying the picture of your two loves.
Ah, you really wished you could see them.
The picture was of a late-night adventure where all of you went to get ice cream. Satoru is grinning widely, with his signature peace sign and Suguru has an annoyed expression, no doubt due to some stupid comment passed by Satoru, though the softness of his eyes betrayed him, with a middle finger pointed at the camera. You were between them, taking the picture, with a smile on your face.
You smiled at them, tracing their faces on your phone before you felt the black spots appearing in your vision.
You had a feeling it’d end up like this. It always does, for people in your line of work. You just wished for what everyone wished for, a little more time.
Oh how you wished to go to the lakes where all the poet’s went to die. But as you thought, the world was a cruel, cruel place.
The phone in your hand slipped.
And so did you.
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II: 2007
It’s been more than a year since you got to know those weirdos in your grade and the pretty girl. Satoru, Suguru and Ieiri.
Blue eyes and bangs. That’s what you called them. Or well, used to until it turned into a pretty, soft-spoken, Satoru and Suguru. The journey from former to latter wasn't a long one but you sometimes wonder whether you've known them for twenty seconds or twenty years.
Satoru was an exhilarating fresh breeze on your face on a windy day, full of adventure and new experiences and Suguru was the warmth of soft sun on a beach, relaxing and familiar. Satoru was your twenty seconds and Suguru was twenty years.
it had been a month since Riko Amanai died.
You think something in you died when you saw that child die. And those claps, that fucking sound haunted your ears still. The booming sound of the gun fired by toji fushiguro, the claps, and the innocent trip to the beach just a day before, it makes you sick to your stomach.
Because it wasn't just a child who had died, that child was your friend.
You think you're spiraling.
Every day is a routine. You wake up, greet your friends half-heartedly, go exorcise curses, come back late, and go straight to bed, not having enough energy to deal with anything or anyone.
You know Suguru is not well. You think you should talk to him. Satoru, he'll survive.
Maybe you're being too harsh, but this is all Satoru has ever known, what he was ever taught. He doesn't know how normal people live, or the joys of having a normal life. He won't do anything stupid.
Suguru knows how normal people live. And in their lives, children aren't murdered brutally.
But you want Satoru to explore normal life. Coffee in the morning, sweet spoken, sleepy mumbles, sunlight through the window pouring in the room, and writing their names on each other's backs.
You want him to explore all that. With you and Suguru.
So you've decided. Enough is enough. No more moping. You will do anything to keep this small family you've built with your friends.
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I: 2008
Blinding white lights, thats all you saw as you first felt conscious. Maybe, you died for real this time, no second chances huh? But as it seems, eternal rest was not what destiny planned for you.
You open your eyes, blinking to get used to the flash of light. It was already giving you a headache. You groaned.
You heard panicked shouts and bustling, as a melodious female voice entered your ears to calm the other two distressed male ones.
You recognized them. Also, it means that you're in deep shit.
Regretting your choices and foreboding sleeping on the couch for a week, you open your eyes.
"Water." Croaking out that, sent you to a fit of cough, though, your savior appeared in the form of a rough set of hands that were holding you up, strong and tanned. Other, fairer, a bit lanky, but just as strong, held up a glass of after to your mouth, cupping your cheek to keep you in place.
You gulp down the water, reveling in the feeling of soothing cold water going down your dry throat.
You blink your eyes fully open, seeing the distraught faces of your lovers. Satoru, who was in front of you, holding an empty glass, looked like he'd been crying. His pretty eyes lined red.
Suguru, who after making sure you were sitting on the bed comfortably, came in front of you and sat down opposite Satoru. He didn't look much better, his face was unhealthy pale and he had bags under his eye.
You couldn't help but smile. Maybe the world isn't that cruel yet
"Hi." You croaked out, not being able to help a small bashful smile that made its way over to your face despite the graveness of the situation.
You were just so happy to see them.
"Hi, pretty." Satoru smiled in your direction. It was strained and wobbly, but even he couldn't hide the relief in his voice. He raised his hand and rested it on your cheek, caressing it.
Suguru came up and took your hands in his, softly squeezing them. "You scared us, baby." He said, gazing into your eyes with his misty ones.
"I'm sorry." Your hoarse voice groaned out, the smile was still ever-present on your face, though the feeling of remorse was there as well.
When you look at their faces, relieved and ridden of all the darkness, you think that maybe, maybe, you were able to save your family.
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plutoccult · 6 months
Text
MY LOVE MINE ALL MINE
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pairing: jean kirstein x female reader
description: a few years after the successful peace negotiations, you and jean celebrate his first birthday with your new baby boy, but jean can’t help but look back on what it took to get to this day after dreaming of it as much as he could hope to live without breathing.
word count: 1.2k
also available to read on my ao3 here
author’s note: something short and sweet that’s not soul crushing angst. a shocker on my end, really. BUT, the attack on titan anime has finally ended. it’s like a chapter of my life is over, but a chapter ending only means a new one beginning. i always wanted to write something that depicted some sort of event after the end of the story, so it’s nice to fully bring that vision into fruition. i love writing for jean and i’ll miss him and the rest of the characters so very much, but the writing doesn’t end here for me! more content will come out of me until i get bored of it. i do, however, hope you enjoy this little fluff piece.
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when dreaming about what life could be without titans or any worries, jean always knew what the perfect life would be for him. it was always consisted of the same fantasy; sitting out on a balcony with a glass of the finest liquor in hand, wife inside the house, and a newborn baby with the cutest, most innocent smile in his wife’s arms. the ideal daydream used to have a faceless woman, then mikasa took over for a brief second after being struck by her upon their first meeting, but now it’s been the same face for many, many years. since falling head over feet completely, jean could now only picture his future with you bearing his love and his children, and only that would be the perfect life for him. nothing else, just you.
sometimes jean wondered what life would be like if marco were still around. who would have died in his place instead of him that day? who would’ve had to deal with the pain of losing their best friend instead of him? would he live next door to jean’s dream home and babysit the kids whenever? jean liked to imagine marco as the perfect uncle. uncle marco. if only it could all be real. even so, all these years later, he was grateful for the life he had been given.
after years of hell fighting for the greater good, jean was finally able to settle down and live that perfect life he so desperately craved in his youth. he wasn’t very young anymore; small wrinkles began to form, his muscles grew tired far more easily, signs that he was starting to grow old, but not quite just yet. there was still more life to live, so much more he could live for.
today was jean’s birthday, and just like his teenage fantasies, he sat on a balcony with a glass of whiskey just as he imagined. the view of the town he lived in was great, but not the greatest. the only difference between jean’s dreams and his reality that there wasn’t a barrier between him and what he wanted most; you, holding your little baby boy in your arms.
caught in the middle of daydreaming, you emerge from inside the house and join jean on the balcony with your son. you gently grab the baby’s hand and pretend to act like he’s the one waving to jean, which makes him smile.
“does baby marco want to say hi to daddy?” you coo while jean looked at the two of you in awe. naming your child after marco was always in the cards, neither of you doubted it for a second when you both expressed wanting children. it was just the most beautiful thing in the world when he was finally born, after all this time of knowing what you wanted.
“here, lemme hold him.” jean offered, extending his arms out for baby marco. you carefully hand him over then sit down and watch as the infant reached his hands out to grab jean’s face, who was gently cradling him in his arms. “he’s getting so big now, i can’t even believe it.”
“i know.” you say with a smile on your face. “by the way, some letters came in the mail for you.”
“from who?” he questioned.
“armin and mikasa, of course. reiner and pieck too.” you began to ramble, listing off the names of all who sent letters for jean on his birthday. “oh, can’t forget connie. and then levi sent something that gabi and falco seemed to have signed—”
“so… pretty much everyone?” jean interrupted with a chuckle.
“queen historia as well.” you end off the list, giggling to yourself for forgetting such an important name. you simply can’t forget the queen, after all. “oopsie.”
“well, i oughta write everyone back as soon as possible.” he said, but you disagreed.
“you can write after cake, okay? i’ll go grab it now.” you say, standing up from your seat so you could head inside of the house.
“i told you i could make it.” jean insisted. “i don’t like making you do the work for me.”
although his words were sweet, you wouldn’t do that to him today out of all days. “make your own birthday cake? please. i’ll be right back.”
jean sat with baby marco close to him while you disappeared into the house for his birthday treat. you come back with a cake that has an array of lit candles, gently setting it down on the table as far away from the baby as possible. you take the baby out of jean’s hands while you sing happy birthday to him and sit across the table, your voice as soothing as the breeze.
when it was time for jean to blow out the candles and make a wish, he simply couldn’t think of anything to wish for. he finally had everything he ever wanted; the love of his life, a family of his own, and most importantly, peace. you both fought like hell a million times over to get here, doing things you regretted all the time. the past you shared together was ridden with sin, but the future didn’t have to be, and right now, the future was bright and golden like daylight.
if there was anything to possibly wish for, it was for things to stay just like this, so jean closed his eyes and blew out the candles and wished just for that. his eyes opened up to the sight of you and your son, and he was so happy to see it right in front of him.
“happy birthday, jean.” you say softly. baby marco beamed with the most innocent grin, his youthful laugh almost bringing jean to tears.
“thank you, my love.” he mustered up the words to say without crying.
jean insisted he cut the cake himself. seeing as you made it, this was the least he could do, and you didn’t argue. he sliced a piece for you first and set it down in front of you, watching as baby marco eyed the cake in complete awe.
jean’s eyes stray away from cutting his own piece as he found himself watching you with the baby. you were trying to eat your cake, but you couldn’t help but laugh at marco trying to get some of it from your fork.
“ah, no, no, no. you can’t have cake.” you coo, booping baby marco on the nose.
it was times like these that made jean so grateful. he captured even the smallest grain of a moment, cherishing every single one with the thought that tomorrow is not always promised, even when you two were free of the burdens of a solider saving humanity. no matter how many times he made a wish on some candies, there was always that “what if?” thought in the back of his brain that this some day would be taken away from him.
you look up and catch jean staring at you as if he were frozen, like he was taking a million pictures with his eyes. “what are you doing?”
“remembering this.” he simply replied, the best way he could put it all into words.
the love you had for each other and the life that’s been given to you would always be yours, all yours, and it would last beyond the very last breath both of you would take. in the end, all of the hardships were worth living to see this day.
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© plutoccult / 310802. please do not copy, repost, modify, or translate any of my content in or outside of tumblr. reblogs are appreciated <3
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theelazaruspit · 6 months
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Lazy Sunday | Husband!John Price x Author!Reader
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Getting some much-needed stress relief from your doting husband
Warning/content: 18+, mdni, smut, fem!reader, gentle dom!price, established relationship, porn with plot, slow(ish) burn, angst, hurt/comfort, reader wears glasses, discussion of self-doubt and insecurity, cunnilingus, fingering, dumbification if you squint? (You’re just really relaxed), creampie, squirting, no use of y/n, they’re grossly in love idk what else to tell you honestly, but if I missed anything, let me know! Word count: 4.9k.
A/N: This has been in my drafts for ages, and I've been chipping away at it slowly, but after seeing @ghosts-cyphera 's husband!price drabble, I rose from the metaphorical dead, and here we are, so thank you, Alora, for being a fellow price enjoyer and just a gem, and I hope you all enjoy <3
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Everything was just too much.
You’re stiff, jaw clenched, shoulders tense, and you can feel a migraine forming between your eyes. It’s a little ridiculous, really. By all accounts, you should be more relaxed. The hard work was finished, your novel was complete, the accompanying art had been chosen, and all the finer details were squared away; now, all that was left was publishing, though that was the publisher’s headache, not yours. It was the waiting that always got to you.
No matter how many times you’d gone through the process, no matter how many works you published, the anticipation never failed to eat away at you. There is a special kind of stress that comes with releasing your art into the world, in having people get a glimpse into your mind. While it’s gratifying to share your hard work with the masses, once it leaves you, it’s no longer only your own, and others are free to interpret it as they please. It’s deeply personal and scary like you’re bearing your soul to the public, but what’s done is done. All the late nights spent writing were over, and now you’re alone with your thoughts again. 
You’ve tried everything to keep yourself busy. Your office is far cleaner now than it was before your husband left, both of your laundry was done with all the garments being put in their rightful place, and there was a cake on the counter from your late-night baking excursion a few days ago. 
All of your usual distractions failed you. Nothing has been able to loosen the knot coiling itself in your chest. It’s silly; this is not your first book. The first was well received, a fact you should be grateful for, and you are. However, its success set a precedent. What if this one wasn’t as good? What if it didn’t live up to everyone’s expectations? The more questions you considered, the more withdrawn you became, allowing your doubts to swallow you whole. And that’s how you ended up back where you started, staring blankly at an empty document. You (foolishly) believed that writing could help, thinking a fresh idea would clear your conscience, but nothing comes. So you sit, hoping for anything to inspire you, but all you hear is the voice in the back of your head taunting you. 
For a fleeting moment, you consider seeking the comfort of your husband; however, you quickly decide against it. 
Not at all because you didn’t think he could soothe you. If anything, he knows better than anyone else how to keep you grounded, but you’re painfully aware of how rare it is for John to get time off, and it would be unfair to take that much-needed relaxation away from him with your problems. Still, you yearn for the solace he provides you. It’s absurd to miss someone who’s a mere twenty feet away, someone you could easily see. But, you stubbornly resist the temptation to steal his time, even if you know he’d want you to. He was insistent that you could never bother him, but you still had your doubts. 
Compared to everything he goes through, your insecurities are small and insignificant; you can handle this on your own, even though you feel your eyes beginning to dry the longer you stare at the bright white void in front of you. A long groan escapes you as you toss your glasses unceremoniously onto your desk (had they fallen? You couldn’t be bothered to check) before burying your head in your hands. 
“You’ve got this,” You mutter to yourself. It’s hardly convincing. Did you actually have this? You’re not entirely sure, but it doesn’t hurt trying.
You’re unsure how long you wallowed before your husband appeared in the doorway. Despite being uncharacteristically patient given the circumstances, you knew it was only a matter of time before he’d come to you. Rarely would you hide away in your office while he was home; usually, you’d rushed into his arms to steal his warmth every opportunity you got, but he tried to be understanding. Having him back in the house was just as much of an adjustment for you as it was for him, and he wanted to be considerate of that. Though his comings and goings had slowed considerably over the span of your relationship, he knew they still weighed on you, and he also knew you’d sooner die than admit that, so he gave you space.
But after another hour passes, his patience wears thin. This was a while even for you, and he wanted to make sure you were alright. So, ever the diligent lover, he prepares you a peace offering, a perfectly brewed cup of your favorite tea, and heads to your door. 
His suspicions that you weren’t as well off as you claimed are confirmed when he’s greeted with the back of your hunched-over form, papers strewn across your desk. It takes one glance at you for John to know the kind of evening you’re having despite your best efforts to hide it. The stress practically radiates off you, casting a thick layer of tension in the room. The last thing he wants is to startle you, so he watches, waiting for you to acknowledge his presence. But the longer he rests against the doorframe, the sooner he realizes you haven’t noticed him yet, another sign that something isn’t quite right. 
You didn’t have to say anything for him to know what you were thinking. He can practically hear the voices in your head lying to you, slowly breaking you down, and he feels his heart clench. It’s times like this when he wishes your mind was kinder to you, that it afforded you the same kindness you so freely gave others. He also wished you would let him help you. Your independence has always been something he admired and was one of the first things he noticed that drew him to you. You were radiant, ethereal, having an air of confidence and grace about you that followed you wherever you went, practically lighting your path. 
However, your independence made it difficult for you to depend on him. He told you no fewer than a million times, practically pleaded with you to let him shoulder your burdens, to tell you that no problem was too small to tell him about, and while you’d opened up over the years, he could see that your walls were up. Nevertheless, he would do everything he could to chip away at them, to take you out of your head for a while.
He walks over to you slowly, placing the mug down before lightly rubbing your shoulders. You know he’s there, immediately feeling comforted by his presence, but you can’t bring yourself to look at him. You don’t want him to see you like this, not while you look like a sad puppy, but he persists, taking your silence as an invitation to speak.
“Made you some tea, love,” he says softly, receiving only a muffled hum of acknowledgment. Undeterred, he keeps massaging your shoulders, applying a bit more pressure, a soft smile gracing his features when you lean into his touch. His movements are slow intentional, wanting to ease you into the feeling. 
He doesn’t have to look at your face, which has since been laid flat on your desktop, to know your brows are furrowed, and he wants nothing more than to smooth away the creases with his fingers. 
Instead, he turns your chair to face him, forcing you to pick your head up. He ignores the whine you let out upon realizing that he’s not going to let you bask in your sadness in peace, as well as the glare you give him as you put your glasses on. There’s no malice behind your gaze, and he can see you fighting back a smile, causing his grin to widen.
“Good morning, lovely.” 
“It’s not morning, and I probably look like shit” You sigh.
You’re right; it wasn’t morning, but the latter was far from the truth. John loved you in all your forms, but this, you at home in your comfy clothes, was one of the most beautiful sights he’d ever seen, even if you were being a little grouchy. He doesn’t take it personally. No, he knows you’re frustration is with yourself, which only motivates him to relax you more. 
He doesn’t ask if you’re okay; you both know you aren’t, so he settles with a more helpful question: asking what you need. It’s more a formality than anything because he already knows the answer. It’s clear you don’t want to talk because if you did, you would have by now. He’s no stranger to nights spent holding you, listening to you vent about everything troubling you as you lay your head on his chest, and while he welcomes your rambles, you’re too tangled up in your thoughts to get the words out. 
No, you needed something else. You needed a break; you needed someone you trusted to take control for a while, and who was better suited for the task than him? You both knew he wouldn’t move until you asked him to because even when he’s in control, he’s still at your mercy. 
You don’t answer him immediately, not that he expected you to. For all his gentle coaxing, the question was surprisingly direct, and it caught you off guard. You know what you want. You want to climb into bed, wrap yourself in blankets, and sleep, and no matter how much you try to deny it, you also want to melt into your husband’s touch while you do. But with how restless you are, that seems impossible. To do that, first, you would need to relax, something you’re notoriously bad at. John would be eager to assist, to soothe the storm that rages within you, but you also know him well enough to know that he wouldn’t help you if you didn’t ask. So, reluctantly, you confess you’re having trouble relaxing, that there are too many thoughts running through your head to turn your brain off. Once you start, it’s as if you’ve opened Pandora’s box and you just break. All the emotions you’ve tried to suppress come pouring out mostly incoherently. In your frenzy, you barely notice that John moved to kneel in front of you until you feel his hand cup your jaw. 
He doesn’t get too close, not wanting to overwhelm you, because he knows how hard this is for you already. 
You’re a lot like him in that way, birds of a feather, he supposes, as you both have difficulty opening up and trusting others. He’s forever humbled by the fact that you, wonderfully amazing you, chose him, and it’s not something he takes for granted. He values all of the time you spend together, even if you aren’t in the best of spirits. God knows he’s had his fair share of melancholic moments that you worked him through, and it is at that moment he is determined to do the same for you, to help you feel better. 
“Shh, it’s alright, love, I have you. There’s nothing you need to worry about. I’ll take care of everything, alright? I’ll give you what you need,” He reassures you in that low timbre you’ve missed so much. Your nod is rewarded with a light kiss on the cheek before he stands up, pulling you up from your chair with him. 
You let out a yelp of surprise when he scoops you up and carries you towards your bedroom. His strength never fails to surprise you, but you don’t have time to dwell on it when he gently places you on the edge of your bed. For the second time tonight, he kneels before you, taking your hands in his while looking you in the eye.
“You know how much I love you, don’t you?” His question is met with a scoff.
“Of course I do. I don’t think there’s anyone in this world that loves me more.”
“Well, I’d certainly hope not. Otherwise, we’d have a problem on our hands.” He chuckles, running his thumb over your knuckles before continuing, “I want you to do something for me. You’re so smart, love, bloody brilliant. But right now, I don’t want you to think. I just want you to feel. Can you do that f’me, angel? Let me make you feel good.” 
You nod as you did before, only this time, you’re met with a shake of his head.
“Need your words, sweetheart”
The “please” that escapes you is more breathless than you expected. He had hardly touched you, and you could already feel a bit dazed by the intensity of his stare. Your soft confirmation is met with a smile before he works you out of your sweats and guides you to lay flat on the bed. He takes his time to press kisses up your thigh, slowly making his way to your center, nipping every now and then, eliciting little gasps from you. And while you appreciate his desire to worship you, you were getting impatient. The sight of him so close to where you need him but not touching you was almost too much to bear. 
Before you can protest, he takes pity on you, slips your panties down, and rewards your patience with a long lick up your slit paired with a chaste kiss to your clit. 
Your moment of reprieve doesn’t last long before he absolutely devours you, laving at your folds without another care in the world. The strokes of his tongue are slow but firm, his mouth practically molded to your form, following you no matter how much you move and shake. He wants to get you used to the feeling, give you time to surrender yourself to him, and you’re starting to. He sees the way you grasp at the sheets, mindlessly looking for something, anything to anchor you, and he’s quick to provide. 
You hadn’t realized how much you were squirming until he pulled back, one calloused hand stroking your inner thigh with the other lacing his fingers with yours while instructing you to relax, reminding you to be good for him, to take all that he’s giving you. You look angelic, eyes rolled back, your body flushed, a sheen of sweat forming, and every touch driving you closer to the edge. But he knows it’s not enough. Had you been calmer and less frazzled, you would have reached your peak already, but right now, you need a push to help you over the edge.
When he takes his hand off your thigh and lets his fingers join his tongue, your back bows. If not for his firm grip, you may have fallen off the bed, but there is no need to worry about that. John’s got you; he always does. 
It’s overwhelming having him so wholly focused on you, feeling his deep, muffled groans against your center, and it’s clear he wasn’t faring much better. 
He may be helping you destress, but you know your husband well enough to know he’s enjoying this as much as you are, if not more. John Price is not a selfish man, far from it. Many have speculated that his selflessness will be his downfall. But, at this moment, he can’t help but think about himself. Can’t help but think about how his cock is straining in his trousers, which are becoming almost distractingly tight, about how he wants nothing more than to pump you full of his cum. But he’s a patient man. He understands that he’ll get there eventually. No, for now, he’s more than happy to have you soaking his beard. What’s important at this moment is getting you to cum on his tongue, on his fingers, because he knows the wetter you are, the easier it’ll be to slip into you, leaving him to settle for grinding himself against the bed for relief, and he gives your hand a gentle squeeze. 
Despite your whines and pleas for him to speed up, for him to give you more, he knows better. He keeps the same pace, knowing the slow build, while seemingly tortuous, will make you cum that much harder, and that’s exactly what he wants. He wants you boneless, without a single thought that isn’t him and how good he’s making you feel. There was no need to rush, you had all night, and there’s no place he’d rather be than here, with his fingers stuffed in your gorgeous pussy while he laps at your folds.
The sounds you two are making are nothing short of obscene. Your keens and his moans filled the room. And god, you were so fucking wet you were practically leaking down his wrist, and when your moans start rising in pitch, he knows you’re close. All it takes are a few more strokes of fingers before you’re cumming, your body going rigid with a broken sob. John works you through it, lapping up your spend and rubbing barely there circles around your clit to prolong your pleasure while patiently waiting for you to catch your breath. 
When your trembling subsides, he carefully removes his fingers, using his now free hand to smooth over your thighs, murmuring praises about how well you did for him before standing, finally ridding himself of his clothes. You look so beautiful like this, spread out, panting, still glistening with your release. It just makes him want to ruin you, but always the gentleman, he checks in with you first.
“Still with me, love?” he teases, hands soothing at your sides, earning him a laugh, a genuine laugh. One that makes your eyes crinkle, and a chuckle of his own leaves him in response. It’s a good sign; it’s progress, but he knows you’re not entirely unwound yet. He knows you still have more left in you.
You pull him in for a kiss that he eagerly accepts. It’s tender, intimate. You can taste yourself on his lips, and John’s complete and utter reverence for you almost makes you shy. His love for you flows through him and pours into his touch when he deepens the kiss, and you can’t help but lean into it.
“I want more. I need to feel you,” you confess against his lips. 
“How do you want me?” he murmurs, moving to trail kisses down your neck. “Whatever you want, I’ll give it to you. All you have to do is ask,” and you know he means it. He’d bring you the moon and the stars if you wished. 
“From behind, I don’t want to think about anything but how good you feel,” you said, pulling away to lay on your stomach before being stopped by John’s hand on your shoulder, turning you towards him. Your momentary confusion quickly dissipates when you realize what he’s doing. 
He’s taking off your glasses. 
Admittedly, in your haze, you’d forgotten you still had them on, so used to the familiar weight, but it makes your heart swell as you watch him place them delicately on your bedside table. It’s such a small gesture, but it’s endearing, and it reminds you how lucky you are to have such an attentive, caring lover, and you can’t help but pull him in for another kiss. John adores the lovestruck look you give him as you pull away, eyes bleary, pupils dilated. And though he could look at it all day, he reluctantly moves away, readjusting you so you’re face down on the bed before slotting himself between your legs.
A contented sigh leaves you as you settle into your plush bedding, feeling thankful you’d insisted on replacing those threadbare monstrosities your husband called “sheets” (he’d huffed and rolled his eyes at your dramatics– “they are not going to rip your skin off” –but deep down he loved them too) and close your eyes, sinking into John’s touch. 
“Ready for me?” He questions, smoothing a hand up your spine, relishing in your shiver.
“Yes, need you to fuck me, John, please,” you breath, and who was he to deny you?
At your confirmation, he pushes in with a languid thrust, pulling you flush against him, giving you time to adjust. He can’t help but let out a low grumble at the view in front of him. He hasn’t even moved yet, and you’re already driving him insane. The feeling of being enveloped by you is indescribable. To be this close, to truly feel you, is unlike anything he’s ever experienced, and judging by the way you’re whimpering and trying to grind yourself back into him, he knows you feel the same. 
He sets a steady pace, unhurried, leisurely, and revels in the quiet mewls you let out. The tension pulling your muscles taut dissipated with every thrust, and John couldn’t be happier because that’s what he wanted. 
He wants to push all of those bad thoughts away. All he wants you to think about is him and how good he’s making you feel and to make you cum over and over until you’re spent. 
“That feel good, love?” he whispers in your ear, his chest pressed to your back.
“Yes, f-fuck s’good,” you gasp out, followed by a broken “I love you” that he returns while quickening his pace, fucking you deeper. He can’t help it, really. Hearing the fondness in your voice makes him want to worship you more, causing him to aim for the spot that always makes you shake, and he knows he’s got it when he hears your high-pitched keen.
You’re begging now, desperate pleas of “Please don’t stop” and “right there,” and he doesn’t need to see your face to know that your eyes are scrunched closed, mouth agape, to know that you look stunning. He wishes he could see your face, to see you when you reach your peak that you’re edging closer and closer to, and he will, but after you cum again for him.
“That’s it, good girl, always takin’ me so well,” he praises. “Take what you need. I won’t stop, promise. Just want to make you feel so good don’t want you to think about anything but cumming. You close f’me, love? Yeah? That pretty little cunt gonna soak my cock?” he questions, lifting your hips to rub your aching clit, knowing all you need is a little pressure to send you over the edge. 
Your words may be muffled, but your responding string of “yes” s are clear as day and only make him rut into you deeper. He needs you to fall over that edge again. Needs you to alleviate all that stress, and when you finally reach your peak with a muted sob of his name, he slows but doesn’t stop, watching in awe of the way you spasm around him, and waits for you to settle. 
You’re more pliant now, a bit hazy with pleasure, but he’s not done with you yet. No, he needs you, his beautiful, distinguished wife, to fully surrender yourself to him and the pleasure he’s bringing you, even if only for a while. All those years ago, he vowed to protect you, even if it’s from yourself, and he plans to do just that. He knows you have one more in you, and he intends to wring it out of you. 
A contented sigh escapes him as he pulls out before gently lifting you and laying you flat on your back once more. And when he sees your face, he’s reminded of just how breathtaking you are. Not that he ever forgot, but it’s a sight he never tires of. You’re one of the most precious beings he’s ever encountered, a goddess whom he’s eternally grateful has chosen to bless him with your presence, but now? Now, you’re glowing. He wishes he could immortalize the image in front of him, your eyes lidded, with a soft, blissed-out grin playing on your lips, but he’s brought back by the sound of your voice.
“You’re staring,” you tease, voice a little hoarse from use as you re-settle your glasses on your face.
“I could never get tired of looking at you, sweetheart,” he responds earnestly, unashamed that he had been caught because he truly could. There was just something about you that brought out such genuine affection in him. You give so much of yourself to others, and it makes him want to do everything in his power to pour the same love back into you. He can’t help but want to fulfill your every need. You deserve the world. Leaning into another kiss, he tries to convey what he can’t through words through his touch.
This is more passionate than the last, but he’s met with the same vigor from you. It’s easy to forget the task at hand, but your soft moans were enough of a reminder that he wasn’t finished with you yet. 
Lowering you back onto the bed, he guides himself into you, a deep groan rumbling in his chest while your mouth falls agape. There’s less pretense this time. You’re more than ready for him to start moving and thank god for it because as patient as he is, he’s only human, and you’re both getting desperate.
And when he pushes your knees towards your chest, laying your legs over his shoulders, the sound you make is borderline pornographic, and it’s then he realizes you may actually be the death of him. Holding himself back is proving more difficult by the second, so he opts for placing kisses on your calves to ground himself. He moves his hands, one going to hold the fat of your thigh for leverage while the other goes to cup your jaw. Any other time, he’d coax you to look at him, applying just enough pressure to make you face him, but he can see how overwhelmed you are.
Peering down at you, gaze unwavering, he sees your eyes barely open, all cloudy and lust blown, and he can’t help but tease you just a little, not that you mind.
“That’s it, this what you needed?” he practically coos at you, voice low and saccharine and growing gruffer by the second. “I haven’t been taking proper care of my angel, have I? No, no, that won’t do. Gotta make up for lost time. Poor thing, havin’ no one to fuck you properly when I’m not around. Don’t worry, I’ll take care of you.” 
You try to answer, you really do, try to tell him you’ve missed him more and that no one makes you feel the way he does, but the words are like lead on your tongue, and your head is starting to feel fuzzy. The steady grind of his hips into yours and the feeling of being completely surrounded by him leaves you breathless, and all you can manage is a high-pitched sob that seems to satisfy him enough, and he keeps the pace. 
“Gonna be good and give me one more? Of course, you’re my perfect girl, always so obedient.” Your responding gasp is immediately met with praise. In truth, at the moment, you’d do just about anything he asked, and you could feel the pressure building quicker, pushing you closer to the edge.
“Don’t look away, love. Wanna see those pretty eyes get all teary for me” he murmurs, words slightly slurred, and you distantly realize he’s not as unaffected as you thought. “Look so good like this, just need you to let go. Can you do that? Gonna be my sweet girl and cum for me. Let go for me, love.” 
His gentle command, his firm grip, the pressure of him inside you paired with the almost feral glint in his eyes do you in, and before you know it, you’re back is arching, and you just gush for him with a soundless scream, soaking your lower halves. John isn’t far behind, and the relief of finally pumping you full is almost too much. You always get so tight when you cum, as if you don’t wanna let him go, so he indulges you, lowering your legs but not pulling out yet, instead opting to lay on top of you. 
For a while, neither of you moves, trying to gain your bearings, filling the room with your soft pants. 
Everything feels so serene, as if you two are the only people in the world. You exhale a contented sigh, eyes closed, relishing in the feeling of John’s body weight atop you.
After some time, he pulls out, shushing your whine of protest with a quick kiss before pulling you into his chest. As you burrow yourself further into him, John wraps you up in his arms. You always get so clingy after, a fact you’re endlessly embarrassed by, but he wouldn’t have it any other way. It’s just another testament to how content, how safe you feel with him, and he cherishes the ability to give you the attention you crave.
Later, he’d clean you up, make you another cup of tea, seeing as the first was abandoned in your haste, get your favorite takeout, and set you up for a lazy night in, but for now, he holds you close. Warmth and exhaustion are seeping into your bones, and you peer up at John through your lashes and utter a quiet “thank you.” 
“No need to thank me, love. I’ll always be here for you,” he reminds, giving you a featherlight kiss on your forehead before continuing, “Get some sleep”
And as you drift off, you can’t help the upturn of your lips. Your mind was quiet, and you finally got the sleep you craved.
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areislol · 1 year
Text
"gonna hold you, gonna kiss you in my arms"
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ft— anyone
warning — major character death, angst with no comfort (?) kinda rushed
a/n— im too lazy to add anything so here is this plain format :) i felt like writing angst so here this is, i should be studying right now </3 i also forgot to eat dinner
wordcount. 748
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can you imagine the gut wrenching pain of knowing that you are about to take your last breath in your lover's arms?
can you imagine the ache in your heart as you feel the life slipping away from you, the unbearable pain of leaving behind the one you love the most in the world. this is not how you imagined the way your life would be ending, but fate has brought you to this moment, and there is nothing you can do but surrender to it?
as you look into your lover's eyes, you see the agony and desperation in their gaze. they are holding on to you tightly, as if they were trying to keep you from leaving this world if they just hold on hard enough. thinking that if they held onto you tightly, the cruel gods wouldn't take you, the universe wouldn't take you. but you know that it's time to let go.
your lover's face becomes a blur as tears cloud your vision. you try to speak, but the words won't come out. the pain in your chest intensifies, and you know that your time is running out. you feel a sense of regret for all the things you didn't do and all the words left unsaid. you wish you could go back and make things right, but it's too late now.
and in your final moments, you think about all the things you wished you could have done differently. you wish you had told your lover how much they meant to you more often, but now.. it's too late.
your lover's arms are the only thing that brings you comfort in your final moments. the warmth of their embrace and the sound of their voice soothe your soul yet hurts you so much, their cracking voice, the way they're hyperventilating, the way their whole body is shaking, the way they look at you with such.. scared and confused eyes. you feel safe and loved. But as much as their presence helps ease the pain, it also magnifies it. the thought of leaving them behind is too much to bear.
at first, they're screaming, wailing, begging for you to stay awake, begging the gods to not take you away from him. their hot and angry tears dropping onto your clothes, their tears seeping into your clothes, forming wet splotches.
but as your breathing becomes shallow and ragged, your lover leans in closer to you, some what accepting the fate, whispering words of comfort and love. you can feel their tears falling on your face as they hold you tighter, not wanting to let go. but eventually, they have to accept that it's time to say goodbye.
as you feel your life slipping away, you cling onto your lover's arm with all your strength, hoping that it will somehow prolong your existence. the world around you fades away, and all you can hear is the sound of your own labored breathing and the faint voices of your lover. in that moment, all the trivial things that used to matter to you suddenly become insignificant, and all that you care about is the person holding you.
you close your eyes and take one last deep breath, knowing that your lover will be there until the very end. you feel the coldness creeping into your body, and the darkness closing in around you.
your last breath leaves your body, and your lover feels your heart stop beating against their chest, their world comes crashing down, their eyes wide and dull, confused about what had just happened, did you.. really go? they are left alone with their grief, holding on to the memory of the person they loved most in this cruel and wretched world.
the pain of losing someone so dear to you is gut-wrenching, and it will take time for them to heal. but even in death, your love for them lives on. they will always carry a piece of you with them, and they will never forget the way it felt to hold you in their arms as you passed from this world to the next.
and all you can do is hope that your love for them will live on after you're gone. you could only wish that they find someone better than you, someone who they will live their life to the fullest with, but you have an aching feeling that... they will never. with you gone, there is nothing to look for.
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i made myself cry. guilty.
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hunny-beann · 6 months
Text
You Can; You Will...
Dream of the Endless x f!Reader
Note: Hi! This is my first time ever writing for Dream, so if anything seems a bit off or if there are any minor lore issues, please do your best not to pay them too much mind (although absolutely feel free to point them out). That said, I had a lot of fun writing this fic, and I really hope that you enjoy it!
Warnings: Uh angst(?), is Dream himself a warning? Because he should be.
Word Count: 2,644
This had to be torture, surely.
Some evil method of malice created by some long forgotten god of pain.
Why else would Dream have been looking at you so?
Here, sitting in his rotting throne room, upon his crumbling dais, his expression as close to pained as you had ever seen it before.
"You have returned."
He stated matter of factly, though his eyes betrayed the solemn tone that his voice held.
It had hurt him to come back to his realm and find that you had gone with the others, more so than you ever could have anticipated or imagined. You could see it in the way that his fingers gripped at the arm rests beneath them, and in the way that his all encompassing presence seemed to shrink slightly, as if the very particles of him and his power that made up the world beneath your feet were attempting to flee from you.
You swallowed thickly, but managed a nod in spite of your nerves and the heavy weight that bore down upon your heart at the sight of the being before you.
"I have. I did not anticipate it, but I found that I was suddenly overcome with the urge to..."
The words 'go home' died upon your lips before you could say them, because in truth, you were not entirely sure if this realm truly was home anymore, not just for you, but to anything besides the endless sitting before you and his most loyal of dreams and nightmares.
His own creations.
Dream let out a soft hum in response to your words, before he carefully rose into a standing position, his coat swishing at his feet in that familiarly dramatic way that you remembered so painfully at present, and had once recalled so fondly in the past.
Now though, after over a century of having it as only a memory, a longing lodged deep within the confines of your soul, you found that it almost hurt to bear witness to his familiarities again.
You had buried the Morpheus you had once known in all ways but the physical sense, mourned and grieved him as if you had watched his demise with your own two eyes, never having a day pass you by where you did not think of him and the way that his voice had sounded, or that his hands had felt.
And now, he was standing before you so casually, and you could not help but view this figure before you as a caricature, some imposter sent to cause you even more pain than you had already endured.
Being an immortal human was a burden in and of itself, because it meant watching nearly all those that you loved die in the span of a lifetime, which to you, had long since started to feel like nothing in the grand scheme of things.
You had begged Death to take this weight from you, to let time have its way with your body, bones, and soul, but Destiny had seen to it that his sister knew better than to meddle with this particular affair.
A long dead family member had blessed you with what they perceived to be a "gift" long ago.
And now, you suffered while they lay buried in the ground in lands you had not seen nor touched in centuries.
So, once upon a time, Dream had meant everything to you.
Ever since the day you had met him, after once again grovelling with Death to let you go, he had become abundantly special in your eyes.
Because unlike almost everyone else around you, Dream could not die, not from the ticking of any clock, nor the feebleness of his own body.
He was the one thing you believed to be permanent.
And certainly, it had taken quite a while to warm up to the man, and far longer still for him warm up to you, but after enough impromptu meetings in Death's domain over multiple centuries, he had eventually indulged you when you asked hesitantly if you could see his realm, 'the dreaming' as he so fondly referred to it, for yourself.
And oh, what a sight it had been.
Lush rolling lands, fields upon fields of flowers, a palace so tall it seemed possible to view it from miles and miles away...
You had never wanted to leave.
And eventually, you would not have to anymore.
Not after you had fled to the dreaming after losing your very best friend to disease, her death so dirty and without dignity that you could scarcely bare to even consider it.
He had sensed your arrival, of course he had, for the realm was made of the very power that he possessed, but he had not sensed your woes, nor had he anticipated your sudden presence in his crowded throne room, searching for any familiar face that might serve as a reminder that you were not without some semblance of certainty, to prove if nothing else that you were not yet alone.
You had all but collapsed at the foot of his throne, eyes bloodshot and cheeks wet with tears as you regarded him with a pain he was all too familiar with, but had no clue how to comfort you about.
Loss.
'I can't do it anymore.'
You had told him with absolute certainty, hands clenched into fists as you struggled to hold back sobs,
'I can't endure this torture, I feel as if I have died a thousand deaths without ever having experienced even one.'
Morpheus reached forward, tucking a piece of hair behind your ear, before he sat back once more, taking note of the way that, simply due to his touch alone, you were now giving him your entirely undivided attention, breaths shaky but eyes wide and trained on him, as if you had never been touched before, or maybe as if you had never expected him to touch you in the eternity that you would experience.
'You can.'
He said, voice steady and eyes cold, though almost determined looking as he spoke.
'You will.'
You felt your eyebrows crease at his words, but Dream simply shook his head slightly before you could even open your mouth to reply.
He watched you for a few moments, before finally, he decided that enough silence had passed.
'If it is easier, you may remain in the dreaming as long as you please. All I ask, is that you do not make me regret my kindness.'
Shocked, you had nodded, before finally mustering up the strength to respond.
'But why?'
You had asked, watching as the being sitting before you sighed, his gaze traveling up toward the ceiling as he spoke,
'You will not have to watch nearly as many crumble to dust here in my domain, and I can see the toll that your immortality is taking on your feeble human mind. My sister has taken a liking to you, and I do not doubt that she would want me to take pity upon your unfortunate circumstances. To preserve someone she calls a friend, I will allow you to reside here until you give me a reason not to.'
And you never had.
For so very long now, hundreds upon hundreds of years, you had remained almost entirely within the dreaming.
You had friends here, nightmares and dreams alike, although truthfully, none captured your attention in the way that Morpheus did.
And none captured his nearly as much as you somehow managed to.
You were close, bound by some firm understanding of one another that never ceased to solidify the fact that the dreaming was your home, the place where you belonged, and Dream the very host that so effortlessly kept you rooted.
Before, there had been almost nothing for you in the way of consistency or rhythm, and now, there was an ebb and flow, a push and pull, a beat to follow, and the biggest surprise of all was that you made up half of each of these things.
Where Dream would ebb, you would flow, where he would push, you would pull, and you so very easily followed along with and eventually even progressed and changed his rhythm in a way that almost made the dreaming feel as if it had two rulers.
The dream lord,
And his once missing other half, the muse of the very land beneath your feet, and of the wind within your hair.
Until one day, that all came to an end.
The king of dreamers left and did not return.
And you could not even dare try and pick up the pieces of his realm that he left behind.
It had been a shameful abandonment, one full of pain and grief, but only a few short years after Dream's disappearance, you grabbed the scarce few items that did not remind you of him or the family that you were leaving behind, and you vanished just as he had done.
At that point, the slow but sure crumbling of the dreaming had only just begun, but your cowardice had won out over your strength, and you'd quickly found that you could not bare to see it shrink into nothingness.
'You can.'
Dream had once told you.
'You will.'
He had assured.
But you could not this time.
You likely would not ever again.
You were not the first to leave the dreaming, not by a long shot.
But your absence and the meaning that it carried rang out loud and clear for all of those who had chosen to remain.
The once so honored and beloved guest of their lord of dreams had chosen her painful mortal world over anything that the realm had left to offer...
And for many, that was all the proof that they needed that their creator would not return.
You were far from the first to leave.
But you were even further from the last.
"Did you lose faith in me?"
Dream asked suddenly, and you felt yourself gasp slightly at the question.
Lose faith in him?
Was that what you had done?
With almost no consideration for the question, you shook your head.
"No."
You said firmly, watching as the endless in front of you tilted his head ever so slightly, his eyes boring into your own even from across the room and down the ruined steps,
"Never."
Morpheus took a few steps toward you, and almost instinctively, you moved to lessen the space that lay between before forcing yourself to stop, hands clenched into fists at your sides, the pain of seeing your friend, who you had believed to be dead just hours ago, too great even for longing to overcome.
Dream seemed to notice this, and stopped in his tracks, though he was now far closer than before, only a few short steps away.
"Then why did you leave so easily? Why did you abandon the life that I offered you here if you had the faith required to know that I would someday return to the dreaming? Return to you?"
Your breath shuddered at the implication that he had come back in any part for you, but you chose to ignore his words in favor of fighting off his accusations of faithlessness on your part.
"I left because I could not bear to see this world that you created fall apart around me while I did nothing. It felt as if I were watching another loved one die, and I could not deal after believing that someone had taken your life as well. I was hurting, and I found that it was easier to hurt in the waking world, where pain was familiar, than it was to hurt here, where it never seemed to bite so hard. That is why I left. But I never once lost faith in you."
Dream raised a brow at that last part, and you were quick, to clarify,
"I may have thought you dead, but I did not once believe that if you were alive, you would not come back. My belief that you were dead, my certainty in that regard, came from the immense faith that I have in you, Lord Morpheus, because I could not fathom that you ever could have abandoned us or the dreaming... After years, I ceased being capable of thinking that you were somewhere out there anymore. I did not think it possible for anything to bind you so tightly away from your duties, if not for death herself."
Dream stared back at you in response to your words, as if taking them in for several long moments, before finally he nodded,
"I see. Though I do wish you would have considered the fact that I never would have allowed myself to die knowing what I would be leaving behind."
You sighed exasperatedly,
"But we know that you would not be the first to abandon your post, my lord, not the first to leave something as fickle as your universe given duties behind. Who could have blamed you if you died in spite of these things if others were able to willingly leave them?"
Your voice was small and quiet as you spoke, unsure of how Dream might react to the mention of Destruction, even when the wound was not necessarily new anymore.
You watched as the being before you stiffened, his gaze growing ever so slightly colder, before he spun around and began making his way back toward his throne, his tone firm and serious as he replied, still facing away from you all the while.
"I was not speaking of my duties to the dreaming."
He stated simply, though you could tell by his cadence that his words were anything but.
You sighed, exasperated and fragile after all that had been said thus far,
"Well what else was it that you were leaving behind that was so important that I should have known it would keep you alive then, Dream?"
The lord of the dreaming locked eyes with you as you finished asking this question, cold piercing gaze filling you with a deep regret and an immense longing as he sat upon his throne once more, one long leg crossing over the other as he all but stared into your very soul.
"You."
He said simply, voice low and gaze unwavering as he spoke, watching as that one word alone sent you staggering several steps backward, one hand clutching lightly at your chest as your feeble human mind tried to comprehend all that had happened to you in this one day alone.
"Me?"
You whispered, voice echoing slightly throughout the empty throne room in spite of how quiet it was.
"But I am not-"
"You are everything."
Dream cut you off before you could finish, eyes still boring holes into your own as he continued to watch you from his seat, as if knowing that if he moved any closer now, that you would run, run and likely never return for fear of what any of this meant for you and for the once permanent seeming fixture that Dream had so easily played within your life for so long.
You floundered at those words, vision growing bleary and spotty as you turned to rush out of the room, to be anywhere but this pale comparison of the dreaming, the once beautiful world that you had known for so very long.
You fled your home with tears in your eyes and a hand at your heart.
Dream stayed where he sat upon his throne, and watched your fears consume you again until you faded from view.
He did not try to stop you.
A broken home like this was no place for a fragile soul like yours.
And he could offer you no better than the very world he had once so kindly rescued you from.
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drawlfoy · 4 months
Text
benefits of journaling p.2
read p1 here!
pairing: diary!tom riddle x ravenclaw!reader
summary: you pick up an unassuming journal in diagon alley during an antiques sale without knowing that it's actually a part of a late dark lord's soul. sort of no voldy AU, set in the golden trio era where voldemort was defeated in the first war and thus harry has parents still.
warnings: recreational drug use, language, mild gore, snakes, a mouse gets eaten (thoughts and prayers), tom is a little bit gaslighty, the quality of my writing declines sharply
a/n: note that this is not finished at all, but i'm not planning on finishing this series unfortunately :/ i just have too much going on. this is unedited, unrevised, unoutlined, etc. so adjust your expectations accordingly. i just kind of want to get this out so i've given u guys at least *some* semblance of closure for this series. (UPDATE: now that i’ve written this i’ve changed my mind. i will be working on the next part. i forgot how much i love tom)
wc: 6.7k
enjoy !
This time you were unceremoniously dumped into a hard wooden library chair. You gasped as you braced yourself against the hard table in front of you, drawing in shaky breaths as you gathered your bearings. 
 A loud bang startled you into wrenching your gaze up. Tom had dropped a thick book with an ebony cover right next to you, nearly atop your hand. 
“Here you are,” he said pleasantly. “Happy reading.” 
“Do you think I can take this back with me into my world?” you asked. The cover was smooth under your fingertips. 
“Unlikely,” said Tom, dropping elegantly into the chair beside you. “You’ll have to read it here.”
You gulped. “Alright.” 
The papers were yellowed and fragile against your touch, and you couldn’t help but wonder just how old it was. 
“Any section you’d recommend starting with?” 
The book was around 700 pages with tiny, fine print.
“Perhaps the beginning.” Tom waved his wand and wordlessly summoned a stack of books, lifting one up and beginning to read for himself. 
You’d thought that you’d be less intimidated knowing that he was also doing something besides staring at you reading, but the back of your neck still prickled as you pulled the book to the edge of the table and began to dig in.
It was bizarre, reading next to a boy like this. The only one you ever studied with before had been Ishan, and he hardly counted. It was different with Tom. His presence hung in the air around you, a tension so tangible that it wasn’t unthinkable that you might feel something if you let your fingers sift through the space between you.
Despite all you’d told Tom, spending time around him made you unfathomably nervous. He was too good-looking to feel even remotely normal around him, and it was all you could do to hope that he didn't notice how much you blushed whenever he spoke to you.
The book he’d given you was dense and horrific, detailing magic so ugly and foul that you felt dirty just reading it. It covered topics you’d heard of before, like cases of the Imperius curse or the misuse of love potions or the nature of dark magic. 
But there was nothing pertaining to Tom’s situation.
“Can’t you at least point me towards a chapter? Or…a general section of the book?” you asked him. 
Tom lifted his gaze from his work, quirking a brow. “Having trouble?”
“This is going to take me forever to read.” You motioned at the width of the book. 
“Then I guess I’ll be seeing much more of you.” 
You couldn’t fight back the flush that spread across your face. “Well, this is an easily solvable problem. You really ought to just point me to the most relevant part.”
“And here I was, thinking I was doing you a favor,” said Tom. His eyes locked onto yours, and for a moment you thought you saw the slightest suggestion of a smirk on his lips. “Given that you’re such a glutton for knowledge and not at all singular in your academic pursuits.”
“That’s not—” You paused when you saw the amusement on his face. He’d been playing with you. “I’m flattered that you remembered. I suppose you’re right.”
And since you refused to let him win, you flipped the book back open and picked up right where you left off. 
It was really stupid to feel so light at the fact that Tom had remembered a sentence you’d said verbatim, because even if it implied that he’d thought about your last interaction enough to commit it to memory, it was hardly a surprise. It wasn’t like he had anything better to do in his empty version of Hogwarts except read books he’d probably already read many times before.
You snuck another look at him a few chapters later. A few waves had fallen across his face, dangling over his brow. For a moment, all you could do was keep yourself from reaching out to tuck them back into order, to know what it felt like against your fingers.
But that was a boundary you hadn’t crossed yet—if you even could. Who knew how the rules worked in this dimension?
You resolved to believe that you couldn’t touch him. That it was impossible. Because if you believed that, maybe you’d stop wanting to. 
“You never ended up telling me if you were a Parselmouth,” you realized aloud after you’d completed another gruesome section about ritualistic Dark Magic. 
You watched him closely but didn’t detect even a glimpse of surprise. 
“I didn’t,” he agreed smoothly. He didn’t look up from his page. 
“So? I gave you a secret. Many, actually.”
“I think you already know.” He turned the page, dark eyes darting across the next. 
“Well—” You paused, worrying your lip between your teeth as you realized that he was right. “What’s it like?” 
That was what prompted him to finally lean back in his chair and lift his gaze from the book to your eyes. 
“What’s it like?” 
Repeated back to you, it did sound very silly. 
“I mean,” you said, cheeks hot, “What do you even talk to snakes about? The weather? Whether or not there’s enough mice in the area?” 
“It’s unlikely to find snakes that do more than listen to me,” he said. “Most aren’t very good conversationalists.”
“A boy in my—our, I guess—year has a pet ball python,” you told him. “I just don’t understand why he’d want one. They don’t seem like very good companions.”
“Why not?”
“Because they have no emotional depth,” you said. You could feel your voice slipping into the tone you used when you tutored younger students, but you couldn’t bring yourself to care. You’d researched this extensively in the library after the Incident in third year when you were looking for any good academic reason for how terrified you were of Malfoy’s pet. “They have no limbic system, so everything for them is about survival. There’s no—no mutual concern or love like you’d get from something normal, like a cat or an owl. As their handler, you only matter because you’re what keeps them alive. I don’t think I’d ever be able to get over that.” 
“So all your companions have to love you?” Tom was resting his chin in his palm now as he looked at you. “They’re worthless otherwise?” 
“That’s not what I’m saying,” you responded. “But I like my company to see me as something more than an avenue for survival or a means to an end.”
“Their companionship isn’t enough?”
You blinked. Everyone else that you’d given your reptile spiel to had completely understood. You couldn’t quite figure out why Tom wasn’t agreeing. “It’s just nice to be cared about, don’t you think? And it’s…it’s nice to care about something without it feeling meaningless.” 
“I imagine that that’s true,” Tom said evenly. 
Something deep inside you twisted at the implications of his answer. You’d sort of forgotten that he grew up in a muggle orphanage and likely didn’t have any sort of emotional closeness during his early childhood. But he was so pretty and sharp and witty that it was hard to imagine no one caring for him. Perhaps that had changed upon his admission to Hogwarts. He had said that witches and wizards found him charming. You could attest. 
~
You passed the following Potions lab with flying colors and a perfectly brewed Draught of Peace that made even Snape nod approvingly. It was thrilling. It was incredible. All you wanted to do was get Tom’s diary out right then and there and document it as it happened—as if he were right beside you—but you refrained. You told him that night instead, when you were back again for another reading session.
You were falling into his world on a daily basis, devouring as much of the book as you could without forgoing any conversations with Tom. He’d been impressed to hear about your potion in his own very Tom way. He didn’t tell you outright that he thought that you were brilliant or smart or incredible. Instead he seemed entirely unsurprised, like he thought you capable of nothing less. Somehow that made you glow more than any explicitly stated praise that he could’ve offered.
When you weren’t reading, you were walking around the grounds with Tom and just talking, much like you used to write to him. At first you’d been nervous and uncomfortable with being as open with him in person as you’d been in writing, but Tom had a funny way of making you feel seen. Despite his slight aloofness and obvious air of pretension, he listened to you and appeared genuinely interested in your life by way of remembering things you’d said months ago.
Like when you’d told him off-handedly that it was raining back in the real world and that it was your favorite weather, and ever since the Hogwarts you were transported to was constantly overcast with torrential downpours unless you two were walking outside. 
You still never dared to touch him, though. That was a line that you refused to cross. Tom seemed to hold the same opinion, keeping a wide berth around you whenever tactile contact was in the realm of possibility. 
“How did you become a Parselmouth?” you asked him one day while you were taking a break from reading and walking through the Transfiguration Courtyard. 
His eyes narrowed as he turned to you. “Do they not teach you about Parseltongue in Defense Against the Dark Arts anymore?”
“No,” you said. “I’ve only ever heard about it by reading a book from the Restricted Section. It was very vague. All I know about it is that it’s the language of reptiles.” 
“No one becomes a Parselmouth.” Tom turned his attention back to the walking path, adjusting the cuff of his robes for just a second. “All Parselmouths are born. It’s entirely hereditary.” 
“So did you have to learn it?” you asked. Your interest was piqued—you’d never heard of a language that was passed through genes.
Tom shook his head. That one rogue strand of black hair had escaped its orderly wave, just like how you remembered him from his yearbook picture. “I’ve never had to think about it. I’ve just always known how to say what I want.” 
“Do you think that you could…” Your voice trailed off and you swallowed thickly. You weren’t even sure why you’d started asking him that question. Of course he couldn’t teach you Parseltongue. You didn’t even really want to know it, either. You’d never use it. But you hated being told that you didn’t know something. That you couldn't know something. 
“We can give it a try,” he offered. 
You dared to glance back up at him and found him already looking at you. “How did you know what I was going to say?”
“I don’t know.” He appeared to be making a valiant effort to quell a grin. “I suppose it has something to do with your approach to acquiring knowledge. One could almost call it…gluttonous in nature.”
You sent him a glare.
Tom shrugged, properly smiling now for the first time in front of you. He had shallow, almost perfectly circular dimples. “Anyway. I’ve never taught anyone before. I actually don’t believe it to be possible, but we might as well give it a go.”
“You’ve never tried?” you asked. “None of your friends at Hogwarts asked you to teach them?”
“No,” he said. “No one knew I was a Parselmouth. I kept that a secret.”
“Why?”
He shrugged again. “I enjoy my privacy. Right, then. Serpensortia.”
A large, hissing snake appeared at your feet, thrashing about in the grass as it unhappily acclimated to its new environment. 
You yelped, leaping nearly a foot in the air. Tom simply stood still, watching you with an amused expression on his features.
“Having second thoughts?”
“No,” you said through gritted teeth, refusing to let your eyes move from the wriggling snake in front of you. “I’m just—surprised.”
“It won’t hurt you.” His voice was low, gentle. “Don’t be afraid.” 
“I’m not,” you said, but the slight wobble in your tone betrayed you. “Just—get on with the lesson, alright?” 
He stood silently, his head tilted in concentration.
“What’s it saying?” you found yourself asking. “Is it—I dunno—threatening my life or something?”
Tom sent you a look that you couldn’t quite decipher. “It’s scared of you.”
“Really?” A spark of smugness lit up within you.
“No.”
“Oh.”
“It’s expressing how upset it is at how suddenly I’ve conjured it. Apparently we’ve interrupted the start of its meal.”
“What do I say if I want to apologize?” 
 He appeared to consider your request for just a moment before opening his mouth and making a hissing noise that you didn’t think you could replicate if you had a thousand years. 
The snake immediately quieted and stopped its thrashing, its tiny head lifting from the ground to regard Tom curiously. 
He looked back at you, expectant.
“Again, please,” you said. “A little slower this time. I didn’t quite catch it.” 
He obliged, going through each syllable separately.
You felt very much like you were back in muggle school before you’d found out you were a witch, being forced to read out a passage in French. The sounds that came out of you were clumsy and not at all what you thought they’d sound like.
“Don’t look at me like that,” you accused. “For the record, I know it was bad.” 
He didn’t address it beyond just the slight upward twist of his lip before he repeated it again, syllable by syllable.
You tried once again with the same outcome. 
“Your tongue should be a little behind your teeth,” he said. “You have yours too far back on the roof of your mouth, which is why you’re losing control. Try again.” 
This time, it came out much cleaner. The snake took notice of you for the first time, its dark scales glistening under the cloudy sky. It hissed something back. Tom’s mouth split into a grin.
“What did it say?”
“It wants to know if you have any food,” he told you. 
“What’s ‘yes’?”
Saying yes in Parseltongue was much easier than saying sorry—it only took two syllables, both of which were made up of sounds that you were pretty sure you had in the English language.
The snake was giving its full attention to you now. Its forked tongue stuck out for just a second. 
Gulping, you accioed a small stone into your palm and cast a quick charm to transfigure it into a mouse—something that you’d learned years ago. 
You set it on the ground and watched the snake lunge.
“Gross,” you said under your breath, wincing as it began to swallow it whole, its body twisting and contorting as it shoved it down.  “I—I think I’m done with the lesson now. I’ve learned enough.” 
“You really didn’t need to feed it,” Tom pointed out helpfully. 
“Yeah. I know that now. I just felt like it deserved something for the trouble.”
Once the snake had succeeded and the only evidence of the mouse was a bulge in the adder’s scales a little past its head, it lifted its head again to meet your eyes, its tongue slithering out as it made a sharp hiss. 
“What’s it saying?”
“It thanked you,” said Tom. He was giving you that look again—like he was reconsidering you. 
“And if I wanted to say ‘you’re welcome’?”
“I thought you said you were done with the lesson.” 
You rolled your eyes. “Consider this my last request. I’d like to be polite.” 
Tom let out a sigh, then made a sound that glided from a long S to a few sharp, pointed consonants. 
You clumsily mimicked him, feeling like your tongue was much larger than you’d ever bothered to notice. 
To your surprise, the adder slithered towards you, dragging itself onto the rock of the courtyard and in front of you. It coiled around your shin, slowly pulling itself up your body.
“Tom!” you whisper-screamed through your teeth.
“It’s alright,” he said. 
“Do something!” 
The snake continued up your leg, looping once around your waist as it continued its ascent up to your shoulder. It was cold and oddly heavy, its scales clammy against the bare skin of your neck.
For one terrifying moment, you thought that it was going to coil around your neck and squeeze until you asphyxiated. Your breath caught in your throat as it came around behind your neck, both ends dangling around your neck as you were paralyzed with fear. 
Then it did the most peculiar thing; it stopped, just hanging in a loose hold around the base of your neck, its face nestled into the collar of your robes. 
“What’s it doing?” you whispered. You tried to ignore the lump in its body that you could feel at the side of your neck.
“It’s resting on you,” said Tom. 
“Why?”
“Because it likes you.” 
You stared at him, floored. “It does not.”
He hissed something to the snake around your neck. It responded with something you couldn’t even begin to understand. 
“It just told me so,” said Tom.
“How do I know you didn’t just make that up?” you said, mentally crossing your arms across your chest but refraining since a snake was taking residence there at present. 
“You don’t trust me?” asked Tom. “I’m hurt.” 
Before you could respond, you felt the slow, languid movement of the adder as it lifted its head from your collar. Without thinking, you offered it your hand, watching in quiet fascination as it slithered around your wrist.
“Hi,” you said shyly, like you’d speak to a nervous cat.
“It won’t understand—”
“I’m aware, Tom,” you interrupted, sending him a look before turning back to your wrist. “We’re bonding. Bugger off.” 
He held his hands up in exasperation. “Bonding? Are you going to take him back to the real world as your familiar?” 
For a moment, you actually considered this.
“Because that’s a terrible idea,” continued Tom, crushing your dream right then and there. “Adders are venomous. Once you don’t have me around, you won’t be able to communicate with it. It’ll probably bite someone.” 
“Then perhaps we should start brainstorming ways to bring you back,” you said. “For safe snake handling, if nothing else.” 
Tom didn’t say anything to this; instead, he reached out and gently unwound the adder from your wrist, his skin not brushing yours once. 
“Surely there’s someone wondering where you are,” he said once the snake had been deposited on the ground. “You’ve been here longer than usual.” 
“Do you not want to get out of here?” you asked, frowning. “It hardly seems like you’re trying.” 
“I’ve been doing research when you’re not around,” he said simply. “I think I just need to theorize for a bit longer—figure out the best course of action.” 
“The process would be sped up significantly if you let me help.”
“I won’t ask that of you. It’s very complicated magic—” He paused for just a moment, noticing the derisive curl of your mouth. “—Not that I think you incapable, of course. But you’ve better things to do. It would distract from your exams, and I tend to work better alone in this stage of research.”
“Oh,” you said, hoping the hurt wasn’t showing on your face. It made sense that he would want to work on this alone. You understood not wanting to have to explain things to people when you could already be going down a rabbithole that you’d deemed important. Plus, your current Tom rendez-vous schedule was eating enough time as it was. But it still stung. 
“You’ll be the first to know if I stumble across anything conclusive,” said Tom.
You snorted. “Obviously.”
“Well—” Tom stopped himself. You thought for a moment that you detected the slightest flush across his pale skin, but that was likely because of the chill outside. “That was more clever in my head. Sorry.”
“I imagine that being in solitary confinement for half a century might addle your mind a bit,” you offered diplomatically.
“My mind is not addled.”
“I was very graciously giving you an easy out.” 
“Someone is probably wondering where you are,” he repeated, his jaw tense. “So I’m going to send you back now.”
Without giving you another chance to argue, you were catapulted back into your desk chair.
~
“You look like you could do with a night out,” Lucy observed as she watched you storm into your dorm and send your satchel flying through the air to land messily on your bed.
“Casting my first and last Unforgivable on McLaggen would be preferable,” you said through gritted teeth. 
He’d been your partner today in Arithmancy to work on a partner problem set. It apparently wasn’t enough for him to be dreadfully stupid and slow—he had to be an absolute chauvinistic arse about it. Whenever you attempted to correct him, he’d look at you with so much amusement that it made your head pound.
He didn’t even need to say anything—the look in his eyes told you that he didn’t even see you as a person. 
The last person to treat you so dismissively had been Pansy Parkinson, but at least she’d been smart. And a witch. McLaggen dripped with conceit and smugness and was disgusting towards the most pureblooded witch on a good day. 
It’d been nearly 3 hours and your blood was still boiling. 
“Well, I can’t arrange that,” said Lucy. “But I can tell you that Hufflepuff is throwing tonight. McLaggen probably won’t come—Ernie hates him, and he’s the one who put it all together.” 
You considered this, looking longingly once at the bag on your bed. You hadn’t done anything with your friends in forever; nearly all the time you had was spent either studying or with Tom. 
The Hufflepuffs were always gracious hosts, too. The last time you’d gone, they’d given you something to smoke that had smelled like a meadow on a sunny spring day and made you feel like you were floating. You’d giggled all night with Lucy, clinging to one another. You’d gone on some tirade about how much you loved her, touching her face and tearing up as you said something about how you didn’t know what you’d be without her. Lucy’d beamed back at you, her face wide open with raw gratitude. 
It had been sappy, but it had been fun and one of the few positive memories you had from the disaster that had been O.W.Ls season. 
“You know what,” you said slowly, watching Lucy’s face light up, “I think that’s just what I need.” 
Tom could wait. 
Lucy squealed and got right to work. In seconds, all the clothes you’d brought from home were strewn across her bed as she scrutinized each one. 
“I thought this was just going to be, like, a chill thing,” you said. 
Lucy picked up a sequined top, held it up to your chest, and wrinkled her nose. “Too loud.” 
“Lucy—”
“I never get to go out with you,” she interrupted, yanking a black slip dress from the pile that caught the warm overhead light. “Thoughts? We could do some fun earrings or something to dress it up.” 
“Are we not just going to sit in a circle and smoke again? This feels a little overkill.” 
“Well, it’s not,” said Lucy, throwing it at you. “This is hardly a ballgown. Plus, this is your annual outing. Dress to impress.” 
You rolled your eyes and slipped the straps off the hanger, throwing it over your shoulder as you turned around to change.
Lucy continued her rampage, ooh-ing and aah-ing upon seeing it on you and immediately cornering you with a scary looking brush.
“For your eyes,” she said, like that made you feel any better. 
“What?” 
“Close them.” 
You squeezed them shut, willing this to be over. You’d had your own experience with muggle makeup, which was tame and not at all exciting. The Wizarding World always had interesting takes on beauty tools, like charmed kohl that could turn your entire eye black if you weren’t careful enough. 
Something cool and wet swiped across the corner of your eyes. Lucy mumbled something under her breath, and there was a slight ruffling at the end of your lashes, like a light breeze had swept through them. 
“Open.”
You blinked, your lashes feeling a little heavier. 
“Pretty,” said Lucy, nodding seriously. “Hang on. Do you have a lip color preference?” 
You stared. A lip color preference? “Er—whatever you think makes the most sense with my undertones.” 
“You would say that,” Lucy replied, already holding a wand of lip gloss. “Put this on.” 
When you turned to look into the mirror she was holding out, you nearly started at your reflection. Lucy had done something insane with your lashes, curling them up and adding length that didn’t look too obvious. That weird tool she’d used on your eye had created a sharp, clean line that followed the contour of your lashline and licked out at the end. 
You looked really pretty. Not quite Tom Riddle level pretty, but pretty nonetheless.
“Thanks,” you said, turning back to Lucy after you’d applied the gloss she’d given you. It smelled faintly of something that you couldn’t quite place—like old parchment and the memory of walking through the library in the middle of the night. It was the strangest scent you’d ever encountered in a lip product. 
Ernie and the rest of the Hufflepuffs did not disappoint. They’d bribed house elves into bringing an entire spread of food that was fragrant and under a constant stasis spell to keep an optimal temperature. You spent the evening chatting with your Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff friends and feasting on ripe slices of pineapple and bites of strawberry that stained your already glossy mouth a vibrant pink. 
Then Hannah Abbott reached into her pocket and pulled out a stash of corked bottles. 
“Party Potions,” said Lucy in wonder as you both stared at the swirling liquids.
You’d heard of them before but had never personally had one. You weren’t entirely sure what they did, in all honesty, and that stressed you out enough to keep you from giving them a whirl. 
They were different vibrant colors—one an opalescent pink, one a vibrant orange, one a blood red, one a deep, midnight blue that reminded you of your house colors. 
“Anyone want one?” asked Hannah, motioning to her pile. Terry Boot raised a hand and plucked the orange one from the table, uncorking it and downing it in one go. 
“What do the different colors mean?” you asked. The longer you looked at them, the more you were mesmerized. 
“I don’t remember,” admitted Hannah. “Nothing crazy, I don’t think.”
“You don’t think,” you repeated.
“Just because I don’t remember why I bought each color doesn’t mean that I would’ve purposefully bought something that did bad things,” Hannah told you. “Here. Take one. It’ll help you relax.” 
The midnight blue potion sat on the fingers of Hannah’s outstretched palm. 
“Oh, I couldn’t—”
“I promise it’s nothing too intense,” said Hannah. “You’ve smoked before, right? I’ve had one and it was honestly just like getting crossed. You’ll be fine.”
At the mention of smoking, common sense flew out the window. The last time you’d been offered an illicit substance in the Hufflepuff Common Room, things went really well. Who were you to deny that again?
“If you’re sure it’s alright for me to have it,” you said. The bottle pulled easily from Hannah’s hand and into your grip.
“Who are you and what have you done with my best friend?” Lucy was grinning at you widely. 
Up close, the midnight blue wasn’t solid—there were specks of silver in there, like thousands of stars littered across the night sky. It was stunning. You felt almost bad uncorking it and downing it, but you didn’t give yourself a chance to second-guess.
It tasted like lavender and honey and something burnt that was horribly gross but faded away with time and went down like water. 
“You didn’t save anything for me?”
“Sorry, Luce,” you said, swiping the back of your hand across your lips. 
You weren’t feeling anything yet. Or were you? Was this how you normally felt? The ceiling of the Hufflepuff common room definitely didn’t move, right? And Lucy typically wasn’t outlined in a fuschia pink. That you were sure of.
“Whoa,” you said dumbly.
“I think Y/N’s feeling something!” called out Hannah. “What’s it like?”
You stared at her, watching as a warm brown that reminded you of English Breakfast tea with milk stirred in surrounded Hannah’s edges. 
“You’re such a good person,” you said, feeling tears prick at your eyes, because Hannah Abbott truly was. “And so are you.” 
You turned to Lucy, trying your best not to cry. “Did you know that you’re the color pink?”
Lucy nodded gravely. Later she would laugh about this, but not now. “That’s very kind of you.” 
You spent the evening in a daze, staring open mouthed at your friends as you saw different colors swirl around, some overlapping and blending. 
It was beautiful. Then the sadness kicked in. It wasn’t clear to you exactly what caused your sudden rush of melancholy—but all of a sudden you were staring at the happy people dancing around you, the colors blurring and mingling, and all you could think about was Tom. Tom, who was all alone. Tom, who might never get out. Tom, who was destined for an eternity of loneliness. 
“I’m going to go back,” you said to Lucy, tugging at her sleeve to get her attention. 
She frowned. “Aw, why? Are you not feeling well?” 
“The potion Hannah gave me is making me feel really tired,” you said. It wasn’t a lie. Your eyelids were heavy and the thought of curling up under your blankets sounded better than anything. Well, almost anything. There was something you needed to take care of first. 
“Booooo,” said Lucy, rolling her eyes. “Fine. Do you want me to walk you back?” 
“No! I mean—” You gulped. “You’re having fun. I’ll be fine getting back. I think Ron’s on the rounds in our part of the castle. He’s not going to write me up.” 
“You sure? I’d be happy to take you.”
You started pushing her in the direction of the other party-goers. “Very. Go have fun. I’ll see you when you get back.” 
By the time you’d burst back into your room, your chest was heaving with exertion from sprinting up the stairs as you wrenched open your desk drawer and pulled out the journal.
Tom you wrote. Can you let me in? 
He didn’t answer; instead, you were falling through space and into the warmly lit Hogwarts library from the 40s. 
“Tom!” You couldn’t stop the grin that came across your face. 
“Oh—hello.” Like always, Tom was standing tidily a polite distance from you, his hands tucked neatly behind his back. Unlike always, he was staring at you like you’d just shot his dog. 
“Is everything okay?” The potion you’d taken was definitely still in effect. An inky blackness was hanging around his shoulders—a stark contrast to the paleness of his skin. 
He swallowed, his eyes darting up and down. “Yes. Sorry. You just look a bit different.” 
“Oh. Yeah, I was at a party. Did you know you have a black aura?”
“What?”
“Your aura is black,” you repeated, slower this time. 
He just stared at you. 
“Sorry,” you mumbled, averting your eyes. Maybe he was insecure about having such a lame aura color. It had been a bit rude of you to point that out all willy-nilly. 
“I’m not—” Tom stopped, pressing his lips together before continuing. “I’m sorry, is there a reason why you asked to see me? Surely you don’t mean to read after you’ve just stepped out of a party?”
“Oh,” you said, and suddenly you remembered why you’d come. A somberness dropped over you. “I was just…I was having so much fun tonight. And then I thought about you.”
He stayed silent.
“What’s going to happen to you if I can’t get you out?” Your voice wobbled as tears pricked at the back of your eyes. “Are you just going to be stuck here forever? Won’t you be lonely?” 
When he didn’t immediately answer and opted to stare at you in shock instead, you continued.
“Because I keep thinking about what might happen if something happens to me or I lose your journal,” you confessed, now ardently choking back tears. “I really worry about you. I’d never forgive myself if I didn’t help you leave.” 
“Are you…” His eyes darted up and down you again. “Drunk?”
“Hardly,” you said, swiping angrily under your eyes as you collapsed onto the loveseat that you so often read on, pulling your knees to your chest. Then, quieter: “It was just some potion a friend gave me.”
“If you’re so worried about something happening to you so that I’m left alone…” You weren’t looking up at him, but the increase in volume told you he was coming nearer. “...May I suggest not taking mystery potions?”
Before you could issue a retort, the loveseat cushion shifted to accommodate the weight of a second person, sending you toppling over to the other side. 
Right onto Tom. 
Your hands went flying to the opposite armrest, fingers digging into the worn blue velvet with a death grip as you righted yourself, pushing your knees from where they’d landed sprawled in Tom’s lap.
Which you could actually touch, by the way. The implications began rolling in once you were back on your respective side. He’d been solid and warm and completely void of any attributes that may suggest he was a ghost. Which meant that it was probably possible to…
No. No. You weren’t going to think about that right now. 
“I didn’t realize I could touch you,” you heard yourself saying, staring at him in wonder. “I just assumed I couldn’t.” 
His throat bobbed as he swallowed. “Oh.” 
And for purely scientific purposes (no reputable academic came to a firm conclusion based off of a single trial), you reached your hand out and experimentally poked his forearm again. 
“Wow,” you said.
“Will you stop that?” said Tom. 
“Yes.” You retracted your hand and placed it firmly in your lap. Then, because your manners hadn’t completely abandoned you: “Sorry. That was rude of me. I just sort of assumed that since you’re—well, whatever you are—it’d be like touching a ghost or something.” 
“Whatever I am,” he echoed, looking off into the distance with what you could only describe as a very harrowed expression. 
“I’m sorry,” you said again, but you weren’t entirely sure what you were apologizing for. 
Instead of responding, he buried his face in his hands, heaving a heavy sigh as his fingers tangled into his hair. 
“What’s wrong?” you asked. 
He just shook his head, scrubbing his face with his hands once before he let them fall. 
“Er, all right then,” you said. “Would you like me to leave? I’m sorry for bothering you.” 
“You really shouldn’t worry about me,” he finally said. The awkward, slight pauses between his words gave you a sneaking suspicion that he was choosing his words very carefully. 
“Of course I’m going to worry about you.” Now that you knew that you could touch him, nothing stopped you from reaching out to flick his arm indignantly. “We’re friends, and I like to think that my friends would worry about me if I was stuck in journal jail. Or whatever this is.” 
He was still staring at where you’d touched his arm. 
“...Unless you don’t want to be friends,” you added, suddenly feeling a little silly for jumping to such rash conclusions. “Which I’d understand. I can give your journal to someone else. A Slytherin, maybe. Someone a little more your speed.” 
You decided to blame the potion for the obvious hurt that had seeped into your voice at the prospect that there was someone else who was better suited as his confidant. 
“I don’t want you to do that,” Tom eventually said. He wouldn’t meet your eyes. 
“Then what do you want?” The strength in your words surprised even you. “I don’t understand you. You tell me you want to get out, but you still won’t let me help you. You let me talk to you and come visit you and read with you, but then you expect me not to care. It doesn’t make any sense. You don’t make any sense.” 
“It’s more complicated than that,” said Tom, thumbing the ring he always wore around his finger. “I don’t expect you to understand.”
“So help me understand!” Your voice rose sharply, echoing off the walls of the empty library. 
Tom finally turned to you, his face split open with something so uncharacteristically raw and open that it takes everything within you not to gasp. 
“No.”
“What?”
“No.” He drew in long breath. “Not right now. I need more time.”
“Oh, a half century wasn’t enough?” you retorted. “Need another?” 
“It doesn’t work like that,” said Tom, an edge of franticness in the way he spun the ring around his finger quicker. “I never thought that I’d—I didn’t think I’d ever be found. I wasn’t supposed to be found.”
You didn’t know what to say to this. Instead, you sat there with your hands clasped tightly in your lap, eyes set on the floor, your mind racing with all the implications of everything you’d learned.
A moment passed. Then another. Once it appeared clear that you weren’t going to say anything back, Tom spoke up again. “You’re angry with me. I understand that this is…” He paused. “Unconventional. But I am grateful you’ve found me, and I’d really rather prefer that you don’t give me away to another student.”
You were just about to respond when—
“But of course I’d understand if you did,” he added hastily. 
It was the most unnervingly emotional speech you’d ever seen come from Tom, ever the stoic, and under the influence of the potion that Hannah had given you, it was almost enough to make you give in and move on. But not quite.
“You said ‘supposed to’.” Your eyes still didn’t move from where they were trained on the scuffed wooden floor of the library. “You said ‘I wasn’t supposed to be found.’”
“That’s right.”
You turned to look at him, inky black aura spilling over his equally dark hair. “‘Supposed to’. Like you knew this was going to happen. Like this wasn’t an accident.”
And the change you saw in him was so miniscule that if you hadn’t been spending enough time studying his face, you might not have noticed it. But you had, and the slight dilation of his pupils and twitch of his jaw was enough to betray his panic. 
Then his mouth split into a smile and his face smoothed over, his eyebrows furrowed with just the right amount of concern. The shift was startling, like he’d slipped on a mask. “Of course this was an accident. Do you really think that I’d choose to be stuck here for eternity?”
“That’s—” You paused, shaking your head. “I don’t know. I’m not sure.” 
“I wouldn’t,” he pressed, and this time his arm came up to drape over the back of the couch. You tried your best not to think about how you could feel warmth radiating from it, how if you tilted your head back, you might brush against it. “Are you sure you’re well?”
“I’m fine.”
“I’ll send you back,” he said, a polite smile set on his lips. “You should really get some rest.”
And for the first time since you’d first discovered the journal, you fell asleep feeling a little bit afraid of Tom Riddle.
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joongbin · 11 months
Note
Okay so this request is going to be based around the same m!reader from the abs request, how do you think skz would overall act around this m!reader? Like on and off camera/concert/stage, skz talker, fan meetings, fancalls, interviews, live streams, filming m/v's, airports, etc... like just headcanons around him generally and how they act around him/with him/when he is mentioned. With or without the members or even around other idols which i think would be very interesting to see.
always with me. - SKZ!OT8
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summary › basically how they act around you.
genre › fluff?? i think
pairings › ot8 x 9th mbr!m!reader (seperate)
warnings › none.
a/n: sorry for the long wait on this request!! tried to write it as best as i could!
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BANG CHAN
Chan would act a little more affectionate towards you as a crush. But on camera, he tries to not do this behaviour too much or people will start catching on. He only does this off camera.
He's always clinging on to your arm or hand or waist to just feel your bicep or abs, while he tries not to make it too obvious. I mean, he doesn't want other members to catch on..
Whenever you're mentioned, he immediately perks up, wanting to hear whatever comes right after that. He'll correct any misinformation about you because he doesn't want STAYs to misunderstand! Totally not because he just likes you or anything and doesn't want anything to happen to you .. no..
Around other idols, he's the same as he is off-camera with you, all clingy and stuff. Other idols don't mind the behaviour, they find it pretty endearing actually! I mean, he tried to kiss you so many times already, but let's keep quiet about that.
I think this behaviour would sometimes come out at airports. He can't help himself! You're just so cute and buff as hell, he just wants you to know how much he cares for you.
He can be spotted looking at you from afar in SKZ-TALKERS while you're talking to the mic, you always point him out with a chuckle, but you know it's just a little joke that he likes to play on you.
Other idols state that he just loves you alot. And you're probably his favourite stray kid of them all!
LEE KNOW
Lee Know would be the same on and off camera. He's not afraid to show the world that he likes you! He loves touching your abs
He would always be spotted trying to kiss you. Facing you with duck lips. And always points to his cheek, indicating that he wants you to kiss his cheek. Pretends to be whiny of you refuse to kiss the man's cheek.
In airports, he just makes sure you're not uncomfortable or anything. He knows your strong, so safety really wasn't a problem for you.
Around other idols, with him is always like handling an actual child. He holds your hand like the entire night you're there. It's like he super glued his hands to yours.
During concerts is where it's a bit .. wilder, since in SKZ-TALKERS, MAKING FILMS, interviews, etc. can be edited, concerts can't. Always slapping your butt, touching your abs when you're not looking, saying that you look like Doongie when you have ginger/blond hair, saying that you look like Soonie when you have brown hair. And many more.
People just say he's fucking whipped and he is.
SEO CHANGBIN
Changbin is also like Lee Know, but more .. affectionate and aegyo-y. He has said many things about you that you wish to forget. On one of the MV FILMINGs, he said that he would sell his soul to the devil just to have your abs. You .. didn't really know why.
Watches every TikTok you make. And literally begs the manager to dance with you whenever a comeback happens. The manager would usually let you guys collab, but on some occasions, they wouldn't do it because of allegations.
At airports, he likes matching outfits with you. You wear a dog shirt, he has one too! A cat shirt? He has one! Bear shirt? You guessed it, he has one too. STAYs like it, so he continues doing it and holds your hand since he knows that you didn't exactly like the lights flash on your face.
He also likes sitting on your lap. On every SKZ-TALKER, you will always see him on your lap no matter what or his arms wrapped around your waist, or he's checking out your arms. Or he's just around you doing stuff. He's clung on to you, what do you expect?
At concerts, he is 100% going to try and kiss you. Any couple questions? He is asking you to answer them with him. Headlock questions? He's asking you to do it for him. Also probably has your bubble. And saved every picture you sent.
Around other idols, he's gonna cling on to you and tells you to dance to multiple GG dances by bumping in to you. You enjoy it, and it doesn't disturb your interactions with other idols.
The other members tease him about it when you're not there or busy, but it's not like you'd know he liked you .. or?
HWANG HYUNJIN
Hyunjin is NOT brave enough to do any stuff that would expose him. He just admires you from afar. Though, that doesn't mean he isn't affectionate toward you.
Also likes laying on your lap, usually sleeps on it, though. He needs rest, and you're the only pillow he wants to sleep on.
Everytime you say something about him, instead of the usual laugh or weird look, he'd respond by agreeing with you and try give you what you want. You want his lips? He's gonna try to kiss you. You want his hair?
He really likes hugging you. Everytime you just stand at an interview or just standing doing something, he's always gonna be behind you with his arms around your waist while he moves you side to side.
Arm is always over your shoulder. Like he's clingy but he doesn't show it alot. It's more subtle.
Around other idols, he's not gonna try anything. Like anything. He wouldn't even try to do that. He's scared of what will happen if people catch on that he likes you. His reputation would be ruined.
At concerts, he's a bit more braver, singing your parts with you, or rapping your parts. Making a few adlibs about you, his arm usually around your shoulder as you bop your head to the music.
People don't really know that he likes you, and he wants it to stay that way.
HAN JISUNG
Also another one that tries to kiss you 24/7. Every single time he gets the chance, you will see him face you with duck lips. There's times where you tease him by trying to kiss him back, and there's times where you push his face away to face the camera.
Oh you thought he was babygirl enough? Nope. He's even more babygirl around you. He literally loves being around you. He likes sleeping on you, he likes eating with you, he likes doing everything with you basically.
Also soothes him whenever he's having an anxiety attack. Whenever he does, he clings on to you while you comfort him until he's fine.
Calls you Lee Know's 4th cat because you act like one. Probably mistook you for Soonie one time when you had brown hair.
Around other idols, he's like half of what he is. He does not want his idol friends to know how he is like you off camera. He still likes to be around you though.
On concerts, he wants you to sing or rap his parts alot. Of course, he does that on his own, but hearing his parts in your voice makes him absolutely whipped.
During the reaction of Your Eyes or There, he's not gonna react like how he reacts with other members. He's gonna scream x10 louder when he sees you rizzing up the camera, and stream your part on 400 different devices.
Whenever you're mentioned, he has a giant smile on his face, like stupidly big. That's how much he likes you.
LEE FELIX
Felix just outright stares at you. Or well, your arms whenever you flex them in SKZ-TALKERS. I mean, can you blame the man? He loves them.
Bites his lips everytime he squishes them. Like, it's so incredibly obvious that he likes you but he thinks he's so slick. It's fucking hilarious.
Also saves your pictures on every single social media. And also favourites edits of you. His whole FYP is probably just you. It's not creepy, he just likes you.
At concerts, he really likes to touch your abs. Like, you can't stop this man. I mean, everyone thinks it's funny. And kinda cute?
Likes being affectionate around you. Cheers you on, also matches clothes with you. He buys matching clothes for you whenever he's out shopping. And also buys you keychains to match, and always sees one of the keychains on your bag, the others are usually on your wall just hanging.
Around other idols, he just sits from afar while talking to some other idol, but he does look at you, just wanna make sure you're safe .. even though you could probably bodyslam anyone who even tries to hurt you.
KIM SEUNGMIN
Teases you just a little more than he does with other members. He just likes how you laugh at his jokes about you or other members. Your laugh is like music to his ears.
Not bold enough to try anything. But does lay on your lap or sit on it. That much he will do. Also sometimes squishes your biceps when he feels like he wants to.
In SKZ-TALKERS, the most you'll see him doing is sleep on your lap. He doesn't wanna try anything that will raise suspicion about his crush on you.
At concerts, he tries to be subtle about touching you or teasing you but really, every STAY that's there can see him know that he likes you.
Listens to your covers in the SKZ-PLAYER or your songs. In interviews, when asked what's his favourite song, it's always a song written by you. Like always. And he listens to that dong on repeat.
Around other idols, he's like Felix. Just sitting and looking at you interact with other idols. Just looking at you ... And how the cloth just wraps around your biceps .... And sometimes when you wear a bodysuit .. your abs show .. and .. okay, getting distracted.
YANG JEONGIN
He's still so shy around you. Everytime you speak to him, he stutters alot. Your voice is just so nice, he can't help it. And he can't really pay attention whenever you talk because he's paying attention to your abs.
Also likes teasing you a bit for being like a cat, calling you Soonie/Doongie/Dori.
Likes singing and listening to your songs! Whether it was a cover or not, he sings it regardless. Maybe in some SKZ-TALKERS, you can hear him sing in the background!
Buys you skincare. Like, he wants you to take care of your skin! Loves whenever you mention his gifts to you in your vlogs! It makes him kick his feet and giggle.
Actually kisses you on the cheek whenever you ask for it. Like genuinely does it. I mean, it's a chance to kiss you so he might as well take it, right?
With other idols, he's just like Seungmin and Felix. He's too shy, so he's just sitting there while talking to his members and his idol friends.
At concerts, he sings with you. He can't really rap, but he tries and STAYs think it's so cute!
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nowritingonthewall · 2 months
Text
Let me take your hand
Fandom: Star Wars
Character(s): modern!AU Poe, Shara Bey and Kes Dameron
Pairing: Poe Dameron x gn!reader
Summary: Sometimes all you need to make the pain a little more bearable is someone to take your hand, hold you gently, kiss you softly and tell you that they love you.
Words: 6900
Warnings: Hurt/comfort with a lot of hurt (!) in the beginning, aftermath of losing a parent (please please please don’t read if you fear that you might not be able to bear reading this!), reader celebrates Christmas, kind of spoilery if you haven’t read “Free Fall”
A/N: This was supposed to be a cute little spin-off of another Christmas story that spiralled completely out of control. 2023 was the third Christmas with this story living rent free in my mind and I was really determined to finally write and finish it this time before becoming really sick for two months. Even though it’s nearly Easter I hope that maybe one or two of you might still like it <3
As always, I apologize for not being a native speaker.
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Christmas used to be Poe’s favourite time of the year.
There were presents, bright sparkling lights all over the city, the smell of freshly baked cookies, joyful songs on the radio, people being so much kinder than usual, chocolate glazed koyo berries and most importantly: both of his parents would be at home. Because Christmas was sacred.
Sure, presents were nice and everything, but sneaking into his parents’ bedroom before dawn on Christmas Morning, cuddling up to them under their warm blankets, lying safe and snug between them in a huge loving hug sandwich, knowing that for once there was no rush to get up and nothing to worry about because the day belonged to no one but their family?
There was nothing in Poe’s whole world that would ever be able to beat that.
Christmas was his favourite thing in the entire universe.
Even his very first memory was created on Christmas Eve. Shara and Kes would dance together at every possible (and impossible) opportunity they got, but that very first dance in the light of their Christmas tree on Christmas Eve was special.
It was as special to them as the song that had to accompany their dance: 'Let Me Take Your Hand' by Hera and the Rebels.
It was the song that had played on an old record player when they had met in an airplane hangar for the very first time. It had played when they had shared their first kiss, when Kes had proposed to his beloved Shara, when they had their first dance at their wedding, and when Shara had told Kes with happy tears in her eyes that they were going to be parents.
Music like a tender hug wrapping its loving arms around you, caressing your soul and soothing your heart, leaving you feeling like nothing in the world could ever hurt you.
Would you let me take your hand
And hold you gently
And kiss you softly
If I said I loved you
That Christmas Eve, as his parents began to sway in tune with the first few bars of the old forty-five crackling over the loud speakers, little Poe had no idea that he had just become part of a very long and love-filled Dameron Christmas tradition.
He was simply the happiest little boy, cuddled against his Dad’s chest, who held him gently yet safely close to his heart. With his Mom taking his hands in hers and making funny faces at him while singing along to the music, his eyes sparkled even brighter than the lights of the Christmas decorations around him.
As soon as the song was over, he wiggled his tiny feet and clapped his little hands in excitement, squealing giddily, “‘gain pwease!”
And his parents didn’t mind at all. With the record playing over and over again, they took turns kissing each other and placing the softest of kisses on their son’s forehead, cooing how much they loved him.
Poe couldn’t get enough of it.
On his eighth Christmas Eve, as Poe clung to Shara’s leg during their dance, he decided that part of him couldn’t wait to grow up and find his special someone to dance to their song. He vividly imagined how he would look at them the same way as Kes was looking at Shara.
Of course, his parents would still be there and enjoy dancing right next to him. He would do a show of being embarrassed when his Mom would try to ruffle his hair, because for some weird reason, grown-ups were supposed to hate it, even though he wouldn’t actually mind at all. And his Mom and Dad would love you nearly as much as he would and his parents would be so happy for their son to carry on their Christmas tradition.
If only he had known. If only he had known that this would be the very last Christmas with his Mom. Maybe he would have clung to her a little tighter, maybe he wouldn’t have nicked quite so many Christmas cookies, maybe he would have told her how much he loved her just one more time.
But then again, if he had known, it probably wouldn’t have been the most wonderful Christmas ever or the last time that he could remember his Dad looking truly happy before everything changed forever.
Only a year later it was hard to believe that any of those beautiful memories had been real at all.
Despite his insurmountable grief, Kes had tried his best to make this Christmas as magical for his son as it used to be. It was just that he had never quite gotten the hang of how Shara had always managed to make the Christmas tree and their apartment look so beautiful and festive and welcoming. And no matter how many Christmas lights he would string or how many candles he would light, it seemed like all their warmth and brightness had left when Shara did.
It was the night before their first Christmas without his Mom when Poe woke up to the most desperate stifled sobs coming from the living room. Full of worry, he stumbled out of bed and through the flat, the sinking feeling in his tummy growing heavier with each step of his bare feet on the ice cold floor tiles.
When he reached the door to the living room, the picture unfolding in front of him nearly tore is heart apart: The hunched over figure of his Dad lying under the Christmas tree, face hidden behind his hands, crying so violently his whole body was shaking.
Before even being able to form a single coherent thought, Poe had already crouched down on the floor right next to his Dad, trying to pull him into a hug – just like he knew his Mom would have done to comfort him.
His arms didn’t quite reach all the way around the package that his Dad had folded himself into but Poe tried to make up for it by pouring all the softness and warmth and tenderness from his big little heart into his words when he said, “I love you, Daddy! It’s gonna be okay!”
His Dad didn’t react. So Poe tried again, squeezing him even tighter this time but all it drew from Kes was another heart-wrenching sob.
But Poe wasn’t going to give up that easily. After all, just because his Mom wasn’t here with them in person, it didn’t mean that she didn’t celebrate Christmas with them. And if she was looking down at them from her cloud in Heaven among all the most beautiful angels in the universe (because there was no doubt for Poe, that’s exactly where his Mom would be), it would surely break her heart to see her two boys crying on Christmas Eve. And he couldn’t let his Mom down, could he? Not at Christmas.
And there was one thing left to try.
Hurrying over to the record player, he found what he was looking for exactly where his Mom had stored it away neatly last year. Ever so carefully, as if handling the most precious item in the world, he let the record slide out of its sleeve and placed it on the turntable. Slowly and gently, just like his Mom had taught him, he lowered the tone arm before turning back to his Dad.   
With the first few soft sounds floating across the room, Kes finally raised his head, looking up to where his son stood, holding out his hand for his Dad. As he slowly got on his feet, Poe took a step towards him and tried his best to put on a brave smile, his eyes encouraging and full of hope.
Kes looked at his son. And he looked at the record player. Then he walked straight past his son and with a cry of agony that made Poe stumble backwards with a start, Kes tore the record off the turntable and threw it to the ground with enough force to break it into a thousand pieces. Yet they were nothing compared to the millions of pieces that little Poe’s heart shattered into at this very moment.
As his father stormed out of the room, Poe kept staring at the broken remnants of the last happy memory of his family. Trying to understand what on earth had just happened. What had he done wrong?
Maybe it was the shock, maybe it was the confusion, but he didn’t even notice how he began to shiver as the cold crawled up from the floor over his bare feet and under his thin pyjamas. Until he could no longer tell whether the numbness creeping into his heart and soul came from the cold or the growing ache in his chest. He had never felt more lost or lonely in his entire life.
For the briefest of moments, he wondered whether it would be possible to glue the pieces back together again. But as he knelt down and began to pick them up slowly, one by one, that last flicker of hope was extinguished quickly.
As he pondered over what to do, he spotted the stack of Christmas napkins that his Mom had bought last year, after Poe had insisted that the teddy bear pictured on them looked just like his beloved plushie Mr. Beebs. He had spent hours sitting right next to her, learning how to fold them into the most intricate shapes, just like his Mom had done, until he had declared excitedly that his Mom would never have to worry about folding a set of napkins for their guests ever again because now she had Poe to take care of that. Taking one of the napkins from the stack now, he could vividly remember the fondness in her eyes as her smile had outshone his proud little grin.
After spreading the napkin out on the floor, he piled the pieces of the record up onto it, carefully and gently, until even the tiniest of pieces had been accounted for. Looking around the room for something to tie the napkin bundle up with, his gaze fell upon Mr. Beebs sitting on the couch with his tiny bow tie around his neck. It didn’t seem right to take it, but Poe apologized to his teddy and promised that he would only borrow it for a little while.
Having the napkin tied neatly together, he got up off the floor, taking one last look at the Christmas tree. A source of warmth and comfort for as long as he could remember, its lights and decorations almost seemed like they were mocking him now. As his eyes began to wander along its branches, his gaze came to rest on the star at the top of the tree.
“I am sorry, Mommy,” he whispered.  
As Poe held the napkin bundle gently against his heart, the tears began to fall. Unseen and in silence, yet hot and burning.
He was still clutching the little bundle to his chest when he found himself crying quietly in his bed a little later. He held it even tighter when he could hear the soft footsteps of his father approaching.
“Poe?” Kes’ voice was so gentle, it was barely audible to his son.
“Poey, sweetheart… I am sorry! I am… I am so so so sorry!”
Staring at the wall in front of him, Poe couldn’t see how his father’s tears over losing the love of his life had turned into tears over the fear of losing his son. He couldn’t see how his father reached out his hand towards him, only to hesitate at the very last moment, too afraid that he would just make things worse.
He couldn’t see how Kes longed for nothing more than to hug Poe close to his heart and never let him go again, desperate to find a way to comfort his son without subjecting him to his own soul crushing pain.
All he could see, over and over again, was that moment when his father walked right past him to smash their record to pieces.
His father didn’t want to take his hand.
Determined that he didn’t want Kes to see him cry, Poe pulled the covers over his head. And just like he had wrapped the napkin around the broken pieces of the record, Poe could feel something else wrapping itself around his heart. Not nearly as gentle and careful, but way harder and tighter and indefinitely more painful.
His father didn’t want to take his hand.
It was the last time that either of them acknowledged the song. It was the last time that music was played in the Dameron household.
And Poe never danced again.
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Sometimes he would dream of it, though. Holding someone in his arms and swaying to the soft rhythm of a melody while waiting for Christmas cookies to bake in the oven or the first coffee of the day to finish brewing. But it never felt quite right. As soon as that longing ache would make itself known, he would shove it back to where it came from. Burying it a little deeper every time. After all, life was not a flipping Disney Christmas movie.
Yet there was a part of him that never stopped trying to find the song again. Even more so during that time of the year. Whether it was at the Christmas markets or at the shops, as soon as the softest sound of music could be heard anywhere, Poe would strain his ears hoping against hope to hear that comforting familiar tune just one more time.
Now and then he would hum the melody to himself, especially in those moments when he missed his Mom even worse than usual.
More than once he found himself sliding into a panic when he seemed to stumble over parts of the melody or he needed a little longer to remember some of the words. Every time that happened, he feared another piece of the memory of his Mom might slip away.
One night, after waking up in cold sweat again, he frantically scribbled down the lyrics onto the next best sheet of paper he could find as if they might be lost forever if he didn’t write them down this instant. After taking a few moments to catch his breath, he carefully folded the sheet and placed it into the little wooden box in his nightstand, which held the napkin bundle and the record sleeve.
Over the years, there were a few people that he tried to confide in but his attempts always ended up with him being made fun of. So he gave up those attempts too, burying his feelings deep under the growing pile of pain and ache and longing. They were obviously too silly to share them with anyone.
Not to you, though.
When Poe and you were about to spend your first Christmas together, it had been several years since he had bothered to put up any proper Christmas decorations at all. So when you asked him excitedly whether you could put them up together, he really did it more for you than for him.
Though he couldn’t deny that your enthusiasm was more than a little contagious. You turned the whole thing into a proper little event with Christmassy snacks and hot cocoa and festive music. After a while he found your joy so infectious that it made him feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Feelings that he hadn’t associated with Christmas for a long, long time.
He even sent both of you into a fit of giggles and laughter after somehow managing to completely wrap himself in tinsel rather than the Christmas tree.
And then you threw him completely off balance with one seemingly innocent little question: “So what’s your favourite Christmas tradition?”
Before he could tumble off the chair he was standing on, however, his instincts kicked in, making him fall back onto his standard go to answer: Chocolate glazed koyo berries. “My father had this really amazing way of turning them into the most delicious…” he began.
But it just felt wrong. Of course he loved his father’s chocolate koyo berries, he actually used to love them a lot. But there was something else. As he looked into your warm and loving eyes, something long forgotten tried to force its way up from the deepest pits of his heart. And try as he might, it refused to be pushed back down again this time.
Determined to keep it together, he turned away from you, biting his lips until they hurt. He was not going to cry. He was not going to ruin everything again.
“Poe? Hey… sweetie, your hands are shaking…”
Squeezing his eyes shut with enough force to give him a headache, he could hear the confusion in your voice turning into worry.
“Oh Poe, I am sorry, I should have known that this might bring back painful memories, I really shouldn’t have asked, I am so sorry…”
Trying to stifle the wave of sobs demanding to be let out, he shook his head vigorously, still refusing to look at you.
“No no no, you didn’t do anything wrong, it’s just… it’s silly!” he choked up.
You paused for a moment before saying gently, “It doesn’t look like it’s silly to you?”
He didn’t resist when you took his trembling hands in yours and helped him to climb down from the chair. Not letting go, you carefully held them steady in your hands, drawing soothing circles on them with your thumbs, as Poe kept staring at the floor.
“You don’t have to tell me now, if it’s too much,” you tried to reassure him.
“No, I want to, I just…” Grunting in frustration, he broke away and began to rub at his eyes with the palms of his hands with increasing force as if the motion would somehow be able to rub those pesky and unwelcome feelings away.
Carefully taking his hands into yours once more, you slowly led them away from his eyes. As you cupped his face with your hands, tenderly caressing over his temples with your thumbs, he finally looked at you, revealing his sore eyes glistening with tears and all the pain and grief that lay beneath.
It broke your heart.
You hesitated, as you had to fight your own tears welling up inside of you now before asking softly, “Is this about your Mom?”
Poe nodded ever so slightly.
Your voice turned even softer. “Does it have anything to do with the little box you keep in your night stand?”
Of course you had seen the way that he looked at that box. You had seen how he would rest his hand on that box, how his expression would turn from soft to pained and to soft again. Now and then he had even seemed to be humming a soft little melody while gently caressing over the lid of the box. Yet despite all of your questions, it had never felt right to ask him about it before he was ready to open up to you.
Closing his eyes again, Poe took a few shaky breaths. Letting his fingers wander up your arms, until they came to rest on your hands still holding his face, he tried to ground himself, focussing his attention on you. Your kindness, your gentleness, your warmth.
“Do you really want to know?” he finally managed to ask before his voice broke again.
“I do,” you said gingerly. “Of course I do. But… I wouldn’t want you to feel like you’d have to tell me anything that you aren’t ready to share yet.”
Nodding slowly, he furrowed his brow, deepening the pained expression on his face. An even more overwhelming wave of sadness radiated from his eyes, spreading over his already grief-stricken features. He tried to open and shut his mouth a few times before giving up and taking you by the hand to lead you into the bedroom.
You knelt down on the floor right next to him while he opened the drawer of his nightstand to remove the little wooden box and carefully opened the lid, revealing its contents to you. You saw the record sleeve and the lyric sheet and the napkin bundle tied together with the bowtie borrowed from Poe’s old childhood teddy Mr. Beebs.
Taking a deep breath, Poe took the bundle out of the box and placed it on the floor in front of you, unwrapping it ever so carefully.
He hadn’t opened it in decades. The moment that the napkin came undone around the broken pieces of the record, the tight layer of repressed feelings and ignored pain and buried grief wrapped around his heart fell away with it. Until there was nothing left to hold back the swelling flood of tears.
As soon as the first desperate sob ripped through his body so violently that it threatened to take his breath away, you were there. Catching him, holding him, comforting him, sheltering him.
And Poe cried like he had never cried before.
“It’s not fair! It’s not flipping fair, it’s not… she should be here… she should still be here… here with us…”
Everything seemed to bubble up to the surface at once. Pain and anger and confusion and helplessness.
“I wanted to hug him, I… I just really needed to hug him and… and I wanted to, but… but… but I was too small and… and… how could he just smash it?”
You were barely able to make any sense of all his memory fragments and turbulent emotions that were demanding attention all at once, but that wasn’t important right now.
“He came to apologize that night but I couldn’t… I couldn’t… I didn’t want him to see me cry and I… I… I should have…”
As you held him gently in your arms, he clung desperately to you, sobbing helplessly against your shoulder.
“I just… I… I failed them. Both…”
“Oh, Poe,” you whispered as you buried your face in his curls. And even though you knew that he wouldn’t be ready to believe you yet, you added gently but firmly, “You didn’t fail anybody!”
Smoothing some damp curls from his forehead, you pressed a tender kiss to the top of his head, when a new wave of tears began to stream down his face. Hot and desperate tears that had never been given a chance to dry, burning in his heart during all those years.
And now you were kissing them away. Softly. Every single one of them, even tough they were replaced by fresh ones immediately. Until sheer exhaustion made him collapse into your embrace.
As you cradled the back of his head, steadying him against your chest, rocking him gently back and forth, you knew that it wasn’t just your boyfriend crying in your arms. You held the wounded little boy, who couldn’t understand. Who blamed himself without even knowing what he had done wrong. Who hurt so deeply and yet would rather take care of everybody else around him before tending to his own wounds.
“I am here for you, Poe,” you cooed gently, hugging him tight. “I love you!”
And for the first time in decades, it felt like a few of the million shattered pieces of his heart were beginning to heal.
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Unbeknownst to Poe, you made it your year’s goal to find the song for him.
The fact that Poe hadn’t been able to find it in all those years despite all his efforts, not even in the endless vastness of the internet, didn’t deter you in the slightest. Or so you thought. At least for the first eleven months of the year.
By the time December came around again, you were so close to admitting defeat that Poe began to worry about what brought you so low, even fearing that he might have been the one dampening your mood with his lack of Christmas spirit.
So, in an attempt to make up for that, he suggested taking you to the annual charity Christmas bazaar at your local school, hoping that a little Christmassy shopping spree for charity and the sparkly atmosphere of the Christmas lights might cheer you up again.
You tried not to get your hopes up, you really did. But the moment that Poe popped off to the restrooms and you found yourself stranded in front of a stall with several boxes of old forty-fives, you had to start browsing, of course.
Sorting swiftly through the records, you had gone through at least fifty of them, when your brain gave you a little jolt. You stopped. Going backwards very slowly, you looked at each of them again until you got back to the forty-second one. You carefully removed the record from the box. You read the title on the sleeve. You stared at it in disbelief. And you read it again. You shook your head. You read the title a third time. And despite your best attempts to stay calm, you couldn’t stop yourself from letting out a little scream that made the elderly gentleman behind the display ask in concern whether you were all right. It took every ounce of self restraint you could muster to keep yourself from throwing your arms around him and hug him until he turned blue. In the end, you hugged him anyway.
After handing the stall owner enough money to prompt him to ask you again whether you were all right, you hid the record in your bag and quickly hurried past the next few stalls, hoping not to give anything away.
You still weren’t able to keep the shine out of your eyes, though. Which Poe noticed immediately the minute that he caught up with you.
“What’s gotten into you?” he asked raising a confused eyebrow.
Letting out a happy sigh that you weren’t able to contain, you smiled, “I’m just really looking forward to Christmas!”
His gaze softened as he pulled you towards you, placing a tender kiss on top of your head. Gently rubbing your noses together, his smile grew wider until it painted crinkles around his eyes.
As he rested his forehead against yours, he whispered, “Me too!” And for the first time since what felt like forever, he actually meant it.
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You spent the better part of the remainder of the run-up to Christmas trying to come up with the best possible plan to present the record to him. Should you simply hide it in a pile of other gifts in his stocking, should you make him close his eyes while you put the record on, should you wake him up with the music on Christmas Morning or maybe something completely different? In the end you decided that you would leave it up to Poe because the last thing you wanted was to overwhelm him in any way or even cause him more hurt.
When you found yourself cuddling with him on the couch on Christmas Eve, however, it became increasingly harder for you to remain patient until Christmas Morning.
Lying half atop on you, Poe had completely melted into your embrace, burying his face in the crook of your neck, while you played with his hair. The ease and trust with which he relaxed in your arms melted your heart. You were just about to turn your head and place a gentle kiss to his temple, when he lifted his head.
“Are you okay, bups?” He asked, raising a worried eyebrow at you.
“Hmmm?” you mumbled a little absentmindedly. “Sure, why wouldn’t I be?”
“You’re as tense as a loaded spring about to go off. And I mean that in a very non-euphemistic, sfw way. Although…” he wriggled his eyebrows, looking way too cute with his tousled hair curling itself into every possible direction, “I wouldn’t mind adding some ‘n’ into the mix a little later…”
You couldn’t help breaking into giggles, which made Poe grin in return. “That’s better,” he smiled, placing a sweet little kiss to your forehead before furrowing his brow again. “Wanna tell me why you are so nervous?”
You really hadn’t intended to spoil this peaceful moment but you also knew that Poe wouldn’t stop worrying until he knew what was up. With a heavy sigh, you reluctantly tried to wriggle yourself free from underneath Poe to sit up, drawing some grunts of protest and a pout from him.
“I have a little surprise for you.”
Humming in a slightly more relaxed tone, he wrapped his arms around you, pulling you towards him again.
“And can we stay on the couch for that or do we have to transfer to the bedroom?”
You snorted, “I’ve clearly given you the wrong idea now.”
With another smile, you brushed a few stray curls from his forehead and left a soft kiss in their place.
“You can stay here. I’ll be right back.”
Getting up to fetch your little present from the hiding place in the bedroom, you swiftly returned and set down next to Poe before giving it to him.
It took a few moments for Poe to realize what he was holding in his hands. As they began to tremble, he couldn’t help but keep staring at the record.
“How… where did you…” he whispered.
You gently laid your hands on his before explaining softly, “Actually… you kind of led me to it yourself when you took me to the Christmas bazaar three weeks ago.”
He let out a small shaky laugh that turned into a soft sob.
You immediately began to rub his back in soothing circles, leaving tender kisses all over the side of his face until he began to lean into you.
“Would you like me to play it?” you asked him gently.
He slowly peeled his gaze away from the record to look at you. As his big brown puppy dog eyes began to sparkle, he slowly nodded as if in a daze. He had gotten so used to hearing the song only in his memory, had both dreaded and hoped for this moment over and over again. As you put the record on and the song began to float across the room, it felt too surreal for him to grasp.
The music sounded even softer than you had imagined it. And so much more comforting than Poe remembered.
It sounded like the warmth of his Mom’s hand caressing his face and his parents’ laughter and tickle fights and the smell of his Mom’s baking and Kes scooping him up to carry him on his shoulders and morning cuddles and running towards his parents’ embrace. Both of them holding out their hands for him.
Just like you did now.
“Dance with me?” you asked him softly. Warm and open and welcoming while still giving him all the room that he might need.
Poe’s tears fell more slowly this time. As you laid your arms around him, pulling him towards you, swaying both of you to the soft rhythm of the music, he didn’t fight the soft and shaky sobs that turned another layer of destructive pain and grief into hopeful feelings of comfort and familiarity and home.
His head found his place leaning on your shoulder as your cheek came to rest against his. You held him gently and at the same time so close that there seemed to be no room left for anything that might hurt him. And yet your embrace was so soft that he knew he could trust you with his wounded bare heart in your hands.
As he wept in your arms, you kept caressing over his curls, leaving a trail of soft kisses along his hairline until his tears began to mix with your own. The moment Poe noticed the wet streaks running down your face, his eyes widened in alarm and he quickly reached up to wipe your tears away. But you gently laid your hands on his and shook your head with a sparkly-eyed smile.
“Don’t worry about those, Poe. Not all tears are bad.”
And Poe’s eyes that had been sparkling with tears of pain and sorrow slowly began to sparkle with something else.
It might not have been quite what he had imagined the first time to be like. Dancing to his parents’ song in the light of the Christmas tree with his own special someone.
Yet as his sobs subsided to the gentle rhythm of your soft kisses to his face and your hands tenderly smoothing over his hair, right now in this moment, he felt like the luckiest person in the universe.
Except for one thing.
When he let out an involuntary sigh, you pressed one more kiss to the top of his head before asking, “Why don’t you call him? Ask him to come over for Christmas?”
“Who?” Poe raised his head in mild confusion.
“Your father?” you smiled.
“How did…” Trailing off and letting out another sigh, Poe began to shake his head. “Me and my father stopped doing Christmas years ago. I don’t even have his number.”
“Well, funny thing…”
As Poe began to raise his eyebrows, you allowed yourself to break into a mischievous little grin, making him smile through his tears.
“I spoke to Auntie Leia the other day, and…” you began.
“…she had his number and gave it to you?” Poe finished your sentence in only mild disbelief.
“Of course she did,” you nodded and smiled again. “I don’t know how but it’s like she knew.”
Poe shook his head, unable to suppress a soft giggle. “She always does.”
You hesitated a little before you asked him, “Did you know that your father keeps asking after you whenever he meets her?”
Sobering up immediately, Poe lowered his gaze to the ground, furrowing his brow. “No, I… I didn’t…”
“Hey…” Cupping his face and gently guiding him to look at you again, you asked, “I can call him for you if you don’t feel up to it?” Your eyes softened before you added, “And no, Poe… I don’t think that would be ‘silly’.”
Poe let out a shaky breath he hadn’t realized he had been holding. “Could you do that for me…?”
So you did. And less than an hour later, Kes was standing at your door. His knock was so soft and cautious that you would have missed it, had you not been on your way to the kitchen at exactly that moment.
He was shivering from the cold as it looked like he hadn’t even bothered to take the time and find appropriate clothes for the freezing temperatures outside. Yet when you had introduced yourself and motioned quickly for him to come in and step into the warmth, he hesitated.
“Are you really sure that Poe wants to see me?” he asked full of doubt.
You gave him a reassuring smile. “Yes he does. Of course he does! We just didn’t expect you to be here so early.”
“Oh… if you want me to come back later…”
“No, no, please… come in! You must be freezing.”
As Kes stepped into the light of your flat, you could see the clear remnants of tears on his face that had been hastily wiped away. And your heart broke for him just as it had for his son.
Poe had spent the last half hour bent over your record player, carefully removing remnants of dust from the needle and the grooves of the record. Deeply focused on his work, he gave a little start when you entered the living room, announcing brightly, “Look who is here, sweetie.”
“Hello, Poe!”
Turning around, Poe let out a soft, “Hey…” before clearing his throat and saying more firmly, “I am glad that you came.”
“Really?!”
His father’s reaction threw him off for a few moments. Was he really so utterly convinced that Poe wouldn’t want to see him?
Kes had to swallow a few times as he began to fumble nervously with the handle of the bag he had brought with him.
“Oh… these are for you!” he finally said, producing a huge bag of chocolate koyo berries.
Poe gasped in surprise. “But… these take days to make, how did you…?”
The smile that spread across Kes’ face somehow made him look even sadder. “I still make them every year, just in case you might... Never mind, you probably don’t even like them anymore, I just thought…”
Taking a step towards Kes, Poe reassured him, “No, no, of course I still love them, that’s really thoughtful of you… Dad!”
For a brief moment, Poe’s gaze flickered over to you and you started the record player. It took only a few notes for Kes to recognize the melody and his eyes widened, displaying a myriad of emotions.
“I… I’ve been searching everywhere,” he whispered. “I thought that maybe if I could find it, if I could just… you might…” Kes’ voice broke and he closed his eyes for a moment, trying to gain his composure.
When he opened them again, his son was standing right in front of him, offering his hand to his Dad. The look in his eyes was neither angry nor reproachful, but open and warm and encouraging with maybe a slightly pleading undertone. And it hit him full force just how much Poe reminded him of Shara in that moment.
Clasping a hand over his mouth, Kes let out a half-stifled shaky sob as his eyes began to glisten with tears. Taking a careful step towards his son, he took Poe’s hand into both of his. Placing the softest of kisses on his son’s hand, he gently held it against his chest right above his heart.
“Oh, Poey,” he whispered. “I am so... I am so…”
The moment his voice faltered again, Poe pulled his Dad into a hug. This drew a surprised little gasp from Kes before he threw his arms around his son, holding him closer than he had ever held him before. Like he was never going to let him go again. He knew that he might not be able to make up for lost time. But he could show Poe how much he meant to him right here and right now. Between violent sobs and desperate kisses to his temple and his cheek, Kes pulled his son close over and over again.
“Me, too!” Poe whispered through his own tears. “It’s okay, Dad… I love you!”
Maybe okay wasn’t exactly the right word. Maybe it was never really gonna be okay again. But as they both clung to each other, it certainly felt more okay than it had in a very long time. Maybe this could be the beginning of creating their new okay.
As his Dad’s desperate kisses slowly turned softer, he pulled back just enough to be able to gently cup his son’s face in his hands. “I love you, too, Poe. So so so damn much!”
You were just about to sneak out of the door to give them some room when Poe softly called out to you, “Hey… c’mere!”
They both invited you to join them with open arms. There may have been some feet casualties before the three of you found your rhythm but those were easily laughed away.
Christmas Eve turned into Christmas Day and Poe was still dancing. Safe and snug in a hug sandwich between the two people that he loved more than anything else in this world and who loved him just as much in return.
As Poe’s face once again found his familiar place in the crook of your neck, he mumbled, “I wish my Mom could have met you. I really wish that she could have been here with us just one more time.”
“I think she is, Poe!”
Instead of an answer, he let out a little sob against your shoulder, hugging both you and his Dad a little tighter, as Kes gently ruffled his hair.
And when Poe looked up again and his gaze came to rest on the star at the top of the Christmas tree, he could have sworn that it shone brighter than he could ever remember.
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Sometimes life may cause you wounds that seem to hurt so deeply that all the time in the universe wouldn’t be able to heal them.
And sometimes… sometimes all you need to make the pain a little more bearable is someone to take your hand, hold you gently, kiss you softly and tell you that they love you.
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Thank you for reading 💜
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euphoricfilter · 7 months
Text
Devil That I Know: The Prologue
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Pairing: Demon! Jungkook x Human! F. Reader
Genre: Fluff || Smut || Angst || Demon au || Non-Idol au || Yandere au || Reincarnation || Strangers to Lovers
Summary: It's a shame how refuge will become your downfall.
Word Count: 3.3k
Tags/ warnings: mentioned death/ murder, sacrifice, sexy demon jungkook who has 4 arms, jimin is just mean (for now), the start of the yandere and just taehyung being a cutie
Notes: she’s back! and better than ever, new and improved, my baby <3 even if you’ve read the old version of dtik, i recommend reading again!! there has been a few added elements + way better writing!
devil that i know masterlist || my other stuff
─── ・ 。゚☆: .☽ . :☆゚. ───
[a little death]
[1859]
Death seemed to have found solace in your shadow. Slithering around your ankles and chewing up any unfortunate living being you came across; acting as a parasite, touch of your fingers sticky poison. The rawest form of hatred radiating off your skin into the world, a curse. 
A simple wish for the price of a life, and maybe this was the universe’s sick joke, that you’ll live to suffer while the rest of the world carries the burden of a small selfish wish.
Maybe death has found home in your sorrows, wretched sadness, anguish, ugly ugly emotions cradling you like a mother would her child. Truly pitiful comfort where anger is useless.
It must have been almost a year ago your misfortune had truly started, foolishly leaving a life you never wanted. Though you suppose you never really had a choice, this day was inevitable when you were the odd one out, a leech, a pitiful child– not that that mattered at all to the man who was the starting point of your resentment. 
A wish for a life that was solely your own. A wish you never thought had been too big of an ask, leaving fragile hope in the hands of fate, praying that the world would take pity on your wilted soul. 
Now, freedom was a day’s journey away. Coastline so close yet so far away, a new life, one you’d been dreaming of since young, slipping through your fingers like dry sand– every step forward, the sea pulling away until you’re chasing after sodden dreams, leaving you stranded at the shore. 
Life looked like a damp cell in a run-down village, barely holding on; dependent on trade, though only one other village thrives in this area, hours away– over the mountain. Trips far and few with the horses they have, produce barely worth a piece of gold. 
The true situation of the village should have become apparent at their panic of unexpected visitors. Accusations spat your way, your own life flashing before your eyes, only for your friend to bear the brunt of their temper. No one of them had thought to hear you out, their words like venom, because in their eyes you’d come to spy on their village, a lie that would ruin you. 
You weren’t like them; and so you’d become an easy target. 
Secrets locked behind closed doors, lies fed to those clueless of what really happened when the sun falls over the horizon and the world is shrouded in darkness. 
Corruption was everywhere, the world so unfair, where fickle human emotions consume those greedy enough to sell their souls for power, for something more, anything to get out of their awful little lives. 
If you told a lie long enough, if you yourself believed in it, then surely it must be true. 
─── ・ 。゚☆: .☽ . :☆゚. ───
You’d never expected your first encounter with death, you suppose no one really does. And in your months of solitude, locked up against your will, you’ve learnt you can’t change the past. No matter how many tears wet the dry ground, how much you scream, how much you pray to anyone listening, the past will forever be how it is and you can’t change that. 
Regret is an awful emotion, a million ‘what ifs’ consuming your mind. What if you and your friend had chosen the village over the mountain? What if you had never decided to leave? What if you had traveled alone?
If things had been different, minute details that could have changed the whole course of your life, then maybe your friend would still be alive. Maybe you’d have found the coast, hair windswept as you stand on the deck of the boat, life that of a bird; free. 
You could never see much out of the small window of your cell, rare that the sun would dare poke its head in to say hello, never there to kiss your cheeks red, or warm frozen toes.
The nights had started to get colder, the few seconds you got to see the outside world through the open door is enough for you to know the leaves had begun falling off the trees. Dusty path blanketed with reds and oranges, footsteps harder to hear on the few days you’re fed– never more than what’s left over from the village men. 
The second time death had chosen to lurk was when a crisis had become of the village. Their crops rotting, black mold greedy in the way it had chewed through their livestock. Animals sent from the gods, lay dead on the ground, useless when their harvest season was right around the corner. 
“An evil spirit has cursed the lands” 
You’d wondered how you’d escaped the clutches of death a second time. But your purpose had become apparent when you’d heard whispers of the demon that lived in the mountains. A ruler of this very land.
Rumors carried by the wind had told you that he’d become restless, that the townspeople needed a sacrifice to sate his growing rage. They couldn’t go a season without crops, and none of the men dared push their wives forward as the gift. 
And so you, had been the sacrifice. The true purpose of them keeping you locked up and alive, was to act as their gift for the one that lived in the mountains.
Human fear is often the scariest, compassion absolutely destroyed, empathy non-existent. 
That’s why you don’t find yourself begging when you’re woken up one morning, cold water a shock to the system. Adrenaline useless as it pumps through your veins. It doesn’t take long for you to grasp the reason one of the village boys had come to see you so early, the sun barely having woken herself. 
You cough, wiping your wet face with the backs of your hand. Eyebrows creased into a frown as your eyes flit over to the entrance of your cell. 
“Get up” 
He mustn't be much older than you, pretty lips turned down into a prominent frown that you have to will yourself not to scoff at. Because really if anyone should frown as though the world were against them, it should be you. 
You don’t move, a dangerous game you’d been playing since you’d first arrived in the village. Because if you acted as though you didn’t understand them, language not your own, then you’d keep a little bit of your freedom. Ignorance covered as misunderstandings; actions out of spite, simply accidents. 
The boy tuts, door to the cell creaking, almost yanked off it hinges as he strides towards you. He’s rough as he grabs onto your arms, pulling you up from the sorry excuse of a bed. You pull your arms from his grip, skin prickly with pure hatred. 
“Change into these” he shoves a pile of clothes into your arms, tattered underwear falling to the floor.
If you had any shame, maybe you’d be a little embarrassed as he turns around, arms crossed over his chest. Though it seemed that any lick of shame that dared plague your mind, was consumed by anger as you yank your clothes off—Wringing your wet hair out, rolling the bottoms of the pants up. 
You flinch at the sound of another voice, “Jimin, are you almost done?”
The village boy turns around, eyes raking over your body, “Almost” he calls back. 
You eye the open door as Jimin steps out of your cell, “Don’t even think about it” 
It’s uncomfortable how tight he ties the ropes, hands bound behind your back where one mean tug from Jimin could send you tumbling face first into the floor. 
And it’s infinitely more uncomfortable how the whole village seems to gather, the chief parading you down the split path of people like a prize as Jimin watches your back.
A gift sent from the heavens to save their village, to save their people. Ironic when months ago everyone had been cursing your existence, asking why they should keep you locked up, why you hadn’t died beside your friend. 
It takes almost a day to hike up the mountain on foot, they may have thought of you as their sacrificial savior, that didn’t mean they were willing to waste their resources on you. 
Sweat tickles the back of your neck, hair clinging to your skin uncomfortably. You’re tired. Moments away from your legs giving way, willing to let the sun melt your skin and bones until you become one with the earth. Summer sun still clinging onto the sky before the seasons truly change.
The world takes pity on you as you stumble over your own feet, almost headbutting Jimin’s back as he stops. Your heart is in your throat as reality sets in, the rumors of a demon true. It didn’t look like anyone lived here; picket fence damp, old in a way that bugs had chewed through the wood.
Your eyes settle on the sign that hangs from a tree branch– “Jeon”. 
Jimin grabs the thick rope of the bell, muscles in his arms flexing as he announces your arrival. 
The shred of hope that you held in your heart shatters when you hear the crunch of footsteps. Silhouette of a man wandering through the archway of trees behind the fence.
You think he looks more like an angel than a demon, hair a fluffy mess, almost cute in the way he almost trips over his sandals. He catches himself before he can fall, stopping in front of Jimin on the other side of the gate. 
He places a hand over his heart, taking his time in catching his breath– and you can see Jimin’s patience wearing thin, heel of his boot tapping against the grass. Face etched into a permanent scowl that you can only assume is your doing.
You wet your lips at the sound of the boy’s voice, deeper than you’d expected, “Hello, how may I help you?” 
Your eyes fixate on the mole sat at the tip of his nose. 
“Are you the demon that resides here?” Jimin tugs you forward, heavy hand falling on the back of your neck. 
“Oh–” the man’s eyes widen, running a hand through his hair, “No, he’s inside” 
You peek over his shoulder, path veiled by trees, dark abyss waiting beyond the rotted gate. A world that looked so far from your own, a little secret hidden between the trees.
Jimin hums, “Here” he pats your back, “A delivery from the village” 
You dig your heels further into the ground as Jimin’s fingertips trail over your back, silent warning to do whatever you’re told. Maybe a cruel little goodbye, because the both of you knew that you might not ever make it out of there alive.
He waves at you as he starts his descent down the mountain, sadistic little smile of his face.  
Now would be a good time to run, though you wouldn’t know where to go. You suppose anything would be better than this. Maybe if you begged nicely the demon would kill you painlessly; maybe listening to your cries of mercy. Granting you an easy death so you could finally rest. 
The demon’s friend slips through the fence, “Do you understand me? Are you okay?” 
You nod. So many words hanging on the tip of your tongue, though you don’t seem to know what to say first. 
“I’m Taehyung” he tells you, smile fragile as he moves to take a look at your bound wrists. “May I?” he asks, and you turn to give him better access to your back. 
“What’s your name?” 
You swallow, wetting your dry throat, “Y/n” 
“Jungkook is really nice, I’m sure he’ll let you stay for a while” 
It’s weird how even as the ropes make a dull thump against the damp ground, you don’t feel any more free than you had when you’d been bound. 
Opening the gate, Taehyung motions for you to step inside, letting you follow him down the path and into the open area. Your eyes wander over the courtyard, freshly fallen leaves the color of a sunset scattered across the grass. Stood through the archway of trees stands the heart of the house. 
Without knocking, Taehyung pulls the door open. Intricately crafted table sat in the middle of the room.
He sits at the table like royalty, posture that of a king– clothes that of a nobleman. He looked younger than Taehyung, book held by one hand ever so elegantly, really he could be mistaken for a royal if it weren’t for the inky black snake that peeks out of the sleeve of his shirt. 
You try not to linger on his extra pair of arms. Breath catching in your throat when they fold over his stomach. Entirely unhuman, something you’d never seen before.
His eyes flicker over your face, turning to Taehyung with his eyebrow raised. You flinch as he shuts his book, full attention now on you and his friend. 
“Who’s this?” 
You feel the embarrassment lick up your spine as he takes in the way you’re dressed, warm blush surely flushing your cheeks pink. Both of your lives so dramatically different. 
Taehyung clears his throat when you don’t say anything, “This is Y/n” 
“Does she understand us?” Jungkook asks, curious eyes meeting your own. Taehyung turns to you, nudging your shoulder with his elbow. 
“I do” and Jungkook hums, a little taken aback with how formal you’d come off. 
“Why are you here?” there’s no malice in his voice, simple curiosity. Something you hadn’t been expecting. And you wish he had just shouted, unexpected understanding strange when you had prepared for the worst. 
Taehyung grabs a pillow from under the table, fingertips barely grazing your back as he helps you sit opposite Jungkook. 
“I’ll make us some tea” Taehyung smiles. A whisper for him to stay stuck on the tip of your tongue as he wanders further into the back room leaving you alone with Jungkook. 
Your eyes stay trained in your lap, picking at your nails, fiddling with the hem of your shirt; really anything to keep you from having to look into Jungkook’s eyes. 
“I asked a question” he reminds you, “why are you here?” 
“I’m a sacrifice. A gift from the people in the village of the east” 
“A gift?” he urges, utterly enraptured by the mind of humans. 
“Their land had been cursed, or so they say” you meet his eyes, “this is an offering for you to save the land, to sate your anger. That’s all I know, no one ever spoke much around the cell they kept me in” 
“Cell?” his eyebrows raise, curious.
You hum, “It is nothing but rumors, but they say the king wanted people like myself dead, the chief had told his people I’d come to spy on them. That my life would be of use, so they let me live” 
“Is that so?” Jungkook falls back, holding himself up by his arms, “Taehyung hadn’t told me such rumors were going around” 
You open your mouth, a question that’s been playing on your mind since a child put to an abrupt stop when Taehyung wanders back into the room. Teacup and delicate little porcelain plates balanced on a wooden tray. 
“Thank you” your voice is barely above a whisper as your fingers delicatly take hold of the cup. 
“So–” Taehyung starts, taking a seat beside you, “are you staying with us?”
Your hand flies to your mouth, a lame attempt in covering a cough as your eyes meet Jungkook’s. 
“Please? I could always use the extra help” Taehyung continues, arm slung over your shoulder, “What do you think?” 
Jungkook raises an eyebrow, head tilting in question. It’s strange how far you can get lost in someone’s eyes, how for some it’s ever so easy to nitpick seemingly insignificant changes in expression. Maybe it had been a self-defense mechanism, a means to survive, but you’d always felt you’d been good at knowing how people felt, knowing where to build a wall, draw a line, anything.
Jungkook was a strange being, how what lies beneath his gaze is unattable no matter how long you search.
Jungkook’s eyes gave no indication as to how he felt about you. Expression eerily neutral that even if you were to ask him how he felt, his tone would be of no help. Someone so in control of their body and mind, someone above that of natural human nature; and you suppose thats only fair considering he weren’t a mortal like you or Taehyung. 
“You guys do whatever you want” Jungkook picks up his book, touch gentle as he flips back to the page he’d left. 
You turn to Taehyung, “If it’s okay, then I don’t mind staying” because living a life secluded from the world, protected by the rotting gate at the end of the path, was a safer way to live than travelling alone with no place to call home.
And as long as Jungkook held no resentment towards you, letting you live a life of peace, even if only for a fleeting moment—then maybe you’d hold onto that last selfish little sliver of hope. 
Taehyung takes ahold of your hands, the prettiest smile gracing his face, “You must be exhausted. How about a bath? You’ll have to wear some of my clothes until I can make you some–” 
“Tae” Jungkook laughs, “Slow down, you’ll overwhelm her” 
Taehyung’s fingers intertwine with your own, tugging you to stand.
You turn back to Jungkook before Taehyung can drag you out of the room, “Thank you” you call out to him.
He waves you off, thumb running over his bottom lip, “It’s nothing” and really it wasn't, he already housed one human, what was one more? Not when like Taehyung, you’d been betrayed by your own kind.
─── ・ 。゚☆: .☽ . :☆゚. ───
“Have you heard of any rumors circulating the village?” Jungkook asks his friend, Taehyung running a hand through his hair. Having left you to wash up and change before he would show you your new bedroom.
“Rumours?” Taehyung’s head tilts a little.
Jungkook hums, “About the king” 
“None” he shakes his head, “Only whispers about bandits raiding the outskirts of the capital” 
“Nothing about any spies?” 
Taehyung’s tongue runs over his bottom lip, back straightening slightly as he gazes down at Jungkook. “Is this about Y/n?” 
Jungkook sighs, “Something’s happening in the east, don’t go there from now on” 
Taehyung nods, “I’ll keep an eye on her, just in case” 
“I doubt there’s a need. The two of you are quite similar” Jungkook hums, “Just make sure she’s comfortable, that’s all I ask” 
“And you?” 
Jungkook pushes himself to stand, “Nothing much will change around here” 
Taehyung’s role in Jungkook’s life hadn’t been a coincidence. And as much as it felt like Jungkook was the one helping Taehyung, demons were a little more selfish than that. Sure, Jungkook gave Tae a second chance at life, but that was only because he wanted something from him. It all worked out in the end, Jungkook made his first friend and Taehyung lived comfortable. 
You, however, Jungkook hadn’t seeked you out. You were handed to him by the graces of hell, destiny walking you up this mountain. Adorably strong-willed, though perhaps too trusting of the very being that could bring you to your downfall.
Jungkook was anything but a saviour, everything he ever did was only to with his own wellbeing in mind. But you, you were the one thing that he hadn’t planned. An anomaly thrusted in his face, how could he turn away his gift from the world?
Your desire for freedom was endearing, the human will to live something Jungkook found utterly intriguing when all the world seemed to do was fuck you over. Naïve hope disguised by a hard exterior, pitiful in the way the world had rejected your mere existence. Something Jungkook was more willing to use, arms curling around your fragile existence.
Because as much as you thought of him as your refuge, he knew that he would become your downfall.
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cerise-on-top · 5 months
Note
Against PDA Valeria/Laswell x Jealous Fem Reader
Some girl flirting and looking at them, and Reader can't do anything to mark her territory, so she just have to watch and send dirty glances to the girl.
And back home, they assured her they love her AND ONLY HER!
I don't usually write a gendered reader, but I made an exception this time because I vibe with your profile pic and because those two are among my favorite lesbians. I suppose I sort of did have to write a fem!reader for this one, then. Either way, thanks for requesting the girls, I don't think you understand just how much I love Laswell and Valeria. Fem!reader and SFW for this one.
Valeria and Laswell Comforting a Jealous Reader
Valeria: She knows she’s gorgeous, that there’s just something about her that draws in more women than men, so it wasn’t a surprise that some girl would waltz up to her to try being with Las Almas’ most wanted for a single night. Although she could likely buy the world if she wanted to, there’s nothing she could want more than your presence and adoration. The girl was aesthetically pleasing to look at, that much was true, but Valeria had eyes for you only. It wouldn’t take long for her to notice the daggers you’re glaring at her. Oh, this was going to be something neither of you would ever hear the end of. This was the city of souls, and if that girl won’t back off soon enough then she’ll be another one roaming these streets forever. Dogs wouldn’t bark at Valeria, putting their tails between their legs and running away, even those awful strays had more common sense than whatever pathetic creature sat next to her. In a way that only she can, with a mocking voice and those eyes of faux sympathy, she’d tell her to fuck off immediately before she makes sure death would be a luxury to her.
It was at home that you could finally talk about that disgusting creature with words that couldn’t nearly describe the way you felt about her. Valeria agreed with you, people should have more intelligence than that. But even that wasn’t enough to get you out of your bad mood.
The doors were closed, and no one but the two of you would bear witness to a softer side of her. Yes, Valeria is still somewhat stern when she speaks, but she won’t tease you this time, being flattered instead that you love her so dearly that you get jealous over a small scenario like that. It shows her that you genuinely want to spend time with her, no matter how many people there are in Las Almas. It starts off with her telling you that you should know she loves you only, a rather sentimental thing for her to say. You should look at her while she speaks, though, or else she will make you. If she has to, she will put your face in both of her hands and force you to look at her. There are many reasons she really shouldn’t be with you, and she will list them: She’s running a cartel, she’s hunted by the government and the military, you will be persecuted alongside her eventually, if you aren’t already. And yet, despite all that, she actively chose to be with you. And she’ll be damned if she won’t do everything she can to keep you by her side, to try and make a safer haven somewhere with and for you. Don’t you ever doubt her love and affection for you, she will show you just how much she adores you above all else. It’s a rare treat she isn’t always able to get, but that night and the following day she’ll do whatever she can to spend her time with you and make sure you know just how much you mean to her. You will spend the day however you wish, so if you wanna go out for a picnic, you can. But staying at home and cuddling her, a privilege only you have, is just as good.
Laswell: In all honesty, she’d never have thought she’d be hit on. She’s an older woman, society doesn’t think too highly of them anymore. It doesn’t get to her in the slightest, but having a younger girl flirt with her seemed just a bit surprising. After all, she had the loveliest wife and that was you. Her wedding ring was on her hand, it wasn’t even hidden underneath a glove or anything. It was on the ring finger of her left hand. Was that girl just stupid or malicious? For a very short moment, she’d be speechless, but once she’s certain to never attribute to malice what can be attributed to incompetence, flashing her ring a few times, she grows annoyed. It’s nice to know younger people still think of her as hot, but it’s really only your opinion that counts to her and she couldn’t care less about the girl. Once she sees the way you look at her, she tries to kindly tell the girl she’s married. There was no need to make a scene, after all. But if that wasn’t enough to get her to go away, Kate won’t be afraid to be more blunt. Her words can pierce through just about any heart if she wants them to, give her a chance to get to know someone, she can and will find ways to hurt them in a seemingly harmless conversation alone. That girl can and will go away, she’ll make sure of it. Once she finally leaves the scene, Kate will apologize to you, even if it isn’t really her fault.
But even at home, the way that girl would talk to your wife just seems to never stop nagging at you. You’re more quiet and reserved than usual, just a bit more moody as well and it shows when you snap at the noodle that had fallen from your spoon. You can try to convince Kate you’re fine, but no matter how hard you try to hide it, she’ll know you aren’t and will do what she can to cheer you up at least a little bit.
She’ll pull you aside for a drink. If you like wine, she’ll pour both of you a glass. If you don’t, she’ll make you tea or hot chocolate, any beverage she knows you like that might help you in calming down. It’s no laughing matter to her, you’re hurt and she will try her darndest to fix that. At first, she’ll try to get you to open up a bit, get you to talk about what’s bothering you and how you think she could try to help with that. She can read people like an open book, but she does value honesty and open communication. She’ll coerce you into telling her somehow, whichever way works best. But if you won’t budge? In that case she’ll calm you down first, make you feel a bit softer and then get to work. You wanna cuddle with her underneath a blanket? You just wanna watch a movie with her? Need her to tell you how much she loves you? She’ll do just about everything for you, and she will make it known. Once you’re less upset and more approachable she’ll wrap you in a hug, if you allow it. Despite not being a very huggy person herself, she will show affection in the more classic ways. There are more than enough reasons she won’t be able to make it back home in one piece. Getting kidnapped, tortured or just straight up killed. But even so, she’s going to fight the grim reaper himself if he were to show up on your doorstep. Yes, she makes sure peace finds its way in this world again, but only so you can live in the world you deserve to be in. There are so many things you are ignorant of, so many things she never tells you about, just so she can come home, beaten bloody, to you. To your smile, your voice, your shared future. She would have never married anyone she wasn’t 100% sure she wanted to spend eternity and beyond with. Some small, unknowing brat would never take you away from her, and that she vows to you. For as long as you want her to be, Kate will be yours. She hopes you will reciprocate. Let her take care of you for the time being, she’ll show you her devotion to you and you only.
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nino-rox · 8 months
Text
S.COUPS x Male Bottom Reader
Content Warning : NSFW Gay Smut, Alcohol consumption, verbal abuses, sexual themes (Degradation), Hookup Culture, Top Seungcheol and Bottom Male Reader.
Disclaimer : This is a Fan-fiction story written for entertainment purposes only, no part of the story implies or affirms anything regarding real world events or individuals. Please be of the appropriate age ( i.e, Adult as per your country’s stipulations and regulations) before interacting with this post.
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(CONSENT IS IMPLIED)
You didn’t think situations could change so quickly. One moment you were with friends at the club, and now suddenly, a 10-inch fat cock was fucking you senseless - it happened to belong to a rather sexy man. He was gonna take what he wanted. You were drunk; he was checking you out…You might not remember how it all started, but once the tip of his dick hit your tight hole, there was no going back. You could tell he would fuck your mind, body and soul, and you were only too happy to let him - in the gross bathroom stall. You were facing the wall, and he was behind you. Next thing you knew, his huge cock filled you up, your body reeling at the pain. He aggressively grabbed your neck, whispering in a deep tone, “You seem to be in pain… I hope you don’t think that means I’ll take it slow and easy with you slut,” after which he pulled out and shoved his cock back in making you yell from the pain as he began thrusting harshly in your tight hole. He held onto your hips, holding you still so you couldn’t do anything but let him fuck you; his big fat cock inside of you was almost more than you could bear. And if he kept doing things like this, you were sure your hole would rip apart, but the horny hunk fucked your ass so hard you started losing your mind. It was painful, but for some reason, it also felt so good…When you were about to pass out from the pain, you suddenly realized your hole wasn’t hurting anymore. In fact, the pressure was gone completely, and you thought you heard him say, “Fuck, you tight little fuck. You can feel every inch of my thick cock inside you…you know you love it slut…say it.” He spanked your ass as he rammed into you mercilessly, making you yelp. “Fuck yes, fuck me with your fat cock. It feels so fucking good inside me.” As he kept pounding into you harder and harder, the bathroom became silent except for the slapping sound of flesh on flesh. Then you could hear him moaning louder and faster, saying, “Yes, fuck yes, YES! FUCK ME, TAKE ME RAW YOU COCK LOVING SLUT!!” You weren’t sure who he was calling a slut cause you were drunk as fuck, but it sounded really hot. He shoved himself deeper inside your hole with each thrust. His pace increased, and he slammed his cock in and out, making you scream as he hit your G-spot with his thick shaft; the sensation was overwhelming.
Every single inch of your hole felt full, stretching to accommodate the thickness of his massive meat. He yanked your hair, pulling your head, making you arch your bag as he bit into your neck. You loved being fucked hard by a guy, but right now, nothing else mattered. All you cared about was having that monster thrust deep inside of you. He began breathing heavily in your ear, almost panting like an animal…He started grunting uncontrollably, shouting: “That’s it slut, take it, I’m gonna cum soon…I want to feel my cum splashing against that tight little asshole of yours, begging for more of my big fat cock.” When he came, you felt his hot, sticky load fill you up until it spilt out, filling your hole and dripping down your legs, covering them with his juices.
Author’s Note: Please Request/DM if you want me to write part 2!
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