Pairing: Pedro Pascal x f!reader
Summary: For the first occasion in a very long period, you get some much needed free time with Pedro, and you're definitely not wasting it.
Warnings: established relationship, MDNI (+18), language, oral (f receiving), fingering, unprotected sex, p in v sex, soft aftercare, playful bickering, basically porn with no plot
Word count: 1.3k
A/N: Was this fic inspired by the new photo and video we got of Pedro? Yes. Did it take me a bit longer to write it even though I had a lot of inspiration? Yes. But it's here now, so I hope you'll enjoy it!
“I told you to put suncream on, but you didn’t listen to me,” you told him teasingly as you drew small circles over his exposed chest. The bed dipped under his weight as he turned on his side, facing you, and his lips pulled into a sheepish smile. Despite the start of autumn, the weather was warm, the sun shining through the big windows of the hotel room, the light catching in the strands of his hair.
“It’s not even that bad,” he argued.
“Not yet. But I swear if you’ll complain about it this evening, I’ll—” you let out a quiet yelp as he pushed you to your back, hovering above you. Every muscle flexed in his body, the obsidian necklace hanging from his neck.
“I won’t. I’ll have the perfect distraction,” he said, his voice dropping and eyes darkening as he leaned down and captured your mouth in a passionate kiss. Your arms immediately came around his neck, fingers tangling in the soft curls at his nape. He coaxed your lips open with his tongue, exploring your mouth like it was your first kiss.
His hand found your hips, squeezing it gently as he started to place soft kisses along the line of your throat. His breath was hot against your skin, and the desire started burning low in your stomach.
“Pedro,” you mumbled, and in response he moved lower, his short beard scratching against your skin. He reached behind you, making quick work with untying your swimming top and throwing it to the ground.
He pulled back for a second, looking down at your body and your exposed breasts, and the fire only grew in his dark orbs.
“You’re so fucking beautiful like this,” he praised you. He continued his path down your body, his mouth finally wrapping around your nipple. He massaged your other breast with his free hand, and your fingers tugged at his strands, a moan slipping from your lips.
He was watching every reaction of yours, listening to every sound you made. His tongue circled around the hardened peak, sucking on it gently. You threw your head back against the pillows, your body moving under his.
He drew a soft path between your breasts with his mouth, giving your other nipple some attention too. Meanwhile his hand moved lower on your body, but he stopped just before the hem of your bikini bottom.
“Is this alright?” he whispered against your skin and pulled back to look at you for a confirmation.
“Yeah.”
His smirk grew as he pulled off the last piece of clothing from your body, your desire visible on the thin material. He let out a soft groan, and climbed lower to position himself between your legs. He coaxed your thighs apart, and looked at your exposed pussy hungrily as it glistened with your own arousal.
“God, look at you,” he murmured, dragging his thumb up between your folds, and you whimpered softly.
He didn’t hesitate for another second, the next thing dragging over your mound was his tongue. You bucked your hips up, but he quickly pinned you down with his large hands, never stopping what he was doing.
He was drawing slow circles over your clit, while his fingers started to explore you, teasing your entrance. Your hands tangled in his hair, the sensation too much to bear already. You looked down at him just for a split second, and your eyes met, hunger and satisfaction playing in his ones.
But he made quick work with his fingers too, slowly easing one into you, and starting to move it inside you at a torturing pace. Moments later a second finger joined the first one, adding more to your pleasure.
Your orgasm started to build rapidly, the feeling burning in your stomach.
“Pedro, I’m going to–” you cut yourself off with a quiet gasp as he suddenly pulled back from your pussy. “What?”
“I want to feel you come around my cock,” he explained as you looked at him, desperate for any kind of release. You nodded, and reached down to untie his swimming trunks, the coarse hair on his stomach disappearing under it.
Before you pulled down the shorts, you teased him a little, palming over the prominent bulge in the front. He closed his eyes for a second and let out a low groan, focusing on the feeling of your hand on him. But it didn’t last long as he pushed you back on the bed, dragging down his swimming trunks himself, his cock springing free.
His tip was flushed, a drop of precum was glistening at the slit, and you couldn’t help but watch him for a moment, taking him in.
He spat in his hand, stroking himself once, twice before he positioned himself at your entrance. He looked at you for a final reassurance, and when you gave him that, he slowly sank into you, his cock stretching you out.
“Jesus, you feel so fucking good,” he moaned, burying himself to the hilt. Your eyes closed in the sudden pleasure, your hands gripping the sheets for support.
He waited for a few seconds for you to adjust, and started moving at a slow pace. He peeled your hands away from the bedsheets, and pinned each one at the side of your head, his fingers tangling with yours.
“Faster, please,” you begged him weakly, the pressure building again inside you. He complied to your request, moving his hips faster against you, his thrusts growing harder, his cock brushing against the spot that brought stars before your eyes.
You watched him closely, the necklace slapping against his chest with every move. He leaned down to kiss you, muffling your increasing moans.
“I’m going to come,” you warned him when you turned your head to the side.
“Then don’t hold back. I want to feel it.”
His words were the only thing you needed to stumble over the edge, your orgasm running through your whole body. You squeezed his hands tighter, your mouth falling open with a silent moan of his name.
His thrusts grew more out of control, a guttural growl breaking from his mouth as your walls spasmed around his cock. He gave a few more thrusts before he buried himself deep inside you, painting your walls with hot ropes of his cum. He let go of your hands, and your arms immediately pulled him down to you, his body collapsing over yours.
You caressed his back as you both came down from your high, his breath fanning across the side of your throat. Your ears perked up as he called your name softly.
“Yes?”
“Remind me to make time for more vacations with you,” you could feel him smirking, and you let out a soft chuckle at his words.
He carefully pushed himself off of you, a hiss leaving his lips as his softening cock slipped out of you. He fell to your side, pulling you closer. He buried his nose in your hair while you fixed the necklace around his neck so it wouldn’t be askew.
“You know, we can just leave out dinner this evening and go for a swim instead,” he broke the silence that fell over the room just minutes ago.
“Are you really suggesting that we go skinny dipping?” you asked as you propped yourself against his chest with an unbelieving expression. He looked back at you with a boyish smile plastered on his face.
“Didn’t say skinny dipping, but first time for everything, huh?”
“Jesus, you’re such a dork,” you slapped his chest, and he only let out a hum.
“But I’m your dork and you love me.”
“Yeah, I do,” you answered and leaned in to place a kiss against his mouth. It was not a hungry or rushed one, but it was full of emotions and love.
For the first time in the last few years he could finally relax a bit with you.
Tags (let me know if you don't want to be tagged anymore): @berryispunk, @bratfrag, @elvenhymntoelbereth, @lover-girlxx, @la-vie-est-une-fleur29, @emmalyn2233, @cosmickid-inmotion, @68saturnism, @kellyxo1, @cozymochaa, @friisey, @misstokyo7love
pairing: joel miller (the last of us) x fem!reader
summary: 2.1k You wake up desperate for Joel.
rating: E for unprotected, desperate sex.
a/n: wake up, Joel wives! this one's for you.
You wake slick and shivering.
The sun isn’t high yet, just a low spill of light crawling across the sheets, and your body feels wrong—too warm, too aware. Sweat beads at your throat, your legs tangled in linen that sticks to your skin. The air smells sweet and heavy, like it does before a storm. You can’t remember what you dreamed, only that you woke up empty and aching, your pulse between your thighs pounding hard enough to hurt.
You roll onto your back, dragging the sheet higher, but it doesn’t help. The friction of fabric on your nipples makes you gasp, and that’s when you know this isn’t just a dream hangover. It’s worse—sharper. Everything in you feels drawn tight, like your body is calling for something it already knows.
You try to breathe through it. It doesn’t work.
The room smells faintly of wood smoke and the soap Joel likes, the one he leaves on the sink when he stays the night. You press your palm to your stomach, trying to ground yourself, but your body’s already betraying you—slick warmth between your legs, a slow roll of need that won’t ease no matter how much you shift or squeeze your thighs together. You think, vaguely, that maybe you should get up, maybe wash your face, but your limbs feel heavy and useless.
A knock breaks the silence.
You jolt upright, tugging the sheet to your chest, heart racing. Then the door opens before you can answer, and Joel’s there—broad shoulders, morning-stubbled jaw, hair pushed back unevenly. He holds two mugs in one hand, steam curling from them.
“Mornin’, sweetheart,” he says, voice still low from sleep. “Brought you—”
He stops when he sees you.
The light hits your bare shoulder, the strap of your tank top slipping low, the edge of the sheet clutched tight in your fist. You can tell he’s trying to be decent, eyes flicking away for half a second, but they come right back.
“You okay?” he asks, softer now.
You swallow. Nod. Try for a smile, but it feels off. “Yeah. Just… woke up hot.”
He huffs a quiet laugh, setting one mug on the table beside the bed. “That right?”
You can’t tell if he means it as a joke. You can’t tell anything right now except that he’s standing close enough for you to smell him—coffee, leather, the faint musk of early morning—and your pulse spikes again.
Joel looks down at you for another long second. His jaw tightens. “Drink your coffee,” he says, rough but gentle.
He turns to go, but you catch the edge of his sleeve without thinking. His arm goes still.
You shouldn’t. You know you shouldn’t. But your body’s already decided.
His arm goes still, muscles shifting under your fingers. You don’t mean to grip him like that, but the second your skin brushes his shirt, something in you jolts awake.
“Hey,” you murmur, voice rougher than you expect.
Joel turns halfway toward you, coffee mug still in one hand. His eyes flick from your face to your mouth, then down the length of you where the sheet’s started to slip again. His throat works once before he speaks.
“What’s goin’ on, honey?”
You could lie. Say you had a bad dream, say you just wanted him to stay a minute. But you don’t. You tug his sleeve harder until he’s closer, until you can smell the coffee and the warmth of his skin underneath the cotton.
“Just—don’t go yet,” you whisper.
He sets the mug down slowly, careful, as if any sudden move might spook you. But it’s you who closes the space first, reaching up, dragging him down by the collar to kiss him.
It’s messy at first, more breath than precision. You taste heat and caffeine, salt on his lower lip, and you don’t stop until his hand finds your jaw and steadies you. He pulls back just far enough to look at you properly.
“Jesus,” he mutters. “What’s gotten into you this mornin’?”
You shake your head, unable to answer, because the second you see the question crease his brow, the ache between your legs twists tighter. You shift on the bed, and the friction makes your breath hitch.
“I don’t know,” you manage. “Just—need you.”
That does something to him. His eyes darken, his hand still cupping your jaw while the other settles on your thigh, thumb dragging lazy circles over your skin. You can feel him restraining himself, holding back out of habit, out of care.
“Need me how?” he asks, and the words alone nearly undo you.
You slide your hands down his chest, over the soft cotton of his shirt, until your fingers find his belt. “Like this,” you breathe, tugging gently at the leather. “Just need you, Joel. Please.”
He exhales hard through his nose, eyes closing for a beat. When he opens them again, the patience is gone.
“You been thinkin’ about me?” he asks quietly, like he’s testing something.
You nod. “Didn’t mean to.”
He huffs a soft, humorless laugh. “Yeah, sure you didn’t.”
Then he kisses you again—slower this time, deliberate, deep enough that your toes curl in the sheets. The bed creaks under his weight as he eases you back, careful but unrelenting, his palm braced beside your head.
You hook a knee over his hip, dragging him closer. The sound that leaves him is half groan, half surrender.
You pull him down fully this time. No room left for restraint. The mattress dips under his weight, and the sheet slips away completely, forgotten somewhere at your waist. His body covers yours, solid and heavy, and the heat of him feels like relief.
Joel kisses you like he’s been holding his breath for days—slow, wet, his hand sliding up your thigh until he finds bare skin. You open for him without thinking. The groan he lets out isn’t loud, but you feel it all the way through you.
“Christ, baby,” he murmurs against your mouth. “You’re burnin’ up.”
You nod, arching toward him. “Can’t stop,” you whisper. “Feels like—”
You don’t finish because his fingers slip higher, finding the slick proof of how badly you need him. His breath catches. “You dream about me again?” he asks quietly, thumb circling your clit until you gasp.
“Maybe,” you breathe. “Don’t remember.”
He smiles a little at that—something crooked and fond even now—and then he’s kissing you again, rougher this time, tongue sliding against yours. You tug at his belt, frustrated by the slow scrape of leather, and he helps you, undoing the buckle one-handed without looking.
The sound of it—the metal, the zip, the soft drag of fabric—makes your stomach twist tight. When he pushes his jeans low, you reach between you and take him in your hand, guiding him against the slick heat between your thighs.
Joel swears under his breath. “Easy, sweetheart,” he says, voice breaking a little on the word. “You’re gonna hurt yourself if you rush.”
“I don’t care.”
“I do.”
He presses his forehead to yours, breathing you in, steadying you both even as his hips roll once, slow and careful. The tip of his cock slides just inside, and you both gasp—your body gripping him immediately, his muscles going tense from holding back.
“That’s it,” he whispers. “Just breathe.”
You do, barely. It’s too much—his size, his heat, the way he stretches you until you think you might come just from that alone. He stays still, hand braced against your hip, watching your face like he’s trying to memorize every flicker of it.
When you finally move, he curses and buries his face in your neck. The rhythm builds quickly, a rough grind of skin and breath, your nails in his shoulders. You wrap your legs around him, chasing friction, every sound you make swallowed by his mouth.
“Joel—”
He lifts his head, eyes dark and hungry. “Yeah, baby?”
“Don’t stop.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it.”
You don’t remember when it changes from slow to frantic. One moment Joel is moving carefully, murmuring against your ear; the next he’s driving into you like the need finally wins. Each thrust drags a sound from your throat that doesn’t sound like you.
His hand slides beneath your knee, folding you open, and you feel every inch of him. The air’s too hot to breathe, your body caught somewhere between pleasure and pleading.
“Joel,” you gasp, nails raking his back.
He grunts something that might be your name, might just be a prayer. His rhythm stutters when you tighten around him, and he presses deeper, hips grinding to the hilt. “That what you wanted?” he pants. “That it, sweetheart?”
You nod, dizzy. “Harder.”
He obeys. The bed knocks against the wall, his breath coming in low curses. You can smell sweat, soap, coffee cooling somewhere on the nightstand. The world shrinks to skin and sound and the wet slap of it.
You meet him move for move until your thighs start to shake. The ache that woke you this morning crests, sharp and consuming. You clutch his jaw, desperate. “Joel—inside,” you whisper. “Please, I need it.”
He goes still. Eyes search yours, rough and uncertain. “You sure?”
You nod again, dragging his mouth back to yours. “Please. Need to feel you.”
That breaks him.
He thrusts once, twice, then loses any sense of rhythm, body shaking with the effort to hold back and failing completely. The sound he makes when he finally gives in is deep and wrecked, torn from somewhere he can’t hide. You feel him spill, the pulse of it, and the weight of him collapsing half-on top of you as the tremors ease.
You stay like that—his face buried against your shoulder, your legs still locked around his waist, both of you catching the same ragged breaths. He doesn’t pull out right away. He never does. One hand drifts up your side, thumb brushing lazy over the curve of your breast before settling at your throat, protective, not possessive.
“Goddamn,” he mutters, voice gone hoarse. “You’re gonna kill me one of these days.”
You smile, small and shaky. “You’ll die happy.”
He laughs quietly, the sound vibrating against your skin. “That I will.”
For a long moment neither of you move. The morning light’s climbed higher, spilling across the sheets, turning the sweat on your skin to gold. You can feel him softening inside you, your heartbeat syncing with his.
Finally he shifts, kisses your neck, your jaw, the corner of your mouth. “You okay?”
You hum a yes, eyelids heavy. “Better now.”
Joel finally moves, drawing a slow breath as he slips free. The air between you is thick, shining where skin meets skin. For a second you think it’s over—he’s spent, you’re trembling—but the look on his face says otherwise.
He props himself up on one hand, gaze sweeping down your body, and something rough and tender flashes through him. “Turn over,” he says, voice gravel-low.
You obey before you can think, cheek to the pillow, hair spilling over your arm. The bedsprings creak when he climbs back behind you. His hand settles at your hip, anchoring you. Everything inside you is raw, every nerve awake.
“Still with me?” he murmurs.
You nod, a sound catching in your throat. He leans close enough for his breath to hit your ear, and then the rhythm starts again—slow, deeper this time. The mattress rocks, the headboard knocks once against the wall. Your body answers him even through the oversensitivity, pleasure cresting to pain and back again until you can’t tell them apart.
The noises you make spill out, small and startled, and Joel hushes you. His palm covers your mouth gently, thumb under your jaw. “Shhh,” he whispers. “Easy, baby. Just breathe.”
You breathe. You bite the heel of his hand and he doesn’t pull away, just presses closer, holding you through it. The world narrows to the sound of your muffled cries, his ragged breathing, the steady pound of rain starting against the window.
When it finally ends, you can’t tell if seconds or minutes have passed. Joel’s weight settles over you, all heat and heartbeats, until you realize he’s trembling too. He kisses the back of your neck, once, twice, slow apologies in the shape of his mouth.
“Didn’t mean to get carried away,” he murmurs.
You turn your face toward him, catching what little air you can. “You didn’t.”
He laughs softly at that—relieved, wrecked—and rolls you onto your side so he can see your face. One hand wipes a strand of hair from your cheek; the other trails down to your waist, rubbing small circles until the tremors fade.
The smell of coffee lingers faintly, gone lukewarm on the nightstand. Morning light cuts through the curtains in pale gold lines, striping the sheets. Joel tucks you against his chest, his breath slowing.
“You’re somethin’ else, you know that?” he says quietly.
You hum, almost asleep already. “So are you.”
He presses his lips to your temple, sighs, and lets the room go quiet again. Outside, the town is waking up, but neither of you moves.
Eyes That See Summary: You’ve cared for others your entire life. This is a story of you learning to take care of yourself.
Eyes That See Part 22 Summary: You tell Justine when you’ll be officially moving out, and you have an argument about it. Afterwards, you go to Sy for comfort.
Length: Around 11-12k
When Sy drops you off the morning after Amelia’s Christmas party, you linger in his truck while his engine stalls in the driveway. The weekend has felt so long and so short at the same time, jam-packed with activities and now coming to a screeching halt.
“Well,” you say as you plop your overnight bag on your lap, “guess this is bye for now.”
Your voice is a bit scratchy, your throat dry from dehydration. There’s an aching in your head that you entirely deserve.
With pink-tinged eyes, Sy’s not much better off. “Whatcha doin’ this week?” he asks.
You sigh. “Workin’ like usual. The portal’s gonna open for me to sign up for next semester’s classes, so there’s that…Oh, and I get to sign the lease for my new place.”
“When?”
“Sometime over a lunch break this week.”
“You doin’ that alone?” he asks, and when you nod, he follows up with, “You good?”
“Oh, yeah,” you answer. “It’ll be fine.”
“Read everything before signin’. Don't let ‘em fuck you over.”
“It's just a standard lease,” you chuckle.
Sy rubs his beard. “Yeah, well. Read everything before signin’,” he advises again.
You nod. Then it’s quiet again. You don’t want to exit the truck. Sy probably doesn’t want you to, either. You’re both procrastinating.
“Can we meet for lunch sometime this week?” you look over and ask.
He reaches out and puts a hand on your leg. “Of course, baby.”
“I didn’t know if you were busy or anything,” you say with a shrug.
“Never too busy for you,” he replies with a wink and an easy smile, and it’s cheesy enough that you lean in and kiss him.
When you back away, he puts his hand on the back of your head to keep you still, and he kisses you again, three long pecks in succession that end with you both softly and stupidly smiling at each other.
“Bye.”
Sy runs his thumb across your cheekbone before you move to open the passenger door. “Bye,” he repeats.
He waits until you’ve safely opened the front door of the house to reverse his truck down the driveway.
Moving your hair to cover your neck, you walk inside the house to unexpectedly find Justine sitting on the couch alone. You lift a hand to greet her and try to put a small smile on your face for good measure, as well, but you're not sure how it comes across.
Anyway, you’re sadly only masking; now that she knows about your plan to move out, things are tenser than ever before between you.
You’re gonna have to talk with her soon–really talk. Once you finalize when you’ll actually be moving into your new apartment, you'll have to share your plans with her, and you'll have to get some things off your chest at the same time, too.
And you dread it.
Without any children around making any noise–not even the dog–the room is quiet in a way that’s almost eery. As you walk in front of the television, the silence is anything but comfortable.
“Got the day to yourself,” you ask, “or is everyone still asleep?”
Justine briefly glances at you. “They’re out. Comin’ back tonight for school tomorrow.”
“Oh, cool,” you say, and then, after it gets weird, you internally sigh and just lug your bag down the hallway and into your bedroom.
You spend the day doing laundry, mindlessly picking up around the house, and catching up on a book. When the kids come home, you don’t let the weirdness between you and Justine keep you from eating at the kitchen table with them, and it’s a typical, normal evening.
In your bedroom at the end of the night, you mentally prepare yourself for your talk with Justine. You’ll approach her at just the right time some night this week... You’ll sit at the table and have coffee together. You’ll break the inevitable news. You’ll have the difficult conversation. It’ll suck at first, but it’ll be alright.
Later on, you text with Sy back and forth before waiting for sleep to come, but as you lay in your dark room, it just…doesn’t. After tossing and turning for a while, you realize that something’s different. The room’s darker than it usually is. Something’s off.
You stand up and peek out of your window blinds. Where Miss Donna’s house usually has a front-porch light shining so radiantly that the gleams actually show around your window blinds and literally change the environment of your room, her house is now entirely shrouded in shadows.
Subconsciously, you guess you’ve gotten used to the light, however distant, being there somehow, and it’s just weird seeing Miss Donna’s house entirely dark across the street.
Her car is outside in her long driveway, so she’s got to still be home, you reckon. Unless she’s in the hospital or something. But if that were the case, then Sy would’ve mentioned something.
You put on a robe, go into the hallway bathroom where a supply of lightbulbs are kept, and quietly step out onto the porch.
This is so stupid, you think while you scurry across the road to her house in your slippers, robe, and pajamas. As you knock on her front door, you think it again, over and over like a mantra. She’s probably entirely fine.
“Who's there?” a voice from inside the house calls out after several silent moments.
“It’s me,” you loudly answer. “Y/N. From across the street?”
The door opens. “Well, why didn’t you say so,” Miss Donna murmurs harmlessly, wrapping her own robe around herself. “Had me worried if I should even open the door this late at night. You never know.”
You make an apologetic face. “Right, I'm so sorry to scare you, but that’s actually why I’m here,” you tell her. “I don’t mean to be nosy at all, but you usually keep your porch light on all night long, ‘cause I’ve gotten used to seeing the light from the bottom of my blinds I guess, and it wasn’t on tonight, so I didn’t know if you just weren’t here or if the bulb needed to be replaced or if you were okay, or…"
You shrug after holding up the small package of lightbulbs.
She reaches out to the wall and flicks a light-switch up and down. “Oh, wouldja look at that. I had no clue.”
“Here.” You make quick work out of changing the lightbulb and sticking the old one back in the packet, and when she flicks on the inside switch next time, a glow spreads around.
Beginning to turn the other way and smiling with a small wave, you say, "I'm real sorry for botherin' you so late, but hope you have a good evening."
“Can’tchu come on in and sit for a spell?” she asks before you can step off the porch.
Your natural inclination is to deny the offer, knowing you’ll be an imposition. But are you really an imposition if she’s willingly offering?
“Are you sure?” you still ask.
“Come on,” she beckons you with a quick-waving hand. “I made too much for dinner. Sy’s on me for gettin’ too skinny, and here I’ve been cookin’ enough to feed a whole family. Even with Sy comin’ over to get leftovers, it’s entirely too much. My fridge is plumb full.”
“Cookin’ for one is hard,” you comment as you step inside and shut the door behind you.
“Let me heat you up a plate,” she says, but you politely decline.
“Oh, thanks, Miss Donna, but I actually had a big dinner myself.”
A college football game is playing on the television. After you’ve declined her food, Miss Donna wastes no time in sitting down and gluing her eyes to the screen.
"You really enjoy football, huh?" you ask after sitting on her couch.
"Oh, I just like to keep up," she brushes off, making it seem like she's a casual watcher, but the way you catch her moving her arms after every play signifies a much deeper attachment than she's leading on.
“All the bowl games are exciting,” you mention.
That gets her going, and you chat about football for a while until the game on TV goes to halftime.
"You sure you don’t want somethin' to eat?" she asks. "Sy said you got those food allergies, but I can whip up just about anything, you know."
You smile. "I'm seriously fine. Thanks, though."
"Alrighty, well, if you're lyin' 'cause you don't want me to get up and wait on ya, just go on in there yourself and take whatcha want, fix up whatcha want."
"That's sweet,” you say with a laugh, then you place your hands on your knees and stand up. “I’ve got work in the mornin’, though, so I’m gonna go ahead and get.”
“Alright, then. Thank you so much for fixin’ my lightbulb, now.”
“Oh, you’re so welcome, Miss Donna,” you answer before reaching out of the container of lightbulbs resting on the couch.
"By this point, you should just call me MaMaw like the rest of 'em."
You let out another little laugh. "I probably will," you honestly say, then you begin making your way across the street again.
For reasons that you can no longer continue to blame on MaMaw’s house-lights being off, you sleep lightly that night, so when your bedroom door opens and there stands a small child sometime in the early, early parts of the morning, you’re alert enough to notice it.
“Daniel,” you sit up and say, blinking quickly. He doesn’t move at all, so you bunch your eyebrows together in confusion and gesture for him to come inside your room. “What’s up?”
He steps closer to your bed but doesn’t actually say anything. You assess him the best you can in the darkness. “Didju have an accident?”
He shakes his head.
“Are you hurt?”
Again, he shakes his head.
“Did you have a bad dream?”
His face contorts before he starts to quietly cry.
“Oh, honey, it’s okay.” You swoop the blankets off yourself and sit upright. “It wasn’t real. You’re here at home. You’re safe.”
He wipes his eyes with the backs of his hands.
“It’s okay,” you say again, hugging him.
When he calms down enough to breathe regularly, you finally let him go. “You can sleep next to me if you want.”
He shakes his head and sniffs. “Luke’s gonna make fun of me.”
“No, he won’t.”
“Yes, he will,” Daniel sulks.
“He won’t even know,” you say. “When we get up in the morning for school, I’ll get you up first so you’ll already be in the living room. It’ll look like you just got up early.”
Daniel is quiet but obviously agreeable, so you start to prepare him a place in bed.
“Actually, you move constantly in your sleep,” you murmur, “so maybe I can set you up with a pallet on the floor…”
“I like sleepin’ on the floor,” he quietly says.
“Yeah, Weirdo,” you joke while preparing a comfy area of blankets next to your bed, but he barely laughs. Poor kid.
Once you’re both laying down with pillows under your head–you on your mattress and Danny on the floor–you look down in concern.
“You know Mr. Sy?” you ask.
Daniel sniffs. “Your boyfriend?”
“Yeah,” you murmur. “You know, he has bad dreams a lot.”
“Really?”
“Mm. Even grown-ups have bad dreams sometimes. And it’s okay.”
Daniel just nods and stares at the side of your bed. Before his eyes slip closed, he whispers out, “Night, Y/N.”
“Night, Danny.”
*******
Signing your lease is an exciting but quick event. Your first real apartment. You’ve lived in an apartment before back in Virginia, but this is your apartment. It’s different. There’s a feeling of independence unlike anything you’ve known before.
Justine’s in the kitchen when you get home from work, still riding the excitement of the lease-signing, and when you quickly glance at her and notice she's wearing sweatpants, you’re relieved. That means she won't be going out tonight. That means you can talk to her.
Maybe.
You dread-dread-dread it, but it’s got to be done. Your lease is signed. It’s done.
“I’m home,” you sing-song out in a funny voice to signal your presence to the house, but there’s no need; before you can even really close the door behind you, you drop down to your knees to accept a running hug from a full-speed Braylyn coming down the hall, then a just-as-excitable hug from Michael whose short legs take a while longer to reach you.
You lean forward and blow a raspberry on his bare navel until he cackles. "So are you."
The living room is a wreck, and you sincerely don’t care for once. You hug the kids and accept messy dog-kisses from Molly and listen with exaggerated interest while tons of tiny voices talk over one another about what all they did today.
“I made a snowflake, Y/N,” Braylyn tells you, then she instantly runs into the kitchen and yanks a piece of paper off the refrigerator. “I use’ded scissors and paper and I folded it. Look.”
“Oh, it’s gorgeous,” you enthuse, but you’re interrupted by Luke.
“It’s thirteen more days ‘til Santa comes,” he tells you, and you nod, trying not to ignore Braylyn’s snowflake that’s being excitedly pushed in your face.
“Sure is,” you tell him while making another exaggerated-impressed face at Braylyn’s art. “Just under two weeks."
For no reason at all, Michael shrieks by your side. You momentarily cover an ear with one of your hands.
"So–What was for supper?" you ask over the commotion.
"Pusghetti," Braylyn answers.
You widen your eyes. "Oh, spaghetti, yum."
"Did you eat it all, Michael? You eat it all, Luke?"
"I don't like spaghetti," he says over Michael’s loud screams.
"So, what'd you eat?" you raise your voice and ask.
Luke sulks. "Nothin’.”
“Nothin’?”
“I don’t like spaghetti,” he mumbles. “Momma said if I didn't eat what was on my plate, I don't get supper at all."
You frown while trying to consider what else you can make him before he goes to bed. You’d have to do it secretly or else that’d be some sort of issue.
You sigh and give him as sympathetic a look as you can. "Where's Danny?"
“In his room.”
“Huh,” you utter, and you excuse yourself to quickly go to your bedroom and change clothes. Just moments later, you tip-toe across the hall.
The door to Daniel's bedroom is oddly closed, so you knock before you step in. When you do, you see Daniel at his small bedside desk staring grumpily at a book with a pencil in his hand.
You approach him carefully and bend down to kiss the top of his head. "Hey, dude."
“Hey,” he mutters, and he sounds even surlier than Luke.
“Had an okay day at school?” you ask, touching his shoulder.
He just grunts.
“Yeah,” you murmur. “Rough day, huh.” Poor kid’s been going through it this week.
In frustration, Daniel suddenly throws his pencil on top of the book. “I have to memorize this entire stupid poem.”
“Do you need any help?”
“No,” he answers moodily, “I just don’t wanna do it.”
“So you’re in a bad mood?”
“Hmpf.”
“Whenever I’m in a bad mood, I like to go for a walk,” you hint.
“Mom won’t let me go out this late,” he mumbles. “‘Cause the stupid sun sets at, like, five o’clock now.”
You tilt your head to the side. “Not if I go with you.”
He lifts his head like he’s considering it, but then he turns back to stare at his book. “Then everyone else is gonna wanna go.”
“Yeah, you’re probably right.”
“They’re so stupid.”
“That’s not n–Well, that’s a very strong opinion.”
He doesn’t answer.
“Alright, little man,” you sigh. “I’ll let you chill. Let me know if I can help you study.”
You hold out your hand in offering, and for a minute you think he won’t take the bait, but he does: he reaches out his hand, too, and together, you give your secret handshake to one another. Before you walk out of his room, you see the tiniest twitch of his mouth, and you count that as a win.
There’s commotion throughout the next hour as the kids do their baths and nighttime routines, and after telling everyone goodnight individually–and sneaking Luke a bunch of snacks in bed–you go back to your bedroom again. You aren’t hiding from Justine. That’s not what you’re doing. You’re going to do this. You’ve got to.
Your thesis is almost entirely done, but it won’t be done-done until next semester. Still, you immerse yourself in schoolwork until your eyes get itchy. By the time you make yourself actually exit your bedroom, your palms are sweaty.
Justine’s still in the kitchen.
“Hey,” you greet her while opening the fridge and looking inside. You bought a buggy-full of groceries two days ago but don’t even know what there is that you could whip up right now. After grabbing some soy milk, you close the refrigerator door and start fixing up some coffee.
While keeping her focus on the plate she’s washing, Justine murmurs, “Hey.”
You’ve been so absent lately that it’s evident: dirty dishes are piled so high in one side of the sink that they’re overflowing onto the counter.
“Want me to make you a cup?” you look at the coffee-maker before asking Justine.
When she replies with, “It’s nine o’clock,” you assume she doesn’t want any.
“It actually helps me sleep sometimes,” you murmur.
As coffee finishes filling your mug, you continue the conversation. “You goin’ anywhere tonight?”
Justine turns her head to look at you over her shoulder. “Why, you goin’ to your boyfriend’s again?”
“No.” You shrug, trying to make it casual. “Just wanted to see if you had time to talk, that’s all.”
She’s silent for a minute. “I got these dishes to do, laundry…the house is a mess.”
“Yeah,” you murmur, instantly wanting to move around and clear off all the surrounding surfaces out of a mixture of guilt and the need to feel useful, but you push down your instincts. You didn’t make any of this mess.
But your agreement with her has always been to help out more around the house so you could get a deal on the rent, you can’t help thinking.
But–are you really getting a deal on the rent at all?
You clear your throat. You dread this, you dread this, you dread this.
“If you're too busy to chat tonight, then maybe tomorrow or something?”
Feeling you out, Justine stares at you over her shoulder for a moment. When she finally turns around, she wipes her hands on her pants and leans back against the sink.
“Oh,” you say when you realize she’s looking at you expectantly. “Like…” You shrug again. “Like–an actual sit-down chat.”
“Sure.”
You feel stupid just standing where you’re at without moving. “Oh, you mean like you’re good now?”
“I’ll be out most of the day tomorrow.”
“Oh, okay,” you say, and you walk to the table and pull out a chair. You don’t ask if she needs childcare because it’s a school-day tomorrow and you guess she’s got things figured out for after-school care.
Justine follows your lead and sits down at the opposite end of the kitchen table. It feels so much like deja’ vu of the most recent conversation you had with her that you almost frown.
You and Sy also had a hard conversation at this very same table, you recollect. In these very same seats. And it’d been one of the hardest conversations of your life.
But you’re gonna keep it positive right now. The talk with Sy was hard, yeah, but it had ended up being one of the greatest things of your life. You got everything out honestly and openly, and you felt a lot better afterwards. Your relationship is as solid as ever.
This conversation with Justine will be just like that. You take a sip of your hot coffee to steel yourself.
“Alright. So.” You sincerely make eye-contact with her. “First off, I wanted to apologize to you,” you say, and you briefly think of Sy and all the things he would tell you for starting this thing off by saying sorry–and to Justine of all people–but you’ve got to do it. You’ve got to.
Above all else, you have to stay true to yourself and do what you morally feel is right. Secondly, Sy–or anyone else, for that matter–can’t always be around to fight your battles for you, and you’ve got to make your decisions on your own without looking for external validation everywhere. Some things are just always going to be unpleasant, and you’re doing yourself a giant disservice by just continuing to avoid things at the sake of preventing arguments.
But–If you can at least start this discussion by bringing up your own imperfections in your friendship with her, hopefully it’ll even out the negative news you’re about to share about you moving out.
“For what?”
“Well…I know things haven’t been the greatest between us for the past few months,” you say. “And I know a lot of it’s been because you’re–because I’m not the greatest at…communicating.”
You leave your sentence floating in the air for a few moments, waiting to see how Justine reacts to your words, but so far, she just looks impassive. She does give you a slight nod, however.
“So this is me sayin’ sorry for that,” you sincerely go on, briefly looking down at your slowly wringing hands on the table. “I know I probably keep too much inside. Sometimes it’s just hard for me to get it out. But I’m working on it.”
Again, Justine nods, and awkwardly, you clear your throat. Afterwards, you raise your head and look at a spot next to Justine’s face so you don’t have to directly look her in the eyes anymore. It’s just–she’s being really quiet right now, and it’s making you feel strange having all of the attention like this. Like you’re being examined.
“Okay, so first off,” you hop to it, “I just…I wanted to let you know that I’ve gotten things finalized at the place I told you I was lookin’ at. The efficiency apartment by the police station."
Justine remains quiet, and you clear your dry throat again before going on.
"I’ll be movin’ in during the first week of January," you tell her, and then you're instantly on the defensive: "And I know that’s pretty quick, so I wanted to tell you as soon as I found out. Which was today.”
“Mm,” she murmurs, and you close your eyes.
The tone she’s using isn't pleasant. She isn’t open for an authentic discussion, you can tell. She’s got her guard up. This isn't good news for her.
Worry starts filling your stomach and tightening your chest, but you breathe through it. You’re an adult, you tell yourself, and then: It’s just Justine. And then even more: You’ve got to deal with unpleasant things instead of avoiding them. That’s life. It’s inevitable. In your day-to-day work duties, you deal with the public all the time.
“So…I really wasn’t imaginin’ it bein’ so quick when I first told you last month,” you look her dead-in-the-eye again and state, “but the tenants there now are movin’ out at the end of the year, and if I don’t move in after they move out and get the place cleaned, the rental agency would give it away to someone else to get more prorated rent." You shrug. "You know…You know how those things go.”
The side of Justine’s mouth twitches. “I don’t think the whole town’ll be linin’ up tryin’ to snag that apartment before you do, Y/N,” she says with a little chuckle, and normally you’d chuckle, too, to keep things friendly, to coat your unpleasant words with a smile, but you don’t. You don't really find what she’s said to be amusing. It’s like she’s making fun of you for the apartment you chose.
She speaks up after neither of you says anything for a while. "So. First week of January."
In guilt, you sit frozen while internally warring with yourself. Is this conversation going to inevitably go in the direction of finances? Should you offer to pay her January’s rent in full for the inconvenience of shorthanded notice? February’s? What’s even the standard procedure for something like this? A notice for leaving employment is at least two weeks, but what is it for moving out of someone's home? You don’t know the rules for this kind of thing.
“Hello?” she finally asks, and you blanch at her tone.
"Sorry, I–"
You thought you had your shit together in your head for this conversation, but you guess not.
You take a deep breath. “Yeah," you murmur. "First week of January."
“Alright, so…” Justine puts her elbows on the table and quietly sighs. “Is that it? You’re apologizing that you’re bad at communicating right before you tell me you’re movin’ out in…three weeks?”
Instinctively, your eyes close. Because that’s what you do to hide.
But you open them right back up. Tilting your head, you finally look at her straight on. Dead-in-the-eyes. "What have I ever done to you to make you dislike me so much, Justine?" you quietly ask, almost in wonder.
She blinks a few times in succession. “Wh–What? Where’s that comin’ from?” she asks. “I don’t dislike you.”
“But you do, though,” you murmur conversationally. With a light tone, you're speaking as if you're just making an observation. “It's...” You let out a little laugh. “It’s extremely obvious you do. I know I’m not perfect, and I’m ownin’ that, but to feel like I’m not even liked…" You swallow. “Like, not even a little bit. Or appreciated whatsoever. And then to feel like I’m being made fun of, even…By someone who was supposed to be my friend…I just don’t get what I’ve done that’s been so terrible to you to treat me like this.”
Looking away, she sighs. Putting this out there so bluntly must be making her uncomfortable.
But you've been the one walking on eggshells around her for months.
“It’s not that I don’t like you, Y/N. We’ve been friends forever.” She crosses her arms and slouches back in the chair she’s using. “There’s just…The things you do irritate me, I guess.”
You look back at the table. “Like what?”
“Well…” Loudly enough for you to hear it again, she sighs once more. “You don’t ever come out of your room,” she says, uncrossing her arms to gesture down the hall with them. “We used to hang out together, watch shows together out in the living room…We used to have fun with each other. Now it’s like the only conversations you have with me anymore have to do with when something’s off with your schedule and you can’t be around or whatever. And more times than not, it’s usually with no real notice. So, yeah. That irritates me. That would irritate anyone."
Your lips part, your mouth falling open. Your shoulders raise as you instinctively want to argue with what she’s said, but it’s true. That’s why you’re having this conversation, after all. You’re bad at communicating.
“I get that, and I really am sorry,” you look up again and utter. “I know I haven't really hung out with you that much lately. This semester’s been pretty rough for me, honestly, so that’s a big part of why I’m in my room a lot doin’ work, but…I think it’s also ‘cause I have a lot of–”
You cut yourself off. You won’t talk about your social anxiety. You won’t talk about your random exhaustion keeping you in bed. You won’t talk about how the pressure of cleaning the entire house and cooking for the kids and driving clients around every day and typing case-notes and cramming for exams and talking on the phone all day every day completely depletes you of energy. You won't mention how sometimes the weight of all you do makes you feel like you're suffocating and can't bear human interaction for another second once you enter the house.
But there is something you do need to talk about. And that is how you've only found comfort in your bedroom recently because the rest of the house is so unwelcoming. Because you've been avoiding her. Because after all this time, the miscommunication after miscommunication has led you to withdraw entirely, and how that's led to passive acceptance of being used, and how that's led to true resentment.
“Alright, so…” You sigh a little, starting to feel a little happy that you’re both getting things off your chest. “I sorta feel like any time I ever come to you with anything that’s, like, in any way inconvenient, that I get some sort of bad reaction. And for whatever reason, it…triggers me. So over time, I’ve learned to just sorta be quiet and keep to myself so I don’t have to deal with it. And then that makes me wait until the last minute to bring some things up to you, which isn’t the best way to be, and I really do apologize for that. Like I said, I’m workin’ on it. I know it doesn’t make up for me doin’ it so much in the past, though. But I hope you understand where I’m comin’ from. Like…Where my mind’s at.”
You know you’re being less than eloquent here, but Justine will understand. She should, at least. After knowing one another all this time, after living with each other for so long, after taking care of her children for her, after cleaning her house and walking her dog and trying to do all types of overlooked things to make living together as stress-free as possible, she should be receptive to the unpleasant realities you’ve admitted. Hopefully she’ll even do some soul-searching right here along with you.
“Deal with it?” she repeats instead, and from her offended expression alone, you know your expectations of how this conversation is going to go won’t pan out. “Deal with what? What does that mean? Like, deal with me?”
You swallow thickly. “The–The reaction. From you.”
“Y/N, you–”
“I’m really not tryin’ to argue or anything,” you interrupt as reasonably and as gently as possible, your eyes wider than before, your hands open. “That’s not what this is. I just told you that I’m takin’ the blame for not speakin’ up when I should’ve. It’s just that–People havin' bad reactions to stuff I say or do has been the way it’s always been my entire life, and–”
“Your entire life?” she smacks her lips and asks, putting her hands in the air. “Y/N, we grew up together, come on.”
And then your mouth falls open.
This isn’t how this played out in your head at all. You thought you could both share the things about one another that you’ve been having issues with without arguing. Everyone has faults, after all. Everyone makes mistakes. You just thought…You thought you could work through them. Like adults.
“I mean…You don’t–You don’t know every single thing I’ve been through," you almost whisper. "So–yes,” you maintain. “It has been my entire life.”
The look on her face and the echoes of her mean voice and the frustration she’s exuding makes something snap inside you, and your body grows prickly as you feel it building within your limbs. This is going to be an argument.
And how could it not be? Your friendship has rotted.
Initially, you came into this conversation openly, wanting to apologize for any hurt you’ve caused and for any wrongdoings from the past, for the misunderstandings due to your inability to speak up, for anything you weren’t even aware of, even. Just to have a clean slate. It sounds like despite your willingness to apologize, though, Justine’s further attacking you.
“Since I was a kid,” you explain, using your shaky hands to help you articulate, “everything's always been brushed on me to do. You should know how my home-life was, Justine. I had to figure things out. I had to keep the peace in my own family because no one else could figure out their own emotions and talk about things like mature adults. I had to bust my ass doin’ everything and bein’ everything to everyone because no one else did shit. As a child. As a teenager. And it’s still that way to this day as an adult, Justine. And it’s like that in this house, too.” You pause and realize that you’ve begun to squint your eyes so strongly that you feel the skin in between them bunch up. “And I know it’s my own fault, ‘cause I’ve never, like, made boundaries or rules with you when we moved down here to start with, but–”
“This is unbelievable,” she interrupts, and you almost scowl.
Instead, you sigh. She just doesn't get it. “What is, Justine?”
“This sob-story,” she shakes her head and says. “When we’re the ones who’re gonna suffer until I get somethin’ set up because I don’t know how we’re gonna pay the mortgage now. But this is ‘cause of your childhood somehow?”
If possible, your mouth drops wider than it did before, but you get yourself together within seconds. “Look, I know that me movin’ out is gonna mean that you’re not as…comfortable as you are right now,” you slowly figure out the appropriate phrase to say, “but c’mon, Justine. You…You have a great job. You really do. You’re a per diem nurse. And I know you get child support and alimony, too.”
She heaves a sigh. “The point,” she replies like you’re stupid, “is the expenses.”
You close your eyes, tense all over. The thought of moving out of this house and leaving the children in any type of struggle financially has you feeling almost guilty enough to stay for a few more months–maybe more–but you can’t keep doing this to yourself. You know that Justine has a lot of bills, but…you do, too.
That’s selfishyou’rebeingselfish–
Nostrils flaring, mouth terse, you sit there and just breathe, trying to keep it together. “I don’t feel like you’re really gettin’ what I’m tryin’ to say here.”
“I get it exactly,” she replies, “because I’ve known you all your life. You're playin' the victim. Just like you always do."
You freeze. "I…What?”
She stares you down. “Y/N. I’m the single mom with four kids here. You don’t hear me complainin’ about it. And I haven’t complained about you movin’ out, either–not once–even though you’ve given me, like, hardly any notice. Like usual.”
You want to give in so, so badly. You blink a few times in a row, clearing your throat afterwards so you don’t end up doing something stupid like breaking down in tears while yelling at her or something. Even though that’s what you want to do, instead, you take a deep, even breath.
"And I'm sorry," you utter. "I'm sorry for the short notice, okay? But I really don’t think it’s fair to say that I’m playin’ the victim or something when I’m just tellin’ you how I feel.”
She sighs. “Feel how you wanna feel, then,” she says. “I don’t know what you want me to say anymore. I’m a shitty person–I’m such a shitty person that you’ve locked yourself away in your room for months and now you’re movin’ out–and I gotta deal with all the aftermath myself. That’s it. That’s all there is to it.”
Sighing, you say, “That’s not all there is to it. I'm not tryin’ to say you're this horrible person. That’s never what I intended from any of this.”
“Then what did you intend?” she crosses her arms and asks.
You just frown. “For you to understand me a little bit, I guess. And the things that I do.”
“I dunno about all that.” She huffs out a tiny laugh. “I don’t know if I’ll ever really understand…”
“I mean, I’m here to try to communicate, so. I can…I can try.”
“Yeah, well.” She sighs. “Here’s what I don’t get. You’re movin’ out, but you’re not even movin’ in with your boyfriend. You’re movin’ into an economy apartment by yourself. And for what? Seriously? When you could stay here and save money.”
"Living here isn't saving me money," you reply, not able to keep the frustration from your voice. You put your elbows on the table and lower your head in your hands. "It's not."
After doing all the math, you’re saving money by moving out. Not even counting the rent you pay, how often do you buy food for the entire family? How often do you get the kids little things they want when you're at the store? Groceries? Dog food? How often do you help out when random things around the house need to be fixed? How much have you spent on gasoline alone taking the kids to their sporting events?
“I know a lot of this tension between us lately is my own fault ‘cause I never speak up for myself, and I know that,” you tell her. “I’ve said that, like, four times to you already, but it…it still just doesn’t make any of this right.”
Confusion covers Justine's face. “Doesn’t make what right?”
You pause, not able to reply, and you must look stupid for a while as your mouth opens and stays that way. “Justine, you’ve brushed off everything on me since we moved down here, just about, and–”
“I have not,” she deflects. “Our agreement since the beginning was–”
“You were supposed to help me out by chargin’ me less rent, and I was supposed to help you when I could with the kids to make up the difference in childcare you’d be payin’ otherwise,” you tell her. “It was supposed to even out. But you took advantage of that. From the start, you did, and you just kept expectin’ a little more, and a little more, and then a little more, seein’ what you could get away with. And my spineless ass never did a thing about it, so then it became the way it was. Well, now I’m doing something about it.”
“Movin’ out,” she states. “Movin’ out entirely instead of just comin’ to me for a different arrangement. A pretty big fuck-you to me and the kids, don’t you think?”
“It’s not like that,” you retaliate. “I’ll always love the kids. I’m just…done. I’m done with this arrangement, Justine. I can't keep doin' this. I need to do something for myself for a change. It’s time I–It’s time I live for me.”
"But Y/N–” She makes a long, drawn-out noise. “I don't get how stayin’ here is keepin' you from that."
Tensely, you inhale through your nostrils. "I just–I don't think we're ever really gonna see eye-to-eye on this.”
"I guess not." Justine mirrors your sigh with one of her own, then it's quiet.
"Y’know, I thought you'd maybe actually be happy for me," you sadly chuckle. "About to get my Masters. Doin' stuff for myself for once. Finally datin' someone really great. After…everything that happened back in Virginia."
“I am happy for you."
“I really feel the support,” you mutter.
“Y/N, come on.”
“No, I have the right to be upset,” you tell her. “I get that me movin’ out is a big inconvenience for you, but–I know you won’t agree with this since we’ve already talked around and around and around it–you’re gonna be fine without me here. Really, you are. You have a really good job and two exes who financially support you and the kids. And here I am doin’ somethin’ for myself for once after workin’ two jobs for the longest freaking time, and I hardly have anyone down here to really share it with, and honestly, I just thought it’d be nice if–”
“Oh, my God,” she groans. “This is what I mean! You act like you don’t have a boyfriend whose ass you’re up all the time. Or people from work–at those two different jobs you’ve got–or even people from your classes. You’re around people all the time.”
At first, you don’t get the point she’s trying to make. You don’t get her meaning at all, actually. You don’t even have two jobs anymore, but you realize belatedly that you’ve never even told her you’ve quit Johnson’s, so of course that’s what she still thinks.
You stutter for a second before she clarifies herself. “If you don’t have other people to ‘share your happiness’ with when so many people are available out there,” she explains, “then that’s an issue with yourself at this point, Y/N. And that’s what I’ve been tryin’ to say.”
“Wait, what?”
“The fact that you don’t have friends isn’t on me!” Justine says in irritation. “I know you’re pissed off at me but won’t ever tell me what I’ve specifically done to you to drive you out, but I’m just one person. You’ve been here two years just like I have, Y/N. You’ve had the same chances I’ve had to make friends. But you sit in your room all the damn time. That’s why you don’t.”
Your eyes start burning with hot, welled-up water, but you pointedly try to keep yourself from crying. She’s dug up your biggest vulnerability again–the fact that you’re bad at making friends–and instantly, you feel like absolute shit.
Mentally, your brain begins agreeing with Justine. You have had the same chances she’s had to make friends while living here. Maybe even more chances. You’ve been around endless coworkers and peers your age in school. Because of how you are, though, you haven’t.
Justine notices your stinging eyes and sighs in frustration. “Look, I’m not tryin’ to be mean or anything, alright? But it’s the truth. This is what I mean about you playin’ the victim, Y/N–You don’t even try to–”
“Stop,” you interrupt with a rough, croaky voice. “Please, just stop.”
“I thought you wanted to get stuff out, though,” she retorts, and you stare at her for a long time.
You can’t tell if she’s mocking you or if she’s being sincere. “Maybe you are a horrible person,” you mumble despite your common sense telling you not to.
You’ve just let her get so into your head all of a sudden, so much that you can’t tell what’s real and what’s not anymore, that you feel like you’re the only one who’s problematic in this friendship at all, and that just can’t be right. It can’t be. You’re not perfect, and you know you’re not, but you alone can’t be the purpose for this downfall. You’ve played a part in it, yeah, but you’re not the sole reason for everything going stale. You can’t be.
But maybe you really can be! Maybe you are! Maybe you really do play the victim without realizing it, and you really do keep yourself in your room all the time even though you really don’t think you do unless you’re doing homework or decompressing. You just–You just don’t know anymore–anything!–and while two tears fall out of your eyes, you feel crazier than ever.
Justine tilts her head to the side. “What?” she asks.
And something about her expression challenges you somehow, to the point where you lift up your chin. Sy’s not with you, but you pretend he is.
Maybe you don’t have a confident voice yet, but you’re forming one. And it’s the internal voice of Sy. Reminding you of your worth. Reminding you of everything you do that’s not been appreciated–hell, that’s not even been noticed until you stopped doing so much to begin with.
The image of Sy sitting in the exact same kitchen chair that Justine’s sitting in now…pointing down the hall to Justine’s room…listing off everything you do for her that’s taken for granted…speaking up for you because at that time you couldn’t do it yourself…
But you can speak up for yourself now. You no longer have to push down your emotions in fear of hurting someone else’s feelings. Not anymore.
“I said, maybe you are a horrible person,” you repeat louder, so loud that it’s clear what you mean but not loud enough for the kids to hear anything. “I get that you’re mad at me, or–we’re mad at each other, at this point–but here I am tryin’ to actually say sorry for makin’ you feel like I was springin’ this on you ‘cause I didn’t tell you how unhappy I’ve been all this time. I’m the one actually tryin’ to fix some of this. But you know what? Even if I had actually spoken up a few months ago when it started gettin’ bad, I don’t think it even would’ve made a difference.”
Justine tries to interrupt you, but you keep talking.
“I still don’t think you would’ve cared if I did try to tell you how I felt earlier,” you tell her. “You wouldn’t’ve cared. You wouldn’t’ve cared at all. Because all you want is your free childcare, and your free kennel service, and all your extra money, and the freedom to go out and do the kinda stuff you used to do when you were single. But you're not single anymore, Justine."
With her mouth dropped open, she scoffs. “Seriously? So after everything else, this is you slut-shamin' me now?”
“Oh, my God,” you say in irritation. “Do what you want, Justine. Do whatever the hell you want. Again, that’s not the goddamn point I’m tryin’ to make.”
“Then what is?” she loudly asks.
Feeling like a child backed into a corner with no other defense but her voice, you almost scream in retaliation. You almost do, you’re so close, you’re so mad and fed up and hurt that you almost do, but coincidentally, it’s the fact that the actual children are in the house that stops you.
“Your kids come to me when they get hurt,” you tell her through tightly-gritted teeth, waiting for your tears to dry up before falling once more. “When they need something. When they’re scared. In the middle of the night, they come to me when they have nightmares. They don’t know any different. Do you–Do you even realize that, Justine?”
Her mouth turns into a straight line. “If you don’t tell me, Y/N, then, no,” she mutters through similarly gritted teeth, “I wouldn’t know that.”
As you stare her down, your tears dry. “I don’t think that’s true,” you stonily say.
“They’re my own damn kids, Y/N. What does that even mean?”
“Now, I take a lot of blame for not speakin’ up when I should’ve,” you tell her. “I just apologized about a dozen times for that. It would’ve made things a hell of a lot easier if I hadn’t kept so much inside. But I did. And I’m sorry.” You blink, but you don’t look away. “But you’re their mother. You can’t tell me you’ve had no idea this whole time. If it weren’t for me, they’d be goin’ to school with dirty hair and dirty clothes. They wouldn’t’ve had their homework done, no–no lunch sometimes. Sometimes no dinner at night. You cannot sit here and tell me you never realized what all I’ve done for you. If you can’t see it at all for yourself, at least see it for your kids.”
“It’s always been about my kids,” she retorts. “I moved down here to be closer to Rob–you know that. I went to school so I could get the job I have now for them. So they could have a better life.”
“Right, but–”
She interrupts you with: “But, but, but. There’s always a ‘but’ with you.”
“Because you still aren’t recognizing how much I do for them!" you argue. "And you! How much I’ve done for so long. Just because I’m not their biological mom doesn’t mean that I’m not busy, too. I seriously–"
“Try havin’ four kids and see how busy you’ll be then.”
Sighing, you give up trying to get your point across. Your pointlessly-made coffee is going cold. “This is going nowhere.”
"Guess so,” Justine agrees. “This is the thing–We had a very clear arrangement from the very beginning–like, before we even moved down here–about finances. About how we'd do things evenly, how you’d have cheaper rent in exchange for help with the kids. We agreed on it."
"Stop with the arrangement," you want to beg. Instead, you just sigh again. “But it hasn’t been even,” you say.
"According to you,” she mumbles. “So in summary, you're movin' out because you feel like I don't acknowledge how busy you are?"
"I'm movin' out because you're a bad friend," you correct sharply, watching Justine as she blanches, “and I can't take it anymore."
“And now we’re all just fucked,” she states. “We’re probably gonna have to move somewhere else entirely–”
“Justine–Here’s what I don’t get,” you reply in exasperation. “Your name is on the mortgage. Just yours. This is your house. It’s always been your house. You got this place because the bank literally said your income alone could cover it with no regard to mine whatsoever. So if you want to be pissed off at me for not understanding all your expenses, then maybe you should re-evaluate whatever the fuck you’re buying.”
You stand up, wipe your eyes, and turn around to begin walking to your bedroom.
“Don’t you do that.” Justine stands up and begins following you. “Don’t say something bitchy like that and then just walk away.”
You whip around. “I’ve tried being civil the entire time, Justine. If you won't take accountability for your part in this at all, I'm done.”
She looks unhappy, but he crosses her arms. "Fine."
"Fine," you repeat, trying not to shout it or slam your door as you speed-walk into your room and throw yourself on your bed.
You're crying within seconds. "Fuck," you mutter to yourself, angrily wiping your eyes.
That didn't go how you wanted it to at all.
You don’t want to be in this house a minute longer. The thing is, where would you even go? You won’t get keys for your new apartment for weeks.
…Obviously, you know a place you could go.
You just hope he won’t mind.
He won’t. You know he won’t.
You reach for your phone on your nightstand, pocketing it before rushing around to pack a quick overnight bag. You throw in all types of work clothes and comfortable clothes, your glasses, and all your medicine, and for a minute, you impulsively consider taking a bunch of other stuff into the car, too. You end up stopping yourself. You aren’t moving out yet.
You really wish you could, though. You wish you could temporarily stash belongings at Sy’s house. Things had gone so badly with Justine that you fear she’s going to go in your room and pour bleach all over your bed or something.
Honestly, though, Sy probably would have no problem if you took some of your stuff to his place. You unplug your bedside lamp, grab your succulent off your bookshelf, then sling your bag over your shoulder. It's not much, but it's all you can carry without struggling, and the small act of rebellion feels nice.
In the hall outside the boys' bedroom, you pause as a new set of tears stream down your face. This just fucking sucks.
You don’t bother telling Justine that you’re leaving. If one of her kids wakes up wanting water in the middle of the night, you guess she’ll have to get off her own ass and get it for them herself.
Walking outside while shushing Molly, you feel even shittier that a thought so mean would even pass through your head. You don’t want to leave the kids. You really, really don’t. And you don’t want to have this type of hate in your heart, either.
This feels like a break-up. With the kids' innocence at stake.
Sy’s grandma lives right across the street from them, though, you remind yourself. You’ll see them as often as Justine allows you to. Maybe someday you two can be civil enough for the kids' sake. Maybe she'll still let you take them out sometimes. Somewhere. Not due to any obligation, but because you want to.
None of it was any obligation to you, anyway. It's always been a lot, but you aren't bitter towards the children at all. You love them. So much that you can’t even be as happy as you want to be about getting your own apartment because you fear what their lives will be like with you gone.
That's giving yourself way too much credit, though. You're not a savior in their lives. You've been a glorified nanny.
…But still. You love them.
After drying off your face, you march back into the kitchen to wash out your coffee cup, and after you dry it off, you place it back into the cabinet, turn on your heels, and stomp back outside.
The drive to Sy's house is automatic. You take the few easy turns out of the residential area where the houses are a little closer together, then you pass the library, Pop’s Ice Cream Shop, and the Bait & Tackle. After that, you find yourself on the first long and dark road to Sy’s, and after you switch on your bright-lights, you pull out your phone and press a few memorized buttons.
“Hey, pretty girl,” Sy’s easy voice answers right away, and it minimally eases your ongoing heightened emotions.
“Hey, Sy,” you breathe out. “Can I–I know it's last-minute, but–Can I come over tonight? Would that be okay?”
“‘Course,” he immediately tells you, then just as immediately: “What’s goin’ on?”
He must’ve heard you sniff. “I just–I sorta feel like shit right now, and I was hopin’..." You let out the breath you weren't aware you were holding in. "I was just hopin’ it’d be okay to sleep over.”
“Stay put,” he tells you. “I’ll getchu.”
“Oh,” you mumble. “I’m actually–I’m actually already in my car.”
He’s quiet for a second. “Watch out for deer.”
“Okay.”
It’s silent, but neither of you hang up.
“What happened?”
“I finalized my lease this afternoon during my lunch break,” you tell him. “I get to move in a little over three weeks.”
“That’s great,” he says, but there’s underlying confusion in his tone. He probably thinks you got ripped off. You know he was worried about that.
“So, uh. I talked to Justine about it just now,” you eventually say, and Sy makes a deep noise to let you know he knows where this is going.
“Didn’t go so hot?”
“Uh…No. Not at all,” you answer. “Told her when I’m gonna be movin’ out and…tried to talk things out with her. We just ended up in a big argument.”
Sy grunts. You know he’s holding back what he wants to say.
"I’m really sorry. I promise I don’t mean to ruin your night," you explain.
“Y/N,” he starts.
"I know, I know. I’m not burdening you,” you say aloud what he would probably tell you, “but still–you were probably gonna have a relaxing night, and now, this. I promise I won’t, like, cry on your shoulder or anything," you chuckle quietly. "Just wanted to…I just wanted to be with you tonight."
You stay on the phone until you arrive at his house. At the front door waiting on you under a lit porch light, Sy ends the phone call, puts his phone in his pocket, and walks to your car where he grabs your overnight bag and carries it inside for you.
When you walk into the kitchen, there are two shot glasses full of amber-colored whiskey on the counter, and you can't help but smile.
"Thanks," you murmur, and silently, both you and Sy reach out to lift the glasses into the air.
He's not one for meaningless toasts, so neither of you bother with making something up to lighten the mood, but you stare at one another before tossing the bourbon back and speak with your eyes. It's gonna be okay. While your chest burns, you step closer to him and place your head on his chest.
“Life’s a bitch, ain’t it?”
You wrap your hands around his waist until they touch the small of his back. "Yeah," you say.
And then you just stand there together.
A few moments later when you're feeling somewhat lighter, you both make your way to the couch. Sy lifts both of your legs to rest over top of his thighs, and you place a pillow between your back and the arm of the couch. With the warmth of the fireplace before you, the serenity of the Christmas tree in the corner, and the comfort of Sy sitting directly next to you, things honestly do feel a little better.
The prospect of actually packing up your belongings and leaving Justine's house seems…possible now. It's not a giant thing anymore. You’ve had your conversation with her and it didn’t end well, but now it’s over. The dreaded communication part is done.
Now there’s all the other shit that comes after it.
Sy nudges you, and you up at him to see him lifting his eyebrows curiously. You’re brooding.
“Fuck her,” Sy dismissively says, tugging on your socked foot. “Soon you won’t even gotta deal with her shit.”
“Yeah,” you mumble, shrugging. “I dunno. I’m just upset with myself, I guess.”
“For what?”
You shrug again.
“What’d she say?”
“Nothin’ that wasn’t already true,” you mutter. “I just let it get to me. Said things I told myself I wouldn’t say.”
“Lemme guess…You told her when you’d be movin’ out…maybe tried to talk through some shit about why you’re movin’ out…and she prob’ly had some way of blamin’ you for everything.”
You tilt your head to the side. “In a nutshell.”
"Narcissists’re all the same,” he mutters.
Frowning, you glance at him. “You mean Justine?”
“Justine, my piece-of-shit stepdad, your old piece-of-shit boss. Don’t matter who it is. Nothin’s ever their fault.”
You never really considered that that’s what she is. Selfish, maybe.
“Don’t listen to people’s words,” Sy advises. “At the end of the day, talkin’ is just bullshittin’. People lie. Look at what they do. Look at how they act. That’s where they’re gonna tell you the most.”
"Talkin' isn't just bullshittin' to me."
"Not to me, either," he agrees, "but we’re not most people."
“I raised my voice at her,” you mumble. “And I cussed. And I was trying so, so hard to not make it into a fight.”
He softly grunts. “Around her, I woulda raised my voice, too.”
You make eye contact with him and almost smirk. Cussing would be a given.
“She said that I–I don’t know if she was tryin’ to imply that I’ve lied to her about what happened in my childhood or somethin’ to get attention, but I brought it up, kinda to explain why I have problems with conflict and stuff, and she said that I play the victim all the time.”
Sy snaps. “Ah, that's another thing narcissists do,” he says, and you look at him in confusion. “That’ll be called some good old-fashioned projection.”
Your lips part. “Huh?”
“That’s what they do,” he persists. “They don’t wanna live with the guilt themselves, so they’ll push all their shit on someone else to make that person the bad one.”
“But, like–that’s my thing. What if I am the bad one in this? I keep analyzing everything, and, like, from the outside I can see that okay–it’s clear she’s using me–but then I over-think it and I’m, like, but what if she wasn’t? And I’m just a really bad person screwing her over now?”
Sy sighs. There’s a half-finished bottle of Coors on the coffee table that he reaches for, lifts, and takes a long swig of. When he lowers it and places it back on the table, he licks his bottom lip and then slightly shakes his head.
You start biting your thumbnail. “...What?”
“It’s like these people share a fuckin’ textbook,” he mutters. “That’s ‘cause she’s makin’ you question your reality.”
You just sit there, blinking while distantly gazing into the burning logs in the fireplace. Gaslighting. “I swear, it’s like epiphany after epiphany with you,” you mutter.
“Think about it,” he proposes. “How’re you playin’ the victim? In anything? The person who’d rather lie about her own discomfort than complain? Are you fuckin’ kiddin’ me?”
You start biting the nail on your index finger next. "Well, I mean, yeah, you’re right," you agree, "but I really can’t help but feelin’ like I am the problem in all this. I feel like the stuff she said…” Stupidly, tears sting at the sides of your eyes. “I feel like it’s true."
You said you wouldn’t be crying on his shoulder tonight, but what you really meant was that you wouldn’t be crying at all once you got here, and already, here you freaking go.
“And feelin’ like nobody likes you has to be one of the worst feelings there is," you squeak out. You angrily swipe the sides of your eyes to clear them, but more tears just take their place.
“Oh, hell,” Sy murmurs. “C’mere.”
Reluctantly, you let Sy pull you closer into his body. With one arm around your shoulders and one hand on top of your thigh, it feels nice, of course it does, but you still feel dumb.
You wipe your eyes again and try to dry them out for good. “Sorry.”
“For what?”
“Cryin’ over somethin’ so stupid when it’s true. I don’t have many friends,” you admit.
Instead of saying what everyone always says–Yes, you do–Sy just ponders what you’ve said. “Why d’you think that is?”
You shrug. “I repel people,” you dully joke.
He chuckles. “Y’know, I’ve had that said about me, too.”
“No clue why that could be,” you murmur, and your voice is nasally.
“This ain’t gonna help none, I’m sure, but I don’t got many friends by choice,” Sy admits. “I got a few, and I stick to ‘em. If it weren’t for our poker nights each month, we’d probably go years without even talkin’. It’s about quality, not quantity.”
“Yeah,” you murmur softly.
You sit in silence with your head against Sy’s arm while staring at the fire.
"You want another drink?" he asks into the quiet air.
“Nah.” You ruefully shake your head. "I’m not really supposed to even drink alcohol with the medicine I take."
“Wait, what?” he sharply asks.
“A little bit is okay,” you explain, but Sy raises a dubious eyebrow at you.
His voice is uncharacteristically stern. “Y/N…”
“Don’t be mad at me,” you quickly let out. “I didn’t, like, intentionally keep that from you or anything. I just didn’t think to mention it before now.”
“I’m not mad at you,” he finally replies.
You close your eyes. “Just disappointed?”
“No.” He sighs. “Concerned.”
You open your eyes but keep them diverted. After clearing your throat, you say, “One of Justine’s main things was that I haven’t communicated enough with her. And she’s right. It’s one of the worst things about me.”
“Hey, now,” Sy warns.
“But it’s true. Sometimes I just don’t feel like talkin’,” you admit, sniffing. “It’s probably a really weird thing to say, but…I just don’t.”
“I’m the same way.”
“But it’s not like I hide information on purpose or anything,” you say. “It just doesn’t come to me to even say stuff sometimes–like the alcohol thing. And with Justine–now it’s built up where she’s, like, resentful of me for tellin’ her how I’m feelin’ when I could’ve told her a long time ago. So it just sucks.”
"You did everything you coulda done," he tells you, and you want to scoff.
Apparently you do scoff because in the next moment, Sy's firmer with his voice.
“You did everything you coulda done,” he repeats himself.
“And now she hates me,” you mumble childishly, “just like everyone else.”
“I don’t hate’chu,” Sy speaks up, and you chuckle a little. “MaMaw don’t hate’chu. My sisters don’t hate’chu, those kids don’t hate’chu…Amelia don’t hate’chu…That chick at the bar that you helped that one time don’t hate’chu…I could go on. Everyone loves you.”
“That’s not true,” you can’t help but argue.
“Everyone that knows the real you does,” he corrects. “And fuck the rest.”
“Well, I still feel like the world’s shittiest person alive right now,” you admit. “She said after I move out that it’s gonna be a struggle.”
“That might be true. But that ain’t your problem,” he tells you. “Now, if she was smart, she’d’a saved up what she could while you were there helpin’ her out, and she’d be set. Maybe even be able to still do the monthly trips to Disneyland. But if not…” He shrugs.
“But the kids…”
“Child support, right?”
“Yeah,” you utter, and you’re silent for a minute until you sharply look up at Sy. “Wait, do you think she’s making it up? Like, them havin’ to struggle with me gone?”
“Hard to say.”
“It’s just–She’s a single parent,” you murmur. “And a nurse. She’s got a lot on her plate.”
Sy touches the bridge of his nose with his forefinger and thumb, and it’s one of the first times–if not the first time–he’s outwardly shown any sort of annoyance with you.
You frown. “But she does,” you say quietly.
He caresses his thumb along your shoulder to show his support, but still, his voice is passionate when he speaks. “You have got to stop stickin’ up for people who’ve fucked you over, Y/N. You’ve got to. Stop justifyin’ her bullshit. Just ‘cause a person’s under a lotta stress don’t give ‘em a free pass for bein’ an asshole.”
You look down. “Yeah.”
“Lookatchu,” Sy hums. “Look at all the shit you’ve been through just since we met.”
“I mean, it’s been a lot, yeah,” you admit, “but it’s not really anything anyone else couldn’t handle.”
“Give yourself some credit here,” he sighs. “Since I met you, you–shit, you’ve had two jobs, you’ve finished a semester in graduate school, you got a tetanus shot, had your car break down, had a panic attack on my bike, signed a lease to a new apartment, and you’re basically like a mother to four kids that ain’t even yours…I think it’s safe to say that a lot of other people couldn’t handle every single thing that you’ve been able to.”
You know internally that he’s right. You even brought it up to Justine, all of the things that you do. There’s just some odd part of you that thinks you’re egotistical for giving yourself credit for things.
You’ve got to get out of these dysfunctional thinking patterns you find yourself caught in all the time.
“What’s wrong?” Sy asks. “Don’t agree?”
“No, it’s just–I just feel dumb,” you admit. “I’m–I’m not stupid, and I know I’m not, but…it’s like, I can talk all day about human behavior and psychology and this and that, but when it comes to stuff actually goin’ on in my real life, it’s like I’m blind or something. I don’t get it.”
“It ain’t that easy,” he says quietly. “I get that.”
“Yeah,” you mutter.
You take a deep breath and slowly breathe outwardly through your mouth. After putting your hand up to your jaw and moving your head to one side to crack your neck and then the other, you then shake out your hands. You're good.
“I’m gettin’ in with a counselor,” you say so lightly that it could be a whisper. “I can’t be seen ‘til the end of next month, though.”
“That’s good.”
“Yeah.”
Maybe I won’t feel so crazy then.
“Sy?” you utter, and when Sy questioningly lifts his eyebrows, you softly smile. Your eyes have entirely dried, and you honestly do feel much better. “Thank you for listening to me.”
Sy’s eyes bore into yours. “Happy to.”
“But here I’ve done nothin’ but talk about myself this entire time,” you mumble, wiggling in his lap. “How was your day? How are you?”
“Been a shit day for me, too, honestly,” he admits.
You frown while trying not to feel guilty for taking over the entire night with your own bullshit while ignoring Sy entirely. “What’s wrong?”
“Knee’s flarin’ up somethin’ awful,” he admits. “Nothin’s helpin’ but whiskey.”
“Sy,” you mumble in sympathy. “Did you go get your shot this week?”
He nods. “At this rate, they’re fixin’ to refer me to an actual specialist. And when I say that, I mean they’ve been threatenin’ it for ages and are gonna come down hard now.”
“‘Cause you’ve been too stubborn?”
He grunts.
“Maybe I should amp you up, then,” you suggest. “Sit here and tell you how great you are and how everyone loves you and how everyone wants your bum knee to be in better shape so you can drop-kick all the narcissists and–”
“I only care about one person who loves me,” Sy interrupts as he coaxes you backwards against the actual arm of the couch.
“Yeah?” you ask while you lay back a bit. “Your grandma is a special lady.”
After he leans down and presses his lips to yours, he chuckles out of his nostrils. The hot air against your face makes you smile. The kisses that follow are ungraceful.
Sy doesn’t care. When he breaks away, he looks down at you with a calm peace covering his face, a brightness filling his eyes. “Hey.”
“Hey.”
“You feelin’ any better now?”
You lift your hands to wrap around his neck and nod. “Thanks to you.”
He kisses you. When your mouths break apart, he speaks against your lips. “Come to Chattannooga with me.”
Maybe too tired by now, you don’t understand him at first. “Huh?”
“This weekend,” Sy says before sneaking another kiss. “Come to Chattannooga with me.”
“...What’s in Chattanooga?”
“Us. This weekend.”
You roll your eyes. “I mean, what’dju wanna do there?”
“Take you out.”
Sy puts his forehead down onto yours. You’re almost cross-eyed as you try to maintain eye-contact with him.
“Out on the town?” you ask. “The big city Chattanooga nights?”
“Yeah.” His eyes flash around your face. “Somewhere away from here for a while.”
Your eyes trail around his face, as well. “Yeah,” you whisper. “Alright.”
Hey girl I have a tummy ache and cramps and have to be at work today, I know poor me and the world is falling apart 🙃
Can you throw me a bone and can I have a snippet of Sy ETS? Literally not picky, just need a pick me up and your writing is my drug of choice.
xoxo- I’m obsessed with you ❤️
THANKS for such a nice compliment!
okay so i randomly looked in my drafts for something to share, and this is really random but it came from an ask a long time ago about what would happen if Y/N got in an accident. And I'm not going anywhere with it and obviously have too much to finish as it is. But it's in the ETS universe, so here you go.
Its 3k words, focus is on a car crash and then a hospital, so there are those themes. It's not fluffy or anything but maybe you'll like it? I hope you feel better than Y/N in this snippet 😅
It happens so fast. A crash. A flash. A scream. Your scream.
The exact visual of those commercials that try to push you into buying some new auto insurance–except alone. A happy moment singing along to the radio in the front seat of your car, suddenly catapulted into another moment–a different moment, a Horrible Moment. The scene of an accident.
It happens so fast. Like a person snapping their fingers.
Like a glass falling to the floor.
Like a gasp.
Like a vehicle running a red light.
Spinning inside the metal cage, there's no time to cuss like you usually do when startled unexpectedly. Like that time at Johnny's bonfire last year when Garrison accidentally bumped into you with all his dead-drunk body weight, sending you down down down to the hard and warmly-glowing dirt quicker than you could register what was even happening. You'd let out something so crass and spontaneous that you didn't even have memory of it until Sy brought it up months and months later. How impressed he'd been at your choice of words.
But this isn't like that.
This, you find out in the blink of an eye–a gasp, a glass falling, a finger-snap–is even quicker than falling to the ground. It's: one minute you're driving, and the next, your car is facing another direction, still. The air is still. Your once-jerking body is still. The world stops for a while. For you.
In between the two realities of Before and Right Now, your only physical ability is the high-pitched shriek you emit. A crash, a flash, a scream. Your scream. Nothing else–no colorful cussing, no rude Nice Job, Dumbass at whoever just crashed into your car. There's just the scream.
Just like being on a ride…like the rides at the county fair Sy had taken you to last week. Was it last week? It was recently. There's the same clanky propulsion. There's the same hands-gripping-whatever-they-could-to-get-through-it sensation. The same tightness. The inertia.
You let your head droop while your mind wanders off. The Now is still. But The In Between was just like the fair. Sy got you the prize there.
You and Sy had watched the scenes of last year's carnival together from one of the mountain overlooks. He'd driven you there in his loud truck that never got in wrecks. You'd had a picnic together. He asked if you were upset that you weren't down there with the fair people at that time, asked if you'd wanted him to win you a prize. Maybe a bear, he'd said. You don't remember. You don't remember much…
But he'd gotten you a prize this year. Or–last week. You already forget what it was, but it's home in the living room. A stuffie. A big one. Huge. And your brain hurts trying to think of the animal's face.
That was the Past, though, and now it's the Present, this new reality. This moment of you–once driving the car, now sitting in the car–with your seat-belt digging into your neck and your body that hurts like hell and a strange dust floating everywhere and two large airbags taking up so much space you can't even see anything.
So you just close your eyes again.
For something happening so quickly and propelling you into a strange new reality, everything else is–not quick. Or maybe it is and you're just too lucid, too stuck on remembering the fair. While your other senses dull, your sense of hearing only grows, and you listen as a repeating clicking sound inside your car slowly replaces the hum from the Beach Boys harmonizing.
Outside, voices loudly speak. You hear and feel the vibrations of the car door directly beside you being touched. Lights seem to flash behind your closed eyelids, and you have no option but to just listen to everything and wait.
As if you're sleeping, you seem to sit immobilized for a long time. You have nothing to go by, really, but your phone would tell you. You should get your phone out of the bag next to you. To figure out the time. And to call people to let them know that you're stuck in your car. Especially Sy.
You fight the powerful urge to actually fall asleep solely because you want to speak to him so much. He's suddenly all you see. He’s waiting on you.
When you try to blindly reach out towards the seat beside you, a shooting pain not in your arm but in your abdomen instantly hinders you. Your car door coincidentally opens immediately after that, though, and all the distant voices you've been hearing grow louder until it's just one. A male voice. A deep voice that sounds like Sy. Getting closer and closer. Looking directly at your wincing face. Speaking directly into your left ear.
He’s here. You can't open your eyes, but you try to. You try to ask, What time is it? You try to say his name.
The man–Sy, you mean, because he's big and large and who else would be this close to you?--snaps open a pocket knife with a flick. You know that sound. Sy has a pocket knife.
Except…as he leans in close again, you realize it's not Sy. Sy smells different. He's nicer-smelling than whoever this is. Suddenly near you. Speaking in your ringing ear.
You groan. You don't want someone besides Sy this close to you. Touching your shoulders. Talking to you.
"Don't move," Not-Sy tells you, and he slices your seatbelt where it's locked in place at your neck.
Right away, your chest feels better, but everything else–everything else hurts.
There's actually more pain than you've originally registered once something hard is fastened around your neck and you're pulled out of the car, like your very bloodstream is poisoned and throbbing, like every tiny bone you have within you is snapped in two, like the sinews of your neck are combusting. Even your skin feels melted.
"Keep those eyes open for me."
The ache consumes you as you find yourself suddenly flat on your back but somehow high up with people on both sides of you, floating in mid-air like they’re all keeping you from falling.
Right away, you prefer sitting back in the car to whatever this is. You had almost been asleep.
"Sy…"
But the people looking down at you aren't Sy. They're Not-Sy. You blur out their faces and focus on the night sky next, at all the stars floating far away, until you're jostled around so much that the starlight goes away entirely.
The next space you're in is small and cramped. Figuring out that the new set of people looking down at you are Not Sy either, you try to sit up to seek him out, to grab your phone, but you can't. Then you try to turn your head to look to the left, but you can't. Then you try to turn your head to the right–not happening. Your neck is immobile. You're entrapped.
"Can you tell me your name?"
While squinting up at the white metal roof, tears drop down your face and into the crevices of your ears.
"What hurts?"
Your head. Your neck. Your stomach. Your head.
You remember again after that–Sy's at the restaurant waiting for you. Your date. Your Friday night date. He'll think you stood him up. He won't have any idea where you are.
Not that you’d be able to eat dinner right now, anyway. Your stomach.
As much as they hurt your head, the voices around you continue speaking. They just won't go away.
"You're okay. You're alright. You're gonna be just fine."
and you grimace while there's another–
"Check her pupils…"
and then a soothing and calm–
"Stay with me, hon."
But you'd rather not. You'd rather just…close your eyes. Telepathically, you tell all the people in the back of the van that you're going to sleep now.
And you do.
When you find yourself opening your eyes again an indiscriminate time later, you’re in an entirely different environment. There's another white roof to look at, and there's still a bunch of people staring down at you, but this time, fluorescent lights shine down on you, too. Bright lights. Much too bright.
The lights are seriously just way too bright, and these people surrounding you are entirely too close, and you're–you’re waking up extremely fucking mad.
You're angry. Not even understanding why, you're pissed off. At every thing and every one–at every single person surrounding you–at every single object you can see. Even though you don't know who they are or where you are or what's even going on, you just know you're mad.
Impulsively, you lift your right arm and swing at the woman closest to you. You swing hard. Someone on your other side gasps and then restrains your wrists beside your face, but that just makes you fight back worse.
But you wouldn’t be able to get entirely free, anyway. They've put tubes in you. You've got fucking tubes in your arms.
“Get–off-me!” you yell while you begin kicking your feet.
An urgent and familiar feminine voice says your first name, but you don’t seek out the source, instead choosing to examine your arms in a panic.
Things are around your wrists. Plastic things–you don’t know the word. Colored wristbands. Tubes are connected to the back of your hand.
"Leave me the hell alone," you warn the people around you again. "Get off!"
“Y/N, calm down,” a voice distantly yet loudly calls out. “Ain’t no one try’na hurtchu here.”
No one's trying to hurt you, but people are actively restraining you? While you're hooked up to some –some machine beeping behind you? While one woman is touching your shoulder and the other is messing with the tall metal pole beside your bed? While only more are appearing from out of nowhere?
“Let-ME-GO!” you shout again, chest now moving rapidly as you try once again to get off the slender bed you're on.
"Baby, lay back an’ stop fightin’," you hear Sy command in the gentle but firm way you're so used to. "You're okay. They're here to help you."
Sy's voice usually calms you, but you're not even sure if it is Sy's voice, so your eyes start burning with angry frustration. It's probably Not-Sy again because the actual Sy is waiting for you at the restaurant. The place with the gluten-free pizza.
With your chest heaving, you desperately kick your feet in the air until you find that you’re physically no longer able to. A fire burning in your veins halts any and all movement you attempt after that.
Starting around your arms and then smashing into your head and exploding there, the burn travels everywhere inside your bloodstream until at last reaching your fingertips and the tips of your toes and the insides of your ears. With a limp wrist, you unconsciously settle back in bed as relaxation is forced upon you.
When you finally see Sy next to you among the retreating nurses, you heavily blink up at him. “Are you real?”
Almost grimly, Sy nods. He takes your decrepit hand in his and holds it while the both of you just stare at one another.
You glance away to look around the room. You’re obviously in a hospital, but you don’t know which one. The town has two of them–one with an okay reputation and one with a shitty one–but since you’ve never been a patient at either place before, you have nothing to go by.
You shift your focus to your body. Your leg isn’t suspended in mid-air with a cast on it. You're not missing any body parts. No giant chunks of your skin are missing or burned or weird-looking. Nothing seems out of place. Nothing even hurts.
But at the same time, everything hurts. You feel so strange.
"Nurse Ratchet bullshit," you mutter while Sy’s thumb caresses the back of your hand, careful of the thick tape keeping the IV in place. "Better not come back in here an' touch me."
Sy fails to hide a chuckle at you, and you cast him a scowl. “Are you really Sy?” you ask. "Are you real?"
“Real as the day's long.”
You sigh. “Yeah, you’re real, alright. You and these southern analogies,” you slur.
With a fondness you can sense, Sy smiles down at you. If you can call it a smile. His face is wrinkled in worry.
“Y’all Georgians love to compare everything y’all can to some, like…Green Acres fresh-from-the-farm….shit. 'Yup, I’m fine as frog hair'," you pull a long face and say in a deep, heavily-accented voice. "'Happy as a pig in shit. Mad as a wet hen.'”
Sy continues to laugh. You snatch your hand away from his and place it on your stomach, right on top of the weird gown they've got you in. It hurts. "Stop makin' fun'a me."
"Ain't my intent." He holds up his hands in apology. "Never seen you like this, 's all."
You pout. "It's not my fault."
"I know it's not," Sy earnestly replies with zero ounce of condescension whatsoever, and in response to his gentleness towards you, you start to cry.
You hurt, and he is really real.
Suddenly, you're back in your car, alone and dazed and immobilized and confused, just wishing for some sort of comfort or familiarity. For Sy himself. And now that he's here, you're still hurting.
Still, you know it’d be worse if he weren’t here at all.
"I don't know what happened,” you squeak out as you shake your head side to side, tears dripping from your eyes, “but I don't like this, Sy. I don't–I don't feel right."
Sy’s face falls as he watches you. “They…You…They gotchu on painkillers."
"I don't wanna be on painkillers," you whine like a child. "I don't wanna be here at all. I wanna go home."
"I know, baby,” he murmurs apologetically.
"I wanna go home to our bed and our chickens."
He nods at you shortly. “I don't like hospitals either."
Questions run through your mind–What even happened? How long will you be here?
Sy's hand on your forehead feels nice enough for you to close your eyes and relax into. With his thumb caressing your hairline, your breathing settles.
Soon, you hear Sy's phone buzz from his back pocket. He keeps his hand on your forehead as he answers it.
"Hey, yeah. Liana was able to let me inside the recovery room."
Recovery room?
"She’s comin' off the anesthesia now," you hear next while your eyes squint open again. "Yeah…Damn near gave the nurse a broken nose."
You stare up at Sy through glossy eyes. "Who is that? What d'you mean?" you almost slur. "What anesthesia?"
"Just lay on back and relax," Sy directs his attention to you again and instructs quietly. While he ends his phone call with You-Don't-Know, anxiety tries to break through whatever medicine you’ve got in your system.
"Why ana–" You swallow to try to help your dry throat. "Why anesthesia?"
A moment. Sy waits a moment. "You just got outta surgery."
Hastily–or so you think–you sit up and look down at yourself again.
"Baby, you gotta lay back."
"Surgery for what?!" you ask, but your words are difficult to formulate, and your throat is dry as hell, and surgery means a huge fucking medical bill. And pain. And–And–Just what kinda surgery is he talking about?
You’re able to get out: “What kinda surgery’re you talkin’ about?”
"I'll tell you soon," he promises.
"Why not now?"
"'Cause you still ain't yourself."
"Well, who the hell am I, then, Sy?" you ask without any bite, already settling back onto the pillow beneath your head.
"You're comin’ off anesthesia,” he says.
"Yes. You said that."
"You…"
As a team of nurses and assistants enter the room, things begin coming back to you like you've been on amnesia medicine that's been somehow reversed. You remember what Sy's saying. You remember now. You were driving, and then there was a crash, and then your airbags exploded. It's still unclear exactly what happened after that, but you remember people helping you, and now you're in the hospital.
After having surgery.
You hate every second of this. People seeing you like this. People watching you. You're a spectacle. You're on display. You try to hide your face with your hands, but it just makes machines beside you beep.
"This is too much attention."
"It'll be over soon."
"I hate this, I hate this, I hate this…"
"Y/N, look at me," Sy instructs. He waits until you do and murmurs, "It'll all be over soon."
Slowly, you nod. You guess no one else watching you really does matter.
But it's such a small town and people are gonna know and they're gonna talk and–
You take the hand that Sy puts on the bed and just squeeze it.
Within the next thirty minutes, your mind defogs entirely, and more bits and pieces of how you landed in this place come back to you in snapshot scenes in your mind's eye. You try to avoid them entirely by dozing off to sleep.
"How ya doin', Champ?"
You open your eyes to find Liana in your room.
"Feel like I've been hit by a bus," you groan, not even able to smile at her.
She and Sy share a look. Sy's face is grim.
"Yeah, well," she mumbles.
You remain quiet while trying to remember if you're supposed to know what vehicle hit yours. You don't think you ever found that out.
"...Did I get hit by a bus?" you ask.
"A van," Sy answers.
"A van," you repeat.
Sy affirms your question with a nod, and you can tell he's less than happy.
"But-but my car…"
"Gone," Sy utters.
"Seriously?" You groan long and heavy.
Sy blows out hot air from between his lips. Then he steps into the hallway with his arms crossed across his broad chest.
"Can you tell me what even happened, please?" you ask Liana. "Sy's bein' all closed-off."
She pulls a sympathetic face. "He hasn't left your side…Hasn't been sleepin'," she explains. "Probably just a combination of stress and exhaustion. And…anger."
"Why anger?" you ask. "'Cause he's stuck in a hospital?"
"No, Y/N, at–" She sighs instead of answering. "So listen. I got paged Friday night–"
Attn: So I was once again inspired by a Sleep Token song, I’ll link it below if anyone is interested. This is the angsty Sy fic that came from it. I don’t do a lot of angst but I hope you all enjoy it all the same!
Word Count: 1,220
Pairing: Sy x Wife Reader
Summary: Sy’s home, and having a hard time.
Warnings: 18+, mention of sex, mention of a MIA soldier, injuries, depression, stress, PTSD, angst
It had been eight long months since you’d seen your husband. It was his final tour, and from what you’d been informed of, one of his hardest. There was an ambush of some sort. So many injured, including Sy, and his Sargent was MIA. He and Sargent Andrews had been in service together from the beginning, and were close friends, so it wore on him greatly.
You stand anxiously at the base’s air strip, waiting for him. You can tell it’s him as soon as he gets off the plane. As he got closer you could see all the bruises on his face. The small cut on the bridge of his nose, the black eye, and the busted lip. It brings tears to your eyes. You want to throw yourself into his arms but know he’d also suffered a few cracked ribs, so you don’t to avoid hurting him. When he finally catches sight of you, he moves quickly.
You stand there in his favorite sundress, a pretty little angel that’s all his. He needs you. He wraps his arms around you so tightly you can hardly breathe but you don’t care. He’s here, battered and bruised, but he’s alive. “Baby,” he breathes, taking your face in his hands. “I’m here,” you reply. He crashes his lips into yours, seemingly trying to drink you in. “I love you,” he then tells you. “I love you too,” you say.
When you two get home he insists on making love, despite your protests over his injuries. “Please darlin’. I need this. I need you. Need to know this is real,” he pleads. You acquiesce with the requirement of you doing all the work so he won’t agitate his injuries. You want him just as much as he wants you, but don’t want to cause him any more pain.
The first few weeks are like this. His need to be close to you is all consuming. He doesn’t even want to leave the house, apart from his therapy meetings. Finally his family convinces him to a welcome home barbecue. That’s where you can see it, his trauma slipping through. One moment he’s laughing, having an amazing time, the next he becomes hollow. Seemingly an empty shell, surrounded by people but not focusing on much.
“Hey you,” you say as you sit yourself in his lap. “Hey baby,” he smiles softly as you leaned down to give him a kiss. “Tired?,” you question. “A little,” he admits. “It’s okay, Sy,” you tell him with a kiss to the top of his head. He holds you tighter and rests his head on your chest. “I love you,” you say. “I love you too, so much baby,” he replies as he squeezes you tighter.
His therapy sessions continue but the fact Andrews was still missing weighed on Sy. He began having night terrors, and frequent panic attacks. There was also the other thing. It was getting worse. It was almost as if he’d leave for a while. One moment he’d be there present and engaging, then the next he’d seem far away. You weren’t sure if he was sharing all of this with his care team, but you really hoped he was.
About a month after his return you got your answer on whether he was being forthcoming. You awoke startled to the sound of thunder rumbling and an empty bed. “Sy,” you call out. You got no answer in return so you quickly threw the covers back and went looking for him. “Eric!,” you call through the house. Nothing… until you heard shouting coming from outside.
You run through the front door to find Sy standing in the pouring rain calling out for Sargent Andrews. You approach him carefully. “Sy,” you beckon. He advances, grabbing you by the shoulders. “Steven… where’s Steven?,” he asks. “He’s not here. Sy. Baby,” you say as he looked at you. “Wait… Sweetheart?,” he questions. “It’s me. You’re home, you’re okay,” you tell him. “It’s raining,” he replies. “Let’s get you inside,” you say as you gently take him by the hand.
He follows you wordlessly, letting you strip him before ushering him into a warm shower. You strip as well, joining him to knock the chill off. When you enter he’s sat on the floor. “Hey,” you say softly as you knelt down before him. He shakes his head, not meeting your eye. “Eric,” you say as you reached out for him. “Why do you wanna be with a broken thing like me for anyway?,” he then questions, taking you aback.
“What’s that supposed to mean?,” you ask, hurt flooding through you. “I’m fucked up darlin’ if you can’t tell. You don’t deserve this. This ain’t what you signed up for,” he tells you. “If I remember correctly our vows said for better or worse,” you answer. He shook his head again. “This is eating me alive baby, and I’m gonna take you right down with me. This… this is gonna cost you your sanity, your mind. All you do lately is worry about me and that ain’t right. You shouldn’t have to,” he says, eyes full of tears.
You move to straddle his lap. Sy lets you but hangs his head as his shoulders heave with his sobs. You take his face in your hands, making him meet your eye. “You listen to me right now. I don’t give a damn what it costs. You’re my husband. My family. My everything. You’re not going to go through this alone, and you’re not going to push me away just because you’re worried about me. I’m okay. All I want is for you to be okay, and I’m going to make sure you are. I’m going to be here no matter what, and if you have an issue with that, then that’s just too bad,” you tell him firmly.
He chuckles lightly through his sobs. “Funny. All them months away I almost forgot how stubborn you are,” he says with a soft smile. “I may be stubborn, but do you understand Sy? I love you, and I’m not leaving you. Not now. Not ever,” you say finitely. “I understand,” he replies. “Good. Have you been telling your therapist about all this?,” you then ask. He averts his eyes, giving you the answer. “You have to tell him,” you insist. “I know baby, I do. It just hard,” he says with a shuttering breath.
“I can’t pretend to know what you’re going through, but I’m sure it is. You’re so strong Sy, but with this, you don’t have to be. Let people in. Let them help,” you say. “I’m gonna do better,” he nods. “Don’t start being hard on yourself now,” you say as you swipe tears from his face. “I ain’t, but I know you’re right. I can’t get the help I need hiding my problems. I just feel so bad. He’s out there having God knows what done to him, or dead. Don’t seem fair I made it out and he didn’t,” he sniffles.
“I’m sorry,” you say softly as you caress his face. “I know,” he says as he holds you tighter. You two sit there wrapped up in one another for a long while before he speaks again. “Thank you,” he whispers. “Always baby,” you tell him.
Thanks to @hederasgarden, this man has been on the brain today.
SO NSFW below the cut.
Being stuck in a desert gave Syverson a lot of time to think. And no matter what, he always came back to you. Your smile, your scent, your pussy.
His mouth would water and he could taste you. Every day he groaned appreciation for his private room due to his rank. Because his mind couldn't stop once it started, not until he was thrusting into his hand and grunting your name.
He vowed early on in his deployment that he would come home and eat you out until you passed out, cock be damned. He needed to hear you whimpering, he was desperate to feel you writhing. So he trained.
Neck and shoulder muscles, obviously. Forearms, wrists, fingers. And sunflower seeds. Perfect workout for the tongue.
The day he touched down stateside, he begged you to stay home. He knew he'd be unable to control himself because he knew you'd be in that tiny little powder blue sundress, the one that hugged your ample curves in the way he'd dreamed about. He knew that he'd smell your perfume from across the airport. And he knew that the drive home would be torture. He'd even take the bullshit from his unit about not having anyone there to avoid having you under his palms and not able to do anything about it.
You didn't listen, of course. Your floral perfume wafted around you as you stood at the back of the pack, hidden from view of the rest of the Marines returning home. You knew Sy didn't care about your love handles - he loved that you had them. Gave him something to hold on to while you sat on his face. But you still didn't want anyone to see you. Because you already knew he should be with someone smaller.
You watched him walk through the terminal and his head snapped up almost immediately. His head started swiveling around, his eyes obviously searching the crowd. The moment his gaze landed on you, you could see it in his eyes. They softened and then narrowed in determination. His speed quickened and he pushed his way through his men until he stood before you. Dropping his sea bag at your feet, his arms wrapped around you and he lifted you from the ground, his face buried in your neck.
"I asked you to wait at home."
"You knew I wouldn't."
"We have to go now."
"Why? I can't meet your -"
"NOW," he growled with a nip to your neck.
The drive home was quiet, but quick. Sy drove, his hand on your knee the whole time. You focused your gaze out the window, lost in thought and lost in the way he pushed you out of the airport door without introducing you around.
He threw the car in park and jumped out, making it around the car before you could even unbuckle your seatbelt. The car door opened and he bent down, scooping you up bridal style and kicking the door closed with his foot.
"Sy, what are you doing?" you asked.
"Need you," he growled.
"Oh."
Just before he left, he'd changed out the doorknob to a digital keypad, making it quick to get inside. As soon as he crossed the threshold, he was setting you down on the nearest surface, which happened to be the kitchen island, and spreading your thighs.
He dropped to his knees and looked up at you, kissing your knee and moving up your inner thighs, pushing your dress up along with it.
"Sy," you whined.
"Shh, baby, let me be," he muttered as his nose nudged your clothed mound, his fingers pulling your thin lace panties to the side. "I dreamed of this. Jacked off to the memory every fucking day. Let me have this."
As his tongue licked a wide stripe through your folds, all thoughts of his hasty departure were forgotten. His hands wrapped under your knees and gripped your hips tightly as he set a frantic pace, the pace of a man starved, a man left in the desert with nothing for weeks on end. The pace of a man who's tasted mana from the heavens for the first time.
Wave after wave of pleasure crested over you until tears streaked from your eyes and you writhed in attempts to detach yourself from his face, to get some kind of reprieve from the immense pleasure and innumerable climaxes he'd given you in the time he'd crossed the doorway of your home.
He slowed his pace, pulling away and kissing the redness on your thighs from his stubble. He looked up with a grin, his face soaked. "Can we go upstairs for more?"
"More?!" you squeaked as you panted above him.
"Well, I still have about eight months of orgasms to make up for."
Attn: Sugar Daddy Sy coming in hot!!! I hope y’all enjoy 😊
Word Count: 2,488
Pairing: Billionaire Sy x Petite OFC Sarah Kincaid
Summary: Sy and Sarah meet. He gets to know her before asking her a big question.
Warnings: 18+ themes, Sugar Daddy/Sugar Baby, age gap
It was a rainy Tuesday morning. Twenty three year old Sarah Kincaid was making her way to Fraser Family Dental for her second month of dental assistant training. The program would last a year but when she was done it would be well worth it. From ages eighteen till now she’d been working her ass off, trying to help her mother with her four siblings in the aftermath of their father’s passing.
She’d started courses at college, then had to stop. Rinse and repeat. She’d come out with no degree but plenty of student debt. She knew it was time for a career, and this was something she could do where she’d be helping people. Plus the pay and benefits were steady. When she arrived she pulled the hood of her raincoat over her head and scrambled inside before the heavy rainfall soaked her to the bone.
“Ah, good morning Sarah,” Dr. Fraser greeted. “Good morning,” Sarah replied, hanging up her coat. “That rain is rough this morning, huh? There are fresh pastries and coffee in the break room that you’re more than welcomed to,” Dr. Fraser then said. “Oh thanks so much. I’m freezing,” Sarah replied as she threw on her scrub jacket. Sarah was thankful to have such a kind doctor to work under. Dr. Fraser was sweet, motherly even, and between her and the staff, it made for a pleasant work environment.
Sarah grabbed a coffee and pastry quickly before patients started coming in. “If it’s okay with the patient, would you want to observe while Wren and I repair a chipped tooth? The appointment is at nine,” Dr. Fraser questioned. “Sure. Haven’t watched one of those yet,” Sarah replied. Nine rolled around and Wren let Sarah know she could observe.
When she walked into the room she found an absolute bear of a man sitting in the chair. He hardly fit. Thick thighs and arms spilling over the sides. “Mr. Syverson’s been a patient here for years but never had as much as a cavity. Now he has a chipped tooth. This is one of our students, Sarah Kincaid,” Dr. Fraser told him. Sy appraised her, eyes roaming from the tip of her strawberry blonde head to the end of her 5’3” frame. She could feel the heat rushing to her cheeks as he extended a hand.
Sarah knew exactly who he was. He was the owner of the multibillion dollar corporation, Syverson Group after all. Luxury goods and who knows what else came and went through that company, and here was the man at the helm of it all. It was no wonder that along with his size, he exuded so much power. He was power.
“Nice to meet you, Sugar,” he drawled as he engulfed her hand in his much larger one. “H— How’d you chip your tooth Mr. Syverson,” she then asked. “Please, call me Sy, and my buddy, August, and I meet up to spar once every week or so. He’s never chipped a tooth before, but comes with the territory,” he smiled. “Boxing?,” Sarah questions. “Yep. It’s good exercise”, he continues to smile. “Alright. Let’s begin. Sarah you just pay attention to what Wren’s doing alright?,” Dr. Fraser says. “Yes ma’am,” Sarah replied.
Sarah watches the procedure so intently she doesn’t realize Sy’s eyes are on her the entire time. He takes her in. Curtain bangs she keeps pushing back from her face until she eventually tucks them behind her ears, bright hazel eyes, the cutest freckles dancing across her cheeks and nose, soft pink lips. He has to keep himself in check. Between how stunning she is and the fact she’s so tiny, it’s driving him wild. He has to keep himself from imagining all the ways he could take her, seeing that it’d be so easy. He could admit to himself he had a bit of a size kink, there was no shame in it.
“Alright. We’re all done here,” Dr. Fraser says, breaking him out of his trance. “Thank you. I’d say until next time but hopefully August won’t break anymore of my teeth. Sarah, nice meetin’ you,” he drawls. “You too,” she says before Wren leads him to the front. He pays what’s due before heading out to his black F-250, cranking it up, and pulling up his contacts. “Syverson,” the voice comes through truck’s speakers.
“Walker. I need you to find out everything you can about a Sarah Kincaid,” Sy tells him. August was in the information retrieval business and was damn good at it. “A potential problem?,” August asks. “Somethin’ like that,” Sy says. “I’ll have the information to you by the end of day,” August says before hanging up.
That evening Sy was sat at his office when August walked in with a file. “Sarah Kincaid. Twenty three years old, healthy amount of student debt, I’m guessing from dropping in and out of college to help her mother with her four younger siblings and bills after their father unexpectedly passed away with lung cancer, currently in dental assistant training school, works nights at Belvedere as a bartender. Where’s the problem?,” August asks with raised eyebrows. “The problem is… I want her,” Sy says pointedly.
“Kind of young for someone your age don’t you think?,” August smirks. “I’m only thirty five, fucker, and I ain’t goin’ for your typical relationship here,” he says. “What are you saying?,” August quips as he places the file on Sy’s desk then sits across from him. “In our line of work it’s lonely as fuck. The choice of women is bountiful, sure, but all you get are these stuck up socialites or the ones who are dying to marry for as much of your money they can get. You know this. I’m thinkin’ more of somethin’ along the lines of the both of us benefiting,” Sy tells him.
“You think she’ll go for that?,” August asks. “All that debt… working herself to the bone to help family. She’s gotta be tired and honestly I am too. I want…,” Sy contemplates. “I want to know what I’m gettin’, and for the person I’m with to understand as well. Does that make me a terrible person?,” Sy asks. “People do it all the time. People do worse,” August shrugs. Sy opens the file and stares at the picture Sarah. Nearly as pretty as she’d been in person. “Maybe she’ll say yes” Sy says.
Sy waits until the next week to show up at Belvedere. It is a high scale bar he’s frequented before, but apparently not since she started there. He doesn’t want to spook Sarah by being too eager. When he sits down at the bar she’s surprised to see him nonetheless. “Mr. Syverson,” she says, a light blush dusting her cheeks. “Hello there darlin’, and it’s just Sy, remember?,” he drawls. “Right, Sy. What can I get you?,” she ask. “Whiskey,” he tells her. She pours him a glass before watching him take a sip. His blue eyes come alight when he realizes she’s staring.
“So how’s it goin’?,” he says, making small talk. “Oh… going good. Watched a few extractions this week. Didn’t even pass out like my classmate Ana did last week. It was awful,” she cringed. “She okay?,” Sy questions. “Yeah luckily she didn’t hurt herself when she fell. She was pretty embarrassed though,” Sarah tells him. “I imagine so,” he replies before finishing off his drink. “Another?,” she questions. “Sure,” he replies before she fills his glass again.
It’s a Tuesday so hardly busy at all. He’s happy to have her to himself, to be able to slowly get to know her a bit better. “How have you been? Hopefully no more boxing accidents,” she says lightly. “Naw. I made it up to August this go around. He’s sportin’ a nasty black eye that he’s not too happy about,” Sy chuckles. She shakes her head and laughs lightly. “The closest I’ve ever gotten to boxing is probably separating my two oldest brothers. They’re fourteen and twelve but God they’re huge. Got to fighting once, nearly killed me in the process,” she huffed.
“Yeah I can’t imagine such a delicate little thing fightin’,” he tells her. It brings the blush back to her cheeks. “Luckily my little sisters are much less aggressive,” she says. “Big family,” he comments. “Yeah. What about you?,” she questions. “It’s just me. My parents were told they couldn’t have children then I came along. My mama’s always goin’ on about “her little miracle,” he smiles softly. “Not so little anymore,” Sarah says before she thinks much of it. “Naw I suppose not,” he replies.
For the next two months he comes into the bar regularly to spend time with Sarah. He’s finding that he’s liking her more and more, so finally he bites the bullet and asks her to dinner. “Y— you want to go to dinner with me?,” she stammers. “Why not?,” he questions. “Because I’m an entire mess,” she tells him. “It ain’t exactly what you think Sugar. I got somethin’ I wanna ask, but here ain’t the place. It’s just dinner, and if you don’t like what I gotta say, then I won’t bother you again,” he tells her. “Well… now I am curious,” she says. “Good. Let’s exchange numbers. Drop me a pin to your place and I’ll pick you up around six thirty,” he says.
Sarah did as asked then went home late that night restless with anticipation. The next day she agonized over what to wear to dinner. Sy told her they would having dinner at a restaurant he owned. It was fancy. Way nicer than anything she would’ve ever chosen on her own. She rummaged through her closet before settling on a silky blush pink dress that seemed appropriate. By the time she fixed her hair in an half up style, and applying her makeup Sy was at her door.
He showed up, roses that matched her dress in hand. “Oh… thank you,” she said softly. She invited him in while rummaging for a vase for them. “These are pretty,” she tells him. “Just like you little darlin’. You ready?,” he said as he held his hand out to her. She gingerly takes his hand and lets him lead her out to his truck. Ever the gentleman, he helps her in, making sure she doesn’t fall from the sidesteps. “Thank you,” she says before he closes the door.
When they arrive at the restaurant Sarah is surprised to find it vacant. “Is it open?,” she asks. “Wanted it to be just the two of us Sugar,” Sy said before getting out. When she starts to get out, he grabs her about the waist and sets her on the ground. The feeling of his big hands on her has her heart fluttering wildly. “Come on,” he says while placing his hand at the small of her back. Inside they’re seated before being brought the menu. “I don’t think I can afford this place,” Sarah admits. “Darlin’ I own the place, it’s on the house,” Sy says. “Are you sure?,” she questions. “Of course. Order whatever you want,” he assures her.
After a few glasses of wine and an appetizer Sarah is more at ease. She leans in, making Sy smile. “What is it Sugar?,” he asks. “What’s it like? Owning a big ass company? Being the boss?,” she asks. “It has its perks, but it’s also a massive pain in the ass. Satisfyin’ yet annoyin’,” he says honestly. “I guess that’s understandable. The pressure…,” she trails off. “It can be a lot sometimes. Not many people understand what it’s like, or at least they’re not empathic like you,” he says. “Of course. I— I understand pressure if I understand anything,” she says.
“You’re good for what you’re doin’. Takin’ care of your family. It shouldn’t be on your shoulders. Wh— what if I could help?,” he says cautiously. “How so?,” she replies. “Well the thing I’ve been wantin’ to ask you. How would you like bein’ taken care of financially?,” he says. “God that would be amazing,” she says wistfully. He looks at her, seeing she hasn’t realized what he was implying. “What if I took care of you financially?,” he says directly. “Why would you do that?,” she asks.
“Because I’ve liked you from the moment I saw you. Been attracted to you.. I like you even more the more I’ve gotten to know you,” he tells her. “And what would you get from this?,” she says before taking a sip of her wine. “Companionship. Honest companionship. We’d know what this is. I wouldn’t have to worry about…. ulterior motives or you bein’ a bad person because I know you’re not,” he says. “A— Are you saying you want to be my Sugar Daddy? Is this what this is?,” she says, looking up at him with those big hazel eyes. “That’s exactly what I’m sayin,” he breathes.
“Sy… I— I dunno. What if it doesn’t work?,” she questions. “Why wouldn’t it? I like you, respect you. Do you feel the same?,” he asks. “I do. Wouldn’t people find it strange? I mean our different social statuses, the age difference?,” she ponded. “I don’t give a damn about either of those things. I’ll put it simply. I want you Sarah. I want to take care of you, and for you… You ain’t a virgin are you?,” he asks. “God no,” she laughs. “I’ve had a friend’s with benefits before actually, but all I got from that was some okay sex and a headache,” she tells him.
“The sex would be good. I can assure you that. It ain’t just about me,” he says. “What if you don’t like me… in bed?,” she asks while looking down. He takes her chin between his thumb and forefinger, making her meet his eye. “Ain’t no way that would happen darlin’. No way in hell,” he says firmly. She sits quietly, worry etching her features. “Look if you want I’ll put it all in writing, spell it all out for us. We can do this a little bit at a time. I’ll start by payin’ them student loans you got. We can start with a three month contract,” he says. “I’d owe you more than three months with the amount—,” she begins. “Three months and if you’re happy with this arrangement then we’ll continue. If not, you can walk away, no questions asked,” he says.
Sarah contemplates, weighing the pros and cons of the situation. Her brain keeps asking her what would it hurt so finally she speaks. “Do I have to call you Daddy?,” she asks playfully. It has blood running straight between Sy’s legs. “Only if you want Sugar,” he says with a lopsided grin. Sarah returns his smile with a soft giggle. “So we’re doin’ this?,” Sy inquires. “Yeah, let’s do it,” she replies.
Summary: Your friend finds out you've been hooking up with Andy and reminds you that if he's not in it for the long haul, you need to cut it off before you get hurt. Lucky for you, Andy might just be on the same page.
Warnings: Age gap, starting to admit feelingssss, flashback in italics
Word count: ~1,100
a/n: *taps mic* is anyone still out there? 👁️👁️
part one • part two
Andy hums against your lips when he feels you move your hands from his face and gently push them against his chest. “Hm?”
Not breaking the kiss to respond, your words come out mumbled. “Let me be on top.”
But he understands you perfectly. His breath is warm against your cheek as he pulls away slightly, laughing before rolling over and bringing you with him so you're straddling his waist, hovering above him.
Your lips return to his like a magnet. You've hooked up with him enough times now that neither of you are in a desperate rush this time, just sharing slow kisses as you press your hips closer to his.
His warm hands running up and down your exposed back send a wave of goosebumps across your skin.
“Why am I always the first one with my shirt off?” You whisper.
Your fingers fumble with the buttons on his, groaning in frustration when you can't get the third one undone.
“You gotta stop wearing these button-ups.”
“Bossy tonight,” he tsks, moving his kisses toward your neck as he takes over unbuttoning his shirt for you.
When he nips playfully at your skin, his teeth graze against a spot that's sensitive from the other night.
It reminds you of the conversation you had with your friend yesterday… She found out you’ve been doing more than just babysitting at Andy’s house.
You moan softly, but pull away.
There's a pause when you look in his eyes.
His smile falters a bit. “What's wrong?”
“I need to talk to you about something.” Your voice is quiet until you try to be stern with your next sentence. “And I need you not to laugh at me.”
He chuckles, moving to sit up a bit so you don't have to awkwardly talk looking down at him.
“My best friend found out I've been seeing you…”
Your voice trails off as you think back to it.
“Why are you still wearing that?” She teasingly tugged at the winter scarf you hadn't taken off yet as you sat down to each lunch with her. “It's like a sauna in here–”
She gasped, bringing a hand up over her mouth when she saw the mark on your neck and put the scarf back in place.
“Who gave that to you?” She whisper yelled. “Fuck, don't tell me you got back with–”
“No,” you said quickly, glaring at her for thinking you'd ever go back to the guy whose name you knew she was gonna say.
When that wasn't it, it wasn't hard for her to figure it out by process of elimination.
“All you do is work and babysit… Who could you possibly–”
Another gasp had you rolling your eyes, but you couldn't help but look guilty.
“The dad?!”
“Shhhh,” You looked around to make sure no one was listening. “So what?”
“So what?” She scoffed. “He's married.”
“Separated,” you corrected her.
It was her turn to roll her eyes. “What about the fact he's basically old enough to be your dad?”
You shrugged, shaking your head at her. “It's not like I set out to get with him. It just kind of happened.”
She looked amused by you trying to defend yourself.
“What, you just accidentally stumbled into his bed?”
“If you must know, the first time wasn't even in his bed, so,” you shrugged, taking a sip of your coffee.
“Ew,” she chuckled. “I don't even want to know.” Her look of disgust faded and she got more serious. “May I remind you that you don't do hookups? You get attached.”
“I do not,” you scoffed.
She didn't bother arguing. She knew she was right and that you knew she was too.
“You're gonna get hurt if he's just using you as a temporary bed buddy.”
She knew she got through to you when a moment of silence washed over the two of you.
Your mind was wandering when she decided to cut the tension instead of make you feel any worse.
“So the dick is that good?”
His hand squeezing your thigh pulls you out of your daydream.
“It's okay…” He assures, thinking at first that you're nervous because someone knows. “I'm not actively trying to hide you.”
“No, I know,” you chuckle. “I know. But she reminded me that I don't just hook up with people. I get attached and I get hurt. And I can feel myself liking you more every time we see each other. So as much fun as I'm having with you doing… whatever it is we're going, I can't keep doing it if you're only interested in me when we're in bed together.”
He tries to get a word in, but you're rambling at this point.
“And this is so embarrassing if that is how you feel–”
You miss the smirk on his face in your pursuit of avoiding his gaze.
“How do you know how I feel if you won't let me talk?” He teases.
“Sorry,” you laugh. “The floor is yours, Mr. Barber.”
“I like you.” He says it slowly to make sure you're listening and it's as if your body physically relaxes hearing him. “I didn't wanna come on too strong and assume you wanted anything more than…” He gestures at the position you two are in and repeats your words. “Whatever we've been doing.”
“Really?”
“Really,” he nods, holding your face to give you a quick kiss.
"So you'd take me on a date?" You raise an eyebrow, gauging whether you really are on the same page.
"I would love to take you on a date," he whispers against your lips.
Wordlessly, you sit up and climb off of him to gather your discarded shirt and the rest of your stuff.
He lets out a short laugh, confused about if he said something wrong all of a sudden.
“Where are you going?”
“Don't you listen?” You kneel back on the bed, getting teasingly close to him. “I don't sleep with guys I'm not dating.”
“We're way past that, sweetheart,” he reminds you.
You roll your eyes, getting back up. “Let me know when that first date is.”
“Then you'll sleep with me again?” He jokes.
“Depends on how good the date is,” you wink.
He tries to quickly grab you and pull you back in bed, but you're skipping out of his room yelling good night! before he can get you.
“Brat,” is what his text reads when you get home and look at your phone.
You don't think your smile can get any bigger until you see the message that follows.
sds father's day!! what happens if andy's working hard on a big case through the weekend? he should know by now that it's not healthy but it's a reaaaally big deal 🥺💕
Uh oh! That wouldn't be good 🥺
"Andy." You stand outside his door, peeking in through the crack. Andy sighs and rubs his eyes as he pushes back from his desk, turning around to give you a tired smile.
"Hey, honey." He motions for you to come closer which you happily do, perching yourself on his lap. You run your fingers through his hair, making him practically purr, leaning into your touch.
"It's almost dinner time. You're not working all weekend, tomorrow's father's day." You gently chide.
"I know, but it's important that this gets done. It's a huge case, I can't mess it up." You shake your head and gently poke your little finger into his chest as you speak, making Andy chuckle.
"No, it's Father's Day. The kids want to spend time with their father. And I want to spend time with my husband." His arms wrap around your waist and you snuggle into his warm embrace.
"I've been neglecting you guys, haven't I?"
"A little. We understand that this is important, but we're your family. We love you."
"Oh honey.. I love you too, I'm sorry. I love you so much." He lifts your chin up and presses a tummy fluttering kiss to your lips, which you happily return. After a moment you pull back and rub your nose against his.
"Turn that computer off, it can wait until Monday." Andy chuckles again and nods, existing out of everything and shutting the computer down.
"Thank you for the reminder, baby. Now let me help you with dinner."
Summary: It’s always good to have some alone time once in a while.
Warnings: it’s porn. Cursing words and all of those forbidden things hehehehe.
A/N: SEX.
Word count: 1355
Disclaimer: I do not give permission for any of my works to be copied, used, translated nor reposted anywhere else but here on this blog. Do not steal what you didn’t work for. Minors and ageless blank blogs don’t interact with me or my works. Reblogs and likes are always welcome. Thank you for reading this work of fiction.
GIF's not mine, you can find the credits under the gif :)
♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥
Maddy, a 15 year old girl, was Jake’s new nanny. Andy hired her whenever they had their date night. Jake was running around the living room, Maddy closely behind him.
“Alright, we are leaving.” Andy said.
“Yes, Mr. Barber.”
“You know our numbers, if anything happens, anything at all, please call us, ok?”
“Yes, of course!”
Annie came down the stairs wearing the dress Andy gave her for their first anniversary of dating, it was a beautiful navy blue dress with noodle straps and an A cut skirt to her mid-thigh, a pair of white snickers and a light white sweater on top.
“I’m ready!”
“Let’s go.”
“Bye, guys!” Annie waved Jake and Maddy goodbye and off they went.
Andy turned on the engine and then turned to see Annie.
“You look beautiful.” He gave her a peck.
“Thank you. You look handsome.” Another peck, “So what’s the plan?”
“Dinner then Movie Theater.”
“I’ll choose the movie.”
“Deal!”
It was close to 10 when they walked into the movie theater. The room was almost empty, except for a few more people a couple of rows in front of them. 15 minutes into the movie when Annie got closer to Andy.
“Andy?” She whispered.
“Hmm?”
“I’m bored.”
“What? You chose this movie.”
“I know, but is boring.”
“It’s not. Just pay attention; it’s good.”
Annie huffed and turned her face to the screen. She had missed the first 15 minutes and now she was not interested in whatever was happening in front of her.
She then put her hand on Andy’s tight, creeping higher bit by bit.
“What are you doing?” Andy hold her hand.
“I told you I’m bored.”
“Are you insane? Someone might see us.”
“Who? There are like 3 people here and us.”
“I wanna see the movie.”
“Look, either we leave now or I’m sucking your dick right here, right now.”
Andy thought she was joking but her face was completely serious. And when Andy didn’t move, she leaned towards his lap. So he stood up, grabbed her hand and left the theater.
“That was bold.” Andy said once they were outside.
“Yeah, whatever.” They stood there for a minute, “What do we do now?”
“Go home?”
“Sure!”
They walked to the parking lot and climbed in the car.
“I have an idea.” Annie said, a playful smile on her face.
“What?
“I want to have sex.”
“No, really?” He said in a sarcastic note, “I got that 5 minutes ago! That’s why we are going home.”
“No, I want to have sex here, now.”
“WHAT?!”
“What?”
“It’s a public place! If someone see us…”
“There’s no one here!”
“I’m the ADA, I have an image to…”
“Oh, please! I’m sure you can manage.”
“No, no way!”
“Come on, it’s gonna be fun.” She grabbed his hand and put it between her legs. Andy felt her wetness right away.
“Are you not wearing panties?”
“Nop.” His fingers caressed her folds, finding her little button making her moan.
“Fuck.”
“Please, Andy.” She got closer and kissed him with need, “No one, will see us.”
He thought for a moment while he kept his ministrations on her clit. But then he removed his hand.
“We better go home.” Andy started the engine and Annie let out a frustrated sigh.
Andy was driving carefully on Main Street but his mind was elsewhere, thinking about Annie’s pretty pussy. His knuckles were turning white as he grabbed the wheel with force trying hard to keep it together, but his pants were getting tighter and tighter for his own liking. He suddenly gave a turn to the left.
“Where are we going?” Annie asked confused and the car came to a stop. The lights of the car illuminate the end of an empty alley. Andy turned off the lights.
“Come here.” Andy pounced towards her kissing hard with lust. Annie moaned into the kiss, and they only stopped once they needed air.
“But you said…”Annie began but Andy cut her off.
“Get on my lap.” He opened the fly of his pants and took his hard dick out. He pumped it a few times. “You want this?” Annie nodded and bit her lip. Andy pull his seat backwards as much as he could and Annie climbed on his lap, rubbing her pussy on his length.
Andy took her by her hips and pull her up, her pussy almost at his eye level. Her slit was barely wet and he dove in. His tongue lapping at her entrance.
“Oh fuck!” Annie was trying to keep her balance against the wheel. Andy sucked her clit slightly. “God!” Annie pushed her head back.
“Fuck, I need you.” Andy said with her beard glistening in his spit and her juices. He took his member and rubbed it against her slit before slid in. His girt stretched her deliciously. Once he bottom out, they sighed and moaned together.
Andy was just adjusting to her warm hole when Annie began humping him. His dick coming in and out of her.
“Fuck, that’s it, fuck yourself on me.” Annie move faster and faster, chasing her release.
“Andy…” she breathily moaned.
“You gonna come, baby?”
“Yeah… fuck!” Her pace was faster than ever, Andy could feel her walls squeezing him. “I…Can’t…”
Andy looked at her, her brows were knit together. He look down to her pussy and his finger rubbed her clit fast.
“SHIT! YES! JUST LIKE THAT! PLASE DON’T STOP!!!!! FUCK!!!!! I’M COMING!!!!”
Andy moaned as he felt her coming against his cock and her walls milked his dick. The warm feeling of his load filled her pussy and Annie lean against his forehead.
“That was…” Annie began.
“Amazing.”
“Yeah.”
They were catching their breath, still join together at their middle when the tap against the now foggy window made them jump. Andy pull the window down only to be met by a flashlight.
“Alright, lovebirds.” The voice sounded very familiar to them. “Oh my god, Annie?” The man moved the light from their faces. “Andy?!”
“Seb, what the fuck?!” Andy said.
“Me?! Why are you doing?! No, never mind I can see.” He said in a teasing tone looking down a bit.
“Don’t fucking look!” Andy said as Annie hid her face in his neck.
“I knew this car looked familiar!” he laughed, “Wait until Anthony hears about this.”
“Don’t you fucking dare!” Andy said pointing Sebastian with his finger.
“Can we go?!” Annie said this time, her face was red. Andy didn’t know if it was because of her orgasm, embarrassment or both.
“Sure! I’ll let you go with a warning. Just keep this,” He gestured with his hand to them, “to your house.”
“Like you’ve never done it!” Andy said.
“I’m not gonna lie, I know good places where no one can disturb you.” Seb said with a smirk. “I’ll tell you about them next Monday, how about that?”
“I wanna go home!” Annie said.
“Fine! You can go. Have a good night.”
Andy saw in the rare mirror how Sebastian jumped on his car and left.
“I can’t believe that just happened.” Annie said as she hid her face with her hands.
“Hey,” Andy move her hands away from her face, “This was fun, I actually haven’t done it in a car since High School.” She smiled at him, “You get the worst out of me.”
“Sorry.”
“Don’t be, I loved it.” He lean in and kissed her softly. “And I’m also at fault, I couldn’t control myself.” She kissed him now, “We better get going.” Annie nodded and moved to the passenger seat. She squirmed when she felt his sticky cum coming out of her. She lift her booty and place her sweater on the site. Andy just shook his head, turned the engine back on and went home.
----------( )----------
Monday morning, ADA’s office. Andy was getting comfortable in his chair, the smell of his coffee filling his nostrils, he took a sip and the door suddenly flew open.
“You had sex in your car?!” Anthony said as Sebastian followed him.
Bells! Congrats again on your follower milestone and thank you for hosting a celebration ❤️🙏🏻
If you feel inspired, how about some The dark side or the light with this beardy babe:
How’s about an AU so we don’t need to worry about Laurie 😏 And this floofy MFer thought he was dropping signals for you, but bless your sweet soul, you just aren’t picking up on them, and our boy is getting frustrated, and impatient 😳😘❤️
Hi Siri!! Thank you so much for participating! I originally wanted to go dark with this, but my muse just kind of told my fingers what to write, and I had to listen! Just a sweet little Andy fic. I hope you enjoy it!
I Tried to Tell You
Starring: Andy Barber x Female Reader
Summary: Andy’s been trying to tell you something, but you are terrible at hints.
Warnings: None really! Hints of masturbation
Word Count: 555
The loud knocking on the front door startles you as you finish brushing your teeth. Peeking down the stairs you can see your neighbor Andy on your front porch through the glass. Something must be wrong for him to be coming over this late.
“Andy, is everything ok?” your voice trails off as your neighbor pushes past you and enters your home. “What’s wrong?”
Andy says nothing as he holds your gaze, his silence only adding to your worry. You place your hand on his forearm, trying to provide some comfort for his obvious distress. “Talk to me, what’s going on?”
He huffs, throwing his arms in the air. “It’s you, alright Y/N?” He runs a hand through his brown hair. “You’re the problem.”
“Andy I don’t understand, what have I…” Andy holds hand up to quiet you. Taking a deep breath he continues.
“I’ve been giving you so many hints, and I don’t know what else to do. I’ve brought you your favorite coffee in the morning before you’ve left for work. Made you dinner and brought it over when you’ve been working late. Joined you for your weekend morning runs, and I’m not a fan of running Y/N.”
“Andy, I thought we were friends. If you didn’t want to do those things, you didn’t have to.” Your eyes well with tears, hurt that the neighbor you thought was a friend didn’t feel the same. “I know that I’ve been busy with work lately, but I never meant to ignore you.” You sniff, the tears overflowing and falling down your cheeks. “I’m sorry.”
Andy’s face softens, and he moves to you, cupping your face in his hands. “That’s the thing, I don’t want to be friends, I want you. I want to be with you.”
“Wha… what,” you struggle to find words as Andy’s thumbs swipe tears from under your eyes. “But, we’re friends.”
Andy chuckles, and you feel like your heart is going to burst out of your chest. His blue eyes sparkle as he studies your face, watching your expression realize what he’s been trying to tell you.
“You like me? Like, like me like me?”
“Honey, I’ve been trying to tell you that for months. I thought you were playing hard to get which is why I was getting so frustrated.”
You couldn’t believe what you were hearing. Andy Barber liked you like that. You always thought he was attractive, thought about him on nights when your own fingers brought you pleasure while you fantasized what feeling his mouth on your skin would feel like. You kept these desires to yourself because you never thought that someone like him would ever be interested in you.
“Talk to me honey, what are you thinking?” Andy’s palms are hot on your face. Your eyes darted to his lips, and you needed to feel what they felt like on yours.
You press your lips to his, hesitant at first before Andy is all in. His lips work over yours until your mouth opens, inviting his tongue to dance with yours. He consumes you, his beard softly scraping against your chin.
“Andy,” you pant when the kiss breaks, his bottom lip pink and plump. “I don’t know where this is going to go…”
“Honey, I don’t either, but I’m eager to find out”
prompt: ari levinson + "Tell me your favorite way to cum so I can satisfy you the way you deserve."
warnings: fluff, light angst(?), allusions to anxiety/low self-esteem, smut, unprotected sex, mentions of oral sex (f receiving), fingering, overstimulation kink, D/s undertones, soft!dom!ari, size kink, aftercare, pet names, creampie, choking, MINORS DNI
a/n: this is my entry for @stargazingfangirl18 and @labella420 for their Cum Together: Community Revival Extravaganza. this is my first work in a minute (i have WIPs, but i'm still trying to figure out how i want things to go). i'm exciting to see what everyone thinks and i hope you enjoy! (also this isn't edited and don't steal or repost this)
You feel utterly ridiculous. You’ve washed your hands for what felt like ten minutes, trying to hide the clamminess of your hands. After your fifteenth cleanse, you dry your hands and resign to the fact that your nervousness would not subside until you got this over it. Ugh, fine, you muttered under your breath as you succumb to your nerves.
Before you go out, you give yourself a once-over in the mirror. You had your hair perfectly curled for your date tonight. The cute blouse and jeans that fit your hips and ass perfectly was in the hamper. You wore a short, pink silk nightie with matching lacy panties. You recently bought them for tonight and hoped they would work in your favor. You looked beautiful, but why did that not calm your nerves? Why was it not enough?
You felt bad for leaving Ari waiting, and he was so understanding. When you told him you needed to freshen up a bit, he softly kissed your forehead and lips before telling you to do whatever you need to do. It helped quell your anxieties a little, but as you got closer to the impending moment, your anxiety heightened.
You whispered to yourself in the mirror.
You got this! It’s just sex. If it doesn’t work out, it won’t be in the end of the world. You tried to rationalize despite every cell in your brain feeding into irrationality and fear. You hadn’t been this nervous to have sex since your first time, so for you to be an adult and panicking over doing it with your new boyfriend felt extra silly.
It had been a while since your last encounter… a long while. After the end of your only serious relationship, it had been hard to let anyone new in until Ari Levinson waltzed into your life. Even though he was patient, he was persistent. You wanted him, and he wanted you. But you were so scared of being hurt and alone again.
He worked to prove to you that he wouldn’t do that. He showed you that he wanted you, wanted to cherish and take care of you. Pretty soon, you were falling for him and he claimed himself for you. He was waiting for you to do the same, and for Ari, he would wait however long he needed. You were worth it to him.
And so you let Ari Levinson into your life, and you’ve been the happiest you’ve ever been. For the duration of your time together, you and Ari had only made out and cuddled. He spent the night at your place and you at his, but there was no sex. He never pressured you, which you were grateful for, but you were scared to begin. You weren’t the most experienced. The sex you had with your ex was decent, but you didn’t want that. You had desires, some you were scared of sharing with Ari, but you knew you could trust him. He wouldn’t judge you for that, but you were worried. What if you weren’t good enough? What if it was so bad he left you?
Ari didn’t seem like the type to leave you because the sex sucked, but looking at him, you couldn’t help but feel out of his league. He was sex on legs, undeniably handsome. You’ve seen the way women and men alike look at him, hell you look at him the same way. Could you even keep up?
Before you could go further in your spiral, a soft knock brought you back to reality. “Babe, is everything alright in there?”
“Yeah! I’m about to come out!” Holy shit. It was now or never. You fluffed up your hair, quickly gargled some mouthwash, and gave yourself a last minute pep talk. You are a goddess. You got this! If you can survive half the things you have, you can have sex with your boyfriend.
You walked out of bathroom, but instead of inching towards Ari, you leaned against the doorframe, trying to look like the gorgeous actresses from the movies. Ari was laying across your bed, still fully dressed. He licked his lips as he eyed your form, looking like a predator about to devour his prey. Your body warmed under his gaze and a wetness begin to pool in your panties.
“You like?” you ask in a sultry tone. Ari nodded and rose up. He towered over you, and though you hadn’t said it, you loved that his body was bigger than his. His arms traveled up your body before he grabbed your head in his hands and pulled your mouth into his. Immediately, he began to dominate you with his mouth. Your tongue attempted to fight for dominance, but Ari easily overpowered you. You could feel him guide you away from the bed and towards the mirror hanging above your dresser. Before you know it, he abruptly pulls away from you and spins you around to where your back is pressed firmly against his chest and growing bulge.
In the mirror, you see how swollen your lips are. Your face was red with passion and so was Ari’s. He wrapped his arms around your center and began caressing your body. “Honey,” he begins. “Tell me what’s going on in that head of yours.”
“Nothing,” you stutter, failing to hide your true feelings. Despite experiencing the most amazing kiss of your life, your mind was still running a mile a minute. Ari shakes his head, and you immediately tense. “I’m sorry!”
“Baby, your mind has been running a mile a minute since we got back to your place. There’s no need to apologize, but just tell me what’s going on,” he says as he begins to pepper kisses on your shoulder and up your neck. Your eyes roll back slightly as he begins his light assault, but when you’re quiet longer than he cares for, he stops. You whine, and he gives a stern look.
“I’m just… nervous. That’s it,” you tell him. You look down at your freshly pedicured feet. “I just want to be good for you.”
At that moment, Ari grabs your chin and pulls his lips into yours. The kiss is passionate like the one previously, but there’s a tenderness in this. It’s intimate like the ones you have during your late night cuddle sessions, but there’s an underlying hint of desire when you feel him nip at the bottom lip. Your toes curl, and the wetness in between your thighs grows.
“You are always good for me. You’re perfect for me.” He parts from you, turning your chin back to your reflection. “Look at you. I am so lucky you’re my girl.”
Before you can retort his statement, you gives a light slap to your ass, making you jump. “And don’t question it.”
“Ari,” you begin, locking eyes with him in the mirror. “It’s been a while-“
“I know, baby.”
“I wasn’t done.” He smiles at the little fire building inside of you. “And I’m worried about tonight. But if we can, I do want to try some things.” Your timidness returns, and something in Ari blooms.
“We can do whatever you want tonight, baby. Can I you do something for me?” he asks. You nod fervently. “Tell me your favorite way to cum so I can satisfy you the way you deserve.”
The sounds of your and Ari’s blended moans fill the air. You lost track of how many times Ari made you come, but all you know is that you were thoroughly fucked out. He had made you cum with his hands, mouth, and cock so many times. You begged to let him suck you off, but he refused. Tonight was all about you.
“Alright, baby. Can you give me one more?” he asks softly as if he hadn’t tore you apart and used your body all night. He kisses his way up your torso, pressing open mouth kisses on your breasts and neck.
“No, I can’t,” you pant. Ari chuckles at your whines. They were the prettiest sounds he ever heard. “Please, no more.”
“Are you sure, sweetness?” he asks as he strokes his cock. His fingers slip between your folds and tease your entrance. He watches as they attempt to clamp down around nothing. “Because she wants some more.”
Ari lines himself up and slides into your channel. He bottoms you out but freezes, wanting you to feel him everywhere. You squeeze around him and cry out. You knew he was big, but you were shocked that he was able to work himself in. He fit deliciously around you. Ari wraps his arm around your neck, something you had asked excitedly him to do. You learned (and prayed for) that Ari was more dominate in the bedroom. And while he had been able to pull the sweetest sounds from your body and take control, you knew he was holding back from his true form.
“Just cum for me one last time, baby. I know you can do it. Isn’t this what you wanted?” he asks giving you a sly smile. While you had disclosed you wanted to try this with a partner, Ari more than obliged at feeding into your desires. He was more excited than you expected. Despite your pleas, you give a small nod.
He begins working into a steady rhythm, starting slow. Before you know it, his pace quickens. He pulls all the way out before he slams back into you. You cry, nearly yell, out as he begins his brutal, relentless pace. His hold around your neck tightens, and you feel yourself growing slicker.
“My pretty girl,” he says. You preen at his words, loving his praises especially when he has so much control over you. “You have no idea how addicted I am to you. Everything about you.”
He picks up the pace, and his hands move to pick up your legs and change your position. You feel him reaching into you deeper and you know you don’t have much longer until you’re about cum.
“Ari, Ari, Ari!” you cry out. “I’m about to c-cum!”
“Cum for me, baby,” he orders. Your toes curl into the sheets, and you let out a scream as your earth-shattering orgasm washes over you. As Ari fucks you through your high, you feel his pace slow and pretty soon he’s roaring as he cums into you.
When Ari comes down from his high, he sees he fucked you to sleep. He looks down at the mixing of your juices together and smiles. He could never get enough of this. He pulls out softly, missing the feel of you around him. He grabs a towel and cleans you up softly, careful not to wake you even though you whine from the feel through your sleep. Then, he climbs into bed, pulling your smaller body into his chest before pressing a soft kiss to your head and joining you to sleep. You sleep entwined with him, the sounds of your soft breaths lulling him to sleep with a smile on his face that you were his and he was yours.
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