Misplaced Lens Cap
Aqua Utopia｜海の底で記憶を紡ぐ
#extradirty
ellievsbear
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h
we're not kids anymore.
taylor price
almost home
d e v o n
Origami Around
Not today Justin
todays bird
titsay
KIROKAZE
★
Janaina Medeiros
Monterey Bay Aquarium
Stranger Things
Keni
seen from Hungary
seen from Malaysia
seen from Türkiye
seen from Malaysia
seen from Russia
seen from Romania
seen from Saudi Arabia
seen from Italy
seen from United States
seen from Malaysia
seen from Germany
seen from United States
seen from Germany
seen from United States
seen from Venezuela
seen from United Kingdom
seen from Türkiye
seen from Türkiye
seen from Poland
seen from United States
@justreblogginfics
Two things:
1). The World Cup is my absolute favorite thing right now and the best part of the summer. The game is beautiful ❤️⚽️
2) I’ve been watching this documentary “Couples Therapy” because I kept seeing clips of it and now I’m watching it. Has anyone else watched it? What are your thoughts?
P.S. Enjoy these pictures 🤍 Those wildflowers I planted? The middle picture is of the cute little flower that said hello last month 😭
Okay, I’m done sharing my joys. Back to reblogging 🙂
snoopy of the day
This brings me joy ☺️
This has been my life since ‘96 😅
Needs Must When the Devil Drives, Part Two
(Simon "Ghost" Riley x F!Reader)
CW: Smut (nothing explicit, but obliquely mentioned; dubious consent; sex pollen trope). 18+ only to be safe.
Word Count: 1483
AN: This is part two of XX. Other pieces can be found here.
The immediate aftermath is shockingly mundane. The team is extracted and returned safely to base. Medical staff whisks you away immediately, and aside from some sidelong glances Ghost catches between Price and Soap, no one says a word about what happened between you and Ghost.
He doesn’t see you for a while. Weeks, then a month. He knows you are okay because your name resurfaces on certain meeting agendas after a stretch of time. He sees you, he thinks, at the range once: from faraway, he can’t quite be certain, but he thinks he’d recognize your stance anywhere. You are a little awkward, hold your arms a bit too stiff. You’re not a natural with your side arm, and your training lies in healing, not killing.
The moment between you and Ghost is buried underneath the flat words of the mission debrief. There is a reference to the poison, Soap’s account of finding you. The moment is distilled into a single insipid line: the affected member was triaged in the field.
Triaged. A polite way of saying that Ghost fucked you to save your life. He snorts softly when he reads it the first time, but then his gloved hand drifts up to his shoulder and presses through the layers of clothing until he feels the raised weal of a fresh scar.
The official report can call it any bland word it wants, but Ghost bears the mark: in that moment, when the poison overtook you completely. When you finally came, you had turned your face and found the open neck of his shirt, and just as Ghost felt your body shatter underneath him, he also felt the sharp bite of your teeth as you sank them into his shoulder. Hard enough to break the skin. Hard enough to draw blood.
Hard enough to leave the perfect imprint of your teeth etched into his skin for the rest of his life.
-----
It doesn’t just leave a scar, though. That moment…it’s a bruise that Ghost can’t let heal. He keeps prodding it, picking at it.
He plays the moment over and over. Time on base between missions is largely boring, and aside from training and paperwork, Ghost has a surfeit of time. Time to replay the moment: in the chow line, at the range, sparring with Gaz. In his office, sifting through intel and writing up reports.
In bed, when the base goes quiet and all he can hear is the tide of his blood pumping through his veins, his pulse thudding in his ears.
He’s no saint. He’s fucked plenty. In fact, fucking is about all he’s done – Ghost doesn’t do relationships or softness or love. One-night stands, short-term arrangements. He has no delicate feelings around sex; it’s a physical act just like throwing a punch is a physical act. He did what he did to save your life, and you’re alive and seem no worse for wear.
So why does that moment lie so heavy on his thoughts?
Each time he remembers the moment, his mind rewrites it just a little. The rewriting is so subtle that he doesn’t even realize what’s happening. If he were the sort of man to care about himself, to invest in healing some of his traumas, he’d go to therapy and perhaps gain some insight: he was severely traumatized before he even came to the 141, and it’s just been more suffering and pain since.
His mind, a good therapist may point out, lies to him. His mind finds comfort in the familiar, and the familiar is pain. The familiar is feeling badly about himself, feeling so low that he hides his face from even himself.
So in the weeks, then the month that passes, Ghost rewrites the entire encounter in his head, and without a sane voice to stop him, he recasts his role from savior to monster and tortures himself until he’s sick with self-loathing.
*****
It shocks you how easy it is to move on.
Of course, it’s probably because you remember very little of that mission. There are swaths of time missing from your memories: you remember getting separated from Sergeant MacTavish. You remember getting turned around in the labyrinth of the warehouse. Then…very little, until you remember being helped down from the helicopter, a fellow medic taking you by your elbow and leading you to a waiting gurney.
When you try to focus on those missing moments, your brain only shows you static. A test pattern. A screensaver, boring and safe, covering over the truth of what happened. Which you know from the reports – Kor-Tac reported on the poison, and you read the mission debrief that mentioned your field triaging (for lack of a better term) at the hands of Lieutenant Riley. You know he had sex with you. You know he saved your life by having sex with you, just as you know the base medical staff afterwards slid you an envelope of antibiotics and Plan B, prophylactics for the mission’s missing pieces.
You wonder at the etiquette around it. Lieutenant Riley saved your life. He certainly didn’t want to have sex with you, but he did it to save you. How can you thank a person for that? It’s not like he pulled you out of the line of fire or held his hand against a wound to staunch the bleeding. Sex—even this version of it, desperate and sans affection or desire—is still so intimate. He had been inside you, for God’s sake. How could you address that while still expressing your gratitude for your very life? Send him a fruit basket? A polite thank you note?
Maybe you would seek him out and give him a no-nonsense verbal thanks…but your brain makes it awkward. When you try to focus on your missing memories, there’s nothing there—but that doesn’t mean your brain doesn’t still have those memories tucked away somewhere.
Your brain definitely has those memories somewhere, and your brain seems to enjoy handing them back to you when you least expect it.
Like when you’re at the range. You’re only a passably good shot, and you hope you never need to draw your gun on a mission, but you practice diligently. You sign in, the quartermaster slides you a box of ammo, and suddenly the memory flashes, a bright pop of color behind your eyes
not a skull mask but a face bared smeared eye black wary brown eyes gazing down at you
“He took off his mask,” you mutter to yourself, surprised at the unlocked memory, but the quartermaster half-hears you and frowns.
“Pardon?” he asks. He eyes you up for a beat, then reaches under the counter to slide you ear and eye protection.
Or it’s like the time you’re on inventory. Your phone sits on the counter, softly playing old school British rock—Zeppelin, the Stones. You’re cross-legged on the floor and counting through bandages, rolls of tape, boxes of syringes—
a big hand you can feel the calluses on it its rough gripping your waist sliding to cup the curve of your bared hip holding you steady a voice at your ear telling you that he’s got you he won’t let you die he will
Christ, what a horror show. Sure, you could go up to Sergeant Riley and thrust your hand at him, thank him profusely for saving your life, but what if your brain tosses a fresh memory at you?
Besides, you don’t know much about him. He is the only soldier to get an annual deferral on his physical (signed off by Captain Price without comment), for example. Many of his personal details are redacted in his personnel file (photo, birth date). He’s obviously private to an extreme degree, and he’s never struck you as especially chatty.
Best to let it lie. He hasn’t sought you out, so maybe you shouldn’t seek him out. Leave the moment in the past and just hope that you thanked him at the time.
The weeks pass. A month, then another. You remember little flashes of the moment, but you tuck them away and don’t dwell on them. There’s work for you to do, important work, and getting bogged down in the past serves no one.
Until you’re yanked out of a deep sleep one night by the sound of a heavy fist on your door. Your quarters are in the medical wing, and sometimes—like tonight, a quiet Saturday night into a Sunday morning—a soldier will stagger in and knock on the wrong door, in need of some paracetamol and a saline pack to stave off a killer hangover.
You pull a sweatshirt over your head and slip into a pair of slippers, then make your way to your door. You expect some green-faced private, vomit dribbled down his front, reeking of cheap ale, pathetic—
Instead, it’s Sergeant Riley.
@tropes-and-tales, you really outdo yourself with the tropes and tales and I love it!
This part was really good, you can just sense the turmoil starting to brew with Ghost and how he rewrites what happened vs how the reader is with what little they recall. I’m excited to read the next part!
My wildflowers, forget-me/nots, & alysuums are growing & I am over the moon about it! 😭
Just wanted to share my simple joy with y’all!
Needs Must When the Devil Drives, Part One
(Simon "Ghost" Riley x F!Reader)
CW: Smut (dubious consent; sex pollen trope). 18+ only.
Word Count: 1543
AN: This is part one of XX. Other pieces can be found here.
It doesn’t start out as a love story.
It starts frantic, messy, desperate. It starts because your life lies in the balance, and Simon Riley is the only one who can save you.
It starts like this:
The 141 on a mission. There’s nothing particularly noteworthy about the mission—orders to extract certain intel, then bomb the site into rubble. It’s a small group, just Ghost, Soap, and Captain Price. A small group of support, which includes you: the 141’s medic.
There should be nothing noteworthy, but part of the intel they are extracting is around a particularly nasty bioweapons program. A rogue state, morally grey scientists and chemists, unlimited funding from a coalition of local warlords… it’s a recipe for disaster.
It turns desperate because you get separated from Soap as the team splits up to clear the laboratory. Alone, you walk into a trap: a canister rigged to blow, and you there just as it does. It sends a cloud of gas in your face, sends you reeling backwards as you choke and sputter.
It’s Soap that finds you, and he has the wherewithal to note the labeling on the side of the canister. He notes the name of the chemical, and it’s only at the safe house where he remembers where he heard of the chemical before.
-----
“Kor-tac shared the intel with us months ago,” Soap tells Ghost and Price. They are gathered around a cold fire pit outside of the safe house, a little mountain cottage tucked into the edge of a forest. “That’s what she got hit with.”
The men—Ghost standing with his arms crossed, Price crouched in the dirt, Soap pacing back and forth—all turn and glance in your direction. You are further away, out of earshot—your back to them, sat on a downed tree that someone cleared of the bark to make into a rough bench.
Soap drops his voice anyway and describes the poison that is going to kill you unless they take action. It’s a potent blend that acts on a person’s different systems. It shuts down some parts of the brain and amps up others. It leaves the victim a mindless creature driven purely by hunger, by want and desire, by the animal need to fuck. If the victim doesn’t find some form of relief, the fever raging through their body rises and rises until it cooks their brain. People have died from strokes, from heart attacks, from organ failure, and the step progression to death is painful.
“Does she know what she’s been hit with?” Price asks.
Soap pauses, then nods. “I think so. She went over Kor-Tac’s intel with a fine-toothed comb. She must know by now.”
“How long does she have?” Ghost, this time, his voice a rough grumble.
“Not sure.” Soap runs a shaky hand through the strip of tangled hair on his head. “I dinnae see how much she got hit with. Figure that makes a difference, like.”
“Someone has to take care of her,” Price says. He sighs, stands up. “I can—”
“No.” Ghost uncrosses his arms and puts his hands on his hips. “I will.”
Price shakes his head and starts to argue, points out that he’s the commanding officer and you are his charge, but Ghost shakes his head too. He counters that if you need to be fucked to save your life, it should be him, not Price and not Soap, to do it. The former is married, and Soap has a steady bird tucked away somewhere in the north, so ethically, it just makes the most sense.
-----
Price and Soap make their way to a second location. Ghost asks them for the privacy, because while he doesn’t know you that well, what he does know… well, you’re a private person, a professional through and through. He assumes you’ll be embarrassed.
Ghost makes his way over to where you sit, but when he walks around the log to face you, he sees that you’ve unholstered your weapon—a standard issue pistol, almost always tucked at your side. Aside from the shooting range, Ghost has never seen you hold it.
It sits on your lap now, one hand curled loosely around the grip. When you look up at him, the expression on your face is one of despair. Your eyes are glassy with tears, and your mouth is raw from you chewing on your lower lip.
Ghost eyes the pistol, and he holds his hands up to show he’s not a threat.
“How’re you feeling, Doc?” he asks.
“You know what this is.” Your voice is raw too, rough.
He nods.
“You know it’ll kill me.”
He nods, but replies, “only if we let it.”
You don’t seem to register his words. You look down at the gun in your hand. “Kor-tac’s intel says it hurts. A fever that goes on and on, but more than that. Capillaries start bursting. The smaller veins collapsing. Nerve endings dying off.”
“Doc, we know how to stop it from—”
A sob tears out of your throat. “I don’t want it to hurt,” you choke out. “I don’t want to hurt, but I don’t…I can’t…” You lift the gun an inch from your lap, let it fall again. “I’m a coward.”
It takes him a stupidly long moment before he realizes what you are saying. When he does, he takes a careful step towards you, then lowers himself slowly until he is crouched in front of you. He studies you closer: takes in the dilated pupils in the dying afternoon light. The sheen of sweat breaking out along your forehead. The shakiness to your breathing.
“Here. Let me ‘av that.” He reaches out slowly and eases the gun from your grip. In a smooth motion, he pops the clip out, pops the chambered round. He puts the ammo in one pocket, slips your gun in another.
“Lieutenant.” It comes out questioning as you watch him disarm you, and when he looks you in the eye, he sees confusion. Fear.
Simon is never soft, but his mind is a flurry of thoughts. He wonders at why you’d expect death over one of your teammates helping you. Someday you’ll tell him, maybe. For this moment, though, he only feels a deep wrench of compassion for you—a soft, warm feeling unfurling in his chest, entirely foreign.
“C’mon.” He stands up, grips the front of your vest and hauls you to your feet. You sway, unsteady, and he gets an arm around your waist.
“I got you,” he mutters near your ear, and something makes you answer with a fresh sob. You start to babble to him, panicky apologies, panicky pleas to just put a bullet in your head. Even as he leads you into the safe house, leads you to the bed, starts to take your outer layers off—even then, you cry and say how sorry you are, that he doesn’t have to do this, that you’d never make him do this—”
“Hush,” he cuts you off. “You really think I’d let y’die?”
It doesn’t start out as a love story, yet something starts in this moment: because Simon is only doing this to save your life, but the moment does something to him. It changes him. As he stretches out over you, as he settles between your spread thighs, he mutters something vague to offer comfort—something like trust me or I’ve got you—you respond by wrapping an arm around his neck and mumbling back, “I’m so sorry you have to do this, Simon.”
Simon. Who ever calls him that? No one at work, and he has no family to speak of. No friends beyond the 141, and everyone calls him Ghost. So few people use his first name that it always jolts him, causes a moment of dissociation until he remembers that yes, he is Simon.
It’s enough to still him for a beat. He leans back and peers down at your face. He sees the pure misery there, the absolute mortification. You can barely meet his eye, but when you do, he sees no artifice at all. You are terrified and entirely vulnerable to him, and it makes that warm, soft feeling in him grow and spread.
He isn’t sure what spurs him to do what he does. Afterwards, he’ll assume it was seeing you so vulnerable. He hates that the moment is uneven: him entirely in control, you with none. He hates how closely it hews to coercion, hates how blurry the line is between you.
Ghost does it without thought. He reaches up and pulls off his mask, tosses it to the side. It’s enough to startle you, to still your tears for a beat. You gaze up at him with wide eyes, and Simon stares back at you, wary. He’s no prize to look at, he knows, but if you’re this vulnerable and exposed to him, he can offer you a little vulnerability in return.
It doesn’t start out as a love story, but it does start out like this. Desperate, frantic, messy—with your arms around his neck, clinging to him, your feverish face pressed against his bared one as he saves your life.
Okay this is a new character for me and I gotta say, I am here for it (“him”, I mean haha)! I’m excited to read more of this series!
I’ve been trying my hand at painting and while it’s not my favorite of what I’ve done, the blue is honestly my favorite thing about it.
And I planted some California Poppy’s and some wildflowers. Not sure if they’ll grow but I’m excited to see what happens. That’s all I wanted to share. I hope you’re all having a wonderful day! ☀️
Eyes That See (part twenty-five)
Eyes That See Summary: Your life has consisted of caring for others. This is a story of you learning to care for yourself.
Eyes That See Part 25 Summary: After arriving in your hometown, you have a run-in with your ex. You finally share core memories of your relationship with him to Sy.
Tags: a brief mention of the (American) Civil War, narcissistic abuse, covert narcissism, anxiety, sexual coercion, painful anal sex
Words: 13k
A/N 1: This part is like 90% about Y/N’s experiences with Michael, and some of it is “telling” and some of it is “showing,” so I’m sorry if it drags on due to that. I decided to put it all in one place instead of over a series of flashbacks. I also stopped editing near the end because it became heavy for me so there are likely some typos.
A/N 2: Some of you know that Y/N is a version of me. By extension, Michael is a version of my ex, and some of the stories Y/N has with him are legitimate things I actually experienced. Some are just embellished for the story. I’m always open for asks if you wanted to chat about anything. Take care of yourselves.
The time at the end of the year leading into the beginning of the next is always strange, simply not passing in the usual way. Everything is just…weird. Work is slow yet somehow quick in a way, the days too short and the nights cold and long.
Justine barely talks to you, and you both don’t get each other anything for Christmas, but you spend as much time with her kids as possible during their winter break from school and daycare. Lazy cuddles on the couch while letting them all have way too much screentime, bundled-up walks outside with Molly, tomato soup and grilled cheese lunches, a wrapping-paper-disaster house. It’s important to you that each of them individually remember how much you love them.
Not that gifts buy love, but the current state of the house shows how much they’re loved, anyway; there are toys literally all over the place, almost in every single room.
Your own bedroom is a mess, too. You’ve got just about all of your belongings packed up in boxes that are just sitting around awaiting move-in day. After you come back from Virginia, Sy will use his pickup to help you move your larger pieces of furniture, and everything else can fit in your own car. You anticipate having to only make two trips back and forth from Justine’s to your new apartment to get everything entirely cleared out.
You can’t believe it’s almost time.
You and Sy spend New Year’s Eve with Amelia and Johnny at their house. They don’t throw a party, so the night is spent with just the four of you in the living room lounging around. On the couch, Amelia sits shoulder-to-shoulder next to you while showing you dozens of pictures she’s saved on her phone, all of wedding stuff.
She’s made an Autumn Wedding aesthetic board on Pinterest that has literally every type of wedding-related thing on it: table ideas, color schemes, wedding dress and hair ideas, bridesmaids dresses and hair ideas, decorations, cake ideas, and more.
“You’ve been busy,” you say.
“I’m just excited,” she tells you, and her happiness is so evident that you can’t stop smiling.
“Soo…Big wedding? Small wedding?”
Amy puts her hand out and tilts it side to side. “In the middle.”
“And you’re thinkin’ next fall?”
She nods. “Yup. But Johnny says we have to look at the NFL schedule first so we don’t get married on a day the Falcons play.”
“Oh, good grief,” you say without any real bite.
Maybe Amelia will ask you to be a bridesmaid, maybe she won’t. If she does, though, that would be amazing. You’d love to be there to support her. Your imagination gets carried away at the prospect of being in her wedding, then, as your thoughts often do, they wander–to you, instead of wearing a bridesmaid dress, in a dress of white.
__________
The morning after New Year’s Day is freezing, the cold mountain air unforgiving as you and Sy load up the car with travel bags and presents. You’re going to Virginia.
He’s acquired a new vehicle somehow–a used sedan he’ll flip for profit sometime in the future–and you don’t even ask where it came from. You’ve gotten used to random cars and trucks showing up in his garage on any given day.
You’ve also gotten used to car-hunting, and you’ve begun stalling. Sy wants you to choose a brand-new car–like the models that literally just came out–and you just…can’t. You won’t. There is literally something inside of you that physically repels even the idea of driving a brand-new, never-had-another-owner car. You’re uncomfortable enough to put the idea aside entirely, hoping to sway Sy sometime in the future buying something more affordable.
“There are safer options,” he’d said, and yeah, that’s true. And those options don’t have to cost over forty-thousand fucking dollars.
It’s cozy and warm in the car as Sy starts driving down his long lane. You know that if it were up to him, he’d drive the entire trip himself, but you convince him to let you drive the second-half because while the first part will consist of long interstates and highways, the second half will be windy and hilly roads that you know like the back of your hand. You decide to switch places somewhere in North Carolina.
It’s early, so there’s no real conversation between you and Sy as he hits the road, just the soft radio in the background. You both sporadically drink sips of coffee from your thermoses in the center console and wait for the caffeine to kick in. With heated air filling the cabin, it’s comfortable.
You spend long minutes simply watching the bare trees lining the interstate. After that, your gaze switches to the cars in front of you–hardly any–and then you finally settle on watching Sy himself. He’s focused on the road ahead. Eyebrows scrunched together, a slight frown, a serious expression–he’s in the zone. You begin to alternate between playing on your phone and then repeating the same pattern–looking at trees, then looking at cars, then looking at Sy.
You eventually speak up, just to make sure he’s okay after not talking for so long. "Penny for your thoughts?"
"I’d be a rich man,” he suddenly rubs his beard and chuckles.
The chuckle seems…off. You frown. “...Everything okay?”
Settling his hand back on the steering wheel along with his other, he continues looking at the road ahead. “Yeah. Just a lot on my mind, I guess.”
It’s pretty early for deep-thinking of any sort, you think. “Anything you wanna talk about?”
“Just–” He shrugs. “Goin’ to see your family.”
Without any warning, your stomach falls, and you feel the statement he’s about to make in your bones. In your chest, in your gut, in the pockets of your lungs, the dread spreads out, and it aches.
He's having second thoughts.
There's a fleeting sensation of betrayal that he's breaking a promise to you. But that’s okay, though. You get it. Men don't like the whole "meeting the family" thing. You knew this was a possibility from the time you even invited him to come with you.
You clear your throat. “...You wanna turn back around?”
"What?" he briefly takes his eyes off the road and asks. "Why would we do that?"
"You really don't have to go if you don’t want to," you mutter. "It's seriously okay. I honestly don’t mind going alone."
Recognition passes over Sy's face. “That ain’t at all where I was goin’ with that,” he says.
“...Oh,” you dumbly utter.
"Just wishin' my folks were still around, too. To meet you. That’s what I’m…That’s what’s on my mind."
At the unexpected sentimentality of his response, your eyes soften.
He's been talking a lot about his parents recently. He's either been thinking of them more than usual because of the holidays, or he's always thinking of them and is finally just comfortable enough to regularly talk about them out loud.
"I wish I could’ve gotten to meet them, too,” you quietly reply.
“Mm. They were great folks.”
You slip off your boots and pull up your feet to rest on the seat. “Tell me more about them."
“Think I’ve toldju most everything,” he says, and you consider that. He’s probably right. When it’s late and you both can’t sleep, Sy mainly talks about his past.
“Did they take y’all on any road trips?” you come up with.
“Oh, yeah,” Sy says.
So, Sy talks. And he talks. Picking up where he left off during the night the coyotes woke you up and you’d stayed up together all night talking in bed, he tells you more about his childhood and all the trips he and his dad went on–camping, fishing, hunting. When his father passed away, a lot of those trips stopped.
His step-father was an irredeemable man, the polar-opposite of his biological dad, so they didn’t travel anywhere together. Sy doesn’t get too broody talking about him like he normally does, instead brushing over a lot of the negative things and mainly talking about his sisters after that and some of the things they’d do together. You, in turn, take the opportunity to share some of your family’s stories, and when you both don’t feel like talking anymore, you enjoy the new radio stations you end up finding while traveling along the interstate.
The songs play without ads, making time go by smoothly and happily as you sing along. Sy even surprises you by singing some verses, too, and you’re shocked to discover that you both have some real fucking harmony together. You find yourselves in North Carolina in no time.
You stop at an Exxon for gas, a bathroom break, and snacks, then after stretching for an indiscriminate amount of time, you take the driver’s seat. Before you know it, you're crossing over the Virginia line and dealing with the constant inclines and declines of the mountain roads.
Sy’s gone through two long sticks of jerky and a packet of sunflower seeds. He opens a bag of Doritos next. "Who are we stayin' with, anyway? Your mom?"
“Oh, gosh, no,” you almost laugh. “I forgot to tell you. I booked a hotel. She wouldn't approve.”
"Of what?" he asks, questioningly pointing to himself a second later.
"No, nothin' like that–she’s really lookin’ forward to meetin’ you,” you say. “Just of us…sleepin' together under her roof.”
Sy tilts his head to the side. "Well, if I get lucky, I get lucky."
You reach out and lightly smack his arm. "In the same bed together," you clarify.
“Why the hell not?”
The look on his face is almost comical, but you wince. “We’re not married.”
Sy lets out a laugh. “We’re grown adults here.”
“When Momma got remarried–Well, before she did, but she was seein’ the man for years–They went to my granddad’s house and slept in separate rooms.” You momentarily glance over at Sy. “And she was fifty-four at the time.”
“Hotel it is,” Sy states.
You laugh. "Well…Dad probably would let us stay with him, but…"
"But…?"
You shake your head. "Yeah, no. You'll see," you just mumble. "We're goin' there for dinner tomorrow. I mean, as long as that’s okay."
“I’m just here for the ride, baby,” he says. You glance at him sideways and smile.
The closer you get to your hometown, the more snow you see around you–on the mountain-tops in the distance, the hills around you, the sides of the roads. “Jeez, look at all this,” you mutter. “I’m surprised the roads are even driveable right now.”
“There was that storm last week that missed us,” Sy reminds you.
“Oh, that’s right, that clipper,” you comment. “Well, that explains why my mom was so uppity about me being careful drivin’ today.”
Sy’s face is serious. “You wanna switch spots?”
“Oh, nothin’s icy, so I’ll be fine. Thanks, though.” You smile reassuringly at him. “We’re gettin’ real close now to where I grew up. We’ll have to pass through to get to the hotel, though–it’s like thirty minutes out.”
Soon afterwards, you approach the next state-road you’re supposed to turn onto, only to find it blocked. You groan, long and annoyed, and Sy perks up.
“There’s a freakin’ Civil War re-enactment going on,” you gesture to the left and explain. “I’ve gotta freakin’ detour.”
Sy cranes his neck around like he’d be able to see something in the distance, but you know that the field where everything’s taking place is too far from here to see.
“It won’t be long,” you promise. “It’ll probably actually be quicker goin’ around town instead of through.”
Without using GPS, you take a right instead of a left, then you continue making your way down curvy roads leading to what everyone here refers simply as the “big town”. The main difference between “town” and “big town” are that “town” has two gas stations while “big town” has about ten, “town” has a few shops while “big town” has actual grocery stores, and “town” has fast food chains and “big town” has restaurants. And hotels.
Across the street from the hotel, you stop at a gas station for some more snacks to hold you over until dinner. You also buy a few seltzers while Sy grabs a six-pack.
“What we got on the schedule today?” Sy asks later on once you’ve made it to your room.
“I was thinkin’ maybe I can show you around town a little,” you answer while watching Sy place both of your bags against the wall. “Nothing big, just drivin’ around, or…I dunno. I usually like to walk around a little bit, actually. If that’s okay. Nothing far or anything, but if you think it won’t be that great ‘cause of the snow, then we don’t have to do it like that.”
“Whatever you wanna do is what I’m gonna do,” he says, and looking at his face, he means it.
You look away for a second and smile. “Right. Then tonight some of my friends wanted to meet up at this restaurant place–it’s honestly like a bar but a little nicer. So if you weren’t opposed to that, then…that’s what we could get into on our first day here.”
“It’s a plan.”
On the queen-sized bed, you both lay down to relax after being in the car for so many hours. Sy’s so broad that this bed feels like it could be a twin, but that just means you’re extra snuggled. Without the television on, both of you just stare at the ceiling until you feel like turning your head to look at Sy.
He just smiles, and you just smile back, and then for some reason, you start laughing.
______
Pebbles of salt crunch underneath your feet while you hold tightly onto Sy’s hand for leverage. The sidewalks are mostly clear of snow and entirely clear of ice, but as you stroll along, you like the stability he offers you nonetheless.
“So,” you propose eventually. “What’s your verdict on the town so far?”
“I think,” Sy slowly answers, “that if you took this town and put it next to my hometown, people wouldn’t be able to tell the difference.”
“Right?” you smile and reply. “It’s crazy.”
Instead of crossing the street when you reach the end of the sidewalk, you stop walking entirely, cuing Sy to pause, too. There’s a man walking on the other side of the street in a large white jacket, and he’s achingly, terribly familiar.
Sy instantly clocks the expression on your face. “Problem?”
“Um. I think–I think that’s my ex over there,” you mumble as quietly as you can, and to anyone else, your voice wouldn’t even be comprehensible. To Sy, who’s nothing but attentive to you, his face perks up immediately.
Small-town nosiness be-fucking-damned, Michael fucking notices you instantly, and he fast-walks across the street just as you were hoping to make your getaway around the corner.
Damn it. Two years of not having to see his stupid fucking face…
“Well, look who it is,” he greets you almost enthusiastically, and you just stare at him. After the way things went the last time you spoke to him–before you got a brand-new phone with a brand-new number altogether–you don’t know why he’s talking to you like this, like you’re old friends or something. Or–why he’s talking to you at all.
Years. It’s been years.
“Hi,” you brusquely say, stepping closer to the building. You can’t get directly beside the building because there’s snow piled up there, and you can’t side-step Michael, either.
Like a dance with moving parts, the second you move closer to the building, Sy moves closer to you.
"What, you got yourself a bodyguard now or somethin'?" Michael asks next, laughing when he sees Sy so close to you.
Outwardly, you peek at Sy, and internally, you sigh. This is gonna be just lovely. “Um, this is–”
Sy takes a step forward and firmly reaches out his arm. "Syverson," he introduces himself with a disingenuous grin, his eyes bright with a mischief only you can recognize. As he takes your ex-boyfriend’s hand in his own and squeezes it, he maintains eye-contact and says, “Sure ain’t happy to meetcha.”
Michael’s matching smile drops a little as he shakes Sy’s hand, his face morphing into a few different expressions like maybe he’d just heard the man wrong.
“O-kay,” Michael says, and he starts to wipe his hand on the side of his jacket when he drops one of his gloves. He picks it up before straightening himself out again.
“Ain’t got a name?” Sy raises his eyebrows and curiously asks.
You briefly close your eyes at the awkwardness that ensues. Clearing your throat, you say, "Sy, this is Michael.”
"Mike,” he corrects while looking at you. "So, how long you in town for? How long you been here?"
"Just a couple days,” you mutter. “The answer to both your questions.”
As he shifts his focus from you to Sy, you get the impression that Michael wishes you were alone. "You should swing by the restaurant tonight,” he suggests.
With snow around him, in his white jacket, he looks like a great white shark. Or a polar bear. Either way, your heart is thumping and your brain is signaling out–threat, threat, threat.
After he refers to what everyone around here simply calls “The Restaurant,” you look down at your boots. It was actually in your plans tonight to meet up there with some old friends.
Stupidly, you say as much. “Yeah, I’m actually already gonna go,” you mumble.
“Sweet,” Michael says. “Find me when you get there.”
You let out a scoff without even meaning to. With a slight scowl, you frown for a minute, not sure at all how to respond to him, and beside you, Sy chuckles. You whip your head to look at him, and his mischievous smart-ass expression has morphed into the face he wears when he’s speaking to your old boss, Cole–one of contempt, one of outward disdain.
“And here I thought for sure you didn’t have any balls,” Sy says, chuckling in a way that seems ominous, and you notice Michael’s eyebrows rise a little.
You want to step back from whatever this confrontation is fixing to be, but you’re unable to due to the snow-piles around you. Sy finds your wrist and holds it securely, not pinching or squeezing.
“Do what?” Michael asks.
“Said an’ here I thought for sure you didn’t have any balls,” Sy raises his voice as he repeats himself, enunciating his words in a way he doesn’t ever do. “But here you’re askin’ her out right in front’a me. Gotta give it to you, man. Takes some fuckin’ nerve.”
The way Michael’s eyes change as he realizes what Sy’s just said would be funny to you, but your desire to have him just be gone outweighs anything humorous about the situation at all.
Michael looks at Sy and then at you, then back at Sy again. Then back to you. His face breaks out in a grin when Sy wraps an arm around you, and then he starts to laugh uncomfortably. “You’re goin’ out with this dude, Y/N?” he asks.
Your name sounds horrible coming from his mouth.
"Yes," you mutter, wanting to escape. His smile seems condescending. “Is that…Is that not obvious?”
In a way that reminds you entirely too much of the past, Michael switches personalities in a flash, loosening his shoulders like he’s speaking to good friends, turning his smile to Sy like they’re buddies. He even holds up his hands in a display of meaning no harm with his words. You recognize it as an act of self-preservation to avoid a fight.
On the few occasions Michael ever was in an argument with another man, he acted the same way. Unfortunately, the anger would still bottle up underneath his extremely fake external persona, and with no other outlet available to release it besides you, you always dealt with the ugly aftermath.
“My bad, y’all, my bad.” He gestures to you with his head and looks to Sy. “Didn’t know she was into body-builders these days. So, you keepin’ her in line, then?” he asks, and Sy simply lifts an eyebrow.
“Keepin’ her…in line?”
Michael’s weight visibly shifts, the salt underneath his shoes audibly crunching. “Yeah, you know what I mean.”
“Not sure I do,” Sy states, then he looks at you with the most obviously staged face-of-confusion you’ve ever witnessed before turning to face Michael again. “Think she can stand in a line all by herself, honestly,” he says with a shrug and his lips curved downwards in contemplation.
This entire conversation is awful.
“Uhh, alright, dude,” Michael murmurs, and he bends down to pick up a glove that he’s yet again dropped onto the snow.
Sy briefly tightens his hand around your wrist until he securely finds your hand, and he stares directly into Michael’s eyes in a way that, even not directed at you, makes you feel like cowering purely on Michael’s behalf.
Which is stupid. He doesn’t deserve your pity. He doesn’t deserve shit.
With all four fingers pressed tightly together, Sy uses his entire free hand to gesture down the sidewalk. "We need to walk this direction.”
There’s a long moment of silence.
"So if you'll excuse us," Sy finishes through clenched teeth, and Michael finally takes the hint to step aside.
As Sy leads you across the street, you hold onto his hand and begin walking far, far away from Michael, making it to the next street before removing your hand from Sy’s. You wrap both of your arms around yourself instead.
“God, I’m such a fuckin’ dumbass,” you say under your breath, your face scrunched up in worry, your mind a blizzard of messy thoughts.
“Why?” Sy asks. “For datin’ that pissant?”
“No, for–” You cut yourself off with a reluctant laugh at Sy’s phrase. “I just said out loud where we’re gonna meet tonight. I should’ve–I’m so fucking stupid.”
“Don’t,” Sy warns, and at being scolded, you breathe in a quick gust of chilly air through your nose.
You can’t help it, though. You feel so fucking dumb. “That means he knows I’m gonna be there, Sy,” you all-but whine.
Sy grunts.
“That means he’s gonna be there,” you sulk even more.
Sy pauses and twists his head around to look far behind him. You glance in that direction, too, just in time to see Michael slip on the sidewalk. He reaches out for a streetlamp directly next to him to steady himself, but within seconds, his entire lower-body seems to collapse to the side in mid-air. He keeps himself from falling on his hip bone by holding onto the metal pole, but only barely.
You and Sy turn back around. “Don’t think you got anything to worry about, sweetheart.”
But it’s you. And of course you’ll worry.
The rest of your “pleasant winter stroll” is quiet, soured by your brief yet jarring interaction with Michael. You know you’re only making it worse by being in your head about it, but you honestly can’t help it. It’s the first time you’ve seen him in person since–
“You ain’t really talked all that much about him before,” Sy comments while you decide to turn left on a corner that leads to the town library. It’s a safe place for you, and it’ll be warm inside. You hear they sell coffee now.
“Bad memories,” you softly say, and you gesture to the library in the distance. “Here, let’s warm up.”
As the automatic doors of the library slide open, the scent inside welcomes you and brings with it hundreds of old memories. They’re all pleasant, at least, from your childhood up to your teenage years. When Sy buys two cups of cheap coffee, you figure that Sy is ready for you to delve into the more unpleasant memories from your time with Michael.
You’re ready, too. It’s time.
There are small tables and chairs along the side of the library’s far wall, off past a row of unused computers. You and Sy sit down in front of each other. After shrugging off your coats, you both slightly tilt your chairs so you can look outside through a large window. There’s not much to watch besides a few cars sporadically driving down the street and a person or two gingerly walking along the sidewalk from time-to-time, and after a while, you feel Sy’s shoe gently brush against yours.
“I…Yeah.” You look down and shake your head.
“You look like you got a lot on your mind.”
Understatement. “I don't even know where to start.”
“Wherever you want, darlin’,” Sy says, and his face is open in a way that tells you he'd listen to literally anything you wanted to say.
“He’s really, really good at playing a character, I guess,” you start off. “I don’t know how else to describe it. Like, he acts one way in public, then he’s different all alone. It’s how he got me to start liking him in the first place,” you admit. “I thought I was fallin’ for someone else.”
Where you’d normally worry about talking so much–especially about an ex of yours to your current partner–you finally share some stories of your time with Michael. Stories that remain ingrained in your mind even after all this time.
It’s easier with coffee. It’s easier looking out of a window. It’s easier knowing with no uncertainty that you have Sy’s unconditional support. It's easier knowing that he wants to hear.
So, you start with the beginning. And, as all of your relationships have gone, things were fine in the beginning.
Things were fine.
Michael. You liked the name. Like the angel.
He was a friend of a friend from the other side of the county, mysterious enough that you were intrigued, local enough that you could actually date him. Tall. Cute smile. A year older than you.
There were some strange things you noticed about him at first, yeah, but nothing too bad. Nothing horrible compared to the guys before, at least. The fact that he lived with his parents wasn’t odd to you since you lived with your mother, too, and also, it was normal for men of his age not to have a serious long-term job yet, either.
Almost one after the other, you’d had short-term relationships before Michael, finding yourself in the same scenario again and again: your anxiety got the best of you, and the guys left the first chance they could to find someone better and more fun. Losing your virginity alone was enough of a panic-inducing life-changing event, but being in an actual long-term relationship–your mind could simply never relax.
…Even though being in an actual long-term relationship was literally one of your lifelong dreams. Marriage, kids, the whole thing. Stability and happiness amidst the chaos of your mind.
You obviously knew that all of your previous relationships ended due to one common denominator: you. Determined to not repeat this same pattern, you spoke to your doctor and were prescribed more medication to top what you already took. You were optimistic that things would improve in your own internal world. You really didn't want to lose the best thing that had ever happened to you.
Though he wasn’t working, he had savings, and he’d always insist on paying for things for you. He took you out to restaurants almost all the time. He bought you gifts. In the first few months of going out, you went to three different concerts together. It was absolutely exhilarating.
He’d compliment you all the time, almost in excess, but he’d just look down and smile when you pointed it out. “I can’t help it,” he said. “I’ve just never felt this way about anyone before. You're perfect to me.”
All day, you knew if you looked at your phone, there would be texts from him that would make happiness spread throughout your entire body. It was nice to feel important in someone's eyes. It was nice to feel desired.
Michael was trustworthy. You opened up to him–really opened up–about your past. How your parents’ divorce and your not-that-great previous relationships had affected you. About your insecurities. You told him everything, and even with the more negative stuff, he always paid very close attention to whatever you said. Like you mattered.
And when you finally opened up about your mental health struggles and the medications you were taking–an absolutely monumental admission for you to make–he was understanding of that, too. The pure relief you felt inside you after sharing all of your personal anxieties and was unlike any other.
You knew that things were going well when, after an entire year into the relationship, you hadn’t been dumped yet.
***
You and Michael moved in together when you began your last year of undergrad. It was the smallest and crappiest broke-college-kid apartment you could imagine, but you made it work. Other friends around you shacked up in larger groups, but you were able to get by with just you and Michael; your student loans allowed you to pay ahead and kept you stable. And yeah, in the beginning, y’all slept on a mattress on the floor without a frame or even a boxspring, but those things didn’t matter to you. You were just happy to take the first step away from your mother's house and towards an independent future with your boyfriend. Things were going places.
An apartment leased in your name just thirty minutes from your hometown, on track to earning a degree at the university you’ve wanted to attend since you were little, a job with fun coworkers, a boyfriend of over a year who had business aspirations… You were happy.
You and Michael continued to get on extremely well after moving in together. He kept getting you gifts, and he added you to his phone plan, and he made efforts to take you on dates around both of your busy schedules. He listened to you when you’d talk about school and your passion for social work and your hopes and dreams of having a family in the future.
“One day you'll have a ring on your finger,” he promised. Your mind was alight with vast future prospects. It was gonna be great.
Slowly, things grew a little odd, though, and you couldn’t really place it. Michael steadily began changing in small ways. If someone were to ask you to actually explain the changes, though, you wouldn't be able to, so that made you feel like your mind was coming up with things that weren't even true. All you knew is that your daily life just…felt different. Michael felt different.
It was enough to leave you confused on almost a daily basis.
The compliments died down, and that was totally fine because they were hard for you to accept in the first place, but they didn’t just die down and that was it. In their place were insults. Or–not insults, you guessed, but more negative things that he didn’t used to say. Judgmental things.
Things about why you were wearing that particular outfit to go to campus (the air conditioner broke in the main building housing social work professors). Or about who you were always texting so much (a group chat for a class project). Or about why you'd want to shower sometimes right after coming home from work (your job as a cashier made you feel gross after touching nasty items and dirty money all day).
He said that with you two living together now, it was his role to protect you and take care of you, and he took that role seriously. You appreciated how mature of a viewpoint that was and grew to understand it. You weren’t ignorant whatsoever about on-campus crime, and besides Michael, who else could you really turn to if you were in trouble?
In time, Michael’s concern for your well-being extended to protecting you from even your own family, and that led to some strife in the beginning. He didn't trust them, and you hated to admit that he actually had very valid points to support his distrust, points that even you couldn't find fault in.
When you were fourteen, your dad cheated on your mom and then divorced her, leaving you both behind and moving three hours away. Though you made multiple trips over the years to his new house he shared with his wife, he never drove to specifically see you.
Your mom's lifelong poor financial decisions meant she was never able to financially provide for you in the way a parent typically does for their children, and that caused self-esteem issues your entire life. Michael reminded you that your car was bought with your own hard-earned money and that you're only in college in the first place because of your student loans.
All of these things were true. Why would you fully trust people, even your own family, who didn't have your best interest at heart? It was hard to justify.
Then–your friends from home. Michael didn't like them, either. They hadn't helped you move into the apartment when you had asked, and they, like your family, also haven't made any trips to see you. What good were they to you? What had they ever done? Michael reminded you of some of the arguments you’d had with your friends in the past, and–yeah, you could see where he was coming from there, too.
…But they were literally your friends of multiple years. It was hard coming to terms with the hard facts of life, yeah, but you couldn't entirely give up on them. And definitely not your family.
When you continued texting and calling your friends and family, however, Michael would get upset that you’d shared stuff with them before you’d shared with him.
“Sorry I’m not enough for you,” he’d say, and you rushed to reassure him. Of course he was enough for you. You were living with him. You were loyal to him.
And he was loyal to only you, too, and that’s the reason it mattered so much. He loved you, and you were going to have a future together, and he hated to see you work so hard and to have no support from anybody but himself. The more he broke everything down, the more it made sense. You have had to be financially independent from an early age. You’ve struggled for much of your young adult life because of it.
And your friends? When was the last time they drove the short distance down the road to visit you? None of them even went to school; they were still local. They could easily come see you if they wanted to. They just…didn’t. You could see Michael's point there, too.
It was stressful, but you both leaned on one another. Finishing your last year of college while also working full-time was a lot for you, and Michael getting his business up and running was also a lot for him. You both had so much going on, but you reminded yourself it was all for a purpose: to build the future you dreamed of having together.
***
Michael was taking online business management classes at a university that was advertised on TV, and he spent all his time outside of that networking. He reminded you that all entrepreneurs have started out exactly like he’s doing–out of school, broke, with only a dream–and technically speaking, he was right. Steve Jobs and Bill Gates were pioneers, and he’d follow in their footsteps. All self-made businesses took a while to establish.
Since he supported you so much, you invested money in his endeavors to show your support. It was smart to do it early so you had more stock in his company once it took off. The investment, just like all your current hard work on your relationship, would pay off in the end.
Michael was just such a good guy, and there was real potential with him. You'd never been this far into a relationship before and were learning things all the time about what this looked like. You were determined to not ruin things.
You were determined.
You began practicing better external friendliness, more pleasant behavior. Less worrying and more agreeing. Apologizing for things not your fault or not even in your control. Things that would both please and appease him.
That’s not to say that you perfected all that. You still managed to mess up sometimes since again, you were still learning how long-term relationships operated, but Michael would be honest and let you know if you’d done something wrong. You appreciated his honesty so you could grow together as a couple, but it almost seemed like you weren’t allowed to be honest with him about stuff.
It always came back to your mental health issues and your medication.
There were multiple conversations you had with him about not-so-pleasant traits on his behalf that were dismissed entirely because you wouldn’t be “thinking this” or “doing that” if you weren’t so pumped full of meds all the time–or if you were simply taking the “right” meds. You wouldn’t be “taking things so personally” if it weren’t for your anxiety. You wouldn’t be “fixating on his business” if it weren’t for your anxiety.
You were constantly second-guessing yourself. Were you overreacting when you met a few of his friends and felt ignored all night? Were you coming up with problems that didn’t exist?
At least he would apologize if he noticed that something he’d said had truly upset you, though. There was one particular time that he felt you’d over-reacted when he’d not come home until, like, two in the morning, and he punched a hole in the bathroom wall while you curled yourself into a ball underneath your covers, crying.
The next day, he was right there in bed crying with you . Holding you tightly, he apologized again and again. “I had a really horrible childhood, Y/N,” he sniffed. “I wasn’t ever loved by my parents. My dad was so, so mean to me, and I didn’t have any other role models for how to be in a relationship. I’m tryin’ all on my own to figure this out.”
You ran your hands over his hair when started sobbing into your neck, soothing him the best you could, just like you liked to be soothed when you had break-downs. Just like you, Michael had his issues. Just like you, he was trying.
***
Within a few months of living together, the arguments began happening more frequently.
“Finally. Where’ve you been?” Michael asked when you stepped inside and kicked off your shoes, and you gave him a funny look before glancing down at your uniform.
It had been a long, long shift at work. Mean customers who demanded to speak to a manager, stupid customers who couldn’t follow simple directions to locate things and required you to do their shopping, gross customers who pulled dollar bills out of their bras… You had had a day.
After your shift ended, you’d stayed in the parking lot with some of your co-workers for a while, venting about everything. Leaning on your vehicles and sharing story after story with one another, time just simply got away from you.
Not thinking anything of it, when everyone said goodbye, you got in your little car and drove to your apartment like you would on any other evening. It was yet another time you realized how small decisions you’d used to consider insignificant were actually really big deals for Michael. Enough to impact his entire mood, really. Enough to fight over.
You held out your arms and looked down at your uniform. "Work..."
“You got off an hour ago,” he replied, and you looked up at the clock nonchalantly.
Apparently it was too nonchalantly. An argument had ensued after that, leaving you even more exhausted, but mainly just confused. Of course you weren’t somewhere other than work. Of course you weren’t talking to anyone besides your co-workers.
You ended up staying up for entirely too long arguing, feeding into the accusations he was making by yelling back at him when you had exhausted all other efforts of calm and rational communication, turning into someone you weren’t as a way to defend yourself from the outrightly crazy things he was making you out to be. The argument moved from the living room to the bathroom to the bedroom.
“It’s just, I’m out doing sales pitches all day and I was looking forward to you being home when you said you’d be home from your retail job,” he’d told you, and the emphasis on “retail job” came across as if your position wasn’t substantial. “But as always, it’s like I’m not important enough.”
“I didn’t mean to make you feel unimportant!” you raised your voice and yelled, nervous-system on hyperdrive after telling the truth for so long only to have it misbelieved repeatedly. “Just–I had just got off work and I just wasn’t think–”
“Wasn’t thinking,” he finished. “‘Cause I’m not important enough for you to remember!”
“That’s not what I said, that’s not–that’s not what I meant!”
He began pacing with his hands on the back of his head. “I guess I just care about you more than you care about me.”
You wiped your puffy eyes. “I had a really rough day, okay? I was just talking about what happened at work with my co-workers, I swear. I was just talking.”
“With who?”
“Shane and Tim and Gena.”
Michael rolled his eyes at that because you knew he didn’t like Shane, but luckily said no more.
You changed clothes quietly and sat down in bed in an old t-shirt and loose shorts, leaning backwards against the headboard. You yearned for sleep at this point. You just wanted peace.
Michael got in bed next to you. He reached out to play with your hair.
“I’m sorry,” you whispered. “I really didn’t mean to be inconsiderate or anything.”
He sighed. “I’m sorry, too,” he told you. “I just hate that we haven’t been spending as much time together as we used to. And when I don’t know where you are, it...it worries me, Y/N. It's best with you right here, so I know nothing bad'll ever happen.”
You kept trying to get your eyes entirely dry. It came easy as Michael began running his hand up and down your bare leg. You felt better within seconds.
It was nice that he felt like his role as your boyfriend, in a way, was to protect you. Even though you didn't need that, you couldn't deny that a part of you still wanted that, still longed for that. You wanted to feel like no matter what, your partner would always be there to just...take care of you. To love you. To make sure nothing bad happened to you.
Just like Michael had said.
“Yeah,” you murmured, now laying down horizontally and finding a pillow to rest on. “I get that. It’s been so much going on lately, hasn't it?"
Michael started to caress your stomach with broad circular motions, soothing your skin underneath your shirt.
"But it won’t be like this forever," you closed your eyes and imagined.
“Nope,” he said. “Not when I’m gonna be makin’ the big bucks.”
That got you to smile just a little.
Michael rolled on top of you shortly after that, and after a few honey-sweet words, you took your clothes off.
After you were done having sex and he'd come, you got up to make yourself something to eat for dinner.
By the next morning, things smoothed over entirely.
***
In the living room, you looked in the mirror one last time before getting your purse. You lucked out on getting a shift that ended at six in the evening somehow, so you’d be able to be home in time to have a sit-down dinner with Michael. Those were coveted these days–with your classes taking up all morning and early afternoon, your shifts were mainly four p.m. to close, well past eleven.
You looked back at Michael while standing in front of the door. “What do you feel like eatin' for supper?”
“Taco Tuesday,” he answered with a chipperness in his voice, and you vividly remember being excited about it. You’d raised your eyebrows enthusiastically and grinned and everything. Even if you ended up running a little late clocking out at work which you were always very careful not to do, you’d still have plenty of time to run to the store to get ground turkey and all types of toppings. And you’d still have plenty of time to cook, too.
When your shift ended, you made sure to text Michael so he knew what you were doing in case something came up. Your co-workers wanted to hang out and chat outside in the parking lot, so you'd indulged, but you had to make it really quick or else you’d be late.
Not too long later, you found yourself lugging three full bags of groceries up the apartment steps, excited to begin cooking, but when you stepped in, the warm and heavy scent of marinara assaulted your nose. For some reason, Michael was cooking.
The smell of spaghetti and meatballs permeated the small apartment, and yeah, it smelled good, but as you stepped fully into the kitchen, you realized that you wouldn’t be able to eat anything. He’d used regular pasta and not the gluten-free type you had, and instead of ground turkey, he’d chosen beef.
An upset you couldn’t name spread through you, but underneath that, there was confusion. You knew that you’d talked about having tacos for dinner–with meat you could actually digest. You knew you did. But by this point, you had become a master at thinking ahead, about predicting what could happen at any given time, and if you tried to call him out on him saying something entirely different this morning, he’d make you question things, and then you would maintain your stance, and maintain your stance, and maintain your stance, and then after all the back-and-forth, you’d get tired of it and would just let it go to prevent an argument.
Or–you’d maintain your stance and maintain your stance and then be convinced that the way you remembered the earlier events wasn’t what actually happened. He’d say something like, I meant next Tuesday, or I meant I was going out for Mexican for lunch, or That’s not what I said at all–Your medicine’s fucking up your memory again. You're not this stupid, Y/N. C'mon.
Or, if you outwardly acted unhappy, he’d call you ungrateful, and then it would turn into a thing about how other girls would be thrilled that their boyfriends cooked for them after they had to work all day. Other girls would show some fucking appreciation.
Or, if you gave in and ate the food, though, you’d get sick.
Weighing your options, you chose to put all the groceries you’d just bought in the refrigerator and make a plate of plain spaghetti with meat-sauce on the side.
After Michael ate and put his dishes on top of all the dirty saucepans in the kitchen sink, he walked over to his desk in the living room like he normally did at random hours of the day for work. He’d recently gotten invited to speak at a conference in D.C. of all places, so he’d been looking up similar events online in all of his spare time. Things were slowly but surely taking off.
Glad to be unnoticed, you quietly walked to the bathroom, shut the door behind you, and turned on the sink faucets. You threw up all the contents in your stomach for the next few minutes, and after you finished cleaning yourself up, you walked back into the kitchen and started washing the dishes.
**
At the sake of being young and experimental, you did stuff in bed with Michael that you didn’t really want to or necessarily like. That didn't bother you too much, though. What was worst would be when you’d had an extremely long day of class, work, and interning and would come home just screaming for relaxation…only to discover that Michael again had stayed up yet again into the morning hours doing business stuff on his laptop, had slept in until the afternoon, and was entirely wide-awake and horny by the time you arrived home ready for bed.
It happened enough to be an actual pattern. Real excuses never mattered, but then again, fake ones didn’t, either. There weren’t any consistent headaches you had, nothing weird like that. It would just come down to you being tired. And you were. You simply were just too tired to fool around. And he simply was too determined.
So you'd bicker. You’d ask to wait until the morning, until tomorrow night. “Michael, seriously, it's not like we go weeks without sex or anything.” You were young college students. You slept together regularly.
Michael still acted like you were withholding your body for months if you denied him just once, though, not able to handle what he viewed as rejection, and “you should know how it feels to be rejected, Y/N.”
You tried explaining for so long that it wasn’t you rejecting him, it was just that you didn’t feel up for it at that specific time. You didn’t know why you even tried to logically explain anything to him because it never worked.
The persistence would eventually drive you crazy when all you would want to do would be to just fucking fall asleep, and ultimately, you’d huff and roll over in bed.
You widened your legs. “Fine. C’mon.”
That would lead to him scowling down at you and sighing heavily. “Well, I don’t wanna fuckin’ rape you, Y/N, Jesus.”
So. You were stuck. Fight or fuck?
When you gave in, you would never do anything overly performative, but nothing was enjoyable with you not being all the way in it. The goal was always simple: get him off quickly while not coming across totally disinterested so you could finally get some sleep when it was done. Not a very time-lengthy thing.
…Well, in theory.
By the next morning, consistently operating on just a few hours of sleep, you’d always end up with a soreness inside your underwear, a stiffness in your jaw, and what you’d imagine arthritis in your wrist would feel like. Sometimes you had to take naps in your car in between your classes to catch up on missed sleep.
It was better than crying in your car in between your classes, at least.
***
The next semester came around, and you just–you were getting so beyond confused at how to get things back to how they were at the start of your relationship. You could never read the play with Michael anymore. It was a constantly-shifting goal post that was up to you to guess where he’d move it next.
If you woke him up after his alarm was annoyingly going off for forty minutes, he’d get mad that you didn’t just let him sleep. If you let him sleep, he’d get mad that you didn’t wake him up. If you wanted to drive somewhere, then he’d wanted to be the one who drove. If you wanted him to drive somewhere, then he’d want to be the passenger.
You just couldn’t win.
You still tried, though. You couldn’t help it. You were always trying.
***
Michael came home one random day with an excessively giant bouquet of roses for no apparent reason at all, and you’d gasped in surprise, even letting your laptop accidentally fall to the floor. You felt special in a way that spread literal warmth throughout your entire body. You leapt from the couch and accepted the flowers in a state of semi-shock, accepting a hug and a slew of kisses from him next.
In the bedroom, after you'd been thoroughly kissed and worked up enough for sex, Michael asked to try something new. It didn’t take an awful lot of time to say yes to him fucking you up the ass because of how good he’d been taking care of you. He would take care of you in this, too.
Despite having nothing to go by for reference, you figured that it'd feel somewhat good, even if it would probably be awkward. You knew there were people that actually really enjoyed it, and surely they must enjoy it for a reason.
You were only able to make it one minute, maybe less.
After you'd consented, he took himself in hand almost immediately and pressed against the tightest and smallest and dryest place of your body. You squeezed your eyes shut when he began piercing his way inside, and when he only kept going, you dug your fingers into his biceps.
The sensation wasn’t dull, wasn’t distant; it took up the focus of your entire world. Lightning-sharp and burning, the pain screamed. It hurt. It hurt badly.
He didn’t give you time to get used to anything. He didn’t go all the way inside for you to adjust. He just went in and out repeatedly like he’d been right on the edge this whole time, and every thrust you took felt like being bluntly stabbed.
Through an awful wince, you were forced to tell Michael you couldn't do it, please no more, please stop, you couldn’t take it. It took a few seconds, but he listened, and even after he backed out, your asshole ached like your skin there had been stretched with pliers. Like the insides were torn.
You ended up just having sex the way you were used to, and Michael didn't seem too disappointed, thankfully. You struggled knowing exactly when he'd get upset about things, and you were half-expecting him to bring up the roses he'd gotten you as some sort of way for you to feel bad about not being able to give him this thing he clearly really wanted.
After it was done, you went to use the bathroom to pee and get rid of all the stickiness on your inner thighs. On the toilet, you wiped yourself clean, dropped the toilet-paper into the water, and shakily stood to flush. Looking down, you saw the water tainted with bright red spots of blood.
***
By the time graduation came around, you’d self-isolated for so long that only a few people showed up to cheer you on. The fight you'd gotten into with Michael the night before had left your eyes swollen even into the next day, and you had to work extra hard to make your smiles genuine in any picture taken of you.
Behind his back the week after that, you met up with your mother and, while in town, ran into an old friend from high school named Deseree. You were surprised to hear that she'd been texting you and thought you'd been ignoring her for, like, an entire year. In turn, you told her that you thought she wasn't interested in being friends anymore because she just sort of stopped communicating with you after you moved in with Michael.
She explained how she was on vacation when you moved and apologized for not being able to help, and she said that she'd been texting off and on for months. After taking out both of your phones and looking through them, you had no idea why you hadn't gotten any of her messages at all. It wasn't like her number was blocked–you checked, and it wasn't.
Anyway, you decided Instagram would work for future communication since something was obviously messed up with your phone and Michael had your Facebook password.
And even though it felt like you were being somehow dishonest, you started talking to her almost every day again.
***
Your concerns over Michael’s career ventures began to grow when Deseree asked you what he actually did and you weren't able to even answer her.
When you asked him actual questions to try to learn more about what work he actually did, he explained things shortly, saying you wouldn't understand the technicalities.
The point was–you wanted to understand them. It wasn't like you were stupid just because Michael considered your major “easy”. So you casually asked him things. Who his actual clients were, how he acquired them as clients, what actual business he did with them. You began getting some weird impression that maybe he’d been doing something illegal this entire time or something. What other reason would he have to be so elusive?
It became a very sore topic. He always made every calm question from you turn into this giant “interrogation” that made him storm out of the apartment every time.
Just--what exactly was this business he'd been spending so much time and effort working towards? Besides the uncertainty regarding his actual job description, there was also uncertainty over his money. Why didn’t he have more to show for his work? It'd been two years.
You had your degree now, and the next steps you both had planned for the future were establishing careers and then, ultimately, getting married and starting a family. You didn't know how exactly he was establishing his career, and you just wanted peace of mind so you wouldn't have to constantly worry.
Cautiously–foolishly–you revisited the questions about his business soon after graduation. You asked for more information, for a simple business license or, or, or–something. Something the bank would ask for whenever you both signed up for a mortgage down the line.
“You don’t trust me,” he snapped, pacing the tiny living room. “After everything–you’re gonna sit here and keep on questioning me like this?”
“I just asked a–” You clamped your mouth shut. It was better to just let this topic die off. You shouldn’t’ve even asked the questions in the first place. “I’m sorry.”
He gave you a long look. “You've been talkin’ to someone, haven't you?”
You widened your mouth. He found out about you messaging your old friend, you guess. You didn't want to lie about it because if he already knew about you talking to Deseree then he'd already recognize the lie, but if you did lie, then you knew things wouldn’t escalate.
“You have,” he paused and accused. “And they got into your gullible little head, and they're makin’ you question shit, and now this. You still don't believe me.”
He sat down next to you and pulled out his phone. Jerkily, he opened his camera roll and made you watch as he swiped from picture to picture, all of himself in nice suits with other important-looking people. Some pictures were of him in front of large buildings and skyscrapers you didn't recognize. You watched all of this with mounting confusion.
“There,” he said. “You happy?”
“I just–I–I'm just asking, Michael, what is it that you actually do? That's–So we can get our finances straight before–”
“Think I can't provide?” he asked, unusually defensive. “Is that what this is about? Think I can't go out to bars in any of these cities and pick up women who'd actually appreciate the shit I do for them?”
“I do appreciate you,” you whispered.
“Bullshit.”
“I do, Michael,” you maintained. “I just wanted to get our finances straight.”
“Because you don't trust me.”
You closed your eyes. “I just wanted to know what exactly you do,” you murmured almost robotically, voice dissolved of inflection. “That's all.”
He gave you nothing. The silence you sat in with him was full of shame.
“I'm takin’ a client out to lunch,” he said. “Don't text me.”
And you cried when he left. Why weren't you ever fucking enough?
***
You applied for a new job, and your interview was on your calendar, circled in blue ink. The day before it, you sat on the floor rocking back and forth against the side of your bed. Your lungs were closing in.
You had the interview to worry about, but also bigger things like expenses. Your student loans had to be repaid now, and you couldn’t rely on any more loans to cover rent anymore. And you wanted to believe that Michael would help out, but you just didn't know anymore. You had no idea what to do about anything.
Answers to potential interview questions raced through your head. What if it was a panel interview? What if it was purely a situational interview? What if you couldn't come up with a scenario that would make sense? What if you looked like shit in the interview and they judged you?
You let out a shaky breath. You wanted this job. You needed this job. Full-time with benefits. A set Monday-Friday schedule. Right close to where you grew up. You could move out of this college town and move back home.
But you just felt helpless right now, some sense of dread and doom weighing on your chest you couldn’t get to just fucking evaporate already and bother someone else. There would be no way in hell you'd be chosen for this job. You're you. You're not anything compared to other applicants. You're nothing. Tears covered your cheeks while your heart began to thump out of nowhere, and then the thumps took over your entire body and your entire focus.
Your heartbeat was in your ears. It was loud in your chest since your heart was now ten times its normal size. It was expanding and fixing to explode. Not being able to slow it down, you started to panic more. Fucker loser. You were a fucking loser and your medicine didn't even fucking work, and you were all alone and no one else besides Michael would ever even put up with this fucking shit.
The door opened and you heard a few quick footsteps, then–“Oh, what is it now?” a voice asked.
You put your forehead on your knees while continuing to rock back and forth. Shaking, you felt gross and ugly and wanted to scrape your skin raw. You tried heaving in breaths but couldn’t. You were entirely unable to do the simple fucking task of breathing.
It wasn’t just the upcoming interview. Anytime you panicked, it was never just one thing. There was no “just”. It was everything piled up so high it toppled over.
Michael put a hand on your shoulder and started shaking it. You cringed from the sensation of being touched and started truly hyperventilating.
“Y/N,” he said. “C'mon. Just stand up.”
You shook your head.
“Stand up, Y/N–you gotta get up.”
Even quicker, you shook your head. You kept your forehead pressed to your knees.
“Just stand up!” he said with growing impatience.
Through breaths that sounded like you were in the middle of a cycling class, you managed to pull all the hate inside you and shouted, “You don't even care about me!”
“I'm the ONLY ONE who cares about you!” Michael bellowed. “I'm the only one who knows everything about you and still hasn't left you!”
You began sobbing. “W-Why are you always so mean?”
“Y/N, it's not being mean,” he said with slow frustration. “It's being real. You need to stand the fuck up to let your lungs have more room to work.”
You sniffed. You couldn’t get up.
“You know what?” he said from some distance away. “I'm done with this shit. You always say you’re afraid I’m gonna leave you? Well, I am gonna leave you.”
“You don't mean that,” you shakily said. Still, your eyes widened in fear.
Michael left with a duffel bag full of his things that night.
None of it made sense. You knew you didn’t always get along, but in real long-term relationships like this, that’s just how they went. Couples would fight. You didn’t think anything was bad enough for him to…to entirely abandon you.
You cried and you shook and you sobbed and you trembled. A lot. And it made no sense because you knew somewhere inside that you would be better off without him, but you also still wanted him for some reason. And you wanted him to want you.
It just made no sense. You knew it made no sense. The two of you were tied in some weird way. You’d lived together. You’d done so much together. You’d planned for a future. He was the main person in your life. You’d become distant from your friends and your coworkers and your family, and now what? Now there was nobody. Now you were alone.
You just wanted to be the main person in somebody else’s life. You wanted someone to notice when you were supposed to be home and be worried that you didn’t arrive on time. You wanted someone with goals like owning a business, with steps on how to get there, with a plan. You wanted someone to call you baby.
All of it was gone. You texted Michael long paragraphs. He didn’t acknowledge your messages.
You waited an entire week to come to terms with the fact that he hadn’t left to cool off. He’d left you.
***
A month later, your lease came to an end. You briefly moved back in with your parents for the summer, and that’s when you and one of your childhood friends came up with a plan. At the end of a long drawn-out divorce, Justine was just as distraught as you were, and she was ready for a drastic change. And shit, after graduating and needing a better job, you were on board.
“It’s not really a fixer-upper,” she’d said while holding tiny Michael in her arms–and you tried not to cringe at what she named her newborn– “but it’s not super, super nice, either.”
You looked at all the printed pictures of the house that Justine had sprawled across her coffee table. “Oh, it's great,” you enthused. “Enough room for both of us plus the kids. Big, big yard.”
Daniel tugged at your dress after that, taking your attention away from your discussion for a few moments for you to tie his shoes.
“And look at that price,” Justine said. “I could pay for it in cash with my divorce money alone.”
Still distracted by Daniel showing you the scrape on his elbow, you took one last look at the picture of what your room would look like. “Let’s do it,” you’d crazily agreed.
And so you had.
Right before you were set to move, the messages from your ex started up.
“I messed up. I was scared. I just didn’t know how to handle everything.”
“Please answer me.”
“I missed you. I shouldn’t have left. It’s just been so stressful.”
“Did you change the locks to the apartment?”
He sent a picture of the two of you sitting together on the couch of your old apartment, smiling and looking happy.
“Please. I still think about you all the time.”
The messages fucked you up for a while. You considered responding to him. You even considered staying in Virginia. Your mind replayed all of the good times together, and hope bloomed in your heart that it could be like that again. With you getting a degree under your belt, the future awaited you. You imagined all those times he’d promise you a diamond ring and told you to just continue being patient, he’d give you the life you’d always dreamed of.
Then you remembered. You remember feeling so confused all the time, and so tired, and so unhappy. Deseree, glad as she was to be back in contact with you again, was one huge part in helping you decide to move. She didn’t like Michael.
“Any time you’re feelin’ guilty for simply talking to your friend of, like, a decade–that’s a red flag. This isn’t a bad thing.”
And you felt simultaneously glad to have all of the confusing experiences with Michael well behind you while also feeling entirely unwanted and discarded. Even though you willingly left your birth-state out of your own free will, it’d just…it’d just be nice to not feel like everything you touched turned to fucking rust. It’d be nice to not feel like you had to be someone else entirely just to be likeable. It’d be nice to not feel like a freak.
But at least you had Justine and her kids. And there was time to create a new you somehow, a different persona. You found a job. And you found another job. And after sending your transcripts to the local university there, you got in.
If no one else would accept you, the university at least did.
***
Somehow, Sy remains entirely quiet during your…stories. Besides a few moments of tightly-clenched teeth and a small accident from squeezing his styrofoam coffee cup with too much force, he’s stoic.
“...And I guess you know where it picked up after that,” you quietly finish.
You let the silence extend so indicate to Sy that you’re finally done rambling. Of course, you could share even more stories (you have almost two-years’-worth of them), but you covered the basics. But when Sy doesn’t say anything after several long moments, you can't help but to nervously fill the quietness with more words.
“I sound really stupid sayin’ everything out loud,” you mutter, still stuck gazing out the window. “And I know what you’re gonna say, that it’s horrible to talk about myself like that, but c’mon. Seriously. It’s just like…Hearin’ this out loud…Like, if it were anybody else, I’d look at them and be like, why did your dumbass stay so long with a guy like that? Why didn’t you just leave?”
In your peripheral vision, you see Sy shift. That’s when you finally turn in your chair to face him.
“Oh, Sy, your–Your neck’s red,” you murmur while scrunching your eyebrows together in worry.
Still, he doesn’t speak.
“...Are you okay?”
He takes a deep breath in through his nose, taking in and letting out so much air you can hear it. “I’m havin’ a real hard time justifyin’ not huntin’ his ass down right now and killin’ him.”
You frown and look down at the table. “Yeah, well. You don’t need the homicide charge.”
“It’d be worth it.”
It’s quiet again as invisible needles begin stabbing your eyes. Luckily, Sy has stretched out his hand to rest palm-up in the middle of the table. You take hold of his fingers the instant you start to soundlessly cry.
“It’s just really hard, still,” you say, your voice cracking, “because it wasn’t like he, like, abused me or anything, but I still feel like there’s all this–”
“Y/N,” Sy interrupts. “He did.”
You sniff and wipe your face with your free hand. “He didn’t. It was all just a bunch of mind-fucks. Non-stop mind-fucks.”
“I gotta tell you, I–Y/N, baby. I’m–” Sy cuts himself off and squeezes your hand. You’ve never heard him stutter like this before. “He did.”
You glance away.
“He knew what he was doin’.” Sy shakes his head, and for as angry as you know he is, his voice remains so soft with you. “He knew what he was doin’, Y/N. It was abuse. All of it. And he shouldn’t get away with havin’ treated you like that. Especially–especially–the coercion to get you to do shit you didn’t wanna do. He should–That fucker should–” Sy shakes his head again.
Your mouth opens at the passion Sy’s showing, then it snaps shut. “It was literally such a long time ago,” you reply, but Sy is persistent.
“Don’t matter how long ago it was,” he replies, his tone brooking no argument. “It’s got you here cryin’. He shouldn’t get away with it. He won’t.”
“God, I’m so sorry.” You let go of Sy’s hand to wipe your cheeks with two hands.
“What exactly are you sorry for?”
You shrug. “Just…All of this. It’s just so cliché. It’s your first day here, and you’re already havin’ to deal with a shitty ex-boyfriend of mine.”
“I’m from Smalltown, USA, too, Y/N,” he chuckles mirthlessly.
“Yeah, but it seriously feels like it’s all the same with the people in my life,” you mutter. “Justine…Cole…my dad, who you’ll meet tomorrow. It just seems like it’s always something with me. And you’re always stuck helping out.”
His voice is adamant when he says, “I want to.”
With your eyes mainly dry again, you sniff while nodding at Sy. You know this. It takes a lot of reminders, but you know this. He wants to help you, to take care of you. He's in your corner.
“I’m usually a lot better about this topic. I think sharing so much all at once like that...that was rough. Because now I can hear how bad it was, but when it was actually going on, it was like…I just couldn’t get it. I still think there are things I maybe still don’t get to this day.”
Sy nods at you. “Sad to say, the world’s full of shitty people. Not your dad–who I’m sure is a right ray of sunshine–” he interrupts himself as you playfully kick him under the table– “Shitty people do shitty things.”
You begin fanning your eyes. “Yeah.”
“And they find genuine people like you to use ‘cause they think they can get away with it.” Sy leans back in his chair and crosses his arms across his broad chest. “That’s where I come in.”
You and Sy have had a similar conversation before. When you’d had what was probably one of your worst emotional breakdowns ever, Sy insisted that you talk everything out, and on your bed with his arms wrapped tightly around you, you had.
It was the first real time you started to realize that even though you’ve been a common denominator in a lot of the failed relationships you’ve had in your life, you haven’t been at fault or anything. It’s more of the fact that you seem to attract people who take advantage of you.
Sy had said it’s because you’re a genuine person. You still say it’s because you’re naive.
But you’re getting better.
Still, you don’t know what Sy’s implying. Is he going to pick a fight with Michael tonight?
“What exactly does that mean?”
“We’ll just see how he behaves,” Sy murmurs evasively before unfolding his arms.
You nod and then look away. Sy eventually taps his boot against your shoe, and you look back at him questioningly. His eyes are focused on you, his face is open, and he’s just…so devastatingly handsome.
“Hey. Thank you for sharing all that with me,” Sy says so softly it's almost a whisper.
“Oh,” you utter in surprise. “Yeah. Of course. It's not that I meant to, like, hide stuff or anything like that. It's just…” You trail off and briefly glance outside.
“I get it.”
You take a few moments to compose yourself. “It makes me really sad to think about. Like, to really think about. And, you know, that it’s taken so long for me to figure it out. Like, to take those memories and analyze them from an entirely different viewpoint. And it sucks. I feel like I’ve wasted so much of my life.”
“Mm,” Sy murmurs. “Well, I feel like mine’s just beginnin’.”
The expression he gives you can’t be described as anything but admiring, and the moment is tender while you stare at each other across the table. Your eyes are windows, and he's looking within, seeing every single part of you. Loving every part of you.
And he’s still here.
Sy lets out a shaky breathe and then stands up. After widening his arms, he clears his throat. "Come here," he says quietly. "Please."
Almost for his sake as well as yours, you stand up, go to him, and let him wrap his arms around you. He squeezes you with a soft sort of power, and in his embrace, you feel his apology. I'm sorry you had to go through any of that.
"I love you," you whisper into his shirt.
He kisses the top of your head. "I love you," he whispers back.
There is so much I want to say about this part but most importantly I want to say this: JC, I am so proud of you. You shared in your author note that some of what’s shared are things you actually experienced. You shared that you embellished some for this part but how I felt reading this, I can’t imagine how you felt going through what you did and writing an extension of it here. I can see that you have such a powerful strength and courage in you JC. I could feel that reading this part. I’m so happy that you are where you are now, and like someone commented you have your “Sy”. I’m proud to know you.
And as for this part as a whole, it gave me a bit of hope to know that somewhere out there in the world is my own “Sy”. 🤍
Eyes That See (part twenty-four)
Eyes That See Summary: Your life has consisted of caring for others. This is a story of you learning to care for yourself.
Eyes That See Part 24 Summary: The second-half of December passes in a blur of gift-buying, gift-wrapping, and packing for your upcoming move. When Christmas Day arrives, things finally slow down, and you truly relax with Sy.
tw: Christmas, I guess, but nothing religious
Words: 7k
Chattanooga turns out to be a fun day-trip. There, you and Sy find a short trail in the mountains that ends in a large waterfall, and you spend a long time sitting next to each other on a giant log, just looking at it. Sy carves your initials into the bark of the log with his pocket knife and doesn’t even roll his eyes when you take about a dozen pictures of you both grinning with the pretty scenery behind you. One photo is even good enough to frame.
Afterwards, you go to a restaurant for lunch and then stroll around downtown together, bundled in coats. You try to get as many souvenirs and gifts as you can to mark off lingering people you still need to buy for, and you can’t help but get Justine’s kids a few more gifts, too. Sy shows off his consideration as well as his impressive upper-arm strength by carrying around multiple shopping bags for you for literal hours.
Oh–and there's also the fact that, despite your protests, he pays for literally everything you choose, too.
When you get back to town, Sy stops at a Dollar General for you to load up on wrapping paper, ribbons, and bows. Despite your day-long refusals against him paying for everything, he pays for your supplies in cash just as you’re trying to swipe your debit card. When you reach out to snatch the money out of his hand before he can give it to the cashier, he just raises his arm so you can’t reach.
Almost affectionately, you roll your eyes while he takes his receipt and collects three tightly-crammed yellow bags in just one hand. “Ain’t my fault you’re short,” he says on the way outside.
“I am not short,” you trail behind him and argue. You pull out the tubes of wrapping paper he’s got secured underneath his left arm. “Ain’t my fault you’re a giant.”
“Giant, huh?”
You hit the wrapping paper against his arm. “Giant pain in the ass.”
“Aw, baby, you’re so sweet to me.”
Inside the truck, you get serious. “You didn’t have to pay for literally every single thing today, Sy,” you mutter. “Those weren’t even your gifts to buy.”
“It was nothing,” he starts the truck and easily says, and with that, he dismisses the topic entirely.
Your evening is spent in front of the living room fireplace wrapping presents while Sy puts the few items he’s bought for his family into gift bags he tapes shut. Every time he pushes a finished bag to the side, you side-eye him.
“What?” he asks, and you just shake your head, holding back a smirk.
“You should be one of those holiday-wrappers they got at the mall,” you remark. “All this skill…gone to waste.”
“Oh, yeah?”
With your tongue slightly poking out between your lips, you nod.
“We can’t all be as great as you,” he replies, and at that, your face loses some of its glee. You still feel so awkward when he says things like that. Internally, though, you eat it up. Even while you have to look away until your ears stop burning, your insides still feel like jumping frogs.
For whatever reason, Sy doles out more praise practically all night–in the living room, how good all your finished presents look; in the kitchen, how good the dinner you made was; upstairs in bed, how good you are doing that thing with your tongue.
______________________
Someone unexpected rings Justine's doorbell on a random night the following week. Even though Sy’s grandma lives right across the street, you’ve gotten used to visiting her and not the other way around, so when you open the door to see her carrying a bag full of presents, your eyes widen.
You take the bag from her and welcome her inside. “Michael’s sleeping and the other kids are taking baths,” you say while quickly unloading the bag of gifts near the Christmas tree, “but I’ll let them know you dropped stuff off. Ooh, they’re gonna be so thrilled. Thank you so, so much.”
“One’s for you, too,” she explains.
The last present you dig out has your name on it. "Aw, Miss Donna, you didn't have to."
"Oh, don'tchu worry about it, honey, I wanted to.” After you stand back up with a small present for her in your hand, you walk back to the front door and give her a quick, tight hug. “Liana taught me how to shop online on this website called Amazon. It’s so fast, even out here in the sticks! You ever heard of it?"
You smile. "Here and there, yeah."
She lightly taps your arm. "You mockin' an old lady?"
"Ehh, I might be mockin' someone, but she's not an old lady," you reply with a wink.
"Oh, listen to you. You and Sy are perfect for each other."
You bite your lip. “Yeah, he’s pretty great,” you murmur. “So, hey. I got you something, too.”
As you hold out a tiny wrapped box in offering, her face lights up. She puts a hand over her chest. “Y/N, I’m as tickled as a speckled pup.”
You can’t help laughing at that strange comparison, and you shake the box a little bit. “Well, take it.”
“Oh, you shouldn’t’ve given this to me early,” she reaches out for the gift and chides, but it sounds more towards herself. “I’m plumb awful at bein’ patient. I can never wait ‘til Christmas Day.”
“No one’s sayin’ you have to.”
Her lip sticks out of the side of her mouth in consideration. “Okay, well, here goes.” She instantly starts unwrapping the box like the decision wasn’t hard to make at all.
There’s a weird anxiety you always get at watching people open gifts that you'd chosen in front of you. You almost wished she’d just taken it back to her house to open, but it’s nice to know she’s excited, as least.
Your face drops a little when she simply stares inside the box without saying anything. When her silence goes on too long, you explain the gift. “Um. It’s a Walker, Texas Ranger badge.”
“I know what it is,” she murmurs. “I was just admirin’.”
Gratefully, you smile. “So…you like it?”
“Y/N,” she finally looks up, “I’m gonna wear it every night.”
Your smile turns to a grin. “Please do, and let me know how long it takes Sy to comment on it.”
“Absolutely, hon. There’s a new sheriff in town, boys,” she says in a funny voice while going outside again. On the porch, you hug once more, and in her embrace, she even rocks you side-to-side a little. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”
“You’re so welcome. Go enjoy Chuck Norris now.”
“While wearin’ my new badge,” she adds.
You watch her cross the street with the internal amusement that Sy’s family is really starting to feel like your family. Hell, you and his sisters have your own group chat now.
Your train of thought immediately turns to your actual family. In just a few weeks, you and Sy are driving up to Virginia. It’ll be his first time meeting your parents, your grandparents, and some other relatives, and you’re anxious. You're also trying your very hardest to stop being anxious.
You’re not worried about if your family’s gonna like Sy; you honestly don’t care, plus you know they will. You’re concerned if he’ll like them. Or, well–not like them, but…judge you somehow as being an extension of them. You’re worried that he’ll see too much and then… You stop yourself from going any further than that.
While things aren’t technically dysfunctional back home, your family is…complicated. Your dad’s version of a warm welcome is a long stare and maybe a head-nod. On the other hand, your mom is the opposite–too talkative, too worried about being a good host, too high-strung at times. Your maternal grandparents are mostly fine other than having health problems, but your dad’s parents are just plain awkward. You’re prematurely embarrassed just imagining how things are going to go.
You sincerely hope Sy doesn’t think of you differently after learning where and how you were brought up.
After finally closing the front door instead of standing outside in the cold without a jacket, you make your way down the hall to check on the kids.
_________________
The hustle and bustle of the holiday season comes full-force, and suddenly, Christmas Eve is upon you. That evening, Justine lets the kids open one present each before going to bed to await the big event the next day, and the gifts they choose are from you. You relish in their excitement as they tear into wrapping paper, their gasps as they see what they’ve gotten, and their smiles and hugs afterwards.
It’s the last time you’ll have the chance to have all this. It’s bittersweet.
You drive to Sy’s place afterwards, pushing down lingering guilt of not being at Justine’s in the morning to see the kids open everything else. As special as they are to you, you aren’t their mother. Justine deserves those memories. It’s time for you to make new ones.
Christmas morning with Sy is like a fucking Hallmark movie, but instead of some wholesome image of you both wearing matching pajamas when you come downstairs, you’re in one of his big t-shirts with just boy-shorts underneath and big, fuzzy socks, and he’s half-naked in only his boxers. They’re festively covered in candy canes.
In the kitchen, you stand side-by-side with sleep-slanted eyes while going about preparing breakfast together. You begin brewing coffee and pre-heating the oven while Sy cooks up a bunch of turkey sausage in a skillet. After that’s done, he cracks some eggs in the same pan, and you start warming up water and milk in a pot. While waiting for the liquid to boil, you place a tray of gluten-free biscuits into the oven.
It’s easy to concentrate on cooking until Sy slowly moves behind you. Wrapping his big arms around your waist until his hands are splayed out atop your stomach, he squeezes you and quickly makes it hard to move. It grows even harder when he starts kissing your neck and distracting you even more.
“Merry Christmas, darlin’,” he quietly says.
As always when he speaks into your ear, chills break out along your arms. “Merry Christmas, yourself.”
His stubble tickles your skin as he begins kissing the other side of your neck. You don’t even pretend to be annoyed as you tilt your head to the side and murmur, “You’re gonna make me burn the biscuits."
He hums. “Ain’t possible.”
You chuckle while reaching out for a box next to the stove. “Well, the grits need to go in now, and I gotta actually focus on stirrin’ so I don’t mess up, so keep it together.”
“Mm. Yes, ma’am.”
Turning around slightly, you tilt your face up with your lips pursed, and Sy immediately kisses you. When he backs away, you softly smile at one another. You finish up the grits while Sy starts frying potatoes, and by the time everything’s done, you have a giant spread of entirely too much food for just two people.
You bring your plates and coffee cups to the living room, deciding to eat while sitting on the couch. When you were little, you always used to listen to holiday music while eating breakfast on Christmas Day, but because you and Sy are both sort of tired of listening to it by now, he starts a fire and turns on the TV instead. He flicks through a few channels before settling on a movie that’s already halfway done.
“We gotta getchu a streaming service up in here,” you mutter around a bite of food. “Man, I missed out on a perfect gift. Maybe next year.”
Sy looks over at you while taking a sip of coffee. His eyes meaningfully bore into yours, and you hope he’s thinking the same thing you are. There’s gonna be a next Christmas, too. And one after that, and after that, and after that.
You find a nearby throw and cover your legs with it, but it’s thin and not substantial enough at all to keep you warm. The fireplace is nice and hot in front of you, at least.
“How are you even shirtless right now, Sy?”
“Chest hair’s good insulation,” he replies, and you can tell as he’s chewing his food that he’s fighting back a stupid grin.
You smirk. “Ah.”
You end up eating entirely too much, and you don’t care. It means that laying back on the couch with a blanket on your lap and Sy’s arm around your shoulders feels even more luxurious. Normally when you lounge around like this, there’s something inside you protesting, a feeling of I’ve got stuff to do I can’t take a break I can’t be lazy, but not right now. Right now, you’re with your boyfriend, and right now it’s Christmas, and right now not even your upcoming Virginia trip worries are going to spoil anything.
Eventually, Sy suggests exchanging gifts, and even though your literal most recent thought was about not letting anything spoil your relaxation, the present thing admittedly gets you a little nervous. You seriously don’t know why you’re so weird about opening gifts in front of people and watching other people open yours, only that it's a lot of expectation, you guess. A lot of room for disappointment from the other person.
You both agreed to keep it simple, though, so your nerves settle a bit as you walk to the tiny Christmas tree and gather your wrapped presents for Sy. He does the same for you, and you both make a small pile in front of your individual places on the couch. You hope he likes what you've picked out.
You appreciate how non-showy Sy is about everything. It's actually funny to you that he can't wrap for shit and has placed every single thing in various-sized gift bags, all taped shut instead of stuffed with tissue paper. One bag is ridiculously large, the next is small, and the last is tiny.
You have three gifts for him, too, all covered with sleek maroon paper and white ribbons and bows. You want him to go first and tell him so, and you know from his tiny smirk that he sort of already knows what the first small present will be before opening it.
You’re not sure if it was purely casual last month when he mentioned he needed a new wallet, or if it was a hint, but either way, he’d said it, so you’d gotten one. He grins while he pulls out a nice leather wallet that you got help from Johnny in picking out.
“Just what I needed.”
“Yeah, well. If you’re gonna insist on payin’ for everything when we go places,” you say while briefly looking away and shrugging, “you gotta at least upgrade.”
“True,” he replies. “Thanks, baby.”
“Um. There’s somethin’ inside, too,” you nervously say.
He lifts an eyebrow.
“Not money,” you’re quick to explain when he pulls out a light-green rectangle of paper in the shape of a dollar bill.
On the paper is a handwritten list of things you love about him. You were probably feeling way too sentimental when you came up with the idea to put the paper in his wallet in the first place, but it’s too late to go back now. You really hope it doesn’t come across as cheesy as you’re suddenly thinking it will.
While Sy starts reading, you feel like you’re sitting next to him naked, so emotionally vulnerable your heart starts to quicken. This being the very first gift…it’s heavy.
Why I Love You You make me feel safe. You make me feel special. You always support me. You give the best hugs. You make me happier than anyone I know. You always tell me the truth even when it’s not comfortable. You smell really good. You look at me differently than you look at everyone else. You know the real me. You don’t disappear when I’m struggling. You support me. Your jokes are stupid and funny and stupidly funny. I’m in love with you. You’re the best person I know.
When Sy’s done reading, he carefully tucks the paper back into the wallet. As usual when silence goes on too long, you feel the need to fill it with explanations.
“Um, I didn’t have a whole lot of actual money to spend for gifts, and at that time I didn’t know that you’d be buyin’ so much for me up in Tennessee,” you ramble. “I was tryin’ to come up with something that was, like, special…I hope you don’t think it’s stupid. It’s just–you know I have a hard time sayin’ stuff out loud, so I…I wanted to tell you.”
Sy turns to face you, his eyes warm yet a little confused. “Why would I ever think a gift from you would be stupid?”
You shrug. “‘Cause it’s sappy,” you quietly reply.
“It’s a gift from you.” Sy reaches out to touch your chin, and he gently beckons you to look at him without breaking eye-contact while he says, “I love you so much, baby. You’re so good to me. Thank you.”
Your face heats up after accepting a long, sweet kiss. Internally, you still feel naked, but warmth gradually begins to spread through you again. You’re so good to me is something he’s begun saying more frequently, and you don’t know if he even realizes how hearing those words makes your stomach flip every single time.
“I’d need a bigger piece of paper in order to do the same for you,” he comments when he moves to carefully place the wallet on the table next to the couch.
It takes a second to figure out his meaning, but then–Shit, now he’s thinking you hadn't put down enough things. “I could’ve written more, actually, but I ran out of room. I wrote too big. It’s not like–” You sigh at yourself. “I just mean that I could’ve kept goin’ on.”
“Oh, yeah?” Sy grins as he spreads out an arm on the back of the couch. “What else would you have put on there?
You peek at him, all your awkwardness leaving. He’s just playing around with you. “What, you want an ego-boost first thing in the mornin’?”
“Maybe.”
“Oh, you’re serious,” you say after a beat. “Well…You’re good at practically everything you do. You’re a good mechanic. You fix stuff around the house and outside, and you’re a good cook, too. You’re really hardworking. You’re driven. You’re a good driver and you don’t freak me out when I ride with you. You’re a good brother, and a good uncle, and you’re good to your grandma. You’re a good friend. And good with animals. You’re a good leader. You’re thoughtful. You always take time to, like, listen to me without interrupting. You’re protective but not scary. You always make me feel safe,” you go on, staring at the fireplace and missing the amusement on Sy’s face. “Oh, I already said that one. Um, you’re really considerate. You’re the most handsome man I’ve ever seen in my life. But obviously I’d still love you if you were like, not handsome. I’d love you no matter what. Uhh…You and I like the same music. You, uh. You’re good when we’re, like–you’re a good kisser.”
You stop talking and glance over at Sy to see him totally eating this up. “That enough for you?”
“Mm... But just a good kisser?” Sy asks with a roguish expression.
“And maybe a few other things, too. Oh, my God, it’s literally so early right now,” you reply with a fake eye-roll. “Take the compliments I already gave.”
He smiles and then turns serious again. Like, really serious. “You're so good to me,” he repeats, and you take in a quick breath while your heart feels swollen ten times too large inside your chest. “Thank you.”
It was just a wallet and a piece of paper.
“You’re welcome,” you look down and reply with hot ears, watching as he lowers his arm from the back of the couch and places his hand on your leg. His thumb starts brushing little circles atop the tattered blanket covering your lap.
He clears his throat. “Makin’ you feel safe and happy is literally all I ever want. So even though I don’t agree that I’m good at everything I do, I’m glad I can at least do that right.”
Still looking at your lap, you smile.
“Mainly I’m just glad that I smell good,” he adds, lightening the heavy mood.
“Ha, ha.”
You reach out to take a sip of your coffee while Sy pushes the largest of the three bags towards you. Instead of sliding across the hardwood floor easily, it’s slow by whatever’s weighing it down. Since the bag is covered in about thirty pieces of tape from left to right, instead of picking it up to open it, you just lean over and rip apart all the tape. Without meaning to, you loudly gasp when something inside is revealed.
“Well, I wasn’t expectin’ that reaction,” Sy tilts his head and quietly mutters in surprise.
You quickly push off the blanket that’s currently on your lap and replace it with the one inside the bag. It’s cream-colored and thick, yet it’s soft in a way that makes you unable to stop touching it. “This is so, so, so smooth.” You lift it up to your cheek and nuzzle it for a moment. “Oh, my gosh, it’s so soft.”
Sy watches you in amusement until you settle down with the blanket tucked snugly around you.
“Thank you, Sy,” you tell him sincerely. “I’m keeping it right here on this couch.”
He scratches the side of his nose. “There’s somethin’ else, too.”
“I figured,” you reply. “This bag looks like it weighs a hundred pounds.”
When you reach into the bottom of the bag and pull out the large item with two hands, you grunt. Only after you manage to get it on your lap do you realize what it is. Sy had gotten you another blanket, but it’s packaged, and it’s big, and it’s heavy. It’s weighted.
“They’re supposed to help with anxiety, plus my room gets cold ‘til I get central heat,” he says nonchalantly. “Not that you have to keep it here if you don’t wanna.”
You stare down at the plastic packaging on your lap, fighting the urge to unzip the top and pull out the blanket entirely. You’ve heard of these before. Never before have you even considered one for yourself, though. That would be too obvious.
...Obvious to who, though? It’d be in your bedroom, where you sleep alone. No one else would know but yourself.
You’re starting to realize that compared to other people, you’re probably the worst judge of yourself there is, not the others. As early as possible, you take any shame that you can unto yourself as some sort of way to stay in control before others can do it first.
God, but it’s just–nobody ever really talks about your anxiety like just a regular thing you go through besides Sy. Nobody likes even mentioning it. It’s always been this thing you’ve had to fix about yourself, something that’s taboo, even, because it's not just simply “worrying” about things here and there–it's panic attacks and racing thoughts and entirely illogical behavior at times.
But Sy’s never had a problem with it–even when you made up that he’d have a future problem with it–and here’s a gift not only bringing attention to your struggles, but doing it in a way that makes you feel normal. You’d gotten him a wallet for practical reasons, and he’d gotten you a blanket for practical reasons, too. It’s as simple as that.
“I love it. Thank you,” you murmur. The “very much” comes afterwards, subdued.
After putting the plastic-wrapped blanket on the floor, you’re not expecting to be hit with so many emotions. They slam at you all at once like a steam jet to the chest, knocking you metaphorically backwards, and within a second, your eyes start to burn. It’s enough liquid for you to have to wipe away, but luckily it’s no more than that.
Sy’s hand is back on your leg, squeezing. “Oh–Hey, now, I didn’t mean to make you cry.”
“You didn’t,” you say while wiping your eyes one more time. “Well, I mean, you kinda did, but it’s okay. I’m happy.”
You both make eye contact and offer small smiles to one another. He seems to read into what’s going through your head right now, or at least it seems that he does, because he gives your leg another gentle squeeze and even leans back in to peck your mouth with his.
You sniff, and then you’re back to normal, genuinely smiling in front of his close face. “Your turn.”
Sy reaches out for the next present, another relatively small one wrapped in curly ribbon that he has to tear with two hands to break. When he slowly pulls back the wrapping paper, it exposes the All Dogs Go to Heaven picture-frame you’d bought him. In it is a photo of him and Aika that MawMaw found and gave you.
Sy must've not seen this picture in a long, long time. He puts the frame on the small table next to the couch and silently stares at the photo for a long time. A much younger version of himself is crouched down next to the German Shepherd. Just from the image, it’s evident how close they were. Aika has her tongue out, almost looking like she's smiling, and with all his military gear on, Sy looks serious, but the side of his mouth is tilted just enough for him to appear content.
“There was somethin’ else that was supposed to be sitting on top of the frame,” you say after a long, quiet minute. “Maybe it’s still in the paper.”
Sy reaches inside the discarded paper and finds the next little thing you got him–a tiny Christmas tree ornament in the shape of a dog-tag. On the back is a pawprint.
Sy looks down at the ornament and doesn’t say anything, but you have a feeling that maybe it’s just because he can't. As he puts it on the table next to the picture frame, he audibly swallows like he’s got a lump in his throat. Finally, he looks at you and nods, and you understand that that’s his way of thanking you.
Well. That went well, you think.
You bend over and pick up the next bag for you, one of the small ones. You carefully rip the tape up top then reach inside to pull out what looks like a rolled-up t-shirt. Unfurling it and fanning it open, you lay it on your lap, and your jaw drops open of its own accord when you see what’s on it.
You wear a lot of band t-shirts. Sy probably doesn’t remember anymore, but you were wearing a Led Zeppelin shirt on the first night you met. It was actually the topic of one of the very first conversations you ever had with one another. Well, one of the first real conversations, at least.
Anyway, you stare down at this Led Zeppelin shirt–black with a red ZOSO design in the middle–and you’re unable to close your mouth.
“What’re you lookin’ at it like that for?” Sy almost laughs at you.
You shake your head. “Nothin’. I love it! Seriously. I love it. You know I'm gonna wear this. Just–You should open your next one now.”
The next and last gift you’d gotten Sy doesn’t have any fancy ribbons on it, just a simple bow he removes before tearing back the paper. Next, he opens the actual box you’d placed the gift inside, and there, folded neatly underneath tissue paper, is a black t-shirt with a red design in the middle.
Sy looks over at you and then back down at the shirt. “You’re fuckin’ jokin’.”
You start to laugh. “I swear, I had no clue.”
He lifts up the exact same shirt that he’d gotten you, only in a larger size. “The same damn one,” he states. “The same damn one. Really, Y/N?”
Uncontrollably laughing, you lean against his bare arm.
“I think that's about as good a sign as there ever was,” he says.
“For what?” you say through your laughter.
Sy lifts his arm and lets you in closer to him. “That I'm yours and you're mine,” he answers like it’s obvious.
“Yeah.” You get yourself under control and just grin while wrapping an arm around Sy’s middle. “You could always put it on now, you know,” you suggest. “Unless you’d like to keep showin’ off like this.”
He huffs out a laugh. “I ain't showin’ anything off but a dad-bod.”
“Oh, be quiet–that's so not true,” you sit up fuller and say, swiping your arm across his stomach as you move. “It’s sexy.”
Sy keeps his arm draped around your shoulders. Looking up at him to see him now looking down at you, there’s heat in his eyes, and you return it, seeing how far you can take this right now. You really like this couch. Lots of fun stuff has happened on this couch.
Ultimately, Sy clears his throat. That means later.
“Last one,” Sy points out as he moves back his arm to let you reach down for it.
Your next gift is a necklace so pretty you gasp when you flip open the box it’s in. The chain is white gold, and it holds a pendant in the shape of a teardrop. Diamonds are encrusted on the outer edge of the teardrop, and a beautiful gem is nestled in the center. The jewels glimmer as you simply look down, and when you’re not able to hold your hands that steady anymore, more diamonds catch light and sparkle.
“Sy, this is gorgeous,” you utter, gingerly touching the necklace. You don’t know much about jewelry, but the diamonds look very, very bright. “It looks expensive.”
“So?” he asks rhetorically, then clears his throat after you gently swat his arm. “I mean, it absolutely wasn’t.”
“It’s my birthstone in the middle,” you whisper.
“I know.”
Of course he knows. “Thanks so much,” you gratefully say, closing the box and placing it to the side. In full contentment, your smile doesn’t leave your face. “This was…This is so nice. This was a nice Christmas.”
Mirroring your contentment, Sy’s eyes shine when you look over at him, almost–almost–as bright as your new necklace. “You like everything?”
Grinning so widely your cheeks hurt, you nod and hug your new blanket to your chest. “Yeah. I really do, Sy. Thanks so much again.” Belatedly, you quickly glance at him to ask, “Was everything okay for you? I know it really wasn’t a lot –”
Sy interrupts you with a quiet little snort. “Christmas ain’t about stuff.”
You think back to what Sy had said on Thanksgiving Day, about how you can’t place a value on spending time with family and friends and loved ones; it’s irreplaceable, too important to assign a price to.
“This was perfect,” he says, and he means it. Because he says what he means and means what he says. The couch dips a little with his weight as he shifts a little closer. Before placing his lips on yours, he murmurs, “Thank you.”
You get caught up kissing one another with no real purpose besides comfort. When you finally separate, you stare at one another for a while. You’re so fucking in love that you feel like you’re on top of a Ferris wheel.
“I was half afraid you were gonna get me a new car or something,” you admit.
Sy doesn’t reply, but he casually reaches out to the side table, opens the front drawer of it, and pulls something out. Wordlessly, he moves an item so small it fits in the palm of his hand onto the blanket covering your legs. When you notice what it is, you look up just in time to see him raise his other hand, signaling for you not to protest just yet.
“Sy.”
“Hear me out,” he says. “There are safer options for you to drive.”
You scratch your neck. “But…an entire car?”
“An entire car. The key here is just for show,” he says before lifting it up and putting it back in the drawer. “I haven’t bought anything yet. You obviously get to pick.”
Your eyes begin darting around a little bit while you try to process what he’s said. “I–” You swallow and finally look up. “That’s a lot, Sy. You already got me this beautiful necklace, and I–that’s–I could never get you a gift like that.”
“Listen, it ain’t about evenin’ a scoreboard,” he says with the serious-brows he gets when he won’t budge on a topic. “You already give me more than I could ask for on a daily basis.”
You close your eyes. Here you thought you were being so good at accepting the necklace without feeling awkward about it. Now this. What do I give you on a daily basis that’s equivalent to a car, you want to ask.
“Baby,” he murmurs, and you open your eyes and look over at him again. “You said that one thing you love about me is I make you feel safe. Right?”
You don't have to even think before answering. “Always.”
“So think of it as a way I can keep doin’ that. I can buy somethin’, and that somethin’ will be keeping you safe, so it’d be like me continuin’ to keep you safe myself.”
You're fully aware that Sy is trying to talk you into accepting this grandiose and excessive idea, but it doesn’t feel like the classic manipulation from your past. Your ex would try to coerce you into things for insincere reasons. He’d say something about how he just wants to know your location all the time so he knows you’re safe, or how he just wants you home instead of going out so he’ll know you’re safe.
Sy, on the other hand, is proposing getting you a reliable vehicle. For…the purpose of a vehicle. So you can drive from one place to another without the risk of breaking down. That’s all. There’s no underlying sinister purpose.
Slowly, you nod. “Okay.”
His eyebrows jump. “Okay?”
“Yeah,” you quietly answer, amused at how happy Sy looks. “I can imagine bein’ worried if you were out drivin’ the car I do, so…yeah. I get it. I wouldn’t want you worryin’ about me drivin’ it, either.”
For long moments, Sy just sits there looking extremely pleased. “Hey,” he beckons, and you look up again. “You deserve it, you know.”
You let out a breath. “Tryin’ to think I do,” you mutter.
He winks. “Progress, then.”
Still not putting on a shirt, Sy pulls the level on the side of the couch to make it recline backwards. He relaxes on the couch while you get up to find your phone and pour both of you fresh coffee. When you come back to the couch, you lay out on it long-ways, resting your head on Sy's large thigh like a pillow. You cover yourself with your new blanket, get comfy with the feel of Sy's fingers on your hair, and start sending texts to everyone you know. On television, A Christmas Story has just started.
You send texts to your family members first and then Sy’s, then you move on to a few friends and co-workers. Obviously, Amelia’s first.
Your text is simple–“Merry Christmas” with a bunch of exclamation points and happy-looking emojis, and you’re surprised when she immediately texts you back with an even more enthusiastic “MERRY CHRISTMAS” and even more emojis. Directly following the text is a picture.
You gasp and almost drop your phone onto your face. “Oh, my fucking God.”
Sy stiffens quite quickly and quite severely, and you can only grin while keeping yourself from squealing. Your feet flutter underneath the blanket in excitement before you sit up in a flash. As Sy realizes that nothing’s wrong, you pick up your phone and lift it up to show him, displaying the picture Amelia had sent you of her left hand.
“Oh my God, he proposed, Sy!” you exclaim. “Johnny proposed!”
Sy raises his eyebrows a little and sticks out his lower lip in a gesture you interpret to mean, “Huh, imagine that,” and you smack his arm, rolling your eyes afterwards.
“You knew, didn’t you?”
“‘Course I knew.” He looks back at the television, but he does offer you a guilty expression first. “He threatened to stomp out my knee if I said anything.”
Your grin never falters. “He would never.”
“Still, had to honor it. Was hard as hell not to tell you, though.”
You look at your phone again and text Amelia a bunch of exclamation points. “Yeah, yeah.”
“Honest,” Sy insists. “I knew you wouldn’t let it out.”
“No, but I get it. Maybe I would’ve unconsciously behaved in some weird way that would’ve led her to believe something… I get it.”
You’re just so happy for her. She must be having the best morning ever.
Last on your texting list is Justine. Merry Christmas! Hope the kids had a good time making a mess out of the living room this morning lol, which you figure will be misinterpreted, so you then erase it to write: Merry Christmas! Hope the kids had a good morning and liked all their gifts, which you then change again to simply say: Merry Christmas! Hope you and the kids are having a great morning!
In the kitchen, you call your mom while packing up leftovers from breakfast. You’d shipped some stuff to her instead of waiting until after New Year’s to give her presents, and she said that if she’d’ve known you would be doing that, she would’ve shipped your gifts, too.
“Mom, it’s really okay,” you tell her for about the third time.
“But they’re not there on Christmas Day,” she replies. “I assumed we were all gonna wait until you got here.”
“Just a small misunderstanding,” you tell her. “I was just tryin’ to be nice. If you want, just wait until I visit to open what I mailed you, and we can open them all together.”
“I’ve been so busy tryin’ to get everything ready for y’all,” she changes the topic.
“Oh–don’t even sweat it, Momma, it’s okay. We weren’t plannin’ on stayin’ there.”
“Yeah, I know, you told me that, and I wish one day you would, but it’s okay,” she says, and you take a very long breath in and a very long breath out. “Still, it’s a lot of stuff I still have to do around here, and there’s just not enough hours in the day, y’know?”
“Totally,” you reply.
You chat a bit more, but as usual, it’s mainly just your mother sharing things because she doesn’t have a lot of people to talk to, and it’s Christmas, so of course you indulge. While listening to her, you clean the kitchen with your phone between your ear and shoulder. It’s only when she’s finally done worrying aloud and finally done sharing stories about people you don’t know that she asks about you.
“So, what kind of food does your boyfriend like? I need to make sure I have stuff here that he’ll eat, and I’d like to get him a gift, too. It’d be just awful to open presents around him without havin’ somethin’ for him, too.”
After opening the fridge to place some containers of leftovers inside, you stand there and look around. There’s nothing special that Sy likes or dislikes. The man’ll eat literally anything.
“I’ll give you some ideas here in a bit,” you say after pondering for a few more seconds. “But no worries either way about any of that stuff. He’s a really easy-goin’ person.”
“Oh, I just can’t wait to meet him,” she enthuses.
Feeling like you’re a teenager about to go to your first dance or something, you smile. “I can’t wait, either,” you admit.
“At first I thought you weren’t callin’ home as much ‘cause you were mad at me or somethin’, but it makes sense now. You’ve probably been spendin’ a lot of time with him.”
“Well, there’s been work and school and Justine’s kids, too, but yeah,” you chuckle. “I’m here with him now. We’re spendin’ Christmas together.”
“That’s so great, honey. And you said he’s good to you?” she asks. “Actually good? He’s not like–”
“He’s very good to me,” you interrupt.
She’s quiet for a moment. “Okay,” she says, then her tone gets more chipper again. “I’m happy for you.”
“I’m really happy, too,” you murmur.
“Well, Merry Christmas, sweetie. Thanks for callin’.”
“Merry Christmas!” you chime back. “I’ll text you later on, and I’ll see you real soon.”
“Alright, just don’t forget, okay? I need to make a shoppin’ list.”
“I won’t forget,” you say through an over-exaggerated sigh. “Love you.”
“Love you!”
Done with the kitchen and your one important phone call of the day, you slide your socked feet over the hardwood floors until arriving at the couch again. Sy looks at you with his eyebrows perked up a bit–a way to ask if everything’s good.
You sit down next to him and instantly reach out for your new blanket. “Mom’s excited to meet you.”
He smiles but doesn’t say anything while you cuddle up next to him. With his seat still reclined back, you decide to just lay your head down on his lap again like you’d been doing earlier. “Do we got plans today?” you ask while stretching out your legs on the couch. “Should we go see your family or are they doin’ other things?”
“MawMaw’s doin’ supper if you wanna go,” Sy says.
“Of course I wanna go,” you instantly answer, shifting around to get your face comfortable on Sy’s leg.
“Li and the boys’ll be there.”
“Ooh, even better,” you say, then: “Fuck, I didn’t get them anything. I got Liana somethin’ but forgot the freakin’ kids.”
Sy gently places his hand on your head. “I gotchu covered.”
You let out a breath of air in relief. “I already gave MawMaw her gift, so then that way everyone’ll all have somethin’ when we get there. I’m glad you have a better memory than me.”
“You’ve had a lot goin’ on recently,” he murmurs.
You make a noise in the back of your throat. “Yeah. Just a little.”
Sy soothingly continues touching your hair, lulling you into a warm, safe, almost drowsy state of mind. From time to time, his thumb traces the outside of your ear. You find yourself entirely relaxed while watching the end of the movie.
And tonight, you know things’ll still be relaxing and not stressful. You know MawMaw’s gonna have a ton of food cooked, you know that you’ll love catching up with Liana, and you know her kids won’t be hellions. You know that Sy will make corny jokes and eat too much and fall asleep while sitting on the couch. You know that football will be playing on TV.
You’re excited to visit your hometown soon, yeah, but everything about this place–your current spot with Sy, this house you’re in that doesn’t even have many of your possessions in it, this town–all of it just feels like home. Like this is where you belong.
“So what’dju get MawMaw?” Sy asks sometime later.
You grin, but he isn’t able to see. “You’ll just have to wait ‘til tonight to see.”
I loved this part so much! 🥹 This is honestly the sweetest Christmas, I loved how Sy and the reader spent their first Christmas together! This was just so good JC!
The widow and the newcomer (Pero Tovar x Fem!reader)
Notes: This is the longest fic I have ever written—if this doesn’t get reboots I am going to screech. This fic is my baby—please love her. What’s with me writing Pero Tovar with outcasted women? Idk man….my summary is shitty I’m sorry
Summary: widowed from a marriage so disastrous your glad your husband is dead, and working at your family’s business, you would prefer to not give the whole marriage a second shot. Scarred and traumatized you hope you can coast through remaining unmarried with your widow status—that is until the grumpy newcomer decides to step into your shop.
Warnings: SMUT (MINORS WILL BE BLOCKED), good ol’ oral sex (fem receiving, p in v sex, unprotected sex (its the 1400s honey, but were in 2021 so wrap it up), cream pie, cum eating, some descriptions of mental abuse, discussions of physical abuse, brief mention of children, infidelity, prostitution, bad sex life, virginity, brief discussion of pain during sex, religion, gossiping neighbors, and a meddling grandmother.
Marriage was a bland affair, and was not like the stories nan used to tell you on the cold winter nights when you were snowed in nor was it like the tales she told you of grandpa as you stitched with her in your parents shop. Your husband—the one now buried in the ground—was like none of those men and you could not conceive him having a single bone in his body like that man. Marriage was a transaction. One where women sold their bodies for livelihood—a legal, socially acceptable way to whore yourself off. Your marriage to Herald had revealed all the hidden secrets old women never told young maids, the cold hard ugly of the whole affair.
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This is the sweetest Pero Tovar fic ever 🥹
hiraeth
Pairing: Benny Miller x f!reader
Wordcount: 3.8k
Warnings: mention of loss of virginity, single use of y/n, reader works as a translator (not relevant to the story though)
A/N: I think I worked on this the longest out of all of my writings. Asian reader implied as usual but there are no physical descriptions so everyone is free to read 💞
Summary: It’s been twelve years since you and Benny Miller last saw each other. Now you both are back in your small hometown.
Benny Miller was back.
That’s what your friend told you. Just a casual small town news, not the way she would tell exciting gossip or something. You were hanging out at her place when she said, not taking her eyes away from her phone – texting her new boyfriend as she often does now – that Benny Miller was back.
One might assume that you and him had some sort of history together but that’s not entirely true. You were a couple of years younger than Ben, Benny, as he insisted on calling him. “Please, don’t call me Benjamin, I feel like an eighty year old man”, you remembered he used to laugh. Before he followed his brother to the military, you two used to go to the literature club together and often got partnered for readings. He was a fascinatingly fast reader with a great analytical mind, teacher’s favourite without even trying. Fair to mention that Benny got along with everyone pretty easily, which was not at all surprising: he had the physique of an Olympic athlete, a mind of a mathematician and a charming boyish personality with a tint – okay, not a tint but a heavy dash of recklessness. Though no one could really stay angry at him because despite his obvious flaws, Benny was a genuinely likeable person. So people were more than eager to be charmed by Benny and you were not an exception.
The literature club became your common ground – Benny and you joined it almost at the same time so he struck up an easy conversation with you at the teachers’ office where you bumped into each other, eager to sign up to the club. You were thankful – small talk was never really your forte but Benny made it so much simpler, manoeuvring the conversation with an admirable effortlessness and it felt like you two had been friends forever. That was one of the reasons you fell for Ben Miller – he always made everyone feel like he had been their friend for many years and you could have a lighthearted laugh with him. Honestly, sometimes, in the moment of fleeting desperation you wished Benjamin Miller was your typical jock, dumb and thoughtless, so you could finally get over him, but that was not a case. Despite his rather hot-headed personality, he was still a surprisingly good, insightful listener, and his presence alone made your heart ache in longing bittersweetness.
Yet, no matter how good you two seemed to hit it off, outside the literature club you had to face an unpleasant truth: you and Benny had almost nothing in common. You went to different classes and even studied in different parts of the building. He was graduating, leaving soon to pursue a military career just like his older brother, Will. Despite the childishness of this, – now that you’re older, you could laugh at it, – you and Ben belonged to different circles at school. Though you were never a 2000s movie outcast type of girl, you couldn’t say that you were particularly popular either. You were smart enough to be a good student and even participated in inter-school competitions, pretty enough to attract some attention from the boys and thoughtful enough to hold meaningful conversations with others. But Benny Miller was... cliche as hell, but he was so out of your league it physically hurt.
Or so you thought.
A few days after Benny’s graduation, his already former classmate threw a farewell party and Benny somehow was able to invite everyone from the literature club as well – no doubt, charmed his way around. That was the first somewhat grown-up party you went to and you felt awkward and out of place in your dark blue dress that was the epitome of “eighth grade dance that ends before nine and your mom picks you up after”. In that position you were found by Benny, who definitely belonged to this whole party picture: tall, strong, tan skin and sandy blonde hair. He smiled at you like he found a long lost friend, and offered you a drink which you took despite not really knowing whether you could handle the alcohol.
You don’t really remember how exactly you ended up in the back of Ben’s truck. Technically, it was his brother’s truck but Will was already abroad fighting a war that was not even ours, so... technicality. You felt embarrassed and overexposed but didn’t want to stop. The technically Will’s truck was now parked in the driveway of the Millers’ garage with you two making out in the backseat with passionate awkwardness. Well, you were awkward, and Benny was... Benny. He navigated his hands down your body with such confidence and knowledge, you unconsciously wondered, how many girls he did it with, and then instantly shoved that thought away. For once in your life you decided to focus on what was happening in the moment. Whatever happens, happens.
Benny pressed open-mouthed kisses all over your neck, he was praising you, for crying out loud, calling you a “sweetheart”... if you weren’t sitting down already, your knees would’ve buckled for sure. His big hands wandered down lifting up your dress. That’s when he stopped and looked at you and for the first time ever you noticed that there was a brown speckle amidst the blue of his left eye.
“You sure you want this?”
Not letting the wave of embarrassment clash upon you, you inhaled a soft “yes” causing Benny to smile. Not his usual friendly smile, it was... different. Good different. Tender? Loving? But you were left with no time for contemplation as Benny gently laid you down on the backseat and continued to explore your body, soft in the places you wish were more toned.
That’s how you lost your virginity to Benny Miller. In the backseat of the car that was technically not even his. And that’s the whole history you two had together. After the “backseat accident” as you jokingly called it later, Benny drove you home, made sure you were alright – “good night, sweetheart” (again, knees buckled a little) – and even kissed you before leaving. And two days after, you found out, ironically, through the same friend who now told you that Benny Miller was back, that he left for the military. He didn’t leave you any farewell message, didn’t call you or say goodbye – and why would he? – but for some reason it still hurt. It still hurt.
It’s been almost twelve years since the backseat accident, you moved on a long time ago. Not like you have regarded Benny as the love of your life but he has always been somewhere in the back of your mind because – well, you don’t forget your first, right? You graduated, you got your bachelor’s degree, you got your master’s, you dated other people, you became a good professional and now were temporarily working as a freelance translator. You navigated your work between the big city and your small town where you had to be for now because your grandma got a little sick and you decided to look after her since your parents were still busy working people. Coming back to your hometown wasn’t really in your plans but you decided a long time ago that you had to accept life the way it was. Whatever happens, happens. So ignoring the crippling loneliness and nagging feeling of not belonging here, you bravely managed the job and took care of your childhood home despite getting rather tantalising calls from your university friends who settled comfortably in the big cities and worked for big companies. You didn’t see returning back as a measure of success or, rather, failure. It’s just sometimes you outgrow places and you definitely outgrew your industrial hometown with its processing plants scattered across the outskirts. Yet it seemed as though being back sent you to the square one, you couldn’t help but feel like you have achieved nothing after you left which, in all fairness, was not true.
Nonetheless, many people prefer to come back to their small towns, you thought. Many people come back to their small towns. And Benny Miller was one of them.
***
You were driving home in a taxi from an interpreting gig in the city – translating a three hour negotiation had absolutely exhausted you but at least the client grew some conscience and he generously offered to pay for your cab. Pressing your cheek against a cool car window, all you could think about is how much you craved chilled wine – basic but comforting – and just get your mind off work for a little bit. As you were driving past The Cricket, an excellent local bar with an absolutely horrendous name, you decided to stop by, buy yourself a drink or two and relax. As you were making your way to the bar, a tiny little voice of hope suggesting that you might see a certain someone there got louder and louder and you figured you could shush this nostalgic little bitch with some alcohol.
The bar was packed to no surprise of yours – it was a Friday night after all and you were in the only decent place in town. You were very lucky to find an empty spot at the corner of the bar – to be frank, it was often empty because it was quite far from other tables, next to a wall and sort of on the way to bathrooms so no one really favoured it. Usually you would also opt for a better place but tonight it was a true safe haven welcoming you to plump down with a heavy sigh.
“Rough day?”
You looked up to see Henry, your sister’s classmate (another drawback-plus side of a small town – everyone knows everyone) and the current owner of the bar after his dad passed away.
“Yep,” you popped the “p” and propped the cheek with your palm. “Why are you tending your own bar again? I thought you found a good bartender.”
You nodded at vodka – chilled wine can wait at home. Henry quickly mixed you a little vodka with cola – weird but he knew you liked it that way – and with a theatrical gesture slid it to you.
“Yeah, well, sometimes people are good because they are super into cocaine.”
“Whoa,” you took a sip and cringed. “Sorry, did not expect that much vodka. But the cocaine thing is also very bad. Could you get me a little more coke, please? No pun intended,” you defensively added after Henry gave you a fake stern look.
Henry got you a whole bottle and went to serve another customer while you were left alone with your little lonely cola. Looking around, you could make out many familiar faces and you still couldn’t decide whether you were glad to recognise them all. As you were sipping your drink, your eyes absentmindedly wandered on the brickwalls, vintage pictures of celebrities and a pair of antlers that was hilariously too big for the piece of wood it was struck to. And that’s when your gaze stumbled upon him.
He changed. Obviously, he did, it’s been twelve years, for god’s sake. But you could still definitely say that this broad-shouldered astonishingly handsome man with a stubble was indeed Benny Miller.
He was sitting not too far away from where you were, in the dimly lit corner, with his friends, among whom you also recognised his brother, Will – the two looked less similar now than they did at school. Benny was sitting with his left side to you, so you could shamelessly stare at him, letting a sixteen year old you indulge a little with a guilty pleasure akin to stalking your crush’s Instagram page. You could see him playing with a bottle of beer in his hands, a long slender finger fiddling with a half unstuck sticker – he used to do that before as well. You turned away and then decided to look again – one last time, you promised yourself – as you caught him laughing and scrunching his nose. This again brought you back to discussions at the literature club, him laughing at your rumbling about how much you hated Leo Tolstoy. God, you sure did remember embarrassingly many details of him. Did he even remember you at all?
“Okay, that’s definitely too much vodka,” you mumbled to yourself. That sort of nostalgia would never lead to anything good. You took your phone out and decided to scroll the news for a little bit – a habit that comes with a job – and take your mind off Benny and many other regrets you had been harbouring that resurfaced suddenly with vodka entering your system.
“Umm... y/n?”
You looked up with your mouth agape.
Benny Miller was standing in front of you, looking way too good in the absolutely disastrous lighting of the bar. He was wearing a plaid shirt and jeans, just like any average man in this bar would, but god, did he look good, military training leaving its marks all over his face and his body. His cheekbones were more prominent and he now had a scruff that at high school he could only dream of and would often complain to you about.
“Yeah, hi,” you weakly smiled trying not to show how nervous and surprised you were. It’d been twelve years and he still had the same effect on you, unbelievable.
“Wow, you have changed a lot,” he smiled with a familiarity of an old friend and you couldn’t help but smile back.
“You too, you became so much taller.”
“Yeah,” Benny laughed and sat on the stool next to you putting his beer with a half unstuck sticker on the bar. His eyes were roaming all over your face as if he actually missed you and it made your heart ache. You knew it was impossible – the lighting in the bar was barely enough to see his face properly – but you could swear you saw the familiar brown speckle in his left eye.
“How- how have you been? You look amazing. Very professional,” Benny gestured at your dark blue suit. Again, god, you became painfully aware of how mismatched you looked compared to him with your full-on suit, ironically, of the same colour as your ridiculous party dress twelve years ago.
“Thanks, that’s, um, that’s for my work. I’m an interpreter,” you awkwardly shrugged as if trying to justify why you were looking like an assistant attorney general in the middle of a small-town bar.
“Whoa, really?” Benny looked genuinely impressed. “But again, I always knew you were going to be someone cool.”
You laughed instantly feeling your cheeks warming up.
“And what do you do?”
“Well, you know, I did military stuff. I was in Delta Force. Technically, I still am, but not deployed for now. Right now I’m in amateur MMA,” Benny took a sip of his beer and raised his eyebrows as if asking, what do you think of it? A familiar expression on his face, he did that a lot when you two were discussing books in the literature club.
Why would he even care about your opinion anyway?
“MMA? Really?” It was your turn to be impressed. “That’s incredible. Do you enjoy it?”
The staple phrases straight out of a school textbook were the only thing your brain could produce to disguise the malfunctioning actively happening in your cranium.
“I do, I’m quite good at it. You can come to watch me, I’m fighting this Sunday night at Rick’s”.
That was very Benny. A casual invitation to see each other again.
“I would love to but I know nothing about MMA, to be honest.”
At that point you could officially write textbooks on awkward conversations.
“You don’t have to know anything, it’s not like you have to pass a test to see a fight,” Benny laughed. “You can just come to watch me kick some ass.”
“Okay, I’ll think about it.”
Wow, she is a thinker now. The awkwardness was so palpable that you wanted to throw yourself off a cliff to avoid it.
“Remember my brother?” Benny gestured with his beer bottle to the corner where his friends were, your eyes followed as if you weren’t stalking them mere twenty minutes ago.
“Oh yeah, of course, how is he?”
“Will’s okay. He is retired, gives motivational speeches to the future troops,” Benny chuckled. “And part-times as my coach during fights.”
“He’s very cool,” you smiled. “I think half of our school had a crush on him.”
“Yeah, that’s true,” he laughed. “Had a hard time filling his shoes.”
“Oh come on, if one half of our school was crushing on him, the other was crushing on you, for sure,” you argued. Benny shook his head and half-heartedly smiled taking a sip of his beer.
You shifted uncomfortably on your stool and took a sip of cola, mirroring Benny. The snap joy of meeting Benny after all these years started to dissolve and the realisation that you no longer knew him was just catching up with you. Did you really have to accept the fact that he was a stranger now? And it had been a long time since you befriended strangers.
“You still don’t like Tolstoy?”
A rather quiet inquiry. You quickly turned to look at Benny. He was holding his beer in both hands looking down as he asked you this question.
“No, actually I don’t.”
Benny looked at you and something around you shifted. And then you both laughed. Laughed in relief, that you both remembered. Laughed, because god, you were so stupid and overdramatic, because despite the changes and twelve years drifting you apart he was still your Benny, your funny and thoughtful highschool friend, Benny who knew how to stop the conversation from being stale and uncomfortable. The fog of you two being strangers had lifted and for a second it felt like you two were your teenage selves again back in the literature club room discussing a book without any care in the world. You knew it was impossible, you both had changed but something in you wanted to capture this fleeting moment of painstakingly warm nostalgia, maybe exactly because you knew that the reality was different.
The rest of the conversation went much easier. You two laughed telling each other dumb anecdotes from your lives, shared stories you accumulated over twelve years and even talked about a book – yet both of you carefully tiptoeing to avoid talking about the backseat accident. Discarding layers of adulthood you found each other staring at your old selves finally reaching the familiarity you were aching to see. But at the same time, the more you talked to Benny, the more you wanted to see the changed him, you wanted to know what kind of person he was now and what he had been doing these twelve years. The longing of meeting old Benny was replaced with the genuine interest of knowing the current Benny.
You got lost in this moment until the outside world reminded you of its existence through a soft ting of a message from a client.
“Oh, shit, I gotta go, I have some work to do tomorrow,” you sighed, glancing at your phone. Benny opened his mouth to say something but then opted for a nod.
“Yeah, sure. See you around?”
You smiled trying not to seem sad.
“Yeah, see you around.”
You took your purse and looked at Benny who weakly lifted his hand as a goodbye.
The night air has sobered you a little and the raw awareness of the conversation you just had washed over you. It felt good, soothing almost, to finally meet Benny and talk to him. Partially because there was a portion of you that wanted to settle the Benny section of your life. And partially because for the first time since you returned here you felt like you weren’t alone.
You slowly wandered to the road to call a cab when you heard someone running behind you.
“Hey!”
You turned around and saw Benny.
“Yeah?”
He stopped in front of you and your breathing hitched a little because now you could fully see how tall and handsome he was.
“I left you a letter.”
“A what? What letter?” you frowned in confusion.
“Twelve years ago I was sent for basic training earlier than expected. Before I went, I left you a letter at your front door because I- I chickened out. And also I thought you’d find it very Jane Austen. I know it was fucking pathetic, especially after what we did. But I just couldn’t find the courage to call you and I couldn’t meet you in person to say... I really liked you back then.”
As if the earth shifted beneath your feet.
“You liked me?” you repeated dumbfoundedly.
“A lot, actually. Fuck,” he ruffled his hair and you couldn’t help but simply stare. “We shouldn’t have had sex in my truck. I- I acted like a fucking hillbilly. I always imagined our first time to be different. More romantic, you know. With like candles and shit. I understood if you hated me after what we... what I... I just hoped you didn’t so I left you a letter with my address so we could maybe write each other. But you never answered so I figured, that, fuck, she fucking hates you, mate.”
Your throat went dry.
“I never got any letters.”
“What?”
Was it remaining alcohol, or was it a long-awaited explanation, you didn’t know but the tears gathered in your eyes were threatening to spill.
“I didn’t get your letter, Benny. I thought you regretted what happened so I never really questioned your behaviour.”
“Are you joking? I was insanely in love with you. Just fucking ashamed that I didn’t have the guts to actually ask you out.”
“I was in love with you, too, you know.”
Silence. Benny sighed and ran his hand through his hair ruffling it a bit.
“Shit. That’s twelve years we lost, huh.”
“You think we would’ve lasted twelve years?” you laughed though you wouldn’t lie that his words made you feel a little lightheaded. Benny looked down at you, unusually serious.
“I’m sure we would’ve made it work.”
The confidence in his voice wasn’t his regular boisterous brag, it was the confidence of a person that stated a well-established fact, like water is wet, you and I could be together for twelve years. Simple, easy, straightforward, and… Benny-like.
“I know that we don’t know each other as well as we used to but maybe I could, you know, ask you out? I’m cooler now and I don’t have pimples,” he offered you a wide smile, eyes roaming across your face.
Twelve years apart and one lousy conversation at a bar – and Benny still made you feel at home. It didn’t even matter what was going to transpire, whatever happens happens. So just like twelve years ago in the back of not-Benny’s-truck you decided not to think twice and smiled with a nod.
“You were always cool, you know.”
This is one of my favorite Benny Miller fics 🥹 How you wrote him, the reader’s memories of him, how he is as an adult, I really really love it! (And honestly may someone like this find me someday 😅☺️)
‘tis the damn season - part ii
gif by @pcdrospascals
Pairing: Frankie Morales x female!reader
Summary: A year after getting back together with Frankie, you get a lovely surprise.
a/n: requested by anon!! i hope you like it!!!
warnings: pregnancy related topics and food mentions
word count: 1.6k
masterlist | part i
…
Frankie opens the door to his house and the smell of dinner immediately reaches his nose. He smiles as his daughter runs to his encounter, a Wonder Woman tiara hanging from her head.
“Daddy, come!” She takes his hand and starts pulling him towards the kitchen, “Mommy, he’s here! Dad’s home!”
You’re finishing setting the table when Isabella barges her way to the kitchen, pulling Frankie by the hand.
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I just love this so much 🥹 (I swear I reblogged the first part, I need to find it!)
I’m almost done reblogging my saved/liked/❤️ fics and then I’m moving on to the tagged fics!
And after that I read more!!!
kissing scars
Pairing: Will ‘Ironhead’ Miller x f!reader
Summary: Will shares his scars with you.
Warning: 18+ (implied smut), hurt/comfort, fluff
A/N: couldn’t finish this for a while 😕 hope you’ll enjoy it! as usual, I imply Asian reader but there are no physical descriptions so everyone is free to read ❤️ (also, someone teach me to write normal summaries sfsccagaag)
The early hours of the morning are basking the room in the turbid coldness of blue as you and Will are tangled in the sheets, naked, enjoying the afterglow, for what seems a millionth time in a few months. Actually, you’ve been seeing each other for almost a year now, Will reckons. You never push him, though, microdosing the intimacy he is providing and he thinks that it is so unfair to you because you deserve so much more. He leaves tender kisses on your ribs and you squeak and giggle while his kisses slowly crawl higher until you two are facing each other. His large hand easily covers half of your face and you instantly press a small kiss into his palm. Will’s heart aches.
You deserve so much more than this.
Keep reading
I love this beautiful Will Miller fic ❤️☺️ I think it was the first one I ever read of him (I’m 99.9% sure it was) and I love it even more now that I go back and reread it.
I love the soft and gentle atmosphere this fic has and how Will Miller and the reader talk with each other and how her softness makes him feel. So wonderfully written!
sweet
Pairing: Will ‘Ironhead’ Miller x f!reader
Wordcount: 1.8k
Warnings: 18+, smut (minors, do not interact!), fluff
A/N: my first ever smut, pls, be kind to my very limited writing abilities. As usual, Asian reader implied but there are almost no physical descriptions so everyone is free to read ❤️
Summary: “Casual tenderness of your touch translates into a sweet heartache twisting somewhere inside Will. You’ve been together for two years now and he has never been more sure of his feelings towards anyone else. Will loves you, and his love for you is unconditional and all-consuming. And for the first time ever, he experiences love that is forgiving and sweet.”
Will couldn’t fathom the idea that sometime ago he didn’t even see you as a potential love interest. You were, after all, Benny’s friend, a young twenty something girl, charming, a little reserved, with a good sense of humour and a beautiful smile. Benny would often tag you along to hang out with the guys and though at first you were stiff in your awkwardness, soon your presence became welcome, comfortable, comforting. And somehow everything started to shift.
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I don’t know why it’s taken me so long to reblog this fic but I finally am now!
I hope you all take a second to read this because it is perfect and beautiful! And it’s Will Miller, need I say more? ☺️☺️☺️
Eyes That See (part twenty-three)
Eyes That See Summary: Your life has consisted of caring for others. This is a story of you learning to care for yourself. Eyes That See Part 23 Summary: It’s the morning after your fight with Justine. After staying the night at Sy’s, you wake up in a much better mood and end up finding something out about yourself.
Find other ETS parts here
*If this isn't your thing, it's basically irrelevant to the plot of the fic and you can skip over it until the next chapter Relationship: Syverson x Reader Words: 5k Tags: Smut with a capital S, but like in a romantic ETS way (dry-humping, fingering, female ejaculation) Also tagging slight mention of urination, just in case.
You come to consciousness the next morning as if drifting afloat the ocean on a raft, warm and floaty. Judging by how warm the room is, Sy must’ve fed the fireplace overnight instead of letting it die out, and you’re grateful.
You’re also grateful that Sy’s still next to you. Normally, he can’t help but leave the bed whenever he wakes up for the day, but more and more lately, he’s begun to stay in bed with you under the blankets instead. When that happens, it's coveted and special.
Sy’s typical early-morning position is spooning you from behind, but when you wake up this time, the winter sun just barely beginning to dully peek through the sides of the window curtains, he’s on his back instead. You find yourself laid halfway across him. Your hand's draped over his chest, right leg lifted over his thigh, and your head's laying half on his shoulder and half on a balled-up pillow underneath his arm. You're pretty sure you may be drooling on him.
The remnants of Sy’s body wash on his skin, the scent of his sheets, the soothing up and down sensation of his breathing–everything rolls over you like waves. You’re consumed in pure safety. Afloat with it. Basking in it.
Last night was yet another time you’d come running to Sy with yet another one of your issues, crying and frustrated after your argument with Justine, and still, there’d been no real annoyance from him. The extent of his frustration had to do with you continuing to take more blame in the entire situation than he feels like you should, and it’s just evident: he’s truly in your corner. He’s entirely in your corner.
He really loves you.
And you really fucking love him.
Everything’s just so comfortable right now–your body, Sy’s body, the fireplace, this room, this bed, your dreamless, empty, floaty brain–that you aren’t even aware that you haven't been just riding some sort of imaginary wave within your thoughts this whole time; you’ve actually been truly moving your body in waves.
When Sy speaks to signal he's awake, his voice is croaky. “You humpin’ my leg, darlin’?”
Instantly, you freeze as if being electrocuted. What the fuck.
You’d been mindlessly grinding yourself against Sy’s thigh.
Quickly, you open your eyes. Forcing yourself to lift your head and embarrassingly look at Sy with a face that must look groggy and guilty as hell, you prepare to apologize and disentangle yourself, but he stops you with a strong hand on your waist.
“Stay here,” he lets out with a rasp.
Hesitantly, you drop your head to rest on Sy’s shoulder again, moving it more to his bicep so you can hide your face in the crook of his arm, but your body’s still tense. Sy lowers his hand from your waist to cup your asscheek at the crease on the top of your leg.
“So I take it you’re feelin’ better after last night.”
Against his skin, you just nod. Purposefully, you keep your body still and appropriately-placed.
“C’mere,” he chuckles, pulling your ass inwards until your underwear-covered core presses directly against his thigh again. “Stop hidin’.”
You let out a half-groan, half-whine. “Sy…”
He lowers his voice to a more suggestive tone. “I liked it.”
Slowly, excruciatingly slowly, you press your hips forward again, and the same pleasure from before comes back and spreads from inside your undies to your stomach to your chest to your brain and everywhere else. It felt good–feels good–but you can’t continue, though. You just can’t. Sy’s full attention now is almost too much, too–you don’t know the word.
Now that you’re fully awake and know he is, too, you have to falter.
You don’t know why you’re so confident about your feelings for one another but still so shy about sex sometimes. You want to keep going, you do, you’d love it, and you’re sure he would, too, but it’d make feel you so vulnerable, and borderline humiliated, and–and you’d–but–Sy would never say anything but nice things, you know, so maybe it’s okay if you–
“Hey, it’s alright,” Sy eventually breaks you from your thoughts, and you find yourself instantly on your back with Sy draped over you this time. He looks down at you with something like fondness in his sleep-puffy eyes.
His left leg is still directly in between both of your legs, and he firmly presses it downwards to give you what you couldn’t find in you to give yourself a second ago. Once he starts actually moving his leg, your clit feels like fucking pop-rocks exploding, like too much concentrated in too small an area, definitely too much for you to have just woken up a few minutes ago. God, his thigh alone is big enough to–
You hold back a moan.
When Sy says, “Baby, it’s okay,” you shakily let out the breath you’ve been holding in.
When he says, “Can feel you’re wet,” you close your eyes.
When he says, “You’re perfect,” you turn your head to the side and squeeze your eyes even more shut.
Then–nothing. Sy stops. He takes his leg away.
You blink and blearily look up at him, legs splayed open under the covers, pussy throbbing. In the dark room, you’re able to tell his eyes are dark, but still, they remain somewhat soft. You offer him a small smile.
Sy’s fingers trail to the top of your underwear and pause there until you lift your hips off the mattress, and then, with your help, he slides them down your legs. Clearly getting a look at you before pulling the blanket back over your legs, Sy then starts running his hand in a circular pattern over your stomach.
He spends long moments caressing your stomach and breasts under your sleep shirt, and you find yourself starting to feel afloat on the ocean again, spurred on by a steady stream of deep whispered words Sy keeps letting out. Stuff about how smooth your skin is, and how good you feel, and how good you smell, and everything you'd found yourself internally thinking about him moments ago. Then momentary silence.
“D’you think I talk too much?” he quietly asks out of nowhere, and you just give him another smile before actually meeting his eyes, expecting him to wink at you because you know he can have a dirty mouth.
He doesn’t, though. From his expression alone, you can tell he’s for some reason being genuine.
You shake your head. “I think you–I think my brain is–it’s too much sometimes, and you help me stay, like…you help me stay in the moment. And not…overthink things. Or worry.” You clear your throat. “So no. I don't think you talk too much. I…I like it.”
You know it’s too early to be rambling so much, but Sy’s eyes simply travel around your face while he looks at you. Eventually, he reaches up to move some hair out of your face. “Good,” he finally settles with.
With your knees still pointing opposite ways under the blanket, it’s easy for Sy after that to glide his hand down your body before cupping your entire pussy in his palm. The wide middle part of his hand makes contact with your touch-starved clit just as his fingertips find a pool of wetness below. You gasp.
“Fuckin’ A.” Sy props himself up on his forearm and looks down at you. “Hadju some good dreams or what?”
“No,” you mutter while your face heats up. “I’m…I dunno. Shut up. I’m ovulating.” There’s a defensiveness there that’s not necessary or sincere whatsoever. You end up smirking in slight residual embarrassment and also slight humor at the way Sy’s continuing to stare at your face with his eyebrows lifted.
The smirk doesn’t last long. Under his gaze, you feel so small, and so desired–and you love it–but you still can’t explain how the weight of his attention is too much sometimes and you just have to close your eyes.
Soon, there’s actual pressure at your slick hole, and Sy just barely dips a finger inside you. Going no further, he pauses. “Still good?”
You open your eyes and nod fast, and while Sy slips his index finger as deep inside your pussy as it’ll go, you don’t take your eyes off one another. You’d lean up and kiss him if it weren’t for your own morning breath.
But he probably wouldn’t care about that, anyway. And you don’t need to kiss. Not really. The way you’re both looking at one another like an invisible string is connected between your noses, like reverie, like this is something more than just early-morning fooling around...that’s enough. Enough for you to close your eyes again after a minute.
This is something only for each other, something no one else will ever get to know. Only he gets to have you like this. Only you get to have him.
Just one finger is thick enough for you to feel full, but when Sy adds his middle finger, too, you’re honestly stretched enough that you don’t think you could take another. Keeping his hand flat on your mound in a way that makes it impossible not to grind up against, he then starts to slowly pump both of his fingers in and out of you.
While continuing the steady in and out slide, Sy lowers his mouth to your neck. You feel him moan against your skin like he’s the one getting pleasure from this, and when he picks up speed, there’s a noise to it that you can hear even over the layer of the blanket covering you. Even over the sporadic crackling of the fire.
“Oh, fuck.”
Sy chuckles against your neck, and you know it’s because he’s learned that you cuss in bed more than you ever would any other place.
Like this isn’t lighting you the fuck up right now, raging morning hormones and hot-as-shit boyfriend and arousal so evident it’s noisy. If this blanket weren’t offering you modesty, you really don’t know if you’d be able to hold this brazen position at all under the intensity of Sy’s focus.
But–Yes, you could. Sy would get you there. He’d talk you through it. He’d make you feel sexy. All of the times you’ve been intimate together have been boundary-pushing for you in mindblowingly stellar ways. All of them.
And it’s then that you come to your senses and reach down towards the hardness you’ve been gradually feeling poke you to give him the same attention he’s giving you.
Sy barely even lets you trail a finger along his erection before lifting his head and moving your hand away. He makes a low noise. “Let me focus, baby.”
“What, you can’t focus if I–”
Without malice, Sy moves your hand away again. Your head falls back on the pillow while you relax your arms and give in to his hidden and rhythmic movements under the blanket. When Sy moves his slickly-drenched fingers up and down your slit, it’s easy to imagine that you’re probably wet all over now, thighs and asshole and all. It definitely feels wet. It definitely sounds wet.
You squeeze your eyes again and let your mouth partly drop open.
With your legs so widely open for him, Sy easily finds your clit and presses the tips of his wet fingers on top of the hood. His mouth starts kissing the pulse-point of your neck while he starts making wet tight circles there, and with a gasp, you jolt your hips upwards.
Again, you blindly reach downwards to try to tug at Sy’s cock, and this time you’re able to wrap your entire hand around his shaft over top of his boxers. That only rewards you with the cessation of all of his movements–no more kisses over your neck, no more circles over your clit. You whine.
“I can’t focus if you do that,” he moves your hand away and tells you again. “Not how I want.”
“How’s that?” you practically slur. “The way you want?”
“Mm. Like this,” he utters, lowering his fingers to your entrance again, but this time with different ones: his middle and ring finger, it feels like. You’re pretty sure those are his index and pinkie fingers you feel pressed against the backs of your legs.
When Sy’s fingers start moving inside you again, the frantic speed takes you aback: it’s so sudden and so strong that you gasp and grip the sheets underneath you in a tight ball. Sy barely even moves his hand after that, keeping his fingers inside as far as they can go, curved up so the pads of them keep touching a spot within you that instantly has your legs quivering. His hand still moves, though, like he’s vibrating it to match how you were inadvertently moving while waking up this morning, and–your lower belly feels like a fucking balloon of pressure starting to expand.
It only builds. In the past, you’d considered getting fingered as a precursor to intercourse. Sy’s treating it like the main event, his sole desire. His focus is with it. God, his hand is big.
And it’s fucking good. Your hips keep bolting upwards so you can ride his fingers any way you can, in turn giving your clit contact with his palm, and the speed of everything lights up every single one of your nerve cells down there. Fuck.
You’re not aware how much you’re moaning until something Sy whispers in your ear breaks through all the frantic feel-good static in your head. “--lay here’n be good, that’s all you gotta do, just lay here’n be good for me, just letch’yourself feel good for me.”
Those words coupled with the way you can feel Sy start to rut against your hip do something weird to you, like they have some sort of control over your actual body or something, because directly after you hear them, the bottom of your stomach feels like it’s convulsing. That pressure that’s been building and building this entire time feels ready to burst open and explode.
“Oh, my fucking God,” you let out in a shaky voice. That almost-bursting sensation is right there, right there, almost about to happen–like a pending orgasm but something else, too.
You’re able to place what the familiar sensation is, and it’s not just an orgasm. And in the middle of so much pleasure building up that you’re literally about to come all over Sy’s hand, this can’t be happening right now. It can’t. You can’t.
You’re about to pee.
Sy’s teeth are latched on your neck, directly overtop where the marks he’d recently given you have literally just started to go away. You’ve got to raise your hand to hit his head. You can’t fucking speak.
His fingers keep the same rapid movements, though, and now he’s using so much strength that you can’t even undulate your hips upwards anymore. Insistently, they move, fingertips still pressing upwards against what feels like your bladder. Everything still feels so fucking good, and you’re still being way too fucking loud, but shit–you fucking drank before bed last night, and even though you didn’t even feel like using the bathroom when you woke up a few minutes ago, you definitely feel like it now, and you’d be fucking mortified if you fucking peed on his hand during a time like this.
“That’s gonna–” You thrash your head to the side. “Sy, stop, that’s gonna–Stop!”
While simultaneously stilling his hand on instant, Sy detaches his mouth from your neck and looks at you with big and worried eyes.
Your legs quiver like you have no muscle tone. “Sy, I–”
“You alright?”
You squeeze your eyes shut in humiliation. “That’s gonna make me pee,” you urgently whisper. “You’ve gotta–”
Something changes in Sy’s expression when you dare to peek at him again. “No, it’s not,” he says, and there’s a strange confidence there. Like he would know how full your bladder is.
You lay there with your chest heaving from how fast your heart’s been beating. “Yes, it is.”
“That ain’t–Then just let it out,” he utters with words sounding just as slurred as yours. He brings his mouth down to your neck again and sucks a patch of skin into his mouth in such a way your pussy tightens around his soaked fingers.
“Oh, shit… What? Pee?”
Sy pauses for a heavy moment. “If it happens, it happens,” he murmurs, “but you ain’t gettin’ out this bed.”
“Oh, Jesus,” you mutter directly after Sy’s fingers start relentlessly fucking into you again–or, fucking in you again. The same pressure from before comes right back lit anew–the outward sparkling sensitivity of your clit against Sy’s palm, the inside… the inside everything. You bring a hand up to your mouth.
You can’t believe this. You can’t believe you’re in this situation right now. You can’t believe you’re going to fucking pee in Sy’s bed while you come and Sy’s not going to even care. On his fucking hand, too. The man has no scruples with bodily fluids, though, and especially no scruples with anything when it comes to you, so you guess it tracks. You remind yourself that he’s dirty, and he loves you, and– “What’d I tell you, huh? Just lay here’n be good, honey,” he grunts against your neck, darkly-sweet.
“Oh, my God,” you whimper. You feel like you have no control at all right now, that Sy’s got everything handled, that this is what he wants. Just you like this.
“That gets you goin’ so much,” he murmurs. “Bein’ good for me.”
“I…” You can’t reply.
“Just let go, baby. I wantchu to.”
You drop your hand from your mouth to grasp the bedsheets again. From the force of your body essentially being drilled, the blanket has moved enough that you can see Sy’s forearm now.
“Yeah,” you breathe out, teeth clenched together while you breathe out frantic puffs of air. Keeping your right leg bent, you raise it and plant your foot into the mattress to get some sort of grounding against the welcome onslaught. “Yeah, okay. Fuck.”
Within seconds, you’re moaning near-incessantly again, staring down at the cords of muscle in Sy’s forearm while his hand vibrates so quickly inside you that it’s like he’s a part of your body itself. Your legs impossibly shake even more while the squelching sounds from earlier continue, and it’s then that you can’t just fight it anymore. Sy said to just let go. Sy said if it happens, it happens. Sy said let it happen.
Throwing your head back and squeezing your eyes so tightly shut that your ears ring, you start feeling that same distinct sensation from earlier, like Sy’s fucking targeting a spot in your pussy that throbs. It’s not uncomfortable, though; it’s just pressure. Massive pressure. It builds, and it builds, and you cry out, and you cry out some more, and within mere seconds, without you hiding from it any longer, a surge overcomes you so powerful that your body simply locks up.
You entirely white out. With a growing orgasm so strongly that you can’t speak besides breathing out “Oh, my God, oh, my God, oh, my God,” you realize from your jumping hips that Sy’s fingers aren’t in you anymore. They’re pushing the blanket down as far as possible, then they’re back on your clit, and you just can’t control anything anymore. You’re gonna–
You feel the liquid embarrassingly gush out right as you start to come with a high-pitched drawn-out noise you don’t recognize, and the shame will have to wait until later because everything feels too good. When Sy slides his fingers back into your leaking pussy, a bit more liquid up top is forced out from his still-rapidly moving hand, like you don’t have enough to be embarrassed about. But you feel so fucking good.
And Sy would never say anything bad about what you’ve just done. He just wanted you to lay here and be good, and to let go, and you listened, and you feel so, so, so, so good.
Fuck, the covers are still moving from–fuck, Sy won’t stop fingering you even though you’ve clearly just come your brains out, like he’s wanting you to keep going, but you just–you can’t. You feel deflated, like all your muscles and all your organs have been taut and tense and now can finally relax.
Sy doesn’t stop moving until you reach down and shakily hold his wrist. “Okay, okay,” you let out through an odd whimper. “I’m good. Fuck. Good God. Oh, my God, okay, I’m done, Sy, oh, my God, please, I’m done.”
You can’t sit up, but you feel like you should. Everything underneath your ass is soaked. Somewhere along the way, you’ve raised your left leg off the mattress, and your knees are knocked together almost trembling. Your breath comes in quick heaves.
You look over at Sy just in time to see him licking his fingers, and there’s a small trail of clear pee sliding down his forearm. That brings you to your senses quickly. “Sy, oh, my God, what the fuck.”
“That was the hottest fucking thing I’ve seen in my entire life, Y/N,” he says with a surprisingly clear voice–not sounding grossed out at all. Also, strangely not even sounded aroused anymore even though you’ve probably been moaning out your release loud enough and long enough to give him blue balls.
The sun is a little brighter through the edges of the window curtains, casting small slivers of light on your lower stomach and below. You stretch out your shaky legs. You’re going to have to change all of the sheets. You’re gonna have to—shit, you can’t even think. You don’t know what you’re gonna have to do. You’re gonna have to do a lot. Everything is so wet.
…And Sy didn’t care. He liked it. He…It got on his hand. He didn’t even drop the “g” from the word “fucking” like he always does. He enunciated. He used your government name.
You can’t look at him at all when you ask, “You got, like, some sort of pee fetish I didn’t know about or something?”
It’s…it’s not like you’re one to judge. You’re the one that fucking let loose in the middle of having an orgasm, not even able to hold your bladder for just a few more minutes. It felt so good that you couldn’t even describe it if you wanted to, though, and that’s what you hold onto while still coming down from everything. That’s what’s keeping embarrassment from washing over you.
Sy’s face still looks so turned on, though, eyes dark and intense, mouth-breathing quickly. “Baby, that–” He pushes himself up on his hand. “You still think that was piss?”
You make a face at his word choice. “Gross, Sy.”
He lowers his hand to splay his fingers out atop your lower belly. “Baby, you–” He looks down the bed. “Look at all that,” he whispers.
Squirming, you begin feeling hot again, and not in the best way. You attempt to roll over to face the window, but Sy won’t let you.
“Baby. You squirted,” he says, waiting until your eyes finally meet his. You feel so tiny with him looming over you like this. “You fuckin’ squirted for like a minute straight.” He lifts his left hand in the air and turns it slightly. “All over…You just kept–”
You can’t hear anymore. “But–I–”
When Sy looks downwards towards your hip, your eyes trail there, too. On your skin without you even noticing, and also on the mattress, are splotches of what is clearly semen. Speechless, you suck in a puff of air.
Sy swallows and looks back at your face. “I–” He chuckles at himself a little. “I couldn’t even hold out, you were so fuckin’ hot just now. That…”
You sit up on your elbows. “But–Sy, that wasn’t…” You just keep blankly blinking.
“You ain’t ever done that before,” he muses to himself like he’s figuring something out. “I fuckin’ was the first one?”
You’re starting to come back to reality more and more with every passing second. And the embarrassment is starting to build in your chest, pressing down.
“Sy, I–I don’t know what all you’re talking about,” you say in almost a childishly quiet voice, “but no, I’ve never peed over anyone’s hand while having an orgasm.” You swallow at your own bluntness.
Sy grins at you. “You squirted.”
“But Sy, it–”
“Look, you wanna smell it?” he interrupts. “It ain’t pee. I’m tellin’ you that.”
You close your eyes and fight back an incredulous smile. This freaking man.
Slowly, you lower yourself back down until you’re entirely horizontal again. Your eyes flicker from the ceiling to to the wall to Sy’s face, still looking down at you like you’re–like you’re some kind of porn star.
“So it wasn’t pee,” you let out.
He shakes his head and continues to grin.
“Well, I mean–You were goin’ like a freakin’ jack-rabbit down there, Sy–I couldn’t help–Where’d that even come from?”
“You were makin’ noises I ain’t ever heard before,” he responds while laying himself down beside you and putting his head on the pillow you’re using. “Just kept goin’ ‘til I could see how loud I could getcha.”
At his smile, you bite your lip. “Pretty loud.”
“You’re the one who woke up humpin’ my leg, darlin’, so I ain’t too sure what you expected.”
You turn onto your left side, not minding how messy Sy’s tacky cum feels against your skin as you do. Hell, the little globs of his release are nothing compared to…an entire drenched bed.
“You’re not ever gonna let this go, are you?” you ask.
He shakes his head and kisses you. “Hottest fuckin’ thing I’ve seen in my life,” he repeats.
Sy puts his hand on your hip and rubs his thumb back and forth while both of you lay quietly, mutually coming down from your highs.
“I feel so much better now that I know it wasn’t pee,” you whisper after a while. “I just kept thinking…I mean, I know you wouldn’t’ve been mean about it or anything, but still.”
When Sy notices you beginning to shiver, he reaches out and pulls the blanket up where you’d apparently kicked it all the way down to the footboard. He finds a dry spot before covering it lazily over both of you. It’s a sweet action he takes while retaining a somewhat smug expression.
“Have you ever done that to someone before?” you eventually ask, unsure if you even want to know the answer.
Sy just shakes his head.
Oh.
“Then how’d you–how were you so sure, then? When I said what I thought it was gonna be. And you were all–” you lower your voice to something deep and twangy– “‘You ain’t leavin’ this bed.’”
He smirks at your impression. “Had a feelin’.”
You roll your eyes. “You had a feelin’.”
“Literally, I had a feelin’,” he maintains. “I could feel it. It was like your body was tryna push out my hand. Then it did.”
Again, you momentarily can’t look at him.
The smugness leaves Sy’s face entirely. “Baby, I’m fuckin’ serious. If you couldn’t tell. It was the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen, and I mean that.”
You give a small nod. “‘Cause you say what you mean, and you–”
“Mean what I say,” Sy finishes.
“I’m sorry,” you say, ignoring Sy’s little “aht” noise, “I don’t mean to be so…weird about it. I think I’m still in shock.”
“I am, too,” he admits.
You can’t believe you… You can’t even say the word. Maybe you’ll get there one day.
Even though the both of you really need to get out of bed by now, you remain where you are: next to each other and more comfortable than you’ve been in a long time. The fact that your embarrassment only lasted for a fraction of moments is extremely telling.
You want to marry this man.
"Whatcha thinkin'?" he asks after quite a long silence, but he says it so quietly it's like the tiniest of murmurs, like a sentence spoken rather than a question.
You smile against his chest. "My mind floated away for a minute."
"Where to?"
"Someplace nice."
Sy holds you a bit tighter.
“Actually, I’ve kinda been wonderin’ somethin’.”
A deep, rumbly noise vibrates from Sy’s throat–an acknowledgement, an inquiry. He probably thinks you’re still ruminating over the fact that you–that all that stuff gushed out of you earlier. But you aren’t.
Your thoughts have traveled all over the place, and they’ve always ended back to the present moment: both of you holding each other on the bed that, together, you first had sex. Then all of the moments after that…and then all of the future moments yet to come…
You know you can trust Sy. You trust him implicitly. You know this.
It's other people you don't trust.
So…if someone were to ever get his phone, for instance, it'd be your worst–worst–nightmare. You can already picture him taking a picture of the bedsheets.
Your voice is a whisper. "What do you do with the pictures you take of me?"
Instead of immediately answering, Sy pushes himself up on an elbow. He must be wondering why you're asking.
"Or the ones that I send you?" you add. “Like, the–the private ones.”
“Well.” He reaches out and taps on your chin to get you to lift your gaze. "I look at 'em.”
You're quiet.
"...Unless a certain person asks me to delete 'em," he offers, and you can hear the confusion lacing his statement.
"Oh, that–I wasn’t gettin’ at that,” you admit, smiling. “It’s just..I just wouldn't want anyone else to see anything.”
Sy’s expression gets sternly serious. “Y/N, I would never–”
“I know, I know,” you’re quick to interrupt. “But if someone else saw by accident. Like if you gave your phone to one of your nephews to play a game or something.”
"Not possible,” he answers. “They're locked.”
"The phone?”
“The pictures.”
You furrow your eyebrows in confusion.
“In a hidden folder,” he goes on, and your eyebrows only get closer to each other, confusing him. “What?”
"How is it that the man who’s practically technologically illiterate–”
Sy lifts his hand to cover your mouth, and you start to cackle.
“Woman, take that back.”
You shake your head as your eyes crinkle from your hidden smile. “Can’t even talk on the phone and take a picture at the same time–” you say all muffed and incomprehensible. “Had to teach you myself.”
When he doesn’t move his hand from your mouth, you stick your tongue out and lick his palm until he finally backs off.
You’re expecting more banter, maybe tickling, maybe an “Alright, darlin’, best get up now,” but there’s none of that. Sy keeps his hand in midair and stares at it.
Staring at you while he does so, he brings his hand to his mouth and licks it from top to bottom, right over the smear of your own saliva. Right over…Right over where you’d squirted all over.
You squeeze your eyes shut while your heart starts to loudly thump in your chest.
Holy moly JC! What a part this was! This was me reading this:
I love how Sy is with the reader, just how he talks with them and how he checks in on the reader. Truthfully, what a guy! And what amazing writing JC! Every detail you give is a masterpiece!
I saw and decided to resurrect this Pinterest game/thing because why not! It’s purely just for my enjoyment and it brought a smile to my face. Enjoy 🙂
(Lyrics, color, character, outfit, place, & aesthetic)
